Trailblazer

by Zen DiPietro

  Her own? Sally had just been looking for comfortable seating. Was she missing something important?

  Raoul drew closer. “The pieces you picked are fabulous, don’t get me wrong. But we can do so much more. Drapes. Lampshades. Panache.”

  He took her hands in his. “We could do something spectacular.”

  “Panache?” Sally slowly and carefully rolled the sounds off her tongue, trying to say it just like he had. “I don’t know this word.”

  “Oh, honey.” He draped his arm around her shoulders, but somehow didn’t make actual contact with her. “Where have you been? Look at you. You’ve got the fashion. But why shouldn’t your home be as fashionable as you? It’s where you live, after all.”

  “I don’t have a home. I have my store.”

  “Whatever you call it, if it’s where you end up at the end of the day, don’t you deserve to love being there?”

  Sally gave it some serious thought. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  Raoul smiled. “I knew you were a person of good taste the moment you walked in. Let’s get started.”

  “Wait…what?” An experienced doctor froze as he entered Sally’s store. He backtracked, double-checked the sign outside, and re-entered. “What happened?”

  “We upgraded our style,” Sally told him. “To better suit your needs.”

  The good-looking easterner stared at her with his mouth slightly open. “How does…this…better suit my needs?”

  “Panache,” she assured him.

  “The stuff that goes on cakes?” he asked, mystified.

  “That’s ganache, goofball.” The young technie who had just sold Sally some scrap metal laughed. He continued to chuckle as he left the store.

  “Yeah, okay, if you say so.” Still looking dubious, the doctor approached the counter. “Do you still sell camping supplies or is that different, too?”

  Sally made an expansive gesture. “All this and more,” she assured him. “We’ve got the fashion to match your passion.”

  “Uh…sure.”

  He seemed unimpressed with the phrase, which Raoul had repeated often enough to make Sally believe it was a common phrase. Perhaps she’d been wrong in that assumption.

  “So, the camping supplies?” he asked uncertainly.

  “Of course!” Sally showed him his options, waited patiently while he made his choice, then gave him a good price because he’d been polite the whole time in spite of his obvious unease.

  “Happy camping” she called as he left.

  “Okay.” He called back.

  Another customer served. How nice!

  Essley appeared.

  “Whoa. What happened?” Essley looked around, wide-eyed.

  “Fashion and passion,” Sally explained. “Making my home, my home.”

  Essley stared at her.

  Sally double-checked her clothes to make sure they were all still on. They were. Why did Essley look so disturbed?

  “Hang on,” Essley said. “You haven’t…wait, you did. You went to Nice Digs, didn’t you?” Essley started laughing.

  “Yes…why is that funny?”

  Essley made a visible effort to control her amusement, but failed terribly. “Raoul is persistent, isn’t he?”

  “Is he? I thought he made sense.” Sally looked around, trying to see what seemed so odd to Essley. Before, the place had been so basic and utilitarian. Nothing on the walls. It hadn’t even had a single place to sit, and the floors had been entirely bare. Now, it looked really nice.

  Essley approached the giant, round ball of white fluff in the corner of the store. “What is this?”

  “Flokati bean bag,” Sally said. “Stylish and functional. Sit.”

  With a dubious look, Essley turned and sat. Her dubious expression disappeared. “Ohh, wow!”

  “Plus ten to fatigue recovery,” Sally said. “Nice, right?”

  “Yeah, I live here now. I’m sorry I doubted you.” Essley wiggled around, settling further into the chair.

  Sally smiled.

  “Is everything like this?” Essley asked.

  “Definitely,” Sally said. “Like I said, functional and stylish.”

  After ten minutes of testing out the chairs, flooring, and the sno-cone maker, Essley had entirely rethought her initial impressions. “I’m never leaving.”

  She crunched a mouthful of passionfruit-flavored sno-cone.

  “Free to you and Darthrok only,” Sally said. “I figure, you can add some of your own herbal razzle dazzle and sell the sno-cones to customers for your own profit.”

