Beyond the Boss

by Drew Seren

  “I wonder if that would coincide with when the AI dragon reached its lair,” Horc stepped away from the fruit vendor and scanned the rest of the small encampment. “I don’t know if this is going to make things easier or harder.”

  “Depends on what we need,” Baladara said with a shrug. “If we just need basic supplies, it’ll make things a little easier, not so much back and forth, but if we don’t know exactly what we’re going to need, then we won’t be getting suggestions and such. It’s suddenly reminding me of some old MMOs I used to play as a kid. Those were the good old days, but compared to today’s games, rather boring.”

  “Right.” Horc hoped up on an empty vendor cart. The big Orc standing next to it didn’t say a word. It wasn’t right. Before the AI started acting up, the thing would’ve, at the very least, been shouting at him and hitting him, at worst would’ve pulled the big nasty-looking sword out of his belt and attacked Horc with it. “Okay everyone, I’ve got some announcements.”

  The party, and the people Horc didn’t know stared at him. There were probably a dozen new people, all total, with a good variety of races and classes.

  “First, unless you didn’t realize it, the game has turned deadly. Right before I logged back in, the folks in the pod lab got notification that someone had died of a heart attack while in their pod.” He paused as a couple of people gasped. “Not surprisingly, they are one of the people currently being held by the AI in its dragon form. With that said, we’re all in danger here. If that one death was just the AI testing its power, we’re pretty sure it was a successful test.”

  A man in the back of the group, Rambull, a huge Minotorian Shaman, raised his hoof-like hand. “Do we know why the AI has turned against us? Shouldn’t it be programed not to do this?”

  “From what the developers told me before they let me back in, they don’t know, that’s why they have to bring the game down so they can analyze the AI and figure out what’s wrong before the game goes live. Yes, it should be programed to not act the way it is.” Horc didn’t bother elaborating about the potentially faulty programming. “I came back to do what I can to get the players the AI has taken hostage free, so they can log out and escape the game. Once everyone is free, then we all log out and the game comes down.”

  Another hand went up, a female Troll, Jamica, a Rogue. “It got my entire party when they died in the arena, what’s to keep it from just killing us and taking us over?”

  “Bigdaddybear is going to send a list of our player names to his husband, who’s one of the programmers. Rick’s going to go in and put everyone on a watch list. If for any reason we die in game, his team is going to help pull us out. Also if you die, be ready to hit log out as soon as you start to rez. It’s a very small window for them to help us get out in that situation.”

  Jamica nodded her green head, the vibrant verdant dreadlocks rocked back and forth. “And what about this upgrade your party got. Can the rest of us get it? If we’re facing certain death, it would be nice to go out in style.”

  Horc glanced at Bigdaddybear. “Can you check on that? It would be good to have the strongest party possible.” He returned his attention to the gathered players. “The thing is, none of you need to stay in the game at this point. Sure, we’ll appreciate all the help we can get in this adventure, but it’s risky. If you want to log out now, nobody’s going to think ill of you. Most of you probably have people IRL who are counting on you to be there for them. Also anyone not in a pod, although you appear safe from the AI takeovers, if you log out at any point, you won’t be able to log back in; well, as far as logging back in, that goes for pod folks too.”

  “Looks like Lisa and I are going to be tag teaming this one,” Baladara said from a few feet away.

  “We’re here for you, like you’ve been there for us,” Titanya said with a raised fist.

  Among the people Horc didn’t know, several of them muttered, “I’m out of here,” or “No way,” then disappeared from the crowd.

  Horc stood there on the vendor cart for a minute, not saying anything as the others stared at him. Then he did a quick head count. Including his party, they had ten players. “Okay, one of the first things we need to do is go to Red Wind Terrace. If you’re not at least Orc neutral, Rick will take care of that when he updates your toons. We have to go set up a guild. In a guild, if we’re fighting together we’re going to get buffs to attacks and damage taken will be less.”

  “What if we’re already part of a guild?” Jamica asked.

  “Are you?” Horc asked.

  The Troll shook her head. “No, but someone might be.”

