Expedition- Summerlands

by Nathaniel Webb

  “I’d rather not,” I said. “My party leader wants me to keep it on.”

  “Jessamine, right?” He nodded. “Hell, I’ll admit it, I’m impressed. She’s a smart cookie. You guys didn’t waste any time finding this place and you obviously know new dungeons are like crack to the fans. Cameras on was the right call. But here’s the thing—I guarantee you we’re being censored right now.”

  “Censored?” I’d never heard of a feed being censored.

  “Sure,” said Dr Agony. “You agreed to it in your legal packet before you went down the well, remember?”

  “I thought that was for, like, curse words.” I hadn’t thought about it for longer than it took me to initial that page of the contract.

  “Really? There are players streaming hardcore porn, you think Expedition cares if we drop a couple F-bombs?” Agony laughed. “No, it’s legal cover so they can blank out conversations like ours. Right now your viewers are seeing ‘no signal’ or ‘technical difficulties’ or something, guaranteed.”

  “Why?” The whole conversation was making me nervous, despite how friendly Agony was being.

  “Oh, preserving the mystery, of course.” Dr Agony gestured vaguely at the treasure chamber. “Real danger, real treasure, but in the end, it’s all a game, remember? Nobody wants to know how the sausage is made.”

  “The what?”

  “Expedition doesn’t want details about the in-game economy leaking and they really don’t want viewers being reminded that there are parts of the fantasy that aren’t too fantastic. So they censor conversations like this. Which is all a long-winded way of saying that you may as well turn your camera off so we can just go ahead and talk.”

  With one eye on Dr Agony, I reached out for my drone and hit the Stream button. My camera spun around to hover a foot above my head. Agony’s shoulders slumped, his body relaxing visibly.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Now, can I give you some advice? One red wizard to another. Belphegor had some nice things to say about your trial at the guild, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “And sure.”

  “Let me ask you a question.” Dr Agony moved into the room and kicked idly at a few loose coins at the foot of the dais. “How much do you think this is all worth?”

  “Well, I—” I paused, trying to make a hasty calculation, then gave up. “I have no idea. A lot.”

  “Let’s say there’s five thousand gold here,” said Agony. “Give or take, converting the silver and gems I see to their gold-piece value. Obviously, you’re set for life here in the Summerlands, but that’s not your goal. You’ve got someone at home who needs this money. So you figure you’ll send it back to Earth. Well, how do you do that?” He looked back at me, an eyebrow raised.

  “Through Expedition, right?” I ventured.

  “Righto. Now, they’ll be happy to exchange this all for you, once you get it back to Wellpoint, of course. Just talk to Donna at the Expedition Hall. But they’re not running a charity, are they? So they’ll take a bit out as a handling fee. That’s only fair. Oh, and they’ll set the exchange rate. Let’s say… seven or eight points below the spot price on the Euro market. That’s not great, but what can you do? But okay, now you’ve got cash out of it. Expedition will hold that in your name, no problem, but you’ll need to put some aside for the recapture fee.”

  “The what?” My head was spinning. I sat down on the dais, starting a little cascade of coins behind me.

  “Oh, you haven’t heard about this? If you die out here, there’s a recapture fee to get your stuff to your next of kin. Your money, your gear, your corpse, that sort of thing. Flat fee plus a percent of savings. So that gets escrowed out of your holdings with Expedition. Okay, do you have a bank account?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good for you!” He actually looked impressed. “So they transfer the rest of the cash to your account. Well, there’ll be a little transfer fee. And you just made a lot of money, so of course you’ll get taxed on the income. What’s the flat tax at now? Still twenty percent? There goes that. Okay, no problem. Now we just transfer it to your friend—there’s another transfer fee—and we’re done. Oh, except he has to pay taxes on it too, since it’s income for him as well. Did I miss anything?”

  “No clue.” I had a headache.

  “Look, I know it’s a lot,” Agony said. He sat down next to me. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But since Apollonia took over, this is how Expedition makes their money, you know?”

  “Sure,” I said, “but how are we supposed to make ours?”

