by Jakob Tanner
Shade and Kari nodded.
“Keep an eye on your party chat in case I message you. Be prepared to meet up at a moment’s notice.”
I left them and hurried back to the keep. Along the way, I messaged Serena in party chat.
Clay: Where are you? My day has been mental. We need to catch up ASAP.
Serena: Are you at the keep? Let me finish this last bit of reading and I’ll come to you. Is everything okay?
Clay: I’m heading to the castle now. Message me when you’re here.
I entered the bailey and found Edward Silver and Prince Fergus sparring with short swords. They were both red in the face and very focused on their bout. I ran past them towards the main hall.
Another message came in. It was from Theobold.
Personal Message: WTF (4)
Do you not respond to your messages then?
Theobold
Crap. I had forgotten to write him. I wrote a quick message, summarizing what Bertwald had told me earlier about who he was and the department he had worked in. Also a few notes on Arethkar and its insane treatment of players. I sent the message off, closed my HUD, and entered the main hall, hurrying towards the throne room.
The doors to the king’s main chamber were shut. Standing in front of them was Sir Archades, his arms crossed. Even indoors and out of danger, his golden helmet stayed on his head.
“Archades,” I said, panting. “I need to speak to the king. It’s an emergency.”
“The king doesn’t wish to see anyone right now.”
“Okay, but there’s a crisis in the city.”
“I haven’t heard anything,” said Archades. “Have you found anything more concerning the king’s quest?”
I had found out more but I didn’t want to share it with Archades. Nowhere in the quest did it specify doing so was a requirement. I’d tell him as little as possible.
“Two children have been kidnapped from the city. I believe it's the same person behind the vanishings. My party and I lost the culprit in the sewers. I want the king to call upon the army to do a manhunt through the city’s underground.”
Sir Archades balked. “Are you a captain now, Clay Hopewell? I’ll pass your information on but what we do with it is the king’s decision.”
The knight didn’t budge, made no movement towards opening the door and speaking to the king.
I turned around and headed out the main hallway. I needed to find Bertwald. Someone who understood what was at stake, who would convince the king to act. I spoke to a guard outside the hall for directions to Bertwald’s chambers.
At the top of a western tower, I found an open door to a large library. The king’s advisor stood by an open window, the huge bookshelves looming behind him.
“Bertwald,” I said, out of breath. “You need to inform the king. The Arethkarian agent, he’s kidnapped two kids.”
The advisor’s eyebrows jumped in surprise. He took a deep breath. “Are you serious?”
“Shade and I chased him through the sewers. He got away. He’s targeting Aeri for globs of purified mana.”
“Okay, slow down,” said Bertwald. “I’m messaging the king now. I’m going to tell him to send multiple teams of soldiers to explore the underground parts of the city.”
“Sounds good.”
“Okay, it’s done,” said Bertwald, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbing his forehead. He waddled over to a nearby sofa chair and sat down. “Please, Clay, take a seat.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “Um, I’d rather go join the soldiers in the sewer?”
Bertwald shook his head. “I’m sorry Clay. In getting the king to send soldiers out, he’s requested I speak to you about an important matter. The king and I have wanted to discuss this with you ever since you arrived in Land’s Shield. Time is running out.”
“But we still have another two days for the quest,” I said.
“It’s only partially related,” said Bertwald. “Please sit down.”
I walked over to the sofa and sat down on a chair across from it, facing the advisor.
Bertwald rolled up his sleeve, revealing the swirling Prophetic Seal spreading out from his wrist. “In the event of a full-scale attack on Land’s Shield, would you be willing to use your Prophetic Seal to aid us in battle?”
Whoah. An intense question. I peered down at the gloves concealing the mark of forbidden magic on my wrist. Would I fight on behalf of Laergard? I guess in many ways I was already doing so. But would I use this—this destructive glitch-fueled power—to fight another nation of NPCs and players? How far would I be willing to go to break the game’s laws of reality? Would I let myself destroy my own soul and body forever? These were big questions. The kind you didn’t know the answer to until you were put right in the very situation.
Arethkar, however, was behind the kidnapping of Fen and Mari and enslaving all those players. If I had the power to protect those who were unable to protect themselves, then I’d use it.
There was one major problem.
“It’s a tough question to answer,” I admitted to Bertwald. “Since I don’t know how to use this power.”
The man grinned and clutched his right wrist with his left hand. “I said I’d walk you through it, didn’t I?”
I nodded, gesturing for him to proceed with his lesson.
“Can you tell me how you’ve used your power in the past?”
“I can’t explain it. The only noticeable pattern is that the power unlocks when I’m endangered.”
“Unsurprising. Everything in this game was modeled after reality back on earth. Have you ever heard stories of drowning victims pulling people twice their size into the ocean with them? The fight or flight instinct of humans exist in this game too. So when your subconscious recognizes you’re in danger, it taps into whatever available strength and power you have even if you aren’t fully aware how to use it.”
