Black Hat Page 6

  I couldn't do anything but growl.

  0610 Blaster Master

  We were nearing Dragonperch when the explosion occurred. A rumble that seemed to shake Oldtown followed by a wash of molten fire spilling out from the tower's base. The secret grotto was built into the adjacent river wall, a sort of hidden patio. Now the passage was brimming with flames that spilled onto the water's surface.

  "Kyle's brewery," I realized.

  We broke into a run. Instead of using the main entrance, we climbed along the river exterior and descended directly to the grotto. Fire still raged within. In a panic, I ineffectually scooped water into my hands and splashed it on the inferno. Beside me, Izzy commanded her ice magic to quell the flames.

  "Right," I said pointedly.

  We pushed through the smoke and into the hidden tower entrance. A stone staircase led up to the ground floor. The brewery door was open, hanging on one hinge.

  "Most of the damage seems to be in the hall," noted Izzy, pointing out the scorch marks on the rough stone.

  Backing up her statement was the fact that most of Kyle's alchemy equipment was intact. Furnaces, kegs, barrels, and jars and jars of multi-colored fluids. A stool was knocked over along with a low shelf. Shards of glass vials accompanied a brown spill.

  A notification was added to the event log.

  [Kyle] has left your party

  I turned to Izzy warily. The winter staff was already in her grip. I followed her lead and produced the dragonspear, scanning the room. Large shelves and a work table dominated the center. I pointed Izzy to the right and motioned to the left. She nodded and we searched each path until we met at the opposite side. The brewery was empty.

  We returned to the only way in and out. The grotto wasn't exactly a sprawling maze, but there were a few branching passages. Izzy and I each took a separate path. Within seconds, my heart sank.

  "Over here," I called. As she came up behind me, I crouched beside Kyle's dropped loot.

  "Someone killed him," she deduced.

  "Okay, you're really shooting for my Captain Obvious title lately."

  With a swipe of my hand, I used the salvage option to return his loot back to him.

  "Thanks, bro," said Kyle, standing behind us.

  Izzy and I nearly jumped out of our clothes.

  "What the hell?" I yelled.

  Izzy didn't say anything but had murder in her eyes.

  Kyle threw both hands up. "Peace," he said, giggling. "I come in peace."

  Izzy thrust her hands to her hips. "Did you just blow yourself up?"

  "Give me some credit. Brewmasters don't blow themselves up." He crossed his arms confidently and almost fell trying to lean against the wall.

  I deflated. "Are you drunk?"

  Kyle's smile twitched like he was the only one in on the joke.

  "Dude!" I scolded. "It's only been an hour!"

  "I know, right? I didn't waste a single minute. Chill out. I can handle it."

  I waved the residual smoke from my face. "You call this handling it?"

  He burped. "It's just a dumb game, bros. So I'm stuck in the tower for the next twenty-four hours. Big deal."

  "I hate to bring up the recent patch," said Izzy, "but even after salvaging your drop, dying permanently deletes 25% of your silver. With what we scored off Orik, you just lost a small fortune."

  Kyle scratched his butt, unimpressed. "Pff, silver. Who makes silver their primary currency? And explosive potions? Why couldn't I have been uploaded to a military shooter with real grenades?"

  I tried to ignore the rant. I was still stuck on the new rule for silver drops. "That's pretty harsh," I said to Izzy. "Doesn't Haven have banks or something?"

  "Nope." Izzy jutted her chin to the side. "There's a player who calls himself a banker. Squats at level 2 so he doesn't drop anything. He takes 10% of your deposit for himself. The rest you're free to withdraw whenever you want."

  "Wow, 10%?" coughed Kyle. "Seems steep. Anyway, if I were you guys, I'd be more concerned with the intruder."

  I huffed. "Sorry, Kyle, we'll forego the financial advice from the slacker portfolio. You know, when we decided to invest in all your brewery equipment, it wasn't just so we could booze it up all day. It was a group decision to—wait a minute. What did you say?"