  Dr Agony laughed. “Great question, kid. It seems impossible, doesn’t it?”

  “A little.”

  “Well, here’s where the advice comes in. I’ve got two tricks for you. One: make as much as you can outside the Summerlands. Sponsor money and royalties don’t go through Expedition, they go straight into your bank account. That’s the real secret to getting rich off this game.”

  “What’s the other one?”

  Agony looked away. “The other what?”

  “The other trick,” I said. “You said there were two.”

  “Oh, right,” he said. “I really shouldn’t.”

  “Shouldn’t what?”

  “Well, it’s illegal, for one. I could get in a lot of trouble just mentioning it.” He stood up and held out a hand. “Come on. We should go find your friends.”

  I took his hand and pulled myself up. “What’s the other trick?”

  “You really need this money, huh?” He looked me straight in the eye. His were grey-flecked green, with pencil-thin crow’s feet and… a little flaking eyeliner? “It’s that bad at home?”

  “Worse,” I said.

  “Okay.” He let go of my hand. “I tell you what. Over the years, Golden Apple has been able to negotiate a bit with Expedition. We’re their biggest earners, after all, and I’ll admit that it helps that I’m still friends with everybody over there. They like to keep us happy. So we’ve got our own prize agent on the outside that handles everything and Expedition takes a much smaller cut from us than they would from you and your friends.”

  “So, what, I give you the treasure and you exchange it for us?” I squinted. “Why would you do that?”

  “Well, look.” Agony shrugged. “I’m not offering to do it for free. There’s too much risk for me. But let’s say we take twenty percent. We’ll process the whole thing then transfer you your share. Or we send it right to your friend on Earth, whatever you want. Up to you.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” I said.

  “Hm.” Dr Agony smiled. “You’re a smart cookie, too. Tell you what. We’ll get our guys in here to box up the treasure and haul it back to Wellpoint. You’ll come with us the whole way. Once we get it to the Expedition Hall, we’ll have Donna Markan handle the exchange. We’ll just tell her Golden Apple is investing in a promising new adventuring party. It’ll be good PR. You know Donna, right?”

  “Right.” The thought of the cheery, welcoming kilted woman being in on the plan settled my nerves considerably.

  “Okay, perfect! It’s a deal.” He stuck out his hand and I shook it. He put a hand on my shoulder and guided me towards the door I’d come through, which he opened with a flick of his hand. “Let’s go find your friends. And on the way, I’ve got some tactical tips for dealing with gold dogs.”

  ***

  It took a whole day to get all the gold up from the dungeon. Golden Apple took point, leading teams of NPCs with bags and boxes down to the treasure room I’d stumbled into. Each trip was accompanied by at least one member of Hearthammer, camera on of course, and usually two since Cass didn’t trust them and Noah kept volunteering. If the seasoned adventurers were annoyed by his constant questions, they didn’t show it.

  Dr Agony and I had found Hearthammer and Golden Apple together, in the midst of a heated argument about which door to take. Noah actually jumped when I tapped him on the shoulder. I was relieved beyond words to discover that my friend
s had all made it out unharmed, but it had been close. The shifting walls of the dungeon had separated them almost immediately, with gold dogs hard on their heels. Cass’s face was like stone as she described how she’d run out of arrows and just about resigned herself to being eaten when Valkyrie of Golden Apple appeared around a corner and plunged both her knives into the gold dog’s brain.

  Rad, Valkyrie, and Wolfheart had indeed gone the other direction in that first hallway at the bottom of the stairs. If they hadn’t, they would have reached the treasure first; instead they spent an hour exploring dead ends. They’d turned around to look for Dr Agony and discovered Hearthammer fighting for their lives. It seemed that if Golden Apple hadn’t shown up when they did, I’d be heading back to Wellpoint a solo act.

  It was a slow hike around the Wyvern Peaks, through Dann’s Teeth, and back to Wellpoint. The NPCs hauling our treasure couldn’t move as fast as we all wanted, but Dr Agony flatly refused to let us share the load and give our hirelings a break.

