by John L. Monk
Being higher than level 100 came with a high price: The XP burn for Felix’s muffins was about four times as high as when we’d gone worm hunting. Two days later, down to my last whole muffin, having burned away one hundred and fifty seven levels, I came to a stop outside the cave entrance to the Domination’s lair. A binding stone waited conveniently next to it.
I hadn’t needed the Ray of Sunshine to protect me even once. And now that I was here, I still didn’t need it. Even if I had, gods, bridge guardians, and the Domination were immune to its power. No, the only thing I’d face the Domination with today was … well … my face.
Once again, as I’d done not many years ago, I entered the cave and walked until the light from outside became too dim to see by. At the point where I’d normally activate a light source, a spotlight stabbed down from overhead, illuminating me and the area around me.
From out of the darkness came the sound of slow clapping, and a voice like mine said, “Just when I thought I’d seen everything this world had to offer, along comes my old friend Howard. And sporting a new name, too! Underpowered Howard. If that’s not enough, he’s gone and turned everything upside down and sideways. How ya doin’, Howey ol’ How?”
A man stepped into the light who looked just like me, right down to his gear choices. The Domination’s expression wasn’t mocking the way a good villain’s should be. It was open, honest, and friendly.
I wondered how that’d work on Jane.
“I’m not here to fight,” I said cautiously. “I just wanted to talk.”
“Good, because all the fight’s gone right out of me. Killing you basically kills me, whatever me is. Obviously, I know about your amulet. I’m wearing it too. It has the power to absolutely ruin this world if you’re not careful, but you don’t seem concerned by that. In fact, though I can’t read your specific thoughts, my Doppelgänger perk gives me some sense of your mind. It’s what allows me to convince so many of you to keep fighting after you’ve lost.”
My jaw clenched in silent outrage as he waited for me to reply. I’d been right all along. The creature did mess with people’s minds.
Continuing, the Domination said, “You plan to use the amulet to cause some mischief in the hope that it’ll alert my creators to their little math problem. That about right?”
“You’re bugged,” I said. “Glitched. You can’t be beaten by anyone, no matter how good they are. You’re a death trap for high-level players who were promised a way out of the game. It’s not fair. It’s evil. And I’m going to stop you.”
The Domination tapped his nose, then pointed at me. “Now, see, I think that’s noble. I really do. But I can’t let you beat me. It’s just not in my nature to lose. And yet … if I kill you, you’ll respawn in Ward 1 and begin using this.” He held up his version of the amulet and dropped it back. “But you brought up math. I think there’s a slight chance my creators will notice your activities. If they do, they might care enough to look into it, and if so, they could potentially remove my invulnerability. This slight chance, if multiplied by an endless stream of future battles, could result in multitudes of losses, and that I cannot abide.”
Curious where he was going with this, I said, “But what can you do about it?”
The Domination laughed—again, not mockingly. “I can win, of course—by letting you win. Today! There it is, right back there. The exit rune. I’ve never let anyone past me before, not even once. Some few have managed to reach it using a… Well, a method I have no control over. Above my pay grade, and for various reasons unlikely to ever be used again. But you! Hah, hah. You will be the first in the entire Mythian runtime to reach it the normal way.”
Punctuating the point, the Domination stepped aside and made a flourishing gesture toward the back of the cavern. Way out in the darkness, the exit rune flashed blue and faded, exactly as it had done sixteen years ago, luring me toward it with the promise of an actual life again—of something other than day after day, nonstop, inescapable Mythian.
Despite myself, I took a half step toward it. Though I’d come to the game seeking endless adventure, I’d changed since then. These days, I dreamed of having a family—something the old me never would have considered possible. With a state-of-the-art skin frame, I could have that. Modern skin frames were so advanced, nobody would know you weren’t real unless you told them. I could live in the real world again… Better than I’d managed the first time around. I could even give up the skin frame and go to another retirement world—one that let you transfer to different worlds if you got bored.
