by Ed White
All jokes aside about attacking the wraiths Ghostbusters style, is a soul box like a ghost trap? If we don’t reclaim our nine-pointed soul box, what happens? Would Ex tell me or is it merely a point of lore in the overarching plot of the game?
I mean, the fact is, if you don’t reclaim your soul box you lose everything—a total respec, like remorting. You start over at Haven. It provides the ultimate sense of risk and consequences of dying to incentivize proper gameplay and give weight to death. I get that, but is that all there is to it?
It is like remorting, it’s like being reincarnated.
So many questions, never enough time.
A flicker in my peripheral vision pulls me from my thoughts. A green aura blazes over my body, bright enough to attract my attention. It resembles the aggro aura which didn’t manifest during the Chol, spider, or wraith attacks likely due to system errors caused by the game instance. This aura is green and might serve as my protection against the grey, draining landscape. A dreamscape?
I can’t manifest—equip—items from my inventory, but can this aura be anything other than some effect of the green sedes?
“David?”
I whirl about, face to face with Jonesy who stands not two feet away from me. Not in his super sexy Shadow Fox avatar, but his own body. “Jonesy? Were you possessed by the Chol? Why do you look like that, like yourself?”
Jonesy stares at his hands, around him and back at me. I snap my fingers, but he remains quiet.
“Where are you? Are Paul and Granger with you? Kona?” I ask.
His face falls, saddened. “I don’t know. The last thing I remember is fighting.”
It’s possible the demon, the skinwalker priest, is the animystic ley bender controlling all of those souls usurped by the Chol. If he is, why did he stay behind and what is it doing with our bodies back in the Chol temple? With Jonesy standing in front of me, I can’t help but think of some crude sexual joke he’d make about the skinwalker having its way with our bodies.
None of this makes sense to me. If Julia Beechum and the Conglomerate want me to find hackers, why not treat me like an investigator with clearance to go where I wish? Some form of system guardian. I understand working undercover, but why is everything in Lenscape trying to kill me?
“Jonesy. Did you see the others? Is this place familiar to you in any way?”
Jonesy reaches toward me. “I miss you, D.”
He misses me? WTF?
“Yeah, okay, but help me out. Help us out. During your run to level six, have you come across anything like this place?” I spread my arms wide.
Jonesy nods, his eyes vacant, distant. “Why’d you take so long?”
Is he for real? “So long to what? To find you?”
“No, D, so long to join us. To join me.”
“Join you playing Lenscape? You’re going to do this now? You seem like you’re fine with it, since I logged in you haven’t said anything about it.”
This is funky. Jonesy was acting strange since I logged back in with my own avatar. Lisa noticed it too. Even so, Jonesy never appeared to be bothered once he met me in Haven, despite my personal pangs of guilt caused by my workaholic absence from gaming. Mr. Shadow Fox Jonesy was nonchalant, more concerned with his ladies and chilling at the Wilds Edge. Maybe he was more upset than he let show. And why the hell does he call himself Shadow Fox and not play as a rogue or Drow?
Jonesy lays his hand on me and I flinch. We’re solid here, just as in the Wilds. We aren’t yet ghosts like the Wilds Wraiths. Not yet grey shamblers.
His eyes well up. “You’re like a brother, D. What with you being adopted, I always saw you as family.”
What?
Say what?
WTF?
My jaw drops. “What? Adopted? Me?”
The hell is he talking about?
No, wait. No. How?
Whoa, wait a sec, there is a big age gap between me and my sister. Not to mention my eye color—what I describe as topaz. Everyone passes it off because my father, uncle, and sis all have light colored eyes. The topaz jewel comes in blue and green, but also honey, pink, red, and white. My eyes are a honey-gold color. Not normal in my mind. Maybe it’s relatively normal for my family.
My true family.
I’m babbling.
Hell. Adopted? I guess Jonesy’s parents knew. One day my parents come home with a baby boy and my mom was never pregnant. Damn. I’ll be taking a trip when I can log out of this place. I wonder if my sister knew.
