Project Daily Grind (Mirror World Book #1) (27 page)

The good news was, both the bank and the town hall were located on the same street. Admittedly both buildings looked rather modest next to some of the others. Their interior design wasn’t much to write home about, either.

In the town hall too I was obliged to deal with a terminal.

Greetings, Olgerd!

This is Mellenville administration Terminal #312

Would you like to check the Reputation Quests available?

I groaned with fatigue.
Yes
, please.

From tomorrow on, you will have the following Reputation Quests available:

Daily Reputation Quests: 3

Weekly Reputation Quests: 2

Monthly Reputation Quests: 1

Enjoy the game!

I walked out and took in a lungful of fresh virtual air. I seemed to be hungry. Dmitry had told me not to suppress my brain’s signals. My capsule-bound body and my game-located mind had to function in unison. Okay, suppress I wouldn’t. I might have dinner in Verdaille before heading into the mines to do some work. I still had two portal jumps in front of me before the day was over. That’s thirty gold. Emeralds, here I come! I need you to replenish my bank account ASAP.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

M
y room in the Footworn Traveler’s was small with a tiny bathroom: a shower and a toilet. Perfect. It was indeed Spartan: a bed, a wardrobe, a comfortable soft chair and a side table, that was it. Not that I needed much.

The window offered a view of the night city. Mellenville was getting ready for bed.

I’d spent the rest of the afternoon in the mine trying to make up for the time lost. I’d met my quota—largely thanks to my Reflection kit which had facilitated the job no end. I hadn’t even needed to use the elixirs although by the end of the day my fatigue had begun to show.

Part of my brain tried to make me remove my clothes and jump in the shower. Without my stuff, I’d have to suffer an energy drop but it was only for a quarter of an hour.

Strangely, as I offered my body up to the cool jets, I didn’t notice any energy pressure. All sensations were perfectly lifelike. I closed my eyes, enjoying the moment, then glanced at the energy bar.

Energy: 100/100

Oh. This was actually my start-up number! Wasn’t I supposed to feel exhausted the moment I removed my clothes? I rubbed myself dry with a fluffy towel and walked back into the room. I felt just fine.

Right. And what if... I opened the room door and took a peek. The corridor was empty, excellent. Let’s experiment.

I stepped out into the corridor. Oh! An invisible force pressed down on me. My Energy dropped 20 pt.

I ducked back in. Better safe than sorry. Immediately the vertigo and the unbearable pressure were gone. So that’s how it was, then? The room created some sort of microclimate for the lodger? Excellent. Very good. I’d had trouble imagining myself having to sleep fully dressed every night. Back in the Spider Grotto it would have been perfectly acceptable: a raid dictated its own lifestyle. But spending a month sleeping in my hat and boots wouldn’t have been nice, that’s for sure. Kudos to the game developers for finding a way around it. It’s the small mercies that count.

I opened the wardrobe. A neat stack of bathrobes sat on the middle shelf to my right. I unfolded one. So!

Name: a terrycloth bathrobe

Type: Non-transferrable

Style: unisex

Effect I: +1000 to Energy

Effect II: +1000 to Comfort

Life span: 24 hours since first worn

Warning! This item is a Fragile Artifact. We strongly advise against taking it out of the room.

Should I try it on, maybe?

Oh wow. It was so soft, warm and comfortable. How on earth did they manage to control my brain to this degree?

Then again, what did I care? I yawned. “Doesn’t matter, does it?” I mumbled to myself. “It feels so good, that’s all that counts.”

I studied the rest of the wardrobe. Much to my delight, I discovered also some pajamas and a pair of house slippers on the lower shelf. Their stats weren’t as impressive but were equally soft, warm and comfortable. Thank God for life’s little pleasures. It would have been so much more miserable without them.

