So many thoughts ran through my head as my sister stammered out her response. My hand went up like I was going to massage my temple, then I sort of made of a fist, and couldn’t figure out my own hand placement, “You are going to explain exactly what the hell possessed you to do this.”
Sylvain saw the level of family drama about to ensure, and I could see him giving hand signals for everyone else to leave as quickly as possible before catching Chrysta’s arm to keep her from interjecting. Whatever was about to go down, he knew better than to be here for it. I held on to my temper long enough to hear everyone go into another building, “Explain.”
I didn’t raise my voice. This wasn’t about bawling her out, but gods did I want to. Denise was now trapped here and had somehow gotten it in her head that her best play was to jump in here to try and ‘save’ me. Very clearly, she had zero plan for that. She had that same look she always had when she knew she’d screwed up, but wasn’t quite ready to take responsibility, “Well, okay, so I came by your place Friday morning for the wake-up call like we planned, but you didn’t wake up. I almost pulled your rig off when the alerts came in on my phone... well, every phone.”
I forced myself to wait patiently, and I did feel sympathy here. She’d found Rob and I there, and I didn’t like thinking about how what might have happened if she hadn’t gotten the alert in time, not just for myself but her. I gave her the signal to keep going, “No one was waking up, and the news talked about some sort of thing about how none of the players for Valoria Saga were waking up, something like around fifteen million players.”
"And you thought... what, that out of fifteen million people, plus everyone on the outside trying to fix this, that you were the one thing that was missing?" I was rubbing at my eyes as I spoke.
Denise paused, "Yeah, alright, I fucked up bro. I get that now, but it's not like I can take it back... which I'm just realizing is part of why you're pissed at me."
I nodded, “So it was everyone, not just out server.”
Denise saw an opening, “Well yeah, but like, I didn’t know anyone had died in here. I mean, there were a few people who died, but they were all sick or old.”
I got ready to put her back on topic, but that point bore exploration, “Right, we’re coming back to that in a bit. Why did you jump into a trapped game?”
Denise rolled her eyes, sure she was getting herself off the hook. With Mom and Dad, distractions like that worked, but I’m not them. She took a moment, “It was stupid. I know, I should’ve stayed out, but like, I saw that clip of you giving a speech, and I just... I couldn’t keep sitting on the sidelines in a hospital watching you die slowly. Wouldn’t you have done the same?”
I was pissed, but she wasn’t wrong. If I thought I had a way to save her and no one else was getting it done, I’d have hopped in, too, “The difference is that I play games like this on the regular. As far as ‘trapped in a video game’ goes, I’m Bear Grylls. We’ve lost a ton of people already, people who knew this specific game, who had logged a ton of hours in the beta test. They still died, and there’s no respawn.... wait, what clip?”
“Oh, uh, Temur... I think? They had a Twitch stream going. You’re kinda everywhere online.”
I froze, stopping to think, “And they were still streaming when you hopped on?” She nodded, and I followed the thought, “That... shouldn’t be possible. The stream limit on Twitch is forty-eight hours, and then it cuts off. It’s not even a policy, it’s a hardware limit.”
She took the off-ramp from talking about how much she’d screwed up, “Well, like, the clip of you giving the speech was on one of the saved videos, but there was a livestream still going.”
“What the hell? That makes even less sense. I mean, I get it staying on until the limit hits, but the stream re-upped itself? Temur’s in here with the rest of us, as is anyone streaming. Without someone there to restart the feed, that shouldn’t be possible,” I started to pace, trying to work it through.
My sister followed me as I turned to head out, “So someone just logged into his account.”
I considered the possibility, but no, “No. That would mean someone having access, and Sylvain’s already here. Temur’s passwords are all crazy. He uses intentionally inaccurate information about himself on top of the usual securities so that if a hacker researches him, they’re even less likely to be able to work out the login. That also wouldn’t explain the other streams still being active.”
I couldn’t get further with the thought on my own and walked out, Denise trailing along as I went across to the tavern. I stepped inside and called out, “Temur!”
A blue dracon head popped up from the table where everyone was sitting, and he came rushing over, “Hey, what’s up?”
“Okay, your stream is still going outside,” I sort of shrugged at the statement.
