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  Most of the people in the building had fled to their cars or through the park, to find loved ones, or just out of panic. Mace’s new almost-boss had the good sense to round up some stragglers and lead them underground. The man was intelligent and level-headed, and had instantly become a leader of the survivors. He was, unfortunately, one of those killed in the ambush by the Safeway.

  Since that first trip outside, Mace had caught sight of the creatures a few times. But he’d always been in flight mode, and had never really had an opportunity to study them.

  “Alright, beasties. Let’s have a look. Show me your ugly mugs.” he spoke quietly to himself, though he was alone in the building. He’d grown accustomed to being silent. Silence was survival.

  His patience was rewarded when a roughly human-sized creature exploded out of one of the windows and fell to the street below. The five-story drop didn’t kill it, but it appeared to have been seriously injured. It began to half-crawl, half-drag itself away from the building. Mace zoomed in on it.

  The thing was still humanoid in shape. But it’s skin looked blotchy and burned, as if spots had been scorched here and there with a blowtorch. It was leaner than a normal human, with corded muscles. Its eyes were the worst. Solid, dead black orbs with no whites. Mace knew from experience that if it were dark out, the eyes would glow slightly red. The creatures had excellent night vision, and a better sense of smell than they’d possessed when still human. They were stronger and faster now, as well. And each time they consumed a victim or a rival, they became stronger still.

  As Mace watched the creature drag itself toward an abandoned car, another creature emerged from the building. This one burst out of the ground-level front door of the building, making its way toward its fallen enemy. The new creature was huge, easily eight feet tall. Its heavily muscled arms ended in long-fingered hands with jet black claws at its fingertips. Those claws were covered in the dark neon-blue blood of its victims. It let out the same deep howl that Mace had heard earlier, and stalked toward its prey. The smaller creature screamed as it was seized and lifted into the air by an obviously broken leg. The larger creature slammed it against the car a couple of times, causing it to go limp. It then lifted its prey by the skull and bit deeply into its neck.

  Mace decided not to hang around and watch the feast. He wanted to be safely downstairs before the thing finished its meal and moved on. He prayed fervently as he scooted back across the lobby floor that being on his bike had prevented him from leaving enough of a scent trail for the creature outside to follow him. It would have no trouble smashing through the lobby doors.

  Retrieving his bike, he swiped his card at the elevator control and wheeled it into the waiting car. He pressed the button for 30, and didn’t relax until the doors were closed and the car moving downward.

  Not all of the subterranean levels were in use. Some were simply open space, meant to accommodate future expansion. Others were nothing but server farms, where the company’s VRMMORPG games were hosted. Each of those floors was nearly an acre of temperature-controlled rooms filled with server cubes on racks.

  Other floors were storage and office spaces. One was a fitness center with an indoor pool and a running track that circled it. The 30th floor was mainly support, with residences, a few labs, and an infirmary. The cafeteria was on this level as well. The residential quarters like the one he occupied were meant as temporary accommodations for team members on marathon work sessions who didn’t want to take the time to go home to sleep. For the first few weeks the dozen rooms were delegated to the women in the group, and his short-lived new boss. Mace had slept under a conference table. But as the group grew smaller, he inherited an unused room. Now he supposed, as he walked his bike down the main hallway, they all belonged to him. He’d moved his pod from one of the labs to his quarters because he felt more secure there. He could lock himself in while sleeping or immersed.

  Parking his bike in the cafeteria, he took a few minutes to put the food away. The fruit and sauce he put in the fridge. The rest went onto shelves in the kitchen pantry, which was actually larger than his sleeping room. He held back a few bags of jerky, and a can of potato chips, taking those back to his room.

  Secure in his own little hobbit hole, he closed and locked the door behind him. He stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower to wash off the day’s sweat and fear.

  When he emerged, he didn’t bother to dress. He moved over to his immersion pod, and settled himself in.

