by A. M. Sohma
Kit popped her purchases—a loaf of bread, two baked apples, and a waterskin of cider—into her inventory and was making her way toward the edge of town when a bell rang and an envelope shook in front of her—the in-game notification that she had received a letter.
Briefly, she considered ignoring it. No one from her guild still played Chronicles of Retha, and even if they did, they wouldn’t know about this asinine character Bryce had created for her. Most likely, it was a welcome message from EC or a letter that would direct her to a quest.
In the end, she decided she may as well read the message. If she didn’t, the white envelope would pop up every hour of in-game time, which was sure to get irritating quickly. Plus, it might have more information about what’s going on, Kit thought as she squinted around the village, though she knew it was unlikely as no other players were rushing to the post box to collect mail messages.
Kit meandered back to the Fibbit stall, where the mailbox—a blue box the size of a large bird feeder nailed to a post—was situated. As she opened the mailbox and retrieved her message—a heavy parchment envelope—it struck her that none of the players who had been disconnected with the wave of lag had come back on.
It made sense given the ability to log off was temporarily offline. EC was probably scrambling to fix it…but if the situation was that dire, why hadn’t they forced a logout of everyone?
Still mulling over the idea, Kit opened her letter. She glanced at the sender’s name and almost ripped it up in her anger. There, at the bottom of the rather lengthy letter and under an EC company letterhead, was Bryce’s name.
“He’s probably gloating,” Kit grumbled. “Yeah, laugh it up while you can. As soon as I get out of here, I am going to…” she didn’t finish delivering the threat as she started to read the letter, and worry clogged her throat.
Kit, you are in danger.
The Fable-Stay server, the one you’re currently on, experienced a power surge and shut down. All rental units were automatically disconnected, but the full submersion units were shuffled to the emergency backup server. That’s where the problem is.
The backup server, which was designed to take over in hosting and running the game should the main servers fail, is corrupted. All players who were transferred to the backup server are locked inside. No one, not even EC employees, can log on, and you can’t log off. You won’t be able to leave until they successfully transfer you back to the main server—which is unlikely as they need to fix whatever corrupted the backup server first.
The obvious option would be to turn the servers off and shut down the game. It may come to that, but management wants to avoid it if at all possible. The game has filters built into it for logging on and off to help players make the switch from game life to reality. As the login features are down, so are those filters. Without them, management estimates that approximately 26% of players would experience light to serious brain damage. Most likely it would be about as serious as a concussion, but probability says a number of players would experience significant damage.
Kit’s fingers shook. For a split second she hoped wildly this was all part of the trumped-up joke Bryce was playing on her. But while Bryce would happily drag her pride through the mud and frustrate the heck out of her by giving her an elf dancer, he would never make a twisted prank that involved such steep stakes.
She took a deep breath and tried to calm her irregularly beating heart, then continued reading.
EC will not rest until they have you guys safely out of the game, but there is a chance for you to free yourself.
Several of the biggest quests/events in the game automatically boot players off once completed. This was done so EC employees could check over the data and verify that the quest/event was completed without any sort of manipulation or cheating. That function should still work—though there is no way to verify it at this time.
A bubble of dread popped in Kit’s stomach. “Oh, no…”
The easiest quest for you to complete that does this is to kill Malignus.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Kit’s legs gave out, and she sat down hard on the ground. The Fibbit Services attendant gave her an odd look, but Kit ignored it and stared unseeingly at her letter.
Malignus was the final boss of the game. He was part of the lore of the world. No one had beaten him. It had long been suspected that he was impossible to defeat because he was a cornerstone of Retha.
I know what you’re thinking, but it can be done. A full raid of EC employees completed it during beta testing before the game was commercially released.
You can do this, Kit. Get as big of a group gathered as you can, and kill him. If EC can repair the server before you manage this, great. Otherwise, it’s your only chance.
Kit set the letter down and rubbed her face, trying to organize her racing thoughts. Her ears rang, and her chest felt like someone had her lungs clenched tightly in their fist.
Eventually she finished reading the letter—which did nothing to make her feel better.
Tell everyone about this way out. No one else knows of it—knowledge of the EC employee raid is part of the confidentiality clause we have to sign.
After this message, I don’t think it’s likely I’ll be able to contact you again. Getting in contact with the server is hard enough, but with this crap-show, EC is locking down tight on us employees.
Reading between the lines, Kit could see that Bryce was almost certainly going to lose his job over this—first of all for reaching out and personally contacting her and telling her what was going on, and secondly for revealing that slaying Malignus was possible.
Remember to check our guild zone in Luminos. We probably have leftover equipment and materials you can use. Good luck, cousin. If anyone can bust out of Retha, it’s you.
Senior Community Manager
Bryce N.
Kit snorted at his closing line. Out of everyone who had been a part of their guild, she was probably the least qualified to do this. She had never led a raid or even a quest. She had always been the damage-dealer of the party…and now she was a dancer.
She tilted her head back and stared at the sky. “I am so screwed.” Her hands flopped to her lap, crinkling the letter.
