It was evening when they all woke up, having slept through the day. Nothing new, Alex mused. He watched from the window as a hooded figure stalked through the street, creeping up to the inn. He rolled his eyes. The Priest didn’t have any sense of stealth. People were more inclined to pay attention if you sulked about like that. At least he’d shown at the agreed-upon hour. Soon there was a knock on their door, and he bade him enter.

“Hi, sorry I’m late, I grabbed dinner.” Father Mayhew/Josh said, holding up a sandwich.

“It’s fine. I’m glad I don’t have to track you down. Now, please enlighten us as to vhat the devil’s going on.” Alex said. Father Mayhew shrugged off his cloak.

“Well…” he began uncertainty, trying to gather his thoughts. He eyed each one of them up and down, then sighed resignedly. “I wasn’t going to tell you, even if you did free me. But your performance in that mission was superb. If I didn’t know where you were, I wouldn’t have seen you at all, and I was guessing half the time. You can be very useful. Where did you learn to do that?”

“I have experience. Get to the point.” Alex growled, glaring at him. He wasn’t eager to share at the best of times, and this player freely admitted he planned to renege on their bargain. In less civilized times, that would be enough to jail him, or take his head. And that was only by human law.

“Ah, okay. But, I need a promise that what I say doesn’t leave this room. This’s the biggest problem facing us, and if everyone knew there’d be mass panic.”

“Spill it.” Lina said, growing frustrated as well.

“Not until you swear.” Father Mayhew said, stonefaced. “The only reason I’m even considering this is because you might be able to help. Do you understand?”

“Do you understand that playing coy could be a one-vay trip to a respawn?” Alex threatened. Mayhew flinched, visibly. The vampire raised an eyebrow. Was the glitch really that bad? The last length of time to be out had clocked in at about an hour, and was holding steady at that. “It does have something to do vith the respawn glitch, doesn’t it?”

“Y-Yes. Will you keep this a secret?” he asked nervously.

“My vord is my bond. A bargain, vonce struck, vill not be broken. I vill not speak of this matter to anyvun, so I svear.” Alex promised solemnly.

“Me too.” Jamie said.

“Alright! Talk already!” Lina snapped. The Priest padded over to the door and took a quick look to check for eavesdroppers. Satisfied, he had them huddle in the middle of the room.

“Okay. I need you to remain calm. I’ll start at the beginning. I’m Josh Mayhew, and I’m one of the programmers for RFO.” Jamie’s eyes lit up.

“You’re-!” Three hands immediately covered his mouth, and he earned a glare from everyone. “S-Sorry.”

“Anyway, I was one of the programmers. It was a huge, huge, huge effort, taking literally hundreds of us, but we managed to make the best game in the world. But that’s what got us noticed. See, we hired a lot of temp coders and stuff, there was a lot of cleaning up for the graphics. As development started to wind down, contracts finished and people were let go and moved on. I was a code monkey for Ocean View originally though, so I was there for the ride. Devan was always with us through every step of the project, he was the most excited for this game out of anyone. He’d been planning this since he was a kid, I think. He’d talk about his baby like…an actual baby.”

“But then things hit a snag. See, one of the investors suddenly pulled out, and we were left holding the bag. We were scrambling, and the game couldn’t be released in the state it was in. RFO simply needed more cash. Devan started to hole himself up in his office, more and more as we were racing the clock. There were meetings, tons of them, with people I didn’t know or recognize. Devan was usually in the building for eighteen hours a day minimum, trying to keep everyone focused, going over every last scrap of data like we had all the time and money in the world. But then one day a few months back he said there was an independent investor that was willing to help out, and promised a very generous amount of money. Which was so, so good, we were slowing down, and at the current rate it’d take three more years at a crunchtime pace. The game couldn’t be delayed that long, or we’d be out of a job. We had enough capital to easily finish. That’s when Devan began to confine himself in his office again.”

“Once he did, new programmers and staff started to come in. New temps. For debug purposes, they said, but everyone smelled something fishy. Everyone knew about the arguments between Devan and the V.P., and they only got worse as time went on. But the only thing they would tell any of us, either of them, was that there were disagreements as to how the tech of the NeWorld was going to be applied. Dan was always pushing for more safety features, Devan insisted it was fine, and we didn’t have the budget for it.”

