by S. R. Witt
“30 seconds remaining,” the mechanical voice intoned without emotion.
Half a minute until your mom dies.
One of the tubules kinked and twisted around the edge of the socket. Beads of sweat popped out of the pores across my forehead and down my spine. My left arm shook from the strain of supporting the control unit as I fished around to put the tubule in place with my right hand. The plastic slithered through my fingers twice before I got a grip on it and threaded it into the socket. “Got you,” I whispered, and eased the control unit into place.
“Ten seconds remaining,” the alarm sounded. A pair of strobing red lights ignited on either side of the countdown timer. They painted the room with splashes of alarming color and made it hard to concentrate on what I was doing.
I pushed down on the control unit, and the latches on its sides snapped into place.
The big machine under the bed growled to life and continued the endless process of filtering rogue nanites from my mother’s blood.
The battle for my mom’s survival took place all around and inside her, but she was just the battlefield, not a combatant. Without the filtering machine to fight for her, the nanites would kill her in seconds. Their rapacious appetite would tear her down and then transform her into something else faster than I could imagine.
I was exhausted and yearned for my bed, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave my mom alone. The machines were in charge and there was nothing I could do if they malfunctioned. But it still felt safer, somehow, to be close to my mother after such a crappy day.
I woke six hours later to find my mom still sleeping. The control unit beeped, and a series of green bars told me she was stable. A trio of yellow Zs in the corner of the display said the machine was keeping her sedated to ease the load on her body as it filtered the nanites from her blood. That trip out of the house to not see the doctor had cost her at least 24 hours in a medically induced coma. My mother didn’t have many days left in her life, and having one of them stolen by a wasted trip made me want to punch something. Or someone.
For a moment, I thought about withdrawing some money and buying her a CIN. What would happen if she was logged into Invernoth while the machines worked on her?
Would she just stay there forever, preferring a world filled with monsters she could fight with a sword or spells to one where monsters lived inside her failing flesh and left her powerless?
Maybe that’s why I was spending so much time in-Game. It wasn’t just to earn money. Invernoth was a tough place to be a newb, but I wouldn’t be a newb there forever.
In this world, I was an NPC to be harvested by players stronger than I could ever hope to be.
I kissed mom’s cheek, went back to my room, and jumped back to Invernoth. Back to the world, I could change.
Back to where I could make a difference.
CHAPTER NINE
The tavern was crowded, and someone had stolen the seat I’d been using when I logged out, so the Game picked a spot against the wall for my re-entry. The smoky warmth of the tavern replaced the grungy chill of my bedroom, and I returned to Invernoth as smoothly as if I’d never left.
I don’t think I ever saw anyone appear in the game. The system blurred out the edges of reality, so you never experienced the immersion-breaking sight of folks poofing in and out of existence as they entered or left Invernoth. It was a little disturbing how cleverly the game masked the pieces of its reality it didn’t want us to see.
What else was it hiding from us?
Stop worrying about this crap and do your job, the angry voices of guilt and responsibility snarled from the back of my mind, goading me into action.
My belt pouch was still light on coins, but there was nothing I could about that problem. The red exclamation mark down in the lower corner of my vision told me it was time to face the music for failing my assignment.
Leaving the tavern, I hoped it wouldn’t be as bad as I feared. As far as I knew, there were no other thieves in Frosthold. That gave me hope the Grandfather wouldn’t slit my throat and dump my body in the sewers for screwing this up. Maybe he needed me as much as I needed him.
Or maybe not.
The snow had stopped for the moment, but the bitter cold had intensified. Winter wind whipped my breath into frosty streamers that trailed behind me as I forged a path through the crowded streets.
Every time I looked around I was stunned at how fast Frosthold was growing. Just a few days before, the streets were almost empty. Now, the whole town looked like Black Friday at the outlet mall. Even the alleys leading away from the main streets were clogged with adventurers tromping through slushy alleys on their way to kill monsters or returning home with backpacks stuffed with loot they’d scavenged from their prey.
The fact everyone was loaded down with weapons and other gear didn’t make things any easier. Sword hilts jabbed me in the gut and back, and bows slung over shoulders threatened to poke me in the eye at every turn.
The crowded streets did give me a chance to lift a few more coins from the unwary. The crush of bodies was so thick in some places there was no way to tell who’s hand was in your pocket. Before I’d gone a few blocks, my sticky fingers netted me another twenty silver pieces. Not enough to pay off the Shadows, but something was better than nothing.
After slithering through the crowd and relieving them of as much coin as I dared, I saw my chance to get away from the unwashed masses.
A blessedly empty alley held a shadowed storm drain, which looked just the right size to accommodate a skinny thief. The crowd didn’t want to let me go, but I managed to slip through it like an eel through a reef.
Five quick steps and a short drop later, I was in the sewer tunnels beneath Frosthold. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom, but it was never truly dark in Dragon Web Online. The developers didn’t want us all trapped inside as soon as the sun went down, so there was always just enough light to see a few feet ahead of you, even when it would have been completely black in the World.
