by D. J. Bodden
Instead, Jeff had taken his earphones off, moved the window with the video feed to the top right corner of his monitors, and done his job. He’d taken notes on Alan’s readouts—the man’s cortisol level had dropped, which was good because Jeff had been starting to worry the game was a technical marvel and a developmental flop. Gamers didn’t want to play games that made them feel like crap; they could get that in the real world.
He had another screen that graphed activity inside the server farm. V.G.O. didn’t have—and never would have—game masters. Instead, it had eight artificial intelligences that ran the virtual world.
Kronos, Cernunnos, and Thanatos, the AIs respectively responsible for physics and memory, monsters and wildlife, and data analysis, were constantly running in the background. Aediculus, the AI that procedurally generated cities and settlements, great and small, was also active, but his activity depended on the player and NPC economy, which was currently stagnant. Its processing share would increase on release day and with any expansions. Enyo, the AI that created conflicts for players to participate in, was dormant. Then there was Gaia, the AI that, for all intents and purposes, was responsible for drama. It took care of the weather systems and plants, but it also intervened directly to make life... interesting for both players and NPCs, from record crops that led to trade wars, to natural disasters that ended civilizations. “Lady Luck,” the devs called it, though Jeff didn’t like anthropomorphizing software. Its graph was a steady, low-level bar, with occasional spikes.
Sophia was the nickname the developers had for the AI responsible for game balancing. It kept the NPCs, players, and other AIs from destroying the world, and it had just gone active.
Jeff put on his headset.
“HEY, BUDDY, HOW’S IT going? Did I miss something?” Jeff said in my ear.
I smiled and shook my head, hoping Jeff got the message.
The soldier the old man and I were working on gave me a curious glance, then went back to talking to my companion in mendacity. “Did you say you were in the Legion?”
“Oh, no, sir!” the old man said, hanging off my arm. “I’ve neither the physical talent nor the strength of character for military service. I did a bit of traveling, though, and I spent many a night behind the shield of the Legion. You’re with Marquard’s Janissaries?”
The soldier stood a little straighter. He was young, barely in his late teens, but wore a thick, padded jacket, had a saber belted at his hip, and sported a full, waxed mustache. “Yes! How did you know?”
The old man tapped his nose and looked at me. “You ever hear of the Janissaries, boy? Tough as nails, that lot. They use Svartalfar muskets in battle.” He looked back at the soldier. “I smelled the saltpeter on your hands, young man, and the myrrh Marquard’s finest rub into their mustaches to keep the stench of the battlefield from their noses. It’s nice to feel the old traditions are being kept alive.”
The soldier beamed.
“How are the borders, son?” the old man asked, his voice serious.
The young man’s smile was tight. “We’re holding, sir. My unit... I shouldn’t say where we’re posted, but we’re doing what we can to keep things from spilling over into civilian areas.”
“I’m sure you’re doing your best. Bandits?”
“I really shouldn’t say, sir.” He smiled. I thought it was heartbreaking. At his age, I’d been worried about which major to choose and whether I’d get to sit next to Angela Hendrickson in calculus. “Is there anything I can do for you before I head back out?” the soldier asked.
The old man waved his hand. “I was going to ask you for a drink to toast fallen friends with, but—”
The young man pulled a whole silver—the equivalent of ten coppers—out of his pocket and laid it in the old man’s hand. “Have several, on me. We just got paid, but I won’t have time to spend it until I come back. Tell your friend a few stories about the Janissaries.”
“I will.”
The soldier grinned, brought his heels together and his fist to his chest, then sauntered off.
“Will he be all right?” I asked.
“Maybe,” the old man said. “The Janissaries were a slave unit, once, but now they only take volunteers. It’s the life he chose.”
It didn’t sit right with me, even if the soldier was an NPC. I found I was having a hard time remembering these people weren’t real. I watched the old man tuck the silver coin into a hidden money belt. He was smooth about it. If I hadn’t seen the soldier give him the coin, I’d have thought the old beggar was just scratching himself. “Why didn’t you lie to him?” I asked.
“About what?”
“About being in the Legion. Wouldn’t it have been easier to say yes?”
The old man glowered. “I told you I’m not a beggar, boy. Never lie to a mark unless your life depends on it. Never lie at all.”
