Lag:

In online gaming, lag is a noticeable delay between the action of players and the reaction of the server.

(Wikipedia)

Part One

Danger Looms

Gryad Online:

A massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed and produced by the RussoVirt Corporation, the fifth in the Gryad series (not counting the add-ons). Gryad Online continues to develop the world already familiar to users through the first games of the series.

The game is set in a world first introduced in the Gryad: Swords Vs. Sorcery game. Its events take place twelve years after the First Storm — a global magical disaster that concluded Gryad IV: Breach of the Magosphere. Despite the game's audience of over 9 million with an increase of 100,000 new players each month, currently only two large areas of Gryad's enormous world are open to the public: the Dead Canyon and the surrounding area of adjoining kingdoms of Vardis, Selour, Nideria, Cryte, Zygon and the downfallen Warp. According to the RussoVirt press center, the company is planning to unveil more large locations shortly, including its own moon Shaard. At the time of writing this article, more definitive information is still unavailable.

(Wikipedia)

Chapter One

"Die, you bastard!"

Take that! And again!

The knight wielded his heavy two-handed sword with remarkable ease. Attila leapt aside. He could see the enemy's smug face and the disdainful glare behind his slotted visor. The knight's sword glowed with magic, his scarlet cloak floating behind his back, the gold of his armor blinding. Next to him, Attila's gray deerskin jacket and hunter's pants looked decidedly tacky.

The knight's two henchmen smirked as they rounded on Attila. They loved their fun: to ambush a lone ranger on a deserted road and chop him to bits, then watch him die. They probably felt so tough and bold, and they couldn't have cared less that the victim's blood looked so believably red as it gushed onto the green grass.

The whole clearing was studded with small pyramids of bones. Apparently, these three scumbags had been using it for quite a time. A tiny kitten sat by one of the graves miaowing weakly, his eyes tearful and forlorn.

Attila dodged a new blow, then parried the next one with a round shield, apparently too light and fragile to withstand the attack.

The shield didn't break, protected by a Poisonous Light spell. Normally, you couldn't cast it on a shield. But Attila could do many things that an ordinary player couldn't.

The fierce flash blinded everyone with a brief show of colorful runes — everyone but Attila who'd covered his face just in time.

In fact, it was a cartoon character on the computer screen that shielded his face, obeying the gesture of a hand in a sensory glove. As for Ivan Attila himself, he was sitting at his desk watching the fight unfold. He could actually see everything from two perspectives: both through his char's eyes and via a "God's Eye view" from above, as if soaring high above the fighters' heads.

Attila had been testing this cheat device for a good three hours already and he was more or less pleased with the result. Having said that, this thing could guarantee him some big problems with the game overseers. To avoid this, he had to send the cheat to the customer quickly. Within half an hour, he'd be done.

The God's Eye dropped lower. Where before a green sea of forest lay and the tiny figures of fighters appeared in the clearing, Attila could now discern a kneeling knight, his two blinded henchmen and a ranger towering over them: himself.

Himself in the game, that is.

He twitched his fingers ever so slightly, then moved his hand slowly to one side. Attila the toon chopped through the legs of one of his enemies. In a wide sweep of his sword he decapitated another, then buried the blade in the first one's chest. Back to your respawn points, noobs!

Two bodies collapsed onto the grass. Having received the lion's share of the spell, the knight kept cussing while his life bar shrank. Initially blue, it was now orange rapidly moving into red. His henchmen lay there dead as doornails. Color rapidly drained from their bodies until they dissolved into nothing, leaving behind two tiny pyramids of bones, a pair of boots, a jacket, a sword, a knife and a money pouch. Dying in Gryad caused you to lose some of your gear and in some cases could even strip you of up to 10% xp — and once you're level 20 and above, each and every xp point costs you dearly.

"You wretched skunk!" the knight's voice rose to a shriek. Skin was peeling off his face; his empty eye sockets had turned black, burned by the spell. "I'll find you wherever you are!"

"Die, you bastard," Attila mocked the knight's earlier words knowing that the microphone would carry the phrase to the Dead Canyon. His victim would hear it and so would the player himself — whether using a sensory suit, a capsule or the good old butt in chair, eyes on screen method. Having said that, few gamers used it these days.

