by Brian Simons
Farah stood up from behind the bushes. That’s exactly the part of town she lived in. Her instincts told her to run, but Jack jumped up and pressed down on her shoulders again. “You’ll ruin the ambush!” he whispered in a brusque, harsh tone.
She locked eyes with Jack. For three long seconds they stared at each other, neither speaking, testing each other’s wills. As his eyebrows gradually bore down and creased the skin between his eyes, Farah resolved neither to flinch nor blink.
Her eyes started to water by the time the sound of footsteps reached them. It was faint at first, but the crunching of dead leaves got louder while they crouched in the bushes, staring at each other wordlessly.
“Now!” Kronnar yelled.
The Lieutenant and six dwarves leapt from various bushes with weapons in hand. Jack jumped up too, activating Psychotic Rage and leaping at the nearest elf.
Farah peered through the branches of her bush. There were a dozen elves. They had low levels, and were mostly unarmed. They were completely unprepared for an attack. They weren’t even dressed for battle.
As maces sank into elf flesh, Farah heard a dwarf cry out. That was her cue. She stood, looked out at the fight, and spotted a dwarf with a long gash in his arm. She ran toward him, her clunky armor clattering the whole way.
>> You’ve been hit! 198 Damage.
She had stepped into an elf Mage’s range, getting blasted with an icy wave of magic along with four other dwarves. She ignored her own pain and the chill in her bones and knelt by the bleeding dwarf. She placed her hands on his arm and activated Healing Grasp. His HP restored, and his wound gone, he jumped up to keep fighting without so much as a thank you.
Farah prepared to cast a weaker healing spell with a wide area of effect when Jack’s actions caught her eye. She froze, terrified by what he was capable of. In his Barbarian rage, he picked up two elves and smashed their skulls together, knocking them unconscious and dropping them into a pool of their own blood. Then he proceeded to pound his fists into their faces, their chests, any patch of skin that wasn’t drenched in red. Punch after punch after punch. Long after their HP had hit zero, he smashed his knuckles into their flesh until finally their corpses vanished from the game.
“We need one alive!” Kronnar yelled. Jack rolled his eyes.
Farah looked at their small patch of forest. Dying trees, dying elves, a dead look in Jack’s eyes. A small elf with no weapon crawled toward her as a dwarf raised an axe in the air above it.
“Wait!” Farah said. She couldn’t stand by and watch yet another death. She knelt and placed her hands on the elf, restoring his HP.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“Good job, FarahWay,” Kronnar said. “In our bloodlust we almost forgot we needed a hostage.” He glared at the other dwarves in their party. “You there, you’ll tell us how to breach the magic barrier.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” the elf said. He seemed terrified. Two dwarves approached from behind and pushed him to his knees, holding his arms back.
“Yes you do,” Kronnar said. “All elves must! How else could you go in and out with such ease?” He stepped forward and pressed his axe under the elf’s chin. “You’ll tell us, or I’ll slit your throat. And my Paladin here will heal you again so I can continue to bleed the truth out of you!”
The elf started to cry. “Please, if I knew I would tell you. I would lead you into the forest myself. Then maybe you could help us.”
“Help you what?” Farah asked.
“Stop her,” he said. “The queen, she’s… not right.”
“I’ll give you one more chance,” Kronnar said. “How do we breach the forest’s magic?”
“I don’t know.” The elf squinted his eyes shut and continued to cry. Then Jack approached from behind and snapped his neck. The elf’s small body collapsed against the dwarves holding him in place.
“What did you do that for?” Kronnar asked.
“He was useless,” Jack said, “and I wanted the XP. Besides, we have a better lead now. Listen.”
Farah strained to hear what Jack apparently heard. Footsteps. Voices.
“What am I listening for?” Kronnar asked.
“That mellifluous sound coming in short bursts?” Jack said. “That’s the sound of a queen giving orders. She’s on the move. Follow that sound, and we find our target.”
33
Hector sat on his bed with his hands over his face. The email he tried to send himself hadn’t gone through. Domin had, in fact, stopped the upload in time.
Hector had tolerated years of Domin’s verbal abuse and neglect of his hard work. It was worth it, he had told himself. One day the Board will recognize your value and realize that Domin would ruin their company.
He was wrong. His landline sat silent on his nightstand. No one noticed he was gone. No one cared. Domin would continue to make Arbyten higher and higher profits even as he drove Travail Online into the ground. It was a product Hector had been proud to develop, and now it would be a black mark on his resume.
“Why did you leave Arbyten?” they would ask on interviews.
“Because I disagreed with my boss on something, so I tried to tape record him and then ran like a crazy person,” he would say. And if he didn’t say it, they would call Domin for a reference, and Domin would say it. Hector’s programming days were over.
It was worth it, though. He couldn’t let himself be complicit in what Domin was doing. He already had one player’s parents held hostage in an African country. What else would he do to people that stood up to him?
