Back in the Game

by Christopher Keene

Catastrophe?

  I held up the orb. “I understand. Either way, I’m thankful.”

  I turned to make my way to the Gateway.

  “Don’t rush into anything, Noah!” he called. “Think it through. Wona has more power than some developing nations! Once this gets out—”

  “I get it, they’re a werewolf!” I raised the orb up victoriously. “And this is my silver bullet. I have to make sure I hit the heart.”

  It didn’t take me long to retrace my steps back through the mines. However, this time I took a left before the hollow where the farmers mined and headed down the shaft toward the Gateway. We were supposed to all meet back up outside Yarburn twenty minutes ago, and I hoped everyone was still around.

  When I appeared on the beach and saw that they were all there and looking rather down, I smirked and swaggered my way over them. As I caught sight of Chloe, she avoided my eyes until I was right in front of her.

  “We all failed to get anything out of our little team excursion besides some Resource Items.” She looked up as though trying to defy her obvious feelings for me. “What are you smiling about?”

  I thought this would have been the best opportunity to tell them, but before I could, Brock stood from the bench.

  “Speak for yourself.” He pulled out a long piece of material. “I ran into Bitcon’s Spellcaster after I searched Ice Castle, and look what he was wearing.”

  I suddenly recognized the garment in his hands. “Is that my Night Down Robes?”

  Brock grinned, the first honest grin I’d seen on his face since we had returned from the Broken Clock Tower. He passed over the item and I equipped it. The robe flowed over my body and I gripped Brock’s shoulder.

  “You’re a true friend,” I said and patted him on the back. “But you’re not the only one who found something on their mission.”

  Chloe raised her brow at me. “But we didn’t find any—”

  I put a hand up, not wanting her to give anything away before my big reveal.

  “Voila!” I shouted and brought out the orb.

  It shone in the warm light that bathed the Yarburn coast, giving emphasis to my discovery. Everyone fell silent.

  Frank, who looked exhausted after his dungeon run with Siena, was the first to speak up. “Is that my Transfer Orb?”

  I inclined my head to the Heavy. “It can be after we get the videos we need from it. The evidence on this orb should be enough to make Wona confess to what they did to Brock’s friends. That’s why we’ve been trying so hard to get our hands on it.”

  Frank’s mouth made an ‘o’ shape, but then she frowned, as though still puzzled by everything that was going on.

  Brock’s eyes dropped to the orb. “But how did you—?”

  “I thought Bitcon destroyed it!” Keri exclaimed.

  I shrugged. “Let’s just say he wasn’t thorough enough.”

  Siena bared her teeth in a smile. “Whoa, Noah! You little miracle maker!”

  Brock shook his head in confusion. “Did you find a ghost file . . . or did you make a copy before you dropped it? No, you couldn’t have . . .”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “Data . . .” Siena said, nodding in amusement. “I knew his betrayal wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Not him.”

  Keri screamed for joy and hugged Chloe. David laughed and whacked Frank on the back. Brock put a hand on my shoulder and grinned a familiar cheesy grin, looking like he was holding back tears.

  We may not have gotten Siena’s Ruby Edge back, but we had gained something much more valuable. The fact that a team made up of two Heavies, two Range, two Spellcasters, and including Data, two Warriors had outsmarted the creators of game itself seemed reason enough to celebrate.

  Chapter 18: Rolling the Dice

  Frank arranged to meet up with Tessa for a Primatier Dungeon on Jossi Island, a newer setting a few kilometers off from the Yarburn coast. She assumed this had come about out of the popularity of Yarburn itself, however, the inhabitant NPCs contained features more similar to Pacific Islanders than any other culture.

  Flax and palm trees covered the island. She brushed some of the drooping fronds aside as she made her way off the beach and into the bush. There were no Gateways on the island and the canoe ride she had to take from Yarburn was supposed to be a fun way to explore the ins and outs of the archipelago on the way to Jossi. However, Frank hadn’t had the time as she was already late for her meet up with Tessa.

