The Crafting of Chess

by Kit Falbo

  Jasper’s frown deepens, “Is that what you think his goal is, having us remove an obstacle for him?”

  “If that’s the only one he has. Maybe it is to see if we are willing to do that. What’s the best way to remove him anyway.”

  Jasper follows up with a low groan. “Heads of the orders can only be replaced if they step down, retire or pass away. I don’t care if he’s a drunk, you must be skilled and strong to run an order. He would kick both our asses if we tried to ambush him. You’ve also banned me from doing anything risky, so it’s not like I would be good in a fight.”

  For a game that is primarily about killing things, we certainly lack the experience doing such things. “We could pay someone,” I whisper quietly.

  “I don’t think any local assassin would be foolish enough to take a job like that.”

  We could probably find an NPC to take the job, I’m not lacking in gold. No guarantees though. I flick through my skills screen. “I think I might know some people foolish enough to try, though after that run around I’ll need to do a few days of crafting to catch up on my finances. Are you really okay with trying to remove Chatwin?”

  Jasper eyes me. “I will do whatever you need me to do.” He’s my companion. Of course, he would do whatever I need him to do in the game. I’m remembering Axel’s mule.

  “I know that, but how do you feel about it. Is it the right thing?”

  Jasper sits there, frozen for a moment; his eye starts to twitch a little. Did I break him? “The prospect of disappointing Alerin King scares me, but even without that, sometimes you need to do the hard thing to complete a job or do what’s right.”

  “Go pick some easy odd jobs to do. I need to work on some ideas. Meet back with me in three days.” Jasper gets up, leaving me alone to think in the booth. I’ll need to go to see Mel tonight, use the internet to figure out who to contact and what quest rewards I’ll need to craft. Maybe my in-game fame will work out for me on this.

  Chapter Sixteen - David

  For me, the worst parts of my life are when the immersion helmet is off, and I can no longer pretend.

  After my stroke, I became locked into the coffin that happened to be my body. They call it lock-in Syndrome, without technology the most I can do in the real world is blink. The first immersion games that let me bypass the condition was a god send, though I had to learn to walk again in that environment. I still can’t spend all day away, letting an aide take care of my useless body while I’m off somewhere else, but my disability did give me an exception of being able to use one more than most. An “accommodation,” as they call it in the world of disabilities. I suppose the time off gives me time to check up on the news and read various emails and game messages.

  Right now there is only one game for me. Fair Quest it’s the absolute best. I’ve essentially stopped playing my other immersion games. You can taste, you can smell, you can feel. I check player messages. I have them organized by the guild first. I’m in the Bottom Dwellers guild. Friends then fan messages are listed after that. I read all the fan messages, commenting on the screen-shot-heavy videos I post showing off my assassinations. It lets me keep on pretending a little longer.

  The guild is having a meeting Tuesday. They have booked a room at the northeastern player lounge to discuss who will get to use this month’s dues for an item that would bring them out to the frontline crew. The guild crafters make sure everyone is equipped okay, but you really need an H&M power item or a Chess piece to have any kind of showing against the monsters there. An assassin’s skills aren’t highly requested out there, at least not enough to earn a spot on the guild item list, even with my levels. Assassinations, while fun, never pay as much as you can get from farming mobs.

  Moolow wants to do another IRL, In-Real-Life get together. I’m planning to use work as an excuse again. I don’t need them to know. I don’t need them to pity me. That is the best part, no one knowing. No one pitying me. In the game, I am an assassin, the power of life and death in my hands. Out here I’m a stroke victim trapped in his own body. I would rather them imagine me as a nerdy gamer junkie, even at a couple hundred pounds with an exemption playing an assassin, than know I’m a locked-in stroke victim who can’t even wipe up their own drool.

  I flick to my spam messages:

  ● A flyer from H&M. They send them out to those who sign up at any of the player lounges. Game porn for me. I can pretend to play with all the items I can not afford to buy.

  ● A couple dozen messages from fans of my videos, most calling me awesome, a few with critiques I ignore, and a trickle with insults.

  ● And this one. Header: This is Chess. I have a quest for you. The sender is Chess, no backwards three for the E or a 5 for an S or even an angle bracket for the C, not that Fair Quest allows that those kinds of spellings. Though a player can have three S’s in an attempt to spoof. Is he doing personal advertisements now? I hadn’t signed up for anything from him, not to say I wouldn’t. I click the link to access the message.

  Hi Noxtimus, this is Chess. I have a quest for you. Everyone online says you are the best assassin there is in Fair Quest and your videos are impressive. I wanted to give you first crack at it. My inbox tends to get a bit crowded, so if you are interested, meet me at the front of the Palm Lotus house in the capital city at 3pm ET on February 17th, I’ll be wearing a large red hat, don’t be late.

  The message is from yesterday, but the meeting is today. With the two-hour time difference, it’s in about four hours from now. I will have to pay for fast travel to meet him if I want to. Do I want to meet him? I laugh inwardly at myself, hell yes. The stories online about him have him being a recluse. A little more than a week ago, someone had posted a picture, claiming that it was the very first picture was of Chess.

