Continue Online (Part 4, Crash) (13 page)

I turned, found a new position to be in, and
[Blink]
ed above a monster’s back.
[Morrigu’s Gift]
, one of the only two weapons Hermes had ever earned as a character, pointed down. Both arms jerked to a halt as the sword slid through the beast’s body and dug into the dirt.

My leg slipped and thudded hard on the kneecap. Landing wasn’t a skill I was good with. I abused
[Recall]
again and shifted a giant blade to quickly swipe at the nearest half a shambler that was crawling toward me. A ripple of force vibrated my arm as the blade got stuck around halfway through the creature’s neck.

The fight kept going for another handful of scrambling seconds. These monsters couldn’t be the toughest beings down here, none of them were bosses or
[Elite]
. My count ended up being both Travelers and six monsters, against Viper’s two.

The worst part of monster fighting was getting blood all over the new clothes. This game liked to bathe its players in sensations of gooey liquids getting into every crevice. Moments like this made things feel real.

I cleaned the edge of the Morrigu weapons off on Squisks' dead body while Viper moved closer. The man could move quietly, but
[Sight of Mercari]
gave me full vision at the cost of mental focus.

“We’re clear, at least from the other teams,” I said through grinding teeth. My knee throbbed and the rush of using
[Awareness Heightening]
left me doubly drained.

“You make no ssensse. Thosse, sskillss sshould be impossssible,” the player said from behind me. His feet were kicking at various corpses to ensure they were dead.

“Yeah.” I hadn’t found many players like myself either. Two shape-shifting weapons? Goodness no, there hadn’t even been one other player yet. Most couldn’t switch weapons in battle, yet with these, I could cruise through nearly any playstyle but a caster. Though, my
[Bow]
skills were super low.

“You don’t look like a warrior or whatever that wass.”

That made me smile. I didn’t feel like one either.
[Battle Hum]
was still active as one finger poked through the combat log. The battle had been hectic and fast paced. My mind could handle everything moving at just over ten times normal speeds but only because there was a lot of support from the game. I honestly didn’t do much more than pick a target and think of an ability. It was like dancing, one motion flew into the next.

“Me? No. I’m a lover, not a fighter,” I said. The two-handed sword version of
[Morrigu’s Gift]
drove downward with all the strength my excessive
[Brawn]
could manage into Squisks’ body. This time, a very clear icon appeared denoting his deceased status.

Voices above, that one scuffle barely made me gain any points. Plus we wouldn’t get anything for these items if we didn’t and couldn’t bring them back up top. We didn’t have enough time for me to sit around and calculate the numbers. I pulled out my paper and ink tied to the
[Messenger’s Tube]
kit and scrawled a message for Big O.

“What’ss that?” Viper hissed. The poor guy was clearly puzzled.

“Proof, and maybe an ally.” I closed my eyes and said a prayer to the Voices. Hopefully people honored deals down here, but there were ways to survive even if they didn’t.

The snake-eyed man laughed in a weird drawn-out manner. He sounded delirious about our thrown together group. We had maybe twenty more minutes before the next group came in behind us. Two people from group one were much farther in the dungeon according to
[Sight of Mercari]
.

I stood with a final shudder before trying to put my
[Acting]
skills to the test. “Still think you could take me out?”

“Maybe, I can ssee that those movess left you drained.” Viper’s eyes pointed in different directions. The idea that any player could handle double vision threw me off.

“Yess.” I accidently hissed back at him before feeling sheepish. “You can loot anything you want. Take first dibs, take it all. I don’t really care.” I waved at the pile of monsters and the two dead Travelers.

“You ssure you’re willing to trusst me?” he asked.

I shrugged. Too many abilities that required a low weight in my inventory. Continue Online let us put everything into a magical pocket or flip through character screens on our display, but there was still a value assigned.

Viper looked away and my chest lifted in the effort to take in steady breaths. A muscle in my shoulder screamed about how out of shape this virtual avatar was. Virtual sensations were powerful. I let myself express the discomfort for only a moment before trying to get back under control.

There was no time to really take care of it. I had to figure out the means for summoning Dusk forth. The sooner my
[Messenger’s Pet]
and I were reunited, the quicker events would be easier to survive. Though thinking of him as a pet was weird, he was half friend, guide, lifesaver, and critter destroyer.

Reading the Continue Online floating box confused me for a moment. This trait hadn’t been at rank four last time. For months of game time it had been completely stuck at two, but now it had increased.

There was a button under the journal entry that would initiate a summon. Dusk, would he be okay returning to Continue? Last time we had been together the small critter was a four-armed space raptor with an insanely long tail.

I punched the button for
[Summon: Companion]
and got a system message. Most of my abilities were activated with mental imagery like
[Blink]
or my shape-shifting weapons, but calling Dusk back was more complicated. This was the first time he had actually died in-game in our months together.

