The three of them exchanged glances. Jace scratched his head. “Did either of you catch that?”
Both girls shook their heads. Mika rubbed her chin. “I think she said something about front street.”
“I think it was font street,” Diane corrected. “At least, that’s what I heard.”
Just then, a gnome-sized clockwork golem came walking around the corner. The thing was made of metal but had gears and pipes showing and as they watched, it let loose a huge puff of steam through a whistle on its head.
Thing carried a crate in its little metal arms and seemed to be in a hurry to get to the docks. It nearly ran into them but stopped suddenly just before colliding with them. Luna hissed at the thing and its head tilted towards her. It looked back at the rest of the group.
“Excuse me,” the thing said in a mechanical voice. “Please move aside.”
The group moved aside, and the strange golem continued on with its task. They watched it go and then resumed their own journey.
“That was odd,” Diana said, casting a glance over her shoulder. She shivered, even though it was warm out. “That reminds me a little too much of the spider golem creature I was when you met me. I can’t say those are pleasant memories.”
Jace nodded, remembering when he first met her in the Crystalburrow. She’d been a Veteribus construct in the ancient underground city. Jace had been sure she was going to kill them until he realized she was a player. Now, she was part of his group and he liked to think, a friend.
“At least you’re human now,” Mika smiled. “I was a yeti when he found me. I was very hideous.”
The two girls continued to chat about their experiences as monsters as they walked. Jace managed to stop another gnome and get real directions to the graveyard by telling the gnome he wished to pay his respects to his departed uncle.
The city seemed to have no pattern to the streets and they became lost several times before finding the east gate. From there, it was easy to find the graveyard but Jace held them back as they came within a hundred yards of the cemetery.
“What is it?” Mika asked.
“If Damian found out we were coming here,” he told her, glancing around the entrance to the graveyard, “he could be waiting for us. Most players know the first thing you do when you get to a new place is to set your bind point. It would make a great ambush spot.”
They each looked around but none of them spotted anything out of the ordinary. They saw players, mostly gnomes, spawning and running naked out into the forest or back into the city.
Jace frowned. Damian was high-level and rich enough that he could afford an actual invisibility item. They were very rare since they took away a vital function of rogues, namely their scouting ability. But with the money Damian had, he could afford it. And that was if he didn’t just create some item with code and insert it into the game where his character could find it.
“I don’t see anything,” Mika said.
“Me either,” Diana said. “Except for naked gnomes, which honestly, I could do without that sight.”
“Okay,” Jace motioned them into a huddle. “You stay here. I’m going to sneak over there and see if I notice anything.”
He brought out his magical cloak and started to put it on but paused. “If anything happens, don’t try and help. If it’s Damian, there’s nothing any of us can do. He’s too high-level.”
Mika opened her mouth to object but he held up a hand. “There’s nothing you can do. You can’t hurt him and he would just catch more of us.”
She looked hurt but bit her lip and nodded. Then she rushed at him and threw her arms around and kissed him hard. He wrapped his own arms around her and kissed her back. After a moment they broke away, breathless.
“Don’t let anything happen to you,” she breathed.
Jace nodded mutely, not quite sure what to say. He smiled and then threw his cloak on and disappeared. He started creeping across the space between them and the graveyard, keeping out of the way of passing players. While he might be in Stealth but if someone ran into him, they’d know he was there. And he didn’t want the attention.
He approached slowly, throwing glances all around him. He half expected Damian to suddenly pop-up in front of him. Yet, as he made his way to the entrance of the graveyard, his old co-worker didn’t materialize.
Of course, it was possible that he was here and just watching. Jace didn’t have any delusions that his level 10 cloak would be infallible against a level 90+ warlock. There were spells that allowed the caster to see invisible creatures and Damian would undoubtedly remember that Jace was a rogue from their last meeting.
Nervously, Jace entered the graveyard and stopped off to one side. Gnomes continued to appear as players respawned but otherwise, Jace saw no one. If Damian was here, he was hidden too well.
Knowing there was only one way to know for certain, Jace prepared to come out of Stealth. Then he remembered his ring. He had a teleport. If he could use it before Damian did anything, he just might have a chance. He touched the ring and a prompt appeared.
Do you wish to activate the stored spell? (Yes or No)
Jace left the prompt up so he could hit yes with a thought. Taking a deep breath, he left Stealth and hurriedly looked around him, trying to see if Damian or anyone else appeared. He jerked his head around for a full minute before finally accepting that no one was going to appear.
He quickly reset his bind point and then sent a mental note to Luna to tell the girls it was safe. A few minutes later, Nynymmost was now their new spawn point.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go check out the first tavern inside the gate and see who’s waiting for us.”
“What if it is Damian?” Mika asked.
“We use the same plan,” Jace told her. “I go in first, alone. No, it’s okay. I forgot about the teleportation spell in the ring. If I’m fast enough, I can activate it and get away. If so, I’ll port back to the pirate island and if that’s not an option, then back to Lasthaven. You two can catch up with me there.”
“Can’t you teleport all of us?” Mika asked. “Doesn’t it work on the whole group?”
