Gamers and Gods: AES

by Matthew Kennedy

Darla led him through Boomtown to the place she called Hero Plaza. It was a busy spot; throngs of avatars made a spectacle of it, their costumed bodies milling about, waiting their turn to ascend the steps to a trio of figures whom she called Trainers.

  As they waited, Darla advised him on his choices. “The first thing you need,” she said, “is a travel power. I always take Flight instead of the other options.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, with Leaping you take off fast, but you have to come down, sometimes too near a group of enemies. Teleport is short-range, so you have to keep activating it to cover any distance, which gets old after a while. That's why I like Flight. You can stay out of reach in the air and only come down when you want to, so it's handy for recovering after a fight without getting attacked by the enemies on foot.”

  He absorbed this patiently. “All right. After Flight, what should I ask for?”

  “Make sure you have Resurrect, too. If one of us gets killed but not eaten, you can always bring them back to full health with that.”

  “Flight and Resurrect,” he repeated. “And then?”

  “After that, you need a couple of ranged attacks,” she advised. “If anything happens to me or Sherman you need to be able to do more than just heal yourself. The best defense is a good offense, they say.”

  “Flight, Resurrect, and ranged attacks,” he agreed. “What are you going to get?”

  “More attacks and a minor heal, if it'll let me,” she said. “After all, who's going to keep you healthy if you forget to heal yourself?”

  It was finally their turn. Aes stepped up and faced the Trainer on the left of the three, while Darla went to the one in the middle. The NPC he faced was a man in a metal suit with a metal mask. “Hello?” said Aes.

  “Hello, Asklepios!” the metal suit said, startling him. “Congratulations on reaching level 17. Time for you to pick some new powers.”

  “I need a travel power.”

  A list of words appeared before him in the air:

  Πέτομαι (Fly)

  σκιρτάω (Leap)

  Τηλεθύρα (Teleport)

  He reached out and touched the first one. An invisible bell sounded and the list vanished.

  “You have selected Fly,” the metal man said cheerfully. “I see that so far you have Ranged Heal and Self Heal and Fly. What would you like to pick next?”

  “I need a Resurrect power,” he told the man in metal. This time only one choice appeared.

  Ἀνάστασις (Resurrection)

  He touched the word and it disappeared.

  “I see that you have Ranged Heal, Self Heal, Fly, And Resurrection.” The Trainer said. “Would you like something else? You are entitled to pick four more powers.”

  “Show me the choices for ranged attacks.”

  A long list of glowing words appeared in the air. Aes regarded it uneasily. So many choices! But there were people behind him waiting their turn. He selected Firebolt and Forcebolt; he wasn't sure what the second was, but they both sounded like missiles.

  Before taking anything else, he asked the Trainer about powers that hold or immobilize enemies. To his disgust, he learned that Darla was correct: he was not allowed any in that category.

  This is taking too long, he thought. The people behind me must be getting impatient. Calling up a list of Support powers he found Summon Friend, something he remembered her mentioning. But what to take for his remaining choice? He couldn't decide, so he left it unchosen and stepped off the plinth.

  He scanned the platform and the area around it for Darla, but failed to locate her. Had she needed to return to her real world to sleep?

  “Up here, silly,” her voice called.

  Startled, he craned his neck to see her. She was floating in the air about twenty feet up, her body hanging in the air vertically as if she were suspended by invisible ropes. A faint breeze from her position rifled the locks on his forehead.

  Well, he thought, I should be able to do that too, now. But how? “How do I activate Flight?” he asked her.

  “It's like your heals, Aes,” she told him. “You'll have to come up with your own gesture for the power.”

  After experimenting, he found that forcefully thinking the word petomai or 'fly' did the trick. Rising was as easy as moving in any other direction, once the power activated. He merely had to 'lean' mentally in the direction he wanted to move, to pick up speed. When he stopped leaning he coasted to a stop and hovered. He soared along with Darla, learning to pivot and make banking turns like a seagull. It was a godlike feeling, flying.

  “Now it's time you learned Death From Above,” Darla said, flying alongside him.

  “That sounds bad,” he said.

  “Not if you're the one dealing it out,” she laughed. “Come on.”

  She led him across the sky back to Boomtown and found a couple of knife-wielding Jerx robbing a young woman. Following her instructions, Aes hovered ten or fifteen feet over the head of them, a few feet away from her floating form.

  She drew back her right arm and threw her knife at one. It missed, but got his attention. The two Jerx forgot about the woman, who turned and ran for safety while they started jumping at Aes and Darla. But try as they might, they couldn't jump high enough to slash or stab her.

  “This won't work as well on the ones with ranged powers like guns,” she told him. “But for knives or clubs it's sweet. Try one of your ranged attacks.”

  Forcebolt! he thought, extending his right arm in a punching motion toward one of the Jerx below. A sparkling verdant beam erupted from his fist and smashed into the ruffian, knocking him off his feet.

  “Good choice,” she remarked. “That one often gives you a couple of seconds to heal yourself or attack again if it knocks them down...which it often does. What else do you have?”

  Firebolt, he thought, punching at the Jerx with his left hand as the fallen thug scrambled to his feet. A whooshing hiss like a thrown torch sounded as green flames erupted in a concentrated beam that struck the Jerx and set his clothes on fire. The bandit cried out in pain and dropped to the ground, rolling to put the emerald flames out.

  “Another good one,” she approved. “But why green fire? Are all your powers green?”

  “I don't know,” he confessed. “Maybe it's a healer thing.” He pondered it, and added “Or maybe because it's my favorite color – the color of grass and bushes.”

  “As long as it works. What else did you pick?”

  “Resurrection,” he said. “And Summon Friend. I think you mentioned they go well together.”

  “All good choices for your archetype,” she agreed. “Let's finish these guys off and get you some more practice, until you can use your powers without hardly thinking.”