Quest for Vengeance

by Benjamin Douglas

  “Very well.” The shimmering images appeared before me again, this time waving gently in the water. “Please select another race.”

  “Let’s try an elf.”

  “High, Woodland, or Night?”

  “Uhh… High, I guess?”

  Somewhere in the center of the world, a giant must have pulled out an enormous bath-plug, because the sea surged once more, rushing all around me, and disappearing as if sucked up through a straw in the ground. I was tossed about again and left flopping on bare sand for a moment before my tail split into legs. I shook my head, trying to clear it, and coughed up a lungful of ice-cold briny water. When I breathed again the air was sharp and harsh, but it was air.

  I blinked against the sun, now high overhead and blinding for the first few moments. By the time I could see and had struggled to my feet, the shimmering mirror was present again, and I saw the tall, lithe figure of an elf. I was clad in a shining white robe trimmed in gold, and the gem-encrusted hilt of a sword peeked out at my waist.

  “Whoa, do I get the sword right away?”

  “No. You will begin with one rudimentary weapon for self-defense, but you must acquire other weapons as you play. The item you see is for this demo only.”

  I deflated a little. It made sense though. Everyone would just play high elf if it meant starting with what looked like a legendary sword right out the gate.

  “So this is a warrior build, then? How do classes work? Is there a kit system? Do I pick specializations further on?”

  “There is no formalized kit interface. Rather, specializations develop organically in Hero Online, through the choices you make as you play. Creativity is rewarded.”

  “Oh.” I wrinkled my forehead. “But I still level up and stuff, right? I get, like, stat points?” I remembered that being the most addictive part of MMOs, and I had a hard time imagining how the mechanics of this game could work without it.

  “Yes, naturally. You will gain experience points as you play, which will accumulate and translate into level gains. At each gain, you will be assigned some attribution increases by the game, and you will be allowed to assign some yourself.”

  “By the game? Uh… you mean, by you?”

  “You are welcome to associate me with the game engine, if this persona suits you, Gideon.”

  I nodded. Things were starting to make sense. It sounded like more of the mechanics would be dictated by gameplay than by choices made on a game menu, which would be a change for me, but I couldn’t imagine it ruining the experience. If anything, I was intrigued.

  “Alright.” I smiled, making a snap decision. “I’m ready to settle on a race.”

  Five minutes later everything was settled, and my entire field of vision went black. Sophia’s voice trailed off into nothingness as she counted down to my drop.

  “Three… two… one.”

  CHAPTER 2:

  BAD DROP

  _________________

  January 1, 2048

  Janus Industries

  Letter to the Board

  RE: Progress on Project 309

  CONFIDENTIAL: This letter is for Board members only.

  Project 309 has reached the first significant benchmark since funding was approved. Over the Holidays, developers initiated runtime for Project AI 001, the development of which has taken 23 months. Initiation of AI 001 marks the end of the first phase and the beginning of the next, in which project developers will be aided by AI 001 in the construction of the Warehouse (code). If AI 001 functions as intended, rate of progress should now significantly increase. Section 309 therefore recommends to the Board that the selection of trial participants begins, with initial trials likely to take place in 12 months’ time.

  Please see attached budget proposal for Warehouse development, including several minor adjustments suggested by AI 001 after initial review. Further development will begin pending the Board’s approval of these changes.

  Aaron Sarten, Project 309 Leader

  Section 309

  Janus Industries

  ___

  I opened my eyes and squinted, peering through the inky darkness. The air was thick with the scent of leaf-rot, and a chorus of owls and other creatures of the night surrounded me. Something cried overhead. I looked up and saw the stars, cold and ephemeral, silhouetted by a thick canopy. It was beyond unnerving, it was all so real. But why had she loaded me into the forest in the middle of the night? I shivered against a chill on the air, enjoying even that bit of discomfort. I hadn’t expected to feel shivers here.

  I took a step. I was taller here, I realized with a smile. Not enough that I felt disoriented, but enough to notice. I bent my knees and leapt, moving farther through the air than I ever had in my real body. That made sense, I supposed, given my race selection. So far, pretty good.

