The Cheater's Return

by Brian McGoldrick

  Raven Goddess looks down her nose at Chin-Sun. "As for you, you are not even trying, and you want to do what we do. You are a complete joke. Turn off your System Assist Mode and leave it off. You have potential. If you practice, you could eventually reach the point of breaking through the 100% Skill Expression and enter the realm of those who are the elites among the players."

  After staring at the silent Chin-Sun for a few moments, Raven Goddess turns her back on the girl and walks away.

  Chin-Sun looks around, and seeing no sympathy on anyone's face, she glares hatefully in my direction. Her look seems to say that everything is all my fault, or maybe, in her mind, I am just a safe target for her hostility. In her eyes, I am nothing but an ugly, fat pig, and anyone not slender and attractive is barely human at best.

  Mi-Cha, if she was not your sister I would kick her to the curb and laugh as she was killed. Unfortunately, Mi-Cha cannot hear my thoughts, and I doubt I will ever get the chance to voice my irritation to her. The Church owes me a lot of blood and pain.

  No one has looted this pack of ghouls yet. Serena and Cavallo are a little distance away, whispering to one another, and Raven Goddess is lost in her own thoughts. Carrying Chin-Sun is obviously bad for this group's morale.

  Ignoring Chin-Sun, I loot the ghoul's bodies, but the only thing on them is some coin. Other than the occasional piece of shit quality gear, coin is all that we have pulled off everything since that ghoul boss.

  Moving to the east side of the clearing we were fighting in, I sit with my back against a tree and rest my forearms on my bent knees. I have a great view of the nearly setting sun. It looks like a giant ball of red fire that is partially obscured by the trees. The cloud cover, incoming from the west, is dyed in shades of red, pink, orange, and gold. This is the kind of view that you can never see in Yukon City. Yukon City is built in a mountain valley near the coast, and long before the sun sets each day, it is obscured behind the mountain peak.

  As I realize I am smiling at the sight, I deliberately remove any expression from my face. I have gotten soft. After I was perma-banned, I gave up and lost my edge. I am still only a shadow of the man I was when I last played the game.

  Raven Goddess walks over to me, and shoving my left arm into my lap, she sits down and uses my triceps for a backrest. After staring at the southern skyline for a minute or so, she squirms around, like she is trying to get comfortable.

  "You should think about putting on some fat. Your arm is harder than a tree trunk."

  Reaching over my head, I slap the trunk of the tree I am leaning against. "Perfectly soft tree trunk, right here."

  "Insufferable man." Despite her irritated tone, Raven Goddess has a faint smile on her lips.

  For a while, we both stare at the sky in silence.

  Near the middle of the clearing, Chin-Sun squats down next to a ghoul corpse and saws at its mouth with her dagger. After a minute, she rips out one of its eye teeth and stares at it with a disgusted look on her face. Once she cuts out both eye teeth, she moves to another ghoul and starts sawing again.

  Raven Goddess turns her head to look at Chin-Sun. "I do not know what to make of that girl. She cannot admit when she is wrong or does not know something, and when she in need of help, she refuses to ask for it."

  I sigh. "I never really knew her before she was about thirteen, but she's been like that since I started tuning capsules for Mi-Cha. She has to always be right and be the best, but she always lived in Mi-Cha's shadow. Mi-Cha is one hell of an act for another girl to follow. When Chin-Sun was a toddler, Mi-Cha would gush about her angelic little sister for hours on end. I used to tune her out and just make 'uh-huh' noises, every now and then. Mi-Cha was so absorbed in boasting about Chin-Sun, I don't think she ever noticed."

  Raven Goddess looks back at the sky and chuckles, softly. "I can guarantee you she noticed. Even as a child, a woman always knows when a man is not paying attention to her. Being ignored by a man is guaranteed to anger any woman."

  Once all the eye teeth are removed, Chin-Sun divides them into three piles and gives Cavallo and Serena their share.

  With the soughing of the wind, I cannot understand what they say to one another, but from the way Chin-Sun is practically squirming in place, it is not easy for her. With the angle of her head, she never actually looks either of them in the eye.

