“Yep, got it. Hop to and hop. Else we’ll begin calling you Rabbit. Actually, that’s not a terrible nickname, is it? Rabbit?”
Scowling, she pointed at him with her left hand.
“You’ll address m-me appropriately.”
“Then hurry the hell up, Rabbit. Quick quick like a bunny.”
Sighing, Nadine jumped down without another word. Runner caught her easily and set her down before she could even complain. Using her as a distraction had given Hannah enough time to clamber into the wagon without being noticed one way or the other.
Turning, he faced the lead Knight once more and threw a thumb backwards, in the direction of the wagon.
“We have another member in the wagon. May she exit so she might join us? I ask because I’d rather not surprise you later.”
Nodding his head once, the Knight said nothing, content in his Natural protocol to await input and do nothing.
Runner patted the fabric of the wagon twice, and Hannah clambered out and joined them on the ground.
Eventually there was movement in the tree line. Slithering out of the tree line came three parties of Barbarian warriors, men and women both. They all hesitated when they saw the Sunless Knights drawn up as they were, until they noticed Runner and his party.
Picking up the pace to a trot, they hurried over. Thana shifted uneasily as they came, her pale fingers tightening on the shaft of her staff.
Almost in unison, every Barbarian went down to one knee in front of Katarina, each hand slamming home to their chest as their heads bowed. Runner looked from the Barbarians to the Knight once more. He’d assumed the Knights had been addressing Thana…
“Princess Katarina, please allow me to lead your honor guard. His Majesty would be honored to hold a reception in your honor. Then I imagine your father would wish to have you returned as swiftly as possible.”
“As you will,” replied a listless Katarina. She’d raised her head and addressed the man directly. From where Runner stood he could only see her profile, but even then she looked defeated.
Runaway princess perhaps?
It wasn’t completely unbelievable. Katarina had a directness that brooked no arguments, an intelligent mind despite speaking in clipped phrases, and conducted herself expertly. She cared little for niceties and seemingly approached everything head-on. What did that make Thana, then?
“Please provide me five of your men for an escort for the princess and her lady-in-waiting,” the Knight said, addressing the woman at the front of the Barbarians. He rotated to address another Knight beside him. “Sergeant, put the others under guard and escort them to the stockade,” the Knight commanded.
“No, you will not.”
“Princess, I apologize, but it is the will of the king that all found in or near Crivel should be confined.”
“Allow them to travel with me, or I draw steel. We’ll see who supports who.”
Sensing her mood, the platoon of large muscled Barbarians faced the Knights and fingered their weapons. The Knights in turn began easing their mounts backwards, weapon tips starting to dip downwards.
Runner quickly interjected before this got out of hand. The Knights and Barbarians would only perform the functions allowed to them by their original coding.
“Pardon, Sir Knight, I was in the process of escorting the princess back to friendly territory. I freed her and the Lady Thana from captivity. I only wished to complete my quest.”
Runner emphasized the word quest, hoping that somewhere in that programmed brain it would pick up on a radiant quest indicator and roll with it. Deeply embroiled in his internal thoughts, the Knight stared at Runner. To him it was clear the Knight’s AI was running roughshod over its databases to determine if there might be relevant information.
A Quest has been generated
“Escort Princess Katarina Home”
Experience Reward: 25% of current level
Reputation: 15
Money: 5 Platinum
Do you Accept?
Yes/No
WARNING! Experience Reward is adjusted based on current level at turn in.
Letting out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, Runner smiled and mentally accepted the quest.
Quest Accepted
“As you will, Your Highness. I meant no disrespect, but I must obey my king. They will travel with you, though in the wagon and under guard. They are considered suspect until otherwise cleared,” the Knight grudgingly allowed. Turning his mount, he spun from the group and pointed at two other knights. A handful of Barbarians broke off from the group to fall in with the Knights.
It would seem their brief freedom of choice and destination had been taken from them. There would be no fighting free from them without casualties. Better to play along for now.
This’ll give me a chance to talk with Srit anyways.
He moved to Katarina and patted her on the shoulder, catching her eyes with his own. Smiling, he tried to reassure her.
“Don’t worry about it, Kitten. If anything, I needed time to plan and talk to Srit. Do what you can for us, but don’t start a second war this continent doesn’t need.”
Katarina blinked at him and then slowly smiled, her black eyes lighting up. Her defeated posture straightened out a bit, and it looked as if she was awakening for a second time.
“Yes, Runner.”
“Good. Thank you, Princess Kitten,” he said teasingly. He grinned wide at her, enjoying the look of mild embarrassment that colored her cheeks.
After nodding to Thana, he left their company and mounted the driver’s box and clambered inside the wagon. Hannah and Nadine had already taken up their own seats. Hannah looked extremely vexed.
