Damn this rift and its weird, archaic curses. It was bad enough stuff she thought in her head back on planet earth was translated into whatever The Game deemed appropriate, but this? It was ridiculous. Where was freedom of speech when she couldn’t even produce a good old swearword when she wanted?
“You all right back there, twinker?” Lucy asked.
Kitty pursed her lips and forced herself through the crawl-inducing vapour.
“This stuff’s really slowing us down.” Kitty tried not to sound too panicked.
It was easy when you could save: it added a layer of confidence to any player. But the first glitch had effectively rendered all menu functions inoperable.
If you were in The Game, you were stuck in the game. You couldn’t exit, save, change your settings, or any damn thing that was done using the menu. There was no disconnecting to use the bathroom or resume normal life without—
“Better to go slow,” Lucy interrupted her mental tirade with a soft, even voice. “No good rushing into this.”
He started forward, body moving with exaggerated emphasis as he fought through the vapour with a body whose movement had been impaired by fifty percent. Kitty started after him, eyes straining to make out anything in the dark corridor they struggled through. A distant glow was the only thing she could fix her gaze on.
“Do you have any resistance potions?” Lucy asked a few minutes later.
Nothing had changed in the corridor: the vapour still swirled around them, the blue light ahead still shone steadily. Kitty checked her inventory.
“Poison and fire, three of each. Why?”
“Give me a poison. Actually, make it two.”
“What? You still owe me a health potion!”
Lucy stopped walking. “There’s a poison trap ahead, twinker,” he said slowly. “So, unless you have trapping skill twenty-nine or higher, we’re going to be poisoned. And since I’m going to be the one triggering the trap, I’ll be getting a double-dose of the green stuff.”
The visor turned to her again, the suit of armour holding out a patient hand.
“I sent it,” Kitty said. “Now you really owe me.”
“Petty much?” She thought she heard him mutter.
Lucy moved forward. There was a click. The corridor trembled. A green-tinged mushroom cloud flowered up around the player, obscuring him. Kitty tried backing up, but it was as if the vapour had solidified around her legs.
“I can’t move!” she yelled out at the poison-shrouded Lucy.
“It’ll go away,” came his voice. “Just move forward.”
“I am!” Her heart began pounding in her chest. “Lucy, I can’t move my legs!”
“Relax,” he snapped. “Drink the resistance potion as soon as the poison reaches you and you’ll be fine.”
Kitty clamped her teeth closed over another protest. Her hands trembled uncontrollably as she gripped the bow’s moulded grip. Ignoring the mental strain her mind applied in the attempt to move them, her legs remained motionless.
Her mouth went dry. A tiny whimper escaped her compressed lips as she struggled in vain to coerce her legs to move. Panic welled inside her. It crowded against her lungs until she couldn’t breathe.
“Lucy!” The name escaped in a wail.
“You kidding me right now?” Lucy was still hidden behind the wall of poison, but his voice came to her, harsh. “How the hell did you even get this far in The Game? I can’t believe I’m—”
And then Kitty could move, the relief almost overwhelming her. She cried out in surprise as her legs shifted under her, taking her forward into the luminous green cloud. Gritting her teeth, Kitty rummaged in her inventory and quaffed the poison potion.
She was grinning when she caught up with Lucy a few minutes later, having pushed with excruciating slowness through the emerald clouds of poisoned gas.
“You’re weird,” Lucy said. “And we’re going too slow. Hurry.”
“I’m going—” her legs surged forward, their earlier laggardness gone “—faster,” she finished, with another toothy grin in Lucy’s direction.
He shook his visor at her, overtaking her in time to push open another set of doors. Kitty was briefly aware of pearl and gold and silk before her chat console sprang open, obscuring the lower half of her vision.
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: WHERE RU?
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: RU HERE?
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: I DONT KNOW WHERE I AM
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: WHERE RU?
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: WHY YOU NO ANSWER ME?
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: IM STUCK
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: CAN U C ME?
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: WHY YOU NO
As she watched, a new message came through from Will.
