“What makes you think I’m leaving?” I asked him.
“Doryl, did you hear that?” the Rhoggh bellowed, furious. “First he asks us all sorts of funny questions and then he’s upset when I put two and two together!”
“I only asked you whether my contract with Lady Mel was valid in all her territories. That’s all I asked.”
“Doryl, say something!” Weigner persisted. “Can’t you see he’s going? Mark my words! I won’t be surprised if he’s already packed his bags!”
I could understand his predicament. He’d just reported that he’d successfully recruited a new worker with potential—and before you knew it, the said worker was already looking for greener pastures.
He was right, to a point. My contract was expiring in a week. My trial period was almost over. The duration of my future contract partially depended on Weigner’s recommendation. My idea was simple: sign a contract with Lady Mel here in Verdaille but work somewhere else. I had plenty of reasons to do so. Firstly, it was about time I moved on to class 3 resources. None of which were available here, unfortunately. Secondly, I shouldn’t flash my new status around.
Dammit. It looked like my Operator had doomed me to never put down roots.
“Give it a break, man,” Doryl tried to pour oil over his indignation. “Sooner or later it would have happened anyway.”
Weigner waved his words away. Doryl turned to me. “You have a plan already?”
Did I have a plan? You could say so, I suppose.
“You see,” I began tentatively, “I was just curious. Let’s presume I like my employer but for some very serious reason I have to, er, leave my current position. Let’s presume I have to move town...”
“And let’s presume your current employer owns some mines in the town you’ve moving to,” a smiling Doryl completed my phrase for me.
I nodded. “I can see you know what I mean. What I want to ask is whether my contract is only valid in one particular location?”
“It’s not,” Weigner grumbled.
“By signing a contract with Lady Mel you can indeed work in any one of her mines,” Doryl agreed. “Doesn’t matter where.”
“She has lots of emerald fields,” Weigner said softly. “She even has a few diamond ones.”
I tensed. I’d spent days poring over the map trying to locate a single diamond field—to no avail. You could buy diamonds at auction but you couldn’t find any diamond mines. How was this possible? And I couldn’t even do a quick forum search. What a shame. Just when I needed the information the most. So basically, it was ass about face as usual.
Doryl grinned. “She’s a prudent old girl, is our Lady Mel. She must have laid her manicured hands on the juiciest locations already during the clans’ turf wars.”
“You bet,” Weigner chuckled. “Now all she has to do is reap the dividends.”
“And so she should,” Doryl said. “I dread to think how much those wars cost them.”
“Quite a bit,” Weigner agreed.
“Not even counting the Blackout spell,” Doryl added. “You have any idea how much she paid the wizards for casting that?”
“Don’t want to know,” Weigner replied. “I've got to save every penny to pay for my son’s studies while they... never mind. They’re too spoiled, that’s all. You see them living on a wage?”
Doryl guffawed. “Depends what you mean by a wage. According to statistics, most people need fifty thousand dollars a year to be happy. Happy not as in, celebrate their luck. I mean happy happy: a long-term satisfaction with their quality of life.”
“That’s about four grand a month,” Weigner commented. “The question is, can money make you happy?”
“It might,” I said pensively. “It’s sort of two-way relationship.”
“Sure,” Doryl said. “A well-fed European is happier than a starving African.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” I said. “What I mean is this momentous shift in a family’s life when tables turn. When people who used to be dirt poor finally reach financial stability. When they can at last get their hands on a decent car, when they can take the kids to the movies every Sunday, get nice new clothes for everyone and stop freaking out about putting food on the table. I’m talking about basic human needs here.”
“Middle-class needs,” Doryl added.
“Exactly. But then they enter the next stage. They get used to this particular level of income. It doesn’t make them happy anymore.”
“What did I say? Spoiled!” Weigner said. “So it’s not the fact of having the money, it’s how much money you have.”
I chuckled. “So I don’t think happiness has anything to do with the size of your paycheck. It’s more to do with the work itself and the meaning it adds to your life. What I want to say is, as long as you keep working and making progress, as long as you try new things and fight obstacles—that’s what makes you happy. Provided you move forward, there’s hope for a better life for your loved ones. My happiness is in my family’s health.”
We paused, pensive. Finally I said, “There's one thing I don’t understand. If class 3 resources are not disclosed, how is a humble Master Digger supposed to choose an employer? Why make them secret in the first place?”
The other two burst out laughing. “A humble Master Digger! Did you hear that? He’s something! That just made my day!”
Weigner slapped his clawed hand on the table, guffawing. The cups and plates clattered their protest.
Doryl offered a reserved smile. “Just imagine I called him a black scavenger the day we met.”
“A humble Master Digger!” Weigner repeated, still laughing. “You’re something, you!”
“Sorry, Olgerd, no offense,” Doryl said. “You need to understand us. The thing is, there’re quite a few Master Diggers in Mirror World. But there’s no such thing in Mirror World as a humble Master Digger. They’re anything but.”
Wegner had already calmed down. “All Masters are the property of their clans. Strong clans. All such players live in closed settlements that belong to various rich influential players.”
