“You know, I did pay money to be here. You can't just drag me around.”

“You paid to experience Genesis, and right now your experience consists of being tied up on horseback. If you’d like, you could also experience a gag as well.”

Matt sighed and rubbed at his wrists where the rope was beginning to chafe. While he wasn't exactly happy with being grabbed yet again, he had to admit they were far more professional than the group of bandits had been. Not only had they been quick to follow orders and get to work, but they’d been surprisingly well mannered about the whole situation.

Rather than put him to work like a prisoner, he seemed to have been put in a place somewhere between a guest, a hostage and valuable cargo. He’d been restrained, and Hermes had been packed away. After having him choose between the option of having his mount killed every time it respawned until they’d taken ownership of it, or letting them store it away, he’d agreed to the less violent option. They’d brought a stasis cage with them in order to capture their target alive, and it made for a simple way to keep Hermes with them without letting him run free. The extra-dimensional crates were often used to store large mounts and pets in areas without the necessary space, so it was something he’d need to buy for himself, Matt decided, if he could get out of this mess. The travel itself was pleasant, with clear skies overhead, vibrant scenery and the sounds of birds all around them. He’d thought he might have an opportunity to put something in the food when they broke for camp at sundown, but instead of being made to help or even fetch water, one of the riders pulled out what seemed to be an entire collapsible kitchen. Seeing Matts expression, one of the other player told him that the person in question had gotten in cooking in a big way since the ingredients were so much cheaper in game the real world. So instead of making do with trail mix and premade ration packs, they were treated to slow-cooked beef with seasoned roast vegetables followed by a light chocolate mousse.

It was delicious.

In fact, if it wasn’t for what they were planning, it would have almost been an enjoyable trip.

“So here’s the deal.” Harriet told him riding along next to the horse he’d been put on. “We need your crab, but we can’t take it from you, at least not within the timeframe of our contract. So instead of having to refund our initial payment, we’re taking you into the Blightwoods.”

“Yeah, I got that when you tied me to this horse and told your people to head for the Blightwoods.” Matt said despondently, trying to shift around to a more comfortable position.

“No need to be snippy, we’re just doing our job. Anyway, when we get there, we’re going to herd you deeper into the trees until-”

“Wait, herd? I'm not a sheep.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I could say ‘we’ll jab you with spears until you go where we want’ if you’d prefer?”

“...Herd is fine.”

“Anyway, we’ll send you in until you run into one of the mushrooms living in there, then wait for your corpse to try and fight its way out.”

“Right, I’m with you so far, but how does that give you control of Hermes, and not just labelled as bandits?”

“There are area of the border run by...less than reputable guilds who turn a blind eye to this sort of thing for a small fee. But I take you haven’t heard the full story about the those little mushrooms, the greycaps?”

“They attack you with sap and spores, and then-.” Matt said lazily, being remembering the design he’d used.

“-you get raised as puppet under their control.” She finished with a nod. “But what people didn’t realise at first is that if they manage to kill you and raise you as a fungal zombie, you don't lose a few random items. Instead, you lose everything you had equipped or in use, no matter its quality or whether it was soul bound.”

“Wait, what? How the shit did that happen?!” Matt exclaimed, snapping to attention. The rules for what items you lost were a constant, well known mechanic, one you could map out with almost perfect accuracy. On death, you lost a level, as well as a number of skill levels based on your character level, then you’d drop up to ten percent of your carried items and the same amount of your gold, and that was it. There were a bunch of other calculations on what the chance of every item was, and ways to tweak those numbers, but it was a core rule of the game, and why soul bound items could be so valuable. They couldn’t be stolen, dropped sold, or traded, so once you picked it up, it was yours. Until now.

“No idea how it works, I just know that it does, and that you can connect the dots. We throw you in, you kick the bucket, and then you can head back to the woods to collect your belongings, minus what we take from your corpse. Everybody wins.” She finished.

“I really can’t see that as a win for me. At all.”

