Forever Fantasy Online

by Rachel Aaron

  The elf gave her a jaunty salute and started shooing people forward. When everyone was moving again, Tina crouched on the ground in front of the other tank.

  “It’s okay,” she said gently, putting a hand on his knee. “I’m not mad. I know we’re all still trying to cope with this. You want to talk about it?”

  DarkKnight was one of the few raiders Tina knew by sight alone. As the Roughneck’s second main tank, he’d stood shield to shield with her for years. He was a solid guy and a good friend, and current situation notwithstanding, she’d never seen him lose his cool.

  “Come on,” she said gently, smiling at him. “Talk to me.”

  DarkKnight shook his head. “Just tell me how to logout, please,” he said in a soft, very un-Jake-like Southern accent. “I shouldn’t’ve tried this.”

  Tina jerked back. “Holy crap,” she said, her voice sharpening. “You aren’t DarkKnight!”

  The man wiped his eyes before looking up at her. “I’m sorry, is this not a dark knight?”

  “DarkKnight isn’t a class in FFO,” Tina said. “It’s your name. Or it was.”

  “My name’s Frank,” the Knight said in a shaky voice. “I—”

  “Where’s my friend?” Tina demanded. “You aren’t the guy who owns that character, so why were you playing it? Jake would never let someone else play his account on a raid night!”

  Not-DarkKnight frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. I just bought this character a few hours ago so I could play with my great-grandson. I was waiting for him to get home from school when you invited me to your party. A party sounded like fun, so I said yes, and here I am.”

  Tina looked away with a curse, and the man winced.

  “I’m very sorry, young lady,” he said sincerely. “If you could just tell me what I’ve done wrong, I’ll try to make it right.”

  “Okay,” she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Since you clearly know nothing about video games, I’ll spell it out. That body you’re in, the one with all the legendary gear, belongs to one of my best friends. I can only guess that his account got hacked, and you happened to be the dope who bought it.”

  This earned her a relieved chuckle. “Well, don’t that beat all? Can I just give it back to him then? Because, I’ll be blunt, you kids are way too into this for me. All this acting like the game is real and we’re actually running for our lives.” He shook his head. “Y’all need to chill out, ’cause this isn’t fun at all.”

  “Wait,” Tina said, confused. “Have you been going along with everything up till now because you thought this was the game?”

  He nodded, and she gaped at him. “Seriously? Why are you hiding behind a tree, crying, then?”

  The Knight, Frank, blushed. “Em… well, you see, I’ve never done full sensory VR. It’s amazing stuff! Aside from that horrible wham-spin-wham bit at the beginning, I’ve never felt better in my life! I’m eighty-six years old, but I feel young again in here. It’s pretty hard to handle all these young emotions, though. Real nice—don’t get me wrong—but hard. When that skeleton hit me, I guess I just got overloaded. Too much unfamiliar stuff to deal with all at once.”

  As he talked, the excitement spread over his features, making his square-jawed face with the handlebar mustache she’d given Jake so much shit for over the years look like a kid’s. “I had no idea full sensory would be like this! If I’d known, I’d’ve come in here ages ago just to hang out. I don’t care about sword fighting or punching skeletons, but this sure as hell beats sitting in my chair all day, being a burden to my kids. I bet they’re super happy I’ve been zonked out in a VR helmet all evening, but I really do need to get to bed, so if you could tell me how to unplug, I’d be very appreciative.”

  Tina’s heart sank further with every word. “Oh man,” she said, running a hand over her face. “Dude, you have the world’s worst luck.”

  Frank laughed. “Nonsense! I told you, I’m eighty-six. It takes a lot of luck to get that old. So I got scammed. No biggie. I was a chemical engineer and a plant manager for forty years. Got a nice big retirement fund I won’t live to spend. What’s a few bucks lost on a game?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Tina said gravely. “You’re unlucky because you logged in just in time to get caught in the worst disaster FFO’s ever had.”

