Ultimatum: The Proving Grounds (28 page)

Claire frowned. “But he didn’t. He saved us.”

“He saved
Toby
.” Jesse corrected. “You just happened to benefit.”

Paul sighed. “He’s playing his own little game here. And we don’t even know the rules. I want guild members watching him whenever he is around. At the first sign of something weird, I want them to drop the guild and shoot him.” He turned to Toby. “And when that happens you need to get as far away as you can.”

Toby nodded. “Sure. But so far he hasn’t done anything hostile.”

Paul nodded. “I can only assume he wants us on that mountain. That he needs the time it’s going to take for something.”

Tim held up his hand. “So lets use that time. We can point at Miller in the game now. Lets try and get an IP from him and help the feds track him down. His appearances were to erratic to trace before, but if he’s going to hang out…” He shrugged. “Get them a location anyway.”

“Maybe. I’ll take the idea up stairs.”

“They probably won’t like the part where we have people waiting to kill him if he sneezes.”

“You’re right. Which is why I won’t be bringing it up.”

Tim smiled. “I’m so proud of you.”

“I’d be careful with the tone. I still sign your paychecks.”

“And it’s such a masculine signature at that.”

“Carol, please make him shut up.”

Carol held her hand over her husband’s mouth. “Of course, sir.”

Jerry rubbed at his chin. “I’ll see about getting some of our people not involved in the raiding party to watch Miller. I don’t think we can rely on outside people for this. It would take time to explain, and I doubt the feds want to increase the need-to-know loop.”

Paul nodded. “Sounds good. We have the last two alternates as well, if you can’t find anyone else.”

“I’ll see to it, and make sure they are in the pit so we don’t lose contact to any paralyze or silence effects or anything.”

Claire frowned. “Are we still planning to take on this event? It was Miller that suggested it. I don’t understand him really wanting to help us. Maybe he just wants us weakened so he can finish us off.”

“Maybe.” Paul shrugged. “But we still need to level. If it’s really there we’ll approach with caution, make sure we don’t get in over our heads. Should give us time to get our snipers set up and waiting for Miller to make a move. If he does, we drop him. If he doesn't, so much the better. Either way we need the experience. If he really intends for us to get to the top of that mountain, then we need to progress and he won’t get in our way.”

‘I get that.” She rubbed at her neck. Toby could understand. His was still sore as well. Definitely not sleeping sitting up again. “It just seems like there’s a lot we don’t know here. And several chances for things to bite us in the ass.”

“For now he’s an ally so we can’t hurt him, and forward is the only direction we’ve got. It’s a risk, but I think we can manage it. We still have active GM accounts if we need one to deal with him directly in ways we can’t. But that’s the nuclear option. If we bring out ours, he might do worse things, or bring out some bit of code he’s been hiding to get them locked out, too. We are still running this game and they still have jobs to do.”

Claire shrugged. “I just don’t like it.”

Jesse nodded. “I don’t think any of us do, but we don’t have much choice.”

Toby stood up and stretched his neck. “Once more into the breech, then?”

23

No one had managed to kill him while he ate lunch. That was a nice bonus.

The party moved out to the event as a group. Group one had horses to call on now, but most of the rest didn’t so they didn’t bother to use them. There wasn’t much point to them waiting on the others to arrive, and even less in splitting the party.

One does not split the party.

It is known.

Especially after the last time.

Miller, in his guise of Mitchel, moved with them. Toby tried not to stare. He did better than most who knew. Fortunately they were mostly wandering behind him.

Miller was nearly at the front. He lead them to the event as promised. Along the coastline was a lagoon where people with scaly human top halves and snake bottom halves were tearing down boats and building up a war camp.

Paul nodded when he saw the camp. “We’ll need to approach carefully, but this should be a boon, yes.”

Miller nodded to the members of the reserve guild. “Don’t suppose you’d mind if we moved to the far side and tried to keep them from swarming? We could use some levels ourselves.”

“Not at all.” Paul nodded. “We’ll be here if you need a hand.”

