Continue Online (Part 4, Crash)

by Stephan Morse

  The circle’s center flared a bright golden color. Both guards managed to hold still in their safe beams. My bobcat sized version of Dusk popped out in an anxious spin. He ran over to me with a trail of drool hanging from his mouth. Sharp teeth surprisingly didn’t cut through the tongue.

  “Really? You want cupcakes already?” my voice flattened.

  Dusk nodded. Technically it had been seven game days since he left a mess in my Atrium. Four where I was booted out, and three more of me wandering around trying to get a feel for monsters and the layout.

  “Now isn’t that convenient,” I said.

  Dusk’s resulting look and the confused question marks above his head clearly implied otherwise. Cupcake time was any time. Maybe that’s how he had grown so big, I was feeding him too much. When we first met, one cupcake would have held him for a few hours. As if to prove his increased weight, the formerly half a cat-sized creature climbed up my side. Sharp claws made me wince, but part of me welcomed the familiarity.

  Soon Dusk was hanging his longer head out front, and his tail wound down part of my toga, ruffling it up. It would take me weeks to get used to this larger form. Thankfully he chose the covered shoulder to ride on. Those claws would hurt like hell on bare skin.

  “You’re going to need to start flying, instead. You’re too big to keep climbing,” I muttered.

  Dusk snorted a small ring of smoke and looked around. The window above his head indicated a search for food. Even a bad tasting monster carcass couldn’t keep his appetite at bay.

  “How about sausages?” He shook his head at my suggestion. “Fine, cupcakes, but we’ve got to beat this dungeon tonight. I’m tired of being here, and Xin’s waiting for me out there,” I whispered in his ear. “And I’ve got a present for her, something very shiny and pretty.”

  “Yeah. Good luck with that,” Knight Middleton said and snorted.

  The [Messenger’s Pet] perked up and a serious smile crossed its face. My hand rubbed between his ears slowly, feeling the trail of scales that went all the way down his back. Patting them directly irked the creature, but along the bumps and ridges always gained a happy response. Paying attention to him was far more comforting than the knight’s disdain and general hatred.

  “Let’s go, little guy.”

  Wyl glared at me, but his expression was a little less harsh than it had been. I shrugged and tucked back one cheek. William Carver’s [Legacy Wish] and [NPC Conspiracy] gave me a reason to care about this world, but now wasn’t the time or place to keep trying to break through the former guard captain’s skepticism. If I had come back up here more often then perhaps we would be farther along, but running around for hours on end in a multiple floor labyrinth was hard. [Sight of Mercari] didn’t come with a map of walls, and my journal entry filled in details gradually.

  Dusk and I should make decent progress together. After, Wyl could suffer my demands for information for days until the next dungeon or Xin’s breakout plan went into action. Or I could work, maybe Xin would call me outside the game again.

  My waiting a few days had primarily focused on getting used to these new boots and letting my summon skill come back up. When a [Messenger’s Pet] died, or left Continue Online’s world, I apparently had to wait eight days to bring him back. The cooldown on this ability was suspiciously long, maybe the Voice of Balance had changed the rules, or there were a few more factors at play with the AI witch hunt back in reality.

  I walked through the giant spiraling staircase down the first few floors and prepared my weapons. Three days of sneaking, looting and avoiding other players had helped get me back in the groove. As long as I avoided Android Seven, the player who had shot a hole through me, then we would be fine.

  “I hate the darkness in this game. I hate it the most, I think,” I muttered. Having him around prevented me from feeling utterly crazy. The blackness of where all those Voices lived was a little different. It was like, absence or an empty backdrop.

  Here, this dungeon felt oppressive. The ARC had picked up on an unquantifiable emotion that made me twitch the longer this place went on. Breathing was a little harder but the impact snuck up on me. The monsters were easy to disregard as minor creatures and yet disturbing as the lore stacked up. According to my system text, these humanoid creatures, and small lab rats were part of an attempt at recreating a divine being. Those that failed were originally locked up but had somehow escaped and kept reproducing from fallen bodies across this dungeon and the one above it. In essence, tossing prisoners like myself into this dungeon was doing more harm than good. Players like my niece, Beth, were theoretically contributing to the pile and probably didn’t know.

