Unknown (21 page)

We could let them go for the time being until the next ride but Eric asked me to leave Hummungus near the inn for a bit of atmosphere. He sat his own beast by the opposite wall. Together, they made a fine pair of doorway statues, enormous and threatening.

I was already inside and walking across the hall nodding to a few players that looked familiar when Taali PM'd me saying the bears wouldn't let her in.

I waved to the instantly-wary Eric and walked out. The furious girl was keeping a safe distance from the doorway. I could see Bug hurrying toward us at the end of the street.

"Off, Hummungus. They are friends," I patted the bear's neck and walked over to Taali raising my hands in a mock gesture of surrender. I leaned over her, giving her time to decide whether she wanted me to kiss her or not. At first, she recoiled, her hands pushing at my chest. She paused and looked up into my eyes. Shaking her gorgeous mane of hair with determination, she grasped my neck. Her lips, hot and impatient, clung to mine. What a girl.

I heard a sarcastic applause behind my back. It was Eric, just making sure his new friend hadn't gotten into more trouble.

"Ah. So this is the girl who stuck by you through thick and thin when you were banged up? Pretty lady."

"Banged up?" Taali tensed. "What's he talking about?"

"Never mind," I shrugged. "I'll tell you later. Wait a bit, here's the rogue coming, he's invited too. Good guy, Bug's the name. We have a reason to celebrate."

She gave me a puzzled look. Had she thought I'd invited her to a candlelit date? I had to be losing my grip. I'd focused too much on my own problems just lately.

I touched her hand. "I'll explain it all to you in a moment," I whispered. "Just wait a bit. Everything happened too quickly, that's all. I'm sure you'll understand."

Taali squeezed my hand and nodded. "Okay. I was worried, you know. You told me you were going perma. I just thought you hadn't... or couldn't..." she sniffled.

"Hush, baby. The worst is already past."

She raised a puzzled eyebrow. I gave her a wink.

When Bug came closer, the alert bear needed a new dose of calming down. It wasn't a good idea to unsettle him any further and upset the passersby, so I gave him another pat behind the ear before clicking the 
Dismiss mount
. The bear vanished into thin air. Excellent. With a regular horse, you'd have to clean him after every race, brush him, give him food and drink, check his hooves every five minutes. And this was more like calling for a cab: you just summoned him whenever you needed a ride, then folded him back into an artifact.

              Taali only shook her head, watching. "You're a Necro, right? Hummungus used to be your zombie. And now he's more like a lapdog, all alive and obedient."

"That's where you got it wrong. I'm not a Necro, I'm a Knight. And as you can see, my Teddy is more than alive. Come on now, in you go. I think Eric's got a table waiting for us."

He had indeed. Eric had staked us a good table in the middle of the room and was now busy dictating his order to the waitress, waving his hands like an angler boasting the size of his catch. Looked like we were in for at least a roasted pig. He met my eyes and glanced toward the gong. How could I forget. My hand on Taali's elbow gently directed her toward the table.

"Go sit yourself down," I whispered. "I won't be a minute."

I walked out into the center of the room and picked up the heavy mallet. Conversations died down. The other players turned in my direction. I took a swing and hit the gong, filling the room with its vibrations.

Everyone
 
jumped up from their seats, catcalling and clapping their hands. Someone whistled. It felt as if I'd just drawn a line under my past life and turned a new page. This was my new life now.

"The first round's on me. This is to living!"

I didn't get any gifts—apparently, I didn't look enough like a scared level 1 Elven maid to prompt a baby shower of sympathy. Which was good because I wouldn't have known how to accept it from so many strangers. Everyone was happy for me and drank to my future fortune. Which, for me, was more than enough.

Just as I was taking my seat at the table, Eric—who looked embarrassed for some reason—slammed the oak table top with a heavy triangular shield. He'd already grilled me on our way there, demanding to know my future character configuration. Now he seemed to have come up with a welcome gift. But why was he blushing like a schoolgirl?

