by S. R. Witt
“Because I have nowhere else to go.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Those gasped words earned me a blessed reprieve. The last echoes of my words died away, swallowed by the cavernous expanse of the nearly empty cathedral, and took the pain with them.
I waited for someone to ask me again, “Why are you here?”
I waited for the pain to return.
One by one, the candles went out until I was alone in the darkness.
“That is why we are all here.”
The leader's voice was close, mere inches from my ear. I wanted to respond, but I didn't have the words.
A woman’s voice whispered in my opposite ear. “All are outcast. All are alone.” Something rustled in the darkness. The sound reminded me of wings, of a bird landing on a tree branch beneath the cold light of an uncaring moon. “We come here to find others. We come here to join forces with those who find themselves alone.”
A candle flickered in the darkness. Then another, and another. They floated toward me until I could see those who bore them. I was soon surrounded by a ring of lights held by black-clad figures. Their faces were obscured by gauzy veils and heavy hoods. Their eyes gleamed in the candlelight, but I no longer felt fear.
I felt acceptance.
“We are the Shadows. We are the hunters in the darkness.” They said in unison.
The words hummed inside me until they spilled over my own lips.
“We are the Shadows. We are the lost.” I repeated those words, too.
“We are the Shadows. We are the avengers of the weak.”
“We are the Shadows. We are the slayers of the strong.” The words tumbled out of my mouth, leaving me breathless and giddy.
They understood. They were like me.
“We are the Shadows. We are invisible. We are everywhere. We are the balancers of the scales. We are the seekers of justice.”
The light formed a solid circle around me. The shadows behind the candles seemed more familiar than my own family. I couldn't see their faces, but I didn't need to. The words they said were the truths I've never been able to articulate.
“Welcome home, wanderer,” their leader said as he handed me his candle. The wax was warm in my hands, and the flame’s heat caressed my face.
Words were too crude to express my gratitude. There was nothing I could do to show them how I felt. So I sat, silently, and held the flame as part of their circle.
“Come,” the leader said. “I will show you the way. I will guide you on your first steps down this path.”
“As you wish,” I said.
Oh, geez. My dialogue was terrible. I needed to work on that.
I also needed to work on a story I could give my brother. How long had I been in-game without heading to the tavern? I glanced at the timer in the lower edge of my vision and stifled a groan. An hour. I was a dead man.
My mentor slipped through the circle of shadows and led me to the altar at the head of the Cathedral. Its surface was covered with an engraved depiction of a bizarre battle. Ravens armed with lances plunged their weapons into the hearts of armored men. Rabbits scurried underfoot and swung heavy maces into the faces of the fallen warriors around them.
My guide pressed the beaks of two of the ravens and the front of the altar opened with a grinding rattle.
Torches sprang to life in the mouth of the newly revealed tunnel. The passage stretched down into the earth and curved away and out of sight. The leader led me down and I followed, nervous and anxious at the same time. This was it.
This was the real beginning of my adventure.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“No one comes here of their own accord. We are a cabal of misfits and rejects. You were chosen only because you did not choose.” The leader's words felt like a recital, but there was something else beneath them. A bitterness? Regret? It was hard to tell without being able to see his face. The acoustics were better suited to spooky and atmospheric speeches then introspective monologues. For all I know, he could've been putting on a show for my benefit. I still don’t know exactly how he felt about his role in all this mess.
When I didn't respond, he continued. “We are the least favored of all. Others will despise you if they discover your true nature. Warriors are celebrated for their bravery, wizards are praised for their great intellect, and healers are renowned for their wisdom and compassion. Those of us who live in the shadows receive no such accolades.”
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gestured for me to move past him. We entered a small, round room with just enough space for the two of us to stand upright. If Bastion had come down here, he would never have fit.
I still wonder if there is some kind of height requirement for this job. Maybe you can only be so tall to fit into the uniform. Good thing I was the runt of the litter.
He fiddled with a mechanism on the wall and a series of grinding clicks echoed from within the walls around us. Hidden compartments opened in the rounded walls, revealing niches filled with all manner of dark-themed loot.
“Nor do we need their praise. Seeking attention is for those who wish to be cut down in the primes of their lives. It is much wiser, much safer, to remain hidden.”
He moved to one of the open compartments and withdrew a black hood from its recesses. It was worn and stained, but it looked cool as hell. The worn edges only added to its mystique and the stains on its cowl hinted at tales of roguish derring-do.
The leader slipped the hood over my head and adjusted it until the material hung properly from my skull. While the deep cowl extended forward past my face, I found that it rippled and gave way when I turned my head so it did not obscure my vision. Neat trick.
“The Hood of Shadows will conceal you from your enemies and protect your identity. While you go about your duties it must always be worn. But, when you need to hide your true nature, it's absence also makes an admirable disguise.”
