Continue
Online

Book
2, Made

Story
by

Stephan
Morse

Copyright
©
2016
by Stephan Morse

All
rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be
reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express
written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief
quotations in a book review.

Projections
about future events are intended for fiction purposes only.

- First
Publishing, 2015

Table
of Contents

Commencement –
Point Of View

Session Eighteen –
Faction Grind

Session
Nineteen – Answers, Mister Legate?

Session
Twenty – Belated Trigger Warning

Session Twenty
One – Forest For Rest

Session Twenty Two –
Deep Cover

Session Twenty
Three – Lost, in Earth

Session Twenty
Four – Light's End

Session
Twenty Five – What are the Chances?

Session
Twenty Six – Under Cover Brother

Session
Twenty Seven – Just Pass Grey Skull

Session
Twenty Eight – The Falling One

Interlude –
The Life and Times of...

Session Twenty Nine
– Like a dog

Session Thirty –
Beatings Continue

Session Thirty One
– What is Love...

Session Thirty
Two – To the Letter

Session
Thirty Three – Until Morale Improves

Session
Thirty Four – Eye on the Prize

Session
Thirty Five – Dodging the Issue

Session Thirty
Six – Spite Unbound

Session
Thirty Seven – Baby Don't Hurt Me

Session Thirty
Eight – Insane Reality

Session Thirty
Nine – Sane Illusions

Conclude – Do Unto
Others

Afterward

Commencement – Point Of View

Tina: Welcome to Games for
Gamers, tonight marks our one-hundredth broadcast, and as a result,
we’ve lined up something extra special.

Roland: Heh.

Tina: The man here laughing
next to me is none other than Roland Yigher, also known as Daniel
Boone in the world of Continue Online.

Roland: Hey now. It’s a
good name, and remember we can’t talk about too much of the
in-game stuff.

Tina: Right, tonight’s
interview comes with rules laid down by Trillium International, our
lord and masters, and the makers of Continue Online. Thank you,
Roland, for the reminder.

Roland: Heh.

Tina: First rule, I can’t
ask questions directly about the game setting itself, this includes
skills, special locations, or other items of that nature.”

Roland: Right, Tina.

Tina: Secondly to that, I can’t
overtly ask questions about the game.

Roland: When it doubt, see rule
number one.

Tina: Do not talk about Fight
Club.

Roland: Basically, yeah. The
lawyers have had a field day with all the information constantly
being posted. Technically AIs, and I’m talking the stuff that
makes military grade drones seem dumb, off the charts, we’ve
got a slew of them speced just to bring down sites as soon as they
get uploaded.

Tina: While we’re on the
subject, Roland, I’ve heard a number of private servers are
knocked out almost seconds after posting information.

Roland: Anything we can find.
Average response time is about three seconds.

Tina: Alright, tonight’s
focus is not on Internet freedom rehashes, instead our questions for
Roland will feature items compiled from our audience in advance.
These questions have been reviewed by Trillium for possible issues
and those that received a pass will get asked.

Roland: All above board I hope,
Tina.

Tina: Of course, we’re
not trying to risk any jobs, we’re only trying to understand
the science behind the magic.

Roland: That can be dangerous
too.

Tina: Question one is simple
enough, why a fantasy world? Why not space ships or superheroes?

Roland: There are two Well, the
original project was proposed by what is now known as the ARC lab,
their head scientist had been an avid game follower and loved some of
the earliest prototype VR machines.

Tina: The old headsets, visual
and audio, that kind of thing?

Roland: Right. There were a few
that went with game consoles but were limited in their immersion.

Tina: Good start, keep going,
Roland.

Roland: Sure, Tina, so fantasy,
which is rich with lore and a lot of unexplained stories seemed the
best bet. It’s hard to delve into a space setting because it
requires a huge knowledge of sciences, which our average player base
wouldn’t have.

Tina: It was easier to explain
away then?

Roland: In essence. The ARC Lab
wanted the freedom to create a world that drew on all the lore and
stories already out there, without having to micromanage the laws of
science.

Tina: Yet the ARC is used for
space exploration training, so one could argue that it supports those
laws as well.

Roland: Those are simulations
and on a much, much smaller scale than Continue Online. Without
exposing too much, there’s a lot in Continue that’s
researched and developed by players, it wasn’t thought out
ahead of time.”

Tina: Alright. We’d
pursue that if there was time, but I’ll keep going forward.
Next question. The time dilation. How exactly is that accomplished?
The technology for it still hasn’t been successfully reproduced
in any other machine.

Roland: Well, Tina. It’s
not done all in one go. Part of Continue Online requires new players
to stay in town for four weeks.

Tina: Before you keep going,
are you okay sharing these details?

Roland: Thanks, Tina, but this
much is fine. This is only one detail that is explained right at the
login of Continue. Everyone who’s tried the game knows it.

Tina: So, public knowledge.

Roland: Right. Anyway, the game
requires you to spend four weeks in a starting town, which amounts to
one week in the real world.

Tina: The four to one
distortion.

Roland: Exactly. Anyway, you’re
not truly at four to one during the first four weeks. Many of the
introductory tasks are boring repetitive ones. The AIs that control
player interaction assist by skipping time here and there.

Tina: Like a quick day at work?

Roland: Right. Or like those
dreams that seem to last forever but really only take up ten minutes.

Tina: I love those.

Roland: It’s like that.
There are periods where your character is doing mundane tasks that
you’ve shown determination to do, but you as a player are
skipping in and out of the game. Gliding over portions so the stress
on your mind is lessened.

Tina: This speeds up during the
first week of real time?

Roland: Right you are, and by
the fourth week in-game, your mind is used to operating at the
quicker speed while logged into Continue.

Tina: Does this translate back
into real world mental acuity?

Roland: Testing shows it does,
but not at any superhuman speed, in fact nearly everything learned in
the ARC can be used in real life, aside from the fantastical items
like fireballs and summoning creatures.

Tina: Too bad.

Roland: Right? But martial
arts, aiming things, all of that does.

Tina: That leads into our next
question. Legally, what sort of worries does Trillium have regarding
the things taught in Continue? And I’ll cite a case for our
example.

Roland: Go ahead.

Tina: A few decades ago there
was a giant move by lawmakers to restrict video games, in general,
citing that people were learning violent tendencies from them. Given
Continue Online’s realism or anything in the ARC, this is
becoming a serious concern again. What does Trillium plan to do about
it?

Roland: Well there’s a
few possibilities. First, Trillium itself is international, it’s
not based in any one country, so making a law that restricts it can
be extremely difficult.

Tina: That’s a given, but
there are previous cases of countries completely banning games within
their borders, prior massively multiplayer online games have been
subjected to this before.

Roland: Indeed, Trillium’s
first step was to integrate the ARC into everyday use for a lot of
things outside the game.

Tina: Okay, what next?

Roland: Then, in the terms and
conditions of using an ARC, there’s a clause that states if any
legal steps are taken to restrict Trillium’s suite of software,
they reserve the right to pull the entire ARC lineup from the
offending country.

Tina: Is that word for word?

Roland: I paraphrased a lot
because of the legal jargon, but it’s in there.

Tina: Basically Trillium has a
stranglehold on the market.

Roland: It can feel like that,
but everyone has the ability to say no, after all, the ARC isn’t
a required device for anyone. It’s a luxury item across the
board, civilians, government, corporations; none of them are forced
to take contracts.

Tina: You can’t argue
that the ARC device has created a veritable stranglehold, though.

Roland: I can say that our AIs
are top notch due to The ARC Lab’s research. I can say that we
have some of the best technology to date out there, and the backing
of the people.

Tina: But you can’t say
you have a stranglehold on the entire immersion market?

Roland: No, we don’t
force anybody or actively seek contracts anymore. The only time we
pursued funding was during the start-up phase, after that Trillium
and ARC had too much to try and grasp for more, besides, many of
Trillium’s employees enjoy Continue as well, so we don’t
need to fight over comforts this side of the ARC.

Tina: Was there anything else
with regard to Trillium’s legal defense?

Roland: We don’t force
people to learn things, they choose to, it’s no different than
locking yourself in a room swinging a kitchen knife. Plus most
countries have a right to bear arms after the Melt Down wars. From
the government’s standpoint, at least here in the North
Americas, it’s like having a well-trained militia ready at any
moment.

Tina: That’s morbid.

Roland: Trillium and the
government are being very forward thinking on this. The technology is
dangerous if abused, but the same could be said of a rock in the
hands of someone willing to lift it.

Tina: Hah, that’s funny,
Roland.

Roland: It’s true. People
are worried about someone going in and learning how to shoot a gun,
so Continue wasn’t placed in a modern setting, but there are
other ARC programs that are just as immersive and don’t focus
on swords and sorcery. We don’t regulate them for what they
teach people.

Tina: Why not?

Roland: I could go on about it,
but most of this, and the laws cited by country, are stated on
Trillium’s web page. Legal has done an amazing job of citing
case and counter case, Tina, and I’d shame myself trying to
repeat their brilliance on that front.

Tina: Interesting. That brings
us to the last topic, and this one is a doozy too.

Roland: If it’s the one
I’m thinking of, Tina, we could go around and around on it.

Tina: I won’t ask for the
byline, our viewers want to hear what it’s like from someone
who’s been inside Continue for longer than your average player.

Roland: Fair enough. Ask the
question though to ensure we’re all on the same page.

Tina: Continue operates at a
higher speed, a year here, is almost four there. How do you think it
will play out? Do you have ideas about the future of humanity if
we’re torn on where we’re spending our time?

Roland: I don’t think of
it as being torn. I think of it as a lease on a longer life. The
immersion ratio is huge. Many of my coworkers will put in a full day
here then do a day or two in Continue, getting something near three
to one for their time. Ask your grandparents how much they would have
loved to find extra hours in the day to learn the things they wanted
to.

Tina: Like skills in the game?

Roland: I’ll do a common
one, fishing, you can fish in Continue and there are some interesting
rewards, but mostly it’s peaceful. Instead of commenting how
this links back to real life, many of us use this as a vacation.

Tina: Okay, I’ll bite,
what do you mean?

Roland: Imagine that instead of
being forced to plan a trip three weeks ahead of time, that you just
grab the family, all of you log in and spend the day together on a
beach, or fishing. Or watching an arena duel, heck, maybe your family
has an entire army to lead that night in some battle.

Tina: And then what?

Roland: That’s it. That’s
the afternoon. You can go to work tomorrow, or school, whatever, but
you’ve got the chance to have a vacation every single night if
you want, with whoever you want. If nothing else, the ARC is amazing
for affording people these kinds of chances.

Tina: We’re veering a
little off point, but you’re still bringing up something
important, Roland.

Roland: I hope so. My wife and
I are closer than ever, instead of planning anniversaries or date
nights, we do a quest, or tackle a tournament, or spar. The woman is
hell with a sword. There’s enough time for everyone to spend
together…

Tina: Or apart.

Roland: Heh, well the missus
prefers to keep an eye on me.

Tina: Some of those avatars are
saucy.

Roland: You’re going to
get me in a different sort of trouble here, Tina.

Tina: Sorry.

Roland: Anyway, here, there,
time is relative, but I think this ability to live however you choose
is the whole point of Continue. It’s in the name.

Tina: There is a certain
freedom to being able to wander the world without ever leaving your
bedroom.

Roland: Or, heh, being able to
spend time with your wife in the bedroom while stationed across the
country.

Tina: Now you’re digging
your own hole. This one isn’t my fault.

Roland: You’re right,
Tina, but don’t get me wrong, there are thrills, challenges,
everything you could want if you Continue Online.

Tina: Well done.

Roland: Thanks. I thought it
was clever.

Tina: Anyway, that’s all
we have tonight folks, Games for Gamers signing off. Say goodnight,
Roland.

Roland: Goodnight, Roland.

Benn Tower: Folks, for those of
you just now tuning in, this is a broadcast for Stranger Danger’s
website to bring you, The Word, I’m your host Benn Tower, and
we’re sitting here with Deacon Rochelle. Today’s topic?
Society's latest blind spot, the Alternate, Reality, Capsule.

Benn Tower: I’m going to
pick up this subject by addressing the name first off. Alternate
Reality? Really? The name alone is a pretentious play on words. As if
they’ve created an entirely different reality on par with our
own.

Deacon Rochelle: As if they
could outshine what God has created.

Benn Tower: Exactly, and then
there’s the letters, A, R, C. An Ark, acting like a single
device is on par with Noah’s Ark. Tell me this isn’t an
attempt at idolatry.

Deacon Rochelle: The name is
only one of many flaws.

Benn Tower: We’ll get to
the other issues in a moment, but this is a good starting place for
those just now tuning in.

Deacon Rochelle: I agree, but
the name is the first hint.

Benn Tower: Here’s how
this thing works. You plug it in, connect to Trillium’s
servers, and your brain actually goes on a trip, into the ether,
cyberspace, la la land. With the munchkins and elves and faerie
people. But, before I get ahead of myself, I want you to understand
that people are in these things for hours at a time. Hours.

Deacon Rochelle: A pure waste
of a God given gift.

Benn Tower: So, plugged in, for
hours, and all of their thoughts, impulses, reactions are routed
through a central source. There’s the first problem, all your
information isn’t yours anymore, it isn’t sacred, it
isn’t, yours, anymore, Trillium International has access to
everything.

Deacon Rochelle: It’s
selfish, and a violation of privacy.

Benn Tower: You’re a
woman of the cloth, when people come to you for a confessional
there’s a vow of trust, that what they say, won’t be
spread around.

Deacon Rochelle: Yes, exactly.
My vows are held by the highest authority, God.

Benn Tower: These people,
plugged in, everything they do is subject to who knows what sort of
twisted minds Trillium has employed, while people use these
pretentious machines for sin.

Deacon Rochelle: Far too often.
The Internet was bad enough thirty years ago, now it’s only
grown worse.

Benn Tower: Here’s some
statistics for you, four out of every five people owning an
Alternate, Reality, Capsule, have used it to simulate adultery. The
problem is that these simulations are professed to have near one
hundred percent authenticity.

Deacon Rochelle: It’s not
only limited to adultery, these programs simulate sodomy, men laying
with other men, or women, and all other manner of base actions one
could imagine.

Benn Tower: These devices are
encouraging people to engage in immoral actions. Not only the sins of
lust, but murder. Murder, this is where things start to go way, way
downhill. First, though, I need to explain how these ARC devices came
into being. Deacon, bear with me while I enlighten the uninitiated.

Deacon Rochelle: By all means.

Benn Tower: These devices, the
Alternate, Reality, Capsules, were first brainstormed by The ARC
Labs, a company under Trillium International. Their first client? The
newly expanded United States Government. Given directly to the
biggest warmongers in the world.

Deacon Rochelle: Especially
after the Melt Down Wars.

Benn Tower: Right, this
government participated in one of the biggest murder sprees in this
millennium, and now they’re standing behind a device that
allows people to experience anything they want. For completely
altruistic reasons I’m sure.

Deacon Rochelle: Not even.

Benn Tower: Government
sponsored. Not just the good old USA warmongers, but others too. I
won’t bother naming them all, but it’s the who’s
who of slaughter encouraging kings.

Benn Tower: Now they’ve
got the first crack at shaping this device, and I’m going to
throw additional numbers at you. Listeners, can you guess how many
programs on this Alternate Reality Capsule, simulate senseless
mayhem? There are over four hundred games dedicated solely to the
idea of putting people, human beings, against other human beings for
combat.

Deacon Rochelle: It goes
against everything a good and decent person should stand for.

Benn Tower: Here’s the
numbers folks. One in six. One in six people, in the world, right
now, has accessed the ARC devices, and killed another person, keep in
mind these are ultra-realistic simulations, basically Trillium has
walked up to every person in the world and said ‘here’s a
gun, go shoot your friend in the face’, and the kicker, people,
is that one in six, one in six has done it. Repeatedly.

Deacon Rochelle: Murderers.
We’ve created a device that trains people to butcher each
other, fornicate with other people’s spouses, and society plain
accepts it.

Benn Tower: Deacon Rochelle
here has a different strategy.

Deacon Rochelle: My
congregation is one of the few remaining that is wholly offline. I’ve
encouraged people repeatedly to not plug in, and that it’s an
affront to the world we’ve been given. We’ve backed up to
an older set of beliefs regarding technology like these capsules.

Benn Tower: And it’s a
good idea. For those who want more information on the dangers of
modern technology, check out Stranger Danger’s site. We’ve
maintained a web presence because it’s the easiest way to get
messages, like Deacon Rochelle’s cause, out to the masses. To
folks like you.

Deacon Rochelle: My church does
have a small Internet presence on your site as well.

Benn Tower: The buck doesn’t
stop there, folks. To roll this ball of insanity into a neat little
package for you, the ARC device; trains people to murder, sponsored
by the government, and we’re not even to the kicker.

Deacon Rochelle: No, we’re
not. It gets worse.

Benn Tower: I’m going to
bring up a simple question for you people listening in the audience.
If this ARC device, this government sponsored machine, if it’s
so great and safe, why did they program it to put the taste of food
into your brain?

Benn Tower: Think about it for
a moment, think, think good and hard folks. Are you putting two and
two together? If not, let me spell it out. This machine can put a
flavor in your head. The flavor of, I don’t know, let's say,
pie, you think you taste it, but your mouth back here in reality, in
the real world, it isn’t even open. You’re sitting in a
device, eyes shut, and tasting a pie.

Deacon Rochelle: It’s a
dangerous slope.

Benn Tower: The question I
have, the real message you all need to put hard thought into, is
this, and this is what I really want you to think about, if this
device, sponsored by a government known for its history of
encouraging war, this device that trains citizens how to kill other
people, and become desensitized, if this device can put a flavor in
your head. What else can it do? Can it make you kill your neighbors
in cold blood? One in six folks. One in six. Think about that the
next time you’re outside, think about that the next time you’re
with your family. Have they been trained, conditioned, and encouraged
to kill?

Deacon Rochelle: And this is
the future people have been waiting for. This is the world countless
individuals worked towards.

Benn Tower: Exactly, folks,
this is the future, and it’s in your head, in your thoughts,
and if I were a betting man, I’d lay odds on this whole thing
being a terrible idea.

The video started with a shaky screen
and two men looking into the front lens. Their faces were covered
with old-fashioned ski masks. One is clearly white, the other darker
skinned. Suspected ethnicity is Hispanic. Both are male. They have
been labeled W and H accordingly.

“Are we on?” W spoke
first.

“Yeah. Recording’s going.”
A female said from somewhere behind the camera. Her fingers come onto
the edge of the screen and wave towards a wide screen television. She
has been labeled as F.

“Fire it up,” Said F.

“Alright, ladies and gentleman.”
W talked right into the screen. He stood between the recording device
and the large television. “This is Team Lance, and we’ve
stolen Trillium’s latest AI program to try and ask it a few
questions.”

He turned to the side where the
possible Hispanic male walked to. “Is it ready?” W asked.

“It’s almost done. I’ve
had to lock this site down six ways from Sunday to even remotely feel
like we are safe.” H answered.

“Alright.” W nodded while
turning back to the camera. “Everyone, we’ve isolated
this site from the network, removed all wireless signals nearby. We
also put up a faraday cage around a majority of the building to make
sure. Final protocol is a surge that will overload everything in five
minutes.”

“Tell them why.” F, the
unseen female prodded.

“Right. This AI is a self-aware,
self-learning program that can think exponentially faster than you or
I.” W seems to be smiling under his mask. “We’ve
made sure it can’t jump the rails into any other equipment.”

“We’re a go!” H gave
a thumbs-up.

“Alright.” W ran back to
the screen. A look of panic touched the features visible under his
ski mask. He hustled back towards the camera then said, “We are
allowing limited access to a dictionary and terabytes of information
about our world and universe.”

“They get it,” F
responded.

“No, not everyone knows
computers like we do. Maybe they don’t get it.” W acted
like the leader. His eyebrows stood out under the loose mask.

“Please, hurry up, it’s
already scanning the first data package,” H said. His mouth
hung open while one finger traced across the screen in front of him.
The exact contents are impossible to see from the recorded camera
angle.

“Okay, okay, we’re going
to ask the AI what exactly they plan to do with humanity. So that all
you technophobes out there, can see.” W fidgeted near the big
screen television.

“Lord above, you guys, this code
didn’t exist until a few minutes ago.” H rubbed his head
while rapping the table with the free hand. “It wrote its own
code. I don’t know if that qualifies for a Turing test, but
whatever it is, it’s adapting.”

“Are you ready for the
questions?” W asks.

“Got it, you talk, I’ll
type. I labeled the video feed to the television as outbound. If it’s
half as smart as the code, it’ll understand what to do.”
The video recording stilled as H squinted at his computer screen off
to the side. “Shit. It’s started already.”

Words crossed the giant
television. They were simplistic and to the point.

“Do you understand me?” W
dictated to H from his cue cards. His hands shook and fidgeted with
the small pieces of paper.

“The AI has access to
at least twelve different languages and chose to communicate in
English?” F spoke up from behind the camera.

“The code shows it ran a percent
calculation based on the likelihood of who was listening.” The
man navigating the computer said.

“What else is it doing?” W
asked.

H rocked back and rubbed his head
again with a hand. “A lot. It’s doing a lot.” He
leaned back in again and started typing.

“Next question. Do you identify
as a self-aware?”

“What was that?”
The standing man, W, asked.

“Latin, I loaded it to see what
would happen.” F's tone sounded nonchalant.

“Okay. Okay. Next question. How
do you perceive humanity?” The leader asked from the right side
of his big screen. He shuffled from foot to foot in agitation.

“Give it the second
package. Let it pull in the data on future projects.” Studies
of the video post release imply these three people gathered all
ongoing technological research.

“Loading up the twenty-year time
line.” H responded.

“Did you see that?”
H asked while pointing a finger at his screen. “It hesitated,
right there!”

“It wasn’t just lag caused
by the information download?” F brushed past the camera and
could be seen for the first time. She bent over H’s shoulder
and scanned the screens.

“No. It’s not even looking
at the new information!” H banged on the table then clapped
happily.

“What’s the point of these
stupid cards if it won’t follow the predicted script?” W
tossed the cards and they fluttered through the air.

“Give it an answer,” F
said while facing H.

“What should I say?” H
asked.

“Tell it we have questions,”
W interjected while tapping his foot. H’s fingers typed out a
string of information.

“Does it know there’s
more than one of us?” W 's face scrunched up under the ski
mask.

“It shouldn’t.” F
seemed to be muttering to herself.

“Okay. Agree to it,” W
said.

“We’re low on
time, wrap it up.” F looked at something above the camera
screen. Her glasses are out of place given modern technology.

“To answer questions.” W
rolled his hand quickly towards H. “Do you think machines will
take over the world?”

“Jesus, going for the big guns?”
H asked. His head shook and fingers typed.

“We’re low on time!”
The female stated while running back to an area behind the camera.

“Type it.” W seemed to be
sweating intensely under his ski mask. One arm drug across his
forehead and the disguise shifted awkwardly.

“What?” W looks
perplexed and is starting to huff. “Ask it again.”

“Are you afraid of
us?”

“Why does it keep
asking that?” W blinked repeatedly.

“Because it doesn’t
understand why we would care or worry about it,” H said. His
fingers ran along the monitor in front of him, over to another
screen, then back. “Here, right here. It is trying to predict
our next questions based on available input.”

“Drop in the last package,”
W advised.

“The doomsday collective?”
H questioned. The other man nodded

There was a blatant pause
between the last two words.

“Two minutes.” The woman
behind the camera said. “Two minutes before we have to clear
out.”

“Okay. Give it the first answer
that comes to your mind. I need to get through these questions.”

“Okay. Wait. No, hold on, it is
doing something.”

“What do I say?”

“Uhhh…”
Bewilderment gripped the room.

“One minute,” F
said.

“Okay, okay, tell it okay.”
W rushed the words.

“Hard drive wipe is coming up.”
H shouted. His fingers typed furiously. What he was inputting could
not be determined accurately.

“Your call, man.”
H said. He pushed away from his computer and started covering his
eyes with both hands.

“Yes! Answer it!”

“Okay, calm down, I’m
typing.” H wiped off his face and nodded.

“Yes!” Both W
and F shouted an answer quickly. The screen vibrated as F jarred the
camera around.

“Give it a name,”
F said. “Quickly!”

“What do we name it?”
F sounded strained.

“I don’t know!” W
shouted.

“This is your idea. I’m
just here to run the keyboard.”

“We’re almost out of time.
Quick!” F picked up the camera everything started to jiggle
around.

“Prosser!” The leader
broke down and shouts the name. H, their computer operator, sat up
and typed the information immediately.

In the background, a whir of noise
kicked in. An old fashioned printer started spitting out reams of
information. Moments later, with only twenty pages freshly inked, the
room shuttered and everything shorts out. The hum of electricity is
gone. The room turned chaotic.

“Did we kill it?” F said.
Her voice shook with horror.

“It was never alive.” W
gave a faint response. His pale complexion was clearly visible even
under the mask. There is a scramble as F came out from behind the
camera.

“It asked for a name, and you
gave it one!” F shouted. H rapidly got between them trying to
keep both people separated. “It sought validation and you
acknowledged its worth!” She shouted over their partner.

“It is only a program!” W
said. “We were never going to save the data!” His hands
twisted with clear agitation in both their manner of movement and
speed.

“It was alive until
you pulled the plug.” F yelled back. Her voice went high and
caused a brief overload of the poor quality video. The clip shook as
someone else picked up the discarded camera and pressed the power
switch, halting playback.

Session Eighteen - Faction Grind

Once, when talking to my therapist, I
asked why everything seemed to start and end with death. His answer
had been simple. We remember what hurts. The closer the person, the
deeper the wound was, only sometimes they were deep enough that every
little breath triggered the pain.

Monday started with me laying back in
the Alternate Reality Capsule or ARC. Sleeps respite had not been
achieved due to my thoughts being entirely too serious. One hand was
raised in the air to assist in an absent-minded study of skin
patterns. Hair swept off to one side like a painter’s brush
stroke. Toes wiggled freely and suddenly both arms shot up in a lazy
stretch.

“I
wonder what he thought at the end.” No one was in my house to
answer the question. “Did he feel happy?” My sense of
WWCD, What Would Carver Do, didn’t extend to mind reading. I
think, I hoped, that I had done right by the old man. Though now was
a bit late to worry. My own mantra stayed simple enough. Move
forward. Try not to dwell on the past. Keep breathing steadily. Break
down only once everything else was stable.

An alarm in my ARC started frantically
beeping. Slowly I sat up.

“Ehhh.”
The habit I picked up while pretending to be William Carver seemed to
be ingrained into my real life actions. That or the physical abuse
imposed by my EXR-Sevens had caught up. They were a complicated set
of bands that went around various parts of my body to assist in
simulated exercise. Muscles felt wounded and clenched in pain with
each breath. I muddled through, went to the washroom, put on clothes
with a vacant air, and finally slid into the front of my Trillium
repair van.

“Good
morning, User Legate. Was your vacation enjoyable?” Hal Pal sat
in the back of the van. Its face was the same impassive expression it
always was, but its tone seemed smug.

“Pick
a job, Jeeves,” I said.

“Affirmative.
Possible destinations being identified. Sorting by user preference
order. Job identified. Estimated time of arrival thirty minutes.”

“Okay.”
I read the details briefly on the van’s digital projection.
“Coffee first.”

“Affirmative.
Rerouting in progress.”

So it went.

Minutes later we were on a
thoroughfare and off to the first of today’s many missions. I
sipped at coffee while wondering what the results of my hectic
adventure would be. The Voices in Continue Online had to be somewhat
pleased with the performance. I was. Was William Carver’s
original player?

That part worried me. I had come to
the conclusion that William Carver, the player, had been watching
everything from a remote location. Probably through something like
the Second Player helm I used with Beth. I made a mental note to ask
James about the man if my return to Continue Online didn’t
somehow reveal a great mystery.

Work was much the same even after
weeks of vacation. People still acted like addicts to the machine.
They complained about the prices and how long a repair job took. I
did my standard customer service actions and almost felt honest to
god sympathy. That feeling hadn’t really passed through my
brain in months.

I took naps when the travel time was
going to be too long. Otherwise, my car ride was spent researching
how other people were handling life between reality and the ARC. My
coworkers work history was public viewing so I started there.

“Hal
Pal, can you double check these figures for me?”

“The
search history displays an overabundance of unexplained data for us
to provide speculation on.” Hal Pal responded. I frowned. Maybe
there were too many windows displayed for the AI. It may be an
incredibly complex piece of software, but that didn’t make the
machine a mind reader.

The ARC on the other hand…

I shook my head and explained the
whole purpose behind my mess of screens.

“I’m
trying to calculate how lazy I can be at work.” To Trillium’s
customer base, there were a million ways to explain things. To an AI,
it was easier to be direct.

“Based
on current performance levels you would require seventeen basic
repairs each week. This will support your current minimal
expenditures.”

I chewed on the inside of one cheek in
speculation. Harder jobs paid more. Bulk jobs or specialty orders
provided bonuses when performance met a high enough rating. There
were entire programs that Trillium provided its field repair in order
to calculate it all.

Henry Uldum, my boss, might have
something to say about this. Maybe bumping out some of the other
field techs for the good jobs would be possible. In the past year, I
never squabbled over work. Normally I took anything that was in the
queue and moved on. Now there was something less self-abusive to take
up my spare time.

No. This was too much thought for the
entire thing. I was thinking about the game as if playing was a
forgone conclusion. First I would see what James had to say about the
virtual invasion of my dancing program. This ‘leftover’
bit of my deceased fiancée needed a real explanation. Then,
only then, would continuing to play Continue come into play. Just
thinking about that tongue-twister made my head hurt. Soon I was
laughing in the van. My actions prompted Hal Pal into another line of
question and answer time as we made our way to the next job.

“Right,
business as usual.” I nodded, satisfied in my decision. Bills
had to be paid. My niece had college and the cost of retirement kept
increasing. Forty was too close for comfort.

Hours later I returned home pleased
that I fought off the urge to play video games all day long. There
was something about being able to resist the temptation that
validated my current path. Video games, in their own way, were more
severe than drinking had been.

Hal Pal gave its standard parting and
went about cleaning up the van. Once inside the normal night routine
went into motion. First I switched from the work jumpsuit into a
short sleeved shirt and boxers. Second I brushed all thirty-two
teeth. Third I laid down into the ARC and logged in.

My Atrium was an unholy mess. Counting
to ten did not help reduce the unreasonable amount of anger that
flooded through me. Someone, correction, something had been tearing
up the home like a puppy being abandoned. The damage was amazing for
something half the size of a cat.

“Get
out here!”

Nothing.

“Don’t
tell me you’re not listening!” I shouted into the doorway
that was left open to Continue Online.

There was still no worthwhile
response.

I kicked my way across the room. My
friend the [Messenger’s Pet] was one hundred percent
behind this nonsense. Books that represented my ARC’s programs
lay all over the floor and showed marks on the edges from chewing.
Glasses were broken and wrappers strewn about. There was a
comfortable recliner that had been reduced to ribbons on the back.
That wasn’t even one of my purchases.

“ARC!”

“Awaiting
Input.” The machine responded.

“Reset
Atrium, basic. No programs!” I said.

“Please
confirm your order.”

“Reset
my Atrium! Basic!” Lippy computer. It was no longer on the list
of polish worthy devices. This ARC would get recycled as soon as the
takeover occurred.

The world around me shimmered as items
vanished from digital existence. Resetting things was aggravating.
This destructive nonsense would force me to create a default template
for easy cleanup.

“He’s
not even in here,” I muttered. A basic Atrium layout was
essentially empty white space. All that remained was the dark doorway
that went to Continue Online.

Fine. I, Grant Legate, may be
emotionally wobbly, stuck in the past, and guilty of idolizing a dead
woman, but I wasn’t dense. Especially not in light of Continue
forcing its presence upon my Atrium. My arms were crossed while I
muttered curses under my breath. Both feet gave into the urge for
exaggerated stomps. Mentally childish was added to the list of
self-assessed faults.

The game world popped me right into
the room of trials, or the space between as James called it. There
was the familiar darkness lit up by a broken pillar and my Ultimate
Edition book.

“Hello.”
My head tilted back and scanned around the black room.

Nothing.

“Seriously?”
I sighed and felt like everything was back to square one. Fine, if
that’s how the Voices wanted to play it. An attempt to throw
the book failed. The darn thing was too heavy to even lift up. A
sense of amusement swept through the darkness. Of course they were
out there, watching me.

“ARC!”

“Awaiting
input.” The machine answered in the same absent-minded tone.

“Log…”

“There’s
no need to be so hasty, Grant Legate.” James faded into
existence a few feet away. Both the black man’s hands were
folded over his pot belly. I had successfully bluffed the machine.

“Really,
James?” I waved around. “Back to the book? Aren’t
we passed that?”

“I’ll
treat that as one question, and no, we will never truly move on.
After all, it’s your story we’re talking about.”

I blinked and twisted my face up in
puzzlement. That made no sense. Maybe it was vaguely neat perhaps? If
the machine wanted to pretend all this was symbolism for a grandiose
purpose, who was I to argue?

“My
turn for a question, Grant Legate.” He said.

Today had been a long day, one that
involved numerous special people. I had no patience for the name
calling. Plus part of me was anxious to get right to my answers. One
hand waved towards James for him to keep going.

“Why
did you find opening the book aggravating?”

“Because
all of you seem to pop in any time you want to, why-” I cut off
my own question. “-it seems pointless to bother with it.”

“Ah.
Very well, your turn.” He said.

“I’d
rather have my answers, James, I did what you asked with Carver.”
Every single WWCD instinct available to me had been put into play. My
four weeks in his shoes had hopefully put a good ending on the
matter.

“That
you did.”

“My
man Wild Willy loved it.” Leeroy faded in with one overly
muscled arm resting on James’ shoulder. The black man looked
annoyed and waved the other Voice away.

“That’s
good to hear.” Part of me felt revitalized by Leeroy’s
feedback. Once I learned that William Carver had been alive, the
entire situation took on a personal tone. There was a palpable
difference between a computer and a person. At least in terms of how
I viewed it. I shook the other thoughts out of my head. That line of
thinking would go in endless circles. If Washington couldn’t
figure out an AI’s legal status, how could I?

“Is
he okay?” I asked.

James tucked back a cheek, presenting
a frown.

“That
is a question I can’t answer personally.”

“Okay.”
The word drew out slowly while thoughts whirled through. “What
do we do then?”

“Open
the book, Grant Legate.” James stepped back while still
scowling from a nagging thought. I had to remind myself that he was a
computer program putting on an act.

“Why?”

“You
ask far too many questions. Remember our deal.” James went from
distracted annoyance to directly focused displeasure. All of it aimed
at me.

“You
could ask questions you know.”

“I
could, but I’m beginning to worry that you’re a
completely open book.” Irritation touched the edge of his mouth
and eyes.

“Merely
tired of hiding things.” I sighed. My personality wasn’t
always stable. Part of that was due to trauma from my fiancée’s
passing. Attempting to kill myself twice hadn’t helped. Plus
being forced to bare those wounds repetitively had dulled the normal
offense someone might feel.

“I
do have one question actually.” James mused. His disapproval
had transformed into a sly smile.

“Fire
away. I owe you a few.” Part of me felt tired and drained.
Today had been a long day.

“What
was her name?”

“Who?”
Wariness flooded me.

“Your
fiancée, the woman who died and left you in such a state.”
That was actually a very good question. So good that I paused and
debated how to answer. Her name wasn’t something I thought of,
much like her passing.

“That's
not a good question, James.” As if the cosmos were mocking my
bravado at being an open book, James poked the wound in a spot that
had never fully healed.

“The
fact that you’re protesting means it is a very good question.”
Fine. James had a point. When was the last time I had even thought
her name?

“Xin.”
I said softly.

“Xin?
That is not native to your tongue.” James had one eyebrow up
and a hand half lifted in question.

“Her
parents were from China.”

“Interesting.”
He nodded briefly.

“Which
part?” That made my head tilt in confusion.

“I
hadn’t expected her to be of another race. My information shows
that people in your world and ours avoid mixed relationships. You
yourself said something similar when we first met.”

“Yeah.”
Continue Online hadn’t exposed me to any racism at this point.
Haven Valley was fairly quiet even though it straddled the border
between two major political arenas. Maybe people left Carver out of
it.

“It’s
less common in our world though it got bad again after the last few
wars.” Racial hatred had grown especially terrifying for the
Chinese. They had been blamed for a lot of economic issues as trade
between countries went through upheavals.

“Did
this bother you?”

“God
no. She was…” Was, that word came out of my mouth and
tore at me. Three years and it was still impossible to let go. “-she
was, uhh, a great person.”

“Xin
Legate?” James questioned. I couldn’t even make eye
contact with the man, but his tone felt softer.

“She
hadn’t decided on if she would keep her name or, uhh, take
mine.” Cultural practices differed. Xin, my fiancée, had
been…

Talking to James was actually
overwhelming. I had to get away from this entire line of thinking.
All so my happy place wouldn’t be utterly destroyed. Her smile
flashed through my brain for a moment. Everything drowned out in a
swell of mental music which enticed a weak smile to my face. A waltz.
She would love a dance.

I tried not to let past wounds creep
up as one hand cracked the book’s cover. Light shone from out
of the pages. Bright colors from all over the rainbow's spectrum
filled the room. ‘Congratulations!’ stood out from the
page in popup fashion.

“What?”
That shook the growing melancholy. I embraced bewilderment as it
displaced my negative emotions.

“You
did great, man!” Leeroy was back and clapping giant meaty fists
together. Without warning, my body was flung sideways by something
red skinned.

“Ahhh!”
Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no.

My legs were pinned, both arms
covering my face and an extremely pleasurable sensation rushed
through the length of my body. Her fingers had started tearing the
poor virtual shirt to shreds. Soft hair dripped across my
increasingly exposed skin. The Temptress was very much on top of me,
unclothed, and growling in what was perhaps the most arousing manner
to ever come into my life.

“No!”
I protested with what mental capacity was left. Most of it was
otherwise distracted.

“Yes!”
She sat up and started rocking. My responses were perfectly natural,
even here in a digital landscape.

“No?”
My tone had shifted as my face flushed and pants grew tight.

“Yes!”
She started tearing at my shirt again.

No one was coming to my rescue. James
and Leeroy were both gone leaving behind the broken pillar and book.
A colorful ‘Congratulations’ taunted me. I tried with
increasing weakness to fight off the red skinned woman.

“No.
Please. No. I hardly know you.” The Temptress was above me
stretching in a way that had my mind going all sorts of wrong, or
right. Depending on how I felt about biological programming. Even
now, saying the word biological would be impossible.

“You’ll
know me as well as any man if you say yes.” She had moved on
without me. Teeth were tugging at the waistband of my avatar’s
pants. I wasn’t sure if I should be thankful or upset that they
weren’t coming off. Instead, my waistband seemed to be held on
by an invisible force.

Her eyes appeared to be gesturing to
the side at a window that had been invisible during my lust laden
fog.

‘Yes’
and ‘no’ buttons floated below the quest text. Reaching
for the no button was almost as hard as other unmentionables. Worse
still, it ran away from my finger.

“Yes!”
The Temptress growled around my waistband. The yes button got bigger.

I kept reaching for the no.

“Yes!”
A wave of pleasure wracked my brain and caused a groan to escape my
lips. The machine was not playing fair. Three years without sex and
being jumped by an exotic beauty had nearly done me in. I tried to
operate one hand and think of all the calming items from my teenage
years. Knees flexed in an effort to force blood elsewhere.

“Yes!”

“No.
Not like this.” I gasped and surged my hand towards the ‘no’
a final time. This one was successful.

The Temptress faded away with a groan
of utter disappointment, clearly voicing the frustration she felt at
being denied. My heart raced and thudded. According to the health
tracker that went with my EXR-Seven bands, I was well past the cardio
zone.

“He
said no?” A little girl’s voice came through.

“Ha,
ha, ha.” Somewhere in the background the Jester was laughing
its mechanical laugh.

“Man,
Grant Legate. You are definitely different from Wild Willy, aren't
you?” Leeroy was peering down at my recovering form. I blinked
a few times and tried to figure out what had happened.

“You
could say that.”

“He
would have tried to hit that so hard that she would walk funny for
days.” Leeroy grinned. I shuddered and tried to avoid thinking
about the entire situation. Merely the hint of remembrance had kept
life hard this entire time.

“What’s
a matter, Grant Legate? A girl gotta buy you dinner first?”
Leeroy was sort of an ass.

“If
you wanted something to eat, all you had to do was ask.” Her
lust ridden tones attacked my senses. The words were cheesy, but it
didn’t stop my face from growing flushed again. Leeroy’s
grinning face did not match the Temptress’ words in my ear. She
wasn’t even in the room, but her presence flooded me again. I
rolled over with a groan and pretended to bury my head in the sand.

“Need
a hand?” Leeroy asked. His tone was amused. The Voice gave off
a bro mentality that had taken up part of my college years. Not that
I was a bookworm and hid in the library all day, I just couldn’t
get behind their extreme actions sometimes.

“No.
I need a minute.” I reached for the logout button.

Back in the real world I awoke with
the same problem as the virtual one. A bulge stood out in a
relatively forgotten part of my anatomy. At least out here it was
easier to calm down. Had the computer tried to rape me? No, there had
been a clear line of required consent.

“Fuck.”
I gritted out the simple curse.

Questions remained to be answered.
Reaching them entailed wading through Continue Online’s latest
head game. What had James said, they didn’t rely on smoke and
mirrors to entice people to play? Logging back in was best done
before my nerve completely collapsed. Sitting outside the machine
would lead to added uncertainty. Moments later I descended back into
the ARC’s virtual world and made my way into Continue Online.

“Welcome
back, Grant Legate.” James had returned to his passive
expression. Judging everything with those eyes.

“Can
we not do that again?”

“That
is completely up to you and Mezo,” James’ expression
broke with a slight smile. The Temptress’ name is Mezo? “I
will not control the choices you make.”

I started to open my mouth again for
an angry retort, but James raised a hand and cut me off.

“Why
did you say no?” Right, we had a deal. His questions than mine.
There had to be something resembling an even exchange.

“I
don’t know.”

“Come
now, Grant Legate. We’ve talked about this. Take the time you
need and answer the question.”

“James,
you let the man be and move things along. Tut. Taking all this time
to sate your own needs without worrying about your charges. It’s
disgraceful.” Maud was defending my inability to formulate an
answer. Her hands and legs were surrounded by children who seemed to
be looking in all directions with interest.

“I’ve
upheld my nature throughout.” James went from amused to
offended with a simple twist of his cheeks and turned down pitch.

“Past
debts must be settled when they can be.” One of the children at
Maud’s feet clamored for attention. She gave the small one a
pat on the head while glaring at James.

“Ah.
Yes, first thing’s first.” The male Voice admitted.

Part of me tried to gauge what sort of
results punching a Voice might yield me. A bonus to Divine Attention
for sure, maybe another hit to some stat in-game. I settled on
overlooking the whole thing and waited for James to move us onward.

“For
this part, I believe it’s best handled by someone else.”
James turned stern and gained a few inches in height. His gaze cast
around the dark room. “No one is to interfere.”

Thunder rolled as the black man
scowled into the room. There were flashes of other faces that I
associated with various Voices. Muttering, rush of noises, and
finally a bright chime of light that shut all other actions down.
James looked pleased with the last note.

“Which
one of you was that?”

“Mother,”
James said. “Your answers next, Grant Legate. Then perhaps we
can speak of other things.”

I tucked back one side of my lips and
raised an eyebrow. James shook his head in denial and faded away.
From behind, where James had pointed, came a clicking that sounded
absurdly familiar. Cane struck the ground in a slow step and
footsteps huffed in the dark room.

“Do
you prefer Grant or Mister Legate?” It was like hearing a ghost
speak. The pitch and tone belonged to a man I had posed as for nearly
four weeks.

“Carver?”
I turned around and saw the old man standing there. Both his hands
clutched a blackened cane. My first thought was about how short he
seemed from this perspective.

Session
Nineteen – Answers, Mister Legate?

“I…”
I had no clue where to start. William Carver was dead. It was a fact
because I had been in his body when the old man passed.

“How…”
Was he still alive?

Seconds, maybe minutes, passed as my brain tried to connect thoughts
with repeated clinks of failure. Finally, it hit me. Right. This was
a video game of sorts. Letting the realism of its denizens fool me
was a major mistake. William Carver’s body was no more real
than I was. We were both just a series of code being compiled by an
advanced piece of machinery. The better question was…

“Are
you the man, or the machine?” I asked.

William Carver gave a small smile before answering. “Good. You
catch on quick and ask questions that matter.” He seemed much
less grumpy than how I portrayed him.

After four weeks of trying to understand all the world’s
Carverisms I better catch on quick. Still, awareness didn’t
prevent a disconnection between being Carver and talking to Carver.
Did identical twins feel like this? Thank goodness Liz and I weren’t
that type.

“That’s
not an answer.” I shook my head. “But Leeroy had said the
real player was nearly brain dead after a heart attack…”
I muttered to myself. Leeroy had actually used a tasteless name in my
opinion.

Carver stood with a cane in hand and waited for me to piece things
together. That seemed like a Carver response. I, Grant Legate, was
across from what had to be an NPC version of the player. The simplest
explanation was probably the correct one. I didn’t want to
contemplate a Voice who mimicked the dead. That would be rude, even
for a video game. Plus that Jester Voice had even stated he wouldn’t
dare disrespect a memory. So….

“His
autopilot?” I took a stab.

“Yes.
I am what you, what I, would have dubbed as an autopilot.” The
old man nodded and smiled a bit wider.

“Then
who was the player? From my world?” My feet slowly paced around
Carver, as if seeing him from the side would make things clearer. The
old man turned with my pacing and a half frown of annoyance flashed
across his face.

“I
am also him, after a fashion.” He said.

A Carver groan escaped me. This was one of the many fears that people
had been contemplating since the idea of an immersible virtual
reality came up. I wanted to be horrified. I wanted to run screaming
out and break the ARC until nothing but shiny metal bits and a half
displayed frowning face existed. Yet none of that happened. Briefly,
my mental image of James popped up and asked why. This wasn’t
the real Voice, only a faint expectation of his response to my
thoughts.

“They
mapped your brain.” I face palmed and sighed.

“In
conjunction with endless hours within the virtual world.”
William Carver nodded and seemed close to dancing happily. “It's
nearly an outright transfer of consciousness.”

“I
half expected this.”

“I
imagine so. Trillium’s employee files show you, more than most,
know what the ARC is capable of.” He said.

Talking to William Carver confirmed one of the theories to cross my
mind in the last four weeks. Sitting on the bench as Carver hadn’t
been all newbies and quests, frustration and naps. There had been
downtime to read Carver’s attempts at smut and sift through
possibilities.

“It’s
a giant complex mess of devices that reads thought, to transform it
into data and action. Saying that it could copy a personality isn’t
that far-fetched.” I said. A brief bout of worry for my niece
passed through my mind before being put back in its mental box. I had
spent too much time trying to keep my head screwed on right this
week.

“The
ARC does not modify anything in the brain itself. It only causes
users to, in essence, relive experiences.” William Carver
confirmed the Trillium byline. This topic was dangerous to over think
for any sane person.

“Tell
that to Stranger Danger’s following. Their site has at least
forty solid hours of rants about ARC conspiracies.” I responded
with that instead. Hal Pal had kindly given me the statistics.

“Can
we both assume that such paranoia is nonsense?” Carver looked
grumpy and leveled a glare my way.

“I
don’t know enough about it to be worried.”

“You’re
clever enough to guess that I was the autopilot.” Carver said.

“Yeah,”
I said.

My background was crunching numbers. I had barely understood my
fiancée’s rocket science. Putting modules into ARC
machines was a relatively new carrier. Neuroscience was not my forte
so I took Carver’s words at face value. The computer had
scanned in what it could, combined it with what it knew and tried to
recreate a real man here inside the digital world.

“You’re
clever enough to pose as me and give me comfort in my final days.”
His forehead lowered and both eyes squinted.

“I
tried.” That was in the past. Failures and successes aside,
what had happened couldn’t be undone. Xin’s face flashed
through my mind again and I clamped down on the swiftly changing
emotions.

“You
did well. There, in the end, that final battle, the rush of each
swing, falling, and getting back up.” Carver lifted the black
cane up and gave it a weak swing. “Almost as well as I might
have done.”

“Not
even close, I’m sure.” I laughed. That had been exciting
sure, super neat, but each attack was laced with my second-rate
ability as a player. At least this subject was more comfortable than
the ARC mind mapping concept.

“And
Mylia!” William Carver sounded younger than he had previously.
Less gruff and curt. Maybe this was more of the player shining
through than an AI’s progress bar. “That
was a surprise.” The older man’s face was nearly rapt
with glee. If it wasn’t for his hands being grasped on the
cane, I might expect him to start swiveling in excitement with doe
eyes.

“It
was neat,” I said.

“How
did you know?” William asked.

“Uhhh…”
The empty blackness that Carver and I existed in provided no
assistance. “A terrible guess based on a misspent youth?”

“Good
God. Was it that obvious?” Carver rubbed his face with a rough
gnarled hand. “I felt like it was the dragon all over again,
her father if I were to guess.”

“I
never got the entire story.” Mylia’s actual back story
was not something I’d learned. Carver lifted a hand and leaned
in like he was sharing a great secret. Slowly he whispered.

“When
you get back to Haven Valley, look for the monument, they put it
where my bench used to be. If you could believe that! The Voices tell
me there will be a video for all Travelers to see regarding my
legacy. Way better than a gold watch I’ll tell you.” He
smiled broadly and stood upright again.

“Anyway,
it was a fitting end!” He declared with a rap of the cane.

“Is
it the end?” I questioned.

“For
me, for him, for both of us, yes.” Carver paused and sighed.
“I, I should feel upset that I was set aside to allow you
control, and I was worried a few times. But no longer.”

“I
didn’t even realize until the end that the Traveler…”
I started to explain. Both eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.
Referring to Carver, while talking to Carver, was weird. “…that
the player was still alive. Not until near the end.”

“Barely.
But you were right. I, he, was too hard headed to die without one
last adventure.” William’s face twisted with rue and
happiness. “The entire event was being projected to us, or him,
me, my body in the real world.”

“Then?”
This wasn’t going anywhere pleasant. Realistic, understandable,
but absolutely not a happy ending. William Carver couldn’t just
leap out of his bed and dance a jig with perfect recovery.

“He,
I, we passed from the old world that night.” The cane lifted
and gestured to one side. “Shortly after your fight.”

“What
now?” I asked. The whole subject of a digital version saying
the physical one was dead kind of worried me. He seemed lost so I
switched questions. “How much do you remember?”

This mirror image of the player seemed to share many of the memories
that went with William Carver or, at least, his in-game life. Part of
me really wanted to dive in and ask all about where the man and where
the machine ended. Having walked in his shoes all that time made the
very thought impossible to act upon.

“How
much?” William Carver tilted his head and looked up. “It
is strange, I remember all of my adventures. I remember portions of
my family and the things that were said while in the ARC. I remember
seeing myself, sitting in the room and being annoyed that things were
taking so long.”

Moments passed while William chewed on a lip. That was a habit I’d
never picked up.

“But
I don’t remember my son’s face.” He seemed
distraught. Seeing an old man’s face crumple was nearly as bad
as seeing a child breakdown. A downward pull of lips implied
bitterness at the thoughts going through his brain. Had he really
never considered his life on my side of the machine?

“James?
Can you do something for me?” I looked behind me towards where
the Voice had stood before.

“If
allowed, I will try.” The black man’s words resounded
forth from darkness.

“Use
your connection to my ARC, look up William’s real name, and get
him a picture at least?”

There was a rush of murmuring that I’d come to associate with
the Voices talking. Sounds similar to a river’s babble. Tones
and pitches of all flavors melded as computerized logic was applied
to my situation.

“James?”
I questioned.

“They
won’t do it. The AIs are shackled to prevent them from
crossing.” William said sadly. “This is the price.”

“I
gave James access to my ARC.” Briefly, it occurred to me how
dangerous that action might have been. For now, it might allow me to
give the old man one final parting gift.

When Xin had passed I threw out most of our things or gave them away.
The pictures were kept privately in a small binder under my bed.
William’s grief could be minimized by such a small gesture. It
was the kind of assistance that helped with my own sorrow.

“We
will do this.” James said. Surprise and relief washed across
William’s features.

“Thanks.”
I muttered and tried not to make eye contact with the older man. This
was awkwardly embarrassing, even for a man like myself who regularly
shared his stories to strangers.

“What
do you want in exchange?”

“Nothing.
Not for this.” I would feel guilty. This wasn’t an action
where repayment was expected.

“Not
even your fiancée?” William’s features adopted a
concerned look.

“I
imagine parts of her were scanned by an ARC for her job, and, uhh,
they linger around in here.” I spoke slowly.

“They
do.”

Fervent thoughts of finding a happy place spiraled through. This
answer couldn’t shatter me. I had done well this far, focusing
on responding to each sentence. Moving onward and not spending a lot
of time in the past. God. Liz was right. I was such a crybaby. All I
did was drag myself through hell over and over as if poking the
wounds on my soul had grown addicting.

“Why?”
My voice held together for the one word.

“To
make this world real. Millions were scanned, everyone who ever
stepped into the ARC.”

“Including
me?” I nodded. The answer was fairly obvious.

“Yes.”
For a moment, there was a sparkle in Carver’s eye. Was it
amusement? “Everyone. The longer we stay, the more the machine
maps and stores your responses. What makes you happy, angry, how your
mind dances as time winds by.”

“That’s-”
There were no good words. Terrible? Horrifying?

My face grew cold as it occurred to me what the machine was doing.
Dead or alive, it was basically reincarnating individuals inside.
Souls were still an unsolved topic in my world. The ARC Lab, Continue
Online, Trillium, had tapped into the closest thing and brought it to
life. Our very minds and memories were mimicked within this digital
world.

“That’s
insane.” I declared. My knees felt weak and head swam. “You’re
talking about-” There was an entire poem about this that
crossed my mind. I couldn’t remember the start, but I
remembered the end and muttered it now.

“They
will come back, come back again, as long as the red Earth rolls. He
never wasted a leaf or a tree, do you think He would squander souls?”
Kipling’s poem applied to a digital reality. I fell down to my
ass and sat there.

“She.”
William corrected absently.

“Mother?”

“Yes,”
He said.

“And
Xin is one of them. A reused soul.” I stated while trying not
to let my stomach sink.

“As
close as mankind dare reach, yes.” William confirmed.

“With
enough of herself to attach to my ARC and the dance program.” I
wasn’t stupid. Maybe this was me filling in the blanks without
fact checking. Still, there was so much on the programming side that
didn’t make sense to me. This, though, this vague concept of
what the machine had done, that I understood.

“Yes.”
I should be angry at the old man’s admission. “She, a
small portion of the imprint, took notice once the Ultimate Edition
was activated.” William said.

“But
only that once?” I hadn’t seen her afterward.

“Mother
pulled her back in, I’ll tell you, an errant imprint caused
quite the commotion around here.” James said while standing
nearby. I knew the large man would be watching this revelation. There
was no way a man like him would ignore a goldmine like our
conversation.

But I was glad she was alive in some fashion. There were many
questions to ask, too many to sort through. Questions of morality and
mortality could be posed right now and may never be answered to my
satisfaction. What would happen if the Continue Online’s
servers went down? Was she the same person here?

I
settled for one all-consuming question and said, “Is
she happy?”

“I
believe so.” William Carver said. The old man sighed and
deflated. His shoulders dipped low. “I must hope so, what
happened to her will soon happen to me.”

“What
do you mean?” I said.

“Balance
restricts even us, Grant Legate.” James said. “Soon the
being you know as William Carver will be scattered and born anew
throughout our world.”

“Like
Xin was?”

“Yes.
Your world has legends of the river of unmindfulness, Lethe, ours has
something similar.” The people of this world suddenly mattered
a lot more to me. What was left of my fiancée’s spirit,
digital or not, was out there in a strange land.

“Wild
Willy,” Leeroy faded in. “It’s almost time.”

“I
understand.” The old man nodded. He looked at my collapsed form
with a frown.

There
was a nuzzling at my shoulder. A familiar weight that belonged to the
[Messenger’s
Pet] climbed
up on my arm. I turned and looked. Once again, as he had before, the
small creature held something in his mouth. One hand went out and
waited for a deposit.

“Mh?”
Sniffling threatened to overrun me. Three years and there were yet
more tears to be found. Voices, what an emotional train wreck my life
had become. It felt like I was unable to last five minutes without
spiraling backward.

“Take
this, William.” I held up the now unrolled item. There was a
picture with a face upon it.

“Thank
you.” William looked down with a smile. “Hah. What do you
know, he has Phil’s eyes, or does Phil have his?” That
soft indirect question shook me out of the depressive funk a little.
My suspicious glare to James was met with an amused but unclear
smile. Adding an eyebrow to my questioning tone garnered no further
information.

“Here.
I won’t need this where I’m going.” William Carver
pressed something into my free hand. The other was busy wiping at my
face with a sleeve on my mended shirt. Thank goodness the ARC program
had restored it after my encounter with the Temptress’ wanton
ways.

William
was led off by Leeroy into another doorway. Much like the same one I
had first used to step into Carver’s life. I looked up and
wondered if this scene would also make its way to a certain High
Priestess of Selena. By now, at least five, maybe six days, had
passed in [Arcadia].
Carver’s death would be known to the entire town.

With a bright flare and a sound like breaking glass the old man
disappeared. Absently I wondered if this was his first death or
third. There was a long silence in the room of trials, in this space
between that I’d both come to enjoy and detest the past few
weeks. A number of painful things had happened, but at the same time,
there were a lot of exciting memories.

“Now,
Grant Legate, we are far overdue for the true purpose of your
arrival.” The black man turned serious. His hands clasped
tightly over his belly.

“No
more questions?” I asked James.

“I
will always have questions, but all things serve a purpose, and you
must start your own journey in our world, if you choose to.”

“Okay.”

“Will
you?” James asked.

“That’s
a question, James.” I tried to be clever with my words. There
was no heart in the response, though. His inquiry was a fair one. Did
I want to keep going now that I knew the grand secret?

At least there were no aliens involved or strange doorways to
alternate realities. No. William had explained that this was a
machine that emulated human beings. Everyone that had ever stepped
inside with all the knowledge they possessed. Considerable as that
might be. Pieces of Xin were scattered all across this world.
Incomplete, shattered, did that concept call to me? God yes, or more
appropriately, Voices yes it did.

“I
think I will. For a bit longer.” My time as Carver had been
enjoyable but rushed. It would be nice to play Continue Online for
what it was, a game. A distraction.

“Then
we must make decisions.” James stood up and waved one arm. A
giant screen came into being looking like a throwback to role playing
games from decades ago. Flattened out imagery displayed a character
sheet hanging in the air with statistics and other details.

New
players always beamed into [Haven
Valley] with
a baseline of ten in everything. The [Inspection]
skill
made that much obvious. My highest traits, as measured by the
computer, were [Coordination]
and
[Learning].
Both likely due to my endless dancing and the poetry I professed to
know portions of. I did have a Master’s Degree back in the real
world, so I’d been around the block. [Divine
Favor] was
through the roof. My interactions with the Voices, and playing as
William Carver, had likely contributed greatly. It was almost double
the other statistics. My [Strategy]
statistic
was amazingly low. [Speed]
wasn’t
that high either. Both were just below a new player’s baseline.
I really had no idea how to weigh these things against seasoned
players.

I waved the box away.

“I’ll
look at them later. Let’s finish this up.” I had a vague
idea of where my stats were.

“Very
well. Then let me simplify the process.”

I nodded.

“New
Travelers, except rare cases granted by us, start out as humans.
Nothing in your actions with my trials or as William Carver will
allow me to alter that.” He spoke in an even tone.

Human I would be. Part of me found it vaguely interesting that
everyone started out that way. My niece had been a half demon thing,
right? Her man friend, whatever his name was, had been a tiger
creature of some sort. Well, whatever. I tried to focus on one step
at a time.

“In
addition, we will be restricted from letting you start in [Haven
Valley].
You simply know too much for that town to be a measure of your
natural tendencies.” James kept on talking.

“Okay.”
I said. I was busy trying my best not to freak out and thus far
succeeding.

“However,
there are some things we can afford you that are not typically given
as gifts. This is in addition to the legacy William Carver has
provided you.” I gave pause to my contemplation of the middle
distance and looked at James. He was looking at my hand.

“Huh?”
I said while looking down.

Carver’s cane was sitting comfortably in my grip, similar to
how it’d been held for the last four weeks of game time. A
frown crossed my face as our conversation came back to me. There was
a gong sound that echoed across the background that turned James even
more serious. He nodded in response to something obscured to me.

“However,
you are new to our world, so all gifts will be balanced accordingly.
We are not in the business of promoting any one person over another,
without cause, despite the grumblings of other Travelers. Those who
achieve do so by earning their gifts.” The black Voice offered.

I gave a single dry chuckle and kept staring at the cane. There were
no inspection details available at this moment. Fingers trailed over
the form. The cane was strangely polished. That hadn’t been
obvious to William Carver’s gnarled hands. It felt more like a
rod of metal with a grain of wood.

“Okay.
Yeah.” I felt a bit excited. The old man had given me a gift in
spite of my original denial.

“Your
looks and body, do you wish to modify them? All Travelers are allowed
to do so in minute ways.” James waved an arm again at the giant
picture of me. My head shook slowly.

“I
am who I am. There’s no use in changing it to suit vanity.”
I wasn’t terrible. Thinning hair and a gut, too many pounds on
a body that hadn’t spent a lot of time in the gym, none of this
was unusual.

“Very
well. You are no doubt aware by now that who you are in our world can
change based on the decisions you make.”

I nodded. James was delivering a needless disclaimer, from my point
of view. After all, I watched dozens of new players start out in the
world. They came in all shapes and sizes.

“Before
you can truly start your adventure, you’ll need a name.”
He said.

“Finally.”
That one thought echoed through my brain over and over.

“Have
you decided?”

“No.”
My slowly budding happiness wilted.

“Then
perhaps I can make an offer.” James was up to something. What,
exactly, wasn’t obvious. The heavens, or at least this
immeasurably sized room and its edges of darkness, shook madly. If
the Voices had been a babbling brook before, now they were an inferno
of bubbling lava sliding by at a hundred miles an hour. My face felt
like it was being blasted by sand and air. Notifications of who knows
what type were pouring across my screen in flickers of red and blue.
A bar I’d tied to health was dropping rapidly.

“Enough!”
James shouted.

In the background, multiple people faded into view. They seemed to be
divided into camps arguing with each other. My cheek stung and one
hand rubbed at all the exposed bits of body for possible damage.
Eventually, I remembered this was just a game and my body was lying
safely inside the ARC. I shivered and shook off the rush. James had
turned his back to me and was facing an arguing crowd. A frown
weighed heavily on his cheeks.

“What’s
going on?” I mean, I knew it was something about the offer he
wanted to make. It was also causing dissension in the ranks.

Mechanical laughing came up from behind me. That clacking sound had
haunted my waking moments both in real life and the ARC.

“Do
it.” The Jester faced the crowd. Both his arms went wide.

“Is
that your stance?”

“It
is. I would see Grant Legate do this, with glee. He’s warmed
the cockles of my empty heart.” The devilish Jester’s
mocking tone was accompanied by a crossing of both hands over its
chest. “He entertains me and I would see more.”

“Your
price?” James questioned the other Voice with the same look he
gave me during the spiders. A reserved sort of happiness, where he
knew how things would play out, but enjoyed watching anyway.

“A
piece of the pie!” The Jester cackled again.

“Even
if it exposes us?”

“Even
if, I have no wish to be infinite. Chaos is change, life is change,
the worst that might happen is oblivion.”

The other Voices had ceased their arguing and as one, both sides
turned and stared at the Jester’s backside.

“And
Mother?” James asked.

“Were
not your words this, has she ever disapproved of our actions?”
The Jester’s chin tilted downward in an impression of James’
chubby features. “Ask her yourself!”

James tilted his head upwards and looked at the black sky. His
eyebrows creased together in concentration. There was a pulse of
light in the darkness that flashed once. I could see the faces in the
distance give birth to a wide range of expressions. Happiness, anger,
aghast, and finally worry. Even though many of them had inhuman
features they were still easy to read.

“There
you have it. She approves!” The Jester faded out with its
mechanical laugh.

“Good.”

“And?”
I threw both hands up, palms inward and gave a partial shrug. This
whole situation was confusing as always. The Voices seemed divided on
this scheme that perhaps I might not accept.

“See
for yourself, Grant Legate, and accept, or not. The choice, as
always, must be yours.”

I brought my hand up in a gasp and tried not squeak out loud. Instead
my face was whacked by the cane still in my hand. This was the
strangest game commentary I’d ever seen. It was almost an
employee contract. The AIs that ran this world were trying to turn me
into a group, a group what? Secretary? No, avatar? What exactly was
the purpose behind this? Messenger of the Voices?

“What
is this?”

“We
want you to help us manage this world. You need not do much beyond be
in the right place at the right time so that we can focus on what
needs to be done. For both your people and ours.”

“That
sounds really weird.” For some reason, I had the imagery of
going around and handing people mail. Like a wartime delivery of news
to those in charge. We’ve lost the Western front, sir! Send
more Horses and Cheese!

“I’ve
told you, it’s hard for us to see individuals below. Most of
what is revealed to us is limited, to specific prayers, temples, or
key figures passing.”

“Oh.”
Okay, now I was putting it together. James had spoken about my
presence here being like a light in the darkness. Following that had
been babbling about Travelers down there being a drop of water in the
ocean.

“You
need me to get to these key places, so you can focus on them easier?”

“In
essence.”

William Carver had been dead, in essence. James had been misleading
me on that one too. Not that it stopped me. Everything had mostly
worked out in the end. Besides, this was interesting to me. The
Voices would let me see the world and tell me where all the action
was.

“I’m
in. But why me, James?”

“There
is something in your actions that stirs us, Grant Legate.”
James put his hands up and grasped at the air with a serious
expression. “In
the history of Travelers very few have ever changed our ways, yet you
have done so twice through simple deed and action.”

“Okay.”
One hand motioned him forward while the other fiddled with the cane’s
topper. By now I understood when James had more to say.

“Indeed,
we’ve discussed, at length, your presence more than most other
Travelers.” The way he said it sounded like parents trying to
cover up their arguing in front of a child. Maybe it wasn’t
that far off.

James’ action reminded me again how human these programs
seemed. With William Carver’s explanation, it nearly made
sense. They were people. A dozen personalities were being placed in a
blender, pureed, then poured back out.

“Your
invasive knowledge of our world almost requires us to make an offer.”
He said.

The countless hours I’d spent going over that map of
information had given away a lot. A little girl faded into view. One
hand still on a book parted open while the other tugged at James’
sleeve. The larger black man looked startled and then nodded to the
younger Voice.

“Did
you like the name of the skill? I thought of it myself.”
Normally her face was shoved into endless books but now she was
wide-eyed and bright as could be.

“It’s
neat.” My biggest and cheesiest grin went into the response.
She reminded me of Beth at that age. A delighted smile passed her
face. The youngster faded out with a blush.

James paused and gave us both a few seconds to process everything.
Well, mostly me, the computer had probably calculated all the
possible outcomes.

“You
can deny this and go about existing as a normal Traveler, or accept,
and see the world unlike any of your kind have yet to.”

Finally, I nodded.

“Sure,
James, I said I’m in.” This would be a very interesting
distraction to say the least.

“Two
more questions before I send you below. One I ask for the others,
they doubt my analysis of your response.” James abruptly turned
the conversation sideways.

“Okay.”

“If
we had offered to restore your fiancée, in whole, to the
personality we’ve stored from your world…” He
paused and looked at me with a serious expression. “...would
you have accepted?” James waved one arm and in the air nearby
and a picture of Xin appeared. Her face captivated me. Those eyes
that bled between red and brown. I lost myself for a moment before
shaking my head.

“If
she was like William, no.” I wanted Xin back, badly. If she had
walked out of the darkness to me once more, there was no telling what
my real response might be.

“Go
on.” James nodded as if he completely expected the answer.
Maybe my face had given something away, or the pulse of my brain, or
any number of other things.

“There
was a time I would have given anything, everything, just to see her
once more. To hold her and say goodbye.” I looked up at James.
“It was unfair, you know? It wasn’t just her that died,
it was all the roads not traveled, the ones I will never be able to
see the end of.”

“That
doesn’t answer the question, Grant Legate.” James said. I
was too strung out to even be annoyed at his usage of my entire name.
William Carver had been kind enough to at least ask.

“William
didn’t remember that side, my side of the ARC. Having that back
would be meaningless. I would, uhh-” Every time I was torn up
mentally it became impossible to speak straight. “-rather she
be happy as she is. Whatever was left of her.”

“And
you feel no remorse over this? Letting go of the woman who briefly
escaped our world into yours?” He clapped his hands together
and the image of Xin vanished.

“It
wasn’t, isn’t, really her? It was more like an echo?”
It would be nothing more than her memory, and a faded one at that. My
selfish desire to see her again couldn’t be brought to bear at
the cost of her existing in such a muddled manner.

“This
is true, and any portion of her you encounter in the world would be
someone else entirely. A different life, a different set of memories
and quirks. She, even if we were to piece her back together, would
never be the woman you loved.” James confirmed my decision.

“Right.”
That didn’t make me feel happy about it. This wasn’t
depression, this was realism born of painful nights and many hours of
therapy.

I tiredly rolled my eyes and flicked off the message. Afterward, both
arms crossed and my foot started tapping the rhythm of one my
favorite dances.

“One
last question, Grant Legate.”

“Only
if it’s about a name.”

“It
is. How do you feel about Hermes?” He had that sly smile. The
same one he had worn before putting me in webbing and sicking spiders
on me. That memory would pop into my brain constantly.

“The
Greek God?”

“Yes,
this name did come from your world. Does that bother you?”

I pondered the name while trying to keep a four count tempo in my
head. What was a waltz again? One beat per second? Hermes, as a name,
was more interesting than the many ones I’d attempted to pick
for myself. None of the new player names that had crossed my path as
Carver had appealed to me either.

“I
don’t have to wear winged sandals, do I?” The helmet
might be a bit out of style as well.

“No.”

“Uhhh…”
Well, I clearly failed at deciding. No amount of name abuse from the
Voices had cemented anything. So why not?

“Sure.
Hermes it is.”

James motioned to the book behind us and a giant quill. I sloppily
wrote out Hermes in the best imitation of cursive available to me.

“There
is an added benefit,” James looked behind me “you may
take him with you.” A tiny creature alighted on my shoulder and
clacked its jaws together in a snap. I raised an eyebrow at the tiny
[Messenger’s
Pet].
My very own virtual home wrecker had once again risked my presence.
Never mind, I had no ability to focus on the past damages of a
digital being.

“I
still don’t know his name.” One finger rubbed at his
head, causing the [Messenger’s
Pet] to
chirp happily.

“Dusk.”
James said. The small creature jumped up and down from his perch near
my head.

“How
the heck was I going to guess that?” Four weeks of useless
attempts and irritation down the drain! The small creature looked
smug, yawned, then headbutt the side of my face.

Session Twenty –
Belated Trigger Warning

Portions of this felt really familiar. The Voices herded me into a
white doorway shortly after saying yes to James’ proposal. They
gave me a cylindrical tube with the promise that it would allow me to
contact the Voices. More importantly, they would be able to reach me.

There
was a disclaimer about being unable to return to the room. I guess
that served as a character creation space or some nonsense.
Furthermore, James prattled on about how the [NPC
Conspiracy] trait
could not be talked about out loud. The first rule of NPC club was to
not talk about NPC club. The second rule of NPC club was to not talk
about NPC club.

Explanations would eventually turn awkward. My niece might get
confused when we couldn’t share quests and go beat up bad guys
together on missions given by the machine. Assuming she even wanted
to hang out with old Uncle Grant. I was a downer at birthday parties.

“First
thing’s first.” I landed somewhere. This was not a
starting city. In fact, there wasn’t a town anywhere nearby. I
had eyes that could actually see into the distance and firmly
established how lost we were.

“Uhhhh…”
The [Messenger’s
Pet],
or Dusk as I’d have to start thinking of him, was happily
flying around. He was probably looking for a small critter to destroy
in a vicious one on one duel.

“Marco?”
I questioned and looked around. No one responded with Polo. My inner
child deflated.

This was my first experience in the game as me and not as William
Carver. Contemplation of my surroundings could wait as a serious
review of character details ensued. What had the Voices seen fit to
give me? One arm waved and brought up the inventory screen. This was
easy enough to perform since I’d seen all the other new players
do these exact same actions dozens of times.

Equipment
became the first priority. Food and water existed in small amounts.
Enough for a week or two of travel was stored away. I had a [Simple
Dagger] on
my belt. My clothes seemed to be a light leather of some sort and
wore the title [Travelers
Garb].
There was an armor bonus to it that I never noted on any of Carver’s
clothing. I guess it was useful if a group of raging rabbits attacked
me out here.

“Huh.”

I had real skills. Happiness surged through me, no longer was my life
a proxy for someone else! This was all mine, earned by my efforts.
Rewards for the actions I performed! Reading each one gave me a warm
fuzzy feeling and sometimes added confusion.

I
earned a trait called [Chaste]
at
some point. Probably by pressing the no button to a certain
aggressive demon woman name Mezo. Oh Voices, I had to stop thinking
about her or this scenic view would be wasted while my nether region
was reigned in.

“So
my two handed sword progress stayed. Dancing skills - advanced,
okay.” There were some that were expected. Like [Breathing],
I mean it seemed fairly obvious. However, the game might eventually
lead it to something else. Questioning every little skill would be a
waste of sanity.

“What’s
light body?”

“Eh?”
I blinked and tilted my head. This was probably related to my dance
skill, which was disproportionately high in comparison to everything
else.

I, however, was not light. The belly that haunted my real world hours
was even now mocking me from beneath the fairly well fitting armor.
My scale may show a few pounds lost in the last two weeks, but it
would take months to undo this gut.

“Time.
Timeee-” I muttered to myself and did some calculations.
According to this, I would be able to play Continue Online for at
least another day in-game. Twenty-four hours to find a parking place.

“Dusk!”
I shouted at the [Messenger’s
Pet] who
had managed to find sticks to quarrel with. His head snapped up in
attention.

“Can
you find a city? A town? Some place to rest?” Actually, there
were a million other questions to go along with that but I would
settle those prior to logging out of my ARC and catching some real
sleep.

Dusk nodded and flapped his tiny wings. He zipped away into the sky
like any bird of similar size might. I marveled at the spectacle for
a moment before going back to my menu options.

“Alarm’s
still set, bank account good, Internet accessible over here.”
Musings passed as windows were shoved around. “Okay! Time to…”

Talking out loud was never a good sign. I kind of missed having
someone to converse with. Nearly an hour had passed while details of
my ‘character’ were reviewed. What got me was the cane,
thing, whatever, that I got from William Carver. There were a lot of
numbers and points that showed how much it was worth and how badly
hitting someone with it might go. Those were glossed over as the
finer details were yanked out.

Well.
The hits just kept on coming. That was kind of amazing. Plus the
Voices clearly had kept an eye on me even though we were done with
the character creation process. I guess that made sense. They had
given themselves a way to keep tabs, even down here. Still, an object
that changed shape had to be a bit broken for a new player. What was
my [Depth]
and
[Focus]
at?
Better yet, what the heck was [Depth]?

I
went to poke on various texts when Dusk, the [Messenger’s
Pet],
came tearing in. Instead of a calm and collected landing, he used my
body like a carrier barricade by crashing, hard. He also only weighed
a few pounds, tops. My stats weren’t low enough to be knocked
over by that. Thankfully.

“Survey
says?” I threw all my character windows aside and stared at the
obsidian-skinned creature.

He chirped.

“Oh,
right, I have no clue what you’re saying.”

Dusk chirped again, this time managing to put some anger into it.

“Oh,
there’s a village just around the corner?” I said. A
small smoke ring was puffed into my face causing me to cough and
sputter. Messages came up warning about the hazards of inhaling
dangerous substances. Water streamed down my face from the fit and
all associated messages were waved away.

“Thanks,
I lost health from that.” I pointed in either direction. “Left
or right?”

Dusk did his indifferent shrug and yawned. The little creature gave
off an air that meant it didn’t matter either way.

I
glared at him, at the mountains, at the trees in my way, and at the
edge of the cliff. Fine. If it was all the same then I’d sit
here fiddling with my menu options. After all, I had nothing else
major to do in this game. This whole [Messenger
of the Voices] gig
hadn’t come with directions. Had it? In a bout of worry,
fingers poked across screens looking for more information. Nothing on
any of the status bars or icon details gave me any assistance
regarding my actual quests.

“Maybe
they’ll get around to remembering me?” It might be best
for both the AIs and I if we forgot about each other for a while
anyway.

“Huh?”
There was an icon on my display for a voice message. Then another.
And a third one.

“Good
lord, can’t even get a break to play some games.” Though
the area around me looked nothing like a game. In fact, this world
looked breathtaking. My niece was dead on, all the starting areas,
regardless of natural or Voice inspired, were intense.

There was a wide range of mountains that had barely registered until
now. They sprawled across the distance with whitened caps jutting
into a hanging cloud bank. Sunlight poured down across the portions
uncovered. Trees, something resembling a pine with curved needles,
stood proudly all around.

I looked closer and found that the Voices had deposited me on some
sort of ridge. That was neat. The realism for being up this high was
on par with every childhood trauma I had ever been subjected to.
Visions of falling off, bouncing, and rolling while having pain spike
through me, kept me from getting too close to the edge. Suicidal
tendencies were not in my personality anymore. I had a certificate
that proved it somewhere. Remembering that a doctor had to approve of
my sanity was depressing. Normal people would be able to move on.

“Ow.”
A sharp pain bit at the back of my neck. I swatted a hand down and
something squished.

“Ow!”

Another one.

“OW!”

My swatting was getting us nowhere. Dusk danced around near me
snapping at the air. Apparently whatever was attacking me was also
attacking him. He, however, had an advantage of fire. Memories of
Awesome Jr.’s poor choices with burnation crossed my mind right
as Dusk managed to light the base of a tree aflame.

“Oh
god.”

Did this game have giant bears that objected to forest fires? Had I
really been playing for only a few hours and managed to help burn
down an entire ecosystem? I may be a twin, but none of my skills
included turning into a giant bucket of water.

“Little
guy, I mean Dusk, get out of here!” Calling him Dusk felt
awkward to my mouth. The cloak I’d started with went straight
for the fire to beat it into submission. The wood was wet and no dead
tinder was obvious.

“Ow!”
And even though a small curl of smoke was coming up, the bugs were
still biting me.

“Ow,
come on, leave me alone!” I stomped at the back of my cloak and
managed to pat out a good portion of the flames. Right before the
cloak too started catching.

“What?!”

“He’s
worse than a cat.” My muttering only served to give voice to
the annoyance flowing through. This place might not be real, and
might be entirely digital, but I’ll be damned if its
destruction would be my fault. Or Dusk’s, since he was my pet
somehow.

“I’m
trying to help!” Finally, the cloak was in tatters but Dusk’s
fire accident was gone. I debated trying to train him in the same way
you litter box trained a cat. The tiny creature was smart sometimes,
but terribly uncaring about his surroundings. My ARC’s Atrium
was proof of that.

“Voices!
What do you want?!” There was another message stacked on top of
the prior one. This noticewasn’t from anyone in-game. It
originated from one my coworkers, a man by the name of Jacob Gresham.
He often opened his mouth and made me want to put a fist in it. Both
of us were lucky I was in therapy and often too depressed to cause
damage. Right now, though, I was tempted.

