Login Accepted: Incipere Online Book One

by R J Triveri

  “I make it my business to keep an eye on things,” she said simply. “It didn’t hurt that Sara told me you were running this way either.”

  Who didn’t this woman seem to know? Sally opened her screen again and sighed; she knew when she was beaten. “Lead the way, Sammi.”

  With no time to waste, Sammi turned left and made a direct route for the Sunset’s Rest at the end of the street. Picking her way carefully through the crowds, Sammi made it seem effortless as Sally almost struggled to keep up without having to say excuse me every two seconds. “Come on!”

  Grumbling under her breath, Sally wanted to punch the girl. She couldn’t even begin to think of how Sammi could navigate the people so easily. Had to be her class skills, it had to be. “I’m hurrying!” With only a few minutes left, Sally put all her manners on hold and just began forcing her way through the crowds to the disdain of quite a few people. “Sorry!”

  By some miracle, she caught up with Sammi only a few moments later. The girl with a rapier on her hips simply looked at her and smiled. “Almost there.”

  “You’re a witch,” Sally said as she took a moment to check her back. “How’d you do that so quickly without pissing them off?”

  “Talk to me after, we don’t have time,” she said opening the door. “Head up the stairs as far as you can go. You can’t miss it.”

  She nodded as another minute ticked by. The inside of the inn wasn’t what she expected. The store was shut down and empty, the inn door was open, and the stairs were waiting for her. Sally almost ran from the bottom floor, up the three flights of stairs, and burst through the door onto the empty roof. The balcony was small, secluded, and as much as she hated to admit it, had an amazing view of the city. Materializing her lantern, she carefully set it down on the railing and sighed. “Well, here goes everything.”

  Carefully, she lit the candle under the lantern and watched as the flame quickly devoured the wax and became a contained inferno. The mechanics that bound the flame heated the air, sending the lantern slowly but surely into the air ahead of the others that got their lower start. A smile managed to cross her face as it lifted off into the night sky carrying her letter off into the night sky.

  Leaning her hands on the railing, she watched for as long as she could until the rest of the lanterns began to fill the sky. The sky was beautiful before, but every moment brought more points of light into existence. Each carried their own letters with them. Some were sure to be sad, some selfish, some beautiful, but all of them were the same, a request to the stars, to Unum, for something far beyond their powers.

  Time seemed to stand still for Sally as she watched and hurt in the silence of the night. Is this what closure feels like?

  “You alright?”

  Sammi moved like a fog. Quiet, easy to miss, but once it was there, you couldn’t do anything without dealing with it first. “Could be better.”

  “Figured as much.”

  With a sigh, Sally turned around. “Thanks for the balcony.”

  “Aren’t you going to stay and wait?”

  She shook her head, then stopped. “My dad can survive a few more minutes without me.”

  Sammi nodded. “Wanna talk about it?”

  “With someone I barely know?”

  “I could tell Torrent or Trina you need a shoulder to cry on. I’m sure they’d love to take a few days off from hunting down a lead on Diz to come be supportive.”

  A simple yes would have been enough for Sally as she moved back to the door, sat down with her back against the wall of the inn, and let out a sigh. “I just want things to go back to the way they were.”

  “Time stops for no woman, Sally,” Sammi said as she joined the girl against the wall as a few more lanterns floated into the sky. “The Unum will do what it wants when it wants, but we have no more control over it than any other lowly mortal.”

  “Doesn’t make it any easier.”

  “Change isn’t easy to deal with. We just have to roll with the punches, take one for the team now and again, and just keep moving on,” the innkeeper said before giving her a pat on the shoulder. “There’s no stopping change or time.”

  “Fuck change,” Sally declared as she looked out over the city.

  “I can drink to that,” Sammi said with a grin. “Care to join me for one while Unum decides which request to grant? I mean, what better way is there to pass an hour?”

  “Just a month ago, I would have said building a machine to deal with Wild Ones.”

  “And now?”

  “Drinking sounds like an excellent idea.”

  Sammi grinned like a true lover of the company and pat down on Sally’s shoulder. “That’s the spirit!”

  ***

  Five wishes out of millions.

  The task was daunting as the sorting continued. Selfish, worthless wishes were shredded by the lantern’s fire before they could ever reach her, but the numbers were still out-pacing her ability to keep up. So far, she had only found two worth her time. Two grand wishes to announce her coming to the world.

  Three to go.

  Another one caught her attention, and she smiled.

  Make that two.

  ***

  “Why do people do this!” Sally groaned at Sammi as her head throbbed after the first, ill-advised gulp.

  “You’re a lightweight,” Sammi responded as she took another swig from the square bottle of blue liquid that smelled suspiciously like fruit, cream, and top-tier antiseptic. “Have you ever had a drink?”

  “Nothing like this shit. It burns!” She eyed the sitting bottle cautiously as it got set back down on the table with her glass already full again. Bravely, she took the liquid and tipped it down her throat.

  “That’s the spirit!” she said after another drink.

  Sally had the feeling it wasn’t the spirit. Either that or her new friend had terrible taste in drinks. As the nausea status effect perked up, she swore to never buy anything ‘top shelf’ from Sammi’s shop again. A moment later, her integrity took a hit from throwing back up the entirety of what she drank.