  He gave her an annoyed frown. “You ever gonna break character on me, girl? Because I’m done pretending for tonight. Now tell me how to log off, and I’ll give your friend his account back. Just give me his email, and I’ll take care of everything. Scout’s honor. Once that’s settled, I’ll go and get me a proper account from the company store so I can hang around in here and not feel my hips ache all day.”

  He finished with a wide grin, but Tina’s mouth stayed flat. “There is no logout anymore.”

  “That’s enough, darlin’,” he said, his tone turning serious. “I’m not playing your game anymore.”

  “For the last time, it’s not a game!” Tina shouted at him. “That’s the entire problem! We’re not playing, and there is no logout!”

  The Knight cringed away from her, and Tina immediately felt terrible. She didn’t want to yell at the nice old man who didn’t know any better, but having to spell things out over and over again just reminded her of how trapped she felt.

  This raid wasn’t going to end when they got tired or killed a boss. She had nearly forty people, most of whom acted like children, that she had to yell at and beat just to keep alive. Most of them weren’t even her friends. They were tryouts, strangers. If this had happened while she was raiding with her Roughnecks, the last hour and a half would have gone completely differently. Hell, it might even have been fun. But this wasn’t. She was just as trapped as poor Frank, fighting tooth and nail to keep random strangers alive. Possibly until she died, which at this rate wouldn’t be too long.

  Sighing at the hopelessness of it all, Tina lifted her heavy head and focused on the stranger in DarkKnight’s body, who was still looking at her with blatant skepticism.

  “Listen, Frank, the game you thought you were playing is gone. You say you feel young here, but full-immersion VR doesn’t do that. You log in with aches and pains, they stay around. If you’re not feeling your hips hurt anymore, the only explanation is that somehow, some way, you’re no longer connected to your real body.”

  His eyebrows shot up at the words real body. “You’re puttin’ me on.”

  “I swear I am not,” Tina said solemnly. “Though I wish to hell that I was. We’ve been death-marching our way through a dust bowl for an hour now. Did you really think we did that shit for fun?”

  “But this is crazy!” Frank protested. “You’re seriously telling me that we’re in another world, one that’s like the game but not? Doesn’t that sound nuts to you?”

  Tina nodded. “I know how it sounds. Believe me. But I’ve been playing Forever Fantasy Online for seven years now. My play time on this character alone is over twelve thousand hours. I know Forever Fantasy Online, and whatever this is, it’s not it. Not by a long shot.”

  Frank’s face turned pale. “So it was real,” he whispered, looking down at his shaking hands.

  “I’m not sure what this is, to be honest,” Tina said with a shrug. “But it isn’t the game, and it isn’t a dream, and it hurts like hell, so I’m going to call that real. Unless you have another explanation.”

  Frank shook his head, and Tina smiled. “Welcome to the raid,” she said, putting out her hand. “I’m Tina Anderson, by the way.”

  “Frank Gilmore,” he replied, gripping her dinner-plate-sized stone palm. “But why does everyone call you Roxxy if your name’s Tina?”

  “Roxxy is my character’s name.”

  Frank chuckled. “Is that ’cause you’re a giant stone lady?”

  Tina’s smile turned sheepish. “Yeah. I originally made this character as a joke to troll one of my friends, who couldn’t stand corny names, but I liked tanking so much that Roxxy became my main character, so jo
ke’s on me, I guess.” She shrugged. “I could’ve name-changed her, but you play a character long enough, and it sticks, you know?”

  “I suppose,” Frank said as she hauled him to his feet. “So what now?”

  Tina looked back down the road. Several miles behind the raid, a large white-gray dust cloud was rising behind the hills. It was hard to see against the endless gray clouds of the Deadlands, but there was a darker shadow inside the swirling dust. A huge humanoid one, steadily plodding toward them.

  “You see that?” she said, pointing at the shape in the dust. “That’s Grel’Darm the Colossal, first boss of the Dead Mountain raid dungeon. He’s a five-skull monster, which means it takes at least fifty players of the same level to kill him. Also, since he’s the start of the current end-game content, he’s way harder than other five-skulls. Only the best-geared, most skilled, and well-coordinated groups can hope to beat him.”