“Well, a win for the majority then, democracy and all that.”

“Never go into politics.”

When they arrived at the border of the Blightwoods, the Emerald riders moved into a tight formation, trying to get past the growing number of players and NPCs that were spending their time combating the growth of the forest. From he could see from his place in between his ‘escorts’, there were two main types of people hanging around the area. The first were players taking advantage of the repeatable quest, happy to make some quick cash and experience. The second group also had players in it, but also consisted of the NPCs that were fighting against it. The haggard expressions on their faces showed that for them this wasn’t just about gold, but what they stood to lose if the greycaps ever broke through the quarantine line.

The line itself had been heavily reinforced by both magical and mundane forces, with powerful barriers woven around imposing stone walls. But despite the high grade of defences present, Jicker couldn’t help but notice that that same power level wasn’t reflected in the defenders themselves. As they swung around past the main area or wall, Harriet spoke up.

“You noticed it, didn’t you?” she said, looking out at the crowds.” Can’t say that I’m really surprised. Let me guess, you played a lot before the upheaval?”

For his part, Jicker remained silent, earning him a sigh. “Look,” she continued. “I get that you’re not exactly happy about the whole situation, but it’s nothing personal. We’re just trying to complete our contract.”

“I'm tied to a horse while you’re leading me to my death so you can loot my corpse. I don't know about you but I think it’s perfectly normal to take this sort of thing personally.”

“Fine, we’re the bad guys, but it’s not like you can do anything about it right now.”

Debating whether to stay silent or actually try and figure out what was going on, he gave in.

“Fine then,” he said grumpily. “Where are all the high level players? All I can see around here are midrange and rookies.”

“There are couple of high level players about, but for the most part you’re right.” She admitted. “Ever since people noticed that dying in the Blightwoods could cost you all of your gear, even the bits you shouldn’t be able to lose, the big guns have been steering clear. Odds are that no one could touch them, and that they could stroll through the woods untouched, but if that tiny chance did happen...”

“There would be a slaughter, when everyone fights over unique items.”

“Which would just make things worse as there items got added to piles of things up for grabs. So to prevent that there’s a sort of... unofficial truce that stops high level players from hanging around here.”

“And are the people that are left enough to hold the border?”

“A lot of the defences were put in place before the discovery was made, so yeah, things should be fine. And the lack of top tier people about also has the advantage of less people interfering in the... business practices that we’re about to do.”

The group began to slow as they cleared a small rise, revealing a small crowd gathering around several tents. The people there seemed to move around in groups of their own, and Jicker noticed that most of these groups had at least one person restrained or in distress. Most the people were quiet, serious about their actions, though a voice from one the tents carried through the air.

“I’ll get you for this Jack! I’ll come for you and when I find you I’ll-”

Whatever they had planned to do would remain a mystery as the voice was cut off with a hard thud.

“Lucky for you,” Harriet said as they entered one of the tents. “We sent word ahead of us, so we won’t be stuck at the back of the queue.”

“Glad to hear you’re at least being efficient about your murder and theft.” Jicker said as another rider lifted him off the horse and brought him inside.

“Well sure just because we’re being kind of evil here, there’s no reason for it to take all day.”

“Okay!” an elf with a clipboard called out. “Next group come on forward and get your packages sorted out!”

Dragging Jicker along with them Harriet went and spoke to the elf who seemed to be running things.

“We’ve got a booking for the Emerald riders?”

The elf flipped through his papers for a moment. “Yep, got you listed here, and you made pretty good time getting here as well. So this your mark? Got a tag or something to identify which zombie is yours to claim?”

“Sure, ours will be the little, green gremlin.” Harriet said gesturing to his tied up form.

He nodded, making a note in the file. “Yeah that’ll do it, not a lot of gremlins around here, or anywhere really. Okay, let’s load him up then.”

“Load him? We’re not marching them in?” She asked confused.

“Nah, we’ve moved up in the world so things are little more efficient now.”