  "I've never seen Chin-Sun behave like that. She actually looks like she's not being an arrogant little bitch, for once."

  After glancing at Chin-Sun, Raven Goddess returns her attention to the sky. "If she is not as dense as you are, she will be perceptive enough to understand that she has greatly disappointed the both of them. By this time, she should realize that without improving herself, she will be dependent on us just to survive."

  I frown. "Are you saying that I'm pissing them off?"

  Raven Goddess sighs. "No. There are other things that you never notice about people."

  For a minute or so, I just watch the other three. "I was a dead man walking before I was even a teenager. There are a lot of things I see but choose not to react to."

  Raven Goddess frowns but never responds.

  After a few minutes of conversation, Cavallo and Serena, with Chin-Sun in tow, join Raven Goddess and myself.

  "You ready to move on?"

  Cavallo nods. "With the number of teeth we have, once we turn in all our quests, we should have enough experience to get our classes, and we should pick up some more bounty materials on the way back to Bone Fort."

  "Let's head for Bone Fort."

  * * * * *

  As I get my first glimpse of Bone Fort, my jaw nearly drops open. The outer curtain palisade is made from curved bones that look like ribs, rising more than fifteen meters from the ground. With a pale silvery-white glow emanating from the bones, an area of more than forty meters outside the wall is clearly lighted.

  Packs of skeletons, zombies, and ghouls wander around outside the light, but not a single one of them dares to set foot inside it.

  "There is no way to sneak past the undead at night. We have to fight our way in." Cavallo takes a tighter grip on his staff and advances on the undead outside the light.

  While the other four take the diamond formation they have been using, I move forward by myself.

  "{Earthen Spear} ."

  Earthen Spear: Spell Expression 76%

  I am getting better at casting Earth Elementalism spells, but I am not happy with how slowly I am progressing. Maybe, I am just an elitist asshole.

  The undead come on like a wave, but they are nothing but yard trash. I do not see even one Elite within the range of my Identify Monster , and none of them are over Level 5. As fast as they reach me, I kill them. With the earth spear in my hands, the heads and torsos of the things practically explode, when I hit them, and nothing gets closer than three meters.

  Following behind me, the others barely have anything to kill. Before I even have to replace my earth spear, we are inside the circle of light.

  Surprisingly, there are nearly forty players, in groups of two to five, in the lighted area outside Bone Fort. By staying within the light, they can hunt the undead in nearly perfect safety. Every single one of them stares at our group with their jaws hanging open.

  As we head for Bone Fort's gate, we leave their pointing fingers and whispered conversations behind.

  Cavallo chuckles derisively. "You really put on a show for the scrubs. For a second there, it felt like we were back in my shithole club."

  I sigh and shake my head. "You had to go and ruin my mood."

  Cavallo narrows his eyes. "If you didn't like my shithole club, no one was forcing you to keep coming back."

  "It was easy money."

  "Ha." Cavallo heads in the direction of a bone building with a plaque over the door that reads 'Mercenary Guild'.

  As she moves to follow Cavallo, Serena smirks and gives me a thumbs up.

  "Why do I have the feeling that woman is a troublemaker at heart?"

 
Raven Goddess rolls her eyes at me and wanders in the direction of the vendor stall along the palisade wall.

  Just like the walls, nearly all the buildings inside of Bone Fort are made out of bones. The ones that are not made from bone have the Church's sun symbol on them and look like nearly brand new construction.

  While the other three turn in their quests, Raven Goddess and I look at the wares in the stalls of the few vendors that are open. The only things of any use are consumables, like potions. Everything else is either junk or human scale.

  Looking at a passable quality, human-sized chainmail shirt, I do not manage to repress a sigh. As physically powerful as this body may be, I am always going to be pissed off about the difficulty of finding decent gear, hell, any gear.

  "You should be a blacksmith. You want to be a blacksmith." Raven Goddess waits for me to get a glimpse of her smirk, before turning her head away.

