“With introductions out of the way,” Nyx continued, back still facing the players, “Let’s get down to the crux of the matter.”

“Don’t you think you should show yourself?” Mor said as he took a step forward to get closer to the dais. The guards stepped forward to block his path.

“No, I do not believe I need to do that. You had best mind yourself, or you may end up regretting your decision?”

“Mor, don’t push things yet,” Nala said softly, “We haven’t even learnt anything yet. Just be patient.”

Arms folded on his chest, Mor stood back with the others.

“As I was trying to say, we require people like you. People unknown within this city. We have been held imprisoned for over a century now, and we wish to be freed from this. But if our own people rise up, then they will be quickly shot down. You hold the key to being able to put a stop to this.

“It is not a simple matter though.”

“Never is in games like this,” scoffed Mor.

“The Seven Sins are holding this city within their grasp. They have placed a spell on the city which holds it apart from the rest of the world.”

“You mean, the Seven Sins, like pride, and greed and stuff?” Hildr questioned Nyx, but Filpin could see that others were smiling and nodding.

“Stock standard stuff,” Frank seemed ready to fall asleep, “Save the city from the bad guys? But we’re in gowns?”

“Firstly, let’s answer the young lady’s questions. Yes. The Seven Sins, as you would know them. They are Wrath, Lust, Greed, Envy, Pride, Sloth, and Gluttony. They all reside within the city, and it is up to you to get them to relinquish their powers in some way. We have... Modified you... to facilitate this.

“Each of you has been implanted with an artificial sin, created by magic, to mimic the powers of the Sins who hold this city within their grasp. You each have a power associated with them, though you are at the lowest level of this power.”

The veiled woman next to Nyx flicked her fan open and spoke to them.

“You have also been given the power to see yourself for who you are. All you need do is say ‘status’ and you will open a ‘mirror’. We cannot see what you can see, and neither can your friends. You alone can see this.”

Almost as one, the seven players each said ‘status’.

The screen popped up before Filpin. Clearly visible to him, but as he looked at the others he could see they were each looking at something that he was not. He looked over the data displayed and saw that it mimicked the stats he had input in the character creation. All save one part, at the very bottom was an extra skill. His read:

Greed – Weighed – know the value of any target you can see on a scale of 1 to ranks.

Beside it it said 1 Rank.

Oh, he thought to himself in the most sarcastic manner his own thoughts could convey, what a great skill...

“As to the second point,” Nyx continued while everyone was still looking at their status screens, “We will provide you with some clothes, and a small stipend of crowns. You will be on your own. We have already waited over a century to free ourselves from this curse, take your time, get used to the city, become stronger, and when you are ready, remove this curse. Free the city.”

Several maids entered the room, carrying small bundles, and gave one to each of the players. They all opened them to inspect what they had been given. Filpin did the same. What he found was a simple pair of trousers, a shirt, a belt, and a small pouch jingling with coins. A quick count told him they had been given fifty crowns.

“Look,” Frank moved closer to the dais a little, but not enough to cause the guards concern, “I don’t really feel like spending a long time in this. How are we supposed to find these Sins? You got any leads for us?”

“I am glad someone asked.”

“Gotta say the right things to trigger the right responses,” Frank said to the other players, “They won’t always give you all the information, sometimes you need to prod a little.”

“I can tell you the location of three of the Sins. Though you will be in no position to be able to challenge them yet.

“The Sin of Wrath is the easiest to find. His name is Theggor, and he resides in the Arena. He has been champion for countless years now. Pretty much since they opened the Arena. He is in a class of his own, and usually challenges large beasts rather than other people. Some still think they can best him though.

“Greed is also reasonably easy to find. Her name is Mo. She owns the Casino. She is shrewd and got to her position on her own merits. Don’t expect her to easily give up her powers.

“Lastly I can tell you where the Sin of Pride is. Naexi is her name. She is the right hand of the King. Since the King is sickly and lethargic she basically runs the city. You have no hope of even getting an audience with her unless you can do something worth her taking notice of.

“This is all I can tell you of the Sins.”

Frank raised an eyebrow at this, “So it’s not all you know?”

Nyx was silent.

“You know more, you just can’t tell us?”

Nyx remained silent.

“Fine, fine, I won’t prod.”

Nyx was as unmoving as a statue now.

A guard entered the room, his armour was more intricate than those standing around for protection. He motioned for them to follow him and quietly led them through a few corridors until he came to two doors beside each other. On the way, the guys had remained silent but the girls had quietly chatted with each other. Even seemed to be thinking about what was happening though.

“Women this door,” he pointed to one, “Men here,” then the other.

Everyone hesitated.

“Get changed,” he said in an exasperated tone, “You don’t want to enter the city like,” he motioned up and down, “this.”

They all quickly moved into the rooms and got changed.

“What’s your plans?” Watasumi asked of Filpin and the other guys in the room with him.

Everyone seemed to start thinking harder. Maybe some of them had their thoughts drifting earlier, forgetting to actually pay attention to what was going on.

Mor spoke up first.

“I plan on checking out the Sins this Nyx fellow mentioned. By the way, I got Pride. What did you get?”

“I got Gluttony,” from Watatsumi, “Something about overeating to get some sort of armour bonus. I might need to check it out.”

Frank stifled another yawn as he told them how he got Sloth. They did not seem surprised by this.

