by Cate Ryan
“Run,” Isaac agreed.
She pushed Mack in front of her hoping to get between him and any would be assassins. The word block flashed through her mind. She turned hoping to push something against the door and stop their enemies getting through. She suspected they’d all received similar quest updates, but theirs would have required the head of Mack to get the reward. And none of them would get a reward if she could help it.
Instead of something to block the door she found the same man, axe at the ready. He swung for her head.
“Block.” The smoke formed in front of her face, lodging his axe for a moment. Long enough for her to turn and follow the others who were already halfway across the kitchen. The staff moved out of the way quickly, allowing the group Mack, Isaac and Taysia, closely followed by 30 gamers to make their way through the kitchen without interruption. Isaac grabbed a pot that stewed on the stove and flung it behind them. It clanged as it hit something. Taysia didn’t dare stop to find out what it was. She ran on coming to a door. She hoped it led outside and not to some kind of storeroom. Pressing her weight against it, the door gave way and she stared into the dusk light of Athens. The street looked unfamiliar. She would have liked to wait for directions from Isaac but there wasn’t time. She prayed he would shut the door behind them to give them a little chance to get away.
She rushed down the street towards the darkest side of town hoping that she’d be able to lose them in the shadows. Isaac stopped.
She didn’t realize he wasn’t following them until Mack yelled out.
“Wait, he’s stopped.”
She turned. Questioning.
“You guys get out of town, I’ll meet you at the headquarters if I have to. I can take these guys. None of them were higher than level 20.”
Taysia nodded. She wasn’t sure if he could really take them, but at least he’d just respawn, she didn’t know what would happen to Mack.
“Okay.” She ran down the cobbled streets, she felt like she was in Victorian England not video-game simulated Athens. Well sure.
She turned every corner she came to hoping to lose the group, but instead she got lost herself. She barely saw anyone. She must be heading away from the main square not towards it at least.
For 10 minutes she ran. Until her stamina bar finally dropped to zero. She slowed to walk waiting for it to regenerate. They hadn’t heard sounds for some time. She brought up the map of the area as they walked trying to figure out which way would take her back to the headquarters, but she could barely tell how to get out of the city.
As she was busy looking at the map, she bumped right in to someone walking the opposite direction. She panicked. Was this one of the men from the tavern? He didn’t look familiar.
All white armor. Taller than anyone she’d ever met. He pulled back his helmet guard and smiled to her. She noticed the name above his head read:
[Wilbur (6)
Mogwai Knight, Stone Soldiers]
She remembered the name from character creation it was one of the other fellowships. Must have been the one most suited to fighters and such judging by this guy.
“Hi,” she squeaked.
“What you doing in these parts?” She remembered seeing mogwai listed as one of the fae races, some kind of Japanese origin with a love of inflicting pain. Little about his appearance screamed Japanese but Taysia didn’t want to stick around and find out what his temperament was like.
“They wouldn’t take me with them. Said I’m too green,” the guy began grumbling immediately.
“I could’ve helped though. I’m real good with an axe, and pretty good with a sword too.”
“Sorry.” Taysia was both sorry for his being left behind and also sorry she didn’t have time to listen to his nonsense because she needed to get going and get out of Athens and back to headquarters.
“I really have to go though. I hope your friends come back soon.”
He looked at her.
“No, I don’t think so, miss. I think you’ll be coming with me.”
Suddenly he seized her arm and tried to drag her further into the shadows.
“Now don’t squirm, it’ll be easier if you just come with me.”
“No, listen here. I don’t think so.” Taysia looked to her stamina, but it was still dangerously low. She wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight. She glanced to Mack and mouthed, “Help.”
The tiny creature nodded. And much like he had against Isaac he rushed forward angling his horns for the knight’s knees. His attack landed, a solid blow. The knight’s health bar dropped by 10%.
