Bastions

by Jeff Sproul

  "My name is Gella. Who are you? Would you be able to tell me where I am? I assume you're…a player?" came the woman's voice after Riley had asked her who she was.

  Riley was baffled. "I'm Relinquisher," he said. "What do you mean, are you not sure how you got here? I'm a bit confused why you're asking. Is this some kind of trap?"

  Gella glanced over to Trooper One, then loosely around the area. By this point, the surrounding area had lightened a bit more, but the sun was still beneath the horizon. Her attention found Riley again. "I took a portal. I'm one of the expeditionary forces to find safety. What…oh goodness, I might as well cut through the passive pleasantry. I'm sorry if this is immersion-breaking for you, but I need to know what game I'm in."

  "What game?" Riley asked under his breath. He tilted his head to the side. "This is Sigil Online. How could you not know that?"

  Gella shrugged. "The portal wasn't precise. It merely linked me to another destination. That destination just happens to be here. Which is apparently Sigil Online. Wait, isn't that the superhero game? No wonder you have an odd name. Do people not use actual names in this game?"

  The dumb, confused look still hadn't left Riley's face. "We have regular names until we get our Sigil…or uh, our powers. So you don't know anything about Sigil Online? Look, uh…Gella? I'm really confused here and this is feeling like a trap. Would you please just go away?"

  Riley was keeping an eye on his map while also trying to glance around his surroundings. Nothing about this encounter made sense.

  Gella held up her hands defensively. "I'm sorry, please…I'm just trying to get my bearings. Your…um…soldier, here, didn't immediately attack me, so I thought you might be friendly. I appeared not far from here and saw the smoke from your base? So I wanted to investigate. I thought it might've been a fireplace or some town. I'm really not sure where I am here in your game, or this region. If you could just answer some questions for me, I'll leave you be."

  Riley was still on edge. He'd had some real issues with trusting people in the past in Sigil Online. But then again…Gella certainly sounded sincere. But so had that guy with the red hand that had almost killed him before Red Shotgun saved him a while back.

  "Alright, but you first," said Riley. "Where did you come from?"

  "Mage World Online," Gella said, almost without hesitation. Which somehow told Riley that she wanted to be believed. But was it sincerity, or acting?

  "Mage World?" Riley asked. He'd heard about it before, but he hadn't wanted to join a fantasy-style game. He'd already played one prior to Sigil Online. When Sigil came out, he went head-first into what seemed like a more interesting game. "How is that possible? Is this because of the Celenion Framework?"

  Now that Riley knew where Gella was from, he was putting the pieces together in his head. Aaron had told him about this. Now that all of the Celenion Framework games were under a single architecture, they were essentially able to cross over and combine. But Aaron had only speculated that such could occur. There was further speculation that if a game were to be sunsetted, or 'on its way out,' that it would connect with another game to try and transfer over the player base or merge games to increase population. There was currently nothing but speculation about it all. But Riley had never heard about something like this happening before.

  "Yes, I'm part of a small guild that pushed through to one of the portals that Golem opened up. We were part of an alliance, all working together to escape the game's fate. But Golem had more forces than we were prepared for. It realized we were trying to escape and attempted to destabilize the portal while killing us off. I guess the portal was too unstable when I went through, and it flung me…here. We didn't know where the portal went, just that it went to another world. Or in this case, game."

  Riley was trying to take it all in, but there was a lot of information to process. "Wait, I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with Mage World all that well. What's Golem? Do you mean those stone constructs? What's going on in your game? Why come here?"

  Gella took another look around, then focused on Riley again. "Mage World is about to be consumed by an entity known as Golem. It's a hive-mind, all interlinked. It's monstrous. It's consuming everything it can. Weapons, armor, resources, magical items, wildlife, players. Everything it consumes, it uses as a catalyst for further growth. More forces, more monsters. Ever expanding, ever growing and consuming. It came from nowhere. We thought it was part of some new event to reinvigorate the player base, since the game's population has been a little lower in the past couple years. But the developers of Mage World have expressed that Golem wasn't made by them, or the in-game AI. So we don't know what it is. Or if the dev team is lying to us, or what. All we know is that there's no stopping it."