  I bite my tongue and refrain from giving her any satisfaction by responding.

  After about fifteen minutes, the other three come out of the Mercenary Guild, and following Raven Goddess, I go to join them.

  Cavallo looks up at me. "What about that Class you said you had?"

  Taking out the charcoal and blood colored crystal, I hand it to Cavallo. As he looks at it, he gets a somewhat conflicted expression.

  "You had better go someplace secluded to use that. It takes quite a while to absorb a Class from one of those crystals. Just remember, do not stop no matter what it hits you with. If you do, you will have to start all over again."

  Raven Goddess snickers. "It will not be as bad for Cavallo, as it was for you. You were using the Aspect Crystals of a God. Daray may have been a mighty follower of Crom Cruach, but he never crossed the threshold into Divinity. Still, it will probably take an hour or so to learn the Class within that crystal."

  "I'll get a room at the inn."

  Serena smiles at Cavallo. "After I am done helping Domina select a Class, I will join you. We should take the chance to relax a little."

  "I'll log out for a while. Log out and let me know when you all are done."

  I look at Raven Goddess. "Can you get someone to take me to the cryo-capsules we'll be using? I might as well tune them now."

  "Of course."

  After sitting down next to the palisade, I log out of the game.

  Ruins of Games Past

  Earth: The City of Mann

  May 15, 1337 AA

  After making the arrangements for Patrick to get his tools and access to the cryogenic quantum connection capsules, Morgan Danan went to the infirmary.

  Looking up from the computer screen in front of him, the doctor's face displayed momentary surprise. "Ma'am, is there something wrong?"

  "I need you to check my condition." Morgan did not show any hint of emotion. Her demeanor was that of the Immortal Ice Queen.

  "Has anything happened?"

  Morgan shook her head. "No. I just need to know if there are any changes."

  The doctor pointed to an examination table. "Lie down."

  After Morgan lay down, the doctor hit a button on the side of the table, and eight arms rose from the sides of the table. At the end of each of the arms, a thicker tip opened like a fan into a mesh screen that faintly glowed.

  The doctor sat down behind a different computer from the one he had been using. As he observed the data coming up on the screen, a faint frown broke through his emotionless mask. He made some adjustment to the program, and seeing the resulting data, his faint frown became more pronounced.

  "Ma'am, your condition has advanced significantly. After the last adjustments we made with nanite therapy, you should still be stable."

  Morgan sat up and looked at the doctor. "Will it become a problem?"

  The doctor took his time analyzing the data. When he finished, he shook his head. "No, Ma'am. Before we put you into cryogenic sleep, we can just perform the standard adjustments, with nanite therapy. It will take longer, but there should not be any other complications."

  "Thank you, Doctor."

  The doctor bowed to Morgan. "Ma'am."

  * * * * *

  When Vincent Torino walked past the door to the library, he saw Chin-Sun sitting at a table with a variety of different web pages and files open on three computer screens. He was too far away to read the contents of the pages, but he recognized a few of the sites. They were all sites related to Primacy Online .

  Vinny cleared his throat. "Chin-Sun?"

  As she turned around, Chin-Sun's eyes narrowed. "What do you want?"

  Vincent noted the borderline hostility in Chin-Sun's voice, but as was his normal habit, he kept his facial expression and voice neutral. "Are there any problems between Crom Cruach and yourself?"

  Chin-Sun immediately frowned. "Why do you always call that fat disgusting pig, Crom Cruach?"

  "Why shouldn't I call him Crom Cruach?"

  The borderline hostility in Chin-Sun's eyes turned into outright aggression. "He's nothing but a parasite. Sis has been letting that useless bastard sleep in the basement for years, and what does he do for her? She could hire a real professional to tune the capsules, and we would be better off. He's a fat, ugly, useless elementary school dropout. He's a total loser."

  Vincent was confused by Chin-Sun's hatred. What am I missing? What happened that would make her hate Crom Cruach so intensely?

  "What does his background matter if he can do the job?"

  Chin-Sun glared at Vincent. "How can someone fat and ugly like him do anything right?"

