by Rachel Aaron
Burning with renewed determination, Tina turned on her armored heel and marched down the road to address her raid, such as it was.
A few dozen feet from where she and SB had been standing, thirty-seven players stood out from the gray landscape like neon stars. The glow of their enchanted weapons and armor transformed the Deadlands’ dusty air into a rainbow prism, and their wildly colored hair, hats, and vanity decorations showed no sign of the dirt that clung to everything else. But while they looked like an army of radiant gods, they acted like a bunch of bored teenagers.
The players stood in small packs, some chatting, others dancing half-heartedly or fiddling with in-game toys. One group was sitting in the dirt with their weapons discarded around them, blatantly watching anime on a giant floating screen someone had projected into the shadow of a destroyed catapult. Tina couldn’t believe no one was complaining about such an immersion-breaking faux pas, but what else was there to do? All the other raiding guilds had long since gone ahead into their own private versions of the Dead Mountain dungeon, yet her crew was still standing around, doing nothing.
Tina ran a metal-gauntleted hand over her character’s face. Everyone in front of her met the minimum requirements for the dungeon—she wouldn’t have invited them otherwise—but this was a shit group. Other than the pack of Roughnecks hanging out together in the back and a few regulars who weren’t in the guild but always came to Tina’s raids when she invited them, no one had end-game gear. Taking a raid like this into the hardest instance in the game was just begging for an ass kicking, but giving up meant another week without bringing any new blood into the guild, putting them even farther away from a Once King kill.
That was too close to defeat for her to stomach. Gritting her teeth so hard she could feel the pressure in her real head beneath the VR helmet, Tina waved her arm for the raid announcement command. The second she finished the gesture, a gleaming silver megaphone appeared in her character’s fist. She was raising it to her mouth to order everyone into the mountain, ass kicking be damned, when she heard SB calling her name.
Tina looked over her shoulder to see the elf running toward her, and she felt her real face again as a blush spread over her cheeks. Watching SilentBlayde move was one of her guilty pleasures. As an elven Assassin, his character model had fluid animations that the less graceful classes, even those played by elves, simply couldn’t match. She’d actually tried the combo herself back when she’d first gotten into FFO and had a pretty fun time.
Then she’d made Roxxy.
It had taken less than five levels before Tina was hooked. Her stonekin Knight was eight feet tall and seven hundred pounds of armored elemental fury. With granite for skin and copper for hair, Roxxy was striking rather than pretty as her elf had been, but Tina didn’t care. Playing her stonekin felt titanic. Even when the game’s Human Analogue Translation System made it feel as if she was walking on stilts inside her giant character, it was worth the inconvenience, because that size was power. Unlike her real-life self, people paid attention when Roxxy spoke, and Tina loved it. Even better, stonekin didn’t blush, which meant her character’s face at least was fine when she turned around.
“Please tell me you’ve found eleven geared players to come and save us,” she said as SilentBlayde slid to a graceful stop beside her.
“Not eleven, but I might have one,” he said, blue eyes shining above the ninja mask that covered the lower half of his face. “James just came online.”
What little of Tina’s good mood watching SB had brought back evaporated at the mention of her brother’s name. “So?” she said sourly. “James never says yes when I invite him.”
“He does sometimes, and he’s always top notch when he shows up.” SilentBlayde gave her a warm look. “Just try him. The worst that happens is he says no.”
That was not the worst that could happen, but she wasn’t in a position to be picky, and they could use another healer. She was weighing the salvation of her raid against the emotional minefield that was spending time with her brother when the inside of her head began to ring.
“Speak of the devil,” Tina said, glancing up at the corner of her vision, where a green phone icon was pulsing next to a picture of James’s tired face. “Hang on, SB. Looks like he’s calling me.”
SilentBlayde stepped back politely, and Tina tapped the icon to pick up the call, trying her best to inject some enthusiasm into her voice as she said, “Hi, J. You logging in soon?”
