Continue Online (Part 4, Crash) (22 page)

Even Android Seven had died once, against the boss from what I could tell. Knowing that such a powerful player died in this place helped me feel better. Technically we were even on the failure front. Viper’s continued survival, frozen though he was, helped us. He got points for living, and I didn’t lose them from his death. Contribution value would probably be low, at least if it functioned like Advance Online. Players were only worth what they actually did, and this funny suspended animation helped no one.

I looked around for an obvious release. Continue Online’s answer to problems often ranged from insanely complex to absurdly simple. Once I had been stuck at a tower door that required a long mathematical algorithm to solve, one I hadn’t applied since doing statistics classes.

A small panel stood against one wall. There were two obvious buttons of green and red waiting to be pressed. One likely would release Viper from his safe but useless prison. There were a few skeletons around, one lay near the panel. It was clear that this deceased person, staged NPC or Traveler remains, had been trying to press the red one. Probably because they released something scary.

I looked around again, this place felt like a ground zero for the dungeon. Not a final boss room or habitat jungle, but where some foolish person had released dangerous monster clones. Everything here looked devoid of any actual meat, and some of the bones showed marks from being gnawed. I picked up one of the skulls and held it between Viper’s frozen form and myself.

“To thaw, or not to thaw, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of asshole teammates, or solo the boss despite the troubles. And by opposing end it? To die, and respawn once more.” I tossed the skull to the ground and sighed. Reciting my makeshift Shakespeare resulted in a pop-up box but didn’t actually solve the impending problem. Still, I felt lighter.

Dusk sniffed around, letting out echoing chirps which indicated interest. He did his thing, and I gave up deciding which way to go. Viper might help me or hinder me, and that depended on the other player’s perceptions. Either way, I had a good way to solve dilemmas that had served me since it first showed up.

[Wild Bill]
came off my head and I turned it brim down. One hand went to the empty spot and a familiar weight appeared. I lifted away the hat and there was a small golden coin. These were good for only one flip and afterward faded away.

“Technically I don’t have money right now, so this isn’t a bet, just a tie breaker,” I spoke to Ray, the Voice of Gambling. He and the other Voices were probably listening in. There was no use in letting him take this the wrong way or I might end up with a debuff like
[Deaf]
,
[Punchy Drunk]
, or
[Dysmorphic]
. “Heads we press the green one tails the red one.”

Dusk turned around as the coin rung. I caught it out of the air and slapped the coin into my hand. Tiny clawed feet scuttled up the panel’s side and looked under the hand I hesitated to lift. My face turned up in a wince as I too peered at the results

“Green?” I asked Dusk. The larger dragon shrugged then slammed a paw down on the button without hesitation.

Session Seventy Five - Larger than Unlife

Steam hissed. Dusk watched without a care. I saw the frozen material around Viper start dripping instantly. The first layer slid off into the pit below, followed by more chunks. I let it happen. The button was pressed and part of me wanted to see how Viper’s autopilot functioned.

The idea was terrible of me, and I regretted it right away. Being cold toward players struck me as an odd desire because these were living breathing humans that would suffer to some extent. Squisks irritated me though, and he died quick enough that it was no worse than punching a person in the face. NPCs passing would have been worse. I would certainly have abused
[Blink]
and
[Morrigu’s Gift]
in order to make a bridge and leap to their rescue.

The more my journey went on, the less I enjoyed dealing with real people. At least the machine had never lied to me. Except about a fireball thing with
[Detached Vitreous]
ages ago. Dusk, Hal Pal, Jeeves, the Voices, all those in
[Haven Valley]
, they were more real to me than my customers were.

Down Viper slid, his body stuck out a hand and limply hung from the edge of his former frozen prison. Below was the pit of endless depth. His fingers locked in a death grip on the edge, despite a slippery looking surface. The player’s body curved toward one side, like a bow being bent backward.

Dusk chirped at me a few times. I sighed then tried to reach across the short distance. Viper’s autopilot was in effect at this point. The player could be anywhere, which meant we had freed a mindless puppet. Still, the empty shell of a person grabbed my hand and nearly crunched the wrist with an unexpected level of strength. I grunted and lifted him over. Excessive amounts of
[Brawn]
made it easy enough to hoist up another player.

“We’re team members right now, remember? Killing me loses points,” I told the machine version of Viper while trying to stay steady. There were at least two places to
[Blink]
to, but this close and my
[Reaction]
might not be enough.

The other Traveler’s eyes stared blankly in my direction then shifted. Narrow slits implied vacant offense at the ball of fire in my left hand. His autopilot looked crude, or being frozen had left it mentally absent. Was it a snake
[Blessing]
result?

“I don’t trusst you,” it said with remarkable clarity. I had to check twice to see if this really was an autopilot, but it clearly was. If my autopilot could hand out quests, I guess Viper’s could have trust issues.

Dusk chirped in confusion. Viper backed up slowly and reached out for a wall. Lowered shoulders and hips reminded me of an animal being cornered. I took a step back and left the exit open. From there, Viper’s character slid toward the door. My eyes followed the man in his free gear provided by the king as he reached the doorway.

The faded coloring of his autopilot returned to a normal light tone. Viper’s character straightened up, turned around slowly and looked at me. I blinked a few times and squinted. The autopilot symbol that normally went on a player had vanished. Maybe he had been doing other things in his ARC while waiting to be killed or freed?

“Hermess. You’re alive,” Viper said.

“Welcome back. Do you want to go kill the boss, or be a popsicle again?” I asked bluntly. My excitement at running through the dungeon with Dusk left me eager to move onward. Maybe it was my
[Red Imp]
days coming back. Impatience with other players hit me frequently. That was the advantage of being Hermes, I could always keep traveling and moving to new places.

