The Prisoner of Arabella

by Matthew Kent

  “What are you doing?” came the outraged voice of his victim.

  “Slay the living,” Hammertime hissed as he set the dead lights of his eyes on the player.

  In a far off control room more alarms wailed out a siren cry, and men rushed to preserve one more player trapped in the game world. He struck out once more at the player who had only moments before been his raid member.

  The raid fought valiantly, but ultimately it was a losing battle. Their members fell and rose once more to battle for team undead. The survivors broke. Led by the raid leader, six of the original raid escaped, leaving eleven more of the new undead on the field and the NPCs of the Traveler’s Rest to soon join the horde. The lucky members were forced to respawn far away.

  Chapter 2

  The chief engineer sat at a conference table with his hands cupped over his eyes. He had been up for close to forty-eight hours straight. He and his department were in crisis mode. He finished rubbing his eyes before he spoke.

  “So far there were nineteen players we can’t bring out of the game. What have you got for me?”

  One of the female engineers spoke up. “It appears to be content based. It would appear there is old base code that is corrupting the system.”

  “Corrupting it how?” he asked.

  “We aren’t sure, but it seems to generate new content resulting in players character race becoming an undead. Once that happens the players cannot log out.” She shrugged. “At a guess, it is placing a character overlay over the players’ characters, making it so they are unable or unwilling to log out.”

  “So a virus?” asked another engineer.

  “For want of a better term? Maybe. Think of it as a bot that co-opts a program. Instead, this bot is co-opting player characters and forcing the player to continue to play.” She consulted her notes before replying. “This is all theoretical.”

  “Is this related to Atlanta in any way?”

  “No. Atlanta was based on actual game play mechanics. It placed the players in jail or prison, and the system kept them in there. Reace has more detailed information on that,” she said turning to a young man in his twenties with curly blonde hair and horned rimmed glasses. “Reace?”

  “Huh, yes, the Atlanta incident was player-resolved. This may be related to the new problem. A player performed a jail-break of the captured players. After reviewing the pods data from each of the players it would appear that…” he viewed his notes. “The player was named Lorcan, a level twelve True Bard. This is a class that was in the original build four years ago, and the system resurrected it as a viable class for the player due to the player’s natural skills and abilities.” He looked up and at the other engineers. “I believe the new problems are in some way tied to this player, or more specifically, tied to the coding for his character class.”

  “Oh. How so?” inquired the lead engineer.

  “The original build had a story line that a lich king occupied the city of Arabella. As you recall, that encountered problems as the lich king was over powered or ‘OP,’ as the players said. We removed him and moved the timeline up several hundred years. I hypothesize that the inclusion of the old class somehow resurrected the quests in the lich king’s line and brought his coding back into the game.”

  “Is there a way to resolve it?”

  “Kill the lich king, but according to the notes he can only be killed by special weapons that have to be crafted from rare materials,” replied a third engineer.

  “Okay. Bahtavi, Marleen, and Wayland—get on that. Marleen has lead for team BMW. I want to talk to the guy who plays this Lorcan, and I want the files on his character sent across to me. Ryan, Ossterman, Kamatzu, Etanabe, and Tahn, you are to form Team Rocket and start researching how we might remove the lich king’s code. I also want an analysis of the synthesis we already have due to the interactions with Arabella."

  X - X - X

  “James are you awake?” Anna stage whispered.

  “I’m awake," I replied and yawned. “I’ve been trying to time the rats.”

  “What? Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because the rats are on a fixed schedule every hour on the hour, and every three hours there is a random event that takes place preceding the rats’ run.”

  “That makes no sense,” Anna replied.

  “Not in the real world,” I said. “I don’t think we are in the real world, however.”

  “Wait, we’re where?” she said, a hard note coming to her voice.

  “A virtual world programed by a government contractor. An indolent contractor.”

  “So there may be no escape?”

  “That would depend on how lazy or smart the programmer was. I’ve never known one not to put in a back door. But the problem then becomes where are our physical bodies?”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard of a problem if we can find a way out,” Anna said.

  “If you had a large group of political prisoners, and maybe even criminals, would you want any to get out of your super-secret cyber prison from hell, then get free and tell the world of the crimes you are committing?”

  “Ohhh!” she said.

  X - X - X

  I tapped once more on the bars in front of me. I had wanted to test out the bars to see if there was an error in their coding. I had spent the last two hours checking them with various items I’d had in my cell in case there was a key that would interact with them. I hadn’t been successful, yet. A hard yawn came from Anna’s cell. I had heard nothing from my other neighbor; as far as I could tell he was mute.

  “You’re still at it?” Anna asked.

