10

The Way Forward

With the excitement of the battle fading, as Rian walked through the town he brought up his menu and looked for the log out button again, hoping that it had magically reappeared. He sighed, still finding it unresponsive.

He wondered what Kat or Maia would’ve thought if he’d told them he was stuck inside the game. He’d had plenty of opportunities, in hindsight. And, well, there was nothing stopping him from messaging them, but it felt like his chance had passed. Explaining it face-to-face would be easier. More believable, maybe.

He wished so badly to tell someone that he was stuck—in hope of finding someone who shared his situation and learning what they’d done about it. But that was assuming he wasn’t the only one like this, as Corvis had told him. Even so, the danger of revealing himself was too great, and he knew it was a terrible conundrum he faced: if someone else was stuck in the game like he was, he would never know for the same reason for which he would never tell anyone else. It was simply too dangerous to expose himself.

This lingering sense of dread he felt, listening to other people talk cheerfully in the game, was becoming unbearable. In every conversation so far, he’d had the distinct sense of wearing a mask, to hide what he was really feeling. Corvis was the only person he could confide in. And as cold and uncaring as he seemed, he was still the only person in Mirage that Rian felt a true connection with, if only because he could speak freely with him.

He floated along behind Rian’s shoulder, looking apathetic, shielding his eyes against the sun.

“Corvis,” Rian whispered as they passed other players, “wouldn’t the GMs know if someone can’t log out? Like even without filing a ticket about it?” There had to be built-in precautions. Being stuck like he was meant that he’d eventually trip one of those safety measures whether he wanted to or not.

“They have their methods,” Corvis said. “For some reason, you off-worlders are unable to stay within this realm for more than four consecutive hours at a time. At which point, you will be forcibly put to half-synchronization.”

“Yes, I know that already.” Rian shook his head in frustration. That was really it? The half-sync timer was the only fail-safe to keep people from getting stuck?

“However,” Corvis said, “though your situation is unusual, I believe the rules still apply. You should make it a point to go to half-sync, even though you won’t really be able to. You’ll get to visit your corpse every so often. How exciting.”

Rian didn’t want to think that it was true: that his body was going to sit in his mom’s living room, gradually decomposing until someone found it. But on the flip-side…

“So if I’m really dead,” Rian said, “does that mean I’m technically immortal while I’m here?”

“Of course,” Corvis said, and Rian wondered: what the hell did that make him, right now? A disembodied soul in a video game? A copy of himself? He remembered hearing something about a cognitive mirror.

Corvis continued, “You are as immortal and timeless as any of us who were alive during the Undoing.”

“The what now?”

“When the four gods of Miracia were presumably killed”—Corvis gestured to the surrounding buildings of the harbor—“it changed things here. People stopped aging. They started coming back to life after death. The concept of power itself became quantized.” His gaze met Rian’s. “And then you off-worlders started showing up, and now you share the same traits as those survivors of the Undoing.”

Stopping for a moment, Rian muttered to himself, “This doesn’t sound like a game at all.”

“If you’re interested in learning about what happened, I suggest you join a lore-hunter’s group. In fact…” Corvis held out a hand. In a cartoonish puff of smoke, a device shaped like an old handheld radio transceiver appeared in his palm. “You may even go it alone, if you prefer.”

Rian focused on the item as Corvis handed it to him.

Lootable Y-Locator

Grade: S+ (Unique)

Lootable (this item cannot dropped or sold; possession of this item transfers to the player that kills the player who holds it.)

“A device created to locate memories of Yindra. To activate, requires one (1) unique Godly Fragment.”

There was a slot at the bottom of the device, a screen located above it, and an antenna sticking out the top. It was at least a step forward but, reading the item description, he had no idea what a “Godly Fragment” was.

“Where did you get this?” Rian said.

“It was a gift from Yindra, you might say. I suggest you put it away before anyone else sees it.”

Rian stuffed it into his pocket, and it disappeared into his inventory. “So how’d you get a gift from someone’s who’s dead?”

Corvis intertwined his fingers. “I was taking a most exquisite nap when Yindra visited me in a dream, much as she did for you. She briefed me on my mission—your mission. Then I woke up, not too long before you entered the game, and the locator was sitting there beside me.”

