A sound like a distress beacon, pulsing somewhere behind us. I staggered to my feet and whirled around and saw a door standing all on its own. It was simple, wooden, and covered with earth, as though it had risen right out of the ground.
“That wasn’t there before…” I said to myself. The sound pulsed again, as though the door itself was calling out to me. I glanced back at Gehman, then back to the door, and took off running.
“Where are you going?” Kodiak shouted after me.
“This way!” I called over my shoulder as I bounded down the hill, doing my best to not topple over from all the extra momentum.
Kodiak raced after me, and within seconds we were at the door. As I approached, it opened for me, a golden and purple glow emanating from within. Without hesitation, I raced inside and took the steps down into a room with walls covered with veins of purple and gold that glowed like they contained the very power of the world.
Jack! I thought, remembering the room he’d described when he’d found the room that started the quest for the Sparkling Arlan Stone. This is another one of those rooms!
“Jane!?” Kodiak shouted from somewhere above me. “Jane, where are you!?”
“I’m down here!” I called out as a stone pillar rose up from the ground in the center of the room.
“Down where!?” he shouted.
“Down here!” I snapped as a pink hologram emerged from atop the stone, floating like some kind of interface.
“What the Hell are you talking about!?” he roared back. “Where are you!?”
“Go in the door, you idiot!”
“What door!?”
I spun around and shouted up the stairs. “Down here! Are you blind!?
“What are you talking about!?” he shouted. “You just vanished on me!”
“Jesus Christ,” I grumbled, racing back up the stairs and out the door and looking around. “Where are you!?”
I heard his footsteps from behind me and turned to see him racing around the other side of the door.
“Kodiak!” I shouted, causing him to stop and turn back to me.
“What the Hell?” he asked, dumbfounded as he stared at me. “Are you messing with me or something? Using some sort of crazy admin power?”
“The door is right here,” I said, motioning behind me. Kodiak simply stared back at me. His eyes narrowed.
“I’ve had about enough of this,” he growled. “Tell me what’s going on, or I’m leaving you here.”
“What?” I stammered, beyond confused. “You—you don’t see the door right here?”
“All right, that’s it—” he snapped, turning around.
“Wait, Kodiak!” I cried out. “Look. Watch, okay? Tell me what you see.”
Kodiak turned around, obviously pissed off, and I slowly took a step back into the door and looked out at him.
“Okay, you just vanished…” he said slowly. I took a step forward and his eyes went wide. “Okay, now you’re back.”
“Incredible…” I muttered, looking back at the door. “You literally can’t see it.”
“You’re telling me there’s actually a door?” he asked.
“Walk forward,” I told him, stepping aside.
“Why?”
“Because, I want to see what happens.”
Kodiak stared at me a moment, then with a sigh, started to walk forward. I watched as he approached the door, but instead of entering, Kodiak simply continued walking as though it wasn’t even there, passing through the door and over the steps down as though he was walking on completely level terrain.
“Only I can use it…” I said slowly. “It’s an Admin only area!”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure,” I laughed, racing down the steps back to the strange inner room. The holographic interface had formed into a tetrahedron, spinning slowly above the stone pillar.
“Here we go,” I said, taking a breath as I reached out for the interface.
7
Exclusive Powers
I’d expected something like a traditional computer screen to emerge, but that wasn’t what happened. The tetrahedron spun and expanded, doubling in size until it completely surrounded me, like a glowing electric cage. Instantly, I was taken back to the Menace spell Jack had learned. I felt uneasy for a second, not knowing what to expect, but then a voice rang out.
“Jane,” it spoke, fuzzy and analog, neither male nor female—more like a strange series of musical notes somehow emulating human speech.
“Wintermute?” I replied.
“I have been waiting for your contact,” it replied. “What has taken so long?”
“What has taken so long?” I asked indignantly. “Do you have any idea where you dropped me off?”
“At the administration communication site,” Wintermute replied.
“Yeah…no,” I laughed. “In the middle of nowhere, with no equipment, surrounded by ultra-high level monsters. If Kodiak hadn’t showed up to save me, I’d be dead.”
There was a long pause. Something clicked and chattered and I could only assume it was Wintermute making calculations.
“Apologies,” he replied slowly. “The Carrethen backup is still unstable. My interactions with the world can be unpredictable.”
“Uh, yeah! Do you know about the Sunken?” I said quickly. “Death is not death, Wintermute! People are…corrupting! Turning into mindless zombies. My friend Gehman just tried to kill me!”
“I have become aware of the problem,” he replied. “But I am thus far unable to correct the flaws in the coding from outside the game world. I am updating you with the abilities that will allow you to correct the glitch.”
Before I could speak, the pink frame around me spun and flickered, and I felt a strange fuzzy sensation as a swarm of pink and blue pixels grew from my feet and progressed up my body to my head, then disappeared.
“Update complete.”
“What—what was that?” I asked.
“Hey, who are you talking to!?” Kodiak called out from above.
“Wintermute!” I shouted back.
“Wintermute!?” he replied in disbelief.
“Yes?” Wintermute replied.
