CHAPTER 14

The light powers acquiesced, pointing to both their own war weariness and, they said, their innate goodness. But they didn't keep their word. It wasn't deliberate, and it wasn't all of them, but the damage was done. A few dwarf squadrons either didn't know about the armistice or were goaded on by their eternal stubbornness to keep fighting, and annihilated a large tribe of orcs—green, toothy, and unarmed—after they got into a fight with some dark dwarves. In short, it was a mess.

The Great Dragon learned what had happened and, enraged, pronounced a curse on the light races. But he designed that curse as a quest. A super-mega-extra-rare quest. In fact, it was so rare that not a single player in the history of the game had found it. What it included was a mystery, though its reward was not—the ability to call forth all the dark armies and in essence become the Dark Lord. The rumor went that the ability was somehow limited, but nobody knew what that limitation was. Enormous amounts of time were spent by all the clans trying to find it, though how to get it, who gives it, and what you have to do were all unknown.

A few players had gone on about how they'd found the hallowed quest, though they all later turned out to be False Dmitriys[7] looking for a free ride.

After creating the curse, the Great Dragon went missing, and there were no more mentions of him in the lore. Maybe he died, or maybe he went into hiding. But most likely, the developers pulled him out of the game and saved him on a backup copy somewhere on a backup hard drive.

So if Wanderer actually did get the quest, it wasn't surprising that he'd try to get as far away from everyone as he could. If I were him, I'd have gone off into some desert or cave for a hundred years or so. And if that were true, it wouldn't have been surprising that the Gray Witch was gunning for him either—but how did he get it in the first place?

And then I read some about her, as well. The Hounds of Death were a great, exacting, and merciless clan that came about when two earlier clans joined forces: the Gray Kittens and the Jets. The Gray Witch was the leader of the Gray Kittens and took over the newly formed clan. She was clever, vindictive, unscrupulous, and vengeful, though she was also rational and calculating. She never allowed emotion to get the better of her, and she could ferret out benefits for herself and her clan even when they were hidden behind seven brick walls. She personally compromised the leader of the Jets, who also wanted to be the leader of the new clan, with a detailed and brutally devious plan. It ended in him being denounced as a rat and, based on the clan charter, getting kicked out by a council resolution. Whenever anyone (generally from the old Jets clan) objected, she loftily asked, "And who said you have the right to go against the clan and demand anything contrary to the decisions of the council?"

Still, under her leadership, the clan became the game's best by a number of metrics.

Anyway, judging by all of that, it was logical to assume that Wanderer had uncovered something there. Otherwise, the Gray Witch wouldn't have deigned to go after him personally with an offer. There wasn't anything in the forums about Wanderer, on the other hand, or at least I couldn't find anything.

What I found about Rivenholm was much simpler.

When the game began, there was just one continent—Rattermark, the one I was currently on. A year and a half before I joined, however, a global update was released that included an entirely new one called Rivenholm. There were two ways to get there: either you could list it as your starting location (apparently I missed that option when I registered) or you could sail across the ocean, which was much tougher. The problem wasn't even that ships were expensive. It was that getting there was hard and dangerous—so much so that a small convoy didn't stand a chance.

Convoys faced harpies, garudas, and stymphalides from the air, while a Kraken of immense size and monstrous strength ravaged them from below. Anyone left swimming in the water after their ships were destroyed were eaten by sharks. After all, it was an ocean. But the highlight of the trip were the pirates lurking in the waters surrounding the extensive Tigali Archipelago, smack dab in the middle between Rattermark and Rivenholm. They did what pirates always do—steal and kill, eat and drink, and make everyone they took captive walk the plank. Interestingly, they were all NPCs, as there wasn't a "pirate" class, players could choose to be. So, they were our Pirates of the Caribbean. Jack Sparrow. Sorry. Captain Jack Sparrow.

Incidentally, if you were killed while at sea, you were sent to the nearest respawn point. By default, that was in Rattermark, as there aren't any respawn points at sea, and players respawned there without their ships. A dozen clans had lost their fleets that way.

So, just see if you can get there. And it was so tempting; there was almost nobody there since new players much preferred the settled continent. It had strong clans, guides, and a settled way of life. Sure, there were pioneers and enthusiasts who wanted to try new dungeons, new spells, and new quests... Clans also started sending scouts there, but while those scouts did have some time to level-up and explore...they still wouldn't stand much chance against a landing of high-level players. So all the top clans started readying fleets. The rest simply didn't have the resources.

The Hounds of Death had theirs ready, and it was no surprise that Mila wanted to join them.

"Cool," I said, having digested everything I read.

"Tolkien doesn't have anything on this..."

And after setting the alarm in my music center for 8 a.m. I went to sleep. I slept like a baby, calmly and free of nightmares. It was just before I woke in the morning that, for some reason, I dreamed about Spartacus, who sat at a monitor and said, "If I'd only known I could get better armor at the auction... I'd have bought some..."

That was when my alarm went off, thank God. Sometimes fun little twists in life can come back to haunt you—after all, we'd just been talking about Spartacus. But whatever, it was time for battle. I had a cup of tea and got ready to crush some skeleton ribs under the watchful eye of our elder clanmates.

I got to the square about twenty minutes early, and the first person I saw there was an old Noobland friend: Max. He'd found a way to get all the way up to Level 27 and pick up some nice equip-ment. His bow certainly represented an upgrade over my simple club.

"It's an elf up in here!" I waved to him. "Well, look at you. Have you even eaten or slept? We started at the same time!"

"Hey!" Max greeted me. "Well, not everyone is as lazy as you are. Looks like you couldn't jump more than two levels. How are you here, actually? Don't you have to be Level 25?"

"I can't tell you. It's a big secret. But seriously, how did you level-up so fast?"

"Not that fast," the elf said with a wave of his arms. "Since we were together, I only left the game when my brain started to shut down. Slept four hours and jumped back in. City, location; city, location."

"Why go to the city?"

"I sold everything I got to traders and left the gold in my room. PKers are brutal. It seems like there are a lot of them lately. They got me at least 20 times. The last time they killed me, I decided to hell with it, logged onto a forum, looked through the list of clans, and picked the Thunderbirds. Their terms and conditions aren't too bad, and they're strong on protection: Kers aren't tolerated in the least. So how did you get stuck on Level 6?"

"You know, somehow it just happened...I'm not sure. First one thing, then another... Today, l'Il do some levelling-up."

People had been trickling in while we were talking.

Honestly, I'd thought there would only be five or six of us, but there were already nine people there… Well, not exactly people. There were four humans: two tanks, an archer, and a mage. Then there were two elves, a lone dwarf, and a halfling named Liutix. Thad never seen a halfling before then, and they were definitely unusual. I almost asked Liutix to take off his boots so I could see how hairy his feet were. I was intrigued! But just then, my new acquaintance Eilinn walked out of the fortress, counted heads, and said, "All right, we're missing one. Sergeant, who isn't here?"

Sergeant walked out from behind him just as sullen as he'd been the day before (or maybe that's just how he always was) dressed in chainmail. He had a battle ax in his belt, and on his head was a helmet that looked like a teapot with a second spout and lid soldered onto it. After a quick recount, he answered,

"We're missing an elf. Gless. Level 26 hunter."

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