I walked over to the window and took in the view of the night city. It looked beautiful. Tomorrow morning, back to the daily grind for me. The whole month’s worth of it: completing quests in the morning and going down the mine in the evening. Jesus. I’d have given anything to have my family here with me. Never mind. We didn’t have much to wait. Very soon I’d see my dear girls again.

Then something totally unexpected happened. A 3D message materialized in front of me,

In order for the system to work correctly, the compulsory installation of the Der Swyor Clan app suite will be initiated.

Would you like to install it now or wait till the end of the countdown?

00:59

00:58

00:57…

Feeling my face turn pale, I whispered, “That can’t be right!”

Whether it was Pierrot the cunning programmer or the system itself, either left me no choice. I had to remind myself that I’d approached the carving in the cave on my own accord. It had been me who’d brought the ring to the statue; me who’d downloaded the app suite. I had no one to blame. That was it. That was the end of the line.

I sighed and closed my eyes. For several minutes nothing else happened. Then I began receiving messages,

Success! You’ve unzipped and installed The Der Swyor Clan app suite.

Success! You’ve installed the Ancient Map of the Der Swyor Clan’s Trade Routes.

Success! You’ve installed the List of the Legendary Elders of the Der Swyor Clan.

Success! You’ve installed the Floor Plan of the Twilight Citadel property of the Der Swyor Clan!

Success! The app has been activated and synchronized with the game engine.

Enjoy the game!

Mirror World Administration

The message was followed by a small postscript,

That’s it, noob! You sort it out!

At this point I think I’d stopped breathing. I was trying to take in some air and couldn’t. It felt as if I’d received an almighty whack to my solar plexus. Everything had started so well! My plan had seemed to be working. My Mellenville start had proven easier than I’d expected. My chance encounter with the little boy had been followed by a chain of very decent reputation tasks.

Apparently, by pulling the ball out of the fountain, I’d triggered some complex quest which had already resulted in some very pleasant bonuses I wouldn’t have even dreamed of otherwise—at least not for the next few weeks.

I was already ahead of the schedule I’d set up for myself. That was good news. But what had caused it? Could it be the omnipresent Andrew “Pierrot” Petrov again, the wayward programmer? Was he indeed so powerful that he could have arranged my meeting with the six-year-old NPC right in the middle of the game’s capital city? Honestly, I had my doubts. The market girl who’d sold me the feather—yes, definitely. But as for little Tommy… he didn’t seem to fit into this jigsaw puzzle. Let’s think again.

But what if Tommy had been attracted to me by my 95 Trust points? Then again, why not? It wasn’t too unlikely. My level of Trust must have drawn the boy to me. After all, all these Mirror Souls were little else but bits of binary codes. Granted, they were complicated to the point of being perfect, but codes nonetheless. The “boy” must have analyzed dozens of bystanders until his choice fell on the most suitable candidate: myself and my Trust levels. Which could only mean one thing.

It meant that the “souls” of the game’s NPCs mirrored the players’ stats. We could affect their behavior. Or rather, their algorithms chose the right behavioral patterns by analyzing our stats. Had the said algorithm located another player by the fountain whose levels of Trust had been just one point higher, I could have kissed all this Reputation good-bye.

But why Trust? Why not Courage or whatever? In any case, I had a theory. Now I had to check it by daily practice.

Okay. That had reassured me a bit. Now I had to sit down and give it all a good think through. It didn’t look as if I was going to get any sleep. I had to look into it. What new surprises did this nutty programmer have in store for me? What was he trying to achieve, anyway? What was the point of his messages?

So: where do we start? The List of Legendary Elders? Good idea. I could study the maps later. So what do you want from me, Mr. Pierrot?

Predictably, the Legendary Elders app didn’t contain any of those lengthy stories of ancient races, bygone days and other useless trivia. It was concise and to the point. The writing style admittedly tried to imitate the game’s general tone, but the whole app consisted of just one page of several laconic paragraphs.

