Orc Craft Omnibus, page 70
part #1 of Orc Craft Series
“What did you do, Eli?”
“You haven’t been involved in the Tower much, have you?”
“On the design side, sure. I had the idea to have the monks carry corpses out of the door.”
“We might have stretched ourselves a little, Julie. I, uh, I brought Boxe back.”
“What?”
She must have said this too loud because Julie saw faces turn toward Eli’s office windows now. Eli stood up, opened the door and yelled at them.
“You guys have more than enough work to do, so I suggest you do it,” he said. Then he added for good measure, “Thanks for your hard work, by the way.”
As he settled back behind his desk he said, “Have to keep them sweet. A hug for every slap.”
“I’m sure they feel so warm inside. What do you mean you brought Boxe back? He was the whole reason Soulboxe nearly went under.”
“No, the balance sheet was the reason. That, and our asshole of an investor was asset-stripping the company. He was making me outsource work to people who had no business in the industry, but hey, they were cheap.”
“That’s why you put the consortium together.”
“I met a few people at dinner parties. You know how it goes. Cigars, brandy, buddying up to them. We managed to get enough cash together to buy my baby back.”
“That doesn’t explain Boxe. Didn’t you sell him to a university or something?”
“We licensed him, Jules. That means we own him, and we can use him how we like.”
“Even so, he was making the game unstable.”
“He was making it great! He was the only thing that made Soulboxe different.”
“You’re completely discounting Lucas’s efforts.”
“Lucas is a genius, but he’s got a conscience. A conscience is a chain holding you back, and I tried to get him to break it when it came to Boxe, but he wouldn’t. I offered him a place on the consortium, but he passed on it. I heard he’s over in France or Italy or something, drinking cocktails and sitting by the pool.”
“That’s the life.”
“That’s death. When you stop moving, you float to the surface. I prefer to keep swimming.”
“If you’re using Boxe again, you’ll drown us all,” said Julie.
“Relax. I’ve been working on him for a while now. You probably can’t tell, but I’ve barely slept lately. Course, the only place I could sleep for a while was the couch. Better staying here, to be honest. Thank Christ that’s over.”
“Yeah, you need to start taking care of yourself.”
“Later. See, I think I can make Boxe stable again. Mute some of his personality, while keeping his intelligence. He could start running Soulboxe again. We’d have dynamic questing, maps that change on the fly, every player could create his own story. Soulboxe would be back.”
“Soulboxe is back. Jut a more stable version.”
“A god damn inferior version. A version barely breaking even. The numbers aren’t stacking, Julie. Quick fixes like the tower help some, but they aren’t the long-term answer.”
“Neither is introducing a sadistic AI to ruin everyone’s day.”
“Here’s the thing, “said Rathburger. “I know how to fix his defects, but I need a live environment to test it on.”
“So you let Boxe take control of the Tower of Windborne. He’s generating the puzzle rooms, making the traps.”
“Exactly. And it might get nasty for a little while, just until I work things out. But it’ll be worth it.”
Julie thought about the players trying desperately to get into the tower. They’d have no idea that in there, an all-powerful AI with a sick sense of humor was going to use them as toys.
“What a set of unlucky bastards,” she said.
CHAPTER 15
“I feel so lucky to be here,” said Etta. “I mean, out of all the players who tried to get into the tower, how many have there been so far? Ten? Twelve?”
“I think it’s more like twenty. Not sure how many are still in here, though. I don’t think life expectancy is long in here.”
Rolley pointed ahead now, toward the staircase where more words were forming in the air. “Looks like the tower has forgiven us. We get to see the rules.”
Tripp focused on the writing. Something about them gave him a sense of familiarity that nagged and tugged at his mind. He knew what his brain was trying to tell him, but he didn’t want to accept it. Instead, he focused on the words.
The rules of the tower are thus:
Few hearts will bond beneath this roof and those that bond may not always be trusted. A knife is a knife, no matter who wields it.
You have but one soul here, traveler. Death does not grant a second chance.
Once a threshold is crossed, nary an adventurer may change their intention.
But hark thee, traveler! Pay heed to this. Twixt the…
…I will stop writing this way. Forgive me, but it is grating on me.
Ahem.
Between the rooms, you will get a rest. A place to heal and strategize. Perhaps there are even people waiting for you in these areas of safety.
The words hovered there for a few minutes. There was only one rule that surprised Tripp.
“‘You have but one soul here, traveler. Death does not grant a second chance.’ I expected that if you die, you can’t come back,” he said. “We’ve seen the monks, after all.”
Etta nodded. “Right. And once we commit to entering a room, we have to finish it.”
“Pretty standard for a Soulboxe puzzle place. It was the same in the labyrinth in Godden’s Reach.”
“The player killing worries me,” said Barnard.
Rolley stared so hard at the text it was like he was trying to move it with his mind. He was willing it to rearrange so it made sense to him. “Where does it talk about plyer killing?”
