Continue Online (Book 1, Memories) (45 page)

“
Some
help,” I muttered.

“
You’re
an old geezer, you’d die in a dungeon!” Phil shouted
while running after the other orphans. His tone was full of abrupt
rudeness only children can pull off and still seem friendly.

“
Hey!
I killed a dragon!”

Mylia
must have heard my shout because she blanched for a moment. I raised
a quizzical eyebrow in her direction. The orphanage caretaker
carefully schooled her face then guided the other children away.

“
Huh.”
I said.

Why
had shouting about being a
[Dragon Slayer]
bothered Mylia? The
pop-up box had been pretty clear on the results. In fact, this was
the first thing to push my progress bar past the seventy-five percent
marker. Oh. More stuff came up.

A
map upgrade? Had screaming across the distance really been worth
crossing my previous roadblock? Better yet, was there a dungeon to
crawl into and have some giant adventure? My niece had been right
about one thing at least; not having fought anything in a game for
almost two weeks now was a little bit odd.

WWCD?
Swing a giant blade in the direction of the nearest legendary
monster. Find a willing body attached to a set of legs. All the
standard sexist stuff. Men like Carver had practically built the male
stereotype from a hundred years ago. There was a certain attraction
to the smash monsters and get laid mentality, though.

I
looked at the enlarged map and tried to see if anything stood out.
Now it went to a square area maybe ten miles on a side. The items
identified seemed fairly standard. More places to learn objects and
things. A local bandit scouting base was on the outer edge. There,
players who were in trouble with the law could hide or choose to the
burn the place down as a lawman.

No
dungeons, nothing thrilling or heroic. I could wander into every dark
alley in the town and still it wouldn’t be enough. Walking to
that bandit outpost would take me days and cost me an unknown amount
of progress. Nothing was intense enough to compare to the Dragon
slaying. Maybe that’s the problem, I was trying to find
something to top William Carver's past experiences.

“
You’re
Old Man Carver?” A voice asked, signaling the start of my day.
Solving the problem myself was getting nowhere so it was time to bend
all the manpower available from new players.

“
Before
I help you, you have to do something for me.”

“
Alright.
That was quick.”

“
Take
this to the town square, post it on the notice board and get as many
as you can to read it.”

“
How
do I get there?”

I
pointed to the tiny dragon that was busy standing at the base of a
tree. He was hissing up towards the Coo-Coo Rills. I’ll bet the
[Messenger's Pet]
had a quest to aggravate every single
squirrel monster thing in the city. So far I would say he was about
seventy percent complete.

“
Follow
the black dragon, Neo.” Yes, the new player's name was Neo, and
I couldn’t help myself from making a dumb joke. Though it was
more likely he named himself after the latest Matrix remake and not
the original.

“
Cool.”
He even sounded like the actor. I rolled my eyes and waved the two
onward. The small dragon hissed at me, too caught up in his crusade
against other creatures his size.

“
If
you want more cookies, you better get going!”

“
You
like cookies?” Neo said. He had a black shirt, black pants,
brown hair, white skin, one step away from an actual Neo.

“
I’m
sure he’ll drag you near the bakery. Feel free to try and
wheedle a cookie out of Ladette or Pie Master.” Knowing those
two, they’d add it to my tab.

“
Lead
the way little guy!”

“
Hm.”
Barely twenty feet away and they were already fuzzy. Even if this
latest plan resulted in progress, how would Old Man Carver actually
get anywhere? Being half blind, deaf, and arthritic was a hindrance.

“
Bah.”
And up came the next player already, their arrival heralded by a
quiet beam of light. No, there were three of them in rapid
succession. Today was going to be busy.

“
Bah.”

I
lifted the cane and shook it upwards towards Selena’s statue.
None of the other Voices had representations near or I would do the
same to them. I guess in a way I was lucky. I knew who to blame for
my situation. Normal players had to muddle their way through while
cursing at unspecific figures.

The
flier, which was penned in my terribly sloppy old man words, was for
any clues regarding an adventure worthy of Old Man Carver.

I
had rewritten that stupid notice at least a dozen times. Every
attempt impacted my progression bar which was useful and annoying.
Wadding them into a paper ball and asking the
[Messenger's Pet]
to throw them out reset my progress. The final notice being posted
was one that didn’t cause me to go down.

