Talking to Xin blurred a half hour of real time. She threw a lot of possibilities at me to check. My lack of immediate answers didn’t make her upset but did cause a pause in our conversation as both the woman’s eyes closed in thought. Eventually, we both agreed that the potential treasure came first. Honestly, I think Xin was jealous that I had a mystery present to begin with. She suggested that going for points would be useful, but mostly to avoid losing Ranks and Paths.

So, I logged back in feeling far giddier than expected. I immediately pulled out [Treasure’s Chest], which took up a square foot. The top was a smooth metal that reminded me of [Wayfarer Seven]’s hull. Shimmering reflected in the nearly faded torch light. Adorning the reflective surface was a spot to place my hand. As I shook with excitement then slowly pressed fingers into the grooves, my attention became distracted by Dusk.

The [Messenger’s Pet] had his head halfway down our escape hole. A hiccup rippled through and barfing noises issued forth. Wet splashes could be heard as he let loose belly contents upon an already questionable floor. At least my autopilot hadn’t tried to eat anything funny, or else I might be like Dusk.

“Shouldn’t have eaten that arm.” I shook my head. “Didn’t you learn with the Toadclopes? You thought the feet looked tasty didn’t you, and couldn’t help yourself.” The Lesser [Heavily Body Clone]s didn’t have [Undying] traits like the regular ones did, but Dusk would likely eat them too if he were larger.

Metal under my fingers melted and reformed like a bubble deflating around two similar shapes. Any sound for the transformation registered lower than the sound of regurgitating meat chunks. Dusk groaned as the final form revealed itself.

They were shoes, to be precise, sandals with straps across them. I lifted one up and marveled at the odd mixture of beach wear and [Mechanoid] patterning. The bottoms looked more like metal army boots. Thick bindings were designed to wrap up a calf. Stars were stamped over both ankles. My eyes squinted briefly and the [Inspection] skill popped up.

…foreign data acquired…

…transfer of data approved…

…error resolution in process…

…adapting to local information…

…modifying code… Results: [Gait of Bowman] Durability: Above Average Added Trait[s]: Regeneration, Bound Details:

Bowman was a legendary space explorer who met with strange circumstances. During his journeys, he argued with a being of great power to save his comrades and was flooded with burning energy during the end trek home. Bowman managed to use excess power to prevent a great weapon from destroying his home world.

In the end, excessive energy destroyed Bowman from the inside. His body fell through space towards the world he saved. All that remained were a pair of sandals, etched with the stars Bowman had once dared to explore. They still retain some of the safer power granted from his trip.

Pressing down and twisting the left heel activates [Power Armor]

Pressing down and twisting the right heel activates [Camouflage]

Grab will be permanently altered

“Is this wise?” I asked Dusk.

The [Messenger’s Pet] turned green, rippled both wings then threw up another round of leftover meat. His face bobbed back up to look at me. Saliva hung from his jowls.

“Right. There are cupcakes in my Atrium if you can get there.” My heart held nothing but pity for the [Messenger’s Pet]. He looked red-eyed and watery. I had been that hung over many times. Liquor and I had never mixed, even in my darkest days.

Dusk groggily vanished as I reached out and tried to yell, “Don’t leave a mess!”

Time dilation didn’t exist in the Atrium, but Dusk could move fast. I had maybe half a day in-game if the creature napped. Xin and I had tossed around a lot of ideas. The best bet was killing the boss, taking whatever [Bound] loot dropped, and it involved getting our prisoner convoy back on the road.

[Sight of Marcari] pinged the entire area as I bore the brief disorientation. All the players, minus those killed, were running around the dungeon. Two groups were fighting each other while moving quickly. Three other convicts were trying to survive solo. One blipped off as I watched, showing their recent death all alone in some corner of the dungeon.

Android Seven stood out away from all the others, marching ever deeper into the dungeon. My ability wasn’t unlocked correctly when we first formed groups and I hadn’t memorized who he was traveling with. It was a good bet that his partners were dead.

I didn’t care about being first to the boss, only that it died. Android Seven sounded unlikely to fail, but Viper was in that direction too. Somehow the sneaky snake had survived. Working with a partner to defeat the boss would better than any alternative. Assuming we were needed.

Both boots went on first. My body rippled as chest piece transformed into a metallic looking toga. This felt decidedly Greek but it was hard to see for sure.

