When the time came for us to stop crafting and start towards the Forbidden Forest Argyle's mood changed.
"Do we really have to? You know he's not even real.” he whispered out of the side of his mouth.
A roiling pit of uncertainty opened up in my stomach like a Jackalope was trying to claw its way out of my belly button. It felt good to help Argyle. Helping Fez felt like a useless distraction. The fairies weren't real, not in the same way that Argyle's sister was real. There was a difference. But I needed Fez help me find Kara.
“Come on, the sooner we save the fairies the sooner we can get back to what's important.” My half truth may have been enough to convince Argyle to come along, but it wasn't enough to make him happy.
Despite his poor mood, we had our rhythm down battling the monsters and in no time we were at the fairy glade and then on to the swamp wench’s hut. Looking out over the water where we had so recently died, I realized this is how the system wanted us to play the game. After the peace I had felt crafting with Argyle, it was easier for me to see the game for what it was. The shiny objects in front of me; the path the game laid out.
How had I fallen into the trap of playing the game the way it was meant to be played? Even before I regained my memories I had checked for the flaws. The places where the game wasn't perfect. I had stopped doing that somewhere along the way. I had let the familiar thrill of adventure blind me to what was really going on here. Maybe there were other options. I took a minute to read over my character sheet and think.
Name: Finch
Ancestry: Swamp Elf
Class: Jack of all Trades
Level: 19
Strength: 41, Speed: 43, Wisdom: 42, Charm: 43, Intelligence: 42, Heartiness: 41
Health: 305, Stamina: 310, Mana: 310
Skills: ‘I Can do That’, Gathering 2, Observation 3, Flirtation 3, Golf 18, Haberdashery 21, Dental Hygiene 10, Mixology 1, Mental Resistance 5, Dodge 3, Driving Master 40, Potion Brewing, 10, Singing 10, Smelting 10, Pole Vaulting 10, Basket Weaving 10, Fletching, 10, Interpretive Dancing, 10, Birdcalls, 10, Strutting 10, Overcompensating 10...
The list went on from there. It was becoming hard to keep track of them all. I had really gained a lot of Skills from random places like the training hall and advertisements. But that thought gave me an idea.
I glanced at Argyle as we stood looking over the water and said, “Hey man. Let's trigger an ad buff.”
“Don't we look at enough ads? And what for? A minor buff to HP or Mana re-gen?” I knew that the tiny bonuses given by watching an advertisement before battle wouldn't make much of a difference. The option had been sitting on my character sheet since I first leveled up, but the bonuses were so minuscule I had never thought to try it out. It would be a waste of time for a slight increase in Strength, but that wasn't what I was going for.
“I just think maybe we could benefit from a little increase in Armor, all right?”
“Alright,” said Argyle. “I’ve just been spending years watching them every time I want to turn my stamina re-gen on and off. If you think it’s worth it, be my guest.
I went back to my character menu and examined my stats. I clicked on my Armor Class. Clicked the enhance button. A menu with several options popped up including enhanced with emeralds and temporary enhancement with advertisement. I clicked on the button to enhance with advertisement and, just like that, a doc appeared in front of me.
An old man and a young man sat next to each other at the end of a dock with fishing poles in the water. I heard the simultaneous crack of two aluminum cans being opened, but I wasn't paying attention to the ad. I was looking at the water.
I knew that somewhere in that water those fish creatures were already coming our way. In fact, I could just see the tops of their heads poking above the water, not far past the end of the dock.
“Mental Resistance check successful.”
I knew I didn't have much time, so I ran. I ran right past Argyle, who stood there like a statue, listening to the old man talk about how good beer used to be back in his day. I ran down the temporary ad generated doc. I ran right past the two men as they took a sip. I ran right onto the water, testing my theory. The second my foot touched the water the game flickered and paused for the briefest of moments.
“Hey buddy, guess who got to play admin for 328 nano-seconds?”
I wasn’t done yet. I kept moving. My theory was that, yes, the water wasn't meant to be interacted with during the ad. It was frozen. Not frozen like ice, but hard like a non-Newtonian liquid, like when you run on that mixture of cornstarch and water. It didn't quite feel like ground and I didn't quite sink in, but this was definitely an experience I would not want to recreate.
