Continue Online (Book 1, Memories)

by Stephan Morse

  “You might survive a quick tour, but you’d be dead weight in any serious assault,” Wyl said.

  “I wouldn’t…”

  “You would. You, beyond a doubt, would die over and over.” Wyl’s tone didn’t increase in volume. It was flat and sure. “Strange Traveler powers and blessings from the Voices aside, you would die on anything serious. You’re lucky I’m considering taking you to clear some wolves out of the Royal forest.”

  I watched a box pop up in front of HotPants. She looked confused and upset at the same time.

  “This will get me out of town? If I accept?”

  “I have the authority to provide a temporary pass as long as you’re escorted.”

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me sooner?” HotPants growled.

  “You probably didn’t ask the right people. Attitude doesn’t get you far around here.” Wyl said without even a trace of a frown. He was unfazed by the bundle of anger.

  “Will you be done by tomorrow?” My body was feeling the weight of today’s excursions. Both hands used the cane as a third leg.

  “I’ll send a squad on an overnight with her. It’ll be a good change for all of them.” The trademark smile was still mostly present on Wyl’s face.

  “Think you got someone who can keep her in line?” I lifted the cane in a halfhearted gesture towards HotPants. The other players were in the background arguing over something still. They had barely taken notice of our stop.

  “Probably not. But if she steps too far out, she’ll die. The aggressive ones normally solve their own problems.”

  “Mh.” I turn to HotPants and glare for a moment.

  “If you die tomorrow, you won’t be able to recover in time. You best be careful.”

  “As if I need a computer to be concerned for my well-being.”

  I shrugged in response. Her commentary against me was both amusing and annoying. Amusing because she thought I was a computer, but annoying for the same reason. My acting as William Carver had flaws, but he was a person too!

  “Most Travelers find death unpleasant, you’ll learn soon enough,” Wyl said.

  “Pain is a great teacher.” Old Man Carver’s simulated heart attacks were enough to send me to my knees. I can’t imagine death felt any better. The only blessing would be if it was sudden and not lingering.

  “Why does a video game have pain?” SweetPea was paying attention now.

  “Because it’s awesome.” Awesome Jr. whispered.

  “No pain, no gain,” Shadow affirmed. “Check out Stanford’s study on the Pain Response and Learning in a Virtual Simulation.”

  “Two hours from now I’ll send a group out. You get whatever you think you need together and be here in an hour thirty. We’ll need time to go over whatever supplies you missed.” Wyl was already issuing orders, which seemed to grind HotPants’ gears something fierce. She suffered through in stride with a curt nod and charged off.

  “See you tomorrow!” SweetPea gave an impressive yell for her personality. I shrugged and went over my mental map for other possible training locations.

  “Got anything for more speed?” Shadow was busy pulling at pieces of his gear and frowning. His shirt seemed to be riding up under the overlay of armor.

  “I thought you didn’t need anything.”

  “I don’t. But I’ll take anything you’ve got.” The wannabe assassin growled at my snide remark.

  “I know a man who’s really good at teaching young cocky boys how to dress.” He would outfit the player in literal dresses with makeup and everything. There was nothing in my book against cross-dressing, but I imagine it was a surprise if revealed at the wrong moment.

  He actually looked thoughtful for a moment. I sighed, the youngster probably thought it was a disguise art of some sort. He clearly seemed to be going the extra mile for his ninja image. I briefly compiled a list of possible skills needed for a Ninja Path, assuming there was such a thing. It seemed very like that there was.

  “No, if we’re going into a dungeon, I need speed or stealth. Both preferably.” Shadow was at least certain in what he wanted to take away from this game. Many players lacked the drive he displayed.

  “Mh.” I hummed and pulled out the map. Skills that combined traits were harder to nail down on the map. Often times they required the players to actively combine tasks.

