by Deck Davis
“What kind of oath?”
“Stuff like the Oath of Righteous Vengeance, where you hunt certain bastardly characters. Or the Oath of Devotion where you swear your sword to the church. That's a stinker. You can’t do anything in-game that goes against their teachings or you’ll get a penalty.”
“And what’s your oath?”
“The standard paladin stuff; always protect people who are in need. Come on, orc. Let’s go.”
Tripp had made the journey to Windborne library dozens of times. Many players overlooked it. They didn't realize that the developers didn’t code libraries into the game for the hell of it, or to add to the realism.
No, there were secrets written into the books in this world, and you just had to find the right ones.
When he and Etta headed inside the library, they found it gloomier than usual. Someone had latched shut all the windows, and the shelves were lit by lamps a safe distance away from the books. The smell was one of dust and potpourri, the stench of the dried flowers doing their best to chase away the aroma of age. Whispering came from across the room, where three players were in hushed conversation.
“Storm’s coming,” said a voice.
It was the librarian. He was a hobgoblin of human height with eyes like dying fire embers. His ears that stuck out so much he would take flight in one of Windborne’s stronger gusts.
He nodded at the lamps that were burning all over the library, even though it was daylight outside.
“Storm’s on its way, so we shut and bolt the windows. Have to light it by candlelight,” he said.
“When are storms never not coming?” Etta answered.
“Never not? Such a curious turn of phrase. When aren’t they coming, I think you mean?”
“What’s the turn of phrase for ‘if you don’t stop your patronizing me, I’ll stick my sword up your ass and toast you over a fire?’
“Guards!” cried the goblin.
Tripp heard a gust of wind blow by him. He felt its cold tease on his face before four puffs of smoke appeared in front of them. They formed into the shape of four men who wore light iron armor and wielded swords. Painted on their breastplates were a raincloud with a tornado-like wind underneath it.
The librarian pointed at Etta. “Escort the bull out of here. Take her to a pasture outside of the city and let her graze. She needs grass if she’s to give milk,” said the librarian. “Remove her orc friend, too.”
“I’m a minotaur, actually,” said Etta. “And if I was a bull, you couldn’t milk me. Bulls don’t have udders, dumbass.”
Tripp held up his hands. “Wait a second. I’ve been coming here every day, Franek. You know me, remember? The orc who comes in to read about making swords and shields? I want to check out a few books. I’m sure you can overlook this. Just like I have overlooked a certain something for you recently…”
The librarian sighed. “You can stay, but the overgrown cow can wait in the streets and see what a storm really looks like.”
Etta snorted, and the golden ring hooped through her nose shook and rattled.
Tripp whispered to her. “He’s stubborn as hell. He almost banned me once for coughing too loudly. I’ll meet you outside.”
“Sorry, I get carried away sometimes. I’ll go buy some stuff for when we get into the tower.”
“No problem. Oh, before I forget…”
Tripp accessed his menu until he found an option that he rarely had cause to use, and then pressed it.
“Oh!” said Etta. “A friend request. I have so many friends on my list, but most of them are people I met, quested with, and then never saw again. Here’s to short friendships!” she said.
A notification floated in Tripp’s vision.
You are now friends with Etta – Paladin – Level 29
With that done, Etta left the library. She gave an exaggerated bullish snort before disappearing out of the doors.
Alone, Tripp walked through the lamp-lit hallways and amongst the towering shelves. He found the language section, and it was here that the utter wealth of detail in Soulboxe hit him.
There were hundreds of books covering too many languages to count. None of them were placeholders, either. They weren’t just decoration. He flipped through a few of them and found that each contained fully developed languages.
It floored him to think that the developers had gone such lengths to make Soulboxe real. He guessed that the languages had been developed by Boxe, the genius AI who used to run Soulboxe. For him, creating a new language would have been as easy as a kid drawing a crayon figure on his parents’ bedroom wall. His intentions would have been just a childish, too. Boxe had a playful streak that had eventually turned dark and gotten the AI in trouble.
The sheer wealth of books left Tripp with a problem; where the hell did he start?
As he paced beneath the shelves and stared at the titles on the spines of the books, the narrow hallway began to fill. Players joined him, and he didn’t need the genius IQ of an AI to know why. They wanted to decipher the words written above the tower door.
And he needed to beat them to it.
As more players filtered through, he began to worry. One player, in particular, unnerved him. She was a tanned gnome with three purple dots on the center of her forehead. She had a leather inventory bag around her shoulder, which made a tinkling sound when she walked. Three metal symbols floated above her head; a tin potion vial, a zinc staff, and a book made of gold.
In Soulboxe, a player could learn as many skills as they had the patience for. Their most developed three skills were displayed above them, symbolized by metal shapes.
Tripp had a hammer , goggles, and a magnifying lens that represented his underlay skill. Underlay let him look at something and see what materials and minerals composed it.
The gnome had a gold book above her head, and that meant she was a scholar. This was worrying because gold as the highest rank you could earn in a skill. He didn’t need to be a genius computer to know that a scholar’s skills were especially useful in a library.
This gnome girl would use her scholar skills to find the right book before everyone else.
