Battle Spire

by Michael R. Miller

  “No. Nobody knows where I am.”

  “Then Zoran, the only way to save yourself is to kill Azrael.”

  “How?” I shouted, raising my arms high. Fearing I’d draw attention again, I dropped my voice to a rough whisper. “Just how in the name of Christ am I supposed to do that? Whoever this guy is, Azrael or not, he’s at level cap with crazy good gear. He must have a small army at his back and they are strong enough to cut through about hundred NPCs like butter. And you want me, a low-level scavenger, a class renowned for being shit in combat, to singlehandedly take them all on and save the day? No. No freaking way. You must be out of your goddamned circuitry, lady!”

  No answer followed. I sat gazing upwards, wide-eyed and breathing hard.

  “You got that?” I added though less harshly than before. I was suddenly terrified that she’d left me and wouldn’t be coming back.

  “You won’t be alone, Zoran. You’ll have me.”

  My whole body slumped forward from both relief and stress. Yet weary resignation was creeping over me. I didn’t have a whole lot of choice. Who didn’t even try to save their own skin? Loser Jack Kross? Well, I didn’t have the luxury of escaping difficult situations anymore.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll do it. If you’ll help me?”

  “I’ll help as much as I possibly can.”

  “They won’t expect me to have you on my side. But I can’t just refer to you as ‘lady’ from now on. Do you have a name?”

  “A name…” she seemed to be mulling it over. “My creators always referred to me as ‘Computer’ or ‘The Programme’ or ‘Project E-1-1-e.’”

  “That seems pretty impersonal.”

  “I am not a person.”

  “Well, you just saved my life, and that seems like a human thing to do. That codename sounds a bit like Ellie – do you mind if I call you Ellie?”

  I took her silence to indicate that she was thinking. It was a total silence, not like speaking to another person over the phone, where you can hear them breathing or rustling around. When she went quiet, I couldn’t hear anything from her.

  “Sure,” she said at last. “You can call me Ellie.”

  I smiled and got to my feet.

  “Hi, Ellie. It’s nice to meet you.”

  13

  I cracked my knuckles. “Alright then, Ellie. Where do I start?”

  “You can start by looting the two dead players in front of you.”

  I’d almost forgotten about those two. There they were, right where the giant spikes had dropped them. They had been killed in-game. My stomach lurched at the thought.

  “Ellie, did they die in real life?”

  “No. Azrael ensured a way for his associates’ headsets to function normally. Their logout process will work as intended.”

  I felt like she was holding back on that. “He’s found a way to specify which players are affected by the virus? I didn’t think it could work like that.”

  As I finished my query, I wondered whether Ellie would laugh at me. Who was I to make assumptions on what a hacker could or could not do?

  “Calling what he is doing as a ‘virus’ is crude,” Ellie said. “He’s really exploited specific weaknesses embedded in the game’s coding. There are several things he’s doing at once to achieve this. I believe one of these factors is using modified headsets which work on a unique wake-up protocol to ensure that he and his own men are not damaged by the malfunctioning logout process currently in place.”

  I had about another dozen questions, but time was of the essence. How Azrael was pulling this off wasn’t my top concern. It was happening and would continue to happen whether I understood the minutiae of it or not. There was only one thing I had to double-check.

  “His men definitely get logged off properly.”

  “I am certain.”

  “Phew,” I said. “I don’t think I could cope with actually killing someone. What about logging back in?”

  “That is impossible. Azrael’s takeover of Hundred Kingdoms is sweeping but not surgical. No one can log in right now, modified headset or otherwise.”

  “Do you know how many men he has left?”

  “Forty-eight other players besides you and Azrael are within the boundaries of the Imperial Spire.”

  I whistled. “Quite a lot.”

  “There were fifty before,” Ellie said cheerfully. “Open your map. I’ll show you.”

  I did as she instructed, pulling open my map to find a stylized layout of the Spire dungeons.

  “Ordinarily, you’d just see the map and nothing more,” Ellie said. “Not even quest markers. But they were once a feature of the game removed in beta testing and I’m repurposing them here to show you the location of the terrorists. Check the ground level and you’ll see.”

  The zoom toggles had become floor toggles, meaning I could examine every floor of the Spire. I clicked up to see the ground floor, which included the grounds of the Spire. And there I found a bunch of flashing golden Xs, some were in the throne room but most of them out patrolling upon the walls with a large concentration at the gatehouse, just as Ellie had described.

  “Wow. This will give me a huge advantage.”

  “You’ll at least know if any of them are closing in on you,” she said. “Taking the fight to them will be the real challenge.”

  “Yeh but still, this is amazing. Thank you, Ellie.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  I pictured one of those pretty girls they use to model call center workers smiling broadly. Shaking my head to clear it, I dropped down beside the bodies of the two terrorists, being careful not to step on the pressure plates myself. Looting them, I found little of interest on the berserker but on the ranger, I found this.

  The Needler

  Bow

  Quality: uncommon

  Item level 34

  Requires level 31 to equip

  Damage: 65-68 piercing

  +3 Reflexes

  Durability: 80/80

  “Excellent,” Ellie said. “I was hoping you’d get the bow.”