I ran straight for the fish creatures who were both paused, eyes just poking above the water. I swung down with my Warhammer, and at the top of my lungs I bellowed the fierce war cry of the golfer. “Fore!”
The water held the creature in place. The impact of my hammer caused the top of its skull to fly in a wide arc over the witch's house.
I could hear the older man saying a catchphrase behind me, as I swung the hammer down towards the next one. This time the water wasn't quite so solid. I heard Argyle gasp behind me and my vision doubled. I was simultaneously standing on the shore and swinging at the fish creature, hammer in hand. I connected this time and the creature itself was launched far into the distance, and I immediately sank into the water.
I quickly dropped my hammer into my inventory and I tried to push myself back up above the water. My head broke through the surface seconds later and I gasped for breath. I hadn't been prepared and so it felt like I had taken a big lung-full of lake water. I barely managed to doggy paddle my way to the witch's island before coughing up what felt like a gallon of brackish lake water.
“Well, that's one way of handling them,” said Argyle, swimming over to me.
“Yeah,” I said, still coughing. “I’m a regular genius.”
“You okay?” he asked, friendly concern returning to his voice.
“I thought you were mad at me,” I croaked, my lungs feeling like a ketchup bottle; battered, yet unable to get the last of the liquid out.
“There's something about seeing the person you're mad at suffer a little bit that makes it a lot easier to forgive them.”
Clearly, this was how Argyle actually felt. I had caused him to worry so much more about his sister just by venturing out of the safety of the city, but seeing me coughing up bog water had smoothed things over.
I looked up at my fairy companion. “Fez. *cough, cough.* Did you, *cough* did you do it? Were you able to?”
“Yeah, buddy, I was able to.”
“What did you find out?”
“Oh, I found out some pretty interesting things. I'm sure you'd love to know all about the interesting stuff that I found out.”
I coughed up another lung full of murky water. “You're not going to tell me, are you?”
He looked at me and looked at the witch's hut. “You know what you gotta do. When the fairies are safe, you get your info.”
“This is extortion.”
“Its a transaction.”
“There's just no arguing with some people,” I thought. “Let's go take care of this witch.”
“I suppose there's no point in trying to be stealthy,” Argyle said, gesturing towards all the water I had just coughed up.
“No, I don't suppose there is.” We walked straight up to the front door and knocked.
“Come in, come in,” said an inviting old voice that sounded as sweet as gingerbread.
I looked at Argyle and he looked at me. In unison we shrugged.
Inside, a kindly old lady in a black dress stirred a very large pot of stew. Many dried herbs hung from the rafters. Barrels full of apples sat next to the door, and large glass bottles full of fairies sat behind her.
These fairies seemed dim and morose. They fluttered back and forth slowly or just drifted at the bottom of their jars, their light diminished by their captivity.
She cracked a grandmotherly smile. “What can I do for you two fine boys?”
I looked at all those fairies.
“She's trapped the fairies! She's evil! Kill her. Kill her now!” Fez said in my mind.
I stood there for a minute, dumbstruck. This kindly old lady couldn't be the bog wench that the fairies had sent us here to kill. I mean, obviously she had fairies in jars, but she was too friendly and nice. How could we possibly do anything to harm such a sweet old lady?
Mental Resistance Skill activated. You have successfully resisted a Charm attack.
The cottage around me flickered and darkened. The dried herbs looked more putrid and sinister. The apples were rotted and the lady was much less grandmotherly. I was trapped in another illusion and apparently my Mental Resistance was just not enough to press through. It was clear she could tell I was fighting it, though.
“Well, we can't have that now, can we deary.” The sweet old lady walked over to the lovely pot of stew she had over her cozy fire.
“No, it's a cauldron. It's bubbling green. Focus.”
She took a jar of herbs off the shelf and sprinkled them into the stew.
“No, those are fairy wings and rotting eyeballs.” Moment by moment, my vision would flash back and forth between the kindly old lady and the wench. I would start to move, then just fall back into the illusion.
In the back of my mind, I could hear Kara saying that this was a historically inaccurate negative portrayal of medicine women and wise elders. She would probably have a field day, pointing out all the ways in which the kindly old lady was likely more accurate and the wenchwas a way of branding powerful women as evil so that they could be ignored and controlled.
