by Domino Finn
Ancient, dusty tomes in the digital age. I'd hate to see what they could pack into a Necronomicon.
"Okay," she said, "here we go." She scanned down the page and recited relevant snippets. "Orik symbolizes vision... Not of our futures but of our nature... Eyes are the windows to the soul."
Kyle chortled. "And people wonder why I don't take this stuff seriously," he said under his breath.
"I can't believe I'm agreeing with him," I muttered, "but he kinda has a point. That's the lore? Haven might have incredible programmers but it looks like they skimped in the writing department."
"Just a game," said Kyle. I'd heard that same concession many times during my short-lived game dev career.
Izzy held her fingers up for silence. "There's more: Bodies petrify. Souls live forever."
I arched an eyebrow, unimpressed.
"Lots of mentions of souls in here, actually. The soul inherent. The captured soul. The sleeping soul." She turned a page as she skimmed the lore book. "A soulstone," she said, eyes aflash. "That's what the Eye of Orik is. It's his soulstone." She lifted her gaze from the book. "If we get that—"
"We petrify Orik," finished Kyle. "And his soul lives on in the stone."
"Come on, guys," I interjected. "I thought that much was obvious." They glanced at me. "What, hasn't anyone played an RPG before?"
They both stared blankly, making it clear that they hadn't.
I sighed patiently. "Look, placing the gemstone into the obelisk is what woke the titan up. It's an obvious weak spot. Thing is, I tried stripping Orik of the Eye back at the summit. It shattered my blacksteel spear to shreds. Somehow I doubt this"—I held up the salvaged grotto weapon—"will fare any better. That soulstone is protected somehow. A barrier of ruby magic. We need to find a way to get past it."
"A ruby barrier," repeated Izzy thoughtfully. "I'll look for references to it."
Before she could find anything, a global town notification appeared before us.
City Alert:
Kablammy Games would like to announce a special beta event. The pagan horde approaches! Please participate in the load test by utilizing whatever abilities you have to stunt the attack. Enjoy yourselves for the next half hour. In exactly thirty minutes, Haven will shut down and undergo a full server wipe. See you after the reboot!
We traded grave looks. The reboot was one solution to our current plethora of juggled problems. It was also a flaming bazooka among bowling pins. Checkmate, overkill, and a deus ex machina all in one. Everything—the theft of the Eye, the pagan horde, Orik's awakening—it was all going away.
I suddenly couldn't breathe. I gasped and fell to my knees. Kyle caught me and propped me up.
"You okay, bro?"
I blinked, stunned. Words didn't come.
Literally everything I'd been doing was a lie. Everything I'd worked for, discovered, achieved—it was all just a flip of a switch away from being rebooted. My first life was in question but my second one already had a timer on it. 29 minutes and counting. I noted the time on the clock. The reset was happening at 1 a.m.
"It's okay," said Izzy, her voice stale. "We'll still be here. We'll just be reset. It's not like we haven't gone through countless wipes already."
"I haven't," I breathed.
"It's not that big a deal. You just started today. That's not a lot of progress to make up."
I thought of the pack rats and the crowns we'd achieved. The run-in with the pagan wagon. The encounter with Lucifer. It was all meaningless.
Despite Izzy's cool reasoning, I could tell she didn't like the thought of a reboot. Kyle was taking the news worse. He'd just become a brewmaster. No way in hell he wanted a wipe. Only Bandit was unperturbed. She curled up into a ball in the corner and rested her eyes.
"I don't want a reboot," I said.
"It's a beta test," replied Izzy. "Part of the game."
Lucifer's sentiment came to me. This wasn't a mere game.
"Is that how you wanna live?" I asked. "Constantly being reset?"
"It won't happen once Haven goes public."
"So what, do we give up everything we've worked for? Our levels. Our gear. What about Bandit? She's an NPC. I'll lose her forever."
The napping bongo's ear twitched at the mention of her name.
