“Liz?” Come on, for once don’t sound like a wounded puppy. Please let these words come across like a sane and stable person. Focus on a happy place. Try not to wonder what my unborn child would look like. Their mother's eyes perhaps?

Breathe.

“What’s up little brother?” Liz had the decency not to notice my plight.

“Is tonight a good night?”

“Ummmm…..it can be. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I just need family for a meal. I won’t impose for more than dinner.” Liz had set up an open house ruling after I moved out. One of the counselors suggested on having a safe place.

“Sure. I’ll go kick Beth out of the machine and scrape something together.”

“Thanks. I’ll be over in a few hours. I need to check in first.” Time to take another breath and focus on the mental exercises I had learned this last year and change.

“You sure you’re okay?” Finally some worry wound around her tone. The slight tilt of her head on the video screen was all the hint I needed. She was my twin, her mannerisms were my own. Hiding my state of mind from her had always been impossible.

“I’ll be okay. I just had some, painful reminders recently.”

“Alright. You make it over when you can, Grant.”

The connection closed down and Liz’s worried face faded. I moved my gaze from the watch phone amalgamation to my ARC. Inside the Atrium was a nearly serene bedroom. Provided no one noticed the tiny [Messenger's Pet] fighting with a tube from my hot tub program. Hissing and water shooting around that was just beyond me right now. One day I would finally figure out a name for the creature. Assuming he hung out past the next two game weeks of this William Carver experience.

I am Grant Legate. I am not William Carver.

Maybe it was good to step out of the game for a bit anyway. This other world persona, the time compression and rate of existence was killer on my sanity. How did other players handle it? Oh, right, they got to play themselves in the game, not an NPC.

I should be careful around Beth.

The van ride over was easy enough. I researched the very same topic I had given Awesome Jr. Information was surprisingly mixed. A few books talked about how people organized their thoughts when making choices. More articles and paper synopses talked about ways to sort a mind out.

What got to me was the old Aesop’s fable about The Fox and the Cat. According to the story the fox would brag about having hundreds of ways to escape, while the cat could only climb up a tree. When trouble came, the cat escaped, and the fox was caught by the hounds due to being too confused by his possible escapes.  Too many choices lead to mental paralysis and failure in applying action. That’s why so many players seemed confused on where to start. They were plopped as adults into an alternate reality. From there the Traveler's Guide, Old Man Carver in this case, came into play. Yet my job wasn’t so simple. I couldn’t just treat each and every single player the same.

Welcome to Continue, here’s a quest to fetch apples! Congratulations new player, this is the farm! We have a varmint problem! Stop those rats! Collect those candles! Do a special move seven times! The player's reward? A boring pie!  Oh, this player got the goblin boss!  Way to swing your sword, here, a plus ten weapon of great smiting!  

Personality mattered excessively in Continue. These were real people interacting with nearly real computer generated AIs. The responses I gave as a guide had to be custom tailored.

My ride to Liz’s was interrupted by a call to my sponsor, just touching base and saying that things were going well. These thoughts about Continue had managed to occupy a pleasant portion of my life which wasn’t good or bad. Merely a distraction as James had promised a distraction.

My therapist had warned me about seeing all sorts of little things and linking them to past experiences. Exposing myself to new sensations would cause me to remember darker moments.  Despite the ease with which depression swam over me I had survived for awhile in game now. Days passed with very few painful reminders and without the need to work myself into mental numbness or the dance program. This was progress.

“Uncle, you’re saying you’ve been playing for two weeks and haven’t fought a single monster?”

“I gave a target dummy a mean stare and some good whacks. Oh, I ran from some spiders too.” Voices damn those spiders. Peg’s constant uses of the imitation swear had been ingrained into my brain.

“You going to be a warrior?”

“Yeah. I can see me, lovable Uncle Grant, wielding a big old sword and inspiring fear in tiny bunnies!” My sister had the nerve to laugh and almost coughed out her food.

“So pure warrior?” Sometimes I worried about my relationship with Beth. She often treated me like an older brother than an Uncle. It might be because of how her mom and I acted, or some other psychological dynamic that was beyond my understanding. Still, she was never one to be shy about her excitement over Continue.

“I don’t know. Is that good?” Continue did have far too many choices. Maybe Beth would have good ideas.

“Can we not talk about games while having dinner?” Liz was still trying to recover from her amusement.

“But Uncle Grant’s new to the game, it’s good for him to learn!”

“Uh huh. How are the potatoes?”

“Good Liz, thanks.” My smile must have driven Liz crazy. She was becoming more like our mother with every passing day.

“Anytime.”  She said.

“So what class do you want to be?”  Beth asked around another mouthful of food.