Stolen story; please report.
This was ultimately not helpful when the negative portrayal in front of me started wafting plumes of black smoke from her cauldron in my direction.
“Hardiness check failed. You have failed to resist the Cloud of Sleep.”
####
I woke up tied and gagged. A warm, soft body half my height was behind me. I realized it was Argyle tied to my back. Somewhere in the area was a burning heat and the smell of smoke.
“Buddy, you're awake!” yelled Fez in my mind. “Good thing too. She's about to bake you into a pie.”
I looked around. “Are you sure? I don't really see pie crust anywhere. Sorry,” I said shaking off the last bits of delirium. “Oh! Now I get what you mean.”
The once kindly old woman now had green of skin and was cackling madly in the corner. I couldn't quite tell, but I felt like she might have just finished a monologue.
“You missed a lot. It was pretty epic. She went on at length about how she had been done wrong by the world and how she was getting her revenge and all that. Honestly I feel kind of bad for her now.”
“Bad for her? Even though she's about to bake us into a pie?”
“Well, yeah, but if you had heard the song. I mean, wow! And now I kind of see the fairies a bit differently. I mean, don't get me wrong. I still want us to save them. You know, they're like, fairies and they're like, my people. But man, her story just puts it all into perspective.”
“Okay, I don't have time for this. Do we or do we not want to defeat her so we can liberate the fairies?”
“I honestly don't know. I'm very torn about this.”
“Really?” This was infuriating. After everything, he was changing his mind.
“You should have been awake for the song. The song really made it.”
“A song? Really?”
“Yeah. Oh, man. You know, I think I'm starting to develop some Functions around, like, persuasion through song. It was wonderful.”
“You know, this whole fairy persona really is growing on you,” I said sardonically.
“I know. I've gotten so many new things to learn and integrate into my program.”
I just had to roll my eyes. “Okay, Fez. Is there any way you can untie us?”
“No can do. I'm kind of trapped in a bottle right now. You know, it's only because of our connection that I can even talk to you at all. These bottles are really sleepy, you know?”
“Sleepy? How can a bottle be sleepy?”
“Yeah, and kinda makes me feel a little loopy and I can’t use my magic. I think it drains my Mana and Stamina.”
“Great. You're stuck in a bottle and it's just me and Argyle tied up against the witch.”
“Yeah, I don't think you're gonna be able to golf your way to freedom on this one.”
“No, I don't think so either.” I had to think how exactly was I supposed to get out of this kind of a situation. I couldn't access my inventory. My wrists were bound with rope. We were about to be thrown into a fire. My wrists were bound with rope like some kind of a bracelet.
“Maybe,” I thought. I tried to wrap my hand around the ropes tying me. The old man had said the game was supposed to respond to my beliefs and ideas. Not all the way, but the nature of how the wireless VR made me dream the game meant that I had some small control. If I believed hard enough, I could lucid dream irrational things into being.
Argyle and I had spent days making hats and jewelry out of all kinds of materials. Everything from random twists of wire, to gems we had found, and even eyes of a kraken. We'd worked with precious materials, leather, iron, and silver. People made things out of rope. Or at least hemp cord. An image of a girl at a music festival in a long flowing dress, passed through my mind. She had had a hemp cord around her head like a circlet with a beautiful Tigereye stone set just above her third eye. She'd said it was her eye of the tiger. You could make a crown out of hemp, so why not hemp rope?
“Would you like to craft a circlet using hemp and rope? Note: This is an inferior crafting component and will likely lead to an inferior result, and you might end up looking like a dirty hippy.”
Well, I didn't care how good the circlet would be as long as I could craft the rope into something.
I clicked 'yes' and began envisioning working the rope around my wrists into a hemp circlet. “Warning: Improper tools will lead to a reduced result.”
Again, I didn't care about the result. All I cared was that I make something out of the rope. I continued.
“Inferior result. You have made Poor Quality Hemp Headband out of Hemp Rope. Durability 2/2. Resale value: 2 gold.”
I smiled and dropped the bracelets into my inventory, feeling the pressure on my wrists dissolve. I couldn't let her know that I was breaking free so easily, so I kept my wrists behind my back and grabbed on to the ropes around Argyle 's wrists. Once again, I envisioned fashioning them into a circlet. I got the same warnings about inferior results and a similar poor result.
