CHAPTER ONE - Open for Business

So, there were a couple of issues to address.

First, he had just trapped over nineteen thousand people inside of his video game. That was the big one, right there: the sort of thing that would, best-case scenario, land him in a federal penitentiary for the rest of his life. Though, maybe he could plead insanity, get admitted to a nice asylum. After all, what sane man would forget to test the logout button before handing his game out to beta testers?

Second item on the list — he had somehow lost his admin privileges when he logged in to save the day. Now he was a level-one scrub just like the other players, rocking a username that very clearly marked him as the developer. That was a pretty nasty combo meal to say the least.

And lastly, there was the tiny, very insignificant issue of the player's headsets exploding when their characters died. Viciously combusting, to be more accurate. And if anyone tried to take a player's helmet off before they could perform a clean logout, it would scramble said player's brains like eggs via a magnetically induced mega stroke.

In conclusion, reviews probably wouldn't be too great.

"Think, Cody, think," he mumbled, pacing back and forth in the alleyway. "How do you get yourself out of this mess?"

His mind tried to dig for solutions, but the chatter of a very large and very confused crowd in the nearby square made it difficult to concentrate. Understandably, the players were upset. They'd probably be even more upset if they knew that dying in the game would light their heads on fire in real life.

That was precisely why Cody didn't intend on sharing that bit of information with them. Not yet, at least.

The beginnings of a plan began to form in his head, and step one involved a quick trip to a merchant NPC to purchase a cowl. A cowl was a level-one clothing item that kept a player's username hidden — a thing that would come in very handy for him lest he wanted to become the victim of a lynch mob.

Sure, he was in a non-PVP area right now, but that was bound to change sooner or later. And since he'd made the mistake of wearing the same homicidal headset that the other players were wearing, dying didn't sound like too great an idea.

"Right, cowl it is."

He shot off down the alleyway, relying on the map in the corner of his vision to guide him to the marketplace. Odes was a veritable monster of a starter city, and he still couldn't navigate it by memory despite having toured it enough to qualify for citizenship. Thousands of cobbled alleys and streets twisted through the labyrinth of whitewashed buildings stowed within its walls, all carefully designed by the hands of the Architect — an artificial intelligence he delegated the burden of building and structuring cities to.

To make navigation even more challenging, it was a living city: the first one ever put into an MMORPG. Every house had a resident, often even an entire family living within it, and they didn't just stand in place all day. Great throngs of them were around every corner, shuffling in and out of buildings, checking items off their daily checklists. Pretty immersive stuff. Also pretty annoying stuff when a guy was in a rush.

Fifteen minutes of running until his stamina was exhausted, resting, then running again landed him in the marketplace of Odes. It was a large and terribly crowded area, stuffed beyond capacity with stands and shops and legions of NPCs engaged in convincing conversations about trade.

Cody walked up to one of the innumerable armor and weapon merchants seated at a shabby stall — a fat man with a curly mustache that ran past the ends of his face. All the NPCs looked different, and that was another one of his works of genius. Random appearances, random voices, random mannerisms, random everything. Really made them convincing.

"Show me your goods, merchant."

"Here you are, sir — our prices," the merchant replied.

A menu appeared before Cody, detailing the dozens of items the man had in store. Every player started with one hundred talons, and that proved to be just enough for him to purchase a cowl, a sword, and a shield.

[The following items have been added to your inventory:

+ 1 [Cloth Cowl] - common headgear, LVL 1

+ 1 [Iron Sword] - common medium weapon, LVL 1

+ 1 [Iron Shield] - common shield, LVL 1]

Cody equipped the cowl, sending his username into hiding. No more ADMIN_UberCody for him, no sir; he was incognito from this point onward. He equipped the sword and shield as well, and they materialized on his person, looking very shoddy and level one-ish.

"That's step one out of the way. No mob justice for this guy."

Step two was a bit of a rough one: find out a way to let people know what was going on with their headsets. The only reason he knew was because of a phone call from his very upset legal team, so the players wouldn't stand a chance of figuring it out on their own. And when a player died and didn't respawn, they might even get to thinking that death is a safe way to log out.

Clearly he was working on a timer. Best to spread the news while most of them were still paralyzed with fear. But how did you pass information to twenty thousand people without a megaphone or a legion of messenger pigeons?

The answer hit him like a sledgehammer: guild chat.

When he designed Gates Online, he never added in a global chatroom. The fact was, with so many people on the same server, the thing would have been flooded at every second with crass jokes, racial slurs, and crass jokes utilizing racial slurs. Not exactly a useful feature. What he did add, however, was individual chatrooms for parties and guilds — ways to let smaller numbers of allied people talk over distances.

