The Marches of Edonis

by G. R. Cooper

  "Always practicing, eh?" Wulfgar asked the little man with a smile.

  "Only way to level up!" Rydra laughed up at them.

  Wulfgar leaned forward in his saddle, "So, tell me about these fabulous treasure rooms we're going to plunder after we get back to the city."

  Rydra began stroking Wulfgar's horse. "Well, I haven't actually been able to see inside one of them yet, but I assume they've got something worth checking out."

  "Why?"

  Rydra shrugged, "They were guarded. I figure it'll take two of us because when I screwed up and made some noise, the guards left their posts. Post haste." He smiled, "So I figure if we both go in, you can make some noise elsewhere to distract them, then go into stealth and draw them away."

  "While you go into the room and loot it." Wulfgar grinned.

  "Yup. After all," he bowed, "I'm the one with the lockpicking and stealing skills." He straightened back up and winked, "So, got any plans a week from last night?"

  Wulfgar shook his head, "Not as far as I know. I'll pencil you in."

  He looked up as Snorri brought the trailing horses into the group.

  "Your mount," the big man said with a flourish, handing a set of reins down to Rydra. The little thief, with unsurprising agility, leapt into the saddle and settled the horse, patting it along the neck. Lauren turned her horse and began leading the little group further into the small stand of trees. Wulfgar dropped his hands onto his saddle's pommel as he spurred his horse forward into a slow walk.

  "Any updates on the quest?" asked Rydra.

  Wulfgar shook his head, "Nope. Just what we learned last night. There's an outpost in the western frontier area of Clive's realm that hasn't sent a report into the city for a while. The last report received spoke of impending doom and what-not. We're to investigate."

  "But," he continued, "I've been wondering something. If we're only a few days ride to the frontier, just how big is this world we're in?"

  "Pretty massive," said Snorri, "Clive's kingdom ..."

  "Called Heim," added Rydra.

  Snorri nodded, " ... is just a small part of the world. It's kind of central for humans. For player characters. But there's a lot of the world left to explore. In all directions."

  "It's odd," added Lauren, "but it seems that most of the players, so far, seem content to live and adventure in the rough vicinity of Heim. Most folks don't really go in for the exploration bit. I guess that's a main difference between playing a game and living in it."

  "Some do," countered Rydra, "but some are a bit more adventurous. You just don't really hear about or from them as much since they're off exploring the world. Mainly ranger types."

  He sat back in his saddle, "Are y'all familiar with Richard Bartle?" The rest shook their heads. "Well, he was an early pioneer in online gaming. Really early. Like in the seventies. He helped developed the MUDs, the Multi-User Dungeons, that were text based online dungeon crawl games that played on the mainframes and terminals way back when. They were the great-grandaddy of all of this," he waved his arms, encompassing the world around them.

  Rydra paused in thought.

  "I bet he's using that perfect recall memory thing again," laughed Snorri. During their last quest together, Rydra had pointed out to the rest that one of the side benefits of being reincarnated as purely digital beings meant that the memories that made up their consciousness were now also digital - and capable of perfect recall.

  "Damn right I am. You'd be smart to use it too, and to let your elders speak! Anyway, Bartle came up with four basic categories that most players fall in to." He began counting off on his fingers.

  "The Achiever. The Socializer. The Killer. And the Explorer."

  "The Achiever wants to beat the system. They're the min-max players. The ones who like to collect achievement baubles and recognition. They live to see their names at the top of leaderboards or to become famous within the game community. They want to reach the highest level, obtain the rarest items."

  "The Socializer collects other players, in a way. They're the networkers. The guild, clan and kinship players. They like the drama of player interaction. They tend to be the helpers, the healers."

  "The Killers, well," he chuckled, "they like to kill. But they're not interested in competing with NPCs and the like. They want to combat other players. They get off on people thinking they're bad ass."

  "PK's," growled Snorri.

