DAY 55

It had been a long and sleepless night for me. Teefies had logged out to verify my story, vanishing in a way that was different than the portal I had seen Arvyan use. In the mean time she had set the defenses to neutral so I wouldn’t be electrocuted again. The three of us were sitting in the lounge, eating roasted "micro-piglets" that seemed to spring into being fully formed and able to live underground just fine with no sources of food or water.

To distract myself I had gotten out my wand and was casting [Schism] on the piglets, causing them to squeal and run in circles. Shrya was pouncing on them and eating them raw, while Abe had taken to impaling them and roasting them over the fire. A few seconds later another piglet would crawl out of their shelter and we'd do it again. It was actually improving my Mentalism to a noticeable degree, but if there was a hidden Karma stat I'd be going straight to hell or get reincarnated as a snail next time.

Finally after several hours Teefies reappeared, looking even more disturbed.

"Well?" I asked around a mouthful of roasted piglet.

"It worked. It fucking worked."

"Good. Keep that private. Now, do you know how I can get out of here? How do I transfer out?"

"I don't know. Nobody does. We can't transfer people. This is just an interface, not the Matrix, I'm still on my couch."

"Well, I'm not on a couch, at least I don’t think so. I can’t log out. Something happened that put me in here. The day I woke up was right after the server maintenance last month. Was anything weird happening?"

"Four days ago there was the hotfix. After the update, something went wrong with spawn rates and a few other bugs, so they had to do an emergency fix."

“Oh, is that why they didn’t reset the server this time?”

“What do you mean, they reset it each time.”

“Four days ago I was waiting for it, and after the red announcement messages the server didn’t freeze.”

“Maybe you just didn’t notice. They log everyone off and restart the server for the patch.”

“I noticed the first one, it felt like I was being ripped apart. The world stopped but my brain kept going.”

“Oh. Wait. Four days for you, or four days outside?”

“What’s the difference?”

"Well, four days in here is only like eight hours outside. It's about twelve times faster in here. You didn't think I'm actually hundreds of years old? Did you?”

"I didn't know what to think. So when you were gone half of the night…"

"I microwaved some pizza pops and checked your email and logged back on like half an hour later. Look, dude. I'm really not the right person for this. You need a lawyer, or a moderator, or a doctor, or something."

"I can't. If this is real, it means they’ve been lying to the whole world and torturing us for fun. For all I know I could have been in a coma for two decades. I could be a brain in a jar. There could be others trapped just like me. Half my game functions don't work. Can you find someone out there, someone not part of the game company?"

"Maybe, but it's going to sound crazy, man. A moderator would be able to get a message to Kizani."

"Then that asshole could delete me or unplug me and nobody would know what happened."

“So…who then?”

“Ryan! Ryan Johnston. My roommate, he’s in law school. Was. See if you can find him. Maybe my old contact list still works. Tell him that I told you about the roofiecoloada debacle of December 5th 2025.” I hesitated at her look. “Don’t ask. He’ll know what it means. Tell him that I’m here and need to talk to him.”

“Oh. Um. Okay. I can send a message to his agent, but I have no idea how long it will take. I’m working for the next few days local time and won’t be home. Let me add you.”

She gestured vaguely and a notification popped up, a Friend Request, informing me that she had added me and asking if I wanted to add her to my list. The confirmation box was greyed out.

“That’s one of the things that’s broken for me, I can’t add you.”

“Shitty. Well, it let me add you, so I should be able to call you. One sec.” She twitched a finger again, and then a phone icon appeared in the corner of my eye. I selected it and could hear her in the back of my head without her mouth moving. “How’s that?”

“I can hear you!”

“You don’t have to actually talk, just think about what you want to say. I’ll give you a call when I get back, I only logged on because I got the raid alert.” She ended the call, and then hesitated a moment. “So, I don’t want to be a bitch about it, but I need to get some sleep and then go to work. The system settings are weird around you, and I don’t want to leave the alarm off for the next few days, so if you could wait outside that would be great.”

“Oh, yeah. That makes sense. I’ll stay in the area.”

“Cool.”

We collected our things, and then she ushered us out the front door. I looked around, and then stopped.

