Continue Online The Complete Series

by Stephan Morse

  “Four hours, maybe five. If we run, maybe faster,” TinkerHell said.

  The others were almost around the corner before my feet actually moved. In a panic, I turned and shuffled after them. Each footstep, each clank, sent another ripple of hues and color tones across my vision. We would stop to walk, then run again when everyone had energy. The [Light Body] skill hit another Rank, and a pop-up box sent me stumbling. Not the box itself, but the noise it made as it came into being. Well, the window didn’t help either.

  “Ahhh!” I cried out and rolled into a wall. Sitting there was bad for me once shaking kicked in. “My hand. It’s.” Doing something. “It won’t stop.” I blinked repeatedly as clarity swam in and out.

  “We’ve got to go, Hermes.” TinkerHell was the closest to my position.

  Elane was up ahead and glaring. Edward kept on scouting.

  My world turned to purple static for a brief moment. My body bounced in the air as a second wave hit.

  “My hand!” Now I was really tripping out.

  “That’s—”

  “That’s not your hand, Grant!” Elane shouted. I saw a piece of armor come into existence, and she slammed it into place. “Edward! Tie this down!”

  “Not what I was hoping for.”

  “Tink!”

  “I’m on it. Scroll wall incoming!” TinkerHell shouted. Her staff was cradled under one armpit, and in her hands was a much larger scroll. It burned brightly as she twisted a thumb across the starter symbol. “Hermes, try to stand!” Glowing letters rippled across the parchment. “We need you!”

  Wow. These people were panicking harder than I was. There was another thump of static-inducing purple that made my heart jump. My eyes kept trying to focus on a space just off to the side of my hands.

  “Hermes! This way! Boobs!” Edward said.

  Voices help me, even the thought felt somewhat like betrayal, but I looked.

  The man was smiling with that twitchy mustache. “See, that always gets a man’s attention.”

  “If I didn’t need all my energy, I’d whack you,” Elane responded. There was a grim look on the short Spanish woman’s face. She held on to the mace as Edward wove a strap under her arm.

  “All the more reason for me to press my advantage when I can,” he said. The ground thumped again. “Or perhaps later.” Edward didn’t slow in his assistance with the armor. Two more pieces of gear went on, and soon she was fully equipped again.

  “Is someone knocking on the door?” I asked. That wasn’t what was in my head, but it was what came out of my mouth. There was a serious disconnect between everything.

  A giant hand swung up on the ledge. Each finger was easily bigger than my entire body. Dirt tore at the edge as something pulled itself up farther. A second hand almost overshot the ledge as it descended to latch on.

  “That’s neat,” I said. I squinted one eye and tried to activate [Identification]. It failed. “Identifyicus maximus!” Verbal attempts at activating my skills also failed. Voices, I was high.

  A giant head swung into view. I was pretty sure that one eyeball on that monster was bigger than my entire body. The creature looked like a giant baby made of dirt and insanity. Plus, colors were flying all over the place. Each groan of terrain spawned another waterfall of lights and visual sounds.

  “Barricobbler!” Elane shouted.

  Everyone always shouted during fights. Why was no one calm? My head swam. Was that seriously the monster’s name? How amazingly silly was that? This was a game after all. Or maybe my drug-addled mind was making something up.

  I should have been upset and scared. Instead, more giggles came forth and soon turned into outright laughter.

  Ice, probably from TinkerHell, moved in a long line across the pathway’s edge. Moments later, it had climbed up to the ceiling to form a solid wall. Barricobbler, if that was indeed its name, had both hands frozen inside the sudden wall.

  “Fly, you fools!” Elane gestured with her shield arm down the long hallway.

  Barricobbler gave a strange groan that was exactly how a giant baby rock monster should sound.

  “That’s my line! I’m the caster!” TinkerHell was running away, one hand lifting her robe so it wouldn’t make her stumble. TinkerHell used her other hand to grab me as she passed by.

  “Fly anyway!” Elane shouted and ran after us. She wasn’t sacrificing herself like that.

