Project Daily Grind (Mirror World Book #1) (10 page)

Now I could understand why the No Mercy mode was “Not Recommended“. What was the point? All it meant was that you'd have to OD on elixirs until every new stone began to cost you dearly. That's exactly how others must have burned out—and for what? It only meant more money spent on elixirs to ruin your health faster. All to farm some agate? Please.

Very well. It was time I stopped. Enough for my first day.

I switched off the bot and staggered out. Night had fallen over Mirror World. An enormous moon bathed this weird land in its pale light. The sound of my footsteps alone disturbed the silence that had enveloped everything around.

The terminal habitually greeted me with the phrase I couldn't hear any more,

Greetings, Olgerd!

Would you like to declare your resource? Name: Agate. Quantity: 40 pcs.

Yes, damn you!

Thank you for your work! You now have 3968 pcs. of Agate.

Not good. Just falling short of my quota. All I'd earned was twenty-five gold. Shit. Two more hours would have done it. But no. It wasn't worth risking it. I could barely stand on my feet.

Before leaving, I checked my skill and ability levels.

Current skill: 12 pt.

Maximal skill pt. for your current profession level: 35

Another twenty-three points, and I'd become a Seasoned Digger. And that was totally different money. I'd have to spend some quality time studying resources and weigh up all the pros and cons. With any luck, I might start looking for a new mine the day after tomorrow.

My girls only had to brave it for a little bit longer. I was almost there. I shook the thought away. Were they all right? They were probably already fast asleep—but not Sveta, no. In any case, I wasn't going to disturb her. I'd give her a call in the morning.

I checked on my Shrewd Operator. Twenty-two points. That's a result! Talk about devious routes. Time to quit.

I cast one last glance at the moon. Wasn't it beautiful! Never mind it wasn't real.

Chapter Ten

D
arkness enveloped me. I was already getting used to it. What a weird sensation. Scary. You didn't feel your body at all. I couldn't see anything. I didn't breathe.

Logging out was taking a while. I couldn't see the light. What was going on—were they all asleep or something? Hey! Where's my light?

It felt a bit like waiting for an elevator: you knew it was there somewhere, shuffling its cables in the dark, but you couldn't tell its exact location because some idiot had melted the elevator button with his lighter and then an alcoholic neighbor had cannibalized the floor display. His wife would stand next to you also waiting for the elevator, cursing the anonymous vandals just to check if you knew who the true culprit was. The funny thing was, she would know you knew it and you'd know she knew it too, and still your good manners wouldn't allow you to confront her story and you'd just stand there nodding as she heaped accusations onto the unknown bastards who deserved “having their arms ripped off“.

Finally, my “elevator“! The light approached gradually—too slowly, really. It hadn't been like this before. Hadn't Dmitry said things were only going to happen quicker?

Then the light came crashing down on me, consuming me. Blurred images appeared before my eyes. My vision seemed to be failing alarmingly fast. I couldn't do without glasses anymore. If I still had time today, I'd go and see an optician.

My body shuddered. I regained control over it.

Jesus, what was that pain? I'd once read an interesting article about Medieval torture tools. Some people had a truly sick imagination. They used to have this rack on which they used to stretch a victim's limbs while stabbing or roasting him or her. For some reason, I immediately remembered that rack when the pain flooded over me.

All my joints were screaming. My head was going round. My arms felt like two unmanageable oak beams. My eyesight had dropped considerably. What was wrong with me?

“So, you're back now, Mister Hard Worker?” my brother's voice came from somewhere to my right. “I tell you now, Oleg, you're a freakin' shithead!”

“Why... what happened?” I managed.

“He's asking me what happened! What happened is that somebody decided to become the first virtual champion mine digger and has very nearly busted his ass in the process. Not nearly even—you
have
busted it. Did you decide to remember the old days and die in style?”

“No, wait... please... what happened?”

“What happened?” he snapped. “I'll tell you now. What happened is that one inappropriately forward individual, despite everything that had been said to him, spent thirteen hours of the in-game time brandishing his pick in an agate mine! That's considering his own weight is a hundred fifty fucking pounds! He didn't give a shit about the two-week adaptation period, did he? He just sank his dentures into the rock and away he went! Your new buddy Greg, too much muscle and not enough brains, even he took three weeks to adapt until he gradually eased himself into using boosting elixirs. And what did you do? You've downed two Stamina elixirs and used it to turn out almost four thousand resource units! Which incidentally is unheard-of for a normal production procedure. Those guys do their four or five hundred stones a day and don't give a fuck! And what have you earned today? A measly twenty-seven bucks? You're not a noob, brother. You... do you know who you are? Have you thought of your wife? Of your daughter? They're beyond themselves with worry these last two days
!”