  Next, a little orientation. I knew Sophia had said most of the mechanics operated organically, but was there an in-game menu at all? At the thought, a translucent rectangle popped up a couple of feet in front of me, suspended from seemingly nothing and glowing a faint blue. I saw a list of submenus—weapons, items, skills (passive and active), power-ups, quests, pings, a map. I pulled up the map, but it was all black save for a tiny little speck around a tiny green, glowing dot. That was me, I assumed. I zoomed in on the dot and saw a forest symbol beside it. Tell me something I don’t know. I selected the symbol and a dialog box appeared superimposed over the map, informing me that I was in The Thieves’ Forest. Sounded ominous.

  A rustling of leaves pulled me away from the menus, and I crouched low, looking around with wide eyes. I was quickly adjusting to the partial starlight, which, again, was to be expected. I’d chosen Night Elf for my character. The race comprised a group of tall, lithe elves who, due to their typically dark alignment and resulting antagonism against the mainstream light-aligned races, probably preferred the literal dark as well. In fact, it was possible the Thieves’ Forest was the natural place for me to start. Maybe I’m one of the Thieves in question, I wondered to myself. The chill creeping up my spine as the owls and other critters grew silent told me otherwise, though.

  “Angie?” I called as loudly as I dared. I didn’t dare much. My rational brain told me she had to be here too, but my reptile brain was screaming at me that whatever was out there creeping through the trees, it wasn’t her.

  On the bright side, there was plenty of cover for me to hide behind. On the other hand, plenty of cover for anyone else, too. Or anything. What sort of creatures lived here? Probably not friendly ones. The forest wasn’t really giving off the “free power-ups and low-risk gambling games” vibe so far.

  Something moved in the shadows, and I rolled for the nearest tree, kneeling behind it. There was no mistaking the sound of footfalls in the leaves. I was definitely not alone.

  I was distracted by a blue flash in the upper left corner of my vision, and when I glanced that way, the translucent rectangle appeared again, announcing that I’d stumbled upon a couple of passive skills in the last few moments:

  Passive Skill Unlocked: Night Vision

  As a Night Elf, seeing in the dark comes easier to you than to most races. Nevertheless, honing the skill to 20/20 vision will take a little time and effort. You just took the first steps on that journey—congratulations! Night Vision is a passive skill that can only be improved upon through use.

  Skill: Night Vision

  Type: Passive

  Level: 1 (scalable)

  Effect: 5% greater chance of detecting objects around you in the absence of light

  Passive Skill Unlocked: Fleet of Foot

  As an elf, you naturally possess a slim, limber frame more suited to agility than most races. Nevertheless, honing the skill to mastery will take a little time and effort. You just took the first steps on that journey—congratulations! Fleet of Foot is a passive skill that can only be improved upon through use. It is the sister skill to agility, which can be leveled with attribution points.

  Skill: Fleet of Foot

>   Type: Passive

  Sister Skill: Agility

  Level: 1 (scalable)

  Effect: 10% increase to natural agility

  I pursed my lips, impressed by this bit of detail already. I wasn’t sure what exactly a “sister skill” was, but the context made it clear enough to know it was a good thing to level. A 10% increase to natural agility? Right now I had just 5 attribution points in agility, same as with all my character attributes, since I’d just logged into the game for the first time. So a 10% increase brought that up to 5.5 points, and I wasn’t sure if the game recognized fractions or if a single point was the smallest common denominator. But either way that was an awesome scale. If I got up to, say, 100 agility points, and even if I never leveled Fleet of Foot again, that meant I would really have 110 agility points in practice. That was a pretty sweet racial bonus.

  I’d just have to get down and roll around on the ground a bit more, I supposed.

  There was another rustle in the leaves, and I shook myself back to the task at hand. This was no time to get lost in prompts. Where was that weapons submenu again? I pulled it back up and saw I had five slots available, and one was equipped.

  With a slingshot.

  Huh. Very funny, Goliath. I scrolled through the other slots to be sure, but they were indeed empty, so I sighed and armed the weapon. It came with no ammo.