  “Patrol!” Edward shouted in front of us. Soon his standard fare of “Critical Strike” and “Dodge” and “Hamstring” followed.

  “Grant! You’ve got to hold them!” Elane shouted.

  “Wahh?” I fumbled around with screens and inventory buttons trying to figure out where [Morrigu’s Gift] had gone.

  “Hold. The. Monsters!” Elane shouted. She was taking up position somewhere behind us.

  I heard her grunting, shaking, and talking to herself. The ice was cracking from where—Voices, what a silly name—Barricobbler was breaking loose.

  “Up here!” TinkerHell was already running toward Edward.

  I tried to run, but there were too many colors and sounds jarring my consciousness. Instead my footsteps became a half stumble, half walk, all failure.

  I basically walked the end of [Morrigu’s Gift] into a [Gobbler]’s belly. It just stared at me. A blast of ice from over my shoulder caught it square in the face.

  “OoOooooo!” the giant baby yelled.

  The landscape rippled and my head throbbed.

  “Block it, Hermes!”

  “Ehhh.”

  [Morrigu’s Gift] was in two-handed blade form. I turned the flat of it toward the monster and held it like a terrible shield. Rock hands hammered on the weapon, sending jolts up my arm. A month of clutching William Carver’s cane kept me stable.

  “Colors,” I muttered. [Gobbler] hammering was a mixture of green and orange. All loud and clunky, as if a giant ball of hardened clay was falling.

  “Hamstring!”

  “Block them!” TinkerHell said behind me. Her voice was getting faint. The staff in her hands drew more symbols upon the ground.

  During one of her rambles, we had talked about how using a staff would consume less mana and increase the spell’s impact.

  “OoOOoohhh!”

  There was an insanely loud crash of noise, and ice shattered across the room. One big muddy fist pounded through the wall and smashed between Elane and us.

  “SheHulk!” TinkerHell let another blast of ice fly by into one of the [Gobbler]s behind my shield.

  I was basically being a wall and failing. Two of the golems were pushing me back. These ones were green instead of the glowing orange color.

  “Go, go, get into the hall!” Elane called.

  “OoOOraaahh!” the giant baby yelled.

  “Let me help you with that one, mate.” Edward came up from my side and casually stabbed one of the [Gobbler]s in the face. Suddenly the pressure on the other end of [Morrigu’s Gift] slacked off.

  Skill Demonstrated: [Barricade]

  Type: Common

  Rank: Unranked

  Details: You’ve taken steps toward standing between your enemies and allies. Damage taken while performing a block action reduced. This skill relies on [Brawn] and [Endurance] to sustain.

  +1 [Brawn]

  +1 [Endurance]

  My mind wandered to the message box and stared. The numbers were hard to focus on. Ice flew about in chunks both from TinkerHell’s constant stream of spells and the shattering remains of a great wall.

  “Tink!” Elane yelled.

  I looked over my shoulder to see one of the giant clay arms grab Elane, armor and all. The monster dipped as Elane came off the ground. She must weigh half a ton in all that gear.

  “Hey! Focus on the arm!” Edward shouted.

  “Let go of me, you filthy idiot!” Elane was banging away with her mace, trying to do damage. Her short frame was nearly lost in the giant fingers.

  “But Gobblers,” I said. Clearly some of us weren’t firing
on all cylinders.

  “Grant! Cut its arm!”

  “Gobblers!” Heh. These guys were neat. Their attacks hurt a little, but maybe like a dog nibbling on my arm. With big meaty club-like hands. Dog, nibble, hands.

  “Grant, you miserable pig fucker! Help!” Elane groaned as she was bashed around the hallway by the monster’s hand.

  “Mate, we’ve got to get the arm!”

  “But…” I was too confused. Too drugged up by my autopilot eating [Ghost Mushroom]s.

  “Shit!” Elane yelled. “You fu…”

  I turned just in time to see the short Spanish woman go flying. She yelled the entire way before a distant crash crawled across my senses.

  “Elane!” My own word made me cringe as sound assaulted my vision. Everything was crossing and none of it was comfortable.

  The giant baby monster giggled with outright childish delight at the mess it had caused.

