Circuit World

by Daniel Pierce

  I rubbed it against the edge of my scimitar, noting that more of the mystical etchings had been filled in after that last fight. The blade shimmered red after only a few seconds of rubbing, and when the shimmer dissipated, the edge was even noticeably fiercer. The stone appeared unchanged, so I attempted the same with my other blade and got the same result. Still, the stone appeared as it had before, so I returned it to my rucksack and sheathed my blades.

  “Do the enchantments last forever?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Beats me, pal. We’ll just have to test it out and see.”

  “Fair enough.”

  We collected our horses, Sleeper now more reluctant than ever to cross the bridge to the island where the damned house trap had been, and hurried south. My body begged me to let it lie down, but I wasn’t having any of that until we had escaped that forsaken place. Nowhere was safe in the darkness of the Fetid Wood.

  It was at least another hour, maybe two, before we finally reached its other end. I found that we had been traveling all night; the sun was just beginning to peek out at us from over the horizon when we emerged from the trees.

  I wanted to drop to my knees. I had never been so relieved in my entire life. During my whole time trudging through the forest—constantly looking over my shoulder, constantly on guard, holding my breath, ready to be attacked at any moment—I had completely forgotten that I was still inside a fucking videogame. A fucking videogame. This wasn’t that. This was not a videogame. Circuit World had become more than that in the handful of days I had been here already. It was a living, breathing ecosystem, a place with its own science, its own physics, its own culture, and its own political struggles. It was real. At least . . . it was real to me, even if all of my friends and enemies there amounted to nothing more than chunks of code at the end of the day.

  “Welcome to Unungr!” Henrik boomed with a flourish.

  “Oh, I know a guy that lived here,” I said. I had looked at the surrounding Zones on my map but had made little effort to remember which Zones they actually were. In all of the peril, I had forgotten that the Fetid Wood lay along the southern border of the Zone of Leaves. It was kind of nice to see a new part of this digital world.

  I looked ahead to where the grass faded and saw a dry, cracked desert mostly without sand. Not too far away stretched a worn rocky path. I had honestly expected to see more, well, stone, but perhaps, I thought, that would be found deeper in.

  “Coursing! Safira!”

  My hands urged me forward, but the beautiful damsel would have to while a little while longer. I was no good to her in my exhausted state. To my delight, Henrik beat me to suggesting we setup our tents for a little catnap and return to our quest some time around noon.

  I pulled out the necklace with Safira’s holographic image dangling and dazzling from its silver chain and said, more to myself than my companion, “I feel so strongly drawn to her.”

  Henrik came over with a knowing smile and said, “I don’t think there’s anything complicated there, friend. That is the most gorgeous creature I have ever seen. I’d ride through three of those swamps for her favor—even though my oaths prevent me from having . . . relations with women.”

  11

  The rocky path appeared to be a straight shot to wherever Safira and the other slaves were being held. There was not much to set the road apart from the cracked landscape on either side of it except for the fact that it had been worn down over the years from all those who traveled along it.

  Few things grew out in that sweltering wasteland, but those that did made themselves known. Every once in a while, my eyes would land on a massive cactus that stood two to three times my height, basking in the burning embrace of the sun. On the tips of their fat, spiky nubs grew bright pink flowers that looked good enough to eat. Indeed, I was tempted to try one of them, as silly as it sounds to put a flower in your mouth, but I did not want to spoil their eye-popping beauty.

  During our seemingly endless trek, which in reality probably only lasted a few hours there in that unforgiving wasteland, I cast Coursing four times to make sure that we were still on the right path. I had no other way of knowing if our target was on the move or not, but I could feel that we were closing in on them and hoped that they would stay put just a little longer.

  Sunstrider boldly trotted onward, calm as the dry air around us, but Sleeper was another story. Every so often, my horse would huff and glance back at me, presumably for me to give him some sign that I planned to stop and take a break soon. I would have, but we came across no pools to drink from, and stopping for any other reason just seemed like a needless waste of time. I thought for a moment to give him a sip or two from my canteen, but I had long emptied it before we had even gotten out of the Fetid Wood. I had not expected to find yet another desert there to the south and swore to myself then that I would make sure to be more prepared next time I set out to rescue a beautiful damsel.

  “It’s only a game . . . it’s only a game.” I chanted my new mantra over and over again as streams of sweat trickled down my face, tickling my forehead and salting my lips. Every day that passed served to make me forget a little bit more about the world I had left back home. Circuit World claimed to be the most immersive gaming experience ever, if I remembered the content of that damned plain email accurately. Their claim was not unfounded.

  I thought about my body in those quiet hours riding side-by-side with my new companion. I wondered if I’d had the wrong idea all along. Maybe that dark egg-thing delivered directly to my bedroom wasn’t simply some high-tech neural uplink VR accessory. Perhaps, I thought, it was a portal to this virtual dimension. Perhaps everything felt so real there because I had somehow been physically transported into the code of Circuit World. Conceptually, that made a decent amount of sense, providing me with a basic explanation of why everything there felt so real. The thought was both horrifying and comforting. Horrifying because of the idea that my entire being was a slave to the whims of the people that put me there; comforting because my actual body was there with me and not lying comatose on my bedroom floor, wasting away over the course of days from starvation and dehydration. I surely was not feeling any adverse effects.

