MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious (21 page)

It was probably because he was looking out for it, otherwise Robert would certainly have missed it. But it was there, unmistakably. Just before Khalid answered, there was the tiniest hesitation. “No, not really. We’re just a couple of level eighties who like to do difficult raids together.”

“Do you play often? Or are you too busy with your studies?”

Khalid made a dismissive gesture. “My studies are easy. Still I don’t play WoW all the time. Usually I play a little in the evening. Sometimes, when I feel like it, I also play during the day.”

Robert was tempted to ask what else he did in his spare time, but decided against it. There would be plenty of opportunity later, when a natural occasion to broach the subject presented itself.

He stayed another ten minutes, discussing the best places for Hunterino to go for his leveling. Robert noted that Khalid had some different ideas than Rebecca that sounded quite viable as well.
Gaming isn’t an exact science
, he reminded himself.
There are many different ways to the same goal. Even goals are often not clear in a game like World of Warcraft
.

Robert thanked his neighbor again for his time and help. He retreated to his own room and sat on his bed. He leaned his back against the wall, crossed his legs under his body, and closed his eyes. In this position he remained for at least ten minutes, reliving the last hour. He used his memory as a filter, sifting through everything that had happened and had been said. When he was done, he called Rebecca.

~~~

Chapter XVIII

Andy
entered the shop fifteen seconds after Khalid. Robert watched him from across the street, partially hidden by a tree. After Andy had formally joined their team, surveillance in real life had become a priority. They had been trailing the man for over an hour now, but nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Khalid had visited a supermarket, where his shopping made Andy sent a message that their suspect wasn’t involved in terrorism but seemed to be running a juice bar.

Now Khalid was inside a tobacco shop that also sold all kinds of magazines, books, and candy. After several minutes, Khalid emerged again. He set off in the direction of the Rapenburg. Robert waited for Andy to exit as well before he followed the pair, trailing some thirty yards behind Andy. He received a text message from Andy:
two packs of Marlboro Light
. Surveillance turned out to be rather boring so far.

Khalid didn’t look back once. He kept his eyes to the ground, seemingly deep in thought. He stopped twice to transfer his shopping bag from one hand to the other. When they arrived back at the house, he looked up and down the street. His eyes didn’t linger on Andy, though. While Khalid turned the key, Andy passed him on the sidewalk, not even once glancing aside.

Robert heaved a deep sigh. He was content that their first surveillance had gone so well. He also felt strangely relieved that nothing out of the ordinary had happened. They had no real plan yet on how to react when something did happen. Robert also realized that it would be difficult to determine whether something was suspicious at all. What if Khalid had met with someone? What should they do then? Involuntarily, he touched the miniature digital camera he was carrying in his pocket, as if to remind himself of the course of action.

Andy had reached the next corner and turned around to look down the street. When he saw that Khalid had entered his house, he jogged back to where Robert was standing.

“That went well, don’t you think?” It was apparent that Andy liked their cloak and dagger work. “Pity he didn’t do anything.”

Robert grunted. “It may seem fun now, but the challenge will be to keep this up for the coming weeks. Or longer.”

With a shrug, Andy nodded. “Let’s hope we learn something useful soon. Something we can take to the police.”

The three of them had agreed to take their findings to the police anyway, as soon as Rebecca joined them. Her arrival was still three days away. Robert and Andy were preparing a briefing document for the police, feeling that committing their findings to paper in a structured way would be the best method to convince them.

They parted, as Andy had other obligations. If Khalid decided to go out again soon, it would fall to Robert to follow him.

Back in his room, he logged on to World of Warcraft. As expected, Khalid was online as well. The man seemed to spend nearly every free moment in the virtual world. Robert decided to leave Khalid and to concentrate on the task of reaching level sixty-eight as soon as possible.

