"It's all right, you'll get a hang of it eventually," he grunts. "In the cities controlled by the Council everyone is all smiles, but outside the walls of those cities, all bets are off. The Council looks the other way at these splashes of violence—until the carnage becomes too much and their patience ends. When that happens, the punishment is both swift and severe."

  "Like in the books?" I look at him with irony. "As long as one noble remains, then—"

  The warrior shakes his head. "No, the punishment is doled out regardless. The books are just tales for teenagers, but this here is almost like real li..." Errol stops short, lowers his head and sighs. "This is real life now."

  Chapter 15

  We chat a little longer, and when the amount of alcohol consumed finally surpasses any reasonable quota, we turn in for the night. Despite the wagon's wooden bench being anything but a featherbed, I drift to sleep almost instantly. I dream of Daria. In the dream, we're in the same cafe as on our last date. She sits across from me, but not looking into my eyes for some reason. Upon waking, the first thing I do is dial her number, but nobody picks up. Either she's in the game or she doesn't want to speak with a dead man. I suppose I'll know the answer soon enough.

  Nothing on the outside has changed. The caravan is still moving eastward along a broad, dimly lit tunnel. The driver is still sitting in the coachbox, straight-backed and taciturn. The rothé puff loudly as the wheel axles screech and groan. The air is scented with dry hay and moss.

  Errol is sleeping, and I'm not going to wake him, if only because I don't feel like talking. Gone is the buzz from the night before, and with it all the certainty and confidence in the future. I'm back to feeling the full weight of my predicament. It's one thing to play a hot shot in a drunken exchange with another hapless bastard like yourself; it's quite another to look at things soberly, realizing how little you actually matter in the world.

  I sigh and lean back against the wooden board, then proceed to think. This New World... Something tells me that it won't be particularly generous with me. And even if we assume that no one is ever going to shut off this "circuit breaker," immortality is a double-edged sword. Game NPCs can now corpse camp[23], and with the introduction of pain, torture won't take long to follow. Now, the concept of torture isn't anything new, but previously the victim didn't feel pain and could log out at any time, then file a complaint with the admins. But who are you going to complain to now? Lolth herself?

  Wait a second... I open the character menu and sigh with disappointment. My bind point in Vaedarr has changed to Zul-Gehit. It would have been neat to die here and respawn there. I'd feel much more comfortable in the human capital, and the loss of levels would be easy enough to make up—a couple of months, tops. With another sigh, I unfreeze experience gains. With no more arena, so I'll be needing to level again—while hiding my bind point from the other players.

  What else? I look at the sleeping Errol and scratch my cheek contemplatively. What can I bring to bear on this hostile world? A set of entirely common uncommon class gear, two equally common uncommon class daggers, twelve gold, a few alchemical potions, and some food. Beyond that, the will and skills of a veteran player, which should count for something... Wait! Didn't I steal something just before getting ported?

  I open the bag, find the slots with the stolen items, and grunt. A basic ring, a tattered book, a rectangular plate of some gray material, a dark rock fragment, and a small case made of what looked like bone. That's all I'm able to see for now. I could take them out for a closer look, but that's not recommended—all stolen items bear a special mark for ten days following the theft. I'll need to inspect all this later, in my private room.

  I close the bag, my wandering gaze stopping on the coachman's back. Something about this story doesn't make sense. Typically, stealing from a high-level NPC merely "scrapes the surface," netting the most useless junk, empty vials and the like. But this haul appears to be different, which can only mean that the paladin either took these things from someone else or looted them off someone's corpse. They didn't belong to him, and so the System classified them as junk. Which means that it may actually contain something valuable. Well, that's one potentially good news in light of recent events.