  "Some are. But some will hunt player killers. The PK and the bounty hunter are two side of the same coin. In fact, I'd say that most of the Killers aren't gankers or griefers." He shrugged, "Maybe."

  "Then there are the Explorers. They're the ones that'll seek out new lands and new people. They want to go where nobody else has been and see what nobody else has seen. The ranger types," Rydra said, bringing the conversation back to his point.

  "They're the ones who head out at level one and move in a single direction. Away."

  "Interesting theories," said Wulfgar. He knew at his heart, he was an explorer.

  "There's a lot more to it than that, of course. There are sub-categories and hybrids. The Socializer-Achiever, for example. And most folks will have a little bit of each category. They might match up to one hundred percent of the Killer description, sixty percent of the Achiever and twenty percent Explorer, for example. It's just a quick and dirty way of understanding player motivations."

  "Anyway, while us Achiever, Socializers and Killers are all squabbling our way around Heim, the pure Explorers are off into the rest of the world. They're off finding new places and peoples, learning everything they can. I expect that maybe we'll meet one or two in our travels. They're good folks to make friends with, if you want to learn the lay of the land and score a map or two."

  Wulfgar had to admit, that sounded like fun. Once he'd found Shannon, he'd have a long time yet to live in this world. He could see spending a good amount of his future simply getting to know it. He looked over t0 Lauren.

  "What do you think you are?"

  She pondered for a moment, "I'm probably a combination of the Socializer and the Achiever. Mostly Socializer. I got into my trade to meet lots of other players. I'm just a people person," she laughed. "How about you?"

  "Explorer," he responded instantly, "with maybe a little Socializer thrown in." He thought, "Yeah, almost exclusively a pure Explorer."

  "I suppose," interjected Snorri, "that'd make me a half and half. Killer and Achiever."

  "Our lovely tank!" laughed Lauren.

  "Let me guess," asked Wulfgar over his shoulder to Rydra. "You're an Achiever."

  The thief nodded, "Within the context of the game world, yeah. Mainly that's so I can finance my retirement," he grinned. "I'm all about leveling my skills as quickly as possible to I can steal everything that's not nailed down. And a few that are." He laughed loudly, "Once I'm rich and have a nice mansion on the hill with a bunch of pool boys, I think I'll be content to just be for a while."

  In the early evening, the group made camp beside the roadway. Lauren built a fire while Snorri tended the horses and Rydra gathered the ingredients for dinner. Bear was curled up near Lauren and Wulfgar decided to explore the area. They were in a small hollow, about a kilometer long, that nestled in between two low ridges in the larger valley. They had passed the first village a few hours earlier but decided, given the weather, to continue their journey and sleep under the stars.

  The day of riding had been pleasant, Wulfgar thought. The group, still little more than strangers, continued expanding their new friendship. They talked more of their past as well as their future plans within the world. Of the group, only Rydra had formulated a long term vision - and that was just to relax and enjoy himself in relative wealth and comfort. Lauren and Snorri, like Wulfgar, seemed content for the moment to allow themselves to be more or less carried by fate to whatever adventures came their way.

  Wulfgar crossed the dirt road, looking up and down it as he did. Once they'd left the environs of Edonis proper, the traffic had
thinned considerably. Most of the crowds moving through the city gates seemed to have been local farmers in the city to sell their crops, and as they approached the village the farms grew less common. Since they'd come through the village they had only seen one or two homesteads in the distance. There was, Wulfgar reflected, a lot of space in this world.

  As he looked up and down the road, first to the northwest then the southeast, the overarching view was of mountains in the distance. Snorri had told them that the range to the west, which paralleled the eastern, ocean-hugging, chain was much taller. It had a much higher average elevation. Given that the days ride had brought them about a third the way through the valley toward the larger chain, the mountains looked, from this point, to be of similar height. The sun was dropping below the western range, leaving it purpling in shadow. The eastern range shone in the last of the day's light, and he could still, just, make out the tallest of the spires in Edonis. Clive's tower. The first place he'd stood in this world.