Her older brother’s reply spoke directly into her head. “Hi, T. Yeah, I’m on the character-selection screen right now.” She could hear the nostalgic FFO login music through his speakers as James’s voice took on a suspicious level of charm. “You want to ditch raiding for a night and come get something amazing with me?”
Tina snorted. “Amazing like that stupid fire rabbit pet you spent twelve hours grinding for last Saturday?”
“Hey, that drop normally takes a year to get!” James said defensively. “And I did it in eleven hours because I saved up all those luck potions from the April Fools’ Day event. But forget the fire rabbit. I found something way cooler. Get this: there’s a place in the Verdancy where the game developers are building part of the next expansion. We can sneak inside if we wall-walk just right, and—this is the best part—it says on the internet there’s an active quest giver who awards some kind of giant-lizard mount! Wouldn’t it be cool to be two of the only people in the world riding it?”
“Sounds like asking for the ban hammer to me,” Tina said, glancing at her wilting raid. “I have a better idea. Why don’t you come raid with me for once? We’re short for the Dead Mountain. If you help us out, I’ll guarantee you one piece of loot if we kill anything.”
“Thanks,” James said, the excitement draining from his voice, “but I’ll pass.”
“I can’t believe you’re turning down free loot,” Tina said angrily. She was being dangerously generous bribing him like that, and she knew that he knew it.
“Dying all night is not free,” James countered. “And it’s not fun, either. I appreciate the offer, but I just want to kick back and explore tonight, not slave away in a raid.”
“No, I get it,” Tina said. “You’re good for messing around with some buggy wall walking but not for helping me.”
Her brother heaved a long sigh. “Tina, this is a game. It’s not supposed to be work. I’m already working three jobs to pay my student loans. More hard stuff is not what I want right now.”
“And whose fault is that?” Tina snapped. “If you’d finished college instead of slacking off for five years, maybe you wouldn’t have to work three jobs.”
“Tina—”
“Don’t ‘Tina’ me,” she said, probably sharper than she should have, but she couldn’t help it. As always, her brother’s complaining pissed her off more than anything else ever could. “That’s your entire problem! You never want to do the hard work. I had to pay for college all by myself, but I’m leading a world-first raiding guild and on track to graduate on time because I’m not lazy.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” Tina said with a sneer. “I knew you wouldn’t come. You always flake out when I need you. Have fun doing your bullshit alone.”
James started to sputter more excuses, but Tina had already jabbed her finger into the silver X, closing the voice chat. She was still fuming when she noticed the concerned look SB was shooting her from above his ninja mask.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just…that was a little harsh. Don’t you think?”
“That’s why I didn’t want to talk to him!” Tina cried. “It royally pisses me off. He’s one of the best healers in the game, yet he wastes all of his time on meaningless crap. It’s the story of his life. I’d feel almost sorry for him if it wasn’t also the story of my life due to all the shit I’ve had to go through because of him!”
SilentBlayde winced as she finished, and Tina real
ized belatedly that she was yelling, which made her feel awful. SB didn’t deserve her temper. Her guilt intensified when he turned away, wrapping his arms around his waist in a sign she recognized as maximum SilentBlayde upset.
“I’m sorry, ’Blayde,” she said, running her hand through Roxxy’s copper dreadlocks. “I’m just stressed. It’s been an awful night. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
She paused, waiting for him to reply. When he didn’t, Tina winced. She was trying to think of what else she could say when the elf collapsed right in front of her.
“SB!”
Tina lunged to catch him but stumbled instead when a horrible pain stabbed into her chest. The agony quickly spiraled outward, spreading down her torso and into her limbs until her whole body felt as if it were being crushed. As she gasped for air, her first panicked thought was that she was having a heart attack. It had to be something in the real world, because this pain was way worse than anything the game allowed for. But when she forced her violently shaking hands up to cover her ears in an attempt to trigger the emergency logout command, something new slammed inside her.
It felt like hitting a wall at full speed. Her head went WHAM, then SPIN, then WHAM again as the world turned to blurry Jell-O. She could dimly hear the other players screaming as their hazy figures dropped like cut puppets. A second later, Tina went down too, pitching onto her face next to the inert form of SilentBlayde.
