by Randy Nargi
“That doesn’t make sense.” She motioned him to come close. “Let me see that cheek of yours. Does it hurt?”
“No, all the pain went away once I woke up.”
Pari examined the wound. It had definitely healed somewhat, but even a basic healing touch should have made Justin’s face look like new.
“I’m going to give it a try.”
She closed her eyes and began to concentrate on her healing touch spell. It was a lower-level healer spell, and it was a rapid-cast spell, which meant that Pari didn’t really need to prepare anything to cast it. But she wanted this one to be perfect, so she ran through all of its vertices until she felt a large pool of energy welling up inside of her. Then she placed her hand on Justin’s cheek and channeled her healing power from her fingertips into him, willing the blood vessels to repair themselves, new tissue to grow, and new skin to form over the wound.
When she removed her hand and opened her eyes, she expected to see his face completely restored. But it wasn’t. He still had a serious gash. Maybe the scab was the tiniest bit smaller, but she wasn’t even sure about that.
What the hell was going on?
“That should have completely healed you,” she said.
“I know. That’s what I was telling you. Giordana’s level 6 and even she isn’t able to fully heal us.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like this.”
“Ennis thinks it may be some kind of new poison that no one has ever seen before. Those guys had all sorts of weird things, including—”
Pari cut him off. “Start at the beginning. I can’t remember anything.”
“You serious? You don’t remember it at all?”
She shook her head. “All I remember is being dead tired and climbing into bed.”
Justin reached over and rubbed his shoulder. “Wow. Well, the whole thing started when Klothar woke me up in the middle of the night.”
“Where is Klothar, by the way?”
Justin’s face fell. “He never came back. I don’t know what happened to him.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not. I’m really worried. He’s a Fabled, right?”
“Yeah, Fabled,” Pari said. “That’s what I thought.”
“Me too. He killed a bunch of them, but I don’t know what happened to him. I was dead by that point.”
“Back up. So Klothar wakes you up in the middle of the night?”
“Yeah. He said he heard intruders. Downstairs. He wanted me to use my ring and float down there and distract him. Then he was going to take them out.”
“Did you see them?”
“Yeah. I floated down and there were a bunch waiting at the stairs. Big strong-looking guys—in their 30s. All dressed in leather armor.”
Shit. That sounded familiar.
“Did they look like military guys?” she asked. “Call each other by their last names?”
“Yeah, exactly!”
“I know who they were,” Pari said excitedly. “I saw them at the beach when I was trying to get home. They were the guys with the canoes. They were looking for the island.”
“And Klothar said that they were on the ship that blew up the tower.”
“Same guys?”
“Yeah. And here’s the weird thing. When I inspected them—”
Pari finished his sentence, “They didn’t show any level numbers, right?”
“Right!”
“I saw that too. Definitely the same guys,” Pari said.
“But Mariel was with them.”
Pari felt her chest tighten. “Zoë said something about that… but I don’t understand.”
“She was in on it. The attack. I heard them talking. Mariel was definitely part of their team.”
That would explain how they gained entrance to the fellowship hall. But Mariel? How could she?
“Anyway, I tried to distract them and they threw some knives at me which passed right through me. That was cool, but no one told me that I could still be affected by magic when I was in ghost form.”
“What happened?”
“One of them blasted me with a magic bolt. Boom. Game over.”
“You died?”
“Of course I died. I’m only level 2.”
“I keep forgetting. Sorry.”
“I rezzed at a Life Tree downtown and as I was running back I saw the big bird on this tower and tried to get some Golden Hawk reinforcements. At first they blew me off, but it turns out that Chad wasn’t such an asshole after all.”
“That still remains to be seen.”
Justin’s expression softened. “They’re actually pretty good folks.”
“Whatever. So you came charging back to the hall all alone?”
“Yeah. I grabbed a butcher’s knife from the kitchen and went upstairs. Klothar had taken out a bunch of them, but I could tell by your screams that they were torturing you or something. They were asking about the Iron Veil.”
“I… I don’t remember anything.”
“You sure you want me to tell you?”
Pari nodded.
“Well, I completely screwed everything up. I guess there’s a reason I’m not a combat class. I tried to distract the guard at your door, but he totally pwned me. And they dragged me in the room. You were basically unconscious at that point, so they decided to torture me.”
“They were asking about the Iron Veil?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t tell them anything. Well, I did, but it wasn’t the truth. I was stalling because I thought that Klothar might get back. But it didn’t work.”
Torture? Murder? All this for a stupid quest. It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense.
Pari said, “Try to remember everything. What did they know about the Veil?”
Justin paused for a second, collecting his thoughts. Then he said, “I mentioned the temple in the Dark Tree and they already knew about that. They said something… what was it? Intel! That was it. They said they had intel about the temple, or something like that. Who says ‘intel’ besides military guys?”
“No one.”
“Anyway, I just made up this stupid lie about the Iron Veil being some treasure at the bottom of the Thunderfang dungeon—”
“Thunderfang’s for newbies. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“That’s what Mariel said, and they got all suspicious. But I said that the Veil was hidden in some secret level underneath or something like that. I don’t even remember. But then Mariel called bullshit on it and said she had heard us talking about the tower clue. And then they…” He trailed off with a sad expression on his face.