  Lowering the headset and adjusting it to fit properly, he settled back and said, “Begin immersion”.

  Chapter 2

  A Better World

  Mace logged into his library, as he called it. The VR company simply called it Limbo. It was the stepping stone to any of thousands of VR programs that had once been available to Mace. He had designed his limbo as an old school study with a massive, ornately carved wooden desk, big comfortable high-backed leather chairs, and shelves lining all the walls from knee height to the ceiling. Rather than books on the shelves, each one was a 3D representation of a VR simulation, program, or advertisement. Some he had purchased. Others were given to him for testing, or as payment for freelance work. The infomercials were always free. He could sit here and imagine that life was as it used to be. There were virtual copies of actual classic books here as well. Over the last months he had quietly sat here a few times just reading Homer or Tolkien, relaxing. The room even smelled faintly of pipe smoke, for atmosphere.

  Not wasting any time, he moved to the coffee table and selected his favorite game. THE game. The one half the planet played before they all died. The one this facility still hosted, at least until something broke down. But from what he could see, it might continue for a century or more. Barring any more disasters, of course.

  Elysia was a VRMMORPG. The largest and most popular in the world. At its peak, which was the day before the explosion at CERN, more than two hundred and fifty million players had Elysia accounts. It was billed as “An Adventure for the Soul” and based loosely upon the Elysian fields of legend. The place where honored warriors and the true of heart were transported by the gods upon their deaths, to live out their ideal life. Whether that be a cozy family farm with loved ones around you, or non-stop battle in an arena filled with roaring spectators hungry for blood.

  Mace played a drow sorcerer. At the time he’d chosen that race and class, neither were very popular. He had, in fact, chosen them for that reason. He didn’t want to start in a human noob zone with a thousand other players scrambling around, standing in line to obtain or turn in quests. Waiting for the low-level mobs to respawn so he could kill them. He’d picked a race and class that would almost guarantee he could level by himself for a while. Now, of course, he hadn’t seen another player in the game in weeks. He actively sought out any he could find, even if only for a conversation in game chat.

  The irony was not lost on him.

  The drow starter zone was, of course, underground. He’d run around the massive caverns and maze-like tunnels that made up the drow city of Immernacht, stealing from merchants, assassinating targets designated by quest givers, and generally doing what needed to be done to level up. Accidentally discovering a hidden quest chain had set him on the path of becoming an assassin as well.

  This was another reason the drow race was less popular. Drow, by nature, were chaotic. They were generally not to be trusted, as they wouldn’t hesitate to kill you if the advantages to doing so outweighed the risk. The moral compass within the drow society was skewed quite differently than real world norms. The race tended to attract players who didn’t fit in well, or thrived on killing others. And in a world where many of the players used their avatars to earn a living, starting in a zone where the npc quest givers and vendors were as likely to kill you as the mobs outside the walls didn’t make a lot of sense.

  Of course, with greater challenge and greater risk came greater rewards. Players starting in the drow zone tended to level much faster. They gathe
red better gear, and did it faster than humans or elves, or even orcs. This was out of necessity. There was no ‘safe space’ in Immernacht, except your room at the inn. Nobody could touch you there. And it was a safe place to store gear that you didn’t want to carry with you. It also served as a respawn bind point if you were killed.

  A room at the inn is exactly where Mace found himself when he re-entered the game. He’d logged out here after a twenty-hour gaming session. The rooms were generic, much like his real life sleeping quarters. A small bed, a table with two chairs, a chest for item storage at the foot of the bed. The walls were rough stone, as most buildings in Immernacht had been carved into the stone of the cavern. There was a window, just large enough that it allowed some light from the street lamps outside to enter the room, but was too small for most thieves or monsters to enter. Structures in this city were all built with protection in mind.

  Mace checked his gear out of habit. As a sorcerer, he wore light armor. His stats favored brains over brawn, so he didn’t have the strength to move about in heavy armor. Though, to avoid becoming a glass cannon, he had built up his strength and stamina to a level that allowed him to defend himself with a sword if necessary. He wore a slender blade on his back, much like in real life. He also carried two daggers in sheaths on his belt.

