Unicorn, the makers of the Royal road game, operated from a collection of buildings ranging from only a dozen stories high to over a hundred levels high. Though it had data centers and server clusters located throughout the world, the corporate elite where major decisions were made, were all concentrated in that location.

Although Royal road has lost much of its lustre with competition from various rivals, it had raked in massive profits worldwide during its initial years. It was at the top of the tallest building that an argument was occurring.

"Mr Amit, sir, I really think that it is in the company's best interest to discontinue the APM trials. Its opening us to class action lawsuits from players, even the dead ones."

"I'm sorry Fusani but the chairman was very clear on this. The trials must continue. It’s the only way realistic personalities can be made in game. Even our AI after its recent upgrade, has continued to fail the advanced Turing test. If it makes you feel any better, our disclaimer that comes with every official capsule allows us to collect game relevant data."

"That disclaimer won't hold in the courts of some nations sir."

"I know, trust me I know… Do what you can to mitigate any possible damage."

A tinkling sound similar to that of a wind chime indicated that someone was at the door. Amit waved his hand over a corner of his desk, opening it. A rather dishevelled man entered. From his look, it was obvious to Amit that he had been sleeping in his office again. Shaking his head, Amit asked

"What is it Diogo?"

"Amit, it’s kind of an emergency. Someone activated the start of a legendary quest. The one about Kisin."

"What? I thought you said that it would take at least half a year before anyone could start on one? That's why we rolled the expansion out without finishing the legendary quest lines."

"I know, i know. I don't know how it happened. The scenarios we ran though the AI predicted that it would take at least eight months before anyone even noticed the shop keeper or the beggar quest starters and bothered to talk to them. They were in one of the most unpopular border cities too."

"Is it that guy in the open charts? What's his name, the level 1700?"

"Jourgen ‘the Surgeon’? No no, i checked. He's still grinding levels in The Pit same as the last 6 months. He's past 1800 now by the way. The activators were a tier 1 total newbie and a tier 2 player."

The open charts were official online lists where players who were willing to reveal their levels were listed. Being in the top ten was a constant fight as it meant you always had to look behind you to make sure you were not going to be overtaken as well as looking for opportunities to get ahead.

For this reason as well as for other reasons, it was open knowledge that the game was full of players who were unwilling to be part of the open chart and they were aptly named the “crouching tigers and hidden dragons”. No one could even be sure that the number one on the open chart was really the highest level character in the game and many doubted it.

"Mmm...Ok, anyway only one of the legendary quests was activated right?"

"Yes yes only one."

"Alright, I’ll get HR to transfer two dozen of our on-hand IT personnel to you. Focus on finishing that particular quest line only. We'll see about the others when someone actually activates them. Don’t slack off and do it slowly just because they are low tier activators. They might be guild members who could pull in high tier assistance."

"You're not going to give me interns again are you, Amit? The last time you did that, the stores in the city of Yohiem started selling swords with an average damage of 983 instead of 9.83."

"Yes, I remember that one... Luckily that was near April Fool's day so we could clean that mess up with an excuse and switch those swords out for giant carrot sticks. The backlash was… less than amicable. I'll tell them not to give you any interns this time round."

It was later in that day that HR received a message from the CEO. With the entire HR department attending a training session in Fuji, Alice was the only one available. As the intern she had been assigned the glorious task of looking after matters while everyone else was out. It was supposed to be a lull period for HR matters which was why she was surfing the VidNet for the latest music videos from her favourite group the Greenlanders, before a soft voice announced the arrival of new mail.

Her expression changed to one of indignation as she read the new email.

"Hrumph. What's this about no interns? That's discrimination. It’s not like we are less skilled or anything. Anyway my sweet honeyboo always wanted to do something linked to Royal road instead of sitting in the data center, I’ll add him into the team list."

Even later in that day, a newly formed team gathered in a large room filled with cubicles.

"Ok, everyone. My name's Nayati. I'm the assigned team lead for this sub team. We're in charge of items for the quest LQ7. Most of the faces here, I already know, so let’s get down to it. Lyyii, you'll be doing the 3D modelling. Cobar, you and Kiara will be doing the sensory modelling plus the force intermix matrix."

Three people nodded as that was exactly what they expected, given their skill sets.

"Eduardo, you're from the data center? Uh... we need someone to do the colour and tone effect mix... Nevermind, I'll do it instead. You'll do the item data entry."

Data entry was not exactly what Eduardo expected to be doing but he loved playing Royal road so much that even just entering data was exciting for him. That feeling lasted for the first hour on the first day. By the third day, he was yawning while entering the basic game characteristics of items including its weight and attributes. It was not terribly exciting as it was all rather repetitive stuff.

