Icy banks lined the deep fissures in the earth which breathed underground fire, their edges overgrown with permafrost. The cold transparent air would occasionally thicken, forming the spirals of Mortal Cold as if a powerful invisible wizard was attempting to freeze the remaining life out of the place.
The fissures exuded a crimson glow. They spat occasional clouds of ash which trailed along the ground.
Not a very cheerful setting, if you ask me. A dark strip of unknown origin stretched along the horizon at least several hours’ hike away.
Right. I’d had enough. Time to use some magic.
I formed three Magic Eyes and motioned them into the air.
We awaited the first results with bated breath. The three cameras streamed pictures without a glitch. The maps kept updating to include this new region of the Crystal Sphere which hadn’t been marked on them before.
Gradually, the mist of war was disappearing, replaced by the terrain’s outlines.
And what the hell was that?
A fortress?!
Oh, no. It was a modern multi-level highway lying in ruins. Several junctions, spiraling up and down. Their surfaces had collapsed in places, their support pillars corroded as if they’d been drenched in concentrated acid, exposing their skeletons of rusty construction steel.
But that wasn’t the biggest shock by far.
This technogenic monstrosity was enmeshed in a web of freshly-laid dirt roads. They were packed with NPCs, both mounted and on foot, their carts groaning under the weight of their meager possessions.
Further on, I saw some kind of building site illuminated by bonfires. There, creatures of various races were busy working stone, gradually filling in the gaps in the corroded steel structures.
A motley makeshift army had set up camp slightly further up. Each and every one of the Crystal Sphere’s many races was present there. Contrary to their custom, they showed no antagonism toward each other.
These were Reapers.
Or at least those who’d been infected with neurograms accidentally. Several Harvesters walked among them, keeping a watchful eye on the crowd.
Finally, one of the Eyes chanced upon a mounted group of high-level Reapers.
They rode unhurriedly, feeling quite at home. They had excellent weapons and gear. We watched them with some trepidation as they stopped by one of the bonfires and called a priest.
He listened to their orders and nodded. Whipping out his sword, he swung round and slew a dozen unsuspecting peasants sitting around the fire.
The cauldron with their humble stew went flying into the fire, hissing and extinguishing it.
Bluish whiffs of the peasants’ neurograms trailed over the ground. The mounted Reapers imbibed them greedily.
Then they noticed our Eye.
A priest shot his hand up in the air, pointing. One of the high-level Reapers thrust his lance upward, its tip enveloped in a ghostly light. The picture disappeared.
“We need to go,” I croaked. My throat was so dry as if I’d spent several days without water.
I couldn’t quite grasp what I’d just seen. What had happened to the location’s borders? Where were we?
“These are the Corporation’s testing grounds,” Enea said softly.
“How do you know?”
“The two other Eyes managed to fly on a bit further,” she forwarded the picture to the group chat. “This is what they’d filmed before they were detected and shot down.”
We saw a different area of the same location. This too was a camp, only a well-appointed one, not like the chaotic mess we’d just seen. It was equipped with the kinds of tents and marquees used by players. A little further lay the collapsed edge of a ravine, with a dark mouth of a car tunnel gaping in the middle of it.
Next to it were several holographic signs,
Infosystems Corporation Training Grounds
Recreation Zone
Advanced Research Sector
Neurocybernetics Sector
Phantom Server Project Sector
A red sign flashed below,
Warning! The training grounds have been compromised! The defective mobs automatic elimination protocol has been initiated. All virtual staff are advised to log out ASAP.
The Reapers were bound to work out our position pretty soon.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
* * *
White returned about midnight, tired, hungry and quite annoyed. He wasn’t happy when the two Guards of Gloom controlling the portal informed him of my request to meet me at the Conference Hall.
Stephen, Iskandar and Rodrigo had built a 3D map of the area which was now hovering over the ancient round table which still remembered the meetings of the Cohort of the Chosen.
“I haven’t found them. My group seems to have vanished from the face of the earth,” White collapsed into a chair, locked his fingers as was his habit and began studying the map.
He noticed the destroyed highway straight away. “What’s the Corporation technopark got to do with it? Did any of you log out into the real world? Wait a sec... What the hell are NPCs doing there?”
“These are the Corporation’s virtual testing grounds,” I replied.
“You don’t mean it! It’s an exact copy of the real thing! I’ve been there. It’s their Mont Blanc technopark,” he explained. “Now tell me what happened here.”
“Our locations have merged,” Enea explained. “We wanted to check the old Ogres Road. According to Dimian, it could save us two days’ journey to the port city. Instead, we found this,” she pointed at the map.
The 3D model made by our wizards resembled an enormous screenshot of one of those ancient strategic games with the camera pointing down at a slight angle. We could clearly see the terrain’s relief as well as thousands of NPCs. Some still had name tags hovering above their heads, others’ were hatched in with gray.
