I shook my head a bit when I thought about the words in my lexicon that had become a part of my normal life, but meant nothing in the real world. Explaining the anger of something as “aggro,” or a beast you were fighting as a “mob” because it was a mobile object and no one wanted to say that many syllables.
You could be sure if they weren’t going to fully say mob, they certainly weren’t going to take the time to say something like Non-Player Character either. Yet another that got shortened down to an acronym—NPC. Simply stated, scientists, military members, and gamers love their acronyms. The only difference is the rest of the world tended to recognize, accept, and use the ones the scientists and military came up with.
I focused back on the task at hand and went about increasing my Skill. In order to increase my Conceal and my Stealth, I simply needed to run around with the two Skills “activated.” For other Skills, like proficiency with my dagger, I would need to actively stab things. Since I only needed to run around, I decided to spend some more time mapping out the Capitol, which had a name that I needed to learn. Once my Conceal/Stealth was maxed, I planned on finding the exact location where the quest NPC the Wanderer told me about would spawn. That was another word no one but a gamer would use—spawn. I would have to ask the guys if they thought it was weird that we used terms like “spawn point” to explain where something suddenly appeared, like a quest NPC. Or “bind point” to explain where players would appear after they died in the game.
It was easy to figure out where to go in Port Town. Its size was comparatively just a small district within a metropolis this size, and I didn’t want us to waste more time than was necessary within the city. The guys didn’t know it yet, but soon enough we would be trying to complete two quest chains at the same time. Time was not going to be on our side if we wanted to continue our history of being the first to accomplish tasks in the game.
Secondly, I wanted to find the merchants within the Capitol so I could begin pricing out upgrades to our armor. We were pretty broke at this point with all of the new skills and spells we purchased, but if I was sure of one thing, it was that we were going to need upgrades to deal with these new quests.
I hoped that the armor for Jason and Wayne would be cheaper from the Dwarves. The whole point of negotiating with the King Under the Mountain wasn’t for the East Range Mountain Clan to get a steady income, although that was a plus. No, the point was to increase the relations between my team and the dwarves, and in turn hopefully get some good quests and better prices on armor. Having a status of “friend” should lead to cheaper prices. Likewise, if I could get the Dwarves to “ally,” at least if Resurgence worked like every other MMORPG, we would get the best quests and deals possible; however, even at “friend,” the prices were still likely to be quite high since dwarves were famous for creating magnificent plate armor.
Plate armor was what Jason and Wayne needed, but it wasn’t going to do Dan and I a lick of good. I doubted the Dwarves even bothered with the lighter armor that my Ranger friend and I would wear. And, if they did sell it, it wouldn’t be Dwarven-made, so not even worth looking at.
My mind flitted from thinking about armor and focused back to the special quest chain from the Wanderer. The hardest part was going to be manipulating the guys into traveling to where the quest giver would appear. According to the Wanderer, this NPC was only going to spawn for five minutes and then disappear. And the location for the NPC was in the middle of the woods, far enough away from the Capitol that I had not come up with a single reason why my group and I would be in that forest at that particular time. If I could have spoken with the Wanderer before he put all of this in motion, I would have told him to put the spawn around when we usually logged on, and then blame being in the woods on my log-in error. But at the time when the NPC was supposed to spawn, we would have already been inside the game for hours.
I continued to search out the merchants and map the city while I wracked my brain over what plan I could use to get us into those woods. Each one I thought of never got past the first questions the guys would ask. Why? Why are we going there when we have a quest to start and new content to see? It was going to have to be good, or none of them would be up for it.
Undisclosed Location
Sitting at the large table, bedecked in a Hawaiian t-shirt and knee length shorts, was Daniel Hamson. When one thinks of a covert operative, they normally think of tuxedos, fancy parties, and expensive cars. They wouldn’t normally pick out a person like Mr. Hamson, and that is one reason he had been successful in infiltrating AltCon on behalf of the Department of Defense.
Another reason was Mr. Hamson’s amazing memory. Who knows if anyone has ever had a true “photographic memory,” but Mr. Hamson possessed the closest thing The General had ever seen. If you had to label it, Mr. Hamson would be called someone with hyperthymesia, or “superior autobiographical memory.” It made recalling what Mr. Hamson did, saw, and heard as simple as speaking.
Sitting next to Daniel at the large table was Colonel Thompson, his handler of sorts, and the two were discussing the next steps for Resurgence. The previous handler was sitting in the arctic temperatures of North Dakota after fumbling the most basic of details concerning Mr. Hamson’s cover and backstory. He hadn’t liked Mr. Hamson from the beginning, and certainly didn’t appreciate being mocked at every turn by the man in the swim trunks.
It likely never dawned on him that Daniel had saved his career for quite some time as well. By not reporting all of the mistakes made, that very same soldier was able to go on in his comfy job. It was rare that the General looked forward to signing resignation papers for someone who was under his command, but this was the exception.