  "And you fled your game to…escape it?" Riley asked. It was all hard to swallow. He'd heard of apocalyptic game-ending events before. But usually there was warning by developers, and this was typically only something older games did, as the Celenion Framework was able to support worlds even with just a few thousand dedicated players without high costs to the developers.

  "That's right. Well, more or less, I suppose," said Gella as she crossed her arms, which caused her metal armor to clang a little. Hearing that sound reminded Riley of Paladin. He'd had similar armor, but he definitely had a different aesthetic going for him. "The portal to Sigil Online was detected by one of our scouts,” continued Gella. “We didn't create it. Golem did. The portal was open for a few hours before we arrived. It looked unstable, so we're not sure if Golem perfected it or not. It's likely that the portal only came to this game. We don't think Golem has the capacity to choose which game it connected to, though. But we're just speculating. There's a lot we don't know about Golem, even though it's been ravaging the game for so long now. We've heard of other guilds trying to create portals or one-way teleportations to get to other games. I believe a few have been successful, but generally people don't share their success stories unless they're active streamers, trying to make money from the publicity."

  "Yeah, I imagine so," said Riley as he pondered what Gella was telling him.

  "A new report is available from the excavator," the system told him quietly. He hadn't bothered to disable the resource report notifications.

  "So, what do you want to know?" Riley asked.

  Gella shrugged. "Anything I can, I suppose. It looks like I'm the first arrival you know about. Our attack literally just happened, so I imagine my comrades are spread throughout the game. I need to find them. Is there a safe neutral area I could go to meet up with them?"

  Riley reached up and scratched the side of his head in thought. He really wasn't sure what to recommend to her. He took the next five…ten, twenty minutes, just standing there explaining the overall geopolitical climate of the game and the nearby areas. He explained the original cities of Sigil Online, and how they'd been broken down into smaller districts, all controlled by different guilds and loose alliances. The game wasn't a free-for-all between guilds. People were generally not hostile on sight. It was only out in the wild areas like this one that players were more cautious. He explained everything he could and eventually pointed in the direction of Gargantuan City. Or at least, what had once been Gargantuan City. At this point, even hellions were becoming less initially hostile to players, now that they could do a number of other things to get resources and experience other than just hunting players.

  Gella nodded her understanding. "I see. Thank you. That helps a great deal."

  Riley would've gotten another resource notification during the chat. He went on to explain what all was possible in Sigil Online, since some games had different mechanics for what could be done or built in a game.

  "Oh, it sounds a bit like Mage World in that regard," she said, looking around the landscape again. "I'm sure that this desert has a great number of resources, since there's so little…life."

  "But there are still monsters out here," said Riley. "I'm not sure what Mage World had to offer, but there's all sorts
of things in Sigil. Robots, giant creatures, slimes, terrible-looking insects, the works. They can be world-boss class or smaller and more numerous. Out here in the wild areas, players can be just as dangerous as the monsters. The level range of the monsters is a bit greater out here in the wild. But now that I think about it, how do stats work? Did your stats change when you came over here?"

  Gella's brows lifted. "Huh, I hadn't thought to check." She lifted her gauntlet-covered hand and flicked her thumb up.

  Riley couldn't see the woman's status screen, since it was surely set to private. But with how Gella was fixated on the air before her, it was likely that she was consulting her screen.

  "I'm not asking to know what level you are or anything. I feel that's probably intrusive in just about any game. But what are the names of your stats? For example, I've got Power, Con, Toughness, Mind, Stam, Dex, and Luck, and we just got Command with the new expansion that came out recently."

