Finding something on the net never was simple. With fourth generation search algorithms and mapping AI, one would think there was nothing that would remain hidden, and they would be right. However, the ease of searching had also brought with it an annoying side effect—overabundance of information. The only thing necessary to make something difficult to find was to put it behind a paywall. To make it impossible to find, one simply had to bury it in a sea of common terms. “Ghost forum” was a perfect example. A basic search revealed hundreds of millions of hits in the free web space alone, and without considering dashes, spaces, and other exotic symbol combinations.

As I was preparing to enter the forum, a notification came from my bank account. An anonymous person had deposited ten thousand dollars to one of my accounts, even though I wasn’t steaming anything at the moment. I didn’t need Twinkle to guess it had come from Flicker; I also didn’t plan to do anything about it. If he wanted to waste his money, I wasn’t going to stop him.

“You have a message from Claire!” Twinkle said, beaming with joy. Seeing him in dev mode made him even more annoying than usual. A whole cloud of semi-transparent green symbols surrounded him like the spikes of a porcupine. “Do you want me to read it?”

“Why not?” I could use a bit of distraction before joining the mystery forum.

Twinkle giggled, spinning in the virtual space in front of me, then cleared his throat with the sound of a kitten sneezing.

“Hey, are you doing okay?” the AI said in the dark broker’s voice from the tavern. “Someone has been snooping around for information about you over the last few hours. I’m trying to find out more. While I do, watch your back. Don’t. Trust. Anyone!” The last few words sounded completely out of place coming from Twinkle’s mouth. “Do you want to send a reply?” the cat asked in his normal voice.

“No,” I whispered. “Mute.”

When a dark broker said that “someone” was snooping, it was enough to cause minor panic. Learning that Claire had spent several hours figuring out who made me freeze. Frantically, I tried to think back to who it might have been. FlickerFlacker had the means but not the reason to do so, at least not up until twenty minutes ago. That left Firestarter, the elf princess, or someone else with means and skills. If Flicker was able to find me on the forum, so could others .

“Monitor my accounts,” I told Twinkle. “Notification only.”

I counted to three. The techno cultist popped into my mind. Maybe I should say a prayer to Saint Jeremy? There was nothing I’d lose, and there was a chance the words created a placebo effect.

What am I? Stupid? I cursed myself for considering it, and used Flicker’s invite to log on.

Most forums I knew required a personal or guest account on first login. This needed neither. Instead, a notification box popped up, covering the entire window.

Quote:

The Ghost Forum protects your soul.

End the world. Open the next!

A new account has been generated.

A series of spinning triangles appeared in the middle of the screen. Several seconds later, the window closed, revealing a retro style forum. There were three sections divided into further subcategories: Sightings, Rumor Swap, and Chosen. I tried to open Sightings, only to get a notification that I didn’t have the necessary amount of credits to proceed. It seemed that money had its advantages even here. I made a mental note to research that later and opened the next section. A flood of posts emerged.

What the hell? The top thread—containing over eleven thousand posts—had the disturbing name “Suicide Entry”. If any of the top posts were true, Firestarter wasn’t kidding when she said people were willing to sacrifice a lot. The whole thread was based on discussions and speculations of how to get selected for “The Quest” by near suicide. Reading through, I could see that most were just speculative talk and theoretical discussions, though every ten posts there was an ominous “What happened to...?” question.

This wasn’t the first time I had read creepypasta. As a teen, I had gone through dozens of “haunted” forums on a dare. Some had managed to make me sleep with my phone light turned on. This forum was different. The posts weren’t written to frighten or impress. The best way to describe them was simple questions and statements occasionally disrupted by intense obsessive insanity.

The second thread was five times as large—bearing the name “Ghost List”—and contained speculation about all the people “ghosted” by the quest. The definition was outright cringy at best, but the media links and news articles made it look more than a prank. A lot of people had invested a lot of time and effort to compose this list. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was where the forum took its name from.

“Twinkle, can you make a list of these names?” I asked as I skimmed along the posts. None were people I recognized.

“I’m unable to do that, Sarah,” my companion said with a heartbreaking sniffle. “I’m not allowed access to the forum.”

“Okay.” Whoever has built the forum hadn’t spared expenses. Tamperproof technology wasn’t among the cheapest, even for those with means. “Keep watching my accounts.”

The further down the section I went, the more conspiratorial the threads became. A dozen were devoted to exploring links between the game and the techno sects, describing in chilling detail what it was like to be in one. I didn’t bother to even skim those. Some things were best left unknown.

“Twink, do a search for—“ I stopped abruptly. Right, you can’t interface with the site. Manually, I started a search for my Vesperia user name. No results.

That was strange. According to both Flicker and the Firestarter from my dream, I was supposed to be on it. I then tried the same for “100 level quest”. One single post popped up with a short list of games. Vesperia was in the upper half of the list among names I faintly remembered existing years ago. Next to it was a single commentary: “Reactivated; the 100 quest”.

“Twinkle, have you heard of Firestorm Bladestaff?” I asked, looking at the first game on the list.