Thompson, on the other hand, was a good fit for Mr. Hamson. He was a quiet man, thoughtful, and a master tactician, which was offset perfectly by the fact that Mr. Hamson rarely shut up.
“It’s time we start thinking about next steps, Mr. Hamson.”
“I couldn’t agree more, General. Colonel Thompson and I were just reviewing a number of ideas we came up with,” Daniel said. Colonel Thompson simply lifted his eyebrows.
“Ok. I came up with the ideas. And did all of the talking. And the changing. And the new ideas. But Colonel Thompson is a really great listener and can say a lot with an eyebrow raise.”
The General shook his head and looked at Thompson with a touch of pity.
“This is actually a perfect time to be talking about next steps, General. My group has entered the next phase if you will, for the game. The story line should follow the same basic arc, but we will be getting all different types of quests, going to new areas, interacting with new people and computer models, and meeting the players that started at the Citadel,” Dan said while practically bouncing around in his chair while waving his hands all around. “I’m really excited.”
“Mr. Hamson, you understand this isn’t a game,” the General said. Realizing the words he just chose, the General quickly continued before Dan showed off his juvenile wit. “We are dealing with matters that could impact the entire U.S. economy. This needs to be taken seriously.”
“Absolutely. And I am sir. Really, I am. But it’s still pretty cool.”
“Cool or not, I want your thoughts on where you think we should go from here.”
“Follow the arc of the quests. Keep grinding through the levels, but also start looking for more anomalies within the game that could be exploited by us. At this point, all we have is vague data suggesting something nefarious. We don’t have any clue as to the how or the who, other than the corporation of AltCon itself.”
Dan thought back to the latest scheme enacted by AltCon, forcing the players to buy their stock and encouraging others to do the same. He still had the headache from the hatchet job they had done on his brain. Dan really wanted to find out who was responsible for putting all of this in place and have some serious words with him or her. Or let the group’s Tank, Wayne, do it. On the scale of small to massive, Wayne was far clo
ser to the massive end than Dan was. As a professional bouncer Wayne likely knew exactly how to make others feel pain. Yeah, definitely let Wayne do it.
“This is exactly what I was thinking as well, Mr. Hamson. However, we’ve reached the limits on many of the authorities I have under the charter from the DoD. From this point forward, I am going to need greater support than just what we have in this facility. Tomorrow I am flying to Washington to get that support. If I am successful, and I have every reason to believe I will be, we should have the full backing of most, if not all, of the US Government.”
“Nice! You want me to go with you?”
The General cringed inwardly thinking of Daniel Hamson conversing with the stuffed shirts and bureaucrats he was traveling to meet, but outwardly he smiled. “No, Mr. Hamson, your place is in the game. That is where you bring the most skill to this endeavor. Politics is my game, even if I’ve been playing longer than I care to admit. This is a job for me. If someone would have told me that being a general would have more to do with politics than leading militaries, I probably would have stopped at colonel.”
Colonel Thompson chuckled at that and looked to Dan. “How long till you need to be in the game?”
“I should leave now. I have no idea what today holds, but I am sure Alex will come up with something good. The guy is an amazing leader, General. You really should consider hiring him when this is all over.”
“Just be mindful, Mr. Hamson, that Alex seems to be one of these anomalies you spoke of earlier. Watch him closely.”
“I won’t leave his side, sir!”
The Colonel raised his eyebrows again at Dan, obviously challenging his last comment.
“Except to go to the tavern. But that’s recon. It’s my job!”
The General walked out of the room as Dan continued to argue the merits of tavern work and the pillow talk from the “ladies.”
The General knew the meeting in Washington would determine the course of the operation. Given the impact virtual reality had on humanity’s day-to-day life, possibly on the fate of the world economies themselves.
*
I had been sitting in the square next to Sir Arthur Chadwick for a good ten minutes when my first teammate logged in. I had grown tired of calling the city “the Capitol” over and over again in my mind, and determined to find out what the actual name was. As Sir Arthur was the main point of contact in the city, responsible for giving out all of the quests for the story arc, I figured he would know the name.
“Yerkich,” Sir Arthur said while waving his arm across the square, “is the ancient name of our city. The square we stand in is where the city’s namesake, King Yerkich the Conqueror, brought every clan and tribe together under one flag. His flag.”
Sir Arthur looked around the square one last time before finishing, “today, only this gathering point remains of that original city, and is called Yerkich Square by the locals. Otherwise, both aristocrat and commoner call this Kich’s Keep or just the Keep.
Shortly after finishing my conversation with Sir Arthur, Dan logged in. Dan saw me after a few moments, walked over with a fist bump, and then sat down next to me.
“Been on long?” he asked.
“A couple of hours actually. I couldn’t sleep, man. I’ve been too excited about the whole thing and decided to jump online and get started mapping out the market places. Getting upgraded gear is going to be high on our list of priorities.”
“Tell me about it. I was looking at my gear before I logged out yesterday, and we really need to get better stuff,” Dan said.