  My thoughts return to Daria. How serious did things get between us? How do I find her? Would she even want to continue our relationship now? I have a thousand other questions, and no answers to any of them. The logical route would be to get off in Rakh with Errol, wait for a caravan going the other way, and head to Louu by way of Zul-Gehit. Except this logical route is something only an idiot would opt for given the chaos that no doubt reigns in all the major cities. Half a million people play for the drow race, and a good chunk of those are probably in the capital now. And there's another element to consider: the local NPCs' reaction to the new arrivals. If they became more like proper drow by as little as one tenth, the players are in for a harsh reality. So, no, the plan stays the same. I get off in Thalim, get my bearings and the latest news, wait for things to settle, and only then set out for Louu. Once there, I find and speak with Daria. Until then, all major life decisions will have to wait.

  In the meantime, the caravan pulls into a large open space, well illuminated by a myriad sparkling lights from the ceiling. The road is lined with rows of magic lanterns and strange coral-like vegetation, the city lights glittering about a mile ahead. The sight of it is so stunning that I stand transfixed, struggling to comprehend what I'm seeing. To think that all this beauty could be hiding underground...

  Having awoken moments prior, Errol explains that the corals carpeting the ground are plantations of edible mushrooms cultivated by the local farmers, called qiloves. The devs must have consumed a very different kind of mushroom in conceiving all this, the kind I wouldn't mind trying myself, judging by the end result. The city looks like some kind of tropical paradise. Perhaps things can't be that bad, after all, if we can all find our place among this beauty? That's an odd reaction, I catch myself thinking. It's like the patch made me more of a proper drow as well. Of course, I was always a drow in appearance, but appearances, as everyone knows, can be deceiving.

  As we approach the city, the tract grows busier. Whereas before we passed by trading caravans and squads of soldiers only occasionally, here there are loads of them. The city of Rakh looming ahead resembles a huge head of cheese, or maybe a multilevel habitation for mice. Picture a common stone perforated with holes on every side, then blown up to monstrous dimensions, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what I'm looking at.

  If the four starting cities are virtually identical to those on the surface, a sight like this could cause serious distress to the uninitiated. Around the settlement I count more than fifty separate structures, each of which could rightly be deemed marvels of architecture back on Earth. The stone houses of varying shapes and sizes astound by the intricacies of their angles and curvatures. It's not for no reason that the drow are also known as stone elves. Besides the cunning and cruelty inherent to their character, these creatures possess a just-as-sophisticated sense of the sublime.

  The caravan doesn't enter the city, but makes a pit stop at a "station" about a quarter-mile from Rakh's main entrance for a quick refueling of grains for the draft animals. Errol and I say our farewells and vow to find each other again someday, then he hops off the wagon and makes for his new post. As I watch the warrior go, I concede to myself that our vows are nothing more than empty promises. It's true that drow aren't a friendly people, regarding as enemies anyone not belonging to their House. Now, sure, they live in relative peace within the confines of the Triangle's cities, engage in trade, and even enter into military alliances on occasion, especially in the face of greater danger to the whole race. In many ways, Anthrum is radically different from the classic Underdark, but even if the two of us do meet again, we will likely be on opposite sides of the barricades.

  Chapter 16

  The caravan reaches its destination by ten in the evening. Though the notion of time loses much of its application underground, the locals still use it by design.

  Strangely, I began feeling more confident after the warrior's departure. There's less doubts and hesitation. Might be because now I have no one to commiserate with, meaning fewer reasons to feel sorry for myself. Besides, I'm used to solitude, and feel no discomfort from lack of communication.

  Thalim looks like a smaller copy of Rakh, standing in a huge cavern the walls of which I can't even make out from the road. All around are mining equipment and mushroom plantations. I count seven levels to the city, at least from the part that I can see, which stretches for about half a mile.

  When the caravan stops at a granary not far from the city gates, I hop out of the wagon without waiting for special invitation, give a nod to Gluss, and start toward the city. The captain doesn't react to my gesture at all. Whatever, no skin off my back.

  A small queue of wagons laden with crushed rock stand at the city entrance. I take my place behind the last one in the queue and try to glimpse something through the wide aperture of the gates.