"What about my use of skills and combat in town? Will I get that back? You think once everything resets they're gonna let me gain that power again?"
Their faces reflected my dark mood. They also wore an expression I didn't: resignation. They'd lived through wipes before. To them, it was part of the game. Conditioned submission. I wasn't ready to stand for that.
"Besides," I added, "some of us might be flagged for deletion."
That caught their attention.
"It's like Kyle said. If they reboot us, we respawn back at our homes. We'll start the new game at level 1, surrounded, without any chance of defending ourselves."
My companions took that in silently. The gravity of the situation was clear to them. Maybe it was paranoid talk, but it was plausible paranoid talk. If Haven was reset, we'd be at the mercy of the saints. For now, anyway, we were safe. Relatively. Excluding the wrath of one-eyed mountain gods.
"Maybe the wipe cancels our sins," offered Kyle. "Only angels can delete players, right? And only when Haven itself is at risk. After a wipe, the game's safe so the angels don't care about us."
"And the white robes?" asked Izzy.
He shook his head. "The saints don't have that power. Our profiles are triple-encrypted and always on the move. Only the game itself can process through that."
I shut my eyes in realization. "The beta flags," I muttered. "We're not safe. No one is. As a temporary condition of the beta, none of our profiles are being stored on the redundant servers. None of us are permanent. That's why the wipes are even possible."
Kyle's brow furrowed. "If we're not stored on the permanent servers then..."
"We can be permanently deleted," I finished.
His jaw hung open like he'd forgotten how to close his mouth.
"They wouldn't delete me," hedged Izzy. "My father—"
"They need to protect the game. Are you willing to take the chance you're so important?"
"I'm not important. He is. They'll reset the game to keep things running smoothly, and I'll be here, same as always." The pixie crossed her arms and paced to the corner. Somehow she'd made being a survivor sound like a bad thing. Before I could think of something to say, Kyle spoke.
"You really hate your dad, don't you?"
I glared at him and shook my head in warning. He didn't get the message.
"What if the game didn't run smoothly?"
Izzy kept her back to us.
"Think about it," he said. "You like Stronghold. You like Haven. What you don't like is going along with your father's orders."
She zeroed in on him with a glare. I couldn't believe he was pushing this, after everything. He continued without thought or worry. Or tact.
"You quest every day. Advance. Avoid Everchat whenever possible, but you're forced into it sometimes. Forced to talk to him." Izzy's lavender skin flushed at his words. He kept piling it on. "Your savior. Your protector."
"Kyle," I mumbled, "ease up."
"Obeying like a good little daughter," he pressed.
"That's enough, Kyle."
My words came out angry, a harsh note after harsher words. A moment of uncomfortable silence thankfully followed. Kyle and Izzy stared each other down, him casual, her tensed and ready to spring. She was practically fuming, but at least they were both quiet.
And then, everything I'd been teaching Kyle about self-preservation went out the window. He opened his big mouth again.
"What if you weren't daddy's good little girl anymore?" he asked.
Izzy lunged at him. I skidded between them, flinching in anticipation of the oncoming hurt.
City Alert:
The pagans are at the gates!
Stronghold is under threat. All
residents may engage in combat. While within the walls, all watchman and residents are immune to friendly fire.
I hastily swiped away the notification. It was only like the fifth most tense thing going on right now. I kept my focus on Izzy, who surprised me.
The pixie smirked.
"I can save Stronghold," she said with crooked lips. "But I'll live in the Haven I wanna live in."
Between the two of them, I was stunned. Izzy was more determined than I'd ever seen her and Kyle flashed a smug smile. They actually looked like they were on the same side.
"I'm in," said Izzy. "You wanna take on the pagans, fight the reboot, defy the saints? Whatever. I'm in for it all."
0430 Call of Duty
A huge collision of rock and mortar shook the city. We emerged from the underground grotto to check the damage. A large stone had impacted a barren patch of Oldtown. Nothing was left but rubble and a crater, which was only slightly worse than what was there before. As we surveyed the scene, the wall closer to the gate shuddered as well. That catapult had hit its mark.
