Continue Online The Complete Series

by Stephan Morse

  “As Hermes’s counsel, I would like to remind the king that Hermes did endeavor to reduce the loss of soldiers on both sides,” the professional person acting as my counsel said.

  I had no idea who he was. He didn’t seem affiliated with any of the merchants and rich nobles standing behind us. They were a mindless crowd that had little to say. Not that I could see much with my face planted on the floor.

  “Faint good that did. Commander Strongarm was worth an army by herself.” King Nero sounded sad for a moment before his imposing air resurfaced.

  I glanced up at the man, and his eyes bore down toward me. They looked gray, almost absent. The longer I stared, the deeper his black centers appeared, as if they might swallow me whole.

  “I—” A spear whacked me on the head, leaving a [Stunned] message and mumbles coming out of my mouth. My body tried to move, but the [Convict Brand] reduced me to a weak kitten compared to these guards.

  “And she was defeated. Perhaps your lordship could conscript Hermes for the kingdom’s future,” my advocate stated calmly. He, at least, wasn’t smacked in the face.

  “Without her, we might as well be doomed! I have seen the blackness that awaits us. I have been into the abyss’s depth!” The king turned frothing in an instant before a polite cough from the aid holding a quill set him back. He even managed to drop the whole royal we act he’d had going on thus far.

  “Sire,” my advocate said, “we must think toward the future. Castrating a Traveler might reduce the need for vengeance, but by your own words, we will need a strength of arms in this world.”

  “That is true.” He took a breath and righted himself. “We did say that warriors will be needed.”

  “And a culling, I believe, were your words,” the well-dressed man said and bowed slightly.

  His clothes kept creating the sparsest breeze every time he moved. I tried to figure out if that was a gear trick or something else, but even [Inspection] was locked. My last few hours in-game had been filled with denial. Only the hope of getting to my [Messenger’s Tube] and contacting Xin kept me playing. Today had been terrible and this game was trying my patience.

  “That is also true. Some Travelers are too strong for their own good.” King Nero looked at his aide to the rear, and the thin man nodded, then marked words on the parchment.

  “Then, as you yourself suggested, assign him to The Wheel, then make him serve as a hatchet man. Either he’ll grow stronger, which only serves the kingdom, or the others will kill him, which will serve your desire for retribution,” he said, sounding so calm.

  “What the heck—” The world blurred as the butt of a spear pummeled my face.

  “We have an agreement then. Punishment, where he’ll either grow strong enough to fight the looming darkness or die enough to help us sleep at night. Either method can be considered a victory.” King Nero nodded then looked at his aide again.

  Once more the thin figure scribbled down items with a quill.

  So the king sentenced me to a kill-or-be-killed playground against other players? That was decidedly brutal for Continue Online, and what about Xin? Was she somewhere in the crowd, witnessing my condemnation? Hopefully she wasn’t here.

  A spear hit me once more. The repeated cranial abuse hurt in the ARC but was thankfully muted. My crippled character slipped into an [Unconscious] status, and the screen went black. Playing Continue Online hadn’t improved the day.

  Session Sixty-Eight — Virtual Chain Gang

  My character didn’t regain awareness in the next twenty minutes. No character meant no Xin. No [Messenger’s Tube] meant no contacting the Voices. I logged out of the ARC, upset, and passed out. Staying up late hadn’t been worth it. Using my last [NPC Conspiracy] charge was an option, but I disliked the idea of using such an insane trump card just yet, especially since the last one had shut down the globe for a few minutes. What would I do if men in black suits showed up and hauled me away? Being with Xin couldn’t happen if I was in a prison cell in real life.

  Dreaming plagued me with a wall of fears.

  My dad’s face presented a frown. He said, “Xin’s not in the box, son, she’s over here with me.”

  I remembered screaming in protest, but the words didn’t make sense. They were more of an incomprehensible ranting. Half sobs were choked up by a denial of all that I had hoped and worked for.

