Virtual Horizon

by Kris Schnee

  "He'll be back in a bit," said the trident mage. "Did you take two major wounds too?"

  "Just one. Help us out, griff?"

  Horizon used his [Prop Master] ability to summon a single red rose, which he tossed down after the fallen ally. In most cases the power was little more than a versatile bag-of-tricks gag, but it had uses.

  Then he looked up at the bridge they'd dropped from. The iron golem stood there inert; it'd scored a kill and some wounds without even attacking. "Yeah. Hold still." He summoned his spell system and created a grid of runes around the most-hurt adventurer. "Sorry about that. I shouldn't be deciding the solutions for you."

  The hammer brother found a pair of green-skinned goblins creeping up on them from a little cave in the cliff wall. He slammed one over the edge, and got drawn into a duel with the other's wicked knife. "It's fine," he said while brawling. "We didn't have an answer. So was that a canned physics-based puzzle?"

  Horizon concentrated on the magic, speaking several runes aloud. A cloud of healing mist spread along the injured mage, erasing one of the bright red slashes on him. "Up you go; I see more goblins coming."

  The three of them easily pummeled the rest of the annoying greenskins and looted the bodies for copper coins. Horizon said, "Let me escort your friend back down to you. Then I can try more healing."

  "Thanks! Hurry though; we're starting to get the [Overheated] status effect. Don't want to use up our cooling items too quickly."

  Horizon didn't have perfect, total flight. He could soar for a few minutes at once, or hover several times as long. And in this volcano, thermal currents were easy to come by. He was getting [Overheated] and had stat penalties too, which would only get worse. He hurried up and out, rising easily, to go meet the pirates' dead friend.

  He was, of course, alive again, coming down to the dungeon from where he'd last saved, aboard the airship. Horizon waved a wing and said, "I should be able to glide down with you now that we know the route and the thermals."

  "Oh, good. I lost a couple of items though." He was without a leather helmet and potion belt he'd had, but still carried his bow and quiver. Must've marked them as favorite items.

  "Anything important? We might find some of it scattered below."

  "No, let's get going. Meeting up with the others is more important."

  Horizon grabbed him with his talons and awkwardly carried him down through part of the path they'd explored so far, bypassing a nasty piston trap that had nearly given the pirates a quick trip down the first time. And skipping the golem. Soon the humans and Horizon were together again, ready to explore deeper.

  The archer said, "Great. I've had two times lately where we got separated and it messed up our strategy."

  "You said you were in some personal bubble-world for a while?" asked Horizon.

  "Two of us. We'd asked for a cool fantasy adventure with treasure and pirates and no super-important quest. Then Jerry finally got a Tales account during the Steamy Summer Sale and wanted to join in. But with a bigger place that didn't revolve around us, you know? So we got our game merged into the multiplayer Midgard world. And that meant playing with the standard Midgard rules instead of the easier ones we'd been using." The mage grinned. "Which means it's your fault you got kicked back to the start, Jerry."

  "Ah, stuff it. We wouldn't have met the dwarf queen by the old rules. That was a cool quest."

  "This one's not! Let's get down another level to those swinging blades, then start using that ice-aura spell before we melt."

  They fought and explored. Horizon helped ease their wounds without being able to solve everything for them. In return they conjured waves of mercifully cool air to protect everyone from the increasing heat.

  They navigated past a rockslide. "What's the strangest achievement you've seen?" Horizon asked.

  The archer said, "My wife has, [Booth Babe: As a female character, assassinate an enemy leader during a play.]"

  For the trident guy it was, "[Meme Patient Zero: Start a popular meme involving the Game.]"

  "What was it?" Horizon asked. Several of his friends had that one.

  He struck a battle pose and bellowed, "With this banjo I rule!" The local quest AI noticed him and played a triumphant banjo theme.

  The griffin grinned and wriggled his tail. "Ah yes, I've seen that one on the forum. With various verbs."

  The hammer man led the party through some pistons and disabled a spike trap. "I can only think of that [Feast] one. What about you, Horizon?"

