What in the fuck was this game? No one is going to play this except sadists and assholes.
Were they paying me enough for this? Surely not enough if they don’t fix this shit with Theodora.
Speaking of the devil, she chimed in from my shoulder, having approached in complete silence, “Oh look, a meal.”
When I gave her a flat pained look she added, “If you do not, then I will.”
With a steadying breath I reminded myself that this was just a game. I carefully pulled the heavy robe away from the NPCs pale and scarred neck. Leaning in close, I bared my fangs only hesitating long enough to think, “What the hell am I doing?”
Cursing, I plunged my avatars teeth into the cold flesh quickly feeling heat wash up my body through the new haptic upgrades and my RIG software. I drank for a few moments until I heard Lydia’s announcement:
“Withered Debuff Removed!
You are no longer Partially Paralyzed!
You are no longer Partially Blinded!”
That’s all I need. I staggered back and wiped the back of my hand against my face, my avatar rasping and panting as I moved away from the dying Caretaker. Good. I Didn’t need to…
Before I could finish the thought Theodora appeared on top of the Caretaker already savaging the near dead woman’s neck. Strength visibly flowed into the tiny woman. Her skin went from sallow gray to rosy pink. Her entire body shuddered and she too staggered away, the now dead elite at her feet.
Theodora’s clearly undead features had been replaced by the flawless slightly tanned skin of a young woman in her late teens. Her ruby red hair was striking short curls and her eye had gone from black with a rich red pupil to a light emerald color. She turned her gaze to me, her lower jaw painted with black blood, her voice a whisper, “Oops.”
Rolling my shoulders, I tried to keep my growing annoyance restrained and walked over to the body. Looking down I winced away from the accusatory look in the strange woman’s eye. I looted her, receiving a few common items including a robe, a worn chisel, and a small cameo of a young woman that was yellowed with age. As I studied the old cameo Lydia prompted a quest:
“New Quest
Find the Cameo’s Owner. Return it to them!
XP Reward: 250
You found an ancient and faded cameo locket on the body of the Caretaker. Maybe find out who it belongs to? They probably want it back.”
The common items went into my inventory storage and, assuming that the placement would aid with finishing the quest, I hung the cameo around my neck.
“Weeping Hammer
“Why won’t they sleep?”
Type: Light Bludgeoning
Slot: Main Hand
Requirement: Agility 12
Rarity: Uncommon
Tier: F
+2 to Agility, +1 to Spirit”
Standing I offered the body one last long look before advancing to the stairs that led up to a closed gate.
“Almost rid of you.”
The vampire made her way over to me, her hips swaying, bloodstained lips curled up into a ghoulish smile, “Is that what you think?”
My jaw tightened and offered her my typical streamer smile. I struggled to keep my frustration with her out of of my voice, “This time tomorrow either I will be gone or they will have written your ass out of this game.”
My avatar’s control seized and tried to fight me as she exerted her strange mental control. Roaring through the attempted attack I stalked over to her and looked down with my teeth gritted in anger, “You don’t fucking own me!”
She put a tiny hand on my chest, but I didn’t react. She looked up into my eyes and sighed needlessly as she repeated, “Is that what you think Malcolm?”
At that, she vanished into a red haze. I tried to follow its passage but it faded into the open air.
Her voice was distant and seductive as I heard her say, “I’ll be seeing you.”
“Quest Completed
Escort Theodora von Achen
XP Gained: 300
You have successfully escorted the enigmatic vampire Theodora von Achen from the depths of the Unquiet Vault. While you have firmly decided that this should be your last interaction she seems to have other designs.”
Pausing at the foot of the stairs up to the surface, I settled into a niche in the wall. Taking a deep breath I growled,”Lydia, I’m logging out. Put the avatar through the proper procedure.”
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She answered in a chipper tone, “Sure thing sugar!”
In the real world I reached up and pulled my helmet off emerging into the rich dark red light of the dive room.
Working my jaw, I took a steadying breath in the darkness as I cleared my throat and said, “Lyd, call Catacomb customer support.”
The speakers in the corners of the room rattled as I switched to my RIG facilitated phone line. The speakers clicked off and the call purred in my ears. After half a second there was a click and a pleasant female voice answered, “Mr. Voss, how may I help you today?”
Sighing in slight frustration, I gestured toward the screen with my haptics, “Are you the customer support AI?”
She answered in the same cheery tone that she had answered the phone, “Catacomb Entertainment utilizes artificially intelligent persons to maintain customer support at all hours. How may I help you Mr. Voss?”
Trying to keep my anxiety under control I said, “I am sending you guys a vod of my gameplay. An NPC that I encountered displayed knowledge of my personal information while in game.”
There was a brief pause and the AI’s tone actually changed to be more concerned, “I’m sorry to hear that Mr. Voss. I assure you that none of the AI that are active in the maintenance of the Dark Spiral game world have the ability to scrape personal information from the outside net.”
Considering that information, I asked, “Are you getting the vod?”
After thirty seconds of silence she answered, “We have received your ticket and I have personally scrubbed the vod for all pertinent information.”
After another pause she said, “Our system shows that this NPC does exist along with the quest and rare race change that she offers, but the information that she seemed to exhibit about your personal information is abnormal and unacceptable.
“We already have several in-house staff studying the data and updating us constantly. I am sending you a link to a ticket where you can observe the update packets from our staff about this issue. One moment, I am connecting you to one of our overnight staff.”
