by Skyler Grant
“Is this really safe?” I asked. She rolled her eyes.
“You think Walt is rushing headlong into danger?” Ashley said. “Just go down the damn ladder.”
I supposed Walt didn't seem the most daring or intrepid sort and I climbed down. Ashley came next, closing the hatch after her and plunging us into total darkness.
The descent was longer than I expected. I heard Walt moving below and a flickering light grew. It made the rest of the trip easier and I was soon at the bottom.
In this tunnel the devastation above was missing. On the surface nearly everything was cracked or shattered as if by some violent force. I always wondered what had happened—you might think that many of us did, living so close, yet any time I asked the question it met disinterest. The common belief was the city grew old and had been abandoned. I didn’t think so, but our history started with the founding of the games. There were no answers to find, and nobody who cared to find them.
Ashley joined us and Walt began to lead the way through the tunnel.
“How does this place have power?” I asked. “I’ve never heard of anything else in the city that does.”
“Walt stole it,” Ashley said. “It was dark when they first found the place.”
We came to a junction and turned left, then straight at the next two before making another left. How much was down here and where were we going? There were occasional doors, metallic and heavy-looking and all tightly closed.
Eventually we came to the first open doorway. It looked like the technician’s workshop back in town, wires hung everywhere and the tables were littered with unfamiliar tools. One thing was recognizable though, even if not quite like any I had ever seen before.
Pods.
They weren't the silver potatoes lined up outside town. Those were perfectly metallic on the outside with no hints of the inner workings. These pods were laid bare, the outsides strewn with wires and blinking lights that made them seem incomplete.
“Are those...” I started to ask.
“Pods,” Walt cut me off. “I know they look strange, they're stranger than you know, but they’ll work. Full immersion and connection into the games.”
“How did you steal pods? How do you even know they’ll work?” It might not seem like they took security of the pods very seriously with how I had just wandered up to Tommy’s, but every few years you’d hear a story of how someone decided to try to keep one—only to find it quickly reclaimed.
“Not stolen, more like found,” Walt said. “And made operational again.”
“And we’ve tested them,” Ashley said. “The immersion at least. It really is like being there. But tonight we’re going to use them to get into the real games. Show what we can do, get noticed.”
“You're breaking the law hoping to get caught?” I said. This seemed a really stupid sort of plan to me. Still, I had to confess in her case she had a point. Maybe if she could pull off some fancy moves in the real games, she could find a place. Walt got to show off his technical prowess. Tommy was impatient—he’d always been impatient and prone to make big moves. I could see why this would have appealed to him. Except now he didn’t need it.
“Things in the cities aren’t like here,” Ashley said, “Here it's all about obeying the rules, but there you do anything you need to in order to win. This is going to impress them, trust me.”
I didn’t, of course. I didn't trust her—I didn't trust either of them. I was pretty sure that anyone who had a secret, underground vault filled with illegal technology wasn’t up to any good on a level I hadn't dreamed possible.
Walt was bustling around the pods checking on the equipment. I felt somewhat comforted by the fact that at least he seemed to know what he was doing.
“So why am I here?”
“Good question,” Ashley said. “You don’t deserve it.”
“While I appreciate a curious mind, we don’t have the time to indulge it,” Walt said, pausing in his fiddling, “We have a narrow window to connect while the network is still open for the tournament. You need to be in or out, which is it?”
It was a mad plan, but I had to confess that even outside of my promise to Tommy I wanted to do it. I’d screwed up everything else in my life, and I’d always told myself I wasn’t the type of person that ran and hid when things got tough. Opportunities were for seizing.
“Sure, I’m in.”
“Then out of your clothes. You’ll need the most calibration, so we’ll load you first. It will be the pod on the far left.”
He fiddled with a control panel and the outer layers of the pod peeled open. These did seem different inside, without the gray slime. I got undressed. The air in the room was crisp against my skin and the concrete floor especially chill against my feet as I climbed inside the pod.
There was still no goo. I stretched out on some spongy sort of material that was rough against my back. With a beep and a flashing light inside the pod, the layers slid back into place trapping me in complete darkness and silence.
It was deeply disorienting, so much that it was rather welcome to feel a sharp burning at the small of my back. It was a brief flare of heat that spread through the rest of my body. Next came a rapid wash of sensations—pain, pleasure, cold, all somewhat muted, but feeling quite real otherwise. Then in rapid order the pitch black was replaced by blue, then red, and then rapidly cycling colors. It went this way for all my senses, each in turn.
Finally, prompts began to appear. Faint blue lines of text overlaying my sight with information.
Pod 1: Ready
Pod 2: Syncing
Pod 3: Syncing
That must mean that the others had gotten into their pods.
The prompt changed.
