by S. R. Witt
It might take a little longer, but, in his experience, the patient man with the long view always won in the end.
Osmark eyed his character sheet, then, satisfied with what he saw, he closed his interface, toweled off with the last clean scrap of cloth, and made for his bed. He flopped back with a groan, his muscles aching and his head pounding. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d worked this hard, both physically and mentally. There was something about fighting for his survival that pushed Osmark to a whole new level of effort.
It wasn’t fear. It was something else. Something stronger, more visceral, than he’d ever imagined possible.
He closed his eyes—prepared to sleep—when an annoying ping dragged him from the edge of unconsciousness. He glanced up at the small envelope icon, and a message unfolded across his vision.
<<<>>>
Personal Message:
Robert,
I’m in, but I’ve started farther north of Tomestide than we originally anticipated. Fortunately, the Mystica Ordo has a branch in Glome Corrie. If everything goes according to plan, which it hasn’t so far, I’ll be in Tomestide by tomorrow.
If I’m late, don’t wait for me—stick to the schedule. You have a busy day tomorrow. Here’s the itemized list we discussed earlier:
1. Meet with Rozak, the dwarven artificer. Hopefully, you’ve remembered to stick with engineered weapons or those that require dexterity. If you forgot, he’s likely to turn you away until you’ve repaired your faction standing.
2. After you finish your class kit quest, get to your restricted area, and retrieve the faction seal. I can’t tell you what you’ll face because the AI’s in charge of populating it, but be smart. If I’m not there to see you through it, make sure you bring more hirelings than you think you’ll need. Better safe than sorry.
3. Your meeting with the Imperial Advisory Board is scheduled for the day after tomorrow, late afternoon. With any luck, I’ll be at the meeting with you, so you won’t have to remember who all of your allies are. If I’m not there, zip your lip and play it close to the vest. No one expects you to remake the world on the first day. Or the second day.
One last note and this is very important. Sizemore is already on the move. My eyes and ears tell me he’s put a price on your head. I’m not sure if there are any takers yet, but he’s offering 1,000 Imperial Gold Marks to anyone who can prove they took you out. He’s in Wyrdtide, and you need to get some eyes and ears over there as soon as you can.
Be careful!
I’ll see you soon
— Sandra
<<<>>>
Osmark could almost hear his assistant’s voice as he read the message. Despite how exhausted he was, he couldn’t help but smile at her sarcastic tone and gentle reminders. It wasn’t likely he would’ve forgotten anything, but Sandra didn’t take chances. She was paid to be extremely thorough, and she was nothing if not a professional.
He drifted off before he could muster the energy to blow out the candle, and enjoyed the dreamless sleep of the dead.
THIRTEEN:
Apprenticeship
A deafening trumpet blasted Osmark awake. He kicked the sheets away, stumbled out of bed, and tried to get his bearings. His head felt as if a herd of elephants had been using it as a soccer ball, and his thoughts were too scattered and disorganized for him to corral them into some sort of sense.
The rough and uneven wooden floorboards tripped him up, and he stumbled again, barely avoiding the chest of drawers against the crudely plastered wall. Through sheer force of will, he lurched over to the washbasin on unsteady feet, bracing his hands on either side of the porcelain bowl as he stared at the wavering image in the mirror. He recognized the face staring back at him as his own, but subtly different. His eyes were a steelier shade of blue than he remembered, and his jaw was a bit more pronounced.
What the hell is going on? Osmark thought. And where the hell am I?
The trumpets blared again, echoing through Osmark’s head with painful force. What was that noise and why wouldn’t it stop?
When in doubt, Osmark always fell back on what he knew. First, he took stock of his surroundings. His room was cramped and populated with furnishings straight out of a Renaissance faire. The rickety bed was rumpled and obviously slept in, so clearly he’d spent the night here. The tallow candle in the sconce on the wall had burned down to a nub, further confirming that he’d been there for a while, and letting him know that he’d been so tired he hadn’t thought to snuff the flame.
The trumpets brayed once more, a brazen call like a hunter’s horn, and Robert’s world snapped into focus around the painful spike of sound.
