Mai wanted to do nothing more than drown out the sound of the assembled ‘people of note’ who were sitting in the Nether City forum. It was neutral ground and bordered by at least six of the factions assembled so she was fairly certain that there would be no trouble. Not until everyone had left.

Not that she expected any trouble. Just that relations were still a little fragile despite the latest alliance they had formed. She was certain that Ayres and his Ghosts were well and truly on her side, but others such as the ever-unpredictable prisoners were harder to judge.

She’d looked into the character creation for prisoner players and had been both surprised and disappointed in the process. Prisoners came with certain bonuses skills that could be loosely tied to a life of thievery, skulduggery, and murder. However, in order to have those bonuses, they also had to choose a minimum of two TRAITS which most people would walk away from. The more TRAITS they chose, the greater the bonuses on their skills.

These TRAITS included two which stood out;

VENDETTA – A member of a rival criminal syndicate wants to kill you. They will do so either in person or by using contract killers. Watch your back. Trust no-one, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And never, ever, sleep without one eye being open.

MURDEROUS – You have an inherent drive to kill. Usually you can keep this under control. It’s not like you’re a complete sociopath after all! But it’s always there, under your skin, an itch which you can never scratch, a voice in the back of your mind. And when you can’t contain it any longer, those around you better watch out.

The list went on, Mai had stopped reading fairly quickly, her stomach roiling at the knowledge that people would actually choose to have such traits for their characters. It gave her a better understanding into their behaviours however, although she was unable to see what traits people specifically had.

Knowing that the option of choices applied only to the players who had stayed didn’t help. The other members of the prisoner faction, the minions, had no choice about their lives. They were doomed to a life of crime, with traits assigned to them arbitrarily. Just so that players could have a good experience. Whilst this didn’t elicit sympathy per se, it did bring a sense of empathy. Not that she was going to trust them as far as she could throw them. And she would always ask them to go before her no matter where they were. Her back itched just at the thought of letting one of them walk behind her.

She raised a hand, pressing the VOTE button to draw attention to the fact that she wanted to speak. Gradually, far too slow for her liking, silence descended, and the harried-looking Chairman waved at hand towards her.

“Mai Xiao has the floor.”

“Thank you ,” she rose slowly so that everyone could see her, whilst making the most of the expectant quiet. “As many of you know, we face a great enemy. We therefore have two choices. Stay and fight, potentially risking losing everything we have built here. Some of you have far more to lose, have built your lives here.”

There was a murmur of agreement from nearly everyone in the chamber. A couple of members raised their own hands to speak, but Mai caught the Chairman’s eye and indicated that she wasn’t finished.

“The second option is that we retreat from the city into the Unknown Reaches.” As she had expected the chamber burst into a cacophony of noise, her following words utterly drowned out. Many members jumped to their feet, pointing in various directions. She couldn’t understand them, but she got the general drift that they weren’t too impressed with her suggestion.

The Unknown Reaches were called just that because no-one had dared go into them for as long as living memory. No minions, that was. Plenty of players went into the Unknown Reaches. Most didn’t return, but those that did were usually far, far richer than before they had entered.

Having spoken to a loyal player, she’d learned that it was something called a Permadeath area. If players died in the Upper or Nether cities, they could always create new characters and start again. Usually they would store items that new characters could use at friend’s houses so that they wouldn’t be forced to start utterly from scratch.

Permadeath was different. If a player died in a permadeath arena, they were shut out of the game utterly. Not only were all of their personal details and devices tied to their accounts, but their bank accounts were also too, which meant they would have to change their name, buy new gaming equipment, set up new bank accounts and generally go to a lot more trouble than it was worth in order to create a new account.

An aura of fear permeated even the mention of the Unknown Reaches for minions. No-one ever spoke about them or commented on them when a group of players headed out of the city in the direction of the entrance to the cave network and tunnels which signalled the start of the Unknown Reach.

And so she could completely understand the reticence of the people gathered to enter such an area. It galled her that this reticence was something programmed into them, robbing them of the ability to think about it rationally, but she was prepared to try in order to save as many lives as possible.

One interesting fact she had learned about the Unknown Reach was that parties of players that went into it were always small. The largest raid had been of fifty players and they had done particularly well, losing only forty-two of their members. Only. An eighty-four per cent casualty rate had clearly kept most players from even attempting to enter.

Mai believed that if enough of her people entered, and used proper military tactics, that they would be able to defeat whatever they encountered and establish a bridgehead they could use to expand from. The additional riches and experience would also stand them in good stead when they launched a counter-attack and took Nether City back.

A semblance of order was finally achieved as the now red-faced, hoarse-voiced chairman broke his gavel on his desk and threw it at one of the ganger representatives who had taken to standing on his chair and throwing vile hand signals at everyone who would make eye contact with him.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, please let me expound further on my reasoning,” and so she did. Going over each and every point, but she could see that the programming was too strong. None would even think about entering the Unknown Reach. It was as if she had asked a fish to jump out of the pond and tap dance down to the local fish market.

“I rest my case,” she said as she accepted defeat. “We shall stay, and we shall fight.”

And yet again the chamber erupted, this time with cheers and shouts of approval. Looking over at Dakota, Mai wiped away the solitary tear which had sprung unbidden. She didn’t trust herself to speak once more, a lump having well and truly settled in her throat. Instead, she called up her RedFang and sent a message to her command staff.

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