Continue Online (Book 1, Memories) (31 page)

He keeps bragging about his skills. Idiot.
I’m glad he’s not out here with me; I’d probably
have to rescue him from every tiny monster that attacks. That guy is
so weak a feather would beat him up.

I hope he never reads this journal. Free
gear is nothing to sneeze at. Ugh. He’ll probably demand that I
give him all the resources I’ve gathered out here. He bled me
dry over a pair of greaves, I can’t imagine how much worse a
decent sword will be.

“
Hey.
Old Man Carver.” There was a voice out of the blue disturbing
review of my, Carver's, past. Goodness, this was confusing.

“
What?”
The heat, being interrupted, and a faint promise of pain if I moved
too suddenly, all combined together to make me irritated. My curt
response was worth another percentage. I bet yelling from my lawn at
the town's children would send my progress through the roof.

“
I
need a quest from you. Then give me a map.” The other figure
was a brown-haired boy in his early twenties. Thank goodness this
game had an age requirement or I would be flooded with children
demanding things. He still had that semi-lean form that young adults
wear so well before everything goes south later in life. I stared at
him and uttered the first mildly Carver thing to come to mind.

“
You’re
a rude brat aren’t you.” I said. Score another percentage
for me.

“
Listen,
old man, I can’t waste time here. Give me a quest, and I’ll
be out of your hair and on my way.” He waved his hand in my
face.

“
You
think it’s that easy? I give you a quest, and you get a
reward?”

“
Isn’t
it? What kind of game is this?” The younger man’s words
made me smile. 'What kind of game' seemed to be a common question.

“
Bah.
This isn’t a game, this is deadly serious. You want something,”
I stood up to the best of Old Man Carver's ability. That was a slow
painful process full of barely suppressed grunts. “You earn
it.”

“
It’s
only a map. I need that, and I need directions to the weapons hall.”

“
Yeah.
Swinging a sword sounds like the move of a future Champion.” My
sarcastic barb cost me a few points. Oh. That was because William
Carver had been a sword swinger. I had insulted my own past.

“
No,
daggers, I’m going to be an Assassin,” He said while
frowning.

I
rolled my eyes. What kind of player announces himself to an NPC like
that? Maybe a swift punch in the face would allow me to claim to be a
Monk. Yeah. We were four sentences into our interaction and I had
labeled him as an idiot. Old Man Carver was really rubbing off on me.
Four weeks of this and I would have trouble unwinding back to my
happy spot. At least he wasn’t a drunk according to the first
few years of his life. Behind us, there was someone walking animals
along the path. Inspiration grabbed me.

“
Fine.
I’ll give you a task worthy of your future occupation.” I
tried not to laugh.

“
Good.”

“
Go
moo at that,” I used
[Identification]
on
the creature. It looked like a cow and the description wasn’t
too far off. “bovine over there. Do it until I’m
satisfied and you’ll get your map.”

Part
of me felt euphoric when a pop-up box appeared in front of the new
player. Sure enough, my actions had generated another quest. Similar
to the girl who cleaned up the beach. She had been way more polite.

“
A
cow. Are you serious?” The new player thought it was a cow too.

Spots,
a few extra horns, slightly odd hind legs, still a cow. The new
player didn’t have an
[Identification]
skill like me.
According to the game, text the creature was called something else. I
ignored the in-game race and filed it away as
[Future Beef Patty]
.

“
Dead
serious. Show me you have the determination to follow through, and
I’ll even throw in a contact for your Assassin class.” I
deadpanned the response and lost another percentage point.

“
Fine.”

I
would never be satisfied with his attempt at mooing to the cow.

“
Carver,
are you really going to let that child become an assassin?”
There was a deep male voice that had crept up behind me. I tried not
to act disturbed.

Turning
slightly revealed a guard. His armor was far more outstanding than
the other guard's were. They looked very cookie cutter. The man
standing next to me was clearly unique. Embellishments adorned
shoulders and similar etchings were everything down to the heavy
boots.

I
briefly read the descriptions popping up on my display while chewing
at a lip. The new player had run off down the road chasing
[Future
Beef Patty]
.

“
Wyl.”
I uttered the same type of greeting I used with Mylia. Sure enough,
my flat utterance of a name earned me a point.

