by Randy Nargi
“No—!”
Marcino nodded to the other warrior and Weidlin pinned Justin’s arms in back of him.
Justin screamed out in pain, but Weidlin didn’t care. He just jerked Justin to his feet. Then Marcino grabbed him by the neck with a meaty hand that fully encircled his neck and brought the blade right up to Justin’s eye. Slowly and agonizingly, he drew the blade horizontally along Justin’s cheekbones, slicing his flesh from his nose to his ear.
Pain exploded and burned across Justin’s head and he thought he’d pass out, but after a long terrifying moment, Marcino was done. The warrior grinned at Justin as he flicked the blood off his blade.
“Now you look badass, Justin! Doesn’t he, Mariel?”
“He looks like an asshole who’s about to get circumcised.”
“She’s right, junior. That’s where we’re going next. Unless you start talking.”
“I don’t even know what you guys want.”
Crack! Marcino backhanded him across his face.
Justin’s vision went dark for a few seconds and his breath was knocked from his body.
Weidlin released his arms and Justin collapsed into the chair.
Stooping down, Marcino looked at Justin quizzically. “I think you’re right, Severine. That little love tap almost killed him.”
Blinking and tasting blood in his mouth, Justin lifted his head and stared at Marcino.
“That’s all you got?”
Marcino exploded in laughter. “You are something, junior. I’ll give you that. So, here’s the deal. You tell me everything you know about the Iron Veil, including any clues or puzzles or whatnot and I won’t sharpen your dick like a punji stick. How does that sound, Justin, Level 2.”
“Let Pari go and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Marcino looked at Mariel and she just shrugged.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, junior.”
Then, out of the corner of his eye, Justin noticed Mariel maneuvering near Pari. She squatted down next to Pari and unsheathed a knife of her own.
“Of course, if you try to bullshit me one iota, the little curry muncher goes to dweeb heaven, understood?”
“Yeah.”
“So, tell me, what the fuck’s sake is the Iron Veil?”
Justin knew that he had to just make stuff up and sound as convincing as possible. Maybe he could string them along until Klothar rezzed and made his way back here. Although if the ranger rezzed back in Holgate like last time, all bets were off.
He licked his lips. “It’s a treasure. The Iron Veil is a treasure. An Elvish treasure to be exact.”
“Ain’t no such thing as elves in this game,” the guy with the phone chimed in.
“There used to be. At least that’s what the lore says. I saw their temple with my own eyes. It’s in the Dark Tree.”
Marcino glanced over at Weidlin. The big guard said, “That lines up with the intel Grom heard.”
“And what exactly did you find in this temple?”
“A carving” Justin said. “It said that the treasure—the Iron Veil—was at the bottom of Thunderfang Rift.”
“He’s lying,” Mariel said. “Thunderfang is a baby dungeon. Hundreds of newbies go through there every month. There’s nothing there.”
“No, there’s a secret level at the bottom. No one has found it yet. The Iron Veil is there. That’s all I know, I swear to god. If you don’t believe me, you can check out the temple yourself. I’ll take you there.”
Justin kind of felt like he was babbling. But Marcino took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes.
“I don’t know, Justin. Maybe that’s the truth or maybe it’s not. Severine?”
“I doubt it. When I heard them talking at breakfast, they mentioned the tower. There was some clue they had found there. I think he’s bullshitting us.”
“Justin? Remember our agreement? Remember the one iota part?”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
Marcino made a game show buzzer sound and gestured at Mariel.
At the same time Weidlin pinned Justin’s arms back, sending jolts of pain through his body. “Better if you don’t see this,” the guard muttered.
But in his peripheral vision, he caught a glimpse of Mariel plunging her knife into Pari’s chest, again and again.
“No!”
“You brought this on yourself, Justin.” Marcino shook his head in mock sadness.
But then he jerked forward and blood fountained out of a hole in his forehead. At the same time Weidlin pushed Justin to one side and grabbed for his sword, but then he suddenly froze like he had been turned to stone.
Mariel let out a curse and dove for the window—just as a gang of newcomers barreled into the room, weapons drawn. It was Lukas and Chad and a bunch of other Hawks. Thank god!
Free of Weidlin’s grasp, Justin lunged for O’Neal, but Chad blasted the assassin with some kind of magic bolt which flung him across the room. O’Neal was still alive, and he scrambled to his feet and threw something at the closest wall.
There was a small muffled pop and then room began to fill with thick yellow smoke.
“Don’t let him escape!” Chad yelled.
“Pari’s hurt!” Justin yelled. “Help her!” Then he collapsed to his knees, coughing and retching. His hands felt a rectangular piece of something polished and smooth.
Seconds later he heard the sound of breaking glass and yelling and then the chiming sounds of a spell being cast. Almost instantly a strong wind blew through the room dispersing the toxic smoke.
Chad shouted orders. Two of the Hawks carried Pari’s body out into the hall, while several more, including Lukas, climbed out of the window to give chase to the fleeing assassins. Another Hawk helped Justin to his feet and guided him out of the room.
