by Oliver Mayes
Current offering – Hammertime’s Behemoth-Grade Iron-Crusher – Level 35, Holy Sword – Level 40, Brawndo’s Tower Shield of Mutilation – Level 36. Accept? (Y/N)
It was as simple as that. Offerings on the table. Right. She could get through this! Okay. If she got into the next room, she’d have to deal with Godhammer.
Should she call everyone back online? No...no, she couldn’t do it. They’d made it clear they’d had their fill and she’d let them go. Even if she’d already opened the way forward, it would still be breaking her word. Always pushing for just a little more out of her people. Besides, she didn’t even know how this worked yet.
She’d give it everything she didn’t need. If she ended up fighting Godhammer in the next room, she’d need her weapons. They went back into her weapon slots and her inventory. She had a very high-end bag, enchanted for reduced weight and size so it was easier on the eyes and the thighs, although it couldn’t hold a candle to Andrew’s Bag of Holding. With the recent addition of the armor set from the Black Knight, it was full to bursting. Hmm. She was halfway to level 49. If she got through the challenge, she’d probably level up twice again and be able to wear the new gear.
She mulled it over. No. It was too risky. She was nearing level 50. If the location and the boss’s level were any indication, these were level 50 quests. If she threw away the armor she could definitely wear, only to end up fractionally short of the level requirement for the armor that would replace it, she’d have completely screwed herself. The Black Knight’s drops had been good, but they’d have to go.
Of course, that would make everything even harder. The Godhammer player who’d got through the quest might be wearing that armor if it hadn’t constituted part of their offering. Which would put her at a serious disadvantage in both quantity and quality of enemies. Only some of her current armor was over level 40, most of it was in the high 30s. She’d likely be outnumbered, and whoever was wearing the level 50 gear, assuming they’d reached level 50, would be seriously dangerous. It was probably Hammertime. She was screwed either way.
What was she supposed to do with this? The best she could, that’s what. She had to commit. All the level 50 gear she’d been so happy to receive went on the table. Something about it felt right. Hadn’t that been a lot of gear to receive from a single encounter? Yeah. At the time she’d been happy, but now she saw it for what it was. A trick. The key to the next riddle, subtly laid down before it had even begun, camouflaged by greed. That was it. This was the way through. She could always replace the level 50 armor later, but the opportunity to go after Excalibur was irreplaceable.
Her odds had significantly improved. None of Godhammer who’d got through would have the level 50 gear either. Even better, if that was the price and the only thing left to gain was Excalibur itself, there probably weren’t many of them competing for it. Especially if Hammertime had gone through first. Lillian wouldn’t like to be the member of his party who showed up in the last room immediately after him. She couldn’t say, for certain, if he’d be as fair-minded as she was. The requirement was quite a lot to throw away, in pursuit of a reward Hammertime had demonstrated he was willing to adapt his moral boundaries for.
This was all in her favor. Just a little thought and she’d cracked it. While it certainly wasn’t her favorite aspect of these quests, she’d just needed a little more motivation to do it properly. Andrew would be very pleased when he woke up tomorrow and found she’d got Excalibur after all. The fight with Hammertime wouldn’t be easy, but if she could handle the Black Knight she could handle him.
With all this in mind, she reviewed the window dominating her HUD:
Current offering – Crusader’s Helmet, Chestplate, Gauntlets, Greaves, Boots – Level 50. Accept? (Y/N)
She was ready. Well, not completely. She equipped her sword and shield. Now she was ready. She set her feet, focused on the notification and nodded. The items began to fade out, exactly the same way as if they were being unequipped. It was working. She was on her way. She had to be ready. The moment the way forward revealed itself, she—
Offering rejected.
She stared at the message. Then she stared at the table, waiting for her rejected offering to reappear. It did not. She kept staring. Nothing. She’d been so certain it would get her through, making the loss worthwhile, but now it was all gone for no gain. Now she missed it.
She stared at the table for a long time. To her credit, she only took her hammer to it once, to curb the desire to destroy anything in her house upon returning to reality. It was as ineffective as she’d assumed it would be, although had she somehow managed to break the table she’d have been torn between satisfaction and regret. Then she did what she should’ve done five minutes earlier and followed after Andrew.
20
Give and Receive
Damien was out on a walk, which was unusual. Not least because it was raining. Whether his stroll would turn into something else was as yet undecided. He’d have to figure it out pretty soon, though, because the internet cafe was coming up on his right.
The market street was as busy as ever, despite the weather. Damien’s first pass made it abundantly clear the internet cafe was not. As ever. If it had been, perhaps he could’ve walked home and granted himself an early night. If only life were so easy. He’d suffered a big loss that day. He needed a win. It only took a single pass to decide he was not simply taking a walk after all.
He pushed his way into the internet cafe and walked up to the counter. The man standing behind it was somehow familiar, even though he’d never seen him before. When he looked up from his screen to smile at the new customer it clicked: this was Gian’s son. The father of the obsequious man who’d greeted Damien that morning. The missing link in the evolutionary chain. Antonio, if Damien remembered correctly.