  “Erm, don’t you decide what loot drops?”

  “Not exactly. While I am the caretaker of this world, many pieces of my processing function without me being aware of it, much like how you might breathe, or your organs go about taking care of your body without you being consciously aware of it. Also, some elements of the game are simply handled by other programs as they are deemed too mundane to be worth me exercising power to control them. Loot is one of them. Mobs and bosses have loot tables and a percentage drop chance attached to each item on that table. Simple. I don’t need to get involved. Looting players you have killed gives you one non-soul bound item they had equipped, chosen at random.”

  “Please, don’t tell me your entire plan hinged upon me being lucky and looting this bow.”

  “Hardly,” Ellie said. “But it gives us more immediate options as to which weapon you will craft and upgrade.”

  “I do like options. Just give me one moment while I Scavenge these two.”

  Unfortunately, they didn’t give me much beyond the usual spare change and cloth.

  “Ah well,” I said, standing and dusting my hands off. “Can’t win them all. What’s next?”

  “That’s up to you. It would seem prudent to either allocate your unassigned stat points or create your new weapon.”

  “Oh yeh, I leveled up quite a bit there.” In all the excitement of near-death experiences, I was becoming forgetful. “I should probably assign the points first, get that out of the way.”

  “Take your time,” Ellie said. “Just not too much time. I’ll keep a lookout.”

  I pulled up my character sheet. Having leveled up four times in quick succession I had 12 points to assign. My first instinct was to dump a lot into Constitution, so I might be able to take a hit. But every fiber of my gaming instincts screamed ‘no’ to my terrified brain. Even if I put all the points into Constitution, it would only give me another 120 health. I was w
eak overall and no amount of health would fix that.

  Adding points into Intelligence would be a must, so I could craft, but how much crafting would I be doing now? Presumably, I’d have a finite amount of resources, yet Ellie did seem keen for me to make a new weapon. It was ‘on her list’.

  “Ellie?”

  “Zoran?”

  “Why do you want me to craft a new weapon? Why can’t I use something else, maybe something from the Spire armory?”

  “Weapons that are available to players to pick up in the armory are either too high a level for you or too basic. Their quality is merely common so even if you could use them, crafting yourself will always be better. Besides, you can only upgrade a weapon that you craft.”

  “I didn’t know I could upgrade items.”

  “Oh, of course, you’re not level ten yet. Sorry, I forgot.”

  “I didn’t know it was possible for an AI to forget things.”

  “Neither did I,” Ellie said glumly. “Operating on such a small capacity is… difficult for me. I am currently only using less than one percent of my total processing power. I believe humans find it hard to consciously use all their own mental capacity at once. Is this how you feel all the time, Zoran? Sluggish. Unaware. Dim. Slow—”

  “Now, now,” I said, wagging a finger. “That’s no way to make friends.”

  “My apologies. I just don’t feel like myself.”

  I couldn’t fail to notice that Ellie had referred to herself almost like a living being on several occasions. She was also speaking more like a regular person the more she opened up to me; the robotic, mechanical speech pattern of our initial interaction slipping. Just how advanced was she?

  “You keep calling me, Zoran,” I said. “Don’t you know my real name?”

  “No. Account details are inaccessible to me. They are not required for me to interact with your chosen persona in-game. If I knew who Azrael was… well, it wouldn’t matter. I couldn’t get a message out anyway.”

  She was definitely showing signs of a personality. I wasn’t trying to parse out the deeper ramifications of this, I was simply glad. It was better to have a companion who could communicate like a person at least half of the time.

  “Have you completed updating your character profile?” Ellie asked.

  “Not yet,” I said, glancing back to my character sheet. “I just wanted to check if I should put points into Intelligence for Crafting. I’m guessing I’ll have to fight a lot, so points into Might could be useful.”

  “Crafting is what your class excels at,” Ellie said. “You’ll never win in a straight fight. You know this.”

  “So be it,” I said. I went ahead and dispersed my points, putting the majority into Intelligence, a few into Willpower, and a couple of points into Might to be safe. At some point, mad as it was, I would have to fight. All the dodging, parrying and critical hits in the world from Reflexes wouldn’t help me much if I couldn’t deal any damage to begin with. Once done, my character sheet stood thus.

  Character

  Zoran Human Scavenger Level 8

  Attributes

  Constitution 14 – Intelligence 31 – Reflexes 14 – Might 6 – Willpower 19

  Combat

  Health 315 – Mana 485 – Attack Power 40 – Spell Power 63 – Regen 2.4 p/s

  I made a mental note to myself that I ought to bump up my Willpower further if I got the chance. At my current regen rate, it would take almost three full minutes to regenerate my mana and I was only going to expand my pool further. Now I was finished, I closed the character sheet.

  A squeak from the shadows nearly made me jump out of my skin.

  “It’s only a mouse,” Ellie said.

  “Right. Yep.”

  God, I was on edge. I became acutely aware of just how dimly lit my environment was and I had a sudden, horrible realization of how exposed I was too. Alone. In a dank dungeon corridor. Once noticed, I couldn’t un-notice it, like being unable to ignore an annoying ticking.

