Lost in the Game

by Christopher Keene

  Shaking my head and trying to quell the anger rising in me, I relented. “Fine. I’ll be there soon.”

  I strode toward the store district and bought some basic items and equipment for the fight, particularly ones I wasn’t afraid of losing. Considering I had infinite Moola, I didn’t feel like I was wasting anything to purchase them, but was still disappointed that I couldn’t use my Alert Coat.

  Better than losing it a Tertiatier fight. Considering I don’t plan on using the Future Projection Software, there’s not much point in me disguising myself this time.

  However, I did like the striking orange color of the cloak, so when I got to pick out the color for my new Alchemist Cloak, I stuck with the faded orange, which allowed me more Key Triggers options. As good as the FPS was, it took up space in the shortcut menu—space I would need in this fight. One thing I realized I wouldn’t need was a new staff. After all, Heaven’s Coliseum allowed for guns, and I still had my ‘Boomstick’ gunstaff in my inventory, one of the better items I’d already received from heaven.

  When I was nicely geared up for battle, I left the store and headed for the Coliseum. Although it didn’t get dark in certain places of the Dream State, I could tell by the in-game clock that it was getting late by the time I was ready.

  Considering whether or not Siena chose to help me with the photos could rest on how our next interaction or even our match went, I was slightly nervous about meeting up with her. She was one of the few people we knew who might know the solution to our problem, and as much as I wanted to help with her insomnia, finding the Screamers had to be my first priority.

  In this case, the outcome might be one and the same, so I had to be careful when talking to her, use tact, be strategic with my words. I recalled her willingness to help me when I first entered the Dream State. I had been helpless and humble back then. Maybe if I came off that way now, her protective mother bear instinct might return. It was worth a shot.

  Deciding that this was something I should get over and done with, I sent the message. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  Siena_the_Blade: “Good, because I have a nice little surprise for you.”

  Chapter 28: The Slaughter

  Siena waited for Noah in Heaven’s Coliseum lobby, having appeared in the large steampunk-themed waiting room as soon as he had messaged her. She looked different than usual, having swapped her chainmail for a lightweight Feather Leather dress to optimize her speed as much as she could.

  The lobby itself was busy. It was strange that, despite what was riding on her fight, she didn’t feel nervous. Instead, she was giddy, thinking how of priceless the look on Noah’s face was going to be when seeing that she, too, shared his advantage.

  After mastering the RTS ability with Kristie’s assistance in the Debug Room, she had dedicated the rest of her time that week to trying to catch up on some sleep without using DSD. She grinned as she thought of how naive she had been when thinking that it could be used as a substitute.

  Note to self: don’t try to use a drug for gaming as an alternative to actual sleeping pills.

  According to her doctor, any sleep deprivation could be classified as a form of insomnia, but given that she was still getting a little sleep, it just seemed like an excuse.

  What a weak thing to complain about. Am I really that pathetic?

  Her only real problem was that she would keep getting woken up by that same dream every night and wasn’t able to get back to sleep afterward, leaving her to just lie there and wallow in regret.

  She’d never had a problem falling asleep at the start. Heck, she would go under as soon as her head first hit the pillow. Her problem was that before she managed to reach deep or even REM sleep, she would be awakened with the feeling of anxiety that came with having to watch her soccer team lose without her once again.

  She breathed out. Remember what Dr. Faraday said. There was nothing you could have done, but you do have control over this.

  She’d thought that confronting Kristie about it, as she had, would make things better. But the dream only returned with a new intensity, even exacerbating certain parts of it, be it the reaction of the crowd or her team for letting them down. However, thanks to the Zopiclone, she had been able to get back to sleep a lot faster after the dream had awoken her, and her body could more quickly catch up to the point where she could get the sleep she needed. Of course, as Dr. Faraday had warned her, there was always a risk of growing dependent on the drug.