Barnard pointed. “’Few hearts will bond beneath this roof, and those that bond may not always be trusted. A knife is a knife, no matter who wields it.’ I guess that means player-killing is enabled, so you can’t trust anyone. Or, there are NPCs in here who will try to trick us.”
“Or both,” said Tripp. “If I know how this works, and I’m getting increasingly worried that I do, then it’ll be both.”
“Know how this works? What do you mean?” asked Etta.
Tripp decided it was time to share his thoughts. “Boxe.”
“Huh?” said Rolley.
“He means the AI who used to run Soulboxe,” said Barnard, “Before they changed things around. Word is that he was unstable. Too clever, with too much power. He was causing problems in the game world.”
“Problems is putting it lightly. He was batshit crazy. Lucas said he almost tanked Soulboxe completely.”
Barnard stared at Etta now. “Lucas? As in, Lucas Goobs? The guy who made Soulboxe?”
Etta nodded. “Coombs. Not Goobs. And he was the co-creator.”
“He’s her brother,” said Tripp.
Rolley’s eye widened. “Your brother started this? Then what the hell are we doing? Get on the phone to him and hook us up.”
Etta shook her head. “No can do.”
“Sure you can. If the guy made Soulboxe, then he can probably program whatever he likes into the game. Just get him to gift us a few legendary swords. No, some mythical armor. Or maybe-”
Etta crossed her arms now. It was the first time she’d shown even a slight flicker of annoyance toward Rolley.
“I won’t ask my brother for help. Okay? I work for everything myself. Besides, Lucas is in Europe somewhere, drinking mojitos and sleeping all day. He doesn’t work for Soulboxe anymore.”
“If I had a brother who created a game like this, you can bet I wouldn’t be mucking around in a tower.”
Barnard shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s something to be said for rejecting nepotism. When something isn’t earned, it's rarely valued.”
“Thanks, Barnard,” said Etta. “That’s a sweet way of putting it.”
Barnard smiled and nervously fidgeted with his robe.
“Let’s focus on the here and now,” said Tripp. “We know that player-killing might be enabled here. There could be NPCs ready to trick us. We can only die once, and once we commit to a room, we can’t leave it. Sound right? Have we interpreted the rule correctly?”
The gang nodded and grunted in assent. Barnard, playing with the mage goatee beard on his chin, had a strange look on his face.
“You know, there is a way to check if player-killing is enabled.”
“Ah,” said Rolley. “You’re right, buddy!”
Etta looked confused. “How?”
“Like this. May I, Barny?”
Barnard nodded. “Be careful.”
“That’s my middle name.”
“Your middle name is Elmo, and you’re the least carful person I ever met. Just get it over with.”
Rolley, holding his dagger, pricked Barnard’s thumb. Blood welted from the tiny wound.
“I guess that settles it,” said Tripp. “If player-killing wasn’t enabled, you wouldn’t be able to hurt him. Not only that, but even people in the same party can hurt each other. We better be careful. You especially, Barnard. Your spells might get us killed.”
Rolley looked around now, as if people might have been listening from some unseen crevice. “I guess that means we better be careful who we trust.”
“Guys,” said Etta.
The list of rules disappeared, replaced by new text spinning into golden light in front of them.
You seem to be grasping this. Good. Some of the dullards who’ve been here already, I’m surprised they can pull their pants up. Never mind solve the riddle to get in. Oh well; most of the idiots are dead.
But you, my fine adventurers, have just one last thing to learn. One last riddle. The riddle that begins your journey, and the riddle that ends it.
You, my friends, must know the true purpose of the tower. And the true purpose is:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
“The true purpose is what?” said Etta.
“Something that we need to work out,” said Barnard. “Reminds me of hangman. Letter E, please. Logically, that’s always the best letter to start with in hangman.”
Nothing happened, which was a shame. Tripp was almost hoping it really would be that easy.
“Guess we’ll learn more as we go.” He eyed the text now. “Anything else you want to add, Boxe?”
This isn’t Boxe.
“Come on. You can’t fool me.”
Fine, but I have changed.
“Lies,” said Tripp, and he walked into the text, dispersing it, and then faced the others. “Don’t trust a word the tower tells us from now, because Boxe is here. If he’s here, there’s a reason for that. Etta, do you think you could ask Lucas? Send him a message, or something?”
“I told you, he’s out there living it up. He’s out of the loop now.”
“Then we trust only each other from here on out, okay? We stick together, we help each other, we leave nobody behind.”
Barnard put his closed fist into the center of them all now. After a few seconds, he looked around. “I thought we could put our hands in the middle and lift them all together and shout something. No?”
Rolley, sensing his friend's awkwardness beginning to shift a gear, put his fist on top of Barnard’s. “Great idea, buddy. Call it teambuilding. Orc? Bull?”
“Minotaur,” said Etta.
She put a furry hand on top of Rolley’s, and Tripp completed the process by tapping his big, green fist on top of hers.
“Good luck everyone,” said the rogue. “Look out for each other, stick together.”
His voice echoed through the tower now, filling the atrium. It traveled down the endless passageways either side of them before becoming silent.