Feeling anxious, Tripp tried to figure a way to beat her. There was no point trying each book in turn; it’d take him a year to get through them all.
How could he find which language he needed and then decipher the text before the scholar?
His idea was to speak to the librarian, who was sitting at his desk and stuffing a wedge of green tobacco into a pipe. His fingers were stained by the stuff so that his skin looked like it was turning moldy.
“Can I help you?” Franek said.
“I need a favor.”
Franek stuffed another pinch of tobacco into his pipe. “I let you stay in my library even after you let a foul-mouthed bull loose. Is that not favor enough?”
Tripp leaned closer. “Remember two days ago? You needed someone to deliver a message to Darcy? You wanted it done with way more subtlety than an innocent note needed.”
This was a quest that Tripp had unlocked after spending hours in Windborne library. He was reading a book about sword artificery when Franek approached. He had an anxious expression and he was wringing his stained hands.
This turned into a quest to deliver a secret note to a barmaid in a local tavern, the Frosty Giant. As much as the librarian had instructed Tripp not to look at the note, he’d figured what the hell? This was a game. Secrets were there to be uncovered.
The note was the most nauseatingly smutty thing he’d ever read. It was an eight-line poem. It described in sickening detail what the librarian would do to the barmaid. The acts he had planned for when her husband, the barkeep, left town to buy supplies.
Secrets were a weakness. The librarian was going to have to learn that now. If a man wanted to be invincible he didn’t need a shiny suit or armor or magic powers. He just needed to be honest with himself, to never hide away things that he felt made him weak. Most weakness began in the mind.
Except for weakness to dragon fire, mage curses, and things like that. Those weaknesses were very, very real.
In any case, Tripp had always lived by that rule. He always tried to be honest with the words he spoke. If you were upfront about your intentions and your limitations, nobody could hurt you. It meant that he didn’t tell white lies, he didn’t break commitments. Sometimes that was tough, but he preferred it that way.
His words found their mark now on Franek, judging by how the librarian’s demeanor changed.
“A favor?” he said, setting his pipe down. “Come on then. Out with it. I finish my shift soon and I have…um…business to attend to.”
“I bet you do,” said Tripp. “Nu san, nu fore. A manathight da gor. Have you ever heard that before?”
“Let’s see. It isn’t one of the five common languages, that’s for sure. I would remember someone speaking it. Sounds rather guttural, doesn’t it? Like a wolf coughing up a hairball. Hmm…”
Tripp saw that the language section of the library looked like an Apple store on launch day. The place was so cramped that people were pushing into each other to squeeze through.
A bloody battle would have broken out were it not for the non-aggression pact across Soulboxe. The pact meant players couldn’t hack, slash, and kill each other in towns. The beauty of this pact was that the game’s AIs enforced it. They dulled players' blades and snuffed out magic while in towns and cities
It was a great system, really. The real world ought to give it a try. Just have a computer control weapons, and you’d achieve world peace.
Then Tripp remembered Boxe and his rather demented side. He decided that maybe giving an AI too much power was a bad idea.
As the language section got busy, the odds another player would find the right book increased.
Tripp waited on Franek. He drummed his fingers on the desk. He tried to be patient, but it was hard when every cell in his body was shouting hurry the hell up!
Franek shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t recall where this language came from. Though, for some reason, my brain is telling me that you should check out the ruins five miles east of Windborne.”
When it came to NPCs, you never ignored them when they said they had a gut feeling.
The Soulboxe AI used to be so smart that he could tailor it to every player who paid a higher subscription. With his intelligence came insanity, and they had to remove Boxe. He was like a naughty kid being dragged away from the beach for kicking sand in people’s faces.
They replaced him with AIs that were less intelligent and had much less autonomy. This gave the devs more control, but it made for a less fluid game. It meant more standard quests, less random events.
The devs had managed to install an AI powerful enough for things that had made Soulboxe special. They still generated individual quests if a player’s actions matched some conditions.
It meant there were hidden quests in Soulboxe that you had to do certain things and speak to certain NPCs to get.
And Tripp had just struck upon one.
Quest Received: Investigate Windborne Ruins
In your search for [error: insert player-generated motive], you have been advised to investigate ruins east of Windborne.
It will be quite simple. Just a nice walk around some culturally rich ruins. No monsters or anything. Probably.
Rewards:
- 1250 EXP
Tripp brought up his map screen and saw the ruins showing as a green dot on his map, displaying it as a quest location. He’d explored most of the area around Windborne, but he must have missed the ruins somehow.
Even so, he was proud of how much of the map he’d uncovered. On his first playthrough in Soulboxe, he had been confined to an area called Godden’s Reach. This was an endless plain of grass littered with giant skulls. After 10 days there, he’d seen enough skulls to last a lifetime.
When he came back to Soulboxe for a second time, he became a nomad. He wandered through the land, marveling at the beauty of its fields and deserts and forests. Seeing mountains in the distance and knowing he could walk to them if he wished. Climbing up canyons and looking down into valleys. staring at the towns below with their streetlights twinkling in the night.
It beat the sidewalks of his hometown.