“Nice Mack, keep going.” The little creature landed two more blows, one to the groin and the next to the man’s chest. His grip loosened on Taysia slightly and she used her remaining stamina to pull away immediately casting a block.
She was readying a bolt of energy when out of nowhere Isaac appeared and landed a blow on the man that dropped him to zero immediately.
“What are you doing picking on low levels like that?” he spat at the knight’s body crumpled on the ground. Taysia noticed that Isaac himself looked bloody. His health bar barely in the red. His health regenerated quickly, even as she noted the dangerous red, it jumped up shifting to an orange shade. Blood seemed to cover every inch of his body.
“They’re gone. Not for long I’m sure. So, we should still get going.” He wiped wet blood from his chin and led her down yet another alley.
“Well, guess that turned out to be a waste of a trip.” He grinned to Taysia. “Fun though.”
She grimaced. “This is so not what I would call fun. We almost died. Mack almost died.”
“And I didn’t even get to do the quest. Plus, Aristotle is such a jerk.”
“Total jerk,” Isaac agreed.
Chapter 9
“Things could get dangerous out here. Not being in the city at night is rough. So, if there’s anything I think you can handle I’ll leave it to you to get the XP but if not, I might have to step in. Have those blocks ready though just in case. And Mack?” Isaac turned to the Minotaur. “Just stay out of trouble okay?”
Taysia and Mack nodded, hurrying behind Isaac as he led them through nearly deserted streets to the edge of town. They came out not on the main road as they had on the way into Athens but in an area surrounded by trees.
“Now, try to be quiet,” Isaac said it in a whisper, Taysia willed her feet to miss every broken piece of bark they could.
They’d been traveling almost 10 minutes before they saw anything hostile and then it was a single wolf.
“Don’t they usually travel in packs?”
Taysia knew just enough about wolves to know that.
“Well, it’s your lucky day. Shouldn’t be too hard for you to take down a lone wolf.”
Taysia readied her signature bolt of energy, the only ability she currently had access to. Made a mental note to check how long until she leveled up and threw the bolt of energy direct for the wolf. Before it had time to lunge for her, she readied another and threw it at the area the wolf had been. It had already begun moving towards her and the attack missed. She threw another, and another, slowly its health bar dropped to zero. She couldn’t tell how many attacks had actually hit the creature, but she hoped it wasn’t too many or Isaac’s idea of easy to take down might be harder than she had expected.
“Good job!” Mack seemed cheerful as ever, huddled behind Isaac where he hoped he’d be safe.
Cautiously Taysia approached the wolf, she knew it was dead but just in case, she thought she’d approach slowly.
As she reached the wolf, the XP flashed in front of her.
[Wolf has been defeated. 10 XP awarded]
[80 XP until next level]
[Congratulations – You have reached Level 07
You have unlocked TWINS
80 XP until next level]
Taysia grinned, that reward made it well worth it.
“You should be able to touch it and it’ll give you any loot it has,” Isaac instru
cted from a safe distance.
Taysia shuffled forward.
The fur felt sticky, matted with blood. She could smell the singed fur where her bolts had hit it.
Cautiously she pressed a finger to its muzzle stroking the fur there which was largely undamaged. ‘Sorry wolf’ she whispered quiet enough that Isaac wouldn’t hear, embarrassed that she felt bad about killing a wolf in a game.
It wasn’t even a real wolf. She’d played plenty of games before and never worried about killing anything in those. But this felt different, the wolf looked too real.
“Does it have anything? Check your inventory.”
Isaac’s eyes darted to the road. Taysia brought up her inventory to see what it had.
[1 wolf meat has been added to your inventory]
Taysia pulled up her inventory to check the meat’s details.
[Wolf Meat – Organic
Value 20 gold
Rarity Common
Properties Restores health by 25%
Description
This wolf meat is nutritious with healing qualities. It’s a little tough to chew but who cares about that when you’re getting pummeled by enemies?]
That wasn’t bad at least.