  “Sorry, son. Life’s for the living, and the dead are rotting. Like your cat, remember Mister Sniffles?” His words felt insanely clear for such an awkward dream.

  “He was just a cat, and Xin is more than that!” dream me shouted.

  “Dead’s dead, son. Time and tide wash us all away in the end.” His features were blurred by time’s haze.

  “But Xin’s alive!” I woke up raving with a rapid heartbeat.

  The last image I remembered before being sent into awareness was my father’s face, devoid of awareness but shaking his head sadly. When was the last time I had really looked at either of my parents? In the struggle to hold onto Xin’s memory, I had cast away so many other relationships.

  The bed felt cold, and goose bumps crisscrossed my arms. Had I really been so used to being alone at night? Even when Xin was around, I’d spent a lot of nights waiting for her to come home. Three years, long enough to be so dead inside that I used a machine to dance with her and feel a hint of memory in my arms. I tried to shake off the emotions and took a breath. Thinking about the nature of our possible relationship only made me waste the limited time I already had.

  Five hours of sleep were all I’d managed to get. That would be nearly an entire day in Continue Online. Maybe Hermes was conscious and waiting to start serving virtual slave labor. Maybe then I could work on redeeming myself, or getting murdered, or whatever exactly was next. That King Nero fellow had sounded justifiably upset and perhaps a bit crazy.

  Parts of the situation tore at me. My actions in an alternate reality video game had been linked to his death due to the Voices manipulation of my character creation tests. That part was outside my control, but in both games, I had killed Commander Strongarm and Queenshand, who I guessed was his sister-in-law. I didn’t understand how it all went together yet.

  Today I would take myself out of the work queue for a few hours and look at the journals Continue Online kept for me. It was odd. When I was growing up, I’d glazed right over most of those lore items and game backstory issues. Now, as an adult, they mattered far more than expected. It wasn’t just my wild ride either. Beth had an entire tapestry of backstory to her adventures as well.

  I logged straight in, once again bypassing the little preview window that could be used to check autopilot actions. It was more fun to dive in blind and just roll with whatever happened, in the same way I used to leap into the swimming pool and get the abrupt chill over with. My head shook—swimming made me think about Dad. There was a reason I had never been that active in sports.

  As the loading screen darkness faded, I felt my leg weighed down by something extremely heavy. We—that was to say, I and the back of a dozen other heads—were rolling along in an open-air bus. Large creatures that looked like a cross between dwarf giraffes and oxen were off to one side. Our vehicle was bolted onto harnesses that make the ride sway.

  New Player Attribute Added: [Criminal]

  [Criminal] is a stat increased by those with a [Condemnation] ability.

  [Redemption] points cancel out [Criminal] points

  Until your Redemption rate reaches zero, you will remain a victim of the [Convict Brand].

  Current [Criminal] value: 7,000

  [Redemption] points can be earned through completion of special tasks assigned by the party who [Condemned] you. In this case, you are punished by a person with [High Nobility] status. Tasks will be assigned as you travel around the territory. Total points gained varies based on the complexity of the task, reason for punishment, and fine being imposed.

  Behind the system message was a wall of people snoring. If I concentrated, there wer
e tiny player and autopilot indicators floating above their heads. Glancing around revealed two NPCs in substantial armor escorting this prison cart. No one else.

  A tower far in the distance looked vaguely familiar. Not [The Lone Tower] where the [Mistborn] resided, but one that Beth had probably talked to me about.

  I tried to flip through my notes for half an hour while our cart meandered onward. It felt slower than the [Caliburr]s by miles. We must have spent ten minutes passing a single tree.

  “Hey,” someone behind me whispered. “Hey, you’re online, right?”

  It took me a few moments to register the words. The tower’s name eluded me, my notes for this region were minimal. I must have passed through at high speeds, with [Blink] and [Lightbody] helping me.

  “You there? You’re not a mute, right?” the other person whispered. Their voice didn’t sound familiar. There was a jingle to it that was almost southern, but crisp.