“
Carver.”
Further reading identified this man as a Guard Captain. Surprisingly
he was fairly high ranked for this town. My
[Identification]
display
had a window with a funny shield and sword combination. The symbol
outlined with a wreath and two stars. It was the same sort of
nonsense I had seen on military general uniforms.

“
Doubt
he has the stomach to follow through. Too much pride.” I said.
That player didn’t seem like the type able to handle my
demeaning task.

“
We
can hope.” Wyl nodded with a large grin.

“
Doubt
he follows orders either. Not like your boy, Dayl.” I said the
name and felt conflicted about how many names had a 'y' in them.
Maybe it was a regional thing.

“
My
son's a good man,” Wyl said. His son constantly said ‘My
Father says’. Calling him a good man seemed misleading. Not my
family, though. Old Man Carver might be blunt, but he seemed
secretive enough to not speak these conclusions out loud.

“
Mh.
He’s got a long ways to go.” I was absently staring after
the player who ran off into the distance. He seemed to be waving his
hands in panic, trying to get the man escorting
[Future
Beef Patty]
to
slow down.

“
Don’t
I know it.” Wyl sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with a
hand. His fingers clanked as they worked between armor chunks to get
to irritated skin.

“
Why
the sudden visit, Wyl?” I knew from the various system messages
that the guard captain rarely came down to the beach. Not even for
Old Man Carver’s wise council.

“
One
of the Priestess' of Selena has requested your presence.”
Who-lena? What? Judging by the name this was one of the Voices. No
one else would have temples in this world.

“
Now?”

“
Now,”
Wyl confirmed.

“
What
about our future sword for hire there?” I lifted the cane a
little and waved it towards the new player. He was shouting in the
distance. His voice sounded vaguely hoarse from here. That could have
been a trick of William Carver's faded hearing.

“
I’ll
leave a guard for him with a few more tasks. Something to hopefully
deter that stupid Assassin idea.”

“
Good
luck. The boy seems addle-brained.” I said.

“
It’s
fine. If that’s truly what he wants to do, we can’t stop
him. Travelers are hard to control.” Wyl gave a wide grin and
shrugged.

“
Don’t
I know it.”

“
That
you would. It takes a rare man to suffer their bewildered demands. I
don’t know where they get half the fool notions they have.”

I
snorted. To me, a player posing as an NPC, it was extremely clear
where most of their ‘fool notions’ came from. Other games
and a world of informational boxes had served to brainwash this
latest generation.

“
Come
on, Carver. I’ll walk you up to the Temple.” Wyl said.

I
grumbled. This would surely be another bout of aches and pains.
Actually voicing my complaints out loud wouldn’t be a very
character appropriate thing to do. That silly little bar reinforcing
my actions was the only thing standing between me and answers about
my fiancée.

Session Nine -
Priestess Peach

I
liked these trees. Two major types littered the city. Tall ones that
spiraled up high were typically standing clustered together near
grassy areas. Everywhere else, especially over pathways, were trees
with large branching canopies. They stretched across twenty and
thirty-foot gulfs towards each other. Overhead they twined together
creating a spotty patchwork of leaves.

“
How’s
retirement been treating you, Carver?” Wyl’s questioning
tone implied a long term relationship. How did a computer program
account for all these possible interactions between NPCs?

“
It’s
peaceful,” I said without inflection. My score went neither up
nor down.

He
looked at the item in my hands. Carver’s Journal was still
tucked under an arm and the cane death gripped. Behind us, the
[Messenger's Pet]
tried to figure out ways into
[Coo-Coo
Rill]
nests. Silly creature. I had no idea why it bothered
following me so much.

“
Can’t
imagine it myself. I have a feeling I’ll be doing this until I
die.”

“
Mh.
Probably.” NPCs were likely to do the same role their entire
lives. Depending on how this whole situation was set up. How would
this game act in five or ten years? Would they get older?

I
should focus on playing and not worry about the future. There were
four weeks of strangeness to get through first. Time warping ratios
were kind of nice in terms of vacation.

“
Planning
any new adventures?”

“
Just
one more.” Words came out of my mouth unbidden. What the heck?
I hadn’t meant to say that at all. My impulse control was
either crap or the computer had talked for me.

“
You’ve
got plenty left in you, Carver,” Wyl said.

Was
this tied to the Old Man Carver quest? Cue a seemingly random pop-up
box. Now I was assigned another secondary goal on top of the first
one.