If he formed a guild, he could send a message to up to one hundred people simultaneously. That meant one hundred messengers to spread the news and potentially more if any of them formed their own guilds.

The only problem was: to form a guild, he'd have to reach level ten. And since the quickest way to do that was through some solo grinding, he'd have to take on monsters all alone. Hardly a pleasant thought when death was on the table.

But was there any alternative?

Cody broke out into a sprint, pushing aside any NPCs who happened to get in his way. Delay was a luxury he couldn't afford; every minute brought the chance that a player would unknowingly stumble his way into cooking his own brain. Human lives were at stake here.

The Everwoods was his destination, and he had no need of a map to find his way there. It encircled the great walls of Odes, so any player who left the city would immediately find himself within its boundaries.

It was a miserable hour of running before he made it to the main gates. The headset was capable of simulating exhaustion and pain, and it did it to a superlative degree, making Cody feel a nasty stitch in his side every time his stamina bar hit empty. Polls had clearly shown that the playerbase would find such a feature irritating and disagreeable, but he had kept it in anyhow. He was already regretting that decision.

The gates might have been called colossal, but even that word didn't do them justice. They were as tall as the walls themselves, wooden behemoths that rose an impressive five hundred feet into the air and spanned a width that would've taken over a minute to run across. At all hours they remained open, and any monsters that wandered out of the Everwoods were kept from passing through them by dozens of armored NPCs.

One of the NPCs bore a yellow exclamation point over his head — a very conspicuous indicator that he was a quest-giver. Cody had toyed with other ways to lead users to quests, but a guy just couldn't beat the classics.

All seven worlds of Gates Online were filled with such NPCs, each handing out quests created by the Writer — another AI that Cody had created to avoid the hassle of programming a million quests. It dealt with balancing goals and rewards and making compelling plots entirely without his interference. This particular quest, however, was one of his own numbers, created to give new players a purpose before they marched aimlessly into the Everwoods.

"State your quest, soldier."

The soldier met his gaze with a steely one of his own. "The king seeks a brave soul to help vanquish the — "

"Skip."

" — evil monsters that dwell within the Everwoods. If you believe yourself up to — "

Cody frowned. "Skip."

" — the task, then voyage beyond the gates and retrieve the heads of twenty — "

"Skip!"

" — woodlings. After doing so, bring them to me, and I shall reward you on behalf of — "

"Skip, damn it!"

" — His Majesty. What say you, adventurer?"

Cody sighed. In his private testing sessions, the skip feature worked just fine. As to why it would be screwing up now, he didn't have the slightest idea. Just another bug in the hive.

[You have been offered the quest: [Woodling Slayer - LVL 1]

Goal:

- Bring x20 [Lesser Woodling Head] to the soldier.

Reward:

- 200 EXP

- x50 talons

- x1 [Heroic Deed]

Would you like to accept this quest?]

"Yeah, sure. Accept."

He banished the resulting notification and ran down the road beyond the gates. Had he been a regular player, he might have looked up in wonder at the many species of tree that surrounded him. He might have approached one of their numbers and tried to puzzle out if a bus could drive through its trunk or not, or if it was taller than the walls of Odes, or if it actually felt and smelled like a real tree.

Or maybe he might have investigated some of the colorful plants that decorated the forest floor, wondering if any were rare herbs that could be used in alchemy. Maybe he might have played with the alien insects and watched the hundreds of strange critters run and perch on low-hanging limbs, questioning whether they had any level of sentience programmed into them.

The answer to all of those questions was yes, but as it was, he'd seen this stuff just a few too many times to care.

The dirt road leading from Odes was as straight as an arrow and half as wide as the gates, but hundreds of smaller, rougher, and twistier paths shot from it, running miles into the thick of the deep and vibrant Everwoods. Those were the ones a player should go down if he were looking for woodlings or any of the other dozens of breed of weak monster like them.

A knot built in Cody's stomach as he took a random path. During alpha testing, he'd fought just about every creature in the game, but that was usually with invincibility enabled and never with a headset that doubled as a bomb. Things were a little different now.

He drew his blade and shield, felt their weight in his simulated hands as though it were real. Cowardice was, regretfully, not an option he could choose at this point. Not with everything that was at risk.

Soon he gained sight of his target — a few woodlings lurking around the site of a wrecked carriage. Given the server's young age, the carriage was likely just a prop generated by one of the programs in charge of filling up empty areas. NPCs traveled in them pretty regularly, but they could never have managed to make it from another city to the outskirts of Odes in just the few hours that the game had been up.

Cody worked to still his shaking hands. There were three woodlings in total — hardly a threat to even a poorly-equipped, level-one player like himself. They were the lowest of the low when it came to creatures, nothing more than toddler-sized goblinoids with dull shivs and rags for clothes. It served him right if they did him in.

