by Kris Schnee
The deer turned its head to peer at me, and its dark eyes glittered green as it clicked, whirred, and moved on. This creature was the property of Gaia.
I backed away slowly. Beasts of Gaia were works of art made by an insane nature-obsessed genius AI that never deigned to speak with humans. It was best to leave their kind alone, and try killing them if they made any aggressive moves. We scouts had had a few encounters with their kind and usually found them passive -- but only usually. They seemed to watch over other wildlife, some of which reacted very badly to being hunted, in some kind of "nature's revenge" style.
The good news was that Gaia didn't want anything from us, didn't make demands, and didn't dangle any favors in front of us.
With my pistol drawn, I kept retreating until the deer was out of sight.
I hurried ahead north, stepped on a dry twig, and froze at the noise. The young villagers were still well ahead, though, and didn't notice. I kept following until they reached the Tower of Sol. When they arrived, the door opened for them. They spoke, and then Adam turned around looking startled. He called out, "Hey, Mr. Dahlson, they know you're out there! Come out."
I emerged from the woods to stand in the tall grass. "Yeah, I'm here."
"We could use a third. Want to join in?"
I walked closer, crossing the circle of Sol's markers. "This place isn't here for our entertainment, you know."
"But there's more stuff to find if there're more people. Sol says they can host up to four people at once."
Julia said, "It'll be easier if you help out, sir."
I wasn't sure of that, but I wasn't going to let these two get into trouble up there due to my own sulking refusal. "Fine."
When I reached the door, Julia and Adam were suiting up. Sol had provided boxer-style head guards for everyone this time, to protect our delicious brains for future consumption. Adam had his Fighter helmet and sword, and Julia was going for the Rogue kit with cloak and knives. So I was dealing with a sixteen-year-old with a pair of moderately sharp daggers. I called out to the AI, "For someone concerned with your customers' safety, you're passing out blades like it's nothing."
Sol spoke. "Don't you teach your kids to hunt and fight early?"
"We do, but that's under human supervision."
"Would it help matters if I imposed a minimum age of sixteen?"
Adam said, "Aw man, what about Billy? He's almost fifteen and he can handle this. I want to bring him."
I told the AI, "Yes, that'd be a good rule. Better yet, eighteen or twenty-one."
"I won't go that far," said Sol. "Your people are responsible early. Glad to see you back, Sven; will you reprise your Level 3 Mage role?"
"I'm along for the ride."
Adam told me, "We could use a Mage since we have a Fighter and a Rogue."
"And you know this because...?"
He looked at me like I was stupid. "We play games of our own with dice and cards. You need a balanced party on an adventure, obviously."
I recalled something. "I didn't bring my equipment from last time."
Sol said, "Then you'll need to use the basic replacements." A spotlight shined down on the Mage starter box. I grimaced both because the equipment was inferior, and because I was doing this at all. With the basic getup, my borrowed headset's HUD told me, I had stats like this:
[Sven, Level 3 Mage
Melee 0
Defense 0+0 (Hat)
Magic 3+1 (Wand)
Insight 3+1 (Book)
Stealth 0
Perception 0]
Adam said, "Let's get going." He opened the door, revealing the shadowy maze of pillars and low platforms I'd seen before. "Layout's a little different."
Julia was seeing this place for the first time. "Cool! But are you sure this is a good idea?"
"We'll be fine. Come on, Mr. Dahlson."
I nodded and looked around, getting in front of the group. But Adam waved me back, saying, "I'm the one with actual Defense. Level 2 Fighter here."
If the rules of the game made it sensible to put him in front, then fine. But I was still going to cover for him and Julia as well as I could. I prepped Mage Bolt and activated Shield to keep that running continuously.
Seconds into our exploration, one of the rats squeaked and charged us. Adam swatted it into Julia's path, and she hopped backward in fright as it tried to bite her.
I jumped into her path and bashed the rat with the wand's Shield to knock it aside. Adam stumbled over and swung down to gash the robot's back. That "killed" it.
