by Max Jager
The crowd began talking amongst themselves, this was a lot of information for everyone to take in all at once.
"And my last ace, with this I have put all of my cards on the table. I have a full log of the private messages sent and received by the Alphas through their virtual keyboards. Even messages they sent before us betas entered this world. It's a secret how I have access to this, but I have it. Since I, unlike the Spartans, respect the privacy of my fellow beta testers I will not share any messages they sent to or received from beta testers. But all of the messages they sent between each other, I will gladly share with anyone who wants them. Included in those messages is a conversation they had with a boy named Thomas. Thomas is the son of the man who created this game, and he confirms that this world is infact a game." He paused for a moment to let everyone take this in.
"They knew this two years before we were stuck in here, for two years they knew this was a game, and when we arrive the first thing they do is lie to us and tell us it's a whole new world and we're stuck here. They told us it wasn't a game! It is. They told us that all the NPCs out there were alive! They aren't. They are advanced AI that have learning programs built into them, they likely had a few thousand years of simulations put through them to help them learn and become life-like. Technology can do that in a few weeks. But these messages prove that the Alphas knew it was a game all along, the messages prove that they are trying to stop us from getting out of this game, and I'm sure you'll all find the messages between Mendelen and Kaden as more than enough proof of their friendship. They were just exchanging selfies and discussing which restaurants are good a couple weeks ago. So much for being at war."
Zane took a deep breath, then calmly gave his final statements.. "My name is Zane, I am the leader of the Royal Army down in Port Redwarren. If you want access to these messages, send me a message, I'll send them to you in a file that can be opened in your own virtual keyboard. So you may read them yourselves. And one last thing, if any of you distrust the Alphas, or if any of you want a better place to live then Belesara, a place without war where people are actually trying to escape the game. I will be at the city gates in three days with a small army to escort everyone who wants to come to Port Redwarren. Share this information with everyone you know, it's only a matter of time before the Moderators get me, so we need to keep spreading the truth. The only way we escape this game is together." He called out, before dropping his own sword on the stage, then taking flight and flying off to another part of town. By the time Fate arrived to confiscate their weapons, he was gone.
Mendelen had gone completely pale as he stared at the screen in shock, and Kaden couldn't stop laughing.
"WOW this guy is good at what he does!" Kaden laughed. "This just got a thousand times more interesting."
Estellese slumped down into a nearby chair. "That's not funny… People won't seriously believe him, will they?"
"I'm afraid they probably will." Zanath stated and leaned back against a wall. "This war between you two and Kaden has made you all look bad. Although it would seem like that alone was only part of it, if he really does have access to our message history, that kinda does give away the fact that we're all friends." He stated. "And I believe that he does have that access, those messages he quoted seemed to have been picked out on purpose, as a direct statement to us to prove he does have it."
"Yeah, that sounded like he was being honest about that." Kaden leaned back against another wall, but was still laughing. "I seriously want to know how he did that."
"Kaden, your head is also on the chopping block here. It's not just us." Estellese pointed out. "Word about this will no doubt get out to the Moderators too, and you'll lose your people just like us."
"I know, I know. But that was just so unexpected, and that face." Kaden pointed at Mendelen. "Oh god that face you made when he started reading Thomas's message to us." He continued laughing.
"Are you going to assassinate him?" Mendelen questioned.
"Umm, no." Kaden answered.
"Isn't that what the Moderators do? Assassinate people they dislike?" Mendelen questioned.
"We assassinate people who break our rules. Which Zane has not done yet." Kaden shrugged. "You gonna arrest him? That's what your Spartans do."
"No… He didn't break any laws other then having a weapon in town. I can't." Mendelen sighed and sat down.
"We have to do something!" Estellese argued.
"We need to get our own side out." Mendelen was starting to nervously tap his fingers on the arm of the chair. "And Kaden, can you please not screw this up like you do to every other time I try to prove myself to our people?"
Kaden held up his hand as if signaling 'stop' and shook his head. "I was just having fun and trying to steer everyone in the right direction. I never had the intention of things getting this bad. I'm genuinely sorry about that." He sighed a little and shook his head. "I won't mess with this one, this is too important. It really looks like he's trying to turn this new group on us, and if that happens a lot of people will actually die and we won't be able to gather a possession of theirs to revive them. That's not what I want."
Mendelen looked a little surprised. "I hadn't expected an apology, but thanks." He replied. Now that the crowd in the center of town had cleared, and Fate picked up the two enchanted weapons Zane and his attacker had dropped, Mendelen changed his screen to watch Zane walking through the streets. He had returned to his normal appearance, with his brown hair and eyes along with his fancy suit. Mendelen briefly turned to Kaden. "I'm sorry for being an ass." He seemed to struggle a little saying that, but said it to Kaden nonetheless, and as soon as the words left his mouth he turned back to the screen.
