Even as I asked the question, I knew the answer. The legendary Edelweiss Forest, which served as the official starting zone in the regular game, was now spread out before us in all directions. There were the same towering trees with their violet leaves. The same windy trails, half-overgrown with thick vegetation. I even spotted the same small stream winding through the forest, splashing with crystal-clear water. Follow that stream, I knew, and you’d come to a tiny cave, where sometimes a rare dog-size dragon would spawn. Slay him and you’d get a killer starter weapon.
There were animals, too, roaming around everywhere. Two-headed bunnies, pink furry squirrels. Even the legendary green-scaled mini dragons (affectionately known as dragonbites) snuffing through dense foliage, foraging for food. I watched, mesmerized, as one of the dragonbites blasted a dandelion with a mini fireball, then plucked it from its stem once it was good and toasted. He swallowed it down, then smacked his lips, as if to say, Yum! and then flew to the next flower.
This was unbelievable. The same land I’d explored for years with a mouse and keyboard now stretched out before me in real life. Well, maybe not real life, but definitely the next best thing. I looked up to find the legendary Fields of Fantasy twin suns shining down from the sky, scattering rays of light across the landscape.
“Holy giant narwhal horns!” Lilli murmured under her breath, surprising me with one of her favorite exclamations from back when we used to game together. We’d come up with a billion of these after Mom caught us using real-life curse words one day during a really difficult boss fight and threatened to take away the game if we didn’t clean up our act. For a while we’d keep challenging each other, making each expression crazier and sillier than the last. But then Lilli quit the game. And I hadn’t heard her make one up since.
“I know, right?” I turned to look at her, and a grin spread across my face. Gone was her ugly SensSuit, and in its place she wore a deep-blue robe with ancient golden symbols embroidered at the wrists and hemline. She looked different, too. Her short brown hair was now hanging down her back in a complicated tangle of rainbow-colored braids, and her brown eyes were now bright purple, glowing and sparkling as Ikumi’s had. As if they were mixed with stardust.
“You look awesome, Lills!” I exclaimed.
She glanced down at her outfit and shrugged. “I guess,” she said reluctantly. Pulling up the hem of her robe, she examined her feet, which were covered in golden high-heeled boots. “Not very practical, though. Like, what if I have to run?”
“Well, it’s not like you’re really wearing those,” I reminded her. “You’re still wearing Skechers in real life, right?”
“Oh. Right. I forgot.” She dropped her robe and scrunched up her face. “This is so weird.”
“And… super awesome?” I asked hopefully.
“Let’s not go crazy,” she said, turning away.
My shoulders slumped. Couldn’t she see how amazing this all was? What an incredible opportunity it was to be here? Sure, I knew she only came because I’d begged her. But I really thought once she got here, she’d start getting excited. After all, she used to love Fields of Fantasy as much as I did. If not more!
“I like that you’re playing a mage again,” I tried, not willing to give up on her just yet. “Did you name her Adorah?” Back when Lilli played Fields of Fantasy, she’d had this amazing fire mage called Adorah whose DPS (damage per second) was through the roof. She’d saved my butt countless times, and it was never the same once she quit.
She shrugged. “Yeah. Mage Adorah. Though obviously not the same level as the old one. Kind of annoying the game won’t let us use the characters we already leveled online.”
“Totally,” I agreed. “If I could have brought the real Lord Wildhammer here…”
It was then that I realized that I must be in character, too. Running over to the nearby stream, I peered down at my reflection. Sure enough, my skinny twelve-year-old body had disappeared. And in its place? A true warrior with broad shoulders and big muscles that would have taken years to build the old-fashioned way at the gym. Nice!
“Lord Wildhammer, Savior of the Realm,” I proclaimed, raising my fist at the stream. “At your service!”
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” Derek muttered.