My gaze strafed along the great wall to the west gate. A flurry of activity defended the most vulnerable entry to Stronghold. The heavy wooden doors were shut and barred with reinforced backing. A hundred soldiers lined the battlements with bows and crossbows and heavier anti-siege weapons. A hundred more gathered below, ready to take up arms as needed.
Across the river, Hillside and the Foot were just as hectic. Players ran around announcing an apocalypse party, building crafts and casting spells in town, spending all their silver. They'd essentially been given a free pass: Do whatever you want because everything's resetting in half an hour.
I remembered playing the Ultima Online beta test years ago. It was a rudimentary game compared to Haven. In its last hours, before our characters were reset for the public release, the devs spawned demon after demon to wreak havoc. Players charged to their deaths. Others looted and pillaged and hoarded, grasping for riches they could never spend. Some tightly bonded groups clung together for support and survived until the gates of hell opened and so many demons entered the world that the servers crashed under the load.
What I saw now wasn't much different.
"Are we really gonna fight?" asked Kyle, taking in the madness. Despite the apocalypse party, about half the residents took the pagan threat seriously and prepared for combat.
"You tell me," I answered. "I can't keep asking you to stick your neck out for me."
"You kidding, bro? I've never been level 4 before. Hell, I'm Brewmaster Kyle now. I'll be damned if I let the white robes take that away from me."
I nodded. "Then we fight."
The three of us stood there, hands on hips, frowning.
Izzy's eyebrow shot up. "I kinda thought this would be a more dramatic moment."
Kyle looked around. "Until the pagans tear the gate down, there's no one to actually fight."
I gritted my teeth. "Not standing here, there isn't."
We hurried along the river to the west gate thoroughfare. Stronghold was in chaos. The watchmen were well disciplined, but they were having trouble controlling the players who were fifty shades from nervous to brave. People wanted to run. They wanted to charge through the gates. The atmosphere was worried and harried and frenetic all at once. It was utter lunacy.
On the plus side, it was easy for three fugitives to move around. Not that we went unnoticed, exactly. Izzy commanded her usual gravitas. Players pointed to me and whispered. Plenty of residents had caught on that we'd snuck back into the city, but their sentiment was welcoming. We were Bonnie and Clydes among our people.
"Hey, guys," said Kyle. "We should gear up before things get nasty."
"Now?" I asked.
"He's right," said Izzy. "I need components."
"And I need more ammo," he said. "The clock cycled past midnight. It's a new day. My new glasswork and brew limits are reset. I'm gonna need whatever I can scrounge up for the coming battle."
It was a good idea. Kyle made a move toward Front Street.
"Not that way," said Izzy. "Those are the noob shops. Let's go to the Forum marketplace."
Kyle argued that he liked the noob shops and Izzy countered that higher quality supplies were worth the price. Despite the debate, we headed to the Forum. I wasn't really listening because I was more worried about the world clock. We had 22 minutes till the reboot. Preparing for battle made practical sense, but not if the battle didn't matter.
"Oh, shit," said Kyle on the busy marketplace road. "Let's go in here." He immediately ducked into the nearest storefront and left me and Izzy with puzzled looks.
"Is that a women's lingerie shop?" I asked.
She hiked a shoulder. "I dunno. The world's ending one way or another. Maybe Kyle wants to be his true self for once."
"Laugh it up, bros," came Kyle's voice from within the doorway. He still failed to explain why he'd gone in there.
In a second we no longer needed the explanation.
"Hey, ladies," prodded Lash, lumbering over with a large cleaver in her hand. It was a wide broadsword, flat at the tip instead of a point. Her white armor and black rectangle shield were upgraded and quite striking. Conan the Barbarian and the Glinda the Good Witch were in tow.
"Don't tell me Lash is your friend," I muttered before they converged on us.
