The Player Blackout

by Lucas Flint

  I shook my head and pointed subtly at FunkyFresh94. “That guy. Who is he?”

  Cy looked around for a moment before seeing FunkyFresh94 and shrugged. “No idea. I like his sense of fashion, though. Looks cool.”

  I wasn’t the only person staring at FunkyFresh94’s outfit. It seemed like nearly every person in the cafe was looking at him, either subtly or just outright staring. FunkyFresh94, to his credit, didn’t seem to care. He just sat down at an unoccupied table, pulled up a menu, and began reading. His tiny dragon glared at anyone who got too close, baring its tiny, needle-like teeth at the rest of the restaurant-goers.

  “Must be a noob,” I overheard a player in the booth opposite us say. “Probably just grabbed whatever gear he could. Doubt any of that has any useful Powers, though.”

  “Hey, Steven, be nice,” a female player sitting across from him whispered. “Everyone has to start out somewhere. And his little dragon is pretty cute.”

  I wasn’t sure if FunkyFresh94 was even aware of the constant chatter about him. He was whistling a tune I didn’t recognize under his breath, paging through the menu like it was an engrossing novel he just couldn’t put down. I had to admit I found it hard not to stare at him myself. I figured he probably was a noob as well, but something about him just seemed … off. And it had nothing to do with his choice of clothing, either.

  My thoughts were interrupted when I heard a soft ping in my ear and I saw that I just received a message. Opening my inbox, I opened the message from Dillo, which read thus:

  Hi, Winter! I was wondering if you and your Sidekick would like to join me on this cool Team Mission I was just offered. I would do it myself, but since it’s a Team Mission, I need at least one other person with me to complete it. The rewards are incredibly good. Because this is a Secret Mission, I can’t tell you what the rewards are even in private messages, but if you come to the Shopping Plaza where I am, I can tell you about it in person.

  I bit my lower lip and looked at Cy. “Cy, what’s a Team Mission?”

  “Like a normal mission, but only available to Teams,” said Cy with a gulp. He took a swig from his coffee and burped. “Usually, they have better rewards than normal solo missions, although experience and credits are usually divided evenly among Teammates, so you might not level up as quickly this way.”

  “Why do I need Teammates to do these kinds of missions?” I said. “Don’t you count as my Teammate?”

  Cy shook his head. “Nope. Sidekicks don’t count as individual Heroes or Villains. A Team is formed whenever two or more Heroes or Villains decide to work together, although us Sidekicks are also made part of the Team by default. You can name your Team whatever you want. You even get a cool chatroom just for your Teammates to communicate with each other privately, which is useful for organizing missions and such. It’s pretty neat.”

  Ah. Teams sounded like Capes Online’s equivalent of parties from other games, then. “I see.”

  “Why are you asking me about this anyway?” said Cy as he stuffed more waffles into his mouth. “Thinking of forming a Team with someone?”

  “Dillo just sent me a message asking me if I wanted to form a Team with him to complete a Team Mission he was offered,” I said, reading the message again. “He also said that it’s a Secret Mission, but I have no idea what that—”

  Cy suddenly spat his half-eaten waffles all over the table and looked at me urgently. “Did you say Secret Mission?”

  I nodded, trying not to look at the chunks of waffle covering what was left of my food now. “Yeah, I did. Did you have to spew your food like that?”

  “Yes,” said Cy without missing a beat. He suddenly leaned forward across the table, staring at me with more intensity in his eyes than I had ever seen. “You have to accept his offer! Do it now.”

  Leaning back, I said, “Why? What’s so important about Secret Missions?”

  “Everything is important about them!” said Cy, not even bothering to lower his voice. “Secret Missions are the rarest kinds of missions available! You can only find them if you have a REALLY high Luck Stat or you just stumble upon them randomly! How did Dillo find his?”

  “I don’t know?” I said, trying to lean back even more than I already was to escape Cy’s manic look. “He didn’t say.”

