Circuit World

by Daniel Pierce

  I took it, admittedly hesitant at the sudden change of tune. “My . . . um,” I started, “this is a different direction.”

  “Yes, well . . .” said the Elder, still not looking me in the eyes.

  We stood there and exchanged a long, awkward shake. After a time, I was the one to break it off, but even then, the hall was quiet for a while longer.

  “So,” I slowly began, “are we all concluding that man was under the control of the Gray Favor?” More nodding answered my question, Elder Frey’s head being one of the many who responded. “Okay then. I suppose we should seek out their leaders and take care of them before they have the chance to pull more bullshit like that.”

  I looked back to Binari, knowing that she had capabilities of divination. She drew her head back slightly in surprise at having the spotlight suddenly turn to her. She scanned the faces in the room to see that all eyes were on her.

  “I can try to find them,” she began, “but I will need help to get a more accurate reading.”

  “I will help you,” Safira said. “My powers are by no means the greatest in the land, but I believe I can assist you in locating these vile people.”

  They set to work. Binari withdrew a piece of white chalk from her satchel and drew a circle on the floor. The two of them stepped inside and joined hands. Binari began chanting in a foreign, melodic language while Safira hummed as if in meditation, sending a low vibration to carom off the walls around us. Their heads sagged, facing the floor as they went. After several minutes of this, the circle began to glow a bright orange, as did their eyes. Both of the girls suddenly jerked to attention and peered into each other’s face as if looking at their own reflection.

  Binari said, “Dukayne, the Bastard Prince of the Forest, is on the move with his army. They plan an attack soon, but I cannot see where from. He is protected by many enchantments.”

  No problem, I thought. I can just Coursing his ass until we catch up with him—assuming those enchantments aren’t protecting him from that spell.

  Safira picked up where the mage left off, saying, “Kerzin, the She-Devil and Dukayne’s right hand, walks in the desert sands to the east. She appears to be meeting, or is intent on meeting, many of the warlords there. It is likely that my father is among them, as I have suspected. I sense a terrible power about her—far stronger than anything I have yet to witness.”

  The glow abruptly faded and both women turned to me.

  “I am sorry, Rixon,” Safira said, “but that was all I could see. I fear I was not much help.”

  “Nor was I,” said Binari.

  I walked to them and put a hand on each girl’s shoulder to comfort her. “No, girls, you did great. That’s far more than we knew before. I now have the ability to seek these people out, so all is well. My power does not tell me how far they are, so you two have helped me with that—at least in Kerzin’s case—and I doubt Dukayne is much further away than she. If he plans to attack, then surely he will be nearby.”

  My next steps were to get with Henrik and Horan and have them round up as many able-bodied warriors as they could. Frey gave them his seal to show the troops that the two walked with the blessing of the Presence. The men set out to hunt down all the fighters they could, with the agreement that we all meet in the town square the next morning.

  I set out to find one of the local armorers to see if I could get a decent set of armor out of my Sundrake scales. If we were about to go to all-out war, I was going to need some decent equipment.

  14

  It was getting dark by the time I found an armorer who was able to turn my Sundrake scales into a scaled vest. I also had to give her the beast’s claws and pay for the common metals that would go into it, but that was small price for what she assured me would be a worthwhile improvement over my current leather mail.

  I was left with nothing to do until morning, so I found myself wandering north of the Temple. It was not long before I heard the running of water, and I let the light of the two moons guide me as I sought its source.

  I came upon a small waterfall that streamed down over a little cavern that was just large enough for a handful of people to seek refuge in. Through the liquid haze, I saw someone was already inside. Their shape was familiar, but I couldn’t make out who they were until I crossed the threshold.

  Safira turned and smiled upon seeing me. She reached a hand out and patted it against the cold stone at her side, gesturing for me to join her.

  “I had a feeling I would see you here, Rixon,” she said.

  “Did your magic tell you this?”

  She smirked. “It was more like . . . my woman’s intuition.”

  “Ah.” I laughed. “Well, my man’s intuition gave me no clue that I would find you here. How did you know about this place? This is my first time stumbling upon it.”

  She laughed now, saying, “Man’s intuition is usually not good for such things.” Her gaze turned to look out through the cavern opening, and she continued, “I suppose I found this cave the same way as you—by following the sound of the water.”

  My eyes followed hers, and we sat for a few quiet moments with the backdrop of the running water providing a serene atmosphere for us to contemplate its beauty. I noticed then that there was all manner of etchings on the stone walls. Many of them were indecipherable to me, but there were a handful that I thought I recognized: a few stick-figure people, a building which was probably the Temple, and—oddly enough—the words “Easter egg” were scribbled in the uneven rocky surface.

  Oh hey, I thought, I found an Easter egg. There was definitely no mistaking it. This spot was clearly meant to be a sort of secret place. That thought amused me because of how easily I happened upon it, then I saw the last drawing, and felt a small jolt of excitement.