It was after a couple of days of travel and questing that he came across Windborne. Beyond it he saw the great tower, with a gaggle of confused players staring up at it. They were looking at the way it reached up into the sky and pierced the clouds.
That was the end of his traveling. As soon as he saw a mysterious tower that hardly ever let people inside, he knew what he had to do.
And now it was time to get to the ruins before any of those other schmucks.
CHAPTER 5
Lucas Coombs – Trent, streamer extraordinaire– Gallo the sword mage
“Are you drunk again?” she said, peering through a small chat window on Lucas’s laptop.
She was mid-sixties, her skin tanned from her incessant travel. She had a way of glaring that could send a grown man hurtling back through the years. Throwing them way, way into the past, where he became a kid again.
It was his mom, and he was as happy to see her as ever. Really, he was.
“I’m not drunk,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too slurred.
“You are! Look are your eyes,” she said, and her face became giant on the screen as she leaned toward her camera. “Your pupils are like saucepans.”
“Mom, I promise you; I came out here to travel a little. Not hang around a pool getting drunk. This is a journey of self-reflection. I’m gonna find myself, center my soul, then come back a new man, having found a fresh purpose and drive.”
A man approached him now, leaning forward. He had a little glass half-filled with whiskey and with sugar crushed around the edges.
“Your whiskey, sir,” said the waiter, and the ice clinked in the glass as he passed it to Lucas.
Lucas glanced at his mom. He could feel the motherly disapproval coming off her in great waves.
“I…uh…think you might have made a mist-”
Just then, a kid sprinted toward the pool in front of Lucas and dive-bombed. Water splashed up like a pool-sized tsunami, splashing over the floor. It sloshed over a sunbathing lady whose red skin said she’d already bathed enough, and over Lucas’s feet.
“Whiskey?” said his mom. “And that certainly sounded like splashing to me.”
The waiter was standing there, dressed in formal wear despite the scorching heat. Lucas felt sorry for the guy. The waiter only had to dress so smartly because the hotel owners thought their guests wanted it. If it made the poor waiters more comfortable, they could have worn a vest and spandex trunks for all Lucas cared.
“Well, Lucas? Aren’t you going to tip the gentleman for bringing you your drink? You must always tip. Remember what I taught you…”
Lucas fished money out of his wallet while he spoke to his mom. “Yeah, yeah. Judge a man by how he treats his inferiors. This guy isn’t inferior, mom. That’s rude as hell.”
“That was your father’s saying, not mine. Judge a man by how he treats his mother. That’s what I taught you.”
“What does that have to do with tipping a waiter?”
“What is a mother, if she isn’t a waiter for some ungrateful little toe rag?”
“Next time I see you, I’ll have the biggest bouquet you’ve ever seen. Gotta go. Bye, mom.”
With that, he closed the conversation window. A little harsh, maybe, but it was the only way to end a conversation with her. Otherwise, he’d be stuck in an endless loop of “oh, and another thing…”
He took a couple of bills from his wallet and gave them to the waiter. “Thanks,” he told him. “And sorry about whatever you heard. My mom’s heart is in the right place, but her mind is somewhere else entirely.”
The mustachioed waiter grinned. “I have a mother, too, sir. Don’t worry about it. Listen…I might get in trouble for asking this,
but are you Lucas Coombs?”
“Do we know each other?”
“I played Soulboxe online all the time when I was a kid! I read an interview with you, and they had your picture in the magazine. Only, you had this weird soul patch on your chin.”
“Ah. The infamous soul patch,” said Lucas. “You can never outrun debts, mothers, or bad facial hair choices. Glad you liked the game.”
A man on the far side of the pool, with skin tanned to a crisp, waved an empty glass. “Excuse me? Any chance of a Pina Colada? You know, before I’m so old my kids start scheming to get power of attorney and take my money?”
The waiter held his hand up to acknowledge him. “Gotta run. Great to meet you, Mr. Coombs. It’s made my day.”
“Call me Lucas. Mr. Coombs makes me think I’m in trouble.”
Alone, Lucas stared out at the pool in front of him and then beyond it. He looked to the foothills of the Italian countryside, to the vineyards and the quaint farms. The ocean twinkled way, way in the distance. Everything was calm here. Even the birds swooping overhead squawked at a gentle volume.
All Lucas had to do was click his fingers and a whiskey would appear in his hand. He practically only had to think I’d love a nice, juicy steak and before long, one would be brought out to him. This was luxury.
And to think, he’d been heartbroken when he had to give up his stake in Soulboxe. As one of the founding members of the dev team, and since he wasn’t married, Soulboxe was like his baby. Just as demanding, just as likely to crap everywhere and then expect Lucas to clean it up.
Soulboxe had been on the brink of bankruptcy not too long ago. Lucas and his fellow creator, Eli Rathburger, tried everything to inflate subscriber figures. It hadn’t worked, and the company nearly went under.
Then, they found a buyer. Eli, whose marriage had almost ended because of his devotion to the game, cashed out his chips. He then persuaded Lucas to do the same. Ever since then, Lucas had traveled, seeing places that his years of long hours in the office had denied him.
