Desert

by Caiden Walker

  She had no idea whose team boss they had just defeated, and she didn't care. Three teams or not, technically they were still only one at heart. Popping a health and mana potion, she gave her great WarCry once more and started with the one on the left. Evan hesitated, then went for the other one. With a bladed warrior at each of the bosses, Ash and Louella split between them as well. Louella's healing spells might not be nearly as powerful as Ash's, but her attacks were almost double the mage's.

  Nika barely had time to register the brilliant game play before she was at the giant. His bulk definitely cut his speed drastically, which was a big help. Nika was able to go in for a hacking cut and then dodge most of his follow-up hits. It would have been far better if she could have dodged them all, but she wasn't quite that lucky.

  She had drawn Ash as her mage and resident healer and the girl started lobbing Lightning and Fire spells at him as well. They worked okay, but they weren't doing nearly the damage that Nika's ax was.

  "Save your magic," Nika yelled. "Just cover me." She didn't have time to look to see if Ash understood, but the magic attacks stopped, so she could only assume the girl got it. Then her body felt a flood of health and sheer power and she knew she did.

  A minute later, another weaponed warrior joined the battle. Not Evan, but a much smaller one. Striker had started off with the others but had seen their predicament and come to join her. Striker made her think about the rest of the party and she realized something important.

  Blake wasn't singing. She would think maybe he had died, but she hadn't heard one note from him since they entered the clearing.

  "Sing, damn it!" She yelled. She wasn't at all sure he could hear her over the two raging battles, but he must have because almost instantly the oasis filled with song.

  It was the first time he had sang where she could hear it. The result was nothing short of amazing. Strength flooded her body even more pronounced than the health potion had. But then the potion simply gave her health, the bard's singing gave her true strength. She noticed that her attacks were now doing much more damage and for the first time since seeing the two massive heads rise from the water, she believed they could win this.

  Her small team had the hulking bandit down to almost a third life when a sandy wind suddenly whipped up around the giant. The sand was swirling madly around him and Nika and the others stepped back out of its path. It was centered on the nomad. Louella's Cyclone attack. It had to be.

  Even as she watched, his health bar dropped even farther as there was nothing he could do to stop the damage he was taking. Soon, arrows started finding their targets in the giant's body as well.

  The others must have polished off their giant and come to help her finish hers. It was a nice gesture, but unfortunately, their sudden and unexpected arrival threw off Nika's concentration and timing. The giant took one step through the sand swirling around him and delivered an attack that hit directly on target.

  Nika felt the last of her life bar spill out and her heart, virtual one or not, leaped to her throat. She could hear the others shouting, but their words were lost on her as her eyelids fluttered shut.

  She so hoped this wasn't really the end.

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Second Oasis II

  What happened next was a total blur. The world blinked before her and then there she was, lying right on the ground beside her team. As she opened her eyes, the giant nomad was exploding into glittering shards of sand. Her mind whirled with possibilities, but then it hit her. Ash had resurrected her. She must have reached the thirteenth level and equipped the staff before she died. It must have been a close thing to get her back before the giant hit the cosmos.

  Then Ash was beside her, tears in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Nika," she said. "I royally screwed up."

  She screwed up? How was that when the mage had saved her?

  "I thought you had the battle in hand. I mean you were winning, you really were. So when I saw the new level hit, I couldn't resist taking a few seconds to equip Heaven's Blessing." The tears were now streaming down her face. "I'm so, so sorry."

  Ah, that explained it. Nika pulled up her stats before answering the girl. She'd been brought back to life before the battle ended, so the game hadn't taken a single thing from her. She still had all of her hard-won levels and abilities.

  She started struggling to her feet, and Ash reached out a hand. Nika took it and rose to her feet, brushing the sand off her robe.

  "Don't worry about it, Ash," she said. "You got me back in time, and I didn't lose a thing." Nika paused. "In fact, it all happened so very quickly, I'm not at all sure you would have had time to cast a heal spell. Having that staff equipped might have saved me a couple levels."

  Ash blinked, dashing the tears off her face with the back of her hand. "You think so?"

  Nika shrugged. There wasn't any way to know, but it was possible at the very least. The girl's mistake might have ended up saving her after all.

  The others were starting to gather around and Nika waved them off. "I'm okay, thanks to Ash here," she said. "Let's gather the loot and make our camp for the night."

  She glanced back at the sun, just barely visible over the vast sandy desert space. It was getting dark much faster now.

  Louella brought out her lantern and, like the magic that it was, it lit up the center of the clearing to allow them to find all the dropped loot. Two of the three giants had dropped legendaries, but unfortunately, they were both for the Priest and Priestess class and so of no use to any of them. Still, they would bring quite a bit of gold at the market.

  There were also the normal potions and miscellaneous drops too and the team split up the treasure and stowed it away in their inventories. It would be nice if they started dropping traps and critter lures, but Nika knew that wasn't going to happen. It was nice to dream though.

  Once they had their tents set up and had pulled together a mix of cheese, crackers, and fruit for dinner, they sat around a makeshift fire that Ash was only too happy to start for them. The air really did chill quickly after the sun completed its daily journey. The fire felt nice, even here in the middle of the desert.