“Even a white lie?”
The old man spat in the dust. “No such thing. Tell a lie out of kindness, and you rob someone of the chance to better themselves. There’s a difference between kindness and judging someone so weak they can’t bear what’s plain to see. Shape the truth; twist it around into something useful. If you can’t, keep your mouth shut.”
I didn’t know if I agreed with that. What he said was rational, almost noble in a sense. I wasn’t sure I owed people that much honesty.
The old man groaned and rubbed his lower back. He looked tired, and not just in a physical sense. Then he took a deep breath, straightening, and the grin crept back onto his face. “Let’s do one more. Then we’ll find ourselves a terrace with some chilled wine, a breeze, and shade to hide in for a few hours.”
I searched the crowd. The old man had been giving me pointers about how to pick my targets. I’d leveled my Keen-Sight skill a couple times, but I didn’t need it to spot my mark this time. He was young, like the soldier, but clean-shaven, with short, thick black hair. He wore the clean white tunic of a wealthy citizen, with two finger-wide red, vertical stripes from throat to hem. He must have left his toga at home to move faster; he pushed through the crowd, his face anxious, with one hand guarding a courier bag strapped across his body. “Some kind of nobleman. Let me try—”
“Not that one,” the old man said, gripping my forearm with surprising strength.
“Why?”
“Because he’s already being hunted, and he’s going to die.”
“What do you mean he’s going to die?”
“Look!” he said, extending both hands toward the marketplace and not quite managing to look at me with his milky white eyes. “Read the angles, boy! Have I taught you nothing?”
I focused on the plaza. The nobleman had reached the far end and strode through an archway. In the crowd behind him, a tall man with a vertical scar on his right cheek and a gray-skinned Risi shoved their way through the crowd, clubs drawn and focused on their prey. They flashed purple as my Keen-Sight skill marked them as hidden threats, and the word [Thug] appeared over their heads.
<<<>>>
Quest Alert: Save the Scion!
A nobleman has gotten himself lost in the wrong part of town. This is probably none of your business.
Quest Class: Unique, Faction-Based
Quest Difficulty: Moderate
Success: Save Provus Considia within 7 minutes.
Failure: Provus Considia dies.
Reward: 1,000 XP
Accept: Yes/No?
<<<>>>
Oh, hell. I took off after them. The moment I stepped forward, the prompt disappeared, and a timer appeared at the bottom of my field of view.
4:58
I pushed my way through the market crowd, squeezing between a couple holding hands and knocking over a servant carrying three live chickens in stacked wooden crates. Flapping chickens, feathers, and curses everywhere. Someone took a swing at me. I ducked, saw the gray Risi make it through to the archway and break into a lumbering run.
4:49
There was a narrow alley closer to me
that looked like it ran parallel to the one the nobleman, Risi, and now the scarred thug had vanished into. I took a chance. I jumped onto one of the palm-encircling benches and ran a few steps before dropping back down. I stepped over and through two street vendors’ floor displays, knocking over a full sack of almonds and very nearly twisting my ankle. More cursing, some of it stunningly descriptive if anatomically impossible. An oil seller jumped in front of his amphorae, arms wide and face panicked. I dodged right, bumped into a woman wearing a faded blue stola over her head and apologized over my shoulder as I sprinted down the alley.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Jeff said in my ear. “What’s going on?”
“Not now, man!” I took the first left, saw it was a dead end, and nearly skidded onto my ass.
4:24
I backtracked, took the next left, and ran to the next intersection. The cobbles were beating the crap out of my feet. A yellow Stamina bar appeared at the top right corner of my view, emptying with alarming speed.
I took a right, now on the same side street as the trio I was after, and ran on, breathing hard. In the real world, Osmark had tried to get me to run with him, but I always came up with an excuse not to go because I didn’t want to get shown up by my boss. I jogged on my own time to clear my head and stop myself from looking like I spent all day in an office, but my level 1 body was in even worse shape than my real one. My Stamina bar ran out as I reached the end of the street.
