Fateweaver's Quest

by Kris Schnee

  Right. He had to provide what little protection he could. He looked down at Eva, and quickly opened his magic menu to look for anything that could offer plausible defense against a blast of cold. Wool? "Does this count as an advantage?"

  [It will. Is this your new priority?]

  She was on the ground, with 11 enemies on her. "Melee 3 for them all despite their numbers... Eva, can you hold out for one round?"

  She shouted, "I've got this! Full defense!"

  He selected a wide, thick sheet to fall on his troops. "Do it."

  [Skill 4, dice -1.]

  "Spend my fate point on Fateweaver to succeed with style."

  [Two free invocations, for Insulated Blanket**.]

  Thorn rallied the group as the big blanket fell. Eva yelped and fought her way back to her feet. Miles was in midair, watching, then turned his attention to the sky again. Iskandar flapped once and glided lazily toward the battle, then opened his jaws to reveal a cave of fangs and endless cold.

  The dragon's breath washed down onto the army like an avalanche. It was hail, frost, icicles and deathly cold air. The troops had [Sheer Numbers], [Magic Defenses] and now the [Insulated Blanket] to resist whatever raw damage there was.

  The GMs said, [As overall commander, the defense decision is yours. The incoming attack has power 8. The troops' defense is using Survival for 3 and has 1 Armor, for 4 possible damage.]

  Miles stared up in awe at the dragon. Its blast of frozen doom was paused in midair, a moment away from killing his shipmates. How many, was up to him. The dragon, too, was poised in mid-flap, and its nearest eye seemed to be watching him.

  [Well?] asked the GMs, displaying a countdown.

  "Block it! Use the blanket. Twice! Can I do twice?"

  There were muffled shouts from beneath the cloth. The soldiers had been tormented by waiting for an attack that hadn't come -- and now it did. They staggered and yelled in fright, and the blanket spontaneously froze and shattered into a thousand scraps. The men and women were left staring up at the beast, now unprotected. A boost labeled [Frightened*] appeared above them.

  The next round began, and the defenders had made no progress. What was he supposed to do? "Thorn, you and Eva smash the golems in melee and they'll become a smaller threat! Hartstown, use your bows!"

  Eva was on her feet, looking rattled but intact, surrounded by slowly moving statues of malicious ice. "We can kill these, but we can't fight the dragon in the open like this!"

  Thorn ordered, "Everyone retreat to the Wind Shrine!"

  Miles said, "It's too far! We need to drive it off."

  "We're at a massive disadvantage in combat. Withdraw!"

  Miles wanted to shout back, Whose fault is that?, but there was no point. "Hartstown, retreat! We'll stop the golems and harass the dragon afterward." He opened the magic menu again and said, "Creating an advantage for Eva, by dropping more junk on the enemy."

  His spell materialized and distracted the golems. Eva and Thorn waded through the battle, trading blows with the near-dozen enemies. The troops broke and ran to the south. If he could just deal with the snow goons, he could --

  The dragon veered to one side and closed its left forefoot's talons around him. The world was suddenly a cage of frost-blue spikes, pausing in the act of crushing him.

  [An attack is incoming.]

  Miles stared. "I noticed."

  [Do you wish to proceed?]

  "I don't have much choice!"

  [Attack 7. Using your Melee or Toughness skill, both at 1, to defend: defense 2 and 1 Armor. 2 stress plus minor consequence "Squashed". Special effect: You are Grappled.]

  The talons closed in on him, pinning his arms to his sides. He could barely see the battlefield. "Use Magic, to yank the talons open!"

  [Skill 4, dice +1 versus opposition 4, but we invoke Squashed.]

  "Then I spend a point for Fateweaver."

  [You have no points.]

  He'd just wasted his turn. There was momentum and a whirl of motion outside his cage, and shouts somewhere below. "What's the dragon doing now? It should attack me again, right?"

  [You don't have the Notice skill.]