“I thought there weren’t any classes?”

“Yes and no, there’s play styles that are like classes, but they’re called Paths, and titles kind of do the same thing. Oh! Have you got a copy of the handbook yet?”

“The what book?” Books hadn’t had hands for a decade now. Digital systems had transcribed nearly every piece of paper over. I put both hands up in confusion and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, my, god, really Uncle Grant?”

“Yeah. Totally.” I managed to get every ounce of playful confusion available into my voice.

“So no! Hold on!” Beth, true to her insanely impulsive nature, had already run off from the table and went to get something out of the house.

“Get back here!” Liz yelled at her daughter.  Beth was too lost in her current mission to bother responding.  I could hear violent shuffling from the rooms below as my niece searched for something.  One eye brow raised in Liz's direction.  She sighed.

“So when she getting the boot?”  I asked.

“After college I’m charging rent! Don’t think grandpa will take you in either!” Liz was clanking down silverware and scowling. Finally she huffed and went back to get more food from the kitchen.

“Doesn’t dad play games too?” I asked.

“God. I can’t escape you geeks.”

“So it goes.”

Beth came screaming back into the room like she was being chased.  

“Here, take this! But don’t let anyone know you have a copy unless you trust them.” Here I had just ranted about the end of a paper and ink era and my own niece shoved a pile of colored papers into my hands.

“Aww you trust me. I’m touched.” I said.

“Is that the book for your game?” My sister asked. There was half a frown on her lips and a flash of annoyance in her eyes.

“Yep. All sorts of useful tips and information. Suggestions, general build ideas, a rough world map of what’s been explored. Tons of stuff about the game to study in your spare time.” Her daughter responded.

“Seriously? You’re giving your Uncle something that’s illegal?” Liz sounded confused and almost outraged.

“It’s only illegal in some countries, America hasn’t banned it. Go us!”

A casual flip through showed a lot of random tidbits of information. Skills of all sorts were outlined along with tips about navigating the world. Quest ideas and conversational key words were printed out next to an entire section on dungeon handling. Oh look, tips on party compositions.

“This is actually kind of useful.” Though Carver’s maps in his house were probably way more detailed than anything user made. Especially something handed around like a bootleg from the seventies.

“It’s the other world's Bible.”

“I thought this game was meant to be extremely realistic though. Doesn’t all this, what does this say, dungeon crystals, isn’t that unrealistic?” There was an entire set of information on how reaching the final level and boss had rewards.

“It is a game. The realism is how you interact with it, the way the world changes as players do things. Look up the interface bonuses, or the last guild wars event.”

“Mh?”

“Good Lord. I’m going to kick you out if you keep blabbing about that game.” Liz said. She was busy assaulting her steak and potatoes with ever increasing force.

“You should play too, mom!”

“No thanks, I have enough realism living in reality.”

“Say that after you do a back flip off a wall and high kick a man in the face. Bet you’ve never done that.”

My sister actually laughed.

“Got close, kicked Edward in the balls, you remember that sleaze?”

“I have no idea what you saw in him.”

“Well you know, it wasn’t about his personality, it was about what he had in between his…”

I suddenly embedded every ounce of my attention into ruffling pages and reading more information. Oh look, certain key NPCs could be resurrected, but only under specific circumstances. Wide scale battles with the blessing of certain Voices would help them resurrect as well, or in arena tournaments.  How neat was that? Some NPCs that seemed impossible to kill were tied to legendary quest lines that were still mostly theorized.

Politics changed the landscape as players built up towns, invested gold, or completed group events. The guild wars event my niece talked about had completely removed one kingdom from the map and established two towns at the base of a mountain range. According to the aftermath notes the mountains in question were higher level. I cut in between my family’s commentary of their latest boy troubles with a very important question.

“There aren’t levels are there?”

“For players? Not really. It’s a matter of skills coming together and those build up your stats. That’s in the book. Then those skills combine to a theoretical evaluation of what you can do, called Paths.”

“This guy’s note says he’s a Rank One, Tank Path?”

“Just a basic meat shield. There’s branches into the other classic titles and roles, Paladin, Knight, Sentinel, they’re all about what you’d expect. Damage dealers, and craftsman have their own rankings.”

Liz was busy going back for a second helping while chattering away. My sister was busy miming words to her food while shaking her head back and forth.

“That’s neat.”

“My best is Rank fifteen, All-Star, of the Caster Path.” Beth was excitedly sharing around a mouthful of food. Table manners had never been a big thing to Liz, and clearly her daughter inherited the same mentality.

