Stay on the Wing

by Michael Atamanov

  Experience received: 8000 Exp.

  +1 to maximum Gray Pack member limit (up to seven)

  Level twenty-eight!

  Racial ability improved: 60% resistance to cold

  A light was glowing over my head — my Royal Forest Wyvern had reached level 17 and was now on top of the world, contorting herself into one highly complex shape after the next.

  "Oof, we barely managed!" said Irek, walking up in disbelief to the body of the dead druid and poking it with the tip of his spear.

  "Not at all, goblin. It was all very predictable," Valerianna Quickfoot disagreed. "Sure, Belle Sweetypie in the form of a she-wolf, or whatever else she was preparing to turn into, could have killed any of us with one swing of her clawed paw. Probably, the pregnant druid in human form also could have 'one-shotted' us with a slap. But who among us would have allowed the encumbered lady to get within striking range? Amra and I were shooting her from afar, and you two have slings. Of course, the battle would have taken longer, and she might have spent some time healing up, but the result was obvious from the very beginning. The druid just made our job easier by logging off."

  Technically, I agreed with my sister — a vicious horde such as ours really could have brought down a level-78 player with strong debuffs to movement speed such as the pregnant Belle. But Valerianna stayed tactically silent on the fact that someone would have also had to distract the wargs from biting down the wood nymph, who was our main damager. Also, the slightest miscalculation or slip-up could have led to losses in our ranks.

  "Am I to understand that these two man-eaters will be traveling with us from now on?" Taisha asked squeamishly, clearly meaning Dar and Dara.

  I wanted to object to my green companion, saying something like, "what makes you think that, just because they're wargs, they eat people?" But instead, I turned to the new members of the Gray Pack and... stayed silent. Hrmph. The spectacle of the nephew and niece devouring their "aunt" was, to put it lightly, unpleasant.

  "Woah! What are you doing? Have you gone totally mad?! Darius, spit out that filth! Darina, what are you doing?! Get away from there!" I tried to drive the predators from the corpse, but was met with two pairs of utterly wild animalistic eyes. I couldn't detect even the slightest signs of intelligence in their gaze.

  I had to immediately open the Gray Pack control menu and command the two predators to go elsewhere. The wargs obeyed, but they still continued greedily inhaling the scent of fresh prey and licking their blood-caked snouts.

  "In this form, they're just wild animals and cannot understand human speech," my sister said sorrowfully, also in shock. "Now, they'll remain that way until sunup, and you'll have to constantly watch them. On the other hand, that does have some pluses — they'll run like beasts, so we won't get slowed down. I'll grab the clothes and give them back in the morning."

  * * *

  The way back stuck in my mind because we came across a pack of Ancient Wolves who were around level fifty. They followed us for some time, but their intention seemed to be either just curiosity or trying to drive competitors from their territory, as the markers for the NPC's on the mini-map remained yellow. Our wolves, "modded" for speed, were easily able to evade the chase. And also, Akella's lameness came to an end just in time. He no longer lagged behind his high-level wolf brothers in speed. What was more, I had just raised my Riding skill to level 8, increasing the speed of my mount by 1% for each level. My sister had found some developer comments on the Boundless Realm forum saying that the skill also worked passively on creatures belonging to the player or in the same group as him, even if not being ridden.

  Shrekson Bastard and Max Sochnier were waiting for us at the forest camp. The huge moose Lil_Timbo initially had a slightly apprehensive reaction to the wolves and wargs, but he soon calmed down and then simply paid the predators no mind. Before going anywhere, we took a short ten-minute break — my sister went to bolster her strength with sandwiches. I, though, climbed out of the virtual reality capsule and met with my friends at the employee break area near a coffee machine.

  I already knew Leon quite well, but this was the first time I was seeing Max Sochnier in real life. He really was a Frenchman, too. He was a young man of average height and intelligent appearance with dark curly hair. Max used to work as a piano and recorder teacher in a music school, but had been downsized a few years ago when, everywhere on earth, most living teachers were replaced with computer programs and robots.