Temur caught the same thing I had, that the stream should’ve definitely shut off by now on its own, and rifled through his Journal for the settings tab, “Hmm, the app settings are here, but I can’t interact with them, same as the others. Assuming we’re one-for-one with the outside world, we should’ve been off stream by the end of day two. It’s been almost a week now. And it was just running on Twitch? I can’t imagine they would just leave the streams running with the possibility that the livestream shoots someone buying it.”
I nodded at the confirmation of my own thoughts, “That’s another thing. According to my sister, almost none of the players have died, and... Denise, has anyone woken up?”
“Oh, uh... no, that would’ve made huge news,” She wasn’t precisely sure what was going on, but she was trying to help however she could.
I gave a very slight dip of the head. Temur caught it, too, “So they’re not dead, they’re not here, and they haven’t woken up, so... where are they? I mean could they have been dumped into one of the other servers? No... if that was the case, we’d be taking on new arrivals as well. That hasn’t happened, so where are the dead PCs going?”
We batted back and forth about possibilities, conferring with Denise. The news hadn’t noted any significant change in anyone’s neural function, which would’ve been another tell if the neural activity dropped off. The rigs were now all plugged in and hardlined at the hospitals, with backup connections in case the cable went out. Our bodies were as a secure as they could be in the current situation. But that sparked another question, “Wait... how did you get online?”
She rolled her eyes, “Come on, bro. I’m not that dense, I’m just not a gamer. I put on the rig and got the game booted up. It wasn’t difficult or anything, just make a name and password stuff.”
She wasn’t getting it, “No, I mean, how were you not cut off from entering? First thing the devs would’ve done was lock out any new accounts or logins, like cordoning off a crime scene.”
“Oh. Yeah, didn’t run into any of that. I just went through the normal stuff and hopped in.”
Temur and I shared a look. It was a nothing commute for a dev team to lock off a server, one of the first things they would’ve built into the design of the servers. These sorts of things were necessary for things like server maintenance, or in case there was a more substantial hacking problem. Speaking of hacking problems, “How hasn’t anyone done a DDoS attack to overload the server?”
My friend took a moment, and I saw it dawning. He was figuring something out, while Denise raised her hand like she was in class, “What’s a DDoS attack?”
“Dedicated Denial of Service attack. It’s a pretty common form of hacking, especially for new multiplayer games like this one. Essentially, you create so many logins that it redlines the servers and they crash from the workload. It’s more complicated than that, but it’s enough of an explanation for now.”
Temur’s tail twitched back and forth, and finally, he looked up at me, “Okay, I need some time to think. Later.”
That was all we got as Temur turned and wandered off to his room. Sylvain eventually excused himself heading the same way, and for most of the assembled group, they started making ready to settle in for the night. It was till technically daylight out, but not by much. I walked over and tapped Shalera on the shoulder, “Walk about?”
She finished up her stew, nodding, and stood, “Oh hi. You must be Denise. I’m Shalera. Love the whole fairy princess motif.”
Denise's head snapped back, “I’m sorry?”
Khargol nearly choked with laughter, “Shalera? Yeah, that’s just what she looks like,” He regarded Denise for a minute, and decided to keep going, “I mean, yeah, with the clothes, you look like you’re about to break into a song about how you wanna have adventure where the people are.”
I let my eyes fall to the floor, covering the smile and small laugh, “Alright, well, Shalera and I are doing a lap around the outside of town, make sure we didn’t miss any of the local bandits.”
Khargol rose, “I’ll tag in for it. Not like I’m doing anything else, and we can put Denise through her paces.”
While I didn’t exactly love the idea of Denise getting into combat, there wasn’t a lot to be done about it. She was here, and being here meant you either got stronger or stayed dependent on the ones who did. Yeah, for now that was me and my friends, but there were no guarantees. I turned to my sister, “Okay, I’m going over this once. Khargol’s the tank, so don’t make a move on the enemies til he has the aggro. That means they’re coming for him directly.”
A few others decided to join us on the night patrol to round out our party. Khargol and Umbaar for Tanks, Layala and Velgres for Supports, Shalera and Denise for melee DPS, with myself and Garruk both working as Hunters. Garruk had come in with the team from Farrelston, and I hadn’t had a chance to work with him. I wanted Temur along, but him and Sylvain weren’t going to be getting a ton of time together for a while, and I didn’t want to interrupt it for something this low-priority.