I turned to check out my cousin’s new look, totally expecting to find some big, bulky barbarian type with insta-muscles and a mountain-man beard. Maybe even an orc or a troll or something else really nasty looking, wielding an ax as big as his head. But instead, Derek appeared to be human, dressed in a simple tunic and tights. And not much taller than he was in real life.
Also, instead of an oversize ax? He was carrying a harp.
“Wait,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Are you playing a bard?”
Bards were like the in-game joke of Fields of Fantasy. They were the absolute most useless character class, so hardly anyone played them. For one, they didn’t have much damage dealing magic, and they weren’t even allowed to use actual weapons. All they could do was buff the party by playing music on the sidelines during a fight.
“Why on earth would you choose a bard?” I asked, laughing.
Derek’s frown deepened. “I’m not a gamer nerd, okay?” he ground out. “I didn’t know what to pick. I just… figured I like music or whatever.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to control my laughter. “That’s cool.” Suddenly I felt bad for making fun of him. “And hey, a good bard can really save a party! You can cast buffs on us to make us do more damage or protect us…”
“I’ll buff you, all right. Right upside the head if you keep talking nerd to me,” Derek growled. He turned to Eugene. “Can we get this over with, please?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Eugene declared. He looked down at his tablet, which now looked more like a spell book than an iPad. He still wore jeans and a T-shirt, though—totally out of place in this new land. “The first quest is over there.” He pointed to a dirt path winding up a small hill and into the trees. “Knock yourselves out.”
We headed down the path, me in the lead, Derek and Lilli trudging reluctantly behind. At the top of the hill, the trees thinned, revealing a small farm with a thatched-roof cottage in the middle of a field of carrots, pumpkins, and corn. A wispy curl of smoke drifted from the cottage’s chimney, and I could hear birds chirping in the trees nearby. A few two-headed bunnies hopped through the field, helping themselves to an all-you-can-eat veggie buffet.
But it wasn’t the farm or the bunnies that got my heart thumping hard in my chest. It was the short, stubby man with messy brown hair and a wild beard who we found leaning against a nearby tree. He was dressed in a farmer’s tunic and britches and was chewing on a stalk of wheat. And spinning above his head? A white star. Exactly like the ones you’d find above every quest giver in the regular game.
Sweet! Our first quest!
I dashed over to the man, eager to get started. But when I reached him, I stopped, unsure what to do. In the game, I would have simply hovered my mouse over a quest giver, then clicked on them. What was the equivalent here? Poking him in the belly? After my experience with the troll blacksmith I didn’t want to make the wrong move.
“Um, hello?” I tried.
But the man didn’t answer. He just stared off into the distance. I waved my hands in front of his face. “Hello? Do you have a quest for us?”
Derek snorted. “Maybe he doesn’t speak geek.”
“Let me try,” Lilli interjected before I could respond with a witty comeback. (Which was a good thing, since I had no witty comeback.) She reached out and poked the farmer in the arm. Twice—like a double mouse click.
The man burst to life, his blank expression transforming into a look of pure terror. It was a bit jarring, given how bored he had looked a moment before, but whatever. We’d figured it out! And now we’d get a quest!
“Brave adventurers!” he cried. “I am so glad you have come! I am in desperate need of your help!”
I s
hot my sister a grin. “Nice!”
She shrugged, but I could tell she was pleased at having figured it out. I turned back to the quest giver, excitement rumbling in my stomach. What would he want us to do? Slay a mighty dragon? Rescue a damsel or dude in distress? Steal treasure from a band of cutthroat pirates? Or maybe—
“Trap ten rats.”
Wait, what?
I cocked my head. “What did he just say?”
Eugene looked up from his spell book a few feet away. “His house has been overrun by vermin,” he stated in a bored voice. “He wants you to trap ten rats and bring them back to him. If you do this, he’ll give you a reward.”
Derek groaned. “Seriously?”
I nodded grimly. Role playing games like Fields of Fantasy were famous for forcing low-level characters to begin their grand, save-the-world adventures by exterminating pests in someone’s basement. In fact, it had become such a well-known in-game joke that now designers often included such quests on purpose.
