Continue Online (Part 4, Crash) (10 page)

“Player versus player penalties are greater than dying to the monsters, and most NPCs killing us costs us nearly nothing but time,” he explained as we shuffled forward. The line moved quickly. People dipped hands in, pulled out their small looking piece of wood with a number on it, then walked off.

The unnamed, but helpful, person in front of me took a number out then sighed. I followed up promptly by sticking my hand into the dark pit of a box. There were tiny wood objects inside. I pulled my prize out and saw the two burned into its surface.

“Two,” I said while trying to run through scenarios. It put me, and two random people, ahead of nine others who would have reasons to kill us and take our success as their own. That put us behind one group, that might have placed ambushes in their hour lead.

“I’m three.” The talkative man sighed. “Guess that means we’ll be enemies.”

“Oh.” I felt bad that he had helped explain things only to possibly be killed by my virtual swords. This may have been a digital world, but it looked real, and the pain still hurt.

“That’s how it goes while you’re here, this whole thing’s a mess. At least, I get redemption points for explaining. Once inside, there’s no truces.” With that, he turned and walked away. After being broken into teams, our situation turned far different than I had thought it might. What had been at least a mildly professional relationship was cut off in the face of future conflict.

My eyes followed the man as he moved toward a number on the ground. This place was like a box with starting positions. There were gates for up to eight teams, but we only had enough people for five in our convict band. Fourteen other people who might try to stab me in the back during this adventure.

Part of me expected these guys to be worse, or harder, or downright rude. Daylight might have brightened my perspective, and it helped immensely knowing Xin was out there. They were intent upon serving their sentences as quickly as possible. It made sense, this was a game, not a hardcore prison. Anyone who truly screwed themselves over could go play somewhere else, like Advance Online, or delete their character then start over.

“Group one, over here. Two, here!” The guard pointed at another three spots for the other groups then explained. “Restriction crystals are active. Idget, I’m saying this for you since you keep trying to escape. Tampering will get you killed! Trying to escape will get you killed! Post-death regathering of your essence brings you back to the bus! You’re here until your debt is cleared!”

There was one more surprise waiting for me. The guard, who had been mostly covered, head to toe, in plated armor, lifted his visor to look at us. His face looked familiar enough that I had broken our shuffling silence to ask, “Wyl? Is that you?”

“You’ve no right to call me by my first name, convict,” Wyl responded.

I was floored. This was indeed the guard captain from
[Haven Valley]
, and my time as William Carver, but what was he doing out here escorting prisoners of a completely different kingdom? Had something happened while I was gone?

Session Sixty Nine - Blue Monday

My partners were the guy who touched little elves, and another man who looked blind. They were indifferent to my presence. Here we were, trapped in a barricaded square and about to chase each other to repeated death, and most of my thoughts were stuck on Wyl.

The former guard captain of
[Haven Valley]
stared right through me with complete apathy. His body held rigid in the protective beam of light. I couldn’t remember enough details of our time together. The automatic game journal notations from William Carver’s era were mixed. Many items were recorded, but a low starting
[Depth]
and
[Knowledge]
limited the information. Having both stats higher would have helped record additional details automatically.

I tried to talk to him again, “Wyl? Is Haven Valley okay?”

That earned me a dirty look and glare. The man was in his forties and looked rough compared to the nearly constant smile from before. It had been almost ten months of game time since then. Something must be wrong, the very idea made my face turn white. I stepped past Knight Middleton’s post to get closer to Wyl. He stood a bit shorter now that I was no longer in a hunched old man’s body.

“Mylia? The kids, are they okay?” I banged into the pillar of light and lost a chunk of health as my teeth vibrated in pain.

Wyl briefly winced then ignored me in order to stare off into the distance. I panicked and hit the barrier again. Health dipped as pain rippled through. My ability to grit my teeth and suffer through was far less than the Hispanic guy’s had been.

“Go on with your task, convict, so that we can move onward,” Carver’s former friend said. Not wearing the old man’s body counted against me. Would he feel different when seeing
[Morrigu’s Gift]
?

“Wyl, I know I’m a convict to you right now, but, life started for me in that town.” That location was when I first began to wake up after three years of sticking my head in the sand. All those people were important for different reasons, even if none of them knew me as Hermes. “Can you at least tell me, are Mylia and the kids alright?”

Wyl stared at me, then looked at
[Morrigu’s Gift]
. His eyes lingered on the smooth blankness that went with the wooden cane form. I couldn’t outright say it, but at one point I had a
[Legacy Wish]
from Old Man Carver himself. Shortly after the ability merged into the
[NPC Conspiracy]
ability.

“No, they’re not,” he said while looking less hostile for a moment. “Haven Valley isn’t alright at all.”

I nodded. Now there was something to really fight for.
[Haven Valley]
, a town that had started everything for me was in trouble. Not to mention there was the issue of Xin, floating in virtual reality waiting for me to make a move of some sort. I needed to get a letter to the Voices quickly.

