The Conduit

by Erik Anderson

  Gina hesitated only a moment before showing us her staff, which was tall and oaken-carved with a glowing ruby on top.

  Staff of Flame: Spells using the Flame Word cost 33% less mana and are 10% more effective.

  Lastly, Frank revealed the properties of his new helmet.

  Casque of Command: Sentients and NPCs under your leadership deal 5% more damage and take 5% less damage.

  Suitably impressed, I said. “Well Frank, are you okay with taking the lead when it comes to this expedition? I think we could all benefit from that bonus.”

  “Absolutely.” He replied with a calm confidence. Since we’d already explored much of the forest and many other groups were out hunting, we decided to check around the lake to see if we could find anything interesting. Before we set off, I received a system notification.

  Frank has invited you to join his party. Accept? (Y/N)

  I chose to accept, and could see that the vital statistics of the rest of the group were displayed on my interface. This would have been extremely useful to have previously, and I wondered if it was a new implementation or if it had just slipped my notice. Regardless, with Frank leading the party we’d all be slightly more effective in combat, so we started to make our way around the lake. Due to the size of our party, nothing was brave enough to attack us, though Alicia freely roamed away from the group to hunt, and Frank would occasionally stop to loose an arrow at some prey that I hadn’t spotted. If nothing else, we’d be returning to the village with a decent haul of pelts and meat. When we’d made it almost halfway around the lake, we found something that we couldn’t see from the village. There was a river flowing out of the lake, meandering a bit but generally heading further east. Wondering where it might lead, we decided to follow it.

  As we made our way, our passage was interrupted by a sudden *thunk* and in a flash Frank had his sword drawn. Quivering next to his head was an arrow firmly embedded in a pine tree. “Show yourself, coward!” He shouted, but neither more arrows nor answers were forthcoming. Rather, a defeated-looking Alicia was led from behind a nearby tree, bound and gagged as at least a dozen enemies silently left their hiding places with bows drawn. They were well-camouflaged, with dusky skin and pointed ears. They looked to be slightly taller than humans on average as well as more lightly built. Most were named ‘Level 10 wood elf scout’ but one named ‘Nareth’ stepped forward and began to speak.

  “Finally, the killers show themselves. We sent scouts into the area where you’ve built your village, but they never returned.”

  Puzzled, I replied “Elves? None of us have seen any elves, though we’ve seen plenty of orcs around our village.” Hearing that there were orcs in the vicinity, every one of the wood elves tensed up and began to glance around before I continued. “Of course, we defended our village against a raid and cleaned out a mine, slaying their chieftain, so they shouldn’t be a problem now.”

  Nareth cautiously lowered his bow, “If you can prove this, then perhaps we can work together.” He then gestured to Alicia, “Until then, your companion will be kept in our village. Escort me to the site where you defeated the orcs, and know that if I do not return, then things will not go well for your friend.”

  I bristled at his threat, but we were outnumbered two-to-one and greatly outmatched, so I nodded my head. With my acquiescence, the rest of the elves melted back into the forest, and Nareth joined us for our return to the village. Tensions were still quite high, so I was reluctant to engage him in conversation, but I had to wonder, what exactly was this elf? As far as I knew, players couldn’t choose to be other races. One of the main purposes of the game was to allow people who were disabled the experience of what it was like to have full control of a virtual body, and having a body that was highly dysmorphic from one’s own body was very disorienting. That’s why even though Druids could shapeshift into other forms, they could only do so temporarily. Eventually I could no longer contain my curiosity and asked, “So, are you a player or an AI?”

  “I’m an AI.” He replied succinctly. “We were supposed to be part of a small elven village in the forest, a trading post of sorts. Instead, we’ve just been trying to survive.” He gave me a cold look. “We’ve had to bury too many of our own out in this wilderness, I hope you appreciate the risk I’m taking, and the necessity of holding your friend hostage.”

