The CIA’s setup was state of the art, making Gracie and Conor’s safehouse basement look like a frat’s man cave. There were two ROI chairs, and Jason worried that Stephen might want to join, but thankfully he didn’t. He would help Gracie with the research angles. And he wanted to watch just as much as Allison did; he just wouldn’t admit it. Jason asked the two CIA agents to research the mining guild that had owned the fortress before the North Koreans. He wanted a meeting with one of the players at some point.
Jason took care of his bathroom responsibilities and got comfortable in the chair. Hopefully, this would only be a 12-hour session, though things could go wrong, and they may have to stay in longer. Gracie didn’t cut any corners, setting him up with an IV to start and ensuring muscle stimulators were available.
They didn’t waste time, and soon Jason Hawthorne took the familiar journey through the darkness, into the computer, and out the other side. In seconds, he was Jace Thorne, a level 13 Orc Shaman, sitting in his favorite chair. It had been 36 hours since they had last logged in when they had secured Draya as a new companion. He could only imagine the trouble she, Esther, and Trixna had gotten into. Jace had decided to sync his stronghold with global game time, which appeared to be GMT. This made it less awkward when they traveled to public areas. It also meant time moved normally when he wasn’t logged in. This gave his NPCs a chance to live independently and gain new experiences. They couldn’t earn experience points or level up without him, but they could learn new things.
{So,} Gracie started as Jace got up from his chair and stretched his limbs. {Whom did Wallace find for you?}
“A goblin by the name of Gromphy,” Jace replied.
{A goblin?} she asked. {Why not. You don’t have any standard companions yet; why start now?} She paused, and Jace heard her talking in the background. {None of us have ever heard of him before.}
“Wallace said he is in the Torrintank Keep module. She said it is a tower-defense-game-thing. I didn’t understand it. But they run one all the time. Supposedly there is one today at 10:30 am Eastern in about an hour. I told her we’d be there. She asked how many, and I told her three, plus Snowy. She came back and said she had made the reservation and was looking forward to seeing us at the Roasted Troll Tavern. Does any of that make sense to you?”
Gracie laughed. {It all makes sense. Sounds like a plan. Gather your team, and we can get out of here.}
“I know what a tower defense game is in principle,” Jace said as he moved through his stronghold. “How does it work in here?”
{The Torrintank Keep module is one of the more popular ones,} Gracie explained. {Any player can initiate the module. Once they do, they get a scheduled time to run their game, usually a week or so in advance. They are the defender and must recruit a team to help them keep the castle. Usually, they put a call out for archers and mages. But they need fighters and priests just as much. Any player can sign up, and the initiator can accept or reject their presence. At the same time, people sign up to storm the castle. Usually, it is two to one ratio, with the attackers getting the larger force, but the initiator can customize it. The more lopsided the fight, the more experience the winners get.}
Jace found Esther’s room empty and went to check on Trixna. He hoped they hadn’t gone to town, or it would take a while to find them.
{It is basically an amped-up version of Capture the Flag,} Gracie continued. {The attackers must break through the castle walls, get the flag, rescue the princess, or steal the crown jewel. It can be different each time. It is full PVP combat, but you can’t die permanently. You go back to the spawn point outside the game if killed. You also can’t lose any loot. Every item you have is returned to you at the end of the game. If someone pickpockets you, or you die and drop everything, and someone else picks it up, everything is returned to you, so bringing your best weapons and items is safe.}
Trixna’s room was empty too. Now Jace went looking for Topper.
{The game usually lasts 15 to 30 minutes, depending on what the initiator wants. You can get experience for killing the enemy, but not nearly as much as outside where it counts. The winning side gets anywhere from 50k to 100k experience, depending on the setup. But there is one thing I do need to warn you of.}
Jace paused just outside the kitchen while waiting for the bad news, not liking Gracie’s ominous tone.
{It is like the Purge in there.}
“The Purge?” Jace asked.
{Have you seen the movies?}
Jace shook his head. “No, but I know what you mean now. There are no rules; everything goes. Kill or be killed.”
