Deadly Web

by Michael Omer

  “Of course not,” Brian said. “But you can talk to them in the game.”

  “But we don’t have the password.”

  Brian stared at them in pity. “You can create new characters to enter the game.”

  “Oh,” Mitchell said. “Right. How stupid of me.”

  Brian held his tongue.

  “Can you help us with it?”

  “Sure.” Brian said.

  They spent the next half-hour setting up two computers side by side, and installing the game on both of them. Tanessa fell asleep, her head on one of the desks, a strand of her lovely hair lying carelessly on her cheek. Mitchell explained that she’d just finished a graveyard shift, and Brian finally realized that it meant that she’d been patrolling all night long. He asked if she did that often. Mitchell told him rookie cops did the graveyard shift every night. Brian was aghast. It sounded incredibly unfair.

  He created two characters for them. An elf ranger for Mitchell, and a dwarf fighter for Jacob. He almost set Jacob’s character’s intelligence to three, just to amuse himself, but decided it was petty and unlike him to do so. Then he explained the basics: how to walk, and how to chat. He didn’t bother explaining how to fight. He doubted they’d need it—and if they did, God help those two level one characters if they met anything worse than rats.

  “Okay,” he said. “Now you just need to fast travel to the guild headquarters. If any of them is online, they’ll get a notification, and hopefully will come and talk to you.”

  “Good,” Mitchell said. “Just show us how to do that.”

  Jacob the Mighty and Mitchell Forest Lover walked slowly on the old trail, the dark forest surrounding them. The only noises to be heard were the methodical sound of their feet on the gravel, and the wind rustling the tree leaves. Their progress was slow, much slower than they had originally planned. This was mostly because their pace was dictated by Jacob the Mighty’s insistence of zig-zagging left and right instead of walking straight. Forest Lover tried to control his temper, telling himself repeatedly that it wasn’t Jacob the Mighty’s fault. He simply wasn’t used to… walking.

  The path opened in front of them, the sudden light of the midday sun making them squint. In front of them was a beautiful valley, the grass green and lush, small trees and shrubberies dotting the landscape. A few cows grazed in the fields, their cowbells tinkling, filling the air with a pleasant, earthly tune. In the center of the valley stood a large, stone fortress, surrounded by a moat. The outer wall was high and wide, and Mitchell counted four spires along it. On the top of each one flapped a large red flag depicting a black arrow stuck in a white skull. Jacob and Mitchell glanced at each other and smiled wearily. Their journey was at an end. Long had they sought the Black Arrow guild and at last they’d found it. Mitchell hoped they would find the answers to their questions within the great halls of the fortress.

  The drawbridge was lowered and the front gate was open, as if someone was expecting them. There were legends of great wizards within the Black Arrow guild, and it was possible one of them had prophesied their coming. Perhaps one such was watching them even now. Mitchell shivered at the thought. But he had not left the farm and become an adventurer only to balk at the first sign of danger. Feeling the curve of his oaken long bow, he marched forward. They crossed the drawbridge, an alligator swimming lazily in the moat below their feet. They strode inside the fortress and into the great hall. The vast space was alight with dozens of torches. A crimson carpet covered the floor from wall to wall, its texture flawless and mesmerizing. The walls were decorated with trophies and pictures of heroes fighting various monsters. These were probably the guild members, immortalized by some unknown painter. Though there was a large fireplace in which a fire danced merrily, the hall was eerily empty.

  “No one here,” Mitchell said.

  “Hang on,” Brian told him. “See the small icons on the top right of the screen? Three of the guild members are currently online. They’ve all received notifications that someone is walking around their headquarters. Hopefully one of them will come and talk to you soon.”

  “What if they won’t?”

  “We can go and look for them, but I’d rather avoid that.”

  “Why avoid—”

  “Hang on, look!” Brian said, pointing at the screen.

