Can I get a restart?

Ben 4

Tom: Is everything ok Ben? You've missed your appointment this week.

Ben: Sorry. I'm still not feeling well. I'll check in next week.

Tom: No worries. Get well soon.

I couldn't talk to my online counsellor. In fact I was too crazed with excitement to talk to anyone. Bewildered, I barely noticed the passing scenery from the moving wagon we were in in. The greyness of the land a blur. Instead I just stared at the contents of the treasure chest in my lap. We had stolen way more than ten thousand pounds each.

Opposite, Bunny and DK looked so happy that their joy was causing them pain. The black knight had lifted up his visor, revealing his ruddy mouth which whispered a string of numbers, trying to calculate the value of a pile golden coins in his hands. And there was barrels and barrels full of such coins in the wagon – we were rich.

"I can't fucking believe this." DK drove his hands into a box and pulled out a pearl necklace. "This alone is worth forty to a hundred pounds offline." He fingered at the stones, marvelling at the design.

"And it suits you." the elf Xiaou added to Bunny's laugh.

"Cute." DK flung it at the black knight. "From my crude estimates we're talking two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. That's fifty grand each." Xiaou, Bunny and I, all caught each other with our mouths opened. "And that's at least. It all depends on the yield rate of the items, and some of them look very expensive. We could have made much more." That blew us away.

"Boom!" Bunny roared.

"We don't know for sure." Siim snapped from the front of the wagon. "And it's not going to be easy getting rid of it. We have to be careful not to go shooting our mouths till we find the right trader."

None of us had been prepared for the sight in the inner temple when we had cracked open the vault. Xiaou had been the first to step inside, his arms outstretched as rays of yellow fell upon his elvyn features. The whole place gleamed with gold, rubies and diamonds while the walls were carved with intricate ornate statues of naked women and men who looked down at us from every angle. It must have taken thousands and thousands of man hours to have gathered such a hoard of treasure.

As we loaded a captured wagon connected to four horses, we were frantic with chatter. DK found it hysterical that the treasure we had stolen was going to cripple a team made up of forty thousand strong players. "Think about how many years it would have taken the Truth Seekers to have acquired all this money!" He shouted across the hallway. "We've devastated them!"

"Look at what we have done guys!" I replied back.

Eager to explore the items, at some point, Siim pointed out the track marks that ran through the building and through the west gate, that and the notebooks, and the weighing machines for coins indicated that the place was a hub of money lending. "We need to get out of here as soon as possible." The old wizard concluded.

Now, on a horse driven wagon we were headed north through a craggy wasteland towards a great north river. The sheer load kept the horses pace slow. All of us high on elation, save Siim who kept a cool head, we chatted through the night of a world of possibilities. Occasionally the cripple wizard ordered us to stop and search the open lands for bot patrols. But there was never any in the vicinity. And I eventually rested for a few hours.

In the morning light, I opened up the world and found the grey land had partially faded into colours of green. For some reason we had left the main road and were heading straight across grass plains, heading towards a set of rocky hills. Siim, awake, still held the reins. Behind me, I noted a single rider on horseback galloping fast along the road. And soon, a different rider could be seen.

"Where are we going?" I said.

"There's a problem."

On an Evermana forum, a message had flashed that a Truth Seeker bot merchant had failed to make the payment for timber logs at a port exchange. It was the start of an avalanche. Within minutes there were hundreds more reports from bot traders that payments had been unsuccessfully delivered. Then thousands. Siim, guiding the bot horses up to the top of a hill, gave me a knowing look. We were only a few hours away from the great river. Uncertain Siim decided to camp out in the hilltops. The wagon covered over by ash green trees, we were out of sight from land and sky.

An hour later, a human player for the Truth Seekers spread the alert that their central bank had been hit. All around, I saw signs of distant activity, with smoke fires lit right across the horizon and right up to the Truth Seekers mega city in the distance. It went viral, with post after post on Evermana, Twitter, and Facebook. Then it was covered by mainstream news sites. I had never seen anything like it. Reality kicked in when a colleague at work, Lee, sent me a link to the news story at ten a.m.

The messages went on and on and on. The internet buzzed with insane rumours about the tower raid. A rush of joy seethed through my blood at the carnage we had caused. What have we done?