12:35 P.M.
The heavy traffic congestion forced the six-man party to walk two-by-two on the sidewalk. Enzo walked in the front next to Rachel, Redgrave was next to Tantalus, and Volta was next to Dendrite. There must have been hundreds of cars leading from the Gate to the City. The road was a six-lane highway with three lanes going in one direction and three in the other. Every spare space for about three hundred feet was completely filled with cars. Both the incoming and outgoing lanes were completely packed. At a certain point in time, the people trying to leave must have merged into the oncoming lanes in order to escape. Evidence of panic was palpable in the scene. For a moment, Enzo felt like the world had ended.
Looking at the abandoned cars, Enzo was struck by how modern they looked. He was expecting them to look like cars from the 1920s, but they all looked like they were from the 2010s or later. Why were we stuck with weapons from the first world war if the NPCs had cars from the 21st century? The road itself consisted of black asphalt and white lines. It was surreal how similar the road was to a highway in the real world. The white-on-green exit signs above the cataclysmic traffic scene looked exactly like the exit signs Enzo was used to seeing while driving in the United States. The only difference was that the sign was written in some kind of runic alphabet that none of them could read.
The group soon came upon a dark blue four-door sedan that had been left on the sidewalk. Based on the damage to the back of the sedan, it was clear that the car was on the sidewalk because the black truck behind it had rammed it into place. Enzo checked the front of the crashed sedan to see if it displayed the car’s brand. He was expecting to see the symbol for Ford or Honda, but there was none. There was a symbol on the front of the car, but it was not a symbol Enzo recognized. The symbol on the front of the crashed car was that of an ornate crown with four runic letters in the center.
“What a mess,” Volta said with a sigh.
Enzo hadn’t really looked at Volta for more than a second before this point. Now that he saw her up close, he got a better sense of what she looked like. Volta had a slight build similar to Rachel, but she was tall for a woman. She was probably an inch or two taller than Tantalus and a bit shorter than Enzo. Her nose was small and slightly upturned. When she spoke, Enzo could see that there was a small gap between her front teeth.
“I know what you mean,” said Tantalus empathetically.
“What happened to cause all of this chaos?” asked Volta as she shook her head sadly. “How are we supposed to fix this world’s problems if we don’t even know what they are?”
“We’ll figure it out,” said Tantalus, trying to calm Volta.
“What if we aren’t able to do it?” asked Volta emotionally. “What if it turns out that the City is doomed, and we aren’t able to do anything about it? Never mind killing GM, I’m not sure that we can even save ourselves.”
“What are you talking about?” said Dendrite. “We don’t know anything yet. Why bother worrying about it?”
“Do you know what Deluvian means? It’s a reference to the Biblical Deluge, which was the flood sent by God to wipe out the sinners of the world! These monsters we’ve been fighting were sent by God to kill us all! Nobody was able to fight the Deluge! Only Noah’s family survived, and they only survived because they ran! Who are we to think we can fight a flood!?” The panic in Volta’s voice grew as she continued to talk. She was completely hysterical. Tears were streaming down her face.
Tantalus opened his mouth to speak. By his expression, Enzo could tell that he was about to start shouting. He didn’t utter a sound, however, due to his surprise at what happened next. Without a word, Rachel stepped forward and hugged Volta firmly.
“Hey, hey. It’ll be okay,” Rachel said to Volta, patting her head. “We’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.” Volta began sobbing audibly. “There, there.”
“I’m sorry...” Volta said between sobs. “It’s just… God! Why did it have to be me!? I just wanted to play a game with my friends, and now my life is in danger! And Kevin… He only got hit once, and now he’s dead! He was only a kid!”
Listening to Volta talk and thinking about the situation they were in made Enzo want to start crying. Enzo turned my head to the side and bit my lip to get my emotions under control.
“I understand, you don’t have to apologize,” said Rachel.
Enzo turned to look at Redgrave and Tantalus. Redgrave looked uncomfortable with the situation, but Tantalus looked angry. Tantalus’s head was turned toward Enzo and Redgrave, so the two women couldn’t see his expression. His teeth were bared, and his nostrils were flared. For a moment, it seemed like Tantalus was about to say something derisive, but he changed his mind.
“Excuse me, I’m gonna go ahead,” Tantalus said, pointing past the crashed car. His tone of voice was level, so Rachel and Volta couldn’t detect his anger, but his sudden flash of rage was apparent to Redgrave and Enzo. Enzo's sense at the time was that Tantalus was feeling a strong disdain for the weakness he perceived in Volta.
