Continue Online The Complete Series

by Stephan Morse

  Only a lot of combat and balance kept me upright.

  “Hold!” Wyl yelled.

  A single arrow landed right next to my abruptly relocated form. I turned to glare behind me. Viper stood far enough away that he wasn’t likely an issue. Squisks looked confused.

  “Assssholess.” Viper glared at one of the people in another group.

  His source of ire, a taller person with long fingers, smiled in my direction and waved. I felt a gentle pat on my cheek, as if being brushed by an invisible figure. Did that other team’s Traveler have an invisible hand technique? How awkward.

  “You want him killed, half price,” Viper said.

  One casual push from an ability had almost gotten me shot. I shook and tried not to think about how easily players could die in this game. My major goal was surviving long enough to find a private spot and check the [Messenger’s Tube]. There would be one less player in front of us, so that was mildly useful.

  Viper continued to glare at the invisible-hand player while I tried to figure out what our chances would be against unknown abilities. Better yet, what kind of powers did my own group have? No other players had divulged their powers. Fantasy-driven skills and talents could make for an odd array of possibilities.

  There were a lot of cookie-cutter abilities too. Multiple people used the same playstyles or builds with small variations. I’d once gone into a large capital that offered similar classes to NPCs and Travelers at the same time. Hundreds of people were going through the coursework to be basic foot soldiers or trackers.

  “Anyway, until ssomeone payss me more than it’ss worth to keep you alive, we’re in this together.” Viper turned, then smiled at me. His teeth looked masked by thin lips.

  “How much am I worth?” I asked while getting back to our marker. My eyes shifted around to each group to gauge those remaining.

  “We’ll find out in a few hourss, won’t we?”

  My mind ran through escape routes or ways to work through this mission. Getting away without earning some [Redemption] would be unlikely. Maybe there was a magical portal down below. There was also the possibility that revealing too many skills might get me ganged up on. I’d seen television shows about that very idea. Look weak, get picked on; look strong, get ganged up on. Float in the middle and maybe survive.

  No, I would save my other ideas for later. One day of real life would be four inside the box. Getting killed meant more than enough time to do whatever I needed outside. Or, and this would be an abuse of power, I could use my admin access to kick all these players out, clear the dungeon, and move forward.

  “So, Mister Daft, what are you gonna offer not to be killed?” Squisks asked. He looked to be on the verge of chuckling, and his goatee was stretched wide in a huge grin.

  I scratched my head and said, “Nothing?” That amount was fair for my digital existence. Right now, based on prison time, I had no reason to be insanely worried. Grinding out [Redemption] points couldn’t be more time-consuming than working on the [Wayfarer Seven]’s hull. Though dying would set me back.

  “What?” He sounded perplexed.

  “Yeah.” My head tilted slightly in confusion. Did they expect me to be worked up over this? I had already been shoved into at least three situations where performance mattered. Right now, I had no reason to stress. “Worst that happens is you guys gang up on me. Then I know not to trust you, and none of us get anywhere.”

  “Damn,” Viper said without a hiss. “You’re no fun.”

  “I’ve had worse quests. This is just… repercussions of past choices, I guess.”

  Trying to sum up my thoughts wasn’t working well. The very name [Redemption] and having a point value was simple enough. My actions had cost those with power. They wanted us to tear each other down, kill monsters, and gather resources. It was a rather good idea for putting Travelers to use, at least in kingdom terms. Everything bordered between kind of dark and standard Continue Online atmosphere. If this were a real fantasy world and I only had one life, then this process would be terrible. As it was, my stress was low.

  “There’s sstill a threat. You’d be ssurprised what a mind can do when there’s enough reward in place. At the very least, people can make ssure you come out behind.”

  “You can’t make it worse, can you? The way I read it, criminal points can only be added by those with the Condemnation skill.” I had read the text. These guys couldn’t put me further in the hole. It should be possible to get at least a few Redemption points at a time.