  “You should follow the recruits around,” Wyl said.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “New guards, I send them out on running laps around the town with their armor on. It helps build their endurance, especially for the ones bucking for a promotion to a knight squad.” Wyl’s face shone with a smile. There was a glint of pride in his eyes. Carver’s, my screen, popped up a message about Wyl’s pride in his former students successes. There was even a count of how many former soldiers and Traveler trainees went onto to other occupations.

  “That’s cruel,” SweetPea said.

  “It’s effective, you should try it too little miss. Travelers should take advantage of everything they can.” The guard captain said.

  “So you think I should follow a guard around?” Shadow turned the conversation back to his own personal needs. One hand fiddled with the dagger at his hip idly. I could see Wyl keeping an eye out, but he didn’t seem too worried.

  “Let’s make a game of it, you give the guard a short head start, then try to trail him without getting caught.”

  “What do I get out of it?”

  “You win, I’ll give you a handful of silver per person. You lose, and my trainee gets to stop their lap and come on back.”

  “They’ll accept that?”

  “It’s a big town,” Wyl said with a faint smile.

  “I’m in. We doing this all night?” The would-be assassin also looked pleased but for entirely selfish reasons.

  “Nighttime patrols will change a little because of the risk, we’ll see how you do on the first few.” The captain shrugged. He didn’t seem overly worried either way. “I’ve got other ideas to keep it interesting if it’s too easy.”

  “Awesome.”

  “Awesome’s my father.” Awesome Jr. was smiling too. How many times could he play that joke before becoming annoying?

  “Shut up.” Shadow scowled for a moment, looking remarkably similar to HotPants level of anger. “Wyl right? Thanks for this, it sounds fun and like a good training method.”

  “It’ll help my men learn a few skills too, spotting a trail is good for undercover work if any of them want to join a King’s Inquisition.”

  “What’s that?” Shadow asked.

  “Wyl, I’m going to drag these other two onward. Thank you for your time.”

  “Oh, right, here I am gabbing away. Anytime, Carver. You keep in good health.” Wyl didn’t seem done, though. His mouth kept right on running as he slowly came to our side of the guard post and put an arm on my shoulder.

  “Me and the boy saw your posting, and the ladies in the temple are in a tizzy over your recent actions. I said to them, let an old man do what he wants with the twilight years. It’s what I’d want.”

  I nodded.

  “Let me die with a sword in my hand and a prayer on my lips. Not a whimper in my bed.” Wyl shook his head and looked sad for a moment. This became one of the few times I saw him without a smile of some sort.

  “Sounds like a good plan.” The people in this world were lucky that way. In the real world, we rarely had a warrior’s way out. Modern medicine kept the old alive and feeble. Carver would want to go out with a bang, not a whisper. That’s exactly what William Carver, what I, would do.

  “Hah! Carver, whatever you’ve cooked up, you give ‘em hell for me!”

  “I will Wyl.” Saying that was almost a miniature tongue twister. Wyl went from hot to cold very quickly depending on who he was talking to. His minions, I mean lesser guards, were treated very different from an old war buddy.

  At least I think that’s what our relationship was. The notes needed another review. This world had
thrown some many bits of information at me that I was nearly drowning. Work tomorrow would suck simply because of the mundane nature in comparison.

  A few more dominoes left. Then we would see where everything fell. Thank goodness the Voice of Gambling and his negative buff hadn’t impacted Old Man Carver’s stats. Being this tired and walking around with nagging pain everywhere was enough of a punishment.

  If I could use Carver’s skills to the fullest, without negative side effects, then clearing this dungeon would be easy. Speaking of cake, where was the [Messenger’s Pet]?

  “Mister Carver, sir.” SweetPea sounded demure again. It was annoying and sort of cute at the same time.

  “What is it?” I grumbled.

  “Do you have any suggestions for me?”

  “Nope. You need to figure out what you want for yourself. Not me. No one is required to follow a path. You make a choice and work hard.” Not once had I forced any player to learn a skill, aside from whatever resulted from the introduction quests.

  “I only know how to clean.” She sounded sad and pulled the hoodie down even more.