  Cy sat back in his seat, thankfully leaving my personal space. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. Secret Missions always have the best rewards. They’re also usually really difficult, but if you can complete them, the rewards you’ll get are beyond what you’d normally get in other kinds of missions. You should definitely accept his offer. After all, there are some Heroes who have been around for a very long time who haven’t gotten even one Secret Mission.”

  Although Cy’s mania still creeped me out, I realized he had a point here. If Secret Missions were as hard to find as he said they were, then I had to accept it. Especially if the rewards were as good as he claimed they were. I knew Cy was prone to exaggeration and melodrama, but I could tell he was being serious here and that it would be a huge mistake if I declined Dillo’s offer.

  So I sent Dillo a message back accepting his offer and informing him that Cy and I would be there shortly to join him. Dillo responded back with directions to the Shopping Plaza, which I found very helpful, because I hadn’t been to the Shopping Plaza before and didn’t know where it was.

  “Okay,” I said, looking at Cy. “Dillo says he’s ready when we’re ready. Let’s pay our bill and get out of here. We have no time to—”

  A shadow suddenly fell over us and both Cy and I looked up to see who it was.

  FunkyFresh94 stood at our booth, looking down at us with a weird smile on his face. His tiny dragon was glaring at us, which made me wonder if the dragon was even capable of anything other than a perpetual scowl at people it didn’t like. I hadn’t even heard FunkyFresh94 get up from his table, much less notice him approach our booth. I wondered if he was just really stealthy and if there was a Stealth Power in this game.

  “Hi,” said FunkyFresh94, waving at us somewhat awkwardly. “Are you Winter and Cyclone?”

  “Yes?” I said. Although FunkyFresh94 seemed nice enough, I kept my guard up just to be safe.

  “I’m FunkyFresh94,” said FunkyFresh94. He held out a hand toward me. “But you can just call me Funky if you want. Less of a mouthful.”

  I shook Funky’s hand, which was surprisingly strong, and said, “Nice to meet you, Funky. Are you new to the game?”

  “Yep,” said Funky, nodding. “I just started playing yesterday, but I couldn’t help but overhear your Sidekick here mention a Secret Mission.”

  I glanced at Cy, remembering how he practically screamed at me to accept Dillo’s Secret Mission, and said, “Yes, he did. So what?”

  Funky smiled. “I was wondering if I could tag along. It sounded like a Team Mission. I promise I won’t be a burden. Although I’m new to the game, Lennox and I can take care of ourselves quite well.”

  “Lennox?”

  “That’s the name of my dragon here,” said Funky, gesturing at the tiny dragon on his shoulder. “Lennox T. Dragon. He’s my trusty dragon.”

  Lennox puffed smoke out of its nostrils when he said that. It seemed like Lennox was trying to make himself look big and tough, but instead, he just made himself look cute. The woman who had chided her boyfriend for calling Funky a noob in the booth next to us giggled when Lennox did that.

  “Well, Funky, I’m not sure,” I said, leaning back in my seat. “We have no idea what this Secret Mission entails. I definitely wouldn’t want to throw you into something you might not be prepared for. Wouldn’t want to get you killed so soon after you started playing, after all.”

  “No problem,” said Funky with a confident smile. “Like I said, I may be a noob, but I can take care of myself. Trust me. It will be like I’m not even there half the time. The other half, I’ll be protecting you guys.”

  Funky spoke with such incredible confidence that I felt like I couldn’t disbelie
ve him. I wondered in the back of my mind if his Charisma was unusually high or something, but I didn’t really care. I found Funky an interesting guy and he seemed serious about being helpful on the Team rather than a burden. Plus, I suspected Team Missions were easier the more people you had.

  So I said, “All right. We’re heading out now, but if you need to grab some breakfast first—”

  “Nah, I’ll be fine,” said Funky. “I ate before I got here. I’m ready to get the day rolling.”

  I nodded and stood up. “All right, then. Let’s head out. My friend is waiting for us and I don’t want to leave him waiting.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Shopping Plaza wasn’t very hard to find. It was about ten minutes north of Main Street. If I thought Main Street had a lot of shops, the Shopping Plaza proved me dead wrong.

