by Edward Brody
“I’m preparing to draft legislation that will create a new sector of government we’ll call The Alternative World Law Enforcement Bureau. We need someone with your skills to enter the game and hold criminals accountable to the highest extent of the law.”
“Our skills?” Sung threw his hands up. “Yo, what the fuck?! None of us have police experience.”
“Crylight has two skills that are crucial in this operation,” Todd explained. “Number one, you’re pro gamers. Your team has risen to the highest level of every game, including MMORPGSs that you’ve played. That means that you know how these games work and how put yourself in a position where power can be enforced. Number two, you’re hackers.”
“What does hacking have to do with this?” Gustov asked.
“Right now, we have no eyes inside of Eden’s Gate,” the President said. “I’ve reluctantly arranged to speak with Dr. Winston on a periodic basis, but that’s the only connection we have, and it’s not frequent either.”
Jeff cleared his voice. “Our intelligence tells us that Dr. Winston has a sort of virtual laptop inside of Eden’s Gate that he can use to patch and monitor the game. It’s also the only way to establish a connection with Earth. We need people who can not only enforce the law, but who’ll be able to operate that device and stay in contact with us once Dr. Winston is in custody.”
“We’re prepared to drop all of your charges, including the murder charge, if you’re willing to accept the role,” Todd finished.
Sung jumped out of his chair and turned to the wall. “No way, man. This is too much!”
“So do you have a way for us to connect without transferring over completely or you want us to do a full transfer?” Marcello asked.
“As far as we know, you can only fully transfer your consciousness via a Nexicon headset.” Jeff explained. “We don’t know if what you attempted in Asia would ever really work without any issues, but we don’t have time to explore that now. We need you to fully transfer into the game.”
“And what if we say no?” Gustov asked.
Marsha smirked. “Based on your crimes, all of your assets will be frozen, Crylight will be publicly charged for hacking, stealing and murder, and you can all pretty much count on spending the rest of your lives in prison.”
“I can’t go,” Marcello cried. “I mean, I want to get in the game, but I can’t go now. Not yet. I’ve got a wife and kids at home. I can’t just leave…”
“So how’s your wife going to feel when that big house of yours is repossessed and how’s she going to take care of your kid with all your bank accounts frozen?” Todd asked. “How are they both going to feel when they see daddy’s found guilty of murder and rotting away in a jail cell?”
“This is wrong on so many levels,” Sar snapped.
“Whoa!” Marsha held her hands up and shook her head. “What we’re doing is wrong? We’re not the ones embezzling money and turning beta headsets into haywire deathtraps are we?”
“We don’t believe you’re bad people,” Todd explained. “You’re just a group individuals who are too smart and too talented for your own good, and that’s why we’re offering you this opportunity. If you pass, we’ll unfortunately have to uphold the law.”
There was a long silence and the tension in the room could be cut with a knife.
“Can you give us some time to think about it?” Gustov asked.
“No,” Todd said, said. “We’ll need you to make your decision today. Either you walk out of here in handcuffs or we’ll start making plans for the transfer and your new lives in Eden’s Gate.”
“Fuck,” Sung cursed.
There was another long silence in the room before the President spoke up through the speakerphone. “I don’t have much time, Crylight. You need to make your decision fast.”
Gustov swallowed. “We’ll do it.”
“We’ll do it?” Sung asked, shaking his head. “This isn’t the kind of decision you can just make for all of us, man!”
“What choice do we have, Sung?” Gustov asked. “If they got into our computers, then they have everything on us. This isn’t something we can fight.”
“We wanted to get in the game anyway, right?” Sar asked. “We’re just going in sooner than we expected, and we won’t have to worry about getting a headset or making one.”
“That’s right,” Todd said. “We’ve got official non-beta headsets that you’ll use.”
“If I go… everything… the money, the house, the cars. My wife and kids get to keep it, right?” Marcello asked.
Jeff nodded. “And they’ll never hear anything about your criminal activity.”
Marcello sighed. “Fine, I’ll do it.”
“I’ll go,” Sar said.
“Sung?” Todd asked.
Sung sighed heavily and put his heads down in his hands. After a moment, he shook his head up and down.
Todd leaned over and picked his cellphone up off the table. “It looks like we’ve got ourselves a team.”
“Welcome aboard, Crylight,” the President said through the phone. “And thank you for your service.”
Chapter Nineteen
1/22/0001
For the next two days, I was forced to work with all the slaves at the slaver camp. They would untie us from the log in the morning, leaving our feet shackled, and march us to a part of the canyon where we were to quarry stone from the mountain.
Four men would slam hammers into the side of the canyon, releasing rocks, while four of us carried rocks to a pit that had been dug near the camp. Another three would retrieve the rocks from the pit and pulverize them with even larger hammers, creating a fine, yellow dust which was then moved into a separate pit.
A group of slavers would gather up the dust and add water or some other liquid to the dust to create a thick paste. A couple of them were moving the paste to some unknown location, and I saw at least one of them sitting at a stone, slab table, molding the paste into a sculpture or something of the sort.