"I don't have friends," said Izzy, "but Lash is all right."
I gave her the side eye. Next thing I knew Lash was gripping our shoulders in excitement.
"That duel was good shit. I'm impressed with you, pint size." Even though Izzy was shorter, Lash was addressing me. "You put up a hell of a fight. Didn't know you had it in you."
"You're gonna see an even worse side of me if you keep calling me pint size."
She laughed gruffly, pulled off her helmet, and punched it into my chest. "Chill out. I'm just playing." Her two groupies chuckled.
"I see you're still level 4," I noted.
They shut their mouths immediately.
I sighed. That wasn't as satisfying as it should've been. "Lash, I don't have time for this."
Her eyes narrowed, pinching the gold hoop outside her right eye. Lash ran her hand through her hair, wiping sweat to the pony tail at the back. "You're telling me. We're gonna fight these pagan jerks. I'm surprised to see you finally grouped with someone, Izzy. And, Talon, good for you. You finally traded up."
That was a reference to Kyle.
"What is it with you, Lash? One second you're in my face. Then you see me fight and level past you and you wanna be friends. What's your problem anyway?"
Her lips tightened.
"And another thing. Kyle made a stupid mistake, but he's a good guy. And he's my friend. So stop giving him hell like this is an after-school special."
She snorted. "You don't know me."
"I know," I said firmly. Then I softened my voice. "I know, Lash. Kyle told me. Word gets around pretty fast in Haven. I heard about your aunt and baby sister and you being paralyzed for a week before dying."
Her face twisted. "Don't you talk about my family." She pulled her plate helm over her head. "Word of advice, punk. I'm fair game. Say whatever you want about me. But you never talk about my family again. I don't care what level you are, I'll—"
Her voice broke. Instead of trying to say anything else, she stormed off. Conan flashed me a look of warning, but he didn't look so certain about it. He was still only level 3.
"I thought you were supposed to be popular," mocked Izzy.
"Really? Do people say that?"
She rolled her eyes.
Kyle emerged from the shop. "Is she gone?"
"Found something in your size already?" I teased.
"Don't tell me you're wearing red panties under all that armor," said Izzy.
Kyle shook his head and smiled. "You guys are the worst."
Cutting off the moment of mirth was a deep bellow. Orik was bearing down on Stronghold. In the distance, the west gate heaved under a mighty
punch. The townsfolk around us scattered.
"You see the flaw in your plan," pointed out Izzy, "right?"
"What's that?"
"You want to stop the reboot, which is impossible enough as it is. At the same time, we want to save Stronghold from the cyclops. If we don't do anything, the saints will take care of Orik. Haven will reboot and the threat will be gone. If we stop that..."
She was saying we couldn't save the city and ourselves at the same time.
"I don't buy that," I said. "You really think Stronghold can't handle a titan or two? He's part of the programming. The pagans are supposed to attack the city. Waking him is part of the quest narrative."
She shrugged, unconvinced. I was sure of my logic right up until the west gate splintered. The giant's shoulder barreled through the door, knocking it off its hinges and flattening a unit of legionnaires. Orik drove forward on his hands and knees and fell on the door.
The cyclops was twice the size of the wall itself. He probably could've hopped into the city if he'd wanted to. But bringing the gate down wasn't about him. A stream of pagans, like panicked ants, crawled past Orik and flooded into Stronghold.
The defense forces braced their weapons and cried in return. The battle for the city had begun.
0440 Anarchy Online
"We need to get over there," said Izzy.
We positioned ourselves on the road to get a better look at the distant gate. Orik was still on the ground. The Stronghold army converged, attempting to nail the giant down. Complicating the effort was the horde of pagans streaming in. They ran right over Orik's back, desperate for human flesh.
The second wooden door hadn't completely caved in. Soldiers braced against it, forcing the pagans to squeeze through a tight bottleneck. Goblins were trampled and crushed against the wall. The surge was damaging their own army, but it was relentless.