  Everywhere I looked, I saw all kinds of shops selling all kinds of things. Some were huge grocery stores selling produce, meat, and poultry, among other things, while others were equipment shops that advertised selling ‘Synth Group’ products at fantastically low prices that even Level 1 Heroes could afford. Player and NPC shoppers alike ran from store to store, often overburdened with huge bags full of stuff they bought. Even police officers, who I hoped were just off-duty, were buying things.

  But people weren’t just buying things. People were also selling things. Mostly, it was players selling to NPC shop owners the surplus from missions they completed or items they found while playing the game that they did not need. I even saw some players selling or trading with each other, which was a feature I didn’t know existed in-game. I made a mental note to ask Cy how to do that later, because I had a feeling that selling and trading could potentially be a very useful skill to have.

  The sights of colorful advertisements, music blaring from shops or loud voices haggling over prices, and the constant low-level thumps of shoes and boots hitting the pavement was almost overwhelming, and that was saying something, because Capes Online was already a pretty colorful and exciting game so far. Back in the real world, I’d never been much of a shopper, but I could just imagine Sally would be all over this part of the game if she was here. I smiled when I thought about her, but then my smile vanished when I remembered I would never get to talk to her again.

  “Hey, boss man,” said Cy as we walked past a couple of NPCs lugging a huge couch between them toward a truck parked at the curb. “How much longer until we reach Dillo?”

  Startled, I nonetheless brought up my map and looked at it. “Not much longer. Another block or two and we should see him soon.”

  “Finally,” said Funky. He was walking next to me with a calm, cool gait and seemed completely unaffected by the Shopping Plaza’s myriad sights and sounds. “All this walking is tiring me out. Gonna take a long nap after this.”

  “Don’t have very high Stamina?” I inquired as we walked.

  Funky shook his head. “Nah, man. I put all my SPs into Charisma and Intelligence. Minmaxing for the win.”

  I knew it. “I see. Any reason why?”

  “’Cause I’m a Beastmaster, a Class that relies on Charisma and Intelligence to control beasts,” said Funky. He gestured at Lennox on his shoulder. “That’s why I can control Lennox here, but as I level up, I’ll be able to control more and bigger monsters and beasts of all kinds.”

  “Sounds like a cool class,” I said. “I’m a Fighter. Not that I really know what that means, though.”

  “It means you’re good at physical fighting,” said Cy. He was eating a large, puffy piece of blue cotton candy. “Each class comes with its own unique strengths and weaknesses and even Powers.”

  “Can I change my class at some point?” I said, glancing at Cy.

  Cy took another bit out of his cotton candy and shook his head. “Not whenever you want. Your Class is automatically assigned to you as soon as you start the game. I’ve heard of missions that reward you with a Class change, but I’m not sure how you do that.”

  I frowned. “Why are our classes restricted like that? Doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “I dunno,” said Cy with a shrug. “Why does evil exist? If God is all-knowing and perfectly good, then how could he have created an imperfect world? And why do we exist in this world, anyway? It’s just one of those big questions about life you don’t have the answer to.”

  “Like where you got that cotton candy?” I asked.

  “A vendor sold it to me while we were walking,” said Cy. He held it out to me. “Want some?”

  I was about to say I hate cotton candy when Funky said, “The reason class changes are so restricted is because of balance issues. Although the designers tried to make Capes Online as fun as possible, it was thought that being able to change your class on a whim would break immersion and potentially lead to some serious balance issues that could affect gameplay. But yeah, there are missions that reward you with a class change, but they’re even rarer than Secret Missions, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much if I were you.”

  I looked at Funky in astonishment. “How come you know so much about the game?”

  Funky shrugged. “I’m a gamer and a Capes Online fan. I’ve read a ton of interviews with CO’s developers and designers, so I probably know more about the game than even they do.”

  Funky tried to act all casual about it, but I could tell he wasn’t being entirely truthful about where he got his knowledge from. I found Funky more intriguing the more I got to know him. He clearly wasn’t just some casual gamer. I wondered if he was actually a professional streamer or e-sports celebrity. Those guys were usually pretty knowledgeable about the games they played, much more so than your average noob. Then again, Funky hadn’t mentioned anything about streaming or e-sports competitions yet, so maybe he wasn’t. He was a hard man to read, that was for sure.