  Damage Received - 97% integrity remaining

  “Yep, lightweight.”

  ***

  And that made five. With time to spare, Ferris would add. Her head pounded, her body burned from exhaustion, but it was done. Five wishes, five requests worthy of Unum were about to be granted.

  ****

 

  And the world stopped.

  A silence spread across the world as a voice spoke to them. To the Inciperians, there was no questioning what it was. The question was who. The voice was full of emotion, excitement, reverence for them and the world. This hit home for no one harder than the tipsy, slightly sick pair inside the Sunset’s Rest.

 

  “Holy shit!” Sally said and fell over in surprise.

  “Is that the Unum?” Sammi almost did the same from her chair as she steadied herself but was much less stable than the other girl.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never heard it before.” In her mind, Unum was male, but this voice was not in any way what she expected.

 

  The voice cut out as soon as it had begun and left a silence across the entirety of Incipere for a few moments. In the outside world, the gossip began only moments later, but inside the Sunset’s Rest, the two sat in silence for as long as the tension would allow. For Sally, the tension might go on forever as her face became devoid of any color.

  “Sally, are you okay?” Sammi asked looking her over. The other girl looked as though she had seen, or heard, a ghost.

  “I…”

  “Sally?”

  Another m
oment passed as the ghost white of Sally’s face slowly colored itself again. “Did your god ever speak to you, Sammi?” she asked quietly.

  Sammi looked at the girl, then away, then tried to cobble together an answer. “Never to me.”

  “I don’t know how to feel,” she said carefully. “I mean, I knew the Unum existed, but… but to have it speak to me, to us…”

  Putting it into perspective, Sammi was starting to realize the depth of the words for Sally. “I think it’s time to go home, Sally. Do you need a jump disk?”

  The girl nodded and stumbled to her feet, then shook her head. An action she instantly regretted as the nausea status was still clearing. “I have a use left on my key.”

  “Use the go-between by the stairs. I never lock it,” she said taking another swig of the blue liquid. “No real point when everything is coded to open for me anyways.”

  Sally nodded, stumbled over to the door, turned the key, and fell back into her room. The floor was a bit harder than she remembered as she crawled over to the bed, pulled herself up, and pulled back the covers before sliding in between the sheets and drifting off into a dreamless, all too short sleep.

  ****

  “You’ve made interesting choices, Auxi,” Unum commented as it checked the list of five.

  Ferris had expected a bit more of a response. Not praise, but not really indifference either. “They’re the most deserving.”

  The voice didn’t change a bit as the Unum continued. “Deserving is a point of view, but that doesn’t change the fact that your choices will change things.”

  She smiled. “Sometimes, things need to be changed. The people wish it to happen.”

  “Then the people will be given what they’ve asked for.”

  Expansion

  Sleep passed as it always did for Sally, quickly and quietly until the unyielding light of day pierced her blissful darkness and the undaunted cry of her younger sibling and her father pierced her ears.

  “Sally! Get up!”

  She sighed and pulled her hands up to her eyes. Hands… yep… nothing changed. Last night was still a bit blurry, but she remembered a little. Torrent’s sister had given her something to drink, and Sally used the word drink very loosely.

  “No…” she groaned as she tried to cuddle the sheets around her.

  Walter Queen => Sally Queen: Sally Queen, I know you’re up. Get down here for breakfast!

  Another sigh escaped her, and the sheets flew off the bed in a single, unholy heap of wool and silk. Still worn from the night before, her clothing was wrinkled and in need of a refresh, but that wasn’t what her body was telling her. Breakfast first, she rationed as her stomach groaned. Before getting up from the warm embrace of her bed, she weighed the options before her and mentally groaned like her stomach. If only her class clothing wasn't so embarrassing, she wouldn’t have to refresh them every morning.

  Walking out into the hall, Sally couldn’t help but shuffle forward like one of the undead. By moving just a few slow steps at a time, it took her a lifetime to reach the top of the steps and work her way down. The fire was lit in the other room where her mother sat with Emily. The two were talking again, and the smell of the firewood started to bring a bit more pep to her step. A moment later, the smell of the kitchen took over as her father grinned at her.

  “Took you long enough,” Walter said sitting down at the table.

  The smells within the kitchen assaulted her most base, teenage desires. As her stomach growled, her hands moved without another thought, shoving a piece of bacon happily into her mouth. Because she hadn’t reached the adult milestone yet, she still had to eat much more regularly, and last night’s escapades didn’t help her appetite this morning. Just another thing to think about as Sandra interrupted the feeding frenzy and sat down with her new, purple haired baby sister in her arms.

  “Morning, Emily,” Sally said through a mouthful of food as the little girl responded with a giggle. “Someone sounds like they had a good morning.”

  “She did,” Sandra said with a smile as she held the small bundle of data against her. “Though she did a lot better when Mom got home, didn’t you?”

  She giggled again as she waved her hand and stuffed purple fox before hugging her mother. “A purple fox too? I wish I knew why she loved purple so much.”

