Stay on the Wing

by Michael Atamanov

  So then, two minutes to think, then White Shark will come sink your boat, and there will be no survivors. Goodbye, then. Think fast.

  Captain Amra."

  Forty seconds later, a message came into my mailbox from someone by the name of Eruta ibn-Aruta, a level-ninety earth mage:

  "We discussed it and suggest a third option: we pay two thousand coins each (sixteen thousand in total), and no one dies. What do you say?"

  I smiled — the eight players rushing to shore had all agreed they'd never make it. I quickly dictated a reply:

  "If I let you all go alive, it will be boring both to you and my viewers. What's more, my NPC companion Taisha died in that battle, so someone has to pay for her death. My pirate crew simply will not accept any other way. And also, at the end of the day, wouldn't you like to test your luck? What else could put your nerves on end as much as Russian roulette, with your own life on the line?!"

  The reply to that came in almost instantly:

  "Alright. We'll transfer you the eight thousand right now. But we expect you to swear to obey the conditions of our agreement and let seven of us walk free. We then will swear not to escape and to behave peacefully."

  Not long after, I had eight undying kneeling before me on the deck of the White Shark, their hands bound behind their backs. The level-ninety earth mage, a level-eighty-eight necromancer, a level-sixty-two elf bowwoman from the Firstborn clan, a level sixty-six half-elf assassin, three human warriors from the Warlords clan, and a level-one-hundred-two paladin from the same clan. By the way, the person in my blacklist was the elf lady.

  Dorielle Flexible_Doe

  Light Elf

  Level sixty-two Bowwoman

  I had to search in the game logs to figure out in what way this elf lady had ever offended me to earn her place in the blacklist. The result of that search made me raise my eyebrows in surprise — this player had taken part in the night attack on Tysh, and killed Taisha's relatives. I'd promised my NPC companion to find this elf and punish her appropriately. Bad luck, knife-ears. I now already knew the outcome of my "random draw" in advance. All that remained was to wait for Taisha to respawn so she could personally be present to witness this act of revenge.

  Four hard-working orcs dragged a massive chopping block normally used by our cook to chop meat onto the deck and set it before the captives. All riddled with deep chop marks and covered with dried blood, it was the closest thing we had to an execution block. The ghastly executioner, wearing a red sack over his head, nodded in approval and started sharpening his two-handed poleax. It turned out very natural and fitting to the ambiance. Based on the pale faces of the eight captives, it got to them.

  At that time, I found a small empty barrel, a piece of paper and a quill. I ripped the sheet into eight pieces and wrote the name of the victim in blood. As the captives sat and watched me attentively, I provided some commentary on my actions, explaining that I was writing their names on the slips of paper, and would be letting blind fate decide who would be done in. It should be said that all eight papers had the very same name on them, as well: Dorielle Flexible_Doe. Sure, I agree. It wasn’t sporting or fair to the bowwoman, but this way, I was preparing to fulfill a promise I'd once made to my companion.

  By the way, as for Taisha — the goblin girl appeared next to me with a frightened shriek and spent a few seconds batting her eyelids in surprise and confusion, then led her hand over the bridge of her nose, eventually becoming convinced that she was unharmed. I walked up to Taisha, embraced her and pressed her to myself, reassuring the respawned NPC beauty. I smiled, trying to keep my unhappy thoughts to myself as not to cast a shadow on the joy of the newly returned girl. Though there was something to be upset about here — minus two levels to Taisha, she'd fallen to twenty-five. The goblin beauty was lagging further and further behind Valerianna Quickfoot and I in level. Even the wolves of the Gray Pack were all at thirty, now.

  After acquainting her with the situation, I explained to the redheaded beauty that it was she precisely that should draw the lot to decide which of our captives would live, and who was fated to die. Taisha tried to point out the elf woman with little head nods and whispering, but I asked my companion not to say anything. The thief girl stuck her hand in the barrel in silence and pulled out a piece of paper folded into a tube.

  "The person being executed is Dorielle Flexible_Doe!" I loudly voiced the result, and Taisha jumped for joy, not hiding her glee.

  "Let this be a reminder of the torched village of Tysh and all the goblins you killed there! May the heavens curse you for that!" the thief girl shouted, jumping around the bellowing bowwoman.