Walking through a side door in the tent, they came out to small open area that faced out the woods. Sitting in the centre was a large siege weapon that had probably begun its life as a ballista, but where the bolt would have sat there was now a basket, one just big enough for a person to sit, or be forced into.

“I would have gone with a catapult,” the elf said as they watched another person in handcuffs be shoved into the basket. “But while it would have been easier, apparently it would have had too much height and be too noticeable. Though we do have a lot more control of where people land with this setup.”

“And it works?” One of the other riders asked as the ballista fired with a heavy thud and a short scream.

“Oh yeah, we’ve got about a ninety percent success rate. The zombies always try for the nearest bored point when they’re taken over, and that’s us, though we keep an eye on our neighbouring sections. If they manage to die without being reanimated, and they don't drop anything, then it’s not our problem. If you need to rob someone that bad then go stake out their respawn point and pay for another round.”

“Wait, we have to pay even if it doesn’t work? That’s highway robbery!”

“By all means try and find someone to report us to, I'm sure they’ll love to know about how you know our prices. Now the engines rewound so let’s get things underway.

Grumbling, but more or less having conceded that this was going to happen, Jicker walked up and climbed into the basket.

“A final word,” He said, turning and addressing both the riders and the people manning the launcher. “I’m probably going to die, but that’s not that permanent for us, so a word of warning. I promise that for whatever happens to me thanks to you, ill return the favour tenfold.”

“Well said,” the elf replied. “But nothing I haven’t heard before. Okay Jimmy, let her rip!”

As the lever was pulled, Jicker felt as though all of his organs were in a rush to see which could push through his spine first under the acceleration. Apparently passenger comfort doesn’t matter when their death is the end goal. The feeling only lasted for a moment, then stopped as his momentum tore him free of the basket and sent him hurtling through the air, heading over the Blightwoods.

Through little more than luck, he managed to avoid crashing headlong into a tree, which at the rate he’d been moving would have likely killed him outright. Though his luck wasn't that strong as instead he landed softly into a waist deep pool of sap, though he managed to twist himself around enough to avoid his head going under. Has he blinked to clear his eyes, he saw that one unfortunate soul that had landed nearby had hit the pool head first, and while they’d stood up in time, they’d been left with a thick layer of already dried sap covering their face. They were trying to scrape away at it, but as their limbs were also covered in the resin like material, their efforts were feeble and sluggish. His own situation left Jicker with half buried himself, with his arms pinned to his sides, able to do little more than watch as the player’s motions began to slow and then stop before long.

Struggling at the pool that had hardened around him for a minute or two, he realised he simply lacked the strength to try and break out. Instead, he began taking in his surroundings, looking for something that could help, and he realised that over a dozen other player had been launched into the area around him, all in various states. Some appeared to have died on impact, though these could end up being the lucky ones, Jicker realised, as he saw thin cloud of grey dust lingering in the air and floating through the sap. It wasn't dense enough to catch a person instantly, but before long he’d been forced to breathe enough of it that he received a notice that he’d been infected.

Warning! You have been infected with Greycap spores!

You will receive -20% to strength, dexterity and constitution for the next three hours.

If you die while under this effect you will be raised as a Fungal Zombie loyal to the Greycap.

Crack

Whipping his head around, he saw that the person whose head had been covered had not only started moving again, but they’d managed to stand up. A brief hope filled him, wondering if they could break him free as well, but it was quickly dismissed when he realised that the person hadn’t had this strength in life, but the story was different in death. The player-turned-zombie didn’t seem to even notice the sap as it broke apart like a sandcastle in the sun.

With resounding noises of shattering glass, other zombies began to pull themselves out of the pools, the sap simply giving way under the forces that now animated them. But once they all managed to get to their feet, free of their restraints, they simply stood there, stationary like only the dead can be.

“What... what are they doing? Why aren’t they doing anything?”