When they separated their fists, they noticed movement in their peripheral vision.
Figures were approaching from the hallways either side of them. Even so far away, Tripp could see their pale faces and dark robes. His mind flashed back to watching them eviscerate a high-level, well-equipped guild.
“The monks,” said Etta.
Rolley drew a dagger from a sheath on his belt. For all the use it would be against the monks it may as well have been a feather, but Tripp understood his instincts. “Think they’re coming for another dead body?”
“No,” said Tripp, with understand coming to him. “They’re for us. We’ve been standing here for a while; I don’t think the tower likes indecision.”
“At least we know which way to go,” said Etta, looking up at the crooked staircase ahead.
The monks were walking at a slow pace. With their heads bowed, silent except their footsteps and the swish of their robes on the stone, they were unnerving. Tripp couldn’t help wondering what their significance was to the tower. Why were they here? Did they create the tower?
It probably wasn’t a good time to ask.
More movement caught Tripp’s eye, but this wasn’t the monks. This was something up high, something that had just moved from an alcove twenty feet above them.
It was an orb made of glass, with a golden face inside.
He couldn’t believe it.
“Bee?” he said.
The orb paused for a moment. The golden eyes inside it watched him, but its lips stayed closed.
“It’s you, isn’t it?”
He didn’t get an answer, because the orb took off, swooping high up until Tripp lost sight of it.
Etta had watched it too. “You know what thing?” she said.
“I think that was Bee. She was my guide orb the first time I played. We became friends, I guess you’d say. But I thought Lucas took her out of the game and he was using her at home as a kind of smart-device.”
“Lucas took a bunch of Soulboxe assets, but they made him give most of it back. They had a contract, and most of the things he’d created for Soulboxe were included.”
“Makes sense, I just didn’t expect to see her.”
“She probably didn’t recognize you. Guide orbs get assigned to a player. Once their playthrough ends they get assigned to another. Their minds get wiped in between.”
Tripp remembered his adventured with Bee. He recalled how many times they’d discussed that very topic; that Bee hated having parts of her memory wiped. Almost as bad as the wiping was her being aware of it. At least if she’d been ignorant to it, it wouldn’t have bothered her.
Now she was back, assigned to another player in the tower. It gave Tripp a weird feeling. They really had become friends in his last playthrough. Knowing she was now assigned to carry out another player’s orders made him a little jealous.
Yeah, he was jealous of a digital orb in a computer game. He needed to get it together.
“Let’s take the stairs,” he said.
Rolley was the first up the stairs, using his rogue agility to leap four at a time. He’d reached the top before Tripp placed his feet on the first tread.
Barnard was a little faster, and the bottom of his yellow robe dragged on the dusty stone. Tripp and Etta brought up the rear. She lumbered up each flight, taking the twists with the speed of a bus turning a tight corner, huffing as she climbed further.
“Guess minotaurs and orcs have one thing in common,” said Etta. “Oh to be a rogue right now. Or an elf, maybe.”
“If we’re dreaming, I’d be a pigeon.”
“A pigeon?”
“And fly up the stairs.”
“If we’re talking wishes and you have to be a bird, you could at least be a falcon or an eagle. Pigeon. Jesus…”
Tripp judged them to have taken twelve flights of stairs now, and there was no door in sight. Sweat poured down his forehead, trickled over his nose, lips, and chin, and snaked under his steel armor.
He leaned on the banister and looked down. Through the gap in the middle, he could see the stairs they’d taken.
There, all the way at the bottom, were the monks. They walked in pairs, going up the stairway at a slow pace, heads bent so that all Tripp could see was their black hoods.
Rolley had disappeared from view now, going so fast he’d left even Barnard behind.
“Rolley!” called Tripp, looking up. He couldn’t see him on any of the upper stairways. His voice echoed back to him now. Olley, ley, ey.
“You guys okay?” answered the rogue.
“How far up are you?”
“I don’t know,” shouted Rolley. “Twenty floors? Twenty-five?”
“Come join us back here while we figure this out,” said Tripp. “I get the feeling that the stairs are just going to carry on and on.”
He turned to Etta now, who was leaning against the banister and breathing so heavy that it came out in snorts. Barnard took the opportunity to sit.
“Not the time to relax,” said Etta, in-between bullish grunts.
“At their pace, the monks will take twenty, thirty minutes to reach this level. By which time, we will have moved on.”
“Fair enough,” said Tripp. He sat beside Barnard as footsteps came from above them. Soon, Rolley joined them. While the rest were sweating, Rolley looked like he could go another hundred floors.
“Anything up there?” asked Tripp.
“Nothing.”
“We’ve got monks following us and cutting off everything below. I’m guessing that if they caught us, it wouldn’t be to shake hands and invite us for brunch. But the staircase just isn’t ending.”
“Maybe that’s the point of the tower. You have to climb to the top, and most people die of exhaustion.”
“You remember what the tower said. We know there’s a purpose to this, and we know how many letters are in the purpose. See?”
He willed the text they’d seen to float in front of them now, and he gave the others access to see the message.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