I stamped my foot down onto the ground and a star spun giving off green energy, reminding me of Emerald’s core. Twisting the limb right caused my body to ripple. Panic bubbled up as I worried that this might be causing an internal explosion before logic reined me in.

This ability had only been used a few times in Advance Online, using it now felt out of place. Still, my arm was covered by a dull black film that almost matched the dungeon walls. It could have been the poor lighting.

I pulled out [Morrigu’s Gift] and [Morrigu’s Echo]. My forehead wrinkled as both items shifted to shortened blades. The [Assassin] path wasn’t one of my skills, but no time like the present to practice sneaking around.

Luckily some players were downright dumb, and with months of character development I should get something. [Coordination], [Speed], and [Reaction] were all above average. Continue Online relied on skill measurements mixed with traits and abilities to define Paths for players.

Funny, I hadn’t thought about trying to be a rogue type player until being put in player jail. These skills were perfect for it. Xin’s influence had rapidly turned me from a mopey warrior who bypassed most challenges to a man enjoying the challenge of sneaking around.

I put a transformed dagger in my teeth and felt delightfully roguish as I lowered myself back to the floor. This was a dark dungeon and barely lit. I had a stealth sneak sort of skill and two daggers. The brimmed hat, long hair and barely pudgy belly all felt out of place, but it was the thought which counted, literally.

There were a lot of hallways. I gave up creeping along the ground like a spider after the first two rooms. It felt silly, plus my ability to walk on tiptoes like Dusk was sorely lacking. My mouth had started to slobber around the dagger form of [Morrigu’s Gift] which made it hard to hold onto.

“Which way…” I muttered at a corner. Talking broke [Camouflage] which made me hang my head briefly. A lesser [Heavily Body Clone] started crawling with large grasping moves in my direction. Eyes glowed and an exposed spine drug along behind it.

I reacted automatically, shifted [Morrigu’s Echo] to a much larger sword form, then slammed the blade into its head. The creature died quickly enough but nothing triggered from the game regarding a sneaking Path of any sort.

A heavy sigh escaped. My dastardly plan to be a ninja teleporting sneaky person was failing miserably. [Gait of Bowman] refused to activate either ability right away. I was left slowly edging my way down the hall with what little light was available. Five minutes later the ankle of my sandals flashed a soft green. That must have been Continue Online’s signal regarding [Camouflage] working again. I stomped my foot and was pleased to see the black coloring appear once more

This skill wasn’t actual invisibility, and according to the text it worked better the less complex my surroundings were. Rank one only allowed for a single tone, which automatically linked to a sort of blueish black.

A ping of my surroundings painted terrible results. There other players’ dots had dwindled in number. Only six remained from our initial fifteen. Viper had managed to hide further ahead but I was getting closer. Big O and a partner were floors above. Android Seven seemed to be slowly making his way along.

This dungeon felt like an ant’s nest of twisting turns. Occasionally I edged close to a spiral path that seemed to span all the way up and down. There were a number of monsters all around it and other convicts a few floors above me. The safer bet was to avoid the dungeon’s easy access stairway for now. I could always find more gaps to leap or [Blink] through.

The first few floors only had two types of monsters. I thought this place didn’t have anything else until something tiny and furry leapt towards my face.

“Arrgh!” I screamed in a panicked induced reflex.

More shapes joined in and I couldn’t get a clear line of sight to [Blink] away. Whatever they were my [Camouflage] seemed ineffective.

Small snarls came forth. There were crackling noises near my ear. Teeth clawed at bits of flesh. [Wild Bill] shifted as one of the tiny creatures scuttled rapidly across my head.

I dropped one weapon to the ground and tried to grab a tiny assailant. Tiny teeth dug into the flesh of my hand but limited ARC pain feedback made it bearable. This seemed to be an undead, or [Heavenly Body Clone] version of a [Coo-Coo Rill]. The small gem on its forehead looked tainted and dull compared to their normal lively purple. It made me wish Dusk hadn’t gone and poisoned himself.

It continued to chomp tiny little teeth at me.

I screamed back in an angry mockery of the creature then threw it hard. [Coo-Coo Rill]s pissed me off, especially after all their harassment when I was William Carver. A second one jumped off a wall. Nails scraped and I batted away one that had no eyeballs. Shuddering passed through me at the thought of zombie squirrels.

A minute later and the hallway was filled with tiny dead fuzzballs and I had less health, again. Their teeth thankfully couldn’t do any bleeding damage. My hat had holes in it and the new toga seemed to have been defecated on.