{Yes, but it is more than that. If you enter the arena, you are basically consenting to allow anyone to do anything to you. Friendly fire is in the game, so a teammate you don’t know can blast you with a fireball for fun and kill you, and you are just supposed to accept it. You’re out for the duration of the game, so you can’t retaliate immediately, but if you take revenge outside the game, where it counts, and kill someone for real, it will not go well with you. That is considered taboo in ROI, and you will get bounties put on you, and people will pursue them.}
“You’re worried I will have a target on my back,” Jace said. “Someone might take this as a free chance to take a shot at the Great Jace Thorne without repercussions. No one will know if they lose, but if they win, they will have bragging rights.”
{Something like that,} Gracie said. {But I’m more concerned for Esther.}
Jace slapped himself on his stupid orc forehead for not thinking of her first. Players had tried to hook up with her since he first added her to his team. “Will they know she will be there?”
{Not directly,} Gracie said, {but Wallace will have had to use your player name to register you. NPCs don’t need to be registered by name, but everyone will assume you are bringing Esther.}
“Should I?”
{I still don’t know anything about Gromphy the Goblin. Allison and Stephen are looking him up, but they haven’t found anything yet. Esther is your ace in the hole. If you need her unique skills to get this crafter and don’t have them with you, we don’t have time for you to try again tomorrow.}
“Wallace gave me a little background. Apparently, the defenders of the Keep are given an endless supply of high-level arrows and explosive devices to defend against the attackers. Someone found a secret passage to the lower levels of the fortress where a goblin has a workshop and is crafting items non-stop during the fight. He has a magical device that allows him to send items up to the defenders. When players try to get him to stop and craft an item for them, one of his adamantium golems smashes them to death. If you give an item to him to improve, he says he will, but then he changes the item so he can use it, improves it, and then sends it up to the defenders anyway. If you complain about it, the golem smashes you. Also, you don’t get that item back at the end of the game.”
{Sounds like a delightful character,} Gracie said. {Can’t wait to have him on the team.}
“That is as far as anybody has gotten with the goblin, and only a few people know about it, so they haven’t published the knowledge, but Wallace is apparently connected.”
{I know you like her, Jace,} Gracie warned, {but remember she worked for Drescher. I imagine most informants she has are not the nicest people. You could be walking into a trap.}
“I’m always walking into a trap,” Jace said. He broke off his conversation with Gracie to talk with the gnome cooks to ask where Topper was. He got the information that everyone was outside at the lake. Jace asked, “What Lake?” but that was all the gnomes knew. They didn’t really like talking to Jace when he was in his orc form, and he had forgotten to disguise himself beforehand. He did so now and then went to investigate the notion that he now owned lakefront property.
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The lake was more like a pond or swimming pool. Jace had left through his front door and followed the brook upstream till he found a short waterfall from a ledge ten feet in the air. He could hear voices from above, and after a short climb, he found a resort-like atmosphere. It was late in the fall, and snow was common at their elevation, but even with his environmental settings turned down, he could feel the warmth emanating from this ledge. It wasn’t just because the site had full southern exposure, either. Jace saw wards and energy lines tracing all over the rocks pulsing with power; likely, they were charged with dragon fire and would keep this area at a balmy 85 degrees during the harshest winter weather.
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Ever since the orcs had moved in and enslaved the gnomes, the increased activity had accelerated the snow melt on this peak, and water streamed down in several places. It looked like the gnomes had excavated a deep portion of this plateau to collect the run-off into a 100-foot diameter lake. The water was crystal clear, and Jace guessed it was over fifteen feet deep in the middle. The bottom slopped up into a zero-entry point on the western side.
Sand covered the shore. It was grayer than the typical white of a tropical beach, but even though the orcs had killed all the mages and priests among the gnomes, every gnome had the Pulverize Rock ability, and they had reduced a large area to fine, smooth sand. The beach was fifty feet wide before ending against the western wall of the clearing. Jace saw a rectangular opening in the rock that must be Esther’s window. That was a convenient exit if you wanted a swim first thing in the morning.