The life bar blinked one last time, expiring. The knight collapsed and began to fade. Then he disappeared, leaving behind another bone pyramid. This one seemed even bigger than the other two — grander and more respectable, so to say.

Ivan Attila connected his thumb and index finger into a circle, then moved the gloved hand slowly. Obeying the signal, the "God's Eye" too turned around and flew over the forest. Controlling his char with his other hand, Attila made him lift the sword and the wallet. Where the dematerialized knight had just lain, Attila discovered another pouch, bigger and fatter than the first one. He could almost hear the beaten player cuss wherever he was now as he picked the pouch up.

Ding! the speakers echoed with the clinking of money. The sound pleased his ear. According to the number next to the icon, Attila had just become 120 gold richer. Not bad. That would teach those three idiots a lesson. What did they expect for assaulting a peaceful passerby?

He crossed the clearing and switched the God's Eye to float mode to make sure it always stayed overhead. Amid the trees stood the conical squat rock of a pagan temple, its doorway blue with the opening of a portal. Such structures styled as ancient ruins were in fact the portal stations that allowed you to log out without losing contact with the game. Naturally, you could always just quit any time you wanted, but the Gryad world treated such unauthorized logouts as sudden death, entailing loss of property and xp points.

Attila's doorbell rang.

He pressed Esc for the logout window. Still, he wasn't in a hurry to quit the game now that his char was under the temple's protection. Who the hell could that be? His aunt was away; he didn't expect anyone in her absence. Could it be the social care people checking on him? If so, they could always ask the woman next door for the spare keys. She always kept them in case of any emergency. Attila had special needs, after all.

Cringing unhappily, he rolled his wheelchair out into the dark hallway, his hands deftly turning the wheels. Why couldn't they let him do his work in peace!

The cheat was practically finished but he wanted to improve the image quality some more. While static, the objects looked perfectly in focus, but the moment you sent the God's Eye flying, the player's field of vision narrowed, blurring the peripheral images. And even though the customer hadn't specified any particular demands to these parameters, Attila still wanted to look into it. This particular cheat meant a lot to him. And if the deal fell through...

His heart missed a beat. He shivered. The lack of money meant trouble. Big trouble. Better not to think about it.

He wheeled himself to the front door and peered into the peephole cut in the door at a normal person's chest height. A young man was waiting on the landing with his back to the elevator. He wore a green overall and a baseball cap. In his hands he was holding a large box. Already?

Attila's wristwatch announced midday. Wow. Talk about prompt delivery.

He swung the door open and wheeled himself aside, letting the man in.

"RussoVirt delivery service," the man began with a professional smile.

"That's right. It's for me. I've been waiting."

Both fell silent — then both recognized each other.

"Kostia? Kostia the Billystick? It can't be you, surely!"

"Attila? No way!" his ex-classmate stopped mid-sentence, taking in the wheelchair. His initial surprise gave way to embarrassment. He looked aside.

"Right, so what are you waiting for?" Attila's voice sounded ruder than he'd intended. "Come in," he turned the wheelchair and rolled it into his room.

The apartment was quiet. For the last year and a half, Attila had been living with his aunt, a flight attendant with some international line or other. She was probably in mid-air halfway to New York now. In her absence, Attila never bothered to turn on the radio or even the television.

Kostia the Billystick followed him, inconspicuously studying the tall wheelchair that Attila kept rolling with both hands.

"I did see your name on the receipt but the way they wrote it I couldn't be sure," he said. "I memorized the address but I didn't put two and two together. You used to live somewhere else, didn't you?"

Attila entered his room and swung the chair round to face his friend. "We sold that place. I live with my aunt now. She's away at the moment."

"I see," Kostia wanted to continue, then fell silent. He didn't ask about Attila's parents.

Silence hung in the air.

"You've done well by ordering Sensorica," he finally blurted.

He lay the box onto the table and prepared to deliver his habitual speech: This suit will make your virtual experiences a breeze! You can use it to walk the vast expanses of the digital world — and not just walk but run, leap or even fly! We guarantee the authenticity of your experience.

He was about to blurt it all out when Attila's grim stare cut his sales pitch short. Kostia lowered his eyes. "We have an anniversary tomorrow."

"What anniversary?"