Blinking at that, I started to speak but there was a quick clicking of the line and a harried male voice answered, “Hey there Mr. Voss, this is Larry Reckin.”
Sitting up I ran a hand through my matted hair as I cleared my throat again, “Hi Larry, I’m sorry to set off such a shitstorm so late.”
He answered quickly, “It is no problem boss. This is just the kind of thing that we hired you to catch, and we can’t have a sub-con getting harassed by our game code.”
My anger quickly deflated as Larry continued, “My best guess is that someone targeted the first actual NPC you encountered in game to do something like this. It seems like some kind of hack. I’m hoping that it wasn’t internal but we are going to root it out.”
After a moment where I could hear consistent clicking and shifting movement Larry said, “Question, we should be able to hunt this down on our own, but would you be amenable to interacting with the NPC a little more so we can get this malicious code to fire more often and show up on our radar?”
I gritted my teeth at that and after a moment threw some good natured joviality into my voice, “Hey, it might be a bit of a hassle but if it saves some noobie who logs in on day one from getting hazed I’ll be glad to.”
Larry sounded genuinely thankful, “Thanks Malcolm, we really appreciate this and I’m really sorry about you having to go through this shit.”
My head snapped up as something thumped somewhere upstairs. Narrowing my eyes at the ceiling, I spoke distractedly, “It’s a hassle Larry but I’ll be glad to help. Thanks a ton for helping me out. I am going to have my personal AI send over all the pertinent information from my run. If there are any questions, query her directly and we can interact there.”
“Sounds great, Malcolm. Have a good night!”
The line hung up and I was sitting there bathed in the bright red light as I looked up, “Throw the camera feeds up on the big screens Lyd.”
The monitors above the dive chair flickered and six different screens showed different views of the house and the yard. It didn’t look like anything had fallen over or…
I cleared my throat and said, “Lyd, scroll the feeds backward at one point five times speed.”
The screens started to roll backward through empty feeds until I called out, “Stop it there and focus on the front yard.”
The individual feed doubled in size and I was looking at the driveway and open lawn as something flew from the distant gate and impacted the side of the house. I could only see a pixelated version of the person who had thrown it.
They threw the object, climbed back into a car and drove off.
Sighing I climbed out of the rig as I muttered to Lydia, “I think I’m done for tonight. Shut down the rig and the system.”
“Sure thing sugar.”
Pulling off my dive suit, I threw on my robe as I started toward the stairs. Lydia spoke up, “Don’t forget your letter sugar.”
Seeing it sitting there on the work table I breathed in sharply and steadied myself as I nodded, “Oh yeah, almost forgot,” and grabbed it before heading up the stairs. I casually tossed it onto the kitchen island before walking through the lightless living room to peer outside the front door.
Slipping on a pair of sandals at the door I stepped out into the cool night into a cacophony of humming bugs and humming street lamps. Making my way over to where the object had hit the house I only saw a smudge in the paint.
Shuffling through the wet grass I finally found the item, a baseball. There was a slightly damp letter attached to it with a rubber band. I pulled it free and opened the simple piece of paper to find a simple message:
Welcome Home, Murderer
Staring at the hastily scribbled message in blue ink I took a deep breath to steady myself. With the exception of that stupid NPC in the game I had managed to keep memories of my past misdeeds at a distance. This seemed like proof that I could never truly run away from the darkness of my old life.
Should I even be trying to do that? In a righteous world I would suffer for what I’d done.
Shaking off the thoughts with a pained sigh, I crushed the note in my hand and walked back to the house and into the living room. Looking down at the fist balled tightly around the offending note I sighed as I tried to pull back a fresh batch of tears.
Heading into the kitchen, I opened up a cabinet and pulled out a nearly full bottle of whiskey. Rolling the cap off with my thumb I upturned the bottle to my lips and took several large deep draws before coughing and setting it aside as my head swam.
Looking toward the darkened square that was the kitchen windows, that vivid vision of my mother flashed into my mind for a moment. Wincing, I left the bottle there, departing for the bathroom. My hollow eyed face stared back at me from the mirror. I reached up and ran a hand over my stubbled cheek and took a deep breath as I spoke with barely restrained rage, “Don’t say I never did anything for you Mal.”
I brushed my teeth, took my medication with shaky hands, and went to bed.
“This should set things right.”
–
Light was shining in my eyes when I awoke. Somehow the shade on my window had gotten pulled up and the sun had managed to seek me out.
“Damn the sun.”
Swinging my feet out of bed I shook my head as I tried to wake up properly. I honestly couldn’t recall getting in bed the night before. Getting up I grabbed a pair of sweats before trudging out and into the kitchen.
Lydia chimed in from my patch phone, “Mal, there appears to be something happening outside the gate.”
Thoughts of the baseball from the night before immediately intruded on my thoughts and I spoke up, “Lyd, if I say the word ‘wonderful’ I want you to immediately call the police.”
“You got it sweetie.”
Making my way to the door I put on my shades before stepping out into the morning light. There at the end of the drive was the same girl I had seen when Speers and his crew had left the house, now wearing a dark green tank top and baggy jeans, talking to a man in a beat up old car.
Slipping my hands into my pockets, I set off toward the gate and called out with a smile on my face, “Hey guys, is everything ok?”
