Continue Online The Complete Series

by Stephan Morse

  Such thoughts kept me busy as I logged in, stepping through the Atrium, and plopped back into my Continue Online avatar.

  Almost immediately, I was assaulted.

  “Grant! What in the good goddamn is this?” SheHulk was shaking me with one hand, a thin parchment in her other.

  My vision blurred as I tried to focus. “What?”

  “Your autopilot gave me a quest!” She shook the paper some more.

  I braced myself a bit better and tried to escape from her grip. Her character’s [Brawn] had to be insanely high compared to mine. The rattling back and forth continued another ten seconds while one of the other players said something. TinkerHell probably. It was hard to hear as my ears rang.

  “We all got one!” Elane said.

  “Mine’s an airplane!” Edward said happily and pointed at the lake. A small piece of parchment was floating in the dark water. “The distance was terrible; can I have another?”

  “Can I see?” I put out a hand to the shorter woman.

  She grumbled and shoved the paper into my hands. The paper’s rough texture was familiar. Those edges, the ink style. This was one of the messages from up above. Had my autopilot fished these out of the tube?

  And what did it say?

  Quest: Help Hermes Haul Himself Here!

  Difficulty: Average (Timed)

  Details: Hermes is on a mission, and part of this mission means making it to [Broken Mountain Pass]. He has roughly three days left to do so. Are you willing to assist Hermes through the dangers of [Grand World Crossroads (Lerter Region)]?

  Warning!

  Total estimated walking distance toward destination will take over fifty-two hours.

  Reward: Based upon assistance provided.

  Crud. My mission to make it through the dungeon had somehow been altered slightly and shared with the other people. Why did my autopilot trust them at all? Elane I only knew through my sister and two terrible dates. The other two were beyond me. Plus, it said that traveling from where I was to my destination was basically an impossible feat.

  A leftover Carver groan escaped me.

  “Seriously, Grant? How did you do this? We’re not even in a party!” Elane asked.

  She looked upset, and I backed up a few steps. The broken chair from our second date had been caused by her. She had swung it at my head and managed to hit the wall instead.

  “Ummm…” The first rule of NPC club was to not talk about NPC club. “It’s a weird skill I picked up.”

  “Anything to do with that fancy title on your character sheet?” Edward asked with an amused twitch of his mustache.

  “Maybe?” I had no idea if the [Messenger of the Voices] title was on my sheet or not. Inspecting my name was secondary to looking at all the abilities and Ranks I’d picked up.

  “Neat trick, mate. Let’s have another.” Edward came over and jabbed me in the side with his elbow. “You got a quest for guessing women’s sizes? I can complete that one right now.”

  “Seriously, Edward? What did I tell you about using that skill on me?” TinkerHell said. She held out her jeweled staff toward the man.

  His mustache twitched as he looked down his nose at it. “I believe you said, ‘Don’t peek,’ then threw some rocks at me and told me I’d wake up without my balls if I did it again. Then we had a fine afternoon—”

  “Shut up!” Tink cut off whatever Edward had planned on saying.

  “Oh god, Tink, not you too.” Elane rubbed her forehead in exasperation. “I thought we made a rule about this.” Elane put away the shield and mace so she didn’t make the same brilliant mistake I had of hitting myself with [Morrigu’s Gift].

  “I was drunk.” TinkerHell’s defense was delivered with entirely too much cheer.

  “I thought we made a rule about that too,” Elane said.

  Meanwhile, my mind was busy trying to calculate the odds of success on a complete bailout. Maybe this whole question could be avoided if I hauled over the bridge to the left, then went up that tunnel.

  “Don’t even think about it, Grant. I’m sure Liz would be more than happy to provide me your address.”

  Elane was probably right—they were friends from somewhere. That was how Liz had hooked me up with Elane in the first place.

  “I wasn’t going to do anything,” I said.

  “I bet not. You’re too chickenshit.”

  “Really, Elane?” I took some offense at that. Being polite was not the same thing as being “chickenshit” by any definition.