“Yes but…”
“Then why does it matter if we’re with you or not? You can teleport us all out. Right?” she demanded.
“I… uh...”
Diana suddenly chimed in. “She’s got a point. If you can teleport us all, then there’s no reason to leave us behind.”
Jace looked from Diana to Mika. Both girl’s expressions were adamant, and he knew he wasn’t going to win this argument. He had unwittingly given them the ammo they needed to overcome his objects. Plus, they had a point. He could teleport the group.
“Fine! Fine!” he conceded, throwing his hands up in surrender. “We go in together. But stick close to me. The range is only about ten or fifteen feet.”
Mika moved in real close. “I can stay very close to you.”
Diana rolled her eyes, but he saw the corners of her mouth turn up. As for Jace, he found her sudden affection very pleasant. The feel of her body pressing against his was starting to make him react physically and he gently disengaged from her.
They reentered the city and walked down the main street. It was lined with shops of all sorts and they had to go almost two blocks before they found a tavern on their right. Above the door hung a sign with a large gear. Underneath the gear were the words “The Squeaky Wheel”.
“I hope they serve actual food inside and not an oil change for those little mechanical gnomes,” Diana said.
Mika nodded. “Hopefully they have waffles!”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Jace said and opened the door. At the same time, he pulled up the ring again and left the activation message on his HUD. One thought and they’d be gone. He hoped.
They entered the bar and looked around. Against the far wall, Jace caught the flash of familiar red hair and the long tapered ears. It was Charlena. She was sitting with her back to them, but it had to be h
er. He hadn’t met many other elves with red hair. And what were the chances that a red-headed elf would be in the same bar they were meeting Charlena in?
Then Jace caught sight of the person sitting opposite and his eyes opened wide. He recognized the person immediately. But it wasn’t Damian with her. It wasn’t the dark elf he’d met in Whitecliff. “Holy -”
“What?!” Mika asked. She’d seen his eyes go open wide and was looking around frantically. “Is it Damian?”
“No,” Jace managed to say and released the magic of the hat, allowing his appearance to go back to his normal self. “It’s…. Mordred. It’s… me.”
Chapter 30
Mordred stood up as he caught sight of Jace. In his mind, Jace referred to him as Mordred since referring to him as himself was just confusing. He knew this had to be the real him, the real Jace Burton, alive and in the real world.
Did this mean he, er the real Jace, was out of the coma? Or had he been put into a medical pod? And how was it that he was with Charlena? They didn’t even know each other in the real world. He suddenly felt unreasonably jealous of… well, himself.
Charlena saw Mordred stand up and she spun in her chair to see what he was looking at. She saw Jace and the girls but didn’t smile. If anything, he thought her eyes narrowed slightly. Jace sighed inwardly. What was up with this girl? One minute she likes him, then she runs off, then she comes back, then she runs off again. It was enough to drive him nuts.
The patrons gave Mordred wary glances and none of them reacted friendly to him. This told Jace he must have been working on his faction for the gnomes and probably had just gotten enough that he was tolerated inside the city. Had he not, the guards would have attacked him on sight since he was in the evil faction.
His alter ego, or perhaps original ego, looked him up and down. He also saw the two girls beside him and raised an eyebrow. The vampyre walked towards Jace and for a moment he considered using the teleport ring. Considering Charlena’s reaction to him, he had no idea what she might have told his real persona. Would the real him attack? Kill him? Or worse, report him and have him deleted?
Stopping a few feet from Jace, Mordred eyed him again, moving his head slightly to the right and left to get a better look at him. He didn’t mind. Jace knew he looked like a better version of his real body. The resemblance would be impossible to miss.
“So,” Mordred said. “You’re supposed to be me.”
Jace smiled. “I am you. At least, I was you up until the brain backup before the accident.”
Mordred didn’t react except to narrow his eyes. “Charlena told me that she told you about the accident, so that doesn’t prove anything. They don’t put backups in the game unless a person actually dies.”
“Normally, that’s true,” Jace admitted to himself. “But did she tell you that you, er we, or whatever, you were declared dead at the scene. My guess is, they called it in and that got the ball rolling. Then, they must have revived you on the way to the hospital or at the hospital or something but somehow you became a John Doe, so they never rescinded the death to WorldCog.”
Mordred’s brow creased as he considered Jace’s words. “That seems a bit far-fetched.”
“And yet here I am,” Jace retorted.
“But how do I know you’re really my backup?” Mordred asked. “And not just some elaborate hoax to get to me about the code I found?”
“You remember the code?” Jace asked.
Mordred looked pained. “Mostly. Things from the last few hours before the accident are a bit hazy.”
“I’m not a hoax,” Jace told him. “I’m you. At least, you as of when you left work that day. Since then, I guess we’ve diverged.”
“Prove to me that you’re really me,” Mordred said. “Tell me something only I would know.”
“Our family was killed in a car accident,” Jace told him.
Mordred snickered. “Anyone could have looked that up.”
“...and…” Jace continued. “The reason they died is because we didn’t go out with them to eat. We wanted to go with Lou and his family.”
“Also, something that could be looked up. I’m sure there’s an article on it somewhere on the internet,” Mordred frowned.
