The wall spun, and I felt myself being pushed backward. My former rage wasn’t gone, not by a long shot. I had very few triggers to true anger, and that possible future of Beth and Liz was only a brief part of those horror stories. I knew now exactly how I would use that last [NPC Conspiracy] charge.
It may be unwise, or useless in the end, but I had to make sure events like those nightmares would never come to pass.
The little creatures of flame didn’t seem to be at fault directly. This world, fantastic though it may be, was still a series of well-built programs. Creatures like that quartet might know absolutely nothing at all and simply be there to fulfill a function.
My footsteps were heavy as I walked toward the stage’s edge. I paused with one hand on the cloth. Numerous events had just happened. Every time I tried to stabilize my mind and rationally think through, the scene had changed. Why?
“You shouldn’t worry,” another voice said. It sounded younger and whispery.
I looked over and saw a green flame creature, where the rest had been blue and black. This one was much shorter.
“Why not?” I knelt, and the creature backed into folds of the stage curtains.
It stared at me for a moment before daring to speak again. “Everyone worries about being betrayed by those they love.” The green one looked around as if expecting someone else to echo it. There were no other short beings burning nearby. “Everyone worries. Everyone is afraid sometimes.”
“I know.” I tried to sound sure.
“So we must have faith, Mister Hermes, sir. Everyone must have faith in those they care for and keep trying to help.”
“Faith,” I said numbly. That Voice from before had said the same words. Michelangelo had told us to do what was in our nature and have faith. Only that very idea was a strange concept to me. I only knew how to keep going.
“Yes, sir,” it said. “Without faith, what reason to live do we have?”
The curtains moved again, and the creature vanished. Its green body could no longer be seen. My mind couldn’t wrap around faith. Emotion and logic made sense. Faith never did. For me, the reason to live had become family.
I allowed myself time to decompress. Music wasn’t working, and whistling didn’t help. My brain couldn’t handle moving on to the other side without coming to grips with some of what had happened.
If those flame men served to collect dreams and fears, then it was safe to say the ARC had been capable of such actions all along. Those beings were a personification of a function; they had to be. Like the giant shadow gathering pieces of [Arcadia]. In my year of working with ARC devices, there hadn’t been much change on any of the model’s core parts. Following that reasoning through meant starting with day one, each Alternate Reality Capsule had been recording.
Xin was one of the first people to ever use an ARC as part of her Mars training. All those years of testing and simulation practice. Endless hours immersed in a digital world. Unlike civilians, she had been hooked up to tubes to ensure her body lasted for days at a time. I remembered her telling me about a few of those events. She went away for weeks, but it felt like a month had passed.
Voices above. My anger drained as half-thought-out ideas finally connected. No wonder Xin was herself. The government had been testing her, measuring the woman for fitness in every possible angle, for a long time. Her experiences were probably layers more intense than William Carver’s virtual lay-and-slay adventures. Then she died, but the Xin recorded by those programs wasn’t a quitter. She had something in her that refused to die. A spark, a core, a memory.
My head shook. One foot went in front of the other slowly through the curtain.
Those items put on stage with me as an unwilling actor had all been fears. Then it was up to me to not let what scared me the most happen. I would deal with anything to be with Xin again. I would see that beautiful smile directed at me instead of at a stranger who looked like my Continue Online avatar.
I would make sure none of those terrifying events came to pass.
Session Eighty-Four — Those Horrible Others
The curtains went on forever, and my status bars came back. Separation of myself from virtual reality helped me breathe easier after those visions of what might happen. Each item from those visions had been disturbing for a different reason.
I’d spent years dwelling on my problems before Continue Online. Starting this game had helped me progress forward only because there were goals worth chasing. I had to take one step at a time, then deal with whatever came next. Part of me felt as though I had been walking an unknown path this entire time. The question was, where would it ultimately lead? Other than out of these endless drapes, hopefully.
