Ghost Code: Wildebyte Arcades, #3

By Tiamo Pastoor

The game Lumbrjax is constantly updated in silly ways. One such update endangers the lives of all the characters. Trapped in a dark forest, Wildebyte must uncover the secret behind a ghost story and repair the game, in exchange for another Lost Memory.

 

About the Series: the Wildebyte Arcades is an episodic series. This means the books can be read in any order! Each is a standalone adventure inside another type of video game. The books are short and for all ages, though primarily aimed at younger audiences.

 

About the Author: Tiamo Pastoor is a Dutch-English writer and game developer. Combining the two passions into stories happening inside video games, while sneakily teaching how games work behind the scenes, seemed like a great idea. He is best known for the fantasy short stories from "The Saga of Life", a free online website with fantasy and sci-fi short stories about human history.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tiamo Pastoor
• Release date: May 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224177813

Book preview

Design Lesson Hidden

The Tree of Life

The dark forest shows a distant light that illuminates a tree far larger than any other. I try to discover what my new body looks like, but the darkness hides everything. Well, I assume I’m a lumberjack, as the game is called Lumbrjax, but—

A chill runs down my spine.

What is that noise? Where does it come from? It sounds like … singing. A melody. Not the fun and joyful kind, no, the sad and ghostly kind.

There’s nowhere else to go except that tiny distant light. No stars or clouds travel overhead. Looking up, I see no sky, only the game border with its snake-like electric lines.

As I near the light on the horizon, unfortunately, I realize that’s the exact origin of the haunting sound.

Within four steps I stumble over branches and hit a tree trunk I didn’t see coming. I decide to walk more slowly, arms stretched out before me like feelers.

Broken buttons. My arms are long and thick. It feels surreal after being a tiny boy in the previous game for so long, as if I suddenly evolved. And am I … missing a finger?

Light rays illuminate my area now, but it still doesn’t help visibility. The air is thick with a white fog and I shiver as I walk through it.

Doing so suddenly snaps me into the game. My walking becomes teleporting. My hands start to glow, as they itch to grab an axe and start chopping a few trees. This shows me that I indeed miss my real middle finger, replaced by a wooden finger.

I try to reach into my code, see if I still have some control over it, but am unable to do so. All I can read inside myself are some words with numbers attached. Trust. Attack Power. Deceit. Magic. Love.

I smile when I see some very high numbers in there. I am apparently the master of Love and Magic, thank you very much.

Finally, I can see enough to pick up my pace. This game is really just a forest, infinitely large in all directions, with no building or other biome in sight.

Almost there. There’s no fire, lantern or lightbulb—the light comes from the tree itself. Characters surround it, standing in a circle, with hands clasped. They are the ones singing.

Until the melody suddenly stops, right when my footsteps loudly break a twig. They don’t seem to notice. Only a few trees separate me and the darkness from the others.

One of them, a young boy with a frame even thicker than the tree, teleports forward. They hold a light brown log that’s much too heavy for them. Right when I’m afraid they’ll fall over, the log starts glowing as well and is consumed by the tree. As if the log suddenly turned to smoke and the big tree inhaled that.

May the Tree of Life accept my sacrifice, the boy mumbles with eyes closed. May I live another thousand cycles with the strength of giants, as my name is Hackal.

A tattoo appears on the boy’s right arm. It only contained one line before, but now his whole forearm is filled with rectangles, like a bar code or a … health bar?

In fact, all the characters have their sleeves rolled up. Some have only one tiny rectangle left, others a bit more than that. But all of them seem eager to sacrifice their own log to this tree and reset the tattoo.

Apunza? a beautiful young woman says. She uses her own log as a walking stick. Or, rather, teleporting stick. She pushes it into the ground, then teleports to the other side of it, picks it up again, and repeats the process.

Despite her complicated royal clothing, she also sports rolled-up sleeves and a tattoo that needs recharging. Tiny flames erupt from her fingers as she realizes Apunza isn’t here.

What’s wrong, Cindra? I thought Apunza already did her sacrifice to Dev? the young boy says, helping the woman back once she lost her walking stick.

No! No! She should be here. She should have been the first! The woman shakes her head, which creates a few more sparks around her. So little time left.

A man with muscular arms, thick as the three logs he carries, steps into the light. I’ll go look for her.

He suddenly runs off, shouting Apunza until it echoes from all directions. No, I expected him to run, but instead he also does this weird teleport-around-a-tree movement.

So I dodge too late and he bumps into me.

Who—who are you?

I step into the light, finally noticing my own body. I am a middle-aged woman, very short but stout, my arm muscles refusing to be outshone by that of the confused man before me. I … am … Brumhilda?

Sounds like a lumberjack name. Or whatever a female lumberjack is called. Lumberjill?

His eyes go wide. "Brumhilda? Did you say Brumhilda?"

I don’t understand the surprise. That’s a perfectly normal name, thank you very much.

"Well, then, help me search for Apunza! She cannot be late."

The implications are clear. If she’s too late, if she doesn’t touch the Tree of Life and mumble some words, something bad is going to happen. But I can’t ask what, or they’ll know I’m the Wildebyte.

Yes, I say, slowly. "And it would be terrible if she were late."

