“Let's just see what's at the bottom of the stairs, if we run into anything dangerous, we can always head back up and wait for everyone else to come home.”
Nodding, I continued down the stairs. They were steep steps as if they were made for someone or something that had about twice the leg length of a human. “With any luck, we might have actually found a real crypt or ruin, instead of the stupid outposts we’ve been finding the last few months.” Donny nodded and grunted in agreement, and we both fell back into an alert silence. A few more minutes of slowly walking down the stairs and into the darkness, eventually lead us to the end. The stairs ended, and a large, seemingly empty black expanse stretched out in front of us. “What do you think?” I asked, worriedly.
“I think, we come back with the whole family, and the guards, and a lot more lanterns,” Donny said, as he shone his lantern into the far darkness, revealing that we now stood in what looked like a large antechamber.
“This definitely looks like the entrance to a real ruin. Dad and mom will probably want to rent some time in some public pods and organize a family game night of it.” Donny said. His lantern finally landed on a large, and extremely interesting double wooden door directly opposite us, and nearly nine feet tall at its peak. There were no intricate designs, no runes or spells carved into the wood, and the handles both seemed to be plain bronze fixtures. But still, there was something about those doors...
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Let's get out of here” I motioned for Donny to head out in front of me, and as he made his way up the stairs, I took one final look at the door, now obscured by the darkness. It was oddly intriguing, I felt almost pulled to it somehow. Before I realized it I was standing in front of the double doors, and stretching my hand out to touch its rough wooden exterior. Under my fingers, I found that there seemed to be words carved into the wood, obscured by the darkness. When I brought up Sparks to illuminate the carved words, there was nothing. I felt them, but they didn’t seem to exist in the light of my sword.
I felt another strange pull to the door, I desperately wanted to see what was on the other side, though I couldn’t remember why. I shook my head trying to clear the strange sense of fog that seemed to permeate my mind, clouding my thoughts and preventing me from critically examining my actions. When I opened my eyes again however, my right hand was on the left doors handle, twisting the latch open. I tried to stop myself, tried to ask why I was doing any of the things I was doing, or feeling any of the things I was feeling, but the oddly overwhelming desire to know what was on the other side overrode every other mental process.
That part of my mind that remained in some semblance of control fought whatever it was that was controlling my actions, and pushed hard. All I got for my trouble was a splitting headache, and about half a second hesitation. I watched helplessly as my hand pulled the door open, and I walked past the entrance and into pitch black.
My vision swirled and blurred in shades and hues of black and gray, the lack of light in the pitch-black darkness was almost absolute. The only exception was the little light that came from Sparks, and those danced and fought in my vision as fantastic scenes came alive in front of me, and then so swiftly I couldn’t quite make them out, they blurred into meaninglessness. I closed my eyes and prayed it would all stop soon. After a few more seconds, my mind shut down, and blackness consumed me.
----
I came back to consciousness and opened my eyes sometime later, and I was in what seemed like a police interrogation room. My hands were cuffed together in front of me, with the chain that ran through the restraints connecting to a solid metal table. My feet were also restrained, and... And I was wearing a pink jumpsuit, that had the acronym D.S.O.C.C emblazoned across the chest in golden thread. I was alone except for a black possibly one-way mirror directly facing me, the table I was tied too, and an empty chair on the other side of it.
After a few minutes, I realized that there were a few strange things about this room, like the fact that there were no light fixtures, the room just sort of filled with a diffuse, yet powerful white light. My first thought was that something went wrong with the servers and the games administration team had initiated some kind of safeguard measure that brought me here, but if that were the case then where was Donny or for that matter the other hundreds if not thousands of players? And why was I shackled to the table? And why the pink prisoners uniform? And what the heck did D.S.O.C.C stand for?
Voices came from outside the only metal door leading in or out of the room, and my heart began to pound faster. A couple of seconds later the door opened, and in walked two creatures that seemed to come straight out of some kind of mythology book. The first was a tall, green-skinned lizardman, with bright shimmering, multi-colored and constantly shifting feathers atop its head and hanging from its arms, with shiny green scales instead of skin. It looked like some kind of lizard god from the ancient Aztecs or Mayans, though I didn’t know much about those civilizations from world history.
The second person to enter was a god's-honest-truth, I shit you not, real life freaking angel. Not the buffy the vampire slayer angel who got his own crappy spin-off series either. This guy had wings folded carefully behind him, golden breastplate, shining sword, and the whole Armor of God thing all worked out in fine order. Neither creature had a happy expression on their face, and there was definitely a feeling of strong hostility between the two. Strong enough that it seemed rather obvious both of them wanted to throw down right then and there. I had the feeling that neither the angel or Aztec god lizard creature really cared who they would be smiting today, they both just wanted to smite something. That made me, a something, a living something that could be smote, very nervous to be in close proximity to them.
“Um, hi,” I said, but before I could get another word in a third figure appeared through the door and moved towards the only chair sitting opposite me. As the third personage sat down I took stock of it, this one wore a gray business suit, the type that professional business people who were not very far up the companies flowchart, wore. For all I could tell, he was nothing more than a vanilla human, just like me, and he had the distinct atmosphere of an all business and no play lawyer type. It was obvious he thought he was in complete control of the situation. Whatever that was.
