The entry area for Olympus wasn’t as busy as usual. Jace still had a hard time remembering that Realm of Infamy was an international MMORPG, and just because it was nearly midnight in Chicago, it was the middle of the day for several other countries. He wanted to pick a time that wouldn’t be as popular to pull his stunt, but half a dozen players were still milling about, waiting for the rest of their parties to join or standing with blank expressions as they moved through leveling up options.
The neutral area between the Hostile PVP zone behind them that stretched for miles into the rugged wilderness and the Peaceful Non-PVP level restricted area that held the city was a common meeting place. It had never been as busy as it had been a week ago when Jace had conducted a meeting with Psycho right before his confrontation with Drescher, but if he didn’t act quickly, it might get that busy again. Already a few players were giving him second looks and talking among themselves. Jace didn’t think the human form of his character was that memorable, but he was standing next to Esther.
Jace appeared as an average-looking man wearing a tailored blue vest over a white shirt with gray pants. He had a great sword hanging from his hip but no other armor or weapons to speak of. Snowy, his winter wolf familiar, was definitely out of place. At level 12, she was almost the same size as when they first met in the Level 50 module that had initiated Jace into this computer game. Back then, she and Jace’s character had been level 15, and the wolf’s back had stood four feet off the ground. Now only her head was that tall, which was still impressive for a wolf.
But it was Esther who usually got all the attention. She stood beside Jace in her form-fitting shadow scale armor, which was more stylish than practical, but the game didn’t demand that armor cover all your vital areas to provide protection, and the woman took advantage of the loophole, having made several altercations to the vest to ramp up its visual impact. Her skirt was short in the front and fell just past her knees in the back to touch the top of her Shadow Step boots. She wore rapiers on her hips, sported a few pieces of jewelry, and wore an eccentric, wide-brimmed black hat with a dark blue feather. The woman was breathtaking to look at but even more spectacular in a fight.
“Are we just going to stand here,” she asked. “Or are we going to do this? I promise to be gentile.”
{I still don’t think this will work,} Gracie piped in Jace’s head. The operator got the cushy job of sitting back in Chicago in front of three monitors observing the game. She had game stats and walkthroughs at her fingertips and a long history with the game to give advice and ensure Jace didn’t mess things up. {I still haven’t found one person that has been able to trick the game into letting them into a level-restricted area.}
“That’s because no one has ever had a vampire as a party member,” Jace replied.
As an NPC, Esther was aware enough to know when her boss was talking with his operator, but she smiled when she heard Jace mention her. She was a fallen angel turned into a vampire. Neither she nor Jace was entirely sure what that meant, and the AI in the game called Gandhi hadn’t been pressed into fleshing it out yet, so it remained a mystery, and they just focused on all the advantages it gave them.
“You're nervous, aren’t you,” Esther asked with a new sense of empathy she had picked up since joining Jace. “You haven’t done something like this before, have you?”
Jace didn’t bother answering. Obviously, he had never done something like this before. They were in a virtual reality computer game. Everything he had experienced in the past week had been his first time. Taking a few steps forward, Jace saw a shimmering translucent curtain in the air that marked the boundary between the neutral zone and the level-restricted town of Olympus. He reached out his hand and tried to push through it.
[Access restricted.]
Only level 9 characters and below were allowed inside. Olympus had quests that could permanently raise your ability scores, and if high-level characters were allowed access or if you could return to the city multiple times to increase all of your abilities, it would be too game-breaking. Unfortunately for the game, Jace always looked for ways to break it.
“Okay,” Jace said. “Let’s do this.”
The neutral zone was considered non-hostile, even for actions between party members, and they needed to turn their backs on the city and move through the opposite curtain to enter the danger zone. Last week they had watched a dire bear rip a barbarian apart and knew they couldn’t let their guard down.
“Snowy,” Jace said, “keep a watch for us.”
The wolf had several settings Jace could manually adjust in the game, but he found the familiar was smart enough to enter them automatically if asked. Now he turned to Esther, who smiled mischievously at her nervous boss. “How do you want me?” he asked. “You don’t have to climb on my back, do you?”
