The Games We Play

by Mark C. Wade

  The two guards gave her a skeptical look, but they backed off. Henry rubbed at his shoulders; he wouldn’t be surprised if that left a bruise.

  The guard hovered near Henry, ready to strike again should anything go wrong.

  Henry sidled up to him. “I like my men strong, but I usually give consent before that type of rough play.”

  The guard blanched and backed off.

  Good. And stay back there.

  Henry glanced around, and he saw utter chaos. The CEO of the Restin Corporation was frantically conversing with someone else on one end of the room. Half the crowd tried to get out of the building while the other half tried to rush Nyissa to find out what had happened.

  Luckily, it seemed enough security was in the area to hold the flood of people back.

  Henry took that moment to get a grasp on what had just happened.

  He asked Lukas, “What in the world? How did you know what to do? How did you even have this gear with you? You realize this doesn’t help your case.”

  “You’re joking, right? You think I set this up? If I wanted to kill her, why would I have saved her? I’m a tech guy at heart. I always carry gear with me so that I can tinker with things when I find them.”

  Henry said, “You knew what to do. You knew what was wrong.”

  Lukas shook his head with a bemused expression on his face.

  He said, “Not really. From what little we’ve been told, I had a guess about what went wrong with Zane’s VR gear. As soon as I saw it with my own eyes, I saw what was wrong. I’ve examined these headsets inside and out a million times for tech reviews on the podcast. Of course, I saw exactly what was wrong with it as soon as I opened it.”

  It was somewhat convincing to Henry. That only left Aeden now, unless Nyissa had done this to herself for some reason. Henry doubted that. But that’s what made it so brilliant.

  Henry scratched his chin as he thought. He felt like he was missing something here, and he didn’t want to leave until he found the vital clue.

  It was insane for Aeden to have done this in front of all these people and expect to get away with it. Something didn’t add up here unless Lukas had staged it. He’d be the hero and get millions of new listeners to his podcast.

  Henry glanced at the rest of the contestants in their pods still. No one seemed to be acting suspiciously. But that didn’t say much, as most of them didn’t seem to know what was going on at all.

  That’s when Henry saw Quillen burst into the room in full uniform. His face was bright red with rage. He and the head of the Restin Corporation walked directly to where Henry and Lucas and Nyissa all sat.

  Henry clambered to his feet and stuttered as he tried to figure out what to say to make this look okay.

  Quillen said, “You need to get out of here right away. What the fuck are you doing here anyway? I warned you to stay away because I knew something like this would happen. That restraining order is official as of right now. So, get away from all suspects before I arrest you.”

  Henry couldn’t believe this. None of this was his fault. Now he really did need to get to Aeden before the restraining order went into effect.

  Henry tried to stay as cool as possible. He said, “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Quillen grimaced, and then Henry was on his way. He pushed himself through the crowd, which had already started to thin. He pinged the autocab with his phone, and it was waiting for him when he got to the streets.

  The cab somehow avoided the swarm of traffic from the event as it sped to his apartment. Henry left a generous tip, despite there being no driver. In theory, tips helped optimize the routing algorithms, and this one had been a good one.

  Henry ran to the VR gear and pulled it on. There was no time for any fear of what might happen to him if his gear had been tampered with. It was far more important to get to Aeden before he had time to escape or work out an alibi.

  The game booted up, and the world map appeared to Henry. He noticed a little magnifying glass icon in the upper right-hand corner, and he clicked on it.

  It was a search feature. Henry wracked his brain for whatever that building was called that housed the guild.

  Something manor.

  He typed in “manor,” and a list appeared. There it was: The Grand Manor. Henry laughed at the silliness of the name. The location appeared on the map, and it was in the middle of the Vast Plains just like he remembered.

  He clicked on it to be teleported there. A harsh sound filled his ears, and a message appeared on the screen:

  This is not a valid entry point.

  Fuck.

  Henry chose a location close to the manor and tried again. This time the magical world of Eburnean Passage materialized around him. He could see the manor in the distance, and he began to move toward it.

  Henry hoped Aeden was around. There was a good chance he was in the real world watching the tournament. Especially if he was the one to tamper with Nyissa’s VR gear. The manor grew larger as Henry stepped closer.

  And then Henry could not move forward anymore. He slammed right into some sort of invisible wall.

  Henry put a tentacle out and touched it. This was one of the first times he was truly pulled out of the experience of the game. The solid, invisible barrier reminded Henry that this was all a virtual world—anything was possible.

  Henry slithered along the edge of the wall with his one tentacle out, feeling it the whole time. He wondered what had caused this. Did it go all the way around the manor? Was it some sort of magical shield Aeden had put up so that no one would bother him?

  Henry hoped there would be some sort of opening or gap in the forcefield or wall or whatever it was.

  A strange and short musical snippet played for Henry. It was a set of ascending notes on what sounded like a xylophone.

  What was that?