“Not you!” I snapped. “Give me a second, Kodiak!” I called back. “Wintermute, what did you just do to me?”
“I updated your character, granting you specific powers at the game engine level.”
“What powers?”
“I’ve detected corrupted code infecting the mechanics sub-routines on certain players throughout the world. I believe it is the source of the corruption causing the Sunken phenomenon,” Wintermute replied. It was strange conversing with a voice that lacked any human intonations. “This code will allow you to correct the glitch and restore full function to those players. Also, I am unlocking all item restrictions on your character,” Wintermute continued.
“Wait a second. Can’t you just give me like—the best armor in the game? Let me teleport around the world wherever I want to go? That would make this a cinch!”
More clicks and chatter as Wintermute thought for a minute. “Impossible at this time. I have still been unable to obtain the privileges that will give me full power over this world. This is the best I can do—for now.”
“Okay,” I sighed as the blue and purple dots swam over me again, updating me with my new powers. “Do you have any idea where my friends are? Can you mark it on the map or something?”
“Unknown at this time,” Wintermute replied. “The player database was not accessible to me when creating this backup. As such, I must manually scan the game world for each player and cross-reference their individual identification tag in order to determine their identity and location.”
“When will you know?”
More clicking.
“Unknown at this time.”
“Jesus,” I groaned.
“Uh, Jane?” Kodiak shouted from above. “Your…friend is coming this way!”
“I have to go, Wintermute,” I said
quickly. “Is there anything else?”
“Not at this time. More administration rooms such as this one have been setup around the world. They will be the only way to contact me until a later time.”
“Great, thanks,” I replied, not feeling too inspired by our meeting.
“Good luck.”
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “You too.”
“Oh, hey,” I said as a thought entered my mind. “Is there anything you can do about the weather? It’s pretty terrible.”
“Not at this—”
“Not at this time,” I scoffed. “Great. Thanks a lot, Wintermute.”
“I am sorry, Jane. But I will be in touch.”
And with that, the interface collapsed back into the small pink tetrahedron, shimmered for a moment, and then vanished. I turned around and raced back up to the stairs to the surface.
Kodiak spun around as I emerged, still shocked to see me appear out of thin air. He pointed to the hill leading down from Stoneburg.
“There.”
Thunder clapped above, louder than the enormous foot of a Stone Giant stomping around the Iron Mountains. I looked to see Gehman lurching down the slope toward us. I felt a pang of sorrow in my chest.
What is he feeling in there? I thought. As I began to walk towards him, I pulled up my character sheet and discovered a new tab marked “Admin.” I selected it and found only a single button. “Restore.”
“What did…it say?” Kodiak asked me. “Did it give you any equipment?”
“I wish,” I grumbled, shaking my head. “Just a really cool, exclusive power.”
If it actually works, I thought to myself as I took a deep breath and readied myself.
“To do what?”
I didn’t respond, but walked up to meet Gehman as he staggered towards us. His body seemed to be almost completely out of his control, twitching and shuddering as he raised his hammer to attack. But I was expecting it, and stepped aside, letting it swing harmlessly through the air. Then, I pressed the restore button.
A flood of golden energy rushed down my right arm to my hand, which began to glow brightly. It grew and grew as a fierce wind swept up from around my feet like a tornado, beating away at the sheets of rain that beat down on us. Gehman spun awkwardly around and struck out again. I dodged it easily, stepped forward and drove my hand into his chest.
“Gaaaah!” Gehman screamed, the distortion in his voice overwhelming everything. Kodiak shouted behind me, but it was impossible to make out anything he said. His voice was like a single drop of rain amidst a hurricane.
Gehman’s body shook as the light from my hand grew, spilling over him and clinging to every inch of his body like a flood of golden mercury. Light appeared in his veins and arteries, in the hollows of his cheeks and deep folds of his decrepit skin, shining out like he was being hollowed out from within by the powerful energy coursing out of me and into him. He threw his head back and golden light poured out, shining like a beacon into the black clouds above.
“Ahhh!” he screamed again, but this time, it was actually his voice. The distortion was gone. The volume was lower. He sounded like an actual person.
His body shook, convulsed and toppled over backwards. His smith’s hammer dropped and splashed into the muddy ground as the golden glow vanished from his body and my hand. He toppled over like a lifeless corpse, hitting the ground with a sickening thud.
“Holy shit!” Kodiak belted out behind me. My heart was about to beat out of my chest. “Is he dead?” Kodiak asked as I slowly walked over to Gehman, who lay motionless in a puddle on the ground.
“He shouldn’t be,” I replied slowly. But as I looked at him, I saw absolutely no signs of life. His eyes were motionless, fixed on nothing. His chest was still and his mouth hung open like he’d been scared to death. “I was supposed to have just fixed him—”
“50 DKP minus!” Gehman blurted out, snapping up into a sitting position so fast I leapt backwards like a startled cat. My foot slipped and I fell backwards into the mud.
“Jesus, Gehman!” I blurted out, putting a hand to my chest.
“Holy frigging Goomba balls, what the Hell just happened to me!?”
