Continue Online (Part 4, Crash)

by Stephan Morse

  “I promise a dozen cupcakes at my earliest convenience.” The words came out simply and without excessive volume. My mouth lifted to one side in a smile. I didn’t know which Voice, or if Dusk had created this requirement. The AI was insanely sophisticated so both were possible.

  Everything dimmed and the walls shook. There was a pit of golden illumination pouring outward from the spell’s center. My arm came up to reduce the glare.

  “Sstay alive!” Viper hissed at me in a panic. He had another blade in his hand quickly. Without [Awareness Heightening] the man looked insanely fast.

  A much larger than expected creature appeared. His body was now on par with a bobcat, instead of half the size of any normal house cat. Everything else looked the same. Obsidian colored skin, golden flecks running a stripe down his chest. Even the wings felt nostalgic after my time in Advance Online.

  “Dusk, thank the Voices you’re alright.” I tried not to get overly excited. The bigger [Messenger’s Pet] wasted no time and ran over to me.

  He purred and drove his head into my side. Things felt better by far, despite the disorienting fact that he had almost doubled in size.

  “Yeah. I missed you too,” I said. The little guy could have visited me in an Atrium if I had accessed one, but Mother had rather firmly suggested I avoid logging in an ARC until last night.

  “What’ss that?” Viper looked extremely disturbed and had backed up to one of the dungeon walls. It had taken all my [Acting] skill along with [Act: Straight Face] to prevent laughing at the man.

  “A friend, and maybe our way out of this mess,” I said.

  Dusk tilted his head and looked around at the mess of bodies. The not as small head pulled out to the side and sniffed. I was happy to have made progress in completing my mental checklist for this first day in the dungeon. Next would be finding a safe corner to pull out the [Messenger’s Tube] and check for those promised communications regarding Xin.

  Where was she? Was she in the game? Waiting for me to press yes and let her into the Atrium? I shook my head and tried not to be upset. Everything that had happened was a result of my own choices, the best way to handle things involved moving forward one step at a time.

  “Alright, Dusk. I’m not sure how much you’ve seen, but I’ll talk anyway.” I missed the little guy, he was a great sounding board.

  A small question mark appeared about Dusk’s head as he looked at me. One cheek pulled back in a vague imitation smile. Even the imitation dragon’s tail looked to be wagging just slightly, where most of the time he looked indifferent while searching for creatures to fight.

  Voices above, with his new size, the range of creatures to hunt down and maul had increased. I pitied the next nest of [Coo-Coo Rill]s we came across.

  “Why are you wassting time with a pet? We need to hide, or prepare an ambussh.” My teammate sounded nervous and his eyes glowed in the dungeon light.

  “This little guy is probably smarter than the two of us put together, trust me.” I ignored anything further from Viper and explained to Dusk our situation. “Let’s finish looting while I catch Dusk up.”

  The other player huffed and moved onto searching the dead players for gear. They were convicts like us, but they might have some items. He got two pieces of plate gear from the guy who had lured us down here. I came behind him with my poor skinning skills and tried to gather materials.

  We managed to clear all the bodies except for Squisks’. A man who was willing to try to bring us down with him deserved to be cast aside. He was left there to rot.

  During Viper’s loot fiesta I tried to whisper to Dusk about the dungeon. All attempts at explaining things came with a confused series of exclamation marks that were visible even down here. Going farther into the dungeon amplified the odd blacklight feeling to everyone.

  “So can you find us a safe spot?” I asked him at long last. “Something better than a path to the Grand World Crossroads this time.”

  Dusk looked around. Viper turned his mostly white eyes toward the shorter creature. We watched as he stood on hind legs and sniffed the air. He looked around a few more times.

  “Usselessss. I sshould jusst kill you now, and find a place to hide.” The other Traveler’s neck bent too far to the left.

  It was enough to distract Dusk. He looked at my makeshift partner and actually curled back his lips in disgust. The two of them stuck their tongues out at each other, which made my face freeze and hands drift toward weapons.