Like a well-trained unit, the rest of the fellowship went room-to-room, looking for enemies.
“Who were those guys?” Chad asked.
“Assassins,” Justin wheezed. “I wasn’t kidding…”
“No, you weren’t.”
“Pari?”
“Giordana’s on it.”
The next half hour was a blur. They were able to rez Pari, thank god, but she remained unconscious. And even though Giordana hit Justin with a bunch of heals, he still felt like he had just been run over by a truck. The slash under his eye was still there, but thankfully it wasn’t bleeding.
Chad and the rest of the Hawks were scratching their heads about the fact that Pari and Justin’s injuries seemed to resist healing.
Their sage, a guy named Ennis, guessed that the assassins might have had some kind of new kind of toxin on their blades that was resistant to Giordana’s treat poison and treat disease spells.
There was also some serious weirdness with the bodies of the assassins. Mariel and O’Neal had escaped, but when Chad’s team searched Marcino and Weidlin’s bodies, the corpses just turned to dust. Same deal with the corpses of the fallen assassins downstairs. No one had ever seen that happen before.
Justin still felt like crap. Maybe sleep would help.
“Chad, I can’t thank you enough, man.”
“No problem. This whole thing is really disturbing—on many levels.”
“Yeah, it is. But my head is still messed up and I think I need to crash.”
“I don’t blame you. You guys can stay at our place. It isn’t safe here.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, we have plenty of room.”
A half hour later, Lukas showed up with a wagon. They carefully loaded the unconscious Pari into it and Justin climbed in next to her. He was way too weak to walk or even ride.
As dawn broke over Rathenhall, the motion of the wagon lulled Justin to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“It knows,” Noon said. “The controller knows.”
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions, Colonel,” Margolin said.
After General Groves’ sudden and fatal “stroke,” Colonel Noon and Brigadie
r General Basato were all too eager to forge an even closer relationship between the civilian and military groups working on Project: Reverie.
“You don’t understand, Doctor. We lost five men. In real life,” Basato said.
“What?” Margolin couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“We just received word from our medical staff monitoring Blue Squadron’s stim-pods. They reported five casualties—all within a few hours of each other.”
“How?”
“COD unknown at this point. All five are in autopsy now. But we suspect the controller had something to do with it.”
For the past month Basato and Noon had secretly kept Margolin updated on the mission to send an incursion team into Greystrand in order to directly observe the controller’s actions within the game and to counter the AI’s still-unknown plans—if such plans actually existed.
Margolin shook his head. “The controller has no domain access to—” But he trailed off as a new thought occurred to him.
“These men you sent in, they went in as regular players, right?”
“Yes,” Basato said.
“Well, mostly,” Noon said. “We adjusted some of their avatar attributes, post creation.”
Margolin felt his shoulders tighten. Stupid.
“Well then someone fucked up,” he said. “There are eight or nine thousand discrete error checks on player creation alone. Of course it would detect any anomalies.”
“We thought we were in the clear,” Noon said. “Our team operated on the ground for five days with no issues. The controller engaged with them positively. Even gave them the alternate quest.”
“How many men are left?”
“We sent six in on April 1. And we had one already in place since February, but she wasn’t modified.”
“So two remaining?”
Basato nodded.
“Pull them out,” Margolin said. “Both of them. Start the debarcation process right away. It’s going to take a while.”
“Do it,” Basato told Noon, who immediately left the room.
Basato said, “Our analysts have some theories based on the intel Blue Squadron provided as well as their own game reconstructions.”
“Which may be way off.”
“Actually, everything has been confirmed by Blue Squadron. The reconstructions, limited as they may be, are fairly accurate.”
“So you can observe the game?” He had to admit he was impressed.
“It’s a hack, to be sure, Doctor. But so far we’ve been able to identify some events tied to the alternate quest and feed them to Blue Squadron.”
“And?”
“And we still don’t know what any of it means. Everything we’ve uncovered is still in the context of the game.”
“The controller is role playing.”
“You might say that. But our folks believe that these actions indicate that the controller has achieved SA-9 or above.”
Margolin snorted. “A gaming engine? At nine?”
“Just humor me, Doctor. Suppose it really is trying to enlist some players to help it.”
“Help it what?”
“Accomplish whatever it is planning.”
“The alternate quest? This Iron Veil thing?”
“Yes.”
Margolin rubbed his eyes. “It’s programmed to create game content. That’s what it does. Quests, world events, player-triggered narratives, B-plots, NPC storylines. All that stuff. Thousands of pieces of narrative content. That’s what you’ve tapped into.”
“But this Iron Veil isn’t following any of the rules.”
“So you’ve said. And you believe it is some sort of mechanism?”
“Yes.”
“For what?” Margolin asked.
“Unclear. Maybe the controller is trying to slip its leash.”
“I’m sorry, General, I still don’t buy that. And I’m not going to shut Reverie down.”
Basato raised his hands in protest. “Absolutely not, Doctor. Believe me, I don’t share the late General Groves’ lack of perspective in this matter. However if our folks are correct in their suspicions, there is a reasonable safeguard we can undertake.”