That
was doubly important to retain my skills increase. Old Man Carver had
a wealth of abilities across the board. A
[Truth Sense: Verbal
specialist]
skill looked neat. Others included a
[Knowledge:
General Weapon Handling]
which stacked on top of
[Weapon
Focus: Two Hander]
and
[Weapon Focus: Bladed]
. The list
went on. Like a true player, both kinds, his skills were many and
varied.

The
new players were sent on their way. Recently I had dealt with an odd
group. Three creepily happy faces like children on Christmas. Each
one had a different goal in mind, but they approached as a trio. They
walked with the same pace and overly annoying swagger. Even their
names were styled the same.

Siblings?
No, their faces were different enough that they were probably
something else such as longtime friends. Continue Online enforced a
seventy percent body likeness for all new players. They could edit
their looks or become other races, but there would still be a
similarity to the person in real life.

“
Ehh.”
Children ran by with parents strolling around.

“
Ehhh.”
Another groan. They didn't seem to be letting up today. In the
distance, there was a small, fuzzy creature watching me intently.
[Coo-Coo
Rill]
s
had taken to keeping a scout following me around. Abnormally smart
for NPC rodents. Keeping tabs on me would let them track the
[Messenger's
Pet]
and
protect their treasures.

“
Ehh.
Hm.”

Noises
kept escaping me uncontrollably. By now I was almost used to it.
Hours passed while I groaned and thought about all manner of things.
Nothing seemed to be happening fast enough. The few players and NPCs
that had showed up didn’t mention my flier. Fine. There were
under two weeks left. Maybe something would push me up to a higher
percentage so that this quest could be completed with a great
adventure. I needed to solve this issue with Mylia. One new player
was working on that very topic for me.

“
Hmm.”

Maybe
I could get in a fight with something. The
[Messenger's Pet]
had attempted to conquer everything his size across
[Haven
Valley]
. Why not me?

Three
useless days passed by. Thoughts jumbled around in my head, possible
ways to find adventure or talk to Mylia. Oddly, she hadn’t
passed by me once since our vague interaction. Even the orphanage
children seemed to shy away. Phil who was doing to and from chores
was always huffing through.

Oh.
Oh, wait. I had an idea. Neat! When one possibility came through
there were a whole series that followed closely behind. Many possible
angles fitting a cheesy high school plot occurred to me in rapid
succession. Why would Old Man Carver care about Mylia? Why would she
care about Carver being a
[Dragon Slayer]
? Why would Carver
want one last adventure?

“
Ehhh!”
A happy groan escaped me. I tried to stand up and do a jig. After a
few weeks of stonewalling there was finally a path through.

All
these things were related somehow. Beth had been on point. Quests had
layers upon layers. Doing this wasn’t as simple as sitting on a
bench pretending to be an old man for the four weeks! Setting up a
flier would only garner so much attention and I hadn’t had a
real bite in the last few days regarding it.

“
Aha
ha ha.”

My
hips hurt like crazy, shoulder ached, but happiness overrode all of
that. I kept trying to dance around my cane for entirely too long as
the ideas occurred to me one after the other. My stamina bar was
dwindling rapidly and warning boxes spun into existence.

“
Carver,
what are you up to now?”

“
Dancing
in happiness. It’s what you do when you're happy.” I
grumbled and kept going, but my momentum had dwindled in the face of
witnesses. Sure enough, the one percent gained from helping new
players went away, leaving me back at seventy-three.

“
Wyl,
I need someone to watch my seat. For the rest of the day.”

“
Oh?
That’s unusual. You have plans?” His constant grin was
turned up to the max.

“
I’m
going to talk to some beautiful ladies.”

“
That
sounds…”

“
I
know! I’m too old for the ladies!” Me, in Old Man
Carver's body, had already started walking off. “But the ladies
aren’t too old for me!” That wonderfully cheesy comment
scored me a percentage back. Whew, I needed the bonus for being at
seventy-five in order to make this work.
[Truth
Sense: Verbal specialist]
would
be super useful in sorting through these possibilities that had
occurred to me.