OK, trapped in a game, how cool is that!

Ahem, what do I do if I feel thirsty? Hungry? I can drink but not quench my thirst; I can eat yet still feel hungry; pixelated water and food will not quench my thirst and hunger.

Not so cool… Suddenly I felt thirsty and instinctively drank water from the flask in my inventory box.

Very funny, Dolores!

Drats, so it is not me not knowing how to log out. This issue never happened with the dream interface before. This will be a heavy blow to the industry. I do not see the projected urgency logout button that should be here in my interface. Yes, I like to play with the interface blended out, but specific movements should bring it back. Now, this does not work.

What if I had a real problem? What if I needed to go to the toilet? Shit. Shit, shit, shit… It could become literally, practically shit! I had to laugh at the stupid thought.

Lola will come at a certain moment; I wonder how long she will wait before doing something? How long will she let me play? And what will she do if she does something? It is not recommended to take the dream interface forcibly off; this can cause neuronal damage. It has to be properly exited. Will she know to trigger the proper disconnect?

Drats, maybe I should have talked with her about it; I always waved my hand and said: ”internet garbage stories”. Now we're in a right mess…

OK, OK. Keep cool, Dolores. Don't panic. I wanted to play here for several hours, isn't it? If I panic or not, they will solve the problem at the same speed. They cannot allow it to escalate. So what did change for me? I am forced to stay where I wanted to visit? Maybe a couple of hours more, worst case?

I took a deep breath and raised my head again.

Alice, who stood all the time silent nearby during my conversation with the ghost, came to me:

“With whom were you talking, Lady Cala?”

When we are alone, she calls me by my nickname: Cala. I managed to convince her some time ago to do this, but she still calls me Lady Lara when we are in public. Lady Cala is a middle way when we are alone, but she still feels a distance… as now. Strange, as if she would be influenced by this game's out-of-order situation?

“A ghost was here, Alice. Haven’t you seen it? “

“No, but I heard… like a murmur, but still with words now and then... Is it true, are we enslaved, Lady Cala?”

Yeah, she too has improved senses, but still not as good as mine... Ghosts can make themselves heard by people, but that comes with the cost of an extra effort.

“No, we are not enslaved, and it regards only me, don't you see the iron ring on my neck?”

She asked further, refusing to consider the 'only me' idea.

“No, it must be a magic ring. What does this mean for us?”

“Yes, it is a magic ring. It means I have to fulfil a magic contract or suffer the consequences.”

“But why?”

“I've bet and lost the fight Alice… as a result, I have to complete a quest he requested from me. Until then, I bear the ring.”

“Only a quest? Can’t you escape? Can't you run away?”

“No, unfortunately not; the ring would probably kill me if I do not fulfil my contract when the time runs out. I have to free Spartacius and bring him to Silver Town. Once I do this, I will be free again.”

“Is this the only way?” -she was desolate - “Can't you break the ring? Can I touch it?”

“Yes, it is the only way unless I want to find someone to revive me. Not sure how the whole thing runs in such a case. Well, whatever, we need first to recover, then attack the jail. I know why he wants us to attack the jail; he wants us to be here renegades like him... You can try to touch the ring at my neck?”

She tried to touch the ring but to no avail.

“Attack the jail… Let me first try to do something!”

I was surprised to see her having initiative, then I thought at Spartacius' merc and why we were in the situation. Is she trying to find a solution not to have to face the dilemma of killing soldiers? Or does she want to help me not to become a renegade with this spawn nation?

“What would you do?”

“If you allow, let it be my little secret for the moment; I think I can handle this without anybody getting hurt.”

“This will not work; the soldiers told me we are no longer welcome in town. You'll get in trouble if you try to get back.”

She watched the ground for a moment, then raised her face locking her round eyes into mine:

“Please?”

As she shook her head, her ginger hair cascading on her shoulders, she continued with a sad smile:

“I will kill soldiers if we need to, but I still have to try to settle this peacefully.”

That was her answer to my previously unspoken question.

So it does help that I have with her the highest merc-master reputation. Heh, when I took the char, the former guy was swaggering a lot about this, about how much work it was to improve this relationship to the level it is.

Interesting how these things work... I did not know to appreciate the real value of his present, yet if I look at my memories, I remember it.

Crazy dream interface! I have not seen it used this way yet.