  I heard about it all on the news. At that time, there were protests in most major cities from the newly out-of-work teachers. From what I'd heard, these episodes of civil disobedience were very harshly cut down by the police, who arrested all activists and even shot some. Max Sochnier, in his own words, was not an activist in the protest movement, but also fell in the field of view of the criminal justice system, even spending a few months under house arrest with an ankle monitor.

  Branded in his personal record as an anti-government radical, it was hard for him to find work. In fact, Max couldn't find any normal employment for the next year and a half. One day, by complete coincidence, he saw the game plotline tester vacancy with the famous Boundless Realm corporation and applied without particular hope he would succeed. He didn't spend too long trying to perfect his game alias, and just went with his real name. The former music teacher considered successfully completing his trial period a sign that fate had given him the chance to return to a normal, stable life.

  "But why did you get assigned the Trader class, instead of something musical, like Bard? I mean, the system was supposed to choose a character close to your interests."

  The man just shrugged his shoulders in response:

  "My father worked as a salesman for many long years, so I have some familiarity with sales and negotiation. Maybe that's why. Music just brings up sad and unpleasant memories for me now anyway, so Bard would definitely not be the right class."

  I asked him to listen to me with great attention, and told him about the upcoming Great Hunt, which was to remain a big secret, as well as methods players might be using to track us. Max Sochnier, thoughtfully stroking the bridge of his nose, answered:

  "Hrmm... You're really in a jam, Timothy. But I'm with you. You can count on me all the way! Participating in such a massive event on the side of the fleeing victim is, after all, a unique opportunity to strut my stuff, raising my fame and value in the eyes of the corporation. I'm sure our boss will look positively on us, if we can just wriggle away for some time and not let them catch us right off the bat. Even if it is just for a few days, we need to hold out!"

  Leon said approximately the same thing, but in simpler language. Both my friends refused to believe I'd manage to hold out until the end of the hunt, but still they offered their unconditional help to draw out the unusual event as long as possible.

  "Good. Let's finish our coffee and get back to the game, then. I saw that our raft is still on the riverbank. Let's use it. We need to get to the ocean before sunup, then destroy the raft and meet the NPC fish-merchant at the Ookaa docks. Max, our shared mission will be using our Trading skill and other abilities as much as possible to convince the people to let us come with them. My sister Valeria already figured out that the Boundless Realm player-made knowledge-base doesn't have any information on the route of the trading ship and, actually, there's nothing about its existence at all. So, this move will be unexpected for our pursuers, and we'll gain a few hours’ head-start."

  The Hunt Begins!

  "DID YOU CALL?" I asked, walking into the office of the director of special projects with a bubbly bearing.

  Mark Tobius pointed me to the guest chair and immediately asked his assistant to make us both some coffee. The "big man" himself was sitting far back in his huge director's armchair, his injured right leg propped up on another chair placed in front of him. I noticed a pair of crutches leaning on the wall and saw a thick layer of bandages under his pant leg. I didn't ask Mark how he was feeling, as such questions would surely so
und utterly false. But he brought it up all on his own, speaking in an upset tone:

  "Well, I had to come into to work because of you, even though my leg is injured."

  "Because of me? Are you talking about the seething on the forum after that video clip I put up?"

  The director frowned and nodded. Mark Tobius's mood was nothing but gloomy today. I realized that immediately, so I had to make sure to choose my words extremely carefully.

  "So, what do you think about that? How are you planning to fix what you've done?"

  The question being posed that way surprised me, and was an unambiguous sign of bad things to come. My boss, for some reason, considered me at fault all the problems and was expecting justifications and apologies. I didn't think that was the case at all, but pretending everything was going awesomely would have been the wrong move on my part as well. I didn't know all the details of what was going on in the corporation. Perhaps, the higher directors must have seriously chewed Mark Tobius out yesterday and even threatened him with wage deductions and other hardships for the ruckus in the player base. And maybe that was why my untimely joy and elation caused such a negative reaction. So, I started answering the director's question, attentively following his reaction and carefully choosing my words:

  "On the one hand, I did a very good job with the main mission — showing the hidden advantages of playing the unpopular goblin race. Only players of that race would have been able to easily figure out the secret of hatching the flying snake. Any other person would have had to closely study the whole wyvern island, looking over the nests and considering why there were so many animal bones everywhere. It isn't true that players of other races would never have figured it out, or that the priceless egg would have inevitably died..."