  Kyle snorted. "I said 10% sounds like a total rip-off. I should start my own bank at 5% and profit."

  "Not that," I snapped. "You said there was an intruder."

  His face tightened. "I swear. I was in the middle of a particularly sour ale, and I opened the door for some fresh air and there was this giant shadow, like, sneaking up on me."

  Izzy twisted her lip. "So you blew yourself up."

  "No! Well, yes... I'd leave it at a solid kinda. I was trying to kill the intruder. I keep telling you guys."

  I spun the spear in my grip and peeked down another passage. I went to the river wall and scanned up and downstream. When I returned inside, Izzy was just finished her sweep as well.

  "Nothing down here," she said.

  Kyle swiveled his head back and forth between us, dumbfounded. "Wait, you guys actually believe me?"

  "Of course," I said impatiently. "This isn't some cheesy sitcom where lack of communication and trust amongst supposed best friends leads to hilarious misunderstandings. You say you saw something, you saw something." I cautiously closed in on the main stairway up. "The only question is whether you scared them off or they retreated inside."

  "Wow," said Kyle. "I guess I'm just surprised you trust me."

  Izzy gently pushed him aside with her staff. "Well, that and the fact that something was clearly aggroed on you if you managed to use an attack in the city. Talon's the only one with that hack."

  He paused. "Oh."

  "You have any idea what we're dealing with?" I asked. "You get a pop-up notification? Combat logs? Anything?"

  Kyle sighed loud and long. "That's a big fat goose egg, bro. I didn't damage it and it didn't damage me so there's no record of it."

  "You should've gotten an aggro alert," pointed out Izzy. He shook his head. She frowned. "Then either you're really drunk or what you saw wasn't a normal mob."

  "Or one he's already seen," I clarified. I swallowed at the implication and crept upstairs.

  Dragonperch is tall and many-leveled, with many of the rooms occupying an entire story, but the search was simplified by the fact that many of the rooms were still locked tight. Either a large door completely barred entry from the staircase, or the landing we were left on was small and uninteresting, with further doors being sealed. We moved carefully past the kitchen and the den and our private quarters. Somewhere along the way I noticed Kyle had stopped to grab a Pop Tart. It really was a wonder that we trusted him.

  "I don't know about you guys," he yawned, chewing loudly, "but I'm pooped. And this is boring. Lemme know how it goes." He disappeared into his room.

  Izzy and I continued to the war room on the top floor. All empty. We frowned at each other. "I don't like this," she said. "I don't like anything about this."

  I nodded. After our recent bout of questing I'd hoped to get some rest, but current developments had transformed Stronghold into a very complicated place.

  "I need a vacation," I groaned.

  Putting my spear away, I wandered alone to the roof of the tower. The glare of the sun was nearly blinding. As my eyes adjusted, my heart skipped a beat. Waiting on me were two saints.

  "It took you long enough," declared Saint Peter.

  0620 Space Invaders

  "You guys?" I complained. "I'm really starting to hate you guys." I jerked my head at Saint Loras. "I mean, I've never met you before—"

  "I'd appreciate it if you skipped the mind-numbing banter," said Loras plainly. His sharp Caesar cut and aquiline nose made him look like a predator.

  My eyes narrowed. I wasn't afraid of the saints. I stepped closer, pleased to find someone an inch shorter than me for once. "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't go around scaring
us half to death and getting my party members killed."

  Saint Peter cleared his throat. "Surely you realize the young man killed himself."

  "That's not the point."

  Saint Loras whisked around. "You don't know what the point is."

  I opened my mouth to object but found myself faltering.

  Loras chortled smugly. "You're in a tower you don't understand, holding a weapon you can't correctly wield, and in a predicament entirely of your own making. I, for one, won't be intimidated by your bluster."

  I swore I'd caught an admonishment against Saint Peter in there.

  "Now, now," leveled Peter, who I pegged as the older and wiser of the two. "Cooler heads must prevail if we are to be successful."

