To the right of the hulking golem was a small, slim midnight skinned elf with silvery hair. Jace recognized it instantly as a dark elf, another evil player race that did well at brigand work. This one held two hand crossbows at the ready.
To the golem’s left was a tall, slim figure that moved with the grace of a snake. Not only that, but it looked like a snake, or more specifically, like a dragon. It was a half-dragon, another of the evil player races. Their dragon heritage made them talented mages. As Jace watched, a forked tongue slithered out of the half-dragon’s mouth.
“Ugh,” hissed the half-dragon. “It smells like burnt meat!”
“What? You don’t like the smell of napalm in the morning?” said a new voice that stepped into view. Jace knew instantly that this was a morlock. It’s pale shriveled body was a dead giveaway. Not quite dead, not quite alive, the morlocks were the natural necromancers for the evil player races. “Stop complaining and look for a chest or bag of gold or something.”
They sounded like players. One was even trying to roleplay his character. Is that what they were supposed to be in his dream? Players? But who were they? Why had they attacked the village? Was he supposed to do something with them? Do something to them?
As Jace’s mind swirled with ideas, he stared at them with his unmoving body. Right now, he couldn’t do anything. Then he felt a tingling sensation in his fingers and toes that travelled up his body. He tried to move his fingers and found that they worked. Feeling the rest of his muscles come under his control, he slowly stood up.
The morlock noticed him first. “Hey, we got a live one.”
“Seriously?” asked the golem in his deep bass voice. “One of them survived that blast?”
Jace wanted to scream in pain. He could see that his entire front side was burned. Not only that, but from the pain he was having breathing, he was pretty sure he broke a rib or two. He gritted his teeth from the pain but needed to find out what was going on.
“Who are you?” Jace asked in the same high-pitched voice he heard himself use before.
The four players, if that is what they were, looked at each other in confusion.
“Is it trying to speak to us?” asked the morlock. “Can they do that?”
“Wow,” said the dark elf. “I’ve never seen one do that. Normally they just attack or run.”
“Perhaps it’s a quest starter,” said the half-dragon thoughtfully. “Maybe even a raid quest.”
The morlock scratched his chin. “You could be right. But then why can’t we understand it.”
Frankie, at least that’s what Jace decided to call the golem in his mind, stepped forward and raised his voice. “WHAT… ARE… YOU… TRYING… TO… TELL… US?”
The other players rolled their eyes and the half-dragon smacked his forehead. Mordy, the morlock looked at the golem. “Do you really think saying it loudly is going to make him understand?”
“Maybe we have to kill him to start the quest,” said the dark elf, which Jace decided to call Inky. Inky raised one of his crossbows.
“Just wait,” said Draco the half-dragon. Now Jace had names for them all, which made it easier to keep track of them. “Why wouldn’t it have just died if that’s all we needed to start the quest.”
Inky let his crossbow drop to his side. “Good point. Maybe there’s something we have to do.”
“Like what?” asked Frankie.
Jace was really confused. He knew dreams didn’t make sense most of the time, but this was really confusing. What was he supposed to do? Did these players represent aspects of himself? Was he supposed to do something? It was hard to think with all the pain. He wished he had a painkiller - or more like an entire bottle of painkillers.
As he wracked his brain for what to do, the players were having their own conversation.
“Let’s offer him something,” suggested Mordy.
“Like what?” asked Inky.
“What about a healing potion?” hissed Draco questioningly. “I mean… he’s hurt right? Maybe if we offer him some healing, it will trigger a dialogue.”
Mordy nodded and looked at the others who just shrugged. “Sure, why not. Anyone have a cheap healing potion?”
The four players searched their pouches for a long moment and then then Frankie held up a small red vial. “I have a cloudy potion.”
Looking at the small vial in Frankie’s fingers, the players nodded. “That’ll do. Give it to him and see if anything happens.”
Frankie started forward. “Okay, but if he attacks me, it’s clobberin time.”
“Don’t kill him,” Draco hissed. “Not until we find out what he does.”
Jace watched the approaching golem. Goblins were only about three feet tall, and the closer Frankie got to him, the more the size difference became evident. He was basically a giant to Jace’s little body.
Gently, Frankie bent down and held out the healing potion in his beefy hand. “Here little fella, try this.” The big golem looked back at his friends. “Do you think it understands me?”
“I doubt it,” Draco responded.
Jace took the vial and nodded his head.
“Hey,” grinned the golem. “I think he understood me.”
Jace took the vial, uncorked it and poured the content down his throat. Then he coughed and collapsed to the ground as his flesh mended itself. It didn’t heal all the damage, but it certainly took the edge off the pain.
“You killed him!” cried Mordy.
Raising a gnarled hand to forestall any argument, Jace slowly climbed back to his feet. “Thank you,” he rasped.
“What did he say?” asked the three players who had hung back. “What did he say?”
“I don’t know,” shrugged Frankie. “More goblin speak.”
Jace let out an exasperated sigh. He could clearly hear himself speaking English, but apparently in his dream, he spoke goblin. That was frustrating. Was that part of what he was supposed to do? Was he supposed to communicate with the players? He really wished he’d paid attention in Psychology 101 back in college.
