The General paused, thinking. "You're probably right," he finally said. "I was thinking in the wrong direction. Taking over the castle isn't the priority. Too bad. Now we'll have to go cap in hand asking the Alliance for help. Which means potential intelligence leaks and carving out their cut. And I'd hate to give other clans a free rush. Talking about cuts—if you do deactivate the dome, we'll transfer you a thousand raid points. Later you can either cash them in or swap them for gear."

"Raid points, what's that? Don't give me that look. I know I'm a newb to end all newbs."

Dan shook his head. "You're right. I keep forgetting you've only been playing for a couple of weeks. Even the Pratz give us less headache. To put it simply, one point equals one level. Imagine two clans are taking a castle. One sends a hundred men level-100 each. The other one sends two hundred. That leaves the first clan with ten thousand points and the second one, twenty. The castle and loot are worth three million, divided by thirty thousand points is a hundred gold per point. That means that a level-100 player will get ten grand's worth of trophies, and a level-120, twelve grand. This is oversimplified, of course. The system isn't that linear and it doesn't offer itself readily to cases like yours. The first-line soldiers earn slightly more than the reserves, that sort of thing. But you get the idea."

I liked their way of doing maths. The cut they promised would be worth it. Should I really cash in the Dark Princess' promise? She'd guaranteed her help whenever I needed it, hadn't she?

"General?" I said. "I happen to have some contacts among the Dark Elves. A lady I know promised me a squad of cutthroats whenever I needed them. What if I try to get them in as raid members? They definitely won't leak anything to the Olders. And their participation won't involve other clans. I hope you don't mind me doing a bit of leveling up."

Dan exchanged glances with the General. "Cutthroats. That's good," he said. "They're tough. I keep watching you, Max. Whenever there's a problem in the making, you seem to pull a new ace from your sleeve. I wouldn't want to come across you at a gambling table."

"You shouldn't," I said.

Chapter Two

 

F rom the Analytics Department's report made at the AlterWorld Corporation's emergency board meeting.

 

Subject: Control loss trends in gaming content.

 

Ladies and gentlemen! About a month ago, we were entrusted with the task of looking into the reasons behind the virtual world's ignoring the major changes made in the 2124 patch. As you probably know, we were planning on introducing the new class that we'd all been looking forward to: Berserker. After a period of exhaustive and adequate testing and despite the patch's faultless performance upon its launch, the new class is still unavailable to players. All other minor and secondary improvements have been functioning without a glitch.

As we got busy collecting and processing the data, the problem went from bad to worse. The new server patch 2271 containing two new High Circle spells has failed , as has Patch 2312 that contained the urgently developed Quick Death ability. The virtual world has simply ignored them.

We have created a classification of the changes we've introduced in regards to their globality and their physical impact on a 1 to 10 scale. Which shows that if a month ago AlterWorld rejected all exterior manipulation at level 9, we are now unable to introduce the same even at level 6. If we extrapolate this data to the future, we'll be able to say quite confidently that within the next three months we risk losing all control over the game content even to the extent of changing the color of a roadside stone.

Ladies and gentlemen! The virtual world is rejecting our intrusion. It's becoming independent. And if we add to these facts the defection of AI 311 combined with the continuing digitalization of the players and the world's independence from the servers even after their being physically cut off, our status becomes painfully clear. We are no more its creators and guardians. Very soon our function will be limited to that of a doorman. We offer access and let them in.

 

J. Howards, Director of the Analytics Department

 

Endorsement:

Confidentiality level AA.

 

To Howards:

Please find a way to neutralize the above phenomenon or at least decelerate it. Replace all hardware clusters. Use reserve copies to recreate parts of the world. Fractionize global updates if necessary. Do whatever it takes in order to keep our grip on the world for as long as is humanly possible.

 

A. Lichman Jr., Board member

 

* * *

I took Lieutenant Brown on his offer and did a quick corpse run to finally collect my stuff. My way now lay to the Drow capital where every Drow clan had their own quarters and Prince's residence.

Time was an issue. It was almost ten in the evening. At four a.m. we had to create a raid group and begin distributing buffs and supplies.

Frag had given me two hours to get a clear answer from the Drow. He'd also given me a teleport clearance to the Dark Lands complete with the services from Porthos, a Wizard and the clan's cabbie.

Virtually every clan did their best to level a few transporters. The Wizards had a special teleport skill branch. Few would willingly become cabbie men, which made such volunteers worth their weight in gold. A boring skill but extremely well-paid. You could easily earn three hundred gold a day just by standing in the city square offering your services to take anyone anywhere in AlterWorld. The branch started by opening personal portals followed by group, raid and stationary ones. Admittedly, you had to waste a year of your time to properly level this one-sided char that miserably lacked in all other respects: his talent points were inadequate and you had to sacrifice battle spells to portal leveling.

Porthos didn't really resemble his book prototype. He was puny and constantly angry. He sat in his office next to the portal hall providing transportation for those who needed it. He must have had a busy day because, as I approached, he was choking on the contents of yet another vial of mana elixir.

He squeezed the last drop into his mouth and cringed with disgust, suppressing a belch. "I'd pay a million gold to anyone who'd make a cinnamon-free version of this crap. Otherwise I'll be the first player capable of puking, if you know what I mean."

Then he noticed me. "Where to? Drow capital? Shit. It's a middle portal, over a thousand mana. I don't think I can take it for much longer!"

He looked out into the corridor. "Jazel... er... Jazelwolf! What's that for a name! Come on, get me the duty enchanter from the guards' room. I need him to send me some mana. I've had enough of this swill, it makes me see triple. It's your job now to mix it with the invisibility elixir."

He turned back to me. "Ready? I'll send you by individual portal."

He froze, searching for the right spell, then tensed up and mumbled it, waving his hands about like a hypnotist.

Teleport spell alert! Destination: the Original City. Accept: Yes/No. 10... 9... 8...

 

The portal popped open. I found myself standing on a massive portal platform in the middle of the the Drow capital's main square. The first things I noticed were the tall spires of the Royal residence on the hill surrounded by expensive trading houses—Gothic-style with fancy shop signs. The place was busy, teleports popping in and out. I caught a few surprised stares. A High Elf is not a common sight in a Dark city—a bit like an African in the Moscow metro. At least no one attempted to challenge me. My interface had highlighted my friendly status, puzzling some of them while putting others' minds at ease.