by Charles Dean
Tim, she thought, suddenly. The new Guard wasn’t a Guard . . . it was Tim. What’s he doing here? He’s supposed to be leading missions and helping starting players level up. Why is he here? Did he get demoted to guard duty because of me? Crap, I got the only cute guy who has ever asked me out demoted to guard duty.
Tim looked at her for less than half a second, then frowned and turned his back, facing the hall like every other Guard. Great, he’s not just mad at me, he’s giving me the cold shoulder, she thought, letting her back slide down the cell wall until her butt hit the floor and her knees pressed against her chest. She didn’t just feel helpless. She felt small.
Just as she was about to cry, she heard the door open. She looked up to see Tim with his stupid grin staring at her.
“I leave you alone for less than two days, and you end up in a cell waiting to be exiled?” he asked, laughing a bit as he did.
“I . . . I’m going to be exiled?” she said, not sure what part of the news was more shocking, the fact he was here or the fact she was going to be exiled.
“Yeah, the order hasn’t gone out yet and won’t even come with a trial, but I heard a few higher ups talking about it earlier today when you first came in,” he said. “You’re apparently the talk of the ranks.”
“I thought the Sun God Empire didn’t exile people?” she asked, confused. This was never part of the game’s starter manual.
“It doesn’t generally, but you and your two friends are the exception,” he explained. “I know, from what the other two said, you were doing what you did to save the White-Wings, but without evidence it just looks like you carelessly murdered hundreds of citizens of the Sun God Empire.”
“This is our thanks then . . .” she muttered, having already known what would happen without evidence. Hopefully, what they had done, killing off the non-boss-level enemies, would be enough, but somehow she knew better. That last Fire-Walker wasn’t in the Level 20 to 30 range of the others. He was in an entirely different field of power. If this was her favorite anime, his power reading would have broken the scouter. “Well, what do we do now?”
“That’s easy, we need to beat the word of mouth to the harbor and take the first ship to wherever,” he said, looking both ways as he signaled her out of the prison cell. “Otherwise, once news reaches the harbor about what you three look like, you won’t be able to get off the island and no city will give you safe haven.”
Valerie got up and started to the door. So we’ll have to sneak out on a boat just as a war starts. Sounds exciting, she thought.
“Oh, and I forgot to mention one more important detail absolutely essential to your escape,” he said, smiling brighter than he ever had before.
“What’s that?” she asked. How is he so happy during a crisis?
“This,” he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her towards him where he had a firm kiss waiting. “If I’m going to play Prince Charming and save the damsel from the tower, I figured I might as well get paid in advance,” he joked.
Valerie wanted to say something back, but the kiss had done nothing but leave her cheeks so red she could have played the body double of a tomato. I’m over 20 years old, and I’m just now getting my first kiss . . . from an NPC? Granted, he’s definitely a handsome NPC, and the kiss definitely was breathtaking . . .
“Now, let’s go. Your friends are waiting,” he said, breaking the awkward silence, grabbing her hand and pulling her down the hall before she could even react.
The entire trip to her friends, Valerie’s head was spinning from what had just happened. Maybe it was the sudden excitement of the heroic rescue, or maybe it was the kiss, but Valerie couldn’t stop smiling.
Unfortunately, this excited daze stopped her from paying attention to what was going on around her. When they reached her friends, she darted in front and opened their cell door--the two had been kept together unlike her--only to hear them shouting.
“Behind you!” Mclean shouted, pointing as she turned the handle on her door.
Then Tim, standing behind her, said something she couldn’t make out at all.
Valerie turned around to look at what was going on only to be stopped still. Time seemed to her as if frozen, and nothing seemed to move except for her and Tim as Tim’s mouth opened and gurgles of blood came out in place of words. Her heart cried. She gulped, and she told herself to breathe, but nothing started the world back up again.
“Ha!” the White-Wing behind Tim shouted to himself arrogantly. “I bet this stupid heretic’s death will earn me a promotion.”
That-- That-- That damn bas-- HE KILLED TIM! Her mind raged. And then, something inside of her felt like it broke. She clinched her teeth together so hard her jaw started to get sore, and her grip closed so tight, her fingers felt like they might come off. Then her wings snapped out and everything in her rushed forward as if the second hand on a clock had skipped a few notches. She had gone from standing still to kneeling over Tim’s murderer, stabbing him again and again with his own Knife.
“Val . . . I think that’s enough,” Daniel said, watching the scene unfold in front of him. “We need to go.”
“Yeah, we need to have been gone yesterday,” Mclean said.
Valerie looked at Tim’s still warm body lying out on the floor less than ten feet away. She wanted to do something for him, but she couldn’t think of anything. The others were right: they needed to leave quickly.
“Come on, Valerie! Let’s go!” Daniel urged again.