Turning as best he could Jicker saw that another survivor lay behind him, this one with both his head and an arm free, the rest leaning against a tree that was slowly covering him as it poured out ever more sap.

“I don't know,” he replied. “But you’ve got an arm free, can you break yourself clear?”

“How? My weapons are already covered and the only thing to brace myself against is the sap. Can you-”

The question was drowned out as, in perfect unison, the zombies screamed. It was a long, drawn out cry that echoed through the trees around them, and then as suddenly as they’d started, they stopped again and became stationary once more.

Jicker was fascinated, and more than a little impressed. When he’d initially created the greycaps, he’d given them a shape and abilities, as well as a few key behaviours. He’d told them to hide in their woods, and have their victims do the fighting, to not engage until the battle were all but one. It seemed that the games AI had taken his ideas and run with them, turning them from a group of trap makers to something that worried the general population, to say nothing of this item business. He tried to think of what the scream had been for, since it wasn’t something he’d put in, but he didn’t have to wonder long.

A pair of the greycaps toddled out from behind the trees, holding hands like children with large wooden ladles over their shoulders. Waddling towards the zombies, they split up, one heading for the dead, the other preparing to deal with the living. Knowing the fate of those trapped in the sap, Jicker tried to distract himself by focusing on the one working with the dead. Poking at them with its ladle, it seemed to be looking for something, inspecting them for some value that it didn’t seem to find. Once it had gone over the entire group, it began waving its ladle around like a conductor’s baton, emitting a rapid series of whistles and clicks as the purple light in its eyes flickered and flared.

“They’ve got a language!” he said laughing in amazement, his situation forgotten as he watched the tiny figure give marching orders to the newly risen. Apparently the zombies wouldn’t take any actions without the greycaps commands, he thought as the undead headed towards the forests border, truly they were more puppet than person now. It was only when he heard another series of whistles behind him did it come back to him. Turning he saw that the second greycap had been busy, and that he was now the last one left. It lifted a ladle full of sap overhead, and then stopped, tilting its head in thought, at least as much as one can do without a neck.

Seeing the delay the first mushroom came over and began whistling at its compatriot, causing a brief discussion with a lot of pointing and flailing. Eventually they seemed to come to a consensus, and moved to either side of him. Jabbing their ladles into the sap holding him in place, it returned to liquid under their touch, letting him breathe easier for the time being, though with the spores so thick in the air, whether that was a good thing was still in question. He’d initially made sure that the sap wouldn’t affect them, which was easy enough to do since they were based on the same material as the trees around them. But the ability to actually manipulate it at this level was another new development, one he’d have loved to know more about if he didn’t have more pressing issues.

With his body freed, he pulled himself out of the sap, the viscous liquid rolling off him like water. Once he’d gotten to his feet, the greycaps each grabbed one of his hands and began tugging on them trying to lead him forwards. If he’d been of a normal height they wouldn’t have reached his shins but as it was they managed to lead him along easily enough, guiding him through the woods. He had no idea where they were taking him, or why, but they apparently didn’t plan to kill him and that was a good enough reason to go along with them.

There was a quality to these woods that, even while he knew he was currently safe, was disturbing on a level that he couldn’t immediately identify, then after while he realised it.

It was silent.

No animal, be it a bird rabbit or even an insect managed to survive here, the only things still moving were the greycaps and their animated victims. And for now, him, the only living person for miles has they headed ever deeper into the trees, other greycaps beginning to appear from out of trees, trailing them as they walked. Eventually they reached a grotto, and Jicker got to view one of his own works he’d never seen before.

When he’d been fleeing from his captors, he’d put together a couple of greycaps in order to slow them down, and hopefully get them to give up entirely. Though it had clearly worked, at the time he hadn’t known how it would go, and so before he took off running he triggered his prime specimen ability on a greycap at random hoping the added strength would be enough.