He lifted his arms, still clutching his right wrist with his left hand. “Do you see what I’m doing right now?” With his left thumb, he pressed down on the center of the dark mark. “You do the same.”
I lifted my right wrist and pressed on the Prophetic Seal through my gloves with my left hand. A click echoed through my ear. My HUD window changed and a translucent green screen covered most of my vision, showing prompts I’d never seen before.
Command_Center_UI
Please issue a command
_
What the?
“You see the prompt then?” said Bertwald.
“Yeah. It’s asking me for a command,” I said. “In the past it’s given me options…”
“Your subconscious saving you again,” explained Bertwald. “To use it manually, you must know the exact command code you wish to use.”
Those earlier battles came back to me. What were the command codes I’d seen then?
“The one I used in the Battle of Arondale was ‘//run: restore_corrupted_file’.”
Bertwald nodded along. “Yes, a favorite amongst the dev team. But against Arethkar two codes will save us.”
“What two are they?”
“The first is ‘//run: nullify_attack’,” said Bertwald, “And the second is the one you saw me use on the poor pigeon yesterday. It is the most dangerous and most destructive one to your own self. It is ‘run//: delete_file’.”
“Those both sound very serious,” I said.
“They are,” replied Bertwald. “The last one can only be used a total of five times before it corrupts your entire soul and you fall into permanent death.”
“Five times isn’t much.”
“Really?” said Bertwald, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “To me, the ability to play as the ruler of existence, limited as it may be, is a gun with five too many bullets.”
“But aren’t you asking me to use those five bullets?”
The man shook his head, lost in thought. “Of course, of course. It is a power we can’t afford not to use and the thing is we don’t even need five bulle
ts. We need one shot or two to land on an Arethkarian dreadnought to disrupt their fleet and pave our way to victory.”
“What if I miss?” I said. “Or you do?”
“Then we have eight shots left.”
“Have you not found any other devs with Prophetic Seals? Isn’t there a cult who worships them?”
“Most of them are in hiding now. They aren’t easy to find,” said Bertwald. He raised his hand. “Let’s take a quick break and then I’ll show you more useful command codes.”
The king’s advisor walked over to a tray where there was a carafe of water and glasses. He poured himself a glass and took a long sip.
In the corner of my HUD flashed a bunch of message notifications. I opened up the first one and saw it was Serena in party chat.
Serena: Clay! Please come to your bedchamber as soon as you get this. Serious emergency. We need to talk. I’ve messaged Shade already as well.
Uh oh. What happened?
I closed the party chat screen and saw I had another message from Theobold in my personal inbox.
Personal Message: WTF (6)
Clay—you’re in grave danger. Gregory Samson never worked in the architectural rendering division at TriCorp. Whoever is claiming to be him is lying to you. Get out of Land’s Shield at once.
28
Bertwald put down his empty glass on the tray. “Shall we keep going?”
I was at a loss for words. If this man wasn’t who he said he was—who the hell was he? I wanted to confront him, tell him I had proof of his fraudulent identity. But Theobold said I was in grave danger. I needed to get out of here.
“You know I feel sick,” I said. “I got a spider bite from earlier in the day and it may have been infected.”
Spider bite? It was moments like these I needed Shade’s 50+ luck stat to come up with better lies.
“Oh, let me see,” said Bertwald, concern in his voice. “I’m no medic-mage but I’ve studied the science.”
I shook my head. “No. I need to lie down.”
Bertwald frowned. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Yeah I’m going to need my rest if we’re going to take on Arethkar.”
Bertwald paused. His eyebrows furrowed. “If you must go, you must go.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I hurried from the room and when I was out of earshot sprinted down the stairs of the tower. My chest was heaving by the time I made it back to my bedchambers. Inside, I found Serena, Shade, and Kari all standing around, concern on their faces.
“Where have you been Clay-clay?” said Shade. He turned to Serena, “Since our fearless leader is back—mind telling us what’s going on?”
“Guys,” I said, panting. “I need to talk to you.”
“No Clay,” said Serena. “I’ve found something big. We need to leave Land’s Shield tonight.”
Did she find out about Bertwald as well?
“You won’t believe what I’ve discovered in the library,” said Serena, pacing back and forth across the bedchamber. Shade sat on the windowsill while Kari stood in the corner. “Remember how I told you there was a cult of NPCs who worshipped those with the Prophetic Seal known as the Dark Protectorate? Well, what I didn’t know was there existed an opposing faction, those who were dedicated to hunting those with the seal down by any means necessary, even if it meant harnessing forbidden magic against others who wielded it.”
“Okay,” I said. “And why does this matter to us?”
“Has Theobold told you anymore about Bertwald?”
My shoulders shot up. “He has,” I said. “How do you know?”
“Well, take this in,” continued Serena. “Most of the group’s members and their whereabouts are shrouded in mystery but I was able to find a little about its founding members. One of the earliest members of this group—The Warriors of Light—was an NPC by the name of Bartholomew Graves.”
Graves. Bertwald’s last name. What the fuck?
There was a knock at the door. All of us jumped in shock.
