Rik lowered his sword and helped Cassie to her feet. I crouched behind Killzone, ready to strike, but noticed that Shiana, in her tree, while still ready with an arrow, didn’t have her bow drawn.

Rik said “Hold!” and then chuckled to the other man. “Yield huh. Do I know you?”

Killzone shrugged, “I was late back in King’s Bounty. Stagfeld. I was only at level 40 and wasn’t part of the OK Raiders. Figured this time I wouldn’t be at the back of the line, and so when my nephew asked me to join up for the Killers4hire, the nephew your pet just killed, here I am.”

Rik nodded, “Well, what do we do now? Single combat? Forfeit?”

Killzone shook his head, “I’d rather forfeit. Not really that big a fan of the PVP thing, personally, but the kids wanted to roll that way. They keep getting themselves killed, and I am just not young enough to do the tanker thing. Might even spring for a reroll. What kinda class are you?”

Rik smiled, “Warmaster. Rare class. I cannot really tell you how I got it, but it should be open in about a month in real-time.”

Killzone nodded, “Seems to work. If I squared off with you, your pets are part of your class, and from what I can see you have at least two of them, maybe three. Gary’s a pet class too, but he doesn’t get a spotter until level ten, so it looks like you are kind of OP as heck for early game.”

Rik smiled, taking off his helmet, “yep, slid in under…” and I coughed, loudly, from right behind Killzone.

“Right.” Rik added, “I am not a supervillain. Umm.. forfeit is all your cash on hand, which I would have gotten anyway, and umm. Do you want to ransom back the kid’s gear?”

Killzone nodded, “Yeah, Gary’s bow is in there and he’s useless without it. Bubble’s gear is easy to replace, but the bow is expensive to replace even if it’s vendor trash.”

Cassie was looking confusedly between the two of them. “Umm.. why did we stop the fight? He’s a murderer. We aren’t just going to let him go? I am pretty sure we can take him.”

I was having a little bit of trouble with it also. I mean, this guy was just going to casually murder both Cassie and me. Just for a little cash. I was trying to look at it logically, I understood that they thought this was just a game, I also understood that Cassie had chosen to take her risks when she decided to become an adventurer, but she was a real person.

“Can I make a suggestion?” I said, surprising the hell out of Killzone. Rik glanced at me and said, “Yes?” While Killzone’s eyes bugged out. “He talks?”

Rik nodded to Killzone, “Yeah, we think he might be a recode or something. He knows real-world stuff. At least stuff from a long time ago. Maybe an octo or corpsicle.”

Killzone shrugged, looking at me very curiously as I spoke. “My suggestion is that he and his nephew and nephew’s girlfriend take off their coolsets, and never come back to the game again. Killing actual people is some twisted, sick shit. If they had killed Cassie, she would have been dead. Really dead. Killing monsters is one thing, I totally agree with it. Player versus player is another. I don’t like it, but I can sort of understand it. But when they saw locals on your team, they decided to attack.”

Rik looked very confused, and said, “Yeah, but they are locals. Gary is actually a friend of mine. I mean, yes, Cassie wouldn’t respawn, but you would. I don’t like Bubbles that much, but this is a game. These are my friends in re..re… my world.”

I tried to explain it in a way that Rik might understand. “Rik, maybe it’s recodes, maybe it’s real, but Cassie and the other people, they are REAL PEOPLE. They are not artificially intelligent NPCs. Cassie had a real life before she joined your team. So did Mae, and according to Shiana, she had a real life before she was assigned to be your pet.”

Rik shook his head, “That’s bullshit!” He yelled, “This is a game! These are game people! I don’t know how you can talk about N.. Locals and shit, but I am going to bug report the crap out of this. This is very not cool.” He looked around and noticed that Cassie had edged a little closer to me, and had her hammer lifted across her shield, ready for trouble. “What the hell? You are interfering with my game mechanics?”

I nodded to Rik, “You bet your ass I am.” Do you know that thing where I mentioned that if I actually lost my temper, I tended to go really, really overboard? I understood that Rik thought this was a game, but he was surrounded by evidence that this was way past anything that artificial intelligence could create. Hell, he was sleeping with two girls, and he couldn’t tell they were a little more than just animation sequences?

I noticed that Killzone was gone. There was a band on the forest floor, which vanished a few moments later. Did he log out or something?

Rik sneered, “Yeah, you are a recode. I bet you were a social terrorist or something, or you are some hacker or something on a rogue code. Thanks for the help, but we are done.”

Rik has attempted to sever the combat pet bond. As we are actually in control of the bond, would you like to allow it to withdraw?

“Yes,” I answered. I could feel the connection on the outside of my aura release, and the bands of elemental mana pulled back, reinforcing each whirling torus of elemental mana orbiting my core. Apparently, the bond had been a lot more one-sided than I had expected, I had been spending a lot of both my aspected and free essence maintaining Rik’s bonus abilities.

Rik chuckled, and I heard him say “Bug hunter accolade. Shiana, take him out.”

