The Dragon's Revenge Read online

  It was tempting to search for secret doors on this floor and I gave in to the temptation when Sapentia and Braja called a break to regain spirit. With Raitha at my side, I stepped through the debris to examine panelled walls, bare walls, walls with scorch marks on them and walls with mysterious scratches. No secret doors or compartments that we could tell. Standing before a shard of broken mirror, Raitha and I contemplated one another.

  ‘Twins no longer,’ he said, somewhat ruefully.

  It was true. Quite apart from the fact that I was dressed in very different style, my face was heavier and uglier, with bigger and darker eyes, my shoulders and chest bulked up more with muscle and my hands were bigger, with longer fingers. Compared to me, Raitha’s female half-elf was a beauty.

  ‘We are growing apart in shape, but closer in spirit,’ I offered.

  ‘I hope that’s true.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ I asked, surprised at the somewhat melancholy tone of my best friend.

  ‘Well, it seems to me there are two reasons. One is that you are now the leader of the whole project. You have replaced the General. And as I do not experience the same responsibility or - presumably - the same levels of anxiety and stress, I believe the situation has a built-in tendency to make you more curt and perhaps in your eyes, I seem more shallow and irreverent.’

  ‘No, no, not at all.’

  ‘Good. The second reason is that I find myself becoming detached from the goal of killing the dragon. Since I am being paid to assist the achievement of this goal and since I am an honourable person, I do my best. I find myself enjoying the journey and deep down, I don’t really care about the outcome of the project.’

  [Group] ‘Full,’ said Sapentia.

  I turned away from the mirror and set off back to the others. ‘Even if the game will be unplayable if we fail?’

  ‘Even so.’ His avatar gave a nod. ‘There will be other games.’

  ‘Even if Watson, Blackridge and the others from Yuno will lose their jobs?’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘And if Watson faced worse? If he was going to have his legs broken, for example.’

  ‘Is this hypothetical? Because best practice in HR these days tends not to use the threat of violence as an incentive. I have been shown clips of Darth Vader killing his underlings and had serious professionals explain to me how this would not, in fact, be an effective way to run an evil empire.’

  ‘Well, I made up the broken legs. Watson did give the impression though that his investors - Blackcoin’s founders - would hold him personally responsible for the loss of their money.’

  ‘Poor Watson. I should not like to be in his position. Yet even here, I find that I am not particularly motivated. I am not his friend. He has arrived at this position from his own choices. And someone like him will have a bolt hole.’

  ‘True. And Raitha?’

  ‘Yes, my friend.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I feel the same way too. I’ll do my best to kill the dragon for them but I haven’t become one of them.’

  Chapter 24

  A Well-Hidden Book

  The third floor of the necromancer’s tower was also occupied by Black Yhandis, who had pulled all the furnishings apart, as though searching for something. There was one interesting challenge. The lizardmen had a prisoner in an iron cage. When I released him, however, expecting a certain amount of gratitude and perhaps some useful information for our quests, he transformed into a werewolf. For several minutes the werewolf and I hammered away at each other, neither of us doing any harm. We were both immune to normal attacks.

  The tricky aspect of the fight concerned aggro: because I wasn’t hurting the werewolf, even by a small amount, I was hardly creating aggro. Everyone stood around watching, hesitant to get involved, especially as all we knew about the werewolf’s level was that it was at least five above Tuscl’s 19 (it conned impossible to him). Eventually, Sapentia figured out a solution and had Braja throw me his magical mace. Even though I was unskilled at first, after a dozen attempts I landed my first hit that did damage and we could see that the werewolf’s hit point bar dropped about 2 per cent. Not too tough. After a few more hits from me (and skill ups in mace wielding) Grythiss stepped in and tanked without ever being in too much trouble.

