by Charles Dean
“So he’s logged in a lot, then?”
“Yeah, he’s been pretty active lately, but hasn’t everyone? With the game just coming out everyone is still pretty hyped up about it.”
Robert sat silent as he mulled this over. He wasn’t really sure how much he wanted to tell his daughter. He knew that he could trust her, but if he told her what little he suspected about her friend Darwin then that might make her too cautious and mean that he couldn't use her for information anymore.
Kass:
Kass wasn’t sure what to expect when she signed in. Between the conversation with her dad, the events of the night before with Darwin’s ‘family reunion’ and all the chatter on the forums, she was a little nervous to actually hit the button and log in, lost as to what would happen. That’s why she was hesitating to log in, but when she finally did log in it wasn’t at all what she was expecting. Not that she knew what to expect, just that it definitely wasn’t this. It was a town full of players, almost all lowbies, standing around the fountain talking to each other. The streets were empty of NPC life. The houses and shops on all sides were burned and the players who remained were talking in hushed murmurs amongst themselves.
“What do you think happened to the townspeople?” Kass overheard, the people talking in hushed whispers but it was still easy enough to make out what was being said given how quiet the rest of the town was.
“I don’t know. I saw a few of them packing up, but then they just vanished.”
“I heard one of the NPCs tell her daughter to be careful, that the Spoon King commanded them. I was going to ask her who the Spoon King was but she went quiet as soon as she saw I was listening. It’s creepy how realistic the NPCs are.”
“I still can’t believe what happened last night. I wish I was logged in; I’d have given those PKs a run for their money.”
Kass was trying to follow the idle gossip between the other players but it was hard to focus. Spoon King? No . . . it couldn’t be Darwin, could it? she thought, since somehow just mentioning the word spoon reminded her of Darwin. What a silly guy.
“My question is, what do we do now? There aren’t any merchants to sell our goods at. There aren’t any merchants to buy goods at. Those jerks really ruined it for us. Now we can’t even get quests.”
QUEST! That’s right. We just finished the clear silver ore mine quest. I need to find Captain Elmont and turn in my quest.
“Hey! Have either of you two seen Captain Elmont?” Kass asked the two who had just been gossipping next to her.
They didn’t respond to her at first. They just stared at her like she had said something stupid. Then finally one of them answered, “Yeah, sorry. Really sorry . . . umm . . . you can find him over at the tavern.”
Kass frowned. She remembered before she logged on reading about how the tavern had burned down. Is that guy such a drunk that he is looking for the last mug of beer in a burned down building? she thought, heading over to the bar. She did her best to avoid looking at the corpses or buildings along the way. It was too grisly a site to handle. I wonder why they haven’t pixelated into nothing yet? Don’t bodies usually disappear over time in video games?
As soon as she saw the clear outline of a body covered in bedsheet she knew it was Captain Elmont’s. Crap. Now I’ll never get the quest completion reward, she thought, approaching the body to confirm her suspicion. Except, when she checked the face she covered it up as quickly as she had seen it. Eww, that’s him alright. I hope Darwin didn’t see him like this. They seemed to get along really well. Oh yeah, where is Darwin at?
She opened up her map and looked around the town for the blue dot. Since Darwin was the only person on her friends list it was easy to look for him in an area. The problem was that throughout the entire town there wasn’t a single blue dot. Kass zoomed her map out and kept trying to find where he could be. She was just about to give up, thinking, Is it possible that Darwin actually logged off? when she finally remembered, The silver-ore mine! He might not know that I could choose to appear back at my bind location in Valcrest since I was logged off for so long. He must still be waiting to make sure I don’t reappear in front of a bunch of bad guys. What a loyal, considerate leveling bot.
Kass decided to whisper Darwin and see what he was up to, but he must have been near enemies because she kept getting error messages. He must be in combat. I know the whisper system doesn’t work when someone is in combat or has potential enemies or monsters within a certain range of them. Deciding the only way she was going to get in contact with Darwin was to chase his blue dot, she exited the town. It’s not like there is anything I can buy around here anyways.