But while this wasn’t such a big deal when you were sitting at home on your computer with all the time in the world, when you only had a week to beat the best game ever, it felt like a big waste of time. What if we spent all our vacation on low-level stuff like catching rats and never got to see any of the cool, epic content later in the game?
It was then that I remembered what Hiro had said about the time compression technology they used. Our vacation was a week, but it might feel like a month while inside the game.
Giving us plenty of time for rat catching.
“Come on,” I said. “It’ll help us level up. We can’t exactly fight dragons while we’re still level one, now can we?”
“Fine,” Lilli said, taking a step toward the cottage’s front porch. “Let’s get this over with.”
Derek, on the other hand, planted himself down on a nearby stump. I gave him a questioning look.
“Are you coming?” I asked.
He smirked. “Why? I’m just a useless bard, remember?” He pulled out his harp and began strumming a tune. “Buffing, buffing—I’m just good for buffing! And eating turkey and stuffing!” he sang tunelessly.
I raked a hand through my hair in frustration. “We really need everyone to play!” I protested. “That’s sort of the whole point of forming a party.…”
Derek changed his tune. “Party! Party! Ian’s kind of farty!”
I squeezed my hands into fists, my face flushing with frustration. Was he really going to be like this the entire trip? I was about to tell him to just go back to town and watch TV for the next week, when Lilli put a hand on my arm.
“Come on,” she said, dragging me toward the cottage. “It’s just trapping rats. We’ll be fine without him.”
I groaned, knowing she was just trying to make me feel better. In reality, she wanted to be doing this about as much as Derek did. In fact, no one else really wanted to be here—which was starting to make me not want to be here, either. Which was so unfair! I had been waiting for this moment my entire life. An epic adventure. The experience of a lifetime! And now I had a guide who didn’t want to guide, a cousin who was more into fart jokes than fighting, and a sister who was looking at me as if I was a loser with no friends.
Oh, and rats that needed catching. Awesome.
I reluctantly followed Lilli to the cottage, stepping onto the sagging front porch, which creaked and groaned under our weight. The whole place, in fact, looked as if it were about to fall in on itself. I wondered, for a moment, what it would look like if I could remove my goggles.
But I couldn’t remove my goggles. Just like back at Dragonshire, they’d completely vanished from my face. At least as far as my mind was concerned. I wondered if it was the same for Lilli, but didn’t want to freak her out if she hadn’t noticed. At this point, I was just glad she was questing with me. Even if it was only out of pity.
And so I followed her through the battered front door…
And into total blackness.
I squinted, trying to look around. But it was so dark inside I could barely see my hands in front of my face. Okay, not freaky at all. I took another step forward, feeling my way around, trying to ignore the panicky feeling rising in my throat.
It’s just dark, I scolded myself. No big deal. You’re in the dark every night at bedtime.
It was then that my ears caught a scurrying sound. Tiny claws scraping against wood.
Rats. Many, many rats by the sound of it.
I drew in breath, trying to remind myself that this was just a silly beginner quest. They weren’t monsters, just vermin, and they were probably more scared of me than I was of them. But my brain remained unconvinced. After all, while clicking rats on a computer screen might feel like brainless busywork, facing off with real-life, bald-tailed, beady-eyed creatures in a pitch-black house was something else entirely.
“Argh!” Lilli screeched, almost knocking me over as she jumped to the side. “Something crawled over my foot!”
“Quick!” I cried. “Put down a trap!”
“What traps? Where are they?”
Good question. I fumbled around until my fingers brushed against something metal. “Hang on! I think I found a lamp or something.” I flicked a switch and the room flooded with a dim golden glow. Unfortunately it also caused the rats to scatter and disappear into little holes in the floorboards and walls until we were alone again.
Lilli sighed. “What now?”