Rik:

That traitorous little son of a bitch. He had no idea if ‘Bran’ was a recode or a hacker, but either way, he had just gotten a quest to earn the bug hunter accolade. He was going to just have Shiana track the little bastard until a GM showed up, but then he had gotten the notifications.

System message:

Cassie’s reputation has dropped from trustful to neutral

Cassie’s reputation has dropped from neutral to distrustful

Cassie’s reputation has dropped from distrustful to disgusted

Cassie has left your party!

Cassie was supposed to be his next pet! And the little monster just utterly wrecked his class progression. He regretted losing all of the bonus abilities he had gotten from the kobold, but it was very obvious that the moment a GM found out he was going to be nerfed to hell.

Gary, whose real name was Gary, was a real-life friend. They had both been playing King’s Bounty for the last two years together and had hung out together in real life. His girlfriend Bonnie was also extremely cute, and WAY out of Gary’s league, and he’d had hopes that when she ditched Gary he’d be the one she turned to next.

Rik had decided to go it alone, instead of instantly rebuilding his original guild, Killers4hire. Gary had clearly decided to pick up the tab instead, which was fine since Rik knew full well that his new rare class would help him move in from a position of strength, and he had plans for building a raiding guild in this new game and didn’t want PVP guild rep hanging over his head the way it had in King’s Bounty.

He’d picked up Shiana in the class tutorial, but Mae had come barely a day later. His class had not actually spawned in Sindaenaway, but in a small road inne, nearly a day out called Shandreeve. His charisma started at nearly 30, and he had enjoyed the heck out of being able to easily seduce nearly every girl at the inne.

That’s why Bran’s bullshit accusation ticked him off so much. That stablehand was about as obvious an NPC as you can imagine, dumber than a stump, and his first EXP was when the scripted interruption happened while he was indulging himself in the stable with the serving wench, and he interrupted with a pitchfork screaming about his fiancee.

Obviously an NPC. Rik had taken him out in seconds and looted him. The NPC girl was fun, but the alerts had made it obvious that he had had to take her out also to prevent a massive reputation hit from having a witness. Not a problem. A quick loot later and she was gone, and when he met Mae, he gave her the dress that the barmaid had been wearing to move almost instantly to friendly. His Charisma bonus and a few conversations later and her rep had moved to devoted, and she was a lot more...creative than Shiana was. At least until Shiana hit level 6.

And now this little lizard was claiming he was killing real people? Hell no. It would be a shame to lose his crafting potential, but the bug hunter accolade would give him a very nice reputation bonus, and reputation was essential to his class progression.

Not to mention, the bug had just cost him Cassie. She wasn’t as pretty as either Shiana or Mae, but she was pleasant enough, and all he had to do was bang her once to make her his pet and get a massive bonus to armor class, as well as a pet tank, which was awesome.

“Shiana, take him out,” he ordered. To be fair, he expected to get a LOT of loot from the little bug. When his girls looted, he automatically received whatever they had looted and could access their inventory at any time, but that combat pet… well, he had seen him picking up gems from those skeletons and that boss mob, and they hadn’t appeared in his inventory. That should have been his first clue that the kobold was bugged since he didn’t even have an inventory, he had bags, like Cassie and other NPCs, that he’d have to search through manually to find any loot. Pets have inventory, just like players, and it made him wonder if Bran would even respawn if he were killed.

Even that name, Bran. Kobolds, if they even had names, were supposed to have names like ‘Braksnot’ or ‘Grie’ or ‘Brokenscale’, not ‘Brantley Gallagher Winterborne’. Even the name was some kind of joke on president Winterborne, which made him suspect even more that he was some kind of hacked account.

Shiana’s reputation has dropped from devoted to friendly

Shiana’s reputation has dropped from friendly to trustful

Shiana’s reputation has dropped from trustful to neutral

Shiana’s reputation has dropped from neutral to distrustful

Shiana’s reputation has dropped from distrustful to disgusted

Due to mistreatment of your pet, Shiana has left. She can be found at Shandreeve Inne if you wish to repair your relationship. You should be more careful of your pet’s needs!

Shiana has left your party

Due to the mistreatment of your pet, Mae Bae Ling has left. You should be more careful of your pet’s needs!

Mae Bae Ling has left your party

What the...f? Mae left without even losing reputation? With a scream of rage, Rik pushed the ‘home’ button. That friggin hacker had hacked his account big time! He only had a few hours left, but he was going to bug the crap out of this before he had to log out to go to school. He couldn’t abandon the character, not with the current accolades on it, but getting a new harem shouldn’t be that hard.

That little bugger was going to pay. He’d join Killers4hire and make sure of it. He wasn’t as high level as some, but with the amount of riches he had right now, he could outfit the whole group and they could start power leveling and building a guild hideout in no time. Gary was a suck guildmaster anyway, and would turn over the leadership to him as soon as he knew Rik was serious.

Well, that had gone downhill fast. The moment Rik had told Shiana to take me out I dived sideways into a bush and began stealthing for all I was worth. My outfit and my skin turned colors, but I had to keep moving, or Shiana’s tracking skills would hunt me down in moments.

