by Terry Schott
“What just happened?” Xander watched the edge of the woods, his eyes darting back and forth along the tree line.
“Looked like a vine wrapped around her head and broke her neck,” Shale said.
“You sure?” Aleron asked. “I didn’t see anything like that.”
“It was fast.”
“Too fast,” Fen murmured. “If that was one of us standing there, we’d be dead, too.”
“I’m gonna move around the clearing. See if I can get a shot.” Shale took a step forward.
Sebastian’s hand snaked out and grabbed her. “No.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
There was another loud sound, this time a roaring whoosh. Four more of Varnix’s group members dropped to the ground, two dead instantly, while the others screeched and held fresh wounds as they thrashed about in pain.
“I don’t know what’s attacking them, but they’re gonna wipe.”
“They will if we don’t help.”
Sebastian shook his head. “Varnix’s group is bigger and filled with higher-level veterans than us.” He jutted his chin toward the clearing. “And they are getting cut to ribbons.”
Shale’s eyes flicked to Aleron’s and then Mercy’s. “We can’t just stand here and watch them die.”
“They’re already dead.”
“But—”
“They’re gonna wipe. We join the fight, we will be dead beside them. What’s the point to that?”
Shale laughed. “I know you’re scared ’cause you have no power, but the rest of us can do something. Stay here if you’re frightened.” She took a step toward the woods.
“Stay put, ranger.” Mercy’s tone had an air of authority to it that caused Shale to stop in her tracks.
The ranger’s expression conveyed her frustration. “We can’t just leave them to die.”
“They were dead the moment they stumbled onto whatever is killing them.” Mercy’s eyebrow rose. “You voted Sebastian as leader. He’s made a tough call but a good one. Now do as you’re told.”
Two more of Varnix’s people cried out. Shale’s gaze slid to the field in time to watch them fall to the ground, dead. She sighed and nodded.
Sebastian watched the carnage and licked his lips. He took a breath and released it before speaking. “Lead us back out the way we just came from. Everyone be quiet. I don’t know what is attacking them, and I don’t want it knowing we are here. Let’s do our best to get back to camp alive and safe. Then we’ll report what happened here.”
21
When faced with overwhelming odds, players will all die. An entire group dying is referred to as “wiping” and results in players being forced to re-roll new characters.
Game etiquette does not require other parties to help those who are in danger if the foe is too powerful and would result in the second group “wiping” as well.
Of course, if the first group was almost successful, this will leave the mobs very weak and often easy to finish off, resulting in easy loot and experience for the second or even third party, should they decide to take the chance and engage. Like life, games are about decisions and the consequences that come with those choices.
Excerpt from Game Etiquette: Suggested Do’s and Don’ts of MMORPG life.
Dominus Ansko took a sip of tea, set it onto the coaster, and tilted his head. “Attacked by a tree, you say?”
“That’s right.”
The Dominus nodded and cleared his throat, one hand turning the cup as he watched it. “I find it interesting that you did not help them.” Seconds passed in silence. He looked up, his eyes meeting Sebastian’s. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“You have no reply to my question?”
“You didn’t ask one.”
The Dominus sighed and raised the cup to his lips. “Why didn’t you help Varnix?”
“Because we couldn’t.”
Ansko drank and cleared his throat. He eyed Mercy. “She could have helped.”
Mercy’s expression of amusement did not change, nor did she reply. There was a long pause and the Dominus shook his head. “I will send a group to recover the bodies.”
“Do you know what killed them?” Sebastian asked. “Has this happened before?”
“I make it clear to every group joining us that this entire project is filled with danger.”
“So you do know what took them out?” Fen repeated the question.
The Dominus opened his mouth, paused, and then shook his head. “No, but we will investigate and report what we are able to discover. If you had stayed to help, we might already know the nature of the monster.”
Aleron laughed. “If we’d stayed, then we’d be dead too, and you still wouldn’t have a clue that anything was wrong out there.”
Dominus Ansko’s eyes narrowed. “Then I guess I should thank you.”
The group turned and left.
“He should thank us,” Ezref said, “but he did not.”
They reached their camp. “He knows what it was,” Xander sat cross-legged on top of his sleeping bag.
“Aye.” Fen grabbed a piece of wood and placed it on another and then retrieved the axe from the ground. “He seemed pretty calm about the whole thing.”
“He wasn’t calm about us running away,” Shale said.
“That’s too bad,” Ezref snorted. “He wouldn’t have shed a tear if we’d died.”
“And we would have died; that’s certain.” Sebastian sat and withdrew a pipe from his belongings. “We’ve all had time to think about what we saw out there. Any ideas?”
Fen nudged Aleron. “Druid? Any ideas?”
“I’m only playing the part of a druid,” Aleron laughed. “I’m a Scout, remember?”
“Your avatar was set to be a druid. Any memories inside the old noggin?”
“My avatar is a young, untested teenager.” Aleron frowned. “No memories of what it might be up here. Killer tree is the best we have to go on.”
Sebastian tamped a pinch of tobacco into his pipe. “Assuming it actually was a tree and not some illusion masking the true form of the creature.”