  The talons began to clench in on him. [Incoming attack. Do you wish to proceed?]

  "Why are you asking?" He froze when he realized the answer. "You want me to concede."

  [Our offer: your allies escape without further harm because the dragon loses interest and the golems fight poorly.] There was a pause. [In exchange, you are captured.]

  A timer was ticking down. Even if he escaped right now with a good roll, and Thorn and Eva were taking no damage, Iskandar still had the troops caught in the open. No matter what they did, some were probably going to die. "Fine!" he said. "Concede. I've escaped before."

  [Very well], said the GMs. The talons closed in tighter and the dragon changed direction, soaring high to one side. Men and women shouted far below, and he thought he could make out Eva's voice. A wave of dizziness made him black out.

  * * *

  He woke up inside a cryotube with its lid sliding open. He sat up dizzy, clutching his head. There were no wires or tubes plugged into him, and he was wearing the same improvised clothing he'd made by magic. Lights came on slowly, revealing a deep purple hexagonal room in which a robed Vizier sat.

  The Vizier said, "We apologize. Your Hosts intended to say 'you are killed', but we stepped in and forbade that language. They wished to see whether you would willingly give your life to rescue the others. We felt that we've inflicted enough emotional harm to your people already."

  "You think?!" said Miles. He staggered out of the cryotube and stood balancing against it. "Then am I dead? Where is this? What did you do?"

  "First of all, to answer the question Eva had been asking: you have indeed been 'uploaded'. Your physical body is gone and you now exist as a digital recording and simulation of your old brain. Judging from the documents we captured from your ship, we suspect this may upset you. If you consider this digital existence blasphemous, we will delete you after minimal further study."

  "No, no thank you! I don't want to be deleted." He looked around again; this place didn't seem like any part of the dragon's lair, nor of any real building; there wasn't even a door or furniture. The Hexapods were giving him as few clues to their own culture as possible. He shivered. "You're saying I'm dead?"

  "By some definitions, we killed your entire crew. By others, you're all still alive. We consider the second to be more accurate, because you're still capable of thought, memory and action. If our faction had been in charge, we would have asked you before converting you to software. We consider the Hosts' actions to be wrong." The Vizier paused as though listening to something. "The Hosts insist that as long as we're criticizing them, we should also explain their logic."

  Miles took a few deep breaths, trying not to think about being physically erased, about having become a digital ghost in some computer. It was the most reasonable explanation for the game-like physics and magic. "And what is their position, their excuse?"

  The Vizier's green glow of a face regarded him. "Imagine, human, that an alien race invades your territory and shows possession of atomic technology. They also show curiosity by poking at a landmark you've created, along with enough intelligence to recognize danger and enough courage to confront it. Would you have considered capturing the intruders by surprise and subjecting them to quarantine and scientific study, to determine their abilities, personality and intentions?"

  "We... would have considered that option. But why this game? Why -- no. First of all, is everyone else all right?"

  "As promised, the battle has ended and the crew will all survive the encounter. We predict they will join the northern settlement to discuss their next steps."

  "Then if I'm here, if we're all in some computer system, does that mean you didn't really kill off our other crewmembers?"

  In response, one of the walls slid away. Beyond it was a second hexagonal room with several more on its edges, forming a
sort of dormitory. The ten or so people who'd died within the game world were there in their original uniforms, staring at him and all talking at once. "Miles! What happened?"

  Miles' fists clenched and he looked back at the Vizier. "You lied to us. You let us think they were dead."

  "We Viziers tried to minimize your suffering, while the Hosts insisted that it was a necessary part of our experiments, and with no permanent harm done. Here are your friends and colleagues, alive and well."

  Miles said to them, "I'm glad you're here, at least. What have they been doing to you?"

  A man he barely recognized said, "Studying us differently. They gave us living quarters and access to our own books, but nothing about themselves besides telling us what they just told you."

  Thorn's first officer, Andrea, was there too. She said, "How is the captain?"