“Hanners, it would have been infinitely harder to explain why we had a stealthed companion they didn’t know of. I’m sorry. I truly believe it’s better for us to lay our cards on the table, as it were. At least for the time being.”
“Fuck you,” she grumped, her arms folding across her chest.
Runner caught himself before he replied. Before yesterday, he had treated them without care for how they took his actions or words. Today was a different day. They were alive to him, not bits of code strung together with an AI to facilitate human mimicry. Hannah, Nadine, Katarina, and Thana were all alive and very much women. Women he’d been shamelessly flirting with and been far too forward with previously.
They’d been together for months on their journey here, and a strong bond had formed between them all. He could continue treating them as he had, as he had resolved to the night before, or become exactly who he was in reality. Outside of the game, back in the Sovereignty. A coward.
“I’m flattered by the offer, but it’s not the time or place. I mean, damn, that’s pretty kinky, but no. Not to mention I don’t think Nadine would want to watch,” he said, gesturing at Nadine.
“Runner!” Nadine hissed at him, her face coloring a deep red.
Hannah laughed, shaking her head, sending her black hair to and fro.
“Good! I’m glad that ice on your balls from yesterday melted. Asshat. I was afraid you’d gotten boring.”
“Working on it. Yesterday changed a lot of things.”
Runner dropped his eyes to the floor of the wagon. Ted’s death lingered on him though not as badly as he had feared. He wouldn’t be the same, but he still valued Hannah’s life more than Ted’s.
“Why do-n-n’t you wear plate?”
“Plate? Penalties. I’d have to enchant my current gear with enough strength to wear it, then make sure the gear itself had enough strength on it so I could keep wearing it. If I ever unequipped it, I’d have to go through the whole cluster fuck again. Not worth it. Why?”
“Just a thought. M-maybe wear plate, use spells, shoot a bow. Kind of thing.”
“I wish I could, and the thought has crossed my mind. Here’s the scenario though. Spend all that enchantment on strength to wear plate. This leaves me with a hefty agility penalty and low intelligence. Maybe I
have enough left over to kick some points into intelligence. I might be able to cast a few spells—nowhere near the power of someone like Thana though. I’d be suffering an agility penalty from the armor, low constitution, high strength, medium intelligence. Truth be told, I might be worse off than I am in leather armor.”
Runner mentally felt stretched thin. It was the very same roadblock he had hit when he started thinking about the problem himself. In the end, no matter what he did, he could never perform at the level that he could push his team mates into.
“That m-makes sense. What about chain mail? Every rin-ng perhaps?”
“With small items, or items that are exactly the same, a singular enchant enchants them all. Things like buttons, rivets, ringmail chain, and the like. I’m broken, but not that broken.”
Hannah nodded her head, as if she had been wondering the same but lacked the courage to ask.
“Okay. Going to be talking to Srit aloud.”
“They’re here? Where? I don-n-n-n’t see them.”
“Ah, Srit’s here but not here. I’m the only one who can see what it says, but it seems like he/she/it can hear me when I speak.”
“So you’ll just sound like a crazy bastard? No different than usual.”
“Ha ha. Love you, too. Srit, are you there?”
Yes. You are on Earth.
Runner closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands.
Earth?
Maybe that “What are you?” question would be more applicable after all. This could be a case of aliens wiping out the local species on Earth for the roach motel it was.
“Okay, thank you, Srit. What is your next question?”
Where did you come from?
“From Sovereign Earth. What used to be the continent of North America if you’re asking which specific landmass. Please let me know if you need reference materials.”
Not needed. Answer was acceptable.
“What planet is your species from?” he asked. He didn’t feel that asking which species directly would give him an answer, but an origin point would.
Earth.
Runner could only nod his head. That and hold back the bitter laughter that threatened to escape.
It seemed like fate wanted to mock him. He’d once compared himself in an analogy to a Neanderthal. He couldn’t have been more accurate if he tried it seemed.
“Proceed.”
How did you get here?
“Please qualify statement. Here, as in this game, or here, as in the ship?”
Please provide an answer for both. I will answer two questions in succession as well.
“Let’s see. The ship was sent out to neutralize a rebellion and the crew was put in stasis. During that transit the ship underwent an emergency protocol activation. The emergency destination point was apparently set to Earth. Though based on what you’ve told me, it looks like we were traveling very, very slowly. The ship has been in transit for forty-four thousand years,” Runner offered up. It felt odd to be explaining the whole thing to Srit, but it felt good to discuss it with someone.
“As to this game, we were loaded into it to preserve our minds. I assume this was done due to damage to the medical server, but I have no proof of that.”
This is acceptable.
Runner thought about his next two questions. He needed to establish what their plans were for them and how Srit was even here.
“What are your intentions for my crew? How did you, Srit, get here in this game?”