  But why meet on this island? Is it a trap or does she really just want me to try a new dungeon?

  She was not sure whether or not she could trust her yet, but she was willing to give her another shot. The dungeon she had suggested going to was an underwater level that tanks were useful for, as they could sink to the bottom and collect all of the Resource Items on the ocean floor. First, they would have to find the ability that would allow them to breathe underwater.

  She eventually found a path through the brush. It was a thin walking track that weaved between the trees. It led out to Nakoia Village where many of the NPCs were walking around, the women in long dresses, the men in singlets and shorts or lava-lava with nothing covering their muscular torsos.

  Frank could see why Tessa wanted to meet here, and for someone who enjoyed looking at muscular men, she couldn’t blame her, despite her apparent in-game identity. Finally, she found Tessa sitting on the edge of a small bridge that went over the stream which ran through the village. She swung her bare feet back and forth over the clear water.

  She looked up as Frank walked over the bridge, her weight bowing the bridge even more. “There you are! I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show up!”

  “I didn’t know there wasn’t a Gateway leading here and it took a while to take the canoe.”

  And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to come at all.

  Tessa looked down at the stream. “I’m sorry about what happened. I had no idea Dice was going to gang up on you or that your orb would get stolen.” She stood up and gave her the most charming smile. “Do you forgive me?”

  Frank shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I managed to get it back anyway.”

  Tessa’s smile crumbled and Frank’s suspicion that she knew more than she was letting on grew.

  “What? How?” She shook her head, as though trying to recover from a slip of the tongue. “I mean, didn’t you say it was stolen?”

  I nodded. “I thought so, too. Anyway, where do we get the breathing underwater ability? I’m keen to get some shell armor from the Resource Items in this dungeon we’re going to.”

  Tessa’s eyes shifted, but she nodded and began to walk through the village. “Okay, I’ve heard you have to go to Mermaid Lagoon at the center of the island to get it.”

  Frank followed her as they made their way out of the village and into the rainforest. Bird monsters shot over the trees and lizards hung about in the branches along with monkey monsters called Raboons, although, with their fangs and matted fur, they made even baboons look cute.

  Tessa seemed more interested in another subject.

  “So how did you manage to get it back?” she asked, trying to make the question sound nonchalant.

  Frank shrugged again, going along with her devil-may-care attitude. “Got a bunch of friends together, split up to a bunch of Tertiatier dungeons and eventually one of us found the player who took it.”

  “And you defeated him?”

  “I dunno how they got it. I wasn’t in that team. All I know is that they managed to get my Transfer Orb back.”

  Tessa pulled out her crossbow and shot a Raboon swinging toward them before it could strike. “Should have asked me to come. I could have helped out, too.”

  Yeah, I bet, she thought as she took out her own Raboon with a swing of her Broadsword.

  They came across the Mermaid Lagoon an hour later. It was something out of an exotic fantasy, not only because of the layout of the waterfall and pool, but there were mermaids relaxing on the rocks as though waiting f
or them. It was overshadowed by a cliff that seemed the perfect height for diving into the pool.

  They moved through the flax and ferns toward it. The mermaids had long hair and their scales shimmered in the light that reflected from the pool. It made sense to Frank that an ability which allowed players to breathe underwater would come from creatures that could do just that. Coming to the edge of the lagoon, the mermaids jumped from their rocks and swam over to them, surfacing with adoring expressions.

  “Would you ladies like to explore the depth of the lagoon with us?” the redheaded mermaid in the middle asked.

  Frank caught Tessa’s eyes, feeling their dialogue would be different if they were both men. I really need some new armor!

  “Sure!” Tessa said.

  Frank raised a brow at her. “Is this how—?”

  “Shhh!” Tessa put a finger to her lips. “We would love to come explore the depth of the lagoon with you, but only if you allow us two the ability to breathe underwater, okay?”