  "Alive. Both of him." There were in fact two copies of one crewman among the dead. Miles added, "So you know about the duplication. Vizier, why did you do this?"

  The robed one said, "We couldn't produce what you'd call a controlled experiment without creating many exact copies of you, to run in parallel. We persuaded the Hosts not to use that option. They instead decided to study you by creating two identical groups in different geographic areas, to see what differences developed."

  "One little society with me and one without?"

  The Vizier quivered, as though laughing silently. "Did you believe that the experiment was all about you?"

  Miles had been handed unique powers and an invitation to use them... but he was just one man among hundreds of test subjects. People who the aliens had wanted to examine, to see how they would react to things, including having one of their own show up with superpowers. He said, "All this time, you wanted to see how they would treat me?"

  "Now that we may ask you directly, how do you think humans will react to someone who commands immense power compared to them?"

  "To... to you, you mean."

  "Indeed. Our internal disputes aside, we were all curious about whether you would see us as a threat, for having the power that we command. The Hosts judged that this perception would not be made much worse by subjecting you to a short-term experiment, particularly once you realized the full extent of the gift that comes with it."

  The first officer told Miles, "The bastard means that we're immortal, Miles. Maybe the original me is dead and I'm just a copy; I haven't decided. But whatever I am now, doesn't have to grow old or get sick so long as the computers we're on are intact. They stole our lives and gave us immortality."

  "A fair trade, isn't it?" asked the Vizier. "Though again, we understand you would have preferred being asked, first."

  Miles said, "I suppose there's no point in punching you."

  "If it will make you feel better, proceed."

  Slain crewman Wilhelm said, "We already did that."

  Miles didn't bother. "Then what happens now? Will you set us all free to have our ship back and finish our mission, or do you intend on keeping us as prisoners?"

  First Officer Andrea said, "They've been holding out on us about that information. I'm not sure Silver Hart even exists anymore, or whether they disassembled it. There's also the question of whether these... people are digital ghosts themselves."

  "What do you think?" asked the Vizier.

  Miles said, "I think you are. You obviously don't have a moral problem with uploading, and you figured out how to do it to a completely alien species right away. We found no sign of civilization on planet Tafl other than the one artifact site, yet the planet had a heat signature. I bet it's honeycombed with whatever you use for computers."

  "This is all correct, but for one detail. By your measurements, you were all in stasis for over a year between being captured and being uploaded. There was much debate about what to do with you, and a worry that your vital signs were deteriorating before we even fully understood what was normal."

  He'd lost a year. "Doesn't matter," he said. "Our people back home weren't expecting to hear from us until our warp gate was complete, in several years. A year's delay wouldn't be shocking."

  Andrea said, "Now that we know that, you aliens still have a chance to make peace with us. To make things right and help us get back to what we were doing."

  The Vizier said, "Indeed. But there's still the matter of our game. Miles, since you've appointed yourself ambassador, will you do us the honor of resolving it?"

  "What? Why?"

  "We knew soon after meeting your species that you were comprehensible, because you are players of games. Your understanding of reality involves the ability to create an inner world with its own rules. This planet may seem like a dead rock to you, but to us it is a paradise. We would happily rent out a small portion of it for the sake of seeing what you do with it."

  "A part of your world. A city of our own, you mean? A reservation?"

  The creature shrugged. "Call it what you like. The environment is virtual, so it can take whatever form you wish. It needn't abide by the rules of this particular game, either. We could even set up part of the space as a physical cave full of Earth plants instead of computers."

  "Watch what you offer them in return," groused Andrea.

  Miles nodded. "What exactly are you asking of me, then? To go back and finish this quest to slay the dragon?"

  "No. At this point, we'd like to see you play as the dragon. If the remaining crew can slay you, or if you can kill at least, say, sixty of them, we will end the game."

  "Why sixty?"

