Continue Online (Part 2, Made)

by Stephan Morse

  A flash of insight hit me. There was a third possible reason Trillium might want to see me. I had hit a coworker rather hard. The Hal Pal units expressed their lack of evidence but maybe Jacob had filed a complaint. Maybe they were going to fire me anyway.

  No. I was a good employee. Right?

  I went to the ARC and lay down. My fingers crossed with the hope that Elane hadn’t stabbed my autopilot. Once again I flew through the Atrium without pause and went straight back to Continue Online.

  A message was floating in front of me.

  What? My total log off time should have only been an hour in game. What exactly had happened during that time-frame to result in unconsciousness? Did we get ambushed? Was there a trap? Had my autopilot run into a wall in a cartoonish moment of panic?

  Being in a game and seeing this black screen was strange. My eyes struggled to open but at the same time, there was a clear awareness. I heard muffled sounds. Someone was grunting and huffing. Elane, maybe? She seemed to be worn out.

  “Psttt.” That was a male voice. “Psssttt.”

  More words passed by and nothing made sense. I could feel the ARC simulate a jolt of pain to my midsection. Nothing smelled right.

  There was another box displaying messages regarding a [Focus] and [Tenacity] check. More messages floated up about them being mental and social traits. The text boxes seemed to go on about internal effort versus external recognition. Either way, I was excited. A small sliver of vision appeared behind the messages.

  “Mmmffh.” I said.

  “Mmmffthh?” I tried again. Everything was blurry and shaped oddly. Parts of the location we were in was glowing an off color.

  Was that wall blue? No. It was purple. Wait. Pink.

  Oh, neat.

  “Psssttt!” The whisper came again from one side. A zig zag of color traced across the bottom of my eyesight causing a panicked flinch. Only my distraction reading the system windows kept me from completely freaking out.

  Elane was carrying me along. My hands and feet were bound and mouth gagged. I tried to ask questions but each time my mouth muttered something the floor was splashed with a distortion of indigo.

  I tried to hold very still and not panic. This had been a long twenty-four hours in the real world. Punching Jacob, killing my first humanoid computer program and falling into a tunnel. Running into a sort of ex-girlfriend, being set on a Grand Rapids swim through barely illuminated water. On top of that, I was trying to be a bit less cowardly in the face of conflict.

  Tomorrow didn’t look so hot either.

  “MmMhph.” I rocked a bit. “Mmhffph.” Oh neat. If I changed tone the ripple switched from blue splashes to a deep emerald. Maybe it was the drugs or newness of sensation, but I made noise and hummed in different tones just to see what colors came up.

  “Hmm hummmhhp mmhhhh.” I tried to get the deep baseline at the end of Beethoven’s piece.

  “This way, we’ve got to move.” Edward’s words were an obtrusive green puke color. It seemed to drip off his mustache and smeared through the air with each twitch of his cheek.

  “Mmet.” And this whole situation was neat. Only my words were muffled.

  “Your boy toy is awake.” TinkerHell said with a cheery wave. She was standing nearby. Elane pulled us along the floor some more. Part of her heavy armor was gone now, she was down to the chest piece and a dress like thing that covered her legs.

  “Fuck him.” Elane said.

  “My dear lady.” Edward started. I heard the shield slam into the side of something and a series of ripples spilled across the air. I started giggling into the gag across my mouth.

  My body felt sluggish. Everything zoomed in and out with each noise. Distortions were rapidly becoming part of my trippy experience. I had never been high before but this game seemed to be doing wonders.

  “We don’t have enough time. Not nearly enough time, and what does he do?” Elane sounded angry, but her words were so pretty to look at. They spiraled through the air chasing each other like barking dogs made of orange paint.

  “It’s not his fault.”

  “His autopilot is weird!” Elane completely ignored TinkerHell’s attempt at defense.

  “Ladies, keep it down.” Edward harshly chimed in. “Sneaking, we’re sneaking now.”

  “You know Gobblers have bad hearing. I could roll Grant down into their town and they may not notice.”

