“Taco Tuesday?” I quirked an eyebrow.
Tommy shrugged. “What do you want, some kind of nasty name like ‘Player Slayers’ or ‘The Bone Crush Kings?’ C’mon, man. It’s a game.”
“Fair enough.”
“Anyway, we’ll pick something cooler sounding when we gain guild status. But ‘til then, you in or what?”
I willed acceptance, and immediately received a congratulations and welcome message.
“Sweet,” he said. “Now let’s head back to the others. Maybe you’re sister’s already turned up, who knows?”
“Heh.” I followed him back toward the fire. For a moment I considered fessing up about the Shadow Bag. I could drop it right then and pretend I’d just stubbed my toe on the thing, that it had been there on the ground all along. But something deep down—call it greed, if you want—told me to just sit tight and keep my mouth shut. No reason to tell anyone about it just yet if no one had any way of finding out I had it anyway. I knew it was poor sportsmanship, but hey, sue me. I’d had a rough night so far.
“All clear, Tommy?” The woman who had shot the elf—Jess—sauntered toward us, bow in hand.
“All clear. Got a new recruit here.” He reached a hand out and patted me on the shoulder. I, meanwhile, tried to read Jess’s info, and was stymied same as I had been with Tommy’s. Huh.
“Now that’s funny,” she said. “I got similar news.”
The fire was dying down now, the glow of its embers casting the scene in an eerie, hellish amber hue. From behind Jess, two figures emerged in the darkness. A man and a woman. The man, I didn’t recognize—another noob, I assumed. But my heart leapt into my chest when I saw the woman.
“Angie!”
CHAPTER 4:
CAMPED
_________________
December 25, 2048
Janus Industries
Letter to the Board
RE: Recommend to Beta
CONFIDENTIAL: This letter is for Board members only.
Merry Christmas.
I am pleased to share the Warehouse Alpha has been completed and has passed intial tests and debugs. It is my pleasure to recommend to the board they vote to approve beta testing immediately for select players.
Please see attached stipulations and qualifications for beta tester selection as developed by Section 309 in cooperation with AI 001.
Aaron Sarten, Project 309 Leader
Section 309
Janus Industries
___
“Hey, brosef.”
She looked different, really different than I remembered. My sister had always been the nerdy-type, not a sports-loving bone in her body. Unlike her brother, she’d been the one who had kept gaming over the years. Last time I’d seen her, she’d been as pasty as a ghost, and had looked just about as frail. I was pretty sure her chief source of protein was Funyuns.
The person in front of me, well… she was big. I mean, strong. Her athletic build towered above Jess, the player beside her. Her arms weren’t the Twizzler-thin ropes I remembered, but thick, sinewy trunks of muscle. I would never have placed her if it hadn’t been for her face. But sure enough, plastered there beneath the gnarled ruddy dreadlocks was the same derpy grin I’d recognize anywhere. Angie.
Only… were those things protruding just a bit over her upper lip… fangs?
“Uh, Angie? You some kind of troll or something?”
“Pshht.” She tossed her locks back. “Part troll. Mostly human. Give me some credit, Gid. It’s not like I went whole-elf or something.” She quirked an eyebrow at me.
Tommy cleared his throat, looking my way. He’s been handing the spoils to Jess. “The sister, I presume? Care to introduce?”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, Tommy, this is Angie, my kid-sister. Angie, this is, ah, Tommy. Just met him but seems like a cool guy.”
“Cool enough to party up with, at least.” Tommy smirked at Jess. I wondered at it.
Angie’s smile cooled just a degree or two. “You joined their party?”
I shrugged. “Eh, well, I mean, what’s the harm? They just saved my life—I was about to be eaten alive by a pack of mongrel players—” Tommy turned his brow up at me. “—er, mongrels—and then Tommy offered to help me find you.”
“And now we have.” Jess smiled, pocketing the smallblade and dagger from Tommy. “Why don’t you join too, Angie? The two of you can come check out our headquarters, get patched up a bit, and if you decide it’s not for you, no hard feelings. Free pass in the morning.”
