Chapter 60: A New Bounty

"So let me make sure I’ve got this right," Nick said as he picked his way over a fallen log. "I walk into town, spend an obscene amount of your money, come back out, hand you a pile of items I’ve personally spent four months farming, and my compensation for all of this is...?"

"My continued friendship."

Nick looked over at him. "Right."

"There you go." Jaxir grinned. "You understand."

The bigger problem was deciding which village Nick should actually enter, since all three were roughly equidistant from the mesh zone. Returning to Luxy somehow was the only way Jaxir knew to finish off that quest of his, but Twinkle Village was also crawling with members of the Golden Fleece Guild, and Jaxir had a strong feeling the kid who attacked him hadn’t been the only one hanging around.

So they angled toward Glimmer Village instead.

Jaxir couldn’t step inside either way, but at least nobody outside Glimmer had drawn up a picture of his face and stapled a reward underneath it yet. Nick also knew the village, which made sending him shopping there significantly less likely to end with another unnecessary disaster.

They were still several hours away when Nick slowed and glanced sideways at him.

"Random question. How long have you been logged in?"

Jaxir opened his mouth to answer, then paused as he actually thought about it. He’d been pushing himself for a while now, and with the strict sleep schedule Dr. Obrey had been forcing him onto, this was probably as good a stopping point as any.

"It’s probably time for me to log out."

"Yeah." Nick watched his face for another second. "I need to dip out too."

"Alright, we’ll meet here tomorrow morning."

**

Jaxir opened his eyes to green sludge and the ceiling of his basement, which was significantly less majestic than the inside of a goddess’s temple.

After pulling himself out of the pod and cleaning up, he went upstairs and injected his evening dose of nutrients while standing at the kitchen counter. He followed that with two full glasses of water since Dr. Obrey had been irritatingly specific about his hydration, then went to bed at a surprisingly humane hour.

He slept through the entire night without sparing a single thought toward his uncle.

...

The next morning, Jaxir finished his shot and water before deciding he still had time to get some yard work done. Nick probably wouldn’t be awake this early anyway, and if Jaxir was going to keep pretending he had a functioning real life again, there was no point only doing it when someone forced him.

He managed maybe an eighth of the lawn this time, which was dramatically better than the twentieth he’d done before, then pulled weeds until his forearms started shaking. The sun was warm without being miserable, and somewhere down the block a dog completely lost its mind at a delivery drone hovering above a driveway.

Jaxir laughed.

For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, he was in an unreasonably good mood about all of it.

He showered, changed, then stopped in front of the mirror long enough to notice that his cheeks were still gaunt, but no longer made him look quite so much like a corpse that had clawed its way out of the ground. Progress was progress.

Jaxir headed downstairs.

He was three steps from the pod when his Kinext rang.

―

[Call from "Luecious Beckon"]

―

Jaxir answered. "Morning."

"What did you do?"

"Good morning to you too."

"Jax." Lue sounded considerably less amused than usual. "What did you do this time?"

"You’ll have to be more specific." Jaxir glanced toward the pod. "It’s been a busy couple of days."

"There’s a new bounty on you."

Jaxir laughed before he could help himself. "That’s it? Lue, I don’t think there’s been a day since I started playing where I haven’t had one."

"It’s not the guild bounty, and it’s not the village bounty."

Jaxir’s smile faded.

"It’s on the temple mission board."

"Uh..." Jaxir scratched at his jaw. "Is that bad? Explain it like I’ve been playing for two weeks, which I have, if you remembered. Three quarters of that time was also spent in a hospital or incapacitated."

Lue exhaled hard enough to distort the call.

"A guild writ is basically a want ad put up by one guild in one place. It matters to the guild that posted it, maybe some allies, maybe a few mercenaries who want the money, but that’s about it."

Jaxir leaned against the basement railing and listened.

"A temple mission board is different. Every temple belonging to that Divinity throughout the entire province shares the same missions, the same rewards, and the same updates. The second something goes up, every follower in the province can see it."

Lue paused.

"You are on it by name, with a portrait."

Jaxir sat down slowly on the basement steps.

"So it’s not just Twinkle Village anymore."

"It’s not Twinkle Village, and it’s not the region." Lue slowed his voice, clearly making sure every word landed. "It’s the province. Every follower of the Minor God of Gravity from the tutorial zones upward now has a mission with your face attached to it."

Jaxir rubbed at his forehead.

"How bad’s the payout?"

There was a pause long enough that Jaxir immediately regretted asking.

"That’s why I called." Lue’s voice lowered. "Are you sitting down?"

"Sitting."

"They’re offering a full Epic set."

Jaxir blinked.

"Okay, that’s... yeah, that’s a lot." He thought about Nick and the six months he’d wasted chasing one. "But Epic sets exist, right? I know a guy who’s been farming one for four months."

"It’s a Level 30 set, Jax."

Jaxir’s lips pursed.

That sounded worse.

"A full Level 30 Epic set, not tutorial-zone equipment and not the Level 5 or Level 10 stuff everyone in the newbie regions loses their minds over." Lue’s voice had tightened again. "The people who would normally ignore someone your level might actually use Level Shrouds just to get down there and kill you for it."

Jaxir stopped smiling entirely.

An Epic item at Level 5 could already sell for one or two million copper if it ever appeared at auction, somewhere around one or two hundred gold. With gold floating around two dollars in the real world, that meant a single low-level Epic item could already be worth hundreds of dollars.

Scale that upward by twenty-five levels and he was probably talking tens of thousands of dollars.

No, that still felt low.

"Lue, how much does a Level 30 Epic Set actually go for?"

"It’s hard to say since they barely ever sell." Lue hesitated. "A Level 30 Epic Set could easily stay useful to someone at Level 50 just from the synergy alone. The last full set sold in the province was Level 20, and it went for about forty thousand dollars in the real world."

Jaxir grimaced.

"Prices keep moving after the update too, so it could be worth even more now." Lue paused again. "A Level 30 one..."

He didn’t finish, but he also didn’t need to.

People killed each other over far less in the real world. What would they do when Divinity had conveniently removed the consequences of murder on top of that?

"Jax." Lue’s voice broke the silence. "Do you understand what I’m telling you? Sure, some strong players are going to chase the reward, but that’s not the real problem."

Jaxir leaned forward slightly.

"Guilds are going to mobilize for that. Not two or five guys. Entire fucking guilds, and every single one of them can walk into cities while you—"

Lue stopped. There was another silence.

Then his tone changed completely.

"Again, what the fuck did you do?!"

Jaxir stared at the pod for several seconds.

"Yeah," he finally replied. "So about that..."