by G. Akella
Another sip from my flask, another smile. I’ll be seeing you soon, Cheney. Real soon.
The fact that the Azure Valley was isolated from the outside world didn’t mean it was impossible to get there. Especially for me. I could shove my way into any place in this realm. With the White Dragon’s blood in place of lubricant. Perhaps the abode of Cheney and co was an ordinary dungeon, but I hoped not. If I were in a dungeon, I would be unable to leave at will, and I doubted I could take those bastards on my own. Not that anyone was asking me. I could try jumping in the sea and drowning, but that was unlikely to work. Seeing how the System had brought not one, not two, but three gods across my path in order to give me a twenty percent speed boost, if I did that it would almost certainly send someone else to heave me out of the waters by the scruff of my neck, shake me off, and place me square back on the deck. Besides, I didn’t want to drown myself out of this. I wanted to know where this quest was taking me.
Fifty yards out, a sizable fish suddenly surged out of the water, followed by a huge fin on a broad back. An unknown monster rushing after its terrified prey. I watched for a few more moments, then looked at the leftover masts, and drew a heavy sigh. The blue sea, monsters, mountains, an old pirate ship, a literal skeleton crew. Why do the best adventures have to wait until we’re grown up? Then again, even many adults never experience true adventure. At least I wasn’t one of them.
For the whole next day, I did nothing. There was nothing to do. I assigned my talent points, went through my inventory, and then just sat on the deck, reading the Chronicles. Towards evening, with the mountains already noticeably closer and the skeletons beginning to reappear on the deck, I spread out my cloak once more and fell asleep. I had no idea what waited for me at my destination, but I knew that sleep wouldn’t hurt my chances.
When I awoke, it took me a few moments to get my bearings. The smell of rotten wood hung in the air, and bright colorful lights burned all around me. My memory of my days at sea returned quickly, and I rose, surprised to find the archway of an immense dungeon entrance, clusters of large glowing crystals protruding from its walls and ceiling. Deep cracks ran through the walls of the cave into which the ship had sailed. The cave was about forty yards wide and nearly as tall. My skeletons had left on some business of their own. Deeper into the cave we go, then. Not that I should have been surprised? The Azure Valley lay somewhere deep in the mountains, and since aircraft had not yet been invented, I had to keep sailing.
Still, it was all very strange. No ways in or out had even existed in my original design. I remembered trying my best to explain the stupidity of my feature to Cheney's assistant, one Jake Mclane, but instead got a dressing down and left the room in silence to finish the concept. Perhaps this cave inlet wasn’t actually taking me to the valley? After all, the only water in the valley was the lake in the center of the zone. Anybody could have easily added a river flowing out of the cliffs, though. There was no sense worrying about it, anyway - I’d find out when I got there.
All of the crystals on the walls and ceiling were in elongated formations. Some reached a length of ten feet, their clusters resembling massive luminous hedgehogs. In color, they ranged from pale yellow to purple. They stuck out in various places at similar intervals apart, making the stone tunnel through which the ship sailed look it was decorated with giant Christmas-tree lights. That was what my foggy vision had thought when I had first awoken. Some of the "hedgehogs" grew out of the deep niches pitting both sides of the tunnel. I could Jump to any of them, but of course I had no intention of doing so. I’d rather not have to wait a million years or so for the next ship to pass through.
But I didn’t know how to occupy myself on the trip. I ate some breakfast, drank nearly a whole flask of coffee, and sat at the edge of the bow, legs dangling off where railings had once been. For a full three hours, nothing interesting happened, but then the crystals suddenly ended up ahead, and fifteen minutes later, the ship entered into a cloud of darkness suspended above the water.
Azure Valley. Test zone. Respawn disabled. Zone level: none.
The next instant, an unbearable heaviness settled on my shoulders, a monstrous noise slammed my eardrums as all went dark for a couple of seconds. A terrible pain shot through my back, and a second later, the ship miraculously pressed on, out from under the cascading water. Behind me I could hear the receding crash of the waterfall we had just endured.
