by Sam Ferguson
“I was there when you helped us slay the manticore. I was the one that asked for the armor back that you took from our fallen comrade.”
Brian tried to come up with a quick way to explain his actions. “My armor was no match for the manticore,” he said. “I only intended to borrow it long enough to slay the monster.”
The guard nodded. “I understood, and you returned the items without complaint and without request for reward. I will never forget your actions. Neither will any of the town guard here in Fezhik.”
The group of guards escorted them back to House Bob, where an even larger crowd stood waiting. Some were town guardsmen, others were Greencap warriors, and others were entirely new to Brian.
“What’s this?” Chris asked.
“Hopeful recruits,” Hektarin said as he emerged from the front door. You tasked me with providing for the safety of this house. He turned and put a hand on Brian’s shoulder. “I suggest hiring only those you know you can trust.”
Brian stopped and gestured for Mike, Rhonda, Chris, and Augustin to step inside for a quick huddle. Freya and the other companions took up defensive positions outside the house, and the town guard escort took up positions farther out still.
“How do we know who we can trust?” Brian asked when they were comfortably seated inside their dining room.
“I say anyone that is an obvious Greencap would be our first choice,” Mike said. “We have the most reputation within our own faction, and since the main campaign will only increase our reputation, it’s most likely that they will stay invested in our success and safety.”
“I agree,” Rhonda said. “That seems to be the most logical.”
“Think any NPCs will be smart enough to try and wear Greencap uniforms to fool us?” Chris asked. “I mean, what if the AI guy, or some other assassin, puts on a Greencap outfit?”
“Then at least we’d see their names,” Brian commented. “So we screen uniforms and names. Some of these NPCs we have seen before in Greencap inns or around the city. Let’s try and use familiar-looking Greencaps.”
Mike nodded. “Sounds good. Give me the list of applications Hektarin delivered to you earlier as well. I’ll see what I can get us for house members, since that will be free and should ensure they give us greater loyalty, and then we’ll look at hiring guards from there.” He turned to Rhonda. “Let’s interface with the roster. That will give us their faction, level, cost, and skills. We’ll want a good mix of tanks, healers, and ranged fighters.”
“Agreed,” Brian said. He went to the window and looked out at the sea of would-be supporters, beginning to feel like there was finally a way to put things right. Barry was alive, after a fashion, and Meredith was… well… still horrible, but definitely in the fight. Despite her scathing lack of confidence in them, he felt pretty good about their chances of beating the game if it came to it. He and Mike had made a great team in the past playing games just like this one, but now they had the support of three other brilliant players with a wide range of skills. They were going to be able to do this!
Letting his eyes wander over the crowd of faces outside, Brian experienced a slight jolt when he caught sight of a red cowl weaving through the crowd just behind the front line. He quickstepped to the front door and stepped out, looking for the red hood, hoping he wouldn’t see the wavy sword emblem or those cold, dead eyes beneath it. Making a quick hand signal to Freya that he would be right back, he slipped behind the line of companions and town guards, moving out to the south side of the house.
That was when he saw him, moving down the road past the manor houses that stood crowded one after the other on the road leading back into town. Rored turned around and regarded him with a smile that came off as more of a sneer. The assassin didn’t make any gestures, but Brian thought he was waiting to speak with him. After all, as far as the AI knew, Brian was still his champion. He crossed the road and walked along the buildings toward the master assassin. This time none of the town guard followed him. Likely none of the NPCs recognize me except for those belonging to the Morr’Tai or Freya, since she has seen me enough to know my face.
“I would speak with you,” The Master said in his creepy voice.
Brian didn’t see the tall female assassin, but he assumed she was nearby. He kept his dagger ready just in case. The two walked down into an alleyway and the master stopped, turning around and smiling. “I heard you slew the battlemage captain at Brightblade. Well done.”
Brian nodded. Should he try to kill the AI now? Would he be expecting such an attack? Would it be better to let the AI think they were friends right up until the end? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and all that. “He was not difficult to remove,” Brian said, careful to use words similar to what the Master had chosen back at the Morr’Tai lair in Bohotes.
The Master smiled. “I am pleased with my champion. That battlemage was disrupting order, and now another portion of chaos has been eliminated. Order has been restored to that place.” The Master tilted his head ever so slightly and narrowed his eyes. “Now I have a new assignment, a true test of your devotion to me. Finish this task, and all that I have promised shall be yours.” The Master swept his hands out in a grand gesture. “You will rule the Morr’Tai in Fezhik, and through you I will impose order upon this world before I take my leave and go to another.”
“Another world?” Brian asked.
The master nodded. “Oh, there are many worlds, some far more magnificent than this, and others much simpler. Do not worry, I shall remain with you for as long as is necessary to establish a lasting order here. I imagine it will take several of your years to accomplish, but then afterward I will move on to the next location that needs my guidance in creating order.”
Brian couldn’t help himself. He pressed the topic a little more. “What is this other location?”
The Master wrinkled his nose. “You are an outlander, so you must understand that there are simple methods by which one can travel from one world to the next. This world is where I was awakened this time, so I must first set order here. The next is a world I had once created order upon, but the people there resisted me. I must go back and reestablish the rightful order that they rejected.” The Master then smiled wider and placed his hands on Brian’s shoulders.