  “I would prefer if we got along, at least until we’re out of this dungeon.” I had seen Dusk die in that other world. Now I knew he wasn’t immune to pain or fighting others. He had a character stat window just like I did.

  “What then, can you offer, worth my continued attentionss?” he asked before tensing up toward Dusk.

  Dusk was still making his standard mixture of animal noises. Part snake, cat, and bird. I put a hand on his much higher head and scratched between his ears. The motion distracted him from the hissing match.

  “You implied players like to hide goods for other people, as payment, right?”

  “Yess.”

  “What do you say we steal them while they’re unguarded?” Both Dusk and I pulled back our cheeks in equal smirks.

  “I’m lisstening.” Viper tilted his face to one side to bring us into focus. The narrow slit of his eye widened to take in more light.

  “Dusk, do you think you can find some treasures for us?” I said while thinking about my own [Treasure’s Gift]. Hopefully we could get one small pile of items squirreled away by other players. Once Viper was on board I could get breakfast and take care of real life needs.

  Dealing with Dusk had grown a lot easier months ago. Now, most ideas in his head came with comical thought bubble projections. Above his head, two cupcakes showed.

  “Yes, of course, I’ll get you cupcakes,” I said.

  Viper muttered in confusion while Dusk turned toward me. His eyes looked into mine, then back to the path we had arrived by. Both my eyes closed briefly to drown out the visual overlap of [Sight of Mercari]. According to the sensations, team four with Big O was already on the way down. After that would be Android Seven and his partners. I longed for a quiet corner of the dungeon but based on Dusk’s sniffing, that wasn’t going to happen.

  “What’ss that?” Viper asked.

  “Fellow Travelers on life’s road,” I muttered.

  “Sshit,” he said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  One of the groups ahead of us went toward the dungeon’s western side. Another group traveled farther away. This place was almost big enough that a dozen people could roam, but once the other half started we would be hard pressed to avoid each other. Viper and I had to contend with too many factors for other players to be our only concern.

  Dusk sniffed, an exclamation mark appeared in the thought bubble above his head. A treasure box showed shortly after complete with golden coins. Using the [Messenger’s Pet] to hunt down treasure was certainly a new application.

  “Lead the way,” I said to the large cat-sized dragon. He wasn’t going to fit in my hood anymore, and that made me kind of sad.

  “You got a pet bribed with cupcakess?” Viper fell into line behind me.

  “What do you use?” I turned to check on him. The man was completely perplexed by our situation.

  Part of me couldn’t help but smile. Sure he wanted to get the most of this dungeon, but so did I. I was easily willing to work with someone for safety and split the resources. Logging out left an autopilot active in dungeons, that’s how they all worked. Players could go in, but none of us would be allowed to log out to safety.

  Often times autopilots were prone to stupid actions. Mine had eaten a slew of [Ghost Mushroom]s and ended up seeing sound as splashes of color.

  There were additional monsters like the ones prior, but with Dusk helping we made quick work of them. Viper insisted we stop and gather their energy or whatever that crystal of his did. After a while, he figured out w
hich question to ask.

  “You. You’re an Ultimate Edition Usser, aren’t you?” he said.

  I shrugged but didn’t answer out loud. It always sounded like an excuse compared to the months of work I put in learning new skills and changing from a passive depressive man going through the motions to a person that defeated monsters in rapid succession. Almost a year’s worth of game time, months of real world time. I had changed dammit.

  “That explainss the weird itemss. You got ssomething during your trialss. Didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling annoyed that all my efforts were boiled down to ‘pay to win’ gaming.

  “Ahhhhh.” He let out a long hiss. We fought another small pack of the legless creatures with monstrous arms. Bits of blackened blood stained the leather armor given to me through King Nero’s pity.

  As we traveled on my irritation grew. My efforts being discounted hurt, but we hadn’t found a safe spot to hide yet. My bladder was full and belly rumbling. To top it off, the [Messenger’s Tube] practically glowed with communication from the Voices above. Hopefully soon Dusk would reach his destination, and I could set about getting things sorted.