  I tried to turn my head around, but something bolted to my neck made it impossible. “Deaf, you mean?”

  Shazam had been mute. The idea made me sad briefly, but hopefully this guy behind me couldn’t tell what my face looked like. I had to remind myself that everyone here was a major criminal in the eyes of this game.

  “Daft?” The stranger sounded honestly confused. “You daft then?”

  “Deaf, as in hard of hearing. And no, I was distracted.” I was beginning to suspect this person was daft, as in not entirely there.

  “Shut it, convicts!” one of the two guards yelled.

  “Oh. Yeah. That. Are you daft?” he whispered. Maybe the man was just screwing with me. He did sound kind of amused.

  I raised an eyebrow and leaned my head back slightly. My hands were bound to a bar in front of me. Hopefully this other person had been tied up too. A man to my left looked bolted down in a similar fashion. Part of me wanted to exercise the full extent of my abilities upon this daft man’s body. After all those weeks of pent-up aggression with the repetitive customer complaints, the idea of unleashing a bit of malcontent upon the world made me smile.

  These were players, so they would resurrect eventually. They were also supposedly complete scum. I paused. My own status was right in the mix with these people. That meant in the general public’s eyes, I wouldn’t be much better.

  “Yes, I’m daft.” Why not? I wasn’t at work, so there was no need to be the friendly but professional version of myself. These weren’t accounting customers or letter recipients. I didn’t care a ton about showing weakness in front of people who played games, no matter how real this world was.

  “Good. You look daft to me. I’m gonna call you Mister Daft forever,” he proudly declared. I couldn’t see what this guy looked like, but he sounded like a belligerent teenager. “That okay, Mister Daft?”

  “I thought we agreed the new guy would be Sharkbait,” another player said with a yawn in his voice. He sounded bored. This newest person was to my left.

  All around, autopilot symbols were dropping away.

  “You said that, but we already got Shankems over there. I don’t want another S name.” There was a rattle as the guy behind me moved. His voice shifted to face us better.

  “Dude’s name is Hermes. Get an ID skill and maybe some brain cells, then you can stop opting out at the beginning of every stop,” a fourth person sharply responded in a deep voice.

  “I ain’t playing this game to fight. I’m a loving sort,” the guy behind me insisted. He rattled something again.

  I jerked my hands, trying to reproduce the noise. There were a few possibilities. The man’s chains were likely being stretched to their maximum range. Maybe there was an odd combination of footwork being done.

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get your squicky hands in my direction. If you end up on my team, I’m offing you before you can suicide on a pull,” the rumbling one said to the guy behind me.

  “What are you all talking about?” My eyes and neck strained to see the two of them.

  The guy with a deep voice talking about an ID skill looked to be Hispanic. That might have been the avatar or an in-game skill though. Tips of his hair held a pale whiteness that would almost glow in the dark.

  “First tour?” the deep-voiced man asked me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m Hermes. Thanks for getting my name right.”

  “Nah, your name is Mister Daft.”

  Possible Alias: Mister Daft

  Details: Alias skills allow a player to mask their primary name with a secondary one. The effectiveness of an alias depends on when and where it’s used. Further development of an alias takes work and time. Large-scale deeds under an alternate name can help establish an alias.

  Note: Other Travelers may see past an alias depending upon their skill usage.

  “Or Hermes,” I offered. Neither name bothered me that much at this point. My interest lay in all the details they were spouting. Those prisoners back in the jail cell had believed this was a terrible place to be, yet three of these players had talking without hesitation about the rules.

  Maybe the difference in types of players mattered. Some people couldn’t handle the pain feedback, like what we got upon death. Even if the wounds were transitory there’d be no reason to willingly feel damage.

  “All right, Hermes, some ground rules to make life easier during your stay,” the big tanned guy said. He didn’t bother turning his head much. “Listen up, ‘cus those who don’t get boned quick.”

  “I still like Mister Daft. Daft, ‘cus he’s got air between his ears.”