“Pull the players out…”
“Exactly.”
“All of them? Or just this fellowship you’ve been tracking.”
“Those players have already been eliminated. But we don’t know who else the controller may be working with. So it’s safer to pull everyone out.”
Margolin thought about it. Given what had happened with Groves and now the incursion team, it was a small price to pay. And it probably could be spun as a positive. The beta players were so good they solved the world quest in four months instead of twelve. That would help the narrative a lot.
“We would need for someone to win.”
“Our operative Mariel Severine.”
“No, there’s going to be a lot of public attention on the winner. You want it to be someone real. Plus PWC needs to certify someone. We’re talking about a lot of money here. And a lot of scrutiny.”
“What do you propose?”
“We’ll change the end date of the beta and direct the controller to adjust the live game accordingly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that an actual player will win for real—in the next 24 hours.”
“And everyone else will be out of the game.”
“Yes. Unfortunately.”
Chapter Thirty
In her dream, Pari smelled flowers. Maybe it wasn’t a dream though. Or if it was, she couldn’t remember it. Wherever she was, sleeping or dreaming or half awake, she felt warm and safe. And the flower scent was calming.
Then she felt a little tickle of hair on her cheek, and she opened her eyes and saw pink.
Zoë pulled her head away from Pari’s face and smiled at her.
“What the hell were you doing?” Pari asked. She had no idea where she was or what Zoë was doing here.
“Just checking to see if you were alive, babe. You’ve been out of it for a long time.”
“Where am I?”
“You’re at our place. In Rathe. You remember what happened?”
“Did you fucking drug me again?”
“No. And I’m really sorry about that. It was an asshole move.”
Pari didn’t say anything, just sat up and looked around the room. She was in a small, but richly appointed bedroom with a single round window facing the bed. The room was kind of messy with clothes draped on the edge of a free-standing mirror and piled on a chair. There was a painted wood dressing table cluttered with tons of candles, seashells, ornate bottles, jewelry, carvings, and other little pieces of art. But the bed was warm and soft with silk sheets. Pari realized the smell of flowers was coming from the pillow she had been laying on.
“You really don’t remember anything?” Zoë asked.
Pari thought about it. She remembered going to the Yak Shack with Justin and Klothar, Klothar figuring out the clue, and then the three of them coming back home, eating some dinner, and then crashing out. She had been really tired. Then some vague memories of people in her bedroom, dragging her out of bed. After that, not much of anything. Just flashes. Like glimpses. Fighting. Struggling. But the more she tried to remember, the less she could.
“Tell me,” Pari said.
Zoë sat on the bed next to her. “It was insane. Friday night Justin came banging on the door here, shouting something about assassins at your place, killing everyone. He was really freaked out and worried about you and wanted us to go up there with him.”
She brushed a strand of pink hair from her face.
“At first Chad didn’t believe him, so Justin took off by himself, but then a bunch of us convinced Chad to at least check it out. When we got there, you were dead, and they were about to slit Justin’s throat.”
“Who?”
Zoë shrugged. “No idea. Justin had never seen any of them before—except Mariel.”
“Mariel?
What does she have to do with this?”
But as she asked the question, images and scattered memories flashed through her mind. Mariel was there. She was a part of whatever had happened.
“I think you need to talk to Justin,” Zoë said. “I’ll let him know you’re up. He’ll be really relieved. He’s been a mess.”
“What about Klothar?”
“Who’s Klothar?”
“He’s an NPC, a hireling. He was supposed to be guarding us.”
“I think all the NPCs are dead. Your place was like a war zone.”
Pari felt her stomach turn.
“Sorry, babe,” Zoë said. “But at least you’re okay, right? And feel free to crash in my bed for as long as you want.”
“This is your room?”
“Uh huh. I’m staying with Chad.”
Pari looked around the room again. “You need to clean up. This place is a sty.” She managed a half smile.
“Glad to see you got your sense of humor back.” Zoë smiled back at her and then left to find Justin.
On unsteady legs, Pari managed to make it out of bed. She walked over to the window and looked out. It was a killer view, looking southeast over the city.
After using Zoë’s chamber pot, Pari looked at herself in the mirror. She reeled back in shock. What the hell had happened to her? Her face was a purplish mass of bruises with blood crusted on her hair. Her clothes were ripped and blood-stained, and when she peeked under her shirt, she saw that her body looked like it had been used for a combat target. How was she even alive?
“Pari?”
She turned and there was Justin at the door. He looked almost as bad as she did, broken and bruised, with a horrible red slash under his eye.
“Thank god you’re awake.” He hugged her tight, and they stayed that way for several moments.
When he finally released her, Pari said, “I’m still a little out of it. Didn’t they heal us?”
“Are you kidding? That’s all they’ve been doing since yesterday morning. Giordana, Naomi, Oliver, and some lady who I didn’t catch the name of. All the healers in the fellowship. Hitting us with everything they have. Vivify, treat poison, treat disease, even reconstruct. You actually look a lot better than you did last night.”