She laughed at the idea. She was tall for a woman at a few inches under six feet, but Jace was tall too. Not as tall as he was in his normal orc body, but this human illusion was around 6’2’’. “You can get on your knees if you like.”
Jace did as she suggested, and as she leaned over in front of him, he got an enchanting view down the top of her low-cut vest. He closed his eyes out of respect. Behind them, a growing crowd of players eased toward the hostile zone to see what was happening. Esther had her back to them so they couldn’t see when her brow furrowed and her lips curled back above her vampiric teeth. As she adjusted her hat, they only saw her mouth drop down to Jace’s tensed neck and the man’s body jolt.
Most in the crowd knew that Esther had been a vampire when she was trapped in a quest module working in a brothel. But few understood what she had become once Jace had freed her. Jace didn’t really know, so he wasn’t forthcoming with the information. Right now, the sun was shining high in the sky, and the few trees nearby hardly provided enough shade to protect an undead creature from bursting into flames.
Floating above Jace’s head was one of the few artificial-looking aspects of this realistic computer setting: his level and hit points. They had started at 12 and 396, but after six seconds of Esther’s bloodsucking kiss, they dropped to 11 and 297. After another six seconds, his level fell to 10, and his HP dropped another 37 points.
“So, she’s still a vampire,” someone said.
Others joined in the verbal speculation.
“But she’s in the sun?”
“And why is she level-draining him? I thought they were a pair?”
“Kinky.”
“Unless he’s going to try . . .”
With reluctance, Esther withdrew from Jace’s neck. She had only fed on NPCs since being released from her scripted module, and the experience of feeding off Player Characters programmed into her memories was nothing compared to the real thing. Since she was at full health, the 171 Hit Points she had drained were converted to mana at a rate of 5 to 1. She was also full on magic, so the 855 mana had nowhere to go. She had one round to use it, or it would evaporate.
Looking up from Jace’s neck, Esther saw a creature ambling toward them. She was surprised that Snowy hadn’t been more specific than
Esther didn’t have a good Spell Difficulty, so the creature saved against the damage, reducing it by half, but since it was primarily made of dead bushes and vines, it took double fire damage. That was just under half of its 350 HP, and Esther drew her weapons, magically hasted herself, and rushed the foe.
Jace was still on his knees, trying to recover from the unique sensation of having his life drained. His pain settings were low, but he didn’t think it lessened the experience. It had been akin to what he imagined being in outer space without a suit would feel like: a cold, all-consuming pressure sucking his very essence from him. Each breath he took warmed his soul a bit more, and Snowy’s warning echoed in his head as he regained his bearings. He struggled to his feet, but instead of turning to the danger, he took a few stumbling steps toward the neutral zone and collapsed through the curtain.
The gathered crowd parted, giving him at least six feet on all sides. Jace turned on the ground and looked back toward the action. Esther and Snowy had the fight well in hand. It was a level 10 shambling mound, and its lumbering attacks had no chance to hit the agile and vicious females that attacked it. After only a few rounds, the creature was reduced to a pile of slimy kindling, and the pair turned to find their leader.
Jace could get to his feet now, his senses slowly returning. He felt weak in his legs and arms but soon realized it was only in comparison to how he had felt before the level drain. It was like ice skating for an hour and then trying to walk on solid ground afterward. You are no less coordinated than you were before you stepped on the ice, but with the freedom of gliding around the rink suddenly gone, you felt at a disadvantage. After a quick check on his stats, he saw he had 21 Strength and 20 Constitution, so he was still far more capable than most level 9 players.
Jace paused a moment in his inventory. He should have 22 Strength. He had gotten that bump after finishing the Strength trial when he had leveled to ten. Now that he was back at nine, it was like that had never happened. He checked his feats and saw that the last three he had chosen, Toughness, Totem Reach +5, and Dynamic Parry, were all gone. He hoped they would come back.