“Dan?” Lina asked.

“Oh, he’s the V.P., vice president. Dan’s more of a worrier, but without him we couldn’t have completed the game. Anyway, there were a lot of meetings behind closed doors, and a lot of people around I didn’t know-or trust. Most of the new guys barely talked to anyone, even with as busy as we were. It was unnerving, but we were working 48-hour days seven days a week, not a whole lot of time to think about it. It was only when we were testing the servers when I decided our trash can was full and took it to the dumpster. A crumpled sticky note fell on the floor, and when I was going to throw it away I saw a password written down. The handwriting was the guy next to me, Ben. He’d barely said two words in three weeks, and, well, I was suspicious. After my shift I stayed behind, and tried the password. I got access to his computer.” Mayhew took a deep breath.

“What I discovered was…that…” He gulped. “I know this’s going to sound crazy, but I found that a terrorist cell had infiltrated our company, and had been programming a system override, to gain complete access. I, I found, code and schematics for a program which I think is designed to brainwash people.”

Silence fell over the party.

“What! That’s ridiculous.” Lina scoffed.

“Believe me or not, it’s true. Now, I’m not a psychologist or neurosurgeon, but it’s not meant to brainwash people, per say. Do you know how the NeWorld works, what it does to the brain?” Mayhew asked.

“It plays the game?” Lina hazarded.

“I’m sorry, I’m not too sure myself.” Jamie said.

“I learned it vas in existence a veek ago.” Alex said, almost proudly. Mayhew smacked a hand to his face.

“Okay, well…to make a long, complicated explanation simple, the NeWorld inputs electrical signals into the brain. However, it’s a two-way street. How the process essentially works is the consciousness is scanned into the game while the body lies there. Now, brainwashing like in movies and TV doesn’t really work. So their plan is to basically overwrite the neural pathways with their own, basically replacing one consciousness with another, loyal to them. That’s why we’re trapped in here. From what I’ve gleaned, the process takes a considerable amount of time, especially with so many players.” He explained.

“What!? But that’s-what’s gonna happen to us once we’re out?” Lina asked. Mayhew shook his head.

“You don’t get it. When our bodies wake up, we won’t be in them. We’ll be trapped in here forever. Or I suppose if we were ejected, the program would overwrite our personalities. Either way, I don’t think these Radiant Dawn guys care.” he said sadly.

“W-W-What? We, we could be stuck in here f-forever?” Jamie gulped. “H-How? W-What do they want with us?”

“Don’t know that either, but nothing good, I can tell you that. It’s insane, but it’s worth it if they get nearly 13 million people suddenly loyal to their cause.”

“Oh my God. Just thinking about that’s crazy. They’ll-they’ll have complete control of our bodies?” Lina said, shivering and sick to her stomach.

“’Friad so. They’ll be able to make us do whatever they want. All of a sudden, 13 million loyal soldiers…I don’t want to imagine who could have come up with…”

There was more talking, Mayhew explaining, while Jamie and Lina asked questions to figure this out. Alexandru, however, wasn’t paying attention. There was a ringing in his ears, a shrill buzz he was all too familiar with. He wasn’t seeing any of them, his mind too preoccupied with the horror of this information.

Because this was more catastrophic than any of the others realized. If this were really true, then while the subjugation of a nations’ worth of people was bad. The walls were shrinking in, the room too hot and noisy. If, if they really got control of his body, if they could make it do what they wanted, if they examined him closely. He was hyperventilating. Air. He needed air. Then not only would they have a large force at their beck and call, they would have a centuries-old, expertly trained and conditioned, super-strong vampire at their command. If, if they had control of his body…

“Alex? What’s wrong?” Lina said, muffled in his ears.

Then the amount of damage these people could do to the world was staggering. His abilities could allow him to assassinate any head of state easily, he’d just never cared to.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“Wait! Stop!”

Not only would there be rivers of blood, if they programmed his body and found out about him, then- oh no.

He felt a thump, a dull burn, then he was running, running as fast as his mind. He barely noticed, he just had to go.

The Council would quickly realize what had happened. All because he, Alexandru Friedrich Campanella du Fontaine de la Bridore Lonescu, was bored.