  “Yep," I replied absent mindedly. “I have to try everything to see what works.”

  “Yes, you’d think the programmer would make it easy to find an exit.”

  “Like how?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Make it one of the first things you saw?”

  I face palmed as I remembered the mirror.

  “Doh,” I said as I moved to the mirror and tried to remember where I stood when I saw that weird effect.

  “Don’t Homer Simpson me," Anna said.

  I kept looking as she talked, though to be fair I tuned Anna and the background noises out. Finally, I saw it and poked it with a finger. Nothing happened, obviously, but there was a key involved.

  “Did you hear me? Answer me," she said.

  “Yes, I heard you, but I wasn’t listening. I think I found it.”

  “Really?” she said, and I heard excitement in her voice as we both realized there might be a way out—if I could only figure out the key.

  X - X - X

  Miles Danforth Honimaga the Third sat rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. He thought he was losing what little bit of hair he had left by the hour. He breathed deeply then once more looked at the thin, spare bureaucrat that sat half a continent away from him.

  “Okay. I’m trying to get this, so once more from the top. Mr. Wulf confessed to being guilty…” he looked once more at the reader screen, “for killing and harvesting the tusks of the last Mammuthus Primigenius?”

  “Yes, that is correct, along with having the remains of other endangered animals on site,” the man said.

  “And they tried him in absentia.”

  “That is correct.”

  Miles blew a healthy sigh though his nose as he shook his head. “I wish to talk with this man from earth even more than before. I think if true, I can learn a lot from a three thousand year old man.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Mr. Cody, first the Mammuthus Primigenius went extinct close to three thousand years ago. Maybe even closer to four. Second, a man cannot confess in court if he is being tried in absentia, and third and finally, your director said you would cooperate. I need to talk to Mr. Wulf. I have a problem in the game. That means we all have a problem if the game world goes down. Millions if not billions of dollars stand to be lost, and when someone comes scouting out my head, guess whose head will get served, Mr. Cody
?”

  The man gulped but did not go down without a fight.

  “Please sir, what you ask just cannot be done.”

  “You will find a way to do it.” he looked once more at his screen and snorted. “Mr. William Kai Cody, or your name will be mudd.”

  “Excuse me?”

  The chief engineer threw the man an ugly look. “Look it up. And get me access to Mr Wulf,” he said as he logged off the call. “Good God, how dumb are these people?”

  He glared at Wayland from team BMW. “Do a search. Get me everything you can find out about Wulf. Call his neighbors, his old boss, hell, his first teacher. This,” he said waiving the data pad, “is garbage. I need to know what is so special about this man.”

  “Yes, sir,” Wayland replied, sent off to research a man who was a cross between a ghost and a cipher.

  X - X - X

  From Appolyon: Tekadan how many are there?

  From Tekadan: Two undead PCs and twenty-three undead NPC’s.

  From Mikail: All right, here’s the plan. We use the pass to restrict them from a mass attack. Archers and casters burn down the two PCs. Healers, keep the tanks UP and then we will burn down the NPCs. Harper, ready the avalanche and try not to get us in it too.

  From Harper: Right, boss.

  The players readied themselves. They had encountered the undead horde and had immediately fallen back. The undead were relentless, and the party had picked up one more when they entered the pass a dwarf headed to Dros Drin.

  From Theodmon: Morngrim, get ready. They see you, and the PC’s are fast leaving the undead behind.

  From Morngrim: I be ready. You be watchin’ me back.

  The undead players laughed uproariously as they saw the battle-hardened dwarf preparing to accept their charge. They noted his shield and heavy armor and that he wielded a double bitted battle axe.

  “We’ll just kill you, short thing. You aren’t even big enough to resurrect.”

  “Aye and I’ll show you big enough when I cuts ye all down to size,” Morngrim yelled in defiance. He examined the player before as he prepared to engage.

  Thalese: Undead Knight Lvl 18 1600 HP

  The knight rode on, and just before he swung down at the dwarf, Morngrim stepped to the side. His axe swung up from the ground, giving a brutal disemboweling to the poor beast. The strike went home and was true, causing the horse to despawn but as ever in physics what once was in motion stayed in motion until something shed that energy. For Thalese, the energy was wasted when his body impacted a rock outcropping and caused him to tumble into the rocky ground.

  Thalese, Undead Knight takes 325 fall damage. Bleed effect 10hp per second, concussion effect for 1 minute.

  From Mikail: Go take out the knight first. Harper, hit the horde with the avalanche. BarbieQ, bring on the fireballs. Ranged DPS, burn him down. Fluffy, catch the other PC and hold him.