  Such boring thoughts kept my mind from going insane. Dusk and I scrambled through a few stray legless monsters as we made it to the next staircase.

  “Don’t eat those.” My warning resulted in Dusk making a grossed out face toward the dead monster. Neither of us had enjoyed that mess. He had carried on barfing into my hot tub program, which somehow found itself activated. I disabled it and started fresh. “I’d rather you get fat breaking into a bakery than barfing again.”

  He looked over at me and his eyes focused slowly. A box appeared.

  Rank 3 Unlock – Blessing from [Messenger’s Pet] – [Companion, Exotic]. Unlock available! Please review additional details.

  Rank 4 Unlock – Growth of [Messenger’s Pet] – [Companion, Exotic] all stats will increase, including appetite.

  “Wait, is this why you got bigger?” I asked, to which Dusk nodded then hopped up and down on my shoulder. He was impatient for baked goods and to see what this Blessing would be.

  I looked around and pinged the area. There weren’t any players nearby. Most of them were dead except Big O’s group, Android Seven, and Viper. We had a few seconds to spare before diving into the heart of this twisted blacklight dungeon. My eyes focused on the ‘additional details’ word floating in front of me and a new box popped up.

  System Help!

  Blessings are given by a few beings in the world. They may be bestowed by Voices, Legendary creatures, Exotic animals, Rituals, or items. These changes come with benefits and detractions. Most alter the Traveler’s appearance. Choose carefully, once applied they are impossible to remove.

  Balance Dictates: You should have seen what these people wanted to put in here. I’ll have none of it despite what Mother says. You have a plethora of gifts as it is. The rewards are being reduced accordingly.

  My lips pursed together. Balance had struck again, but her complaints sounded justified. Based on the survival rating of other players down here, in the war before, and during my travels, my abilities were already high enough. These Blessings were neat and explained more than a few people in the game.

  I clicked through Balance’s disclaimer and three choices came up, [Wings of the Messenger], [Belly of a Beast], and [Breath of Flame]. The idea of having black Dusk like wings was kind of interesting, but I had no desire to try to navigate using them. Being able to eat anything in-game and resist poisons and diseases might serve to be helpful. At least, I assumed that’s what the abilities did since my attempts at getting additional details failed.

  “Neat, but where were these a month ago?” I asked the creature while looking at the options.

  Cupcakes popped into being above Dusk’s head.

  “You mean you’re just making up rewards based on how much I feed you?” I felt dumbfounded. How had that not occurred to me forever ago? Or at least when seeing that it had reached rank four upon returning to Continue Online. Maybe I had focused on the wrong things. Like being in player jail, tossed in front of a king, paired with a player who felt useless. The list went on.

  Dusk nodded rapidly then shook his head.

  “Right, Balance.” I was on the right track. The fact that he had three possible blessings was interesting and confusing. Could he give me all three? Maybe if I went and spent another thousand dollars on cupcakes he might cave in. We could discuss it later.


  He nodded again then shrugged.

  I selected [Breath of Flame], because growing wings or having my virtual innards transform into a garbage disposal seemed neat, but not really my style. My finger lifted and the system message shattered into a barely visible black and gold.

  Heat built around me. A sharp twinge of pain caused me to breathe in air that felt like liquid fire. Each additional gasp brought another round of smoke and flame. Dusk made an indistinguishable noise. My pulse pounded as the suffocation grew worse.

  This was only a game, right? The feeling of dying in a fire was all in my head, right? I curled into a ball and felt cold ground scrape against me. One leg jerked while air failed to fill my lungs. Rawness refused to let go of my throat as my eyes watered.

  Then it was over, and I was left gasping with a pop-up box.

