Lightforge had never been inside the sewers of Paramount City. That included his time prior to coming to the game world in person. Even on a screen, he had never had any interest in exploring the sewers, as they were doubtlessly a filthy mess that he hadn’t wanted to deal with. Of course, that was based on the assumption that they would be like real world sewers, which he once had the displeasure of experiencing.
Of course, there was no reason for the sewers to be realistic inside a video game world. Instead they were spacious and only a little bit dingy and grimy. It did have a faint wisp of the filthy stench that he had expected, but only if he was trying to find it. It was, overall, a far more pleasant experience than his unlucky trip to a real life sewer had been.
They hurried along narrow walkways through twists and turns that he didn’t even try to keep track of. He was fully trusting Circe to lead him the right direction, and he was surprised by how comfortable he found that. The relationship between them was rarely smooth, but there was a certain amount of comfort to be found in the familiarity. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, the fact of the matter was that he trusted Circe. She’d proven herself time and time again, and she’d earned at least that much.
It took some time before they stopped and went up through a manhole. Circe went first, casting an illusion over herself first. Her figure blurred and Lightforge found himself looking away from where he knew she was. His brain knew where to look to find her, but his eyes refused to land there. They would skip over the spot, which he wouldn’t even notice until he stopped to think about it.
That was interesting. Not true invisibility, but close enough to make no difference. How often had she used this exact skill to get close to him without his notice? It was telling that she didn’t seem to mind using it directly in front of him, and he chose to see it as a sign of trust. After all, it would undoubtedly be easier to defeat now that he knew how it worked.
After a few moments he followed her up and out of the hole, onto an unfamiliar street. They were on the edge of Chancery Hills, close to the city limits of Paramount City. The end of the world, as it were. There wasn’t a lot to see as the urban sprawl slowed and thinned; there simply wasn’t much to see at the very edge of the map. In some ways it was the perfect place to hide; no one spent much time so far out. On the other hand, that meant that it was also one of the first places to come to mind when one considered hiding.
It only took a few minutes from there to find Cannoneer, who signaled them from the corner of a building and motioned for them to follow. They hurried along in silence, moving as quickly as they dared.
He led them to the absolute edge of the world. There, in the middle of a grassy park, was a nearly transparent wall of swirling colors. Every shade imaginable glimmered and danced in front of them, sparking and mixing as they came into contact before separating once again.
Lightforge found himself entranced by the sight of it. He reached out a hand and placed it against the barrier, expecting to feel something incredible. Instead his hand simply stopped in midair, unable to move forward but feeling nothing that should impede it. It almost felt like his body simply refused to go beyond that point.
Sunbird landed beside them and pointed down at the ground. There was a deep furrow in the grass maybe five or six feet away from the wall.
“Stay between that line and the barrier,” she said, “and I’ll explain why in a sec.”
It was a confusing instruction, but they all complied. This led to them standing in a line up against the shimmering barrier, which would make conversation awkward, but still easily doable.
“Alright,” Sunbird said, “We should be safe here for now.”
“Oh really?” Circe asked, “And how do you figure? It sounded like we had trackers after us.”
“There are, but we should have just dropped off their senses entirely.”
“What?”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on the edge of the world here. That line that I dug into the ground? That’s where the wall was a couple of months ago.”
Everyone froze for a few seconds at that declaration. It was most definitely not part of the game for the map to expand little by little. Lightforge stared at the line dug into the ground and considered for a moment, but there were larger concerns interrupting his thoughts.
“How sure are you that they can’t track us here?”
“Almost certain,” Cannoneer said, “We’ve been doing tests. It seems like tracking powers are currently limited to the original border of the map. Or at least the range expands much less quickly. We have no idea how long the barrier has been expanding, so we don’t know.”
“Right,” Circe said, “Even with all that, they’ll come looking here as it’s our last known location. We should get moving.”
“Agreed. Let’s go.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
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The group spent the next ten minutes working their way around the edge of the barrier. That was how long it took them to reach a point where the wall met the side of a building. The only way to stay in the tracking dead zone would be to go straight through a brick wall.
Fortunately, that wasn’t a problem. Between Lightforge, Cannoneer, and Sunbird the group had no shortage of destructive options. And while the others were more than happy to start firing away, Lightforge held a hand out to hold off.
“Hang on, don’t blow it up yet. I have an idea. Sunbird, how tight of a beam can you make?”
“Uh… I honestly don’t know. I usually go for ‘as big as possible,’ not the other way around.”
“Give it a try, I’ll sketch out the lines for you.”