  Her voice rose with pride. “My guild, the Roughneck Raiders, is one of the top raiding guilds in the world. We were the fourth group ever to kill this guy, and that was only after he wiped us out forty-five times. That was months ago, though. At this point, we’ve downed Grel so much, he’s actually boring to fight. The only reason we still bother is because we have to kill him in order to get to the other bosses in the dungeon.”

  “Wow,” Frank said, clearly not understanding much of that but politely trying to look impressed anyway. “But if you’re so good at killing him, why are we running?”

  “Because most of my best people aren’t here,” Tina said bitterly. “Almost everyone in the group tonight was a tryout—basically a job applicant for my guild. Some of them have very little raiding experience, but since Grel’s such an easy fight for us, I only brought my good healers and the tanks so I could access as much new talent as possible.” That, and no one else had showed up. “Anyway, it would have been rough, but we probably would have downed Grel eventually. Now, though? With no interface and actually having to fight with our physical bodies?” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to face him like this even if I had all my A-string raiders, which I definitely do not. Also, we don’t know what happens when we die yet. Death is starting to look pretty permanent now though, and like hell are we going into a fight that routinely kills several people without knowing if we’ll get them back.”

  “Oh,” came Frank’s tiny reply.

  “I’m really glad we didn’t try to fight now, though,” Tina continued. “The real DarkKnight and I might have been able to handle it since we’re so used to working together, but if we’d tried to fight Grel with a rookie as the secondary tank, we’d all be dead.”

  “Good thing we ran, then,” Frank said, looking relieved.

  “Yep,” Tina said. “Fortunately, we won’t have to run forever. There’s a big fortress full of badass holy-warrior types at the other end of this zone who should be able to help us. In the meanwhile, though, you’re going to have to learn how to play, because until we reach safety, you’re the only other tank-specialized Knight we’ve got. So pick up your shield and let’s move.”

  Frank’s face went ashen. Tina flashed him a helpless smile and turned away, jogging to catch up with the raid, which was now nearly half a mile ahead.

  Chapter 4

  James

  “I know thirty different words for wind,” James said, dumbfounded.

  He was certain he’d never learned them. The knowledge was just there in his head, words for weak breezes and strong ones, for winds from the south, which meant storms, and the steady gale from the west that promised gentle weather. Each word was unique and nuanced, just as a real language would be. The grammar of the language of Wind and Grass was substantially different from English as well, yet James knew it all, even the stupid exceptions and contradictions that would trip up anyone who wasn’t a native speaker. He was still marveling in wonder at the entirely new way of thinking the new words presented when Arbati cuffed him upside the head.

  “We will no longer tolerate your disguise, demon,” the warrior hissed. “Tell us how and why you inhabit that body, or I will stake you out for the vultures to eat!”

  James was eager to tell the truth, if only to make the angry cat-man stop hitting him, but he had no idea how to explain a virtual-reality game to people who lived in a medieval-level fantasy world. “Okay,” he said cautiously, struggling to keep things as simple as possible. “You’re right that this isn’t my real body, but I’m not a demon. I’m actually human. I, um, I put on a special helmet in my world, and it lets me be here. It’s a game. I’ve been playing for about eight years now and—”

  That was the exact wrong thing to say.

  “A game?” Arbati roared, grabbing him by the throat. “The hell you put my people through was a game to you?!”

  “No!” James said quickly. “Well, technically. Kind of. It’s hard to explain. We were all told this was a game. That’s why we’re players. I didn’t know this world was real!”

  Arbati threw him back to the floor. “A game,” he snarled, kicking James in the ribs. “It was not eight years! We were forced to live in a timeless hell, repeating the same terrible day over and over for eight decades.” He kicked James again, his eyes wild. “You destroyed our world! Our people are a tenth of what they once were! Whole families have vanished! Evil is everywhere in our lands! I’ve died thousands of times, and you’re saying it was all for some other world’s amusement?”

