My father stopped and his watch arm dropped. He just stood in the corner of the kitchen and stared at the floor. "Well, the pizza will be ready soon. We should leave in about 15 minutes."
He shuffled back towards the front room as I leaned on the counter. I clung to Sienna's idea of a daydream city. It was easy to picture Las Vegas. I always started with the Paris Casino, the faux Eiffel Tower was something I often teased Sienna about. From there, I pictured the Bellagio's dancing fountains and the Luxor's sleek black lines. I also loved the rollercoaster facade of New York, New York and the white columns of Caesar's Palace.
I focused in on the arcade at the MGM Grand. Beyond the normal kid games, they had interactive and full-sized gaming consoles where you could actually feel like you were inside the game. I wanted to step inside on
e and let everything else fade away.
Still, my daydream was not holding. Sienna was right. Tonight, Las Vegas was not far enough away, and I had 15 minutes to escape. I put my head on my arms as I leaned on the counter and tried again.
This time my daydream city was a foreign land. Dark plains that held pockets of fog, black granite cliffs that jutted up before shadowy mountains, dim forest glens and silent stands of towering pine trees.
I had enough time to at least cue up Dark Flag and take a look around. I headed downstairs to the basement. There, I brushed aside the items Owen had returned and settled in on the worn leather sofa. Our widescreen television buzzed to life on the home screen of the video game, and I quickly booted up my character.
Dark Flag was the perfect daydream city. Sienna would have scoffed at it, but it made sense to me. She planned trips to Paris in her head, and I was jumping into the virtual rendering of the place I wanted to escape to. The game started with a dark screen full of black thunderclouds. Lightning flashed across the screen and the surround sound exploded. The game then dropped you through the thunderstorm and deposited you on the starting grid, a rainy road outside the walls of a looming city.
I thought for a moment about entering the city walls. It was easy to wander around there and people watch. The multiplayer online game attracted millions of people from around the globe. Walking through the virtual city was what a lot of new players did. It was a chance to see what other people had done with their avatars. You could also purchase weapons, charms, and spells, instead of earning them in the field. Or you could head to one of the many taverns and interact with other avatars, as Owen had explained.
I turned away from the city. The whole point of my daydream was to escape from people, even virtual people. I knew Owen had been playing the Black Fields with his clan, so I turned in the opposite direction. I had never been inside the Pitch Forest, and I had just enough time to explore before my father expected me to join him in the car.
The Pitch Forest was a massive landscape of huge pine trees and redwoods. My human avatar was tiny in comparison. The animation was amazing, and for a while, I was perfectly content to look around and admire the quality of the game. Here and there the trees had carvings on them – signs from other players about which way the wayside inn was located and where the ogre caves could be found. The players themselves had created an entire language of symbols that I had just begun to unlock.
"My next victim," an underling player said.
All new players to Dark Flag started off as underlings. The lower evolved humans scuttled along on hands and feet like hairless dogs. Players stayed in that form until they fought others and earned their evolution. Dark Flag did not make it easy to sit down and start playing.
It had taken me three days to evolve into an avatar I wanted to play. "Wrong, newbie," I said.
The underling jumped at me and I knocked it back with an easy sequence. I could have killed it, causing the other player to have to wait an hour before rejoining the game, but the hand-to-hand combat was a good distraction.
The underling found its footing again and picked up a rock. "I'm not helpless," it said.
"You're not smart either," I sent my avatar forward with a sharp kick.
The rock slipped out of the underling’s hand and we grappled again. Underlings used teeth and nails to fight, but my leather jacket and pants, purchased in Black Wall City, kept me safe. I punched it back and we circled around again.
Just when I thought it was going to attack again, the underling spotted a Green Elf and decided to go after easier prey than me.
All in all, it was five minutes of distraction. I still had enough time to wander to the high cliffs and look down on the Black Fields, or I could finally accept a quest and start playing the game in earnest.
The redwood tree nearest me had a carving of a sideways “S.” The symbol meant a Soothsayer was near. Soothsayers could be fought for Fate spells. Or, if you found them and asked, they would assign you a quest.
I searched amongst the tall trees for the telltale glow of a Soothsayer's trail. Their footprints glittered before fading, and after a quick search, I found some that still sparkled. I followed the trail until the Soothsayer appeared.
"Will you fight for your Fate, human?" it asked me.
"I wish a quest," I said. I knelt in front of the Soothsayer. The first time I had encountered one, I did not kneel, and it knocked me out for 10 minutes for being rude.
"Your quest will not be easy. It is far beyond the Black Fields, far beyond the capability of a mere human," the Soothsayer said.
"I want to try."
"Then you must travel far and find the warlock that will lead the Southern clan. He holds a Portal Key. Use that key to enter the dragon's cave. It has been too long since it flew. The Black Fields must be scorched, you must release the dragon," the Soothsayer said.
The game was evolving based on the players that dominated. The creators had certain ways of leveling the playing field, such as plagues, natural disasters, and dragons. It was my quest to activate one of those levelers. That also meant I had the power to warn people or lure them to the Black Fields and eliminate my enemies.
My first instinct was to find Owen and tell him about my quest, but before I could leave the Pitch Forest, I was stopped by another player. The Green Witch was unnaturally voluptuous, as most female avatars were. Her iridescent green dress clung hard to her curvaceous frame, and even as she spoke to me, her avatar struck several sexy poses.
"Don't go that way. Clansmen are all over the trail. It’s not safe," the Green Witch said. "Unless you have something to trade."