by Drew Seren
The bear creature stumbled a step as it turned away from the gate, then it dropped to all fours and ran toward the Beastmaster. For a second it looked like it was going to attack him, but it threw itself between its master and their attack. The damage caused its health bar to flash, showing a drop of nearly a quarter of its health. It also revealed a name in white text, Cymeriabear.
That text was the first white text Horc had seen above players or monsters in the game. It added to the question of exactly what they were.
“Not cool.” Baladara readied another spell.
“Leave him to me,” Tufkakes said, then disappeared into the shadows.
Baladara send off a round of Magical Force Bolts. They zipped across the arena and seemed to be under more control than Fireballs were. The bolts of red energy zipped across the arena and dodged out of the way when the Cymeriabear moved to intercept them.
The other creature got to its feet and stood shaking in the sand. It was like it was fighting the Beastmaster for control. Sweat formed on its flanks. When Baladara’s Bolts hit Salamando, the equine creature bared its teeth. With its bear face, it was impossible to tell if that was a sign of happiness, or anger.
The Beastmaster’s health was down to a quarter, like the Cymeriabear. Horc didn’t want to risk another arrow for fear of hitting the hapless creature.
“Wolf. Go for the Beastmaster.” Horc pointed toward Salamando.
With a growl, Wolf followed his orders and bounded off. Horc pulled his sword and trailed after him.
Baladara got off another round of Magical Bolts. They skillfully avoided the Cymeriabear that tried to cut them off before it got in the way of Wolf going for Salamando.
As Horc closed in on the Beastmaster, the equine creature jolted to its feet and reared up. It snarled and shook its head as it turned toward Salamando. Again, it stopped and stood shaking, the sweat from its flanks fell to the sand. Moisture beaded Salamando’s forehead, and Horc was sure the Beastmaster battled his beast for superiority.
Tufkakes appeared behind Salamando and plunged a dagger into his back just as Wolf leapt up and clamped down on his crotch. The Beastmaster screamed in pain. His health flashed to under a quarter, blinking red.
The interruption in his concentration was the opening the controlled beasts needed. They spun and went for the Beastmaster. Horc took his opening and swung his sword. It hit the Beastmaster in the neck at the same time the Cymerabear tore his chest out.
Salamando dropped to the sand, lifeless.
Horc’s XP bar flashed.
Level 23
Tufkakes and Baladara also leveled.
The two controlled bests faded away.
The crowd booed again.
Horc glanced up at the box where Rothand had been. Again, the pirate lord left, presumably as soon as the winner was obvious. It reminded him so much of upper management at work, they never stuck around for things, but had more important things to do than congratulate employees, or in this case, the entertainment, for jobs well done.
By the time they got back to their rooms, although Horc was starting to think of the place as their cell, his message indicator was flashing in his peripheral vision.
“Let me see who this is.” Horc sat on the closest bed and opened the message window.
The message was from Rick.
Hey, monitoring you and the people you’re engaging with. Thought it might be helpful in figuring out what’s going on.
What have you learned? Horc eased back against the wall.
Something odd happened when the Beastmaster died. I’m not really sure what it was. He respawned quickly, in the graveyard and was escorted back to the cells under the arena. But there was like a split second where everything read normal.
A jolt of possibility went through Horc. Do you think he could’ve logged out, if he’d been ready for it?
I don’t know.
What about his creatures having white text. Is that normal? Horc knew there was a lot about Halfworld he didn’t know, but even things like that were supposed to have rules.
The beasts that a Beastmaster controls are conjured, sort of like the demons a Warlock or the undead a Necromancer calls. They are more products of the Beastmaster’s imagination, but they have a will of their own, like any animal. It’s the most convoluted class we built into the game. There aren’t that many people playing it yet, but the things they’re coming up with are straight out of nightmares in some cases. We’re thinking about taking out the part of making their creatures things from their own imagination, since we’d intended the conjured creatures to be things out of the real world. Beta testing.