  "We believe your term is an 'over/under bet'. But you must give us a good show, and not reveal yourself in any way. In return: a colony for humanity on another world, and assistance with building this warp gate of yours."

  "That's insane!" said one of the crew.

  Andrea said, "They're aliens. It's a wonder we can understand each other at all. If our games are the common ground between us, we need to play well." She sighed. "How about it, Miles? They're asking you to scare and hurt people, or at least make a good effort."

  "Temporarily," the Vizier said.

  Miles glared into the hidden face of the Vizier. "On one condition. Show yourself. Or at least what you looked like before you gave up your bodies to this computer world."

  "Gladly." The Vizier's robe slid off, and the creature beneath shifted. It hunched over, extending weirdly into a six-limbed creature similar to the starfish-things he'd seen before. The central bulge passed for a head lined with luminescent green eyes, and each mottled orange tentacle-foot had three smaller fingers. Its voice burbled liquidly from underneath its head, saying, "This is my primary body, and representative of our original species. There is much more to tell about our people, but does this satisfy your curiosity for now?"

  The sight of the starfish made Miles uneasy, and the other crew recoiled from it too. Not hideous, but fluid and flexible. Miles said, "You must have seen pictures of what we consider fantasy creatures, if you know what a dragon is."

  One of the tentacles swept inward, a gesture Miles had no idea how to interpret. "Yes, and it confirms what we'd long suspected: the scope of a culture's imaginary worlds is limited by its own experience. We have our own fantasies, but to use your terms, they've come to bore us. But now, we also have some of yours. It's as though our artists have been introduced to an entirely new color."

  That's their real prize, thought Miles. Not capturing us and our ship. They value us for demonstrating how we play.

  He said, "I'll do it. For the sake of rescuing the rest of the crew, if indirectly."

  The Vizier said, "Excellent."

  The first officer looked grim, but clapped him on the shoulder. "I understand that this is diplomacy. Just don't make it worse than it needs to be."

  "Yes, ma'am. One way or the other, I'll be back soon."

  12. Fateweaver's End

  The world faded out, and he appeared inside a frozen cave. Miles startled. He was laying on his belly atop a shifting metal surface. When he pushed himself to
his feet, he saw his scaly hands with their icy claws, and let out a startled growl. Dragon!

  He had trouble gauging his own size from this perspective. The cave was barely twice his height, sitting up, and a few paces across. But that made it a large cavern by human standards, and the massive pile of glittering coins beneath him was like sand. He reached down to pick up hundreds of gold pieces in one clawed hand and felt them sift through his fingers. Unfamiliar muscles twitched on his back, making him look back to stare at his own vast, leathery wings.

  "I can see why Eva wanted to try this," he said, or tried to. All that came out was a toothy, hissing growl.

  The GMs explained, [We understand your words, but your voice will be muffled for everyone else. You forfeit if you try to communicate your true nature by any means or otherwise break character. You are a hostile monster.]

  "Fine," he said, looking forward to flying but not to fighting. "If I'm not using my old powers, then what exactly can I do?"

  He saw:

  Iskandar

  Fate Points: 5

  Frost Dragon

  Greedy Gold Guardian

  Worthy Foe

  Skills:

  4: Combat

  3: Flight, Toughness

  Stunts:

  -Ice Breath: Once per three rounds, attack all foes in an adjacent zone. Counts double against groups.

  -Grab: A successful Combat hit makes foes Grappled, a free advantage.

  -Crush: Free attack per round on an already Grappled foe.

  -Kobold Minions: Once per scene, summon a squad of 20 kobolds with Melee/Shoot 4, 3 below half strength.)

  -Immune to Cold

  Stress: Body [][][][], Mind [][]

  Consequences:

  2:

  4:

  "That's it? I could have fought him myself!" He pictured himself summoning carpet rolls to bonk the dragon on the head. It seemed unlikely, but unless the GMs declared otherwise, his Magic attacks were capable of damaging a dragon just as much as an ant with an equally good dice result.