MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious (41 page)

It took twenty minutes for the first of them appear. It was a Blood Elf mage, presumably the one Robert had once followed through the endless stretches of Aszhara. He went by the name Marvin now.

He entered the world in the Undercity, but teleported to Shattrath City instantly. Robert came to stand behind Rebecca, and they both saw the level eighty-five wielder of the Arcane materialize at the designated spot. He cast a spell, and suddenly he was mounted on a golden dragon. He took off straight at Magekiller. Robert flinched. He soared past them and, once out of the building, started to climb swiftly.

Rebecca remained calm. She summoned her own flying mount, a blue and black feathery bird of impressive proportions, and took off as well. Magekiller followed the dwindling Blood Elf over the quarter called Lower City and past the adjoining city wall. They exited Shattrath and entered the zone of Terokkar Forest.

The flight took them in a southerly direction. They soared over tree tops for a while, until the forest ended abruptly. They entered the immense Bone Wastes, one of the most desolate places in World of Warcraft. Its surface was all ashes, a dark grey desert that stretched for as far as the eye could see. Robert knew that when on the ground, the occasional coaled remains of trees could be seen. Bones and skeletons were all over the place. Nothing grew in these wastes, still there was life. All of it was hostile. In the north, travelers had to be wary of huge winged scavengers around Carrion Hill, while cultists of the Shadow Council threatened nearly everywhere.

Marvin continued to the south until the ruins of Auchindoun appeared on the horizon. Robert blinked. During his short visits to this area, he’d completed some quests in the north of Terokkar Forest before setting off for adjoining Nagrand. His travels had never taken him this far south.

Auchindoun was so huge, it defied belief. From the air, it looked like a gigantic bowl, or a massive coliseum. Ahead of them, Marvin was descending. He landed on the ground, right in the middle of the flat surface on the bottom of the bowl. The structure was so high that, when Rebecca settled her bird on the outer ring, the Blood Elf mage was only a tiny figure down below. Robert’s thoughts went back to a vacation in Spain with his family several years back. Their father had taken his sons to a soccer match of Real Madrid. He vividly remembered the awing impression the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu had made. Their tickets had been for places all the way up in the stands. Together with eighty thousand other people, he’d cheered for the matadors in white, who had been like tiny little puppets from where they were seated. That same sensation was with him now.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sound from his own computer. He hurried over.

“Three more Grimstones came online just now,” he reported. “Esjnn is one of them.”

“Where are they?”

“Two in Shattrath, one in Ogrimmar.”

When he hit enter, two more came online, only a second apart. A minute later, the final member entered the virtual world.

“They’re all in Shattrath or Terokkar now,” he confirmed a little later. His eyes were glued to the screen, following their progress.

“One arrived here,” Rebecca announced from her station. “Correction, two more. Esjnn is here and the guild leader too.”

He walked around the conference table again and watched for himself. Four figures were now standing in the middle of the huge floor. Shortly after, the remaining three descended from the sky.

“Shouldn’t we hide?” he whispered in her ear.

She shrugged, but put the rogue in stealth mode anyway. Down below, the little group dispersed. Four took wing and flew away in the four directions of the compass. One was heading their way.

At that moment, the door of the study opened, and Fitzgerald and Broerse entered the room. They looked up in surprise. With a flick of her wrist, Rebecca exited the program.

“How are you feeling?” Broerse asked by way of greeting. “Recuperating well?”

“Much better, thank you,” Robert replied. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rebecca’s screen light up with the standard desktop of Windows Vista. He stepped around the table to shake hands with the men. Rebecca wasn’t far behind.

“Are you having any luck?” Fitzgerald asked.

Robert didn’t dare to look over. He certainly understood her need for privacy, and he resented being spied upon as much as she did. He wondered if she really meant to hide their progress from them?

“We might be making progress, but we’re not sure yet,” Rebecca replied. In vague terms, she proceeded to describe how they had found a bunch of players who resembled the original Hammer of Grimstone. She concluded by saying they were investigating it.

