by Dante Doom
"We’re not here about that," Sang said. "We're here to inquire regarding your extra-curricular activities."
"Seems that some people like to make their money by selling alternative characters in the Dragon Kings of the New World," Van said. Even speaking, he wondered how he could look intimidating to Sam, who was over six feet tall and had wide, square shoulders.
"What? The hell is the CIA poking around about a video game?" Sam asked. "We don't have time for this – I've got a pod to repair."
"Oh, right, you don't have time," Van said. "I guess we'll have to call Draco and ask them about your activities."
Sam glanced at Bramif, who merely held his hands up helplessly. After another moment, he spoke. "Okay, what do you want from us?" he asked as he slowly took his apron off and dropped his gloves on the ground.
"We're interested in this little character-selling operation you have going on," Sang said.
"Very interested," Van echoed.
"What does interested mean?" Sam asked. He leaned forward and placed both his hands on the counter. His arms were huge. At least Bramif had kind of shuffled off to the side and was sitting quietly.
"Are you familiar with the recent string of explosions that's been plaguing California?" Van asked.
"In San Francisco? Yeah. The news said it's some kind of natural gas problem. Big oil or whatever," Sam said with a scowl.
"Well, Uncle Sam has a different opinion," Van said, trying to channel Neil's cadences. "In fact, we're curious if it's terrorist activity."
"And here's the situation," Sang said. "We've been tracking their methods of operation, and it appears that these terrorists like to coordinate within this video game of Draco's."
Sam wrinkled his face. "Uh uh. Let me see that badge of yours," he said.
"I'm sorry?" Sang asked, dropping character completely. Her face softened considerably, and Van knew they were in trouble. Why couldn’t they just cooperate?
"We sell a lot of high value property to a secondary market, and we've got to protect against scammers," Sam calmly explained. "Let me get that badge of yours and I'll call your headquarters so I can verify that you guys are actually CIA, and not just some punks trying to play us for idiots."
Sang shrugged and took her badge out. "It's real; here." Sam took the badge and began to scrutinize it.
"Doesn't look real to me," Sam said. "Beat it, bozos."
Sang glanced at Van and mouthed the words "help me" to him. He shrugged at her. Normally, when Van mouthed off to Neil or O'Hara, they would hit him or shove a gun into his ribcage. Sam was huge compared to the diminutive Sang, though, and Van had never thrown a punch in his life. Where the hell was O'Hara? Still, he had to do something…
"Bozo?" Van asked as he stormed around the counter and got right up in Sam's face. "That badge is real, and you better think twice before you call a couple of government agents bozos."
Sam growled and stood up straight. Van tried to keep his angry and fierce expression despite the fact that this nerd was far scarier than he could ever have imagined. "Get. Out. Now," Sam hissed.
"Please," Bramif added.
"All it's gonna take is one phone call, and Draco will be all over you," Van hissed back.
"Yeah, like they're gonna find anything," Sam said. "We're reported all the time. It's a hassle, but we can pass any inspection they throw at us. Get out – and I'm not saying it again."
The bell jingled behind them as O'Hara walked in. "Dear God, I just had to abandon my vehicle in the middle of the road. There's no way to find a parking spot in this city!"
"Who the hell are you?" Sam asked.
"Name's Agent O'Hara," she said. "You guys get anything?" she asked as she looked at Van and Sang.
"They're not cooperating," Sang said.
O'Hara drew a revolver out of her jacket and aimed the gun square at Sam. She pulled the trigger, leading to a crack that was deafening.
"Oh my God!" Sang screamed as she dropped to her knees.
Sam stood paralyzed, his eyes wide with terror.
"Now, that first round had a blank in it," O'Hara said as she cocked the trigger on her revolver. "The next one doesn't. So, you jackasses better get Sang and Van whatever the hell they're whining about before I shoot one or more of you."
"Oh…oh God…" Sam gasped. "Please, please don't kill us."
"Yeah, we might need to get this moving along," O'Hara said. "I can't remember if we phoned the cops ahead of time."