  "Interesting," Gella murmured. "Looks like my leadership stat has been renamed to Command, and my Attack stat was renamed to Power. I'm also missing Agility, but my Dexterity stat is higher than I remember. I guess the game has some sort of algorithm to balance and normalize a character that comes through."Even though Riley had never been interested in Mage World Online before, he was fascinated by the differences now.

  "And as I was saying earlier…not to pry or anything, but I've seen monsters between level forty, all the way up to eighty. If it's a monster of any decent size, like a house or larger, those generally take a small force to defeat. Generally three to five players. But with our last update, players can command their own forces now."

  Gella nodded. "Good to know, I'll keep it in mind."

  "Any other questions?" Riley asked, feeling a little more comfortable now with Gella's presence than he'd been earlier. This was mostly because he had Trooper One and an entire base behind him. Even if the base wasn't exactly watching over his current location, he was leaving the door open, just in case he needed to withdraw. He still had a number of tasks to complete before he'd be able to leave the base alone for any amount of time so he could try and reach Chrono for further instructions.

  "Hmm," Gella murmured. She flicked her thumb again, and then set her fists on her hips with a clink. "I think I'm just going to have to make the best of my current situation," she said.

  Riley did want to help the woman if she was sincere in everything that she'd said. He wished he had something more than information to offer her. "Do you have supplies? Is your energy low?" he asked.

  "It could use a pick-me-up," she admitted. "We all figured that we would be together when we went through the portal. But sadly, we really didn't have a clue what was going on. We encountered more resistance than we imagined."

  Riley brought up his inventory and withdrew one of his snack-bars. In previous versions of Sigil Online, even a simple snack-bar would be somewhat valuable, but now, they were much more common, thanks to the influx of crafting resources and schematics. There were more expensive ways of replenishing energy, but this might help Gella, at least a little.

  "Here you go," he said, tossing over the food-bar.

  She caught it without issue and looked at it. Her gaze lifted, as surely its stats came up after she touched it. "Huh, yeah, this will help. Thanks. Wouldn't imagine you'd let me stick around the outside of your base while I recover my stam?"

  Riley shrugged. "That's fine by me. Sadly, I can't really let you in, for security reasons. I'm sure you understand."

  "Oh, of course," said Gella. "I'll just hang out here, then be on my way. You said that direction?" Gella asked, pointing in the direction that Riley had indicated earlier.

  "Yep, just head that way. You'll eventually reach the city. But seriously, it's a long walk. So fair warning."

  "I'll keep that in mind," said Gella.

  Riley looked to Trooper One. "Trooper One, did you find anything out there?"

  The trooper nodded. "There was ammo and weapons for each of those enemies you defeated earlier, but the mortar is out of commission."

  "Alright, head back inside. I'll go collect the stuff."

  "Yes, sir," said Trooper One, as he left Gella's proximity and headed to re-enter the base.

  Riley stepped outside of the doorway, allowing Trooper One some space. Once the trooper was through the door, it closed behind him. Riley then spoke up. "Out of curiosity, you spoke a lot about the threat of this Golem thing, and that it had created this portal, which is how you got here?"

  Gella nodded. She was already tearing into the food-bar. "That's right."

  "So it's trying to get here, then?" Riley asked. "To reach our game?"

  "Well, based on the fact that the portal was technically active, it might've already sent minions through. But then again, it might've been waiting to better stabilize the portal before it sent anything major. It has a myriad of different forces that have their own purposes. Recon, Construction, Exploration, Expansion, Base-Building, Repairing, Flyers, Skirmishers, Boss-like Entities. All that stuff."

  "What do they look like? Is there any special way of spotting them?" Riley asked with further interest.