"A gift. Specially for you. Hang on a bit, don't try it on yet. Let me explain first. There's a location, called Hatred Fortress. A real-life castle, I tell you, filled with very humanoid aggros. Not easy for a solo player, but quite doable for a full 100+ group. Mobs guard the walls in threes, usually two
 
archers and a shield bearer who holds two shields covering them. Serious tanks love his left-handed shield—it's a rare drop, especially appreciated by Death Knights. Quit grinning, this isn't it."

He looked at my disheartened face and laughed. "This is its twin brother. A right-hand shield: extremely rare and just as useless. Useless for almost everybody but you. Those who've chosen a one-handed sword can't use it because then they can't use their sword hand. And those who've chosen to be ambidextrous, only do it because they want to use two swords. In other words, an object of unique parameters and equally useless. Enjoy."

I had a closer look at it.

Jangur's Battle Shield

Item Class:
 
Rare

Slot: Right Hand

Effect: +20 to Strength, +20 to Constitution, +55 to Armor

Fences the caster off with a protective shield absorbing 500 points damage.

Cooldown: 5 min

Oh. My inner greedy pig clutched his heart and slid down the wall. As for me, I was nearing nirvana. This was my sort of thing. These were the kind of bells and whistles that came with unconventional leveling. A unique antique object, as useless as a handleless suitcase: too heavy to carry and too good to scrap. How many treats like this were stashed away in high-level players' rooms and cookie boxes? I wanted it all, in triplicate.

"Thanks, dude," I managed. "You couldn't have done better if you tried. You know my leveling pattern now. So if you come across something in the same league, just let me know. No more gifts, please. I'll be happy to pay what they cost."

I patted the shield one last time and forced it down the bag. This was one of the things I liked here: even now that I was perma-stuck, the world around had preserved certain virtual qualities. For instance, my bag was spacious enough to fit three dozen footsoldier's shields and the same number of spears. I preferred not to dig too deep into physics and wrote it down as local spatial magic. Easier that way. Could well be magic—who was I to tell?

Bug waved to me to attract my attention, then glanced around meaningfully: 
was it all right to speak openly there?
 I nodded.

The kid stood up and reported, "I took all the trash to a shop, got fifteen gold for it in total. Then I auctioned the more interesting ones. They weren't too special so they went off for a couple gold each, but it's still sixty-three gold plus fifteen, that's seventy-eight gold, nothing to sniff at. Half of it is yours, as agreed."

The sales mode window blinked open. Bug dropped off the money and PM'd me a detailed sales report. Excellent job. The kid was already level 16—not bad at all. His class wasn't easy to level: you needed patience and a good knowledgeable group. In gratitude, I sent him all my gray and black bracelets—over a hundred in total. This extra dozen gold didn't make much difference to me but it could help him rise another couple levels.

Bug didn't play hard to get. He thanked me calmly, accepting the gift.

Taali hadn't wasted her time, either, and had already made level 25. Ah, dammit, this wasn't the day to skimp. About ninety red bracelets landed in her bag. She was more express in her gratitude, earning me another kiss.

After that, we just relaxed and had a good time. A new future, excellent food, a few trusty friends and your girl sitting next to you—what else do you need to enjoy a night out? I took a moment to send my compliments to the innkeeper and inquire about a room. No problem, apparently, even though he strongly recommended I moved to the third floor. My new perma status demanded the keeping up of appearances. The inn's second floor was reserved for regular players who either wanted to stay overnight or sought some entertainment. It wasn't a proper place for a perma player to stay. I didn't insist. The new life had gone to my head and the money was burning a hole in my pocket. This was how I got myself a new monthly expense of two hundred gold.

We whooped it up until late at night. Bug was the first to bail out. Eric looked us over with an all-knowing stare and drifted off. The sad Taali thawed out a bit and even dragged me out for a dance a couple times to some artless tune from three local musicians who showed up later that night.

Finally, when the inn was almost deserted and she couldn't dance any more, she sat opposite me and buried her chin in her hand, staring at me with those moist, shiny, tipsy eyes. Then she leaned toward my ear and whispered,

"If you just wait a bit... I need to relogin. I still have two hours of full immersion on my limit left. You could show me your stamp collection."