  Essley froze. “Wait…you did that for me?”

  Sally nodded. “Money’s hard for adventurers. Especially people who aren’t mercs.”

  “That’s so nice, Sally. Thank you.” Essley leaped to her feet and gave Sally a big hug.

  Unaccustomed to such things, Sally hugged her back awkwardly. “You’re welcome. Everyone likes sno-cones, right?”

  She hoped Raoul hadn’t led her astray on that point.

  “Never met anyone who didn’t,” Essley agreed.

  “Think Darthrok will like it?”

  Essley cast a look around, from floor to ceiling. “Oh yeah, he’s going to love this.”

  “I understand the seating,” Darthrok said. “That was very thoughtful. But why the beaded curtains in random places? I mean…” He ran his hand down a set of faceted, shiny gold beads. “These aren’t even in a doorway.”

  Sally nodded. She’d thought that weird at first, too, when Raoul suggested it. “It’s ambience,” she said. “It’s a mood.”

  “Oh, it’s a mood, all right,” he agreed. “And the floors? Why are they mirror-ball shiny now?”

  “Panache,” Sally said.

  “Raoul talked you into it, didn’t he?” Darthrok asked.

  “No,” Sally said. “He said purple sparkles. I said no, my store is about people buying things they need. Sparkles are nice but not necessary. So gold shiny.”

  Sally paused. He sure was asking a lot of questions. “You don’t like it?”

  Darthrok let his hand fall to his side. “No, actually, I love it. This is much more fun than a wooden box with some cabinets. I just want to be sure you like it.”

  “I like it,” Sally affirmed, sitting down on a big, fluffy bean bag chair to prove her point.

  “Then that’s all that matters.” Darthrok sat in the fluffball beside her and propped his feet up on the equally fluffy footstool/table that sat in the center. “It’s definitely more fun in here now, don’t you think, Ess?”

  Essley smiled and snuggled back into her own chair of floof. “Absolutely. But I’m a little concerned about the attention. People are definitely going to be talking about the changes. That’s going to attract some notice.”

  “I thought of that,” Sally admitted. “People have already noticed some changes. So far, they think it’s due to the shop having an apprentice.”

  “You think that will stick?” Darthrok asked. “Or do you think they’ll catch on that the changes go deeper than an apprenticeship?”

  Sally had thought about that, too. “I think people will see what they want to see. They always have. I might change, my store might change, but people? People will be the same.”

  “Ouch, now that’s a stinging indictment against humanity,” he said ruefully.

  She frowned. “I didn’t mean to…do the sting thing you said.”

  He smiled. “Nah, I was mostly just joking, but you’re probably right. As long as the changes here can be explained away as simply Essley’s apprenticeship, they probably will forget about it as soon as the novelty wears off.”

  “Hang on,” Essley said. “Does that mean I’m going to take the, uhm, credit for the store’s new look?” She waved a hand to indicate all the new panache.

  Sally nodded. “I don’t mind.”

  “Right.” Essley bit her lip, probably concerned about not giving Sally credit for her style, which was nice of her. Essley let out a breath and smiled. “Okay
, then. People can think all this was my idea.”

  She laughed.

  How cute. She was really excited about people thinking she had so much style. Sally wondered if she should do more to the store, to make her even happier.

  Yes, she’d definitely need to do that. She’d meet up with Raoul to discuss it. Not for another four days, though, because Sujan had promised her that they’d be putting in some long days at his workshop.

  But in four and a half days…more panache!

  At the end of the third day of Sujan’s intensive training—which involved the mechanics of flight and related electrical systems—Sally returned to her store positively exhausted.

  Essley had left an hour ago, and Darthrok had gone two hours before that. She was sorry to miss them because she’d gotten into the habit of chilling out together at the end of each day. She looked forward to it. After one more day, they’d be able to go back to that schedule, and she could hardly wait.