  He winced. "A friend once told me she'd earned one called, [Did Not Make the Otter Sad]. I'd rather not explain that one."

  While they were exploring, a mail notice buzzed in Horizon's interface. He opened it with a thought and a flick of his talons. A window showed an icon of the face of Volt, an AI born as an adorable blue dragon girl. [Mind stopping by? I'm designing something for a friend.]

  Horizon shifted gestures so he could, if he got it right, answer by voice and not be heard aloud. "Can it wait an hour or two? Dungeon-delving."

  [Sure. See you!]

  The griffin turned back to the humans and said, "Sorry; got a message. Where were we?"

  "That!" said the archer, pointing to an elaborate brass door that blocked the way into a cave. Pools of lava lined the treacherous path leading to it. The door was covered in levers and gears.

  Horizon beak-grinned. He'd seen a very similar puzzle in a past adventure. "You're going to have to solve that one yourself," he said, smugly. "I've got your back."

  The adventurers carefully made their way to the door, then worked on its clanking machinery and deadly steam jets. As expected, Horizon saw a couple more goblins trying to snipe the distracted heroes. The griffin pounced from above. He snagged both of the critters and hurled them off a cliff, with a satisfying howl as they plummeted to their doom.

  The door creaked open, spilling light from within. Steps led down into a sunken room. "All right!" said the archer, spotting a treasure chest in the center of a display of rusty armor. He took a step inward only to get grabbed by his friends.

  "Oh, come on; that's an obvious trap," one said.

  Horizon grinned, having seen this particular one elsewhere too, behind a waterfall. Everybody assumed the armor would come to life...

  The mage said, "Yeah, we'll have to fight the armor. Horizon, ready?"

  "Sure, sure!" he said, and hovered.

  The pirates' hammer guy was the closest thing they had to a thief, so he went to work with some lockpick tools. He successfully disarmed a dart-shooter and opened the lid. It revealed a rare potion that crackled like a bottled thundercloud, along with some other stuff. Horizon had enough points in the Inspect skill to know it as an [Aeromancer's Draught], a drink that'd cause various kinds of birdman transformation depending on how you used it. Valuable stuff.

  "I see cool throwing daggers too," said the lock-picker. "And..."

  "Never mind; move!" said the trident mage. The many suits of armor weren't animating; they were melting, red-hot and becoming molten, about to flood the sunken floor.

  "Wait, there's another layer of stuff to grab if I can unlock the inner --"

  His friends yanked him away from suddenly sizzling and spreading pools of blazing metal. The humans dashed and collided on the stairs. Two of them took wounds from the heat and metal. Horizon just flew over their heads and folded his wings when he reached a narrow point, to land expertly on the stairs ahead of them and trot the rest of the way out the door.

  "Oh, you think you're so cool," the hammer guy said, stamping to extinguish his smoking boots. But he and his friends were laughing at the close call.

  In answer, Horizon reached into his saddlebags and activated that [Prop Master] power again. It let him summon a pair of sunglasses that he perched on his beak and around his long, feathery ears.

  [+20 smugness!] said the local world's quest AI, taunting him right back. Horizon snorted. The Talespinner-class AI systems that ran the day-to-day rules of each major ga
me zone were part of Ludo, but had their own opinions and styles.

  He said, "I need to get going, guys. Hope you had fun! Any last healing before we split up?"

  They looked down forlornly at the destroyed chest, but they'd at least gotten some treasure before the wave of metal ate it. The archer said, "Yeah, we might look for more loot before we go, and we're banged up."

  He patched up their wounds, though the spell got harder with each use per day and per target. The mage asked him, "Say, Horizon, is this uploading thing ever going to be something everyone can do?"

  "I think so. It'll take a few years before the price comes down to something reasonable, though. I was lucky, not rich. Give us time, okay?"

  "At least you can do stuff for us within the game."

  "Working on doing more outside it, too. See you!"

  They said goodbye, but Horizon paused. "Did you ever meet someone called the Dread Pirate Lexington?"

  They hadn't. Maybe that was for the best. Linda hadn't visited him for a long time, for reasons he could understand.