Kaden laughed a little and gave him a brief pat on the back. "Now that's one thing I didn't expect to hear in a million years. Thanks, although honestly I wasn't much better."
Mendelen nodded and watched Zane on the screen. Zane walked into a cafe where a short, white-haired woman had already saved him a seat at a table. The woman wore a fancy and expensive-looking white and gold blouse with black pants and knee-high boots. She had blue eyes and long, straight white hair. Mendelen listened in as they discussed nothing of any real importance.
"I made it back from my dungeon run, it was a pretty big success if I may say so." The woman replied. "I ended up taking on a tier five dungeon on my own, there was plenty of steel equipment."
"Yeah, I'd have to agree that sounds like it went really well. I had a relatively uneventful day. Did my speech and got attacked by the Moderators." Zane replied, then briefly gestured towards the invisible camera that was watching them in the corner of the store. "I really hate it in this city, we seriously have no privacy."
The woman glanced at the invisible camera, then turned back to him and nodded. "How much longer do we need to stay here?"
"A couple days, then we'll escort everyone to Redwarren where they can be free again." Zane replied. He shot a glance at the camera again, grinning a little as he said. "We will have Sasumi, Charles, and Em alongside us to escort everyone back home." He didn't look away from the camera until he finished that statement, as if he knew Mendelen was watching and he wanted to rub it in that he had converted Charles and Em to his side. "Charles and Em are more then equipped to protect the people coming with us. And Sasumi will be our ace to stop the Spartans or Moderators if they try and stop us."
"Sasumi?" Mendelen murmured.
"I've heard of him!" Estellese jumped in. "Rumors have been going around a lot of social circles of this 'Sasumi the immortal' who claims that even us alphas can't kill him."
"I killed that guy." Kaden interjected. "He was a big metal dude who kept repairing himself of any damage taken. I portaled him into an active volcano and I saw him fall in."
"Kaden thinks he killed Sasumi." Zane laughed on the other side of the screen. "He didn't. He can't."
"Apparently he's not dead." Zanath shrugged. Although Zane's perfectly timed comment was clearly getting under Kaden's s
kin. It was almost as if he could hear Kaden.
"What are we going to do to counter everything he just said?" Estellese questioned, bringing everyone back on topic.
Mendelen thought about it for a moment. "I'll put it in the newspaper tomorrow, and we'll send a free copy to everyone. It'll explain our side of the story, reassuring everyone that while we used to be friends, Kaden and I are still really at war. Explaining that despite the information we had from Thomas, we still do not believe this is a game. We've met and befriended the non-human races and they show clear signs of sentience. They are alive. And that, as we said before, the rules in this city may be very restrictive but they are here to keep everyone safe. Not just from the Moderators, but from anyone who wishes to harm the citizens. We have almost completely ended crime in this city for a reason." He explained. "This is just a 'the grass is greener on the other side' situation, and I'm going to say that. We don't know this guy, and his own city likely has its own dark secrets. At least here we are upfront and you know what you're signing up for when you live here. Who knows what will happen over there? In addition to that, I'll go give a few speeches around town to explain all that personally."
"Sounds good." Estellese replied. Kaden nodded in agreement.
"Alright, that's the plan then. I'm going to get to work on that immediately." Mendelen said, "Thanks for the support everyone." He added before quickly leaving the room.
Over the next three days Mendelen and Estellese were rushing around, trying to correct the record. Trying to send their side of the story out to as many people as possible. But with each passing day, more and more people were disappearing from the city. Spartan soldiers were resigning left and right. Almost all of them saying that after they read the personal messages they decided to leave.
On the third day Mendelen and Estellese did the only thing they could. They waited at the front desk for the Spartans who were resigning to show up. A lot came through and quit. Towards the end of the day they saw Charles, Em, and Matthew walk into the building. "We are here to resign." Charles started.
"Why?" Estellese asked.
"I can't speak for them, but I no longer trust either of you." Em stated. "Amanda was right, the Spartans couldn't be trusted. I only hope she can see for herself that she made the same stupid mistake."
"What happened to Amanda? Weren't you two together?" Estellese questioned.
"We broke up before I joined the Spartans. She joined the Moderators instead." Em stated coldly. The tall woman with long, braided red hair handed over her badge. "I wish you the best of luck. But I can't support this anymore." She added, before turning and walking away.
Charles was next to speak, the burly, 6'5" tall man still had his bible attached to his waist as he placed his badge on the table, almost slamming it down. It was clear that he was angry and was trying to hold it back. "I was close friends with Sarah. Both her and my son died in this war. Now that I know that this was all for nothing, I want nothing more to do with you people."