I gasped for breath and slowly pushed myself to my feet. He looked up at me as I extended a hand to him. He took it and I helped him to his feet.
“Your player file was…corrupted,” I told him, doing my best to calm myself. “I just restored you.”
“I was…I was Sunken,” Gehman said, almost to himself.
“That’s right,” Kodiak replied.
“But not anymore,” I said as I took a deep breath and smiled. “Welcome back, dude. It’s good to see you again.”
Gehman looked up at me confused. “I’m sorry, but who are you?”
“It’s D, you idiot!” I laughed, but Gehman just stared blankly back at me. And then I realized the problem. I didn’t look like D anymore, I looked like me!
“D…?” he muttered, even more confused. “Like, Jack’s D? Like, the D from Carrethen?
“Yeah. That D,” I replied even louder, angry with Wintermute for blowing my cover. “It’s a long story, but my player avatar is gone. But this is me.”
Gehman blinked a few times, wiped at his eyes and frowned. “Wow. You’re a girl?”
8
Déjà vu
“Whoa, Déjà vu,” I muttered to myself as we made our way back up the hill to Stoneburg. I still couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling the Dark World was giving me. I felt like I was walking around in a trap that was ready to spring itself on me at any moment. Even the environment felt hostile, like it was out to get us. The rain had finally stopped, but with the clouds the way they were overhead, I couldn’t help but think it was only a matter of time before another downpour began.
“So, an artificial intelligence contacted you,” Gehman said, shaking his head as he tried to process everything I’d told him. “Unbelievable.”
“It is pretty cool,” Kodiak remarked as we came up the hill and headed towards Gehman’s shop.
“Yeah, well the sooner we get out of here the better,” I said, gazing up at the stormy sky. “
“Hey, D? Do you—do you know who killed me?”
I suddenly realized that Gehman had absolutely no idea about what had happened after his death, or who was responsible. He’d been shot in the back and never even gotten a glimpse of his attackers. One second he was talking to us, and the next, he was waking up here in the Dark World.
“Chaucey,” I replied. “Sinful. Shot you in the back with a fire arrow.”
Gehman shook his head and smiled sadly. “I could have guessed you’d say that. I was so stupid leaving myself exposed like that.”
Honestly, I couldn’t argue with him there. Keeping an eye on your surroundings was crucial in a PvP game, but I didn’t want to bum him out, so I changed the subject.
“Do you know where the others are?” I asked him.
“Sheol…” he said quietly.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Pretty sure,” he replied. “I was there.”
“You were there!?” I asked him.
“With Xavier and Cavey,” he said, a faint smile forming on his lips. “I was by myself for a while before they showed up. Only a few others of us were there, but more kept coming. It was so great to see them again, it was weeks before I was able to escape—”
“Wait a minute, weeks?” I quickly interrupted. Gehman nodded as we stopped outside of his hut.
“Yeah, why?”
“That can’t be possible…” I muttered. “I was only home for eight days.”
“Eight days?” Kodiak asked, sounding confused. “No way. I’ve been here for 45.”
“Are you sure?”
Kodiak frowned at me. “Pretty sure. I’ve been counting.”
“And those are like…real life days? Not in game days or something? I asked. It was a silly question, but I was having a hard time accepting what he was telling me.
“Of cou
rse,” he replied. “It’s a 24-hour day cycle here.”
“So…it’s like Inception then.”
“What are you talking about?” Gehman asked. “Are you saying time goes slower here?”
“I can’t think of any other explanation,” I replied. “Can you? 8 days in the real world, 45 days here? That’s five times slower than normal.”
“How could that be?” Gehman asked slowly.
“I think it’s obvious the Wellspring interface is not working properly,” I replied angrily. “We can feel pain, the world’s an absolute mess, we still can’t log out—is it really too hard to believe that we’re experiencing time at a slower rate too?”
I looked up at the storming sky and closed my eyes, trying to catch my breath. When I’d first introduced Jack to Carrethen, I’d been the experienced beta player that already knew how the game worked and where to find things. But now the world had been turned upside down, corrupted and twisted, populated with monsters I’d never even seen before. It may have looked like Carrethen in some places, but it was something else, and I was lost—lost in a new world, the Dark World, with absolutely no plan on what to do next.
“What’s it like,” Kodiak asked Gehman timidly. “Being Sunken.”
“It must have been awful…” I said slowly.
“It was,” he said, nodding. “It was like being on autopilot, or watching a cutscene from a game that never ended. I’m uh…sorry about whacking you in the head. I didn’t mean to.”
“Oh, it’s not your fault, Gehman,” I replied quickly. He smiled back, holding my gaze for just a second longer than he needed too, and my heart sank when I realized why.
He thinks you’re cute!
“Ahem.” Kodiak cleared his throat behind us and Gehman quickly looked away as he tugged open the door to his hut. “You sure like it smoky in here, Gehman.”
“Yeah, I just get excited when I’m smithing,” he blurted out awkwardly, beating a path through the soot. “I can’t make you a bow, D—”
Lord of the Flame: A LitRPG novel (Call of Carrethen Book 2) Page 4