“Alarm, off,” he snapped. The sound had been in his head; it was all part of the game.
No, part of his new world. V.G.O. was much more than just a game.
“Welcome, traveler,” said a friendly female voice, “my name is Silvia, and I’m your customer support representative. Our system records indicate you’ve spent your first full night in Viridian Gate Online. Congratulations! Many fellow travelers have reported severe disorientation and head pain after their first night of in-game rest; these symptoms are common and are not a cause for concern. The confusion will pass in a few minutes, and a hearty meal at your nearest inn or tavern will help with any head pain or other lingering aftereffects. Thank you for playing.”
Robert had known about the side effects of transitioning to V.G.O.
The NexGenVR capsules achieved full sensory integration by injecting microscopic nanobots into the bloodstream. The nanobots traveled to the brain and mapped out the mind in precise detail. The technology was revolutionary and perfectly safe—under the right conditions. If the nanobots stayed active for longer than seventy-two consecutive hours, however, the body shut down and the brain entered a state of catatonia before the player simply died. The NexGen capsules all had neural inhibitors to prevent that sort of thing from occurring—kicking players out after six hours of play—but those had been disabled with Patch 1.3.
On paper, the transition symptoms sounded unpleasant but manageable. Some nausea, disorientation, a headache. The technicians had made it sound like the side effects of riding a particularly vigorous roller coaster.
“It’s a good thing I can’t fire you,” he muttered, cursing the lab jockey who’d understated just how painful dying would be. Osmark returned to the uncomfortable bed and flopped down on its grubby sheets, cradling his head in his hands while he rested his elbows on his knees. He’d suffered migraines as a child, and this agony reminded him of those distant days. He closed his eyes and waited for the flashing aura to recede and the pain to diminish to manageable levels.
For a moment, in the grips of the vise crushing his skull, Osmark suffered tiny flickers of doubt. Maybe this had all been a mistake. Maybe he wasn’t going to be one of the ones who made it through the transition. Despite the swarms of expert medical professionals monitoring his transition, there was always a chance something would go wrong.
And, of course, there was a chance there weren’t any medical professionals at all. What if his people had lost their nerve at literally the last minute and bailed out of the bunker? Or, even worse, what if packs of marauders had breached the bunker? Maybe a group of military grunts had decided to take it for their own.
“Food,” he snapped, irritated with the doubts gnawing at him like the pangs of hunger stirring in his aching belly. He just needed breakfast.
He dressed in the new tinkerer’s clothes his crew had secured and admired himself in the mirror. He looked damn fine, maybe a little too fine. He wasn’t a total newbie to V.G.O., but he wasn’t exactly a powerhouse either—not yet, anyway. It was always possible some griefer might take a liking to his new threads and decide to take a poke at him. Osmark straightened his back and smirked into the mirror. “Let them try,” he whispered to himself as he left the room.
Horan and the rest of his allies were waiting for him in the common room. They were at the same table
they’d been at the previous night, and thankfully, it was piled high with food. Pancakes, biscuits, an earthenware bowl of boiled eggs, dishes of butter, crocks of honey, and a massive platter of sausages and rashers of bacon had Osmark drooling before he sat down. He had to hand it to whoever had designed V.G.O.’s food; it was better than anything he’d ever had in the real world.
“Good morning,” Robert said with a smile, eyeing the food. He split a roll down the middle with his fingers and dredged a table knife through a thick slab of creamy butter. “It’s going be a busy day, boys and girls, so listen up.”
Osmark ate as he outlined the day’s plans. A pancake soaked in syrup disappeared down his gullet, followed by crispy bacon strips and a pair of biscuits oozing a molten mixture of rich honey and heavenly butter. “As we expected, some of our esteemed guests have gotten a little too ambitious for their own good. I’m going to need the three of you to hightail it over to Wyrdtide.”
Garn frowned as she speared a sausage link with her fork. It vanished between her gleaming white teeth in a single bite. “You’re the boss, but Sandra is going to skin me alive if she finds out I left you all alone here.”
