Continue Online (Book 1, Memories) (32 page)

Great.
I had to figure out something about a girl who liked to mess with me
and pretend to be obtuse. While sitting on a bench most of the day.
While trying to find one last adventure. On top of that was ignoring
real life, learning vague game rules, and not building my own
character.

At
least Old Man Carver's little stories amused me.

The
new player and Guard Captain had interrupted me during Carver’s
recounting of a fight with a strange horse thing. He said it would
shift colors to blend in with the background, all to sneak up and
kick him with its hind legs. I was waiting to see how it ended.

“
What
does the Priestess want?”

“
No
idea. But I figured I'd best come fetch you instead before one of
those fresh-faced Travelers do. You get enough of them already.”
Wyl smiled a lot.

“
Mh.”
Non-committal grunts were the way to respond.

“
Why
did you volunteer to be a guide anyway?” Some of the
information I knew after reading Old Man Carver's dossier and other
pop-ups. Carver had started being a guide as soon as Travelers
started showing up. He, I, had also settled in this town right around
the same time.

“
Something
to do.” That lost me points.

“
You
killed a dragon by yourself, and call guiding new Travelers something
to do?”

Stupid
spoilers! He ruined the end of Carver's Journals for me and left me
confused in the process. I couldn’t respond with a good reason
because I barely knew Carver. It was impossible to believe that a
game touted for its realism had dwindled down each NPC to a few basic
personality traits. From my progress bar's reaction, Carver was very
realistic and not a simple cardboard cutout.

That
made me lose step for a moment, literally. I stumbled over nothing
and nearly fell flat on my face. Wyl’s quick actions kept me
somewhat upright, but my shoulder paid the price instead. A fresh
wave of pain piled on top of the general hell Carver’s every
movement was. Turned out there was no pain setting to turn down this
whole mess.

“
Gah.”
I had to stop. Wyl got me to a bench and I tried to control my near
collapse. How the heck would Carver go on an adventure like this? I
should just fail that onus and hope everything else was good enough.

“
Rest
a few. I’ll let the Priestesses know of our delay.”

I
nodded hastily and tried to control my heart rate and breathing.
There was a clench in my chest that wouldn’t let go. Wyl walked
away and left me clutching my chest. A simulated heart attack was
wracking my virtual body. That’s what this must be. This was a
dimmed down version of Carver’s heart seizing up.

It
hurt.

Goodness,
it hurt.

Why
wouldn’t this end?

After
a few minutes the pain passed and all the air in the world felt thin.
My arm shook, legs quivered. What had brought this on? Had the
original Carver died from this? Even one-fifth of the feedback had
disabled all coherent thought.

“
I’m
getting old.” Admitting weakness normally went again the
persona being projected, but I lost no points from my admission.

Focusing
on something other than pain would keep me going. Move forward, never
back. I used the time to weigh my understandings of Carver in case
Wyl asked me for motivation again. To help get into the mind of the
man I posed as, I cracked open the Journal and resumed reading.

Old
Man Carver's eyes moved slower than I liked. Reading the letters felt
hard to focus on. Some of them mixed up and required rereading. After
too much concentration, I found out that Carver had managed to tame
the horse and took him on the next adventure.

Some
of the wording threw me off though. The way he spoke about things
didn’t feel like a denizen from this world. There were no
citations about his childhood. The date stamps were from years ago,
but judging by Carver's age they basically started at about fifty.

I
checked the cover again, this was Volume One. Slowly my eyes retraced
the latest strange passage.

Michelle
learned a great technique from his training. I had to wait two days
for him to return to the shop so I could see it in action. The way he
swung the hammer down almost made me switch focus. Too bad time was
short, the doctors have only cleared me for another year or two tops.
I'm stubborn enough to live beyond that, I don't care what they say.
Every moment counts. Old age is horseshit. All this power and we
can’t stop a bum ticker.

That
was out of place. A bum ticker? Was this a weird translation issue?

“
Are
you ready to go, Carver?” Wyl had returned.

Slow
sighing preceded me putting the book away. Afterward, I nodded and
Wyl was kind enough to not ask any questions. He could see my
struggling.

Halfway
up the hill the guard captain asked again. Why did I, or Carver, act
as a guide to new players? There was no clear cut answer. For several
slow steps, I pondered life’s biggest question. What would
Carver do? I could tattoo that on my arm, or maybe a bracelet, WWCD.
Reminder bracelets would be a new fad for all the residents of our
fine city of
[Haven Valley]
.