Terrible, indeed.

Because then she … as you call it …

The man receives a torch and drags me into the darkness. An axe, sharp as a ninja’s sword and bigger than my head, is attached to his back with worn-out straps. We teleport in a straight line for what feels like a minute, until we suddenly make a sharp turn.

Do these people have a map of the forest in their head? To me it’s just trees! Trees everywhere!

After another sharp turn, we find Apunza. We find her by the glint of her axe in the faint light of fireflies, as she tries to bring down a birch tree. A young woman with clothes that camouflage her against the forest backdrop, sweat running down her forehead. Her exceptionally long hair is draped around her like the worlds biggest snake.

Her forearms are hidden in cotton sleeves.

After one cut, her tree suddenly drops. It doesn’t fall sideways, it doesn’t bend, it drops vertically. As if it lost its legs.

A branch almost hits her on the head, but she dodges out of the way to start cutting from the other side. She repeats this cycle, nearly getting hit in the head, time and time again, until most of the tree has turned into logs.

Apunza! Jack exclaims. Has a tree fallen on your head!? Come! Come now!

Oh Jack, stop shaking the wrong tree. I am fine, I—

Without a warning, without so much as an animation or sound effect, Apunza is gone. Plucked from this game, from this world, as if she were never there. All that’s left is a white mist that quickly evaporates. As if she turned into a ghost—or a ghost took her.

Jack runs his hands through his hair as he falls to his knees. I stand awkwardly beside him. My wooden finger reaches out to the area she just left, trying to feel if she’s still there. Some pieces of code labeled Apunza pass me by, but they’re swiftly moved to some other place. A place I cannot find or access.

I … I’m sorry, I mumble.

Not your fault, Brumhilda. You didn’t burn this log.

I’m still taken aback, but Jack seems over it rather quickly. Maybe the programmers didn’t add emotions? I didn’t see a word like Sadness when looking inside my own code.

He gets up, leaves plastered to his knees, then moves away. I slowly understand how to move by rotating around trees, but am still much slower than Jack.

As we return, the sun rises and rapidly turns the haunting forest into a beautiful, natural playground. The characters I saw earlier are climbing trees, expertly and gracefully. Within seconds, they’re able to hang many units above the ground, and even jump between trees. The closer we get to the Tree of Life, the more I realize how special it is.

It’s at least five times as thick as the other trees. There’s a small open space around it, as if no other tree dared grow closer to it. Whereas most of the forest is overgrown, shielding most of the sunlight, this part is not.

They even built wooden bridges, suspended in the air, to connect the Tree of Life with the surroundings. Because all of this is made from wood, they can mostly walk around normally up there, while they need to teleport between trees down here.

Jack and I are the only ones left standing on the ground. My neck hurts from looking up—in awe at the beautiful network they created through the trees.

But I’m not here to gawk or play some lumberjack game. I was hoping there’d be a Lost Memory for me. I was promised there was one, by the Memory Police. But where is it? And what will it look like? The only thing consistent for all my memories was a purple glow around them.

Oh curse the game gods. If it’s shaped like a tree, I will never find it! Otherwise, there are no buildings here to hide it. So why haven’t I found it yet?

Hey, Jack, quick question—

Suddenly, the Tree of Life withers. It loses all color and batches of leaves instantly drop to the ground.

Jack is frozen in place, unblinking, as he was turning towards me to listen to my question. He also loses his color.

I can still move, but barely. It’s hard, as if the air has become mud and my body fell asleep. Now the forest really looks like a place inhabited by ghosts.

What … is … happening …

Then the colors return.

The Tree of Life shines bright again. Jack blinks and finishes his movement. At first, everything seemed back to normal, until I notice that everything feels a little off.

Jack’s axe has changed colors. He didn’t finish his animation and even teleported to another location.

The game has a sky! White puffy clouds mix with the gray haze hanging over the forest at dawn.

The Tree of Life seems taller than before, though it’s hard to judge, as the clouds float very low. Its colored leaves have rearranged in a different pattern and the trunk has a carefully carved message.

Patch Notes (v1.74): Adds a sky to the game. Not just a visual upgrade! Characters cannot climb through it, which hopefully solves issues players were having with characters glitching and leaving the game world.

A much smaller message, like an afterthought, is carved below it.

(See the Book of Tales for the full history of updates to the game.)

It was an update! The developers updated this game.

Bunch of stiff planks! Jack curses. Updates, updates, updates. They must’ve already updated us a hundred times! Always at the worst possible moment …

He and I realize the problem at the same time.

Redhood? Hackal? Cindra? he yells into the sky. All the trees seem to have grown taller. The other characters aren’t visible anymore, the tree bridges dangling somewhere amidst white clouds. Come down! Can you come down?

A silhouette appears above the Tree of Life. It jumps—but doesn’t get very far. Almost immediately, they hit this new sky, as if the forest had an invisible ceiling. They can even walk over it, to a nearby tree.

Jack touches his temple. A comment from the developers appears. Those pieces of code only exist to help the humans creating the game; the computer ignores them completely. They seem to automatically attach to the closest character in the game world.

A speech bubble appears above his head as the comment is spelled out in the