“Wait, what are you talking about?” Enea demanded. “Can’t we just live here? I don’t mind all the game rules! In fact, I’m quite happy with them!”
“The Reapers.”
“Do you mean the defective mobs?” I asked him.
“Yes. That was a side effect that the implant developers hadn’t expected.”
Enea frowned. “You two seem to know what you’re talking about. Would you terribly mind telling me what it is? Please.”
White was about to reply but I motioned him to stop. “Infosystems received their new technologies from the Space Forces. They’re a product of an alien civilization. Apparently, the military discovered a prototype while doing some space research.”
“How do you know?” she demanded.
“Dietrich told me. He was the first Reaper. He started it.”
White tensed up, viewing me with cautious suspicion. “Keep talking.”
* * *
I told them everything, starting with my first accidental encounter with the two “defective mobs squad” workers in the underground vault on my second day in the game. Then I described my first meeting with Dietrich (which had happened just before I had to fight Reguar the Arch Demon). Finally, I tried to give my own interpretation of what had happened to us in the library of the Temple of Oblivion.
“I think I remember something too,” Enea whispered. “So do you think that when our minds went into overload, they put us into an induced coma?”
“Exactly. Still, Dietrich managed to contact me.”
“Why would he?” White asked dryly. “How can you even be sure it was him?”
“He was looking for an ally. I know it was him because I recognized a phrase he’d used before. Back in the Rion dungeons he’d warned me saying, ‘The Corporation is using you. They’ll drain you dry and leave you to die.’ And those were the exact same words he started our last conversation with. He somehow penetrated the biocybernetic lab network and altered my in-mode’s settings to temporarily bring me out of my coma.”
“Please don’t get me wrong,” White said. “Are you sure it’s not your imagination playing up? Can you prove it?”
“As a matter of fact, I can. My mind expander made a copy of it,” I waved my hand, conjuring up a small crystal screen.
Two sarcophagus-like pieces of equipment were mounted on massive pedestals. They were connected to several transparent pipes and cables which reached out from the wall. Pumps were wheezing, sending fluids up and down the pipes.
The servodrive creaked again. Obeying my surge of emotion, the camera zoomed in. I peered through the tinted plastic at the face inside.
Enea.
She was pale, her eyes closed. But judging by the moving graphs on the medical monitors, she was alive.
The camera turned again, then refocused.
I peered through the lid of the other sarcophagus. That was me inside.
I zoomed in some more to focus on the inscription embossed on the pedestal,
Life support unit. Property of Earth’s Military Space Forces.
A door hissed open. Two Infosystems officials walked in, followed by a Space Forces colonel...
Enea and White watched their unfolding conversation in dead silence.
“So that’s where they took your in-mode to!” White’s cheek twitched. “Mind rewinding it a bit? I’d like to take a better look at that guy over there...”
Did he mean Borisov? Why? True, he’d had a hand in my and Enea’s tribulations but still...
“I can’t believe it! You bastard!” White gasped, staring at the screen. “I trusted you! I saved your life how many times?”
He turned to me. “Alex? Do you still have that summoning scroll?”
“Yes, why?”
“I want it. Please!”
“Here you are,” I pulled the yet-unused scroll out of my inventory and handed it to White.
The seal cracked open. The scroll crumbled to dust.
A flash followed but no one arrived. Instead, the air condensed, forming the quivering, unstable outline of a portal.
White leaped to his feet, very nearly upending his chair. He hurried toward the filmy opening, about to lunge into it. Still, it bounced him back.
“Borisov! D’you hear me?” he shouted, furious.
His face was distorted with rage, his eyes frantic. I wouldn’t have wanted to swap places with that Corporate worker whom he’d grilled after Enea’s disappearance.
“Calm down,” I said. “You can’t use it. Trust me, I know enough about portals. The best we can do is take a look inside and try to copy the place’s coordinates.”
“Do it!” he snapped.
“Dad, please! What’s Mr. Borisov done to you?”
“Not to me — to you! Is that not enough?”
“But judging by this video, he was on our side! Alex,” Enea turned to me, “what if we try to stabilize the portal?”
“Wait a sec. I’m trying to copy the coordinates.”
A map materialized over the table, with a bright dot flashing at its center. I uploaded the data from my map-making app and activated Pioneer.
The image of an ancient tower appeared before us, several stories high and surrounded by overgrown ruins.
I reached out and touched the portal.
It bounced under my fingers, giving in to the pressure. My hand began to prickle.
Enea grew worried. “What are you doing?”
“Wait a sec. We’ll soon find out where it leads.”
White squinted at the image. He didn’t seem to recognize it.
Neither did we. Judging by the map, those ruins were located far from Rion Castle, on a continent that lay beyond the ocean.
It worked! I was really grateful to Lethmiel for the Elven spell he’d shown me. I’d been practicing it a lot just lately. So now I’d managed to use the remaining energy of the not-quite-fully-formed portal to create a Magic Eye.
Another image appeared next to the first one.