Which is why I didn’t need a torch or a lantern to creep through the old tunnels beneath Frosthold. As long as I didn’t try to run pell-mell through the darkness, I could see well enough to get along. Of course, it was shadowy and gray beyond the edges of my effective vision, meaning I could still fall prey to a nasty ambush if I didn’t take care.
I crept along, marveling at my surroundings. Whoever designed the place had gone overboard on the decor. As Frosthold grew, so did the tunnels beneath it. The last time I’d been down here, the sewers were just a few feet wide, and I had to duck down to get through the arched supports at the intersections.
Now, the tunnels were more than ten feet across and at least that tall. The plain stone walls were gone, replaced by elaborately tiled surfaces displaying a mixture of strange symbols and stylized battle scenes.
Even the floor had changed since the last time I’d been in these tunnels. The narrow trough running down its center was gone, replaced by a wide channel of seamless, polished green stone.
Oddly, the channel wasn’t filled with stinking refuse. In fact, there was no water in the sewer tunnel at all. For a game that prided itself on realistic depictions of its fantasy environment, it seemed like an odd misstep. The lack of piss and shit didn’t upset me, but it was strange.
Though there were no people in the tunnels, I wasn’t making any more progress than I had on the crowded city streets. The tunnels hadn’t just gotten bigger and more ornate, there were more of them, and they ran in complex circuits.
As best I could tell, the largest tunnels formed concentric circles from the edge of the city to its center. Narrower, but no less ornate, tunnels crossed the circles in perpendicular lines and sharp arcs. Circular rooms occupied the intersections. There were symbols above the arches where the tunnels entered these rooms, but they made no sense to me.
A hexagon split into two equal halves, one black, and one white.
A green S that curled in on itself at both ends, almo
st, but not quite, forming a figure eight.
Three red lines radiating from an inverted gold triangle.
A white hourglass with four bent lines jutting from each side of its waist.
Those four were the most common, but there were others scattered here and there. Their meaning hung just beyond the edge of my understanding, maddeningly familiar and frustratingly obtuse.
An hour of wandering didn’t get me any closer to finding the Sanctuary of Shadows. Everything had changed since my last visit, and I didn’t know how I was going to find it now. “Goddamnit,” I muttered and crawled up through the next storm drain I found.
A rough voice growled at me as I slithered back onto the street. “Lost, little boy?”
The smart-ass comment I was prepared to unleash died on my lips when I turned and saw who was popping off in my direction.
They were big men, pushing seven feet tall with shoulders so wide the two of them blocked the alley’s mouth. Their spiked helms hid all of their faces except for a T-shaped opening that revealed their eyes, the tips of their noses, and a shadowed sliver in the center of each of their mouths. Red tabards with a white ‘T’ emblazoned on the chest draped over their suits of gleaming plate armor. Flanged maces hung from their wide belts.
Those weapons looked like they’d put a significant crimp in my day, and a matching dent in my head, so I decided to play it polite. “Things change so fast around here it’s hard to tell which way is which.”
The one on the left gave me a surly laugh. “I guess that’s why they sent us to retrieve you.”
This was not going in my direction. The two of them were big and well-armored enough to wipe me out in a fair fight, and the narrow alley didn’t leave me much room to run or maneuver. The trick I’d learned fighting the goblins might work, but if I screwed up, it’d only take one good hit from a mace to put an end to my shenanigans.
Running had its own risks—there was a better than even chance the alley would dead-end unexpectedly, leaving me trapped with two angry mace-swingers on my tail.
That left sweet-talking my way out of this mess. “I appreciate the offer of an escort, but I have some errands to run—”
An armored forearm slammed into my chest and pinned me to alley’s wall. My ribs crackled and my spine groaned as the pressure mounted. The big guy leaned into me so hard I thought his arm would go straight through my lungs. “The Church requires your service.”
Damnit. I’d almost forgotten about the priest of Hoald and his blackmail.
I guess he hadn’t forgotten about me.
“I’ll come by the church, but I need—”
The big man’s eyes never changed, even when he drove his free hand up into my solar plexus so hard it lifted me off the ground.
STUNNING BLOW!
10 points bludgeoning melee damage!
Stunned 5 seconds!
I couldn’t breathe, much less talk.
My hit points were down a quarter and if he got a hit on me while I was stunned it might put me down for good.
Fortunately, I was too wrecked to make any sudden moves, so he didn’t have an excuse to finish me off. He watched me with cold eyes until I caught enough breath to wheeze, “Okay, okay. Let’s go.”
Might as well get this over with, I thought.
If only I’d known the trouble was just beginning, I might have handled things differently.
CHAPTER TEN
While the rest of the town kept growing up and out, the Temple of Hoald had remained the same rundown piece of crap it’d been the first time I stumbled through its rickety door. It was still the unassuming symbol of faith and humility that was the complete opposite of the imposing dickheads flanking me.
I tilted my head toward the door. “Thanks for the escort, but I can take it from here. Your boss and I go way back.”