  “Your meatloaf was really good, Melissa.”

  “Thanks, Adam.”

  “Maybe I should leave you two alone.” Carver was very good at sounding grumpy, even if I personally felt like teasing people. It came out that way.

  “No, it’s okay, Carver. We should try to do something to help make this better. None of the other players even tried to help you with the flier, so I feel kind of bad forcing you to figure out something on your own.”

  I was completely stunned by Awesome Jr.’s statement. While it was true that no one had really tried to help me, the fact that he felt guilt towards an NPC was almost overpowering. My rueful grin at his new pop-up box was response enough. From this angle, I could easily see the reputation with ‘William (Old Man) Carver’ increase and wasn’t even upset. Awesome Jr. had been serious about it.

  I nodded again.

  “Did you still want to learn magic?”

  “I tried that and failed.” His head actually dipped and hung in depression.

  “Who did you talk to?”

  “Shandra Tull, she was the one my quest chain led to.” SweetPea was looking at Awesome Jr. with one eyebrow high under her hood.

  “Yeah. She was nice and gave me a few books, but nothing clicked.”

  Shandra wasn’t actually a mage of any sort according to my notes. She was more of a hedge witch with a steep learning curve. I idly followed the markings all over town and found a few good starter methods for learning magic. Of course doing that made me feel like a dirty cheater with a personal walk through but I was also Old Man Carver, guide to the new and confused. The balance was strange.

  “You might be missing something.” Teeth chewed on one lip in thought.

  “Like what?”

  “Mh. Not everything is as simple as learning abilities right away, not even for Travelers.” How should I explain a topic I barely understood? William Carver had no access to magic or any sort of alternate energy form. According to his skills everything went ‘swing the big sword, swing it some more, swing it harder and scream!’.

  “Come on. Come.” We took another trip slowly. The sun was setting and I was getting extremely tired. Plus being out too late would get me in trouble with my progress bar. If this quest attempt failed I would need every point available.

  “Need a ride, geezer?” A bell from the bicycle dinged a few times as Phil navigated the metal device to a halt nearby.

  “Phil. It’s about time.” I loaded myself into the cart’s plush seating. Moments later I had a map out and was jabbing one finger at the meditation cave from earlier.

  “Can you get us here?”

  “I’m pretty beat. Maybe to the base of the hill here, but any further up? No. Not on this thing.” Phil was wearing a slight frown and both eyebrows creased together.

  “That’s good enough.”

  “Fine, but deal’s a deal’s a deal right? The bike’s all ours after today?”

  “As long as it stays with the orphanage.” I nodded.

  “Of course, geezer. The other kids wanted to ride around before lights out, figured we could take them on trips.” Phil was talking really fast. “Mylia wants to use it as a reward to those who help out.”

  “You take her up on that.”

  “Hah! If we had a few more of these then the older kids wouldn’t be worried about jobs.”

  That, my dear Phil, was the entire plan. I wanted the orphan kids to have something to do for money while growing up, plus bikes were cool for children.

  “Seriously, Mister Carver, I can’t believe you made a bicycle.”

  “You Travelers aren’t the only ones with brains,” Phil shouted back at us. The cart was going entirely too fast for me, but Carver’s body rode it out like it was a standard day.

  Icons and text boxes for riding skills and safety checks appeared. More pluses and minuses from the state of our cart showed up. Phil’s driving skills were even factored into it somewhere. Poor SweetPea and Awesome Jr. had no idea what to think. The girl clutched at her knitted hat and Awesome Jr. was almost a dog sticking his head out the window.

  After a slew of bumps and awkwardly broken up conversations, we arrived at the cave. This place was south of the town’s main gate. Close enough to be part of [Haven Valley] but very much out of the way.

  “What are we out here for?”

  I squinted through trees and brush up the hill. Phil was laying over the handle bars puffing in gasps of air. Poor boy had worked hard today. A routine involving morning stretches would help.