  Henrik was eerily silent during that stretch of the ride, not his usual chatty self. I wondered if it was because he had already said everything he could think to say or if maybe his close call with the Anglerhouse had given him a new lease on life and he needed to reflect and digest his new way of seeing things. It was also possible that the heat was simply getting to him, and he was just trying to muster every ounce of focus that he could.

  “Coursing! Safira!” I yelled for the fourth time since we’d entered the arid, blazing hell.

  I held my hands out as I did every time, and was surprised to see the glow emanating from them blinking this time. That had not happened before.

  “Henrik.”

  The massive man stopped his massive horse and turned to look at me, his face curious.

  “My hands haven’t blinked before like this. I think it might mean we’re close!”

  “This is welcome news,” he rasped, his voice dry. He cleared his throat and said, “How about we dismount here and check out that ridge over yonder?”

  “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  We left our horses where they stood in the road. Sleeper seemed intent to follow behind me, but I urged him to stay put, which he did after several attempts to protest. Henrik offered the last of his water, which was very little, for my horse to drink, and after a moment’s hesitation where he insisted that I use it, I gave it to Sleeper. This seemed to calm my restless steed down considerably.

  Dismounting was a good call. We peeked up over the hill and saw a small camp with several purple tents scattered about, their cloth billowing in the subtle breeze, which only appeared to be blowing on the other side of the hill. There were handfuls of brigands milling about, some jabbing cacti for their precious resources, others playing dice, and several were jeering at the doze
ns of slaves—mostly beautiful young women—trapped in the cages in the center of the camp.

  Few of these men seemed well-armored, but that did not mean they were not well-armed, with each at least carrying a decent short sword or mace at his side. Every fiber of my being urged me to take off, charging for them to spare the prisoners from another moment of misery. Henrik must have heard my heavy breathing because he placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, insisting I stay put for just a little bit longer.

  “Places like these often have traps set up around the perimeter,” he warned. “We need to scope it out as best we can from here before we go charging in. See those men there?” He pointed to several figures around the camp who did not appear to be cut from quite the same cloth as the rowdy majority. These figures were robed in fabric the same shade of purple as the tents, some of them carrying staves and wearing jeweled accessories like necklaces or circlets. They appeared to be surveying the camp, most of them close to the outer edge, looking inward at the goings on. None of these men were partaking in any of the drinking or dice-throwing or jeering at the captured women. Henrik continued, “Most of these others are a common riffraff, cheap mercenaries hired by the Gray Favor to serve as meat shields for the higher-ups. Those serious-looking fellows there, though, they’re the ones we really need to be worried about. They are the official wizards of the Gray Favor. They’re the brains of the operation. They have all the intel.”

  “I see,” I said. “Should we sneak up and take them out.”

  He thought for a moment, his hand on his chin. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem likely that we would have much success with that route. Now, you look like a man who could get such a job done, but there just seem to be so many eyes looking in so many directions . . .”

  “I could at least try,” I insisted. “If it doesn’t work and they see me, you can just rush in to save my ass.”

  He chuckled. “Fair enough. We don’t really have the resources or manpower for much else. I only wish it were darker so that we’d have a better chance to catch them off guard. But it would not be safe to wait for nightfall near here . . . and they will likely have men on high alert after sundown.”

  We studied the area a little longer from our vantage. Henrik pointed out several etchings in the ground that I would not have noticed otherwise. He warned me to steer clear of those, saying that they were, at the very least, sigils that would set off an alarm if I drew near, and at the worst they could bring great harm to me. He doubted many of them would be too violent because such spells would risk harming their men or any slaves that tried to escape. Damaged slaves meant damaged goods, he said, and it would be risky to waste all that profit.

  There was a chance, I thought, that I could even pass for one of the hired hands and simply strut down the hill to join the camp as if I belonged there. In total, there were probably 20 to 30 of them, not counting the wizards, and it was doubtful they all knew each other very well. I proposed this option to Henrik, but he countered by saying that they likely had been in each other’s company long enough to at least get familiar with faces, and walking into the camp in such a way would undoubtedly draw most of the eyes in my direction. He was fairly certain I would be found out.

  There was only one other way I could see to sneak in from where we were: curl up into a ball and roll down the hill in line with one of the tents. There would be a brief moment where anyone who happened to look toward the hill would see me, but it was only the briefest of windows. Once I had rolled far enough, I would be safely tucked behind the tent and out of sight once again. From there, I could dart out in either direction, catching the men as they wandered out of range of the main groups and picking them off one by one. The thought got me excited because steal missions were my favorite kind of missions, and I had never had the opportunity to participate in one that felt as real as this.

  I crouched low, peeked out from the other side of the hill, and watched the mercenaries move about, totally consumed with whatever debauchery that had them enthralled in the moment. When I felt that the majority of their attention was turned as far away from the hill as possible, I pulled myself into the shape of a tumbleweed and kicked off, bounding down the hill like a tire let loose. I had to take a moment to appreciate how hardy my modified body was. Several times my momentum lifted me clear off the ground, but each time I landed with the resiliency of rubber, never breaking from my circular form.

