Suddenly he felt a surge of anger. He should have told Doc he was in worse physical shape than in the days he actually played, but he hadn’t thought about it. Doc could have asked though. Then he thought of Adam, who had first invited Simon to join his campaign. Why had Adam picked him, had the Elder giving him sorcerous power sent him on a quest for – what? And why would an Elder want anything from Adam? Why the hell should Adam involve him?

Mitch said, “Feint center, feint low, then strike high. That works against them on all the lower settings.”

For an unhappy instant Simon had no idea what he was talking about, but then he remembered what he had seen Doc do. He would have only one shot at this. Simon’s breathing was getting ragged. He choreographed the moves in his mind. He cut center, but with his muscles ready to pull back quickly. Then low. Then quickly high with everything he had.

He was half surprised when he actually put his blade through the virtual neck and the shadow collapsed.

A deep resonant voice said, “You have passed the test of determination. Now ascend the Emerald Stair.”

They walked to the far side of the tower. Simon saw a large green staircase that had to go up at least three or floor floors. No, wait. This building wasn’t that tall from the outside. It had to be an illusion.

An obsequious servant met them at the foot of the stair, dressed in black and somehow sinister. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you will please ascend one by one? The handrails are their for your safety, please feel free to grab them any time you wish to forfeit the challenge. Also you may stop to rest, and similarly forfeit.”

Simon grinned, since he was sure the stairs weren’t real. All the same, Daisy and Fred were ushered on one by one, or at least very convincing images of them. Then it was Simon’s turn to begin climbing the Emerald Stair.

There could only be a few real steps because – no. He was still a little out of breath, and he had to have climbed at least a story. He should be getting near the roof by now. The steps felt funny, almost as if they were moving or vibrating under his feet. Suddenly he understood. He was on some sort of escalator or stairmaster. There weren’t really climbing all these stairs.

All the same he didn’t know how long he could keep going. He was almost panting when he stumbled off the Emerald Stair.

The room was filled with something like human sized octopi that walked on land. Except they were extremely disgusting and covered with slime. They smelled horribly, as if covered by raw sewage. A crowd of them was milling around the room, close enough together that it would be difficult but not impossible to pass between them without touching any.

The deep voice spoke again. “This is the test of will. You must cross this room without stopping, and without drawing a weapon over the next seven minutes.”

It didn’t sound too hard, but their had to be a catch somewhere. They might need those seven minutes. They all glanced at each other and started walking without a word.

Suddenly he realized this should be easy. No matter what the goggles told him, it was all illusion. It would be prohibitively expensive to fill the room with actors in rubber suits. The smell … had to be blown in from tanks by fans, just like the smell of the ocean had been.

He straightened up and started to walk faster. He didn’t actually walk through any of the illusory slime octopi, since they were part of the game, but he didn’t work as hard to avoid them. What could happen?

One of them reached out a pair of tentacles, one towards his face and one towards his left hand. He ignored them until wet and smelly slime landed on his face. There was cold slime on his hand as well.

He shuddered at the texture and smell, almost stopped moving despite their original instructions. He forced his feet forward, carefully evading the – phantasms? Or not?

Reflexively his right hand went to his face, wiped off and much of the disgusting slime as he could.

“Doc? They touched me? How the hell can they do that?”

It was Rocky who answered. “I know they are even more disgusting to Rigellians than they are to my species. I do not believe the River has set up a challenge that will physically harm us though. Please endure as best you can, our mission is critical.”

Simon was about to ask him to cut out the roleplaying and tell Simon exactly how the Memory Palace could have done that, but he remembered then that breaking character and or one of them giving away game secrets would forfeit the challenge. He had to fight back the impulse to hit the emergency release catch where his goggles were buckled around the back of his head as well, or pull off the gloves.

The last minute seemed to take forever, and a few of the slime creatures were clustered near the far end of the room. The companions tried to dodge around them, but these were faster and more mobile than the others had been. Finally Simon closed his eyes and walked straight ahead.

And felt nothing. After a moment the others followed his lead.

When he turned around from the far end of the room the Octopi were gone.

The voice said, “You have passed the test of will. You may ascend to the next floor.”

The stairs they saw in front of them were short enough to be real. At least Simon thought they were, he was having trouble visualizing the building from the outside. He wasn’t quite certain how high up they were in real life either. When they got to the top he saw a window and looked out. From about ten stories up he looked out onto an alien world. How had they gotten so high?

Then he kicked himself. They could show people any picture they wanted.

In the middle of this new chamber stood a group of eight more slimy octopi. They all stood on six legs, and had specially designed guns that they could wrap a tentacle around, and presumably fire. There were sixteen guns, they held two each.

The leader of the octopi spoke. It had a grating voice, surprisingly high pitched for its size. “This is the test of stupidity. If you turn around and go back now, you can shop in the bazaar, tour the city, go to the gym for weapons training, anything you want. If you attempt to proceed we will kill you, and you will have failed the test of stupidity.”

Those were all the things anyone could do, which were still available if you failed any quest or mission, but had already paid for a certain amount of time.

The disgusting slime creature repeated, “You could fight us and die.”

That would end the scenario. The afterlife scenes could be interesting, but they were rarely beneficial. At best they cut your losses. And Simon couldn’t afford to lose any more.