  “Really? You know you still haven’t looked anyone in the eyes?” she retorted.

  Oh. There was no defense against that statement. Looking people in the eyes was kind of awkward for me. It had been for years. My therapist had pointed that out to me and provided a suggested fix. Look at people, and simply answer one question. What color are their eyes?

  “Yeah. Still being a wounded puppy.” A series of items crashed to the ground. I could see Elane’s shoulder guards being removed. The rest of her armor stayed on. “I’ll bet you can’t even tell me what color my eyes are.”

  My mouth had a hard time answering that one. My normal mantra of not thinking about my response too much was failing.

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought. Tink, we’re done here.” The armor vanished off the ground, likely into Elane’s player inventory.

  “Brown,” I muttered.

  “Try again,” she said.

  I shrugged. Her eyes had been brown during our few dates. The memory stuck with me because I’d mentioned it out loud. Why? Because Elane’s brown wasn’t the same as Xin’s. My response had irked the short Spanish woman.

  “I fucking hate you, Grant.” Two terrible dates and Elane was a woman scorned. Her whole attitude, like I was the only person with problems, was starting to get to me.

  “We haven’t talked in over a year, Elane. Move on.”

  “That’s rich, you asking me to let go of things.” Elane was up in my face with all the anger she could muster.

  I counted myself lucky that she hadn’t pulled out a chair from player inventory to swing at me.

  “Excuse me, ladies,” Edward spoke up. “Do we want to help with this quest? Or should we just go our separate ways?”

  “I want to keep watching. I bet they have makeup sex on a rock,” TinkerHell said and smirked.

  What was with women in this game? Was there something about the digital landscape that let them remove mental filters from the real world?

  “Disregarding your strange voyeuristic tendencies, I’m voting yes,” Edward said while raising a finger.

  “SheHulk?” TinkerHell had a hand out on the shorter woman’s shoulder.

  I tried to remember my exercise questions. What color were TinkerHell’s eyes? Her eyes were green, and her face was freckled. There was more to the woman than just clothing, more than the items in her hands. Not just a robe, not just a jeweled staff, but an entire person. One possessing a gutter mind.

  “Fine. We’ll try to get you out.” She turned away. Short hair—Elane had short hair in the game. How had I missed that? Her head turned in my direction briefly before looking at the other male in our party. “You stand in the back. Edward, scout us a way out.”

  “Right then, onward, upward!” He practically skipped off across the way. I didn’t have time to see his eyes. That ponce-style mustache was rather all consuming when I looked at him.

  I finally had time to look around now that SheHulk wasn’t demanding answers. Dead monster remains were scattered all over. What had once been bright cores giving off a fiery glow were now dimmed to nearly nothing. Glowing moss and embers from dead monsters provided a small amount of light to see by.

  This was a game, right? I had seen nothing of loot or other such rewards. A pop-up off to the side cited another [Cowardice] demonstration. That was an uncomfortable feeling. Maybe the system would change it to [Prudence] or something along those lines. William Carver would dive into combat; I still wasn’t there. My consolati
on was a box that cited an increase in the [Tumble] skill and [Stagger Resistance]. Both were probably tied to falling downhill twice without breaking my neck.

  Once again, my preexisting experience with dancing in the ARC had helped. There had been no time to deliberately roll with that fall, so I must have done it automatically.

  “This way, ladies!” Edward yelled and waved us around the lake’s edge.

  “After you, boss!” TinkerHell turned her lips up in a pixie-like smile.

  I waited for the women to head off before I whistled at Dusk, who was still playing down by the water and looking for more fish. He turned and looked at me, then the others marching off, and took flight. Soon Dusk was perched on my shoulder and watching everyone as we walked. We were headed back into a dark portion of the dungeon. None of the others seem bothered by the situation. Did they have some method of seeing in the dark? They used no torches. The ambient light from the river cavern had faded off into nothing.

  “So how did you do it, professor?” TinkerHell had drifted toward the back with me. We were maybe twenty feet behind Elane’s angry footsteps.

