Rebirth Online

by Michael James Ploof

  Those players who still drew breath bombarded Kincaid with hundreds of glowing spells, and more players filed in through dozens of shimmering portals.

  My ears rang and my head swam. I felt sick to my stomach, and the acrid stench of sulfur burned my nostrils. Fear for my mortal body surged through me as I tried to lift myself up off the ground. I searched for my guild mates in the carnage, but I couldn’t find them. My vision was blurring again, and I could feel myself fading.

  “Sam!” came the voice of Tweak in my head.

  “Tweak...something's wrong, I can’t…”

  “Kincaid overloaded your cerebral cortex with power in the form of that last spell. You’ve got to purge yourself of it, alright? Sam, are you there?”

  “I’m here. Tell me what to do.”

  My vision went black, and I groped blindly as the sounds of battle bombarded me.

  “You’ve got to release the power. Do you understand? I’m uploading a new spell.”

  “I... I can’t,” I told him, but then I felt healing light wash over me. It felt as if I were being saved from death by the hands of angels. My mind cleared, the pain receded, and when I opened my eyes I found Anna smiling down on me.

  “Hey, you,” she said, and then she bent and kissed me as the embers of destruction slowly fell around us.

  “The spell should hit your interface any second now,” said Tweak.

  I grinned up at Anna as words came into my field of view.

  Congratulations, you’ve acquired Flame of the Dogstar.

  Now take that fucker out, lol - Tweak

  Pure white fire burst to life in my right palm and shimmered in Anna’s big eyes.

  She turned around and yelled up at Kincaid as he laid waste to the defending players. “Hey asshole! My boyfriend’s back!”

  Kincaid turned to regard us with eyes that burned with jade flame. I strode past Trinity, and the crowd of tired defenders parted before me like the Red Sea.

  “You!” Kincaid thundered.

  “Game over motherfucker,” I said, and finally unleashed the toxic power coursing through me.

  The Flame of the Dogstar shrieked out of my palm in one long pulsing beam of brilliant light. Kincaid brought up his flaming shield, but my spell tore right through it, hit Kincaid in the chest, and exploded like the fourth of July.

  I fell to my knees, exhausted, and smiled to myself as Kincaid’s smoldering body broke apart like a statue made of sand.

  Darkness consumed me, and the last thing I heard was Anna’s pleading voice.

  Chapter 20

  “Sam? Sam, can you hear me?”

  Light played against my eyelids and cascaded across my field of vision. I slowly opened my eyes and tried to speak, but I was no longer in the game world, I was in the real, static world, and I was in my real body.

  I blinked, and Dr. Marks offered me a relieved smile.

  “Thank god, I thought we had lost you there for a minute,” he said, and then turned to the other gathered doctors and nurses and began giving orders.

  I had a million questions: What happened to my guildies? What happened to Cecilia? Was Kincaid really gone? Had they arrested him in the real world? But I couldn’t ask the doctor anything. I was back in my shell, back in my living prison.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, Sam,” Dr. Marks promised. “Do you hear me? Everything’s going to be fine. You just try and rest.”

  Hadn’t I rested enough already?

  I blinked my eyes repeatedly, but the doctor only offered me a tentative glance as he took a holo-pad from the nurse. He moved out of my field of vision, and I helplessly tried to take in my surroundings. I wasn’t in my usual room, this one looked much more like a hospital, with white walls, a white ceiling, and a plethora of equipment dedicated to keeping me alive.

  I lay there wondering if I could ever return to the game, and dread began to creep into my heart. I remembered my father as well, wondering if he was doing alright. My mother hadn’t come to my side yet, which probably meant that I was still in critical condition or something of that nature.

  What the hell had Kincaid hit me with? I wondered. I remembered the power that I had wielded. The spell, Flame of the Godstar, had been like nothing I had ever cast before, and I had a feeling that I would never know what it was like to harness such power again. Tweak had somehow hacked into my abilities, and he had saved my life in doing so.