As Kass closed the distance towards Darwin, she couldn’t help but grumble. Why did I have to restart so far away from the silver-ore mine? I don’t even walk this much in real life and I’m doing it in a game? I need a mount. A flying mount would be really cool. It wasn’t until halfway to Darwin that she finally gave up on just walking without doing anything that she decided to go a little bit into the woods and then head to Darwin. Even though it would slow her down, she could at least kill stuff and grind some EXP out along the way. Maybe even get a good item drop. I wonder what that polar bear-looking Boss dropped, I bet Darwin got really good loot from it.
As she was walking through the woods she spotted a group of vicious red-eyed Deer-Frogs hiding between the evergreens that made up the forest. Each one of them looked like a programmer took a frog, made it the size of a person, added some deer antlers and a deer tail and then, just for good measure, stuck giant, red googly eyes on its face. It looked peculiar.
All seven of them were in a nice pile and hadn’t noticed her yet, so she figured there was no harm in trying out one of the spells she had never managed to successfully cast, Ice Dragon’s Dance. Casting the spells felt like moving her arms--it was such a natural and thoughtless process that she couldn’t explain how to do it--but the idea of not being able to seemed silly, a fact she had to adjust to in the real world after logging out sometimes. Since she had never actually seen the spell go off though, the surprise at how beautiful it was caused her to forget to breath. A small shred of blue light began to glow straight up out of the top of her Staff, growing fast and twirling like a helix as it grew, light shooting out of light until light became ice and ice took the shape and form of flesh. Each second that passed caused the Dragon to grow larger and longer until by the fifth second the Dragon was now a thin, ten-foot ribbon serpent with its tail finally breaking away from the sapphire at the top of her staff. The Dragon shot farther up into the sky and then suddenly turned. It charged the ground where the Deer-Frogs lay and slammed into it, the impact splitting the Dragon into two separate Dragons. Each of the two Dragons shot out and began spinning around the encampment so fast Kass couldn’t see one from the other as they chased each other through a circle in the air. The circle grew tighter and tighter as it spiralled upwards leaving an after image that looked like a white Christmas tree surrounding the now-frozen Deer-Frogs. When the snake-like Dragons finally crashed into each other, they shattered, shooting several large shards of ice at everything nearby.
You have done 815 Damage!
You have done 815 Damage!
You have done 815 Damage!
You have done 815 Damage!
You have done 815 Damage!
You have done 815 Damage!
You have done 815 Damage!
Wow. That was . . . wow, Kass thought, finally remembering to breath. The entire spectacle had been so mesmerizing she had forgotten to be impressed with the Damage it had done. It had completely annihilated the camp of Deer-Frogs. The only disappointing moment was when she noticed she didn’t get any loot from the entire kill spree. which made sense, after all: they didn’t have hands to carry anything. But it didn’t make it any less disappointing.
Kass did a rinse and repeat almost the entire way to the silver ore mine. Finding groups of creatures, stealthily getting as close as she could, and then bursting
them down with an Ice Dragon’s Dance. She would have made it all the way to Darwin with just this pattern if it weren’t for the fact that when she finally reached the silver ore mine, she noticed two giant, thirteen-foot-tall Ogres with glaring red eyes and weird marks over their left eyes standing guard over the mine. Kass knew from talking to her dad a lot and reading up on the game that as Ogres leveled, they grew in size. A thirteen-foot-tall Ogre had to be almost level 30 at least. Crap, I bet these are why Darwin is still in the silver ore mine and probably the reason I can’t message him, she thought, trying to think of a way to get past the Guards.
