Ultimatum: The Proving Grounds

by Wade Adrian

  Claire’s hammer bashed the chest of the last bandit in range. The poor sap had run right at them. “Big bad barbarian man complaining about his poor wittle sore neck.”

  “Hey, my neck is very fragile, and this headset is kinda heavy.”

  She beat down the bandit with her own combo of swings. Bright white light trailed the hammer head. “You get used to it… eventually.”

  “Makes my head feel really light after I take it off.”

  The bandit keeled over and the bright light and gong sound appeared.

  Paul hadn’t been wrong then. Thirty five. Toby wondered what, if anything, he was going to get. Probably just more of the same points.

  He tried to open his skill window, but his character didn’t move.

  “The hell?”

  His voice didn’t play in the game. His character twitched slightly. He could barely see an icon beside his name in the party panel to the left for all the light show around him.

  Paralyzed.

  “Hey hey hey, something very wrong here.” He raised his voice, hoping someone in the room would do something. “Can’t move my character, this is bad.”

  He could see Claire as the light faded. She was standing still as well, her eyes wide.

  The same icon had appeared beside her name.

  Tim’s voice was barely audible over the game. “Hey man, hold on, they’re coming.”

  “Tobin Ironblood.” A voice practically purred the name. “My first big score in the released game. Sadly I lost my beta head count.”

  A women stepped in front of him. She was decked out in black with a hood and a mask hiding her face. She was smiling, though. He could see it in her eyes.

  “Everyone thinks they’re so safe when they level up. Sure, it gives you hit points, but it also makes you practically blind and fully deaf for a few moments.” She twirled a dagger around her fingers. “And a moment is all it takes.” Something green was dripping from the dagger.

  Damn it. How long was this going to last?

  She put the poisoned dagger away and drew a sword. “I think Kingslayer is a wonderful title for the worlds premiere assassin, don’t you? I was overjoyed when I heard it was on offer. People will be hiring me for years because of this.”

  She held the sword out behind her, readying a horizontal swing.

  Damn it Paul, where are you?

  An arrow struck the woman. She jerked her head but looked back. The mirth had left her eyes. She swung.

  The blade struck him soundly, his health dropping below fifty percent.

  From one blow.

  Damn.

  She readied another swing, but she disappeared from view in a black blur.

  The sounds of a scuffle followed, but he couldn’t turn his head. Was it Amos? He had a bow. He had shot her and Paul had taken her down. Good plan.

  The icon beside his name began to blink. The effect was wearing off.

  Fucking finally.

  He lurched forward once he was able. The character’s movement’s weren’t perfect, but they were better than nothing. He lifted his sword and turned to face the struggle.

  Mitchel was standing and putting his sword away. He looked up at Toby and shook his head. “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes.”

  Toby sighed. The assassin was dead. “Are there any more?”

  Mitchel shrugged as he retrieved his bow. “Keep an eye out.”

  Claire lurched forward. “Son of a bitch that was close.”

  Toby nodded. “Okay, clearly Scooby Doo rules don’t work out.”

  She bowed her head to Mitchel. “Lucky you were close by.”

  He nodded. “The dragnet isn’t all that far ahead, really. Yell loud enough and you’ll get a few more. But I was heading this way to report in.”

  “You found something?”

  “An event.” He pointed. “Off that way. Some sea monster things.”

  Toby’s pocket shook. He reached down to fetch his phone. It took some doing with the gloves on.

  Mitchel: hey died while dragnetting

  Mitchel: on your own

  Mitchel: watch for sneaky types

  Mitchel: best of luck man

  Toby put his phone back in his pocket.

  Mitchel was standing there. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing major.” He shrugged. “Text from my mom. You remember my aunt that was cosplaying at the last comic convention? I introduced you. Anyway she fell off her bike. In the hospital. Nothing super serious. Mom thought I should know.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I remember. Hope she gets better.”

  Swing and a miss. Toby had no such aunt, and neither he nor Mitchel had ever been to the local comic convention.

  Paul and the others arrived, weapons at the ready. The lone assassin lay in the dirt.

  Mitchel waved. “Sup?”

  Paul let out a sigh. “Close. Too close.” He shook his head. “No more splitting up for any reason, regardless of how safe we think we are.”

  Toby nodded. “Sounds good.” He rubbed at his neck. “Life flashed before my eyes there. Lots of numbers and skill points, mostly. Kind of dull.”

  Claire and Jesse both set about healing him back to full.

  Paul nodded to Mitchel. “Good work.”

  He nodded back. “Of course. And I come bearing news. An event. Little high, but it should serve if you’re careful.”

  “That is good news. Excellent.” He glanced around and pointed. “Lets call in the dragnet or now and have everyone meet up over there. Those ruins should provide us some shelter while we break for lunch.”

  Mitchel nodded. “Sounds good.”

  Paul sent out the broadcast message and location to everyone in the guild alliance. The dragnet had members from both.

  They journeyed there on foot, with Toby keeping an eye on the man who, by all appearances, was Mitchel.

  Except that he wasn’t. But if he was an assassin with a disguise, it was a good one. And he had killed the other assassin. Why? Competition? How had some random assassin known to take on this guise?

