by Arthur Stone
"As for me, I think traffic jams are much harder to eliminate than enemy soldiers."
From an interview with a member of the City Council.
Chapter 13
Ros looked around furtively. There seemed to be no pursuit. On the other hand, why would he be afraid of anyone? What harm could they cause? The capital was one of the locations where every player was perfectly safe. The worst that could happen would be if some high-level moron decided to kill you in a single strike. Whether or not they would succeed, the result would be the same—the guards would make quick work of the miscreant, who would never be able to enter the city again, and find the reputation losses extremely detrimental to their further gaming.
Ros didn't mind sudden death all that much. Now that the message had been delivered to the emperor, he was no longer afraid of dying.
He turned around once again, and then his curiosity got the best of him, so he unsealed the scroll. An electric spark pricked his hands, his nose caught a whiff of something burning, and the paper that the spell had been written upon disintegrated into fine dust.
"Ultra-rare ability: Imminent Vengeance. "There cannot be more than 127 wielders of this skill. The powers of all the elements lay dormant in your body, waiting for the fury of your enemy's attack. It only works for the player who has it. Those dormant powers turn all the damage and negative effects back on the attacker. The effect of the ability is only revealed after the attack. Only works to deflect a single attack—regular, skill, or spell. Cooldown: 30 seconds. Does not deal damage by itself. Has no negative effects of its own. Ignores all defenses and resistances. Magic energy required: 448. Can be used from behind obstacles. Static skill: the stats do not depend on the character’s level. Cannot be modified."
It was very much like the pig in a poke he had expected. Not unique, just rare, and non-upgradeable to boot. What Ros got was an extra buff that he could only cast on himself.
In theory, it was convenient to deflect sudden attacks. An archer such as Thyri who'd try to kill him with one arrow hitting some critical spot will receive the same amount of damage. That would be an extremely unpleasant surprise for any character specializing in attacks from an ambush or an invisible state. The first thing those tried to do was deal maximum damage with the first attack, or paralyze their opponent, and they'd be extremely peeved to have their own weapons used against them.
Damn, there were set items in the treasury that certain players and guilds would buy for tens and hundreds of thousands in gold. Or maybe even millions. There were two swords and a staff there whose price Ros could not even imagine. Such items were never sold on the open market at all.
But he had made his choice—a nondescript scroll that let him learn a spell that didn't look like much.
On the other hand, that wasn't the actual nature of his choice. It was the side that he chose—not the scroll. For some reason, he was sure he wouldn't lose if he stood by that AI. And the hints it gave were easy enough to understand, even if it did not explain every single detail. The main thing was not to let them slide by.
This unusual AI was directly involved in Ros's phenomenal gaming career. After all, he started off as one of the worst noobs in the history of the Second World. There may never be a worse one, in fact. And then he created a unique character in record time—few top-level players could match his abilities. Was there any point in gaining levels just for the hell of it? None. The character's owner had to develop their stats in the optimal way.
And that's what Ros had been doing. As for his collection of achievements, it was so big that even the strongest guilds would go to any length to get their grubby little hands on a player with so many bonuses.
Ros had a brain in his head, too—that must have been why he was the first candidate to reach the current stage of this mysterious plan made by an unknown entity. But he had to recognize the fact that he had merely managed to make good use of everything offered to him by various parties. First he turned his level zero character incapable of developing into a killer due to the pet trick, having used his chance when the monsters attacked the miners' camp. Then he used the bonuses he received to hide from everyone in the world, proceeding with the development of his character all the time.
When he'd gotten caught, the game responded immediately by a momentous event—the fall of the barrier between the Locked Lands and the rest of the world. Apart from everything else, the invading monsters destroyed his captors in a most spectacular manner, and then helped Ros evade pursuit for a substantial period of time.
All the while, he kept getting hints and innuendos of all sorts, and he received specific information about the nature of the danger he would face and what he should do about it twice.
Three times, actually, considering his conversation with the Emperor.
Ros got lost in thought, almost losing touch with reality for a moment. Someone shoved his shoulder, breaking his reverie. He turned around to face a strange character—a rosy-cheeked lad that looked around fifteen years old, all smiles. He had an incredibly sly look in his eyes, and was dressed in the medieval Russian fashion. Ros hadn't the faintest idea what each garment was called. He only recognized the cloth cap.
But was that medieval headgear?
There were no clan icons or other marks of interested. Just the level, which was as low as 1, and the ridiculous name: Half Pint.
The stranger flashed a wide grin, and said boisterously,
"Hey, bro, got anything for a fellow countryman?"
"You don't look that hungry," said Ros automatically, still pondering the finer points of his current situation.
He bit his tongue instantly. The player asked him in Russian, and he replied in the same language. That was odd for a character with a name written in English—especially since English was the dominant language in every part of this region.
Half Pint grinned even wider, showing the tip of his tongue.