  Horc looked over the crowd and no one seemed to make any indication they were part of a guild. “Looks like we’re lucking out on this one. We are going to have to come up with a guild name, however.”

  “TK and I will work on that,” Baladara said. “We both love naming things. Better than Theodore does.”

  Theodore shrugged. “I can’t help it that names are one of my weaknesses.”

  “Obviously.” Tufkakes laughed. “An Ursan named Ted, then you come back as Theodore, that’s almost as bad as Horc007 up there.”

  Horc shook his head. “Please just stick with Horc, it was either something like 007 or 2.0 and I was afraid the AI would catch on to the 2.0 too easily.”

  Bigdaddybear raised his huge hairy arm. “Okay. Rick said he’ll get to work on upgrading folks if we can get a list of people, so let’s get this started. I’ll warn you, there’s a bit of disorientation when you get upgraded, a little worse than when you log in to the game. Goggle and Glove folks shouldn’t have a problem.” He glanced at Baladara at his side. “At least our bitchy Elf here didn’t.”

  “You don’t know that,” Baladara quipped. “Maybe I just managed to hide it better than you guys did. At least I didn’t pass out over it.”

  The new folks walked over to Bigdaddybear and started giving him their information for their upgrade. Even with the folks who’d left, they still had a decent sized party with a good variety of classes. With any luck, they just might get everyone saved and out of the game.

  Horc glanced down at his side where Wolf should be. He hoped Rick wouldn’t take too long getting his companion upgraded. It felt strange not having Wolf there with him. He hopped off the cart and walked among the other toons. They were looking at him to lead them. That was strange. Even though he was used to being a floor lead at work, this was different. Somehow helping techs give customers the right answer just wasn’t the same as ten people trusting him to get them and a group of hostages through a game and home safely. He was going to do his best to not fail any of them.

  4

  It didn’t take too long for Rick to get all the new party members upgraded. It took longer for some of them to recover from the disorientation of the boost than it did for him to level them up.

  Rambull sat on the ground for nearly ten minutes before Horc walked over to him. “Dude, are you okay?”

  The big Minotauren shook his head, and Horc jumped back to avoid being impaled on his long ivory colored horns. “It almost feels like he ran us through everything we could experience to get to level forty eight.” He closed his big brown eyes and looked like he was about to throw up. “So much to take in.”

  “What level were you before the upgrade?” Horc couldn’t remember from his glance at the player’s name earlier.

  “Five.” Rambull put his head in his hands. “I probably shouldn’t have been on the arena, but I had friends in the party who watched out for me while we made it to the island, then made sure nobody killed me in the arena. I put on almost two levels on in combat in the arena.”

  Tufkakes squatted down in front of him. “That took some balls, Dude. Why didn’t you just stick with the starting zones?”

  “Some friends said the arenas were fun. I didn’t have tons of time to spend in game, and I’m just doing this for fun and the bonus money.” Rambull shrugged. “I figured have fun and not worry about other things.”<
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  Horc paced a couple of steps away from the Shaman. “Okay. Then why didn’t you log out when you had the chance? I don’t guarantee this is going to be tons of fun.”

  “One of my coworkers was taken. He doesn’t have anyone else in the world. I think he’d appreciate it if I was there. We’re friends outside of work too.” Rambull let out a long breath, put his hands on his knees and forced himself to his hooves. “Okay. I think I can do this.”

  “Good.” Horc turned and looked at the other gathered players who’d recovered from their upgrades. “Alright folks, let’s head to Red Wind Terrace so we can form our guild and get some buffs. Hopefully by then, Rick or one of the other developers will have figured out exactly where we need to go so we don’t just wander off to the north and get lost.”

  Tufkakes laughed. “Never forget, ‘Not all who wander are lost.’”

  Baladara chuckled. “What TK said.”

  Not sure how he felt about the new level of buddyship between the two who’d started off on rough standing, Horc grinned. “Alright then, let’s head out.”

