by John L. Monk
Hemingway and Poe led to Heinlein and Niven. Science fiction led to Tolkien and Eddings and myriad worlds her brothers and parents could never understand. Later, in college (studying psychology, and later medicine), Rita discovered gaming, and that helped fill the lonely void left by Jasmine’s passing two years before.
Overnight, Rita became the hero in the stories she’d read. Now it was Rita who found the ancient swords of power and fought against the gibbering tides of evil threatening humanity. It was Rita who saved the day.
A few years later, she got married—a new kind of adventure fraught with different perils entirely.
Her eventual husband, Allen Murphy, quickly grew tired of competing with her as a career professional. He hated her gaming pastime and tried to limit the hours she spent on it. For her part, Rita was never quite sure why she’d married him. To make her parents happy? Out of pity? At the time, she blamed herself for the mistake and tried her very best not to take it out on him.
A few years in, she discovered Allen had been cheating on her. Rather than confront him, she quit her job at the clinic and upped her game time to almost sixteen hours a day. Not long afterward, he stole their life savings to pay for an early ride to a retirement world, and suddenly her long, lonely, painful nightmare was over.
She didn’t care at all about the money he’d stolen because it had nothing to do with experience points, sword skills, battle tactics, guild rankings, or exploring the unknown.
At seventy-years old, Rita gave up proxy gaming and retired to Heroes of Mythian. There, she met a married man who interested her even more than video games. He was the husband she’d never had in life but always wanted: loyal to a fault, funny, curious, and he always seemed delighted at the little things she did. In a way, he was a bit like her old pup Jasmine, though not as cute. Or patient. Or licky.
This man, Ethan Crane, was also self-destructive. He frequently drank to excess—to numb the pain of unrequited love, she felt. In his mind, he’d committed suicide for this woman. Melody. Having said goodbye to life once already, it was nothing at all for him to fly into terrible danger without regard for himself or anyone else. This was his one selfish indulgence, and it hurt Rita to watch.
She saw it so plainly … Pride had poisoned his broken heart. Love should have been his armor, but he’d turned it into a weapon. He would stick it out. He would be the one who tried. Sure, he put on a good show, but Rita knew. She watched him when he wasn’t looking. She heard the words he held back even better than the ones he spoke. He was so sad … So hopeless. And for someone like Rita—a jilted woman, unloved for so long, if ever—Ethan was a hole she’d fallen into and couldn’t climb out of.
Before she knew it, despite all common sense, she’d fallen in love with him. And now she doesn’t know what to do.
Chapter Forty-One
I decided to quit for the day to replenish my mana, as well as to absorb this latest bombshell discovery. I should never have snooped on Rita’s privacy like that. Beyond the immoral part, it was screwing with me. Her biography, diary, whatever it was … Seeing it struck me deeply. Yes, I’d been reckless. I had been holding on out of pride. Out of spite, really. As if saying to Melody through action, Hey! Look what I’m doing to fix this. What are you doing?
It didn’t help that I was also in love with Rita. No use denying it. After years of loyalty, I’d gone and fallen for someone else. Why anyone had feelings for me was a mystery. I was pushy, arrogant, and sometimes cold. I was a know-it-all who tended to look down on other people’s opinions. With Melody, these faults had been smoothed out through the daily habit of living and getting along. With Rita, they were fresh on display with every interaction—and more than usual, given the pressure I was under.
That night, I found a place in the valley with a clear view in every direction and set up an actual campfire. For protection, I chose three low-level demons that’d roar if they saw anything.
With the NO-EATING flag gone, my appetite had returned in force. I didn’t mind eating apples because it had been several days since my last meal. When I finally got Rita out of there, I’d ask her to make me a few hundred pears to store in my bag.
To get the screamer into her room, all I had to do was count the number of 3x3 tiles from the entrance to the first flight of stairs, the number of flights down—sixty—the number of tiles to the turn, and the count to her room.