“Appreciated.” Miller waved and the members of the Kingsmen Reserve Corps broke off to follow him away.

The Kingsmen watched them go. All four raid groups were in attendance, as well as several of the members that were not developers. Paul turned to them with a nod. “We’ll need somewhere to go after this. We should probably start up the scouting net again before long, but feel free to help us thin this place out for experience first.”

Amos tapped the last two alternates on the shoulder. “That goes for you, too.” He pointed after the Reserve Corps. “Maybe see if they need a hand. Don’t want anything happening to our friends.”

They both saluted and started that way. They had their orders before they ever logged in: Watch Miller and be ready to drop their guild standing if they needed to shoot him. Amos was just giving them a reason to follow him.

The rest of the guild was unaware of what they had spoken of in private. Everyone that was part of the company knew, but that was as far as the truth went. No one else could be trusted with the information. They might switch sides or they might decide to take matters into their own hands and get them into more trouble. And even if they didn’t understand what was happening and acted against the alternates after they dropped Miller, it wouldn’t matter. The deed would be done and people could talk after.

Of course, killing Miller’s character wasn’t likely to keep him down for long. He was using a GM account to masquerade as a normal player. That made him vulnerable… but only in the short term. His account would be immune to the rules if he had any sense. Especially if he was wandering around risking harm to himself.

It would only buy them time. Time for Toby’s hood to go on and for him to hide as best he could. Miller hadn’t been around to see him take possession of it, Mitchel had not been present either, and he hadn’t used it in front of any of the Reserve Corps members. He’d only toyed with it last night in the tent and a bit on the road.

A card to play close to the chest.

He wasn’t sure if walking around without a helmet made him look brave or foolish, but that was how things needed to be for now. At any rate, it seemed to make him a bit more personable. Members of both guilds waved and gave polite greetings when they saw him.

The event before them didn’t seem all that difficult. “The Troubling Sea: Rank 1” popped up in a window. He accepted.

He understood there where a lot of events and activities in the game that had nothing to do with combat. Resource gathering, crafting, diplomacy, building cities… but none of those offered the kind of experience they needed and all of them took far more time. Still, just swinging a sword all the time was getting a little dull. Those interesting times when his life was on the line gave it a bit of spice, but he looked forward to doing other things once all this was over.

He had always fished in MMOs. It had never been a huge source of income or anything, just an activity to whittle away time… but it had always been enjoyable.

Toby drew his sword as he looked down at the sea snake people.

It looked like he was going to go fishing today after all.

Amos stepped up beside him and loosed an arrow. One of the snake men lurched to the side as the arrow struck him. He raised his screwy snake shaped head and charged at the party with a hiss.

And he brought friends.

Members of the other groups spread out and picked up their own mobs.

It wasn’t as easy as Toby had hoped.

They had a level disadvantage going in, thirty five versus the thirty eight encounter. The healers stayed on their toes.

Paul did well, likely due to his new black armor bits giving him a stamina boost. Toby never really tested his. He went out of his way to not pull aggro this time. They were advancing by the book for now. He had been reckless enough last night for a few days.

They gained a level before the place thinned out enough to send the extras out looking for more promising leads again.

Toby threw his sword into one of the remaining snake men. Fish snake men. Things. It hissed as it charged him.

He couldn’t check the numbers, but it seemed like Soulbreaker did more damage now even when thrown, which had categorically been his least damaging attack. Probably because the game didn’t consider it to be one. It had never acted as part of the ability combo.

While they certainly took the event seriously and gave it their full attention… they didn’t really do either of those things. Most were too busy trying to make sure Miller wasn’t up to anything on the other side of the camp. Paul lost aggro a few times, which was quite unusual for him. The heals were a bit delayed, and it often took a few moments for DPS to realize another mobs was ready to enter the meat grinder.

Some of their problems here were probably ones they wouldn’t have had without the distraction.

Still, they won. And the delays may have actually helped a bit as the event ended without triggering an invasion.

“The Troubling Sea: Rank 1 - Complete!”