"Sang?" Van asked. She had slumped to the ground and covered her ears. Her eyes were shut, and she seemed almost completely out of it. "Sang?" There was no response.
"Please, whoever you are, don't hurt us. Take all the money in the register," Bramif said.
"We're not robbing you," O'Hara said as she walked closer to the counter. "Well, I guess technically we are robbing you, but not of your money. Van, why are we here again?"
"We need characters," Van said. "Eight of them. For our special operations team."
"What?" Sam asked. "You mean you're not kidding about the terrorism?"
"No, we're not," O'Hara said. "And I'm now officially counting. Twenty-eight, twenty-seven, twenty-six…"
"Okay, okay, here," Bramif said as he grabbed a collection of USB sticks and scattered them out on the counter. He shoved wires out onto the ground and threw down a little 3D display system. "These are all of our best characters."
Van walked over and began to examine them. Sam was still standing still; his hands were up and he was shaking terribly.
"These should do it," Van murmured as he began to look at a character's stats.
"Perfect," Van said. This character was strong enough to be worth a few grand, easily. He looked over at Sang, who had finally started to snap out of her state. His ears were still ringing pretty badly from O'Hara shooting that gun, so he figured she was probably almost deaf from it.
"We good?" O'Hara asked.
"Yeah, we've got what we need," Van said as he helped Sang get to her feet.
"Wonderful," O'Hara replied. "Now, let's be really honest and clear with you fellas here; there will be no consequences for our actions here. No one was hurt, and that means today was the best day you're ever gonna have." She threw a wad of cash onto the table. "This should adequately compensate you for your work. Should you attempt to sabotage or tell anyone about us, you're gonna get a sternly worded letter from the three of us, and more. Got it?"
"Yes – yes, ma'am," Sam stammered.
"Great. Thanks, guys," O'Hara replied with a smile. She looked over at Van then. "Didn't I tell ya this place had the best customer service?"
Chapter Four
"Are we going to talk about it?" Van asked as he examined himself in the mirror of the abandoned throne room. His new character, Fenwar, was rather striking. His previous character – that terrible bard, Semimodo – had been one of the worst builds he had ever designed, but this new character made up for it in spades. A Level 65 Berserker? Finally, he wouldn't be useless in combat anymore. He placed his hand against the massive warhammer that hung off of his back and gripped the handle. This was the kind of character he could get behind.
"Talk about what?" Sang asked as she examined her own self. She was Elfara the Bowqueen. She had opted to stick with the ranger class.
"The fact that you had some kind of panic attack back at the shop?" Van reminded her as he finished putting in his new settings. Those brothers really knew how to fake credentials. Since they were certified technicians, they had a method of smuggling the data into an existing pod in order to confuse the game into running a new account. Draco wouldn't have a clue who Van and his teammates were.
"I told you, I panicked because I thought she actually shot him," Sang said. "O'Hara is crazy enough to do it."
"Not nearly as crazy as Neil," Van said. He saw her eyes widen for a moment at the other agent's name. "What happened, Sang?"
"Nothing," Sang replied as she abruptly turned away from him.
"Is
… is Neil dead or something? You and O'Hara have been in a weird funk, a gunshot traumatizes you enough to take you out for a few minutes, and Neil declined an invitation to rough up nerds, which is his favorite activity in all the world? I'm not stupid, Sang. Not nearly as stupid as you think."
"There… was an attack," Sang said. 'You had passed out from exhaustion."
"I knew it," Van said as he slammed his fist against the mirror. Much to his surprise, the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces. He had forgotten how strong his new character was. "What happened?"
"Some crazy guy from Draco was working as one of the military police. He shot Neil and then killed himself in front of me," Sang whispered.
"That's… insane," Van gasped. "And Neil?"
"He's in critical condition. They have no idea if he's going to pull through or not."
"Why shoot himself?" Van wondered aloud. "That doesn't make any sense."
"He told me something before he died; he said, 'our numbers are like the grains in the sand,'" she said. "They're literally just messing with us at this point."