  I use the system to call the total care home aide. I need an early lunch and some care before I log back in.

  *

  It feels good to be able to walk and move again. Hillgon is becoming a bustling city. It had started out as a small town with bandit and goblin problems. It is a little off the main roads, about the halfway point from the capital to the front lines. In addition to the bandits and goblins, the area is riddled with rogue lords who had fled rather than fight when the Man of Masks horde first came. They are the type of mobs that have money for players to earn from. It is a natural place for players and my guild to gather. IA is even building another player’s lounge here.

  Companions set up shops to earn money for their players here, too. If I get enough money I can see me setting up a shop for my companion here. Right now Mizzie’s income from the flower shop she works at in the capital isn’t exactly glamorous, but her burgeoning skills in herbalism and alchemy have been valuable for my play.

  The mage association booth lets you do fast travel for a price. A mousy looking girl in blue robes is manning it today. I pull out a gold coin, rolling it in my knuckles. Chess better not be jerking me around. “I need transport to the Palm Lotus House in the capital.”

  “Oh!” She says blushing. “There are local places cheaper and closer.”

  Huh? “I’m meeting a friend there.”

  Her blush deepens.

  “More of a business deal,” I add.

  No matter what I say, she just keeps turning redder.

  “Send me off.” I place the coin in her hand and get into the chalk circle, careful not to smudge the lines. I’m early. Apparently, so is Chess. I come into existence just a few feet to his left. At least I assume it is him from the red sparkling hat. It’s a hunting hat cut like the old Errol Flynn Robin Hood movies.

  I point to him, “Chess?”

  “Noxtimus. Glad I didn’t have to wear this for long.” He takes off the hat and shoves it into a pink flowery bag. “Let’s go get a booth. Then we can talk.”

  Once inside I can see why the mousy mage had been blushing. An elf with silver hair and inhumanly long legs walks by; her dress barely reaches the tops of her thighs. Chess tosses some silver to
the hostess at the front and leads me to a booth. This is not really my thing. “I don’t know what ideas you got about me online,” I say.

  Chess hits a button, and a screen slides over the door covering the booth. “It’s for the privacy, not the establishment. My companion’s idea. Sorry if it bothers you.”

  To be fair, I had done my share of immersion interactives, though not in Fair Quest. My condition makes it my only option. “It’s fine, just not what I was expecting. The message said something about needing me for a quest.”

  Chess pulls a small gray box out of his bag. “This is a player quest box. If you complete the quest, you get the reward in it. I used your videos to guess the gear you prefer to use.”

  I touch it, and a quest notification box is displayed for me.

  Player created Quest: A human obstacle. Chess requires General Chatwin, head of the Order of Officers, to be removed from his position. If accepted, you will have seven days to complete this quest.

  Rewards. Excellent quality enchanted leather armor set: chest, gloves, bracers, leggings. Excellent quality enchanted cloak. Excellent quality enchanted weapons: longbow, sword, paired daggers. These items cannot be sold at auction, but have additional bonuses given to the player who completes the quest for them.

  I try to keep my jaw from dropping. It’s basically saying hey, here is a quest for a thousand gold. Though I can’t sell the items, I’m pretty sure all of it is better than the gear I have. I hit Accept before the notification might disappear. A pop up notifies me I now have possession of the quest box.

  “What’s the catch?”

  “If you don’t complete it, the box will disappear from your inventory and reverts back to me. You only have seven days to do it, and as the head of an order he will be very hard to kill or convince to step down.”

  “Why do you want him dead?”

  “I need someone else running the order to complete a quest of my own.”

  “Why me?”

  Chess shifts a little, “You were the first name recommend to me. I’ve got a friend who watches your videos. Just don’t tell anyone I put you up to this. I heard one of the other players who is able to give out quests had to change his name.”

  “That’s fine, man.”

  Chess opens the privacy screen, “Bye, Noxtimus. Good luck.” He then dashes out, leaving me to stare at my new box. It lists that it can’t be stolen, dropped or given away. I show up to the guild in this gear, my friends will freak. It is time to make a quick trip to the florists.

  Mizzie looks up from her beaker, her brown hair cut short so it doesn’t interfere with her work, “You Sir, are a complete idiot.”

  The florist, recognizing me, had let me into the back room to see my companion as she worked on making a perfume. They let her use the alchemy equipment after work, an ideal situation since the equipment is expensive.

  “Did you not hear what I said, I’ll get enchanted armor and enchanted weapons when I complete this job. I’ll be the best-equipped member of my guild.”

  “Sir, you just told me you accepted a job to deal with one of the heads of the marshal orders and will not get paid a single gold coin. “

  “Come on Mizz, that gear has to be worth over a thousand gold combined.”

  She snorts while carefully pouring her creation into five small perfume bottles. “That, you told me you could not sell Sir.”

  “I wouldn’t sell it anyway.”

  Mizzie gets up and starts gathering more ingredients to start a new batch. “We are talking about the head of the Order of Officers. He’s been in wars, battles, contests of strength and skill. Now maybe, just maybe, if Chess had given you access to those items now, you would stand a chance Sir. If you get caught even attempting to do this, I can’t imagine it would do great things for your relationship with the kingdom. My advice Sir, pretend this offer never happened and let it expire after the week.”

