The Conduit

by Erik Anderson

  “Whoever those NPCs were that we killed, I think they were loyal to Frank.” I explained to them that the bandits had psionic tethers connecting them to the village, and that I’d cut them to disable the connection and give us the opportunity to take them out.

  Nareth looked furious, but also resolved. “We need to go back, but with a larger force. We also need to make sure that the village here is secure.”

  Grith nodded, adding. “That sure was a shitshow. What went wrong?”

  Alicia piped in. “What happened is that you guys suck at sneaking around.”

  Jimmy spoke up. “Well, regardless of how it went down, they’re going to consider us hostile from now on.” He pointed at me. “This asshole decapitated one of them, and then attacked the ones coming out of the village.”

  I defended myself. “I thought the ones that ambushed us were different from the normal NPCs, everything would have been fine if they didn’t blow that damned horn.”

  Emera was tired of our arguing. “Look, what’s done is done. The question is, what are we going to do about it now?”

  I yawned. “I don’t think they’re going to come after us tonight, and if they try it appears that the scouts’ tree stands are finished. I say we sleep on it and prepare for what’s coming in the morning.” After running through the forest, we were all tired, and everyone was nodding their assent. Nareth conscripted some general laborers around the town as scouts, doubling the patrols. The rest of us found cabins in the village in which we could sleep. Alicia and I found one together, and just as I was about to say goodnight, I turned and saw her grinning malevolently.

  “Nighty night my little buzzsaw.” She spoke devilishly, her voice fading into nothingness as I noticed two small needles sticking out of my arm. I tried to reply, but a profound feeling of relaxation overtook me, and I logged out. My apartment greeted me, and I noticed that it was late, and I was starving. I left my chair and threw a whole bag of pizza rolls in the microwave.

  Jimmy: What the hell are pizza rolls?

  Startled, I remembered that somehow Jimmy could follow me out of the game. I thought at him, hoping he’d quiet down.

  Alex: Please just leave me alone. I’m going to call the doctor in the morning and see if he can explain what’s going on.

  Jimmy: Sure thing buddy. You go right on ahead and call him.

  After our short exchange, he was quiet. While I sat and ate pizza rolls, I fired up my old desktop, browsing the forums to see if anything similar had happened to someone else. I also wanted to learn about psionics. Unsurprisingly, nobody else was complaining about AIs sneaking into their heads. What was surprising is that there was no information on psionics at all. None of the guides mentioned it, and none of the press releases related to the game even hinted at its existence. That was equal parts troubling and exciting, but as I popped the last pizza roll into my mouth I found myself totally stuffed as well as exhausted. I went to bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  The next morning, I woke up, enjoying the comfortable silence in my head. While my instant oatmeal was microwaving, I dialed the doctor’s office, again reaching the receptionist.

  “Hello, Dr. Carlisle’s office, may I ask who’s speaking?” came the voice on the other end.

  “Hey, it’s Alex. I called the other day, is the doctor back from his vacation?” I asked.

  “Yes, he just got back this morning, hold for a moment and I’ll transfer you.” She replied. I only needed to listen to elevator music for a moment before a familiar voice spoke.

  “Hello? How can I help you?” I was relieved to hear the doctor’s voice again.

  “Hey doc, it’s Alex. You performed my Conduit surgery a few days ago?” I asked tentatively.

  “Of course! I remember you. Excellent outcome I hope. How’s the game treating you?” I hesitated before answering him, knowing that it was going to sound crazy.

  “Well, you see, I had a weird encounter in the game, and one of the characters in it is now a voice in my head.” I felt better just saying the words.

  Dr. Carlisle replied casually. “It’s probably just part of the game, I wouldn’t worry about it too much.” It seemed he didn’t quite get my meaning, so I tried to be more specific.

  “No. I mean yeah, he’s in my head in the game, but when I leave the game he still talks to me.” There was silence on the other end of the line. After a moment I heard the scratching of a pen on paper.

  “I’m going to write you a referral to see a psychiatrist, okay? They’ll be able to help you with your problem.” I was about to retort, but stopped myself. If it really was just my imagination, wasn’t that the best outcome? Instead of arguing, I accepted it.