  "That was, what, a week or so ago?" he mumbled to himself. Before he'd decided to leave the outer world behind - forever - and live within the Omegaverse. A week at this timescale, he thought. But this world, this inner Omegaverse, operated at a time scale far different than the outer game world and its mirror - real life. Much faster. A day here was like a minute or so on the outside. The time he'd spent in this world wasn't even an hour in his real life.

  That thought startled him.

  He suddenly realized what the girl in the magic guild had meant. At least, he thought he knew.

  When she said that he was soon going to experience personal death, she had known that he was still alive.

  Unlike everyone else in this world, his physical body wasn't already dead when he'd entered this world. The others had all died - from whatever cause that was usually unknown to them. He, however, had been given the option. He'd been given a device that he had used to sever his consciousness from his body. Once he pressed that button, he'd been told, his body would go to bed and die.

  That had been a week ago - on this time scale.

  That had been less than an hour ago on the outside timescale.

  His body was probably still alive. It would probably still be alive for a few days. He didn't know, hadn't been told, how it would die. He assumed that it would simply starve to death. If anyone found it and took it to the hospital, it would just be a hulk. A vegetable. No brain activity at all.

  If it was still alive, and would still be alive days from now - how long was that in terms of this world? Months? Years?

  Would he be able to go back into his body before it died?

  Assuming he ever got to see the now reclusive Clive, Wulfgar had an ever growing list of questions to ask.

  Wulfgar looked down into the ditch by the opposite side of the road from their camp.

  "Hey you guys!" he shouted, "Come check this out!"

  Chapter 2

  Wulfgar dropped into the ditch, bending to look more closely at the little bush he'd seen. He grabbed a few branches in his left hand and moved it to the side, further exposing the small cave behind it. Looking back momentarily, he saw Rydra, Snorri and Bear jogging across the road toward him, then he bent forward further and moved into the cave. The opening was small, he had to crouch and duck-walk his way into the small space, stabilizing himself with his right hand on the ceiling. It was dank. Wet. A little slimy.

  He moved through the hole and into a larger chamber. Straightening, he looked around. The room was dimly lit by a few sputtering torches hanging in sconces along the walls. Squared, the space looked to be about ten meters on a side, with two rows of plain stone columns - seemingly carved out of the rock like the rest of the room - running down the middle. The polished stone of the floor and walls reflected the fire light and gave the room an eerie feeling. It looked like it was moving, with shadows playing around the entire area.

  He turned his head and began speaking over his right shoulder, "Hey, you guys should ..." and then fell silent. The hole he'd just used was gone. The wall behind was as smooth and blank as the ones to his left and right. He turned fully and knelt, running his hands over the wall, trying to find an opening, a doorway. There was nothing. No way back out.

  He stood, ran his hand through his hair in thought.

  "Well, shit," he muttered, unsure of what to do and confused. He shrugged off the feeling.

  "This is a magic world," he reassured himself, "and you have to expect to run into some weird shit every now and then." The sound of his own voice calmed him. A little. He decided to explore the room. It was here for a reason, and that reason wouldn't discover itself. He grinned.

  Moving as quietly as he could, he walked up the middle of the room in between the rows of columns. The walls gave no further clues. They were uniformly unadorned but for the torches. The columns likewise seemed plain. The shadows continued to flicker around the room.

  Then he noticed a new shadow.

  Past one of the columns on what had been the far side of the room.

  Wulfgar choked in fear as a boot, then the leg it was attached to, stepped out from the other side of the furthest column. Wulfgar froze, panic rising along with the bile in his throat. As the shadow's torso moved into the central space, Wulfgar remembered his skill set.

  Breathing deeply, he activated Stealth and reached his hand behind his back to grasp the hilt of his short sword.