"Don't you know? RussoVirt is celebrating its ten years in business. I could, if you wish... I mean... we'll have a buffet and some guided tours. I'll be there too. I could show you in. The only thing is..."

"Why would I need to go there? Very well, show me how it works."

Assuming his professional stance, Kostia gave his practiced smile. "Greetings from the RussoVirt delivery service! We're happy to-"

"Cut the crap out. I've already ordered some stuff from your bosses: some gloves and a pair of goggles. So I've heard all this before. Are you new there?"

"Yeah. This is my third delivery."

"I see. Open it, will you? I'd like to take a look."

Kostia reached for the box. His glance chanced on a few pin-ups of a pretty blonde girl on the wall by the desk. Reaching inside the box, he produced a large oblique helmet and handed it to Attila. He looked it over and laid it in his lap. Kostia reached into the box again and pulled out a modest-looking bag. He looked around him for a place to safely lay the expensive item. Attila nodded at the couch.

The bag's zipper whizzed open. The sensory suit glittered in the sunlight.

"Sensorica Super Suit," Attila was leafing through the fat manual. "Why did they need to call it like that?"

"Why not?"

"A suit I would understand, but why all this fanfare?"

"It's to make it clear this is the latest thing. New generation technology. A special design for people with special nee- never mind. Basically, they thought that Super Suit would sound cool. Now," Kostia once again remembered his job responsibilities, "Now I'm obliged to read the Agreement out to you. The RussoVirt Corporation hereby informs its users that it has conducted the tests necessary to establish the safety of its equipment. Any possible malfunctions may result from..."

"I know, I know. Do you really think I didn't read the fine print before buying something as expensive as this?" Attila rolled his chair away from the couch and reached into the desk drawer, producing a few bank notes. "Here. You've done your job. I appreciate it."

Seeing his friend move around the room in his chair made Kostia feel uneasy. While Attila was just sitting there, you couldn't tell there was anything wrong with him. He was just a guy in a chair — never mind the chair looked funny. But the moment he grabbed hold of those big old wheel rims in order to push himself around, you could clearly see that his ex-classmate was indeed handicapped for life. His legs didn't move at all... or did they? When Attila had reached into the desk for the money, Kostia thought he'd noticed his right knee twitch ever so slightly.

Attila stared at him as if knowing what kind of thoughts Kostia was thinking.

"You..." Kostia began.

"Are you trying to work out what happened? I can tell you. You remember our old Nissan, don't you? Mom was driving. Dad was sitting next to her. I was in the back. We were driving along the railway when this girl in a red SUV shot out from a side street," Attila pointed at the pin-ups on the wall. "An enormous thing. I still have nightmares about it. It rammed right into our car. Mom died on the spot. And Dad... the impact was so strong he was thrown out of the car onto the tracks. Just when a locomotive was speeding past. It... it sliced right through him," he paused, staring at the pictures. "The SUV was fine. Just a dent in the bumper. Her father was loaded. It was he who got her all these modeling gigs. So their lawyer pulled all the strings. She was acquitted. Even though she was DUI at the time."

As he spoke, his voice was growing hollow. In the end, Kostia couldn't work out very well what his friend was saying. He shifted from foot to foot, not knowing where to look, wishing the earth could swallow him whole.

Attila proffered him the money again. "Auntie and I, we sold my parents' apartment. To pay for my studies. But it didn't work, as you can see. I quit college — but I did get some IT training. I work from home now. Mess around with different programming stuff. The money is good. Auntie is rarely home. Nobody hassles me. Come on, take it."

Mechanically Kostia took the money. "What's this for?"

"For your delivery."

"But... you paid by card, didn't you?" Kostia faltered. He still had his pitch to finish. There were lots of things he was yet to tell Attila; then he had to help him into the suit and make sure he knew how to connect it.

Crumpling the money in his hand, he mumbled, "Thank you for choosing Sensorica. Super Suit is our latest gaming accessory that runs our dedicated OS developed to control our state-of-the-art softwa-"

"Stop it," Attila said. "I read it all, I tell you. Thanks, Billystick. Off you go."

"No, wait. I still have to tell you about the safety regulations..."

"Don't need to. Thanks. Just go."

"But..."

"Please go."

Stooping, Kostia left the room. He remembered Attila from school when he used to be an athletic type, active and cheerful. Seeing him now hunched up in his wheelchair... no, he couldn't.