I startled. “
Two days
? No!”

“Oh, yes!” Dmitry's eyes glistened with glee. “Can't you see where you are? Yeah, right, as if! It's your wretched eyesight...”

He sniffed and shut up. I heard the rustling of a paper bag, followed by quick footsteps in my direction. “Here, try them on.”

I sensed the familiar feeling of glasses hugging my temples. “I found your old pair and took it to the optician's on my way. They patched up the frame a little and put a new pair of lenses in. You look just like a mole!” he waved away my attempts at gratitude. “Ah, we’ll sort the cost out later.”

The glasses changed everything. I took a look around me. I was hung with all sorts of tubes and wires. A hospital bed complete with a control desk allowed me to change my position any way I wanted. An IV drip needle was stuck in my arm. Some machine kept beeping rhythmically next to me.

I looked out of the window. The sun blinked back at me. I smiled. This was the real sun. Warm and beckoning.

“Whatcha grinning at?” Dmitry asked in a calmer voice. “Then again, why not, now that the local doctors have brought you back from the dead.”

I carefully removed the glasses, wiped them on autopilot, then put them back on. My eyesight had indeed deteriorated. I'd have to get a new prescription. Later. All later...

“How are they?” I asked.

Dmitry knew what I meant. “There’s no change in Christina. She's a very clever child.”

I nodded and smiled. It was a pleasant compliment. It's always nice to hear your children being praised when you know the speaker means it.

“Your Sveta is already threatening to sue everyone in sight if anything happens to you. She promises to raze the whole place to the ground.”

I grinned. “You'd better believe her.”

“I do. Your wife is a fighter. All those years of battling for your daughter's life have left their mark.”

“They have indeed,” it felt good knowing my girls were trying to protect me.

“The doctor said, two more weeks of this masochism and you'll waste yourself into an early grave,” he pulled his chair closer to the bed. “Listen, brother-” he began.

“Listen, brother-” I said simultaneously.

We both shut up. Then we burst out laughing. The pressure seemed to have eased off a little.

“You first,” I offered.

“No, you speak,” he said. “I've been doing all the talking for an hour now. I'm not a freakin' stand-up comedian. But just before you say anything, tell me: WTF? Are you raving mad? Busting your guts for twenty bucks? Why won't you work for a regular wage? They love your kind of speedy idiots.”

“I got my skill up to 12,” I said.

Dmitry choked on his words. For a while he just stared at me, bug-eyed and open-mouthed. Then he stood up, strode toward the door, opened it and looked outside. He closed it shut, walked back to me and pulled himself and his chair as close to me as he could.

“Go ahead,” he whispered.

Surprised at this turn of events, I too switched to whispering. “Nothing to tell. It's the additional skills. I told you.”

He shrugged. “Do you think I remember? If I looked into every little trick that came with every race, I'd scorch my brain. You saw how many they were. What about those abilities?”

“Firstly,” I said. Shrewd Operator improves your chances to raise your skill with every twentieth resource you farm. And secondly, Devious Routes works in tandem with Operator, improving your chances of raising it 1 pt. with every hundredth resource.”

“Twelve points,” Dmitry whispered musingly. “So Pierrot was right then. That son of a bitch!”

I stared at him. Seeing my confusion, Dmitry hurried to explain,

“Remember the morning you came to see me? An hour earlier we'd held a board meeting. The CEO had a field day ripping the programmers apart, namely Pierrot. That's Andrew Petrov, but everybody calls him Pierrot. Most heads of terminals took part in the discussion. We have this virtual conference room, you know—it's very convenient. It was Pierrot who dealt with race development. He's a bit of a nutcase. All programmers are.”

He shuddered. “Basically, once the meeting was over, Pierrot laid his resignation on the CEO's desk and walked out, just like that. Didn't say a word to anyone. Packed his stuff and left.”

“Let me guess. The Ennan was his work, wasn't it?”

