by Edward Brody
“What about the NPCs? You know how their script behaves in certain situations, right?”
Aaron shook his head and chuckled. “No, there is no script. Take, for example, an elf. Dr. Winston programmed the characters in the game to recognize the basic characteristics of an elf, so an elf knows that it’s an elf. We also told the game that elves generally hate orcs, for example, so there’s a good likelihood that an elf character is going to hate orcs. But—” Aaron stressed, “and this is a big but—NPC characters evolve just like real people. It’s entirely possible that under the right circumstances, certain elves could evolve to love orcs, and given how big this world is, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an elf falling in love with a big, stinky orc somewhere in the world right now.”
“So basically—“
“Basically,” Aaron interrupted, “even Dr. Winston doesn’t know how a NPC will behave.” Aaron shrugged. “His artificial intelligence programming was near perfect. And that’s why this game is different than any game ever invented. Not that this feels like a game—being here is just… It’s life in a different dimension.” Aaron shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m never going to have to sit behind a computer monitor, crunching numbers ever again.”
I spoke with a mouthful of gooey pancakes. The hot butter and syrup on them was unreal. “And I’ll never have to stock the dog food aisle again.”
You are well-fed! Stamina and Vitality increased by 15% while this effect is active
Aaron leaned back in his seat. “Huh? So, you were a stock boy back on Earth?”
“Three years at BestFoods.”
Aaron grinned. “My first job was at a grocery store, so I feel your pain. What about your family, man?” he asked. “You’ve never really told me about your life back on Earth.”
“There’s not much to talk about,” I replied. “I didn’t really have much of a family.”
“Friends?” Aaron asked.
I shrugged as I bit down on more pancakes. “Not so many.”
“Why not?” Aaron asked.
I let out a low laugh and sighed. “I wasn’t interested in sports, TV, pop culture and the other stuff that people were caught up in when I was in school. The world can be a lonely place when you’re a geek.”
“But after school… You didn’t have other geeky friends?” Aaron smiled and winked. “Geeky friends like me.”
I sighed again, remembering the years past. “When I was in High School, most of the kids thought I was weird for sitting in the back of the class getting lost in Russian fantasy novels. In my school, there were jocks, freaks, and academics—but there weren’t really any geeks like me. I didn’t fit in with any crowd and spent most of my time after school taking care of my grandmother and playing video games—maybe a little anime here and there. When you spend so much time on your own, you sort of get used to being a loner. Didn’t think about it much after school.”
“Must have been tough.”
I shrugged. “Being a lone wolf isn’t too bad, actually, but social anxiety is real. Fear of change is real too. The shit you pick up on when you’re younger can really stick with you.” I tilted my chin up. “If it wasn’t for Rachel…” I paused at that thought, about to tell him that I probably wouldn’t be sitting with him if it wasn’t for her encouragement, that I wouldn’t have even put the headset on if it weren’t for her. But then the strange dream flashed in my mind, and I figured it was best not to go too deep down that rabbit hole. “What about you and your family?”
“Oh, well my family and I aren’t really close. Different religious, political, and social views. I still love them, but a once-per-year Christmas visit is about all we could tolerate of each other.” Aaron laughed.
I sat my fork down and lifted the glass of OJ to my mouth. “You know, it still bothers me the way Dr. Winston did this. I lost my girlfriend, but what about the families that were torn apart?”
Aaron nodded in agreement. “The criminal charges came at Nexicon hard and heavy as soon it all went down. It’s a shame that people were forced apart, but I think it’s only temporary for most people.”
I creased my eyebrows. “What do you mean, ‘It’s only temporary’?
“Think about it, Gunnar. Everyone is immortal now. As more people on Earth realize that they can cross over into Eden’s Gate to live forever—and that their loved ones are really alive—more and more people will find their way into the game to be reunited. And not to discredit the families that were broken apart, but if you had a son or daughter, would you let him or her cross over if you knew that they’d get to live forever?”
“Hmm…” I said. “It’s a hard call.”
“Hard call? Best case scenario is he or she would live to be a hundred if they stayed on Earth, and worst case scenario is they get sick and die at forty.” Aaron tapped his fork against his plate. “Here in Eden’s Gate they could live to be five thousand years old. Think about it.”
I gulped. That was a hard statement to argue with. It would be a bit selfish for me to deny a loved one immortality, especially when—thus far—Eden’s Gate seemed like it had far more to offer than Earth.
“Before I crossed over, I gave my parents a call to join me when they get tired of Earth. They’re still non-believers, but they’ll come around.” Aaron smirked. “And if I had a girl, I’d sure as hell come here for her.”
“But by the time you leveled up and found her, she’d be boinking some elf that’s way more handsome and way better in the sack than you.”
Aaron laughed, almost spitting up the eggs he’d just slid into his mouth. “That’s probably true. But this is the early days of the game. As Reborns level up and communities are built, I expect finding people will become a lot more straightforward.”
