Stunlocked

by Black, Shane Lochlann

  “There’s Lood.” Rhanis stepped up to the scary-looking leader of the black market faction. After a few moments of fiddling with the quest interface, the necessary buttons had been pressed and the correct options selected. Both Peredone and Rhanis were awarded 6,000 experience. Rhanis dinged level eight, as expected. Each player received a 100 gold monarch bonus from the Salt Pirates’ slush fund. Rich confirmed they were now eligible to hire a second bodyguard.

  Then Rhanis received the quest to report to the Black Market Questmaster.

  “Now we start making real money.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The pall of smoke over Shon Cloud was visible for miles. Though the walls and gate had held so far, the catapult operated by one of the infantry companies laying siege to the complex had managed to hit the main hall with fiery pitch at least twice. The Gorian stone shrugged off the impacts and the fires, but that didn’t do much for the nerves of those dwelling near the castle of Lord Highwayman and his blushing amateur crossbow enthusiast bride.

  Ciera’s new weapon had proven to be a morale booster for the No-Name Games defenders. Several well-placed shots into the ranks of the approaching infantry had resulted in at least one unplanned retreat. The lack of coordination in the approaching army’s counterattack rendered it ineffective. Now, more than 100 soldiers were pinned down only yards from the eastern gate, with their crossbow-armed nemesis perched on the battlements, ready to unleash barrage after barrage of fury from her storied House Eduril weapon.

  Meanwhile, in the real world, Jordan and Alyssa were now well into lunch and their diner tab had grown to include several plates of food, extra orders of fries, more than a gallon of iced tea and a free trucker’s hat.

  “How much further?” Dave asked. “I’m ready to hit the ground as soon as you’re ready.”

  “Another 800 experience and I ding level ten,” Jordan replied over the KNC voice channel. “I wonder how the Niner army is going to react if I’m no longer level nine?

  “Here’s to hoping they retreat,” Amy said. “We need elite guard reinforcements and they can’t get here if we’re surrounded by attacking armies.”

  “Can’t they fight their way through? What if we sent an urgent message to Dae and told them their Doncella is being attacked?” Robb asked.

  “You know that isn’t a half bad idea!” Marc exclaimed. “What if they send their armies? These guys would be routed in a half-second!”

  “How do we get a message to Dae?” Jordan asked.

  “Simple, have Princess Kaboom attach it to one of those crossbow quarrels and launch it,” Robb replied. Dave and Alyssa laughed.

  “Brilliant. Some random guy sweeping floors in the palace gets drilled by a flaming crossbow bolt falling out of the sky,” Jordan said.

  “What about one of Arianne’s birds?” Marc offered.

  “Hey yeah! She’s got trained courier keets! Can they fly as far as Dae?” Dave asked.

  “Amy?” Jordan asked.

  “Just a minute, I’m checking the map. Yes, they can fly that far. Just a basic send help message?” Amy asked.

  “That should do. Now that Ciera is here, it will automatically be tagged by her, so whoever sent the first group of guards will know she’s still in trouble,” Dave replied.

  “Hear that, Niners!?” Robb shouted. “We got something for you, all special like!”

  Arianne lifted her fastest flying keet into the air with the distress message attached. It flew high and soared over the battlefield into the twilight sky. Finally it winged its way east, towards the Kingdom of Dae.”

  “Now, we wait,” Jordan said. “And hope these guys don’t get any more aggressive.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jay Zhang was as deep in contemplation as his character. By throwing caution to the wind and taking full advantage of everything he had learned about Kings and Conquests while living on Len Griffin’s largess, he had managed to build and even more formidable character than the original Saro.

  Granted, Jay had dropped off the face of the Earth moments after Saro had been killed by a lucky pistol shot fired by none other than Highwayman of Shon Cloud, but that was to be expected. Jay hadn’t earned his world titles by taking the summer off after a defeat. He returned to the fundamentals and went right back to the digital competition equivalent of the weight room. When he re-rolled, he vowed to build an even more focused and more precise killing machine than before. His second assassin was also named Saro, and this time, he was an avowed free agent, playing the game for nobody but himself. He had even blocked Lori and Mike from both his phone and his online accounts.

  Even though his enemies didn’t know it, he had succeeded in his goal to re-create the deadliest weapon in KNC. And that was long before he had looted the machinery crafting book from Rednar’s corpse. By now Devin Oliver’s character had been completely relieved of its property. Though anything Rednar had stored elsewhere couldn’t be taken by Jay’s character, what he was carrying in personal inventory or whatever he had equipped was fair game. Saro sold Rednar’s mount, armor and weapons as quickly as he could and pocketed the gold. But he kept the crafting recipes.

  Now Saro was holed up in his personal sanctuary, allowing the game to tick off the minutes as he learned pattern after pattern, component after component. Jay had his suspicions the advanced recipes would lead to something unique and highly valuable both in the game world and in the real world. It turned out he was right on both counts.