I guess that made sense. If you didn't go around dressed like some sort of cut-rate fantasy ninja no one would suspect that's exactly what you were.
He pulled a length of gray cloth from the next compartment. This he wrapped around the lower half my face and my neck to secure the hood.
My new mentor went around the rest of the room, gathering bits and pieces of equipment to complete my roguish ensemble. “The Armor of Shadows protects your body. The Shadow Boots make your footfalls as silent as a cat. The Stilettos of Silence serve your enemies their just desserts.”
When he was finished, I was dressed head to toe in leather armor and scraps of black or gray cloth. I’d become one of the shadows, one of the men and women who hid from polite society and weren’t afraid to use sharp and pointy things to get our way.
You have received:
Hood of Shadows
Mask of Shadows
Cloak of Concealment
Armor of Shadows
Shadow Boots
Well-Worn Leather Backpack
Stiletto of Silence (X2)
Reputation:
+25 with Shadow faction
-50 with Law faction
-10 with Villagers faction
I didn't talk while I was getting outfitted. It seemed disrespectful to break his flow, so I stayed mum. Once he’d finished, though, I had to ask. “What now? I'm in the club, and that's cool, but what do we do?”
His eyes narrowed and his hand brushed against my chest. The next thing I knew, I was flat on the floor with a fist-sized ball of pain hovering over my heart. His blue eyes flashed from the depths of his cowl. “You're not in the club yet.”
I gagged on my pain and rolled around like an overturned turtle trying to right itself. Again, I think the Devs could have skimped a little bit on the sensory overload part of the Game. It felt like I was going to have a bruise for the next several weeks, at least.
I had a lot to say, but couldn't get any words out. My entire chest was gripped in a vise of fire that kept me from taking a real breath, much less speaking.
My angry mentor kneeled next to me so I wouldn't miss any of his words. “We have accepted you, but we must be sure that you accept what you have become. You must prove you are loyal to the shadows beyond all others.”
Thanks, that's clear as mud. What is it with these quest-givers and their cryptic speeches? Why couldn’t they just tell me what I needed to do in small words and simple sentences?
He reached down and touched three fingers to my chest. The pain subsided to tolerable levels. “Do you accept the challenge?”
You have been offered the quest, Prove Your Loyalty. Do you accept?
“Yes,” I gasped with relief.
And, just like that, my mentor was gone. Darkness filled the chamber and I was alone and lost.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
After a few minutes alone in the dark, the undifferentiated blackness gave way to subtle shades of black, gray, and a velvety, midnight blue. It wasn't as good as daylight, or even torchlight, but it was enough to start looking for a way out of the maze.
Oh, I didn't mention it was a maze? Because it was totally a maze.
I followed the most obvious route, at first. A single wide hall led out of the round chamber I’d been left in, and I expected it would lead back to the stairs and then up to the surface.
Shame on me for expecting the obvious, but that is not what happened.
I followed the tunnel for a hundred yards, passing offshoots to the left and right before I realized I was headed down, not up. The bastard had pulled another trick on me, and I was well and truly lost. I turned around to head back the way I'd come, but the hallway was no longer a straight shot back to the equipment room. Within 20 yards I ran into a wall with hallways leading to the left and right.
I stared at the T-intersection for a long moment, trying to decide how to tackle this problem. If these hallways were made from real stone, it wouldn't make any sense for it to move around like this. But nothing here was real. It was just bits and bytes pumped into my brain through the CIN to fool my senses into believing it was real. Anything could happen down here. The shadows could keep me wandering this hole in the ground until my timer ran out and I had to return back to the world empty-handed.
Karl would be just thrilled with me if that happened.
I touched the stone and found it was slightly damp. I followed it's rough surface up to where it met the ceiling and realized I was under a body of water of some kind. Water had seeped in through the joint where the wall and ceiling met. It wasn't much, but it was something to work with.
Unfortunately, I hadn't seen a river or a pond or any other body of water bigger than a bathtub while I'd been wandering through the village. For that matter, I didn't even know if I was under the village, anymore. There could have been a tricky teleportation trap that moved me when I turned back the first time. Or when I came down the stairs. Or when the leader of the thieves turned off the lights.
Trying to figure out why this was happening could keep me busy for the rest of my life. I didn’t have time for this; I needed to get back to the surface and figure out how to make some money.
I walked along a little further, keeping my right hand against the wall. It wasn't the most efficient way to escape my winding prison, but barring some annoying magic or more shifting walls, if I just followed one wall or the other, I would eventually come out to the entrance. I might be wandering down here for hours, but at least I'd be wandering with purpose. I kept walking, following the trail while keeping my hand firmly against the wall. There were more twists and turns and switchbacks than I would've imagined possible, and my sense of direction was completely confused before long. I didn't dare look back for fear that the maze was changing behind me and I'd lose all hope of ever reaching the surface.
Just keep going forward, I told myself, keep trusting that your plan will work.