  I fell asleep at some point in my waiting for the doctor, and my dreams were full of pixelated ghosts and ruined dwarven halls. Kincaid was there in my dreams, and he took the form of the devil. He stood fifty feet tall, with skin that burned like the sun and black eyes that smiled gleefully as he devoured my guildmates.

  I awoke suddenly, and my eyes, the only things that could express my terror, jiggled in their sockets. Light blinded my right eye, then my left, and when it finally stopped torturing me, Dr. Marks was there looking down with concern.

  “Good morning,” he said, and put on a pleasant smile.

  “What’s going on,” I said, and my eyes widened as I realized that I had spoken. But the words hadn’t come from my mouth, rather, they had come from the doctor’s holo-pad.

  “I’ve linked you through the implant so that we can speak,” he confirmed.

  “What happened, did I almost die? Is everyone alright? Is my father alright?” I said through the speakers of the holo-pad.

  I saw him put a hand on my shoulder, though I couldn’t feel it.

  “I’ll let your mother answer a few of those questions,” said the doctor, and my mother walked up to the other side of my bed.

  She smiled at me and gave me a hug that I couldn’t return, then sniffled and released me as she dabbed her nose with a handkerchief.

  “Hey mom,” I said through the holo-pad, causing her to jump with a start.

  “Sammy?” she said, and looked from me, to the doctor, and then back at the holo-pad.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” I said as I blinked. “The Doctor here is a regular wizard. How is dad?”

  “He’s good. He sends his well wishes. You’ve given us both such a start. But don’t you worry, we’re going to get you out of this god-awful place.”

  “What?” I said, glancing at the Doctor. “I’m staying, Mom. I’m staying in the game. Unless...is there a game left? Did Kincaid do something to the program?”

  “Rebirth Online is still up and running, Sam,” said the doctor.

  “Sammy, that game almost killed you. It’s been all over the news,” she said as she glanced at the doctor warily. “They say Arthur Gains went crazy. He’s the son of the CEO, you know.”

  “We’re very sorry about what happened, Mrs. Sullivan, and we are doing everything—”

  “Sure, you’re sorry,” she said with a withering glance at the good doctor. She turned back to me. “We’re going to sue the shit out of this corporation for what they did to you.”

  “It’s alright, mom,” I said patiently. “Arthur Gains isn’t a threat anymore. I defeated him in Aeorock.”

  “Is that one of your fantasy worlds?” she asked. “Well, Arthur isn’t a threat in the real world anymore either. He’s been arrested and charged with manslaughter and attempted murder. But they say that he’s in a coma. Don’t worry, honey.”

  “I’m not worried,” I told her. “And I’m not leaving the game. My friends need me. I’ve got a guild, well a small guild, there are only five of us right now, but—”

  “I absolutely forbid it,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I need to do this, Mom. I’m somebody in Rebirth Online, don’t you understand? I’ve got a great guild, and we’re going to do amazing things. Hell, we already have. And it’s the only way that I can make the money for the surgery that I need.”

  “Oh, we’ll get the money,” she said, glaring at the doctor. “Like I said, we’re going to sue—”

  “No,” I said sternly, “we’re not. It wasn’t their fault that Arthu
r went nuts. And he only came after me because I pissed him off. Look, I know that you have my best interests at heart, but I’m not a child anymore, I’m a grown man. My decision is final.”

  To her credit, my mother stoically lifted her chin, and offered the smallest of nods.

  “I think that you’re making a mistake, but your father would say that it’s your mistake to make.”

  She left shortly after without so much as a word to Dr. Marks, and he glanced at me once she had gone with an apologetic look on his face.

  “Sorry about this, Sam. Corporate is still reeling from what happened. And we appreciate your understanding.”

  “Like I said, it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Even after everything that happened,” he said hesitantly. “You want to go back in?”

  “Hell yeah,” I said through the holo-pad speakers, and my voice sounded almost as eager as I felt. “I mean, if it’s possible. What happened anyway? Did Kincaid like almost short circuit my brain or something.”