  "Three bosses, huh?" Dean said, shaking his head. "I'm guessing that was one for each team?"

  Nika nodded. "That's my guess too. It seems the other monsters don't care if we are one team or three, they just send the right amount of monsters at us according to our skill. The bosses, it appears, are a bit different."

  "I guess that makes sense," Evan said slowly. "We really didn't program Gaia's Rebirth to handle multiple teams in the same area. The game's Artificial Intelligence must be filling in the blanks." He thought for a minute. "Not too shabbily either, I must say." His pride was showing a bit as it should. The programmers had done a superb job getting this world just right. To allow the AI to fill in missing pieces of code in a situation like this? Pure genius.

  "Bosses don't respawn, do they?" Blake asked.

  Nika looked at him. "No. Once they are beaten that's it for them until the next group of players comes through."

  "Good," he said. "Then if no one has any objections, I'm going to bed now." Blake sighed. "Or at least to a bedroll. What I wouldn't give for a night in a real bed in the real world."

  No one said anything, and he got up and left them, departing into the large two room tent.

  "The rest of you should probably hit the sack, too," Nika said. "Three o'clock will come pretty fast."

  "Who's on for the second watch?" Ash asked, trying to stifle a yawn.

  "I've been thinking," Louella said. "If Striker is okay with it, he and I can take the second watch."

  An NPC on watch? It might work, Nika thought. Before she could agree, Dean spoke.

  "Did I do something to upset you?" Dean asked Louella. "I thought we were having fun today, but then you started avoiding me. Now you're ditching me for watch duty and taking an NPC? What happened?"

  Louella glanced at Nika and shook her head. "We were having fun, Dean," she said giving him
a sad smile. "And it wasn't anything you did. But when you asked about my childhood, it just... well, it brought up memories I wasn't ready to deal with just yet." Her head ducked, eyes on the grass before her. "I have been kind of avoiding you, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't take my personal issues out on you."

  He stared at her for a minute in silence. "Next time just tell me to mind my own business, okay?"

  Her eyes flew to his as she started to stutter.

  Dean grinned at her. "Hey, I'm kind of kidding. Just wanted you to look at me. It's okay. I totally understand unpleasant memories. If you have any fun ones you want to share with me, fine. Otherwise, I'm more than happy to talk about myself. As you can probably tell, I don't have much in the way of personal boundaries. Guess that's why I'm constantly stepping on them."

  Her smile widened. "I'd love to hear more of your stories," she said quietly. "I really enjoyed them."

  Then Dean got a funny look on his face. "Wait a minute," he said. "Did I just voluntarily sign up for the second watch?"

  Nika laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Sure did, Buddy," she said. "Now you guys go get some sleep. Evan and I have the first one."

  Evan had made it clear that he wanted first watch with Nika even though technically it was supposed to be her and Dean as they were the ones who had napped longer at the first stop.

  She was guessing that he wanted to talk. Nika was looking forward to it and dreading it all at the same time.

  While the others took care of their nightly hygiene and got situated in the tent, Nika and Evan banked the fire with more of the fallen limbs they'd found around the lakes. They didn't really look like palm tree limbs, but Nika figured the game was being nice and supplying them with firewood, so she shouldn't question it too much.

  When the fire was going strong again, they settled in for their watch. Instead of sitting back to back as he and Louella had done, they sat side by side, each of them facing an opposite direction.

  "This must be hard on Louella," Evan started. "Do you think we made the right choice keeping her little secret from the rest of the team?"

  Nika shrugged. "I wouldn't call her secret little by any means, and who knows if it's right to keep it from the others? I'm just going with my gut on that one. If it was me, I think I would rather not have the whole 'I might be dead' thing hanging over me for the rest of the game."

  "And yet we do."

  "Yes, we do."

  They were both quiet for a minute, then Evan turned to gaze at her. "You died today, but you came back. Doesn't that mean your body is still alive out there?"

  Nika swallowed. "With Ash's resurrection spell, I'm not sure. I never actually hit the last save point. It was more like a blink and then I was back. I'd have felt more certain if I'd landed at the graveyard. Not that I wanted to lose levels, but at least we might have had a better grasp of the situation."

  "Maybe," Evan said hesitating. "I've been thinking that maybe the game might keep a player around once they become code in the system. It might be possible that Louella will reboot just like the rest of us."

  Nika turned to him, her eyes widening. "Do you really think so?"

  "There isn't any way to know for sure until it happens," he said. "But I do think it's possible."

  She sighed and leaned over to rest against him. "I hope so," she said. "Of course, that means we have no way of knowing if we are alive or dead out there. Not until we try to leave the game."

  "That's true."

  "Oh, Evan, it wasn't supposed to be like this." Nika's voice sounded weepy, even to her own ears, but she couldn't help it. "Dad was supposed to be here with me and everything was supposed to be wonderful."

  "It should have been. I hope we do get out of here, and not just so I can continue doing what I always have, either. What I really, really want to do is make VirTech pay for this." He paused. "I'm not talking money, either."

  "I know," Nika said. "That and saving us and the game are all I think about now."