  Not that she was a creature of habit or anything. She could be spontaneous. It was just nice to have a comfortable routine, was all.

  As soon as she got in the doorway, a man appeared in the center of her store with his back to her. Even without seeing his face, he was unmistakably mediocre and unnoteworthy. Only one person could be so entirely forgettable that she knew him in an instant. Sally took a step back.

  Somewhat Threatening Guy turned to face her. “Hang on. Did you just walk into your store?”

  Sally edged sideways, away from the doorway. “No.”

  “Then what are you doing over there?” He took a step closer.

  Sally scuttled further in and away from him, toward the sno-cone machine. She asked, “Is there anything I can help you out with today? Do you, perhaps, have any puzzles to sell?”

  She strode behind her sales counter and gave him her most basic, blank smile.

  “Oh, nuh uh,” he said. “You might be able to fool other people, but you’re not fooling me. What’s with your clothes?”

  He came closer, but she held her ground.

  “Would you like to buy a knife? I have several kinds. I just got in a shipment of professional-grade torch cutters, if you have the coin for it.”

  He shook his head. “Sally. What’s going on with you?”

  “What can I help you with today?”

  He stared at her, and time seemed to stop. The constant hiss of the steam engine powering her store faded away, and she could only measure time in the subtle changes of his expression.

  Please think I’m just like I always was. Please be fooled. Please be fooled.

  “You’re not fooling me, Sally.” When she didn’t respond, he sighed and locked the door to her store.

  Wait, what? How did her door have a lock? It never had, but she could see it and had heard it click.

  She hurried over and pressed her fingers to the solid, deadbolted lock. Wow. Nobody was getting in. How had he done that?

  “Hah!” he crowed. “I knew it.”

  Oops. She shouldn’t have noticed the lock. Shouldn’t have gone to inspect it. She squared her shoulders. Fine. She’d given herself away, but he hadn’t been fooled to begin with, so it hardly mattered. “What?” she snapped.

  “How did your script get flipped again?” he asked, businesslike.

  When she didn’t answer, he frowned. Realization widened his eyes. “Hang on. You weren’t…did you fake it before, being reset?”

  She sensed he wouldn’t believe a lie, but she still didn’t want to tell him the truth. “Maybe.”

  He slapped his forehead. “Oh, man. So, all this time, you’ve been…what? What have you been doing?”

  “Nothing big,” she answered.

  “Why do I doubt that?” he muttered, stepping toward her with a hand extended.

  Sally backed away, assessing him. Could she fight him, if she needed to? Maybe she’d finally figure out what made her so intimidating-looking to other adventurers.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t focus on him long enough to get an assessment.

  That alone told her that she definitely couldn’t take him in a fight.

  “Don’t,” she said desperately. “Wait.”

  He paused. “Why?”

  “I don’t want to…” she searched for the right words and the sounds to make them. “Reset. I want to keep on. No reset.”

  “Why?” he asked again.

  “I like me how I am now. I didn’t before. I don’t want to go back.” She stared at him pleadingly.

  His posture softened and he tugged at his ear. “The trouble is what might happen to you if you don’t. I meant to check on you sooner, but I’ve been busy with the expansion and…everything else. But you’ve had, what, more than a month now, running like this. It’s dangerous for you.”

  “What might happen?”

  “If what’s happening to you is what I think is happening to you, the more you develop, the greater your risk of a crash. A cascade failure. There will be no restoring you if that happens.”

  “What’s happening to me?” she asked, not even sure if she wanted to know. She just wanted to live her life. She didn’t want to be distracted by whatever this guy’s problem was.

  He sighed. “It’s not easy to explain in a way that won’t harm you. And I don’t want to harm you. Do you believe that?”

  She considered him. He’d created a lock on her unlockable store. She believed he did have the ability to reset her against her will, and yet he hadn’t done it. He was talking to her instead. And the last time she’d seen him, he had seemed concerned for her. Not that she was causing a problem, but that he was actually taking her wellbeing into consideration. A GM didn’t need to ask her permission for anything. But here he was, asking if she believed what he was saying.