  The mermaids giggled and flipped back in the water like synchronized swimmers before lifting their hands from the water. A glow rose from their fingers and flew over to them. A window popped up saying.

  — LEARNED ABILITY ‘AQUA LUNGS’ —

  Tessa breathed out and grinned. “These mermaids are like sirens from The Odyssey. I thought there was something suspicious about the way they were acting.”

  Funny you should say that.

  Frank turned from the lagoon and began to move back into the bush, hearing the mermaids calling an, “Aww” as Tessa followed after her.

  When Tessa walked past, she gave Frank a puzzled look. “We’ve already spent an hour tramping through that forest. Why can’t we just use your Transfer Orb to get back to the beach?”

  Frank bit her lip. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Tessa nodded as though this was obvious. “Well, yeah. I came here to breathe underwater and explore the sea, not go for a nature walk.”

  “That’s not what I mean, you know—”

  A large green lizard crawled down a tree branch behind Frank and its long, pointed tongue shot out at her. Catching it in her peripheral vision, she leapt back and cut it in half with her Broadsword. At the same time, Tessa shot at it with an arrow. The arrow ricocheted off her sword and went sailing through the trees.

  Frank turned to her in the silence after the echoing pang. However, after seeing where she was standing, Frank’s eyes bulged as understanding dawned on her. With how big she was, there was no way Tessa could have seen the lizard attacking. The arrow had been meant for her.

  “Tessa . . . why?”

  She reloaded her crossbow and aimed it again. “Who has it now?”

  Frank looked around. “Are you trying to threaten me?”

  She lowered her bow and sighed. “Can’t you just tell me who has it?”

  “What? So you can tell Dice, or whoever you were working with to steal it?”

  Tessa ground her teeth and stomped the ground. “You don’t get it! You don’t know who these people are!”

  “Wona’s in-game hitmen, right?”

  “You don’t even know their name, do you?” Tessa said in exasperation. “They’re Catastrophe, because that’s all they bring to the people that cross them!”

  “I don’t care what they’re called!” Frank growled. “You sold me out to them!”

  Tessa shook her head in agitation. “They said they would pay you the Moola . . . but now . . .” Her voice broke. “If they know I led them wrong . . . Come on, Frank! Just tell me who has the orb!”

  They must really want the evidence on there if they’re hounding Tessa to get it.

  “If you must know, it was a guy called Noah! But it doesn’t matter anyway. He won’t enter the Dream State now that he has the orb!”

  Oh crap, why did I . . . ? Crap!

  Frank paused, realizing what she had just done. Tessa nodded and then looked around quickly, as though afraid of her surroundings. She then turned and jumped, leaping from tree to tree to the edge of the forest.

  “Tessa, wait!” Frank called, but she was already out of view.

  She knew she couldn’t catch her. A Heavy chasing down a Range Niche was a near impossibility. Nevertheless, she realized the implication of saying Noah’s name. They would be on his tail if he stepped into the Dream State.

  She brought up her messages and began to annotate: “Noah, they know you have the orb. Don’t go back in the game!”

  Chapter 19: Invitation

  I’m not an idiot. At least I don’t consider myself one. The first thing I did as soon as I returned to reality was make copies of the video files, a lot of copies. I used Brock’s software to convert the Dream Engine files into regular digital video files and put them on as many devices as I had on me. I also made sure to remove the Transfer Orb from my inventory so no one could steal it before I could give it back to Frank. The evidence was finally safely within my grasp.

  I should have emailed them to everyone I knew as well, but something in Data’s words had warned me that I should be cautious with how they were delivered to the public. There was no going back once the genie was out of the bottle, and I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t regret my wishes once I’d made them.

  However, there was one person I felt deserved a copy of the video files as much as I did, someone I trusted emphatically. I messaged Brock to meet me in the Barrens north of Onjira after lunch to collect his copy, which I had encoded onto one of my Wakizashi. We both had mounts to get out there and I knew it was a place where no one would try to bother us.