He currently was in a zone called Netherstorm, a bizarre landscape that resembled the surface of a dead moon, inspired by the mind of a stoned graphic designer. It consisted of several immense chunks of rock that floated in space, connected to each other by bridges. The remoteness was broken by mind blasting Eco-Dromes rising majestically out of the dead rock. These Eco-Dromes were bubbles of contained atmosphere, where lush flora and fauna flourished in abundance. When stepping through the transparent wall of one of those bubbles, there suddenly was an impossible jungle. Of course, danger lurked everywhere. There were several so-called Mana Forges, where demons were undertaking some potentially dangerous experiments. The quest line aimed at shutting those forges down one by one. He was at the last stages of level sixty-six by now and progressing fast, though not fast enough according to Rebecca. He estimated that he would reach the end of his time here in Netherstorm pretty soon.

It happened when he was turning in a quest. Gunslinger was about to enter the local town, when Drimm and Pharad landed at the Flight Master, who was stationed outside the main gate. It took a moment to register that it was really them. He held in and remained watching from a short distance.

The two level eighties didn’t waste time. They summoned their own flying mounts and flew off in an easterly direction. There was no sense in trying to follow them. At his level, Gunslinger wasn’t eligible for the epic flying skill, like the Grimstones were. Their flying mounts were twice as fast as Robert’s own. With regret, he watched them go. Soon, they were nothing more than specs on the horizon.

In quick succession, several other members of the Hammer of Grimstone came online. Pharad and Drimm were now in a place called Tempest Keep. Robert scrabbled it down on a yellow paper. Shortly after each of the newcomers had come online, their listed position changed to that location as well. Robert remembered that Rebecca had once explained that at the entrance of many instances was a so-called summoning stone that could be used to summon absent party members. Apparently, this was what was happening now. They were going to do an instance together. As he couldn’t follow them there anyway, he disregarded the group and continued with his own tasks.

He reached level sixty-seven a little over an hour later. The entire Hammer of Grimstone was still in an instance called The Botanica. Robert decided to stir things up a bit. He logged off and logged on again on the alternate account, bringing Hunterino into the world.

He took the flightpath to Ogrimmar and, while he was airborne, he tried to come up with the best approach to Drimm. He decided to keep up the ignorant façade.

“Do you know where One Thousand Needles is?” he asked Drimm, using a whisper.

It took so long for his neighbor to answer that Robert repeated his question a few minutes later. Finally, after one more minute, there came a reply. “Sorry, I was in a boss fight. 1KN is to the south of the Barrens. Just follow the road all the way.”

“1KN?”

“One Kilo Needles. One Thousand. Just follow the road.”

Fifteen minutes later there was a knock on the door.

“Yes!” Robert yelled.

The door opened and admitted Khalid. He took one step into the room and halted there, as if he had second thoughts about coming here. Robert smiled in welcome. He was pleased with this development.

“Are you doing okay?” Khalid asked.

“I gave up on the Needles place. It was too far away. Look, I’m in Stonetalon Mountains now.” He pointed at the screen, which showed Hunterino on the borders of Mirkfallon Lake.

Khalid glanced at the screen, but didn’t seem interested. He walked over to the window and stood there for a couple of minutes. He seemed to be studying the dead wall intently. When he was finished, he turned back to the room again.

“If you want me to help you with WoW, it must be in the next two weeks. When Cataclysm comes out, I’ll be too busy.”

Robert didn’t know what to say for a moment. Why was the man telling him this? Was he simply being nice?

“That’s a nice offer,” he said in the end. “When does the expansion launch?”

“December seventh.”

Involuntarily, Robert glanced at his watch to check the date. It was the twenty-fourth.
Rebecca comes tomorrow!

“Well, if you can help me some, that would be great,” he said. “So I have two weeks to reach level eighty?”

This evoked a hearty laugh. “No chance. That’s going to take a lot longer than that. And I have to leave town for a few days before that.”

Robert tried to hide how this news electrified him. He turned down his eyes and breathed in and out a few times. Looking up again, he tried to sound casual. “Really? Going somewhere interesting?”

Khalid seemed to be watching him intently, but his face showed no suspicion. “Not really, just a few days with some friends in the first week of December.”

