MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious (24 page)

Robert sat forward, boring his eyes into the man. “We understand that, but we don’t know who else to turn to. Couldn’t you pass this information on? There must be something like an anti-terrorist department!”

Mr. Slingerberg nodded. “That’s exactly what I was going to propose. Maybe we should have done that the last time you were here.”

The three looked at each other with smiles. “Thank you very much,” Rebecca said. “We appreciate that.”

“I said I’ll pass it on. There are no guarantees.”

“I understand that,” Robert answered. “How long do you think this is going to take? And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?”

“Fortunately, I have a certain contact I can use. So it’ll be a matter of days, at the most. Until then, I propose that you keep doing what you’ve been doing. If you’re right, something may be happening again, and it would help if you were able to get as much information as possible.”

They parted with the promise that Mr. Slingerberg, or his contact in the Dutch equivalent of the Secret Service, would contact Andy or Robert as soon as possible. Walking home, they shared many smiles and congratulated each other again and again. Robert marveled at the feeling of relief he was experiencing. Now that they were getting closer to the terrorists, it was good to know they weren’t alone anymore. He didn’t doubt for a second the police wouldn’t follow up on their information now. There was too much at stake, and with all the information they had provided, they just couldn’t fail to investigate further.

~~~

Chapter XXI

Back
home, Robert prepared to attend class while Rebecca started to fiddle with the plug of the Internet connection. She had her notebook on the desk and was busy converting the mono plug into a duo connection.

He watched her, amazed at how competent she was with all things technical. He remembered how easily she had set up a connection with a webcam earlier, allowing him to be a part of the world view of her Alliance rogue in Edinburgh, hundreds of miles away. She seemed to read his thoughts.

“This is only child’s play compared to what we’re going to do next. Have you thought about a way to get the master key yet?”

He nodded and held up his own house key. While holding it aloft, he proceeded to tell her what he’d come up with. She looked doubtful. “It may work,” she conceded, “but it has a distinct disadvantage. It takes an unknown quantity of time right after he leaves before I can start working.”

“I know, but do you have a better idea? Look, when he goes away we’ll have all the time we want. If we want to move earlier, it’s going to be tight.”

“Yes, I know. Just make sure that you’re ready the moment he leaves!” She tossed him the plug she had removed from the wire. “So get back as soon as possible!”

***

When he returned at the end of the afternoon, Gunslinger was at level seventy-seven. He sat next to Rebecca, who was piloting his hunter toward Icecrown.

“At level seventy-seven you’re permitted to fly in Northrend,” she explained.

He nodded. It had been an unpleasant surprise to discover that a player had to learn Cold Weather Flying to navigate the arctic skies, a skill which only became available at level seventy-seven. With envy he studied the terrain he hadn’t been able to explore by himself.

“How the hell did you manage four levels in five hours?”

“More like three levels, because I was already at the end of seventy-three this morning,” she downplayed her achievement. “For the rest, I did some cheating.”

“Cheating? I thought cheating was impossible?”

“Well, not real cheating. Let’s just say that I spent tons of gold to rake in as many experience points as possible.”

He was curious now. “What did you do?”

She gave him a nudge and a triumphant smile. “I bought the services of four level eighty players for the entire afternoon. Not everybody is rich, so let’s just say I made them an offer they couldn’t resist. They boosted me through no less than six instances and helped me complete some rewarding group quests.”

She logged his account off and shoved the other laptop in his direction.

“Let’s see if we can make level eighty before tomorrow morning. Gunslinger and Killermage together.”

He pushed the computer back at her. “Not without some fuel.” He produced two bottles of Margeaux and a small plastic bag.

“Cheeses!” she exclaimed at the smell coming from the bag.

“Also olives, pâté, and Parma ham.” He grinned.

She looked him in the eye. “I could get used to having you around.”

Robert held her gaze and nodded. “Same here.”

She was the first to break the contact. “Let’s do this.”

In the end, the two bottles of Margeaux didn’t carry Gunslinger all the way to level eighty. Only at five o’clock in the early morning and on the fumes of the last dreg of an extra Peymorol, a quite acceptable Bourgogne, did the death throes of a Scarlet Crusader accompany the characteristic sound of the achievement of reaching the final and ultimate level.

They were sitting side by side at his desk, their laptops plugged into the Internet connection Rebecca had split so expertly earlier. They had been working together as a team, tackling quest after quest together. Icecrown was the least attractive part of Northrend Robert had seen so far. Other parts of the continent were often cold, harsh and isolated, but Icecrown was simply dead. Nothing lived there, nothing grew. The ground was solid ice, a kind of glacier that had been broken up at places to accommodate some monstrous constructions. All that moved were the Undead scions of the Lich King, the ultimate evil personage who ruled this place.

Exhausted and jubilant, Robert fell back in his chair.

“Yes!” Rebecca exclaimed, bouncing out of her chair and hugging him. “We did it!”

He hugged her back, exhilarating in the smell of her. The mixture of wine, stale cheese, and sweat was the most intoxicating he’d ever breathed. After some time she drew back a bit, so she could look at him. Their eyes locked. Smiling softly, she cupped his face in her hands, and he saw her mouth approaching his. Then they heard it.

The door across the corridor opened and was closed again. Footsteps swiftly descended the stairs.

Before he knew it, she was up and at the door. She opened it and soon they both heard the front door shutting. The house became silent again.

“Damn, if only we had that key now,” she exclaimed. She was all purpose again. “And we can’t even follow him now that he’s already gone. Who knows what he’s up to, in the middle of the night!”

He shrugged. He didn’t share her disappointment about the key. That would come. And he didn’t particularly relish going out at this very moment. But he did curse Khalid for breaking their moment from the bottom of his heart.