[1 wolf bone has been added to your inventory]
This was all sounding more familiar, crafting was definitely what she had more familiarity with.
Suddenly Isaac was next to her.
“Shh.” She nodded that she’d understood. Mack stood next to them as well.
“I heard something,” Isaac elaborated.
Taysia held her breath, straining to hear whatever Isaac’s superior perception had made out in the dark quiet forest.
Almost a full minute passed before she heard it, by then she could see the lit-up torches as well. Lots of torches.
There must have been 60 people among them. She tried to make out their name tags floating above their heads. It was near impossible from this distance, but they all seemed to have the same affiliation marked there, ‘Stone Soldiers’
How many of them were players and how many were NPCs? Except for the faction heads there were mainly players in the factions. What were so many of them doing out here?
Taysia didn’t dare move. Though her nose suddenly itched.
She almost jumped when a message popped up in front of her eyes but managed to stay still.
[Congratulations, you have learned a new skill
Stealth – Rank 1 (Novice)
This skill is useful for sneaking up on your enemies and avoiding detection]
[New Skill (Stealth). 15 XP awarded]
[55 XP until next level]
She smiled inwardly. What a useful skill to have.
Isaac’s must have been much better than hers, he’d adopted a stance that looked both comfortable and hid him perfectly in the shadows. He was right next to her, but she still couldn’t see where he was standing.
Mack stayed similarly still, she hoped his horns weren’t glinting too much in the moonlight.
The voices Taysia could hear sounded jubilant “We did it. I didn’t think we could for a minute there. This is going to be the biggest win in the game. Wait til we log this on the wiki.” All the words suggested a big win for the Stone Soldiers. Taysia wondered why they needed to hide at all. It was just other players. She shivered remembering the feel of the knight’s hand wrapped around her arm. He was a Stone Soldier too.
Taysia held her breath as the group approached, the crunch of their boots on the ground deafening in the otherwise silent wood. She could hear Mack’s breathing next to her and willed him to breathe quieter. There were so many of them. She tried to keep count as they walked past but gave up when she reached 33. Finally, the last of the huge group passed them. Taysia didn’t dare move.
When their lights finally disappeared from view Taysia decided it was safe to breathe again. She turned to Isaac.
“Why did we need to hide from them? It’s just other players, right?”
Isaac shook his head sadly. “Not Stone Soldiers, you saw that guy in Athens right, the one who grabbed you. That’s nothing compared to the rest of them. Ever since the game began there’s been a beef between Stone Soldiers and Rolling Wave. I don’t know if they wrote it into the code or something the devs put in thinking it would be a minor part of the game, but it’s been getting worse for months now. Racquel got killed by a Stone Soldier a month back. Lost half her gear to him.”
Taysia pretended to understand. “So Stone Soldiers are bad?”
“It’s not that simple, but I’d avoid them wherever possible.”
“Where do you think they came from?” Taysia asked suddenly.
“There were an awful lot of them, and they seemed pretty happy about something.”
Mack chose that moment to chime in, “I thought one of them was carrying something. A thing I saw back at the headquarters.”
“Oh no.” Isaac broke off in a run, he apparently didn’t need to hear more.
“We better go after him.” Taysia gestured the direction he’d run, back to the path, she leapt over the dead wolf and hoped they met nothing else on the road back to headquarters.
The three of them thundered along. Running until their stamina dropped to 0. It didn’t take long for Taysia’s to drop to 0, Issac seemed to notice and slowed to a jog.
“I think they raided HQ,” he said it matter of factly, but his face twisted awkwardly conveying a worry he hadn’t dared speak aloud.
“For crying out loud,” Taysia sighed in frustration, they needed to get back as quick as possible and see what the damage was. Of course, everyone was probably back already. Dying meant disappearing for a little then reappearing at your HQ. If they died, they’d just respawn at HQ and it would be like nothing had happened.