  At least it was one of those with a good, sturdy wooden handle, not the kind you had to have some sort of abstract skill to fling overhand. I think I would have just put out one of my eyes with one of those. I reached down, fumbling in the damp leaves, hoping to find a stone, but found a lot of slime and grime instead. And probably slugs. Sorry, slugs. Just trying to arm my mighty weapon, here.

  Ah, there was something! My fingers closed around a solid object, and I bright it to my face, frowning at its weight.

  An acorn.

  Footfalls circled round, coming perilously near, and I placed the acorn in the cradle. Better than nothing, I supposed. I rose to a crouch, facing the direction of the sound, and squinted as I pulled the acorn back, stretching the bands of the slingshot. A dialogue box appeared:

  Weapon: Forest Slingshot

  Status: Armed

  Ammunition: Acorn

  Strength Required: 5

  Skill Required: Beginner

  Damage: <1HP

  I gulped. Less than one hitpoint? I may as well have not bothered arming.

  The footfalls stopped. They were there, though; I could all but feel their eyes on me, almost convinced myself I heard their breath. Should I shoot? But what if it was another player? I didn’t want to begin that way and garnish a bad reputation before I’d even met anyone. Not that I was likely to do much damage with this thing, but still. There was a code, right?

  “Hey!” I whispered. “Who goes there?” I cringed at my choice of words. Who goes there? Really? “Uhm… Angie, that you?”

  Everything was silent for another moment. A gentle breeze lilted through the wood, and the moon, which must have been hiding behind the canopy, suddenly broke through, illuminating the forest floor in front of me in a cold, pale glow.

  If not for the moon, I’d have been dead.

  A little stand of bushes parted, and out jumped the fattest, hairiest, ugliest little man I’d ever seen. He lunged towards me, brandishing a short, rusty blade, and leering, a greedy glow in his eyes.

  I cussed and fired my acorn. And missed. But he dodged to the side, disappearing again into the undergrowth. Belatedly I glanced at the dialogue box that had appeared over him. It was gone now.

  “I believe,” I muttered beneath my breath, “I’ve just met one of the thieves.”

  I turned in a circle in futility, running a hand over my head, the long, smooth hair feeling odd. I had no better weapon, no way out of here, no clue where to go or what to do, but I wasn’t ready to quit just yet. I believed in taking a challenge head-on and seeing what you could make of it. I reached a hand out and rested it on a tree, the withered, crackled bark feeling amazingly real against my skin.

  The moon disappeared behind the foliage again, and another rustle of leaves told me I had just seconds before tasting the bite of that mean-looking blade. I looked up the trunk of the tree, hemmed and hawed in my mind, knelt, and jumped.

  Lucky for me, this was the strength of my new body. I was a jumper. I came up above the thief’s head and grabbed for the trunk, wrapping my arms around and pulling myself in to hug it tightly. I hit the wood with a thunk, losing my wind for a moment and scraping my face badly. That would look pretty in the morning. Again, I was surprised at the vividness of the game—this time, how real the pain felt. Surely there was a way to turn that down, but now wasn’t the time to explore the submenus. I needed to climb.

  I’d only just pulled myself up to the lowest bough when the dull thwack of the blade meeting the trunk reverberated up to me. Back on the ground, the fat little man stood, growling, and brought his weapon to bear on the tree trunk over and again. I frowned. He couldn’t actually chop this sturdy thing down with that rusty piece of garbage, could he? I mean, it had looked so… rustic. But I supposed it wouldn’t have anything to do with the appearance of the weapon. All it would take was enough thwacking on his part with a blade that didn’t shatter before the tree fell, and the tree would eventually fall.

  “Shit.”

  Another breeze, another flash of moonlight, and my stomach flipped. Now there were two thieves whacking away at the trunk. I thought I’d heard the rate increase. I glanced at the tree. Hmm. Wonder if I could… ah, yes. I found the item icon hovering translucent in the corner of my vision, and opened it. A dialogue box popped up. Tree. Maple. Old. HP: 70/100. 65/100. 60/100.