  “In layman's terms, yeah, something like that. But you reversed it somehow, that spell you performed traveled through his cerebral connection as a massive amount of data.”

  “Did I really put him in a coma?”

  “Nah, don't let that weigh on your conscience. He did that to himself messing around with the program.”

  “When can I go back in?” I asked, eager to see my guild mates again.

  “Once your brainwaves return to normal for a period of twenty-four hours, I believe that you will be fit to return, until then, try and get some rest,” he said, patting my hand.

  I spent the next four days watching the news. It was kind of surreal, given that I was the hottest story in the country. Everyone knew about the paraplegic who had cracked the first virtual murder case. Reporters stood outside of Horizon headquarters, speculating on my condition. Others asked for an interview with me, and one station even offered one-hundred thousand dollars for an exclusive. Dr. Marks declined on my behalf. However, he teased the reporters that I might be ready for an interview inside Rebirth Online very soon.

  As the world speculated about my health, I was visited by my parents. Dad was doing a lot better and was walking around on his own already. Like everyone else, he had seen the news, and the lure of the spotlight was irresistible to him. He began giving interviews, and though I had insisted that I wasn’t going to sue, he hinted at a lawsuit anyway.

  Kincaid’s condition remained the same. Dr. Marks knew to give me any updates as they came in. I still felt bad about frying Arthur Gains’s brain. It had been self-defense, I knew, but my intention when joining Rebirth Online hadn’t been to put someone in a hospital bed forever.

  My goal had been to get myself out of one.

  But there I was, waiting out the long hours, unable to move. I had learned many different types of meditation to help deal with my anxiety, and the madness that came with being paralyzed. It helped a little, but the days continued to drag by as I waited to learn my fate.

  When the news finally came, Dr. Marks walked into my room wearing an expressionless face. My eyes followed him as he crossed the room. He stopped, looked up toward the ceiling as if collecting his thoughts, and took my hand.

  A glance down at me.

  A frown.

  And then…

  “You’ve been given the green light, Samson,” he told me proudly. “You’re going home.”

  Six hours later I respawned right in the middle of Aeorock, and what I found waiting for me took my breath away. To my utter surprise and delight, Anna, Trinity, Ember, Kit, Cecilia, and even Tweak and his purple monkeys were waiting for me. Behind them stood at least a thousand players all chanting my name.

  “Sam!” Anna cried and rushed into my arms.

  I hugged her tight, and we were quickly bombarded by the other women, who hugged me and showered me with kisses.

  “Big Daddy’s back!” Kit sang as she nuzzled her furry head against my neck.

  “What took you so long, Loverboy?” Trinity asked.

  “We were about to go visit you in the real world,” Ember added.

  “Sorry I took so long,” I said as Cecilia and Tweak strode over to us.

  The gathered crowd of players cheered my return, and Cecilia offered me a sly grin.

  “Good to have you back, Sam,” she said.

  I gave her a hug and shook Tweak’s hand.

  “Thanks guys, I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Everyone’s been watching the replay,” said Tweak as he hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

  I glanced at the looking glass, and grinned when I saw the highlights of my battle with Kincaid replaying in a loop.

  “It’s all over the internet, you know,” said Cecilia. “You’re a viral sensation.”

  “The man who saved Rebirth Online,” said Kit in a sing song voice.

  “I didn’t do it alone,” I admitted.

  “Samson Sullivan!” came a deep, mountainous voice from behind the crowd.

  The cheering stopped, and I instinctively brought my fire shield to life. But then I saw the speaker and dismissed my shield. At the other end of the cavern, standing forty feet tall, was the guardian statue of the Aeorock Mountains.

  “Samson, Defender of Aeorock, step forth!” came the thundering voice.

  The girls offered me excited smiles and walked with me through the parting crowd. There were other mages, healers, warriors, warlocks, assassins, bards...every class was represented here, as well as all the many races. I passed grinning elves, clapping humans, cheering drow elves, and beaming dwarves. The players shook my hand, patted me on the back, and chanted my name as I walked through the cavern and came to stand before the guardian.

