Continue Online The Complete Series Read online

  No, James had specifically said that for a reason. I would have to go out like a hero while guiding new players. Ideas spun through my mind, and slowly a final plan came together. Hopefully this would be fitting for William if he was watching out there somewhere. Second to that was meeting the Voices’ desired level of success.

  According to the vitals monitor, real life had started to exert some demands. Food, bathroom. Today was Saturday. I had all day tomorrow to try to finish out this quest.

  “ARC!” I felt happy now that there were ideas in my brain.

  This quest wasn’t for me. It wasn’t for a computer’s version of William Carver. It was a show for the player himself. I didn’t need the Voices’ approval—I needed his. If there was one skill I had, it was working within people’s expectations.

  “Awaiting input,” the machine said.

  “Log me out!”

  Session Fourteen — Worse than Cats!

  “You. You’re helping me,” I said to one of the many players stuck in town for their tutorial period. Four weeks in a city they couldn’t escape. Not unlike what I was doing by pretending to be William Carver.

  “Huh?” he responded.

  “I need you to come with me.”

  The player even got a pop-up box. His system message should say something about improved relations with Old Man Carver and a chain quest.

  “Mister Carver?”

  “Come on. Let’s go.” I banged on the side of my chariot.

  Phil was at the helm. Even with my bad eyesight, I could see the orphan’s eyes roll. Moments later, our cart, still in day one of testing, started into action down the path to my designated meeting spot. Phil had been skeptical this contraption would even work, but it did, and well.

  The reward for inventing this device and putting it to use was even better. In a few weeks, after the other orders went through, the orphanage would have an entire chain of bicycles. Kids and bikes went together well even in fantasy-land. I’d spent almost an hour this morning trying to explain how to pop a wheelie to the brash youth, but so far, the concept was lost. These things did weigh a bit more than standard bicycles.

  In one of the town crossroads, three other players were waiting.

  “What the hell is this about?” The most vocal one was the wide-hipped woman who had been beating a straw man for Peg. Her words were loud enough to carry across the street.

  “I don’t know. I’m sure Mister Carver has a good reason.” The quiet younger female had been my first player, the trash-picker.

  “He better,” a younger male voice said. This was my cow-mooing would-be assassin.

  “He goddamn well better or I’ll kick his sorry old computer ass.” The angry wide-hipped woman had her arms crossed and looked even more pissed than usual.

  “Good, you’re all still here,” I said.

  “What are we doing here?” our new player asked.

  “Awesome Jr., you’re the last one. Hopefully, this will be enough.” Getting this out without forfeiting too many points required certain phrasing. Sounding grumpy helped.

  “Good lord. This is your latest pick?” Wide-hip was a player named HotPants, which was hilarious to me, but her name paled compared to the other boy. She wore mail gear and had adopted a strange motif of red and blond.

  The boy dressed in all-black leather with two daggers tried to look aloof, but his eyebrows were twitching in annoyance. He went by Shadow and couldn’t be more stereotypical in his look or method of behavior. It would take a good year or two in-game for him to really pull off the intimidating over-the-top anime persona he wanted to be.

  SweetPea was the younger woman. She was soft-spoken and overly polite. A knitted hoodie was pulled down over one eye and her long brown hair bunched up.

  “Uhhh…” Awesome Jr. mumbled.

  “Hi, Adam,” SweetPea said with a faint smile.

  “Oh. Is this your crush, Awesome?” I asked.

  “Awesome’s my father. I mean, wait, no! She’s a friend.”

  SweetPea was probably blushing too under that bundle she used to keep covered up. Kids today.

  “Hah!” HotPants took time out of her normally angry attitude to laugh at the two children. My remark had lost me a point but was worth needling Awesome Jr. about.

  “Good. Let’s try this again!” I said.

  “That other boy ran away as soon as he read the quest,” Shadow grumbled almost as well as Carver.

  “He was a wuss,” HotPants said. She was busy eyeing everything nearby. The last two weeks in-game had turned her already angry personality into one that seemed to look for pots to break.

