“It’s not like you really miss anything either,” Thorne continued to explain. “The game just updates your memories with everything that had happened since your last time logged in.”
“What?!” I said with shock. “The game can do that?!”
“Why not? I’m sure you’ve all had skill ups before,” Thorne explained with a shrug. “It feels no different, to be honest.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about that…” I said, more to myself, reminding myself of our forced log out time Wednesday morning.
“Yeah, well, it is what it is,” Freya replied with a rather fatalistic shrug.
“Anyway, rerolling a new character wasn’t much of an option either,” Freya continued after a moment. “First of all, you’ll need to shell out the subscription cost again, which I’m sure you remember, wasn’t exactly cheap.”
I nodded at that statement, with us playing as a group, on a Long Term Play subscription, we received decent discounts as opposed to playing and paying individually. But the total monthly cost was pretty close to a thousand dollars a month. Each.
“Then, if you still want to reroll, you have to go to the end of the waiting list until your name comes up.” Freya’s voice was tinged with frustration when she spoke. “Do you have any idea how long the waiting list is?”
I shook my head slowly. Graves had mentioned something about that earlier.
“As of this morning, when I checked it, it is approximately one hundred and ninety-eight million people long.” Freya stared at us numbly. “At current production rates, it would take us nearly two years to get a chance to reroll. CTI is scrambling to increase production rates, but pods are complicated pieces of technology, not to mention even finding a place to house them.”
“Fuck.” My head spun as I tried to do the mental math of just how many people wanted to play Ascend Online, quickly followed by the sheer amount of money that CTI would find themselves swimming in. They’ll be richer than most countries. That doesn’t even include anything they’d get from media events!
There was another long, somewhat uncomfortable pause before Constantine spoke up this time. “So… logging out got you nowhere and rerolling is rather pointless considering how long it would take to get back into the game.”
“After finding out a few people were killed, Graves banned the practice of dragging monsters into our group, realizing that we were on the verge of just letting them kill us, just to get away from him,” Freya explained morbidly. “Many were on the verge of losing hope, we had even started to talk about a plan to just start killing one another, to deprive whatever Graves needed from us to finish his quest.”
“Thankfully things worked out for the better,” Thorne said smoothly, revealing coal black teeth as he smiled at us.
“It did.” Freya nodded, a small smile breaking out on her face as she looked at the dwarf.
“We saw quite a bit fighting happening within your group earlier.” I probed, nodding towards the rest of the Adventurers. “What was that about?”
Freya’s smile vanished at my question. “There were some scores that needed to be settled, people did things that couldn’t easily be forgotten, or forgiven.”
“What do you mean?” Constantine asked hesitantly.
“When the food ran out, some players started to prey on weaker players, extorting whatever scraps of food or supplies we managed to horde. They were brutal, intent on causing pain, and suffering just because they could. In some ways, they were worse than Graves.” Freya looked at me with a hard expression. “While you were having your tête-à-tête with Graves, we were busy solving a few other problems of our own. Permanently.”
Judging the blood I had seen on Freya when we first met, I knew exactly how she had solved those problems.
“Ssolved all of them but one,” Helix hissed, clenching his claws menacingly. “He may be among the dead, or escaped, but if he lives…”
Dealing with other hostile Adventurers in addition to Graves would have been a living nightmare. I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of respect to the three standing before me, given how brutal their journey had been.
“For the last few days, we’ve been saving and pooling whatever scraps of food we could find and keep, waiting until we found an opportunity.” Freya looked at me, then out towards the large group of Adventurers behind her. “It gave us the edge we needed to survive today.”
“So we saw,” I said, following her gaze. Might as well ask the big question now.
With a sigh, I looked back at Freya and the others. “What are your plans now?”
Both Thorne and Helix looked towards Freya, who had clearly been expecting the question, but didn’t have an answer for me. “We… don’t know yet.”
“Everyone is still a bit in shock after everything that happened today, and after the week we had, only a handful have been staying logged in consistently. Many have been popping in and out every few hours to see what’s changed.” Freya put up both her hands in a placating gesture. “But we don’t mean any harm to you or your village. I know we don’t have much to offer, but I think the majority of us would actually be interested in joining your village, well, if they ever log back in again…”
“That is, if you’ll have us…” Freya added hopefully. “I know our arrival wasn’t the best first impression.”
“It definitely wasn’t what we were expecting,” I replied carefully. “But I, we, won’t hold anything you did to survive Graves’s reign of terror against you.”