  “Up there.” I lifted the cane and pointed towards a ledge.

  “What’s up there?” Awesome Jr’s neck looked funny being tilted so far back.

  “A cave.” Dirt, rocks, some plants. I felt empathy for William’s abrasiveness when dealing with Travelers. Where had their adventurous spirit gone? Had it been bred out of humanity?

  “Caves have bats.” He protested.

  “It’s only bats.” SweetPea looked confused. Was Awesome Jr. afraid of bats?

  “They poop everywhere,” He said.

  “Gross.”

  “This cave has more than bats.” I didn’t even try to sound reassuring. Carver didn’t do reassuring! WWCD? Grump and shrug!

  “Why go to it?”

  “Go as deep as you can into the cave. Spend the entire night.” SweetPea went red, but not as red as Awesome Jr. I lowered my eyebrows in a level glare.

  “It’s not a romantic date. It’s a place to train.” The two of them had that annoying young love gaze that turned everything lovey. It was best to put a halt to that right away.

  “Will we learn magic?” She asked. Her mouth curled in an excited smile.

  “You’ll learn something. What you take away is up to you.” One of my shoulders came up in a half shrug. The other was too stiff to move properly. Magic was one of the possible outcomes according to Carver’s map. There were many others as well, each one a slightly different flavor.

  “How come you never told us about this place?”

  “You didn’t ask the right questions. No one ever does.” I didn’t ask James the right questions most of the time. It was more fun to treat our conversations as a lax chat rather than an interrogation. These would be the first players I guided to this cave since becoming Carver.

  “I’m in, how about you Adam?”

  “If you’re going.” Poor boy was still red-faced. I smirked as they retreated into the distance. Surprisingly, sending them off together earned me a few more points on the progress bar.

  Progress: 80%

  “Come on Phil. I need to go home.”

  “No can do, geezer, Mylia wanted you to drop by tonight.” Phil responded with half his normal cheek. He still looked winded. I sighed. The timing was never convenient. Not when it really mattered.

  “You can take the slow route then.”

  Session Fifte
en - Unaware Farewell

  Whistling is hard with partially chapped lips. Old Man Carver also couldn’t carry a tune to save his life. I couldn’t hear one either, at least not without an extremely loud tone. We passed by a man in the park who looked like he was trying to woo [Coo-Coo Rill]s with his voice.

  Phil commented on how terrible he sounded, I grunted because none of the noise had made it to me. Even the man’s shape was a pleasant blur. Reactions like Phil’s are why I avoided dancing in public back in the real world. Too much judgment abounded in our world of instantly uploaded videos and attention mongering. Here, inside Continue Online, was easier. More than once I had taken Carver’s body through a slow jig of happiness. Plus dancing a jig is kind of fun.

  I enjoyed irritating Phil with my own terrible whistle between the cave of mysteries and Mylia’s orphanage. Though neither name was accurate. Cave of mysteries had a nice ring to it. Better than [Maze of Midnight].

  “Thank the Voices. Home. Finally.” Phil was beyond tired. His legs had slowly dwindled to half spastic jerks.

  “Careful with your balance.”

  “I know. I know.” He huffed.

  “Bicycles take even a Traveler time to learn. Stretch first.” That was me talking, not Carver, I was almost forced to do stretches every time I exited the ARC or risk problems. “Make sure the younger kids don’t try to run off without supervision.”

  “I know. I know.”

  Neat. I was really getting into this role of being a nagging old man. Though my behavior wasn’t entirely accurate for a Carverism.

  “And money up front when working.”

  “I know!” The youngsters head was hanging down in that sulk children do.

  “And you’ll need a map.”

  “I know!” Phil paused and blinked a few times. “Wait. What? You never said anything about a map.”

  “Here. I can’t be doing this forever.” I handed over one of the maps Carver had. During the last five days, I verified that this one actually displayed information. The rest was at Carver’s house. That place was filled to the brim with notes and bits of information.