“I don’t think he does anything,” Inky said. “I think he just survived somehow.”
“But what about the way he’s acting?” asked Mordy. “That’s not normal.”
“Maybe he’s the goblin village idiot,” suggested Draco who laughed. “And we just wasted a potion on an idiot.”
Jace didn’t like where this conversation was going. In fact, he had a really bad feeling about this.
“Listen guys,” Inky said. “I have to logout soon for supper, so I need to get back to a safe spot. Let’s just kill him and go.”
Mordy’s eyes went glassy, much like real players did when they were looking at their HUD. “Yes, I have to go soon too. I guess just kill him.”
Frankie pulled his sword from its scabbard on his hip. “Sorry about this little guy. I kind of liked you.”
Jace waved his hands frantically trying to dissuade the giant golem. The last thing he saw was a huge sword descending towards his head. Then sharp pain. Then blackness.
In the blackness, glowing words appeared.
System message 4307895E - Entity killed.
Experience rewarded.
Loot generated.
Return code: __
Jace stared uncomprehendingly at the words. They looked like system messages but nothing like anything he’d ever seen before. Plus, wasn’t he supposed to wake up if he died in a dream? Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
A cursor blinked at the end of the words “Return code:” for several seconds before everything went black again.
AI module retrieved.
Selecting new host.
Inserting AI module.
Spawning…
And then more blackness… and light.
Chapter 8
Jace blinked against the bright light of the sun and it took his eyes a moment to adjust. Even though things were blurry, it was clear he was now outside. He got a sinking feeling in the
pit of his stomach as a strange sense of deja vu overcame him. Didn’t he just have this dream?
Things became clearer around him and he found himself in a small forest clearing but something was off. He looked down and was surprised to see how far it was to the ground. He held up his hands and this time, instead of short gnarly gray arms, he had huge, beefy arms covered in a tough greenish leathery skin. He recognized himself instantly from playing VEIL. He was an ogre.
Shaking his head as if that would make things go back to normal, he wondered what was going on? Why was he dreaming of being monsters? Was it a dream? What about those strange messages he’d seen when he had died as a goblin? They did seem remarkably like game messages.
Before he really had a chance to think about it, he felt a stinging in his knee. He looked down in time to see a stone bounce off it.
“Again?” Jace bellowed in frustration. Was someone attacking him again? Couldn’t they just leave him alone and let him figure out what was happening?
“Get it! Get it!” came voices. Figures emerged from the wood and Jace recognized them as some of the “good” player races.
There was a halfling, a dwarf, a gnome and a nephilim, or half-angel, and they seemed intent on killing him. He frowned. Of course, they wanted to kill him, he was an ogre.
Two more rocks thudded into his arm, but he barely noticed as the dwarf ran up to him and bellowed a war cry. “Fight me!”
Jace did a double take. Had the dwarf just Taunted him? Would he be compelled to keep attacking the dwarf and only the dwarf? Was he going to lose control of himself? Icy panic flowed through him as he looked down at the dwarf.
Jace cocked an eyebrow. He didn’t feel any different. He took a step away from the dwarf just to see if he could. The dwarf looked confused and then stepped towards him.
“Fight me!” demanded the dwarf again, this time a little louder.
Experimentally, Jace took two large steps towards the little gnome dressed in robes. The gnome appeared to be casting a spell and Jace didn’t want to get burned, electrocuted, frozen or well… anything else that would hurt.
The gnome stopped casting with a frightened look as he moved closer. “Uh,” she stammered. “Why is the ogre moving towards me?”
Emboldened by his success in ignoring the Taunt, Jace took another step. “Don’t cast at me!”
The gnome took another step back and started moving in hands in the beginning of a spell. Angry for being ignored, Jace took another step and raised his club over his head, aiming it down at the gnome. “Stop it!”
When the gnome didn’t stop, he smashed the club down on her, intending to knock her out. Unfortunately, he hadn’t counted on the ogre’s massive strength and flattened her instantly. Ouch.
“Sorry,” he said, but she was already dead.
The other three players stood gaping in shock at the smear that used to be their caster.
“It killed Kenlee!” screamed the elf. “Why didn’t you Taunt it?!”
The dwarf looked defensive. “I did! I Taunted it!” The armor clad dwarf faced him and banged on his shield. “FIGHT ME!”
Horrified at what he’d just done to the little gnome, Jace turned and ran off through the forest, quickly leaving the players far behind.
The ogre must have had a ton of Stamina because Jace felt like he ran for miles before collapsing. One minute he was running, the next minute he was flat on his face, unable to move. It was eerily like VEIL. In the game, when you ran out of Stamina, you just collapsed and were unable to do anything until your Stamina regenerated to 25%.
Stamina was one of those stats that wasn’t really meaningful until you were either in a marathon fight, like a raid, or when you were trying to run. It was put into the game as an afterthought when players did nothing but run. The developers stated that it hadn’t been their intention that everyone constantly ran, so they added in a Stamina stat. Now, it basically stopped you from running constantly and was really annoying in long fights.