  I was shocked. Bury? Both Alicia and I could revive each other if one of us fell unconscious, and I related this information to Nareth. He shook his head sadly and spoke. “We’re elves, most of us aren’t given companions. When one of us falls, it is final. We’ve only recently been able to summon the mindless ones, the ones that accompanied me earlier.” He looked crushed and looked away, saying “The scouts we lost near your village were not mindless, they were my friends.” After speaking, Nareth faced forward, clearly unwilling to speak further on the subject and we continued traveling to the village.

  We arrived in the late afternoon, and while some of the villagers were curious about our new companion, they picked up on the tense mood, wisely keeping their distance. Frank led the party to the pit where we had burned the remains of the orc raiding party, casually picking a charred skull out of the ashes. The features were quite distinctive, with the jutting jaw and oversized chompers. “I wasn’t here for the raid on the village, but these all look like orc bones to me.” Frank explained. “We’ve also got more that we cleared out of a cave west of the village, they had enslaved some mindless humans, but we didn’t see any elves.”

  Nareth took the skull from Frank and studied it a moment before speaking. “No, you’re right. It’s clear that the villagers didn’t kill my friends.” Everyone in the party, myself included, looked visibly relieved. Nareth turned to me and asked, “It is late, do you mind if I stay in your village overnight? We can depart and collect your companion in the morning.”

  I smiled, replying, “Of course, I’m just glad we can put this behind us. I hope that our two villages can work together peacefully in the future.” He nodded, and I continued. “Since Alicia is a, ahem, a guest in your village, you’re welcome to stay in my cabin as we don’t yet have an inn. Since the raid we’ve been primarily concentrating on making the village defensible in case there’s another attack.”

  “That will work, perhaps we can discuss a little diplomacy.” He said, accepting my offer. Having eased tensions, Frank disbanded the party and we returned to the village. I showed Nareth my cabin and went to check on the status of the buildings. With the influx of NPCs and ore from the mine, the blacksmith had already been completed, and arms and armor were being slowly stockpiled, as well as necessary building materials. Because there may be more visitors in the future, I took the liberty of drafting an Inn. Sure, once the barracks was completed people could sleep there, but what kind of host would force guests to sleep on a cot surrounded by sweaty, smelly soldiers? I’d already hired a tavern keeper and a bar wench earlier, so they may as well have a real Inn to look after rather than the meeting hall. Besides the blacksmith none of the other buildings were finished, apart from living quarters for all the new NPC villagers, which had taken priority.

  Having checked on the village, I opened the door of my cabin to find Nareth wearing a serious expression and beckoning me to sit across from him. “We need to talk.” Concerned, and a little wary, I took a seat and waited for him to continue. “The villagers didn’t kill my friends. Frank did.”

  “WHAT?” I yelled, shocked at his accusation. I was in the middle of standing up and getting ready to storm out when he grabbed my arm and hoarsely whispered, “Quiet! And listen to me.” I sat down to hear his explanation. “The bow that Frank carries belonged to one of my friends, Silas. I would recognize it anywhere.” I mulled this over, recalling that when we first met Frank he had been the only player in his group at a high level.

  “What makes you so sure he killed him? He could have found your friend dead, or taken the bow from an orc who killed him, or any other reason!” Nareth stared at me, and
I marveled at how ‘Artificial Intelligence’ doesn’t truly do him justice by giving equal weight to both words. Despite my awareness of being in a simulation, I had no doubt there was true intelligence behind his eyes, and he was carefully weighing something he felt was important before replying.

  “He doesn’t value people like us, I can see it in his eyes. Didn’t you notice that he doesn’t even have a companion?” Nareth signed, continuing. “I fear he is aware that I’m onto him, we should leave tonight to retrieve Alicia from my people. If she’s still a hostage, then Frank will use that to rally people against me in a confrontation.”

  I sat for a moment considering Nareth’s proposal. Should I trust him? Frank certainly was a powerful soldier, but if he had a grudge against the AIs then I’d need to put him in his place, whatever the cost. Coming to a resolution, I nodded to Nareth. “All right, let’s go.” We unhurriedly made our way out of the Village on the Lake and into the surrounding forest. With Nareth leading and it just being the two of us, we moved quickly through the night, with moonlight reflecting off the lake providing illumination.