"Hey, I'm Half Pint, and you're a Magnum of Bub. A perfect couple if I ever saw one. And the local brew is good. Dark and tangy. Come on, it's right around the corner. A quiet place—and you're not too fond of noise, bro, are you?"
He saw Ros wasn't intending to follow him, and added, in a lower voice.
"We have something to talk about. Something of interest. To both of us. And fellow Russians must help one another. Come on, stop playing the virgin already.
Ros had no option but to follow. At the very least, he had to find out how this complete noob managed to spot a fellow countryman, albeit a former one.
Although why would he lie to himself? It's just that someone's managed to identify Ros yet again, only they didn't feel like outing him publicly.
The place they came to looked rather nondescript. There were a few wooden tables under awnings, hidden behind a small and cheap hotel. You could not spot it from the street, which must have been why it wasn't very popular—there were no customers at all. The service was quick, though—two misty mugs of beer were placed before them almost immediately after the plump serving girl wiped imaginary crumbs and specks of dust off the table.
Half Pint grabbed the glass and started to consume the content at an incredible speed. One big gulp, and two thirds of the mug were gone. He wiped his lips with his embroidered sleeve, belched contentedly, and nodded in appreciation,
"The beer is just as good as it's supposed to be. These guys take quality seriously."
"I sure hope you're an adult."
"You have doubts?"
"I've never seen anyone consume beer like that, you virtually eliminated it. It's like you've never had any in your entire life."
"It's a hot day, and I'm fond of stout. Drink up and don't worry. No one's gonna poison you."
"I'm not worried."
"Well, sure, why would a great hero like you be worried?"
"Who the hell are you?"
The strange lad pointed toward the top of his head.
"Can you read what's written here?"
"Half Pint."
"Well, that's me."
"A silly name."
"It's still mine, alas."
"Who are you really?"
"I'm Half Pint today. Tomorrow, I'll be somebody else. Does the name really matter? We all change, and should respect other people's choices. I, for one, would never call you something like Rostendrix Poterentax, no matter what. You're just Bubble, and that's enough for me. Anyway, I was intending to ask a few questions, but I find myself answering yours."
"I don't give a shit about you or your questions. Finish off your beer and shove off."
"Well, I'm grateful for even that much. Mind if I take the mug as a souvenir?"
"No funds at all, eh?"
"Bubble, don't be such a bore. Sip some beer and relax. We could even play questions and answers for a while. You ask a question, and I give you an answer; then we reverse our roles. The rules are simple enough. Try it; you might like it."
"I go first."
"I'm all attention. Shoot."
"Who the hell are you?"
"My name is written write above my head. You can re-read it. The answer has been given. It's my turn now."
"Sure, give it a try."
"Have you completed the Emperor's quest?"
"You'd have to ask the Emperor. The answer has been given."
Half Pint shook his head.
"This game of ours doesn't feel quite right."
"Why would that be?"
"If you didn't notice, I'm a level zero noob. They wouldn't even let me approach the queue to the Emperor."
"Well, I'm not that happy about the fact that you keep calling yourself Half Pint without telling anything else about yourself. That isn't enough."
"Aren't you a greedy one, Rosten… I mean, Bubble. All right, let's put it this way. I represent an organization that isn't quite ordinary. An NCO, as it were. One of those serving the interests of our glorious motherland. I do what I can for the folks back home, and that leaves no time for leveling up. Imagine how surprised I was to meet you here all of a sudden. A famous fellow countryman."
"A former fellow countryman."
"Well, you never renounced the citizenship, so the 'former' part is irrelevant."
"How did you find me?"
"Easily."
"Not much of an answer."
"I couldn't tell it in just a couple of words."
"I can handle quite a few couples. Get on with it."
"How about we order more beer? Sorry about sponging off you—I'll pay you back someday, pinkie promise, cross my heart and hope to die."
"Let's assume I believe you. Make your order. So, how about my question?"
"Let me tell you something about my childhood tribulations first. In fact, several somethings, but they all concern the same topic. My family had a longstanding tradition of sending me to my grandma and grandpa in the countryside occasionally. That's where I'd swim in the river, fish for perch, and steal cherries from other people's orchards. But none of that was enough. We wanted more. And the rural lifestyle was extremely conducive to the fulfillment of our wishes. Consider a packet of yeast. A common and inexpensive product used for many purposes such as moonshine production, for example. But we had no interest in alcohol at such an early age. What we used was the dark side of yeast. What kind of dark side could such an innocent product have? Well, now consider this: you throw a good deal of yeast into a village privy, and wait for results, which won't be long in the coming. Provided it's the warm season, of course. Have you ever been in a countryside privy?"
"I have some experience there, yes."
"So you understand what kind of medium the yeast ended up in. And this medium reacted very quickly. Everything around the packet of yeast would begin to boil up, with ripples getting wider and wider, and the most odoriferous bottom layers rising all the way up to the top. The content of the privy instantly grew in volume and reached the wooden floor. Then it would spread all across the surrounding territory, and the stench could make your eyes water. The privy's owners reaction would be absolutely precious, as you probably realize."