“Give it some time, seven to eight months normally,” Doryl added, “and if you keep working at this pace, you’re bound to receive an offer-”
“... which you will find hard to refuse,” I finished his phrase.
”Yeah, sort of,” Weigner nodded. “This isn’t a game, Olgerd. I’m very happy you realize it now.”
Doryl chuckled. “One might think you’re talking of selling him into slavery. Yes, sure, all clans view their top-level workers as some sort of strategic resource. You can’t deny it. Just don’t forget that usually all such top-level workers are very comfortable with their agreement.”
“As comfortable as their powerful employers want them to be,” Weigner’s voice rang with sarcasm. “What’s lost is the illusion of freedom. You stop feeling as if you can take on the whole world.”
“That’s exactly what it is: an illusion!” Doryl exclaimed. “There is no freedom. That’s fiction. A free man doesn’t last long. He’s either eliminated or shoved back into the pen. So his quality of living depends on the price tag he puts on his so-called freedom. We’ve been told all sorts of noble lies about lofty goals, but that’s just wishful thinking. An illusion, if you wish. So my advice to you, Olgerd, would be this. When the day comes, try and squeeze your future employer for every bit of money he or she can offer you. Otherwise you might live to regret it.”
“He will,” Weigner added with a sarcastic grin. “They’ll work him into the ground for every promise of a comfortable life he might get.”
As I walked back to the inn, I kept pondering over the best course of action. I could try to contact the leader of the strongest clan in the entire Mirror World and offer him my services. Or I could try and sell myself to the highest bidder. This seemed like the most logical solution. But was it the best one? Dmitry and I had discussed it already. They would turn me into a pack horse, locking me up in some mine or oth
er where I’d be free to bash at the rock and fill the great clan’s vaults.
Would such a clan profit from my offer? You bet. How about me? Unlikely, regardless of whatever terms I managed to negotiate for myself. That’s provided I’d be allowed to negotiate at all. Who was I in their eyes, after all? I was exactly nothing: someone without a face nor clout or protection.
Now: Andrew “Pierrot” Petrov. He wasn’t as simple as everyone believed him to be, was he? Definitely not the nutty type, that’s for sure. Why, oh why had he started all this? He must have known how I’d feel once I opened the apps. I just refused to believe he’d done all this simply to piss off the game developers. And even so, how could I possibly hurt them? They don’t even seem to notice me. They had their hands full with other things.
What did Pierrot gain from my selling myself into slavery? This scenario would have brought all his efforts back to zero. And Pierrot sought profit first and foremost, didn’t he? There. I’d figured him out. Only how was he going to pull it off?
Difficult concept. The four NPCs he’d so helpfully planted in my way—this had to be the clue. Why not just say so? Was he wary of the logs? What was his plan? Judging by the maps he’d provided me with, I had only one place to go. No-Man’s Lands.
Chapter Thirty
The morning of my seventh day met me with the already habitually sunny weather, the chirping of birds and the buzz of an awakening city. My day off. However desperate I was to work daily, Dmitry had banned me from it. Otherwise, he’d said, there was no chance of me lasting the whole month. I’d have to log out before completing my contract.
Only a moment ago, the system had showered me with thirty more Reputation points. That made 680 pt. in total. A few more days, and I’d get access to the Loans page. And then we’d see what the bank had to offer me.
I had a few things on my agenda for the day. Last night I had finally completed the fifth and last part of this Replicator thing. So this evening I could finally put the beast together. I’d spend the morning doing my usual quest runs, after which I hoped to check out the Woods of Lirtia.
I made myself presentable and walked downstairs into the lounge. Oh. It was packed solid. I carefully threaded my way through the crowd into the inn’s lounge. It was even worse. The variety of players was astounding: knights in shining armor, wizards in their navy attire, archers, swordsmen and quite a few high-level Grinders. Commotion and happy guffawing filled the room. Serving girls in canary dresses fluttered amid the tables that groaned with food and liquor. Was that what they called breakfast here? I had a funny feeling I must have missed something.
Ronald was beaming by the counter. No wonder, considering he was going to make a month’s profit in one morning.
Noticing me, he flashed me a smile. “Sir Olgerd! What would you like? Your usual?”
I smiled back. “Yes, please. And if you don’t mind telling me... What’s going on here?”
He seemed sincerely surprised. “You don’t know?”
I shrugged. “Too much work.”
Ronald nodded his understanding as he handed two frothy beer mugs to a couple of bearded dwarves. “Today the portal to the Barren Plateau finally opens.”
I looked around me. “Do you want to say that all these people are heading there?”
Ronald laughed heartily. “In your dreams! These people had better keep out of there. The Barren Plateau is a location for real warriors.”
A dwarf sitting next to me sniggered. “You don’t mean you’ve never heard of mass PvPs?”
I shook my head.
“I see,” the dwarf said. “You’re one of those who’re too busy to peek out of their mines and see what’s going on in the world.”
“Exactly,” I chuckled. “I can see you’re nearly finished with your beer. Mind if I call it my round?”
“No, I don’t!” he happily slammed his hand on the table. A beer mug overflowing with golden liquid materialized in front of him.
I focused on his name tag. The dwarf went by name of Smith.
