Krim Times Revised: Chapters 3 and 4

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Chapter 3: The griefer sits in wait

The griefer watched his target get closer, totally oblivious to the danger he was in. That was a very stupid attitude for the man to have, given how many people on Krim wanted him gone. The man was a fool, the griefer thought. Thinking he was an important big shot, when he was just wasting his life playing pretend. Killing him would be doing him a favor, actually. 

The other pedestrians down below were starting to move around again, but they were still twitchy, and glanced around with every step they took. 

Pedestrians on Krim were normally twitchy, of course. They could get robbed or stabbed at any moment, or run over by a horse, or a pile brick could fall from a crumbling facade. Or someone could empty a chamber pot by flinging the contents out a window and down onto the street. 

There was plenty to be twitchy about.

If Krim’s players were frightened enough, maybe they’d start leaving Krim. The griefer didn’t need everyone to leave. Just enough to put some pressure on Krim management.

Despite their general air of unease, none of the pedestrians below looked up at the griefer’s window.

The room behind him was dark and the heavy curtain, designed to keep drafts at bay, also helped to hide him from anyone who might glance up.

When the target was fifty yards away, the killer opened the curtain a little bit further, just enough to get the crossbow into position, and waited for the right moment.

Chapter 4: Trask and the injured tourist

“Stop, thief!”

Trask took a step back and slammed the door shut in front of him. The local residents were already on edge, and now that they had a target—the thief—a vigilante mob would quickly form. Trask has no interest in getting in the middle of that. Mobs had no respect for authority figures.

Instead, he walked back to the front window.

He saw Larry trying to wriggle his way through the crowd, putting some distance between him and a guy rolling on the ground, getting covered in manure, and swearing loudly. Despite the fact that people were looking around, trying to figure out who the thief was, the mob hadn’t spotted Larry yet. The pickpocket was good at evading notice.

“I think that’s Seymour,” said Quimby.

“No, it’s Larry the Lifter,” said Trask.

“It’s definitely not Larry,” said Quimby, nodding at the man on the ground.

“No, I meant,” Trask lifted his hand to point at the pickpocket, but Larry had already disappeared.

“You say that’s Seymour Gellhorn, the newspaper editor?” piped up the armored newcomer.

Trask knew Seymour well. Or, to be more precise, he vaguely recognized him—when he wasn’t covered in manure, of course—and knew the newspaper well. Everyone did. It was the major source of news for Krim City.

AviNewz had noted the recent increase in crime over the past couple of months and had unaccountably decided that Trask was at fault. He didn’t even want to think about what Seymour would print tomorrow.

Trask had briefly considered becoming a restaurant critic for the newspaper and now was glad that he didn’t, since it turned out that AviNewz was just a low-end, rumor-mongering trash tabloid.

Out on the street, Seymour tried to stand up. He got one foot under him then slipped again on whatever he had slipped on the first time. While he was flailing, trying to catch himself, an arrow flew through the air where his head had just been.

It smacked into the heavy timber wall of the inn, barely avoiding hitting the front window. 

Quimby closed his eyes and stepped back. “This always happens to me. All I’m trying to do is provide a good meal and a fair price and this is the thanks…”

Trask tuned the rest of it out and leaned closer to the window glass and looked across the street to see where the arrow came from.

The most likely source was the third floor of the building directly across the street, where the wind blew a curtain to the side for a second, exposing someone in a dark cloak who was placing a bolt into a cocked crossbow. The griefer hadn’t been on a roof after all.

Trask felt a sharp pain in his stomach. Why did the griefer have to go after the newspaper editor? The attacks would be all over the front page now, and Trask would probably get the blame. 

A second arrow flew, but missed the publisher again and went through the eye of a gawking pedestrian in a default avatar outfit. An innocent noob. A tourist. Trask recognized the outfit—comely wench avatar number four, very popular.

This was bad. Nothing would rile the populace more than the heartless murder of an innocent wench.

He looked up at the window across the street. The assassin was gone. The mob in front of the inn was quickly disappearing as well, as people scurried for cover.

He ignored the yelling from the inn patrons behind him and went back to the front door. Trask was not a man who would be deterred from action by the threat of death. Everyone looked at him for protection. It might sound like they were swearing at him, but that was just because they were panicking from fear.

He opened the door and peered outside. The wind had picked up and the curtain in the third-floor window fluttered open with each gust. There was no sign of anyone still standing there. Now that he’d hit someone, the assassin was probably climbing up a pipe to the roof, jumping to the building next door, and making an acrobatic escape. Krim had a roof-running guild with popular monthly competitions and an annual marathon event open to all contestants. 

The tourist who’d been shot was on the ground, with a couple of friends crouched over her. She was probably dead. There was no point in checking, since there was nothing he could do either way. And the assassin was probably gone. Still, it wouldn’t do any harm to be on the other side of the street, close to the buildings, where the archer couldn’t easily aim at him.