  “She’s dead, Hermes. We have to move on!” TinkerHell let another spell fly and managed to kill the final [Gobbler].

  “She can’t be dead.” The words came out dry. Elane had to be alive still. No. No, I had once again stood by and let it happen. It was Xin all over again. Elane was dead because of my failures.

  “It’s okay, it’s just a game! We’ve got to move now, Hermes,” TinkerHell yelled at me. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Hermes. We have to go!”

  I asked myself what kind of man life had made me. Now, in a few days within the game, my character still wasn’t entirely clear. My actions showed one thing, and my desires another. It would be a long road to recovery. Letting Elane go flying hadn’t helped my self-esteem. Being drugged didn’t help. There had to be ways I could do better. More stats, more abilities, something. This game could give me that if I tried harder. Gaining [Barricade] was only one step out of many.

  For now, we had to escape. We fled down the hall, away from the Barricobbler and its giggles. Away from Elane and her distant grave. We ran.

  Session Twenty-Five — What are the Chances?

  Hours later, things were mostly quiet. TinkerHell tried to stay positive, but there was a loss of happiness to her expression. Nothing seemed as cheery; even the blond color of her hair was lackluster. Edward hummed but acted a bit grumpier. The words “it’s just a game” repeated in my head frequently.

  We handled a few smaller packs, with me poorly taking the role Elane had had. Each time I stood between the few minor monsters and TinkerHell felt like a betrayal. I shouldn’t have been drugged up. I should have been able to focus more. All that talk about being a better person and being brave, and what had I done? Failed almost right out of the gate.

  Then TinkerHell uttered the announcement I had been dreading. She was on a time limit. Nothing had really been the same since my failure anyway. Those choices would haunt everything in this party.

  “I’ve got to go, Hermes. I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Do you still have enough time to make your meeting?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I’ll just recall back to my bind point. I should be okay from there.” TinkerHell gave a partial smile to soften the blow.

  “Oh.” I managed to keep my face passive and pretend that there was no worry creeping in. The system even awarded me some acting skill points.

  “Did you need a scroll of recall?” she was kind enough to ask.

  I was smart enough to figure out what TinkerHell meant by that. It was probably an in-game device that helped one get out of the dungeon.

  “I… no, I’ve got to try to make it through.” Plus, to my knowledge, the Voices hadn’t given me a bind point. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Down this tunnel a few more hours and you should make it out. The map I provided makes sense, right?” TinkerHell asked.

  “The man hardly need worry about getting lost. He should, instead, worry about being eaten.” Edward was smiling and seemed lax against one of the many cavern walls.

  This place felt nowhere near as well-carved as the side I had entered on. There was a natural roughness to the walls.

  “Oh, yeah.” TinkerHell’s face scrunched up in worry. “Well, it’s all or nothing.”

  “Too true,” the other man said.

  “You seem like a nice guy, Hermes. Even if you’re kind of drugged. You be careful,” TinkerHell said.

  The bombardment of chromesthesia had mostly dissipated, but her words did still have a faint linger of color to them.

  “I’ll try.”

  “All right. If I log out now, there may be just enough time for a shower.” TinkerHell shrugged.

  “A radiant lady such as yourself could hardly be diminished by a mundane thing like dirt,” Edward said.

  TinkerHell managed to roll her eyes but looked a bit more naturally amused. Then she shrugged yet again. “Sorry again, Hermes.”

  I shook my head at her apology. TinkerHell had been the nicest of the lot to me.

  “Real life doesn’t wait on hold, not even for Continue Online. Best of luck in your quest,” TinkerHell said. Her constant smile hadn’t been the same since Elane’s character passed. Not at the lips, not in her cheeks, but in the pinch around both eyes.

  “Thank you. I’m sorry my autopilot tried to force my problems on you all.” Voices knew I had enough of them.

  “It’s okay. Just help someone else out, pass it on.” She shrugged, then vanished in a splash of light.

  I liked TinkerHell. She seemed so upbeat most of the time, playful even. The longer we were together, the more it seemed as though she was closer to SheHulk and me in age. She was certainly older than my niece. It just wasn’t obvious from her in-game face.

