Yleen logged into the game an hour before the meeting. He saw an unread message from Illyseh in the HUD:
Good news. Ronnie is our man. Bad ones. I stopped loving voting. Top Secret hides information about the dragon, and the greed of most of the officers will backfire. I hope Mercyaa found out more than I did.
Yleen read each sentence with a cold look and called the deputy Mercyaa to him and asked what he had seen at night.
“We followed every player. During your absence, Ronnie walked around the fortress, but did nothing suspicious, except that he avoided meeting with…”
“I already understood that. Suffers from insomnia?” Yleen asked.
“Yes. I’ll bet my head that he’s a former soldier.”
“Go on,” Lord replied, reading other messages in the HUD.
“Latludious spent half an hour in the laboratory, then went out. Before him, Vvy returned to the game around five in the morning. Maybe earlier, I didn’t keep track of the time. He went to the foot of the Orodrim Eoul Mountains and met someone there.”
“He met with whom?”
The deputy hesitated. He took off the hood of his ghillie suit and sat down on a chair. An impenetrable mesh mask hid his face. He put the butt of the Simonov’s automatic rifle on the floor next to him and cleared his throat and continued:
“The pseudonym of one of the players was Nika. She killed Ronnie in the desert.”
Yleen looked up from reading his personal messages and stared at Mercyaa.
“Won at chess, huh?” he said to himself. Then he raised his head and continued, “go on.”
“She’s a member of the Hashashin Guild.”
“Assassins?”
Mercyaa turned his head as if drawing an infinity sign and said:
“Not proven, but I’m inclined to the same conclusion. I made some inquiries. They are engaged in performing personal tasks issued by players or guilds, get points for it and advance ‘Diplomacy’ ratings."
“Vvy, that motherfucker put a target on our backs. I’m canceling the operation. These smart-ass ones should be kicked out of our fortress. Let them go wherever they want.”
Mercyaa got up and nodded and headed for the door. When he pulled the handle, he turned towards Yleen and said:
“Can we give the scouting mission the green light? Despite everything, this hike is very important.”
Yleen clenched his fists and teeth and slammed his fist on the table, drawing blood.
“We play respectfully and honestly, Mercyaa. Why cooperate with those who want to deceive us, not only us but also all other players! Right now, our entire game revolves around politics, my friend. We can’t take any risks. Any careless step, any wrong decision, will sink us.”
“That’s right, sir. However, you say it yourself: blaming based on personal guesses does not lead to positive results. What if we’re wrong? We don’t really know what’s going on. The decision to cancel the mission will affect your image, be sure. Top Secret will blow up a molehill on the forum and say that you have no proof and they will be right. After you will accuse them of collusion with the Hashashins, call them mercenaries or murderers. If they have enough brains to kill players bypassing the system, they have enough brains to ask for direct or indirect evidence, which you and I do not have. All we know right now is rumors, sir. In addition, with your consent or not, Top Secret will go to the dungeon. We can’t keep track of them forever, right? Let me tell you the plan, and if you like it, we’ll do so.”
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Yleen beckoned him over with a hand gesture. Mercyaa closed the door and came closer to him:
“To be honest, I am 99.9% sure that Top Secret wants to be the first to get to the lands beyond the mountains. Here, even the ‘enemy of the race’ debuff will not stop them."
“Why is that?”
“Because as soon as they are the first to pass over the mountain range, they will build an airport and a city, and then Vvy will become the new ruler'. Simply put, no one will pass over the mountains without his permission, giving him strong political leverage. Then Vvy will seize leading government positions, then he’ll take off the debuff and hang it on you, on me, and on the rest of our men. After that, we can forget about the game. But!” said Mercyaa, sticking his index finger up, “this trick is much more difficult to pull off than one can imagine. Their initial task is to get rid of you in such a way as to divert suspicion from themselves. Our major goal is to link them to the Hashashins guild and prove their impure intentions. Next, we’ll stand in front of a road fork. The first path takes us through the dungeon with weak monsters. In this case, the assassins will be in the shadows all the time, looking for the best opportunity to act. Of course, they won’t kill you directly, but they’ll probably set something up, maybe dig a hole or concoct a trap, supposedly for monsters. Then the system will not recognize them as PKs. How to resist this? Everything is simple. My team and I will guard the entrance to the dungeon and not let anyone in. If the Hashashins want to enter by force, then we’ll have proof of collusion. And they will all lose.” Mercyaa cleared his throat and exhaled and continued. “The second way will lead us through a dungeon with powerful monsters. In this case, you need to remember that the purpose of the scouting mission is to go as far as possible and gather information with minimal risks, not killing boss monsters and not destroying hordes of enemies. Top secret will put pressure on you and on Illyseh. You are their offensive power. The further you go, the better off they are. And, of course, they won’t wish you dead right away. If a random arrow or attack kills you, the three of them will not pass. However, they won’t help either.”
“We have a collusion, Mercyaa. Vvy met with assassins behind our backs.”
“With all due respect, sir. I’ll repeat myself. Vvy could talk to them about anything: the weather, monsters, flowers, girls, and so on. Are the Hashashins hired killers? Yes. Do we have any proof? No. But if we play all the cards correctly, we’ll win, gaining the trust of all the players and leaving Top Secret with nothing.”
Yleen turned to face him and said:
“Are you a part-time investigator as well?”
Mercyaa nodded.
“Okay. Persuaded. Manage the process. You’ll report to me in the PM. I, in turn, will not turn off the video recording for a minute. We’ll keep in touch and share information.”
“Do you have enough memory on your computer?”
“No. I’ll turn on a private live broadcast, and I’ll put the recording in a hidden archive on my channel.”
“Clever. In case we need proof, we’ll post the video to the public.”
Yleen nodded his head and scratched the table with his nails.
“Can I go?” Mercyaa asked.
“I wanted to discuss one more question with you.”
“I’m all ears.”
Yleen told about the scouting team’s battle with the dragon and all the information he had been told earlier and asked:
“What do you think?”
“Honestly, sir?”
“No drama.”
“Illyseh is right. Gra and the others are preparing to fight against a monster they know nothing about, except—it is big and weak. And if it’s not? We don’t really know anything about it. There is no information in the bestiary. The witnesses are suspected of collusion. No vulnerabilities of the dragon, no characteristics of its behavior. Whether it is a sapient being. What does it need? Why did it attack the Flying Fortress? There are no answers. Maybe there was no dragon.”
Yleen nodded his head sadly and said:
“There was. The flying fortress is our plane. The AI informed me about the battle in the air against the dragon.”
“Did it say exactly that? Fighting against the dragon?”
“Yes.”
“But of course there are no images.”
“No. But the AI doesn’t lie.”
“That’s true.”
“There was a battle, there was a dragon, they all survived. It turns out it’s not that strong.”
“With all due respect, sir. Anything could have happened there. In addition, three out of five people returned. We do not have exact information about the death of the other two.”
Yleen looked out the window, propped his cheek with the fist of his right hand.
“What to do?”
“Wait for them to make a mistake.”
“Does the game turn out before the first mistake?”
“So it turns out, sir.”
“I don’t like this arrangement.”
“I think they don’t like it either.”