  Since the launch of Kings and Conquests, the players that had been the most interested in crafting were left behind in the mad rush to level at all costs. The grinders, trolls, loot whores and min-maxers were subsequently beaten senseless in the carnage of the starting area mechanics, much to the delight of the more reasonable players. The crafters, builders and auction house folks never made headlines. Nobody paid much attention to them, yet they were still hard at work, parked in major cities and population areas, quietly learning how the KNC system of converting raw materials into more valuable finished products worked, which items were likeliest to be in demand, and how the crafting system could be used to generate real-world income.

  One of their first discoveries was how KNC provided access to the higher level recipes and production combinations. As it turned out, nearly everything beyond the basics was a proc, and as the value of the item increased, the more specialized the player was required to become. By the time a player reached a point where they could build what would qualify as a “rare” item, or any item that was eligible to be printed in a treasure station, their skills were practically required to be confined to that item and perhaps two or three others. Although they could still construct lower-level and common items, there simply weren’t enough skill-ups available to specialize in two or more different high-level crafted items.

  So crafting specialist ‘A’ might be capable of constructing a valuable sword, while specialist ‘B’ made the shield to go with it. Neither, however, could build both at the same time, and de-escalating skills in order to follow a different path was a punishing process that sapped incredible amounts of money, time and patience.

  What made Jay particularly dangerous was the fact he had two characters worth of experience, and he knew something about the mechanical crafting “tree” other players didn’t. He knew about the Thrice-Broken Clock.

  The versatility of the KNC system of combining skills into interesting and potentially very powerful synergies had yet to be fully explored. Most players simply weren’t conversant enough with the idea of spending a few weeks “leveling” one skill and then moving on to a completely different skill in order to end up with a character that didn’t fit neatly into the traditional roles of warrior, wizard or thief. What was even less obvious was the fact crafting skills could be combined with more common combat and adventuring skills to produce fascinating new power relationships. One example was the Videowall star who had chosen woodworking and archery to produce a character able to craft their own
weapons and improve their accuracy and attack power as a result.

  Saro had taken a different path. He knew the mechanical skill tree would give him the ability to produce the high-level items he wanted to build, and Devin Oliver’s big mouth had alerted him to the fact the highest-level character in Kings and Conquests had looted an extremely rare book of machine plans and patterns. So Saro had spent more than 16 days following Rednar from place to place, waiting for his opportunity. When Devin had allowed his health to get below 15% during the Cacai Warlord fight, Saro made sure that was his final mistake.

  Now Jay Zhang was in control of the mechanical crafting book. He was playing KNC in two six-hour shifts a day, deliberately, inexorably and some might say obsessively leveling his crafting skill. He had a goal. He had to build the Thrice-Broken Clock. If he did, rumor had it his character would become the KNC equivalent of a “Mad Engineer” and proc a second mechanical crafting tree. This second, secret tree would unlock an entirely new hidden set of recipes, including more than a dozen that would produce autonomous mechanical combat pets.

  The Thrice-Broken Clock would also grant Saro a permanent crafting bonus, a bonus to all future proc chances, the possibility of producing a machine that would assemble common parts on demand and the ability to generate mechanical helpers, each with a specialized skill that would complement those Saro already had.

  He now had 139 points in mechanical crafting and 112 points in mechanical repair. The money he had made from his sale of Rednar’s abandoned equipment had bought him a pair of level 15 workshop gloves that gave him a Quickness bonus and also gave him 20% higher resistance to electrical damage. Now even magical lightning was less of a concern.

  Yet Saro continued his work. He had chosen a location for his workshop far from any populated areas. There was a stream nearby, which meant he would eventually be able to build a water mill. There were low, rocky foothills nearby, which meant he would have access to supplies of stone, precious metals and other raw materials. He would construct defenses. He would build and activate traps. He would enhance his assassin’s skill. He would perfect his poisons. All could be accomplished if he had access to the right machinery. Everything he needed could be built if he were able to learn the basic recipes in the book.

  He was 11 points away from the minimum skill required build the the Thrice-Broken Clock. All he would need after that would be the materials.

  The clock would strike 13, and the countdown to his true revenge would begin.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “What kind of an asshole stands out in the middle of nowhere challenging higher-level creatures to duels!?” Len Griffin roared. “That little stunt just cost me almost $800,000!”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Griffin. I can’t get a hold of Devin or any of his contacts,” Mike Oaksmith replied. “I’ve got a pretty good idea who took Rednar out, however.”

  Griffin stared out the window of his top-floor office. That idea about just scouring the game world for printable treasure was sounding pretty good about now.

  “This isn’t getting us any closer to finding those shares, Mike. I’m not paying for petty squabbles between unemployed douchebags here. I’m paying for results.”

  “The character you’re after is named Highwayman. My best guess at this point is he is about to hit level ten. If the rumors are to be believed, he has a Founder’s level account, which means he has unlimited choice of land plots for a keep, and has no minimum level requirement to quality for a land grant. If I were him, I would take advantage of those facts and use them to protect my character and its inventory until he is high enough level to defend himself.”

  “And this is the guy that killed Saro at the Scythe Ridge location?”

  “The same.”