{How do you feel?} Gracie asked as Esther and Snowy returned to the neutral zone.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Like Wesley from Princess Bride after he’s had one year of life sucked out of him. Only I had three.”
{Don’t worry, it will come back,} Gracie advised.
According to Jace’s research, players would recover one level every ten rounds. In combat mode, that would be 60 seconds. In normal time, that would be 60 minutes. While his party members had been fighting the shambling mound, he had noticed his vision shrouded by a pulsing red border, letting him know he was in combat mode. He had no idea how long it had been. If it was only five rounds, he still had 30 minutes left. But if they had been fighting for nine, he had six minutes until he bumped back to level 10.
“How you feeling, boss?” Esther asked with a smile on her lips – lips that still had traces of his blood in the corner. As she and Snowy entered the neutral zone, the gathering crowd gave them a bigger buffer. They were mostly level 9 and below and wanted nothing to do with the level 12 vampire. Most of them had seen the videos of her in action.
“Never better,” Jace lied as he continued to work the lethargic feeling from his limbs.
“Well,” Esther replied, “in case you were wondering, you tasted great. Your illusion necklace masked the orc flavor but kept all its potency.”
{Who would have guessed she was a blood sommelier,} Gracie quipped.
Jace smirked at the joke and didn’t want to waste more time. “Well, let’s see if this works.”
Most in the crowd had figured out what he was attempting to do, and they cleared a path through the neutral zone along the dirt trail that led into Olympus. Jace was no longer stumbling with each step and strode purposefully toward the restricted area. He didn’t hesitate and pushed straight through the curtain.
[Level 9- Non-PVP Safe Zone. Access granted.]
Jace sighed in relief. He was pretty sure it would work, but he wasn’t sure his companions would make it. He turned to see if they could pass through the barrier as well, but they were both already standing beside him, each displaying a level 12 above their heads. Most NPC party members advanced in levels with their PC leader, but a few were locked in at 12 or 15. Psycho was locked in at 20. Some players had reported that they had been at level 9 while their NPC companion had been at 12, and they had still been able to enter restricted areas.
{Good,} Gracie said. {Now, rest up, get your levels back, and do the Constitution trial.}
“I already said we are doing Intelligence,” Jace replied as he led his group into the city. “I don’t think the game will let me level up to 12 until I leave here. It might restore my experience, but I’m guessing I’m stuck at nine. Have you looked at my stats yet? I’ve lost my Dynamic Parry. I don’t want to do a combat-heavy trial at less than full strength.”
{Everyone does these trials at level nine,} Gracie argued. {Including you a week ago.}
“Yes,” Jace agreed, “and Esther nearly died. I don’t expect Gandhi to take it easy on me, and I bet she will crank the difficulty up as if I was a party of four level 12 characters. From my research, most of the Intelligence trials are just solving riddles and completing puzzles. Plus . . .”
{You want to meet a dragon,} Gracie said in a tired voice, implying they had argued over this before. She had to admit she was curious to see how Jace would handle the Intelligence trial. There were several options available that seemed to be randomly selected, but everyone agreed that the dragon quest was the hardest. Based on how the Strength trial had gone last time, they expected Gandhi to choose the hardest possible choice for Jace and then dial it up to 11. Or, in this case, possibly 12.
“Yes,” Jace agreed. “I want to face the dragon.”
“I don’t want to face the dragon,” Esther spoke up as they moved down the street, trying to ignore the multitude of people staring at them.
Esther understood that Gracie gave Jace premonitions on what would happen in this world, and they seemed oddly specific. Jace had assured her that they would not have to fight the dragon. The quest was designed for level 9 mages who wanted to increase their Intelligence. Everyone who tried to fight the dragon died spectacularly. Jace had studied all the online reports of those fights and didn’t see a way to beat the creature, even as an overpowered orc with a vampire sidekick. Instead, you were supposed to outsmart the dragon. It was like trading riddles with Gollum. You didn’t have to kill him; you needed to trick him into giving you access to his treasure hoard. The more convincingly you did that, the better the reward.
