by Arthur Stone
At this stage of development, the elites’ stats and abilities compounded into such breathtaking numbers that many players simply had no access to anything that could take them down. Their reinforced bone armor, filled with the magic of the Continent, could shrug off even armor-piercing artillery shells of smaller calibers. In other words, the autocannons usually used to deal with advanced infecteds would hardly scratch it. Attempts to flee would also prove futile. You would think that as the creatures grew in size, they would lose agility, but that was not the case. Some beasts had been known to accelerate to fifty or sixty miles an hour. Only on flat terrain, of course—but if you were off road, your chances of getting away were only worse. No matter what vehicle you owned, a monster’s paws could outperform it on rough terrain.
To make matters worse, these infecteds were usually social creatures. They would lead flocks of one hundred or more and establish dominion over vast regions. If any of the flock encountered food, the leader was somehow able to detect the discovery instantaneously.
If a long time passed without new food, the boss could always snack on a few of his minions.
Some believed that these very evolved elites were also highly intelligent. Perhaps even smarter than human players. All this intelligence was focused exclusively on hunting, with nothing wasted on ruminations about the meaning of life or aspirations to acquire a harem of ideal sexual partners.
For players, the territory of the dire elite was a cheerless land. Yet some formed parties to visit these very places.
Defeating such an elite yielded a fortune in valuable loot items. Depending on the creature’s development and the party’s luck, a couple of pounds of webbing, over a thousand spores, several hundred peas of all colors, hundreds of grains, and dozens of nuts and stars could be gained—in addition to a hundred or more simple amber threads and as many as dozens of knotted amber threads. The real prize, of course, was the pearls. Dire elites always had all three types—red, black, and green—in various quantities. The luckiest cases, they said, yielded dozens of pearls in total.
Then, there was one prize that could never be found in a standard elite. The white pearl. Even in the worst dire elites, it was not a guaranteed find. The chances were something like fifty percent. No real statistics were available, and the data would be too sparse, anyway. A few dubious tales yielded two or three of the white spheres to lucky players. However, no one could tell how accurate such tall tales were.
The snow-white balls were so valuable that even most of the prizes from the Unnamed One did not come close. Seventy or eighty thousand spores, at a minimum. Of course, those who obtained such pearls did not line up to sell them. They were rarely found for sale on the open market. Usually, white pearls were only sold in backroom deals with powerful people, as in this case. In exchange for something that was just an exclusive. March had traded a crystal from the Unnamed One for a white pearl, along with a decent bonus in spores and golden peas.
The immediate passing of the pearl to the Janitor explained why the quasi had signed up for the first crossing—and then the second—without any resistance. Perhaps he had rendered March other services in the past. Cheater didn’t know their history. The payment was invaluable, and March was not one to squander. The Janitor must be worth it.
Few quasis would refuse such an offer, of course. A white pearl gave you a 20% chance of getting a new random ability, no matter how many abilities you already had. It also gave you 100 to 1000 progress points to Talent Rank and Willpower. It could also make any digi immune to infection.
These were nice, but they were not, of course, the primary points of interest for a quasi. A white pearl could restore these victims of the System’s bizarre transformation to human form. After all, though death and respawn could cure them from their monstrous form, this did not happen often. Usually they were normal at first but would soon begin to change. After a few days or weeks, they were quasis again. A white pearl was a guaranteed cure. Taking it would transform the beast into an ordinary player in the shortest possible time. In addition to their previous appearance being returned, all restrictions and blocks on their abilities would be removed.
The Janitor was right to leap at the opportunity. No one wanted to live in the skin of a massive freak and simultaneously lose access to the magic of the Continent. The sizable quasi bonuses to Strength and Endurance were poor compensation for the difficulties.
Still, March had not possessed the crystal until Cheater brought it to him. If he had betrayed his leader, or they had been cheated in this deal, or something else bad had happened, March may have ended up unable to pay his debts.
Or had he already possessed a crystal? How much money had he spent to assemble the team, vehicles, and gear needed for the first crossing? Perhaps, by some means or stroke of fate, he had not lost everything from the Unnamed One before. Cheater would never know, as his boss was secretive to a fault.
As if hearing his thoughts, March interrupted him. He knocked back the last of his mug and held out the box the NPCs had given him. “Take 20 golden peas for yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because you can take them every twelve hours. That’s enough for ten days. Once they’re gone, I’ll give you more, assuming everything is still fine between us. Each one gives you 10–20 Willpower, which we’ve decided you need.”
“I have some already,” Cheater replied proudly. “Some from Bugle’s treasury, and a few which I bought. Enough for every 12 hours, for a while.”
“I’m glad you’re so wealthy. But take them anyway. I don’t have any use for so many.”
