Chapter 15 – A Dragon Joke

Click. Click. Click.

Sounds of rapid steps walking hurriedly down an empty corridor at SinTech headquarters is all that can be heard as a determined Kelly rushes towards her destination. The sound of her high heels echoes loudly among the bare walls. She soon finds herself in front of a large double door. She forcefully slams them open.

“LOGAN!” She shouts.

She finds herself in a large open office space, the very same room that was previously the call center for the contestant interviews. About two dozen technicians are hard at work monitoring the large streams of data coming out of Fantasy Royale.

Every head snaps in the direction of her sudden shout.

When their eyes lock onto the source of the noise, a general feeling of confusion spreads in their midst.

Kelly stares back at them, murder in her eyes. Her usually tidy hair is surprisingly askew, while her chest heaves with exertion from her brisk walk towards the office. She tightens her fists and takes a stance that promises violence to the first person who crosses her path.

She takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

“Everyone. Get out.” She says through clenched teeth. Everyone just stares back at her. Not quite comprehending the meaning of her words.

“NOW!” She screams.

As if struck by a bolt of lightning, everyone moves at once. Some grab anything within

reach, be it laptops or stacks of paper before rushing towards the exit. They all give Kelly a wide berth, not daring to get too close. It doesn’t take long until the large room is void of people.

Only two remain.

She stomps her way over towards a couch near the back end corner of the office area. Her ears register rough techno music, similar to the ones of old school arcade games. A pair of feet sticks out from the end of the couch, it's thick woolen socks sports a myriad of bright colors.

She stops at the top end of the couch and glares down at a jovial bearded face. Logan lies comfortably on the couch, legs crossed and currently heavily focused on playing some game on a handheld console. Completely ignorant of the recent shoutings. He probably didn’t care.

“You…” She sneers.

“Top of the morning to you too Kelly!” Logan smiles, not taking his eyes off the console.

Kelly’s furious face tightens as she blows a large gust of air through her nose.

“What the hell do you think you are doing!?” She shouts down at him. Not acknowledging his playful antics.

Logan feigns innocence. “What do you mean?”

“Did you really think nobody would notice? That I... We were going to let it slide?” Her volume rises.

“Djeezes woman. Calm down why won’t you?” He discards the handheld console and sits up. The techno music still playing. His playful expression all but gone.

He sighs.

“I know what you think. But we had to test the software anyway. What better way to do it than in this perfectly controlled and heavily monitored environment?” He waves his hand in a dismissive manner.

“You have no right! The software hasn’t been tested at all. It could be dangerous, Logan. Don’t you see that? The possible ramifications to the contestants could be huge! Do you want the project to shut down? Because I’m one step away from calling the whistle on this whole thing.”

“It’s just a small A.I upgrade Kelly. I made precautions…” He says, his confident smirk slowly vanishing.

“Precautions? There are no damn precautions. This is military grade developed A.I software Logan! It is designed so that you can NOT make precautions against it. Certainly not in under a month. Who do you think you are?”

Her sudden remark leaves him indignant.

“Relax already okay? I know what I’m doing. Geez. I put in a failsafe. The game’s main A.I will monitor the contestants mental state. It will activate the kill switch for the update at the first sign of it interfering with their mental state. Really. There is no need to worry.” He raises his hands defensively.

Kelly, still shaking in anger, lowers her shoulders.

“Seriously Logan…” She closes her eyes and tries to collect herself. “You can’t play around with this. Why would you even think this was a good idea?”

“You know why Kelly.”

She clenches her jaw. “Tell me anyway.”

Logan sighs. He drags a hand over his unkempt hair, diverting his eyes away from his assistant.

“The entertainment is growing stale. We are losing viewers by the thousands every hour. There is just no drama. No depth to any of the streams. Sure, we see a cool looking battle every now and then, but that’s not everything!” He spreads his arms wide. “Let's face it. Our current V.I units suck. Horribly. Every interaction between them and the players are plain and without depth. It’s boring is what it is. It needed to be done.”

