Back in the Game

by Christopher Keene

  To one side was a mezzanine with a high railing, and to the other was a hallway with a fire exit sign glowing above it.

  How on earth does this place still have power?

  He laughed at the obvious flaw in his question. He was in a fantasy world; things didn’t have to make sense. Still, looking around in a panic, he found a single shadow in the darkness.

  “Dice, is that you?” he asked.

  The shadow moved forward and grabbed him by the rim of his helmet. “This is a trap!”

  “What? How? It’s a Secotier dungeon.”

  In what little light there was, Frank could see the figure shaking his head. “This is an experimental dungeon, which means that the parameters for it can be redefined while people are still in it. They advertised this as a Secotier dungeon but the developers can change it to whatever they want it to be whenever they wish.”

  “What are you saying?” He thought he already knew, but his panic made him ask all the same.

  “I’m saying that this is now a Tertiatier dungeon that you are trapped inside!”

  Frank’s eyes widened in horror. That was why he had been chased by those robed avatars, that’s why they had told him to meet Dice at the bottom—so he would be trapped.

  But how did they know where to find me. Did Tessa tell them?

  “That’s impossible! I don’t believe you!”

  The form shook him. “It’s true, you must face it!”

  “W-what can I do?”

  “There’s only one thing you can do. Take a leap of faith. They’re only looking for you because they know you have the orb, but they’re not looking for me. Give me the orb and I swear you will get it back once you’ve returned to the game.”

  In his panic Frank didn’t even think to use it himself. “How can I know I can trust you?”

  Frank could hear footsteps above them and he gasped as they walked to the hole in the floor.

  “You can’t. That’s why it’s a leap of faith.”

  The stranger was whispering now, showing that he wasn’t with the group who was chasing him. If what he said was true, he would lose the orb anyway. At least this way there was a chance of him getting it back.

  “Okay, here!” He was shocked by the fear in his voice.

  He brought out the Transfer Orb and passed it over to him. The man seemed to hold the item in reverence for a second before he nodded and grasped his shoulder.

  “You made the right choice. I’ll be seeing you soon.”

  This confirmation felt only a little reassuring considering he had just given away his most precious item to a stranger. He looked up as he heard the group from above find the stairs to the lobby and begin their descent.

  “So what’s your name? How can I contact you?”

  He turned back but the shadow had vanished. Suddenly, six trails of green flames flew across the room, each of them giving form to one of the cloaked figures who had chased him. They rose from the shadows all around him. Now he was the only one standing in the light coming in from the hole in the roof he’d made .

  “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

  They didn’t answer him.

  “If you want the Transfer Orb . . . I don’t . . .”

  They continued to advance on him. He knew he was a dead man, and he had just given away the one thing that could've allowed him to escape.

  Why? Why can’t anything go my way for once, huh?

  “Just leave me alone!” he cried.

  There was the sound of the minute hand turning, and like those that had been caught on the number of the floor correlating to the minute hand, he could barely move. No one in the lobby could move freely, not even the hooded men. They stepped toward him in slow motion, which actually made it slightly scarier by how helpless he was.

  This is it. There goes all my equipment. Damn it!

  Suddenly another hole was blown in the roof from a beam of light and a young man dropped through, falling slowly as though caught by a gust of wind. Dust flew from him and his cloak tail billowed out behind him. When the wind stopped, he landed and slammed his hand into the floor. A warping animation appeared around the entire room, slowing everyone to a near complete halt.

  Silence seemed to fill the hall, and in the light of the second hole in the ceiling, the stranger stood. He looked around at the shadowed figures moving bare fractions of a second around him, and then turned to Frank with a grin.

  “Hold tight, big guy,” he said. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

  He lowered his stance and spread his arms as a short sword appeared in each hand. He then seemed to vanish in a blur of speed. Frank watched as he appeared in front of one of the hooded avatars, his blades attacking from all angles before he vanished again and the avatar exploded into a particle effect. The young man reappeared with an arcing swing that struck at the top of another player’s head, spinning into another barrage of attacks until that player was obliterated as well.