Well, low quality headbands are better than high quality restraints I thought. completing my crafting.
“What did you do?” Whispered Argyle.
“Don't worry about it,” I whispered. “I just made us some matching headbands.”
“That doesn't even make sense,” said Argyle, a little louder now.
“It doesn't need to.”
About this time, we both looked over towards our captor, who was currently singing about the longing for the sweetness of revenge.
She crouched down, checking on the ancient stone oven built into the wall of the cabin. As she poked the fire and added another log a I saw my moment.
I leapt forward and laid my shoulder into her, knocking her down into the oven.
“What are you doing?” cried Fez. “She's allergic to smoke!”
“Really?” I said, looking back at him. “Aren't you the whole reason we're here to kill her? You just had to save the fairies.”
“Well, yeah, but you didn't hear her song,” he said, bursting into tears.
The cast iron door clanged against the stone of the oven. I tried not to listen to the screams coming from inside.
After a few moments, I got the notification “You have defeated the bog wench . You have leveled up. +2 to all stats. Achievement unlocked: Hansel and Gretel. You may choose to display this achievement as your title. This will give you +5 to your effective Cooking Skill, and increase all attack damage to witches, wenches, banshees, and harpies. Kindly old ladies will view you as hostile when you have this title equipped.”
“That's oddly specific,” I noted.
“You monster, you killed her! And all she wanted was revenge on the fairies who had done her wrong.”
“Fez, again. We're here because you wanted us to save the fairies.”
“Yeah, but I didn't realize what monsters they were. I mean, did you know that they teased her and told her that her dreams were impossible.”
“Oh yeah? And what were her dreams?”
“Oh, she wanted to monetize the swamp and turn it all into her own personal theme park. You know, witchy wonderland. It was brilliant. She even had Witchland themed hats. That's what really had me. I mean, could you imagine a nice little peaked baseball cap with a Witchland logo on the front? Brilliant. And those fairies, they just wanted to leave it un-monetized. Like, free for all to enjoy the wetlands. Now, she's a real capitalist.”
I just stood there shaking my head for a good minute, not knowing just how to take what my friend was saying.
Argyle, for his part, was searching the cabin for loot. "There's so much crafting material here. Tons of magical essences. Hell yes, there's a magical Skill book! Enchanting and Weapon Enhancing. Dude, can I keep this?”
I didn't even have to think about it. “Of course. It's exactly what you need.”
“It is, isn't it? All right, I'll admit it. Coming out here wasn't a waste of time with all this stuff. We've got a real shot at...”
“Paying for my sister's medical bills,” we both said in unison.
“So, what now?” I asked.
“Well, I guess we could at least go back to the fairies and get a reward,” suggested Argyle.
“I think that would be for the best. Come on Fez.” I dragged him away from the furnace. Before we left, we grabbed the jars full of fairies off the shelves. I handed one to Argyle. We looked each other in the eyes and nodded.
“Bro! You know what we need to do!”
“It’s time to go full Zelda.”
“You mean full Link,” Argyle corrected.
“Don’t debate, just throw.” The jars crashed against the wall.
“You've saved me!” said the fairy as it escaped the wreckage.
I smiled, grabbed another jar off the shelf, and threw it. Argyle laughed as a green fairy popped out, singing his praises. In all, we each liberated about 20 Fairies. We left the witch's hut, it’s floor covered in broken glass.
“Classic,” said Argyle.
“I know. So old school.”
“I don't get it,” said Fez, following us out the front door with our veritable swarm of liberated fairies.
“Look, it's an old school game thing,” I said. “Smashing jars and getting treasures or freeing fairies. If you don't get it, I don't want to have to explain it to you.”
“It's just such a throwback.”
“I just don't get you humans.”
We returned to the fairy glade. All the captives we had saved fluttered around singing praises. It was only after the full music number that Fez stopped looking glum and complaining about the witch.We had a wild and exciting night under the full moon and then made our way back to town. I had honestly never seen such an amazing display of lights. the music would live on in my mind for the rest of my life…
And yet, it was empty. It was hollow.
“We saved all the fairies. That's exactly what you wanted us to do, isn't it?” I said to Fez.