Now my part-ogre sister was definitely frowning. The sag in her lower lip brought the tips of her fangs just inside her mouth, creating a comical pooch in her upper lip, like she was a toddler thinking very hard about something. “I dunno… Gid, you think maybe we could talk about it first?”
I was about to agree when the conversation was broken up by a fresh round of commotion at the treeline. Voices rang out and bowstrings twanged as the other members of Taco Tuesday converged on someone, or something, that was still alive.
“Got ‘em!” a triumphant voice cried out.
Congratulations!
Your party, Taco Tuesday, has completed the quest, Clear the Mongrels from Cloud Vale. You have gained 110XP.
You Have Leveled Up!
You have reached Level 2! You now have 1 unassigned attribute point and 1 unassigned skill point. Choose well, as these choices cannot be undone. You will reach level 3 in 180XP.
You have been assigned 1 attribute point in agility.
“Kick-ass!” I pumped my fist in the air as a chime sounded in my ears, signaling the level-up.
“What happened?” Angie tilted her head toward me.
Tommy smiled. “You leveled up, didn’t you? Must have got, what, 100XP?”
“110!”
“Nice.”
I placed my hands on my hips and stretched my back, stopping when a pain jolted up my side. “Ugh! I guess HP doesn’t regenerate when you level, huh?” I was still at 40%.
Tommy frowned. “No, it should. Unless… you got an infection or virus or something?”
I cursed and told him about the infected Mongrel bite. He and Jess shared a laugh, and then he gave me another potion. This one wiped out the infection and brought me up to 60HP. Not bad at all.
Angie shook her head. “You got experience for… oh, for being in their party. Must have been a quest?”
Tommy nodded and bent down to wipe his hands clean on his dark cotton trousers. “Indeed it was. This little hollow, Cloud Vale, has been the meeting ground of the Mongrels for some time. Apparently we either just killed the last one, or they aren’t planning to return now that we’ve camped out their little ritual spot.”
I nudged Angie. “You still level 1?”
“Yeah,” she groused.
“Bet partying up doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?”
“I guess not.” Her eyes glazed over for a moment, and I realized she must have already been extended an invitation and just hadn’t done anything with it yet. “There,” she said.
“Sorry about the XP,” Jess told her. “Too late this time. But at least you’re partied up for the next payout.”
“Yeah.” Angie held her left arm in her right hand. The gesture looked odd on such a beefy character, but it was natural for my sister.
“C’mon.” Tommy nodded away from the dying embers and began walking in the same direction a number of the party had started moving. “Night’s no time for chat. Let’s get home, get some food, get some rest.”
I heaved a sigh and began to follow. For once, things were starting to look up in this game.
___
The members of Taco Tuesday had, somehow, acquired a truly special spot. What Tommy called “home” and Jess called “headquarters” began as a crack in the stone face at the foot of a sheer cliff that stretched up high into the sky, blotting out half the stars. A dark “X” marked the cliff-face just above the narrow crevice.
To get there we’d had to take a winding path b
ack through the Thieves’ Forest, then into some foothills, and finally across a river (which we hopped across, stone by stone, netting me a level up in Fleet of Foot). Angie had almost slipped and fallen in, twice, but our guides were strong and sure of their footing, and they managed to get her across without injury.
Outside the crack in the cliff, we paused. Everyone went inside but Tommy, Jess, Angie, and I.
“Alright, this is it,” Tommy said, his voice hushed. “Home sweet home. We call it the Fiesta Bowl.”
“We do not,” Jess growled quietly.
Tommy chuckled. “Yeh, well, I do. Not everyone around here approves of my culinary humor, as you can see. Anyway, before we go in, I just want to thank you two for joining us for the night, and for helping us clean out the place back there. What Jess said holds—if you want to leave in the morning, you’re free to do so—but know that you are both welcome here, as much as you want to be.” He smiled.
