Play 2 Wage: Linked

When I climbed the steps to leave the room the door automatically opened for me. My hands were full of expensive new weaponry that I only barely understood and did not want to accidentally drop on the fancy stone floor of my new apartment. I imagined the heavy metal objects could chip or gouge the relatively soft granite tiles, so I was extra careful.

I looked up from my feet as I crossed the threshold and stepped into the hallway, only to nearly throw everything on the ground in surprise anyways. Ali was silently standing at attention against the wall just on the other side of the door.

“Oh! I didn’t see you there. Uhm, Hello.”

“Good evening, sir. How was your time in the Link?” She turned to face me but remained in her stiff stance.

“Everything went well, actually. How were, um, things around here?” I asked uncomfortably. All I wanted was to sneak some leftovers out of the fridge, and to crash for the day. I’d almost entirely forgotten about Ali, or the other guy they had assigned to me.

What was his name, Dallas?

“All is well, sir. Things have been quiet in your absence.”

“That’s great. Better than having to dodge through the protestors, hijackers, and firebombings.” I answered, reminding myself outloud of the biggest reasons why my new apartment was better than my old one. Following that thought, I realized I could just ask her to bring me some food. There was no need for me to sneak around for a late-night snack. I had the apartment to myself other than the two people assigned to make my life easier.

I started to reach for my mobile-com in my pocket to check the time, and was foiled by the armload of weaponry I was juggling. Ali saw me struggling with my gear and grabbed the bulkier items from my arms, she took the empty case, the ammo boxes and eyed the pistol in its slim holster.

“That looks like a fine side arm, sir. Would you like me to clean it for you?”

“No thanks, I just cleaned it myself three times in a row. Tevin would not let me leave until he was sure I could do it on my own.” I held it up and looked it over again myself.

She nodded and just stared back at me, waiting for me to do or say something else. I stared back for a moment, before my sleep deprived brain kicked back into gear.

“Do you think you could get me some food though? I haven’t eaten since breakfast this morning. Something fast? I’m not picky.”

She somehow snapped to an even straighter stance and nodded again. “Of course, sir. What are your after meal plans?”

I had taken a step to the side while she spoke, ready to head to my room and out of the somewhat dark hallway. “Uh, I’m going to shower, then eat, then sleep. Why do you ask?”

“So that I may prepare the proper meal for the situation. I would recommend something light if you plan to go to sleep immediately afterwards, sir.”

I gestured for her to move, growing impatient now that I was so close to ending my day, and she finally turned to start back down the hall. After reaching my bedroom door, I replied to her as she continued towards the main room.

“Thanks, and I’ll trust your judgment on that, I’m used to just eating whatever Tevin cooks up anyways.”

She stopped and turned to give me a little bow. “Of course, I will not fail you Master Spenser.”

That stopped me in my tracks, and I called after her before she could scurry off to the kitchen. “Wait, did you call me Master? Do you have to call me that?”

She stopped and turned to face me again, snapping back into attention. “Yes sir, and no, sir.”

I waited for a moment, hoping she would elaborate some more. When she remained silent and only stood there and avoided eye contact, I put my foot down. Being called that felt gross.

“Well, don’t, then. I’m no master.”

Her eyes narrowed, out of confusion or frustration or something I couldn’t quite get a read on. “That is what all of my training has instructed me to address you as, or as sir, sir. What else should I call you?”

I studied her face, all of a sudden realizing just how crazy of a situation being assigned to me of all people must be for her. I felt a surge of empathy, understanding that both of us were locked onto a hard path with little sympathy and dire consequences if we tripped up and ate dirt.

“How about Nick? I’m not a real noble, you know. I was living in a run down government building only yesterday, and I was a worker drone no one had ever heard of just a few days before that.” I paused, letting out a sigh and tempering my voice. “I suppose I can deal with ‘sir’, if you must, but master just feels wrong. Alright?”