It was a room — or rather, a wizard’s abode. A candle flickered weakly on the table. A pale morning light seeped through the vaulted window. This looked like early morning.
The bed was unmade. The scorch marks on the walls must have been caused by some fire magic. The chair by the table lay upside down, next to a torn piece of still-smoldering fabric.
“Borisov, where are you?” White thundered. “Come out!”
Pointless. I didn’t think he’d reply. Struggling to control the Eye, I made it turn around. Now we could see a broken door hanging on one hinge. And next to it lay a dead body burnt beyond all recognition.
We heard a noise. Someone was climbing the spiral staircase in the hallway behind the splintered door.
“He’s gone,” a muffled voice said.
“Impossible,” someone replied irately. “How could he? The tower’s surrounded!”
“He’s a powerful wizard. He might have ported out.”
Two men climbed up the stairs into the hallway. They appeared to be players even though their name tags weren’t visible, which pointed at their high levels and maxed-out stealth.
“We need to search the place. He might be hiding here somewhere.”
“Pointless. He ported out, I tell you!”
“He couldn’t have. Look what I got from the Reapers,” one of the two, a tall warrior, showed some kind of cargonite amulet to the other. “It blocks all portals. We need to search the place. Tell your men to make a ladder and climb the roof. He has to be here somewhere!”
“Wonder if he’s stealthed up?”
“Then they’d better search the place with their halberds, every inch of it!”
“Okay. We can do that. Why are the Reapers so mad with him?”
“He used to work for Infosystems. They say he very nearly killed Dietrich. We need to get rid of him. Otherwise, they’ll never set us free.”
“But,” the other one faltered, “what if he’s more dangerous than the Reapers?”
“Just find him!” an Orcish growl escaped the other man’s closed helmet. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
He produced a rather unusual-looking dagger. I took a few screenshots just in case, even though the item wasn’t easy to forget to say the least. Its short blade was covered in tiny rectangular shapes which looked suspiciously like microchips. Each was marked with a glowing rune of the Founders’ language, forming a sequence of symbols yet unfamiliar to me.
“What does this dagger do?”
“It releases one’s identity.”
“Dammit! Why did we have to make this deal with the Reapers!” the other one wiped away the large beads of perspiration from his forehead.
“Don’t you understand? Serving them is much better than receiving the point of a dagger like this one. I saw a couple of Reapers suck neurograms out of people. I don’t want them to rip up my identity and share it between themselves!”
“We’re humans,” the other ventured. “They’re just freakin’ NPCs!”
“Oh, please. They’re not NPCs anymore. They’re hybrids. Enough of your nonsense. Let’s find this wizard. He can’t have disappeared!”
The image began to fade, then expired. The unstable portal rippled and collapsed.
* * *
I slumped into a chair to restore my strength. “How do you know Borisov?”
I’d failed to keep the portal open. The only reason the scroll had worked at all was probably because of the two men’s mysterious portal-blocking amulet whose effect must have resonated with it.
White paused, trying to calm down. “He was in my group for a while. We met over a year ago when the Reapers first came about. Then he disappeared.”
“What are those Reapers? Can somebody tell me?” Enea demanded. “What are we dealing with? What happened to the Crystal Sphere?”
“Reapers are what used to be NPCs,” White replied curtly.
“Very informative!” Enea snapped. “Mind telling us a bit more? Or is it that you don’t know anything yourself? Are we supposed to just accept their existence?”
“Please don’t. It’s not so easy to explain.”
“We’re not in a hurry, are we?”
“Very well. I’ll do my best,” he walked around the room, collecting his thoughts. “About two years ago, just as the first mass neuroimplant campaign had begun, we had a series of accidents with players who apparently hadn’t survived the effects of full immersion.”
“I thought you’d fine-tuned the feedback?” I asked sarcastically.
White shrugged. “People are all different. We couldn’t have foreseen all of the implants’ effects.”
“So why did you risk it?”
“Enea, I don’t work for Infosystems. I’m still trying to figure out why they did it! Now, if we found Borisov and spoke to him...”
“Sorry, Dad,” she took a gulp of water.
White reached into his inventory for a small container which he then set on the table. Gingerly he opened it.
A greenish light poured forth from the vessel. I saw a small transparent sphere set in a cargonite frame. It looked rather like a standard magic lamp.
“This is an ancient artifact,” White said. “Borisov gave it to me before he disappeared. He asked me to save it for him.”
“What does it do?”
“This is a Soul Trap. Touch it. Don’t be afraid. It might feel scary at first but you’ve been through much worse. At least this way you’ll understand what the Reapers are and how they came about.”
“All right,” I offered my hand to the sphere.
The greenish glow enveloped my fingers. They began to prickle. Then a tidal wave of somebody else’s memories flooded over me...
ARRUM THE TREE GIANT used to live on the very edge of a thick forest next to the ruins of an Elven temple.
Twice as tall as any human, he had a powerful body and the strength to match. The problem was, his fibrous limbs had become wooden over the years which negatively affected his agility.