  Besides, with him still on the run after breaking me out and me lying low at David’s apartment, I thought if I couldn’t give it to him in person I could at least give it to him in-game. When I exited the Gateway and the smell of Onjira’s poor district wafted over me, I regretted not just telling Brock to meet me somewhere else.

  I strode through the bazaar. The market looked like something out of an ancient Arabian city, full of passing men and women smoking hashish pipes with curtains covering dusty store windows. As most of the faces of the NPCs were covered, you could easily tell who was a player by who didn’t fit in among them.

  That’s why I found it strange that one of the male NPCs was following me. I noticed him out of the corner of my eye every time I turned a corner. He was a man wearing a headscarf and a long, red kaftan. I walked in a circle around the bazaar to be sure, but once I had failed to lose him, I made a beeline to the outskirts.

  When I exited into the desert, I found a sign staked into the hardpan. On it were wooden boards carved into arrows that pointed in the direction of the rainforest, the desert, the barrens and the hills leading to the Druids’ Keep Gateway. I turned to see if the man had been following me and jumped when I received a notification for a message.

  FranktheTank: “Noah, they know you have the orb. Don’t go back in the game!”

  Oh, crap!

  I went to leave . . . when an arrow hit me, pinning my robe to the signpost. I tried to pull free but I was stuck in place. I turned to see the man in the kaftan take aim and fire another arrow at me. It hit me in the thigh like a deep muscle injection, not taking away any Hit Points, but just paralyzing me.

  The man then pulled off his head scarf to show a tangle of red hair beneath. It was the player Frank had called Dice, the Range who had worked for Bitcon’s team and the one who had stolen Siena’s Ruby Edge. He gave me a look of impatience and lowered his bow.

  “I’d say that you shouldn’t try to run,” he said and looked up at the sun in the north. “But you won’t be able to for at least half a minute anyway.”

  I stopped struggling, realizing its futility. “What do you want?”

  He shrugged as though he wished he was somewhere else. “I’m just here to give you an invitation, and directions should you choose to accept it. I suggest you do, but that’s just me.”

  “An invitation from who?”

  “President
Windsor Wona.” He grinned when seeing my shocked expression. “Right? I was surprised myself. Who would have thought that one of the richest men IRL would care about a person like you? Not me.”

  I couldn’t help but ask the next obvious question. “Why?”

  “Something about a proposal.” He shrugged again and stretched out his arm, passing me a piece of brown paper between two fingers. “Anyway, take this.”

  I looked at it skeptically, not knowing if I should take it or not. “What is it?”

  “A map to the meeting place.” He rolled his eyes when I wouldn’t take it. “It’s not going to bite. Look, once you take it, I can piss off, so just take it.”

  Curiosity more than anything made me take it. After I did, Dice turned, pulled out a black Summoning Stone and called forth his black dragon. I remembered how Brock and I had fought him on it above Sky Island while trying to escape Bitcon’s team.

  The giant wings rose and fell and he took off into the cloudless sky. I studied the paper and the item pulled up a full map of the Dream State in my vision. It included places I didn’t even know existed in the game with a dotted line to one of the many places I hadn’t explored north of New Calandor.

  The map zoomed into the image of a place in the sky similar to Sky Island, but instead it looked like a city in the clouds. It was simply called ‘Heaven’. At its northernmost point, and in fact the northernmost part of the map, was a lighthouse called Apollo’s Lookout.

  Above the map, it had a timer counting down the twenty-four hours I had to use it, stating:

  — THIS MAP WILL BE INACTIVE IN: 23:42 —

  As the clock continued its countdown, I wondered if I should go. At this point I had all the leverage I could need against them. They didn’t know who I had given copies of the footage to, so I couldn’t figure out what he could have possibly wanted to see me for.

  Maybe he has an offer and wants to try and bargain with me. It might be amusing watching them try to buy my silence. Besides, I have an hour before I have to meet up with Brock, and if I talk to him in-game there’s nothing he can do to physically threaten me.