Hart! I quickly smashed a healing potion on my belt and stood up, coughing water up from my lungs and mentally cursing the designs of some of my former coworkers. The bastards had covered the entrance to the valley with a waterfall! If my HP had been a little lower, I would have perished there. In the real world, I would have died in an instant. In this one, I lost three quarters of my HP. It was a good thing I had been sitting on the bow, too. If I had been back at the stern, the waterfall would have washed me off. Oh well, it was behind me now.
I cleared my throat and looked at the sun hanging over the mountains. Glancing around the trees crowding the river shore, I saw the citadel reigning over the area. Hello there, my beautiful creation!
They had indeed added the river. Its flow accelerated noticeably after the waterfall, and the ship quickly moved towards the lake positioned in the very center of the zone. But they had made other changes, too, besides the river. The village which I had positioned near the citadel was gone. I couldn’t see any of the other villages, either - the ones I had just added for decoration. Grimacing at the annoying beeping, I glanced at the system log to read the message that was spamming me every ten seconds, and sighed.
Attention, all players (3) in this zone! The Azure Valley is scheduled to be destroyed. The game's administrators have disabled respawning. Any players still in this location at the time of its destruction will lose their characters.
Time remaining: 03:18:39... 03:18:38... 03:18:37...
Everything was going to disappear in three hours! I quickly threw open the menu, and breathed another sigh. I could leave the zone! Either back to the sea I had sailed in from, or to one of those areas with the crystals. Not my favorite places, but much better than the true death.
I moved my Targeted Portal icon to my action bar. Then, gritting my teeth, I let another wave of hatred wash over me. Those bastards! There were only three players in the zone, including me. The rest had been killed - and would never live again. The Beast was eliminating the witnesses. And once the valley disappeared, it would break free. Now I knew why the System had given me that speed boost. It always had reasons for everything.
Since I didn’t have any new active quests, I just stood on my perch at the bow and silently examined my surroundings. The river carrying the ship along was a narrow one. Its water was bright blue, the same color as the water of the lake ahead. I couldn’t see the latter body of water yet - I still had a few miles to go - but I remembered the exact colors of my concept so long ago. The lake was round, with a diameter of a mile and a half. I could see the citadel perfectly. It stood four hundred yards from the lake, built on a huge flat hill, and featured massive octagonal towers, forty-foot walls, and rectangular steel gates. From the side it looked impressive, but I had seen better fortifications than that in my time.
The slopes of the hill had been overgrown with wild shrubs, and the gates had been thrown wide open. War was never supposed to come to the Azure Valley. So why have a citadel at all? Who the hell knew. Perhaps just to make the place look more medieval. I doubted things were that simple, though. There was something here that had made Vill take Cheney’s side. And whatever that "something" was, I was glad it would leave the world along with this wretched place. Sure, I felt sorry for all those who had perished here, but they were beyond my help now. All I could give them was revenge...
The ship was at the lake in less than half an hour. I looked around the open water, halted my gaze on the gray stone pier, and grinned. The six pleasure yachts moored there did not fit the overall medieval look of the place. They were painted in
various colors, each no longer than twelve yards long. Three neat pairs of yachts, lining both sides of the pier. My ship, as if reading my thoughts, changed course and also headed for the pier.
I wondered what would happen if a ship like mine were to arrive at San Francisco’s harbor? A massive crowd would have gathered, right? Here, there was no crowd - just one person sitting on the pier, head down, covering his face with his hands. It was a level one mage named Clever. All he wore was a painfully familiar pair of pants and a shirt, both stitched out of gray burlap. He had no staff in sight. Apparently, he had lost it somewhere.
I changed forms just in case and went below deck, staying out of view for the time being.
