The Duty (Play to Live: Book # 3) Read online

  I looked at the preoccupied toddlers, at the Hell Hound puppies scurrying about. I thought about the lonely Lurch and the virtually defenseless castle. I remembered the Fallen One who needed all the help he could get despite all his divine airs and graces.

  I nodded my agreement. "We have a purpose."

  I sprung to my feet and activated the clan chat. "Attention clan! Hear my command..."

  * * *

  Kremlin Security Force

  Sensitive information

  Top secret

  From a memorandum to President of the Russian Federation:

  Yesterday 08.24.203X at 02.41 a.m. our electronic surveillance systems detected a successful penetration attempt. The rapid-response group that arrived at the site located the intruder who was heading for the Senate Palace. After our command to stop, the trespasser attempted to flee the scene after which we opened fire with a shoot to kill policy.

  In the resulting skirmish, the intruder demonstrated a remarkable speed and survival ability. The group lost three men killed while the monster's body was found to have nineteen gunshot wounds when autopsied. We use the word "monster" because the intruder proved to be a large anthropoid creature with the head of a wolf.

  In the course of the initial identification procedure, photos of the entity were fed to the AI KnowAll and later identified with 99.991% certainty as an Officer Gnoll from the AlterWorld virtual game.

  Besides various items of cold steel and armor, the monster's bag held a bunch of broken arrows tied with a white ribbon as well as a parchment containing texts in an unidentified language.

  End of Book Three

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  MMORPG Glossary[iv]

  AFK

  Away from keyboard

  Aggro

  As a verb, it refers to a hostile mob that has noticed a player and is actively trying to attack that player. As a noun, it refers to the amount of “hostility” the player has generated on the mob. In typical combat strategy, the fighter tries to take as much aggro as possible away from weaker players such as healers and mages.

  Alt

  Short for "alternate". It refers to the alternate character a player has from their main character. This is not a stable category as sometimes alts can outlevel mains and sometimes mains become moth-balled.

  Alt Tab

  The act of using the ALT+TAB keys to jump from application to application

  Bind

  In certain MMOs, characters are teleported back to a safe spot when they die. This spot is predetermined by the user. The act of determining the safe spot requires an explicit action by the user. That action is known as a bind. The spot is typically referred to as a bind spot.

  Bind on equip

  This term refers to items that become soulbound to the player after they have been equipped. In other words, the item can be traded as long as no one equips it.

  Bind on pickup

  This term refers to items that become soulbound to the player after it has been picked up from a monster. In other words, the item cannot be traded once a player picks it up. BoP items commonly cause looting conflicts and disputes during game-play.

  Bokken sword

  A wooden training sword

  Buff

  Temporary boost to character attribute or combat ability

  Camp(ing)

  The act of waiting in an area to hunt a specific mob or a specific spawn

  Caster

  A mage or a wizard

  Char/Toon

  A player or their character.

  Class

  Professional archetypes. In D&D games, these would be warrior, healer, rogue and mage. The most typical class types are: close-range damage, ranged damage, healing, crowd control, support.

  Cleric

  Typical healing class in D&D style games

  Combo

  A combination of hits, especially causing severe damage like paralyzing or bleeding

  Corpse

  In certain MMOs, a corpse appears where the player died. Sometimes all the player’s items and money are left on the corpse and the player is teleported back to their bind spot. Corpses typically will decay after a certain time proportional the character’s level.

  Corpse Run

  The act of retrieving your corpse after you have died. This is typically a dangerous thing because people tend to die in dangerous places rather than safe places.

  Crafting

  A general category of skills that allows players to manufacture objects from raw resources

  Crit

  "To crit" refers to landing a critical hit either with melee or spells. Effective damage is usually increased from a base of 150% to upwards of 250% with extra talents/skills/buffs.

  Crowd Control

  Refers to a set of spells / abilities that temporarily paralyze or stun other mobs or players. Crowd control is an important group support ability when fighting multiple mobs.

  DD

  Direct Damage. Used to refer to a class of spells and abilities that allow players to damage enemies from a distance. The firebolt is the archetypal DD.

  DD/DPS

  A character whose primary role in a group setting is to deal damage to the opponents.

  Debuff

  The opposite of a buff. An offensive spell cast on enemies that weakens an attribute or combat ability.

  Donator

  A player who invests real money into virtual gear

  DoT

  Damage over time. Refers to a class of spells that deals damage over a period of time. These spells typically do more damage than DD spells overall.

  DpS

  Damage per second. Used when figuring out weapon speed and damage.

  Drow

  A Dark Elf race

  Druid

  Hybrid class in D&D style games—part healer, part support, part fighter.

  Enchanter

  A mage specializing in buffs

  Epic

  An extremely rare item or quest. Has come to mean something exceptionally cool and hard to get.

