Quest Call

by Kirk Dougal

  “Call me Rick.” He turned to Gonzalez. “Damn it, Card, where's Jim? You know he's run all my briefings since we transferred to Tower's command.”

  Gonzalez glanced at the paperwork on his lap, staring down long enough to make Rick wonder if he would receive an answer. What finally came from Gonzalez, however, left him with even more questions.

  “Jim wasn't in the office today,” Gonzalez said, looking up with one side of his mouth curled into a smile. The humor did not touch his eyes. “Even old war horses need a day off every now and then. So, how long until your next meds?”

  Rick stared at the detective, searching for the words in between the sentences while fighting to keep his anger from boiling over. He finally turned to the scrolling vid screen on the wall and noticed the time. “We've got about an hour.”

  “Okay, we can at least get a good portion of this out of the way, and then leave the paperwork for you to study,” he hesitated, “when you can.”

  “Tower told me that you suspect the terrorist groups are meeting inside the games. Planning and organizing.” Rick glanced at Conway. “He also said we had an agent inside but they were reset. Yours?”

  She nodded. “Yes, he was following up on a lead when he was killed and sent out of the game.”

  “What's his name?” Rick asked. “I'll want to talk to him about what happened.”

  Conway and Gonzalez looked at each other but neither answered the question.

  “What's going on, Card?” Rick asked Gonzalez. This time the heat crept into his voice. “I don't need any bullshit games.”

  “You can't talk to the agent. In fact, I don't even know his name.”

  Rick felt his mouth drop open.

  “The agency has decided to keep the identities of all our players as classified for their personal safety,” Conway said. “Only Tower has access to the names.” She leaned forward, staring into Rick's eyes. “Whoever killed my agent inside pulled his tag. They were after his location in the real world. His family is now being watched.”

  The building heat in Rick's cheeks melted away. Maybe better than anyone else, he understood how much the agents relied on the FBI for their physical protection while they were helpless inside the games. Of course, that included the families of the agents, too.

  “Okay,” he said as he shifted in the chair, trying to find a position where he did not feel like a stick figure shoved into the corner of a box. “What can you tell me?”

  “Everything but his identity,” Conway said as she opened the file and began handing over paperwork to both him and Gonzalez. “First, the best clue we have is that he overheard a conversation about a powerful group of strangers gathering at a place named Dinas Farwolaeth. He was following a legend toward where the castle was rumored to be located when he was killed and—”

  Rick's head snapped up. “Castle?” He turned toward Gonzalez. “What game am I going into, Card?”

  The detective grinned, quietly snorting in an effort to keep from laughing out loud.

  “Oh, hell no.” Rick shook his head.

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Rick rubbed his temples but the massage did nothing to stop his burgeoning headache. “At least tell me it is a straight historical game and does not have magic.”

  Gonzalez threw back his head and laughed while Rick began swearing.

  INSIDE

  Chapter 6

  Riches. Honor. Power. Revenge.

  In the land of Maegdon, there is plenty of all four for the bravest adventurers. You need only to reach out to grasp what is yours to take by beginning your quest.

  Battle creatures for the hoards of gold and jewels that lay hidden under their watchful eyes or hidden away in ruins nearly vanished in the memories of legend and time. Defend your people and family name against treachery and reclaim the honor that was once your birthright. Search for long lost knowledge and find the magic that roils beneath your surface just waiting to be released. Hunt down those who believed they could trample you like weeds under a horse's hooves, an afterthought until you rise up and rain fire and revenge upon your enemies until they scream your name in terror. Gather adventurers to your side and lead them to glory.

  This is your life.

  This is your destiny.

  This is your quest.

  This is your Quest Call.

  Chapter 7

  The odors reached me first. Roasted meat and beer mixed with sour sweat drifted into my nose, swimming down my throat.

  Voices followed. Everyday speech swirled around with strange accents in languages I did not recognize. Whispers of conspiracies and plans weaved their way in a wandering path, searching for those who would join in those ideas or blaze their own path against the speakers. Others rose in shouts, challenges or greetings, each with the force to drag me closer to a flickering light in the distance.

  I opened my eyes. A wide public hall stretched in each direction, the far walls dark shadows under flickering candles. About half of the seats I could see were taken, some gathered together in small groups around tables, their occupants leaning in close for a conversation that promised steel if an unasked stranger joined. A handful of patrons wandered among the tables, packs of one and two stopping to talk with characters seated alone. Sometimes they moved quickly on while others sat and formed their own set, giving and gathering information, the one thing that might be as important as a good weapon.

  I recognized the solo characters for what they were: computer constructs programmed to help new characters find adventures to begin their game. But I already knew what I needed to do inside Quest Call.

  “You're a strapping lad,” a voice said beside me, the words rumbling together like stones rubbing against each other. “I can always use another strong sword arm in my guards.”