They said that you get now to enjoy gaming even for the hours you are not inside the game; I took it only for commercials… In the previous game versions, you would have seen a summary of what has been, like a movie. It was not a very loved feature. Many people preferred just to park the character in an inn instead of letting it be active. Now I could simply remember. The possibilities are immense! You can learn anything like this; how come they only did it for a game? Or is this an experiment?

I raised my eyes, looking again into her blue eyes. Where were we? Ah!

“It is not that I oppose it. I am only worried! There is a thing you must understand before. After what I did, they might fear you are kind of a... zombie, you know...”

Is it OK to tell her? Hm, she will learn it sooner or later; better to learn it from me.

“Look, in the fight... you were frozen, and he broke... the ice. Ahm, I mean you, were broken… ahm into a couple of big pieces, ahm… I used several potions and a restore scroll; this is why they were so wary and asked us to leave. The sergeant might not want to listen to you, and you may get into trouble?”

She replied slowly, one word after the other:

“I. was. broken. into pieces? That… That… That's impossible to survive?... Was there a high-level druid that pitied me? But I do not feel the weakness that comes after a revival?”

“I... I think it was already too late to try to revive you; the fight took too long. I... I had to try it and worked with potions.”

“How? How did it work? Is such a thing possible? Did you give me part of your life? Was it your kiss that gave me my life back? I am deep in debt with another life to you! I can never pay you back!”

Kiss… Ahm. I wanted to facepalm, but I guess that would be inappropriate. I shook my head, tried to protest and explain CPR, but she continued:

“This is not something they can hold against us! Look, they know how strong we are. Stories of your deeds have been told. They don't want to fight us. Besides, I have a… good connection to sergeant Tuckson.”

She said this blushing a little. I raised an eyebrow, not quite understanding what does that mean. I wanted to add that I also drank beer with the sergeant but refrained from further arguing. She continued:

” They did not attack us; they've let us go. Before harming them, I want to try to see what I can reach?”

OK, this is an improvement to the game; usually, she would have just wandered around waiting for orders. Interesting; let's see what comes out of it. It is clear with such a complex world that errors can happen – I sighed – pity that parts are so elaborated and good, and in other main areas, the errors are so fundamental.…

The program seems to be free of bugs in the flow, even with the increased complexity in details, but this logout problem is really embarrassing. Lol, what a scandal will this be; all those news agencies will report about the 'prisoners in the game' situation, 'Dreamland's Mephisto game gamenapping people', 'pissing on yourself contest for dreamlanders'. ROFL. Who will hear any comments about flawless visuals? Exciting quests with unexpected results and flow? Unexpected results – everything will be derided and laughed about...

The functions of the dream interface should be above the functions of the game; it is as simple as that. How on Earth did they manage to screw it up so badly? Certainly, some idiot programmer exaggerated with his delay not to allow people to use the logout-login cheat, how some p.k.'s used it in earlier versions through macros to provoke a pvp clash – and instead of 30 seconds, his time-out counts forever... If this takes too long until Lola is at home, I will have to endure all her comments: I told you so! You idiot, you risked your life! Lola is a sweet girl, but sometimes she looks too much like her sister.... hopefully they'll fix it before she comes...

As Alice was still waiting, looking with her candid eyes at me, I nodded:

“O.K., I’ll wait here, do your worst.”

She grinned and left. I watched her going. Better take care of you, lady; you've cost me a lot today. Only the unfreezing potion from her revival was 100 gold worth, not to think at the restoration scroll; that was another three to four hundred gold. Added the high-quality heal potions that I bathed her in, this exceeded by far the previous blunder with Noviel, but the lost reputation with the faction is the cherry on top. I did not even want to consider how much that will cost me, not only in gold but also work… and yet I was happy. Happy that my crazy gamble had succeeded. That was much more important than the loss.

I wonder what makes her so sure it will not come to a fight? She recovered some but was still weak; a fight would be dangerous, never underestimate guards in their city, but I think we could still clean it up. However, as there must be a couple of high-level ones, we need to proceed with care. I do not see the status bar to make a proper estimation; I will need to rely on my assassin skills. Besides, regeneration should be faster. I will need a couple of hours at this speed, if not longer; it is slower than in previous versions. That damn cheated character took me by surprise. I knew he was a cheated character, but it still pained to be defeated.

Why did I not trust my instincts to run from the very first moment?