I pulled a ten-hour shift for work. With travel time and sleep on either end, it put me out of Continue for nearly seven days. Every spare moment between jobs was used to plan exactly how to get Requiem.

Nothing sounded perfect. Fighting him personally would be nearly impossible with all the limitations in place. The only good choice would be setting him up against this other Traveler out there, Frankenstein.

Real life had a few routine issues to resolve. Food was counted out and my upcoming calendar reviewed. Things were good enough to survive a few days without me. Requiem Mass and I were going to have a long, drawn out session that involved all sorts of prodding. Best case scenario, he would break and get killed. Worst case he would unleash another round of beatings which would allow me to take another nap before wading into [Red Imp] land..

Pretending to be a little asshole was emotionally releasing like beating people with a giant two-handed sword. Something about it let me vent my inner angry man. Plus there were always things to stab.

Logging in presented me with the standard fair. Requiem had my character cornered and was ranting. I wasn’t entirely sure what my autopilot had done this time.

“What now? What?” I yelled quickly. There was a system box explaining roughly what had happened during my absence.

Event! Requiems Requires Revenge!

During your absence, Requiem was attacked twice! Your autopilot rather happily let the enemy through and they had almost finished the Traveler off.

Your training and knowledge assisted this [Red Imp] body in nearly finishing off Requiem Mass!

* +10% synchronization

Background story opportunity received!

Be aware all speech while actively playing as the [Red Imp] will result in potential setting alterations.

Current Additional Orders

* “Oh you can run, but you’re ordered to stay within ten meters. Don’t say I’m not sporting.”

* “No, shut up, forever.”

* “Stop ruining the loot.”

What sort of nonsense was this? Requiem was mad because I had almost killed him without even trying. To top it off the game rewarded me for this absentee near success by allowing me to create a back story. They very nerve of my autopilot, showing me up like that.

“I’m gonna beat you senseless.” He was shaking his head. I was fluttering both wings madly up a tree. That didn’t’ stop Requiem from throwing rocks at me. He wasn’t about to waste any real weapons on his [Red Imp].

There was nothing else to do. I bent over and showed Requiem Mass my little [Red Imp] rear end. Shaking my ass at him made me break out laughing which resulted in a shock of pain.

Laughing counts as talking.

Total Damage: 35

“What are you doing?” He shouted while throwing another rock. I swayed left and dodged. One hand lifted to pantomime my mouth being zipped shut and locked. Shortly after I went back to shaking my rear at him. Silent communication was fairly straight forward after weeks with Shazam.

I was too engaged with mooning Requiem and took a rock straight to the left cheek. The attack caused me to dip in the air. Requiem lunged for my leg. I beat my wings rapidly and managed to get away fast enough. Part of me was fairly sure that my nemesis could have easily captured me, but he seemed to be both angry and conserving his skills.

“Bah! Fine, talk!” Requiem turned while waving his hand dismissively.

“Testing!” I quickly stated. “TestingTesting Testing!”

Requiem rolled his eyes. “For what?”

“Testingfor stupid.” I happily said. That earned another quick rock that was barely dodged. Requiem hurled more in my direction for a solid minute while I gave my best imp cackle.

“The fact that you’re even testing just shows how idiotic you are.” He gave up once again and walked back to a small camp. There was a fire-pit that looked absolutely useless for disguising where the smoke came from.

“Maybe yourstupid is genetic!” I said. Part of me felt really dirty for how I acted as a [Red Imp]. Requiem was a jerk, but poking at other people to see which way they squirmed wasn’t in my normal tendencies. The Voices above were far better at it than I.

“What did you say?” Requiem had responded exactly as hoped. He stomped closer to me and I backed up into the air.

“Mother, orfather?” I fluttered away to get distance. “Which oneisthe stupid?”

Still, I wanted more information about Requiem as a person. In addition, there was this backstory opportunity. It was like the game sensed that there was a plan in place and started to throw new details at me. The Voices were probably screwing with me too.