  "And not only for that!" the executioner pulled the red hood off his head and everyone took a step back in horror.

  The face of the person was horribly burnt and looked like nothing but one solid wound. No hair, no eyelashes, the skin in places red and in others charred. A ghastly spectacle...

  "I am the boatswain from Princess Amelia, the only survivor from the whole crew of the trireme after it was captured by pirates. This knife-eared bitch kicked me out of the lifeboat, taking my place for herself! I spent gods-know-how-long in the water, kicking my feet and flailing my hands at the sharks, who were growing more and more impudent with every minute. I thought it was the end for me, but I got picked up by pirates. And they even gave me the chance to avenge the undying who sank my ship!"

  It turned out well. It wasn't for nothing that I ordered the life of this botswain saved, although he remained loyal to an oath given to the king and refused to join my pirates outright.

  "There's nothing to accuse me of!" Dorielle squealed hysterically, turning to everyone present at once. "This burned monster doesn't even have a name over his head. He's just a stupid programmed bot, like millions of others. If one dies, another one just like him will come to take his place. Why should I have let a piece of program code take a seat in the lifeboat?!"

  I walked out in front, pointing at the badly wounded executioner standing with the poleax, and objected to the elf lady:

  "This burned boatswain has his own name. It's Staur Strong. It's just that you haven't earned his trust, so he didn't think it necessary to reveal any information about himself. All the sailors here," I said, pointing at my crew, "have their own names too, and a biography, but all you can see is 'orc pirates.' The goblin girls you killed in the village of Tysh also had names, but you didn't care about that, either. You just killed them no qualms. You prefer to 'farm bots' instead of delving deeper into the mysteries of Boundless Realm. But meanwhile, it's much more complicated than it looks at first glance. Here, look! Actually, everyone look!"

  Down from the pinkening morning sky, loudly flapping her broad wings, my level-22 Royal Forest Wyvern descended onto the deck of the White Shark. The flexible, emerald-colored flying snake looked very beautiful — a true treasure, justifying the whole grand-scale event with her magnificence. VIXEN opened her toothy maw and carefully set a still living level-3 Narwhal Whelp before me on the deck.

  "Who’s my little smarty pants! What a great hunter you are. You never let your big-eared Amra go hungry!" I said, placing the prey into my inventory. I then embraced my beauty by the neck and turned to see the captives watching the valuable mount with hungry eyes. "Would you call this 'just a piece of code,' too? A mere hunting trophy? What can I say, Dorielle, you wanted to get to know my wyvern better. Here's your chance. You couldn't hope for a closer look — not only will you be able to touch VIXEN, you’ll see her in the greatest possible detail, from the inside. In fact, you’ll even become part of her. VIXEN, you may eat the elf woman!"

  My eternally hungry winged snake didn't need to be asked twice. VIXEN was instantly next to the crouching captive and, her mouth open wide, swallowing her prey whole like a snake, as if pulling herself over it. Dorielle screamed so loud my ears started ringing. The snake, meanwhile, quickly swallowing the victim's head, pulled herself over the elf girl's shoulders centimeter by centimeter. A toxic acid
ic drool started gushing from the wyvern's mouth, making the bowwoman's skin turn black. The miniature armor pieces that covered the girl's body hissed and started smoking.

  To be honest, the spectacle of the wyvern devouring the elf lady whole was pretty gross. If I'd known in advance just how nasty it was gonna look, I might have chosen another method of execution. But not everyone shared my feelings, or was battling nausea. The earth mage stood up, walked closer and said with a happy snicker:

  "I wonder what will go first: her health or her clothing and equipment?"

  "She'll suffocate before the acid kills her," objected one of the warriors, also watching the ghastly spectacle wide-eyed. "I wonder if the bowwoman is playing with full immersion? If so, these must be quite unpleasant sensations..."

  Her hitpoints ran out first. Either that or the elf simply suffocated but, in any case, the victim finally stopped twitching. At that point, the winged snake swallowed the rest of the body whole in one minute. Through the fairly thin skin of the wyvern's puffed-out belly, I could make out the shape of her body.

  Achievement unlocked: Player killer (6)

  Animal Control skill increased to level 8!

  Level thirty-five!

