Hey, lookie what I found while scouring code, a genuine bug that nobody seems to have addressed yet!

act_wiz.c, do_vsearch:

if (argi<0 && argi>20000)
{
send_to_char( "Vnum out of range.\n\r", ch);
return;
}

See the problem? argi cannot be BOTH less than 0 AND greater than 20000, so this check will always drop through to the code below. Simple fix. Change the && to || and recompile. Of course you'll also want to make sure that 20000 is an appropriate upper bounds for your mud.

This appears to be present in 1.02a, 1.4a, and every other derivitive I've been able to find. Apparently such an obscure command nobody ever noticed it before.