Tantalus hopped on to the hood of the car with one step and, with the next step, hopped on to the sidewalk on the other side of the sedan. His movements were far more graceful than Enzo expected.
It took a few minutes for Volta to calm down. Redgrave was leaning against a tall concrete wall about twenty feet away from Rachel and Volta with his eyes closed and his arms crossed. Enzo could see that one of his hands was twitching periodically, and he surmised that Redgrave must have been subtly navigating the menu. Redgrave’s cloak and hood were pulled back, so it looked like he was wearing a cape rather than a cloak.
Mimicking Redgrave, Enzo closed his eyes and activated his menu. He was greeted by the familiar silver-on-black screen to which he had grown accustomed.
As soon as Enzo activated the menu, a list of words appeared organized in a vertical list. These words were: Character, Attributes, Skills, BloodNet, Messages, Friends, Guild, Map, and Settings. Character was automatically highlighted when Enzo opened the menu, and the selected item was changed when he flicked his index finger up or down. Enzo pressed his index finger and thumb together in order to select Character. This opened up a separate page that displayed [Blood Points: 110/140] over [Magic Points: 10/10] on the right side and an approximation of a human body on the left side. Most of the body was a light blue color, but the area around the left wrist and left cheek were a dark red.
Enzo heard the sound of a notification, and, when he checked, he saw that Redgrave had sent a message. It said, [Redgrave22: There’s a message function].
Enzo's response said, [EnzoTheBaker: Neat]. He selected Attributes next, and a new series of words appeared. These words were: Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, Speed, Intelligence, and Blood Potency. His attributes were [Strength: 65], [Endurance: 65], [Dexterity: 41], [Speed: 41], [Intelligence: 70], and [Blood Potency: 1]. Redgrave and Enzo shared our attributes with each other. In order, Redgrave's attributes were: [Strength: 71], [Endurance: 71], [Dexterity: 45], [Speed: 45], [Intelligence: 40], and [Blood Potency: 1].
“My Intelligence score is a bit insulting, but the rest is good,” said Redgrave. “Also, Blood Potency is a strange attribute to have.”
“I’m sure it’s the same as MP. There’s no use for it right now, but there will be later,” Enzo said.
Enzo felt a light tap against his shoulder, and he opened his eyes. It was Rachel.
“She’s ready to go. Come on,” Rachel said.
Soon after we returned to the group, Redgrave stepped on to the hood of the crashed sedan. “D’you guys need any help?” he said, looking at Volta and Rachel as he spoke.
"We shouldn't have any problems with this," said Dendrite. Redgrave made an expression that made it clear to me that the question wasn’t meant for him. With a barely audible grunt, Redgrave stepped down on the other side of the car.
Volta went next. She clambered onto the car a bit less gracefully than Redgrave or Tantalus, but she didn’t run into any real issues while crossing over. Enzo went after Volta. It wasn’t pretty, but he got over the car. Enzo hadn’t yet acclimated to his avatar, so even that minor act of acrobatics was quite difficult. Rachel went after Enzo, and Dendrite went last.
Soon after the group passed the crashed car, they reached the end of the pileup. Beyond the cars, they found Elias and Tantalus standing in front of a red pickup truck. As they got closer, Enzo saw that Cadmium was sitting in the passenger seat, and the bed of the truck was stained with blood.
Elias watched us approach, but Tantalus stood there with his eyes closed. He was clearly using the menu.
“Nice truck,” Dendrite said. “Where’d you get it?”
Elias gestured broadly at the car pileup.
“Well, they’re not using it,” said Dendrite.
“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for how I acted after Melkior’s… after Kevin Avery’s death,” Enzo said. “I wasn’t in a good state of mind at the time, and I needed some time to clear my head.”
The college kids nodded in assent and murmured in agreement. A moment of silence passed, and Dendrite lightly struck Elias on the shoulder.
“And I… probably shouldn’t have punched you,” said Elias without looking Enzo in the eyes. Enzo could tell that Elias was embarrassed about his earlier actions.
Throughout this conversation, Tantalus was leaning against the truck with his eyes still closed. Now that there was a lull in the conversation, he spoke.
“Now that everyone’s friends, make sure to add everyone in this group to your Friends’ List,” said Tantalus. There was a slight sense of annoyance in his voice. “If we get separated, it will be much easier to get in contact with each other if we’re all friends.” A moment later, Enzo received the message, [Friend Request: Tantalus45], and he promptly accepted.