Attila unlocked the door, letting him out, then immediately slammed it shut behind his back. Only in the elevator did Kostia remember that Attila hadn't even signed for the delivery. Still, going back up was beyond him.

Having got rid of his friend, Attila hurried back to his computer. He walked his char into the temple and quit. The chat icon was flashing: someone was trying to get hold of him. Attila chose not to answer. He rarely used the game chat these days. Instead, he'd managed to build Skype into his interface. It was true that Gryad hadn't yet joined Skype's latest array of in-game communications, but things like this never stopped Attila. He simply hacked the code, connecting Skype Messenger to Gryad.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He hooked up the Sensorica helmet to his desktop computer and entered Gryad-online.com to synchronize them. Then he turned his attention to the suit. He already had everything ready: the special energy drink cartridges and the "gamers' diapers" used by die-hard Net junkies.

All these suits and helmets were being hacked and modified at a frightening speed. The moment a new product hit the market, various shady online dealers would start offering "new improved" gadgets for it. Attila's case was different, though. Because he couldn't walk, regular sensory suits were no good for him. Medical specialists shrugged. It's all in your head, they'd say to him, your nerve endings have fully restored and all they need is a bit of practice so get a grip and get working on it...

Attila was doing his best and still his legs wouldn't obey him. Even the neuromuscular stimulation therapy didn't help. So when RussoVirt had released Sensorica, advertising it as the first sensory suit for people with special needs, he hadn't hesitated simply because this device would allow him to walk, even if only in virtual reality.

Sensorica cost an arm and a leg. Attila had been forced to turn to loan sharks. By Monday he would have to pay it all back plus the interest. If he didn't, they would contact some shady debt collectors, and then...

Never mind. Once he sent the cheat to the customer, he'd have enough to pay it.

The speakers twinged, reporting the OS's acceptance of the new devices. Attila switched on an online news channel and reached for the helmet. Glancing at the screen, he began tinkering with the energy drink cartridge and the tube, attaching them to the helmet.

He wasn't going to be in the game long. Four hours max. He didn't even need the energy drinks, so after some consideration he decided not to install them. The diapers were good enough. Four hours were plenty to close the deal and test the suit. He was hungry, too. He should have had a proper breakfast and not just a cup of tea. Come to think of it, he hadn't eaten anything last night, either. He'd gotten too carried away with his work and crashed out without dinner.

The news channel was showing an interview with Sergei Bagrov — a billionaire and the owner of RussoVirt. He kept blabbing about the Interplanetary Network and the new opportunities it offered to humanity, mentioning the company's ten-year anniversary and inviting everyone to this "celebration of their achievements". In keeping with the corporation's transparent business policy, he announced an open house day that would allow everyone to witness the inner workings of Russia's biggest IT colossus, including their newest project about to be unveiled for its anniversary.

Soon the conversation turned to the MnemoSensoric helmet — which, according to Bagrov, could revolutionize their business by making sensory suits obsolete.

"Thank you for introducing us to the future — both that of the digital world and humanity as a whole," the anchorman concluded. "The anniversary presentation is to be attended by several very important guests: a few of the leading IT corporation CEOs as well as the communications deputy minister and-"

Attila turned the program off and restarted the game. He put the helmet on and scrambled out of his wheelchair onto the couch. Gingerly he began to put on the suit. Threaded with a fine net of wire, the fabric turned out to be heavy and coarse. The inside of the helmet's visor glowed with two crystal circles. Once the visor was lowered, the crystals covered the eyes almost touching them, reacting to the slightest movement.

He lay down and adjusted the helmet. Cushioned speakers pressed to his ears. He lowered the visor. Everything around him went dark. He couldn't hear the street noises any more, not even the whirr of the computer's cooling fan. He pressed the button on the outside of the helmet, then lay his arms along his body, trying to relax and make himself comfortable.

The suit clung to his skin, squeezing it lightly. Endless white columns of numbers and icons scrolled through the dark before his eyes: Sensorica's bootup protocol.

A starry night sky replaced the darkness. A woman's soft voice said,

"Welcome to Sensorica's initial tests. My name's Sensy. Now I'm going to name your body parts and would like you to tense the corresponding muscles. You don't need to move. All you need to do is strain them ever so slightly so I can recognize their signals. Are you ready?"