Kelly squeezes her temples between her thumb and index finger. “For entertainment… Really? Are you willing to risk everything. Your job. Their lives. For what? Better dialogue? Are you insane!? Couldn’t you just work with what you had?”

Logan slumps back into the couch. “Are you aware of how long that would take? Years, Kelly. Years! I don’t have that kind of time.”

“And you figured putting an untested and dangerous A.I into the game was the best way to solve that problem? It wasn’t designed for this Logan. It is designed to break the mind, not to entertain it. This is far too reckless. Even for you.”

“It will be fine. I promise. Nothing is going to happen. You have my word.” He states confidently.

Her eyes stare daggers at Logan.

“That will do little good when something DOES happen. You are in way over your head. You can’t do this stuff on your own. You need to tell someone. The investors. The military. You should call a press conference immed-”

“Whoa, whoa! Hold your horses! Let’s not be rash here.” He quickly interrupts her. He raises his hands, palm forwards to try and calm the situation. “There is no need to worry them unnecessarily. I have this handled.”

Kelly flares up. “Are you serious!?” She screams. “You can’t just sweep this under the rug and expect me to-”

“Calm down Kelly!” He shouts, once more cutting her off.

Kelly radiates fury.

“You’re telling ME to calm down? ME!? You… fucking asshole!” She screams at him, some spit flying from the corner of her mouth.

Logan’s expression drops. Kelly has never insulted him before. Never. She is mad. Far angrier than she has ever been before. A hot feeling builds in his chest.

“What did you say to me Kelly?” His forehead furrows. Kelly looks slightly taken aback. She knows she lost control, and she didn’t plan this. She hesitates and takes a step back.

“Must I remind you that I am still your boss? You don’t tell me what to do. Ever.” He stares her down. The first time anyone has ever seen Logan so serious.

“I can’t let you do this.” She says.

“You can and you will.” He crosses his arms over his chest tightly. “Besides, there isn’t anything you can do. Nobody would listen to you. You don’t have the proof.”

She glares back at him.

He wrinkles his nose, sneering at her. “Don’t even think about it. I’m revoking your access to the A.I databank.”

With a huff, she turns on her heel and marches away.

“Don’t do anything you will regret Kelly. I mean it. I won’t tolerate this behaviour forever.” He shouts at her departing back.

----------

“Oh for the love of god and all that is holy...” I mutter to no one in particular.

I trudge along and curse my stupid decision to jump half assed into this game. My feet are sore, and I’m incredibly and utterly bored out of my mind.

I currently find myself in the woods, heading westwards away from my base.

I try to let my mind wander for the umptenth time, and I can’t say that I notice anything new and interesting that’s out of the ordinary. There is wind rustling the branches, birds chirping, goblins humming and trees. Lots and lots of fucking trees.

Hell, I thought this adventure would be fun. I’m playing a game here. It’s supposed to be fun and exciting. Action at every corner. Something to draw in my interest.

Hours.

I have been walking around for hours.

Don’t get me wrong. This was my idea. I’m the moron who wanted to go for a little raid on my neighbour. Shit. Why wouldn’t I? You can’t have a strategy game if you don’t mess up your opponent's things and take their stuff. It’s the primary purpose of any proper strategy game. Not doing it would be pointless. If you do play strategy games and you don’t do these kind of things… Then you are a moron.

Nothing as dumb as being a turtle player.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, a turtle player is a strategy player who only hunkers down in his base, stacking up on defences and just sits still and waits until he is attacked. This kind of player never wins. Ever.

And even then. It’s the most common noob tactic there is.

Tsk. Humans… Am I right?

There is a problem being the attacker in this game though. The travel distances suck BALLS! Holy crap, it’s so boring! I have only been walking for about two hours, but I’m just about ready to tear my fangs out. Literally.

I have never been a fan of hiking in the woods. Sure, lots of people love it, but I don’t see the appeal. I understand it plenty. It could be nice for some people to feel the fresh air washing over your face, see the natural wonders of mother nature and feel the exhaustion in your muscles after a good workout.