The group went around and added each other to their Friends’ List. During this interaction, Enzo added [Dendrite17], [Volta_Fossa], [Elias333], and [Cadmium_Alchemist] to my Friends’ List.
Once the process was completed, Redgrave asked, “So how are we going to get out of here? There’s no way we can all fit in that truck, and Osiris is a really big city. We could walk, but it would be a real pain.”
“We’ll just steal some more cars,” Volta said. “We’ve already stolen one.”
“There’s eight of us, and the truck can only comfortably seat two people,” said Tantalus. “We should get at least two more cars… three more if we can only find two-seaters.”
“I wonder if I can find a sport’s car,” Redgrave wondered aloud. Rachel looked at him with a glare of disapproval.
The group checked the cars near the back of the pileup and soon found a four-door SUV that looked relatively undamaged. Enzo looked through the driver’s side window. “There’s a key in this one!” he shouted to the rest of the group.
“A key?” said Dendrite as he looked through the window with me. “They haven’t made any new cars with key ignitions in ten years.”
“Different world, different rules,” Tantalus mused. He was looking through the car window as well, causing his face to be uncomfortably close to mine.
“It’s locked,” Enzo said after unsuccessfully attempting to open the door.
Tantalus gripped his own rifle firmly with both hands and said, “Stand back, I’m gonna break the window.” Dendrite and Enzo promptly retreated from the window.
Tantalus pulled his rifle back and violently struck the driver’s side window with the butt of his gun. The rifle merely bounced off the window as it deformed for a moment and then returned to its original shape. Tantalus struck the window twice more with little effect.
“What are you guys doing!?” shouted Redgrave from behind an abandoned car.
“Trying to break a window!” Tantalus responded angrily.
Without warning, Tantalus leveled the barrel of his Lee Enfield rifle at the window of the car. Dendrite and Enzo frantically covered their ears, but the gunshot never came. A look of confusion animated Tantalus’s expression. He unholstered his pistol and aimed it at the window. Just like before, there was no bang. The gun did not fire.
“I can’t pull the trigger,” Tantalus said. Shock was evident in his tone.
“We must be in some kind of safe zone,” Enzo grunted.
The Zone rules will be described here. There are three different types of Zones: blue, yellow, and red. In Blue Zones, a player cannot fire their guns or harm NPCs or other players. In Yellow Zones, players are permitted to fire their guns, but they cannot harm other players. In Red Zones, there are no restrictions. The area inside the walls of the City was a Blue Zone, and the area outside the walls was a Red Zone. The aspect of this rule they learned last was that you cannot harm yourself in a Blue Zone.
Dendrite began helping Tantalus smash the car window. After a few alternating butt-strikes, the window shattered inward. Tantalus used his cloak to brush some of the glass off the driver’s seat and then turned the key. With a shuddering gasp, the car started.
“It started?” Dendrite said, amazed. “This car couldn’t have been abandoned for more than a few hours, then.”
“Weird,” said Tantalus as he jumped in the driver’s seat.
When Tantalus, Dendrite, and Enzo returned to the group, two other vehicles had been looted from the car pileup. Redgrave was kneeling down next to a black motorcycle, examining the machinery under the seat. Redgrave was smiling widely. Rachel and Elias had retrieved a two-door muscle car that closely resembled a Ford Mustang. The muscle car was grey with a black stripe down the middle.
“Very good,” Tantalus said, looking at the range of vehicles arrayed in front of him.
“So where are we going next, boss?” Elias asked Tantalus.
“For now, let’s just start driving. Eventually, we’ll need a headquarters, so we ought to start looking for one,” said Tantalus.
“I don’t know if you guys have seen the map,” said Volta, “but there’s something big in the middle of the city. We might as well go there first.”
Enzo checked the map and saw the City of Osiris from a bird’s eye view. It had been built in a vaguely circular shape, and the circle had a diameter of about two miles. The top fourth of the City was separated from the bottom three-fourths by a dark line. The map was too far zoomed-out for me to make out exactly what the line was, but it was clearly significant. The line spread to the east and west further than the map covered. It must have been at least a few miles long.
“Good idea,” said Tantalus. “Let’s mount up. I’ll drive the front car and the rest of you follow me.”
The SUV was the front car. Tantalus, Dendrite, and Enzo boarded this car. Enzo won a game of rock-paper-scissors against Dendrite, so he got to ride shotgun.
The pickup truck was the second car. Elias drove and Cadmium rode shotgun.
The muscle car was the third car. Rachel drove and Volta rode shotgun.