Before I could take a step away from the armored jerkwads, the one on my right wrapped his metal-clad fingers around my bicep and squeezed until my eyes watered and my hand went numb. “We were sent to escort you to your assignment. That is what we will do.”
The big guy hauled me up the crooked walkway to the dilapidated building’s front door. When they weren’t blackmailing hapless thieves, the Hoaldites took care of the city’s poor and weak. I wondered if the crappy building was the church’s way of making the less fortunate comfortable when they came looking for a handout or a place to crash for the night. If you were covered in dirt and didn’t have any shoes, this place was a lot more approachable than a spotless cathedral covered in expensive artwork and deep pile carpets woven from the golden hair of angels blanketing the marble floor.
Not that the church’s hired goons seemed too concerned with whether or not they intimidated the faithful. The meatheads accompanying me, for example, looked like they’d stepped out of a cosplay convention celebrating the foot soldiers of evil empires. The thick, overlapping plates of their armor were stained a deep garnet and lacquered until they practically glowed. Curved spikes jutted from their elbows and knees and rose like antlers from their oversized pauldrons.
And those helms, with spiraling ram’s horns and a harsh T-slot for the eyes and nose, did a great job of making them look like more like demons than servants of a humble religion.
Their weapons were nothing to sneeze at, either, and played up the ‘badasses looking for trouble’ angle. Peaceful soldiers set out to defend the faith wasn’t the first thing that came to mind when you first set eyes on these guys, is all I’m saying.
The goons shoved me over the church’s threshold so hard I almost lost my balance. An acolyte turned from the task of lighting candles above the altar to greet me with a bland smile. He wore the dusty robes and shaggy hairstyle of the less militant priests of Hoald. “Ah, Saint. The priest has been waiting for you. He’s quite eager for you to get to work.”
I didn’t have time for this foolishness, but I couldn’t avoid it. The priest knew I was a thief and he had no problem holding that knowledge over my head. If I didn’t do whatever boring jobs he put in front of me, he’d report me to the guard and collect the Thieves’ Bounty.
After the guards clipped my head from my shoulders.
Dying meant losing this character, since I was only level two, and that meant I’d lose my ability to provide for my family and pay for my mom’s health care. I couldn’t let any of those things happen without a fight.
Which is why I followed the acolyte into the temple’s depths and found myself seated in an uncomfortable chair at a small table getting lectured by the priest.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware,” he intoned in the same voice I’m sure he used for sermons, “but the Church is searching for something of great importance. We have many hunters out looking for it, and they are bringing any promising finds to me. Most of what they find is contained in lockboxes or chests or other sealed containers.
“Some of these containers we have opened ourselves. However, there are many others that need a more experienced touch.
“You will need to spend some time opening these.”
The priest wasn’t kidding about needing some time to get through all of the locked chests they had waiting for me. The walls of the little room I sat in were lined with all manner of boxes, chests, and trunks, all bearing locks of various sizes and shapes. My fingers were sore just thinking about how much work it was going to be to get them all opened. “There must be a hundred of these things. I hope you aren’t in any hurry.”
“Yes, well, that is the issue. Recent events have deprived us of the luxury of patience. I’m afraid you’re going to need to open all of these before you leave today. And you’ll need to return in two days’ time to open more.”
The priest spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture and continued before I could interrupt. “I understand this is an inconvenience for you. We will do our best to compensate you for your trouble.”
A throbbing headache took root at the base of my skull and began stomping its way through the fo
lds and wrinkles of my gray matter with a pair of size 12 boots.
Past experience told me each attempt to pick a lock took 30 seconds. While I had the maximum number of ranks in the lock picking skill for my level, that was only 10 ranks.
If a box came from a first or second level monster, it would take me one or two tries, on average, to get the lock open.
But higher level monsters dropped boxes with locks that were harder to open, and those might take three, four, or even more attempts to open.
A quick bit of math told me I was looking at three hours of hard work.
If I was lucky.
If I was unlucky, it could be much, much longer. I groaned. “I need to rest, I can’t just hang out here all day and night.”
The priest waved his hand to dismiss my concern. “We need to get caught up on our search. Please, I don’t have time to fight with you. And you don’t have the option of refusing my request.”
As if in answer to some signal I couldn’t hear, a door opened on the far side of the room and one of the thug priests who’d dragged me across town entered. The two holy men nodded to one another, and the punk took a box off the stack and dropped it in the middle of the table.
He pointed at me, then at the box. “Get to work.”
An ember of rage flared to life in my heart. I didn’t have time for this. It would be nice if the priest followed through on his promise to pay me, but whatever coins he tossed my way wouldn’t offset the time I’d lose dealing with this crap.
I needed to talk to the Grandfather and convince him he shouldn’t kill me for not paying him his 500 silver pieces for screwing up the last mission. The sooner I did that, the better. Something told me the old man didn’t like to be kept waiting.
Instead of doing an errand I needed to do, I was trapped in a little room opening locks for my blackmailers. I had a brief fantasy of drawing my stilettos and going to town on the brute across the table from me. He wouldn’t be so smug after I poked a few holes in his neck.