  His clothes and knee-high boots were made of black kobold skin. The tough hide was light and flexible enough to allow him freedom of movement while still providing some protection. And it allowed him to better blend into the shadows. Kobolds were everywhere in the city. They were popular slaves among the drow inhabitants. And drow being drow, kobolds died in significant numbers for misbehavior, escape attempts, theft, or a thousand other perceived offenses. Not ones to be wasteful, the corpses were used for various purposes. The skin was refined into armor like Mace wore. The meat was fed to beasts of burden, or other kobolds—who were not particularly fussy about their diet. The bones were ground into spell components or carved into useful items like needles, fishhooks, writing utensils, and such. Even the blood was useful for watering and fertilizing the mushroom fields outside the city.

  In addition to his inventory bag, which had fifty slots, he kept three pouches on his belt that contained components for his more complicated spells. Being a sorcerer, he had access to a wide range of spells. Some were simple casts that only required a thought and a word, or a gesture. Other, more powerful spells required components and incantations. On his left hand he wore a ring with a black stone set in it. The ring allowed him to cast and store for later use three of these more powerful spells. In a combat situation, he wouldn’t have time to go through the motions.

  Leaning against the wall by the door was his staff. Six feet tall, it featured a mithril claw at the top. The claw was wrapped around a plum-sized onyx that was cut to be a twenty-sided sphere. Each facet of the stone had an arcane symbol carved into it. Mace didn’t even know what all the symbols meant. He’d sort of stolen this staff, and was still learning what it might do. He couldn’t even identify it yet, as it was a much higher level weapon than his low level Identify ability would handle.

  Mace thought back to when he’d obtained the staff. He had been sneaking about late at night, pursuing a quest he was given to eliminate the son of a minor lord. He’d been given the quest by the matron of a whorehouse, whose girls had been badly damaged by the lordling. Though many of the quests he’d received in Immernacht had troubled his conscience, killing a lordling who cut up defenseless females wasn’t one of them.

  He was moving down an alleyway, approaching the tavern the young dark elf was known to frequent, when a flash of blue light exploded out of a building to his left. The sounds of battle ensued. Screams of pain, blade meeting blade, blade meeting flesh.

  Still, Mace was a lowly level twenty, he knew better than to stick his nose into a fight. But he was learning to think like a drow. There might be a chance to backstab an injured or distracted player, and acquire some xp.

  He quickly made his way to the door and slipped through. Immediately he found the bodies of two sentries. One with her throat cut, the other with a dagger still protruding from his eye. Another flash, this time red, came from the back of the house. A scream of pain and horror made Mace’s skin crawl. Whatever magic user was casting those spells, they were using the good stuff. Not much scared a drow.

  Creeping down a hallway that led in the direction of the battle, Mace found three more bodies. These were dressed differently than the guards. All in black with their white hair covered and fabric pulled across their faces, these dark elves were assassins. Although, tempted to loot them for their superior gear, Mace continued on. If they’d been killed by a player, looting someone else’s kills was a good way to die. He doubted they’d been killed by an npc.

  The sounds of battle rose until a cry of pain and rage was followed by one more flash, then silence. Mace held very still and listened. He heard labored breathing that rattled, as if the lungs were congested. The unmistakable sound of a falling body thumping down on the floor.

  Poking his head around the corner, he saw a drow Swordmaster sitting with his back against the wall, bleeding heavily from a hole in his chest. The man’s rank was easily established by the cuts on his face. He had four closely spaced scars above each cheekbone, and an image of a sword tattooed on his forearms. His swords lay on the floor near each hand. A quick look around the room showed the only other occupant was missing his head.

  The Swordmaster coughed, dark blood splattering his chin. “Damned wizards…” his voice was weak. He lifted a hand slightly and beckoned Mace closer. “In my bag, boy. There’s a potion. I grant you leave.”