“She couldn’t just, y’know, tell you where she is? If her goal is to get me to find her, why can’t she just be upfront about it?”

Corvis held up his hands, but he was still giving that smug-ass smirk. “I’m as confounded by her decisions as you are, Rian. I hesitate to say that she works in mysterious ways, but there is certainly a mystery to her absence and her actions. But in her briefing, she assured me that your journey to find her is paramount to her will.”

Rian brought up his inventory and reread the item’s description. “Okay, so I just need to find a Godly Fragment, whatever that is.”

“A unique one, if you will. It is, of course, a challenging prospect—one that needn’t concern you for now. But I suggest you handle the device with care. Yindra has only supplied me with one.”

Rian hesitated. Despite the item being bound to him, he could still die and lose it. “Can you…take it back, then? You’re a non-combat NPC, right? Wouldn’t it be a better idea for you to hold onto it than me?”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that. It’s already bound to you.”

“What? So the lootable-condition thing didn’t apply to you?”

“Correct. Only to players.”

Oh, great. Another reason for someone to gank him. There was already one guild that apparently had it out for him, just by association with Kat. He could see this going south quickly.

“Okay,” Rian said, “so the locator only transfers if I die to another player.”

“Yes. You needn’t worry about NPCs or creatures stealing it from you.”

But if this thing could be transferred on death, it meant that it wasn’t entirely locked to his character. It could still be traded, just not through the normal route.

He stared at the item’s icon in his inventory, wondering just how valuable it really was. Not that he’d arrange to sell it, of course, but maybe there was another way of going about it, like giving it to someone who had the required item to activate it, and then just following them to Yindra. Probably easier than trying to constantly avoid dying.

That was assuming it would be as simple as walking to wherever the locator pointed. He really doubted a goddess would be chilling out in an area that a level one Beginner could mosey on through. Losing the locator wasn’t as much of a concern as the fact that he needed to be ready—if he or anyone else activated the item.

“All right,” Rian said. “It’s a plan, then. I’ll just have to get to level cap.” He attempted to crack his knuckles, then was surprised to hear a popping sound effect.

***

Rian unfurled a map he got for free from a merchant at the center of Thile Harbor. There were six main roads leading out of the town; the lower three led to the ports, and the upper three led to Elmguard, the Temple of Altir, and Aetheria respectively. To get to Elmguard there were mostly plains and forests to traverse, but before that was a small farm located just off the path. “Help wanted, reward offered” was inscribed and circled above it on the map.

Confirming his suspicion that it was a quest, a vibrant scroll-shaped icon appeared. Leading to the farm from Rian’s location was a dotted line, showing him a route through the town and the plains. When Rian focused upon the icon over the farm, it expanded to a text box.

(Quest available!)

“Infestation! Seeking adventurers to hunt local creatures in exchange for gold and experience. Please contact Farmer Jensen to initiate the quest.”

Difficulty: D (Easy)

Reward: 100 EXP, 30 gold.

Seemed reasonable enough. When Rian looked over the map, there was a small training area located near the southern end of the town, but he decided he’d rather not waste his time. He was confident enough to deal with whatever the early-game threw at him. The worst that could happen was that he’d die in combat and respawn.

Or so he hoped.

A twinge of doubt straightened his spine. He wasn’t sure how respawning worked yet. It had almost come up while talking about how the locator item was lootable, but he hadn’t actually considered what would happen to him. If he had truly died in reality, and if the respawn mechanic potentially required his physical body to reinstate his virtual one, then he really only had one life.

One life in an MMO that he’d never played before. He might as well be already dead.

“If I die here,” he whispered to Corvis, “I’ll come back, right?”

Corvis straightened up, blinked. “Of course you will.” He grinned. “But—”

He should’ve figured it wasn’t going to be that simple.

“Normally,” Corvis said, holding up a finger, “a new instance of yourself is spawned upon death, and such an instance is born from the original. But since you exist only in the Cognitive Mirror as of now, your respawned self will originate from it instead. And when you came into this realm, the Cognitive Mirror didn’t capture all of you. Usually, it creates a perfect replica. But from what I can tell, it didn’t happen.”