From the largest item to the smallest, everything that was an individual, discrete component needed to have its own entry, from which the AI would replicate and use. One of the items that Eduardo had finished was a grain of a new soil type while another was a single feather from a sort of big billed bird. Each had 10 pages of data linked to it, even that tiny grain of soil. Apparently that single quest, LQ7 as it was named internally, required a boatload of new items even though all the basic data for the region the quest was in had already been done and rolled out.

Somehow, someone had managed to access the South American based lands. Eduardo would have loved to know how they did it, just so he could do it as well, but nothing in the heaps of papers detailing item related data give him any sort of inkling on how to do it. Since that was a dead end, Eduardo turned to seeing if he could benefit in some way using the data, maybe to take note of items that had secret uses. He gave up on it before even the first day of work ended.

The items were all disjoined from each other. A single sword for instance, would have the guard, the handle, the grip and the blade as separate items as the bare minimum. The handle might be a new item that requiring data entry into the database but the rest could be existing items from the game. Seeing only the item data for a handle did little to help Eduardo make out what it was supposed to be. To add to the confusion, the item properties were all in a short hand format. Some could be made out easily like avgDmg for average damage while others made no sense to Eduardo. He spent ten minutes trying to make out what fubPromReq was before he gave up.

Luckily he reached the last of the items before he lost his mind. The item was some sort of farming tool blade though it seemed to have a longer stat block at 11 pages long. As he entered the data, an eleventh screen popped up allowing him to enter in the additional stats. That was the first time Eduardo had seen that happen but he paid it no mind as he was in a hurry as he was already late for his date with his girlfriend Alice. As he clicked on the save button to add the item to the database, a system message popped up

ItmPrOvEd has been set to 0. Please confirm that is correct.

Just as he was reaching for the messy handwritten notes holding the item information to double check, his phone rang. Alice was not pleased that he had not left the office yet and had choice words for his lack of punctuality for their dinner date. In a rush, Eduardo simply tapped the confirm button with his finger before hastily pulling his coat off the chair and heading out.

That was two days ago in the real world and in the game world, things were moving as well.

As they were gathering up the loose coins and other valuables, Jinyang noticed the unfocused look on Eke’s face. Thinking that it was because he was unhappy about receiving nothing for his hard work (he had not received the effects of the immortality curse nor any experience points), Jinyang walked over to console him.

“Ah Eke, though it’s a waste that you did not get any experience points because the priest killed himself, there will be more chances to come. Plus the curse wouldn't be helpful for you anyway so it’s actually a good thing you were not affected by not wishing for anything.”

Of course, Jinyang conveniently left out the part of Eke not having the choice of joining in their wish since he was spluttering and out of breath at that time from GimmeGirl’s strike but still his point was true, given that Eke’s character and playstyle was more normal, the immortality curse and corresponding level loss would be disadvantageous to him.

“That is not what vexes me chief, it is that our victory came by tricking the enemy into believing we were surrendering.”

His words instantly clarified the matter and it raised some uneasiness in Jinyang. If Eke decided that they were too lacking in honour and left them, they would lose an important bait and distraction for enemies. To prevent that he had to try and reduce the guilt that Eke felt.

“Not ‘we’ Ah Eke, just Ah Pow and me so you should not feel guilty. Any loss of honour is ours.”

“Chief, as a member of the team, I cannot escape from the responsibility.”

Eke's stubbornness over things like honour, which Jinyang considered useless, was starting to annoy him and in his irritation, he decided to point out the incompatibilities of his principles with each other.

“Let’s put it another way Ah Eke. As a member of the team, do you feel responsible to help the low level members like me survive?”

“Of course, chief, I would gladly put myself in harm’s way to protect any of you.”

“Then Ah Eke, if the enemy was killing your teammates and you were behind him and having your challenges ignored, would you attack him from behind or wait until he finished killing us all so you could fight honourably face to face? Or what if the enemy was so much more powerful and numerous than you? Would you stand out in the open and fight them all knowing that if you died, we would be butchered or tortured next?”

“…I do not know chief and perhaps that is what I find vexing. Surely there must be a way where both honour and duty are satisfied?”

“Ah Eke, there are times when you must choose one or the other. Trying to do both or being unable to decide at the critical moment, will likely cause the deaths of those you are responsible for and your own.”

“…I must think on this chief. Thank you for showing me another viewpoint.”

In reality, Jinyang had an additional ulterior motive in showing Eke the clash between duty and honour. If Eke kept being too honourable, it would be hard to convince him in ambushing enemies or using dishonourable methods like poisoning the enemies’ food and drink but if he could be convinced that duty was paramount, then they could explain away such actions as the "needs of duty" and “the greater good”.

After they had collected all the visible valuables, Jinyang started searching the sarcophagus while GimmePower searched the chamber. GimmeGirls reappeared from the shadows to help them after it became obvious that testing their new ability with someone’s death was no longer a major objective. Eke had been placed on watch in case additional threats manifested themselves or the feathered snake monster returned.