“And what about the whole movement on Earth to stop anyone else from putting on headsets? How are more people going to cross over if there are no VR units to put on?”
“Eden’s Gate is still new, and people are afraid of things they don’t understand. It might take years, but the masses will eventually see it as an actual alternative world.” Aaron grinned. “And I made sure to help set those gears in motion before I logged in. Rupert Winston isn’t the only forward thinker.”
I lowered my eyes. “What did you do this time?”
“I released the blueprint for the Nexicon VR on the deep web. It might take a while for someone to decipher it, but they will.” He shrugged and slurped up a forkful of hash browns. “And that little conversation that we had with the President. Well, I made Kendra promise to record it and leak the video on the net once the heat dies down.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell Dr. Winston?”
“Fuck that asshole!” Aaron shouted. “He didn’t even offer us an awesome loot item or anything for making it all the way to his castle!”
I laughed so hard that I almost choked on my pancakes. “I don’t think reaching his castle counts as an achievement, since you placed a hidden portal into his wine cellar.”
“Yeah, anyway…” Aaron groaned. “Let’s get serious. I remember you saying something about a guild?”
Chapter Two
Day 8 (Earth)
Gustov rubbed his hands through his short, military-cut hair as he leaned his strong frame against a metal desk and looked at the other three people sitting in his basement.
Sar, a 22-year old redhead and Gustov’s best hacker, swiveled in her chair away from her double computer screens. Her long locks swayed as she shook her head. “I’m showing only a five percent decrease in activity across the blockchain.”
“Could be because some nodes haven’t rebooted yet. Sung?” Gustov called. “What were we showing again on launch day?”
A young, thin Asian man with a haircut similar to Gustov’s, and wearing all-black as everyone else in the room, bit his bottom lip. “The data before launch day is a little sketchy, but the activity on the blockchain had to have gone up by at least fifty to sixty percent.”
“Do th
ey think we’re stupid or what?!” Marcello barked, the lines below his completely bald forehead wrinkling as he held his phone out in his hand. “My Candy Mashers app has pinged at least a thousand different IP addresses just today.”
“Of course they think we’re stupid,” Gustov said. “You don’t expect the government to just tell us the truth, do you?”
“Maybe they’ve restructured some other software to run on the blockchain?” Sung suggested.
Gustov shook his head and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “No.”
“They’ve been running press conferences saying that the blackout was a success all day,” Sung said.
“They’ve also been going on about how they’re working diligently to collect the last of the Nexicon VR units. What’s the point if Eden’s Gate is down?” Marcello asked.
“That’s simple,” Sar spoke up. “To prevent people like us from creating some sort of Eden’s Gate 2.0 that runs on the same hardware.”
“It’s bullshit,” Gustov said calmly, shaking his head. He stood up straight and started walking around the room. “Rupert Winston was a genius ahead of his time. Why did he choose to run Eden’s Gate on an archaic CPU blockchain when Nexicon had secure, quantum computers available?”
Sung raised his eyebrows and rattled his head like it was obvious. “The Nexicon quantums are nearly impossible to hack, but anyone can physically pull the plug on them to shut the whole thing down.”
“Right,” Gustov confirmed. “Dr. Winston knew this, and he probably knew this whole shutdown attempt would happen eventually. I don’t know what failsafes he’s built in place, but there’s no way a mastermind of his caliber would have allowed his creation to be wiped out so easily.”
“So then the government just wants everyone to think that Eden’s Gate is down so that people don’t seek headsets or login?” Sung asked.
Gustov nodded. “Exactly.”
Sar nodded and looked at the others. “So then what do we do next?”
Gustov licked his lips. “We ignore the media and keep to the plan,” he said. “Let’s get back to work. We’ve got a 16,386-bit Blockchain that we need to tap into.”
Chapter Three
01/08/0001
“I believe you were the one who mentioned ‘guild’ first,” I said.
“And you were the one with these grandeur ideas—castle, world domination.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Not so much world domination but making a name for myself across Eden’s Gate.”
“How about making a name for your guild in the process? Let’s keep you out of your solo-thinking ways. You’ve come this far, right?” Aaron held a fist out across the table.
I smiled, nodded, and bumped my knuckle against his. “Let’s figure this out then.”
Aaron pushed his empty plate to the side of the table and gestured with his hands as he spoke. “Unless Dr. Winston changed something, there are two types of guilds in the world: rogue guilds and registered guilds.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Anyone can create a rogue guild at any time. All it takes is a few people with the desire to link up. A registered guild is a guild that has been registered in a guild hall in one of the big cities.”
“Okay, and registering a guild helps how?”
“If your guild is registered, your guild members will also get registered in the guild hall, and no one can be registered to two guilds at once. It offers some level of protection against someone from a rival establishment joining your guild to sabotage you. In addition, you can take guild quests from guild halls—missions that are generally too difficult for standard parties to handle on their own.”
“So then I guess we should register?”