A glowing inscription appeared amid the stars. The voice read it out loud,

"Right hand fingers."

Attila twitched them.

"Too much!" Sensy signaled. "Repeat. Right hand fingers."

This time he barely moved them but rather visualized the action.

"Accepted. Right thumb. Right wrist. Right forearm. Right upper arm..."

As he followed the commands, the suit hugged the respective body part, squeezing it, then becoming imperceptible. Soon the starry sky disappeared, replaced by a yellow triangle, a blue square and a red circle.

"Commencing visual tests. Please concentrate on the triangle. If it is yellow, concentrate on the square. Close your left eye. Now close your right eye."

"Commencing verbal tests. Can you hear the rustle of the trees? If you can, say yes."

"Yes," he enunciated.

"Say no."

"No."

"What is your name?"

He paused. "Attila."

"Please repeat the following clearly. I, Attila, hereby assert that I have read and acknowledged the safety regulations for Sensorica users."

He repeated it.

"Monitoring brain activity. You don't need to do anything. The test is perfectly safe."

A prickling sensation rose in the back of his head, gradually moving toward his temples. It felt as if someone was caressing his scalp with a feather. Attila lay motionless — or rather, he floated because by then, he didn't sense the couch under him.

"Congratulations! You've passed the initial tests."

The starry sky disappeared, replaced by pitch-black darkness which then filled with large glowing letters,

RussoVirt Presents

His ears filled with rousing music.

Sensorica Suit. The New Generation Experience

The inscription faded. A dark foreboding castle towered on the horizon.

Gryad-online.com

Enter:

YES NO

The customer must have been waiting for him already. Attila concentrated and willed his eyes to press YES.

* * *

Once upon a time the seven greatest wizards decided to unite in order to learn the secret knowledge that no one in Gryad had ever managed to obtain before them. They thought in their vanity that their combined power could penetrate the veil of the unknown, giving them access to where no mortal before them had dared to tread.

The newly-formed Conclave needed a secluded place to practice their wizardry. They came to the kingdom of Warp where King Gideon granted them a small principality located on a wooded plateau in the mountains. Those lands had been deserted due to the large amounts of deadly beasts and spooky ghosts that inhabited the ruins and catacombs scattered through the mountainous woods. An ancient castle made from slabs of black granite rose in the center of the land. Local people called it the Forest Citadel. And that's where the Conclave of the Seven Wizards made their home.

The sorcerers were assisted by their disciples and served by a multitude of servants sent by King Gideon. Seven years had they spent in the silent woods, practicing magic and alchemy. Many a wondrous thing had they made; many a great feat had they accomplished in the solitude of their citadel. Until one day the Conclave had finally achieved its secret goal by penetrating the Magosphere: the realm of the dead and yet unborn souls, filled with magic energy.

Still, the wizards had bitten more than they could chew. Their power games proved too dangerous, their exercise in magic way too unpredictable. The Conclave's desperate experiments gave birth to some truly cruel and bloodthirsty creatures. What was even worse, the wizards used to dispose of all their magic waste by dumping it into the castle's dilapidated dungeons. All the poisonous elixirs and deadly artifacts, botched homunculi and leftover zombies began to spread and escape through the ancient system of tunnels, mine shafts and manmade caves that had allegedly been built by the Titans who'd created Gryad.

Even the wizards themselves wouldn't be able to explain the nature of the processes that soon began to brew under their very feet. As time went by, the dungeons filled with things truly indescribable, the screams emanating from them wild and desperate. Magic oozed from under the castle's floor tiles. Some of the servants had been kidnapped by the dungeon dwellers while others bid a hasty escape.

And still, blinded by their craving for secret knowledge, the wizards persevered with their work. They thought in their pride that the spawn of their experiments wouldn't dare touch their creators. How wrong they were! Finally the day came when some of the reluctant inhabitants of this underground Inferno had acquired consciousness: a perverted intelligence devoid of life.

That day, the mountains shattered and opened up, revealing the depths of hell below. Hordes of monsters flooded the earth, consuming the whole of central Warp. The times of Peril had come, as people would later call this deadly era. The land itself would receive the name of Dead Canyon.

