Cat's Quest Read online

  Cat’s Quest

  BOOK 1

  By Roman Prokofiev

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  Cat’s Quest

  When a player called Cat finds a mysterious magic sword, it quickly draws the attention of both the administration and the other players inside the virtual reality of a top-of-the-line full-immersion MMORPG. This discovery sets off a special event and starts a deadly intercontinental war, all arranged by long-gone developers.

  Now, Oleg, the man behind Cat, has to collect all the unique weapons left in the game by its creators before the tragic accident claimed their lives and to complete the new challenge that nobody on the new developer team has any idea about, all the while being accused of cheating and hunted by the most dangerous guild in the game world, led by a dark goddess and one of the top PvP players.

  Once, he was a professional player earning real money in another game. He fell from his pedestal into a debt pit: his account got blocked, his savings got burnt, his friends left him behind, and dangerous people appeared at his doorstep, wanting their money back. To get back on his feet, he decided to enter a new game and find a new source of income.

  Cat’s Quest

  Contents:

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1 CHARACTER CREATION

  CHAPTER 2 TUTORIAL

  CHAPTER 3 SUPERCHICK

  CHAPTER 4 DAY ONE

  CHAPTER 5 VALKYRIE AND FLAME

  CHAPTER 6. MYSTERIOUS SWORD

  CHAPTER 7. STAR METAL

  CHAPTER 8 DATE NIGHT WITH WELDY

  CHAPTER 9 OPERATION ARROWS

  CHAPTER 10 LIBERTY

  CHAPTER 11 RICHI CLEVER

  CHAPTER 12 TOMBS OF THE NECROMANCERS

  CHAPTER 13 CARNAGE

  INTERLUDE ADMINS

  CHAPTER 14 SNOW

  CHAPTER 15 AELMARIS THE BLUE

  INTERLUDE THE GODDESS

  CHAPTER 16 WAR

  CHAPTER 17 ETERNAL WARRIOR

  CHAPTER 18 EYRE UNDER FIRE

  CHAPTER 19 THE WATCHERS

  CHAPTER 20 THE BATTLE

  CHAPTER 21 THE QUEST

  CHAPTER 22 ENSLAVED

  CHAPTER 23 BANNED

  CHAPTER 24 ROLLBACK

  INTERLUDE TAO—KOMTUR

  CHAPTER 25 BETRAYAL

  CHAPTER 26 SVOY

  CHAPTER 27 NONAMES

  CHAPTER 28 PROJECT HELL

  CHAPTER 29 THE ORDER

  CHAPTER 30 THE MAGISTER

  EPILOGUE

  Book Recommendations:

  PROLOGUE

  Cat: Well… as the story goes, honestly, I’m shocked!

  Humorist U: I see...

  Cat: Can’t log in from any of the accounts and every time I create a new one—it’s the same: big notification on the screen… You remember I sent you a screenshot?

  Humorist U: You got banned… permanently. Both with ID and hardware—congrats! Try sending an email to support admins begging them to unblock you.

  Cat: I did. The answer’s the same… blah blah… RMT, get lost… I still have tons of money on my accounts! All my game assets are frozen and every game wallet is blocked.

  Humorist U: I agree. NO fun.

  Cat: Yeah, we’re totally screwed.

  Humorist U: I bet there’s some of my money there too... let me think.

  Cat: What do you suggest?

  Humorist U: Suggest? Go find another source... I gotta fly.

  I irritably clicked the keyboard keys and closed the chat window. I maximized the window of ‘COSMOS ONLINE’ once again, only to read a big, red notification:

  YOU ARE BANNED!

  I can’t believe I screwed up. Twelve accounts which had been a stable source of income for almost five years and, most importantly, a swag of property connected to virtual wallets were no longer available. I tried various tricks like using virtual computers, proxies, and dynamic IPs to sign up all over again but nothing helped. Administration at COSMOS had totally cut me off from the game.

  How much did I lose? At least four or five terro of game currency—all that in accounts, and about the same amount in goods and property, plus, the value of the game characters that I had been leveling up, which was probably, just as much again, at least. All that, not accounting for five years of my life invested in the game. For the past three years, it was more like a source of income, an employment of sorts, rather than pure entertainment. It was a new generation of the VRMMO that was so popular around the world in the thirties. There was serious money involved. And where there is money in online entertainment, there are those who want to cash in on it.

  I was one of those who cashed in, although, not in the beginning. For the first year, after I bought the helmet and game gear, I was totally immersed in the game. I was one of ten million virtual subscribers of COSMOS’ online universe, which featured an advanced money system that allowed gamers to purchase and cash-out the game currency—all completely legitimate. Finding a way to navigate the game enabled you not only to pay off expenses associated with the accounts but also to save big time in real life. This turned out to be genius as it meant I didn’t have to work. Maintaining certain game income levels enabled me to save a significant amount of money.