  There was now a flashing light in the lower-right corner of Henry’s vision. Henry used his mind to trigger it. A big message appeared in front of Henry’s face. It was like a strange floating billboard.

  Quest: You must travel to, and kill, the Goblin King. This will require finding the three legendary items from the Goblin King Set. The quest must be completed solo. The quest will be automatically aborted if you enter any of the three regions nearby another player.

  Quest History: The Guild of Fallen Shadows has a long feud with the goblins. Now that the guild has large negative passive effect penalties, the Goblin King has set up traps to pick off members of the guild, one by one. Any new guest to The Grand Manor must prove their loyalty to the guild by completing this task and keeping the guild safe.

  Quest Reward: You will be granted access to the Grand Manor upon completion of this quest.

  What the actual fuck?

  Henry did not have time for this shit. He needed access now. The restraining order would soon go into effect, and people would die in the real world if he didn’t get to Aeden.

  But Henry didn’t see that he had a choice. He would do the stupid quest if that was what it took.

  How hard could the Goblin King be?

  Then he remembered he was an octopode corrupter. He couldn’t even wield a weapon. Henry tried to hang his head in defeat, but the blob that was his head remained upright. How would he fight a Goblin King in this body?

  Chapter 14

  Henry turned from the invisible barrier around the Grand Manor and looked out upon the game world. A set of pyramids rose along the horizon, and a light fog descended on their peaks.

  He had a quest.

  The thought gave him a sort of pride he hadn’t expected. A gentle chime sounded, and Henry’s attention was drawn to the upper right-hand corner of his vision, where a trophy symbol flashed on and off.

  Henry clicked on the trophy, and a screen appeared that he’d never seen before called: The Quest Log. The Quest Log simply listed the same thing that he’d already been told. Next to this new quest was a globe shape.

  He clicked on the globe, and it brought him to the worl
d map of Eburnean Passage. Now there were three stars scattered about the map that hadn’t been there before. Henry reasoned these were the three legendary items of the Goblin King he needed to find to defeat the goblin and fulfill the quest.

  One of the stars didn’t look too far away, and he set off in that direction. Almost immediately, motion sickness came to Henry as departed the Grand Manor area. He recalled how distances looked vast in the world, yet he traversed them very quickly.

  The brilliant system made travel less tedious but was very disorienting. The pyramids in the distance warped into a contorted shape, as if filtered through a spherical lens. Henry tried to keep his eyes forward and unfocused to help with nausea.

  Henry had gotten the hang of using all eight appendages to slither over the ground quickly. It disturbed him to realize how he could “feel” them. It didn’t make sense when he thought about it too hard. What was he feeling? It was more like the control had become ingrained enough that he “understood” what the appendages felt like.

  He soon came to a mist-covered lake. A small island of golden pine trees resided in the middle. Patches of dark green scum floated in the teal water. The white mist reflected in the still water like a giant mirror.

  Henry felt like he could step onto the still water as if it were a long sheet of glass. The tenor of this area had darkened, and a single ray of light fell onto the trees at a slant.

  The view took Henry’s breath away. This area had been constructed as a beautiful Zen wonderland.

  A large red fish swooped into the air and dove back in gracefully, with hardly a splash. Henry hoped he wouldn’t have to fight that. He assumed he would move well in the water as an octopus, but he had no practice with it yet.

  He glanced around. A collection of leaning gray stones led to a path around the lake. It looked like he could follow the path around to the other side to get to whatever the star on the map represented.

  He had no idea what to expect. Henry assumed he couldn’t just take the item without some sort of boss fight or something.

  The fish jumped again, startling Henry.

  Everything had an eerie quiet to it, and he realized he hadn’t heard music again since that first raid happened. Henry slithered along the path carefully, and as he got closer, he saw where he needed to go.

  A large cavernous opening led into a circular rocky area. There appeared to be a wooden treasure chest on a stone table in the middle of the open area.

  Suddenly, a man who looked like a mummy emerged from behind one of the bushes. He frightened Henry, causing him to jump back.

  Henry said, “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

  “Are you here for the Goblin Bracers as well?”

  “Uh, I guess so.”

  The item name hadn’t been listed on the map, but that sounded promising.

  The mummy said, “I can’t let you do that. What in the world are you, anyway?”

  Did no one really choose to be this creature when making a character? Why was it even a part of the game if no one knew what it was?

  The mummy man raised his staff, and the ground around Henry began to shake. Skeletons clawed their way from the dirt and rock, and Henry trembled. It was so hard to remember this was a game with how real it looked. He was living in a nightmare horror movie.

  Henry let out a little yelp and got out of the way of the slow-moving skeletons. He didn’t know what to do, and he scanned his list of skills for any insight.

  The skeletons seemed weak, but he also hadn’t put any points into his health or defenses. He couldn’t get hit very many times before he would die.

  Henry kept coming back to his main corrupter skill, and he selected it. A list of all the skills that he could steal or corrupt appeared. It was too overwhelming, and he grabbed one at random.