  To my surprise—and this was something I admittedly should have accounted for—my collision with the tent did not stop my progress, as the wall I rolled into was merely fabric. I shot straight into it, and, upon realizing my mistake, broke my shape and flopped out on the ground in a spread-eagle fashion.

  No alarms had been raised. No one was shouting, at least not yet. It seemed as if I had made it undetected. I sat up and looked around.

  The tent was closed, its entry flaps loosely tied at the top. The other four or five ties further down the opening remained separate of one another, so the gentle airflow stirred it slightly, letting in the smallest rays of the fearsome sun waiting on the other side.

  My eyes took a few moments to adjust. I looked around helplessly, all too aware of the sound of my beating heart. When I was able to make out shapes in the relative darkness, I almost leaped to my feet in surprise at the man sleeping on a cot just out of arm’s reach. I had a sudden realization that there may be many more enemies unaccounted for in the other tents, potentially doubling the camp’s headcount. The thought was unsettling, but there was nothing more I could do about it then. I was already in the belly of the beast, as it were.

  I scrambled over to the snoozing rogue, removed my scimitar from its sheath—for I was eager to see when the enchanted etchings would finish filling themselves in—and sliced the deepest of cuts in his neck. His eyes flew open, and he made as if to scream, but I reached down and held a firm palm over his open mouth. His frightened cries came out, but considerably muffled through my hand. I felt him try to lean up, but the force I was asserting on his face didn’t allow for any of that. He tried to take a swing at me but did not have the leverage to do so. His knife was at his belt, I was well aware, but in his desperation, he seemed to have forgotten the handy tool—not that I would have allowed it to do him any good.

  It was taking him far too long to die, so I took my scimitar for a second time and plunged it into his gut. He winced and went rigid as my blade slid deeper and deeper inside his vital organs, and soon he fell limp on his mat. I held my hand over his mouth for a minute longer, just for good measure, before moving on.

  That assassination had given me such a rush, and I was eager to rack up more. I wondered if the game awarded extra experience points for stealth kills, or if it provided experience for some sort of stealth level. Regardless, successfully pulling off those kinds of kills was a reward in itself.

  I peered out through small opening in the tent’s flaps. No one appeared to hear the faint sounds of the struggle, and they were not showing any signs of having seen me roll down the hill either. I honestly had not expected to make it that far without raising any alarms, but my success emboldened me, pressuring me to push my stealth to its limits.

  When I felt sure that I was in the clear, I came out and scurried low to the nearest tent. Instead of going around and risking being noticed by using its entrance, I rushed around back, intent on entering in a similar fashion to how I came in the previous tent, but this time with more conscious effort.

  I glanced over my shoulder to the top of the hill from which I had come and saw my brawny companion watching faithfully, ready to jump in at a moment’s notice. I gave him a reassuring thumbs up but lifted the back wall of this second tent and disappeared inside.

  Still, there were no alarms—so far, so good. The prize behind door number two was entirely worthless. There was nothing but a bare table and an empty cot to greet me—no sleeping rogue, no treasure chest with valuable loot, nothing. I checked out the table and found nothing but a useless map o
f the camp. It was just some crudely drawn depiction of where the prisoners were being held and where all the tents were set up. A five-year-old could have done it, and it provided me with no useful information at all. I had seen more from where I was camped out along the hill.

  This time, I reused the back side of the tent to make my escape. The next nearest tent was about twice as far as the one I had just come from. It would be a bit of a sprint, but I was growing in confidence that I could pull it off. I peeked around the corner to the center of the camp. Everyone was occupied as before, lost in their own fun. The wizards, who were the only ones I perceived as a threat at this point, still stood watching the rest of the camp, as if they were babysitting their own mercenaries. None of their eyes were turned remotely close to my direction.

  This time, I didn’t even duck. I just stood up straight and hauled ass for the next tent. My hastiness quickly became my undoing.

  Before I was even aware of what happened, there was a sudden deafening screeching sound all around me, like the squealing of tires trying to desperately avoid a collision. The entire camp exploded into action, going this way and that. I looked back and saw one of the alarm sigils glowing on the ground behind me. I had tripped it without even thinking.

  “Fuck!” I spat under my breath.

  I looked to see Henrik bolting down the hill with his sword out, and then I almost fell over backward as one of the henchmen came past the edge of the tent and into my line of sight as he was running to meet my comrade. He hadn’t even noticed me crouching there as he streamed by, but I was caught off guard, so I didn’t have the chance to get the jump on him. The second guy wasn’t so lucky.

  I prepared to lash out when I heard the second pair of footsteps coming my way. The moment I saw movement, I launched my arm out and sliced halfway through the sucker’s right shin. He yelped and fell forward, planting his face into the cracked ground with a loud thud. I took note of the embers searing into his flesh in the wake of my strike. The Anglerhouse hearthstone had already proven its worth. I didn’t give him time to get back up, brining my second sword down on his neck like a guillotine. The last thing he saw was dirt.