“No?” He sighed. “Alright, then. The hard way.” He shrugged at Jess. “Can’t say we didn’t try.”
Jess moved frighteningly fast. If I’d thought the wood-elf had been a blur, watching Jess may as well have been watching someone teleport. Before we knew she would do anything she was holding Angie, her arms pinned behind her, and one of those sinister looking blades waiting at her throat. Angie cursed quietly, as if she was afraid of making too much noise and encouraging the knife to cut in. In the entryway, Ignes unsheathed her swords and crossed them in front of her. And Tommy began to stalk toward me, all his nonchalance long gone now. His eyes twinkled with the focus of a hungry predator.
“Too bad you had to make us put the fear in you,” he said. “It’s always so much easier when you stupid first-timers just do as you’re told. But I guess every so often we need a little showdown like this to keep our skills sharp. You see, here’s what’s going to happen.” He jerked a thumb in Jess and Angie’s direction. “You’re gonna put on that amulet and touch the stone now, bud, ‘cause if you don’t, your kid sister is gonna get sliced open. And don’t be fooled into thinking it’ll be quick just because the knife is at her throat. Oh, no.” I watched in horror as Jess moved the blade ever so subtly away from the artery in the neck of my sister’s avatar. “Trust me, my girl over there knows how to make it last. You know what I mean?”
He’d been moving during his speech, and now he was just a few feet in front of me. He came to a stop and put his hands in his pockets, making a show of it. “I don’t know, man. Maybe you’re the kind of cold player that can just stand there and watch someone he loves get butchered. It is, after all, a game.” His brow lifted and he flashed a wicked smile. “Or is it? Consider this. Little Angie here, her logout has been disabled, just like yours. Her pain settings have been maxed and locked, just like yours.”
My mind was racing on two levels. One, the sheer rage at them treating my sister this way when they knew she could feel every little nudge. The other, a question bubbling to the surface, breaking through the haze of my ungathered thoughts. How did he—
“You!” I cried, pointing at him. “You did this! You locked us in! You locked our settings and made sure we spawned in the middle of the woods so that you could save us and bring us here!” I was trembling with anger now. I didn’t know how they’d done it, but I was sure.
Tommy raised both hands in mock surrender. “Guilty as charged, bud. Sue me. If you ever get out, which you won’t. Jess, do it.”
The dagger broke skin, entering Angie’s neck just behind the artery that held her lifeblood. She gasped in pain and Jess grabbed her by the hair, whipping her head back for a better angle. I growled in anger.
“You people are sick,” I spat.
“Maybe.” Tommy crossed the remaining steps to stand just within reach of me. “But we’re stinking, filthy rich.”
I know he could have blocked. Could have dodged. Could have probably used some weird spell to make my fist pass through a shadow-version of himself or something like that, but I think in the end he decided to take my punch on the chin just to prove to me how utterly and completely incompetent I was in this situation, and how nothing I could do could possibly hurt him. My fist made contact, followed by two things. First, a notification.
-2HP
Ouch. That asshole had a jaw of steel, let me tell you.
The second thing was his laughter. It was joyous, almost innocent sounding. Like nothing had given him so much unabashed pleasure in ages as being struck by me. I got no notification that I had taken any HP from him. The -2 were mine.
“None of that, now,” he simpered. Then he nodded at Jess, and the dagger drew more blood.
“Gahhh!” Angie tried to struggle free but it was hopeless. Jess’ arms held her like a tomb.
The Cave of Wonder buff pushed my HP back up to full in virtually no time, but that brought little cheer. I knew these two could dispatch us easily enough, buff or no buff. If anything it would only prolong the agony I was sure they were hoping to put us through. I gritted my teeth, cursing Tommy and Jess, cursing Hero Online, and cursing myself for getting us into this mess. What had I been thinking? What was wrong with a soft life, a quiet life? Who needed purpose, or friends, or adventures? I could have just sent a Christmas card to Angie. Could have just called her a little more often. This train-wreck was proving to be the stuff of true nightmares.
Stupid game.
But it was still a game. They would torture us and kill us, but we would respawn, get a second drop, start over. Surely we could avoid them altogether this time, now that we knew who they were?
Another struggle from Angie, some more wheedling of Jess’ knife, and I met my sister’s eyes. They were full of panic. This was no game for her. This was real. This was pain and death and darkness, and the only person in the room who could do anything about it was me. Stupid, I know. But what did I know? I figured they were going to leech all my mana or something weird and vampiric like that when I touched the stone. That there was some angle for them and some pain for me. But I hadn’t put two-and-two together yet and realized what was really happening.
Ugh.
“Fine,” I said, my voice strangely calm. Quiet. I’d made up my mind. “Fine. Just let her go.”
Tommy nodded, and Jess angled the knife away from Angie’s neck. Progress. I put the amulet around my neck, feeling its slow, steady pulse.
“Now touch the stone.” Tommy made no move toward me. Huh. I wondered why he didn’t just push me into the thing already. Maybe it had to be of my own volition? “Touch it now,” he growled. I shook my head, steeling myself. No time for second-guessing. I had to stop them from gutting Angie like a snared rabbit.
I touched the stone.
