Continue Online (Part 4, Crash) (12 page)

“Sso you want a truce for one game day?” Viper asked.

“Except for Squisks, we can take care of him ourselves, and maybe make up the loss in points.” I nodded. We were lucky the man’s character was still offline. Maybe he expected players to try to kill him.

“Yeah? You want to try to earn ssome loot for offing the pedophile?” the man uttered a line that didn’t involve much hissing.

“Yeah, that guy over there will pay us to kill Squisks.” My hand lifted to point at the hispanic guy from earlier who could grit through electrical jolts.

“That’s Big O. He has a sstanding offer, but if you want to arrange ssomething, you’ll need to move fast,” Viper said. Part of me expected a tongue to lick out and taste the air with one of his hisses. “It’ss our turn ssoon.”

I smiled, nodded, then calmly walked over to the large Hispanic man that offered a reward for killing Squisks. He laughed at me and said being able to off the slippery player with a goatee was unlikely. Even his other two team members laughed at the idea. Each success would earn me fifty points worth of items, according to his offer. I tried to do the math, if we were here for seven real days, then killing Squisks would get me up to three hundred and fifty points plus
[The King’s Task]
offering.

My mind ran through additional numbers and tried to do math. Ensuring a team member survived would result in positive points for every hour. Losing them would have an equal point loss over a twenty-four-hour time frame. Keeping Viper around while removing the goateed man would be a wash. The man would suffer a moment of pain to assist me in gaining points, which was a dirty way to think about it. Realizing that I was going to essentially torture someone else in order to spare myself hardship made me pause.

The less player violent route would require collecting items. Fourteen thousand common items would free me. Surviving enough days down below then coming back to the surface would too. Killing the final dungeon boss would grant a reprieve in these dungeon games. Making it through seven days, killing the final boss, and managing to take all the items between here and there might be enough to redeem me in one week, especially since
[The King’s Task]
added a few more points. The likelihood of doing all those items combined was very low.

“Group two, pay some Voices damned attention, and move over here!” Knight Middleton shouted at us.

Viper shrugged and went over. I followed behind while mulling over my numbers. At what point had I thought that causing another player mental damage was okay? That Hispanic guy, named Big O, was amused at the idea.

“Touch here.” Wyl pointed at pedestal between him and Knight Middleton. Instead of a ballot style draw box, there was now a single orb. It looked like a smaller version of the Porter crystals. That object must have appeared while I ran the numbers.

Viper went first. A few moments later and he had a line of small daggers strapped to his chest with their handles pointed downward. His clothing looked like cloth, except for a shiny belt that might have been complete plate. It dragged heavily to one side. Squisks put his hand down too but nothing changed gear wise.

My hand placed atop the smooth orb. A display popped with what looked like a standard gear system. I could, if I wanted, get one set of items to go into the dungeon with. Apparently this was the king’s pity in action. The equipment wasn’t
[Bound]
, dying would result in all my gear remaining with my corpse. The equipment looked to be poor quality, barely better than the nasty orange and black clothing I wore.

I picked a leather set. There were no
[Limberness]
penalties, and my own armor wearing skill was fairly limited. Pulling items out of inventory was allowed.
[Wild Bill]
went on my head, and my weapons slid into the cheap belt provided with my leather armor.

“Once the gate drops down it’s your turn to go in! Staying out here for more than an item turn in will result in death! Trying to kill any of the guards will get you riddled with arrows.” Knight Middle pointed at a barred area in front of us. It was the same exit that the other two groups went through. “Dying will bring you back here where you may enter without the staggered timer! ” Knight Middleton nearly shouted the words at us.

I wondered about
[Blink]
ing past everything. How far away could I get before magical system nonsense sealed my abilities again? The gate dropped down, signifying our turn in this delayed dungeon entry process. Viper walked ahead a little ways while I equipped my items. Squisks was content on hanging back a little. The Traveler didn’t even have any gear on.

Numbers ran through my head patterning to the sound of music as I waved in time to the song. I wanted so bad to find Xin and just dance away a night with her. Not in this dungeon, not worrying about what might have happened to
[Haven Valley]
. A slight hum accompanied my walk to the dungeon entrance.

Session Seventy - How does it feel?

Two months before Xin passed away I had gone in for laser eye surgery. Clients could walk into a kiosk-sized stall and place their head on the chin rest. From there the process had been simplified to a machine that scanned through layers of skin and flesh before putting up the results. A series of polished glass globes would slide close to the eyeball, then the machine said, ‘number one, or number two?’. Walking into the dungeon was a lot like that experience.

Number one belonged to a clear and sunny day above ground. Flipping to the second lens turned our surroundings sharper, but in a very disturbing way. Darkness swallowed us up. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. After a minute the pulses of light from above were visible. They dripped down like water or falling stars through the earthen walls. In the distance was the sound of a river, or something liquid traveling onward toward destinations unknown. The passageway wasn’t wide as it spiraled around corners and downward.

I liked the feel of this dungeon, but the two people in front of me looked creepy by the pattern of light. Multiple shadows slid off the players, rolling in waves as the drops of falling starlight passed. Whiteness to their eyes and teeth glowed. Viper’s serene smile sat off kilter. Squisks kept sending shifty glances back toward me where his eyes went from glowing white to pitch black instantly.

Briefly, I activated the
[Sight of Mercari]
and groaned as vision overlapped my senses. A month in Advance Online had been long enough to forget how this ability impacted me. Along with the grunt was a disconnection, as though I was myself and a creature floating above my own head.