Desperately trying to pin down the exact moment, Robert said, “Until when do you have time to give me some help?”

“I’ll be here until Friday. I’ll be back the Tuesday after.”

Robert nodded. “Okay, so we still have some time.”

“Let’s get started. I’ll meet you in Sun Rock Retreat.”

They played together for two hours. After their exploits of the day before, they had fallen into a kind of easy companionship, which was quite a surprise to Robert.

During this time, Hunterino went nearly two levels up. It went so well that Robert almost regretted that this wasn’t his real account. They didn’t speak much while playing. Khalid didn’t waste time on idle chatter and limited the conversation to short instructions. Still he gave useful advice on the use of some abilities that Robert rarely, if ever, used. As in real life, one tended to stick with familiar things, without exploring new possibilities. Robert vowed to take a fresh look at his Spells and Abilities book as soon as he was back on Gunslinger himself. He was convinced that some of the things he was learning would improve his performance on Gunslinger as well

Rebecca called him near the end. He quickly told her what he was doing with Khalid.

“Well done!” she praised him. “This might help getting his account name and password.”

According to her plan, he waited a long five minutes after Khalid had logged off and knocked on Khalid’s door. It opened almost immediately. Khalid seemed to expect him.

“I wanted to thank you again for your time,” Robert said. “And I wanted to ask you something.”

Khalid stepped back, indicating that Robert could enter.

“What more can I do for you?”

“I wondered if you could show me how you play with Drimm. What your screen looks like and what kinds of new abilities I’m going to get when I progress.”

Khalid nodded. “Sure. Give me a second to log on again.”

Khalid started World of Warcraft again, and they had to wait a few seconds for the log on screen to appear. Unobtrusively, Robert edged a little closer to get a view of the keyboard as well as the screen.

Khalid had checked the box that saved his account name on the computer, so Robert had all the opportunity he needed to memorize the word. The username was a hotmail email address, just like Robert’s own username. Unfortunately, it was impossible to discern the following word that Khalid gave in as his password. Khalid typed so fast, he could only see that it started with a G and that it contained two E’s. He was able to note though, that it ended with a number combination, as simple as could be; 3-2-1.

He sat on the desk when the character selection came up. To his surprise, he saw that Khalid had three more characters on Sylvanas. Before he could take in any details, Khalid had hit Enter and the screen was replaced by the follow up screen that showed the loading of Drimm into the virtual world. He appeared in Dalaran, on a huge square called Krasus Landing. Until now, Drimm had been accompanied by a bear, but now he had a lion at his side. Robert commented on this, and Drimm explained that a hunter could have several pets, with different strengths and weaknesses. Pets could be stabled at a stable master, to be retrieved when the occasion demanded a pet with specific skills.

“Now I’ll show you some of the things a level eighty hunter can do,” Khalid said. He summoned an enormous dragon and took off in a southerly direction. “Dalaran is a no-flying zone,” he explained. “The place we just left is the only spot where flying is allowed. It’s like an airport.”

He turned eastward, ascending endlessly to cross a ridge of high and steep mountains. Soon after, they entered a zone called Stormpeaks. It offered steep rocky mountains and large snow-covered plains. Khalid veered eastward and steered the dragon with Drimm on its back into a steep canyon and started to follow it at neck breaking speed. Walls of rock loomed over them as the dragon descended even farther and hugged the solidly frozen water of the river that once flowed here. For a moment Robert wondered about seasons in World of Warcraft. Would this river thaw and run again in several months?

They flew on until they reached an immense flat open area called the Foot Steppes. There was nothing ordinary about the Foot Steppes. In the middle of this plain a seemingly perfect round hole of sheer impossible dimensions was drilled into the ground. Inhuman was the word that came to Robert’s mind. There was no telling how deep it was. The dragon perched at a safe distance from the rim of the hole and deposited Drimm in the snow on the ground. The hunter turned toward a large herd of Rhinos that Robert hadn’t noticed before. They were all level seventy-seven to seventy-nine, including the three calves that were part of the herd.