As Cheater counted out the twenty peas, March turned towards the others. “I have an announcement for everyone. I don’t know what’s next for us. Perhaps a fight will break out among us tomorrow, and we’ll part as enemies. Perhaps not. Only time will tell. So far, the only person I know for sure is coming is Cheater. We make an excellent team. He is trustworthy. In addition, we are a rich team. We could spare some from the treasury to boost his abilities. The increase will greatly help our team. You yourself know that golden pearls are difficult to come by. People prefer to take them, not to sell them. But for trusted members of our team, we always secure the best. We have the money. If you become a part of our team, you will also have a part in this plenty. Think about it, and think about it well. As you do so, finish up any final business you may have in town. We move out in the morning.”
Chapter 11
Life Nine. The Beginning
“Guys, guys! Guys, listen to this. Get a load of this! Guys!”
Nut’s shrieks came as Cheater and Clown were loading the truck up with grocery items. Both were perturbed that no one else was helping them, though they did not seem to be particularly busy. They were frantically handling all of the things that they should have taken care of the day before, when March had announced they were leaving.
“Cut the shit!” Clown barked, beating Cheater to the verbal punch.
Loading up the truck was supposed to be a job for three people, not two. Yet somehow Nut had found a distraction. Now, he had likely found some new drug to try, or some new story to tell, to make everyone forget about his selfish laziness.
March emerged from the other side of the truck. “Where the hell have you been, greenhorn?”
“This is important! Quit bitching! Do we need a healer, or don’t we?”
March turned to walk away from the three and back to whatever he was doing. “Everyone needs a healer. But we don’t have one. Still, things need doing. And they need doing by everyone, including you, nutcase.”
“Wait!” Nut screamed. “I found a healer. For real! So do we need one or not? She’s not gonna wait forever.”
March paused, but did not turn. “What kind of healer?”
“How should I know? I’m a boom boom guy, not a bandage guy. Big explosives, not bullet extractions. She knows how to heal, I can tell you that much. We crossed paths once, up north.”
“Healers are tou
gh to find,” Clown doubted. “Like priests, every party needs them. But healing abilities are rarely given. Especially good ones. Most are healers in name only. Little more than medicine men.”
“No,” Nut shook his head, “she’s a bona fide healer.”
“So can she heal gunshot wounds? Re-grow limbs? What does she do?”
“She cured me from a knife to the liver. Couple of hours,” Nut insisted.
March turned. “She patched up a destroyed liver in a couple of hours?”
“Yeah. I don’t remember everything she did in our party, but I sure as hell remember that. It was my liver! I had no spec on me then. And it hurt like hell, like rats gnawing at my insides. But I didn’t pass out. I remember everything like it was yesterday. She made me like new.”
Cheater was hardly listening to the conversation, since he was growing tired, both physically and mentally. He had hardly slept the night before, much too nervous for the final crossing.
This was, after all, the place he had been working towards for nearly his entire in-game life. Now, he was paying for not sleeping. His brain worked only intermittently.
Yet Cheater could guess that a healer of any strength would be an excellent addition to the team. Healer class abilities differed from one player to the next, as usual, but they all accelerated wound healing in one way or another. It was like having a regeneration core along for the ride, without the long cooldown between doses. And without spending any expensive consumables. The best healers could accelerate healing by orders of magnitude.
For a party heading to the border, a healer was nearly as valuable as a priest. But the class was difficult to find. Cheater had never encountered a healer, nor heard March suggest they look for one. His experienced comrade understood how poor the chances were of attracting such a rare commodity to join them on such a risky crossing. Healers were, as a rule, members of large groups, within which they were well protected. Everything was handed to them on silver platters, including bodyguards and a comfortable life in a secure stable, which they almost never had to leave. In return, they restored battered soldiers to health.
A freelancing healer who could repair a liver punctured by a knife in a matter of hours was a suspicious idea. March and Clown still did not believe it. Even the inexperienced Cheater could tell that something wasn’t adding up.
“So you’re saying this healer has agreed to go with us,” the leader clarified.
Nut nodded enthusiastically. “Of course she will. Later. We can’t ask her right now—we have to get her here before others get to her. Well? What are we standing around for? I meant it literally when I said ‘we have to get her.’ She won’t come on her own.”
“Alright, I’ll have a look at this healer of yours,” March decided. “Clown, Janitor, finish up here. Cheater, you’re with me. I’m quite sure you’ve never seen a living healer, and they say that new things help a man’s brain develop. So this is just what you need.”
* * *
Cheater had spent a decent amount of time in Rainbow by this point, but he had seen few of the sights. The town boasted dozens of establishments providing entertainment for all kinds of tastes, from the most banal to the most exotic. It even had a large marketplace, divided into trading booths which various merchants leased. Some goods which were quite rare could be found within. If the item you wanted was unavailable, the merchants were able to get it promptly delivered—with the exception of the rarest items, such as loot from the sporesac of an Unnamed One.