  What I see reminds me of both Ironforge and Orzammar. A vast main hall with countless chambers and passages on different levels connecting them. It's been thirty years, but the devs are still content not to fix what ain't broken, which means that both drow and dwarves still lead a lifestyle designed as far back as World of Warcraft and Dragon Age.

  Holding back a smile, my eyes stop on a fifteen-foot black marble statue towering in front of the gates. A male drow with sharp features, clad in a mix of plate and chainmail, his left hand resting on the neck of a scowling panther as he considering dourly the sentients entering the city. The warrior's right hand is drawn back, clenching a double-edged sword.

  The sculpture is a masterpiece, the mere sight of it infusing the air with tension. I almost expect the warrior to snap his hand off the animal's neck and rush into battle against his invisible opponent. No, this isn't Ironforge or Orzammar, after all—those cities never had anything remotely similar to this.

  "Who are you and what is your purpose in Thalim?" the cool voice of a level 200 guard breaks my contemplation of the statue.

  The way the bastard looks at me and the scorn in his tone portend nothing good. It is the tone of an irritable cop speaking to a vagrant. The vagrant may be a biped to the cop, but he's hardly human.

  Crushing my rising rage, I raise my eyes to him and answer in a calm tone.

  "Kris... My name is Kris. I'm visiting the city for a few days."

  "Scum like you have no place in Thalim," the guard shakes his head with a contemptuous grin. "Mistress Felata won't stand for riffraff walking the streets of her city."

  "I'm a free—" I begin to speak, but another soldier, this one sporting captain's stripes, moves over and interrupts me.

  "You're free until you're not," he sizes me down with cool indifference. "Now scram!"

  What the hell?! For a player not to be admitted into any city, the guards' reasons have to be ironclad. So why are they aggroing on me? Is it my class? Or that I don't belong to their House? But then, that's probably true for half the citizens. Could it be that... All Thalim citizens are still residents of the Triangle, which can be considered the Eleventh House. Whereas the rest of us—those who never bothered to make our residence here—the AI might have registered as drow in name only. To them, we're nobodies, and beyond that, few people find my particular class endearing. Being a thieving rogue is only fun in a game—in real life, it carries a stigma that's fraught with significant drawbacks. And though Persona can hide my game class, it won't add to my reputation.

  I look at one guard, then at the other, committing their faces to memory, then chuckle and withdraw from the city gates. The two of them watch me with derisive scowls.

  Bastards! My anger and hatred aren't easy to contain, but contain them I will. I will be patient, and when the right time comes, I will make all these douchebags eat their words. And the right time will come. I may not have many virtues, but patience is surely one.

  Having walked about a hundred yards from the gates, I take a look around, check the map, and make for the old iron mine. The only thing I wanted in the city was to rent a room and thus secure an additional retreat route, but, alas, that's not going to happen. The main reason I'm here is to train herbalism, so I might as well get to it. Tourism will have to wait.

  The mine is situated about a mile out of the city, with an inn standing nearby to service the miners. The map revealed the location the moment the caravan crossed the border of a cavern named Muntaah. Comprising several zones, the cavern's total area must be no less than ten-twelve square squares. I couldn't begin to guess whether such a thing would be possible in the real world, but that doesn't matter now.

  The zone is called Thalim's Environs. At level 150, I shouldn't run into anything tougher than a few patrol squads. The plan remains the same: I'll allocate my talents and stats, get some sleep, and then decide on a course of action. I could finally complete the stolen journal quest, or maybe find the local criminal element and suss out the situation from them. I can't imagine there being no rogues anywhere in the city. And I have no hopes of learning anything from anyone else. The guards turn up their noses at me, and civilians are hardly likely to greet me with open arms. Disreputable members of drow society, on the other hand, shouldn't give a damn whether I'm a kinless nomad or an elvish prince in disguise on a secret mission to Thalim.