  We didn’t talk, which is what probably saved us. A chittering sound sent chills up my spine and I froze, but Nareth was no stranger to the forest and quickly drew his bow, nocking an arrow and loosing it at an unseen target. With a guttural *SCREECH* our eight-legged ambushers skittered into view, two level 10 Giant Forest Spiders, fangs dripping with poison. A fear-induced surge of adrenaline caused me to clumsily fumble with my sword and drop it as I tried to draw it. Nareth fired another arrow at the already wounded spider, but it chose that moment to leap at him, and his arrow only grazed one of its legs. I picked up my shortsword and shouted “Vik Newtun Protek!”, but the familiar shimmering didn’t appear before the spider sunk its fangs into Nareth’s arm, causing him to cry out. I was still kneeling from having to retrieve my sword and felt a ‘whoosh’ over my head before standing up to see that the second spider had disappeared. A powerful blow struck me from behind and brought me to my senses. As I stumbled forward I noticed that I took surprisingly little damage from the attack.

  “Oh right, my shield.” I unstrapped it from my back and turned to face my opponent. The spider was just turning to face me, and I felt like trying something new. Leaning towards the beady-eyed menace, I bashed my shield directly into its ugly maw. It looked to be stunned for a moment, so I slashed at it with my sword. Feeling confident in victory, I raised my sword arm again just as I felt a sharp pain in my right calf, which quickly turned into a numb tingling. I turned my head to glance at Nareth and my blood ran cold. He was lying on the ground, bloody and unmoving. You know how they say it’s never a good idea to take your eyes off your opponent? That’s good advice, as a second bite to my sword arm brought me back to my own fight. Wait, fight? Who’s fighting? I just want to sleep, I’m already lying down anyways. Wow, my head is spinning. Is it just my head? And this blanket is so warm, even if it is a little tight. And sticky.

  Your character has lost consciousness. Logging out in 10, 9, 8…

  Chapter 8: Quests

  After being forced out of the VRE, I was feeling a bit peckish, so I stretched my legs, rose out of my chair, and prepared one of my instant meals. As I ate I tried to remember how much of my two-week vacation was remaining, but for some reason it didn’t seem important. It hadn’t been that long yet, and I had a good internal clock that would let me know when it was time to return to reality. I remembered being wrapped up in webbing, and I hoped that I’d somehow make it out of that situation and that Nareth had also been paralyzed, rather than killed. To be honest, I couldn’t really see any way of making it out of the situation alive. I hadn’t died in the simulation yet, only lost consciousness. In fact, when Alicia was savaged by that wolf, she also only lost consciousness. It would be interesting to see how the game handled death. Regardless, it was late, and this was certainly one issue I could sleep on.

  After waking up and wolfing down some oatmeal, I logged in to a surprising, but not unwelcome message.

  Your companion has revived you!

  Sure enough, sitting nearby cleaning her fingernails and wearing a smug look on her face was Alicia. “You’re welcome.” We were still in the forest, and I saw Nareth regaining his wits next to me.

  “How did you find us?” I asked her, picking sticky bits of webbing off myself and looking around. The two spiders that had captured Nareth and I were slain, as were a few smaller spiderlings.

  “I got a quest!” Alicia replied excitedly. I pulled some wolf jerky out of my backpack for breakfast as I sat to listen. Alicia then regaled Nareth and I with how she managed to convince the guards that we’d been captured in the forest nearby. The wood elves were skeptical, but they saw no harm in sending a couple scouts out to investigate, which confirmed Alicia’s story. After that, they sent four wood elves with her to rescue us from the spiders, for which she received enough experience to reach level 8. After she told her story she casually walked over and whispered in my ear, “I was pretty sure they wouldn’t believe me, so I picked up the Persuasion skill before telling them you guys had been captured, and it worked!” No longer whispering, she continued. “You’re gonna lose your mind when you get a quest, they give loads of experience, it’s awesome. Hey, what’s that?” Alicia was looking up and her eyes were following something through the sky. I followed her gaze and saw something shining bright flash above the trees and impact in the distance with a resounding, “BOOM!”.