  I clenched my jaw. The good-cop-bad-cop routine was a bit tired, but Peter was clearly the easier man to deal with. Not that I trusted any of the saints. They were on the Kablammy Games community team, part of the machine that had illegally created me and later tried to delete me, in their minds reducing me to nothing more than a computer glitch. All that was over with now, and we'd settled into a tentative peace. I kind of liked that peace.

  "Successful in what?" I asked.

  Saint Loras resumed his superior tone. "In case you haven't noticed, waves of residents have fled Shorehome and are being processed into Stronghold. Devastation on this level is difficult to keep up with. What's more, we simply don't have housing for them."

  I surveyed the fishermen from Dragonperch's battlements. We were so high it was easy to pretend they weren't there.

  "These men and women can't go adventuring for fear they'll die and respawn back in a city now occupied by pagans. They're poor. Some are turning to thievery. It's a burden on the city. On all of us."

  I nodded. "It sucks. Why don't you fix it?"

  Loras' face reddened.

  "We can't fix it," cut in Saint Peter. "Much of Haven is procedurally generated. Not just dungeons, but story lines. The Dragon Wars? Based on numerous old novels. The quests and faction agendas? Largely created on the fly by an evolving simulation. Many other world elements, like the Founding of the Nine, were directed by Kablammy but fleshed out using computer-generated details."

  "You're saying it's complicated."

  Saint Loras once again interjected. "It's a fully realized world. We can't just switch off certain aspects without deeper consequences to stability. All changes come with unintended consequences. The more drastic the cause, so goes the effect."

  "So you can't just kill all the goblins."

  Loras rolled his eyes and Peter tagged himself back in, explaining the situation patiently. "Goblins are a vital part of the ecosystem. It would be like killing all the honeybees in the real world. Or turning off gravity. Aspects of Haven would be forever lost."

  "It's worse than that," added Loras. "With the permanency of the game state, we'd likely crash the servers attempting such massive upheavals. Haven isn't the type of game that can afford downtime."

  "That's 'cause it's not a game," I countered. "Not to me."

  He was unimpressed.

  Saint Peter sighed. "Your devotion to your world is why we're here. The fact remains, Talon, that you started this."

  I shook my head. "I had nothing to do with Shorehome."

  "You provided the blueprint," accused Loras.

  "Don't blame me for your failings. I didn't design the pagan opposition. I didn't create the titans. I didn't even create Lucifer, for that matter. You're telling me you sent two angels after him and you still came up empty?"

  "So help us," said Peter.

  "All I've been doing is trying to help." I calmed my voice to attempt a level head. "Look, I'm not saying I'm perfect. I made mistakes, like you did. But my intentions are good."

  "You're a hypocrite," said Loras, stern as ever.

  My face darkened. "There's nothing hypocritical about wanting to be in control of your own life, digital or not."

  He smiled like a serpent about to swallow his prey. "Do the Shorehome transplants not deserve life and liberty?"

  "Everybody does," I said. "This is the afterlife, after all. At the very least I would think everyone deserves happiness."

  "Oh yes, the residents of Haven, living a glorious second life while their physical bodies rot in the dirt. They come with further demands like spoiled children."

  I scowled. "And the developers bemoan their loss of total control and the ability to wipe our lives like a bunch of ones and zeroes. Who's the bigger crybaby? At least I fight for life and death."

  "Then fight," urged Saint Peter. "Fight for your world."

  That much I could get behind, but I was still hesitant where the saints were involved.

  "And what are you doing about it?" I asked. "The almighty developers?"

  Loras scoffed. "Do you even need to ask? Our doings are all around you. We've upgraded the crusaders to fight the enemy. We've pumped resources into their city to strengthen their might. We're incentivizing residents with bonus XP. The pagan quests coming in are a result of that."

  "Quests which I've been assisting with."

  "It's not enough," he said plainly. Loras frowned as he asked me for help. "As we speak, Haven is verging on 1.0. If it falls apart we may never get there."

  Peter turned to floor with a grave expression. Reading between the lines, they were leaving something unsaid. Something important.