Okay, but why did they have to be herded into the arena? That’s weird.
It took a couple of seconds for Rick’s answer to start appearing in their chat window. He probably summoned them a while ago and then didn’t try to control them until he needed to. It was a smart move to save mana. It would’ve allowed him to be more creative in their creating. If he was going for calling something quickly, he’d have probably had to just summon a dog, or wolf, or tiger, or something like that. Taking time in the casting lets him be more creative. It’s something new we’ve worked into Halfworld and it only works on pod players. With the glove and goggle group they can just summon from a set list.
It might be a little less creepy if they stuck to things off a list. Horc replied. He was supposed to be providing beta tester feedback and this was a good opportunity to do that.
I’ll discuss that with the other designers once we get everyone out and the AI down. Strange class issues aren’t nearly as important at this point as getting you guys to safety.
Right. I guess now we wait for our next call to battle.
Yes. I’ll be monitoring that too. Maybe I can see something that will confirm we have a chance to get folks out. I really hope David is doing okay.
I was thinking about sending Tufkakes on a scouting mission again. Maybe he can find out something. Although Horc hated the idea of splitting up the party again. But if Tufkakes was fast, they might get the valuable info they needed.
That would be awesome. Ask him to tell David I’m trying really hard to get him out.
I will. Even though it was just words on the screen, Horc thought he could feel the emotion Rick put behind them and wondered what it would be like to have someone outside the game, other than his mother and father, pulling for him to get out and resume his normal life.
Rick signed off, and Horc sat there for a few minutes thinking about things. He hated the way his mind kept drifting to his real life and how much of the world he was missing. He wanted more and kept hoping he’d find a way to make it happen. He was going to get out of Halfworld and figure out what he really wanted to do with his life. He just had to.
19
Tufkakes came back in less than an hour, waking Horc from the short nap he was getting in between bouts.
“Man, I think the AI, or the pirates…one is upping their game in grabbing players.” Tufkakes appeared in the middle of their room after the door opened and closed seemingly of its own volition.
“Are there more players in the cells?” Baladara asked, rising from the cross-legged pose she’d been sitting in for a while.
Horc had been noticing little things like the cross-legged pose that were tells, to him at least, that someone other than Mike was driving the toon. Their language was similar enough with Lisa only having a few outbursts that weren’t things Mike would say, but they’d apparently been married long enough they sounded fairly alike.
“Yeah. The cells down there are nearly packed full. They’ve got Greensleeves in a different cell from Steelmaiden and Slasher. I passed on the info. Greensleeves is doing his best to stay in good humor during all this crap going on. I don’t know Steelmaiden, but she sounds like she’s about to start ripping people’s heads off.”
Letting out a long breath, Horc nodded. “That’s Steelmaiden alright.”
“Good.” Tufkakes walked
over to their small table and poured a glass of water from the steel carafe Bo’ had brought and refilled while they were in the arena. It was nice to have the water available when they returned from a fight. “Now we need to get ready for the next round. They might be getting a lot of players under their control, but I don’t think we’re getting a ton of players coming to the arena of their own free will.”
“So, you’re saying there’s a lot of them and not a lot of us.” Baladara sat on the bed and smoothed her skirts, another non-Mike action.
“Yeah, but there does seem to be more free players coming in.” Tufkakes returned the metal cup to the table next to the carafe.
“But they only stay free until they die in their first battle and then they’re Rothand’s prisoners.” Horc ran a hand through his rumpled black hair. “Okay. We need to work faster here. Still haven’t heard back from Rick on any of his ideas-”
The door creaked open, interrupting his thoughts. Bo’ stood there with a sheepish look on his green face. “Hey yous guys. I know it wasn’t a long rest, but we’re nearing the end of the day and the boss was wondering if yous’d be up for another bout this evening…say in about half an hour.”
