by Jay Smith
My account portfolio explained - rather tried to explain - my available resources in the realm. It looked like the Bank of Middle Earth Online with its own weird economy, some of which bleeding between what I will distinguish as the "digital" and the "virtual".
In the digital realm represented by the online game, "Sir Wynncase" was a new arrival to the realm, part of the Court of Lord Bus with the typical honors and privileges accorded nobility: Land, a manor, automated servants, and a source of income. In this case, Wynncase Manor is a working dairy that feeds neighboring villages. To keep things easy, villagers (players) paid me to use my land to raise cattle, plant small crops and sell to the village. Like a farming simulator, but with other people playing the SIM. All this and a cut of the local taxes provided me a daily income of roughly one hundred Gold Aeternae. If I traded with other tribes, I might have Silver Chips, Silver Bolts, Coppers, or Platinums. I chose to explore the exchange rates later as I had nothing in any foreign currency.
Off to one side, I had a list of bequests from Parker's estate awaiting my action. Each item from his inventory bequeathed to me had to be accepted, rejected, donated to the church (aka Alan's account) or liquidated for cash. Of course, the realm took its cut with each transaction. To inherit Parker's Aeternae estate, I had to pay 5% in taxes, the same had to happen for his horses, summer cottage, and every single item from his personal inventory including weapons, armor, spells, scrolls and food items...making me wonder who the hell wanted to create an entire escapist fantasy world so they could spend their time on a complicated tax form? As I would discover later, inheritances were not commonly used in the world, only by people who paid to "renew" themselves as a different character in the game or who allowed their accounts to lapse with a beneficiary documented in the database. Of course, if no beneficiary existed, everything would be liquidated and deposited in the church account. Given the number of "aeternae" circulating at any time I wondered why there wasn't a constant parade of horse-drawn wagons lugging gold coins around the game world.
It took about an hour to sort through the digital world before I toggled to the Virtual one. The virtual world was consisted of the assets found on the black chip I brought to the Peppermint Casino. The currency of the realm was also the "Aeternae" and could be traded back and forth between accounts. A virtual account could be charged up with a credit card, online payment service or with a Realm gift card. To avoid carrying a lot of silly gold coins around, accounts were paid with a sort of credit card that looked like a gold potato chip. Citizens could swipe their shiny disk over a merchant's register and pay. No cash changed hands. No major credit cards or checks accepted.
On the virtual side, I started to understand what kind of money we were talking about in real world terms. In a virtual world, a million credits in one game could mean as much as a hundred in another. One could make and spend thousands of credits in a game session, trade like a cocaine-addled Wall Street goon and not bat an eye. Per the game, one Aeternae represented $1 with a cash-out value of 66 cents. By this measurement, my estate earned me about $700 per week, recurring and automatically processed by the Realm’s operating system.
I had to work this out in my head and check the rules. For doing nothing but permitting people to pay me... I could shift $700 each week to my virtual account. And if I decided to withdraw it from my account, I'd get hit with a fee, but still have access to $462.
This has to be wrong. I thought. I can’t have a real income from this game. Checking the Settings option, I realized that all I needed was a checking account on file to withdraw any funds in my Virtual account.
Considering the tax implications, I didn't recall signing any forms about this income. Until I turned the game into my own ATM, I told myself, it was all just pretend money.
This was a river of money all flowing to Alan Horus and his closest pals.
Game currency in MMORPGs represented mainly a mix of actual money paid by users with credit or debit cards and a quantity "minted" by the government. In Aeternus, all Gold was backed by real world currency so a lot of money moved from users directly to the company coffers, no doubt collecting interest. I wondered how they avoided paying taxes on those assets when every acre, horse, and digital shot glass carried a dollar value.
Ezrin startled me. "Would you like coffee, milord? I'm making it anyway."
I didn’t hear her come out of the bedroom. Or cross the floor toward me. Her hair was braided and hung over one shoulder like a noose, giving me a better view of her round face. Without her make-up, she lost some of the severity so important to her character. Her lines were softer, delicate in many ways.
From our small kitchenette, she set the pot on and called over, "Does it make sense to you? The game?"
I flipped between the Digital and Virtual dashboards as if looking for something, but I was really just clicking to click the button. "I guess. It’s still very new. How long have you been in the realm?"
"A few years. I started playing while deployed. I was the one who got Parker started. We also sparred and got so worked up that we'd just somehow go from swords to wrestling to fucking like beasts on the..." She chuckled and stopped. "I guess you've never heard of fightsex, either, huh?"
"Nope. But it sounds fascinating."
"I'll send you some links…or maybe I'll just take you to an exhibition and watch your head explode. Park and I were buddies. We just happened to be really good at fucking each other."
"And your real husband?" I don't know why I asked like that. The husband issue just bugged me and it was the first opportunity to try and figure it out.
Ezrin tilted her head. She wasn't offended, but curious why I chose that moment to bring it up. "We practice an open marriage. He calls it polyamorous but I call it an economic partnership. It's complicated."
She was right. I didn't need another headache. "I guess. It's none of my business anyway."
