by Paul Kite
“Great. Get him out. Do you remember where to go?”
“Yes sir”
“I'll wait for you there. Naivil, the drow and I are going to discuss the price. Troc, help him!” Krazh ordered someone.
I was pulled out of the cart and carried on a barely visible path between bushes and trees.
“No! Five thousand! I won’t sell him for peanuts!” Krazh was arguing with someone.
“Really? And yet, it seems to me that your partner's ready to agree to a smaller price,” a smug male voice responded to him, “Three and a half!”
“Four and a half!”
“Not an option. You'll have to take him back. What will I do with a noble at that kind of price, who would take him?”
“Four! He's handsome! Any woman will buy him for her harem!”
“First, I haven't seen him yet! Secondly, dear Krazh, since when have you become so good at estimating men's beauty?” the man said mockingly.
“Uh,” Krazh paused, “Oh! Look here! Evaluate the product yourself.”
I was thrown to the ground right under Krazh's feet. Naivil was also standing there... and a tall dark elf, dressed in light leather armor, was in front of them. The bank of the river and a boat weren’t far from us, and three other people were sitting in the boat. I couldn’t see their faces and clothes.
“He’s a really good find! An aristocrat, a real blue blood!” The elf bent over me. “Three and a half,” straightening up, he took off two jingling sacks from his belt. “That is my final offer, my friend.”
“All right, take him!” Krazh agreed.
The elf gave the bags of money to the bandit and whistled to the people in the boat.
Yes, they’ve undervalued me quite a bit. Only 3500 irens. That’s too small a sum for an aristocrat.
"By the way, Krazh," the drow said thoughtfully to the leader of the bandits, “who is he? What family is he from?”
“I don’t know,” Krazh grinned. “He's got a strange name, Kraven, and I have no idea about the rest," he shrugged.
“And your partner?” The drow looked at Naivil.
Naivil just glared at me angrily.
“Ask him. I wish you a happy life, Kraven. In slavery!”
“And you take care as well,” I told him. “Please, don’t die before I come for you. Wait for me. Krazh, you too.”
But the bandit leader didn’t answer me. He wasn’t paying attention to my promises. We’ll see who laughs last!
“You're a funny guy, Kraven,” the drow laughed. “Only, you’re rude and willful, and that’s bad. But don’t worry. We’ll correct that. You will become kind, kind and devoted! The best kind of pet.”
And again, they lifted me and carried me into the boat. I couldn’t see their faces, all three had masks, like for a masquerade. They were the same height as the dark elf and were wearing the same clothes.
“Be careful, don’t damage the goods,” the drow shouted at his men casually, despite the implied threat.
The guys took up the oars, pushed off from the shore and rowed to the middle of the wide river.
I could only see a small, two-masted ship with, folded sails and oars sticking out of the sides in a single row.
“Blindfold him and put him with the others,” the elf ordered and began to climb the rope ladder thrown down from the deck.
The dark elf’s underlings obeyed immediately, and my eyes were blindfolded with a dark, dense fabric.
“Throw me a rope!” Someone shouted near me.
“Tie him up under the armpits. Yes, like that,” someone fiddled with the knot behind my back.
“Hey, you up there, pull slowly, be careful!”
I was brought aboard.
“Where do we put him?" A deep, man's voice asked.
The captain said, “With the others.”
“Food?”
“I don’t know. Let’s feed him in the morning, along with the others.”
“Okay. If something goes wrong, the captain will mention it later. Take him away! Release his feet, or do you want to carry him around?” The man laughed.
“Be careful, there are some steps,” I was warned.
“Some more steps. All right, stand still!”
I heard the sound of a rusty lock opening, the creak of loops. They took off my blindfold and jerked me forward. I didn’t have time to react and fell to the floor.
“How are you, man?” Someone asked me quietly.
“Okay,” I stood up and, screwing up my eyes, looked around.
I was in a large, about a 23 by 20 feet cell, with thick bars. It had dim light from two barely burning lamps outside. There were eight of us inside the cell. Well, not all were humans. There were two dwarves, three people, including me, a light elf, a reptiloid (a rare race, since players generally didn’t choose them because of the difficulty of upgrading them) and a druid (an ancient old man, but this was an ordinary, let's even say standard appearance for druids. In fact, he could look like whatever he wanted to be).
An interesting and diverse company. Only one of the dwarves had come to me and asked how I was. The rest of the prisoners were completely indifferent to what was happening around them. The people avoided me and went away to the far corner. The light elf looked down at me, like the princess of a virgin forest. The druid was probably meditating, or just asleep. The reptiloid was lying on the floor in a strange pose, without any movement, like a corpse. And the second dwarf was standing behind his relative.
“Where are you from?” The same dwarf asked me again. He was short, under 5’3, strong, broad in the shoulders.
“Nazhar, the city of Saradan,” I answered.
“Oh, that’s rather far away!” The second dwarf exclaimed in surprise.
They were very much alike. I noticed a similarity in their appearance and facial features. Could they be brothers?
“Yeah, you’re right,” the first dwarf shook his head. “I am Drust, this is my brother - Skenriv,” he introduced the second dwarf.