“And that is…”

“Balanced mage, I completed a few awesome quests, soloed a boss or two and got the All-Star title.  I like the flashy effects. Whoosh! Fireball!” She pantomimed using both hands to cast something away from her.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Aren’t you the pro.”

“Uh huh!” My niece flashed a smile and bobbed her head.

The information in here was intense. More page flipping ensued.  It looked like people had donated walls of notes and hand written scribbles. This wasn’t anything like a printed document or online guide. It felt practically grade school.

“Why do the ranks go up instead of down?”

“Then people would fight for number one, not that they don’t.”

“Boys.” I gave it my imitation of an exasperated teenage girl. My sister had uttered this very tone more than once over the years. In high school she held forth weekly in a rant about her latest crush, then at the end Liz would say 'Boys' just like I had attempted to do.

“Nah, highest Warrior Path is actually a girl, I think, she was a few months ago anyway. I met her during Rosemarie’s Siege. That woman held back a dragon that was so big…”

“Really?” Old Man Carver was a [Dragon Slayer] so part of me was professionally interested. A woman playing a tank type character and holding one back was very neat sounding.

“Yeah. We got the spell caster controlling the dragon while she held it back.”

“All this shop talk is boring me.” Liz got up with a clank of dishes and went to their newfangled dish washer. Tehcnology had evolved in twenty years. Now they sorted dishes on their own, rinsed those pesky dirty ones twice, and all around did wonders on crusty cheese. Mother still complained about cleaning.

“Anyway, Continue is meant to be more about living a life of adventure doing things you can’t do here, not about being the best. There’s too many people in the world to bother for number one. Most people use the rankings to help with group quests.”

“I’ve seen quests.”

“I’d hope so. Just about anything can be construed as a quest. You’d be a terrible gamer if you hadn’t gotten at least one.”

“Oh the one I’ve got is a doozey.” My head shook back and forth slowly as my current mission details came to mind.

“Can I hear?”

“Nope.” How would anyone sane explain the quest I had been given? Pose as an NPC, guide new players, figure out a mystery connection to a random woman, do one last adventure. Explain that convoluted situation to my niece? Negative! “But maybe you can help me. This quest has a few side goals.”

“Oh, totally worth doing. Unless it’s a trick one.”

“Trick one?”  I dug through the notes for anything on quest tips.  There was a little in there about what skills were useful in certain situations.  Social skills and NPC interact mattered as much as the combat skills did.  More than one piece of advice said to work on both sides of the coin.  Players who spent all their time in the woods training were often terrible at finding out secret routes through quests.  Or so the notes said.

“Yeah. Some quests I guess have optional side routes, but there’s like, layers, or secret resolutions. You ever read a book about this stuff?”

“No.”

“Okay, so some players have read a lot about virtual reality games. Like, generations ago there were tons of theories on how they’d pan out. Good fiction stuff right?”

I nodded.

“Yeah. In these stories the protagonist would get a difficult task. Then make progress only to find out the repercussions are crazy…” She faded out completely with a blank look on her face.

“Earth to Beth.” I waved a hand in front of her face. Beth looked lost in thought.

“Okay.” The call of earth finally grabbed my nieces attention. “Here’s a real example from the Altheme Providences.” Hey, that was vaguely near Old Man Carver's current location. “A few years ago in game, someone was trying to kill a princess. Only she’s in another castle, and the one players were protecting was a body double.”

“Sounds like a bad movie plot.” The table we sat at was just big enough for four people. Neither one of us had moved much as Beth chattered away and I asked questions.

“Most quests are, but high school wasn’t much better.”

“You still passed with good grades!”

“Yes mom!” Beth shouted back.

“Anyway, they protected the double because hey, quest says so. Someone points out she’s not really the princess, yet killers keep coming. Turns out she’s really a half-sister, which is why she can be a body double. Players discovered this, wham, bam, kingdom gets flipped upside down.”

“Still a bad movie plot.” I sighed and tried to scan over some more notes. There were some things in here about skills and how they linked together. Apparently any weapon skill murdered with a body building skill qualified the player as a Rank One Warrior Path.

“It gets worse, and this really happened to one of my friends!” She slammed her hands down on the table in excitement.

“The trials and tribulations we must suffer.”

“In the end, it turned out that the first princess was trying to kill the second princess and remove any conflict when the king passed. She fails, territory splits into two, total civil war.”

“Okay.” The last of my potatoes was finally gone. “It’s still, a bad movie.”

“Anyway, about eight months later in game and a ton of quests, first princess is killed in a big war. For real dead, corpse validated.”

“Ouch.” Liz was extra annoyed at our conversation by now and snatched my empty plate away from the table.