  “True. Either way, it’ss your call. As long as no one payss me, we can go down, kill a few thingss, bring out minor loot, or try to hit pockets of sstuff, but people may torture uss.” Viper didn’t seem to care either way. Chances were he expected me to be dead weight like Squisks, or he believed one of the other groups might kill us quickly.

  “Why would they try to torture us? We have to be logged in for it to hurt. I can watch remotely anything you might be doing, and pain is far less intense in-game.”

  “How can you say that?” Squisks looked nervous at the thought of full-on torture.

  “Real life hurts a lot more,” I said quietly, then shook my head. The idea of another player threatening me felt laughable. Not once had any other Travelers’ actions scared me, even when chasing down Commander Queenshand. They didn’t bother me in the same way that the Voices or various NPCs might have.

  “Ssee, Hermess ain’t a wussss like you, Ssquiskss. It’s just a game. If you want back to your ladiess sso bad, sstart over. Maybe try not to touch the wrong person thiss time.” Viper hissed in a bright laugh.

  “Yeah.” I shrugged while thinking about what they could do in the game. One of them would stab me in the back, the pain would be brief, and life would go on. Such feelings were why the game required being a legal adult to play.

  Rumination over the next thirty minutes provided a few possible ideas. There were tons of ways we could handle group tasks. I looked at the other teams for a bit, then back at my own. Using visual cues only to guess each person’s skill level was difficult. That being said, I had learned certain ways of standing from Shazam during our time together. Most of them came off as poor physical fighters, except Android Seven and maybe Viper.

  “So do people pay you to get your group killed, Squisks?” I asked the brown-haired man.

  “That’s none of your business, Mister Extra Daft,” he responded while wagging a finger. An uncomfortable look on his face probably indicated yes.

  Too bad I hadn’t inherited William Carver’s [Truth Sense] ability.

  I pointed at Viper. “Then you’re probably paid with a stash of items near the end of each dungeon if you successfully off someone?”

  He nodded but didn’t smile.

  “Which means you’ve been here long enough that you have a preferred drop point, or you trust the paying player enough to—” I shook my head.

  Viper didn’t say anything. Either I was on the right track, or he simply didn’t care. It was probably best that our items were all still sealed or blocked from being used. One of them might have tried to kill me now in order to prevent too much musing. Did everyone else have [Bound] items? No one appeared concerned about the lack of equipment.

  “You get paid at the end. Which is stupid. The math probably doesn’t work in your favor.” I had a degree in accounting. Really, killing each other and fighting over items was a terrible waste of resources, time, and effort.

  “How sso?” Viper’s eyebrows raised.

  “Come on, we’ve got another thirty minutes to kill. Someone give me numbers. How much is each part of the task list worth?” I motioned my hand at the other two in my team.

  They both spouted numbers, which also involved some arguing. Squisks, or whatever his name was, hadn’t survived even once until the end of a dungeon. Viper insisted the survival value was one point per hour and compounded from there. The math ironed out to three hundred points for the first day. Another three hundred could be earned at the end
of day two, three, and so on. [Redemption] only registered if I made it back to the two guards in their beams of light. Survival down there with four other groups prowling around and gaining points for killing us sounded difficult.

  Still, freedom was possible. Notes from Mother would be in reach. In addition, I wanted to get away from here and reach [Haven Valley]. If we were at the [Tower of Stars], which was near the central continent, then it would take a few weeks on a [Caliburr] to reach the west coast. The idea that something had happened to take Wyl away worried me. What about his son, Dayl? The kid had looked as though he might be lost without his father around.

  Remembering the goofy older teen made me pause in my calculations with a smile. That reminded me of the other players from William Carver’s era. Maybe they would know what caused Wyl to be so far away from home. I tried to bring up the message system since we had used a Porter to become in-game friends.

  Warning!

  Traveler communications are limited as a result of the [Convict Brand]. Only by earning enough [Redemption] points can you once again use the messaging system.