"And you didn't tell me about this why? Because you were worried it might upset me? Distract me?"
"Yes!" Sang said. "I was worried that you'd flip out. You were already on the edge due to your exhaustion. What was I supposed to do? Gently tell you that a psychopath shot himself in front of me? That we could have been murdered in the blink of an eye?"
Van shook his head. "I have a right to know these things. Not that it makes any difference."
"I'm sorry," Sang said. "I was just trying to prevent you from losing your mind."
"I'm pretty sure I lost it a while ago," Van replied. "What with all of the stress and constant terror of seeing the world go up in flames, Neil getting shot sucks, and it really hurts that you had to hold this back from me, but… do we have time to even worry about this? To resolve any of it? Sang, I don't have time to process all of this crap. Let's get the team together and get ready for the tournament."
"Are you angry with me?" Sang asked.
"I don't know anymore, Sang," Van said. "I get that you wanted to protect me, I do. I just don't like being treated like I'm a kid."
Sang turned to look at him, watching him take her in. Her new character was vastly different from the last one. This woman was six feet tall and had silvery hair. A scar ran across her face and a tribal tattoo was wrapped around her neck.
Despite the foreignness of the character, though, Van could see Sang's sorrow in her eyes.
"I made a judgement call. Not because I value you less, but because I know you're important," Sang said. "I don't make snap decisions, Van. That was a calculated choice, and it was the right one."
"Right, because you'll do whatever it takes to accomplish this mission," Van shot at her. The same old argument, about morality in wartime, was starting to surface again. This was just another layer of their differing philosophies.
Sang opened her mouth for a moment, and Van was ready for half a dozen insults to be hurled at him, but she merely shook her head. "I thought we agreed to stop arguing about these things. They don't go anywhere."
"Yeah, yeah," Van said. "Come on, then. Let's rally up the crew."
They walked out into the courtyard where the rest of the Iron Dragon leaders were located. Sahara, Kylian, and Fredlin were all in their new bodies. Sahara was a large, hulking warrior wielding two battle axes, Kylian was a short warrior with bright pink hair, and Fredlin's character was a wizened looking wizard with a stereotypically long white beard.
"Everyone happy with their characters?" Van asked.
"Happy as a clam,” Fredlin said. "I've always wondered what it would be like to play a high level wizard. Now, what's the plan?"
"We're going to have to journey to the Great Plains of Eternal Summer," Fredlin said as he took out a map. "It's less than two days to get there. That will give us plenty of time to scout the place out and make friends. No doubt there are going to be a lot of players."
"I'd wager to guess that the entire game's population is going to be there," Kylian said. "Win a tournament and become a pro? That's the best deal in the world, if you ask me."
"True," Van said. "Alright, so seriously, let's get moving."
As the team started to prepare for their journey – gathering horses, filling supply bags, and gathering weapons – a young woman came running into the courtyard as fast as she could.
"Sir! Sir!" she shouted as she bolted towards Van. Fredlin growled and drew his staff, but Van held up his hand; he recognized the girl as one of the team's messengers.
"What is it?" Van asked.
The yellow-haired runner slid to a halt in front of him and took a moment to catch her breath. "Sir," she wheezed, "I've just gotten word from another messenger. The tournament's been moved up."
"What?" Van shouted as the rest of the team crowded around the girl. Everyone looked shocked at the news.
"It's tomorrow," said the messenger, whose name was Cassandra. "Draco apparently randomly moved the date up."
"No doubt to foil our big plans," Sang said. "Crap. This changes everything."
"How are we going to get there that quickly?" Van asked. "It's way too far off. And if we don't make it to the tournament in time, they're not going to let us in."
"We should fly!" Sahara said. "Jet is big enough to carry us there!"
"Yeah, that would do well for our attempts to go incognito," Kylian said. "Let's all just swoop down on a dragon that's a known ally of the Iron Dragons."
"Well, do you have any other ideas?" Sahara asked.