Esther and Draya were lying on a pair of towels with closed eyes soaking up the sun. The dark-skinned younger woman was dressed modestly in a tank top and skirt that resembled a 1940s swimsuit. Esther looked like she belonged on a college dorm room wall. Where she had gotten the black fabric to make a bikini like that, he didn’t know, but the style definitely wasn’t medieval. With her imagination and fashion skill, he didn’t doubt she had a dozen more bathing suits just like them. Apparently, the game didn’t account for skin tanning in the sun because her pale complexion didn’t look any darker.
Snowy was a winter wolf and didn’t enjoy the warmth as much, but she tried to make herself comfortable in the sand while Topper pretended to build sandcastles while staring at Esther. Jace didn’t see Trixna immediately, but a sound from his right turned him back to the lake. Two waterfalls filled it. A shorter, broader stream fell down the north side, while a higher, narrower fall hit the water’s surface on the Eastern edge. The female orc stood under this second stream on an underwater ledge, bringing most of her body out of the lake and letting the water pressure of the falls rinse her hair. Jace wasn’t surprised that she was completely naked.
“Are they still there?”
Jace turned at the question to see Esther on the beach, propped up on an elbow with her other hand shielding against the bright son. She was looking at Jace and repeated the question. “Are they still there?”
“Who?” Jace asked.
“Draya’s classmates,” Esther clarified. “Up on the ledge over there. The voyeurs snuck up here to catch a look, but Snowy smelled them. Trixi thought she would give them a show to see if they would accidentally fall in.”
Now Jace looked at the Eastern cliff more closely. The water fell from a height of about 50 feet, and several ledges and cracks ran through and around the slope, but a few trees and bushes grew on a broad shelf a dozen feet to the right of the stream, and Jace saw movement inside them. If the boys tried to get a better angle on the bathing orc, they would need to lean out precariously far and risk falling.
“Draya just started going to school yesterday,” Esther said. “Her old master is there now, and she is taking classes with him. It looks like she made an impression and has a few admirers.”
Draya scoffed. “Likely they aren’t here to see me,” she said modestly, indicating Esther’s attire.
“Of course they are,” the older woman replied. “They don’t even know who I am.”
Draya’s unique look, with her flaming red hair and deeply tanned skin, would definitely draw the attention of other boys her age, but right now, they weren’t looking at either Esther or Draya and were trying to see Trixna. Esther noticed it too.
“Trixi!” she shouted. “You better stop. You’re going to get someone killed.”
Jace laughed at their antics but remembered he had more important matters to discuss. Snowy interrupted him first.
Jace looked at his familiar. “How many?” He had allowed goblins to exist in his stronghold, but only up to four. He knew Snowy liked to eat them, and he had already used them for other reasons. However, now they threatened the lives of the two boys up there.
Jace did not let his stronghold spawn magic-wielding goblins, so this might be some that wandered in from the adjacent mountains. He turned to Esther, who was standing now. “Do you know how to get up there?” Even though it was his home, the woman lived here all the time and knew it better.
“You can go south and curl around the rise. There is a trail that leads up to the ledge back there. But there is a shorter way. She took four running steps toward the water and dove far out into the lake. With her superior athleticism, she swam to the far side in seconds and was soon scaling the rocky wall. It was hypnotizing to watch the woman climb in a bikini, but in a flash, she enacted her Quick Change ability and was wearing her armor, skirt, and boots, with both rapiers hanging from her waist. She never missed a step during the change.
Jace shook his head, hardly blaming the voyeurs for wanting a look. Either way, they shouldn’t die for it. “Come with me,” he said to his remaining companion. Draya had to go into her inventory to change clothes and only took the time to put on boots before following her leader.
Jace moved south and jumped down the ten-foot drop to the path below that led to his front door but ran in the opposite direction, circling the eastern rise. As soon as he found an opportunity to cut north, he jumped up rocks and ledges, hoping that Draya could keep up with him. He heard shouting before he saw anything. Two boys were half-running, half-falling down the slope. One of them was bleeding from a cut on the arm. The other boy fell and cried in pain as his shoulder hit the rocks. His friend stopped momentarily, turned, then cried out in terror as his eyes elevated.