  We then faced a staircase that had been blocked with old furniture and which had ‘keep out’ written on the walls in Elvish. It was unclear whether the Black Yhandis had created the obstacle to prevent the dark elves from further up the tower coming back down, or the dark elves were warning the lizardmen not to come up. Appealing as it was to press ahead, the lower levels of the tower suited us perfectly: not too dangerous; exp that was levelling us up ahead of schedule; a merchant we could offload loot to. And when I ran back down to discover that half the ground floor mobs had already respawned, there was no difficulty about our choice. We would respect the barricade, for now.

  The landing on the staircase between the ground floor and the first floor seemed a safe spot to pull to and we were so efficient at killing the lizardmen by now that we worked our way through all four floors in less than two hours. After which it was time for a break.

  Leading our way down the stairs towards the main doors, the tower now seemed familiar and much less intimidating than when I had entered. Higher up, though, were supposed to be mobs that would challenge players who had reached level 50 and I looked forward to exploring those elevated reaches. For the immediate future, boring though it was becoming, we had to grind out some more levels on the Black Yhandis.

  After unclipping and using the bathroom, I met Sapentia at a vending machine, where she was eating white chocolate.

  ‘Want some?’ She offered me a row of squares, which I took.

  ‘That went well, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sapentia replied, though not with any enthusiasm.

  ‘But?’

  ‘Tyro, I’m thinking of quitting.’

  ‘Quitting? No, please don’t.’ I was shocked. And it suddenly became clear to me just how important it was to have Sapentia in my team. Okay, she was a celebrity and her presence in my group was a real feather in my cap. Beyond that, though, she was a great player. And then…despite the fact I knew it was hopeless, I was smitten. It would really hurt if she left.

  ‘Why do you care? Anyone could do my job.’

  ‘No, no, that’s not true. And I wouldn’t want someone else in the group. I want you.’

  Scornfully, she leaned away, as though to better appraise me. ‘You know nothing about me.’

  ‘I do though. You’re clever. You’re daring. You are defiant…is it Braja?’

  With a bitter laugh, Sapentia shook her head, purple ponytails exaggerating the movement. ‘No. Not Braja. He’s not important. It because I still don’t understand Yuno. Why they built the game this way, so hard to fix? We are missing full picture.’

  The heavy beating in my chest subsided. ‘Remember our meeting this morning?’

  When Sapentia was watching you out of eyes that were outlined so heavily, you really felt her attention. I had it now.

  ‘You asked about who made Epic Two,’ I continued. ‘I was watching Katherine at the time and she was uneasy about that question. She had something to say and nearly said it. Want to go see her and ask again?’

  ‘Good idea.’ Sapentia considered. ‘Probably. We must be quick though; everyone is back in game in ten.’

  ‘Come on then.’ I felt an upsurge of giddiness. Like on the day at school when we’d refused to go out in heavy rain on a cross country run that our P.E. teacher had tried to make us do. Like I was engaging in an act of rebellion.

  We hurried through the Den, Sapentia’s heels clicking loudly. It amused me to see the heads turn towards her. It was middle-aged men who were the least able to prevent themselves from staring a little too long at her outfit.

  Katherine’s office was on the floor above and rather than wait for a lift, we ran up the well-lit stairs, crossed over the foyer and dow
n a short corridor. Her door was ajar. I tapped it all the same before entering.

  ‘Oh, hello Tyro, Sapentia, good to see you.’

  You could tell at once that the Yuno executive was fully engaged in the latest strategy for the project. Behind her, a whiteboard had columns written in five different colours, with lists of gear and with arrows pointing to certain items which had boxes around them and messages like, ‘blacksmith 50’ or ‘enchanter 75’. On her desk were pages and pages, printed out from the guide and while most were resting in wire trays, many were spread out in front of her and had small yellow pieces of paper stuck on them, with notes in her handwriting.

  ‘We don’t have long,’ said Sapentia, standing behind a chair and resting her hands on the back. ‘So to cut to chase. Who really built Epic Two? What is going on?’

  I had expected Katherine to look alarmed, or show a sign of surprise and distress. Instead, we got a calm, appraising look from beneath her grey fringe. ‘Short version. Someone came in as project manager. We all called him Kiro but I never heard or saw his real name. In the game, he went by Kraken. Japanese, I think, about forty years old. Well dressed, fit, very friendly, he had the office across from me; I never warmed to him though.’

