Two figures were moving in the middle of the night across the lifeless plains. The grass underfoot, no matter what kind it was in the sun's light, was now disintegrating into ashes at the slightest touch or breeze. Hills, one bigger than the other. When they climbed to the highest, they could see the area immersed in the murk, where one gigantic dead tree stood on the horizon in the distance. Its lifeless branches straightened like the hands of the Lord during the Ascension. Clouds were passing right above it at high speed, through which a dull, pale-yellow color was breaking through.
“We’ve come a long way,” said the first 6.5 feet tall figure. In its barely discernible black outlines, one could see a huge steel shield on its back, a long sword in a scabbard, and its heavy and metallic steps, made by sabatons, frightened local wildlife for half a mile around.
“What did you want? The best loot doesn’t sit in the center of the city waiting for your arrival,” a female voice sounded in response from the second figure, dressed in a long black cloak. She moved smoothly, like a lynx, merging with the shadows.
They did not say a word as they approached the tree. Two nameless travelers, shrouded in the wind's noise, worked tirelessly, sending dust and ashes back and forth. Everything crumbled, everything withered. There was cold and silence around. A sad and mournful emptiness.
There, under a tree, they saw two players, the third hanging from a branch and twitching with a gag in his mouth and a blindfold over his eyes. On his forehead, seven “P”’s carved with a knife.
“He’s been hanging for four hours now,” said one of them in a squeaky, nasty, arrogant voice. “Still didn’t die yet.”
“Yeah, breaking all records.”
Two players with the pseudonyms Onstoff and Cato (both of the fourteenth level, 95%, and a rating above 10,000 in the military category) noticed the guests and stood up and bowed in front of them in greeting.
“Welcome to the Purgatory!” they said.
The player suspended on a branch mumbled and twitched more than usual. A 6.5 feet tall dark figure in metal armor squinted at him. Nickname: Kiro (level 19, 83%, ranked 5333 in the military rating).
“Your proposal,” Cato began, glancing at the taller guest, “greatly interests us.”
“I’m greatly interested in your methods.”
“Well, in that case, I propose to seal the agreements through the AI.”
They looked at each other and the female figure nodded and said:
“Let’s begin.”
***
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Info #3: after death, the things that were with you will remain unattended on the ground, and the level will drop to a multiple of five.
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Info #4: The player who killed another player receives a penalty: he will be highlighted for everyone on the map as a red dot, and other players will receive a reward and the achievement “New Sheriff” for their head. This debuff or PK mark will be revoked only after the player’s death (regardless of how he/she dies) or after killing another player with the same debuff.
A little more…
The planet Thalack is in the habitable zone. This means that it has the Earth’s gravity, the time of day and night, and so on.
Loading complete.
After fully syncing with the character, Ronnie returned to the game around five o’clock in the morning, wearing only lightweight short underwear. He opened his eyes and first saw the translucent darkness, sat up, undid the mosquito net of the inner tent, then the zipper on the green rain tent. The first rays of dawn and freshness drove away the musty air. Ronnie got out halfway and turned off the protective field and climbed back in and sat in the lotus position and put his hands on his knees and examined his dirty and smelly uniform lying in the corner. Then his gaze shifted to the long-standing scar left after the magic scythe blow. Based on the information in the HUD, the character’s body had fully recovered. All thanks to the resuscitating syringe. Without this item, he would sit in meditation for other three or four days.
Ronnie reached for his jacket and put it on. There was a broken Barrett under his pants. It broke his heart to look at what had become of it. He put the wreckage in his backpack so that his eyes would not get sore, threw the bag outside, and squatted behind it. According to AI, there were no weather anomalies in this part of the desert today. Outside, the rising white desert sun was lifting against the blue sky. Cirrus clouds floated like a turtle at an altitude of 12 miles above the ground, tiny and transparent. The barely noticeable moon and a few stars evaporated like mirages on a hot day.
On the opening dial on the outer awning, Ronnie typed in a four-digit password. The tent assembled itself and wrapped itself in a mobile bag that was attached to the bottom of the backpack. Without realizing it, Ronnie rubbed his eyes, although he did not want to sleep, and pulled out a black case with a disassembled Mosin–Nagant from his army bag and laid out the parts on a sheet on the sand. Then he put on a keffiyeh, so as not to become the happy owner of a one percent chance of getting sunstroke and glasses and got down to business.
Ronnie started with assembling the bolt and attached the guide rode to it. Next came the bolt head, which came right over the firing pin. He returned the assembled bolt to the side and picked the trigger guard and stripper clip house up and put it in place, and put the barrel and receiver on the top of the main body. Next, he put the hand guard on the top of the barrel and fixed it in place with the help of two clamps and swiftly returned the cleaning rod to its place, and proceeded to fix the trigger guard and the stripper clip house with a screw. Afterwards, came the longest screw that went on the top and squeezed the follower and put it into the stripper clip house and closed and latched it with a satisfying click. At last, he returned the bolt to its home. Ronnie worked it a few times to make sure that the mechanism had no issues and finally he fixed the PU scope on the top and laid the rifle down with a satisfied smile.