“At some point it might be a good idea, but since we’re not near a guild hall and we’re tight on cash, we’ll have to start out as a rogue guild.”
I nodded. “So how do we start it?”
“We pretty much just will it to happen at the same time, and it’ll work. But we need at least three people to start a guild. Perhaps we could invite Jax to join next time we see him? I’m surprised you didn’t extend an invitation to him before he left.”
I sighed. “Yeah, about Jax… There’s something I should tell you.”
“What?”
“I’m pretty sure Jax is a Sparrow.”
Aaron turned slightly and looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “A Sparrow? The group of rogues that the High Elves were talking about?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you suppose that?”
“Yesterday, when he got snared by Donovan, a necklace fell out of his pocket. It had the same emblem as the Sparrow who killed me in Addenfall.”
“Don’t tell me you think he…”
“Yeah. He might have been my killer. I can’t be for sure, but it would make sense.”
Aaron shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t. He saved us in Gramora and even helped us all the way to the end of the dungeon. If he was a killer, he could have murdered us both there.”
“For what? I was sneaking away with an expensive sword the day that I was killed. He had a motive, and the fact that he’s never mentioned that he was a Sparrow before means he’s hiding something.”
Aaron’s shoulders slumped a bit and he shook his head. “I guess it’s a bit concerning, but he seems like such good guy. I like him.”
“I like him too, but I think it’s better we not invite him to the guild just yet. Not until I know more.”
Aaron nodded. “He might’ve said no anyway. I doubt it’ll be easy to convince NPCs to join us when we’re still new to the game and have little to show for ourselves. But now we’ll need to find a third person for the game to recognize us as a guild.”
I nodded. “In the meantime, let’s put some thought into a guild name.”
“Oh, I’ve got ideas,” Aaron cooed with an arrogant smirk.
“Such as?”
“Slayers,” Aaron replied.
I raised an eyebrow towards him. “That sounds like a PK [player killer] guild.”
“But it sounds badass.”
Not really, I thought. “If we were playing a normal game, I’d put it down as a maybe, but this is our life now. We should probably go with something more subdued. We don’t want any other guilds we encounter to get the wrong idea about us.”
“The Crusaders.”
I shrugged and smooshed my lips together. “Sounds nice, I guess. But it’s too generic. I’m not sure it fits us either… I mean, what type of crusade are we going on?”
“We’ll find a crusade then.”
I chuckled. “Keep brainstorming. For now, we should just go gear up and figure out our money situation. How much do you have on you?”
“165 gold. And you?”
“230 after the room, alcohol, and food. But I still have the two halberds from our dungeon run, an emerald ring, and the tattered spellbooks with three unused spells inside.”
“We should probably hold on to any spells or schematics unless we’re desperate for cash—” Aaron winked. “—for guildmembers.”
I smiled. “Good idea.”
We left the inn and headed for the local armorer.
The outside of Thorpes was bustling with people—all human except for a single elf that I saw stroll by and walk inside an unmarked building. While Linden had been surrounded by trees, Thorpes was nestled between the rolling, open hills of the Freelands, which gave the place a nice airy feel and good visibility of the surrounding green.
All the buildings were craftsman-style, mostly tall, painted a cream color with brown wood etched around their frames. Only the central area—a circle around three hundred meters in diameter—was paved with cobblestones, and all the other grounds were left unpaved. Two dirt roads linked to the town on either side.
An armorsmith was standing outside his shop when we arrived, slamming a small hammer against a piece of flat metal he had placed on an anvil. I peeked inside his door to mak
e sure that no one else was manning the shop, but it was empty, so Aaron and I approached.
“Can I help ya?” the man asked, only glancing up for a brief second as he continued to hammer at the steel. He had dark skin, a shaved head, and a thick, neatly trimmed beard. Draped across his chest was a long, leather apron that covered his plain, cotton clothes.
“Looking to buy,” Aaron replied.
“Go on,” the man said, raising his chin towards the door. “Have a look around. I’ll meet you inside in a minute. And don’t think about stealing anything. I’ll know if something’s missing straight away.”
Aaron turned to me, shrugged, and we both headed inside.
The shop was filled with armor of all types, organized by the body part they covered, and everything seemed to be in great condition. I walked to a table where helmets were lined up and picked up a plate helmet with steel horns curving out of the top.
“Hey, you can still cast magic if you’re wearing heavy armor, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure you can,” Aaron answered. “But the heavier the armor you wear, the slower you’re going to move and the faster your stamina will drain. Heavy armor wouldn’t be a good idea for a caster unless he has a lot of strength and stamina to go with it.”
“I guess I should stick to leather.”
Aaron raised a shoulder. “A few smaller pieces wouldn’t hurt. But the game is very open-ended. A high-level caster with a big ass sword and enough strength and stamina to wear plate would be a force to be reckoned with.”
The door swung open, and the armorsmith walked inside, pulling off his leather apron and hanging it by the entrance. “Find anything to your liking?”