  One after another he appeared before each of the cloaked avatars, taking them out with what seemed several precise cuts before moving onto the next. When both of his short swords broke against one of robed players, another set appeared in his hands as he continued his grim work of dispatching the team.

  Frank gaped in awe as the ominous party that had been chasing him was being quickly picked apart and laid to waste by a single player sporting two short swords and who-knew-what combination of magic.

  He has to be Hero rank to be this powerful!

  Finally, the young man came to the last robed figure and with his final swing, took his head off at the shoulders. As soon as he did, the clock chimed, signaling that one minute was up and time for him finally went back to normal.

  One minute . . . he took out the entire party in one minute!

  The young man in the hood straightened and turned to Frank. “So, you’re the one I’ve been looking for. Please tell me you still have the orb.”

  Dice?

  He barely had time to think this before the ceiling caved in around them.

  Chapter 12: Time

  We quickly filed into the clock tower and looked down at the massive opening between the platforms leading twelve floors down into the earth. I felt sudden vertigo at seeing such a huge drop into the dusty ruins.

  Cloaked forms rushed down the platforms after the plate-armored Heavy. From the way the scaffolding had rattled when Brock walked out onto it, I was surprised to see an avatar in full armor move so quickly down the fragile wooden steps.

  The sight told me two things, the first was that Bitcon was forcing the Heavy into a trap by driving him to the bottom buried deep under the earth, and the second was that to catch up with him we would need to do something drastic.

  Chloe moved back through the window as though being on a shaky platform so high up unsettled her. “I’ll keep watch to make sure no one takes us in the rear.”

  David smirked. “Afraid of heights?”

  She gave an uneven, sarcastic laugh and moved back outside as the rest of us moved down the dusty wooden planks to the tenth floor. We quickly realized that trying to catch up by running down the steps would only waste what precious time we had.

  “We need a strategy,” Brock said.

  I shook my head. “We don’t have time for a strategy.”

  Keri grinned. “That’s something I would expect Siena to say.”

  Siena patted me on the back. “I’m rubbing off on you, Noah.” She nodded. “He’s right, though. I’ll go first and you guys can take out any stragglers I leave behind.”

  “How?” Brock exclaimed. “You won’t be able to land from this high up with your Hit Points still intact!”

  “That’s fine, I’ll just use . . .” She frowned and squinted into thin air. “Hah, well how about that? I actually can’t use it in here. That’s strange . . . the only dungeons I can’t use it in are . . .”

  “Tertiatier dungeons,” I finished for her, remembering what Data had said before vanishing. �
��It’s obvious. They changed this dungeon to a higher tier to make it so Bitcon’s team could take out Frank and steal the Transfer Orb!”

  “Seriously?” David exclaimed.

  “Wait! Augh . . . !” I cried out as the Heavy jumped over the railing of the fourth floor in an attempt to escape his pursuers, crashing into the basement in a plume of dust.

  “They’ll be able to destroy the evidence if they get their hands on it!” Brock’s eyes darted as he tried to think of a way down.

  “If that’s the case . . .” Siena shrugged and walked to the edge of the platform. “There’s only one way to get down to the bottom before they do.”

  Without hesitation, she grabbed hold of the platform’s railing and launched herself over the edge, falling between them.

  She screamed a “Woohoo!” as she dropped.

  Bitcon’s team had reached the bottom. Like wraiths, they moved silently to the stairs, all but one of them. Bitcon remained, his hooded form spinning as Siena reached the bottom. His hand shot out and Siena was blasted away by a wind spell. The other hooded forms spun on her but Bitcon waved them on. He then summoned his Jade Edge as Siena flipped back and summoned her Ruby Edge. They charged in, their blades clashing.

  I went to follow her down but the clang of the minute hand rung out. A light flashed around us, and it was suddenly difficult to do anything.

  I . . . I can’t move!