“The portal to the Barren Plateau opens once every six months,” he began explaining. “This is the ancient battlefield of Light and Dark clans. The two strongest armies in Mirror World. This is some PvP, man, I tell you. Only top level fighters. Players below level 200 don’t need to bother. The stakes are too high.”
“So it’s sort of a show,” I mumbled.
“Exactly,” Smith agreed. “We may not have football or the Olympics but we do have our share of good shows. The Barren Plateau PvP is one of them. You see now why it’s so busy? The live stream will start in two hours. You can watch it here in Mellenville. The recording will be available in a few hours.”
“Where can you watch it?” I asked.
“You can either watch it on the big screen in the city center. Or you can download the Glasshouses app and watch it anywhere. Personally, I’m staying here. Ronald will switch on the screens in a minute. This time there’s only three of our clans participating, as opposed to four Dark ones. Last time it was the other way round.”
‘Why?”
“It’s randomized. Ten clans had submitted applications but the system only chose three of them. Still, the total number of players is the same on both sides. So technically, it’s fair.”
“How many participants?”
“Five hundred from each side. If you haven’t yet seen a mass PvP—man, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Hollywood, eat your heart out. But our guys won’t have it easy this time. The Steel Shirts are out. The Gold Guild and the Untouchables are both strong and experienced, but the Dead Clan has never been engaged in anything of this caliber before. And all the four Dark clans are top ones, just to please. There’s no way our guys can win.”
“Don’t speak too soon!” a ginger-bearded dwarf next to him butted in. According to his tag, his name was Pete. “I’m sure they’ll put up a good fight. The Dead Clan has grown a lot. They’ve got lots of excellent warriors now.”
Smith grunted. “I wish! Had the Steel Shirts been with them, they might have prolonged the agony. But they’re not there...”
The room hummed its approval. I looked around. The whole inn was listening in on our conversation. I wasn’t surprised. Smith the dwarf had this soap-box kind of voice.
“You wanna bet?” the ginger-bearded Pete squeaked.
Smith guffawed. “Right! You offered it, not me! What’s your bet?”
The room exploded in an uproar,
“Me too!”
“And me!”
“I’m betting!”
“Put me down too!”
The noise was such you’d think you were in a Chinese market. Ronald didn’t miss a trick, either. “Gentlemen, please! As the landlord, let me remind you that my duty is to guarantee everything that carries on is within the law! For the paltry one percent of the winnings!”
“Okay! Take our bets!” the crowd shouted.
I suppressed a smile. Trust the admins to get their pound of flesh.
Ronald stood up tall, arms akimbo. “So what are we betting on?”
A burly Horrud answered for everyone, “Victory!”
“I bet a hundred gold that our guys will make a quick job of the Darkies!” the ginger-bearded Pete offered.
The room hummed its disagreement. Someone called him a crazy; another voice sneered, suggesting he gave the money to the poor instead.
“I bet a hundred that this time the Darkies will give us a good drubbing,” Smith said firmly.
The room cheered its agreement. Bets started pouring in.
They offered me to join in, so I bet twenty gold on the Lighties. I’d always done my best to avoid such situations so this was the first bet in my entire life. I might have said no but then I wasn’t really losing anything. I bet on the Lighties simply because they were “our guys”. The support-the-good-guys mentality must have kicked in too. Besides, the Dead Clan was in it as well—and my Ennan was almost one of them.
Strangely enough, many
of those present bet on the Lighties too, so there wasn’t much disparity.
They brought me my breakfast which I took to a far corner of the room. The two hours that followed were worth it. You should never underestimate the informational value of large gatherings. Mainly such information was worth jack shit but it was still worth digging through for an occasional glitter of gold.
As an example, a snippet of conversation between two Alves at a nearby table explained to me the mystery behind the players’ eagerness to do Reputation quests. They didn’t say it expressly, of course, apparently for fear of disclosing the secret, but I got the general idea. Mellenville’s treasury. That was every player’s wet dream. The more Reputation points you had, the more items you could buy there. I didn’t have access to it yet but once I raised my Reputation to 2000, I fully intended to check it out.
I’d also found out that apparently Dmitry had been mistaken about in-game blogs and forums. There were quite a few around but you had to look for them. They also probably charged for access. Once I logged out, I might look into that too.
The two hours had gone quickly. I was finishing my second cup of coffee when Ronald activated a wide screen hanging over the bar. For a split second, it felt as if I was back in the real world, sitting in some British pub about to watch a local game.
The audience cheered. The setting up of the screen was accompanied by their cheeky banter about the fate of ginger Pete’s savings.
The portal would open in ten minutes. I was toying with the idea of going back upstairs to watch the battle in the quiet of my room but reconsidered. I didn’t want to strip myself of the pleasure of feeling the intense nature of the crowd’s emotions.
“It’s starting!”
“Shut up, everybody! It’s starting!”
“The portal’s opening!”
The room calmed down somewhat. A picture of the Barren Plateau filled the screen. I immediately thought of Dasht-e-Kavir, the great salt desert in central Iran. It felt as if the game designers had borrowed some of its grandiose landscapes.
Project Daily Grind (Mirror World Book #1) Page 27