Your stealth skill has improved to journeyman great

Your Physical Fitness skill has improved to apprentice mediocre

I guess using a skill under seriously threatening conditions was a lot more of a learning experience than simply keeping it up all the time. I didn’t hear any crashing noise behind me, so I knew Rik wasn’t following, but there was a chance that Shiana could track me if I let up for even a moment. She didn’t have my level of stealth, but she was certainly quiet.

I needed to find someplace to hole up for a while. Right now I had decent survival accessories, albeit not what I would need to care for a whole party, but feeding myself wouldn’t be an issue. Rik had all of the goblin ears, so there was little reason to head back to the outpost, and I had no idea how to market the dungeon location. I suspected that in a few days, the new dungeon would be packed, and based on the fact that Mnemosyne had told me the core was a real person, I wished her all the luck in the world, but I wasn’t going back right now.

I evaluated my player equivalent to be about level three or so, but that was something else I might want to ask Mnemosyne to put on my character sheet. I felt good, and I was moving fast, and I headed back towards the bridge. I doubted that anyone other than Mae, with her magic slippers, could keep up with me.

I didn’t have time to gather anything or the space that I had before, but Mnemosyne had a surprising revelation for me.

Due to your close contact with extra-dimensional space and dimensionally stable items, dimensional aspects have gathered around your core and should be dealt with soon. Please note that we currently possess a dimensionally stable artifact that I have analyzed, in addition to the band-provided extradimensional space. When we get a chance, it might be possible to simulate an extra-dimensional space similar to that of the bands. You are currently at 212% of your evolution quintessence due to the elimination of two much higher-level players.

Well, it looked like my hard cap on quintessence had been eased a bit, which is good. Mnemosyne wasn’t sending me a warning that I was close to harming myself yet. If I could figure out how to create a space like the players possessed, that could be enormously useful. I had a few ideas, but I needed to have a sit down with Mnemosyne first. While the idea of enhancing my legs or arms was certainly appealing, that quintessence loop she had mentioned seemed to be more urgent, if only to keep me progressing.

I was looking from side to side, carefully watching as I approached the bridge for the third time. If I was going to be ambushed, this is where it would probably happen. I could probably keep going south to try and find another fjord, but I didn’t have any convenient corpses this time to feed to the fishes. I was tempted to find a good hiding place and wait, but frankly, the more I thought about it, the more of a douchefork Rik seemed to be.

I mean, yeah, I was a bit of a douchefork at that age, barely 5 years ago, but at the time it was more out of a sense of desperate survival rather than entitlement. It was… good, I guess, that he was looking out for his own future, but I didn’t like the choices he was making. Not really my business, he was a reasonably astute party member, but it was probably best to avoid him in the future, even in supposed safe zones I didn’t know if my status as a monster would give him free rein.

More worrying, however, was the bug report thing. I was not part of their ‘system’, what kind of powers would these developers or game masters have? Would they be able to track me down and destroy me with ease? Or did they rely on the bands as much as Rik did?

I noticed that sitting in the middle of the bridge, there was something small and coppery looking. Checking one more time, I quickly started sprinting across the bridge, my [observe] fully active. In the middle of the wooden crossbeams that straddled the heavy log supports, I found what looked like a band lying on top of a small piece of parchment.

Gift of LIbrs

Rare (Broken)(jury-rigged)

This band is used by adventurers to identify themselves to the system and access system resources

Created by: Winchester Gaslightopper

Value: negligible (Broken)

I didn’t detect any traps, so I carefully lifted the band, and looked at the parchment. I lifted it and read it. The handwriting was very fluid and frankly, beautiful, like whoever had written it practiced calligraphy for years.

Bran-

This band is broken. You already know how to use illusions to disguise your system signature, this should keep you from getting killed on sight in places where bands are used regularly.

Despite Mnemosyne’s insistence, I do not know how to help you with your scroll. If we were bonded I could, but it is a cultivation manual, with a basic 8-point cycling diagram. It is worthless to tailless humans but should give you an invaluable starting place for designing your own cultivation techniques.

Rik is not pursuing you presently, but Shiana is. I tried to tell you not to enchant with your own quintessence, it bonds the recipients, and has limited utility, especially since it can be used to track you even by untalented mages. She WILL find you unless you choose to eliminate her or break your bond somehow. Maybe you can talk to her.

I have left Rik and will meet you in the Winnowrill. Be careful with the troglodytes. They call themselves Winnowrill elves despite having no connection with elvenkind. They are not your kind even if they look vaguely similar, but they may be able to help you. Cassie filled me in on what you discussed over the blackberries.

Sincerely, The Fox.

The only magic that seemed to be left in the band was a hint of illusion, and I closed it around my wrist. It was very loose, but when closed it looked like it fit seamlessly, even though I could open and close it with only a little effort. I tucked the note into my bag, only to discover that the writing on it had disappeared the moment I finished reading it. How very James Bond of Mae.

I readjusted my pack straps, made sure that my armor was well fastened and comfortable, and finished crossing the bridge, heading southeast towards the Winnowrill.