Within days, thousands fell: peasants and artisans, merchants and barons, women and children, fearless heroes and helpless old men. The monsters spared no one in their insatiable hunger and fury. The King's army kept retreating, losing its best knights and legendary warriors. Only the wizards themselves were still safe in their dark Citadel which rose above the desolate blood-drenched land.

The King's castle was taken; good King Gideon died with his Queen and their three children. The new king, a dreadful Lich, sat on his throne. Soon the infernal hordes would pour into the neighboring kingdoms; the armies of ghosts and the undead, necromancers and dragon liches were about to conquer Gryad and subject it to its rule.

Then the mountains shattered again. The Conclave of the Seven Wizards opened the great Portal that unlocked the mysterious Magosphere. Magic burst forth, sweeping everything in its path. Thousands more died that day. But the spawn of the dark perished too. The world was saved.

Many a year has passed since then. But the mountains are still crawling with infernal creations. In order to prevent them from spreading, people have cordoned the Dead Canyon off with pickets and outposts. Frontier guards tirelessly patrol the ravaged kingdom of Warp. The mountains shudder from new magic storms which distort the fabric of reality, corrupting the laws of magic given to us by the Gods and the Titans. These distortions create artifacts of unusual and dangerous power highly sought after by all alchemists and sorcerers, witches and wizards, druids and mages who will pay any money to lay their hands on the Dead Canyon's magic creations.

Humans too seek the magic artifacts. We call these men Pioneers: fearless vagabonds craving adventure. Hard is their lot; few of them live to see old age. But not one of them begrudges his fortune. The expanse of the Dead Canyon, grim and abounding with mystery, is calling their names.

And in the center of it, the unattainable Citadel still rises its dreary spires.

* * *

The audio was played to the accompaniment of impressive visuals packed with magic, murder and gore. Attila had already seen it when he'd run Gryad the first time. Still, he decided to revisit it now that his suit was making him part of the unfolding events. Together with the seven wizards he opened the Great Portal; he followed them down the terrible dungeons and soared, unseen, over the blood-drenched battlefields.

Game mode alert!

You can choose one of the two following game modes:

IMITATION MODE

FULL IMMERSION MODE

(More Information)

Warning!

Once the game is running, you won't be able to change the game mode!

The two game mode inscriptions blinked, inviting the player to click them. Attila pressed on More Information. A window popped up informing him that All sensory suit users have the choice of two basic Gryad game modes. It went on to tell him that Imitation Mode came with a large number of prompts while preserving all the usual stat bars and menus; the world's map was visible in the right upper corner of the player's field of vision. Basically, it preserved all the usual bells and whistles of a standard computer game.

The Full Immersion mode, however, had none of the traditional interface. As the Information writers put it, this mode "switched the gaming experience to the domain of intuitive logic". The idea was, the player's very own body began to affect the gameplay. Which was only logical because of all the tiny reactions of his reflexes, muscle memory and other psychosomatic stuff.

Had he wanted to use Imitation, he wouldn't have bought the suit to begin with. No. Only full immersion. He needed to walk again, otherwise he wouldn't have splurged all his money on the suit.

Attila clicked on the second button. It went out.

What's New. | Forums | Support | Workshop | Settings

No, not that.

Options | Profile | Last Modified | The Map

He opened the map and focused on the Frontier Valley icon to click it.

Once again the back of his head tingled as if stroked by a feather. The world around him blinked and came back, slowly revealing the insides of a log cabin. Its narrow door stood open; behind it he could see a stone landing and the ruins of a castle wall.

The log cabin was a portal station. The portal's blue circle glowed in the center of its only room. A column of spark-speckled blue light reached out of it toward the low roof, disgorging Attila.

He walked out of the cabin and took in his bearings. A translucent diamond-shaped blue sign hovered in the air above the roof, sporting the holographic image of a spiral topped with a skyward-pointing arrow: the portal icon familiar to every player.

Attila looked up at the grim skies of the Dead Canyon and rearranged the round shield on his elbow, then ran his hand along his sheathed sword.

His heart missed a beat. Disbelieving, Attila took another step. And yet another. His heart pounded now. He beamed, his face lighting up with a wide happy smile.

He could walk. He really could walk!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

July 15 Game Master: The Lag is on sale (0,99$) - https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B013YIJ65O

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------