  “You Heroes and your talk about ‘games’ and ‘developers,’” said Cy, shaking his head. “Half the time I can’t even follow your conversations, but that’s okay because as long as I have my cotton candy, I—”

  Cy accidentally tripped over a discarded soda can. He nearly fell over, but I caught him at the last second. Unfortunately, his cotton candy went flying out of his hands and fell with a splat on the sidewalk in front of us.

  “No!” Cy practically screamed, drawing the confused attention of several passersby. “My cotton candy! Cruel fate strikes yet again!”

  I rolled my eyes and dragged Cy behind me. “Come on, Cy. I doubted you paid more than five credits for that. You can always get another.”

  “Actually, I paid fifteen credits.”

  I stopped and looked over my shoulder at Cy in disbelief. “You’re not good at spending money, you know that?”

  “But it looked so good,” said Cy with a sigh.

  I was starting to wonder how Cy even breathed without being told how when I heard someone shout, “Hey, Winter! Over here!”

  I looked over and saw that Dillo standing at the steps of what appeared to be a massive mall. It towered over all of the other buildings in the area, a huge concrete monument to relentless consumerism and capitalism. It was so massive that it seemed to encompass at least three blocks, maybe more. Huge front steps lead up to even bigger open doors, allowing a constant stream of players and NPCs alike as they entered and exited the mall, usually with arms full of shopping bags. One guy even came out lugging a huge flat screen TV on his back, a satisfied look on his face that told me he had just gotten a great deal for that item.

  “Oh. My. God,” said Cy, staring at the huge mall with wide eyes. “It’s the Adventure Mall.”

  “The what?” I said, glancing at Cy.

  “The Adventure Mall,” Cy repeated. He looked at me with big eyes. “Haven’t you heard of it?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve only been here a few days, remember?”

  “I’ll explain,” said Funky. “The Adventure Mall is Adventure City’s biggest mall. It takes up four blocks and is roughly the size of a small town. It has th
ousands of shops selling nearly every kind of item imaginable, from basic starting equipment all the way up to crafters who will make unique items just for you. You can also buy furniture, appliances, and more for your Base or Hideout.”

  “It’s heaven on earth,” said Cy. “A temple to—”

  “I get it,” I cut off Cy. “Let’s go see what Dillo wants. He’s been waiting long enough.”

  I led Cy and Funky over to Dillo, who was sitting on a park bencHop Scotchh with a girl I hadn’t seen before. She looked to be about the same age as Cy, with a short pixie cut and a basic blue bodysuit and boots. She was busy scrolling through her phone when we approached and didn’t look up even when Dillo got up to greet us, although I saw the nametag [SIDEKICK HOP SCOTCH] floating above her head.

  “Winter!” said Dillo with a smile as he approached us. He stopped, however, when he saw Funky and seemed to practically retreat into his shell. “Uh, who is this?”

  “Name’s Funky,” said Funky, holding out a hand toward Dillo. “FunkyFresh94, but you can call me Funky for short.”

  “He’s a friend of mine,” I explained to a shy-looking Dillo. “He’s also a Beastmaster, so I figure he might be helpful in a mob battle.”

  “A Beastmaster, you say?” said Dillo, looking at Funky again. He shook his hand. “I’m Dillo. Your class might be helpful for this mission.”

  Despite Dillo’s politeness, I could tell he wasn’t entirely happy about Funky coming along. I realized I should have told Dillo ahead of time I was bringing someone else. Hopefully Dillo wouldn’t stay too angry about that.

  “And who’s the girl?” asked Cy, glancing at Hop Scotch sitting on the bench.

  “Oh, this is my Sidekick, Hop Scotch,” said Dillo. He glanced at her. “Hop, say hi to everyone.”

  “Hi,” said Hop without looking up at us.

  “Hop,” said Dillo, putting his hands on his waist. “What did I tell you about being polite to strangers?”

  Hop looked up at us, this time with an irritated expression on her face, and said, “Hello, then,” before returning her attention to her phone.