Osmark swirled a piece of bacon through the puddle of syrup on his plate. “You let me worry about her. The reason I need you over there is that Sizemore is gearing up to take his shot.”
Aurion raised an eyebrow. “Shot at what?”
“Yours truly,” Robert said before devouring another mouthful of carbs and protein. He washed it down with a glass of fresh milk that tasted richer and creamier than anything he’d ever imagined. His belly was already groaning at the quantity he’d shoveled down his throat, but he wasn’t about to quit eating when everything still tasted so good—not to mention, the food did wonders for his aching head. “I don’t know what his plan is, but rumor has it that he’s put an open contract on me.”
Dorak mopped up traces of runny egg yolk from his plate with the edge of a flaky biscuit. “You want us to return the favor?”
That’s exactly what Osmark wanted to happen. Even better, he’d like to dispatch a team of specialists IRL to take care of Sizemore in a more permanent fashion, assuming the man hadn’t already fully transitioned. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do that—there were too many protections wrapped around Sizemore—and killing him inside of V.G.O. would accomplish little since Sizemore would simply respawn in eight hours. Meanwhile, his other rivals would see the infighting, take it as a sign of weakness, and leapfrog ahead of him. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up with a dozen advanced factions trying to squeeze him out.
“No, that’s not going to work.” Osmark nibbled at another biscuit while he considered his options. “But I do want you to keep an eye on his wife and son. We need to know exactly where they are at all times.”
Aurion’s eyes narrowed to angry slits. “No civilians. That was the deal.”
For a moment, Osmark regarded the sorceress as if seeing her for the first time. He wiped his mouth with a linen napkin and carefully folded the cloth into a neat square that he placed across his lap. With slow, deliberate actions, he squared the silverware on either side of his plate until everything was in perfect alignment. Then he stared at Aurion until she paled under his gaze.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Osmark said with a flat, dead voice. “What did you say?”
Garn opened her mouth to reply, but Osmark silenced her with a raised finger. “I want to be very clear. I am in grave danger for the next few days. Which means all of you are in grave danger as well. We’ll do what has to be done to make sure we get through this. All of us.”
His eyes swept the table, and even Horan looked away from the cold steel flashing in Osmark’s gaze. “Aurion, find Sizemore’s family. I want to know where he’s keeping them. Who’s protecting them. What kind of defenses he’s set up around them. Am I clear?”
The sorceress wouldn’t look at Robert. She steepled her fingers over her plate and stared into the gaps between them. She took one deep, slow breath. Then another. Finally, she nodded. “Okay, sir, I understand. I’ll take care of it.”
“Good!” Osmark said, his voice returning to its usual warm and charismatic tones. “I know this is hard. I know none of us is at our best right now, but we have to pull together if we want to succeed. We only have a little over a week until the asteroid hits, and we have so much to do before then.” Osmark extended his hand to the middle of the table and clenched his fist. “Bring it in.”
His allies, Horan included, extended their hands until all of their fists touched in a tight circle. Osmark nodded and said, “Okay, you’re on the clock. Get outta here.”
Horan rose to follow the rest of Robert’s allies out of the common room, but Osmark stopped him. “Not you. I’ve got something else in mind for us.”
He motioned for the mercenary to sit back down, and Horan obliged. “My contract’s not exactly open-ended, sir, but I’m open-minded.”
Robert chuckled at Horan’s choice of words. “I thought you said you weren’t that kind of mercenary?”
Horan didn’t laugh. “Honestly, you’re the kind of man that scares the shite out of me, sir. And that’s the only kind of man I want to follow. I reckon if you’ve got the coin, I can be any kind of mercenary you want me to be.”
“Don’t worry about running out of coin,” Robert said with a laugh. “And don’t worry about what I have in mind. It’s not what you think.”
With that, Robert pushed back from the table and tossed a fistful of silver coins onto its chipped and worn surface. He knew he was paying far more than the meal was worth, but he wasn’t just buying the meal. He was buying loyalty. He planned to be in Tomestide for a while, and he wanted to stay on Murly, the innkeeper’s, good side.