As Damien came closer, his face was illuminated by the light over the service desk. Antonio’s smile faltered and then went completely flat. Damien pulled back the hood of his coat, then jammed his hands in his pockets.
“You must be Antonio. I met your son earlier today, but I was looking for Gian.”
“It’s Mr. Vasquez. And you must be Damien. Haven’t you caused enough trouble already?”
At least the social barrier of explaining who he was had been unceremoniously removed.
“How do you know who I am?”
“You’re pretty well known in this industry. Not the first time you’ve been in, though. You brought CU with you last time, and they demanded to review our footage. They caught my old man letting you in without your ID card. He can’t work here anymore. Only figured out who you were when I checked them again today, after my son said he was harassed by someone he didn’t recognize. What makes you think you’re welcome?”
Well, not that reinterpretation of the facts, for a start. Damien didn’t appreciate being accused of ‘harassing’ someone. Damien had come here to apologize and see about helping, but this attitude was not working for him.
“Nothing. But I still wanted to thank Gian for being kind and letting me in without ID. Because of that, I was able to get my mom out of hospital. Without him, I’d be in foster care and she’d be dead. I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen to him. So please tell him I’m sorry, and let him know his actions saved someone’s life.”
“That won’t pay my bills. Or the fine on the pods in the back, which I hadn’t even fully paid off before they got impounded, thanks to you. Or the fine my dad got for trusting you, which prevents him from coming back to work until it’s paid. My son had to take leave from his actual job to help us while we shut down, so you’ve disrupted his life as well. Gian’s kindness killed our business, because he was kind to the wrong person. Get out of my shop.”
Damien pulled his hands out of his pockets and scratched his chin. He made no move for the door. While he’d been focused on his own culpability rather than that of the other parties involved, apologizing had come easily. He’d come here to accept his portion of the
blame. Not to soak up everyone else’s.
Antonio might have been aggressive and imposing, but he was not a gigantic blob demon with a mouth where his stomach should be, nor was he a were-spider-baby with mind powers. Of course, Damien was not an occultist. But he could deal with this as himself.
“That’s an interesting take. Because as kind as Gian was to let me in, and glad as I am that he did, I didn’t force him to. He’s a grown-up, and he made a choice.”
“I’m asking you to leave, but I’ll remove you by force if necessary.”
“Come to think of it, I don’t remember stacking the pods in the back of your internet cafe so dangerously, either. I’m assuming you’re the one who put them there, seeing as you run the place. I’m just a teenager, I’ve certainly never run a business, but even I could see it was poorly done. That’s part of why I thought I’d be safe here, actually.”
“Do you want me to contact CU?”
“Great idea! Go ahead. Ring up the people who punished Gian for being kind, when they weren’t too busy chasing me down for breaking exactly zero laws. That’ll improve things! You’ve already got the ‘closing down’ signs, I’m sure a second CU visit will bring the customers surging back in.”
Antonio turned the screen toward Damien so he could see, opened the phone line and started punching in numbers.
“Doesn’t make any difference. The first time you brought CU was enough to stop people coming. Calling them again—”
“You know what, Antonio? I’m trying to talk to you honestly. I really did come here to apologize, and the other reason I came here is to help, if you’ll let me. I won’t do it if you keep lying: I was here for two days and I never saw a single customer, not even once. That was before CU came. I’m sorry things were going badly before I even showed up. That doesn’t mean I’ll let you pin the whole blame on me where it’s not due.”
Antonio had been holding his finger over the dial button throughout. Damien waited for him to push it, so he could leave without regret. However, Antonio slowly drew his hand back to the desk before folding his arms on it.
“How do you want to help, besides late apologies and empty words?”
“Give me a device.”
Antonio looked over the desk and selected a touch pad, before pushing it across the counter to him. Damien briskly typed in his information before placing it back on the counter.
“This is my e-mail. Send the files related to Gian’s fine and I’ll see about paying it. I don’t think a person should be punished for kindness, even if in a purely legal context the responsibility falls squarely on him. There’s more I wanted to discuss, but given the way you’ve spoken to me I won’t be discussing it with you. Let me know when your son’s gone and your father’s back to work, so I can talk to a mature adult. Copacetic?”
“Copacetic?”
“Satisfactory?”
“No. Anything—”
“Well that’s too bad, because those are my terms. I’ll be waiting for your e-mail.”
Damien walked out of the shop without looking back and went straight home. Antonio’s e-mail got there before he did. Antonio really was desperate. At least he hadn’t let his pride get in the way of his family’s comfort and security. Damien got ready for bed as he recounted the conversation in his head, wondering if he’d done the right thing.
Cassandra was very quiet as he relayed the exchange to her over breakfast the next day. She asked what time he’d headed out on this errand, knowing it had to be late. Once she’d extracted that information, she listened in silence to the end.
“Run that last part by me again.”
“I said those were the only terms I’d give him the credits on, then I walked out.”
“No, honey, the part just before that.”
Damien eyed his mother over his bacon and eggs, trying and failing not to cow his head.