I guessed their other source of income other than slave trade was selling the cement paste and sculptures.
I was assigned to carrying the stones from point A to point B each day, and each time a slaver told me what to do, I received a quest prompt. It was generally very straightforward: “The slaver would like you to move 50 stones from the quarry to the pit,” and once I accepted and completed the task, I would receive an XP reward. The XP wasn’t that great, only about 1000 XP for a few hours of work, but over the course of 2 days, I had gained three strength points from the hard labor, so it wasn’t a total loss. In fact, I could see how working as a slave at a low level could earn someone a pretty good boost in power given the simplicity of the tasks.
But it was still mundane and excruciating work. The desert sun beat down on us hard, and the only water we were provided was just the water that was mixed in with the slop that we were fed three times per day. I was miserable and just wanted to get back to Edgewood. I wanted to figure out exactly why Adeelee’s rune led me to the prison, and I wanted to enjoy my time with my guild.
Being in the slave camp gave me a lot more time to think about things. I thought about how I had lost track of my goal… to gain power, make a name for myself, and eventually find Rachel. There was nothing wrong with me going on a treasure hunt, but Adeelee wasn’t even part of the guild. I should have been more anxious to go out and level-up with Ozzy, Jax, Keysia or someone who could contribute to Edgewood, not some NPC princess who was getting me all loved up and wanted nothing to do with me or Edgewood.
I had started to become friends with Dent and Loco, but with the trickery that had been happening all around me, I stayed a little more guarded than I normally would have with Reborns. I didn’t tell them about my guild or about Edgewood. As far as they knew, I was just some low level who had crossed the Serpent Sea and got captured.
“Shift’s over!” a slaver yelled.
All the slaves seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as they dropped the stones or
hammers they were carrying. I threw my last stone into the pit with the others and brushed my hands against my dirty boxer shorts.
I really needed a bath.
You have completed the quest: Transport Stones!
You have gained 1000XP!
Dent and Loco strolled up beside me as we headed back towards the main camp to be tied back to the log, the shackles on our feet rattling with every step we took.
“Thought you said we’d be sold off by now?” I questioned.
Dent shrugged. “I would have thought so by now. I’m pretty sure it’ll be tomorrow morning.”
“Next week,” one of the other slaves in earshot, a bald man, said. “I overheard the slavers saying the auction would be postponed. A group of buyers were killed on the way to the Sands. Rumor is it was the Jade Rooks that got ‘em.”
“Oh, man…” Loco groaned. “I’m getting alright stat gains, but I need my freedom.” He rubbed his belly. “And some decent food.”
“Shit,” Dent snapped, shaking his head. “The girl who won the local tier 1 is in that guild, right?”
The bald man nodded. “Yeah, that’s her guild.” The man shrugged and rolled his eyes. “But I’ve heard things like that girl’s a Reborn, so I’m sure the rumors about her guild are just gossip too. It could have been anyone who attacked the buyer.”
I sighed and shook my head. “You’ve got to be kidding me, man. I can’t do another week of this. There’s got to be a way to escape.”
Dent pointed down to the shackles on our feet. “No hope, Gunnar. We can walk in these shackles, but we can’t run. Any one of the slavers could be carrying the key, so we’d have to kill them all to find out. Besides, we’ve got no weapons.”
Loco moaned but then forced a wide grin. “Look on the bright side, I guess. After we’re done here, we’ll have a lot of strength gains.”
I looked to the moon that was rising in the sky, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. “How do we escape once we’re sold anyway?”
“I guess every buyer is different, but I’ve never seen one that had these kind of shackles,” Dent said. “Last time I was bought, I killed my ‘master’ on the way to wherever he was taking me. The dude was carrying 10,000 gold on him and a bunch of magic items. It turned out great in the end.”
10,000 gold? I thought. That was a mighty fine haul and might actually make the time spent in the slave camp worthwhile. But…
I was starting to consider the suicide option again. Restarting in the prison didn’t sound too bad in comparison to carrying rocks and eating out of trough. In the meantime, I’d keep an eye out for a way to escape.
The slavers lined us all up and roped us to the log, per our usual routine back at the camp. It was nearly feeding time and then we’d all get the pleasure of sleeping outside, tied together in an awkward sitting position.
“Raymond…” I heard a voice whisper. “Raymond.”
I thought I was dreaming before a hand gently slapped my face.
“W… what?” I asked as I lifted my heavy eyelids and my vision came into focus.
“It’s me…”
I instinctively jerked the moment I saw Satorin. “You!” I hissed.
He was wearing the same shroud he was wearing in Inner Highcastle and had a purse slung over his neck. “Shhhhh…” He held his index finger up to his mouth. “Don’t alert any of the guards.”
“How’d you know I was here?”
Satorin grinned. “You don’t know? I told you that you would help me or give me your life.”
“So, you came to kill me?”
“Hopefully, I don’t have to. I brought you here to ensure that you’d help me.”
“You… you did this?”
“Who else?”
“How?”