"Can we teleport?" Van asked as he opened his inventory to check for a Stone of Teleportation. This was purely reflexive, of course. He barely had anything in his inventory. All of these new characters were equipped with enough gold to go on a shopping spree, but there wasn't enough time for them to collect items and get to the tournament.
"No one has anything," Fredlin said, "and I don't have any teleportation spells."
"It'll take two days of hustling to get there," Sang said as she pointed to a large map display that she had brought up on her HUD. "There's no shortcuts, as we've got to get through that huge swamp there." She pointed at the large mass on the screen that was full of green. "It covers the whole region."
"Ergh, swamps?" Van repeated. "There's gonna be all sorts of things to trip us up if we move through it."
"Clock is ticking," Fredlin warned. "Whatever we do, we gotta get moving now if we're going to make it."
Van sighed heavily. "Sang, can you hack us out something to speed us up?"
"Oooh, I don't know," Sang said as she gritted her teeth. "I can screw with the system and get us there faster, but… it might tip off Draco. If they figure out that I'm the one hacking, it won't be hard for them to connect the dots."
"What a second!" Sahara said as she pointed to Fredlin. "Don't you have the Advanced Invisibility Spell?"
Fredlin shrugged. "Yeah, but what good is that going to do?"
"It's simple! We just cast invisibility on ourselves and have Jet fly us over the tournament. No one will see us since we're invisible!" Sahara said.
"Of course," Van said, "and then we just need to wear Rings of Soft-Falling so that we can jump off without anyone knowing how we got there."
"Draco will try to chase after Jet," Kylian said, "distracting them while we get into position."
"Sahara, you are a genius!" Van said. "Alright, team, new plan! We're going skydiving!"
Van gritted his teeth as he held onto the side of Jet's scales. He could see the dozens of tents set up in the valley beneath them. Large flaming words hovered above the tournament area, and they read: The End of Ages Starts Here. It was the most ironic sign he had ever seen.
"All ready!" Kylian ordered. "Jump on my mark!"
"I hate heights," Sahara groaned.
"It's not real," Sang said. "You're literally just sitting in your bedroom right now."
"Try telling my brain that," Sahara s
aid.
"Three… two… one…" Kylian counted down. "Jump!"
Van leapt off the dragon and plummeted toward the ground. He couldn't see his allies at all, as the advanced invisibility spell made a player completely invisible to all forms of detection. Even friends couldn’t see each other. As he fell to the ground, he felt the ring around his finger buzz a little. The words Soft Fall – No Damage appeared in his UI as he continued toward the ground. Right before he smacked into the ground, a gust of wind blew beneath him, slowing his ascent down radically. His feet dropped to the grass gently.
"Whew, nice," he commented as he looked up at the sky. Thousands of arrows were being shot through the air in the hopes of hitting Jet, but the dragon was far too fast for them to have a chance of hitting him. The word Dodge! littered the air over and over again as Jet magnificently barrel rolled across the sky. A few griffon riders took off after him, but Jet didn't bother to engage them. Instead, he sounded off a triumphant roar and took off towards the South.
If anyone followed Jet, he would lead them to a large fortress that was full of players. These players, of course, were nothing more than illusions created by a few of the wizards of the Iron Dragons. The illusions would be enough to trick any casual observer into believing that the gathering was the Iron Dragon base. This fake base had been built a week ago, thanks to Bidane's quick thinking, and would serve as nothing more than a ruse to distract Draco while the real Iron Dragons moved into position.
A few voices caught Van's attention as he watched Jet disappear. He glanced around to see that he was standing right next to one of the brown tents that littered the entire field. It looked as if there were hundreds of players who had arrived early to the tournament and who had been camping for quite some time.
"This is it!" said one of the voices – a female. "This is going to be our ticket to the big leagues! Can you believe it? We're going to be Draco pros!"
"Calm yourself, woman," said another voice, this one gruff. "Do you know how many people are here? What level they are? How long they've been playing this game? We're not here to win because we can't win. Instead, we're here to make some friends."