You Have Been Bound
You have selected and bound yourself to the Cave of Wonder runestone as your new spawn-point. In the event of your character’s death, you will respawn here after a randomly selected interval of time between one and five hours.
Item Used: Gem of Good Timing
You have bound yourself to a new spawn-point while wearing the Gem of Good Timing. After your next death, you will respawn here after exactly one hour.
“Oh shi—”
All the air left my body. I looked down, my eyes wide with shock, and saw the bloodied tip of a sword protruding from my belly. Tommy’s sword. The blade pushed through and arced away to the side. I fell to the ground, my vision going black, and knew no more.
___
It was cold.
White everywhere, an endless sea of dazzling sun, snow as far as I could see. I shivered and coughed and struggled weakly to my feet. I was naked.
Sophia’s voice tumbled out of the heavens, but it was muted, as if she spoke with a pillow over her face. “Greetings, player. You have died. How can I be of assistance before you re-enter Hero Online?”
Oh, this was actually pretty cool. I got to interface with the game AI while I waited to respawn? Time for some answers.
“Sophia! Hey! What is going on in there?” An entire minute of silence must have passed. “Sophia?” More silence.
Then she repeated herself.
“Greetings, player. You have died. How can I be of assistance before you re-enter Hero Online?”
“Sophia! Hey! Can’t you hear me?” I ran around in the snow, jumped up and down waving my arms, shouted at the top of my lungs. All to no avail.
Finally I quit, sighing. I should have known it wouldn’t be so easy. These people had the whole thing rigged. They must have hacked some deep code to mess the game up this much. I remembered the news report about the hackers’ guild and squeezed my eyes shut, cursing myself one more time for my naivite. I had been so trusting, and all along, it had been obvious. What could they possibly have had to gain from us if they’d been legitimate? High-level players don’t just go out grinding the woods at night in search of first-timers to scoop up and invite into their group.
My gaming inst
incts just weren’t up to par, I admitted to myself. I had a lot to remember and a lot more to learn if I was going to survive this. Because I knew, as surely as I knew I’d been killed, that I was going to respawn right back in that cave, and they would have me in their power. For whatever they wanted.
I could only hope they hadn’t tricked Angie into touching it, too. She was smarter than me, always had been. And she knew games and gamers. Surely she wouldn’t fall for their tricks, especially not after watching them kill me. I grimaced. That must have been worse for her than for me. The pain had been excrutiating, but death had come quickly. One good thing about the game, I suppose.
Time stretched on. The hour felt like an entire day. There was no threat to my health, so far as I could tell, from being naked in the snow, but it wasn’t comfortable. I couldn’t sit. I got too cold staying in one place for too long. I ended up whiling the minutes away plodding slowly in a wide circle, leaving footprints. Eventually I criss-crossed the inside, like that game kids play. What was it called—fox? Or pie? I couldn’t remember. Another lost piece of childhood.
Finally, the arctic landscape melted away.
I stumbled out of the runestone and fell to my hands and knees, back in the cavern. Pain gripped my entire body, fire shooting through the veins in my arms and legs. I gasped for air, my throat tight.
Debuff Added: Death Penalty
Congratulations, you have respawned! But you also recently died. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. All stats diminished by one tenth for the next hour. All unbound items are gone from your person. Check the location of your death for a loot-drop. Good luck, and let this be a lesson!
Debuff Added: Overexposure
You have been exposed to the elements for too long, and your body has taken a beating! Strength and agility are diminished by one tenth, and HP regeneration slowed by half for the next hour.
You Have Received the Buff: Cave of Wonder
While inside this cavern, your HP will rejuvenate at twice its normal rate. Sit down, put your feet up. Few and far between are caves this wondrous.
Wow, dying sucked. I’d never felt so incredibly awful in my life. And what was with the exposure debuff? Part of the hack? Surely if the game were operating normally I wouldn’t be penalized for my purgatorial waiting room being a land of eternal winter, right?
Interestingly, the HP part of the Death Penalty debuff and the Cave of Wonder buff seemed like they would cancel each other out.
“Welcome back.”
I looked up and saw Tommy sitting on an outcropping of rock, polishing his sword. “Now, I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You’re looking at the death debuff and hey, just ten percent for an hour? Not so bad, right?” He rose to his feet. “Thing is, you haven’t considered the possibility that I might just kill you half a dozen more times just to get my jollies. And that debuff? Yeah. It compounds.”
His sword was in my gut again before I could respond. He grinned maniacally and held my gaze. “Ah, that’s the stuff,” he said. “Nothing like the smell of blood and panic in the morning.”
I had just enough time before passing out and dying again to see another character emerge from the runestone and fall to the ground, choking and coughing as they got hit with their debuffs.
It was Angie.
CHAPTER 5:
INTERLUDE: JOHN THE BARD
_________________
The sun was rising over the hills beyond camp. Morning doves cooed in the trees. John rose from his cot, stretched, and took a deep breath through his nose. He smelled lilac, grass, the faint odor of fish in the lake.
Amazing.
This game was absolutely amazing.