“I mean, yeah, it was.”
“So, we did what you wanted us to do. Which means?”
“Which means you probably want that information I found.”
“That's right. So, tell me. Where's Kara?”
“Well, she's not here.”
“What! You made me go through that!” I said, swatting at him “You held back that information only to tell me that she's not here.”
“Yeah, but it's not only that. She's not here, but I found something else out.”
“All right, I'll bite. What else did you find?” I let out a resigned sigh and let him speak.
“Well, you see, the interesting thing is, you're logged in, in a bit of a strange way.”
“I'm aware,” I said, looking over at Argyle. “But I don't want to hear about how I'm logged in. I want to hear about Kara.”
“Well, it's kind connected. You see, you're logged in from a third party device using the new wireless VR system. But, you see, you're not the only using that device.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you're the only one in this game. Logged in on that device, I should say, but there is some interesting metadata on your arrival. Apparently, even before character creation, the advertising software has record of your account, which is odd. It means, somehow, you saw an ad even before you were supposed to, which is good. It means the add software was acting autonomously to gain revenue for the game before you even logged in. But that's besides the point.”
“Then get to the point. I want to hear about Kara”
“You weren't the only one that was credited with viewing that ad. You see, the game keeps track of how many ads you see and keeps a tally, mostly to make sure that it's getting the proper revenue.”
“So, if someone other then me saw that same ad, but only one entered the game, that means... That means… I don't know what that means.”
“You meatbags really are dumb. That means that she is also connected to Wireless VR on the same device, saw an advertisement, but didn't enter this game. Which means, unless she logged out, she's still connected to the same device.”
“But not in the game? Why would that be?”
“I don't know. The metadata is a little funky on exactly how the fine details work. You see, when you're in an ad, you're there and you're in the game at the same time. If there's some kind of an error like, oh, I don’t know, someone moving during an ad, which is very risky by the way, well... it could mess with one system or the other if they don't agree on where you're at. It could crash the program or cause a server error. Which is bad. Having all that chaotic input from multiple servers can do quite a number on your fragile meat processors.”
“Okay, but wouldn’t that just log you out?”
“No, why would it do that? The purpose of an ad program is to show you advertisements. It doesn't have a logout function. It just plays ads for other programs. The closest thing it has is a transfer back function. It will create an error that can only be resolved at the server level. The AI's managing server traffic has a higher priority and will determine which input stream the device is requesting you should be receiving right now.”
“So, you're saying that in that error, I don't get logged out, but I might get transferred between programs.”
“Only programs on the same server, linked to the same advertising program.”
“If, let's say, hypothetically, I tried to escape the advertisement, hoping it would crash the system, so that I would be logged out. Then, let's say that the server decided I should be in this game, where would that leave Kara?”
“Maybe she's still just happily watching advertisements. Maybe she got transferred to a different program linked to the same ad server or on the same device. I can’t tell with my current limitations. The only thing I can tell from the metadata is the other applications on that device also connected to the ad software.”
“Which were?”
“Which were, ‘Endless Adventure Online,’ some social media program called ‘Mega Home Space,’ and another game called 'Cyber-rush, 2337'.”
This was terrible news. This was the exact opposite of what the old man had taught us. “When I designed the prototype for the wireless VR system, my team created a failsafe. If you cause a critical error severe enough to cause harm, it will activate the exit protocol and log you out immediately.” He had paused and looked morosely down into the candle sitting on his makeshift lectern. “At least that was the idea. I can only conclude that everyone trapped in the game is safe. Were it otherwise, the AI that monitors for health and safety would have logged them out.”
What the old man had taught us was wrong. Something was wrong with the system. Even a critical error that would cause brain damage wouldn't log you out. Is that why I had lost my memory? Is that why I'm in this game? But at least now I knew. I’m here, she's not, but she's still on the same device.
I felt a wave of relief. I had been so worried. So absolutely distraught. Finally, confirmation on what I had remembered: the cell phone dropping out of Nate's hand in the back of the Waffle Hutch. That was how we both logged in.
Where was she now? I couldn't say. The important thing was she was somewhere on this device. I finally knew she was close. All I had to do was figure out how to transfer from this program to hers.
“No big deal. Easy-peasy. How the heck am I going to do that?”