“What?”
“You sure you want to hear this part?”
“Tell me.”
Justin took a breath. “Then Mariel killed you. Stabbed you in the heart.”
Her body locked up with rage. That piece of shit traitor.
“What did she stab me with?”
“A dagger or something. I didn’t see clearly.”
“Was the blade coated with anything?”
“I don’t know. They tried to turn me so I couldn’t see. And then they were about to kill me, but that’s when the Hawks burst in. There was a big fight and the leader guy and one other were killed, but Mariel and one other guy escaped.”
“How?”
“He had some kind of smoke bomb.”
“So they’re still out there?”
“Yeah. It was messed up.”
“I know,” Pari said. “There’s not supposed to be any PVPing in the game. This whole thing doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well, it gets weirder. So the Hawks did a sweep of your entire house and found the bodies of the assassins that Klothar had killed. But when they tried to search them, the bodies just turned into dust. Like they were vampires hitting sunlight or something.”
Pari had never heard of that before. Usually player corpses just fade away fifteen minutes after death.
“And I saved the best for last.”<
br />
“What?”
Justin removed something from his belt pouch.
“Wait until you see this. I took it from one of the assassins.”
He handed it to her.
It was a phone.
Chapter Thirty-One
Pari turned the phone over in her hand. It was a Tianzhou handset, but not a model she had ever seen before. It had a high-impact rugged case with reinforced corners. On the front, under the screen, were three mechanical buttons engraved with icons: a globe, a camera, and a chat icon. There were also two mechanical buttons on the left edge.
“This thing shouldn’t exist here,” she said.
“I know. I’m pretty sure medieval people didn’t have phones.”
“Did you wake it?”
“Hell, no!”
Pari wished that Lazarus was here. He was fascinated by all the behind-the-scenes stuff with Loneskum-Alexander. And he knew a lot about the tech.
She sat down on the edge of the bed and turned the phone over in her hand. What could it be?
Justin sat down next to her. “He was taking videos with it.”
“Who?”
“The scout. O’Neil, I think his name was. The leader told him to. He said something about needing to record everything. I got the impression it was for someone else—maybe whoever their bosses are.”
“Bosses?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Well, let’s see what happens.”
“You sure?” Justin asked.
“I already powered it on.”
Justin leaned close and he and Pari stared at the now-illuminated screen.
“The phone doesn’t seem to be keyed to anyone. It woke without a facial.”
“Try voice,” Justin said.
Pari asked the phone, “What’s the weather?”
The phone didn’t respond.
“Maybe it’s keyed to someone’s voiceprint.”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s push those buttons,” Justin suggested.
They decided not to mess with the camera yet, but Pari was curious about the chat icon.
“Here goes nothing.” She pressed the button, and an app launched. It looked like an old-school chat app. There was a whole thread on it.
“Holy shit,” Justin muttered.
“What is this?”
The chat conversation was between two people “Blue Squadron” and “Castle.” Judging from the time stamps they only sent or received messages twice a day—once in the morning and once at night. The oldest message was on April 1, just five days ago.
Together, Pari and Justin scrolled through the chat conversation.
CASTLE 0401250549: CONFIRM ARRIVAL. TRANSMITTED LOCATION OF CACHE, SEVERINE. QUEST INITIATED. GATES OPERATIONAL.
Crap. More proof that Mariel was in on this.
BLUESQUADRON 0401252021: ARRIVED. TEAM INTACT. LOCATED CACHE. CONTACT MADE WITH SEVERINE. RECEIVED QUEST AS PER BRIEFING. CONFIRM GATES.
“What are the gates?” Justin asked.
“No clue.”
CASTLE 0402250541: TRANSMITTED LOCATION OF OBJECTIVE. PROCEED. SEE SEVERINE FOR BRIEFING ON ENEMY INTEL.
BLUESQUADRON 0402252045: LOCATED OBJECTIVE, BUT NOT TOWER. WILL REMAIN IN SECTOR FOR RENDEZVOUS. ROE ENEMY?
CASTLE 0403250533: ROE: UNRESTRICTED. UTILIZE ASSET SR51 AT 46.165104,-123.923755 TO DESTROY TOWER. VCW: TRUFFLE.
“This is proof that they were the same guys Klothar saw on the island,” Justin said.
“What’s VCW: TRUFFLE?”
“Beats me. Lots of code words here.”
“There are. ROE. Any idea about that?”
“Nope.”
BLUESQUADRON 0403252013: SR51 ASSET ENGAGED. TOWER DESTROYED. ENEMY ESCAPED.
CASTLE 0404250522: RENDEZVOUS WITH SEVERINE. INTERROGATE ENEMY AT 45.951698,-123.261118. ROE: UNRESTRICTED.
“Interrogate enemy. This must have been their orders,” Justin said.
“And those numbers are probably the coordinates of our place,” Pari said.
