1 Soul Bound
1.2 Taking Control
1.2.3 An Enchanting Original
1.2.3.2 Fatal words
5:15 am, Wednesday June 7th, 2045
3 bells of the forenoon watch
Droday wax, 5th day of the month of KrevinBelember, A2F1600
*flip*
The first thing Kafana noticed, as her Vessel smoothly handed to her control over the body the two of them shared in the world of Soul Bound, was that she wasn’t in the cozy sleeping cell she’d been expecting.
The second thing she noticed, as pressure on her skin from something unfamiliar made her glance to her right, was that that she appeared to be standing under a stone archway with her arms stretched wide and her hands stuffed firmly into the heavy harlequin-patterned padded gloves that Alderney had given her to use when handling liquid nitrogen.
Only then did she noticed the important thing, as she finally looked away from the architecture of the covered walkway surrounding one of the Sanctum’s private courtyards to the football-pitch sized courtyard itself and the people in it: a dozen apprentice priests of Cov with robes belted so high their hairy legs and knobbly knees were left exposed; Bulgaria, who was imparting to them the intricacies of the off-side rule with the same reverence a monk might show towards a gilded reliquary containing the skull of the saint who’d founded his monastery; Tomsk, who after a few moments of movement so graceful it seemed effortless, was now standing as motionless as a statue on the far side, watching her. No, not her. A ball. A ball he’d kicked directly at her, as hard as the 300 points he now had in the STR stat would let him. A ball which was approaching so rapidly she could hear the air whistling over it.
She yelped in surprise as she felt her body move on its own accord, driven to dodge not by her still startled mind but by pure muscle memory. But a memory of what? She hadn’t spent hard hours in training that reflex.
Massimo, lounging nearby, shook his head.
Massimo: “Huh, your vessel’s better at it than you are, Suor Kafana. She doesn’t squeak.”
The instinctive outraged denial “I didn’t squeak!” was on the tip of her tongue when he turned his back on her and shouted to the apprentices.
Massimo: “Brethren, that’s enough for today. The adventurers are all here now, and I am to take you to the scriptorium where Fra Awesome has tasks for you.”
There was some good-natured groaning, but they followed him out, leaving Kafana feeling miffed. Perhaps this was her day to be continually talked over? No, not if she could help it. She set her jaw with determination and strode over to where the others were gathering, while Wellington and Bungo flipped in.
Kafana: “Morning guys. What’s the plan?”
Wellington: “Bulgaria said you’d spoken last night about cutting down how much of our in-game time we spend broadcasting, and using the remainder to develop capabilities we don’t advertise. Based on that, I’ve added an event queue facility to The Burrow, similar to the one you’re already familiar with in-game but with a couple of additional features, such as predictive-scheduling and letting you express a preference between alternatives. I suggest we use that during downtime to do everything we don’t want to broadcast, and then hold a separate ‘in character’ session for the bits we do want to expose, such as discussing quests and deciding where to visit for that day’s broadcast segment.”
Alderney: “I can work with that. Do we have any way to get the vessels involved?”
Bulgaria nodded. “That’s what we were testing while waiting. Wellington can flip in briefly throughout the day to let Vessel Kafana read his mind. Then she updates the in-game event queue, and the vessels write down their feedback which our expert systems can scan through the portal. Eventually we might want to submit a beta-test suggestion that XperiSense add an API for this sort of thing, but for now this is one of our advantages.”
Alderney: “When you come up with something original, sooner or later someone else will have the same idea. It is better to publish and get the credit, than try to hoard secrets like a stingy guild master.”
Tomsk: “You’ve been having problems?”
Alderney: “There were grumblings that some of the crafting techniques I’ve introduced should be reserved for Torello guild members, to give this city’s wares a competitive edge. There’s no way I’m going to submit written requests to some fuddy-duddy who probably never even forged his own smithing hammer. Luckily Rudolfo is backing me and he has some clout.”
Bungo: “I’m with Alderney. I remember when I was coordinating the in-game portion of the hunt for Kullervo how much hassle it was to transfer data between here and the Burrow. By the time we’ve got the building for an Adventurers Guild constructed and people start trying to use it as a clearing house for quests, we’re really really going to wish there was an API in place.”
Kafana: “How’s this for a compromise? We spend a day or two exploring our requirements, then Wellington contacts XperiSense offering to work with them in developing an API that aligns with their plans and suggests the Adventurers Guild as a test case. Meanwhile we don’t broadcast what we’re doing or announce it on the public areas of the Burrow until necessary. If we do it right, we can make further personal contact with people inside XperiSense and maybe build up some favours. Considering we may be depending upon their good will to protect our privacy against arlife death threats, that might be useful.”
Tomsk: “How corrupt is–“ his voice stuttered and a surprised look crossed his face.
Wellington looked pleased. “You were about to mention Kafana’s home location by name, weren’t you Tomsk? Our tiaras cut us off the same way, if we try mentioning the name of your past or current employer.”
Tomsk flushed. “Sorry Kafana! Really. Yes, I noticed how easily the mindset of favour trading came to you, and I wondered how corrupt your country is currently.”