  "But then, why didn't you say a word about it in your video clips!" my boss flared up unexpectedly, interrupting me. "If you were able, as it is now clear, to tell your viewers in a normal way about this secret bonus of the goblin race, you should have drawn their attention to that fact! Instead, you decided to earn some money by selling the recipe, and the corporation ended up with a situation where the players are openly expressing their unhappiness. And as the players are upset, the corporate directors are also upset. Yesterday, my phone got red hot after taking so many calls from upper management, and they were all demanding I take immediate action."

  I accepted a mug of hot coffee from Jane's hand, took a little gulp and cautiously inquired:

  "Is it really all that serious?"

  "More than you know. The petition to ban your character for fraud has now got over four-hundred thousand signatures. The number of signatures on another petition demanding your flying mount be taken away has surpassed one million signatories. This is a very rare case indeed. A great many suggestions were considered, including some radical ones: from 'give all players a flying mount,' to 'take them out of the game altogether.' Those two, of course, are nonsense, but on the whole, the corporation would be wrong to ignore the opinions of its user base — that's the surest course to losing all our players."

  I fell silent in contemplation, showing my boss with all my appearance that I appreciated the seriousness of the situation. Then, I asked:

  "Mr. Tobius, I could easily say whatever you like in my next video clip, but I suspect that wouldn't be enough. After all, the corporation has certain plans already, isn’t that right?"

  The director half-stood with a heavy groan, extended a hand and took a tablet from the table. He turned it on and handed it to me.

  "You don't need to sign anything, because your agreement is off the record. Just familiarize yourself here."

  Just after reading the first lines of text, I set the tablet aside in incomprehension.

  "What does this mean: 'In the interest of legitimizing illegal virtual property?!' Can you tell me at which point my actions were illegal? Was it when I got the wyvern egg and raised my flying beauty?"

  "I didn’t write this," replied Mark Tobius, trying to wave off my concern as if it was insignificant. "The text was simply written in dry, perfunctory language, as it was composed by the legal department."

  "I mean, god damn!" I replied, turning off the tablet and setting it back on his desk. "In the first paragraph, the corporate lawyers are already suggesting I confess to being a criminal, a thief, and a fraudster, who used illegal methods to obtain virtual property from the company."

  My boss barked back with a heavy rattle, clearly this conversation and my stubbornness were seriously annoying him. Behind Mark Tobius's back, Jane was gesticulating wildly, trying to communicate something to me. Her pantomime looked to mean that I should be more careful with my wording and not test Mark’s famously long patience. My director's face was growing red as he bored into me with a severe dissatisfied gaze, but he still didn't take any hasty decisions. Instead, he tried to convince me:

  "Timothy, tell me in your own words what you think it should say, ignoring all the legal mumbo-jumbo. We cannot simply ignore the fact that so many of our customers are upset. I mean, the company stands to lose more than just reputation. This threatens all our financial, marketing and production plans. This could mean a reduction in stock prices, or not paying out dividends to the company's beneficiaries. In the eyes of the upper management, that is all a serious problem. And at that, it isn't just an abstract problem for the Boundless Realm corporation but also a personal problem concretely for me and you. After all, the owners of the firm aren't going to care whether some random tester broke the rules of the game or not. They'll just fire whoever they determine to be at fault for their lost profits. And at the same time, that person's direct boss will be fired for not having followed and intercepted the problem before it got started. I trust you understand that?"

  I stayed silent and lowered my gaze to the floor. Arguing with a superior is always more trouble than its worth. All the more so given that Mark Tobius had a true Sword of Damocles hanging over his head, if I understood his words properly. So, I just nodded, confirming my understanding.

