Reamde

EGDOD HAD JUST been joined by one of Corvallis’s favorite characters, a K’Shetriae Vagabond aligned (as of a few days ago) with the Earthtone Coalition. A longtime student of the game, Corvallis had developed a keen appreciation for luck, as in the odds of getting a propitious roll from Corporation 9592’s random number generators. Some character types and alignments were luckier than others. K’Shetriae Vagabonds were the luckiest of all. Recently Richard had placed his thumb on the scales and made all members of the Earthtone Coalition slightly luckier than their counterparts in the Forces of Brightness, and Corvallis had not been slow to take advantage of it, trading in all of his Bright kit for more tasteful and understated duds.

“He’s on the move,” Richard announced, speaking now into his computer. This was the only way he had left of communicating with C-plus. The demise of his Bluetooth headset had been followed, a few hours later, by that of his phone; and a man who had been peeing into a bucket for six hours certainly did not have the time to go rummaging around for a charger. But as long as Clover (for that was the name of Corvallis’s uncannily fortunate character) was within earshot of Egdod, Corvallis could hear whatever Richard said, albeit digitally transmogrified into the awe-inspiring timbre of Egdod.

“I notice you’re not referring to him as ‘the little fucker’ anymore,” said Clover, in a somewhat reedy, high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Corvallis. Clover had an Irish accent to boot, this being a menu item commonly selected by American players who wanted to sound more like characters in movies.

“Okay, okay, he stopped being a little fucker when he raised an army of twelve hundred high-level characters and deployed them in battle array around his projected route of advance,” Richard admitted. “I have to admit I was wondering why he was taking so long to move away from that cave. I didn’t reckon that he was going to set the whole thing up like Sherman’s march to the sea.”

“Did you notice his leapfrogging cavalry screens?”

“Yes, I fucking noticed them.”

“I just thought it was a nice detail,” Clover added weakly.

“Well, before you get lost in admiration of the virus-writing son of a bitch, know that he might have information about my niece.”

“How can I be of service?” Clover sniffed.

“Feed me a running count of how many gold pieces he’s snarfed up. No, better yet, convert it into dollars.”

“A hundred and fifty. Dollars.”

“But that’s just floor sweepings he stumbled across. He hasn’t really gotten started.”

“Agreed. Anything else?”

“Call your buddies and see if you can put together a high-level raiding party. It doesn’t have to be as big as what the Troll has got. A few dozen people who know what they’re doing.”

“That should be easy enough.”

“When you’re ready, let me know; we’ll attack his flank and observe how he reacts. I’ll watch from above.”

“Like a god of Olympus,” Clover said.

“You think that’ll be a problem?”

“For a bunch of veteran T’Rain players to go into action, knowing that the eyes of Egdod are upon them? No, I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”

“Good.”

“By the way, he now has thirteen hundred dollars.”

LONG AGO, ZULA had got to a place where she could not be surprised, let alone outraged, by anything the jihadists did. This, she reckoned, must be the story of all radical groups, be they Taliban, Shining Path, or National Socialist. Once they had left common notions of decency in the dust—once they had abandoned all sense of proportionality—then it turned into a sort of competition to see who could outdo all the rest in that. Beyond there it was all comedy, if only you could turn a blind eye to the consequences. Anyway, they set up the camp stove and the coolers of food, the portable water bags and the sacks of Walmart groceries squarely in front of the tree where she was chained up, and expected her to do the cooking and cleaning.