A general "Aaaaa" erupted, and all nearby spawns stepped back as if bracing themselves against an oncoming evil.

One soldier addressed me harshly - "I don't know who you are or what you are, but you must leave this town immediately!"

You would think that people living in a world full of magic would not react that way when they see a little bit of magic, but you cannot fight so easily against decades of indoctrination. As their priests and their ruling class tell them all day long that magic is evil, they end up believing it.

Only their fucking priests' magic is not evil. Oh, yes, true.

I sighed and scanned the area but saw no sign of the sergeant. He could at least calm the idiots and make sure this would not end up with a bloodbath. Cala had a good relationship with him, fostered over many pints of beer that I treated him to, and I hoped to leverage it. Oh well.

Hearing the soldier, Alice stared at me in shock.

I ignored the commotion, focused on her, and gave her a hug.

"Are you okay? Just let the potions work," - I said, keeping my hand on her shoulder to prevent her from standing up in order to maximize the effect of the healing potion.

As she looked around, I stood protectively by her side, aware of the murmurs around us: "Sorcery, sorcery, sorcery."

In a tense, hesitating movement, the soldiers pointed their pikes at us, their intent clear: we were not welcome here.

Without the sergeant present, I need to rely on my diplomacy, and that's one of my weak points. I sighed.

Speaking to no one in particular, I tried to keep things calm: "We will leave peacefully, and no one needs to get hurt."

A veiled threat, now that was very diplomatic!

I shrugged. Well, I did my best.

It's quite a feat to go from a reputation of being 'above friendly' to 'hostile' in less than a day. Indeed the reputation catastrophe day.

My eyes fell on a group of people gathered around a priest, who I guessed was Manchua, the local priest that the banker had mentioned. Oh well, hopefully, he is sane enough not to escalate things too much. Lol, basing myself on the sanity of an NPC!

I almost snorted, looking at him. He's so predictable, the typical manipulator. He hides behind a mass of people to spew his drivel!

Despite the accusation of sorcery, I was relieved that my gamble had worked. Although my reputation had been tarnished, at least Alice was alive. That was close to a miracle!

As I held Alice close, I couldn't help but ponder why I cared for her so deeply. Sure, she had been Cala's companion for years, but I could easily replace her with a more skilled mercenary. Yet, the idea of replacing her felt wrong, like a betrayal. It was like I was no longer playing a game but living it. I was Cala, and her emotions were mine. Does she have different feelings than I do? No, these are my feelings. Really?

I realized with a start that Cala's feelings had become mine. Even though I had taken over her character just a year ago from Markus, it felt like Alice and I had been companions for almost a decade. That was how long Cala had been with Alice, and the bond they had forged during that time was palpable. The countless battles and close calls had left an indelible mark on Cala, and that mark was now etched into me.

Fuck, I need a break!

A break? OK, anyhow, I needed to raise a ticket quickly before things escalated any further. As the visual interface did not show up, I tried blindly leaving the game in the hope that it would work, but it did nothing. The functionality seemed to be missing too.

As I made my blind gestures to exit the game, the soldiers became more irritated and pushed their pikes nervously. I wondered if the programmers had been stupid enough to restrict the areas where you could exit the game. It would have been complete bullshit if they did it, even if various groups had supported that kind of upgrade.

Finally, I helped Alice stand up, and we left, supporting each other, with the troop following us closely.

I could only hope that a fight could be avoided. If they did attack us... well... my reputation would only plummet further, but at that point, it won't really matter anymore.

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OK, one problem at a time; if exiting the game does not work from any location, maybe I need to leave the area through the portal to the beginner's lands, where the official entry point is.

As we walked near each other, I glanced at her neck, where the faint line of the rupture was still visible. Huh, who would have thought that I could fix that?

A shiver ran down my spine at the sight of that scar. Do I have to fear any impurities I might have added with my dirty hands when I put the pieces together? How realistic did they make the game?