  I cursed louder. Seriously? It was dropping 5% with every hit! How was it possible those blades had the requisite durability? At this rate, I’d be dead in a minute or two.

  I hated the idea of quitting, but I wasn’t too keen on dying in a no-win scenario, either. I wondered idly if I could escape any negative repercussions if I just logged out and logged back in. After all, there had to have been some kind of bug for me to be loaded into this place to begin with. My first drop should have been into a warm, sunny field surrounded by butterflies and free power-ups. This was just ridiculous.

  And where was Angie? Shouldn’t she have spawned right next to me or something if we were expected to start together in a location like this? Stupid, had to be a mistake. I should just start over, I figured, and explain to Sophia or the mods or whoever that they’d biffed it. Then they could respawn me in her location.

  I pulled up the main menu and scrolled down to the logout, hovering over it for a moment of indecision. Well, screw it. I deserved a fresh start. I swiped the logout logo.

  And nothing happened.

  Well, not nothing. Technically it flashed red, then sat there ogling back at me. I remained in the tree, the thieves still hacking away at the base. Hmm. I toggled the menu and tried again, but the result was the same.

  Again. Same.

  Again. Nothing.

  “Well, that’s not good,” I muttered. I was getting nervous now. What was going on? First I get dumped off in the woods at night surrounded by a couple of crazy NPCs with machetes—make that three, no, four of them, I realized—and now I couldn’t log out? I pursed my lips. This wasn’t how I’d envisioned my first drop going. Slowly I began to brace myself for the inevitable. If they were going to chop me down anyway, I might as well build up my resolve and drop down to go berserk. Maybe I’d get lucky and take one out with me before the kill; then at least I’d gain some XP. Surely if I got booted that way and logged back in, I’d be better off anyway. Maybe in that sunny field.

  One more thing, I remembered, and opened the menu again. Below me, the thieves had whipped themselves into a frenzy, hacking and growling. The tree didn’t have much time left. I scrolled down to settings and found pain, then selected it and swiped to set it to the minimum setting.

  But like the log
out button, it merely flashed red and didn’t budge.

  Now real fear began stalking me for the first time since the drop. What was the point of VR immersion if you felt pain and couldn’t log out to escape it? I may as well just be trapped in an ally somewhere with a gang of real-life murderers.

  “Sophia?” I called out in a hoarse whisper. I ripped through the menu one more time, looking for a contact Admin button, but I couldn’t find anything.

  A few more whacks from below, the tree groaned, and a horrifying thought occurred. What if I still didn’t log out after the kill? What then? Would I just respawn? Or maybe be stuck in some kind of artificial limbo, like the proverbial ghost in the machine?

  Would I really die?

  I wasn’t game to find out.

  I had exactly two useful skills right now, so far as I could tell, so I slapped a quick and simple plan together that made the most of them. I kept the stats open as I scanned from tree to tree, judging distance and strength for each one in my sight. Yep. I was totally going Tarzan.

  A notification popped up letting me know I’d gained the second level in Night Vision, which would have been exciting in any other circumstance. For now I just shook it away and kept searching for the right tree.

  I didn’t anticipate how much elevation I would lose in the first leap. I flew though the air, kicking off and reaching out to wrap my arms around the second of a nearby oak’s dual trunks. Another smack in the face, another bruise to look forward to, and I shimmied up as quick as I could to make up for the ground I’d lost. This time I got a notification that the landing had dinged my HP just a little bit—not enough to worry me, but enough to compliment the fact that I felt as though I’d been whacked across the face with a 2x4. I grunted in acknowledgment.

  This tree was substantially stronger than the maple I’d been in before. What’s more, the thieves, apparently not too bright, continued to hack at the maple. I pulled up its stats and saw that it was down to 40% HP. Another plan—this one a shot in the dark both literally and figuratively—and I was crawling out on the arch of the trunk toward a generous spread of boughs. I stopped at the first foliage I reached and fumbled my hand around, seeking another acorn. I found one, but lost hold of it before I could load it. One of the thieves turned around at the sound of it hitting the fallen leaves and looked around, scanning the wood. He didn’t look up, though.