The Games We Play

by Mark C. Wade

  In fact, he hadn’t been drunk in weeks.

  Henry let his head sink into the fluffy pillow. If he kept it perfectly still, the pain almost went away. But that wouldn’t last forever.

  He yelled, “Ykülma! Bring me my hangover drink!”

  “Yes, Henry.”

  Henry silently thanked her for responding; he didn’t have the energy to fight about pronouncing her name. He looked over at the indentation in the bed. It seemed Quillen had slept there.

  As he heard the whirring of the blender in the kitchen, Henry asked, “Is Quillen still here?”

  Ykülma replied, “He left promptly at 6:45 a.m. He recorded this voice memo on his way out.”

  Henry listened and smiled at the sound of the hushed voice. He was clearly trying to stay quiet to let Henry sleep in.

  “I have to head out and get started on confiscating and testing these pills. It will take all morning, and it has to be ready by the Grand Finals later today. We’ll be in touch. Don’t worry. We’ll solve this together.”

  Together.

  That was a nice thought.

  The anti-hangover elixir wheeled into the room, and Henry took as big gulps as possible to get the vile liquid down fast.

  He still couldn’t believe the previous night had happened. There were so many random things that could have gone differently that would have led to him dying.

  This whole case had brought on a new perspective on his life.

  Henry decided he needed to be ready for whatever came up at the Grand Finals, so he went back to bed and set his alarm with just enough time to get to the convention center.

  ∞∞∞

  Henry sat next to Lukas, as usual.

  Lukas nodded and held out his recording device, “Who are you rooting for?”

  “Um. No comment.”

  Henry twiddled his thumbs while he waited. He realized he hadn’t been paying attention to the news surrounding this match.

  Henry turned back to Lukas and asked, “Is this final round just more of the same?”

  Lukas’s eyes went wide with excitement.

  “Nope. The podcast is big enough now that I got a secret press release about it, but I’m under an NDA embargo. I can’t tell anyone the details of the final round. Let’s just say, no one will have seen this coming.”

  The way Lukas said it gave Henry a chill. What could that even mean?

  Henry turned his attention back to the main arena. The empty space looked enormous now that only two pods for the players remained.

  Quillen stood near the backstage door. They locked eyes for a second, and Quillen winked and smiled at Henry. It seemed all would go as planned for confiscating the pills.

  The lights dimmed, and the players came out to check their equipment. This pre-competition ritual had such an awkwardness to it. The players were probably nervous about competing for so much money, and now everyone watched, knowing one slip up in the examination could cost them their lives.

  The announcer returned to the front podium, and dramatic music blared out of the speakers. The screen filled with the jagged ice crystals associated with the Eburnean Passage. A short animation played as the music finished, and then the announcer spoke.

  “May I have your attention. What you are about to witness has never been seen before. These two finalists will race through what our team has been calling Eburnean Passage 2.0. It is a modified, much harder version of the Eburnean Passage in the game. There will be new puzzles, new traps, new gauntlets of enemies, and even a new boss.”

  A hush fell across the crowd at the mention of the new boss.

  “This will be a true race. Whoever ascends the passage first will win the tournament. Their character will have the status known as Second Ascension. All players who have completed the original Eburnean Passage will be given the rank of First Ascension. A ladder of hidden passages to become higher ascended will be part of Eburnean Passage starting on the first of next month.

  “If a player dies in this final round, that’s it for their run. If both players die, whoever made it further will win. The passage is divided into zones like the original Eburnean Passage in the game. If both players die in the same zone, the score will be the tiebreaker. In the highly unlikely event of a score tie, the faster time will be used.

  “Each is running Eburnean Passage 2.0 separately. There will be no interference. They can see the progress of the other by zone number only, so neither can cheat by watching the other complete a zone first.

  “The players were briefed on all this backstage and have confirmed they understand the rules. So, if everyone is ready, make some noise for the Eburnean Passage Grand Finals!”

  The wave of the crowd rushing to their feet gave Henry the sensation of being a part of something bigger than himself. His body rose like the others, of its own accord, and he cheered as loudly as his neighbors.

  The players were in their pods and ready to go. The large screen split down the middle into two windows. Nyissa had gone with the skimpy, black leather assassin gear. She looked poised for speed. Aeden had gone with a heavy plate mail armor. He looked like he was going for survival.

  Giant numbers appeared on the screen and beeped as they disappeared like the start of a car race.

  3

  2

  1

  Go.

  Henry’s heart fluttered as the first zone materialized. He didn’t think he’d ever get to see what went on in the Eburnean Passage, and yet here he was, watching an even harder version of it.

  The room looked like a standard long hall inside of a huge stone castle. The floor was made of square, gray stone tiles, about three body-lengths in size. The room had four tiles across and was about a dozen long.

  The tiles had big circle inscriptions in the middle. Henry doubted such a design was purely for looks.

  Nyissa wasted no time. She leaped onto the first tile with catlike-nimbleness while Aeden stepped with slow caution.

  The pressure triggered something on the tile. The circle flashed a bunch of colors so quickly that Henry couldn’t name them all.

