Has anyone heard of a game called ‘Seven Swords?’ I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t. It came out during the early MMO craze when everyone and their mother was making an MMO and only lasted a short while before it crashed like so many others and the servers were shut down.
However, even though the player base was scarce even at its peak, I loved the game. Or rather, I guess I loved playing it with other people.
I have very fond memories of that summer- summer vacation, a time when you have more time on your hands than you would even know what to do with. There were the five of us- my older brother Malcolm, my friends Ian and George from school, and my cousins Alan and Mark who were staying with us over the summer for a while as their parents had run into financial trouble.
We would spend the days and nights mashing away at our keyboards- completing quest after quest in rapid succession. We were doing great in the game- and when summer vacation inevitably ended, we promised to come back to the game next year.
Though as it often turns out that promise was hollow. Ian ended up transferring schools, and till date I haven’t been able to find him despite trying. Malcolm was busy with college applications and had to work at his job that summer to help afford tuition. My cousins had moved back with their parents- and that just left George and I. George joined me the next year but quickly lost interest.
As for me- I didn’t hold out much longer either. Four weeks in and I realized that the only thing keeping me playing were the people I was playing with. I gave up on it too- and soon news came that the game was being shutdown. I though tit was a little sad at the time, though considering the player numbers it was not entirely unexpected.
Over the years since I’ve tried to get back into the MMO scene- though I could never really find myself sticking with an MMO for longer than two weeks at most. I’d have a host of complaints about each of them- which would all boil down to ‘this is not Seven Swords.’ In truth though, it boiled down to the fact that I would never get that free time and comradery from playing with my friends ever again.
Heck- I’ve only ever been in contact with my brother now, who has married and even has a kid. The others- I guess I could try reaching out to them now, but it seems pointless. What would we even talk about?
And so it was, until one day while I was checking through my email I saw it- an email from Seven Swords. Or at least, from the official account of Seven Swords. I was skeptical at first- but no, this was definitely their old verified email.
Seven Swords… was making a comeback? The servers were back up? The whole thing didn’t make sense, and honestly against my better judgement I ended up clicking on the link given there.
It occurred to me how dumb it was the moment I did this and I fully expected for my computer to crash from a virus, but lo and behold, a familiar loading screen greeted me. For a second I felt myself back in my old house during that summer so many years ago.
I was snapped out of it as I found I was logged back in as my old character- did they not want me to reenter my old password? It was really strange for something like this to happen and a possible security oversight.
But there I was, back in the starting zone of Seven Swords. And the first thing that popped out to me was- ‘Wow the graphics are a whole lot worse than I remember.’ Granted, they weren’t completely terrible, but after all these years it looked like the game had aged terribly.
My character was a Paladin, and I noticed an icon across my screen. It took a few minutes to get used to the old controls, but I opened it to see that I had a notification. ‘You have received a new quest!’
It took me a few moments to remember how quests worked but I got a hang of the old menu.
Oddly enough, there were no options to decline the quest, just to ‘accept’ it.
The quest also had a very strange name- ‘Treachery Will Condemn You To The Deepest Circle of Hell’
For one, the name was much, much longer than what usual quest names were like in game. They were usually two or three words like ‘The Dragon King III’ or ‘The Golden Chalice II’ and others along those lines.
Secondly was the use of the world ‘Hell’- the game did try to be kid friendly, and I wasn’t entirely sure if that kind of language was allowed on the server. I remember that Ian had been banned for 72 hours for typing in something deemed to be inappropriate in general chat, though I didn’t remember what it was that he had said. My memory was quite hazy after all these years.
I noticed several other odd things as well- the server was empty. I went through my old friend’s list- all of them showed ‘Last Seen 12 Years Ago’ or something along those lines.
I was beginning to be a bit weirded and creeped out by this, but I couldn’t really put a finger on why. Perhaps it was the same thing as with other ‘Liminal Spaces’ so to speak- you know, how some people get eerie feelings seeing abandoned malls, schools, and pools- spaces that are usually crowded, right?
I guess there was a similar feeling seeing an empty lobby devoid of the usual player traffic and a general chat with no message in it. I typed in ‘Anyone there?’ in the general chat and got no response.