I don’t even get that here. The game dulls my senses. I don’t feel much pain, there is no magical freshness to the wind circulating in this game, and there sure as hell are no natural wonders.

This place feels so fake. Sure, there is a bunch of trees and bushes around, but nevertheless, it all seems so… barren. I swear, most trees and bushes are just copy-pasted from the same template. Well, they have a wide selection, but I’m pretty sure I have seen this oak I just walked past four times already.

Ach. I can’t expect too much from a virtual world I suppose.

Anyway. I need to start focusing. I’m in enemy territory after all.

I may have been walking for two hours, but I know it shouldn’t be too much longer. At least I think so. Hopefully? I’m going on a hunch here. So far, I have been marching west along the mountain side. It’s basically just a scouting mission, but I have a pretty decent bet going that most players decided to locate their base along the center mountain. It’s the most strategically sound decision for the long term.

Yup. Just like what I did.

It took us little over an hour to leave my own territory. Going by those numbers, it shouldn’t be more than half an hour more until I reach the center of the inner enemy territory.

I just hope that the enemy is actually there, and not in the forest somewhere. It could take days to scout out the place, and I don’t have that kind of time. Well I do, but I don’t wanna.

On my quest to rid the world of another player, I enlisted the help of my finest little miscreants.

Well… Most of them at least.

I had to leave Gut behind with my weakest units to tend to my production crew back at the base. And let me tell you this; he didn’t like that order one bit. I’m pretty sure he was going to pop a blood vessel when I told him he had to stay behind and protect the base. He was all like: “Rabble rabble, you are too reckless, bla bla bla, racist stuff towards elves, ranty rant.” I swear, I’m pretty glad he didn’t come. I need a little break from him. A little me time.

I was worried about leaving the base with so little protection, but I instructed Gut to keep the fighters out scouting with orders to take the workers and bolt for the forest if there’s an attack they can’t handle. I gave him a lot of leeway to sacrifice goblins at his own discretion, but keeping as many of them alive as possible is priority number one.

It should be okay though. I already know there are no enemies to my southeast anymore, and I doubt any players will attack from a different biome up north. I mean really, why would they do that? Logan clearly said there were bonuses to be had to conquer their own biome. Besides, we will only be gone for a few hours. Nothing should happen… Hopefully.

Anyway. I brought the A-Team. All ten of my [Warrior]s, including Wrex. It’s my elite strike team. The only other participants in our little group is yours truly and our new [Scout]. Oh right, I also brought the hauler. Because why not? I might need him to carry back some loot! I have to say though. Apart from me and Wrex, the scout is the weirdest of the bunch. She doesn’t do much, but she still sort of sticks out in a weird manner.

Come to think of it. All my goblins seem to have changed. They all seem so… I dunno… Alive? It’s hard to tell. I never really paid much attention to the goblins. They always seemed too stupid to bother with too much. But lately… They have changed. And I think it’s for the better?

It’s definitely for the better.

Whereas they earlier seemed to be tiny green mannequins with the personality of a woodchipper, they all seem a bit more raucous. They are laughing, mercilessly punching each other and their vocabulary seems to have multiplied tenfold. They act like young and unsupervised delinquents.

So yeah, pretty much acting like a standard goblinoid creature should. Well you know, minus the terrible personal hygiene and their tendency for rape. But I figure that’s no great loss.

Something definitely changed. Whether it’s because of some great update to the A.I in the game or if the V.I units get an upgrade after attaining their classes, I don’t know. But I’m not complaining. It does seem a bit more lively around here. You know... Considering my current predicament. I’m still stuck in this godforsaken forest...

Perhaps I should build a tavern?

“Chieftain?” A voice startles me. I swivel around and find myself face to face with the scout. Her eyes avoid me shyly and she shifts her weight between her feet. She seems antsy to get away from me as quickly as possible.

Not sure how I feel about that.

“Umm… I found a trail…” She mutters after a while. Oh crap. I got sidetracked again.

“What really? Awesome! What did you find? Show me!”

She brings me up towards the front of our group. She gently kneels in between two small bushes. I walk up closer and try to examine whatever it is she sees.

