Massively Multiplayer (33 page)

“Is it any wonder Andrew likes it?” Lynderella perched on a convenient barrel. “You have to admit it’s pretty compelling.”

“Oh, I’m having a good time. I just wish having a good time weren’t so much work.”

“Yes, there is that. Killer clerics, guild politics, I overheard someone saying they’re thinking of raising city taxes to pay for a war with ‘Southron,’ wherever that is...this place has all the complications of the real world. Except for parents.”

Jake scowled. “Are you suggesting Andrew would rather work – even in a virtual sense of the word – than spend time with us?”

“No, I’m suggesting that maybe we’ve pushed him so hard to become independent and pursue his own interests, that he has taken us at our word.”

“Great. You mean he actually listened to us? What
are
teenagers coming to these days? Do you think we should try joining him in here some time? Show him we share his interests, or at least understand them? Let’s make it a family outing! The family the slays together plays together...or something.”

Lynderella spared him a withering glance. “Would
you
have wanted
your
parents to tag along on your dates? Or to your parties with your friends?”

“You have a point.”

“Yeah. Well, I guess we’d better find an alternative exit from this dump. If my suspicions are right, the monks aren’t going to let us out the front door, and they’ll have a trap set up down the left hallway.”

“Right it is.”

“One moment.” Lynderella suddenly froze, her eyes locked on an imaginary point on the far wall. “I have a call. Wait, it’s the house network.”

Jake nodded. “Me too. It’s Sara. Nice of her to page us rather than just ripping off the goggles. That’s so disorienting. What a polite girl we raised.”

Lynda sniffed. “That’s what you think. You haven’t been reading her blog.”

Jake and Lynda Hunter logged out of the Crucible system and followed Sara’s directions to answer the front door.

There, an impeccably dressed man who identified himself as Mr. Sharps of the FBI asked them “where can I find your son, Andrew Hunter?”

Chapter Fifteen - Crosswords

There were times, thought Druin Reaver, when it would be nice to be afford a horse. Already he longed for the indulgence of the carriage ride which had brought him to the Whetstone Pass. In truth, he didn’t think he had much right to complain...the others of the party were keeping up without grumbling, even though they must, with their exalted positions, have been much less used to hiking than he was. Ghostmaker seemed indefatigable, and kept exhorting the group with obnoxiously cheerful songs rendered unintelligible by his thick Irish accent. Even though none of them could keep up with their leader’s relentless pace, the entire party had bent to their task with an intensity which Druin found unnerving. Weren’t the mighty supposed to be the indolent ones? Or was this drive what had caused them to be mighty in the first place?

He carefully edged his thoughts away from patterns too close to his father’s advice. Easier to think of these powerful figures as unreachably remote, aloof, self-indulgent and unconcerned. Princess Butterfly, in particular, could probably afford to go everywhere in a carriage. Or a palanquin. Whatever they went in for over on the Asian server.

But here, unfortunately, they trod where no carriage could ever reach. The spirit had explained that the Mender’s experiments had taken place in remote locations, and that his final resting place was similarly removed from common paths. The Whetstone Pass was the closest civilized approach to the place, and they would have to make the rest of the journey by foot.

Their destination, they were told, was the Talonspire. “It is a holy site,” the flickering spirit had explained, “which some believe to be a shard of the great Dragon’s egg which formed the world of Crucible. The Mender believed in the sacred principles of renewal. He prepared his final resting place at the Talonspire, that he might live on forever in the marrow of the eldest part of the world.”

Now he trudged a narrow pathway between the boulders, halfway up the slope of the mountain, clinging to a ledge and wondering how he would reach the next plateau, where Ghostmaker had promised them a brief rest. From here, the Talonspire loomed above him, a slightly uneven cone of rough basalt with a point which crooked like a beckoning finger. He sighed, hoping they wouldn’t have to climb the whole thing. Climbing virtual mountains was by no means as draining as the real thing, but it would give him real leg cramps if he kept it up too long.