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: WHERE THE FUCK HAVE U BEEN?
Okay, messages definitely weren’t reinterpreted by The Game that was for sure. Kitty stared at the message for a few seconds before forcing her thoughts into a reply.
BAD_KITTY_69: STILL IN CHIMERA. WHERE R U?
There was a pause. Kitty heard Lucy speaking to her, but ignored him.
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: NO IDEA. BLACK HOLE. SMALL BLACK HOLE. HEAR VOICES BUT CANT UNDERSTAND THEM. INVENTORYS GONE. ONLY THING IN HERE WITH ME IS UNIDENTIFIED ROCK.
There was a clang. Kitty tried shaking Lucy’s hand off of her shoulder.
“Your assistance in killing these things would be greatly appreciated,” Lucy said, voice tight.
Kitty looked past the armoured bulk of Lucy’s body. There on the smooth, pearlescent floor, three monsters were drawing near. Her eyes widened as her peripheral vision described more of the room to her, surprisingly distracting despite her encroaching death. Silk curtains drawn from large windows overlooking the desolate beach below vied for attention against statues of indecently-clad figures.
Against a backdrop of such overwhelming opulence, the three creatures were as incongruous as a guinea fowl in a clutch of chickens. Kitty slammed closed her chat console, drew the fletching of a shimmering arrow to her cheek, and loosed.
It pierced the gaunt cheek of the closest apparition. Half its health promptly disappeared.
The creature’s shriek dragged fingernails down Kitty’s de facto spine. The arrow’s momentum punched the thing backward. It slammed into the statue of a woman begging for something unseen, eternal pleading etched on her exquisite face.
The thing’s friends didn’t waver. They moved with sinuous grace, shoulders rocking from side to side as they approached. Four eyes, their ebony eyeballs lacking both pupils and irises, reflected the entirety of the palatial room like a pool of tar.
Lucy dashed forward. His sword trailed blue and white glitter as he twirled it over his head and decapitated a second creature. Kitty’s next arrow struck the last monster’s shoulder. The force of the blow twisted its torso. It cupped a hand — barely opaque skin straining over its bones as pale tendrils spilled through its fingers. They touched the floor and slithered over the bodies of its fallen brothers. Or sisters: it shared an androgynous face with its partners, its features as sexless as what little of the body its sagging robe revealed.
“Excrementi! We went for the wrong one!” Lucy surged forward again, sword beginning its beautiful dance toward dismemberment.
The figure stopped, its other hand twitching up to hurl a ball of blue ice at Lucy. It struck the unvanquishable armour with the tinkle of shattering glass. Lucy rocked to a standstill, white frost encasing him in an instant. There was a tortured squeak of ice under pressure as he trembled.
“It froze you!” Kitty said, her arm lifting with another arrow already poised for release.
“Well spotted, mate.” Lucy creaked again. “Happen to have anything for freeze burn on you?”
“Nope.” Kitty’s arrow struck the creature in its slab-ribbed chest, its health bar sinking several centimeters. “Hang in there, will you?”
“I’ll try not to get in your way.”
Kitty ignored him and fired another arrow.
It soared past the figure’s head without touching him.
“Irrumator,” she muttered, cocking another arrow.
Behind the figure, the slain bodies of his brothers — or sisters — lifted from the floor without a sound.
“Double excrementi,” Kitty loosed an arrow on what she strongly suspected was an undercover mage of some kind or creed.
“With an extra order of damnation on the side,” Lucy said, as the three creatures lifted their hands and shot balls of ice toward Kitty.
. . .
The Game ran on state-of-the-art technology: a hybrid of hardware and software General Gaming had termed Mindware™. The Game’s Mindware™ was programmed to operate like a dream; an incredibly lucid and astoundingly vivid dream.
It was the largest Massive Multi-player Online Dreamscape: a gigantic dream with preset quests and environments. A dream that you could save and continue playing after supper, but only if you’d already finished your homework and the dishes had been done.
