Continue Online (Book 1, Memories) (37 page)

“
Far
too smart sometimes,” I muttered at the fleeing tiny dragon.
Chances were he’d get distracted at least a dozen times while
helping the new player out.

Hopefully
wouldn't be any more dead Coo-Coo Rills in my Atrium. That was a
mystery that was unlikely to be revealed any time soon. One silly
program altering creature had upheaved most of my personal time, the
few hours I got while Old Man Carver slept.

“
Father
says you wanted a break today, Mister Carver.” The younger
guard from earlier managed to sneak up on me. It should have been
impossible from the way his armor jangled.

“
I
do, Dayl, if you’d take over for me.”

“
Sure
thing, Mister Carver, sir. Father says you’re back to
practicing with Peg. Is that true?” Dayl's headgear slipped out
of place and he hastily pushed it back up

“
I
am,” I said.

“
Father
says you’re…”

“
Dayl.”
I barked. He snapped to attention while his armor rang in protest.

“
Yes,
Mister Carver?”

“
Shut
up now.” Oh look, another percentage on my progress bar.

“
Yes,
Mister Carver, sir.”

I
grumbled and headed off, under canopies of trees, past the bakery and
across town. Each step painful, but not unbearable. Working with Peg
on exercises had been extremely helpful, almost like physical
therapy. Every time I logged out the dull ache from Carver's body and
these exercises lingered and kept me tired.

Mylia
was walking nearby, which was part of the reasoning behind requesting
a guard. I got to chat with her for a few breaths before we split and
went different directions. No progress on her side quest yet. None of
the new players I’d talked had provided any sort of useful
opening. Mylia herself was nearly an enigma.

“
Are
you going to visit the children tonight? They’ve been asking
when you’ll share more stories.” She said. I grunted and
kept walking, cane alternating with my slightly more limber body. “I
tell the little ones that you’re not up to it most days.”

“
Oh?”
She had mentioned that William Carver read stories to kids. I hadn’t
pursued it enough among everything else going on, that was nearly two
weeks ago. Goodness. I was almost halfway through this strange
existence and still things blindsided me.

“
Can
you visit this evening? You seem to be moving much better. They’d
love to see you’re doing well.”

“
I’ll
make time, Mylia. For the children of course.” I tried to sound
gruff and serious. Reading children a story would be emotionally
painful.

A
reminder of how life didn’t go. I paused mid-step, clenched
both eyes for a moment, and tried not to sway. In real life, I could
push through these moments, but in the game, with Carver's weakened
body, it was harder to stay upright.

Happy
place. Focus on a happy place. The sky was glorious. The world around
me was bright and lively. People went about their day pleasantly
chattering away.

“
Of
course, Mister Carver.” Mylia smiled. I could see an almost
glow of happiness pass over her features, but I fought to keep
Carver's eyes focused forward.

“
I’ll
leave you to your rounds and let the children know to expect you.”

I
nodded and gave a half wave. Old Man Carver would never show weakness
in front of a lady! The moment Mylia was out of sight I tracked down
the nearest bench and rested. A journey to Peg's required pit stops
despite my navigating far better than I had the first few days.

This
was how most days seemed to go. I’d log in, wander to the beach
bench, and alternate between reading or helping out new players. NPCs
from about town would drop by occasionally with very friendly
conversations. Reminding me of the day to day life I’d
‘forgotten’ in the last few weeks.

Players
occasionally tracked me down again. Occasionally they came back three
or four times to ask about other skills. I’d update their map
after asking them to complete a new quest. More than one player was
sent to pick up cupcakes for my
[Messenger's Pet]
friend. I
challenged one girl to come up with a name for the tiny creature, but
she failed to get a positive response. After nearly fifty names and
complete failure, I updated her map with the location of a farmhand
who had a certain way with animals. She’d tried hard.

One
older man, who had to be near Carver's age, started the game and sat
down on the bench. We said nothing for two hours as the sun set. I
left him a map leading towards one of the town's three mystic tutors.
This one focused on more theoretical puzzle stuff. In the morning,
the scroll had been gone and the older man hadn’t turned up
again.

One
player logged in and he ran around until he ran out of stamina. He’d
lie there, gasping with an overly excited look on his face. Once the
bar was full, he took off, kicking up dirt and sand all along the
beach. His shouts brought a smile to my face. The player hadn’t
outright said it, but I was willing to bet his legs were damaged
somehow in real life.

Each
player that popped in was a little different. They asked for
different things, spoke in ways that didn’t line up at first.
Part of me started to realize that this game was routing players from
all over the globe to this starting zone.

How
did I understand them then?