Kafana: “Patronage and personal relationships with officials isn’t really seen as corrupt, until it gets to the point of people not doing their duty or threatening to use their authority to cause harm unless they are lavishly propriated.”
Wellington: {If we’re talking about arlife threats, let’s use group chat. Your tiara’s expert system should now be able to spot the context and switch seamlessly to using direct communication for the conversation rather than the in-game mechanism. They can’t do that if you’re talking out aloud.}
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Bulgaria: {I think Tomsk is most at risk. Char worked out his arlife identity because she recognised the unique signature of his fighting style. What she could do, an expert system could do too, if properly trained and someone thinks to ask the question.}
Tomsk: {My producer values me, because I get on with the star and make him look good. He has hefty insurance against production delays caused by my being injured and he has me covered by the same security contractors who protect the star. If an enemy does identify me, they’d have a hard job getting to me with anything less than a full military assault, which would cause enormous publicity. We’d really have to kick a hornet’s nest before that sort of trade-off would be worth it to them.}
Alderney: {As things currently stand, Kafana is as protected as she can be. I’ve got a system advising me on my own exposure, and I’ve avoided crafting experimental weapon designs that can be traced back to previous work by my arlife identity, much to the disappointment of the Lunar LARPers.}
Bungo: “Ok, so what shall we broadcast today? I’m guessing not many will see it, because they’ll all be watching Nevermere’s arrival at the Burgundish Benevolence. Heck, I wanna see it too!”
Kafana looked at Bungo. She’d expected him to mention the risk of his father identifying him, but he’d said nothing about himself. He rarely did. She still didn’t know much about what he was really like, underneath all the pretences he put on. She resolved to make an opportunity to spend time and really talk with him.
Alderney: “You just want to ogle Gwenifer and Marian in low-cut dresses.”
Bungo whinged: “Alderneeee.”
Alderney laughed. “But you have a point. We might as well just go clothes shopping today, and follow plot leads tomorrow. I suggest we do the Arsenal. I can spend part of today scouting ahead to find a route that will take us through the interesting bits and let us meet the people we want to talk to. The demographic we’re aiming for next are the 50 million XperiSense customers who’re currently playing on Morob. Lots of them are wondering whether to move over to Covob and, if so, which region to move to. The ‘New Player Guide to life in Torello’ I’ve been assembling from our recordings is channelling increasing numbers of Morob players, especially the sort that like number crunching, into the Burrow. I’ve even got other sites about Soul Bound linking to it.”
Kafana: “Good going! And on Friday I’m taking a break from the game to have fun with Alderney.” {Or, rather, to look at the launch of the MythOS bot project.}
Wellington nodded. “That sounds like a plan, and it would give us time to arrange a visit to House Landi. We’re nearing level 40, and we need to look at the requirements for progressing from Journeyman to Master level in our professions. I’m probably going to have to claim my boon from Lord Claudio Landi in order to be acknowledged as a Master Trader. Normally the process takes years.”
Bulgaria: “We owe the Landis a visit. I agree. Let’s find out the etiquette for arranging such visits and do it properly. In the meantime, who wants to work on what skills?”
Kafana: “I should drop by Suor Isabella this morning, but I’d like to spend time working with Bungo later. He’s got air magic and I want to experiment with the weather, to see if we can come up with something that would protect the party in combat.”
Wellington: “I’ve got some things I’d like to test with Alderney’s help, based upon theories from Grand Master Johannes. Also, it might be possible to upgrade her 3D Thinking skill to being four dimensional, by adding in time considerations such as trajectories.”
Tomsk: “I want to visit the Hunters Guild, see if they’re willing to share information about the threat profiles of this region’s monsters so I can work out what sort of armour to ask Alderney for.”
Bulgaria: “Tomsk, would you like to meet up after the clothes shopping to test how well skeletons and zombies can use weapons and armour, maybe with the monks too? While you’re with the Hunters Guild this morning, I can help Alderney poke around the Arsenal.”
They kicked ideas around a while longer, but there was little disagreement. Soon Wellington summarised for them.
Wellington: “Shared document: SCHEDULE. I’ve also put it in the event queue, and you’ll want to work out with your vessels what they’ll be working on during down time.”
Wednesday AM:
Wellington : Basso Renewal
Alderney : Scouting
Bulgaria : Scouting
Tomsk : Hunters Guild
Bungo : Monks
Kafana : Sanctum
Wednesday Noon:
All : Lunch at the Speckled Dove
All : Shopping for clothes at Signora Moda
Wednesday PM:
Wellington : Enchanting Items
Alderney : Enchanting Items
Bulgaria : Combat test
Tomsk : Combat test
Bungo : Magic
Kafana : Magic
Thursday:
All : Tour of the Arsenal & Questing
Friday:
Alderney : Project MythOS
Kafana : Project MythOS
(others) : Preparation for reaching level 40
Saturday:
All : Visit to Palazzo Landi ?
Good! She’d got her time with Bungo, and she could also discuss Flavio with Isabella and find out more about Dottore and how to deal with him. Today looked like a walk in the park. How bad could clothes shopping be?