Coral! Hector suddenly remembered the plan they had concocted. A plan that required him to be inside the company with access to the Board. Without his work cell phone, he didn’t have her number, or any way to reach her. Unless…
Hector dug through his closet, through piles of work clothes he wouldn’t need anymore, until his hand fell on a small box near the back. A first generation Travail Online visor.
It was an early prototype, but it should still work. He pulled it out of the box and tossed the terms and conditions aside. He held the old device up to his face. The visor looked like a thick pair of goggles that protruded five inches from his face. It was heavy, so it sank down his nose as he wrapped a thick rubber strap around the back of his head to secure it in place.
He had never entered Travail as a player before, only as a tester. He knew too intimately how it worked; it wouldn’t be fair for him to play once it was opened to the public. Now, however, he had no choice. It was his only way to connect with Coral.
The blackness faded as an old woman came into view. She walked with a cane and a smile. Her silver hair was longer than Hector remembered and the creases in her face a bit deeper. The game must have taken over where the devs left off, aging the woman gradually over time.
“Welcome, young citizen,” the woman said, her voice calm and steady. “I will help you choose a path. Would that suit you?”
“You tell me,” he said. He knew better than anyone how intimate the game’s access to his mind was.
The woman smiled at him. “Your mind is accustomed to complexity and design. Your soul knows the burning need to create. Artificer would be a perfect choice for the man you were. Yet, a different fire burns in you now, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” he said.
“You have seen the darker side of power, and it angers you. You want to help the helpless, yet the world has left you unequipped to do so. Your soul is torn between the civility your mind craves and the brutishness the world seems to require.”
She read him like a book. “Yes,” he said.
“You are a Beastheart,” she concluded.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Very well, young citizen. You will enter Travail as a Beastheart. You may master your class through perseverance. After all, hard play makes fun work! Temper your animal instincts with patience and caution. If your avatar dies, you will lose all of your skills and all of your possessions a
nd gold. You will come back to me to start a new life.”
A semi-translucent notice box popped up between Hector and the old woman.
Class Selected: Beastheart
Congratulations! As a Level 1 Beastheart you start the game with [hound’s tooth] in your inventory. The unique Beastheart skill tree is unlocked.
Players earn experience points (XP) through combat, crafting, resource gathering activities, and completing quests. Your level increases at pre-determined XP intervals.
Player attributes increase with each level at differing rates based on class. As a Beastheart, you have an untamed power coursing through you. You gain an additional +1 Strength with each level.
With each additional level, players earn 1 skill point that they may invest in their unique skill tree, as well as any additional skill trees you unlock as you progress through Travail. Unlocking skills allows you to use new combat techniques or craft new items. Once a skill is unlocked, it becomes a new ability that you possess and can hone through practice. View your unique skill tree to see what special items are available to you at each level.
You may also develop new hidden abilities without spending skill points. The abilities you may uncover vary depending on your race and class. The more you use an ability, the greater proficiency you will develop with it and the more significant the bonus it will provide you.
“Now, young Beastheart, by what name shall I call you?” the old woman asked.
“DamnYouPerez,” Hector said.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, DamnYouPerez,” the old woman said.
After keeping all of the defaults for his appearance, Hector emerged in a green field with Havenstock’s castle looming in the distance. A hundred other players in beginner’s rags stood nearby. They explored the terrain and occasionally took off running toward the human city, no doubt dreaming of adventure and profit. If only they knew how little profit was left in the game.
Hector immediately opened a menu and started a private message to Coral_Daring.
To [Coral_Daring]: The plan is off. This is Hector Pérez, formerly of Arbyten. Domin admitted to everything. He was behind the corrupt server that created the Soulkeeper Axe and that used Sagma’s temple to steal money from players. If he has his way, Travail will fail soon and he’ll use the data he’s collected to turn a larger profit elsewhere. I tried to record him saying all this so I could take it to the Board of Directors, but he caught me, confiscated the recording, and fired me. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to locate your parents beforehand. If you have video that will keep your parents safe, send it directly to Domin.
34
Daniel stopped in front of the steps to his row home and stared through the storm door. Hanging between the glass and the house’s steel entry door was a white sign with a simple curlicue design decorating a few words in all caps: “This property is managed by Good Hearth LLC.” It included a phone number, presumably for people who showed up at their former home wondering why they were suddenly locked out.
Daniel didn’t wonder. His mother had warned him, though apparently at the very last second. The storm door was locked, but Daniel had nowhere else to go.
It was broad daylight. Anyone watching would think it odd he was breaking into his own house, or worse, they’d think he was a burglar. He had no choice. He pressed up on the house’s only front window with all of his strength. It didn’t budge. The property managers must have locked it from inside.
He didn’t want to break the window. Broken glass would attract attention. Maybe the people that battened down his house had neglected the second floor windows.