  Or maybe the world had worn on her like it had on me. How old did I look to other people? I poked my belly.

  Edward interrupted my self-absorbed train of thought by clearing his throat. He waved one hand, which held a [Scroll of Recall].

  “Whereas I take another view.” Edward smiled with his twitchy mustache. “The ladies are gone, and my interest wanes. So it’s time to move on. Adieu, Hermes, and best of luck.”

  I sighed. The party had broken apart because of real life and the tank dying. Even in virtual reality, the story was too familiar. Elane was out of the game for eight hours. I was closer to the exit, but still mostly lost. What now? Dusk chirped and hissed into the distance. Enemies were nearby, and this was no place to dawdle. A small display timer on my screen outlined how much time was left on both my night vision buff and quest.

  Part of me longed for the quiet of Carver’s bench. This adventure might just be the death of me.

  The problem with silence was that there was too much time for my own thoughts. The sound and color mix-up was still happening, but nowhere near as viciously as it had been. Doing battle with constant interruptions from all the rainbow’s colors had been difficult. Now, after almost a full day of hunting and associated stat increases, I could handle a few [Gobbler]s on my own.

  Groups of more than two were normally easy to go around or back up a tunnel twist or two. TinkerHell had given me a very detailed map showing a series of interconnecting tunnels between here and the exit. The end would be the really dangerous part.

  I didn’t have much time to practice any other skills, such as [Silent Step]. TinkerHell had let me know that [Gobbler]s were basically deaf up until about twenty feet away.

  That was how my next few hours in the game went. I dwelt on my poor performance with Elane. I hacked frantically at any single [Gobbler]s, and I steadily crept toward the exit tunnels. Short-cutting through the city had helped put the timer within reason. The estimated time toward my destination also went down each time [Light Body] increased in Ranks.

  Skill: [Light Body]

  Type: Advanced

  Rank: 5 (Beginner)

  Details: This skill results from other abilities and actions. When carrying less than the specified weight, you gain additional speed and limberness. Exceeding the specified weight will negate these benefits.

  Cur
rent limit: 40 lbs.

  Each Rank increased the percentages and bonuses. My feet moved faster and quicker. Not anything like what Beth had shown me during my very first experience with Continue Online though. She had practically flown through the city.

  Still, I felt faster. According to my system text, I would be ahead of the [Pass to Pass] deadline by roughly thirty minutes. Part of me suspected my autopilot had eaten the [Ghost Mushroom]s to keep my weight down. Maybe it was because I had eaten a little bit of everything during one of my trials.

  I stopped and penned two more notes to the Voices. The first was a similar message I might send to a manager. Tomorrow had suddenly become a no-work day as a result of Trillium’s orders. Hopefully the artificial intelligence that ran this game would make allowances. The second message, yet another request, was me asking for information regarding Dusk in case of his passing. Neither one received an answer.

  Why the Voices had gone silent was beyond me. Maybe they were distracted by software upgrades or something. Maybe they were all just watching, popcorn in hand, me dance around.

  I had another question I wanted to ask, but the answer almost scared me to think about.

  How likely was it that a man would run into someone he knew from the real world during his first few days of playing? Much less that person being someone I had briefly dated?

  The answer was probably simple. “Not likely.” James would never admit to arranging this whole bit of nonsense, but it seemed like something he would do.

  Dusk chirped and snuffled along. I had maybe ten minutes left on this scroll of night vision and two hours until the actual exit. We were getting reckless in our speed. My stamina bar stayed low as I jogged and huffed every chance available.

  “Almost there,” I muttered between gasps. “Come on. We can do it.”

  The [Messenger’s Pet] happily confirmed my suspicions with a smiley face bubble above his head.

  “You think you can lead us out after my vision fades?” I said.

  Dusk made a deep sort of purr noise and bobbed his head. According to TinkerHell’s parting instructions, we likely passed all the [Gobbler] monsters. They stayed in the deeper parts of the dungeon. Up here, the monster was something else entirely.