  Chapter 17

  The iron mine—a huge hole with serpentine staircases winding downslope—is smaller than the Vaedarr copper mine by an order of fifty, no less. There, the smallest pit is at least one-and-a-quarter miles in diameter, but here it's maybe three to four hundred yards. Shanama is the largest mining operation in all of Arkon—in this, humans have surpassed even the dwarves.

  I think back to the seventy-five days spent toiling in Shanama, feeling almost nostalgic. The sentence is not small by the game's standards, even if "toiling" isn't really the right word for it. With my Mining skill stuck squarely at one, I may as well have been trying to milk a male goat. Though I dutifully picked at the rock for five hours a day as regimented, Vaedarr is unlikely to have profited from my efforts.

  I walk over to the edge and peek into the hole. Finding nothing of interest, I head to a cluster of structures in the western section of the mine. The number of workers isn't high, maybe fifty people per shift. The ore is carted up and loaded into lorries, which are then pushed into a static portal hovering in the air. Which makes sense—you'd have to be a total moron to burn precious oxygen by smelting ore underground. But I'm not here for the ore. This particular mine can accommodate up to two hundred workers at a time. How many mines are there in total in Anthrum? How many fields and plantations? With a recent influx of half a million fresh recruits, I think I have an idea who's going to be working all these in short order. And nobody is going to bother asking the poor saps if they prefer picking mushrooms or swinging a pickaxe. The locals surpass the new arrivals in number, and especially in force. I just hope to avoid this lot when the shit starts hitting the fan, which, if my gut is right, shouldn't take long at all.

  I walk past two elongated two-story barracks, make a right, and round a brick tower of unknown purpose. At last, there's the inn—a rectangular three-story building enclosed by a three-foot-high fence. Inside the courtyard stand a stone stables, a square-shaped well, and two stone sheds. Wood is quite the rare commodity underground.

  The inn is called Eastern Path, its dented sign bearing a wagon pulled by a couple of rothé. The same kind of wagon stands in the courtyard as a young sullen drow unloads some sacks from it and lugs them into the shed. The kid's name is Alon. At level 160, clad in worn leather armor with a short blade at the waist, I'd take him for a common worker if not for the way he moves—a touch too smoothly and efficiently. On the whole, inns and mills in Arkon abound with lots of interesting characters—you can't swing a cat without hitting a crook of one stripe or another. So let's see which stripe this one is...

  "Hey there, Alon!" I greet the kid. "Are there any vacancies at the inn?"

  As I say this, I bend a finger on my right hand and press the remaining four to my forehead. Continuing the motion, I bring my hand down, push onto my eyelids, slide my index finger under my nose, then look the supposed laborer in the eye.

  Sure, I could have simply displayed the relevant title over my head, but why risk flashing it needlessly? If the drow isn't who I suspect he is, a commotion would surely follow. Thieves and bandits don't wear any distinguishing colors or articles of clothing, but the language of gestures is spoken by all that are "in the know." If I'm wrong, he's just going to ignore the sign, but if I'm right...

  My gut proves me right.

  The initial frown on the kid's face at the sight of a fool inquiring about vacancies gives way to surprise as his brows arch upward. To his credit, his bemusement is quickly hidden once more behind the same mask of annoyance. Lowering his sack, Alon taps his right wrist with two left fingers, motions towards the inn, and explains.

  "Slick Limus will find room for anyone, as long as their pockets ring with silver. Have we met?"

  I shake my head. "No, but I expect that we'll meet again. I'm here for a week, and I'm going to need good advice from a well-informed man."

  Calling him a "man" means nothing in particular, of course. Any drow prince, dwarf thane or elvish lord calls his subjects "people," reserving the term "humans" specifically for the representatives of the human race. Such are the challenges for a universal translator. Therefore, in here, we're all people to some extent. And then there's the additional subtext to the word "man" among thieves.

  "If you've got silver to spare, I've got advice to share," Alon flashes a scowl, picking his sack back up.

 

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