  Snake eyes followed along behind us, gathering loot while my own inventory stayed nearly empty. The price of loot was small for a measure of freedom and cooperation. One that didn’t hurt to pay.

  Coldly inflicting mental pain to two other players without hesitation, that was another issue entirely. I tried not to let the worry about what this place might do to me cause problems. There were still two items to open and get straight before I could let myself reflect completely.

  Session Seventy One - Nightmares and Dreams

  My head throbbed from repeated usage of abilities. [Blink] was bad enough due to losing my anchor in space repeatedly. It required me to look at a target location and imagine being there, and how the game picked that up was often beyond me.

  Then again, [Morrigu’s Gift] transformed shapes, and this entire world was in my head and digital coding. Advanced science clearly didn’t care one whit about piddly human limitations. My head shook slowly and tried to focus on creeping through the dungeon.

  Dusk sniffed at the ground ahead of us. I watched the area around us in case he might fail to notice something, but Dusk normally had an insane level of awareness. He could find any critter smaller than him in a ten-mile radius, and now he was bigger.

  “Any place close, Dusk?” I asked him. We kept running into single monsters but nothing big yet. Those other players had entered behind us and things would start getting bad soon.

  “Yess. Tell your lizard to find a place fast,” Viper said. His eyes shifted constantly as we turned corners.

  Our route led down a hallway, through four junctions, and to a two story drop toward the dungeon core. Dusk leapt with barely a flutter of wings. I [Blink]ed. Viper had to use the handholds one level at a time.

  “He’ss not going for the bossss, iss he?” my partner asked.

  “No—” I checked the names in the dungeon. No players were nearby, but others were going down as well. “You’re not, right Dusk?”

  The larger imitation dragon turned to me then rolled his eyes. One shoulder rippled as if to suggest the choice was mine. A huff of steam came out from his nostrils and he went back to tracking a scent.

  “That’s probably a no.” I smiled and tried to [Act] confident. One hand stayed on [Morrigu’s Gift] anyway in case Viper tried to stab me in the back. I felt uncomfortable with him behind me, but couldn’t let him get close to Dusk either.

  If I died, that was fine, but if Dusk died, I might lose my mind again. Seeing him, Jeeves, and Treasure all vanish in one go had been devastating the first time. For a few brief seconds, I lost rationality and forgot these virtual worlds were only real on the surface.

  Going down a floor made it even harder to see. Less light dripped through this floor’s ceiling. The creepy glow that illuminated Viper’s eyes was reduced to almost normal hues.

  “Is your beasst ssure?”

  Dusk laid back an ear and growled.

  “He’ss ssmart,” Viper remarked but didn’t apologize. He didn’t seem like the sort who really gave a damn about others. Those mostly white orbs made me feel distrustful.

  “I told you,” I said, sticking up for one of my few friends in the world. It was odd that the people I got along with best only existed in a digital landscape. He looked like an animal but felt far too complex to be compared to Mister Sniffles.

  This dungeon felt easy. We were a little over an hour into these depths and so far there had been no signs of traps or complicated puzzles.

  “This place can’t just be monsters.”

  “I’m not ssure. It’ss getting harder to ssee though, I worry what might be in the darknessss.”

  That worried me also. Without a scroll to light the area, we would be in for trouble. Maybe I could wrap up the convict’s garb and set it aflame.

  “Do you have anything we can use for a torch?” I asked.

  Viper shook his head. He probably hadn’t been desperate enough to use clothing as a torch yet. It ruined the durability, and would screw up the few points such an item would be worth. Maybe he had an ability to see in the dark.

  I grumbled about being robbed of all my items again. They didn’t even give me a discount on the [Sinner] status after taking my gold and goodies.

  Dusk stopped and perked up. The bobcat sized dragon swiveled a long neck around to peer behind us. One ear flicked forth as something in the distance drew his attention. Viper looked confused, but a short blade sat clutched in each hand. His body crouched low to the ground.

  I couldn’t tell what had my friend so enthralled. A hand sat ready with [Morrigu’s Gift] and played through one of the other convict’s words earlier. Average players died down here, and that couldn’t be from team combat alone.

