Aran called up his hacker scripts again. When he ran the third one, the air of Feyland rippled, and he glimpsed something behind the pastoral scene. Something glittering and dark.
What the hell was that?
Swallowing back a sudden jab of fear, he tried the code again. Nothing.
Nothing left to do but go farther into the game. Before heading to the cottage, he reviewed his character’s combat skills, memorizing the few moves his Saboteur came equipped with. A couple stabs and slices, a dodge-and-disappear, and a distance knife throw. Hopefully they’d be adequate to deal with whatever creatures he might meet in battle.
A bird swooped overhead, singing. The meadow grasses, scattered with yellow and blue flowers like something out of a famous painting, riffled in the breeze. Still, he couldn’t get that foreboding sense off his shoulders. Something was watching him—and waiting.
“Mr. Cole?” Vonda’s voice sounded over his headset, roughened with static. “How’s it going in there?”
“Good,” Aran said. “It’s an amazing place.”
“You’ve got another twenty minutes to enjoy it before I need you to log off,” she said.
“Right. I’ll finish up. Just let me know when.”
Time was funny in-game, but he was still surprised by how quickly it had gone. His stomach knotted. This was his chance, and so far he had nothing to show for it. Way to go, mister supreme hacker.
He didn’t have time to waste standing around listening to his own self-doubt. Shutting up the mocking voice, Aran strode forward to the little cottage. Sunlight sparked off its diamond-paned windows and made the whitewashed walls and golden thatch shine brightly.
Something crouched on the front step; a creature that made Aran’s steps slow. As he got closer he saw it was a hunched goblin with sharp teeth, wearing a blood-red cap and stained leather jerkin. The faint scent of rotting flowers wafted to Aran’s nose.
The goblin stood, his clawed fingers clasped about a long-handled axe, his malicious gaze fixed on Aran. Taking a deep breath, Aran drew his knives.
Instead of attacking him, the goblin spoke, his voice rough as old hinges.
“Greetings, mortal,” the creature said.
Aran rolled his weight onto the balls of his feet and considered how to answer. Maybe the goblin was a quest-giver of some kind, though there weren’t many clues. Feyland was surprisingly scarce with the information given out to players. He supposed it was part of the immersive appeal, but most games provided at least a sense of the basics, if not full-on tutorials. This kind of confusing approach wasn’t going to fly with a lot of casual gamers. What had VirtuMax been thinking?
The goblin tapped his ugly fingers, but gave no sign that he was planning to get violent.
“Hello,” Aran said at last, bracing himself.
“Ah! It speaks.” The goblin sneered at him. “What do you seek, Eron the Adventurer?”
A chill gripped the back of Aran’s neck. “What did you call me?”
That was freaky. Sure, maybe he’d misspelled his usual avatar name, keying in Eron instead of Ebon. It still sounded uncomfortably close to his real name. Was Spark playing a practical joke on him?
“You seek to explore beyond the framework of Feyland,” the goblin said, ignoring his question. “We can aid you.”
Aran blinked. The conversation had just gone completely surreal. He was not having a chat with a character in-game about how to hack the game. No way.
“Aren’t you supposed to give me a quest or something?” he asked.
“I offer you a way into the Realm. Into the world that lies beyond this one.” The goblin waved his clawed hand at the cottage and peaceful meadow. “Do you accept?”
The wind stilled, the singing of birds muted. Aran’s heartbeat sounded loud in his ears. For some reason, the question felt way more important than a simple step in a game.
“I do,” he said. The words rang out like the clang of bells, hanging in the air, and he flinched.
“Good.” The goblin bared his sharp teeth. “At the dark of the moon we will come and show you the way. Be ready, mortal. Midnight approaches.”
Before Aran could say anything, the goblin disappeared. The wind went back to ruffling the grasses, and birds chirped merrily at the edge of the forest. Lungs tight, Aran made himself take a deep breath. That had been the weirdest gameplay he’d ever experienced.
And he still hadn’t cracked a single line of Feyland’s code.
Desperation edging his thoughts, he called up the keyboard interface and entered every possible hack he could think of. Nothing—not even that weird flicker he’d gotten earlier. It was as if the game was built on some kind of entirely new operating system, configured in ways he couldn’t quite grasp.