3
Party Formation
It was too much—the threat of mental injury, the inability to log off, the pressure of slaying Malignus and completing a quest that was thought impossible… An unhappy future was staring her down, and Kit didn’t think she could survive it.
The ringing in her ears grew louder, and her vision grew fuzzy.
What am I going to do? What CAN I do? I can’t beat these odds.
Kit shook her head so hard she felt her neck crack. “Enough!” she whispered fiercely. “I can’t just sit here freaking out—I have to at least try to fix this! I’m not going down without a fight!” She stood, impatiently straightening her skirt as it twisted around her legs.
Bryce was right. The best first step would be to go to Luminos. She could rummage around her house and the guild zone for anything helpful—maybe she could even get in contact with some of the major guilds that were still on.
Kit and her friends had left the game five years ago, but there were bound to be players who would remember them.
She opened her inventory panel and pushed the note into the screen, popping it into her character’s inventory, already feeling better.
She had a plan, which was a good start. The situation might be tense, but falling apart wouldn’t help her. Kit planted her hands on her hips. “Besides. As real as Retha feels, it’s still a video game. Everything here is about balance. I just have to figure out how to tip the scale my way.”
Kit eyed the two dozen or so players who still wandered around the village. One thing is for certain: even though Bryce said to tell people about this, I don’t want to start mass hysteria— particularly among the newbies—when there is still a chance EC will fix this. I’m better off sharing what I found in Luminos with the
more veteran players. But I don’t want to leave everyone here hanging…
Nodding, Kit cleared her throat, then shouted through the village. “Has anyone been able to log off yet?” She asked, knowing perfectly well they could not.
A dwarf lingering by the blacksmith shop shook his shaggy head. “No, I expect they’ll make an announcement once everything is back online.”
A couple of new players who still wore the nondescript cotton clothes nodded.
“I hope they get it fixed soon,” a girl said.
“Why? We’re getting free playtime,” one of her companions said.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to pick a class until I can access the community tab and figure out which of the magic user classes is the best!” The girl said.
“It’s been down for a while now,” Kit carefully said. “Isn’t that a little odd?”
“It’s nothing to worry about,” the dwarf said.
“I’m not so sure,” said a girl—some kind of thief class based on the daggers holstered at her hips. “Bits of lag and services being temporarily unavailable happen in any game every once in a while…but usually it’s fixed in a matter of minutes. It’s been a while since they made the initial announcement.”
Kit eagerly capitalized on the girl’s point. “I agree. I’m going to head to Luminos. Someone there might know what’s going on.”
The group of players who still hadn’t chosen their character class shuffled. One of the guys shrugged. “Go if you want, but by the time you get there, everything will probably be fixed. You’ll just be wasting your playtime.”
The dwarf nodded his agreement. “It shouldn’t be much longer,” he said.
“I’m not so sure,” Kit said.
Her half-baked warning fell on deaf ears. Several of the new players rolled their eyes and turned their back to her. A guy who had a sword nearly as big as himself strapped to his back snorted as he made his way to the Fibbit desk. The dwarf raised his shoulders, as if saying he had tried, then waved to her before he approached the blacksmith.
“Well.” Kit scratched an itch on her hip. “That wasn’t exactly a fruitful endeavor.”
“Pardon me young lady, but you said you were going to Luminos to investigate this game breakdown?”
Kit spun around, her best sales smile on her lips. “Yes. Luminos is the biggest city in Retha. If anyone knows what’s going on, they’ll be there.”
The speaker, a human man who looked about middle-aged with slightly weathered features and dark circles under his eyes, smiled, revealing the good-natured twinkle in his dark eyes. “If you are not opposed, I should like to join you. Retha is the first full submersion game I’ve ever played, but this situation seems...odd. I, too, would like to gather more information.”
“Wonderful! I’d be glad to have you come with me....” Kit glanced at the crown of his head, making his character name, health bar, and basic information appear. “Old Man Bluff?”
He laughed. “Yes, it’s a little odd, but I’m ashamed to say the character name creation screen stumped me. Every name I came up with was taken. But please, call me Gil—short for Gilbert…Miss Kitten Lovemuch,” he said, referencing her nameplate.
Kit made her smile bigger in hopes that he wouldn’t recognize her shiver of revolt at her own name. “Just Kit will do great, thanks.” She glanced at his information again. “So you’re a level eight crusader?”
Gil nodded and flicked his shaggy hair out of his slightly narrowed eyes. “Yes—a tank class, I believe.”
“Mhmm,” Kit said, refraining from saying anything else. She never would’ve guessed Gil was a crusader if not for his nameplate; he still wore the cotton clothes of a newbie player.
“Excellent! All we need is a healer. Then we will be a true-blue party.” The female thief who had spoken up earlier folded her arms behind her head and sauntered in their direction. “That is, I assume you don’t mind if we come as well?”
Kit blinked. “We?”
The thief waggled her thumb back and forth between herself and a female wizard who reluctantly trailed in her wake. “Me and Vic, that is. We think it is probably best to head to Luminos, as well, so we’d love to join you.”