Dmitry nodded. “Exactly. You might call it his swan song. He introduced it just as you connected to the test module. You weren't the only one who chose it. A hundred and twenty-five players also did so, but then they all reconsidered. You were the first one. You found the Ennan through a number of backdoors thus making it visible in the Search. The developers reacted just in time and removed the Ennan from the game.”

“Why did the others reconsider?”

“The developers applied a bit of pressure telling them this was a glitchy defective race. They said they couldn't be held responsible for any malfunctions. They sugar-coated it of course by throwing a few bonuses into the swap—nothing ground-breaking but enough to make one's life considerably easier at level zero. The players got the message—especially because you were the only one who'd already managed to try this race out. Actually, I have the authority to offer you the same. If you refuse, the responsibility is entirely yours. No one knows what this nutty programmer had in mind when he was writing it. Or what kind of grass he smoked. On one hand, such an impressive raise in skill is awesome. But what's gonna happen to you next? What if you level your char up only to discover he comes with a nice little glitch no one knows about? He offered you this char on a silver platter but what if the platter has strings attached? Plus you'll be constantly monitored by the admins. I don't think your activity can damage the game's economy—you're only a grain of sand in this ocean. But hundreds and thousands of you—that's a totally different ball game. So what do you say?”

“Oh,” I said. “I've already invested so much into him. It would be a shame.”

“As you wish. The admins can't force you.”

“Does that mean it's up to me whether I want to abandon the char or not?”

Dmitry nodded. “It does. Once we’ve removed the race, the danger of any potential glitch will be neutralized. You're the only one left. They don't give a shit what you decide. They have much bigger fish to fry. They think in hundreds of million dollars. They're not interested in one particular character with a slightly elevated chance of skill raising. You, pottering away in your measly mine somewhere in the outskirts of the game? Please. All they'll do they'll assign a bot to tail you to make sure you they keep tabs on you. Especially because they're more than sure that Pierrot has some sick surprise in store for you that would make you crawl back to them on your knees. It's not the first time this has happened, you know. The game keeps improving. True, there're some dedicated beta-testing servers but you can't provide for every eventuality. There's always something nasty coming to light, all the time. Talk about trial and error! The situation in your favorite Europe is no better. So basically, it's up to you.”

That got me thinking. No, I didn't for one second want to abandon my char. That little was clear. I'd invested too much heart and effort into him already. No. I had other things to consider.

Dmitry seemed to have second-guessed my plans. “You aren't going to change char, are you?”

I shook my head.

“Then I have some advice for you. Keep your head down. Pretend you're not even there. It'll only take a while. It's a good thing you keep your stats private. Most newbs do. This way you can stay off their radars. Otherwise... they'll be after you. Your gear is decent. Excellent idea with the runes, by the way.”

“The power of joint thinking,” I shakily raised an authoritative finger. “We thought it up together: Rrhorgus the vendor and myself.”

“I see,” Dmitry nodded. “Now, the short-term goal: you'll have to stay in bed for a few days, I'm afraid. You need some treatment. If you play at all, it must be in Economy Mode. Don't worry about the money. I've just sent you anther three grand. Lie still, you! I know you appreciate it. Down, I say! We’ll settle our accounts later. Your Shantarsky's just called. He's asking you not to exert yourself on the work front anymore. I told him you overdid it a little. It happens all the time. So he's quite happy now. He's expecting you back to work tomorrow morning.”

“How nice of him,” I forced a sarcastic grin. “I haven't seen him in the game yet, by the way.”

“What do you want him to do in Leuton? It's the asshole of the world. Our Lord Shantar lives in Mellenville, the great capital of Mirror World. He has about half a dozen such properties all around the game. The Gold Guild is a very influential clan.”

“Why did I arrive at Leuton on my first day, then?”

“Because that's the cluster associated with our terminal.”

“I see.”

The phone rang. My heart clenched: it was Sveta calling.

“Right, I'll leave you to it,” Dmitry handed me the phone. “We'll talk later. I don't want to see you anywhere near the capsule, understood?”

“Which capsule? Can't you see I can't move?” I managed a smile as I took the phone and pressed the button. “Hi babe, you okay?”

Quietly Dmitry left the room and closed the door tactfully behind himself.

My girls and I talked for a good three hours. Sveta was crying, desperate to join me, but I knew that as she spoke, her hand lay on our little Christina's chest.