  “Don’t listen to him. He’s got some skill that makes NPCs believe his lies. Works on players also,” the rumbling one said.

  I tried to use [Identification], but the skill was locked. Mine was, at least, but this other guy had managed to figure out my name. Maybe we were unlocked briefly to do dungeon stuff.

  “Shut up, convicts!” A guard pressed something hanging off the giraffe-ox monster.

  Pain arched through our bindings. The big guy ground his teeth a little. I yelped from the unexpected spike. Others made varying noises.

  “No one here is your friend unless circumstances force it. We’re headed to a team dungeon, but expect no favors just because you’re grouped,” the tanned guy tried to whisper but failed. Apparently it was good enough for the guards.

  “Okay.” All sorts of ideas raced through my brain.

  “I’m only talking because I enjoy a certain amount of fairness, and don’t bother asking why we’re in. To sum this shit up, at least four people here are in for murdering everyone they could before enough other players brought them down.” The Hispanic guy shrugged. “Seven others got burglary raps. Add in some political hatred or getting on the wrong side of quests. Squisks back there tried to touch a bunch of elf girls who may be eighty but are mentally eight.”

  “Game’s rigged. They were legal,” said the man. “Way, way over eighteen!”

  “Jesus, you kill him before he suicides, and I’ll consider it a personal favor. Same offer I make to everyone else. Free pass.”

  “How many times?” the guard yelled as armor clinked.

  Another round of electrical collar abuse kicked in. This time, everyone cried out except the big tanned guy who had been explaining things to me.

  “If the new guy needs to know something, he can learn by trial and error, or check that guide shit you Travelers have,” the guard said.

  “Calm down, Knight Middleton,” said the other armored figure. He rode a creature that looked as if someone had shoved a gazelle and bull together. Without [Identification], I was unsure, but that beast was probably a [Larodeo], which apparently combined a Spanish “the” and “rodeo.” I’d seen them before while wandering around.

  The first guard glared at all of us. His hand hung above the electrical trigger button. I contemplated racing to log out of the ARC before another one hit. Dealing with pain when there was no choice was bearable, but he wasn’t Requiem.

  “Knight Middleton, shocking
the Travelers does nothing to help them be rehabilitated, despite your beliefs,” the other knight said.

  True. I hadn’t received a system pop-up regarding [Rehabilitation] points because of being damaged.

  “It should. If the Voices left me in charge, I would shock them endlessly, one point per minute endured.” The man pressed the button again anyway, despite his orders, and I gasped as my limbs shook from the jolt of electricity. “Then even that child-raping scum could be redeemed in a few months. I bet he would even thank me if there was some stupid skill.” A jolt of pain accompanied each of his final words.

  “Knight Middleton, once again I will remind you that justice is not ours to dispense. We only follow the rules set forth.” The other guard’s tone sounded familiar. It was hard to place, as though it were from a half-forgotten dream.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Convicts, for your own health, keep quiet until we reach the tower’s base.” The guard in charge didn’t turn to look at us. His words were oddly clear.

  Most of the other convicts flipped back to autopilot. They must have been checking on their characters when someone talked. The remote screen was good at seeing when things moved, but time dilation made it hard to track conversations sometimes.

  I decided to log out and get the rest of my sleep. We clearly had time before anything super exciting happened, and I needed to be rested before dealing with group treachery. What exactly might they do? Form alliances across teams? Lead other people to their deaths?

  When we were all chained down and sitting together in daylight, it felt peaceful. Compared to frothing beasts in my face, they were only human. Still, any one of those people might turn ugly fast. That large man who had shrugged off electrical jolts had to be skilled, or tough with a damage reduction. His hands had been huge too, like, Iron-sized, or Leeroy-sized, and he sounded nothing like those two. He been informative but not friendly.

  The guy behind me, upon reflection, had been condescending and weasel-like. Inside the game, I had suppressed those impressions in order to listen and get my bearings in the new location. Being in the middle of all those criminals with unknown Continue Online abilities worried me. My sleep was fitful and sweaty.