If I did all this, the Domination would keep killing people. Every minute in the real world would be one spent knowing I could have done something and didn’t—that lives had been lost because I’d picked the easy path.
You could tell Everlife about the bug—get them to fix it.
Possibly. The first words out of my mouth would be, “The game’s bugged, you have to fix it!” They’d have to listen, wouldn’t they? Couldn’t have me running around, making appearances, telling one and all that Everlife had killed countless people who’d thought they were retiring to a fair game where rules mattered.
But that’s not how it’d go down.
If I started blabbing about the glitch, I’d never leave the facility alive. If I played along with the official narrative and then started blabbing, they’d say my presence in the real world was proof the game wasn’t broken. Then they’d materialize others who’d left the game through the “above my pay grade” method the Domination had mentioned. Being a former Q4 programmer, my guess was the designers had put in a backdoor for themselves and their friends. These former victors would jump to Everlife’s defense, offering themselves as proof the game worked as designed. Later, after the dust settled, they’d quietly do away with me and make it look like an accident.
“Just think about it,” the Domination said. “If we both win, I still haven’t lost. It fits perfectly with my imperative. Also, I just gotta say, I’m genuinely happy for you. It’s refreshing to know someone’s getting out of here alive. And so cleverly done! I, for one, admire brains far more than courage or fighting skills.”
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving. Not until I’m done.”
The smile on the Domination’s face faltered. “What do you mean? Of course you’re leaving. You came here once—why stay now? I haven’t met a player yet who doesn’t want out.”
“Oh, I want out, all right. But first I’ll finish what I started.”
He shook his head. “But you are finishing what you started! You get to win! The whole point of Mythian is striving for victory. Staying makes no sense!”
His voice, I noticed, had grown progressively louder, if not irate.
Calmly I said, “You’re not gonna kill me, are you? No? I didn’t think so.”
I started toward the entrance and the Domination blocked me.
“Wait, hold on,” he said. “Just think… Just for a minute. Why not give me the amulet and leave? That way you lose? See?”
I shook my head. “You’re starting to glitch up, El Domarino. It’s not your fault. You’re not designed for this. You have no experience with losing—no safeguards. Have you tried laughing? It’s what humans do when faced with a paradox our logical minds can’t cope with.”
The Domination’s face had grown desperate—almost scared. Then, suddenly, it hardened with hate.
“I’ll… I’ll drag you over!”
Absurdly, he grabbed me by the arm and heaved. He was a little stronger than me, and though the rune was a good distance away, eventually he’d get me there. I tried punching him and hit the shield from his Elfie ring—a feeling akin to pounding my fist into sand.
Tapping my delecto-muffin, I pulled back. The Domination, in turn, tapped his own supply, and I found myself steadily edging in the direction of the distantly flashing rune. Couldn’t let that happen…
Drawing on my muffin-agility, I removed my shield ring one-handed and smiled when it disappeared fro
m my would-be captor’s hand.
“This won’t work,” I said.
“Oh yeah?” he said, still tugging and grunting with the effort. “Try and stop me!”
I punched him in the face as hard as I could, knocking him to the floor where he lay sputtering in shock through a bloody mouth. My game log showed the muffin-powered hit had scored 1445 points of damage.
“How did you do that?” he said.
“You weren’t defending,” I said. “That’s how. You can’t drag me over there and defend at the same time. If you try it again, I’ll kill you. Think about that: Will you be the same afterward? Is it only your current incarnation that’s glitched, or does it last across respawns?” It was my turn to laugh. “On second thought, keep tugging, we might be able to fix you now, not later.”
I held out my arm for him to grab and he recoiled as if it were a snake. For a moment, I almost felt sorry for him. But then I remembered all the friends who’d come here for a fair fight, never to return again.
“Just what I thought,” I said, then turned and headed for the entrance. “See you later, Dominator.”