  Cass kept her stream up the whole way home, which was a relief, because after the head-spinning events of the last few days all I wanted was privacy. Golden Apple didn’t chat much along the way and mostly kept their cameras off as well, other than nightly check-ins that coincided with prime time back home. Around the after-dinner campfire, they answered messages, checked stats, and posted to social media, their faces blue-white masks in the electronic glow of their handhelds.

  We arrived in Wellpoint at the end of our third day on the road, sweaty, dusty, and sore. At least I was. Cass insisted that we go straight to the Expedition Hall and Dr Agony only put up token resistance as we passed his house in the Burbs. His three partymates disappeared promptly into their own homes.

  Donna Markan lived on the third floor of the Expedition Hall in an apartment about the size of Keats’s back home, as I discovered when Dr Agony let himself in and began shouting for her to wake up. She appeared from a back bedroom in a knitted wool robe, looking disheveled and pissed off.

  “How many goddamn times, James—oh, hello, darling!” She had noticed me, standing halfway hidden behind Dr Agony, my eyes roving over her homey apartment. “And the gang’s all here!” Along with the NPCs hauling the treasure, all of Hearthammer had come up, unwilling to leave Dr Agony alone, afraid to be separated from our money and each other.

  Donna put her fists on her hips. “Well?”

  “We’re sending some gold out,” said Agony. “GA’s usual channels, you know the deal. The kids here are getting eighty.”

  “Eighty!” Donna’s eyebrows went up. “Awful generous.”

  “They found it,” said Agony. “We’re just helping out.”

  Donna yawned. “Can’t send their gold through your channels, James.”

  “Linnaea is signing it over to me first,” Agony said.

  “For this you had to wake me?” Donna rolled her eyes. “Unbelievable. All right, I’ll get the papers together. Where’s their bit going?”

  Dr Agony gestured for me to step up. “Linnaea has a bank account back on Earth. She’ll give you the details.”

  Donna disappeared downstairs and returned a few minutes later with a stack of paper and a few decidedly un-medieval ballpoint pens. She dealt the forms out between me and Agony, who dashed off his signatures without bothering to read anything. I tried to focus enough to untangle the legalese in front of me, but exhaustion was crossing my eyes and it seemed straightforward enough.

  My stomach somersaulted as I finished reading the first packet, which gave control of my treasure to Agony, and uncapped my pen. If there were a perfect moment for a betrayal, this was it. Donna must have seen the anxiety on my face, because she caught my eye and gave me a smile that untangled the knot in my guts somewhat.

  “I don’t like this,” Cass said.

  “What?” said Dr Agony.

  “What’s to stop you from screwing us over as soon as Emma signs that?” Cass’s eyes were narrow as she stared at the red wizard.

  “Donna is here,” Agony said.

  “The contract would still be binding, though,” Cass insisted.

  Agony sighed. “Fine, okay. How about some collateral?”

  “Collateral? Like what?”

  “Um…” Agony glanced around the room, then apparently realized he couldn’t give away any of Donna’s stuff. He sighed and stuck a hand into an interior pocket of his robe. “Like this.”

  Glittering in his hand was a necklace, a string of rich sea-green emeralds. I knew that necklace: he wore it on the billboard near my block.

  “That?” Cass was nonplussed.

  “I’ll need it back,” Agony said. “For wizard reasons. Linnaea understands.” He walked over to me and opened his hand; the necklace slithered like a jeweled snake onto the stack of papers in front of me. “Now, you satisfied? I’d like to take a bath.”

  “Yes,” I said, uneasy about trying Agony’s patience any further. I quickly signed the packet that handed over our loot, then filled in the next few pages with information on how to send the money directly to Keats.

  Donna collected the mass of paper and tapped it into a neat pile on her kitchen table. “All set. The usual channels, James?”

  “Yep,” said Agony. He turned to us where we stood by the pile of boxes and leather sacks that held our new fortune. “We good?”

  “Yes, thank you,” said Cass. “I hope we can do business again sometime.” She stuck out her hand. Dr Agony looked at it, glanced at Donna, and shook it.

