Unknown (37 page)

The prices for cigarette lots kept soaring out of all proportion. The current auctions had them in the region of five hundred-plus apiece. The auto buy account was flooded with private messages. Some expressed their disbelief; others threatened; a few naive players asked me to share the recipe. A news reporter hassled me for a private interview. That could prove useful a bit later once I'd closed the license deal: then I'd have to take steps to remove the target from my back.

I wrote him back asking about suitable interview dates and other details. If I could play for time for a bit, I could hopefully come out of the closet by then.

I rolled another hundred cigarettes, for myself and for networking purposes. My bodyguards were already in the group chat, asking if I wanted to join them for morning coffee. I got the hint. I invited them in and we had a nice little talk sending fragrant smoke curling to the ceiling.

Finally, Taali arrived. She stormed into the room forcing the bodyguards to
 
jump up and line the walls. She stared at the haze-filled room, indignant, then opened the window and waved her hands, trying to banish the colorful smoke from the room. The lieutenant chuckled and snapped his fingers. A tangible breeze swept through the chamber.

That got me curious. "What's this spell you have? Draft #5?"

He didn't appreciate my sense of humor. "It's not a spell. Pure mental force."

"What do you mean, mental? I don't think I remember this skill in the game."

"There is no skill. There's an aptitude. You see, those who've been digital for a while—and I've been here for the best part of two years now—we don't seem to depend as much on the game code. We start to push the envelope a bit as we learn to control our own power outside of the limits set for us by the game developers. Nothing extraordinary, really. Children begin to grow, old people rejuvenate, and little by little, we learn to control magic. Your own element starts to obey first: I'm an air wizard, you know. And then... God knows."

Taali and I didn't move, digesting what he'd just said. "Holy cow," she whispered.

The wizzy nodded. "Exactly. It's not a game anymore. Hasn't been for quite some time—for us, at least. Probably, if two digitized partners wanted a baby really badly, I can't see why they couldn't..."

Now we all fell silent. The world puzzle had turned again, revealing to us its new sides and colors. The bodyguards tactfully made themselves scarce while Taali was pressing me for more details, oohing and aahing with concern. But behind it I could see she was proud of her man, a go-getter who wasn't going with the flow but went out on a limb seeking opportunities and grabbing them. I felt flattered even if I realized that her noises of support were just one of the things that made for a happy marriage. Some women don't seem to understand such simple stuff as they vent their indignation with their Tom, Dick or Harry apparently not being able to get off the couch and change their lives for the better.

As I lounged on the bed admiring my paladin maid, I remembered Fuckyall's gift. I took out the bracelet and looked up its characteristics.

Weeping Shackles

Item Class: Rare

Upgrades: Life Stone x2

Class Restrictions: Paladin

Minimal level: 150

+90 to Armor, +40 to Strength, +40 to Agility

When the owner sustains damage, Life Tears have a 24% chance of spraying, restoring the group members' life +120 pt.

Now that was a bracelet! I didn't even want to know how much it cost, or my inner greedy pig would smother me with a pillow in my sleep. "Taali? I've got something for you."

She turned away from studying her portrait on the wall and gave me an inviting and curious smile. I didn't beat around the bush and handed her the item.

She peered at it. Her eyes opened wide. "You can't be serious. Just don't tell me you've farmed it yourself. Although I wouldn't put it past you."

I shrugged, faking indifference. "A swap. I traded it with Fuckyall. It's his personal item... was."

"Holy cow," she whispered, pressing it to her chest. "I'll have to grow into it. Back in real life, I have this solid silver bracelet... and I think this one costs more. It's all so relative..."

She
 
jumped onto the bed and straddled me. "Want another example of relativity?"

Slowly, she began undoing the top buttons of her blouse as I watched, intrigued. She reached under the collar and pulled out a small blue stone on a piece of string.

"Do you recognize it?" she asked. "A gnoll camp and a sad-eyed girl..."

"A laurite," I said. "
The
 
laurite..."

"That's it," Taali gave me a proud, happy smile. "The one you gave me on the day we met. I'm sorry, but it's more precious to me than Fuckyall's bracelet. That's relativity for you..."