The next morning they started to upgrade Gunslinger’s gear. Now that he was level eighty, there was a wide range of exceptional epic gear available that would boost the strength of his character to new heights. Some of it could be bought, some of it could be crafted, but most of it had to be earned. If they were to be on a par with the Grimstones, they had work to do.

Every item in World of Warcraft had a certain item level. Since there were no less than twelve ‘slots’ on his person to be outfitted, they had a long way to go. The people organizing a raid typically scrutinized each would-be applicant before admitting them into their group. There was no way that Gunslinger was going to be accepted in any group with hard core players like the Hammer of Grimstone.

The easiest way to accumulate gear was to run as many instances as possible. Completing these at heroic setting earned a player emblems, which could be used to purchase epic gear items. There was a feature that allowed a player to queue for instances, but one could complete each instance only once a day, and there simply was only a limited number of instances available.

Rebecca explained to him that they would run the maximum number of instances each day, to gain as many emblems as possible. To improve his gear even further they would also go for the epic Player versus Player gear. “Not a bad idea anyway, as on this Realm open Player versus Player combat is allowed, so there’s always the risk of being attacked by players of the Alliance. When Cataclysm arrives, every player and his dog will be out there in the open, and it’s going to be a massacre. Horde and Alliance will be fighting each other probably even more than concentrating on new quests and territories.”

Instead of fighting they started off by raiding the auction house. This was mainly a matter of spending a lot of gold.

“I leave it all to you.” He relinquished the task of deciding what was best for him.

“Aye aye, Sir!” she replied. “You know how girls like to shop!” And Killermage was off, doing exactly that. He went to stand behind her so he could look over her shoulder at what she was doing.

He winced at how much gold they were burning. She still had a little over sixteen thousand gold left. Considering what had been spent already, not forgetting the fortune that had already been spent on gear, training and mounts for Gunslinger, she must have brought something like forty thousand gold with her when she moved to the realm of Sylvanas.

“Actually, forty-five thousand,” she replied when he asked her about this.

The magnitude of that sum was so overwhelming that it took a few moments to sink in. In his guild there were often discussions about gold, and he knew nobody who came even close to having amassed such a fortune. Most of the level eighty players had to go through a daily routine of grinding the same quests to produce an income maybe a little over two hundred gold per day. This gold was needed for repairs, food, and, of course, for the occasional extra costs of enchantments and gems.

“How in the world did you get so much gold?”

She looked at him with a coy expression. “That’s my secret. As you’re so special, I’ll share it with you. Some of it, at least.”

He looked expectantly at her. “Please, enlighten me!”

“You know, right across from the bank in Ogrimmar, there’s a large building. Did you ever notice that?”

“You mean the auction house?”

She rolled her eyes up in her face, mocking him with an incredulous expression. “You mean, you mean, you already know!”

“Oh, come on!” He gently pushed her. “Stop making fun of me. Tell me your secret!”

“I’m serious. The auction house is the answer. Anyone with half a mind and a little guts can easily earn a thousand gold a day by trading smartly.”

Before he could press her for further details, she pointed at his own computer, telling him to get on with it. Grumbling a little, he obliged.

Around noon, Khalid returned. They were so immersed in their virtual world that they only noticed when they heard his door slam shut. Twenty minutes later, there was another sound from the corridor. This time, they were prepared.

Robert put a finger to his lips, urging Rebecca to silence, and opened his door a little. Through the crack he could see the disappearing back of Khalid.

“Go!” he whispered, gesturing urgently. She grabbed her coat and hurried after the Egyptian, careful to stay out of sight. At the same time, Robert called Andy to inform him that Khalid was moving and that Rebecca was on his tail.

She was back half an hour later. She reported how she had followed him straight to the faculty of Art History, where he joined a class that would run for two hours. Andy was sitting down the hall next to the coffee machine.

They discussed whether this was enough of a window to try to sneak into his room, but judged it was too risky.

“At least this calls for a break,” Rebecca said. She stood and stretched, yawning at the same time. “You want some tea?”

Without bothering to wait for an answer, she knelt by the small low table and started fiddling with the electric water heater. “Amazing, I’m at home already. Do you want a biscuit as well?”

He watched her from where he sat at the desk, marveling at how much he’d become attached to this girl. They had been apart for quite some time. Now she was back, it felt as if that episode hadn’t happened at all. He found it difficult that she could be so unpredictable. Their intimate moment of last night, when he’d been so sure that things were finally happening between them, had been with him all day long. In fact, at times he found it hard to concentrate because his mind kept wandering back to that moment. She seemed to have forgotten it. She acted as if it never happened, as if they hadn’t been a heartbeat away from kissing.

Rebecca seemed to feel his eyes on her, because she turned around suddenly. She caught his gaze and held it. With an absent gesture she removed one of the stubborn strands of dark hair out of her face. She nodded slowly, more to herself than to him. He wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but it felt good.

“We’re going to get them!” He didn’t know where the words came from, but they were out of his mouth before his conscious thoughts caught up with them.

Again, she nodded. A serious look came to her eyes. “Yes, we should focus on that. We can’t afford to let more people die.”

The tea and biscuits were the fuel for the next stage.

“This was the easy part,” Rebecca warned him. “We acquired everything that we could buy for gold. Buying things is always the fastest way, provided that you have the gold to spend. We’ll keep monitoring the auction house. If more things come up for sale, we’ll buy them, but don’t count on it. The rest of your gear will have to be earned with a lot of sweat and blood.”

At seven o’clock Andy called to tell them that Khalid had entered another class.

“Damn, we need to get his schedule,” Rebecca exclaimed. “If we had known this in advance, we would have known that we had ample time to break into his room!”