  She knew the only way of getting over that was working through her issues and popping those little blue pills, which had managed to clear her head a bit. Once she had reclaimed her championship, she would be able to tell if it was seeing Kristie or losing to Noah that was the reason for her dreams becoming worse.

  As though her daydreaming was a mere drumroll to his entrance, she heard a whooshing and looked up to see Noah appear from the red Gateway at the entrance to the Coliseum. It made sense that the portal was there, as the entrance ended at a sudden drop as soon as a player left the arena. However, now that the Dream State was allowing mounts here, there was nothing stopping people from just flying over.

  As always, the kid was looking dour, like the whole world rested on his shoulders. It didn’t suit the bright colors he was wearing. This confused her. There was nothing special about his garment, just the standard Spellcaster clothes one could get from the many stores in Heaven. He did have his Boomstick with him, but again, that was a weapon one could buy without needing too many items to synth.

  I don’t get it. Is he afraid he’ll lose his gear? But why would he be with that ability? It’s not like he knows I have it as well. After all, I told no one.

  He walked over to her. “Okay, I’m here, so let’s do this.”

  “The next Battle Royal is in ten minutes. This won’t be one-on-one like last time, Noah.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her. “Oh, I know. I better get signed up for this round first. Wouldn’t want you going into your first round in Heaven’s Coliseum without me.”

  She sneered. “You’re right, I wouldn’t.”

  Noah left and returned a few minutes later, bizarrely not changing any of his equipment.

  She tucked her long hair back behind her ear. “Why aren’t you wearing your good stuff like that Alert Coat I saw you wear last time? Are you afraid to lose it, or are you trying to make a statement, something like ‘I don’t need anything special to beat you!’”

  Noah frowned and his jaw tightened. “It’s not like that.”

  “Afraid I’ll win them off you?” She frowned when he ignored her. “Anyway, what did you and Chloe want my help with?”

  “We found a few photos taken outside the buildings where the Screamers are being kept.” He sighed. “But they’re low quality and we have no way to find out where they were taken from. It’s our only clue, but it’s starting to seem like a dead end.”

  “Is that all?” Siena snorted. “Heck, I could just ask my geo-caching group to help. They’re everywhere.”

  Noah’s gaze alighted on her. “Geo-caching? That’s when you follow online clues to find trinkets around cities, right?”

  Siena nodded. “Yeah, I used to play it as an augmented reality game. Some of my old AR buddies used the geolocation forum, but it’s used for other things as well, like finding stores and such. If I put them on it, they would be able to say if they recognize the places, especially if you explain what it’s for.”

  “Even if there aren’t any street signs? That sounds highly unlikely.”

  Siena smirked. “There are eyes everywhere nowadays, Noah. I know people who could locate you in the real world far easier than I could find you in the Dream State. Places are a little different, but so long as the image wasn’t taken in a back alley, there’s a good chance my team could track it down. They’ve found some really obscure places in the past.” She tittered. “One cache we found was an area closed off by buildings, but we eventually found it by doing a q
uick scan with a drone. The real hard part was getting in. Nearly got caught by security.”

  Noah nodded, eyes ablaze when hearing they didn’t just go off surveillance cameras. His hands had made fists, and he looked like he was trying to refrain from pumping them like he had scored a goal.

  For a moment, Siena thought she could see what Chloe saw in him. It was just such a sharp contrast to how morose he’d been. “I’ll get back in contact with them—” She stopped as she remembered that Kristie had been a part of that group. She had to do this herself.

  “Oh, come on!” Noah pled. “We’re so close to finding her. We can if we work together on this!”

  She hesitated, her jaw clenched. Something inside was telling her not to rely on Noah for this. After he cheated against her in their last fight, she didn’t know if he could be fully trusted. Besides, she now had access to Kristie via Malcolm’s Debug Room. She could do this herself.