  My eyes swiveled sluggishly to the others, all looking as confused as we could only watch Siena and Bitcon’s fight. He used several spells against her to no avail, doing more damage to the dungeon than to her. As though she had heard the noise from outside, Chloe returned to see what was going on. She ran down to the floor we had stopped on and panted when she caught up to us.

  “There’s no one else out there. I . . .” Her eyes narrowed at our expressions slowly becoming surprised. “Hey, why is everyone being so still?” she asked, moving freely around the platform to look into our faces.

  The specific mechanics of the Broken Clock Tower suddenly made sense as the spell’s hold on me wore off.

  It’s not the floor that casts the spell; it’s the clock changing that causes time to slow. Considering the minute hand was on the ten, it correlates to the floor number. It must cycle through each floor every ten minutes! I grinned as a plan came to me, knowing I would have to risk everything to time it just right. And after ten it will go back to one, meaning time will stop next on the ground floor!

  I turned to Chloe and the rest. “Everyone, go back up Siena. I know what I have to do. Keri, cast Speed Amp on me, I’m going to need all of the Mana I have for this.”

  Keri nodded, and before the minute hand could clang, I grabbed hold of the railing and followed Siena over the side. The experience of falling made my mind rush, but I knew what spells I could use to survive the landing.

  Cupping my hand at my side and pointing my index finger at the floor rushing up at me, I blasted a hole right through it with a Plasma Beam. I then placed both hands out in front of me and rotated my palms around each other. The wind from my Cyclone spell caught me up and slowed my fall as I passed through the hole in the floor and landed in the dark lobby of the clock tower.

  When I saw how slowly the robed figures were moving, I knew my suspicions had been correct. I planted my hand onto the floor, just as I had seen in the spell tutorial, and cast Graviton on the entire room, grinding their already slow movements to a complete halt.

  I saw in my periphery that Frank was behind me now.

  There you are!

  “Hold tight, big guy,” I said. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

  I grinned when seeing they hadn’t managed to reach him yet. Using my new Instant Reforge ability, two Wakizashi flashed into my open hands, the only swords now in my inventory. Siena had been right, I really did enjoy dual wielding.

  It seemed Keri’s Speed Amp spell had leveled up since I had last seen her, for even I gasped at how fast I could move. It was much more powerful than mine, that’s for sure.

  I appeared before the hooded forms, and with pleasure, went about dispatching Bitcon’s team members one by one with quick swings of my short swords. Although annoyed that Bitcon himself wasn’t among them, I felt satisfied in the assumption that some of the avatars I was cutting down were players who had been a part of the trap in Rubik’s Castle. It only took breaking two of my dozen short swords to finish the job.

  I almost felt disappointed when it was over, but knew as the bell rang and the spell wore off that I had been right to kill them quickly. I turned to Frank, who still sat on the floor, eyes bulging through his helmet’s visor.

  “So you’re the one I’ve been looking for,” I said through panting breaths. “Please tell me you still have the orb.”

  The Heavy seemed stunned, and before he could answer me, there was a rumble above and the ceiling fell in on top of us from one side of the hall. I rolled toward him and cast an Ice Wall behind him, stopping the planks from landing on us. Instead they boxed us in.

  I cast another Plasma Beam to blast two of the boards away and looked up as flashes of green and red streaks lit the darkness of the mezzanine above us. Siena and Bitcon went head to head, their Color Blades ringing with their quick slashes and parries.

  I couldn’t help but stare in awe at the two flipping and darting over each other, blades clashing. From the lights that were shining around Siena, I could see that Keri had arrived and was using her support spells to give her an edge over Bitcon.

  David dropped from the roof beside me and shoved some of the debris aside to allow us up. Brock and Chloe fired arrows and threw knives in their attempt to assist Siena’s melee. Bitcon blocked desperately with a shield spell and then cast a Fire Weave at Siena that filled the darkness with an orange light.