  “Thanks doc, I really appreciate it.” If this was common, surely he’d have responded differently, I thought.

  “Great. I’ll have someone from the office call you when your appointment is scheduled. Try not to worry about it too much, this technology is new, and it’s bound to cause funny things to happen. I’m sure this is nothing, and it’s not like he’s telling you to burn down the town.” Dr. Carlisle was chuckling, but then he continued, sounding a little nervous. “Is he?”

  I replied quickly and vehemently. “No, no, of course not! It’s just normal conversational stuff, I’ll write it down and show it to the psychiatrist when I meet with them.”

  “That sounds great, Alex. Take it easy, I’m sure this is all just some weird effect due to being in the game so long.” He paused for a second before continuing. “I’m assuming you’re playing a lot, I’ve heard only rave reviews about the game.”

  I replied excitedly. “Yeah, I’m loving it! The AI is really amazing, it probably just is my brain playing tricks on me.”

  Jimmy: It isn’t.

  Alex: Shut up. I’m crazy and you’re not real.

  Jimmy: I’m glad you cleared that up! I was starting to worry about you.

  “That’s great Alex. Have fun, and we’ll let you know when we’ve set up that appointment for you. I’ve got a patient, so I need to go, but call me if you have any other issues okay?”

  “Okay doc, bye.”

  “Bye Alex.” With a click, he hung up. I really did feel relieved. Everything made more sense if Jimmy was a figment of my imagination outside the game. I could deal with that. So, I ate my oatmeal, used the toilet, and logged in to the game that was quickly feeling more like reality than anything that occurred outside it.

  Chapter 15: Preparations

  After logging in, a thought occurred to me. I’d forgotten to check my masteries when I leveled up! I opened the list and saw exactly what I was hoping to see, that my mastery of Force was at 93%. I plunked my free 7% into it and immediately received a notification.

  You have mastered the word Force! Mana cost decreased to 10. The last syllable is now optional, and including it will increase the cost to 15 and your spell will be more potent.

  New word unlocked! Gravity: Costs 5 MP/second. If cast on a friendly player as a Shield, decreases the effect of gravity on them by 20%. If fired at an enemy, increases the effect of gravity on them by 20%. Can be canceled at will.

  So, using the force word enough unlocked the word for gravity. Twenty percent didn’t seem like a lot, but I wanted to try it out. I chanted “Gamuron Protektas,” targeting myself, and felt the difference immediately. It was as if I’d been carrying a heavy pack and just set it down. I wasn’t certain if it applied to only myself or things I was carrying as well, but when I drew my sword I noticed a difference in weight. I’d certainly be much quicker in combat! The only downside was the rapid mana drain. If my mana started at full, I’d have about 30 seconds to fight before it ran out, and I’d need to forego casting any other spells. Canceling the effect, I let my mana recover.

  Alicia was sleeping peacefully on her cot. By peacefully I mean that it sounded like she was narrating a film depicting Tyrannosaurs mating, and she was only interested in making the dinosaur noises. I was curious whether a 20% increase in weight
would wake her up.

  “Wha, what’s happening?” Alicia struggled to sit up, frowning. “Why am I fat, what’s going on?” She stood up and lumbered a few steps while I suppressed a grin. “Oh god, they added pooping to the game, didn’t they. Gross!” She was panicking now, and I muffled my giggles with an arm, pretending I was coughing. “Alex! Draft me a bathroom or something, I need to take a dump!” I watched her eyes widen as I dismissed the spell. “Nevermind, problem took care of itself.” She waddled outside, clearly convinced that she’d shat herself while Jimmy cracked up inside my head and I finally started laughing aloud. I was still unnerved by having Jimmy in my head, so I summoned his avatar.

  “That was awesome. You’re awesome.” Jimmy stated. I finally learned what it takes to earn his approval. As we left the cabin and stepped outside, my mirth came to an end. Gina was talking to Alicia, and she looked bruised as well as frantic.