The sarcophagus was carved with motifs which made it macabre, but it was still a work of art which would have made it precious and valuable to the ones who would be interested in such things. However since it was made of worthless stone, to Jinyang the sarcophagus was thus of zero value. While examining the coffin for hidden treasures and compartments, his subconscious caught something from Thorny’s incessant chatter, dragging the attention of his conscious mind to it.

“Wait Thorny, you said something about magic?”

“Okay Thorny, my bad. I’ve just been too busy with work. That last guy was so insistent on wanting pieces of me.”

“Righteous? Any blood will do right? If we were to be really pedantic about it, I never said anything about how soon I would get that blood for you in the first place. I almost got several pints for you with that dark priest but he cheated and died without leaving a body. Not my fault the guy was so unreliable with his corpse.”

“No no, I don’t need you to do anything. I just wanted to talk with my strong and reliable partner a bit while everyone else is out of earshot.”

“No need to be like that, Thorny. We’re a partnership, you and I. You scratch my back and I scratch your back. Anyway, you were talking about dark magics?”

“We went over that Thorny. You can’t expect me to become evil for no profit. That sounds like an action of charity, which would only make it confusing on whether I was actually evil. Let’s work together more and maybe you can show me what’s so good about being evil. Like you could tell me more about those sources of dark magic, where they are and what sort of magic it is…”

“Wow you’re so talented and powerful Thorny, can you detect normal magic or just dark magic?”

Figuring it would take too much effort to slowly search the coffin for the secret compartment switch, he decided to simply smash the sides of the coffin with his morning star. If it was trapped, he would not be able to avoid any of the effects such as explosions or poisoned darts and would likely die but since he wanted to test if the immortality curse worked, it wasn’t a problem.

The cracked side revealed that two flat wooden boxes, with the larger box placed under the coffin’s bed, concealed by a false bottom while the smaller box beneath a second false bottom under the first box. From the look of the arrangement, the larger box was obviously a trap and the smaller box was the one holding the real treasure. Pulling both out, Jinyang then attacked the lid of the coffin to check if it held any secret compartments. His efforts paid off as a parchment map dropped out of the cracked lid. Glancing over the map, it seemed to point to some mountain further west of the ruin which was marked with a big circle. As it was filled with gibberish writing, Jinyang paid no more attention to it.

After placing the twin boxes and the parchment map with the small heap of treasure they had already gathered, Jinyang looked over their haul. Both GimmePower and GimmeMoney had already found several items including the gear that had dropped from the priest after he had vanished. The pile of items was obviously much smaller than the pile of coins next to it but it held much more promise and excitement than simple coins.

A sudden shout drew the attention of GimmeGirls, Eke and Jinyang. It seemed that GimmePower had fallen into a pit trap that had activated while he was searching the northern side of the chamber. The pit was rather deep being over four meters in depth which mean that he had taken significant but not life threatening damage.

However as the other three gathered around the pit, they could see that holes were bored though in the walls of the pit and emerging from them were a stream of snakes. Unlike common jungle snakes, these were the colour of a dried blood, having a deep crimson skin. The snakes rushed out extremely quickly, filling the floor of the pit then climbing up GimmePower’s body while others bit him. As GimmePower flailed around, GimmeGirls asked Jinyang a question.

“Money-san do you think Power-san will take very long to die nyaa? Seeing that swarm of snake wrapping around and moving on his body is disgusting and did that snake just crawl into his mouth? Ewwww!”

“It probably will not take too long Ah Girls. Ah Pow took some damage when he fell in and look, he’s not managed to dislodged more than a handful of the snakes clinging to him. Ah Pow, how’s the poison damage?”

“Ahhhh! It’s more than uuuugh!!”

“Money-san just give us the numbers! We can’t hear you very clearly with all that noise nyaa!”

"Ah Pow, you can also try pulling that snake out of your mouth to see if it helps!"

“Chief should we not pull Sir Power out?!?”

“Ah Eke, relax, it’s good for Ah Pow to die a few times and now is a good time as any to test if the curse works”

Down in the pit, GimmePower was trying to say something in between his screams.

“Its ahhh!!! Fif, ahhh!!!!!”

“Ah Pow, do you mean fifteen or fifty? Just jump and down if it’s fifty.”

GimmePower managed to jump just one time before he fell down and a system message popped up

Party member GimmePower has died

It took less than half a second before a second system message popped up

Party member GimmePower has been revived

Then as GimmePower returned from the dead with only 1 health, it was not difficult to predict what would happen next.

Party member GimmePower has died

As the messages kept arriving, GimmeGirls and Jinyang were pleased. Their curse worked pretty well. The poison from the snakes was quite virulent and even with the abnormal amount of health they had for their low levels, it would not take long for them to die against multiple snake bites.

Thorny’s words on the aura of a magical item being detected around this very area kept niggling in Jinyang’s mind. It wasn’t until GimmeGirls asked a simple question that everything fell into place.

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