by Isaac Winter
I patted the bag at my side, and I could have sworn it felt the egg move. “Got ‘em!” I said brightly, hoping she wouldn’t ask what else I’d found.
“Excellent,” Mabel said, clapping her hands. “That was fun, huh? Oh, I haven’t done that in forever. I’m getting pretty tired, though. Let’s gather up a few more things and head back?”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” I said. Sweaty strands of hair stuck to my forehead and I needed a bath. Bad. All in all, though, it had been a fun way to spend an evening and I’d even learned a couple new skills.
My mind was elsewhere as the Welkies scattered back to their burrows (Mabel told me they lived underground in what looked like oversized ant hills). So much had happened. So much had changed. My mind still reeled from it all. And now that she’d mentioned it, I was exhausted. A deep tiredness sank into my bones and stayed there, making me feel like sleeping for a week still wouldn’t be enough.
“Just one more task before we leave,” Mabel said, sensing my concern. “Here,” she gestured after a time. We’d come to a clearing with several tall, spindly trees. Long vines and moss dangled from the scarred branches, wafting gently in the breeze. I couldn’t see the colors well by the light of the moon, but the trees were very pale, almost white. They stood out against the landscape like bones in the night.
I stepped forward and activated Analyze.
> You have found: Melifern Tree. Meliferns are notable for their versatility—the bark can be powdered as a potent painkiller and the sap is a much-sought-after sweetener. Other uses can be unlocked at higher levels of Herbal Knowledge.
My mouth watered looking at the grove. Even back at the Academy I had had a little bit of a sweet tooth. I looked over to Mabel but she simply stood there, arms crossed.
Right. I was going to figure this one out myself.
I peered around the thin trunks looking for a crack or indentation in the smooth bark. I found a crease near the base of the tree and wedged my fingers underneath it, pulling. The bark came away in my hands and the momentum carried me backwards onto my ass. I fell with a oof. Even with all the grass around here, the ground was far from soft.
I got up, rubbing my sore backside, and tried to ignore Mabel’s snickers. Like to see her try.
Inspecting the bark in my hands, I realized with a jolt that it wasn’t Ruined!
First try, I celebrated to myself while doing a fist pump.
> You have found: Melifern Bark. When powdered, it makes a potent painkiller. But dose carefully--too much, and your sleep will be eternal.
I stuffed it in my bag and pulled off some more pieces, stowing them away. I only Ruined about half. Hey, progress. Next up was the sap.
The shiny area underneath the bark looked slick with something. Extending a finger, I touched the bare trunk and lost more than a few layers of skin dislodging myself. It was incredibly sticky!
“Little help?” I asked Mabel. “Got a jar or something?”
She fished around in her bags and pulled out a small vial with a cork stopper. She also pulled out a little eye dropper and stepped forward, motioning me to follow. “Watch this,” she said with a grin.
Drawing water from her hip flask into the dropper, she squeezed out a single drop onto the bare tree. Mabel held the empty bottle below, waiting.
Almost instantly, the water reacted with the sap, thinning it to a syrupy consistency instead of tar. It dribbled from the tree and into the vial, collecting in a pool of clear, sweet liquid. Replacing the lid on the vial, she handed a fresh jar to me and the eye dropper along with it. “Your turn,” she said.
So water is the secret, I reminded myself. I uncovered a fresh section of trunk and added a few drops. The water came out much quicker than I intended and thinned the sap even further. I fumbled with the vial as I positioned it under the leaking sap. It dribbled all over my hands and down the side of the glass before I got enough collected.
Sticking the vial in my bag, I shook my hands violently, trying to rid them of the sticky sap. It wasn’t working. I finally bent down, scraping my hands against the grass until most of it had come off.
When my breathing had finally returned to normal, I stood to find Mabel looking at me with the most curious expression. She held another vial of glistening liquid in her hand. “You should have just said something,” Mabel said, biting back a chuckle. “I have cleaner right here! That sap is nasty, for sure. All part of the job, though.”