Being in the
[Abyss of Light]
or
[Black Hole of Zombies]
or
[Mad Scientist’s Lab]
was starting to grate on me. Xin, she was out there. Would she get stats super-fast? Did the Voices give her a starting path? Maybe all her time in space flight training would add up to something cool? She could end up all Amazonian like Shazam had, only much shorter.

I sighed and waited for Viper to come up with an answer. The man shook a little and moved slowly.

“Okay,” he said. “I have to catch a plane in a few hourss, sso if you think we can get to the bossss? Thosse pointss would be usseful.”

There were groans from somewhere down the hallway. Their seal barking noises echoed and made it impossible to tell for sure. Dusk hissed with his wings pressed together. I turned and held up my ball of flame. No enemies peeked through yet, but small creatures skittered around.

“Voices above!” I shouted feeling abruptly stupid for letting him free. “Viper, do you still have all that loot?”

“Of coursse.”

“Dammit, they’ll be here soon then.” I wished the
[Red Imp]
’s ability to curse a stream of incomprehensible insanity had stayed with me. My own cuss word vocabulary was fairly limited. “Are you going to drop it all, or fight?”

“No. We need pointss. We need them to get free,” the other man insisted.

Ideas flashed through my head. My original vague plan of sneaking down to the boss room was now out the window. Whatever we did, it would require going full tilt. Spiders, legless zombies, full body ones with distortedly large limbs. Fuzzball creatures. Liquid light.

“No, it’s fine. We can make this work.” I had a gut feeling about this dungeon. Those barrels of starlight were all over the place the farther down we went. It couldn’t be a coincidence. We needed these, and the danger they presented somehow.

“Dusk! We’ll need to run straight to the boss. Viper, if you want to help, follow him. Go!” I shouted at them then tried to ping the area again with my
[Sight of Mercari]
ability. Big O was up above a ways. Android Seven was gone? His dot didn’t show up and my head hurt.

“Viper, Dusk, once we get into the boss room, don’t stop. I’m sure you’ll be kiting a mess of these monsters.” I yelled as they ran toward the exit.

Dusk paused mid jump then chirped at me while a question mark floated above his head.

“Of course I’m going to do something stupid.” My words confused Dusk. Maybe the medium sized pet didn’t expect such a sudden shift. I had days to think about it, so it didn’t feel like a sudden plan to me, plus there was no reckless dive to survive as an old man, kill a jerk teenager, or rush to Earth.

I could play the game to play the game. That meant a huge amount of relaxation, even if this place was intended to be a creepy looking prison camp. Maybe I was the weird one for adapting to such a weird place. The disturbed air these dripping walls cast felt almost normal after being here so long.

I was ready this time. My health was full, there were no negative status effects.
[Power Armor]
could easily help me last while being surrounded. Three game days of sneaking around, learning to use the boots and getting the layout down had helped. It was time to see who would get more attention, Viper and his pile of loot, or me, dipping myself into the starstuff.

The ball of fire was thrown toward the doorway. Small spiders and undead
[Coo-Coo Rills]
squealed from burn damage. Excessive
[Brawn]
let me easily lift a nearby barrel. Edges creaked and strained under the weight. I tipped it over on myself and bathed in the liquid. Tingles invaded every ounce of skin. My vision blurred as my eyes crossed from a rush of dizziness. One hand came up to forestall questions as I tried not to lose consciousness.

Viper’s nearly glowing eyes looked at me for a moment then he shrugged. More loud barking came down the halls and made his head whip around. “Enemiess. Those monsterss we can’t kill. They’re close,” he said.

“I can kill them, I think.” This was untested. They would be enraged, but maybe distracted. “Hopefully they’ll chase you while I do damage.”

Four distinct barks could be heard now. Our enemies were closer drawing in from all over. I felt assured that this reckless idea was part of the solution. This dungeon gave us two things. One was a way to lure tons of the monsters around. The other was a lure and a way to hurt them. Both would be needed. I suspected these things because of my many travels all around
[Arcadia]
. That and the Voices gave me a note saying, ‘Reach for the stars’.

Brief annoyance raced through me. There had been other letters, but most were illegible. I guess they had sat still for too long or were deleted due to irrelevance. Part of me felt worried about the Jester and his sketchy companion. Both of them were on edge over the expected death of someone. It wasn’t Xin, was it? None of these notes had been from her, but maybe she was busy running around
[Arcadia]
somewhere.

A closer set of enemy barks startled me out of the recollection. Dusk had already leapt down the hallway. Viper outright hissed but chased after the small bounding creature. I stopped to cough up another ball of fire since the first one had been used to murder spiders.
[Morrigu’s Gift]
and
[Morrigu’s Echo]
sat hooked into loops on the starlight drenched toga. I felt thankful that Viper hadn’t asked about the apparel change.

My hand held the orb of flame at chest level as we ran. It felt warm and managed not to light my
[Gait of Bowman]
modified toga on fire. These lower floors kept getting darker. Less light dripped down the walls. Three days of roaming had really helped get me back in tune with the Continue Online character. Being used to Hermes the
[Mechanoid]
had thrown me off.

“There’ss too many!” Viper hissed ahead. “Thiss plan is recklessss!”

Dusk squawked and belted out a flame. Smaller creatures were burnt. Six of the fast moving
[Heavenly Body Clone]
s were illuminated but were unphased. They chased Viper as he ran. Apparently they had a preference for dead multitudes housed in Viper’s player stash rather than my humble
[Dipped in Starlight]
status. How many corpses had he picked up? There had to be at least ten, but probably more.