“Aaaaaaaggggggguuuuuhhhhhhhhhh!” He howled into the night, escaping the town and speeding through the woods, blind panic driving him. The Council, the Council, the Council! He would be lucky if he were instantly executed! Forget him, even! While he was certainly no saint, what they would do if the existence of vampires were exposed to the world-

“Dhat cannae be! Dis vill not happen! Noooooo!” he screeched, holding his head, trying to drown out what he knew was going to happen by screaming.

It didn’t help.

Alex didn’t know how long he was there, his body alternating between adrenaline-fueled tingles and nerve-deadened numbness, his stomach in his boots. All he knew was that sometime between panic and crouching down into a ball, his party caught up with him.

“A-Alex? Are-are you okay?” Jamie called out warily, clutching his staff and shaking. This was so unlike him. He always seemed in control, no matter the situation. He never showed anything other than annoyance or disdain. The sheer panic Alex had was putting him on edge too.

Lina gulped. Seeing Alex like this was unnerving, but she had to be strong. She was the only one mentally present enough, it was up to her. She grimaced, but strode forward.

“Alex?” She gently laid a hand on his shoulder. He whirled to face her like a snarling animal, but stopped when he realized it was only her. “W-What’s up? I know what the guy said was frightening, but this’s excessive. What’s going on, big guy?” she said calmly, hoping to soothe him. Hot tingles ran up the vampire’s spine.

“It’s-no, I…rrgh, ve need to..but…mmnh! There’s-there’s things you don’t understand…and, and that…this…so bad so bad so bad, gotta….” He was pacing back and forth. “You get me?”

“Not a bit.” she deadpanned. He smacked his forehead, and paced again.

“Look, I…vhere’s the priest, anyvay?” he growled.

“His SPD’s lower even than hers. He’s following, I think.” Jamie said, still not approaching the clearing.

“Hmph. At least I don’t have to see his mug.” he muttered. “Listen, this whole…terrorist, brainvashing scheme, if it is real, is the biggest vorry right now. I don’t…I don’t see how ve can prevail in this. And if ve can’t…things vill be very dark indeed.”

“I know. I don’t wanna be trapped in here forever either, but Mayhew said we’ve got a week at least, but not more than a month before the program takes full effect. It’s scary, but we have to be cool here. If we don’t keep calm, panicking will just waste our time. We can fix this…I think. Mayhew was talking about what our options were, I think he has a plan.” she said.

“Yes, but…that is…” Alex said, slumping over. He was tired, so tired, her logic was defeating him. She reached down and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

“C’mon, you can keep it together. You’re the toughest one here. This’s no problem, all we gotta do is deal with it.” she said.

“I-I suppose you’re right.” he admitted. Mayhew came jogging up the path from the forest.

“Hah…hah….finally. Why are you all so fast?” he panted, lungs burning. Jamie peered at his stats. Level 40, but most of his points were in SPC and TGH, and he’d barely offset his SPD penalty for his class. Jamie smacked his forehead. Did no one know how to minmax!? “Any…way…”

“Why don’t you take a sec, dude?” Lina said. Mayhew tried to argue, but couldn’t talk. After a moment, he rallied and tried again.

“Anyway, I understand your panic. And it’s tricky, but there might be a potential solution. Are any of you familiar with the maps of Kazerlande?” he asked. Jamie raised his hand.

“I don’t remember all the details, but I remember where the major landmarks and regions are. Offhand, not much detail though.” he admitted.

“That’s fine. But you know the Olympolis?”

“Yeah?”

“There’s an emergency ejection shutdown switch in a place just past the city. We all made sure that it was there, it’ll be functional no matter what.” he said.

“How do you know it still works, if they have complete control of the system?” Jamie asked. The Priest grinned.

“That safety feature’s hard-coded to the system itself. There is no way to disable or delete it, you’d have to delete and rewrite literally everything to do so. And that ain’t happening, I’ll bet they’ve got their hands full with everything else.”

“I see. So vhere is this svitch?” Alex asked, calming down, his brain churning.