  Evan's voice got quiet and a bit gravelly. "Really? All you think about?" he asked.

  She turned her head away, not wanting to meet his eyes. "No, not quite all."

  "Do you think we have a chance together?" he asked. "Once all this is said and done?"

  Nika nodded. "Oh, hell yeah," she said, her voice sounding rough. "Once I know I'm free of that asshole I'll be on you like white on rice."

  He laughed which was exactly the response she'd been hoping for.

  "Okay then," he said. "For you, I'd wait forever. But any time we can cut from that would be great."

  "Agreed," Nika said. Then she got quiet for a minute. "You might be disappointed in me once you have me." Another silent pause. "I mean I couldn't even keep the asshole happy."

  "That's because he is an asshole," Evan said, putting his arm around her and drawing her close.

  It was a bit awkward, given the way they were sitting, but it still felt nice. He had just started to lean back, and Nika was sure he was going to kiss her when she saw the first critter pop into existence.

  There wasn't any other way to describe it. One second the area by the lake was empty of all but nature and the party, and the next, there it stood.

  Her sudden intake of breath must have alerted Evan that something was up.

  "What is it?" he whispered his voice a mere thread in the breeze.

  "A Trial's creature," she answered keeping her voice low too. "By the lake."

  "One we've seen before?"

  "No. It looks kind of like a seal."

  Evan slowly turned his body enough to bring the creature into view. Then he smiled. "Yup, that's a seal," he said. "Are we going to try to catch it?"

  Nika hesitated. "I'm torn. On the one hand, I really want to. On the other, I know our duty is to keep watch. If a horde of bandits appeared with bows and arrows in the middle of our recruitment, I'd never forgive myself."

  He sighed. "So we wait, then."

  "Yeah, we wait." She paused. "But once we get Louella and Dean up, we could totally go for it, then hang around while they did too if there is another one."

  "It's a date."

  The rest of their watch went pretty peacefully and quietly. No bow-equipped bandits showed up, nor hyenas or any other Gaia creatures. Nika figured the game was giving the players a break for having beaten the mini-boss. And she was enjoying it fully.

  Especially when the second critter showed up. It resembled a gray squirrel and actually came right up to them, cocking its tiny head and looking at them. Examining them as hard as they were it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Grand Plan

  As Les explained his glorious plan, Mary realized just how right she was. They were in so very, very much trouble.

  Granted, if VirTech really was stealing the code and had plans to kill the beta testers, including Nika Nolan and Evan Taylor, then they just may end up as heroes. That's how Les was envisioning it, anyway.

  Mary's vision tended more along the lines of how long their prison sentences would be for taking the party hostage.

  Because that was Les' grand plan in a nutshell. As a security guard, he knew things about the building that few others did. Important things like the fact that the entire floor that housed the main game's hub and the player's lounge also served as a bit of a safe room. In case of fire or outside threat, the floor could easily be shut behind fire doors and only opened by a very complicated code.

  The trick was that if you knew the code to initiate the lockdown, you also had the means to change that code once the lockdown was in place. So once inside the secure room, Les planned to immediately change the code and keep changing it every half hour. That shouldn't give anyone on the outside time to crack it.

  By doing this, his plan was to ensure that no harm came to Nika or the others until they returned from the game. They would be well out of VirTech's reach.

  "I don't see that we have a choice," Les said, trying to convince the twins that his plan was a valid one. "If we know what's
going on and we don't try to stop it, we are just as guilty as they are."

  Mary shook her head. "No, we aren't," she said. "Not by a long shot."

  "Les, if we are wrong, we could literally spend the rest of our lives in prison," Max said. "You do get that, right?"

  "Oh, I get it," Les answered. "But if we're right, Nika and her team might not have lives left to live."

  When he put it that way, it was hard to refute. She still didn't have to like it. The truth was that there was no stopping Les at this point, and she knew neither her nor her brother would let the good-hearted fool go it alone. It might spell the end of their freedom, but at least they'd go down together.

  "Okay, so what are our parts in this?" Mary asked.

  Les grinned at her. "I thought you'd never ask." He pulled out a notebook and started flipping pages. "The team has been gone for a while, so it should be only a matter of days before they return, but we'll need supplies to carry us through. Food, water, everything to make us self-sustaining up there."

  "They couldn't like turn up the heat and roast us out, could they?" Max asked.

  "Nope, the whole building is smart-wired. No humans needed, and I seriously doubt anyone here knows how to change the temperature even one degree, let alone enough to make us sweat. Besides, the players are up there too, and they'll have to keep up appearances."

  "About the players," Mary said. "They have nurses attending them. What are we going to do about them? Hold them at gunpoint?" Please say no, she prayed. That might just be her breaking point.

  He thought for a minute. "I think I read somewhere that Nika chose the nurses herself. If that's true then we should be able to get them on our side. We'll take our evidence with us and convince them once the lockdown is secured."

  "And if they don't convince easily?"

  Les shrugged. "There are two nurses. One for the men and one for the ladies. And there are three of us. I think we can handle them. If you two can keep them busy for just a few minutes after the lockdown, it won't matter whether or not they are with us. I'm going to set it up to require a code to open the firewalls even from the inside."