Before going back, we’d used up all our mana supplies to launch about a hundred more Eyes. Even though the Reapers had eventually discovered and destroyed them all, the total amount of the information they’d sent us was huge. Stephen — the clan analyst — was now busy processing it. As he worked, more and more little symbolic NPC figures appeared on the map.
As White studied the map, I told him about the empty village and the young warrior Enea and I had rescued from the well.
“I heard about it before,” White replied. “These things began to happen about two months ago. NPCs would attack players and throw them into wells, caves or mountain gorges, apparently sacrificing them to the Reapers. We thought that any such glitchy NPCs had been removed from the game. Apparently, they haven’t. It’s much worse than I thought. Could you upload our side of the location, please?”
Iskandar nodded. Together with Rodrigo, he began to conjure up a new image. We saw the edge of the moors, the village of Warblerford and the river. The old Ogres Road snaked around the cliffs.
Then the invisible boundary disappeared, connecting the Crystal Sphere to the Infosystems training grounds. We could clearly see the breach where the two virtual worlds merged together: a small area which abounded with caves and cliffs.
White frowned. “I see now. Those caves must have been the transition point between the training grounds and the Crystal Sphere. Putting it plainly, they are basically high-capacity data exchange channels. Other objects can play the same role, such as wells, caves and gorges. Very clever of the Reapers!”
“But why would Infosystems want to connect the two virtual worlds?” Archie objected. “Their staff could log in whenever they wanted, anyway. Receiving the information from the Crystal Sphere was never a problem! Why did they have to over-complicate things?”
“What if they didn’t?” Christa offered. “Could it be Dietrich who created all this?”
A cold shiver ran down my spine.
“But that would mean he did get hold of the corporate workers’ neurograms. Which gave him access to the game’s control interface,” Enea said. “In t
hat case, why does he need all this? An NPC army, what’s that for?”
“Oh, do me a favor!” White snapped. “You make him look like some kind of super hacker. Well, he isn’t. He’s a criminal sentenced to death. He agreed to become a test subject for a neuroimplant prototype. Apparently, something went wrong. He lost his identity. His physical body died. That’s how he became the first Reaper. Their forefather, if you wish.”
“How do you know?” Christa asked.
“Ask Alex. He met him.”
“Alex? Is that true?”
I nodded. “He may have died but his phantom imprint has survived somehow. It began prowling the test grounds looking for neurograms to piece a new identity together for himself. Then he discovered the passage to the Crystal Sphere.”
“He can only exist in VR,” White added. “So he’s obliged to follow this world’s rules. That’s why he needs the NPC army. He wants it to manipulate the security systems. He’s a defective mob, don’t forget. Hacking is the only weapon available to him.”
“Let’s not underestimate what we’re dealing with,” Christa said. “The facts speak for themselves. The two virtual worlds have merged. Also, Dietrich somehow managed to build Harvesters.”
Heavy silence hung in the air. We just stood there not knowing what to think. Rumors of the Reapers’ occasional forays into the Crystal Sphere were one thing. Seeing the two worlds actually merged was quite another.
The true horror lay in seeing the desolation at the testing grounds with our own eyes. Now we knew that most Infosystems researchers had died — while the results of their revolutionary experiments had fallen into Dietrich’s hands. That was truly horrible.
Raoul who’d been silent until now looked up sharply at us. “So what’s the number one thing we should be doing?”
“No idea,” Enea replied. “Personally, I think we’re stuffed. A lot of people whose Logout button was still active tried to get out. They all say the same thing. The real world is deserted. There’s no one left to maintain the planet’s technosphere. It’s about to collapse. Which might lead to a number of sporadic natural disasters.”
“But Dietrich has survived,” Raoul insisted. “Okay, maybe not as a human being but as a virtual imprint. Can’t you see?”
“Which means we can do it too,” Christa agreed. “As long as we can preserve the Crystal Sphere and save it from all those defective toons!”
White’s eyes lit up. “Can we see the footage you took, please?”
“In a moment,” Stephen’s voice replied from the Hall of the Elements. “We released a hundred and four Eyes in total, didn’t we? I’ll just finish processing all the data.”
The map came to life. The static Reaper figures began moving about.
For our convenience, Stephen added a fine grid to the image. “Tell me if you want to take a closer look at a particular section.”
As we didn’t have computers, we were forced to process all the data using our mind expanders which demanded a lot of energy, both physical and mental. Back in the Hall of the Elements, the clan’s healers and elemental wizards surrounded Stephen, pumping him up with the energy they syphoned from the castle’s runic sequences.
The animated picture offered us a new source of information. Now we were watching the events from a bird’s eye view, noticing the details we couldn’t have seen before.
The glowing skies above the training grounds parted, releasing a falling human figure.
The picture zoomed in on him.
A player. A warrior. His name tag was already dimming but still legible. His face was distorted with fear. The thickening air flickered around him.
He fell to his death, releasing a cascade of neurograms. Their faint glowing haze surged in all directions, forming fading images and snippets of memories.
Harvesters were already heading to the scene. They absorbed his neurograms instantly.