I stopped off at the guild and got the quests for the night patrol. The past couple of days had seen us fighting a collection of local bandits. They weren’t precisely the elites, but they’d gotten fairly good at playing off of us thanks to the adaptive AI. At first, they’d just jumped out at us like they had us, but as we’d started beating them, that shifted. Few conflicts now were as direct. They used more long-range ambushes, hit and fade tactics meant to keep them out of the damage pad for most of the party.
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To counter this, I was moving around the town, laying out snares and traps alongside Garruk. Instead of trying to stand and fight normally, we would draw the bandits back, make them think they were winning, and then bring the hammer down. We broke into two smaller teams, loosely related to tasks. Myself, Garruk, Shalera, and Layala would be moving in the shadows, staying concealed, while the rest of the party acted to draw out the bandits. Ambush the ambushers, drive them into the trap fields we were laying and then mop up.
I released Yndress into the sky. I’d chosen Falconer as my new job. Really, it was the best way forward for me in particular. Despite the name, Falconers could use pretty much any flying predator, and Yndress counted. The base abilities allow me a long-distance command of Yndress, letting me use her for recon, hunting, and light combat work. She still didn’t have a breath weapon, but even fangs and claws could step up my DPS. Her ability to fly also altered the battlefield, letting her pick targets from above and then dive bomb into combat.
While bait company moved along the road, the rest of us used the tall grass, staying just within bow range of our group as we moved slowly along. The helm I got of the goblin boss paid dividends here, it’s low-light vision ability letting me see far better. For me, moonlight was the same as morning light... it was kind of like the fullbright mod in Minecraft: Despite the lack of greater light, for me, everything was still lit as though someone had run lights around everywhere. It wouldn’t cover full darkness, but for night time, it was a huge advantage, not least of which is that I could easily see Yndress moving overhead.
From where I was at, I could see that Denise was peppering Khargol with questions. Not good. She was starting to cause a distraction, and we- shit.
Yndress was turning in the sky. She’d found bandits, and we couldn’t do anything to warn the other team without giving up our own position. Shalera knelt beside me, whispering, “Should we alert them?”
“Can’t. It could tip off the bandits. They’re up ahead,” I pointed in the general direction of the center of Yndress’s circular flight path, “Best we can do is get in position... we start the show. It’ll waste the snares we set, but push them back toward the road, and we go for a pincer.”
I signaled for everyone else to follow, and we took a circuitous route around the bandit camp, lining up so that when we drove them, they would head straight toward our fellow party members. For extra measure, we fanned out, and my first shot would be the signal to begin. I scanned over the bandits. They were definitely aware of the others, and I watched as one of them used a low-grade spell to extinguish their small campfire immediately. Crapbaskets. They had a caster. The others hadn’t had a caster before. The game had advanced, probably due to our earlier efforts. I locked in on the caster and whistled for Yndress as I popped up and fired of Double Nock, two arrows hammering into the human caster as Yndress’s fangs found purchase, “CASTER!”
Layala got the cue, throwing a light orb at the caster that exploded on impact, blinding him. I sent arrow after arrow into him and had Yndress pull back up. Garruk created crossfire, focusing on the captain, while Shalera rushed in, staying low to keep out of sight until she was ready to strike, her knife catching one of the rabble in the back. Several quick stabs and the one bandit was down. The captain and caster were another matter, though. They had the HP for the fight, but the blinding had definitely helped. Bandits came breaking out of their tents, and Layala and I had to dive to the ground as arrows came rocketing back at us. While the game adapted, it didn’t cheat. The general bandits weren't highly skilled archers, but if you line up enough people in a direction, something is bound to at least get close.
Our plan was shot, however, as the bandit did not start fleeing. Instead, they started taking position to fire from cover, mainly ignoring the exposed Shalera, “Damn it!”
“They’re not rabbiting!” Layala called it out. The fight was going wrong, quickly.
I felt energy wash over me, a buff from Layala to improve my aim. The caster was getting ready to shake off the blindness. Nothing for it, I kept Double Nocking, using Yndress to lay in extra damage. I looked over, and Garruk had moved out of position, looking for a better vantage to get at the bandit archers. Shalera, however, would provide at least a partial solution to that problem, unleashing the grenades she’d picked up from the goblins the other days. Flames erupted around the camp, lighting up the area and dousing archers in the flames. The same cover that protected them from me and Garruk trapped them as the grenades dropped in behind their positions.