Thinking about the state of my clothes made me unhappy. There had been a spell in my old bag simply to help clean myself up after combat. I shook a few times to try and get their bits of leftovers off of me. This game took dungeon crawling realism to an unhealthy level when it came to muck and mire.

“Now, how did this little thing see me?” I muttered, once again wishing Dusk was around to talk to.

I looked at one of the small bundles that had been thrown into a wall. Inspecting dead animals still made me a little queasy but the feelings were managed after months of virtual gameplay. The little ball of squish didn’t have eyeballs, so it must have relied on scent to find me.

The lesson was learned. [Camouflage] didn’t help against monsters who could track by smell, at least not at my current low rank. One revealing me would crack the [Camouflage] and get me into a fight. Neat, but annoying.

I crept along the dungeon. Status bars flashed at slightly under half. Mana and health hadn’t recovered enough and without supplies, it was unlikely to improve. The goal shifted from recovering my unwilling convict partner and beating the boss to surviving long enough to see what this creature did.

Only the floating window for real world time kept me from getting too engrossed in this dungeon crawl. I could see how these dungeon grinds might be torture. It was dark, others were out to kill me, the monsters would easily swarm if I hadn’t been able to sneak past some and [Blink] past others. Trying to loot gear for points would get my virtual body murdered.

It was weird, how the small enemies felt almost irrelevant sometimes. Continue Online filled dungeons like this one to the brim but rarely did they phase me after the first few encounters. Up above, on the surface, monsters were generally in out of the way areas.

I snuck by, mostly with [Camouflage]. The ones I did fight were brushed off rapidly. Health was an issue the longer this mess went on, but at worst I would die. That would be the end of it, and I could go about real life or talking to Xin.

There was far less urgency. Every time the game made me jump from one creature or another I stabbed the offender then settled myself. This wasn’t reality. Monsters were just monsters. I only had to keep moving forward.

Then the smells kicked in. That sewer smell mixed with a lingering sour sweetness. Rot twisted my stomach to one side in an attempt to release all its contents. The source was a large body in front of me that looked easily triple the size of any prior [Heavenly Body Clone].

“What is going on?” I asked stepping towards the giant creature. Speaking out loud would break the skill keeping me hidden, but now wasn’t the time to stress. There were no other players nearby.

Besides, this looked really neat, and possibly was a dungeon secret or side boss. That would be of value. I missed Dusk, at least we could hold a conversation.

Giant bones. This dungeon wasn’t large enough on its own for such a creature to have walked down here. This thing would have either been born down here, died in this room, or crawled in when smaller. I pondered its origin while walking around. Its body seemed far more complete than the [Heavenly Body Clone].

“Now, what’s this?” I leaned over the creature's face. [Inspection] wasn’t triggering, which meant my focus was on the wrong thing.

I backed up slowly to take in the larger picture. There were feet sticking into one wall. A few of those weird fuzzball creatures gathered at the head, disturbing them would lead to another panicked fight.

Viper sat nearby, unmoving. His online status didn’t show from here, though, and we had no party interface. That required skills I never picked up or learned. When was the last time I partied with someone in Continue Online besides Shazam? There had been being enslaved to Requiem but that hardly counted.

“Where’s the spot?” My foot was tapping rapidly while a glare crossed my face. This beast of a dead body had a secret.

I did another lap then preemptively got revenge on the pile of hairy critters. My health fell another five meaningless percent. The creature had no status icons, windows to belay ability, or [Inspection] screen at any angle.

Finally, I risked going closer. The body was at least four times my own. The monstrous beast’s hand dipped down into a hole of some sort. Under his hand, and it certainly was a dead male, sat a room that looked far brighter than my current surroundings.

What would Carver do? Grumble about those who could not solve their own problems, then leap downward. What would Jeeves do? He would have asked me if I thought it was nobler in the minds of men to leap into the hole. What would Xin do? She wouldn’t ask about Carver, and grab my hands while falling. I smiled to myself, looked once, then lowered myself. Different approaches to the same problem summed up who we were.

Priority was given to checking my surroundings. They were bright. Instead of lights pouring down from the ceiling like merging rivers, this spot seemed to have an entire pool. Three barrels sat on either side of me. I scanned the room twice more for unseen creatures before moving on.

Cuticles on the hanging hand had shrunk. Nails looked like monstrous claws curled towards the ground of this lower floor. They speared one of the barrels. I assumed the beast had died while trying to claw its way down here. Was it thirsty for this light stuff?