Ronnie went down the cliff to the boss’s body. His wounded and mutilated carcass, reeking of stench and feces, was between the destroyed boulders and clumps. Its hands spread apart. Its legs broken in several places. There were grenade fragments under its skin. Its face was in a mess. It was not for the faint of heart. The sniper examined the pockets and the body for loot, but found only a single amulet with a strange inscription in an unknown language, engraved on the outer shell of the object comprising semicircular metal rods. The AI named the item FuruGovest, because it resembled a mix of letters and hieroglyphs. Information and properties were not available. Ronnie turned the loot in his hands, befitting of a successful robber who stole from the strong. The amulet was old, dull, and in addition covered with gunpowder. In its central part, there was a dark yellow gemstone with reddening at the north and south poles. In the middle was an engraving depicting a human figure. The diamond on top resembled a head. The two lines, bending near the head and then connecting with each other at the bottom, looked very much like a body or a long hoodie with a collar spread out in all directions. Shoulders with arms were one line with sharp angles on both sides. All of the above looked like the work of a primitive master. Well, Ronnie thought, we have what we have. He hung the object around his neck and hid it under his clothes and, grunting, forcefully stuck a scanning chip into the boss’s heart, collecting DNA and reading the location of the internal organs, the composition of tissue, blood and many other things that Ronnie chose not to study.
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“AI.”
“At your service.”
“Send all the information you received to the bestiary.”
“It shall be done.”
A loading bar had appeared in the HUD. He hid the interface and went to the place where the henchmen were slaughtered and drove away a flock of scavengers eating the last pieces of flesh and performed the same rite. Scanning chips were running out, enough for two more new monsters.
Ahead was a lifeless desert, through which the wind was driving sand from east to west. The rocks shimmered from a dark blue shade at the foot to red at the top. A dense white fog appeared in the valley. There was no end in sight. Ronnie spent fifteen minutes looking at the landscape through binoculars and, in the western part, where the mountains on the horizon seemed transparent and more like a mirage, he saw explosions, lightning, strange dots like black holes and light rays.
A battle between monsters?
“AI.”
“At your service.”
“How many miles to the horizon.”
“Five.”
Ronnie pulled out a self-deploying B-rank scanner from his backpack and dropped it and cursed. He squatted down, buried the device half in the sand to hold on tight and pressed the ON/OFF button. A hologram of a clock appeared above the metal device, and another loading strip appeared in the HUD. Within a radius of four miles, the outlines of the surface blinked blue, accompanied by a long beep, then the central sensor lit up green, which meant that there was no one within the scanned area. While waiting, Ronnie hid in the shadows under a ledge.
“AI.”
“At your service.”
“Call me the UAV for express delivery of the amulet.”
An alert appeared in the HDU: the UAV can be called once a month. Do you confirm your action? Ronnie pressed the “Yes” button.
“The cost...” the AI continued.
“I know. Charge from my debit card.”
“Request confirmed.”
After an hour, the routine ended, and an additional part of the map opened for all players. The drone arrived with the accuracy to a second. Buzzed like a chainsaw. Ronnie placed the FuruGoverst in a special box held by metal fishing lines, along with the most valuable parts from the Barrett, including the optical sight. When the load percentage reached 99%, he finished and sent the UAV to his warehouse in the capital.
A new boss has been added to the bestiary. Reward: 47.888 CP.
A new part of the desert has been added to the map. Reward: 6.555 CP.
Total amount of CP: 3.501.961
Ronnie took out his binoculars and looked once more to the west. Nothing. He checked the dunes and rocky peaks on seven, eight, ten and eleven o’clock. There were no signs of a battle or a cluster of enemies. He was about to go when he saw a black figure a couple of miles away on twelve.
“AI,” he said. “It’s time for me to get out of here. Calculate a route to the nearest checkpoint and put in a notebook all the flights and ground transport schedule for the day of arrival.”
A virtual route arrow appeared in the HUD, and ten seconds later, an alert informing him of the request completion appeared. He adjusted his backpack. The wreckage of the Barrett rattled in it. That sounded like a heart-rending scream to Ronnie. He gritted his teeth. Then he shook the sand out of his shoes and set off on the road, looking around to the north. He tried to hide behind the dunes and an hour later, when the heat went down, the thought that at least three in-game days would be lost for the restoration of the weapon means one thing - the loss of several places in the ranking.
Disappointment after disappointment.