What followed next made our blood freeze. Several NPCs saw what was going on and walked over to the Harvesters. They were peasants who’d been sitting by the fire next to a lopsided makeshift cabin covered with frost.
An old man with a scraggly beard stepped forward. “We too have made a sacrifice,” he said.
“I know,” one of the Harvesters turned to him and swept his arm out. Wisps of bluish haze fell from his fingers. They reached out toward the NPC and filtered through his clothes into his body.
“It’s so warm,” the old man whispered, his lips blue with cold. “So good... Why didn’t I ever feel it before?”
The others muttered something unintelligible, apparently in shock as they tried to absorb the yet-unknown experiences.
An orc who had somehow ended up among the peasants growled his fury, “They killed us for fun! They killed us over and over again!”
This was yet another NPC who’d just become aware of the sad role he’d played in the game, thanks to the memories he’d just received. The dead player must have been a frequent visitor to the orcs’ lands.
The Harvesters knew very well what they were doing. They knew exactly which memories to give to whom.
This was disturbing. Sick. The infected NPCs were about to start their own sporadic development. Now that they’d gotten a taste of human emotions, they craved more of them. They’d become Reapers. But how were they supposed to quench this craving?
“If you follow Dietrich, he’ll give you more,” the Harvester said, then walked away in the direction of the collapsed highway.
“Jesus holy Christ,” Enea whispered.
* * *
“Hey, look what I’ve found,” Stephen’s voice disrupted the silence.
The picture changed. Stephen zoomed in on the Ogres Road where it led down to the ford across the River Warbler.
A group on horseback was moving toward the river, closely followed by the spirals of Mortal Cold.
“The training grounds’ defenses are still active,” Stephen commented. “They’re trying to destroy Reapers.”
“They’re not very good at it,” Rodrigo said grimly.
“Are you familiar with this spell?” White asked. “What does it do?”
“It syphons Life and brings both Strength and Stamina down to zero,” Rodrigo replied. “It does it gradually, depending on the target’s resistance, of course.”
“Let’s see if it can do it, then.”
Large snowflakes floated in the air. The horses were enveloped in clouds of mist. The Reapers’ armor was covered in the fancy patterns of ice flowers.
Where the road turned toward the ford, the frosty haze thickened, blocking their path.
Two of the Reapers dismounted. Both had staffs in their hands. Their name tags showed levels 150.
Judging by their hesitation, the haze was an impassable barrier to them. Unwilling to take risks, the two wizards sent a warrior forward. He took a few steps. Once the haze reached his knees, he froze, turning into an ice statue.
The wizards didn’t look too discouraged. The remaining warriors formed a cordon around them. Using the sharp tips of their staffs, the two wizards began scratching runes of Fire into the frozen ground.
Tiny flames arose into the air but expired almost straight away. Still, the wizards were patient. They proceeded to work in silence with machine-like precision.
Unable to trigger the testing grounds’ defense mechanisms, our Magic Eye floated low enough for us to survey the scene in every detail. The Reapers kept shuffling the runes around, creating their own sequences out of the available symbols and trying them out.
After yet another failure, they spent a long time discussing something. They must have decided to change their tactics as they produced a few scrolls and began reading them, mouthing the spells.
It didn’t work. I lip-read the spells anyway, just in case. Not that I needed to memorize a failed practice, but still.
A new gust of cold wind brought a flurry of prickly snowflakes, reducing visibility over our part of the bank.
The Reapers hadn�
�t left.
A sphere of transparent blue flame formed around them, shutting the snowstorm out.
The frozen warrior stirred, shaking the crust of ice off his body. He could barely move. His hp was deep in the red. Still, he took a few steps back proving that Reapers could override security programs.
The fiery blue sphere looked familiar. This was one of the numerous variations of a high-level Air spell which briefly boosted one’s strength and stamina.
Even though such a limited-effect spell couldn’t possibly allow the Reapers to leave the confines of the testing grounds, this was a worrying sign. The enemy wizards had displayed remarkable perseverance. They were both methodical and ingenious. They didn’t hesitate to ignore the standard routine by shuffling the runes — which could result in either a lethal outcome or a success.
White must have come to his own conclusions. “They’re weaker now than the levels displayed on their tags. But once they shake off the debuffs, we’ll have a problem. That’s why we need to face them and kill them where the locations meet: on the river bank.”
“Stephen, how long do you think it might take them to completely disable the security programs?” Enea asked.
Our analyst gave it some thought. “A couple of weeks at least.”
“Then we need to use these two weeks to speed-level the clan,” White said. “As I already said, we’ll need good gear and lots of stat-boosting rings. I hope you all understand that the Reapers will invade the Crystal Sphere. In which case, Rion will be the first hurdle on their way.”
“We need to find Borisov,” I said. “That way we might solve several problems at once.”
“Did you manage to locate the scroll’s portal exit?”
“I did. It’s on one of the Yonder Isles.”
“The Yonder Isles are a myth,” Archie said. “There’re no known routes there.”
The Reapers (The Neuro 3) Page 10