  “We don’t know that.”

  “How do you do that whisper thing?” The older woman was poking her staff at Shadow with a raised eyebrow.

  “What?” Shadow asked while pushing at the Bo’s end.

  “The ‘I’ma big scary boy’ voice. Like Batman.”

  “It’s not Batman,” the cow moo quest survivor said.

  “You do kind of sound like Batman,” SweetPea responded before pulling her hood down again.

  This was worse than herding cats. I activated a few of Old Man Carver’s skills in order to talk over the crowd. [Intimidating Voice] and [Aura of Strength] had reductions due to an [Old Age] de-buff. It was sufficient to cut them off.

  “Enough!”

  “Yes, sir, Mister Carver, sir!” Awesome Jr. was gazing off into the distance after performing an immediate salute.

  I blinked at him. The poor kid hadn’t even been talking. HotPants was outright laughing. SweetPea looked embarrassed. Even Shadow had face-palmed.

  “Anyway. One of you explain. I’m tired of trying,” I grumbled and ground my cane against the stone dirt.

  “Can I go first? I want to get some more practice with this contraption while you all yack away like old hens.” Phil was chomping to be off and see what he could do with his new toy. The cheeky young boy was far too eager to test out this bike tour-for-money prospect.

  “Yes, Phil. Don’t try to sell that!”

  “I know! Deal’s a deal’s a deal, you old geezer!” The boy even jingled the bell I had installed. “I’ll be back later!”

  “Brat,” I muttered while grinding the cane. Phil had already vanished around some buildings.

  “You made him a bike?” HotPants asked.

  “Who knew, right? I wish I’d thought of it,” Shadow responded with a gravelly voice.

  “Nah, if NPCs can figure it out, players won’t get anywhere near the same rewards.”

  I was really starting to go crazy. Dealing with people in real life was one thing. As Hal Pal’s companion, I enjoyed a certain level of visibility. These jerks thought I was an NPC and talked right over my head. When Continue saw fit to give me my own character, first thing I’d do would be hunting down these players and punching them in the face. At least Awesome Jr. was confused enough to not join in the banter. He was also the newest to this group. The others had had hours of time while I had tried to find a fourth.

  “Are you going to explain or not?”

  The game read my increased heart rate while marking the irritation with a status update.

  “He looks unhappy.” SweetPea was too quietly demure for my tastes.

  “So how are you doing, Melissa?”

  SweetPea, or Melissa, frowned at Awesome Jr. for his casual use of her name in a video game world. At least I assumed that was the reason for her frown.

  “Melissa’s a better name than SweetPea. You should own that.” HotPants threw one arm over the younger girl.

  “Guys, the NPC is going to fail us all on the quest if someone doesn’t explain it.”

  For once I was grateful to Shadow, even if I had made him moo at a cow. Somehow the boy had fallen in with a Mercenary recruiting post. He already had a contract for employment once his introductory period was over.

  “Fine! The robot here wants us to escort him through a Dungeon tonight.”

  “There’s a Dungeon i
n town?” Awesome Jr. tried to catch up with HotPants’s abrupt explanation.

  “Right? This place is crazy. My son says there’s always a few nearby, but the ones in town are typically event-only.”

  “You have a son?” Shadow sounded as confused as I felt. HotPants didn’t seem like the mother type.

  “Little jerk doesn’t call often enough. He lives with his bastard father.” HotPants scowled. Her staff spun around, and she started swinging at nothing. It was the same action I had seen her practice in the yard with Peg Hall. The motion was almost hypnotic.

  “I hate him. Hate. Hate.”

  SweetPea slid away from the sudden violence.

  “And?” Awesome Jr. watched HotPants with a bit of worry on his face but managed not to step away.

  Unlike Shadow, who seemed almost eager to jump into her path. Was the kid a battle junkie? Was such a thing real? In the virtual world, it was very likely. Slight pain was nothing compared to the thrill of competition. There were entire Internet video feeds dedicated to people competing in ARC’s spawned environments. Voices help me, players were clearly all crazy.