Her face soured, and she made eye contact for a brief moment. “Very well, sir.”

I frowned and stared back at her for a silent moment, then my mouth got away from me. “Alright then, Madame. May I go?”

Her eyes went wide and she blinked in surprise. “Sir, that's not neces-”

I cut her off, “It’s awkward, right? Please, just call me Nick, okay? I feel like I’ll have to deal with enough fancy formal B.S. between the dwarves and whatever Katie ends up roping me into, I’d rather not deal with it at home as well. I’m just a normal person like everyone else, scrambling through life as best I can.”

She frowned as well, but to her credit, she did not look away. “Very good, sir –Nick, sir. May I go prepare your dinner?”

I sighed, and decided to take the small victory. “Yes please, and I’m just Nick. If I say I’m just a normal Guy, is that a bad enough pun for you to realize no one should be calling me Sir?”

Apparently it was not, because she replied with a curt “Very clever, Nick, sir.”

Admitting defeat, I sighed again and waved her off. She had at least called me by my name, even if she insisted on sir-ing me right after. I guess it would take more than one conversation to break her out of whatever training she had gone through to prepare her for whatever the hell kind of job ‘Attendant’ is supposed to be.

After showering and discovering that some of my old clothes and other personal items had been delivered, as well as another round of fancy new clothing, I pulled on an unbelievably soft and fuzzy robe that was hanging on a hook in the bathroom and found a tray of food waiting for me on the desk.

Ali had made me a salad, filled with a few different types of fruits that I did not have names for, and some dry light colored bits of meat mixed in with the mostly sweet mix of greens and reds. It was absolutely delicious, and filled me just to the point of sating my hunger and no further.

Feeling a bit more like myself after a shower and some time to myself, I chowed the food down quickly, finished my bedtime routine, and hit the sack.

The next day was more training with the dwarves, followed by another evening at the range with Tevin, and yet another awkward hallway conversation with Ali. It went like that the whole first week and all became a grinding routine. I would spend the bulk of my time learning formations and craft with clan Theedrite, then a few more hours scattering little red dots onto holographic targets, and cap it off with another attempt to get Ali to stop calling me sir.

The time with the dwarves was a true test of endurance. I spent hours holding the heavy shield above my head and marching around the room in formation, patiently pouring over and perfecting molecular pattern charts, and practicing with the dwarv's method of stone melting.

It was immediately obvious to me that I would never be a grand artist, churning out master level statues or inscriptions. Kikkelin, the dwarven lass I had tripped over and been accused of leering at, turned out to be the true artist in our group when it came to stonework. Her statues were uncannily lifelike, and she would finish her inscriptions long before any of the rest of us.

The inscriptions themselves felt like a schoolroom punishment, but did teach me a lot about controlling my new gauntlets. We were given stone tiles, only a finger width thick, and would all have to copy the text from an elaborately decorated bronze plaque that Chane would hang on the wall. Each plaque had a different short lesson or saying, which ranged from sage proverbs, to obvious platitudes, to what felt like weird jokes.

“If the seam is bad, what good are the tailings?”

“What is right a thousand times, may still be wrong once.”

“The line is fine between mining and hiding away in a hole.“

I copied the texts and sent all of the little sayings to myself as a message in the game UI to have a record of them I could check, a common strategy for anyone unwilling to pay for the premium ‘Notes’ tab in the games system. Max initially offered to unlock it for free, but he followed the offer with a warning that it would have a slim chance of alerting the system that there was something weird going on with my profile.

That was an easy choice. There was no way a minor convenience was worth possibly, no matter how small the possibility was, getting flagged as a hacker and banned from the Link.

During the second week, Chane led us out into the courtyard and had us drill amongst the other more senior Row groups. We drew a bit of a crowd who peppered us with equal parts of light hearted jeers and encouragement.

“Aw, they let the wee babs out to field.”

“Remember! Shields up, boots down!”