A bunched bit of material slapped me in the face as I breached another stage. My eyesight went momentarily fuzzy, and I turned toward the empty audience. Above, the light, which had been white on my nightmare platform, was replaced by a dull red. I put a hand up to block the glow and searched around.
On the stage was a crumpled man weeping over a fallen body. He cradled the figure in his arms, unrestrained with his grief. This stage looked to be a tragedy for another person. I ran a finger down the side of my face and felt the teardrop-shaped scales Dusk’s gift had given me.
“Voices, why…” Despite the sorrow, his words were soft.
“Wyl.” I carefully walked to him, worried about startling the guardsman. “It’s not real.”
Getting closer made it apparent to me that the body in his arms was a dummy. A plastic face stared forward without expression, yet the guard captain gazed at it as if nothing else in the world existed.
“How could this happen? That city was meant to be safe,” the man said.
“It’s not real, Wyl. It’s an illusion,” I said quietly from behind him. He made me a bit nervous, but I dared to get closer. These stages were safe enough once the illusion of fear had been broken.
He stood, and the dummy faded away. His eyes cast toward the distance, and a shaking movement took over his arm.
Wyl charged off toward the stage exit. “Not again! I won’t let it happen again!”
“Wyl!” I ran after his fleeing form. Even with my [Light Body], he managed to stay ahead. His ragged body disappeared into the drapes with me trailing behind.
Fabric brushed by much faster this time. Almost immediately, I burst upon a new scene. Wyl had a dull-looking blade out and swung at straw-stuffed mockeries of humans. He dodged unseen blows and spun around, swinging at another hay pile with crudely made arms. His movements grew progressively worse with each lap.
Cuts appeared along his body. One arm went limp, and Wyl simply switched the blade to his offhand. I stood with my mouth hanging open, trying to figure out what was happening. Could the nightmare inflict actual damage? My eyes scanned my own bars—they were full. No penalties showed like [Dazed], [Asleep], or [Drugged].
“Why won’t you bastards die?” Wyl shouted while hacking again. His blade looked pitiful as it brushed past the straw dummies without even denting them.
“Wyl, stop!” I shouted.
His weapon looked shoddy, but mine had broken through the walls of this nightmare. I pulled out the weapon and rushed toward the dummies. If he couldn’t break free on his own, then I would do it instead. No other option seemed worthwhile, and the game wouldn’t have dumped me here if I shouldn’t help.
Wyl spun and glared at me. His eyes glowed with the same red light that spilled across the stage. He held out his blade and shouted, “You!”
The man charged me instead. A second stage light flickered on above, and the floor flooded with depth as another scene swam over my senses. Wyl was no longer in his broken, tattered armor, but standing in a shining set of gear worthy of a leader among men. He screamed with his sword at the ready and a small shield on the other arm.
Behind him was an army of townsfolk. I took a breath and tried to understand what was happening. Vaguely familiar faces flashed among the crowd. I turned and saw anoth
er small group of people with me, but none of them were distinct.
This wasn’t the nightmare from before, but engaging with Wyl must have transformed the stage to include me. They attacked while screaming incoherently. I held up [Morrigu’s Gift] and kept the blade flat. Wyl ducked under it, and a suddenly sharp sword came up toward my face.
It slid by my cheek and sliced the tip of one ear. I twisted away, then [Blink]ed to the side. My landing put me in the middle of a grassy field right outside of [Haven Valley]. I had only a moment to stare at destroyed rubble stretching for miles in either direction. There used to be a defensive fortification there.
Behind me, the crowd roared and clashed. I turned to see an army of low-level villagers fighting against four Travelers. Above the Travelers stood blaring symbols denoting their otherworldly presence. Each one, like small giants, slaughtered people left and right. Wyl stood at the forefront, snarling at a woman who spun blades through the air. Extra ones danced independently from her body and cut down inattentive people.