Could she get a stroke or something like that from those damn impurities? Should I take her to a healer to get checked out?

Yeah, I'll do that; I better be sure.

After leaving the town, the soldiers stopped at the gates, and we made our way to the portal place. It was hidden between some rocks, away from the areas frequented by spawns, but to my surprise, I couldn't find it.

I looked around and tried again, feeling annoyed that I might have missed the place, but no matter how hard I searched, I kept ending up in the same spot. I was at the right place, but the portal was missing. Weird.

"The portal is not here!" came a strange voice reverberating next to me. The voice seemed to be coming from far away and, at the same time, very near, which was confusing at first.

I had to look attentive in the direction from where the voice was coming to see him: a ghost. I could only see and hear him due to my improved character's senses, the assassin's vision II level. You generally cannot see player ghosts, except in some 'ghost-friendly' areas designed for that purpose. Only persons with improved senses can see these ghosts, especially when the ghost is attempting to communicate with the living.

Finally, once I managed to see him, I asked:

“What happened?”

He answered with his faint, disturbing voice:

“I can’t get resurrected nor exit the game. It has been more than one hour since I wander as a ghost through this landscape. It’s boring. I cannot touch anything; almost nobody can see me.”

“I have the same problem with exiting the game. Hopefully, it must be a bug to be fixed in the next thirty minutes. How did you die?”

“There are some pk* (*person killer) troops around. But I see you met them; you are a slave.”

“And they killed you? I am not a slave; I have a quest.”

He shrugged, then pointed at my collar - “It will be not only one quest but for as long as he wants you...”

“What do you mean?”

“Once you got his iron collar, you cannot escape it unless he lets you do it. You will need to make the quest he fixed for you, then the next one, then the next one; he will beat you and renew the collar.”

“'His collar?”

“Grackak's name is on the collar. Grackak the Gnome.”

“Oh. OK. Never heard of him before. Is he so renowned?”

“You talk like a newbie. Grackak is worse than Mephisto himself. I am sure he has a cheated character. I can’t wait for them to fix the world to come for my revenge.”

I raised my brows:

“Fix the world?”

He wondered, showing me the clouds:

“Can’t you read?”

The expression baffled me at first; then I raised my eyes to where he was pointing and saw there clearly written:

“World out of control.” - I read out loud, surprised - “Hmm. What does this mean?”

“It means what it means: they lost control of it. They would probably try to put some changed code in to fix it.”

“Can’t they restart it?”

“It does not work like this; there are millions of computers everywhere working in concern; it is a distributed world, self-repairing, you cannot restart it like this? Not only the computers of people currently playing the game are connected, but many computers run it in the background. Then restart it to where? Yes, the servers have partial backups, but fixing the story is an immensely complex issue. Actually, I have no clue if they can restart the core. I assume they might... There is no instant backup of all these; there is strong redundancy inside the system but no constant backup. No, it cannot work. Fixing is not easy either; believe me, I know it; it requires some time, even for the smallest change to become effective, and any such change needs to be carefully introduced not to cause more problems... First time I regret not using a body-suit interface! I’ll go to Act 1 to see if I find the entrance to the lobby there. That should do it. You better wait here; I’ll come back, in any case, dead or alive.”

He continued with a grin:

“Try to stay alive if possible; it is not funny as a ghost, do his quest but take your time; we should have this fixed as soon as possible, then we have this world back in order, and I will clean the gnome and the other cheated from it... I wonder if the cause of all these problems was not some bug they exploited. These issues could be linked. You may ask other players if they have the same problem; I wonder how widespread is this logout issue.”

I nodded:

“OK”

But I was not really planning to do anything. Why should I care? I am here to play and enjoy. I have had enough problems so far. He talked as one that knew a bit more. OK, then let him take care of these things; I'll have to postpone a bit my visit to the official channel in the lobby to complain…

“See you!” - he said, waved, and turned away

I waved back to him as he left

“See you!”