“Yep. Super ouch. All of this was decided by mostly players too, their quests and actions impacted everything for hundreds of miles.” Beth eyed her mom and hastily shoveled a few more bites down.

“That is kind of neat.”

“Yep! And had the players doing this quest failed to protect the second princess, the one who was a body double at first, this kingdom would have stayed just fine.” Her words were half a mumble around the latest batch of food.

“Really?”

“Yep. First princess was actually trying to abolish the kingdom's slavery. My guild officers think the kingdom would have been better off had those first players just failed.”

“The hidden trick to this one?” My eyebrow went back up in question. Beth had started this conversation to explain how quests might have several layers or odd connections.

“Players could have probably reconciled the two groups into one kingdom and made things idealistic and heavenly. Angels would descend and shed rainbows all over those involved! For glory and fame!” She dropped her silverware and waved both hands around.

“Bet that would have taken some skills.”

“Probably, like a Rank twenty on a negotiator path, or some other people skill. Probably could blackmail them too.”

“Wait are there actually angels in this game?” I watched Liz bring over another round of food for her daughter and scrape it onto the teenagers plate.

“Probably?” Beth said. She looked away for a moment then shrugged.

“How does anyone figure this stuff out?” That was like five layers of silly double crossing that anyone would get lost in.

“Most secret resolutions require an approach way outside the box. If it was something the NPCs skills could handle, then there’s no point.” Beth downed half her glass of water and kept right on eating a second helping.

“Makes sense.”

“Yeah. You just think outside the box, what skill does the NPC have, what do you have. Apply pressure!” She ground a thumb into the table with entirely too much glee on her face. “Sometimes you find really cool stuff.”

“That’s…” I paused and set down the stack of papers she had shoved at me. “actually really good advice.”

“Better stop there, she’ll get a big head. Then I’ll never hear the end of it.” Liz had been listening, even if she professed dislike at the topic.

“Next stop, queen of the world!” Beth pretended to give a mad cackle at Liz, then slurped down the last of her food before rushing off.  “Oh, Uncle Grant!” Beth had popped back in and was hanging off the door frame. “My guild's planning a war in about a month of real time, find me by then okay?”

“Okay!” Too late, my niece was already gone, leaving behind a whirlwind of thoughts in my brain.

Liz and I made idle chit chat for another thirty minutes, but my brain wasn’t really in it. Opening the guide book would be tactless though. My sister deserved a more invested conversation. Eventually we both realized it was going nowhere, and I felt okay again. My brief bout of ‘what if’ induced melancholy had faded during our game infused conversation. For now, eventually it always came back. This last year had been easier than the one before it. Which was easier than the year before that. Sometimes I lost track of the moment and forgot that she passed nearly three years ago.

“Mh.” Lost in thought I started the farewell procession.

“What’s up?”

“I’ll need to buy flowers.” The thought made me clench my eyes for a moment longer than normal. Liz just smiled then shook her head sadly.

“You going to be okay?”

“Yeah. This game is actually a good distraction.”  A year in reality, four years in game.  Time and distance would help heal all wounds, or so my therapist said.  My expression must not have been reassuring enough for Liz.

“The game looks nice, but don’t forget us here in reality, eh baby brother?”

“By like two minutes.” I grumbled.

“And I’ll never let you forget it.” She gave me the same smile I had been subjected to for decades now. The grin was pure mischief but the eyes held a tint of worry at the edges.

“Thanks Liz.”

“Anytime Grant, be safe.” She paused and tried not to look worried. Only Liz and those in my meetings knew how bad it had really been. We hugged briefly and her hands stayed on my shoulders for a moment. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m okay Liz.” I gave a tired smile, the only one that was really available to me when thinking about the past, and waved goodnight. The porch light stayed on until I got into the van and set the Auto NAV for home.

Family, for me, was the last safety net of a rock bottom life. They were everything. If Liz or Beth ever needed me, I would do anything to repay their kindness. A college fund and ARC for Beth was just the start. Liz was harder to pay back. She had always been the strong one.

But not me.

I distracted myself on the ride home by reading through the guide book Beth had printed for me. Continue's NPCs were real, but the world itself had some strange setting situations. Dungeons were one of them. Did Haven Valley have any?  Would making it to a boss constitute a great adventure?  I had no other good leads.

Fine.  I had to stop taking this game so seriously and maybe be entertained with trying unexpected things. After all, my life was infinitely less depressing if I only looked forward.. WWCD?  The real Carver, not the [Guide] Carver.  He would be proactive!  He would chase a lead until the adventure was over.  Then chase everything that resembled a female.  I planned to skip that latter part.  Even after all these years, the idea of being with another woman  felt wrong.