  The shadow, revealed to be a tall man with long dark hair that hung braided down his back, moved into the light. The man, dressed in a tight yet flowing red robe, turned his head and looked up the room, directly at Wulfgar. A small smile broke over his face as he reached into a pocket and pulled out a black cloth.

  "Stealth?" he said conversationally. "All right. I'll play along." He raised the cloth to his eyes and tied it around his head until he had blindfolded himself.

  "There," he said more loudly, "I can't see you." His smile grew wider.

  He turned and began walking away, still in between the rows of columns. Wulfgar followed, relaxing his grip on the sword pommel. Mentally shrugging, he let go of the sword, still in its sheath, and exited out of stealth mode.

  "You can take off the blindfold," he said to the stranger's back.

  The cloth disappeared from around the man's head.

  "What blindfold?" the man asked without turning or pausing. He continued to the end of the room and stopped in front of an ornately carved wooden door.

  Wulfgar caught up to the man and looked to the carving on the portal.

  It was a skull. Bas relief.

  Wulfgar nodded.

  His guild quest had found him.

  The man turned to Wulfgar, smiling. He patted the door in a friendly manner.

  "It's time you made a choice," he began. "And it's a life altering choice. You can only make it once, but you don't have to make it now. If you choose to go through this door, you choose to dedicate yourself to a profession. You choose to become a Magus of Evening."

  He turned to face Wulfgar fully and put his hands behind his back. His smile lessened, but remained open and welcoming.

  "I am Jeremiah, Magus of Evening."

  Jeremiah? Really? thought Wulfgar.

  "Yes, Jeremiah," laughed the man. Wulfgar blushed.

  "I'm in the guild. I'm a player, just like you. If you choose to join us, you may be called upon in the future to help others who wish to join us."

  He brought forward his hands and held them up, "But by help, I really mean introduce, I guess. I'm just here to explain what's going on and to answer any questions that I can. Any that I'm allowed." He cocked his head toward the door momentarily, "But once you go through there, you're on your own."

  "I don't have to do it now?"

  "Nope. You can decide not to and I'll open up the way back out. But why?"

  "You recommend this path?"

  Jeremiah smiled, "Oh yeah. Maybe I'm biased, but Evening rocks. Morning is all right, I guess. That's where all the hippy types seem t
o wind up," he chuckled, "you know, blessing flowers and healing kittens."

  He shook his head, "And Night? Those guys are pretty weird, usually. They're the kind of stereotypical sort who spend all of their time neck deep in ancient tomes under candle-light at the top of some lonely stone tower. I think those guys usually have delusions about ruling the world or some nonsense like that." He shrugged, "Those guys have access to some pretty powerful juju, but they're limited in what they can do."

  "No," he said shaking his head, "Evening is where it's at if you're going to be a Magus." Then he raised one eyebrow, "But like I said, I'm probably biased."

  "This is to choose my profession, right?"

  Jeremiah nodded, "Yeah. What that basically means is that you get locked into this path for the rest of your career here, but it means that you get access to a dedicated skill tree as well as the guild stuff. You know, secret handshake and the like," he laughed. "What class are you?"

  "Rogue, I guess. Stealth, backstabbing and the like."

  "That's a good combination. You'll like it."

  "You?"

  "Ranger Magus."

  Wulfgar thought about that for a moment. The idea of roaming across this vast, new world appealed to him. He wanted to look into that more in the future.

  "That sounds pretty sweet."

  "It is. This world is an amazing place, and I've only seen a very tiny portion of it. I think I was born too late for my true calling. The stories that really spoke to me when I was a kid were the mountain men. That's why I chose this name. Jeremiah Johnson."

  "Wasn't he a cannibal?"

  Jeremiah licked his lips and his eyes shone. Then he laughed, "That's the rumor," he shrugged, "but it's just as likely he spread that tale about himself to make folks fear him."

  Wulfgar joined the laughter then cocked his head, "Where are you at now? I mean, I assume that you're not actually beneath the northwest road a day out of Edonis."