“Kraven.”
“Nice to meet you,” Drust smiled. “By the way, have you ever picked locks, simple or magical?” The dwarf asked suddenly.
“No,” I answered. “Why?”
“This cell is interesting,” the dwarf began to explain. “Have you ever had to stay in prison? No,” he saw that I was shaking my head in the negative, “well, that's all right. There's nothing to do there. So, in prison, there are the same special cells as this one. They block any magic, including prayers to the Gods. To any Gods. I don’t know how they work, I even can’t imagine where they could’ve gotten it. The price of the metal which it was created from is very, very high. The same with the spell-lock, which was created only for this material.”
“Wow!” It was all I could exclaim.
“Yeah… Wow… “
Hmm, what if I try to die? They have no weapons, but they can beat me to death. I didn’t get such an opportunity before, but now I’ve got a chance.
“Please, kill me!” I asked the dwarves.
“What are you talking about, man?” Drust stared at me in surprise. “Are you crazy? I understand that we don’t know what will happen to us in the future. But thinking about death now?! No, let's stay alive and try to find a way out.”
“We wouldn't be able to kill you,” Skenriv explained. “If only it were that simple. In prison, those who are sent there to do hard labor for eternity, or to the executioner, would immediately kill themselves, if they could find a way. This spell doesn’t only block magic but works like a lock. No! It's too smart! It recognizes aggression, suicide attempts, and causing harm to fellow inmates. The spell then produces a charge that leaves you lying on the floor, like this reptiloid,” he nodded at the body, lying in a strange position.
Wow! Or have I said that already? Okay. I start to repeat myself, sometimes.
Yes, I'm surprised by the amount of detail. How do they know all this? Why don't I remember these things? However, I could’ve just forgotten. I do
n't have a perfect memory, after all.
“Oh,” I bitterly sighed, “Help me get rid of these ropes, at least,” I turned to them.
“Let's wait for the right moment to use these,” the dwarf twisted the ropes in his huge palm and put them in one of his pockets.
“By the way, don't touch the bars,” Skenriv advised me, “Otherwise, you’ll have an unforgettable experience.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Upstream,” the dwarf patted the floor beside him, offering me a spot to sit down on. “To the Dark Wood, the wasteland of the orcs, the Free Land. Who knows where the captain of this ship is going?”
Chapter 5
W hen Verlain re-entered the game, six hours later, no new messages appeared in her in-game mail. Twelve hours later, she made one more dive into Noria, but nothing had changed. None of the thirteen player-killers was in a hurry to respond, although most of the accounts were active at the moment.
The girl quickly got tired of sitting in a private room and lazing about as she waited for news. Yesterday, boredom, despair, and a feeling of helplessness brought her to the point that she forgot herself, teleported straight from the hotel room to a village, located in a district of the capital of the Light Forest–Weistel; where she committed a total genocide of the native animals. And even the way she came back was somewhere beyond her ability to remember.
And today, she didn’t want to go back to reality, to just get angry again there, as well. Therefore, thoughtfully considering the updated game interface and, having noticed in the "tasks” a new line with an unfulfilled mission, she curiously read the text. It had been received yesterday, in the woods near the village Solar Tier, from a druid named Taul.
The job itself was simple-she needed to collect twenty-four hearts of black wolves for some kind of alchemical potion. In fact, it was a noob job, not taking into account the level required for its implementation. No less interesting for such a strange job was the reward, in the form of that very potion, the effect of which was completely unknown. Kiera immediately became interested in such a strange mission, it was a simple bout of curiosity and nothing more.
Opening one of the chests in her room, Verlain slowly put in her bag: some food, a couple of thousand irens for unforeseen expenses, four dozen potions of mana (almost all the stock), a dozen glass bottles of HP potions, five assorted scrolls with combat spells and a knife to cut out the hearts. Of course, the desire of ‘Life’ Corporation to bring the game closer to reality was commendable, but Kiera was frankly infuriated with some things.
If the player needed to carve the carcass of a dead mob carefully, they had to use a special carving knife. If there were none handy, a person could use a dagger or at least a sword, but the player could then lose the right ingredients, damage the skin or mess up their armor, because of the abundance of blood. For people under the age of eighteen, these situations were a little easier, since there was no blood at all.
Hunger (including thirst) also annoyed players. They had to eat and drink at least three times a day. It was good that going to the toilet wasn’t necessary, otherwise, it would’ve been a complete mockery of the players.
As for realism, regardless of the number of HP someone had, falling from a great height caused nasty debuffs such as fractures and dislocations, which affected the speed of movement and attack. Successfully aimed archer's arrows, hitting the eye of an equal level mob, could pierce deeply and immediately kill the beast. The same applied to the melees.
That was only a small part of it, which annoyed Kiera and some other players, too.