  New Quest Alert! Investigate the impact site.

  The notification wasn’t more specific and didn’t detail any specific rewards, but that wasn’t going to stop me from checking out what fell from the sky. I looked to Alicia and Nareth and asked, “Did you guys just get a quest?”

  Nareth nodded, and Alicia replied, “Yeah, I bet we’ll get lots of experience too!” Alicia looked excited, but Nareth seemed troubled.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked him.

  Nareth replied, “That falling star, it struck close to my village. I know everyone else there are NPCs, but I put a lot of work into it, and I hope it isn’t destroyed. We should hurry.” I invited Alicia, Nareth, and the four wood elves accompanying us into a party. Two of them had hide bucklers and shortswords, as well as boiled leather armor, and two were more lightly armored and carried bows. Both were level 8, just a little higher than my level 7, but I felt confident that we could tackle serious challenges, especially since Nareth was level 10. As we set off into the forest, I had trouble keeping up with the others due to my wearing heavy armor. I had a free skill point to spend, so I opened the skill interface to see if there might be something to help. Ah! There it was.

  Skill: Heavy Armor

  Makes it easier to move around, fight, and cast spells while wearing heavy armor. Reduces fatigue for all actions performed while wearing heavy armor, and provides a protection bonus when wearing a full suit (breastplate, bracers, greaves, boots, pauldrons, and gauntlets).

  I picked up the skill and immediately felt less burdened. I had been falling behind, but was able to pick up the pace and catch up to the rest of the party as we moved through the forest and towards the impact site. As Nareth had guessed, it was quite close to the elven village. Fortunately, it seemed like nobody had been harmed as the NPCs were all milling about, curiously avoiding a wide arc that passed through the village and into the forest. As we approached, there was something off about the exclusion zone. Closer examination led to a couple system messages.

  Quest updated! Investigate the impact site.

  New Quest Alert! Enter the exclusion zone.

  I received a little bit of experience for the quest updating, but not enough to reach level 8. Another system message appeared when we were close enough to touch the exclusion zone.

  Crystalline Instance. Recommended level 8+

  So, it looks like instances are like dungeons, except they don’t have limits on the number of players. I was a hair under the recommended level, but in such a str
ong group I felt like I would be okay, so I took a step forward.

  “Wait Alex, that’s an instance you shouldn’t go unprep-“ was all I heard before crossing the threshold.

  Quest updated! Enter the exclusion zone.

  New Quest Alert! Clear the instance of enemies and stabilize the crystal.

  You have left your party.

  I have left my party? I looked next to and behind me, and while I could see where I’d come from, my companions were no longer present. Oh, that’s not a problem, I could just leave. I shrugged, turning around and walking back out the way I came.

  You cannot leave the instance.

  WHOA. What the hell was that? It wasn’t even a system message, it was in my head.

  You will become a part of me.

  “Yeah, hello creepy voice in my head, that’s not happening.” Ignoring the assertions of what I was half-convinced was my own budding insanity, I confidently stated “Newtunus Protektas”, readied my sword and shield, and studied my surroundings. There were animals roaming around, but there seemed to be something wrong with them. I approached and examined a rabbit, discovering that it was a level 4 Crystalline Rabbit. I didn’t want to waste mana on a weak opponent, so I approached it with my sword ready. It noticed me and attacked, leaping at me and impacting my force shield. It was barely able to damage it, so with a few slashes and stabs of my shortsword the rabbit shattered. I saw something glinting in its remains and bent to pick it up.

  1 Crystal added to currency.

  I remembered reading that certain high-end items cost crystal, and was very surprised that such a weak enemy would drop it. Maybe these instances were rare events, and by controlling how frequently they occurred there could be some control of the economy? Realizing that I had a chance to collect a rare and precious resource, I threw myself into the fight with renewed vigor. There were wolves, bears, and even spiders to hunt, all in crystalline form. I lost track of time completely, collecting 120 Crystal total and reaching level 9 before I finally noticed the one thing that should have drawn my attention immediately. In the center of the instance was a large red crystal, floating a foot off the ground and crackling with a strange form of energy.