  “Be that as it may, we’ll never make it with your bickering.” Edward was rubbing one of those claws on his hands against the stone wall again. Each scraping of metal against mineral sloughed off a layer of color.

  “We could go faster by untying him.”

  “Are you kidding? He ate his share of the ghost mushrooms! He’ll be flying high for days.” Elane shot down that idea.

  I giggled. The game message still floated nearby. I had been trying to focus on it and remove the pop-up but concentrating was difficult. Or was it?

  “It’s one way to pass time though selling them would have been more valuable.” Edward responded.

  “Well he’s new, maybe Hermes didn’t know.”

  “Either way, we must be going. Untie the poor sod and we’ll try to sprint.” Edward, what a charming rogue he was. Even I felt smitten, or maybe it was the drugs. [Ghost Mushroom]s seemed very effective at, whatever this was.

  My face went playfully serious and started nodding. Yes, being untied would be fantastic. The gag came off first. Immediate humming ensued. A country box step pattern came out of my mouth and it was light green, almost appley. This Chromesthesia was really doing a number on me. Along with whatever the general high effect was.

  “Grant, this is your quest, try to focus.” Elane said. At least she hadn’t hit me with the shield yet. Not that anyone had explained how my autopilot got tied up in the first place. Those bindings had been fairly good.

  “Elane.” I frowned and bobbled my head. My hands were clasped across each wrist and rubbing where they had been bound. The sensation was marvelous.

  “What, Grant?”

  “You’re pretty when you’re angry.” I said happily. That didn’t come out right.

  “What?” Elane said. Her anger at me seemed to falter due to confusion. Her brows ran together as her forehead scrunched.

  “But your mustache has to go.” Was my happy commentary to Edward. He just twitched but there seemed to be a slight smile.

  “The ladies approve.” He said.

  “No, they don’t.” I shook my head and looked around. TinkerHell was laughing off to one side.

  “Where are we going? Did we get to the town place, thing, place. Thing…” Oh god, my brain wasn’t delivering the right messages! This felt wrong. I watched my own words spill out in pleasant dark greens and started tilting forward.

  “Very batty.” Edward confirmed my mental status.

  I nodded more than anyone should and tried not to speak. We were high on a ridge. This seemed to be some sort of half formed, half carved walkway that went across a large underground cave. In the distance, a bunch of colors were pulsing with soft, faint waves.

  “What’s that over there?” I pointed.

  “What’s what?”

  “Where the color is.” Words were hard to formulate. Did the others see colors? That was a silly question, of course they saw colors! Dumb me. My head shook slowly.

  “Does he mean the chanting?”

  I tilted my head and shut both eyes. Having them closed barely muted the mix up caused by a specialized version of Synesthesia. Yes, that was music. Almost like an abbey full of monks chanting in eras gone by. Their voices spun together with a hint of metal vibrations. As if a tuning fork could do a full song.

  “You’re humming again.” Elane grumbled.

  “MMmh.” My own deep green noise was laced with veins of blue.

  “Four hours, maybe five. If we run, maybe faster.” TinkerHell said.

  The others were almost around the corner before my feet actually moved. In a panic, I
turned and shuffled after them. Each footstep, each clank, sent another ripple of hues and color tones across my vision. We would stop to walk and then run again when everyone had energy. The [Light Body] skill hit another rank and a pop-up box sent me stumbling. Not the box itself, but the noise it made as it came into being. Well, the window didn’t help either.

  “Ahhh!” I cried out and rolled into a wall. Sitting there was bad for me once shaking kicked in.

  “My hand. It’s.” Doing something. “It won’t stop.” Both eyes blinked repeatedly as clarity swam in and out.

  “We’ve got to go, Hermes.” TinkerHell was the closest to my position. Elane was up ahead and glaring. Edward kept on scouting.

  The world turned to purple static for a brief moment. My body bounced in the air as a second wave hit.

  “My hand!” Now I was really tripping out.

  “That’s…”

  “That’s not your hand, Grant!” Elane shouted. I saw a piece of armor come into existence and she slammed it into place. “Edward! Tie this down!”

  “Not what I was hoping for.”

  “Tink!”