  Skill Learned: [Breath of Flame]

  Type: Rare

  Rank: 1

  Details: This skill allows a Traveler to generate a ball of fire. This ball of fire can be cast at a target or held as a torch light. Duration and strength are based on [Endurance], [Depth], and possible fire affinity modifiers. Heavy exercise immediately following generation of the flame will suffer a minor penalty dependent upon the Traveler’s [Endurance] and [Breathing] levels.

  Causes permanent state of [Altered Aura], [Minor Scales]

  System Notice!

  [Altered Aura] has an increased effect due to [Messenger of the Voices] title. You are too near to those beings known as Voices and will forever be set apart from Travelers and Locals alike, never truly being treated as either. Even those without the ability to perceive an [Aura] will feel something is off about you.

  “Is that good, or bad?” I wondered briefly. It was like a summary of my life since this game came around. Part of me didn’t care, it sounded like an easier way to get to Xin. Even if my body now had scales and a prison tattoo.

  Dusk didn’t have a response. His eyes were heavy-lidded and thoughts of food floated across his brain.

  “Let’s go, before this dungeon gives me a piercing and an eye-patch.” I tried not to feel dry in my response. Already my eyes felt a little weird around the edges as if the skin crinkled where it once had been smooth.

  The [Messenger’s Pet] snorted a ring of smoke, but it didn’t bother me. I tried to activate the ability multiple times but it didn’t trigger correctly. Barfing up fireballs to hold would probably take time to get used to, like any other ability in this game.

  We walked farther along. I moved slowly due to the aftermath of my lungs being reworked. Dusk attacked most of the spiders while I quietly cheered him on. Getting to the center staircase required traveling a different path. The main spiral into the dungeon only went to the first floor, where it smoothed out into a series of branching paths. Following them far enough would lead to the second series of stairs down. Monsters of all stages lay on each floor, and those nasty tiny spiders had webbed up chunks of it.

  I took glee in pausing my [Blink] just to put a small bit of fire, using my minor [Lithium] spell, under their webbing. The resulting screams and rapid smashing of bugs made the last three days enjoyable.

  Dusk kept us on course, mostly. We arrived after thirty minutes of twisting and turning. Both of us glanced down the staircase.

  “We’ve got to move fast, we’ll go straight for Viper first. Down here is the fastest way, and I can Blink through a lot,” I said to Dusk. He closed his eyes briefly in response then looked at one of the shambling monsters below. “All those cupcakes didn’t make you sluggish, did they?”

  The dragon turned and snorted a ring of smoke in my face. I wanted to send one back, but his skill Ranks were probably a dozen levels above mine. We cleared the smaller monsters nearby but left their corpses alone. Eventually some [Heavenly Body Clone]s would find their way up here to feast.

  Dusk leapt down first. I followed quickly, giving up stealth for speed. My feet pounded loud enough to stir various monsters. The [Messenger’s Pet] took great pleasure in blasting creatures in the face with small balls of fire. I marveled at what level his skill must be at to generate so many.

  We made it three flights down before running into real trouble. Six shambling monsters sat in our path, trying to climb their way up a floor. Too bad [Blink] was insanely broken for dungeon crawling, especially at the Rank I had. Dusk didn’t care half the time anyway.

  There were no party members nearby. Boss monsters didn’t litter this inner staircase down. I had scouted most of these paths over the last three days, staying away from glowing barrels of liquid starlight. We kept going until we reached a floor level with Viper. Dusk and I kept going, fighting smaller creatures but leaving behind carcasses. Skinning bodies or digging for ear bits wasn’t worth it at this stage. Plus I didn’t have a crystal to store energy like some of the other convicts did.

  We came out of the floor at a full gallop. Dusk sped past me, like a vicious cat tearing around corners with unending energy. Above his head floated a small smiley face with turned up eyes denoting happiness. We were huffing by the other end. Thirty minutes, that’s how long it had taken us to sprint at high speeds through this dungeon with a complete disregard for safety and the monsters chasing.