I chanced a quick glance at Aldwin and Constantine before continuing. “Unfortunately, the decision to let you join the village isn’t mine alone to make and it’s something that we’ll have to discuss between ourselves before we can come to a decision.”
“That’s more than fair,” Freya replied gratefully. “Thank you.”
“We’ll meet out here in the morning tomorrow and let you know what we’ve decided,” I said, signaling the end of the meeting. “Until then, if there are any issues that come up, send a runner over to the village.”
Chapter 37
“This is a complete fucking mess.” Sierra sighed, slumping into a chair.
“That’s what I said,” Caius grunted as he sat down beside her.
“Yeah, well…” I replied slowly, staring at the ceiling of the Town Hall as I leaned back in a chair. At the moment, only Sierra, Caius, Halcyon and I were in the Town Hall, Constantine having gone to verify Freya’s story against the Scout’s. Drace and Aldwin doing the same with the Adventurers, now temporary prisoners, we’d picked up off the field. “It’s probably the best we could have hoped for.”
“I guess… at least they didn’t make it into the village,” Caius conceded as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Would have been better if they killed off all the ones that got away, though.”
“No kidding!” Halcyon exclaimed. “What kind of fucking quest not only allows a player to take slaves but actively encourages it?!”
“Is it really any different than other games we’ve played?” I asked, still staring at the ceiling.
“Sure as shit it is!” Sierra replied. “I don’t recall any game that forced me to beat, maim and enslave people!”
“Really?” I answered, my eyebrows raised as I turned to look at Sierra. “I can name at least half a dozen space-empire games that all have governments based around slaving.”
“That’s not the same!” Sierra scoffed at me.
“Why not?” I challenged. “Slaving is slaving.”
“Because those games aren’t real!” Sierra replied with a bit of frustration.
“This game isn’t real either, Sierra,” I said softly.
“It’s realer than any other game I’ve ever played!” Sierra replied, with an angry expression on her face. “Lyrian, Marcus, are you seriously trying to rationalize what Graves did right now?”
“No, not at all.” I held up my hand in a gesture of peace as I looked right at Sierra. “But answer me this, when you played a
ll those space civilization games, did you ever choose a slaving empire?”
“N-no,” Sierra answered after a moment. “I didn’t. Never have actually.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“It just didn’t sit well with me.” Sierra paused as she struggled to find a way to explain. “I just found it more fun to play as a ‘good’ empire or a ‘merchant’ based one. If anything, I was fighting against the slaving empires.”
“But the option to play one was there if you wanted to,” I finished, nodding sympathetically at Sierra. “Just as it is here.”
“But it’s immoral!” Caius exclaimed. “Why is it here?”
“Never thought I’d hear a Warlock complaining about morality,” Halcyon muttered. “Fucking hypocrite.”
“Ha!” I couldn’t help but laugh at Halcyon’s comment. “I don’t think it’s the game’s job to dictate morality. I think all the game does is present us with options, good, bad, neutral. It’s not like it forced Graves or his followers into doing what they did.”
“What’s the point of all that?” Caius replied while flipping Halcyon off.
“What’s the point of anything in a game like this?” I asked rhetorically. “To create conflict and entertain.”
“Yeah… but, this time, it’s just not entertaining us.” Halcyon waved his hand upwards. “If we sell our feed, people will watch what we say and do every step of the way.”
“It’s like… fantasy reality television.” Sierra tried the word out on her tongue. “People will tune in to watch good people or evil people, doing whatever it is they want, depending on how they want to play the game.”
“Exactly.” I nodded, waving my hand indicating everything around me. “All of this is just a stage, literally anything is possible.”
“Fuck, this is making my head hurt,” Caius complained rubbing his forehead.
“Do you want me to explain it to you using smaller words?” Halcyon asked mockingly.
“Do you want me to set you on fire?” Caius hissed back.
“Oh please,” Halcyon scoffed. “Your morality will probably get in the way. After all, you wouldn’t set one of your dearest and closest friends deliberately on fire, thereby causing him intense physical pain, right?”
“Fuck you,” Caius swore with a laugh, flipping Halcyon off a second time. “What’s taking Constantine so long?”
“Still interrogating the scouts, I guess,” I replied with a shrug. “I don’t hear any violence, so I guess things haven’t progressed to stage two of interrogations.”
So much for morality.
“Fat chance getting them to say anything.” Sierra rolled her eyes while shaking her head. “Constantine would have an easier time getting water from a stone than getting one of those two to talk.”