  “I’m not a professor,” I whispered back.

  “No? SheHulk talks about you, said you—”

  “Tink!”

  “She! Hulk!” TinkerHell’s head tilted toward me and she sounded upbeat. Her blond locks were barely visible as we traveled away from the light. I think my eyes might have been adjusting to the darkness.

  “Really, girl?”

  “Would you believe she’s my sponsor?” TinkerHell sounded as though she was smiling still. It was difficult to tell as everything faded into darkness.

  We made it another ten minutes. My fumbling in the darkness had made SheHulk hiss in annoyance more than once. I was trying desperately to use the wall as guidance. Dusk was doing his chirping thing ahead of me somewhere. It was pointless because of the noise Elane caused.

  “Can you see?” TinkerHell risked whispering again.

  I shook my head.

  “Holy bat balls!” TinkerHell wasn’t trying to keep her volume low now. “Wait. SheHulk! I need to get your boy toy a scroll.”

  “What?” SheHulk said.

  “He’s totally blind.” The blonde sounded happy.

  There was a snapping of fingers in front of my face. I tried to shoo the hand away.

  “You mean we’ve been going this slow because he’s blind?” Elane responded. She was closer. Judging by her tone, she was finding yet another reason to be angry with me. She reminded me far too much of HotPants, aside from the differences in physical traits.

  “Well, you didn’t really ask, did you?”

  “Ladies, we got another pack up around the corner.” During our conversation, Sir Twisty Mustache had returned. He joined in our whispering.

  Something was shoved into my hand.

  “Here, use this scroll,” the blonde said.

  Okay. That was not an easy order to follow. Scrolls were a mystery to me, along with most things magical.

  “Hermes? You with us?” TinkerHell spoke again.

  “He’s gone daft,” Edward chimed in with an equal amount of happiness.

  “Come on, Grant. You’re holding us back.”

  “I’ve never used a scroll.” Being with this party was destroying my happy place. They were constantly acting as though I should know all sorts of things. Probably because they thought I had been playing for a while. Better clear that up quickly.

  “Really, mate?” Edward said from somewhere.

  “I’ve only been playing for two weeks real time,” I said quietly.

  There was a round of confused half gasps and a snicker.

  “Really, Grant, really?”

  “Yes, Elane. Is there a problem, Elane?” I snapped back.

  We weren’t drinking, and I was sort of recovered and no longer the same moping person she had experienced. My armor-polishing skills were coming along nicely, and my doctor had issued me a certificate saying I was no longer a danger to myself. Why should this stuff just slide by me?

  “I’ll kick you in your balls if you don’t knock it off.”

  “Girl, you sort of brought this on yourself.” TinkerHell stepped in.

  I heard Edward give a roguish imitation of “You go, girl” noises in the background.

  “Don’t even start,” Elane said.

  “Look, I’ll deal with Hermes. You go set up with Edward and give us two minutes.”

  There was a rustle in the darkness as TinkerHell did something. SheHulk was soon wandering down the hallway and grumbling at me. Mustache had left too, I thought.

  “Okay, crash course in scrolls. There’re two ways to use them: one’s reading, one’s using an ignition symbol. Go ahead and unroll it, there should be a glow on the top right.” TinkerHell was close by, near my shoulder if I were to guess based on her voice. It was a bit too near.

  The scroll unrolled easily. It was about six inches on each side. Sure enough, on the top right, a small symbol that looked similar to an S glowed a dancing orange. I really regretted not making it to that cave with Awesome Jr. and SweetPea. Carver would have been a bit too conspicuous huffing up the hill. Still, gaining that [Mana Sense] trait would have been worthwhile.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Thumb on the light, with your dominant hand, twist it counterclockwise. The game will register your intent… unless you can read Lithium?”

  “Lithium? Like the battery?” That was a weird name for the language of magic. I put one finger on the symbol and had to think about which way counterclockwise was.