  I turned but then had to look down to see who had spoken. The top of his head rising only to my chest, a man nearly as thick as he was wide stared up at me. One hand stroked a beard that reached his belt and stretched wide like an unkempt bush, his eyes peeking under brows nearly as wild. His other hand rested on the top of a belt ax, sausage-like fingers drumming slowly on its nicked top. I thought I had been prepared for the game, the things I hated as well as those I craved. But I had to swallow down a laugh at the absurdity of the dwarven knockoff in front of me that hit every cliché before I could speak.

  “I'm sorry, friend,” I said with a dip of my head. “But I've already contracted for my next journey.”

  “Fair travels then.” The man walked back to a nearby table and sat with a group of whispering players. I stared for a moment before looking away, wondering if I had made a mistake in assuming he had been a construct.

  I moved farther into the room. Each step brought more of the other characters into the light. Each step also made me want to pound my fists into my face.

  There were plenty of what I considered human characters around me, but to my left sat a slender young man, long legs stretched beneath his table while his flowing hair did not quite cover the tips of his pointed ears. Across from him sat a woman, her face etched with the age of long years matched by her gnarled fingers. But it was her feet that caught my eye, swinging slowly from the front of her chair, barefoot with a tuft of gray hair on top. I noticed her staring back, and in the blink of an eye, a small dagger appeared in her hand, the knobbed joints moving too fast for me to tell where she had pulled it from.

  A grunt and a curse caught my attention as I moved on. Half-appearing from one of the shadows in the back, an arm rippling with muscle reached into the light and grabbed one of the other people at the same table. A threat, more grunts than words, followed, and I caught the glint of light off teeth.

  “God, I hate you J.R.R.,” I mumbled.

  Metal scraped over metal and a chair clattered to the floor. I spun to the side, my leather jerkin pulling at my shoulder. In front of me was a woman with long black hair set together in a thick braid that disappeared d
own her back. I had trouble telling how tall she was, the edges of the cloak near her shoulders appearing to blend into the scene behind her. But it was her eyes—deep set and black, blocking out all the white—that caught my attention the most. I wondered how I could have missed her sitting so close to me as I walked by.

  “What'd you call me?” The words slipped between unmoving pale lips. I realized the rest of the room had grown quiet, even the grunting in the corner fading away.

  “Apologies, my lady,” I said. “I was talking to myself and didn't see you there.” I dropped my hand to my waist, resting my palm on the hilt of the sword hanging from my belt.

  Her lips moved this time, splitting to reveal pointed teeth. She gestured toward my ribs with her hand, and I noticed the black nails extending from her fingertips. The light reflected off their polished surface like sunlight off granite, trailing off on the razor thin edges.

  “No lady,” she said.

  I glanced down at my side and noticed three parallel slits in the leather, cut through to the shirt beneath. When I looked up again, she was gone. I backed away.

  “I thought you was gone before I'd had a chance to talk to ya,” said a man seated to one side, gray hair and beard trimmed short. “Not too many tangle with the likes of her and walk away with only a tattered shirt for a memory. Join me if you wish, lad.” He waved at the bench across from him.

  Still shaken by the encounter with the woman, I started to swing my leg over the seat before I stopped. Instead, I leaned in close.

  “Would the word Farwolaeth mean anything to you, old man?” I asked.

  His eyebrows drew together, and he returned my stare, waiting for a breath before shaking his head.

  “No, lad. Nothing to me.” He leaned back, putting a little more space between us. “I called you over because I saw in your face the look of a man that I served for a long time. An important man with lands and property. But more than any of that, he prized his family above all else.” The man leaned forward again, lowering his voice. “Lord Balyrie died searching for some of that family. A son stolen from him as a babe, hidden because of a rival's rampage that left all the rest—mother, wife, sisters, brothers—all of them dead by his enemy's hand. My lord died in his quest to find his son. A son that would be about your age.”

  I let the breath escape between my lips. A closer look showed the old man's clothes were faded and worn, bare in spots and patched in others, but there still remained remnants of silver thread in the material, speaking of a time when they were magnificent to behold. Now the neatly trimmed beard and hair made sense on a man who appeared to be down to his last copper piece. The boldness of the man willing to talk with me after my encounter with the woman that left everyone else quiet drew the circle to a close. I had fallen for a construct programmed to start me on a quest, in this case, an adventure for revenge against the man who had stolen my inheritance and killed my family. It was an old cliché, but one that might have worked on me if I was only a gamer and not on a mission.

  “I'm no lord's son,” I said and stood straight.

  The old man lowered his head. “The gods' luck to you, lad.”

  I meandered through the tables, keeping clear of the perpetually dark corners where the characters kept out of sight except for the occasional hand reaching into the light for a drink or food. Even keeping clear, whispers of more quests reached my ears. One spoke of freeing the most beautiful woman in the land from a ghastly prison while another promised danger in the search for the last true dragon hunter. Powerful weapons, magical orbs—they were all within reach for the adventurer who was brave enough to search for them. I was approached a handful of times by constructs, including once by the barmaid asking for help to find her brother, someone she would give anything to find, but the offers were all routine beginning quests set up by the game programmers. I ignored them when I could, politely refused when it was needed. No sense in making it necessary to fight my way out the door of the inn if it could be avoided. Brawling was not why I was here, either.