We wished to awaken you and discover all we could. We have few records of our ancestor species, and your ship was the promise of an archaeological breakthrough. The entirety of your race, history, and culture was lost to us in the Purge Wars.
With a frown creasing his brow he thought on that one. There had been theories that the Neanderthal progenitors had been pushed out of existence by breeding with homo sapiens. They wouldn’t have been able to know that at the time from a lack of scientific understanding, but his culture would have known.
In the end, it sounded to him that humanity left center stage while attempting to kill its own progeny when it discovered it was being replaced. Rather than trying to assist its children, it grew afraid and attempted to snuff them out.
Fitting really.
I was tasked with awakening you and your crew. I was injected into the system from my host directly into your pod to determine the cause of your sleep. Once complete I was to release you. In my attempt to do so, I activated this “game” as you call it. Not understanding the programming language, I activated a protocol that took over my programming, the central computer for our ruling body, and killed my host. I have been trapped here since then. I had no awareness of myself. I was a passenger that followed you. I have learned from watching.
That was mildly discomforting. It meant that Srit had been tagging along with him the entire time. He’d assumed she was outside, so finding out Srit was an AI and trapped like everyone else was a surprise.
The fact that she’d loaded directly into his pod provided the reason as to why he was the only one she could communicate with. She had integrated into his pod directly.
He had to wonder at their lack of protocol regarding unsafe systems. Did they live in an environment where there was no such thing as a hostile system?
I must leave and report. I will notify you upon my return.
“I see. Thank you for your time, Srit. I imagine we’ll have more to discuss.” With a shake of his head, Runner looked to his two wagon companions. “Sorry about that. Was definitely informative.”
Leaning back, he smiled and forestalled the questions he knew were coming with an upraised hand.
“It is indeed forty-four thousand years ahead. Humankind is no more, and has been replaced by their own evolutionary children. We’re currently on my home planet, which is their home planet now. Their original intention was to free us—for study, a zoo, I dunno. Srit is trapped here just like us. Srit had to go report back, probably about the very information I gave them. I miss anything?”
“Yeah, how the fuck is your dumb ass going to get us out of this mess? Princess Katarina doesn’t seem to be very helpful right now,” Hannah said, mockingly rolling her eyes at the word princess.
Laughing at that, Runner shrugged with a smile. Hannah would ever and always be Hannah. She would focus exclusively on the current problem.
“No clue. Most of my plans are spur of the moment things. I figure we complete the Princess quest, which you all probably got, except Katarina. Then we see what’s going on from there. To be honest, I’m eager to see what my reputation bonuses will net us. Those only typically work with faction vendors or leaders. Worst case, I bottle up a huge number of Stealth potions and we slip out like ghosts.”
“Reason-n-nable. If we have to sell m-m-my wagon, you’re buying a n-new one later.”
“I plan on buying us a manor, let alone a wagon. We’ll buy a storefront and you can run it, forget the wagon.”
Nadine and Hannah said nothing to that, staring at him. Self-conscious, he hunched his shoulders defensively.
“What’s wrong? Would an emporium be better instead? That way everyone can have their own counter? It’s just a wagon. We can do a lot better.”
They still said nothing, watching him.
“Was it the manor? Err, if it’s not big enough, tell me. We can probably buy a bigger one. I’m kinda guessing here. For crying out loud, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing.”
“Nothin-n-ng.”
It was a death sentence. Whatever he’d said that provoked them, they didn’t want to talk about, and it would be no use to argue. Rather than force it from them, he’d give them the time to figure out what they wanted to say and check back in later.
“Alright, well, forget the wagon. It’s not a long-term solution. We need to plan ahead for our long term. As to truly getting out of this, we shall see. I’m going to spend some time on my level up and sorting out the abilities I picked u
p. I opened your access to the servers if you need anything from the ship.”
After calling up the level acceptance screen, Runner hit the button and shifted gears mentally. Up to this point he’d been dumping his points into dexterity, intelligence, and agility. Having used Spellbind and Arcane Smithing in conjunction on all of his equipment, he was now at an even playing field with everyone else.
No one else had been forced to put every stat point in charisma at the start.
He pulled up his character stats for a quick review.
Name:
Runner
Level:
26
Class:
Race:
Human
Experience:
2%
Alignment:
Good
Reputation:
10
Fame:
5,150
Bounty:
0
Attributes-
Strength:
1(31)
Constitution:
1(31)
Dexterity:
11(41)
Intelligence:
11(41)
Agility:
6(36)
Wisdom:
1(31)
Stamina:
1(31)
Charisma:
64
The massive boosts from his Spellbinding added up significantly. He dropped the single level up point into agility, closed the character window, and finished the level up.
A single memory floated through his head. Spending time with a cousin as she recovered from… something. The details were fuzzy but he could remember sitting at her bedside day in and day out.
Otherlife Nightmares: The Selfless Hero Trilogy Page 2