“Hi,” I said, but the man raised a hand to silence me before pulling up a briefcase I had not seen him carry in with him from under the table, and open it. He fished around for a few seconds before pulling out a stack of papers, setting them on the table next to the briefcase, before beginning to rummage through the case again. “Uh, sir?” I asked, but the man raised a hand again to silence me, before this time bringing out a large old fashioned ink well, and setting it by the papers. Half a second later his hand emerged from the briefcase and placed a large feather at least the length of my hand, gently beside the inkwell.
“Okay…” I began but the man raised his hand yet again to silence me, but I was done taking orders. The least this guy could have done was introduce himself. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I am really confused, and have no idea what is going on.” The angel that stood behind the businessman and next to the lizard god put his hand on the hilt of a short sword at his belt. The businessman looked back and glared at the angel. Slowly, the divine figure removed his hand, and placed it back on his belt like I had seen some cops do on the tv shows my mom use to watch when we were kids, before fully immersive hollo programs became so popular. The businessman turned back to me slowly, only removing his eyes from the angel at the very last second. He slammed his briefcase closed, and it disappeared from sight. I don’t mean that he moved it quickly under the table or anything so mundane, it literally just disappeared. One second there, the next gone.
“You, Mr. Tear. Are in a delicate position. One you don’t yet fully understand.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, confusion and skepticism clear.
The businessman sighed, “Where do you think you are Mr. Tear.”
�
��I think, I am in some kind of trap or prank program that the makers of Kingdoms of Ashe made as a cruel joke. Well, I’m not impressed with it. It's very immersion breaking you know. This kind of thing ruins the entire experience for players. I mean come on, the juxtaposition of an angel” The angel stiffened at my acknowledgment of his presence. “Some kind of Aztec god creature thing…” The lizardman flicked his tail in what seemed like surprise. “...and a lawyer who is trying to intimidate me just ruins the immersion. It would have been far more convincing had it just been you and me. Too late now of course, but you should change it up for the next person you guys try to prank.”
The man in the suit opened his mouth to speak, but I kept going. “Wait a minute, there's no way you guys are actually part of the games development team, it seems more likely that you guys are some kind of hacker group trying to extort money from naive players, people who don’t know about the emergency manual log out. Well, I think I’m done here. See yah.” I tried to initiate the emergency manual log out. Closing my eyes, I pushed my tongue to the top of my mouth as hard as I could, my personalized trigger for the emergency exit. And nothing happened.
I opened my eyes again, and all three of them were there. I closed them and tried a second time. Still nothing. I had no idea what was going on. Who were these people? Where was I and why was I here? How the hell did they somehow interfere with my manual override? That was literally impossible. The manual override was instituted specifically so that this kind of mental hijack couldn’t take place.
“So, you ready to listen now?” The man's voice was a rich, mature tenor. The type of voice that you could listen to reading audiobooks or DJ’ing on the radio all day. I didn’t say anything and kept my mouth firmly shut. I had no idea what was going on, and I had learned a long time ago due to a plethora of principal office visits that the best way to get out of sticky situations where you had no idea what is happening is by gathering information. And the only way you did that in a situation like this is by listening and paying attention to everything that these type of people said. By ‘these people’ I didn’t mean E-Pirates, which is who these people were, as I had no experience with this type of thing before. No, what I meant is with people who obviously think that they are in charge. Give them nothing, offer no information and no help, and they will spill the beans. People in charge like to let other people know that they are in charge, why, and in what way they could screw you over. So, I listened.
“Yes. Well, now that you are done talking I can explain your situation.” The lawyer lifted the first page in the small packet of papers up and read something on it. “What exactly did you mean when you said ‘emergency log out’? Log out of what exactly?”
“Log out of my pod, stupid. I mean, you’re an E-Pirate right? One of the best that I’ve ever heard of, somehow being able to disable the emergency log-out? How did you do it? Its suppose to be impossible.” I spoke up because I knew that that was what this guy wanted, I wasn’t giving him anything that he shouldn’t already know, so I thought it was fine. Besides asking a question usually sent the ‘in charge’ crowed in the direction that you wanted to know things about. That, and I was pretty bad at keeping my mouth shut despite knowing better.
“E, E-Pirate? E, as in the letter? What in the seven kingdoms of…” The lawyer stopped, lifted the stack of papers off of the desk and retrieved the one at the bottom. I got a glimpse of the title of the form before he lifted it off the desk. It had been read “Capture Methods and Circumstances of The D.S.O.C.C.”
“Oh, Oh I see. You think you’re still in your electronic simulated environment. How quaint! I didn't know that your world had begun experimenting with mind-altering direct interface technology or magics yet. That, well that is fascinating. Oh, Oh this explains a lot. I can see why you would think that I am one of these, letter pirates.” Much to my amusement, the angel rolled his eyes and looked decidedly at the gray metal of the door, shaking his head slightly in exasperation.
“Let me see if I can explain what is going on. You see, you, Daniel Tear, have been summoned to another world by a cosmic being that does not have an agreement with the cosmic being or beings that control your current world. In fact, the summoning of you should have been impossible, except for the strange circumstances that you found yourself in when the summoning occurred.”