Hips swaying, she headed for the ladies' room.

We walked upstairs together.

I'd had a lovely sleep. A clock somewhere in my peripheral vision showed a few minutes past nine. The PM icon flashed soundlessly: last night, I'd turned off all the audio settings. Sometimes I felt like a cyborg stuffed with implants. There I was, alive in a living world, but surrounded with pop-up windows of system messages, chat boxes and hits/mana bars. It would be a good idea to ask Eric about his experiences. An old-time perma, he must have a much deeper fusion rate.

I'd woken up perfectly alone. Taali had logged out a long time ago. Logical, really: no reason why she should spend the night in a capsule, and a 3D one at that.

I checked my inbox and saw her message. Oh well. I was accused of taking advantage of an intoxicated girl, followed by a vague promise of more of the same tonight. Women and their logic!

Next in the inbox were my two newsfeeds I'd subscribed to. Shame the third-floor apartments didn't come with room service. Would be great to order a coffee and some sandwiches to go with my morning read. Now I'd have to go and take a table downstairs. Only the fourth floor rooms came with chambermaids summoned by a bell. They were for high middle class—not the stinking rich who had their own mansions, towers or even castles, but for those who could afford to part with five hundred gold a month—a sum to be reckoned with, whether here or in the real world.

I pulled on my seedy newb rags. About time I got rid of them. Today had to be the day. As I walked downstairs, the kitchen regaled my nostrils with the delights of fried bacon. I couldn't resist it much longer and ordered a big fried breakfast upstairs in my room. It wasn't as if it could clog my arteries any more,
 
was it?

The waitress promptly brought in a plateful of fried eggs, tomatoes, onions and crunchy wafer-thin slices of bacon. Plus some cheese on toast served with butter roses, a pot of jam and a large mug of steaming coffee. All included, just like in Benidorm. Spending money started to feel good.

Now I could finally have a good look around my new room. Last night I was too busy with other things. The room was twice the size of the one I'd had before. The large king size bed had already passed the stress test with flying colors. Also in the room were a desk, two chairs, a recliner, a carved wardrobe and a massive chest. Heavy curtains covered the tall wide window. Excellent. Still I wouldn't mind having a peek at the fourth-floor rooms, just to know what to aim for.

Once I'd satisfied my first hunger, I sat back with the ever-hot coffee mug and opened the newsfeed. First I checked the real-world headlines for what I wanted to know most:

The Easy Lease Company has been reported to have trebled their FIVR capsules lease deposits. It claims that over 16% of all capsules rented within the past year have been returned in non-operable condition. The most common faults include reflashed memory, tampered chips and hacked monitoring hardware.

The RusStats' records for the last six months have shown suicide rates in Russia to have dropped 21%.

Wages in all sectors related to development and promotion of new virtual worlds have reached a new record high. However, the industry experiences a severe shortage of qualified professionals at all levels.

Russia's three biggest companies specializing in virtual worlds tailor-made to private order have announced their being unable to accept new orders for the next two years. Despite the recent soar in prices, demand still far outpaces supply in this particular sector of the gaming industry.

A new high tech facility growing artificial intelligence crystals has been finally launched in Malaysia. This is hoped to decrease the deficit of AI crystals on the world market. The construction of the second phase of the project is said to be progressing ahead of schedule.

The tragic accident a week ago when the militant faction of the Femen radical group had detonated both of the Padishah virtual world's data centers caused our readers to commiserate deeply with the families of over a thousand perma players who inhabited the Padishah world together with over eight hundred thousand regular players. Yesterday, the backup database was finally installed on the game's new servers. Much to everyone's relief, the digitized individuals proved safe and sound and had even achieved a certain progress in the game. They expressed their surprise at the absence of regular players during the past week. The government is yet to comment on this remarkable event.

I closed the inbox and leaned back in awe. Just think what opportunities this could breed... prospects of immortality, even? And what if I got fed up with it all? Was there a way to finish my life permanently, so to speak? Because if there wasn't, fifty percent of AlterWorld's population in another thousand years or so could consist of half-witted level-100500 Dark Overlords? Oh well...