Chapter 6

Doc asked, “What was your faction?”

Each alliance was divided into four factions, who competed among themselves for power in the alliance, and once in awhile even worked secretly with members of the other alliance.

Simon replied, “Green River Friend.”

“And what was your character’s goal?”

“I had infiltrated and was supposed to sabotage a group trying to build a city to power and maintain a portal. They wanted to open up a new world not yet contacted by the Eightfold yet. It wasn’t officially developed enough yet to be contacted, but the Elders are always hungry. Only sometimes global civil wars can erupt when people are contacted prematurely.”

Doc asked, “Was your character motivated by idealism?”

Simon hesitated. “I thought of that as Lord Regal’s personal motivation. Green River Friend did offer him payment if he succeeded, just as the others would have gained wealth and power if he failed. I guess their motivations were at least in part the usual power games and maneuvering, but I think the people who sent me wanted to avoid a world being devastated, at least in part.”

“What was his name?”

“Lord Regal. A Rigellian.”

Rigellians were a very humanoid species, although on the average nine inches taller than humans, were they to ever meet them. Their skin was deep blue.

“Do you still have his character sheet?”

“I do.”

Everything seemed to be going well, but Simon wasn’t so sure. Could he really get rid of the nightmares just by playing the character again? It seemed too easy. Was he insane or was some wonderland logic at work here?

Doc seemed to read his mind. “You’re not going to play him right now. I want you to create a new character. I suggest a Rigellian Seer who’s the nephew of Lord Regal, and is investigating his dissapearance. Since they’re both Seers, and close relatives of the same species, you should be able to give him a psychic bond with Lord Regal for only three points.”

“So his nephew already knows what happened to him?”

Doc shook his head. “No. Lord Regal had to block the link. After all, he didn’t communicate with any nephew while you were playing him, did he?”

Simon supposed Regal could have done it while they weren’t playing, but he didn’t suggest it. Who knows, maybe this would help. If he was crazy, perhaps playing another character looking for the first one would somehow jigger whatever had gone wrong in his brain, or fill the hole made by the unpleasantness of his former group. If he wasn’t crazy, he didn’t know what was going on, and had better hope Doc did.

Doc was the gamemaster. He helped Simon create a character, with some details to be filled in later. It took almost an hour, but none of the other players objected. He did catch Todd glaring at him once or twice, but nobody else seemed annoyed.

When they were done, Doc quickly brought the group to order. They must really like and respect him, Simon thought enviously.

He said, “The eight of you are all gathered in Sargon’s office, but you didn’t all arrive together. The seven of you who have worked for him previously were asked to be here to talk to him about your next assignment. Mr. Regal received a message that his search for his uncle had come to Sargon’s attention, and he might be able to help.

“You don’t really have time to talk now, but maybe show him the pictures on your character sheets.”

Then he turned to Simon, who had never ‘seen’ Sargon or his office before. “Sargon is a Cryston. His office is largely made of and decorated by various metals, but there are enough chairs of varying sizes and shapes that most carbon based life forms can sit comfortably.”

Simon knew what Crystons were. The adults were silicon based life forms without arms or visible legs, but telepathic powers and formidable intellects. They looked like jagged mounds of crystalline rock. Simon found his visualization of the office had no desk – what would it do with one? Presumably it spoke to them telepathically.

Doc spoke again in a deeper gravelly voice, presumably representing Sargon’s speech. He was good.

“Thank you for coming Mr. Regal. May I call you Erd?”

Simon was puzzled for a moment, then glanced at his character sheet. He had chosen Erd as a suitably alien sounding first name, then forgotten about it.

“Please do.”

Suddenly he realized that he only knew the names of two of the eight people he had just met. But he had mostly been talking to Adonis and creating his character. Had he been rude? Suddenly he was sick of his own limited social skills.

Sargon replied, “I understand than you were not that close to your uncle, and had not seen him for several years before becoming suspicious.”

Clearly that was how the game master wanted it, so Simon nodded affirmatively.

The Cryston continued, “Given your relationship and profession, I believe you’ll find you may have absorbed certain basic knowledge without deliberate conscious communication. Lord Regal was sent to accompany a party of seven other eightons and report on them among other things. Because communication with us would endanger his mission every instance where it was performed, we had very little information about what was going on.”

So this was the organization which had supported uncle Regal? Simon hadn’t ever heard of Sargon before, but Adam hadn’t spent much time exploring them with him. He could believe that this was them, that Lord Regal himself might or might not have met Sargon in person.

Doc started placing pictures on the table in front of Simon. They were pictures of individual members of some of the many species of the Eightfold. Some seemed to be copied from various rulebooks, worldbooks, and expansions. Others were hand drawn or generated on a computer.

When he was done there were three groups of pictures in front of him.

Sargon said, “It would be a great start if you could tell us which of these three groups Lord Regal eventually became part of.”

Would that be possible? Could he really tell a picture of one member of a fictional race from another? Would the group feel the newbie had let them down if he failed?