He crept behind them as stealthily as possible, but without any perks assisting him, he was painfully noisy. Fortunately, however, they were preoccupied with looting the carriage, so he managed to get within slicing range of one of them and deliver the first blow.

His blade fell like lightning, piercing the neck of the sniveling creature like a nail would foam, reducing it to a gurgling corpse.

[You have defeated [Lesser Woodling]

+10 EXP]

Muscle memory purged the fear from his mind. He turned to the nearest of the remaining two quicker than the crack of a whip, readying himself for combat.

The woodling ran forward, dagger clutched in its tiny hand, not so dissimilar to a child running around the house with scissors. Cody shielded his vitals and lunged forward as it came near, making a handsome jab that pushed his sword through its chest, ending its life in an instant.

Luck kept him safe as he spun around to face the last of his foes. His shield blocked the creature's puny strike, and he came down upon it with a stab, running the full length of his blade through its collar. Another quick death for woodling kind.

The experience bar at the top of his vision grew a little fuller.

[Level 1 - 30 / 500 EXP]

It was about as easy as he remembered. Later, he'd have to deal with all sorts of craziness like stone giants and sea serpents, but it was baby steps for now. Getting used to the whole "life or death" thing was a process that really shouldn't be rushed, he felt.

He looted the three woodlings.

[The following items have been added to your inventory:

+ 8 talons

+ 2 [Lesser Woodling Head] - quest item]

Three woodlings, but only two heads. He remembered making the choice to follow that idiotic MMORPG trend — the one that left you unable to loot something from an enemy's body despite it clearly being there. The main reason was to draw out the game. A developer didn't want a guy getting through his storyline too quickly, after all.

Unfortunately, deadlines had prevented him from getting rid of that nonsense.

He carried on down the dirt path for a while, pressing through dense seas of shrubbery and green with all their simulated itchiness. After passing between two trees, he came upon a glade occupied by a small camp of woodlings. They numbered just eleven, and most of them were a good distance apart from one another, occupying themselves with whatever primitive activities they felt needed doing — skinning animals, crafting crude weapons, rummaging through their stores of garbage.

It seemed a good opportunity to rack up some woodling heads. It also seemed pretty risky. The little devils would have to land a dozen or so hits on him to bring his health to zero, but still — if they swarmed him, they might just manage it.

He moved forward, but before he could begin his assault, the woods beyond the camp burst open, and a creature's limp body came flying out of the tall foliage as though a catapult had launched it. The woodlings let loose shrill, awful screams and dispersed, running from their campsite in fear as it slid across the earth, flattening their tents and goring one of them with its jagged tusks. Thankfully, none of them ran in his direction.

"Jesus . . . "

Cody stayed still, eyeing the beast from the cover of the underbrush. Its injuries were significant: several puncture wounds the size of a fist had been poked into its furry chest. Its health bar was just about empty; whatever life the thing still had in it was infinitesimal — another few breaths, maybe, before it bled out.

[Tuskbear - LVL 10]

A tuskbear. Those things were programmed to remain a good bit further into the Everwoods to prevent new players from being massacred as soon as they came out the gates. Why one of them would be so close to Odes, he couldn't imagine. His best guess was that one of its brethren had engaged it in a fight, and this one fled just a little too far from home while trying to get away. It was pretty improbable, but definitely possible.

Cody let out a long-held breath. If he was quick, he could turn this into an opportunity. A tuskbear had valuable drops, and it would net him enough EXP to level up, saving precious time. All he had to do was finish it off before blood loss or the other tuskbear did.

He ran at the beast, reaching it just as its health bar neared empty, and slashed a shallow cut into its neck. It died without so much as a noise, and a few exciting notifications came to life before him. Unfortunately, a more pressing matter demanded his attention.

To be more precise, a giant, bipedal tree man appeared and nearly made him wet his trousers.

"Oh, no — no, no, no." Cody took a few steps backwards, looking up at the massive thing. "You are most certainly not supposed to be here."

[Elderspawn - LVL ???]

It was an unequivocally true statement. Elderspawn were meant to remain in the Primordial Forest near the end of this world — the toughest foes the players would face before taking on the gate guardian. The three question marks signified that the monster was at least ten levels higher than he was, but as Cody was the one who designed the thing, he knew its exact level: sixteen. He also knew that a single hit from a level sixteen creature would reduce him to the state informally, officially, and legally referred to as dead.

He turned and ran.

Elderspawn were slow, but their attacks had a sufficiently long range to make up for it. Cody watched the ground beneath him, saw the roots creeping across the earth like tendrils, snaking after him. If one of them grabbed his leg or tripped him, he was done for. His only chance was to make it back to Odes. The soldiers guarding the gates were level twenty, so they would make short work of his adversary. If he got back on the path, though, he would be cut off. No, he would have to take a shortcut through the tangled underbrush.

