A Trap for the Potentate

by Michael Atamanov

  The mission looked quite simple at first glance, but I wondered what hidden obstacles there might be.

  “Well, we see there being two. The first complication: Taisha was worked over skillfully and for a very long time in the Legion of Steel. They told her who knows what and tried to trick the NPC girl into all kinds of poorly thought out oaths and promises. We know that, in Taisha's inventory, there is a scroll from the Legion of Steel that opens a large portal and we're confident she will open it when she sees the Dark Sovereign.”

  “The Legion of Steel knows about the Dark Sovereign?!” I asked in surprise. “Well, the new patch is already out, and information about the new global event shout theoretically already be available!”

  “Timothy, don't be so naive!” the corporate president laughed. “The Legion of Steel is the strongest clan in Boundless Realm and certainly not the least well informed. They have several of our employees in their ranks and, as is totally natural, the clan is more or less aware of all upcoming changes to the game. What's more, all global changes in the game are typically agreed upon with the leaders of the most influential clans and even publicly discussed on the official forums. Naturally, just in general terms, nothing concrete. So then, the Legion of Steel certainly knows about the Dark Sovereign and most likely wants to be the first to encounter this unique creature. The fact that Amra and his NPC squadron is en route to the Dark Sovereign is also not really a secret. You said as much in your video clips. And now, put two and two together and you have your answer for what will happen as soon as you meet the Dark Sovereign...”

  It was obvious. As soon as the Dark Sovereign came into my field of view, a portal would immediately be opened and, a huge cohort of high-level undying would gush out. Just what I needed to make my life complete, a pissed off Legion of Steel... What was more the players, after all, would be interested not only in the epic new NPC boss, but also in the vampire player...

  “I see. And the second difficulty?” I inquired, and Thomas Heywood made himself extremely put-together and serious again.

  “You see, Taisha saw your 'death' through a video camera, and is now all at sea. Before that, she saw a bunch of material online about 'digitization' of consciousness and was clearly interested in the topic. She most likely believes such a thing is possible. We suppose that the reason for her attempt on your life in the real world was in fact Taisha's wish to kill the man named Timothy, who she saw as stopping her from always being next to her beloved Goblin Amra. As such, Taisha now thinks her plan was a success: the player himself seems to have died but, at that, his character remained in Boundless Realm and continues to be active. That has her clearly intrigued, and she is studying the bot from every angle and trying to draw it into a frank conversation. We think that Taisha can sense its true nature, because it is the only inhabitant of Boundless Realm that is like her. So then, your mission: support her in this confusion in every way and, although you want to avoid direct answers, do not deny that you died and are now forever trapped in Boundless Realm. If you manage to convince Taisha of that, she will fully trust you and follow you to the ends of the earth. And she'll probably even come with you to the castle of the Dark Sovereign. If you do not inspire this level of trust, she may refuse.”

  And at that, the Corporate President’s visit to my new office was over. After promising that the virtual reality capsule and computer would soon be hooked up, Thomas Heywood asked me not to call anyone or go into the corridor until this extremely important mission was over, so I wouldn't accidentally find myself in view of the security cameras and thus upend their whole clever plan. I just gave a sad chuckle. I mean, technically, how could I do either of those things while trapped behind a locked door without a cell phone?

  As soon as the door closed behind Thomas Heywood, the careless happy smile ran off my face. I plunked down in an armchair and started thinking seriously. This situation was very much not to my liking. Why was I being held locked up and not allowed to contact my sister? All these conversations about video cameras in the corridor, through which Taisha could potentially see me were empty pretexts! After all, I had somehow been brought here down those very same corridors, and the possibility of her seeing that through the cameras hadn't worried anyone. And anyway, Taisha couldn't track or intercept calls to my phone, so why put such limitations on me?! I could feel in my heart that I was being tricked, especially when he'd spoken of “trillions of credits for us.” It was clearly the word “us” that didn't belong there, and Thomas Heywood didn't take me into account. And also, what he'd said about getting a reward, after which I would never want for anything left me plainly afraid, because that phrase could be interpreted two ways...

  I walked over to the desk and turned on the computer. First of all, I checked to see if I could install programs or access the Internet. Everything was closed up tight. The only thing I could do from this terminal was go onto the Boundless Realm forum and look at various topics, not write messages. It was also possible, after logging in, to look at in-game mail, but I still couldn't answer or create new messages. All of that made me mad and put me even more on guard.

  But if that was so... I looked around the forum for information about Amra and my journey to the upper Styx. Yes, there was a topic about it, and they were even having quite the active discussion. Amra had already almost fulfilled the promise to his viewers to reach places where no player before him had ever gone. Oh! And now this was interesting: two new video clips! They weren't very long, just fifteen or twenty minutes, but I was shaken by the very fact they existed. It can't have been that the “bot” made them, right?! I looked at the files. The first showed the short battle at the Lower Fort, Charon's boat and my visit to the Land of the Giants, then my return to the orcish squadron and my duel with the regent. At that, I periodically heard behind-the-scenes commentary in my own voice!