And he was oddly worried about Malcolm. The previously boisterous knight errant had fallen into silence after his revelatory outburst in the carriage. Finding themselves the odd fellows out in a group which clearly outclassed them both had driven him even further into himself. Druin’s only relief was that Malcolm seemed to have been adopted – or perhaps co-opted – by Rajah Goldenspear, who had apparently decided, contrary to Druin’s protests, that Malcolm must be some kind of retainer. Accordingly, he had drafted the uncomplaining young man as a pack horse to carry his extra equipment.

Puffing in annoyance as much as exertion, he reached the summit to find that he was the last of the group, trailing even the heavily burdened Malcolm. No-one noticed Druin’s late arrival, however, as they were all too busy staring out over the vista they had discovered beyond this little peak.

There, spread out beneath the summit of the mountain, lay a broad expanse of artificially flattened ground. It was as though someone had taken a gigantic scoop out of the side of the mountain. From below, the plateau was utterly invisible against the crooked peak of the mountain, and the flanking crags would have prevented its discovery from either side. While the terrain they had been covering up until this point had consisted of sharp crags and random boulders, this area, perhaps a mile square, had been blasted flat by some unimaginable force. Kneeling, he ran his fingers over the gritty surface, leaving trails in the black sand.

Flattened as it was, the landscape was by no means featureless. The plateau was dotted with cairns and rockpiles, many of them surmounted by roughly cut upright labs, like headstones. Squinting at the nearest of these, Druin saw that words might have been chiseled into its surface at one point, but wind and scouring sand had robbed them of meaning long ago. In a few places, broader slabs of rock had been tilted together, making low lean-tos ranging from a few feet in width to more than nine feet. These too might have been engraved with words or symbols in some ancient tongue at one time, but were worn smooth now. Dominating the scene were three low stone buildings, fashioned of somewhat more finished materials, each fitted with what appeared to be a wrought-iron door.

Ghostmaker was the first to speak. “It’s a graveyard.”

“Yes,” Butterfly nodded. “The small piles of rock and the low slabs are common graves. The three larger structures must be the tombs of more exalted personages.”

“Why assume that?” asked Dinah.

Butterfly shrugged. “More care was taken to protect their remains. This is no doubt a privilege of rank.”

“I agree with the Princess Butterfly,” Rajah put in. “Were we not informed that the Mender was buried with three of his closest advisors? Surely these are their crypts.”

“But then where,” Dinah asked, “is the Vault of the Mender himself?”

Six pairs of eyes carefully scanned the mountain plain.

“Perhaps it lies further up the slope?” said Rajah uncertainly.

“Doubt it,” Ghostmaker countered. “The spook said Mender was ‘with’ his three mates. Halfway up, it said. This here’s the place all right.”

They were all silent for a while.

“I could...I mayhap I might aspire to yonder peak, and...check?” Malcolm offered, speaking for the first time since encountering the group.

“That won’t be necessary, dear boy.” said Dinah gently. “I’m certain our answers are here. I suggest that we examine the three tombs. Examination by teams, a fighter and a mage to each grouping in case of trouble. Ghostmaker and Butterfly, take the one on the right, Rajah and Malcolm the one on the left. Druin and I shall inspect the one right ahead. Let us meet back at that larger slab near the middle of the plain in twenty minutes. With your approval of course, Ghostmaker.”

“Er, right,” Ghostmaker said, apparently conscious that his leadership was being only acknowledged as a courteous afterthought. “Let’s drop extra equipment here and move out.”

Druin found an opportunity to sidle up next to the gruff warrior as they all checked weapons and equipment before their descent to the stony plain. “Is she always that polite when she takes command?”

“There’s a reason she runs the largest magical mercenary guild in the world,” Ghostmaker said sullenly. “She gets the job done. I seen her be dead ruthless, but her people follow her ‘cause she’s always smilin’. Even when she cuts your throat.”

“Great.” Druin vowed not to test the patience of the seemingly grandmotherly Dinah.

Marybeth Langridge fell into step next to Wolfgang as he made his way back to the elevators.

“Where were you?”

“Talking to Marcus.”

“He contacted you? Privately? After that show in the conference room?”

“Other way around. I contacted him?”

“
What
?” Marybeth almost squealed, then seeing the curious glances of others in the hallway, lowered her voice. “How? You figured out his address? Should I get the Feds?”

