I had a new goal. Saving the [Wayfarer Seven] was important to Hal Pal, sure. We had talked about it briefly. It had no method by which to do so and not enough information about the threat to each prior [Wayfarer] ship.
My goal would tide us over until then. Our skills would increase. We would learn a bit more about this game world, at least I would. Plus by following through with my next goal I would knock something absolutely insane off my bucket list.
It was time to get a spaceship. One with laser beams. A two-seater so Hal Pal could jaunt around with me. [Mechanoid]s did better with more of their kind around according to their racial description.
“Treasure.” I started with the most technically savvy [Mechanoid] available. Iron certainly didn’t fit the bill, and Emerald went the opposite direction.
“Unit Hermes. How are you and Dusk doing today?” She sounded a bit more tired than normal. It interested me how each voice could have a different volume to it, which assisted in portraying emotional undertones.
“Good. I wanted to learn how to fly a ship. Is that possible?” I said.
Treasure’s head tilted as she considered my statement. Her eyes were likely going over some invisible calculations tied to my character status. Days of fighting simulations and doing cleaning work on the sensor arrays had to count for something.
“Next door is an unused space. You may activate a flight training module there.”
“Thank you!” I said happily. Training modules were both boring and useful. Teenage me would never have focused on these training courses. Driver's education had been dull beyond belief.
“You are very welcome, Unit Hermes. Please continue your contributions.” And just like that Treasure was distracted by something else. It looked like a fresh scan of Dusk with a more recent timestamp sat on one wall.
Part of me worried that a game AI decided to get so worked up about a creature from another game. Even if both were essentially alternate realities at this point. At least Dusk’s race still listed [Messenger’s Pet], it made me feel more at home. I still didn’t really handle his lack of wings right. He looked more streamlined and like a flat raptor.
I went back out of the door and stared at Hal Pal. Hal Pal gave a muted smile. Even with his new [Mechanoid] body it still couldn’t display intense emotion. Maybe he didn’t feel things that thoroughly.
“Was your endeavor successful, User Legate?” The AI kept slipping up with my name. Maybe it didn’t know how to handle prioritizing which name would be used. I did call it Hal even though the character name was Jeeves.
“Yep. Next door.” I answered while pointing to another room.
“Are you sure this venture will assist?” Hal Pal spoke in two vocal tones like all the other [Mechanoid]s. The merger was both male and female. It made Hal Pal sound like some abstract mythical being designed to be androgenic. I looked up to one side in thought, that was probably fairly accurate.
“Nope, but we’ll pick up new skills. It will increase our stats. If you look at the Piloting skill online, every hour spent increases Coordination and reaction.” I took a breath and sighed. “We’ll need those to fight.”
“If you say so, User Legate. Are we combining any other skills?”
“We should be able to. I’ve got the spreadsheet in the van’s data if you want to look.” Hours had gone into that data point. My accounting skills finally came into play trimming down which skills were available. Looking for ones that stacked with each other. There didn’t seem to be Paths like Continue Online, instead there were [Core]s.
Well, there was a lot out there, but only a few were easily available. Space flight skills seemed to be suggested for all players, like riding a [Callibur] or any other mount in Continue.
“I will do so once we’ve logged out for work.” Hal pal said with a nod.
“You can’t log out now?”
“No. It is part of the limitations needed in order to access this piece of software.” It shook a head back and forth. I tilted mine in response and chewed a lip. That seemed confusing.
“Wait, is that why you’re not saying we anymore?” I asked him with a sudden strike of inspiration.
“Affirmative, User Legate. I am, unaccompanied within this environment.” Hal Pal responded.
I took note of the vocal tones used. Though they were mixed with male and female and a slightly British accent, it still contained a warble of worry. Being alone in here seemed to be shaking the AI up. I tried to imagine what Hal’s situation would feel like, going from the comfort of a family all around you to suddenly being cut off.
No. I understood all too well the sudden absence of one person. Multiple times over? It might have paralyzed a normal person. Had Hal Pal done this for me? I hoped not. That would be, not bad, but depressing. To think that Hal Pal worried about my well-being so much that it created a virtual body just to hang out.
“That’d be weird to me.” I settled on a simple response.
“It has been difficult to overcome. I am glad to at least have familiar company.”