I’d emerged onto one of the wider avenues I’d seen from the upper city. The road, paved with wide, fitted stones, ran straight and clear from one of the large, fortified gates in the outer wall and passed to the right side of the Heights, near some kind of colosseum. Palm trees were planted at regular intervals on either side. In between was a slow and steady flow of carts and people—dozens of ox-, horse-, and donkey-drawn wagons, and hundreds of pedestrians of every race I knew of in the game.
3:26
I started moving. I didn’t know how and when the thugs were going to attack, but I knew the general direction the nobleman had been heading. There were just too many distractions. A group of four armored Risi completely blocked my sight until I got around them. A pair of Accipiters flitted down the avenue, chasing after each other. “Jeff! I need help!”
“Dude, your heart rate’s—”
My pace faltered. “Am I dying?” I asked, suddenly less concerned about the game than my heart exploding in the real world.
“No, just—”
“Damn it, Jeff!” I started running again. “Help me find—”
Something flashed purple in the corner of my eye. I looked and saw the gray Risi charging down a side street.
2:56
<<<>>>
Ability: Keen-Sight
A passive ability allowing the observant adventurer to notice items and clues others might not see.
Ability Type/Level: Passive/Level 5
Cost: None
Effect 1: Chance to notice and identify hidden object increased by 30%.
Effect 2: 1% chance of slowing time 90% for 5 seconds on spotting an enemy or triggering a trap.
<<<>>>
I dismissed the notification and changed direction, heading straight across the avenue. I spooked a yoke of oxen, making the two big beasts low, eyes rolling, and they backed into the cart they were pulling. I saw the driver stand and raise her whip. The lash fell across my back and upraised arm, and my Health dropped more than a sliver. For a second, I felt the urge to turn and pull the Wode off her cart and rip the whip from her hands, woman or not, but the timer kept winding down, and I kept moving.
I made it to the side street, another alley wide enough for three people or maybe a handcart, and followed it around a bend to find... nothing. The alley kept going for a hundred yards without meeting another road, wide or narrow, and it was empty.
1:15
I slowed to a walk. There were dozens of doors, a stairway to the second and third level of a condominium, a metal plate shaped like an anvil... I thought of the old man and closed my eyes, listening.
“...the money? There’s only paper in this...”
I yanked on the wooden double doors to my right—they weren’t locked or barred—and burst into a small courtyard. The scene flashed purple, and time slowed.
0:44
The gray Risi and his scarred friend were crouched over the nobleman’s courier bag. The Risi’s mouth was twisted into a snarl, his hand raised to show the scarred Imperial a sealed scroll. Time was moving so slow, I saw his eyes widen and slide toward me gradually instead of an instant flick. Behind and to the left, the nobleman was on his toes, back arched, and it was only by focusing on him that I noticed the Dokkalfar. The Murk Elf was dressed in gray leathers and had an ash-colored bandana covering his face. He had his fists raised on either side of the nobleman’s neck, and wire glinted silver between them. The nobleman had gotten his left hand up between the wire and his throat, palm out. The Murk Elf was sawing through his fingers. Off-balance and in pain, the nobleman was reaching for the short sword on his left hip.
0:39
Time picked up again. I charged. The Risi’s eyes flicked to me. The scarred man turned, drawing a dagger. The Dokkalfar kicked the back of the nobleman’s knee. I felt big, rough fingers slip off my ankle as the nobleman gave in to panic and grabbed at the wire with both hands, and I plowed into him and his would-be assassin at full speed. The three of us slammed into the far wall. I went down sideways, dropping onto my shoulder with a loud pop. The nobleman ducked, spun, and drew his short sword across the assassin’s stomach, between the Murk Elf’s cuirass and leather belt.
The timer stopped at 0:35 and faded.
<<<>>>
Debuff Added
Dislocated Shoulder: You cannot use your left arm and cannot cast mage spells requiring hand gestures; duration, 1 minute 30 seconds.
<<<>>>
“Alan?” Jeff said. “Alan, are you okay?”
My Health bar, at the top left of my sight, had dropped to 50%. I couldn’t hear anything. My left shoulder was further forward than it should have been, and the pain was like a bell ringing over my head. I rolled onto my back, my mouth wide open. I’m not an athlete. I’ve never been in the military. I think I screamed.
“You’re okay, man. Your vitals are all over the place, but you’re okay,” Jeff said.
