The Arena

by Drew Seren

  Baladara shrugged. “Wife, kids, mortgage, decent job. It could be a lot worse.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. Do you worry about how you’re going to leave a mark on the world?”

  “Nope. I’ve got my kids. You don’t have any. Are you beginning to wonder what your life would be like with them? Don’t do it, man. I love my kids, don’t get me wrong, but don’t do it. There’s too many people in the world today, that’s why we escape to places like this.”

  “Is that what gaming is to you, an escape?” Horc kept petting Wolf; the simple repetitive motion was more relaxing than he would’ve thought it could be.

  “That’s what it’s supposed to be for everyone.” Baladara sat on the bed next to the one Greensleeves was on. “Gaming helps people deal with the real world. If gives us places to go and things to do that aren’t as horrible as the world we live in.”

  Horc had always thought so when he played science fiction games like Galactic Explorers, but Halfworld seemed like something a lot bigger, a lot more addictive. He wondered how long it was going to be before people started finding ways to stay there until their lives ran out in their pods, and when they reached that point, what would happen to them in game. Would they continue to go on? Would they simply vanish in a puff of pixels? There was a lot science didn’t totally understand about the way people interacted with the AIs in a VR world.

  “You think our world is horrible?” Once he started asking Baladara about things, Horc really wanted to know the answers.

  Baladara pursed her lips and sighed. “Wow, I think I’m way too tired for this kind of talk, but here goes. We’re on the verge of destroying Earth. Maybe if we hadn’t had the huge science versus religion fight twenty or thirty years ago, we wouldn’t be tottering on the brink. If people had taken steps to counter climate change that tornado wouldn’t have destroyed your house and killed so many people. If, as a society, we’d embraced space travel, we’d be living on Mars by now and not just settling the third lunar base. Yeah, O’Brien Corp is making major strides in getting some new engines ready to push deeper into the solar system, but we should already be out there. Our cities are overcrowded. The oceans are dying. Even if we could find a way to clean up two hundred years of pollution, we’ve already lost over three quarters of the species there. So yeah, I think our world sucks. We need things like Halfworld and the other games to give us places to go so that we can remain sane. If it wasn’t for the ability to escape into the digital world, I don’t know what I would do. There’s nothing I can do to fix things now, so all I can do is find ways to keep my brain together.”

  “Wow, I never knew you felt like this,” Horc continued petting Wolf, and wondered if it would be better for him and any pet he had to keep it in the digital world, that way he didn’t have to worry about its carbon footprint, feeding it, walking it, and the ramifications of those actions.

  “How can any of us with a brain not feel that way? Sure, we spend as many hours as possible away from the real world.” Baladara closed her eyes and put her head against the wall. “Lisa and I swap out a lot of the time so there’s someone there to watch the kids. She’s got this odd dancing game she likes to play with half naked bodybuilders, but sometimes it’s furry games, or other cosplay games that are a lot cheaper than real cosplay. But all of it’s better than hanging out IRL more than we have to. I don’t really care about the mark I’m going to leave on the world as long as I go out decently and leave something to give my kids a chance at a decent life.”

  “You’re making me feel better about not having kids.” Horc closed his eyes for a second. “But I don’t want to just vanish into the pixels and never have anyone remember who I was. I want to be more than just some guy on the other end of a phone or a chat who was able to help someone figure out how their pod works. Does that make me a bad guy?” Horc kept rubbing Wolf. Each caress helped him relax.

  “No, it doesn’t make you a bad guy, or girl as the case might be. It makes you human. I just want something more out of life. When I get out of here, I’m going to start looking for something more. I just don’t know what it’s going to be.”

  Greensleeves blinked and straightened. “Okay, you two look deep.”

  Horc waved off the comment. “Don’t worry about it. Can Rick help out?”

  “Sure. I’ve sent you his number. Send him a text when you’re ready to re-enter the game and he’ll check on where we are and land you with us if possible, or nearby.” Greensleeves smiled. “I think he’s enjoying helping us like this.”