  “Yes, Swordmaster.” Nodding in understanding, Mace approached the critically wounded drow. He found a bag on the dark elf’s belt and pulled it open. Inside were three corked bottles with bright red potions that glowed with magic. These were top quality potions. The kind that cost a hundred gold or more each. Mace had low level health restoration potions of his own, but compared to these, their color was muddy and there was no glow.

  Mace fumbled one of the bottles from the bag and pulled the cork. He poured a bit of the potion directly onto the Swordmaster’s mangled chest, then tilted the rest into his mouth. The dark elf laid his head back and closed his eyes. Mace’s gut clenched in fear. How powerful must this drow be to think nothing of closing his eyes in the presence of a stranger? Especially while wounded so badly.

  The older drow chuckled. “If you meant to kill me, you’d have done so before healing me. What is your name, boy?”

  Mace’s voice was barely a whisper. “Macent, Swordmaster. But most call me Mace.”

  “Well, Mace. I am Sword Master Krieger. And I owe you a debt. This damned traitor wizard was better than I’d been led to believe. My overconfidence nearly cost me my life. Remember that, boy. Any battle, even with a lesser opponent, can be lost if you underestimate your enemy.”

  Mace nodded, thinking it safer not to speak. Though the Swordmaster had just acknowledged a debt, some drow held to their honor better than others.

  “Help me to my feet boy. This wizard’s friends may be here soon, and it’s best we’re gone before they arrive.” Krieger instructed.

  Stooping to place his shoulder under the Swordmaster’s arm, Mace helped him to his feet. The old drow wobbled for a moment, then straightened. Through sheer force of will he took a step forward toward the door. He coughed again, a spray of blood splattering the wall ahead. Even a high quality health potion wasn’t enough to fully cure a high level character of such serious wounds.

  “Dammit! I’ll not make it back on my own two feet. I must teleport home, boy. I cannot take you with me. Flee this place! Seek me out and I will repay what I owe.”

  The old drow reached into his vest and lifted a pendant that hung from the chain around his neck. Gripping the pendant in his bloodied fist, he uttered a word. There was a flash of red light, and the Swordmaster was gone.

  Looking around, Mace noted
a window nearby. If the wizard had friends coming, they would most likely be coming from the alleyway out front. He could slip out the window and…

  His eye was caught by the headless body of the wizard. At the same time, he was reminded of the bodies out in the hallway, just begging to be looted. The Swordmaster was an NPC, and had not bothered to loot the bodies. Mace was free and clear to take what he wished!

  He quickly bent and looted the wizard’s belongings, taking the drow’s inventory bag and stuffing it into his own. He grabbed the wizard’s staff, not really looking at it, and that also went into his bag. He searched the wizard’s cloak and pockets, taking everything he found without examination. Then he dashed into the hall and did he same with the corpses there. This was an epic day for Mace! The loot from six high level npcs would bring him more gold than he’d earned in the months he’d been playing the game.

  Once everything was in his inventory, Mace relaxed. Another advantage to playing a drow was that there was no penalty if he died here.

  Players in Elysia avoided death more stringently than in some other games. Death meant two significant penalties, beyond the very realistic pain one experienced. The first being that you would lose a full level’s worth of xp. The second penalty was item loss. There was a 20% chance that you would drop your most valuable equipped item if you were killed by an npc or mob. Then any passing player could pick it up. There was also a 10% chance that if you were killed by a player, they could loot all your equipped items, and 50% of your gold. Experience points were hard to get in Elysia. Mace had, at that time, been playing for three months, several hours a day, and had just reached level 20.

  But starting as a drow, he held an advantage. Knowing that noob drow would be regularly killed by other drow, the developers exempted drow players from the experience loss up to level 30. Which was the level that most became strong enough to leave the city and brave the surrounding tunnels to reach the surface.