Network Status: Secure
Establishing connection to Regional Authority…
Establishing…
Establishing…
Request timed out
Attempting connection to Crucible Shard
Establishing…
Connected
Authorization Key 1ZC922LP6T
Crucible Shard Access Authorized
Identification: Pod 13ZA
Occupant: Unknown. Neural signature not on file.
Scanning neural matrix
Basic personality indicators from neural analysis: Extrovert. Self Righteous. Hyper-sexualized. Impulsive. Stubborn. Bold.
Generating Avatar
Alert
User Unknown
Transferring to holding facility
The prompts faded and I was in complete darkness, the air chill against my bare skin and the feel of a coarse stone floor beneath my feet. I considered the personality analysis and had to admit that it all sounded true enough, although it wasn’t the most flattering spelled out like that.
It wasn’t complete darkness after all. On the edge of my vision were slight blue lines, although they seemed to shed no illumination on my surroundings. I focused on them and a menu appeared.
Name: Liam Ottani
Class: Paladin of Yvera
Deity: Yvera
Level: 1
HP: 100
Stamina: 50
Mana: 50
XP: 0 of 1000 to next level
Alignment: -250
Stats
Power: 5 Endurance: 5 Dexterity: 2
Intelligence: 5 Awareness: 3
Charisma: 6 Luck: 2
Skills.
Long Blades: 15
Blunt Weapons: 15
Hand to Hand: 10
Riding: 15
Light Armor: 15
Medium Armor: 15
Heavy Armor: 15
Spells
Smite
Sense Virtue
We were in some sort of Fantasy world judging by my class. I knew that Paladins were usually holy warriors. I didn’t recognize the Deity or the stat system, so I was uncertain what game we'd found ourselves in, but for a fighter class those stats looked horribly applied with far too many points in Charisma and
Intelligence. I also seemed to be evil, which was a bit unfair to start. Perhaps the game was aware we'd entered it illegally and assigned alignments accordingly?
Light danced across the room as a tiny, but surprisingly bright, firefly came into existence. It interrupted my pondering and I got my first sight of the other two across the cell. Unless they had gender-swapped Ashley was the lithe woman, dark-haired and pretty, and extremely fit. There were no signs of her scars, but then I wouldn’t expect that. Walt was a contrast to his persona outside. Here, he was lean and frail-looking with long blond hair tied in a ponytail, fine features, and sharply pointed ears. He was distinctly Elven. We were also severely under-dressed without a stitch of clothing, which helped to explain why I was so freezing cold.
We were in a prison, the room clearly a cell judging by the sturdy iron bars. Fortunately the door hung open, same as the other cells from what little I could glimpse of the hallway by the light of the firefly.
“I'm an Elf Wizard,” Walt said. “I have a light spell and can cast a magical dart at this level. Not much else. I don’t know what world we're in. I don’t recognize the stats. Ashley?”
“Apart from it being fantasy, I’m not sure,” Ashley said, frowning, “I should recognize the stat and XP systems, but I don’t. Usually we'd have some kind of starting gear which would suck, but anything’s better than this being bare-assed naked thing.”
I said, “What's up with that anyway? Is it because of the pods we're using?”
“Hardware shouldn’t have any effect on the software,” Walt said in a tone suggesting I'd asked a very stupid question, “So what are you, Liam?”
“Paladin of Yvera. That makes me something of a fighter class, right? I seem to have skills in a few different weapons, armor types, spells to smite and sense virtue. My stats seem dumb though, lots of Charisma and Intelligence.”
Ashley shrugged, a distracting sight. “Paladins are often kind of hybrids of a lot of different things, like bards, but less crappy. It makes some sense that your stats are spread around. Their weak point usually is the deity. If you piss them off, you're really screwed. When you level up, you can either focus or spread points out. Either way will give you some different options.”
“Should we bother? This isn’t what you two had planned. You wanted to pop in and make a splash somewhere we could be seen. You saw the warnings signing in. They know we aren’t supposed to be here and tossed us in a cell.”
“An open cell,” Walt said. “That didn’t just happen. That door may just as much be an invitation to figure out what's going on.”
QUEST GRANTED
Explore the prison and find the means of escape.
Rewards: Freedom
“Now that is an invitation.” Ashley said. “See, we can’t log out now. Fall in line guys, I’ve got better awareness than either of you. I’ve got point.”
“Aren’t I the tank? Shouldn’t I have point?” I said.
“You don’t have pants, and it’s freezing cold. Trust me Liam, you don’t have point. Just follow me and if anything tries to eat me, punch it.”
“Mean,” I grumbled. Mean, but unnecessary.
Walt shrugged at me and I was forced to agree. If she wanted point that badly, she could have it. With Ashley leading the way we stepped out of the cell and into the darkness.
