Continue Online (Part 3, Realities) (2 page)

Time passed as she read. Finally after feeling bewildered and darting about the room she rushed toward the man again. Only upon noticing the shaking did she regain enough sanity to back up to a reasonable distance.

"Mortal, is this true?" she asked.

"I don't know. I just deliver them," he responded.

"Voices above. If it is..." Her eyes lost focus and the chill of blue crawled across them again. Her smile filled with a longing that almost brightened incorporeal cheeks. "No, you must go, go now! Flirt with death in another's home. Not mine!"

"Okay. Goodbye then." He nodded while looking off to one side. His eyes were focused on something not in the tower.

"Farewell, Voices speed your way and light a path in the darkness," the ghost said.

"They've been kind enough so far." He gave a small smile that looked pleasantly tired.

Shaking filled the room again, more violent than before. The ghost and man were nowhere near each other. A look of worry filled her transparent eyes and she clutched both hands together.

"Go, foolish mortal! Go!" she said.

The man nodded, and vanished in a puff of black energy. Still the tower shook.

Six people stood in a tent staring down at an unrolled scroll. Words littered down the page and pushed miniature figurines across a small map of the region. The commander, one Lute Strongarm, had been gathering patrol information until just moments ago.

Now she stared down at the scroll along with her second in command, a guardswoman by the name of Uncle Meanface. Uncle Meanface was a female half-ogre that towered over most people. Only around Commander Strongarm did she take one knee.

"Are these orders accurate?" Commander Strongarm gestured down at the scroll. Light armor clinked around. Never did she risk taking any of the gear off. There were a great number of spies about that would love to put an arrow in her.

"They seem to be. Those is the Queens' Seals," said Uncle Meanface. She sounded like a gruff old man, and a lot of the time she smelled intensely of unwashed pits, despite the heavy cold.

Even now the other people in the tent lifted a flap to let in a chill breeze. Commander Lute Strongarm paid them no mind.

"But this makes no sense. Why would she order us to pull back?" the Commander said. Her voice was far more feminine next to the gruff female half-ogre. Almost anyone's would be.

"Are there reinforcements? More Travelers? We're barely holding on to this post as it is." Another man came up near the first two ladies. He looked down at the letter and map. His fingers traced along one of the routes into northern provinces.

"Two generations of fighting, thousands of our people's lives lost. It's only now with the Travelers on our side that we've managed to make any headway," said another man from the doorway. He stood there huffing in the fresh air as if it were a lifeline. This man did not wear armor but instead had a long white and brown robe on.

"This is preposterous," the Commander said as her fist crashed onto the table knocking figurines over.

"I know, Ma'am," the man said.

"And she wants us to pull back?" Lute Strongarm spun around while waving both arms.

"You read the orders. I don't pretend to understand what the Queen is thinking, but orders is orders." The huge half-ogre woman was fairly articulate given the protruding bottom jaw and longer teeth.

"Honestly. If only my brother-in-law hadn't died then maybe someone would have their head on straight." The Commander stormed around the area.

Two of the six people inside this tent were Travelers for opposing guilds. They both wore a look of anxiety as they tried to transcribe the events to their guild members across the region. While Commander Strongarm had concerns befitting someone who belonged to this world, their interests were much different. If the Locals pulled out then there was no telling what might happen to this base and all the hunting grounds. The system may yank their resurrection point and any number of other issues.

Or maybe there were hidden quests tied to this change. Both Travelers lit up at nearly the same time.

"Is we following the orders, or is we staying put?" the half-ogre woman, Uncle Meanface, asked.

"If we pull out now, then the Travelers will have no supply lines. They'll hold what, a week? Two?" one of the Local men asked. It was the same person who had traced a scouting line earlier. His fingers ran across a grouping of knocked over skeletons. The man gradually set them back up.

"Travelers is tough. Maybe some of them is able to figure out a better idea," Uncle Meanface said from her bent knee position.

"Voices, damn those girls. Who delivered this letter?" Commander Strongarm demanded an answer from the half-ogre woman.

"A messenger. Came striding in, didn't even care 'bout no weather," Uncle Meanface answered, an unusual harshness in her tone.

"Any markings? A flag? Some other emblem? Surely the Queens wouldn't have sent him alone up here," the Commander asked. Her own tone seemed to cool the angrier she got. Right now she had managed to reach upset but not outright livid.

"Didn't care one wit. He was a Traveler as well. Moved quick like, vanished from spot to spot. Had a huge black staff." Uncle Meanface listed off everything she had noticed of the approaching Traveler.

"Anyone we know?" Commander Lute asked the people about her.

"No," responded one of the Local men. He stared at his pile of miniature skeleton figurines. His nose sniffed sadly as one of the skeleton figures fell over revealing a broken leg.

"Is this Traveler one of yours?" Commander Lute Strongarm turned to the two guild representatives.

They both checked the air nearby and then shook their heads in perfect unison. "We have no one like you described among our rosters," answered one guild member. The other guild representative kept shaking his head sadly.

"Then these orders are suspect." Commander Strongarm picked up the scroll from her war planning table and read through it once more.

"What is we going to do then?" Uncle Meanface asked her commander. The only woman she acknowledged as a superior in combat.