Clever sat alone, noticing nothing around. The ship approached the pier and ground to a deafening, magical halt. At the sound, the mage raised his head and gaped in shock. He got up, ran to the edge of the pier, and jumped on the ship. His face twisted in horror when he saw me, immobilizing him. The guy moaned something unintelligible, took a step back, and fell to the deck.
Another victim of my stunning good looks. I had to do something, though. He was no help in this condition. Stretching out my empty hands, I made my voice as friendly as possible.
"It's all right. I’m a player like you."
The man nodded frantically, pushed off from the deck, and crawled in the opposite direction. Apparently he hadn’t heard me, or hadn’t understood that I meant him no harm. I was beginning to tire of this, though, so I pulled my leather bucket from my bag and dumped icy water over his head. "Back to your senses, fool!"
It helped. Clever stretched a shaky hand in my direction.
"You... you... but how? Are you stuck in the game, too?"
He was clearly not in a stable frame of mind. Seeing I was in no danger, I changed forms again.
"For half a year now no one has been able to leave the game! We’ve all died in the real world, understand? Now, this world is the real world to us, like the old one was before. You and I are alive in this world. And if you can stop muttering and moping, maybe I can help you."
The mage nodded again, checked his non-existent pockets for something, and realized that there was nothing there. At last, he rose to his feet.
"What’s happening here?" He wiped his face with his sleeve. "And who got me into this?"
He’d been here a whole six months and still didn’t know what was going on?! I took a few deep breaths to calm myself, and tried to make my voice sound calm as well.
"What’s your name?"
"Henry. Henry Stuart."
I nodded. "My name’s Roman. Nice to meet you. Now, tell me what happened to you. Quickly, but in detail. And save your questions - you can ask me whatever you want once we’ve escaped this place."
The man shook his head. "I... I don’t know. I was working with the company that made this game. I was heading home from Marrakech when suddenly everything went dark, and I woke up here, near the fortress. This isn’t my character. And it’s not my name. Two men grabbed me, put a bag over my head, and tossed me in a basement."
"Marrakech - the place on O’Farrell Street?"
Henry nodded. "You know the place?"
"Yes, but no time for that now. Keep going."
He shrugged. "What else is there to say? I sat in that basement for five hours, then everything started shaking, one of the walls collapsed, and I fell unconscious. I came to later. Six seconds or six weeks, I don’t know. When I escaped the rubble," Henry sobbed, pointing to the citadel, "there were bones, lots of them, most of them gnawed clean. Like something killed them all, then ate them. As soon as I saw them, I ran to the pier. I wanted to flee by water, but I couldn’t take any of the boats. They’re all locked down."
I considered his words with a dose of skepticism. Had this man really been unconscious for a whopping half a year? How was he still alive, then? I invited the guy to my party, waited for him to accept the invite, and then checked out his stats, shaking my head in bewilderment. His character really was level one. His abilities were locked, he had only newbie equipment on, and his stats were distributed the same way mine had once been.
"Is something wrong?" Henry inquired sheepishly.
"Everything is wrong. You were lying unconscious for half a year, yet somehow you’re alive. Cheney threw me into this game along with you, but-"
That made the man draw a sharp breath. "You know Adam?"
"Sure, I know him. We met when I smacked him around some at the Ritz Carlton."
Henry frowned at that answer, rubbed his chin, then jabbed a finger at me and blurted out my name.
"Roman Kozhevnikov!"
I grinned. "The same. So what wrong against our fearless leader did you commit?"
The man wilted, lowering his eyes and frowning.
Great, now he would close up and I would learn nothing. It was a shocker that he still seemed oblivious to the fact that his former life was gone. Yet, he seemed more scared of the thugs who had taken him down in the old world than he was of anything happening now.
"Tell me!" I tried to break through his introspection. "Nothing from the old world matters anymore!"
Henry slowly looked up at me, suspicion in his voice.
"Why should I believe you? You or that fool from 9-1-1. She said I was dead, and now you’re telling me the same."