No. No, Jonesy’s not acting right—I can’t take what he says as gospel. When we log out, he’s the first person I question on this. It goes on the list of things to do, right up there with a first date for Lisa and me.
“Look, I don’t know if you think that’s funny. We need to get back to the Wilds. Where are we?”
Jonesy twitches his head back to look at me. “I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.” I grip Jonesy’s shoulders. “Hey! What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t know.”
Useless.
***
The ground shimmers and thunder rolls from behind is with tremors felt in my feet. A shimmer? To my right, a dull red glow spreads on the horizon and the smoke returns like a grim, dark fog rolling in. I’m not sure of the cause of the fading thunder, but new figures appear within the distant thickening smoke. The acrid, sting of the ashes build, blurring my vision.
Glancing at Jonesy, lost in his stupor, I grip him by the wrist pulling him along as I dash to keep sight of the new figures—they might be Paul or Granger, with more of their senses about them than hazy Jonesy. Maybe they know where their bodies are imprisoned within the next Chol city.
No.
These figures aren’t my college friend Paul, or our tank, Granger—they’re Lisa and Remy.
My heart skips and the familiar heat of nausea washes over me. My feet go cold and my legs tingle.
No. Be calm. Breathe. Lisa will be alright.
Lisa and Remy are greyed out, possessed by the skinwalker. This grey zone really appears to be a limbo of souls. No soul box is rendered visually because our avatars are under the control of the skinwalker Boss—the demon.
Jonesy falls over as I come to a stop and release his wrist. Lisa and Remy stand still, arms at their sides, Lisa’s eyes closed, and Remy’s hidden by his mask.
The AoE of the Boss must overcome the limits of a skinwalker’s eye-to-eye line of sight possession—a stronger form of the skinwalker crowd control. That makes sense for animystic abilities as explained to me. Mal must still be immune, fighting alone in the temple.
The smoke is thick, suffocating. I wave it away and it whirls around my hands. I don’t know what this place is but my senses react as real as any other day IRL and I raise my arm across my nose and mouth. Is it the smoke? My arm is no longer glowing with the green aura. Looking around there’s no sign of Jonesy and the smoke isn’t thick enough to hide him.
Damn it.
If this creeping darkness is my HP dropping beyond zero, I’ll respawn and lose the sedes.
Lisa and Remy stand insensate two feet from me. The smoke continues to thicken, the twilight of the zone dimming and all but the red glow on the horizon fading into grey—even my arm.
Time is up.
***
A cool breeze, thick with the green scents of grasses and lush gardens, presses against me. A white glare fades to reveal the manicured maze of hedges stretching away from the base of broad stone steps leading up to a broad patio on which I’m standing. Nauseous, dazed, I fight to gather information about my surroundings. I’m back at the manor, Lord Creepy’s manor, in another nightmare—what Lisa describes as my “visions”.
Visions of what? Memories? Of who? I didn’t live this life. I’m still convinced these are a game feedback of unreleased versions. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
This time I’m alone. Lord Creepy and his friend aren’t here. Is the maze a metaphor, with m
y mind working through the past few days? Wraiths, a labyrinth, Jonesy and my guilt? It isn’t that simple—Jonesy’s as much to blame for us growing apart. Lives change, people make choices.
Life is change.
Rising behind me, the manor is tall and imposing, not megalithic in the slightest, a true manor of England or Ireland—which I gather from the look of the landscape of rich verdant meadows and grazing lands nestled between gentle rolling slopes. The structure lacks the nuance of a French chateau and instead, matches the sense of dread weighing on me. An oppressive nature in stark contrast to the landscape around the manor—blues filtered through clouds creating soft pastels over the crests of distant velvety hills.
The beauty of the landscape draws me away from the manor, descending the steps to the entrance of the hedge maze. The center of the maze may provide my escape, like the Labyrinth of Quad from my first day.
I step into the maze.