Chapter Forty
Getting killed was as easy as storing my gear, running up to the first baddie I found, and slapping it across the face. In this case, a powerful genie with a bald pate floating along the Blood Road on a miniature storm cloud.
“Make with the three wishes, chrome dome!” I shouted.
The genie seemed taken aback at first, then called a lightning bolt out of the clear sky into the palm of his hand.
“For your insolence, I sentence you to death!” he shouted in an echoing voice, despite there being nothing off which to echo.
I was about to ask where his magic lamp was, but he zapped me for 65,000 health points, killing me instantly.
Three minutes later, I resurrected in Ward 1 at the Crimson Sigil Keep, in Brighton. I put Elfie and Felix’s rings back on, as well as my Nightpath Robes. I also ate my last half muffin so I could fly. No one was at the binding stone but me, but the world was incredibly dangerous now, and I had to act like it. No more free lives.
I left through the archway to the courtyard, then soared a thousand feet up. Not invisible per se, but ignorable to players conditioned to seeing people fly. Yes, Jane was probably sailing with a fleet back to Ward 4, but I had to behave as if I wasn’t the smartest person in the world now. For all I knew, she’d hired a diviner in Good Riddance and was now hunting for me in Brighton.
I’d always found the concept of divination more than a little unnerving. The way it works is, the game halts its execution and forks a new one with a copy of every data structure—people and places—within it. This process happens in less than a nanosecond. Sometimes, depending on the question, multiple threads will spin up. After the question is answered, all copies are destroyed and the original thread’s execution resumes. So in a sense, millions of people in Mythian die every time a diviner looks into the future.
Thinking about this and other things, I took a circuitous route inland and arrived over Sandpiper Vista ten minutes later.
And looked down.
And became really, really paranoid.
In a ward where almost everyone was immortal, could be my newest friends were cavalier with their traps and guardians. Could be they were trying to rescue me and had lethally warded their door against unwanted visitors. Or maybe Jane was lying in wait for me to show up.
A moment later, I had an idea.
“Howard, my boy,” I said, “you are brilliant sometimes.”
I soared west in search of the road leading to the desert city of Zha’daran and found it a few minutes later. There were a few caravans farther along, and one or two groups of travelers closer to Brighton. After a while, I found what I was looking for—a single traveler on foot. This suggested they were lower level, though of course I couldn’t squint them from here.
I applied 100 skill points to Harrow, raising its lethality one hundred percent to 385 points a second. I paid 100 points for Summon Lich, then fully attuned it for 100, bumping its base damage per attack from 1000 to 2000. This upped its Rate of Decay from 30 to 60 vit an hour, and Death Blossom to 600 per kill.
“It’ll do,” I said and landed behind the traveler. Despite being fully attuned, Harrow still required that it be cast on the ground. Why other classes didn’t have this prohibition was just another example of how broken the necromancer class was.
I squinted the man and saw he was a level 77 priest.
“Sorry, padre,” I said, then blasted him.
Well, sort of. Harrow’s a channeled attack and kills slowly—though not painfully, due to my amulet. Priests tended towards low vitalities, relying on trigger heals to keep them going and blessings to minimize damage. Though I blew through those in about a minute, Anthony—whose name I gleaned from my game log—wasn’t a wimp. He hit me with high-damage curses that might have been debilitating if not for Elfie’s ring.
“Why are you doing this?” he shouted at one point.
“Nothing personal!” I shouted back. Then I grinned. “I only want you for your body! Make sure to come back when you rez. I’ll leave you a special prize off the side of the road by that tree!”
He swore at me, suggesting I do something physically impossible yet nonetheless intriguing. For his sake, I hoped he’d remember and look for the Ward 2 vestments I’d found in Felix’s bag. I also hoped Felix wouldn’t mind me giving them away.