  “Shit,” Griffin muttered. “How can these twenty-something kids be running circles around a well-funded and well-organized team like this?”

  “The truth?” Mike replied. “They don’t play by rules, and they’ve all learned to both play and avoid trolls. They can see an Internet asshole coming from a mile away, and they don’t get entangled in drama.”

  “Then we have to adopt the same policies.”

  “You’re going to need a lifetime of experience being a troll to recognize the tactics of one. No offense, but you’re a little late.”

  “That’s why I hired you, Mike.”

  “You should have mentioned it earlier. Lori and I haven’t heard anything from you for some time. We haven’t heard from Jay either. I expect he’s not all that interested in continuing the arrangement, since I don’t think he’s even playing the game any more.”

  “Then we’ll replace him.”

  “With who? World class KNC players aren’t easy to come by, even if you’re offering to stake them.”

  “Then we’ll continue with you and Lori.”

  “We don’t have the manpower, Len. We need more bodies and we need people who can really play. Jay is the best there is. Any substitutes are going to be just that: subs.”

  “I want to see something concrete before we put any more funds into this. I want to see some kind of results, even if they are just game-based. Get me a rare treasure. Get me something I can sell. Show me you can deliver something with those superior video game skills, then we’ll talk about expanding what we’ve started. We’ll talk again Friday morning.”

  “Have a good afternoon, Mr. Griffin.”

  Griffin punched his executive phone bank and hung up on the call. Martin LeBlanc was still trying to process the events of the last 48 hours.

  “What if this shares thing all turns out to be a hoax?” he asked.

  “Then I’ve wasted a pile of money on nothing,” Len replied. “But I don’t think it’s that simple. Wyland isn’t the kind of guy who would go to all this trouble only to end up with his biggest project looking like nothing more than a cheap stunt. He’s got some kind of angle that lets him sell the company while keeping control. If I were him, I’d have transferred the IP offshore, which is probably what he’s already done. Even so, Fairly Unusual has the right to exploit it, which is all that is needed.”

  “Their stock is getting close to another all-time high.”

  “Which only turns up the heat on the feeding frenzy around those shares. Has anyone even bothered to explore Rook yet?”

  “That was Lori’s last objective. I haven’t heard from her for a couple of days.”

  “Probably got killed standing in the road like that dumbass I just fired.”

  “The great thing about video game characters is they’re judgment-proof. No court in the world is going to listen to an argument about fighting lizard people in some fantasy game,” Martin replied. “That’s just the risk we have to live with if we’re going to pursue this.”

  A devious smile crossed Len Griffin’s face.

  “Come to think of it, why sue when I can bribe?” he said. “All this time I’ve been trying to hire the wrong guy. Why don’t I just hire Highwayman? After I explain to him I’m not his enemy, I’ll just buy him out.”

  “You were just worried about losing $800,000. Now we’re talking about hundreds of millions,” LeBlanc countered.

  “I don’t need to buy in all at once. I just need a stake. First we’ll establish ourselves with a block of voting shares. Then I can form a syndicate, leverage my way to a larger stake and eventually make an offer to obtain majority control. These kids aren’t savvy investors, Martin. They aren’t going to consider the long-term ramifications of selling a lucrative position in a growing company. All they’re going to see are the dollar signs of today’s money.”

  “As your Chief Financial Officer I would encourage you to verify the actual stock certificates before any offers are made.”

  “Naturally. Even if this kid doesn’t have the shares, he sure as hell knows how to get them. Once he’s on my team, we’re on the same side. Until we aren’t.”

  “Why cut him loose, though? If he’s as good as the rumor-
mongers would have us all believe, he might be the right person to put at the top of your treasure printing business.”

  “That’s a fair point. I suppose it all depends on how cooperative he is willing to be.”

  “What if he’s got the shares?”

  “Then we won’t have to waste a lot of time trying to find the right player. If he’s gathered up everything we need, we just write him a check.”

  “How could you afford to buy a controlling share of Fairly Unusual Games? We couldn’t even do that on the open market.”

  “Like I said, I can form a syndicate. This materials technology alone is worth at least as much as their entire business. Nobody else understands this as well as my fabrication guys. At least nobody aside from the people who invented it. If I can just buy my way to ownership of that much, I will have tripled the value of N-Gate.”

  “If that’s true, then finding Highwayman is our top priority.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  For something other players seemed to believe was so difficult, the process of leveling machine building skill in Kings and Conquests proved rather easy for the new Saro. He had long since reached the minimum skill to learn the Thrice-Broken Clock plans, and had swiftly and assuredly gathered the necessary components through simple gathering excursions to the area around his now even stronger lair.

  The bonuses the rare item provided were extraordinarily useful, and Jay put them to use at once. His newest goal had been to develop the necessary skill to learn the plans for one of the rarest items available to crafters. The components were expensive, and the process of gaining the necessary skill was arduous and exhausting, but because Jay had planned way ahead for the contingency he was currently facing, he could afford everything he needed. In fact, this was the moment his alternative plans were about to come to fruition.