The Lag (The Game Master: Book #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

any hacked ones. Didn't I warn you that the price might go up? I did. So if you want it, you'd better pay now."
    Attila pulled the Book closer and closed the Eye's view on the cover, opening his payment provider instead. Beast stared at him, mouthing something.
    Attila knew this old salesmen's trick. You had to hand the goods over to the client so that he could hold it, touch it and feel that it was already as good as his. Then you took it back from him. Subconsciously the client would already regard the item as his own and would be much more prone to buy something he otherwise wouldn't have. So now Attila was sure this Beast wasn't going to reconsider.
    He was desperate, too desperate to scruple about such tricks. Besides, he'd indeed gone over his budget while working on the Eye. A visit from some shady debt collectors was the last thing his wheelchair-bound body needed. He had to raise the money today by hook or by crook.
    Beast sniffed unhappily.
    "Have you ever used the in-game banking system?" Attila asked.
    "Of course I have. Who do you think I am?"
    "I don't know, do I? I'm not talking about shopping. I mean a direct transfer between accounts."
    "I know what you mean."
    "So send it, then. Or are you not taking it? I'll be off, then," Attila reached for the Book. "It's not a problem to find another customer for this."
    "I am taking it!" Beast wheezed. Stealing a look around, he reached for his backpack that lay on the bench next to him. He rummaged through it for his own Book and placed it on the table. It looked truly Barbaric with its rough leather cover, all scratched and dented. Instead of crystals, he had four skulls mounted in the cover's four corners. The screen was framed with a pattern of bones.
    "Don't look," Beast said, leaning over his Book and covering it with his elbow. "I need to enter the password."
    Attila, however, looked hard — but not at the Book. He was peering at the outside view that the Eye was sending to his goggle lens, watching five legionnaires circle the donjon. They were clad in light knee-length chainmail shirts with an emerald sheen. Their signature helmets were topped with birdlike beaks. The legionnaires were armed with bastard swords which they all wore whenever they weren't undercover. They never used shields, relying on their powerful arm bracers with which they could parry the fiercest of slashing blows.
    They hurried through the brambles toward the donjon. Were they just patrolling the area? Or were they on a manhunt?
    Slowly Attila turned his head and looked at Beast. The understanding came too late.
    Beast glared back at him. "Quit staring! I don't need no password spies!"
    Attila cast a quick glance at the two men by the back door. Why had they chosen that particular table? And the card players by the front entrance, weren't they sitting there to cut off all possible escape routes? And this Beast... he was trying too hard pretending to be an unskilled noob.
    Gosh. This was a setup.
    They'd been waiting for him. Wanted to catch him red-handed. He, Attila, had given the RV details to his customer who was in fact an undercover legionnaire. This wasn't the real Tavern: the NPCs had lured him into its copy created specifically for the purpose of entrapping him. What was that spell called — Smoke and Mirrors? A powerful piece of magic and prohibitively expensive, too. To cast it yourself you had to be a level 80 wizard which was something only Elven wizards — and maybe the Drow too — could afford with their racial magic bonus. And the gelatinous goo he'd walked in as he tried to enter the donjon was no glitch, either. By disturbing it, he'd triggered the trap.
    The Elf by the bar stood up. The landlord leaned over him, explaining something while casting a big horsey eye at the table where Attila and Beast were sitting.
    How sure was he that this was indeed Barb? Most likely, the character was being controlled by a legionnaire player, someone in the RussoVirt office who'd taken