  Dusk huffed a bit as we came to a halt. We stood in front of large doors that looked almost like a vault. One metal wheel sat in the middle, clearly for spinning or a pressurized lock. That was pointless since a large hole had been torn near one of the hinges. I closed my eyes and pinged the area with [Sight of Mecari]. Viper was just inside, still unmoving.

  My [Messenger’s Pet] wasted no time on unsatisfied curiosity. I took a few deep breaths and followed Dusk inside. The room was darker than most of the remaining dungeon. Part of our success at moving so fast had been due to the upper levels, and light which permeated the central stairs down. But this room only had a few pools of light. I tried coughing up another fireball, this time succeeding.

  I stared at the glowing ball, it felt pleasantly warm sitting in my hand. Dusk looked back at me before moving on to inspect the room once more. I held up the ball to get a higher angle of the light.

  This place looked to be a weird sort of laboratory. There were tubes against the walls and barrels filled with starlight. I avoided them, not keen on being chased by all the [Heavenly Body Clone]s that might be roaming nearby. They were like guided missiles of zombie hatred once set off.

  Scorch marks and disturbed ashes littered the pieces of equipment. A few charred pieces of parchment sat on a table in the room’s center. This place was maybe a thousand square feet at most. Walls here were clearly unnatural, all the right angles betrayed intelligent design, where so much of this dungeon didn’t.

  On the far wall, a dimly back-lit pane of frozen ice stood. I held the light even higher to try to get a better view. There was a body inside. We walked across a grated flooring. Chilled air traced a coiled path as I moved. There didn’t seem to be much under my feet, and Dusk walked in without a care. That meant nothing large or angry was nearby. My nonfireball wielding hand sat ready to grab [Morrigu’s Gift] in case things turned angry.

  We came to a railing, and below that was a drop off that looked to be without end. In the middle of the pit was an upright tub of sorts. Water or some liquid chilled the air and made my ball of fire sputter. Inside was Viper’s unmoving body, his eyes were closed as if asleep. Apparently the reason his dot hadn’t moved was because Viper sat in suspended animation.

  “He’s survived down here with all those bits of loot for eight days. That’s pretty impressive,” I said to Dusk. The [Messenger’s Pet] laid back an ear and sniffed the frozen pool.

  Even Android Seven had died once, against the boss from what I could tell. Knowing that such a powerful player died in this place helped me feel better. Technically we were even on the failure front. Viper’s continued survival, frozen though he was, helped us. He got points for living, and I didn’t lose them from his death. Contribution value would probably be low, at l
east if it functioned like Advance Online. Players were only worth what they actually did, and this funny suspended animation helped no one.

  I looked around for an obvious release. Continue Online’s answer to problems often ranged from insanely complex to absurdly simple. Once I had been stuck at a tower door that required a long mathematical algorithm to solve, one I hadn’t applied since doing statistics classes.

  A small panel stood against one wall. There were two obvious buttons of green and red waiting to be pressed. One likely would release Viper from his safe but useless prison. There were a few skeletons around, one lay near the panel. It was clear that this deceased person, staged NPC or Traveler remains, had been trying to press the red one. Probably because they released something scary.

  I looked around again, this place felt like a ground zero for the dungeon. Not a final boss room or habitat jungle, but where some foolish person had released dangerous monster clones. Everything here looked devoid of any actual meat, and some of the bones showed marks from being gnawed. I picked up one of the skulls and held it between Viper’s frozen form and myself.

  “To thaw, or not to thaw, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of asshole teammates, or solo the boss despite the troubles. And by opposing end it? To die, and respawn once more.” I tossed the skull to the ground and sighed. Reciting my makeshift Shakespeare resulted in a pop-up box but didn’t actually solve the impending problem. Still, I felt lighter.

  Act: Theatrical learned!

  Dusk sniffed around, letting out echoing chirps which indicated interest. He did his thing, and I gave up deciding which way to go. Viper might help me or hinder me, and that depended on the other player’s perceptions. Either way, I had a good way to solve dilemmas that had served me since it first showed up.