Jace expected Gandhi to ramp up the encounter difficulty, but he also expected her to reward him justly if he proved worthy. Then there was the promise of three Intelligence related items. He had found a way to trick the game into giving him all three Strength items, and he looked forward to doing that again. At a minimum, a +2 Intelligence ring would go a long way to shoring up the one weak spot on his character sheet.
As they moved through Olympus toward the initiation point for the Intelligence module, Jace scanned the crowd of PCs. Everyone seemed to recognize them and wisely kept their distance, but he didn’t have a clue who any of these people were. Most PCs he had met, he had ended up killing, or they had died in front of him. As he thought this, his eyes did find one familiar face.
“Jace,” Esther said slowly, finding the same PC in the crowd, “Is that Sir Wallace?”
“I believe it is,” Jace said. It didn’t look like the level 6 Paladin had seen them yet, as she was haggling with a merchant on the street, trying to sell something. Jace had watched her die in Drescher’s lair, but it made sense that she would start up again and use the same skin and character build-out. With Gracie’s help, Jace had discovered Wallace was a 14-year-old girl in real life, but she moved about in the game as a middle-aged male paladin who made Jace feel small. Her goal had been to make her way up to level 12 and then sell those one million experience points to Drescher by letting him kill her. Drescher was gone, but Jace wouldn’t be surprised if Wallace had found another buyer.
He waited for her to finish her conversation with the vendor and turn around. She stopped. Not only was Jace standing before her, a character she knew should be at 12 and not allowed to enter Olympus, but a ring of PCs kept their distance behind him, waiting to see what this encounter was about.
“Get out of my way,” she said in a deep, gruff voice, not appreciating the attention. She had proven herself very successful in this game by flying under the radar. “Some of us have to work for a living.”
“There are other ways,” Jace said.
“I am not some rescue project,” she but back. “I know you think you know who I am, but you have no idea. Sometimes there are no other ways.”
“I’ll still offer you 15,000 to kill you,” Esther said, repeating the offer she had given a week ago but not really grasping the idea of experience points yet. “Especially if you let me drink-”
Jace raised a hand to cut her off. “What if I offered you a job?”
{Jace,} Gracie said, {you are not authorized to hire people for our team. The CIA gives us a pretty long leash as it is. Don’t push it. Besides, we are off the clock right now.}
“I don’t think I’d like working for you,” she eyed Esther, probably thinking the same thing others did about Jace’s relationship with the former escort.
“I need a finder,” Jace said, deflecting any innuendos Wallace may have been implying.
{You have a finder,} Gracie chirped in his head. {Me.}
“I need the type of finder that can get things like this,” Jace clarified as he pulled Diamond Etcher from the sheath on his hip. It was a sword Wallace had found and sold to Drescher right before Esther had stolen it.
The knight was shocked by the appearance of the weapon, as the pommel was unremarkable, sticking out of the top of the sheath, and the weapon shouldn’t have been short enough to wear on a human’s hip. It wasn’t, but when Jace wore it as an orc, he was tall enough that it didn’t drag on the ground, and then when he enacted his illusion spell to disguise himself as a human, the weapon’s dimensions changed as well without losing any potency.
“I can’t just get weapons like that all the time,” Wallace said, attempting modesty.
“How many items like this have you sold to Drescher in the past?” Jace asked, not knowing but assuming it was a considerable amount. He sheathed the weapon.
Wallace shrugged, conceding the point. She had a knack for predicting when unique items would be available and executing a plan to get them. “What do you need? I’m usually more opportunistic than directed, though.”
“I need the best crafter in the game,” Jace said.
{I told you that I’m working on that,} Gracie said, feeling a bit betrayed.
“Easy,” Wallace replied without hesitation. “Corrin Goldhammer. A dwarf working for the royal family in Gildestraad. If you rescue his adopted halfling daughter from a tribe of seafaring bandits, he will join your party and make anything you want. You must keep him happy, or he leaves, and his module resets.”