  “You have to h-help! Something’s happened to G-gerald, he’s n-not the same!” Gina was crying, though with pain or relief at having found us, I couldn’t tell.

  “Hey, everything’s going to be okay. We’re planning to go back to Frank’s village to deal with him.” Alicia did her best to console Gina. Hearing the words “Frank’s village” made me feel a shiver of rage, but I suppressed it. I remembered that Gina and Gerald seemed to be quite close, but there was still the possibility that Gina was here to lead us into some type of trap. I decided to try a subtle approach to determine whether she was telling the truth. Emera walked over to us, and seeing Gina’s wounds, healed her.

  “Gina, you’re safe now, so don’t worry. Please, tell us what happened.” I urged. She looked at me and her story spilled out in a torrent. As Alicia had determined earlier, a crystal fell near the village. Frank immediately took charge, and when he found the instance boundary he said he would check it out alone, asking everyone else to wait for him. Gina remembered the instance bubble collapsing, and immediately afterwards she received a notification that the Village on the Lake had been renamed “Frank’s Village”. Gina and Gerald attempted to protest, but all Frank had to do was look at them and their words caught in their throats. He seemed extremely haughty, and after staring at Gerald for a moment, Gerald walked off to join the guards! She tried to speak with him, but he ignored her. While she was trying to communicate with him, Samantha walked up. I thought Samantha would try to help me, but she just stood next to Gerald silently.

  Talking about what happened seemed to calm her down, so I asked. “What happened next, how did you end up here?”

  Having collected herself, Gina replied. “Samuel helped me. He’s Samantha’s partner, a druid, remember? He wasn’t strong enough to join us in the dungeon, so he’d gone exploring and hunting to catch up. At one point, he came across this village, so he told me how to reach it.” I think Gina just realized that she was safe, as a look of relief washed over her. She let us pick her brain about how many guards there were, how many scouts were out ranging, and anything else that would help us plan our attack. One thing that stood out was that she referred to the scouts and guards as belonging to Frank. When I asked her if their names had changed, she nodded. “Yes, all the NPCs with combat skills have Frank’s name in them, saying they belong to him.” Frank must have picked up the leadership skill.

  That gave me an idea. I checked my own leadership skill, and it said I had 0/21 skill points worth of NPCs hired. Apparently when Frank usurped control of the village, it freed up all the NPCs I’d hired. My pendant of leadership gave me a strong advantage in skill points allowed, but I’d need to spend them carefully. Instead of a horde of unskilled fighters, I decided to hire seven elite fighters with three combat skills each. I consulted with Nareth, and together we decided that versatile warriors with good protection would be best. I chose the skills “light armor use”, “swordsmanship”, and “archery”. They would all be two levels below mine, but with that set of skills they should be able to wipe the floor with any troops Frank was able to muster. Just as I was about to hire the troops, a prompt appeared.

  Hiring 7 elite elven warriors will cost 21 silver, plus 21 silver each day as maintenance. Accept? [Y/N]

  Oh, wow. That was a bit expensive. I had plenty of gold to cover the cost, but I surmised that very few players would be willing to cart around an army at that price. Despite the high cost, the troops were necessary, so I selected “Y”. From the village and surrounding forest came seven elves, all wearing leather armor and carrying both swords and bows. They bowed before me, and though they were only NPCs, I returned the bow. I could afford to imbue sentience on one of them, but I decided to keep my remaining 60 PP in reserve in case I needed to use my psionic abilities in the upcoming battle. Nareth brought some warriors with him as well, though they only had a single skill.

  On a hunch, I checked my Leadership skill again and was met with a pleasant surprise. I’d increased my proficiency to 4.5! Normally that wouldn’t be exciting, but I’d saved 0.5 points of proficiency in case another of my skills was close to 5. I added the points and immediately received a slew of confusing messages.

  You have unlocked a new Leadership ability!

  ERROR! Psionic user detected, modifying upgrade…

  ERROR! Server resources detected, modifying upgrade…resolved.