  Baladara laughed. “So, he likes cheating in games. I like your guy. Okay, I’m out of here for a while. Don’t have too much fun without me.”

  “Will try not to.” Horc wondered how many rounds they’d go through in the arena before she came back.

  Then Baladara was gone.

  Horc stared at the spot where she’d been. She’d logged out before and came back without a problem; he hoped that would happen again. He didn’t want to be stuck in the game without his friend.

  16

  Horc took the quiver and arrows Tufkakes handed him.

  “Not much, but it’s all I could find. Let’s hope the captive armory doesn’t notice them missing.” Tufkakes ran a hand through his hair. “I did my best to pick something that was behind everything else. The way these pirates are, I really don’t want to piss them off until we have to.”

  Rifling through the arrows, Horc nodded, then frowned. He wasn’t going to complain, but there weren’t any special arrows in the selection, then he reminded himself that magical arrows wouldn’t work in the arena anyway. He wondered if that would also apply to the spells he could cast on his arrows to give them extra punch. “I’ll have to make every shot count.” He lay the quiver on the bed next to where Wolf was licking his paws.

  “We’re going to have to be careful with this anyway,” Greensleeves said. “There’s too much of a chance of something going wrong. Most of the players aren’t going to worry about dying since they’ll be thinking they can just resurrect in the graveyard near the dock and keep playing. We still don’t know about you, and after what you went through with Miranda’s last visit we don’t want to risk things.”

  “Right.” Horc glanced at the spot in the room where Baladara had vanished. She’d only been gone a short while, but he wished she’d hurry up and finish sleeping IRL and come back to lend a hand. Somehow this logout was hitting harder than the others, even though with the others they’d known less about what was going on.

  The door to their room opened and the Goblin, Bo’ sauntered in. “Alright guys, the first round is ready for yous.” He stopped and glanced around the room. “Hey, where’s that useless Elf Mage of yous’?”

  “She had to log out for a little while,” Greensleeves said first. “She’ll be back later. She doesn’t have to be here since we can only have three of us fighting at one time, right?”

  Bo’ nodded rapidly. “Yeah. That’s right. Okay, this makes yous guys more legit anyway. Grab yous’ stuff and let’s get fighting.”

  Horc grabbed his bow, the quiver Tufkakes had ‘found’ and his sword. It still felt weird having a sword after using an axe for a while, but he knew with practice he’d get used to it.

  Wolf jumped off the bed and followed them out of the room.

  “Do yous let that happen at home?” Bo’ asked as Greensleeves closed the door and they started down the corridor.

  “Let what happen?” Horc asked not exactly sure what the Goblin was on about.

  Bo’ huffed. “Letting the wolf on the bed. I mean geez, it’s a bed. Good people sleep on it. You don’t want them to get fleas and such.”

  “Wolf doesn’t have fleas.” Horc did his best to sound put out, even though he hadn’t stopped to think about his companion having fleas. Could a VR animal have digital parasites?

  “You better hope not.” Bo’ didn’t say anything else until they came to the end of the tunnel and stood on the edge of the sand in the arena.
>
  Spreading his arms wide, Bo smiled. “I give to yous, the arena.”

  Horc scanned the area. It looked much like the Roman arenas depicted in movies he’d seen. The wall running around the outside of the area was a little more than head-high. The sand was tan and perfectly smooth. Above the wall, several tiers of stone seats rose up until they reached another wall. Spaced about halfway around the wall from where they stood there were two mini-towers, he couldn’t think of anything else to call them, they rose about another head above the outer wall and were open to allow their occupants a better view of the arena than the lower seats did. The two towers faced each other, as if they were set up for rival kings to decide the fate of their subjects.

  The tower to their left had occupants. One of them was a huge man who looked to be at least half Orc, but Horc wasn’t sure what the other half was since he was lankier than either Orc or human and his tusks were huge, reaching nearly to his eyebrows. The red text above his head was far enough away Horc had to squint to see it. Rothand, Level 35 Fighter Pirate Lord.

