Project Daily Grind (Mirror World Book #1) (11 page)

Chapter Eleven

I'
d been lazing around in the virtual center's hospital for three days now. My body was gradually recovering from the mining marathon. According to some forum discussions, that's how people called these things. Which meant I wasn't the only wussy Grinder around.

I spent some time reading the comments. Apparently, my exploits would need a two-week recovery period. But if someone wanted to go back to work, no one could stop him. All I had to do was sign a disclaimer and I could head back to the mine.

A special clause in the contract specified that the hospital treatment was free. No wonder I received daily phone calls from the bank asking after my health! I couldn't help smiling. I'd earned all of twenty-five dollars but I'd already cost my employers hundreds. Some employee! Who would want me?

I had a funny feeling that once my two-week contract with Lord Shantar expired, he'd show me the door. I was nothing but a headache for them. So the next morning I was going back—and that was non-negotiable.

“Hey, dude,” a hoarse two-packs-a-day male voice disrupted my musings.

I was lucky with my hospital roommate, wasn't I? Skinny, about five foot eight, with a crew cut, he was stooping, his narrow shoulders shaking in constant bouts of coughing. He must have had TB or something. Probably caught it in some seedy jailhouse. He called everyone “dude“. The hospital staff didn't give a damn. They reminded me of in-game Grinders: same emotionless smiles, all their movements well-calculated, their every action well-rehearsed. They probably earned a nice buck here—excellent working conditions, security at the gate, hefty advance payments and regular wages. Which probably allowed them to suffer idiots like this Vova quite gladly, just by ignoring him.

“Vova, what is it?” I asked.

“Got a smoke?”

“I told you I didn't.”

“Ah, sorry dude.”

They'd brought him in last night, bandaged all over like some Egyptian mummy. According to him, he'd been victim of a rockslide while mining. His injured char was out of action for a week and the man himself was sent to the hospital ASAP. His whole body was black and blue—and his head too had apparently taken a beating.

The same evening, a doctor had come to see him. He'd explained to Vova that he might suffer memory lapses for a while. In return, the doctor was called
dude
, after which he bid a hasty goodbye.

Once back in the game, I'd have to be doubly careful. My roommate was living proof of that.

I didn't waste time. I attacked the new information like a hungry cat attacks a bowlful of minced steak. I tried to find out something about the Ennans, anything at all. Nothing. Even the dialogue I'd seen a couple of days ago had disappeared from the search engine. The admins were cleaning up after themselves.

I checked the Dead Clan site. This was a meeting place for all the races already removed from the game—and all the players who'd been too happy with their stats to promptly delete their unwanted chars.

Talk about a motley crew. They had all sorts: red-skinned four-armed Narchs, hairy Tarks, small Grolls and mysterious Ralds. They shared useful links as well as their own experiences, and posted ads in search of compatible weapons, gear and rare elixirs.

Vova tried to bum a smoke off me at least five more times, then began snoring peacefully. Poor wretch. He probably had a family. His wife and children must have been worried out of their minds. I'd have to ask him about them when he woke up.

In the meantime, I found some info on level-one stones. They were: amethyst, obsidian, sapphire and malachite. I checked their prices: excellent. The former three cost almost three times more apiece than marble or granite. Malachite was cheaper but the demand for it was higher because almost thirty percent of all crafters needed it. Virtually all of it was used in crafting—for instance, for the making of the runes like I'd seen earlier. In the context of Mirror World, malachite was apparently a much-sought after resource.

Still, it wasn't good enough for me. I had my sights set on sapphire. The lightest and the most expensive of them all. Mining sapphire could easily give me six hundred bucks a week after taxes. And that was a totally different ball game.

For someone it might have been good enough. No pressure: with a bit of work you could pay off your credit and take regular days off to be with your family. But this didn't apply to me. I had both the Germans and the Japanese on my case, about to procure new payments.

I located a few maps of Shantar's estate. I wasn't going to repeat my first-day error. I had no right to make mistakes anymore. My third day in the Glasshouse was going to pay.

Once I'd studied the map, my enthusiasm all but disappeared. There was neither turquoise nor aquamarine in Shantar. It had seven marble mines, four granite ones and the sole agate mine I'd already discovered. My search for either sapphire, amethyst or obsidian returned zero results. That left me with malachite. Shantar had just two mines of this: the heaviest and the cheapest of all four. Just my flippin' luck.

A quick estimate showed that this way I could earn five hundred gold a week at best: the same as Greg was making on an hour wage. This was a Catch 22 situation: my plan was admittedly good but it only worked with the lightest and most expensive of resources.

Had Sveta heard it, she'd have nodded her understanding. I did have this flaw: I always considered the best-case scenarios. Should I really switch to an hourly wage to level up a little, then go back to piecework? The problem was, no one in Shantar mined malachite on an industrial scale. In fact, no one mined it, period. Everyone had their hands full with marble and granite. No one was interested in busting their respective asses. Was I the only one who wanted too much too quickly?

Right, let's see what else Shantar's estate had to offer. Wait a minute... wow! Wasn't I the lucky one! Emerald fields! The most expensive level-two mineral in Mirror World! Very light and always in high demand. I could easily make fifteen hundred dollars a week mining it. There was one little thing left to do: I had to make Seasoned Digger first and not pop my clogs in the process. And yes, I had to keep a low profile as Dmitry had told me.

That was it, then. Tomorrow I was going back. Enough lazing about.

Vova mumbled something in his sleep, as if in agreement.

* * *

“Are you sure?” Dmitry asked politely.

“I am. I don't have much time left.”