  I was assuming at this point. Admitting there were things I didn’t know bothered me. Especially after all my insider time as William Carver. Four weeks of being a man who knew everything had spoiled me.

  “Just like the battery. If we have time, I’ll explain more. For now, twist your thumb.” She placed a hand on my arm, and it made me jump.

  I took a few breaths, remembering my four-count tempo, and positioned my feet to start a dance. The habitual calming exercise worked, and I turned my hand the right way.

  Knowledge Gained! Information about [Lithium] has been added to your journal. Due to high [Wisdom] and prior insider knowledge, you will receive a bonus to [Learning].

  +2 [Learning]

  System Help!

  [Learning] represents the sum of information gathered within the world. It can influence the data recorded by your journal. Learning will directly impact your ability to gain technical skills.

  Light spilled from the first symbol to the second, then third. Soon an entire chain lit up on the paper with that dancing glow. It was like watching a series of dominoes fall down, only instead of dots or English letters, these were shapes and runes. All of them were squiggles that made no sense.

  “Almost now,” TinkerHell said.

  Reflexively, I turned toward her voice.

  “Focus on the paper.”

  My eyes hastily righted themselves. The glowing letter chain reached the page’s end. Each item connected to the next. All of them flashed at once like a light bulb giving one last gasp. Soon there was nothing on the page. I turned it around and looked at the back, the sides, and tried to understand. Soon the parchment itself crumbled completely.

  Odd. Now I had a visible mana bar. This one spell hadn’t taken that much to cast, or whatever it was called when a player used the scroll.

  “How’s your vision?” TinkerHell asked.

  I turned and looked at her face. She wasn’t more than two feet away, and she was smiling again. Green eyes.

  Spell: Night vision activated!

  Increased perception in unlit areas. Percentage of normal vision: 60%

  “Good.” I managed to get the word out even though my mind mostly blanked. My confusion came from having a woman close to me, voluntarily, outside of work.

  “You ready to go?”

  “Uhhh…” For what? Oh. Right. The others were up ahead of us somewhere, setting up.

&nbs
p; “You don’t have any clue how to work in a party?” she asked.

  My ideas were vague at best. Sure, I could sit in the back and let the other players do the work. In the last party event, my job had been to stay in the back until threatened. At that time, my body had been crippled by nearsightedness and simulated aches. What would the real Carver do? Charge and swing the blade!

  “No. What should I do?” I asked.

  “What’s your play style?” She was still smiling, still close. Both her hands were resting on the jeweled staff near her face.

  I stood with both hands on top of [Morrigu’s Gift], which was currently in cane form. “A trainer in town showed me how to swing a two-handed blade.”

  “We can work with that. Is it a long sword?”

  “More like an outrageous cartoon one.” Carver’s blade was a giant thing that looked more like an elongated razor than any classic sword. Many such weapons had lined video games of my youth.

  “Seriously? You’re not compensating, are you? Because SheHulk said…”

  My panicked expression must have been enough for her to stop the teasing. I scratched a cheek while she kept smiling.

  “It was a gift.”

  “Can I see it?”

  I tried to ignore her double entendre. Everything was amazingly clear now compared to my prior situation. Dusk was hopping around on the ground and kicking pebbles with each leap.

  [Morrigu’s Gift] sat in my hand. My fingers grasped its top, the same as they had during the Age of Carver. The polished feel of wood felt comforting. Still, my last use of this blade had involved killing two very realistic constructs. Monsters, NPCs, game-generated AIs, low IQ, but still lifelike.

  “Not used to it yet?” she asked.

  “No. Not really. Is anyone?”

  “Some adapt quicker than others. Some grow to love it. My advice? Don’t push yourself. If you can’t handle it, go back to the cities and pick up a trade skill.” She had one hand on my shoulder. Her fingers seemed so thin.

  “It’s just a game though. I shouldn’t be afraid in here,” I muttered. I’d had just enough time and shock to disassociate with William’s world view.

  “Fear’s natural. It’s what we do that counts. Sit back if you need to.”