  Nyissa watched as the color stopped on red. She didn’t even hesitate as she realized red was probably bad and executed a dive roll to the next tile. A giant red laser shot up from the circle and would have dealt serious damage to her.

  Aeden’s stopped on black. The crowd cheered, and it took Henry a second to realize why: the passages were randomized differently. They’d get to see two different versions of the run.

  Aeden squatted into a defensive stance to fight whatever came next.

  But a confused look crossed his face, and the tile began to fall into a pit below him. He barely managed to jump to the next tile to his right. He dangled off the edge from his fingertips as the circle flashed its colors again.

  He frantically tried to pull himself up before the next catastrophe happened. He got one elbow up and struggled with the other as the circle kept taunting the coming danger.

  He’d almost lost the tournament on the first tile of the first room.

  Henry looked back to Nyissa, who had realized her speed meant she didn’t have to care what the colors meant. Henry had been so caught up in Aeden, that he’d missed her doing a bunch of successive dive rolls across the entire room.

  The circles stopped on various colors after she had already jumped to the next one.

  Henry looked back to the other screen.

  Aeden hadn’t made it up onto the tile before it stopped on a color: green. Green seemed to mean that nothing would happen, and Aeden finally rolled up onto the tile and panted for a second.

  That simple maneuver had used most of his stamina.

  Aeden stood and cautiously tapped his foot on the tile in front of him. He waited for the color before getting on it.

  Black.

  It fell into the pit. The camera showed an infinite blackness below. There would be no surviving the fall and getting back on track if he made a misstep. A fall into the pit meant the end of the
run.

  Nyissa entered the next zone as Aeden froze in terror. He seemed to realize this slow method was not viable. If all the tiles around him randomly landed on black, he’d be stuck with no way across.

  Nyissa looked around the next hall cautiously. She faded into her stealth mode and slid along the wall. It could have just been a connecting corridor, as nothing seemed to be happening, but she took no chances.

  When she hit the midpoint, a beast dropped near the exit named Troll Warlord, and then another near the entrance named Mummy Warlord, and a giant spider clung to the ceiling named The Queen.

  Henry held his breath as he watched. How could she beat three mini-bosses at once in such a narrow area with no obstacles to hide behind?

  His attention flicked to Aeden. He had changed armor to a lighter dragon scale armor. Shifting equipped items was not against the rules as long as you started with it in your inventory.

  Aeden now darted across the tiles as Nyissa had, but he was much slower and significantly behind.

  Nyissa flung poison daggers straight up, and they hit the spider. The Queen howled and fell to the floor. Nyissa’s instincts took over, and she somersaulted onto the spider’s back and pummeled a pitch-black blade into each of its eyes.

  Lukas mumbled, “A demon blade!” He looked at Henry and said, “Only demonspawns can use them. I’ve never seen one before.”

  The spider shredded into pixels, dead.

  The other two mini-bosses closed in on Nyissa. The death of The Queen triggered some event. The floor shook under Nyissa’s feet. She saw something poke up slightly and jumped to the wall. She sprung back and forth between the two walls to keep off the floor, which had now become spiked.

  The spikes disappeared where the bosses stepped in a cruel, unfair advantage to them. She’d have to fight them without touching the ground.

  Aeden was caught in the entryway of the second zone. He kept testing the floor tiles as he walked, spinning around, paranoid about what traps lay ahead.

  Nyissa seemed to get an idea and went for it. She hurled herself at the taller enemy, Troll Warlord. She landed on its shoulders and gave it a stab with her demonblade. The boss stumbled, and Nyissa backflipped onto the Mummy Warlord’s shoulders and used the same stabbing tactic.

  By then, the Troll had started coming at her again. She darted sideways off the Mummy’s shoulder and started to wall jump again until the right moment to repeat the cycle. It was like watching a frenzied monkey on a trampoline, almost comically absurd.

  Only then did Aeden make it to the center of his room, and the same three mini-bosses appeared. He crouched down and watched the three with their slow approach.

  Aeden bent down to one knee and stabbed his sword into the stone. Both hands rested on the hilt, and he bowed his head. It looked like he was praying.

  His body glowed a deep red.

  Lukas squealed with excitement.

  “It’s his ultimate ability. It has a twenty-four-hour cooldown. If he blows it here, he won’t have a chance to use it for the rest of the passage. This is such a risky move with a new unknown boss at the end!”

  All three enemies were right on top of him when he pulled the sword out and spun.

  The words flew out of him in a deep baritone.

  “RELENTLESS FURY!”

  Flames burst out of his spinning attack in a giant spread of damage. The sword sliced in a billion directions, hitting each mini-boss dozens of times.

  For a brief second, there was stillness and silence. Then all three bosses fell to the ground and evaporated into pixels.

  Henry couldn’t believe it. He’d killed them all with one attack. Aeden hadn’t given the zone enough time to do the spiked floor thing. They were truly seeing two radically different approaches to the same passage.

  Henry glanced back at Nyissa’s screen. She had killed the Mummy Warlord and was just hopping back to the Troll Warlord. Her demonblade slashed for the final time, and the beast fell to the ground.