“Nobody’s ever managed it before. A raid on someone’s headquarters. I wonder what they wanted the artifact for. I wonder who thought it would be a good idea.”
Isaac paused, Taysia could practically see the cogs turning in his mind.
“What?” Taysia asked. Mack looked between them his brow furrowed.
“It’s just,” he paused, “Never mind.”
“No, what?” Taysia tried to make eye contact with him but he turned away.
“No really. Let’s just get back to Headquarters. I really hope I’m wrong.”
Taysia sighed, Mack shrugged, and Isaac turned towards headquarters and began walking without checking to see if the other two followed.
Silence reigned between them for a long time before Taysia asked the question that she couldn’t get out of her mind, “What do you think happened to everyone?”
Isaac didn’t answer for a few moments, finally with a sigh he explained, “They’re probably regenerated by now. It’ll be as if nothing happened. Even the NPC’s should be back by morning. Occasionally one might not because the devs decide it’s a good time to retire them, but usually they just pop back up as if nothing happened. So old Plato should be just fine.”
“Plato?” Taysia was confused.
“You didn’t meet him?” It shocked Isaac.
“No.”
“Oh, well he runs the Rolling Wave here.”
“Plato? Plato runs the Rolling Wave fellowship?”
“Who did you think ran it?”
Taysia blushed. “I thought it was you,” she whispered.
“What about the HQ?” Mack changed the subject and Taysia mouthed thanks to him.
Mack brought up a good point.
Would HQ regenerate?
“That will be down to us.” Isaac sighed. “Gonna be a busy couple of days chopping trees and gathering materials I expect. At least it’ll get you some XP from all the little quests. At your level they still make a difference.”
Taysia grinned. That part sounded good. She desperately needed to level up.
“Oh yeah, I forgot to ask did you get anything from that wolf?”
A wolf howling in the distance reminded them that they had been in
the middle of something when he’d heard the distant soldiers.
“Just a bit of meat and bone. No armor or anything.”
“Ah, well we’ll see if we can find anything lying around the armory when we get back. Can’t have you walking around nearly naked. We’ll get you a beginner’s pack at the very least.”
Taysia glanced down for the first time noting that she was indeed nearly naked. Her only clothing consisted of a thin pair of cloth pants and a shirt that barely concealed her body.
“Speaking of, how long until we get back?” Mack asked. “I really need the bathroom.”
Taysia and Isaac both laughed at this proclamation though it was a slightly flat laugh.
“Can’t you use the bushes like the rest of us?”
“Of course not, I’m a civilized Minotaur, I can’t be off peeing in bushes like some commoner.”
Taysia doubled over, the ridiculousness of the whole day coming down on her suddenly.
This morning she’d been playing her regular game when a glitch had kicked her out. Now here she was so intent to keep streaming that she’d jumped in to a brand-new game only to get stuck there forever. What luck. And to top that all off she was chatting to a Minotaur that didn’t exist who wouldn’t pee in a bush that didn’t really exist. Chatting to a guy who had gotten himself stuck in the same game. She realized suddenly that she still hadn’t seen anyone else with the strange symbol above their head that matched hers and Isaac’s, nobody else that was trapped in the game. That meant everyone she’d met could come and go as they pleased.
She wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t run into Isaac so soon after getting stuck. It could have all gone much worse for her.
“We should hurry anyway.”
Isaac finally said when he realized Taysia would not stop her laughing fit any time soon.
She pulled herself together enough to nod and they began on their walk again with Taysia giggling to herself every so often and Mack doing a strange left foot, right foot hop as they went.
When they finally made it back to the headquarters, the place was in shambles. The large stone gateway still stood but the wooden gate had been burned away. In the courtyard anything made from wood had been broken or burned including the tables that they’d eaten breakfast at that morning. A few were broken into just a couple of pieces. Blood covered every surface in the courtyard, the white stone of the floor stained a deep sinister red. A feeling of emptiness overcame Taysia, the usually buzzing headquarters felt abandoned.