Thorns and jagged branches cut into him as he darted into the thick of the woods, setting himself in what he hoped was a straight line to the gates. He watched as his stamina bar was rapidly drained by his breakneck pace, then opened his character menu when it grew close to empty.

[You have reached Level 2

+ 10 Attribute Points

+ 2 Class Points]

Cody dismissed the notification and navigated to his stats, almost slamming into a tree as he did so.

[Character Attributes

* 10 Attribute Points to spend

:: Might - 0

:: Agility - 0

:: Intellect - 0

:: Vigor - 0

:: Breath - 0

:: Spirit - 0]

He dumped all ten points into Breath, and his stamina bar jumped back up to half of its capacity. The Elderspawn's roots still crept beneath him, but they didn't have the speed to snag his feet as he hopped and zigzagged through the forest.

His stamina was nearly drained again by the time he came out of the underbrush. The gates of Odes became visible once more — the finish line to his race against death. Just a little further, and the nice soldiers would begin hacking away at the mean tree man.

A root shot up from the ground, its end as sharp as a blade. Cody darted out of the way and kept his pace, one foot in front of the other, kicking against the dirt to gain every bit of speed his virtual body could give him. The headset allowed him to feel his simulated heart beat in his chest like a drummer during a solo, and he wagered that his real heart was being similarly overworked.

When Cody came within thirty feet of the gate, his stamina bar was fully depleted. What little distance he had gained on the elderspawn was quickly eliminated as he slowed to a hobble and its gnarled roots slithered in to seize him.

Before he could suffer a miserable death at the branches of an evil tree, however, a bug finally worked in his favor.

A dozen of the soldiers sprung into action, charging from the gate to confront the elderspawn, shimmering swords poised to strike beside their decorated shields. That they would stray so far from their post was most certainly prohibited in their programming, but at this point, Cody was willing to admit that: yes, he very well might have made a mistake when coding them.

In some undesigned recognition of impending danger, the elderspawn made a sudden change of targets. Its roots crept away from Cody and moved toward the approaching soldiers who sliced them apart with all the ease that is granted by a gap of four levels. Cody watched the soldiers dismember the monster until his own stamina had regenerated enough to allow him to make a very daring move.

He ran around to the side of the elderspawn and made a quick slash at its legs with his sword. Its rough bark didn't even suffer a scratch, but it was enough for him to get credit for the kill. Whatever work NPCs did was irrelevant in Gates Online; it was the player's input that mattered. Sure, that logic allowed for players to pull the stunt that he'd just pulled, but that was the fun of it. Let a player think he's abusing your game's rules, and he won't want to stop playing.

Luckily, the elderspawn was too busy getting beat on and paid a mosquito like him no mind. It died just a few moments later, unable to fend off the great number of higher-leveled soldiers hacking away at it like overzealous lumberjacks. Its enormous body crashed into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust on the dirt road. Not a second later, the guards sheathed their swords and turned around to retake their posts at the gates as though the battle had been as insignificant as a cup of tea.

"Suck it, tree man," Cody yelled. "That's what happens when you leave your zone!"

He turned his attention to the notifications that had been piling up in the corner of his vision.

[You have defeated [Tuskbear]

+ 500 EXP

+ 1 [Tuskbear Fur] - uncommon crafting item]

[You have defeated [Elderspawn]

+ 3,000 EXP

+ 1 [Primordial Root] - rare crafting item]

[You have reached Level 3

+ 5 Attribute Points

+ 1 Class Point]

[You have reached Level 4

+ 5 Attribute Points

+ 1 Class Point]

[You have reached Level 5

+ 10 Attribute Points

+ 2 Class Points]

It was a solid haul considering it was gained entirely through kill-stealing. He mentally patted himself on the back for not adding in some miserable feature that would have denied him the spoils from slaying a higher-leveled monster. Any developer who did that clearly had issues with their players being clever.

"Level five in just a couple of hours — not bad. At this rate, I might be able to get a guild going before I become the world's most prolific accidental mass murder."

Cody smiled and turned toward Odes. He figured he'd think over which class he'd choose and how he'd spend his attribute points on the way to the marketplace. The crafting goods would net him a few talons, get him out of the peasant gear he was wearing so he could get in a scuffle without getting instakilled.

His smile faded as he approached the gates.

"Well, there goes that plan."

Just beyond the line of soldiers stood a group of players, all unarmed and all looking very eager to explore the world beyond the gates. Basically, it was a flock of suicidal sheep.

And Cody had to play the shepherd.

"Alright, brain — let's see what you can cook up."