  Surprise caught the second undead PC when a huge form materialized in front of him. It could be forgiven if the player had mistaken Fluffbunny for a mountain, with his size and slab-sided armor. He was a huge half ogre that stood at seven and a half feet tall and weighed in at four hundred pounds. Thalese rode into a shield that he found raised into his way, and the resounding gong may have been what started the avalanche that thundered down the mountainside and smashed into the horde of undead NPCs that followed.

  Scarface, level 9 Undead Bandit takes Shield Slam. Damage: 373. Concussion effect: 1 minute.

  Scarface, level 9 Undead Bandit takes 73 fall damage. Scarface is stunned.

  The undead bandit lay on the ground as Fluffbunny brought a tree trunk sized club down on his head.

  Scarface, level 9 Undead Bandit takes 148 blunt force damage.

  Undead Shopkeeper takes 1341 crushing damage.

  Undead Stableboy takes 651 crushing damage.

  The players lost track of the notifications as the avalanche killed the NPC’s. One of the player archers sent a shaft that drilled into the Undead Bandit as he lay on the ground.

  Scarface, Undead Bandit takes 137 damage and is killed.

  The players then grouped up on Thalese the Undead Knight. Morngrim and Fluffbunny took turns taunting him; the game mechanics forced Thalese to try to attack one or the other as their taunts went off. The ranged DPS dropped fireballs and arrows on him, whittling his hit points down.

  Thalese; level 18 Undead Knight takes 126 holy damage and is killed.

  From Theodmon: Loot the bodies. Looting is on round robin. Need before greed. Morngrim, good job. Tekadan, try to scout us up another group.

  Groups of players were learning to fight the undead, using terrain and surprise to their advantage, but for far too many it was too steep of a learning curve.

  Chapter 3

  There was a sharp knock on Miles’s door frame. An engineer came in. “Sir, there’s been a development.”

  Miles looked up, his eyes heavy with exhaustion. “How many did we lose this time?”

  “None. The guild the Exotic Corps had a skirmish with two undead PCs and a core of undead. They killed the PCs and the undead.”

  “The PCs re-spawned?”

  “Yes, sir, as anticipated. They managed not to lose anyone.”

  “Excellent, Yamakura. Keep me informed.” Miles motioned over to a sofa in his office. “Wake me in two hours for the meeting with Agent Prentice. Have everything we have been able to learn about Wulf ready for me too.”

  He walked dejectedly to the sofa and lay down; he was asleep almost before his head was down. Yamakura nodded at his boss’s orders and quietly closed the door to the office.

  X - X - X

  “That tapping is driving me crazy,” Anna said as she sat against the wall in her cell nearest to James.

  “Yeah, well if I don’t try something, we aren’t getting out of here. I mean, it’s not like saying ‘open sesame’ and then pressing—”

  Anna didn’t notice a small flash of light from the other cell as she continued talking, until she realized James wasn’t replying to her.

  “What, are you not talking to me now? James?” she said as she turned back to the front of her cell and tried to figure out what was going on. Another flash of light occurred.

  “Good news and bad news,” she heard James say. “I’m not ignoring you, and I found an exit. Bad news: it takes us to a waiting area and I think we can log out there, but I’m not sure where to.”

  “Is there a way to find out?”

  “I’ll keep working on it.” He sighed, then continued. “But I’ll have to be careful. They may have an alarm or something to tell if I’m not in this simulation.”

  Anna nodded.

  “Yeah, just take it slowly.”

  X X X

  Miles Honimaga sat reading the biographical report that had been given to him about James Aleric Blake Wulf. He had started with the facts: James was thirty-three years old and foot five feet, nine and a half inches tall. He weighed in at one hundred eighty-seven pounds. Miles made a note to himself about his engineers taking things literally when he got to the part about the clothes sizes he wore.

  Miles noted James’s work history. He had been a self-employed artist for the past ten years. He had worked for museums around the world doing artifact reproduction and restoration. He had participated in research through MIT, the University of Bangkok, and Berlin PolyTechnical to create synthetic rhinoceros horn and a synthetic ivory that was indistinguishable from the real product.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come,” Miles said as he continued to read the dossier his people had compiled. The door opened, letting Agent Prentice into the room.

  “Mr. Honimaga, you wanted to talk to me?” Agent Prentice was a large man standing over six feet tall, with thinning brown hair and a sour knowing expression.

  “Yes,” Miles said after placing his data pad down. “I have questions about Mr. Wulf and problems I don’t have answers to. Please sit.”

  Prentice took a chair across f
rom the engineer. “Coffee?”

  “No, thank you. I’d rather get this done.” Miles shrugged and then continued.