Julia looked terrified. "It was trying to bite my leg off!"
Adam rolled his eyes. "It's not that dangerous. The teeth don't dig deep and they even retract like springs; see?" He leaned down to tap on the rat's teeth.
The robot twitched and its eyes glowed red. Adam startled and yelped, dropped the robot like it was hot, then adjusted his headset. "Oh, very funny." The rat was inert once more.
Julia and I had frozen in a battle stance too, and looked silly. "What was that?" I said.
"A joke. Let's move on. Julia, let me distract the next one, while you get behind it to backstab."
"Now that I see these things I'm not eager to jab them with knives."
I said, "They're machines."
We came to a dark area where a security camera was sweeping its obvious red cone of vision back and forth. Julia waved at us to halt. She whispered, "I see something there."
That camera provided the only light around, since I didn't have my newer spells today. Just Shield and Mage Dart. I said, "What?"
"Don't know. Guess it's the Perception 1."
"We've only got 0," I said. "Don't rely on the numbers though; do you see details?"
Adam said, "Can you sneak past the camera to get behind whatever's there? Stick to the wall."
She tried it, looking back and forth between the camera overhead and whatever was on the ledge.
"Rat!" Adam murmured, pointing. "I see it now."
I couldn't see, but I fired my magic missile to attack the darkness. The bolt crashed into something and lit up a robotic snout and rotund body that hissed in anger... along with the second rat lurking beside it. Both of them jumped down at us.
Adam stepped up and slashed at one. They ganged up on him, gnashing and biting before I could do more than shout. I rushed in with Shield to body-slam one of the rats and shove it aside. Just then, Julia ran in from behind and sliced wildly with her knives, grazing the other rat.
Unfortunately, she'd stepped right into the camera's beam. It began blaring and flashing.
"What does that do?!" said Adam, kicking and cutting at the robots.
I got in a lucky dart attack against a rat harrying Adam's leg, while Julia desperately joined in to kill the other one. I said, "I don't know; I never set one off."
"I'm sorry!" Julia said, looking at the dead machines. "Some Rogue I am."
Adam said, "It's fine. We need to move, anywhere else." He looked around and pointed to a well-lit area between two columns. We jogged over there. Another swarm of three rats rushed into view as we fled the camera's area for a safer place. We'd gotten away just in time. Unfortunately, we'd also just walked into another well-lit spot, spoiling our stealth. The rats turned and saw us.
"Fight defensively!" I said. "Julia, go behind them when they close in." I fired a Mage Bolt and whiffed.
The three rats charged without strategy. They were on us in moments, and I only managed to wing one of them at range. They went after me and Julia, but the girl dodged away to try getting behind the trio. That didn't work; it only pulled one rat away to chase her.
I fired at that rat and knocked it aside, which let Julia turn on it and slash it until it broke. She staggered backward as though still scared of it, or of what she'd done. I had no time to think; the remaining rats had turned their attention to me. The nasty things grabbed both my legs and bit down hard enough to hurt. I couldn't cast a spell right.
"Hold still!" said Adam. I tried. He w
hacked one of the beasts hard with the butt of his sword. It snarled and leaped at him instead, which was a fair trade. I jabbed the other rat with my wand to no effect. Adam ignored his attacker and focused on freeing me from the other leg-chomper.
Julia gave a frightened battle-cry and threw one of her knives at the one on the ground. It bounced off a ledge and skidded away, but the rat got distracted. She followed up by running closer and jabbing it to death with the other blade. Meanwhile I was able to finally get my Shield spell up to help shove the remaining rat away. Between us we made short work of it.
"Whew!" said Adam. "Anyone hurt?"
Julia giggled nervously. "That didn't go as planned." She tilted her head, looking at something in her headset display. "Aww, Style Rating C? I'm all right, though. Minor wounds, but those go away, right?"
"Yeah. I've got a major wound and a minor." I now saw the C rating for myself. "I'm surprised it's even possible to stab those things."