The motorcycle was at the end of the convoy, and Redgrave rode without putting on a helmet.
Like that, the convoy started rolling down the highway. “Enzo, you’re in the passenger’s seat, so you’re the navigator,” said Tantalus just as they started gaining speed.
Enzo closed his eyes and quickly navigated to the Map. The road they were on went straight across the city from east to west. It seemed that this road directly connected the West Gate and East Gate. A brief investigation of the Map revealed that there was a North Gate, but there was no gate to the south. In the center of the City, the road the convoy was on connected with another main road that went north to the North Gate. The northbound road passed over the line.
“If we take an exit in the middle of the City, we’ll be able to take a northbound highway that’ll lead right over the line,” Enzo said. “That should be the fastest way there.”
“Can’t you navigate us there?” Dendrite said.
Enzo checked to see if there was some kind of navigation function on the map in my head, but there was not. “Nope,” Enzo said. “I’ll just tell you when to exit.”
As we drove down the highway, Enzo kept one eye closed to keep an eye on the map and one eye open to look at the City. That got uncomfortable after a few moments, so Enzo put a hand on his closed eye to keep it closed.
The convoy ascended up a ramp as the road rose up to stay out of the way of the city below. There were no cars on this main road beyond the occasional abandoned car pulled onto the shoulder. As they drove, the City quickly became much denser. The part of the City near the West Gate was much more suburban. Much of the ground there was green, and the buildings were mostly single-family homes.
Near the center of the City, the buildings resembled downtown NYC or Chicago. For as far as the eye could see, the City was decorated with skyscrapers that must have been more than thirty stories tall. Here in downtown Osiris, it was clear that the City was modeled after the major cities of New England.
Out of the corner of his eye, Enzo spotted a building that more closely resembled a King’s palace than a modern skyscraper. It was as wide as the buildings around it, but it must have only been about five stories tall. Enzo only saw it for a moment before it disappeared behind a building. About two minutes passed, and then Enzo saw the exit.
“There’s our exit,” Enzo said, pointing at it.
The convoy exited onto another main road and drove on it for about a mile and a half. As the convoy approached its destination, Tantalus swore loudly. The convoy pulled off the road. Before us, we saw the line that bisected the City. The players who saw it called it the Chasm.
The Chasm was a huge rift in the ground that measured approximately three hundred feet across and a thousand feet deep. With the Map still opened, Enzo knew that the Chasm was longer than he could measure at the time. The Chasm did not look like any naturally occurring canyon that you would see in the real world. Rather, it looked more like some force had cracked the planet and left that gargantuan scar behind. If you were to step into the Chasm, you would fall and not stop until you hit the bottom a thousand feet below. A waterfall cascaded down into the Chasm from the south. There was a river just outside of Osiris that flowed into the Chasm.
Three suspension bridges crossed over the Chasm. These bridges were two-tiered. You could cross them by car on the upper tier, but there was a footpath on the lower tier that one could use to cross. Beyond that, there was no way across as far as Enzo could see. Unlike the rest of the highway, people were driving on the bridges and using the attached footpaths.
They pulled their vehicles on to the edge of the Chasm and got out. The small two-lane road we were on led straight into the Chasm. It was clear that the street they were on was built before the Chasm appeared. It was as if a crack had formed and cut right across this road. If you were walking on the sidewalk and not paying attention, you would plummet right in. Redgrave and Enzo went to the edge of the sidewalk that led to nowhere, but the rest stayed behind. Enzo saw that there was water at the bottom of the Chasm. Enzo wondered if the Chasm went far enough in either direction that it hit the ocean.
“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” mused Redgrave.
“What do you think caused that?” asked Volta.
“The NPCs probably know,” said Rachel.
“We’ll have plenty of time to ask later,” said Elias.
Looking over at Tantalus, Enzo saw that something on the menu had caught his attention. His eyes were closed, and he was making frantic motions with his hands. A moment later, something caught Redgrave’s attention, and he started doing the same thing.
“What’s up with you two?” Enzo asked.
“I just received about a dozen messages from people I don’t know,” said Tantalus. “I imagine the same thing just happened to Redgrave.”
After a pause, Tantalus continued talking. “From what I gather, somebody with a pre-existing audience mentioned that Redgrave and I are in the game.” There was another pause. “Ah! That must be it.”
“Ashcroft is gathering people in the middle of the City, and he wants all of us to come,” Tantalus said. By his tone of voice, it was clear that Tantalus expected everyone present to recognize the name.
[Tantalus45]