  Mizzie. Practical and blunt to a fault. When they handed out companions, I like to think I got the best. “I can do this. I obviously have to work smarter, not stronger in this case.”

  She lets out a long annoyed-at-my-stubbornness type sigh. “Fine. I’ll see what I can dig up on the general to help with this fool’s errand, Sir.” She reaches under her work area and pulls out four vials that she hands to me. “None of these poisons will probably help in this case Sir, but you might as well take them now.”

  The rest of my playing time for the day is spent stalking the general. Figuring out when he takes his breaks and where he goes when he gets off work. At level thirty-five, I have a lot of skills, and most of them are suited to this kind of work more than fighting mobs. Other players would find this work boring, but it is nice to move through the crowd and not stand out. Here, eyes drift past me, instead of staring like they do in real life.

  Chapter Seventeen -Chess

  I can’t help but wonder if hiring Noxtimus is a good idea. Was I really completing my quest by letting someone else do the heavy lifting for me? But I also don’t think loading up all my most powerful gear and challenging Chatwin head-on would leave a good impression on anyone. The NPC here actually react to situations, so it’s not like you can do something like that without getting negative attention. I make the quest blade for the Order of Officers anyway, just to have it done. Since I don’t know who the new head will be or what he will want, I decide to go all out on the design. I figure I can present it to the new head of the order if this works out. If it doesn’t, I’m not sure what my best option is, hire a guild or maybe do try it myself.

  I still have two more orders to make weapons for. Jasper is having a hard time finding the Order of Shadows headquarters. If he can find a member, we can backtrack from there. It’s my quest. I should probably put some work in myself. The game might even make that required. The Spellworks is in the Warren of the Magic quarter, no address is listed, but at least I know where to look. Only spellcasters and their servants are allowed, so if Jasper hasn’t found anything more on the Shadows in a couple of days, he and I will have to make a trip there next.

  With nothing found, we walk slowly towards where the spellworks should be, “You’ve got to listen to me. No one goes there if they can help it. Magic users only go there because they have too.”

  I look to Jasper who, while not exactly trying to talk me out of it, really would have prefered to go here last. “You never really explained that to me. Why would they have to come, other than the laws requiring them to set up headquarters in this quarter?”

  “I’m not a magic user. I don’t know all their secrets.”

  Companions are supposed to be more useful than this. “And If I asked you to train to be a wizard or a mage?”

  Jasper’s eyes bug out a little at that. “I would, of course, as your companion, do my best. As part of the blessings, companions get I, am able to learn magic if you wish it.”

  “Sorry man, I know that’s not your cup of tea.”

  “I’m your companion. I must do what you ask. It’s the price of the job. Maybe that would be my cup of tea. I didn’t think I would enjoy the odd jobs, but I did.” Programming not magic, but, potato, po-tot-o.

  “My sources tell me that most buildings in the mage’s quarter shift about. Once you join an organization, you can get a token that will lead you back to them if you need to return. If you want to find something, there will be a house with a blue door on the first street where you can meet old Lady Else, and after doing some chore, she’ll give you a current map of where you need to go.” The wiki is only moderately useful.

  “That’s more than what I found out. People who visit are not supposed to talk about it.”

  “Touched don’t exactly have the same restrictions or moral codes.”

  Two guards man the entrance to the quarter, their long staff’s glowing with faint magic power. They only briefly stop those who enter. “State your name and business?”

  “I’m Chess, and this is Jasper. We’re just looking to meet with one o
f the magic organizations in the quarter.”

  “Ah, a Touched. You going to submit your companion to one of the colleges of magics?”

  “Nothing like that. I’m a sorcerer and just have some business.”

  The guard looks me over. My clothing choices are not the traditional ones for the class. “You’ll need to summon your familiar. All magic users who have one are required to have theirs out and present while in the quarter.”

  It has been a while since I’d summoned Cook, mostly because of the reactions. One time he had actually been attacked. Maybe the mage’s quarter will be more enlightened. “There a reason for that?”

  “A while back it was considered cruel to leave your familiar unsummoned.” I focus on the spell, Energy gathers to form the shape of the digger, and then he materializes into existence. “Ugh, what did you do? Dig yourself a grave, then climb into it before you summoned your familiar?” the guard exclaims.

  “Master!” Cook squeals into my head with undertones of joy and happiness.

  “Volume,” I mentally admonish him. “Something like that, but he’s very useful when I need him,” I tell the guard. The guard snorts derisively at that. “He can help find precious metals and gems when I go outside the city.”

  “Wow, a money maker.” He put his hand to his mouth and whistles.” A giant eagle flies down from the sky to land on top of the gate. “All Paro does here is spot trouble and eat me out of a quarter of my paycheck in piglets. He’s pretty good in a fight too, not that I see much action.” The bird screeches at Cook who promptly hides behind me. “Looking at your familiar is making him mighty hungry.”

  Behind me, Cook is mumbling, “Scary, scary, scary…”

  I dig out a silver and hand it to the guard, “Buy him a pig on me.”