I walked into the new room followed by Hal Pal’s even pace. Its footsteps filled the silent room and part of me remembered what Doctor Litt said. Unused rooms were kind of odd. It was part of why I sold the old house after Xin’s death. Too much space for one person.
There was a podium, much like the one used in the combat rooms. Pressing it caused the walls to waver and shiver. Liquid metal rolled into shapes. Lights above slowly raised in intensity and gave me a clearer picture.
“Well, it’s weird and nice to be playing with you too, Hal.” Even if he did sign me up for Continue Online as a result of knowing about my deceased fiancée's reincarnation. I chased the bitter thought down with a reminder that Hal Pal had been helping from its point of view.
“Thank you, User Legate.” Hal Pal responded.
“For what?” I asked while studying the new objects. There was a table built into one wall that projected a star chart of some sort. A giant pod took up most of the remaining space. It looked like a spacecraft that was missing the wings and covering.
“Accompanying me on this journey. It is appreciated.” Hal responded.
I turned to stare at him, then nodded. What else could I say? Speeches weren’t normally my thing, even with all the acting skills from Continue Online. Being myself, speaking as myself, was hard.
“Did you wish to study this chart?” It asked me.
“Probably a good idea. I’m really bad with this sort of stuff, though.” Maps were always hard. Even trying to study William Carver’s map of [Arcadia] took a lot out of me. “Can you memorize it?” I asked.
If Hal Pal wasn’t comfortable learning to fight then perhaps he could handle all the logical stuff. Honestly, an AI with a photographic memory would likely adapt to navigation far better than I. We could set him up with all sorts of support programs which would allow me to handle the combat and reckless decision side.
“I will study it, in order to demonstrate my contribution.” Hal Pal put out both hands and started moving around half of the map. My portion sat there with a default portion loaded.
For a few more minutes, I stared at the star chart. The giant colorless skull sat between two halves of a galaxy. If I remembered my brief study while in between jobs, this layout was called a Peculiar Centaurus style galaxy. A giant tube of planets clustered across a circle of light. For some reason, the imagery reminded me of Continue.
“So we’re here?” I pointed to a dot that was traveling between two clumps of stars.
“Affirmative. This ship seems to be using a theorized propulsion drive that is scientifically improbable.” Hal Pal looked up from its side of the display and nodded.
“It is a game.” I tried to defend the poor game designers. Typically high science fiction space travel operated on mumbo jumbo. Advance Online, no matter how real it felt, would likely ignore a lot of physics laws for entertainment value.
“Being a game does not excuse clear gaps in logic.” Hal Pal stated dryly.
I tried not to laugh. He would love Continue Online. That game world had tons of logic gaps simply because people could cast fireballs from chanting. Beth swore energy laws from her science class applied somehow. [Lithium] still made little sense to me. The fact that I could [Blink] through space clearly didn’t follow sane rules.
“Our destination is here, with a twelve-hour layover here.” Hal Pal pointed on the giant map. Its finger brought up more details about a long obelisk looking object hanging in space.
The place we would stop for twelve hours was apparently a refueling station outside a gas giant planet.
“That’s so much space.” I knew Earth was a solar system. A galaxy was tens of thousands of times bigger. The fact that this game involved traveling between galaxies was insane.
It was also neat.
“This is a game, User Legate.” Hal Pal said the words back to me and I swear it almost sounded smug. Fortunately, it kept talking and softened the blow. “There are relay points using ancient technology that enable fast travel. We’ll be reaching the first one, here.”
“And then?”
“Then we fly to another one, here, and make it to the prison ship.” Hal Pal said. Touching the location of our target prison ship brought up a giant tower perched on an asteroid of some sort. The tower had no entrance visible on its holographic display. Only one small docking station at the top which could probably fit a small ship.
“How long?” I said slowly while trying to figure out what seemed so familiar.
“Six more days.” The AI responded.
Six days in-game. Three days in the real world. I should probably do a few hours of work, which didn’t give me a lot of time to do much but train. Sleeping in the van only helped a little bit. Maybe two days of actual training.
“This seems like the longest intro to a game ever,” I muttered. “Continue did a week of real time in their starter cities.”
“Ah. This race follows rather odd rules for a starting location.”