My head turned to look at the other player. Our small room was safe enough for the moment. Viper was cutting away at one of the corpses behind us and grumbling. I watched him pull out a small crystal and wave it over the corpse. A stream of light transferred to the hand-sized shard. It was the first time I had ever seen anyone gather monster essence. Even Shazam never bothered.

Viper could have all the loot, especially if doing so kept him working with me. I read through the messages presented by Continue Online’s game system.

I had decided a long time ago that spells could be left to Beth and other players who cared to go that route. Still, the Voices above saw fit to help the clueless like me with a guide.

In front of me was a slightly blue glowing circle on the ground. The circle vanished, then redrew itself. The hint was obvious enough for me. While Viper looted, I followed step after step to create a circle on the ground.

Resummoning Dusk would not be a simple process while being rushed. The outside circle, an inside one, seven triangles and very careful squiggles were all reproduced from the instructions. Acceptable lines turned up green, poor ones were yellow, and the worst were red.

“What’ss that?” Viper got far too close while I was lost in tracing the images.

I ignored him and fixed one line with
[Morrigu’s Gift]
in staff form. This felt a lot like what TinkerHell had done months ago while we were trapped underground. This was kind of neat, but also a terrible time to learn.

Words appeared on my screen citing the closing part of the ritual. I tried not to laugh then repeated the words.

“I promise a dozen cupcakes at my earliest convenience.” The words came out simply and without excessive volume. My mouth lifted to one side in a smile. I didn’t know which Voice, or if Dusk had created this requirement. The AI was insanely sophisticated so both were possible.

Everything dimmed and the walls shook. There was a pit of golden illumination pouring outward from the spell’s center. My arm came up to reduce the glare.

“Sstay alive!” Viper hissed at me in a panic. He had another blade in his hand quickly. Without
[Awareness Heightening]
the man looked insanely fast.

A much larger than expected creature appeared. His body was now on par with a bobcat, instead of half the size of any normal house cat. Everything else looked the same. Obsidian colored skin, golden flecks running a stripe down his chest. Even the wings felt nostalgic after my time in Advance Online.

“Dusk, thank the Voices you’re alright.” I tried not to get overly excited. The bigger
[Messenger’s Pet]
wasted no time and ran over to me.

He purred and drove his head into my side. Things felt better by far, despite the disorienting fact that he had almost doubled in size.

“Yeah. I missed you too,” I said. The little guy could have visited me in an Atrium if I had accessed one, but Mother had rather firmly suggested I avoid logging in an ARC until last night.

“What’ss that?” Viper looked extremely disturbed and had backed up to one of the dungeon walls. It had taken all my
[Acting]
skill along with
[Act: Straight Face]
to prevent laughing at the man.

“A friend, and maybe our way out of this mess,” I said.

Dusk tilted his head and looked around at the mess of bodies. The not as small head pulled out to the side and sniffed. I was happy to have made progress in completing my mental checklist for this first day in the dungeon. Next would be finding a safe corner to pull out the
[Messenger’s Tube]
and check for those promised communications regarding Xin.

Where was she? Was she in the game? Waiting for me to press yes and let her into the Atrium? I shook my head and tried not to be upset. Everything that had happened was a result of my own choices, the best way to handle things involved moving forward one step at a time.

“Alright, Dusk. I’m not sure how much you’ve seen, but I’ll talk anyway.” I missed the little guy, he was a great sounding board.

A small question mark appeared about Dusk’s head as he looked at me. One cheek pulled back in a vague imitation smile. Even the imitation dragon’s tail looked to be wagging just slightly, where most of the time he looked indifferent while searching for creatures to fight.

Voices above, with his new size, the range of creatures to hunt down and maul had increased. I pitied the next nest of
[Coo-Coo Rill]
s we came across.

“Why are you wassting time with a pet? We need to hide, or prepare an ambussh.” My teammate sounded nervous and his eyes glowed in the dungeon light.

“This little guy is probably smarter than the two of us put together, trust me.” I ignored anything further from Viper and explained to Dusk our situation. “Let’s finish looting while I catch Dusk up.”

The other player huffed and moved onto searching the dead players for gear. They were convicts like us, but they might have some items. He got two pieces of plate gear from the guy who had lured us down here. I came behind him with my poor skinning skills and tried to gather materials.

We managed to clear all the bodies except for Squisks'. A man who was willing to try to bring us down with him deserved to be cast aside. He was left there to rot.

During Viper’s loot fiesta I tried to whisper to Dusk about the dungeon. All attempts at explaining things came with a confused series of exclamation marks that were visible even down here. Going farther into the dungeon amplified the odd blacklight feeling to everyone.