Toby leveled again when he accepted his reward. It was a trinket. A tiny magical item. This one a cloak clasp in the shape of a raven’s head. It even showed up when he equipped it. Neat.

It gave him a slight dexterity boost, but didn’t mean a hell of a lot to him. He didn’t have anywhere near enough dex to rely on it as a defensive measure. But this had an ability as well: it allowed him to shadow step… once, with a ten minute cool down. Still better than the empty slot by far.

He held up the clasp. “This has dex, seems more like rogue gear. The itemization screwy?”

Paul shrugged. “In some areas of advancement it’s more about your role than your class. You’re melee DPS, so you are rewarded the same way as all melee DPS.”

“I see.” He turned the clasp, looking at it. “Is the triggerable ability normal?”

“Heading up to late game, yeah. It allows you to expand on your abilities and customize yourself away from your class a bit, if you like.” He pointed at a book hanging from his belt now. “Allows me to resurrect occasionally. Typically something only casters can do.”

Claire shrugged. “Not sure I can res anyone at the moment. People’s accounts get locked out, what’s the point of resurrecting their character?”

“True.” Paul shrugged. “Nothing else to fill the trinket slot, for me. And I can use the wisdom boost.”

Jesse leaned into the conversation and nodded at the book. “Also it looks cool.”

“And apparently it looks cool.”

She pointed at the raven cloak clasp Toby was still fiddling with. “Oooo, I like that.”

“Pfft.” Toby shook his head. “Like you could even see it on your black on black outfit.”

“That’s why it fits so well.” She nodded.

“Do you use dex?”

“Not really.”

“Then I’ll hang onto it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t use dex either.”

“No, but the game gave it to me. So it wants me to have it.”

“I
guess
.” She pouted.

Paul’s chin lifted. “Got scouts reporting an event and some other find. Let’s see about rounding everyone up.”

The other groups were already moving. They met up at the center of the camp and started moving.

The afternoon held another event, this time undead again. There was no skeleton twist to the zombie outbreak this time.

Toby was glad. Without Tim and his jumping about… they might have been overwhelmed regardless of their numbers on hand. The event was even with their level, after all.

That event gave him a pair of gloves that proved to be inferior to his black set. Sad.

The net of scouts stretched out again, but there was nothing more than a few choice spots to grind mobs for a bit.

They ended up back at the same ruins they had stopped for lunch. Paul had Toby hold up in a different room this time, just on the off chance they had been casing the first one for weak points last time.

Paranoia could be a virtue sometimes.

With countless Kingsmen milling about and blocking the paths inside, Toby logged out and took off his headset.

It was stifling in there after awhile. He stripped out of the other gear and set it aside. Everyone else was still busy with their own. Huh. This was the first time he had been the first one out.

Tim waved from his position at the center of the room. Toby wandered over as he rolled his sore shoulders a bit.

“How we doing?”

“Could be better.” Tim shrugged. “Could also be a hell of a lot worse. All the groups are pressing 40 pretty hard. Yours is in the lead, unsurprisingly. Better gear. Knowledgeable players.”

“Aside from me.”

“Nah, you’re picking it up fine. And your gear makes up for any inexperience you might have.”

“Heh. Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.”

“Since it’s helping, lets just go with ‘good.’ “

“Speaking of gear, I got a trinket earlier that lets me shadow step.”

Tim slumped his shoulders. “And just like that I am replaced with a knockoff. What is this world coming to?”

“Hey, it’s got a cool down. I can’t bamf about like you.”

“That’s even worse. You’re an
inferior
knockoff.” He shook his head.

“Okay, well when you’re done insulting me feel free to tell me how it works.”

“Eh? It’s simple. For me it was just an issue of where I was looking. The shadow step only goes about ten feet, so make sure that spot is clear and you’re golden. Also height factors in. If you look up, you jump up. If you look down, you jump down. If you appear in mid air, you’re going to fall so try to minimize how far, eh?” He shrugged. “You’ll get the hang of it.”