“Okay, okay, we need to get to the harbor. This wasn’t just jail time, they’re going to exile us, and at this point we either have to summon our own boat or pray one comes and misses the harbor,” Valerie informed the other two.
“Right, let’s get moving then. We’re on a clock. You guys don’t have to log off any time soon, do you?” Mclean asked.
“Nope. I guess we’re going to have quality flying time together,” Daniel answered. “Anyone know how to play cards in the air?”
Now I get to run just like the heretics I spent days hunting down and killing, Valerie thought, taking to the air with her two friends. Let them hunt . . . we’re not going down without a fight.
Kass:
When Kass loaded up the game, she figured it would be best to log into Valcrest instead of the dungeon where she had signed off for the night. It wasn’t that she wasn’t absolutely confident she could probably take the bunny Rabbit on her own--it didn’t seem like a hard Boss--but the extra hour plus needed to respawn the option to be in Valcrest didn’t seem like it would be worth the possibility of a decent item. After all, someone else might have popped it while she was gone.
She wasn’t surprised to find that the first thing she heard when her avatar loaded was players complaining. Players were always complaining these days. Ever since the attack, the forums had become full of people who couldn’t be bothered to learn to play griping about the how the game was to blame for their ineptitude.
“Valcrest was supposed to be one of the top leveling zones for Humans, right next to the mobs, and now it’s just a pile of rocks,” the tallest of four gamers near her whined. “This isn’t even fun anymore. There aren’t any NPCs at all.”
“Aren’t the NPCs supposed to respawn over time? I wish the game makers would repopulate the town and repair some of the damage,” the youngest one of them complained. “It’s kind of ridiculous that they have a hands off policy with the world when we are paying this much money for the experience,” another one said.
“Yeah, I get it if this was part of the main continent, but it’s the noob island,” a third, and the only armored one, joined in. “They should really fix this.”
“Relax, man. We can always move south or just hit the dungeons to the east until we hit 40 and rebind on the mainland,” the oldest of the group, a fellow Mage, responded. “We don’t have to go to town and sell gear It’s not really that important.”
“I guess,” the youngest grumbled disappointingly.
“You�
�re right. If the town experience was a required part of the game, I’d probably be madder, but it’s just for coin and better items, and we should be getting items off of mobs anyways, like that Bathrobe guy,” the tall one said. “There is no way that Sword he was killing people with was bought in a town.”
Kass’s ears perked up instantly. Bathrobe guy? Killing people? Did they mean players? Is Darwin a PK? She looked at the four gamers. It was against her better instincts as a woman to talk to other gamers in game, given half of the time they tried to hit on her or say something gross, but she had to know. She stood straight, fixed her posture, and marched right over to the group.
“Excuse me, can you repeat that part about the guy in a Bathrobe?” she asked, crossing her fingers and praying the dreaded ‘Are you really a girl?’ line didn’t shoot out of one of their mouths.
“Well, like, someone posted a vid on the forums earlier from a fight with some players and a guy in a Bathrobe,” the guy repeated back. “Apparently they were out in the forest east of here, and they got jumped by this dude in a white Bathrobe. He straight up, like, butchered the whole group of them.”
“A guy in a Bathrobe butchered a whole group of players?” she asked, still shocked to hear this. Darwin was such a nice guy; it couldn’t have been him.
“Well, that’s what people are saying. A few are saying he had pets as well as some others with him. But when the guy taking the video died there weren’t any others visible. Prolly just trying to cover up that the whole group of them got rolled by one dude. Noobs,” the youngest one said, looking to his friends for agreement.
“So, you watched the video?” she asked, making sure of the details.
“Course,” he laughed. “Who wouldn’t? Whole party got wrecked. It was hilarious.”
“Yeah, remember that one guy crying like a little girl with a skinned knee before he even got hit?” a third one chimed in, laughing and nudging the first guy as he did.
“Don’t front, bro. You’d scream too if that devil was about to turn you into Human shish kabob,” the first one laughed back. “I’ve heard of some martial artists being really good at the game even when they’re low levels, but that guy was crazy.”
“Wait, wait, one question,” Kass interrupted them. “This guy, with the Bathrobe, did he have red eyes?”
“Yeah, actually he did,” the tall guy answered.
“Now that you mention it, how did he?” the young one asked. “I don’t remember red eyes being in the early cosmetic options.”
“Was he using just one Sword, or two?” Kass asked.
“He was using two, I think?” the old man answered this time.
“Yeah, it was two,” the armored one replied.
“It’s Darwin alright,” Kass sighed. She didn’t need any more confirmation. There was no one else who wore a bathrobe in the game. Even if there was, for them to be on this island with two Swords and red eyes couldn’t happen. It had to be him.
“What? You know him?”
“Not as well as I thought I did,” she muttered, turning around and leaving the four players in shock as she started walking away.