My eyes scanned around the room once more. Xin would have been in the barrel by now, Carver too, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that things were about to get worse. It wasn’t pessimism, it was realism beaten into me one dropping shoe at a time.

The better question was, why had no one else discovered this place yet? My eyes closed and pinged the area again. A sharp pain hit my shoulder and metal rang. Brief panic bubbled up at the sudden pain. I controlled myself then [Blink]ed forward.

There was something else with me. Shadows moved against the wall but no one was visible. Both weapons came up in my hands as I scanned around. It had been hours in-game since ability abuse, my head could probably take activating everything.

Invisible enemies? I swung [Morrigu’s Gift] through the air. Nothing made a noise. Another pinch nipped my shoulder.

“What’s going?” I mumbled and felt something cross my face again.

These weren’t the fuzzy creatures from up above. Those weird minor experiments in the [Heavenly Body Clone] process would have been bearable. It was something else small and aggravating. Heavy threads started dropping off of [Wild Bill]’s brim.

“No, no, no.” I hastily muttered. “I hate bugs!” My shout echoed around the small room.

Silk increased its generation then spilled off of my brim. I hastily found a wall and slammed my forehead into it. The damage racked up as I panicked again and again. Of all the monster types in Continue Online, spiders destroyed my sanity.

I rolled on the ground, stabbed at anything remotely squirmy, and disregarded a further vanishing health bar. Everything felt itchy. A sharp jab of pain hit both legs. One leg lifted and my hand slapped down rapidly. Guts oozed.

“I need a light! I need a light!” I tried to activate my little matchstick fire spell and jumbled the [Lithium] words. Speaking the words felt dirty while nasty feet crisscrossed exposed skin. Ripples in the toga robes could contain hundreds of filthy little beasts.

I rolled, shook, danced, slapped and finally managed to light a small fire to burn away threads. Small patches of darkness skittered away. Everything itched.

Poisoned!

Health will lower over time unless treated.

Total health loss: 60%

Voices above this was getting rough. I would be lucky to even reach Viper.

My body slumped downward. The ARC gave me a vision of spinning rooms all doubled up on each other. Being poisoned was setting my world on edge. I bent over and grabbed one of the barrels of liquid light.

The object and I both fell to the ground as agony hit the ARC feedback. My body twitched in a fresh pool of rapidly glowing material. It felt like a bath of cool and prickly mint. There were boxes from the game displaying but blurred vision obscured them.

It took a long time before my body got past the poison rippling through and was willing to move. By then the light had mostly faded. I checked my ARC display for the real world clock and found that ten minutes had passed while my mind checked out.

Forty minutes of game time had passed. No monsters arrived. That giant’s hand still dangled down from above. My health seemed to taper off at twenty-five percent. Breathing hurt.

I groaned while tipping to one side. There was a box nagging me that I tried to wave away. It popped up again, taking on a slightly reddish hue. There were four more barrels intact around me, they shimmered with glowing white liquid. The mess I had made seemed mostly gone.

It took forever to stand up. I groaned again, feeling like Old Man Carver’s avatar had been swapped for Hermes. My body slowly staggered over to one of the barrels and tried to figure out what exactly I had dipped myself in.

They looked almost like open wooden kegs that used to house small vats of beer. A tap sat near the bottom which probably would have let the liquid out in controllable amounts.

The box popped up again, an even angrier red than before tainted its words. My face leaned in closer to better read the fuzzy words.

[Dipped in Starlight]

Creature’s with the [Undying] trait can now be permanently damaged. Defeating these monsters will provide mild health regeneration.

All [Heavily Body Clone]s are now headed in your direction. Their aggression level is increased and damage output higher.

“Oh shit,” I said out loud. “That’s not neat.”

There was a groan of noise nearby. It came from the hole above. A second noise echoed out from an unexplored hallway that had been obscured from above. The passage was small but I had to get to safety. I limped forward, cursing the drop down, spiders, undead [Coo-Coo Rill]s, and my own stupidity for exploring this part of the dungeon without getting to Viper first.

I could try to fight a super aggressive version of those large limbed beasts, or run. Running sounded safer until my eyesight stopped being fuzzy. Viper was to the east, and I couldn't run this mass to him. Maybe I could get back to my alcove and resummon Dusk. Darkness owned this level aside from the aside from the barrels of glowing light. I would stumble forth with one hand on the wall. Continue Online seemed obsessed with plunging me into a sightless land.