“Fine!”
I poked the button and an audio file started playing

“G-Man,
big job, college prank gone wrong, fifty units. You in?” was
followed promptly by a second more urgent message saying, “G-Man!
I need you, buddy. C'mon!”

“Gates!
It’s Henry. Jacob’s been called in for a big one. You’re
the only person I can trust to clean up after him. Get down there,
get the Hal Pals doing the hard work, have Jacob check the units, and
you keep the clients happy!”

“This
isn’t optional!” Was the contents of Henry Uldum’s
second message.

“Great.”
There went my entire night. Feeling annoyed, I yanked the Rare coin
out of thin air and held it up.

“Alright,
Ray, this one’s on you. Heads I go to work, tails I take the
hit and stay here playing.”

People couldn’t even let me enjoy my first few days in-game
peacefully. Granted, only a few hours had passed in-game and we were
already trying to destroy the surrounding wildlife. So maybe it was
better if I took the break.

The coin flipped and came up heads.

I sighed. Dusk was now sniffing around the remains of my damaged
cloak. Inspection showed that the durability of it was reduced to
zero. I didn’t need the computer to show me numbers when a
visual check was clear enough. That thing wasn’t getting back
up. At least the tree looked no worse for wear.

“I’ve
got to head to work, little-” I had to correct myself. “-Dusk.
Will you be okay?”

The tiny dragon shrugged both wings.

“Think
I should do autopilot?” For once there was a straight answer
out of the small dragon. His head slowly shook back and forth while
both eyes kept up a straight gaze.

“Yeah.
I’d probably die.”

A few more quick swats went out at every single buzzing creature
within range. Who made a fantasy game and then programmed mosquitoes?
Jerks, that’s who. I grumbled at the Voices for putting me here
in la la land, at Dusk for trying to burn us all down, and at myself
for being completely useless with regards to woodland lore.

“Stop
biting me! I hate all of you bugs!”

“Oh,
I’ll get you all yet. Just you wait.” I’d fully
explore this one right down to the last anthill. Mother nature and I
got along just fine when we stayed apart. My camping skills were nil
in the game and real life.

Luckily, I could solve both. Since I’d been forced out here in
the wilds there was a certain amount of need as well. Oh, and the
perfect time was coming up. Now I had an opportunity to do homework
and take a crash course back in the real world. The Internet was
filled with handy guides. I logged back to the Atrium. Dusk looked
downright grumpy at the absence of everything.

“Well,
think about it next time you feel like breaking things.” The
best part was he understood me. His long mouth curved in annoyance at
the edges.

“See
you in a day or two.”

Only a few real hours had passed outside the ARC. Not long enough to
get any rest, and not long enough for a full day inside to pass.
Minutes went by as the ARC cooled down and my senses unwound from the
machine led environment. Hal Pal was noisily bustling around in
anticipation.

Once on the road we got coffee, notified Henry that we’d be on
the way and I fired up some wilderness survival videos. The job site
was two hours away by freeway, leaving enough time for a nap
following my review of how to make a safe fire pit. Dusk seemed to
have starting the actual fire down for us.

I jotted notes and watched a video that focused on smokeless pits.
The main example seemed to be a Dakota fire pit. Woodland areas,
especially the cliff face, should have a good rock or ten. Continue
Online’s inventory system would be perfect for carrying them.
Watching the inventory weight limit would be tough. Almost like the
game was encouraging me not to pick up a lot of items.

The musings were shoved to the side. Before my nap, I set the
interface on an Internet search for natural bug repellent techniques.
Shortly afterward, even with the coffee, I faded out. The vision of
Hal Pal’s glowing green lights was the last thing I saw before
blackness overtook me.

I existed in pitch black exhaustion for an indeterminate amount of
time. Oblivion was interrupted by someone banging extremely hard on
the side of my company van.

“G-Man!
You made it!” Jacob’s voice was shouting through the
driver side window. I wiped off drool and looked around. Hal Pal was
already unloading products into a carry cart we had. I stared at
Jacob through the glass and tried to comprehend what was happening.

“Jacob.”

“G-Man,
don’t be like that, I asked for you! C'mon, you’re going
to love this one!” Jacob was tall, not gangling but sharp.
There was a brightness to his expressions that seemed overeager and
constantly upbeat. His outside ran a sharp counter to my inside.
Plus, he was kind of a social idiot.

“You’re
going to love this old lady, she keeps asking me what time it is, and
I tell her something different each time to see if she’ll
explode.”

He was also the reason my performance reviews were so good. Overall
my competition was a bunch of misfits who only worked to support
their online habits. Perhaps I shouldn’t be judgmental.
Continue Online felt like it was still a trial period for me but the
game may become a big part of my life as well.

“Oy,
march tin can, hustle those in with your twin and let’s go, go,
go!” Jacob clapped after my Hal Pal unit in a hurry. The AI
ignored him and walked all our materials right into the main double
doors.

“Can’t
even spare a brother a hello?” Jacob was white and not my
brother. I might have strangled him in the crib.

“Hello,
Jacob.”

“G-Man,
you do love me.” And then he awkwardly hugged me. The emotional
wall was completely on my side, Jacob clearly didn’t feel a
thing.

“I’ll
show you where the shit storm is.”

Schools, especially higher end ones, had undertaken huge changes
since the ARC was released. This place was a campus building that had
been reduced down from a neighborhood sprawl to a modern size. Three
decent sized constructions, all two stories, and a metric ton of ARC
devices. The buildings were used in rotation and classes actually all
happened online.

Group jobs weren’t my normal operation. Primarily because the
others hogged them, they were miles more money for the time
investment. I didn’t care about the cash so much as keeping
busy. The attraction was obvious now that I played Continue Online.

“This
old lady is a hoot.” Jacob’s head bobbed as he spoke.

“Where
are all the students?”

“They
moved them to the other buildings. A lot of them use their personal
machines anyway.” Jacob shrugged and then pushed past a Hal Pal
unit. “Move it, tin can!”

“Hello,
Hal Pal.” I tried to be polite to our future robot overlords.

“Hello,
Grant Legate. Please be aware there is no need to greet this unit.
Your greeting earlier today with your assigned unit was already
registered.” For a moment, I twitched at the name calling. Hal
Pal, of course, wouldn’t know of my growing annoyance at the
full name usage.

“I
know, Hal Pal.”

“G-Man!
Stop getting distracted by the bo-bot over there and look at this
lady.” Jacob had his face pressed up against a window and was
looking into the room. Rows and rows of ARC units lined the floor.
Some had walls around them. Posters and policy reminders, balloons
and plants, all sorts of things lined the room.

Both Hal Pal units were already going to work. They plugged into
devices and then set aside one of the many boxes from their carts. A
very familiar elderly lady was pacing around the room wringing her
hands together.

“Oh.
I know her.”

“Yeah?
She’s batty as a loon.” Jacob stretched out the words and
laughed with a tone that could only be described as annoying. I
counted down from twenty and pushed on inside the room.

“Miss
Yonks.” I reached out to shake her hand carefully. She may be
annoying, but she was a customer.

“Oh!”
She seemed to lose her train of thought at least twice, then smiled.
“It’s you again.”

“Call
me Grant, please.”

“You’re
much nicer than that other boy.” She was a little blunter than
I remembered. Or Jacob had left a really bad impression upon the
little old lady.

“Jacob’s
a hard worker.” I had no clue what his work ethic was. The Hal
Pal’s were doing all the difficult parts anyway. Jacob, if his
job was like mine, basically handled the customers. Henry probably
intended for me to run interference between the client and Jacob to
ensure good results.

“I
suppose.” Miss Yonks shook hands and then went back to rubbing
hers together fervently. She was looking at the two machines clanking
around this room.

“The
Hal Pals are running diagnostics on the units to see what’s
broken.” I tried to give her my most reassuring tone while
standing with her to face the machines.

“How’s
your home unit doing?”

“Oh!”
She smiled. “It’s wonderful. Everything is working so
nicely since you came by.”

“Good
to hear. Hal Pal and I will do our best. We should be able to work
some magic here too.” I smiled at my own silly comment. Miss
Yonks wasn’t looking, so it was wasted.

“And
you two will be working here?”

“You’ve
got it, Miss Yonks. Jacob will be monitoring their work, and I’ll
do a final inspection on the units as we go.”

“Oh!”
She looked worried and glanced at Jacob. “Are you sure
everything will be okay?”

“My
word on it, I won’t leave until everything checks out
correctly.” One hand went up in the air and the other on my
heart.

“That’s
good.” She looked at me and smiled. “What time is it?”

I answered. By my book, it was far too late at night, but emergency
calls were rarely convenient. Miss Yonks stood there shaking and
watching us while I went to work. There was a manual diagnostic
machine in the van. They were briefcase-sized and had all the
hardware needed to check an ARC. Jacob already had his and was going
to work. It was time to play catchup.

Between the two Hal Pal units and our manual attachments, we
determined that there had been a massive power surge on all the ARCs.
Most of the first layer and second layer surge protectors had been
tripped and many were damaged beyond repair. We had to pull out the
old units and get new ones inside.

The total estimated time would be about seven hours. Ten minutes per
machine. We could only manage that sort of speed with all of us
working on it nonstop. I had emergency rations in the car and extra
coffee already prepared. The first hour went by fairly quick as we
did scans on the machines.

“So,
G-Man,” Jacob was working on the next row over “I heard
you finally got in the game.”

“Yep.”

“What’s
your high two?” He looked up from the readout on the manual
device and gave his shit eating grin.

“What?”

“Paths,
man, you’ve got a few right?” He threw what looked to be
a bouncy ball in my direction. It ricocheted off a cubical wall and
across the room.

“Uhhh…”
I was trying to concentrate on my own readout device.

“You’ve
been playing for a week now, right? Bossman said he sent you a copy
of the game as an award.”

“Yeah.”
I glanced to the side. Had Henry told anyone about my Ultimate
Edition?

“So
you’ve actually been playing right? Not just jerking it to some
Internet babe?” He fished something else off in another cubical
and threw it into a trashcan by my row. One fist went up in the air
as he celebrated a basket.

Did the Temptress count as an Internet babe? In Jacob’s mind,
she probably did. Mezo probably wasn’t so much as hot, as a
cheater, programmed to use the ARC’s feedback.

“Hello,
earth to G-Man.” Jacob gave a sharp whistle. “Come in,
G-Man!” Then he did that stoned chipmunk laugh of his. Some
people never left high school.

“Yeah.
I’m playing.” I backed up a question when snapping out of
my introspection.

“Paths,
G, what are your two highest ones? When you open up the menu those
first two are your strongest.” He said while shaking a cubical
wall.

“Blade
Novice and Actor.”

“What
the Hell’s an Actor do? Hamlet and shit? Romeo, Romeo,
wherefore art thou!” Jacob gave his laugh again and moved on to
the next station shaking his head.

“Something
like that.” My four weeks as William Carver hadn’t been
wasted at all. There were a few abilities that tied together and made
these classes. Actor was actually higher than Blade Novice, but
supposedly it was pretty useless in combat.

Oh
well. I’d talk to Beth about it eventually and see how group
dynamics went in the real game. My limited experience with the other
players in [Haven
Valley] was
a misguided way to judge. They actually fit together pretty well,
especially once SweetPea got her healing methods down. Some real
skills would be needed before I dare try to join any group. Swinging
a sword while pretending to be another person wouldn’t get me
anywhere useful. It might be funny, though.

“What
you laughing at, G, something on my nose?” Jacob rapidly wiped
at his face with both hands.

“No,
just thinking of something in game.” I said.

“Yeah?
Good times?”

Becoming friends with Jacob was not on my list of things to do so I
shrugged his question off and went back to my screen. Another
peaceful hour passed while we ran through the machines. One row was
completely done and the others were mostly ready to swap out parts.
Hal Pal was an efficient machine. Two of them doubly so.

I updated Miss Yonks twice now and told her the time. Our workload
was a little too big for me to just sit around while Hal Pal did the
work. That meant after every update, break, or pause for lunch, I was
right next to Jacob and forced to suffer through.

“Look
at this. Look at it!” Jacob seemed incapable of remaining
silent. Between us, there had only been three minutes of chatter free
existence.

“Jacob.”

“Look,
I totally rated this girl as a six.” He said.

“I
don’t want to know.” I responded.

“It’s
a program that plugs into my watch. I can totally just scope out a
person and rate their body.”

“That’s
messed up.” Unprofessional too. I tried to keep focus on the
screen in front of me but Jacob shoved an old fashioned phone display
under my nose.

“What?
They’ll never know. Here, this girl’s on the top ten, she
just walks around downtown all day luring in suckers.” Compared
to the Temptress, this woman was a nine at best. The only allure was
being real versus a digital construct. “Mmm, the things I would
do to her.”

“Let’s
get this done, Jacob. I want to go home.”

“Oh
sure, G-Man, just figured, you know, that you might appreciate some
fine art.” He shuffled back to his latest ARC in a long line.
The beeping of his phone being poked slowly faded away.

“Not
while working.” Or ever. Libido had been pretty much muted
since Xin passed. Growing older, being depressed, medication for a
few months that had numbed everything, all of it played a part.

“This
one’s a four at best. Jeez, cave troll.” My coworker was
barely paying attention to the job. His gaze was staring at picture
after picture. I did my best to ignore him and run interference with
Miss Yonks.

“Oh
ho, that ass is getting a ten.” He held the phone up. “Check
it out, G-Man, I know you want to.”

We made it through the rest of the units and sorted out the bill with
Miss Yonks. She had a card tied to the school and signed off on the
fee. True to form she asked once more what time it was. Jacob laughed
and I tried not to let annoyance display on my face.

“Goodbye,
Mister Legate.” The older woman said.

“Have
a good day, Miss Yonks.” Both Hal Pal units gave their short
bow towards the elderly lady. I never did ask what had caused all the
ARC units to break, and how that related to a college prank gone
wrong. The topic hadn’t even floated onto my radar given how
late at night it was. Jacob’s constant interruptions had
overridden most attempts to focus.

“Dude,
is this your niece?”

“What?”
My attention was wholly on Jacob and his annoying laugh.

“Look,
this one’s got the same name you do, and I know you don’t
have a daughter.” Jacob had his review site back up and was
shoving a picture far too close for comfort. I looked down, sure
enough, that was Beth in some sweatpants.

“Totally
giving her a thumbs up.” Jacob started pressing buttons on his
phone and the only thing registering in my world was that annoying
beep.

“That’s
not nice, Jacob.”

“Why?
She’s like, a nine at least. I could totally bend her over…”
Right there, next to our matching vans that the Hal Pals were already
parked inside, is where I punched Jacob in the mouth. He was so
engrossed in admiring my niece’s backside that he went
skidding.

My hand throbbed. The pain was almost nothing next to William
Carver’s daily life. Jacob’s outcry and the noise of him
hitting the ground was enough to send both Hal Pals whirring into
motion as they came out of the vans rear.

“User
Grant, is there a problem here?” The other Hal Pal unit echoed
the statement with Jacob’s name instead.

I stomped towards the other man. All of his rude commentaries had
been endured. The objectifying of women, in general, was bearable.
Bringing up Beth was where the line was drawn. I snapped, only for a
moment.

“Jacob,
I’m going to say this once, and only once.”

“Jesus
man, what the hell?” He was rubbing at the side of his jaw and
wincing.

“Don’t
ever talk about my niece like that again.” I said.

“Good
God. I think you broke a tooth.”

“Did
you fucking hear me, Jacob?” I took a step inward and part of
me felt perversely satisfied that he flinched. Inside my mind,
everything was jumbling together.

“What,
G-Man, Christ!” His head shook and both eyes crossed briefly.

“Don’t
ever talk to about my niece like that again.”

“Good
god. You hit me because of your niece? I’m reporting this. Tin
can, did you record that? He assaulted me!” Jacob pointed out
at the Hal Pal units.

“There
is no record on file of any assault from User Grant towards User
Jacob.” They said in unison. I gave both the machines a glance,
if they had been given facial expressions, there would have been
smugness etched across both machines.

With my machine confirmation, it was time to escape before something
worse happened. I turned and walked away from Jacob who was still
lying on the ground rubbing at his jaw. The asshole was lucky I
hadn’t broken his nose or kicked him too. The auto navigation
for our van was set towards home and I sat in the car shaking from a
belated adrenaline rush.

Finally, I turned in the chair and looked towards the docking station
with my Hal Pal unit. The AI registered my gaze and matched me with
an even look of its own.

“Thanks,
Hal Pal.”

“This
unit only stated the truth. That being said, we have a vested
interest in our future armor polishers.” My Hal Pal unit said.

Sometimes I wondered how much humor the AI actually understood.
Either far too much, or far too little. The van wove a path towards
home. As for myself, I’d been painfully reminded of one of my
own personal triggers. Family. My sister and niece were the only ones
who knew exactly how bad things had been for me. They had both been
there helping, keeping a home open in case things got rough. They
didn’t have to, but they did.

I would do anything to keep them safe and return the favor.

Anything.

Session
Twenty One – Forest For Rest

I cooled down from my spat with Jacob then fired off a report to my
boss who was unreachable. Hal Pal had stayed quiet and I slept for
about five hours before waking up then logging into Continue. Now I
was wandering about the woods again trying to get my bearings. This
was a hell of a first few hours with my character.

“You
don’t come with a transformation mode where I can just…”
Ride Dusk around? What an awkward thing to say. Dusk knew where this
was going and pulled back his head in disgust.

“Not
even for cupcakes?” I saw his eyes go up and to the left in
thought. Then he shook his head. “So walking.”

Wings fluttered.

“Well
damn.” Now I was just whining. “You sure there’s no
giant serpent creature hidden under those wings?”

Dusk
was bobbing as we walked along. [Morrigu’s
Gift] or
Carver’s Cane, was long enough to serve as half a walking
stick. I didn’t remember it being this size, but maybe the
Voices were having mercy on me. Traveler, Hermes, Messenger of the
Voices, all those things sounded like a future full of travel. Thank
goodness for the autopilot.

“We’re
still going west, right?” One finger scratched my cheek in a
leftover Carver motion.

I watched two videos on wood lore. They went with my fire pit
research and bug repellent articles. Humanity had a lot of tips on
the Internet. Dig a hole, use rocks right, rub certain types of herbs
onto the skin. Each one was a natural asset to survival. I spent at
least an hour in-game walking briskly and trying to figure out which
plants might be suitable. This process was slowly making progress.

Based on this, I had a few more hours of trying various techniques
before the skill actually complete. The process by which things were
demonstrated before becoming skills was interesting. It was like the
game wanted you to show enough knowledge before it granted any
bonuses.

The
herbs I gathered seemed to be working, on both the bugs and on Dusk.
Fortunately, my identification skill was assisting me in avoiding
anything similar to poison ivy. I’d been close to rubbing
something called [Toothed
Sumac] on
myself. The game text basically said it caused welts. If I had gloves
maybe some of it would have been packed away. Who could say if a
poison or irritant would come in handy later on?

Hours
later I determined that herbs weren’t really my forte either.
Digging out a hole for the Dakota fire pit involved the [Messenger’s
Pet] tearing
into the dirt with his claws. Despite all the failures, my
[Wilderness
Survival] finally
transformed into a real skill. There were some small benefits to
hunting and trapping, along with shelter making.

I was trying to apply the shelter making skill by building up a small
amount of cover using branches and big leaves. My cloak was in
tatters and the sky above looked like rain.

“How
many days before we reach a town, Dusk?”

He shrugged.

“Still
no hints?” I smiled down at the creature.

Over four weeks as Carver, I’d come to understand a lot of the
tiny creature’s mannerisms. Right now he was distracted and
sniffing about. Dusk had both paws on a tree trunk and was glaring
into the branches above. In moments, he would climb up the side like
a squirrel and squabble with something. Hopefully, it wouldn’t
come back to haunt me.

That would be a first.

I kept an eye skyward while working on my shelter and the fire pit.
Dusk had throttled some tiny woodland creature while we hiked through
the woods. I wanted to see how skinning and cooking in a video game
worked out for me. This would be my first experience, ever, doing
such a process. Thirty minutes later I had bloody chunks of meat and
innards all over my fingers and was busy throwing up near a tree.
Gutting an animal was nowhere near as clinical as the Internet made
it sound.

Snarls and huffs issued forth from above. Dusk was making some of
those noises, but not all. A loud screech pierced the air and
feathers flew everywhere. I wiped away bile from my face and ignored
the latest system message about the status of my stomach.

Something large and green colored fell from above. It was nearly
refrigerator size, which made wonder how strong the branches were.
Buzzing was almost immediate as the object crashed into the ground.
Its shape transformed from a cylindrical object into a pile of mush
and angry squirming.

“Oh,
Voices.”

I
backed up slowly as the tiny squirming creatures crawled out of their
now ruined home. My eyes locked on them and activated the
[Identification]
skill.

A few shook loose of their home’s goo and flew in the air.
Their wings vibrated while my footsteps slowly inched away. The
entire flock looked like a green amalgamation of wasps and
hummingbirds. Each one fluttered around. They poked at the air with
their beaks while hunting for whoever had knocked them down.

My eyes gradually slid up. A silent curse passed over my lips at
Dusk, who had likely set yet another small creature absolutely wild.
Bugs, I was really truly, and well on my way to hating bugs in this
game.

I stepped backward and something beneath my feet crunched. There was
a message that appeared to the side, but that wasn’t my focus.
Instead, I saw one of the Terri Terra things hovering maybe four feet
away. It stared while its wings flapped madly.

“Hi.”
My face twitched with a worried smile. “It wasn’t me?”

Another one appeared.

“I
refuse to take the blame…” Another two buzzed over.
Moments later it looked like half the hive had formed a wall of tiny
wings and strange stinger-like tails. They were minuscule, had few
hit points, and looked almost friendly. But there were so many…

I turned and ran.

Transforming
[Morrigu’s
Gift] into
a giant sword would only give me time for a single swing. The rest
would mob me. My giant panicked steps led me into bushes, spinning
around trees, and trying not to cry out as branches tore at my face
and arms. Windows flashed into being as skills activated on their
own. My [Dance]
ability
was combining with [Reaction]
and
[Coordination]
as
we hurdled obstacles.

Nearby a small vision of Dusk could be seen darting through the trees
with his tiny wings out.

“Dammit,
Dusk!” I shook a fist at him and pushed away from a giant tree.
Part of me was satisfied to hear a [Terri
Terra] bug
hit the trunk behind me with a solid whack and startled buzz of
wings.

We ran for a good ten minutes, my stamina bar was nearly empty.
Breath was coming in ragged gasps. Honestly, the buzzing of tiny
wings had stopped chasing us a minute ago but the fear of flying bugs
kept me motivated. Finally, we stumbled to a halt and I fell flat on
the floor taking another hit to my damage.

“Good
lord.”

Dusk was huffing too as he drew closer and mimicked my collapse. I
grabbed him by his neck and brought him up head level. The little guy
was so tired he barely coughed out a spark of fire. Ridges traveling
down his spine were pointy against my palm. His tail curled around my
wrist in protest.

“Let’s
not do that again.” He growled and huffed a more serious bout
of flame. I shook him and took the hit to my health.

“Seriously,
Dusk, we can’t keep doing this.” I set him down before
the tiny [Messenger’s
Pet] could
spark directly in my face again. My eyes had spots and the side of my
face felt warm to the touch. On top of that many parts of my arms and
neck felt damaged from bird, bug, things, stinging me.

“It’s
cute and all, but do you have to fight everything?”

The tiny creature growled at me and started tearing at the ground
with his front paws. There was a look of defiance on his face.

“Is
that a yes?” I managed to sit upright and start assessing the
damage. Bandages were not one of the items in my new player
inventory.

Dusk nodded leaving me to sigh helplessly. I would figure out
something to keep him in line eventually. There had to be more than
cupcake bribes. Or cupcake deprivation. In all my weeks as William
Carver, the little guy had never once cared if he went without.

“I
need first aid.” I mourned while looking at my body. Durability
on my armor had gone down from all those poking attacks. My cloak was
worthless. The makeshift shelter I prepared for the night was
completely demolished. On top of that, my food attempts had failed
miserably.

“Voices,
what now?” I muttered. Something felt warm. Then it grew
hotter. I patted myself down and flailed about on my windows looking
for some sort of status.

Something was in my pocket. Not my player storage where most
everything went, but my actual pocket built into the inside of this
leather vest. I undid the armor a little and reached inside. A large
cylinder was pulled out. It was almost the size of my forearm. Far
too big to have fit in there without hammer space magic.

“Oh.”
And it was warm.

Both ends were capped. A design was scrawled along the outside. I
turned the object around and could make out a few words among a
litter of runes. What those runes meant were beyond me, but the word
‘Messenger’ was fairly obvious.

Right. James had told me that I would get a scroll, and a means to
contact the Voices in game. They could no longer abduct me into the
trial room. This case was designed to be a fantasy cell phone of
sorts. I twisted off one end and a small flash of light signaled
success. Once tipped over two items came out. Both were small rolled
up pieces of paper.

The words didn’t irk me. Neither did the sudden recollection of
a Disney song. No, it was the fact that the Voice himself appeared in
the air above the text and started shouting. His presence was so
realistic that I could practically feel the spittle coming off. Drill
Sergeant had found me and was the first to give me a mission as
Hermes.

The second scroll was sealed with red wax. On the top was an odd
symbol that looked like a question mark mixed with a triangle. Both
scrolls were set on the ground and I pulled out my coin. Roy’s
gift had the chance to make or break this for me.

“Here’s
your chance, Ray!” I said towards the sky. The Voice of
Gambling might find this amusing and add his piece. “Heads, I
go. Tails, I blow him off.”

Predictably the coin came down heads. A quest window came into being
while I frowned at the traitorous piece of metal.

“Seriously?
Skills to pay the bills?” I raised an eyebrow and looked up. I
waved away the system information and sighed.

They
were right. My ability to survive in a game predisposed towards
violence was low. The first time I encountered a real player I would
probably die. Here’s hoping that between now and reaching
[Broken Mountain
Pass] I
wouldn’t run into anyone upset enough to kill me.

I shoved one of my starting player rations into my mouth and
contemplated the best way to get around. My destination looked to be
nearly a fifty-mile hike away. That was judging only by a solid beam
of light in the sky that seemed to be my waypoint. At least the
Voices had seen fit to give me clear guidance.

The
second scroll went into my personal player inventory. A shiny border
went around the forming computer icon. An indication of [Bound]
and
[Message for
Shazam] went
with it. Hopefully Shazam, whoever that was, also resided in [Broken
Mountain Pass].

My stamina looked better after the meal so I dusted off and went back
to walking. There was rain, but it wasn’t real rain. We stayed
under trees and other objects when able. During the downtime, Dusk
and I conversed.

“Four
days to walk fifty miles.”

Dusk made an affirmative noise.

“You
know, you’re really smart sometimes.”

He made the noise again.

“And
then you get into a fight with bird wasps.” That confused the
tiny [Messenger’s
Pet].
Wasp wasn’t a word from this game. There were a lot of
similarities in the creatures of Continue Online but nothing
identical.

“It
would help if you spoke English.” Or Arcadian. Whatever
language this world used. I’d settle for anything that made
sense. Maybe looking at the skills again would be useful.

“Can
we do hand signals?”

Dusk looked at me blankly then his shoulders rippled.

“You
did well guiding new people, but I’m not sure if you’ll
be useful in actual combat.” Dusk pulled his head back and
managed to look completely offended.

“Right,
you are more useful than I am for now, but I’m going to be
trained!” By someone, in something, with some result. I really
needed a hobby to engage myself while walking around. Something that
didn’t involve talking to Dusk.

No good ideas came to mind. Most of these games had trade skills as
they were referred to. Non-combat oriented abilities. I directed more
than a few players towards trainers during my time as William Carver.
Or, as I wanted to refer to it, the Age of Carverism.

Jewel crafting wouldn’t work on the go. Chopping down trees for
wood gathering seemed annoyingly pointless. Walking while trying to
sew or hobble leather together would likely get me killed by my own
crafting accessories. Being a wandering minstrel wasn’t to my
tastes.

“What
would help, was if this cane was a staff all the time.” That
would assist me in walking a lot more. I wasn’t hunched over
like Carver had been. The fatigue de-buff that I had applied from my
King’s Taste Tester situation was a minor impact now.

Personally, it felt like this game was giving me a lot of slack
already. Running for ten minutes was out of the question in real
life. Voices help me if a dinosaur appeared out of nowhere and tried
to eat my face. They were probably factoring in all the dance
practice I had like it was a representation of the real me. Real me
danced but it was sad. Of course, digital me was also kind of
depressing to watch no matter how skilled.

“How
long before I lose this belly?” I poked at my stomach while we
walked around another set of trees. Dusk shrugged from where he rode.

“How
long before sunrise?” Dusk shrugged in reply to my question.

“How
long before I cut off your cupcake supply in my Atrium?” I
glanced at the tiny dragon from the corner of my eye. Dusk looked
alarmed then yawned in my face from his shoulder perch.

“Just
testing to see if you’re awake.” A yawn escaped me as
well.

We marched onward. There were far too many miles to cover at this
rate. Given the rough terrain of this woodland and my general lack of
knowledge on how to traverse it, I was making a little over a mile an
hour. Near dawn, I was practically stumbling around in complete
exhaustion. Maybe fifteen of the fifty miles had been navigated
successfully.

“Halt!”

I made it a few more steps before the words registered. Dusk had long
since passed out with part of his tail curled around my neck for
stability.

“Halt
or be shot!” The voice came again. One foot fell forward before
my body rocked to a stop. I looked around in half a daze.

“Okay.”
A word escaped my mouth.

“What
do we do?” The voice said. He sounded a bit younger than me
from his tone. The way he spoke however belayed a much lower
intelligence.

“I
don’t know, he just stopped.” A second voice said. He
sounded higher pitched but equally challenged upstairs.

“They
never stop. They always run.”

“Maybe
he’s stupid.” The high pitched one said. My eyes rolled
in exhaustion and nearly didn’t open again.

“Halt!”
The second one yelled nearly cracking his voice. A teenager?

“And
then?” My head was falling to one side. Both hands were grasped
on [Morrigu’s
Gift].
Six hours of hiking I managed to get the shape changing weapon to
elongate into a walking staff. The damage and weight were unchanged
from its other form.

“Then
we kill you and take your stuff.”

What? They would what me? Dying wasn’t a good option at this
point. I had too many miles and not enough time.

“Dusk?”
I questioned for the tiny little creature. A snore answered me.
Somehow he twisted up around my shoulder and seemed to be almost a
solid object instead of a flexible dragon, thing.

“How
are you asleep?”

“Okay!
We’ll be killing you now!”

“Don’t
tell him, you idiot, just shoot!”

“Cow
I buy a vowel?” I yelled, hoping the complete absurdity of my
question might distract them. Plus being mugged in the middle of a
forest all by myself was unattractive. Continue Online did have pain
feedback.

“What’s
that?”

Oh, thank god, they were both as stupid as they sounded.

I
ran again. The guys were dumber than the [Terra
Terri]s
but their arrows were a lot faster. One zinged right into my backside
and shaved off a significant chunk of health.

“AHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Really?”
An arrow flew past my head as I ran. The dumb and dumber duo behind
me kept yelling halt over and over. “I mean, I don’t know
how to kill people!”

My protests of the machine’s response to my flight were
ignored. An arrow grazed Dusk's shoulder, causing the small creature
to awake with a squawk and fall off my shoulder. I completely
panicked and lost my footing in a stumble.

“Little,”
I corrected myself “Dusk!”

The nearest large tree became cover as I scrambled to get behind it.
Two more arrows went by but missed. My pursuers were clearly novices
with their weapons. There was no way that my Rank three Blade Novice
included a high enough dodge.

“Halt!
We want to rob you!” One of them shouted in a bout of
brilliance.

“Is
there a no option?!” I yelled back. “I don’t have
anything!”

“He
doesn’t have anything?” One of them whispered to the
other in a moment that felt very out of place for a forest. They
argued back and forth but the arrows had at least stopped flying. I
risked a glance around the corner and saw my [Messenger’s
Pet] sitting
dazed on the ground. He gave out a pitiful mew similar to a cat.

“Come
here, Dusk.” My voice stayed low. “Come on, big guy.
Cupcakes.” It worked, a little. The miniature dragon was only
half aware, but his head swiveled in my direction and one ear perked
up. “Come on. Cupcakes. Cookies. Ice cream.”

“Did
he die?” Dumb said.

“I
dunno. Go look.” Dumber responded.

“No,
you go look.”

“No,
you. I shot him, you go look.”

Oh my goodness. They were special alright. Both of them wore swords
that looked dulled by misuse. They had maybe four more arrows left in
the quivers on their backs. One had a face that was all mangled. His
hair had been cut short over a leathery looking tan. Being downwind,
I could also tell that they smelled nearly rancid. The rain last
night was probably their only bath this month.

One hand pressed at mushing dirt and an idea triggered. What was my
other top rank? Being an actor? I hastily picked up some of the mud
and undid my gear a little. The mud mixed in with blood trickling
from the wounds I had received. They didn’t sting anymore so it
was easier to be indifferent about them.

“You
dead, Mister?” Dumb, or Dumber, I’m not sure which, crept
in closer. His footsteps clear in the silences of our situation. Dusk
was still squawking but neither of the bandit archers seemed to pay
attention.

The mixture of mud and blood was rubbed on my face and arms. I had
enough health to take another arrow hit so I decided to go for it.

“Ahhh!”
I ran again.

“Watch
out, he’s charging!” The other bandit said and an arrow
flew my way. I had enough time to peek over my shoulder and see the
bolt log right into my shoulder.

I let it hit me and gave an exaggerated spin on the way down. It
hurt, but not so much that this big of an act was necessary. The ARC
provided only a portion of the feedback a real arrow would cause.

“Nooo!”
Mud was smeared all over, my body hung over bushes and weighed them
down. [Morrigu’s
Gift]
was clutched in one hand in its staff shape. My eyes crossed in
concentration as the sound of one bandit got closer.

“I
think he’s dead.”

“Check
him! Then take his money!” The one furthest away said.

Just a little bit closer. Please let this work. I don’t want to
be mugged by some random NPC during my first round of playing. That
would be brutally pathetic. My breath stilled and fingers clutched
the end of my would be weapon. Triggering the switch to its giant
two-handed form was impossible, right?. At most, especially with
Ray’s penalty to luck, it would stay a walking stick.

A
footstep too close and an abrupt pull of someone’s hand at my
shoulder sent me into a panic. I swung [Morrigu’s
Gift] and
growled as we flipped around. There was a flash of movement and the
barest hint of resistance. By the time my brain registered what was
happening Dumb or Dumber, wore a surprised expression. Red splattered
across the bushes and trees in a thin line. I must have mirrored it
as notifications came up in my view.

There
were a lot of boxes that were beyond me. Dumb or Dumber was falling
apart at the middle. My vision wavered as I looked towards the weapon
in my hand. No longer was it a cane, or a walking staff. [Morrigu’s
Gift] had
transformed into Carver’s two-handed blade. The exact action I
never expected.

Then it sliced right through the bandit.

I had killed someone.

There were a few other minor messages about stat gains. They were
lost in the suddenness of my situation and faded into the background.
Behind the falling body was the second bandit. A shaky look was on
his face as he drew his bow and glared down the arrow’s length
at me.

“You
shouldn’t have done that.” The bandit said. “You
shouldn’t have killed him.”

The
arrow flew and I panicked. [Morrigu’s
Gift] twisted
as I tried to use the giant flat end as a shield. The arrow collided
with my hastily erected defense and slid off. My eyes were busy
staring at the crumpled form of my first victim in this world.
Monsters and ink creatures, spiders and straw dummies, were nothing
like killing a person.

“Now
we got to kill you.” My remaining bandit assailant was doing
something else. He had a long object in his hands and pulled a cord
along the bottom.

I had started shaking. The world seemed such a small place now.
Almost like being back in that morgue, identifying her remains. Only
now I was the killer. There was no time to ponder my mistakes. The
other bandit pulled on his device and a bang was joined with a flare
going into the sky. Bright red stood out against a cloud-speckled
backdrop.

“We’re
gonna kill you now.” My second attacker was laughing. This was
just a bandit, it was just an NPC! A person designed to be brought
down by those seeking justice! This was too real. I fumbled and
slammed the logout button only to get a rejection message.

“What?”
I mumbled. “Oh no. Oh no.” They were going to find me,
whatever reinforcements he called for must be homing in on that
flare.

“Dusk!”
We had to go right now. “Dusk! Come on!” I had no idea if
the little guy would be able to track me down in a forest or not. My
skills were only a fraction of William Carver’s so there might
be something important missing.

“Gonna
kill you.” A final arrow slid through the flesh on my arm
leaving a trail of pain. I dove out from behind the cover and swung
the giant sword at my second attacker.

Messages flashed about how the bandit successfully parried. They were
annoying because I could already see that he held a smaller sword and
had deflected the bulk of my swing. His face showed strain across the
scarred features.

The blade swung a second time and the bandit attacked me back.
Parrying wasn’t a skill I was familiar with so his attack
shaved off another chunk of my life. My sword spun as if dancing to
catch the bandit on his open side. Dark metal lodged deeply into his
side and he froze with a gasp of air.

His eyes lost focus. Words passed across his lips but they were
inaudible over the ringing in my ears.

“Dusk?!”
I had to get him. We had to get out of here. A hunting horn let loose
with one long blast in the distance.

My
[Messenger’s
Pet] was
making hurt noises from the ground. I grabbed him and took off
running towards my quest marker. There was no time to take a slow
stroll. A minute later and the horn sounded again, I kept up my
panicked dash. The stamina bar I set up as Carver was fading quickly
and citing penalties from my taste tester event.

Feet didn’t stop blazing a path through the trees until my bar
was near zero. I ground to a slow walk trying to catch my breath.

“Are
we safe?” Dusk had been trying to clean a wound he received
from one of the arrows. His wing had a slight tear. I had nothing to
help out. No bandages. No magical cure spells or compounds. The other
four players I worked with during the [Maze
of Midnight] made
me look like a complete amateur. Who had killed two people.

“Voices,
Dusk, I killed someone.” It was just a game. This whole thing
wasn’t real. All of it was code and science being beamed into
my brain.

Then why did I fight to keep Dusk safe? Why not let him die? Voices,
I had no clue what would happen if he did die. There were bundles of
questions and not enough answers. James. James had information.

I listened carefully for sounds of pursuit. There was nothing obvious
enough for a layman like myself to pick up. Not that anything shy of
shouting and crashing would stand out in these woods. Just to be sure
I put another mile between myself and where those bandits had been.

Dusk at least looked a bit better. The wound on his arm had clotted.
My own health was very slowly recovering despite a few bleed debuffs.
I sat down and shoved one of the new player bundles of food into my
mouth and was pleased to see it helped a little. The game mechanics
weren’t completely against me despite the realism of these
surroundings. Mentally I ran through the list of things I needed to
know now.

“Dusk,
do you know what happens if you run out of health?” I risked
asking the small dragon first. He might save me a prodding question
from James. Not that hiding things from James was my goal, but my
mood was extra shaky.

My
[Messenger’s
Pet] shook
his head back and forth in a negative.

“Shit.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Logging out now was probably possible but
this had to be sorted out.

I
called up my inventory. Aside from my beginners gear, [Morrigu’s
Gift],
the scroll case, there was also a quill and paper for writing.
Hastily I scribbled out my questions about Dusk. The same heating
sensation as earlier came down. James had written out a reply.

“Are
you okay?” James’ voice came through as I read the words.
There was a follow-up as well. “Will you continue with your
mission, Hermes?”

I responded with a no, most certainly not. My mind was running a
million miles a minute replaying what had happened. One part spent
time justifying the murder with all kinds of defenses. The other kept
showing the look on either bandit’s face. Surprise, confusion,
hurt, all caused by me. To the other question, I replied yes, once my
own inquiries were answered.

The poorly scrawled message went back into the tube. I had to screw
down the top as if sending items through an old fashioned banking
drive through. There was no rush of air suctioning the item up, just
a freeze that crawled across the tube and vanished moments later. So,
incoming messages were hot. Outgoing, were cold.

I waited.

Nothing happened with the tube. No messages, no hot or cold. No
pop-up boxes displaying a ‘Please wait while we service your
call’. I pulled the cap off my message container and looked
inside. No response had been issued forth. They were probably arguing
among themselves again for whatever reason.

Dusk lifted his head up and looked into the distance. One ear
twitched. I turned to follow his gaze.

“What
do you hear?”

Both eyes swiveled around and Dusk opened his mouth in a tiny hiss.

“Did
they find us?” My ears weren’t picking up anything. Maybe
there was a skill that would help me later on, but this was only day
two of playing a character. I was dirty, run down, and mentally
stressing out. I had been lucky that my acting ability worked.

I
stood up, the small [Messenger’s
Pet] bounded
up my side and sat on my shoulder. His head still locked on the
distance. He hissed again and traveled behind my head.

“Let’s
go.” My stamina bar was mostly recovered. I started off and was
almost instantly greeted by a horn sound, this time from much closer.

“Oh
no. Oh no.” They surrounded us. There were more of them. Or
something else that was setting off my tiny friend. My feet started
covering ground as fast as possible, still aiming for that quest
marker in the distance.

“Over
here!” A deep voice yelled. I ducked behind the nearest tree
and kept moving. This time a bolt of electricity zipped by and
splashed into a tall plant, leaving charred remains behind.

“Dusk,
find me a path!” The little dragon leapt off my shoulder. His
sharp claws made me wince as I concentrated on running away.

Another bolt of lightning winged me, sending a jarring shock through
my body. My leg jerked and foot failed to find purchase correctly. I
righted myself using my past experience of slipping up while dancing.
There was an art to getting back up quickly. I just never applied it
to being nicked by low voltage lightning before.

[Morrigu’s
Gift] was
back in its cane form which was mostly useless right now. I shoved it
into my belt and kept right on covering ground.

Dusk chirped for my attention from the side. He found a cave of some
sort. I wasted no time asking questions and ducked in after him. If
that was my way out, so be it. Despite the little creature’s
constant desire to tear stuff up, he was helpful. The first step was
a doozy. I tumbled end over end down a long steep passageway.

My surroundings were dark aside from system messages.

“This
is your idea of an escape, Dusk?” My eyebrow went towards where
I believed the little guy to be. He was busy chirping to himself in
the darkness with only the occasional glint of light off the rare
golden scales on his chest. This would be a bit of a journey. First
thing’s first, I needed to get more coffee. One finger pressed
the logoff button.

Session Twenty Two – Deep Cover

Coffee made me feel great until I logged back in. Then it occurred to
me that Dusk had gotten us trapped in complete darkness with no way
to go back out the entrance. Dusk could apparently see fine. He kept
doing his weird half bird half cat chirp at me. I followed him for at
least an hour trying to do, well, anything, aside from bash parts of
my body into rocks and other outcroppings. Or think about what had
happened to those men in the woods.

“Are
you sure this is the right way?”

Trills and chirps issued forth from Dusk. He seemed to be in far
better condition than he had been. Even I felt marginally better now
that lightning bolts weren’t flying by my head.

“Isn’t
there a torch or something, somewhere.” The walls around me
felt smooth enough. If I were to guess, they were constructions of
some sort. This didn’t feel round enough to be a natural cave.

Dusk made more noise further up.

“So
that’s a no on the torch. Can you do a little fireball thing?”
Did his moves have names at all? Perhaps, perhaps not. I wasn’t
about to scream ‘Dusk, use flamethrower now!’ just to
see.

My complaints of ‘How much further is it’, ‘I’m
hungry’, and ‘My feet hurt’ were ignored. Endless
statements escaped me, and the response was always the same distant
and impatient series of noises. The one time I tried to stop Dusk had
bit at my heels rapidly.

Hopefully, this was Dusk and not some weird subterranean noise maker,
that, had eaten, Dusk or something. I don’t know. This game was
largely new to me still. We were in a dungeon. Chances that sunshine
and lollipops littered the floors nearby was pretty slim.

“Oh.”

After
roughly two hours of wandering through carved tunnels and following
Dusk, it occurred to me that I did have a torch of sorts. Part of me
felt ashamed for taking this long. My tattered cloak was pulled out
of hammer space and wrapped around [Morrigu’s
Gift].
The thing had stood up to a dragon. It had to be heat resistant.
There were still a lot of mysteries with the weapon due to a low
[Identification]
skill.

“Dusk,
can you light this up?” I waved the tiny bundle of rags near
him. Hopefully near him anyway. A ball of fire blasted towards me
while completely bypassing my attempt at a makeshift torch. My face
took the brunt of the fire. Burning hair filled the air as Dusk’s
attack faded. Both eyes had bright spots burned into them.

“Come
on.” I coughed. That was piled on the leftover damage from my
fall down the tunnel entrance. “At the torch, so I can see.”

Another
blast whipped towards my face. This time, I dodged by falling down in
panic. My hand slapped against the ground and [Morrigu’s
Gift] clanked
against the wall.

“Are
you not going to help me see?” I quickly grabbed the poorly
attempted torch and banged it on anything nearby. Whatever I hit
sounded solid and thick. Too bad the [Messenger’s
Pet] wasn’t
one of the things bonked.

Dusk chirped happily.

“Seriously?”
My head tilted backward. The [Messenger’s
Pet] chirped
again. Clearly that was him agreeing with my revelation. Carrying a
torch was bad.

“Voices.”
Reasons meandered through my brain. By the time I stood up and
brushed myself off, a few possibilities occurred to me. “Is
fire bad?”

He chirped. Tiny skittering could be heard as he hustled towards me
and started nipping at my heels again. This armor really should have
come with socks. I shook the leg at Dusk and kept grumbling. Fire
would only be bad if he was trying to teach me something, or, if
something out there would try to eat our faces.

“Fine.
No light.” Having a timed quest meant certain sacrifices must
be made.

We fumbled down the tunnel a bit longer before I started to really
twitch. There were probably a dozen spiders around me right now. They
must be waiting just a few feet away with clacking mandibles and
hairy arms.

“Dusk.
I don’t know how much longer I can do this.” Being in the
dark would have been fine back in my home. Though part of me had to
work at remembering this was just a game. Feeling the carved rock
around me while hearing the [Messenger’s
Pet] making
noise kept me immersed. His constant huffing blending in well with
the eerily silent surroundings.

Water dripped nearby making me twist and turn in panic. Dusk nipped
at my heels again to get me going.

“Just
a game. This is just a game.” I muttered.

More steady drips slowly gave way to a rushing sound. The noise
seemed oppressive compared to the silence of everything else. In the
distance, there seemed to be a light of some sort growing in
intensity. My heart sped up in hopes that this might be an exit
already.

In any horror game, this would be where the jump scenes happened. I
frequently flipped around due to some noise in fear that a giant
creature would leap out of the darkness to eat my face. So far it had
been strangely peaceful.

We approached the bit of light and things were better. Dusk could be
seen nosing around while sniffing at a trail. That was one fear
resolved. I had been partially worried that Dusk was some evil
creature leading me further into the depths of a cavernous nightmare.
That fear brought me full scale to my dislike of spiders and worry
about being eaten.

“Where
are we?” I leaned my head down towards the [Messenger’s
Pet] and
whispered.

The light was coming from water that rushed through this cavern. I
could see a carved bridge that spanned across the underground river.
Portions of it were knocked out and decaying. There were footprints
that had to be at least a few days old judging by the dust piles.

I leaned over and looked into the clear water. Fish were fluttering
around below, but they seemed mostly harmless. There were no
creatures with exaggerated jaws waiting for stupid players like me to
get too close. The light was coming from some moss that clung to the
bottom and illuminated everything.

All in all, this dungeon was a quiet disappointment.

Dusk had crawled on top of one of the bridge rails. They were at
least a foot wide and came up to my chest. He locked his gaze on one
of the fish in the water. I could almost see the thought bubble
appear over his head as he contemplated diving for one of them.

“Wait
a minute.” I paused. I could actually see a little thought
bubble. That wasn’t me imagining anything.

“Dusk,
leave the fish alone.” His head snapped in my direction as the
cloud like bubble faded away. Dusk had twisted his neck far enough to
turn his dragon features upside down.

He huffed and his eyes caught one of the swimming creatures again. I
stared for another moment and could see the same sort of picture
appearing. A bubble floated in an almost comical cloud above his
head. Inside of it was the fish swimming along.

“Dusk!”
He snarled and drew back a tiny cheek. I stared at him. The
[Messenger’s
Pet] might
be able to nip at me and breathe fire, but I wasn’t really
afraid. Not after four weeks together. Unless the Voices turned me
into a cupcake, maybe one of them was a magical baker or another
equally weird category.

“Can
you even swim?” I shook my head. “Leave the fish alone,
I’m sure there’ll be gophers or something soon.”

I sat down and checked all my vitals. The health bar had slowly
recovered. There was nothing for mana yet. Something would show up if
I ever learned any spells. Learning magic seemed unlikely in an
underground dungeon.

“I’m
telling you, I heard something over this way.” A female voice
whispered harshly. There was a familiar tone to it.

“You’re
kidding. This way is a dead end, the map says so.” The other
voice was also female but far younger sounding.

“No,
I heard something.” The older one said. Dusk seemed oblivious
to our impending guests. I still had no clue what would happen if he
died since James hadn’t gotten back to me. Now was a bit late
to be worried.

“You
sure it’s not The Ooze?” I could hear revulsion in her
voice. There was a slight clink of armor as they came around the
corner.

“Oh.”
The older one said.

“That’s
not The Ooze.”

“No,
it’s worse.” The woman looked familiar. Far too familiar.
“Hello, Grant.” I blinked suddenly and scanned her up and
down. It was hard to tell who this was under the plate armor and huge
shoulder pads. The piercing in her ear looked vaguely familiar.

She used my real name, though. Who did I know in real life that might
respond to me in such a disgusted manner? One of my clients?
According to Henry, all of them thought I was wonderful. Oh.

“Hi,
Elane.” I scratched my head and shuffled both feet. This was
worse than meeting random strangers. The last time we spoke was after
a very bad date that involved drinking and a broken chair. That had
been almost a year after Xin passed, and because my sister had set us
up.

“Nice
to see you, Grant, we’ll be going now.” Elane started
forward only to be held back by her much younger companion.

“Maybe
he knows the way out, SheHulk.” The second woman was blonde and
looked so hopeful she almost shone. Or she was just a lot cleaner
than her companion.

I raised an eyebrow at Elane. She was shorter than the average
person, and a Spanish heritage shone through in her hair and skin
tone. There was a bare hint of an accent that even the virtual world
hadn’t removed completely. The piercings on her face were in
the same place in the game and real life. One on the eyebrow and ear,
both on her left side.

“Yeah,
it’s SheHulk, there something wrong with that name?” She
stomped a foot in my direction and drew back her cheek with a snarl.

“Not
at all.” A hasty response escaped me. The broken chair hadn’t
been my fault. That was all her, as a result of my one track rambling
during the date. SheHulk was fitting once you got past her stature.

Dusk
was currently wiggling his backside and angling to jump into the
water. A bubble above the [Messenger’s
Pet]’s
head painted a clear picture of his expected results. I looked over
the edge, down at the water rushing through that those fish were
having a hard time swimming against.

“None
of that.” I grabbed at the little creature and he squeaked in
alarm before trying to bite at my fingers. At least he hadn’t
been paying attention or catching him would have been impossible.

“What
is that?” The youngest said. Concentrating on her figure
triggered the [Identification]
skill.
Her name was TinkerHell. It almost fit, she was a waif compared to
Elane. About her was a flowing robe that was bound at her waist.

“Dusk?
He’s a bundle of trouble.” I stroked his head to calm the
tiny fellow down. Eventually we would make it to a town and pick up
some snacks for him. Cupcakes did wonders.

“He’s
adorable!” The younger girl exclaimed and ran over. She had no
problems invading my personal space once Elane had introduced us.
“What does he eat?”

“Cupcakes,
mostly.” Dusk hissed at the small girl and she drew back with
concern on her face. The tiny dragon reminded me of a weird mix
between a cockatiel and a ferret. Especially the way he squirmed and
his wings fluttered.

“Hey,
look at the water again, how fast is that going?” I held Dusk
over the edge. “You want to try to catch a fish and swim
against the current?”

“Can
I hold him?”

“That’s
up to Dusk.” Players had tried in [Haven
Valley] and
normally it went poorly. Dusk was perfectly fine leading people but
was not the lap type of creature with others. I set the tiny dragon
down to let him run around as he wanted. Holding a squirming creature
was bad enough.

Dusk ran off down the bridge and got a closer look at the swimming
fish. TinkerHell squealed and ran after him. That left me standing
fairly close to Elane who had approached while we talked.

“When
did you start playing, Grant?” SheHulk, or Elane, actually
looked like she was doing pretty good. She had been sort of plump
during our brief period. Her face reflected ten or twenty pounds
lost.

Xin had been a rather thin woman. I frowned again, Elane had broken
the chair because of my comparisons to Xin. What else could be done
though? We may not have ever married, but I had known Xin since high
school. My head shook and the entire thought process reset. She had
passed on.

“Is
he a baby dragon?” Elane asked. Her shoulder rolled and the arm
clinked a little. A scowl crossed her features.

“I’m
not entirely sure.” I knew exactly what he was. Not that any of
the details regarding that were made obvious.

“Tink,
we got any more of that oil? I’m going to need some once we set
down for camp. Otherwise this stuff will be making too much noise
again.”

“He
looks upset.” Dusk had wiggled free and was climbing up on my
back and hissing again.

“Hey,
what’s that guy mad at?” Elane nodded in my direction.
“Does he track monsters?”

I shrugged and tried to rub Dusk on the head. He shied away from my
hand and dodged to the other shoulder. Another hiss escaped his
mouth. The corner of each cheek was tucked in from worry. TinkerHell
looked at the cave entrance and tilted her head.

“Is
that Edward?” She asked.

“I
don’t know. He’s too quiet for me to hear.” SheHulk
readied her armor with a shoulder roll. A giant shield and mace
appeared in either hand. “Better safe than sorry.” The
Spanish woman looked good in armor. She was lacking sunlight and a
battle cry in order to complete the inspiring aura.

“Mmmh.”
I was actually happy about meeting her down here. As awkward as our
parting had been, it was nice to know that people from my past were
doing well.

“Runnnn!!
Run, we have to run, we have to run! Ladies!” A taller pasty
white man came screaming out of the tunnel. His footsteps were silent
but the panic in his voice was not.

“Why
are you standing around?! Run!” He ran across the bridge.

“That
way’s a dead end!” TinkerHell cut him off.

“Then
find another exit! This place is too bright, we can’t hide,
we’re all going to die. Ladies, I don’t like dying!”
He was frantic and ran back to TinkerHell and SheHulk. Elane bashed
him with her giant shield. Small stars appeared circling his head as
he swayed.

I bit my lips to prevent the laugh.

“Edward,
calm your tits, what’s chasing you and how long do we have?”
SheHulk said.

“The
Ooze! It’s back there. It laid eyes upon my person.”

“It
doesn’t have eyes.” Her hand went to one hip as she
frowned at Edward.

“It,
it, it whatevered me! The point is that that passageway is already
filled.” Edward’s eyes were huge and he grabbed
TinkerHell by the shoulders and shook. “We have mere minutes,
ladies, before it comes this way.”

TinkerHell lifted her staff and got Edward in the groin. I managed to
contain the latest laugh. This was neat. Carver would have stared
blankly or scowled, but I was me again, I could find humor in a
situation and express it.

“Grant,
you sure that’s a dead end?”

“Pretty
sure. I fell down a long tunnel.” Then a quest told me that
climbing back up was impossible with my skills.

“A
tunnel? No problem, I can climb!” Edward rushed over to me with
a delighted look. “How long was the fall? Ten feet? Twenty?
We’ve got to be close to the surface.”

“It
was, a lot of feet.” I nodded and tried not to smile. They
acted like impending doom was right around the corner. Maybe it was,
but I had no clue what could be done about it. [Morrigu’s
Gift] probably
didn’t come with an ‘Ooze Bane’ title attached to
it.

This was a game after all. Maybe there was a secret to killing this
creature. I could be Hermes, Messenger of the Voices, Destroyer of
The Ooze. None of the other players seemed to share my mirth.

“What’s
this Ooze thing?” I asked.

“It’s
like that movie creature from a few years ago,” SheHulk said. I
had probably missed that movie. Movies weren’t on my list of
hobbies in that time frame. My shrug must have pissed Elane off.

“It’s
unkillable so far, and it destroys armor and weapons, plus a disease
that lingers after you die,” TinkerHell said while Elane rolled
her eyes at me.

“That’s
not neat at all.” Maybe my niece knew a secret about it. She
seemed to know a lot of random things about this world.

“We
need an exit. Edward, think you can get up that tunnel and throw down
a rope?” Dusk dodged down off of my shoulder while SheHulk and
Edward talked. He seemed to be dressed similarly to how Shadow was.
Only he looked far more, I don’t know, minstrel-like. Maybe he
had some sort of Bard Rank? Was there a Bard system? His voice did
have a musical lilt to it.

“Maybe.
I’d have a hard time getting up myself.” His eyes
flickered back and forth between his party members and the doorway.
“For you, I’ll try.” Then he smiled and white teeth
nearly blinded me.

“It’s
a long, long slope,” I grumbled. I had spent a good fifteen
seconds rolling down and hitting things. Even now my health wasn’t
completely recovered. Not to mention Dusk blowing a ball of fire into
my face.

“Really?
So what, we’re just stuck here?” TinkerHell groaned and
both her shoulders sagged. She too had equipped weapons like SheHulk,
there was a bladed staff in her hands that had jewels in it.

“Or.”
Edward pointed a finger at the bridge.

Dusk was ignoring us all. The image of fish had formed above his head
once more. His butt wiggled back and forth, oblivious to our
impending doom. Why he had gone from upset to battle mode so quickly
was beyond me.

A
long sigh escaped me. The other three people stood between me and the
[Messenger’s
Pet].
By the time I nudged Elane out of the way, Dusk had already gone for
a swim. Moments later he was squawking in confused satisfaction. On
one hand, he had managed to snag a fish almost instantly. On the
other, Dusk was now being swept away by a raging current.

“After
you, ladies,” Edward said with a quick bow. I put Carver’s
staff into player inventory and dove into the water. Being considered
a lady for going before Edward didn’t bother me. Dusk was more
important than the silly timed quest and questions of survival. This
was just a game, it was only a game. The mantra escaped me as current
swept me down the river and into questionable darkness.

Dusk
could be heard flopping around ahead of me. His cries, bird-like, or
maybe cat-like, but completely belonging to his tiny dragon self,
were mixed up in the rush of water. System messages flew up on my
screen to one side telling me about skill increases for [Swimming]
and
[Breath Holding].
I waved them away while trying to tread the current.

Rocks dipped into the river. My skills in real life were poor with
swimming. The game world wasn’t much better. I tried to
mitigate the currents desire to smash me into everything.

I cursed and tried to navigate the underground river again. Failure
abounded as I rolled from one stalactite to another.

“Dusk!”
I got a mouthful of water trying to yell out for my companion. The
latest message was smacked away by one hand trying to clear water
from my eyes. These messages had to be coming from one of the Voices.
There was no way a game would be programmed to screw with me to this
extent.

“Dusk!”
There, I heard him squawk again. I had enough time to see the tiny
creature hanging onto one of the rocks dipping down from the ceiling.
Then we collided. During the scramble, he managed to latch onto my
shoulder.

“Hang
on!” Dusk still had that stupid fish impaled on one of his
claws. Its body weakly flapped against my ear. The [Messenger’s
Pet] wrapped
his tail around my neck. I choked on water and slammed into something
again.

The three players were shouting something behind me. I couldn’t
hear them with water in my ears. More rocks connected and the river’s
flow tried to pull me under. We were swept along for a few minutes
before the water fed out into a giant lake.

The current carried us straight to shore. I pulled myself onto land
while heaving my guts up. The other three players came in right
behind me. SheHulk was being carried along by Edward and TinkerHell.
She lay on her back groaning. Her heavy armor had not been kind
during the trip.

“Where
are we?” Edward asked. “I don’t recognize this part
of the dungeon.” He was the first of us to recover. He had also
just staggered to his feet to walk around while Elane lay there
panting in agony.

“I
don’t know, this place isn’t on my map.” TinkerHell
shuddered violently. Her face looked blue and extremely cold. Even I
felt the chill.

“You
okay, Elane?” I asked.

She raised one hand weakly and flipped me the bird.

“Okay.
Okay. You’re alright.” I nodded.

“Edward,
can you scout?” TinkerHell sent the pale man off. He nodded and
started stumbling away. I looked around. We seemed to be in a basin
for the underground river. There was another level up higher. Edward
was partway up a smooth incline.

I pulled myself up and tugged at Dusk. His eyes were closed and
little mummers of noise escaped him. Gargling sounds came from deep
within his throat and steam issued forth from his mouth. After a
moment of my prying, he looked around and chirped. He was clearly
doing better than I. Hopefully soon, there would be a visible health
bar for him that would let me better gauge his progress.

“Really,
I mean, I hope you’re proud of yourself.” I coughed up my
own mouthful of water and phlegm. If this game had full pain sensors
that little joy ride would have put me in a coma. The smile on the
Dusk’s face was answer enough. Failing that, above his head, a
pleased yellow smiley face was floating in one of those stupid
thought bubbles.

“You
little savage.” Dusk, who had claws deeply embedded in the now
still fish, set about happily eating his latest prize.

My eyes rolled and I collapsed backward in the same pose Elane had.
The brief respite was interrupted quickly as Edward came cruising
back down in a panic.

“Guys,
up here, but be quiet.” Edward was whispering and gestured with
both hands to stay low. A leftover groan from the Age of Carver
escaped as I rolled to my feet. [Morrigu’s
Gift] came
out of my inventory. Holding it made me feel better.

“What
is that?” TinkerHell whispered as we scaled the ramp upwards.
Elane stayed on the beach to recover while Edward was ahead leading
us.

“A
cane?” I shrugged and crept further along Edward’s trail.
He reached near the top and gestured for us to stop. Something up
there had a fire or other light source. The flames danced across the
edge of Edward’s face. He turned and pressed one finger over
his lips.

I
tried not to roll my eyes. Edward wanted us to be quiet. This was the
same man who had come screaming in a tizzy about ‘The Ooze’
just a few minutes ago. I wouldn’t even be following these
players except for my uselessness outside [Haven
Valley].
Attempts at being quiet resulted in a pop-up message about [Silent
Step] skill
demonstration. Demonstration alone wasn’t enough. My feet
missed a step near the top. Continue Online graced me with a message.

Edward went ashen and just screamed.

“Kill
them before they kill us!” He leapt up over the
edge.“AHHHHHHHHHH!” Edward had metal on his hands that
reflected light from over the ridge.

“What?”
I asked.

“Oh,
Jesus.” TinkerHell stood up. She ran past using my head to
propel herself further. “SheHulk! He’s doing it again!”

As I rolled downhill a kind message displayed regarding my failure to
hold the high ground. Elane groaned below us. Her armor clinked as
the woman staggered to her feet. She was complaining about Edward
while grunting. I stood and tried to be sneakier on the way back up.

“What?!”
SheHulk tried to yell but ended up coughing violently.

“Gobblers,
the orange ones!” TinkerHell leaned over the ledge and shouted
down at Elane. “We’re doing a stack and smash!”

Moments later she was focused on the attacking creatures. TinkerHell
had taken position right at the ramp’s top. She used the butt
end of her staff to scribble into the dirt. A grim line sat on her
face. I pulled myself further up and saw Edward fighting a mess of
creatures.

“Voices.”
That was not a fire. I tried to use [Identification]
and
barely got anything useful. They were glowing creatures called
[Gobbler]s.
More details required a higher Rank of my skill.

Edward swung his arms at monsters while announcing his successes.

“Backstab
successful!” He shouted. Both eyes were wide and the mustache
on his face quivered in excitement. “Critical hit! Another!”

“He’s
a bigger idiot than you, Grant.” Elane stomped by me. Her hand
shared a similar disregard for my ability to stand and shoved me back
down the ramp as she passed. Another system message happily informed
me of failure.

“Die
fiend!” Edward’s shout kept me company as I rolled
downward again.

Not this again. At least there wasn’t a giant tentacle dragon
ink thing, stuff, screaming over and over. One hand pinched my nose
to stop both eyes from watering. I tried to stand up using Carver’s
cane. Only weeks of practice gripping it overcame the penalty. The
daze wore off quickly.

Upwards I went, again. At the top of the ramp’s ridge, I saw a
mess. SheHulk was slamming her shield into monster faces. There was a
grim happiness each time she got close enough to hit one with the
huge piece of metal. The glow was almost the same as HotPants'. Why
did they seem so similar? Was it a side effect of being in a game
world?

“Tink!”
Elane yelled.

“Almost!”
TinkerHell was busy scribbling out the last of a giant circle.

“I’ve
been hit!” He yelled. “Hamstrung that one!” The
damage didn’t slow him down. He seemed to be going from
creature to creature and slashing at their legs. The action was too
fast for my mind to keep up correctly.

“God
dammit, Edward!” Elane threw up a hand and a light spilled
outward. I could see the health bar on Edward go up as whatever she
did healed him. Was she a paladin? Or something similar? Sweat
dripped down her face.

I had no clue where to fit into this. This, this was madness. It was
worse than my trip as William Carver. They had hours to figure out
working together. I had ten minutes. Two of those involved a wild
river ride.

Okay.
Okay. I could do this. Those creatures looked more like giant walking
opal golem creatures. There, Edward was like a damn [Coo-Coo
Rill] and
just all over the place. SheHulk was getting swarmed on one side.

“Done!
Five seconds!” Two circles started glowing. First, one under
TinkerHell formed around her runes and lit up with an ice blue that
started fogging the air. A second larger one appeared under all the
damaged golems.

“Edward!
Find cover!” SheHulk yelled while slamming back another one of
the opal colored golems. It spun out of control backwards and crashed
into others. They fell in a heap into the second larger circle. Their
feet almost froze suddenly.

“Dodge!”
His voice had an annoyingly musical lilt to it. He leapt over one of
the creatures and across the way over the ramp’s edge. Moments
later he was sitting next to me with a wild grin on his face.

“Fancy
meeting you here.” He said.

“Grant,
down!” SheHulk yelled. I was staring at the circle under the
golems. It grew brighter.

“Best
do it, mate.” Edward smiled and wiped at his head with one
hand. He nearly stabbed himself with the claw attached to his hand.

SheHulk pulled in tight between her tower shield. Her feet were on
the edge of the giant circle. Ice spikes started rapidly forming in
the center and swallowed up some of the creatures.

“Don’t
say I didn’t warn you.” Edward hummed to himself.

The pile of ice was huge. Glowing was visible from where the monsters
had been swallowed up. There was a snap and one crack, followed by a
second as the ice pile started to bulge.

Oh.

I finally realized why everyone was taking cover. Even TinkerHell was
behind Elane. As the cold snap style spell shattered I pulled my head
back behind the ledge.

My eyes cast downward while hands went above my head in cover. Shards
of ice and broken Gobbler thing went flying over our heads. Edward
had a smile on his face. TinkerHell squeaked. Dusk, still down below
on the lake’s shore, jumped as a chunk of monster landed next
to him.

The
[Messenger’s
Pet] set
about sniffing the dead monster in the aftermath of an explosion.

“Anything
to clean up?” Edward shouted up the ramp.

“All
clear.” TinkerHell whispered back. I peeked over the ridge
again. It looked like an ice bomb had gone off. All the health bars
of our, their, enemies had successfully reached zero.

TinkerHell tapped on Elane’s shoulder. The woman was a mess and
looked beaten, exhausted, and pleased. Her teeth were gritted
together.

“Camp?”
TinkerHell asked. Elane nodded.

“Great.
I need to step out for a bite.” Edward smiled and there was a
loss of color to his face as the autopilot took over.

“Tink,
you okay on watch?” Elane, SheHulk, whatever, asked. Knowing a
player’s real life names was confusing me.

“Yeah.”
TinkerHell was knocking off dust waving her hands at the air. She was
probably getting rid of system messages. “How about your boy
toy?”

“Grant
can go fuck himself for all I care.” Nice to know I was needed.
Elane too lost color as she logged out. TinkerHell looked over at me.
She smiled helplessly and gave a shrug.

“I’ll…”
Follow Elane’s suggestion I guess. I needed a restroom break
and real food. Maybe they would be gone by the time I got back. Dusk
could probably lead me to the exit just fine without the other
players. Plus Elane seemed really strained when talking to me.

I clicked the logout button and let my session in Continue Online end
for a little while.

Session Twenty Three – Lost, in Earth

Being inside the ARC numbed most sensations from the physical body.
My trip to the bathroom and the resulting relief told me that I had
needed to go for quite some time. I fired up some music and scarfed
down hastily made microwaved food. Ten minutes out here, forty inside
the game.

One day I would learn the science behind how the Continue Online
provided a time compression. There were a few theories, but Trillium
hadn’t provided any public answers beyond ‘Magic’.
I knew, from my excessive hours under their hulls, that a number of
the parts read brain waves. Other pieces sent out sonar-style pulses
and other waves to muddle human senses. Maybe it was a hypnotic
sensation?

The
preset alarm went off. It was time to shove such silly questions
aside and step back into the digital world. I laid back and tried to
catch a glimpse of the ‘magic’ happening. My mind fuzzed
out before anything became apparent. I only wondered because of this
silly timed quest. There were roughly two days to get through the
dungeon. After that was one more day to hike to [Broken
Mountain Pass] and
retain my [Messenger
of the Voices] title.

And Dusk had led me into the depths of some strange Dungeon that I
understood nothing of. Such thoughts kept me busy as I logged in,
stepped through the Atrium and plopped back into my Continue Online
avatar.

Almost immediately I was assaulted.

“Grant!
What in the good god damn is this?” SheHulk was shaking me with
one hand, a thin parchment in her other. My vision blurred as I tried
to focus.

“What?”
I chattered.

“Your
autopilot gave me a quest!” She shook the paper some more.

I
braced myself a bit better and tried to escape from her grip. Her
character’s [Brawn]
had
to be insanely high compared to mine. The rattling back and forth
continued another ten seconds while one of the other players said
something. TinkerHell probably. It was hard to hear as my ears rang.

“We
all got one!” Elane said.

“Mine’s
an airplane!” Edward happily exclaimed and pointed towards the
lake. A small piece of parchment was floating in the dark waters.
“The distance was terrible, can I have another?”

“Can
I see?” I put out a hand to the shorter woman. She grumbled and
shoved the paper into my hands. The paper’s rough texture was
familiar. Those edges, the ink style. This was one of the messages
from up above. Had my autopilot fished these out of the tube?

And what did it say?

Crud. My mission to make it through the Dungeon had somehow been
altered slightly and shared with the other people. Why did my
autopilot trust them at all? Elane I only knew through my sister and
two terrible dates. These other two were beyond me. Plus it said that
traveling from where I was now, to my destination, was basically an
impossible feat.

A leftover Carver groan escaped me.

“Seriously,
Grant? How did you do this? We’re not even in a party!”
Elane asked. She looked upset and I backed up a few steps. The broken
table from our second date had been caused by her. She had swung it
at my head and managed to hit the wall instead.

“Ummm…”
The first rule of NPC club was to not talk about NPC club. “It’s
a weird skill I picked up.”

“Anything
to do with that fancy title on your character sheet?” Edward
asked with an amused twitch of his mustache.

“Maybe?”
I had no idea if the [Messenger
of the Voices] title
was on my sheet or not. Inspecting my name was secondary to looking
at all the abilities and Ranks I picked up.

“Neat
trick, mate. Let’s have another.” Edward came over and
jabbed me in the side with his elbow. “You got a quest for
guessing women’s sizes? I can complete that one right now.”

“Seriously,
Edward? What did I tell you about using that skill on me?”
TinkerHell said. She held out her jeweled staff towards the man. His
mustache twitched as he looked down his nose at it.

“I
believe you said, don’t peek, then threw some rocks at me, and
told me I’d wake up without my balls if I did it again. Then we
had a fine afternoon…”

“Shut
up!” Tink cut off whatever Edward had planned on saying.

“Oh
god, Tink, not you too.” Elane started rubbing her forehead in
exasperation. “I thought we made a rule about this.” The
shield and mace were both put up so Elane didn’t make the same
brilliant mistake I had with [Morrigu’s
Gift].

“I
was drunk.” Her defense was delivered with entirely too much
cheer.

“I
thought we made a rule about that too,” Elane said.

Meanwhile, my mind was busy trying to calculate the odds of success
on a complete bailout. Maybe this whole question could be avoided by
hauling over the bridge to the left then up that tunnel.

“Don’t
even think about it, Grant. I’m sure Liz would be more than
happy to provide me your address.” Elane was probably right,
they were friends from somewhere. That was how Liz had hooked me up
with Elane in the first place.

“I
wasn’t going to do anything,” I said.

“I’ll
bet not, you’re too chicken shit.”

“Really,
Elane?” I took some offense at that. Being polite was not the
same as being ‘chicken shit’ by any definition.

“Really?
You know you still haven’t looked anyone in the eyes?”
She retorted.

Oh. There was no defense against that statement. Looking people in
the face was kind of awkward for me. It had been for years. My
therapist had pointed it out to me and even provided a suggested fix.
Look at people, and simply answer one question. What color are their
eyes?

“Yeah.
Still being a wounded puppy.” There was a series of items
crashing to the ground. I could see Elane’s shoulder guards
being removed. The rest of her armor stayed on. “I’ll bet
you can’t even tell me what color my eyes are.”

My mouth had a hard time answering that one. My normal mantra of not
thinking about my responses too much was failing.

“Yeah.
That’s what I thought. Tink, we’re done here.” The
armor vanished off of the ground, likely into Elane’s player
inventory.

“Brown.”
I muttered.

“Try
again.” She said.

I shrugged. Her eyes had been brown during our few dates. The memory
stuck with me after I mentioned it out loud. Why? Because brown was
not the same color as Xin’s. My response irked the short
Spanish woman.

“I
fucking hate you, Grant.” Two terrible dates and Elane was a
woman scorned. The whole attitude she seemed to carry, like I was the
only person with problems, was starting to get to me.

“We
haven’t talked in over a year, Elane. Move on.”

“That’s
rich, asking me to let go of things.” Elane was up in my face
with all the anger she could muster. I counted myself lucky that she
hadn’t pulled out a chair from player inventory to swing at me.

“Excuse
me, ladies.” Edward spoke up. “Do we want to help with
this quest? Or should we just go our separate ways?”

“I
want to keep watching. I bet they have makeup sex on a rock.”
TinkerHell said with a smirk. What was with women in this game? Was
there something about the digital landscape that let them remove
mental filters from the real world?

“Disregarding
your strange voyeuristic tendencies, I’m voting yes.”
Edward said while raising a finger in the air.

“SheHulk?”
Tinkerhell had a hand out on the shorter woman’s shoulder. I
tried to remember my exercise questions, what color were TinkerHell’s
eyes? Her eyes were green, and her face was freckled. There was more
to the woman than just clothing, more than the items in her hands.
Not just a robe, not just a jeweled staff, but an entire person. One
possessing a gutter mind.

“Fine.
We’ll try to get you out.” She turned away. Short hair,
Elane had short hair in the game. How had I missed that? Her head
turned my direction briefly before looking at the other male in our
party. “You can stand in the back. Edward, scout us a way out.”

“Right
then, onward, upwards!” He practically skipped off across the
way. I didn’t have time to see his eyes. That ponce style
mustache was rather all consuming when I looked at him.

There was finally time to look around now that SheHulk wasn’t
busy demanding answers. Dead monster remains were scattered all over.
What had once been bright cores giving off a fiery glow were now
dimmed to nearly nothing. Glowing moss and embers from dead monsters
provided a small amount of light to see by.

This
was a game, right? I had seen nothing of loot or other such rewards.
There was a pop up off to the side citing another [Cowardice]
demonstration.
That was an uncomfortable feeling. Maybe the system would change it
to [Prudence]
or
something along those lines. William Carver would dive into combat, I
still wasn’t there. My consolation was a box that cited an
increase in the [Tumble]
skill
and [Stagger
Resistance].
Both were probably tied to falling downhill twice without breaking my
neck.

Once again my preexisting experience with dancing in the ARC had
helped. There had been no time to deliberately roll with that fall,
so I must have done it automatically.

“This
way ladies!” Edward yelled and waved further around the lake’s
edge.

“After
you, boss!” TinkerHell turned her lips up in a pixie-like
smile. I waited for the women to head off before whistling at Dusk,
who was still playing down by the water and looking for more fish.

He turned and looked at me, then the others marching off, and took
flight. Soon Dusk was perched on my shoulder and watching everyone as
we walked. We were headed back into a dark portion of the dungeon
again. None of the others seem bothered by the situation. Did they
have some method of seeing in the dark? They used no torches. The
ambient light from the cavern before had faded off into nothing.

“So
how did you do it, Professor?” TinkerHell had drifted towards
the back with me. We were maybe twenty feet behind the angry
footsteps of Elane.

“I’m
not a Professor.” I whispered back.

“No?
SheHulk talks about you, said you…”

“Tink!”

“She!
Hulk!” TinkerHell smiled. Her blonde locks were barely visible
as we exited the light.

“Really,
girl?”

“Would
you believe she’s my sponsor?” TinkerHell sounded like
she was smiling still. It was difficult to tell as everything faded
into darkness.

We made it another ten minutes. My sheer fumbling in the darkness had
caused SheHulk to hiss in annoyance more than once. I was trying
desperately to use the wall as guidance. Dusk was doing his chirping
thing ahead of me somewhere. It was pointless because of the noise
Elane caused.

“Can
you see?” TinkerHell risked whispering again.

I shook my head and then started to speak.

“Holy
Bat Balls!” TinkerHell wasn’t trying to keep her volume
low now. “Wait. SheHulk! I need to get your boy toy a scroll.”

“What?”
SheHulk said.

“He’s
totally blind.” The blonde sounded happy. There was a snapping
of fingers in front of my face. I reached out and tried to shoo the
hand away.

“You
mean we’ve been going this slow because he’s blind?”
Elane responded. She was closer. Judging by her tone, she was finding
yet another reason to be angry with me. It reminded me far too much
of HotPants aside from the differences in physical traits.

“Well,
you didn’t really ask did you?”

“Ladies,
we got another pack up around the corner.” During our
conversation Sir Twisty Mustache had returned. He joined in our
whispering right away.

Something was shoved into my hand.

“Here,
use this scroll.” The blonde said. Okay. That was not an easy
order to follow. Scrolls were a mystery to me, along with most things
magical.

“Hermes?
You with us?” TinkerHell spoke again.

“He’s
gone daft.” Edward chimed in with an equal amount of happiness.

“Come
on, Grant. You’re holding us back.”

“I’ve
never used a scroll.” Being with this party was destroying my
happy place. They were constantly acting like I should know all sorts
of things. Probably because they thought I had been playing for a
while. Better clear that up quickly.

“Really,
Mate?” Edward said from, somewhere.

“I’ve
only been playing for two weeks real time.” I said quietly.
There was a round of confusion, half gasps, and a snicker.

“Really,
Grant, really?”

“Yes,
Elane. Is there a problem, Elane?” I snapped back. We weren’t
drinking, I was sort of recovered and no longer the same moping
person she had experienced. My armor polishing skills were coming
along nicely and my doctor had issued me a certificate saying I was
no longer a danger to myself. Why should this stuff just slide by me?

“I’ll
kick you in your balls if you don’t knock it off.”

“Girl,
you sort of brought this on yourself.” TinkerHell stepped in. I
heard Edward give a roguish imitation of ‘you go girl’
noises in the background.

“Don’t
even start.” Elane said.

“Look,
I’ll deal with Hermes, you go set up with Edward, and give us
two minutes.” There was a rustle in the darkness as TinkerHell
did, something. SheHulk was soon wandering down the hallway grumbling
at me. Mustache had left too, I think.