I kept directing all damage toward the Caster, hoping to bury him before he could get a shot off, but my opening was quickly dissipating. The Captain was alert to me, and I’d definitely racked up aggro between my hits and Yndress. He was charging, and with Shalera and Garruk working on the rabble, it was down to Layala and I to deal with the leaders. I got my last shots off at the caster, then switched to my axe to receive... and then Layala crashed into the Captain. She wasn’t even holding a weapon, just slamming into him in a massive tackle, screaming, “Give him back!”
“Fuck!” Of course, Tom... her brother had fallen to a bandit leader, and now Layala had him in her sights. She wasn’t fighting like an adventurer, she was raining blows on him on the ground, going after the man who’d taken her brother from her, screaming again and again for her brother back. The only upside was that the bandit leader’s club was too big to be of use in this sort of fighting, and the AI hadn’t planned for the ‘tactic’ of just monkey-jumping an armed man and beating him to death with your bare hands in a fit of rage.
I switched back to the bow, and began stalk toward the caster, firing every arrow I had as I walked steadily forward, pausing only slightly to shoot the Captain in the throat. The critical hit while prone was enough, and his body stopped moving. Layala, however, wasn’t done, continuing to swing, “Layala! Stop! Tom’s alive!”
It snapped her back, “What?”
I couldn't spare more than a moment, “Explain later! Keep us alive now!”
She was back in the moment, and none too soon. The caster was still up, and I saw the sigils for casting appear, “Down!”
We both dove away as a fire bolt ripped through the space where we’d been. I whistled, signaling Yndress, and she dropped from the sky as I charged in, giving me a distraction while I went back to the axe. Casters at a distance were a problem if you didn’t get the drop on them, but up close most casters were fairly squishy at this stage, being less well-armored and well-armed than the martials, at least until you got into advanced jobs.
Shalera and Garruk’s war against the minions was moving along. The grenade pushed the archers out of position, and Garruk punished them immediately, laying in arrows from stealth. Her grenades expended, Shalera closed, switching to her spear. Something else was wrong, though. The other should’ve caught up to the fight by now... Oh, fuck.
Yndress attacked the Caster’s face, and I followed up by burying my axe in the Caster’s head. Layala was catching up, and I retrieved my arrows from the Caster’s corpse, “The others are in trouble! You guys got this?!”
Shalera nodded, and I took off, running as fast as I could toward the rest of the group, and sure enough, they were under assault. It wasn’t good. Umbaar was Tanking, with Khargol getting seen to by the healer. Denise was a ways off from the group, somehow getting separated, and I could see bandit corpses strewn about. It had all gone noticeably wrong, and I saw one bandit approaching Denise under cover of dark from behind her, sword in hand. I Double Nocked again, and he dropped just before he would’ve been in range of my sister’s back. Multiple bandits keyed on me and turned to come deal with me. My time with the bow was over for a bit. I switched back to the axe as bandits closed from all sides, whistling from my position to target for Yndress.
As Yndress laid into one of them, I charged, using the distraction of the attack. I had to get out of the middle of the lot. I could limit their ability to attack me, but not if I was in the middle of them. As a hunter, this type of fighting was against me, but I needed space. I caught the bandit in the chest with the axe as I charged in. It wasn’t the most technical of moves, but this wasn’t a captain. This was just rabble, and he went down as I charged through, keeping my momentum and activating my sprint to gain distance. Denise was falling back to Khargol, likely to get him moving to bail me out, but I had a new trick for this.
I relayed the mental command and felt a distinct shift, and change of weight. While most of my gear was the same, I could feel the difference. The Falconer had given way to the Warrior through Job Change, and I grabbed a shield from inventory to equip, then turned as the first of the bandits was reaching me, putting my shield up to block, and swinging under my shield arm through the blindspot it created. I connected, digital blood spurting out of his gut.
The bandits still rushed in, attempting to overwhelm me with numbers, but with a shield in hand, I wasn’t as stuck as I had been. As the next swung in high, I caught it up with the shield, then struck forward with it in a shield bash to knock him off balance, turning to deal with his buddy coming up behind me, spinning to swing the axe, and more blood shot out as the axe buried itself in his neck. I pivoted again, turning to keep them on one side, and finished up the stunned bandit. Three more bandits were closing, and by now, I was close enough to start hearing Denise yelling for Khargol to get to me. Khargol laughed, “Nah. Think I’ll go get the kid! You go, put the pointy end in the other guys!”