  “I’m on it, scroll wall incoming!” TinkerHell was shouting something. Her staff was cradled under one armpit and in her hands was a much larger scroll. It burned brightly as she twisted a thumb across the starter symbol.

  “Hermes, try to stand!” The blonde said as glowing letters rippled across the parchment. “We need you!”

  Wow. These people were panicking harder than I was. There was another thump of static inducing purple that made my heart jump. Both eyes kept trying to focus on a space just off to the side of my hands.

  “Hermes! This way! Boobs!” Edward said. Voices help me, even the thought felt somewhat like betrayal, I looked. The man was smiling with that twitchy mustache.

  “See, that always gets a man’s attention.” Edward said.

  “If I didn’t need all my energy, I’d whack you.” Elane responded. There was a grim look on the short Spanish woman’s face. Her hand held onto the mace as Edward wove a strap under her arm.

  “All the more reason for me to press my advantage when I can.” He said. The ground thumped again. “Or perhaps later.” Edward didn’t slow in his assistance with the armor. Two more pieces of gear went on and soon she was fully equipped again.

  “Is someone knocking on the door?” I asked. That’s not what was in my head, but it’s what came out of my mouth. There was a serious disconnect between everything.

  A giant hand swung up on the ledge. Each finger was easily bigger than my entire body. Dirt tore at the edge as something pulled itself up further. A second hand almost overshot the ledge as it descended to latch on.

  “That’s neat.” I said. One eye squinted and tried to activate [Identification]. It failed. “Identifyicus maximus!” Verbal attempts at activating my skills also failed. Voices, I was high.

  A giant head swung into view. I’m pretty sure that one eyeball on that monster was bigger than my entire body. The creature looked like a giant baby made of dirt and insanity. Plus colors were all over the place. Each groan of terrain spawned another waterfall of lights and visual sounds.

  “Barricobbler!” Elane shouted. Everyone always shouted during fights. Why was no one calm? My head swam around. Was that seriously the monster’s name? How amazingly silly was that? This was a game after all. Or maybe my drug addled mind was making something up.

  I should be upset and scared. Instead more giggles came forth and soon turned into outright laughter.

  Ice, probably from TinkerHell, started in a long line across the pathway’s edge. Moments later it had climbed up from floor to ceiling to form a solid wall. Barricobbler, if that was indeed its name, had both hands frozen inside of the sudden wall.

  “Fly, you fools!” Elane said. She gestured with her shield arm down the long hallway. Barricobbler gave a strange groan that was exactly how a giant baby rock monster should sound.

  “That’s my line! I’m the caster!” TinkerHell was running anyway. One hand lifted her robe up so it wouldn’t cause her to stumble. TinkerHell used her other hand to grab me as she passed by.

  “Fly anyway!” She shouted and ran after us. Elane wasn’t sacrificing herself like that.

  “Patrol!” Edward shouted in front of us. Soon his standard fare of ‘Critical Strike’ and ‘Dodge’ and ‘Hamstring’ followed.

  “Grant! You’ve got to hold them!” Elane shouted.

  “Wahh?” I fumbled around with screens and inventory buttons trying to figure out where [Morrigu’s Gift] had gone.

  “Hold, the, monsters!” Elane shouted. She was taking up position somewhere behind us. I could hear her grunting, shaking and talking to herself. The ice was cracking from where, Voices what a silly name, Barricobbler was breaking loose.

  “Up here!” TinkerHell was already running towards Edward. I tried to run but there were too many colors, sounds, jarring my consciousness. Instead my footsteps became a half stumble, half walk, all failure.

  I basically walked the end of [Morrigu’s Gift] into a [Gobbler]’s belly. It just stared at me. A blast of ice from over my shoulder caught it square in the face.

  “OoOooooo!” The giant baby yelled. The landscape rippled and my head throbbed.

  “Block it, Hermes!”

  “Ehhh.” [Morrigu’s Gift] was in the two handed blade form. I turned the flat of it towards the monster and held it like a terrible shield. Rock hands hammered on the weapon sending jolts up my arm. A month of clutching William Carver’s cane kept me stable.