I turned away from Wyl. Trying to convince him of our past history couldn’t be completed in the remaining hours before our dungeon entrance. Any quick method of convincing him required betraying William carver’s last few weeks.

“I go by Viper,” the blind looking one of my new team members said. That nickname fit once I noticed that his eyes had really thin vertical slits in them. It made sense that he appeared blind with so much of the eyeball being pure white and no standard iris.

“Hermes.” I turned to face them and tried to give a decent smile. Well, mostly Viper, the other guy bothered me. Though my brain also felt conflicted about the idea of an eighty-year-old little girl. What kind of nonsense had the Voices put down in this world?

“This is Mister Daft, not Hermes. Daft, as in can’t hear or think.” The guy who had been speaking behind me looked more human than Viper did. He was slightly shorter with brown hair cropped into a goatee.

“That’s Ssquiskss, he’ll try to get killed.” Viper pointed to the guy who insisted I was Mister Daft. “Sso normally we let him.” There was a disgusted tone in his voice as Viper spoke. “Dude sskatess by with twenty participation points each time, then logss off until the twenty-four hourss is up.”

“So, the three-man team is really only two?” I tried to ignore the way Viper hissed certain letters.

“Until ssomeone bribess me with enough to kill you.” The funny eyed Traveler shrugged then laughed with a stutter.

“That’s, up front of you.” I didn’t know how else to explain it. What kind of person advertises they’re out to kill another player? People were weird. This was a game, and we were stuck in an endless respawn then dungeon crawl cycle for the next week of real life. Everything fell under odd.

“Eh, I tell you, because maybe during the next sstop you’ll want to buy my sservices. I’m quite good at it.” He was glaring at Squisks.

“How do you do it?” I wanted to know what method this player had that made him so confident.

“Uh uh. I can’t give it all away.” He hissed while laughing again then got distracted. “Thiss iss just my ssaless pitch.”

Was he doing that on purpose? There seemed to be something wrong with his neck muscles and other joints too. I studied them and compared it to all the figures I had danced with over the years. Those connecting points were too fluid. If I were to combine it with Continue Online’s weird half-breed quest lines, the hissing, and slit eyes, it was very likely he had some serpent abilities.

“Well, I’ll keep it in mind.” Loot never bothered me. Maybe giving some away to buy an ally would be good.

Now that we were all unbound and standing closer the atmosphere felt a bit uglier. The first party was already lined up near their number and getting ready to go. A member of the trio had their weapons out and swung the blade to warm up. A female kept shaking her hands, every so often a flare of blue energy would float from wiggling fingertips.

Their third partner kept looking around with shoulders bunched in nervousness. The final one broke away from the crowd and ran for a wall. The guards’ arrows rapidly brought the man’s health down to zero.

Behind me, a member of the fourth team screamed then tried to run in another direction. I turned in time to see two arrows catch him in the back, leaving the man limply hanging over a wall. I barely had time to blink before a hand shoved me from behind. My body tripped forward and the desire to
[Blink]
away didn’t gain a result.

Only a lot of combat and balance kept me upright.

“Hold!” Wyl yelled. A single arrow landed right next to my abruptly relocated form. I turned to glare behind me. Viper stood far enough away that it wasn’t likely an issue. Squisks looked confused.

“Assssholess.” Viper glared at one of the people in another group.

His source of ire, a taller person with long fingers, smiled in my direction and waved. I felt a gentle pat on my cheek as if being brushed by an invisible figure. Did that other team's Traveler have an invisible hand technique? How awkward.

“You want him killed, half price,” Viper said.

One casual push from an ability had almost gotten me arrowed. I shook and tried not to think about how easily players could die in this game. My major goal was surviving long enough to find a private spot and check the
[Messenger’s Tube]
. There would be one less player in front of us, so that was mildly useful.

Viper continued his glare at the other player while I tried to figure out what our chances would be against unknown abilities. Better yet, what kind of powers did my own group have? No other players divulged their powers. Fantasy driven skills and talents could make for an odd array of possibilities.

There were a lot of cookie cutter abilities too. Multiple people used the same playstyles or builds with very small variations. I once went into a large capital that offered similar classes to NPCs and Travelers at the same time. Hundreds of people going through the coursework to be basic foot soldiers or trackers.

“Anyway, until ssomeone payss me more than it’ss worth to keep you alive, we’re in this together.” Viper turned then smiled at me. His teeth looked masked by thin lips.

“How much am I worth?” I asked the player while getting back to our marker. My eyes shifted around to each group to gauge those remaining.

“We’ll find out in a few hourss, won’t we?”

My mind ran through escape routes or ways to work through this mission. Getting away without earning some
[Redemption]
would be unlikely. Maybe there was a magical portal down below. There was also the possibility that revealing too many skills might just get me ganged up on. There had been television shows about this very idea. Look weak, get picked on, look strong, get ganged up on. Float in the middle and maybe survive.