  Holding down the anger he felt, Vincent did not let his expression change. "Other than his appearance, do you have any reason to dislike him?"

  "He's fat and ugly, and he clings to my sister like a leech. He should be used to being hated." Chin-Sun's expression turned even more hostile.

  "Not everyone judges people on their appearance."

  "Sure they do. Ugly people are ostracized. They become losers, like Fat Pig. You just don't want to admit it. You should know. Don't you get the same treatment with that patchwork face?" The tone of Chin-Sun's voice was venomous.

  "I see." Vincent was unaware of the coldness that entered his eyes.

  As Vincent left the library, his steps were heavy, and his thoughts were dark. She is too much like Antonio. She is completely superficial and does not care about the character and strength of a person. The only thing that matters to her is if their outward appearance is pleasing to her. Is it a failing in the youth of today? I may be glossing over my memories, but I do not remember their kind of thoroughly superficial self-absorption in others in the days of my youth.

  After Vincent walked out, Chin-Sun huffed and angrily stood up, but after a moment, she sat down and glared at the empty door of the library. "Assholes! They're all assholes! I'll be better than they are! They're just jealous of me!"

  Turning back to the computer screens, Chin-Sun continued reading about the System Assist Mode, the use of magic, the known Classes, and the types of Summoner Classes in particular. Before logging out from Primacy Online , she said that she wanted to think about the Classes and did not choose a one.

  "I'll show them. I'll be the best that ever played this shitty game. They'll all worship at my feet." If anyone had been standing next to Chin-Sun, they would have had trouble understanding her constant stream of mumbled words.

  * * * * *

  Standing near a cryogenic quantum connection capsule, Vincent Torino silently watched Patrick Armagh work.

  "You've been watching me for ten minutes. Are you ever going to spit out what's bothering you, Vinny?" Patrick did not look up from the inspection panel of the capsule he was making adjustments to.

  Vincent frowned. "Why are you doing that instead of the technicians?"

  Patrick contemptuously snorted. "I'm better than anyone I've ever met at tuning these hunks of junk. Most of the technicians never bother to learn why or how the quantum upload of the human consciousness works. There are probably engineers that design thes
e things that could do a better job than me, but you're never going to see them in the field."

  "You understand the mechanics of the quantum upload?"

  "Arena sheathes have a data net connection, just like regular characters. When I was a fluffer, I started using that connection to study. Before I was finished raising Thunder God, I was tuning my own capsule.

  "There are side effects of tuning the capsule the way I do. If you have Thompson's, the one hundred percent upload will exacerbate the nervous system degeneration, but that little bit of an extra edge that you get from a one hundred percent upload can mean all the difference in the world in a tight spot."

  Vincent's frown grew deeper. "What do mean by a one hundred percent upload?"

  "Synchronization is bullshit. Your consciousness is removed from your body when you upload. If you were synchronizing your physical Earth mind with your character sheathe, how the fuck would you be able to play in cryo-sleep? What the term really means is the percentage of your consciousness that gets sucked out of your body and uploaded to the quantum net. The Church just uses the term synchronization as a blind to obfuscate what's really going on. Most people just tune out when it comes to techno-babel, and even if they didn't, how many people have the requisite knowledge to understand the mechanics of the quantum upload? I've seen a few articles, detailing the upload process, disappear from the data net within a day or so at most of being posted." After closing the inspection panel, Patrick glanced at Vincent.

  "Do you want me to tune your capsules?"

  "Let me talk to Laura." Vincent's eyes revealed a hint of nervousness. Thompson's Syndrome was among the few things the scared him.

  Patrick shrugged. "Sure."

  Patrick haphazardly dumped the tools he had been using back in the toolbox, and holding onto it, he rose to his feet.

  "Is Chin-Sun what's eating you?"

  For a few moments, while he gathered his thoughts, Vincent stared at Patrick. "Yes. Chin-Sun's mentality is warped. She hates you. It is a completely irrational hatred, with no valid basis. With the intensity of her hatred, she might deliberately try to get you killed."