“Hey, wait, where are you going?” one of them asked after her. She didn’t bother to see which one.
“I’m going to teach an old man some much needed manners! And no! You may not follow me!” she yelled back at them without even looking as she rushed out of the town.
Kass didn’t just walk to the lair, she stormed. Her foot steps were stomping attacks against the ground more than movements to get from point A to point B. When did Darwin become a PK? He better have a good explanation for this. I don’t like being killed, and I sure as heck won’t tolerate my friends killing other people for no reason at all, she thought, trying to come up with a dozen ways to call Darwin a jerk and set him straight if he was actually going about randomly killing players.
But when she walked into the cave where the Valcrest people had established a makeshift home, she momentarily forgot all about the PK issue. She knew the ZombOgres would have red eyes, but she hadn’t anticipated every person in town having them too. One by one, the villagers stopped what they were doing and looked at her as she walked through the tunnels. Being stared at by quiet people with red eyes in a dimly lit cave isn’t scary at all, she thought, not entirely sure though if she could call it a cave anymore.
They had only been at it a day or two at most, but they had managed to transform everything but the first hundred foot length of cave at the entrance into something entirely different. The walls were flattened, and there was an indented path in the middle of each floor where one was meant to walk, with several stone chairs and benches on the sides if one wanted to take a rest. Sometimes there were even drawings on the walls.
“The Lord is busy,” one of the red-eyed said, popping out of the shadows.
Kass nearly had a heart attack as he did. When did he get here? Holy crap, is it always going to be like that when I try to visit? she thought, trying to regain her composure.
“He won’t be free for a while, but if you like I can bring you to him?” the man continued.
Kass looked at him for a second, is he . . is he Justin? she thought, not entirely sure. The face looked familiar, but the red eyes and black hair made his appearance distinctly different. “Justin?” she guessed, “Justin, what is going on here?” she asked, hoping she didn’t offend him with a bad guess.
“What do you mean?”
“Why is everyone . . . more . . . Darwin-like?” she asked. As soon as she asked though, she knew the answer.
He had activated the Creation Stone, and the entire village had agreed to join his Faction. It meant they would switch from their original Race to his.
“Because we’re no longer Human,” he answered, as if that type of change was so happenstance it didn’t even merit a shift in voice when talking about it. “It was a side effect of the golden Stone, and a necessary sacrifice for the plans ahead.”
Of course! When a non-Human player activates a Creation Stone, if the NPCs in the town he is in charge of agree to join his Faction, then they’ll be slotted into his Race. Wait, his Race? The question struck Kass as something familiar. The paper! He had mentioned his Race was unknown on the paper. Kass suddenly felt as if she had forgotten a key detail to solving a puzzle.
“If you’re not Human, what Race are you?” she asked, hoping to finally solve one of the many mysteries surrounding the Bathrobe Knight who had rescued her from the Minotaurs.
“Demon, ma’am,” he again answered matter-of-factly. “We’re Demons now.”
Demons. That can’t be right. There isn’t a Demon Race in the game, she thought, still trying to wrap her head around everything. Sure, Black-Wings and some of the other playable races have demonic subspecies, like an Incubus or a Shade, but there aren’t any Races that are just called Demons.
“What type of Demons?” she pressed, double-checking to see if he was a subspecies.
“Just Demons ma’am. Not sure if there are types of what we are,” he said, looking around. “Anyways, did you want me to bring you to the Lord, ma’am?”
First he was Captain, and then he was Boss. Now he’s Lord? Should I expect there to be a church of the Bathrobe Knight soon? she grumbled. She didn’t want to admit she was mostly upset that these added titles likely meant less time Darwin would spend farming with her and more time he’d be trying to drag her on some town-related quest where the Boss might not even fight back.
“Yeah, might as well,” she finally said after a moment. She had just spent a good bit of time merely getting here. There was no reason at all not to go find Darwin now that she had arrived. Especially not just because he had become Lord Onion Knight, slayer of bunnies and Bears.
“Alright. This way,” he said, leading the way to Darwin.
When they finally got to Darwin, he was in a large room almost half the size of the kitchen, with a map of their island, albeit slightly incomplete and missing many key details, sp
rawling the full length of the wall to her right when she walked in the room. Darwin was sitting in the center spot at a long stone table to her left with six others while only one person was on her right with the map.
Wow, this is way more professional than I had expected, she thought, admiring the scene as she walked into the room with Justin.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her as she walked in. Ugh, this reaction is like when you have something in your teeth and no one wants to tell you.
Darwin was the first one to break the silence, “Gentlemen, no need to be shy. This is Kass.”
Huh, gentlemen, not ladies and gentlemen? Oh! I see! Kass thought, just noticing that no one in the room was a woman besides her. This was two sexist remarks and fifth of scotch away from being a Mad Men set. He started a new Faction, and he’s already installed the glass ceiling.