  Racial ability improved: 80% resistance to poison

  VIXEN lit up with colorful sparks and grew visibly in size, having hit levels twenty-three and twenty-four in one go. The winged snake licked her lips with her split tongue and looked carnivorously at the seven other captives. All seven of them shuddered from her cold, emotionless gaze.

  "No, no, enough out of you!" I said, poking the snout of my winged mount away from the bound undying. "We'll play fair, as we agreed. You're all free to go. Irek, unbind them! The boat's over there in the water. The shore is very near. Whoever wants to, feel free to take some screenshots with the wyvern for the memories."

  "No thanks," said the necromancer. "I really don't feel like taking part in this event anymore!" with these words, the necromancer pulled the emerald amulet from his neck and threw it on deck.

  The other players weren't so impressionable and took the chance to take pictures with the rare, flying snake. Though it was obvious that my ghastly man-eating acid-spitting wyvern didn't totally line up with the exaggerated fairy-tale picture in their heads after watching the advertisements.

  Just after the last of the undying got into their boat, I ordered the oarsmen on the White Shark to take their places, and the helmsman to turn to the north-west, catching up with the trireme on the horizon, now just barely visible. I even said, purposely loud, in hopes that my words would be heard by the players, who were still quite near the bireme:

  "Make for the port of New Tortuga, which belongs to the Brotherhood of the Coast. Both of our ships need repair."

  The first mate, bandaged with relatively clean rags over his shoulder, nodded:

  "That's right, Captain Amra. Repairs couldn't hurt. The mast got really torn up. Just look at it, it's totally cracking. The side has six holes in it, thankfully all above the waterline. Half the oars are broken. And that's to say nothing of the trireme..."

  Ziabash Hardy bowed and picked up the wyvern amulet thrown by the disenchanted player:

  "Pretty little gimmick. I saw one just like it around Angelica Wayward's neck."

  What? The Dryad Dancer was also taking part in the mass hunt?! Veronica had even purposely acquired the amulet, preparing to take possession of my mount? Very unpleasant news, indeed. What of the fact that the dryad herself didn't carry weapons or have any combat skills? Her strength was in something else — Angelica Wayward was fully capable of taking the pirate crew under her control and setting the bloodthirsty orcs against me!

  The wood nymph was of the same opinion, having overheard the first mate as well. The dancer had gone too far. Taken on their own, it was possible to explain and justify the ritual with spilling blood into the sea, or buying perfume to put on the ship, or the charms on my crew, her taking the captain's quarters, our badly-timed excursion into port, the appearance of a ship following us, and her purchase of the wyvern amulet. But all together, it looked purposeful and even adversarial. But I didn't manage to answer Valerianna Quickfoot in any way, as Irek then walked up to me and asked in alarm:

  "Uncy Amra, where's my sister? I respawned a long time ago, along with Taisha and Darius. But we all died after Yunna. She was first to go, up there on the altar!"

  To my shame, I had to admit that only after the goblin boy’s reminder did I notice that Yunna's image was still missing from among my list of pets. It really was strange. Why hadn't the NPC girl respawned like all the others who'd died in the last battle?

  A sense of shame swept over me. My intuition was telling me that something very serious had happened — the respawn algorithms hadn't kicked in, because the system considered the goblin girl a normal NPC, who would disappear forever after dying in Boundless Realm. Now, if I didn't take immediate and decisive action, the unique Yunna would be replaced by some utterly new NPC character created by the Boundless Realm algorithms, while my wolf rider would never return and be lost forever.

  That said, although I understood the problem perfectly, I had no idea how to fix it. Unless...

  Perfumer

  "KEEPER!" I SHOUTED in a voice not my own, my face raised to the pinkening heavens. "Keeper, damn you!"

  I shouted at full throat for no less than a minute, frightening the pirate crew and my sister with my strange behavior. I had already begun to despair when suddenly, an opaque winged shadow descended from the heavens onto the deck of the White Shark. All at once, as if on command, the pirate crew fell to their knees. The shimmering angelic figure looked over all the kneeling orcs with an ambivalent gaze, then created a golden magic dome dividing the two of us from all the others, and inquired in a grumbling voice:

  "What are you screaming for, Amra? I can't even get up from my desk for a minute anymore. Someone needs me all the time."

  At first, the Keeper's words threw me, not at all tallying with his majestic appearance. But then I felt inspired — this meant our conversation could be very direct without any lofty phrases or epithets.