I reached out and touched the stone. I looked into her eyes and gently pulled the laurite down toward me, making her lean closer and closer.

The next two hours went too quickly. Still, I couldn't complain. Tired but pleased with ourselves, we were lounging in bed when I received
 
Dan's message. Apparently, the meeting was taking too long; he didn't expect them to come to a decision before tomorrow. He was leaving me the bodyguards begging me not to stick my neck out, with a warning that the situation was heating up and sharing the tobacco pie had created more waves than we'd expected. He attached a large file from Mr. Simonov containing his propositions on forming a tobacco alliance and creating an AlterWorld tobacco market. I scrolled through pages of diagrams of suggested volumes, market coverage rates and distribution channels. Dan insisted I forwarded the file to the Admins straight away and asked for a green light. If we got it, pushing the Council for the right decisions would be much easier.

Oh well. He and his friends seemed to be working hard and their objectives seemed to coincide with mine. I forwarded it.

Now I needed to decide what to do with myself in the meantime. Taali didn't have this problem: blaming the full-immersion time restrictions, she took off back into the real world. After racking my brains for a while, I remembered the idea I'd been toying with for a while. I still had a good half a ton of loot that Teddy was lugging around. I had to sort it out but I really didn't want to go out into the courtyard. Skeptically I glanced over the room, pushed all the furniture into the corners and pulled out the Summoning Whistle.

The room rang with the bear's happy hollering, sounds of smashed crockery and a crushed chair. I went flying onto the bed. Apparently, the room was smaller than I thought. The door crashed open as one of the bodyguards attempted to break in. He hit the bear's side blocking the doorway and bounced back. I heard the electric crackle of a spell being cast and hurried to remove the bear.

I was facing a scene of complete desolation. Now I knew the full meaning of the bull in a china shop thing. The lieutenant froze in the doorway. He cut short the almost-cast spell, shaking the remaining sparks off his fingers and shrugged, studying the room.

"You're too much, you know that? If you need to summon your bear so badly, why not do it downstairs in the yard? We'll cover you."

"Sorry, guys. I've never done well in geometry. I just failed to fit the bear into the space available."

We all stomped down the stairs. As I sorted through the loot, the passersby got an eyeful of my bear—a rare sight for low-level players. A second lieutenant arrived and helped his troops to carry all the goodies to the nearest store. Here I must mention that all five bodyguards were company officers which said a lot about their professionalism and their place in the clan. They all laughed at my penny loot but apparently enjoyed helping me, even if to escape the boredom. I made about two hundred gold—peanuts considering the recent developments. At least I managed to sort through a whole lot of crafting ingredients I had set aside. I had something to do now, leveling alchemy. Finally, I checked Teddy's characteristics to make sure I hadn't missed any spare points.

Type: Riding Mount

Name: Hummungus (Red Bear)

Level: 26

Strength: 80

Constitution: 50

Attack: 57-71

Speed: 10 mph

Riders: 2

Weight-carrying capacity: 1000 lbs.

Special abilities: Armor Carrier, Arms Carrier,
 
Mule II, Transporter

The latter ability, which I'd chosen at level 25, allowed me to sit a second player on my mount: an option that became more and more important in the light of my socialization and especially my relationship with Taali. That's life for you! The process of a battle bear turning into a family couch.

Once I was sold out, I treated the guys to a dinner and succumbed to their cue, distributing more cigarettes to their night watch. Then I walked back upstairs to my room. Until then, that recipe had been nothing but a nuisance. Talking about making a rod for one's own back. There I was, sitting in my room like a chunk of cheese in a mousetrap. Everyone around me was twitching their nose, sniffing it, too scared to raise their little claws to snatch it. Which was a good thing. I didn't really want to be clawed by anyone who wanted a piece of me.

The first auctions were now finishing. The cigarette lots went for one to two thousand gold. I only had the mass media to thank for building up the right amount of hysteria. Now, about every half-hour, another few hundred gold dropped into my account. The Admins made sure they got their cut. At least they hadn't taxed Fuckyall's bracelet. Still, I probably shouldn't abuse the trading market.