  No. He was pretty sure that wasn’t the case.

  They set up in the ruins. Toby was hidden away in an interior room with only one door, which was closed, and the hallway practically packed with guild members. No one was sneaking in.

  He took his headset off and stretched his neck a bit. This was going to be awkward.

  They had sub sandwiches brought in. They were good. Toby was quiet while they ate.

  Paul ate with them. It was a first. He seemed in high spirits despite the close call. They were only fifteen levels from the cap, and they still had the better part of the day to work on that. They should easily hit forty and more today.

  Toby took out his phone and read the messages again.

  Fairly definitive.

  He held his phone up. “We do have one problem.”

  “Eh?” Paul looked up from his lunch. “What’s up?”

  “That guy in there? That’s not Mitchel.” He handed the phone over.

  Paul read the messages. He drew his eyebrows down and rubbed at his beard. “Can you call him?”

  “He should be at work right now, but yeah.” Toby called the number.

  It took a few rings, but it was answered. “Sup?” Mitchel’s voice.

  “Hey, wondering what happened to you earlier.”

  “Knifed in the back this morning, not too long after we started sending out people as part of the dragnet. I couldn’t get a message out fast enough to let anyone know. I assume my second in command picked up the slack, but I wanted to let you know anyway. Slipped my mind until I got into work, sorry. Bad traffic and then meetings.”

  “Hey, no big. Thanks for telling me. We’ve still got this thing.”

  “Word. Busy now, talk later.” Mitchel hung up.

  Paul was frowning.

  Jesse tilted her head. “Okay, so… who was that in game then?”

  Jerry shrugged. “Gotta be Miller. He has a GM accoun
t, so he can look like anyone he wants. Even a player.”

  “I guess. But why save Toby, then? Miller wants him dead.”

  Paul shook his head. “We don’t know what Miller wants. He gave us a timetable, but that may be his timetable as well. Maybe Toby dying now doesn’t benefit him.”

  Jerry nodded. “It’s a good spot for him. Close to Toby, but not someone in the building. He couldn’t know that Toby and Mitchel knew each other well enough to send texts. A lot of people talk to people inside they don’t know at all outside. It was a gamble he lost, but he won’t know that unless we tell him. So he’s around, and not part of our guild. We won’t get a notification if he drops from his guild, and he could knife Toby in the back whenever.”

  Claire frowned. “But he didn’t. He saved us.”

  “He saved Toby.” Jesse corrected. “You just happened to benefit.”

  Paul sighed. “He’s playing his own little game here. And we don’t even know the rules. I want guild members watching him whenever he is around. At the first sign of something weird, I want them to drop the guild and shoot him.” He turned to Toby. “And when that happens you need to get as far away as you can.”

  Toby nodded. “Sure. But so far he hasn’t done anything hostile.”

  Paul nodded. “I can only assume he wants us on that mountain. That he needs the time it’s going to take for something.”

  Tim held up his hand. “So lets use that time. We can point at Miller in the game now. Lets try and get an IP from him and help the feds track him down. His appearances were to erratic to trace before, but if he’s going to hang out…” He shrugged. “Get them a location anyway.”

  “Maybe. I’ll take the idea up stairs.”

  “They probably won’t like the part where we have people waiting to kill him if he sneezes.”

  “You’re right. Which is why I won’t be bringing it up.”

  Tim smiled. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “I’d be careful with the tone. I still sign your paychecks.”

  “And it’s such a masculine signature at that.”

  “Carol, please make him shut up.”

  Carol held her hand over her husband’s mouth. “Of course, sir.”

  Jerry rubbed at his chin. “I’ll see about getting some of our people not involved in the raiding party to watch Miller. I don’t think we can rely on outside people for this. It would take time to explain, and I doubt the feds want to increase the need-to-know loop.”

  Paul nodded. “Sounds good. We have the last two alternates as well, if you can’t find anyone else.”

  “I’ll see to it, and make sure they are in the pit so we don’t lose contact to any paralyze or silence effects or anything.”

  Claire frowned. “Are we still planning to take on this event? It was Miller that suggested it. I don’t understand him really wanting to help us. Maybe he just wants us weakened so he can finish us off.”

  “Maybe.” Paul shrugged. “But we still need to level. If it’s really there we’ll approach with caution, make sure we don’t get in over our heads. Should give us time to get our snipers set up and waiting for Miller to make a move. If he does, we drop him. If he doesn't, so much the better. Either way we need the experience. If he really intends for us to get to the top of that mountain, then we need to progress and he won’t get in our way.”

  ‘I get that.” She rubbed at her neck. Toby could understand. His was still sore as well. Definitely not sleeping sitting up again. “It just seems like there’s a lot we don’t know here. And several chances for things to bite us in the ass.”

  “For now he’s an ally so we can’t hurt him, and forward is the only direction we’ve got. It’s a risk, but I think we can manage it. We still have active GM accounts if we need one to deal with him directly in ways we can’t. But that’s the nuclear option. If we bring out ours, he might do worse things, or bring out some bit of code he’s been hiding to get them locked out, too. We are still running this game and they still have jobs to do.”

