enjoyed searching for treasure after a fight and typically took a great deal of care in making sure he did not miss anything, particularly any small magical items like rings, potions, and the like. But this time he took only what was obvious without looking for any secret caches in the room or hidden pockets in the burnt remains covering the fallen. His haste was, in part, due to the fact that he knew more nasties were bound to show up soon, but mostly he just wanted to get moving. Still, getting treasure was what one did in this situation, and D_Light wanted to keep up appearances. All actions in NeverWorld were recorded.
Soon D_Light had a sizable sack of gold, a powerful magical sword, and an assortment of magical potions and scrolls. Because he was a witch, he could not use the sword effectively. Worse yet, the gold was very heavy, and it was going to slow him down. It did not have any real weight, but the game system warned him that he was now “heavily encumbered” and so would not be allowed to run, only jog. The game could not directly force a spanker to behave appropriately when something bad happened-for example, if a spanker was paralyzed by poison or the victim of a spell that caused a thorny wall to spring up in front of him. Instead, the game would notify the player that an effect was upon the spanker, and the spanker would then have to role-play the situation.
In this case, although D_Light was still physically capable of sprinting at his full speed, to do so while carrying this much virtual weight would be cheating. A spanker only got a few warnings for poor role-playing before they were point-penalized or, if the infraction was serious enough, their character was instantly killed. Spankers called this “getting wrathed” because such a death in NeverWorld was attributed to inciting the wrath of the gods.
D_Light decided to hand the sword and gold over to Lily. Since she was playing a warrior and was therefore strong, she was allowed to carry much more weight without being affected.
The dwarf had finished prying loose the stones, and D_Light demanded one, which the dwarf handed over silently, but with a fierce look.
“Okay, guide, take us out the swiftest way you know. Keep indoors, though. I don’t want to go outside just yet,” D_Light ordered.
“Outside is the fastest,” the dwarf said emphatically.
“There’s an exit from the catacombs nearby, and then there is a gate out of this ghe-” The spanker caught himself before saying the word “ghetto” and corrected himself. “Out of the Corrupted Lands.”
“There is danger in the open air that you know not of,” D_Light warned. “Nay, we must travel inside. Surely there is an underground cavern that will take us out of the Corrupted Lands.”
By “underground cavern” D_Light meant a spunnel, although he did not use this term because it was not fantaspeech. Spunnels, or spanker tunnels, ran underground, usually between nearby spanker ghettos. These avenues were constructed so that spankers, who were always jacked in and distracted by the various games they were playing, did not make themselves a nuisance to other travelers. This segregation facilitated more orderly traffic in the common avenues. Spankers could use the common avenues too, but most games encouraged spankers to use the spunnels by placing more interesting objects and scenarios in the spunnels than in the common avenues.
The dwarf seemed to know what the witch meant, and after a moment of thought, he pointed to a passage out of the room.
“Before we away, I must heal a few of my egregious wounds,” the dwarf said, extracting a pink-colored potion from his belt.
“Don’t!” D_Light commanded. His feminine, bejeweled hand glowed green with a half-finished spell. He extended his other hand for the potion. “Sorry, my fine dwarf, but I’ll take that. I need you at less than full strength, for I cannot have you feeling stupidly brave and swinging that ax of yours in our direction.” The witch’s voice was smooth and alluring.
The dwarf truly looked furious now, but he regarded the witch’s glowing hand carefully, and after a moment, he threw the bottle down, shattering it.
D_Light frowned. “Now there you go, wasting a perfectly good healing potion. Not a good way to make friends. Go on then, we must away! You lead.”
D_Light and Lily followed behind. D_Light hoped the dwarf was not foolish enough to try to give him the slip. Besides, the dwarf was short and stocky, so unless he was willing to cheat or was wearing some magical enhancement, he would not be allowed to run very swiftly.
Although Lily had ceased some time ago deliberating about whether or not to escape from the human, she wondered, as she trailed behind the other two, what alien madness she had agreed to. It was like a dark vision that kept going and going. She decided that just as soon as she was out of this place, far away, she would leave them. How could she not? She knew that humans rarely acted outside of their own self-interest, and Lily did not see how it was in this human’s interest to help her. Unless he wishes to mate me, she thought. Todget had warned her that humans would want her for that. If that was the case, Lily did not reciprocate the interest. He was pleasing to the eye, as were many human males, but he did not smell quite right.
CHAPTER 15
Techlepathy, that is, using technology to enable human telepathy, is one of the great technological achievements of our time. However, with this power comes danger. Early developers of techlepathy feared “mind hacking.” After all, early malicious hackers only attacked your computer, a violating experience to be sure, but nothing compared to someone forcing their way into your consiousness!
To combat the “mind hack,” software/hardware firewalls were created. Protecting a person unobtrusively against such varied and complex attacks takes a ton of computer processing power. The primary purpose of a familiar is to shield its owner from unauthorized access. Even with computers as powerful as they are today, familiars are rather large, which is why it is convenient to have the firewall carried by a companion robot rather than carrying the machine on your person.
As expected, mind hacking has occurred and even now still happens on occasion…
All the non-players, the suspects Katria had instructed the sniffers to check, came back negative. Most of these suspects turned out to be men who were asleep, but she had them checked anyway. It was beyond her reckoning how the demon had escaped this search filter. Had the rat escaped? But how? All exits are covered, she assured herself. There is no escape.
She had to admit that it was possible that the demons had created a secret escape route of some kind. This had been done before-once, to be exact. But it was an extremely difficult task. Nanosites crawled relentlessly over all surfaces, penetrating the smallest cracks, and they were even present in the air. The one time it had been done, the demons created a tunnel that was virtually a vacuum. However, such a thing could not be constructed from dro-vine. It was hard for Katria to imagine these demons constructing an escape vacuum tube right in the middle of a spanker ghetto.
It has to be something else, she thought. Maybe a personal transport? Something fast enough to get her out of there before we got the satellite in place? She ran the possible scenario through her mind.
Rhemus, who was monitoring her shared thoughts, broke in. I doubt it. I had the satellites check for emissions. There’s nothing in the area.
What about a closed system? Katria asked. A simple electric bike or something?
I just don’t see it, Rhemus replied. It’s hard enough for a player to get personal transportation, especially something souped-up enough to escape the perimeter I’m monitoring. Sloth is a sin, remember?
Demons don’t care about sinning, Katria shot back testily.
Soul, I know, I’m just telling you I don’t see it, Rhemus defended. When was the last time a demon got hold of a lift car?
When was the last time a demon fried an angel? Katria countered.