  “I guess that’s the big guy the others mentioned,” Tufkakes whispered near Horc’s ear.

  Horc nodded once. He really didn’t want to do anything to piss off the pirate lord. He looked like more than they could take on, easily.

  “Yous guys really need to get a group name,” Bo’ said. “It would make introducing yous a bigger deal. If yous survive this round, give it some thought.”

  “We will,” Horc replied. “Who are we fighting?”

  “They’ll be out in a minute,” Bo’ replied. “Let me get out of the way first.” The Goblin scampered away, back down the corridor and a heavy iron gate dropped down as soon as he passed its location.

  “I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised by that,” Horc said as the clang of the gate dropping finished ringing out across the arena.

  “I guess we don’t get to escape until it comes up again.” Greensleeves shook out his hands as the gate across the arena from them rolled up.

  “Here they come.” Tufkakes dropped into a crouch and a pair of knives appeared in his hands.

  Horc pulled an arrow and nocked it. He added his Flame spell to it and waited. The arrowhead sizzled next to his finger. It was nice that his magical add-ons were going to work.

  A trio of gangly green men bounced into the arena. The red text over their heads read Hobgoblin Level 24. Their armor was piecemeal and none of them had a complete outfit. They all had different weapons, one with an axe, one a sword, and one a long spear that looked taller than he was. None of the weapons looked to be in great repair.

  “I’ve got the axe guy,” Greensleeves said as a wave of sand rose up at his feet and crashed into the oncoming Hobgoblins, knocking all three back a few steps.

  “Swordsman.” Tufkakes threw a dagger at the one with the sword.

  “Guess that leave us with the spear dude,” Horc muttered to Wolf as he focused his attention and shot on the NPC with the polearm. He was thankful that none of their first opponents were players. He wasn’t sure he was ready to fight players, even assholes like the mailroom Paladins.

  When he let the arrow fly, it was a great hit, taking the Hobgoblin in the right eye. The thing flopped to the ground and then started hitting its face as the flames erupted across its head.

  Horc checked his display and saw that the Hobgoblin was already down half its health points. He drew another arrow as Wolf dashed across the sand toward the fighter who was rolling on the sand, doing his best to put out the flames.

  Again, Horc held his arrow, focusing his attention on the Hobgoblin to make the most of the shot as he added as Poison spell to it. This arrow took the gangly beast in the huge dangly left ear for another critical hit. It stopped moving and lay on the sand. Somewhere nearby a gong rang out.

  Horc glanced up, half expecting to see a scoreboard showing their team ahead, but there wasn’t anything obvious.

  Pulling another arrow, Horc glanced around to see who needed help. Greensleeves’ health looked to be down farther than Tufkakes. His opponent was only down a quarter of health too.

  Focusing on the Hobgoblin with axe, Horc unleashed his arrow, adding Flame to it for extra hit. The thing dodged at just the right moment as he scored a hard hit against Greensleeves. The arrow missed it, and Greensleeves dropped to the sand.

  “Greensleeves!” Horc shouted and fired another arrow without focusing his shot or adding magic to it.

  Just as Greensleeves’ hands started to glow blue with a healing spell, the Hobgoblin stomped his mail boot hard on his head. Greensleeves’ health bar in the group icons flashed red and went out.

  Horc’s arrow caught the Hobgoblin in the shoulder and didn’t do much to drop its health.

  “Damn it!” Horc fired again with an unfocused and un-augmented arrow. It caught the Hobgoblin in the side.

  The enemy fighter laughed and pulled the arrow out. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Ranger.” It called as Wolf slammed into it.

  It swung its axe hard, catching Wolf in the side, but it didn’t slow him down much.

  Horc took a deep breath and vowed to not repeat his mistakes as Greensleeves’ corpse shimmered and vanished into pixels. “You really need to die,” he muttered as he focused his shot and added Poison to it. The arrow streaked across the arena and hit the thing in the throat.