  “Actually, now that I think about it, it’s a real hassle. You need to sign up over an outdated app, I’ll need to get in contact with a bunch of people, and—”

  “No, no, we need all the help we can get! Listen, I’ll share the photos with you over the DS community chat in case you change your mind. It’s not like we have each other’s email or phone number or anything. We could really use your help, Siena.” Noah frantically went about finding the photos on his account to share them with her. “And you’re right. I mean, last time I did win due to a cheat, and I’m sorry.” His lips became a thin line, as though deciding now to come clean. “I’m wearing these garments because, well, I don’t want there to be any confusion over who’s better out of me and you.”

  She smirked. “You say that as though you’ve decided not to use your RTS ability.”

  “RTS?” Noah asked, sounding honestly confused by the acronym. “Real Time Strategy?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Noah!” Siena raised her fist. “Keri told me you were testing out a new ability on me when we fought. Maybe that’s the reason you’ve decided to use default gear, to make people think you aren’t a cheat when you really are.”

  Noah nodded and looked down. “It’s true that I used a new ability, and honestly, I wasn’t planning on using it on you when we fought. But at the time . . . well, I mean, you were there, and you just ignored me and I . . . overreacted.”

  She breathed out heavily and frowned. “Fine then. Let’s just see how this fight goes first.”

  Other players began to show up for the Battle Royal. They all looked pretty tough in their high-level gear. Even so, Siena couldn’t focus on them for some reason. Something in Noah’s words echoed in her mind, seeming to draw out meaning she couldn’t have understood in a sleep-deprived state. She thought of how she had acted when trying to awaken Kristie to become who she had once been.

  Is that how I’ve been toward him?

  It seemed like less than a minute had passed, but she suddenly heard a boom as the doors to the pit swung open, allowing them through. She thought she was just about to work something out, but the shove of another player jostled it from her mind and she was forced to follow the rest of players out into the dust.

  The stands were reasonably busy despite no one knowing she was going to fight this time. However, after seeing both her and Noah among the combatants, several people began messaging or recording the bout. Before she could blink, it seemed that every player with a Transfer Orb appeared in the seats along with a hundred others trying to clamor in as the announcer appeared.

  Unlike the announcer in Galrinth, this one was wearing a white suit that seemed to shine like the sun, complete with a matching top hat.

  “No level three spells, no Kamikaze Orbs, and that’s all.” He gestured to the walls. “You know where to go. Once you all have reached your starting marks, the match will begin.”

  Siena smiled as she walked to one of the lights around the arena wall. She was glad that the prepared script of announcing the rules for this NPC was much shorter than one in Northern Galrinth. One of the players must have complained about the last Coliseum only to have his feedback implemented.

  Better than wasting time every bout, though.

  She reached the light she had chosen and waited for the others to do the same. She purchased the quickest possible gear for Warriors as well as several Stopwatches, which boosted her speed similar to Speed Amp and allowed her to even walk quicker than most of her opponents. As she looked around, however, she realized she was going to need the added speed. The other players watched her like starving animals looking at a roast dinner. No doubt they were going to try and gang up on her to gain bragging rights of being the one who defeated Siena_the_Blade.

  Let them try.

  She grinned in anticipation as the lights turned red and the announcer shouted, “Commence!”

  She used one of her Stopwatches, showing an animation of a clock speeding up above her, and then equipped her Ruby Edge and charged. With her speed and stamina, she had already figured herself unbeatable, and the RTS ability only made it more so. She watched as the blue projections of the other players converged on her.

  A Warrior raised a broadsword to strike down on her, but she cut through his armor with a swing of her Color Blade, ducking a spear thrust and seeing the blue projection of a spell coming toward her at the same time. She jumped, her instinctual threat assessment telling her that the Spellcaster should be her first priority. However, she then noticed several blue bullets flying toward her, right in line with her trajectory.

  Oh, that’s right, I forgot that guns are allowed here!