“Well, I guess that makes me a fucking magician because this stone is wet!” Constantine’s voiced echoed from the back of the Town Hall as he walked down the stairs. “I got one of them talking and his story matched up almost perfectly with Freya’s.”
“You, got them to stay something?!” Sierra exclaimed with surprise. “What did you do?! Did you…”
Sierra’s words trailed off as she made a sawing motion with her hand.
“Nothing,” Constantine said with a goofy grin on his face. “I didn’t even touch him.”
Sierra shook her head in disbelief. “What the hell did you say then?”
“Well, I first explained to him how the logout feature in Ascend Online works, just in case he wasn’t aware of it,” Constantine explained, giving me a nod. “Then I asked him if he wanted to be buried neck deep in the outhouse or never play Ascend Online again.”
It took us a moment to process exactly what Constantine just said.
“You did not!” Sierra squeaked, as she fought back a roar of laughter.
“Oh no!” Halcyon’s face quickly turned beet red.
“Oh god.” Caius had a hand over his face as he struggled to keep himself together. “You’re evil!”
“Does this look like the face of mercy?” Constantine pointed to himself, sporting a wicked smile on his face.
It was at that moment Aldwin, Amaranth and Drace walked into the room.
“Hey-” Drace started to call out in greeting, before sensing something was amiss. “Hold on? What’s with Constantine’s shit-eating grin?”
“I told him that’s how he could get out!” Constantine quipped, making eye contact with me as he smiled even wider.
That’s it, I can’t hold it anymore! A loud cackle escaped through my lips, quickly followed by the others as we all collectively, pardon the pun, lost our shit.
The stress of the day instantly burned away as we nearly fell out of our chairs laughing. With tears filling my eyes, I could barely make out Aldwin, Amaranth or Drace staring at us all, completely dumbfounded.
“What did I say?” Drace looked around with a slightly confused look.
It took us a minute to settle ourselves down before we could explain Constantine’s success and the joke to Aldwin and Drace, as well as reassuring Amaranth that we were all alright.
“The stories of the prisoners that we picked up match Freya’s version of events as a whole as well,” Aldwin said, sporting a smile across his face, the infectious laughter of Constantine’s joke not yet completely gone. “Graves had apparently promised many of them positions of power within his… Kingdom.”
“Yeah, the Scout said the same. Apparently, Graves was in the process of building his own Feudal Kingdom on his way here, promising titles left, right and center,” Constantine added. “But that wasn’t all, though. He promised them cash payments once he started making money from his game feed in Real Life, probably to help them stomach the slaving he had them doing.”
“Really?!” Drace exclaimed with surprise. “He didn’t seem the type to share. How much was he offering?”
“Fifty grand,” Constantine stated. “Each.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Halcyon shouted as he leaped out of his chair. “There was at least fifty of them right? That’s like, uh, two million and eighty-”
“It’s two and a half million even, Halcyon.” Sierra quipped. “Also, remind me to never trust you with counting money.”
“I’m an Illustrator, not a Mathemagician, woman!” Halcyon shouted. “I don’t deal with numbers!”
“How the hell did Graves expect to earn that much money?” Caius’s face was skeptical. “He must have been lying.”
“I don’t know about that…” I answered, shaking my head. “Freya told us that there was nearly two hundred million people on the waiting list just to play, even if a fraction of them gave a few dollars…”
Everyone went silent at that mental calculation.
“Lyrian, I want a raise.” Drace looked at me suddenly. “I think I am a valuable member of the team and that my services deserve adequate compensation outside the framework of this game.”
“I couldn’t agree more!” I said empathetically. “I’ll double, no, triple your salary!”
“But you aren’t paying me anything!”
“How is that my problem? You should have gotten a better agent when you signed with the team.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. “We’ll figure it out when the time comes, man. Not to worry!”
“Did the Scout know anything about the group Graves supposedly sent to take over Aldford?” Drace asked Constantine while chuckling. “Isaac and the others?”
“Didn’t volunteer anything about them and I didn’t ask, in case it shut him up,” Constantine replied shaking his head as he sat down beside me. “Though I don’t feel that bad about killing them anymore and burning the lift down.”
“We’ll consider that a lucky bullet dodged then.” I motioned towards Aldwin. “What’s your opinion of the prisoners? Will they cooperate with us and behave until we can figure out what to do with them?”
“I feel they have been honest for the most part if a bit shocked by recent events,” Aldwin said after a moment of thought. “We’ve stripped them of their gear and stowed them away in the house that you crashed through the other night. Jenkins said it was unstable and will need to come down at some point, so it wasn’t in use.”
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