  ***

  “We’re going to try another restaurant eventually,” said Magpie.

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” said Naila, setting down four bowls of steaming soup. “Now that you can pay, that is.” Open Seasoning was empty except for us, which was just how I liked it. Naila pulled a chair over from an empty table, flipped it around, and sat backwards with her arms draped over the back. “So, dish. Tell the thrilling tale. Sepharad, how’s the hand?”

  “Fine, thanks.” Noah smiled, and suddenly I was smiling, too. I’d learned to read his expressions over the years and I could tell when he was pretending to smile and when it was spontaneous, genuine. With Naila, he meant it.

  Cass told the story, though she let me cut in for a minute to tell how I’d been separated from the party after the gold dogs broke through my spell. Naila was a perfect audience, laughing and shaking her head and gasping in surprise at all the right moments. Her emotions played across her face like a projector screen as I described the gold dog chasing me down the twisting halls and losing its head at the last second, my trepidation at the final door, and the massive pile of gold gleaming under my dagger’s dying glow.

  So there was no way to miss the fall of her face when I reached the arrival of Dr Agony, our conversation, and our ultimate deal. I’d thought she’d be pleased, or proud, or something, of my clever evasion of the Expedition rules that she clearly chafed under as an NPC. Instead, by the time Cass wound up with an account of Donna Markan in her bathrobe, Naila looked as though we’d just stepped on her cat.

  “You didn’t,” she whispered.

  “Oh no,” said Cass. Her face was pale. Magpie and I locked eyes across the table, and I knew that we’d reached the same conclusion. It was as though the floor had dropped away, opening a great dark pit under my chair, and I was falling, falling, tumbling through shadows, waiting to hit a bottom that never came.

  “What?” said Noah. Nobody spoke, so he repeated himself a little louder. “What?”

  “I’m so sorry,” Naila said, “but you’ll never see a penny of that money.”

  “Wait,” I said. “It’s okay, Donna is setting it up.”

  “Her?” said Naila, shaking her head. “There’s hooves under that kilt. She’s as crooked as a busted antenna. Agony gives her a few percent to do his dirty work.”

  “We had—” I had to clear my throat to get the words out. “We had a deal. Agony and I. We shook on it.”

  “I’d rather shake hands with a hell
rat,” said Naila. “At least it’ll attack you from the front. God, I wish you had asked me first. Or Seidenberg. Or anybody! They’ll tell you. Everybody knows not to do deals with Golden Apple.”

  “We didn’t know,” said Cass, her eyes narrowed.

  “I know,” said Naila. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you ages ago. I just thought… oh, hell, I don’t know.”

  “We got collateral,” Noah said.

  “The necklace!” I straightened up, stuck my hand into my pouch, and drew out the string of emeralds. “Right! Naila, look, Agony gave me…”

  In my hand was a line of gray stones tied together with twine.

  I blinked. “Wait.” I could feel tears stinging my eyes. “No. He gave me… you guys saw it!”

  “Glamored,” Naila said. “I knew it.”

  “Well, if you know everything, how do we get our money back?” Cass stood up. She looked like she wanted to deck the chef. I expected I’d be next in line.

  “You can’t,” said Naila, unintimidated.

  “What do you mean, we can’t?” said Magpie.

  “Well, how would you?” Naila spread her hands. “Sue? There’s no court. You can’t go crying to Expedition, Agony is their golden goose.”

  “We’ll kick their asses, then,” said Cass.

  “And get kicked out for PvP? Or stomped into paste?” Naila spread her hands wide. “Shit, even if you won it wouldn’t get your money back. It would be hilarious, but it wouldn’t help anything.”

  “God dammit!” Cass yelled. “God dammit, Emma!” She turned her burning eyes on me. “Why would you agree? Why would you do that?!”

  “Easy, killer!” My chair clattered over as I stood up. “You were all for it until five seconds ago! Don’t act like you wouldn’t have done the same!”

  “Girls—” said Magpie.

  “Shut up!” Cass and I barked in unison.