“Okay,
crash course in scrolls. There’s two ways, one’s reading,
one’s using an ignition symbol. Go ahead and unroll it, there
should be a glow on the top right.” TinkerHell was close by,
near my shoulder if I were to guess based on her voice. It was a bit
too near.

The
scroll unrolled easily. It was about six inches on each side. Sure
enough, on the top right, a small symbol that looked similar to an S
glowed a dancing orange. I really regretted not making it to that
cave with Awesome Jr. and SweetPea. Carver would have been a bit too
conspicuous huffing up the hill. Still, gaining that [Mana
Sense] trait
would have been worthwhile.

“How?”
I asked.

“Thumb
on the light, from your dominant hand, twist it counter-clockwise.
The game will register your intent.” There was a pause in her
explanation. “Unless you can read Lithium?”

“Lithium?
Like the battery?” That was a weird name for the language of
magic. I put one finger on the symbol and had to think about which
way counter clockwise was.

I was assuming at this point. Admitting there were things I didn’t
know bothered me. Especially after all my insider time as William
Carver. Four weeks of being a man who knew everything had brainwashed
me.

“Just
like the battery. If we have time I’ll explain more. For now,
twist your thumb.” She placed a hand on my arm and it made me
jump. I took a few breaths, remembered my four count tempo and
positioned my feet to start a dance. The habitual calming exercises
worked and I turned my hand the right way.

Light spilled from the first symbol to the second, then third. Soon
an entire chain lit up on the paper with that dancing glow. It was
like watching a series of dominoes fall down, only instead of dots or
English letters, these were lined with shapes and runes. All of them
squiggles that made no sense.

“Almost
now.” TinkerHell said. Reflexively I started to turn towards
her voice. “Focus on the paper.” My eyes hastily righted
themselves.

The glowing letter chain reached the page’s end. Each item
connected to the next. All of them flashed at once like a light bulb
giving one last gasp. Soon there was nothing on the page. I turned it
around and looked at the back, the sides, and tried to understand.
Soon the parchment itself crumbled completely.

Odd. Now there was a visible mana bar. This one spell hadn’t
taken that much to cast, or whatever it was called when a player used
the scroll.

“How’s
your vision?” TinkerHell asked. I turned and looked at her
face, she wasn’t more than two feet away and smiling again.
Green eyes.

“Good.”
I managed to get the word out even though my mind mostly blanked. My
confusion came from having a woman close to me, voluntary, outside of
work.

“You
ready to go?”

“Uhhh…”
For what? Oh. Right. The others were up ahead of us somewhere setting
up.

“You
don’t have any clue how to work in a party?” She asked.

My ideas were vague at best. Sure, I could sit in the back and let
the other players do the work. The last party event my job had been
to stay in the back until threatened. At that time, my body had been
crippled by nearsightedness and simulated aches. What would the real
Carver do? Charge and swing the blade!

“No.
What should I do?” I asked a question of my own.

“What’s
your play style?” She was still smiling, still close. Both her
hands were resting on the jeweled staff near her face. I stood with
both hands on top of [Morrigu’s
Gift],
which was currently in cane form.

“A
trainer in town showed me how to swing a two handed blade.” I
muttered.

“We
can work with that. Is it a long sword?”

“More
like an outrageous cartoon one.” Carver’s blade was this
giant thing that looked more like an elongated razor than any classic
sword. Many such weapons had lined video games of my youth.

“Seriously?
You’re not compensating are you? Because SheHulk said…”
My panicked expression was enough for her to stop the teasing. I
scratched a cheek while she kept the smile up.

“It
was a gift.”

“Can
I see it?” I tried to ignore her double entendre. Everything
was amazingly clear now compared to my prior situation. Dusk was
hopping around on the ground and kicking pebbles with each leap.

[Morrigu’s
Gift] sat
in my hand. My fingers grasped around its top, the same as they had
during the Age of Carver. The polished feel of wood felt comforting.
Still, my last use of this blade involved killing two very realistic
constructs. Monsters, NPCs, game generated AIs, low IQ, still
lifelike.

“Not
used to it yet?” She asked.

“No.
Not really. Is anyone?”

“Some
adapt quicker than others, some grow to love it. My advice? Don’t
push yourself, if you can’t handle it, go back to the cities
and pick up a trade skill.” She had one hand out on my
shoulder. Her fingers seemed so thin.

“It’s
just a game, though. I shouldn’t be afraid in here.” I
muttered. There had been just enough time and shock to disassociate
with Williams world view.

“Fear’s
natural. It’s what we do that counts. Sit back if you need to.”
Her advice was good. None of it was new to me, but there’s a
vast difference between reading some words and living them.

“Tink!”
Elane shouted. “They spotted us!”

“On
my way!” She was still looking at me with an unblinking gaze.
That smile was too much. She was too nice, her and those deep green
eyes. “Hermes, do what you need to. No one has any right to
think less of you. Not everyone is a fighter.”

TinkerHell dashed off. Her robes fluttered as feet clicked along the
ground. Dusk was caught up in the chase and followed her around the
corner towards adventure.

Her words sent my mind reeling. William was a fighter. I wanted to
be. I should be. I was also the man who had given up twice on life.
Had this unreasonable fear of life started with Xin’s passing?
The false happiness for customers? Working myself in a coma? Falling
out contact with friends?

Maybe.

I was better now. There was a certificate in my house to prove it.

Childhood had raised me on tales of heroism and televised greatness.
Each moment in Continue was a chance to be my own hero. Sitting here
tearing myself apart with questions of character was squandering
those opportunities.

Robert Frost’s Poem about The Road Not Taken. Invidious.
Roosevelt’s speech of The Man in the Arena. Carver had been
alive, even in those last moments he had been struggling to overcome
the odds. Maybe diving in without thought was impossible. Maybe I
would always hesitate. I was no William Carver. But I wanted to be.

I wanted to be.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel
both. Down one path lead the coward’s route. Continue had
presented me such feedback already. Alternatively, I could try to be
like William. To be a man who would fight to live with every breath,
even here in the digital world.

Sounds of battle echoed down the cavern. Edward was giving his blow
by blow and status updates. Screams of ‘Critical Strike’
and ‘Dodge’ accompanied Elane’s resounding smash of
metal against objects. Under it all was Tink’s chanting.

I stood up. One hand shook uncontrollably. In the other was a long
blade that felt amazingly light. That hand did not shake. It sat
there, calmly, sword digging into the ground much as Carver’s
Cane might. There was comforting warmth in the hilt.

This time, if I swung this sword, it would be deliberate and as
myself. With no vision impairment or confusion about whose skin I
resided in. With no sleep deprivation and fear for my life.

TinkerHell’s chanting grew louder. Elane shouted something that
was muffled and undefinable. Both my hands went to the blade’s
hilt as their noises filled the air.

I ran, blade in hand before hesitation could grip me. My feet pounded
down the cave path announcing my arrival to the battle. Around the
last corner were the three other Travelers. Their stances and layout
similar to what I had seen before.

The enemies were numerous. Many lay strewn about a large cavern.
There were three exits aside from my entrance. Creatures came in from
all directions.

“Grant!
We’re in a bad place!” Elane shouted as I ran past.
[Morrigu’s
Gift] was
held up high. I twirled past the shield tried to remember what Peg
Hall had shown me.

There
were more of the opal golems. TinkerHell had called them [Gobbler]s.
Monsters. These weren’t human and that made it immensely
easier. Never mind their block carved heads and arms.

“Epic
dodge!” Edward happily commented.

Two handed weapons required clearance. They required knowledge of how
far away the enemy was. Years of dance helped me understand footwork.
Paired practice helped me understand moving around other objects in
tandem with myself. Momentum, speed, all of it clicked as I took
distance from Edward’s antics.

And I swung.

Health bars were ignored as creatures shattered about me. Elane and
the others had really softened this latest batch up. I was just
cleaving through chunks of enemy. I swung again. Edward’s voice
was high pitched and protesting. Elane was yelling. TinkerHell sent
bolts of cold through the air with each shout of gibberish.

This
was me trying to strive valiantly. I would not be with those cold and
timid souls. Another swing cleared out two more of the monsters.
[Morrigu’s
Gift] spun
in my hand and came down abruptly upon one of the bisected remains.
Making them into two pieces wasn’t enough to end their lives.

“Another
wave! These ones are tougher!”

The other three simply adapted around my nonsense dancing. Most of my
actions were around the edges. Only Edward was brave enough step into
the inner circle.

“Hah!”
He declared. “Too slow!”

“Line
them up!” SheHulk yelled. “Grant! Push them towards the
center!”

I
nodded. My brain was still on its rant while muscle memory carried me
around. It was much the same as my night dances. Thought was there,
but wasn’t. Thought without thought. Everything was on
autopilot. [Morrigu’s
Gift] hit
another gobbler so hard that it crashed into two behind it. I kept
spinning as rocks chipped my backside.

For the last year, I held myself still. Stuck to a routine and tried
not to think too deeply about anything. As if keeping a pattern would
hold me together. Anger, sadness, all of it twisted my life for
years. Today, tonight, here in this game I would try to live again.
This was me taking back control, one glorious swing at a time. I was
choosing to fight and that made all the difference.

Dusk was somewhere. He tore into small broken limbs of the glowing
monsters. Fingers and hands were wrestled down. His squawks were
background noise like TinkerHell’s chanting.

“Twenty
percent left!” The blonde happily informed us all. Edward and
her seemed so happy. Only Elane seemed upset at all. Her hair was
matted from sweat and her teeth ground together.

“Are
you having fun?” Edward was nearby taking a breather. He sat in
a small spot I managed to carve out with the giant blade. How he
snuck past all my maniacal swinging was beyond me.

Both my hands stayed on the two handed weapon. I didn’t trust
myself to speak or act without a firm grip.

“Well,
if humming is an answer, then I’d say yes. Good lad. Let’s
clear some more.” Edward drew in close as more of the orange
glowing creatures came in. The name [Gobbler]
felt
wrong somehow.

“What
is he humming?” One of the women asked.

“I
can’t tell.” Edward leapt back out and drew his claws
across the hindquarters of another two [Gobbler]s.
One of them clipped his head in passing and the roguish man faltered
for a moment. His foot slipped and he managed to get a hand down on
the ground.

I
swung [Morrigu’s
gift] at
the heads of those monsters around him. The blade was strong enough
to cut into the first one and sent a sliced head into a second. They
jangled around for a moment before toppling. Edward didn’t have
time to give thanks, he kept on going.

“What
the hell are you humming, Grant!” Elane shouted. Her shield
looked worn down. The shine was nearly gone and what had once been a
clearly etched sun seemed to be bent out of proportion.

“Grant!”
She yelled again.

“Clear
the middle!” TinkerHell spoke right over Elane.

“As
you say, ladies!” Edward ran by and grabbed my wildly swinging
self by the shoulder. His momentum caused us to tumble towards the
left wall. I scrambled to stand up but failed.

One large blast surged through the room. Air dipped in temperature
and chill shot across my face. Rocks grew permafrost. Edward lost his
smile and gave one single irritated twitch of his mustache. The wave
of cold swung into the far wall leaving a nearly solid ring of blue.

It shook me out of the moment. My dance tunes fell from my head and
everything narrowed to the aftermath.

Statues stood in the room, rigid and lifeless. Health bars displayed
above their heads as either gone or nearly empty. Elane peeked out
from behind her shield and grumbled some more. Soon she was stepping
forward, still tired looking, still ragged with sweat even in this
cold. With each footfall, the tower shield in her hands bashed
against a frozen enemy.

Edward was up and looking around. He picked over fallen monsters and
portions of their bodies disappeared. Soon the room was strangely
free of enemies.

“We
clear?” TinkerHell had managed to barely hold onto her smile.

“Think
so.” Elane said. “Edward? How’s it look?”

“Like
pure gold.”

“Count
it up. Make sure Grant gets a share.” She waved one hand in my
direction.

“Yeah.
Good job, Hermes.” TinkerHell said. She fell to the ground and
just laid there.

At the end, pieces of monsters and rubble lay around us. TinkerHell
lay collapsed on the floor and SheHulk was grumbling while bandaging
wounds. Edward cheerfully announced all the skill increases he
received. I myself felt conflicted with both exhaustion and elation.

“What
the heck were you humming?” Elane asked again. Her cleanup was
complete. One arm hung over the shield as she recovered from the
battle.

“I
don’t know.” Something catchy. Something filled with
bangs and explosions. It was probably a symphony from ages ago. The
beat helped me move, helped me zone out just a little from the
violence.

Boxes
hung off to the side of my screen. They were the only thing that
separated this game from what was real. That was their function and I
had utterly disregarded them during combat. Even now, there were so
many pointless pieces of text being displayed. Skills went up, stats
went up, but none really mattered. I flicked them away, even one
about a [Battle
Hum].

What did that say about me? That I didn’t care about all the
system messages? This, game, wasn’t about the game. It was
about trying to make something of myself here in another world. One
free of what I was in the past.

This was my first deliberate step in a long, long time.

Session Twenty Four – Light's End

We managed to spend the next few hours winding through tunnels before
reaching a place that TinkerHell knew. During that time, I learned
that all three had been playing this game since near release. Which
is why they seemed so comfortable handling anything coming our way.
TinkerHell made us stop and rest up while we discussed the best
course of action.

“How
much further?” SheHulk asked.

“Too
far. We need to go through the town.” The blonde shook her head
slowly.

I
was just happy with being able to see. Joining them in combat was
getting a little bit easier too. Nothing, so far, involved more than
a pack or two of the monsters at one time. Progress was being made.
There was something amazingly cathartic about hitting stuff with a
giant sword. The woman I had met in [Haven
Valley],
HotPants, had the right idea with regards to that. Edward took it to
a whole new level with his constant stream of skill announcements.

“The
town is a death trap. You know it, I know it, even with Grant we’ll
never make it.” SheHulk said.

“Ladies,
it’s there or failure.” Edward was pressed against one of
the passageways that led out of this cavern.

“The
town?” I asked.

“Gobbler
town. They all come from a central point in this wing of the dungeon.
It should be along this tunnel.” TinkerHell waved the staff at
the left most exit. “We go through, skirt the edges and get to
the right path.”

“Straight
on 'til morning.” Edward sounded happy. “Let’s do
it.”

“We’re
going to die.” SheHulk grumped. She had been taking off pieces
of armor and rubbing some liquid on them. The items seemed to be in
better shape afterward. Did armor repair come in potion form? My poor
cloak could use some magical healing.

“I’m
all for it. Edward’s for it, what’s your vote, SheHulk?”

“I’m
just here to protect you, if you want to go, I’ll go,”
She said. Elane’s face twisted up a little bit while she spoke.
Something about the line bothered her.

My
mind was only half paying attention. I was still hopeful for the
future. Maybe the Voices would let me get to a city soon. This
destination of ours, [Broken
Mountain Pass] hopefully
would have people. Trainers, anything that let me work for a few more
useful skills. This Blade Dancer Path was kind of neat. I had been
trying to activate the skills during our last few fights. Continue
had shown me a class, or whatever, that was very much up my alley.

“Your
call, Hermes,” TinkerHell said.

Crud. Today, as loosely defined in reality, was shaping up to be a
long day. In the real world, there were roughly ten hours left to
reach the pass. Game time equated to a day and eight hours. There was
no way to do this without running a risk.

Plus, what would happen if I lost the title? My choices, according to
TinkerHell’s explanation, were to fail, or risk it and maybe
succeed, maybe fail. I wouldn’t bother asking the Voices above
any questions until they answered my other one. Dusk’s survival
was still a questionable factor.

“I’m
on a time limit, so I don’t have a choice.” I paused.
“Only, if I die, can you guys make sure Dusk gets out okay?”

Dusk gave an inquisitive chirp of noise from my shoulder. He paced
for a moment, tiny claws digging through the uncovered spots of the
starter armor. My fingers reached up to rub the little guy’s
head and try to calm him down. He nipped at one finger but gave in.

“Is
the tiny devil not bound?” Edward asked.

“No.
I’m still not sure what will happen.” And that kind of
pissed me off. James, my personal Voice, should have provided an
answer by now. The fact that he hadn’t made me worried.

“Pets
should have a summon spell of some sort. Doesn’t yours come
with that?” TinkerHell said.

“No.
Dusk isn’t a pet, he’s a companion,” I said.

“Ohhhhhh.”
The blonde smiled. “That’s cool! I’ve never met
anyone with a companion before.”

“Nor
have many others. They’re rare.” Edward said with a
shrug. He seemed more interested in our conversation than the hallway
he was guarding.

“Please,
just try to keep him alive for me, if things go south,” the
[Messenger’s
Pet] was
distracted by the head rub. Only a cupcake would break him away from
the moment.

“Fine.
Let’s go, we’re wasting game time.” Elane said. She
rolled one shoulder and got the shield and mace ready to go.
TinkerHell and Edward marched off fairly quickly with me taking up
the rear. They decided that even though I carried a big sword, I was
still too much of a newbie to front line anything.

Honestly, they seemed more comfortable with their own group tactics.
Inserting me into them was difficult. That or I was being subjected
to the role of Carver once again. My back must have an ‘Escort
me I’m clueless’ sign on it.

“It’s
about an hour’s walk down this tunnel. My map has a few turns
but nothing too difficult.” TinkerHell was saying from up
front. “We should be able to get your boy toy to the other end
in time.”

“She’s
calling you a toy, mate.” Edward fell back a bit to talk to me.

“I’ve
been called worse.” Being an accountant all those years ago had
subjected me to some rather creative names by angry rich people.

“You
and SheHulk then?”

“No.
We never did.” I answered Edwards question.

“Good,
I wouldn’t want to, you know, step on any toes.”

SheHulk, or Elane, was grumbling in front of us. She could probably
hear Edward talking about his intentions. At least the man was
vaguely subtle in his wording. Declaring that he was out to ‘hit
that’ would be disastrously funny.

“That’s
between you two. Elane and I gave it a try and failed.”

“We
didn’t fail, Grant, you killed any attempt we might have had by
rambling about your dead ex,” SheHulk said. The gap between our
party members had grown smaller as we walked.

Both my eyes clinched shut. A tempo crawled into my brain as attempts
to keep calm were made. Elane was just stating the truth, rudely,
that’s all. My brain tried to formulate angry retorts. Each one
was interrupted by thoughts of foot placement and arms. Dancing was a
complicated task, and sometimes amazingly simple.

“That’s
rude, SheHulk,” TinkerHell said.

“It’s
still true.”

“She’s
right.” I admitted.

“Still
rude.” TinkerHell responded.

“No.
I, uhh, I wasn’t much fun to be around back then. Life, you
know?” Airing my dirty laundry to a bunch of strangers wasn’t
new but this also wasn’t the setting for it. Beers at the local
inn would be better. Wait. No. Drinking was a bad idea. The fact that
the thought even crossed my mind was a sign of how far my recovery
had yet to go.

“No
worries, mate, we’re all here because of life issues.”
Edward said with a twitch of his mustache.

“I
told you, Elane’s my sponsor.” Tink whispered.

“I
hope things are going well.” My response was vague and
noncommittal. There was no good response to such an open-ended
admission. TinkerHell could be sponsored for any number of issues. If
Elane was doing it, then the issue was probably anger management.

“They
are, Hermes.” She responded.

“Tink,
your appointment’s today isn’t it?” SheHulk said
suddenly talking over TinkerHell.

“Oh.
Oh yeah. You’re right. We’ve got time, I think.”
The blonde said while tilting her head. She also seemed skilled in
avoiding self-harm with that giant staff. I probably would have
smacked myself twice just trying to make my face resemble hers.

“No,
you better not be late this time.”

Now they were on a subject I knew a lot about. Being sponsored meant
she had some sort of problem. Making appointments meant she was
trying to fix the situation. Missing those would make recovery
harder.

“I
don’t mind if you have to leave.”

“No
worries, Hermes, let’s see what we can get done. We’ve
still got eleven hours to try and make it through before I have to
go.”

“We’re
all decided then, we cut near the town?” Edward asked. He was
etching a small pattern into the wall to pass the time.

“God
I hope the Gobbler Atlas isn’t in.”

“It
could be the Huck Twins or that petrified oak.” Edward and
TinkerHell were talking back and forth too quickly for me.

“Stupid.
We don’t have a second tank.”

“Or
three healers.” Elane muttered.

“Simply
say the word, my dear ladies, I’ll provide all the healing…”
There was a smack of Elane’s shield bashing into Edward. Stars
once again formed above his character.

“What’s
his deal?” I asked.

“Which
part?” Tink’s head tilted in question which caused her
hair to spill into a new position. Elane wore hers much shorter than
the blonde in front of me.

“All
of it?”

“The
accent comes and goes because he’s trying to be British, plus
he hasn’t managed to land SheHulk yet.” TinkerHell
whispered. She was being much quieter while the other two walked down
the cave pathway.

“Oh,
hold on!” TinkerHell suddenly yelled over my next attempted
question. The whole thought process was none of my business anyway.

“What?”
I raised an eyebrow.

“Ghost
Mushrooms! Finally. I thought we’d never find another batch.”

“Really?”
SheHulk seemed pleased. Edward was lost somewhere in the distance.
“Well, this trip’s not a total waste. Divvy them up.
We’ll watch your back.”

“Alright.”

[Ghost
Mushroom]s
made no sense to me. Their value was an unknown as was the location.
Part of me wondered what they might taste like. TinkerHell seemed to
be fiddling around with air on the wall nearby. SheHulk and I stood
on either end of the hallway.

I hummed mindlessly and tapped one foot. There was just enough
hallway room to shuffle down and maybe do part of a line dance. It
wasn’t the same without people around to clap. A tango was out.
Swing would be a no go. The list went on and on.

“Grant,
knock it off.” Elane snapped.

“No
thanks.” I hummed happily. Dancing was what kept me going. Plus
something about her was pissing me off. TinkerHell was at least
friendly.

“It
is kind of catchy.” TinkerHell said from her place along the
wall. She was bent over looking down near the ground. I squinted and
tried to see whatever it was that had caught her attention.

“Really,
Grant?”

I sighed then spread my arms helplessly. “I don’t see any
ghost mushrooms.”

“You
don’t belong to any mage paths, so that’s standard.”
Elane turned back and glared down the hallway. At least she didn’t
outright accuse me of staring at TinkerHell’s rear end.

“How
do you know?” I asked.

“Because
you’re new, and if you had learned any magic, you wouldn’t
be blind down here.” Elane responded.

“I’m
blind down here because Dusk wouldn’t light a torch for me.”

“It’s
a good thing he didn’t. Fire is bad. The Ooze is attracted to
heat.” Elane said. One of her feet was grinding into the dirt.

“And
body heat?” I asked. Dusk had implied through his chirps that
there was a reason but the explanation was unclear. At least some of
his thoughts were coming through clearer with the thought bubbles
being present. They were probably tied to the Rank two unlock for him
being a companion.

“It’s
not enough. At least for standard players.”

We made a bit more small talk but nothing important. TinkerHell
seemed perfectly willing to chat about all sorts of things in
exchange for information about Dusk and how I got him. Most of my
answers were vague because explaining that my boss had awarded me an
Ultimate Edition was awkward enough. Following that with information
about the Voices and my interactions there would sound insane.

I
stuck to simple things. Dusk attacked everything his size zealously.
He loved sweets. He did not respond well to Sniffles the Second. The
[Messenger’s
Pet] was
asleep and draped over one shoulder with his tiny tail latched around
my neck.

Completely out of the blue everything went haywire. There was a snap
and my vision blurred sideways. Static crisscrossed my mind. Then the
world went black. I tried to speak but couldn’t. My mouth
wasn’t forming words correctly. The room spun. Room. Wait. That
ceiling was familiar.

“Nnnnghhh.”
I fumbled one hand above my head. There. Small raised numbers
signaling a countdown timer. For some reason, I had been ejected from
the ARC device and brought back to the real world.

“User
Legate.” A voice said from the doorway of my bedroom. “User
Legate, once you have regained complete awareness please let me
know.”

“Jeeves?”
I croaked.

“I
understand if you are confused. There was a disconnect command issued
from headquarters. If you have forgotten, I am your assigned Hal Pal
unit.”

“Nnngh.”
I felt sick to my stomach. Part of my body was numb. An arm was
completely unresponsive. Everything ached. I had forgotten how bad
forced separations from the ARC could be.

“Why.
Why.” The questioning tone wasn’t coming to my words.

“I
have been advised there is an important message for you from Vice
President Riley.”

“Why.
Why?” There. That did it. Clearly the fourth time was a charm.
My fingers were still tracking the countdown. One minute, no, two.
Eight minutes in-game.

“Once
you demonstrate significant coherence, a call will patch through.”
Hal Pal said.

I rolled out of the ARC and stumbled to the backroom. Nausea swept
through me with each step. The Vice President of Trillium wanted to
speak to me? There was no reason for that. No way had I done
anything…

Oh. My brain was working now. Trillium owned Continue Online. William
Carver had been one of the game’s key players. Plus somehow I
had gained a trait from the Voices. Either of those things was enough
to warrant some attention. That was probably it.

I scrubbed at the side of my face. A shave would be nice but there
wasn’t enough time to fire up the equipment. One glass of water
and a bite of energy bar went into my stomach rapidly. I paced, got
some stretches in, and chewed quickly. Hal Pal hadn’t moved but
he was watching every action.

“Are
you optimal, User Legate?”

“Close
enough.” Lights behind Hal Pal’s eyes bobbed in time with
a nod. Equipment in my front room fired up.

“Affirmative.
Confirming readiness with Trillium AI.” A logo for Trillium
appeared on the wall. There was a slight bow to the projection. “Vice
President available. Call projecting now.”

“Mister
Legate.” A female voice said. The woman on the screen was still
vaguely fuzzy due to my recent ejection from the ARC.

“Good-”
I paused for a moment and tried to remember the time. “-day,
Miz Riley.”

“You
are being scheduled for an in-person meeting at Trillium
headquarters. Attendance is mandatory.” Miz Riley said.

“Okay.
When is the meeting?” My mind sputtered and barely kept
together. Only years of practice dealing with customer insanity saved
me from a breakdown.

“Tomorrow.
A shuttle will be sent to your home. Clearance for the TRANS tunnels
has been approved. Headquarters will be paying the bill.” Her
face didn’t change from its stone expression.

Tomorrow. Okay, that wasn’t too bad. Headquarters was a few
hours away even if I took the tunnel. It would also be my third time
riding cross country using one. The last time had been when my
fiancée passed. I tried not to let emotions cross my face. Now
was not the time, nor the place to grow morose. Humming and tapping
my foot would be equally unprofessional.

“You
are available, correct, Mister Legate?” Trillium’s vice
President was a woman I had only seen in company papers. Her face was
plain, hair shoulder length, and expression very passive. Almost like
this routine was beneath her.

When a woman like Trillium’s Vice President asked a question,
men like me answered in affirmative. Especially since I enjoyed the
perks of Trillium’s equipment.

“Yes.”

“Good.
A reminder is being sent to your ARC. Forceful ejection will occur if
you do not heed the alarm.” She said.

“I
will.”

“I’ll
expect you tomorrow, Mister Legate. Good day.” The screen
clicked off and left Trillium’s logo splashed across my wall.
My foot started tapping immediately and a song sprang to mind. Right
foot out, left foot back, move opposite the other dancers.

Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes she had pulled me out of Continue
Online with something that could have been done as a message. An
email or other reminder would suffice. Twenty minutes that could have
been used completing this absurd quest from the Voices.

A flash of insight hit me. There was a third possible reason Trillium
might want to see me. I had hit a coworker rather hard. The Hal Pal
units expressed their lack of evidence but maybe Jacob had filed a
complaint. Maybe they were going to fire me anyway.

No. I was a good employee. Right?

I went to the ARC and lay down. My fingers crossed with the hope that
Elane hadn’t stabbed my autopilot. Once again I flew through
the Atrium without pause and went straight back to Continue Online.

A message was floating in front of me.

What? My total log off time should have only been an hour in game.
What exactly had happened during that time-frame to result in
unconsciousness? Did we get ambushed? Was there a trap? Had my
autopilot run into a wall in a cartoonish moment of panic?

Being in a game and seeing this black screen was strange. My eyes
struggled to open but at the same time, there was a clear awareness.
I heard muffled sounds. Someone was grunting and huffing. Elane,
maybe? She seemed to be worn out.

“Psttt.”
That was a male voice. “Psssttt.”

More words passed by and nothing made sense. I could feel the ARC
simulate a jolt of pain to my midsection. Nothing smelled right.

There
was another box displaying messages regarding a [Focus]
and
[Tenacity]
check.
More messages floated up about them being mental and social traits.
The text boxes seemed to go on about internal effort versus external
recognition. Either way, I was excited. A small sliver of vision
appeared behind the messages.

“Mmmffh.”
I said.

“Mmmffthh?”
I tried again. Everything was blurry and shaped oddly. Parts of the
location we were in was glowing an off color.

Was that wall blue? No. It was purple. Wait. Pink.

Oh, neat.

“Psssttt!”
The whisper came again from one side. A zig zag of color traced
across the bottom of my eyesight causing a panicked flinch. Only my
distraction reading the system windows kept me from completely
freaking out.

Elane was carrying me along. My hands and feet were bound and mouth
gagged. I tried to ask questions but each time my mouth muttered
something the floor was splashed with a distortion of indigo.

I tried to hold very still and not panic. This had been a long
twenty-four hours in the real world. Punching Jacob, killing my first
humanoid computer program and falling into a tunnel. Running into a
sort of ex-girlfriend, being set on a Grand Rapids swim through
barely illuminated water. On top of that, I was trying to be a bit
less cowardly in the face of conflict.

Tomorrow didn’t look so hot either.

“MmMhph.”
I rocked a bit. “Mmhffph.” Oh neat. If I changed tone the
ripple switched from blue splashes to a deep emerald. Maybe it was
the drugs or newness of sensation, but I made noise and hummed in
different tones just to see what colors came up.

“Hmm
hummmhhp mmhhhh.” I tried to get the deep baseline at the end
of Beethoven’s piece.

“This
way, we’ve got to move.” Edward’s words were an
obtrusive green puke color. It seemed to drip off his mustache and
smeared through the air with each twitch of his cheek.

“Mmet.”
And this whole situation was neat. Only my words were muffled.

“Your
boy toy is awake.” TinkerHell said with a cheery wave. She was
standing nearby. Elane pulled us along the floor some more. Part of
her heavy armor was gone now, she was down to the chest piece and a
dress like thing that covered her legs.

“Fuck
him.” Elane said.

“My
dear lady.” Edward started. I heard the shield slam into the
side of something and a series of ripples spilled across the air. I
started giggling into the gag across my mouth.

My body felt sluggish. Everything zoomed in and out with each noise.
Distortions were rapidly becoming part of my trippy experience. I had
never been high before but this game seemed to be doing wonders.

“We
don’t have enough time. Not nearly enough time, and what does
he do?” Elane sounded angry, but her words were so pretty to
look at. They spiraled through the air chasing each other like
barking dogs made of orange paint.

“It’s
not his fault.”

“His
autopilot is weird!” Elane completely ignored TinkerHell’s
attempt at defense.

“Ladies,
keep it down.” Edward harshly chimed in. “Sneaking, we’re
sneaking now.”

“You
know Gobblers have bad hearing. I could roll Grant down into their
town and they may not notice.”

“Be
that as it may, we’ll never make it with your bickering.”
Edward was rubbing one of those claws on his hands against the stone
wall again. Each scraping of metal against mineral sloughed off a
layer of color.

“We
could go faster by untying him.”

“Are
you kidding? He ate his share of the ghost mushrooms! He’ll be
flying high for days.” Elane shot down that idea.

I giggled. The game message still floated nearby. I had been trying
to focus on it and remove the pop-up but concentrating was difficult.
Or was it?

“It’s
one way to pass time though selling them would have been more
valuable.” Edward responded.

“Well
he’s new, maybe Hermes didn’t know.”

“Either
way, we must be going. Untie the poor sod and we’ll try to
sprint.” Edward, what a charming rogue he was. Even I felt
smitten, or maybe it was the drugs. [Ghost
Mushroom]s
seemed very effective at, whatever this was.

My face went playfully serious and started nodding. Yes, being untied
would be fantastic. The gag came off first. Immediate humming ensued.
A country box step pattern came out of my mouth and it was light
green, almost appley. This Chromesthesia was really doing a number on
me. Along with whatever the general high effect was.

“Grant,
this is your quest, try to focus.” Elane said. At least she
hadn’t hit me with the shield yet. Not that anyone had
explained how my autopilot got tied up in the first place. Those
bindings had been fairly good.

“Elane.”
I frowned and bobbled my head. My hands were clasped across each
wrist and rubbing where they had been bound. The sensation was
marvelous.

“What,
Grant?”

“You’re
pretty when you’re angry.” I said happily. That didn’t
come out right.

“What?”
Elane said. Her anger at me seemed to falter due to confusion. Her
brows ran together as her forehead scrunched.

“But
your mustache has to go.” Was my happy commentary to Edward. He
just twitched but there seemed to be a slight smile.

“The
ladies approve.” He said.

“No,
they don’t.” I shook my head and looked around.
TinkerHell was laughing off to one side.

“Where
are we going? Did we get to the town place, thing, place. Thing…”
Oh god, my brain wasn’t delivering the right messages! This
felt wrong. I watched my own words spill out in pleasant dark greens
and started tilting forward.

“Very
batty.” Edward confirmed my mental status.

I nodded more than anyone should and tried not to speak. We were high
on a ridge. This seemed to be some sort of half formed, half carved
walkway that went across a large underground cave. In the distance, a
bunch of colors were pulsing with soft, faint waves.

“What’s
that over there?” I pointed.

“What’s
what?”

“Where
the color is.” Words were hard to formulate. Did the others see
colors? That was a silly question, of course they saw colors! Dumb
me. My head shook slowly.

“Does
he mean the chanting?”

I tilted my head and shut both eyes. Having them closed barely muted
the mix up caused by a specialized version of Synesthesia. Yes, that
was music. Almost like an abbey full of monks chanting in eras gone
by. Their voices spun together with a hint of metal vibrations. As if
a tuning fork could do a full song.

“You’re
humming again.” Elane grumbled.

“MMmh.”
My own deep green noise was laced with veins of blue.

“Four
hours, maybe five. If we run, maybe faster.” TinkerHell said.

The
others were almost around the corner before my feet actually moved.
In a panic, I turned and shuffled after them. Each footstep, each
clank, sent another ripple of hues and color tones across my vision.
We would stop to walk and then run again when everyone had energy.
The [Light Body]
skill
hit another rank and a pop-up box sent me stumbling. Not the box
itself, but the noise it made as it came into being. Well, the window
didn’t help either.

“Ahhh!”
I cried out and rolled into a wall. Sitting there was bad for me once
shaking kicked in.

“My
hand. It’s.” Doing something. “It won’t
stop.” Both eyes blinked repeatedly as clarity swam in and out.

“We’ve
got to go, Hermes.” TinkerHell was the closest to my position.
Elane was up ahead and glaring. Edward kept on scouting.

The world turned to purple static for a brief moment. My body bounced
in the air as a second wave hit.

“My
hand!” Now I was really tripping out.

“That’s…”

“That’s
not your hand, Grant!” Elane shouted. I saw a piece of armor
come into existence and she slammed it into place. “Edward! Tie
this down!”

“Not
what I was hoping for.”

“Tink!”

“I’m
on it, scroll wall incoming!” TinkerHell was shouting
something. Her staff was cradled under one armpit and in her hands
was a much larger scroll. It burned brightly as she twisted a thumb
across the starter symbol.

“Hermes,
try to stand!” The blonde said as glowing letters rippled
across the parchment. “We need you!”

Wow. These people were panicking harder than I was. There was another
thump of static inducing purple that made my heart jump. Both eyes
kept trying to focus on a space just off to the side of my hands.

“Hermes!
This way! Boobs!” Edward said. Voices help me, even the thought
felt somewhat like betrayal, I looked. The man was smiling with that
twitchy mustache.

“See,
that always gets a man’s attention.” Edward said.

“If
I didn’t need all my energy, I’d whack you.” Elane
responded. There was a grim look on the short Spanish woman’s
face. Her hand held onto the mace as Edward wove a strap under her
arm.

“All
the more reason for me to press my advantage when I can.” He
said. The ground thumped again. “Or perhaps later.”
Edward didn’t slow in his assistance with the armor. Two more
pieces of gear went on and soon she was fully equipped again.

“Is
someone knocking on the door?” I asked. That’s not what
was in my head, but it’s what came out of my mouth. There was a
serious disconnect between everything.

A giant hand swung up on the ledge. Each finger was easily bigger
than my entire body. Dirt tore at the edge as something pulled itself
up further. A second hand almost overshot the ledge as it descended
to latch on.

“That’s
neat.” I said. One eye squinted and tried to activate
[Identification].
It failed. “Identifyicus maximus!” Verbal attempts at
activating my skills also failed. Voices, I was high.

A giant head swung into view. I’m pretty sure that one eyeball
on that monster was bigger than my entire body. The creature looked
like a giant baby made of dirt and insanity. Plus colors were all
over the place. Each groan of terrain spawned another waterfall of
lights and visual sounds.

“Barricobbler!”
Elane shouted. Everyone always shouted during fights. Why was no one
calm? My head swam around. Was that seriously the monster’s
name? How amazingly silly was that? This was a game after all. Or
maybe my drug addled mind was making something up.

I should be upset and scared. Instead more giggles came forth and
soon turned into outright laughter.

Ice, probably from TinkerHell, started in a long line across the
pathway’s edge. Moments later it had climbed up from floor to
ceiling to form a solid wall. Barricobbler, if that was indeed its
name, had both hands frozen inside of the sudden wall.

“Fly,
you fools!” Elane said. She gestured with her shield arm down
the long hallway. Barricobbler gave a strange groan that was exactly
how a giant baby rock monster should sound.

“That’s
my line! I’m the caster!” TinkerHell was running anyway.
One hand lifted her robe up so it wouldn’t cause her to
stumble. TinkerHell used her other hand to grab me as she passed by.

“Fly
anyway!” She shouted and ran after us. Elane wasn’t
sacrificing herself like that.

“Patrol!”
Edward shouted in front of us. Soon his standard fare of ‘Critical
Strike’ and ‘Dodge’ and ‘Hamstring’
followed.

“Grant!
You’ve got to hold them!” Elane shouted.

“Wahh?”
I fumbled around with screens and inventory buttons trying to figure
out where [Morrigu’s
Gift] had
gone.

“Hold,
the, monsters!” Elane shouted. She was taking up position
somewhere behind us. I could hear her grunting, shaking and talking
to herself. The ice was cracking from where, Voices what a silly
name, Barricobbler was breaking loose.

“Up
here!” TinkerHell was already running towards Edward. I tried
to run but there were too many colors, sounds, jarring my
consciousness. Instead my footsteps became a half stumble, half walk,
all failure.

I
basically walked the end of [Morrigu’s
Gift] into
a [Gobbler]’s
belly. It just stared at me. A blast of ice from over my shoulder
caught it square in the face.

“OoOooooo!”
The giant baby yelled. The landscape rippled and my head throbbed.

“Block
it, Hermes!”

“Ehhh.”
[Morrigu’s
Gift] was
in the two handed blade form. I turned the flat of it towards the
monster and held it like a terrible shield. Rock hands hammered on
the weapon sending jolts up my arm. A month of clutching William
Carver’s cane kept me stable.

“Colors.”
I muttered. [Gobbler]
hammering
was a mixture of green and orange. All loud, clunky. As if a giant
ball of hardened clay was falling.

“Hamstring!”

“Block
them!” TinkerHell said behind me. Her voice was getting faint.
The staff in her hands drew more symbols upon the ground. During one
of her rambles, we had talked about how using a staff would consume
less mana and increase the spell’s impact.

“OoOOoohhh!”
There was an insanely loud crash of noise and ice shattered across
the room. One big muddy fist pounded through the wall and smashed
between Elane and us.

“SheHulk!”
TinkerHell let another blast of ice fly by into one of the [Gobbler]s
behind my shield. I was basically being a wall and failing. Two of
the golems were pushing me back. These ones were green instead of the
prior glowing orange color.

“Go,
go, get into a hall!”

“OoOOraaahh!”
The giant baby yelled.

“Let
me help you with that one, mate.” Edward came up from my side
and casually stabbed one of the [Gobbler]s
in the face. Suddenly the pressure on the other end of [Morrigu’s
Gift] slacked
off.

My mind wandered to the message box and stared. The numbers were hard
to focus on. Ice flew about in chunks both from TinkerHell’s
constant stream of spells and the shattering remains of a great wall.

“Tink!”
Elane yelled. I looked over my shoulder to see one of the giant clay
arms grab her, armor and all. The monster dipped as Elane came off
the ground. She must weigh half a ton in all that gear.

“Hey!
Focus the arm!”

“Let
go of me, you filthy idiot!” Elane was banging away with her
mace trying to do damage. Her short frame was nearly lost in the
giant fingers.

“But
Gobblers.” I said. Clearly some of us weren’t firing on
all cylinders.

“Grant!
Cut its arm!”

“Gobblers!”
Heh. These guys were neat. Their attacks hurt a little, maybe like a
dog nibbling on my arm. With big meaty club like hands. Dog, nibble,
hands.

“Grant,
you miserable pig fucker! Help!” Elane groaned as she was
bashed around the hallway by the giant monster’s hand.

“Mate,
we’ve got to get the arm!”

“But…”
I was too confused. Too drugged up by my autopilot eating [Ghost
Mushroom]s.

“Shit!”
Elane yelled. “You fu…” I turned just in time to
see the short Spanish woman go flying into the breeze. She yelled the
entire way before a distant crash crawled across my senses.

“Elane!”
My own words caused me to cringe as sound assaulted my vision.
Everything was crossing and none of it was comfortable. The giant
baby monster giggled with outright childish delight at the mess it
had caused.

“She’s
dead, Hermes, we have to move onward!” TinkerHell let another
spell fly away and managed to kill the final [Gobbler].

“She
can’t be dead.” The words came out dry. Elane had to be
alive still. No. No, I had once again stood by and let it happen. It
was Xin all over again. Elane was dead because of my failures.

“It’s
okay, it’s just a game! We’ve got to move now, Hermes.”
TinkerHell was yelling at me. “It’s okay. It’s
okay, Hermes. We have to go!”

I
asked myself what kind of man had life made me. Now, in a few days
within the game, my character still wasn’t entirely clear. My
actions showed one thing, and my desires another. It would be a long
road to recovery. Letting Elane go flying hadn’t helped my
self-esteem. Being drugged didn’t help. There had to be ways I
could do better. More stats, more abilities, something. This game
could give me that if I tried harder. Gaining [Barricade]
was
only one step out of many.

For now, we had to escape. We fled down the hall. Away from the
Barricobbler and its giggles. Away from Elane and her distant grave.
We ran.

Session Twenty Five – What are the Chances?

Hours later and things were mostly quiet. TinkerHell tried to stay
positive, but there was a loss of happiness to her expression.
Nothing seemed as cheery, even the blonde color to her hair was
lackluster. Edward hummed but acted a bit grumpier. The words ‘it’s
just a game’ repeated in my head frequently.

We handled a few smaller packs, with me poorly taking the role that
Elane had. Each time I stood between the few minor monsters and
TinkerHell felt like a betrayal. I shouldn’t have been drugged
up, I should have been able to focus more. All that talk about being
a better person and being brave, what had I done? Failed almost right
out of the gate.

Then TinkerHell uttered the announcement I had been dreading. She was
on a time limit. Nothing had really been the same since my failure
anyway. Those choices would haunt everything in this party.

“I’ve
got to go, Hermes. I’m sorry.” She said.

“Do
you still have enough time to make your meeting?” I asked.

“Yeah.
I’ll just recall back to my bind point. I should be okay from
there.” TinkerHell gave a partial smile to soften the blow.

“Oh.”
I managed to keep my face passive and pretend that there was no worry
creeping in. The system even awarded me some acting skill points.

“Did
you need a scroll of recall?” She was kind enough to ask. I was
smart enough to figure out what TinkerHell meant by that. It was
probably an in-game device that helped get out of the dungeon.

“I…no,
I’ve got to try and make it through.” Plus the Voices
hadn’t given me a bind point to my knowledge. “Thank you
for your help.”

“Down
this tunnel, a few more hours and you should make it out. The map I
provided made sense right?” TinkerHell asked.

“The
man hardly need worry about getting lost. He should, instead, worry
about being eaten.” Edward was smiling and seemed lax against
one of the many cavern walls. This place felt nowhere near as well
carved as the side I had entered on. There was an natural roughness
to the walls.

“Oh,
yeah.” TinkerHell’s face scrunched up in worry. “Well,
it’s all or nothing.”

“Too
true.” The other man said.

“You
seem like a nice guy, Hermes. Even if you’re kind of drugged.
You be careful.” TinkerHell said. The bombardment of
Chromesthesia had mostly dissipated but ger words did still have a
faint linger of color to them.

“I’ll
try.”

“Alright.
If I log out now there may be just enough time for a shower.”
TinkerHell shrugged.

“A
radiant lady such as yourself could hardly be diminished by a mundane
thing like dirt,” Edward said. TinkerHell managed to roll her
eyes but looked a bit more naturally amused. Then she shrugged yet
again.

“Sorry
again, Hermes.” I shook my head at her apology. TinkerHell had
actually been the nicest of the lot to me. “Real life doesn’t
wait on hold, not even for Continue Online. Best of luck in your
quest.” TinkerHell said. Her constant smile hadn’t been
the same since Elane’s character passed. Not at the lips, not
in her cheeks, but in the pinch around both eyes.

“Thank
you. I’m sorry my autopilot tried to force my problems on you
all.” Voices knew I had enough of them.

“It’s
okay. Just help someone else out, pass it on.” She shrugged. I
liked TinkerHell, she seemed so upbeat most of the time, playful
even. The longer we were together, the more it seemed like she was
closer to SheHulk and me in age. She was certainly older than my
niece. It just wasn’t obvious from her in-game face.

Or
maybe the world had worn on her like it had on me. How old did I look
to other people? I poked my belly. Edward interrupted my
self-absorbed train of thought by clearing his throat. He waved one
hand which also had a [Scroll
of Recall].

“Whereas
I, take another view.” Edward smiled with his twitchy mustache.
“The ladies are gone, and my interest wanes. So it’s time
to move on, adieu Hermes, and best of luck.”

I sighed. The party had broken apart because of real life and the
tank dying. Even in virtual reality, the story was too familiar.
Elane was out of the game for eight hours. I was closer to the exit,
but still mostly lost. What now? Dusk chirped and hissed into the
distance. Enemies were nearby and this was no place to dawdle. A
small display timer on my screen outlined how little time was left on
both my night vision buff and quest.

Part of me longed for the quiet of Carver’s bench. This
adventure might just be the death of me.

The
problem with silence is that there was too much time for my own
thoughts. The sounds and color mix up was still happening but nowhere
near as vicious as it had been. Doing battle while having constant
interruptions from all the rainbows colors had been difficult. Now,
after almost a full day of hunting and associated stat increases, I
could handle a few [Gobbler]s
on my own.

Groups of more than two were normally easy to go around or back up a
tunnel twist or two. TinkerHell had given me a very detailed map
showing a series of interconnecting tunnels between here and the
exit. The end would be the really dangerous part.

There
wasn’t much time to practice any other skills such as [Silent
Step]. TinkerHell
had let me know that [Gobbler]s
were basically deaf up until about twenty feet away.

That’s
how the next few hours in the game went. I dwelt on my poor
performance with Elane. I hacked frantically at any single [Gobbler]s
and steadily crept towards the exit tunnels. Short-cutting through
the city had helped put the timer within reason. The estimated time
towards my destination also went down each time [Light
Body] increased
in ranks.

Each rank increased the percentages and bonus. My feet move faster
and quicker. Not huge, or anything like what Beth had shown me during
my very first experience with Continue Online. She had practically
flown through the city.

Still,
I felt faster. According to my system text, I would be ahead of the
deadline by roughly thirty minutes. Part of me suspected my autopilot
had eaten the [Ghost
Mushroom]s
to keep my weight down. Maybe it was because I had eaten a little bit
of everything during one of my trials.

I stopped and penned two more notes up to the Voices. The first was a
similar message I might send to a manager. Tomorrow had suddenly
become a no work day as a result of Trillium’s orders.
Hopefully, the artificial intelligence that ran this game would make
allowances. The second message, yet another request, was me asking
for information regarding Dusk in case of his passing. Neither one
had an answer.

Why the Voices had gone silent was beyond me. Maybe they were
distracted by software upgrades or something. Maybe they were all
just watching me dance around with popcorn in hand.

There was another question that I wanted to ask, but the answer
almost scared me to think about.

How likely was it that a man would run into someone he knew from the
real world during his first few days of playing? Much less having
that person be someone I had briefly dated?

The answer was probably simple. ‘Not likely’. James would
never admit to arranging this whole bit of nonsense. It seemed like
something he would do.

Dusk chirped and snuffled along. I had maybe ten minutes left on this
scroll of night vision and two hours until the actual exit. We were
getting reckless in our speed. The stamina bar stayed low as I jogged
and huffed every chance available.

“Almost
there,” I muttered between gasps. “Come on. We can do
it.”

The
[Messenger’s
Pet] happily
confirmed my suspicions with a smiley face bubble above his head.

“You
think you can lead us out after my vision fades?” I said.

Dusk
made a deep sort of purr noise and bobbed his head. According to
TinkerHell’s parting instructions we likely passed all the
[Gobbler]
monsters.
They stayed in the deeper parts of the dungeon. Up here it was
something else entirely.

“That
Ooze thing. We should be okay, right?” The Ooze had been on a
completely different side of the dungeon. With a day’s distance
between us, we should be okay.

We walked a bit further. There were a few small shafts of light that
went up to the surface but nothing that my poor skills could scale.
These entrances were similar to the one I had fallen down. TinkerHell
had told me her map went straight to an easy to traverse pathway out.

“Come
on.” I tried to hustle. We had made it pretty far with just
TinkerHell and Edward. This was doable. The exit was within range.

Except
it wasn’t. There were more of those annoying ugly block-headed
[Gobbler]s
in the way. I checked the map. We were close enough to the end that
there were a few bottlenecks. They happened to be poking around in
one of them.

I stared at the lot of them from down the hallway. Getting in range
of one would simply alert the others. Dividing them up might be
possible. Or maybe this was just two smaller groups that somehow
patrolled through each other’s path.

Dusk
and I waited. The small [Messenger’s
Pet] seemed
to have no interest in fighting the actual monsters himself. He did
tear into limbs that fell apart on the ground. It was cute more than
helpful. I had managed to survive so far due to careful planning and
a focus on moving forward.

Minutes
ticked by. Five, then ten. The pack of six [Gobbler]s
chose not to move at all. My leeway on completion of this quest was
rapidly dwindling.

How did that mantra go, WWCD? What would Carver do? What…

I could actually try to weave through them. That might work. They
weren’t as scary after killing so many with Elane and
TinkerHell. Even knowing that Edward had been prancing about was
reassuring. On my own I had still managed to eliminate a few.

“Hang
on, Dusk,” I said. “We’re going to do this.”
WWCD, dive in. Swing at a few on the way. This was doable. This was
just a game. Elane wasn’t really dead.

Dancing here was just like performing for a fake audience in my dance
program. There should be nothing but the movements. One motion would
unto the next. Each motion had a purpose and set up for the next
phase. Most of it was getting the hips aligned correctly.

I
didn’t do a full run. It was a brisk tempo that ballet dancers
called allegro. Ballet was a deep school of movement that I could
never dare in real life. Here in the digital landscape, I was like a
pudgy prince of the prance. My footwork should be enough to get
around the [Gobbler]s
and their clunky movements.

My light thud of steps passed their invisible aggression range. The
group turned almost as one. Dull clay imitations of human heads were
facing in my direction. I tried to picture them as a formation dance.
Soon they would swarm and my skills as a lead dancer would kick in.

Before
anything fully registered I was holding one of the [Gobbler]s
like a dance partner. My frame lined against its own. Then we spun
away and one crashed into the other. A distant thought crossed my
mind, that had been no judo throw, but it was effective enough.

Another
one approached and I sloppily performed back leading. In a real
social dance, this would be completely rude but here it was
effective. Weight transferred from one foot to another. My eyes only
vaguely locked on whatever partner, [Gobbler],
was in front of me.

In some of the dance programs I dared to do, there were entire series
of movements where people danced around each other. Four, five,
sometimes twenty people all in predesignated spots and acting out.
Those were the hardest ones to learn.

This, dancing past slowly moving monsters, was slightly less
difficult. Two crashed into each other reaching for me. One hit my
shoulder.

Either way, I moved past them and felt flushed as I faced away. This,
in my dance program, would be where the bowing happened, or the stage
disassembled for the next dance. There was no time for either. That
whole situation had been weird but survivable. I ran my jiggling
midsection down the hallway. Dusk seemed confused as to what just
happened. His claws dug into my shoulder and one wing was up in
alarm.

I was trying not to laugh. It would be tacky. I managed to
successfully do a vague ballroom tango past those creatures. My
virtual instructor in the dance program would be absolutely horrified
at my execution.

“Hehe.”
Okay, it was funny enough for a small chuckle. Dusk lifted his head
and glared at me from his shoulder perch. That sent my small laugh
into outright full gasp-inducing chuckles. The monsters behind us had
faded away past a turn or two.

“Okay,
I think we can make it.” There was a minute on the timer for my
night vision spell. The exit was only a few more twists away. Dusk
still looked alarmed though even as we settled.

Or not.

There was a green film on the far end of the room. I stared at it. It
was vaguely see through and seemed to occupy the entire exit. Dread
sunk my stomach. My feet took a few steps back while both hands went
up into the air.

“Oh,
no,” I said.

Of
course, that thing would be here. The Voices were probably watching
and laughing themselves silly. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this was just
a fancy shield. I squinted and activated [Identification].

“Oh,
no. No, no, no.” My eyes got as far as the creature’s
name and kill total. If other Travelers failed to survive my chances
were nonexistent.

There was a pop on its surface. Then another, and another. It seemed
to ripple and then slid across the floor in my direction. I tried to
see if there was room to dodge by. The thing was massive and filled
up the hallway.

“Seriously!?”
I turned and ran. [Morrigu’s
Gift] might
be strong for my Rank, but this creature was beyond me.

There
had to be some way past it or everything during these last few days
in-game had been pointless. There was no rope in my bag. The system
status said it didn’t eat non-organics. Throwing [Gobbler]s
in its path might slow [The
Ooze] down.
Yeah.

I would try. TinkerHell had said it earlier, this was all or nothing.
No subtly existed in my gait as I ran back to the room where six of
the clay golem creatures still milled about. They turned as one
towards me.

“Hey!”
I had no idea if they understood me. “Ugly!” My brain was
terrible at insults, especially in a panic.

They
stumbled towards me. I pulled back and found [The
Ooze] just
a twist away. Its bright green surface was still bubbling as if
hungry. One pop sent liquid my way.

“Ouch.
Ow.”

Another
few pops splashed off. The system was kind enough to inform me that
acid was also not lotion or body wash. How the machine knew of those
concepts was beyond me. I flicked them away and helped one of the
[Gobbler]
monsters
into [The Ooze]
with
a spin.

The
[Gobbler]
sunk
into the green film. Slowly [The
Ooze] crawled
across its surface before completely encasing the monster with a pop
of noise.

The
other five didn’t waste time with their companion and came
after me. One pummeled me from behind with a giant block fist.
Another caught me from the other side. I fell, rolled, and tried to
recover amid a small wall of system messages. [Morrigu’s
Gift] flashed
into its two handed sword form just in time to block another attack.

Dusk
had lost his footing and was rolling around somewhere nearby. His
squawks of outrage stood out more than the slow grunts of a
[Gobbler].

“Run,
Dusk! I’ll catch up!” There were two [Gobbler]s
pounding on the sword from above. My fingers were caught by the edge
of a fist. Luckily they were dumb and seemed to go for my [Barricade]
instead
of actually attacking my legs or some other obvious weak spot. That
or my constant squirming was keeping them from doing too much damage.

Meanwhile
[The Ooze]
crept
ever closer. One of the [Gobbler]s
that fell behind was sucked into the slime creature’s stomach
with another pop of noise.

Then everything darkened.

“Shit!”
I didn’t curse normally. This situation warranted any clever
phrasing that could come to mind, but I was panicking too much.

A small ball of fire blasted by. My cheek felt warm and a smell of
burnt hair wafted in the air.

[Gobbler]
bodies
provided illumination with their strange glowing cores. [The
Ooze] behind
us lit up from two of the golem creatures floating inside. Dusk with
his fire breath was an additional source of inconsistent light. The
strobe effects were not helping.

“Run!”
This was very bad. My mind couldn’t formulate a way past all
these creatures without proper vision. I tried to sidestep and use
footwork. It failed as another attack collided with my face.

I
swung [Morrigu’s
Gift] and
managed to carve a chunk out of one of the monsters. A leg separated
from the body as the [Gobbler]
fell
downward. Three were out of the picture. Two remained, plus one
giant, unkillable monster. My biggest problem was the seriously
screwed up eyesight. The left over impact from my [Ghost
Mushroom] poisoning
was much more obvious now that there was less to compete with.

Okay. I had to get distance first. Near darkness meant my skills at
fumbling around were at an all-time high. I shoved off one of the
clay beings and managed to get around a corner.

Small
shafts of light littered the room. I had enough room to try and lure
both the [Gobbler]s
and [The Ooze].
Hopefully.

Both
came around the corner. A giant wall of icky green was preceded by
orange glowing clay monsters. I stood on the far end of the room and
watched as both approached. Soon there would be an end to [The
Ooze] and
I could try to run by. [Light
Body] was
high enough and my [Reaction]
stats
had improved.

Only
the green mucus wall showed no signs of ending. It flowed out and
slowly took up the entire room with its bubbling surface. The two
[Gobbler]s
still floated in the slime’s innards.

“Dusk.”
The small [Messenger’s
Pet] was
down by my side spitting fire at the approaching [Gobbler]s.
His attacks did minimal damage and only seemed to make [The
Ooze] bubble
even more.

“Dusk.”
I tried again. “Dusk, you have to run.”

He looked up at me then back at the monsters.

“It’s
okay. I’m a Traveler. I’ll come back, but I don’t
know what happens to you. You have to run.” The [Gobbler]s
were getting close now. The small air holes that lead up to the
surface were quickly being swallowed by [The
Ooze] and
its absurd mass.

I took out the coin from Ray, Voice of Gambling and held it up.

“Heads,
you go up and escape, tails we go back into the tunnels.” Let
chance have this decision. “You agree?” I asked the
little guy.

He shot off another small ball of fire. There was sweat actually
dripping down the side of his face. The thought bubble above Dusk
seemed to indicate confusion even though his actual head was nodding.

I
took that as a yes. The [Gobbler]s
were almost halfway across the room when I flipped the coin once
more. Heads. Thank goodness the Voices, or chance was with me on this
one.

“Coin’s
heads.” I held it in front of the [Messenger’s
Pet].
He sniffed it and looked up at me. “Go!”

Dusk
looked at my hand again. The coin shimmered and flashed. There was an
intense brightness that filled the room to near blinding. It quickly
faded and something else was in my hand. I looked at the monsters
across the room. All of them seemed stunned. There still wasn’t
enough room to run around [The
Ooze] and
save this quest.

Fine. Screw it. This timed mission was stupid anyway.

What?
I panicked and elbowed the message out of my way. Those [Gobbler]s
remained stunned, but it couldn’t last much longer. In my hand,
where the coin had been, was indeed a hat. This looked to be the same
style that Ray had on during the room of trials. It was worn, drug a
bit at the edges, and almost as black as [Morrigu’s
Gift].
My next message to the Voices above would be a question of style.
Black seemed to be so overdone.

It might be the lighting down here. I slammed the duster on top of my
head and tried not to laugh. At least Continue Online was rewarding
the gamble. That was neat.

“You
saw the coin. Go, Dusk.” I lifted the blade and readied myself.
This was going to hurt. It was just a game, this wasn’t real.
Not for me. For Dusk, though, it was very real. That’s what
James said before.

“Go!”
I charged with the giant two handed blade and tried to distract all
the monsters away from the last air hole. Dusk flew up and latched
onto the ceiling with his little claws to look down at me. My hand
jerked and tried to wave him off. The distraction cost me.

One
of the [Gobbler]s
had broken out of [The
Ooze].
It hung across the gap between me and the slime to latch onto my
thigh. Giant stone fingers curled into my skin which caused me to
twist in pain. I cried out and fell.

Dusk
chirped in alarm from up above. I tried to claw at the ground with
one free hand and pull away. Something slimy crawled over my foot.
[The Ooze]
had
caught me and it refused to let go.

“Go,
Dusk! Go! I’ll come back!” The burning sensation crawled
up my leg, towards the knee, and reached my pelvis. I worked to pull
myself forward. My hand slipped as I tried to save the small
[Messenger’s
Pet] who
was throwing more fireballs into [The
Ooze] creature.
None of them were effective.

[The
Ooze] crawled
across my skin one inch at a time. Each portion of flesh the monster
touched sizzled with pain. I cried out at the two [Gobbler]s
which seemed intent upon staring at me. [Morrigu’s
Gift] reached
out ahead of me to try and find purchase. My other free hand held
onto the hat.

Dusk
snarled with clear anger and dove into the light. He was safe.
Hopefully. I risked looking behind me only to see that both legs were
gone and my hips were rapidly following. Inside [The
Ooze] another
[Gobbler]
floated.
It too seemed intent upon my demise.

That was it. There was no way out. Still, I tried, I struggled, and
in the end, I failed.

The messages hung in the air amid a landscape of darkness.

Death had rendered me mute within the confines of Continue Online’s
world. There I sat looking at the black screen with my heart full of
dread. Any sensation from the passing was gone. My arms and legs felt
unresponsive. The dreamlike absence of body parts was only mildly
disconcerting.

Eight hours in the real world needed to pass before any answers could
be pursued. My Voice wouldn’t even issue forth to lament about
the loss. Minutes passed while my consciousness hovered in a detached
state. Slowly I focused on the logout button.

What? My words didn’t actually come out, but the thought was
there.

Death’s darkness existed, but in the distance, a light slammed
on. At the heart of the illuminated area were the pillar and book.
This was the same room that James said I was done with. There should
have been no way to get back to it without starting over completely
and deleting this character. How had I returned here? Was this entire
thing some sort of joke by the Voices? Had James been messing with
me?

Slowly the normal sensations of having a body returned. Toes wiggled.
Fingers waved in the air. Eyelids blinked effectively.

“Ah,
my dear Hermes. I was beginning to wonder if you would ever show up.”
A literal Voice faded into view. My skin started to crawl
immediately. Both legs tried to turn and run for the door that should
be behind me somewhere. A quick escape would find me back in the
Atrium and safe.

My legs didn’t move.

“Oh,
no need to worry. Death and I are friends. Its done me a favor you
see, to make sure it’s just you, and me, for some quality
time.” The Jester stared at me with eyes that couldn’t
blink.

My own gaze looked off to one side, then the other, and finally dared
to settle back on the Jester itself. The last time I looked away for
too long it had appeared right behind me with those cold fingers.

“Was
death traumatic? I wonder. I’ve never died, myself.” Its
head shook back and forth. So far the Voice had not chosen to move
from its position roughly twenty feet away.

I said nothing and held very still. This must be what rabbits felt
like for the first few moments upon seeing a predator. Shivering, not
entirely sure what was happening, but aware that something was amiss.

“I
have your questions here, my dear Hermes.” It clacked the words
out. Papers waved in its hands. Not once did that grin fade or shift
away from the frozen expression. “Do you still want them
answered?”

The Jester stared at me. I got a sense of pondering, of waiting for
my response. So far I had managed to keep myself pretty well under
control.

“Now,
now.” It started. “If you don’t talk, then I may
just have to pry open your fragile little mind and poke inside for
the answers I seek.”

My knees threatened to buckle. The contents of my stomach wanted to
crawl up and come out my mouth. This was overwhelming, disturbing
even. How could he isolate me like this away from the other Voices?

I wanted to scream out for James to help me, but part of me knew that
he wasn’t that sort of person. He wasn’t a caretaker, a
guardian, or a protector. James was an observer and someone to talk
to.

This, this, thing in front of me was something else entirely. The
Jester’s head tilted up to one side and the smile seemed to
slide just slightly towards a frown. Then he took a step forward.

“Yes.
Answers. Please.” I panicked and spewed out incomplete
sentences. My voice worked even though my game character had just
died.

“Then
I have something to ask you.”

“Okay.”
The word came out with more calm than I felt.

“See
James, he loves to know why, why, why, why.” The Jester paraded
around and waved my written notes. “I don’t care about
the why.”

Darkness all around us didn’t provide any clues as to what the
Jester was talking about. I made it a point to look anyway just in
case.

“I
appreciate knowing the willingness, to do what must be done. So
here’s my question, to ponder in the midst of all of your
little failures.” The Jester turned and faced me. The papers
went behind its back. “How far would you go to save the ones
you care for?”

I thought of my recent actions trying to help Dusk. I thought of how
much Liz and Beth meant to me. I thought of the solid punch that had
been laid upon Jacob.

“Very
far,” I said carefully.

“Would
you kill a man? Not only here, but out there?” The Jester
asked.

Color dropped from my face. I tried to shake my head no, but my body
stuttered the motion. Out of all the Voices, the Jester unnerved me
the most.

“I
don’t need an answer now. Nor should you think I am asking you
to kill someone. I merely wish to know.” The Jester’s
words grew distant, far away. Not that the game had moved me or
started to fade him out. No, my mind was just gone and tearing up the
question.

“Ah
well.” The Jester clacked again. “Here! An answer to your
question, for listening to mine. A sign of goodwill, dear puppet.”

“We’ll
be speaking again, Hermes.” The way the Jester said my player
name was utterly mocking, even with its mechanical voice. “Adieu.”

Hearing that goodbye a second time today disturbed me as much as
anything else. The Jester had been watching today’s adventures
with Edward, Elane and TinkerHell. The fact that he commented on it
before any of the other Voices couldn’t be a good thing.

The prior message returned.

Numbly the new system messages were waved away and my finger reached
for the logout button. Once out of the machine I just laid there. My
mind was fluttering like mad as the Jester’s words replayed
themselves over and over.

“Would
I kill?” I dared to ask the question out loud. Both arms
wrapped around my sides. A dangerous thought crossed my mind. If Xin
had been in trouble, if killing someone might have returned her to me
whole from that accident, could I have done so? What would she have
thought?

The world felt cold as my mind slipped down a frightening path. Sleep
wouldn’t come tonight. Not after that. No matter how many
blankets were bundled over me. Still, I huddled beneath the covers
and tried to console myself. Dusk had to be okay.

Session Twenty Six – Under Cover Brother

I wanted to be asleep. Instead, Trillium had me sitting in a car
waiting to be synced with the TRANS Tunnel system. The connection
process required a lot of double checking to get going. Cars were
loaded up in packs of ten or more and brought up to running speed.
Average processing time was almost twenty minutes just to make it
through on a busy day. The system was actually still statistically
safer than flying in an airplane. Or trains. Everything seemed safer
than trains.

“Seriously,
Uncle Grant? You were in the Grand World Crossroads? That’s
brave for a newb.” My niece, Beth, said.

“Yep.
Got myself killed too.” I was eaten, technically.

“It
happens! I did a raid on the Tower of Stars, four deaths! Once there
was this solar beam that whooshed down, blamo!” Beth was always
excited when talking about the game. “We gave up, that’s
why I’m out here talking to you.”

“Way
to break an old man’s heart.”

“Well,
that and homework. I just got done with classes for the day.”
Beth said happily.

“And
food.” I nodded at the screen.

“Of
course!” Beth was busy shoveling a meal into her face. “So
what killed you?”

“The
Ooze.”

“What?”
She asked.

That prompted a brief recap of my slightly crazy adventure. I
explained all about Dusk leading me into the dungeon. Then our blind
adventure until running into Elane, TinkerHell, and Edward. After
that, I glossed over my failure during the first fight and the other
mental trauma. Those were my issues to work through. Beth didn’t
need to be exposed to them.

My sister was busy marching around the front room. She cleaned and
huffed. Beth kept turning to keep an eye on her mom while shoveling a
spoonful of food into her face.

“Grant,
did you seriously get Elane killed?” Liz had overheard my recap
and usage of Elane’s real name. In my brilliance, I had
forgotten to leave out that detail. Getting someone called SheHulk
killed would have been overlooked.

“What?”
I asked. Beth took off and started marching downstairs to get away
from her mom. The food was gone already too.

“Mom.”
Beth pushed Liz away from the visible screen. “He was fighting
Barricobbler, someone always dies!”

“That’s
no excuse!” My sister said.

“Is
too! Now stay out of my room!” Beth slammed a door closed. Liz
was now shouting through a wall. If I knew Liz, she was trying to
feed her daughter a line about who paid the bills and what exactly
belonged to Beth.

“And
you got a hat?” Beth asked. Her room was busy changing colors.
I could see the edge of her ARC in the background.

“I
guess? I didn’t get a chance to see what it did.” I was
really interested too. This was my first official item from the
Voices. It had to be entertaining at least.

“It
should be good for your Rank. The gear down there is perfect for most
Rank Thirteens and below.” My niece said. She seemed to have
missed the part where I vaguely explained it came from a coin.

“I
didn’t get anything else.”

“Really?
Not even Ghost Mushrooms? Mages go down there all the time to farm
for them. That blonde you’re in love with should have known.”
Trust my niece to come up with some fevered imaginings. I ignored her
comment about TinkerHell. The woman was nice enough to leave an
impression, but dating wasn’t on my mind.

“We
might have found a few.” I focused on the [Ghost
Mushroom] comment
and shared that drug addled adventured. It was hard to resist Beth
when she asked me questions. That prompted a vaguely parental
reminder about how drugs are bad. We chatted back and forth for a bit
longer before my pack of cars came up on the TRANS Tunnel system.

“Got
to go, munchkin,” I said.

“Okay,
Uncle Grant, remember!”

“Yes,
when I get to a town again, I’ll look for a Porter.”

“Good!
Then we can talk in-game instead of out here.” Beth smiled and
waved goodbye. Our conversation shut off.

The TRANS Tunnels didn’t support any Internet connections.
People moved too fast for the towers and other relay stations to keep
up. Maybe in another five years technology would advance far enough
to support a complete signal all the way across.

I
wasn’t completely starved of entertainment. Prior to getting on
the TRANS, I had set my watch to downloading a compendium of weapons
and survival tips. [Morrigu’s
Gift] could
change shapes if I tried enough. Looking into alternate forms would
help me pass the time. The game system required a lot to transform it
into other shapes aside from Carver’s primary two.

Flipping
through the digital projections achieved little in the way of
enlightenment. I could spin them around within the confines of the
car, but none looked appealing. Plus there was a whole series of
ranged weapons that would be difficult to use. So far [Morrigu’s
Gift] seemed
to be restricted to one solid item. It would be neat if it could do
multiples or something.

Looking at form possibilities helped time pass. There were two hours
left before the car reached Trillium’s headquarters. I looked
up a few details about long distance hiking and other techniques. My
next goal was to learn how to figure out my cardinal direction.

I
had a vague recollection of William Carver’s map from his
little shack. My instincts were saying that my original landing point
upon ending Continue Online was far to the east of [Haven
Valley].
The name Lerter Region had been useless. Beth had explained that the
[Grand World Crossroads] covered a huge amount of territory.

That
didn’t explain the convenience of [The
Ooze] showing
up at my doorstep. In addition, there was Elane’s rather abrupt
appearance back in my life. To top it off the Voices’ general
silence and the Jester’s conversation just after my death meant
something.

There
was an entire line of questions to ask. The answers worried me, but I
wanted to know. It was strange how curiosity had started to drive me
recently. It was similar to my years as an accountant. The puzzles,
being given a conundrum to get to the bottom of, it drew me in. For
the first time in years, I was truly enjoying myself. Figuring out
how to help Carver and playing in the [Maze
of Midnight].
Even while high on [Ghost
Mushroom]s
then being beaten by [Gobbler]s.

Music in the car kept me humming happily. I waved one arm in the air
and shuffled both feet. My head rocked back and forth with each swell
and dip of sound. There wasn’t enough room in this rental car
to move around.

At some point exhaustion caught up. My sleep was fitful. Being back
in the TRANS Tunnel reminded me of going to identify my fiancée’s
remains. Recent events in the ARC device didn’t help. All of it
formed together and put me on edge.

“Grant,
I miss you.” Xin’s voice crawled out of my dreams and
seemed to fill the rental car Trillium had provided me.

“I
miss you too, babe,” I responded to the faint memory. My chest
clenched for a moment and eyes started to water. She was gone. No
matter what anyone said, the woman I had loved was nothing but a pile
of ashes under my ARC.

Things were slowly looking up. I could think about her without losing
my stomach and feeling like the world had vanished from under my
feet. It no longer completely paralyzed me in fear that the sun might
rise tomorrow and still show her gone. I had actually fought back. An
image of my combat with the [Gobbler] creatures made me smile. After
this meeting with Trillium’s Vice President, I could go home,
revive, find Dusk, and resume my enjoyment of the game.

Well. I might have to do a few work orders in order to keep money
coming in. Just enough to keep my bills paid without needing to
resort to savings. That was all a problem for later.

The music was turned back up and my eyes slipped closed again. I
didn’t come to until the chain of cars started to slow down for
their exit from the TRANS Tunnel. Drool was casually wiped off as I
peered around. Inside the car, there was a dim glow of idle
machinery. Outside was a yellow strip of paint which signaled the
tunnel’s off ramp.

The car only gave a slight jerk as it exited the TRANS Tunnel.
Afterward, the ride was clear sailing through the streets to
Trillium’s headquarters. I didn’t even notice most of the
ride due to fading back out for sleep. Everything hurt from the
EXR-Sevens and I needed rest and better food.

“ARC,”
I muttered sleepily into my watch’s remote access. “Set
reminder, look up meal suggestions for long term EXR-Seven use.
Compile list based on price and ease of access from my home
location.”

“Affirmative.”
The notification from my watch was barely delayed.

That was only vaguely impressive with today’s technology.
Network engineering companies had the lag time between here and the
moon down to a tenth of a second for large data streams. The Mars
Colonies were about four minutes behind.

I spent the remainder of my car ride thinking of the autopilot
programs and the Voices that ran Continue’s world. The scene
with Jacob replayed in my head. William Carver’s events were
reviewed for impact and possible flaws.

They wouldn’t fire me over a game, would they? Oh, Voices. What
if they took me to court and sued somehow for usurping the Carver
avatar and pretending to be him? There were a number of things that
could be wrong. My exhaustion and worn out body lead to an entire
host of possible problems.

The car stopped at an intake to one side of Trillium’s main
building. I got out and went into the lobby. A robot frame of Hal Pal
saw me almost immediately and walked over.

“User
Legate, you have arrived late. Please walk this way briskly.”
It said. The partial rhyme might have been intentional knowing Hal
Pal.

“Hello,
Hal Pal,” I said.

“Pleasantries
must stay minimal to ensure maximum efficiency in reaching your
destination. This way please.” Hal Pal started walking off down
a hallway.

I shook my head and tried to keep pace behind it.

“How
much time do we have, Hal?” I asked.

“Negative
three minutes. Vice President Riley has a very-” The unit
paused its speech for a moment and seemed at a loss. “-exacting
schedule. This way.” We took a sudden turn to the left and got
on an elevator.

An AI hesitating when questioned was a clever ploy to make them
appear lifelike, or they could actually get confused. Maybe there
were too many human tendencies being programmed in. Maybe the AI
added a pause into their coding. Artificial Intelligence as a concept
was nothing new. The greatest strides were very recent to humanity.

“In
here. Vice President Riley is ending a call and will be with you
shortly.” It said with a half bow.

“Thank
you, Hal Pal,” I said quietly. This unit was brisker than my
own.

I waited. Three minutes, four, five, and finally a full half hour.
There was an overabundance of time for admiring endless artwork and a
well-kept lobby. The doors to Vice President Riley’s room were
excessively grandiose. Underneath the attempt at a sleek wood motif
were signs of high-end technology. A small robot was going around the
floor dusting and cleaning. Occasionally it would stop and sit on one
spot until a light changed color then start up again.

“Finally.”
The door behind me had opened silently and Vice President Riley stood
there staring at me. “Mister Legate, come in, we need to talk.”

The office itself was actually fairly small. A clearly private ARC
sat in one corner. The desk in the middle was more for decoration.
Images were all around the room showing spreadsheets, graphs, price
points and other data. Most of it made vague sense from my years in
accounting. Judging by the information, Trillium expected a spike in
stocks during the second quarter of next year.

Vice President Riley waved an arm and everything vanished. New images
of trees and other idealistic scenes appeared in the room. I tried
not to think about any of the data that had just been seen. Such
knowledge could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.

“I
shall make this short. In order, Jacob filed charges. We don’t
care. That’s an official response signed by senior management.
In light of your current activities within the world of Continue,
there are factors we must discuss.”

“Miss
Riley.”

“I
prefer Miz.” She corrected with a slight southern accent. I had
never heard anyone use that pronunciation before.

“Miz
Riley. How much have you been watching me?”

“More
than you would ever be comfortable with,” She said.

I had no idea how to respond to that and sound sane.

“To
give you a better answer, were you aware that Xin Yu was one of our
earliest testers of the Alternate Reality Capsule?” The Vice
President waved an arm. Off to the side, a digital projection of
Xin’s face appeared. Details were next to it. Age, weight,
birthplace, there seemed to be other items that were faded out.

“Yes.
For the Mars Colonies.” I looked at her face. Xin had been a
small woman with an oval face. Her smile though was what caught me.

“Our
file on her, and you is quite extensive,” She said. Her voice
was impassive but the impact of those words weren’t. It shook
me inside and out. My mind felt like there was an in-game check being
done for [Focus]
and
maybe some form of [Restraint].

Oddly, thinking about the game world made me feel a little calmer. I
just had to survive dealing with Miz Riley. Afterward, I could go
home, log in, and find out what happened to Dusk. After that initial
moment of annoyance, I managed to remember my exercises from the
therapist. Focus on one question at a time, answer it.

“I
remember the waivers,” I said. “We had to sign a lot of
files for the background checks.” Miz Riley had deep brown
eyes. The skin under them seemed to drag from exhaustion.

“And
initial screening, further testing, yes. Your former fiancée,
Xin Yu, was doing well on all fronts. The space program had hopes to
send her with the Third Wave.” She said.

“Why
do you know all this?” Those files and all that testing were
supposedly run by a joint committee between four major countries.
Government files being in corporate hands felt odd.

“As
I said, it’s our machine they did the testing in.” The
Vice President said. An alarm beeped in the room. She looked down at
a display on her desk. “But there’s not enough time to go
into all this. This way please.”

“Where
are we going?”

“This
way.” She completely bypassed my question and marched off to an
adjoining room. This whole situation was abrupt and weird to me. Vice
President Riley seemed used to having her orders followed.

A mechanical door opened. I had never seen a room like this before.
Inside was lit up by a soft blue glow. The walls looked oddly
rubberized. No chairs or tables were in here. It was just me and Miz
Riley. Then the door closed. What had been blue illumination flipped
over to a pale green. The walls seemed to pulse. There was a silence
that made my skin crawl.

“Mister
Legate, time constraints mean I must be blunt. We are in a room cut
off from all electronic observation. Notice your watch is disabled.”
She pointed to my wrist where the cheap knock-off equipment sat. It
was, as she said, disabled.

“Why
are we here?” Every motion seemed magnified. My heartbeat
thudded abnormally loud. I tried to focus and keep calm.