Horan followed Osmark out of the inn. The pair of them wandered down the small town’s main cobblestone street, admiring the boxy houses of wood and stone as they went. Tomestide wasn’t big, which made it easy to find the business Robert was trying to locate. They hadn’t walked more than one hundred yards before he heard the musical ring of a hammer against iron. “This way,” Osmark said, excited.
The side street he turned down ended in front of a sizable stone-front shop edged with intricately carved wooden trim and studded with windows, the shutters thrown back. The wide front doors likewise stood open, revealing a small forge, its belly glowing with intense heat, and an anvil. [The Iron Anvil]. As they got closer, Osmark could see sparks flying away from the anvil in rhythmic bursts. Closer still they could see what was causing the ruckus.
A sweat-soaked dwarf, clad in a thick, black leather apron and sporting an even thicker black beard, glared through a set of goggles at Osmark the instant Robert’s foot landed on the first step leading up from the road to the shop. The dwarf hefted his hammer in one hand and blew a gusty breath through his thick mustache. “What are you two louts looking at? Ain’t never seen an honest day’s work before?”
Osmark bristled at the insult, then caught himself before he could lay into the dwarf. It was taking him longer than he’d like to admit to shed the remnants of his old life. Two days ago, no one would have dared to speak to him like that. Now, he was a peasant, and if he wanted to be more than that, he was going to have to earn it all over again. “Actually, sir, that’s what we’ve come in search of.”
The dwarf, his great shaggy beard waggling in front of his prodigious belly as he stomped around the anvil, adjusted the goggles covering his eyes. He appraised Osmark openly, raking his gaze up from Robert’s dusty boots over his fancy pants and finally to his plain shirt and embroidered jacket. “Those don’t look like work clothes, son.”
“They’re the only clothes I’ve got, sir,” Osmark said, careful to keep his tone in check. “And despite appearances, we’re willing to work hard.”
Horan raised an eyebrow at the remark but didn’t contradict Osmark. Under his breath, he muttered, “Oh, this bonus is going to be glorious.”
With a grunt, the dwa
rf shouldered his enormous smith’s hammer and motioned for Osmark to follow him inside. “We’ll see if you’re cut out for this work, fancy boy. I’m Rozak, by the way. You can call me Sir.”
The interior of the workshop was warm, but not unpleasantly so. Osmark was impressed by the complicated system of gears and pulleys attached to the fans whirring overhead with a constant hum. The far end of the system was connected to a yard-high wheel that contained two smaller wheels, one red and one blue. The red wheel seemed to chase the blue wheel, which, in turn, spun the larger wheel and kept the fans moving.
The dwarf slammed his hammer on the floor next to Osmark’s feet with a thud. “I ain’t paying you to watch my wheels turn, boy.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Osmark said, trying to appeal to the dwarf’s pride and satisfy his curiosity at the same time. He honestly hadn’t ever seen anything like it before. “Can you explain how it works?”
The dwarf, unmoved by Osmark’s flattery, shrugged. “Course I can. I built the damned thing, but I’m not going to explain the inner workings of an Elemental Pursuit Confluence to someone so ignorant they don’t even know what to call it. Now, you wanna work, you come this way.”
The surly dwarf led them past the forge to the dimly lit recess of his shop. Piles of ore were stacked on shelves that ran from floor to ceiling. “I need you to turn these”—the dwarf’s hammer banged off the nearest rack—“into these.”
The dwarf’s grimy hand pointed at a neatly stacked pile of iron ingots against the far wall. “Think you can manage that?”
Osmark’s eyes darted around the interior of the shop. He spotted a brick-lined circular smelter in the back with a bin of coal next to it. There were a few steel-ribbed barrels full of water, a metal-topped workstation, and a variety of tools hanging on the far wall. Heavy mallets, grooved swages, calipers, and an array of vises and rasps. Ingot molds hung from pegs on the wall above the coal, and a massive pair of thick tongs dangled next to them. “Where are the crucibles?”