  The Hobgoblin’s health dropped to under half with the excellent blow. Then a pair of daggers went flying into it. Horc took a deep breath and fired another arrow with Flame on it. The daggers and the arrow hit in quick succession. The Hobgoblin caught fire and dropped to the sand to roll around, trying to put out the flames. It screamed as Wolf savaged its throat. Another round of knives and arrow finished it off.

  Horc glanced at his display. Greensleeves’ icon was there but had the same grayed-out effect as Steelmaiden and Slashers.

  Greensleeves. Are you there? He frantically typed in group chat. His chest tightened. Something bad had happened when Greensleeves had died. They’d just lost their healer. Without Baladara, he and Tufkakes were going to be in a world of hurt trying to rescue everyone.

  The iron gate covering the tunnel they’d come out of slowly rose.

  Horc looked up to the high seats where Rothand had been, but the big Orc Halfling was gone.

  “Not bad,” Bo’ called out as he scurried toward them. “Not great either. Yous lost yous’ healer. Yous better hope yous’ Mage comes back before yous’ next bout. It would be bad if yous were down to just two of yous.”

  “What?” Horc started at the Goblin. “I thought we could only fight in groups of three or five.”

  Bo’ shook his head. “Yous’ group has to start with three or five, but if yous lose a member, yous have to keep fighting until yous either win, or are defeated.”

  Things sounded worse by the minute.

  “So where is Greensleeves?” Horc demanded. “He’s not dead anymore. I can see him on my screen.”

  “He’s fighting for us now,” Bo’ replied, waving Horc and Tufkakes down the corridor. “It’s in the contract yous guys agreed to when yous signed up to fight. If yous die in the arena yous become Rothand’s property.”

  It was all Horc could do to not stumble. The AI was malfunctioning worse than they’d expected. There was something majorly wrong, and with their healer out of the picture, they were going to have to be more careful than ever. He needed to get word to Rick, maybe Rick could figure out something. Horc wondered if he’d be able to text Rick like he did his parents from the game. If they could get through to Rick, maybe he could pull Greensleeves out. Surely, he wouldn’t want his husband stuck in the game. If they didn’t do something soon, a lot of the players were going to be stuck in the game and how would Total Immersion Systems function if most of their employees were stuck in a game they were just supposed to be beta testing?

  17

  As much as he wanted to strangle Bo’ Horc managed to keep it under control as they made it bac
k to the ‘best room in the place’.

  “Yous guys get a couple hours to rest up and get yous health back up to full before the next bout,” Bo’ said. “If yous’d like something to eat, just let me know and I’ll bring yous something.”

  “We’ll let you know if we need anything,” Tufkakes snapped.

  “Fine, fine. If yous don’t holler, I’ll give you a half an hour warning.” Bo’ turned and hurried out of the room.

  Tufkakes frowned at the door for a moment before turning to me. “I think we might want to worry about someone magically eaves dropping on us in here.”

  “And without magic users we won’t be able to block it,” Horc agreed, although he hadn’t thought about anyone spying on them. When he did, it made a certain amount of sense. By spying on contestants, Rothand would have a better idea about what kinds of opponents to throw at them.

  “Exactly.” Tufkakes nodded. “What are we going to do?”

  “See about getting Baladara back here for starters, then we need to figure out a way to let Rick know what happened to Greensleeves.” Horc sat on the bed. “Let’s hope Lisa’s monitoring Mike’s texts.”

  Since he’d linked his pod to his cell phone before he entered Halfworld, Horc pulled up the text interface. After a second, he found Mike’s number.

  Mike, or Lisa, we need help in game.

  Horc wished he had David’s number or some way to contact Rick to let him know what happened. He wasn’t a great computer genius. He could provide customer support when they needed help with their pods, but that was more of an engineering and or marketing thing than a computer thing. Sure, sometimes he helped people figure out why their game wasn’t connecting with the pods correctly, but for that he just looked things up, either in the minimal info the company provided, or through online searches of things other customers had figured out.