Which is easy to say, but less easy to believe when you're trapped underground in a dark hole with no idea when or if you'll ever see the daylight again. How pissed was Karl going to be if I spent the whole four hours trapped down here?
Pretty pissed if I had to guess.
I glanced at the in-game clock hovering at the edge of my vision and realized I'd only been down here for 20 minutes in World time. Close to two hours had passed in the Game, and the difference in the two types of time made me queasy. I'm not sure how it works, but the CIN manipulates your sense of time passing. It's an amazing trick, because it can make your dollars go farther.
Or, they could make it work the other way, so every minute in the Game was really twenty minutes in the World. Would they do that to increase their profit margins? That was something only the Devs could answer.
The maze finally relaxed its grip on me. The grays, blacks, and blues gave way to more grays and stray glimpses of yellow light. A few more minutes and there was enough light to actually see, not just vaguely sense, my surroundings.
A few minutes after that, I found the stairs.
They weren't the same stairs I'd come down, because of course they weren't. Why would anything be that easy?
This staircase was wooden and narrow and was not adorned with scenes of vicious crows and homicidal rabbits. The steps were so steep they bordered on becoming a ladder. I scrambled up to a pair of overhead doors at the top of the stairs. Pressing against them did nothing—they were not going to budge.
I descended a couple of steps to get a better look at the doors and found the reason they wouldn’t open. A heavy padlock dangled from an iron hasp.
Great, I thought. That's awesome.
I climbed down the stairs and sat on the ground at the bottom for a few minutes, head in my hands. The thought of heading back into the maze and stumbling along with my hand on the wall until I found another set of stairs made my brain ache.
I clambered back up the steep stairs and shoved my shoulder against the doors, but the lock wasn’t going to give.
The lock…
I went through the equipment given to me by the leader of the Shadows. What had he said about the gloves?
“The shadows bar the way of your enemies, yet open the barriers they place in your way.”
A quick examination of the skin-tight gloves revealed a series of grooves across their backs. A closer look told me they weren’t grooves at all, but thin pouches. I flexed my fingers and bent my hand forward and shiny metal rods emerged from the pouches. They were small and delicate, almost wires.
I plucked one out and stared at its bent frame for a few moments before I realized what I was looking at.
It was a lock pick.
SUCCESS! You have increased your mastery of the Pick Locks skill. (Rank 2).
That was interesting. I looked at each of the picks in turn and was surprised to find I understood how to use each and every one of them. I wasn't an expert, but I knew enough to take a shot at the lock above me.
I scrambled back up the stairs and fed one of the picks into the keyhole. The curved hook at its end slipped in and around metal gears and wheels as I probed the mechanism for a weak point. The feel of the pick slipping up and over tumblers, pushing some down and prying others up, filled my head with a wire-frame schematic. I could see what I needed to do. I just needed to lift this one piece a little…
FAILURE! You have damaged your lock pick. Another failure may cause it to break.
I took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out. I pushed the pick back into the keyhole probed around for a moment, and forced myself to be slow and methodical. Bits and pieces of iron slipped and clicked into place. I didn’t try to force the tumblers into place, I let the pick guide them to where they wanted to be.
SUCCESS! You have increased your mastery of the Pick Locks skill. (Rank 3)
The lock popped open and fell into my hand.
I stared at it, amazed that I’d done it. I pushed the doors open, unleashing a torrent of sunlight into the maze.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have achieved level 2 in the Thief class.
Ski
ll rank maximum increased to 10
Hit Points Increased to 20
Finally. I didn’t think I’d ever level up. Now, on to the business at hand.
I dragged myself up out of the hole and realized I had no idea where I was.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Day in this village was even more stunning than the night. Sunlight caught the snowflakes as they fell from the sky and transformed them into splintered shards of rainbow light. The clouds overhead held a multitude of colors, from pure white down to the golden pink where the sun’s rays forced their way through the cotton-candy fluff.
The cobblestone streets were just as impressive. Ice settled into the cracks between the stones and whirling sprays of snow skated across their smooth surfaces. Whatever else it was, Dragon World Online was an amazing place.
I’d emerged from the maze into an alley, which was short and twisted at both ends. I didn't imagine that the other thieves wanted me hanging around the entrance to their secret hideout, so I closed the doors and moved away. I wasn’t sure if the lock would magically find its way back onto the doors, but I couldn’t exactly lock it from the outside. I shrugged and left the maze behind.
The eastern end of the alley led to Main Street, which sounds more impressive than it actually was. The village wasn't much more than a few hundred yards end to end. Peeking out of the alley, I could see the gates at either end of the main road and all of the buildings scattered along its length. They weren’t crammed together, there's plenty of space between them, and I could see the houses and other, smaller businesses crouched behind them. There couldn’t have been more than a hundred people living in the village, and that’s being generous.