Before the abrupt vacation, I tried to stick to using it for seconds at a time, almost like a quick scan of the region where I picked out needed names. It allowed me to avoid asking strangers for directions. I also felt neat and mysterious using
[Blink]
to get into weird places and say, ‘Delivery from the Voices’.

“You okay, Hermess? No dying until you earn uss pointss.” Viper didn’t sound concerned.

“An ability. Hold on.” All around was a map that displayed a lot of detail. This place was big enough to take days of game time to explore. A quick scan revealed an enemy group right around the corner.

“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked them.

“I haven’t been here before.” Viper hissed while looking around.

“Okay.” The throb in my head hadn’t died down. This game already pushed mortal minds to the limit with time compression. Adding in extra sensory feedback that extended in multiple directions could easily overload a person.

“Have you been here?” the snake man asked me.

“No. I assume the final boss is down, and if we want that, we follow the path.” I waved and tried to focus on where the other players were. There were so many possibilities to focus on, but none of them did any good without knowing how much time we had.

“Wait. Sshussh,” Viper said and put up a hand. “Sshit. Ssomeone iss close.”

“Three other players,” I muttered which caused Viper to look over at me. My shrug didn’t clarify anything. This ability didn’t show monsters unless they were intelligent enough. Treasure chests and floor slants were invisible. I got dots, relative distance, and colors.

One red person was moving swiftly toward us. Their speed didn’t show any enchantments or skills. Soon their footsteps could be heard thudding along the floor. Dirt shook from the ceiling.

“Don’t kill me! I’m not a convict!” he yelled and his hands waved.

The shout confused me, I didn’t think of myself as a convict either, so what was the point of yelling? Plus they were red while wildly waving us out of the way. I delayed a few seconds too long and nearly missed a stream of monsters chasing the player. This man was trying to pull an entire group of hostile creatures onto our path.

Squisks ran straight for the train of monsters while throwing rocks. They shifted targets while the guy who had been running smirked. I shook off a mild headache from
[Sight of Mercari]
and switched to
[Awareness Heightening]
then readied
[Morrigu’s Gift]
into a smaller sword form. Using the big two-hander would do more damage, but this hall didn’t have enough room.

Viper hissed and pulled a blade out of the strap across his chest. An arm pulled back to throw it at the running player. I went for Squisks, if he wanted to die, then I would make sure his passing got me an ally from group four.

Everything around us had slowed down. The other player’s arms waved in a delayed dance. My heartbeat thumped at half time. A
[Battle Hum]
effect kicked in, helping my
[Blade Dancer]
with music. This messy scene of players running in different directions almost made me giddy.

Players, monsters, they were within my ability to solve now. Not like the me of months ago. Still, all of this would have been hectic to a normal person. In my elevated awareness, this was like a practice dance.

One hand yanked out
[Morrigu’s Echo]
, the second shape-shifting weapon turned into a long spear that was promptly thrown toward the player with a train of monsters. There was a sickening squelch of noise that got buried under a disorienting
[Blink]
as I appeared in front of our third team member. Viper hissed in confusion but loosed his blade that flashed with green.

It sailed toward Squisks but instead embedded itself into a monster’s hide. Seal like barking echoed through the room accompanied by a player’s shout. I retained a sense of awareness and looked toward the third party member’s legs. Shadows cast from the rolling lights didn’t line up.

I closed my eyes briefly and activated the
[Sight of Mercari]
again. Squisks in my head didn’t line up with the fleeing goatee man and his illuminated eyes. I adjusted rapidly and swung
[Morrigu’s Gift]
straight into a seemingly empty location. A largely camouflaged body that felt unreasonably solid went flying toward one wall.

My eyes drifted to the weapon briefly before sliding to the crumpled body of Squisks near a cavern wall. We were lucky this room had opened up a little. His health bar was flashing red and critical. The Traveler’s autopilot symbol came up quickly, meaning our sudden shattering of his skills caused the man to log out.

There were two more Travelers slightly farther in, no doubt waiting to pick up the pieces after this train of monsters killed us. They would be in for a surprise at this rate.
[Awareness Heightening]
kept running as combat continued. I glanced at Viper for a moment. His mouth opened in slow motion as he gaped at the suddenly appearing body of Squisks.

My hat tilted back and I put out a free hand to grasp
[Morrigu’s Echo]
as it
[Recall]
ed. The spear melted down to a shorter sword and got tucked back into my belt. Two weapons were really hard to wield effectively for a man like me.

I leapt toward the gathering of creatures that had been led into this room. They looked like shuffling zombies that were half broken. Huge arms pulled them along the ground. Bits of bone and detached eyeballs illuminated their bodies. They were slow but those monsters’ arms could easily crush the life from a player.

An arm twice the size of mine clawed out as my shoulder rolled down. One elbow slammed the creature in its face. Viper’s body moved amid the half rotten creatures. I yanked out
[Morrigu’s Echo]
, in dagger form, and slammed it into the creature’s face. The monster barked once like a seal then gurgled as
[Morrigu’s Echo]
extended just enough to ruin its brain.

“What are you doing?!” Viper’s voice was louder than the monsters being destroyed. Worst of all, he sounded so annoyingly slow. Each word threatened to escape notice due to their drag.

My latest victim tried to roll over onto me. I let
[Morrigu’s Echo]
go and spun onward to another creature.
[Battle Hum]
kept me happy, a waltz tune carried through. Four beats per second for normal fights, under
[Awareness Heightening]
the tempo was closer to eight beats per second while still being functional.