“I have Greed,” Filpin finished putting on his clothes and tried to figure out where he could store the coins, “I can measure the value of things? Something like that. Except its based on how many ranks I have, and since I only have one, everything is going to be valued the same. Seems a waste to me.”

“It’ll get better surely. Maybe you’ve just got to use it more?”

Filpin looked at Watatsumi.

“Weigh,” he tried to initiate the skills. A screen popped up in front of him, saying Watatsumi 1/1. He was not surprised by the rating, but he was glad he had managed to get it to work.

“And?” Watasumi was curious about what was happening.

“It says your value is one out of one. See what I mean, pointless at the moment. Wish we could actually choose these skills rather than them being random.”

“Hey, if we got Gluttony, Greed, Pride and Sloth,” Watatsumi pointed at each of them in turn, “then that means the girls for Envy, Wrath and Lust right? Bit jealous, they sound like much more interesting Sins to get to play as.”

Each of them seemed to be fumbling to find where they were supposed to store their coins. They all went to the door, opened it, and motioned for the guard to come over. Filpin took the lead with this.

“Um, so, how do we store the coins?”

The guard looked at him like he was crazy.

“Don’t we have, like, and inventory or something? Most games usually have something like that, don’t they? Even the manga and anime I have seen all show them having something like that...”

The guard grabbed the coin pouch off him and tied it to his belt.

“Is that it?”

“Look, I don’t know what this stuff you were talking about is. But if you want to carry something around then you need to hold it some way. There’s no other way to deal with it.”

“Oh, ok, thank you,” Filpin moved back and shut the door again, “Thought a new game like this would have more to it than that. Must be for realism.”

“Yeah, the character graphics are quite good aren’t they,” Watatsumi was looking over his hands, “I haven’t even had a chance to see what I looked like yet, but the polygon count seems really high. Can’t believe it’s running so smoothly. Maybe that’s why they’ve limited the game to seven players, so keep it from lagging too much.

“Anyway, so Mor is going to see the Sins. I think I might go with him. What about you two?”

“I think I want to look around the city a bit,” said Frank, “Check out the limits to where we can go. See if there’s any invisible walls or progress blocking things.”

Filpin thought for a while, “Frank, do you mind if I join you?”

“Whatever,” he shrugged.

The four of them re-entered the corridor where the girls were now waiting with the guard.

“I will now take you out into the city, stay close.”

The followed the guard as he led them through more corridors and downstairs. Then down more stairs. Then into what seemed like the sewers, or some kind of catacombs. They kept going, taking turns here, going upstairs there, going down again elsewhere, until the seven of them were thoroughly confused about where they had come from. The number of side corridors and other flights of stairs that they hadn’t taken made it so that they wouldn’t easily be able to find their way back to Nyx’s manor.

Eventually, they came to a ladder at the end of a corridor. The guard motioned them to climb up.

“This is the last I will see you. Don’t try to find us. If Nyx wishes to see you, then he will organise for it.”

Everyone just shrugged and climbed the ladder, the girls making the guys go first. The top of the ladder had a small door, which they opened and climbed out of. They were inside the city, against a huge wall, but with some building not far from them. The buildings appeared to be well kept, painted nicely, and generally appeared to be more expensive. They must be in an upper class apart of town.

The sun was shining, except it wasn’t quite. The place was filled with light, but looking up they could not see the sky. Not because anything was blocking the way, but because the sky was just a mass of grey.

“Didn’t even put a skybox in yet,” Watatsumi commented as he craned his head up.

“A what?” Nala was looking at his with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, um, a sky. They haven’t even put in clouds and blue sky yet. Something to look at when you look up.”

“Oooooh,” Nala looked up again, “Oh well. Us girls are going to go on our way. We might see you guys later.”

At this, the group of seven divided themselves into three smaller groups. The girls left together, Watatsumi and Mor started to head off another way, and Frank and Filpin went in a final direction.

* * *

William stood behind one of the programmers.

“Sir, as you can see,” he pointed over to a series of numbers on the side of his screen, “There are seven players who have connected to our servers.”

William nodded.

“But, we can’t find them in the game. We’ve checked the details. A couple of the others even logged into the game itself to try and find them, but we couldn’t.”

“So you’re saying that they are using our servers but not our game?”

“Um, yeah, that seems to be the case.”

There was a vibration in his pocket and William pulled his phone out. An unknown number was calling.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to take this call. Just keep monitoring it. We’ll figure out what’s happening in the morning. It’s too late to be thinking too hard on this.”

He stepped out of the room, checked to make sure no one was around, then answered the phone.

“William here.”

“Finally,” the voice on the other end was deep and threatening, “I do not like to be kept waiting.”

“Apologies sir. I was just with the programmers monitoring the players.”

“Ah, yes, the players. I have been told they have made contact with someone from the world.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Not yet. Just keep monitoring them. Find out where they are. See if you can tap into their systems. It would be handy to see what they see. If you need more money, we should be able to swing something your way if you show results.”

“Your funding is always appreciated. We’ll continue as we are now, and I’ll contact you if we manage to locate them in the real world.”

William hung up the phone and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. Speaking with these people always frightened him. But the money they had provided had helped them advance their games in leaps and bounds. He was deep in their pockets but that meant they had him by the throat. He could not disappoint them.