***
No wraiths, no whispers, I tread through the maze. Tall walls of interwoven branches, tended and well kept, rise to my left and right. Another bars my way ahead with a choice of directions and the likelihood of becoming lost in this vision. Lost in a past not even my own.
Left or right, my way out—I hope—follows. A metaphor for life, which way did I choose when I stayed at United Foods? What direction taken when I quit and agreed to become Julia’s snitch?
With a brush of my hand against the forward hedge, I study the crushed gravel beneath my feet. Maybe in the real world either might betray some hint of the true path, given the lack of an attentive groundsman. Still, is this my vision, my mind? What hints do we hide from ourselves? Too many.
We all live, in some small way, with denial. Many a gamer escapes life to explore a world of established rules and clear enemies. A world to conquer or like the hackers I’ve no clue as to how I’ll ever locate, a world with rules to break. A place where things don’t matter—a place to be free.
That’s how it felt in college and when I quit United Foods. A soaring sense of freedom, until Julia…no, until the game instance, before I quit my job. Everything hinges on the Instance and the fractal LSD game patch I witnessed after defeating the Scythe Boss—or hacker, if I’m to believe Julia.
Who am I to argue?
A fountain.
I’m in the center of the maze, a large square some thirty feet across. Ornate designs of stone, grass and flowers crisscross the ground, reminding me of an artificer’s spell web. The pool around the fountain is still, no spouts of running water, only silence.
A fountain at the center of a maze isn’t unusual, the sound would guide those who playfully enter the maze to its heart. I can’t help think about what it means and what the “heart” of this vision is. Knowledge? A fountain of knowledge.
I step forward out of the path of hedges into the square, crossing it to the circular pool. The pool itself is dark, but unlikely to be deep, within a two-foot high basin wall—the right height on which to sit. Leaning over the water my reflection looks back at me, looking much like myself, with an indeterminate hair style. There’s no clear hint to the time period. Victorian?
Of course, I can’t help but laugh. A trip to the center of the maze only to find myself? How ironic. If I’m possessed I should be looking out of my own eyes unable to control my body. Not wandering a grey limbo.
Souls. What happens to an abandoned soul box?
That may be an answer to the fate of a soul box when a player is possessed. A forfeited soul box can be claimed by others or consumed by special creatures.
A skinwalker claims your body—your avatar. Is a skinwalker, a corrupt animystic, a soul eater?
Maybe. Their character bio stated they must abandon a body once the player’s HP drops below zero, but nothing registered for the Boss. Is it all due to the errors caused by the Instance?
Speaking of the Boss…
I keep expecting a monster to attack or the demon to reappear—there’s only silence.
The pool is dark and still, no jets of water spout from the decorative fountain structure. My hand waves back at me on the smooth surface of the water. What do I do? No one to answer my questions, wherever this is even Ex is beyond my reach. No vision lasted this long and I’m not convinced this is entirely one of my nightmares.
This may become my prison, at least until Julia realizes and kicks be out. Then what? I’m back to no job and a few months’ rent in the bank without medical coverage and a failing nervous system. I’m looking at, if not real death, the rest of my life a living death in a hospice…no, I can’t think that way.
Reaching out, my reflection mirrors my actions until I touch the surface.
Hot damn!
The water remains undisturbed without a ripple to break its glassy surface. A gentle hum builds in my chest and travels from the ground into my feet as it sounds within my ears. The crisscrossed lines on the ground blaze, aglow with power as a spell web rises into the air.
Is this an eschen, a crossroads of power? A portal? The spell web creates a gateway.
My escape.
***
Searing pain lances through me, light erupts and the world spins. Blinking, rubbing my arm across my face, agony tears across my torso. I’m inside an enormous room with iconography carved into the walls, painted or crafted from rocks and jewels of brilliant color. A blur of dull, mustard yellow slams into me.
Malcolm!
The unmoving bodies of Lisa and Remy stand several feet behind Mal. I must be looking outside of my body, controlled by the skinwalker Boss, fighting Mal. No, my avatar stands not five feet beside Lisa, a dozen feet behind Mal.