  “Colors.” I muttered. [Gobbler] hammering was a mixture of green and orange. All loud, clunky. As if a giant ball of hardened clay was falling.

  “Hamstring!”

  “Block them!” TinkerHell said behind me. Her voice was getting faint. The staff in her hands drew more symbols upon the ground. During one of her rambles, we had talked about how using a staff would consume less mana and increase the spell’s impact.

  “OoOOoohhh!” There was an insanely loud crash of noise and ice shattered across the room. One big muddy fist pounded through the wall and smashed between Elane and us.

  “SheHulk!” TinkerHell let another blast of ice fly by into one of the [Gobbler]s behind my shield. I was basically being a wall and failing. Two of the golems were pushing me back. These ones were green instead of the prior glowing orange color.

  “Go, go, get into a hall!”

  “OoOOraaahh!” The giant baby yelled.

  “Let me help you with that one, mate.” Edward came up from my side and casually stabbed one of the [Gobbler]s in the face. Suddenly the pressure on the other end of [Morrigu’s Gift] slacked off.

  My mind wandered to the message box and stared. The numbers were hard to focus on. Ice flew about in chunks both from TinkerHell’s constant stream of spells and the shattering remains of a great wall.

  “Tink!” Elane yelled. I looked over my shoulder to see one of the giant clay arms grab her, armor and all. The monster dipped as Elane came off the ground. She must weigh half a ton in all that gear.

  “Hey! Focus the arm!”

  “Let go of me, you filthy idiot!” Elane was banging away with her mace trying to do damage. Her short frame was nearly lost in the giant fingers.

  “But Gobblers.” I said. Clearly some of us weren’t firing on all cylinders.

  “Grant! Cut its arm!”

  “Gobblers!” Heh. These guys were neat. Their attacks hurt a little, maybe like a dog nibbling on my arm. With big meaty club like hands. Dog, nibble, hands.

  “Grant, you miserable pig fucker! Help!” Elane groaned as she was bashed around the hallway by the giant monster’s hand.

  “Mate, we’ve got to get the arm!”

  “But…” I was too confused. Too drugged up by my autopilot eating [Ghost Mushroom]s.

  “Shit!” Elane yelled. “You fu…” I turned just in time to see the short Spanish woman go flying into the breeze. She yelled the entire way before a di
stant crash crawled across my senses.

  “Elane!” My own words caused me to cringe as sound assaulted my vision. Everything was crossing and none of it was comfortable. The giant baby monster giggled with outright childish delight at the mess it had caused.

  “She’s dead, Hermes, we have to move onward!” TinkerHell let another spell fly away and managed to kill the final [Gobbler].

  “She can’t be dead.” The words came out dry. Elane had to be alive still. No. No, I had once again stood by and let it happen. It was Xin all over again. Elane was dead because of my failures.

  “It’s okay, it’s just a game! We’ve got to move now, Hermes.” TinkerHell was yelling at me. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Hermes. We have to go!”

  I asked myself what kind of man had life made me. Now, in a few days within the game, my character still wasn’t entirely clear. My actions showed one thing, and my desires another. It would be a long road to recovery. Letting Elane go flying hadn’t helped my self-esteem. Being drugged didn’t help. There had to be ways I could do better. More stats, more abilities, something. This game could give me that if I tried harder. Gaining [Barricade] was only one step out of many.

  For now, we had to escape. We fled down the hall. Away from the Barricobbler and its giggles. Away from Elane and her distant grave. We ran.

  Session Twenty Five – What are the Chances?

  Hours later and things were mostly quiet. TinkerHell tried to stay positive, but there was a loss of happiness to her expression. Nothing seemed as cheery, even the blonde color to her hair was lackluster. Edward hummed but acted a bit grumpier. The words ‘it’s just a game’ repeated in my head frequently.

  We handled a few smaller packs, with me poorly taking the role that Elane had. Each time I stood between the few minor monsters and TinkerHell felt like a betrayal. I shouldn’t have been drugged up, I should have been able to focus more. All that talk about being a better person and being brave, what had I done? Failed almost right out of the gate.