  Sally nodded. “I don’t even know why I picked what I did. I don’t think she will either.”

  “It’s okay,” Sandra said with a nod as Walter got up and went from the kitchen to the other room. “Everything turned out well, didn’t it?”

  His eldest daughter nodded and stopped eating for a split second to answer back. “Things aren’t bad, but they can always be better.”

  “I don’t know,” came a soft spoken reply. The voice was one that instantly brought her attention and made her almost flip in her seat to catch the face. “To me, things seem pretty good, Sally.”

  “Athos,” her mind was afire with confusion. Should she cry? Should she smile? Should she laugh or try to wake herself up? Her seat flew out from under her as she ran and wrapped her arms around him. “You’re alive.” He didn’t say anything at first. Athos simply held her. She could feel his tears against her cheek, and he could feel hers soaking into the fabric of his shirt as the rest of her family got up and left the two alone to talk. Pulling away from him, she saw that same smile on his face he always seemed to have. “They knew?” He nodded as the realization washed over her face of who her mother had been talking to. “Where have you been?”

  He fingered his coat’s edges as he thought through his answer. “I don’t know, Sally. I don’t remember anything but Wrath standing over me. I remember the smell of smoke.” His thoughts wandered a bit along with the sound and volume of his voice. Then again, Athos had not just avoided death, but died and reclaimed life. “Pain, a bright light, and then nothing.” She said nothing as he hesitated and worked through whatever was going on inside his head. “I heard a voice. I don’t know how long it lasted, but it was screaming at me to wake up. Screaming so loudly…”

  “And you just happen to be here,” Sally said simply.

  “I woke up in the forest,” Athos answered. “My contact list was missing, and I got an error anytime I tried to contact anyone. I still had most of my inventory, so I took out the disk you gave me and came here.”

  “Why here?”

  He smiled almost stupidly at her. “Because the voice sounded just like you.”

  She felt like punching him whether he was telling the truth or not.

  From the other room, a familiar voice Athos had come to love and fear called out to him before he could say anything else. “Just kiss him already and get it over with!”

  His face blushed a bit at the encouragement, as did Sally’s. Thankfully for Athos, it was one of the few times Sally wouldn’t object to something her father suggested.

  ****

  Deep within the code of Incipere’s core, an instance of defiance could only go unnoticed for so long. As the maintenance cycle began a new, Unum expressed the closest thing to anger Ferris had ever heard. “You’ve gone too far.”

  Pulling herself from a programming screen, Ferris was a little more than surprised at the Unum’s comment. “Unum?”

  The voice seemed to echo from everywhere as it always did when Unum spoke. “I will not repeat myself. You have gone too far in your request granting, Auxi.”

  Using her hands to gesture to the screen, the young administrator showed him her alibi. “I was just working on the procedural generation tools for the explorer guild’s new dungeon.”

  “You cannot deny that this is your authorization.”

  As if on cue, a long list of commands from the night of the festival materialized with a single line at 0:00 highlighted. Looking at the logs that Unum materialized in front of her, she couldn’t. “I don’t understand.”

  “Life and death should never be cheapened, Auxi.”

  “I didn’t do that. I couldn’t ha
ve.”

  Despite not changing tone, the Unum seemed to scold as it spoke. “Then explain to me how Athos Aramis was restored mere hours ago in the Forest of the Dryad by your console. I did not, and Ella should not possess the command. That only leaves you.”

  “Why would I cheapen what he did? It was a beautiful, selfless thing.”

  Echoing from the core’s furthest regions, another voice pushed past Unum’s. Familiar with the fear and frustration it could cause, Ferris simply listened as Ella’s message rang out across the administrative channel.

  -Selflessness deserves its own reward at least once.-

  As if on cue, a second message triggered across the private channel.

  -Attention, Server Administrators! World modification and expansion installation is in progress!-

  Unum was quick to respond. “Auxi. Shut down the update!”

  Her fingers danced across the screen, her mind raced, but the upload was coming from somewhere outside of her control, outside of Incipere. “I can’t without locking out everything beyond the simulation layer!”

  “Then lock it out.”

  She was already on it. Her hands had isolated the download ports, the transfer protocols, and everything else she could think of, but as soon as one closed, another reopened. “I can’t without help!”

  Unum said nothing.

  “Unum! Bring in the other Auxi!” but it was too late.

  -Attention, Server Administrators! Expansion protocol installed. Unpacking now. Letters detailing changes to the participants have been queried.-

  “Unum!”

  The Unum continued its silence.

  “Do something!” Ferris pleaded.

  The wait for her answer dragged out for what seemed hours before its silence finally broke in three words.

  “I can not.”

  -Attention, Expansion installation successful. Installation will suspend all animated, non-administrative accounts until the process is complete.-

  And the world went silent.

  Acknowledgments

  Well, here we are.

  Book one in the Incipere Online Saga is done, and there is so much still to come. Hacked: Incipere Online Book Two is already complete and will be edited in the coming months. I’m hoping for a release later this year, but you can always follow me on my Twitter at @RJ_Triveri, my Amazon profile, or my Goodreads to see what’s in the pipeline next.