“That’s it,” I finished, looking at the team from IO. “That’s the whole story.”
The six people on the other side of the video call seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. They looked at each other with awkward smiles. Matt laughed, nervously. The conference table was covered with empty energy drinks and half-eaten Asian food. Chinese, I think. Right around my death to Clarity, they had ordered dinner, and then proceeded to scarf down dumplings and noodles right in front of me. I should have made them order me dinner as well.
“I think we dodged a bullet,” Matt said.
“Right?” one of the others said, “the AI was able to port one of our players into a place of its own creation. That’s not good.”
“Hold on,” Carol said. “We’re not muted. Warren, give us some time. Then we’ll talk. We’ll ping you when you’re ready.” She muted the mic.
I watched for a while as the group discussed and argued for a moment to get a feel for their reactions. Their initial comments, before they had muted themselves, were a clue. They were surprised by the events, especially by the power that Clarity had to manipulate the world they created. There was also a myriad of emotions that I saw on their faces as I had told my story. Anxiety. Disbelief. Pride, perhaps at seeing how engaged their game was. Relief.
I stood up and stretched, then distracted myself. It was difficult to watch. There was a possibility that I would never play this game again if they banned me. I played my drums, chatted with Sofia, and tried to eat.
After an hour, I heard a voice. “Warren, are you there?”
I put my headset on and waited. I wiped my palms on my jeans.
“Warren,” Carol said, her face serious. “We spent some time talking. Corroborating your story as best we could from the game logs. The first thing I’d like to say, on our behalf, is thank you for telling us your story. We’ve spent thousands of hours creating this world. Most of us played the game as testers, but none of us were able to enjoy the launch week, because we were too busy fixing things and solving player issues. So it was nice to get a first-hand account of what it was like to experience something we’ve put the last decade into creating.” She was almost teary-eyed.
“Next, I don’t know if it’s smart of me to admit this, aloud, but you’ve been truthful with me, so I’ll be truthful with you. You found a very dangerous AI. Clarity was able to steal a tremendous amount of data, but at least the AI has been identified and stopped for the time being.”
I closed my eyes, relief flooding through me. I looked at Sofia, who was in the room with me. She pumped a fist.
“Last, we have a request for you and an offer,” Carol said. “And for Sofia. If she’s there with you, which I think she is, she can join us in the call.”
She came over and sat next to me. She waved at the group.
Carol continued. “We believe that there might be other AIs in the game. We also think that you might be uniquely qualified to root them out. We think that Clarity may have identified you as a target because of your Integrator passive, though we’re not exactly sure how he did that. We’d like to offer you both a mission. To look for these AIs and to report to us anything you find.”
“We’re going to need another pod,” Sofia said.
“And a monthly stipend,” I added. “So that we don’t have to spend all of our time trying to make enough money.”
Carol laughed. “That can be arranged.”
A question had been itching to come out. “Why didn’t you just isolate Clarity earlier? Why did you let it go that far? Sofia alerted you days ago with a ticket.”
Carol looked around the room for approval. One of the others shrugged, then nodded to her. She looked back at me. “When we announced the reward to the entire community for finding AIs, we got thousands of tips. Almost all of them were false, and it’s difficult to determine which are true and which are not. That’s partly why we’re employing you now. Because we know we can trust you.” She paused, then continued. “One last thing. You can’t tell anyone about your mission, and you’re going to have to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Other AIs are out there, and they could be anyone. I think we all know how effective they can be at impersonating humans.”
Twenty-four hours later…
“Explain this to me again,” Rowan said. “How did we destroy the dungeon?”
“Warren connected a Glyph to the power generator,” Cassandra said. “And it drained all of its power.”
“Right,” Rowan said. “I get that. But why?”
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
I sat on the bar of Sofia’s inn, facing the room, my feet dangling below me. Janica hovered next to me. The whole guild was there, standing around me. Two bartenders filled orders, sliding ales down the bar for people to catch. People had been drinking. Heavily. Thomas must have been on his tenth beer. He slurred his words and slapped people on the back.
Spirits were high. Even though we had broken the dungeon, permanently, we had each gotten an email from the Integration Online development team awarding us with an even split of 50,000 dollars for discovering and stopping a malicious AI from corrupting the game.
“I’ll tell you why,” Janica announced. She held up her goblet with both hands and drained the beer, spilling a good portion of it all over herself in the process. She threw the cup to a bartender, burped with tremendous force, then continued. “Everyone blamed all the Fairies for the Great Mistake. They sneered at us when we flew by. They stuck their tongues out at us. They made our race do a hundred years of service to make up for it. But it wasn’t our fault at all!”
“Hold on,” I said. “They stuck their tongues out at you?”
“Let them try it,” Janica said. “I’ll catch their tongues and pull on ‘em.”
“Okay drunkie,” I said.
“Can somebody please give me an answer,” Rowan said.
“The developers only allow certain technologies into this world,” I said. “They don’t want others. Enchantments are good. Heaters are bad. Target dummies… good. Light… bad. Think of it like this: if it belongs in a fantasy world, then it’s good; if it belongs in a modern world, not good. The generator in the boss’s room powered the entire dungeon. Every mob, every door, the elevator, the Glow Vines, Ore veins, loot distributors. Everything. When we connected a Glyph of Light, it broke the rules of the magic system. It drained the generator in seconds.”
“Light bad,” Rowan said.
“Light bad,” Janica replied.
“What happened to Clarity?” Christian asked. “Why didn’t he get teleported out with the rest of us?”
I shrugged. “Probably because he became part of the dungeon. He’s trapped in there, forever.” At least the developers seemed to think so.
Arthur stepped forward, arms crossed. “Are there more AI in this game, wandering about, causing trouble?”
I shrugged again. I couldn’t break my NDA.
A tall, serious woman walked through the door of the inn. She had long, dark hair and a thin face.
I jumped off of the bar. A huge grin grew on my face. This was the first time that I had seen her in-game.
“Everyone,” I said. “I’d like to introduce you to my sister, Sofia.”
She ignored the drunken cheers, waving them away. But she greeted Janica warmly and Cassandra with love. To Rowan she said, “I’ve heard a lot about you. Come on, I have stories for you.” Sofia pulled Rowan away.
Rowan looked at me as she followed Sofia with a look that said, “I can’t wait for this.”
I winced.
Arthur pulled me aside. “I’m sorry for not trusting you,” he said.
“I don’t blame you,” I said.
“There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” he said. “There are three other dungeons that were planted on the same day as this one. One to the North in Elven Territory. One to the South, deep in a Dwarven mine. And we’ve heard rumors that the last was stolen and taken to the East Lands, an area where none of the allied races are welcome. I think we’ll head South first. Would you like to join us?”
I smiled. “I’m in.”
He smiled back at me, then turned to the guild. “Quiet!” he hollered.
The ruckus subsided. “We only allow new members into our guild with a unanimous vote,” he said. “Would you be willing to accept Warren and Janica into our ranks?”
“Boo!” someone yelled from the back.
“Never!” Thomas responded. “They suck!”
“Absolutely not!” Kab said, smiling.
The rest of the guild exploded in a cacophony of laughter, boos and nay’s.
Arthur turned to me. “That means you’re in.”
The End of Book 1, Integration Online