  The tall dwarven statue offered me a bushy-browed smile and cleared his throat, resulting in a sound reminiscent of an avalanche.

  “Samson, Guild leader of Heavy Metal Thunder, Slayer of Kincaid, Defender of Aeorock. Take a knee.”

  I glanced around at my guild mates and Anna whispered, “The world is watching,” and offered me a wink.

  I gulped and took a knee.

  The guardian produced a sword at least twenty feet long and brought it down inches from my left shoulder.

  “Samson, I name you a Guardian of Aeorock, and bestow upon you three gifts for your part in the victory over the tyrant Kincaid of Ebone Castle. First, please accept this monetary gift.”

  I watched in amazement as the gold icon on my interface opened up, and the number began to quickly climb. Two digits, three digits, four, five, six...When the numbers finally stopped spinning I nearly fell over. I suddenly had a half a million gold in my account. I didn’t know if the corporation was trying to buy my silence or reward me, but I didn’t much care at that moment.

  “How much did he get?” People in the crowd asked in various ways, but I wasn’t about to tell them I had a half a mill.

  “Second,” the Guardian boomed, and silenced everyone. “I present you with Ironheart, the Staff of Aeorock, forged from the very heart of the mountain. It is as strong as the earth’s iron core and will serve you well in your future endeavors. Should you ever find it out of reach, simply say its name, and it shall return to you.”

  A glowing iron staff suddenly appeared floating in the air in front of me, and I reverently reached out and took it. A quick surge of power washed through me, and I marveled at the ancient runes covering the entirety of the relic. My interface showed that it was a mythical item, and its stats nearly made me fall over.

  “As your skills increase, so too will the staff’s power,” said the guardian.

  “Thank you,” I said with a bow.

  The crowd oohed and awed at the legendary item, and others shushed them as they waited to see what else I would be given.

  “Third,” said the guardian, and my trollhunter robes began to pixelate and shimmer. “I bestow upon you the Robes of the Last Mage King.”

  My trollhunter garb was replaced by light blue ro
bes with shimmering silver stitching along the seams. Ancient runes like the ones on my staff covered the smooth fabric, and they pulsed with mysterious power. The hemline perfectly accommodated my height. The collar was crisp, firm, and stopped just short of my jawline. Wearing it, I felt deep honor, overwhelming pride, and profoundly humbled.

  “I thank you once again, Guardian, but I did not defeat Kincaid alone,” I said, extending my hand toward the crowd. “My friends helped, as did hundreds of other players. I’m sure that many of them are here today. And I think that they deserve recognition as well.”

  The guardian hummed as he mulled over my proposal, and the crowd waited with bated breath as they anticipated his answer.

  “I see the wisdom in your words, Samson, Guardian of Aeorock. Therefore, as a token of my appreciation for their efforts in defending our great city, I have decided to grant them each a reward as well.” The guardian extended his arms wide as he looked at the gathered crowd. “Many of you gave your lives in defense of Aeorock, and so life shall be your reward.”

  Every single player, myself included, began to glow. Then a message appeared on my interface.

  Blessing of the Guardian

  Level 18 acquired

  “Holy shit!” someone in the crowd yelled.

  “Level 21, hell yeah!” another triumphantly announced.

  “Thank you again, Defenders of Aeorock,” said the guardian, and with a small bow he returned to his post.

  The crowd cheered and began to chant my name, and someone who sounded a lot like Kit started a “Speech, speech, speech!” chant that was soon taken up by all. My girls ran up to me and showered me with kisses, and the crowd went wild. Right about then I felt like the luckiest guy in the world.

  “Friends, fellow defenders of Aeorock,” I said, opening my arms wide to the crowd. “Thank you for this. When I woke up four days ago I didn’t know if I would ever be able to return. That thought scared me more than the potential damage that had been done to me by Kincaid’s incredible spell. You see, this isn’t just some game to me. This isn’t something I do to pass the time. This is all I’ve got.”