  The Range fighter who had shot at her was suddenly turned to ice and Noah was cutting through her with his Sapphire Edge. He caught her eyes for a second before the bullets vanished and she was landing on the Spellcaster, driving her Ruby Edge into what looked like a modern army vest.

  The spearman and two more Spellcasters had followed her. She flipped back off her first victim, chopped the spear in half as it stabbed at her, and then swapped her Ruby Edge for her Reaper’s Scythe and threw it at one of the Spellcasters just as she was about to launch a fire spell. The scythe spun end over end before piercing through the witch’s chest, stunning her while Siena cleaved the head of the spearman and landed. The audience cheered. With her enhanced speed, she had taken out three players in a single leap.

  A blue Gravity Warp spun above her, but she dashed off before the real spell could take effect. The second Spellcaster was a man in a black hood, holding a scythe very similar to her own. She was about to run after him when she noticed that her legs were frozen to the spot. She hadn’t seen another Spellcaster around, but then saw yet another avatar was reloading light blue bullets into his revolver.

  Crap, ice specialty bullets!

  A massive Heavy walked up to her holding a mace. Normally, she would have jumped up on the man and mashed his head through his helmet, but being frozen to the spot didn’t give her that advantage. She also saw that the Grim Reaper-looking avatar was preparing a spell that looked like it contained some status effect that would undermine her movements.

  It might have been over, it if weren’t for her using RTS. She saw the Tank swing his mace before he did it. She caught the shaft of his weapon with her blade and his shoulder with her other hand and spun him, just as the spell was launched toward her. As she had hoped, the spell hit the Heavy instead, stunning him and leaving her to slash at his undefended back.

  Of course, he was a Heavy, so one attack didn’t finish off his Hit Points. Instead, she ducked as she saw his projection spin around to hit her like he was wielding a baseball bat. He hit thin air and she came up, driving her Ruby Edge up through his helmet. He vanished, leaving her, the magician, the Range fighter who had frozen her, the last Warrior, and Noah.

  Where is Noah anyway?

  Then she saw him fire an Earth Punch out from his Boomstick at the Range Niche who was aiming at her with more of those annoying bullets. This knocked the gunman off
her feet as Noah slid on his knees to avoid the swing of the Warrior’s axe. Then he launched a Fire Weave at the Spellcaster and rolled before directing another weave at her feet.

  He’s helping me?

  Her ice melted, and Noah avoided another blow and rolled up to stand next to her. As he came up, he flashed that smile of his, and as much as she fought the feeling it gave her, she couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Just like the old days, eh Siena?” he asked, raising his Color Blade as they stood back to back to face their remaining opponents.

  Her smile widened. “Yeah.”

  As the Warrior’s projection charged at her from the front and the Spellcaster launched a blue projection of a spell at her from the back, she felt something with Noah fighting at her back that she realized she had been missing since they had last fought together. And it filled her with joy.

  Noah blocked the spell with an Ice Wall just as Siena jumped, cutting through both the Warrior’s axe and his visor. Noah then turned back and launched an Ice Coffin spell, doing what the Range Niche had been trying to do to Siena by trapping her in ice. She stopped moving just as Siena landed on top of her, shattering her with a single blow. She then reached her hand out and used Weapon Retrieval to pull her Reaper’s scythe from where it had landed back into her hand and turned to face the remaining Spellcaster.

  Noah was facing him as well, standing on top of his slowly melting Ice Wall. “Should I finish him off, or do you want to do the honors?”

  She bared her teeth. “I’mma gonna get me that scythe.”

  Items from the defeated filled the pit, including a broadsword and full light armor, a revolver with specialty Ice Bullets, an axe, a mace, and full heavy armor with several other miscellaneous items that would go to the winner.

  The Grim Reaper-looking avatar seemed surprised that there was no one left of his allies. His projection showed him resorting to using a Toxin spell on her as though he would get some solace in knowing that he helped to take her down. Before he could, however, Noah’s Earth Punch struck him to the ground.