Something gnawed at the back of my mind. Why thank us for anything that had happened back in the Forest, or the Hollow? We hadn’t done anything. All I’d done was feel around in the grass with him for a few minutes (nevermind the hidden item I hadn’t told him about) and reap the reward of some XP for joining the party. Weird guy, Tommy. So cheerful, so confident, so over-the-top nice.
I wondered numbly, was this what normal people were like? I mean, this warmth beginning to grow inside, was this trust? Perhaps even the kernel of friendship? I didn’t know what to do with such a notion. I smiled at myself and shook my head a little wistfully. Why had I always shut people out? Distanced myself from my family, my friends, my colleagues? This feeling, this was… nice. I could get used to this, I thought.
“Thanks man,” I said, my voice warmer and more genuine than I’d ever remembered hearing it come out. Tommy clasped a hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t mention it. You’re with us now.” He leaned in and said the next words emphatically. “You’re tacos now.”
Even Angie cracked a chuckle at that, in spite of herself. “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Let’s get in, huh? I’m all for food and sleep.”
“This one,” Jess said, pointing at Angie, “I could like.” Then she turned to enter and we followed.
The crack led into a long, narrow passage. At times the ceiling dropped low and we had to hunch over. Once, Angie had to drop to her hands and knees to get through, but she made it. Finally the tunnel opened into a cavern. Or so I assumed, from the change in sound and the general sense of open air. The dark had grown suffocating, and though I picked up a level in Night Vision about midway up the tunnel, I couldn’t keep up, even as a Night Elf, with the total submersion of the cave at night.
“Ok guys,” I heard Tommy say from a few feet away. “Wait for it.”
For what? I almost said aloud. Then it happened.
All around the cavern, a gentle glow began to gather, giving dimension to the enormous space. Specks of light converged into whole patches of brilliant blues and greens, and I realized we were looking at some sort of natural light source. “Crystals?” I breathed.
“Shrooms,” Tommy said with a smirk. “Bioluminescence, my tacos. And wait til you really feel their glow.”
You Have Received the Buff: Cave of Wonder
While inside this cavern, your HP will rejuvenate at twice its normal rate. Sit down, put your feet up. Few and far between are caves this wondrous.
“Nice,” whispered Angie.
I held my hands out in front of me and watched as the little knicks and bruises I still bore faded away.
“What’s that?” I asked, gesturing toward the center of the cavern. From the floor, a pillar of rock gave way to a shining material that shimmered and almost danced in the light of the mushrooms. It reminded me of the surface of water at sunset, or of the wavy mirror from the character-building session I’d had with Sophia. It rose impressively above our heads until it crested with an ornate stone carving. I gazed at the carving, curious. It had to be a rune. Two lines running top to bottom, with another two smaller lines running at diagonals and meeting in the middle. It looked a little like a capital “M,” but much more archaic. And arcane.
“That,” Tommy said, striding down toward it, “is the best part. Here, my friends, is the really unique thing we have to offer.” He paused. “You’re both first-time players, that right?”
I nodded slowly.
“Sometimes,” he said, “the game creates items so special, so powerful, they defy typical game object classification. We’ve come to think of this beauty as such a thing. We call it our relic.”
With every word he spoke, the shining mass looked more and more impressive to me. “What does it do?” I didn’t even try to mask the awe in my voice.
“It gives free XP,” Jess said from behind us. She and Tommy exchanged a look and a subtle nod.
“With one touch,” he added. “Enough to bump you both up another level.”
“No way,” Angie said. “No quest, no enemy, no chest with a key—just touch an object and level-up? Nah. No such thing.”
“Look around,” Tommy said. “You’re under hundreds of meters of rock, surrounded by glowing fungi breathing life into your stats, in the most powerful and innovative VRMMORPG ever made. Anything’s possible.” He shrugged. “But if you don’t believe me, touch it for yourself. Where’s the harm?”
I caught Jess looking at me. “Think of how you’d spend the attribute point,” she said. “You still have one unspent, haven’t you? There’s nothing like the in-game high of going on a little shopping spree for your character sheet. Two at once,” her eyelids dropped ever so slightly, “is a great high. Trust me.”