  Henry spewed out the basic necromancy skill and hoped for the best.

  Nothing happened, and Henry’s heart sank.

  But then his own skeletons emerged from the ground around the mummy. They tore upward through the packed dirt with surprising ease and descended on the mummy.

  The mummy shrieked and said, “What the…?”

  Henry thought: hey, this is kind of fun. I can use their own skills against them.

  He was beginning to think this class was powerful. Other people did the work of getting high-level spells, and he could just steal them and use their own spells against them.

  It didn’t really matter, though. The process had seemed quick. But, unfortunately, while he wasted time in the menus to choose the corruption ability and then yet another menu to cast the spell, the skeletons had started attacking him.

  Henry screamed as he lost the ability to move. He’d been stun-locked by the persistent weak attacks. He helplessly watched the red bar go to zero, and then there was nothing for a moment.

  Henry opened his eyes and was back in his apartment.

  His heart raced from the excitement. Now that he understood how this worked, he thought he could do it faster next time. He still felt too weak to take on even the easiest of enemies, though. He wondered what he should do.

  He asked Ykülma to search the message boards and strategy forums to find out if he could do anything to improve his situation.

  Ykülma put on her snarky tone and said, “There will be no need Henry. Everyone already knows what to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you have to grind for levels. You can also use your gold to shop and improve your gear. If you’re worried about HP, then get some better armor. It’s not that complicated.”

  Henry asked, “What is this grinding? It sounds sexual.”

  “Grinding is the term used for killing enemies that are fairly easy for your level to gain more levels to fight higher-level enemies. Henry, sometimes I feel like you haven’t been living in this century. I’ve scanned your character, and you have unused items in your inventory that can help. You also got a good deal of gold from the shared loot of the raid you participated in.”

  Henry said, “Oh.”

  Now it made sense why he had gotten a few extra levels off that. He hadn’t realized that standing in a group and dying immediately would count as “participating” in the raid.

  Henry realized he needed a place he could go to “grind.”

  He still didn’t like that word.

  Henry asked, “Do you have the ability to mark on the map in the game where a good grinding location is?”

  “It is done.”

  Henry used his hour out of the game to look at online guides for corrupters. People had constructed detailed skill trees, showing how each skill led to others and at what levels. They were beautiful constructions of interlocking hexagrams divided into segments for spell types.

  Henry had no idea this much sophistication went into it.

  He also couldn’t believe how heated the conversations got. There were so many conflicting opinions about the best way to do it, and everyone thought they were right. They flamed each other with name-calling and threatened to leave the message boards forever.

  Henry shook his head. How could people get so infuriated over a game?

  He found the whole thing useful, though. He started to get a feel for the ideas behind which spells to level first and why.

  It turned out that he couldn’t steal any old high-level spell he wanted. The level of the stealing spell determined the level of spell he could steal. It was so obvious to say it out loud, but that fact hadn’t occurred to Henry before.

  He also found out that going down the stealing tree would be a huge commitment. It would lock him out of the higher-level parts of the poison or corruption trees, but Henry thought that was worth it.

  He went back into the game on a mission. He fast warped to the location Ykülma indicated and found himself in a large open plains area. There were several other people wandering around.

  The location turned out to have mostly slime molds like in the starting area, and Henry quickly disposed of the
m.

  People did their grinding there because sometimes a rare encounter with a golden-colored slime occurred. These were just as easy to beat as the basic creature, except they gave a thousand times the experience. According to the forums, it was always worth seeking them out for fast level gain.

  Henry got a bunch of gold, gained five levels, and upped his stats again. He dumped it all into Intelligence, which would be needed to cast the stolen spells and committed to the stealing tree.

  It was time for Henry to return to his quest.

  Chapter 15

  Henry moved into the quaint small town. Redbrick and cobblestone surrounded the large central fountain. There was a statue of a man in long robes perched near the flowing water, but there didn’t appear to be a sign indicating who it was.

  Henry slithered along. As he got closer to the fountain, he realized the water flowed out of the statue's mouth like he was vomiting water into the surrounding pool.

  Translucent words appeared in front of Henry, and he realized it was some sort of virtual plaque.

  Marklo the Great: Master Songsmith and Founder of Yarzo Village

  Henry thought they could have invented a more flattering statue to commemorate the man than eternal vomiting.

  Music started up to create a cheery atmosphere, and Henry wondered if it was one of Marklo’s songs.

  He looked around, and a crowd had formed to watch him. Why were they staring? Henry wanted to shout at them.

  This is a game! People should be able to choose whatever race they want without strange stares.

  Henry ignored them and found a shop to buy new gear. The exterior of the shop had large white walls and crisscrossing brown wood patterns across it. It reminded Henry of classic German architecture.

  The Old English lettering on the building read Shoppe. Henry hated it when people spelled it that way.

  He stepped inside and wished the dancing flute melody would go away. No one was happy enough to listen to that without going crazy.