Crap, I’m inside the skinwalker. I flipped the script on the bastard. He entered me and I’ve driven him out, but I’ve got Mal pounding on me.
Remy stirs, his arms twitch, the AoE wearing off, Lisa’s baton hits her calf. My proper body stands stock still beside Lisa. I’m reminded of the doppelganger on the Path of the Fallen, have I lost my avatar?
I jump away from Mal. “Hey! It’s David, I’m in here, in the skinwalker.”
Mal enters a defensive stance, his baton held in one hand across his body, confusion and contempt twisting his face.
“I’ll admit, you sound like Greywaters. Easy enough to do from within his mind.”
Shit, that’s true.
I’m not seeing stats and no access to the abilities of the skinwalker, and I don’t know what they are other than his AoE crowd control. I can’t access the AoE either. I can’t concentrate and I don’t know what happens if or whether it is possible to kill me in this animystic body.
Ex is still missing, no help from him.
My proper body, it’s not carrying my baton. A baton is soul bound.
Evidence, that’s what Mal needs.
My baton flashes into place in my gnarled, dried grey-black skinwalker hand. “Mal, it’s me, David! Stop attacking me!”
Lisa calls out with a strained voice. “David?”
I waggle my baton. “Yes, it’s me.”
Mal remains pensive, glancing back at the now mobile Lisa and Remy.
Remy contorts himself, stretching and settling into a cautious stance, his baton aimed at me. “Looks like we’ve been released, but look at Greywaters.” He tilts his head toward my proper body.
New eyes open on Mal’s torso as he glances simultaneously at my proper body while staring at my skinwalker shell. “What happens if I kill you, take the HP of the Boss past zero?”
“I don’t know. What are your imps saying?”
Remy laughs.
Mal grunts and lowers his baton and absorbs his additional eyes. “New one on me.”
Lisa speaks, her lips moving without sound. Rubbing her brow, she turns to me. “She doesn’t know. You might die, or maybe your soul box will appear. The Boss might regain control if you can jump back into your body without us taking action. Remy’s correct, this is a new one. Although there are proper, pure animystics. I can’t search the wiki.
The system is still messed up.”
I shrug. “I’m not walking around like this.”
Remy raises a hand. “You may be of help like that. You can operate the gateway and send us where we need to be.”
“You think so?”
“Maybe. You’ve a better chance than I. Let’s work together and see.”
I pump my hands. “Yeah, whoa, but wait. How do I get back into my own body?”
Mal leans on his baton. “How’d you get inside that one?”
Lisa steps forward and takes my monster hand in her tender touch. “Have you asked your imp?”
“Can’t, I can’t while I’m inside here, whatever this is. I don’t think he can hear me and the game is registering me as the skinwalker. I don’t see any stats and my UI won’t display.”
Mal laughs. A disturbing sound from someone so miserable. “Maybe we can use you to sneak into the Chol city. Better yet, keep you like this to lull other mobs into a false sense of security.”
Lisa huffs and turns to Mal. “As rude as that is, the first part is a great idea.”
I roll my dark, reflective, sunken eyes. “You guys don’t expect me to just walk in like this?”
Lisa giggles.
“No, they will notice your mana the moment you’re in range,” Remy says.
That’s what I expected. The Chol, corrupt or not, are animystics. They control the anima, the soul, they’re proper ley benders. I must glow to an animystic. The body I’m in doesn’t mean shit.
Chapter Twenty-one
The wails of the Wilds Wraiths have fallen silent, the wraiths freed by my usurping of the skinwalker. Free to roam, the Wilds Wraiths torment us no more. Bent and looming over Lisa, Mal and Remy, I await Remy’s attempts to understand the spell forms operating the Chol gateway.
Raising my leathery palm, I address the problem. “You realize that just because I’m in here, it doesn’t mean I share any of the knowledge from this thing’s mind?”