  Experience

  A quantity gained when completing tasks/quests, killing mobs, or various other achievements in games. When enough experience is accrued, characters often “level up” and become more powerful.

  Familiar

  Same as pet

  Farm(ing)

  The act of accumulating currency or a specific item by repeatedly killing a mob or repeatedly performing a series of actions

  Gnoll

  An NPS (AI-controlled character) race of humanoid hyenas

  Guilds

  Semi-permanent player groups. In typical games, players must use a substantial amount of capital to start the guild.

  Health

  A base attribute of characters

  LFG

  “looking for group”

  Lich

  A race of the undead

  Loot

  Currency or items that are dropped by a mob when it is defeated

  Mana

  A commonly-used pool of magic potential (magical analog of health points)

  MMORPG

  Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

  Mob

  An AI controlled monster. 'Mob' originally comes from the MUD era, where it was short for 'mobile', to differentiate monsters that would patrol a set of rooms as opposed to monsters which would stay in one place until killed.

  Mount

  Any riding animal from a donkey to a dragon

  Newbie

  A new inexperienced player

  Newblette

  A new and inexperienced female player

  Noob

  The pejorative form of newbie or an unskilled arrogant playerr />
  NPC

  Non-player character (ie. controlled by AI)

  Nuke

  Refers to casters, to cast the highest damage spell or spell combo to effectively pull or finish of a npc. Mages usually are the most effective class in highest burst damage.

  Nuker

  A caster who throws a lot of damage spells on a target.

  Perma

  Permanent, permanently

  Pet

  A creature that can be summoned to help and defend a player

  PK

  Player Killer—a derogatory term—as in a person who primarily plays to kill other players

  PK counter

  Shows the number of players already killed by a PK and allows to calculate the chances of his dropping an item if killed by another player

  Port

  Short for teleport. Used as a noun and a verb.

  Powerlevel

  Same as rush. When a higher level player tries to help a lower level player level faster. Most games have mechanisms that prevent power leveling.

  Pull

  A standard hunting strategy where a player lures a single or a group of mobs to the group so that the group can hunt from a safe area instead of hunting in areas where new mobs may spawn.

  PvP

  Player vs. Player combat

  Quest

  A set of tasks of a player to complete

  Quest item

  An item needed to complete a quest

  Race

  Typically fantastical creations, such as Elves, Trolls and the like.

  Raid

  A more substantial engagement involving a large organized group of players typically set in a dungeon and involving difficult mobs

  Regen

  Short for regeneration (of health, mana, or other replenishable attributes)

  Resist

  A parameter showing one's chances to resist a spell, whether partially or completely

  Respawn

  A character's resurrection after being killed

  Rogue

  A game class used for scouting and spying

  Root

  Can refer to a class of abilities as well as its effect. A root spell immobilizes a target. The target is then said to be rooted. Early versions of these abilities involved references to plants, hence "root".

  Rush

  Same as powerlevel

  Server

  Due to technical reasons, each server can only support a limited amount of players. Each MMORPG typically has several servers. Players cannot interact with players on other servers.

  Slot

  A storage unit, especially in a player's bag

  Snare

  An ability which slows down a character's movement speed, but they are still capable of moving.

  Solo

  The act of playing alone, hunting mobs alone.

  Soulbound

  An item-control mechanic where an item cannot be traded. In other words, only one person can own the object and it cannot be traded. See also BoE and BoP.

  Spawn

  Resurrect

  Stealth

  A type of invisibility that lets stealth characters sneak up on others for large critical strikes or for scouting.

  Stun

  A typical form of crowd control ability that immobilizes an enemy

  Tank

  As a noun, refers to character classes that can take a lot of damage. As a verb, refers to the act of drawing aggro from mobs before other team members strike with their abilities.

  TSB

  Toxic Sperm Buildup

  Uber

  Slang form of super

  Wonder Waffle

  From German Wunderwaffe, a wonder weapon

  WTB

  “want to buy”

  WTS

  “want to sell”

  Zool

  Cool

  * * *

  [i] The Deep: this line is from one of the numerous Russian gaming fanfic poems about the Deep, a near-future virtual reality featured in several urban fantasy novels by Sergey Lukianenko.

  [ii] Kvass: a traditional Russian non-alcoholic fizzy drink

  [iii] Kuzka's mother: from the Russian expression "to show Kuzka's mother to someone," meaning "to teach someone a good lesson". The phrase became notorious in the West after Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev used it in his 1959 conversation with Richard Nixon.

  [iv] Sources:

  The Daedalus Project. The Psychology of MMORPGs

  alteredgamer.com

  mmoglossary.com

  omegaknights.com

  mmoterms.com