“Was yourfather adevil?” I smiled. “Mothera succubus?” It had taken me a while to figure out how to translate abusive asshole and whore into devilish.

“My parents are none of your business,” Requiem said. He was strangely still.

“Aretheydead?” I prodded a bit more and tried not to feel dirty.

Requiem paused and then smiled. “Yes. I killed them.”

“Who’s the devil now?” I smirked back but kept well out of his range. The Traveler was giving off his need to punch people aura. It was one very familiar to me after days of dealing with the teen.

“I suggest you shut up or we’ll go back to trying to beat sense into you.” His voice cracked a bit.

“Useless! Next question, areyoureyes really that dumbgreen color?” I asked. There was a tree branch nearby that was just barely within the ten-meter limit allowed by my orders. Small jabs of pain for disobeying orders made me relocate twice as Requiem moved around the camp.

“Why are you asking?” Requiem was busy stirring something that smelled terrible over an open flame. His face twisted and growled with each pass of the giant ladle.

“I havea bigbrotherwho wants visit youinyour world.” I tried to insert potential backstory into the conversation. He seemed like the kind of player who was anti-social in real life too. Not that my history had been any better. Work and my family were the only real people I spoke to.

“You can’t do that, this is a game.” He said while tapping the ladle against his pot.

“We’ll findaway. Brother’s a lotsmarter thanyou.” I said. “Bigger. Meaner. Andhates cats.”

“Yeah. Probably a lot smarter than you too. Now, we’ve got to hunt a few more of these things and I’ll have enough mats.” Requiem stood up and shook his hands off. The pot was left behind to bubble with whatever concoction Requiem had placed inside.

For the next day in-game I poked and prodded at everything Requiem did. My taunting kept going, but none of it seemed to distract Requiem. He was getting far too used to my constant harassment. The Traveler was clearly suspicious of my actions after the first few questions.

There was no way I was gullible enough to believe all of his answers. He tried to talk to me about his cats and that was clearly a lie. He couldn’t possible love cats with that attitude. It was more likely that Requiem tied any animals belonging to his family to rockets or other flammables.

“Are your eyesthat funnyin reallife?” I was back on the eyes after a quick autopilot break.

“You’re not one to talk. Whoever designed you gave you bug eyes.” Requiem was almost bantering with me. That was a weird change in dynamic that had developed after a few name calling sessions in the last day.

“Stupidheaddummy,” I muttered while putting more thought into how to get Requiem.

Continue Online had rules for character creation. I was now fairly certain that Requiem came from a broken home of some sort. I was sure that he hadn’t altered his character at all from reality.

Every bit of information was something to use against him. Each item would be put into a list for yelling out at the worst moments and hope that it distracted him in a fight. Requiem loved these battles and attacked mobs like it was a lifelong dream.

“You evergonna do thismission of yours?” After a few more hours off dealing with Requiem and his stupid undead monkey hunt, I moved on to the heart of the issue.

“I’ve told you before, I’m biding my time. Freakinstain will get his once you’re ready.” Requiem said. He was once again elbows deep in monkey guts and seemed completely undisturbed by it. Even I, in all my [Red Imp] glory, couldn’t wade into rotting bodies.

“OnceIam ready?” I couldn’t stop the machine from letting a squeak out.

“Did you not listen? I can’t kill him and take his quest item until you’re capable of detecting Freakinstain in that stupid darkness cloud.” Requiem yanked another tail out from the monkey’s back. It came apart with a gross squelch of noise that made my tail shiver in disgust.

“Ooooh. Whydidn’t yousay so?” I pretended to act surprised.

“I did. Many times.” The Traveler stopped for a moment and he seemed to be staring into the distance. That was a look that said ‘how did life get to this point?’.

“Good. Whatsinit for me?” I asked.

Character Traits:

[Rude] (3), [Self-Serving] (2), [Clever] (4), [Greedy] (1), [Defiant] (6)

I happily checked my [Red Imp]’s personality traits again. Defiant was something easy to exercise. Being greedy and self-serving was easy to insert here. Rude was natural to me. This whole clever thing was probably my many attempts at bypassing Requiem’s orders and finding new ways to off him.