“Wait, wait,” I said, raising a hand in front of me confused. “What are you talking about? I was summoned? Like, like a wizard would summon an imp or elemental? That type of summoning?” The lawyers face brightened slightly.
“Yes! Precisely. Well, maybe not exactly. From what I understand in most of the games that you are familiar with, the summoned creature is only there temporarily, there is some kind of time limit to how long that creature lasts in this world before it is sent back. If it dies in the summoner's world then its soul is sent back, and it still lives in its homeworld. While there is a form of lesser summoning like this, the spell that summoned you was more than that. It wanted to bring you to the target destination mind, body, and soul. Completely and totally, and most aggrieving to the cosmic entity or entities that control your dimension, permanently and without your consent.” The lizardman on the lawyers' left-hand side twitched his tail again, a visual cue that I was reading as unease.
“Holy crap!” I nearly yelled, then I started laughing. I realized what these guys were and what they wanted, they were just screwing with me to build their reputation. A new gang of E-Pirates, wanting to simply make a name for themselves. “Man, you guys are really committed to this story aren't you.” I had had about enough of the stupid stories, I had a pile of paperwork at home that still needed doing, and I was worried about Donny. “If you guys want ransom then just say so. My family doesn’t have a lot of money, but I’m sure we can work something out. Just stop with the stupid ‘you’re a puppet in a cosmic game’ thing. If you’re really all about the money as the news says most e-pirates are, then just name a price and we can negotiate from there. How does ten untraceable E-coins sound? That's gotta be worth what? Like, a hundred thousand in US dollars? That's my life's savings, you could put a downpayment on a freaking house with that. Not a nice house, but still, property.
“If you do the work yourselves it's easy to fix that kinda thing up. You can start a home flipping scheme, go legit, no more need for this kind of hostage stuff.” I looked at their faces, nearly pleading. I knew the frontman wouldn’t take the deal, it was his job to squeeze as much as he could out of their victims. But the other members of the conspiracy? Well, maybe they might be more sympathetic. The angel and lizardman both looked highly uncomfortable, the lizard man’s tail kept twitching against the side of his leg, while the angel wouldn’t meet my eyes. These were, what I thought at the time to be good signs. I was very, very wrong.
“Or, you know, do whatever you guys want with the money, I don’t care. I just have to get home before the end of tomorrow. Midnight tomorrow night is the deadline for my master's program application, I can’t miss that or I’ll have to wait for another two years on the waiting list to even be able to apply again. If you guys do screw me over like that, you won't get a single e-coin fragment out of me.” I realized then, looking at the seemingly unmoved face of the gang's frontman in his grey business suit, that I had probably overplayed my hand. To people like this, if I had ten E-coins I most likely had more. They probably wouldn't understand that I had just told them the complete truth, that I had opened with my best offer, and that there wasn’t anything that I was hiding from them. They would be expecting me to try and hide something of value from them, and wouldn’t accept the fact that there wasn’t. In short, I should have kept my mouth shut.
The lizardman chuckled and looked at the angel. “This one, are you sure you want to keep him? He seems, defective.”
The angel glared at the lizard “This inquest is not about his utility. It is about his freedom, his agency, his ability to choose. That is one reason my master had laid the veil of protection over
his world, to protect their ability to choose. Your masters have shattered that purpose, something that is a blasphemy that can not be forgiven!” The angel began to draw his sword, and the lizard man put his arm on a large wooden club with wicked-looking gleaming obsidian stone that jutted out from all sides that hung from the lizard's belt. A low growl began from deep within the lizard man's throat, as light in the shape of a seemingly bright fiery halo ignited around the angels head.
“That's enough from both of you.” The two warriors seemed to come to themselves, and quickly stand back at attention, stone still and rigged. Turning around the lawyer looked at both of them before continuing. “Why don’t you two leave now? You’ve seen him, now let me do my job.” The two seemingly divine beings looked at each other, and then almost as one turned and walked out the door, chastised.
“There, now that the riffraff is out of the room maybe we can get some real work done.” The lawyer put the paper back down on the pile and picked up another. “I understand your reluctance to believe me. It usually comes as a major shock to people who are in your situation. But the sooner you realize that I am not, in fact, one of these letter pirates from your home plane the sooner we can move on to the next steps. What will it take for you to realize that I am in fact not one of these letter pirates?” I thought about it.
“Alright, I’ll play along for now. I don’t know, why don’t you tell me? You're supposed to be what? Some kind of cosmic lawyer? An expert in all of this right?” I asked snidely.
“Well, kind of,” He said, lifting his right hand and turning it side to side. “I’m more of what on your world would be called a mediator. On your world, a mediator works by bringing two or more groups or individuals who are in conflict together to get to the underlying root of the issue, and see if a compromise can be worked out where all involved can be satisfied. I do something similar but with entities that have influence or power on a cosmic level, or in this case a multi-cosmic level. I have to admit, this is probably the largest contract I’ve worked on in my long career. And I once was a party to the great forging of the Andarian Pantheon.
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