Charlotte’s eyes filled with rage and she kept pushing him trying to get the upper hand, and in the midst of the fight Charlotte felt something that came across her mind, she had to fake it down, give him an illusion and force him to get close to her. She did just that and he took the bait. She was pushed on to her butt and the masked man came up to her, “It’s over.”
“No,” Charlotte said sweeping her leg underneath him trying to trip him. He took a step back, “Did you really expect that to work?”
Charlotte quickly got to her feet and pointed her sword back at him, “Don’t move.”
He dropped another letter at his feet, “Give this to your archer, he’ll know what it means it’s from a mutual friend a message that he has been waiting for, at least that is what she told me. Now leave me be, I won fair and square.” He looked up and looked right over at Tuomas. Tuomas had a chill run down his neck.
He turned his back to Charlotte and walked away. “Come, back here!” Charlotte demanded.
“You lost, you don’t have any power over me.” He stated, continuing away from her.
Charlotte lowered her blade in defeat. “Maybe next time.” He echoed back without turning toward her.
He disappeared back into the crowd of people and left them standing in the middle of the street. Tuomas and the others ran over to her. She lost her composure, her voice cracked when they surrounded her, “It was Scott underneath that mask.” The fight clicked in her memory. The one fight that they had for her to pass the swordsmanship test back in the real world.
“What?” Donovan asked, “How do you know?”
She began to cry, “That was his own personal technique of swordsmanship. I recognized the style from my trial day…”
They all looked down where the man had been dueling Charlotte in disbelief. “This explains so much. And raises even more questions.” Tuomas put his hand on Charlotte’s shoulder.
After gathering in the Inn and shooing out the rest of the patrons, they sat at the largest table in the Inn. Tuomas pulled out Scott’s watch that he had been keeping with him if he needed to interact with in the game code. He flipped it open and began to look for anything that he may have missed from Liz, he found nothing. He quickly pulled up an email formatted note to send out to Liz. He demanded to know why she didn’t tell him that the person was Scott. And sent it out.
The others sat down at the table. Charlotte was still sobbing as she waited for the others to start the conversation that was about to go down. Tuomas looked up from the watch looking and waiting for a response from Liz. Charlotte tossed the parchment that the man handed her. “He gave me this.” She choked out.
Tuomas took it from her and gave it a look over. The name that stood out to him was the person it was from. Liz. He was confused as he read the letter in silence. After five minutes he finished he looked up at the rest of the group who were staring at him in anticipation. He cleared his throat. “You are all going to want to know what this says. There is a lot here.”
He started reading the letter aloud.
T
I don’t have much time Drake has caught on. This is my last attempt to reach you. The person under the mask is…
20:
The night after of the Ice Giants battle:
Liz had never used an IVR headset before. Gaming had never been her pass time as a young girl. It always had been her siblings that had preferred gaming over her, but now it was up to her to help Tuomas save whoever he needed to from that dreadful virtual world. She picked up the nerve gear headset and place it upon her head tapping the power button, then proceeded to lay down upon her bed. The screen inside the headset lit up an automated voice began to speak to her. Please follow the instructions as they appear on the screen. As the instructions came up on the screen list follow them exactly. It had asked her to do some odd things that she would have never have thought, such as touching her arms and her legs, for a little did she know that it was all about her bodily proportions for the internal world that she was about to dive into.
Process complete. The automated voice chirped. Dive commencing.
Liz felt a strange feeling coming over her as it seemed that her body and mind were being transferred into a virtual bank across it digital space. She felt like she had just awoken into a new life. The world in front of her seem so real, she could hardly believe it. But she knew that it wasn’t, no smell, she could not smell anything which made her feel a little unsettled.
She was able to use a set of access code to gain entrance to the games Command Console that allowed her to put in the code that Tuomas had given to her over the letter that she had received from him from it the game. At first she was confused, but there had been an uproar in VI as he had been missing along with the others for quite some time. The letter that she had received had context to things that she knew that only Tuomas knew about her and other people in the building. She figured out it was him quickly, and found herself working with the instructions that had been to given her.
Upon in putting a particular line of code the environment changed in front of Liz. Going from a sunny day with course fields and beautiful farmland to bleak freezing cold mountain side covered with snow and ice. She felt a chill run up her spine as she felt the difference in temperature almost immediately. She attempted to open her character’s inventory to hopefully find some better clothing for her adventure that was now ahead of her.
To her excitement and relief, there was a set of winter apparel sitting in her inventory. She waved her hand over the item on the holographic menu and it magically equipped over her body and she felt the warmth of the coat upon her shoulders. She shivered once more as a subconscious affect to hopefully warm herself up a little bit more. She saw that there was a small letter and a map also sitting inside of her inventory, she hovered over the letter first. With a tap over the holographic button a small projected screen showed up in front of her. It was from Tuomas, it explained to her what her job was to do hopefully to find Scott after falling off of the cliff. Either to recover his body or to help him off of the cliff if he was still alive. She tapped over to the map to the predicted site of where he had fallen from and fallen into and a way back to Crystle for her so that she could bring or at least find them to attempt to recover Scott’s body at a later time.