  I smirked. I once read that human needs always grow one step ahead their abilities. I realized the true meaning of the colloquiums in the context of my own experience. At first, I barely had enough to maintain a decent standard of living, to buy bread and caviar. Then, I felt I couldn’t afford to live the beautiful life I wanted, parties, nightclubs, pretty ladies. Then, I didn’t have enough to afford a new sedan with hybrid drive and autopilot. Then came the down payment for a mortgage, and finally… the wedding.

  The list could go on and on. Yes, I got quite successful: first I made money using one character, then two, and then three… Then I met Nick, another player in the game. We partnered up and started selling game currency, merchandise, and characters for real cash via his online store. COSMOS ONLINE was thriving, and trade was going well, but we wanted more and more money. We started to involve bots, pirating, and illegal currency purchases from other players…

  The system of currency exchange developed officially, but the game admin was as follows: a currency buyer had to offer an item to the inter-game auction specifying price and quantity. Then he had to make a deposit in real money and wait until another player wanted to ex
change, the other way around, game currency for real money. Transactions would go through with a ten percent commission imposed by COSMOS.

  There were always plenty who couldn’t wait and were ready to buy cheaper, or sell more expensive, avoiding the service commission. Those were our clients. You’ve no idea the kinds of transactions and schemes we would do. I’m not just boasting when I tell you that our online store was among the most popular. Nick oversaw client transactions, operating, advertising, while I exploited my game connections and ensured a stable supply of the currency, until one day, I was banned.

  There were ways, of course. I could’ve thrown out all the hardware, virtual helmet, and equipment, and what I cherished most, an advanced virtual capsule for total immersion that I had bought a few months earlier. I had to borrow some money, darn it, thirty-five thousand terro—no kidding! So, I guess I could’ve bought new equipment, changed my internet provider, or an IP address… and maybe then…

  It wouldn’t have worked. The COSMOS admins use a more sophisticated banning method, for example, a retina scan, which is read by the full-immersion capsule. Even then, I would have had to start everything from scratch.

  So… Where are we? I started to type, frantically. One and a half thousand terro on multiple accounts. A thousand in cash, at home. And…

  “Alena!” I called to my wife who was watching TV in the bedroom. “Come over here, will you?” My dark-haired sleeping beauty, who was wearing a red khalat that revealed her long legs, stuck her head out from behind the door.

  “What?”

  “You got money?”

  “Money?” She approached me, yawning. “About three hundred terro… why?”

  “Ouch! What are you doing—that hurts!” she screamed joyfully and added as she began walking away, “By the way, Oleg, we’ve got bills in the email. Can you take care of them? Let’s go to bed soon, I can’t sleep alone.”

  So, let’s count some more. I had two and a half thousand terro: the savings that amounted to approximately two average salaries of a regular Confederation citizen, give or take. I had recently invested most of my money in COSMOS buying promising assets within the game. A big transaction was about to take place but… who could have known things would end up this way?

  Now for the expenses. I opened my personal email account and scanned through the bills. One thousand and four hundred terro, a monthly mortgage payment, plus four fifty for the capsule. Total: one thousand, eight hundred and fifty terro per month, the monthly amount I owed, plus, utilities, smart house subscription, internet expenses, a bill for wireless energy access, gym subscriptions and lots of other little things, which I had never actually counted before, all totaling over three thousand.

  Over the recent years my COSMOS income had amounted to nine to ten thousand terro per month, more or less. Until today I had been living a luxurious life, never saying no to anything and, as it turned out, had come to believe it would last forever.

  I broke into a cold sweat. Things weren’t looking so good. I didn’t have enough savings to pay the bills. I had a month to fix it. Confederative laws are strict when it comes to tax evaders and overdue payments. If I didn’t come up with the money, I would be in serious trouble, which could result in legal actions against me and selling all my property, which of course, would sink my social status even deeper. They would go as far as marking my file, which would deprive me forever of the opportunity of taking out a loan. What a gloomy perspective that was!

  I shook my head trying to get rid of unpleasant thoughts. COSMOGOLD came to mind, our online portal with lots of connected accounts and property from various games that weren’t going anywhere. My partner, strong as ever, and I were sharing the profits. I hadn’t taken out my share since forever. I needed to sleep on it. Tomorrow, I would give him a call and ask him to calculate what I was entitled to. He might be able to give me some advice too. Worst-case scenario the amount would be enough for a couple of months, until, hopefully, I resolved everything.

  Trying to close all the pop-up windows from COSMOS ONLINE that featured a big red BANNED sign, I clicked in the wrong spot, and an annoying colorful 3D pop-up advertisement filled the entire screen. The glossy banner said, SPHERE OF WORLDS AWAITS THOSE WHO ARE WORTHY. Just like in any other fantasy game, there were pictures of a female elf with a great figure, wearing armored bikini, and a ruthless-looking overly muscular orc holding an axe. Just the usual. I sighed, closed the window and headed to bed.