“Who is it?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
Someone behind the door knocked again.
I turned towards the window, the only way out of here. Shade and Kari were collapsed on the floor.
“Guys—what are you doing right now?”
A large thump shuddered on the ground. Serena had fallen. Her head lolled to the side. She gurgled, attempting to speak. Her mouth filled with foam.
A cloud of smoke leaked through a small vent in the corner of the chamber. It was the last thing I saw before everything went black.
29
Ash crackled and burned. I awoke to shadowy flickers of torchlight. I turned my head left then right and found myself on a stone operating table. My entire party—Shade, Serena, and Kari—were all lying unconscious in a row of stone tables.
Across the room in front of a table full of beakers and strange liquids, stood Bertwald. He held a large medieval syringe. “Good evening, Clay. I injected you with a special serum so you’d wake up. I wanted us to have a little chat. A proper conversation, you know, with everyone’s cards on the table.” He placed the needle down on the table.
“Who the hell are you? I know now you’re not Gregory Samson.”
He grinned. “I have no idea what you mean.”
I stood up off the operating table. “There’s other developers trapped in NPCs, you’re not the only one. A friend of mine told me Gregory Samson never worked in the architectural rendering division of TriCorp.”
Bertwald shook his head, muttering. He giggled to himself. “Gregory, Gregory, Gregory. I guess you did have the last laugh.” His attention turned back to me. “Let me fill you in. Gregory Samson is dead. I killed him years ago.”
I glanced around for my staff, but he had taken all of our weapons.
“You see Gregory—little game developer Gregory—saw this world as a game. He ran around killing innocent people, robbing them, raping them, whatever he pleased. He claimed to be testing the ‘game’s parameters.’ But really, he had no respect for this world. Someone needed to teach him a lesson. I should’ve taught it to him sooner.”
Bertwald’s voice was shaking. He clutched the pendant hanging from his neck. “I should’ve stopped him before he killed my wife.”
I stood there, stunned. His murdered wife. The seed of Bertwald’s anger. The reasoning behind all his actions.
“But why would you claim to be him?”
“Well, part of him lives on with me,” he said, lifting up his wrist showing the swirling dark mark of the Prophetic Seal. “I tortured him and learned everything about him. He told me about this precious Earth all you Chosen come from. He told me about your games, your portals to other worlds. Arcane Kingdom Online he said it was called. He told me everything.”
Holy shit. Bertwald wasn’t even a player. He was an NPC.
“Yet, amidst all the stuff he told me, he also made sure to mention he worked in the architectural rendering division of TriCorp. He snuck such a detail in so one day my true identity would be exposed. Clever bastard.”
I moved closer towards him. “But how do you have his Prophetic Seal on your wrist?”
“You saw me down in the sewer. You saw my class pop up in your user interface. Necrotician. It’s a special class. A hybrid between Engineer and Necromancer, specializing in genetic engineering. Welding one person’s body parts to another.” He raised his arm with the seal and turned his wrist. “Do you like my work?”
“So you’re behind the kidnappings?”
“Yes. You see, to bind one’s flesh to another’s not only requires my special skill but an immense amount of materials. The most difficult to obtain being globs of purified mana. Luckily for me, the Aeri host lots of such material in their veins.”
A cold shiver went through my body.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“It’s a test, Clay. To see how you would react. Both the king and I knew who was behind the disa
ppearances. We wanted to see how you’d react to the truth.” He paused. “I can see it in you: a thirst for knowledge, for discovery. Endless curiosity. You remind me of myself. That’s why we haven’t killed you yet; we want you on our side. We believe you want to be on our side as well. Don’t you want to know the truth? I can show you, Clay. I can tell you all about Konrad Takeshimi, the Prophetic Seal, the ghosts who appear in your dreams. Don’t you want to know the answers to all your questions?”
A quest prompt appeared.
Quest Update: Disappearances in the Capital
You have discovered the mystery behind the disappearances in Land’s Shield. King Jared Ravenmour and his advisor Bertwald Graves have been kidnapping Aeri citizens and salvaging their bodies for globs of purified mana. Do you join forces with the king in his pursuit of knowledge and power? Or do you reject his offer of an alliance at whatever the cost may be?
Choose:
a) Join forces with King Jared and his advisor Bertwald Graves
Reward: 10,000 EXP + Respected Status Amongst the Laergardian Royal Family for you and your party + The safe return of the kidnapped children + Access to Bertwald’s Secret Library and the Answers to all the Great Mysteries of Illyria.
b) Reject Bertwald’s Offer
Reward: ?
“What will it be Clay?”
I stood there, not sure what to do. Would siding with them be any different to when I initially accepted this quest? I hated to admit it but there were very enticing reasons to go with the first option. They were offering me and my friends safety, something the second option didn’t guarantee. They were even offering the freedom of the kidnapped children. They were mere pawns in all of this. They were involved through no fault of their own, only sheer bad luck. I couldn’t gamble with their fates when it was so easy to guarantee their safety, could I?