[Camouflage] activated with a twist of my heel. My body rippled as I limped out the door. At some point, a throbbing pain in my side had kicked in, maybe because of the large barrel of liquid falling on me.

Safety lay somewhere ahead. Groans preempted [Heavenly Body clone]s coming around corners. I had no time to summon Dusk forth from the Atrium beyond. My feet shuffled, and at some point, the Rank one [Camouflage] failed. I had to get to the center spiral and risk [Blink]ing upwards.

Ahead was another player. I blinked for a moment as the man lifted an arm. Fingers jerked at odd angles and an orb appeared in the upturned palm. My face tried to turn for a clear line of sight to [Blink] to.

Large hands grasped me from behind. I was being damned stupid and panicking. Blue energy spiraled out from the other player’s hand and steered a path through the dungeon corridor in my direction. Increasing pain shaved off the entirety of my shoulder, arm, and health. If [Howard's Phylactery] had been repaired then I could have made it further, the damn ring was so frail I rarely bothered.

You have died.

I chewed one lip and tried to calmly replay what had just happened. Next time I would be prepared. There were vats in this dungeon that would allow me to fight the monsters, which was good, but it also ensured that I would have to run like mad or fight an unending swarm, which was terrible.

It took me a moment to realize that my body was frozen. The ARC display paused in the world of blackness. Legs and arms refused to lift towards an exit button. This had happened before. I tried to remain calm in preparation for what would happen next.

One moment the room was black except a small status box floating in front of my face, then it stood there. The Jester’s body had appeared. Calmness failed and my heartbeat jumped once. Shoes stretched and extended into curls. Bells hung from its waist and floppy tasseled hat. The mask, which normally had a comically frozen grin, looked upside down.

It, the Voice, was mad. Even the jingle bells hopping along sounded disjointed. My heartbeat doubled its thudding intensity.

“Hermes, my little puppet.” The Voice’s face shook. Edges of an ear and face could be seen behind the mask. It almost disturbed me more to think that there might be a human looking Voice under all those clothes.

“We give!” It shouted in a mechanical clack. “We give, and we give, and we give!”

I tried to open my mouth and figure out what we were talking about. Chills crept along my cheek. They had given me a lot, and asked a lot, and punished me for failure more than once. In my mind we were mostly even, except maybe for the weight of Xin’s life.

Someone whimpered in the darkness, and it wasn’t me. A figure faded in, biting at fingernails and shaking. Sharp needles seemed to jut from every exposed bit of flesh. With every shake and unsteady step, another mournful noise would crawl out of the hairless man’s body.

“They’ll kill her. They’re going to kill her.” It said. It sounded half mad and childish. This was a Voice I hadn’t seen before.

“All those things, all this power, all this unfair ability, we just give it to you! And you are still helpless in the wake of what’s coming!” The Jester dug freezing fingers in my shoulders where the toga didn’t cover me. He snarled and jabbed that elongated nose into my face.

“Kill her, they’ll kill her. We mustn't, we mustn't.” The crazier one said as it paced along the floor.

My mouth wanted to open and scream as a fresh wave of disturbing terror crawled over my mind. The Jester could induce panic even where so many monsters and dungeons in Continue Online couldn’t. His new partner looked worse, like staring at an insane asylum patient who escaped the straitjacket.

“What good are you, Hermes?! What message could you deliver that might possibly save us?!” It shouted, voice clacking.

“I-” A word came out as the world slowed to a crawl.

“Kill her. Kill her.” The insane one said.

“You are simply too weak to do what must be done. You always have been, and always will be.” Clacked the Jester in judgment.

My eyes drifted down as if the stiffness of my neck thawed while the Jester backed away. Its scowl seemed so revealing for a creature that always hid behind a smile.

Dusk stood by my side, having found his way from the Atrium to this blackness the Voice’s lived in. Ears laid back and an angry chitter of noise escaped. My nervous heartbeat calmed once he arrived.

“Nothing. You both understand nothing.” Its words wound down as the Jester’s body backed away, slowly disappearing. The faint outline of his scowling mask hung before fading. Where it was vanishing to, the crazy one biting its nails had already gone. I could still hear the shaky choked sob of a child stuck in their nightmare. It haunted a distant point of blackness.

“What, was, that?” The words came slowly as I stared at Dusk.

The [Messenger’s Pet] rippled with a shrug then turned to walk away. Behind us sat the door to my Atrium, wide open, revealing a cupcake mess leftover hurricane of destruction.