Horc glanced at the other two. The short nap and the water had helped him out a lot. His health bar and mana were back up to full. Both Tufkakes and Baladara nodded. “Sure. We can do it.”
Bo’ grinned. “Awesome. Thanks. I’ll let the boss know yous guys are up for it. Thanks.” He closed the door and shuffled off.
“I wonder if we shouldn’t get Rick to put out a system warning telling players to avoid the arena,” Tufkakes asked, taking a seat on the bed next to Horc’s.
“I doubt the AI would let a system warning like that get out,” Baladara said. “Aren’t they supposed to be smarter than that?”
Horc nodded. “Yeah, I would think so anyway. This one is learning quickly. But if he put it out as a corporate message that went through email, that might either alert people before they entered the game, or if they have their email and other messaging tied to their pods, warn them that way.”
“At this point they should shut down the beta program until they’ve made some fixes,” Tufkakes muttered. “Maybe they have an uncorrupted backup of the AI they can upload once everyone’s logged out and can get it running again soon.”
“Not a bad idea.” Horc brought up his message app and sent Rick their suggestions. It didn’t take long to get a reply.
I like the ideas. I’ll bounce them past upper management to get permission. Folks up there are getting touchy about things. Any idea when you’re going back into the arena?
Half an hour. Horc replied. No idea what we’re fighting this time.
I can work with that. I’ll send the message up, then keep an eye on your party and see what I can see.
It made Horc feel better that Rick was watching out for them. Sure, it wasn’t a for-sure way to stay alive, but then there would at least be a record of what happened if something went wrong. Horc wrapped up their conversation, then looked at Baladara and Tufkakes. “Okay. Rick’s going to watch and see what he can learn.”
“We need to try to kill them fast, so they don’t hurt us, and to give him the data he needs.” Tufkakes flexed her fingers, making her claws come out in a cat-like fashion.
“Sounds like a plan,” Baladara said.
Horc wasn’t sure about a plan that involved killing as many players as they could, but it did make sense. It was in the name of science after-all, and they would be able to respawn after a few minutes. Still he kept going back to the pain he felt during battle and wondered if there was pain associated with dying in Halfworld. He didn’t know for sure and didn’t like the idea of hurting other people. But the AI was hurting them, and unless he could do something to stop it, the machine intelligence would continue to hurt them.
Again, Horc’s heart raced as the portcullis closed behind Bo’. He hated the feeling and tried to push it down as he stood in between Baladara and Tufkakes with Wolf slightly in front of them.
Across from them, the gate slowly rose, and a voice boomed out.
“And the challengers, the Righteous Band!” It sounded like it came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
“That’s new,” Baladara said, flexing her hands. “I wonder if they do that for us and we’re so far down the tunnel we can’t hear it.”
“We don’t have a group name,” Tufkakes muttered. “If we did they’d announce us when we come in, or at least that’s what Bo’ said on the first fight.”
Horc shrugged and pulled an arrow. “I don’t care one way or the other. We’re in this to sort out saving our friends.”
The Righteous Band entered the arena. It was three Paladins. They were higher level than the last time Horc had seen them, and he wasn’t surprised they were there, Tufkakes and Baladara had told him Stan and the other mailroom guys were also in cells under the arena, right next to Steelmaiden and Slasher.
“Oh geez, not you guys,” Stanishollyshmite said as the three of them stopped a short distance away.
“Yeah, us,” Tufkakes shouted back, then dropped his voice. “These are the guys from the cell next to Steelmaiden. Baladara said something about them being total pricks. Not to mention that the lead guy can’t spell.”
“That’s one way to look at them in game,” Horc said, his voice equally low. “IRL, they’re just looking for an easy path through life.”
“We need to take them out, strictly for research,” Baladara said with a wicked glint in her eyes.
“For research.” Tufkakes laughed and disappeared into the shadows.
“Where’d he go?” Lefthandofgod asked, looking around frantically.
“He’s a Rogue, fool,” Righthandofgod snapped, punching Left’s shoulder before pulling out his sword.