  I watched the second video with my mouth open in amazement. Amra and the unified squadron of orcs and rougarou reached some waterfalls, where they were forced to leave the boats behind and continue on foot. An encounter with the undead, a short successful battle and, after that, our path up into the mountains. The dead lands finally came to an end, and a verdant plain emerged, where the Goblin Herbalist regularly found new never-before-seen plants and raised his Herbalism skill to level-52! The viewers in the comments called this clip boring compared to past ones, but I was in shock. I mean, God damn! None of the audience had noticed that a living player had been traded out for a bot. The most surprising part was that I saw Max Sochnier and Shrekson Bastard next to Amra, and they also didn't express any surprise at “my” behavior! I saw Taisha as well. The NPC thief girl really had returned and was accompanying the Goblin Herbalist.

  So then, how much time had passed since the attack on me? I was thinking this over for the first time and was horrified after counting the hours. Almost two whole days!!! All that time can't seriously have been necessary to stitch up two wounds?!

  * * *

  As I loaded up the game this time, I was filled with more anticipatory anxiety than the first time I’d gone into Boundless Realm. After the emergency exit from my last game session, and a succession of strange happenings and flagrant lies, I was plainly afraid. I wouldn't even have been too surprised, if I wasn't capable of loading up the game world, or if some of the game functions were unavailable. But then the screen lit up, and I breathed a sigh of relief — it worked! And thankfully, I had a fully functional game client. Nothing was blocked, which I checked right away.

  My Goblin Herbalist was standing on top of a hill, looking out over a wide plain. Behind my back, the orcs and rougarou were resting, getting a quick trail lunch together. Everything was basically calm. So then, what had happened while I was away? I opened my character window.

  Level sixty-two... Well, well! My character had leveled up pretty decently, above all having corrected the Herbalism situation, but also bringing Alchemy up to level-42. In this matter, the program was merely predictable. If I was sup
posed to be an Herbalist, then this is what the bot would prioritize. It had also used up all the sheaves of plants to make all kinds of elixirs. Just look, almost my whole inventory was filled with vials of all kinds. And also, my Taste Tester parameter had been leveled to 192. The bot had gone through all my blood reserves, and also bit another two on the way...

  Now this was cool, the unique Ring of Ice Stream, which had previously allowed me to summon the Mythical Hound Fimbulthul, had changed appearance somewhat, becoming larger and glimmering on my finger. There had also been changes to the item's properties:

  Ring of Ice Stream (unique item)

  +20 Resistance to Cold, +50 Strength, +50 Agility

  Summon Mythical Hounds Fimbulthul and Gjöll (no more than 1 time per day)

  The owner of the ring cannot be attacked by Legendary, Mythical or Unique canids

  At that moment, as I was looking at the ring's parameters, I heard an unconfident voice behind me that I hadn't heard in quite some time:

  “Amra?”

  I turned unhurriedly and tossed an evaluating gaze over Taisha, the level-112 thief girl. She had on a full set of emerald dragonskin armor, a pair of daggers overflowing with shimmering magic, an invisibility cloak, and some kind of new belt...

  “Of course it's me! Who else were you expecting?” I asked, answering my NPC companion's question with a question, not even knowing how to treat her in light of all the recent events.

  “It's just that you haven't seemed like yourself recently,” the thief girl answered, staring at me flagrantly. “You’re totally alien and somehow... not alive or something. You used to be different... Well and... I'm not sure.”

  “And what did you expect?!” I went decisively on the offensive. “Should I be happy and cheerful after you put a hit out on me?!”

  “What are you talking about, my husband?! What hit on you? Whatever do you mean?”

  Her astonishment looked so sincere that I even got confused. Either Taisha was pretending very skillfully, or she really didn't know. That said, fifty thousand coins was hardly a needle in a haystack. It was hard to hide such expenses.

  “Show me your financial transaction log for the last two weeks!” I demanded.

  Successful check for Taisha's reaction

  Before my eyes, a file opened showing all the incoming and outgoing coins of the NPC's account. Holy cow!!! She had a positive balance of two hundred forty-three thousand coins! It should be said that most of Taisha's capital was not on her person, but wisely stored in the Subterranean Bank of Thorin the Ninth. And the majority of these massive funds had been earned by the thief girl in the last four days, above all as her share of the loot from clearing dungeons and treasure troves with a group of players from the Legion of Steel. That was all very interesting, but I was now more interested in expenses.

  There were also plenty of those: weapon repair, buying healing elixirs and poisons for her daggers, a fee to participate in a tournament of alliances... Woah! I found the payments for her telephone calls from Boundless Realm, and there were lots of them... But none of them were what I was looking for. And, even if I added up all the expenses Taisha had incurred during all her time in the game, they totaled a lot less than fifty thousand coins.

  “Well Taisha, it's just that I was told so many nasty things about you that... Overall, I was incorrect in my suspicions, I admit that. Please forgive me for my mistrust!”

  So, what did this all mean? If Taisha was not involved in hiring a killer, who had paid for my death? Whose toes had I stepped on? And who had an extra five thousand credits sitting around for such a purpose. The Grave Worms gang could only be a middle-man here, not the ultimate source of the order. Also, they couldn't pay with in-game coins. I honestly admitted my suspicions to the beautiful goblin girl.