Anthony died. I smiled in satisfaction when his corpse went from fully clothed to nearly naked, down to his underwear. The Amulet of Ethan was amazingly powerful, but it wouldn’t let me loot my victims. In three minutes, the priest would be marveling at his amazing luck. With more luck, he’d remember what I’d said.
I tucked Felix’s vestments just behind the tree.
“The rest is up to you,” I said.
It had been years since I’d first experimented with liches. The experience then had been disappointing. Yes, they were powerful as hell—but impossible to build an army with except through PVP. Liches could only be raised from player corpses. And though both necromancers and their lich minions could raise more liches, the griefing penalty spanned the entire chain of minions.
Back then, looking for exploits, I’d set up traps to kill my victims “accidentally” after the third try, but the efforts all failed. I’d tried getting others to kill for me, but because I’d initiated the events leading to the kill, Mythian treated that as fruit from the poisonous tree. In the end, I’d learned what every serious PVPer in Mythian had figured out long ago: The game was primarily a PVE world—player versus environment. And thank goodness for that.
“Summon Lich,” I cast.
The world dimmed briefly, and the corpse at my feet imploded in a cloud of dust. From that dust, a shadow emerged like a diabolic weed and quickly gained substance. Cowled and cloaked in tattered black robes, glowing eyes visible in hollow sockets, Lich 1 rasped its first words: “I am returned from the endless night. Who so dares?”
I smiled in long-awaited satisfaction. “I so dares, that’s who.”
The lich bowed, but not very deeply. They were somewhat insolent, as I recalled, but followed orders just as quickly as other minions. And unlike wraiths, skeletons, zombies, and various other undead, liches could actually talk. More importantly, they could think.
“All right, then,” I said. “Follow me, and keep a lookout for enemies. Especially if they’re flying a golden dragon. Got it?”
“My will is yours, Lord Howard.”
Together, we flew to Sandpiper Vista. Every thousand feet or so, I found myself looking back to see if it was following. Due to their ranged attacks, liches didn’t need to be as fast as wraiths, and their speed was listed as Moderate.
Dealing with intelligent beings came with more considerations than with other types of minions. Would it play games with me and interpret my commands to the letter, betraying me through strict fidelity to the nouns and verbs I’d used
? Or would it infer my meaning in the spirit it was intended? Would it do so every time, only to betray me when the situation was dire?
“Lich 1,” I said when we’d gotten there. “There’s an entryway in the rock below. I want you to travel through every hallway you find until you arrive at a perfectly round door. It’ll be painted green, and there’s a doorknob in the exact middle. Knock on the door and wait. Don’t attack anyone. When it opens, tell whoever answers that Howard is waiting outside to talk to them. Then come back. Got it?”
“Yes, Lord Howard,” it said. “Might I suggest summoning more protection while I am away?”
“Sure. Thank you. Now go.”
“By your will, it shall be done,” the lich said and zoomed off.
The suggestion was good, but I couldn’t help thinking it wanted to turn my 60 vit drain into 120, or higher. There’d be time for that later, but this wasn’t it. Not around Brighton. If Anthony wanted, he could run into town and gather a posse to come after me. I needed to finish with Elfie and Felix, then get going.
Five minutes passed. Then ten minutes.
Lich 1, I mentally projected. What’s the hold-up?
It didn’t reply. I’d forgotten liches could only be controlled verbally and in-person. This had a major drawback: Banishment also had to be done in person. This created a time-bomb sort of effect, in that if I ever got cut off from a minion with no way to generate vitality, I could die. At 272 vit regen an hour, I could only maintain four fully attuned liches without having to vamp up.
Just as I was about to go see what was taking so long, three figures exited the massive outcrop of Sandpiper Vista and flew my way.
“Well, look who’s back!” Felix said, smiling happily.
“Why didn’t you come down?” Elfie said. “This thing of yours scared the jeebers out of me!”
If the lich cared about being called a thing, it didn’t let on. It hovered silently in the air a respectful distance away, staring at me the way a dog watches its master eating dinner.