There were dead bodies everywhere. The pile of NPCs grew, and Wyl looked worse as time went on. I couldn’t tell if this entire situation was based on a real event in the past or his fears. Wouldn’t I have heard if [Haven Valley] had been destroyed? Beth could have told me. No, I had been gone for two weeks and stuck as a communication-restricted [Convict].
“Wyl. It isn’t real!” I shouted.
He screamed and shouted, “Stop destroying my town!”
I surveyed the area to see how far the nightmare extended. Beyond the wall sat a fuzzy horizon of burning buildings. The streets didn’t look right based on my memories.
This was a nightmare, and Wyl was fighting against Travelers. There were four enemies and had been an equal number of straw men. It clicked in my head. If denial wasn’t his way through, then maybe fighting was. Too bad the mob thought I was an enemy as well. Even now, a small group of half-defined faces charged toward my perch near the wall.
I readied my blade and prepared to dodge the mob.
“After all we gave you!” yelled the furious guardsman. “We helped when you asked!”
“Voices above,” I cursed.
A small group of other guards had joined him. They were being cut down by Travelers. One of those people looked a lot like Peggy Hall, a trainer at one of the two places to learn weapons. She had spent hours trying to retrain an elderly William Carver and being stuck with my poor skills instead.
The Traveler attacking the burly woman had mad eyes that vibrated. She died as I charged. I made it just in time to stab the Traveler. I slipped by with [Morrigu’s Gift] and clanged into an under armor of some sort. After Requiem and a few boss monsters, I knew exactly what to do.
[Morrigu’s Echo] planted into the dirt at an angle while the Traveler laughed at me. I twisted one foot, and [Power Armor] clinked into place, giving me extra weight and protection. [Blink] put me in the air above while the Traveler kept up their damned mockery. A moment later, my heavy body slammed down onto the person’s back and shoved [Morrigu’s Echo] through their body.
Their laughter died off while a series of messages came up telling me about armor values and unexpected attacks. NPCs around me cheered and did not try to insert their blades into my backside. I moved quickly with heavy footsteps toward the next Traveler. Those that had been attacking scattered to new targets.
“This isn’t real, Wyl!” I shouted again, hoping to break through.
The people flowed around me and kept attacking Travelers. I did too. There was no other way through this trial that I had found yet. [Morrigu’s Echo] wouldn’t have much left if I [Recall]ed it right away, so it stayed impaled in the dying Traveler. The second enemy went down soon after. By the time I hit a third, they felt even more like the dummy figures they had been originally. Their bodies offered no real resistance, and soon everything around me felt like a stage play once again.
The white light up above had vanished, and all that remained were the broken wrecks of dummies. I turned and found Wyl alone, swinging his blade at a figure made of straw once more. His eyes were unfocused and foam lined his mouth.
“Voices, make this endless hell stop,” he mumbled.
“It’s not real,” I said, but the man showed no signs of understanding.
I ran over, prepared to lop the fourth straw man in half. It vanished as I swung my blade, and Wyl fell forward onto the floor. My [Reaction] barely managed to pull the blade back fast enough to avoid friendly fire. I ended up facing a wall in an awkward spin that nearly put one leg out of joint.
No footsteps behind me, only slow, labored breathing. I assessed my foot and found it mobile enough. Wyl had managed to get upright and was gazing at the audience. Red lighting still shone down, and [Morrigu’s Echo] lay in a mess of straw. The remaining dummy bodies were gone, spirited away by game programming or those little flame men.
I limped over while favoring my recently damaged foot. The system provided me a message regarding it, but I shut them all off until this series of nightmares ended.
Wyl abruptly saluted empty space. I winced from a sudden flare of red light projecting down from the catwalk.
The scene around me had changed. We looked to be in a militaristic compound. A desk with piles of papers was to one side while barren walls filled most visual space. The floor looked cold, flat, and dull.
“Where are we?” I asked Wyl.
The guard captain ignored me and faced a new person who stood opposite the desk.
“Commander, we have a report from your hometown, sir,” the other figure said. His face looked familiar, but I couldn’t place the second person.