It
had been around twenty-four hours in-game. Things didn’t even
feel high paced. Sitting on a bench for hours and throwing acorns at
a tiny dragon was a pleasant way to pass the time. Reading some
misadventures was fun too. None of those hurt my progress. I could
safely say that Carver didn’t have problems idling time away.
Not that his biography talked about the boring parts.

But
why did he go to the beach day after day to wait for new players? Oh.
There was an easy out here.

“
You
know I don’t give away answers for free, Wyl, you earn it.”
Ding, there was a few percentage on my progress bar. Score one for
reasonable deductions.

“
Hah.
Stubborn old man.”

“
Until
the day I die.” I agreed with a slightly pleased tone. The
comment got me another point. Of course, Carver was proud of being a
hardheaded mule. Slowly but surely I was learning to be someone else.
All at once disturbed, I logged out of my ARC and held very still as
shaking overtook my senses.

I
didn’t want to let go and for a moment it had felt like that
was exactly what was happening. Counting backward from sixty happened
more than once. Then breathing, pinching the bridge of my nose,
rubbing earlobes. All those things were techniques to try and calm
myself. Each one helped me return to my happy place and not feel like
the world was falling apart.

A
message on my ARC distracted me. I put it on play.

“
Uncle
Grant! It’s been like, a week. I know you’re playing,
where are you? I want to visit! Send me a message in game, I’ll
tell you all the best hunting spots! You haven’t played until
you’ve been in a fight with the wolves in this game. They’re
super heart thumping. User name Thorny!”

I
about died giggling. Trust my niece to brighten my day with something
blissfully out of place. My laughing convulsions kept going until
both eyes watered. Beth was a little crazy. Her friend probably had
some other similarly silly name. I would have to think of a good name
for myself, but nothing like Thorny. Goodness. Knowing my niece she
had found some awkwardly matching title.

That
half demon skin she had, coupled with what I saw from the Temptress
Voice painted a gloomy picture for Beth’s mother, Liz. I
wondered exactly how much she kept in the loop. Of course given the
way Liz was as a teen, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
I remember avoiding mom and dad as much as possible when Liz was up
to her antics. There was no way I would explain what my older twin
was up to.

Okay.
Those thoughts of times past had me in a better mood. I cleaned up,
grabbed a drink, relieved the pressure on my bladder and popped back
into Continue.

Autopilot
had me up the hill and panting for breath. All around an easier way
to travel, but I lost a few points for not performing the actions
myself. Neat. Even after the deduction I did well enough to get a
bonus. Hopefully, this would help me figure out some additional
information. Though quests never made sense to me, why would an NPC
with so much power and skill ask a player to help them with something
difficult? Often times the player was lower level than the quest
giver.

I
mean, Old Man Carver was old. Old, old, old, old, old, it made sense
if I, posing as him, asked players to do things. Unless some of these
skills were as neat as they looked. Titles ranged across the board.
These traits were fairly self-explanatory.
[Truth
Sense: Verbal specialist]
,
[Weapon
Focus: Bladed]
,
[Retired
Grand Explorer]
.
One made me really snort,
[Stubborn
as a Mule]
.

I
only looked at a few of the items, scanning my eyes this way and that
to trigger the displays for information. Hopefully, no NPCs would
think me mentally ill, considering I basically possessed William
Carver. The thought of being some sort of skin walker made me throw
up a bit in my mouth. I played it off as having a sour taste.

“
We’re
here, Carver. I’ve got to get back to my duties. Will you be
okay?”

I
waved the man off and stood there waiting, both hands on my cane and
trying to hold steady while thoughts dripped through.

This
place was pretty. It sat overlooking the ocean, much like my bench
but far higher up. We crisscrossed a few times up a painful incline
that only had benches at the curves. Around me there seemed to be a
few rooms and a downstairs of some sort. Things were a bit fuzzy in
Carver land so I couldn’t be sure. There seemed to be no male
priests here, after a few minutes I was very, extremely sure of that.

The
dresses, columns, and Romanesque designs were familiar. I slowly
raised my eyes upwards and found, at the tallest point of the temple,
a statue of a woman looking outward. Even fuzzy vision couldn't
disguise that far away look.

Oh
no. Wyl had escorted me right to a personal fan's temple.

“
Selena
huh,” I muttered out loud while surveying the area. This seemed
typical of the Voice. Marble, ocean, distracted pondering of the
ocean. Too bad she seemed to hate me. And since I was raking up about
a billion negative reputation points with the Voice, I decided to
earn a few more.

“
I
can see up your dress.” Giving the statue above my best old man
leer paid off with two pop-up boxes.

“
Heh.”
Proof that my own skills would increase while under the guise of
William Carver. I would need to wait until I was me to check out what
exactly Divine Attention did. Not that the goal was stat points, more
just yanking her chain.