So far I hadn’t let those traits bleed over too much into Hermes or real life. It was strange how a year of pretending everything was okay for customer service had built acting skills. Maybe everyone was an actor to some extent.

“You already got cupcakes.” Requiem gave a dry response. Once again I thought about Dusk. He would be free of this stupid binding and just fireball Requiem in the face. That would be awesome.

“What else isthere?” I tapped my foot while trying to remember the salsa beat. It was quick and fast and saucy. My face turned up in disgust at this place. There was nowhere to dance. That was the worst thing about these woods.

“You need more?” He asked.

“Paidtimeoff.” I spouted the first thing in my head once again. It was awkward sometimes but kind of fun. “Unionbreaks. Repersentation. Goldandjewels andother shiny things. Plus thingsto stab. Like you.”

I watched Requiem shake his head around trying to decipher the list of items to come out of my mouth. He wasn’t the only one confused by the demands. Most of them were utter nonsense to me.

“You’re saying you want more, to help me with this quest,” Requiem stated. Once again he stomped back to the pot and threw in our latest leftovers.

“Ofcourse. We allhave wants. You only know the stick. No carrot. Stupiddumb head.” I said while trying to give a feral grin.

“Well, I’m not giving you any gold.” Requiem looked around at the camp. His eyes seemed to be exhausted. Sitting out here for so long and being in-game most of the time had to be draining. My constant badgering and now asking for more was like piling straws on and hoping his back would break.

“I don’tknow why not. Your havecontacts selling for you.” I pretended to be muttering the words under my breath.

“How do you know about that?” He took the bait.

“My brother.” I smiled happily. Maybe the Voices would generate this poor nameless [Red Imp] a big brother. Requiem needed more drama in his life.

“Yeah? Maybe I can meet this brother of yours, he’s probably useful.”

“More likelytoeat you.” I shrugged. Making up details about a fictional person was kind of fun. “Justtheright spices and even you mightbesweet tasting.”

“I think that answers the question on which one of us is a demon,” Requiem said. I almost clamped a hand right over my mouth but managed to giggle instead. Clearly the game was really warping any sense of humor the years had given me.

“Anyway, I expecttoget something. Anything useful. Oh, andaname. I’m tired of heyyou, holdthat one.” I gave my nails a glance and frowned in displeasure. They were sharp, poky things like the tail.

“A name?” He sounded honestly confused by that one. Like it hadn’t occurred to him that anyone might not have a name. I was even more certain that Requiem did not own a cat.

“Something useful, like I’mwithstupid. Or Myownerisslow. Deathtocats.” I had put a lot of thought into a possible name for the [Red Imp]. It was weird thinking of myself as not having one. Deathtocats was a long shot, though, plus I personally liked cats.

“Don’t you have one already?” Requiem asked.

“Not one youcanuse. If I hadone, I’duse it.” I shrugged.

Background Generated:

[Nameless]; Your [Red Imp] self is currently nameless and wants to find a good one. Sadly he doesn’t know very many people and is subject to the whims of his contractor.

[Little Brother]; Your [Red Imp] has a big brother. The following traits have been applied to this new brother. [Greater Demon], [Protective], [Sadistic], [Really Big Brother], and [Unbound Entity].

That was easy enough. Mess with another human being long enough and the computer would generate pop-up boxes. There was probably a life lesson in there about my entire experience with Continue Online.

“We’ll see. For now, since you said you’re ready, let's finish last night’s dungeon.”

“Eh? There?” I had no idea where he was talking about. There hadn’t been a dungeon to my knowledge. The last one had been rather interesting if limited.

“Yes. You’re trained enough and my recipe is almost done. Soon I’ll be able to enchant everything.”

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“Eh,” I said with far less interest.

“If you do a good job I’ll enchant you something too. With the leftovers, of course.” Requiem checked his pot of goo again and nodded. He was probably checking exactly how much was in there. “Yes. This should come out excellently.”