The run had given Jace time to think. None of this really seemed very dream-like. It actually felt like being in the game.
Well, other than being a monster, it felt like being in the game. WAS he in the game? How was that possible?
Jace was a programmer. A troubleshooter. He had to think about this logically. First, how could he be in the game?
There were only two answers. One, he was logged in normally through his VR pod. If that were the case, he should be in his Mordred character and he should have a HUD. Experimentally, he tried activating his HUD. Nothing happened. He thought of the special keywords for major failures.
EXIT GAME.
He thought the command, but nothing happened. That was supposed to be hard coded into the pod itself to exit out of a virtual environment. It should have initiated a normal shut down, but nothing was happening.
There was another one, but it was only supposed to be used in emergencies as it had the possibility of messing up your brain. It did an emergency shutdown and could cause serious feedback to your mind. But what choice did he have? Not only was he stuck in the game, he was stuck in a monster. Closing his eyes and bracing himself, he thought the command words.
EMERGENCY EXIT.
Nothing happened. He waited longer. Still nothing happened. He felt his heart pounding as panic began to set in. Why couldn’t he exit? Was it his pod? Was it malfunctioning? The pod was older. Maybe that was it!
He dismissed it. No, even if his pod was malfunctioning, it couldn’t put him into a monster body. It only displayed the information that was sent to it. And all of that information came from the game computer itself.
Jace took a deep breath and realized he was still on the ground. It didn’t really matter right now so he just stayed on the ground as he thought things through.
Okay Jace, think logically. How else could he be in the game? His blood went to ice in his veins as he realized the only other way he could be in the game. H must had died and been inserted into the game. He suddenly felt nauseous as he considered that grim alternative. If he had died, his Last Will & Testament currently told them to insert his last brain backup into the game. After all, that was why he played the game so hard. He had played so hard so that when he died, he’d become Mordred and live the rest of eternity in the game as a vampyre assassin. And the more money and loot he accumulated in the game, the easier his eternity would be. Now it looked as if that eternity had already started.
A deep sense of sadness and loss overwhelmed him. He thoughts of all the things he’d never do. The places he’d never go. Heck, he’d never even really had a serious relationship. Now he never would. There were so many things he wouldn’t get to do.
It felt overwhelming but he also felt a sense of detachment. Like he was watching this happen to someone else. Was he experiencing denial? Wasn’t that one of the stages of dealing with a death? He remembered one of the counselors he’d been forced to go to after his parents died had told him something about the five stages of grief. But that seemed a lifetime ago. He smirked as he realized that was literally true for him. It was a lifetime ago.
But how had he died? He thought back to his last memory before waking up the game. The last thing he remembered was the brain backup. He tried hard to think of anything after that, anything at all. There was nothing. Not even a hint or hazy memory after that point. He had no idea how he died. There were no memories after than brain backup.
He shook his enormous ogre head to clear away all the questions that were suddenly assaulting it. So now what? He was dead. That sucked. It really sucked. But if he were in the game, then he had a second chance. It wasn’t the life he’d wanted but it was a second chance. The question was: why the heck was he in an ogre body?
He’d been goblin first, that was obvious. He’d been killed and, there was that weird system message and then he had jumped to a different monster body. Why was he in a monster body? That made no sense at all. Players couldn’t be monsters. Period. The game rules did
n’t allow it.
When he died, he should have been inserted into his Mordred character. Inserted. That rang a bell. Players who died had their brain backups uploaded into the game permanent, a process called insertion. Insertion! Jace’s brain did a double take. Inserted. He should have been inserted. THE INSERTION ROUTINE!
Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner! Jace remembered the encrypted or obfuscated code he’d found in the insertion routine he’d seen at work! Was there a bug in the insertion routine? Is that why he’d been put into a monster body? If so, that would be devastating to the company. That routine handled not only the insertion of a person’s brain backup into his game character, it also handled the conversion of earthly assets into game currency.
Despite everything, Jace chuckled. Who said you couldn’t take it with you?
You could specify in your will how much of your assets you wanted inserted into VEIL with you to ensure you had a comfortable eternity in the game. Only Jace’s assets hadn’t made it over and even if they had, who really wanted to be the richest ogre in the game?
But if there was a bug in the program and people were being inserted into monster bodies instead of into their characters, people would panic. WorldCog’s stock would drop. It would cost them millions. Is that what had happened? Had they tried to hide it? Is that why Damian was so upset when he learned about it? Was no one supposed to know? Did Phil even know?
Jace swallowed. Had he blundered into some company conspiracy? Had WorldCog killed him to keep him quiet? Was that why Damian had been acting like more of a jerk than normal? Was he afraid for his life too? Had Damian tried to save him? That seemed uncharacteristic but maybe that had been why he was so upset.
And now, Jace had been inserted and subjected to the very bug he’d blundered into. How was that for irony? Or was it irony at all? Had WorldCog killed him knowing that he would become a monster? Was this a way to ensure his silence? But why insert him at all then? It didn’t make sense.
Veil Online - Book 1 (a LitRPG MMORPG Adventure Series) Page 5