She sighed then began her trek up the mountain pass map in hand. The snow was deep, and night began to fall upon her. She hadn’t thought that the game was also playing real time to the real world. She told herself she would go as far as she could until she could not see any more. And from there would log off for the night.
About half an hour past, which began to feel cold again as her virtual body began to sweat with in the winter clothing. She was just about ready to give up for the night. She knew she would have to take more time out of her day to attempt to search to find Scott. Her thoughts were becoming clouded of horrid ideas and depressing thoughts of Scott's demise.
Lost in her thoughts she tripped, landing face-first into the thick wet snow. She cursed to herself as she lifted her face off of the ground. As she looked upon the snow in front of her, she saw a faint color of red in the snow. Squinting she thought she was seeing a shape of a body lying about 15 feet in front of her. She gasped and quickly got to her feet to investigate.
As she got closer, she realized it was a body of a man. The physique of the body registered to her a Scott’s body. She carefully leaned over so she could roll over the body, for it was lying face down into the snow. As she carefully pulled on his shoulder to roll him over, the body’s left-arm grabbed her shoulder, and a raspy voice came out, “Help me.” it said.
Liz jumped back terrified, not expecting those words nor the arm to grab her. She came over herself in a matter of seconds realizing that Scott was the one reaching for her. And now she needed to get him somewhere safe, and contact Tuomas and let them all know that he is alive. She had to think quickly for it seemed like he was freezing to death after losing the amount of blo
od that had been spilled all along this hillside as she looked to see where he had been. Without thinking she did her best to pick him up and stand him straight. Scott moaned, as it seems that the wounds were deep and he had lost much blood, she tried to talk to him telling him that they needed to move down that mountain so he could warm up and his wounds could be treated.
Liz and Scott began to waddle down the mountainside. Taking it step-by-step to make sure that Scott didn’t fall and hurt himself anymore, she was shocked that she found him alive. But she is glad that she did, she wasn’t sure if her real-life body would have been able to hold in any vomit that she may have thought to have done if you had discovered him dead, and then having to report that to Tuomas. She was now glad she couldn’t smell, there was a feeling in the back of her mind that was thankful for that.
She pulled out her map, trying to drive those thoughts out of her head, which is not what she needed to be thinking about at the moment. Scott moaned, “Where are we going?”
She responded, “There is supposed to be a cabin here that Tuomas said he had prepared for us,” Looking for any sign of it, as the sun crested over the last bit of mountain and they were engulfed in darkness.
“Who?” Scott responded, as he continued waddling with Liz.
She didn’t answer as she saw a light in the distance, “Over here, see?” She pointed at faint light out in the distance.
Scott grunted in response.
It took them another thirty minutes to get to the door of a wooded cabin, it was larger than Liz had thought it would have been. The door was unlocked as she twisted the metal knob pushing on it to force it open. She almost lost her balance doing so. Leading Scott in, Liz shut the door behind them. The room illuminated itself for them: It really is a game world isn’t it. Liz thought.
Hours went by as Liz did what she could to stabilized Scott and stop all the bleeding being in the frozen tundra had slowed his heart and body down, but now being somewhere warm and him been moving around he had begun to lose blood again. She looked at the clock on the wall, it read 3:12:16 A.M. she swore to herself, she needed to be at work at six. She looked at Scott, he was out, and with all of the blood he lost, he probably wouldn’t be moving anytime soon.
She flipped up the menu and tapped the sign out button. “Sleep well.” She whispered as she saw the world disappear around her and her eyes saw the inside of IVR gear. Sliding it off, she slid her legs off the bed and sat up. She was exhausted from what had just happened, but her body was not tired at all. She swore under her breath placing her hand over her face. “Here is a new journey that I got roped into, great.” she verbally spoke out into her apartment.
Getting dressed, she looked around her room and then back to the IVR gear: God, I hope I can save him and set him back on the path back to them.
Liz realized she had a long road ahead of her, and she needed to get some help with this. She prepared herself for her day for work.
***
A week passed by and Scott’s body was making a full recovery. Liz visited him every day after she got off work. His physical body has healed mostly in such a short time. This shouldn’t be possible, not as a human. Liz kept checking where his deepest wounds had been. There had been some scarring from the wounds but they were all sealed.
She chalked it up to being something about his body being in this world, after all this is not home for him or the others, but a prison. But her fear about him losing his memory was true, he didn’t remember anything about being in this world. And he began disappearing for hours at a time, returning with money or goods. He was on a hunt to bring his memory back, for though he had lost it, his state of personality was still there, determined as ever to find out what he could. Since she couldn’t be there for him all the time, she wrote him notes, trying to catch him back up to speed with what was going on.
That night she thought it would be good for her to bring up the others, in more detail to him. She needed to test his memory to see how deep the lose runs.