  Without anyone disagreeing with him, he walked to the head of the group. Bigdaddybear, Titanya, Baladara, and Tufkakes fanned out at his sides. It wasn’t the same as having Wolf there, but they were on their way.

  The Halberd was awkward as Horc swung it at the Scalteon Scorpion. A swarm of six of the heavily armored arachnids that were the size of Volkswagen Bugs had hit the party, appearing out of the white sand dune that was the same color as their shells. It had been fast and furious. Horc was too close to fire his bow, so he relied on his new weapon, basically a spear with an axe blade just below the spear head. It was top heavy and took a lot of strength to swing it effectively.

  The scorpion slid under his swing, and the momentum of the weapon kept going in a wide arc.

  Baladara dropped to the hard-packed sand of the road as she got off a Fireball that finished off their assailant. “Hey, watch it.”

  “Sorry,” Horc muttered as he turned for the next target.

  Rambull was trying to take on one of the scorpions by himself. The thing had him down on the ground, and the Shaman’s health was dropping quickly.

  Holding the halberd like a lance, Horc charged the scorpion. He managed to hit it behind the head and roll it off Rambull. The hit was a good hard hit and knocked a decent chunk of the thing’s health bar down, but it wasn’t a critical hit. In the arena, he’d gotten to the point where he was doing critical hits on a regular basis, but the short fight with the scorpions didn’t have any.

  Bigdaddybear’s blast of brown Druid magic hit the scorpion, followed by Baladara’s next Fireball. The thing shuddered and died as its health bar flashed red and vanished. Seconds later the thing pixelated into the sand.

  Horc stared at where the arachnid had been and rubbed his face. It had been the hardest fight he’d had since before they reached the arena, but there was something missing.

  “Damn it,” Tufkakes voice broke the strange silence that had settled over them. “These are like the others we encountered. No loot. What’s going on?”

  Bigdaddybear shook his head. “Only thing Rick and I can figure out is the AI’s making it harder on us. Like these scorpions. They’re at our level and there’s enough of them to give us fits. That’s not how this section of road was before. Last time we traveled this way, the scorpions and sandworms weren’t as aggressive and were lower level. Halfworld shouldn’t have auto adjusting mobs that make fighting harder the higher level you are. At this point it’s supposed to have set levels in the different zones.”

  “In other words, we’re screwed.” Jamica wiped her daggers off as she slipped them back into the bandolier across her chest.

  “As long as the numbers stay close to our own, we should be okay,” Bigdaddybear said. “One plus to all of us being at level forty eight is the mobs can’t be much higher than we are.”

  “That’s right, level cap for the game is fifty,” Theodore added. He wiped a hand across his head and plopped down on the road. “But that doesn’t help much when we’re not getting critical hits for anything.”

  “Okay, so it’s not just me,” Horc said, sliding his halberd out behind him so he could clean the bug guts off the spearhead and axe blade.

  Baladara pulled out a flask and took a long drink. “Nope. We noticed it on the way to Tragiczan. Everything’s more aggressive, not dropping loot, and harder to kill. We’re not sure if the harder to kill bit is us or them.”

  “Maybe a combo of both,” Rambull said, taking a drink of his own. “I’m on the development team that worked on the combat algorithms. If I had to guess, the mobs being upgraded, the AI’s done something to their armor making it harder to get crits on them, and at the same time, it’s doing something to take the critical edge off player’s attacks.”

  With the last bit of grime off his weapon, Horc pointed the blade up and leaned it against his shoulder. It made a much better walking staff than it did a battle implement, or at least he thought so. “This isn’t a good thing. It’s going to make our fights all the harder. We need easier, not harder.” He didn’t like his games too easy, but if things got too hard, he’d have trouble helping his people stay alive.

  “You’re right there,” Baladara agreed. “Now we need to get the info on where we need to go and how we need to get there. The sooner we can get out of this mess of a game, the better I’m going to like it.”

  “I thought you were the one who liked fantasy games.” Horc flashed her a grin.

  “When they aren’t actively trying to kill me.” Baladara shook the sand out of her robes. “So let’s keep on the road and get as far as we can as fast as we can.”