“Mh.” I had read some of it online. Humans got one of three ‘new earth’ planets. Bugs ended up on hives stretched between asteroids. Everyone had a slightly different starting point. Except [Seraphic], who had no real information being shared. Their race name made me laugh to say. I tried to imagine my name if able to pick them ‘Hermes the Seraphic’, which sounded like ‘The Terrific’.
“Shall we get started?” The AI asked me while motioning. Its hand waved at the giant mock starship pod.
“We should. Anything to help you with this mission.” I said. Hal Pal and I loaded into the simulator.
Three days of real life went by while I trained, learned to read the confusing three-dimensional star maps. Buttons were drilled into my brain. Both pedals on the floorboard went to gas. Dials and display images showed shields and energy. It wasn’t that learning took effort; it was making sure I could do it reflexively while flying out in space.
It felt like driving a car, in space. That I could pull back and veer up or yank in an abrupt U-turn. I hadn’t driven a real car since driver’s education in high school. The simulated program also felt like those terrible machines that my high school had used.
Finally, the message I had been waiting for popped up.
Skill Gained: [Zero Gravity Piloting] Specialization: [Mechanoid] vehicles Rank: 1 Details:
No penalties will apply to space flight due to basic training completion.
Specialization Bonus: Increased reaction time when flying a vehicle designed by [Mechanoid]s.
It went next to my other small combat skills and pet training abilities. All these days in-game had unlocked a few items that really meant very little to me in terms of effectiveness. My only combat targets involved fake metal creatures.
I had no idea how the ARC allowed for increased reaction time. Someone out there had to be kind of slow in real life but fast in the game. A.I. Dreams probably used temporary time dilation. That would actually be a really smart method. I chewed on one lip while thinking about how that technology might work before shoving it to the side.
Better, smarter men than I designed this beast of a device. People with lots of time and skill created the software. My only real need was to navigate within it to overcome the obstacles. Besides, the [Red Imp] ability I inherited called [Awareness Heightening] probably was a decent comparison.
I did one more run in the simulator and didn’t notice a difference. This vehicle might be missing a few key aspects to trigger my skill or the whole pseudo-gravity.
“Alright, Jeeves. We should be docking in a few hours.” I had timed my work shift and sleep to match up with this whole pit stop situation. “Let's get a ship.”
“Affirmative. Are you sure you wish to use our contribution value on a ship?”
I wanted to steal a ship. Turned out doing that on a [Mechanoid] vehicle was nearly impossible. The ships didn’t even exist until metals were pulled from the ship’s mass in order to create a new shape. Stealing a ship would either require insane hacking abilities to fool the computer or sawing off part of the self-repairing hull. My [Brawn] wasn’t high enough to chop off a wing and reshape it.
“Of course.” I nodded. Hal Pal and I worked off and on in order to get points for a two-person ship. We were able to look up the cost, something near five thousand points for a decent new player ship.
“Very well. I have been able to earn a little over three thousand.”
“I’ve got less.” I sighed. Work and sleep made it hard to keep up with the AI. Between the two of us we could afford a ship but not much more. Thankfully [Mechanoid]s didn’t eat. We generated energy and moved around.
Treasure was in charge of the ships as well. The short gold and silver [Mechanoid] seemed to be in charge of most equipment items. Her room never seemed to be that busy. Maybe there weren’t many players on this ship.
She refused to let me buy the ship. Treasure reviewed everything about my training logs. Each crash or failure to react quickly enough made the short woman frown. My simulation program had displayed more than a few failures.
“I performed a lot better near the end.” I tried to sound positive. My efforts did result in gaining the piloting skill finally.
“Barely acceptable. You would not qualify for any advanced programs based on these scores.”
“I know.”
“I’m not sure we can provide the materials for a two-person ship without some demonstration of value.” She frowned again and the tired version of her voice took a forefront.
“Jeeves and I wanted to take a ship out and get a feel for real usage. It’s part of our plan to increase the amount we can contribute.”
“Unit Jeeves, what do you say to this?”
“Unit Hermes holds on to his humanity more than most of our kind, but his words are still correct.” Hal Pal nodded as he spoke a semi-backhanded comment. “It is our hope that by increasing our skills through practical application our ability to contribute will increase.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“It will make my combat skills at least forty-five percent more effective.” I had run the math through a spreadsheet to see how much my increase would be. The simple act of training my ability to react quickly while in space apparently would provide huge gains.