{No dice,} Gracie said. {He’s taken. If she were any good, she’d know that.}
“But,” Wallace continued, oblivious to Gracie’s running commentary, “he’s currently in the employ of a PC named Mewling Kim, who’s had him for five weeks now. She’s boasting in the chat rooms that she’s figured out the secret to keeping him happy. So far, the record length of employment is six weeks, so we’ll see. If you want him, you must simultaneously sabotage their relationship and speed-run his SIM before someone else. But it looks like you can do anything.”
{I didn’t know all that,} Gracie admitted.
And she’s doing it off the top of her head, Jace thought but didn’t say out loud. “That’s not what I’m looking for,” Jace replied. “Everyone knows about Corrin, and his skill is balanced within the game. I’m sure he’s a great craftsman, but he is not game-breaking. Surely by now, you understand how I operate.”
Wallace paused. Jace hadn’t been revealed as an orc in Drescher’s lair before she had been killed, but she had seen the video of him fighting Drescher, where he had been an orc the whole time. Orcs weren’t supposed to be playable characters. Having a winter wolf as a full-time companion wasn’t supposed to be possible either.
“If I asked you to find me the best thief in the game,” Jace continued, “you might have a top five in your head with a strategy for getting each one. Would any of them be as good as Esther?”
As much as she might disdain the idea of the vampire, she had seen the video of her taking out the guards in Ironfel. No other NPC thief came close. “But no one thought it was possible to free her,” Wallace said. “And even so, the version of her in the Gilded Swan wasn’t close to as powerful as she is now. There are better thieves than she was. You did something to her. What was it?”
Jace smiled. The whole game wanted to know that. “I don’t need you to worry about what is impossible. I will handle that. What I need is the best craftsman in the game. Or maybe they have the potential to be the best, and I have to work my magic. I’ve found that Gandhi doesn’t cheat. Any module designer can craft an item on their computer and put it at the end of a SIM. But if there is a spot in the game where fabulous items are generated, there will be a craftsman hidden away somewhere. Maybe he is hiding in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard,’ but I know he is there.”
Wallace grinned at the obscure reference, endearing her to Jace. “Watch out for the stairs,” she added, letting him know she knew what he quoted. She grew more serious. “I think I can find something like that. How much is it worth to you?”
“Five thousand,” Jace said, willing to dip into his private game funds.
Wallace hesitated. “Five thousand, and I get to watch.”
“Watch?” Jace got nervous, thinking that she might be making an innuendo again.
“I get to watch you secure the craftsman . . . or craftswoman.” She smiled at him with her masculine face. “Not everyone in this game is a man.” She grew serious again. “I want to see how you do it.”
Jace stuck out his hand, hoping none of the other PCs who had respectfully kept their distance had listening spells to have heard what they said. “I’ll let you come with me if you can,” Jace replied, glancing up at her level. If the craftsman were in a PVP zone, she would have to race to level ten if she wanted to join.
She took the hand and shook it. She also made an in-game request to share contact information with him so they could exchange private messages.
Esther had stayed quiet through the exchange, not understanding much of it, but now saw it was winding down. “And when you get to level 12,” she said as Jace started to lead them away, “don’t forget to look us up. You look like you taste amazing.”
Jace forcibly grabbed her arm and yanked her away. “Come on, you blood-drunk harlot.” The spectators had surely heard that last part, as Esther had called loudly. When the trio re-entered the main street, everyone tried to act as if they hadn’t been eavesdropping but failed spectacularly.
{What,} Gracie started once they were back on track toward the Intelligence module, {you don’t need me anymore? Do you think you can replace me with a 14-year-old know-it-all?}
“Look on the bright side,” Jace argued. “Now you can think about something else. I asked you three days ago for a craftsman, and all you could come up with was the guy in Portsmith who can only make one weapon that probably isn’t as good as Etcher.”
{Well . . . I . . .,} Gracie didn’t know what to say. Jace flinched as he hadn’t intended the criticism to be that harsh. He didn’t want to discuss it further as they were seconds away from entering the Intelligence quest queue. {I hope you get the lich instead of the dragon,} she finally said, referencing the easiest of the Intelligence quests and the most repulsive.