Adam was wary of handling a dead robot again, but demonstrated jabbing one with the point of his sword. Its hide deformed slightly; it wasn't just metal.
I said, "We should take a sample of that material to study later. It doesn't look like rubber."
But a message popped up in my headset saying [Monsters are Reserved items, other than detachable parts like the drones' gems.]
"Bah." I might be able to grab one and flee with it, but I'd risk having Sol lock the door on us. We were stuck with playing by the rules. I gave up on my brief thought of smuggling the thing out, and instead said, "Maybe we should focus more on the Defense stat."
Adam said, "Take a level in Fighter next chance you get? Or bring your robe next time."
"Next time," I said, sighing. "Let's move on."
Julia nodded. "I spotted a door over there, by that camera."
Behind it we found the level exit, but we kept looking around for loot at Adam's insistence. Soon we'd located a plastic treasure box.
"All right!" Adam opened it up while Julia kept watch behind him. He'd found three metal cans. "Huh?"
I looked at the simple text labels. "Pineapple! And pears in syrup, and mango even! Where does Sol get pineapple in Pennsylvania?" There were no supermarkets, no "cold chain" of transport trucks nor even truck drivers that I knew of.
Adam looked thoughtful as he stashed the whole plastic tub in his backpack, adding a spare t-shirt so it wouldn't rattle much. "What's a mango? I've heard of the others."
"Tropical fruit. You'll like it." Which meant liking something that Sol had provided. Damn it.
"We'll split 'em later."
On the stairs to Floor 2, Julia wondered, "Is there a secret farm around here? Like, a greenhouse?"
Adam shrugged. "Who knows what the AI's got? There's a robot factory somewhere, obviously."
* * *
We were moving cautiously along through Floor 2 when Julia stopped us again. "I see a warning mark."
Adam said, "In your headset? Where?"
She waved vaguely ahead. "Just this general area; there's a yellow exclamation mark and a lit-up zone."
"Okay, well... Careful I guess."
We weren't careful enough. The floor cracked open beneath Julia and dumped her through with a frightened squeak.
Adam called out and dashed to the edge of the hole, then let out a relieved sigh. I went to look, too. Julia had fallen four feet into a pit lined with spikes that were, in fact, conical plush pillows.
Julia blushed and let Adam struggle to haul her back up. "I took a major wound from that. And some dignity damage."
I said, "Traps are a new thing for me. I --"
A crumbling alley in a desert city. My buddies and I kicked in the door of a suspected terrorist. In the shadows, something clicked and dropped to the floor.
"Grenade!" There was a rush of movement as my squadmates hustled back from the doorway. I was just an instant behind them. The blast went off, throwing us all down the alley.
My friends and I staggered back upright, cursing, asking each other if we were all right, patting ourselves down while the blast made our ears ring. We laughed it off, glad to still be alive. We got drunk that night and talked about this new brain-uploading thing we'd been hearing about. We laughed that off, too.
Adam said, "Mr. Dahlson, what's wrong? You look pale."
I shook my head. "Old memory. It's fine."
Adam, Julia and I went on with the exploration. The next time Julia spotted a vague sign of danger, we were more careful, and fought a battle with rats and a skeleton from just outside the area she pointed out. Even managed to goad the skeleton into triggering the pit trap itself.
Julia also found the floor's loot, in a hidden compartment along the wall. "A bow! And blunt arrows, ten of them. I'd rather have this than fighting up close with knives."
"Then you should have that," Adam said. "Mr. Dahlson's got a ranged attack already."
She shouldered the bow and quiver. "My uncle's been teaching me to shoot, actually. Crossbow, not regular bow."
We got upstairs without much more trouble. Floor 3 was more different than I'd expected. The garden styling was back, but this time there were no enemies at all. At least, until we triggered a trap that made a ceiling panel open and drop two hover-drones to shoot at us. We had to duck behind cover to avoid getting blasted right away.
"Can you disable any of these traps?" I asked, in between spells.
Julia said, "I'll try; I'm sorry!"
"She's new at this, okay?" said Adam.