  A beautiful young blonde woman entered the hall from one of the side doors. She was dressed in shiny metal armor, though surprisingly little of it; her taut stomach, legs, and deep cleavage were all prominently on display. A huge scabbard on her back held an incredibly heavy-looking sword, but the woman seemed to pay it no mind. She approached them slowly, her movements catlike and sleek, her face showing a complete lack of emotion. Mitchell was aware that in front of him stood a woman of great power, one of the legendary heroes of Dragonworld. She had been there before the cataclysm, before the great changes of free-to-play. She was one of the first.

  “Sup,” she said.

  “Hello,” Mitchell Forest Lover responded. Jacob the Mighty stood with his mouth closed, then whirled to the right and took three steps.

  “Looking for someone?” the woman said.

  “My name is Mitchell.”

  “Yeah, I know,” the woman said shortly. “I can read.”

  “Read?”

  “If you hover with your cursor above a character it shows you the character’s name,” Brian said.

  “Oh, okay,” Mitchell said, moving his mouse. “Jacob, what’s going on? Your character is moving like a drunk.”

  “I’m trying to talk with her,” Jacob muttered, clicking furiously. “Why doesn’t it work?”

  Brian sighed and moved over to help Jacob.

  “Sorry,” Mitchell Forest Lover said. “I meant that my real name is Mitchell. Detective Mitchell, actually. I wanted to ask you some questions…” He stood motionless for a second. “Katrina.”

  “Srsly?”

  “Yes. Do you have a phone number or e-mail, so we can contact you?”

  “No offense,” the woman said. “But I don’t give my personal details to just anyone who shows up.”

  “WE ARE FROM THE POLICE,” Jacob the Mighty said, standing at the far end of the hall, his face against the wall.

  “Caps lock, Jacob.” Mitchell said.

  “Yeah, okay, okay.”

  The woman looked at them. “So you say,” she finally said. “But I don’t think that your characters have badges, right? We can talk here. You won’t believe the kind of creeps I sometimes meet in this game.”

  “You are from the Black Arrow guild?” Mitchell asked.

  “I’m the guild master.”

  “Do you know a woman named Dona Aliysa?”

  “Yes. She’s in our guild. She plays Willow, one of our mages.”

  “When was the last time you saw her in the game?”

  “Two days ago,” Katrina said. “We were planning a raid together for last night. Then she never showed up. It was a disaster. We had no mages, the monster level was way too high for that raid, our healer was drunk, our tank was killed within twenty seconds… we had to abort the entire thing.”

  “Did she seem concerned when you saw her?”

  “Not that I noticed… What’s going on? Why are you two here?”

  “WILLOW HANnigan is dead.” Jacob the Mighty said, his nose still rubbing the wall.

  “Yeah, okay.” Katrina said. “So? Is there a problem? Isn’t she spawning back? I heard there was a problem, but she should be talking to Dragonworld support. They’ll fix it.”

  “What my partner is trying to say,” Mitchell Forest Lover said, “is that Dona Aliysa, who used to play Willow, was murdered the night before last.” After a second, he added, “I’m sorry.”

  There was silence in the great hall. Katrina stared forward, her face frozen, as if fighting the turmoil of feelings within her.

  Mitchell waited patiently. “We wanted to ask you some questions,” he finally said.

  There was no response.

>   “What’s going on?” Mitchell muttered.

  “We just told her that her friend is dead,” Jacob said. “She’s probably still processing it.”

  “Oh,” Mitchell said. He realized he was used to people bursting into tears, or yelling at him, or bolting out of the room, when he informed them about the murder of a friend or relative. In all likelihood, Katrina’s player was doing the same, except nothing of it filtered into the game. It was a bit disconcerting.

  “This isn’t a joke?” Katrina finally asked.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Katrina gave Mitchell Forest Lover her phone number, a number in Canada, then disappeared from the great hall, leaving Mitchell and Jacob to stare at the thin air.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t give you my phone number earlier,” Trish Geller said, sniffling. “If I’d known...”