  “How could you think such a thing, Amra?! You're my legal husband and closest friend... I mean, come on, you're the only person I have a good relationship with, both in Boundless Realm and the land of the undying! There's also my father, I have a good relationship with him, but he's far away. How could I ever want to lose you, the only thing close to me?! Yes, I admit that, after the situation with Valerianna Quickfoot, I really did get interested in 'digitizing consciousness,' read a bunch of materials on the topic and could now even probably be considered an expert. Which is why I can definitively state that there is no such thing as digitization!!! Amra is here and Timothy is there, two inseparable consciousnesses...” Taisha's voice, before raised practically to a shout, fell almost to a whisper. “So, I don't understand a few things... I'm totally lost. After all, I saw you die with my own eyes, but everyone around is behaving as if nothing happened!!! You wanna explain that to me?”

  Remembering the direct order of the corporation president and understanding that there were dozens of watchful eyes on me right now, I didn't want to risk violating my mission for a conversation with Taisha, and went silent. And, to be honest, I didn't fully understand what was happening myself. Taisha waited for a while, then lowered her head:

  “Let's leave that difficult topic for now, I need to think seriously...”

  “Alright, let's not talk any more about death and killers, because I understand perfectly. But please answer another question for me... Or, to be more accurate, two of them. Your inventory should contain a large portal scroll. Tell me, why do you need it? And let me remind you about the Pelt of Fenrir, you should have that as well.”

  “It seems you know the contents of my bags better than I do...” amazement was reflected on the goblin girl's face. “I didn't even suspect I had such an object!”

  Taisha readily pulled the fur armor from her bag and extended it to me but, as for the portal scroll, something was stopping her.

  “I can't touch it. My fingers are going through the parchment!”

  I probably could have foreseen something like this. The Legion of Steel had made it impossible for Taisha to simply throw the scroll out and deprive them of the chance to be first to reach the Dark Sovereign. But as that was so, I already had no doubt that Taisha contained a script to activate the scroll at the right moment, even if she didn't suspect it. Alright, I'd deal with the scroll later. Now was the very time to handle the Pelt of Fenrir.

  Fenrir’s Pelt (unique cursed item)

  Armor: 1000

  +250 Constitution, +250 Strength, +50% resistance to Air Magic and Fire Magic

  Attention! Your character's level is too low to use this object

  Requisite level: 125

  Yep, another cursed item, and another level-125 requirement... There was nothing to be done. I had to use my last Ifrit Heart to remove the item's level requirement.

  You have equipped five items from Fenrir’s Cursed Regalia

  Set bonus unlocked: all members of the Gray Pack will receive a bonus of +150 Strength, +150 Agility, +150 Constitution, +100% movement speed, +100% experience gain

  Mission completed: Fenrir's Legacy (3/4)

  Reward: 300000 Exp., +10 Animal Control, +50 Strength, +50 Agility, +50 Constitution, Gray Pack member limit raised to fifteen

  Level sixty-three!

  Level sixty-four!

  Level sixty-five!

  “By the way, Taisha,” I suddenly remembered somewhat belatedly, “as far as I know, you've had the fur armor in your inventory for some time. What made you wait so long to come back? Why didn't you want to finish the personal quest?”

  Taisha lowered her head and answered a good while later. Finally, the NPC thief girl raised her gaze to me and, with sadness in her voice, started explaining:

  “In the last few days, so much self-contradictory information was poured out on me that I got confused as to what I could believe and what I couldn't. I had players and other shadowy figures from your world talking to me, offering me various deals and simply wanting to find out some more about me. To me, that was all new, so I needed time to digest it all and form my own point of view. And what was more, why hide it? I liked being in the Legion of Steel, a
nd it was definitely interesting, even though I could see all their attempts to manipulate me and place curses from the leaders of the clan. I was protected from all kinds of danger, my caprices were indulged, I was given gifts. It flattered me, I won't hide it. And I wasn't sure it was worth throwing it all away to come back. But when I saw that you risked tragedy, I finally came to my decision and committed suicide.”

  * * *

  The squadron, which stretched on for more than a kilometer, was coming down a winding mountain path to a wide plain. I could already see the tall walls, bastions and guard towers of the huge black fortress of the mysterious and ghastly Dark Sovereign in the distance. My sister was walking next to me, but was somehow glum and taciturn, as if she was mad at me. I had already told my sister about my guess that the Legion of Steel might show up, but that just intensified Valerianna Quickfoot's pensive silence. And I didn't bother my sister with interrogations, either. I was too busy sending and receiving all kinds of messages through magical messengers. Sure, it was quite an expensive indulgence, but all of that was still better than being left without allies against the fearsome Legion of Steel.

  The strongest of all clans in Boundless Realm simply had to have some enemies of their own. In the process of their growth, the Legion of Steel must have done a bad turn to many clans, put pressure on many players and driven many them from rich lands by force. Today, I was prepared to give everyone who had been slighted and offended the chance for revenge, and many heeded my call. The number of summoning scrolls in my inventory grew frighteningly fast.