...

I don’t see jack shit.

I give her a questionable look. “What exactly are we looking at…?”

“Footprints, Chieftain… Two pairs. Heading in that direction.” She points further southwest.

“What? How can you tell?” This makes no sense. I’m a freaking ranger. I’m supposed to have five levels in [Tracking]. Why can’t I see shit when I’m supposed to have a decent skill at it?

“It’s right there…” She points at the ground. What the… What’s she looking at? I narrow my eyes and focus intently on the spot. I guess one of the branches on the bush has snapped, and there is a small imprint on the ground. Is this-

As soon as I think the thoughts, the broken branch and the imprint start to softly glow blue. Holy crap. I always thought tracking was a passive ability, but I actually have to use it actively to notice the signs.

Sweet!

Yggdrasil Online didn’t have this feature. It’s so… smoothly implemented. Damn. Why didn’t I try this earlier?

I quickly try to analyze everything around me. It doesn’t take long for me to see several different signs of recent passage. I can see knocked over rocks, scraped off moss from logs along with several more imprints and broken twigs. I’m soon greeted by a sea of glowing marks on the ground. It’s all lined up neatly, clearly indicating someone passed by here at some point.

My discovery hands me a little gift.

Congratulations!

You have gained 1 skill level in Tracking!

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Something nags me though.

“How can you tell it was two of them?” I ask her.

She seems to fiddle with her thumbs for a moment. “Uhm… I just… can?” She mutters quietly.

I nearly slap my forehead with enough force to give me a concussion.

“...” I stare at her blankly. “Elaborate please.”

Her eyes drop to the ground.

“Uhm…” She hesitates. “If you see these marks here, and those here…” She points at a set of imprints on the ground. “One being couldn’t have made those on its own. And since there aren’t that many of them, there should only be two.” She shakes slightly. Almost as if she is ashamed to lecture me.

I focus intently on the set of imprints she pointed at.

…

Nope. Still don’t see shit.

I’m just going to write it off on the tracker skill she has.

Anyway. The trail we… okay, she pointed out, appears to lead towards the center mountain. This is excellent news. It would appear my hunch is indeed correct. I quickly get up and rally my warriors to my position. Wrex takes the lead and gets them into a loose circle formation, with us at the center.

“What are your orders?” He asks with a glint in his eyes. It seems like he is aware of the situation.

I smirk. “We are close. I can feel it.” I take a moment to point in the general direction of the enemy base. “If my calculations are correct, then it shouldn’t be more than a fifteen minutes walk tops. We most likely haven’t been noticed yet, but I’m not willing to take any risks. Wrex, I want you to take the lead along with two of your best warriors, as well as the scout and see if you can find the exact location of the base. And I can’t stress this enough. Do not be seen… and if you do; hightail it back here. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Wrex frowns. “I’m not supposed to leave your side.” He says gravely.

Uhm. “Excuse me?” What the…

“I promised Gut to protect you at all cost. I am not to leave your side.” He stares at me with a glint of resolve in his eyes.

“What the hell man? I just gave you a freaking order. What does that old fleabag have to do with anything?” I blurt out. Great. Now I probably sound like an idiot again.

“You are not to leave my sight unguarded.” He states matter-of-factly.

“What the hell are you on about? How am I unguarded? I’m still surrounded by seven freaking warriors. Far from danger. Would you just fucking go already?” I try my best not to shout at him. What the hell is up with this mutinous behaviour?

“Not good enough.”

“But for the love of… Go do your job asshole.” I hiss at him.

“No.”

“That’s an order.”

“No.”

“I swear to god I’ll shoot you.”

“No.”

I sigh. What the fuck man. Does it say Chieftain anywhere on my status page? I thought these dumb ass V.I motherfuckers were supposed to be a hundred percent obedient. Where is the damn break I’m supposed to be getting? This is that damn sack of mold’s fault. Apparently Gut has more sway over my goblins than I do.