Satorin took a deep breath. “I may not have the subterfuge skills that you have, but I’ve got a great sleight of hand.” He reached into his purse and pulled out a runestone. “I swapped the rune you were carrying out for the… special one… here in the Sands, when I knocked you over in the market square. I knew it would force you to bind here, and I was pretty certain you were naïve enough to get caught by the slavers.”
“You fucking—”
“And I picked this from your person as well,” he interrupted, reaching into his purse and pulling out the bag of kroka I had planned on selling. “Everything would’ve been ruined had the guards in Highcastle caught you with this.”
My ears were burning with anger. I suspected that Satorin might’ve had some involvement in me arriving in the Sands, but I never imagined he had the ability to swap the rune out in my bag. The fact that he was able change my rune and steal the kroka without me noticing in the short time that he held me down in the market was actually a little bit frightening. He was more powerful than I expected.
I also had a flood of mixed emotions as my affection for Adeelee started flooding back. I had assumed— wrongly—that she had something to do with it, that she had given me the wrong rune or that she was involved with Satorin somehow. Over the past couple of days I had begun to loathe her.
But I was wrong. I was wrong to assume the worst of her, just like I was wrong to stop thinking about Rachel.
“I’ll kill you for this…” I said low.
“Really, now?” Satorin asked. He looked to his left where several slavers were sleeping outside and then to the right, scanning each of the other slaves that were snoozing in an upright position, their heads pressed hard against the log that we were all tied to. There were two guards awake—one on each side of the camp, roughly 200 meters away. Satorin touched my chin with his finger. “I don’t see that happening any time soon, Raymond.”
I snarled. “If you think that tricking me into this mess was going to make me help you, you were wrong. I want nothing to do with your stupid quests. I just want to get back home.”
“And how do you expect to do that?” Satorin asked. “You have no way out of here.”
“I know that they plan on selling me, and once they do, I’ll escape,” I said confidently.
Satorin chuckled. “That’s a grand assumption…” He shrugged his shoulders. “But let’s just say you did manage to escape from whatever master you’re sold to. How would you get back home?”
“I’ll get there…”
“You have no rune.”
“I’ll find one, or I’ll sail.”
“It’ll cost you money.” He scanned me up and down. “Looks like you’re down to your boxer shorts, my friend… And it might take you weeks to find someone with a rune you could buy or even someone who would let you target it.”
I clenched my teeth, but I didn’t respond.
Satorin leaned his head back and looked down at my legs. “I’m guessing you don’t even know where you are in the Sands, do you? They call this ‘The Endless Sands’ for a reason. So many have died after walking for days upon days, lost in the sand dunes alone. If you don’t know your way, it’ll be your fate as well.
“There’s sand worms out there, giant scorpions, man-eating lizards, and the slavers could always catch you ag—”
“I get it,” I interrupted.
He held the rune up for me to see again. “Or I have your ticket out of here in my hands right now. If you help me, you’ll get your rune back, and I’ll reward you greatly. I’ll up the ante with some extra gold, a powerful piece of magic, and I’ll still forever be in debt to you.”
You have been offered a quest: A Traitor’s Request
Satorin would like you to free his wife, Maleena from the hands of Dryden Bloodletter. She is held captive in a keep somewhere in The Endless Sands.
Reward: 20,000XP, 5,000 Gold, A Marked Runestone, Unknown Magic Reward
Do you accept this quest? Accept/Decline
I took a deep, hard breath and I was practically panting in anger and frustration. I could either face a week more in the slaver camp, and then who knew how much time it would take to escape my buyer and find a way back to Edge
wood. Or, I could face that fact that he had got me… I didn’t want to help him, but he put me in a situation where helping him was significantly more viable than not.
I had to note that the reward he was offering was also more significant than the first time he had offered me a quest as well. 5,000 gold was a nice offering, and he promised me magic as well. I couldn’t be sure if he was deceiving me, but as I looked around me to the other slaves who were strapped to the log, I just … needed to get out at all costs.
“You can free me now?”
Satorin winked and pulled an illuminated blue key out of his purse, holding it up for me to see. “Like I said, I have a great sleight of hand.”
I pursed my lips and gave a slight, reluctant nod. “Fine… I’ll do my best to free your wife.”
You have accepted the quest: A Traitor’s Request!
Satorin’s head fell forward and he breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Raymond.”
I groaned at the use of ‘Raymond’ and considered for a moment to tell him my real name, just so I wouldn’t hear it again. But decided otherwise as I still couldn’t trust a guy who had forced me into such a compromising situation.
Satorin reached down and unlocked my shackles, then pulled out a dagger and slowly began cutting the ropes that were near my hands, looking to each side of him every few seconds to make sure neither of the two guards had noticed what was going on.
“Why so slow?” I asked.
“If I cut the main knot, the log will fall and the sound will alert the guards. I want to free just enough rope that you can slip out.”
After another minute or so I was free and rubbing on my wrist and arms to rid the stiff pain that they had accumulated from sitting in the same position for so long.