“Thanks.” I said as she squirted the cleaner on my hands. It dried quickly like hand sanitizer, and best of all eradicated that sticky sap feeling.
“Good job out there,” Mabel said, patting me on the back. “Got some crafting ingredients, played some Welkieball, even leveled up by the looks of it. What do you say, let’s head in?”
“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed, and we put the Welkies, trees, and bushes behind us.
I hadn’t forgotten about the secret egg in my bag, warming me through the tough fabric. The moment I had some time alone, I’d properly inspect it. Because whether I was imagining it or not, it was alive. I’d felt it move. Hell, I’d felt it purr against me. And I needed to be there when it hatched.
18
Cael
I couldn’t believe no alarm or alert had gone up yet. My body held itself rigid, ready to pounce at the slightest movement. I flickered my glance between Tris and the doorway; any moment, an armed guard or worse could come bursting through.
Tris ran her pale fingers down a row of brightly colored spines against the back wall of the room.
Finally, she picked one. It was a huge tome wrapped in black leather and sporting a shimmering red jewel on the front, inset with a silver claw. My skin crawled just looking at it. The book hadn’t been touched in ages, looked like; a fine layer of dust covered the binding and the pages were yellowed with age. I’d spent enough time around old manuscripts to know that this one had seen better days. I clenched my jaw, hoping that whatever was within those pages would be worth it.
The glitter of the title caught my eye, emblazoned in gilt: Soul Magic.
“Catch!” Tris called and tossed something at me. Thank goodness for my elven reflexes, I caught it before I had a chance to figure out what it was. My mouth dropped open when I saw the inscription on the stone.
“Wait a second, this is Fel’s Tele Stone. How did you...”
“Borrowed it,” Tris said without looking up from the book. She flipped through the pages at lightning speed, dust flying as she went. I could see a hint of a smile creeping up the sides of her face, though.
“Borrowed, huh?” I raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Fel’s eyesight is going, you know.” She said matter-of-factly. When I didn’t budge, she added, “Hey, at least we have an out.”
I squeezed the stone in my hand, feeling the cool ridges and sharp edges. “You’re right. This just might save us.”
“Watch the door. If things get bad, you get out of here, okay?” She finally looked up at me. Our eyes met for a moment and in the pale chill of the laboratory, I could see her fear.
“If you think I’m leaving you—”
“Save it.” She cut me off. “And stop raising your voice, for god’s sake.”
I huffed, stuffing the stone and my hands into my pockets.
C: Fine...just hurry up.
T: I will, just let me concentrate!
At that moment, a blaring siren erupted from the walls, strobing a red light through the room.
ALERT...ALERT...INTRUSION DETECTED ON LEVEL 3.
ALERT...ALERT...
Tris let out a string of curses and pulled the goggles over her head, running a finger down the parchment until she found what she was looking for.
My heart leapt into my throat as my eyes snapped to the door. Oh, god. We were toast. They’d found us. The warnings and alarms continued to echo above me, but my world narrowed to two things. The Tele Stone in my hand, and Tris at the table, preparing some sort of e
nchantment. She drew round shapes in the dust collecting on the table, following an ancient diagram in the book laid at her side.
Footsteps clattered outside as Tris began chanting to the stone. It lay in the middle of her inscriptions. I jumped backward when the stone started to move of its own accord, vibrating and clattering on the table. Something—or someone—was dying to get free.
I ripped my gaze from the stone to Tris, who crouched next to the scene open-mouthed, uttering a silent plea.
concentrate faster!!
I messaged her in a panic, grabbing the potions with my left hand while gripping the Tele Stone in my right.
This should do the trick, I thought in a silent prayer as I read the label of the diversion potion. I needed a way to get it outside, though...
I ran over to the door, looking for any cracks or open spaces. The room was old and drafty, surely there was a leak somewhere!