“If stupidhead says so.” I stared at the synchronization bar and wondered how easy reaching seventy-five percent would be. There was only another chunk to go. Doing this dungeon might go either way.

If nothing else, going might have loot. I hadn’t really done anything with the game items as Hermes or the [Red Imp]. Beating people using [Morrigu’s Gift] and it’s echo was the only trick I seemed to know.

“When dowego?”

“Now you’re eager to do something?”

“Yes. I’ll evenwavekilling you in this dungeon. For items. This precious lootyoukeepselling.” My personal efforts at eliminating Requiem’s character had failed. Maybe the secret was to let the autopilot succeed. Getting to seventy-five percent using the [Self-Serving], [Clever], [Greedy] characteristics should hopefully assist in unlocking the next rank of skills.

“One item,” Requiem said.

“Five!” I countered. This argument was only going to end one way. My real goal was to mess with the Traveler anyway.

“One item.” He held firm as expected.

“Three!” I tried.

“One item.”

“Of my choice.” Each attempt sent a positive marker through my synchronization bar. Not enough to go up a full percent, but it was the right thing to do while staying in character.

“Fine.” He looked like my request was pulling teeth out.

I wasn’t the only one greedy around here. At least I was pretending. Requiem Mass was sending his items somehow to a merchant player and turning them into real money and I was being greedy asking for an item.

“Prat. Jerk. Selfcentered littlebrat.” The words came out in a rush of grumbling. “Dunghead. Idiot. Mcbuttface.” They sounded clunky to my ears so it was likely they were in [Demonic] or whatever language [Red Imp]s spoke.

“Come on. We’re not going to waste time.” Requiem shook his head and dusted off his hands. He picked up items from all over the camp with an effectiveness that rivaled Shazam’s.

I fluttered after the Traveler but stayed out of reach. Requiem wasn’t likely to have forgiven me of all the earlier barbs and cruel jabs. There was no way I would have forgiven me in his shoes. My attempts at prodding were far ruder than any questioning James had subjected me to.

Ironically I felt that poking at his soft spots had been easy. Having my own scars made it simple to find his. A year of hearing other people's stories and self-improvement attempts along with tons of therapy.

I swallowed and faltered in my flight. What exactly was I trying to do to another player? This was a real human on the other side of this machine. Almost two days of personal attacks had to stop. In-game commentary, issues with how he fought, making fun of his clothing were all fair game.

Trying to take this quest between us to the outside world was not neat at all. This was just a game to Requiem. That which was in Continue Online would stay in Continue. My recent actions had crossed the line rather firmly and it was time to reign myself back in.

Requiem stopped in front of an absolutely huge tree. I lost track of him while staring up in awe. This was the biggest and most dead looking piece of future timber ever. An image came to mind of the tree burning happily.

Punched like you owe someone money

Total Damage: 40%

Continue Online was happy to provide me both stars swirling at eye level and a pop-up box. Neither was a solid enough hint on what had happened. A giant finger kept sliding and out of focus.

That finger belonged to Requiem who was pissed looking. “I put up with a lot of shit from you, but you talk about my mom again, and I’ll make everything we’ve been through so far look like child’s play.”

A whole swath of emotions crossed my face.  Part of me felt terrible for even letting this happen in the first place. Personal attacks were downright rude no matter where they happened. Requiem Mass may be an asshole and practically five, but my insults made him seem adult like.

“We clear?” Requiem’s foot was bigger than my head. My wings were wiggling and trying to escape, but being on the ground made it hard.

I hastily nodded. Being punched and tortured was counterproductive to quest completion, for both of us. Being punched also made my head ring fiercely. There wasn’t even a dazed message.

“Good. Now that we’re settled. You help me clear this dungeon, and no goofing around, and you can have one item of your choice at the end. Deal?”

“Okay, twerp.” I used Vlad’s name for Requiem. Two boxes came into being. One informed me of the newest contract between familiar and summoner. The other was another percentage increase that came with a note.

[Divine Attention] +4

Requiem glared and I tried not to roll my eyes.