But I think that there was another reason that I felt… odd while seeing this, even if I had not fully realized it yet. You see, I had changed the email I had used when I played Seven Swords (it was something dumb like chikm@gnet69) and the game had gone offline before I had changed it to my new one. It’s only now, looking back at this in hindsight that I realize this.
With nothing else to do, I accepted the quest and a popup came that said:
‘Thank you so much for taking my quest, adventurer. You see, two people- two people who I considered to be my friends snuck into my house one night and killed my child. I want revenge on them- your task is simple, find them, and kill them.’
The quest wasn’t too odd in terms of objective- ‘Go over there and kill those bandits’ was a quintessential kind of quest in Seven Swords. It was odd in that no NPC had given the quest- it just appeared as a letter. The column that would display the name of the NPC who had given out the quest was also just blank, another thing that never happened before while playing the game as per my recollection.
Oh well- I went to the location where I saw two bandits- with the generic ‘bandit sprite’ of Seven Swords, whom I killed with a single spell.
That was it. A ‘Quest Complete’ message flashed across my screen.
I just couldn’t help but go- Really? The tutorial took longer to complete than this quest.
Another message popped up. ‘Congratulations! You Are The First Player To Have Beaten Seven Swords!’
Again, this made no sense whatsoever. This was the final quest? This was the endgame for Seven Swords? There was no way that-
Another message popped up.
A Letter From The Developer:
Congratulations, Player! This is Gregory Flounders (but just call me Greg), one of the founders and developers of Seven Swords. Seven Swords was a project of great love for me- I spent countless hours on the project. Being Head Developed was more than just a job for me- it was my life for so long that it came as a huge shock when I came to know that the game was going to be over. I fought for another chance for Seven Swords to shine- but my co-founders didn’t think we had a chance and allowed us to be sold out to a company who later shut the game down. As part of the sale, I was given $3 million dollars for my share of the company, though I didn’t want a penny of it. What I wanted was another chance to say goodbye to my game- to complete the project that I had started so long ago. So thank you for completing the game and giving it the sendoff it deserves.
I am highly grateful for what you have done- and as a token of my gratitude, you can have the settlement money that I got. It’s all yours- simply-
I’m not going to go into details regarding the rest of the message and it is something that should remain classified for now- but basically I was given a location where a literal treasure chest was buried.
I was highly annoyed- even if this was real and not a prank, could he not have just given me the keys to a Bitcoin wallet?
Still, curiosity got the better of me and two days later I found myself driving to the location. It was a bit hard to follow, but my shovel seemed to have found its mark as two hours later I found myself holding a wooden box.
I opened it up- and then promptly screamed as I fell flat on my back.
Oh, the money was there. Later on, the police would confirm that all three million was in there.
But there were two other things in there as well- two human heads, having been preserved crudely with formaldehyde. Some of the cash had been stuffed into their mouths.
The police later identified them as belonging to Evan and Fredrick, two of the co-founders of Seven Swords. As per them, all three of the original co-founders, including Gregory, had vanished several years ago. It was well known that there was some bad blood between Gregory and the other two. As per the other staff of Seven Swords, Evan and Fredrick had sold the IP against Gregory’s wishes. The game had been hemorrhaging players, but Gregory wanted to tough it out while Evan and Fredrick had seen the writing on the wall.
Gregory was obviously the number one suspect- but he had not been seen in several years. Ultimately the case went nowhere- due to some weird legal loopholes since no one came to claim the cash in six months it was mine to keep but I had no desire to ever see it again.
I thought that was the end of it- until, yesterday, I saw something odd under my desk. It was a tiny wireless microphone- one that i had most certainly not put there.
I’ve realized with a chill- that Gregory, wherever he is, has been spying on me. Not only do I have a stalker, but it’s someone whose already murdered two people.
I don’t know what to do anymore- but I have no idea how far he’s gotten into my life. Has he bugged my workplace? What about my car? Terror about the helplessness of my situation has led me to lie in bed, awake for hours every night as I can’t get a wink of peace thinking about it… and those two heads I found in that wooden box.
The worst part of this is that I feel as if there is always someone constantly watching me. Now, I could normally just chalk that up to paranoia, but the problem is that now… I know that it’s true.