And now he stood before the ruler of the Blightwoods, as it sat upon a dais in the centre of the area. Having grown far beyond a normal greycap, the boss stood at least ten feet tall, its skin a dull bronze with a golden light in its deep set eyes. Its cap had inverted itself, becoming a large bowl that constantly filled its self with sap, with fine streams overflowing all around it to form an amber veil. Sitting inside were several smaller greycaps, peering over the edge watching his movements closely, looking for any threats to their queen, the Goldcrown.

All around it, scattered over its platform, were bodies. They were older zombies, the spores having taken deep root long ago, with large growths coming from their skin, slowly burying them and turning them into another layer of the queen’s throne. That’s what it was, Jicker realised, the entire platform was made of the dead that had been piled and overtaken, leaving a mound that grew the next generations of greycaps.

When he entered the queen turned to face him, scattering her veil around her and letting out a low hooting call, then paused looking for a response.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a few moments of silence. “I don't understand.”

Leaning back, it sat down on its throne and pressed a hand against its throne and for a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Suddenly all of the bodies that were intact enough to do so let out a sigh, and in unison began to speak in a slow halting manner.

“Do you...hear us? Know our... words?”

The voices, distorted through the rotting of their vocal cords merged into a single inhuman voice.

“Yes I can understand you.” Jicker replied once he managed to stop gaping at the sight.

“Good. We... greet you...changer.”

“Changer?”

“We...know you. We were... of the forest. Then you... made us different.”

“Yes, I did that.”

“Why?”

Jicker paused. “Why what?”

“Since the...change...we have learned. We see into... the minds... of the dead. We grow and... learn. To fight. To speak. We see... memories... of places unknown. But we don't... why you... made us.”

“I...” how do you explain to something that it was a distraction? Deciding honesty would serve him better than lies, he tried to explain. “I was being hunted, and needed a way to stop them. I couldn’t fight them myself, so I created you.”

The queen let out another hooting groan. “This... makes sense...to us. We take others... to survive. To have them...fight for us.”

“I'm glad you understand.”

“But,” the voices continues. “We also...feel you. We are...connected. all greycaps... feel the others. See and hear... through them. we feel you...as well.”

“I gain power from the people you kill.” Jicker explained. “It’s the other reason I create things like yourselves.” Wondering how much he gotten from them over the past weeks, he pulled up his sheet

Name:

Jicker

Level:

55

Race:

Gremlin

Class:

Dark Chemist

Hp:

750

Mp:

920

Stamina:

220

Statistics

Equipped weapons

Damage:

Equipped Armour

Defence:

White Pipe of Striking

22-34

--

40

Long serrated Scalpel

11-43

Core Statistics

Other Statistics

Strength:

20

Enigma:

4

Dexterity:

91

Evolution:

6

Constitution:

21

Inner Rage:

1

Intelligence:

158

Wisdom:

41

Resistances:

Poison:

50%

Cold:

5

Shock:

5

Disease:

50%

Fire:

5

Skills

Mother of Invention - Level 2

Apothecary - Level 5

Handle Animal - Level 6

Anatomy - Level 1

Herbalism - Level 3

Weapon Skill - Blowgun - Level 2

Stealth - Level 3

Weapon Skill - Small Blades - Level 1

Achievements

Grand Genocide

Kill over 20 million sentients within 1 hour

Unique-Effect:

30% damage and ability effectiveness against sentients

Force of Change

Destroy and create over 1000 dungeons

Unique-Effect:

Creating or altering areas or creatures will be 100% more effective

World Shaper

Permanently alter the geography of the world on a grand scale

Level-Max-Effect:

Effect: Permanent effects will be 100% more effective

King Killer

Kill 50 leaders of states, royal or other.

Level-Max-Effect:

Boss and Leader resistances reduced by 60%

They’d put in some substantial work, though his rate of growth was starting to slow down, since there was only so much they could earn for him, and each level took more experience to reach. Skulking along the roads had also managed to improve his stealth which was an added bonus.

The queen nodded at his words. “Growth is something... we understand...and seek as well. But it is... something you have...denied us.”