…

I don’t get it. What the hell is up with the V.I’s in this game anyway? I sort of get it why Gut acts weird. His settings got messed up because of the possible hacking attempt or whatever the hell happened. The developers should have fixed these problems though? I should really have Wrex tested.

I open up the bug report and run a diagnostic on Wrex.

…

Nothing. What the hell? So he isn’t broken. This shit’s getting weird. Their behaviour makes no sense. This is supposed to be a game, isn’t it? Why are they acting like this? I thought they were just pawns for me to use. Why are they acting on their own discretion? Is it just showmanship? A way to entertain the masses? I don’t get it. Really. How am I supposed to play a game when the V.I’s themselves gives me a handicap?

I really need to find a way to fix this.

Should I abort this raid? It certainly would be the most logical option. This problem could become a liability. But then again. It might just be a game feature. Both Gut and Wrex have been nothing but loyal to me so far. I just don’t see why the game would add a possibility for the V.I’s to rebel for no apparent reason… Shit. I’ve come this far. The least I can do is to check the enemy out.

Damn it all.

“Fine. I’ll go with you and the scout then. Happy?”

He takes a moment to scratch his chin. A wide grin spreads on his face. “Lead the way, chief!”

I grunt, get on my feet and start walking towards the enemy at a brisk pace. I can hear Wrex and the scout trailing behind me. A soft whimper can be heard from the scout. And yeah, I’m sulking. Deal with it.

We walk off with this sullen mood for about five minutes before we start to get serious. We are in enemy territory after all. This particular area of the forest is much more dense than the paths we have followed so far. This is mostly because it helps to keep us hidden. Our pace slows considerably, but it’s a good precaution to make considering walking into an ambush would be really fucking stupid at this point.

We trudge along, keeping our eyes peeled for any sign of enemies. We decided on a loose three man formation to utilize our different strengths. Well, Wrex decided. That prick.

The scout takes the lead to look for any signs of enemies. Wrex insists on walking directly behind her, and directly in front of me. This is so that he can soak up any surprise attack that comes our way. I did argue that I should be the one walking in the middle so that I can more easily offer ranged support if the scout runs into anything. My opinion however, falls on deaf ears.

Wrex is being an asshat.

Maneuvering through the underbrush isn’t quite as cool as one would expect. I have watched plenty of movies where the hero deftly moves at high speeds through dense foliage, keeping his clothes clean and his boots stainless.

This game however, is much closer to what one would expect in reality. The game does have pain filters, but I can still feel minor physical stimuli like before. Like all these damn branches and bushes scraping and itching all over my nearly naked body. It’s excruciatingly annoying. The only thing that seems to help is muttering a bucketful of my favourite curse words for every step I take.

The worst thing however, is that my loincloth keeps getting stuck on twigs and branches every time I move my body. My hands automatically move to secure it in place so I won’t accidentally reveal my privates. Luckily, the game is designed in such a way that it’s physically impossible to remove the loincloth unless you really want to. Not that it would matter though. My character is like a Ken-doll down there.

Yeah… I checked. Don’t wanna talk about it.

I shoot an angry glare at Wrex’s back. The bastard is still wearing my leather armor. I bet this damn foliage doesn’t bother him at all. Little bastard.

Wait… Why didn’t I ever take the armor back?

I eye him menacingly once more. Fuck it. It probably benefits him more than me in a fight anyway. As much as I hate to admit it, I just can’t help but to maximize efficiency. It’s both a blessing and a curse.

I hope to god I unlock some sort of woodsman skill at some point that makes forest travel less painful.

“I can see enemies.” The scout whispers from up front. Butterflies fill my stomach as I register her words. Oh shit! Already? My body tenses up.

“Do they see us?” I whisper back, trying to catch a peek over Wrex’s shoulder.

“Mmh… No I don’t think so…” She responds. “They seem to be chopping wood.”

“How many soldiers?”

“I don’t see any…”

Excellent. We seem to have stumbled onto some of their production crew. That means we can probably take out a few enemies before they even know what’s going on. I slither my way past Wrex as quietly as I can manage, taking up positions next to the scout. I lift a low hanging branch out of the way and get a good view of my surroundings.