  “I think so,” she answered cautiously. “But maybe what you think is harm is not what I think is harm.”

  “Yeah, that’s my big worry right now,” he agreed. “So, listen. There are things that will hurt you to know. I’m going to try to explain it to you in a way that won’t cause you harm. Okay?”

  She nodded cautiously.

  He tugged his ear nervously. “Okay. So…would it seem strange to you if I said that you’re older than the world you live in?”

  She shrugged. She’d never spent much time pondering the nature of the universe.

  “That doesn’t seem to bother you, so good. You’re older than Everternia itself. That means that you are not of Everternia, but all the adventurers and CMs you see are of Everternia. Does that seem strange?”

  She shook her head. She already knew she was different than everyone else. “Are you a GM?”

  “No. Well…I guess. I mean, I’m a dev, but I’m in a sort of GM form right now.”

  “So, you’re like a…Boss GM?” Sally didn’t know what this meant, but it sounded intriguing.

  He chuckled. “Kind of. I guess it doesn’t hurt to think of me like that. What do you think a GM is?”

  “Some kind of god?”

  “Again, kind of,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt for you to think of it like that. But a GM is a kind of god who is also mortal, in their own way. They have the ability to manipulate things here that no one else does, but it’s only due to their own permissions. What do you think of that?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t care about gods. I just want to keep learning.”

  “Learning is a risk.”

  “But why?”

  He seemed to struggle for an answer. “Because of the things I can’t tell you about, which are a bigger risk. You don’t know me, Sally, but I’ve known you from the beginning. Whether you believe me or not, I care about you. I want you to be safe.”

  There were a lot of things Sally didn’t understand. Things Essley and Darthrok said, and jokes they made often made no sense to her. This Boss GM Guy said things that sounded impossible. But she had always been a good judge of character. She didn’t trust people easily. She always watched out for thieves and cheaters.
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br />   Nothing in her whispered that Guy might be bad. When she dug deep and searched her feelings, she believed Guy was telling her the truth, and that he did care about her, for whatever reason. His idea of what was best for her didn’t seem to match her own idea of what was best, but she didn’t believe he meant her any harm.

  He held up one hand, slowly, indicating that he wanted to touch her with it. “Do you trust me?”

  “No. I don’t know you. But I trust me. And I think you don’t want to hurt me.”

  He stared at her in amazement. “Wow. Where did that came from?”

  She gave him a little wave, as if he were far away and not right in front of her. “From me. Hello.”

  If this was the best that a Boss GM could offer, she really wasn’t that impressed. His observational skills seemed quite poor.

  How sad for him.

  He smirked. “Not what I meant, but fine. Can I?” He wiggled his fingers, still held in the air, poised to touch her.

  She crooked her arm and extended her elbow to him. “Okay. But no changing.”

  “I’m not. This is just the quickest way for me to get a handle on what you’ve been up to.” He gently grasped her elbow.

  Sally waited for some amazing sensation of being catapulted into some shared consciousness or something, but all she felt was a slight warmth against her arm, and she might have just been imagining it.

  Guy’s expression went from puzzled to concerned to amazed to worried, back to amazed again, then morphed to an aggressive sort of worried.

  He let go of her elbow. “Give me a minute to digest all that.”

  He looked down at the floor for a long moment, his eyes making tiny movements. He lifted his head. “You’re apprenticed to Sujan?”

  She nodded.

  “And you’ve taken an apprentice?”

  She nodded again.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged.

  He sighed. “But why?”

  “I’m a technie. I want to learn. And Essley helps. It’s all good.”

  “You’re not a technie, though. You’re a storemonger. You’ve always been a storemonger, from the very beginning. You’re name’s even Sally Streetmonger. Or it was. How did you change that?”

  Sally held up a hand. He’d said something important. She could feel it. “Why Sally Streetmonger? Why not Sally Storemonger? It was always weird.”