And when she wakes up?
Rita had zero knowledge of the place’s stacked layout. She couldn’t know that the longer she tarried in one spot, the more ghosts would show up. If I hadn’t been so impatient to finish this leg of the journey, I might have scouted more. Then I could have told her what to expect.
I consoled myself with the fact that she had a number of advantages I lacked. As a monk, she could fly incredibly fast. Also, she was better at gaming than I was and would probably figure out the ghosts’ swarming behavior faster than I had. If push came to shove she was tough, and could take a few hits before getting away.
All I could do was hope.
The screamer hovered patient as ever near the entrance as I explained what I wanted.
“Wait until I tell you to proceed before leaving,” I said. “Scream if you understand.”
The demon screamed, and I ordered it to silence. I’d suffered one false start already. As soon as the first instruction had left my lips, Ghanut had flown off to execute it.
“Here are your instructions,” I said. “Fly through the front doors, then forward one thousand six hundred and fourteen feet. Then fly down to the sixtieth landing. Turn one hundred and eighty degrees around. From there, fly seven hundred and twenty feet. Turn ninety degrees right and fly forward three hundred and twelve feet. Turn ninety degrees right, then fly forward six feet and start screaming for one minute. After that, stop screaming and fly directly back to me.”
The demon didn’t move. A good sign, but I worried it was confused by the instructions about the stairs. It understood numbers and distances fine, but sixtieth landing might be too abstract.
“You may proceed,” I said.
Without hesitation, the demon shot through the doors.
I felt a great weight fall off me. If Raul’s Lesser Vision was right, the demon would go to her room and start screaming. But would it wake her up? The vision hadn’t shown her eyes opening.
Ten minutes later, my spirits soared when the demon returned unscathed.
Now the real waiting began. Time passed so slowly, I almost wished a troop of yetis would show up, if only for the distraction. Three hours passed while I struggled with whether to Lurk in for a peek. Just barely, I stopped myself. For all I knew, the place would spawn more ghosts, cluttering the halls even more.
Five hours passed, and I decided to try it anyway, and that’s when the doors to the Hall of Heroes finally opened.
“Ethan?” Rita called from inside, though I couldn’t see her for the golden light spilling forth like an artist’s rendition of Heaven.
“I’m here!” I said. “Are there any ghosts?”
“No ghosts. I was lost a long time.”
“Don’t come out!” I shouted.
“I’m not stupid,” she said, sounding annoyed. “Hurry up—it’s cold!”
“Be right there,” I said.
I dismissed the guardian and resisted the urge to rush in. Instead, I packed Rita’s tent and other supplies.
“What the hell are you doing out there? It’s cold!”
“Coming!” I said.
I soared through the air and landed outside the doors. But when I tried walking through, an invisible force shoved me back hard, knocking me over.
“Huh?” I said, clambering to my feet.
“You okay?” Rita said.
I didn’t reply. Instead, I tried again, but again got knocked back.
“No,” I said. “I’m not okay. I can’t get in.”
Chapter Forty-Two
I was so dejected I could barely think straight. Luc
ky for both of us, Rita was fresh off nearly a week’s worth of sleep and figured it out immediately.
“You gotta go to sleep, dum-dum,” she said, laughing. “Restless souls be wary!”
“Oh yeah,” I said, relieved beyond measure to have my old companion back.
Then, remembering her biography, I weathered a fresh wave of guilt for invading her privacy
“Turn off your sleep default and lie down,” she said. “I’ll find you and wake you up.”
“You know where I’ll be?” I said.
“A door away from mine, obviously.”
Did I detect a hint of smugness there?
“Just checking,” I said, and toggled the default so I’d sleep forever. “Okay, ready.”
“You’re still standing.”
“How come you can see me and I can’t see you?” I said. “And how come you don’t see any ghosts?”
She didn’t answer right away. Then: “Maybe because you were an intruder and I’m not? We’re probably out of phase.”