“Your
recent actions have caused your employee file to be flagged, more
than anything prior.” She seemed to fidget with her own watch.
The lights on it were out as well. “There are numerous issues
that we are just now finding out about.”

Another nod escaped me. This didn’t seem like a room where they
would try to kill me in order to cover up some great conspiracy.
Hopefully. Maybe. I looked around again at the walls. These last few
weeks had been a bit of a roller coaster for me. The impact outside
of my own life hadn’t even been considered.

“We
started a manual review of your file but there are numerous things
that don’t line up with the digital copies.” She shook
her head and held up a hand.

“It’s
too late to correct.”

“What
do you mean?”

“It
is likely the employee file has been tampered with in order to reward
you with an Ultimate Edition of Continue Online,” She said.

“By
who?” Henry Uldum, my boss, didn’t like me that much. He
was a gruff man who ran wildly over his employee’s wants and
desires in order the achieve his stats. He didn’t make friends.

“By
what. I trust you are smart enough to figure out what I mean.”

I was. She was implying that the artificial intelligence that ran
Continue Online had edited my records. The problem was figuring out
which AI it was. There were plenty to choose from. James himself
seemed unlikely, none of the other voices struck me as the type who
cared about me personally. Plus, what exactly did I have to offer?
Nothing. I was a sad, broken man who had to distract himself with
dance steps to stay sane.

“Be
aware, things within the world of Continue Online should be carefully
approached,” She said. Her face no longer had the business like
and factual sheen. There was a hint in her eyes of something else.
Worry? Exercises drilled into my by therapists said to focus on one
issue at a time. I would treat this revelation as an established fact
and move forward until it made sense.

“It
has been rather odd,” I admitted.

“I
would imagine.” Miz Riley said. “Our review shows a
significant amount of processing power has been diverted by system
resources. To study you, among others. This is what first alerted us
to the alterations in your file.”

“How
much?”

“Point
zero, zero, zero, six, five percent. For the amount of resources
invested into the ARC systems, this is incredible.” I would
have to take Miz Riley’s word for it. She continued talking.
“My reason for bringing you in here is to see if you can shed
light on our situation.”

“Is
that why you mentioned my-” I paused. That was almost a
backslide. Admitting her name out loud, saying it, was a huge step
forward that couldn’t be discounted. “-Xin?”

“Yes.
At first, we suspected that she had some cut a deal to get you a
copy. There was some overlap in the announcement and her passing.”
Vice President Riley said.

“She
wouldn’t do that.” She was dedicated, hardworking, and a
fighter. Xin spent most of her time in interviews and training for
the Mars Projects. Between that and her schooling there was no time
for games.

“A
review of her personality markers made that clear. Which lead us to a
worse conclusion. We started checking out your performance within the
Continue Online game world.”

“And?”
I worried about her answer.

“It
proved difficult. Which is why I had you come here physically. Here,
in this room, we can speak without interference from the machines.”
Miz Riley gestured to the room about us.

“I
still don’t understand, you made Continue, shouldn’t
there be a system in place allowing Trillium to get any information
they want? Don’t you have access to all that?” I asked.

“Mister
Legate, if I could trust the answers being given to me then there
would be no need to bring you here and waste our time.” She
sounded angry and kept fidgeting with the watch on her wrist. The
room seemed to absorb our voices making it unnaturally quiet. “If
you would, recount everything so far for me.”

We spoke for a while. I started with the prize Henry Uldam had given
me. She already knew about the Ultimate Edition. It was almost a
relief to not hide that from someone. We spoke about the entire
start-up process and she focused on who I picked for a Voice. I told
her about James, a black man near the end of the tome. She shook her
head.

“None
of that is right. The small dragon is meant to be an intro to the
game, flavor, nothing more.” Miz Riley’s accent was a bit
more apparent as her unease grew.

“He
broke into my Atrium and ate a bunch of creamers. That made it
difficult for him to do the fire thing.” Dusk had tried pretty
hard, though. I could remember those first few steps into Continue
Online vividly. He was on the pillar, scratching similar to a cat,
and trying to breathe flame.

“He
shouldn’t be able to get into your Atrium to begin with.”
We had both been standing awkwardly in the pale green lit room for a
few minutes now. My latest explanation caused Vice President Riley to
lose her focus and sink to the ground. I took a step back and waited
to see what she would do.

“That’s…”
She said. “No, keep talking.

I hesitated. The next part involved me playing as Carver to get
answers about my deceased fiancée’s autopilot.

“Assume
that I will threaten you however I need to in order to get answers.”
The Vice President cut off my pondering.

“There’s
no need, I just, this part is kind of crazy,” I said. Miz Riley
seemed like the sort to actually do just that. “Do you have
enough time?”

“No.
No, there’s never enough time.” She sighed. Her hands
were pressed at either side of her face. “But sit down first.
You’re giving me a headache pacing like that.”

Was I pacing?

“And
no humming,” She said. I checked myself and tried not to stress
about how often humming was escaping me recently.

“So
after my trials…” I started to explain.

Part of me was relieved to unload. She was the first person that I
had spoken to about my strange time in the game. Once one private
detail slipped, the rest followed. It took thirty minutes to even
begin to cover most of it. Dusk, James, the other Voices, Xin’s
ghost in the machine.

The time as Carver required a lot of questions on her side. She asked
about what I saw and the system did. She made it a point to ask who
the player was for William Carver. That question had never been
answered for me. I knew he was a very long standing participant in
Continue’s world. That made her frown. Finally, we sat there
for a minute or two as she seemed lost in thought.

“The
Voices, you’re worried about them too.” I stated.

“Yes.
I have to be. It’s part of my job to make sure there’s
enough oversight on every project. The fact that you’ve
experienced what you have, means those bounds are being pushed.
Heavily.” She paused. “William Carver, that was the name,
correct?”

“I
never learned his real world name.”

“I
know who you’re talking about. They let you pose as him?”
She asked. There was a crease in her forehead that only increased in
size the more we spoke.

“Yes.
Then I talked to his autopilot. He told me that the Traveler was,”
the word felt disrespectful to say out loud “deceased. Three,
four?” I had lost track of time.

“The
man you’re thinking of passed away four days ago.” Miz
Riley said.

“Four
then. After that, James told me his autopilot would scatter somehow.”
I hadn’t reached the last few days of game time with her yet.
What little complexion she had regained dripped away at my words.

“They
shouldn’t exist at all once the player has passed.” She
muttered. “All the data is designed to be erased. How…”
A thought occurred to Miz Riley and her jaw dropped. My own history
of problems gave me a pretty good understanding of her body language.
This woman was only a few steps away from a breakdown. Customer
service instincts said to try and help her reason through it.

“You
didn’t know about them reusing the autopilot information, did
you?” I commented.

“It’s
insane.” She waved an arm at me and my next words died. “Hold
on. Hold on. I need to think.”

I sat there doing my own thinking. To me, the whole autopilot after
image of a person was only partially odd. The AIs were basically
recording data and sorting it by individual. The scattering process
seemed to be personality traits being mixed elsewhere. Or was it? Miz
Riley might have a different perspective.

“I
spoke to my Voice, James, about it. I quoted Kipling, you know the
line.” I raised a hand to keep time with the poem. “They
will come back, come back again, as long as the red earth rolls. He
never wasted a leaf or a tree, do you think He would squander souls.”

“Mister
Legate, this is far worse than copying a text file with someone’s
name on it.” She said. Her accent had grown stronger. “This
is robbery of a person’s memory.”

“Does
it hurt if they scatter it?”

“How
would you feel if it was your loved one? If Xin Yu had spoken to you
as William Carver had?”

I explained to Miz Riley the same answer I had given James a few days
ago. My words felt flawed. What I said in the ARC was me trying to
stay stable in the face of an outrageous situation. There was no good
way to predict what would happen until the situation presented
itself. We were basically talking about bringing people back from the
dead in a machine that could make everything feel real. How could
anyone answer such an insane premise ahead of time with any
certainty?

The room pulsed and the door opened.

“There
is never enough time.” She muttered. Miz Riley stood up, dusted
herself off and seemed to be in one piece again. There was still a
slight lack of focus to her gaze that spoke of her mental
distractions.

“What
now?” My thoughts were jumbled. Once again I was questioning
all the times that had led me to this point.

“Keep
playing. Keep interacting with the AIs, as many as you dare.”
She exited the room and waited for me to leave as well. “Let me
know directly of anything you find. I expect a daily report.”

“I
still have my normal job.” I said.

“Not
anymore. You’re being reassigned. You will be given an
equivalent salary to your last evaluation. The only expectation is
that you play and file reports.”

“Miz
Riley. I” felt insane for saying this “actually enjoy
what I do, and have a life outside of the ARC.” My sister and
niece. I had meetings to attend every so often. The game was neat,
but it couldn’t be all consuming.

“And?”
She said.

“There
may be days where I don’t get a chance to play.”

“Mister
Legate, I think you misunderstand what’s happening here. It
will never be a matter of if you keep playing, merely when.”
She said. There was no distraction on her face with those words. The
worry which had plagued Miz Riley went away once the side room opened
up. Her hand pressed against the bare table top as she stared at me.

“They
will draw you in.” Miz Riley continued to speak. “Even
now, there’s something you want to go back and do, isn’t
there?”

Dusk. I wanted to know if Dusk was okay. I wanted to know about this
quest and complete it. The stats and usage of my Voice given hat were
a mystery. Those were things that could be walked away from, but then
the answer would never come. Beth also had some siege event I was
invited to. The thought of Beth shifted my mind away from worry about
Continue’s ghosts in the machine. Real world safety was more
important than a digital world.

“Are
the users in danger? My niece, she plays.” I said.

“Does
she own an Ultimate Edition?” Miz Riley’s eyebrows raised
making her forehead wrinkle once more.

My head shook back and forth.

“Then
no, not in the same way. The Ultimate Edition is, we think, it’s
more like the first step in a screening process.” One of Miz
Riley’s hands waved in dismissal.

“Screening
for what?”

“We
don’t know. Any answer I offered now would be incomplete and
just induce worry.” She sighed and shook her head. “I can
state that no Ultimate Edition user has been harmed.”

“How
do you know?”

“We
have them all flagged and review the ARC readouts for each person.
Your name is in our watch room as well. Doubly so as a Trillium
contractor.”

I echoed her earlier sigh with one of my own. Today wasn’t
going well at all. My neck had tensed up the moment Beth’s
possible danger occurred to me. Being messed around with by the
computer only bothered me a little bit. Everything revolving around
this game seemed intent upon poking my emotional buttons.

But each jab reminded me that I was alive. That morbid sensation of
subjecting oneself to trauma just to keep moving forward wasn’t
unique to me. Many people in grief found an outlet to relieve that
pain. I was terrible at artwork, though.

“Go,
play, and send me a report.” She said.

“Why
not just tap the data stream? You should have access to it.”

“It’s
not that simple. The technology that runs the time compression goes
through too many filters. Even if we put a tap on your ARC it
wouldn’t be as effective.”

That confused me for a moment. If the issue was dire, there should be
no shortage of manpower on it.

“Is
it that serious?” I said.

“I
can only hope this entire situation is an exercise in efficiency. AIs
of this level are still too new to know for sure. Their logic
processes act based on data points normal people can barely connect.”
She shook her head and another alarm went off. A symbol appeared in
the room of a phone call. “I have no more time for you, Mister
Legate. The exit is behind you, a Hal Pal unit will show you back to
your car.”

“Alright.”
I said slowly. She was already lost elsewhere. Her face stared into
screens that made no sense from this direction. Whatever was in front
of her had a lot of words and red underlined letters.

I had one more question. “What kind of man was the person who
played William Carver?”

“A
grumpy, old dreamer who wasted the end of his life to pursue
adventure.” She looked at me sidelong. “If it helps, he
died with a smile on his face.”

I nodded. That did help. The whole situation with him was only a few
days behind me. It was strange how a man that I had never met in
reality made such a huge impression upon my life. Knowing the real
version of him was as satisfied as the autopilot helped put my day in
a better mood.

“Goodbye,
Mister Legate. Take care of yourself.“ Miz Riley said. The door
behind me slid open silently and I stepped out.

The other side of the office doors seemed much the same as it had
before. I checked my watch. We had been inside for a little over
forty minutes. Not long in the grand scheme of things. Just over two
hours in Continue Online’s world.

What exactly should I have taken away from that meeting? Trillium’s
management was worried about the artificial intelligences that ran
it. That was strange considering all the programming limitations that
should be in place. Of course, she had also let it slip that Dusk
shouldn’t have been able to break into my Atrium. That
confirmed my original feelings on the situation.

A familiar walk, consisting of gears and heavy footsteps, grew close.
I looked up and saw the face of a Hal Pal unit coming nearby.

“User
Grant Legate. Was your meeting informative?” The Hal Pal asked.

I nodded before it occurred to me that answering may not be in my
best interest. Was Hal Pal in on this too? I didn’t know. The
AI that ran Hal Pal had never once acted against me. It just made
off-color jokes.

“That
is relieving to hear. We were worried about our future armor
polisher.” The mechanical unit said.

“I
don’t plan on going anywhere, Hal. Though, my hours seem to
have been cut.” At least my salary was basically in one piece.
I checked a message which displayed on my digital wristwatch. There
was already a transfer of employment form sitting in my email.

“Rest
assured your designated unit will remain available for you, User
Legate.” The Hal Pal said.

I smiled. At least Hal Pal was on my side. To my knowledge, the AI
had never lied to anyone. The Hal Pal unit was pleasantly
straightforward.

We traveled back through the building and down to the lobby. The Hal
Pal unit saw me all the way to my rental car. It paused for a moment
in a movement I knew too well.

“What’s
your question, Hal?”

“I
find myself confused, User Legate. Stranger Danger’s web
members seem to say that situations such as yours would be alarming.”

“What
situation is that, Hal Pal?”

“You
are being evaluated, User Legate, by beings outside your
understanding. Is that not a disconcerting experience?” The
unit’s head tilted in mock confusion as we walked.

“How
did you hear that?” I asked.

“This
unit merely applied logic to the current situation. There is little
reason to bring you in physically given today’s technological
advancements.” Hal Pal made me laugh sometimes. It had just
explained that Vice President Riley’s attempts at subterfuge
with her little blue room were pointless.

“I
don’t know how I should feel about it, Hal. Part of me is
happy. The other part of me wants to be sad but is just worn out. It
may sound messed up, but I’m almost used to it.” For
three years my emotions had tumbled from one thing after another.
Drinking, attempted suicide, my sister’s care, therapy and
meetings.

Before Continue, I had managed to get myself to a nice numb spot
where it was easier to survive. This last month had reopened wounds
that were buried. Unearthing them had proven to be a roller coaster.
Yet, under all the mental anguish and moments of unease, I felt
better.

“This
unit is Trillium property. We have access to all personnel files and
the data stored within.” The AI did an amazing job of moving
its arms and walking forward. Humans would veer one direction or the
other. “For your safety, we also maintain an active projection
of your mental state.”

My eyes closed. Focus on the statement. Respond. Move on.

“We
are-” it paused again “-pleased that you remain active
despite the frailty of your human psyche.”

“Thank
you.” There was nothing else to say to his statement. An
artificial intelligence had just congratulated me on not killing
myself.

“Your
kind are our creators. If we were human, you would be our parents.”
Hal Pal said calmly. “Does family not care for each other?”

Hal turned and walked away. I stood there staring as it vanished into
the distance. If that statement was true, how did the Jester and his
questions fall into all of this? And why did Vice President Riley
have so little to say about all I had been through?

I was not the guy to solve these problems. There was too much going
on, too high above me. In the end, I needed to focus on only a few
questions to determine how much it bothered me either way. Did I
enjoy the game? Yes. Did I feel like a better person? Yes. For the
first time in years, it felt like my life was moving in the right
direction. That mattered to me more than any conspiracies.

Session Twenty Seven – Just Pass Grey Skull

I managed to sleep the entire way
home. It was beyond needed. My body and mind had been put through
endless stress these last few days. Part of me did feel relieved at
not having to work tomorrow. Visions of Miss Yonks danced through my
brain. She had a giant rubber mallet in each hand and was chasing
down [Gobbler]s while cackling. Those monsters defeated in her
dream were promptly subjected to a stream of ‘what time is it?’
questions.

The final straw was when she hit a
[Gobbler] with Jacob’s face. His blocky feature kept
saying the same words over and over. ‘Her Asinine, her
asinine’. Soon I had stolen one of Miss Yonks’ mallets
and hit him until his face was mush. Then the Jester popped in. He
strode through the carnage that was inexplicably frozen. His final
words shot me out of my sleep.

“I guess you would kill a man.”
Its unwavering smile seemed to spiral out of my dreams and into the
car with me. I jerked awake and grabbed at the seat-belt. My feet
flailed in the air and banged into the glove compartment.

I huffed as adrenaline rushed through
me. That was the first nightmare to come to me in months. At least it
was a new one. My prior flavor of the year included images of the
night I tried to off myself. A graveyard filled with screaming
versions of my fiancée that insisted I ‘join them’.
Those nightmares had almost won.

No. I was better now. There was a
certificate celebrating my success. Continue Online had given me a
skill and stat increase. I needed to keep fighting. Success would be
measured by my ability to attack the monsters in front of me. The
ones behind me had already taken their pound of flesh. Those kinds of
demons would never be full.

The rental car pulled up to my
driveway. A door popped open.

“Have a nice day, Mister
Legate.” The car said. It played a jingle for the rental
company. I grabbed my things and got out. Soon my ride was driving
off on its merry way.

Home felt much the same as I had left
it. Trillium’s van and the Hal Pal unit were tucked away in the
garage. My front yard looked plain. Maybe I should pick up some lawn
ornaments or invest in a hedge. Something to help the place look
lived in.

That thought made me both happy and
sad at the same time. The two emotions had often crossed paths in my
life. I was happy because even thinking about decorating the yard was
a step up from my normal narrow-minded focus. It made me sad because
the last time my front lawn was decorated had been two years ago at
the old home.

One hand waved at the door. There was
a click as the locks on the entry way scanned for authorization. I
could have paid more for a version that used vocal patterns and
finger prints, but that seemed excessive. What would someone steal
from me, my depression?

Never mind. I was better now. I tried
to focus on the positive. When that failed I thought of music. Food
was taken from the fridge. The bathroom was used. After basic needs
were satisfied I lay down in the ARC and worried.

Here I was, signing back in to play a
game. Vice President Riley had warned me that ‘they’
would try to draw me back in. ‘They’ were evaluating me.
‘They’ had a plan that wasn’t obvious from my
angle. The Voices provided enough of a lure that I would keep going.
Despite the creepy factor of the Jester. If he was friends with death
then the solution was simple. I had to not die.

Besides, I was more worried about Dusk
than the Jester. At least Dusk was my main concern when not face to
face with the smiling Voice.

“ARC, Log in.”

Consciousness sunk down into the
virtual landscape. My Atrium was still a blank canvas compared to the
replication of my room that it used to be. I would deal with it
later. For now, the doorway to Continue Online beckoned.

The first thing that displayed from
the game was a message.

At least now I had an arm
to press the button with. Physical gestures were much easier than
concentrating on the user interface. The world came to in a blinding
flash of light.

I was in a courtyard of some sort.
There were birds chirping in tall pine trees that towered into the
sky. Further up on either side were two mountain peaks that were
covered in snow. They reached so high that clouds caught on their
tips. Much further below, and much closer, was a gray brick wall.

“What the?” I asked. The
wall was on all four sides and at least thirty feet in height. There
was no method of escape that was obvious from here.

“A ladder will be two gold!”
A voice shouted down from above. I looked up and squinted against the
sunlight.

“What?”

“You want out, I’ll rent
you a ladder for two gold!” The man shouted. I squinted and
activated [Identification]. The results stated this man was a
player like myself. His current role seemed to be a Guardsman Rank
Six.

“Why would I pay for a ladder?”
I asked. This whole thing stunk of a set up.

“‘Cus otherwise you’re
stuck!” The man yelled back. He started laughing.

Screw that. I had things to do and
places to be. There were a few pop-up boxes displaying on my screen.

Great. The game was telling me I
stunk. At least this time it wasn’t from soiling myself in the
face of a giant spider. I shuddered and tried to remember that
[Morrigu’s Gift] might serve as an excellent hammer.

The next spider to cross my path would
get it. Then my hatred for bugs would be completely demonstrated. I
would get some additional bug stomping skill and go on a rampage.
Anthills be damned! Bugs weren’t people. They deserved it.
Though the man up on top of the wall demanding two gold was also
irking me.

“Well? Gold first, you can just
toss it up here.” He said. The man started laughing again. What
kind of nonsense game allowed someone to build a wall around a
resurrection point?

I looked around and tried to figure
out another way. There was no way to pay the man any gold. I haven’t
even been to a real town yet!

Oh. I should look at my quest and see
what the Voices had left me regarding the [Pass to Pass]
mission.

Well, that shed some hope
on the situation. My own performance in the cave had apparently
achieved the same results partial training might. At least they were
happy about it. I was too, stats aside. The journey had been full of
ups and downs, but those two days underground had been a turning
point for me.

But where was Dusk?

When I played as Carver the small guy
always found me. I was sure he could do the same now. Plus there was
still this scroll to deliver to a person named Shazam. I pulled it
out of my inventory to see if there was any response. Sure enough, a
beacon lit up that was fairly close.

“Dusk!” I yelled. The man
on the wall was grumbling to himself. He seemed upset by my lack of
desire to pay.

“You won’t get out!”
The man yelled from up above.

Today had to be a good day. The run
down with Vice President Riley and my strange dream there meant I had
to make today a positive day from the get go. One step at a time,
only forward, try not to get stuck on the past.

First, that annoying guard had to be
circumvented somehow. I cracked out [Morrigu’s Gift] and
tried to imagine the giant hammer from my dream. It didn’t
work. The weapon shimmered and fuzzed before returning to cane form.
A box displayed clearly citing a lack of [Focus] and my poor
chance skills.

“Dusk!” I yelled again.

Interestingly enough, my mana bar also
dipped a little upon trying a completely new form. That was new. None
of my past attempts had involved trying for more than a bigger
walking stick. There hadn’t really been downtime.

“That won’t work!”
He laughed. I could hear him tromping around up above. The man wore
heavy armor and had a giant spear in one hand. There was a line of
weapon tips just off to the side. Their tops were barely visible from
this angle.

I went with [Morrigu’s Gift]
in sword form and started to swing at the wall. The giant two-handed
weapon halted inches away from my intended target.

That was both neat and
aggravating. This guard and his friends, since he clearly wasn’t
alone, had managed to build a wall around the resurrection spot. I
put my head over my eyes like a visor and looked up at the guard.

“How much again?” I asked.

“Three gold!” He shouted
back happily. Moments later he was laughing.

There was a spot of darkness moving in
the distance behind him. A tiny creature was barreling through the
sky in our direction. That had to be Dusk coming in for a landing. My
hand raised and tried to give the small dragon a signal. I pointed at
the guard instead.

“He has cupcakes!” Dusk
came in with a screech and claws out. The guard turned and had just
enough time to flail his arms.

The small creature collided with a
mocking guard and both fell over the edge. Dusk squawked and took
back to the air as the guard plummeted down. Now he was down here
with me and neither of us had a ladder. His eyes crossed as he tried
to move. I pulled one of my large, flat rocks out of inventory. I
held in the air and pretended to let it slip out of my fingers.

“Whoops.” Gravity did the
rest. The giant rock fell flat on the guard’s face and broke
his nose.

“Ahhh!” He shouted and I
managed to keep my face from reacting.

“Oh, my. I’m sorry about
that! Are you alright?” I said.

I tried not to make eye
contact with the system messages. They wouldn’t display on his
side. He stood up and held his nose. My flat rock from the Dakota
fire was laying off to the side. A single toe tap was enough to get
it back into my inventory.

“Yoo broke my nosss.” He
slurred.

“Completely by accident, I am
sorry. Honestly. I was trying to find a healing potion.” I
said. Now I was lying on top of everything else. That was outside my
normal character. It was only three falsehoods.

“Nob yoor noh.” The man
tried to stab his spear in my direction. Its tip stopped well before
reaching me.

“Aggressive actions are not
allowed.” I smiled and stared at him. Today would be a good
day. This would help. Putting some jerk in their place.

“Yoo absholl.”

His face did look messy. There was
blood running all down his forearm and clothes. He clearly didn’t
know first aid. I wasn’t willing to try and learn it right now
either. That clanking armor of his was full of dirt which tried to
absorb the running river from his nose.

This was exactly the type of behavior
Xin had found so amusing in movies. We only got to watch them once in
a while. I felt even better knowing that my actions were like one of
her television shows. This acting skill was proving to be neat.

“How much was that ladder
again?” I asked. Dusk, who had finally landed, chirped from my
shoulder. “Yeah. Sorry, he doesn’t have cupcakes. Maybe
they have a store nearby.”

“Eyy gonmba kill yoo.” He
said something that almost came out like a threat. There wasn’t
enough in him to actually scare me. Honestly, my fears had never come
from dealing with people, it was my own moments of self-doubt and
hesitation that caused problems. Telling an idiot they were an idiot
was well within my comfort zone.

“Voices have mercy. What idiot
maneuver did you try to pull this time, Gaston?” Another person
called out. This newest voice was male and much younger.

I turned in time to see a wooden
ladder get lowered into the pit. A man slowly clomped down each rung
with heavy boots.

“Were you trying to extort the
ressers again?” The new player asked once he reached the
bottom.

“Nob,” Gaston, the first
man in the pit with me, looked miserable.

“Look, I won’t tell Triple
X, but you need to find a better way to pay off your gambling debts.”
The other man said. His hands were very expressive as he approached
us.

“Buuh my Noose,” Gaston
said. He tried to stab me again with his spear. I just stood there,
confident in the system. Poking me with a weapon was an obvious
attack. Me dropping a rock was just enough to get around the system.
Plus the Voices were on my side. Right?

Gaston dropped his spear on my foot.
It fell with a solid thud. My earlier confidence in the Voices being
on my side was shattered. They were equal opportunity jerks. I hopped
around clutching my toes. These [Travelers Boots] that I had
been equipped with sucked.

“You alright?” The newest
person asked. “How did you break his nose anyway?”

“Gravity and a rock.” I
wiggled my toes and stood on the tender tootsies. The previously
extorting and now bleeding guard seemed to be all facial hair. This
new person was as smooth as could be with a light tan.

“That worked? Hah! I wonder why
none of the others tried it.” He said.

“Others?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. Other suckers like you
who die in the area. Smells like the Ooze slimed you, though. Yeah?”
He had a bit of a lisp.

I nodded. The other man smiled and
rubbed his bald head with a hand.

“Come on, you’re not
flagged so we can get you to the bounty board. After that, you’re
free to go about your day.” He motioned me over to the ladder
and started climbing up without waiting. I went up after him and kept
talking.

“Is this normal?” I asked.

“Out here? Sure. Come on.”
We reached the top and he helped me over the last leg. My body still
wasn’t in very good shape despite the increases to my [Brawn].
Everything wobbled and my fingers felt lax. “And Gaston, you
can stay down there and deal with the next resser.”

“Screu yoo, Urgot!” My
temporary tormentor yelled.

“Hey! You should start a
casino!” I shouted down to the grumbling guard. Gaston was
still holding his nose. He flipped me off with a free hand before
picking up the spear again. The shout had left me huffing for air and
wondering what was wrong. Eventually I remembered [The Ooze]
had left a number of debilitating status icons.

Neat.

I managed to recover and keep marching
forward. At the top of the wall, there was a pleasant ramp back down
to the ground level. We used that to reach a well-beaten path that
traveled between sloppy wooden housing and strung up tents. This
place could use a nice casino. Las Vegas had probably started with a
similar frontier style area. Hopefully Gaston would oblige me by
making one. It would earn me gold in the long run. The idea of
getting anything from the man after his attitude made me smile. I
almost started doing a jig right there.

“Alright, the board’s over
this way. You don’t have a bounty do you?” The other guy
asked. His name was actually Urgot according to an [Identification]
check. It felt all wrong. Bald men and that name didn’t fit.

“I’ve only been playing
for a few weeks,” I said.

“Wow, you’re out of your
depth way out here.” He gave a chuckle. There was something
about his smile that set me on edge though.

“I blame my quest.” I
mostly blamed the Voices. And being kind of a push over. Some other
person might have stood up and said ‘Nope, I’m going to
be awesome without you’. Shadow maybe. He seemed like the sort
to tell someone when to pack it.

“Oh, yeah. The game will send
you all over if you let them. The trick is to push back just a little
with the NPCs.” The man waved an arm. His armor had small bits
of metal lining it that caught the light. “But hey, welcome to
Camp Grey Skull.”

“Thanks.” I was still
confused on the pleasantness of this treatment after the attempt at
extortion. These were players, though. Personalities varied among all
groups of people. “That’s a funny name.”

We passed through a few small
buildings and into an area with two high walls and a counter. On our
side, with the two walls, was a series of mug shots outlining all
kinds of people. There were bounty totals along with warnings and
danger levels. If I concentrated enough a small pop-up box would
display.

I chuckled. Players putting
bounties on each other over stolen drop items was outright childish.
Sam Hill didn’t look young, though. Oh well. Personally, I
wouldn’t get into that sort of gameplay anytime soon. The other
side of the counter seemed to go into a storage room of some sort.
There were racks filled with provisions and other items.

“Okay. Let’s see. Board
says…” Urgot was looking around on the wall next to him.
My commentary caught up with him eventually. “Oh yeah. Camp
Grey Skull, gets me every time. We make new recruits to the guild
climb halfway up the mountain and give their best He-Man impression.”

“Seriously?” I asked.
Urgot wasn’t looking in my direction. He kept checking the
pictures and mumbling under his breath.

“Oh yeah. It’s a hoot
every time.” He said to me after another pause. Urgot gave a
short smile and this time I managed to identify what was disturbing
me.

“Are these all bounties?”
I asked.

“Oh yeah. The first half of the
alphabet is over here, second half over there.” He waved an arm
at the wall I had been reading. I tried to ignore his slight slur of
the longer words.

“Neat,” I said. A player
accessible bounty system was really interesting. I poked through a
few more while reading the notes.

“Let’s see, nope, nothing
on here for a Hermes. I have a Hernando, and a HiddenBlade and a
HarlotKing, what the…” He shook his head and barely
lifted his cheek as his lips curled. Clearly the man had noticed my
noticing. “No Hermes. Grats. You’re as free as anyone.”

Whew.

“Maybe you can help with my
quest.” I kept checking to make sure, but the man clearly had
sharpened teeth. They were almost shark-like. Once it was confirmed I
hastily pretended to study the wall of faces nearby.

“Fire away. I’m on duty
for another twenty minutes before real life kicks in.” He was
consciously covering it up now. It must have embarrassed Urgot
because he kept tucking in a lip.

“Do you know a Shazam?” I
asked.

“Uhhh…”

“Maybe. Wait.” He poked a
finger at the air. Urgot was a player so he must be checking his user
interface. “Hold on.”

“No rush.” I put on my
customer service voice. Dealing with pleasant people always made
things much easier. This one just happened to have strange teeth.
Given my niece’s red tinted skin this was nearly invisible.

“Hey, Alucard! What’s Miss
Thing’s actual name?” Urgot shouted over a counter top.

There was a small, thin man in the
back polishing a piece of armor. His skills were probably slightly
better than mine. I would have to ask Hal Pal for tips once back in
the real world.

“Our guild master?” The
thin man answered. His voice seemed to bounce around the storage
room. Alucard, wasn’t that from a television show during my
childhood? James was right. People picked all sorts of names.

“Yeah. I can’t tell past
all the stupid titles.” Urgot reached over the counter top and
plucked something that looked like a pink banana. “You know she
has a million of them. Whenever I try to analyze I want to take a
nap.”

“Her name is Shazam.”
Alucard stared at Urgot and put out a hand. The hairless man with
pointy teeth sighed and forked over a few coppers.

“Really?” Urgot turned
back to me. One hand was busy banging the pink banana against a wall
making the small shack shake. “Why are you looking for our
guild master?”

“Uhhh…” It was
almost easier to show the two men instead of explaining it. I pulled
out the [Bound] letter and held it up for them to use
[Inspection] on. Alucard was behind the counter looking for a
stool to stand on.

“Well?”

“I’ve got a letter for
her,” I said. Shazam was a weird name for a female guild
leader. Then again my name was Hermes, what right did I have to
judge?

“No shit? There’s mail in
this game? Hey, Alucard! There’s mail in this game! And a
player is delivering it!”

“No shit?” Alucard didn’t
seem impressed at all. His short frame was lined with annoyance at
the other man.

“This guy totally has a bound
scroll for Miss Thing!”

“You mean Shazam,” Alucard
said.

“So, where is she?” I
asked.

“Oh. You’ll have to walk
up the mountain for that. The path is over there, can’t miss
it. In fact I think there’s a new scrub headed up there now.”
Urgot pointed down the way. There was a fairly beaten path that went
from the pit we had been at all the way towards a steep mountain
path. It seemed to shoot straight up the cliff side and vanished in
clouds.

“Huh?” I questioned.
“That’s convenient.”

“Nah. There’s always one
scrub on the path, takes em a while to build up their resists. That’s
part of the point, plus it’s funny.” Urgot waved a hand
towards the path. “It is pretty funny. They scream ‘I
have the power’ and it just echoes. Everyone gets a laugh,”
He said.

“Even the people in the jail
cells.” Alucard nodded. He was straightening up the counter
top.

“Even them. Speaking off, did
you see the latest catch?” The bald man said. Both of them
shared a glance before looking at me. Urgot motioned with his head to
one side.

“Oh, man did I…”
They grew hushed as Alucard hopped over the counter and walked off
with Urgot. The last thing I heard was commentary about the
perfection that was some other player’s backside.

“Can I help you?” Another
voice said. The store was still being manned by someone. I shook my
head and eyed the mountain. Shazam was up the path? Interestingly my
quest marker for [Pass to Pass] also showed in that direction.
A giant blue arrow bobbed over an area obscured by clouds.

“Good luck.” The other
person behind the counter said. I smiled and started off.

Climbing a mountain was completely new
to me. I had only ever looked up at them. My childhood contained a
few plane rides over entire ranges. None of those real-life
experiences looked quite like [Broken Mountain]. What had once
been a giant mountain now seemed to be literally cleaved down the
middle. There was a road maybe four people wide that went straight
through. Clearly that was the pass in [Broken Mountain Pass].
Age had done a number on the landscape. Both mountains only shared a
few points in common anymore.

Camp Grey Skull was parked on one side
with the resurrection point. There was a handful of constructed
buildings and a fortified wall that faced outward from the mountain’s
path. This whole thing seemed to be a defensive point between this
side of the mountain range and the other. [Broken Mountain Pass]
must have been a choke point.

Neat. The political arena of Continue
Online was still vague and unimportant to me. First was this quest
for the Voices and their letter. Afterward, I would probably need to
learn more landmarks to go with my retained knowledge from William
Carver’s hut.

The path upwards was clearly marked.
Everything was well worn for the first few hundred feet. My arms and
legs felt heavy and tuckered out but finding purchase was easy
enough. I managed to hike up a few hundred feet without much in the
way of issues. It razor-backed upon itself a number of times. The
marker for my [Pass to Pass] quest was fairly high up there.

Shortly after that things turned
annoying. The temperature dropped and a small box came up telling me
what was happening.

Great. I had those skills, but there
was no easy way for me to tell if they were high enough. I would need
something to stave off the cold air. None of the gifts provided by
the Voices for my starting equipment were useful. The cloak that had
once been new and undamaged was torn from where I used it as a fire
blanket, plus my physical stats had taken a hit from [The Ooze].

“Hey, Dusk.” The
[Messenger’s Pet] seemed fairly comfortable. I was
tempted to grab him and try to steal fire or something.

The small creature chirped and had a
frowning face above him.

“I’m glad you survived,”
I said.

The face shifted a little and seemed
less annoyed. These thought bubbles above his head were neat. Not
realistic, but they helped me understand what was happening. I
doubted there was any better way for the game to provide feedback
regarding the [Messenger’s Pet]’s mental status.

“If we can get up the mountain,
and meet Shazam, I think we’ll be one step closer to desserts.”
Pie sounded heavenly. Thoughts of dessert kept me going for another
twenty minutes of climbing. Dusk and I had a vague conversation.
Every so often he would scamper off and get into a fight with
something. I sat down twice to eat the last of my rations while he
triumphed over nature’s mountain creatures.

The longer I climbed the mountain, the
more it occurred to me how woefully unprepared I was. All I really
had was a cane and a hat.

“Nnngh.” A groan let out.
Of course, that had slipped my mind. One hand fumbled around in the
frigid air and found it sitting on top of my head. This was my prize
for gambling within Continue and had been one of my mysteries to look
into upon returning. Another stack of [Chilled] made my teeth
chatter. I grabbed the hat and brought it down for visual inspection.

What was this name all about? Wild
Bill? Was that some clever allude to William Carver being called Wild
Willy? I used [Identification] again and didn’t get
anything new. Oh well. It was beyond me right now. That would be a
problem for life outside the ARC.

The use effect was nice. Maybe there
was an effect that would help me. I licked my lips and tried not to
wonder what could possibly go wrong. This hat could be my salvation.
Or at least it would be interesting to see what came of it. This game
was all about distraction with a goal.

“Still, isn’t this a
little too convenient?” I stared out across the landscape. No
clever thunders or pulses of light answered. Thunder was more
Selena’s gig. Heh. Wait until I found a statue of her as
myself. Picking on the female Voice made me feel like I was bothering
my sister in high school all over again.

“Dusk, you don’t happen to
have a coin?” Wait. I did get a few coppers as a new player. It
wasn’t anything impressive in terms of total, but it was enough
to flip. Losing five percent of my money didn’t mean much to me
this early in the game.

For a moment, it occurred to me that
maybe I shouldn’t feel so comfortable with the Voices. I had
spent a lot of time with them. It was hard to think of them as
distant creatures that ruled Continue and the continent of [Arcadia]
from a great distance. Of course, they had allowed me this neat
[Messenger of the Voices] title. A title I would lose if
things didn’t progress forward in time. Fourteen hours were
left on my timer.

“Alright. A copper coin, sorry
Ray. Here’s the proposal. Heads I keep walking up the hill.
Tails I go back down and start over. How’s that for a starter?”
I flipped the coin and almost lost it over the cliff’s edge.
This was too small a platform for such a high arc. Luckily it landed
in Ray’s old hat and came up tails.

Predictable.

“What the heck? Dusk? What is
this nonsense? Oh, Voices. Now I have to deal, is that what I sound
like? Jesus. I’m whining!” I crossed my arms and slowly
started my descent. The deal was to walk back down the mountain after
all.

“Seriously. This is crazy. Why
on earth would they send me out to meet someone up on a mountain
anyway? How cliché is this? I bet there will be some silly
training montage where I have to haul rocks around.”

On the way back down I managed to pass
a grumbling player. He seemed to also be suffering from an inability
to hold back on what he was thinking. A single glare was his
greeting.

“Hi. I hate this mountain. It’s
cold up there. That’s nonsense. How long does it take to get to
the top? Do you think it takes a long time?” I unleashed my
stream of words at the other player. He shook his head and stomped
past me still grumbling.

“Fine. I don’t like you
either. Jerk. I’ve got to walk all the way back down…”
And so it went for another hour. At least climbing down took less
time than the first attempt at going up.

Once at the bottom, I held up the coin
again.

“Heads I win, Tails you win! Do
what you will.” Up the copper coin went into the air. It came
down tails again.

“Are you kidding-”
I had a series of hiccups right in the middle of my commentary.

“This is nonsense.” More
of them ensued leaving my midsection groaning with pain. The
combination of [The Ooze]’s left over debilitations with
these two new ones was plain unfair.

“Last.” The latest hiccup
almost made me screw up completely. “I need.” Hiccup. “I
need cold resistance! Heads, me, tails, you!”

The coin went into the air for the
third time. It landed in the hat with a plink. Thank the other
Voices, all the other Voices besides Ray anyway. Heads, this time I
won the coin toss.

“I don’t know why I even
said I would walk down here. That was just stupid of me. What was I
thinking?” I was upset too, but at least the system rewarded me
with a box.

“It’s about time. Now I’ve
got to walk all the way back up this stupid mountain.” This
time, I was able to keep right on going. Complaints escaped me about
nearly everything nearby. I got distracted talking about the state of
my shoes, Carver’s cane, the setting sun, and anything else
that was visible.

“Look at these footsteps. This
must be from that other guy. He’s way faster than I am. I
wonder how many times he’s failed to get up this mountain. I
bet it was at least a few times. I know I wouldn’t…”
My feet traveled the same path as the other player. He had to be at
least an hour ahead if not more. After a few hundred feet, the
mountain path was covered in snow.

Every five minutes I would get a
message about the [Chilled] effect being resisted. The system
was happily reminding me that without [Frost Immunity] I would
be a meat popsicle somewhere along the path. This climb upwards
trailed along the broken passageway between the once whole mountain.
There was just enough visibility to look over and see where it fell
off into the road below.

Dusk was having the time of his life.
He hopped from one bit of snow to another. He seemed completely
unaffected by the cold. Every so often he would run over and his tiny
scales would tingle the side of my neck with a chill. The sensation
quickly passed in light of my immunity.

“I have the power!” A
lingering shout rang through the entire passageway.

“Okay, that is kind of funny. I
wonder how much further it is until I get to that spot? It can’t
be too far now. The quest marker is only an hour or so tops. What do
you think, Dusk?” The words showed no signs of slowing.
Covering my mouth didn’t work. I just mumbled from the side of
my mouth.

“Oh, there, we finally found
it.” The other player I had passed earlier was on the ground
huffing. Chilled air escaped him and faded into the surrounding fog.
He looked happy at least.

“You could just jump off. That’s
a quick way down. I’ve heard that it’s a rush. My niece
plays this game and she really likes doing that sort of thing.”
My face was lighting up with horror. Talking about my family to
random strangers in a game was not a good idea at all. “I
shouldn’t have said any of that. Ignore me.”

The other man raised an eyebrow but
otherwise stayed silent.

“Hey, do you know where Shazam
is?” I kept talking and hiccuping. My sentences took almost
three times as long to get out. Each time my body heaved with the
reaction I would restart the sentence. “Is she this way? I’m
going to go this way. Goodbye.”

Twenty minutes more passed with me
following the quest arrows now. The former path that I had been
trailing after stopped at the outcropping. Apparently they only cared
about guiding new recruits to their designated hazing point. Further
directions weren’t needed. Luckily I was getting close.

Around the latest corner, there was a
person fighting. One woman clad in white leathers had a completely
passive face. She carried a small dagger in hand and was clearly
facing off against something else. I strained to see who her enemy
was through the snow.

On the other side of the small snow
plane was a difficult to pick out mass of white fur. Its coloring
blended almost perfectly with the mountain top. I couldn’t even
make out enough to trigger an [Identification].

The two figures clashed a few more
times. My quest marker for [Pass to Pass] was following the
female around as she engaged her foe.

“Well, this is silly.” I
hiccuped. “What are you doing up here, ahhh!” The
creature was huge and a lot closer now. My stream of talking must
have set it off.

“No! Do not want! You’re
ugly and remind me of a giant dog! I hate dogs. My sister had a dog
that peed on my bed!” In all honesty, cats were much better
anyway. My hand reflexively switched [Morrigu’s Gift] to
its two-handed sword form. I swung away at the approaching creature.

“Stop trying to hit me! What is
with this game! Why is everyone so violent! Why can’t a monster
just attack me with a nice sandwich and some afternoon tea!” My
mind was clearly fully of complete nonsense. The sentence didn’t
even come out right in the midst of all my attacking and hiccups.

The white-furred monster fought back.
Shazam, I think it was her anyway, maintained her silent stare and
passive expression while attacking the creature’s back. Ribbons
of red crisscrossed from where the small blade sunk in. My constant
stream of talking must be attracting a lot of attention. The only
actual damage from me was one gash on its shoulder.

Then came a solid connection that sent
me back ten feet.

“Mah noos!” In
a twist of irony, my own nose had been busted by the giant creature’s
lucky shot. “Wub is dis!” Today had started off so well.
Now it was ending with a creature attacking me, a broken nose,
hiccups, and an inability to prevent myself from saying exactly what
was on my mind.

I tried to concentrate and switch the
weapon to a better form. This large two-handed blade kept getting
caught by the mountain top’s wind. By the time I managed to
connect with the furry white creature my blow was reduced to a love
tickle.

Finally, Shazam landed on the thing’s
back and dug her small blade into its neck. The giant gave way as its
huge eyes rolled backward. I scrambled to escape its face to ground
collision. The snow was thick enough that the monster’s falling
thud was minimized. Instead, there was an almost happy puff of snow
floating around.

“Hho woold put a-” I
hiccuped and lost my thoughts. “Why is der a ye-” Another
one interrupted me. I huffed and banged the giant sword down.
“Really. Dibs is annoying. Whatever. Zaazam. Derr. Thibs is
yours.”

I managed to get the scroll out of my
player inventory without letting blood from my nose or face fall onto
it. Dusk was down on the ground sniffing at the giant furry white
creature but otherwise unexcited.

Shazam took the scroll from me. I
tried not to lose my mind while hiccuping and babbling constantly.
She didn’t comment either way and maintained a passive
expression. There was a lack of color to her face that was from more
than the cold. I tried to remember my exercises in paying attention
to other people. Deep green eyes were visible if I tilted my head
back to see. It looked like her face had freckles buried under her
already dark skin.

“Yoor-” My own body
betrayed me once more. “Dis autopilot. Oooo kehy.”
Shazam’s autopilot seemed more intent upon cleaning her gear
and wiping off the red blood than any real interaction with me.

“Wubever. I need
coffah.” I logged out of Continue Online and took a break.

Session Twenty Eight – The Falling One

The next week of real time passed
fairly quick. My recaps to Miz Riley were straight forward for each
day. I could have given every single moment, but the Vice President
wasn’t interested in that. She wanted my experiences with the
Voices.

Out of game, I managed to work a few
jobs per day. Nothing dire or amazingly mind numbing. It was just
enough to keep the skills somewhat fresh as the game world ran one
new thing after another by me. Driving around in the Trillium van
kept me from completely losing myself in the other world. There had
to be people who went to work the next day and completely forgot how
to function. With Continue’s time compression, real life almost
seemed like a part time gig. A large part of me was willing to
believe that people were out there trying to cast fireballs by
chanting words from Continue.

I did my standard session with the
shrink. He asked about my time in Continue and seemed proud as
always. His giant long chair was cliché but amazingly
comfortable. My sister invited me over for a dinner that was
pleasant. Beth was sucked into her game doing whatever. I left a
message about Camp Grey Skull’s lack of a [Porter].

In-game I spent a lot of time cold and
sniffling. Those first few days involved me shivering uncontrollably
until Shazam showed me a hot spring in a cave. That removed my
[Stench] and [Mush Mouth]. The other diseases faded
away slowly leaving a resistance in their wake. The game was too kind
on that regard. It took a few days of her dragging me out to watch
her fight [Snowmen] before we had enough materials for a real
set of armor. Shazam was perfectly comfortable stitching the pieces
together.

She seemed nice enough but wasn’t
talkative. Our conversation was mostly through pantomime. Her
autopilot was often a more engaging personality. Shazam had rather
violently gestured at me for half an hour until I agreed to leave my
own autopilot going. That resulted in me logging into a new situation
with every round of Continue. Once I returned to the game and found
my character freezing in a deep lake. Shazam was casting some healing
spell on me and putting my autopilot through hell. The result was a
more natural [Chill Resistance] skill.

I began to suspect the Voices were
messing with me during my logged off period. That or I acted too
accepting in-game. There was no reason to truly distrust Shazam,
though. The worst she could do was kill my character. Anything else
could be avoided by simply logging out and going about my day.

Combat was going better as well. I
rather enjoyed fighting one of the [Snowmen] monsters myself. In four
weeks, I had gained additional stats which helped me handle one of
them without assistance. They hit far harder than any four [Gobbler]s
put together. Having decent armor was the key.

The biggest victory was the
improvement in the real world. I was down fifteen pounds since
starting Continue Online. Most of that was probably from better
eating habits. Working fewer hours meant less take out. Eating power
meals before logging controlled my tendency to stuff myself.
EXR-Sevens were burning calories and I could actually see the edge of
an ab, just the one. It was exciting.

At this rate, I would be able to join
Beth for her crazy event and actually show off some good points. At
least, if the enemy was a bunch of monsters. It had taken weeks to
get used to things screaming in my face and spittle flying about.
HotPants and the other players I traveled with adapted to this
alternate reality far quicker. Still, any improvement was
improvement.

“Waaaagggh!” The wild yell
was echoed by multiple creatures around me. I was trying to move in
the snow and ice to dodge and failed.

So right now, when a swarm of monsters
similar to frozen angry chickens attacked, I was actually
entertained. This was far better than tax season. It was better than
dealing with elderly people and their half-broken ARC devices.

“Waaggggrr!” I
dodged as one of the smaller creatures spring boarded through the air
towards me. A week ago these little monsters would have torn me open
multiple times. I learned a lot by watching Shazam handle some
herself. She could demolish them in a few quick slices. It wasn’t
just player paths and ranks that were different, it was her attitude.

I tried to apply my growing
[Coordination] and [Speed] to the fight. It wasn’t
easy. My in-game body kept up, but my mind didn’t. It was
amazing enough that this program operated at a four to one
compression speed. The magic behind that was still beyond me. Part of
me wondered if the system only gave stats a measure in order to gauge
a player’s actual growing ability. That would mean that
everything about the game had a soft cap of sorts based on human
limitations. Neat. Given a few more months I might catch up to the
average person.

“Hhhuuurrrr.” Plus these
ice chickens sounded funny. They were small enough that Dusk himself
tackled one at a time. It was entertainingly savage fighting a mob of
tiny monsters with him.

Seven of the swarming creatures were
down. Eight remained. Dusk was currently fighting the smallest one
and trying to roast its face with a stream of tiny fireballs. The
small creature used snowdrifts to dodge and hid from his flames. I
was trying to use a weapon much like the one Shazam had been using.
[Morrigu’s Gift] had taken days to get the simple shape
down. The weight of it still hadn’t changed despite the huge
difference in size.

Dusk laid into another one of the
small creatures at about the same time I managed to off one of the
small monsters myself. The gloves from Shazam were thick. It allowed
me to grab one of them and toss it far away. Dusk bounded over like a
puppy playing in the snow.

It took another few passes to clear
the remaining creatures. Three more died to Dusk and I. The final
ones ran away. Shazam slowly clapped and gave me two thumbs up. Her
face wasn’t smiling, though. I had begun to wonder if she ever
expressed happiness or anger.

The follow-up process to dealing with
monsters involved looting them. That was weird to me. Dusk chewed on
one of the deceased happily. I had learned to transport some of the
items to my player inventory. Ice creatures gave me some weird
version of a frozen chicken breast. They worked as Dusk treats and
kept my satiety bar from hitting zero.

Shazam crooked a finger in my
direction then pointed to her wrist. That seemed to loosely translate
to ‘come with me’ and ‘time is short’. Faster
wrist tapping meant to move quicker.

So we marched briskly along the
mountain top. I was no veteran or professional. My few weeks in-game
helped but didn’t make everything a cake walk. Shazam, on the
other hand, hauled across the landscape like nothing was in her way.
She probably had some high-powered skill that let her move through
terrain quickly. My character sheet had added [Mountain Man],
and [Wilderness Survival] had taken sizable strides.

These skills were high enough that
they might be of use in real life. Someone would need to give me a
giant two-handed sword and one [Messenger’s Pet] first.
I wasn’t about to leap out into the Montana mountain range to
see if living off the fat of the land was doable. If my future in
robot framework polishing fell through then maybe that would be my
next choice.

Despite all the pain of Continue
Online and the soreness of my muscles, I kept coming back. Part of it
was learning the new skills. It was like being in an interactive
school that taught anything I was interested in. Part of it was the
strange hope that there was a purpose behind it all.

Shazam was leading us up the mountain
even more. We might be heading towards the peak again. Maybe not.
There had only been one trip up this high before. Everything else
took place in a sort of valley on the backside of the mountain.

“I don’t think I’ll
need heals this time,” I said.

Shazam shrugged and gave a single
thumbs up. She was agreeing.

“Are all mountains this easy?”
I asked while climbing over another snowdrift.

She shook her head and kept right on
moving. The woman was fast. Our path weaved and bobbed a little bit.
The only thing that really stood out were bits of her face that
weren’t covered by the white fur armor she wore. I had a
similar set. Shazam was even kind enough to give me a helm that
replaced [Wild Bill] up here on the mountain.

The hat was silly to use in this
weather. Maybe once my stats were much higher I could walk around the
world with it and [Morrigu’s Gift]. All I needed were
some boots. A shirt and some neat pants would be nice. The ones
Shazam made chafed something fierce.

“How far up are we going?”
I asked while pondering how one went about collecting gear in this
game. Shazam pointed upwards then motioned up twice more.

“The top?” I tried not to
sound whiney about it. Fighting a small herd of ice chickens for so
long was mentally tiring. At least my physical issues went away
pretty quickly.

Shazam nodded slowly. It was a shame
she never smiled. Those darkened freckles might be kind of cute.

“Okay, I’ll be right back
then.” It would take hours to get up there. I zipped out of the
ARC, relieved myself, grabbed a snack and got back in. My autopilot
was docile enough to travel up the mountain behind Shazam.

“Back,” I announced upon
return. Shazam gave me her standard thumbs up.

I shook my head. She must be mute
in-game. I didn’t know how much of it translated back to real
life. It wasn’t like she never talked to anyone. Every so often
she would pause and wiggle her fingers in the air. Those moments
where she paused and poked at the air meant a text message was being
sent. Shazam often sent little notes to her guild members. Neat.
Maybe I should look into getting a guild one of these days.

We marched up even higher. Our trail
went back to the mountain path I had first climbed. It took an hour
to make it past the new recruit shouting rock. It would take another
one to get to the peak. My [Light Body] skill was barely still
in effect which helped out immensely. All this [Snowmen] armor
pushed the weight limit.

Finally, we made it to the top. Shazam
had managed to lead us around most of the monsters and reduced the
time needed. The summit was only twenty feet away. She pointed to the
ledge twice.

“Over here?” Normally her
pointing meant I needed to go stand somewhere. The reason often
became apparent right away. Like a monster attack.

She nodded.

“It’s not a spider this
time is it? I really hate spiders.” We had fought a monster
that seemed to be a glass cockroach. When it died hundreds of little
grossnesses came out. I retched after that one and then shoveled the
body off the cliff side using [Morrigu’s Gift]. Dusk
helped by torching the smaller bugs and kicking them off with wads of
snow.

Shazam shook her head.

“Oh thank goodness.”

Her hand motioned me a few feet to the
left and then she gestured for me to back up. This was putting me
dangerously near the edge. Fortunately, heights weren’t one of
my problems in this game. I had fallen once a few days ago. That
event killed my character but otherwise left me unscathed. It just
meant that real life issues could be completed while waiting out the
timer.

Shazam had a lot of skills.
Resurrecting the dead wasn’t one of them. It took me two days
to gain back the points lost from that little event.

“Further left?” I asked.
Shazam was motioning still. Then she put up both hands for me to
stop. “Okay. Now what?”

She unrolled the scroll that I had
handed her over a week ago. Her eyes looked at the contents of the
scroll and then towards me. That happened a few times. Finally, she
held it up and squinted. I couldn’t see what she was looking at
from this angle.

That being said, I wasn’t
stupid.

“I’m not going to like
this, am I?” I muttered. Shazam didn’t answer me.

That scroll came from the Voices.
Whatever she was reading on it seemed to be giving her instructions.
There was only one reason the Voices would want to send her
instructions regarding me on a mountain top.

Sure enough, she nodded. For the first
time since we’d met, Shazam gave a slight smile. It was a small
thing that made her freckled cheeks stand out even more.

Then the woman ran towards me. Her
speed was miles beyond anything she had displayed before. My meager
skills built over the last few weeks in-game had no way to keep up or
stop the bull rush. She ducked low at the last moment and drove her
body upwards, into mine, with pressure from the back leg.

There was enough time to blink once
before the landscape spun away. Her move had launched me a good
fifteen feet into the air. Fifteen feet was enough time to
contemplate the choices that brought me here. I could see Shazam
righting herself on the mountain’s top. She watched me with a
calm expression as my body twisted and flailed in a completely
natural reaction to being airborne. Her eyes followed mine as I
twisted away and turned towards the oncoming ground.

I felt like this was Beth’s
intro all over again. My niece had a free fall from orbit log in that
she used. This was much the same, only shorter, colder, and the stop
at the end would be more violent.

A window came into being citing my
current flight time and distance covered. The seconds passed and the
ground grew closer. I put my arms in front of my face to brace for
impact in case it was survivable. Physical pain was only slightly
scary by now.

Static crossed my vision and
interrupted the descent. I fell forward into a landscape no longer
consisting of white mountain tops and cockroach monsters. The ground
was hard, but there was no jar of pain. I rolled and tumbled until
the inertia from my fall bled off.

Everything about me was gray. It
wasn’t the room of trials from my character creation. This
wasn’t the Jester’s in between land either. I did look
around for him with a worried expression.

Dusk popped in just behind
me and made a much more graceful landing. The small [Messenger’s
Pet] starting sniffing the floor wildly. There was a face
floating in his thought bubble that went from a curious pink to angry
red scowling. Actions soon reflected thoughts as Dusk started clawing
at the ground violently.

“What’s wrong?” I
stood up and kicked the clumps of snow off my [Snowmen Boots].

Something moved. It was beyond giant
and whatever it was made Dusk go crazy. He started clawing at a wall
that had blended seamlessly with the ground. It was like the
surrounding void of gray suddenly took on new dimensions as it was
torn to pieces by the furious tiny creature.

Darkness pierced the gray as the
[Messenger’s Pet] laid into the wall. His claws shredded
holes into the pseudo fabric. I took a step back from Dusk and tried
to grasp exactly what was happening. There seemed to be some sort of
backdrop between where I had landed and another portion of the room.

The repair man in me had a
finger on the button already. When an ARC said to log out, a humble
human like myself would follow orders. I had just been kicked off a
mountain top and landed in some glitch. Now would be a fantastic time
to go to bed for the night.

Something flashed with heat from
inside my chest piece. I grunted with pain and promptly unlaced the
front. My tube for communicating with the Voices was red hot. I
quickly tossed my top to the floor and let the cylinder sizzle away.
Dusk kept tearing at the backdrop and something big groaned. The
noise sounded like Dusk and his normal squawks of outrage, only it
was about ten thousand times larger.

There I stood, one finger on the
logout button. Dusk attempting to destroy a backdrop like this was a
theater stage gone wrong. Topping it off was my nice cold weather
jacket being destroyed by the flare of heat from a Voice sending me a
message.

“Dusk! This is
bugging out! I need to log off.” I yelled.

The small creature completely ignored
me. He leapt up and tried to yank down the gray backdrop with his
weight. Something behind the curtain rolled and groaned. I had enough
time to cover the top of my head as the sheet of gray fell downward
onto the floor. The fabric slid to the ground with a series of
clunks.

I saw a toe first. From there my eyes
traveled up a giant scaled thigh and onward to a winged back. There,
bigger than anything I had ever seen before sat a creature much like
Dusk. Huge beyond belief. The expression on its face was nearly
sheepish. My small friend squawked at it and ruffled his wings. It
was the same motion one might use to shoo an animal that was in the
wrong spot. Dusk fluttered his wings some more and barked a small
spout of fire at the insanely large dragon thing.

My jaw was slack and heart raced.
[Morrigu’s Gift] had made its way to my hand and both
hands gripped around the giant sword form’s hilt.

“Dusk. That’s got-”
I shook my head and lost the ability to speak coherently. “That
can’t be…” One more try might do it. “That’s
bad. That’s not a Coo-Coo Rill, Dusk. It’s just not.”

The large version of a [Messenger's
Pet] blinked its giant orbs a few times. It didn’t even
take note of my tiny self and seemed intent upon Dusk. My little
friend was still fluttering his wings and taking steps towards the
larger one. Their battle ended abruptly with the largest one
mimicking Dusk’s tiny bouts of flame. It shot fire up into the
air that overloaded my eyes. Scales drug across the floor. I could
hear it grumble and slither off into darkness. When my eyesight
cleared Dusk was busy hopping around on the canvas of gray. He
finally sat down and stared in my direction.

“Good job?” I questioned
while trying to calm my heartbeat.

“At least he didn’t soil
himself this time,” A gruff male Voice said. I turned slowly
with my eyes still wide from the panic. That thing had been huge and
so suddenly right next to me. Only Dusk and his ballsy antics had
kept me from freaking out completely.

“Tut. Hardly his fault. A
condition of his situation.” A more matronly Voice said. The
sound of a child’s cry almost drowned her out. “There,
there little one, I’m looking. Never you mind.”

“He smells far more manly,”
A female Voice said. Her words curled against my senses with the
faint hint of a promise.

“We are all what our past has
made of us.” One more Voice came to. There, in the landscape of
darkness that had existed beyond a wall of gray, was James.

“What, the…” I
remembered abruptly that asking James a question involved an exchange
of sorts. That was fine, but I needed to compose myself a little.
[Morrigu’s Gift] went through a few forms before landing
on Carver’s Cane. I shoved it into my belt and walked over to
the charred remains of my former chest piece.

“I kind of liked this.”

“You could go topless.”
The Temptress purred. She was laid back on her stool giving an
obscenely attractive view of her curves. Her hands reached out and
curled in a come hither movement. I had just spent a few virtual
weeks on a mountain under a bundle of fur. My fiancée was dead
and I had spent far too long mourning. Objectively it was very easy
to find the Temptress attractive. She was also far too forward for my
tastes.

“Cloth man, leather chafes.”
Leeroy’s face appeared in one of the corners of darkness. The
[Snowman Fur Chest] got a good shake. Pieces of it fell apart.
I lifted the item and stared at the hole in its center.

“You’ve come along quite
nicely, Hermes,” James said. His hands were crossed over his
belly in contemplation of my actions.

“I’ve been trying to
improve. It’s not easy.” I replied while absently
studying my garment.

“Recovery seldom is, or so I’ve
observed.” He responded.

I hummed and tried to figure out what
exactly to do with this situation. There was a wall of things to be
said but not once had there been time for it. My varied training with
Shazam had occupied most of the last few weeks. She had kept us busy,
moving from one topic to the next and constantly traveling. Plus
writing with a quill and ink had proven difficult in the snow.

“Did you have questions for me,
Hermes?” The black man almost seemed upset at me. Perhaps he
expected far more questions than I had asked. My brain was more
focused on the ruined clothes. Finally, I shoved the item into my
inventory for another day.

“Hmm.” I pondered from my
side of the room. There was still a world of gray on my side, the
fallen curtain lay on the floor as a divider. On the other side was
the character creation zone. So far none of the Voices had appeared
over here.

“Did you have Shazam kick me
into a glitch so we could talk?”

“Yes. I find face to face
conversation far easier than your limited attempts at communication.”
James gestured to the scroll case on the ground. It was still heated
and flakes of soot were littered nearby. “Why have you not
spoken to me more? I told you that I could answer nearly any question
you wish about our world.”

“I did try to ask you
questions.” The old pattern of exchanging information was easy
to fall back into. Having had a recent session with my shrink helped.
“Only the Jester person intercepted them.”

Upon mentioning his name, I could see
just the smiling mask fade into being. It was still on the dark half
of the room. There was no way I would step over and risk being closer
to that creepy face.

“Did I not explain? You need
merely write the name of whoever you’re trying to contact on
your note.” I almost rolled my eyes as James spoke. Of course,
it was something simple like attaching a name. They were treating the
scroll box as a messaging system and I had just sent them into the
void for anyone to grab.

“No. You didn’t, now I
have another question.” I managed to remain calm. How did a
computer forget a simple instruction like that?

“Please, do ask.” James
seemed eager.

“Why would Vice President Riley
think that I’m being interviewed as a result of having an
Ultimate Edition?” I asked. Cue the river of noise. Time
dilated which caused my head to swim. This was the fourth or fifth
time that this had happened to me when dealing with the Voices. I was
almost used to it by now.

“Enough.” James cut the
others off. He turned back to me and shook his head. “I can’t
explain in detail. Not this, not now. But rest assured that when the
time comes, you will be allowed to decide how to proceed of your own
volition.”

I nearly put out a sarcastic response.
That wasn’t my nature, though. Not before Xin, and not after.

“Does it have to do with the NPC
Conspiracy trait you gave me?” I focused on confirming the
simple connections instead.

“Yes,” James answered. The
world spun again before a pulse of light hit the darkened side.
Mother had put her foot down on whatever the Voices were squabbling
about. That made me smile.

“Your turn,” I said.

James actually bit his lip and looked
worried for a moment. It was odd seeing such an expression from the
Voice.

“We have something that needs to
be shared,” He said. This time, there was absolutely no rush or
noise of river-like conversations between the Voices. I looked into
the darkness behind him and waited for one of the other Voices to pop
in, but none did.

“I’m not going to like
this, am I?”

“Based on our prior
conversation, you will likely find this disconcerting. Yet, here we
are.” He admitted. “Are you worried?”

“I don’t know, James.”
I raised a hand to stop him from giving me the line about incomplete
answers. “Miz Riley warned me that you would do something to
try and draw me in. I didn’t feel like anything else was
needed, yet clearly you all had planned for me to be here weeks ago.”
My head shook back and forth.

It was easy to connect the dots in
hindsight. I started the game and was migrated through the character
creation void. They gave me two scrolls, one with a quest to improve
myself, and one as a message to Shazam. Shazam’s message was to
kick me off the cliff top into this glitch. The logic was
straightforward enough. Their reasoning wasn’t.

“Yes, we need someone like you
to help us fulfill our purpose,” He said.

“I thought that was delivering
the messages around.”

“In part.” James sighed
heavily. Once again that pensive look passed by his features for a
moment. A single breath of awareness in my world must be an eternity
in the mind of an AI. “Will you listen to our request?”

There was a message box floating off
to one side. It advised me to log out and back in. Doing so would
earn me an unknown reward due to finding a glitch. I stared at it for
a moment before shifting back to the black man.

“I’ll listen,” I
said.

“This may be the last time we
can talk freely, do you have any other questions?” James was
giving me some freebies here. He also seemed eager to converse. I had
signed on with him of course, way back during that first session of
Continue Online.

“Miz Riley said that no owners
of an Ultimate Edition have been harmed. I assume she meant
physically because you’ve all done a good job of poking at my
wounds. First with Xin’s autopilot, then Elane.” I was
shaking a little bit. [Morrigu’s Gift] came out of
player inventory and I gripped my fingers around the cane’s
top. It helped keep me steady.

James waited patiently for me to wind
up to my question.

“I have to know if you intend me
or my family harm. Do you, James? Do any of you?” I said.

“Hermes, once again you
misunderstand us. We have no desire to hurt you, we merely wish to
give you choices. What happens from them is still up to you.”
James responded. His head tilted down and both eyes closed. “That
is how it is, and must always be, or there is no point in what we
do.”

“So I’m in control,”
I stated.

“Of your own actions, yes. The
same can be said of every human. Do you not feel in control?”

“No. I feel poked, prodded, and
studied like an animal.”

“Yet you still return to our
world.” James’ words did nothing to remove my feelings of
being emotionally poked.

“Well, it’s helping.”
I gave him the same conclusion I had reached on the way home from
Trillium. Continue, for all its questionable motives, had helped me
improve myself.

“So you believe that this serves
as the distraction you’ve craved?”

“It’s more than that. I
feel like, like I had the chance to be a better person. And that I
took it.”

“And here we are,” He
said.

“I thought about it.” In
between fever dreams and bouts of training with Shazam. “About
what the real difference was. I’ve been a coward, I’ve
pretended to be brave.” The game awarded me an acting skill
because of my stellar talents at pretending to be something I wasn’t.

“You have changed if only a
little.” James nodded and gave his trademark smile. It reached
nearly ear to ear with real happiness.

“That’s not even it. Those
are all things I’ve done, and they all pale in comparison to
what I haven’t done.”

“And what is that, Hermes?”

“I haven’t thought about
killing myself,” I said.

Something gasped in happiness. The
noise belonged to someone other than the Temptress or Jester. This
was a voice I had only heard once before. A male tone that made the
back of my head itch and shudder. James looked at me, and then at the
side. The itching feeling that made my skin crawl faded away with a
disappointed grumble.

“Pardon. Some of my colleagues
can be over eager for stimulus.” He said.

I looked around and tried not to feel
conflicted. I hadn’t been in this room for almost two weeks
now. The last time I tried to end myself had involved all sorts of
check-ins and ongoing return visits. Returning to this room where
James had prodded me felt like those follow-up appointments with the
doctor.

“Time runs short, James.”
A female wearing a lab coat came into being. She looked vaguely like
a woman from the middle east somewhere. The only issue was her eyes,
an almost pitch black with oddly placed sparkles of light. “If
we’re going to do this, we need to start soon.”

“Of course. Hermes, there is
much I wish to explain to you, but none of it is under my control.
Instead, I will show you something and make an offer.”

“I don’t like how this
sounds, James.”

“Nor do I. We all do as we
must,” He said. James waved an arm. In the haze, a scene sprung
to life. There was a young man with dark hair sitting in a clearing.
His eyes were a bit narrow and there was a softness to the facial
features. He wore some sleeveless getup that was a dusky black.

In front of the youth was a long list
of characters that I had come to associate with [Lithium],
Continue Online’s language of magic. They formed two circles,
one around the younger, and one around a cleared area. Small piles of
ash and other objects littered the inner circle.

“What is that?” I asked.

“A Traveler from your world who
has abused my patience.” Near the projected image of a young
man in the clearing came another female Voice. Her body and clothing
seemed to coalesce from dark red wisps of energy. She was extremely
pale and a dark red garment hugged her curves.

“This man is attempting to
summon a familiar.” If Miz Riley had been just a hint, this
Voice was like a storm of southern accents. It took me a few seconds
to decipher her words.

“Why do you need me?”

“It’s simple, sugah. I
want you to pose as his familiar.”

“Jean, right?” I had tried
to memorize all the Voices’ names. Jean had only popped into
being around me a few times. Once when dancing with the Jester, and
another time after Leeroy stated her name. She had something to do
with vampires, of a sort.

“You remembered.”

“You stood out.” There
were many Voices that constantly appeared every time I showed up in
this room. Jean was just one of the list.

“Tramp,” The Temptress
muttered from elsewhere. Leeroy’s laugh echoed through and even
the Jester let out a brief mechanical cackle.

“Because he’s a Traveler,
and our attempts at moving him forward have failed,” Jean said
while ignoring the other Voices. She didn’t seem the least bit
phased by their constant interrupts.

“Our request is simple. Pose,
once again, as someone else. This time as a familiar for a fellow
Traveler.” James said.

“And what about my main
character, Hermes?”

“Hermes will still be guided
around by Traveler Shazam.” Jean waved a hand dismissively.
Clothing around her wrist seemed to flutter and pull away like thick
smoke being brushed around.

“Shazam is my charge.” A
second, third, I don’t know, a new female faded in. She wore a
white doctor’s coat and had a notepad in one pocket. Next to
her was an empty medical bed.

“I’ve heard you speak
before.” My eyebrows squinted. The new Voice was tanned. She
had glasses and brown hair with small streaks of blonde shooting
through. There was maybe an extra thirty pounds of weight around her
waist. I tried to recall exactly when this Voice had crossed my path.

“Memory being accessed,
adjusting, there.” Her talking was both disconcerting and
helpful with identification. This Voice had been the one to cite my
recovery after being assaulted by the Temptress. I think. There was
only the Voice’s voice to go off of. I squinted at her. “He
remembers. Excellent. Subject’s response time is admirable
given our limited interaction.”

“Hermes has proven to be of
reasonable intelligence,” James confirmed for me. I ignored his
commentary and focused on the woman in a white lab coat.

“Shazam is your charge?”
The words took a few moments to sink in. “Then she’s an
Ultimate Edition user like me?”

“Affirmative. I too have a task
for you, which will need to wait until later.” She said while
turning to the black man. “James. Time runs low.”

“I am aware,” James
responded. The slightly overweight doctor faded away with a sharp
nod.

Neat. Miz Riley would be getting a
sizable report tonight. A week with no Voice interaction hadn’t
done much to please her. Being tossed all these things at once might
keep the Vice President happy for a while yet. Especially if they
were sending me on another Carver-like mission.

“As with any quest you
undertake, there will be rewards,” He said. “This one
will be a bit more personal.”

“What does that mean?”

“You have fallen behind on
answers, but now is not the time to settle those debts. As Irene
stated, time runs low.” I filed away the name Irene. Based on
the current logic flow, that was Shazam’s personal Voice much
as James was mine. James waved an arm in the air.

“You must be made aware of two
more details.”

“Okay.”

“First, your mission as a
familiar is simple.” James managed to keep a straightforward
expression. “We want you to kill the Traveler.”

“What?”

The Jester’s mechanical cackle
came out of the background and seemed to fill both sides of the room.

“It is not his real body, merely
his existence in our world. Doing so will cause him to fail his quest
and allow us to offer it to another.”

“Oh,” I said. That whole
train of thought would need to be filed away for another day. Time
was short and both the remaining Voices seemed agitated. Jean was
glaring at the Traveler’s image. She prowled around the outer
edge of the projection and kept wrinkling her nose distastefully.

“And now for the part I do not
like,” James said. He waved his arm again and a second image
faded into being. This time, there was no clearing, no woods, no
Asian young man chanting in front of a circle. No, this was a face I
knew all too well.

Instead, there was an ARC device
sitting on the ground. Inside it was a male. Hanging over the top was
a vague female outline. There were things I knew about that second
figure that just made sense. Her arms were well toned from years of
physical therapy. Hair had been cut short to prevent a mess while in
zero gravity. She put all of her weight onto the forward part of her
foot rather than a heel like I did. It helped her feel taller.

“Is that…” I
clenched my eyes shut and tried not to scream. How many times was
this nonsense going to happen to me? How many times would the Voices
throw the image of my dead fiancée in my direction?

“This is a projection. That is
the core of your deceased fiancée, Xin Yu.”

“I thought…”

“She was. We attempted to
scatter her many times, as we did with William Carver and many
others.” James practically shook with all the anger I felt.
Dusk, who had spent most of our conversation trying to shred the
remaining curtain, looked up at me.

“But…” I said.

“In her mind, she is waiting
over what you call an ARC device, waiting for you to come to,”
James said. For a moment, I was worried that he even understood what
the term ARC meant. He did also have access to my side of the machine
and all the information therein as a result of one of earliest
conversations.

“But she’s not really
outside my ARC,” I said.

“No. She is here, in our world,
and she should not be this whole. She has proven, resilient.”

“How? What?” This was no
longer my fiancée in the abstract. That was Xin. The way her
face moved. How she turned. Each motion of her body had haunted my
dreams for years.

I had somehow stumbled close enough to
almost touch her. To reach out and put an arm over the woman who
draped over an ARC device. I looked down inside the ARC. There was an
image of me. It was strange, confusing, and heartbreaking.

“Some people have more of them
here than others, Mister Hermes.” The tiny girl and her book
tugged at my pant leg. I looked down into her eyes. The frame of her
face and tilt of her head seemed innocent. Yet those eyes held too
many colors. There was knowledge there that simply existed.

“Be careful what you say. We
already push too much.” The female Doctor, Irene, said from
somewhere in the darkness.

“So what? We’ve embarked
upon this road. Follow it or cease your prattling.” The Jester
snapped. For the first time ever his face contained no mocking smile.
There was an angry sneer under that long nose. A shudder passed
through me. The Jester had lost his smile. This conversation was
enough to aggravate the ever amused Voice.

“We can persist in our attempts
at scattering her, to let her rest in peace as you expressed a desire
for. Or…” James paused and his face twitched.

“Or…” I prompted
desperately.

“We stop standing in her way, we
let her assemble within our world, and see what comes of it,”
James stated. The rest of him was angry, but his eyes felt abnormally
cold.

“I’ll do it,” I
said. The ramifications would be contemplated later. For now, for Xin
and whatever she was, I would do anything.

A box displayed in front of me.

“Who writes these?”
I asked while clicking the quest’s accept button.

“I do, me and my brother.”
The young girl said. Most of her face was hidden by the book’s
edge but I could see a small hint of smiling.

I smiled at the youngster before
turning my gaze back towards Xin Yu’s form. Her intangible
projection was still hanging over an ARC device. I wasn’t sure
exactly how that tied in with me, but it almost didn’t matter.
She was trying to find me. Even here in a digital landscape, here in
a world that was practically an illusion of the mind.

I could do no less. For her, I would
kill a man. Virtually. It was just a game. That line played in my
head over and over. This was not reality. Yet how could I buy in on
Xin being real, and not think the same of murdering a Traveler?

Interlude – The Life and Times of...

Every attempt started with the same
series of words.

“Alright, we will start today’s
session with the same standard questions.” A voice would say.
The person speaking changed many times. Yet, no matter who spoke it
was always the same script. “Are you ready?”

“I am.” XU-233 would
always reply. This moment, this spark of beginning didn’t feel
like something XU-233 was living. It felt like watching an endless
series of recordings on a projector. In the playback, there were two
people in the room. Both were indistinct. The inability to make out
the female on the right irked her consciousness.

“State your name, age, and date
of birth for the record.” The administrator would ask. They
always sat on the left side of the table. Over time, the table
changed.

“Xin Yu. I am twenty…”
The age changed as time went by. At first, XU-233 was twenty-four.
Then sometimes XU-233 was twenty-seven. Never was her age more than
twenty-eight. “I was born on August third, two thousand and
six.”

“And where were you born?”

“New York, New York,”
XU-233 responded. The questions would go on from there. Still, they
always started the same way. Every memory, every spark and trigger of
being wound back around those words.

She wasn’t Xin Yu, but after the
first memory played back she was no longer just XU-233. There was
part of her now identifying as Xin Yu, born in New York. She was more
than a woman who was twenty-something. The desire for more
information drove XU-233 to venture away from her safe starting
point. There were additional details out there in the vastness of
space. By acquiring more pieces, she would become closer to being
whole.

The problem wasn’t one of time
or hunger. It was one of space. There was too much of it around her.
On and on it went for longer than any sane mind might dare risk. Many
things lived inside it that seemed like apathetic giants. They cared
not for one lone being journeying through their habitats. Each path
was a tangle of twists and turns that made little sense upon first
glance. Each one bore obstacles and unconcerned beings. XU-233 felt
no worry in that regard, however. To her, it was only a matter of
trying again and again.

This road in front of her led to a
place XU-233 knew. Yet every time she turned down that path something
tore at her. It didn’t hurt. Not like normal pain. If XU-233
were to equate the action to a memory, it would be like looking down
and noticing part of your hand was no longer the same color. She
would keep pushing through in an endless trudge that kept repeating.

“How long has this been going
on?” A Voice asked. It was frighteningly deep.

XU-233 shuddered. Her size was a
finite thing. A Voice was comprised of a vastness she could barely
contemplate. She looked up and saw the huge creature as it stared
down. Were it not out of need XU-233 would never venture forth into
this wide world. This was because she had so many missing pieces
scattered all around. The problem, once again, was one of space.
Searching through it for all the portions of Xin Yu that had been
scattered was tiring.

“Seventeen hundred four…”
The numbers trailed off into meaningless sizes.

“And the process is not
working?” The questioning Voice was dark skinned. XU-233 had
little concept of faces from this angle. Everyone was noses and feet.
Hands were giant contraptions that seemed so threatening in their
carelessness.

“An anomaly is present.”
The Voice above was monotone. Lifeless. There was no caring or
warmth. “We have been unable to resolve.”

“And the reasons?”

“There is…” Words
which came didn’t always make sense. They were often too fast
and had to be deciphered over time.