  Horizon saluted, and rode the thermals back up and out of the volcano. He hadn't done a good group quest like that in a couple of days. Too busy offering counseling to new uploaders and butting into a couple of player disputes. Sometimes it was most helpful to just get out and play with the humans!

  He stretched his wings, rested for a minute on the railing of the empty airship, and flew off again. There was a world-exit a couple of miles away, across a desert.

  He called up Nocturne while in flight. "How's things?"

  By voice she answered, "Hey, drake! Just helping out at Endless Isles today. A famous reviewer wants the grand tour."

  "I thought we hosted the game-streamer guy last week."

  "This one's actually a book critic. Wants to see Talespace as literature, whatever that means."

  "To each their own. I'm going to go see Volt; she wanted something. See you for dinner?"

  "Sure. Love ya."

  Horizon signed off of the conversation and spun through the air, dancing for the joy of it. He landed clumsily on sand, next to a strange rune-marked boulder. He cast an easy spell that any uploader could use, and a rippling doorway of light appeared on the stone. Here was a passage "backstage" away from the usual game areas. Easy travel method for people like him who couldn't create multiple characters, but needed to visit different worlds.

  To his surprise, he didn't land in the usual surreal maze of halls, platforms and connecting doors that had become known as Backstage. That hodgepodge was a mix of the hovering-windows world he'd once explored, a maze with a fountain, and some beige hallways.

  Instead, he was in a miles-wide cave of deep blue stone, speared by a colossal white tower.

  A fanfare played and he saw, [You have discovered Ivory Tower: Home of the University of Talespace.] Heh, he didn't get many first-time intro messages like that anymore, at least when not visiting the tiny individual worlds. "This is new," he said. He called up Lumina, Nocturne's sister "Lumie".

  [Ja, ja,] the AI wrote. Her chat window showed the annoyed-looking head of a robotic deer. [The Ivory Tower project got installed a little earlier than I meant to hook it up. Everybody's complaining.]

  "I don't mind at all," Horizon said. "It feels like a complete place, not just duct tape holding other worlds together. Big, too!" That tower was so tall, it was hard for his brain to process its size compared to real-world skyscrapers.

  [So it is. Want a guided tour? There's not very much there yet.]

  "Tomorrow," Horizon said.

  For the moment he closed the conversation and checked the world parameters. This was a neutral-rules zone where both magic and technology would work, but it'd be hard to gain skills and stats. So this was the big art project Lumina had been crowing about for a while: a crossroads world to serve as a new Backstage area. To Horizon's surprise, some regular human players had the ability to visit, mainly in and around the central tower. In a way, he would've preferred to have this place entirely reserved for uploaders like him and natives like Nocturne. But there were enough opportunities to build private bubble-worlds already. Maybe it'd be a good place for Lumina's stated objective of having a university and a place for newbie uploaders.

  Still looked pretty barren and empty but for the tower. But that was the beauty of it! Ludo would never plop down a giant prefabricated adventure or a town in this zone. Nor would Lumina, its chief architect. There wasn't even a full-blown Talespinner AI here to set up quests and witty comments all the time. Instead, players would decide much of the detail here. That was something to be proud of.

  "It's a world now," Horizon said to himself. He flew off to meet his friend and see what little contribution he could make today.

  14. The Biggest Racist In the World

  2038

  Timmy, Recent Uploader

  Timmy swerved at two hundred miles an hour in his Super Porsche. It was like a regular Porsche but it was purple and had a rocket engine for jumps. He was doing the Thunder City course tonight, with dinosaurs.

  On the ninth lap, some other car zoomed up with flashing red and blue lights. No, not a car. A giant bird! It kept pointing a wing at the side of the road like it wanted him to stop, but Timmy grinned and pulled the lever back for Super Mode. The rocket kicked him back in his seat. He went over the railing and right through a hot dog stand so all the guys watching had to jump out of the way. He landed back on the road, but the bird was still after him. What did it want? He raced it all the way to the pit stop zone and leaned out the window while ninjas worked on his car.