  Claire shrugged. “I just don’t like it.”

  Jesse nodded. “I don’t think any of us do, but we don’t have much choice.”

  Toby stood up and stretched his neck. “Once more into the breech, then?”

  23

  No one had managed to kill him while he ate lunch. That was a nice bonus.

  The party moved out to the event as a group. Group one had horses to call on now, but most of the rest didn’t so they didn’t bother to use them. There wasn’t much point to them waiting on the others to arrive, and even less in splitting the party.

  One does not split the party.

  It is known.

  Especially after the last time.

  Miller, in his guise of Mitchel, moved with them. Toby tried not to stare. He did better than most who knew. Fortunately they were mostly wandering behind him.

  Miller was nearly at the front. He lead them to the event as promised. Along the coastline was a lagoon where people with scaly human top halves and snake bottom halves were tearing down boats and building up a war camp.

  Paul nodded when he saw the camp. “We’ll need to approach carefully, but this should be a boon, yes.”

  Miller nodded to the members of the reserve guild. “Don’t suppose you’d mind if we moved to the far side and tried to keep them from swarming? We could use some levels ourselves.”

  “Not at all.” Paul nodded. “We’ll be here if you need a hand.”

  “Appreciated.” Miller waved and the members of the Kingsmen Reserve Corps broke off to follow him away.

  The Kingsmen watched them go. All four raid groups were in attendance, as well as several of the members that were not developers. Paul turned to them with a nod. “We’ll need somewhere to go after this. We should probably start up the scouting net again before long, but feel free to help us thin this place out for experience first.”

  Amos tapped the last two alternates on the shoulder. “That goes for you, too.” He pointed after the Reserve Corps. “Maybe see if they need a hand. Don’t want anything happening to our friends.”

  They both saluted and started that way. They had their orders before they ever logged in: Watch Miller and be ready to drop their guild standing if they needed to shoot him. Amos was just giving them a reason to follow him.

  The rest of the guild was unaware of what they had spoken of in private. Everyone that was part of the company knew, but that was as far as the truth went. No one else could be trusted with the information. They might switch sides or they might decide to take matters into their own hands and get them into more trouble. And even if they didn’t understand what was happening and acted against the alternates after they dropped Miller, it wouldn’t matter. The deed would be done and people could talk after.

  Of course, killing Miller’s character wasn’t likely to keep him down for long. He was using a GM account to masquerade as a normal player. That made him vulnerable… but only in the short term. His account would be immune to the rules if he had any sense. Especially if he was wandering around risking harm to himself.

  It would only buy them time. Time for Toby’s hood to go on and for him to hide as best he could. Miller hadn’t been around to see him take possession of it, Mitchel had not been present either, and he hadn’t used it in front of any of the Reserve Corps members. He’d only toyed with it last night in the tent and a bit on the road.

  A card to play close to the chest.

  He wasn’t sure if walking around without a helmet made him look brave or foolish, but that was how things needed to be for now. At any rate, it seemed to make him a bit more personable. Members of both guilds waved and gave polite greetings when they saw him.

  The event before them didn’t seem all that difficult. “The Troubling Sea: Rank 1” popped up in a window. He accepted.

  He understood there where a lot of events and activities in the game that had nothing to do with combat. Resource gathering, crafting, diplomacy, building cities… b
ut none of those offered the kind of experience they needed and all of them took far more time. Still, just swinging a sword all the time was getting a little dull. Those interesting times when his life was on the line gave it a bit of spice, but he looked forward to doing other things once all this was over.

  He had always fished in MMOs. It had never been a huge source of income or anything, just an activity to whittle away time… but it had always been enjoyable.

  Toby drew his sword as he looked down at the sea snake people.

  It looked like he was going to go fishing today after all.

  Amos stepped up beside him and loosed an arrow. One of the snake men lurched to the side as the arrow struck him. He raised his screwy snake shaped head and charged at the party with a hiss.

  And he brought friends.

  Members of the other groups spread out and picked up their own mobs.

  It wasn’t as easy as Toby had hoped.

  They had a level disadvantage going in, thirty five versus the thirty eight encounter. The healers stayed on their toes.

  Paul did well, likely due to his new black armor bits giving him a stamina boost. Toby never really tested his. He went out of his way to not pull aggro this time. They were advancing by the book for now. He had been reckless enough last night for a few days.

  They gained a level before the place thinned out enough to send the extras out looking for more promising leads again.

  Toby threw his sword into one of the remaining snake men. Fish snake men. Things. It hissed as it charged him.

  He couldn’t check the numbers, but it seemed like Soulbreaker did more damage now even when thrown, which had categorically been his least damaging attack. Probably because the game didn’t consider it to be one. It had never acted as part of the ability combo.

  While they certainly took the event seriously and gave it their full attention… they didn’t really do either of those things. Most were too busy trying to make sure Miller wasn’t up to anything on the other side of the camp. Paul lost aggro a few times, which was quite unusual for him. The heals were a bit delayed, and it often took a few moments for DPS to realize another mobs was ready to enter the meat grinder.