CHAPTER 7

  Hidden Influence

  After the complete disaster with Patrick and Marisol, Bash was directed to the attached bathhouse. The water was hot, the soap was rough, and some dev had clearly dedicated their career to the noble cause of coding a bath.

  “Ah, yes, what a range,” Bash muttered, “yesterday I was a human pi?ata, today I'm at a spa.” The warmth felt terrific, but it also bothered him. The same engine that made this hot tub perfect was the one that rendered all the pain and suffering. Comfort and carnage from the same code base.

  As he soaked, a message blinked into existence at the edge of his vision, faint but insistent in its buzzing. Bash tried to ignore it the way you might overlook a gnat, but the more he looked away, the more it grew. The Shard loved shoving things in your face at the worst possible time.

  “Oh, good, spam mail from hell,” he muttered. “What’s next, car warranty alerts?”

  He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The reply button was greyed out, with an error staring back at him.

  The text faded, leaving a ghost of itself behind. Right. Stuck in digital hell with no customer service. Despite his best attempt, the message nagged at him. Someone in this Shard knew he existed, and he needed to figure out how.

  The bathhouse walls suddenly felt a lot closer.

  Dragging himself out of the heavenly water, Bash reluctantly put back on the same musty outfit from before.

  Feeling just as gross as before the bath, he headed out into the village.

  Smoke still curled faintly from a few of the collapsed buildings, but the center of Old Village was mostly cleared with rebuilding in progress. Children fetched water, men carried planks, and women scrubbed soot and blood from stones. Life, or the simulation of it, persisted.

  Some villagers, the Uploads, real people, treated him the same way you would a cop holding a speed gun. Some ducked their heads fast while others didn’t bother hiding the hatred. Their eyes were heavy, bloodshot, carved with sleepless grief. Every glare was an accusation. Murderer.

  Bash shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, muttering under his breath as he continued to watch. “Just your friendly neighborhood player. Nothing to see here.” But the stares followed anyway, clinging to him like ash.

  And then there were the others. The more obviously scripted shopkeepers and guards, whose cheer was too bright. “Welcome, hero!” “Our savior returns!” They practically glowed with canned enthusiasm.

  The difference between the two was stark. Half of the town was grieving and soot-covered, while the other was your typical NPCs. The contrast was as stark as a split screen.

  And through it all, he felt the weight of that unanswered message.

  Opening notifications, he triggered Investigator, trying to peer between the seams. The text was still there, just... different now. Broken into layers.

  Bash watched as strings of metadata drifted behind the words.

  He frowned. That last line blinked faintly in red, some kind of system glitch.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Null Entity,” Bash said quietly, testing the words. Yes... a perfect fit.

  It explained why he couldn’t reply, and why Patrick and Marisol could talk to him so openly. The system itself didn’t know what he was. Not a valid player, but not a standard uploaded entity either. He existed somewhere in between.

  The message blinked once, and another one overlaid itself, arriving in real time.

  Metadata surged with it. Bash’s lips curled into a tight smile, his eyes wrinkled in concern. This other player, Maximus, had somehow logged his presence.

  “Well, crap.” he muttered. But if Maximus could find him, there must be a trail going the other way. Something in this village that connected back to whoever this guy was. Bash kept walking, Investigator ticking quietly in the background, scanning storefronts and faces and anything that didn't fit the script.

  The two halves of the village continued to clash in his mind. Grief and code, humanity and script. He could almost smell the seams in the system.

  Something caught his eye. Banners hung over a small temple. Not the faded cloth you’d see anywhere else in the village. These were crimson and gold, with a name stitched into them. ‘Temple of MAXIMUS.’

  Bash stopped. Was it really that easy? The word wasn’t just decoration. It was right there in the fabric.

  Walking up the steps, his boots made hollow sounds on the stone. Entering the front doors, Bash looked around.

  Inside was cooler. Sunlight came through in dusty beams, and a priestess stood near the altar. Her robes were ornate, way too elaborate for a backwater village, shimmering with borrowed textures. She smiled warmly, too warmly.

  “Blessings of Maximus upon you,” she intoned, her voice a practiced hymn. “He who saved our world from the Great Devourer. He who struck down the false king. He who brings order to our world.”

  Bash’s stomach turned. Great Devourer? False king? He would bet anything those were the final bosses, endgame quests that elevated players who beat the game to some level of recognition. But a full-blown temple with your name was a lot more than endgame content.

  The priestess’s eyes gleamed unnaturally bright as she gestured toward the altar. A statue of a man in black armor towered there, sword raised high in one hand and what appeared to be a fireball floating above the other, with NPCs and, surprisingly, at least one or two uploaded entities kneeling at his feet.

  “Have you worshiped today, traveler?” she asked.

  Bash forced a laugh, though it came out brittle. “No, just thought my friend Maxi might be here, given all the branding.” Looking around he didn’t see anyone that matched the look of the man in the statue. “Um, do you know if he’s around?”

  The priestess looked confused and began to respond. She was interrupted as the temple doors banged open behind him. Two robed figures strode in, their faces hidden beneath deep hoods. Between them, they half-dragged a man whose feet scrambled uselessly against the stone floor.

  He was thin, gaunt even, with the hollow look of someone who hadn’t slept in days. His clothes were torn and dirt-caked, and his hands were bound in front of him with rough rope.

  Bash stepped to the side, pressing himself against a pillar as they passed by.

  The robed figures hauled the man to the front of the altar and shoved him down onto his knees. He hit the stone hard, a grunt of pain escaping his lips.

  “Pray,” one of the figures commanded. The voice was flat, mechanical. An NPC, Bash realized. But the man on his knees was not.

  Bash triggered Investigator, and the overlay flickered to life. The metadata bloomed across the kneeling figure in soft green light.

  An Upload. A real person. Being forced to his knees in front of a statue.

  Thomas’s lips moved, but no sound came out. His eyes were squeezed shut, tears cutting tracks through the grime on his face. The robed figures stood over him like statues themselves, waiting.

  “Louder,” the second figure said. “He must hear you.”

  Thomas’s voice cracked as he spoke, the words tumbling out in a desperate rush. “Blessed be Maximus, protector of the Shard. Blessed be his wisdom. Blessed be his strength. I submit to his will. I repent my absence. I beg his forgiveness.”

  The words sounded rehearsed. Beaten into him.

  One of the robed figures produced a small device, something that looked like a tally counter. It clicked once, registering the prayer. Then, without ceremony, they turned and walked back toward the doors, leaving Thomas crumpled on the floor.

  Thomas stayed on his knees for a long moment, shoulders shaking. Then, slowly, painfully, he pushed himself to his feet and shuffled toward a pew in the back, head bowed.

  Bash’s mouth had gone dry. What the actual fuck?

  The priestess turned back to Bash, her smile unchanged, having forgotten his earlier question. “Will you be staying for evening prayers, traveler? Maximus rewards the faithful.”

  Bash stared at her. At the statue. At Thomas’s hunched form in the back pew.

  “Uh… maybe next time,” he managed. His voice sounded strange in his own ears. “Got a prior commitment.”

  He backed away several steps slowing, then turned and walked quickly toward the doors, forcing himself not to run. His skin crawled with the weight of unseen eyes.

  Outside, the banners fluttered in the wind. MAXIMUS. And beneath the name, smaller words Bash hadn’t noticed before.

  Savior. God.