“Seems… I don’t know.” Angie grew quiet and sullen. “Seems odd, is all.”
That subtle, persistent doubt nagged at me again, but… what can I say? It wasn’t just the seductive way Jess was phrasing things, or the gentle buzz I felt standing in the buffing cave. The truth is, she was right. I did want the double-spend. I did want to level up. And that moment was when I realized that, for me, Hero Online had never been about Angie. It had never been about patching things up and being a family. Those had just been the things I’d told myself so that I’d actually take the leap and make the purchase.
No. The truth was that it had always been about me, my want, my need to escape and try to find something, anything, with meaning. A purpose. It slapped me in the face just then, and I wasn’t even a bit ashamed, fool that I was. I acknowledged it, privately, and made my peace with it. Free XP? Leveling up?
“I’ll take it,” I said, stepping toward the stone, hand outstretched.
No one else made a move. If Angie wanted to stop me, she didn’t show it.
Then the room exploded.
Light flared, dazzling me and making me blink, and the floor began to gently quake. I dropped my hands to my knees, disoriented, struggling to stay on my feet, and tried to push back the swimming motes of light as the room grew dark again. The glow from the relic had intensified—had it been the source?—and a shadow appeared between it and me.
A person.
“Gahhhhh!” The man wailed in agony, falling on his hands and knees.
Tommy cursed and spat on the stone floor. “Ignes! Ignes, get in here, you slouch.”
A Night Elf with long, dark blades crossed over her back appeared behind us, from the entrance. “Problem, Tommy?”
“I’ll say.” He pointed at the guy still writhing and moaning on the floor. “Nobody told us to expect a respawn. Spoiled the timing on a little party we’re having here.” He nodded at Angie and I. “Now, who dropped the ball on communication? Or…” He paused and strolled toward the prone character, nudging him with his foot until he flipped over, then laughed. “Oh, geez. You guys forgot to dispatch this one with an amulet, didn’t you? Can’t do that, Ignes. Causes unpleasant, unplanned situations, like this one.”
He reached inside his leather vest and pulled out a long silver chain. On one end, a gem glowed a dul
l purple, pulsing intermittently, like an Amethyst pendant with a very slow heartbeat. “This, right?” He shook the chain. “Never forget again. Got it?”
Ignes shifted her weight back and forth. She looked like a hardened player, but when she spoke, her voice betrayed real fear. “Got it, Tommy. I’ll relay the message.”
“You do that.” He turned to me and tossed me the amulet. “Think fast, Gideon.” I snatched it from the air, surprising myself. “Do me a favor, man. Put that around your neck before you touch the relic stone.”
“Uh.” I looked from the amulet to the man on the floor. He had finally stopped thrashing about and was now lying prone and gasping for air. “Why?”
“Because I said so,” Tommy snarled. His eyes lit up with rage, dispelling his cool demeanor in an instant. “Noobs do as they’re told around here. Didn’t your first few minutes in the game teach you that?”
I frowned. Something fishy was definitely going on.
“Run,” a ragged voice choked out. I looked down and saw that the man on the floor had rolled partially over to face me. The look in his eyes was haunting in a way I had never known. “Get out now. Don’t touch the—”
“Ignes,” Tommy growled. Ignes looked at him in fear and uncertainty, as if she did not understand what was being asked of her. Jess sighed, equipped one of her newly acquired smallblades, and sent it sailing through the cavern to puncture the man’s neck. The tip emerged on the other side. His eyes bulged, he gave a gurgling sound, and he slumped, lifeless, on the rock floor.
“What is going on??” Angie had backed up to the wall, but Ignes and now Tommy stood between her and the tunnel entrance. I was nearly to the central stone, blocked by all of them. There was no getting out now if our hosts didn’t want it.
“Gideon?” Tommy tilted his head toward the amulet, still swinging on its chain from my hand.
“Uh…” I looked at the body bleeding out in front of me.
Quest for Vengeance Page 5