“Did she say ‘his agent’?” I looked at Abe but he just shrugged. Was that the new replacement for email and social media? Did everyone have personal VI agents now? Oh well. We still had a few hours before sunrise. “Anyone want to go find that lost mammoth? We could use the cash, because I’m broke.”

Since they didn’t have any objections I grabbed the cart and set out back toward the town. It was getting close to sunrise now, so after a quick discussion we decided to leave the cart a distance off the road and Shrya and Abe would stay with it while I fetched the mammoth. That would be a safe and easy handful of silver.

The trail was pretty easy to follow. A young mammoth was still a mammoth, and about the size of a horse. They were not stealthy creatures, and it left a trail of muddy prints and torn up vegetation. Shortly the trail lead into a ravine, which is where it stopped being easy to track. My nose let me follow the freshest trail, dramatically reducing the time I would otherwise spend following the wandering and winding path.

Ahead, around a clump of boulders, came the sound of barking. I readied an arrow and hopped up onto the rock. Two wild dogs had the mammoth cornered against the ravine wall. Although it was much larger than them, it seemed unwilling to just squash them. They all had multiple scratches and scrapes. I targeted the slightly larger dog and put an arrow into its chest. It staggered, bleeding. The smaller dog spun, charging at me. I nocked and drew another arrow but held it until the last second due to how fast the dog was moving. My arrow caught it a bare second before it tumbled against my legs and lay still. The first dog was bleeding its last and collapsed a moment later.

With how easy that had been, maybe it was worth trying that basilisk hunt if it was still available. Calming the mammoth down and getting it to follow me was harder than the fight had been. Thankfully it was willing to follow me, trunk curled around my arm. There was however another scent in the area, and when the mammoth finally stopped making noise I heard whimpering. In a small den behind it was a pup, a grey and brown mutt.

“Oh, shit.” I had just wanted a nice and boring fetch quest. Sure enough, the words that appeared made it official, the pup might not survive on its own.

[Tameable Animal discovered! This pup has lost its parents, bond with it to get a loyal companion!]

“I never asked for this.” I shook a fist at the sky, and then got a piece of meat out of my pack and waved it slowly.

“Hey, buddy. You hungry?” The pup wiggled forwards a bit, but gave a feeble growl. I put the meat down and backed off a few steps. When it crawled out of the den I put another piece down and backed up a bit more. By the third piece it walked up and took it from my hand, sniffing my fingers. After another few minutes it was willing to follow me, but was terrified of the mammoth, so I carried it. A prompt to name her appeared.

“Hey, girl. Let’s name you Becka.”

[Skill discovered: Animal Taming]

A series of tutorials appeared, explaining the Affinity trait and how positive or negative interactions would affect our bond. Seems a bit late for that, but in retrospect this was the first new zone I had gone to. It made me wonder if this was something everyone was supposed to encounter.

Every so often the mammoth, or the puppy, would get distracted by something and try to wander off. Shepherding them back to the town took longer than tracking them down had. The farmer and their giant children were very grateful to have ‘Nonnie’ back home, rewarding me with a pouch of 50 silver coins, a spare collar and leash that oh so coincidentally also fit the puppy, and a wheel of mammoth cheese.

I could see the slightest jitter in them. Were all these events scripted by Binding Commands? I checked the new entry on the Companions tab, and then dialed back the restrictions. Almost immediately she perked up, posture changing from straight backed to a more natural posture and she started sniffing around.

I considered options while snacking on a bit of cheese, gave a piece to the dog, and then headed to the town. No point waking the others up just to ask them to come check the job board. Becka zoomed around as far as the leash would allow, and several times I had to prevent her from being stepped on by a giant. The basilisk hunt job was gone, but had been replaced with a call to capture or kill a small group of five bandits that had robbed some traveling Krokro merchants and stolen their wares.

Bandits meant danger, but they were still dangerous if we were going to be travelling around. We definitely didn’t have anywhere close enough the amount of money we’d need to stay in town even a single more night, so we’d be camping out there. Being proactive about it was probably the best option, hit them before they ambushed us on the road. I had an unpleasant reminder of when I had accepted that coyote bounty and it turned out to nearly kill me, but I had allies now, and was considerably more experienced. Three on five was a comfortable enough number if we could catch them unaware. I took the poster, noting that the bandits had last been seen heading south from the crossroads outside of town, and the merchants would be camped in the market.

