A general „Aaaaa“ followed as all spawns around made one step back as if to protect themselves from evil.

One of the soldiers who seemed to be in charge addressed me with a harsh tone:

“I don’t know who you are and what you really are, but you have to leave the town immediately!”

I saw nowhere the sergeant. Cala had a good relationship with him that grew over the many pints of beer I treated him. Oh well.

Hearing this, shocked, Alice stared at me, but I ignored everything else, looking at her. I hugged her. Strange, how can I be so attached to her? She is an NPC… but...

“Are you ok? Let the potions work!”

I said that, keeping my hand on her shoulder, not letting her stand up.

She looked around. I stood protectively up.

I heard voices around us murmuring:

“Sorcery, sorcery, sorcery.”

In a hesitating movement, the soldiers pointed their pikes in a circle toward us.

They hesitated, but they did it. I spoke to nobody in particular:

“We will leave, and nobody will get hurt.”

Getting your reputation from 'above friendly' to 'hostile' in less than a day is some performance. Indeed the reputation catastrophe day. Good that they are not aggressive yet.

I saw a priest talking with a group of people. It must be Manchua, the local priest the banker also mentioned. Oh well, hopefully, he is sane enough not to escalate things. Lol, basing myself on the sanity of an NPC.

This and sorcery! Good that this desperate attempt worked. With all the lost reputation and yet I was feeling relieved. Alice lives! Interesting; why do I care so much for her? I know she was my companion for years, I mean Cala's companion, but I could replace her easily with an even more effective merc, and yet I felt very relieved; only the thought to replace her felt like heresy to me. I mean, Cala feels relieved. Damn, I am Cala! Funny how these things work. This is a level that was previously unattained in any game. I feel like I am Cala. I mean, not only play her but have her feelings too. Does she have different feelings than I do? No, these are my feelings. Really? Did I play for years with her? No. I took Cala over less than a year ago.

Fuck, I need a break.

Plus, I need to raise fast a ticket before things escalate too far. I tried blindly to make the signs of leaving the game. If the visual interface does not show up, at least the functionality might be there, but it did not work. This only irritated the soldiers who pushed their pikes nervously. Maybe you can't leave the game only at certain places? Stupid upgrade... I helped Alice stand, and we left, hanging on each other, followed by the troop. Hopefully, it does not come to a fight! If they want to fight, it will be a bloodbath. I am low on health, but I am high level. A much higher level than they are, and if the city is no longer protected, then…

Well… my reputation will then only take a deeper dive, but then it will not matter anymore.

Drats, gone is my good reputation with this fraction. It is not only the city; this has implications for the whole kingdom; now, I must be somewhere tending towards hostile territory. Too bad I cannot check on the interactive interface, but I do know about how I stay; you could read it on their faces. To correct it back to where it has been will cost me a lot of resources and work. I need to mention this to the official channel too.

OK, if exiting the game does not work from any location, maybe I could then leave through the portal out?

Alice was recovering fast; the healing potions were working. If it's coming to a fight now, I don't have to worry about her anymore. I watched her neck, where the faint line of the rupture was still visible. Pfuh, who would have thought that I could fix that?

How realistic did they make the game? Do I have to fear any impurities? Can she get a stroke or something from anything that I may have incorporated into her body when I put her back together? Should I bring her to a healer to check? Yeah, I will need to do that; better be sure.

Once out of town, we went to the town's portal place, it was located between some rocks out of sight, in an area not frequented by spawns, but I could not find it, to my surprise.

I looked around and tried again, annoyed to see if I did not miss the place, but I repeatedly returned to the same point. This was the place, but the portal was missing. Weird.

“The portal is not here”, sounded a strange, reverberating voice near me. It seemed to come from far away and, at the same time, still very near, which first confused me.

I had to look attentive in the direction from where the voice was coming to see him: a ghost. I could only see and hear him due to my improved character's senses, the assassin's vision II level. You usually don't see ghosts, but only in specific situations in so-called ghost favourable environments, when ghosts do their part to show themselves what they can do for a limited time. Well, I mean dead players' ghosts here, there are other stronger ghosts, but 'ghosting' is not an area where players have been given much power.

Finally, once I managed to see him, I asked:

“What happens?”

He answered with his faint, disturbing voice:

“I can’t get revived nor exit the game. It has been more than one hour since I wander as a ghost through this landscape. It’s boring. I cannot touch anything; almost nobody can see me.”

“Me neither; I cannot exit the game... Who killed you?”

“There are some pk* (*person killer) troops around. But I see you met them; you are a slave.”

“I am not a slave; I have a quest.”

“Not for one quest, but for as long as he wants you...”

“What do you mean?”

“Once you got his iron ring, you cannot escape it unless he lets you do it. You will need to make the quest he fixed for you, then the next one, then the next one; he will beat you and renew the ring.”

“'His' ring?”

“Grackak's name is on the ring. Grackak the Gnome.”

“Oh. OK. Never heard of him before. Is he so renowned?”

“You talk like a newbie. Grackak is worse than Mephisto himself. I am sure he has a cheated character. I can’t wait for them to fix the world to come for my revenge.”

“What do you mean fix the world?”

He wondered, showing me the clouds:

“Can’t you read?”

The expression baffled me at first; then I raised my eyes to where he was pointing and saw there clearly written:

“World out of control.” - I read out loud, surprised - “Hmm. What does this mean?”

“It means what it means: they lost control of it. They would probably try to put some changed code back to fix it.”

“Can’t they restart it?”

“It does not work like this; there are millions of computers everywhere working in concern; it is a distributed world, self-repairing, you cannot restart it like this? Not only the computers of people currently playing the game are connected, but many computers run it in the background. Then restart it to where? Yes, the servers have partial backups, but it is an immensely complex issue to fix the story. There is no instant backup of all these; there is strong redundancy inside the system but no constant backup. No, it cannot work. Fixing is not easy either; believe me, I know it; it requires some time, even for the smallest change to become effective, and any such change needs to be carefully introduced not to cause more problems... First time I regret not using a body-suit interface! I’ll go to Act1 to see if I find the entrance to the lobby there. That should do it. You better wait here; I’ll come back, in any case, dead or alive.”

He continued with a grin:

“Try to stay alive if possible; it is not funny as a ghost, do his quest but take your time; we should have this fixed as soon as possible, then we have this world back in order, and I will clean the gnome and the other cheated from it... I wonder if the cause of all these problems was not some bug they exploited. These issues could be linked. You may ask other players if they have the same problem; I wonder how widespread is this logout issue.”

I confirmed:

“OK”

But I was not really planning to do anything. Why should I care? I am here to play and enjoy. I have had enough problems so far. He talked as one that knew a bit more. OK, then let him take care of these things; I'll have to postpone a bit my visit to the official channel in the lobby to complain…

He said and turned away.

“See you”

I waved to him as he left

“See you”