The wizard scowled and flipped a lock of her silky black hair over her shoulder. She would’ve been quite pretty, particularly for a human, if not for the fact that her dark eyes were barely more than narrowed slits. “There is no we in this situation. I’m still furious with you for dragging me into this!”
The thief laughed sheepishly. “This is Vic’s first full submersion game experience. After this, I am honestly not sure how I will get her back into one.”
Kit eagerly clasped her hands together. “Then you’ve played Chronicles of Retha before?”
The thief shook her head. “This is my first session in-game. I played a lot of other submersion games, but I was saving this one to play with Vic. I love your character design, by the way!”
Kit smiled—though she internally questioned the thief’s sense of aesthetics. “Thank you....” She glanced at the thief’s head. “Nevarro Kuro.”
“You may as well call me Cookie. I haven’t been able to get Vic to call me by my character name at all anyway. I’m a night stalker, by the way.” The thief grinned, her big eyes combined with the bow that marked the end of her blonde hair braid made her look cute rather than deadly. “I’m level six. Vic is a level five wizard.”
The wizard studied her nails as Kit glanced at her name, which was Ihatethis. “So, what would you like us to call you?”
The wizard shoved her hands into the sleeves of her voluminous cloak. “Vic or Victoria will do. Thank you for including me in your party.”
“We’re glad to have you with us. I’m Kit, a dancer, and Gil over there is a crusader.”
Cookie used one of her wicked-looking daggers to scratch her cheek. “We really are a pretty well-rounded group, then. Too bad we couldn’t recruit a healer.”
As a member of the thief class, Cookie fell in the class of fighter. (Most thief classes—like night stalker, rogue, or assassin—used speed and stealth to their advantage and inflicted great damage.) Vic, on the other hand, was a magic user—which meant she was far easier to kill but also packed massive amounts of damage. (Mage classes also had the most Area of Effect skills—AoE skills—which impacts a set area as opposed to a specific target, allowing the player to kill more than one baddie at a time.)
“It can’t be helped. The perfect small group party wouldn’t include a dancer anyway.” Kit looked back and forth between Cookie and Gil. “Do either of you want to lead this party?”
“Party?” Gil asked.
Cookie shook her head. “I barely figured out the combat system. I assume you’ve played Chronicles of Retha before?”
Kit nodded.
“Then you’re the natural choice to be the leader. We will be in your care, thank you!”
Kit laughed sheepishly and scratched the back of her neck. “I hope you don’t have your hopes set too high. I haven’t played Retha in years, and I’m not an experienced leader. But with luck, we’ll find someone more up to date on the game in Luminos.” Resigned to her role, Kit pulled up the necessary screens and made the party, creating a name (Travelers to Luminos) and selecting one of the standard banners—a periwinkle blue one—to represent their group. “Does anybody need to get anything before we go? Or maybe put on their armor?”
Cookie slung her arm across Vic’s shoulders, unbothered when the pretty girl shrugged her off. “We’re great! We were about to go level grinding when the announcement was made.”
“I believe I’m adequately prepared as well,” Gil said.
Vic’s frown deepened, if that were possible. “Aren’t you a crusader? Don’t you have special armor to put on?”
Kit wanted to bless the prickly-tempered wizard. “She’s right, Gil. The crusader armor they give you when you signed up will have much better stats than the stuff you’re wearing now.”
“It won’t wear out?”
“No,” Kit said. “Your armor won’t degenerate, but your weapons will. Even so, it’s easy enough to get them fixed. Just visit the blacksmith whenever you stroll through a town, and you’ll be set.”
“I see.” Gil flipped through his inventory panel and began highlighting his armor— switching out the newbie gear for the heavy yet durable suit of crusader armor.
Kit brought up the world map, then consulted the mini-map screen to get herself correctly positioned. “It shouldn’t take us too long to get to Luminos. They put the starter points near it so once players reach about level ten, they can walk there or use a teleportation gate.”
“Then let’s get going,” Vic said. “I don’t want to stay in this game any longer than I have to.”
Cookie sighed and placed a hand over her heart. “It grieves me every time you say that.”
Kit flicked the big map away and began marching out of the village.
“Then shall I say it again?” Vic asked as she, Cookie, and Gil followed behind.
“Please don’t,” Cookie pleaded.
Vic gave a derisive snort, and Gil released a rumble of laughter as they cleared the small circle of buildings.
“Hey! You four!”
A guy—the one who had snorted at Kit earlier and sported a sword nearly as big as himself—jogged after them. Presumably he was some sort of fighter class based on the sword and his armor, as both were of a significantly lighter build than Gil’s. “Yes?” Kit asked.
“I want to come with you to Luminos.” The guy had bright red hair that was pulled back in a man-bun so tight Kit wondered if it pulled on his eyebrows.
“You also wish to seek out more information?” Gil asked.
“Heck no!” Man-Bun lifted his chin up and hooked his thumbs in his sword belt. “I think you’re all worrying over nothing. But I gotta go to Luminos anyways for a quest, and you all look like you’ll croak if a monster even glances at you.”