Since I was already here, I went to the market first. Hopefully the merchants would be able to give some more information. I was really trying to be more aware of the risks here, rather than wandering off uprepared again. I found a group of four Krokro with bandaged legs sitting around a small fire pit, with just one wounded donkey and bare cart between them.

“Graroch?” It was pretty surprising to run into the one I knew by name.

“Karl? On the warpath?” He eyed my armour, bow, shortspear, knife, and darts on my belt.

“Something like that. Tribe of blue-painted goblins invaded from the north, forest isn’t safe anymore.”

“Damn right. We barely made it through, after detouring all the way to Hammercabana to avoid the Gobs, and then just outside town we get robbed by damned Humans!” He slammed a fist into his uninjured thigh, causing Becka to jump.

“I should be able to help get it back for you. Or at least sniff them out and let you know where they’re hiding.”

“That would be appreciated. Meet my Kroroch, my companions. Kra, Gorch, Grokro, and Koroch.” They all seemed apprehensive of me, or perhaps just in general seeing that they had just been robbed.

“Hello. Before I head out, is there any other information you could give me about the bandits? Species? Equipment used?”

“Two humans, saw that clear enough, not sure about the other three. All wore masks and cloaks. They all had bows and knives. Maybe some hunting leathers, but they could have almost anything under the cloaks. They could have killed us, after they hit us all from ambush, but they just took two carts and donkeys. “

“Is there anything special in the cargo?”

“Grain, potatoes, seeds, mostly just food and some coin. We were on the way home.”

“Alright. I’ll see what I can do. With any luck you’ll have your goods back soon.”

“I wish I could come hunt the bastards down, but they know their business, we’ll all be limping for days.”

I was a bit curious, so I tried to inspect their stats. Their health was mostly recovered, but they had a ‘Maimed’ debuff that reduced their maximum health by 12.5%, and agility and speed by 25% for another 40 hours. Krokro possessed inherent armour rating from their thick skin, Keen Sight, and an inability to swim. If they noticed my inspection they showed no sign of it. I wondered if the maiming was just a result of being hit in the leg, or if the bandits had some sort of special talent. I hadn’t developed one like that, but I had been focusing on accuracy, range, and speed.

That they had all been hit in the leg, in essentially the exact same spot, didn’t seem like a coincidence.

“Rest up, I’ll be back soon. If you don’t mind, could I leave the pup with you? I’ve got a cart to park here for a moment as well. Don’t want to bring them to a fight.”

“Of course.” Graroch took the leash, though Becka kept her distance from the rocky creatures.

I hurried back to the others to collect the cart and fill them in on the new bounty. We left the cart with Graroch shortly after noon. Although there was still about five hours of sunlight Shrya came as well, though she wore a deep hood to protect her eyes. There was some tension between her and the Krokro, though neither said why.

We set out for the crossroads, and I stopped to ask the guard if he had seen anything suspicious or bandit-related but he just shrugged.

From there Abe and I split the trail between us, making excellent time. Shrya trailed along behind us. Abe was a better tracker than me, so he ended up taking the lead while I kept my eye out for archers in ambush. The ground was getting increasingly rocky and hard packed, but we sniffed out the trail. At nearly 3:30 Shrya hissed and let us know she heard something ahead.

We detoured to stay downwind, and sure enough we could smell them. All five were human. The bandits were hiding a ravine not too different from where I had found the mammoth. Since there was less than two hours until sunset we decided to wait. Shrya would be much more effective in the dark, and I hoped we’d catch at least a few bandits asleep. Splitting the rest of the cheese, we hunkered down a safe distance away to wait.

As soon as she could, Shrya shed the cloak and used [Veil] to fade out of sight to scout the ravine. When she returned a few minutes later we sketched out a quick plan. Abe was not sneaky or nimble, so he would go back to the entrance which would spare him from trying to climb down into the ravine. It would however leave him exposed, so Shrya and I would sneak close first to try to detect any ambushers and then hit them from multiple sides.

One bandit was sick with something, laying in bed in the cave with a wet and rattling cough, two were tending to the donkeys and carts, the other two were in hiding. When the wind shifted we could smell them, but hadn’t found them yet.