  “It’s called the Maze of Midnight, which only opens at, you guessed it, midnight. I asked my friends who started here. They never heard of it,” Shadow said while bobbing his head in time with HotPants’s swing.

  “Are you willing to help escort me to the end?” I cut to the point.

  “Uhhh… sure, Mister Carver.” Awesome Jr. was reading a pop-up box that had suddenly appeared. “But I don’t know if any of us are any good yet.”

  “I’m sure I can carry you,” Shadow said.

  “Carver said we need four people.”

  “What skills do you have?”

  “I’ve been working with an alchemist. Basic potions. Most of them explode,” Awesome Jr. responded absently. He was still reading through the quest notes.

  “So ranged damage? You got any magic yet?” Shadow was asking the questions.

  Thank goodness they were sorting out the group mechanics and stuff. My understanding of the game had grown in leaps and bounds over these last three weeks, but all of it was so focused on William Carver’s day-to-day life that I’d missed how a player might do things.

  “No. It’s too hard.”

  “Right? They expect you to sense something that isn’t really there. Even the ARC isn’t that good.” Shadow suddenly lost some of the gravelly tone to his voice in annoyance.

  “I wanted to play one of those cat races. The tails look pretty,” SweetPea said.

  “Can you imagine trying to make it move? The thing has to be automatically controlled or something.” Awesome Jr. was completely into it now with the younger two.

  Even HotPants seemed to be listening. All of them were geeks, I swore.

  “Ha!” HotPants wasn’t laughing, she was swinging the staff even harder and building up a sweat. “You’re all idiots.”

  SweetPea said nothing, but frowned.

  “Why are we idiots now, ma’am?”

  “Ma’am? Jesus, you little son of a bitch.” She frowned and put away the staff. Awesome Jr. had committed an awesome social crime.

  “Oh. Yeah, you’re right, HotPants,” SweetPea said.

  “That’s so weird to call someone HotPants.”

  “Like Shadow’s any better?”

  “Shadow the fifty-second,” I muttered, shaking my head. Honestly, part of me wondered why there weren’t way more than that. With this many people playing Continue Online, in one world, doubling up on names was a given.

  “Whatever.” Shadow didn’t hear my response and crossed his arms.

  “We’ve all forgotten we can just ask Mister Carver for help.” SweetPea looked excited.

  “What?” Somehow the two of them had come to a conclusion while I was completely oblivious. Social interactions in video games were far beyond my childhood. All the ARC software I had used were single-player or movie renditions. This was strange.

  Voices. When I got to play this game on my own, I might completely avoid other people. Except Beth. I would try to involve myself in whatever crazy event she had planned.

  “Mister Carver, sir, can you help us find skills to make it through this dungeon?”

  Actually, that was a good idea. I took my time now, weighing my own needs to complete the quest against Carver’s personality. This group of players probably could use all the assistance available to survive.

  “Fine. But there’s a time limit on my offer.”

  “He didn’t mention a time limit before.”

  “That’s bull crap,” HotPants said. Both hands stood on her hips and she tried to glare down at my hunched body.

  I looked back up with one eye and grumbled while chewing at the inside of my lip.

  “It’s reality. Maybe you Travelers have eternity to goof around, but I don’t.”

  Joy! That one line had earned me a full percentage point, bringing me up to seventy-seven. There was now a real cushion between failure and me, plus it affirmed that this was the right track for completion.

  Being proactive was miles better than sitting around doing nothing. Finally, after weeks in-game of barely shuffling along, I was making progress. I had to force myself to put everything in perspective. These last few weeks, I had focused on learning his history and personality. There was mild worth to it all, but an adventure was something completely different. Plus I was giving whoever had originally played William Carver a show. How many days were left on the Carver Countdown? Four? If we started now, how many nights could I spare? Today, probably. Tomorrow night then?