Given that she didn’t have any real loot to lose, it didn’t make sense to worry about dying. There was no way Darwin was going to come out of the silver ore mine with those things guarding, and there was no way she was going to get her EXP bot to farm her levels without getting to him, so she grabbed her staff and made the decision to just wing it. This better be worth it, and your Bathrobe better not flap open in combat again! she thought, preparing her staff and committing herself to the fight ahead.
“Miss. It’s in your best interest not to do that,” a man said, stepping out of the shadows behind her so quietly that he almost scared her to death.
“Why not?” Kass asked, turning to face the man. If he wanted to hurt me, he’d have waited for me to pull the Ogres and killed me mid-pull.
“Because the Boss rather likes his new pets, and we don’t want the Boss to be upset now do we?” the tall scout said. Kass noticed his attire matched the Guards she had seen back when Valcrest still had NPCs.
“But I need to get into the cave.”
“If we’re going to use the word ‘need’ so lightly, then I also need to keep you out of the cave,” the Guard said callously. “Not that I know how you found us, but at the moment we’re not taking guests.”
“Look . . . I just . . . my friend Darwin is in the cave, and I need to talk to him. I know he’s inside that cave. If I can’t go in, can you send him out?”
The Guard didn’t say anything for a long minute. Then he raised one of his hands in a gesture Kass wasn’t quite familiar with. As soon as he did it though two other Guards popped out of the woods, lowering the bows they were holding as they did so. When did this game get a stealth class and how long were they here for? Who the heck is their scary Boss? Kass asked herself, feeling uncomfortable by their appearance.
“What do you want to do Alex?” one of the new Guards asked the one who had first appeared.
“She says she needs in the cave, so bring her to the Boss. You can escort her, Justin. I still have a job to do out here,” the first Guard said, and the one who had just spoken a minute ago walked up to her.
“Alright, Miss, let’s get going. You better not be lying about having business with the Boss, I don’t need to tell you about what kind of man the Boss is. He rips the souls out of people who don’t fall in line,” Justin said, walking ahead of her towards the two giant Ogres.
He rips the souls out of people? He controls giant Ogres? What the heck kind of monster is this? I don’t remember Dad ever mentioning anything about soul-ripping NPCs, Kass thought as a growing feeling of anxiety seemed to sink like a weight in her stomach.
“It’s okay, Miss. They won’t hurt anyone with us,” Justin said, seeming to believe that the clearly visible anxiety on her face was due to walking past the colossal Ogres. “The Boss stole their souls, and now they are just mindless bodyguards.”
Even though it was just a game and her death wouldn’t have any real negative impact, other than a death timer, the creepiness of the whole situation had Kass beginning to regret her choice to enter the cave.
The silver ore mine only kept its appearance as Kass remembered it for the first hundred or so feet. After that, the cave walls flattened out into smooth walls like those of a building lit by the magical torches she recognized from Valcrest and knew would never burn out. The stretch of flat walls didn’t last long though. At the end of the stretch of flat walls, she saw dozens of NPCs working the unflattened section of the wall, all watched over by red-eyed Turtle Wolves with the same markings above their left eye as the Ogres had had outside. Did their Boss enslave an entire village? There must be hundreds of them, Kass thought, her stomach feeling like it had managed to tie itself into a knot.
She kept glancing over her shoulder as she walked at where the entrance had been, much to the bemusement of the Guard leading her. Especially when one of the glances caused her to almost trip over a pile of the debris that had been cleared off the walls. Each step began to feel more and more familiar to Kass with all of the dozens of dead ends they had hit in the first venture through the silver ore mine. They were heading to the Boss room. She checked her map one more time. This is taking me directly to Darwin too. Could the Boss be that girl from yesterday? Is the family reunion still happening?
“We’re here,” Justin said as they finally made it to their destination.
Deep breath, she told herself as she opened the door to the Boss room. Where before had been an empty room with only one of its many tables occupied, there was now a bustling room where every table was filled with NPCs, NPCs eating barbecue. Kass’s eyes scanned the room looking for her EXP bot or some sign of the monstrous presence of the Boss.