He’d played proported FIVR technology games before. He’d even rented a Noob Tube—that’s what his friends called it—for a couple of weeks one summer to try out various… extracurricular activities in VR. The full-immersion stuff was incredible and fun, but even with the tube it had always been obvious he was in a game.
This place? This was different.
Pushing the flap of his tent open, he strolled up the lane by the lake, past the rows and rows of player tents, toward the wood. Toward the birds.
The doves were urgent this morning. Love was in the air, perhaps. They cooed and cooed, calling for one another. John stood and listened, memorizing the pitches, the patterns, the timing. Then he pursed his lips and whistled, answering.
A dialogue box appeared and he smiled. He’d leveled his Play By Ear skill again. Now he had a 12% increased likelihood of accurately replicating a melody he’d heard just once. A funny skill. It felt like a handicap compared to his ear out in the real world, where he did the same thing with nearly perfect results everytime. But it was still a game, after all, and he relished the challenge of building the skill. He had a simple goal for this character, and he was going to achieve it.
He was going to be the greatest bard in Hero Online.
“Morning!” An elf maiden waved as she rose from her tent by the treeline. John waved back, a smile on his face.
“Morning Terra! Sleep well?”
She shrugged. “Eh, summer break. I slept like I was dead, then worked a shift before logging back in. I think I’m going to head out a bit deeper today, want to try to level my Gatherer skill. Care to join?”
“Sure. Let me just check on someone first.”
The world of Hero Online was a blank slate. There were no cities. There were no nations. There was a mythology, and a biodome, and scattered ruins and histories long lost to the time that had never passed, but it was up to the players to build this world into what they wanted. That was another thing John loved about it.
He’d also always been intrigued by non-player characters in VRMMORPGs. Usually they were stationed around cities and human settlements for the purpose of helping players train, or granting quests. But here, things were different, too. He’d bumped into exactly one NPC so far, a man by the name of Brandon. A woodcutter who had built a small cabin here on the shore of this beautiful lake. So far as John could tell, Brandon’s prescribed role was to act as a sort of guide for all the players dropped in and around this location. That’s why this little tent village had popped up around his lake. Who knew? Maybe one day, a hundred years from now, this would be the location of a great city. Even the heart of a nation.
Brandonton. John smiled at the thought.
“Morning Brandon,” he said as he rounded the cabin’s corner. The NPC was sitting on his front porch crafting a new fishing rod.
“Morning, John. What are we up to today?”
John’s smile grew. Man, what great writing. And coding. This guy, he felt like a real neighbor. Not a whiff of artifice about him. “Well, thought I might head into the forest with Terra. She wants to gather. I want to study the birds for a while.”
“Ah.” Brandon turned a sad eye to the half-finished rod before him. “Then who shall I give this to? I thought you were thinking of joining me for a bit of fishing.”
“Oh I will, don’t you worry. But we may be out a while. Why don’t you give it to one of the other travelers? I’ll pay you for another when I come back.”
“Pay me?” Brandon raised an eyebrow. “With what? A pretty song?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time I’d sung for my breakfast. Take care, Brandon.”
The NPC waived him off and he rejoined Terra for their trek into the wood.
“Think you’ll learn a new song today?” she asked him as they put the tent village behind them. They were strolling beneath a canopy of birch-bark and beeches, the leaves just beginning to take on their early autumn colors. A delicious breeze swept down from time to time, rustling in the leaves and caressing the travelers’ faces.
John shrugged. “Hope so. You wanna hear it if I do?”
She smiled. John loved it when she smiled. “You know I do.”
“Alright then.”
They couldn’t have known that even then, their little utopian slice of the world ha
d been targeted. The morning waned, the sun grew hot, the birds came and went. But John’s world was about to change forever.
CHAPTER 6:
HARD LABOR
_________________
March 1, 2049
Janus Industries
Memo to Rod Ignes, Asst. Tech. Director
RE: Meet
Rod,
We’ve been fielding an unanticipated number of player complaints from within the game about aggressive player-vs.-player violence. Our hands are tied on my end. 001 has PvP regulations locked down tight. Apparently in its zeal to protect them from hacks by players, the AI has built failsafes and firewalls so extreme that any human interaction with the base code is limited.
We need to talk. I’m not sure what can be done, and I need ideas. Everything else in the beta is running smoothly, but if this gets out of hand, or leaks to the press, it could kill the project before launch. Call me. Let’s do lunch.
Aaron Sarten, Project 309 Leader
Section 309
Janus Industries
___
It could have been worse, right?
I mean, they could have killed me seven times in a row.
After six deaths I was effectively half the player I’d been when they’d started, and my morale was utterly spent. I knew the sixth death was the last because it was the first time that, after returning from the frigid digital limbo where I was neither seen nor heard by my intended AI guide, Tommy wasn’t there to greet me. He’d taken off and left a grunt in his place. Not that I minded a break in the torture. In my first hour with Taco Tuesday I’d been sliced and diced six ways to hell.
There’s one thing about being a player in Hero Online. Since you can never die… you can always die.
No joke.
His words rattled around in my brain, feeding the seething hatred but not enough to resurrect my broken spirit. I was putty in their hands, for now. I had nothing left to give.
Quest for Vengeance Page 6