“Scott, I need to tell you about the others that are here with you.” She said sitting down on the couch that was in the cabin.
He looked at her, “What do you mean? You already have.”
She looked back at him, “Not to the full extent that you need. I am thinking it may help you with your memories.”
He nodded, “If you think it will work, I am up for trying anything at this point.”
Liz gestured for him to sit down next to her. Sitting, she began, “Tuomas, as I said is the man who hired you, and the leader of your group here. He also lost his wife in an accident, along with his unborn child.”
His face was blank, she continued, “Donovan, big gentleman, black and bulky. Biggest heart too.” Liz smiled, “He is your group’s tank. Then Alissa and Nick, the siblings. Some sort of Hispanic if I remember correctly, you had issues with Nick in the real world. Alissa was always trying to keep him in line. I believe you punched him once.”
Scott nodded, “Okay, still nothing though.”
Sighing she continued onto the last one, “Charlotte.” She paused saying her name, “I didn’t tell you much about her, did I?”
Scott shook his head, “No, but for some reason I feel like it is the most important one. I can’t put my finger on it, and it is bugging me.”
Liz looked at him, “She… She is your lover.”
Scott sat there, trying to process what she just said, “Are you sure?”
She nodded slowly, “Yes, you two became almost inseparable, I think that’s why you punched Nick over something he said to her.”
Scott looked at her, “Loved her?” he paused, “I never thought I would ever find anyone again after... After what you have caught me up on, I can tell I am missing quite a bit in my mind. But I will do what I can... all I know is fighting from Cogs of War... it is all... was all I knew, and the sword over there.” He pointed to his gear, “I think I have... what did you call it? Muscle memory? It feels so natural to me.”
“Yes, muscle memory, and from what I have asked the standby nurse at Virtual Industry, and how I have described your situation, she was surprised to hear about how well you are handling your memory loss, most people would be breaking down mentally. Trying to grasp their fear at what caused the memory loss. You aren’t having any headaches or anything right?”
He shook his head, “No, just injury pain from where I was opened up. I have learned to deal with pain, I guess. I lost a lot of friends in Cogs, and some of my own family, I just block it all out.”
She nodded, making a mental note to ask the nurse something else about memory. “Okay, well I need to leave you for now. I have to get to work and ask another question to the nurse, I have a theory that I think already exists and would like guidance on.”
She stood up and flipped the menu open from her player character. She glanced at him one more time before logging off. She felt the nerve gear power down and looked into the insides of the helmet.
“It doesn’t make sense.” she whispered to herself, “He has memory loss but is not showing any of the other symptoms that come along with it, and there is no way his is faking this.” She needed answers. She slid off her bed and reached for her chair. Or maybe he is… She sat down in it and slid over to her desk to her notebook. She wrote down her question with some follow up parts for the nurse. “It is going to be a long day.”
***
Scott sat in the cabin again, stretching, but making sure that he didn’t reopen any of his wounds. He sighed: There is something I am missing, something that I need to find, to understand what is going on. Why can’t I remember? The gap I remember bodies, but the faces are blurred, and names… I can’t seem to hold onto them, why?
A flash of light illuminated the cabin room. A humanoid shape stood in front of him. It was only about three feet tall, almost like a Halfling. “Hello Scott.” The voice was robotic.
Scott stared at it for a moment before responding, “What are you?”
�
��I am Archangel, this world’s caretaker.”
Scott continued to stare at the hologram, “Why are you here?”
“That is not as a simple a question to answer. See Scott, I have your memories, and for a moment I shall return them to you.” Archangel’s holographic hand rose and his fingers snapped.
Scott put his hands onto his head in pain, and he screamed. After a few moments he recovered, trying to catch his breath he looked at Archangel, “Holy hell, what was that? What did you do to me? I… I can remember…”
“Now Scott, please listen, my time is limited and you must understand the path I am about to put you on, the very balance of the world, digital and real, depend on your success.”
“How do I know you aren’t being controlled by Drake?” Scott asked.
“Oh so simple minded.” Archangel smirked, “Drake and Deborah don’t even know I exist, and I am not even sure Tuomas does either.” Scott’s face read skepticism, “Now, back to the task at hand, I need to get you and the others to a different world, or digital plane, but I can’t do that when you are stuck like this and we may soon be down another person…” Archangel paused, “You need to defeat the Demon Goddess Hela to let me transport you to our next destination.”
“Whoa, slow down. Demon Goddess? What about the sorcerer?”
“Who do you think is going to awaken her? It is a path set in motion, something that must be done. Now, back on track again. You must head out and defeat the next large creatures in this world, and allow the spiritual energy to be released for her consumption. This will allow the sorcerer to summon her with enough power that her death will cause the cataclysmic event I need to alter this plane of digital existence.”
Scott blinked at what he was saying. Archangel sighed, “I guess it doesn’t matter that you understand, I am going to re-alter your memories to do this whether you want it or not. This must be done, you must get to the center of the digital universe.”
The Seeds of Evermore Page 18