The house was brickface, and nothing short of a rockmander could climb straight up it. Still, there was a long iron pipe that ran from the roof into the ground along the house’s corner. It was old, much older than the flimsy aluminum drainpipes on newer houses. He gripped it with his bare hands, dismayed at the flakes of white paint and rust that came loose. He hugged the dirty metal as best he could and used the rubber soles on his sneakers for a grip.
Slowly, he pushed himself off the ground and up that pipe. Two inches at a time was a slow way to take an entire story, but he had to try. His only other option besides homelessness would be to impose on his friends. They had enough to worry about.
Daniel’s forearms started burning first, then his biceps. By the time he was halfway up, the muscles inside his legs were quivering. Finally, he had climbed high enough that he was level with the second story window.
He reached an arm out and nearly lost his balance. It would take patience to reach out from such a tenuous position. He tried again, slowly, and pressed his palm against the upper lip of the window. He was grateful his mother could never afford to replace the screens.
The force of pushing up on the window had a consequence. The counterforce pushed down on him, straining his already tired muscles as he tried not to slide down the pole or fall flat onto his back on the concrete.
The window moved. Just a small amount at first, but the more he pressed on it the wider it became. He managed to open it two feet.
Now for an even harder task: climbing in.
He swung a leg from the metal pole and landed the tip of his foot on the small stone ledge below the window, the only part of the house’s façade that wasn’t brick. He wanted to swing his leg inside the window, but he couldn’t reach.
For what came next, he’d need a lot of upper body strength. Luckily for him, Travail had been very frustrating over the years. He worked off that frustration, mostly through pushups and sit-ups. It was time to put his body to the test.
He wrapped his legs around the pole again and took a deep breath. On one… two… He jumped from the pole and flung his arms out, thrusting one hand far enough inside the window frame to grab onto the inside lip of the windowsill. His other hand struggled to grasp the outer stone ledge as his body dangled from the window.
He scrambled to get both arms inside the house, then pulled himself up. It was painstaking to lift his entire body from that angle, but he only had to do it once. And if he failed, there was a hard patch of sidewalk waiting for him below.
Once his torso was high enough, he swung one leg over, then the other, and tumbled into the house. He quickly shut the window behind him.
He was in his mother’s room now. He never came into this room, but today it was his only entrance. Her sheets were a rumpled mess. No sense in making the bed when the bank is coming to kick you out. He saw that her bureau was lined with photographs. Some were just of Daniel, others were him, his mother, and his father when Daniel was young. That was before his father died, and before his mother developed her gambling problem.
He took one of those pictures for himself, wondering why he didn’t have any pictures of the three of them before that. He wished for a second that his mother were there now, so they could just sit down and talk. Figure out how things got so bad, and whether they could ever put it all back together.
Then he remembered that Sybil was waiting for him. He wasn’t even sure where his mother was now. He closed her bedroom door behind him and walked the short hallway to his own room so he could log into Travail and leave this ghost house behind.
35
Daniel logged in and appeared on the outskirts of Diardenna. Sybil was already pacing along the forest’s edge.
“I still can’t believe we’re in one piece after that rockmander ride,” Daniel said. The lizard had waddled away and disappeared after he and Sybil dismounted it, but all Daniel needed to do was whistle to summon it again.
“Tell you who’s not going to be in one piece,” Sybil said. “Farah.”
“Uh-oh,” Daniel said.
“I knocked on her door,” she said, “to tell her about all the loot we picked up in The Erstaz. No, the Aster Mountains. Whatever. The point is her door was locked but she didn’t answer and I got worried. I broke the door down.” Sybil spoke through a tightly clenched jaw, making her heart-shaped elf face appear even smaller.
>
“How did she react to that?” Daniel asked.
“She didn’t. She was lying on her bed, stiff as a board, with a Travail headset on! I’m just livid. She knows she’s forbidden to play this game until she’s older. When she logs out, she’s so grounded.”
“Poor thing,” Daniel said. He had only met Farah once, at her birthday party, but she seemed like a nice honest kid.
“Poor thing?” Sybil asked. “You’ve seen what this game can do to people. It’s no place for a kid her age.”
“Believe me,” he said, “I know. She probably just wanted to do what you do, to be like her big sister. I’m sure the game is doing a number on her, so maybe you could go easy this time? At any rate, there’s nothing you can do about it until she logs out.”
“So I just have to sit and wait? I hate waiting!” she yelled.
“I know the feeling,” came a voice from behind. Daniel expected it to be Devon Shirk, the shadowy Rogue that liked to sneak up on him from behind. Instead he saw Onik, dismounting a rockmander of his own.
“What are you doing here?” Sybil asked.
“You’ll recall I tried organizing a coup of sorts,” he said.
“But you came to everyone’s rescue,” Daniel said. “We wouldn’t have gotten away from Tawn if you hadn’t led everyone up from the tunnels.”
“True,” Onik said. “But if King Ulthor is anything like his father, the law is the law. I may be a hero, but I’m a scoundrel nonetheless. Mind if I join up with you?”
“This is going to be dangerous,” Daniel said. “I never did ask how your combat skills work.”