  Horc glanced around at the party members cleaning their weapons and eating and drinking. They hadn’t lost anyone, but most were at least down a bit in either health or mana, which explained the eating and drinking. “Everyone good?” He shouted. He wasn’t exactly sure how to be party leader but figured one of the things he should do was make sure everyone was fine before they moved on down the road toward Red Wind Terrace.

  He got a round of “Yeah.” And thumbs up. Nobody seemed majorly the worse for wear.

  “Good, let’s keep going.” Using his halberd as a hiking stick, Horc struck off down the road, trying to keep his eyes peeled for more mobs that were the same color as the sand, hoping nothing got the jump on them as they hiked along the desert road.

  5

  The approach to Red Wind Terrace appeared the same as it had the previous time Horc had entered the Orc city, but like Tragiczan, it was oddly quiet. There were no other players running and jumping around. The vendors were all silent unless approached. The terraced canyon city was still breathtaking in its rugged beauty but didn’t have the same impact without sounds beyond what the party was making with their footfalls and idle chatter.

  “Anyone have an idea where to find the guild master?” Horc asked as they cleared the bottleneck at the mouth of the canyon.

  “Yeah,” Tufkakes said rushing up to the front of their party. “When I was here before, one of the silly quests I had to do was finding a list of people to give them notes. One of the people I had to find was a guild master.”

  Horc grinned, it was nice for something to go smoothly. “Good. Then you get to lead us there.” Horc waved her to the front of the party.

  “No problem.” Tufkakes bounced a bit as he started down the lane.

  The predominant colors of the city were reds and oranges, and the majority of the building materials seemed to be either rock or mud, reminding Horc of Santa Fe and Taos where he enjoyed vacationing when he could afford it. Like with Tragiczan, the odd silence just felt wrong. With all the NPCs minding their shops, and moving mutely around the streets with various wares, it was more than a little surreal.

  “Hi Ho, Hi Ho,” Shortsmyte, a Dwarven Ranger, began to sing.

  “What are you doing?” Baladara whirled on him.

  Shortsmyte fell quiet, the
n shrugged. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but this quiet is getting to me. If the AI is trying for psychological warfare, it’s doing a good job. Tragiczan was bad enough, but there are too many NPCs here. It shouldn’t be this quiet. Even when I was playing regular video games on my computer, I never played with the sound off. I was trying to break up the quiet.”

  Horc nodded. “Actually that makes a lot of sense.” He didn’t want to let anyone else know how the strangely quiet city was getting to him to. Maybe singing while they walked might make things a little easier.

  “We’re here,” Tufkakes announced, stopping in front of a squat shop that had a sign above it indicating it was Guild HQ.

  Horc frowned. “Sounds rather modern for a fantasy game.”

  Rambull shrugged. “Hey, not everyone’s great with names.”

  “Don’t we know it,” Theodore spoke up. “At least we don’t have to guess at what it is.”

  “Right.” Horc glanced from Tufkakes to Baladara. “Alright, you two, you spent a good part of the hike here chatting, did you come up with a name for us?”

  Baladara grinned at Tufkakes. “Okay. I want you to know this wasn’t easy. We included Lisa in on some of it, ‘cause you know she’s awesome with design stuff and all.”

  “There were a lot of options to be had,” Tufkakes agreed. “Some of them, like Horc’s Destroyers, we discarded quickly. You’re not that big of a barbarian, even if Titanya used to be one.”

  “And there’s nothing wrong with being a Barbarian,” Titanya spoke up. “Some of my best friends are Barbars.”

  “And some of ours too,” Baladara replied. “But anyway-”

  Horc sighed. “We don’t have all day, just get on with it.”

  Baladara put her hands on her hips and stared at Horc. “And that attitude is why you’ll never make it out of middle management.”

  “The First Responders,” Tufkakes said.

  “What?” Horc stared at her. “We aren’t firemen, or policemen. We’re just gamers.” The name didn’t strike him as fitting. He had a lot of respect for the civil servants he encountered and the name felt somewhat wrong.