"No, but I understand why you'd ask and it's okay. Parker was just...gorgeous all around. I miss him." She put a cup of coffee on the desk beside me and touched my shoulder gently before leaning in to see what I was doing. "That reminds me that I need to update my relationships in the game to make you my owner. Alan may have already done it, but I haven’t logged in yet today. At some point, maybe today, Huan will come by and take you in for motion capture."
"So that’s why Parker looked like Parker in the game and everyone else is so detailed."
"They smooth out the fat and airbrush the blemishes, but yeah. Why go into a game if you have to look like you?"
I scanned my profile again and noticed the generic avatar I was using looked nowhere near as cool as Parker’s. On less powerful computers, users opted for the "base" avatar that looked more like what you found in the video games of the early 21st century. I noted a "New Connection" in my profile and clicked the flashing exclamation point on my dashboard.
I found that Ezrin was, indeed, "collared" to me as a slave. I clicked the link to bring up her profile. The left side of the screen presented her full avatar. Her avatar was an accurate if exaggerated for the fantasy of it – she was buxom and gorgeous - a full-figured Red Sonja in an impractical but fetching bikini of chain mail, complete with a black collar around the neck that produced a dialogue box containing a link to my profile. The fluid motion of the image and its detail were damned impressive. The program even caused individual strands of hair to move as if to a gentle breeze. When she blinked, the motion was natural and her skin matched every freckle on her cheeks. I kept looking back and forth from the image to the woman sitting next to me. After a while, Ezrin blushed and gestured to her counterpart.
"You can fuck that any time you want. I have about a hundred animations for sex built into her, half of them are submissive or bondage poses, so whatever shocks your rocks..."
"What about your post-coital rage issue?"
"Alan used to tie me down first if he was just there to get himself off – which was a lot of the time – then he hit me with col
d water …to quench the rage."
"There’s an animation for that?"
"I’m not talking about the game world, Winston."
I couldn’t get a read on what she meant by that because she had turned back toward my little kitchenette.
"I guess I have a lot to learn about how this world works."
"Yep. And when you think you got it…Alan will change things up on us." She sighed upon seeing the inside of my spotless, and empty, refrigerator. "You up for breakfast in the shire, ‘master’? We've got a long day ahead before the Big Event tonight."
Chapter Thirteen
New shoes. A wardrobe of cotton and wool. A fashion consultation with the Armani of fantasy formal wear. Everything passed in a blur of introductions and exciting promises. I changed clothes a few dozen times, had my body inspected and posture proctored, my hair cut and my nails done. I even went to the dentists who strongly suggested I whiten and straighten my uppers with the same urgency my oncologist recommended aggressive chemo. An entire wardrobe filled a cart and Ez paid for the lot of it to be sent to our suite.
We walked the length of the village as the digital sun above made it to the apex of the dome. We are lunch at a pub that was Ireland reinvented for Aeternus. Ezrin helped fill in the last few books of the Aeternus saga for me, but it was all so overwhelming. I wanted to know more about her, about Park and Carla -real life subjects Ezrin steered far from while in the village. I felt relieved when she suggested a short nap before dinner.
~
I used to like big crowds because they made me invisible. The bigger the crowd the more likely there was someone bigger or prettier or goofier to draw attention. I represented physical mass in a confined space with the same memorable qualities as a credenza or a plastic fern in the corner. I could make my way through a crowd while others made eye contact or even pulled the crowd in their direction. That ended as soon as I walked into the main ballroom of the Peppermint Resort.
The weight of celebrity is oppressive and there’s no justification for it. I did not change anything about myself from the time I stepped off the flight in Vegas to that moment when someone announced my character name in a deep, rich baritone voice. It was like standing in a bank when someone hands you a machine gun. Suddenly your value and importance changes because it has nothing to do with who you are but what you have and are capable of doing.
The roar was the first thing to hit me, loud enough that it was hard to hear anything at all and strong enough to be felt over every inch of my body. Colored spotlights crossed through smoky air and camera flashes burnt purple spots into my eyes.
Were they cheering for me? No, but they were cheering the role I played and that was enough.
My heart pounded, demanding to be let out to escape back into the cool, empty hallway. My thoughts scattered for the safest parts of my brain conjuring soothing nursery rhymes and memories of kitten kisses, but the sing song melodies shifted to a minor key and the kittens blistered and rotted as the crowd pushed in against the cheap theater ropes keeping open our narrow path. Everything was emotion and movement through a crowd with one mind and a thousand eyes.
Even with Ezrin on my arm and putting out a small atomic bomb worth of hotness, people looked around her to get a look at me. They stared. They glared. They smiled pretty and sneered petty. The spotlights made everything fuzzy and overexposed most of the path in front of me while hiding the full scale of the room. If I had been able to see more than a few ranks back, I may well have faked a stroke to get away but Ezrin held firm and led on. I didn’t linger on any one person because I felt the room change around me. My feet moved to keep upright as the floor moved beneath me and a dark, high platform moved steadily toward me. Such was the sense of disorientation. The cheering and the applause could not have been for me, but the rank I held and would hold at the end of the night.