A dire wolf leaped from the shadows of a ledge directly above the fallen boy, teeth barred. Jace didn’t have time to get there to prevent the hit but hoped the boy would survive long enough for him to knock the beast off him. He didn’t get the chance. A gout of flame roared over his shoulder and hit the broad side of the animal before it landed on the boy. The blast launched the wolf thirty feet into a stone wall, exploding into ash, completely incinerated.
The flash of heat had only scared the young man without hurting him, and he lay panic-stricken for several moments while Draya ran up to him to ensure he was okay. Jace ignored them and continued up the slope. Another cry came to him, this one much higher pitched, ending suddenly in a gargle of blood. Jace rounded a bend to see a goblin impaled on Esther’s blade while two more lay dead behind her. The fourth tried desperately to leap from the ledge, but Jace knocked him out of the air with his sword, and the creature was dead before he hit the ground.
Jace made sure the goblins his area spawned were only level 5, so they were simple to kill, but he hadn’t considered that other goblins might wander in and bring dire wolves or wargs or worse. What if a troll ever made it to his property? He would have to adjust the settings. But it would have to wait.
“Is that the last of them?” Jace asked, looking up at Esther, who cleaned her blade on the goblin’s tunic and sheathed it.
“Those are all the ones I saw,” she said as she jumped gracefully down to Jace’s level. “Girl,” she said more loudly, “anything else?”
Jace turned to see Snowy had followed him and Draya around the outcropping. The wolf raised her nose, looked at the charred spot on the rock where the dire wolf had been, and then shook her head.
Jace smiled at the hungry wolf, knowing she liked to kill her own and wouldn’t want any of Esther’s victims. “Don’t worry, girl. More will come; just be patient.”
“Did you hear that?” Esther said, and Jace turned to see she was standing over the frightened boy with Draya leaning over him. The bleeding classmate was standing ten feet away, holding his arm. “More goblins will come. There are always goblins in these mountains. If you want to watch us swim, doing so from the sand is much safer.”
Both boys looked shocked by that. Draya, too, looked startled. They had expected to be chewed out by the powerful woman. Jace smiled. They obviously didn’t know whom they were dealing with.
“Esther . . .” Draya said harshly, quite embarrassed.
“If you want to visit, use the front door,” Esther continued. “The water’s warm, and we don’t mind the company. You can even do homework if you want.”
“Esther . . .” Draya said again through clenched teeth, her cheeks starting to match her hair.
“What? Would that not be proper? Fine, we can ask Jace to chaperone. Don’t know why. I’m way older than he is.”
At this, the boys looked at Jace, who appeared almost precisely as he did in real life, as a 45-year-old man. Esther didn’t look older than 25. He walked over and smiled at the one still lying on the ground. He reached down and helped the youth up. The 18-year-old NPC student was not a fighter, and four goblins and a dire wolf would have definitely killed him and his friend. Looking at the other boy’s arm wound, he realized they almost had.
“Draya,” Jace said after ensuring the boy standing by him was okay. The female student was still staring fire at her roommate. “Draya,” he said again to get her attention. “It looks like your friend is hurt.” Jace had a healing ring that would probably work, but he liked the idea Esther had to play matchmaker. It wouldn’t hurt the shy girl to have a few friends.
Draya obeyed Jace and walked over to the injured student. It was nothing for her to heal the minor wound. The three stood in an awkward triangle for a moment before one of the boys was bold enough to apologize for spying on her. They complimented the fireball she had thrown and thanked her for saving their life. Draya opened up a little and said she looked forward to seeing them in school tomorrow and went so far as to invite them back for a swim in the future.
After the boys had left, Esther, Snowy, and Draya stood around Jace expectantly. “What’s up?” the vampire asked. “Got another mission?”
“Sort of,” Jace said. “But this one is a little different. It is more like a game.”
“Isn’t everything?” Esther said. Jace felt she was becoming more aware of her environment with every quest.
“Yes,” he agreed. “But this is a little more than usual. We have to leave now, so if you need any equipment, get it. Don’t pack light; I have no idea what to expect.”