“Well done.” Broerse positively glimmered. “Keep up the good work, I would say!”

They chatted for some time, sharing a cup of coffee. The two men weren’t forthcoming at all with information about the progress being made on their end. They did inquire about their wellbeing several times and asked if they needed anything, like more clothing.

Robert shared his worries about his upcoming exams and asked when he’d be allowed to attend classes again. They surprised him by saying they had taken care of that. Some special allowances were being made for him. He would be able to pass the exams of this term individually at some later moment.

“It has all been taken care of, my boy!” Fitzgerald assured him. The men rose and they said their goodbyes.

When they were gone, Robert looked at his watch and concluded that the Hammer’s training session must be over by now. His computer screen confirmed this. The terrorists were offline; all of them, but Esjnn. He was in Ogrimmar.

“He’s on the lookout for us,” Rebecca whispered. Her certainty carried clearly in her soft voice. “Let’s tweak his nose a little.”

She sat down and launched Killermage. She appeared in front of the bank, next to the mailbox where they had retrieved Andy’s letter earlier. She glanced at her watch and after a full minute had passed, she started to cast the teleport spell to Silvermoon City. A few seconds later, she was on another continent, in another city. She walked out of the building, mounted, and rode some distance away. She stopped when she was out of sight of the immediate vicinity of the place where all portals led to.