Thankfully, all of the shouted words were addressed to us as a group and none of us were singled out by the onlookers. I’d half expected to be an obvious target as I crouched-walked along with my shield held up at the same height as my Row-mates.

After a few hours of drills in the square, Chane sat us down at the edge of the yard and had us observe a sparring match between two of the fully armored senior rows.

Each formation of dwarves lined up in blocks five wide and four deep, and slowly marched towards each other in the ‘Crawling Mountain’ formation. The formation left no gaps between the shields and they kept their staves withdrawn and under cover. After they closed some distance, with only about 40 feet between each block of dwarves, they started firing rolling volleys at each other. In a practiced pattern, one dwarv would quickly flip their shield up and allow the next in line to fire a blast of energy from the end of their strange staff weapons.

Each blast washed over the opposite shieldwall, causing the air to blur with heat-waves and the edges of a few shields to briefly glow as they absorbed and dissipated the intense heat of the rather slow moving balls of energy.

They both halted at only 20 feet between them, and each formation bristled with staves as they readied themselves for the main event. With a shouted command, the formation on my left crackled with electricity that arced between each staff to create a network of energy, that then stabbed out at the formation on my right.

The lightning bolt grounded on one of the forward staves and seemed to explode, expanding into a massive ball of light that blossomed over the whole of the shieldwall and dazzled me for a moment, leaving me blinking and blind. I heard more cracks of energy and felt a weird buzzing sensation that gave me goosebumps and caused the hair on my arms and back of my neck to raise.

When my sight cleared and I could see the two formations again, each was shrouded in a bluish purple haze a few feet thick. Each row prodded and pulled on the cloud of heated gas with blazing shields and energized staves. As I watched, the whole front row of the formation on the right raised their shields into a high-guard and lowered their staves in unison to send a volley of blasts towards the left side.

Red hot shields shifted towards yellow as blasts of energy were exchanged back and forth in a dance between the formations. They would bunch the energy cloud towards the front to absorb volleys from their opponent, or pull it back from the frontline to give them the freedom to fire a volley of their own. It all only seemed to work when the group was perfectly in sync with each other and after the 5th exchange of feints, volleys, and blocks, the left side's cloud of energy faltered when one of the tips of their staves exploded after a poorly timed control thrust.

The cloud of plasma rippled and vented off a sizeable portion into the air above the courtyard, blasting a glowing purple geyser of superheated gas into the void between undermountain and the ‘Overshell’, which is what they called the mostly untouched exterior of the mountain.

As the cloud destabilized and the formation struggled to contain it, the other side shouted and charged, the rear ranks raising their shields and prodding their own charged energy blob to the front of the shieldwall and pressing it forward to envelop their weakened opponents as they bore down on them with readied weapons.

Chane, who was acting as referee, shouted out the end of the match, “Victory to Row Tak-Guruko!”

A few goading taunts and words of acknowledgement were exchanged between the two groups, then the two formations lined up once again on opposite sides and repeated their clash as we watched.

I recorded a note to myself in my messages again, and when I looked up my eyes were drawn to the side near Relik’s armory. Just for a flash, I saw someone who stood head and shoulders above a gaggle of dwarves duck under the balcony that circled most of the courtyard.

I stared after whoever it was for a moment. I had yet to bother someone to escort me to the S-Mart where I had seen a few humans on my first day, but I’d heard the other human who had joined House Galidun was a woman by the name of Sabriell. It must have been either her, or a rare guest that I’d caught a glimpse of.

I shook off the distraction, and realigned my focus on the demonstration from the veteran Row. After observing the rest of the best-of-seven matchup, we spent the rest of the day back in the Row House being lectured by Chane on the finer points of their cloud technique. From the defensive “Crawling Mountain” formation, to the charging “Sloping Fog” move where the whole plasma cloud is shunted forward to wash over enemies in a devastating wave of superheated gas.

Train with the dwarves, shoot targets with Tev, another one-sided argument with Ali. Rinse, wash, repeat.