He called out one of his daggers and dragged the tip against the concrete wall. His strength wasn’t superhuman at his level, but it was high enough to let him gouge a shallow line into the surface. He carefully drew a rectangle on the wall, just large enough for them to squeeze through. He nodded to Sunbird and pointed to one side.
“You start on that side, I’ll start over here.”
The others were confused, but they went along with the plan. Sunbird focused a narrow beam of energy into the wall while Lightforge dug his blades into the hard surface. Within a few minutes they made their way around the rough shape that he’d drawn and were able to pull the section free from the wall.
As they crouched and made their way into the building, the others finally turned towards the gadgeteer, with Cannoneer voicing the question that they all had.
“Alright, what was the point of that?”
For a few moments, Lightforge ignored them. He held a dagger in each hand and was standing with his eyes closed. With a grunt of effort he raised the daggers and brought them down with all of his weight behind them. They shuddered as they struck the concrete, but nearly half of their blades sank into the hard material of the wall that they’d removed.
With quite a lot of grunting and heaving, he used the daggers as leverage to pull the removed section of wall back into place. He sighed in relief as it slid into its previous location and he heard a faint sound like tv static from a couple of rooms away. He grinned widely and nodded at his handiwork before responding.
“I’ve been experimenting with the system that repairs the world around us. I don’t know much, but I’m pretty sure that range is the biggest factor in how fast things get fixed.”
“Ok,” Cannoneer said, “So the further apart things end up, the longer it takes for them to get fixed. How does that help us right now?”
“Well, we’re on the edge of the map, and this building doesn’t have a door on the playable side. As far as anyone’s concerned, there’s no way in here without leaving a big hole. But what if the only evidence is small slices that will fix themselves relatively fast?”
“Then they’ll overlook this spot as they’re searching for us. Clever. Of course, now we’re stuck in a tiny sliver of space inside a building with no way out. We won’t get much warning if anyone does come looking around here.”
They all looked around to examine the room that they were in, but there wasn’t much to see. The concrete walls were matched by a slightly smoother concrete floor, and the only windows were small and set high into the walls. No one would see them from outside, but that went both ways.
Opposite the windows was the end of the world. The barrier shimmered dimly, and the rest of the building was visible through it. But something about the view was wrong. Everything on the other side was dim and hazy, as if the barrier were a sheet of thick, dirty glass.
“That’s the risk that we’re taking. Hopefully we can wait out the tracking effect and we’ll be in the clear. Any idea how long it lasts?”
“No. I didn’t know it was a power set here.”
“It’s not,” Sunbird chimed in. Her eyes were darting back and forth as if she were skimming her way through an invisible book. She didn’t make eye contact as she started to speak again.
“There aren’t any specialized tracking power sets. All the ones I’ve heard of are synergy sets, usually with Enhanced Senses or Telepathy. Whatever we’re dealing with, it’s something makeshift that didn’t exist when this was a game.”
The group stared at the woman in silence. There was an unshakable confidence in her eyes that was difficult to deny, though Circe didn’t seem to have a problem.
“That’s impressive. You’re one of those ‘walking encyclopedia’ type of fans, aren’t you? The kind that could reproduce the game’s wiki from memory if needed?”
“I know a lot, but I wouldn’t go that far. Powers and abilities? Sure, I probably could. Plot, missions, and NPCs? Not really.”
“This is nice,” Lightforge said, “but let’s get back to the matter at hand. How long would these makeshift abilities last?”
“Best guess? Maybe an hour at level 15, double that at 25. Sooner or later it will just be permanent, but if they’re that strong then we have a different problem.”
“Fair enough. What about range? Will they need the map if they get close enough?”
“How am I supposed to know? I know a lot about how abilities work in the game, but that doesn’t mean much in this world. All I know is that synergy abilities are powerful.”
“Right. Then we have a decision to make. Do we hunker down here and hide? Or do we think that they’ll be able to track us here, in which case we should run?”
“We should stay,” Circe said, “We need to figure out a plan, and that will be a lot easier while we aren’t running around.”
“Agreed,” Cannoneer added, “We need to know what this is all about. Lightforge, what happened? Why is Razorhawk after you again?”
“She was chasing some villains that I’m sheltering. Apparently that’s turning into a bigger thing than I thought.”
“Can we turn them over to her?”
“We could, but I don’t want to. Besides, I’m sure she’ll try to kill me as an example anyway.”
No one denied it, and they were stuck for a moment. Then Circe whipped toward the wall and motioned for Lightforge to come closer. She vanished but he felt her climb up and stand on his shoulders to see through the high windows. Her voice rang out from above him, still invisible.
“They’re here. Not looking at the building, but they know we’re somewhere around here. Looks like about fifteen of them.”