Day 2

The West Gate

6:00 A.M.

For the short amount of time that he was able to sleep on the first night, he dreamt of the War. He dreamt of the heinous violence he had witnessed in Atlanta in the Summer of '27. He dreamt of the first time he had killed a man. He dreamt of the charnel mass of flesh that remained after he had shot the man a dozen times and how it wriggled even though it no longer resembled a human being.

Tantalus woke to the sound of knocking on his office door.

He had fallen asleep the previous night on his office sofa. His reduced stature made it easier for him to sleep in strange places. In the old world, he had found it difficult to sleep on sofas because his legs would inevitably hang over the edge. His avatar was a solid eight inches shorter than his real body and, probably, significantly weaker. Enough training and a knife would more than make up for that disadvantage, though.

“I’m up!” Tantalus groggily shouted at the door. He shook the disturbing image of that recurring dream out of his head. Luckily, dreams were soon forgotten. While waking up was slightly easier in this new body, he was still sore from last night’s exercise. Also, the fact that he had only slept for three hours the previous night did not help.

As he sat up, Tantalus briefly checked his Character Sheet.

Character Sheet

Name Tantalus45 Level 9 Blood Points 110/110 Mana Points 25/25 Race Revenant Fortitude 11 Strength 11 Agility 15 Wisdom 12

Attribute Modifiers: Strength Training (1), Mana Training (5)

Talents Dead Magic (s) Holy Blood Rapid Healing

Good, Tantalus thought, he was making progress. He had spent most of the night doing sets of twenty push-ups and writing out military strategies during his rest periods. He had also regularly emptied out his mana reserve by casting Firebolt into the sky a few times. The push-ups were enough to give him Attribute Modifier: Strength Training (1), and the magic use was sufficient to raise his mana pool from twelve to eighteen. In addition, this training had been sufficient to raise him to level nine. Apparently, it was possible to gain experience points through methods other than killing monsters.

He stood and stretched out his body. The lack of sleep bothered him less than he thought it would, but it was still annoying. He felt like a college student again. Back then, he could and frequently would pull all-nighters without any chemical assistance. In 2035, he would be lucky to stay up all night with the help of a liter of strong coffee. Tantalus looked around his office, which he had taken the liberty of decorating the previous night.

Behind the desk were two maps. One was a somewhat simplistic map of the Continent of Rubigo and the Island of Merkopia, and the other was a more detailed map of Greater Osiris. Both maps were held up with duct tape for ease of removal, and the map of Greater Osiris was heavily marked with a pencil. On the desk was an ashtray that held about a dozen cigarette butts. Next to the ashtray was a small stack of papers covered with text handwritten in pencil. The text was legible but unpleasant to look at, and every page carried the letterhead of the Osirian Army at its top. The letterhead read:

ꦮ'ꦈꦗꦜ'ꦥ꦳ꦈ ꦦꦜ'ꦠꦦ

Tantalus had spent a short amount of time trying to learn to read the NPC’s alphabet. The other players had started calling it the Iron Alphabet. So far, he had learned that this alphabet was phonetic, unlike his own language, and that they put quotation marks between syllables. He knew that the text on the letterhead said “Osiris Army,” but the first and second “I” used different letters. He had no luck reading Iron Script, and he had less luck trying to write with it. This alphabet more closely resembled Arabic than English, so Tantalus’s muscle memory just got in the way.

He grabbed the papers from the top of his desk and walked over to the door. Upon opening the door, he saw Private Sigismund, the surviving soldier that he had ordered to advance with Pixie and light the buildings near the West Gate on fire. Of all the NPCs he had met so far, Tantalus respected this one the most. Sigismund saluted Tantalus once again upon the door opening. Tantalus returned the salute just to get Sigismund to lower his arm.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I figured the Colonel would tell you that I don’t actually outrank you. We’re both privates," Tantalus said, stifling a yawn.

“Actually,” Sigismund said, “that’s something I came to talk to you about. While you were asleep, Colonel Dozok granted you the brevet rank of Lieutenant. He also made me a corporal for my actions in the field.”

“Great,” Tantalus said honestly. “I’m glad they recognized you for what you did. Though, I have to ask, why in God's name did he give me a promotion?”

Sigismund gave a tired smile. “He was essentially forced to. You were named ‘liaison to the Revenants’ by Duke Edwin. The title can only be held by a commissioned officer, so Colonel Dozok was procedurally required to promote you.”

“I see,” Tantalus nodded. “So he made me a brevet lieutenant, the lowest possible commissioned officer rank. I presume I still make the salary of a private?”

“That sounds about right,” Sigismund said.