The reporters had offered me three thousand for an exclusive. That sounded quite interesting. My reply was noncommittal; I wanted them to stew in their own juices for a while.

I spent the rest of the day doing an alchemist's finicky job. I checked the ingredients to see what I could do with them and what else I might still need; then I bought up the missing bits, including a whole recipe library. Soon my camp kit included Night Vision, Absolute Vision, Fish Breath, Minor Levitation, several poisons and antidotes and even a dozen vials of attack spells—the local version of Molotov cocktails.

Finally, I received the Admins' answer. Overall, they approved the idea of an alliance and only suggested different production rates. They also promised to install smoke protection for the under-18s as the first step to the product's legalization. I forwarded everything to
 
Dan and in another thirty minutes, received his invitation to arrive at the castle at a staff officers' luncheon: to announce the results, so to say. They expected me at ten in the morning via a portal my bodyguards were supposed to create.

I loved the postscript:

PS. BTW, do you think you could bring some cigs along? Take as many as you can. The staff officers here keep passing the smokes around like school kids which is a bit ridiculous considering our position. Tnx a bunch.

I
 
spent the rest of the evening lounging in bed, devouring another novel by my favorite author. My book subscription kept flooding my inbox with new titles, provided I had the time to read.

I fell asleep without even knowing it—and awoke strangely. Blade-rattling and spell-bellowing suddenly broke the still of the night. I sat up, my heart pounding, when the door swung open letting in several warriors I hadn't seen before. They went for me. I tried to jump up; my feet got caught in the blanket and I collapsed onto the thin floral rug.

Warning! Group portal activation.

Destination: Sunrise Zone of the East Castle.

The portal popped open, and I tumbled onto the portal hall's stone tiles.

"Shit," my lungs forced out the air. Crouching, I looked around. Lieutenant Brown froze next to me in an awkward pose. He had barely half life left, his health dwindling rapidly. Dozens of wounds covered his body, some obviously not good, smoking and gushing black blood. One arm dangled uselessly at his side. The Lieutenant didn't seem to notice it; his eyes were glazed over, his lips moved as he posed questions in combat chat to his men in the inn.

A few more fighters ran up to me and helped me to my feet. The cleric on duty was hurriedly healing the Lieutenant while my bodyguards started appearing around me in their crystal resurrection spheres. One, two, three... pause. Finally, the last one. All present and correct.

Dan burst into the hall, followed by a captain and two dozen fighters in full gear. Lieutenant Brown raised his hand to stop them.

"We don't need reinforcements. My guys are all here in their underpants, look," he nodded at the bodyguards hurriedly pulling on some simple khaki clothes someone had fetched from the guards' room. Which was logical, considering the fact that they had to be respawning here all the time so someone had to make sure they didn't walk around the castle half-naked.

Dan raised his hand, attracting his attention. "Report."

Brown waited for the captain to nod his affirmative and stood to attention. "Mercenaries, names hidden. At least four groups of three, levels slightly higher than ours, buffed up to the gills. Poisoned weapons. The two rogue groups managed to come real close before our Alex could observe them, and you know him, he's not a bad stealther himself. They engaged our guards' post in the corridor, then opened the doors on us and the guarded object. According to orders, I attempted to pull Max out. Three times they broke the spell. It's a miracle he managed to escape. My men lasted another fifteen seconds. That's it."

"Which means?"

"It's an elite team job, the best you can find, not for hire. I have a funny feeling it's the Olders."

Dan
 
raised a surprised eyebrow. The Lieutenant went on, "First, the bar belongs to them. The attackers knew where we were and they seemed to know the rooms' exact layout. The whole thing was choreographed like a practice fight. Plus, the guards failed to arrive—I think they had no right of entry to the top floors as they're private property. Secondly, the speed with which they opened the guest apartment doors. I even think they pretended to be picking the locks while in fact they had full access to them to begin with. To open a third-degree protection lock in ten seconds is bordering on fantasy. But two locks..."