  "Hmm," Gella murmured as she chewed up the food-bar. She swallowed and spoke again. "They come in all forms, but I'd say the best way to explain it is that they looked kinda like fish. Well, as far as their skin is concerned. It’s made up of oily-black scales. They often secrete a black ichor from their bodies. It congeals and creates a sort of goop on the ground and seeps into it a bit like oil. They create pools of the stuff to…I don't know, exist in. They move quicker through it, even when it's just in thin layers on the ground. Generally, players don't move all that fast through the stuff, since it's both slick and almost sticky to anything but them. We believe it works as a warning system too, like a spider's web. Not all of their creatures excrete the stuff, but all of them function better in it. They're slower and less lethal when out of it. They're always expanding how far that stuff reaches. Which is currently covering a lot of Mage World. I'm not sure how to describe it. Sometimes it looks as if it's moving and writhing on its own, but I've never seen or heard of it forming tendrils like goo or slime monsters. So there's that, at least. But the sludge, as we call it, is able to absorb and siphon materials from the surrounding area. So any life, any minerals, anything worth dissolving into usable materials, is broken down and leached through this sludge. We've seen some of Golem's creatures collecting and siphoning through the sludge to bring it back to structures made of scales and…well, more sludge. It's disconcerting to see. But that's what Golem is, essentially. We'd be here all day if I tried to go through each of the possible creations I've seen it spawn."

  "Good to know," Riley murmured, his gaze off in the distance. He'd never heard of anything like it. And luckily, he'd never seen anything like it either.

  "Well, I appreciate the information. Um…if you need anything before you leave, just yell at the wall, I think the system will be able to hear it and then let me know."

  "Sure thing. Thanks for being friendly."

  It was at that moment that Riley realized that Gella was just as vulnerable as he was. She was putting her neck on the line just to interact with him. For all she knew, he could be some sort of terrible PKer. It was weird out here in the wilds, putting a small amount of faith in another person, just to talk to them and share information. He had no idea how strong Gella was. And for now, it didn't matter. He hoped she'd make it to her friends safely.

  "You too," he said with a light smile. "Good luck." With that, he turned and headed around the wall. He decided that if he was going to haul all of the weapons and ammo that Trooper One had mentioned, he'd be better off using his vehicle's now-empty cargo hold.

  He had to go around the corner of the wall, which took him out of sight of Gella. The woman would've noticed his arm-band's 3D rendering of the area. But whether she realized that she was difficult to see or not, he had no way of knowing. He didn't really want to ask why his syst
em had trouble scanning her. He imagined her armor had some sort of passive stealth property to it. Probably to help keep her hidden from monsters. Which would surely help her get through the area safely.

  The rover was on the complete other side of the base from where he'd spoken to Gella, so the walk took a little time. But as he enjoyed the view of his surroundings—which consisted of dirt and a tall wall—he also kept an eye on his rendered map. His couple of new troopers were still fine. He used the arm-band to pull up a function to queue up two more. He didn't want to spend all of his resources, but luckily the NPCs he could make were relatively cheap. When he got back into base he'd have to re-slot in the old data-drive he'd found in the printer so that he could try and whip up a few mortar rounds. A stockpile of mortar rounds, a small battalion of twenty-five to fifty troopers with rifles and ammo from the group that attacked him, and he figured he'd have the ability to safely defend the base.

  "System, am I able to do anything about setting up my troops to better shoot enemies that are outside the base?"

  "You are able to construct various types of bunker zones, or openings in the wall that would allow for firing out of, as well as viewing through a glass barrier. You also have the option of modifying the wall in such a way to create outposts along the top, so that your troopers can go inside to see from the top of the wall. There are many methods available, if you possess the schematics and have the materials."

  "I see," Riley murmured. He'd have to take some time to actually plan a defensive strategy. Luckily, the resources were flowing in and he'd restored some of the solar array to help pull in a little power, besides what the epper rods were giving.

  He was still wearing the crate backpack and holding the repair tool. He probably looked a bit silly…or maybe just like a worker to Gella. Oh well. It didn't matter. He had a lot of work to do still. Hopefully he wouldn't have any more interruptions.