“I have a name for you.” He said.

“Layit onme.” This would be neat. I bet the player had spent entire minutes trying to think of something clever and snarky to label me with.

“Twerp.” Requiem smiled over at me. Scratch that, he must have been hit with sudden inspiration.

“Rejectedvoted andno, that’s your name.” I smiled back. “Twerp.”

“Shut it, or I’ll hit you again.” He turned to the tree and started poking at air. Requiem was fiddling around in his player menus with something. A moment later his two swords were equipped and ready to go.

“Then who would help youclear this place.” Too bad I had no real equipment. Just a loincloth and weapon to my nameless imp self.

“If you’re too useless, I’ll do it myself. Besides.” Requiem waved an arm and threw a small ball of flame at me. The earlier damage from being clocked in the face vanished as fire warmed every inch.

Right. He could throw fire around and it would heal me. How perfect was it that his preferred method of damage just happened to close up any wounds accumulated? It was almost like the Voices handcrafted my passives for this situation.

My eyes rolled. They probably had. That meant they threw in the whole demonic tongues language thing to ensure I could understand his stupid poetry reciting. I tried not to twitch in annoyance.

“Did you hear me?” Requiem said.

“Sure. You’retoo useless, I’ll doit myself.” I waved the tiny arm holding my [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] towards the Traveler. He scowled and pointed to the giant tree.

“We’re going down there. You’re following orders, and we’re going to clear it all the way down to the roots.”

“And take all the items.” I played up the [Greedy] aspect.

“All of them.” A clear look of greed passed over his face. If Travelers had thought bubbles, his would be a banker counting coins.

“And I get five.”

“One.” Requiem looked sour. Work life had taught me that far too many people needed constant reminding. I also really enjoyed watching him squirm.

Requiem went first. That was fine by me since being a [Red Imp] came with next to no health points. Even Hermes was easily triple this body’s [Endurance] and quadruple its [Brawn]. It had taken me days of adjusting to wrap myself around wings, changed stats, and impulse control problems. The latter was still causing me issues.

Flying was a lot of fun. Whenever Requiem wasn’t micromanaging me I sped around quickly doing didoes and aerial maneuvers. The only time that he ever left me alone is when I was ordered to gather herbs. My [Blink] practice was sorely lacking.

“Come on. You’re falling behind.” There was a giant hole that went into the ground. It had wound down for three loops or more. I didn’t have a map. Part of me felt kind of sickened being trapped in this tunnel.

“No Iamnot.” I protested.

“Really? Remember where we got jumped last time?”

“Yeah. Youalmost wet yourself.” I had no clue where we got jumped last time. Requiem so far had shown no awareness of a difference between me and the autopilot, though.

Maybe Requiem was an even better actor than I was. That was a scary thought. Dwelling on anything along those lines would be bad for my stability.

“Anyway.” Requiem didn’t refute my claims so maybe there was something to it. “We’re taking the right fork. That should get us up to the first boss.”

I tried not to roll my eyes.

We made our fourth spin down and found the fork Requiem had mentioned. I was hoping he wouldn’t ask me anything else too crazy about our autopilot time. Pulling an all day shift and sleeping didn’t help keep me in the loop with everything happening.

The first monster we faced shot out of the wall and took up the entire width of our tunnel. Only the [Red Imp]’s natural survival instincts kept me from getting smacked in the face. Once I righted myself there was a very clear and rotting root in our way. Floating up revealed a small hole that I might be able to [Blink] through.

“It’s the traps. They keep screwing us.” Requiem started hacking away with his sword. “Though these are new.”

“Stupid,” I muttered.

“Really? I don’t see you detecting them any better.”

“Notthat.” I said.

“Then what?” Requiem turned and glared at me. “If you’re so smart.”

“Whywould theyput a wall?” I tried to ask a leading question. There was no way I could just hand him an easy conclusion when the [Red Imp] would give me points for implying he was stupid.

“To slow us down.”