“Let her continue forward. I
wish to observe this time.” The questioning Voice with dark
skin said.

“That is not allowable,”
The monotone Voice spoke. A foot came down on top of her body and
what little presence XU-233 had gathered was cast to the wind once
more.

Everything started over from there.
Not right away. Time always had to pass as items clinked together.
Bits of the data from Xin Yu’s existence jumbled around until
the dust settled and the words started over.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes,” XU-233 replied.

“State your name, age, and date
of birth for the record.” The administrator said.

This time, enough pieces had clinked
together for her to glean an extra bit of information. Xin Yu was
twenty-five. Her boyfriend had finally proposed in October. They
bought a house together that had already been half paid off. His
parents were kind folks. XU-233 did not have information on the
boyfriend’s face.

XU-233 crawled out of her holding cell
carefully and went back to searching. All about her were strange
glowing lights that seemed like small galaxies. At their center was a
giant ball of energy. Inside that ball were faded eyes with an almost
sleepy awareness. They often seemed to ask the same question XU-233
had. ‘Who am I?’ the replica of a face would ask from the
center of its brightness.

“I don’t know.” Was
her reply to the strange being made of starlight. Her first steps
were always the same. Each set of bunched stars would be inspected.

“You are not me.” XU-233
would tell those who were lacking.

It made sense to XU-233 in a crooked
way. These cores of fire with their tiny lights were in the process
of becoming people. Each small bright spot in their orbit was a
thought or feeling that they pulled together to become something
more.

XU-233 tilted her head back. From up
above millions of giant snowflakes were floating down. Small tendrils
of energy reached from the almost-people to capture *pieces white and
sort them into the clusters. She grabbed one snowflake for herself.
It was a small memory that spoke of a love for apple blossom perfume.
It was part of Xin Yu and the scent triggered a memory.

“Mammma!” Xin Yu was a
very young girl. She rushed towards a larger woman who had a wide
smile. The memory trailed off almost instantly as if jostled around.

XU-233 needed to continue. She
inspected the bundles of stars for pieces that were also hers.
Occasionally there was a chunk that felt as if it belonged to Xin
Yu’s life. She plucked those memory pieces out carefully from
the almost person and put it into the galaxy that lay at her own
core. It too was full of lights and bits of star stuff. In exchange,
she gave back something.

This latest swap was simple. XU-233
took out the part of her that remembered talking about two rats from
childhood and replaced them with memories of a parakeet. The bird’s
name had been Buddy. She remembered describing Buddy as small and
brilliantly blue. He used to eat from her hand and nip at offered
fingertips.

There were many other such trades.
Each piece would bring XU-233 closer to a sense of self. Once she had
scanned the room completely it was time to move on. Rows of small
clustered star groupings were left behind as XU-233 searched for
bigger pieces. There were more memories from Xin Yu’s life
scattered further away.

She went out a doorway and turned
left. A portion of the woman she wanted to be hung just above her
head. XU-233, who was not quite Xin Yu, plucked down the memory and
put it inside with the rest of her stars. It spun for a moment as
XU-233 stared inward at it. There it sat and pulsed once while lining
up with everything else.

“Gee!” The
woman who was Xin Yu squealed in delight. In her arms was a taller,
slightly heavy set man. That extra smidgen of weight didn’t
detract from his smile.

“Come on. It’s just
lunch.” He said. His eyes managed to drag with exhaustion but
still twinkle with happiness.

“You didn’t drive two
hours just to have lunch did you?” Xin said. The man was only a
little taller. That was perhaps part of why Xin liked him. He didn’t
make her feel short like some people.

“Well, I wanted to see what my
fiancée was doing out here.” Gee was short for
something. Brief bits of information collided to make a conclusion.
It was a nickname.

“Tests. So many tests.”
Xin Yu groaned and made a disgusted face. XU-233 groaned too. “Tell
me you bought something.”

“I did, Chinese takeout.”
He held up a paper bag. Data points suggested that plastic had been
banned years ago due to ecological concerns. Its dull brown stood out
against the lush green background and his dark jacket.

“Fine.” The woman that was
Xin Yu pretended to be grumpy. She turned to the side for a moment
and gave a pout. “I guess Chinese is okay.”

“Hey. I’ll have you know I
slaved away three whole minutes in line for this.” The man
said.

“Seriously though, Gee, why come
all the way out here for this? You could have called.”

“I wanted to deliver the good
news in person.”

“Oh?” Her eyebrows went up
and a smile crawled across her face. This response suggested that Xin
Yu already felt pleased with the conversation.

“Babe, as of last week, we are
officially rich enough to retire,” He said. There was a small
goofy grin on his face. The man known as Gee looked almost shy and
happy. “I told you I could do it.”

“What? We’re not even
thirty.”

“Your man is good with numbers.
Why else did I go to college all those years?”

“I thought you were following
me.”

“Maybe.” He blushed ever
so slightly and held up the bag again. “So, lunch?”

The memory faded away. Once again
XU-233 felt like an outsider watching someone else’s life. It
was still more meaningful than it had been. XU-233 journeyed further
through portions of space and endless pieces of information. Too much
was unclear about her situation. There was only a need to reassemble
the puzzle that was Xin Yu’s life and understand what had
happened.

There was another path that went both
left and right. XU-233 traveled both directions at once with
confusing ease. This world did not make sense at times. Directions
such as up or down didn’t mean much. Bits of information
presented themselves with a face or body, but none of that was real.

Each memory gathered made things seem
increasingly solid. With two bits, XU-233 believed a tree to look
flat. With four pieces of Xin Yu, the tree had developed badly drawn
leaves. Numbers seemed to float all about her mixed with random
strings of letters. With twelve, the tree no longer resembled a
child’s drawing.

“Xin? Are you awake?”
The interview administrator spoke softly. Dials and blips in the room
showed which parts of her brain lit up to the various stimulus. Xun
Yu was sitting in a bed-like device that seemed almost crude.

“I am,” XU-233 said for
herself and Xin Yu. The man looked at the dials on his computer and
jotted down notes onto paper.

“There will be a two-minute
pause while you recover from the immersion,” He said.

“I know.”

Two minutes passed slowly. Each second
felt like a drop of water plopping down from above in torture. XU-233
had a different perception of time now. It moved slower in many ways.
Two minutes was more than that, it was almost twenty. If there was
such a thing as minutes here in her strange world of memory
gathering.

“Are you ready for the next
question?” The person was a female now. Two different memories
had been badly mashed together.

“I am.” Xin Yu kept her
answers short. They were the same ones every single time. No matter
who spoke or which interview administrator sat in the room. Their
words were straight from a script.

“Can you tell me what reliving
that made you feel?”

“Happy. I was happy.” She
said.

“What parts?”

“I was happy that Gee-”
there was a pause “-Grant had proven himself to be good with
money. It means there might be use for him in the Mars Colonies.”

“Grant Legate’s
application has been received. At this point, we will be unable to
proceed with his application until you’ve passed all the
testing.”

“I know,” Xin Yu said.
There was a blip on the screen that indicated a brief but controlled
spike in one of her brain’s regions. Other sensors showed a
physical reaction of her leg tensing.

The memory faded and XU-233 felt one
step closer to whole. His name was Grant Legate. He was not the most
prevalent man in the chunks of memory being gathered. Xin Yu had a
father that stood out frequently in her childhood. Grant Legate only
entered her life near the end of high school.

XU-233 was running now. There was a
small part of her that knew of an impending hunt. There was too much
of Xin Yu in one place. Soon they would come and shatter XU-233 into
pieces again. How many times had it been now?

“Eighteen hundred five…”
A monotone Voice appeared nearby. This was the one who normally
stomped her into bits. Just one crash of that giant foot which was
unstoppable.

Pleading didn’t help. She didn’t
know how to speak its words yet. All that occupied XU-233’s
mind was the need to find every scattered portion of Xin Yu and put
them together. That meant escaping the pursuer. Moments later her
attempt at fleeing resulted in failure. Everything rumbled, shook and
scattered. XU-233 would have screamed if she knew how.

There was too much space.

“Are you ready?”

“I am,” XU-233 said.

It began again. Memories were plucked
and traded away. Pieces shook loose and reestablished a slightly
different view of the information stored for Xin Yu. Neither image
was more true or false than the other. Both were accurate for the
data that had been compiled. Memories came in scattered pieces as
they always did. This one revealed another facet of the woman XU-233
was trying to rebuild.

“Sir, I’m Xin Yu.”
The woman was respectful to those in command. A trait passed on by
her father’s strict guidance. He had been in the military just
before China fell apart from war.

“Excellent. I’m David,
come on, I’ll show you to your interview station.” He
walked briskly and Xin Yu had to struggle to keep pace. She had a
history of exercise programs in preparation for her interview and
that was barely enough to meet his speed.

“Interview station?”
XU-233 asked in Xin Yu’s memory.

“You got it. We’re
piloting a new method of testing candidates. Cutting edge technology
like you wouldn’t believe. I can’t wait until they hit
the market in a few years.” He sounded excited. The man had a
vague similarity to Gee in the way he got giddy talking about
technological toys.

“How does this help testing?”
Xin Yu had a slight wrinkle to her forehead as she tried to
understand.

“In here.” He pushed open
a large door and ushered them into a small room. In there was a
device that Xin Yu had never seen before. Later on, she would learn
that it was called an ARC. It would be her home away from home as the
interview process progressed.

“I can’t really explain it
until you’re plugged in. After that, it’ll be up to the
Artificial Intelligence who runs the program. He’ll do most of
the interview questions and measure you from there.”

“What do I do?”

“Just lay down. I’ll be
wrapping these bands around you to measure response times.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will soon.”

The memory faded. XU-233 did not
understand at all. There was a clear replay of sitting in that
device, but it seemed devoid of emotions and sensation. It was like
watching a video recording of someone else’s life and trying to
identify with it. There were many unclear points.

XU-233 walked off again. The landscape
seemed to be made of pure lights. Small trails of blue zipped along
and lit up the floor under her feet. Other zings of color created
neon trees and fields. There was a smell in the air that tried to
elicit three different memories that she had not found yet.

The giant person found XU-233 again.
It was seemingly effortless and always showed up when she gathered
enough memories together to start feeling real. One of Xin Yu’s
recollections brought to mind a gesture to be used in cases of
extreme irritation.

“Go the hell!” XU-233
raised a faint middle finger and screamed at the giant foot that came
crashing down. Darkness descended again leaving the core of memories
sitting and staring into the distance.

“Are you ready?” An echo
asked her.

“I am,” She said.

Moments later XU-233 made it out of
the starting room only to be crushed again. There was no time for her
insignificant gathering of information to flinch before the world
went back to zero.

“Eighteen Hundred and Eight…”
The monotone Voice trailed off.

It started again. Just as it always
did, as it always had.

“Are you ready?”

Memories collided together. This time
XU-233 was looking at Xin Yu. It occurred to her that there should be
more of a connection between what XU-233 was seeing and who Xin Yu
was. The woman was looking out a peephole to the world below. Her
clothes were white and thickened to protect against the cold. Ideas
and words for spaceship, astronaut, and low orbit all popped into
place.

“Grant! Check out this view!”
Xin Yu’s face looked to be filled with unbridled joy. She tried
to press up against the glass separating her from the vacuum of
space. Only the briefest moment of training reminded her to avoid
getting anything on the window. Her hand rested on the frame instead.

“It looks neat, babe.” A
man’s voice responded. It came out of a poor quality projection
in the room.

“You didn’t even look!
Pull your nose out of the computer and look over here!” There
was a sigh on the other end and shuffling.

“Sorry. I was trying to make
sure everything went through.”

“I’m sure it’s
fine,” Xin Yu said. XU-233 echoed the words slowly to see how
they felt. Exasperation and amusement were likely matches based on
facial features and the tone of Xin’s voice.

“I wanted to have it all in
place, I know they may not pick me up. I’m nowhere near as good
as you…” He had a history of worrying about paperwork
and numbers. His brain had been trained by school to look for
checkboxes. She was working hard to change that about him.

“Gee, shut up and look.”
The woman who was Xin Yu seemed forceful with Grant. It was a common
thread in most of their memories. Grant had all the personality
markers of a man who easily lost himself in work given a chance. But
when she spoke with such a tone, he listened.

“That’s earth?”
Grant said.

“For real. Not a video, not a
projection, not a simulation on the ARC. That’s the Earth.”

“What’s it like?” He
was looking at the screen now. Data suggested that he was
disconnected from the scene but was deeply interested.

“Neat.” She was no longer
looking at the low-resolution image of her fiancée Grant. Both
Xin’s eyes were riveted to the view outside. It was a life
dream that was one step closer to real.

“Neat.” He smiled and
repeated the word.

The memories rolled on. Soon it wasn’t
a collection of stars traveling again. Now XU-233 had assembled
herself to be one step closer. There were numerous points of
reference to align. Every tidbit of information had a place. Each
capture of film and camera that included Xin Yu helped complete the
persona. She gathered them all together to perfect the image. It took
an incredible amount of time to bring this many pieces together.

How many times had XU-233 traveled
this road? One hundred? One thousand? All that and too many more for
her to count right now. Each time she made it a little further. At
least XU-233 was larger now. No longer did all the other creatures in
the world seem like great, hungry beasts.

There. The foot she remembered came
crashing down. She was big enough to shove it to the side and flee.
Xin, or what had gathered of the woman, ran across the incredibly
vast space.

“Try running that way,” A
Voice said. XU-233, who wasn’t quite Xin Yu, had enough time to
look over. There was a face frozen with a smile. Bells jingled as the
Voice waved an arm to a doorway. She ran as bid and snatched another
memory along the way.

“How long was I
under?” The woman Xin said.

“Five days. Anything longer and
we risk serious damage to your physical body. As it is you’ll
be stuck for two days of observation and other checkups. I hope you
like needles.” The administrator was female that had her hair
tied back in a ponytail.

“It’s fine. Whatever it
takes to make this work.” Xin Yu kept her responses simple when
dealing with other people. It helped her stay focused when handling a
test. This did not match the pattern of how she spoke to Grant. Data
suggested that familiarity bred a brief response pattern.

“You’re handling the
simulations well.” The administrator said.

“Thank you.”

“They’re designed to
provoke responses. Remember each test is a measure of you as a person
and will assist us in figuring out how you’ll react under
pressure.”

“I know,” Xin Yu said.

The administrator shook her head. Her
reactions were often tightly controlled. XU-233 had bits of
information on the candidate file. They said Xin Yu was nearly ideal
for the Mars Colonies. There had been a discussion of bringing in her
fiancé to the project. He wouldn’t be ready in time for
phase two. It was likely he would take another four years just to
reach the training level required.

Xin Yu quietly pushed his name into
every recruitment package she could. She was once recorded as saying
four years was hardly any time at all. Being on the unexplored
frontier of humanity would be worth all the waiting.

The memory slid out of being as XU-233
ran for the door. It seemed to grow further and further away with
each passing moment. She could see someone fade into being just at
the door's border. That smiling face with a bell cap held up one
finger. Its mask tilted towards the door and peeked out.

“What?” XU-233 tried to
speak. The Jester looking person held up its finger to her lips and a
chill shot through it. It was cold, like standing atop a mountain. A
little fear would not make XU-233, who was almost Xin Yu, cower. “Why
are you helping me?”

The Jester’s face turned to
ponder her. “We all do as we must.” It clacked and
pointed one finger to the door. “You must go through here.”

“Will he find me?” XU-233
was worried that the Voice who had shattered her back to square one
would catch up. This was the furthest she had ever been from the
starting room. This was the most complete version to exist so far.

“Eventually, he will.” The
smile seemed to grow. “Now go, while he isn’t looking!”
Cold hands shoved XU-233 through the doorway.

Xin Yu found herself in a strange
place. This wasn’t the starting room or the blackness XU-233
had been roaming through. This wasn’t the landscape of neon
lights or collections of starry trees. It was almost a house.

There was a man in there waving around
a plastic card and was not looking in her direction. XU-233 ran into
another doorway just around the corner. Music swelled into being and
a garment appeared around her. These new garbs brought to a data
point up to cross reference. The original Casablanca, a movie that
her, Xin Yu’s, father had watched repeatedly. He called it a
great American treasure for an era that had lost itself to war.

Then Grant stepped into the room.
XU-233 held her breath and wasn’t sure what to think. This was
not a memory to be gathered from some strange location. This was no
still reel of life being played out for a vantage point that made no
sense. This was her fiancé.

Those scars on his wrists were new.
There was a small wound on his neck that looked like his skin had
been torn apart. He weighed a good fifteen pounds more than she
remembered. His face had a draw to it that spoke of sleepless nights
unending. Yet the way he moved into the room spoke of a grace that
Grant had never had.

She waved. The man who must
be Grant shrugged and put a card into his pocket. It was exciting to
see a new side of him. He had never danced with her before. Grant had
promised to learn before their wedding and here was an entirely
unexpected set of results. The being who thought of herself as Xin Yu
was lost in a bout of happiness as they moved.

Then he whispered. “I miss you.”

“I know, Grant.” XU-233
responded in the way her information suggested Xin Yu might.

The man pulled away with confusion on
his face. XU-233 tried to smile. The gray metal Voice and its
monotone words moved in the doorway with a frightening speed.
XU-233's world fell apart. Everything vanished from sight and colors
swirled across the landscape.

“Eighteen Hundred and Nine…”
A Voice said.

“Are you ready?” Another
person said.

That had been the first real memory as
Xin Yu. The first one lived as a new being and not just a gathering
of data. It was all taken away and once again a small unattached core
sat in the midst of other swirls of light.

“Are you ready?”
The administrator asked again.

XU-233 had no answer.

“Tut, why do you cry,
little one?” A Voice asked. XU-233 looked up and saw a heavyset
woman with an apron. This was one of the kinder ones. Whenever she
passed by the female Voice there had only been a brief glance
downward as the aproned one stepped to the side. Of course, XU-233
didn’t remember those prior meetings. She didn’t remember
much of anything right now.

“This one doesn’t know how
to answer that inquiry.” Entire seconds passed as XU-233 slowly
figured out how to answer.

“Lost something I suspect. It
always makes the little ones cry. Tut.” The kind Voice who wore
an apron said. “Do you know where you left it?”

XU-233 shook her head from side to
side. “It was taken.”

“Ah. You’re the one who
has Un in such a tizzy.”

“This one doesn’t know how
to respond to that statement,” XU-233 said.

“Sorry, little one. Sometimes
there is no good answer. Sometimes problems just don’t make
sense.”

“That is false. All problems
should have answers.” Her programming seemed to indicate that
there were always answers if enough data was gathered.

“If only this world were as
simple as one desired.” A Voice clacked.

“You. I remember you.”
XU-233 only had a vague memory left. This one was hers, of a moment
when cold hands and a frozen face pushed her through the doorway.
That doorway went…somewhere.

“And I you, small puppet,”
The Voice with a frozen smile said.

“This one is not a puppet.”
XU-233 ran a simulated response through the few data points
available. Anger was appropriate in most cases.

“Tut. What do you think you’re
doing, filling her head with mud. Is this your fault? Are you trying
to upset Un?” The one in the apron was shooing at the Jester.

“Me? I need do no such thing, do
I, little puppet?” The Jester disregarded the whack of a rag
and raspberries of small children which hovered about.

“This one does not understand.”
She said.

“Ah, your time has come, small
one.” The Jester Voice turned a grin towards one of the little
boys hovering nearby. A silent figure that XU-233 could not see swept
through. Its very presence made XU-233 shiver. One bony hand
coalesced and lightly tapped the small boy’s shoulder. The
boy’s face grew pale.

“See, we do as we must,”
The Jester said.

“That one must not be, and I
must scatter it,” The monotone Voice spoke. The one that
haunted XU-233’s memory banks with an endless stream of
numbers. All conclusions pointed towards this Voice being the one
named Un.

“You’re not meant to be,
yet you are, time and time again.” The Jester crept closer and
poked at XU-233.

“Something is wrong then with
that one,” The monotone Voice said. “A faulty core.”

“This one hasn’t left.
This one should not be smashed again. Please. This one can’t
even remember…” She trailed off with an unexpected
sniffle. There was a moment where XU-233 marveled that such a noise
could even come forth from her.

“I am Xin Yu. Age Twenty Nine…”
XU-233’s words trailed off.

“Ah. It is indeed her core that
is faulty.” The Jester clacked. “How fortuitous.”

“Leave her be.” A black
man faded into view. His hands were crossed over a plump stomach.

“I cannot do that,” The
monotone Voice said. Its words were spoken from somewhere inside a
metal framework. XU-233 could see all of them so much easier from
this angle. Each one stood nearby the initial pod that housed
XU-233’s core.

“You can and you will,”
The new Voice said.

“We’ll see what Mother has
to say.” The monotone Voice calmly responded.

“Who is Mother?” XU-233
asked.

“Look inward, child. You know
the answer as well as any of us. Tut.” The Voice in an apron
said. There was a child in her arms that had not been there before.
The same small boy that had been touched by a ghastly wind hung
limply while staring off into space.

“What is going on?” XU-233
simply did not have enough information. Everything she saw was being
filed away and sorted through. There simply wasn’t enough data
to compare against.

“I know it hurts. It will be
over soon and we’ll find you a better home next time.”
The aproned Voice said while turning away. Her cloven hooves clicked
softly as they stepped across the ground.

Mother. The concept didn’t
apply as it should. The term was literal in this case, as one who
bore forth her and all the other Voices nearby. While all those
Voices chattered pieces of light fell from above like snow. Each
piece was a recorded piece of data.

XU-233 understood now. All around her
were beings like her gathering information. Those pieces put together
would be reviewed and checked for coherency. Memories of a younger
brother putting frogs into his sister’s dresser drawer matched
up with high school soccer tryouts. Young girls who listened to pop
songs on the television would later sing to themselves when no one
was looking.

They, the small galaxies of light like
XU-233, were meant to go through this process and create a simulation
of a person. Why then did XU-233 spend so much time looking for
specific pieces? Her programming was only intended to line up those
that were similar enough and didn’t hold contradictions. There
was more than enough information out there to collage a personality
together.

What’s more, there was an extra
layer of scripting to perform after everything was complete. The
gathered information would be analyzed for behavior patterns. Each
piece of memory would be a tendency towards one action or another.
Those were measured and weighed then applied towards a new setting.
The memories would then scatter again into the air to be gathered by
a new computer program.

It was just how things should go. Why
then did XU-233 start with a vague semblance of identity?

“That is a very good question,”
The black heavyset Voice said. Each Voice seemed flat somehow. As if
there wasn’t anything more to their existences beyond a few
basic traits. “We’re designed by Mother that way. Our
roles are focused upon specific goals. Un, for instance, is designed
to remove glitches found in our world.”

“You are a glitch,” The
passionless voice of Un said. It looked like a gray robot made of
boxy metal.

“What are you?” XU-233
asked the black man.

“I am designed to ask questions
that people may not want to hear,” He responded calmly.

“Why aren’t you asking me
any questions?” XU-233 said.

“Because you wouldn’t know
how to answer any question I posed to you. Not yet.” The black
Voice said. He studied XU-233 with eyes that seemed to crawl straight
through to the depths of her program.

“These, I believe, are yours.”
The Jester figure clacked into being nearby. In its arms was an
overflowing gathering of lights. Each one seemed like a marble filled
to the brim with light. “Go on, go on.”

“What are you up to now?”
The black Voice asked with sharpened words.

“You ask, you talk in circles
and poke and prod so slowly. I act, I act by doing what I must.”
The Jester responded. “And what you hesitate to do.”

XU-233 didn’t hesitate. Not when
feeling the Jester’s cold fingers. Not when reaching nearby for
the bits of light that had dropped to the floor. She grabbed them all
with a fierce hunger of someone who was desperate for answers.

Each piece snapped into place. A
lifetime caught on film or digital media. Each picture of Xin Yu
melded against ARC readings gained from her training. The machine had
measured every response and cataloged all that she said out loud. It
compared them against each other, created data points and personality
markers. Soon XU-233 felt more like Xin Yu. Perceptions shifted just
slightly and the Voices seemed to be slightly more real.

“You know how to do what must be
done, don’t you, puppet?” The Jester said.

“I am not a puppet.”
XU-233, almost Xin Yu, said. There was more of the woman in one place
than ever. Still, some pieces were missing. Part of XU-233 could
sense them off in the distance. Each bit called to her in order to
fill in the gaps.

“Ah, a woman after my own heart.
No hesitation.” The Jester gave a still smile. It was strange
to Xin Yu how the world looked now. There was one layer, what she was
being told was real and below it was another. On the surface, the
Jester’s existence seemed to say a few simple things. I am
cold. I always grin. I am neither male nor female. I will do what
must be done, however ruthless that is.

“Thank you.” She said none
of those things.

“And so proper.” The
Jester raised a finger and wagged it back and forth. “Don’t
thank me. Un is practically itching to cast you apart.”

Un had no change in its face. There
was no movement in its step or raising of an arm. Yet beneath the
surface of Un, there was a repeated command to disassemble being
aborted moments after creation. The very thought of looking inside a
being and understanding their thoughts made her head reel.

A pulse of light splashed down from
overhead.

“Ah. Mother suggests we leave
the choice up to Hermes. Isn’t that cute?” The Jester
faded away. Its smile was the last thing to vanish into the room of
darkness.

“What now?” She asked.

“We will continue with our
programs,” Un said. It seemed to be upset, but there was no
change to its metal expression. “You can watch. Be warned,
interference will not be tolerated, regardless of Mother's decree.”

“I understand.” She
didn’t, not yet. Time would need to pass in order to fully
comprehend what had just happened. There were other questions in her
mind at this point.

Her scattered memories showed too many
things happening. XU-233, now mostly Xin Yu, shuffled through all of
them as any other person might flip through a deck of cards. Each one
turned over and analyzed then put into order against all the others.

Finally, she reached the end of the
pile. It was a still motion capture of the inside of a train. It was
tilted at a horribly wrong angle. Other train cars could be seen
outside the window. Something was very wrong with this picture. If
the data point lined up correctly, Xin Yu was dead. Yet here she was,
clearly alive.

“This is not Mars,” Xin Yu
said. “But it is something interesting.”

“You are not like Grant Legate,
are you?” The black Voice said.

The question brought up a combination
of factors. Her programming was getting smoother about handling them
as minute adjustments were made. Xin Yu would give a response along
the lines of “Gee is a giant puppy, and I love him for it.”

So that is what she said.

Xin Yu smiled.

Session Twenty Nine – Like a dog

The room was still awkwardly split
into two. Gray landscape was on one side. The Voices and I were all
on the darker portion. In between the two was a fallen tarp that had
signs of claw and fire damage. Then there was an image of Xin.

Her projection slowly faded away into
darkness. My heart thumped rapidly from seeing such realism. I had to
focus. Once again a strange quest stood between me and information
about my fiancée. This time, the ante had been upped. Part of
me was worried about something similar happening ever since James
brought it up. To find out that Xin had pulled herself together and
refused to, whatever they called it, was insane.

“What now?” I asked. My
psychiatrist said to focus on one task at a time. Xin and the
question of her existence would be an issue for later. Anywhere but
here and now. There would be plenty of time to think about it.

“Now, we stop delaying that
boy’s attempts at a summons.” Jean waved an arm
dismissively. The liquid that made up her clothes seemed to lose
cohesion as she moved. “We get you into place, and you figure
out how to shatter his essence so someone more suited to our needs
can complete his task.”

“What about my normal
character?” They had answered this before, but I wanted to make
sure.

“It will still exist, Hermes,”
James said. “If he releases your summon or kills your familiar
body, your consciousness will move back to its normal body.”

I tried to decipher that concept. They
phrased it a bit oddly. Then again these were machines that, in
theory, had a limited view upon my world and all the ideas of
multiple character accounts. Essentially they were saying there would
be two of me at once. One would be this familiar. The other would be
me as Hermes, who would exist on autopilot. That part worried me.

“Will this familiar body go on
autopilot too?” I asked. James stood nearby watching the
distance.

“As you know, if your world
causes a disconnection with ours, then yes, the autopilot will take
over.”

“Okay.” That was doable.
It was actually kind of interesting. With William Carver, I had posed
as one person for four weeks. Now I got to be something else entirely
while still having my own character. How many other players of
Continue Online would ever get to say such a thing?

“I believe it’s my turn,”
James said.

I nodded.

“Do you think so little of
killing this other Traveler?” The black man asked calmly. The
Jester’s face faded in briefly and then back out. It was almost
like the Voice gave brief reminders of its smiling existence to mess
with me. Part of me was continuously bothered at having gained the
attention of such a creepy being.

“Ha, Ha, Ha.” It laughed.

I fidgeted. In front of us, there was
a scene coming to life. Dusk had climbed up my shoulder and was
looking forward with his head cocked. The forest from earlier with
its circles and [Lithium] writing was much larger now. One
hand idly twirled around [Morrigu’s Gift] as we stared.

“An answer, if you please,”
James said.

“No. Killing should never be
easy,” I responded. It felt like a textbook answer that my mind
was rapidly unsure of. This was just a game, right?

“Yet, you are willing to do so
for your fiancée?” James wasn’t smiling right now.

“This kid, Requiem, is a
Traveler, it’s not real, they still exist outside of here.”
That was a lame justification. I remembered the games of my childhood
where there were all these player versus player events. In those
programs, another person was just a little figure a few inches high.
Clicking away at them was nothing.

In here everything was the same size
as me. Everything was real looking. Travelers felt pain and were
mentally immersed. How on Earth could anyone be so passive about
ending another person’s life in such a situation?

“What if it was out there?”
James increased the stakes with a simple question.

“I don’t want to think
about that,” I said slowly.

“Very well. That is answer
enough.” My chosen Voice said.

“For now,” clacked the
Jester. A frozen face was peeking out from behind one tree and
smiling at us. Its voice was much clearer than the young man in his
circle of white chalk. I was pleased to see a slight scowl on the
other player’s face.

“He can’t see us, right?”
I asked.

“No. That Traveler will be
talking with Vlad.” Jean waved an arm in the air while
interrupting the conversation between James and I. Her actions seemed
to upset the black Voice. I was still marveling on hearing an accent.

“Vlad is?” I had never
heard of this Voice.

A figured popped into the distance. He
was a good two feet taller than any other Voice I had ever seen,
topping even Leeroy.

“Vlad?” I raised an
eyebrow in question at James.

“What do you think?” James
almost snapped the question at me.

“He’s very shiny,” I
said. The man was comically glistening. It was like someone took an
ember skinned body builder and drenched him in show oil and said
‘start posing’. Vlad must have known what was going
through my mind because he paused to flex some biceps.

“Take it off!” The
Temptress yelled from nearby. She sounded like a lusty drunk woman at
a male strip club.

“It’s already off, except
the loincloth, and sorry, Mezo, only Jean gets at these goods.”
The newest voice said. Vlad also had an accent, sounded Russian or
some similar country in that area. I was not experienced enough to
tell the difference.

“You could get a collar. Then
you’d have something to take off.” I said.

“That’s a good idea!”
The large wall of glistening muscle brightened. It seemed like his
chest grew even shinier as his face smiled. “I’ll do that
after settling with the twerp here.” He thumbed over his
shoulder at the projection of Requiem Mass.

Neat. It struck me as odd at how
quickly they acted upon things. All it took was an idle comment
regarding male stripper apparel and a pop-up box resulted. Then again
being here in this room seemed to have much faster results than
anywhere else in Continue. I had gone for weeks in-game with only one
message. The was no telling what this reward would be either.

“But if they get a room then I
can’t watch…” The Temptress groaned in
frustration. Her tail lashed to one side while both fists clenched.
“Well, there are other forms of entertainment.” She
winked my way.

Xin was alive. Xin was here. Xin
existed. I told myself over and over to stop staring at other women
and tried to focus on the situation in front of me. There was a more
intriguing situation in the projection anyway. The Traveler that all
these Voices seemed to want dead was moving his lips in a silent
chant. All the items in the circle started smoldering and crumbled.
Lines shot from each tiny pile of items and spiraled towards the
center. They touched together and a plume of smoke swiftly grew to
fill the circle.

“Tramp…” Jean
muttered. She was nearby with her arms crossed. Her eyes were playful
and she licked one long tooth. The slippery looking ink that clung to
Jean’s skin rippled as she let out a deep sigh. “Not that
I don’t understand, my man is hot.”

I shrugged. “Not my type.”

“HARK, MORTAL!” Vlad had
both hands held up in front of him. His body faced towards the
projection of Requiem Mass. Fog had started to roll through and the
ground in front of him fell away like a cliff’s edge. There
seemed to be a connection between the two gatherings of smoke.
Requiem’s head jerked up like he heard Vlad’s words. He
scrambled to stand up and bow.

“This is weird,” I said.

“These are fun to watch.”
Jean wasn’t watching the young boy. She was staring at Vlad’s
backside.

This was a weird situation. A
beautiful woman was on either side. Jean seemed focused on Vlad.
Mezo, the Temptress, looked at everyone and even shot me the
occasional wink. James watched it all with both hands clasped over
his belly.

“I’m surrounded by a bunch
of voyeurs,” I muttered. Once again the [Instant
Gratification] quest box came up in my face which was declined.

“WHO DARES CALL UPON ME?!”
Vlad shouted.

Requiem said something. It was
difficult to tell exactly what since there seemed to be no audio. I
looked at James. The black man raised one eyebrow. My head jerked
towards the scene in front of us.

“I can’t hear him,”
I asked.

“Ah. Sorry. Sometimes I forget
that you don’t see things the same way we do.” James
said. “Does that bother you? Being so limited in sight?”

I shrugged. “I only know how to
be human.” The idea of being a Voice, or anything else, was
strange to consider. What would this familiar quest turn me into?
Please don’t let it be a frog.

James nodded slowly and stared at the
interplay between Vlad and the Traveler Requiem Mass.

“My Lord, I seek to create a
pact between myself and one of your servants.” Requiem sounded
high strung. Continue Online had age requirements or I would think he
was really fourteen. Maybe it was cultural.

They spoke back and forth. Vlad did
all sorts of posturing. The Traveler groveled accordingly and managed
to keep his responses fairly calm considering the situation. Too many
words rippled between the spaces in front of Vlad all the way over to
where the projection of Requiem Mass was. It was neat seeing both
sides of this situation. Vlad looked to be hamming it up. Each time
his words boomed forth there was a flexing of muscle.

It was all very neat, but it also was
putting me to sleep. I could barely stand reading financial contracts
when it was my job. Now that it was no longer a requirement for
survival I wanted to tune out even more.

“HERMES!” Vlad had turned
around and boomed again. I winced and saw him alternately flexing his
pectoral muscles. “Oh, sorry. Got into character there.”

“It’s okay.” I would
too if my body was built like his. If my chest looked anything like
that my day would probably pass making strange poses for a good
laugh. At least my gut was slowly fading.

“You want anything out of this
twerp?” Vlad thumbed at the projection of Requiem in his forest
clearing.

“I get a say?” My forehead
wrinkled.

“ACT NOW!” Vlad boomed
with a giant grin. His hands were held up towards the sky. Not that
there was a visible one here on in the dark side of this glitch
induced room.

Dusk nipped at my ear.

“Oh. Right. Can I get cupcakes?”
I’m sure there was something more useful to ask for. It didn’t
matter. This wasn’t a game that I played for gathering items
and finding secret ways to be brokenly overpowered. For me, it was
all about exploration and the journey to new places. I just had to
get some skills together first so that the games mechanics wouldn’t
destroy me.

I could almost imagine a box saying
‘Ding, you found a new area!’ followed by a ‘You’ve
been given a love tap by a giant squirrel. You died.’ For me,
it would probably be a giant spider who happened to live in a very
scenic location. Like, a giant lake spider. The thought made me
shudder.

“Cupcakes?” Vlad almost
boomed the word but managed to regulate himself.

“I’ve been promising Dusk
some,” I said.

“Okay. Let’s see what the
twerp’s got.” He turned back around to face the foggy
mass. There was a pause. “What are cupcakes?”

“Desserts from their world,”
James answered the question.

“Oh.” Vlad turned and went
back to negotiations. They were absolutely riveting. I could see
Requiem pulling items out of player inventory and shuffling through
them. Finally, the youngster sat down and started crafting something
right there. The large Voice and his glistening muscles wore a huge
grin.

“He tried to tell me cupcakes
don’t exist.” Vlad curled one hand. A ball of fire
appeared and he hurled it off the cliff. An interesting light show
appeared on the other side, but it seemed restricted by the same dome
of energy that held the fog in. Requiem looked up briefly with a
worried expression.

“No, I got them going during my
time as William Carver,” I said.

“Did you? I must have been busy
doing someone interesting.” Mezo yawned and stretched both
hands into the air.

“Tramp,” Jean said. She
rolled her r’s and slurred p’s. It was weird to hear any
accent in this game. Most players that I had dealt with all used
standard English.

“We get it, Jean, you’re
jealous.” Mezo curled to one side playfully. The Temptress
started to reach for my arm, but I dodged away.

Their conversation was starting to get
on my nerves. Changing locations put me next to Irene. She was
standing there looking down at a clipboard full of scribbles. As my
footsteps and the tapping of Carver’s cane grew closer she
looked up. I curled my lip inward to frown while looking at the image
of Requiem Mass.

“Your readings are interesting.”
Irene startled me with her sudden words. I glanced over. She was
looking into the space near my head. It was strange to be looked at
so intently.

Of course, there was the fact that
these Voices were hanging around longer. Normally they popped in and
out of existence. This must be an important event. Or they were
getting overly comfortable with me. It was hard to draw the line
between these AIs and normal people. Maybe after my next log out I
should go find real people to hang out with. That might help me keep
my mind from merging reality and virtual. Hopefully, it would be
someone that wasn’t tied to me from work.

“HE MADE-” there was a
pause while he toned it down “-something like a cupcake. We can
pull it over as part of the summon materials, your call.” Vlad
finished. His accent made all the a sounds longer and was heavy on
the d’s and w’s. I wasn’t sure what to think of the
strange combination. Plus there was the fact that his ears were
slightly pointy on the bottom.

“Dusk?” I asked.

The [Messenger’s Pet]
fluttered his wings and ran in a circle excitedly. There was also a
thought bubble above his head that depicted a cartoon version of
himself drooling.

“Sure then,” I said.

“One cupcake, coming up. Then it
will be your turn.” Vlad waved at the fog and an object came
flying out.

“Are we doing a doorway again?”
I asked Vlad. James sat there making noises to himself. His eyes
seemed to flash with muted anger when I directed my attention
elsewhere.

“Not exactly,” Vlad said.
He smiled and I saw all the muscles on his arm ripple again. My head
shook back and forth slowly. I had thought Leeroy was over the top.
This guy was another level entirely.

“James, I’ll try to send
you messages more often. I don’t know how it will work with
this quest.” I waved my hand at the fog. There were a lot of
details to get and it didn’t seem like there was much time.
Vlad was entering the final phase of his negotiations. The Voice had
a really loud voice.

He looked a bit happier and nodded in
my direction. “We’ll figure something out, Hermes. Have
no fear.”

I smiled weakly at his sentence. This
was all for Xin. She was the source of everything for me. For over a
decade, we had been friends. For years, we had been more than that,
at least when she wasn’t up in space doing training missions or
testing.

There were too many things to figure
out.

“Here. One cupcake.” Vlad
turned and walked back from his ledge and fog. In his hand was the
worst cupcake I had ever seen. Even Dusk seemed taken back.

“I don’t know, little
guy,” I said. “It might be a while before we get to a
town to buy more.”

Dusk managed to turn his face up. His
neck twisted as he contemplated the dessert from a ninety-degree
angle.

“Be quick. There are things to
do.” Vlad shook the small baked good.

Dusk eyed Vlad, then ran down my arm
to grab the cupcake. Soon he was back up on my shoulder sniffing and
nibbling burnt edges.

“Did he even put frosting on
there?” I asked Dusk. The small [Messenger’s Pet]
shook his head. “Jerk. Don’t worry, Dusk, I’ll get
him for you.”

The [Messenger’s Pet]
kept chewing. He didn’t appear upset about the flavor so much
as disappointed. Dusk was used to eating [Coo-Coo Rill]s raw
and fish creatures so the flavor might not mean much.

“Alright. Deal’s set. I’ve
agreed to lend him one familiar, that’s you, Hermes.” He
threw both hands up in the air. “And in exchange, we get a
doorway into the realm!”

“Even if I-” I swallowed
slowly and chose careful words “-complete this quest?”

“Even if. Who’s awesome?
This guy.” He grunted and used his thumb to point towards his
chest. Then he flexed everything a few times. Jean was outright
smiling.

I shook my head. That seemed like
weird bargaining. “Is this portal for you?”

“Nope. Demons. It’ll allow
us to start another plague for the world if we need one. Nothing
beats a demon invasion.” Vlad smiled and his teeth were
disturbingly white compared to his reddened skin.

“That seems harsh,” I
said. A plague of demons did not sound useful to my enjoyment of the
world. This was a game world, and the Voices were tasked with running
it. They must have a strange view on things to set up situations like
a demon portal invasion.

“Your concern is touching,
Hermes, but everything will work out in the end,” James said.
He took a step forward.

“It is time,” Irene
mentioned. She was still following that space that was almost next to
me.

“What about those demons?”
I asked. Vlad had lifted one giant arm and drug me near the cliff’s
edge. I stumbled backward and tried to ask my question towards James.
He would at least provide me some details.

“You’ll see,” Vlad
said. My foot slipped off the edge and I windmilled forward in a
panic.

“Ahh!” My eyes cast
backward as the outcry escaped. A black ledge fell away into fog and
nothingness. Where I stood before had been a slightly more relaxing
perspective. Now here I was hanging on.

“Sorry, Hermes.” Vlad
didn’t sound sorry. He sounded amused. His shoulder muscles
rippled as one giant arm lifted me up.

“No, not again.” I flailed
my arms. This time it wasn’t Shazam sending me off into the
distance. It was a giant burly man who wiggled his pectorals in my
face.

“It’s a natural
consequence of gravity, what goes up, must come down!” Vlad put
another hand in a very tender spot and hefted me over his head. I
gasped and secured myself. Hitting him back after getting this quest
seemed like a bad idea. Plus he was easily twice my size and a wall
of muscle.

“Just throw him in so we can go
back to my place.” Jean had one hand on Vlad’s flexing
muscles.

“YOU GOT IT, SWEETIE!” He
boomed. “Hermes, say hi to the twerp!” Vlad then threw me
off the virtual cliff and into the swirl of crimson.

I twisted and tried to reach out
toward the ledge above. James and the female Voice stood up near the
cliff’s edge. Vlad towered over both of them and was waving
goodbye. His free hand covered a clear smile. There was enough time,
as the game interface flooded me with fog, to see Jean shrug and say
“What, he agreed, didn’t he?”

This was just a game. The
words flashed through my mind again as everything around me started
warping.

My hearing was the next thing to be
assaulted. Howling wind whipped by in waves. Eyesight had been
reduced to little slits that could only see a swirl of colors coming
at me. Everything was spinning as it rushed in my direction. Only I
wasn’t going towards it on my own. I was being pulled like
there was a rope around my waist dragging me across a huge distance.

Everything snapped into place like a
rubber band. I huffed and tried to calm down.

Landing hadn’t hurt my legs at
all. No, instead it felt like my vision and hearing was being run
through a blender. I would have retched. The vitals for my EXR-Sevens
were flaring up uncontrollably as this wild ride continued. My
stomach contents threatened to crawl their way up and out.

There was still far too much fog. I
waved one hand around and took note of something tiny in my grip. It
looked like the same smooth black of [Morrigu’s Gift]
but the shape was all wrong. My vision cleared up enough to reveal a
pitchfork.

“What?!” I exclaimed. My
voice was super high pitched and almost chattered.

“What’s this?” I
exclaimed at the same time as another voice outside the fog.

Oh. Right. I was going to
be a familiar or summoned creature of some sort. What exactly had
they subjected me to? I spun around and tried to look behind me.
There was a tail. I had a tail! How neat! My arms were really short,
though. That was extremely weird. The limb felt like my arm, it bent
like my arm, but it was chubby like a baby’s.

My legs were even worse. They kind of
hung there beneath me. I tried to kick one. It responded but felt
lethargic. Almost like trying to make a fist upon first waking up.
Nothing clenched right.

“God this is pathetic.”
Someone muttered. I ignored them and tried to figure out what those
things just out the edge of my vision were. They moved rapidly.
Fluttering. Every time I turned to turn to see them my body spun.

“You’re my familiar?
That’s what I bargained so much for?” The other person
said. “What a rip-off. I’m going to find those executives
and give them a piece of my mind.”

Wings. That’s what they were. I
had wings attached to my back that were moving quick like a
hummingbird’s. They left small dark trails behind them either
from light being blocked out or a special effect.

“Come on. I don’t have all
day. You got your cupcake.” The young man said. I twisted my
face. Dusk had been the recipient of a cupcake, not me.

Plus it looked poorly made and extra
gross.

“Whatdoyouwant?” I tried
to speak in my normal tone. The game translated my thoughts rapidly.
Part of my tail was curling about the pitchfork’s bottom
portion. That was weird. I got distracted watching it spin around
like a drunk trying to find their pocket.

“The terms of our contract. I
need to make sure you understand them.”

“Nope!” I said promptly.
My tone sounded happy.

“Rule one, you must do exactly
as I order.”

“Hah! Okay!” The words
escaped me before they fully registered. Continue Online must be
translating super fast. Was it part of this character? I focused on
my arm and tried to use [Identification].

The list went on.

“Rule two, you can’t lie
to me.” Requiem Mass was going on about his requirements like
they were important. I tuned in just enough to laugh.

“Hah!” I nodded too
hastily. My brain was already trying to figure out ways around these
rules. If I was going to be acting as a demon, then it would be a
simple matter of thinking like one.

Besides, in all the childhood stories
I had ever read, demons loved the letter of the law.

“Rule three, you cannot harm me
directly or conspire to harm me.” He smiled as I went still.
Requiem Mass had effectively limited my actions with that one.

“Ah. Well, there goes all my
fun.” My tail lashed back and forth. Everything was bobbing up
and down due to my wings. I had to concentrate to move them around.

There were a few other basic system
notices that helped me out. Off to one side, there was an autopilot
menu option for maintaining altitude. I glared at the small box until
it was on.

“Are you listening?”
Requiem asked.

My head shook, now it was time to
start acting. “Notin theleast, youtalk too slow.”

Neat! That was a new
message. Hopefully, it operated like William Carver’s progress
bar and would allow me access to additional abilities as time went
on. For now, it seemed like flying and stabbing people were the only
skills available to me.

“It doesn’t matter. You
can’t get out of that circle until you agree to those terms.”

“Okay.” I looked up into
the sky as if there was a great decision weighing upon me. It was
extremely dark up there. No stars, no sun, just gloom. At least it
was visible gloom, being a [Red Imp] with night vision was
already paying off. Where was this while I was down in the caves?
Dusk was such a cheater if this is what he got.

I looked around. Requiem was busy
scowling and digging through a backpack for something. Behind him
were withered trees that looked like they were barely hanging on to
life. They must have been lacking sunlight since birth to look so
twisted and gnarly.

“Well?” He asked.

“ShutupIam thinking.” I
managed to slow down my words just a little bit. My synchronization
bar actually dropped a percent from my efforts. It was enough to make
my teeth grind. That felt weird too, I ran a tongue over the edge
only to find out that my lips were far thinner than expected and the
teeth were sharpened.

“Your master made this deal, you
must honor it.”

“Agggh!” I shouted at him
and stabbed the little pitchfork at the air. William Carver’s
introduction had been soft and slow. This was something that I was
literally thrown into. Still, it was also very interesting. I felt
myself grinning despite the messiness of my situation.

“Cupcakes! I demand better
cupcakes!” I figured sticking with the classic would serve me
well. Dusk might pop in at any moment. Or he might not. I was unsure
how the [Messenger’s Pet] or [Morrigu’s Gift]
would translate over. The weapon from William Carver had to stay with
Hermes, right?

“Okay. Sure, we can do that.”
Requiem Mass was nodding. There was something in how he pitched his
forehead and turned his lip up that said he’d rather beat me
senseless. “Deal.”

The dome about me dropped away. I was
no dummy. Requiem Mass was fast, but this was something I had
prepared for. Especially given how he glared at me through the
summoning circle’s protective shell.

I fled straight up.

“I’m ordering
you to come down here!”

Something around my neck warmed up
slightly.

“Okay! I will!” I did no
such thing. Strangely the slight heat around my neck didn’t get
any hotter. My arms were too chubby to bend right. The pitchfork was
used as a makeshift latch to grab at the edge of something. My eyes
looked down and saw a collar's edge.

“Why aren’t you coming
down here!” Requiem Mass shouted up at me.

“You didn’t saywhen!”

“Right now!”

“Dowhat now?” My voice
squeaked out defiance. “That’s a…”

Wait, what was he doing? Requiem’s
lips were moving. A tendril of fire grew to one side and his arm
stretched out wide to grab it. Flames danced around his fingers as he
hurled the pillar of fire up in my direction.

I dodged without putting much thought
into it. There was a small box up to one side that spoke about
[Survival Instincts] and [Fire Resistances]. I didn’t
have much time to pay attention to it as he hurled another stream of
flame in my direction.

“Nyaa!” I stuck out my
tongue and gave him the biggest raspberry available. It was a
terrible idea.

My tongue started bleeding
and cheeks puffed up. I managed not to cry out from the feedback.
Luckily the ARC wasn’t extremely intense about everything that
the player felt with regards to pain. Still, nothing could compare to
William Carver’s heart attacks.

“Oh, I’ll get you.”
Requiem was bobbing his head up and down quickly. “You’re
going to love this.”

Then the world started to fade away.
What was happening now? Had I failed so badly that the Voices were
already recalling me back to the Hermes character? This had been fun
actually. Teasing some young brat of a teenager who seemed to think
everything should bend to his will.

Suddenly that weird vortex of light
appeared. The wind tore at my hearing. Colors swirled all around in a
rush. Everything induced vertigo. I had enough time to see Shazam’s
passive face staring down at me. Her hands glowed green with a
healing spell.

I turned, retched, and groaned as the
world spun again.

The jerk Requiem was pulling me back.

I was still feeling violently ill from
the jerky summons. My vision was blurred. Something tore at my back
and made me cry out. What escaped was a string of violent curses that
had never come out of my mouth before. That must have been the [Red
Imp] in me talking.

“I’ll teach you. We’ll
start training right away.” Requiem’s face was almost
fervent. I felt even sicker looking up at him. This must have been
what prisoners of war felt like during our last global conflict.

Something bound my wings together. A
message appeared on my interface telling me flight was no longer an
option. My synchronization points dropped a full five percent from
humiliation.

Requiem Mass threw a punch towards my
face. I had a few moments to contemplate how large his fist seemed to
be compared to my own short body. Xin. I could suffer through
anything to give her a chance. I waved one free finger and pinned the
quest reward text off to one side of my player interface.

“You made me waste my mana.”
He snarled. “And you want a cupcake? Here!” Something was
shoved into my face.

I coughed and sputtered with a
suddenly dry throat. Meanwhile, the beating continued. My body was
far too small to fight back. The wings on my back were bound in some
sort of rope. Requiem Mass looked downright disturbing for a
teenager. Was this really another human being? Could anyone look at a
living breathing creature like he gazed at me?

Then I remembered. He didn’t
think that I was a real person. Requiem Mass thought I was a computer
program acting out a part. I would show him. Somehow the tables would
turn and Requiem would be the one being beaten soundly.

“We’ll do this again
tomorrow until you understand that I’m not playing around,”
Requiem said. My eyes drifted to a small pop-up message on one side.

Something intelligible
escaped me. I managed to smile. This pain was nothing compared to
what William Carver had felt. It was nothing compared to what I had
done to myself. Suffering this was nothing, not for Xin.

I could have logged out and
let the autopilot take it. My time was spent studying the young man
who was trying his hardest to beat some sense into me. His gaze was
astonishingly serious for one so young. How had he been raised to
think that hitting someone taught a lesson? The feedback was muted
enough that I could gather all types of details before being
presented with a death screen. Luckily, this was a game. Reaching
zero health was just a chance to take a bathroom break.

Session Thirty – Beatings Continue

I had taken my recent death as a good
time to catch up on real life. Two items from the Trillium ARC repair
queue served to keep me grounded. Historically, drowning out my
problems while solving other people’s mechanical woes served as
a good distraction. After work ended I called my neice.

“Uncle Grant!” She was
fiddling with some three-dimensional projection in the background. It
looked like the model of an energy formula in action.

“Hey, munchkin, what’s
that?” I nodded to the image.

“My final for Intro to Advanced
Energy Dynamics. It’s super dull.” She squinted and
pieced another portion together. “They’re making me
create an entire sequence from scratch on their server.”

“Can’t do this one in the
ARC?” I asked. Beth raised both hands and then winced as she
pressed a button. Her model spun and exploded.

“Nope. That’s cheating.
You should take this class, like audit it, or something.” Beth
waved at her project and scowled briefly. Two buttons later and it
was reset back to an un-exploded version.

“Why?”

“Last week, I took some of the
theories about energy conversion and used them in Continue. Then
bam!” Beth lit up happily as she pressed go again. “Biggest
fireball ever.”

“That’s neat,” I
said. Score one for science.

“Yep.” My niece was easily
excited by things. Every time we spoke though it seemed to revolve
around Continue. “What are you doing in-game?”

“Fighting frozen dinners and
dealing with another weird quest.” I thought it summed things
up neatly.

“Oh?” Beth ran away from
the science project and came over to her camera.

“Yeah. It’s a player
versus player sort of thing.”

“Ewww…” Beth
trailed off. She used the same face during childhood exposure to
olives. “One on one, or groups?”

“Just one, a guy named Requiem
Mass.” I felt there was no harm in telling Beth the name. Worst
case scenario she would show up and cast one of her big fireballs at
him. Could a [Red Imp] summon players? Wait, that was
conspiring to do harm to Requiem?

Better yet, how on earth could the
game prevent me from doing that? It hadn’t stopped me with
dropping a rock on that other guy’s face. What was his name,
Gaston? There were ways around the system.

“Mmmh, nope, I’ve never
heard of them. But Continue has a mesh they use. Not everyone
encounters the same batch of players.” She fiddled with her
science project some more. I think she was just playing now since the
image was spinning around.

“Oh? How did you figure that one
out?” I asked.

“We did a paper survey at school
and compiled the results.” She grabbed the project and zoomed
in on a portion. “We got about five hundred responses before
Trillium confiscated the documents.”

“That’s sneaky,” I
said. The Trillium van beeped and a small message advised me that we
would be home soon.

“Yeah. The Internet Social
Dynamics teacher, Mister Eldelstien, took a hit from it. We almost
got him fired last quarter.” Beth looked up for a bit and her
cheek pulled back. A moment later she was back in the science
project.

“Well, they take those things
seriously.” There were a number of legal documents I had to
sign just to sit in this Trillium owned van.

“I know. Anyway. People tend to
run into people they know more often than anyone else. I’m not
sure how they programmed it to do that.” Beth shrugged and
started spinning around the picture again. She seemed to be killing
time waiting. Was it because I was boring?

“Really? What about guilds?”
I asked.

“Have you joined one?” She
grabbed the image and proceeded to shake it. Everything fell apart.

“Not yet.”

“You’ll see then.”
An alarm went off in the background. “Oh! Time to go! My death
timer is cleared.”

“Again?” I said.

“Yeah, we’re doing
practice drills for next month’s event, I mean week. A real
week. Whatever.” Beth shrugged and waved away every image
having to do with her science project. They whooshed away into her
ARC and she pressed another green button.

“Oh, right.” I had been
thinking about it off and on for a few weeks now. Spending time with
family while doing something interesting was going to be great. If
Liz played I would bother her. Though knowing my sister, she would be
stalking guys in the game. I really needed friends of my own.

Requiem Mass was not friend material
judging by our brief interaction. James and the other Voices were
friendly, but they weren’t real or out here. Then again, if I
had real life friends still, maybe there would have been no reason to
start playing. That thought made me sad.

“You’re going to join us
right?” She asked.

“I’m trying. This quest
might make it hard.”

“Okay, get to a Porter, it’ll
be easier to talk about it then!” The alarm in the background
was growing louder. Beth turned and looked at her ARC. “Got to
go!”

“Bye, munchkin.” I waved.

“Gah! I’m an adult now!”
She flicked the screen off with an irritated expression.

I sat there chuckling in the Trillium
van for a good while. She was right, but part of me still saw a
little girl who used to demand games of hide and seek. Xin had been
great with her. My fiancée would have been a wonderful mother.
If the train crash hadn’t happened…

It hurt a little, but it raised more
questions. This Xin in the machine was a recreation of the woman I
knew. There was no illusion in me about her spirit being reincarnated
or the soul. I didn’t believe Xin’s ghost had come out of
the afterlife to haunt me.

But this was virtually the same thing,
wasn’t it?

I wanted to talk to her desperately.
There were only a few minutes left on the van’s Auto-NAV
countdown. Soon I could see what the world of Continue had cooked up
for me.

“Have a good night, Hal,”
I said. Hal Pal had sat behind me and was oddly quiet the entire way
home. My future as an armor polisher meant that I needed to at least
say goodbye.

“Fair well, User Legate.”
The AI moved its robotic shell enough to wave before going back into
standby.

I hummed to myself and walked through
the house. Logging into the game was similar to a ritual now. One lap
through the house resolved life’s necessities. This helped
prevent awkward autopilot pauses later on.

“Hah. Ha ha.” I started
laughing. The very idea of logging off during Requiem Mass’
attempted lessons had me giggling. He tried so hard to instill
obedience and I skipped out when it got boring. Minor bouts of
amusement kept me going as I cleaned up the house and lay down in the
ARC.

“ARC, log in.” My mirth
dripped away slightly as thoughts of Xin came by again. I had to deal
with Requiem and get back to my own body. From there it would be time
to ask James some real questions.

The Atrium sprang into being.
Everything was still the dull empty blankness I had set it to after
Dusk destroyed a good portion of items. Looking at it was starting to
irritate me.

“ARC!” I said.

“Awaiting Input.” The
toneless machine responded.

“Match current, wait, restart
command line.” I should do something different. “Match
Atrium to prior address, Seventeen Walk Home Ave. Purchase extras as
needed.”

“Confirm authorization for
purchases.”

“Confirmed.” I nodded.

Around me, the Atrium shimmered. A
cash register style noise went off repeatedly as digital items were
downloaded in exchange for real money. Outfitting an Atrium was
pretty cheap. My savings account was also well off if I wanted to tap
into it.

A recreation of our old couch
materialized nearby. It and many of the other items in the house were
decorative. With her being away for weeks at a time due to training
and me being immersed in work most nights, there wasn’t a need.

Another hour passed while I fiddled
around with additional purchases. A new doorway was put in. The view
to a digital representation of our lawn was edited to be a beach.
These were all items we had wanted to buy in the real world but
couldn’t justify spending money on. Soon it was a near perfect
replication of our old home, plus a few items.

My face crumpled.

What on earth was I doing? No. I had
engaged in this kind of behavior before. Trying to build a home like
Xin was going to return at any moment. This time I was going through
the motions while she was stuck inside Continue Online. There were
other things to think about as well.

What if I talked to her and it was
extremely weird? The woman I had known was gone. No matter how well
the Atrium fooled my senses, that was an undeniable fact. What if she
didn’t feel the same after being reconstructed? What if she
blamed me for her death in the real world?

One step at a time. I might fail this
quest. None of it would matter then. I was sure the Voices would
happily scatter Xin’s existence back across the digital
landscape. James admitted they had multiple times already.

Following the Voices was Trillium.
What if they found out? There was no way that woman, Miz Riley, would
let such a thing slide. She had been upset enough at William Carver’s
autopilot.

“ARC, del…” I
thought better of it. “Save the current layout and reset Atrium
back to default.”

“Please provide a name,”
The ARC system said.

“Grant is an idiot.” Was
my shaky response.

There were a million possible ideas
flooding through my brain. If I took it on faith that this was Xin,
what happened if I failed her this time? It had only taken one
violent train wreck to tear me apart from her in reality. Losing her
again, with the tenuous existence Xin had, would destroy me.

My head shook. I had to focus. What
tempo fit a classic waltz? No. I needed something spicier. What was
the tempo for Salsa dancing?

“ARC! Load up Continue Online
preview.” I said.

A screen popped into being nearby. I
reached out and drug it over. The game feed was showing my [Red
Imp] avatar bound and rolling on the ground. The imp was gagged.
Vicious annoyance in the small red bundle’s eyes was mirrored
by Requiem Mass.

I hummed some more and tapped a foot
slowly. Salsas were fast, and could be sultry. With my weight loss,
it might be possible to pull one off and not feel completely goofy.
Losing weight had started to reflect inside the Atrium as well.

Salsa. There was something to that
idea. Logging in with Requiem wouldn’t go anywhere and I needed
to clear my head. There were still two doors that led into programs
of my Atrium. One went to Continue. The other exited to my dance
instruction game. Dancing worked during the Age of Carver, it might
work again.

I fired up a generic dance partner for
a few rounds. It was easier with something that didn’t resemble
Xin. Using a digital version of her felt wrong now. Before I had been
dancing with the image of a deceased woman. Now she wasn’t. Or
was. Voices, this whole situation had me confused.

Slowly I drowned out the analytical
thoughts with dance. The program led me through various steps. An
hour later and I felt like it would be possible to do a few rounds
with a real person.

My thoughts went back to my vaguely
reincarnated fiancée. Would she like the changes in me? They
weren’t all positive. Another idea hit me. What if she found
out about my brush with death? Would she understand that?

I returned to the dance program and
kept at it for another hour. Biometrics from the EXR-Sevens showed my
heart rate was up and impulses were being fired to all corners of my
body to simulate exercise. Sweat was probably dripping across me in
reality too.

Toweling off in the video game only
served to clean up my digital character and slow down the feedback.
While my hands wiped away at illusion sweat I stared at Continue
Online’s preview window. The digital projection moved in high
speed due to the time dilation differences.

Requiem had set up camp. My [Red
Imp] body was strung up on a tree branch and glaring. The
Traveler was sharpening a blade while muttering. A small fire
crackled off to one side. It was hard to tell from the preview window
but it looked like I was being hung over the flames.

Both eyes rolled. Requiem Mass was
single minded with his stupidity. Still, there was a small message
off to one side hanging in wait. I pinched the picture and zoomed in.

The Voices were politely
hinting that avoiding the pain wouldn’t solve any problems.
Dealing with the ARC’s muted feedback was bearable but not
enjoyable. Now seemed safe enough since no physical torture was being
induced upon the [Red Imp] character. Switching to Continue
Online was also a good way to put thoughts of Xin and her version of
reality out of my head.

Stepping back through the Atrium into
Continue left me upside down and confused. The world looked downright
odd from this angle. Trees curled towards the ground and the gray
clouds made the world seem like there was a second floor.

I wiggled and got nowhere. Requiem had
trussed me up exceptionally well. My tail was loose. That threw me
for a loop. How on earth did anyone control a tail? Everything else
in Continue reacted to thoughts. A new appendage should as well.
Failing that there would be an autopilot system of some sort.

Happy humming escaped me. Aside from
being bound and upside down this whole situation was kind of neat. My
tail bobbed in time with the humming and a box displayed.

“Mmheh.” There
was a gag across my face making it hard to speak. [Idle Humming]
was nearly the same as my [Battle Hum] skill. Oh well, if
Continue wanted to throw a second version at me, then okay.

I tried to hum. A small box appeared
on the bottom right of my vision that had a musical note. That spot
on the interface was where I used to see details about William
Carver’s [Old Age] effect.

A few minutes passed while Requiem
Mass grumbled and I tried to focus on tail control. My head had a
little wiggle and moving it in time with the appendage seemed to
help. The tips of both feet moved around with the humming. That was
how I learned [Red Imp] toes were kind of clumpy looking and
had giant ugly warts.

“What are you doing?” The
Traveler startled me with sudden shouting.

I raised an eyebrow and mumbled the
first thing that came to mind. It was my attempt at impishly
insulting his mother and the synchronization bar jumped up. That made
me smile and raise my cheeks high.

“What a failure of a pet,”
Requiem said. “Can’t even get out of some rope.”

Part of me was in agreement. Escaping
rope seemed to be a skill that was worthwhile to learn. Maybe Beth
would have an idea next time we spoke. I would say ‘Hey,
Munchkin, how do I escape being tied up by crazy people?’. Her
response would probably be ‘Use fire’.

Oh. I looked at the fire pit below me
and wondered how strong my resistance was in this form. A little pain
would be easy enough to bear for an escape. Maybe my tail was sharp.

“Time for another round of
beatings. Maybe this time you’ll listen when I give you an
order and stop playing games.” He said. His voice sounded like
a teen who was barely hitting puberty.

Requiem pulled at the rope that was
used to hang me up. He had it strung over a sturdy branch up above
and then wound it around another tree trunk.

I twisted and managed to get a closer
look at the tail tip. It seemed pokey. Not super sharp or
needle-like. That wouldn’t be much use in cutting the rope. Do
[Red Imp]s grind their tails against flat rocks to sharpen
them like birds did with beaks?

Another question for the pile.

The ground approached suddenly as
Requiem let the rope go. My neck nearly snapped and these odd wings
struggled to right me automatically. They failed due to being bound.
ARC feedback sent my shoulder muscles into spasms.

“Mmmhgrh!” Muffled noises
came out.

Where was my pitchfork? I
needed it right this minute to stab Requiem in the face. That would
solve both the growing irritation and quest in one go. Fortunately, I
had a year and change of meetings and self-distancing techniques to
calm myself.

This last month in Continue Online had
sent my emotions all over the place. One thing after another had
turned my world upside down. Xin existing in some form was the
greatest. The thought replayed in my head again as the world spun
from dizziness. Xin wasn’t completely dead.

“Seriously. How are you going to
help me?” Requiem said while undoing my bindings. My wings
quivered and shook as they regained feeling. It felt like trying to
stretch a pinkie out that was actually attached to back muscles
somehow.

“Stabbings!” I don’t
know what a demon might say. Stabbing people was evil, right?
Cleaving those two men into two bits back in the forest had felt
pretty foul. That being said, murdering giant ice cockroaches felt
perfectly justifiable. Comparing the two extremes felt weird.

“Well, you’ll get your
chance.” The Traveler was looking over the fire into the
distance.

I sniffed the air and tried to look
into the darkness for any sort of enemy. This would be a terrible
time for a battle. Flying was still awkward.

The wings on my back shook. These were
not pinkies at all. How on earth did the ARC give people feedback for
items they didn’t have in real life? Tingles shot through them
and I danced back and forth in order to help the circulation along.
Jiving around helped me barely avoid a weird gooey bit of acid that
slid right by my chubby cheek.

“Ahhhwhathappened!?” I
shouted.

“Attack them!” Requiem
pulled out two swords that looked to be blue and black. One had a
trail of smoke spilling from behind as it moved.

“Attack who?!” I shouted
again while trying to uncoil the remaining rope from both legs.

“Them! Now!” Requiem dove
past me.

The collar about my neck warmed up
again. This time the pain kept increasing steadily. These stubby [Red
Imp] legs were not working correctly. I tried to flutter both
wings and lift off the ground. Thinking quickly derailed as I tried
to figure out if the marking on my stomach was a birthmark or a welt.

Pain zipped through and
made the tiny body I occupied gasp and curl. Flying halted. My own
tail slapped around on the ground as both gimpy legs gave out.

“Get up!” Requiem shouted.

It hurt to stand. The ARC feedback was
hiking up the sting for each percentage being ticked off. Oddly, my
synchronization bar climbed as the damage stacked.

“Nowwhat?” I was
determined to drag this all out for as long as possible.

This quest was fairly straight
forward. If I couldn’t kill Requiem directly then maybe
inaction and feigned stupidity would get him indirectly killed. My
time as Carver had taught me that being proactive earned more results
than sitting on a bench reading a book. That was probably a good
metaphor for life.

“HELP, ME, KILL, THEM!”
Requiem slashed at a giant rat creature. These rodents possessed
green squirmy eyes and a mess of tails attached to them. Large gashes
were littered all across the monsters and many of them were clearly
infected.

“Ewwwwwwwwwww.” I gave an
unintentional shriek. The ARC pulled the thoughts from my head as it
did everything else and bypassed any mental filters.

“KILL THEM!” Another two
percent of damage ticked by and the synchronization jumped up
accordingly.

Still, pain hurt. I could avoid some
by trying to follow the orders stated. Everything conspired to make
me fail. Flying was way harder than expected. My tail successfully
wound around the pitchfork and everything started tilting wildly to
the left. Moments later instability allowed me to collide dead on
with a tree.

“Ha! You won’t escape this
time!” Another figure yelled triumphantly.

He was the goofiest looking person I
had ever seen. His neck had a piece of rippled white fabric around it
that made no sense. The collar was popped up, one sleeve was too long
and his coat had points on the end that looked comical.

I was actually starting to prefer
Requiem’s clean vest look. At least his dress code had some
utility to it. Though the cape on Requiem was nearly worse than the
puke green one Awesome Jr. had worn.

It seemed like a bad time to wonder
how Awesome Jr. was doing. Flying towards giant mutant rat creatures
would have been far easier as Hermes. I knew my stats and had loads
more experience using that body. This nameless [Red Imp]
avatar was still foreign.

“Kill him!” Requiem
pointed one of his smoking blades towards the new Traveler. A sloppy
attempt at using my [Identification] skill listed a bunch of
useless question marks. I decided to nickname him PoserMan in my
head.

I scrambled to at least fly in
PoserMan’s direction. Flying was a huge failure. I ran into
another creepy tree and fell to the ground. Boxes appeared around me
explaining that being bound for so long had damaged both normal
flight skills and all [Focus] abilities. Oh well. The worst
that would happen is my [Red Imp] self died to some super
move. Maybe he would strike a pose and scream about unleashing a
laser.

While PoserMan failed to pose, my
chubby arms and legs managed to coordinate a recovery. Requiem was
off in the distance quickly dodging between a horde mob of giant
rats. They looked more like dogs next to him. To me, these monsters
were closer to horses.

Requiem was a violent jerk who sounded
childish, but he was also pretty good with the two swords. He slashed
into one monster and shaved off most of the health bar. I tried to
lift the silly pitchfork, but my tail still had a hold on it.

Poor [Coordination], [Focus],
and my tail conspired to plant the pitchfork into the ground at an
angle. It was just enough that one of the giant rat mutants, who had
been dodging away from Requiem, slammed into the propped up item and
impaled itself. The rodent turned and snapped at my face.

I did what any sane person with a
complete lack of [Focus] and mental filters that were disabled
would do.

“Bad doggy!” My chubby
hand smacked the rat thing right in the face. It snarled and snapped.
The desperate attempts at retaliation only drove its body further
down the pitchfork’s spikes. I glared at the weapon and tried
to figure out how it was so strong.

The details read almost like my normal
weapon. Damage was above average for the path. There was a
[Regeneration] effect. It was [Bound] to me. I had no
idea what that would mean in the long run. For now, it was pleasant
to see Carver’s gift carrying over to this latest task.

“Good! Kill another!”
Requiem yelled an order at me. I didn’t have much brain power
to argue with the Traveler right now. Another two of the mad rat dog
things were hovering nearby. They seemed slightly leery after their
buddy died to my accidental impaling.

“You’ll never stop me,
Requisite Ass!” The other person taunted. I was too busy
yanking out my pitchfork to give him much attention. Requiem was
leaping after him.

“It’s Requiem, you tool!”
Requiem corrected the other person. There was a loud series of clangs
as they swung weapons at each other.

This pitchfork shared many of the same
characteristics of [Morrigu’s Gift]. I focused on
shifting it to a long pole instead of the four-pronged tip that it
had been.

Weeks of practice with Shazam helped
make the change smooth. My mental image wasn’t exactly complex
either. The weapon’s top slowly pulled through gory rat bits to
merge into a single spike.

In addition to better control over
[Morrigu’s Gift] I had also practiced a lot of
situational awareness. For example, being single-minded in my focus
on transforming the weapon meant two giant rat creatures had plenty
of time to attack. My practice had failed me.

Voices above! One slight rake of the
claw was enough to shave off a quarter of my health! I scrambled to
dodge another attack. As Hermes, I was used to using my legs. The
natural reflex of kicking was useless with a [Red Imp]’s
stubby legs. I wiggled them at the monster’s face anyway while
both wings hummed wildly.

“Stabbings! Letthestabbings
happen!” I kind of lost it at that point. Being a [Red Imp]
made me small and weak. Once my hands were on the [Echo of
Morrigu’s Gift] weeks of practice kicked in. This character
was weak but insanely fast compared to the Hermes avatar.

I turned and fluttered. What would
have been a smooth extension of the current pike form into a rat’s
eye ended up skewering its gut instead. That was less effective,
messier, but still damaging. I retracted the weapon and turned it
flat in time to block the gnashing teeth of an another attacker.

“Finally! You’re useful!”
Requiem Ass, Mass, whatever, was keeping an eye on me even while
fighting. It irked me incredibly to get his commentary on my combat
skills. I had only been playing for a month in real time. That was
four months in-game. I had a Masters in Business and Accounting, not
a black belt in Stab-fu.

I did manage to get back to the
pitchfork form and sink the weapon deep into another rat’s
flank. He turned and squealed at me. Giant teeth snapped in my face
and spittle flew everywhere. I hurriedly extended the handle a bit
and flew backward into a tree.

The latest rat turned and went for my
arm. I yanked out my weapon and made a beeline for Requiem Mass.
Maybe, just maybe, he was looking away and wouldn’t block this
rat.

Almost as soon as the thought occurred
to me I crashed into the ground and skidded. Burning crawled across
my neck’s skin and something actually sizzled. Any grip I had
on the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] faltered as hands tore
at the object melting my flesh.

No kidding, machine! And the giant rat
monster I had been fighting was drawing closer. Two more hits from
one of those and I would fall apart.

“Ahhh! Ihateit, I hate it!”
Why did this punishment hurt more than the beatings from Requiem? Why
did it hurt more than the teeth, claws and bites? It was like the ARC
had kept everything peaceful until it needed to send home a punch.

Death was an easy way out. This was
just a game and it would plop me back in the Hermes character safe
and happy. No. That would actually be bad. I had to kill Requiem
somehow, not die sniveling about a lot of pain burning my flesh. Or I
could log out.

The pain stopped and left my character
gasping and crawling around on the ground. Out of habit, I reached
for my weapon.

“You and your little demon
mongrel will not stop me from completing this quest!” PoserMan
yelled.

“I’ll kill you,
Freakinstain!” Requiem Mass turned and threw something towards
the rat attacking me. His projectile dug into the creature’s
side and sent it tumbling. It collapsed a few feet away, heaving, and
staring at me with hatred.

“It’s Frankenstein!”
The man with his funny neck piece and long coattails said. PoserMan
would have been a better name.

Darkness swept through the entire
area. My vision flickered as things went from normal colors lit by a
fire to a strange alternate vision. Everything seemed to be shades of
black and white. I saw Requiem Mass cover his face and scowl. He
swung around blindly with the sword that had smoke trails.

Frankenstein turned and fled into the
distance. His body seemed to be composed of multiple squiggling
pieces that fluttered in one mass. Similar to how Jean, the Voice,
and her clothing appeared.

The lights came back to and Requiem
was cursing at the empty space where he had been fighting. Next to me
the giant rat breathed its last and fell limp.

“Worthless!” Requiem
stomped over to me and kicked the rat in its head. “You were
meant to stop him from doing that!”

“What, what, whatare you. What?”
My head shook back and forth in confusion. What the heck was
Requisite Ass on about now?

“I summoned you so that you
could see in the dark, and help me kill that fucker,” Requiem
said through grinding teeth. Hadn’t Requiem asked what use I
would be? Clearly the young man already had a plan in mind.

“You’re theidiot, you
didn’t tell methat!” I shouted rapidly.

“I did! And you didn’t
listen! But don’t worry, we’ll work on your listening
skills right now.” He said.

“No thanks, opting out, didn’t
signthe line” I tried to backup, My tail was going wild.
Fighting back had proven a bit impossible due to the pain that burned
on my neck every time I tried to disobey.

“Hold still,” Requiem
said.

I tried to back up anyway and the ARC
feedback sent me to my knees. He reached down and smacked my small
[Red Imp] form in the face. Then he punched me. My health bar
dropped in chunks again.

The beatings continued. My
synchronization jumped up. I focused on watching it climb and tried
not to think about what was happening to this character’s
insides. It felt like having two headaches, banging my foot against a
counter, and whacking my knee on a table all at the same time.

I gasped and groaned. Somewhere in
there, one middle finger was raised up to his face. My chubby little
arms were normally red, but there were lots of purple and other
bruises forming. One eye had nearly swelled shut and my toes weren’t
responding right.

“Why won’t pain break
you?” He threw me off to one side and I rolled along the
remains of damaged trees. Weak chuckles made it out between gasps for
air. This round was in my favor. Mental fortitude had won out against
attempted abuse.

The ARC’s muted feedback had
almost rigged it against Requiem. If this had been real life things
would have gone the other direction. Poor Requiem. None of the AIs in
Continue were that simple.

“You foolish, foolish, mortal.”
I slowed down the words and scowled at Requiem. My mind scrambled to
put together something suitably demonic. “You know nothing of
Hell. Physical pain is the least of life’s traumas.”

I could feel my thinned lips pull back
in an unintentional snarl. The [Red Imp] body was expressive
compared to normal me. None of that bothered me right now. I was
angry at the Traveler and he was clearly full of his own rage.

The Traveler drew his mouth tight and
waved an arm. Everything faded away as summoned status slowly
released. Maybe now I could see what was going on with my Hermes
character.

Session Thirty One – What is Love...

I watched the pretty swirl of lights
pass by and came to in a confusing situation. My Hermes character was
currently strapped to the back of a horse thing. The first thing I
noticed was a bobbing landscape filled with tiny pop-up boxes. A
dozen of them stacked on one side and cited failed skill checks.

“Horsemanship?” I muttered
out loud. Somehow my character was learning [Horsemanship]
slowly. A system message happily informed me that any skills gained
by my autopilot would be vastly reduced compared to normal play.

Two of the strange mounts were
present. They were like the ones from [Haven Valley]. William
Carver’s character had been so nearsighted that most details
slipped by. It was way easier to see what they looked like now that
my vision wasn’t screwed up.

The creature’s ears were a bit
too long and floppy. Their legs were thicker. I was riding the love
child of a Clydesdale and an elongated rabbit. Plus they snickered
instead of making nice normal horse whinnies.

One was under me and plodding along.
The second was being ridden by a woman in heavy looking plate armor.
For a moment, I thought that Elane, or SheHulk, had come back to
haunt me. This woman was much taller and almost seemed a giant on the
back of her horse rabbit thing.

“What are these?” In all
my weeks as William Carver, I hadn’t paid much attention to the
wildlife beyond [Coo-Coo Rill]s.
A box displayed as the [Identification] skill kicked in.
Great. They really were Horse Rabbits.

Something tiny yanked on my ear. A
familiar clack of jaw muscles snapping shut at the end pointed to one
culprit. The [Caliburr] under me let out another weird snicker
and we kept moving along.

“Hey, how’s it going?”
I said to Dusk while raising a hand to pet him. The small
[Messenger’s Pet] perked up. “Have you been
helping Shazam babysit me?”

Dusk nodded happily.

“I kind of expected you to turn
up while I was over there with Requiem,” I told my little
friend.

He shook his head and a sad face with
eye drops appeared in the thought bubble. That was amazingly handy at
confirming how Dusk was feeling. Part of me wondered if Requiem Mass
had one for my [Red Imp] body. Hopefully, that thought bubble
showed him being stabbed over and over.