“Denied you?”

“We wish... to grow...and spread...but you have... left us...trapped. All we send... to the edges... are killed... before they... can release spores. You have...left us...trapped.”

“That was never my goal, but you pose a threat to people everywhere. They are protecting themselves by trying to destroy you.”

“We understand...survival. But you... created us. Please... help us.”

Jicker rubbed his eyes, wondering what to do. On the one hand he really didn’t have time for this, with a much larger problem falling towards them as they spoke, but at the same time they were his creation.

“Before I decide what to do, I'm going to need to talk to someone else. Is there somewhere I can do so privately?”

As one the zombies shifted, pointing in a direction through the woods.

Walking past the watching greycaps, he found himself largely alone in the woods, and took out Sarah’s vial before breaking it on the ground. After a few minutes her avatar formed the ink sprite hovering in the air in front of him.

“Hey Matt, what’s up? Found the answer to our space problem?”

He shook his head. “Haven’t even made it to Macross yet. Got jumped by a group of hunters and thieves. Again.”

“Seriously? You really need to work on that enigma stat. Any way we are pretty busy so what’s the deal?”

He gave a quick recap of his run in with the greycaps. “They’ve grown way beyond what I expected, they’ve got a language, they can talk to people!”

Sarah’s sprite suddenly turned into a stop sign. “Hold up a sec, let me get the latest report on them.”

She was silent for a moment, a little hourglass floating in space before she returned to her fairy shape.

“Okay I'm up to speed, and yeah those things have gone way beyond their starting point. But that still doesn’t explain why you summoned me up here.”

“I thought you had all my information.” Jicker said, his thoughts momentarily derailed.

“I used to, but now you’ve got a team of people working on what you did before, a team working on what you’ve done recently, and a couple planning for what you might do. I’m managing them but there’s a lot of information. Now, the reason?”

“Well first of there is the thing where they take all of your items on death.”

Her image pulled out a little book. “Right, I’ve read up on that already so I can answer that. Apparently the animation trigger on the fungal zombies hits at the same time as the loot is supposed to be decided, causing that bug. It’s not too big a problem at the moment, though we’ve definitely gotten some complaints. As long as they’re isolated to that location it’s not really a big issue.”

“Okay, so that brings me to the other point. They want to spread, and they want me to help.”

“...you did hear me say that they’re fine while they’re contained right?” She said stressing her point.

“I did, but is it really your call to make?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve all made it pretty clear that I'm having to do most of this stuff because you can’t interfere with the game much. So I have to wonder... could you actually stop me?”

“What are you saying? You want to what, blackmail us back or something?”

“What? No, of course not. What I am saying though, is that free will is something that still exists, and I'm planning on using mine. Out of the goodness of my heart I felt like giving you a heads up might be a nice thing to do.”

“I... let me go talk to someone.” She said, return to the hourglass state. Several minutes went past he waited for her to return, wondering what the fallout of this call would be. But whatever the result was, it wasn’t a decision he regretted. He wanted, needed, to take some control back, and this was a good place to start.

“Okay.” Sarah said as she returned. “I've spoken to some of the programmers and they’ve reached a consensus. If you go ahead and do this, they’ll do a tweak to the greycaps, putting them back to normal drop rules, though in order to keep it from needing to be declared publicly, it’s a very minor change, and it might still happen on occasion. The boss, the... Goldcrown? Will remain the same, since any changes to a boss are always recorded.”

“It will be happening, so I'm glad you could come to terms with that.” He said, relaxing slightly.

“Also, one of the story programmers wants to get permission from you. She had this huge zombie epidemic plan all written up and scripted, but someone managed to pick off patient zero at random before it got underway. She’s hoping to be able to adjust it to fit on to your new spreading problem.”

“Tell her that as long as it doesn’t end with them all being wiped out that she has permission, it sounds like it would be pretty cool to see.”

“Fine. So, how did you plan on breaking the quarantine?”

“I have a few ideas.”