Pacing back and forth in the air, he hovered to face Rian again. “There was a glitch,” Corvis said, “an unforeseen error in your transference which resulted in your confinement here. Your circumstances are quite remarkable.”

Thinking back to when he’d first activated the headset, Rian remembered something. A number. Cognitive Mirror 99.04% operational, the floating text had read. That number had stuck with him, somehow.

Only that much of his mind had been salvaged by the game. Less than all of it. He wasn’t sure, but the neural implant was almost certainly screwing him over again. The missing 1% that hadn’t translated into the game—had that been the cause of it?

“Yes, with each death,” Corvis said dramatically, placing the back of his hand against his forehead in mock distress, “you will lose a piece of yourself. Each time, you will come back different than you were before. Oh, Yindra, what games you play!”

He was enjoying this entirely too much.

Rian struggled to keep his voice down. “And you didn’t tell me any of this before I was about to step into that…war zone with Kat and Maia? What the hell! I could’ve died right there!”

“You weren’t in danger until you stepped outside of the town. I was certainly meaning to tell you, but the great game has many rules, after all.” He shrugged. “It would be unreasonable for me to explain them all at once to you.”

Another thought found its way to the forefront: the Cognitive Mirror was some kind of construct that contained the copy of himself that was now him. But it was also likely a tool, one that measured the stability of a player’s connection to the server, as evident by the percentage it displayed. All sorts of things could get in the way of that connection, just like in traditional games. Interference. Faulty hardware. If that connection fell below a certain threshold, the game would attempt to reestablish a better connection than before, discarding the old one.

Except Rian’s real body was—apparently—dead. If he fell out of sync with the game, then being “logged out” wouldn’t just reset his connection. It would probably kill him. The him that existed here and now.

“Corvis,” Rian said slowly, “what’s the sync cutoff for the Cognitive Mirror to attempt a new connection for a player?”

“Ninety percent.” Hovering, Corvis crossed his legs, then held up his hand as if to catch something. In front of him, an old accountant-style calculator with a paper feed materialized in a puff of smoke. In his hand, a pair of gold-rimmed glasses likewise appeared, and he put them on. “If we assume that your current sync level is reapplied and degrades each time you respawn, then 99.04% of 99.04% of you will remain, leaving 98.09% after the first death. And then 98.09% of 98.09% the next time, and so on.” He tapped away at the calculator with blistering speed, the paper noisily advancing. “You have four lives—four deaths before you fall below the ninety-percent threshold.” He tore the paper out of the device and took off his glasses, which vanished in another puff of smoke.

“And then,” Rian said, “I’ll die for real?”

“Possibly.” Corvis folded his hands behind his back. “The truth is, there’s no telling what will happen. Such an event would be unprecedented.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d rather not find out.”

“Good. Then you understand the stakes.” Corvis narrowed his eyes. “But I think the question you should be asking is: what’s occupying the missing part of your mind? And what will happen each time you die? At 99.04%, you’re not brain-damaged, as far as I can tell.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Rian said half-sarcastically.

Corvis crossed his arms and brought his hand up, resting his chin between his thumb and index finger, muttering to himself, “Or perhaps the missing fragment is too small to make a difference yet…”

Ignoring him, Rian faced the horizon and took some deep, contemplative breaths. When he had to ask himself if he could really do it—play a game with his life at stake—he shrugged off the question. He wasn’t going to stop here. Not until he gathered more information. Not until he found Yindra. He couldn’t let himself give up just because he might die in a VR game.

His mother had been here, somewhere, doing something while he’d been in a coma. Whatever it was, it had to’ve been important. It had to be related to what was going on with him and Yindra and Corvis. There was no other explanation he’d accept.

He was going to find out why even if it killed him.

Mirage was just another game that he would overcome. He could do this. He was more prepared, more experienced than most. He was a speedrunner, and he was going to tear this game apart if he had to.

He dusted himself off, then took out the aviators Kat had given him. The lenses were pristine, unscratched. He unfolded the hinges and put the sunglasses on, feeling more confident already.

Then he drew the short sword out of the scabbard at his hip and headed for the western plains.