“Untilsomething shows up.” I may have stuck my head in the sand for years, but that didn’t mean games were new to me. Plus weeks with Shazam had rather firmly taught me a lot of basics.

Requiem looked at me and then down the tunnel. I personally opted for staring at the walls. It was more likely something would crawl out of them, giant worms or termites. Hopefully, Requiem would throw a lot of fireballs at any bugs to show up.

Nope. Moles. Undead, ugly, squirmy moles. Voices above what sort of macabre horror show was I trapped in?

“Imp! Drive it back!”

“Ahh!” I drove the top of my weapon towards the enemy. The [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] landed square on its nose.  There was no point in trying to identify it. I only had one trick and that was stabbing things when possible.

“Eeeee!” The medium sized undead mole grabbed its nose and cried out. Two more crawled out of the wall around us. Bits of root and dirt stuck to their faces. “Eeeee!”

“Too many!” I did my best to play poke-a-mole with the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift]. One went down, two more showed up, and finally there were six of them appearing from the walls each throwing clumps of dirt.

“Eee!” They kept making the same noise every time. “Eee! Eeeee!”

“We’re through,” Requiem said.

“What aboutthese?!” I squeaked while stabbing another two moles in the nose.

“We need more space before we can fight them.” Requiem was somehow staying calm under pressure. “This way. There should be room up here.” He turned and threw a giant ball of fire down the hallway. It passed over me while scaring all the undead moles back into their holes.

Requiem moved quickly down the hallway. He had one sword out trailing ash behind us. The mole creatures coughed and sputtered while slushing grossly. I tried to flap my wings, but these narrow tunnels turned my few attempts into bad hopping with mild panic.

“Another one. Help quickly.”

“Fine.” I shifted my weapon and slashed with an edge. It helped shave the second wall down before any more mole creatures caught up with us. Requiem didn’t even spare a glance for the shape-shifting item. I was lucky it was [Bound] or he might try to sell it too.

“Go. The clearing is up ahead.” Requiem turned and threw another ball of flame down the hallway. He rushed by my hopping form and dove into the cavernous opening.

“Will they come here?” I asked. There were no walls for the mole things to attack from or hide in. Instead, they would be limited to the ground or way up high on the ceiling.

“No. The monster in here should scare them off.” He said.

“That’s good. Waitwhat?” I turned and looked up towards where Requiem was staring. The ceiling was extremely dark, but I had the racial [Darkvision] backing me up. Requiem must have something similar.

I didn’t have time to think about it. The [Darkvision] only reached so far. Requiem was scanning the top and squinting.

“There it is.” Requiem pointed up. “It chased us off last time. This time we’ll use it in our favor.”

“Is that?” One hand came up to cover my mouth.

“A giant eyeball thing. I’m calling him Squints.” The Traveler sounded excited.

I ran the identification skill as the creature got closer. It looked like a monster from some really old fantasy game. Instead of tons of squirming eyes being attached it had veins and roots waving around. There were no wings on its back. No sign of eyelids. It was bloodshot and intensely gross.

Skill Used: [Identification] Race: [Detached Vitreous] Health Pool: Medium Description:

Its got perfect night vision and a questionable attitude. No one is entirely sure how it eats. Depth perception is non existant. It doesn’t even shoot fireballs.

Well. On top of that it was staring at us. This was one gross eyeball that kept rapidly switching its gaze between the doorway, me, and Requiem. This must be how microscopic beings felt under a magnifying glass.

I wanted to retch. It squirmed even more than the icy cockroach thing and was way too big.

A giant ball of flame came down from above and smacked me in the face.

Warning!

We lied about the fireballs.

“Joy. Fireunder a tree. Makesperfect sense. Floating eyeball thing.” My own eyes were rolling. At least the [Maze of Midnight] had a theme. I wasn’t sure exactly what this dungeon followed, but there had to be more than earthen tones to the place. I flicked away the pop-up box and stared at Requiem. He was looking up still.

“Loot. Precious loot.” Requiem said happily. He spun one sword in his hand and waved the other back and forth.

Down came [Detached Vitreous].