‘Life’ Corporation has a monopoly in the field of virtual systems for full immersion. Their only game is a masterpiece that continues to attract newcomers and tenaciously keep those who plunge into the world of Noria hooked. One must also mention that, soon after the capsule’s creation, and its sudden popularity among the people, even the governmental system passed a law that fully and unconditionally supports the virtual world. It also equated the game currency to the real one (the exchange rate is constantly fluctuating, although initially, it was one to two); added amendments about imprisoned criminals (what do you think about special prisons in the virtual reality?) and, of course, imposed taxes on the auctions, gaming markets and banks. For example, you buy a knife from a merchant (no matter if it’s an NPC or a player), and the state takes a part of the money. If you sell something–the same thing happens).
Verlain left her private room, or, more accurately, the three-bedroom apartment on the very last, tenth floor and, with the help of the local hotel teleporter, transferred from the lobby to a special site.
It was better not to remember how much she had paid to rent such an apartment for a period of five years in ‘Fir-Za-Nai’–the best hotel in the elvish capital! Her mom, of course, had been against such a mad and useless waste of money, and when Kiera had managed to persuade her father, she had argued a lot against it.
“Hello, Madam!” The elf, wearing golden livery, greeted Verlain with a short bow. He was a hotel administrator who constantly stood behind the open ebony reception in the center of the hall. “We are glad to see you back after such a long absence. Please, remember, if you have any questions, you can always contact me, or, as a VIP client, the owner of the hotel, directly.”
“Thank you,” the girl smiled and hurried out of the hotel lobby.
The elf was not an NPC, but a player. The hotel ‘Fir-Za-Nai’ belonged to a living and real person, and only players worked in it, as was the case in other elite institutions. So, the receptionist must know the identity of all VIP clients without exception, and, at every opportunity, try to help and pander to them as much as was decent. So, soon after the obligatory greeting of the VIP client, who had been away for a long time, he could start offering visits to the local restaurant, the swimming pool and… the other hotel services. Not to impose, just to offer the full range of services. Thus he reminded people about the possibilities of the hotel, in case they’d forgotten them. But Kiera never did have problems with her memory. Of course, she could’ve stopped and listened to the elf, to see if something new had appeared in the hotel, but she didn’t need it.
“And there are more people here than before,” the girl was surprised, once she got out onto the street.
It was true. She seemed to have arrived not at the capital of the virtual state, but at a megalopolis of the real world. There were crowds of players and NPCs of different levels. Instead of transport, there were horses, lizards, and other animals, and in the sky, there were huge birds, gargoyles, everything that could fly and carry people and cargo.
“Perhaps it is necessary to buy a rideable animal. Or a flying one?’ Verlain whispered thoughtfully, considering how to get out of the city as quickly as possible.
“Madam,” a fair-haired young elf suddenly landed right in front of her. He was riding a wyvern. “Let me offer you a lift to any part of the city! Fast and cheap!”
“Get away!” Another elf, this one on a phoenix, landed next to her. He looked older than the first one. However, you can choose any appearance and age in the game, so they don’t mean anything. “I saw her first! She’s my client!”
“Fuck off, I was here first!” The fair-haired elf exclaimed. “This is a free country...I mean... A free Light Forest!”
“Maybe you should fight,” Verlain bypassed the elves. “To be honest, I prefer the wyvern,” she added after a few steps and stopped for a moment, and then continued walking slowly and unhurriedly.
The owner of the phoenix froze with his mouth open, but the fair-haired elf decided to catch up with the girl. He didn’t want to miss the opportunity to earn money.
“Is this your first time in Weistel?” The owner of the wyvern asked.
“No. What makes you think that?”
“You were very surprised when you left the hotel,” the elf answered.
“That’s true,” she grinned.
“Oh!” The elf seemed to understand. �
�You just haven’t been in the game for a long time. A very long time!”
“Yeah” Verlain clapped her hands. “A very long time indeed. About a couple of years.”
“Wow! Then let me treat you to a little sightseeing, absolutely free!” The fair-haired elf suggested. “The view from above is excellent. You’ll be even more surprised! You can’t imagine how the city has changed during your time away.”
“With pleasure," the girl answered sincerely. “But next time.”
“All right,” the elf agreed. “I'll hold you to that. And now back to the flights. Where are you going, Madam?” The smile of the owner of the wyvern radiated joy and pleasure, not only because he hadn’t lost the client, but simply from the very nature of the work–the girl hadn’t refused the offer and he just liked flying.
“I need to go out of town,” Verlain stopped, “I can show you the exact place on the map.”
“Three hundred irens, if it is within twelve miles,” the elf immediately said the price. “Believe me, that's inexpensive. Many take five hundred.”
And seeing the girl's thoughtfulness, he added, “I'll take you there and back. If you don't take long, I'll wait for you there. If not, then add me to your contacts and message me when you’re free. If I'm free, I'll come very quickly, if I'm busy, I'll tell you how much time you’ll need to wait. Moreover, I have an excellent discount package for future regular customers!”
“Okay,” the girl agreed.
Calling up the system menu, Verlain added the character named Selfleed (a light elf, level 76) to her friends’ list and sent the map, with a marker on the area where the wolves lived.
“Verlain,” the elf read the system message with a frown, “I've heard your name from someone.”
“Maybe,” the girl shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh, I can't remember. Come on,” the elf took out something similar to a whistle and blew into it. “Sit down, Madam,” he pointed to the second seat on the back of the landed Wyvern.