“Out of phase?”
“It’s a gaming thing,” she said. “Same zone, different versions. Like Under Town. Hurry up, it’s freezing!”
I had to pull out the tent again and set it up. Because who knew when I’d finally nod off to sleep?
Rita said, “Oh … Looks like you found my tent.”
“Yeah,” I said, and hoped she’d drop it. I acted extra busy with the poles to give her cover. “You don’t have to keep the doors open, you know. I’ll be gone soon.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Look at me, forgetful again. See you there.”
“Okay,” I said.
Rita shut the doors.
I climbed into the tent and set about trying to fall asleep.
Now that I was desperate to get in, I began worrying a bunch of yetis would attack, and that added to the difficulty. I tried breathing through my bag again. I tried counting backward from a hundred. I imagined a wide field of tall grass with me in the middle, just lying there…
I checked the time and saw an hour had passed like this.
“Sleep,” I said through clenched teeth. “Sleep.”
Upon waking, I felt immensely rested. I sat up in the tiny room and saw Rita standing near the door covering her face.
She was crying.
“Rita?” I said. “What’s wrong?”
She turned away, and her body shook with fresh sobs. Had she thought I was dead? Clearly I wasn’t, but … So why was she…
I touched her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
She turned around and looked at me.
“Whoa,” I said.
Rita looked a great deal more attractive than the last time I’d seen her. She grabbed me and kissed me, and I let her. Her augmented beauty mingled with the longing I’d kept bottled up for so long, turning the kiss into something powerful, magical…
“Why now?” I said when we finally pulled away.
“Because you love me,” she said. “Your light … soul … whatever it was. I touched it. I saw. I also know you saw my soul.”
Oh, no.
Rita had peeped at my diary.
My guess was our biographies revealed our true selves better than we ever could. After all, they were generated on the fly by Q4—a third party that knew everything about us and had no reason to lie.
Rita’s jaw took a set and her back stiffened. “Listen to me, Ethan Crane. You may love your wife, but you need to face some hard truths. She hasn’t done anything to deserve you coming to Mythian for her. If you ask me, she needs to take some responsibility and stop acting like an idiot.”
“Maybe we all do,” I said.
I moved to step past her. The room was cramped with both of us in there, but she stopped me.
“Set your default back,” she said.
“What? Oh … There. It’s set. Come on. We need to find the snow angel.”
“Dammit, Ethan, don’t shut me out.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I said. “Dump my wife? Forget my vows and run away? I’m not your ex-husband.”
“You’ve already dumped her! You actually got your wife back—dead and gone for years—and off you go on a mission for Cipher. You ask me, you couldn’t wait to be rid of her!”
“I didn’t ask you though. And what about you? Lost your tent? It was sitting in your bag the whole time and you knew it!”
Rita snorted. “I read your soul, Ethan. You knew about that tent almost as fast as I could lie about it. If that’s not breaking your vows, I don’t know what is.”
She turned to leave, and I touched her elbow.
“Get off me!” she shouted, swinging a wild backhand that might have hurt if it hadn’t passed right through me.
“No-PVP?” I said.
Rita rounded on me, eyes blazing. She punched and kicked my form to no avail, wearing herself out in the process while fresh tears streamed down her face. It was the most bizarre spectacle I’d seen from her yet, and for once I was at a loss for words.
She shoved me hard, slamming me against the stone bier. Somehow, the game didn’t see this as PVP. And apparently kissing someone hard without asking was okay because she did that, too. She then picked me up in a comic reversal of gender roles and lifted me onto the bier.
Then she slipped out of her clothes.
Chapter Forty-Three
“Now what?” Rita said.
She was curled next to me on the crowded real estate of my sleeping bier which, though lightly cushioned, was surprisingly comfortable.
“Nothing changes,” I said. “I’m still going to help her. Get her to safety. Finish what I started.”