"I sure can imagine."
"We indulged in this innocent fun quite a few times. But then something unexpected happened. Another shit eruption resulted in the emergence of a human body from those malodorous depths—and it wasn't in that great a condition. I pity the experts who had to identify it, but they did it quickly enough. It was the owner's stepdaughter—a young woman who was supposed to have run away two years before that. One of the owner's acquaintances reported to have seen her at a truck driver stop providing certain services to males employed in the long-haul transportation industry. The village heeded to this tale of utter moral degradation and there were no further questions about the alleged runaway. But what was the outcome? It took a single packet of yeast to uncover the truth. A crime had been committed; the girl didn't run away, after all. Her stepfather simply killed her, and then could think of nothing better than dumping her body in a privy and start a slanderous rumor. So that's how it goes. We stopped the yeast thing after that event, by the way. It was no longer any fun—things had changed a lot. Well, you probably understand."
"That much I understand. What I don't get is how your childhood pranks relate to my question."
"You wanted to find out how the likes of me find you, right?"
“Exactly."
"Elementary, my dear Watson. Although I have to admit it's not that easy to spot you. But, Ros, you have to realize that you're just like that pack of yeast thrown into a filled-up privy by village pranksters. The yeast itself would be different to locate, but as for the aftermath… All you need to do is stay put and keep your eyes peeled. As soon as shit begins to boil up, you should instantly concentrate your attention on that region, for that's where you'll find the noob that so many parties have such a great interest in."
"There may be all sorts of things boiling up around me, but I don't know how that can be used to locate me."
"There are ways. This is a game, not the real world. It reacts to you, and you react to it; it's all related. Let's say…
Half Pint rose, approached the wall with wild grapes growing all over it, tore off a leaf, got back, and handed it to Ros.
"What do you see?"
"A wild grape leaf."
"That's right. Take a closer look. What else do you see?"
"Veins, and some sort of a spot just a bit off the middle. And the edge is beginning to wither from this side."
"So, Ros, don't you find it strange that some measly leaf—there are gazillions of those, after all—would receive so much attention from the game? Every single detail is taken care of."
"I have already thought about it."
"What did you come up with?"
"The developers decide how highly-detailed the world needs to be. I know nothing about it at all."
"Ros, developers are swindlers of the highest order."
"Meaning?"
"Not even all the computers in the world could create such an enormous open world with this level of detail. But that's not all. If you dissect this leaf, you'll see the cells. If you manage to create an electron microscope with the local technology, you'll find molecules and atoms. Everything's just like the real world, Ros, and that makes no sense at all. Even these veins on leaves and dry edges would be too much for AIs, no matter how much processing power they have. We don't have that kind of technology yet."
"We do. Or we wouldn't have seen any of this."
"Next you'll be telling me the land where you were born is so backward that it cannot deal with the fact that some other country managed to create all this lovely stuff first."
"I never said anything like that."
"You must have implied it, anyway. You émigrés are all alike."
"I couldn't find any use for my skills back home. So I found a job elsewhere. What's your problem?"
"Folks like you are in demand these days. Think about it someday."
"I'd rather think about the leaves and how they
relate to the boiling fecal masses that are observed around me."
"Didn't you figure it out yet?"
"I can't say I did."
"You're a bit slow, aren't you? Anyway, here's my final hint. Computers have nothing to do with the generation of minor details. They don't always do the major ones, either. Which brings us to the question: how come we see all these leaves and stalks?"
"A trick? Some visual effect? Something these new AIs can do? I've no idea."
"No tricks. Everything is more or less fair. There are units with computing capacities that make it all feasible. Right here," Half Pint pointed at his head.
"What exactly do you mean?"
"Everyone who uses a capsule to access Second World provides some of their mental power to run the game. Ros, we're being used like whores for our own money. We pay, then we crawl into those washing machines, and they make us see pretty things—we think we're young and good-looking, and our hands massage the plump buttocks of beautiful elven maidens. Those are all simple pleasures, and they shouldn't strain the brain too much. But, trust me, it has to work like a plantation slave. Any location a human player ends up in is filled with the finest detail due to the usage of such unique capacities. The consciousnesses of all connected players combined form the lowest level of the system that controls the game world. There are several layers of regular computers above them; those deal in more serious stuff. Trust me, Ros—we've been aware of that trick for a while, and using it ourselves successfully. We cannot gain access to the AIs' minds. However, connecting some equipment to connected players is perfectly easy. And if you know how to use analytic data, you can track the moments when things boil up. Our analysts don't play Minesweeper all day, after all. They do some useful stuff, too. So, do you get it?"
"I don't get anything."
"You must be really thick. I've given you the whole scoop."
"No, that isn't about what I was asking about. I was thinking about the level of detail. It seems excessive. I don't see any reason why they'd have to use our brains."
"It makes no sense to you, but it makes perfect sense to your consciousness."