Denise didn’t play games. She had the technical abilities and skills, but she was a woman of the modern era. There weren’t a ton of people trying to hack at you with swords out there. It wasn’t an instinct to fight like this, and not particularly mine, but I’d had practice now, “Denise! Come in from the other side of them!”
I couldn’t coddle her, much as I wanted her to stay safe. If she was staying, this was the life. You fight or you die. Denise moved quickly into position, but I could see the hesitation in her movements. She wasn’t seeing mobs right now, she was seeing people. It was one thing to think of something as a game, and another here in Valoria Saga. The stench of blood and guts was everywhere, they screamed when they got hit, bled, and died. Three remained in front of me now, and I broke right, keeping my shield to the other two as I closed. The bandit swung in, and I parried. I could have just tried to keep rushing, but Denise needed to take part, she needed to get in the game.
The other two started closing, working their way to my flank and around my back. Denise would step up, or I’d be in real trouble here. I swung my axe but only caught a glancing blow, then bashed out with my shield on the one to my left to knock him back. With a whistle, Yndress attacked the one behind me.
I couldn’t keep this up eternally. The fights had been going a minute, and stamina had its limits, “Denise! You have to attack!”
I kept fighting, but it was turning against me. I could see Khargol and the other getting the rest under control on the road, and I had to assume my own team was finishing up at the camp. I could hold out, but it was going to be a near thing if Denise-
She finally attacked, catching the one in front of me in the back with a stab from her longsword, but she was visibly freaked out. This wasn’t like when she’d watched me play at home. The bandit rounded on her, and I finished it up with an axe to the back, spinning to get the other two on the same side. There wasn’t time, and I only barely stopped a sword blow on the shield again. Denise attacked again, this time more forcefully, and picked off another bandit that rounded on her. This time, she was on her own for the fight, and I took care of my last bandit
My team came crashing through the grass and brush, but I signalled a halt to Garruk. The main team had finished up the bandits on the road, and only one remained, square off with Denise. She was doding out of the way, but she was going on offense. She was waiting for someone to stop the fight, to take out the bandit, but it wasn’t coming, “You got this! You can do it! Main Gauche for defense, longsword for attack!”
I saw the pleading look she gave me, and I shook my head. Shalera got ready to step in, and I held up a hand, “She has to do this.”
The assembled party came back together and formed a ring around what was now a duel. The bandit wielded only the single longsword against the longsword/main gauche combo Denise had. She had the advantage in a straight fight by stats. That wasn’t the problem. Right here, right now, she had to make the choice to kill to protect herself. To kill the girl inside, so the woman could flourish. If she couldn’t take down a simple bandit, she wouldn’t be of any use in the field.
She was blocking and dodging now, but she was’t really attacking. By the look Khargol was giving him, he was losing faith in her ability to finish this. She could dodge for only so long, “Denis! Stab him!”
She did not stab him. Instead, as the swings came in she kept trying to move around the ring of watchers, but the dark wasn’t helping, and finally, she tripped herself up, landing on her back, as the bandit closed. Come on, you’ve got this. The bandit’s blade rose up, getting ready to deliver a killing blow. A panicked instinct and the will to live triggered her attack ability, and she stabbed up and forward, catching the bandit in the center of the chest. He staggered back, and finally collapsed, hitting the ground bonelessly. Denise was trembling and crying as I came over and knelt down, laying a hand on her shoulder, “You did good.”
My sister, “I-I killed him..”
“He’s a mob, hon. He’s not really a he, or a her. His job as a mob is to fight us and get taken down. They still respawn,” It was cold comfort for the moment.
It did, however, work at least decently well. Denise wasn’t fully okay, but she was getting it. I helped her to her feet, and hugged my sister for a bit, “It’s gonna be alright, okay? We’ll get through it. Everyone’s been through the same thing here.”
I felt her nod against my chest as Shalera came up, “Commence the looting?”
I nodded, and motioned at the bandit by our feet, “This one goes to Denise. Pile up the rest of it, and we’ll divvy up when we get back to the tavern.”