The rocks were left behind, and before his eyes were the white desert dunes, resembling storm waves stuck in time. The wind blew away any tracks left in a minute. Nature was returning the area to its original appearance. To the left stood dried-up barren trees surrounded by stones, a little further away bush of white-red color, as if covered with frost. AI said it was the local equivalent of Earth’s creosote bushes. Small Iniktanth creatures crawled underfoot - representatives of the local fauna. If someone would take a closer look, this someone could see six eyes on its head, strange mole paws, and also a change in its skin color, like a chameleon. There was a reward of 1,000 CP for scanning new organisms. Not bad either.
During the journey, Ronnie checked the flights and realized that there was no need to hurry, then opened the news tab. The game continued to adapt to the players’ needs. In the morning, the developers added a new category of monsters in the “bestiary”, conscious and unconscious by “hot-fix”.
That’s fast, he thought.
The bestiary was Ronnie’s favorite tab, in which the game combines information about the local flora and any kind of fauna: boss monsters, bugs, birds, and so on. Everything was there, including behavior, diet, habitat. Sometimes he walked through a new or old location, saw something that looked like a hare or a deer, turned on the AI, asked for an analysis of the creature and read or listen about it, depending on his mood. If he needed to find out about monsters in a dungeon that someone had explored earlier, then he would open in a separate tab the winning battle tactics (based on the experience of the first winner; once new data appeared, the AI would immediately update the information) against the final boss, the weaknesses and strengths of ordinary monsters, traps, the approximate amount of experience per kill and difficulty. According to Ronnie, a bestiary was the best way to kill time on the road, especially if you were traveling alone.
The wind left the lifeless desert's location. With every new segment of the road, the landscape changed little, which made the time pass much slower than one would like, and negative thoughts crept into Ronnie’s head.
As the discoverer Lamo wrote on the forum and with which Ronnie fully agreed - travel still had its drawbacks:
It seems that you were the first to find and see something new, and the realization of this cannot but thrill and delight the fibers of one’s soul, but walk through a boring desert or a stinking peat swamp for a couple of days, as the joy will go away and you will want to meet something else, something that has no Earthly analogues. The developers promised a lot of amazing places, but so far only a few have been lucky enough to see something like this. Another sad fact: in the first global update, the developers did not introduce mounts, this would facilitate movement, most likely they want to focus on primitive realism. Well, I have to admit—it works. During peak hours, concurrent players can reach three million players.
Ronnie deviated from the original course, hoping to meet something interesting. So it happened. Overcoming another dune, the size of a two-story house, he stopped and examined the area from its top. About five hundred yards away, he found an oasis. Through the eyepiece of the binoculars, he noticed three figures there: two males, one female. After a twenty-sevenfold increase, it became clear that this was not a joint trip. The guys tied the girl to a palm tree, beat her, took away her things and now shook out everything that was in her backpack.
These two bandits, about twenty years old, dressed in a classic green military uniform, with helmets on their heads, carrying a PPSh-41 with a 71-round drum magazine and tiny backpacks on their backs, apparently in case everything goes wrong and someone would kill them. Amateurs, Ronnie thought, if you want to take a SMG from the Second World War, then you can’t find anything better than PPS-43: stamped metal, double-row cartridge feed, only automatic mode, Kalashnikov also called this weapon the best.
Ronnie focused on what was happening and for several minutes lowered and raised the binoculars, looked, tried to weigh the pros and cons of his further decision. He turned on the HUD. The virtual arrow led to the west, where the Elgoreombdon forest was visible on the horizon. He loosened the keffiyeh, rubbed his forehead, felt drops of sweat trickle down his back and legs. The heat was terrible.
Twenty minutes later, he saw the two players undress the girl, search the uniform’s pockets.
“AI.”
“At your service.”
“Show me their levels.”
The bandits turned out to be fourteenth level, the girl, sixth.
What had she forgotten in such a dangerous place? It is incomprehensible to the mind. Maybe she was dragged here by force? Won’t ask, won’t know for sure.
No one fired. A minute later, it became clear why. One player took a rope with a noose already tied and threw the other end over a palm branch and prepared the gallows.
Decided to avoid punishment for murder, eh?
Ronnie sighed and spat and crept up a couple of hundred yards more. He lay down between two sand hills, took off his backpack and put the rifle on it and looked into the eyepiece of the sight and waited another thirty seconds collecting his thoughts and after two deep breaths held his breath and took aim.
They untied her from the palm tree and forced her onto her knees. The first was standing behind her and holding her head, the second was trying to throw a noose around her neck. She was writhing like a snake, kicking, twitching. After several unsuccessful attempts, one player hit her several times, and the second threw her face into the sand. The two of them pinned her to the ground with their feet, lifted her head by her hair and threw a noose around her neck and dragged her across the sand to a tree. The girl did not give up.
Ronnie took off the safety and fired. A dull, sharp sound was heard all over the area. In less than a second, the bullet hit the first player in the chest, and while it was flying, Ronnie opened the chamber with the bolt and then sealed it back and then exhaled and shot a second time. A message appeared in the system:
You have inflicted two deadly wounds on players of a level below yourself. There is a 458,000 CP bounty on your head.