  “That’s all right, no harm done,” Jacob said. “We would like to ask you some questions about Dona.”

  “I mostly knew her as Willow.”

  “But you talked to her from time to time?”

  “Yes. We talked all the time. She was one of my best friends. We spent hours almost every day playing together. I knew something was off when she didn’t show up last night, but she disappeared sometimes for a day or two. You should probably know she was clinically depressed.”

  “We know.”

  “Are you sure it was murder? That she didn’t… didn’t…”

  “Kill herself? She didn’t. Did Dona give any indication lately that she was preoccupied or worried about anything?”

  “No. She was much happier than usual. She was in a relationship. She considered getting a job. Things were really looking up for her.”

  “About the relationship, did Dona ever tell you about the guy she was dating?”

  “Sure. She was really into him. He was considerate, warm, caring. She joked about how sexy he was, too.”

  “Did she ever seem to indicate if he was abusive, or had a short temper? Did they have any arguments? Was there any problem in the relationship you’re aware of?”

  “Not anything that she told me. She really talked about him as if he was the perfect guy.”

  “Did she mention he had recently gotten out of prison?”

  “No,” Trish said, sounding shocked. “She did not.”

  Jacob tapped with his pen on the table, thinking. If Trish hadn’t known about that, she probably wouldn’t know about anything else related to Blayze. This felt like a dead end.

  “Did Dona have any enemies you’re aware of?”

  There was a moment of silence. “We were playing a multi-player game together,” Trish finally said.

  “I know,” Jacob said.

  “My point is, these games do create friction. Between guilds, between players. It’s very standard.”

  “So did Dona have any friction that you’re aware of?”

  “Of course. We had a long-standing feud with the Bloody Hedgehog guild. There was a player she kept beating in PVP battles. She managed to win the grand Sorcerer’s tournament last year, and it’s a well-known fact that there was a warlock there who didn’t take it well. There was a guy we voted out of our guild—”

  “Okay, okay. I get it. Do you think any of those frictions were more… personal?”

  “Well…” Trish thought. “That guy she beat constantly kept challenging her to duels over and over again. He was kinda obsessive about her.”

  “Okay, then,” Jacob said, leaning back in his chair. “Let’s start with him.”

  The quest to find Lord Vaderon was a long and arduous one, but it was at an end. Mitchell and Jacob found the warlock checking out the bulletin board in the small village Rahorn. He was dressed entirely in black, holding a long golden staff, a long cloak billowing behind him. Power radiated off him, the air crackling, making the hair on the backs of their necks stand on end.

  Mitchell Forest Lover considered leaving, only to return later with some heavy firepower, but he knew that their time was short and that Jacob the Mighty would not think kindly of such cowardly behavior. Instead, he cleared his throat and approached the infamous dark warlock.

  “Excuse me,” Mitchell said. “Lord Vaderon?”

  “Wat U want?” Vaderon asked, not bothering to turn and face them.

  “We’re police detectives. I’m Detective Mitchell Lonnie, and my friend is Detective Jacob Cooper. We wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Do you know Willow Hannigan?”

  “Ya. She’s a fucking double fisted cunt. You her friends? Do you have some tissue to clean yourselves after I fuck you both?”

  “What the hell’s wrong with this guy?” Jacob asked disgustedly.

  “Dragonworld draws some unpleasant players,” Brian said. “We can report him if you want.”

  “And then they remove his character?”

  “No. They sometimes suspend it for a bit.”

  Jacob the Mighty walked closer to Lord Vaderon, unslinging his battle axe. “So,” he said. “Did Willow manage to tick you off? Kill you one time too many? And you decided to get even?”

  “Fuck yourself with ur axe handle, dwarf. Get lost.”

  “How did you find out where she lived, huh? Did you somehow manage to find her address online?”

  “Wat?”

  “Visited her house in the evening? Had a chat and then strangled her to death?”

  “Wat U talking about?”

  Mitchell Forest Lover took a step closer himself. “We just want you to answer some questions,” he said. “No need to be unreasonable.”