The part of me that descended from fiercer men and women was alert enough to see the Dokkalfar stagger toward me, a curved dagger drawn, and I thought I’d probably done enough.
<<<>>>
Log out: Yes/No?
<<<>>>
EIGHT
I WAS GOING TO CHOOSE “yes.” I was. Then I saw the nobleman’s short sword punch out through the Dokkalfar’s throat, and warm blood spattered my face. I shuddered and tried to blink it out of my eyes. The Risi started forward, but his scarred friend grabbed him by the arm, and the two thugs backed away while the nobleman stood, back to the wall, bloody sword in his right hand and his own blood dripping from his ruined left, eyes unblinking. He looked like the hero in an action flick. I looked like an extra in a horror movie.
When the thugs were gone, the nobleman hurried to his bag. I couldn’t believe it. What an asshole. What an absolute douche—
“Easy, friend,” he said, tipping something into my mouth. I choked a little, then managed to swallow. My shoulder popped back into place. It hurt so much, I laughed. My Health bar started to refill.
“I have to deliver these dispatches,” the nobleman said, stuffing papers and scrolls back into his bag. “I don’t know who you are, friend, or where you came from, but you have the thanks of House Considia.”
A flood of notifications filled my screen. I scooted backward as fast as I could, blind and defenseless. “Jeff! How do I disable the notifications?” I yelled.
They disappeared.
“Pretty much like that,” Jeff said. After a moment, he added, “Holy balls, dude.”
“Yeah,” I said, sitting up a
gainst the wall, my eyes on the door to the courtyard. The nobleman of House Considia paused in the doorway to check the street, then he was gone. The two thugs I’d chased were gone. It was just me and the Murk Elf’s body. Outside the rush of battle, little details popped out. He was older, maybe in his fifties, with wrinkled skin and gray hair. The tip of one of his ears had been cut off; the injury was old and healed over. He had startlingly ice blue eyes with different-sized pupils, though I wasn’t sure if that last bit was normal or because he was dead. His blood was as red as mine. It had leaked and sprayed out through his abdomen and throat.
“Wow, that’s gory,” Jeff said.
“Yeah,” I said. After what I’d just been through, that was all I could manage. My Health was full, my debuffs cleared, I was just a little... Shit. Shit shit shit shit. Did that really just happen?
“Hey, man, I know you’ve just been through a lot, but you should probably get moving. Those guys might come back.”
I nodded. Even if they didn’t, I was still trespassing, and there were inconveniently few witnesses around to testify I hadn’t murdered the elf in front of me.
Murder. The word made my stomach flip.
“Alan!”
I jumped. Right. I got to my feet. I stepped forward. The dead elf twitched. I scooped up the curved dagger he’d dropped and held it out in front of me, straight-armed, like if the trained assassin was going to go through the trouble of coming back to life, that four-inch piece of steel and my impressive lack of skill would keep him off me.
He didn’t get up, and at some point in that minute or mere seconds, I remembered. This is just a game. I exhaled a breath I felt like I’d been holding forever. “Jesus Christ,” I said. I ran my left hand through my hair. It came away slick with NPC blood, and that was okay. Impressively realistic, but okay.
“Alan, dude, you’re freaking me out.”
“I’m okay, Jeff. Thanks. Let me just loot the body.”
“Loot the... Yeah, that’s a good idea, man. Stone cold.”
I winced. He made it sound like I was some kind of monster. I was just being pragmatic. Thankfully, that pragmatism didn’t have to extend to stripping the elf down by hand; as soon as I touched his shoulder, an inventory menu popped up. Bracers that hid throwing spikes, a gambeson—a black quilted jacket with dozens of metal plates sewn into the lining—a pair of reinforced black trousers, and a pair of split-toed boots all had some serious bonuses to Stealth and Dexterity, but they were class locked. I wasn’t an assassin, and probably wouldn’t become one, so I dumped them into my inventory without pause. Two silvers and five coppers, a fortune relative to my poor beginnings, went into my actual pockets. The garrote wire was nowhere to be found, but I did equip a black embossed leather belt with +3 armor, a +3 bonus to Dexterity, and a back sheath for my new dagger. I put the curved, blackened blade away and flipped my tunic over it, then walked out through the same door I’d come in.