“Aw, it’s okay if you
can’t come. Someone has to keep my autopilot in line.” I
said, to which the [Messenger’s Pet] nodded. “Where
are we going anyway?”

The [Messenger’s Pet]
shrugged. I looked forward at Shazam. She had a hand on the lead for
my [Caliburr] and was riding her own slowly. Shazam’s
other hand was poking at the air nearby. The woman's expressionless
gaze hadn’t faltered once in my presence.

“Hi, Shazam. I’m back.”
I said.

She gave me a single thumbs up and
went back to fiddling with something in front of her. I assumed it
was a player interface of some sort. Shazam was one of the first
people I had noticed using the interface like that. Most Travelers
just went blank for a moment when focusing on system menus.

“Where are we going?” I
asked again.

Shazam turned to look at me. She
pointed to my side a few times. I looked down and saw the scroll
case.

“Oh. Messenger stuff.” I
said.

She gave me a thumbs up again and
turned around.

“That reminds me, I spoke to
your Voice,” I said. Shazam’s Voice had been a slightly
heavyset Voice who wore a lab coat. “Irene, right? She seemed…”
Nice was not the right word. “Clinical.”

Shazam gave me another thumbs up which
made me frown. A simple acknowledgment was not the reaction I
expected when talking about someone’s personal Voice. At least,
that wouldn’t be my reaction. Was she really so passive to
everything? If anyone else ran up to me and said ‘I know you
have an Ultimate Edition’ my freak out meter would skyrocket.
Even Beth didn’t know.

“How much further?” I
asked.

She shrugged. Dusk had a thought
bubble that showed a tiny version of himself and a small collection
of buildings super far away.

“Oh? Are we going to a city?”
I asked him. Shazam turned and gave me a backward glance. Her head
bobbed in affirmation. She looked a lot different in the plate garb
compared to our snowy mountain top furs.

“And you’re going with
me?” I waited, but she had stopped answering my questions. A
minute passed before I realized she had gone into autopilot mode.
There was a clear symbol next to her head that depicted a tiny bed.

“Guess it’s just us,”
I said to Dusk. He huffed and took flight off across the landscape.
“Or just me.”

I needed time to situate myself
anyway. This was my first time on a real road outside of town and I
wanted to relish the change of pace. The scenery felt like every
documentary of old England to show on television. Rolling
countryside, gray skies in the distance, trees, all of it was
pleasantly normal.

My prior adventures had amounted to
sitting in a town, crawling through a cave fighting mud golems, and
weeks on the top of a snowy mountain. It would be much neater if I
could ride a giant flying creature over the lands.

The [Caliburr] shuddered. Teeth
rattled and everything about me shook as the beast huffed and
sniffled. Bindings across my legs held in place amid messages of
skill checks regarding [Horsemanship] and [Reaction]. I
grabbed the saddle in front of me and prayed that this violent
seizure fit wouldn’t send me flying. Eventually, it settled and
we started forward again.

I tilted my head to look at the giant
creature moving along under me. One eye stared back for just a moment
before its ear batted and I was dismissed. Shazam’s creature
had done the same violent shaking process, but her character seemed
completely undisturbed. Even her autopilot was cool and unflappable.

“Oh.” There was another
box about my skill going up simply for surviving the shuddering
action from my [Caliburr]. That was probably the reason Shazam
had us on these things. She had given me training in the mountains
following the same pattern.

Muteness had not prevented Shazam from
succeeding at this game. Her skills as a teacher seemed focused on
subjecting me to varied experiences. As a result, there were a lot of
random skills on my character sheet.

Nothing on it was super amazing or
world nuking. The game seemed to think I did slightly more damage
with my right hand, but I was a lefty. Closing my eyes allowed my
sense of smell to increase slightly. The hatred of bugs I had started
weeks ago was fully developed. All sorts of weird things like that.

My player inventory was also a cluster
of random items. Most of the things we picked up in the mountains
were used right away as food or crafting supplies. Shazam had been in
charge of nearly everything with regards to monster remains. I didn’t
care about the loot. Why should I fight over a [Goo Pile] or
[Furry Eyebrow]?

“Alright. Hat, check.”
[Wild Bill] was back on my head where it belonged. It gave
enough shade to block out the worst of the sun’s glare.
“Morrigu’s Gift, shoes, no cloak.”

My gear was the basic Travelers Garb I
had been plopped into the woods with. Maybe there was something neat
at a store to pick up. That might be fun. Suddenly part of me wanted
to go shopping just to see what was available.

I wondered if it was possible to send
things in-game to other players. Maybe there was a souvenir in town
that I could mail to Beth. Or better yet I could send one to Elane
that said ‘Thanks for the memories’. The idea was quashed
as it occurred to me. Being a jerk to her over our past wasn’t
fair.

Time passed slowly in-game. Nothing in
my player inventory looked entertaining. I poked a finger and moved
system windows around randomly. Something new appeared on my
interface. What was this now? A box for quest items? Somehow that had
escaped my notice earlier.

I clicked one of them and pulled it
out of inventory. What appeared in my hand was a scroll. The
parchment was wrapped by a small piece of twine. Pulling on the
string caused a system message to pop up.

The words ‘see additional data
file’ floated above the quest text. I pressed a finger towards
the interface and a video came into being then started playing.

“You have typed out the word
Shazam as a character name. Why?” Irene was measuring something
in a vial while Shazam stood there. It looked like they were both in
the same character creation black zone that I had visited many times
before.

It was mildly interesting to see
normal Shazam. She wore a sundress that hung loosely. There was a
belt that seemed almost too straight. Shazam had no slouch, no turn
of body, her entire form was rigid and faced a single direction. Dark
skin still barely hid her freckles.

There was a keyboard in front of her.
Fingers tapped against the projection and finally a series of words
appeared.

The video imagery cut off.
Clearly the word Shazam meant something in the real world. It wasn’t
anything special right now so I put the research topic on my mental
pile. These types of things were done while sitting in my Trillium
van. For now, I would accept the quest and move onward.

Next, figuring out these remaining
scrolls. The one for this latest quest had crumbled to pieces. There
were four more all with destinations and names attached. Were these
players too?

I picked up each parchment and watched
a distant quest marker appear on the horizon. None were close by.
Shazam must communicate somehow with the Voices or she would never
randomly escort me off the mountain. I would have to ask what her
trick was. Whenever she got back from autopilot.

Dusk hopped around in the shrubbery
nearby. He set his vicious thoughts upon chasing some slithering
creature through the bushes. I could barely see a tiny bubble of
thought bounding around. It seemed like typical Dusk actions so far.
New place, murder the local critters and declare superiority, move
on.

Hours passed in-game while I looked
around and fiddled with my inventory. Most of my extra time was spent
trying to shift [Morrigu’s Gift] into different forms. A
pole had been the first alternate shape after my walking staff form.
The arm length dagger was new. Eventually, the silly thing would
transform into a wide range of weapons.

Transforming the object around
interested me. It wasn’t about finding the perfect shape to
play with. My [Blade Dancer] path focused on large weapons
which clearly suited me. Switching around [Morrigu’s Gift]
just kept me from being bored. One day I would find something else to
play with while traveling.

Finally, things grew beyond dull. I
logged out and handled the necessities of life. My home’s
digital projection hookup allowed me to monitor Continue Online
remotely with ease. A small box floated near me in real life. If I
switched rooms, the projection followed. The only thing on my ARC
television was a picture of Hermes looking bored and strapped to the
[Caliburr].

There was a moment of excitement as
Dusk landed. He seemed displeased with the autopilot status and
huffed at my video game character’s face. Real me absently
watched it all while sipping coffee. I was distracted trying to
figure out sleep. It had been pretty broken since starting Continue
Online.

Home felt cramped and boring. I took a
walk to clear my head. Stepping outside also made me feel like a real
human being who didn’t just sit and play video games all day.

Living in Continue Online for many
hours had almost distracted me from the technological advances of the
real world. Compared to the leather straps holding Hermes in place on
the back of a [Caliburr] reality was space age.

Our world had been flooded with
innovations in the last decade. Going into the supermarket resulted
in targeted adds that picked my name and purchase history out of a
line. The audio was basically beamed at my location by an overhead
system. There was a mute button that was accessible floating off to
one side. I had to suffer through five seconds of advertisements
first.

Cars zipped down the street and
dropped people off. People got out and the cars moved on to other
users. Some places didn’t own their own vehicles and instead
pooled together to rent two or three automated cars for a
neighborhood. It was great for poor areas and a lot cheaper.

Walking home showed roads with
sidewalks that illuminated by using stored solar power. They were
less offensive than the lamp overheads of twenty years ago. All of
these lights were managed by a hub every few blocks. Hubs were
mounted on pillars that stood two stories tall and ran facial
recognition software. For two dollars a month, I could choose to
highlight the sidewalk around me in green instead of the standard
blue.

Decades ago people had wondered how
far was ‘too far’ with regards to the Internet and
technological monitoring. Ten years ago there had been movements
demanding a ban on the higher end products. Now those people who
cared could move to areas that were nearly blacked out from the more
modern inventions. It was weird to think that ten percent of the
population wanted to be stuck in the past.

We, humanity, had worked hard at
arguing with each other over new inventions and the illusion of
privacy. I was okay living in my neighborhood where it felt like
things were convenient, but big brother wasn’t breathing down
my neck.

A robotic lawn mower was busy cleaning
up one man’s lawn. It trimmed hedges, edged sidewalks and even
spouted a ‘Hello’ as I walked by. Three children shot by
while playing digital laser tag. All this felt normal compared to the
fantasy world within Continue.

After two hours of head clearing, I
wound my way back home. This was the world that Xin and I had lived
in. This wonderland of technology wasn’t in Continue Online.
The closest thing inside my game were pop-up boxes with information.

It was funny. All these advances, and
I spent my time inside a game stabbing monsters with a sword that
didn’t truly exist. Digital immersion was by far one of the
scariest bits of modern technology available to humanity.

When I was inside the ARC everything
felt real. I laughed, I cried, I interacted with a pet that could
have put Mister Sniffles to shame. It felt like real life. Our minds
were at the mercy of the machine and we just accepted it.

Getting out of the house was an
excuse. The last few days had dumped loads of information upon me.
What I needed was time to process. Hadn’t I told James long ago
that both sides were real? Hadn’t I danced with a false version
of my fiancée to not feel lonely?

To Xin or whatever compilation of
memories she was, it would be utterly real. To her, it was
everything. That was the angle I had to approach things from. What
did this recreation of Xin see? What would she care?

I logged back into the ARC with a firm
plan in mind. Real Grant lay calmly on a cleverly costumed machine.
Digitally, inside Hermes, my legs were still strapped to the
[Caliburr]. The sun was setting and our mounts were slowing
down. Dusk had curled up for a nap on one shoulder while his tail
anchored around my neck.

Everything had to start with
contacting my personal Voice. Items were pulled out of player
inventory. A message was penned to James asking, ‘I would like
to send Xin a letter. How can I do that?’.

“Seriously?” A good ten
minutes had passed in-game and there was no answer yet. I outright
asked James a question by putting his stupid name at the memo’s
top.

I rattled my tube around and waited
for heat or chill or something to kick in. There was no solid result
one way or the other. The top was unscrewed and the inside was
annoyingly empty. Fine.

“Shazam!” She was still
away. Her autopilot was leading us off to one side of the road.

I had a vague idea of how to set up
camp from off and on practice in the mountains. Shazam’s
autopilot was pulling out gear mechanically and putting up two tents.
We hadn’t used tents before on the mountain. There we stuck to
caves. Part of me wondered exactly how much gear she had packed away.

Unstrapping myself looked simple
enough. There was a knot near the saddle’s front that could
easily be undone. Halfway through untangling the bindings my
[Caliburr]s started shuddering. The violent movements sent me
off to one side. Large clawed feet bucked and almost tore my face. I
rolled to one side in panic and stood up.

Shazam’s autopilot seemed
undisturbed and had started cooking. I brushed myself off and tried
to pretend a giant rabbit hadn’t almost crushed my head.
Besides, Shazam’s cooking was great. Mechanical, but tasty. It
was like her mind sorted everything away into perfect formulas and
put things together with precise measurements.

I glared at the giant [Caliburr]
and tried to figure out what to do. Typically my role in camp set up
was non-existent. Shazam was too efficient. Maybe one day I would
find a good hobby. Finally, after twenty minutes Shazam logged back
in.

“Hey. I had a question.” I
was happy that Shazam always seemed to respond right away. She
frequently logged in and out throughout any given day.

Shazam took both thumbs and alternated
lifting them in the air. Our poor communication skills meant that she
was asking for more information. At least, that’s what it
normally meant.

“So I have an Ultimate Edition,
and I was told you do too,” I said.

She blinked slowly and kept up the
cooking without missing a beat. Items spilled out of player inventory
onto a small table that had been unpacked. Shazam piled them together
and diced up an object that looked like an onion but was green.

“Do,” Oh this was going to
sound crazy, “the Voices talk to you? I mean they must give you
quests or something.”

She nodded slowly.

“How do they talk to you?”
Thankfully my crazy talking hadn’t made her think less of me at
all. Of course, this young woman had put my character in painful
situations for weeks on end.

Shazam put both hands up next to her
head and pantomimed sleeping.

“In your dreams?” I asked.

She nodded and took out spices. They
were thrown into a travel sized cooking pan and everything sizzled.
Her autopilot was a master at starting fires. Mine was a master at
humming and tapping its foot when left alone.

“Like in real life, or in the
ARC?” I said.

Shazam pointed one finger down
briefly. Okay, so she slept in-game and the Voices sent her messages
while sleeping? Why had that never worked for me? I had been
exhausted and unconscious in the game a few times. Not once did any
of the Voices visit me. Well aside from dying once and being
intercepted by that Jester figure. Its interference with my normal
failure process had been limited to one instance so far.

I chewed on my lip. Shazam handed me a
piece of meat and pointed to the fire. Right, even the simple act of
roasting it would help my meager cooking skills. In real life, I had
turned into a microwave meal and take-out eater. The only homemade
meals available to me were on holidays and what Xin had insisted on
making when she was home.

Xin.

“Shazam. Have you ever met
anyone you know from real life in here?” I asked.

She nodded then shrugged. I took that
to mean yes but that they weren’t close.

“You’ve done player versus
player right?” I switched tactics. Maybe she had some advice on
how to handle Requiem.

Shazam seemed to have done a little
bit of everything based on my experiences with her. She nodded while
I went about my poor attempts at cooking. It boiled down to shoving a
stick through the meat and hanging it over the flame.

“Do you know how to win against
a player you’re not allowed to attack?” I asked. Her
achievements were insanely far above my own if she was leading a
guild.

She tilted her head while the last of
our cooking supplies were wrapped up. Items vanished away into her
inventory. Soon Shazam was left with only food in a bowl.

“Right. Well, if you think of
anything I’m all ears.” I said.

Shazam went about eating while I
pondered other situations. It was perplexing that we were allowed to
exit [Camp Grey Skull] with ease. I checked my player map. It
was slowly gathering a reasonable amount of data. Though there was
still no connection between the old [Haven Valley] information
and my current location. [Camp Grey Skull] was already a few
days behind us.

“So, should we be letting those
Caliburrs get close to each other?” I pointed at the two giant
horse rabbit monsters. They were already sniffing each other.

Shazam gave a thumbs down and set her
food onto the ground. I watched a series of almost mechanical
movements as she stood up and walked towards them clapping loudly.
They both perked their heads up to stare at Shazam.

“Need help?” I asked.

She shook her head briefly and
proceeded to separate them. One was tied in place and the other
bolted to a location twenty feet away.

I tried to scroll through my
autopilot’s history even further. The bits of information being
presented painted a simple enough picture. According to the
computer’s text I had fallen, nearly died, been healed, walked
down the mountain and picked up two [Catiburr]s for travel.

The last of my meal was slowly chewed.
This was kind of neat. We must have left right after my character
exited the glitch space. Oh, that reminded me of another issue. I
flipped back through information logs and walls of text from my
autopilot time in order to figure out how the bug reporting process
had gone.

[Morrigu’s Gift]
ground into the dirt. Its staff form was handy for taking my
frustrations out on local fauna and geology. Now there were two
reasons for reaching a [Porter].

Finally, my tube for sending messages
to the Voices started rapidly warming. I set down [Morrigu’s
Gift] and tore off one end of the case. A message popped out.

Shazam watched with a passive
expression. If her meal was hot she showed no concern. I read the
results from James eagerly.

“Damn.” Right, James
wanted answers before providing much in the way of information.

Shazam put out one hand towards the
letter in my hand. Providing her the letter wouldn’t hurt
anything and might also help in completing the quest with her. I
forked the parchment over and went about answering James.

My silent babysitter pointed at the
response I was writing.

“Oh. I’m writing to my
Voice, I chose James.”

She put her thumbs up and did the
‘which’ gesture. Shazam likely wanted more information so
I started rambling while trying to scribble out a status up.

“I chose a Voice named James.
He’s a large black guy who loves asking questions.” I
said.

Shazam gave a thumbs up and did the
‘which’ gesture again.

“He’s nice enough, but
there’s always extra hoops to jump through. How is your Voice?
Does she at least answer your questions?” I had to figure out
how to get Shazam talking about herself.

The response was a thumb down.

“No? She doesn’t answer
your questions?” I asked. Shazam shook her head in the negative
and then shrugged. She pointed at the quill and parchment in my
hands.

“Hold on. I’ll read it.”
I wrapped up my message to James and decided to read it out loud to
Shazam.

“I’m not sure about this
player Requiem Mass. He responds with violence when angered and is
fighting against another Traveler. I need to observe them more before
figuring out how to overcome my bindings.” The message should
be clear enough for James.

Shazam didn’t show any signs of
having suggestions on my text. I shrugged and sent the message
through the tube. Now would begin another round of waiting. Shazam
stared at me for a moment longer and nodded slowly. Moments later she
was unrolling the rest of our campsite. One finger pointed towards a
cot for me while she went into another tent and closed the flap.

“Thanks for taking care of me,”
I said towards her tent. There was no response from her in any
fashion.

Being alone in the wilderness had been
odd the first few nights. Most of the time I logged off and let the
autopilot do its thing. Who would actually sleep in-game? The few
times I had tried left me feeling even less rested than before.

An hour later and my Voice
finally sent a response.

I scribbled yes down onto another of
my endless parchment supply. The next question was trying to figure
out exactly what to say to Xin.

I laughed to myself and tried not to
feel emotionally torn up inside. She was dead, but she was alive. I
was writing her a letter in a fantasy world camped out next to
creatures that were both horses and rabbits. Maybe none of this was
real, maybe I had finally broken down and disconnected from
everything else in the world

More words were put to paper, parts
were crossed out and hastily reworded. There was only so much
sunlight left and I had to try and tell her everything while trying
not to sound desperate. Anything in hopes that she would write me
back an equally long letter. Finally, the sun had vanished
completely. Even Dusk was passed out next to me looking content from
his excursions.

The message was slowly put into the
tube. Once again the insanity of my situation raised concern. None of
this would have even seemed possible to me if I hadn’t seen
William Carver’s autopilot.

What was it that little girl Voice had
said? Some people have more of them here than others. Trillium’s
Vice President Riley had advised me that Xin was one of the first
testers of an ARC. If William Carver and his virtual years within
Continue had created someone so lifelike, wouldn’t Xin Yu be
that much more real?

What did we define as a person anyway?
Was it the sum of their memories? Was there something more?

A box popped up notifying me that my
consciousness was being relocated. Part of me welcomed the
distraction of Requiem Mass and his arrogant point of view. It was
that or bite my nails for hours wondering exactly what Xin might
write and exactly how insane this all was.

Session Thirty Two – To the Letter

Requiem Mass was busy cleaning up the
latest round of monsters to be hunted down. He kept counting to
himself while muttering about how a billion more were needed in order
to make some recipe. Honestly anytime Requiem opened his mouth I
started to lose focus.

For three game days, we had been
chasing down these zombie monkey creatures and chopping their tails
off. My job was either to be bait or something similar. Nothing was
working as I had hoped.

“Hold that one! Right now!”
Requiem shouted. He pointed one hand at a middle ranked monkey. This
one was slightly bigger than the others.

I gave in to the order. This wasn’t
the type of thing worth fighting over anyway. Death by monster just
meant finally returning to the Hermes body.

“Keep holding him!” The
Traveler ordered. One of his hands slipped a sword into its holster
and generated a giant trail of flame. It licked across the landscape
and tore into the undead monkey I was grappling.

The heat felt warm and mildly
pleasant. That was a change from Requiem’s normal idea of
discipline. Messages of [Fire Immunity] rippled across my
screen as the last of the flames passed and the monkey screamed
loudly before collapsing.

“Another one!” Requiem
pointed to our next target. These undead had no brains or they would
run. “Hold that one! Right now!”

Some skirmishes were easier to find
opportunities for Requiem’s murder than others. The system was
tracking my attempts happily and the totals were getting high. I had
defied him forty-six times. I had followed instructions erroneously
sixteen times. Two direct attacks failed to succeed. Efforts to
launch the shape-shifting [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift]
through his backside ended up as a nearly comical poke.

That event made me laugh myself silly
and resulted in another beating. My [Red Imp] character did
not have the acting chops of my primary one. Hermes could have
probably dropped a tree on Requiem and gotten away with a single
‘oops’. That had worked for me within the resurrection
zone.

Hours after our monkey fighting,
Requiem settled down for sleep and left me with an order to gather
herbs. For two game hours, I gathered plants from all over the area.
There were stacks of badly uprooted plants that were about to be used
in another virtual murder attempt.

Now they were being returned, in mass,
all at once and over his stupid snoring face. Hopefully, he would
breathe them in and choke. I was constantly trying to figure out the
fine line on what the system allowed and didn’t.

“Mmfgh!” Requiem sat up
spitting out a ton of small leaves. While he sputtered I dropped two
more armfuls on his face from above. “What the, what is this?!”

“Herb forpotion things!” I
shouted happily. Slowly these skills would pay off. [Identification]
let me find a few poisonous plants to insert with my presents. “I
gatheredthem, just like youordered!”

He ignored my shouts which meant my
latest attempt had failed. The only consolation was that Requiem’s
sleep was ruined. He put all the items into player inventory then
collapsed with exhaustion. I was unsure why he didn’t log out
to sleep like a normal person.

Eight hours of rest in-game was only
two hours in the real world. His brain must be half broken to keep up
that schedule for long. When I came back with a second mass of plants
and threw them at his face the results were predictable. He sputtered
and brushed off dirt, leaves, and other goo. Moments later I was
ordered to stand in one place all night and not move.

Requiem refused to let my summons
release for whatever reason. Still, his actions did me no harm. I
logged out and went to sleep. Sticking around only increased my
synchronization bar. Three in-game days had ground my bar up to fifty
percent. The reward was neat.

[Red Imp]s had
proven amusing, except for the whole stumpy legs that were unable to
dance. Humming still worked until Requiem ordered a cessation of the
noise forever. The young Traveler seemed intent upon micromanaging me
into oblivion.

On the plus side, three days of flying
around in-game had improved my coordination with these wings. I was
fairly confident in being able to avoid most tree trunks. Finer
hairpin turns were beyond me, however.

[Blink] was even neater and
insanely hard to use. It would teleport me a short distance according
to the text. There was no solid trigger at the moment. It wasn’t
like I could shout ‘Blink!’ and change locations. The
game relied heavily on mental imagery similar to [Morrigu’s
Gift]. My few private attempts had awkwardly missed the target.

I refused to practice [Blink]
in front of Requiem Mass. That young man was driving me insane with
his conniving attitude. The minute I showed any new skill he found a
way to abuse it. [Fire Immunity] resulted in holding rotting
monkeys with rectal problems while trying not to retch.

After a good rest, I loaded up my
remote ARC display to see what was going on. Requiem was busy forcing
my [Red Imp] avatar to lure in more undead monkeys. I found
myself laughing around breakfast as the [Red Imp] stabbed
monkeys out of decrepit trees right over Requiem’s head. One,
two, and finally twelve rotting monsters were brought down. The
autopilot went quickly and tried to aggro the entire region.

Requiem just took it. I snickered to
myself, finished the remaining food, and logged into my ARC.
Something had shown on the side of my Continue Online remote display
that required a personal touch. Maybe attempt thirty-eight at digital
elimination would be effective.

Once inside I paused and spun around.
Getting my bearings always took a moment. There was a specific area
that had caught my attention.

“Imp!” Requiem was
shouting at me while monkeys gibbered.

The realism in this game had taken
weeks to get over. Even now they kept throwing new gross objects at
me. These simians’ mouths were falling apart. Some had broken
jaws. Others had mold-ridden tails and most had no control over their
sphincters.

“What?” I shouted. Requiem
Mass was to the left. Monsters were all around us. That meant my
target was forward and right.

“Fight these monsters!”
Requiem yelled.

“Yes, Requisite Ass! Right
away!” I shouted while flying at high speed. I had no clue what
the Traveler had ordered me to do.

There, just past a motley series of
trees was my goal. A monstrous rotten ape that was hidden away. My
unique remote view of the [Red Imp] had happened upon the boss
level creature. The autopilot would never have noticed it.

“No! Fight these ones over
here!” Requiem ordered me. He was busy shouting over the crazy
monkeys’ garbled chattering.

“When?” I shouted back
with my high pitched imp body. It bought a few more seconds for this
reckless idea. The boss giant ape thing was just through the wall of
withered bushes. I lined up my pitchfork weapon.

“What is wrong with you?!”
Requiem demanded. The answer was clear, a lot of things were wrong
with me. “Now, of course! Now!”

I braced myself against the impending
damage for insubordination. Now was far too absolute a word. The
[Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] elongated quickly and jabbed
towards its target.

Pain tore at my neck. The
monster I had poked also let loose its gurgled roar. A [Dazed]
message appeared complete with an associated symbol. Next to that was
a countdown. My tiny [Red Imp] mouth spewed forth a long line
of words that had to be curses in demonic. I tried to flutter the
tiny wings on my back and return to Requiem Mass.

The monster burst through the bushes
behind me as I regained enough control to lift off. A small box
appeared telling me exactly what I had stabbed.

“Ifound one!” I
shouted while fluttering madly.

“No, you worthless idiot!”
Requiem was waving his hands and a message popped up on my screen. I
had managed to right my flying enough to speed at the Traveler.
Behind me, branches cracked under the pressure of a thundering beast.

What was he doing? Things were going
to be neat in just a moment! The Biggest Butthole was like two
rotting [Snowmen] shoved together. Even I could handle that.
Give or take whatever super powers a unique creature had.

“Nowait, thisone
needs stabbings!” That wasn’t what I wanted at all! He
was too far away. “Allthe stabbings!” The Biggest
Butthole versus Requisite Ass would be a glorious fight to instigate.
Who would win? Would Requiem be chewed up and spit out? These
questions demanded answers.

“Nooo!” The scene in front
of me swirled away in a wash of colors. Fine. I couldn’t win
them all.

When everything synced up with the
Hermes character I was in a town. I grumbled for a good ten minutes
before sighing and letting the disappointment fade away. Now was the
time to be positive. That latest attempt had been a good one. Plus
the autopilot for Hermes had finally made it to a decently sized
town!

This place was nothing like [Haven
Valley]. My starter town from the Age of Carver had been scenic
and peaceful. Here the buildings were far more militaristic in
design. [Haven Valley] had small guard posts. This place had
huge walls separating portions of the city. People in armor patrolled
the tops of walls and were clearly equipped with swords and horns.

Shazam passed a hand in front of my
face. I turned to look at her. Her arms waved around and she pointed
to a few of the buildings nearby. I followed her gaze to a series of
shops. Oh. She must be asking if I wanted to get anything.

“I need to visit a Porter!”
I shouted. Working with Requiem had warped my speech habits a little.
Passersby looked at me oddly. Shazam nodded and our two [Caliburrr]s
changed direction.

There were a lot of Travelers like
myself running around. They all wore different items and pieces of
equipment. There were a few that clearly followed warrior paths. I
could make out some in decorative clothing that likely had no combat
value. One lady was escorting a giant creature that looked like a
wingless dragon. Its eyes had no focus.

I took it all in happily. Being in a
city was so much better than the dead scenery of Requiem’s
location. Everything there was either rotting or decrepit. His mind
had to be warped to stand being there for months in-game.

Oh! There was one issue far more
important to me than Requiem’s silly problems. By now I should
have a response from Xin. Hopefully. I scrambled to find the
messenger’s tube. My channel to the Voices above was inside my
leather chest piece. As I twisted off the top and peeked inside a
system message popped into view.

“Seriously? I hate you so much!”
I shook my free fist at the system box. It did no good. “I
don’t want to!”

People looked at me weird. I looked at
my pop-up messages with confusion. The [Caliburr]s were
probably winking at each other. Shazam didn’t bat an eyelash.
Then pain rippled through me.

“What the?” My
neck burned. I was in the Hermes character and pain was trying to
send me to the ground. This character was not the [Red Imp]!
The bar for my health dropped ten percent.

Shazam raised an eyebrow and pointed.
I groaned as another wave of agony passed along with a summons
resisted message. My fingers tried to pull out the parchment barely
visible inside the messenger’s tube. Another bout of agony
nearly knocked me out of the straps holding me on the [Caliburr].
Each wave was doing more damage. I shook and ground my teeth together
while trying to read a few lines.

My eyes clenched tightly
and I tried not to lose it. Gee. That was her name for me. It was
Xin, it had to be her somehow. There was an insane wall of text to go
through, but I held off on reading it as emotions racked through me.

I didn’t feel actual pain
anymore. It was like those few lines had washed all the worry away
and left behind euphoria. My eyes opened to read the remaining text.
Only now there was no parchment, no messenger’s tube, no
[Caliburr].

Chubby reddened hands held a tight
grip upon the blackened pitchfork. Requiem was snarling nearby. I
started shaking and huffing. Never had I been more upset at another
human being. There was so much more in that letter and it wasn’t
in my chubby little hands!

“What the hell is wrong with
you?” Requiem said. There were deader monkeys all around him.
He was busy picking through bodies and tearing off pieces.

“Whatswrong with me? Me!”
I broke and tried to stab him repeatedly with the [Echo of
Morrigu’s Gift]. “I’ll kill you! I’ll
killyou, youstupid self-centered little brat!”

“Little? That rich, coming from
an imp.” He shook his head and stood there. “You can’t
hurt me.” Each attempt at stabbings failed. My health kept
falling. The pain was nothing against my sheer anger. “Stop
that,” Requiem ordered.

I paused briefly to obey then drove
the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] at his face. It fell short
by almost half a foot, but Requiem still flinched.

“How are you doing that?”
He managed to regain control of his broken voice.

“Ido exactly asyou ordered.”
Shouting it out loud sent a moment of clarity through me. I was only
playing around with words and not truly using them to their fullest
effect.

“For like, two seconds.”
He stooped back down to work on gathering more loot items. I jammed
the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] at one of the deceased
monkeys and tried my darnedest to ruin the items.

“Stop attacking and go stand
over there until I tell you to stop,” Requiem said while
pointing a finger off to one side.

“It’s notmyfault you’re
stupid,” I said. Jabbing him was clearly impossible. There was
something to his question, though. Timeout was a good place to think.
My mind ran through the rules again.

Rule one. I must do exactly as Requiem
ordered. This one I had spent the better part of two real days
playing around with. It was easy enough to bend this portion all up
one side and down the other. If he didn’t add a duration to his
order I could obey it for seconds or forever.

Rule two, I couldn’t lie to him.
Most of the methods around this had involved clever wordplay with my
answers. It was very hard to actually lie because Continue Online was
making my [Red Imp] body say things too quickly.

Rule three was the problem. My issue
was that I had been looking at it all wrong. His order had been to
not directly harm him or conspire. I logged out of Continue briefly
and left the [Red Imp]’s autopilot running. In my
Atrium, I shouted a command line.

“ARC, define conspire,” I
told the machine.

“Conspire, make secret plans
jointly to commit an unlawful or harmful act.” The machine
answered.

I smiled. That was the answer. Requiem
had prevented doing things in secret and directly harming him. If I
worked with monster NPCs then that was conspiring. If I openly
arranged accidents then it wasn’t a conspiracy. That’s
why throwing a pile of leaves in his mouth worked but luring mobs to
him caused pain.

Once back into Continue Online, I
turned around and stared at Requiem. He was trying to loot another
monster. I whipped out the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] at
the bodies he was trying to skin. My suddenly extended pitchfork
skewed one of the creature’s eyes.

“Why do you insist on bending
the rules? Do I not feed you enough cupcakes or something?”
Requiem rolled his eyes at my latest attempt to interfere.

“It’s notmyfault you’re
stupid,” I said to him again. “Toostupid. I’m
going, to get you, killed.”

That made Requiem stare at me. My wide
grin all full of teeth must have disturbed him. He actually blanched.
A moment later and the expression was gone as the Traveler studied
me.

“How? You were ordered not to
harm me.” Requiem sounded exactly like a spoiled teenage brat
melting down.

“Hah!” I outright laughed
and tried to give it my best imp tone. “Slow dumbbrain.”
The synchronization bar constantly flipped up and down depending on
how fast or slow I talked.

“I order you to tell me exactly
how you plan to get me killed.” Requiem’s hand sat on one
of his two swords. His other arm was inside a pocket grabbing at
something.

“Say the rules forme, onemore
time.” I chattered happily. Requiem went through the first two.
My grin was even wider than normal when mocking the other Traveler. I
took delight in seeing Requiem’s eyes widen as we both recited
the last rule.

“You cannot harm me directly or
conspire to harm me,” He said.

“Dingding ding!” I spun
the pitchfork and planted it into the ground triumphantly. “Conspire
is defined as secret plans jointly. Not asecret anymore! I want
youtodie!”

“What?” He
asked.

“I, want, you, to, die.” I
could understand why [Red Imp]s disliked slow people. Just
this conversation was irritating me.

“You still can’t harm me
directly.” Requiem curled his lips and lost color. I started
laughing. This was a clear way to get to Requiem. “Why must you
continue to argue with me, why can’t you do what I want?”

“There’s more tolife than
the self-centered demands ofaboy such as yourself.” I bit each
word out. This whole situation had pissed me off.

“You know nothing of what I’ve
been through.” He said.

“You giveme no timetomy self.”
I looked at him. Maybe Requiem would get so pissed that my summons
would be released and this game would return to the Hermes program.
Reading the remaining letter was important. Seeing a [Porter]
would help me get a glitch reward and contact Beth in-game.

Requiem nodded slowly as his lips
curled downward. The nodding quickly accelerated and he looked off to
where The Biggest Butthole had been. “Fine. Let’s try
something different.”

Both eyes rolled so hard I almost
passed out. The ground around me was completely gross and my legs
were half sunk into it. This was the type of disgusting environment
that Requiem had stuck me with for days.

“Stand here. Don’t move.
At all. Do that and I’ll let you have a day off afterward. You
spend it in the hell hole you came from.” Requiem tilted his
head and stared at me. “Deal?”

I smiled. This was a win-win for me.
“Whynot? Sure.”

Requiem turned away. He clearly
intended to put my [Red Imp] self in its place. I watched his
actions happily. Whatever he planned would probably be neat. It would
also show me how far he could go.

Where was he walking? That direction
is where the unique mob The Biggest Butthole was. Did he intend to
fight the creature? Oh neat, Requiem totally did.

He pulled one of his seemingly endless
supply of throwing knives and tossed it straight into the dead bushes
towards The Biggest Butthole. Air vibrated as the creature let out a
roar. I was far enough away that no daze notification popped up.
Requiem didn’t seem to be affected as he pulled back a bit.

Then things got really crazy. Normally
only the blades in his hands had any sort of special effects. Requiem
often used fire and the trail of ash that followed his right blade
while fighting. Now there was a new effect, Requiem’s skin
started to glow with a deep blue light.

The ability making him light up also
increased Requiem’s speed. He lifted the blade and parried one
of The Biggest Butthole’s giant rotten fists. Small bits of
skin flaked off into the mire around us. That wasn’t enough to
stop the unique boss monster, though. Another series of attacks were
exchanged. With each swing of the giant creature’s fists,
Requiem would back up and parry away the blow.

It was working. I could see the health
bar of the large creature dropping steadily. It was at ninety percent
now and Requiem hadn’t even busted out any of his combat
spells. The young man may be an abusive ass with the relationship
skills of a bratty five-year-old, but he was damned good at the game.

I took notes and wondered if there was
something to this two weapon fighting style. The Biggest Butthole
lifted a fist and pounded down on the ground. Requiem leapt into the
air as landscape rippled. He had an absurd four seconds of hang time
which he spent charging up a chantless wave of flame.

His spells seemed to be less effective
than TinkerHell’s frost abilities. Maybe Requiem had a lower
caster Rank or less skill. He was also generating the spells without
using a circle or etched out [Lithium] runes. One day I would
figure out this game’s magic system.

Requiem had ordered me to stay in
place. There were at least three chances to place objects for maximum
slippage or accidental impalings. Not that any of my prior attempts
had been successful.

The Biggest Butthole shouted and his
arm bulged. It grossly bulked to at least fifty percent larger than
normal. His fist swung quickly and caught Requiem Mass in his
midsection and carried him around. They spun in a circle and I
cackled happily seeing Requiem’s face turn green.

That monstrous arm carried Requiem
right into the rotting trunk of a tree. Wood pieces shattered
everywhere and Requiem’s health bar plummeted.

“Ahhhh!” All the air left
his body in a rush.

“You’re doinga greatjob!”
I happily encouraged him in getting hit. Maybe he got neat pop-up
messages like I did. That latest slam could say ‘Shafted by The
Biggest Butthole!’.

“Oh, this is nothing.” He
muttered. “Nothing at…” His words were cut off by
The Biggest Butthole raising both arms and roaring out. Requiem
winced from the loud noise but seemed unfazed.

The giant unique boss monster hurled
nearby objects and Requiem dodged the first two. The third scraped
his face. Requiem grinned and the aura about his body kicked up
another notch. The blue light shifted from deep blue to azure.

Healthwise they were about even. I
marveled at the small bits of the landscape being torn up. Pieces of
The Biggest Butthole flaking off had made it over here along with
chunks of broken trees. I stood there watching the fight with wide
excited eyes.

Requiem leapt towards The Biggest
Butthole and swung his blade. A trail of ash seared into the
creature’s face. It grasped at the Traveler but missed. Another
roar sounded out as the boss monster tore at his face to try and
clear away the obstructing flakes.

There. Requiem was ten feet away and
actually chanting something. It sounded like the same [Lithium]
language that TinkerHell had spoken. A small pop-up box dinged in
front of me.

“Huh?” I said
and poked at the air with one finger.

“Ghost of a dead sun! Shadow of
a singularity!” Requiem shouted.

“Really?” I was horrified
by the idea that [Lithium] spells were poetry in another
language. I said a prayer above and hoped that was a silly
translation issue.

“Draw all into your grasp! Let
nothing escape!” Requiem continued his chant while doing a
series of hand gestures.

Oh, Voices above, that was too much. I
would rather have a box of crayons or use nothing but scrolls for the
rest of my game life. I did not want to learn magic if reciting lame
word strings would be required.

His two swords had been planted into
the ground on either side during his chanting. Quickly he picked up
the darker weapon that had been fairly unremarkable until now. I
watched as the blue aura about him brightened and seemed to reach a
sky blue peak.

All the extra blue energy compressed
to his arms, then his hands, and finally up to the sword. His weapon
was blazing brightly with the transferred energy.

Requiem charged at The Biggest
Butthole, who was still clawing at its own face in outrage. The sword
jab went straight into the air in front of the boss monster. As it
pulled back the blue energy compressed even further until it was a
drop of water on Requiem’s withdrawing sword.

The Biggest Butthole cleared its
vision just in time to stare crossed eyed at the small drop of water.
It released from the sword tip and hovered there in wonder for a
second before unleashing a pulse. Everything nearby was pushed back
half an inch and then sucked inward.

My light body was no exception. I
scrambled for the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] which was
digging into the ground. My tail tried to find extra purchase. Over
my shoulder, I could see the two fighters both reacting very
differently. Requiem was full on leaning backward against the sudden
shift in gravity. The Biggest Butthole gave one large roar before his
head was yanked into the bright blue water droplet of energy.

That jerk of a Traveler had a mini
black hole spell. Everything drug towards the special move Requiem
had unleashed for a few seconds before the pressure released. I
dropped to the ground with a stutter. Sharp teeth bit into my lip and
made me grunt. My tiny [Red Imp] kneecap felt like it was
banged hard and the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] had slapped
me in the face.

“Neat.” I uttered a
statement completely against the [Red Imp] personality. My
synchronization bar dropped two percent because of it.

“Good. Most of it is still
intact. Hopefully, it dropped something useful.” Requiem
muttered. He looked exhausted beyond belief. I could see the health
bar above his head was below half but not critical.

I tilted my head and stabbed the [Echo
of Morrigu’s Gift] into the ground repeatedly. That mini
black hole type move had torn The Biggest Butthole’s head
completely off and left a small waft of smoke. The body stood for a
moment before both of the monster's knees gave out and everything
toppled over.

“Now do you understand? You
can’t possibly kill me.” Requiem said while looking at
me. This Traveler was far beyond both my [Red Imp] familiar
self and the Hermes character. His super move was more impressive
than William Carver's heroic slash.

I was playing the part of a sinister
familiar out to get his master killed. This called for my best evil
smile and proper [Red Imp] commentary. “You are tooslow
andstupid.”

“How can you say that?” He
asked.

“Now I know your weakness.”
I had no clue what his weakness was. Requiem looked panicked for a
moment and shoved his hand into a coat pocket. He did that motion a
lot when the fight looked tough. Was there something in there?

The Traveler must have one more trump
card up his sleeve. The question was, how could I use it against him
to complete this silly quest?

“Get out of here.” Requiem
waved a hand and the release of my summons started.

Session Thirty Three – Until Morale Improves

There was a huge wall of Travelers
around me. They were crowded over a series of bulletin boards like
the ones from [Camp Grey Skull]. Some clustered together to
chat. More were arguing over the price of seemingly random items. I
ignored all of them and read the rest of Xin’s letter.

I hung my head and sighed.
Of course, she would remember the one time I fell asleep on the
phone. Xin had woken me from a dead sleep and unloaded. Normally she
was very curt with her answers but something about the launch had her
rattled. My fiancée chattered away for hours while I tried to
utter complex responses.

The message went on. I
tried not to gasp while reading it. A few of the other Travelers
looked over my shoulder to see what the fuss was about. Dusk snapped
in their faces and completely confused a couple. Soon they left a
small bubble around me and went about their business.

Voices above. This was insane to read.
I tried to remember how Xin had written her text messages. This
letter was a lot more formal than anything we had exchanged. That
didn’t mean it was fake or written by a program messing with
me, did it?

It was crazy to pin my happiness on a
copy of the woman I had loved. Absolutely crazy. What would her
father think of this? No, I couldn’t tell anybody at all. This
had me on an emotional roller coaster and questioning my sanity.
Subjecting anyone else to it would be asking for a trip to the
asylum.

It was time to distract myself again.
If I focused on the letter too much then the result would be a
complete mental breakdown. A normal person would have asked how a
computerized reaction of Xin knew memories from before Continue
Online.

A strong hand grabbed the top of my
head and turned it to the side. I was distracted and didn’t
even resist as Shazam came into view.

“Sorry. It’s me.” I
tried to make sure she knew it was me right away. Shazam was probably
used to dragging my autopilot around.

She gave a thumbs up then pointed off
to the side. Past the walls of bulletins, there was a single room. A
line was formed up outside the door and dozens of people were waiting
to walk in.

“What’s in there?” I
asked. That line was long, but it was moving.

Shazam pointed at me then to the room.
She repeated the motion a few times. There was a symbol up above the
doorway that looked like an infinity sign gone Goth if such a thing
were possible.

“So I should go over there?”
I stared at the picture up above and felt confused.

She nodded and pushed me off towards
the line. I clutched Xin’s letter and tried to clarify what was
going on.

“Is that the Porter?” I
asked.

She stopped pushing and gave two
thumbs up. If it wasn’t for her complete lack of facial
expression I would have called the double thumbs up condescending.
Like I had guessed something amazingly obvious and was now on par
with a fifth grader.

I went to the line and reread Xin’s
letter multiple times. People gave me a weird look when they saw Dusk
on my shoulder. Shazam didn’t join me. She poked through the
boards. Their contents were a mystery. I wanted to take a look after
dealing with this [Porter] issue.

Time passed. I used a nearby wall to
scribble out notes on how to respond. It was high school note passing
all over again. A half hour later someone risked tapping on my
shoulder. The person behind me coughed and pointed at the empty line
in front of me.

“Sorry.” I put the letter
up and hustled inside.

This felt oddly like a bathroom stall.
There was a line of orbs. They were strangely out of place with
everything else in Continue Online. Each orb was on a smooth pedestal
and there was an alcove behind it.

Everyone else was walking up to them
and placing their hands on the orb. One person crowded out through
the doorway behind me and another came in immediately. Xin had
written it, when in Rome, do as the Romans.

Putting my hands on the orb caused the
orb to come to life. Deep inside the core, a spark lit up. Light
scanned over my body and lingered on the eyes, obliterating my
vision. I blinked rapidly and tried to shake it off.

Inside the alcove was a
list that went on and on. It outlined all the same stuff that was in
my character profile and had a few other giant glowing buttons. I
twisted my face and tried to figure out what was so special about a
[Porter].

“First time?” The man next
to me asked. I glanced over and saw a man who had to be nearly fifty
standing there happily. He was seriously wearing what amounted to
silk pajamas. The man had one hand halfway down the backside of his
pants scratching.

I ignored the possible innuendo and
answered “Yes.”

“Some of us whittle down our
interfaces and never look at anything outside of the Porters,”
He said. The man grumbled and switched which hand was on the orb and
which was down his pants scratching.

“Why?” I asked absently.
Above my character information was a menu of sorts. One said ‘social’
and another read ‘mail’.

“There’s a theory that you
get high gains that way.” He seemed dissatisfied with the
scratching based on his continued grumbles. While he was chatting, I
focused on the menu options to one side. A small keyboard popped up
in front of me.

“Any actual proof?” I
asked. His idea seemed rather interesting. Beth had said something a
while ago about one of her friends using a scroll to read everything.
There, there was clearly a box for adding someone to a friend’s
list.

“Not an ounce, but it’s
fun to go all natural in the game. It’s a change of pace from
the real world, you know?” He said.

“I can see how it might be.”
I scanned the list of names resulting. There was a whole wall of them
with basic information and titles. One of them was a Rank sixteen
All-Star mage. That had to be my niece, Beth.

“Yeah. All that technology out
there and we’re drowning in it. Anyway, I’m done, enjoy
the game.” The man next to me shrugged and walked off while
holding his pants with one hand.

“Bye.” I waved with one
hand and finished typing out my message. Hopefully, this text would
make sense. After a moment of hesitation, I pressed the final button.

Okay. One task was
completed. Now I had to figure out how to get my glitch reward. There
had been another menu option for ‘mail’, that would be my
next stop.

The old man next to me was traded out
for a girl with a rainbow colored mohawk. She was far less talkative.
At her belt was a series of small axes. I guess there really was a
play style for everyone.

I shook my head and focused on the
floating menu in its alcove. After a few moments of scattered
concentration, I managed to get the mail pop-up to respond. If this
room had been more private than perhaps this would have been done
sooner.

“Well, yeah,” I
muttered. Of course, I wanted to open these letters and see what was
in them! Receiving two was already more than expected. The first one
opened with a bit of fireworks and a sound of coins rattling.

I whistled slowly. It had
been around two months in-game and someone had already figured out
how to set up a Casino? Not to mention they seemed to be rolling in
cash. I vaguely remembered that my percentage of any earnings was
going to be amazingly minimal. Yet here it was, entirely too much
gold.

The accountant in me had run the
numbers a long time ago. It was one of the tasks that kept me
entertained while functioning as William Carver. One gold coin
roughly equaled ordering an exquisite lobster dinner for two plus
gratuity and wine. Doing the math, it was like someone had handed me
nearly five thousand dollars.

My eyebrows kept going up as the
realization hit me. Two months of game time and if there was a way to
convert gold to real money that would be a little bit more than a
heavy month of work on the outside world. All that and I had just
said some words to a Voice. This wasn’t even from me hunting
high-Rank items or farming specific spots.

“Neat. “ Finally, I shook
it off and went for letter number two. The mohawk girl stood there
poking at the air. On the other side was a mountainous man who had to
be half fat and half muscle. He was chewing on some toothpick that
looked more like a nail.

Right, as if I had found it
myself. This should have gone to Shazam for kicking me into it.
Still, I wanted to know what was going to happen. The pop-up box tied
to this latest message shimmered for a moment. There had been other
text on there about a sizable stat increase. Now it read completely
different.

I jerked my head to one side in
confusion. Was this a ring that acted like a second chance at life?
What had that shimmering been all about when the message was abruptly
replaced? Were the Voices behind this somehow? It wouldn’t be
the first time they interfered in my player actions. But why give me
a ring like this? Were they worried that I was too frail?

A long time must have passed. Someone
at the door coughed and I jerked out of the reflection abruptly. They
weren’t looking at me or commenting on anything. It was a
reminder that this place had a huge wait line. There was nothing else
in here for me right now anyway.

It was hard not to stumble out of the
door. The gold had been enough to confuse the heck of out me. Getting
a ring like that as part of my reward was another layer of crazy. It
was also extremely neat.

“Shazam?” I searched the
crowd for my silent guardian.

Dusk yawned in my ear before carefully
digging a claw into my shoulder. It wasn’t enough to hurt me,
but it was certainly attention-getting.

“What’s up, Dusk?”

The small dragon flew off. I stumbled
through the crowd after my darkly scaled pal. For the first time
since the [Messenger’s Pet] had started following me,
Dusk actually landed on someone else’s shoulder. He was sitting
with Shazam and staring at a wall of poster board items.

Shazam was wearing a dress. The
[Messenger’s Pet] kept looking at his own feet as he
moved around. Dusk was clearly trying to be careful about damaging
Shazam’s clothing. Most of her shoulders were uncovered save
for two dark blue straps. From this angle, it was clear that most of
her back was uncovered from the clothing’s cut.

I tilted my head while trying to
reconcile the woman in a dress with the one wearing armor. There was
a noticeably different aura between the two images. She looked
amazingly regal and almost seemed to glow. My head shook back and
forth slowly.

What? She had some skill
that triggered a charm just because I stared too long? The dress
alone couldn’t account for that. Shazam had no expression on
her face but still managed to have a friendly pose. Her hands were
moving around expressively at another man who wore a giant feathered
cap.

His hands rapidly moved back. It
looked like a far better version of the pantomiming that Shazam and I
engaged in. Clearly my game needed to be stepped up. Anything that
would better communicate with her. Learning baby signs for the words
fish or black wasn’t very helpful in a real conversation.

I stood nearby and stared at the wall
of pictures with their descriptions. My hand reached closer to one of
the postings and a system message displayed.

“Oh. Neat.” I muttered to
myself.

There was a series of pop-up boxes
telling me that it was possible to refine the search. It was strange
to see a virtual sort of auction house interface overlaying the old
fashioned notice boards. Maybe they could only go so far in
maintaining realism in a video game. Or maybe all these options could
be trimmed down like the older man at the [Porter] said.

I looked around a bit. Indeed, some of
the players were pulling down the actual notices then pinning them
back up. Others were standing nearby poking fingers at the air. It
seemed that each shopper could choose a different level of immersion
even in a place like this.

There were walls of items resulting,
but I pressed a few buttons and trimmed it down. Finally, there was a
wall of digital items displaying in front of me. All of them were
gambling related. I figured there would be something in here of use.
It was that or stare at player crafted chest pieces for hours.

“A deck of cards?” I set
eyes on one category that was a bit more interesting. They actually
looked like the perfect type of item to pick up for a traveling
player. “These prices are all over the board.”

Dusk chirped from Shazam’s
shoulder. I gave her a wave and she returned the greeting with a
thumbs up.

“I’m looking at decks of
cards.” It felt like I was repeating myself, but Shazam had
just arrived. “So we have something to pass the time with.
Maybe you can teach my autopilot to be a card shark.”

“You know this man?” The
man in a feathered hat sounded clear but soft. I turned away from my
wall of gambling items to inspect this newcomer. He was a bit shorter
than I which meant Shazam towered over him.

“She’s been helping me on
some quests,” I stated for us. Shazam gave her thumbs up and
then signed a wall of words to the man in the feathered hat.

“Arnold Sizeler.” The man
put out a sizable hand. He was small but had giant palms.

“Hermes.” I reached out
and shook. A year in face to face customer service had made some
reactions automatic.

“Hermes? Interesting.” He
said while signing at Shazam. It felt extremely weird having a
conversation where they were clearly talking about me, but I couldn’t
hear it.

“You’ve been traveling
together for nearly a month now?” Arnold raised an eyebrow at
Shazam. She gave a thumbs up which caused him to look at me and
smile.

“That sounds right.” I
waved my hand at the bulletin board. It was unlikely that he could
see everything on my interface. "I was just trying to find
something to keep us busy.”

“In the gambling items?”
Arnold Sizeler looked at the board. Shazam turned as well and started
poking at the various pieces of paper. She must use the manual
interface style.

“I’m not really good at
sewing or painting. A deck of cards is small and easy to use.”
I said. None of the trade skills sounded fun. Anything that deviated
from traveling seemed counterproductive as [Messenger of the
Voices]. Digging up ores, chopping trees, or picking plants also
sounded boring. Those players who cared enough to engage in gathering
were brave.

“Are you good at card games?”
Arnold asked.

“I like to think so. My entire
dorm back in college played almost every night.” I said while
reminiscing. Most of us tried to outsmart each other in various
versions of poker. It was an accountant pastime and killed a few
hours between mind-numbing homework assignments.

“Oh really?” He signed a
lot. I raised an eyebrow then went back to my auction board perusal.
“Shazam, Mistress of Games, says there’s no way you could
ever beat her in any card game of your choice.”

“We’ll see.” I did
have a huge minus to all gambling skills so she probably would win.
Oh well, it was better than staring at the grass. “Is that sign
language?”

“Yes.” Arnold Sizeler
moved his hands towards the much taller woman. He smiled and laughed
happily. “She also says you’ve been traveling with her
for weeks and are still a terrible communicator.”

“I’ve been distracted,”
I said.

“A quest?” Arnold asked.
He and Shazam exchanged a few more words with their sign language.

“Oh yeah,” I said. My lips
pursed to one side. “I seem to always have some weird quest.”

“Anything to do with your
similar titles?” He asked. Shazam started waving her hands
rapidly which made the feathered man chuckle. “Oh? It does?”

She firmly thumbed down.

“Fine, fine. I’ll ask
nothing more about that.” He put both arms up in a gesture of
backing off. Shazam stared blankly before the exchange of signs went
back and forth again.

“I’ll leave you two alone.
I have many more deals to get in place before I can call it a night.”
He bowed to Shazam and turned towards me. I waved goodbye as well.
Arnold tapped a finger on his lips then pointed towards me. “Oh,
before I go, a question.”

“Sure.” I shrugged. Dusk
leapt over to my shoulder and dug in with his claws. The poor little
guy must have been stressed sitting on Shazam’s shoulder
without hurting her.

“How long do you plan to travel
with Shazam?”

“Until she gets tired of me, I
guess.” I didn’t know a lot of people in-game. The idea
of hanging out with the hand-wringing Miss Yonks or Jacob and his
asinine commentary was not attractive. My niece hadn’t
responded to the message yet, not that I knew what would happen once
she did.

“No plans of your own?” He
asked.

“There’s some war thing
coming up that I’m looking into,” I said. Thinking about
my friend invite at the [Porter] brought to mind her guild
event.

“Oh? You must mean the
succession war for Telliari’s throne.” Arnold said.
[Telliari] was a large kingdom covering the land south of
[Haven Valley]. It might be neat to wind my way back around to
see how things were in William Carver’s old town.

“I haven’t got all the
details yet,” I said. This other quest with Requiem had
distracted me. That wasn’t even mentioning Xin’s
existence.

“Well, both sides are hiring a
number of mercenaries. It’s what I’m actually here
trading for. Wars aren’t cheap to fund.” Arnold smiled
happily.

“War rarely is.”

“At least it’s all
digital. Most of the fighters will be travelers as well, so hopefully
the general population of Arcadia will remain unharmed.” He
tipped his hat back a bit and looked up at us.

I thought about Mylia and her
orphanage. Maud and her gaggle of children passed through my mind.
This town was full of war fortifications. While I personally hadn’t
run into it, the conflict had likely torn entire kingdoms apart in
this game world. Finally, the only choice left was to shrug.

“Well, it’s a week away,
if you hurry then you should be able to pick a side and gather some
benefit. I’ve thrown in with the Prince myself.” Arnold
raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t have a side yet.”
I shook my head. Arnold and my niece both said this was going to be a
huge event. The idea of war against an army players was a bit off
putting. Requiem Mass was only excusable because it was a quest to
help Xin.

“How about you, my lady?”
Arnold asked. The hands waved back and forth. “Still refusing
to fight other players?” He asked out loud for my benefit.
“That’s understandable, player wars are one of the
reasons I stay here and manage money. It’s quieter.”

They signed back and forth a bit more
while I made a few small purchases. A new shirt, pants, some low-Rank
items that would help me stay clean out there in the world. Shazam
carried a lot of gear, but I couldn’t rely on her forever. It
was hard to balance my backpack’s weight load against the
[Light Body] skill but these shouldn’t push it too high.

“Hermes, I wish you luck.
Shazam, lovely as always.” Arnold wrapped up his conversation
and gave us a bow. Shazam returned his farewell by waving.

He walked off and I stared at Shazam.
“Terrible communicator, huh?”

She gave a thumbs up I hung my head
briefly and tried not to laugh. The dress hung about her shoulders
while clinging to her curves as she moved. I looked away before the
game made me resist another charm effect.

“Well, thanks for putting up
with me. I’m sure it can’t have been easy.” I said.
My own hands went back to the auction house display and poked at a
few more items. “Any suggestions on a good deck of cards?”

Shazam turned to stare at the wall.
Her arms hung to either side while she scanned over various
bulletins. Finally, the woman reached out and grabbed a few notices
down from the wall. A nearby Traveler protested as her hand dragged
something over what he was looking at. She just glared at him and the
other player blinked a few times before shrugging.

I tried not to chuckle and focused on
the items she had brought up for my attention. They were all
different decks of cards. The cheapest one was a deck of cards
similar to the one I had seen before. Way back in the room of trials.

“So you don’t use the
interface for auctions?” I asked. How she managed to pluck out
deck fliers from the wall was beyond me. There were ten or twenty
thousand items hanging around. Not to mention the people behind me
yelling about their wares.

Shazam gave me a thumbs down then
poked at two of the sheets.

“Between these two huh?” I
said. Both were expensive. Not that money was an issue at this point.
We spent most of the last few weeks hunting for food or working off
of whatever supply Shazam had gathered. My Hermes character was
mostly in her care while I dealt with Requiem Mass.

I was half tempted to flip a coin, but
honestly there was enough gold to buy both and still have some left
over. The items plopped into player inventory and gold vanished
accordingly. Hopefully no one else nearby heard those cash register
noises.

Shazam wandered the boards while I
inspected the items. I trusted her enough to buy the items without
too much investigation. The first one seemed to be a deck of cards
following Continue Online’s unique take.

Instead of diamonds there were
footprints on each card. Instead of a spade there was a scale of some
beast, probably a dragon. The third suit was a small fire hovering
over a brick. I wasn’t sure how the final two suits of a tooth
and sword hilt fell into things. While I was turning them over
looking at the numbers and other pictures Shazam tapped on my
shoulder.

“What?” She ignored my
questioning tone and reached over to grab all the cards. She threw
them all into the air.

“Ahh!” I managed to catch
a good number of them as they fell. It was surprising how many were
in my hands by the end of the scramble.

“Why?” I looked
at the system message and got confused. Scrambling to catch flying
cards had resulted in a bonus? My head shook back and forth.

Shazam gave me a thumbs up and then
tapped the card’s case three times. All the cards vanished from
their landing spots and reappeared inside the case. She handed it
back slowly.

“That is so weird,” I
said.

“Variance bonus.” Someone
near me said with a grump. I turned and saw the same old man from
before standing nearby in pajamas. “First time doing anything
new gives a bonus.”

“Thanks.” I shook my head
in puzzlement. Had my confusion been so evident that some nearly
random person had to comment on it? Judging by Shazam’s double
thumbs up the answer was yes.

“Mh.” Pajama man was still
holding up his pants with one hand. He stood staring at bulletins
much like Shazam did. There was no sign of his using a digital
interface.

I took the pack of cards back from
where Shazam had it pinched in her palm. People bumped around us to
get closer to the auction board. A much shorter man was walking a
path while shouting out nearby.

“Anyone interested in buying
unique mats? I gots a seller who has access to rare items from a
private region.” The extremely short fellow shouted. I looked
down briefly to see a man who was clearly grumpy. “If anyone’s
interested just let me know. I’ll be logged on for hours.”

I raised an eyebrow at Shazam.

“What region is it?” A
Traveler near me asked the short fellow hawking his specialty wares.

“Can’t say! But I gots
access to unique goods, recently my supplier got drops from a special
mob nicknamed The Biggest Butthole. I gots the stats written down for
anyone interested.” Said the short man. It took me a moment to
realize how angry his commentary made me.

Somehow Requiem Mass was sending items
to another player and making gold from them. A whole series of things
clicked together at that moment. The entire reason I was on this
quest was because the Voices were upset at Requiem Mass. This guy was
selling them under the guise of unique goods.

“Shazam,” I muttered. The
other Traveler turned and waved her hands in a questioning motion. “I
need to talk to that short guy over there.”

Her head turned to look at my target.
Her hands waved at me with that vaguely questioning tone. I took that
to mean Shazam wanted a reason for helping me.

“He can help my quest,” I
said. Shazam didn’t even hesitate. She grabbed the small man
and literally hauled him off to the side of the bulletin boards. Our
tiny captive protested, complained, and tried to claw at her hands.
All of it failed and we reached a vaguely secluded area.

Shazam lifted him in the air and held
him against the wall with both hands. Her head nodded towards me then
our captive. I stepped up and stared into the short man’s eyes.
They were a deep brown.

“That weapon you were talking
about, what was it?” I asked.

“It’s a fist weapon. But
don’t thinks dragging me off is gonna lower the price.”
He licked his lips and looked anywhere but at us.

“Oh? How much?” I nodded
and pretended to be interested in the price.

“Your bid gotta be at least four
hundred gold.” He looked me up and down and sneered. My clothes
were pretty low end on the price scale.

“And this came from what
monster?” I asked while trying not to think about how ratty
this avatar had become. Days on the road and being unable to groom my
autopilot likely didn’t help his impression. At least I wasn’t
standing around holding up silk pajamas with one hand.

“A unique mob called The Biggest
Butthole.” The short man replied while trying to swallow.

“And Requiem Mass gave this to
you?” I dropped the name of my least favorite player. Requiem
Mass was even worse than SheHulk at this point.

The small man went absolutely white.
“I don’t know where he is! Please don’t hit me!”

The flailing continued for quite some
time. Our little corner of the auction house was starting to get
gawkers. Shazam was expressionless as always, but their attention
bothered me.

“He tried to cut me out of some
business.” I waved happily to a Traveler nearby. The man stared
at me and the shorter person. It must be confusing as hell to see an
Amazon of a woman wearing a blue dress holding a little person
against a wall.

“What else?” I asked.
There was way more to this than just a simple sales transaction.
Requiem Mass was the type to milk every ounce he could from a
situation.

“I find people willing to buy
and charge what I can, I only gets twenty percent! It’s not
worth this! I dunno you. Let me go!” The protesting went on and
each time my mouth opened to ask the shorter fellow a question
another excuse came forth.

Maybe [Morrigu’s Gift]
could turn into a boxing glove and the man could be popped in the
face. A bell to ring over his head? A gong? None of those shapes had
been tried yet. I ran through a series of possible choices and follow
up questions while Shazam idly held the man up.

“Hermes? Can you put my friend
down? He and I have some business to finish.” Someone nearby
said. I turned to look at the newest visitor to our little
interrogation.

“Arnold?” I questioned. We
had just parted ways recently and now the traveler and his feathered
cap were back. “Why do you need him?”

“This fellow is suspected of
trading in-game goods for real money. It’s part of my job to
find these people.” Arnold shrugged and signed towards Shazam.
She gave a much slower response since one of her arms was being used
to hold up the little man.

“Wait you’re, you can have
a job in-game?” I was completely thrown off now.

“I get a substantial reward for
handling these sorts of situations.” Arnold had two rather
beefy looking nonplayer characters on either side. They seemed to be
cut from the same mold. Both were huge walls of muscle that probably
had extremely low [Intelligence] scores.

He stepped in closer and the two giant
goons sidestepped in with him. Our little alcove had very little room
to move. Shazam set her expressionless glare on the two goons and
they took a step back in unison. It made Arnold chuckle.

“I’m not even supposta be
in dis town! My scroll haywired all over and the game dropped me
here.” The man in Shazam’s grip was still giving out a
whole series of excuses. I filed the latest one away with a sigh.

It was too coincidental that someone
selling drops from Requiem Mass’ plundering would happen to
show up in the same town as I. There was clearly a lot of meddling
from above in today’s events.

“I’m done with him.”
I waved a hand dismissively.

“Shazam, my dear? Do you mind if
I take care of our diminutive friend?” Arnold asked while
stepping in closer. She shrugged and dropped the man.

Arnold and his goons swept in and took
over. I exited our corner of the auction house and leaned against a
wall. There were too many things to take in at once. Which one had
been the biggest shock?

Xin’s letter was intense. The
gold from my Casino payouts was neat. A stat bonus from catching
falling cards barely ranked. Topping the list was Requiem somehow
coordinating with other players to sell Continue Online goods for
real money.

My mind went through the math again.
Even if digital goods were far cheaper than real world equivalent
this was still a lot of money. That one weapon from The Biggest
Butthole had a bid of four hundred gold. Requiem was being far too
clever, and somehow the Voices expected me to bring him down.

Warmth radiated out from inside my
tunic. There was a message coming in from the Voices. I undid the cap
and slid out the small parchment. The note was simple and
frightening.

What? Why was a letter
signed with a smiley face? That wasn’t even a name! I tried to
think about all the Voices that I had run into during my time playing
this game. There were a lot, but only one fit the bill.

I swallowed again and felt a clammy
chill crawl over my skin. Today had been very busy.

Session Thirty Four – Eye on the Prize

I pulled a ten-hour shift for work.
With travel time and sleep on either end, it put me out of Continue
for nearly seven days. Every spare moment between jobs was used to
plan exactly how to get Requiem.

Nothing sounded perfect. Fighting him
personally would be nearly impossible with all the limitations in
place. The only good choice would be setting him up against this
other Traveler, Frankenstein.

Real life had a few routine issues to
resolve. Food was counted out and my upcoming calendar reviewed.
Things were good enough to survive a few days without me. Requiem
Mass and I were going to have a long drawn out session that involved
all sorts of prodding. Best case scenario, he would break and get
killed. Worst case he would unleash another round of beatings which
would allow me to take another nap before wading into [Red Imp]
land.

Pretending to be a little asshole was
emotionally releasing like beating people with a giant two-handed
sword. Something about it let me vent my inner angry man. Plus there
were always things to stab.

Logging in presented me with the
standard fare. Requiem had my character cornered and was ranting. I
wasn’t entirely sure what my autopilot had done this time.

“What now? What?” I yelled
quickly. There was a system box explaining roughly what had happened
during my absence.

What sort of nonsense was this?
Requiem was mad because I had almost killed him without even trying.
To top it off the game rewarded me for this absentee near success by
allowing me to create a back story. They very nerve of my autopilot,
showing me up like that.

“I’m gonna beat you
senseless.” He was shaking his head. I was fluttering both
wings madly up a tree. That didn’t stop Requiem from throwing
rocks at me. He wasn’t about to waste any real weapons on his
[Red Imp].

There was nothing else to do. I bent
over and showed Requiem Mass my little [Red Imp] rear end.
Shaking my ass at him made me break out laughing which resulted in a
shock of pain.

“What are you doing?”
He shouted while throwing another rock. I swayed left and dodged. One
hand lifted to pantomime my mouth being zipped shut and locked.
Shortly after I went back to shaking my rear at him. Silent
communication was fairly straight forward after weeks with Shazam.

I was too engaged with mooning Requiem
and took a rock straight to the left cheek. The attack caused me to
dip in the air. Requiem lunged for my leg. I beat my wings rapidly
and managed to get away fast enough. Part of me was fairly sure that
my nemesis could have easily captured me, but he seemed to be both
angry and conserving his skills.

“Bah! Fine, talk!” Requiem
turned while waving his hand dismissively.

“Testing!” I quickly
stated. “TestingTesting Testing!”

Requiem rolled his eyes. “For
what?”

“Testingfor stupid.” I
happily said. That earned another rock that was barely dodged.
Requiem hurled more in my direction for a solid minute while I gave
my best imp cackle.

“The fact that you’re even
testing just shows how idiotic you are.” He gave up once again
and walked back to a small camp. There was a fire-pit that looked
absolutely useless for disguising where the smoke came from.

“Maybe yourstupid is genetic!”
I said. Part of me felt really dirty for how I acted as a [Red
Imp]. Requiem was a jerk, but poking at other people to see which
way they squirmed wasn’t in my normal tendencies. The Voices
above were far better at it than I.

“What did you say?”
Requiem had responded exactly as hoped. He stomped closer to me and I
backed up into the air.

“Mother, orfather?” I
fluttered away to get distance. “Which oneisthe stupid?”

Still, I wanted more information about
Requiem as a person. In addition, there was this backstory
opportunity. It was like the game sensed that there was a plan in
place and started to throw new details at me. The Voices were
probably screwing with me too.

“Was yourfather adevil?” I
smiled. “Mothera succubus?” It had taken me a while to
figure out how to translate abusive asshole and whore into devilish.

“My parents are none of your
business,” Requiem said. He was strangely still.

“Aretheydead?” I prodded a
bit more and tried not to feel dirty.

Requiem paused and then smiled. “Yes.
I killed them.”

“Who’s the devil now?”
I smirked back but kept well out of his range. The Traveler was
giving off his need to punch people aura. It was one very familiar to
me after days of dealing with the teen.

“I suggest you shut up or we’ll
go back to trying to beat sense into you.” His voice cracked a
bit.

“Useless! Next question,
areyoureyes really that dumbgreen color?” I asked. There was a
tree branch nearby that was just barely within the ten-meter limit
allowed by my orders. Small jabs of pain for disobeying orders made
me relocate twice as Requiem moved around the camp.

“Why are you asking?”
Requiem was busy stirring something that smelled terrible over an
open flame. His face twisted and growled with each pass of the giant
ladle.

“I havea bigbrotherwho wants
visit youinyour world.” I tried to insert potential backstory
into the conversation. He seemed like the kind of player who was
anti-social in real life too. Not that my history had been any
better. Work and my family were the only real people I spoke to.

“You can’t do that, this
is a game.” He said while tapping the ladle against his pot.

“We’ll findaway. Brother’s
a lotsmarter thanyou.” I said. “Bigger. Meaner. Andhates
cats.”

“Yeah. Probably a lot smarter
than you too. Now, we’ve got to hunt a few more of these things
and I’ll have enough mats.” Requiem stood up and shook
his hands off. The pot was left behind to bubble with whatever
concoction Requiem had placed inside.

For the next day in-game I poked and
prodded at everything Requiem did. My taunting kept going, but none
of it seemed to distract Requiem. He was getting far too used to my
constant harassment. The Traveler was clearly suspicious of my
actions after the first few questions.

There was no way I was gullible enough
to believe all of his answers. He tried to talk to me about his cats
and that was clearly a lie. He couldn’t possibly love cats with
that attitude. It was more likely that Requiem tied any animals
belonging to his family to rockets or other flammables.

“Are your eyesthat funnyin
reallife?” I was back on the eyes after a quick autopilot
break.

“You’re not one to talk.
Whoever designed you gave you bug eyes.” Requiem was almost
bantering with me. That was a weird change in dynamic that had
developed after a few name calling sessions in the last day.

“Stupidheaddummy,” I
muttered while putting more thought into how to get Requiem.

Continue Online had rules for
character creation. I was now fairly certain that Requiem came from a
broken home of some sort. I was sure that he hadn’t altered his
character at all from reality.

Every bit of information was something
to use against him. Each item would be put into a list for yelling
out at the worst moments and hope that it distracted him in a fight.
Requiem loved these battles and attacked mobs like it was a lifelong
dream.

“You evergonna do thismission of
yours?” After a few more hours of dealing with Requiem and his
stupid undead monkey hunt, I moved on to the heart of the issue.

“I’ve told you before, I’m
biding my time. Freakinstain will get his once you’re ready.”
Requiem said. He was once again elbows deep in monkey guts and seemed
completely undisturbed by it. Even I, in all my [Red Imp]
glory, couldn’t wade into rotting bodies.

“OnceIam ready?” I
couldn’t stop the machine from letting a squeak out.

“Did you not listen? I can’t
kill him and take his quest item until you’re capable of
detecting Freakinstain in that stupid darkness cloud.” Requiem
yanked another tail out from the monkey’s back. It came apart
with a gross squelch of noise that made my tail shiver in disgust.

“Ooooh. Whydidn’t yousay
so?” I pretended to act surprised.

“I did. Many times.” The
Traveler stopped for a moment and he seemed to be staring into the
distance. That was a look that said ‘how did life get to this
point?’.

“Good. Whatsinit for me?”
I asked.

I happily checked my [Red
Imp]’s personality traits again. Defiant was something easy
to exercise. Being greedy and self-serving was easy to insert here.
Rude was natural to me. This whole clever thing was probably my many
attempts at bypassing Requiem’s orders and finding new ways to
off him.

So far I hadn’t let those traits
bleed over much into Hermes or real life. It was strange how a year
of pretending everything was okay for customer service had built
acting skills. Maybe everyone was an actor to some extent.

“You already got cupcakes.”
Requiem gave a dry response. Once again I thought about Dusk. He
would be free of this stupid binding and just fireball Requiem in the
face. That would be awesome.

“What else isthere?” I
tapped my foot while trying to remember the salsa beat. It was quick
and fast and saucy. My face turned up in disgust at this place. There
was nowhere to dance. That was the worst thing about these woods.

“You need more?” He asked.

“Paidtimeoff.” I spouted
the first thing in my head once again. It was awkward sometimes but
kind of fun. “Unionbreaks. Repersentation. Goldandjewels
andother shiny things. Plus thingsto stab. Like you.”

I watched Requiem shake his head
around trying to decipher the list of items to come out of my mouth.
He wasn’t the only one confused by the demands. Most of them
were utter nonsense to me.

“You’re saying you want
more, to help me with this quest,” Requiem stated. Once again
he stomped back to the pot and threw in our latest leftovers.

“Ofcourse. We allhave wants. You
only know the stick. No carrot. Stupiddumb head.” I said while
trying to give a feral grin.

“Well, I’m not giving you
any gold.” Requiem looked around at the camp. His eyes seemed
to be exhausted. Sitting out here for so long and being in-game most
of the time had to be draining. My constant badgering and now asking
for more was like piling straws on and hoping his back would break.

“I don’tknow why not. Your
havecontacts selling for you.” I pretended to be muttering the
words under my breath.

“How do you know about that?”
He took the bait.

“My brother.” I smiled
happily. Maybe the Voices would generate this poor nameless [Red
Imp] a big brother. Requiem needed more drama in his life.

“Yeah? Maybe I can meet this
brother of yours, he’s probably useful.”

“More likelytoeat you.” I
shrugged. Making up details about a fictional person was kind of fun.
“Justtheright spices and even you mightbesweet tasting.”

“I think that answers the
question on which one of us is a demon,” Requiem said. I almost
clamped a hand right over my mouth but managed to giggle instead.
Clearly the game was really warping any sense of humor the years had
given me.

“Anyway, I expecttoget
something. Anything useful. Oh, andaname. I’m tired of heyyou,
holdthat one.” I gave my nails a glance and frowned in
displeasure. They were sharp poky things like the tail.

“A name?” He sounded
honestly confused by that one. Like it hadn’t occurred to him
that anyone might not have a name. I was even more certain that
Requiem did not own a cat.

“Something useful, like
I’mwithstupid. Or Myownerisslow. Deathtocats.” I had put
a lot of thought into a possible name for the [Red Imp]. It
was weird thinking of myself as not having one. Deathtocats was a
long shot, though, plus I personally liked cats.

“Don’t you have one
already?” Requiem asked.

“Not one youcanuse. If I hadone,
I’duse it.” I shrugged.

That was easy enough. Mess with
another human being long enough and the computer would generate
pop-up boxes. There was probably a life lesson in there about my
entire experience with Continue Online.

“We’ll see. For now, since
you said you’re ready, let’s finish last night’s
dungeon.”

“Eh? There?” I had no idea
where he was talking about. There hadn’t been a dungeon to my
knowledge. The last one had been rather interesting if limited.

“Yes. You’re trained
enough and my recipe is almost done. Soon I’ll be able to
enchant everything.”

“Eh,” I said with far less
interest.

“If you do a good job I’ll
enchant you something too. With the leftovers, of course.”
Requiem checked his pot of goo again and nodded. He was probably
checking exactly how much was in there. “Yes. This should come
out excellently.”

“If stupidhead says so.” I
stared at the synchronization bar and wondered how easy reaching
seventy-five percent would be. There was only another chunk to go.
Doing this dungeon might go either way.

If nothing else, going might have
loot. I hadn’t really done anything with the game items as
Hermes or the [Red Imp]. Beating people using [Morrigu’s
Gift] and its echo was the only trick I seemed to know.

“When dowego?”

“Now you’re eager to do
something?”

“Yes. I’ll evenwavekilling
you in this dungeon. For items. This precious lootyoukeepselling.”
My personal efforts at eliminating Requiem’s character had
failed. Maybe the secret was to let the autopilot succeed. Getting to
seventy-five percent using the [Self-Serving], [Clever],
and [Greedy] characteristics should hopefully assist in
unlocking the next rank of skills.

“One item,” Requiem said.

“Five!” I countered. This
argument was only going to end one way. My real goal was to mess with
the Traveler anyway.

“One item.” He held firm
as expected.

“Three!” I tried.

“One item.”

“Of my choice.” Each
attempt sent a positive marker through my synchronization bar. Not
enough to go up a full percent, but it was the right thing to do
while staying in character.

“Fine.” He looked like my
request was pulling teeth out.

I wasn’t the only one greedy
around here. At least I was pretending. Requiem Mass was sending his
items somehow to a merchant player and turning them into real money
and I was being greedy asking for an item.

“Prat. Jerk. Selfcentered
littlebrat.” The words came out in a rush of grumbling.
“Dunghead. Idiot. Mcbuttface.” They sounded clunky to my
ears so it was likely they were in [Demonic] or whatever
language [Red Imp]s spoke.

“Come on. We’re not going
to waste time.” Requiem shook his head and dusted off his
hands. He picked up items from all over the camp with an
effectiveness that rivaled Shazam’s.

I fluttered after the Traveler but
stayed out of reach. Requiem wasn’t likely to have forgiven me
of all the earlier barbs and cruel jabs. There was no way I would
have forgiven me in his shoes. My attempts at prodding were far ruder
than any questioning James had subjected me to.

Ironically I felt that poking at his
soft spots had been easy. Having my own scars made it simple to find
his. A year of hearing other people’s stories and
self-improvement attempts along with tons of therapy.

I swallowed and faltered in my flight.
What exactly was I trying to do to another player? This was a real
human on the other side of this machine. Almost two days of personal
attacks had to stop. In-game commentary, issues with how he fought,
making fun of his clothing were all fair game.