It was a dream you could co-op with friends. You could level up and trade game objects. Players joined clans or squads, gangs or families from around the world as they battled, fought, raced or simmed their way across the seven rifts of The Game’s intricate online world.
And, when you were done playing, you could save, exit and resume your — in comparison - excruciatingly mundane life. It was a new generation of entertainment, and it had infected the gaming community like anthrax on a windy day. The launch had been greeted by 1,000,000 initial players from around the globe joining in the first hour of game play. After less than a week, player numbers had quadrupled.
And, moments after the hundredth news report about the raging success of The Game and the immense fun players across the world were having (and they were assured the gamers were having fun, despite their comatose states in the real world), The Game crashed.
Or, at least, a few thousand shards glitched. Millions of players were suddenly flung back into their bodies, most with instant migraines or sudden debilitating nausea from the ungraceful transition between non-stop action and real life.
They were the lucky ones.
Kitty opened her eyes again, once the tinkles of falling ice had died down, and peered around Lucy’s frozen arm. The three slim, gray figures lowered their hands.
“Good thing you have such broad shoulders,” Kitty said. “You mind passing me that ridiculously huge sword of yours?”
“You don’t—” Lucy began, but Kitty ignored him and wrenched the icy steel from his unresisting hands.
She lifted the sword over her head, her avatar’s arms suddenly awkward and impossible to control. Forcing her avatar to obey, Kitty stumbled forward, the sword sliding into the body of the closest snake-mage. It stared at her with dead black eyes before toppling unceremoniously on its back and ripping the sword from her hands as it slid away out of reach.
A dagger clattered to the floor. Kitty grabbed it and swung around, the blade shearing through the next creature’s throat. Jade blood gushed down its skin, staining its robe and splattering the floor. It gurgled at her, but its health bar was still more than half full.
Kitty stabbed out again and again, every blow driving the thing’s health bar toward — hopefully — the finality of death. It lifted a hand, and she chopped it off. It drew its own dagger with its remaining appendage, crooked blade matching crooked blade. Kitty sprang back to avoid the hissing arc of its blow, knocking into Lucy’s frozen form. The man rocked on his heels a few times as she manoeuvred to keep him between her and the snake-mage.
“Almost there,” Lucy said. “Keep your eye on the one in the back, though. It’s up to something.”
Kitty’s eyes settled on the hunched figure behind the snake-mage circling Lucy.
“Is it… is it eating him?” She shuddered.
“Looks like it.”
She wrenched her eyes away when a dagger flashed toward her. It had darted around Lucy with a surprising turn of speed. She flicked her own dagger into the gray man’s eye, but it didn’t even flinch. Its health was still a good quarter full, and if it happened to have a health potion—
The gray man tipped back its head and quaffed a potion without releasing its dagger. Kitty groaned as its health bar sped up past half way again.
“Excrementi!” She dashed past the snake-mage, jerking Lucy’s sword from the prone body lying on the floor. His happily feasting friend straightened and spun to face her as if it didn’t have a bone in its body.
The sword refused to bloom into light like it had when Lucy had wielded it earlier.
“Is your sword glitter supposed to have an on switch or something?” Kitty yelled as she backed away from the two snake-magi sauntering toward her.
“Only with swordsman level thirty,” Lucy supplied unhelpfully.
“Great.” Kitty stabbed out with the sword, unburdening an approaching snake-mage of one of its arms.
Her chat console blinked at her.
“Any ideas?” Kitty asked, the words muffled by her gritted teeth.
“Try killing them.”
“I gathered that, you moron.” The one-armed snake-mage dove at her. The sword arced down, neatly severing its head. Possibly again - it was difficult to distinguish between this mage and its friend.
“That hungry one has an aura of some kind.”
“Not helpful,” Kitty said. “Not helpful at all. Could you try and be more specific?”
“I’m not exactly in full control of my faculties.”
Kitty stabbed out at the last snake-mage, but it sidestepped the wild blow without slowing. She tried stepping back, but her legs refused to move. Her heart tightened painfully in her chest when she glanced down and saw the pale fog coiling up her legs.