“Sure thing, Sarah!” The cat landed on my shoulder. “Firestorm Bladestaff is considered to be the second fully indie virtual reality game,” he recited in a level tone. “Often referred to as FaB, it was developed during the thirties and hosted several alpha and beta tests, managing to sustain a total of seventy-eight people in a simultaneous session. Chief among the promised innovations was the ability for players to be able to sculpt game reality in a persistent fashion. The promise was never kept, leading to massive disappointment, fracturing of the development staff, and the eventual abandoning of the project.”

“Abandoned?” I had never heard of this game. “What happened to the dev team?”

“As per court ruling, all names have been removed from record,” Twinkle answered with a giggle. “It is speculated that the developers went to other well-known projects.”

Other well-known projects... That would explain how they had managed to inject code into Vesperia. It was a stretch, but the best theory I had. Strangely enough, as much as I searched among the threads, I couldn’t find any practical details on what “The Quest” was. The only explanation was that it was reserved for the Chosen, and all unauthorized posts would be punished.

“Twinkle, start Claire’s camera. Focus on the window.” I knew doing that would diminish my future bargaining options, but it was the only thing that had the potential to go through the site’s protection. I scrolled a bit to make sure that the full list was captured. “Stop camera,” I whispered and opened the last category.

The moment I did, the forum burst into an explosion of pixels, making me blink. A new scene emerged—a single category forum, white as a piece of e-paper. In the upper right corner of the screen stood an icon of a bell in a goth dress, just under the name Guest17. Two tabs were visible on the left: "Players" and "Info Zone". The Players tab was selected by default.

Flicker had been right: I stared at a list of names arranged in alphabetical order. Only fifteen fit in the window, but I already could recognize the one at the very bottom: Firestarter. Hesitant, I pressed the name. A new page loaded, displaying Firestarter’s Vesperia character. Below it, I could see her full name, online contact information, games played, as well as the amount of clues she had gathered. An icy chill passed through me.

Crap! If anyone was capable of finding out this much about a pro gamer celebrity, what chance did I stand? The page continued with lines upon lines of additional information detailing everything that linked her to The Quest. There were sixteen videos of her defeating her max-level boss from different angles. I glanced at one of them. The way she defeated her monster made me think of the intro game movies. What I had managed to achieve through minutes of running and dodging, she had achieved in seconds through a chain attack combo.

Who are you?

A single line of text appeared, obscuring everything else in the window. The question fazed me. It didn’t look like any security screen I had seen, but then again, neither did the rest of the site. The simple barebones design was in complete contrast to the protection measures.

Flicker hadn’t said anything about a password, and it was too late asking now. I was almost about to close the window, when the message changed.

You shouldn’t be lurking here, Sarah.

I froze. The cautious part of me wanted to close the window and log off. The determined, curious part of me wanted to respond just to see what was going to happen. The struggle lasted a few seconds, at the end of which, I activated my speech to text mod.

“Are you a ghost admin?” I asked. The question sounded stupid spoken out loud.

I’m not part of the game. You shouldn’t be, either.

“Why not?” I stepped towards the virtual window, as if that would help the person on the other side hear me better. “Who are you?”

I’m Legion.

The name sounded vaguely familiar, thought there were probably were millions of user hiding behind it throughout the net. Come to think of it, maybe that was the point.

Step away, and I’ll compensate you.

My grandfather used to say that when someone makes an offer to stop, it was in order to protect something far more important. Legion was a complete stranger I’d just met online. The fact he wanted me want to stop, though, made me all the more determined.

“Twinkle,” I said, disabling the speech to text module. “Am I still safe?”

“I’m not sure.” Hesitation had crept in Twinkle’s voice. “Your accounts are safe, but I’m being actively pinged. I can’t pinpoint the source of the ping."

Walk away, or the game will swallow you.

I turned speech to text back on. “What is the game?”

The game is pain and shadows. Let the counter reach zero.

He was asking a lot. I didn’t see the upside of giving up at this point in the quest, but I was also curious what his offer would be. There was little doubt that Legion was dark web; I made a point to ask Jeff about him when I went to work tomorrow.

“What do I get if I do?” I said slowly, making sure the mod didn’t botch any of my words.

Before I could get an answer, a cascade of warning messages flooded the window, informing me that my forum access had been revoked.

“Twinkle, disconnect!” I shouted, while simultaneously manually inputting the command. The window collapsed in an instant, taking with it the greatest advantage I had managed to get until now. Five more minutes, and I would have learned about my other competitors. Now I was back to guessing. “Twinkle, unmute.”

“Sure thing, Sarah,” he said with a slight purr. “Do you want me to post your recent video online?”

“No. Send a copy to Claire.” It was time he got a bit interested. I remembered all too well my last conversation with Max, but at this point, she was the least of my worries. “And keep a copy for yourself.”

“Sure thing, Sarah!” Twinkle smiled. “Done.”

“Oh, and send a message to Jeff.” I got ready to log out. “Tell him I’ll be taking the morning shift tomorrow.” Once more, thirty hours remained till the end of the quest. This time, I would make them count.