Continue Online (Book 1, Memories) (33 page)

None
of the priestesses paid me any attention despite my stellar
commentary. I shuffled over to the edge and looked off into the
distance. Even fuzzy there was a definite beauty to this scene,
especially up high. A wind breezing through brought that fish smell
of the ocean, which was unique to a land dweller like me.

“
Nice
view. I bet the sunsets are something.” I commented to the
statue. Even though it was unlikely Selena was paying that much
attention to me.

Slowly
I eased to the ground, much to the relief of my knees.

“
Wish
my eyesight wasn’t so terrible.” A growl of my tummy and
the dipping bar to one side of my view also explained other things
currently lacking. I tilted my head back and spoke to the statue
again.

“
You
know why I’m here? I doubt your ladies invited me for a
picnic.”

“
Certainly
not, Will. From what I remember your cooking was terrible.” And
that was a deceptively sweet voice full of artificial cuteness.

“
You’ll
have to come around. I’ve grown to love the view.” In
reality moving again would hurt more.

“
It’s
a view I’ve enjoyed myself many times.” The woman with a
fake syrupy voice came nearby and sat down. She was plump, short, and
far too chesty. I only gave her a side glance and registered the
system boxes providing me information. She was a High Priestess of
Selena. Carver’s information included everything from age, food
preferences, to less public items. Such as a birthmark location and
most common saying while being…compromised. It had been awhile
since I compromised anyone on the level William Carver's information
suggested. Goodness.

She
was certainly younger. Score one for Old Man Carver, I guess. I
slowly scanned through the information and tried to gloss over the
more lewd details. Turned out they hadn’t been together in that
fashion since the woman took on her role as High Priestess, so years
ago.

Oh.
That’s why I was here.

“
Have
you given more thought to giving Selena your oath?” Her name,
Peach, sort of went with her general complexion.

“
No.”
I wasn’t even lying in the slightest amount. I, Grant Legate,
had given no thought to Selena getting my oath or anything else. I
moved past that one during the trial room. Unsurprisingly the
declaration gained me more progress points.

“
Still
the same old bull-headed man.”

I
grunted, either from pain or in response.

“
Hip
okay?” She kept glancing sidelong at me. My simulated eyesight
wasn't so bad that I couldn't see her head turn. Subtly was not in
her skill listing.

“
Fine.”

“
Shoulders?”
Would Carver flinch at her tone? No, he found it endearing. Joy. I
shook my head.

“
Good
as ever.” I licked at a dry lip and pondered how to handle all
this.

“
That’s
your way of saying it hurts every time the wind blows, right, you old
goat?” The curve-laden woman gave a laugh. Hah. This woman
clearly knew Carver despite a grumpy exterior. Nor did she hesitate
to point out his age. Hopefully, I wouldn’t screw up and betray
Carver's recent passing.

“
Ah
well. You never admit anything anyway.”

“
Nope.”
I managed to avoid nodding in confirmation. According to the
information popping around me, this conversation was common. Weekly
if I were to gauge. Wyl always had a guard take over the Guide duties
below on the beach. Overall it was interesting NPC behavior.

“
The
Voice sent me a dream last night.” Her sweet voice managed to
twist at the end. A slight gurgle that must mean unhappiness.

“
And?”

“
Selena
showed me you, walking through a door into the beyond.”

“
Was
it white?” My eyes narrowed in thought.

“
Pure,
like fresh snow.” She nodded but had no hint of joy on her
face. Her sweet tone of voice betrayed no additional information.

“
Mh.”
So Selena, the Voice who had never said a word, sent a picture of me
in the trial room to her follower? My mind was splitting across this
conversation and following my earlier train of thought. Wait a
minute. How had this not occurred to me before? How exactly did an
NPC die before their time, and be taken over by a player?

“
I’m
worried about you, William.” Her voice cracked a little.

“
Don’t
be. I’m as healthy as an ox.”

“
Hah!”
She laughed and broke the sweetened voice completely before coughing
and getting back into the act. “You might fall over without
that cane.”

Suddenly
I wanted to get away from the High Priestess and back to my bench.
Carver's Journal would be read in a new light. One where he wasn’t
a computer generated creature, but a real player. One who had somehow
been in this game years before public release. I sucked in my breath.
Was he a beta player? Was Carver a Trillium employee? No wonder the
Voices cared about his memory so much. Everything about this setup
made so much more sense. A Trillium employee would be a VIP on this
side of the ARC. The player who owned William Carver had died. What a
crazy game.

“
Are
you alright, William?”

“
My
hips are okay.”

The
woman sighed.

“
William.
I’ve been watching, the last few weeks you’ve been
distant, almost like you weren’t even there. Now, today, I saw
a bit of spring in your step, but something’s wrong. I can
tell.”