The blackout couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds. Tina almost wished it had been longer, though, because the moment she regained consciousness, all of her senses started trying to kill her. Her eyes were burning and blinded, and her body just felt wrong. It was too gigantic, too heavy. The sound of her own blood pumping was like hammer strikes in her ears, and her mouth was full of the gritty, acidic dust of the Deadlands.
It was overwhelming. Tina had never realized just how much FFO’s engine muted her in-game senses until they’d all kicked into overdrive. Even when she managed to roll over onto her back, the sullen gray light of the Deadlands scorched her eyes like she was staring straight into the sun. She threw an arm over her face to block it as she waited for the pain to fade, but that just let her focus on the roaring in her ears and the heaviness of her armor as it crushed her limbs. No matter what she did, the torment just kept going, rolling on and on without any hint of why it was happening or when it would stop. Then just when Tina was sure she was going to crack under the pressure, the hand she’d dug into the dirt beside her bumped something blessedly familiar.
Multiple small glass vials were strapped into loops on her belt. It was her potion holster, the place she kept her healing items for quick access while she was tanking. They were all still there now, and Tina grabbed one automatically, yanking a pan-elixir from the first slot. She knew it was stupid. Whatever was happening, it was obvious that the Sensorium Engine—the kinesthetic feedback system that allowed FFO to mimic physical sensation in virtual reality—was catastrophically broken. Hell, it was probably cooking everyone’s brains right now. A healing potion, even the most amazing cure-all in the game, was just a digital item. It couldn’t actually help her, but Tina didn’t care. She was willing to try anything to make the hurting stop, so she grabbed the potion and popped the cork, relying on years of habit to bring the vial to her mouth and dump it down her throat.
When she promptly choked on it.
Rather than simply vanishing as usual, the rainbow liquid of the pan-elixir splashed wetly against her tongue. Equally astounding was how good it tasted—like the freshest, sweetest strawberry smoothie that had ever been. It took a few coughs, but once she got it flowing down the right pipe, the magical ambrosia washed away her pain and confusion, replacing them with glowing warmth as Tina’s broken senses slammed back into place.
Strength surged through her limbs, causing the coffin-like weight of her armor to vanish. Light and free, Tina shot to her feet with such vigor that she missed her new center of gravity and nearly fell over again. Swaying from side to side, she wondered what the hell the Human Analogue Translation System was doing. Operating Roxxy had always felt a bit like walking on poles, but at least the game had more or less matched Tina’s real five-foot-tall body to that of the hulking stonekin. Now, though, she felt as if she was something else entirely.
Flailing for support, Tina grabbed one of the road’s crumbling stone signposts. Grabbed and missed, because her arms were now three times longer than she was used to. Off guard and off balance, Tina lurched forward to wrap the entire post in a bear hug. She was leaning on the stone to steady herself when the post cracked in half under her tremendous weight, sending her right back toward the ground.
She caught herself at the last second, narrowly avoiding another face full of dust. In her rush to stay upright, though, Tina accidentally took the top half of the broken post with her. The huge chunk of stone had to weigh a hundred pounds or more, but it felt like nothing in her arms. Surprised, Tina gave the stone a squeeze, grinning when the gray rock crumbled beneath her colossal strength.
It was incredible. All the previous sensory trauma was gone, forgotten in the power-drunk euphoria of the pan-elixir. As she steadied herself at last, Tina could feel the astounding strength of Roxxy’s body, her body, running through every muscle. She could smell the earth on her stone skin and taste the cool smoothness of her white marble teeth. The stonekin’s senses had completely overwhelmed Tina to the point where she couldn’t even feel her real body lying in bed at home anymore. She was still marveling at the way her stone hands moved like actual flesh inside her armored gloves when a loud, persistent, and terrifying noise finally beat its way through her magical high.
