“Same to you! You okay?”
“I’m probably going to die,” Sang said, shrugging. “I dunno. Just glad you’re alive. What’s up with the Dragon?”
“What about the dying thing?” Van asked.
“Don’t worry about it... anyway, we gotta get out of here!” Sang said.
“Well said. Log us out, and quick!” Van whispered.
“Your login credentials are all screwed up,” Sang replied as she looked at Van. “It’ll take a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute!” Van hissed, his voice low enough to where he hoped the Dragon wouldn’t hear him. “That Dragon’s going to cook us if it sees us doing anything sketchy!”
Sang looked past Van and shook her head. “Well, what do you want me to do? Van, what’s going on?”
Van sighed heavily and sat on the head next to her. “It’s a long story.” He looked over at the Dragon, which nodded its head at him. Van knew that the moment they tried anything screwy, the Dragon would cook them. He had to communicate the truth to Sang somehow. The Dragon had noticed them whispering and begun to walk forward, craning its neck so that it could hear them better. Van grimaced. The Ruins were a very bad location to be in, though, because there was no cover whatsoever. Just a big damaged statue. If Trefor was correct and Van really could be killed, that Dragon was bad news.
“Well, I met an amazing guy. He’s pretty cool,” Van said. “He helped me out big-time and said there’s something wrong with the mainframe.” He was hoping that his secret code would work. She was CIA, right? She had to understand what he was suggesting. “Anyway, he said I looked dead tired! He said it would be a good idea to take his Dragon mount with me and find you... And he said that you’d be able to help them with their problem. Draco needs a good hacker who can... hack stuff. And you can hack anything, right? So, uh, why don’t you help them hack?”
“Van, what the hell are you saying?” Sang asked. “Are you okay? We’re worried about your health.”
“I’m just saying we definitely should climb on that Dragon over there and let it take us to meet my pal, Trefor. He’s a pro gamer and works for Draco. And you should help them hack things. Because you’re a hacker.”
Sang glanced at the Dragon for a moment and nodded knowingly. “Oh, of course, of course. Sure, let’s go, Van. Don’t want to keep them waiting.”
Van let out a sigh of relief; it appeared that she understood what he was trying to communicate to her
“Yes. Let’s,” Van replied as he grabbed her by the arm and started to pull her a little toward the Dragon. They exchanged glances then, and Van felt his heart rate increase. He wasn’t sure what she was planning, but he was ready for anything.
As Sang walked up to the Dragon and climbed atop its back, Van followed her. The Dragon took off and began to fly upwards toward the clouds.
“I can’t wait to meet your friend!” Sang said as the Dragon’s wings beat the air, generating enough lift for it to fly upwards.
Van smiled through his teeth at her. He had no idea what to do now that they were in the air. Sang smiled back... as she pulled out her longsword and promptly stabbed it into the neck of the Dragon.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Van screamed as the Dragon roared in pain, blood spurting from the wound that Sang had created.
“We’re in trouble, right? Well, not anymore! Ha!” Sang cried out as she pulled the blade out and tried to stab the creature again. The Dragon bucked and rotated, throwing them both from its back.
“Ahhhhhh!” Van cried as he plummeted toward the ground, holding onto Sang’s sleeve and keeping them together in the air. “What’s wrong with you?”
“You’re a bard, idiot! You have the Survive Fall skill!” Sang replied as she grabbed something out of her inventory; it was a small potion. She gulped it down and began to gently drift toward the ground.
“Survive Fall guarantees that I’ll survive it! It doesn’t mean I won’t take damage!” Van screamed as he crashed towards the Earth.
The Dragon had thrown them off over a forest, and Van smashed through dozens of branches before he hit the ground with a hard thump. He saw his health points drop down to 1 immediately, and his frame began to glow bright red. The physical pain was more intense than he was used to. While the pain from injuries in earlier adventures had felt visceral, this felt realistic beyond the point of a simulation. It was as if he had really just broken every bone in his body.
“Hey, you okay?” Sang asked as she glided to the ground beside him. She knelt down and nursed a healing potion into his mouth, immediately bringing him back up to 100% health. He felt the pain gradually vanishing from within his body, as well.
“Yeah, I’m alive. Where’s the Dragon?” Van asked.
“Dunno... it flew off shrieking. I don’t think I killed it.”
“Of course, you didn’t. Damn it!” Van said. “That Dragon’s a companion mount to a Level 79 professional player! You probably did enough damage to scare it, but didn’t even come close to killing it. Log us the hell out, now!”
Sang nodded and began to fiddle around with her hands. Van waited and watched breathlessly. “Okay, my program’s going to take a few minutes to tangle through all of these barriers and security features,” she said. “While it’s loading, why don’t you tell me everything that’s going on?”
Van nodded and took a deep breath. He began to explain the entire story to her, and she listened quietly. It didn’t take too long for him to give her the rundown, though, and when he finished, she stood in silence.
“Well? What do you think?” Van asked.
“The Others, or whatever they are,” Sang said, “they didn’t just send one little message to my head... I think they actually shared a lot more than I’ve been able to sort through on my own. I think they want to help us. I think they’re the good guys here.”
“Anyone who doesn’t like Draco sounds like a good guy to me,” Van said. “We gotta log out, get the CIA, and tell them everything... and then I’m out!”
Sang shook her head. “We’ve got a problem here.”
“What’s that?”
“Trefor… hmmm,” Sang muttered as she seemed to review a display that Van couldn’t see. “Well, this isn’t good. There’s some kind of override code on here. You’re locked in until Trefor gives you the okay to leave.”
“What?” Van gasped. “That’s impossible!”
“Unfortunately, it seems it isn’t. We couldn’t unhook you manually without killing you, either. They talked about letting your pod run out of electricity, but even then… it could potentially kill you. I can get out, but you? You’re stuck here,” Sang replied.
“Oh crap! Crap! I just want out! How do I get out of here?”
“Only one way,” Sang said as she grabbed her bow and knocked a flaming arrow onto it. “We’re going to have to find a way to convince Trefor to let you out.”
“By attacking him? That’s stupid, Sang.”
“Not him; the Dragon first. I can hear it coming from here. My Listen skill’s pretty high. We gotta take it out and then maybe we can convince Trefor to not throw his life away. You know where he lives, right?”
“His address?” Van asked. “No.”
“Any personal details? Real name? Facebook account?” Sang asked.
Van shrugged. “Yeah, we’re buddies on Facebook.”
“That’s all we need. I’ll send a message to O’Hara and they’ll raid his house, pull him out of the pod. When he’s disconnected, we should be able to get out of here. So we just need to stall.”
“Sang, there’s one more thing,” Van said nervously. “Trefor said that they could kill me in here if they wanted to. For real.”
Sang sighed. “Well, I hate to make a tough day way worse, but, uh, this whole thing started a while back when a few people were killed during Sleep Time. They were found in their pods, dead. Their vitals and everything were fine until, one moment… they were gone”