“There is the Boss,” Justin said, pointing at Darwin who had just walked in from a back room holding two giant plates of cooked meat as if he were a waiter. Wait, did he say ‘Boss’ and point to Darwin?
Justin waited for Darwin to finish serving the meat to two tables before interrupting him. “Boss, this girl claims to know you. Says she has business with you.”
“It’s ok, Justin, she’s my friend, you can relax,” he said, putting a hand on Justin’s shoulder. Justin let out a breath Kass hadn’t noticed he was holding. “She does have business with me. She came a long way to get tips on fashion.”
AS IF! Who would play an amazing fantasy game just to dress up like an old man chasing kids off his lawn?
“Thanks, Boss,” Justin said.
“No problem, now go report back in with Alex. We can’t have this place turn into a party,” Darwin said, dismissing Justin, who vanished from sight faster than a ninja’s after image in an anime.
“So, you’re the Boss?” Kass asked, waiting to unload a million questions on him.
“Yes,” Darwin answered in his usual cryptic style.
Suspicious as ever! “How?”
“I inherited it from Elmont and the Mayor.”
“But, the barbecue?” she asked, still having trouble figuring out which question she should ask next.
“The people were hungry, and we have a ton of leftover Turtle-Wolf meat from re-clearing the dungeon.”
“But the Turtle-Wolves I saw coming in?”
“Guards for the 40 odd respawn points. Respawns can be killed without a fight while they are still materializing so you only need one Guard per point.”
This is too much to take in. “So, you’re the Boss?”
“Yes, Kass, I’m the Boss. You’ve asked me this before.”
“So let me get this straight. You took over an entire town, moved them to a dungeon we just cleared. A dungeon they are now tirelessly working to turn into a normal clean building. Then you somehow mind-controlled a group of NPCs to kill and farm their fellow respawns for food to feed your new cult of a town that’s . . . are, are you making them build you an evil lair?”
“Yes, that about sums it up. Any other questions?” Darwin asked, as if this was all a matter of fact and a common occurrence.
“Yes, why?”
“Because they needed me, Kass. They needed someone, and I was all that was left,” he said, a frown creeping across his face as he talked.
“Darwin, they’re just NPCs,” Kass said, regretting it as soon as the words escaped her lips. Darwin’s eyes had narrowed into a cold gaze that sent an icy chill down her spine.
“They are not JUST NPCs Kass,” he responded sharply.
> “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” She tried to backtrack her stupid comment.
“Yes. Yes. you did. It’s okay though. I shouldn’t get mad at you. You didn’t know any better,” Darwin said, looking around at all the NPCs eating in silence. “NPCs shouldn't feel like they do. Look at them, they’re doing their best just to hold themselves together. That isn’t how NPCs are supposed to behave in a game.”
Kass actually saw the NPCs for the first time since she had entered the room. None of them were smiling. She even got the feeling that her presence alone made them even more uneasy than they already were. “I’m sorry.”
“Like I said, it’s okay. I’ve done all that I can do at the moment for these people. Now, I’m assuming you came here because you wanted to level right?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. I did.”
“Good, because I have business that requires my attention. It would go much faster with my ice princess helping. Not to mention, I could use the company after the day I’ve had, so . . . do you wanna come?”
“Yes,” Kass answered, smiling for the first time since she entered the mine.
Chapter 5: The Bear Necessities!
Qasin:
The meeting room was a small hall with chairs lined out in a row around a long table in one of the Black-Wing villages. When the King opened the door to enter the room, he could taste it. Fear. They quiver like cowards. As the King, over the years, Qasin had sat in on hundreds of diplomatic, council, and exploratory meetings, but this one was new to him. Every meeting before was filled with men who acted as if they owned the world-- men whose station was always inferior to their self-perception as if they were unjustly fated to play out their roles as inferiors when they were truly equals to their audience. This meeting was different.