  ‘And what did he do?’

  ‘This is what troubles me. I’ve no idea. Beyond the fact that instead of running the whole game on our own servers, he made it run on a network of volunteer hardware.’

  ‘Was he stupid?’ Again, Sapentia took the lead. That was fine by me.

  ‘No, definitely not.’

  ‘Then why introduce problems editing game? What was gain?’

  ‘Oh, the gains were spelled out often enough at meetings: massive processing power; customer engagement; no lag, even in countries with national firewalls; that kind of thing.’

  ‘But?’ I asked, sensing her hesitation.

  ‘But…our tech people think there is far more energy being used in the playing of the game than we planned for. Considerably more. Not just here, all over the world. If the game becomes a hit, we’ll be making a distinct contribution to global warming all by ourselves.’

  ‘Interesting,’ mused Sapentia. ‘What do you make of it? He smuggled something in?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ve had our people check for Trojans and other non-game programs. It’s not that.’

  ‘It’s definitely game-related?’ I wondered aloud.

  Katherine nodded. ‘Yes. Extra content perhaps? A massive hidden quest or region. Some kind of high-level controls or hacks? To allow certain players to cheat at the game? Quests that allow a player hidden advantages?

  ‘What makes me think it might be something like this, is that one of our writers came to me, secretly, to tell me he had been asked by Kiro to draw up a dozen quest lines that led to a very well-hidden book.’

  ‘A book,’ repeated Sapentia, with interest, as though she was still in character as a wizard.

  ‘A book’—Katherine shrugged—‘which may or may not be in the game and which might be a complete red herring.’

  While we thought about this, no one speaking, an important question occurred to me. ‘Do you still believe we should kill the dragon?’

  With a rueful smile, Katherine nodded. ‘I’ll be out of a job if you don’t. It’s the only way to reclaim the game. And it would be a huge, huge waste of years of work by the best developers in the industry. Although even then, killing the dragon might not be enough. Maybe some of the other AI are smart enough to lead a campaign against player entry.’

  ‘Like the Generals of Bow and Sword.’

  ‘Exactly those two. We put a lot of work into them. And Lady Cruoris.’

  ‘Do you think AI have rights?’ asked Sapentia suddenly.

  ‘One day they will. These creations are still a long way short of sentience though. Ultimately, they are just bots.’

  ‘So, we carry on?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes please, if you would.’

  I looked at Sapentia. She looked at me, then shrugged.

  ‘Okay.’ Sapentia turned and walked away.

  ‘Thanks.’ I gave Katherine half a wave, as though apologising for any rudeness from my teammate. Not that Sapentia was deliberately being rude, just efficient. Then I hurried to catch up with her.

  ‘I do not like the sound of Kraken,’ Sapentia said as she hesitated beside another office door.

  ‘I thought you said Japanese men were kind of lame.’

  ‘Not all. Some are dangerous.’ Then, surprisingly, she entered the office. I glanced at the name on the door: Head of Game Development, Paul Blackridge.

  There he was, behind a computer and in the room was the stocky young man who had given me a hard time at the last meeting. Both Blackridge and the tough-guy player looked shocked to see us.

  ‘So.’ Sapentia put her hands on her hips. ‘Now we see where the attack on Tyro came from. Why though?’

  Standing up, Blackridge stared and worked his mouth as though speaking, yet nothing came out. Eventually, the strong flush in his cheeks faded. ‘Close the door.’ He was looking at me.

  With a shrug, I did so.

  ‘How did you do it?’ he asked still ignoring Sapentia and focusing on me. His stare, dark and hostile, might have troubled someone who cared for his good opinion.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Become a vampire?’

  ‘Luck mostly. Although I think suggesting I would make a good companion to Lady Cruoris came into it.’

  ‘Luck,’ Blackridge repeated bitterly. ‘Sod you, Foster. You know nothing about the game.’