I
gave a faint smile with both eyes glued on the distance. If I was
able to leap into this role and gain all my points, perhaps Carver's
cover would have been better.

There
was a squabble of noise coming near the cliff. I sighed.

Sure
enough, flopping out of the air with a small bird was the
[Messenger's Pet]
. They came in with a roll of feathers and
decaying chirps. My tiny dragon buddy had managed to tuck one wing in
as the tangled mess spun a few more times. It shook me out of the
confused thought spiral I had descended into.

“
Is
that?”

“
A
small dragon. Yes.” Question answered and points lost. Go team
me.

“
No.
It’s a Messenger's Pet. Isn’t it?”

I
wasn’t sure how to respond so I said nothing. Carver's messages
from beyond had rather firmly advised me not to answer questions
without an exchange.

“
Oh,
William.” And for some reason the woman next to me became
extremely sad and hugged this old man’s head. I was amazed at
the detail of my situation. Her skin felt like real skin, fingers
felt warm, William Carver was extremely frail and the motion hurt.

Finally,
with no further words, she walked away and left me alone. There I sat
in confusion, staring at the small dragon tear into his prey's
remains. Two women had found my buddy's presence strange. Why did
that make me sad?

“
What
did you do, huh?” The dragon crunched on a bone and provided no
response.

“
Fine.
Back to work then.” My cane wobbled around without finding
solid purchase. Eventually, I managed to get the pseudo leg under me
and wandered off down the hill. Back to my bench, and back to my,
his, journal. Wait. I am not William Carver. William Carver is dead.
The thought shook me.

Tonight,
when Carver went to bed and I could log out without risk, I would
look up Trillium's site. Maybe there was be something useful. A
salute to a deceased employee, assuming William Carver wasn’t
played by some random no name from across the globe. I wanted to see
the real world face of the man whose body I occupied.

Happy
place, I had to stay in my happy place. I had to not think about
people who William had left behind, or how badly my acting skills
were. Let’s not dwell on the fact that this body had belonged
to flesh and blood, not a digital cutout. People might be watching me
right now and commenting on a clearly lacking performance.

Oh
goodness. I’m a failure. I’m screwing it all up again.
Happy place, countdown, focus on walking. Set a simple task, get to
the bottom of the hill, and relieve the guard, read a book. Follow
the simple on-screen prompts telling me how to be someone else.

Oh
goodness.

Steps
were interspersed with clenched eyes and waves of aching. Pauses to
rest were taken while the tiny
[Messenger's Pet]
got into
fights with anything that moved. All manner of creatures were
subjected to his rage. Stray
[Coo-Coo Rills]
, birds of strange
origins, even flowers waving in a breeze. No fire was used in the
harming of animals, however. I guess he preferred his meat raw.

Little
Savage.

I
tried to bonk him with the cane in passing, which nearly sent me
tumbling for a pure miss. He gave me a halfhearted hiss before
tearing into the latest floral victim.

Once
on the bench, I started reading. Six game days passed with this basic
routine. Sit on a bench, give new players mindless tasks. Two players
were sent on follow up quests regarding Mylia. Neither one came back.

If
William Carver was a real person then the whole quest system he got
was something granted by the computer. The system must be extremely
neat to pull this off. I shuffled William back to his home for the
night and log out. Once there I gave researching Trillium employee
information a go. Turned out being a private eye was not one of my
skills, not even using the ARC or Hal Pal’s interactive
responses.

I
gave up quickly and took a nap before hopping back into the ARC to
live as Carver. My brain was getting all messed up from living this
way, but it also felt like a really, really, long vacation. In a dead
man's virtual body.

Right,
I had to keep shifting my focus to positive items. I managed to build
up my progress bar to over fifty percent. That was good. Carver had
five journals covering decades in-game, which was also good. It let
me narrow the search down to employees who had worked with Trillium
for years. Plus the stories were funny. There was a theme to the
autobiography. He wrote about his friends Michelle and Yates, well,
friends was too strong, they seemed more like office members. None of
them moved around as much as William had. William went everywhere in
the game. Michelle went from one crafting skill to another, to
another, and rarely left the same city.

Yates,
if the stories were believed, had traveled to other planes and
written entire books on it. He played this game and scrawled out all
of his findings on digital ink. Had they been like Carver's? There
wasn’t anything that outright said ‘I’m a player’,
maybe the game had censored things.

And
everywhere that Carver went, the
[Messenger's Pet]
was sure to
follow. He hung out randomly in the Atrium of my ARC. He wandered
near William Carver while being logged in. By the end of day two of
real time, I expected to wake up to the tiny dragon's presence inside
my real world room. He seemed trapped in the digital landscape. Turns
out dragons pooped excessively large amounts.