  Is that what I think it is? I leaned forward slightly, tracing the lines of a man and woman engaged in—well, the most fun you can have without leaving the ground, and frankly, it looked like only her elbows were touching. When I turned back to Safira, she was looking at the sketch too, then she turned and raised a brow in the most subtly erotic invitation I’ve ever seen. I turned to see her consuming me with those big eyes, and her fingers brushed the back of my hands in a delicate flutter that sent a bolt of desire through every nerve of my body.

  “Rixon,” she breathed, her voice low and even, “I wish to be your queen, but I will only do so on one condition.”

  “Oh?” I asked. “And what would that be?”

  “You must seek to be the king of every Temple.”

  Her hand found its way over to my member. Both of our clothes were off in the next instant, and she was on top of me, kissing, caressing, and stroking as if it were to be the last time we would see each other.

  “Is this kingship?” I asked her, speaking into the soft nape of her neck. The skin stippled in response to my breath, and her hand slowed to a crawl, the fingertips delicate and questing as she discovered every inch of me.

  Her other hand was on the hairs of my bare chest, then she guided me inside her, closing around me in slick warmth. I pushed forward, stopped at her hiss, then continued as she put a hand on my neck and drew me toward her. We began moving in unison, slowly at first but growing more confident in our need with each passing stroke.

  Both of her arms were wrapped around my neck then, and she pulled me closer with the resolve of a woman giving herself over to more than just passion. I kissed her, and it was another act of discovery. Her lips were full, her tongue warm and welcoming. Every part of her was welcoming, and for a time I could not track, we stayed that way, connected at two points as I moved in and out of her like the tide.

  Every inch of her feels real, I thought, but the sad truth was—I didn’t know. This was computer-simulated sex in a virtual world. But it made no difference to me. To me, it was as real as breathing. There, I was still a man, and she was still a woman of such exquisite design that I forgot everything about the bridge between our realities. She was real. The moment was real
.

  Her eyes closed as the first tremors of her climax began, and I followed along seconds later, giving in to the grip of her body. We broke together in a series of quakes—big, then bigger, then fading like echoes of a pleasure made to be remembered.

  “You will be my king,” she breathed when her eyes opened once more. “You will be my king, and I will be your queen.”

  “I accept,” I said without hesitation. She was a queen, which meant her decision carried a weight all its own. I kissed her again, marveling at the moment and all it brought with it.

  Circuit World never failed to impress me with its seemingly infinite supply of surprises. Still, my only wish for improvement was that I could open up the damn user interface at will.

  NEW SKILL!

  Certainty

  Type: Passive

  Description: A blessing granted by the gods of chance.

  We lay there all night in the little cave, lulled to sleep by the running waterfall. Safira rested her head against my chest, and I held her close. The UI did not only pop up to tell me of my new ability, which had a description that left much to be desired, but it also revealed to me that Safira was added to my party with the same relationship status as the other girls I had become better acquainted with. As I was her king, she was now mine, too, in my reality and that of the game.

  I went to see the armorer the next morning. She had my vest ready, as promised. I exchanged it for the shoddy leather mail I was currently wearing, which took a little off of the price of making my new vest.

  It was marvelous, though I imagined it did little to allow me to escape into the shadows as my characters were accustomed to doing. It gleamed bright blue in the light of the morning sun as it twinkled down through the leafy canopy. As was the case with all games that had a crafting system, Circuit World did not appear to adhere to the laws of conservation of mass. That is to say, my vest had many times more scales than I had provided to the armorer to craft. I was eager to stand over her shoulder and watch her work next time, wondering exactly when and how these additional scales would appear on my armor.

  My shoddy leather mail, as it was literally called, granted a plus-three boost to physical defense. I discovered this as I took it off and traded it in. The scale male was more than twice as strong, granting me a plus-seven boost. I still didn’t know how that stacked up in the grand scene of it all, since I couldn’t see my total defensive values and didn’t know how those numbers played into actually reducing or preventing damage, but I knew that plus-seven was far greater than any armor I had come across so far.

  The men had gathered at the town center as promised. There were many more of them than I had expected, numbering around 500 or so. Not everyone had a horse, but speed was not my primary concern. With Coursing, we would intercept the enemy at one point or another.

  Among the troops were the roguish rangers I had come to associate with the town guard, and there were others who would have fit such a role, armored from head to toe in solid plate mail, the only visible sections of their skin above their necks. The weapons carried among them were of all sorts: bows, spears, daggers, swords. Everyone was ready for the big finale, and, upon seeing them in all their grandeur, I couldn’t help but have one nervous, unrelated thought.

  I suspected that the end of the beta test was drawing near. My experience so far, I began to think, was only a small part of the game—a sort of tutorial on how to play. Meeting the girls, understanding the functions of Zones and their Temples, saving Safira on an introductory quest—these were all a demonstration of how the game was played. Many RPG’s had such tutorials, especially those with online play, which Circuit World was supposed to have. I tried to push these concerns to the back of my mind, determined not to think of them any more until I was forced to face them.