High above my head I saw a glint of light coming from the other side of the wall. It looked like a small ventilation system, but that didn’t matter right now. I clambered onto a chair, wrenching at the metal grate. The wire dug into my fingers but didn’t move.
“Dammit,” I cursed, but then I remembered the final potion I’d left with.
Potion of Strength.
I downed it all at once without thinking, and the dizziness I felt from being Runesick only multiplied. A wave of nausea washed over me as bile collected in the back of my throat. I was gonna be sick!
> You have gained: Strength +2 for 60 seconds. Movement speed increased for 60 seconds.
I grit my teeth and yanked on the grate again. It came free in a rain of metal and drywall, nearly toppling me from the chair before I caught my balance.
Please let this work, I prayed, and threw the vial through the air duct.
The glass shattered on the other side of the wall and confused voices echoed down the corridor.
“Over there! Move!”
The footsteps moved away for a few blessed seconds, but I knew we didn’t have long.
“Tris!” I yelled, forgetting all about party chat for a second. Another wave of nausea hit and I doubled over, dry heaving.
Tris was dealing with another ordeal altogether.
The stone shattered into tiny fragments, littering the table with pigments of red. What was coming out of the gem, however, would haunt me forever.
First an arm, then another. A matted mane of scraggly hair, clinging to a scalp so weathered it may as well have been a living skull. Haunted eyes lay deep in the sockets, and a toothless mouth sagged open, gasping for air.
Tris looked on in horror, pacing backwards. “No...” she mouthed as she tried to get away from the creature. “No!”
The weathered shell of a man was clasped in fetal position, but slowly finding his limbs once more. He turned his cold dead eyes toward me, and it was all I could do not to run. Gas and light hissed out of the gem, shaking the entire room. Bottles and ointments fell from the shelves and crashed to the floor.
There was a reason we kept chemicals in separate places. Everyone knew that. Volatile chemicals didn’t mix. And when they did...the results could be deadly.
The mixture of spills on the floor fizzed and smoked, producing an awful odor. I covered my mouth and nose with the hem of my shirt, but it was no good.
A pale green mist rose from the floor and sizzled as it enveloped the furniture around it. The shelf creaked and clattered as the mist wore it away like acid.
Not good.
I looked at the door, I looked at the Tele Stone, and I looked over at Tris and the monstrosity she’d released from the stone. It was time to make a decision. It was time to stop waiting for orders and take control.
The door burst open, flying off its hinges. Two fire mages and a deadly looking automaton stood in its place, their eyes all trained on me.
“Your puny little potions won’t save you,” said the taller man, the fireball in his hand growing larger. Spots danced in front of my vision.
Suddenly, I didn’t care any more about the mission. We were getting out of here. Or we were gonna be dead.
I bounded over to Tris, who looked up with alarm. I activated the Tele Stone and grabbed onto her hand, a scream ripping itself from my throat.
“Now!” I yelled, and the smoldering flames of a fireball spell seared my skin before we were sucked into the ether once more, flying across the fabric of space.
We landed in a heap of bodies back at the hideout. My elbow dug into her side and she yelped, swinging her leg and narrowly missing my skull. Tris attempted to sit up, but so did I at the same time. We knocked heads in our disoriented state and my teeth vibrated in my skull.
I tumbled back to the ground, the floor swaying beneath me like the waves of an ocean.
We’re alive, was all I could manage to think. We made it.
19
Cael
“He’s gone.”
The words rang out death knells as Tris buried her face in her hands. She swiped the goggles from her forehead and chucked them across the room.
Inside, my heart ached for her. I had had to make a choice, it’s true. But was it the right one? I had a feeling I’d be asking myself that for the rest of my life.
She looked up at me, emerald eyes shining with tears. “We have to go back, we—”
“We can’t.” I said. The desperation in her voice made it that much harder to keep mine from cracking. “You saw what happened.”
Tris sniffed and wiped her nose. “I just thought that...after all this time...”