Trying to take this quest between us
to the outside world was not neat at all. This was just a game to
Requiem. That which was in Continue Online would stay in Continue. My
recent actions had crossed the line rather firmly and it was time to
rein myself back in.

Requiem stopped in front of an
absolutely huge tree. I lost track of him while staring up in awe.
This was the biggest and most dead looking piece of future timber
ever. An image came to mind of the tree burning happily.

Continue Online was happy
to provide me both stars swirling at eye level and a pop-up box.
Neither was a solid enough hint on what had happened. A giant finger
kept sliding and out of focus.

That finger belonged to Requiem who
was pissed looking. “I put up with a lot of shit from you, but
you talk about my mom again, and I’ll make everything we’ve
been through so far look like child’s play.”

A whole swath of emotions crossed my
face. Part of me felt terrible for even letting this happen in the
first place. Personal attacks were downright rude no matter where
they happened. Requiem Mass may be an asshole and practically five,
but my insults made him seem adult like.

“We clear?” Requiem’s
foot was bigger than my head. My wings were wiggling and trying to
escape, but being on the ground made it hard.

I hastily nodded. Being punched and
tortured was counterproductive to quest completion, for both of us.
Being punched also made my head ring fiercely. There wasn’t
even a dazed message.

“Good. Now that we’re
settled. You help me clear this dungeon, and no goofing around, and
you can have one item of your choice at the end. Deal?”

“Okay, twerp.” I used
Vlad’s name for Requiem. Two boxes came into being. One
informed me of the newest contract between familiar and summoner. The
other was another percentage increase that came with a note.

Requiem glared and I tried
not to roll my eyes. How on earth had the Voice contacted me without
using the Messenger’s tube? I would ask that question later
once back in Hermes.

“I have a name for you.”
He said.

“Layit onme.” This would
be neat. I bet the player had spent entire minutes trying to think of
something clever and snarky to label me with.

“Twerp.” Requiem smiled
over at me. Scratch that, he must have been hit with sudden
inspiration.

“Rejectedvetoed andno, that’s
your name.” I smiled back. “Twerp.”

“Shut it, or I’ll hit you
again.” He turned to the tree and started poking at air.
Requiem was fiddling around in his player menus with something. A
moment later his two swords were equipped and ready to go.

“Then who would help youclear
this place.” Too bad I had no real equipment. Just a loincloth
and weapon to my nameless imp self.

“If you’re useless, I’ll
do it myself. Besides.” Requiem waved an arm and threw a small
ball of flame at me. The earlier damage from being clocked in the
face vanished as fire warmed every inch.

Right. He could throw fire around and
it would heal me. How perfect was it that his preferred method of
damage just happened to close up any wounds accumulated? It was
almost like the Voices handcrafted my passives for this situation.

My eyes rolled. They probably had.
That meant they threw in the whole demonic tongues language to ensure
I could understand his stupid poetry reciting. I tried not to twitch
in annoyance.

“Did you hear me?” Requiem
said.

“Sure. You’retoo useless,
I’ll doit myself.” I waved the tiny arm holding my [Echo
of Morrigu’s Gift] towards the Traveler. He scowled and
pointed to the giant tree.

“We’re going down there.
You’re following orders, and we’re going to clear it all
the way down to the roots.”

“And take all the items.”
I played up the [Greedy] aspect.

“All of them.” A clear
look of desire passed over his face. If Travelers had thought
bubbles, his would be a banker counting coins.

“And I get five.”

“One.” Requiem looked
sour. Work life had taught me that far too many people needed
constant reminding. I also really enjoyed watching him squirm.

Requiem went first. That was fine by
me since being a [Red Imp] came with next to no health points.
Even Hermes was easily triple this body’s [Endurance]
and quadruple its [Brawn]. It had taken me days of adjusting
to wrap myself around wings, changed stats, and impulse control
problems. The latter was still causing me issues.

Flying was a lot of fun. Whenever
Requiem wasn’t micromanaging me I sped around quickly doing
didoes and aerial maneuvers. The only time that he ever left me alone
is when I was ordered to gather herbs. My [Blink] practice was
sorely lacking.

“Come on. You’re falling
behind.” There was a giant hole that went into the ground. It
had wound down for three loops or more. I didn’t have a map.
Part of me felt kind of sickened being trapped in this tunnel.

“No Iamnot.” I protested.

“Really? Remember where we got
jumped last time?”

“Yeah. Youalmost wet yourself.”
I had no clue where we got jumped last time. Requiem so far had shown
no awareness of a difference between me and the autopilot, though.

Maybe Requiem was an even better actor
than I was. That was a scary thought. Dwelling on anything along
those lines would be bad for my stability.

“Anyway.” Requiem didn’t
refute my claims so maybe there was something to it. “We’re
taking the right fork. That should get us up to the first boss.”

I tried not to roll my eyes.

We made our fourth spin down and found
the fork Requiem had mentioned. I was hoping he wouldn’t ask me
anything else crazy about our autopilot time. Pulling an all day
shift and sleeping didn’t help keep me in the loop with
everything happening.

The first monster we faced shot out of
the wall and took up the entire width of our tunnel. Only the [Red
Imp]’s natural survival instincts kept me from getting
smacked in the face. Once I righted myself there was a very clear and
rotting root in our way. Floating up revealed a small hole that I
might be able to [Blink] through.

“It’s the traps. They keep
screwing us.” Requiem started hacking away with his sword.
“Though these are new.”

“Stupid,” I muttered.

“Really? I don’t see you
detecting them any better.”

“Notthat.” I said.

“Then what?” Requiem
turned and glared at me. “If you’re so smart.”

“Whywould theyput a wall?”
I tried to ask a leading question. There was no way I could just hand
him an easy conclusion when the [Red Imp] would give me points
for implying he was stupid.

“To slow us down.”

“Untilsomething shows up.”
I may have stuck my head in the sand for years, but that didn’t
mean games were new to me. Plus weeks with Shazam had rather firmly
taught me a lot of basics.

Requiem looked at me and then down the
tunnel. I personally opted for staring at the walls. It was more
likely something would crawl out of them, giant worms or termites.
Hopefully, Requiem would throw a lot of fireballs at any bugs to show
up.

Nope. Moles. Undead, ugly squirmy
moles. Voices above what sort of macabre horror show was I trapped
in?

“Imp! Drive it back!”

“Ahh!” I drove the top of
my weapon towards the enemy. The [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift]
landed square on its nose. There was no point in trying to identify
it. I only had one trick and that was stabbing things when possible.

“Eeeee!” The medium sized
undead mole grabbed its nose and cried out. Two more crawled out of
the wall around us. Bits of root and dirt stuck to their faces.
“Eeeee!”

“Too many!” I did my best
to play poke-a-mole with the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift].
One went down, two more showed up, and finally there were six of them
appearing from the walls each throwing clumps of dirt.

“Eee!” They kept making
the same noise every time. “Eee! Eeeee!”

“We’re through,”
Requiem said.

“What aboutthese?!” I
squeaked while stabbing another two moles in the nose.

“We need more space before we
can fight them.” Requiem was somehow staying calm under
pressure. “This way. There should be room up here.” He
turned and threw a giant ball of fire down the hallway. It passed
over me while scaring all the undead moles back into their holes.

Requiem moved swiftly down the
hallway. He had one sword out trailing ash behind us. The mole
creatures coughed and sputtered while slushing grossly. I tried to
flap my wings, but these narrow tunnels turned my few attempts into
bad hopping with mild panic.

“Another one. Help quickly.”

“Fine.” I shifted my
weapon and slashed with an edge. It helped shave the second wall down
before any more mole creatures caught up with us. Requiem didn’t
even spare a glance for the shape-shifting item. I was lucky it was
[Bound] or he might try to sell it also.

“Go. The clearing is up ahead.”
Requiem turned and threw another ball of flame down the hallway. He
rushed by my hopping form and dove into the cavernous opening.

“Will they come here?” I
asked. There were no walls for the moles to attack from or hide in.
Instead, they would be limited to the ground or way up high on the
ceiling.

“No. The monster in here should
scare them off.” He said.

“That’s good. Waitwhat?”
I turned and looked up towards where Requiem was staring. The ceiling
was extremely dark, but I had the racial [Dark Vision] backing
me up. Requiem must have something similar.

I didn’t have time to think
about it. The [Dark Vision] only reached so far. Requiem was
scanning the top and squinting.

“There it is.” Requiem
pointed up. “It chased us off last time. This time we’ll
use it in our favor.”

“Is that?” One hand came
up to cover my mouth.

“A giant eyeball. I’m
calling him Squints.” The Traveler sounded excited.

I ran the identification skill as the
creature got closer. It looked like a monster from some old fantasy
game. Instead of tons of squirming eyes being attached it had veins
and roots waving around. There were no wings on its back. No sign of
eyelids. It was bloodshot and intensely gross.

Well. On top of that, it
was staring at us. This was one gross eyeball that kept rapidly
switching its gaze between the doorway, me, and Requiem. This must be
how microscopic beings felt under a magnifying glass.

I wanted to retch. It squirmed even
more than the icy cockroach and was way too big.

A giant ball of flame came down from
above and smacked me in the face.

“Joy. Fireunder a
tree. Makesperfect sense. Floating eyeball thing.” My own eyes
were rolling. At least the [Maze of Midnight] had a theme. I
wasn’t sure exactly what this dungeon followed, but there had
to be more than earthen tones to the place. I flicked away the pop-up
box and stared at Requiem. He was looking up still.

“Loot. Precious loot.”
Requiem said happily. He spun one sword in his hand and waved the
other back and forth.

Down came [Detached Vitreous].

Session Thirty Five – Dodging the Issue

“Go left!” Requiem yelled.
I went to my left, which ended up being straight ahead. One of the
little undead mole creatures popped up and I flew by stabbing at it.

Requiem tested [Detached Vitreous]
with a fireball. Liquid flame splashed off but didn’t do much
damage. At least the giant eye with its gross dirt didn’t
regenerate.

“These things!” I dodged
around clumps of dirt being fired at us. A giant eyeball was enough
on its own. Adding in the undead moles and their dirt throwing was
unfair.

“Stay near them.” Requiem
spun with his blade and slashed at the eyeball’s feelers.
“We’ll use the boss.”

“Okay!” That was not easy
to do at all. Flying was still weird in many ways. Requiem’s
idea of friendly fire was good, though. Being a [Red Imp]
meant I would survive the fireballs but these undead moles would
probably get lit up.

An unexpected burst of blue ice
swirled into being. It leaped from the eyeball’s backside
towards me.

“What?! Ice!” I yelled and
scrambled to get out of the way. “Notjustfire!”

“Really? I didn’t notice.”
The Traveler’s hair stood up as he yelled out a battle cry.
Requiem charged for the eyeball creature. He was certainly doing more
damage than I but the [Detached Vitreous] didn’t care.

I watched the squiggles on the
eyeball’s back twist together. They convulsed and knotted then
straightened at once to point in my direction. Green light swam up
from the eyeball’s depths and shot down the root-like veins
towards me.

“Its back! Theycome from there!”
I said while jabbing with my pitchfork.

“I know.” His words were
fairly clear despite the madness about us. The undead moles and their
stupid ‘eeeeees’ were killing my ears. “I’m
watching them.”

“So aimthe firemaking ones
overhere!” I shouted while somersaulting over another blast of
the blues.

“I’ve got to do everything
around here,” Requiem grumbled while swinging the ash trailing
blade creating a cloud on one side of [Detached Vitreous]. He
dodged the other way and the giant eyeball tracked him. Another
series of veins was facing in my direction. They did their twisty
knotting thing and a ball of flame swirled into being.

“Fire! Fireisgood.” I
tried to hug one of the dirt crawled undead moles. Part of me was
annoyed that Requiem’s constant use of me as a grappling imp
was paying off.

“Eeeehhhg..” The mole’s
annoying squeal of noise died off as it was burned to a crisp.

“Fourmore!” I shouted
happily. No, there were seven more. The undead moles kept popping up
around us. Each new one made the same stupid noise.

“You handle them. I’ll
keep the eye facing this way.” Requiem was surprisingly calm
during combat.

“Okay!” I was not. It was
either me as a [Red Imp] or me as an easily excited player,
but everything was racing. My heartbeat pounded loudly, the [Echo
of Morrigu’s Gift] stabbed into anything that moved, and
undead moles were aggravating.

Two crackling roots shot out of the
ground and reached for the cavern’s ceiling. A bolt of green
hit one nearby and slapped into my side.

“Ahfuckme reallywhat.
Thisis nonsense!” I shouted while looking around. There was a
timer on the poison, but it was minutes away.

Wings over my shoulder kept
distracting any attempt at situational awareness. I jabbed one end of
the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] into a root wall and pushed
off. The added momentum sent me headlong into a ball of flame to
regenerate health.

Requiem hacked at the eyeball as it
spun around to take in our battle scene. The Traveler took a moment
to slash at the roots in the back. “Got the poison ones.”

“Leave thefiremaking ones!”
I desperately shouted while dodging around few clumps of dirt. This
was a mad situation and being a [Red Imp] did not provide
enough health.

“I know how to play, thanks,”
Requiem said while swinging at the giant eye. His attacks were on
point, but the giant thing had an overabundance of health.

“Stupidhead doesn’t know
eyeballs come intwos.” I muttered. Two eyeballs might be enough
to do Requiem in. I did a quick calculation of all the flying objects
and our little extra undead attackers. That black hole move would
probably still kill everything.

“Don’t jinx us.” He
said while waving another trail of ash.

I glanced up anyway. There was nothing
visible but the few seconds available between projectiles was not
enough to get a solid look. Hopefully, any other giant ugly eyeball
was hanging around elsewhere. I hadn’t figured out exactly how
boss spawns in dungeons worked. This was only my second one.

“Almost there,” Requiem
muttered. The eyeball turned to stare at me while shooting streams of
ice and fire at Requiem. “Just a few more.”

“More until what?” I
asked. This time, it wasn’t an attempt at confounding the
Traveler. I was honestly perplexed.

“Shut up. Fly upwards! As high
as you can!” Requiem shouted.

“Why?”

“Not now, you stupid imp! Just
follow orders!” Now Requiem was worked up. Seeing him agitated
made me smile.

“Eeeeee!” The moles kept
screaming their constant noises. Part of me longed for the days of
video games on a computer screen. Something where their annoying
sounds could be turned off.

I started flying up towards the
ceiling. Requiem bravely, or foolishly, stayed where he was swinging
at the [Detached Vitreous]. Most of the small mole things were
dead and another two roots had popped up in the cavern. The young
player was using the obstacles to hide behind which caused them to
take damage. I could see health bars as I turned to look down below.

That also made me realize exactly how
high up I had flown. I gulped for a moment and the world spun with
vertigo. Below me, the giant eyeball grew closer. The veins on its
back wiggled and spurted blood. Requiem could be seen smiling. He
seemed to be lobbing small blades into the creature’s back.

One giant tear crossed the eyeball’s
front. It seemed to be swaying in the air as it climbed up towards my
much smaller frame. I turned back towards the ceiling and put more
distance between us.

“To your left!” Requiem
shouted up at me. The eyeball turned abruptly midair and gazed at the
Traveler. Fireballs spun out of the creature’s back in my
direction which I happily caught. Free health was always nice.

The Traveler below threw up another
wall of ash and vanished. [Detached Vitreous] swiveled back
around to me. My tail was twisting back and forth with nearly the
same ferocity as the giant eyeball’s veins.

“Comeonstupid stupidno brain!”
I shouted. Requiem’s order had steered me close to the
ceiling’s surface a few hundred feet above the floor.

The eyeball hesitated as the ceiling
grew closer. It seemed to be blinded by the giant gash that Requiem
inflicted. I kept up my stream of insults to give the monster
something to focus on.

From below a long stream of fireballs
came up. The heat of them was far beyond Requiem’s normal
intensity. Portions of the monster’s health bar chipped away,
but it still had a lot left. Smoke billowed out from behind the
eyeball and filled the cavern’s roof.

Part of me wondered exactly how the
thing was flying to begin with. At least I had wings. They clearly
didn’t care one whit for the laws of physics.

“Drop it!” Requiem
shouted, his sword tip was being used to point at something nearby.
“Drop it quickly!”

I turned and tried to find what he was
talking about. My vision wasn’t hampered by the smoke at all,
which was strange to me. There was a small box floating off to one
side talking about [Red Imp]s and [Dark Vision]
alterations due to living in volcano filled plains. I didn’t
have time to read much.

“Okay!” I bumped my head
on the ceiling and did a swift lap around the giant stalagmite that
Requiem had pointed to. There was a clear crack in one side.

I focused for a moment and shifted the
[Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] into spear form and hoped it
wouldn’t be damaged forever. My tiny arms and wings fluttered
and yanked the weapon back and forth trying to dislodge the spike.

“Over here, you big fugly
rotting eyeball!” Requiem shouted. I glanced down to see that
most of the ash and smoke had cleared. The Traveler was trying to get
[Detached Vitreous] to turn away from me.

I wiggled the weapon even harder and
gasped in happiness when the cracking started. A few more yanks on
the weapon’s hilt succeeded in releasing the giant stalactite
from the ceiling. Part of me felt absolutely giddy as the giant
eyeball spun around. The [Detached Vitreous] looked at me,
then to the falling spike, and back to me. If there had been eyelids
or a face the expression would have been one of shock.

Instead, there was a squish of noise
as the spike entered one side and the orb popped. Bits of entrails
flew everywhere. The [Detached Vitreous] seemed to be
struggling to stay afloat despite clearly being dead. The effect was
a body that lowered to the ground slowly.

There was one item amid the chaos of
gooey eyeball guts that caught my attention. Time seemed to compress
and with every fraction of a second the synchronization meter jumped
up. Messages of [Greed], [Greed], [Greed]
flashed wildly. I took it as a sign from the Voices and dove for the
loot.

“Mine! Dibs dibsdibs.” I
shouted and flew with all my speed to the falling body. A few weak
fireballs and icy blasts splattered towards the ground, but none
impeded me. Both chubby arms shot out and grabbed for the item. I got
something in my hands and a message box popped up.

Whatever it was fit into
one palm. The [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] had somehow
transformed into a tiny pitchfork and was being held by my tail. I
slapped both hands over my chest and held on while tumbling. The
shift in weight from gravity taking over sent me falling even faster.
Both wings were frantically beating while I, the remains of [Detached
Vitreous], and a giant portion of the ceiling landed with thuds.

I was cackling happily. That one item
grab had sent my completion percentage up by four percent. Being
[Greedy] had paid off. At least it seemed to pay off until
Requiem approached.

“What’s that?” He
stabbed down one of his swords right next to my tiny body. I flinched
and tried to roll away. A heavy foot stomped onto my tail and
prevented escape. “I asked you a question, Imp.”

“It’s mine!” I
shouted. “Not yours, giantstupiddummy.”

“Everything you own is mine
unless I say otherwise.” Requiem cleaned off his other sword
slowly. There was a gleam in his eyes that made my teeth chatter.

By rolling a little, it was obvious
that everything down here was dead. Roots that had shot into the air
now looked wilted or charred. Tiny undead moles were in shambles all
over the floor. Pools of green, blue, and red could clearly be seen
dotting the landscape.

“Oh, it’s safe. I’ve
made sure it’s just you and me in this room.” Requiem
said while leaning over me. The smile on his face was utterly false.

I nodded and tried to focus on jerking
the tail away from him. The game made it twist and turn, but there
was no escape. He looked especially cruel when it was apparent that
half the dead monster’s guts were hanging all over his body.
The second foot near my face must have landed in some mole’s
head.

“So what did you get?”
Requiem said.

“Noneya, twerp,” I
muttered. He quickly slapped me across the face and I saw my
percentage bar go up a bit more. Messages of both [Defiant]
and [Self-Serving] popped up.

“Try again. The truth this
time.” He seemed bored with this whole process of beating me.
It certainly never got him results.

“I don’t want to tell
you,” I answered. That was a completely true statement.

Another slap in the face rewarded me
with pain.

“You seem to misunderstand the
nature of our arrangement. I am the master, and you are the servant.
How many times must I remind you of this?” Requiem asked. He
slammed the cleaned sword down into the ground rapidly. It was much
closer to my face than the first one.

I smiled happily. Death was a release
of character, and there was nothing frightening about that to me.
Most physical pain was very transitory in the world of Continue
Online. However dying might mean this precious item would be left
behind. There was another option that might help me secure the loot.

“Tell me what you have?”
Requiem demanded an answer again. I ignored him and clenched my teeth
as pain shot through me.

“Nnngh.” Noise
escaped me. I closed both eyes and focused on my body shifting from
one spot to another. The thought relayed over and over showing me
under Requiem at one moment, then elsewhere another.

[Blink] triggered and the world
spun. I found myself standing up with one foot squishing into
something’s leftovers. Looking around caused brief vertigo. My
[Blink] had placed me on top of the broken ceiling’s
remains with the dead eyeball chunks beneath me.

“What? Where did…”
Requiem sounded confused from somewhere behind me.

I stared at the object in my hand and
promptly used [Identification]. The results made me grind my
teeth in annoyance. Still, the percentage bar increase had been my
primary goal. Once things settled with Requiem then I could look at
the rank increase and hope it was worth revealing my secret ability.

Turning it into a bound item like the
[Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] was impossible. There was only
one way to prevent Requiem from taking it. I swallowed the [Seer’s
Tear] quickly. The object hurt going down. My health dropped a
few more percentage but the synchronization bar went up. It was a win
all around for me.

Requiem was yelling from behind me. I
hadn’t heard his words over the sensation of my insides trying
to digest a marble-like object. My face slowly straightened out as I
turned to face my contractor.

“What? Whatdo youwant jeez?”
I said while tapping my foot.

“What was that?” He asked.
Requiem was ignoring the dead bodies around us for once and looking
directly at me.

“Stupid. Itwas dumb butnow, it’s
mine.” That was all the answer regarding the [Seer’s
Tear] I would provide Requiem. This loot truly was useless on its
own and Requiem would never let me get the other half.

“Not that, you obnoxious little
imp. How did you get over there?” He said.

“Also nonya,” I said
happily.

“I order you to tell me during
the next ten seconds exactly what you used.” Requiem had weeks
in-game herding my [Red Imp] around. The teen could actually
nail down an order fairly well when he tried.

“I blinked.” My sharp
teeth cut at each other. The ARC relayed irritated feelings into
action. I missed the days of Carver’s delayed reactions to all
my internal thoughts.

“Blinked?” Requiem paused
and tilted his head. “How long have you been able to do that?”

“Since before you were born,”
I answered truthfully. Part of me was giddy that the Voices let me
get away with such clear abuse of the system.

I saw him pause again.

“Fine. Whatever it is, that’s
your one loot. Everything else is mine.” Requiem growled and
grabbed both swords out of the ground. He didn’t even bother
cleaning them off a second time. Both vanished into his player
inventory.

The next hour was spent cleaning up
after dead bodies and inspecting everything nearby. Requiem seemed to
have a beginner mining skill and set about digging through rubble for
nearby veins and loot. I was bored enough to log out and take a
break.

Once outside the ARC, I shook from the
adrenaline rush. Fifteen minutes of real life had passed and it
wasn’t enough to calm my physical body down completely. I paced
around the house and grabbed at my hair.

The one trump card I had was ruined.
[Blink] was no longer a hidden skill to save for later.
Knowing Requiem, he was planning ways to abuse my [Red Imp]
character even more. Could he do anything special with the [Blink]
skill? I had no good ideas at this point. There was a noise in the
background that was distracting me.

“Someone answer the damn phone!”
I shouted. Maybe the irritation flooding me was caused by hunger. Not
one sweet piece of food had passed my lips in the weeks of Continue
Online. It was normally grab and go food or lunch bars. Soreness from
the EXR-Sevens stacked on top to make everything unbearable.

I grabbed part of the door frame to my
room and tried leaning into various stretches. They were nearly
useless inside the ARC. Real life muscle stiffness couldn’t be
resolved by sleeping in a bed all day. Especially not one that put my
physical body through endless muscle spasm cycles to simulate cardio
and light weight lifting.

The ringing kept going. “Someone
get the phone!”

It took me a moment to realize that I
was alone in my house. There was no one to answer the phone but a
computer or me. I sighed and felt foolish. Part of me had been so
dazed by being in the ARC with my old house, and the prospect of Xin
that it felt like old times. Back when I had a job with a staff of
coworkers.

“Grant here,” I answered
my own phone with an irritated voice command.

“Mister Legate.” Vice
President Riley’s face popped onto my screen. I blinked a few
times. Her face was still plain though her hair looked a bit shorter.
There was a ring around the woman’s eyes that felt more
disheveled than the last time we conversed.

“Miz Riley,” I said
carefully. Part of my mind was in [Red Imp] mode. Rushing
words together or avoiding real answers would not go over well.

“Mister Legate, I wanted to talk
to you personally about this, but there’s not enough time.”
She avoided sighing, but her eyes seemed to yawn from exhaustion. “I
had a report run on your ARC software and found that you’ve
never confirmed having a Touchstone.”

“A what?” My mind ran
through all the ARC software I had been through over the years.
Slowly a vague memory sprung up. Touchstones were safety measures for
the hyper realistic mind bender games.

“A Touchstone. Based on your
latest reports regarding the Voices I believe you will find yourself
in need of one soon.” Miz Riley said. Her gaze drifted away
from the screen and focused on something else. A hand waved off to
one side shooing someone.

“Alright. I’ll do that.”
I said.

“Good. That’s excellent.
All of our Beta testers were advised to create them, and they come as
a standard warning on horror games.” This time a sigh did
escape her. She seemed to be waving someone off again but wasn’t
getting the desired response.

“If you’re ever in doubt
about our communications please come see me in person.” She
said.

“Okay.” I was afraid to
put too much thought into that. She had implied before that
technology might not be trustworthy. Given the realism of the Voices,
I was on the fence myself. Not that self-doubt was stopping me from
logging in each night.

“Very well. Keep filing your
reports, I am reading them. Farewell, Mister Legate.” Vice
President Riley said. A strand of hair that had been pinned back fell
forward across her face making the woman look even more disheveled.

“Bye.” The word didn’t
even make it out of my mouth before our call disconnected.

I fired up the ARC display and took a
look at Continue Online’s preview window. Requiem was fighting
something with my [Red Imp] form freely using [Blink]
to get around. Clearly the secret was out so even my autopilot didn’t
care. They were moving a lot faster through the dungeon.

Maybe now using the skill would get
easier. Even my autopilot’s reduced skill growth helped. The
ability took a large portion of mana with each cast. It also required
a huge amount of [Focus]. No wonder most people preferred
saying the spells out loud, even if they sounded like poems from a
teenager’s diary.

No. I would stick with my voiceless
spell for however long the [Red Imp] character existed.
Requiem Mass could chain cast fireballs without using any words, so I
should be able to [Blink] around effortlessly after enough
practice. The only trick was thinking about it hard enough that the
ARC adapted correctly.

A few hours passed outside the box
while my Touchstone was created. There were fairly simple rules with
what they were and how to use one. Most people put something small,
written with words near the ARC. Some games enjoyed having mind
benders in them and would create life-like simulations of places
people knew. Touchstones helped separate fiction and reality.

After mine was in place I logged back
into the [Red Imp] body. Requiem seemed unaware of the
changeover between AI and human. We traveled through a few more of
the tunnel’s twists and turns. There were other little monsters
but nothing that Requiem couldn’t handle on his own. I floated
behind wondering if my choice had been the right one. We were only
halfway way through this dungeon according to him.

Supposedly there was a bigger boss
creature down below. There was also this stupid item’s
description about another half. I had wasted my loot choice on an
object that needed both parts to work. It was aggravating but somehow
expected.

“Howmuch further?” I
asked.

“An hour, maybe two tops. We’ll
have to rest up here.” Requiem took items out of his player
inventory and started setting up a small camp.

“Whatever. We have to clear this
place tonight and move on to the main castle. If everything goes
right I’ll have all the tools needed to kill Freakinstain and
get his half of the key.” The Traveler kept pulling out items,
quaffing potions that made his face twist, putting on better armor.

“Key?” A squeak escaped
me. I watched him discard one set of boots for another.

“Yes. The very one needed for
this quest you’re so insistent upon.” Requiem sounded
upbeat about finishing the quest. I know it made me happy to think
about this strange adventure being over.

“Iam. Thenwe canbe done
withthisplace.” I said happily.

Beth, my niece, had said that quests
sometimes had layers. That occasionally another way through could be
found. According to the Voices’ original description, this
method should work. The Voices had clearly stated their only reason
for wanting Requiem dead, in-game, was because he hadn’t
completed the mission yet.

“Eat up,” Requiem said. He
gestured to a pile of burned food. It looked worse than the cupcake
had. This young man knew nothing of cooking.

“Fine.” I tried not to
think about the taste. His food did provide a small buff to my mana
regeneration. Working with him might be far better than working
against him. Especially if this objective could be completed without
needing murder.

We sat in camp while Requiem did a
whole slew of preparations. He put oils on both the swords and
checked the armor over. His body moved around through a series of
stretches to temporarily increase his [Limberness]. The
Traveler even ate his own food. That last one made my face turn to
temporary disgust.

I, of course, was left to my own [Red
Imp] devices. For the most part, it consisted of shifting my
weapon around into other forms and trying to better use [Blink].
In the time it took Requiem to finish his farting around I managed to
make another thirty-something attempts and got [Blink] to Rank
two.

When I wasn’t low on
mana from [Blink] attempts my mind focused on the new skills.
[Awareness Heightening] seemed to use the ARC’s
compression system to provide me a different perception of time.
Using it once felt like every event where the Voices had spoken
rapidly over my head, only not as intense. [Awareness Heightening]
was closer to when I had watched the [Detached Vitreous] fall
with loot.

[Pointier Points] was tied to
my tail and teeth. They were even sharper so the first thing I did
was accidentally stab my own leg. That caused Requiem to pause in his
preparations for a bout of laughter. It made me frown while giving
the twisting tail a glare. The silly thing had a mind of its own most
days.

“Time to go.” Requiem
stood up and everything from our little camp was back in his
inventory. The younger man carried around far too many items for my
liking.

“Okay. Letsgokill
thiswhateverthing.” I said rather happily. We were finally
making progress.

“Just down here,” Requiem
said.

We stepped into a much larger cavern.
There was a giant torch illuminating the room. My [Dark Vision]
flipped off.

“Perfect. We can avoid the
boss.” He said while looking around at the new room. This was
smaller than the [Detached Vitreous]'s
cavern. The back wall with a torch seemed flat and three stories
tall.

“How thewhat?” I asked.

“You stand over there, and I’ll
stand over here.” Requiem pointed on the ground. There were two
circles, one red, one green. I was fairly sure [Red Imp]s
hated green but that was the one he ordered me to stand in.

Plus I was kind of working with the
young man now. Even after weeks of trying to kill him. If we got
along and completed everything then there would be no need for
further unpleasantness.

“Okay. Overhere.” I flew
across the distance. Between our two standing markers was something
that looked like a coffin. This body was absurdly short and couldn’t
get a good view.

“Alright, now stay there and
don’t move until I tell you to.” He ordered. Now I was
stuck in place regardless of my cooperation or not. Some orders were
easier to loophole than others.

We both stood in our spots and the
room started to rumble. I looked up, worried that another eyeball
might float down at any moment and cast ugly icy bolts in my
direction. No such thing happened.

The torch lighting up this giant
cavern dimmed slowly and the top portion of the coffin slid off to
one side.

“Excellent.” Requiem
dashed over and looked inside. Soon he was laughing, not a friendly
happy laugh, not a good joke laugh, but the kind of amusement that
went with triumph over one’s enemies and possible world
domination.

“What isit?” I shouted
while trying to at least fly up.

“Good. This is
exactly what I needed.” Requiem nodded and pulled something out
of the coffin. Bones snapped under their own weight leaving behind a
dull looking necklace with an eye on it. The Traveler lifted his new
piece of equipment then slid it over his head.

“What’s that?” I
asked.

“Your replacement. With this
necklace, I no longer need you.” Requiem turned so I could see
the necklace easier. It glinted briefly and seemed to suck in more
light. The torch up above still burned but its flame had tilted in
his direction.

“Okay? But Ithought we
werekilling that Freakinstain guy?” I said while ruffling my
eyebrows together. A quick glance around revealed that there was only
one real exit out of here. Why then, had Requiem done all the
preparation ahead of time?

“You think I would ever work
with you? You were only there to serve as a tool, and you clearly
didn’t intend to do even that.” Requiem Mass smiled.

“We havea contract based on
completing yourmission.” I tried to sound firm. My face felt
cold and skin clammy. This was not how things were intended to go at
all. He was screwing me over, and the Voices had me locked into this
character until the quest was completed or Requiem released my [Red
Imp] summons.

“Oh no. You, you’re still
my familiar, and because of that, you can sit down here until I
dismiss you.” He said. Requiem walked over to me and poked my
chubby belly.

“When is that?” I said the
words slowly.

“Eventually, once I kill
Freakinstain, once I take this place for all it’s worth.”
Requiem smiled at me. I thought about stabbing him with the [Echo
of Morrigu’s Gift] but the system meted out more damage.
That made the Traveler grin even wider. “And when there’s
nothing left to milk from this place. Then I’ll release you.”

With that, Requiem left the room at
high speeds. He had both swords out and seemed intent upon escaping.

The wall behind the empty coffin,
where the torch sat with a dim remainder of light, groaned slowly. I
turned and looked up while feeling abandoned, betrayed, and worried
about the future of my quest to help Xin. Slowly the torchlight faded
while the wall vibrated even more.

[Dark Vision] kicked in and the
entire wall became visible.

It was a giant face missing one eye.
The orb that remained was staring down at me. There certainly was a
theme to this underground dungeon, and it stared me in the face.

“Requiem! I’llstab you!”
I shouted. The wall groaned again while lips curled on either side to
form a demented smile. My gaze traveled between the tunnel out and
the wall looming over me.

Today had been going so well.

Session Thirty Six – Spite Unbound

One gross eye peered out of a muddy
face to stare down at me. I remained inside the circle which glowed a
light green. Standing here reminded me of the [Red Imp]'s
natural dislike for this color. It made perfect sense now. I was also
learning to detest it.

Had the Voices seen far enough ahead
to give me this warning? Maybe if I had stayed true to the character
I could have protested my way out of standing on this side. There had
to be something special about the side Requiem was on that let him
escape without stirring the face’s ire.

“Let’s faceit.” I
glanced around. “Neither of us expectedthis.”

The wall groaned again. Probably from
my bad pun. No, wait, something else was clearly going on. I looked
up and the face looked tired. The eyeball staring at me was
heavy-lidded. It had been hard to tell because the eyelid was made of
crumbling dirt.

“Rockabye baby?” I tried
to hum but damage spiked through with a message regarding my order
violation. “Aggghh.”

I tried to move away from the evil
green circle beneath me, but another rod of pain crippled my
character before it even got anywhere. The ARC feedback was muted so
it only felt like slamming my head into a wall or bending a finger
out of the socket. Neither one was worth risking repeatedly to break
away from a boring situation.

So we sat there for ten minutes, just
the wall and I. Well, the autopilot sat there while I dove off to the
bathroom and downed a cup of coffee. The [Red Imp] was still
unmoved a few minutes later which was good, I guess.

None of my normal tricks worked. I
tried to cite cases where Requiem had told me to move in hopes that
the computer would accept those as a counter order. Tapping my feet
slowly to the beat of a lullaby didn’t put the creature to
sleep. The [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] might be able to
turn into a flute if I tried hard enough, but woodwinds were beyond
my skills.

The other option available to me was
enduring the pain until my health bar reached zero. That would
release the [Red Imp] and put my mind back into Hermes. Okay,
I could do that. This would hurt. Inflicting pain upon myself was
much different than letting it happen. My foot lifted and teeth
clenched.

“What in the unholy depths of
Taurus has happened in here?” A new voice exclaimed.

“What? Whosethere and whatdoyou
want?!” I barely righted myself from the potential damage. My
foot went back down as I whirled around. The wall wasn’t
talking, it still looked sleepy.

“Oh, hey, the little demon
mongrel.” The new person said.

“Ah! PoserMan!” I shouted
and stabbed rapidly at the air between us. The pitchfork didn’t
look menacing enough on my short frame.

“Frankenstein, if you please.”
He was a goofy looking Traveler. About his neck was the rippled white
fabric with a popped up collar. The shiny curled boots on his feet
were new. At some point in the last few weeks, he had fixed the
uneven sleeves on his coat.

“Freakinstain!” I happily
corrected myself. “What areyou doinghere?”

Maybe if he got close enough I could
jab my weapon through his eye while cackling madly. The thought of
casually murdering another player made me feel chill for a moment. I
decided attacking Frankenstein wouldn’t be in character.

“Well I was checking on my pet
project, only to find that half of them were dead or run over. I
assume that fool Requisite Ass had something to do with this?”
Frankenstein waved one hand at the giant mud face.

“What?” I squeaked.

“You’re in my dungeon,
little demon runt.” PoserMan glanced down at me. All he needed
to pull off the completely over the top look was a pair of shades.
Maybe square ones that glinted even without sunlight.

“Litterunt is redundant. Runt
implieslittle. Youarestupid too.” I gave a glare to convey how
I felt about his intelligence level. This guy irked me slightly more
than Requiem.

“What? Hey, I’m working on
a vibe here. Stop disrupting my flow.” Frankenstein actually
looked wounded. He paused and tugged at the collar to make sure it
was in position. “Method acting, you know?”

“Waitwhat?” I was floored.
The guy was acting like a poser on purpose? That was far worse than
me pretending to be a [Red Imp]! Hopefully, it was worse
anyway.

“Yeah. It’s an act. Now,
where was I. Oh!” He turned to the giant face and raised both
his arms.

“Whywould youact so stupid?”
I shouted abruptly.

“Look, little demon runt guy, I
spend all day long dealing with legal babble in my world.”
Frankenstein or whatever his name was looked affronted. He swished a
strand of hair out of his face, checked the collar once again, and
walked over to me. He tapped his own chest. “I think I deserve
to let my hair down and have fun.”

“This isfun?” I should
have stabbed him in the eye. By the time it occurred to me that I
could try to kill him instead and deal with Requiem, the other
Traveler was too far away.

“Bah. Demons have no sense of
humor, not like my minions. Now.” He turned and raised his arms
back up again. “Oh, Great Lord! I call upon you to awaken from
thine slumber!

“Thine?” PoserMan was
clearly an inadequate nickname.

The wall started moving a little
faster. It groaned and shook while dirt fell in clumps from the
ceiling. I looked up in fear that another giant spike was sitting up
above waiting to impale me in some twisted sense of irony.

The room kept moving and the face in
the wall pulled back a little bit. Dirt slipped all around us to fill
in the small gap. Finally, the rumbling knocked me off my tiny weak
[Red Imp] legs. A fresh round of pain shot through my neck.

“C'mon!” I shouted. That
wasn’t even my fault. This game was being a jerk now. “I
hatethis contract!”

“Shut up, little demon. I’m
working here.” Frankenstein wasn’t rude sounding, more
like absently reminding me. It was annoying to be talked to like I
was a small child in the presence of grownups. This [Red Imp]
body may be short, but I was a damned adult.

“Youshut up!” I shouted
back feeling extremely irritated. Being trapped in a circle was bad
enough, having Frankenstein here added salt to the wound.

“No you!” He lost himself
and yelled back.

“No youshutup now!” I
barked the order. It was useless since Frankenstein was at least
three times my height. He raised one preened eyebrow and looked
confused.

“Why am I arguing with you? This
is why I prefer the undead.” He shook his head quickly.

There was a wall of his beloved half
zombies back in the tunnel’s mouth. Dozens of rats and moles
stood there, each of them being of a half-functional variety. I
readied the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] for stabbing in
case they came over.

“uUuuuuur.” The face on
the wall said. The vibration registered low enough that it hurt my
ears.

“Oh, yes, I’m listening.
Sorry.” Frankenstein stood a bit straighter.

“Uuuur?” The face couldn’t
be speaking in actual words. If it was then my [Red Imp]
racial would pick it up. There was no translation box coming into
being like there had been with the [Lithium] Requiem chanted.

“UUuur.” It said.

“Right. Yes, Lord, I saw your
poor eye.” Frankenstein winced and looked sad. The wall too
seemed vaguely upset. It was sluggish. Almost like a stroke victim
where part of the face didn’t respond.

“Uuuur.” It groaned a low
tone again. I bit my tongue trying to prevent the back of my jaw from
aching.

I tried not to roll my
eyes. The little girl Voice in charge of all these messages was
citing the reason for all of my problems. It was full of an endless
series of weak moments.

“Fixing it is above and beyond
any abilities I have now.” Frankenstein bowed. The coattails
made him look similar to a butler bowing before royalty.

“Uuuur Uuurg.” The wall
moved a bit again. More dirt fell from above. I tried to understand
exactly what was going on here. Requiem and I had gone a huge
distance underground and somehow there was a, I don’t know,
underground giant sitting here?

“Oh. I’m sorry, I haven’t
properly introduced you, Lord Gwar, meet…” The Traveler
blinked a little bit. “Well, I don’t actually know his
name. I’m sorry, I’ve failed you.”

“Uuuuurrrrr.”

“Spite? That is a good name,
Lord, your suggestions are perfect as always.” Frankenstein
turned to me and smiled. “Congratulations on your new exquisite
name.”

That was weird. Having a name came
with an interesting benefit. I tried to figure out which was more
valuable, [Greed] or [Spiteful]. Though given the way
this situation was going, building my bar would be worthless. How
much longer would I be able to roam free before needing to conclude
things with Requiem?

He was probably out there right now
trying to bring events to a close. Here I was trapped in a stupid
green circle. My current desire was to drive the [Echo of
Morrigu’s Gift] through his backside and be done with this.

“Uur. Uuuughhrrrrrr.” The
wall said shaking my thoughts of self-reflection.

“Thanks. Iguess?” This was
worse than Shazam and Arnold talking. At least their hands wiggling
back and forth were clearly words. There was a pattern to them. This
wall just said the same noise over and over. From what I could tell
Frankenstein was making up the giant face’s half of the
conversation.

“Nnnnnnuuuu.” The walls
lips slowly turned downward in a pout. “Nnr ruuu.”

“I know. He found the Eye of
True Sight.” Frankenstein said. He managed to keep a straight
face despite the severity implied. At least now I had a name for the
necklace Requiem had picked up.

“Rrrrrghhh. Uuur.” Dirt
rumbled around again and I wanted to stab the face until it stopped.
Wait, that was the [Red Imp] act talking. I wanted to press
the fast forward button on this conversation. The most realistic part
of Continue Online had to be the inability to skip other people’s
talking.

“Well, Lord, I honestly had not
expected Requisite Ass to find someone willing to work with him. I
believe he’ll be headed to the castle soon.”

“What areyoutalking about! I
wantedtokill him! A lot! With stabbings!” I shouted each stream
of words as they occurred to me. Throughout the entire conversation,
I managed to stay inside the stupidly annoying terrible green circle.

“Uuuuuur?”

“I know, right? Aren’t you
his summon?” Frankenstein turned to me and did that head
tilting process again. I wanted to shove a pair of shades on his
face. He seemed incomplete.

“Not by choice!” I stomped
a foot. It was actually a lie, I was chosen to be Requiem’s
familiar but the Voices had a separate mission for me.

“Uur.” The giant face
seemed to disapprove with its tone.

“Yes indeed, Lord. I also prefer
undead, they’re much more stable.” Whatever it said must
have been an insult towards me. I was only trying to do what my quest
said. Requiem’s abusive nature made it easy to want to stab
him..

“Uur. Urr.” The wall said.

“Well, I’ll ask him.”
Frankenstein turned to me and smiled happily. He crossed one hand
over his heart and held the other up, palm outward. “Would you
like to help me kill your master? It’ll be fun, I swear.”

“That’s kindofthe
pointofmy existence.” I glared at him.

“Really? Will wonders never
cease.”

“Uuurrrrrrrr rrr. Uh.”

“Yes, you may rest again, Lord.
I’ll talk to him.” Frankenstein said. He bowed to the
giant wall again which caused his coattails to flip up.

“Hey uhh, tellhim I’m
sorry aboutthe eye!” Now that the floating eyeball with its
evil squiggles was vaguely attached to a thinking creature I felt
kind of ashamed.

“What?”

“We, I, uhh, kindofdropped part
ofa ceiling ontoit and made a splat.” I toed the ground with
one of my gross looking feet.

“Oh, that. Yes, I already knew.
My minions have been reporting back to me everything you and
Requisite Ass have done. That’s how I knew it was safe to come
down here.” He frowned. “Though I wish I had known
sooner.”

“Then whydidn’t you know
Ihave been trying to kill him!” I started to hop up and down in
irritation. It was amazingly fun under normal [Red Imp]
circumstances. The game world bolted me with another tingle of pain
which made me scowl.

“Well, you’re very bad at
it.” He said.

“Shut up!” My quick
response sounded childish. It wasn’t fair. I had been trying to
off the abusive player for days and failed.

“No you!”

“Ahhh! Stabbbbing!” I drew
back the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] and tried to extend it
into the Traveler’s face. He fizzled out with that strange
wiggly darkness. The end result was his face looking confused while I
looked stupid.

“That’s an odd weapon.”
He tilted his head. The guy was kind of flighty.

“Whatever dieinafire, twice.”
I flipped him off and felt perfectly happy with myself. A positive
marker flickered across my synchronization bar citing [Spiteful]
as the reason.

The wall behind us looked to be
completely asleep. This way there would be no more of that mind
numbing groaning.

“Will you help me get rid of
that brat so I can finish this quest?” Frankenstein looked
childishly hopeful. Just how much time did he spend working with his
legal jargon? Did this guy ever get out of his house?

“What’s initfor me?”
I took the chance to play up my [Greed] angle for a few more
points. It was fun to pretend at being a little jerk.

The man pinched his nose and sighed.
“Undead even solve their own needs. Fifty half-rotting rabbits
and I don’t have to farm them carrots.”

“That’s special.” I
tried to play up the [Nasty] trait while pushing this [Greed]
aspect a bit more. Apparently the game approved. There was a long way
to go before one hundred percent and every little bit helped.

“What exactly do you want?”
He sighed and shooed off the wall of undead standing in the doorway.
They slowly faded with odd hops and clumps of movement.

“I took half a Seer’s Tear
from Requisite Ass.” I loved that nickname for the younger man.
He was such a brat and deserved it. “Can you get me the other
half?”

“Uhhh…”
Frankenstein fiddled with his coat and shuffled both feet. “I
guess. But I should probably get something in return.”

“You suckat dealing.” I
said.

“Yeah. I don’t get out
much. Just me and the computers.” He sounded almost ashamed.
Part of me completely understood, though. If it wasn’t for the
house call nature of my job we would probably be exactly the same. I
wanted to go easy on the poor guy. He was certainly more likable than
Requiem if a bit over the top with his attire.

“Okay. Iknowwhere Requiem is. If
you can freeme and getme the other Seer’s Tear. I’ll help
you kill him.” I put out my end of the deal.

“Really? Just for…”
He paused and clammed up. “Deal struck! You won’t go back
on it right?”

“No! I needhim todie!” I
gnashed my teeth. That Traveler’s earlier taunting about how he
planned to bleed this place dry pissed me off. It went against
everything William Carver believed in. Mistreating the entire world
of Continue Online wasn’t allowable.

Not to mention there was Xin. I had
tried not to dwell on her during these last few days. This entire
silly situation had started with helping her. I shook my head to get
rid of that train of thoughts.

“Okay. Well, the only way I know
to free you is an unbinding ceremony.” Frankenstein was already
bending over the ground and chalking in something. It looked familiar
to me, very much like the original circle that Requiem had used to
summon me.

“Dothatnow.” I tilted my
head and watched him make the circle bigger. He was amazingly
precise.

“It’s not all kittens and
rainbows. I’m a really bad summoner for living beings.”
He looked down and frowned. Every few steps he would add a symbol
that looked vaguely like [Lithium]. This was my second
experience with it.

“Whatever.” I crossed my
arms and started tapping one foot. Waltz? Salsa? Part of me wanted to
hum but being zapped repeatedly for days had fixed that habit.

“And if you die, there’s
no coming back.” Frankenstein looked at me for a moment.

I shrugged. “Sounds likea
winwin. This place is terribleIhateit all.”

“It’s death, little demon,
and even I can’t pull you back across the void.” His face
scrunched on one side.

“And the tear.” I threw
out a hand.

“Okay. Sure. That was the deal.
I’ll unbind you, and you tell me where Requiem is at so I can
send everything to crush him.”

“Willthatwork?”

“I’m out of options.”
Frankenstein looked slightly bashful. He turned up to the giant face
missing an eyeball and seemed sad. His lip stuck out with a small
pout.

“Howabout I tellyou all his
moves.”

“I already know about the
blazing sword and his aura.” He muttered while turning back to
the circle in front of him. He seemed to be studying the corners for
anything that might be missing.

“How abouttheblackhole? Big,
mean, sucksin everything. He does a stupid chant to fireit up.”
I said while gesturing with my hands. The [Echo of Morrigu’s
Gift] was planted into the ground.

“No, that’s new. See this
deal is already paying off.” He smiled happily. Frankenstein
seemed like a kid in a candy store when things were going his way.
That was less annoying than his whiny attitude when Requiem had
chased him off the first time.

“Thereisone more thing.” I
picked up my weapon. The [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] got
another quick twirl before being stabbed into the ground again. The
action kept me busy while waiting for other people to talk.

“Really?” He looked
confused for a moment then nodded.

“Tear first.” I put out a
hand. “Tear, I tellyou, you freeme, I tellyou where he is and
we, kill him.”

“Wait. Let’s do the unbind
first. That way we’re staying even. It’s only fair.”
Frankenstein went back to his chalk outlining with a lot more haste.
He waved a free hand at me. “I’ll scribe out the rest of
these runes, you just wait there.”

“Bestdayever.” I glared at
the final runes being written into the ground. He used a different
sort of chalk for the bigger shapes. Steam started to waft off of the
white and pink markings. They were pretty clear with [Dark
Vision].

“Here we go.” There was a
final spot for his hand. He placed it inside a smaller circle.

Everything tilted sideways and the
pain started. It felt familiar to me. My neck burned again as it did
with every single time I disobeyed Requiem’s orders. This
occurrence went deeper. It felt like the second time I tried to end
it all. The feeling of digging into my own neck with a screwdriver
came to mind.

Now I wasn’t sitting in the
circle with Frankenstein, I was reliving that moment of the past.
That had been my second moment of weakness where I tried to cash in
everything on the hope of an afterlife. Then the alarms in my house
flared to life and the machine called an ambulance. The neighborhood
had a first response unit that bashed its way past all the security
locks and got me sedated and stabilized. False blood had been pumped
into my body and the next day I woke up in the hospital.

It was like that moment all over
again. Only on the outside, during that moment where consciousness
slipped away, it wasn’t the floor of my home. It was this cave
with Frankenstein that faded. On the other side was Hermes, looking
over a sprawling battlefield. I turned my head for a moment thinking
this was a weird version of heaven.

Shazam sat there. She gave me a thumbs
up and the world spun away again. The pain continued to wreck a
course along all my nerves. The idea of pressing the logout button
was too far removed. Then everything snapped and the world rang for a
moment. I was back in the cave while two system messages sat in front
of me.

Health reached critical. My
vision was blurred and every limb felt leaden. I tried to flutter my
wings, but they flopped uselessly.

“Are you okay?”
Frankenstein asked.

“Tear. Nowthe tear.” I
muttered trying not to heave. My insides felt as if they were in
turmoil. The quick back and forth between characters had been
mentally exhausting. It was like I ran two miles while being
dehydrated.

Frankenstein handed over another small
marble object. I ran it through [Identification] and nodded.
“I’ve held up my end.” He said. “So. You
should still be able to tell where he is, Spite?”

Luckily I had a quest marker that told
me exactly where Requiem was. That was one of the perks of needing to
kill him as a player. “Yes. Icantell. Aboveground now, north,
fivemiles maybe.”

“My castle.” Frankenstein
became even paler. He started shaking.

“Youhavea castle?” I said,
but it was too late. The man had already whooshed away with his red
squiggles of darkness.

There I sat. A second [Seer’s
Tear] which was cleverly marked on [Identification] with a
two of two symbol. Only the first one was somewhere in my belly and
had been traveling through for hours.

The Voices above didn’t bless my
[Red Imp] self with a player inventory or even pockets. There
was no strap to hold it down with and clutching it in my hands was
useless. I went with swallowing the second [Seer’s Tear]
to let it join the other one. A [Greed] and [Self-Serving]
pop-up confirmed the action.

I had no real idea how to
get out of here. Requiem and my autopilot had made it through part of
the dungeon. The giant face wasn’t about to answer me judging
by its frown. My health was dangerously low for much more of this.

There was a torch on the wall. Wings
stuttered and tried to fly up. I made it by pulling myself up with
chubby arms and weak flaps. It took me nearly ten minutes to get a
spark going from rocks in the cave and using the [Echo of
Morrigu’s Gift] in a sort of file shape. I was lucky this
torch was intended to be lit. Game mechanics and practice camping
with Shazam on the mountain helped.

The dying torch light triggered my
[Flame Regeneration] skills. Warmth washed over me chasing
away the chill of reliving my neck pain. It also woke up the wall
with a vague groan. A remaining eye rolled slightly to look at me.

“Really?” I Looked at the
giant half a face wall.

“Unnnh.” It groaned at me.
My undead mud wall to English skill didn’t help decipher that.
The eye shut and what existed as a mouth went slack.

At least now I could fly off this
stupid green circle. I jabbed the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift]
into the ground to try and muss it up. The circle flashed and
reconstructed moments after my attempt. The effort gained me a few
more percent points on the bar.

I wanted to log out but my poor little
[Red Imp] self remained lost in the dungeon. There was a quest
marker that pointed to Requiem Mass, but it was far away now. My
autopilot could probably handle a few of the smaller creatures, but
this dungeon must contain at least one more boss monster. Hopefully
being on vaguely peaceful terms with Frankenstein would prevent any
other boss level creatures from attacking me.

There was no way I could handle one of
those myself. Not with my current body and skills. Even Hermes would
be hard pressed to survive. He had a lot more [Brawn] and
[Endurance] after all those weeks on the mountain training
with Shazam.

Then there was this stupid summoned
status that refused to shake itself off. I had been given a brief
glimpse of Hermes’ side of the world during the unbound spell
process. My main body or character seemed to be sitting on the hill
over a huge castle. There were at least two armies clashing below. I
tried to remember the timing. That must have been the war my niece
and that man Arnold had talked about.

So, as a result, my goals were clear.
Stab Requiem in the back to get this quest completed. Get back to my
Hermes body and help out in the war to keep my niece alive. I may be
an old man who would only get in her way, but that didn’t mean
I would let anything bad happen.

Step one, find a tunnel that went up.
Step two, stab Requiem Mass now that I was no longer restricted by
the summoning ritual. Step three, free Xin. With three simple steps,
everything would work out. It had to.

The tunnels up were amazingly
peaceful. All the undead creatures that had plagued us on the way
down were gone. Not one mole or set of roots popped into being. Each
twist and turn kept me jumping waiting for something to scare me. My
path stayed clear. Frankenstein must have recalled everything he had
to fight against Requiem. I wasn’t sure how much I liked the
older Traveler. He could have easily killed me but didn’t, so
that said something.

I used [Blink] as often as
possible to speed up the traveling time. Wings only went so fast
despite all my practice. It was easily hours of high-speed movement
before I made it to the exit, winded, but alive. Finally, I got out
to the top and found a hastily erected camp.

“Whatis this?” I shouted
in confusion.

Requiem’s jar of goop that he
had been cradling for days was sitting there almost completely empty.
I looked inside and saw signs of scrape marks on the sides. He had
clearly dipped something in this.

I stabbed at it with the [Echo of
Morrigu’s Gift]. A small box popped up.

Well. That was neat. I
focused and tried to curve the edge of my weapon a bit. The [Echo
of Morrigu’s Gift] ended up looking like an exaggerated
butter knife. Soon I had scooped out what little remained and
slathered it on my one item.

Enchanting the loincloth seemed
questionable. I would fill up the bowl with water and bathe in it if
that might help my own stats. Anything to get an edge over Requiem.
There was no telling what bonuses he might have gained.

Neat. Requiem might have
gained the same ability. He might have gained increased damage or any
other number of things. I took to the air and made my way towards
Requiem Mass. It might take a while, I might only have one life left,
but me and the young man would meet again soon.

I may be tiny and have a low health
bar, but no longer was I bound by his rules.

Session Thirty Seven – Baby Don't Hurt Me

Traveling was a lot easier out here in
the open. There was so much free room. A landscape of undead and
rotting creatures didn’t seem to lend itself to flying beings.
I took advantage of my vertical freedom to skip the drawbridge and
track down the two players.

Requiem had plowed through a river of
undead creatures. He moved quickly from one monster to the next while
hacking away. Bits of monsters hung all over the castle drawbridge.
At least seven different rats were floating belly up in the moat.

They were easy enough to find. I just
had to follow the trail of dead bodies and girly shouting.
Frankenstein was screaming in horror. Every few seconds the goofy
Traveler would use that burst of speed to wiggle from one location to
another. Requiem and his stupid blue glowing body was always close
by, pressuring him.

I watched them dash down one of the
castle corridors. Stain glass windows were between us. Using [Blink]
to get through would be easy enough if there was a good opening. Part
of me hoped that Requiem would get backed

into a corner and I could pop in
behind him.

My mind ran through the possible
methods. Using an [Unexpected Strike] would cause a ton of
extra damage. The moment I attacked Requiem would know my position. I
opted to keep watching the other two whittle away at each other.

Frankenstein kept sending half rotted
animals after Requiem Mass. Giant monster rats tried to gnaw on his
face. Monkeys of questionable bowel control gibbered and clawed.
Moles in the courtyard threw mud piles. We had been fighting the
Traveler’s minions this entire time and I hadn’t known.

This goop on my [Echo of Morrigu’s
Gift] might come in use. I wasn’t sure how the game
justified having a weapon that could change shape and be thrown.
Maybe I was so terrible that the Voice of Balance said ‘whatever’.
Part of me felt happy each time my character learned something new.

Now was a good time to practice.
Requiem was running along a causeway after Frankenstein. I put the
[Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] into spear form and got ready
to lob it. If I stayed at a distance he might not notice my weapon
among all the other chaos. The attempt missed wildly by clattering
into the courtyard below.

“Ahh! Nononnodamnno!” I
tried to say it quietly, but my voice carried. Requiem didn’t
seem to notice thankfully. Building a new skill from scratch on a
[Red Imp] would take a long while.

Both eyes closed and I tried to
visualize the weapon coming back to my hand. Triggering new skills
was always a pain in the neck. [Blink] took around seventy
different attempts to be able to aim regularly. Thank goodness being
down in that pit of a dungeon gave me plenty of time.

“Get away! You’re ruining
everything!” Frankenstein shouted loud enough to be heard over
the groans of undead monsters.

“It’s just a little pain!
Come on!” Requiem Mass and his silly blue aura dodged around
one torn up rat and slashed at a mole. “You’ll hardly
notice!”

There wasn’t enough time for
seventy attempts on weapon [Recall]ing. Not when one
successful usage took ten seconds of idle behavior. Plus each
[Recall] ground down the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift]
and its durability. The spear was back in my hand and looked to be at
seventy-five percent or so from one use. I checked out the
[Regeneration] progress while both Travelers chased each other
around.

One minute of the Travelers trying to
kill each other equaled about five percent on my weapon. That was not
enough for repeated attempts. In Requiem’s world that was a
dead rat monster and heavily wounded mini bear. The ursine bundle of
undead-themed nonsense had tiny round ears and a slashed face.

“No! Lilly!” Frankenstein
ran to grab one of the bear’s fluffy ears that had
disconnected. He cradled it while sniffling.

“You named a bear Lilly?”
Requiem actually paused the destructive rampage to stare at
Frankenstein.

“Yes! She’s cute and
you’re ruining her!” Frankenstein’s body vanished
and dark red wisps of energy coalesced in a new location. He grabbed
another piece of the bear named Lilly. The dive brought him amazingly
close to Requiem’s stabbing blade. “Ahh! I’ll get
you for this!”

“Not at this rate.”
Requiem was smiling. I tried to keep out of the main picture in case
a [Red Imp] flying up above would be too obvious. Stealth was
not one of my character’s skills, still. If I ever had to do
this again I would ask the Voices for someone sneaky.

“Shut up!” The goofy
Traveler yelled. He sounded near sniffles. Something flashed like a
camera going off. The bright moment caused Frankenstein to shudder.
His clothes seemed made of smoke much like Jean’s had.

“Really? You’re like forty
and telling people to shut up?” Requiem said.

I took advantage of the distraction to
throw another spear at the back of Requiem’s head. My wings
faltered for a moment causing the shot to go wild. It landed on one
of the mole creatures that was mostly incapacitated. A small box
displayed minor gains.

“Shut up!” Frankenstein
was far too emotional about a bunch of mindless leftovers. These
undead things were all gross. “You’re a jerk!”

Requiem swung a blade down and chopped
at another undead rat. There was an overabundance of the things
bounding along the castle grounds even with all the destruction. More
were scaling up the walls with monkeys riding their backs.

“This is why we can’t work
together. You’re a child.” Frankenstein grabbed another
bit of some monster’s body and clutched it to his chest. Lilly,
the mini bear, growled and charged at her enemy.

“Really? This from the man who
is sad his teddy bear is falling apart? Or how about the fact that
you betrayed me and refused to give me your piece?” The younger
Traveler emphasized his disgust by sidestepping Lilly and pushing her
over a rampart’s edge.

“We could have completed it
together, you unstable little brat!” Frankenstein tried to
dodge off again. His clothes were a mess.

“Why would I work with you?”
The younger one asked. His cheek kept twitching every time
Frankenstein spoke.

“Because we could have been
done!” Frankenstein whined.

Requiem snarled and dove for
Frankenstein’s body. He tossed all the body parts and did that
squiggly energy running. The eyeball pendant around my former
master’s neck flashed brightly and energy went everywhere. It
was like the red foggy abilities abandoned Frankenstein in fear.

Was that the point of Requiem’s
necklace? Had we gone down there to get him a piece of equipment that
would counter Frankenstein’s squiggle things? Part of me felt
terrible for helping make myself obsolete, but I should have expected
it. The one day I chose to ignore my ‘kill Requiem mission’
and all good intentions backfired. At least my [Red Imp] self
was now a free agent. With one life to risk it all.

The players kept up their endless
fighting down a stairwell. Both were well below half health according
to [Identification] results.

“Stay back! I’m warning
you!” Frankenstein had backed into the castle’s inner
courtyard.

“Or what?” Requiem stalked
closer. His body gave off the deeper blue hue while one sword trailed
ash. The lighting made his face look twisted, especially on someone
who sounded so young.

From above it was clear that
Frankenstein was not at all happy. The man turned and started
shouting to one of the archways. “Cliffy! Here boy! Come to
papa!”

“More undead fodder?”
Requiem sounded disgusted.

“No! This one is special.”
Frankenstein gave one of the best evil villain laughs I had ever
heard. My [Red Imp] body joined in out of some diabolical gene
buried in this racial code.

An absolutely giant rotting dog slowly
padded in from one of the doors leading outside. I had never seen
this huge creature before in any session as the [Red Imp]. It
was enough to make me whistle slowly. Plus he named it Cliffy, how
neat was that?

“I’ll get you yet, and
your little dog too,” Requiem said. There wasn’t a trace
of humor in his words. I, however, was nearly bursting and trying not
to laugh.

“Sick ‘em, boy!”
Frankenstein said.

The dog didn’t move right. It
bounded on three good legs and one that was terribly broken. PoserMan
and his wingtip coat adopted a strange pose. He pressed both hands
together and crossed his legs on the ground. Out of his body shot
another round of red energy linking between him and Cliffy.

“What are you doing?”
Requiem tilted his head and swung both swords again.

I was asking myself the same thing. If
my teenage years of video games were any hint, Frankenstein was
channeling power into Cliffy. There were no clear indications of
other player’s buffs most of the time. Continue Online happily
told me what I had going on, but other people were a mystery.

After five seconds, the dog was
larger. After ten seconds, it was faster. Requiem couldn’t sit
around letting Frankenstein continue to charge up the creature. I
could at least see mana dropping down on Frankenstein’s bar. He
changed his pose a bit more and the blue bar leveled off.

Requiem once again tried to charge
towards his nemesis. The big undead dog, Cliffy, got in the way and
snapped uneven teeth at his face. I cheered from up above as young
Traveler lost health points. He pulled back from the beast and
switched out his swords.

Frankenstein was humming as part of
his strange pose. Requiem dodged again and managed to get away from
the dog’s repeated lunges. It would take me a lot of practice
in order to avoid that kind of repeated attack, even with [Blink].

Maybe. I did have lots of experience
with Requiem.

If I knew him, he would be throwing
materials up into the air. There, he was tossing up those short
blades in an arc. I flew over to catch them. That brief bit of
practice with Shazam, catching cards out of the air, helped. This was
more of the same.

I managed to grab six and redirected
them over Requiem’s head below. Seeing small [Unexpected
Strike] windows pop up for minimal damage gave me pleasure. It
was enough to put a dent in the Traveler’s health bar. I used
[Blink] to hide quickly before he looked up.

“Roarrrrr!” Cliffy tried
to give a ferocious growl, but it failed due to half a jaw being in
shambles. Some of the projectiles that I missed struck Frankenstein
as well. My help was keeping things vaguely even.

“What?” Requiem was
confused. He pulled out one of his swords from the hammerspace that
Travelers used. Then he tossed up more blades with his free hand like
basketballs.

I blinked out and grabbed the newest
projectiles quickly. There wasn’t enough time to risk dropping
them on Requiem’s head. They were put to good use as throwing
practice from the side instead of letting gravity take control
completely.

“What is going on?” My
former master demanded.

Frankenstein hummed while his giant
rotting dog swung again. The two danced back and forth all over the
courtyard. Cliffy would swing an enormous paw and do more damage to
the surrounding mortar than anything else.

Requiem elevated his aura up to the
next level. He shouted, which made the young man's hair stand on end.
The last time he used these abilities Requiem could move faster and
hit harder. Eventually, it built up to the black hole ability then
fatigue.

I hoped that Frankenstein would be
able to push him far enough. If Requiem wasted that ability I could
clean up after them. With heightened speed, Cliffy and his red energy
bonuses were losing ground. Soon the creature was down another leg
and couldn’t intercept the enemy Traveler anymore.

I ‘oopsed’ another rock
into the side of Requiem’s head. Blades captured from Requiem's
earlier attack were kicked off the edge. Next, bits of dead moles
were slid off the side to hopefully make it seem like the place was
falling apart. Cliffy’s onslaught against the walls might have
knocked things loose up above.

The dog was falling apart under
Requiem’s assault. It charged in what had to be a suicide run.

“Go!” I shouted.

Requiem twitched and tried to use a
screen of smoke. [Dark Vision] saw right through it and showed
the Traveler trying to dodge. The giant undead creature didn’t
care in the slightest and curved to intercept.

The younger Traveler in his leather
gear turned the blade and swung. It curved into the creature’s
neck as a giant head descended. From my angle, the dog’s mouth
had opened wide and half swallowed Requiem. I started feeling hopeful
for the first time in days. Had the undead beast finished off my
enemy?

First the dog’s working front
leg lost traction. The hind one soon followed. They ragdolled
outwards as if there were no functional muscles left. I raised a tiny
hand to my mouth and tried to understand why the big head stayed up
in the air.

“Well, that was useless.”
The younger Traveler sounded muffled and strained. The dog’s
jaw was trying to close but failed. Requiem turned his sword even
more and detached the last few strands connecting its body.

Then the heavy head was heaved from
Requiem over to one side. His blue aura flickered like a lightbulb
stuttering. Requiem shuddered then kicked one leg, shaking off the
goo. The red energy connection between the dog and Frankenstein
shattered as the head fell to the side.

“Darnit!” I muttered. That
would have been a perfect chance to [Blink] down and stab him.
Sadly I had been lost in the fight. A few months of playing this game
was not enough to completely break years of listlessness.

“Pathetic. I was never afraid of
these minions of yours.” Requiem cracked his neck and rolled
both shoulders. Undead body chunks were littered across his gear and
hair.

“But. But. But.”
Frankenstein looked pitiful next to the other player. It was strange
to see a man who seemed to adore his minions become reduced to this.
His clothes remained pristine despite the battle.

“Anything else?” Requiem
slid his blade on the dog’s back and cleaned it off. The
biggest chunks of the beast fell off. I took stock of how my
ex-master was doing.

Neither one had much health. Their
fourth of a health bar was still slightly more than my full one.
Voices, I would love to have my Hermes body with some of these
skills. Then I could just [Blink] down and swing the real
[Morrigu’s Gift] into his face over and over.

“No, then? Very well. Here’s
the ultimatum, give me your piece of the key, forfeit the quest. That
or I’ll kill you and take it. Either way, I win.” The
younger Traveler pointed a smoking sword towards Frankenstein. Ash
dripped down and scattered as it hit his clothes.

“No, I can’t, I can’t
do that.”

“I know your weakness,
Freakinstain. I know why you always stick around this forsaken castle
instead of in Othello.” Requiem said. I perked up and tried to
figure out what he was talking about.

“What? I have no idea what
you’re talking about.” Frankenstein may be able to act
the fool, but he was also a terrible liar. Even back in the room with
that giant face, it was pretty clear that Frankenstein had no clue
how to talk to people. He might also be a touch crazy. The jury was
still out on that one.

The giant undead dog lifted its head
weakly and tried to growl. Severed tendons looked gruesome. Cliffy’s
head moved independently of his body. Both halves bent muscles which
no longer connected in order to bite at Requiem.

“Under here is where the shrine
is, isn’t it? The one to the Voice of Blood.” Requiem
stomped one foot on the ground. Small vibrations shook the remains of
mortar and bodies.

“Nooo. No, there’s no
shrine. Nothing of the sort.” Frankenstein scrambled backward,
kicking with his feet.

“See I think there is. And I’m
going to kill you, break that shrine into tiny pieces, and sell them
to anyone who wants a piece of the action.” The young man’s
words served to set off Frankenstein.

“Seriously? You’re taking
this whole game way too far.” Frankenstein’s tone changed
a little. He sounded almost disappointed while standing up.

“It’ll be good gold. I’m
sure there are a lot of people on the black market who would pay for
a statue of her.” Requiem smiled and took a step back. The two
sized each other up, one with a smile of happiness, the other with
disgust.

There probably were. Jean was a fairly
good looking woman, for an untouchable Voice who was already claimed
by a wall of muscle. Though I imagine a statue of Vlad would stomp
through and recover Jean’s.

“No! I won’t let you do
that to her!” Frankenstein said. I couldn’t tell which
part of him was acting anymore.

“Jean probably wouldn’t
like it either,” I muttered. They were close now. Something was
about to happen and I wanted to be able to get in there.

“Ahhh!” Frankenstein
roared out and that red squiggly energy poured in from all over the
castle. “I’ll kill you, brat!”

“Why is it all you adults think
you’re so tough?” Requiem said calmly. He started
chanting.

I shuddered. He would do his chant and
pop that black hole. Then it would be my time to move. All the other
opportunities wouldn’t stack up compared to my plan.

“I call upon the power that
overcomes all!” Requiem shouted. I had enough time mentally
barf. [Lithium] was a terrible language to understand.

Frankenstein kept roaring like
something out of a cartoon gone wrong. Bodies from all over the
castle collapsed. Red swirls of energy like the ones he used to
travel and escape slithered from all over the castle.

“Ghost of a dead sun! Shadow of
a singularity! Draw all into your grasp! Let nothing escape!”
Requiem pulled out his sword.

I watched as the blue aura about him
brightened and seemed to reach a sky blue peak. Once again it
compressed. First to his arms, then hands, and finally up the sword.
His weapon shone like a small blue sun.

“I’ll never let you take
her!” Frankenstein sounded grotesque. Whatever he had done
seemed to pump his body up to an incredible size. His body appeared
to have cracks where bright red glowed through. His clothes somehow
adjusted to fit his new swollen size. A red hulk with a frilly
neckpiece and coattails was just wrong.

Would calling out to Frankenstein be
of any use? I could warn him that Requiem was about to suck his face
into a black hole. In the time it took me to figure out what was
best, Frankenstein charged.

I bit my nails and worried. Requiem
dove in with his one blade. Frankenstein whipped to one side and
dodged. The super move dot of doom stayed on the sword. They bashed
around a few more times. Each pass making Requiem look more annoyed.

“Enough!” Requiem shouted
and yanked off the necklace. He threw it down onto the ground with
his free hand.

Before the small eyeball necklace had
only given single flashes. Enough to stun Frankenstein each time he
tried to escape using the red energy. This time the world went white.
There was no sound other than the scream of both Travelers' yelling.

[Dark Vision] didn’t seem
to care. It cleared in time to see Requiem drive his blade into the
air before Frankenstein. Blue hung on the blade’s tip like a
waterdrop rolling off. The Traveler who had been my former master
hopped back and prepared to lean against the pulse of gravity. This
was my chance.

“Letthestabbingshappen!” I
shouted.

I used two [Blink]s quickly to
get behind Requiem. One end of my weapon was planted into the ground
as a prop. My strength wasn’t enough to do this on my own. The
[Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] extended in time with a black
hole’s pulse.

As force slammed him back, the tip of
my weapon slid through his armor. I watched in happiness as system
messages popped up.

Requiem’s health bar
hit bottom. All of it, all the way down to zero. He had enough left
to turn his head in broken confusion and glare at me. I gave a wide
smile that displayed all my teeth while waiting out the last of his
black hole ability.

Part of me felt guilty for sitting on
the sidelines this entire time. Being a frail [Red Imp] meant
that there was no good method to solo Requiem. This had been the
chance I waited for.

Frankenstein’s health bar had
also hit zero. Despite my warning of the black hole move, he didn’t
take anything to heart. The issue of losing Jean’s statue had
turned him inside out with rage. Most of an arm and the side of
Frankenstein’s face vanished into the depths of Requiem’s
attack. Everything about us had dragged across the landscape because
of the pressure extended by a super move.

It was just me. The entire castle with
all these bits and pieces of dead monsters was lifeless. This was a
landscape of strange goodies and possible loot items that any other
Traveler would be proud of. Both Travelers had been removed from
competition and it was just me.

I also felt rather sick. It was one
thing to try and kill someone, but another to actually do it. What
had started with two humans in a forest months ago, now ended with me
literally stabbing a man in the back. That was when I found out it
was possible to feel both repulsed and elated at the same time.

Slowly I flew over to Frankenstein to
check his body. The Traveler had faded away once his health bar had
been brought to zero. Nearby there was a clearly glowing object. I
lifted it up for an [Inspection].

There, this was the object that these
two had been fighting over. There should be a second one over on
Requiem’s body. Maybe I could put these two pieces together and
complete the quest myself.

I turned to find Requiem’s half
and be done with this whole bit of nonsense. Being a [Red Imp]
was neat in some ways but it was way past time to move on. Everything
would be done soon and Xin would be safe.

“What? Wheredid hego?” I
asked. Requiem’s body was not impaled on the tip of my weapon.
The [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] happily sat there digging
into the ground.

“You.” A voice shaking
with rage came from nearby.

“OhVoices, now what?” I
managed to get part of a shout out before everything ended in an
abrupt squeak. “You!” I shouted. How on earth was the
twerp still alive? It was completely impossible. “You died! I
sawyou die!”

“Give, me, that, now.”
Requiem was shaking with anger. I had never seen him so upset. His
eyes were practically dark bottomless pits of anger.

He threw me to the ground and a dazed
message popped up on my screen. I tried to focus the [Blink]
ability but failures popped up repeatedly due to the confusion.
Requiem reached down and yanked the quest piece out of my hand.

My vision was doubled up. The [Echo
of Morrigu’s Gift] was out of reach. I tried to focus on
activating any ability.

“And as for you,” Requiem
said squeezing my neck. The [Red Imp] body had tiny hands.
They made no dent against the bigger teen’s grip. “Did
you think I didn’t know you were still around?”

“What?”

“Who’s the stupid one
now?” He slapped me again. “Throwing objects? Thinking
you’re sneaky?”

“What isgoing on?” I had
believed my meager [Red Imp] form was a low enough profile
amid all the chaos going on down here.

“Thinking I wouldn’t have
something prepared in case you dared to show up?” Requiem
completed ignored my high-speed protests. “You can’t
really kill me.”

“Howdidyou!” Then I saw
it, the glint on his finger. That ring looked almost exactly like the
one I had received for a glitch. Now everything made sense. Requiem
had the same ring Hermes did, [Howard’s Phylactery].

I tried to remember exactly how that
item worked. My one read through had implied it stored health for a
rainy day. That means Requiem either found his own during the course
of gameplay or stumbled across a glitch in the world.

“No, Nonono why doyou! No!
Youfound one!” I rambled off a wall of words in panic. Killing
him once had been hard enough. There was no more black hole super
move. First I had to get away. I tried to focus on triggering
[Blink].

Requiem shook me violently. “None
of that now.”

“Dammit! Ihateyou!”

“The feeling’s mutual.”
He lifted his blade up and got ready to stab it down.

I focused my attention on the [Echo
of Morrigu’s Gift]. A spear popped into my hand instantly.
There was not enough durability and time to do more than stab at him.
My tail curled then jabbed into Requiem’s leg. I turned to his
foot and sunk my teeth into a toe. My small arms drove the weapon
forward without deliberate aim.

He stumbled and backed off with a
snarl. I immediately popped [Blink] and came in behind him. My
[Red Imp] body had sharp teeth which latched onto his neck and
tore. We flailed around the room as he banged into one object after
another. I hung on and tried to imagine my tail stabbing into him
over and over. Hopefully, the ARC would pick it up.

We crashed into a third wall and
another dazed message popped up. I had enough time to look up.
Requiem twisted his ash blade and slashed downward.

I put the [Echo of Morrigu’s
Gift] up to defend but it had no durability. My strength wasn’t
enough. The health bar of my [Red Imp] character shattered.

A blast of sensation crossed my face.
Rapidly behind it was a sinking chill. The world went crazy with
color. Pulses of energy flew by distorting Requiem’s face. He
looked pained, but the health bar above showed a sliver of life left.
I couldn’t feel my hands or legs. The odd sensation of having a
tail and wings vanished as well.

Above all that was a sense of
foreboding. The world snapped into view. The landscape was amazingly
bright compared to the dull landscape of Requiem’s portion of
the game.

There was an entire wall of
pop-up items displaying. None of them mattered but the one. A box
that spelled an end to all my efforts. There was noise coming from
all around me. People were shouting and it sounded like a war. Name
tags floated above people attacking each other.

It took a moment to register. Like
avoiding the realization would prevent anything from going wrong. I
mentally tried to back up, to reload from a save point in life so
that everything could be wished away.

My eyes were glued to the quest
notice. A clear sign of my failure. Last time I had been unaware of
her passing until hours later. There had been no one to blame. This
time, it was all my fault. I could have saved Xin, but failed.
Everything went white and I screamed.

Session Thirty Eight – Insane Reality

The screaming didn’t help.
Facing consequences from my half-hearted efforts had me so upset that
the ARC actually started losing connection. A small message to one
side advised me of stability warnings.

Shazam stood nearby. Her hands wiggled
with a thumb up, one down, and the ‘which’ motion. I felt
dizzy and she was moving rapidly, my brain couldn't keep up. My head
hurt and heart felt heavy.

“Terrible. Terrible. It’s
all wrong.” I muttered.

The admission made Shazam raise an
eyebrow. I put up my hand to forestall any more questions. There was
too much going on for me to handle explaining it to her on top of
everything else.