But as he studied the sets of pictures, he realized it might not be that hard. Only one group had a lion headed creature and a spiderish creature both, and several of the other species looked vaguely familiar. But he was pretty sure he would have recognized the creature with all the purple tentacles if anyone had been playing one.

He found a way to say all that in character. “Two of those groups don’t actually feel familiar to me. The third one does, although I don’t actually remember it. Something is familiar about it, except for this individual.”

Sargon replied, “Very good. We believe you were her replacement.”

Now there were pictures of three science fictional cities being built. Sargon said, “This may be a little harder.”

Simon looked for landmarks, such as the viewing tower, and the power station he had sabotaged. He didn’t find them in any of the pictures.

Sargon replied, “As I said, this may be difficult. For reasons we won’t go into now, none of these cities is as advanced as something you may have gotten a glimpse or dream of from your uncle. They are all in a much earlier state of construction, perhaps even before he first saw it.”

How did that make sense? How could anything like that have come to Erd through a link with Lord Regal? How could Simon be expected to know what the city had looked like before his character first saw it? Come to that, how could the gamemaster know if he was right or wrong?

And why had Doc had these pictures with him today? That didn’t matter right now though.

“Um, out of character, I don’t think this challenge is reasonable. How could either I or my character know what the city looked like before I ever got there?”

The third voice he had heard through the closed door, the female one, spoke up. She was kind of pretty though she had no makeup, tall and athletic. She said, “I think Sargon has a reason for asking that, and Doc has a reason for letting him. Just do the best you can.”

He shrugged internally. What did he have to lose. Phillip had actually had the plans for the city, had even discussed them with the others early on when Simon didn’t think the exact layout of the city was important. Simon looked for landmarks, for the viewing tower where he had been trapped and murdered, for the generating station he had sabotaged, for any other buildings he could remember.

Was that the town hall? They had left day to day governance to a mayor elected by the many people who had come to their new city in search of money and opportunity, and perhaps space and freedom.

The portal was much smaller, but perhaps it had looked that way before they had upgraded it. He didn’t see the new power station, just a smaller one in a different location. On the other hand there was an empty spot where they might have been planning to build it. Perhaps that cluster of dilapidated stores and houses would be demolished for the viewing tower.

Erd said, “I cannot be certain, but I believe this town is more likely than the others.”

Sargon replied, “That town is as good a place to start as any. Blue Sword is involved with many teams building portals. Most of the projects are completely legal. If a project to create an improved portal to a world not yet deemed suitable for contact was uncovered and made public before completion, the Eightfold would sternly punish those involved. Yet if the portal were created and contact was made, the elders are always hungry. Blue Sword could probably get it accepted as a fait accompli.”

So that was how it worked. In Adam’s game, he had sometimes wondered why something that was potentially such a big deal would be entrusted to the group of them. Now he understood – they were deniable and disposable.

Of course they weren’t really the same universe – were they? Just two different gamemaster’s interpretations of the same worldbook.

Sargon said, “I am going to send the team you see around you to investigate that city. It could be one of the many legitimate enterprises Blue Sword also runs. Either way they will have no love for spies, so it might be dangerous. All the same, will you volunteer to go with them?”

“I will,” Erd replied.

Simon was smiling inwardly. He would hardly say no, since that was the whole point of his being here.

“Your companions have done this before, so I suggest you listen to their advice. I need to finish up a few things, so the rest of you might want to discuss your plans in the conference room down the hall.”

Adonis said in his own voice, “It’s almost nine and we have to be out of here by nine thirty. Your characters might want to introduce themselves to the new guy, and you might even want to tell our new player your names.”

Simon was bad at remembering names, although he had developed a number of tricks for concealing the fact from people who thought he should remember theirs. Today though, he thought he would remember Daisy. She was the sole woman in the group. She was heavyset and athletic, wearing no makeup, and looking nothing like a delicate flower. He was oddly attracted to her, but didn’t even know how to begin to say so.

He would probably also remember Carlos, because someone made a joke about Carlos the Jackass. Oddly enough, Carlos had laughed, and explained to Simon that it was a pun on the nickname of a terrorist from before Simon’s time.

Carlos’s character Mandrake was the leader of their little band. He started out by asking about Erd’s combat abilities.

“Mostly sorcery, and just the basics of swordsmanship and shooting. Of course he’s a Seer too, but that’s not going to be much help in actual combat.”

“You never know,” Carlos told him.

Then he looked around to include everyone and said, “I think our best bet is just to arrive through the portal. The city is growing fast, and many people are arriving each day.”

Erd replied, “Maybe we should arrive in two or three separate groups. Six looks like adventurers or other undesirables.”

Carlos grinned at the realistic description. After all, their destination would certainly consider them undesirable if they knew who they were.

He said, “It probably doesn’t matter, but we can split up just in case.”

Plans were laid, and they had five minutes to spare before the library kicked them out. He and Doc exchanged e-mail addresses in case there was a last minute cancellation.