  The spikes disappeared, and both contestants walked to the next zone. They were tied, and the tournament could go to still go to anyone.

  This didn’t make Henry feel settled about his payment.

  Chapter 26

  The two rushed into the next hallway with puzzled expressions. The room was tiled with exactly the same tiles as the first room, except, instead of circles in the middle of each, there was a circular indentation.

  A set of colored balls dangled from the ceiling in a huge wire cage over the room.

  Nyissa wasted no time and jumped up and sliced it down. The balls scattered everywhere and started to fill in the various indentations.

  Nyissa quickly skirted to the front of the room and prepared for the side effects. The various tiles each turned red, but nothing else seemed to happen.

  Aeden tapped on the tiles with his foot, and when the circles didn’t change color, he did almost the same thing as Nyissa, a clean chop through the cage with his broadsword. As the balls rolled around, a black one found its way to one of the starting tiles.

  It settled into the indentation, and the tile turned green.

  Recognition came to Aeden’s eyes, and he jogged out of the room. Exasperated confusion came in bursts from the crowd as they watched him backtrack during the middle of a race.

  Henry thought with along with everyone else: Why the hell is he wasting time?

  Nyissa frantically started trying all the different colors into the indentations. She got one to work, indicated with the glowing green light, and moved to the next. Her plan seemed to be to brute force her way through the puzzle.

  Aeden made it all the way back to the starting hall and stared at the room for a solid sixty seconds. His head nodded along, one by one, as he went over the colors in the circles in that room.

  The tiles that had fallen into the pit were still missing, and lasers shot out of others. One seemed to be covered in a poison moss. Others were green with nothing going on. It all looked quite silly now that the danger of triggering the traps was over.

  Once Aeden was satisfied, he ran back.

  Nyissa had already figured out three of them, but the hall was so big that it was going to take forever if she needed to do them all.

  Aeden plopped the colors he had memorized from the first room into a sequence going straight along across the hallway. They each turned green on his first try.

  He’d solved the puzzle. When he had an unbroken chain all the way across, a little song played as the tiles flashed white.

  The area at the end of the hall made a noise like grinding rock, and the door slid open.

  Nyissa continued her frantic attempt to find balls to make the tiles turn from red to green. It didn’t seem to occur to her to figure out the key to the puzzle now that she had a way to produce results.

  She had gone the short distance of four tiles along the width of the room, and her shoulders slumped with defeat as she realized this wasn’t good enough. She seemed to think she’d need to get every single tile to turn green.

  Aeden entered the next zone.

  Nyissa, luckily, started along the length of the hall instead of going row by row.

  Aeden’s room was no longer a hallway. He’d reached the end of the passage.

  One gigantic isolated spike hung from a large cave-like room: the ascension spike Henry had seen when he looked into the Eburnean Passage all that time ago.

  Blue and white shimmering stalactites dangled from the ceiling. If Aeden could finish the boss in this room, he’d be the first to hit Ascension Level 2. He’d also get the monetary prize.

  Henry wasn’t sure which the gamers wanted more. This game was their life and passion. Supremacy in the game, even temporarily, was more important to them than mere money.

  It didn’t take long. A gigantic, ethereal creature floated into view from the corner. It started its entry animation with a shriek.

  The name appeared in bold black letters on the screen.

  Ascension Boss


  Geulimja

  Spectre Knight of the Elements

  The boss was three times taller than Aeden. He looked somewhat like a dark knight, with solid black armor from head to toe. No skin was exposed, and the thought that it was only armor without a person inside gave Henry a shiver.

  The knight also flew like he was a ghost, and he shifted with incredible speed from side to side. It looked like a rapid dash without the need to push off anything solid first. The shimmering, wraith-like appearance made the dashes look almost like teleportation.

  The creature, which is how Henry started to think of it, had four arms. Each arm held a scepter licking flames of a different color. These represented the four elemental buffs that could be on a weapon.

  Henry smiled.

  The game developers had thought of everything. This boss would be strong against all elemental damage and would be able to deal any type of elemental damage. This meant no natural resistances would give any player an advantage or disadvantage.

  Aeden was under time pressure. He knew Nyissa hadn’t yet entered this room, but she would be there any minute. If he hesitated too long, it would give Nyissa a chance to win. His time for closing this out was now.

  But he was far too experienced a player to jump in quickly.

  Aeden inched forward until he baited an attack and then jumped out of the way. He made no attempt at his own attacks. He was memorizing the timings and patterns of the boss.

  Henry tried to pay close attention, but the patterns were far more complicated than what he’d seen in his limited experience. These attacks had no tells as far as Henry could see, and each scythe moved in different ways depending on which arm struck.

  Aeden moved in and out of range, and he started to feint his dodges to test his guesses. It looked as if he’d basically figured it out already.

  It was at that moment that Nyissa entered the final zone. Aeden had such a head start. Unless she dove in recklessly, she’d never beat him.

  Aeden started his methodical approach for real. He got in close. Geulimja shifted left and swiped with the fire-branded scythe. Aeden calmly dove over it and swiped a perfect attack and jumped back to avoid the next.