“Promise me you aren't gonna kill yourself.”

I pressed a clenched fist to my chest and eased my body into the gelatinous goo.

“Good luck.”

Log in.

* * *

The doors of the Digger's Store opened without a sound. Hearing my footsteps, Rrhorgus emerged from the storeroom. He beamed on seeing me.

“Howdy, Olgerd! Where've you been?” he asked, wiping his hands on a rag.

“Well, you know,” I faltered. “I suppose I bit off more than I could chew. Spent the last week in hospital.”

He looked upset. “Was it so bad?”

“I set the bot to Speed Mode.”

He shook his head. “Why didn't you set it to Jump Off a Cliff mode? Same effect, only quicker.”

I waved his sarcasm away. “Never mind. I'll be more careful this time. I've only popped in to say hello and buy a few more elixirs. You okay?”

He sighed. “Boring. No custom worth mentioning. I kill time by polishing this crap. How many elixirs do you want?”

“Four. To fill up my belt.”

He nodded. “I can see they're not damaged yet: neither the belt nor the bag. Don't forget they're going to take all the damage now. Seeing as they're level zero and all.”

“Not a scratch on them yet, touch wood. Listen, I meant to ask you...”

He smiled. “Go ahead. I think I know what it's about.”

I grinned back. “What is it about, then?”

“You're gonna ask me if I have anything else like those Clay Runes.”

“Exactly. You know that's the only way for us to raise characteristics, by using gear and runes. So I just thought you might have something for me.”

He shrugged guiltily. “You won't believe me but after you left, I checked the whole place. I've got all sorts of junk, I told you.”

“You did. I just don't understand how you managed to keep all the items. Didn't the admins remove them one by one?”

“Sure. But they removed them from the listings. And those that vendors already had in stock stayed in the game. You understand? Later they sent us a half-assed order to destroy them. But I didn't have the heart. That's how you got the runes.”

I chuckled. “I've been lucky to meet you, then.”

He grinned back.

'How much of that junk do you have, actually?” I asked. “I think I have an idea.”

“About five hundred items,” he grunted, pleased with himself. “What kind of idea? Tell me!”

“Five hundred? Wow!” I couldn't conceal my surprise. “Not bad at all.”

“What do you think? Come on, spit it out!”

“I will. I think it might be interesting—for you mainly. You never know, it might prove quite lucrative.”

He laughed. “I can see you're already going to hassle me for a bargain! Come on, say it. I won't leave you out, I promise. You can trust me.”

I chuckled. I couldn't haggle to save my life. It just wasn't my thing. I was too timid. “What do you know about dead races?”

“You mean guys like you?”

I nodded.

“Well,” he began, “I know that they exist. We actually call them “discarded races“. That's all I know. I've never really been interested in them. I know it might sound weird. In all my time in the game, we've only had three chars like that in our cluster, you included. No idea what happened to the other two. I know they're not here anymore. Haven't been for a long while—in the in-game time, I mean. Terminal #17 mainly sends us warriors as well as dwarves and gnomes. That's the way the cookie crumbles. You really think someone needs any of this junk? Please.”

“Okay then,” I decided to try a different approach. “Question: do you happen to have any Rocky Tail elixirs?”

That got the attention of this rarity connoisseur. “I do. Three of them. It was a set of three. Sort of.”

“How much are they?”

His eyes glinted. “Seventy gold each.”

I ventured a dramatic pause, just to prolong his agony. “I've been at the Dead Clan forum,” I finally said, “They offered three hundred gold for one Rocky Tail.”

He gasped.

Someone might say it wasn't very clever of me leaking important information just like that. They might be right, too. I should have probably made a list of the costliest artifacts, then visit Rrhorgus and buy them all wholesale, then sell them on to the Dead Clan for a nice bit of profit. The vendor wouldn't have very easily refused me: the shop wasn't his property, after all. He was just a Grinder like myself.

Sorry, but that was something I couldn't do. It just didn't feel right. Besides, it looked as if I might be stuck here for a while. And you never know when I might need a friend or at least an ally.

The vendor seemed zoned out. He must have been busy leafing through the inventory of his “treasures“.

“Right, I'm off then,” I said. “Here's the link to the forum. I suggest you check it out once you come round.”

He nodded absent-mindedly. I smiled at his salt-pillar countenance, said my goodbyes and walked out of the shop. Time to get back to work.

As I followed the route I'd mapped out earlier, I couldn't help wondering what had stopped Rrhorgus from looking into it himself. Vendors were an entrepreneurial bunch, normally. How strange.

The mine welcomed me by its already-familiar desolation. I said hello to the terminal and hurried inside. As I walked, I tweaked the bot's settings on Dmitry's suggestion, changing the mode to Economy which only needed one elixir. That would bring me around eighteen hundred stones a day, give or take a few. Still exhausting, but I could do it. I could always increase pressure afterwards, depending on my condition.

Two hours later, my bag had lost two points Durability: first time when I'd dropped a hefty rock onto my foot and the second when my arm brushed a sharp ledge. Had I worn a standard gear kit, the damage would have been distributed equally among my clothes, including the jacket and the hard hat. But just as Rrhorgus had warned me, in my case it was the bag and the belt that took all the strain.

Yesterday I'd been farming stones in the center of the location but today I'd decided to work near the walls and had suffered accordingly.

I switched off the bot and moved into the center. Loads of stones here. Off we go!

An hour later I'd gravitated back to the wall and grazed a knuckle of my right hand against a sharp rock. Another minus 1 to the Bag. If it went on like this, there wouldn't be much left of it soon.