  Loras turned a stern face back to me and removed the invective from his voice. "Kablammy is giving you a lot of leeway because of our mistakes, Talon, but so far you've been nothing but a blight on Haven. Raising the titan, empowering the pagans, living like a king while the world burns. I want you to know, putting out the fire is my job. And I'm seeing to it that it's your job too. You want to be a master of your own fate? Then start acting like it. And Peter? This is your mess too. Convince him."

  With that, Saint Loras blinked out, leaving just the two of us on the highest roof in the city.

  0630 Dishonored

  Peter and I stared over the battlements. The ruins, the refugees, the river—anything was better than looking at each other. After I realized I'd been pouting for a good minute, I broke the ice with expert guile.

  "That guy," I said in a huff. "Am I right?"

  He frowned. "You certainly are."

  I cracked a smile. Was the old man hiding a sense of humor in there? Maybe he was going through an identity crisis himself. Not physical versus digital, dead or alive, but important nonetheless. The saint was used to being the head honcho in Stronghold, at least from my limited experience. Now some dickbag had swooped in and grabbed the reins. Not exactly professionally gratifying.

  I chewed my lip. "When Loras said Haven was verging on 1.0, he meant—"

  "The beta test is coming to an end," finished Peter. "Haven will be announced to the public and officially launched."

  Wow. My entry into the simulation had been a big secret. A complete shock. Most people had no idea a digital afterlife existed. Family members involved with the beta were under strict NDA. Once we went prime time, though, we'd get all sorts of players popping in.

  "And there's nothing you can do from the outside to fix things?"

  He shook his head. "That's by design. You must understand, Haven isn't your average computer game. It was built as an afterlife, meant to be a permanent repository. Even a capitalistic entity like Kablammy Games realizes the challenge in that. What happens twenty years down the line when a new CEO takes over?" His face darkened. "Or if Kablammy gets bought out? What will become of Haven?"

  Saint Peter sighed. "Then there's the natural concession. Pivotal people who designed the simulation envisioned it not only as a consumer product, but as an afterlife for them. So they took steps to lock in permanence and agency for the residents, knowing full well they would one day join those ranks. The current Kablammy CEO doesn't want an afterlife threatened by a business shift. Once Haven goes public, its only two imperatives are to stay online and stay profitable. Everchat and
various convenience features facing the outside world take care of monetization. The fantasy world is free to do what it wants, so long as it remains stimulating and doesn't become a barren wasteland. We simply won't risk damaging the runtime to do that. Permanence and stability are our calling."

  "So you send crusaders to do your dirty work."

  "To protect the realm. It isn't the first time in history."

  I pondered his words. It was reassuring in a way. This life really was a life. Cruel and chaotic but unchained. Open to possibility. Optimism.

  I was starting to understand.

  "Does this have something to do with why we didn't get a notification about Shorehome falling?"

  Saint Peter stroked his beard. "Trying to put on a pretty face before the public unveiling. Remember that quite a few players have access to Everchat. They regularly communicate with the outside world. We can limit it but—"

  "You can't revoke access completely without raising additional concerns."

  "Exactly. Even then, we may find it necessary to pull the plug soon enough."

  "But we know about Shorehome anyway. The crusaders—"

  "Are ignorant regarding the extent of the predicament. They've been notified about the horde overtaking the city, but it is worse than that."

  "The game code?"

  "Secure. The staff took steps to ensure the Great Well couldn't be breached. But we've begun to populate Shorehome with players. We've lost touch with them."

  "What do you mean lost touch? Were they deleted?"

  He frowned. "No, no. Nothing like that. But in securing the Great Well and protecting the codebase, the saints have ceded influence over the area. We're no longer able to fast travel to Shorehome. We have no control over the city at all, actually. Direct messaging is down. It was taken offline from the central hub entirely."

  "Is that bad?"

  "It's workable. The Oculus in Stronghold is all we need to run Haven gameside. This is the bastion of the game—the core city. It's too much of a risk to reactivate it in Shorehome, even temporarily. But an unfortunate side effect of the measure is the loss of data."