No answer came forth right away.

Liz Legate was pacing around her spacious kitchen. She loved this house simply because of all the room to wander around. It made dealing with situations like the one she was in a bit easier.

"
Ms. Legate?
"
a voice abruptly said.

"Yes. I'm still here," Liz said. Twenty minutes on the phone and this had been the furthest she had gotten. At least this latest representative didn't act like a robot.

"Thank you for holding," the representative said. It was enough to make Liz regret her assumption that this person was human. Maybe she was in a foul mood. "I was able to validate your status as Grant Legate's legal guardian."

"And? My other questions?" Liz said impatiently while doing another lap across the kitchen floor.

"It took a bit to get anything out of the machine. But after four attempts, I have at least an initial report on the information you wanted." The representative for Trillium International truly sounded excited to be able to help someone.

"Okay. What does it say?" Liz tried not to grind her teeth. Getting answers out of these people was pure torture.

"I'll send over the time stamped log, did you want me to walk you through it?" the representative offered. Their voice was controlled and well-paced. All in all, they basically sounded like a robot, which only made Liz more upset.

"Yes, please." She was saying please to a machine, which also annoyed her. "My brother was the one who was good with numbers. I never could get the hang of them."

"Well, to sum it up, for three weeks, your brother has been playing almost nonstop. There are five character termination occurrences in here, each one self-inflicted according to the damage log," it said calmly.

"So he's killing himself?" Liz tried to focus as the floor dropped and everything spun. She sat down in a rush before everything tilted too far.

"In the game, yes-" The representative sounded nearly human for a moment. Their next words came out as a conspiratorial whisper, "-I am required to point out that in-game behavior may differ from anything that happens outside."

"Where does your company draw the line?" Liz yelled into the phone.

"Pardon?" the representative said. There was a questioning tone and almost tangible movement of their head as something shuffled in the background.

"It's reality in there. To anyone who plays, how does Trillium justify this kind of mental abuse?" Liz had skipped into a complete unleashing of all the thoughts building up in her head. These last few weeks had weighed heavily upon her mind. She was reaching her limit in trying to understand what her brother was thinking and figuring out how to fix it. Or if she should fix it.

Liz knew one thing, anything that might push her brother over the edge again should be avoided. After cleaning up his last two attempts...

"I'm afraid I can't answer that. I would need to direct you to..." the representative was saying something that Liz almost missed.

"Save yourself the effort. I still have power of attorney, I'll take steps myself if I need to," she snapped into the phone. Moments later the call disconnected and Liz sat at her kitchen table, flustered at everything going on.

The biggest thing on her mind was being thankful that Beth had left the house earlier that day. A call like that wouldn't be good for the young girl's mind.

Liz looked out the sliding glass door that exited her kitchen. The back porch hardly saw any use now that her daughter had grown up. The rails and steps leading down used to scare her so much. There was plastic sheeting that went between the rail posts to prevent someone small from slipping out.

Beth seemed okay now, but her brother, her slightly younger twin brother, was in danger as well. To Liz, restricting Grant's access to Continue Online was like putting plastic between the porch rails to prevent someone who didn't know better from falling.

"I'm sorry, Grant, but I think you need to come back to reality," Liz muttered to herself while sipping lukewarm coffee.

[Camp Grey Skull]
sat on one side of
[Broken Mountain Pass]
. It was a major supply line that their guild controlled to keep things peaceful. The constant quests and skill ups for joining caravans didn't hurt either.

They got away with controlling the pass by having the highest rank warrior in the game as their guild leader. She didn't have to do much, or say much, but nearly all the old players knew who Shazam was, by name, if not by sight. Messing with her guild,
[Valhalla Knights]
typically went bad for the offending party.

"Come on, keep moving! We'll never make it through the pass by nightfall!" A very hairless man stood up on a ledge. A caravan filled mostly with livestock pulling carts gradually made its way through the pass' exit, opposite
[Camp Grey Skull]
.

"March, people! If you want your bonuses we need to be at least halfway in two hours," he shouted down at the carriages being driven by a handful of players and computer nonplayer characters. "Two hours! Not two days! Come on, Garfunkel, keep up!"

"You lot are always so lively, Urgot." A Local stood up on the hill with the hairless man. He wore a cowl and two extra scarves to fight off winter's cold.

"Traveler life, Simion, we need to keep moving." Urgot wore little in the way of defense against the elements. Many Travelers were the same way after a few months. The merchant Simion often found their adaptability unfair.

"I do always appreciate how you round up a crew to escort us poor traders through. This journey's hard enough on a body." Simion felt the chill even now. The weather grew far worse higher up the peaks and sometimes snow piled into the mountain's passage.

"Well, you know us, always willing to work for coin." Urgot tried not to smile often. To the Travelers a reward didn't mean only coin, there were skill increases and items to be purchased. Occasionally they wanted to get out of their hunting grounds and visit a city.

Some players lent out their autopilots as escorts. It was a simple enough way to pass the time.

"Ever since your group set up camp on the other side things have been a mite more peaceful." Simion's teeth chattered slightly.

"We aim to please," the hairless man said. His teeth were sharp and often disturbed other people.