“Really?” Kitty forced thoughts of wild panic from her mind and lashed out with the sword again.
The mage’s health bar dropped a fraction as the sword transformed its robe to a fashionable knee length dress. It stayed out of reach, cocking its head at her as if interested to see what she would attempt next.
“Your bow, Kitty!”
It was in her hands before Lucy had finished speaking. An arrow twanged from it. It speared the snake-mage’s chest an instant later. The mage looked down, cocked its head again, and then lifted its chin. It bestowed upon her a deep, unnerving smile filled with sharp, cat-like teeth.
“My missstress will be… dissspleasssed,” the mage said.
Its voice sounded like something slithering over stones. Kitty took a hurried step back when the snake-mage wrenched the arrow free, tossing it aside, the useless projectile disappearing before it struck the ground.
“She’s been ssspying on you, you know,” the mage added. “She peersss from the windowsss, waiting for you to draw near. She bidesss her time, waiting upon the perfect fragment of time for her to ensssnare you.”
The snake-mage showed Kitty its row of sharp teeth again.
“That moment isss upon you.”
“Then tell her she’s late,” Lucy said.
A blood-soaked point of metal speared out through the snake-mage’s chest. The mage wriggled for a moment as it tried to free itself, but Lucy drove the blade deeper, the metal releasing a wet, grating sound as it was forced through pale flesh. The snake-mage went limp, draping over the narrow strip of metal.
Lucy withdrew the blade, the enemy’s health bar winking out of existence, and the mage crumpled into an untidy heap at his feet.
Kitty sheathed her bow. “Great timing.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” Lucy strode past her, seemingly bearing no ill effects from the freezing spell. “All right, let’s go meet Tilly then.”
“Wait, what?” Kitty started after Lucy.
“Miss Tilly.” Lucy glanced back at her. “Chimera’s sorceress. She’s a real piece of work.”
Lucy’s armour gleamed, a veritable beacon in the dim corridor. Kitty opened her chat console as they walked and grimaced at the stream of messages that had a
ppeared.
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: YRU IGNORING ME
She quickly thought out a response.
BAD_KITTY_69: IN A BATTLE. OUT NOW. HEADING 2U.
There was a brief pause.
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: HOW DO U KNOW
Kitty smiled.
BAD_KITTY_69: KNOW WHOS HOLDING U CAPTIVE. NAMES MISS TILLY.
Kitty was still waiting for Will’s reply when she walked into Lucy’s back with a loud clank.
“Please stop doing that,” Lucy said.
“Sorry.” She peered around Lucy’s armour. “Why’re we stopping?”
“Traps. Miss Tilly loves her traps. Give me a moment.”
There was a creak and a snap. Then: snap-snap-snap-snap-snap-snap-snap. It took a few seconds for the cacophony to die down. Kitty took her hands down from her ears and peered around Lucy again.
A haze hung in the room ahead. The different hues identified the clouds as poison, daze, sleep and one she’d never seen before. As soon as the clouds had dispersed, Lucy led them forward again.
“Got a message from Will,” Kitty said as she opened her chat console.
“No wonder you’ve been so distracted,” Lucy said. “Where is he?”
“Doesn’t know. But Miss Tilly’s probably got him, right?”
“Miss Tilly?” Lucy’s visor swung to face her. “What makes you say that?”
“She’s the boss of Chimera. If anyone’s holed up somewhere, she’s probably the one holing them up.”
Lucy shook his head and faced forward again. The trap room narrowed into another corridor, this one lined with lengths of colourful, if monotonous, silk tapestries. A distant doorway beckoned, open a crack.
“I doubt it,” Lucy said.
“What? Why?”
“You’ll see.”
“What do you mean—”
DASHING_WILLIAM_19: VOICES GETTING LOUDER. SOUND ANGRY AND WEIRD. HOW CLOSE RU?
Kitty snapped her mouth shut and thought out a reply.
The Seventh Glitch Page 3