“Our rare items are great. But the non-magic stuff is barely keeping us alive. I’m sure that the mobs here are going to be much harder than what we found in the forests around Port Town.”
“Well, my thoughts,” Wayne said as he approached from behind us, “is that we test our mettle against the mobs in the surrounding area before we accept the quest. This area should be a ‘starting area’ for the Capitol anyhow.”
I almost jumped too fast to agree with Wayne. Here I had spent an hour wracking my brain to come up with a way to convince the guys to stick around to the woods, and Wayne gave it to me with no prompting. I formed a plan immediately.
“I like Wayne’s idea. And good to see you, brother.”
Wayne nodded in my direction with a big smile.
I relayed what I had learned from Sir Arthur about the name of the city and continued to support Wayne’s ideas. “We really should see how Wayne handles tanking these mobs out in the surrounding area and how Jason will be able to handle healing. It will also give us a chance to see how the experience differs here in Yerkich from the mobs around Port Town.”
“No argument from me,” said Dan. “All we need now is to wait for Jason to log in. Anyone know if he was going to be on late for any reason?”
“I’m here,” Jason said as he came around the corner of one of the buildings. “Did I miss anything?”
Dan gave Jason the stink eye for a moment before saying, “Where you been there, brother Baron? Last time you went sneaking around town we found out you were itching to be royalty. I don’t want to imagine what you could be up to now.”
“I was looking to see if there was any way to put a bounty out on loudmouth wood elves. No such luck.”
“Wayne suggested we tour the area checking out the mobs outside of the city, which as it turns out is called Yerkich, according to Sir Arthur. On top of that, the locals apparently call the area where the more well to do live, Kich’s Keep,” I said.
“Getting back on track, though, we are hoping to see how our abilities stack up against the strength of the mobs, and naturally we will need your healing. Dan and I agreed. You good with that?”
As our only High-Elf, the Race in Resurgence that would best describe what you would expect of the aristocracy, Jason was well placed to carry the title of Baron. He had received it as part of a quest, but he wore it with pride. I called it pride anyhow; Dan called it a stick up his butt. “Yup, sounds good to me. The quest isn’t going anywhere.”
I had mapped out exactly where the quest NPC was supposed to spawn earlier that day and led the group in that general direction. I knew from my exploration that there were plenty of mobs in that area that would give us experience. I also noted that the area where the NPC would spawn was absent of mobs for a large enough area that we could use it as a base to pull mobs.
As a group, we headed out toward the woods that surrounded Yerkich.
*
“Two Healthy Bears incoming!”
We had learned quickly that the mobs in this area were definitely harder than the ones we fought in Port Town. Not just a higher level, either. They were doing a significantly larger amount of damage than the level would indicate. I believed this was due to our armor.
Dan successfully kited one of the beasts around the area while Wayne and I ripped into the other bear. Kiting is a bit of an art form; when you are doing it right, it reminds you of the simple beauty one sees from a masterpiece of the great Renaissance era. When you fuck it up, it looks like the shit your four-year-old brother smears on the walls and for some reason your parents praise. If Dan couldn’t keep the extra mobs chasing after him, while also reducing the mobs’ movement speed through his spells, we would all end up looking like smeared shit.
I had my own problems from the get go as well. One of my signature Rogue attacks, Backstab, was doing some serious damage. I always led with this attack since it did twice the damage, and even more with a critical strike, if I activated it from Conceal/Stealth. With that much damage, the mobs aggro’ed me immediately and I almost got sent to my spawn point. I learned quickly to hold off a bit before jumping into the fight.
That experience reminded all of us that we had forgot a vital step upon arriving at Yerkich. Immediately after finishing that fight we all ran back to Kich’s Keep and reset our spawn point to the city. Having died out here would have led to a two-day journey on foot from Port Town and back to the Capitol.<
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The Healthy Bears were dropping Fine Quality Skins that could be used for making large backpacks. One of the most sacred tenants of online role playing games is to always carry as many bags as you can. The ability of a group to accumulate wealth is almost always tied to the number of items they can carry to sell at a future time. We had previously crossed paths with a player that had begun the Crafting skill of making backpacks. I had already reached out to the player and he said he would be interested in the skins. He admitted he probably wouldn’t be successful on many of his initial attempts to make them, given their high level, but he promised he would give us the ones where he did succeed. And we would get them for free, where other players would expect to pay handsomely for this upgrade. Why? Because the Fine Skins were going to raise his skill level in record time, ensuring that his reputation from the last time we made this deal stayed intact.
I kept glancing at the in-game clock to make sure we weren’t in the middle of some crazy pull when the NPC spawned, but there was no way I could just call for a break and sit around. Not unless I really wanted to arouse the suspicion of my friends.
As our killing continued, my skills in Dual Wield and Double Attack continued to increase. This was making my damage output soar. Wayne was also increasing his Double Attack, but the difference in our damage was obvious for all to see. As the time neared for the NPC to spawn, I decided to take a risky chance that could cost us the quest entirely.
Restoration: The Rise of Resurgence: Book II Page 2