  ‘Don’t you want him to kill dragon?’ asked Sapentia, a note of genuine curiosity in her voice.

  ‘Kill the dragon? I don’t see how he’ll get within a mile of the dragon, unless as meat for its dinner. And as for what they are saying about him being a great raid leader, that’s a God damned lie!’

  ‘What’s your plan then, General?’ Sapentia did sarcasm well, the word General was coated in it.

  Blackridge leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping together, smiling nearly. He had command of himself again and shared a glance with his stooge. ‘Watch you fail. Watch this whole setup come crashing down.’

  ‘And?’ I was angry now. ‘This is your job, not mine. If I fail, it hurts you more than me.’

  Yawning with deliberate rudeness, Blackridge looked at his screen, then tapped it.

  ‘Come on,’ muttered Sapentia, ‘others are waiting.’

  ‘I want to hear him answer my question.’

  ‘He’s not going to,’ she raised her voice again. ‘He has given up on Yuno.’

  Back in the game, my heart beating normally once more, the lower levels of the tower had fully respawned (with the exception of the werewolf prisoner). Since we knew what to expect, as we began the grind our conversation turned to the information that Sapentia and I had gained from Katherine and Blackridge.

  ‘It’s a cock-up.’ Braja cast a heal on Grythiss and then resumed his thought. ‘The larger the organisation, the more likely it is that someone high up makes a terrible decision and no one corrects it. Like the army. Sometimes, it seemed to me that what mattered wasn’t winning, or they would listen to us grunts. What mattered was reputation. In fact, if you really wanted to get something done, you’d explain to the sergeant how it would make the lieutenant look good if we…’

  Boom! A bolt of lightning finished off a Black Yhandis rogue. Then Sapentia said, ‘It not a cock-up. Some very smart people came here and crowdsourced the game hosting for a reason.’

  ‘Money laundering?’ I offered, thinking of what my mum had said. I was standing in the hallway of the first floor, some ten metres away from the others, being attacked by a dozen black-and-gold lizardmen.

  ‘How though?’ This was Raitha. ‘If they managed to invest millions of ill-gotten money into the company, then why not make the game a success? The point at which dirty money becomes clean is in regard to investment. Once the authorities have allowed the investment,
well, what is the point sabotaging the game?’

  ‘Something to do with Blackcoin exchange?’ I glanced over my shoulder down the stairs to the landing on which the rest of the group were fighting a lizardman warrior.

  ‘I think so too,’ said Sapentia in a musing tone. ‘Yet I don’t see how. We earn game coins. We swap them for Blackcoin outside game. If people making Blackcoin are laundering, maybe this game helps them? Gives them more opportunity to buy a clean currency?’

  ‘That could be it!’ I could hear the enthusiasm in my own voice. ‘We know the investors are Blackcoin’s owners.’

  ‘Maybe. Something close to this. Doesn’t explain extra game content and energy cost of running game.’

  As soon as Sapentia pointed this out, my belief we had the answer dissipated. Curious to know more about our new group member, I asked, ‘Tuscl, what do you think? What is really going on?’

  ‘I just know I’m being paid to play a game I love. Is enough.’

  ‘I hear that,’ said Braja earnestly.

  The Black Yhandis warrior is dead. You gain experience.

  After a short pause, while he tagged a Black Yhandis cleric and the group set to work on him, Raitha resumed the conversation. ‘Is it though? I mean, if these were really unethical, abhorrent people, would we still work for them?’

  ‘They’re all pretty much the same,’ said Braja, ‘big businesses. I don’t see one being better to work for than another.’

  ‘Of course you don’t; you worked for US army.’ This sardonic comment was from Sapentia.

  ‘Score.’ I laughed, but Braja didn’t join in.

  ‘You don’t know anything about me. I’ll tell you this, though, I’ve worked for companies a lot more ruthless than the army.’

  The Black Yhandis cleric is dead. You gain experience.

  ‘Kill more hated foessss,’ muttered Grythiss. ‘Bring another Black Yhandisss.’