absquatulate
[ab-skwoch-uh-leyt]
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Jaycee looked at her inventory with pride. She had finally done it. It had taken her countless hours of grinding,
trading, and dungeon diving, but she had done it. She had finally crafted the rarest, most
powerful, most envy inducing weapon in the game. She simply couldn’t wait to show it off to
the rest of her guild. They would
probably worship her like some kind of goddess for possessing something only a
handful of other players had.
There
was only one downside. Crafting this
greatest of all weapons sent out an automatic system message congratulating her
for her accomplishment. She was already
swamped with whispers that were either congratulating her, asking how much she
was selling to for, begging for a handout, or many, many other things. The sudden burst of attention was fun for a
little while, but soon enough Jaycee blocked all the messages, if only to
preserve some measure of sanity. She was
just glad none of her guild members were online. She could still make her big reveal and not
spoil it by the system message.
She was
about to log out for the night, when the weapon disappeared. She looked at the spot in her inventory where
the hard earned item was, and instead saw an empty slot. She felt her eye start to twitch. She closed and reopened her inventory, hoping
it was just a slight glitch. But no, the
weapon that had taken her months to make was simply gone.
Jaycee
immediately went to look at her battle log.
Sure enough, there it was. The
message that she had been pick pocketed.
She swore louder than she probably should have and immediately went on
the hunt. Fortunately, the game told her
who had stolen the near priceless weapon, and prevented the thief from simply
logging out with his ill gotten gain.
She scanned the well populated city area for the thief. She spotted him, running away as fast as the
game would allow. She immediately took
off in pursuit, activating all the speed buffs she had available. There was no way she was going to roll over
and let the guy get away.
“Alright,
you little punk, let’s do this.” She
said to the screen.
A few
minutes into the chase, she had to admit he was good. Very good, in fact. She had been pick pocketed dozens of times
before, and the chase had always ended quickly in her favor. This guy knew what he was doing though. Every trick she pulled to catch him, he knew
one to slip out of her grasp. He might
have even shared a spot on the top 100 players list with her. He was certainly a pro in the department of
running away and avoiding capture, that was for sure. Jaycee had to admit she was developing some
grudging respect for the guy. Not enough
to stop chasing him, but still.
As the
chase continued, Jaycee found her respect giving way to anger and frustration
as her opponent continued to elude her.
Every time she got close, he would manage to flee in a way that put him
just out of reach and allowed him to regain the distance between them. Her eye twitched as he continued to evade
her.
“All
right, that’s it.” She growled to the
screen. “Kid gloves are off.”
It was
time to call in the big guns. One of the
most common ways of catching a thief in the game was to put a bounty on the
player’s head. Jaycee had never needed
to do so before, but this time her hand had been forced. She knew it probably wouldn’t do much. If this guy could avoid capture from her then
a normal player wouldn’t stand a chance.
But it would make escape much harder, and would slow him down
considerably. That was all she would
need.
Suddenly,
her target changed his patterns drastically.
Before Jaycee knew what was happening, he was outside the city
limits. She sat, staring at the screen
in disbelief. She had no idea how it had
happened, but even after calling in a bounty, he had not only managed to evade
her, but every other player in the city.
And now he was gone. Leaving the
city limits meant he could log off and disappear forever. All that hard work, all her bragging rights;
all of it gone in an instant.
“Well…damn.”
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Not really sure if a pick pocketing system would work in a real MMO, but it's a neat idea I guess. It would pretty much suck if something like this happened though, which it inevitably would.
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