“I sensed two presences in the woods.”
Everyone turned to look at Xander. He pointed towards his ice covered eye socket. “I wasn’t able to concentrate to see, but it tingled. Differently as I turned to watch the woods. One tingle at a certain point, a different tingle as I looked to the left of the area where the branches were striking from.”
Sebastian lit a match, held it to the tobacco, and puffed to ignite the dried leaves. He shook his hand to extinguish the match and drew in a deep lungful of smoke. He released a cloud of smoke and closed his eyes. “It feels so good to smoke again.” He smiled and opened his eyes. “I quit years ago and never thought I’d start again.”
Fen chuckled. “No need to worry about long-term health issues here.”
Sebastian grinned. “No cancer here.”
“How does it compare?” Shale asked. “The actual smoking experience here versus your memory from home.”
“Exactly the same.”
“Great job, Seb.” Fen reached down to pat the man on the shoulder.
Mercy sighed loudly and shook her head. “Your Traveller speak and references to things as if they are new and different is confusing.”
“Sorry,” Sebastian lightly bit on the stem of his pipe and leaned back against a stump. “We try to keep it to a minimum.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t.”
“No?”
The Death Stryker waved one hand. “If you speak more, then maybe some of what you say will begin to make sense.”
“Perhaps we will try that.”
“And I will try not to interrupt with questions that you are unable to answer.” She smiled. “Although I cannot promise to stop altogether.”
Sebastian nodded and took another puff from his pipe. “Do you have any theories about what was out there, Mercy?”
“I suspect that it was simply an awaken
ed tree.”
“A normal tree magically awakened and commanded to attack,” Xander said. “That would account for the two presences I sensed. The spirit in the tree and the individual who woke it.”
“If that’s true”—Shale waved a piece of jerky in front of her face, chewing as she talked—“then the tree isn’t the danger, is it?”
“Likely not,” Aleron said. “Whoever awakened the tree will not stay around the scene of the crime.”
“Which means that the Dominus won’t find anything when they recover the bodies?”
Mercy shook her head. “I’d be surprised if they do.”
“Hmm.” Sebastian took two quick puffs. “Wonder how that will make Ansko feel about us for not helping the other group?”
Fen shrugged. “Who cares. It’s not a crime to let other groups wipe. We are not obligated to die as well.”
“It felt kinda strange to leave them, though,” Shen said.
Mercy laughed. “That feeling is called being alive. Trust me, it’s better than being dead.”
22
Isaac looked at the string of numbers written on the notepad for a long moment. Then he looked up. “You sure?”
Kara nodded.
“Scale of one to ten?”
“Strong nine.”
He took a deep breath and raised his eyebrows as he looked at the numbers again. “I can’t tell you how happy I’m gonna be if you’re right.”
“Bonus-cheque happy, or gift card?”
Isaac smiled. “Both.”
Kara’s eyes widened and her mouth formed an o-shape.
He laughed. “Seriously. If this is Sebastian’s ID code, so many problems are on their way to being solved.”
“We still have no way to communicate with players inside the game.”
He scowled. “Why you wanna go and rain on my picnic?”
“Just sayin’.”
“If we can find a dead man who made himself untraceable before he went hiding inside a virtual reality program, I know we can develop a way to talk to him.”
“Want to log in and find out for sure if it’s him?”
Isaac leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. Then he nodded.
Kara stood and pulled her chair to the side of his desk so that she could see the computer screen and sat down. “I apologize if it’s not.”
He frowned and shook his head. “No negative talk.”
“You’re right.”
Isaac set the paper with the I.D. number beside his keyboard and held his hands over the keys. He reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, rubbed his temple, and then looked at the numbers and began to type. When he was done, he held a finger over the Enter key and looked at Kara. “Here goes.”
He pressed the key and they watched the screen. The cursor blinked a few times, then the program closed. After a few seconds it came back on and video appeared.
In a first-person point of view, the camera turned slowly from left to right and then back again, scanning the woods beyond. A second later, the view locked on a warrior walking beside them.
“Hey,” Kara leaned forward. “That’s a Death Stryker.”
“Shh.” Isaac frowned, careful to soak up every detail on the screen.
***
A high-pitched ringing erupted inside Sebastian’s ears, flooding his skull as a wave of nausea engulfed him. Stomach flipping and turning, he dropped to one knee. There was a dim awareness of his pack sliding away from him, and he reached out to steady himself.
“Whoa.” The voice—Xander’s—sounded thick and distant. Boots appeared in Sebastian’s peripheral vision and he felt a hand touch his shoulder. “You okay, Seb?”
“I think so.” His mouth felt suddenly dry, his tongue thick. His vision began to swim, waving and blurring as if he were about to faint. The world lurched, and suddenly he was looking up at the sky.
I think I’m on my back, he thought. The intensity of the ringing increased, the humming loud and angry, like rain soaking into power lines.
Sebastian blinked slowly. The blue sky began to crackle and twist, reminding him of the time when he was a kid and had held a magnet in front of his parents’ new television screen. Feeling of nausea deepened and he forced his eyes closed.