I
asked Beth one day between rounds as William Carver. She left me a
voice mail citing that since the game was all digital immersion there
wasn’t actually an English language. In essence, the system was
translating conversations super-fast from the Earth languages to
another set of
world
gibberish
and back.

It
wasn’t like people showed up in the game being clearly Asian,
or Indian, or any other obvious ethnicity. These players were all
human, though. My city,
[Haven
Valley]
,
was on the border of two human Kingdoms. They had a very loose
alliance that was constantly teetering according to Dayl. I sighed
and put all those thoughts out of my mind and read another passage
from Carver's final journal.

Recently
I’ve felt everything catching up. The irony of my situation is
that being forced into bed rest has increased my play time. They were
kind enough to dial down the feedback so my ticker doesn’t feel
the strain like it used to.

Of
course everything else is less sensitive, but I should be happy this
old goat got a few final rolls in the hay.

I
reread the notes I scribbled down two years ago when I first started
visiting here. I’m sad to think of all the people I’ve
left behind over my journey. There were so many promises to visit,
and I couldn’t fulfill half of them.
Strange.

I
feel like this world is more real than the other. Maybe it’s
merely a wish of mine, to hope that if my body dies there, that I can
keep on adventuring over here. To live like a child again, in a world
where so many dreams are possible.

I
should call Michelle, and thank him before it’s too late.

Abruptly,
halfway through this final book, the entries stopped. No word of his
time as a Guide, or this town, or how he came to settle here. Nothing
of value citing what had happened, or where he was going to end up.
This was his form of retirement I guess, but what filled in the gaps?

I
shoved the book into a pocket and kept onward with my journey to
Peg's.

One
possibility that worried me was that William Carver had died before
being able to write another entry. At what point had the computer
literally taken over his life? I’d thought it was fairly
recent, but the NPCs around here acted like Carver had been a firm
presence since the game was released.

I
should write some letters. To make sure Carver got one last chance to
say goodbye.

“
Let's
see,” I mumbled to myself, looking over the weapons. Heavier
ones actually made my progress bar improve. Lighter ones meant I
could last longer, but they were a really slow decline.

“
You
better not be trying to break your arms again, William!”

“
No
such luck, Peg!” My yell was more of a mumbling grunt into the
wall. I’d had to lean close to see how the handles looked.

Carver
had a skill called
[Weapon Evaluation]
that seemed to rank the
value of items. According to the details, it was a sub-skill of
[Identification]
that focused only on weapons. The more I
studied the lineup, the more accurate the rating was. Using the
game's feedback, I picked a larger two-handed blade. It looked big
compared to the frail arms and body I resided in but wasn’t
exactly an over the top anime sword either.

“
Seriously,
William! You retired!” Peg was still shouting at me and
alternating with some other person. They didn’t look to be a
player, just a NPC being trained by another NPC.

I
smiled, the image of a fit William Carver came to mind, one holding
up a giant sword in preparation to swing. The Carver in these
journals wasn’t the sort of man who did well with concepts like
block or parry but relied on a strange brute strength. With game
stats, it was easy to see how real life limitations wouldn’t
prevent a character with high strength from making any play style
work.

There
had to be some in-game benefit to knowing martial arts of some sort
too. Sadly that was not me. I danced at best. When in the comfort of
my private little program I shook my groove thing like a madman,
pretending to be any number of famous figures in their videos. My
Thriller imitation was excitingly depressing for a middle-aged man
with a gut. The moonwalk skill took countless hours to get down, and
I could do one in real life too. Dancing looked terrible on a man
with my belly.

Throwing
someone over my shoulder with a twist and shout, however, was beyond
my skills. Maybe I’d try it out when I made my own character. I
could train to be a cage fighter. Oh, a staff was kind of cool. I bet
I’d be pretty good with a Bo staff. Or a bow and arrow, that
would be neat. I could count my kills and make friendly fun of
dwarves. But Old Man Carver was all about the two-handed sword.

I
ignored Peg’s worried shouts and stumbled a path to the
practice dummy. My exercise would go on for about an hour in-game and
leave me tired and breathless. After that, I’d rest, eat a
snack I’d conned from one of the new players as a quest then
move onward to my next destination. That was the plan and that’s
how it went.

After
placing the weapon in its home, I stumbled to a bench and pulled out
the map. Evening was coming on soon and I wanted to see these
children Mylia talked about so often. Their home was on the outskirts
of town. Carver's notes said it was an orphanage with about twenty
children. Sometimes they were adopted, but that was less likely than
the child moving on or getting a job. According to this, Mylia had
been there for about six years.

Odd,
I wonder if that was any relation to Carver being in this town for
six years? I’d have to figure out a way to get information
about her eventually, without violating Old Man Carver's prideful
personality.

“
By
the Voices, William, what nonsense are you up to now?”

“
The
usual.”