  "Are you the guy I talked to about that Midnight Wraith? Or are you a different employee of the Global Simulation Department?" I immediately clarified, and the Keeper chuckled:

  "That wasn't with me, but I know about that conversation. The situation is that the directors of the Boundless Realm corporation still haven't decided if there should be just one Keeper in the game or many. For now, they’re sticking with one, and we play for him in shifts. All understandings are recorded, so I know about the black arrow bargain."

  Now that's better. It would have been much worse if this new employee knew absolutely nothing about the arrow confiscated from me and the invulnerability gifted to my goblin companions.

  "Then tell me, Keeper, why hasn't Yunna respawned yet? She was my NPC companion, a goblin girl, level-26 wolf rider."

  "Wait up, I'll take a look at the game logs," the glimmering figure lowered further down and stood motionless for some time. "Because she's done. She wasn't supposed to be reborn! That NPC sacrificed herself voluntarily, and for some pretty solid bonuses at that. The kind of divine blessing you wanted, Amra, don’t just get handed out for free, you know! Just so you know, the only reason your catapult hit that trireme was this girl's self-sacrifice — the bombs were gonna just fly past, but the divine blessing bonus kicked in."

  "Wait, stop! Keeper, I gave you a valuable item from a future game patch. Back then, we agreed on full immortality for these two goblins. There were no limitations, and no one said a thing about reincarnation being impossible! But now, I feel like I've been cheated! One day they respawn, but the next they won't!"

  Was it just me, or did the Keeper get embarrassed and turn away?

  "If only you knew, Amra, the kind of thunder and lightning that came down from the department head for taking matters into our own hands with the respawning NPC's... What's more, due to the mass event
with the wyvern hunt, the patch adding shadow creatures to Boundless Realm has been postponed... And look who's talking about cheating, right?"

  I didn't understand what the Keeper meant to accuse me of, and honestly told him that.

  "I was talking about the amulet controlling your mount, which is now around your wyvern’s neck. I won't deny that it looks pretty, but if such a valuable object won't drop when your character dies, the mass hunt loses all meaning. That bug is being patched out today. You must understand that there are a bunch of people following this event, and our corporation is monitoring every step. When you and the eight players in the boat swore to play fair and even invoked the gods of Boundless Realm as witnesses, we in the Global Simulation Department were sitting ready to immediately intervene if any of you broke that oath. Just in case, we zeroed out both of the bound mages' mana so they wouldn't mess around. By the way, you caught a bad break with the lots — if the necromancer or earth mage had been drawn, that wyvern would have hit level twenty-five, and you'd be able to ride on its back now. After all, it's much harder to catch a flying player..."

  "Uh... yeah... I caught a bad break," I replied, not wanting to clarify that the draw was rigged. If the Keeper himself hadn't noticed anything unusual, I wasn’t gonna rock the boat.

  It was a pity that my trick with giving the amulet to VIXEN had been uncovered, though. That meant the error would be fixed, and I'd have to go back to wearing the valuable object myself. Although... I shuddered. This conversation was going in the exact wrong direction — these topics were of interest, but had absolutely nothing to do with Yunna's death. I was even getting the impression that the Keeper was simply running out the clock, hoping I’d drop it. I had to answer with his own words:

  "There really are a lot of people following the event. You're right there. I'm bending over backwards to make sure the viewers like it, and to keep the interest level in this wyvern hunt high. I understand how important this revenue is to the corporation. But now, explain: why hamper me in this complicated matter by taking my pets away? What's more, my viewers are already aware that my NPC companions Yunna and Irek have been promised invulnerability by the Keeper himself. There was even a touching scene of the children bidding their mother farewell as she blessed them on their travels. But now tell me, do you really think it will be good, if I have to tell my viewers that promise was broken in my next video clip? After all, the players of Boundless Realm associate you or the whole group playing the Keeper with untarnished honesty, and the ultimate truth. And you have to agree that it would look bad — the Keeper of Boundless Realm himself promised immortality to an NPC girl by the name of Yunna. She believed him and voluntarily laid on the altar. If Yunna is not reborn, many will be upset. The board of directors might take notice, too. The thunder and lightning in your department will fly even more ferociously, and the troubles for the front-line workers will be greater, which is to say nothing for your boss."