Some men held out a hand to shake and I resisted the urge to reach out. I remembered Ezrin’s rules. I lapsed and nodded to one or two men who bowed their head in respect. Otherwise, I kept eyes forward until we were climbing metal stairs toward a platform – no, a stage upon which a long table had been set overlooking the ballroom.
Ezrin leaned into me as we walked behind the head table. "You're on your own up here. I'll be down below at the kiddie table with the other handlers, but you'll see me."
It never occurred to me that Ezrin wouldn't be beside me to translate or explain things.
And suddenly the scale of things punched me in the neck.
I had assumed my path from the hall to the platform cut across the entire ballroom floor but from my place on the platform I realized I was standing in a stadium filled with thousands of people. I'd come in from the locker rooms mid-field to the field and wound up at the fifty-yard line. At the foot of the stage, where an orchestra might sit in traditional theater, important-looking people gathered around their own long table. They filled both sides and were separated by a row of security monks and a blue velvet rope. Beyond the rope, other diners enjoyed drinks and finger food at circular tables reaching out into the darkness beyond the stage lights. From there the roaming spots and searcher beams crossed the darkness where thousands of young and sexy people stood or danced, holding drinks as they circulated the floor, all as a band played on the far side of the stadium. Through the smoke and haze I made out five men in kilts playing instruments that looked like weapons and a woman screaming into a microphone and holding her own against the roar of the crowd. Of their music, I heard nothing except the whistles and screams of the people who actually could. Apparently, they loved what they heard. Above and around us, the security monks circulated in the stands where hundreds of lurkers and witnesses kept my kind of view of the proceedings. The entire event centered on the stage and the silent, lonely-looking people seated there. They represented department heads and the money behind Alan Horus' Realm. Instead of cell phones, some of them passed the time looking through their magic books, unimpressed by the festival around them. A colorful bunch, they were.
"Greetings, Lord Wynncase."
Ezrin was gone, vanished into the flashing lights and crowd. In her place was an older man in a powdered wig. He bowed his head. I almost extended a hand, but stopped.
"Hello," was all I came up with.
"As newest member of the court, your seat is to the right of Lord Bunting-upon-Stropf." He gestured down the long table, set in deep blue with white china and crystal. Seated along the one side with their back to a gorgeous royal blue tapestry were ten of the twelve courtiers of The Realm. None of the people looking out over the crowd took note of me. They looked resplendent in their own formal attire. The men were dressed in the same style as me. The women competed for more impressive and shiny gown. In the center of the table's length was a most impressive wooden chair – more a throne – with a high back and raised arms.
"May I introduce you to the court?"
Who are you, Winston? Ezrin's question crossed my mind again. It was game time.
"May I introduce Lord Horace Woe, Minister of War." The Minister of War looked barely old enough to enlist. Thin and gaunt, his pale skin seemed to glow against the rich, dark colors. He reminded me of a buzzard with beady eyes and a long nose casting a shadow over a severe overbite. He extended a hand without looking me in the eye as the usher added, "This is Lord Wynncase, heir to Lord Parque and the newest member of the royal court."
I suddenly earned Lord Woe's attention. He stood up a little straighter and his grip tightened around mine. I smirked and shook his hand. "A pleasure, Lord Woe. Your reputation as a tactician and warrior is known among my people. We study your exploits." Lord Woe was The Realm's online combat programmer, responsible for all the large-scale combat and random encounters players can expect in-game. "The Battle of Elswig Point, for example, was breathtaking. Most soldiers talk of the bloodbath on Cresh, but Elswig Point was a ballet of military art."
He matched me for smirking-ness. "I am flattered, Lord Wynncase. Have you served
in His Lord's armies?"
"I am a benefactor of his army's skill and valor. If not for his navy bottling up the northern hordes, my home might have been plundered along with countless others, Lord Woe. I imagine I have you to thank as much as anyone else."
A buzz on the table pulled Woe's attention like a leash. "Welcome to the court," he said, remembering to take back his hand to reach for his Magic Book.
The young woman to Lord Woe's right was prepared for my introduction and cut the usher off before he could speak. She stood up to offer me a better view of her red, satin dress folded down at the shoulders like a candy wrapper from her tanned shoulders. She had lovely blue eyes and tight-cropped white hair with a streak of bright pink front to back. A red dragon wound up her left arm with a green dragon spiraling down her right. "Lady Bathorian of the Enfield Bathories. A pleasure to meet you Lord Wynncase." I couldn't pin down her age closer than an old thirty or a youthful fifty.
Her long, gray nails dug into the back of my hand, but I pretended not to notice. I couldn't help but notice the gold bands with polished stones on each of her fingers. Her biography described her as one of the richest people in the realm and the most powerful land-owner. In game terms, Lady Bathorian owned much of the digital real estate of the realm and rented parcels and even entire server-SIMs to players. I nodded. "You have some of the most beautiful jewelry, my lady. This is from your collection, yes?"
She beamed and touched the gold medallion under her throat. "Why yes. I deal in land, primarily, but I have a passion for ornamentation." She held out her hand to display various rings. Her nails weren't simply gray but crossed with gold to look broken and mended with gold in the kintsugi style. The green dragon's claws reaching down her arm ended at the start of three rough, jagged scars up her wrist.