“No. Not yet anyway.”

“Why not? What did you talk about?”

Wolfgang laughed. “Give me a moment and I’ll tell you. First, are our new friends from the government all set up?”

Marybeth nodded. “Janet’s finalizing their network access, but they brought along a lot of their own gear. In a black van, no less. Very late-nineties conspiracy-theory.”

“Well that will keep them busy for a while. Now here’s what Marcus and I talked about...” Briefly he recounted his conversation with his elusive ex-mentor.

When he’d finished, Marybeth shook her head. “I don’t get it. I understand that you think he’s sincerely suspicious of Bernardo and Vitus Calloway, but why? And what is he doing about it? And does that have anything to do with him ducking out on the Pentagon people?”

“I’m not entirely sure yet,” Wolfgang admitted. “But my gut tells me to trust him for a little while more. Don’t get me wrong, you’re also going to be working night and day figuring out what he’s up to and where he is and how to stop him if we need to in a hurry...
without
simply shutting down the servers. Suspicious behavior or not, Bernardo’s right about one thing: we can’t afford a major shut-down, not so soon after the update. We’d lose too many customers that way, and we can’t afford to.”

“Uh, can we go back to the part where you said I would be doing all this cloak-and-dagger business? Why me? Why not the Feds? Or you?”

“Because you’ve got something nobody else has, and not even Marcus knows you have it,” Wolfgang said very quietly. “Which is why we are discussing it out here in the hallway instead of one of our offices.”

“Oh.” Marybeth thought about that for a moment as they waited for the elevator. “Uh, Wolf?”

“Yes?”

“What is it I’ve got anyway?”

“A brick.”

As they carefully edged their way down the slope and onto the burial plain, Druin tried to remain thankful that at least he was partnered with Dinah rather than the intimidating Rajah or the aloof Princess Butterfly. Dinah, though she possessed a sort of regal confidence one might expect of a dowager empress was at least willing to talk to him.

“I explained back at the Trading Post how I ended up in this crew. But how did you get involved?”

Dinah shrugged. “There is little to relate. I was drawing up troop exercises when the apparition appeared in my tent. It informed me that there was a great danger and that my command skills would be useful. I took leave of the army and traveled here directly.”

“Troops? Army? I heard Ghostmaker mention something about that. You run a mercenary guild?”

“Yes, but that’s not the army I spoke of,” Dinah said absently as she picked her way over the rocks. “The Ebon Mageguild is a mercenary band of long standing, but they came under contract to the Essenians some two years ago. I was appointed commander of their special-forces, but I’ve since been given authority over the entire corp.”

“So you’re a General? You don’t seem all...Generally.”

Dinah stopped and turned towards him. “Meaning?” Her tone was unexpectedly sharp.

“Uh, sorry,” Druin shrugged helplessly. “I guess I don’t know what a general looks like.”

“I suspect not.” The older woman’s language still had all the perfectly proper grammar the translation software could give it, but her tone had developed a touch of acid. “It is a common conceit among men that the ability to command requires a degree of brute strength and even more brutal personality. Both are not only unnecessary but counterproductive to actual objectives.” She sounded as though she were giving a lecture she’d had to deliver too many times in the past.

“I’m really sorry,” Druin repeated.

As quickly as it had darkened. her mood lifted. “Nonsense, I’m being overly sensitive. I forget both your youth and your unfamiliarity with events of consequence. It isn’t worth my anger.” She smiled brightly, the grandmotherly warmth radiating from her once more.

“Uh, right.” Druin was dimly aware that he’d just been roundly insulted, but since the substance of the insult was essentially true, he was just barely wise enough to drop the matter. “Well, here we are.”

They had reached the central structure, which, it could now be seen, was unmistakably a mausoleum. Great wedges of the mountain’s stone had been sheared off and raised up, their edges squared off by either tools or magical force, into a squat building some fifteen feet on a side.

“It’s smaller than it looked from up slope,” Druin noted.

“A function of perspective,” Dinah replied offhandedly. “Targets always seem further away when looking downhill. Look here.”