In the market, there was a group of people having a heated conversation with the sergeant. Well, I've put it wrongly, the sergeant had a heated conversation and they mostly ignored him. He was there with about 10 soldiers, but the newcomers, half their numbers, didn’t seem to be impressed.

“Well, well what do we have here!?”

One of the newcomers came directly to me. I realized he was a high-level character - as he did realize I was one - judging only by the quality of the armor, but what troubled me was that I was not able to gauge his exact level not even with my special assassin skill. It triggered alarm instead: my hair raising as under a static field, all my cells telling me to find a way to disappear from view. Some warlocks with specific skills can mask their level, some artifacts do the same but I, as a high-level assassin, was able to see through their disguise, however now it did not work. Another damn bug or something more sinister?! Is he one of the legendary few?

His magic cannot be so high level, that is not possible.

Even if my gut instinct told me to run, my logic told me to stay: I am in a protected town, and there is no reason to panic. Instead of running, I examined the group, realizing with surprise that the members had iron rings on their necks: they were his temporary servants.

Now, this was one of those controversial features. If you lose a fight with another player, and you bet with him, you can end up becoming his servant for a maximum of one hour, depending on how much you bet, and have to act at his command, or you get a quest from him to solve. There were standard quests templates to choose from: some fetch jobs, escort jobs, or the kind.

This means this funny person, he was no taller than a gnome is, I guess he was some kind of gnome race but I could not point exactly which one, succeeded in fighting the others shortly before.

Of course, you can log out and let your character play the hour, so in reality, this is an hour penalty for most players and a way to recruit a couple of helping hands for others.

You can have pvp without betting, you can duel if you want with a non-lethal ending, but you cannot bet directly on money. The betting on labor was recently introduced, and I was no fan of it, but some people found it increases the thrill of the fight. OK if it's fun for you, do it, or whatever, but leave me alone.

“Go away, I am not interested in pvp!” (person versus person fights)

He replied with a grin:

“But I am!”

He was moving as a gnome does, definitively gnome not goblin even if he looked close to being one, coming with too big steps for his small legs towards me, looking like a fat jumping rabbit. Alice took her bow in her hand and looked at me. I only needed to nod slightly and she will disappear from sight, to seek coverage from where to shoot her deadly arrows, but we are in a protected town, what the hell, he cannot do anything? Then I recalled the story the banker told me about Silver Town. That was also a protected town. Are these towns no longer protected? Is this the new version of the game? Did they make hardcore even harder? I lost too much time with my indecision.

He made one gesture with his left hand and Alice was frozen in an ice block.

Shit! It looks like he can perform magic here and we are not protected! What the hell? And to freeze Alice like that, that is not normal. She has strong elemental resistances. What level can he have? Even a mage a couple of levels above me would not be able to achieve that.

After his attack, I tried instantly my > on him but it had no effect. Either my magic is still blocked, or he is incredibly strong. Such one hundred percent resistance is new to me. A one-off happening?

He only laughed at me, getting even closer, then he suddenly asked me:

“Have you ever played with liquid nitrogen?”

He made another couple of jumps, then added:

“Have you ever seen what happens with a flower that has been plunged into it? If you let it fall, it breaks like glass!”

He made another gesture with his hand hitting Alice with a snow bolt. It was just a snow bolt, but it hit hard enough to imbalance the ice statue she was turned into. Alice fell to the side and I saw desperately how she broke into several pieces.

The shock muted me. He killed my Alice. This is definitive. NPCs die, she is not a summoned creature that I could re-summon. These low-level druids that exist here need a whole body, not a fragmented one to work their resurrection. If they even can spell resurrection. Most likely not. Wounds they can fix but not this? How could I organize a high-level druid here in the next 5 minutes? To have the druid here, I need him gone. Will he do so if I kindly ask? Why did he do this?

I begged out of desperation:

“Let me try to resurrect her!”

“If you win our little fight, I will have her resurrected. Care to bet now? Or shall I stay here, fight you, kill you, and burn the hell any pieces of your little merc until no traces remain?”

“What do you want to bet on?”

“As I said, if I lose I'll have her resurrected” - he showed behind him, there must be a druid or a shaman there that can resurrect - “if you lose, you come to visit me in the Silver Town within the next two days. And by the way, I heard there is an idiot player in jail. Free him and bring him with you!”

“Why do you need me there, and why don't you go check yourself the jail?”

“Because I am Grackak and I want you to break the jail. Time runs out. Do you bet? Magic deal?”

I could try to run. Probably I may escape, but that would mean I lose Alice definitively. And that is because of my stupid hesitation. This bastard would simply burn her remnants and stay here until time runs out. If I lose, I get to visit that town together with Spartacius within the next two days. That can be done. As he had said, time runs out, there is no time to speculate now.

“Deal!”

At this, the magic bet was completed, and a brief light highlighted shortly the fight area.