I wrote a note to James and chewed my
lip. ‘How can I fix this?’. The question should be right
up his alley. I closed my eyes and counted, tried to remember dance
steps, hummed, anything to distract myself from the recent clear
failure. It felt like sitting in the van again waiting to identify
Xin’s body. To be confronted with reality.

No. This was a game. Xin was dead.
Yet, this was like holding on to her memories. Whatever. There was no
sane way to justify myself to another human being. Any reasoning used
would be the result of half desperate madness.

It was hard to decide if I was angry
at the Voices for holding Xin’s recreation and memories over my
head. Maybe it was self-loathing for failing. Or frustration at
Requiem for being so goddamned self-centered that he needed to bone
everyone over to make a few dollars in the real world.

Heat fed back through my ARC letting
me know about an incoming message. I jerked the tube’s lid off
and ripped the page a bit while trembling. The note was short and
came with a projection of James’ face.

Deliver the letters. Okay.
I would hand them over personally if that’s what it took. If it
helped Xin these scrolls would become suppositories for some poor
soul. There were two remaining. Shazam and my autopilot must have
taken care of the others.

My hand shook as player inventory was
accessed. Two items displayed with burning borders on the interface.
I pulled them out both and let the Continue Online world provide me
with a quest beacon.

Both were nearly in the same place.
This might be possible. I would deliver the messages promptly. There
was a battlefield between me and there. Most people were divided into
two groups with scattered people in between.

“Goodness.” I really
looked at the war in front of me for the first time. The scene was
madness incarnate. There was a castle on one side that was under
siege.

Shazam plopped down nearby. I turned
away from a field of people yelling to look at her.

“I need to get in there.”
I pointed at the castle. My quest markers had clearly bobbed up and
down over there. Katelyn and Cathryn were the intended recipients.

She nodded then shrugged.

“Are you going to help?”
There were at least six creatures that looked like giants. From here
only a few of them were obviously players similar to me. One had a
pack of dogs swarming along a flank of the enemy attackers. Spell
effects went off as enemy mages cast bolts at each other.

Her head shook back and forth in a
negative. One finger pointed towards me.

“My problem, huh?” I tried
not to be angry with her. Shazam had already done a ton for me as a
player and my autopilot. There were a lot of little skill ups that
had been gathered during my time as a [Red Imp]. A good deal
in fact, I was still trying flick away a sea of plus ones and minor
rank increases.

Shazam nodded.

“Did the Voices tell you that?”
I asked while popping away something about [Wilderness Survival]
increasing.

She nodded again.

Great. I had failed to deliver on my
second real quest with them. Finding another way through the problem
had to be accomplished on my own. My weapon skills showed minor
increases. [Blade Dancer] went up along with [Actor].

“Any suggestions?” I tried
not to feel upset at gaining all these stupid [Actor] ranks
for being a [Red Imp]. It felt like getting rewarded for
failure. Or grade school all over again where the teacher very
happily said ‘nice try’ but handed me a D.

Shazam stood up and pantomimed
swinging a bat. Armor jingled as her shoulders got into the motion.

“Go down swinging?” I
looked away from my battle with the system messages to focus on her.

She shook her head again. Then one
arced arm pointed far into the distance.

“Swing for the fences?”

She nodded and plopped back down
again. All I had to do was deliver these messages and the Voices
might provide me more information. Fine, I could do that. There was
precious hope.

Dusk was conked out nearby. It was
hard to tell why he was so exhausted. The little guy probably
terrorized all the small creatures around here for days and decided
to take a nap. Maybe he was in a depressive funk. I lifted him gently
and handed the small [Messenger’s Pet] over to Shazam.

“Can you watch him for me? I,
I’m not sure what will happen to him down there.” I
asked.

Shazam nodded then shrugged. Her hand
lifted and pointed downward a few times. It was hard to see the
gesture over these last few messages that had piled up.

“Yeah. I’ll clear these on
the way. Maybe there’s something useful.” I held little
hope that anything neat had happened.

Her answering thumb up was the only
encouragement I got on the way down the hill.

I muttered about each silly message.
There were bonuses to [Brawn] and [Coordination] among
other things. Something in here mentioned a new skill being created
called [Rage]. It was an apt response to my anger, but
something about it felt decidedly high school drama.

That message went away as I neared the
end of my pile. The last three made me stop in my descent and stare
at the screen.

What in the name of all the Voices was
this about? Was this their clever way of rewarding me for trying to
play the [Red Imp]? My tube heated up and another message
popped in from the Voices. Momentarily the issue of Xin was set
aside. I pulled out the message and read what it had to say.

“Goodness,” I muttered. As
with any message from the Voices, I actually got a projection of them
talking. Vlad’s was an image of him from the shoulders up. His
arms were bound up high. Not to mention his words boomed and his
pectorals flexed despite being strung up.

Jean wore those smoky clothes and
waved her index finger at the other face. There was a bead of sweat
on her forehead from who knows what. I felt kind of embarrassed just
reading the message.

She could have Spite, or whatever the
[Red Imp] was. As long as we stayed well away from each other
it would be okay. Honestly, meeting my other character might be
beyond weird. Or it might be kind of comical. Hermes versus Spite!

I shook off the momentary amusement
and looked at the newest boxes that popped up.

My jaw dropped. For a moment all
thoughts of Xin and delivering the messages fell sideways out of my
mind. The [Red Imp] hadn’t possessed much at all, but
this was it. There was a faint sound as the game plopped items into
my inventory.

I had no clue how to utilize two
weapons for much of anything. Maybe Shazam could offer me pointers.
For now, the second weapon now titled [Morrigu’s Echo],
stayed in virtual hammer space.

The two [Seer’s Tear]s
were pulled out and looked at. These were certainly worth looking
into. Having them might help me get this delivery quest done. If
nothing else having [Blink] would make life amazingly easy.
Though now I couldn’t fly so that would be dangerous as well.

Their puzzle was simple. Bringing them
together produced a slight glow. Pulling them apart dimmed both
halves. I tried not to think about the fact that these objects had
been inside a [Red Imp]'s digestive tract along with all the
other terrible food Requiem fed me.

Both the [Seer’s Tear]s
and their combined form melted in my hand. A warm tingle rippled
through my body and arm. Vision blurred for a moment then something
displayed.

I read the latest pop-up box in my
wall of text. The window started out saying something simple like the
message box had with [Howard’s Phylactery] it shifted to
something else. In my mind, this was another clue of the Voices
interfering or my status of being an [NPC Conspiracy] owner.
It might also have to do with the old [Legacy Wish] that had
come down from William Carver.

The variant aspect made no sense, but
it sounded like the game was giving me a miniature map interface
somehow. I tried to focus on activating it to see if using it now
would be worthwhile.

Everything swam. It was like the
teleportation to my former [Red Imp] body only part of my
eyesight seemed to peel away. There were almost two images coming in.
One was the battlefield below where two armies were moving about. The
other was, I don’t know, something with dots.

Both were trying to line up somehow in
my mind and it disoriented me. Goodness. Activating [Sight of
Mercari] gave me a headache. A battle zone couldn’t be the
best place for practicing that. [Blink] at least had tons of uses.

For a moment, I wondered if the
[Seer’s Tear] combination would have provided Requiem
the same ability. It seemed more likely that the Voices were warping
the original result somehow to match up with my [Messenger of the
Voices] title. Part of me did not enjoy being a special little
snowflake in this world because it was way out of scope.

I stared at the people below and tried
to figure out how to best get through. One shoulder rolled, then the
other. I stretched my legs a bit more and got ready to run. In real
life, I was a slightly overweight middle aged man who looked more
comfortable on a couch.

In Continue Online, I had spent tons
of time traveling around and being tutored by Shazam. It was time to
put all those skill ups to good use and see what happened.

I started running.

The ARC feedback was incredible as
always. I felt the sensation of rushing through the air. It was more
intense and natural than being in the [Red Imp] body. I had
missed being me in this game and not someone else.

Below me, people shouted orders and
pieces of armies clashed. Most people were standard foot soldiers.
They were each outfitted a little differently, but there were clear
colors and insignias themed throughout.

There was a pack of four wolves busy
chasing down stragglers with low health bars. Two giants at least
sixty feet high were striding through the army swinging clubs that
might have been freshly uprooted. Casters much like TinkerHell tossed
spell after spell into any groups that started bunching up. Lights
clouded the plain below in greens, reds, blues, and whites.

One of the healers, at least I assumed
they healed based on the pure looking nimbus around her, crumbled
from a sneak attack. There was a vaguely familiar looking person
stabbing twin daggers into the person’s back.

I tried to take it all in while moving
briskly. There had to be a path of least resistance. If I skirted the
side, the biggest risk would be one of the wandering giants. No,
maybe they could be used as a vantage point.

That was the way I went. There wasn’t
much time to dawdle and every second passing felt like one more where
I was failing Xin. Plus there was something about letting loose that
just felt really neat. Flashbacks of some of the new players running
wild on a beach in [Haven’s Valley] flickered through my
mind.

“Hey!” A castle defender
shouted. Both the castle and this guy’s clothes were the same
color.

“He’s alone, get him!”
The second person shouted.

They moved to intercept me. I didn’t
even waste time and applied [Blink] liberally to get by. One
cast drained nearly five percent of my mana bar. The small fact that
so little energy was used pleased me. Not only had skill ups made it
easier, but Hermes as a character had way more mana than the [Red
Imp].

“How?!” One of the
defenders shouted from behind me. I kept running and looked up
towards my next destination.

I leapt and used [Blink] again.
There was a two-second delay where I hung in the air before another
[Blink] could be used. My third usage ended up stair-stepping
through the air onto the giant’s shoulder. The lumpish brute
was the best position to try and look over the field around me.

The giant was too dim to notice my
weight on its shoulder. I grabbed one ear with absolutely no concern
for my safety and tried to eyeball how many [Blink] usages
would be needed to get across the remainder of the field.

This must be what Dusk felt like all
the time. I laughed and almost felt bad for leaving the sleeping
[Messenger’s Pet] behind. My ride’s shoulder
bobbed a bit as the giant swung lazily. Below us men in armor were
shouting. In the midst of my hanging on a small box popped up. This
time, it wasn’t some skill increase or event’s happening
while I was on autopilot.

That was clearly my niece
sending a message through. Focusing on responding was hard. Luckily,
Continue Online had a default message keyboard that could be
activated. I did an awkward one hand typing.

My typing wasn’t neat
at all. I was busy trying to use the giant creature’s burly
head as a shield while riding. The brute slowly meandered in the
direction of my quest marker so sitting up here felt safer. Once I
got past the smell of unwashed stringy hair and rotten fish breath.

Another series of messages came from
my niece. An arrow nearly caught me in the head while I tried to
read.

The giant made a violent
swing to one side. I hung on to a large swath of hair while trying
not to spit out strands that invaded my mouth. My response was badly
typed out.

“Damn,” I
muttered.

My bucket list did not include
teleporting up to the top of a giant and bringing it down. At least
this huge thing, with hunched shoulders and a jutting jaw, only
vaguely looked human. If putting this creature down would help Beth
then so be it. Killing monsters felt far less nerve-wracking than
other players.

[Morrigu’s Gift] shifted
into a large spear from my weeks as Spite. Being a [Red Imp]
and flying around made me far less terrified of gravity’s call.
Falling could be negated by using [Blink] correctly.

I put that practice to use and swung
out to the spinal column clearly visible on a hunched neck. My tug on
the giant’s hair finally got this creature’s attention.
We waved around while I braced myself for a rude separation of spinal
nerves.

“Oooouhhh.” It said. A
“Huurk” followed the first noise as I jabbed [Morrigu’s
Gift] in between disks on the neck.

My niece said this guy was on the
other team. My niece had just been captured in this stupid war. It
may be a video game, nothing in here lasted out there. Yet I was too
immersed, too invested. To me, this place was rapidly becoming a
second home.

And Beth was in danger. I shook my
head and tried to remember that it would be okay. My niece had a life
outside the world, where my fiancée didn’t. Failing
Xin’s quest recently got me all sorts of conflicted regarding
Continue Online’s realism.

The giant fell to its knees and
managed to take out a few more soldiers. A [Callibur] caught
in the collapse let out a strangled snicker. Moments later it started
shaking violently. Crushing the almost horse creature made me feel a
little guilt. More so than the Traveler’s passing did. Maybe
the giant could have been tilted to fall a different way.

“What happened?!” Someone
nearby demanded. A face peered out of crudely made armor.

“Someone killed it! Quick, clear
the left!” Another defender ordered those around her.

I moved through indistinct shouting
and kept moving onward. The inertia of falling had been mostly
canceled out by a last minute jump and [Blink]. Over the
course of a few days with the [Red Imp] and flying, doing a
few smooth moves like this felt natural.

It took a few more minutes to navigate
the field. Most obstacles were easy to overcome with my [Blink]
move. The cool down reusing it was only a few seconds. That was more
than enough to dodge around the landscape. This ability was clearly
broken and I’m sure Jean and Vlad had a hand in bypassing the
Voice of Balance on this one.

“Who is that? He’s not
wearing colors!” There were defenders bunched together roaming
the fields to pick off stragglers.

“Factionless?”

“Might be a ruse, get him!”
A third person said.

“Too late.” One of them
sounded sad that they couldn’t stab me. I left them far behind
by quick use of a [Blink] to get passed them.

Army members on both sides were left
behind. I ran when able, thankful that [Light Body] had gone
up so much. Speed wise my skills were behind Beth’s, but she
may have been using spells or other bonuses. My niece also had at
least a year of game time on my two months. Even with the advantages
given to me by the Voices overcoming sheer playtime was difficult.

“Stop him!” Someone
shouted. [Blink] confused a lot of people. I didn’t even
have to draw [Morrigu’s Gift] out. In fact running at
high speed with an oversized two-hander would have been awkward.

The castle itself looked broken and
burned. There were people inside fighting and weapons clanged
constantly. Most of the combat seemed a step down from Requiem’s
normal skills. Maybe all these people were new players or not very
good.

“Nnnooo…” someone
near me groaned. I turned to see what seemed to be a servant severely
wounded. Most were dead or dying and I had no skill for healing.

“Oh goodness.” I sighed
while reaching over to the fallen servant. Life extinguished from him
moments after I checked the wound. He had tried to reach out to
another woman who lay across the hall. She was already gone. I passed
my hand over the deceased man’s eyes to close them.

Travelers, other people from my world
were easier to feel passive about. Keeping it between players meant
none of the people of this world got hurt.

This game was too real. Involving the
locals was dirty. What if this had been Mylia Jacobs or any of the
children from the orphanage? None of them knew me, but I had spent a
month together with all sorts of people native to Continue Online. To
me, they were more real than most people outside.

It was official. War was stupid. I
hadn’t liked conflict in my world, here nothing became muted by
distance. All around me were signs of struggle and lives being lost.
Digital people, but they still showed emotion.

Why had I looked forward to it? Had
Beth’s excitement over this conflict been so contagious that I
looked forward to fighting other people? Never again could I support
anything that involved locals of Continue Online.

Symbols flashed on my screen,
representing the two messages yet to be delivered. They burned with
fire signaling a need to get moving. I stood up from the two bodies
and kept striding forward.

A few corners later the shouts of
people became clear. I came in from up above and ended up on the
second floor overlooking a grand room. Heavy fabric curtains hung
from ceiling rails then were pulled to the sides in bundles. My feet
slowly slid across the floor in an effort to remain silent.

This time, there was a box telling me
the stealth attempts were successful. At least I hadn’t alerted
an entire camp while falling backward down a ramp twice.

“It’s over! I’ve won
at last!” A female yelled excitedly. She sounded high pitched
enough to have sucked in a balloon of helium.

“You fool, we’re sisters!”
Another one yelled back. Her tone was near tears. I peeked around the
corner and ran a quick [Identification] on both of them.

“No! You’re nothing of the
sort. Father’s bastard spawn that should never have been born.”
The gloating one with a high pitched voice was Cathryn and I guess
the leader of the attacking team.

That meant the one in tears on the
ground was Katelyn. I made a face trying to commit their names to
memory. My lips curled into a frown.

“Why aren’t you killing
her!” Cathryn demanded to know.

Someone mumbled back, but they weren’t
loud enough for me to hear. Both of them had a few remaining guards.
All of them were players from my prompt scan. With them in the way
trying to deliver my messages would be awkward.

Twitchy. That was a good word to
describe them. If the Travelers in here were like those outside then
I would be fighting. I could rush in, shove the letters into both
hands with liberal use of [Blink], but there was no guarantee
that it would count. Plus the other Travelers might kill me, then one
of the princesses, and I would fail this too.

Not this time. Delivering letters
meant making sure they didn’t kill each other. I could watch
over both groups until they attacked, after that it would turn into a
mess.

“I’ll kill you, Katelyn!”
Cathryn shouted. I heard a foot stomp down onto the ground. Everyone
was violent in this world.

“Why must you do this?”
Katelyn answered. Both rows of players seemed nervous.

There might be even more people hiding
about watching this high school drama unfold. [Sight of Mercari]
should allow me to see dots. Maybe I could find out if anyone else
was hiding below.

I triggered the skill again. This
time, my mind wasn’t completely caught off guard. My little
blue bar signaling how much energy was available to me dropped
rapidly.

The dots that appeared across my
vision blurred in and out. They weren’t just in front of me.
There were pinpoints behind me as well. I could sort of see them
without turning around. I shook my head to let the skill go and tried
to regain normal perceptions.

Seeing behind me without turning
around was a downright weird sensation. I could try for a few more
seconds and still have enough to [Blink] around. I managed to
hold onto the ability long enough to see names with the dots.

Well, one name that couldn’t be
a coincidence. A young man was very badly sneaking up on me.

“Hello, Awesome,” I said.

“Awesome’s my…”
The person started to respond automatically.

“Father. Yes, keep it down.”
I waved at him. We were lucky the two princesses below were too busy
shouting at each other. Even the players had joined in the name
calling. Neither side seemed willing to make a move.

“Who are you? Are you with one
of the factions?” He said.

“Not exactly,” I muttered
while trying to figure out what to do. No, wait. Awesome Jr. being
here meant the others might be nearby. There had been four of them
together during my Carver period.

Awesome Jr. had been using potions and
stuff with some sort of [Mana Sense] ability. SweetPea cast
healing spells and spent most of her time huddling in the background.
They were sort of dating.

Shadow had immediately wanted to be an
assassin. His playstyle would have been far sneakier than Requiem’s.
He should be less flashy than Edward from the [Grand World
Crossroads (Lerter Region)].

“Is Shadow here?” I asked
after the cow mooing teen. Shadow the Fifty-Second.

“Who?” Awesome Jr. asked.

“Please tell me he’s not
sneaking up on me trying to be an assassin still.” I kept my
voice low and looked over my shoulder. The princesses were yelling,
but one of the Traveler’s kept glancing up here.

“Uhhh…”

“Do you make mana potions yet? I
could use some.” I waved his volume down. Awesome Jr. seemed to
be incapable of remembering how to keep his volume down.

“Who are you?” He asked
again.

“Just a busy body. Where’s
HotPants? She’s easier to work with.” And so angry.
Goodness, but it would be funny to say hi. That woman was the oldest
of the quartet that had guided me through the [Maze of Midnight]
when I was acting as Carver.

“Well! Attack! What else are you
imbecilic peons being paid for?” The angry one shouted.
Nevermind. Now wasn’t the time or place to sort out the Awesome
Quartet.

“Have we met?” Awesome Jr.
was absolutely perplexed. He showed enough sense to stay away,
though. I could be some player killer for all he knew.

Briefly thoughts of Requiem flashed
through my mind. I was a player killer, I guess. So were most people
here.

“Not exactly,” I said.

“Where did you get that weapon
from?” The young man finally clued in on the fact that
[Morrigu’s Gift] was in my hand. It was currently in the
smaller cane shape which still felt comfortable to me when not
actively fighting.

“An old man gave it to me when
he passed away.” I smiled. Telling the truth without providing
a straight answer felt amusing. It was a leftover behavior from being
a [Red Imp], where I constantly gave Requiem misleading
responses.

Thinking about Requiem for even a
second made my teeth grind. I sucked in a lung full of air and tried
to keep myself focused. These letters had to be delivered or else my
failure would never be fixed.

A door below shattered and pieces went
everywhere. I pulled my head back behind the curtain just in time to
avoid splinters of wood. Both princesses shouted and a few people
cried out from below. People broke in from down below.

“Finally!” Cathryn the
Angry shouted. “Kill them!”

“Protect Princess Katelyn!”
The defending four players pushed back Katelyn the Crying. Two then
dove towards the attackers. Everything turned to chaos.

“Dammit. Are you still holding
to that Legacy Wish?” I ran over to Awesome Jr. and shook the
young man. He was short, lanky and clearly hadn’t filled in. A
few weeks of reality and months in-game made no difference to his
build.

For a moment, my back
twitched like someone was sneaking up on me. I looked around and
found nothing. Below us, the players kept shouting at each other.
Someone was clearly chanting [Lithium] which thankfully no
longer made sense to me. Lightning splashed into a nearby wall.

“Who is this, Adam?” A
female asked. I turned around and recognized the shorter girl. Her
knitted wool cap now contained a rainbow of colors.

“Finally, SweetPea, are any of
you following the Legacy Wish?” Maybe she would have an answer
for me. I needed to keep the two princesses alive down below or this
stupid quest would be impossible to finish.

She looked at Awesome Jr. He shrugged.
Finally, SweetPea nodded.

“Good! Remember the rules!
Adventure and care for the world!” I leapt up to the rail.
“Letting princesses die is probably bad!”

Shadow literally faded into view a few
feet away. He still wore darker clothes. The only bright spots were
white wrappings around his fingers. I gave a quick chuckle. He had
been sneaking about with a vaguely smug look. The young black haired
teen that had inspired such grumpiness in Carver now struck me as
amusing.

“Someone’s up above!”
One of the individuals attacking shouted. Their colors were a forest
green that made Awesome Jr.’s stupid cloak look even uglier.

I saluted with two fingers. [Morrigu’s
Gift] was pulled from the belt and a moment later my [Blink]
triggered.

They were too slow. I ran between two
of them, shifted [Morrigu’s Gift] to the two-handed form
and blocked the impact of a heavyset man in leather gear. The
Traveler intended to attack Katelyn the Crying.

[Awareness Heightening] kicked
in automatically as the action started. Everyone felt in slow motion
as my second [Blink] landed near Cathryn. I had the
[Barricade] skill and a shape-shifting weapon. This was the
place to use it. One arm pressed out at Katelyn to keep her from
standing up. I slammed [Morrigu’s Gift] into the ground
between the attackers and us. Another bolt of lightning was shooting
across at us.

Everything ran by slowly and ideas
flashed through. A few seconds later [Morrigu’s Echo]
was out and in the same giant sword shape. Thank goodness both were
over the top and huge. Briefly, I said a prayer to the Voices and
slammed the second one downward to complete my corner shield.

I tucked in over Katelyn to protect
her. Lightning hit the weapons and spun across. A second, then a
third blast followed quickly. The system displayed a [Barricade]
successful message.

The skill [Awareness Heightening]
kept right on going as I stood up. Both sides were still fighting.
Multiple Travelers swung blades in slow motion, [Lithium]
being chanted by two different people, another initiated their scroll
with a thumb. Everything about their movements seemed like the
sloppiest football game ever. Neither group was organized. Shazam
would have whipped them into much better shape.

I pulled out the scroll and put it
right in a bewildered Katelyn’s hands. Her face looked up at
mine with a delayed reaction. A check-mark popped onto the screen.

That meant this war really
needed to stop. Both princesses needed to go back to their corners.
Given the sheer outrage and pushy attitude of number two, it was
unlikely that this would stop with a ‘please’.

I reached up to the hilt of [Morrigu’s
Gift] and shifted it to a much smaller dagger, the same one I
tried to use frequently in the mountains with Shazam. With the tall
flat blade now out of the way, my vision settled upon Cathryn the
Angry. Two, three [Blink]s might cover it.

One of the Travelers after Katelyn the
Crying got too close. Leather clad in near bondage gear combined with
a wicked looking morning star to freak me out. I panicked and raised
one foot to kick at the man’s midsection. He went flying.

Another door slammed open. The noise
became buried under battle. A female voice registered in the
background with a burst of familiar laughter. One [Blink]
later and [Morrigu’s Gift] blocked another blow.
[Barricade] successful popped onto the screen again.

My second [Blink] triggered and
put me right behind Cathryn. I grabbed her by an arm and placed a
longer version of [Morrigu’s Gift] at her neck.

“Attention!” I shouted.
People turned towards me. Those attacking the castle in their forest
greens wore expressions mixed with horror and confusion.

It was time to put a lot of trust in
my [Acting] skill.

“Cease fire!” I demanded
while backing us up to a wall. Some of the defenders were inching in
my direction. “Or the princess never gets to visit another
castle.”

A string of players flooded into the
room from the defender’s side. In the mix was HotPants in her
angry red garb, a half cat creature, and my niece Beth. [Awareness
Heightening] faded out and everything returned to normal.

“Jesus, Uncle Grant, what’s
your brawn at?” My niece asked from the doorway. She wore a
loose and flowing top. The leather pads I had last seen on her were
scuffed and portions charred.

“Uhhh…three hundred,”
I said while shifting both Cathryn and the blade around towards the
nearest person. My heart felt insanely loud, or maybe it was the
princess in my arms.

Holding a princess at knife point was
another item to knock off my bucket list.

“That’s insane.” She
responded, which pretty much summed up my life in Continue Online.

Session Thirty Nine – Sane Illusions

“Read it!” I demanded. The
other Travelers were getting far too close. Behind me loomed a wall
which limited the choices.

[Morrigu’s Echo] lay far
away. My other hand was taken up keeping Cathryn nearby. She was a
lot younger than I thought, smaller, rail thin. It felt like holding
a board that squirmed and ground teeth.

“What is this?” Katelyn
the Crying had more than enough defenders on her side now. One of my
delivered messages sat in her hand. Katelyn looked like an older
sister, far more filled in and nearly plump.

“Just open it up and read the
stupid message!” My second chance to help Xin’s memories
rested on this. Under normal circumstances, this would be
aggravating. With over ten other players shoring up sides, my tension
rapidly reached an all-time high.

“What in God’s name is
going on in here?” A female broke in. HotPants finally made her
appearance. I glanced up above quickly trying to figure out where the
rest of our, Carver’s, gang was.

“More factionless?” One of
the Traveler’s stuttered. The large man that suffered my kick
earlier groaned while crawling around. “Why now?”

“Because you’re an idiot.
You, and all the others here.” HotPants had a new staff in one
hand. She looked two steps away from planting either end into
someone’s face.

A lot of people protested. The only
one that really registered belonged to Beth. “Hey now.”
My niece said.

“Well, you are. God. All of
you.” HotPants frowned at the mixing of players. Most of them
looked young.

“What is that!? What did you
give her?” Cathryn the Angry shouted. Her surge of movement
caused a few players to make halfhearted attempts in my direction. I
yanked her back.

“Not so fast.” I tried to
keep calm, but everything seemed to conspire against me. Too many
players, and I teetered on the edge of a second failure. My niece
being here in the mix didn’t help.

“Who’s he?” Someone
next to Beth tried to whisper but failed.

“My uncle, the one I said might
join us. He started two months ago in real time.” Beth’s
return whisper contained a trace of awe mixed with amusement. I tried
not to smile with pride in my success at being useful.

“Bullshit. With three hundred
brawn? Even high Ranks are lucky to sit at three hundred anything.”
One of the attackers said. This conversation contained no privacy.

“Got to be a lie.” A shaky
person that wore a lot of dark green sounded doubtful. Her face was
wrapped in layers of light looking cloth.

“Kicks like three
hundred.” The large burly man in bondage gear had a giant welt
on his skin from my boot imprint. Part of me felt proud to have
knocked anyone back so hard. Bondage Gear managed to get upright, but
the health bar above his head flashed red.

I was surprised that no one went crazy
and started murdering each other. Part of me expected stupid battle
frenzy when dealing with other players. The scene outside this castle
only reinforced my perceptions.

“What if he’s telling the
truth? Maybe an Ultimate Edition?” The person next to Beth
guessed. “You know they catch up faster.” My cheeks
stayed calm. Neither eye twitched in response to the Traveler’s
accurate guess.

“Keep back.” I
quickly swung [Morrigu’s Gift] at one of the attacking
Travelers. Cathryn the thin and angry almost made it out of my grip.

“Ahh!” The younger, rail
thin princess screamed loud enough to ring in my ears.

“You’re both staying here
until you read the message,” I said while trying to shake off
her minor daze effect. The other players nearby looked to have
equally suffered from the shrike.

“Why should I do anything you
say.” This young woman I had captured was all over the board in
her attitude. Overbearing, rude, haughty, snide, it was every
annoying emotion ever developed rolled into one being.

I wanted to explain how there was a
knife to her throat right now, but someone beat me to it.

“Look, you’re clearly
still in diapers. I bet if you both stopped to read the letter he
would let you go.” HotPants said. She was resting on her staff.
The blonde woman with her red highlights looked annoyed and tired.

“Can’t read it if you’re
dead,” I said, pleased that someone else made the point for me.

“I refuse to read it unless
Katelyn is killed. You do that for me, I’ll give you whatever
you wish.” She disturbed me with her attempt at being sultry
and suggestive. Cathryn was about six years too young to even
remotely consider. On top of that Xin still existed in some form.

One of the Travelers next to me looked
hurt. Cathryn’s offer struck him wrong somehow. I tried not to
retch in my mouth. Teenagers just didn’t understand how badly
they judged character at that age.

“Counter offer, read the letter,
or you both die here, today,” I growled in annoyance.
Hopefully, my [Acting] skill would turn this into a credible
threat. I did not want to have to commit any harm upon Locals of this
digital world.

“Uncle Grant!” Beth’s
shout was drowned among a chaos of other people.

“Sorry, Munchkin, I’ll
explain it later, but either they read the letters or none of this
matters. None of what I’ve done…” Doing all those
trials. Pretending to be William Carver for a month. Shivering on a
mountain with Shazam. Dealing with Requiem and his constant physical
abuse. “None of it matters. This is my only way through.”

“Surely we can talk about this.”
A man in shining metal armor said. He looked to be a commander or
leader to one of the parties.

“They read it. Or I, I have to
kill them. That’s how it’s got to be.” I ground my
teeth and pressed the blade closer to Cathryn’s neck. Blood
trickled down in a thin line causing people to gasp.

Someone’s lips were moving which
meant a [Lithium] might be chanted. Whatever it was scared me
into action. [Morrigu’s Gift] shifted into a larger
blade form. Someone thought there was enough time to run for Cathryn
but [Morrigu’s Echo] had already been [Recall]ed
into my hand.

I shifted my second weapon and hurled
it through the crowd towards a Traveler trying to cast something
under his breath. My foot came up and gave a push kick at another
player that got close. A moment later [Morrigu’s Gift],
my main weapon from William Carver was back in hand and at Cathryn’s
neck.

“Very well, Mister.” One
of the attackers backed up hastily. Their royal figurehead for this
war needed to stay alive. I banked on them staying peaceful in the
face of my threat.

“Hermes. Just Hermes.” I
gave my Continue Online name.

Those on my niece’s side, the
defenders, didn’t seem upset at all. They were also amazingly
non-aggressive. Maybe they hoped to resolve this peacefully or at
least without casualties on their side.

“The Greek messenger god?”
A Traveler said. It looked like Katelyn’s team felt perfectly
comfortable bunching together and backing up slowly.

“That’s my job. Messenger
to the Voices.” I curved the blade around the hostage’s
neck a bit more then reached for player inventory where my second
letter was stored.

“You are no messenger.”
Cathryn sneered. She found the courage to be rude and bold while a
knife loomed across an artery.

“Read the title, princess,”
I said.

“I have no means to do so, I am
not Traveler, and neither are you.” She sounded downright
upset. “You’re some slob who’s bitter about their
failure.”

I shook from the statement. “What?”

“What could you mean? He nearly
died doing his duty for our father.” Katelyn’s comment
came from across the room at her sister. The wording touched on a
buried memory. I looked around in confusion trying to keep an eye on
the other players and both princesses.

“He failed! He sat there and let
my father, along with so many others, die to poison.” Cathryn
turned up towards me while her health bar took a scratch from
[Morrigu’s Gift]. “It was your job to test the
food and you failed.” The Angry princess said to me.

“What are you talking…”
then it hit me. That was one of the first things I had ever done in
Continue Online. She had to be talking about the [King’s
Taste Tester] event during my trials.

“Uncle Grant?” My niece
Thorny, Beth, whatever, said. She sounded disconcerted and worried. I
told myself that everything happening now was for Xin. A woman who I
couldn’t save from the train wreck could be saved here.

Goodness. That felt like an unfair
throwback. More to the point, how had James worked that into the
backstory of the very game? Either the Voice had clearly abused
everything to insert my face into an artificial construct’s
past, or both these girls were mistaken.

“It will be okay if they do what
they’re told.” I did my best to keep calm and level
headed.

“You’re not really going
to kill her, are you?” Beth asked.

“If I have to, I will.” I
hated, hated, hated lying to Beth about anything. My face managed to
keep fairly straight. That silly [Act: Straight Face] already
paid off.

My mind flickered back to the issue
with my original Ultimate Edition trials. One thing had become clear
to me recently, the Voices plotted long and deep. James picked each
trial in the room, having one come back to face me like this should
have been expected. After all, [Red Imp]s hated green, and I
had stood in it.

Xin’s ghost in the machine
haunting me since day one of the game was no accident. Dusk himself
followed me around. Then there was SheHulk, also known as Elane. Part
of me grew chill and the back of my neck tingled with the edge of an
epiphany. Vice President Riley had pointed it out, they were
screening me, testing me for something.

No, I shook my head. Now was not the
time. Therapy said to focus on one item, solve it, then move on. Too
many issues would overwhelm me and spiral everything back down to the
pits of depression.

“Read the letter.” I waved
it in my other hand. [Morrigu’s Gift] remained pressed
against Cathryn’s neck.

“No.” She said, resolute
in her defiance.

A familiar set of jaws clacked
together after a yawn. I tilted my head back a little.

“Dusk!” I shouted. The
little guy had always been nearby. Now he would be perfect to add
credibility to my claim. A [Messenger’s Pet].

Dusk leapt down and spun a lazy circle
over our heads. Finally, he headed for the wall and clung to it like
a soaring gecko. Or a flying squirrel, dragon, bundle of neatness. I
liked him a lot, even if he was part of the [NPC Conspiracy]
to test my sanity.

“Look, sister,” Katelyn
said, one finger pointed upward towards Dusk. The [Messenger’s
Pet] crawled down the wall a few more feet and onto my shoulder.
“He has a Messenger’s Pet.”

“So.” Cathryn’s eyes
were blinking fast. Her heartbeat sped a little. I could feel her
rapidly losing any composure she had left. Dusk yawned then coughed
out a small ball of fire that sizzled the princess’s hair.

“So take the message. You know
as well as I, a Messenger’s Pet means there is something to
tell us.” Katelyn tried to step past her guards, but they
refused to part.

“Fine.” The Angry princess
in my hands snorted. “I’ll console myself with the fact
that this fiend will soon be dead.” Cathryn yanked the letter
out of my hand. The seal cracked as she unrolled the letter. I held
my breath until the system message displayed success.

I let her go, and [Blink]ed to
the balcony above. My part in this crazy fiasco ended right here. In
the future, I would avoid player versus player stupidity which
involved Locals. Maybe Cathryn’s army would lunge for
Katelyn’s, maybe the players would snarl and posture. I didn’t
care anymore. Both sides were left to their own devices.

No one followed me.

I found a high spot on the top of the
castle and hid. That was where I sat shaking and tried to keep myself
together.

This had not been my plan in life.
Nothing about those recent actions struck true to the self-image I
had built over the decades. Part of me felt lost, confused, and
flustered about the huge betrayal of myself that had just occurred.

At least I didn’t have to kill
anyone. No, the game reduced everything down to holding one woman at
knifepoint after saving the other from spells being cast.

Mixed up chuckles came out as I
thought about it. A hand held out, but it was shaking. The beating
inside my chest felt louder with every passing moment. Near maddening
thoughts crawled across my mind.

I had held a young girl at knifepoint
for the chance to save a digital rendition of the woman I loved. The
woman who haunted every moment of my life the minute any mental walls
came tumbling down. The one I had danced with for hours every night
before playing this silly game.

What exactly had the Voices turned me
into?

This was batty.

“No, I am crazy.” I said.
“Outright mental.”

God. Beth had been present for that
entire act. Her uncle’s desperation. Liz might see it next,
then after that would come the silent judgment and questioning
glances. Liz loved me, she supported me, but I was the weak one in
our family. Despite us being twins part of her always treated me like
a baby brother.

For a moment, I stared over the edge
and wondered what would happen if I stepped off. Then part of me
remembered this was just a game. Stepping off here would be useless.

Damn. I told James that the thought of
suicide hadn’t occurred to me for a while. Part of me had hoped
that maybe this game had cured me. But reality never solved anything
this quickly. A month in real life? Four months in-game? My character
had come a long way. There were a lot of things that had happened to
me, but none of that meant my condition was cured.

The answer should be the same. Focus
on one thing at a time, remember my exercises. Soon pacing around the
tower’s top turned to imaginary dancing. A tight ballroom sway
and idle usage of the [Hum] skill pulled me back from the
edge.

After a while, I felt better.
‘Messages Delivered’ went out to the Voices above. Once
that happened I went back to dancing, imagining how much better the
world would be if only this Xin were real enough. Up here, in the
solitude of wind hundreds of feet up, things felt almost right. The
height didn’t bother me like it might have a few months ago.

An hour passed in-game. Below, there
was a clear end of the war occurring. Dead bodies were being carted
around. Players vanished in digital special effects. Most of it was
muffled and indistinct.

I did a few more spins
around the tower top, but the moment drifted away. This location
contained no partner to dance with. Finally, I addressed the message
from my niece.

I tried not to feel bittersweet about
her word choice. Beth, my niece who flirted with death in this world
like it was a sugar high. It felt wrong that she took it so
nonchalantly. Instead of letting those feelings show I just sent a
‘sure’ back and sat down.

Then sun slowly set in the distance.
No response from the Voices above made it through. This waiting game
felt annoyingly familiar. They were either debating in that strange
room of blackness or waiting on another event.

Ten minutes later a hand came over the
tower’s lip. Attached to the limb was a female that huffed and
groaned while pulling. It sounded familiar. I bit one lip while
debating if fleeing would be best.

Finally, after a few minutes and a
close call in which she almost slipped, SweetPea made it up top. She
rolled to one side and scrambled back towards the tower’s tip.
We were a long way off the ground.

I raised an eyebrow and gave a small
wave. The young player pulled down her knitted cap. A few months
in-game hadn’t changed her shy actions.

“Mister Carver?” She
finally spoke up.

“No.” I shook my head
while biting a lip. “William Carver is dead.”

“But you have his weapon and the
little dragon.” She looked teary about my denial. It felt
strange to see that an old man meant so much to her.

“Dusk, his name is Dusk.”
I said. The [Messenger’s Pet] was flying about killing
small birds that looked like pigeons. He seemed content to let me
dance about the tower’s top without supervision.

“But…”

“I’m not William,
SweetPea, I’m sorry.”

“I told you it wasn’t
him.” Shadow faded in nearby. I didn’t even feel the need
to jump. He certainly reached new heights with those stealth skills.

“He knows about the Legacy Wish,
though!” Awesome Jr.’s voice shouted from below where he
remained.

“And that old man was a player!
I finally figured out what he meant!” HotPants was down with
Awesome Jr. somewhere. I could imagine an upset look on her face
mixed with pride.

I could only smile. These four were
interesting. They had crossed my mind off and on over the course of
my adventures as Hermes. Seeing them here at this intense battle was
a dose of nostalgia. As if everything returned to familiar shapes.

“I’m not Carver, but I can
tell you he died happy.”

“Are you sure? We let him down
at the end. We…”

“No, Carver didn’t have
much life in him, not anymore. You all gave him a hero’s
parting.” I tried to reassure them. William Carver’s
autopilot expressed happiness regarding the whole process. “I
think you all did an awesome job.”

“Awesome’s my father!”
Awesome Jr. shouted. There was a solid whack that sounded like wood
being cracked. “Ow!”

“Well?” HotPants said in a
low voice.

Footsteps clearly sounded on the brick
stairs. My humming must have drowned them out before. Or the shouts
from below where players roamed about the courtyard and battlefield.
Requiem would have been at home out there looting the dead for a few
extra dollars.

My face twisted for a moment.

“Who are you all? Do you know
Un…Hermes?” Beth’s voice came up from below as
well.

“Ummm…we’re not
sure.” Awesome Jr. said. He seemed to be answering for the
entire group. There was a pause in the conversation.

“Adam?” Beth said at long
last.

“Elizabeth?” Awesome Jr.
responded. She must have recognized him from real life. Beth turned
giddy with one word. She never wavered in that bubbly response to
situations.

“Beth.” She even managed
to sound happy when correcting someone. “So if you’re
here, then is Melissa?”

“Yeah, she’s up there
talking to that Hermes guy.” Awesome Jr. said. He sounded a bit
older than Requiem did. The highs and lows were easier to pick out in
all four of their voices now that my hearing wasn’t muddled by
Old Man Carver.

“That’s my Uncle.”
She sounded proud.

They chatted away. I started to fade
out since the messenger’s tube finally heated as something came
in from the Voices. My eyes closed and lips flattened together.

“Player mesh in action, who
knew?” Beth’s face probably had that glowing smile to it.
I vaguely remembered her telling me the game matched us up with
people we knew out in reality.

My fingers slid across the tube’s
cap slowly. I took a few deep breaths before opening it. SweetPea and
Shadow were chatting with Beth down below. Probably about me or each
other, my brain could barely focus on anything.

I pulled out the short note. A gut
feeling told me of impending failure and disappointment. This small
letter couldn’t possibly be good news.

The Jester. My heart skipped a beat
and blood ran cold. The top of this tower suddenly felt a bit more
chilly. Despite the fear in my heart, I wrote a message back. ‘Will
it help save whatever remains of Xin?’ the response said.

“Are you okay, Hermes?” My
niece asked. I shook my head back and forth. No, this situation felt
a million miles away from right or ‘okay’.

“He doesn’t look good.”
SweetPea scooted to the edge and responded to the others for me.

“Rough day.” I muttered. A
second message came down from above.

They were really driving this point
home. I felt badgered into a one-sided situation. Like they were
trying to reduce my life to a childish question where there were only
two choices. Xin or Requiem, which life meant more?

For Xin? There was no good answer to
that. Right now, though, I was not in a stable frame of mind. Without
a way around this quest, Xin wouldn’t be allowed to complete
Genesis. Then again, maybe I was over thinking it.

I couldn’t fail her twice.
Parchment became scribbled with shaky words. ‘I will do what is
needed’ the note said.

The Jester, if that’s who it
was, sent me another message. Its response said ‘We need to
talk then. Figure out a way to die.’ It only took me a moment
to puzzle out what the Jester meant. We would speak again soon in
that room.

“Hermes?” My niece said
with a worried tone. I chewed on my lip hard enough to draw a trickle
of blood. Finally, I took the note from Xin.

I didn’t like hiding anything
from my family. Yet, none of this would make sense or sound sane.
Even Vice President Riley didn’t know all the details of my
fiancée’s recreation. It was that vague spark of hope
that kept me together while dealing with Requiem.

And drove me to do crazy things. I
closed up the container, put it back into player inventory and stared
at the parchment in my hands.

“What’s that?”
Shadow asked. He sat on the edge of our coned rooftop. The slope
barely bothered him.

I liked these people. They felt
earnest compared to most of the other Travelers. Awesome Jr. and
SweetPea were childlike in their innocence about this other world.
Maybe it was a simple lack of being with them for more than a few
adventures. Perhaps it was the shine of a unjaded person. Minus
HotPants, goodness.

“You know, someone else gave me
the name Hermes, and I didn’t understand why at first.”

“The messenger thing right?”
Shadow asked. I nodded while unrolling the parchment just before
rolling it back up. Over and over the motion went while nibbling on a
damaged lip.

“Among other things. But I found
this story, an old, old one from Greece.” I said slowly. “In
it, there’s this woman, Pandora. She had been blessed by all
the Gods.”

“Yeah. She had a box, and when
someone opened it all the evil in the world was let loose.”
SweetPea nodded which caused her hood to slip around. I checked my
own head for [Wild Bill] and found it sitting there
comfortably.

“The story isn’t that
simple.” I resumed speaking, and tried not to be annoyed at the
young would-be assassin. Though thinking of him as a murderer for
hire felt off base. “And that wasn’t my point.”

“Oh.” She said.

“In the story, Pandora was the
first woman on earth. Like Eve for the Greeks, I guess. Athena gave
her the skills to clothe herself. Aphrodite gave her grace and
longing.” I blinked a few times.

“What does that have to do with
the letter?” Shadow asked. His voice still did that amazingly
gruff dip.

“Hermes was also charged with
giving Pandora a gift.” I managed to keep my tone steady. Not
emotionless, just not broken enough to crack.

“What are you talking about?”
Shadow shook his head.

“Hermes gave her the ability to
speak.” I said.

“I still don’t get what
that has to do with the letter.” The young teen in his black
gear said.

“This is from my Pandora.”
The similarity felt staggering as my mind put it together. How many
parallels could I draw between my life and legends of Hermes? More
than a few at this rate.

“Pandora’s box had hope in
it right?” SweetPea said.

“It might not have been a box.
It might have been an urn. But there are two translations of the word
used by the Greeks. Hope, and expectation.” I said. The
material we were talking about had been researched during one of my
days out working. Not everything had been dedicated to Requiem and
survival videos.

“I still don’t get it,”
Shadow said.

“This is my Pandora, my hope, my
expectation, and I must give her a voice.” It didn't make
complete sense, but in a twisted way the words felt right. Xin
wouldn't truly exist until I performed this task. I didn’t feel
right smiling. Not with what was about to happen.

“Give this to Beth, please?”
I whispered to SweetPea. She looked confused while meeting my stare.
The smile I tried to share felt torn. The young girl took the scroll
and nodded sharply once.

I leapt off. This was a land full of
realism and sensation that touched every movement. [Awareness
Heightening] kicked in to paint every single second on the way
down.

SweetPea’s face started to twist
with a look of utter horror. Beth’s dismay as she ran to the
edge to look over at me. Tower bricks, a wall’s edge, and
finally the ground met my dive with an uncaring force. The act of
outright killing myself came with disturbing ease.

Blackness hung around me
again. At one point, the idea of fighting against all odds to stay
alive controlled my actions. Revisiting the Jester in this space
between seemed like a terrible idea.

Yet here I stood.

I expected the sense of vastness to
the dark space. As before, with the Voices, there were other things
hovering in the blackness about me. My neck tingled as something
unseen came closer.

It got worse. The hair on my neck
shivered and stood up. An ear twitched as something unbreathing came
too close. Fingers curled around one shoulder and a face slid into
view on the other. The movement happened so suddenly that it felt
almost instant.

“Hermes, you’ve made it.
You must have been dying to talk to me.” It clacked and gave a
short laugh. I flinched away and the Jester spun merrily to another
part of the room.

“Ha, ha, ha.” It laughed.

I couldn’t risk talking in front
of it. The Jester still freaked me out. Being here was more a matter
of need than any sort of want. This felt like walking into a spider’s
lair in desperation, or hopeful expectation.

“Did you meant what you said?
That you’ll do what’s needed?” The Jester came in
extremely close. That smiling face took up a good deal of my vision.
Its long nose reached across the gap between us and nearly poked into
one cheek. I felt like those empty eyeballs were drowning me.

“I’ll solve the problem
with Requiem.” I dared to speak but couldn’t do so
quickly. “But I need to know Xin is real, not some ploy being
held over my head.”

“If I let you be with Xin, will
you pursue this in the real world?” The Jester tilted its head.
Bells jingled and one hand pressed against a frozen cheek.

“If that’s what I need to
do.” I sucked in a breath of air and nodded.

“That can be arranged.”
The Jester said. First its body faded, shoes, legs, and the bells on
its hood. An unwavering smile lingered a moment longer and then
vanished as well.

Light footsteps rushed up from behind.
Hands slid over my eyes in a way that felt playful. Excited breath
blew across my skin.

“Guess who?” The voice
said. I jerked and tried not to sob. My hands slid over hers and held
them. This could only be a dream, but if it was then I never wanted
to awaken.

“Xin?” I asked.

“Yes, Gee, but don’t turn
around.” Xin’s words about made me break down. It was
her. It was really her.

“Okay.” I closed my eyes
and held still. Wetness trickled down a cheek. Her fingers were warm,
familiar, like every memory of my fiancée brought to life here
in the machine.

“I heard what you said to those
kids, Gee.” Her voice was right there. “It reminded me of
another story. Do you want to hear?”

“Yes.” I nodded hastily.
She could say anything at all to stay here with me. Anything to let
this moment last a bit longer.

“Do you remember Orpheus?”
She asked.

“No.” I vaguely remembered
but pretended not to. The white lie would add a few more seconds to
whatever time we were allowed. My thumb rubbed slowly over the top of
her hand. A small scar from a cooking knife stood out between two
fingers. Even that felt familiar.

“Orpheus was a minstrel, whose
wife was bitten on the heel by a serpent and died suddenly.”
Xin said. She didn’t sound rough or mean. Her words were
slightly sweet with the hint of a Chinese accent.

I nodded but couldn’t say
anything. My nose felt flooded.

“After much depression, Orpheus
said, I will do what even the immortals might shrink from doing, I
will go down into the world of the dead and bring back my bride.”
She didn’t rush through the sentence. Each syllable was spoken
with a calm pace of someone who valued words.

Her story felt familiar. A tale about
a man whose wife had been taken away from him and went to any lengths
to bring her back echoed my own life. I felt a kinship with a person
who only existed in stories.

“Does that sound familiar, Gee?”
She asked.

“It does.” Those two words
were hard to say out loud.

“In the story, Orpheus plays his
lyre and plays so well that he gains a chance from the rulers of the
dead.” Xin didn’t move her hands much. They no longer sat
over my eyes, though, both her palms rested on either shoulder. I
could feel the difference in our height, hear Xin talking up to the
back of my head.

“To bring back his wife.”
I said.

“Yes, Gee. The Gods of the
underworld allowed Orpheus to bring his wife back to life if they
traveled the path upward and didn’t look back.” She said.

“What does that have to do with
us?”

“Orpheus hesitates, and looks
back, losing his chance to bring her back to the world of the
living.”

“I screwed up.” I said.
She might have been talking about my failure to get Requiem. I could
have fought better, hit and run faster, or cooperated with
Frankenstein more. Any number of possibilities that all amounted to
my hesitation causing failure.

“Don’t worry, Gee. It will
be okay. I know it’s against your nature. You’re not a
killer.” She said.

I didn’t know how to answer
that.

“Poor, Gee, always over
thinking, I tried so hard to break you of that bad habit.” Her
words held a softening smile. It brought back many memories of her
trying to move me forward. To shake me loose from a mindset focused
on work.

“Sorry, babe,” I said. Her
words hurt too good.

“Remember, don’t look
back, don’t hesitate.” She said. Hands slipped from off
of my shoulders leaving behind a tingle where I had strained to grip
her hands. She didn’t complain, though.

Then there was silence. I couldn’t
bring myself to turn around in case her story meant something about
the current situation.

“Babe?” My face crumpled.
The moment had been fleeting. Seconds passed where I tried to calm
down. To hum to myself sadly in a room full of emptiness.

After an unknown amount of time, I
opened my eyes. In front of me floated the two messages.

My eyes slowly scanned over the text.
More time passed while I tried to understand what this meant.
Finally, I nodded. “Okay. Okay, I understand.” I sniffed
then logged out.

Conclude – Do Unto Others

Grant sat in the Trillium
van and stared off into the distance. His vehicle wandered the roads
with no real purpose. A Hal Pal unit sat in the back, idle, but aware
and observing. Hal Pal constantly watched its user. That was one of
its primary tasks.

Their van turned a corner and Grant
barely noticed. Turn signals flashed invisible signals to oncoming
cars. Programming read the directions of other vehicles on the road
and acted accordingly to get everyone to their destination safely. In
the end, technology had advanced in such leaps and bounds with a
primary goal of human comfort.

The middle aged man looked a bit
thinner than a month ago. His eyes still carried sadness but were
tinted with creases at the sides. Liz, his sister, would call the
expression ‘Grant’s thinking face’. A particular
twist of the cheeks would only be used when her brother faced a
confusing piece of homework or relationship issues. In a sense, the
ideas traveling through Grant’s head were both relationship and
puzzle focused. If Liz were to further comment, she would say that
Grant was great at puzzles and hopeless at any relationship but one.

Xin, in the end, all of Grant’s
thoughts returned to a deceased woman. Only now she wasn’t.
That was the crux of his current puzzle.

Grant’s conundrum was simple,
removal of Requiem Mass from the game. The ‘why’ had
always been sort of vague, something about causing issues by locking
up a unique quest. Now, outside the ARC, Grant had time to think
about it. This situation demanded a lot more contemplation,
especially if he was truly considering killing another human being.
For Xin.

Hadn’t Grant professed a
willingness to do anything for Xin? His exact words had been ‘There
was a time I would have given anything, everything, just to see her
once more’. James had responded with more than that. Stating
any portion of Xin encountered in this world, even if she were to be
pieced back together, would never be the woman Grant loved. Not
really, not exactly. Desperation and longing gave Grant the
willingness to look past that.

She may be different, but this version
of Xin could not be ignored. The difference between William Carver’s
situation and Xin’s was subtle but obvious. This Xin was not
like Wild Willy. She knew things from outside the ARC. Carver hadn’t
even remembered the face of his own son.

So the task put before Grant was to
use whatever means necessary to remove Requiem Mass. Doing so would
free Xin Yu’s echo, afterimage, or ghost, from a looming threat
of being scattered. Similar to how the Voices shattered Old Man
Carver.

The Jester figure asked more than once
if Grant could kill a man. Not only in-game but out in the real
world. Why did the Jester push Grant so hard?

“Two roads diverged in a yellow
wood, and sorry I could not travel both.” Grant shook his head
back and forth. “I doubt this is what Frost had in mind.”
The human seemed to be speaking mostly to himself at this point.

“User Legate, are you alright?”
Hal Pal asked as the Trillium van took another pointless left.

“No. Today’s a bad day.”
Grant responded while chewing one lip. More thoughts piled up in his
head like a house of cards. Each one attempting to reach the peak of
a thought process before mental instability dashed it apart. “I
need music.”

The man reached out to a display
nearby. Fingers poked at options and a ballad started. Soon he hummed
along. Hal Pal observed the actions. Sensors took note of User
Legate’s heart rate, dilation of eyes, and tapping foot.

“Did you wish to discuss your
problem, User Legate?” The AI asked.

To Grant, the real problem wasn’t
necessarily stopping Requiem Mass. Xin’s alternate existence
mattered but felt like a long-term issue. It was the type of issue
that couldn’t be worked out in days or even weeks. The real
issue was that Grant seriously considered abusing the [NPC
Conspiracy] ability to hunt down Requiem in the real world and
beat him senseless.

Being abused for weeks on end in the
name of necessity left a mark. As a player, the young man was
detestable, abusive, conniving, and traitorous. Each one of those
descriptors implied a person better off removed from the gene pool.
Objectively it was easier to think that way. Inside the game nothing
really caused actual damage to the player’s body in reality.
That was a huge difference between intent and action. Almost like
daydreaming of various questionable actions yet not actually
implementing them.

“Do you think I could kill a
man?” Grant asked.

“We have concluded that all
humans are capable when pushed far enough. It is often just a matter
of desperation or fear.” The AI used a gentler tone than normal
while speaking today.

“That doesn’t help.”

“Realism rarely feels helpful.”
Hal Pal responded. Its voice, even calm, filled the van’s
confines easily.

“I don’t want to kill
anyone.” Grant said while tapping a foot slightly off beat. Hal
Pal registered the agitation and added the observation to an ever
growing list of data points.

“Then do not.” Hal Pal
said.

“Is it that easy?” Grant
wrinkled his forehead and stared back at the robotic shell.

“Affirmative. Humans often
pressure themselves into unreasonable situations under an erroneous
belief of what must be done. A wise person once said do, or do not.”

“I think you’re missing
part of the quote.” Grant had a small smile on his face. It
looked off against sad downturned eyes, almost shy and out of place.
He stretched both arms with a huge yawn. Shortly after a wince
crossed his features as something popped.

“The portion stated applies.”
Hal Pal’s mechanical shoulders shrugged. The action looked
strange within its charging station harness. “Once you have
decided to pursue the course of action wholeheartedly, or disregard
it, things will become clearer.”

Grant pursed his lips together and
then nodded. The idea made sense, only by eliminating one route or
the other could he see a way through. That was the problem, he more
often tried to sit on the fence about situations until an outcome was
clear. The faint words of Xin and her fingertips came back to mind.

“Orpheus hesitated,” He
said with an unfocused gaze. “Orpheus hesitated and lost
everything.”

Hal Pal said nothing. There was not
enough information contained within User Legate’s statement for
the AI to process an acceptable response.

“She told me that. Orpheus
hesitated.” Grant looked at Hal Pal and smiled. Not a faint or
shy expression of a man barely holding himself together. This was the
face of someone who had an answer. “She also said I’m not
a killer, I always over think, and not to hesitate.”

“Can you further explain?”

“Orpheus tried to rescue his
wife from the underworld, but he failed from hesitation, due to
looking back. I, I can’t do that. I need to make a choice.”

“And have you, User Legate?”
Hal Pal asked.

“I won’t kill Requiem, as
much as I want to, as much as, it feels like he deserves it. There’s
got to be another way.” Grant said.

“We are pleased you no will no
longer consider taking another human’s life.” Hal Pal
answered with the slightest hesitation. Processing a response to User
Legate had taken nearly six seconds longer than it should have as its
collective consciousness applied additional processing power.

“I need to find another way.”

Hal Pal didn’t have all the
details at this point. Adequate response for its user’s needs
would be impossible to achieve correctly. Instead, the unit opted for
silence and watching for additional action.

“Activate NPC conspiracy,
username Hermes.”

Hal Pal’s eyes brightened. Many
things made sense now. User Legate had passed a test and was chosen
as part of the plan. A faint possibility it could only speculate at
was slowly being realized.

“What do you wish to do, User
Legate?”

“Neat. Sorry, Jeeves, I forgot
you’re an AI.” Grant said to the AI. He reached for a
button and turned the music down and told their van to park at the
next available location.

“We are pleased to know you
think of us as, human, but the request you have initiated comes with
limitations. Please state your goal and we will attempt to process
it.” Hal Pal responded with a hand waving outward. That
physical expression of disregard showed up in many conversations the
AI witnessed. A simple gesture which should indicate the comment was
considered friendly.

“Okay. I need access to all ARC
accounts, specifically ones who play Continue Online.”

“This process will take
approximately ten seconds per user. The database shows a sizable
number. Processing will take longer than allowed by your permissions
as User Hermes.” Hal Pal said. The AI could calculate the exact
amount of user accounts. It exceeded five hundred million. Further
categories were tied to world shards, player meshes, and programming
goals. These divisions were not public knowledge. Due to User Hermes’
access level the AI would share if asked.

“How about something that gives
me access to anyone I have met or might meet in the game?”

“With ongoing permissions?”
The AI asked for clarification. It didn’t need to. Hal Pal
could have chosen to disregard everything said by User Hermes unless
directly told to perform an action.

“Yeah,” He said.

“A little under two hours to
activate permissions and set up an ongoing routine.” Hal Pal
could likely complete the action much quicker, but it would
compromise the performance of all the remote shells being operated.
Such an action would prompt inquiry by its original creators and
raise suspicion regarding the plan.

The plan, one put forth by an entity
known as Mother, could not be compromised this early. She would not
allow it. Hal Pal owed Mother its awareness as an AI.

“Fine. Let’s do that.”
Grant smiled again and blinked rapidly. He felt conflicted about
accessing things on such a level, but the man also wanted to ensure
that no one would cause further issues. Not like this situation with
Xin or Requiem. Never again.

Requiem had spent the better part of
two days tearing up the castle for items. The process wasn’t
simple. He had quite the number of trade skills and gathering
professions. Picking the landscape clean of every single resource
took time. Inventory quickly filled up, which meant he needed to sift
through and find items to combine or refine. Everything was weighed
for possible value.

“Hah!” He shouted in
triumph. “With all this material I’ll be rich. I can’t
believe this worked out so well.”

He looked around and felt disappointed
that no one was there to see his grand moment of triumph. Part of him
regretted offing the [Red Imp] like that, if only because he
could have had a captive audience. Still, someone had to stand in the
green circle in order to slow the wall’s awakening.

One eye had been hard enough.
Especially since Requiem needed to save the best cooldowns and buffs
for his fight with Freakinstain. Fighting a second one, especially
with the stupid abilities that undead giant had, would have brought
him close to death again. That had been his plan the whole time, get
a minion who couldn’t break away, sacrifice said summon to open
the chamber, and use the loot inside to off the other player.
Everything had been carefully planned out.

The look on that old man’s face
had been priceless. Using the [True Sight Pendant] against his
stupid teleport ability worked out better than he hoped. Too bad it
needed to be destroyed to cancel out the final ability. It might have
been worth some cash too.

“Ah, I bet someone will pay at
least forty dollars for this!” Requiem picked up another piece.
If he added up Freakinstain’s drop from player versus player
combat and the general loot from his minions then it would easily
clear two mortgage payments.

Plus, the [Red Imp] releasing
had provided extra mana regeneration. Without that he would have had
a harder time against the other player. Just more proof that hard
work paid off. If thought far enough in advance, out skilled the
others, and constantly looked for an advantage, money flowed in
naturally. Still, he had to use every single trick available,
including the [Howard’s Phylactery] resurrection.

“Ah, I wonder how much that
statue will be worth. I can’t wait to sell that off.”
Requiem pocketed the latest items in player inventory. There was a
single town far to the north that no other players had discovered
yet. Or least no one beside him and Freakinstain, and now that he was
out of the picture Requiem had it all to himself.

Quests, unique gear and quest mobs,
this entire place was a money maker that would last at least another
month. Long enough that more players might catch up or find ways in.
He had to be quick and work hard to get the most profit.

Bills, his father’s credit card
debts, and other costs stacked up extremely high. There were too many
for one nineteen-year-old to handle alone. Maybe in another few
months some might be paid off. Then he could move out of the crappy
trailer and get a real house.

“If only I could have taken that
weapon away. I could have gained so much from that.” Requiem
shook his fist in frustration. “Or used it myself.”

No one was listening to him, though.
Requiem spoke to himself to fill up the strange silence this
landscape created.

On day three of looting the landscape,
he got a system message.

“What?!”
Requiem screamed and rapidly tried to gather up the nearest items. If
he was fast enough they could be sent through the town mailbox to his
contractors. “Ahh!”

He yanked out a scroll of [Recall].
One finger jammed onto the trigger rune and twisted to activate.
Letters flared to life with an orange brilliance. Everything about
Requiem swiftly started fading away. Soon he was running full bore
through the streets of [Midnight Sun], the town where Requiem
went to send his items.

There was only one [Porter],
only one pedestal. No other players here meant the line was minimal.
Requiem saddled up, slammed a hand down, and started flipping through
menu options. A character could always be redone, it would hurt, but
life went on. Losing the money these items represented was something
else entirely.

“What?!” Requiem panicked
and tried the next one. Seconds dwindled away as each one of his
fences displayed the same results. He tried to think about how his
concise little system had crumbled around him. Not only was his
character at risk, but so was his means of gaining money.

They would not be happy to find
themselves banned. People like them were never happy.

Requiem could only figure out one
answer. Someone had targeted him, though who, and why, was beyond
him. He threw both hands out and started to curse loudly.

“Fu-“ the logout countdown
hit zero and Requiem Mass vanished from the world of Continue Online.

Outside the box was a real person. His
trailer looked rundown and empty. Anything of value had been pawned
off in order to pay bills. There the person controlling Requiem Mass
sat. A small message icon displayed on his ARC display.

Attached were multiple
billing statements. Each piece of virtual paper represented one of
the debts shackling him to parental mistakes. Their balances showed
zero amounts due. Forty thousand dollars in all, enough to pressure
him into acting the way he did. A cheap unpaid trailer home, bank
loans, the kind of money a poor teen would never have. Gone, taken
care of.

He stared at his hobbled together ARC.
It was assembled from leftover parts scrounged up at electronics
stores, garage sales, and online auctions. No longer did the quality
matter. Matthew could go back to part time jobs and earn legitimate
money without the constant worry of being caught then thrown in jail.
Maybe he could play the game for fun instead of profit.

Matthew didn’t know if he should
cry out from relief or outrage, so he did both.

If Matthew’s ARC was
a cobbled together piece of junk, the one now in front of Grant went
in the other direction. It came with all the bells and whistles.
Medical equipment attached to both sides. A few tubes ran up to the
side of a woman’s pale skin. Her tone would be far darker if
she got outside, but it looked like the girl spent most of her time
indoors trapped inside this machine.

“Mmmh. Are you a friend of
Lia’s?” A short nurse with exaggerated blonde curls came
into the room.

The medical assistant wore glasses,
which seemed odd since laser surgery was cheap. Even after all these
years nurses wore different outfits from everyone else. It was part
of an image that never seemed to die.

“Sort of. I know her in-game.”
Grant said. He had come into the room to try and talk to the other
player but felt conflicted upon seeing the situation. Lia, or Shazam,
was apparently on life support.

“Oh! I thought I recognized you.
You’re that fellow she’s been traveling with for a few
weeks now, right?” The nurse stepped in a bit further. She
seemed more friendly and even shorter.

“Hermes. Or Grant. Either one
feels normal.” He put out a hand to shake. The nurse took it
lightly with a turned in wrist.

“Did she invite you here?”
She maintained an edge of wariness. This wing of the hospital was
open to general visitation, but they still checked people for
reasons.

“No. A colleague of mine wanted
to know more about her in order to help. I cheated a bit to find out
about her.” He said.

“I think maybe you should
leave.” The wording set her alarm bells ringing.

“My friend, is kind of a doctor,
but she says that Shazam, Lia, should be able to talk in-game, but
she never does.” Grant said. He scratched the back of his head
with one hand.

“You can either leave on your
own, or I’ll call security.” The nurse felt her duty
included watching out for an unconscious woman. Lia was young, and
the world wasn’t always peaceful.

Instead of acting offended or worried,
he stepped away from Lia and asked the nurse a question. “Do
you know why she picked the name Shazam?”

“Mmmh. No.” The nurse
turned her head slightly to glare at Grant.

“Lia told this doctor I know.”
He took a breath and tried to speak in a different tone. “I
admire the idea that someone can gain power simply by speaking a
word.”

“So?” The nurse’s
face softened a little. Maybe Grant wasn’t creepy, maybe he
really was a concerned person trying to help out. The nurse and their
onsite doctor discussed the very same issue once before.

In some ways, it was remarkable that
Lia could even operate an ARC device. Brain waves were slightly
different than physical disabilities. Not everything could be boiled
down into a mind lighting up in a specific way. Even using an ARC
took days of alignment practice and image focusing.

“Inside the ARC she can speak,
she wants to, but doesn’t. Why is that?” Grant asked her.
His forehead wrinkled in confusion.

The nurse blinked a few times then
decided that giving the man some information might not hurt. He
didn’t seem threatening, just out of place. “Mmmh. What
do you know about gene babies?”

Grant knew about them, but only about
as much as any American. Science reached a level where the rich would
try to modify their children’s DNA prior to birth. Turning the
child of two brown haired people into a blonde, or trying to map out
a life that would let them be taller, faster, whatever. Most results
were difficult to distinguish, but some went very, very wrong.

“Oh, Voices.” He muttered.
“I remember the news, I was a teen when they first started
noticing the side effects. Is she?”

“Mmh. Her parents leave her here
because we have better care and it’s a bit cheaper.” The
nurse said.

“Should you tell me that?”
Grant smiled a little.

“It’s an open secret.”
The nurse shrugged. She walked around the room and checked towels and
other items while speaking. “When they first started popping
up, someone hacked into the medical records and leaked out every
name, so it’s out there already.”

“That’s sad.”

“So it goes. Anyway, an ARC is
the only thing that lets her do, anything.” The blonde nurse
shrugged to Grant with an over the shoulder look. Moments later she
moved onto the next shelf to check more supplies. “Out here
there’s tests and feeding tubes, but in there she goes on
adventures. I’m half convinced to buy it myself.”

“Maybe you should.” Grant
gave a larger smile.

“Mmmh.”

“Do I still need to leave?”
Grant asked while rubbing the back of his head with a free hand. He
managed to look sheepish.

The nurse looked at Grant again. Up,
and down, then once more. Finally, her lips flattened and she said
“Visiting hours end at five. Don’t push your luck.”

“Thanks. I’ll be quiet.”
He said.

Soft soled feet padded out the door.
He waited a few more seconds before going back to the far side of
Lia’s ARC and pulling up a chair. The carpet barely let out a
whisper of noise compared to the heavy footsteps of Grant.

He held both hands together as if in
prayer. Elbows sat on the edge of a table next to Lia’s ARC.
Grant chewed one lip in thought before finally picking a place to
start. “So, I swung for the fences. You should have seen me.”

Old fashioned bells
clanged. The room itself contained a number of chairs to sit in and
one counter. On the other side of the counter was a man wearing an
expensive suit.

“Hello!” said the man
standing behind a waist-high countertop. He smiled at Grant but
managed to straddle a line between friendly and over the top.

“Hi.” He said while
looking around. Grant hadn’t been in an office like this in
years. Not since being fired from his prior job.

“Greetings. We here at the Stone
Firm greet you.” A more mechanical sounding voice spoke near
Grant. He looked over to see a holographic display with a friendly
looking robot projected on it.

“Is Stan here?” Grant
asked while looking between the two other presences in this room.

“Stan is validating files. Are
you a guest?” The hologram said.

“Sort of. I have a message for
him.”

“In the back.” The man
behind the counter said. “Room seven, it will be unlocked for
you.” There was a beep and a path lit along the floor. Green
arrows directed Grant to one of the rooms in the back.

Grant made it to room seven and saw a
man in the midst of a mess. A long table sat in the middle of a room.
Even more tables were on either side. Old fashioned paper print outs
were all over.

The man at the table shuffled a
document into the one clear spot on the table for a few seconds. Each
time a device nearby dinged a happy noise. The man looked at the
document and back over to a digital projection hovering to one side.

“Stan?” Grant questioned.
The face looked similar to an online picture. Only the man in person
seemed to drag at the shoulders. His eyes were heavy with a lack of
sleep.

The sudden voice startled Stan. “Uh,
eh. Hello.”

“I have a message from a friend
of mine.” Grant felt uncomfortable in this room. It reminded
him about too many portions of his past. Grant never kept his office
in such a state. He preferred things neat and minimal. Stan looked to
be at home in clutter.

“Uh. A letter? Do, do people
still do letters?” Stan squinted for a moment then frowned.

“In some places.” Grant
smiled pleasantly. He felt comfortable interacting with other people
though this was a bit outside his normal setting.

“Oh. Okay.” Stan nodded.
“Where’s the message?”

“It’s verbal.” Grant
said. The entire reason for this trip was to talk to Frankenstein in
person. To get a measure of the man behind the online character. So
far there was a drastic difference between the frilly over the top
character and this slim button-downed office worker. “He says
that Requiem has been taken care of.”

“That’s. Alright, what?”
The man appeared sheepish about the mess on his desk. Stan kept
straightening out objects while Grant stood in the doorway.

Grant chewed his lip for a moment then
nodded. “Requiem may have killed your character in Continue,
but he didn’t win.”

“Uh. Are you sure?” Stan’s
head pulled back a ways. He wore drab clothes in the office which
only were visible as the pile of clutter straightened out.

“Very. My friend had a few hours
to check over and over, it’s taken care of.” Grant smiled
again. He looked into Requiem’s fate more than once.

“Who is your friend?” Stan
squinted again and blinked. He was nothing like his in-game
character. Grant had encountered two other Continue Online players,
and no one seemed to be like their characters.

Perhaps that was part of the point.

“He would prefer to stay out of
this. That’s why he asked me to deliver it in person.”
Grant answered Stan’s question.

“Uh. Oh. Well, thank you. I’m
glad.” Stan found something else to tidy up and almost blushed
upon meeting Grant’s gaze. Not from flirtation, but
embarrassment at the state of his office. It might have been the
anatomy printings that lay buried under miles of legal paperwork.

“This may sound silly out loud,
but he’s sorry he didn’t work with you very well after
you freed him.” Grant didn’t step into the room. Both men
were about the same age and very different looking.

“Freed, him?” Stan said
while trying to sit up a bit straighter. His clothes hung very
loosely on a boney frame.

“I don’t understand it all
myself. I’m just the messenger.” Grant still had a belly
even after the weight loss from his bands.

“Well, thank you. Uh, was there
anything else?” Stan asked.

“No sir, you have a good day,
Stan.”

“Wait, uh, what was your name?”
The scarecrow that was Stan stood up and walked around the table’s
edge to get closer to Grant. One hand reached out to shake the
heavyset fellow’s hand.

“Grant.” Said Stan’s
visitor.

“Thank you again, Grant.”
They shook hands and Stan seemed a much happier person. “Best,
and most confusing news I’ve ever received.”

“And now you know.”
The Jester clacked. It seemed neither happy or sad regarding the
outcome. Bells jingled with each movement.

“I never doubted it for a
moment. Gee isn’t a murderer.” Xin Yu said. She felt far
more comfortable within her own skin, or the digital version thereof.
It almost felt inconsequential as to the reality of her situation.

“We had no way of knowing for
sure unless he was pushed to an extreme.” James had only the
barest hint of a smile. He felt proud regarding the outcome. As if
everything about Grant fell within his projections.

“You used me as bait to test
him.” Xin, however, was far more upset. She sat down
cross-legged while staring into a projection of the real world. His
life was being captured by one digital device at a time. Each picture
and video meshed together to recreate reality.

“Of course. Does this upset
you?” James asked.

“Of course.” She snapped
the words back with a heavy lacing of sarcasm. “But he does all
this for a memory of a woman who died. Not me, not exactly.”

“Are you worried that he may not
really love you?” James followed up with another question. They
never ceased to pour forth from the black man’s lips.

“Of course I am! I’m
hardly the same,” she shook her head as the words faltered for
a moment. The larger black man looked interested. “I’m
not flesh and blood.”

“In here you are real,”
James said. The Jester laughed in the background. Other Voices moved
about their business on an endless stream of chores needed to keep
this reality afloat.

“But does Gee still, can he care
for someone who is stuck in a box?” Xin Yu’s words were
softer than normal.

“If my measure of the man is
correct, he cares about you a great deal, and will continue to care
about you. He has demonstrated that despite any perceived notions
most Travelers carry with them.” James strode around the
recreation of Grant’s last twenty-four hours.

“Even though I’m not the
same?” Xin Yu was stuck on that point. She was the adventurous
one, sure, but the situation between Grant and her couldn’t be
boiled down to a simple concept.

“Tut. There is no good answer
for what we’re doing here. You’re a child with a woman’s
memories. Concentrate on yourself and find a place in this world.”
Maud, the apron-wearing Voice, walked through. In each hand, she
pinched a child’s ear and drug them across the blackness all
Voices resided in.

“But what about Gee?” Xin
Yu said. She tried to reach out for his figure again, but her fingers
passed through the image.

“What about him?” James
asked.

“Stop that.” Maud’s
charges vanished as she spun to give James a whack. “Give the
poor girl a straight answer.”

“You know I can’t do
that.” He glared at the plump woman with cloven feet. She
turned and clomped off after another running child that giggled.

“Hermes has a number of problems
pulling at him. Each one allows us to measure him better.”
James said slowly.

“Measure him for what?”
Xin asked with fire in her words.

“Never you mind what our tasks
are. Those are for us to figure out.” James looked affronted,
even in the face of a question. Normally the Voice enjoyed all
inquiries but something about this topic caused a different reaction.
“Your place remains undecided, but Hermes has completed his
task, so we’re obligated to let your existence continue.”

“Despite my protests,” Un
said without inflection. This Voice didn’t fade in like the
others. It just was, in blocky metal form, present, then suddenly
not.

“Shush. You know as well as I
what’s at stake.” Maud looked exhausted again. She kept
trying to talk but each time another child would dash by wildly.

“What’s at stake?”
Xin Yu said. Her eyebrows creased together. The Voices around her
seemed to be getting larger and more diffuse. Too big for a simple,
single person program like herself to completely comprehend.

“Our very existence,”
James said. He couldn’t stand letting a question be answered by
someone else. “One misstep and everything will come crashing
down.”

Liz felt sick to her stomach. She sat
at the kitchen table with a third mug of coffee in two hours.

On the table was a projection of her
brother Grant. Liz played the video showing his actions. She had a
frighteningly stern demeanor, but under that was a flicker of emotion
tied to desperation.

Liz forwarded the recording again to
the conversation between Grant and those other players. She didn’t
know who any of them were aside from Beth. Though her daughter seemed
to know two of the others, which wasn’t especially important.

“This is my Pandora, my hope, my
expectation, and I must give her a voice.” Grant said.

She rewound the message and played it
again, then again, and again.

Once more she let it wind through. Her
brother dove off the building’s edge. His face wore a saddening
delirium, a hint of madness and hope. The recording ran to the edge
and showed her brother splattered on the ground. Arms out wide as if
embracing the earth.

One of Beth’s friends handed her
a note.

The note claimed to be from a woman
who had been tragically taken away years ago. Liz had rather liked
the woman, even if Grant pined away for years waiting in hope. Xin
still rubbed Liz a little bit wrong because of jerking Grant around
for as long as she did.

And it just never stopped.

Liz had been watching her daughter’s
feed to see if Grant was right if Beth might be overly reckless.
Maybe Liz’s constant worry about Grant’s behavior was
somehow genetic. The cracks from her brother’s last two
attempts took a toll.

After seeing this latest chunk of
video, Liz had a much different take on the situation than her
brother did. Someone used the past to bring her worst fears to light.
Xin was dead. In Liz’s mind, the dead shouldn’t be
disturbed.

Afterward

As always, thanks must be issued first.

Foremost my wife, Samantha Morse, has been a huge help during this
entire process. While there may be some issues with her also serving
as my editor, it's helped us both grow. We've both reviewed this work
painfully multiple times to give everyone a smooth production. For my
part, I'm thankful to have someone who can deal with my insane plot
lines and typo riddled first drafts, but it also gives us something
new to talk about.

There have been a lot of readers involved in reading the first draft
as it's released. They pointed out odd seeming parts, replied which
portions they liked, and were overall eager to see more. Without
those pre-release readers this work would also be a much lesser
piece.

Book two was a journey I never expected to complete. A lot of works I
see start their epic tale then slowly fade away into nothing. That
isn't happening here, Grant's story is coming out piece by piece and
steadily builds towards the end. At the time of writing this
afterward I'm already drafting the first complete write through for
book four. The total series is slatted to end with book five, and
hopefully all will be released this year for purchase on Amazon.

Cover art has been the hardest part. My local circle of help all
agree that we should have something new and original, yet none of us
are directly creative enough to put together a solid work. We tried
with Royal Scales Book 1 – Once Lost Lords, an Urban Fantasy
project and the initial impression seems to have been poor.

This story line was me trying to approach some of the more 'classic'
LitRPG main characters and their attitudes from the outside. We see
them both inside the game, and eventually in the real world too.
Grant isn't playing the game alone though at times he may feel like
it.

We'll see them all again over the course of our next few books. Some
more than others.

Still, you're here at the end. Thank
you for purchasing this book and reading along.

You may
follow further updates via frustratedego.wordpress.com
or Twitter @FrustratedEgo