  Well, that wasn’t neat. I stopped laughing and searched for a certain winged creature to be somewhere on the horizon. Then it occurred to me why he wasn’t back. Technically the [Messenger’s Pet] had died in Advance Online, which meant I needed to resummon him here.

  Still, some people could use their abilities out here despite the restrictions. That struck me as odd. Hopefully my skills would turn back on once we got inside the dungeon. Then Dusk and I could be reunited—in a pit with people trying to stab me in the back while I tried to find a hole with enough light for some note reading. Topping that off would be needing to survive, make it to and from the surface, and not cross paths with Android Seven. I wanted to know the man’s secret, but I didn’t want to get close enough to be turned into [Redemption] points.

  I poked my interface. Sure enough, there was an ability to bring Dusk back titled [Summon: Companion], but it was crossed out like everything else. “Damn.”

  “Ssomething wrong?” Viper asked. He had edged closer, which kind of creeped me out. The man was just inhuman enough to be disturbing. It might have been because he was a snake creature, instead of robotic like the [Mechanoid]s.

  “No.” I shook my head and switched gears. “I’m just trying to go over the numbers.”

  “You think you’re the first to try to sscam the ssysstem?” Viper asked.

  “Mister Extra Daft.”

  “Let me guesss, you’ve got a plan that will let uss all gain a little, and it only requiress that we all come together?” The snake-eyed man laughed uncontrollably.

  “Daft as all hell.” Squisks giggled too, but it came out forced. He rubbed me the wrong way, and it wasn’t simply his being accused of some fantasy version of pedophilia. The way he’d acted during our few minutes together made me wonder if the man had mental damage.

  “No, based on what you’ve said, we’ll be lucky to earn maybe one thousand points at this stop,” I corrected them. The action math assumed we could make it to the surface. “That’s presuming we actually work together.”

  Squisks brightened for a moment upon hearing the values. That made me blink. I wanted to ask how close he was to freedom, but the idea of interacting with him made me sick.

  “Then autopilot time will fuck us hard,” the goatee man said seriously.

  My head kept going over [Redemption] task amounts. Common item drops could give half a point each. Anything that had a special effect could give up to twenty, based on Viper’s responses. Ores and furs had a value based on rarity, up to ten for a stack. I missed my armor that Shazam had made, and my skinning skills were low. [Morrigu’s Gift] transformed into pretty much any weapon, which included a pickaxe and skinning knife. But I didn’t have time to sit in a mine for days, learning to hammer nodes for ore.

  “Sso?” Viper asked while trying to recover from excessive laughter.

  “Whatever. Any plan Mister Daft’s got will fail like everyone else’s.” With that, the ball of sunshine called Squisks logged off, leaving his autopilot active.

  We stared at him as the color drained from his character.

  “I have some ideas if I can trust either one of you.” I looked at the other groups. Any group with three good dungeon divers would have been more put together. Honestly, this entire system was designed to throw us against an area without caring if we lived or died.

  “Trust?” Viper hissed at me while weaving his head slightly. It reminded me of a cobra hypnotizing its prey.

  I had a much better idea than trying to play numbers or build teams. Dusk, that little genius of a creature, could probably help me out a huge amount. These other players left behind caches of items. Dusk could sniff out treasure, I was sure of it.

  Plus I had [Sight of Mercari], which caused headaches after prolonged usage. According to Beth, having any sort of tracking skill was pretty rare. More commonly, people had threat sensors that would tell them if danger was incoming from a specific direction. Travelers with low [Reaction] speeds made it difficult to use.

  Skill: [Sight of Mercari]

  Rarity: Rare [Variant]

  Details: Initial rank of [Sight of Mercari] allows the Traveler to see all sentient beings around them. This change in perception can be disorienting. As proficiency increases, the skill will rank up, allowing additional details to be received.