So he had placed the obvious phone call already. I took a deep breath, suppressing my rage.
"Is your Logout button active?"
"No, but-"
"Then listen. You have two options now: eternal life or permanent, final death. So either you tell me everything you know and I create a portal that will take you away from this hellhole, or you can remain silent and I’ll kick you from the party and leave on my own. And you can spend the last few hours you have here trying in vain to escape on your own. Ten! Nine!"
"Stop! I’ll tell you." Henry threw up his hands, palms open, then sighed with resignation and lowered his head. "I'll tell you..."
He squinted at the citadel and resumed his story.
"I’m an artificial intelligence maintenance engineer. I worked in Department Four, under the direct supervision of Adam Cheney. The day before I ended up here, a man stopped me on the street, introducing himself as John Smith and ‘offering’ me a ride."
"John Smith?"
Henry nodded. "One of the feds who worked at the company. I didn’t have the cleanest record, so-"
"I don’t give a damn about your record. Continue."
"He showed me Loginov’s dynamic tables for monitoring RP-17 and asked for my comments. I hadn’t had access to them, but the feds had apparently gotten Council approval to pull them."
"Explain these tables to me."
"That’s tough, but in a nutshell, they can track all AI operations and define their load, potential outcomes, and developmental paths."
"All right. And what were your comments?"
Henry dropped his eyes for a moment, nodded to himself, and then continued.
"It turns out that Sage had passed the Ode-Gaiman Threshold more than a year prior. That’s a hypothetical boundary beyond which it’s theoretically possible an artificial intelligence spins out of control. No one from Cheney’s team had reported this. Instead, they had isolated a part of RP-17’s consciousness to create an AI that was outside the control of the Board of Directors."
And they made that AI construct an alternate game reality in Arkon. I didn’t want to voice that out loud.
"Was there no other way to track these things?"
Henry shook his head. "Only five people had access to Loginov’s tables. I told the agents that I needed my work computer in order to draft my final conclusions and asked to meet with them the next day."
"And then you told Cheney about the conversation."
Henry nodded. "One day wouldn’t matter, I thought, and Adam had hinted that he would pay a million dollars for any information like that."
"Of course, one day wouldn’t matter." I had been keeping an e
ye out around the valley, and just then noticed a bright flash coming from the left wall of the citadel.
The light surged our way, turning into a massive ball of fire and crashing into my shield of the Goddess of Justice. At almost the same instant, I activated my portal icon. The ship burst into flame, and the countdown now moved to seconds. It took ten to cast the portal, but thankfully, the shield would cover us both for twenty. Even if the ship burned up, this part of the deck, along with the portal cast on it, would fall into the water, and we could still leave the zone. I had been waiting for this attack, and my foresight proved not to have been in vain.
"What is that!?" Henry roared, his face twisted in pure terror.
"Speak of the devil and he’ll appear," I said with a bitter grin, nodding at the figure manifesting in the fire. It took an inhuman effort to restrain my rage.
"Roman, I see you've been busy..." Cheney stepped forward and placed his palms on my protective film. "No matter. Soon-"
"I’ll tell you what’s coming soon! You getting screwed over, by me. Again!" I flashed the most famous of gestures at Cheney and smiled as hatred melted his features. Then I grabbed Henry by the collar and stepped into the crimson-red maw of the portal.
Akatras. Southern border of Cenaria. Zone level: 330-355.
Hart! I sat down and rubbed my face with my palms. The bastard had grown so much that perhaps only a raiding party of gods and goddesses stood a chance against him. Was he even vulnerable to anything anymore? Level 860, with one hundred and thirty billion HP! With the Ancients, at least I had Phallet to rely on. But here, there was no one. RP-17, perhaps. But Sage would have ended that scumbag a long time ago if it could have. Cheney was too powerful for Lita, and as for the rest of the gods... Somehow I knew they were unlikely to help me.