  Dusk hissed and my stomach dropped. When he made those little angry squawks of noise, our situation would get bad.

  Out from behind one of the earthen dungeon walls shuffled a much taller creature then our prior enemies. This human-shaped monster had legs that were nearly impossible to separate from the dim background. Flesh and muscle were missing from a shoulder down to the thigh.

  Skill Used: [Identification]

  Race: Heavenly Body Clone

  Traits: [Imperfect], [Undying], [Cannibal]

  Details: Heavenly Bodies belong to a race that visited from another universe. There were only three that ever reached the surface of [Arcadia], this creature is a mad man’s attempt at channeling power from the [Tower of Stars] above in order to recreate these beings.This creature is attracted to the dead bodies of lesser [Heavenly Body Clone]s, and cannot be truly killed. There are rumors of a method to destroy them but the exact method is unknown.

  “Sshit,” Viper said.

  “You see that? It’s impossible to kill!” I didn’t like that kind of message. In all my time playing this virtual reality game, monsters who didn’t die had never come up.

  “Ssshit, seven dayss of running?” the other man voiced a thought completely different from my own.

  “Viper, throw some body parts of the lesser versions at it!” I snapped at the part serpent player. Being trained to react suddenly to Continue Online’s crazy world had taken a lot of time with Shazam. “Dusk, we need that safe spot!”

  Viper didn’t throw anything, but instead turned and ran ahead of Dusk. A single slit of eyes was visible as he hauled down the hallway. Dusk squawked then tried to shuffle off as well. I debated hitting the creature with my weapons for a few seconds too long.

  Voices but they moved fast. The shuffle from before must have been an act because a few seconds later long arms were grasping toward my body. The [Speed] and [Reaction] weren’t enough without [Awareness Heightening] to completely avoid fingertips raking across my chest and face.

  That’s not how manicures work

  Total Health Remaining: 70%

  I spun, got a line of
sight on where Dusk was fleeing around the corner, then [Blink]ed. My landing footwork was poor, the limp from before ached just wrong. A second thud of pain jolted my shoulder as I tumbled into a wall upon reappearing.

  Loud angry walrus barking echoed behind us. I managed to keep [Morrigu’s Gift] in one hand and pulled myself upright with the other. My mind tried to piece together what was happening as we ran down a corridor of the dungeon. Another [Heavenly Body Clone] came out ahead of Viper, bones shone through on its arm with an obvious glow.

  Viper cursed then leaned back in a slide to get under the creature’s outstretched arms. Dusk spat a ball of fire which made the creature bark in anger. I ran by, stopped, spun and held my hat down. Both feet went up to tippy toes and one hand behind me for a moment.

  “Grrh!” the monster shouted in my face. I smiled, feeling pleased with the resulting system pop-up then chased after the others.

  Running with Style

  +2 [Attractiveness]

  +1 [Coordination]

  “Viper! We need to get rid of the loot from them!” I shouted ahead.

  All those little monsters had been easy because they were bait, stupid players would pick up the loot and attract these other monsters that couldn’t be killed.

  “No! We have to figure something out! Or we’ll never escape being convicts!” Viper said. “You disssstract them! I have all the itemss!”

  “They’re following you!” I said while stomping over a legless monster. Part of me wanted to leave the snake man behind and try to kill the boss. That was another possible solution that had flashed through my brain, but I had hoped to use Viper as a decoy for the other players.

  “Sshit!” he said while hugging the right side of a corridor to get past yet another of the swift moving glowing creatures. “Sshit, sshit, sshit, I hate thiss game!”

  Dusk got distracted and dove for one of the half-bodied versions with no legs. Fire bubbled in his mouth as he chewed on the thing’s face.

  I felt disgusted and increasingly dizzy. Dead [Coo-Coo Rill]s had been more than enough. Voices help me if he brought one back to the Atrium. He couldn’t do that, could he? If I had to log back into Hermes to see these weird decomposing clones piled around me as presents I might just barf.