BLUESQUADRON 0401252029: IN POSITION. SEVERINE REPORTS THAT ENEMY DERIVED INTEL FROM TOWER. WILL INTERROGATE AND CLEANSE. OPSTART +6 HOURS.
That was the last transmission from Blue Squadron.
CASTLE 0405250537: RECONSTRUCTION SUGGESTS NEXT QUEST STEP AT 46.059523,-123.14038. CRIMSON SQUADRON READY FOR NEXT INSERTION HORIZON.
CASTLE 0406250540: NO TRANSMISSION RECEIVED 0405. ACKNOWLEDGE.
“Do you realize what we’re seeing?” Pari asked.
“Someone’s definitely not playing by the rules.”
“Pretty much. They’re trying to mess with the beta. Someone’s got all this information, coordinates, and they’re tracking us somehow.”
“But who?” Justin asked.
“I don’t know. Another fellowship? Maybe there’s someone on the outside, trying to help them win.”
Pari read through the messages again. She knew that there was a lot of money on the line for the winner of the beta. And fame. Definitely an incentive for someone to cheat.
“What do we do now?” Justin asked.
Pari scrolled down to the second to last message.
CASTLE 0405250537: RECONSTRUCTION SUGGESTS NEXT QUEST STEP AT 46.059523,-123.14038
“These coordinates,” she said. “We need to figure out where they are.”
Justin pointed to the first button, the one with the globe on it. “Maybe that could help.”
Pari pressed the button and the screen display changed to a map of Greystrand with several colored marker icons on it. The map wasn’t all that different from her Circle of Reckoning, except for the shape of the markers.
She zoomed in on Rathenhall and saw that there were two markers in the vicinity. The red one was on top of her fellowship hall and the other, a green one, was just south of the city. Pari tapped the red marker and a window with coordinates popped up: 45.951698,-123.261118.
She tilted the display towards Justin. “Do those look familiar?”
“Those were the coordinates where they were supposed to interrogate the enemy.”
“Our fellowship hall.”
Next Pari clicked on the green marker south of the city and the coordinates 45.946089,-123.255938 popped up.
Justin shook his head. “Those weren’t in any of the text messages.”
She spent the next few minutes scrolling around on the map and clicking on marker icons. Thanks to Justin’s photographic memory, they were able to find the “next quest step” mentioned in the text. It was at 46.059523,-123.14038—a red marker in Holgate.
There was also a green marker a little northeast of the village, but it was at 46.071473,-123.135318.
“So it looks like we’re going back to Holgate,” Justin said.
“We’ve got one more button to push,” Pari said. And then she pushed the middle button with the camera icon.
“Don’t!” Justin cried.
It was too late. Pari saw her own face in the display. The camera was taking a selfie video.
She stabbed at the map button again and the screen changed.
“Crap.”
“Yeah, I was afraid of that.”
“Let’s leave the camera alone for a while. I’m eager to see what’s at the coordinates in Holgate.”
“Me too. But I need to go back home first.” Pari handed the camera back to Justin, who slipped it in his belt pouch. “The only question is, how much do we tell the Hawks?”
“Tell us what?” Chad asked from the doorway.
Pari was too surprised to answer.
Chad smiled and walked into the room.
“So, you’re alive. But you still look like hell.”
“I know… Listen, thank you… for everything.”
“It was the least we can do. I also want to say that I’m sorry about the whole thing with Zoë. It was totally my fault. I put her up to it.”
“Yeah, well. It was kind of my fault too. For being dumb enough to fall for it.”
Pari didn’t miss a beat. “We’re actually not 100% sure who they are. We think maybe the devs might be testing PVP in the game and we were the unlucky guinea pigs.”
“You ever see them before?”
Justin looked over at Pari and she nodded to him.
“Yeah,” Justin said. “They tried to mess with us during a quest on Thursday.”
“Hmmm. Could actually be the devs themselves. Lukas inspected one before he plugged him and he didn’t show a level.”
“I saw that too,” Justin said. “A lot of weirdness for sure.”
“Actually, that would explain a lot of things,” Pari said. “They knew exactly where I was.”
“So you don’t think this was a random ganking?” Chad asked.
“I don’t know what to think,” Pari said.
Everyone was quiet for a few moments, and then Pari broke the tension. “Anyway, I want to thank you again, Chad. If it wasn’t for you guys, I’d be out of the game.”
“That’s how the Hawks roll. A friend in need and whatnot.”
“I’m definitely feeling better, so I think we’ll just head back and get out of your hair.”
“You know you guys can stay as long as you want, right? We have tons of room.”
“Actually, we need to find our hireling Klothar. I think those guys took him out, and we’re not sure where he respawned.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, we’re good,” Pari said.
“I did have one other thing I wanted to talk to you about.” Chad raked his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. “Justin told me what happened to the rest of your fellowship… and I’m sorry about that…”
She shot a sharp glance at Justin, who looked away.
“I had a discussion with my officers and we’d like to formally invite you to join the Golden Hawks.” Chad nodded at Justin. “Both of you.”
Great. That was the last thing Pari wanted.
“I… I don’t know what to say…”
“You guys would do great here. And we really would love to have you.”
“Well…”