“I said I would only discuss it with a mature adult, like Gian.”
“And why did you say that?”
“Because he was talking and not listening, which made me angry.”
“So you spoke out of anger.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Did it make you feel good?”
“You know what? It did. It felt good to stand up for myself when someone was putting me down, using me as a scapegoat for all his own problems.”
“Antonio sounds like he has a lot of problems, doesn’t he?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what? I’m just saying, it sounds like he’s having a really tough time. His business is going down, the pods he’s still making payments on have been impounded, his father is—”
“Yes, mom, I get it.”
“What do you get?”
“That he was talking out of anger as well.”
“Now you’ve figured that out, I’ll leave you to it.”
Cassandra finished her OJ and stood up. Damien forgot to keep chewing as she wandered back to her room, apparently with no intention of continuing the discussion. He leaned around the table, still caught by surprise.
“Is that it? You don’t have anything else to say?”
Damien leaned back in before she reappeared in the doorway, sunglasses on and her satchel over her shoulder. She put her hand on the back of his chair.
“No, I don’t think so. I’m glad you stood up for yourself, I’m proud you’re paying Gian’s fine...how much is that again, out of interest?”
“Five thousand credits.”
“It’s your money, you have the right to do whatever you want with it. I’d like it if you talked with me before you make any more big purchases though, okay? Just in case.”
“Yeah, mom, we already agreed that. That’s a big part of why we’re talking about it now.”
“Fair enough. What I’m proudest of, though, is you could’ve made yourself look better and Antonio look worse, or not even told me about this at all, but you told me the whole truth instead. Thank you, that means a lot to me.”
She kissed him on the head and made for the door.
“See you tonight. Let me know how things with the internet cafe turn out.”
“How do you know I told you the whole truth?”
Cassandra turned in the doorway and dropped her sunglasses to the end of her nose.
“I just know.”
She drew down her sunglasses and pointed first at her own eyes then at Damien’s, closing the door without breaking eye contact. Damien huffed and collected their dishes to take to the bio-washer. That had gone better than he’d expected. Now, aside from his self-inflicted errand, he had the whole day to himself. Better get to work on his profile. As much as he didn’t want to see it, the footage he’d got during his livestream yesterday wouldn’t edit itself.
Most of it didn’t take very long. The acquisition of the Throwing Knife Sling followed by the fight with the four Cave Urchins was short but sweet. The second room was largely edited in double time to compensate for how slowly he’d been moving, with a couple of pauses to analyze his prolonged stay in the chest and explain what he was doing, and why. It seemed a lot less obvious, looking back on it. He hadn’t been able to explain it while he was doing it at the time, because making much more noise than he already had might have got him killed. Now he could explain at his convenience.
He edited out the part with Noigel and the succubus. It was odd, but it felt wrong to broadcast it on his channel. Noigel was an NPC, but he was also Damien’s closest working partner. He’d been pretty vocal regarding his displeasure at Damien’s inadvertent voyeurism, so he probably wouldn’t be too happy to know his intimacy had been intentionally circulated to a wider audience. Either that or he’d embrace the role and become the latest cat video/meme template. Noigel had shown plenty of awareness regarding Saga Online media, at least when his Forbidden Knowledge was active. Better not take the risk.
The real problem was Mordred. Damien skipped through the early preparations, up to the point where his imp had picked up the
baby. Then he watched through, slowly. From the moment the imp had looked down, its gaze had never strayed away from the boss. Right up until it was eaten. Eye contact. He watched himself throw the first knife, prompting Mordred to turn his way before he froze halfway through throwing the second. Eye contact. Then he fast-forwarded to his Demon Gate, during which he had a good half second of flailing his arms around to achieve balance before the eyes of the baby body were focused exclusively on him. Eye contact.
Mordred’s ability to control the movement of enemies was based entirely on eye contact. That was useful information. He just had to learn to throw knives at relatively tiny critical hit points without looking, or else he’d be eaten alive for the third time in less than a week. Superb.
He rewound to the start of the encounter and began editing sincerely. It didn’t take long. His fight with Mordred had been even shorter than his fight with the Cave Urchins in the first room, although it had proven quite dense with information. Damien opted not to regale his subscribers with the strategies he was still incubating. Better to play his hand close to his chest, rather than vocalizing his plans to thousands of people before finding they were not so brilliant as they seemed. Better to be quietly confident than brazenly optimistic.
“And now, if you listen closely, you will hear the soothing, simulated sounds of a sixteen-year-old being eaten alive.”
Right on cue, the death screen came up and his avatar began screaming. Those were just about the funniest words Damien could think of to belittle what had happened to him, although they still didn’t seem sufficient to offset the brutality of his most recent death. He could only hope they’d be funnier to those who hadn’t suffered it personally. Somehow, it was worse that the exact circumstances of his death had not been shown. It left more to the imagination. Damien had run through countless variations of what might cause him to make those exact noises, were his pain settings higher and his self-consciousness lower. He’d do his utmost to ensure that it didn’t happen again.