His behavioral patterns (like those of all other mobs in the Crystal Sphere) were generated by a neurocomputer. Several neural networks allowed him to use a few combos and even endowed him with a couple of very unpleasant abilities — unpleasant for the players who’d strayed away into his parts of the world, that is — but overall, he wasn’t really aware of his own existence.
His main neural networks were still dormant. The game developers wanted Arrum to develop slowly, gradually gaining XP. That way he would need no updates, becoming stronger and smarter with each year.
That unfortunate morning, he was sitting on the hill as was his habit, offering his limbs to the sun. He had no foreboding of the looming tragedy...
Frostil, a level-20 wizard, was going through a bad patch. His longstanding career as a warrior had hit a brick wall in the Crystal Sphere, forcing him to delete his account and create a new char.
The neuroimplant — that wretched piece of new state-of-the-art technology — had completely changed his game experience, highlighting his biggest weakness. As Frostil had recently discovered, he couldn’t stand the slightest pain.
He did his best — but it was only getting worse. The mobs whom he’d used to fight with gusto, now evoked a desperate and almost subconscious fear in him, forcing him to cower in the undergrowth waiting for an opportunity to attack them on the sly.
This couldn’t go on for much longer. Finally, he’d bitten the bullet and deleted his account, hoping to start from scratch.
He really should have chosen a crafter or some other non-aggressive class. Still, old habits die hard. After a long deliberation, Frostil had chosen combat wizard, reasoning that the use of distance spells might rid him of the necessity of getting too close to the enemy.
Still, it didn’t quite work out. His char had turned out to be both weak and lacking. His new cloth robes annoyed him no end. Frostil was ashamed of how he looked. He especially hated his staff, that piece of gnarly wood, but unfortunately, he needed it to cast spells promptly.
His first visit to the city catacombs — the starting location for most newb wizards — was another eye-opener. The narrow, dark maze of tunnels required him to stand motionless while reciting the spells he’d so laboriously memorized. But how are you supposed to stay focused when a horrible monster armed with a rusty scythe lunges at you from the depths of a tunnel? In moments like those, an uncontrollable fear surged over him, forcing him to scramble to safety.
He’d made the first ten levels purely by smoking rats. He’d found a barn where he could climb a ladder up onto the rotting beams and scorch rats to his heart’s content from their relative safety. What else could he do? His so inopportunely awakened self-preservation instinct was a power to be reckoned with.
His further development appeared problematic: difficult and way too dangerous. With every new level gained, he received less XP for each rat he’d smoked. Still, his fear prevented him from pushing his limits, becoming his shadowy companion in everything he attempted to achieve.
He spent some time in the city doing petty social quests — but it couldn’t go on like this for much longer.
When he finally ventured beyond the city walls, he stuck to a single simple tactic. Every time he saw a mob, he’d appraise his chances, then attack from the farthest distance possible — and only if his spells could deal enough damage to prevent the enemy from coming any closer than at arm’s length.
What do you want me to say? The world of the Crystal Sphere is enormous. There’s place for everyone there, heroes as well as cowards.
Gradually Frostil had come to grips with his sorry lot. He’d become ever more fearful, frustrated even. The soul of the ex-warrior had shrunk; the first seeds of treachery had begun to germinate in his heart...
That sunny morning, as Frostil walked along the mud road skirting the woods, he noticed a tree giant napping on a hill.
Frostil froze, prepared to run for his life. Still, he looked the monster up in Wiki just in case.
The information whetted his greed. The tree giant was strong but rather clumsy and vulnerable to fire damage. A few direct fireball hits could fetch Frostil 1,000 XP!
Also, if the comments were to be believed, the giant could drop a couple of gold and even a random precious crystal.
Two gold! Thoughts began flashing through his mind. He was so fed up with living from hand to mouth. He could use a good meal. And hopefully, some new clothes to replace his old rags.
Overcoming his fear, Frostil approached the giant from behind and launched two fireballs in rapid succession. Then he gulped, trying to catch his breath, and resumed his spell casting.
The first projectile hit the giant directly on the head, setting him on fire. The second one singed his shoulder.
And after that... well, after that things went awry as usual.
With a long cracking sound, the monster activated one of his abilities, transforming into a large ball of intertwined branches. Accelerating, it rolled toward its attacker, stamping out the flames.
It happened way too quickly for Frostil to spring out of its way. The fat gnarly branches pierced his body, pinning him to the ground and forcing a brief shriek of pain out of him. His mind shut down.
He didn’t respawn, though. Something irreparable had happened.
His body had collapsed, unable to survive the 100% authenticity of the experience. His brain had failed to tell fiction from reality.
His heart — the heart of a fifty-year-old man — had stopped. There was nothing the life support systems could do. He died instantly...
Having gotten rid of his attacker, Arrum resumed his usual shape and turned around, about to return to his sunlit hill, when he froze.
Something extraordinary was happening to him.
The squashed remains of the hapless wizard began oozing a faint bluish haze. It reached out to the tree giant and was immediately absorbed by his digital body, awakening the yet-dormant neural networks reserved for his future development.
The Reapers (The Neuro 3) Page 3