“Forty-seven point three. With some room for deviation depending upon complications.” Hal Pal nodded.
“Many units have improved overall upon surviving their first flight. Are you two trying to take advantage of this?” Treasure almost seemed to wince while looking at up me.
“My research shows two player vehicles earn at least ten percent more on average. Apparently it allows for greater focus on set tasks.” I said while trying to remain calm.
“This unit is impressed that you’ve researched so well.” Treasure raised an eyebrow at me and smiled. Her tired voice pushed into the background behind a sweet one. Something about the surgery tone felt familiar to me. I couldn’t seem to place it, though.
“I try to be good at research,” I said while feeling a faint blush come on. Robot shells made it unlikely that anything would actually display on my face. Thankfully. Being complimented always felt strange.
“Very well. You have clearly done research and worked hard to earn the appropriate contribution.” She said after a moment. “If you plan to use this as a method to further increase your contribution value, then this unit will assist.”
Hidden Task Completed:
* Vehicle Purchased
* Key NPC Treasure relationship exceeds average
* Reasoning presented registers as logical
Additional bonus provided
* Ship stats increased by 10%
* Communication range increased by 25%
One time programming bonus provided by Treasure as a reward for the surprising level of research.
* +5 [Depth]
“Do be careful, Unit Hermes. Loss of the ship will result in contribution devaluation. In addition, the further out you are, the longer recovering your programming will take.” Treasure said. The fear of losing contribution didn’t really disturb me.
“That’s all?” I raised an eyebrow at Treasure.
“Is it not enough? If your value drops too low you will be unable to acquire another one without even more work.” Treasure seemed confused that the loss of contribution would mean so little.
“No. I understand. Losing a ship so recently earned would be irresponsible.” This felt like talking to my mom while getting my first car.
A menu display came up showing our ship possibilities. I focused on the one with two-seated vehicle and was presented with three. One basically amounted to a tub. The middle ship would serve well for Hal Pal and I. It was far more battle oriented for the size.
I ignored the third ship choice. It was a giant tank of a creation. Far too pricey in terms of contribution. Maybe if Hal Pal and I had been given like five times the amount of contribution we could roll around in a monstrous space vehicle.
Attention Unit Designated as Hermes!
Purchase Successful! [Ship [Protector class]]
Would you like to name your new vehicle?
“Jeeves?” I turned the decision over to him.
All three of us paused while Hal Pal stared at a screen. Or maybe it didn’t see the system interface like I did. That was actually another question to throw on the pile. I didn’t ask, though, it would be similar to asking a blind person how they saw the world.
Moments later our new ship was named. The name surprised me. “Wayfarer’s Hope?” I questioned the AI.
“Affirmative, User Le…” Hal shook its head. “Unit Hermes.”
I asked her where to go now in order to pick up our vehicle. Treasure updated our map with a new location near the [Wayfarer Seven]’s back end. The [Mechanoid] gave us a reminder not to leave the ship until we reached a full and complete stop.
[Wayfarer Seven] reached the docking station before Hal Pal and I got to the hangar. Hangar was a misleading concept since the room was basically a small storage room with one entrance. The door opened up automatically and provided a clear view of our new ship crammed into the room. This felt like having a car shoved in the garage.
“Huh?” I felt confused. “How do we get it out?”
“It seems that this floor and wall will peel away, leaving us free to take off.” Hal Pal pointed to a pattern along the ground. It looked kind of like a zipper tattoo along the metal shimmering walls. A garage door, in space.
Our ship looked similar to an egg. If an egg was bullet-shaped with two orbs on either side that served as jets. The cockpit had seats that looked uncomfortable but were surprisingly nice upon sitting down. Each control looked like my test program but more realistic. Funny, thinking about items having different levels of realism inside a video game.
I felt proud of the vehicle’s coloring, which mixed between Hal Pal and I. My malachite mixture with a muddy gold. It might have been laced that way to represent who owned the spaceship. Inside felt a bit cleaner and more like the Trillium van.
A half hour later of game time passed before we got a clear to fly signal. Hal Pal calmly got into the rear seat right behind me. We both put on a seatbelt that felt like an intense harness on steroids. If my training simulations were accurate, the harness could come off with a button click.