Rita sighed sadly. “I know. That’s why I love you.”
I was supposed to say I loved her back, but couldn’t. Somehow, in my twisted reasoning, saying so would be cheating on Melody even more than what I’d just done.
“I’ll have to tell her about this,” I said.
“It’ll break her heart,” she said, stroking my arm.
“No it won’t. I know that now.”
It was Rita who got up first. “We need to go.”
“Yeah.”
After we got dressed, I cast the Seek spell.
“Seek—snow angel,” I intoned.
The dotted line of my local map carried down the hall, where it stopped at the twelfth door before hooking into it.
“Looks like we—”
Rita leaned in and kissed me. “You don’t have to say you love me. I get it.”
“Uh … Um. We’ll figure it out,” I said. “Shit.”
Rita’s eyes sparkled with sudden mirth and she covered her mouth.
I walked down the hall and turned to the door, ready to open it.
Rita said, “Hah! I knew it!”
“What?” I said.
She pointed at the door’s inscription: Steven Owens.
“Hmm,” I said, frowning at the awful truth of it. Then I smiled. “Yeah, but still … Girls are more into snow angels than men. Everyone knows that. This here’s what scientists call an anomaly. I thought you were a doctor?”
“The lies we tell ourselves…”
Rita opened the door and swaggered in, with me following.
The man on the bier was dressed in a noob tunic. He was also an elf—long ears, arched eyebrows, lithe form. I hadn’t seen a lot of elf players in the game. Or dwarves, for that matter. Most of the people I’d run into were humans.
I squinted and saw he was a level-301 ranger. Barely high enough to reach Ward 2, but he also hadn’t multi-classed, which meant his ranger skills were strong.
“I think there’s a quest to change your race,” Rita said as if reading my thoughts. “Some of those elf women are beautiful…”
I’d thought the same, but hadn’t dwelled on it. They were pretty the way fantasy artwork was pretty—exaggerated features, deep dark eyes, flowing hair…
“Funny,” I said, “but I never see any dwarf women.”
Rita laughed.
“You ready to wake this guy?”
“Too late,” I said. “Look.”
Sure enough, the man was stirring from his sleep. He was supposed to have a note on him. I should have tried searching him for it—carefully, so as not to wake him.
“Hello?” the man said groggily. “Who’s there?”
In a shy voice, Rita said, “Um … are you the man who walked a bunch of miles into the woods?”
The man sat up. “Yeah. I got a boatload of gold for it. Funny thing, though … This guy—he had me put it in the bank first, along with all my gear. A million gold. Would you believe it?” He laughed almost giddily before trailing off. “Then it got weird. He made me turn off my sleep timer. Promised someone would wake me up. And thank god you did! Could have been out there forever, and…”
For the first time, his expression seemed troubled. He stared around in surprise.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Where the hell am I?” His eyes glazed over, then refocused. “What’s the Hall of Heroes? Some zone? Any good loot?”
Rita’s tone was uncertain. “You actually want loot?”
Steven nodded. “Sure. Hold on, gotta fix my sleep setting…” His eyes glazed over again. Then he nodded and rubbed his hands. “Where to next?”
“First, you can give us the note,” I said.
Steven chuckled. “Oh yeah. Almost forgot.”
He reached into his tunic and pulled out a rolled-up scroll. “I swear I didn’t read it. See? Still sealed. What do we kill first?”
“We don’t kill anything,” Rita said. “This zone’s way too high for you. That’s why he told you to put your stuff in the bank.”
The man blinked in confusion.
Gently, I said, “She’s trying to say you have to kill yourself.”
Steven said, “Dammit, I knew it was too good to be true.”
“We can lead you out if you want,” Rita said. “You’ll see once you get outside. Can you even fly?”
Steven shook his head. “My cape’s in the bank. Are you sure I’m too low level? I beat the heck out of that kraken. Should’a seen me. First time, too. I’m pretty good.”