Abe headed off, and we crept in. I started with the most likely vantage points, carefully scanning. Shrya slithered down the face of the rock silently. It took a few minutes, but I spotted one when the two by the carts kept glancing up at him. He was on the opposite side of the ravine facing me, about a hundred meters away, in a similar vantage point as me. Shrya pointed out the other, who I hadn’t been able to see from my spot, but was only fifty meters away behind some rocks and facing towards the ravine entrance. With some hand signals and attempts at telepathy I instructed her to go after the one on the far side, and I would take the one closest to me. I didn’t trust my ability to make that shot, especially not without him spotting me. Shooting this guy in the back was a much better plan.

I waited while Shrya scaled the ravine wall, circled around behind the sentry, and leaped onto him from behind, biting into the back of his neck and bringing him to the ground. My arrow caught the other bandit clean through the back. He jumped up, took a few steps as he tried to turn, and fell into the ravine. His body loudly hitting the ground was a good enough signal for Abe, who charged in with a roar.

The two bandits by the carts grabbed their bows, aiming at Abe. A dart caught one in the neck and he stumbled, arrow skittering across the ground. The other got an arrow off before I hit him in the chest. Abe yelped, but lunged in with his spear. The bandit was still up, clearly far more skilled than the others. He dodged back from Abe, spinning and sending a snapshot my way even as he smacked Abe in the face with the tip of the bow. The arrow sliced through my upper arm, and I had to hold my shot as the man skillfully kept Abe between us and put an arrow into Abe’s good leg that pierced through up to the fletching and then snapped another one at me in almost the same motion. Thankfully that one missed me. He whipped his cloak and knocked a dart out of the air and snapped a shot at Shrya, hitting the rock right above her head as she twitched out of the way.

Damn was he lightfooted, but not quite fast enough to cover all three sides. Shrya let out the most godawful shriek that was the loudest thing I’d ever heard from her, and when the man flinched he stepped back just enough to give me a clean shot and I put another arrow into his chest. He got another arrow nocked, but lost his balance and fell, the arrow spinning sideways as he dropped the bow. Abe’s spear went through his neck in a splash of blood.

I couldn’t see it from this angle, but I could hear the last bandit coughing and knocking things around in the cave. Abe roared again and charged the man as best he could, impaling him from the sound of it.

“Is that all of them?” I called down. Shrya gave a thumbs up. “Abe, you okay?” He grunted something and sat down heavily.

My arm stung horribly. The arrow had cut right through the hide sleeve, and the wound was bleeding freely, though not enough to be life threatening. The arrow had stuck into the rock behind me so I grabbed it to take a look.

[Fine Arrow (Red Oak, Steel Broadhead) Durability 75/75. Damage 50 Piercing, 25 Slashing. Causes targets to bleed for 10 damage per second for 10 seconds.]

They’d likely punch right through most armour, a few centimeters closer and it would have gone through my lung. I stuck it in my quiver, and then grabbed the other as well. They had darker fletchings than mine, so I’d be able to keep track of them.

I made my way down to the ravine, breathing deep to try to slow my racing heart. That had been about a hair away from resulting in all three of us getting killed. Who had that guy been? Those weren’t casual skills.

In all, he had four of these special arrows including the one I pulled out of Abe’s leg and the one Shrya brought down from the side of the ravine, and a dozen ones with iron arrowhead. The other bandits had cheaper and more common iron arrows. Surprisingly his bow wasn’t enchanted, with the speed and power I had assumed it must be. It was however a composite recurve bow of red oak and horn. I took it as an upgrade for my own, and then searched through his pockets. A few gold and silver coins, firestarting kit, sharpening stone, a plain gold wedding ring on his hand that unfortunately didn’t reveal his name the same way that a signet ring would. I took a moment to memorize his face. Maybe there’d be a separate bounty for him. The other bandits had much the same. In all we rounded up 28 gold, 487 silver coins, and a motley assortment of other jewelry.

The cave had a few bedrolls and mess kits, some extra clothes, pot and kettle, travelling supplies. While I was nosing around in there I heard a loud crunch and slurping. Abe had hacked an arm off one of the corpses and was eating it.

“Abe! What are...you can’t just eat somebody’s arm!” He shrugged with all three arms. “Oh who am I kidding we’re past that point. At least it’s not the donkey, or you’d be pulling that cart back to town. Don’t eat the sick one, he might be contagious. Let me know if you regrow any fingers.”