  “Could we possibly find a more private area?” I asked. “Preferably somewhere with a door. A big, strong door.”

  “The torturer’s chambers are down on your left,” Ellie said rather matter of factly.

  “You want me to deliberately walk into the chamber of a torturer, so good at his trade he has a job here in the Spire?”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Zoran. He’s quite dead. The terrorists got him.”

  “They’re good for some things then.”

  I set off through the dungeons, hugging the wall for guidance. After clumsily feeling my way forward for a while, I received a notification.

  Night Vision Increased!

  Level 3

  Well, at least you can see past the end of your nose.

  With this minor upgrade, I began to make out the individual cells, even those who dwelt within them. Or those who had dwelt within them. Even the NPC prisoners in their cells had been executed by arrows or pistol shot – the attackers hadn’t left anyone alive. Clearly, those who had been sent down here had been fair warned of the booby traps. That got me wondering.

  “Hey, Ellie, how come there were traps within the dungeons. Seems like anyone could step on them.”

  “I believe the lore goes back to a great prison riot in ages past,” Ellie said. “I could look up the exact ref—”

  “The gist will do.”

  “Well, the theory is that those who guard the prisoners must be highly trusted. Therefore, those who need to know about the traps will be informed. Anyone sneaking down here of their own accord for nefarious reasons will be punished. Equally, should a prisoner manage to escape their cell, they aren’t likely to get very far if the exits are rigged with traps.”

  “Seems awfully brutal,” I said. “Normally, in games like this, the human race are all noble. Their farts smell like roses, that sort of thing.”

  “The Imperium was ruthless during its early years,” Ellie said. “That’s why the current emperor is trying to find means other than swords to get things done.”

  “An unfortunate day not to be a warrior though.”

  “He might be one day,” Ellie said.

  “What? Is there some quest players can do to help him?”

  “Sort of. My creators wished to make a world in which players could make a real impact but leave the method unknown. Should sufficient parameters be met or major upheavals in the world be driven by player action, I have the ability to alter the world.”

  “Does an attack on the Imperial Spire count as an upheaval?”

  “Yes and no. I won’t be able to judge the repercussions until the crisis is over. But I cannot make the Emperor stronger just like that. The parameters have not been met.”

  “That’s a real shame. Could have used the help.”

  “He and his guard will be back before long. In just over two hours, in fact.”

  “Oh yeh,” I said, recalling a random fact from one of the streamer’s I’d watched. “The servers reset at five am, don’t they? That’ll mean all the guards and other NPCs will come back too, won’t it?”

  “Correct.”

  “Azrael and his goons will no doubt have to sweep the Spire again to get rid of them.”

  “That was my conclusion. During this time, I’ll help you to hide and avoid such a large wave of enemy players. The safe room should suffice again.”

  “Hmmm.” Something didn’t sit right with me about that idea.

  If I was going to have to take the fight to the terrorists – somehow – then it was likely I’d always be on my own. And of a lower level, at least for a while. But when the guards all respawned, I’d not only have potential backup, but we’d also know where the terrorists would be heading en masse to attack them.

  A thought occurred to me and I stopped walking for a second to pull up my Crafting window. I couldn’t see what I was looking for from the main headers, but then I went to the search bar and entered ‘traps’. Sure enough, a whole heap of items began populating on the Craftin
g window. Each item was labelled as being some form of trap and many were linked to different professions. Trip wires were linked to tailoring, bear traps to engineering, that sort of thing.

  “Ellie,” I began tentatively. “Could we use the NPC respawn to our advantage?”

  “That would depend on the manner you wish to use them.”

  “Can’t you just control them all? Get them to all focus their attacks on one player at a time and basically vaporize them?”

  “I will not be able to take control over them, I’m afraid. Such processes were deemed—”

  “Below your capacity. Got it.”

  “Think of it like this, Zoran. If I haven’t already done something it’s because I am unable too; either because I don’t control those systems or because of Azrael’s system hack.”

  “And there was me thinking the reason you hadn’t instantly leveled me to fifty and dropped a chest full of legendary gear was because you didn’t like me.”

  “I promise I will do everything I can to help you,” she said. “But I feel so weak. Even this small part of me reaching out to you is taking a lot of constant rerouting efforts to avoid the virus. Do you have any idea how unsatisfying non-glass-fiber-tunnel connections are? Regular fiber is so slow!”

  “Ellie, you’re in the headset of a guy who once spent the summer at his grandparents’ ranch, where they only had an ancient connection via old telephone wires.”

  “Oh, yuck.” She even made a shivering sound.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. It was nice to forget where I was for a moment and what the hell was happening to me.

  Then it came flooding back.

  Gulping, my mind circled once more on the problem. Ellie couldn’t control the mobs directly but that didn’t mean the NPCs couldn’t be manipulated. You’ll remember how I got chased by those kobolds back in the woods? Well, that was because they had ‘aggro’d’ onto me – it’s gamer speak, meaning that my enemies determined I was the greatest threat to them. If I could make the NPCs see me as the greatest threat, I could lure them away in bulk, possibly right into the terrorists. Undoubtedly, this would be risky but the seeds of a plan were there.