Jace sighed. The memory of his family’s death and the day or so surrounding it was burned into his memory. Both of their memories. And he knew details no one could know. “What no article will tell you is that while we were at the restaurant, Lou went to the bathroom and I, er you, us, whatever… we pretended we ate the rest of his fries but we were holding them under the table. But he got upset and punched us in the arm and caused us to drop the plate and spill them.”
Mordred was quiet. Jace could see he was trying to figure out any way someone else could know what he had just said. Jace added, “Dad loved the old vidstreams but his favorite one was the Princess Bride. But Luna hated it because when she was little, the giant guy scared her.”
He saw the corners of Mordred’s mouth curl up into the beginnings of a smile but he wiped it away and then shot back at Jace. “What’s my favorite old vidstream?”
Jace answered and then his alter ego fired back with other questions that he was able to easily answer. This went on for several minutes. Mordred would ask a question about a hobby or his life and Jace would answer it. Finally, he seemed to be satisfied and turned to Charlena. “I think he really is me. I mean, you know, a backup of me.”
Jace rolled his eyes. “I’m right here.”
Mordred cast a sidelong glance at him and smirked. “Sorry. This is really weird. Especially after waking up and finding out I was dead. Literally and figuratively.”
Charlena got up and walked over to stand next to Jace. She took Mordred’s hand in her own and Jace got the sense that this wasn’t something new. What was going on? They didn’t even know each other.
“So, you were telling the truth,” Charlena said, looking at Jace. He let his eyes drop to their intertwined hands and the back to her face. She blushed and looked sheepish. “We’ve been spending a bit of time together.”
Jace looked between his alter ego and Charlena. “What? When? How?”
Mordred chuckled. “I guess from your perspective this must seem pretty weird. Let’s sit down and we can fill each other in.”
The five of them cautiously went over to the table Mordred and Charlena had been sharing. Jace introduced Diana and Mika to his alter ego and they all sat down. Luna was already shrunk down to her normal size and she began to sniff at the two newcomers.
“It’s your familiar, right?” Mordred said as he slid into the chair next to Charlena. “You named it after Luna.”
Jace nodded, reached down and picked up Luna. He set her on his lap and began to stroke her. “I always wanted a cat.”
Mordred chuckled. “But mom was allergic.”
“Yup, so now I finally have one,” he said.
“And Charlena tells me you can talk to it?” Mordred asked, giving the cat a curious look.
“Not just Luna,” Jace replied. “Any monster. I have some left over skill from being a monster that allows me to talk to and understand any monster I’ve run across.”
“That’s fascinating,” Mordred nodded. “I wonder why the developers…”
Mordred trailed off as Charlena nudged him with her shoulder. He looked over at her sheepishly and smiled. “Sorry, tell me about what’s going on with Damian and you all being monsters.”
Jace smiled and looked over to the girls. “From what I can tell, that code we found is some modification to the insertion routine. It strips people’s money away and gives it to him and then puts the person inside of a monster, flagging them as some sort of AI.
“AI? How is that possible?” Mordred asked.
“No idea.” He shrugged. “Damian’s been at WorldCog a long time. Who knows how long he was working on this.”
“And you’re sure it’s Damian?” Mordred asked, his brow furrowed. “I mean, he’s a jerk…”
&nbs
p; “I saw him,” Jace said. “He’s a Duke and an Ambassador. You know how much that costs…”
Mordred stared off into the distance for a long moment and then slowly nodded. “That’s millions of dollars.”
“And if he had that kind of money, you know he’d be flaunting it at work,” Jace pointed out.
Mordred chuckled. “Oh yeah, he wouldn’t be able to help himself.” Mordred’s face grew concerned. “But then how did you uh we get put into a monster body? We don’t have any money.”
“To shut us up and keep us quiet,” Jace replied. “When you’re a monster, you can’t communicate with players. Whatever you say comes out as Monsterspeak. My guess is when he thought I... I mean, you… died, he hard coded it to insert you into a monster body.”
“Weird,” Mordred said.
“I know,” he replied. “I managed to use a code injection attack to change my entity type to human.”
Mordred nodded grimly. “About that. Charlena told me you all have changed classes several different times, without any penalty. Is that true?”
“Yeah, we’re human, we don’t get a penalty on experience when switching classes,” Jace replied.
“Actually,” Mordred countered, “that’s not true. I looked it up on the wiki to be sure. Humans don’t have penalties for the first class change, but after that, they incur the normal 25% experience penalty.”
“No,” Jace shook his head. “That can’t be right. We’ve all changed classes two or three times. Heck, I have four classes now. No experience penalty.”
Jace and Mordred both looked thoughtful and the girls all remained silent.
“What if…” Jace started.
“... you made yourself a beta character,” Mordred finished. The two Jace’s looked at each other and then burst out laughing.
“We’re like twins,” Jace said.
“Finishing each other's sentences,” Mordred agreed.
“So, you think we’re really some sort of beta race that never got deleted from the game?” Jace asked.
Veil Online - Book 3: An Epic LitRPG Adventure Page 19