Cheater was not looking for entertainment and did not wish to wander around city streets. One downtown abduction in this region was enough for him. He had unwittingly become famous here already, throughout the region, so many people would recognize him immediately despite his relatively common nickname. That was thanks, for the most part, not to the little town with Cinemaman Glock, but to the Devils. They had spread a description of him far and wide.
Every rumor concerning Cheater spread like wildfire. He was beyond being helped by something simple like recoloring his hair—the only way out would be a nickname change. In Rainbow, even that would not help, as everyone had heard of the mysterious man moving east.
The market was scary for yet another reason. There were not all that many traders. They all knew one another. One of them had, incidentally, been recommended to him by Watershed. It was his shop which contained an exquisitely rare rifle. The address was close by.
Cheater kept far away from it. A new rifle would be a good upgrade, if it really could accept the maximum number of modifications. But he had decided it best to stay away from anything connecting to Watershed, at least for the immediate future. He visited just a few of the less serious shops, accompanied by Clown, and purchased some little things. No one could be trusted to choose things like arrows for him. So despite his hesitation to show his face, he made this trip so that he could examine the goods with his own hands. He also visited the building which most closely approximated a library. It was not a popular place. Few people were inside, and he learned a number of things as he read quietly in a corner. Everyone in the whole town knew about March and his team. Unusual players like March, Cheater, and the Janitor were fated to fame.
This was no place to hide.
Despite his limited exposure to the city, he knew at once that Nut was leading them to a shadier part of town. Frankly speaking, the mysterious healer lived in a neglected slum. The locals had started several large construction projects in the sector a few months ago, but they had stalled for some reason. Empty cubes made of wood and cinder blocks rose into the air, surrounded by pits and trenches meant for sewer and communication lines, plus mountains of unused construction materials and garbage of all kinds. Here, the poorest residents had established ad hoc dwellings, both in unfinished buildings and in the numerous back alleyways. They used abandoned planks and plywood to erect improvised shelters. The poorest of all contented themselves under tarps of dirty plastic, rags, and roofing material.
One of these unassuming tents was their destination. Nut began unceremoniously shaking it and shouting. “Rise and shine!”
“Shut up!” a voice rang out from a nearby tent.
Ignoring it, Nut crouched down and half climbed inside, shouting the same words as he pulled a woman by the ankle out into the street.
The rude neighbor emerged from his own tent, barking as he came. He was covered in stubble and tattoos. “I’ll cut you!”
Nut responded in kind. “Who the hell are you? Did you just hatch? I don’t know you.”
“Oh, you’ll see my name in the logs when you come back.” The man pulled a long knife from his boot and stood up to full height.
Cheater did not want to stick his nose into this crazed, pointless conflict, but he had no choice. He drew his pistol. Pointing his weapon, he politely informed the man, “No need for that, we’ll be on our way in a moment.”
“And who the hell are you!?”
“Look, unless you calm down, Cheater here will shoot your Johnson clean off. He’s famous for hitting microscopic targets, without even aiming.”
“Cheater?”
“The Cheater,” Nut replied, winking.
“So you’re Nut. Why didn’t you say so?” the man sheathed the knife. “Jeez, you’re going to get someone killed.”
Never mind that the man had arguably started it.
Cheater repeated his request. “Just take it easy, and we’ll be gone in a minute.”
“Fine, fine, no trouble from me. Say, did you really shoot some dude’s balls off from a mile and a half out? Where’s your rifle? Or did you really take that shot with your pistol?”
As Cheater considered how to answer these very specific questions, Nut finally yanked his quarry from her tent. She was dark skinned and curvy and had a pretty face, though marred by a partial double chin and sun-bleached but filthy hair. Hair that was, in fact, so disheveled that Cheater assumed the region must have a permanent comb shortage. Her clothes were dirty and worn, and she wor
e athletic sneakers covered in mud.
Cheater glanced sideways at the nearest foundation’s pit. Unless his eyes were deceiving him, the clay inside was the same exact shade. This was not the first piece of evidence that the locals used the pit as a toilet.
March spat. “Is she sleeping or drunk?” The girl had not opened her eyes.
“Both,” an exhausted old man muttered from within the tent.
“Who’s that?”
“Goblin,” the man grunted in response. “Where are you taking Nipple?”
March couldn’t help from laughing. “Nipple? Is that really her nickname?”
“I’ve heard worse.”
“I’m assuming she did not choose it herself. Well, rumor has it that she is a healer. We are preparing for a border crossing, and a healer would be very useful. Nut said she would be eager to join us.”