“Either way, I’m movin’ on up,” Tantalus said to an audience that would absolutely not get the reference. “Thanks for the wakeup call, Corporal Sigismund."

He moved past Sigismund and exited the barracks of the West Gate, picking up his blue jacket and cap as he left. Tantalus had to walk down a long hallway and down several flights of stairs to exit.

The barracks was built into the wall itself, so it was very long and thin. Its layout was essentially a single hundred-foot hallway with rooms on each side. He got the distinct sense that the offices on the city-side were held by higher-ranked officers. It was only natural; his office was wall-side. Not only did the city-side offices have windows, but they would also be more protected in the event of an attack on the wall. As he walked, Tantalus remembered the artillery strike on the East Gate. One of these days, he’d have to get himself a city-side office.

Exiting the barracks, Tantalus entered the chilled morning air. The sun had not risen, and the faint light in the sky above was a mere hint of the dawn to come. The stars were not visible, but the light was still too faint for the streetlights to turn on. He shivered slightly and tucked his arms into his sleeves. Luckily, the uniform he was wearing was not his original. Tantalus had been given a new uniform before he had met Colonel Dozok. This new uniform didn’t fit him as well as the original, but it was clean. Relatively clean, at least. He’d been wearing his current uniform for more than twelve hours.

Tantalus walked past the extensive car pileup outside the West Gate and mounted the red pickup truck he had received soon after logging in. His father had owned a pickup truck like this one many years before. It had been a while since Tantalus had driven a car with a manual transmission, and he had missed the feeling. Luckily, he hadn’t forgotten how. The pickup truck was parked in a parking garage slightly beyond the car pileup. This was where the men stationed at the West Gate parked their cars when they were on duty.

The parking garage was clearly marked for military use only, but there was no parking attendant present. The striped boom barrier that would usually grant only conditional entry was raised. Anyone could park in the parking garage if they wanted to. It wasn’t a particularly harmful oversight, but it provided evidence of the shoddy state of the Osirian Military.

The car exited the parking garage and started driving through the electrically-lit streets of Osiris. The streets were even more empty than they had been the last time Tantalus had driven them, and they gave the City the distinct feeling of a ghost town.

Within a few minutes, Tantalus had reached the elevated highway heading north. He firmly gripped the wheel as he approached the bridge over the Chasm. The pickup reached the Chasm, and he was suddenly struck with the uncanny feeling that a magnificent pit had opened up beneath him. Heights, Tantalus recalled, was not something he was good with. The car soon reached the other side of the Chasm, and he let out a sigh of relief.

With a few more minutes of uneventful driving, he reached the North Gate. He stopped the truck near a familiar-looking car pileup and exited his vehicle. With a slam, Tantalus closed the pickup truck’s door and started walking toward the Gate.

Just in case, he carried a shotgun propped up on his shoulder. As part of his work the night before, he had retrieved a bandolier from a military base in Central Osiris by lying gratuitously about his rank. He now wore this bandolier filled half with buckshot and half with slugs under his jacket. The shotgun he carried was filled with solid shotgun slugs.

With solid breath emanating from his mouth, Tantalus passed the car pileup to see a collection of about three dozen Revenants standing under the North Gate. Since Ashcroft had cleared it of NPCs, the North Gate had become a gathering place, apparently.

In the center of this group were the nine high-ranked Revenants who Maria Feldrast had commanded Tantalus to assemble. The system for choosing this group was simple. He had chosen the eight other S-ranks and ConcreteBeats to come with him to the meeting with the Duke. Cordelia had a following of four million subscribers on YouTube, which was about four times higher than his own. While this was dwarfed by Ashcroft’s twenty-five million, it was undeniable that Cordelia held some sway among the Revenants. Plus, Tantalus figured, it was probably good to have at least one “civilian” present at the discussion.

The proverbial “A-team” had been assembled at the North Gate. These ten Revenants who would go on to shape the fate of the Third Server and beyond over the next ten years were, in order of fame: (1) Ashcroft, (2) ConcreteBeats, (3) Tantalus45, (4) ManderOfTrebizond, (5) LtEmile, (6) GatorKing, (7) Tri3megistus, (8) Mozaic44, (9) ScaryClock, and (10) FullDan.

Tantalus squared his shoulders and approached the gathered crowd. Like it or not, he would have to be a center of attention for the foreseeable future. Being recognized everywhere would certainly have its downsides.

As he approached the group, some cheered and some jeered. It might have been his imagination, but he could have sworn he had heard someone say, “He’s shorter than I thought he’d be.”

The ten delegates for the Revenants of Osiris had been assembled.