System Launch by M. D. Siskind

Author:M. D. Siskind [Siskind, M. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-08-29T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The town’s Guard Quartermaster was in the main square, near the town hall. As Ben approached the man, he saw a half-dozen individuals wandering the main square. Visiting and departing the shops and stalls, visiting the town hall itself, and heading for the main gate. Other veteran players, professionals, and experts from the VRMMO scene clearing the tutorial.

Ben’s time advantage was beginning to erode.

Looking around, Ben nodded thoughtfully. Non-Player Character merchant stalls stood outside NPC merchant stores around three sides of the main square. Perfect. He could pump the Quartermaster for information on the Fog Goblins, check out the NPC shops, and head out for his quest. Ideally he’d complete the quest and be back in town right as the majority of players were finishing the tutorial. A second scan of the square showed Ben something else. Over the main town hall tower stood a clock with 24 hours. Ben looked at it, and realized it showed the real world time Useful, Ben decided as he approached the Quartermaster.

“Well met, sir.”

“What?” The quartermaster didn’t look up from his clipboard.

“I’ve been sent on a task. It involves Fog Goblins. I heard you’ve an interest in such matters.”

The quartermaster paused, then glanced over at Ben. Then, consulting his clipboard, the quartermaster spoke again. “Kill ‘em. Bring me ears. Bounty will paid out to... The Open Contract Workshop.”

Ben blinked, startled. That was their real world business, not their in-game group. “What’s the bounty paid in?”

“Ecreds.”

Ben froze, then nodded sharply, pushing the thought aside as he continued interrogating the taciturn quartermaster. Unfortunately the man had no useful advice or insights, and Ben left a couple minutes later.

He opened up the Open Contract Adventuring Team chat and sent a message.

Last Falcon: If you don’t have anything else to do, prioritize offers involving Fog Goblins. At least for now, they’re paying the bounty in cold hard ecreds. No reason not to cash in.

Ben closed the chat after seeing the exclamations of eager surprise rolling in. He’d suspected that Seeds of Lysium would offer more opportunities for payment, but he hadn’t expected in-game activities to receive real-world energy credits as compensation.

Then again, the Fog Goblins were the DM-AI’s representation of Pepedian computer systems on the Galactic Datanet. In a sense fighting the Fog Goblins was a proxy war for humanity’s conflict with the Pepedian Empire. Victories in the system would, through algorithms and computations Ben had never bothered to study intensely enough to understand, become cyber warfare attacks aimed directly at the Pepedian Star Empire.

When he looked at it like that? Yeah, Ben could understand providing a real world bounty as incentive for this in-game activity.

As a Protectorate System humanity had an advantage akin to holding high ground. Protectorates were those parts of the Galactic Datanet judged too young, underdeveloped, or devastated by events to stand on an even footing with the majority of sentient species in the network. They were isolated by various safeguards, and any race so foolish as to take action against Protectorate Systems suffered consequences.

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