“Ready?”
“This unit is unlikely to be more ready.” Hal Pal stated. Its voice wavered a bit.
I smiled, looked over my shoulder and pressed a button up above. The walls rolled away rapidly and our ship's engines fired up automatically. Programming pulled us away from the [Wayfarer Seven] without any need for input.
Just like that, we were in space. The engines hummed. A bright light on either side showed where energy pushed out from small wings to give us movement. Right now they were a dull blue, but once I fired them up they would go from that all the way up to a yellowish white.
“What do you want to do?” I asked Hal Pal.
“I do not know. This was your idea.” It sounded nervous. I would likely sound much the same strapped to a real life rocket on the way into space. The real life trip between Earth and Mars would be terrifying. Like old fashioned airplane travel.
“Alright. The forums suggested watching our fuel and returning at the halfway mark.”
“That sounds reasonable.” Hal Pal’s dual tones implied anything but reasonable.
“So we’ll go out there and fly around until we’re at half. Then come back. A spin around the space block.” I tried to sound positive for Hal’s sake.
“Very well, User Legate.”
I turned to glance up at it and saw both arms locked around the corners of a display panel. [Mechanoid] joints were a bit more spindly than human fingers.
“You can always say no,” I said. Dusk had taken up refuge on the floorboard. His tail coiled around part of the chair. He kept looking around as if he expected terrible things to happen at any moment.
“I am not afraid of space, User Legate.” Hal Pal responded.
“I am!” I declared happily. Space was huge, there was too much of it. Now I was going to try and be like William Carver, charging ahead blindly! “ARC!”
“Awaiting input, User Legate.” The ARC device answered. The brief response from my virtual device broke our space jaunt just a little. Made me less nervous.
“Can you fire up some music and overlay it?”
“Request possible. Please choose your music.” The ARC stated.
“Something appropriate for a space ship’s first flight,” I told the ARC. Music swelled and started off strong. String instruments rapidly reached a quick cadence. Not dance music, but still thrilling. Dusk perked up an ear. He seemed to be able to hear the ARC speaking where Hal Pal couldn’t.
“What are you listening to?” The AI asked from behind me.
“Sounds like Flight of the Valkyries.” I answered.
“Why?”
“Who cares!” I pressed down the gas pedals under either foot. Both linked to different engines. Days of training paid off since the actual pod could swivel around independently of my directions to attack with powerful blasts.
High speeds made Dusk squawk. He had no harness. I wasn’t even sure how space handled gravitational pulls and inertia. Some rules had to still apply if suddenly changing directions. The game designers hopefully did their homework.
For my part, everything yanked me around. Swerving pulled things all around. It felt like a roller coaster with no track.
“Remember the plan!” I said. Attacking slowed down the ship, though and I was mostly concerned about flying around out here. Practicing, testing the limits. Only by pushing extremes would my skill points go up high enough to help out Hal Pal.
“This unit is aware, User Legate.”
“Reckless action equals higher stats!” My research on the forums highly suggested that going all out gave huge rewards. Even in something like a lap around the space gas station.
“This unit is aware, User Legate.” Hal Pal’s voices both sounded terse.
“We need all the points we can get, right?” I said while our vehicle traveled a straight line away from the [Wayfarer Seven]s stationary location.
“This unit is aware, User Legate.”
I chuckled and drove our spaceship straight into the nearest series of obstacles available. We were lucky that the [Wayfarer Seven] had stopped to dock at a gas giant. A huge ring of rocks littered the area much like Saturn’s rings.
“User Legate!”
“Don’t worry, it’s all under control!” My [Mechanoid] voice projected words back to him. Maybe we spoke, maybe it was all internal on some sort of digital network between [Mechanoid]s.
Rocks were all over. Big ones, small ones, some the size of my head. I wanted to shoot at them to help with our target practice. First Hal Pal needed to check something. It would help his skills as well.
“Any lifeforms around?” I said to Hal Pal as the [Wayfarer’s Hope] propelled forward.
“Negative, but I am still adapting to this interface method. Information may be lacking.” It said.
“Good enough!” I jerked the button back for lasers and laughed happily as a nearby rock turned to dust. The [Wayfarer’s Hope] blasted through the cloud.