Having finished reading, I sat motionless for a long time, lost in thought. The thing that Pierrot was driving me to didn’t sound nutty at all. On the contrary: I was beginning to understand that my brother must have omitted some very valuable detail. Not even omitted really: it must have been something he’d forgotten or simply ignored.

Never mind. I’d think about it later. I needed to study the text again.

From the dawn of time, the Ennans’ society had been governed by councils of Elders. The great Der Swyor Clan wasn’t an exception. In order to acquire harmony and balance, Ennans could only be ruled by those whose achievements in their respective occupations knew no rivals. Only acclaimed experts were eligible for seats on the Council.

In doing so, the entire Ennan society looked up to the Legendary Elders of Der Swyor—the most powerful clan Under the Mountain.

Master Satis was the wisest of the wise. He went down in the annals of history as the Greatest Lord of Force.

Master Axe the Terrible. Which Ennan child hasn’t heard the legends of this Slayer of a Thousand Monsters? Master Axe is the epitome of courage and valor!

Honorable Master Grilby, the crafting pioneer. It was him who uncovered the Power of Stone and sampled the greatness of Isilird, the heavenly steel. And it was he who managed to combine these two unruly elements!

Good Master Adkhur whom posterity hailed as the patron of the Younger Race.

These are the names of Ennans who will live forever in the hearts of all folk Under the Mountain!

That made four of them. Now what had Mr. Pierrot wanted to say by that? Why would I need to know? What was the significance of this information? Never mind. Let’s open the trade routes map and see what it has to offer.

It didn’t take me long to work out why I needed the information about some long-departed Legendary Elders. It turned out simple. Their former dwellings were flagged on the map. Curiouser and curiouser...

With a sigh I sat back. If I wasn’t mistaken, my programmer patron was nudging me in the right direction. I double-checked the map. Two of the Elders, Grilby and Adkhur, were located in the so-called Lands of Light. The others were in No-Man’s Lands. And so was the Twilight Citadel, the seat of the Der Swyor Clan—and I was the lucky owner of its floor plan. To be precise, it was situated in the very heart of the neutral zone. As I opened the plan, I already knew what I was about to see.

Of course. The Throne Room, the Armory, the Treasury... the works.

An experienced player would have already been dancing a jig, celebrating these new opportunities. But not I. It didn’t feel good.

Your load might prove too much for me to bear, Mr. Andrew “Pierrot” Petrov.

I had this gut feeling I might have bitten more than I could chew. Or rather, that someone might chew on me instead. What was that King Solomon had said about much wisdom breeding much grief? I knew of course this wasn’t what he’d meant but somehow it seemed pertinent to my situation too.

I dreaded to even think about someone like Shantarsky getting hold of this kind of information. The intel Pierrot had shared with me must have been truly unique—and valuable.

A faint flicker of doubt stirred in my heart. Should I have followed Dmitry’s advice and chosen another char? No. Too late. My time was running short. Or rather, Christina’s time was. It was all my own fault. Why, oh why had I had to download this wretched app? Then again, I should have already known that whenever Pierrot wanted to slip me something on the sly, he always succeeded.

Wait, I said to myself. This wasn’t the way to go about it. Firstly, I needed to calm down. Secondly, nothing had happened yet. I was still safely in my room, snug as a bug in a rug.

I had to get a grip and think it over. The situation called for a good ponder. My paranoia seemed to be getting out of hand. It wasn’t good. It prevented me from thinking clearly. And that might result in me making mistakes.

So what had actually happened? Currently I was in possession of important intel about some bountiful area. I also shouldn’t forget about the decidedly rare artifact tucked away in my bag. True, its stats were unknown. Lastly, I also had my Operator. What could this all mean? It might mean, firstly, that Pierrot wasn’t as nutty as everyone believed him to be. And secondly, that we just might have mutual interests in all this. Both of us seemed to be interested in my char’s development. Don’t ask me why though I already had a couple of ideas. And as for my next move... I might need to see a few people in the morning.