  "That is excellent, Timothy. Don’t worry about that dreary legalese. I'll just tell you the main points. Successful people live their lives by one simple rule — if you see a huge wave taking out everything in its path, it would be dumb to try and stop it. Instead, you should try to ride it. For that precise reason, the Boundless Realm directors decided not to try to extinguish all the righteous indignation on the forums, but to direct into a specially made event, which will attract attention and work for the benefit of the corporation. It was decided that your wyvern, the cause of so much envy and negativity, should be made the main prize in a global contest. Any player, who manages to find Amra and kill him in the next two weeks, will have a thirty-percent chance of receiving a medallion that controls your flying mount in the drop. As is only fair, that player would then become the new target of a free-for-all hunt for the next two weeks, and so on until the flying mount finds a worthy master, capable of holding the valuable prize for a whole two weeks."

  "So then, in other words, somewhere over two million players will be chasing down my big-eared goblin in order to kill him and take VIXEN, which is my legal property. I can see why the players would like that. Such a hunt will surely be fun for them. But what reason do I have to even log in to Boundless Realm for the next two weeks?"

  "Whoever manages to keep the flying mount for two weeks will become its fully-fledged master and can do with it as they wish from then on. And that includes selling it at auction, which would bring in very significant money. The Boundless Realm Corporation will officially offer to hire said player, so withdrawing the game currency after that would be legal. There are only two main rules for the wyvern master. First: they must spend over eight hours per day online to give the pursuers a chance to find them. Second: you must post video clips about your adventures, the length of which must be no less than thirty minutes, and the delay for uploading must be no more than twenty-four hours. That's all, we have no more restrictions. You can use any me
thods available to throw them off the trail. What do you say, Timothy? How must that be? After all, you might become a millionaire in two weeks!"

  The director laughed, clearly having thought his joke funny. He personally had no faith I could emerge victorious. That was clear. I shook my head reproachfully:

  "Yeah, but this whole thing still seems rather spontaneous and poorly thought-out. What is the point of running and hiding if the players after me can just use service commands to determine my precise coordinates? I'm sure, after all, that such commands exist, and that top players know them. And if they do not, what percent of the sale do you think it would take to bribe a corporate employee to follow me and tell a friend my coordinates in real time?"

  Mark Tobius laughed again, but this time sincerely and with approval:

  "Timothy, you're impressing me with your savvy! We noticed that risk last night when discussing the event. Let me reassure you: any attempt to use service commands to determine the coordinates of your character will return a corrupted value from the server, and the person who sent the command will be instantly removed. If it's a player, they will be banned at least until the end of the event. If it is a dirty corporate employee, the harshest possible methods will be applied. For every rat you expose in the corporate ranks, you'll get a special bonus of one hundred credits. Any other commentary?"

  "Yes, sir. First, I could also be found through my companions — both the NPC’s and living players. It seems fair to me that they shouldn't be able to be detected through unfair means, either. Second, any player with a flying mount, and there are already seventeen in Boundless Realm, could just fly straight to me."

  "How would they do that?" the fat man asked in surprise.

  "Very simple! It isn't very hard to tell from my video clips that my goblin is somewhere in the Lars province. So, the hunter buys or prepares a teleportation scroll to either the city of Lars or Weiden, or even perhaps jumps directly to Stonetown, which is much closer. Then, as soon as I'm in the game, the pursuer could periodically send magical messengers to me and follow after them from the sky. These messengers do, after all, give a fairly clear indication of what direction the intended recipient is in. Sure, it isn't the cheapest method, but such a valuable prize justifies such minor financial expenses, and it wouldn't be very far to fly, either. Just five minutes after I enter the game, five snow-white pegasuses could be landing next to my big-eared goblin, the ones already in possession of the Legion of Steel. It certainly wouldn't take me any longer than that, if I were them, and they're quite a bit more experienced than I am. I’m sure they know not only this long-known method, but also a great many others."