“Seb?” Aleron’s voice. “Say something. Are you okay?”
Sebastian tried to speak but couldn’t.
***
“What’s happening?” Kara asked.
“I don’t know.” Isaac was frowning.
“Is he having a seizure?”
“Maybe.”
Kara stood and moved closer to the screen, her chin touching Isaac’s shoulder. “Look.” Her finger touched the monitor. “There. And again when he opens his eyes each time.”
“Yeah.”
“The sky looks like it’s breaking up. Digitally cracking.”
Isaac swore and sat straighter, his shoulder pushing Kara backwards. His fingers began to fly over the keyboard.
“What’s wrong, Isaac?”
“Feedback or something.”
“From us?”
He pursed his lips together and continued typing. A small window appeared on the screen in the top right corner, filled with code. “Yeah, I think from us.”
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to break the link with him.”
“Just shut the program down.”
“No.” Almost a shout. Panic clearly in his tone. “I’ve got to ease out, and fast.”
“But what—”
“I think if I don’t exit quick, his connection to the avatar will be severed.”
Kara felt her heart skip a beat. “And kick him out of the game?”
Isaac nodded and kept typing.
***
Sebastian opened his eyes and groaned. He rolled to one side and tried to sit up.
“Oh no, you don’t.” A hand touched his shoulder and gently rolled him onto his back. Aleron’s face appeared, serious and concerned. “Stay put, please. Don’t try and get up yet.”
“I’m okay.”
“Maybe, but humour me, ’kay?”
Sebastian closed his eyes, licking his lips as he nodded.
“Thirsty?”
“Yeah.” He opened his eyes, raising an eyebrow as a straw touched his lips. After a couple of sips, he spit it out and smiled. “They have straws here?”
“Hollow reeds. The Scouts have them at their base and I brought a few.”
“Huh.”
Aleron rested a hand against his forehead. After a few beats, he withdrew it and nodded. “Good, your fever is gone.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Few hours. Any dreams?”
“No.”
He leaned closer and spoke softly. “Did you wake up in your real body?”
Sebastian scowled and then laughed. “No.”
“Ezref said there was no magic directed at us, and Mercy ruled out divine interference or attack from monsters.”
“That’s not what it was.” Sebastian sat up, ignoring Aleron’s order to stay on his back. He reached for the pillow, adjusted it, and leaned back again. “Someone tried to mess with my connection to the VR.”
“Did they try to unplug you or wake you up?”
Sebastian’s laugh was a short bark. “That’s not possible. I don’t have a body to wake up.”
Aleron frowned, and then his eyes widened. “You logged in permanently?”
“Yeah. Threw the old body away and committed full-time to this new life.”
“Wow. I don’t know if that’s extremely brave or very stupid.”
“Stupid. Definitely stupid.”
Aleron’s smile widened and then disappeared. “Oh crap.”
“Putting it all together, are ya?”
“You’re the brains behind this entire world.”
“I sure am.”
“And this is only the beta-testing stage.”
“Yep.”
“There
will be a ton of adjustments to make. Final touches to the program. A mountain of creative tasks to implement before the game goes live to the public.”
Sebastian winked at him and grinned. Aleron rubbed his face and shook his head. “They can’t finish it without you, can they?”
“Nope.” The older man laughed. “I sure would love to see the look on Isaac’s smug, arrogant face when he found out what I did.”
23
Isaac leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desk, resting his head in both palms.
“Is he alive?”
He looked up, biting lightly at the edge of his cheek. Kara’s eyes were wide. He could almost feel the fear coming off of her. “I think so.”
“You think so?” Her voice rose with each word. “Isaac, he’s got no body to return to. If Sebastian gets kicked from the simulation, then we’re screwed.”
“I’m very aware of that. And the ‘we’ is actually only ‘me.’ You might lose some stock options and need to get another job, but you’ll survive. I will owe the wealthiest people in the world an obscene amount of cash. Money that I don’t have.” He shook his head. “I think he’s still alive.”
Kara reached across the desk. “I’m sorry that I freaked out like that.”
“It’s okay. I know you care. I’m trying to stay calm because there’s nothing to be gained from losing control, but inside I feel like my guts are melting with panic.”
“You’re right. He’s gotta be fine.”
Isaac closed his eyes. “I severed the link to his avatar before I closed the program. I got out as quickly and safely as I could.”
“We need to find out for sure.”
“I know.”
Kara watched him for a few seconds, then stood. “We can look tomorrow.”
“No.” He could hear the exhaustion in his voice. “I’ll get to it now.” Her hand touched his head and he lowered it gently to the desk. His legs felt like rubber and his arms were trembling.
“That was a serious scare.” The tone of her voice was calm again.
He opened his eyes and sighed. “I think I’m crashing.”
“I’d be surprised if you weren’t. Your adrenaline must have spiked off the charts. Just lie there for a few minutes. I’ll get you some juice.”
“Thanks.”
“We will find him tomorrow.”