  Siena flipped backward and landed beside David, Frank and I on the lobby floor. Brock, Chloe and Keri then dropped down behind us and all six of us stood protectively around Frank. Our odds were suddenly looking a lot better.

  As though trying to bluff us out of our victory, Bitcon jumped up onto the mezzanine’s banister, a hellish grin on his face.

  “Do you even know what I am?” he asked.

  “You’re outnumbered is what you are!” I called back. “You can’t get to him through us and you know it!”

  Bitcon shook his head, flicked back his hood to show his pale elven face and began to laugh. His bellows echoed off the walls as he clutched at his gut. When he calmed, he mimed wiping a tear from his eye and even as he talked, he seemed to be holding down sniggers.

  “Get to him?” He leered. “I don’t need to get to him. Everything he had that we wanted is already in our possession.”

  My heart leapt into my throat. “What?”

  I looked back at the Heavy quivering behind me.

  Did Frank already give him the Transfer Orb? If that’s true, why were they still trying to kill him?

  Bitcon gestured out a hand, and with a flash, another man in a hooded cloak appeared and moved up to the railing to stand beside him.

  “You actually thought he was your friend?” Bitcon teased as the avatar reached up and pulled off his hood.

  Data looked down on us, his expression grim.

  Chapter 13: Betrayal

  I had to give it to Data. He’d even had me fooled. Bitcon put out his hand and Data removed something from his cloak. It was the Transfer Orb, its green glow lighting the mezzanine where they stood.

  “Don’t do it!” Brock called, as though thinking he could plead to the small part of Data that still remained loyal to the memory of his friends.

  Chloe bared her teeth in a snarl and Keri made an expression as though her mother had just told her that Santa Claus wasn’t real. David shook his head, and for the first time since I had known her, Siena looked utterly baffled.

  Bitcon lowered his open hand and Data placed the Transfer Orb inside his grasp.

  “Traitor!” I yelled.

  “Rat bas
tard!” Siena called, also seeming to have her own choice words for him. “Why did you warn us we were going to be tracked, huh? Unless . . .” She quickly trailed off, eyes going suddenly distant in thought.

  “So this is the orb you have all been scrambling around trying to find, huh? The only item with the evidence that could supposedly put Wona away?” Bitcon held it aloft for all to see, so close but still out of reach. “Such a pity.”

  His hand clenched and he smashed the orb within his grasp, the representation of it vanishing as the video evidence of the beta tester’s overdosing was deleted entirely from the game’s memory. It felt like everything we had done, all we had struggled and trained for, was suddenly for naught.

  “No!” Brock fell to his knees, as though driven down by the guilt of his friends dying for nothing.

  I ground my teeth, two Wakizashi flashing into my hands. “You’re a dead man!”

  “Do you really think it matters?” Bitcon asked, gesturing to the room around us. “That you might kill me? That you took out my men? It doesn’t, you know? Only the orb mattered, and now it’s gone.”

  Siena raised her own blade and David his mace.

  “You don’t believe me?” Bitcon shrugged. “Let me show you then.”

  He flicked one arm out to the side and behind him on the mezzanine his entire team respawned, flashing back into the world as though I hadn’t even killed them. I gasped as the pointlessness of defeating these people became abundantly clear to me. We were far from outmatched. We were out-gamed.

  “You see, Noah?” Bitcon taunted, his smile stretching his thin lips. “I can respawn any of my teammates as soon as they die, just like your swords, just like . . .” He clicked his fingers. “That.”

  “Hacks!” David called. “Haven’t you ever heard of fighting fairly?”

  “Data, how could you?” Chloe screamed. “We all looked up to you!”

  I had never heard such emotion in Chloe’s voice. She hadn’t even been that close to Data, but it seemed she took his betrayal rather personally.

  “He was Wona’s loyal dog from the beginning. All it took was a little sniff for him to come running.” Bitcon rolled his wrist. “And . . . as fun as it is to see the looks on your faces in the knowledge of your defeat, I’m getting a bit sick of him being the center of attention. Let’s put an end to this, shall we?”