  Tactical command: Channel server resources and psionic power to create a 100 Yard radius instance. View is changed to overhead tactical interface. Self and hired NPCs can be controlled directly, other players, NPCs, and AI’s can be issued commands which they may choose to follow. Costs 10 PP to activate, and 10 PP/minute to maintain.

  I got a little excited at the upgrade. Was it real-time strategy (RTS) mode? It sounded like RTS mode. I couldn’t resist trying it out, so I activated the ability. Everything went black, and when my vision returned, it was as if I was sitting at a desk with a giant touchscreen in front of me. There was a little square with my face on it, so I touched it. A new interface popped up with my abilities and spells. There were pictures for Nareth, Alicia, Emera, Grith, and Jimmy as well. I touched their portraits, but where there should be abilities there were only grey question marks. After I poked their pictures, a chat box popped up in the lower left of the screen.

  Alicia: What is this crap? I just got a message asking me to share my abilities with Alex.

  Grith: Me too.

  Nareth: Yup.

  Jimmy: This is some shit.

  Emera: *nods*

  I wondered if I could communicate with them, so I tried yelling at the screen.

  Alex: I GOT AN RTS MODE ABILITY SO SELECT YES.

  Jimmy: Not so loud! Asshole!

  Alicia: My ears are ringing.

  Seeing that they could hear me, I spoke normally.

  Alex: Sorry, I’m kind of new to this, I’ll stop yelling.

  Jimmy: LET’S SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT. AAAAAAAGHGHHHH!

  Alex: I can’t hear you, everything you say is just appearing in a chat box for me.

  Alicia: asdfalksjfiawefaijflkjljef

  Alex: I can’t even begin to imagine how you managed to imitate facerolling on the keyboard.

  Alicia: I have many talents.

  Alex: Well, share some of the stabbier ones with me, please.

  Combat log: Alex has suffered 15 points of damage.

  Alex: NOT LIKE THAT. Just share your abilities with me through the interface.

  As they approved access, their portraits were surrounded by a blue highlight, and when I tapped through them I could see their combat abilities. My own portrait, as well as those of the seven NPCs I hired were in green, and I spent a few moments moving them around the map by selecting them and dragging a line in the direction I wanted them to travel. When I moved my own character, the 100 Yard radius moved with me, though the map only updated where I had sight. Everything beyond my character’s field of vision was hidden by the fog of war.

  Alicia: WTF are you doing lol?

  Alex: Did you just say “lol”?

  Alic
ia: I will never stop fucking with you.

  Jimmy: ^

  Alex: That’s not even a letter. How did you do that. What did he say?

  Alicia: Not telling.

  At that moment, I was down to my last couple PP, so I found an “X” in the corner of the interface and tapped it. Everything went black again, and when my vision returned I was in my own body. A body that still had a dagger sticking into it.

  I turned to Alicia. “Did you leave a dagger in me?” She shrugged and pulled it out, causing another 5 points of damage.

  “I didn’t think you’d notice. Looks like I was right!” Her eyes hardened. “I checked my combat log from this morning, you cast a gravity spell on me and made me think I shat myself.” She flipped her dagger up in the air and caught it, somehow managing to look both casual and menacing. “If you try something like that again I will cut you.” Suitably cowed, I gulped, nodding. We were almost ready to set out, but I wanted to make one stop on the way to Frank’s village. It didn’t take us long to reach Arachna’s cave, and despite how unnerving it was to be led through the tunnels by a giant spider, I knew that we were safe. When we reached the egg chamber, Arachna greeted us.

  “What is it?” Straight to the point. I started to describe the situation, but Alicia shushed me and took over. She told Arachna about the situation with Frank’s village, emphasizing the danger he posed to the village, the spiders in the forest, and potentially Arachna herself. Arachna contemplated, reaching a decision. “I will send two shadow spiders with you for the assault. In return, when you capture the village, you will establish a breeding colony for livestock. You will send some of the livestock to us.”

  I was confused, cutting in. “What livestock? I haven’t seen any kind of animal around that we could tame and breed.” Arachna chittered in a way that sounded like she thought I was particularly dense.