I looked around, thinking hard. The cottage was practically empty, furnished only with a kitchen table (complete with a lantern and a bunch of rattraps) and a few chairs. A dirty, old throw rug covered part of the floor, and a wooden cot piled with tattered blankets had been pushed up against the far wall. There was a fireplace, too, but the fire had gone out, leaving only a few smoldering ashes.
There was only one thing to do. I plucked a trap off the table and set it on the floor. Lilli followed my lead, and together we managed to set all the traps, with some in every corner of the small room.
“Now I guess we leave and come back?” Lilli suggested, looking around the room. “They’re not going to come out while we’re standing here with the lights on, right?”
“Right.” I turned and headed to the door. Lilli followed after turning off the lantern, plunging the room back into darkness. As I exited the cottage I could hear the squeaking sounds start up again. Nice. Shouldn’t take long to fill those traps. I wondered how many experience points we would get for doing it. Would it be enough to level up?
Outside, we found Derek, who had stopped playing his music and had started pestering Eugene instead. I watched as our guide held up his hands in a helpless gesture and our cousin groaned in exasperation.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I’m trying to get him to show us something good,” Derek replied. “If we’re going to be stuck here all day, I want to see some cool content. Not waste time with dumb, newbie rat quests.”
“We have to level up first,” I reminded him. “That’s how games work.”
“Which is totally bogus,” Eugene broke in before Derek could reply.
I frowned. “What?”
“These games,” he said, scratching at his nose. “They all start out so boring. And all the good stuff? Half of the players who come here will never be able to level high enough to see it—even with the time-compression thing. All this work I put into the end-game bosses like Atreus will be for nothing.”
“Atreus?” I repeated, surprised. “My uncle said you didn’t have an Atreus.”
“Are you kidding? Of course we have an Atreus,” Eugene sputtered. “He’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever built. Not that the suits will admit it.” He made a face. “All that work I put into him. And now they won’t even use him.”
“Why not?” I asked. Maybe now we’d finally get the real story.
“They say he’s too smart. That no one will be able to beat him and they’ll go home from their vacation disappointed and wah, wa
h, wah. Everyone gets a trophy these days. Ridiculous.”
I had to agree. “No one has ever beat him in the regular game, either,” I pointed out. “And no one seems to care about that.…”
“Exactly!” Eugene cried, pointing at me. “You get it, kid. Atreus is supposed to be the big bad of the entire game. Not some trophy kill that a weekend warrior can bag and brag to his friends about back home. So I gave him intelligence, and made him watch thousands of recorded Fields of Fantasy battles from the past ten years. He now knows a gamer’s mind and moves better than the gamers themselves.” Eugene rubbed his hands together in glee. “And the longer Dragon Ops is open, the smarter he’ll get. And the harder he’ll be to beat.”
“So let’s see him already,” Derek demanded.
“Weren’t you listening, bard boy? He’s not part of the game.”
“So what?” my cousin argued. “You’re his programmer. Can’t you just program him to show up? We don’t have to fight him or anything. We just want to check him out. See if he’s as cool as you say he is.”
Eugene pursed his lips. “I mean, I could,” he hedged. “But the bosses would kill me if they found out. Like real-life kill me.”
My heart started beating a little faster, realizing he was starting to cave.
“We won’t tell anyone,” I promised. “Will we, guys?”
Lilli and Derek shook their heads, obviously as eager as I was. Eugene laughed.
“You guys are going to get me in so much trouble,” he said. Then he held out his hands in defeat. “But why not? Someone should get to appreciate all my hard work. Might as well be you!”
We waited, excitement rising, as Eugene started tapping on his spell book. When he finished, he looked up to the sky. We followed his gaze, at first seeing nothing but a few clouds floating by. I dug my nails into my palms, trying to be patient.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long. A moment later the sky darkened as a long, regal shadow appeared, cresting above us, so large it nearly blocked out the twin suns. I drew in a breath.
Atreus. Ready or not, here he comes.
Dragon Ops Page 5