  “Unreasonable my ass,” Jacob the Mighty said, walking forward, blocking Lord Vaderon’s route. “This guy’s the killer.”

  They got closer yet, entering the suspect’s personal space, a practiced maneuver they had done dozens of times before. The partners slid into their well-honed parts: good elf cop, bad dwarf cop.

  “Look here,” Mitchell said to Lord Vaderon.

  Lord Vaderon raised his staff, and both Mitchell Forest Lover and Jacob the Mighty were engulfed in flames. When the air cleared, only two small piles of ash signified where the now-deceased heroes had once stood.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “What happened?” Jacob asked, staring at the screen.

  “I think you irritated him,” Brian said dryly. “He killed you both.”

  “Isn’t that a bit of an overreaction?” Jacob felt upset. He had begun to relate to the angry dwarf he’d been playing. And now the dwarf was dead.

  “Not really,” Brian said. “This is Dragonworld. Most servers allow players to attack each other whenever they want, and it happens quite frequently.”

  “He got rid of us really fast,” muttered Mitchell. “You should teach us how to fight in this game.”

  “It won’t do any good,” Brian said. “This guy’s a level forty-seven warlock. Your characters are both level one. You don’t stand a chance.”

  Tanessa suddenly snored on the desk, a drop of drool on her chin. Brian looked at her, his eyes tender. He clearly had a crush on the girl, Jacob realized.

  “So what do you suggest?” Mitchell asked.

  “I suggest you let some real players show you how it’s done,” Brian said, grinning.

  “No,” Jacob said. “This is a waste of time.” He felt frustrated, out of his element. This was no way to solve a murder, he was sure of it. He could not interrogate witnesses as an axe-wielding dwarf. He could not spot clues in a virtual world full of dragons, trolls, and women with low-cut bikini armor. “I’m done playing this game,” he said with finality.

  Jacob was the first to admit he wasn’t great when it came to computers. He had managed to stay afloat when the things had first started cropping up, but these days everything changed constantly. He couldn’t even trust his word processor to stay the same for more than a year. Jacob believed a man must face his weaknesses and acknowledge them, and computers were his bane.

  The telephone,
however, was his trusted ally.

  Ever since he had been promoted to detective, back in the nineties—oh, God, he was getting old—he’d realized that, with a little tenacity and a lot of what Hannah would call chutzpa, one could get very far with the telephone in hand. And now it was time to put his skills to good use.

  It took a few phone calls to get to a lowly manager at Tornado, Dragonworld’s publisher. Jacob explained that he required the phone number of one of their players. The manager, curt and dismissive, told him there was no way in hell this would ever happen unless Jacob had a warrant.

  Jacob assumed that, given time and persistence, he could probably get a warrant. But he didn’t plan on waiting that long. Instead he painted a picture to the manager. He explained that this was a murder investigation. He started talking about what the search warrant would allow the police to do. The word “confiscate” was used several times. He talked about the many servers they would have to check, the numerous computers they would have to take to the station.

  Then he explained to the manager how long it took to get things back from the police. He told the manager about the evidence storage room and about form 67A, which a person needed to fill out in triplicate to retrieve his possessions after the police were done with them. He talked about the workload of the police and the amount of time it would take them to comb through all those servers.

  The manager became a lot nicer. He asked Jacob to please hold. Jacob had no problem with holding.

  The manager’s boss got on the phone. He was very impolite. He told Jacob to get a search warrant.

  Murder investigation. Storage room. Form 67A in triplicates. Workload.

  Jacob was told to please hold again.

  This time a woman spoke to him. She sounded infinitely more polite than the earlier two, and in a very helpful mood. She asked what exactly he wanted. He explained about the murder, and about an unpleasant player named Lord Vaderon. She asked if this was the only thing he needed. Well, Jacob said, there might be a few more players they would want to talk to, no more than five or six. But it was one of Dragonworld’s players who’d been murdered, after all.