“What is it, Knight Middleton?” Wyl asked.
I blinked and stuck out a hand. Neither person noticed the action. Knight Middleton’s body offered no resistance as my arm went through him.
“It isn’t good, sir. The report says Travelers attacked.” Knight Middleton held up the letter. “A lot of Locals died in the aftermath.”
“Tell me what you know.” Wyl snapped orders even in the face of a confusing situation.
The man had never really demonstrated less than a take-charge attitude with anyone besides William Carver. Dealing with him felt weird because of our halfway association. I expected friendly and got orders.
I hoped to get him through this without further complication. Then we could all sit down, and I would explain everything to Wyl, Xin, and the others. Even Beth would get a rehashed, unabridged version. Maybe SweetPea could cook up some popcorn. The idea of her shy self supplying treats was amusingly fitting. HotPants wouldn’t be the type to offer snacks.
“No one’s sure. The bandits nearby broke into town shortly after and made things worse.” The other man shook his head. “The king offered to send aid, but Haven Valley is neutral territory, so he is unable to offer much.”
“And my son?” Wyl asked while fingering a bracelet I hadn’t noticed. It looked to be a small piece of threaded metal with two tiny jewels in it. He moved the item away before I could fully analyze what it was.
“His body isn’t reported among the deceased, sir,” Knight Middleton carefully said. Even his indistinct face managed to look wary, though most of it was in his fidgeting hands.
“Tell me if he’s among the living.”
Knight Middleton hesitated. His face twisted briefly, and an unspoken word almost made it out. The man gave up after another attempt, then shook his head.
“Does the king know when I may be released from conscription to see if my family yet lives?” Wyl asked instead.
“No.” Knight Middleton blinked, then managed to speak this time. “He said this event only proves the need for more troops.”
Wyl looked barely composed. His eyes wavered slightly and his chin vibrated, then he nodded at Knight Middleton
“This isn’t real, Wyl. Your son might still be alive.”
“He’s dead,” Wyl said without focus. “I’m a soldier. I’ve got to prepare myself for th
e worst.”
“You don’t know for sure, do you?” I asked.
Wyl didn’t hear me, but the red light flashed again. Now I understood better what those moments were in my own nightmares. The scene changers were introduced or triggered by that bright light.
I raised my hand and saw the nearly empty stage. A small table sat in the center. There was a pause between scenes again. Wyl stood and walked steadily to the curtains while that damned red light flooded the scene. I frowned and closed my eyes. The idea that people from my world had caused such grief made me sick. Who in their right mind would attack a town full of living and breathing people?
Then again, who was I to talk? I had dropped a bomb among tons of troopers back in Advance Online. Despite Jeeves’s reassurance that they were little more than cardboard cutouts, it still made me sick. We didn’t think about the damage our actions caused in a virtual world, especially not in the name of quest pursuit.
[Morrigu’s Echo] sailed swiftly toward the red light, and I couldn’t bring myself to feel happy at the sound as the light shattered. Wyl stumbled at the curtain’s edge and grabbed onto the dangling fabric. His body swayed for a moment before his feet managed to stand upright. The man took deep, rapid breaths as his gaze shifted around to take in the scene.
I stood there and tried to figure out what words might make this right. I didn’t know what parts of the vision were true or false. Logic told me Wyl had simply never made it home to find out, and those battles where people died were part of a deep-rooted fear. Part of me worried that he might be living an actual event repeatedly.
“Tell me where we are, convict,” he ordered.
I sighed and wondered if we would ever move past that label. Maybe Wyl couldn’t let himself, or maybe he didn’t know how else to classify me. My free hand rubbed tense neck muscles.
“Well?” Wyl demanded while marching closer. He took unsteady breaths—his wounds didn’t seem to be healing.
“We’re on the way to the Shadow Zone.” Which was a goofy name to give this place. “And it shows us things we’re afraid of.”
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