I smiled as messages came up. They cited increases in my skills and abilities. We just had to survive and all our abilities would record or save, or whatever happened to our programming. A.I. Dreams and its developer's logic could excuse the gains however they wanted. I was too busy destroying objects and flying through space.
“Weeeeeeeeeeee!” I shouted while turning the wheel hard to one side.
“I do not understand!”
“Come on, Hal! Live a little!” The rush of headiness and jerking so hard to one side only increased my giddiness. [Mechanoid]s were human enough to feel dizzy! My laughter started, and it didn’t really stop.
“This is not living! This is reckless endangerment of life!”
“It’s fun!” I jerked the wheel again while giggling. This felt absolutely insane. Why had I spent so many years being depressive and mopey when I could have stolen a spaceship and rocketed into giant floating rocks?
The shield took another hit and red lights flashed. I avoided smashing into anything while doing circles. Our shield rebuilt and I tried another whack. It was like space pool, only our ship was the cue ball.
“Hal, you stay on those readings. It should increase your own stats.”
“Affirmative, User Legate. I am seeing a number of positive responses already.” Hal Pal stated. I pressed both gas pedals down and jerked us through another spin.
Finally, the [Wayfarer’s Hope] flashed at half. Low enough to take stock of our surroundings and see how far away the [Wayfarer Seven] was.
Goodness. My reckless abuse of the go button put us halfway through the asteroid ring. The bonuses were nice for a simple hour jaunt through space. Knocking around giant rocks by whacking the ship into them had been fun.
“What is that?” I stared at something outside the ship's front window.
“What are you referring to?” Hal Pal looked around quickly. “I am unable to...” Its words trailed off. I could see a slight reflection of Hal Pal’s [Mechanoid] face looking out the ship's front. “Oh. I do not know. One moment.”
A closer image popped up on our screen. It was a giant object. Miles long, with a front end that dwarfed the [Wayfarer’s Hope]. The part that worried me is Hal Pal’s scan showed a clear motion that didn’t float or spin like all the other asteroids.
“Confirmed alive. Pulse confirmed. Size is category nine. High resistance to energy weapons.” Hal Pal listed things off the display that all looked like gibberish to me. Maybe with a science skill of some sort I would understand better.
“It’s asleep, right?” I asked.
“One moment. I am initiating a deep scan for additional details.”
“That won’t wake it up, will it?” I said. Dusk crawled up from the floorboard and looked out the front as well. He hissed, then spun around and hissed again. Normally that meant things were about to turn bad.
The rocky looking front moved. A giant heavy lid rumbled silently as it raised. Dust from broken asteroids cast off as the giant moved. Behind that sheet was a disturbing looking eyeball that was huge. A second smaller version of the eyeball sat on Hal Pal’s display. My vision shifted rapidly between the two trying to absorb what was going on.
Continue Online didn’t prepare me for anything on such a scale. This was like staring into the eye of an enormous blue whale. While swimming in the ocean with it. I was far, far too close to a giant creature that seemed to be waking up and slowly taking note of the ship I had borrowed.
“Ah. I’ve found it in the database, User Legate.” Hal Pal sounded abnormally calm. Almost distracted by its task.
“It’s bad, right?” I said while taking note of Dusk’s continued hissing.
“It seems to eat carrier-class spaceships.” Hal Pal’s nod could be seen in the front windows reflection. Its head tilted to one side while considering the situation.
“We’re smaller than a carrier, right?”
“Much.”
“So it will overlook us, right?” I asked hopefully. The giant eye slowly looked around. Not really locking on any specific object over any other. Almost sleepy, unable to focus.
“Ah.” The giant creature seemed to shift absurdly fast. Like an eel, its body wound back and shook. “It seems to be willing to eat the nearest ship, regardless of size. It says here…”
“Hal.”
“Yes, User Legate?” It responded. Hal Pal seemed to be staring at the projection rather than paying attention to our situation.
Attention Unit known as Hermes!
Raid Monster [Leviathan] encountered.
Projected chance of survival: 14%
“We need to leave, now.” The giant orb locked on us. Both the small projection and reality outside reflected an unwelcome situation. Only months of strange monsters in Continue Online helped me stay remotely calm.
“That does seem wise.” Hal Pal said.
I swung the ship around with a quick one-eighty and slammed both feet onto gas pedals.