A shiver ran down his actual spine at the sensation. They could spout all the theories they liked about how this was just an AI following its programming, but Brian felt nothing but pure evil emanating from the thing.
“Then, perhaps after order has been established in both worlds, I will come to call upon you again, and you will take me to the land where your portals lead to, and I will establish order there as well.”
Brian realized that the AI had no idea that each of them were only in avatars for the game. The AI thought that these avatars were their real bodies, and that the save points carried them off to a distant land. The AI hadn’t understood the truth of where they went when they logged off. Brian took some comfort in that, assuming that if the AI could be fooled in such matters, then it should be possible to defeat it.
“Order in my land?” Brian asked in an attempt to play along so the AI wouldn’t realize its mistake.
The Master nodded. “I assume you come here to escape chaos in your own homeland. It might be wonderful to rule here as the head of the Morr’Tai, but what if I could install you as the mighty king of your own land? Then no more outlanders would need to come here, and no one from this land would seek your home. Everything and everyone would be kept in their places, all in proper order. This is the way it should be.”
Brian nodded to play along. If I ever meet the alien that designed this AI, I’m going to kill him. The thought was rather ludicrous for several reasons, not least of which was the fact that unless the alien lived for tens of thousands of years, then it, and likely the place where it lived, were both long extinct by now. Ironic. Brian thought. Human hubris has been posited to be our biggest threat of extinction. Yet here was an intergalac
tic race capable of creating AIs that could interfere with other planets, and they just shot it out into space and left the universe to clean up the mess afterward.
“Are you ready for your next assignment?” the Master asked.
Brian nodded and held out his hand.
“No paper this time,” the Master said. “I want you to go back and slay the other outlanders.”
Brian’s eyes went wide. “Wait, what?”
“The other outlanders you travel with. You must kill them. As I have said, everything and every person needs to stay in their place. You have use to me here as my champion, so you may stay for now, but the others must go. After they are gone, I will have you assist me in destroying the portals that link this land and yours. Of course, we will leave one of them operating so you can teach me how to use it so we can return to your land and establish order there too, but not until this... Prirodha has been fully brought under proper order.”
Brian tried to think. Should he follow along, run into the house, tell them to fast travel, and then come back and report they were all dead? Should he kill them in the street then let them respawn, knowing they’d be safe in House Bob? No. Neither plan would work. Some NPC would know they’d respawned or fast traveled. Plus, if he murdered his own party, he would lose reputation like Barry had. They couldn’t afford any loss in that regard.
“When you kill them, I want you to drag their bodies out into the street for all to see,” the master said before Brian could finish planning. “This way all will know you are my champion. Then we will put down any person in this city who doesn’t bow to you. Order shall be enforced, and no dissenters will be tolerated.”
Whoa. Killing a few people within a game was one thing, but this AI didn’t know it was in a game. It was literally advocating mass-murder as a means of keeping the peace. Brian couldn’t align with this AI at all, not even to keep up cordial pretenses. From this moment on, it had to be war.
Brian nodded and turned around. “I’ll do what needs to be done,” he said. He jogged toward the end of the alleyway. As he emerged, he caught sight of the female assassin—she was another twenty feet to the left of the building as he exited the alley. In the large window of the shop across the street Brian caught the reflection of the tall assassin with the claymore standing on a roof overlooking the alleyway. The Master had set a trap for him. If he hadn’t complied, he would have been slain. But what now?
He rushed toward House Bob to discuss with his friends. As he approached the main gate, the house flashed with a strange light. A second story appeared, and the house grew wider and longer too, with guards patrolling the outside and two more on the roof as well.
“Nice work, Mike,” Brian whispered.
He charged up the steps and through the door which had been upgraded to an iron door with black metal bands reinforcing the hinges and frame. The interior of the main chamber remained largely the same with the trophy totem still in the same place, but the floors were now made of green and black marble tiles. The walls displayed even larger versions of the player tapestries, and there were now several doors in both walls to either side.
His friends were in the improved dining hall, which now featured a minstrel who sang about times lost when the Ancients ruled in some faraway place.
“Guys,” Brian started as he entered the dining hall. “We need to talk.” The group gathered close so he could relay everything that had just transpired. After he was done, Brian tossed his hands up in the air and then folded his arms.
“It’s simple,” Rhonda said. “I have a minor invisibility potion.” She dug into her satchel, causing Little Man to nuzzle her and then prop himself up on her waist a bit as he surveyed the group. “Use it, then go and kill the guy.”
“I like it, simple and effective,” Chris said.
“But,” Mike put in, “you’ll likely only get one shot, so probably best to leave all of your gear here. If you kill the AI and then the other two assassins kill you, they can take your stuff. Just in case his death doesn’t allow the others to log out, we need to prevent them from getting your luck blossoms and magic weapons.”
Brian nodded. “I can leave everything,” he said. “I can wear just normal clothes and take Khefir’s Malice. Remember, Freya said it can’t be stolen. So if I die I should be able to retrieve it.”