He was still gathering up the courage to leave the safety of the inn’s entryway when he was pushed aside by two friends carrying in the comely wench, who, it turned out, had somehow survived despite a bolt through her head and was screaming loudly enough to drown out her friends’ pleas for help. They put her down on the floor between the door and the inn’s front desk. They tried to lay her head down gently but it jarred when the bolt hit the floor and the screams suddenly cut off.

“Is she dead? Oh, my God, is she dead?” one of her friends said.

“No, she still has a pulse and she’s still breathing,” said another. “She must have fainted.”

“Thank God.”

Quimby cleared his throat. “The best thing for her would be to die as quickly as possible,” he said. “Then you can go out through the main gate and rejoin her back in the grid welcome area.”

“But I heard…” one friend began.

“They say that Krim is so realistic that if you die here, you die in real life,” said the other.

“That never actually happens,” Trask told them. “It’s just marketing.”

“How do you know?” the first friend said.

Trask held up his badge. “I’m the chief of security for the Krim Chamber of Commerce.”

“Would you like me to get someone to cut her throat?” Quimby asked. 

“What? No!”

“Absolutely not!”

“Isn’t there a hospital? A doctor? A magical healer?”

“No,” said Quimby.

“What about the leper hospital?” Taenaran stood up from his seat to get a better look. “They do an excellent job with leeches.”

Izzy shivered dramatically.

“I don’t think leeches will help with an arrow to the brain,” said Frieda.

“The mercenary guilds have medics,” Trask said. “The nearest one is probably the Armforge Guild on Knots Hollow. But you’d be better off just taking her back out through the gate. Much less painful and closer.” He glanced down at the victim and immediately looked away again. “And we don’t have anesthesia here on Krim.”

He decided not to mention the trash chutes even though, realistically, the dumpster in the alley behind the inn was the closest, easiest, and least painful way to die. When Krim’s owners realized that nobody wanted to role-play as a garbage collector, they installed chutes in back alleys throughout the city. They looked like squat, square garbage bins with no bottoms. Anything thrown in fell forever, or, at least, until the limit of the Krim world simulation. Which was just a few seconds of freefall away. Trash disappeared forever, and if it was a living person, they landed back in the grid’s welcome area. 

But suggesting that the wench’s friends throw her in the trash seemed a bit disrespectful so Trask didn’t say anything.

Frieda had no such qualms. “She can go out back,” she said. “Quimby, show them the way to the alley.”

“To slice her throat, you mean?” one of the friends asked.

“No. Of course not. Umm…” Quimby looked at Trask for help.

But it wasn’t Trask’s job to deal with injured tourists. 

He edged around the wounded woman on the floor. She started whimpering slightly and he tried to avoid looking at her head. How was she still alive? The pain must have been agonizing, and she’d done nothing to deserve it. She didn’t get into a bar fight. She didn’t join a mercenary army. She didn’t cheat at cards. She didn’t ask Joe Steelstrikes Phantomblade what his own leg tasted like or look at Matilda in a funny way. She was just walking down the street, minding her own business. It would be nice if the people who ran the world could figure out a way to protect innocent civilians from the worst aspects of the grid. Maybe someday he’d be in a position where he could do something about that.

Meanwhile, he had a job to do. Back at the office.

He slipped out the front door as the two friends debated whether to carry her themselves or to hire a cart to take her back to the main gate.

Once outside, Trask had a brief moment of panic when he saw some motion at the window where the griefer had been hiding, but it was just the curtain being blown by the wind.

Still, it would probably be safer to walk on the other side of the street, closer to the buildings, and harder for an archer to hit. 

He didn’t exactly race across the street. There were some carts in the way, and he really wasn’t dressed for athletics. But he got there, didn’t get shot, and also avoided the mud that Seymour, the newspaper publisher, got caught in. Seymour himself was still struggling to his feet.

Trask stopped under an overhang to catch his breath and wait for his heart to stop beating so hard. People always wondered why the upper floors of Krim buildings jutted out over the streets. Well, this was probably why—so you wouldn’t get shot by people in the windows above.

Trask looked back towards the inn for a second and saw that Seymour was up and following him across the street, holding an arrow in one hand and his anacronistic wool felt fedora in the other. He didn’t look happy.

Trask took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. He had to cough to get the soot and aerosolized dried manure out of his throat.

“Seymour,” Trask croaked, then cleared his throat again. “Seymour Gellhorn. How is the newspaper publishing business?” He glanced down at the arrow, then back up at Seymour’s face. Was he going to stab him with the arrow? The man wasn’t known for physical violence. He was known more for character assassination via sarcastic opinion columns.

“The publishing business sucks and I thought you might want this.” Seymour handed the bolt to Trask.

“Why would I want it?”

“It’s what nearly killed me. Maybe you could trace it back to its owner.”