I really wasn’t sure what belonged to the bandits and what had belonged to the Krokro, so I just started piling it all into the carts. It looked like most of the food was still there, some bags had been torn open. Under a few bags of potatoes were a few small casks of ‘Gutshine’. One had been opened, and was in the cave near the cook fire. It smelled potent, though more like solvent than liquor. If that guy had tried to drink some it had messed him up good. Maybe it wasn’t suitable for human consumption. I put the lid back on and tossed it with the others.

Shrya had joined Abe, biting off chunks of meat from the dead bandit and swallowing them whole. A whisper of the deep hunger rose up. I could normally keep it under control, but it had been a while. Adrenaline didn’t help. Could I? Would I? I’d eaten goblin meat before, was this really so different? I wasn’t a beast. I grabbed my knife and butchered one of the legs of the stronger bandit, eating the chunks of meat from that. Then, curious, I opened his chest, and sure enough he had a Lesser Core (Human). I ate that as well. Abe searched the other corpses but none had cores. It was still unclear what caused some creatures to grow cores and others not to.

As my whole body tingled from the energy of the devoured core, I coaxed the donkeys into motion and lead them back towards the town.

“By the way, I have no idea how they feel about people eaters in these parts, so let’s maybe keep that to ourselves.”

Leading the donkeys was an educational, and testing, experience. It was enough to increase [Animal Taming] by several ranks. Abe had been Maimed by the arrow to the leg, and could only limp along slowly. If it wasn’t for a quest I would have happily stopped for the day, as my own arm was still quite sore.

We got to town shortly after 10, and when the Krokro saw us enter the market they jumped up with a cheer. The donkeys loved them, suddenly becoming docile and responsive.

“Karl, I knew you could do it. Did they give you much trouble?”

“One of them. I’ve never seen an archer that skilled. Even three to one and wounded he nearly killed us all.”

We started sorting out the carts, the Krokro were going to let us keep the coins as payment.

“So what’s in those casks? One of the bandits drank some and I think it nearly killed him, he was puking up blood.”

“Oh, Gutshine? Not surprising, it’s brewed for Krokro, not tender flesh. I’d offer you some...but probably the same would happen to you.” He knocked a knuckle against his rock-like stomach.

It turned out most of the gear from the cave was not from the Krokro, they didn’t use most of the same supplies as us, since they were largely resistant to the weather and their idea of comfort seemed to be sitting on ring mail mats. I loaded a few of the cleaner things into my cart, and then told them to sell the rest.

Not wanting to spend a big chunk of our coin on another room, we camped in the market with them. I was getting the feeling that whoever designed this mess didn’t want adventurers staying comfortable in the towns. At the prices charged, players would be forced to spend most of their time out in the world chasing bounties and quests. You might be able to afford one or two nights at an inn a week if you stayed busy.

I wondered what the cost to buy a building like the inn would be, and how they were taxed. There always seemed to be a few patrons a night, averaging close to twenty gold a night. The patrons though, all seemed to be non-players. Followers maybe. But if they were all Followers, how many players were there? I hadn’t really done much with myself, and I already had picked up two, three if you counted the dog. In that time I had encountered two that I had recognized as such. Even if this was a backwoods zone, there should have been more.

“Hey, Gragroch, how many Gods do you think are out there right now?”

“Where? The whole world? Thousands. Tens of thousands. Maybe more. The Divine only knows, the way they come and go. Be thankful they’re all off plucking dingleberries from the Void’s great asshole. They’re a menace, every time they turn around they start a new war, overturn a new ruling House, undercutting the market all the while. Honest merchants can’t compete with those bottomless bags they have.” That got a small cheer from the other Krokro, who had almost finished a second cask of Gutshine. “Wiggle their fucking fingers and out comes a cord of wood, a stack of ingots. Don’t need no cart, just pop around the country ruining the market for the rest of us!”

“Wow. I’m glad they’re not too common around here.”

“You steer clear of them, Gob. You’ll live a longer, happier, life.”

“I’ll try. I’m too ugly to die young. Where are you headed to after this?”

“Further south, to home in the Chasm for a time, then fill the wagon and do it all again. Though, maybe skip the northern route and come back though South Peak, at least until those blueskins settle down.”