  Rank 2 Unlocked! Colors are added to targets based on hostility level

  Rank 3 Unlocked! Tracking extends to those with a lower stealth ranking than [Sight of Mercari]

  “Tell you what, if we can make it through a dungeon without betraying each other, then we can split our earnings,” I offered, in hopes that all these various thoughts would come together. It was about time something worked out vaguely in my favor. All my other Continue Online adventures had come with mixed results. This probably would be the same.

  “You think you’ll earn more than I could alone?” Viper asked.

  My eyes went up in thought. Between [Awareness Heightening], [Blink], [Morrigu’s Gift], and [Morrigu’s Echo], I could probably come out ahead of most monsters. I could gamble for bonuses with [Wild Bill]. All those combined techniques had gotten me into dungeons to deliver letters before, but not through many bosses. Most of the time I [Blink]ed past monsters.

  “Probably. Why don’t we give it some time to find out?” I asked, hoping that we could reach at least a moment of cooperation. It was true that having another Traveler around would increase our [Redemption] points, plus our survival chances should increase.

  “Sso you want a truce for one game day?” Viper asked.

  “Except for Squisks. We can take care of him ourselves, and maybe make up the loss in points.” I nodded. We were lucky the man was still offline. Maybe he expected players to try to kill him.

  “Yeah? You want to try to earn ssome loot for offing the pedophile?” the man uttered a line that didn’t involve much hissing.

  “Yeah, that guy over there will pay us to kill Squisks.” I pointed at the Hispanic guy from earlier who could grit through electrical jolts.

  “That’s Big O. He has a sstanding offer, but if you want to arrange ssomething, you’ll need to move fast,” Viper said. Part of me expected a tongue to flick out and taste the air with one of his hisses. “It’ss our turn ssoon.”

  I smiled, nodded, then calmly walked over to the large Hispanic man who had offered a reward for killing Squisks. He laughed at me and said being able to off the slippery player with a goatee was unlikely. Even his two team members laughed at the idea. Each success would earn me fifty points’ worth of items, according to his offer. I tried to do the math. If we were here for seven real days, then killing Squisks would get me up to three hundred fifty points, plus [The King’s Task] offering.

  My mind ran through additional numbers. Ensuring a team member survived would result in positive points for every hour. Losing them would have an equal point loss over a twenty-f
our-hour time frame. Keeping Viper around while removing the goateed man would be a wash. Squisks would suffer a moment of pain to assist me in gaining points, which was a dirty way to think about it. Realizing that I was going to essentially torture someone else to spare myself hardship made me pause.

  The less violent route required collecting items. Fourteen thousand common items would free me. Surviving enough days down below and coming back to the surface would too. Killing the final dungeon boss would grant me a reprieve in these dungeon games. Making it through seven days, killing the final boss, and managing to take all the items between here and there might be enough to redeem me in one week, especially since [The King’s Task] added a few more points. The likelihood of doing all those items combined was very low.

  “Group two, pay some Voices damned attention and move over here!” Knight Middleton shouted at us.

  Viper shrugged and went over. I followed while mulling over my numbers. At what point had I thought that causing another player mental damage was okay? That Hispanic guy, named Big O, was amused by the idea.

  “Touch here.” Wyl pointed at the pedestal between him and Knight Middleton.

  Instead of a ballot-style draw box, there was now a single orb. It looked like a smaller version of the Porter crystals. That object must have appeared while I ran the numbers.

  Viper went first. A few moments later, he had a line of small daggers strapped to his chest with their handles pointed downward. His clothing looked like cloth, except for a shiny belt that might have been complete plate. It dragged heavily to one side. Squisks put his hand down too, but nothing changed gear wise.

  I placed my hand atop the smooth orb. A display popped with what looked like a standard gear system. I could, if I wanted, get one set of items to go into the dungeon with. Apparently this was the king’s pity in action. The equipment wasn’t [Bound]—dying would result in all my gear remaining with my corpse. The equipment looked to be poor quality, barely better than the nasty orange-and-black clothing I wore.