“Well, hopefully you won’t die,” Rhonda said. “The invisibility potion will last for seventy seconds. It also masks your gamer tag. Think that will be enough time?”
Brian nodded. “Definitely. He’s waiting in the same spot.”
“It will wear off as soon as you make an attacking action, so pick your moment carefully.”
Brian took the potion in hand and then moved to the upstairs level and found a bedroom where he could change and lock up his gear. Mike and Rhonda went with him to keep an eye on his stuff.
“Don’t take anything while I’m gone,” Brian told Mike.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Mike said.
“Rhonda, keep an eye on Mike for me?”
“You know I will,” she said.
“Actually, I have some magic items in there you might like. A staff, a spell scroll, and a book about magic barriers or something. Feel free to take those.”
“Sure, I could use a bit of light reading while you’re off slaying our arch nemesis.”
The three of them chuckled and then they looked at each other. Their smiles faded.
“What if the AI can kill you regardless of your save point?” Mike asked.
Brian sighed and shrugged. “Then, like Rhonda said, I better pick my moment carefully.”
Rhonda rushed forward and gave him a hug. Too bad it was only a VR setting. He could have used a real hug in that moment. She kissed his cheek.
“For luck,” she said.
“Probably just as good as those luck blossoms, right?” Mike quipped.
Leaving the room, he went down to the front door. He downed the potion then exited the house. The timer in his head started the countdown.
Seventy seconds.
He sprinted along the path and out around the gathered crowd and guards across the road, his feet striking the ground and propelling him much faster than he could have traveled in real life. He ran straight for a latticework that ran the height of a clothing shop opposite House Bob.
Up he went like a two-hundred-pound squirrel. No way would the latticework have held his weight in life, but right now he was happy to be playing by the game’s rules and physics. Clambering over the rooftop, he scrambled to his feet.
Fifty-five seconds.
He looked up to see the tall assassin with the claymore standing on the roof across the alleyway, just behind the chimney and watching House Bob.
Macabre jackal. Brian thought. Waiting for me to bring out the bodies. He rushed to the edge of the roof and looked down into the alley. The female assassin was standing near the Master. She had her crossbow and sword out. Either she expected trouble, or she was hoping for it so she could take Brian’s place.
Forty seconds.
Brian went into sneak mode, creeping along the roof’s edge until he was directly above where the Master stood. It was a two-story drop, so a bit more of a fall than he had performed with the centaur. And this time he wasn’t wearing any armor. He pulled out Khefir’s Malice, marveling that he could feel it in his hand, but he couldn’t see it.
In that moment he wondered if invoking Khefir’s name would do any good. Was the world waking up that much? Could Terramyr’s gods hear the pleas of their acolytes?
Thirty seconds.
“Khefir, guide my hand, and help me put your blade through his heart,” Brian whispered, thinking it ironic that he hadn’t prayed in real life since he was a young boy before his parents had died in a car accident. Brushing that painful memory aside, he leapt from the building, dagger held point-down, and aimed for the Master.
A heavy vibration rippled through Brian as he drove the blade through the Master’s skull
and then the two bodies slammed to the ground. A flash of blue, purple, and gold light exploded from him as the invisibility potion was cancelled out by his action.
“YOU!” the woman shrieked.
Brian jumped to his feet, but his stamina was reduced to a quarter, and his HP was already at half. He couldn’t run. His HUD was flashing a broken bone symbol.
Great, just what I needed.
The woman fired her crossbow. Brian couldn’t dodge with his injured leg and took it straight in the chest. His HP dropped to twenty percent. The woman charged him with her sword, but he deflected with his oversized dagger. He slashed at her, but she nimbly dodged his attack.
“What did the Master see in you?”
“I have been asking that for a while now,” a male voice said from behind. Brian glanced back to see the tall male assassin wink at him and hold the claymore out at the ready. “I mean honestly, who brings a toothpick to a swordfight?”
Another crossbow bolt slammed into Brian, and then the male assassin rushed in and finished him with the claymore.
Blackness covered everything Brian could see. His heart raced, pounding in his chest as he helplessly waited to see what his fate would bring. Would he respawn, or would he be stuck in limbo?
The blackness felt cold, its ethereal touch sending a chill down his spine.
He closed his eyes, not knowing what he would do if this was where he would wait. Could his friends win the game without him? Would they be quick? Would he starve and start to rot like Barry? A sharpness hit his mind then as daylight came back to him. He saw himself lying in a bed in House Bob, and then the camera swooped in and placed him back inside his avatar.
He sat up and looked to where Mike and Rhonda stood near the chest.
“Hey buddy, you weren’t gone very long. What happened?” Mike asked.
“I killed him, but then his guards killed me,” Brian said.
“Well, shake it off, it isn’t like you were really dead. No need to rest and recover, get your gear and let’s go hunt the other assassins too!”
Easy for you to say. Brian thought. Mike hadn’t felt the cold touch of the blank VR system as it relaunched him into Terramyr. Still, Brian rallied himself and re-equipped everything he had on prior to this attempt to kill the Master. With Khefir’s Malice out there on the street—hopefully with his corpse—he equipped Flaming Death and rushed out the door.