"We are working on reviving them both." Mendelen insisted.
"I don't believe anything you say anymore." Charles stated, then turned and walked out.
Hearing Charles speaking Fate stepped out into the lobby and saw him leave, then she saw Matthew walk up to the front desk and hand over his badge. "Matthew!" Fate called out and rushed over to him. "What are you doing?"
"Leaving Belesara. You should come with us." Matthew stated. "We've lost so many friends already, let's just get out of here before the Spartans lead the rest of us off a cliff." Matthew stood at around 6'4", he had short black hair with blue eyes and wore a fancy white shirt with a gray blazer, along with black pants. He would look like he was about to attend a professional interview, if his clothes weren't untucked, stained, and wrinkled. He wasn't as strong as Charles, he looked pretty out of shape.
"They aren't going to do that." Fate insisted. She was a little tall, standing at 5'6", but standing next to Matthew made her look much smaller. She had long black hair and wore a black dress, much like she did when her and Matthew first met at the beginning of the beta tests.
"Did you read the messages?" Matthew questioned.
Fate lowered her head. "Yeah..."
"They can't be trusted, they don't have our best interest at heart. It's their fault we are still stuck in this game, if they hadn't tried to mislead everyone into thinking this was an alternate universe we could've found a way out of this game already! And maybe some of the people we lost would have survived." Matthew argued. "You need to come with us."
Fate shook her head. "All things considered, I trust them more then I trust this Zane guy. There's barely anyone left in our group now, we need to stick together."
Matthew shook his head. "No. If you and Elliott want to stick together, then come with me. I won't stay here. I can't." He stated, then he left.
Fate watched him go, and for a moment she seemed to be thinking of whether or not she should go with him. In the end, she remained undecided and walked back to her room in the tower. The group she had met when she first entered this world was getting smaller and smaller, and it was clear it was starting to weigh on her.
By the end of the week Mendelen and Estellese made their way into the records room to go over everything that had happened.
"How many did we lose?" Estellese asked.
"About thirty percent of the civilians in the city, and a couple hundred Spartans. We still have a few hundred Spartans left, but there's a noticeable hole in our forces." Mendelen murmured.
"Kaden was saying he lost a few of his Moderators too, but not many." Estellese added to the conversation.
"Yeah, I heard. He doesn't have many Moderators to begin with, and the few he does have are generally criminals. They wouldn't be allowed in Redwarren anyways." Mendelen explained.
The two of them silently began working through the paperwork needed to document everyone that had left.
It was a few hours later that they were both startled back to attention by a familiar voice.
"There you are!" Alicia angrily shouted at them.
They both jumped up from their work and looked up at her. Alicia herself had not come in person, but her spirit was standing in the room with them. Before they could speak she started talking.
"What the hell is going on with you humans? Seriously! Since the moment all these extra humans entered the world you've all been running around killing everyone in sight. And now that you're finally, somewhat, getting that under control suddenly you all start running around killing each other! Seriously, how barbaric is the human race? Are you all just a bunch of sociopaths? Who the hell goes to war with their own kind? I thought that with you four as leaders things would be set straight. But you humans can't even get along with each other, how is this alliance with the elves supposed to work?"
Both Mendelen and Estellese were shocked and surprised that she was here and yelling at them. It took them a moment to collect themselves and they at first weren't sure what to say.
Mendelen stood up. "It's just Kaden, he's out of line right now and is attacking us. But we are working on reeling him back in. We've had a rough week, I'm pretty sure that after what just happened to us that Kaden will cease the attacks."
"It isn't just Kaden." Alicia stated. "We've been watching you all for weeks, we saw the war between you and Kaden a while ago. Just this morning our scouts have found out that the humans in this 'Port Redwarren' city are amassing an army with the clear intent of attacking you. In addition to that, my citizens have been going missing for the last several weeks. We've lost Cora, Lillith, Lynn, and many others. For weeks we didn't know where they were, and our spies just got a strong lead as to where they are. They are being held captive by humans in both Era city and Port Redwarren. They are being used for experimentation and slave labor, because humans do not believe they are real, living creatures. Do you mind explaining what the hell is going on? We are supposed to have an alliance, these things were supposed to have been tak
en care of."
"We tried everything we could to tell them that this world was real, that you all are alive like we are." Mendelen started. "We don't have any power over the people outside of our two cities, and nobody from our two cities has acted in this way. The humans in Era city and Redwarren are not part of our alliance. They have crossed a line with these actions against the elves, we won't defend them if you choose to attack them."
"We already plan to attack them, regardless of your feelings towards them. But you are supposed to be keeping them in line, we trusted you four to lead the humans and stop them from doing things like this." Alicia argued.
"Let us help with the attack then." Estellese spoke up.