  The warrior’s boot slammed into James with every yell, kicking him in the chest, the ribs, the legs, and finally, the head. It should have been a fatal beating, but other than the pain—which did hurt quite a lot—James didn’t feel anywhere near as bad as he should have, which made no sense. With all the stabbings, slashings, and brutalization he’d suffered since being discovered in the square, he should have been in the hospital. But while each of Arbati’s blows hurt worse than the last, they did no crucial damage.

  Probably because he was still level eighty, James realized with a start. Even if he couldn’t see his stats, the hit point system must still be working in some capacity to let him take a beating like this without broken bones. Unlike damage in the game, though, this hurt, and he couldn’t stop it. Every time he tried to say something, Arbati would just kick him again. He didn’t even seem to see James anymore. He was just blindly taking out his fury, all eighty years of it.

  Desperate, James cast a pleading look at Gray Fang. She was the spiritual leader of the jubatus, and the FFO wiki described her as wise. Maybe she could stop this? When he met her eyes, though, his hopes sank. The rage on her face was every bit as terrible as Arbati’s. Like her grandson, Elder Gray Fang had also been trapped by the game, stuck in place and forced to repeat the same actions over and over for decades. She probably wouldn’t let Arbati beat him to death since she still needed James for questioning, but she looked perfectly happy to watch the warrior bring him as close as possible, which was not where James wanted to go. He was wondering how he was going to get out of this while there was still some of him left to get out when one of the warrior’s increasingly frantic kicks hit the binding mask covering James’s face.

  The hard clay cracked under the blow. Not much, but the hairline fracture was still enough to bring back a sliver of James’s magical sight. All at once, the air was full of glowing lights again, but the magic was still too hazy to tell apart due to the interference of the remaining mask. If he finished the break, though, he might be able to use them.

  Now that he had a goal, James’s years of martial arts training kicked in. The next time Arbati pulled back his boot to kick him, James rolled onto his back and kicked up to his feet. The moment he was standing, he turned away from the astonished Arbati to face the huge support beam that held up the lodge.

  The warrior growled like a lion behind him, sending chills down James’s spine. Even with the level difference, putting his back to a vengeance-crazed warrior felt like a bad idea, but James stuck to his plan. He was rearing back to smash h
is face into the pole—and hopefully shatter the rest of the mask—when a young warrior jubatus burst into the lodge.

  “Elder Gray Fang! Ar’Bati!” the young man cried. “It’s an emergency!”

  The words splashed over the room like cold water. Arbati skidded to a halt inches from burying his claws in James’s neck, and James aborted his headbutt, turning instead to look at the newcomer, who was staring wide-eyed at the full-out prison brawl happening in front of him. For several moments, no one moved a muscle, then Elder Gray Fang turned around on her pillow with a sigh.

  “Please tell us what is going on,” she said then took a draw off her pipe.

  “Yes, Elder,” the young warrior said nervously, looking sideways at Arbati, who had not lowered his claws. “Scout Lilac’s squad has returned, like they always do.”

  Behind him, James heard Arbati curse. “Lilac is poisoned from a gnoll’s arrow, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, sir,” the warrior said, his voice bleak. “It’s still the same. Her patrol was ambushed, and she was struck with a poisoned arrow, just like always.”

  James blinked in surprise. He knew exactly what the warrior was referring to. The Poisoned Patrol was a scripted event that kicked off the Red Canyon questline. It happened every morning. Or at least, it had when this was a game.

  “The Nightmare still has momentum, it seems,” Gray Fang said bitterly. “But we are different. Now that I am no longer trapped in this lodge, I will simply cleanse the poison. Bring Scout Lilac to me.”

  “Yes, Elder,” the young warrior said, bolting out of the lodge.

  In the silence after he was gone, James turned to see Arbati wasn’t looking at him anymore. His sharp eyes were fixed on the elder with a wild hope. “Can you truly break the cycle?”

  “I don’t see why not,” the old cat-woman said. “The gnolls use the same herbs in their poisons as we do.” She looked up at the roof of the wooden lodge. “I was helpless before, bound to this building by the Nightmare just as Lilac was bound to her doomed scouting mission and you were bound to do nothing. But the Nightmare is broken. We are free again.”