“It’s in the Wizard’s Tower, where we put Verringale. He’s a level 99 NPC. But more than that he’s a system admin. If I can communicate with him, I can get him to shut down the game no problem. There’s nothing he can’t do in RFO, he’s got nearly as much control as us, and his A.I.’s been tested thoroughly. He’s to protect the players at all costs, that’s as absolute as the ejected switch. They must’ve disabled him, that’d be much easier than reprogramming him, and deleting him’s nearly the same as the switch itself.” Mayhew explained.

“Okay, that’s simple enough. All se gotta do is go see the wizard, and we’re free. Easy, right?” Lina said. Mayhew shook his head.

“Sorry. See, everyone who’s got access to the system knows that the switch is there, and Verringale has total system access. And there’s no way those guys could’ve gotten through security without someone who knows the whole system inside and out. And they’ve got control, not OceanView. Those orcs yesterday weren’t just random monsters. They were buffed to *bleep* and back and given unfair advantages, like the cages, and ordered to capture PCs, so they couldn’t fight back when the Radiant Dawn began to wipe them out.”

“What do you mean?” Lina said sharply. Mayhew shifted uncomfortably.

“See, I downloaded what I could, and the death system in RFO’s similar to a deep sleep. You black out and reappear a couple minutes later minus xp and gear, right? Well…” He bit his lip. “The brain’s activity is diminished. Their program can scan and download its’ data with much greater efficiency, and upload the foreign program quicker. The brainwashing will complete faster when players die, and the longer we play the worse it’ll get. That’s why the respawn time’s been going weird.”

“Dear god.” Jamie said, falling to his knees. He began wheezing when he thought of how many times they’d come close to dying already.

“Okay. Okay, okay, okay. That’s bad. So…*bleep.* Why are you even here? Why didn’t you go to the police!?” Lina snapped, rubbing her temples.

“I did! Kinda. I sent everything I found to the cops and created Father Mayhew to try and flip the in-game switch. It seemed like the quickest way to save everyone.” he protested, looking away abashedly. “I only put everything together like a couple hours before their program was supposed to launch, there wasn’t a lot of time to do anything else. And I didn’t know if I could trust anyone in the company. There-there weren’t a lot of options and I panicked, okay! You would too!” he shouted. Lina opened her mouth to fire back, but Alex stood and held a hand up.

“Very vell. This vill get us nowhere. Ve know vhat ve have to do, all ve have to do is get to it. Vhat’s done is done, ve cannot change that.” he growled, Allocrax’s red eyes glaring at the ground. Stupid game, stupid terrorists, stupid Council! “I hope you had more of a plan than jump in and hope for the best.”

“S-Sort of. I know some of us play the game, employees. If they are here, there’s no chance they were in on it. I was hoping to find some of the others, we know everything here better than anyone. I gave myself some items that would break the game normally, but we need every advantage we can get. With the other programmers, we should be able to get to the Tower with relative ease.”

“Any clue where they might be?” Lina asked. The Priest shook his head.

“Unfortunately no. Victor’s screen name was Open_Booker, and Yvonne’s is BlushPlushCrush. But who knows if they’re even in here.”

“I-I guess that’s a chance w-we have to t-take.” Jamie said.

“Mmm. Here’s hoping.” Mayhew said forlornly. “And I hope you can see why I wanted to swear you to secrecy. If this got out, there’d be major panic, and if everyone starts heading to the Tower they’ll know something’s up. They’ve already fortified it with hundreds of traps and monsters, we’ll need to proceed carefully. Now it’s best if you stay away from me. If they locate my avatar, they’ll send another regiment of orcs or something worse. I think they know I’m here, and they know I’m trapped too.” he said biting his lip.

“I guess. Add me to your friend list, we can contact each other if we find anyone.” Lina said, pulling up her screen. Once they registered, she noticed Alex wasn’t next to her. “Alex?” she said, looking around.

“Oh no! They deleted him!” Jamie cried in fear.

“No they didn’t! He just took off.” Mayhew snapped.

“Alex? Alexxx!” Lina called.

“Where did he go? W-Why did he just leave us behind?” Jamie asked, in a very small voice.

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.” Lina said grimly. He couldn’t have gotten far, and didn’t seem like the type to run from a fight.

They started walking, spreading out to find him. However, it was no use. The vampire had a head start, lifetimes of stealth skill, and the Shadow Bracers to help him blend into the night. He was gone.