  “Fine. I’ll show you where anything is.” What could I do if they abused this? Pull strings with Wyl? Would he kick players out of town for failing to come through? “You have until midnight tomorrow to get yourself sorted. After that, the deal’s off.”

  “Mister Carver, sir.” SweetPea sounded hesitant, but at least she spoke up. “What if we don’t make it back by midnight?”

  “I go without you.” Screw them. If these players didn’t want to help an old man finish his dungeon, I would do it myself. I didn’t really have time to waste.

  “That doesn’t seem like a good idea, Mister Carver, sir.”

  “No. Fool computer wants to get killed. He’s an old man. How is he going to kill anything?”

  “You idiots, William Carver is a Legendary NPC. Don’t you see the golden border?” Shadow said.

  I blinked, then scowled. Being checked out for my status felt dirty.

  “Bah. Midnight, tomorrow.”

  “Is that midnight tonight, or midnight tomorrow night?” Awesome Jr. asked with a stupefied look on his face.

  I wanted to beat him over the noggin with my cane, but he would have to bend over quite a ways for my shoulder to get up high enough.

  All that practice with a sword at Peg’s had only lasted a day at most. I had no clue what skills I might bring to the table. Even if this was a Beginner Dungeon, I had to do something. Maps. Carver had maps and a cane. Books and tables and a pantry of preserved foods. Clothes were in dresser drawers. So far Continue hadn’t given me any sign of a personal inventory with any legendary items or other gear.

  “Midnight is midnight. You figure it out.”

  Awesome Jr. stared off into space, reading something. The only messages I saw on other people’s interfaces were tied to quests and status updates. I couldn’t see their entire character sheet without using the [Identification] skill. Even that was vague when it came to a lot of details. Luckily these players were newbies, so they didn’t have methods to obscure my prying.

  “You talk. Figure out what you need from me to make this work. I said I’d help you, and I meant it. But I don’t want to sit around here all day while you talk nonsense.” I gave it my best cranky but fair tone.

  WWCD? Motivate decisively. The more I dealt with being this man, the more he felt like a grumpy project leader. What did his employees need, what did he need as leader? Everything was an exchange toward a group
goal of improvement. His only soft spot seemed to be the children.

  “I don’t need anything,” Shadow said with his gruff voice.

  “Don’t pass this up.” SweetPea shook her head slowly. That knitted cap had almost swallowed her up.

  “I want to learn to fight. That woman wouldn’t let me try my skills against anything real.” HotPants was probably talking about Peg Hall.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “You can really get me someone to fight?”

  “Probably. Let’s get you going while those others figure things out.”

  The others kept talking as they followed me. HotPants was kind enough to stop her constant stream of annoying angry babbling. Maybe she was actually looking forward to this.

  More than once, I had to completely ignore the players’ offers of assistance. They didn’t like how slowly Old Man Carver meandered across town. We were headed for one of the guard posts near the main entrance and that took too long. I had to redirect this gaggle of idiots to their own needs more than once. At long last, we made it to the guard post. It was basically a small wooden shelter that guards would use to hide from the sun or rest in public view. This was one of several such posts around the city of [Haven Valley]. Luckily, this was also the favored haunt of the guard captain, Wyl. He tried to keep himself readily available near the entrance in case anything odd happened.

  “Wyl, are you here?” I called.

  “Carver. What are you doing away from your post?”

  “This is your idea of help?” HotPants was twitching. Her hands were one step away from pulling out the staff to start hitting things.

  “Wyl, the lady here wants to fight something.”

  “She’s a Traveler, right?”

  I nodded.

  “And you expect me to take her on patrol?” Wyl was quick on the uptake. He also seemed a little dubious about the player’s value.

  I nodded again.

  “I don’t know,” the guard captain said.

  “I can’t even exit this stupid town! Every time I try, the stupid computer blocks me!”

  My eyebrow went up while looking at Wyl. He had likely run into this situation quite a few times, especially since he hung out near the main door.

  “The Voices restrict Traveler abilities simply because you need time to understand our world. Plus there’s a matter of building up skills to survive the world outside.”