Chapter 4
The hall was as dark, silent and empty as our cell. Most cell doors hung open, some revealing skeletons and corpses. All the rooms and dead bodies seemed to have long since been looted for anything useful.
Ashley stopped to inspect a lock on one of the doors. “Picked from the outside. Most of them are.”
“Maybe we aren’t the first prisoners to try to escape?” Walt said.
“Obviously,” Ashley said wryly. “They probably already looted all these bodies, but we’ll still check as we go.”
We went cell by cell, Ashley searching each and finding nothing. We were near an intersection ahead when Ashley gave a startled cry and four furry shapes flung themselves at her, sending her stumbling backwards with the fury of their attacks.
They were rats, half-starved with flesh discolored a patchwork of grays and browns. The rodents moved fast, darting in for a strike before pulling back and circling to rush in once more. Before I even had a chance to respond I saw Ashley’s health bar starting to decrease, droplets of blood catching the dim light as her flesh was torn by tiny teeth, negative HP symbols flashing above her head.
Half-Starved Rat attacks Ashley
-3 HP
Half-Starved Rat attacks Ashley
-2 HP
Diseased Rat attacks Ashley
-6 HP Critical
I ran forward and aimed a kick at one of them, missing as the tiny body dodged out of the way. The savage rodent at least abandoned its attempt at gnawing through Ashley’s ankle, instead turning to face me. I took a moment to check my target window.
Half-Starved Rat
Level 1: Type: Beast HP: 10/10
Driven feral by hunger, these rats will seek out and attack anyone they may perceive to be food. Although quick and agile they are easily dispatched when one is able to land a blow.
Flaming Dart
“Seras Altinus!” I heard Walt call out from behind me. I gasped in surprise as a tiny dart of blue flame zipped past my shoulder and found one of the rats, flinging it away with a squeal and the smell of burning flesh.
Walt strikes Half-Starved Rat with a Flaming Dart
-10 HP
Half-Starved Rat is dead
Three left. I swung my fists wildly at one and shaved off five HP with one hit, although a second blow missed that let the rat latch itself onto my arm, the claws digging furiously into my flesh. I took five damage myself, before I managed to pound my arm against the wall, crushing the rat.
Your unarmed attack hits a Half-Starved Rat
-5 HP
Half-Starved Rat is dead
Diseased Bite
Flaming Dart
I just saw the prompt and the flash of blue out of the corner of my eye as Walt killed another rat.
“Out of mana,” Walt panted.
One left. Ashley wasn’t looking that great. Her flesh bore a number of bloody bite marks with one turning the skin surrounding it a sickly greenish-brown. Sadly, with the lack of any hand-to-hand, she seemed completely unable to dish out any damage. I remembered that I had an offensive spell and the moment I thought of it the sense of another power began working through me. I pointed my arm towards the remaining rat. A gout of flame came from the stones beneath, engulfing it in a pillar of fire.
Smite
Your Smite hits a Diseased Rat for 15 HP
Diseased Rat is dead
The last rat was down. We took a minute to catch our breaths and check our sheets. I’d gotten 400 XP, which meant the game likely considered us to be grouped even though I hadn't found any menu for that. My hand-to-hand had improved by a point. I chose to minimize some of those combat prompts. While it might be useful to sometimes go in and see exactly how much damage I was doing, combat was complicated enough without those getting in the way.
“Well, that sucked. New guy, pants or not, you get to tank next time.” Ashley said, her voice strained as she looked over the bloody gouges in her flesh. She limped over to loot the corpses. “Rat meat. Rat meat. Diseased rat meat, fucker.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“The disease is stopping me from regenerating health and it's going to slowly drain it,” Ashley said with a sigh. “I don’t have any sort of timer on it. The wounds are a constant ache, but it’s not like being torn to shreds in the real world. I’m good to go, I’m just going to be a little slower. I’ll be fine.”
QUEST GRANTED
Save Ashley
Ashley has contracted a disease that in her current state will slowly kill her unless a cure is found.
Rewards: The life of a party member
Right. She’d be fine. I don’t know if
she actually saw that quest prompt or not, but I decided not to mention it. We’d just have to keep our eyes out for some sort of cure. Up until now health regeneration was not even something I’d considered. I knew some games required things like potions or spells to heal and I checked my stats. My health and mana were slowly ticking upwards, although Walt’s mana bar seemed to be going up a good bit faster. That was probably something to do with his class or the total size of his mana pool.
Ashley let out a pleased cry and I wandered over to see. She was standing over a corpse more recent than the ones in the cells, the desiccated flesh still clinging to the bones although the rats had picked most of it away. She began pulling on a pair of leather boots. My instinct was to admire her legs, but that only drew my eyes to the bloody wounds there—she really had gotten the worst of the fight.
“If I’m tanking shouldn’t those be mine?” I asked.