“He can just disappear? That doesn’t seem right.” Left looked confused.
Knowing how many inner-office memos the guys managed to lose for hours to days, Horc knew they weren’t the sharpest tacks in the box. It wasn’t that hard to keep track of the memos, especially since most inner-office communications were done via email and management was talking about doing away with inn-office memos completely.
“Not godly, at least,” Stanishollyshmite agreed, then looked at Horc and Baladara. “You guys know this isn’t anything personal.”
“And you remember none of us are supposed to do anything that puts Horc in danger, don’t you?” Baladara’s tone as sharp and no-nonsense.
“I thought the rules had changed here in the arena,” Stanishollyshmite argued swinging his sword around with more agility than he should’ve been able to have considering the thing was almost as wide as he was and looked completely unwieldy.
“Not in any memo we’ve gotten,” Horc replied. As he unleashed his arrow, he reminded himself that the mailroom guys would come back if they died, they still weren’t sure if he would be so lucky.
The arrow somehow sailed through Stanishollyshmite’s attempt to block with his massive sword and caught the Paladin in the throat. Stanishollyshmite dropped his sword and grabbed his neck. “Get it out.” He gurgled. As the critical shot appeared in Horc’s vision and Stanishollyshmite’s health dropped to half.
“Gladly.” Tufkakes appeared out of the shadows and rammed his dagger into the base of the Paladin’s skull.
As Stanishollyshmite’s health dropped into the red and started flashing. Tufkakes reached around and twisted the arrow, ramming in deeper into the Paladin’s throat. Stanishollyshmite dropped to the sand as his health bar blinked one last time and faded away.
“Get off him!” Righthandofgod shouted and rushed Tufkakes with a sword that was nearly as big as Stanishollyshmite’s had been.
“Same to you.” Baladara got off a fireball knocking Right back a couple of feet.
Horc sent his next arrow at Lefthandofgod. Wolf followed the arrow, turning from where he’d been running toward the last target, the downed Stanishollyshmite.
Somehow, Left managed to bat the arrow away, sending it clattering into the wall to his right. Horc added Poison to the next arrow and focused his shot. Left came running and was almost too close when Horc loosed his shot. It caught Left in the face, barely missing his eye.
Wolf slammed into Left as the Paladin screamed and tore at the arrow sticking out of his cheek. He managed to keep hold of his sword with one hand, but the tip of the massive blade rested uselessly on the arena sand.
Horc dropped his bow and pulled his sword. He might’ve been able to back up a few feet and get off more shots while Left yanked the arrow out of his check, but he didn’t bother. From the little he’d seen of the guy’s fighting skills they were about as good at gaming as they were at keeping the mailroom running. Even if he managed to land a few good hits with that ridiculous sword of his, it wouldn’t be enough to kill Horc.
With Wolf tearing at the back of Left’s neck, Horc swung at his sword arm, hoping to disarm him.
Left finally pulled the arrow out and managed to get his sword up in time to block. “Dude, not cool attacking while I was distracted. It ain’t right.”
Horc stepped back and blocked Left’s swing. “All’s fair in love and war.”
“Rumor has it you don’t know about love.” Left swung again.
Ducking under the blow, Horc slashed up with his sword. “And you do? Dude, I’ve watched you drooling over Melinna in accounting. Pathetic.” Since they were in the game, he really hoped nothing he said came back to haunt him. He scored a good hit and with the damage from the arrow and Wolf’s attack, he’d dropped Left to less than three quarters. The Poison from the arrow would continue to drain him for another two rounds of battle.
“Melinna is pretty, not that you’d have noticed.” Left kicked at Horc as Horc dropped and rolled away, trying to put a little distance between them.
“I know Melinna is pretty, I just don’t spend time drooling over something I can’t have.” Horc came up in a crouch and waited for Left to reach him. That big sword was a definite disadvantage no matter how impressive it must look to the Paladin.