“Now let’s see what he does,” she said with satisfaction.

~~~

Chapter XXXVII

The
sudden appearance of Killermage jerked Khalid to full alertness. Their session of this morning at Auchindoun had been good, but the intense concentration had left him a little tired. Immediately afterward, he had taken up his station at Ogrimmar. While hanging around the city, essentially doing nothing, his thoughts had started wandering down the all too familiar dark paths again. Now he was fully alert.

He clicked open his social tab. To his satisfaction, her location was listed as Ogrimmar. It wouldn’t be easy to find her here, but certainly possible. His perfect vantage point had been chosen with that challenge in mind. He had only just begun to scan the crowds below him, when the listed whereabouts of Killermage suddenly changed from Ogrimmar to Silvermoon City.
Damn those mages and their ability to travel the world at will!

He looked around and spotted another mage not far from him. He sent a message, offering ten gold for a portal to Silvermoon City. When he didn’t get a reply after twenty seconds he approached another mage. This time he was more successful. They joined Party, and he waited impatiently for the other to start casting the spell. When nothing happened, he realized he had to pay first. He quickly traded the gold and was rewarded by a shimmering portal a few seconds later. He stepped through, and his computer loaded the new location. While he waited, he fired off a text message from his cell phone.

Killermage was off again. As soon as Khalid’s hunter stepped out of the building all portals to Silvermoon led to, the location of his target changed to Undercity. He swore. As usual, the streets of Silvermoon City were practically deserted. In any other city it was usually easy to find a mage willing to provide transportation in exchange for a few gold, but he doubted there was even a single mage of high enough level in this place.

He was loathe to use his hearthstone. It had a cooldown of thirty minutes, meaning he could use it only twice an hour. If he used it now, his only means of traveling far distances without aid was expended. But he had no choice. His hearthstone yanked him to Dalaran, where he sprinted to the little garden with the fountain that held the Horde portals to all other major cities. At least, it used to be that way. He stared in bewilderment at the walls, that had reverted to being just that; plain brick walls. Not even a single shimmering portal was to be seen. At first, he thought he was experiencing a bug or a glitch, which happened sometimes. He even clicked with his mouse on the spot where the portal to Undercity used to be. Nothing happened. He ran back into the streets.

“Where are the portals?” he asked of a level seventy-two Blood Elf paladin, the only player in sight.

“Didn’t you know? They have been removed with Cataclysm.”

It felt like a rebuke. Stung, he snarled with frustration. The worst of it was that he realized how unlikely it would be that he’d find a mage to create a portal for him. Dalaran had become a ghost city. Seeing no other option, he selected the worldwide trade channel.
Paying 200 gold for portal from Dalaran to Ogrimmar
he typed. The outrageous advertisement appeared in the screen of every single player who happened to be in any of the major cities, from Ogrimmar to Thunder Bluff. Within seconds he had several offers and no less than three mages instantly teleported to Dalaran to offer their services. He traded the insane amount of gold to the first of them to appear en finally stepped through a portal to Undercity.

He couldn’t believe it. He had just reached the centre of the commercial district of the Undercity, ready to start his search for her, when Killermage hopped again. Now she was in Dalaran, the place he just left at such expense. What the hell was she doing? Fortunately, there was another mage at the Undercity bank who was willing to help him quickly. He judged he was less than a minute behind her when he, too, materialized in the capital of Northrend. He hesitated in Runeweaver Square. Where was she? Then he finally had a stroke of luck. Through one of the arched porches that gave access to the streets beyond the central square, he spotted someone riding by with a bright light blue nametag. He couldn’t read it, but he didn’t need to. The color said it all; it was someone marked as a Friend, and Killermage was the only one of those online. He smiled and mounted.

Khalid turned sharp left and exited the square through another porch, effectively cutting Killermage off. He emerged on the street only fifteen yards behind.

He felt a presence behind him. Without looking back, he knew who it was. He knew only one person who moved so silently, Muhammad al-Moutti. There was one more person staying at the double apartment in Haarlem, also a member of their group. He guessed Omar was in his usual spot, on the couch in front of the television. He didn’t know where the other members were staying.

“It’s Rebecca,” he explained, pointing at the back of Killermage. “She’s alone.”

The other nodded. “Going to Krasus Landing.”

True to this prediction, Killermage mounted the steps to the flight platform. She walked up to Aludane Whitecloud, the flight master. Apparently, she was going to use the taxi service. A second later, she was carried away on the back of a Wyvern, an amazing breed of animals resembling lions if you overlooked the bat wings and scorpion tail.

Khalid didn’t need any instructions. Quickly, he summoned his own flying mount to take off after her. He knew that the time it took to summon his mount would put him far behind. He also knew that the wyverns of the flight masters followed fixed paths through the air, much like airliners. Those routes were typically designed to be panoramic rather than swift, weaving across the highlights of the different areas. All these patterns were known intimately by Khalid, so he would have little trouble overtaking her before she was too far away from the city.

Unexpectedly, Muhammad stopped him by gently taking the mouse out of his hand. He tapped the screen, pointing out another player who had just taken off in southerly direction. It was a level eighty Dwarf warrior.

“It’s covered,” he said. “That’s one of Rachid’s characters. He has several Alliance, too. Now log off and switch to that Alliance character I ordered you to maintain. Or did you convert them all back to Horde?”

It suddenly dawned on Khalid why that order had been given. If it had been up to him, he
would
have changed all of his three characters back to the Horde faction. Even though he usually only played with his hunter, for always Drimm in his mind, those other two were still dear to him. He had played them all the way up to level eighty, after all. Leaving one in the Alliance camp didn’t feel right.

He nodded in confirmation. “Of course. My warlock. He’s right here in Dalaran.”

“Good. Get him out. Go on Teamspeak, regular channel.”

Pharad turned on his heel and left the room, already talking into his phone. Khalid logged to his Human warlock, and soon he was invited to a Party. There were five of them, the regular set up for a standard instance.

These weren’t main characters, but so-called Alts. As a consequence, they were all still at level eighty, three levels below the Undead mage they were pursuing. Their owners simply hadn’t gotten around to leveling these characters up yet. Still, they were well equipped and together they’d be able to overwhelm Killermage.

Khalid always thought of a configuration of five players as a standard platoon. Dangerous bosses with millions of hitpoints could be brought down by a balanced group of five. Enormous damage could be endured by such a group, if they cooperated well and played it smartly. There were no players more experienced and dedicated than the members of the Hammer of Grimstone. Their parties had fought together countless times, in and out of the virtual world. Everybody knew his role instinctively. They were attuned to each other in ways unimaginable to ordinary players. He almost felt sorry for Killermage.