  The army, most of which was made up of men but not entirely, was chipper, but there was an anxiety permeating the air. It seemed that each of them was willing to crack jokes and laugh with one another, but the silence between the comradery was full of nervous looks and timid glances in wait of some instruction of what to do next.

  “Well, my friend,” said Horan as he and Henrik approached from the gathered mass. “We are all waiting for you to give the word. Where to?”

  “Let’s see,” I said. I held my hands forward and said, “Coursing! Dukayne!”

  There was no mistaking it. Dukayne and his men were somewhere straight to the east of our location. Whether or not they were at the town gates, I did not know, but we would find out soon enough.

  I ordered everyone to march and ride in the direction my spell was pointing. The women were with us, too—Faun, Binari, and Safira—as well as several understudy mages that I assumed Binari was able to talk into joining our cause. They all walked in a huddled clump, their magical implements and spell books ready to make short work of whatever threat came their way.

  Most of the troops began to hum as our march found its rhythm. The tune was unfamiliar to me, but it was simple enough that I picked it up in a matter of minutes. Something about it bolstered me, made me more eager to fight and stomp my enemy into the dust, and I had to wonder whether it was only an ordinary song or some kind of low-level chant that provided a boost to courage or some similar game-world status element.

  There was no sign of the enemy anywhere near the low stone wall on the eastern edge of Cul’Maryn. The guards stationed there also assured us that everything had been quiet before our army came humming along, shaking the ground with our thousand hoof-and-footfalls. I held my arm high as a gesture to halt and cast Coursing once more, ensuring that Dukayne was still in the direction he had been when we set out. The spell continued to direct me straight to the east, so we marched on.

  The troops fanned out like a pack of ants as we scurried among the tightly-packed groups of trees. Our rustling movements through the underbrush were akin to the sound of a thousand hungry snakes racing for a single mouse. But this was not the reality as we were the ones hunting the snakes, and I suspected there were plenty of them waiting for our forces when we finally caught up.

  “Hoo-rah!” chanted one man far off somewhere to my left.

  Others echoed the call with even more following them. Soon, the humming had been replaced by this and similar battle cries which only served to give a heightened rise to at least my spirit. Before I noticed, I had joined in the new chant myself, even pumping my fist in the air in triumph.

  I had not felt such brotherhood in years, if ever. The teams I had been a part of up until that point had all been superficial virtual squads—just five-man teams sitting around our computers clicking and typing. I had never experienced anything quite like this. Though I had been in the center of many player-versus-player battles in online games I played, I never felt so much like I was a part of the battle as I did then—and we had not even found the enemy yet.

  All three of my female companions marched close to me, practically within reach. Each of them was beaming as I glanced in their directions. Faun walked at a brisk pace with her Elderwood bow slung over her back. I had heard her speak of the honored weapon before and was eager to see it in battle. Binari, like the young mages clustered not too far from her side, walked with her walnut staff in one hand and a massive book hanging at her side like an oversized purse. Anyone who dared to challenge her would meet a painful end, I was sure. The deep blue of her robe, I noticed then, was almost a perfect match to the blue of my new scale vest. We would look good together on the battlefield, I thought.

  Safira walked in a league of her own. It was as if the surrounding men knew to give her a wide berth, that they were not worthy to walk too close to her. She returned my glance with a reassuring smile as I caught her eye. She carried no weapons or magical implements in her hands, but I knew those hands alone, with the aid of their mistress’s formidable powers, were enough to bring a small squadron to its knees. There was no arch in this proud woman’s back as she marched forward with the air of nobility. I doubted any me
re man would even have the courage to challenge such a powerful woman, least of all be able to overcome her in battle. Her destiny was not to die at the end of some no-name lout’s blade.

  Movement caught my attention from overhead and I looked up to see scores of allied wood elves running along the branches of the trees. I had not even noticed them before and wondered if at least some of them had joined us as we were marching. If the enemy forces met ours there in the forest, they would stand no chance, meeting hell both above and below.

  But we did not find them there in the forest. We reached the eastern edge of the wood without interference. I held up my hand once again and ordered everyone to a halt. The effects of Coursing had faded long ago and it was time to check in again.

  “Coursing! Dukayne!”

  I said nothing for a time as my hands blinked straight ahead. I hadn’t seen them blink since the time I came within viewing distance of Safira in the southern desert. Our enemy was close, though there was yet to be any physical sign of him. Henrik came near, regarding my magic-imbued palms. He, too, said nothing, but I knew that he was well aware of what the blinking was telling me.

  “Over there!” said one of the men not far behind me. “What’s that?”

  I looked ahead and could only see a tree at the top of a hill not far to the east. Prompted by a grunt from the paladin, I leaned forward and squinted to get a better look. There was something unusual about it—a bulge jutting out halfway up its trunk. From where I stood, it was too difficult to make out any details.

  I heard Faun gasp. Her half-elf eyes were clearly able to make out more specifics than mine were. I did not ask what she saw. Instead, I moved closer to see for myself.