  Shaking my head in frustration, I headed for the door by where I had entered the game. I was walking past the closest table when I noticed the dwarf knock-offs were gone and a new whispering group had taken their place. One word sent a shiver down my back as I passed them, my foot hanging in the air for a moment before I continued on to the door.

  “We must go to Farwolaeth,” the young, blond-haired man said, the word barely more than a hiss. “We will attack before…”

  The door opened and in walked a pair of men covered in enough dirt and dried mud to make it impossible to know the color of their clothes. I let them by with a nod of the head, but my cover was blown. A big man with a jagged scar seated across from the speaker looked up at the commotion and noticed me hovering nearby. He elbowed the woman beside him, and she inched a hand toward the dagger strapped across her chest. I turned and walked out the door into the gathering twilight.

  Chapter 8

  I stayed near the wall, moving within the shadows angling toward the center of the street. The group had stayed inside the tavern until long after the moon had risen, drinking plenty of ale if the staggering from the blond-haired man and two of his companions told the tale. Only the woman with the dagger moved in a straight line, her lanky build easy to pick out from the others. Their voices and laughter reached back to me, the handful of other people in sight moving quietly through the streets.

  I expected them to step into any of the number of inns with their brightly painted signs, but the group kept walking until they reached the walkout door in the city wall's main gate. The duty guards stopped them and more laughter rose, along with the clink of coins, before they were allowed to pass through to whatever lie outside the city. One, two, three…

  I stopped, only the toes of one foot touching the ground in front of me. There had been four of them earlier in the tavern—the blond-haired leader, the big man with the tattooed face, a red-skinned man who had kept most of his face hidden underneath a worn hood, and the thin-faced woman. Now there were only three. Sweat trickled down the side of my face despite the cool night, and my stomach lurched. Nothing I could see moved on the street around me, but I felt the danger lurking nearby.

  It was the woman. As I backed away, each foot reaching behind while expecting a dagger to flash out of the dark toward my heart, I replayed the scene in my mind. The group had walked through a shadow a few paces from the gate, all four entering but only the three men reappearing to face the guards. Somehow, she had known I was following and slipped away.

  Slipped away to kill me and send my character into reset.

  I retreated past two buildings before a shadow erupted from the alley beside me. The woman leaped out of the night, silver hair shining in the moonlight. The dagger flashed in her left hand while a longer blade, not quite a sword but longer and thicker than a knife, rested in her right, striking toward the sword on my hip.

  It was the smart move if she had been facing someone who lived for this fantasy world, the right move to take her opponent's steel, his weapon, away from the fight.

  But my dislike for these fantasy worlds had bordered on disdain for decades. My thoughts were not on a weapon I had never even pretended to use as a kid. Instead, my training from the police force kicked into gear.

  I hammered my right fist into the nerves of her elbow, stopping the thrust before she cut away the belt holding my sword and drawing a pain-filled hiss while her hand went numb and the short sword dropped to the ground. A blink later my left hand shot forward, looping in a short roundhouse as I pivoted on my front foot, thudding into the side of her head with a teeth-rattling thump. The woman staggered sideways for a step before she banged into the building's wall, sliding down into a crumpled pile in the alley filth.

  I glanced up and down the street but no one was in sight. My sword belt was cut halfway through, but it would hold until I had a chance to repair it. I slipped the woman's dagger harness off her shoulder and replaced the od
d-sized weapon before removing the other scabbard from her waist. A quick search revealed one more blade tucked into her boot.

  I leaned into the shadows of the opposite wall, ignoring the reek rising from the trench in the middle of the alley while I tried to decide what to do. I needed to find the blond-haired man to convince him to take me to Farwolaeth, or at least to find a way to force him. This woman was my best way to locate him beyond the wall, but after two quick meetings, I was already convinced she would fight me to death, with her hands if necessary, before she would willingly lead me to him.

  I grunted. That left only one answer.

  I walked to her body and stood her against the building long enough to flop her over my shoulder. With her weapons in my other hand, I walked toward the guards at the gate.

  One of the men on duty stuck his head out of the guardhouse as I approached the gate. I staggered to one side and then stumbled before laughing out loud. My last chuckle ended in a snort. I hoped the act worked.

  “Halt,” said the guard. “What's your business outside the city at this hour?”

  It was too dark for me to catch any mannerisms to know if the speaker was an actual gamer or a program construct. A computer character would accept almost any excuse to keep the game moving, but I decided not to chance it.

  “Drank `em ous of ale, we did,” I answered, slurring every word. “Time ta go ta camp. They's just head of us.”

  The second guard had wandered out into the night and walked behind me. I felt the woman move as he raised her head and let it fall down again.

  “I recognize her,” he said. “Hard to miss this silver hair. She came into town earlier tonight with that arrogant blond bastard and the one covered with the ink.” He had moved in front of me as he spoke, and I saw him gesture toward his face.