  I checked my email first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, all my requests to COSMOS support team, submitted from various email accounts as well as my banned characters on my behalf, received a standard write-off response:

  You have been banned for violating the developer’s terms of service. Paragraph... blah blah. RMT!

  The new official section of the COSMOS website featured the result of the ongoing operation ANTI-RMT:

  - About a thousand accounts directly associated with RMT were permanently banned.

  - From one to three trillion were frozen on RMT-wallets.

  - RMT-transactions canceled amounted to…. million.

  The forum was a mess. Threads were popping up all over: WHERE’S MY MONEY??!?!?!; WTF> MY WALLET HAS NEGATIVE THREE BILLION CREDITS???; MONEY GONE FROM MY ACCOUNT; I’VE BEEN BANNED, HELP!; and so on, and so forth. Feeling uneasy, I opened the browser and went to our online store. It was unavailable as if the servers were down.

  In shock, I opened my messenger contacts to see who among my game contacts was available for calls… So, Gosha, one of the leaders of the group I worked with buying and selling game currency was ON. I put on my headphones and called…

  “Hey Gosha! What’s up? This is Cat calling from COSMOGOLD (that was the name of our online store). Gosha was playing, his VR capsule was on. In the background, I could clearly hear a woman’s voice belonging to a COSMOS starship’s flight AI.

  “Who?” His voice sounded surprised. “Cat? Listen, Cat! Perhaps you can tell me what all of this means?!”

  “What do you mean?” It was my turn to be surprised. “See… I’ve been banned, and I wanted….”

  “He’s banned!” Gosha giggled maliciously. “He’s fucking banned! Never mind, half of my guys from my alliance were banned, and the other half ended up with a negative balance in their e-wallets!”

  “I know, I don’t understand it either…” I opened my mouth, but Gosha interrupted me, clearly annoyed.

  “All the money you’ve sent has been turned into a negative. We’re screwed… and your COSMOGOLD is down. Who’s going to reimburse us?”

  “Gosha, listen, I wasn’t working alone. Lots of people got screwed over,” I replied. “You were…”

  “I don’t give a damn! That Nick of yours pretends to be unaware of anything… like he’s got nothing to do with it. Tells us it’s all you!”

  “Me?” I was utterly confused.

  “You! He said you were working with them and that you’ll have to deal with the mess. Listen here pussycat,” his voice became suspiciously low, “I’m gonna take a trip to your goddamn Ekaterinburg to pay you a visit… You know how much money we…”

  Seeing no point in further communication, I hung up. Gosha, however, wasn’t done. An incoming call came right through, so I decided to block the contact. Hope he has fun in Ekaterinburg. I live in Kazan, anyway.

  “Oleg? Who are you arguing with?” Alena came running into the room, looking worried. “Is everything ok?”

  “Yes, babe!” I replied, looking at her. I laughed. “Calm down, your eyes are big as quarters.”

  “Quarters?” she opened them even wider. “There haven’t been quarters for a long time! Are you making fun of me? Come and have breakfast. It’ll be ready in ten.”

  That was the way she was, beautiful and caring. I would even say, sometimes overly so. We’ve been married for a little over two years and it was a happy marriage. Alena was perfection—a beautiful princess from a fairytale who descended from the sky right into my
arms. At her side, I felt like a real man, who cared for and protected his chosen one from the cruelty and injustice of the world. I was raised that way, to be the breadwinner, even though the notion was becoming obsolete. That was why I brought meat to the table while she made our cave look cozy and beautiful. That was the way it should be if you asked me…

  I was lost on the internet once again, reading in detail the contents of the official forum. The scale and consequence of the wave of bans was catastrophic. Everyone who had traded currency avoiding the official channels and everyone who had used third-party software, like bots, macros, and scrips were permanently banned. As for all those who had purchased currency illegally, they lost double the amount resulting in negative account balances, as if there hadn’t been enough. I applauded the work support had done. Such enormous labor would involve scanning gigabytes of logs and tracking the chains of accounts and transactions, which clever dealers, like Nick and I, used to cover our tracks. Still, it didn’t help.

  Long story short, the admins wrote:

  - We will take your money and property if you violate the rules.

  - Purchase real money only via official channels, otherwise you will be banned.

  - Don’t try to cheat and enjoy the game.

  Meanwhile, Nick popped up online. I tried voice-calling him a few times, but he only dropped the calls. Finally, he wrote in the chat:

  Humorist U: Can’t talk right now, stop calling!

  CAT: We have to talk. It’s urgent!

  Humorist U: Write here…

  CAT: Why is COSMOGOLD unavailable?

  Humorist U: The operators got their phones and Skype lines overwhelmed by clients calling about their negative balances… Did you read the forum? I closed the store temporally. We don’t need extra WARNING right now.