Tina looked up with a start. Someone was screaming. Lots of someones. Shaking her head to clear the last of the pan-elixir’s effects, Tina turned to see the rest of her raid thrashing on the road like an entire school of fish out of water. From the way their hands were covering their faces, she knew that they were going through the same sensory hell she’d just escaped. She still didn’t know what had caused the disaster—if it was a bug or some horrible new hack—but the pan-elixir had worked on her, so she grabbed another off her belt and dropped down beside the spasming SilentBlayde.
He cried out when she touched him, screaming in pain as her huge hand crushed his shoulder. Tina let go with a curse and eased up on her strength until she was cradling him like an egg. Next, she pinched the small potion bottle delicately between her giant stone fingers and popped the cork. When it was ready, she pulled down SB’s special-edition Fukumen Festival 2060 ninja mask and gently pried his clenched jaw apart just enough to shove the pan-elixir into his mouth.
After a few sloppy chugs, the elf’s hands flew up to cup the potion bottle. SilentBlayde finished the rest of the elixir in one gulp, then his bright-blue eyes snapped open as he slipped out of her grasp. He moved so fast, Tina didn’t even see him stand before he was on his feet in front of her, hands raised high over his head.
“Woooooo!” he cried, doing a perfect double back-flip. “That was amazing!”
“SB!” she snapped as he did a cartwheel. “Get a grip!”
Her voice—huge and deep now to match her body but still female—boomed across the dusty plain, and the frolicking elf covered his long ears in pain.
“Sorry,” she said at a much more reasonable volume. “But we’ve got problems.”
She pointed at the convulsing players, and the Assassin’s blond eyebrows shot up.
“Whoa,” he said, pulling his ninja mask back over his nose. “What’s going on, Roxxy? I felt like I was dying, but now I feel amazing. Never better in my life.” He reached up to touch his delicately pointed ears in wonder. “What’d you do?”
“Gave you a pan-elixir,” Tina replied, pulling off her backpack. “No idea what’s going on, but it worked for me, so I tried it on you. We need to get everyone else up or at least not in seizures. Got any pans on you?”
“Two on my holster plus a full stack of twent
y in my bags,” SB said proudly.
Tina whistled. “Damn, dude, you’ve been working hard.” Pan-elixirs were stupidly expensive to make. “I’ve got the main tank’s allotment in my pack, which is another twenty. Go get started administering yours, and the guild will pay you back. Get the healers first so we don’t all get slaughtered by some random monster.”
SilentBlayde saluted then popped the first of two elixirs off his belt holster as he moved toward the closest healer, a white-robed, fish-faced ichthyian Cleric who was curled up in a ball. Meanwhile, Tina turned her attention to her backpack. Between her and SB, they should have enough potions to get everyone up, but when she flipped her bag open and made the hand gesture to bring up her inventory, nothing happened.
“What the hell?”
She made the gesture again with the same result. Her backpack was no longer a void of floating icons representing her stuff. It was just an ordinary cloth rucksack filled with squashed bread. Grabbing the strap, Tina turned her bag upside down and shook it. Twenty loaves of bread, some gold coins, and three large iron bars fell out. She was staring in horror at the sad pile when she realized it wasn’t just her inventory that was broken. The entire interface was gone. Her health bar, defense points, ability icons, mini-map, chat log, raid list—everything she normally kept up was missing. Her vision was perfectly clear of all information overlays, including the level icons and player names for the raid in front of her.
Bag forgotten, Tina shot to her feet, swiping her hands through the menu gesture as she went. Just like with her backpack, though, nothing happened. She made the gesture to bring up the system menu next, but all she saw were her own giant steel-gauntleted arms waving in front of her.
She stopped, stone body shaking. As alarming as this situation had been so far, Tina had never questioned that it was caused by something explainable—a bug, a hack, a horrible malfunction—something that made sense. Now, every instinct she had was screeching at her that this was different. This wasn’t just an interface screwup. Something fundamental in the game had changed, something bad. She was struggling to make a list of everything that was broken when a wind blew down from the Dead Mountain’s battlements, carrying the faint sound of hundreds of screams.