There is a large open clearing ahead of us, pretty much identical in size to the clearing at my own base. It seems to be the default setting for freshly spawned bases in the game if I would have a guess. The terrain is slightly different though. Whereas I have a small lake next to my clearing, This guy has a river extending outwards from the mountain to the southwest of his clearing. Lucky bastard. It seems to cover way more ground than my tiny lake. Also, while the ground near my base is mostly flat, his clearing is much more sloped up towards the mountain, granting him a better overall defensive position in case of an attack. I can’t believe the luck of this guy.

We are currently located about fifteen meters inside the edge of the forest to the northeast of their base. At least I guess so. I can’t really see any buildings for some reason. Perhaps there is a plateau at the top of the hill? That would just be the icing on the cake at this point.

Hrmpf. It just makes me want to kill him harder.

There is a cluster of lumberjacks a little ways off, doing their own thing. The creatures are small of stature, about the same height as my goblins. Seems like they are also a tier one race. Good. I’m not sure if my poor equipment and small numbers would be of much use against larger foes. They seem a bit bulkier, but their feet are both shorter and looks to be less maneuverable. They are bipedal creatures with thick brown fur covering most their bodies. Their backs are slightly hunched, with beady eyes and short stout noses that seem similar to a pig’s snout.

One thing is for certain. They won’t win any beauty contests anytime soon.

“Rat men…” I mutter. “They look disgusting.”

“Huh?” Wrex turns his head. “What do you mean?” He looks back towards the lumberjacks and narrow his eyes. “I always thought they were kobolds… I hear they taste great in a stew...” He looks disappointed.

“What? Kobolds? Those? … Are you kidding me? Aren’t kobolds supposed to be reptilian creatures? They love to live in caves, and their eyes adjust poorly to sunlight?” I ask.

“Uhm. They do live in caves... Dunno about the rest though. Haven’t ever heard about a kobold having scales though…” He ponders.

What the… Those can’t be kobolds. No way.

“Scales is like… the kobold thing! What have you been smoking? They are supposed to be a descendant from dragons for god's sake.”

Wrex just gives me a deadpanned look. “Are you seriously trying to say that those pathetic things…” He points towards the kobolds. “...have dragon’s blood in them?”

“Well… uh… yeah.” I tilt my head and scratch my temple. Shit. When he says it like that.

“They are supposed to be really distant cousins…”

Wrex guffaws.

“Hilarious. Didn’t peg you for a jokester chief! Nearly had me there. Scales… that’s funny.” Wrex chuckles, hardly making an effort to hide the sound. If I hadn’t been this put off by the fact that the developers messed up designing the kobolds, I might have told him to put a clamp on it.

Well crap. Good thing Wrex thought I was joking…

“Yeah, I suppose I oversold it with the dragon part, eh?” I smile at him, lying through my teeth.

“Yeah, a little bit. Was a good one though!” He laughs. “Now how about we start cracking some skulls?” He gives me a bloodthirsty grin.

Yep. Still creepy when he does that.

I raise my hand and cup my chin with the palm of my hand, attempting to hide my repulsed grimace. Wrex’s personality issues are still gnawing at me. Is he okay? He seems fine… Perhaps I’m just being paranoid. There really shouldn’t be any reason for him to put us at an unnecessary risk. I’m going to go with my gut feeling on this one. It has served me well so far.

“Hold on. We have to gather the troops first. Can’t have any of them get away.”

Wrex nods seriously. “That’s true. Kobolds are natural cowards. We should head back.”

“Hmm… No, not yet. Hey, you...” I motion towards the scout who sits quietly to the side. Her eyes snap open at suddenly being addressed. “Go fetch the troops and hide a little further down the forest. I’ll come get you when we are ready.”

She gives me a quick nod before she darts back into the forest. I turn back to Wrex. His grip on the cutlass tightens. I can see how his eyes are screaming in anticipation of shedding some blood.

“How about we have a closer look at their base?”

I get a wicked smile in return.

“Lead the way chief!”