'There' Kai thought, when he saw two tired men dressed in armored uniforms, with large halberds resting against their shoulders. Deciding to walk towards the guards, Kai gave them a brief greeting.
"Hello, Wanderer." The closer guard said, gripping his halberd slightly tighter. "What do you want?"
"I heard the city guard is having trouble with all the wanderers causing chaos, is there any way to help?"
"Hah, there's always something to do," The guard said, slightly surprised, "You know, there's a few criminals with bounties. If you could capture one of them and bring them to us…"
The second guard gave a hesitant, disbelieving glance to the first before speaking, "oh, absolutely. We can give you a list of criminals, and you bring them to us unconscious. We'll be somewhere nearby on patrol for most of every day. We could even give you ten gold per criminal."
Quest offered: Criminal justice. Bring unconscious criminals to the city guards Donald Ironstride and Lucius Ironhelm during their patrol.
Accepting this quest will give you: item: list of criminals. -50 reputation.
Rejecting the quest will give you: +30 reputation.
Reward: 10 gold coins per criminal captured. -20 reputation per criminal captured
Criminals brought: 0
Accept Y/N.
That was odd, why would helping the city guard lower his reputation? But then again, It was only 50 reputation. Compared to the 151 reputation Kai already had, it wasn't much. Besides, Kai didn't know what reputation gave him, while ten gold was a hundred dollars.
"I accept," Kai stated.
"That's great!" The first guard said as he slapped Kai's back. "we'll get you the list made in no time."
The second guard took a thick book out of a leather pouch on his belt, opened it on the first page, flipped a few pages forwards, and started writing on a separate piece of paper.
"What's that?" Kai asked.
"Oh, it's a… list of all known uncaptured criminals."
"Why don't you just give it to me?"
"Hah, as if. This is enchanted to continuously keep track of known criminals. If I lost this, it would be fifty gold from my pocket. I won't trust it to a stranger, I'm sure you understand."
"Fair enough." Kai waited for the guard to give him the list. When it was finally handed to Kai, it was scribbled full of over fifty names and titles of the various criminals, along with their crimes such as bulgar, murderer and pickpocket. Fifty names, that was five hundred gold, or five thousand dollars! Could Kai actually make a living by playing a video game? Hell, Kai would play the game even if it cost, just for the ability to walk. And now, Kai could make actual money. "Thank you! This is great."
"Heh, I'm sure. Good to do business with you, be sure to bring us plenty of those people." The guards chuckled as Kai walked away.
The sky had already gone dark by that time, and Kai decided it was time to log out. Logging out was possible any time, any where, but outside of safe zones, or if the player went to sleep to log out, the character would remain in game on a sort of autopilot. Rumor was, the autopilot was especially bad, capable only of barely defending itself. It was safe to say logging out in a safe zone was preferable.
There were a few safe zones in the city, mainly the spawning areas, taverns and inns. Kai simply asked around to find the nearest such building, a tavern called 'Stump's End'.
"Good afternoon, what can I get you?" The barkeep, a man missing both arms from the elbow asked.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"I'm just here to log out." Kai stated, receiving a puzzled glance from the barkeep.
"That's fine… I think. Is 'logging out' some sort of Wanderer thing?"
Kai nodded, before opening his interface, and selecting the option, briefly wondering what it looked like to the barkeep.
—
Kai opened his eyes to the sterile white walls of his room. He was once again unfeeling, capable of moving only a few muscles in his face, having even his breathing done for him by a machine. After a moment of staring, Kai willed his phone open and sent a message to his dad, thanking him for introducing Kai to ECLIPSE, saying that it had been fun. Then, with nothing else to do, Kai opened ECLIPSE's website, remembering their mention of 'long time join service.'
Kai decided to read from there, opening the Link highlighted by the words. 'Long term join service: for $1500 a month, you can rent a life support capsule. The capsule will keep you alive and healthy, stimulating your muscles, feeding you, and keeping you hydrated. With this, your body will feel exactly the same, or healthier than it did before entering the capsule, all the while you can fully immerse yourself in ECLIPSE for years in-game at a time.'
It was almost a disappointment, being essentially exactly the same as the hospital, but it was much cheaper. Moving to a capsule might mean that Kai could get out of his debt.
Five minutes later, when a nurse entered the room, Kai asked him a question through his phone. "Excuse me, but could I talk with my doctor? Dr. Mercer."
After waiting a bit longer, the doctor entered the room. "So Kai, what's the problem?"
"Hi, doc. A few minutes ago, I tried this new fully immersive game. And I loved it. It's called ECLIPSE."
"I've heard of it. I imagine it was good to walk again?"
"Yeah. It was amazing. Anyways, the company has these life support capsules for long term gameplay. It'd be cheaper than the hospital, so I want to know if it's possible with my… situation."
"Yeah, sure. I can check if they can support you, though I can't think why not. Do they have any customer support I could call or?"
Kai quickly checked the website, and gave her the number. The phone rang for a second before a feminine voice, too smooth to be anything but Ai, answered. "You have reached customer service for QUANTA tech, how may I help you?"
"Hi, I have a patient interested in your life support capsules for the game ECLIPSE, I need to know the specifics of the capsules, and their long term effects to be able to say if it is possible for him to enter one of the capsules."
The conversation lasted for a few minutes, before the customer service Ai determined that it wasn't allowed to give further information, and contacted an employee instead. Dr. Mercer quickly re-explained what she had told the Ai.
"Hi Dr Mercer, you can call me Adam. We've had similar cases before, with customers needing special treatment or medicine in the capsules. The biggest problem is the transport of the patient, if they're on life support, but once they're in the capsule, we could keep them alive even if they were nothing but a brain. In addition, the capsules are directly connected to the quantum megacomputer, allowing for insanely fast connection, and each capsule has a state of the art non-inclusive BCI, allowing for the absolute peak of immersion. Heck, the capsules are even capable of modifying the user's brain chemistry, allowing the capsule to heal trauma, depression and much more. How long were you planning on staying in the game?" The male voice came through the phone.
"As long as possible." Kai answered before his doctor could reply.
It quieted the man for a while, until eventually, he continued talking. "The capsules aren't offered for longer than two months at the moment. Too many people wanting to give them a try, too few capsules made."
Kai was a little disappointed, but it was better than nothing. Two months, what would feel like an entire year in game time, enough time to make some money, and get him back to the hospital.
"That won't be possible. My patient is fully paralyzed. His heart doesn't beat by itself nor can he breathe by himself. Moving him to a capsule might barely be possible, but getting him out? From what I understand of how the capsules support his life, Kai would likely go braindead. It would take too long to get him out. The risk isn't worth it, especially if the major benefit is being cheaper."
"That's… a pity. I'm afraid in that case, there isn't much we can do." There was a long pause, "Actually, you know what? There is one project you might be interested in, I'll just need to ask my boss to meet up with you, you could sign an NDA, and we'd get a solution for you."
"That would be great, thank you."
"Alright, my boss will contact you when he hears of this. Have a good day!" Adam said, as he ended the call.
Dr. Mercer broke the silence that resounded once the call ended, "that sounds like good news. But I imagine you want to get back in your game. And don't worry, so long as you sleep at least seven hours when logged out of the game, you can spend as much time as you want in it."
It was good to hear, if slightly disappointing to learn that he couldn't just sleep online. But at least he had been right about not needing to worry about taking care of himself. Once the doctor left the room, with nothing else to do, Kai entered ECLIPSE once again. Next thing Kai knew was opening his eyes in the stump's end tavern, standing exactly where he'd logged out. He had missed the feeling of his legs beneath him.