“I know,” I said. Although I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not really.
Tris’s solemn words came to me again in that moment. Would an NPC get so distraught over a family member? No, I decided. This was real pain. I could see it in her eyes and in the way she looked at me.
“We failed,” she whispered, looking down at her hands. They clenched into fists and she threw a punch at the wall. “We failed!”
It broke my heart to see her like this. I hadn’t wanted to leave her father behind, but the guards were right on top of us. And her father, well...he was long gone. More like a wraith than a man, the crystal had disfigured him and left him hollow. It was a terrible way to go.
Tris continued to sit curled up in a ball on the floor of the Hideout, sobbing into her sleeves. I scooted closer, my heart racing. I unhooked the golden clasp on my cloak and pulled it away, letting the flowing fabric sit on her shoulders.
She looked up, eyes wide, as the weight of the cloak settled on her. Wiping away a tear, her lips turned up into a smile. She pulled the cloak closer and burrowed into it like a nest. “Thank you,” she whispered.
I threw my arm around her shoulder and when she didn’t flinch away, I drew her closer. She snuggled against my chest, her breaths finally slowing.
“Thanks for saving my life.”
We stayed like that, holding one another on the cold hard floor of the Hideout. I brushed a hand through her red curls to sooth away the tangles. She didn’t seem to mind. What I couldn’t get out of my mind, though, was the smell of her hair, her rosy cheeks, the warmth of her body pressed against me.
I wanted her.
May I be damned, I wanted her.
We broke apart at the sound of a door opening and closing on the other side of the room.
“Oh...we didn’t meant to...”
Tris extricated herself instantly, a wild blush coloring her cheeks. “Oh, no, no, it’s not what you think, it’s—” She laughed nervously.
Mabel raised a single eyebrow.
“I’m fine,” Tris growled, picking herself up. Just like that, she’d tamped the emotions down once again. I had the feeling Tris was someone who didn’t show their true selves to many people. The fact that she’d felt vulnerable enough around me to cry on my shoulder spoke volumes.
“We can come back if—”
“No need,” Tris cut her off. “Where’s Fel, anyway? I need to talk to him.”
“Dunno,” Mabel said, rubbing the back of her neck. “We just got back ourselves. Laurie here is quite talented.”
“Hope she didn’t kick your ass as much as Fel did to me when we first met.” I cut in, trying to draw attention away from the moment we’d shared.
Laurie laughed. “It wasn’t too bad. I only Ruined half the plants I touched.” She grinned and patted the bag at her side.
I rolled my eyes. “You got off easy, then.”
Laughter rang out across the Hideout. Even though Tris and Fel were technically NPCs, having all of us together, laughing like friends, finally made me feel I belonged.
It just took being trapped in a parallel game world to do it.
Our merry spirits were cut short by a loud Ping! in each of our HUDs. A World Announcement.
> WORLD ANNOUNCEMENT:
> The Festival of Fire will begin in 2 days time. All travelers are expected to attend. There will be a spectacle unlike any you’ve ever seen before…
> Sanchow Way, Ulteria
> Add Event to Calendar?
[Yes/No]
We read the message, looked to one another, then read the message again.
“Is this...” I started, a dreadful chill sinking into my stomach. “You said Crane was planning something big, right? What if this is it?”
“So this is his move.” Fel clattered through the door, making all of us turn.
“There you are,” Tris breathed, hands on her hips. “We need to talk.”
Fel’s face was hard, with sharp lines that showed his age. Even his normally bushy mustache seemed to be sagging. “I think we all need to talk,” he said at length. “I have some bad news.”
I gulped. I didn’t know if I could handle any more bad news right now.
As if in answer, the ground trembled beneath our feet. It started off slow, just a subtle rumbling, then grew stronger like the uneven waves of the ocean. Thank goodness for my Agility points, I was able to keep my balance, but other members of the party weren’t so lucky.