"Focus, people!" she said.
Soon our enemies lay broken before us. We took a breather. I pointed out the gem-collection gimmick, though Adam already knew it. He said, "The gems are usable as light sources too."
Julia nodded. "But don't shed more light than we need; maybe the shadows will help us."
A little ways ahead, Julia said, "It's trap time again. Let me actually try looking at this carefully, instead of relying on the graphics." She started to pull off her headset.
Adam said, "Hey, don't do that; it's cheating."
"Oh, fine." Julia crouched and used a gem for more light as she looked around, finally spotting a suspicious seam on a wall. "I can't tell if this is treasure, or another hidden robot."
Adam nodded. "If there's a bot hiding there, that means there's probably a trigger nearby."
She searched some more. "Got it! See that tiny inset at about leg level? I bet that does something. And there's one opposite it."
I looked where she pointed. "Laser tripwire. People used to use these in security systems. Don't pass through the line right between the two parts."
"Oh, neat," she said. "So does it turn solid to trip you?"
"Not literally. Uh, I can explain later." I could get her a science lesson, hopefully from someone who understood the tech better. It was good to have her generation taking interest in the lost arts.
We moved slowly through this floor, taking our time and only once setting off another trap. That cost us a major wound each, between the wall spikes and the skeletons. It felt pretty silly to get pinned to a wall by plush "steel" spikes. There was even a squeaky noisemaker. But the HUD marked it as real damage, and it trapped me for long enough to keep me out of a fight for a crucial few seconds. I pried myself free and fired off a spell to smite our enemies. Didn't do much though; the teenagers had this battle under control already. "How are we looking?" I said when it was over and we'd searched the skeletons in vain for more gems. "Two major wounds on me, two on Julia?"
They nodded. Adam said, "Then keep behind me; I only have one. Hey, Sol, what happens if just one of us gets beaten?" He went quiet, nodded, then told us, "You have to drop your stuff and leave, then, but the others can go on."
We soon had enough gems to open the floor's final door, but Adam wanted to keep searching. That paid off when we found a box we'd overlooked, high up in a shadowed spot.
"Traps," said Julia. She looked proud to be our expert on them now.
We looked careful
ly and stepped over a laser sensor to reach the box. Julia said, "The chest has a gem lock like the door. Give me a spare?"
Adam said, "We have exactly enough for the door. Did we miss any?"
I said, "To get an extra gem, we'll have to set off another trap that dispenses drones. I'm not sure I can tell the difference between those and the spikes or skeleton traps. Do you see any concealed ceiling panels?"
Adam and Julia frowned at the ceiling. We all made our way carefully through familiar ground, evading the remaining traps and trying to tell which did what. Adam said, "Does your Perception tell you more, Julia?"
"Nope."
I said, "Let me try Insight." I pointed at the nearest trap, a suspicious wall panel.
The HUD showed me a ghostly image of the spike trap I'd last blundered into, and pointed out that it looked just like the spot I was looking at. I said, "This one's more spikes."
We explored a little more, and by waiting five minutes got to try my Insight again and rule out another likely trap that'd just fling skeletons at us. No gems to be had that way.
"So it's a gamble," I said. "We can open the staircase door and move on, or open the treasure chest and give up on advancing since we'll be short by one gem. Or set off that other trap over there, and hope that it leads to more gems."
Adam looked thoughtful. "And you're both hurting with two major wounds, with no healing powers. Well... I hate to say it, but we should probably quit while we're ahead. I don't want you to to feel like you lost."
Julia said, "I'm good for today. Mr. Dahlson?"
I was a little startled that he hadn't wanted to race ahead. "We're not sitting on much treasure; just the canned fruit and the bow and arrows. Are you all right with that? On my first trip I cheated a bit by peeking into Floor 4, gaining a level, and leaving soon after."
Adam said, "Ooh, good point. Julia, would you rather get more treasure or gain a level? Oh, maybe we all get a level if we hit 4 again. Sol, what's the rule for this?"