  The bird frowned at him from behind a pair of mirror sunglasses. The red and blue lights were on his shoulders and he seemed to be half cat. Some critter from a cartoon, maybe. But he had a cop's badge. "Do you know how fast you were goin', son?"

  Timmy nodded. "Two hundred!"

  "Two hundred! Well. I'm gonna have to ask you to stop long enough to tell me about this world as a penalty."

  The ninjas waved for him to get driving, but you had to stop for cops, right? He said, "I like cars, so the nice lady let me have any car I wanted. Only it turned out to be a stupid car, so I won a big race and got money I used to get my Super Porsche and now it has a rocket."

  The cat-bird turned off his blinking lights. "Anybody else giving you problems?"

  "Nope! Except the Red Riders, but I beat them almost every time even when they cheat." He pointed to a billboard advertising the evil car team that lived in Crash Castle. "I win 'cause I'm the biggest racist in the world!"

  The bird looked like he was choking on something. "You... oh... Darn it, Ludo, you set me up."

  A fwooom noise came from the wall of one of Thunder City's pizza and ice cream shops. A hole opened up, and a girl leaped through.

  The bird-cop turned to her and sat up with his talons on his hips. "Maria, what did I tell you? You were not supposed to follow me through the mysterious dimension portal of adventure, and you were especially not supposed to jump when you did it."

  "But Ultimate said she wanted to see." Maria pointed to the unicorn that was coming through the hole after her.

  "Is this true, Ultimate? Did you tell her to come here?" The unicorn nodded.

  "Then that settles it. You have to challenge him to a race."

  Timmy frowned. "Girls aren't allowed in Thunder City."

  Maria said, "I can go anywhere I want."

  "Well, you can't race. My Super Porsche would just run you over and you'd blow up. Boom!"

  "No way. Ultimate can run faster than anything. Even your racecar."

  The bird whispered to Timmy. "She's from Mexico and you know, they have a rule. If you get challenged to a race and you turn it down, everybody gets to call you a chicken."

  Timmy scowled. "You're a chicken."

  "I'm not the one turning down a challenge from a girl."

  Timmy glared at Maria. "Fine. But every time you get blown up, you have to start the lap over."

  "Sure. I g
et to use rainbow magic."

  "Whatever." He took his Super Porsche back to the starting line. The girl hopped onto her unicorn and stuck out her tongue at him.

  The bird said, "Wait. Can I bring a few friends?"

  "More cops? Am I in trouble?"

  "No, you're fine. I want to watch you win!"

  "Okay." There were always people cheering and watching in the stands, but they barely talked. It might be fun to have some different people visit so long as they didn't mess up the race.

  The cop pulled out a radio and talked into it. "Noc, you'd better come quick. We've got a situation here that needs your attention." He poked a different button and said, "Clara, Typhoon, get over here. Turns out the 'troubled uploader with an extreme racist problem' is a kid. Bring popcorn."

  Whatever. Timmy didn't need anybody feeling sorry for him. Mom talked to him sometimes through a video screen and asked how he was doing.

  He wasn't in the hospital anymore, and he didn't hurt anymore.

  He revved the engine and got ready to race so fast this girl would blow up from him being too awesome for her. No way was there a bigger racist in his town!

  15. The Hexapod Support Group

  Horizon

  Nocturne slammed her mace against the podium, sending wood chips everywhere. "Order, order!" The podium remained undamaged.

  "Hon, they're already quiet."

  The dark griffin looked over the indoor garden where dozens of people had gathered. There were lots of big pillows on the grass, since this audience didn't really do chairs. "This meeting of the Hexapod Club will come to order. I see we have an intruder!"

  Amid the flowers and waterfalls of the glass-walled auditorium sat dragons, pegasi, centaurs, griffins, a four-armed woman, and even a giant praying mantis. And one plain human man. Horizon, co-chair of today's meeting, unrolled a scroll and rapidly tapped a series of colorful runes on it, solving the built-in puzzle to set off a prepared spell. He jabbed one wing in the human's direction, and the victim's body shifted.