“I’m hardly an expert on weapons manufacture,” Trask said. “I’ve got more important things…” He glanced down at the arrow. “Oh, it’s from the default assassin character pack. The Krim Deluxe Crossbow Arrow, Special Edition. Nothing special about it at all.” He handed it back to Seymour. “You can hang it on the wall as a memento of your brush with death.”

“I have brushes with death every day.” Seymour tossed the arrow into the gutter behind him.

Trask took out his notepad and wrote himself a reminder to fine Seymour for littering in a business district. He’d have Joe deliver the notice later. Maybe tomorrow.

“The thing is, when I was lying down there in the mud, nearly killed, I realized that if I died, I wouldn’t be able to come back to the grid for two weeks,” Seymour said. “Someone doesn’t want me to put the paper out. You should investigate.”

“I’m on the case,” said Trask.

Seymour tucked his hat under his armpit and pulled a notepad similar to Trask’s out of his inside chest pocket, along with a pencil. Seymour’s pencil was custom-made, just like his hat and suit. There was no way grid administrators allowed the import of any of those items. Trask felt a little envy at the sight of the pencil. He’d considered getting some, but it wouldn’t do for an officer of the chamber to carry contraband. 

“What suspects do you have so far?” Seymour asked.

“No comment,” said Trask.

“Is it true that the Ghastly Griefer is a Clem Brana operative trying to destroy Krim?”

“What? Where did you hear that?” Trask glanced around. Any mention of Krim’s chief rival world was likely to set off people’s tempers, but this part of the street was deserted.

“Is it true?” Seymour pressed.

“No comment.” Trask turned away but Seymour stepped to block his path.

“Is it true that Krim is looking to be acquired, and the griefer is part of a group trying to stop the purchase?”

There were always rumors that the owners were tired of Krim and were trying to sell it. Trask was tired of hearing them. “No comment.”

“There’s talk that a developer is trying to depress Leadenhall Street property prices in order to be able to buy buildings cheaply.”

“No comment.” Trask turned to go in the other direction, but the journalist was faster.

“Does that developer have the chamber of commerce in their pocket? Is that why there’s been no investigation of these attacks?”

“That’s just ridiculous,” Trask said and Seymour wrote something down. 

Trask mentally kicked himself for not saying “no comment” again. He really shouldn’t tell Seymour anything at all. It would invariably sound bad in print. But he couldn’t help himself. “You’re not the only one who was shot at,” he said. “The griefer tried to kill me, too.”

“I’m more interested in the murder of the tourist,” Seymour said. “I can see why someone might want to kill you, but nobody shoots noobs. Killing them is bad for the economy.”

“She’s not dead yet,” Trask said.

“Oh? I’ll have to get a comment.”

Now Trask regretted mentioning it. He really should stop talking.

“Does the chamber of commerce have a plan for when tourists stop coming, the economy collapses, merchants move to other grids, and Krim goes into a death spiral?” Seymour stepped closer and tapped Trask on the chest with his pencil.

“Don’t get your mud at me.” Trask pushed the man’s hand away and wrinkled his nose. Seymour smelled like the mud and manure he had crawled out of. “And focusing on just the bad news doesn’t help… Are you aware that the Aldwich Row Community Center is holding a traditional dance festival next week?”

“Yes, I ran the press release,” said Seymour.

“Where?”

“Bottom of page four.”

“I bet you’re going to put the griefer on page one,” Trask said. “Using sensationalist headlines to sell the paper.”

“Why not?” Seymour said. “I invested real money into AviNewz.” He paused. “I’m going to change the name. What do you think of the Krim Chronicle? Never mind. What do you say to all the merchants on this street who have also invested their money, and their time, into building their businesses? Krim is more than just some landscaping and a bunch of vaguely historical architecture. It’s relationships, it’s everything that people have built here, it’s history, it’s creativity.”

“You’re a real poet.” Trask stepped back. “Maybe you should talk to Osgar Sigeweard, the director of…”

“I know who he is,” Seymour interrupted. “Meanwhile, do you have a plan in place for what you will do when Krim collapses? Will you go back to your old job back in the real world?” The newspaperman squinted at Trask. “Let me guess…. motor vehicles bureau?”

Trask pulled himself up. That was going too far. Trying to pry into his personal life outside of Krim was a terms of service violation. And he’d never worked in a motor vehicles department. If Krim collapsed, he could go back… No, he didn’t want to think about that. “For your information,” he said, “I’ve already discovered where the griefer had stationed himself. It was in a room on the third floor of this very building. And, before you so rudely interrupted me, I was on my way inside to interview the building owner.”

“Oh?” Seymour raised his notepad in anticipation.

“You journalists are always getting in the way of real investigations,” said Trask. “Trying to create drama instead of actually helping solve problems.” Then, with a dramatic swoosh, he swung his padded shoulders around, pushed open the door of the shop, and stepped inside.