by J. R. Ford
“It’ll fit you, there’s a difference. You know how hot it is when women wear formfitting clothes?”
I blushed.
“The same goes for men. Don’t look so nervous! You don’t need huge muscles to look good in a tight shirt. Just try it on.”
I emerged from the dressing curtain in trousers of sienna and the white long-sleeved shirt. Ana had judged well — the shirt actually followed the shape of my arms and chest without constricting me. I buckled my cloak over my shoulder and actually felt like I looked good.
Then Ana and Heather set eyes on me, and I cringed, drawing my cloak around me while trying to look like I wasn’t.
“Come on, spin around. Feel good about yourself! I can see you wanting to smile.”
Though I felt about as graceful as Bambi, I flicked my cloak back and gave them a turn.
“Wow,” Heather said. I realized then the word I should’ve used upon seeing her in that dress.
“Yeah,” Ana said. “Looking good, Pav!”
Their words had an unintended consequence. The tailor squeezed me for all he could get, knowing there was no way I’d leave that stall without those clothes on my back. Including socks and boxer shorts, the splurge left me nearly broke. I only managed to wriggle away with a couple of silvers because the tailor took pity on me.
Preparations complete, we wound back to the hostel where Ana and Heather had stayed the night before. I rented a bed and deposited our party bag.
I hadn’t realized how tired my legs were until I sat down across from Ana and Heather. Warm relief flooded through me.
“We ordered for you. Stew,” Ana said.
“Thanks.”
“Eat plenty. We head for Riyaasat at dawn.”
“Think there’ll be monsters out there?”
“We didn’t see any on the way here. The shopkeeper at White Fir did say this whole area was overrun, though. I wonder if she was just trying to scare us.”
“Same with me at Murray’s Ford. Said something about Pradeep and his brother, Beta testers who’d kept back the horde. When the Beta ended, there was no one to stem the flow.”
“Only I haven’t seen any.”
“One of my friends has, I think, Farrukh’s his name. He had 12 points when we parted yesterday and had 22 by this morning.”
“Sure he didn’t get those points from killing people?”
I shook my head. “Mathematically, it adds up, but he didn’t seem keen on attacking newbies. Said there wasn’t any good loot in it.”
“How do you know how much people are worth?” Heather asked quietly.
“We, uh, encountered some bandits on the road here. I got two of them, 5 points each, on top of 1 point for winning my first fight against a player. Hence my 11 points, and my injuries.”
“You didn’t think to mention this?” Ana asked.
“I didn’t think it mattered.”
“I guess it doesn’t,” she said. Her tone didn’t match her words.
“Look, I don’t want any mistrust between us. You can ask Emily and Jacques of the Azure Lance. They were there.” Only Ana and Heather had no reason to believe them any more than they did me.
“I trust you,” Heather said, her voice still small.
Ana nodded. I’d have to make sure I didn’t do anything to water the seeds of doubt. Betrayal makes a bitter fruit.
The stew came, a watery broth of carrots, celery, onion, and some kind of fowl served with a dense bread. I felt bad for Mom, imagining her seeing the gusto with which I devoured the food. Despite her traditional Serbian recipes making me feel like less of a culturally severed second-gen immigrant, I rarely showed such appetite at home. Perhaps it was due to all the walking. Shopping was exhausting.
Eating preoccupied us for a time, then Heather excused herself.
I took the opportunity to ask Ana something that had been bugging me. Best to be direct. “Look — do you want me here?”
She recoiled. “If this is about that bandit stuff…”
“Even before that. You and Heather seem close. I don’t mean to intrude. I don’t mind if you’d rather we go our separate ways.” Nothing I wasn’t used to, anyway.
“What makes you think you’re unwelcome?”
“You never asked me to come, and I never asked you. I just kind of followed you and now I’m here.”
“From the moment you stepped beside me, you didn’t have to ask. I thought I didn’t either. We’re happy to have you along.”
“Even after the bandit stuff?”
“Yeah. Heather trusts you, and I trust her. Just don’t make me think twice.” She said that last sentence half-jokingly, but only half.
“Got it.”
“And thank you, Pav. You’ve made a powerful enemy today.”
“And I’ve made two friends I can depend on. I’d take you and Heather over that bully Edwin Casper any day.”
Ana smiled. My heart caught in my throat and I had to swallow it back down. My gut beat with its warmth.
“Besides, this is a game, right? Encountering enemies means I’m going the right way.”
“Let’s hope so.”
Heather returned, though she walked with a tense stiffness. When she sat, she didn’t return to her seat next to Ana, instead taking the open seat on my bench.
Ana beamed. “Look at us, thick as thieves. There’s nothing in the world we can’t do.” And she made me believe it.
5
Dawn peeked through my shutters, and I leapt out of bed. Instant regret lanced through my ribs and arm, but I stayed upright. Small victories.
My stomach had tied itself in a knot with excitement over the adventure to come. Not at all about Ana, who was sleeping soundly on the bottom bed of her and Heather’s bunk.
After all, the Infatuation Express only called at one station: Despair.
I put on my new clothes, rinsed my face, attended nature’s calls, and reenabled my feed. No viewers, but who cared. I punched the air, my energy demanding release. Come on!
After I’d calmed my breathing a bit, I went downstairs. Heather sat in the common room, tapping a foot. She smiled at me. I returned the expression and sat down.
“How’d you sleep?” I asked.
“Well,” she said, though the jitter in her voice told me she had the same nerves coursing through her as I did.
“How’s the burn?” It looked like the swelling had reduced.
She winced. “I kept a wet rag on it overnight. Still wish I had some paracetamol.” Some strange British medicine, I assumed.
“And, uh,” I stuttered. “You holding up?” She’d seemed to shake off the encounter with Edwin once we’d gotten in the swing of shopping. If it had been a façade, it was more convincing than the ones I put on.
Her hand hesitated over the welt. “I’ve met plenty of nasty characters in games before, but I never had to see their faces. I could always mute them. Not here.” Her gaze was intent on the table. “He’s still out there. I won’t be free from that whip until I can protect myself.” She shook her head. “Thanks for asking. What about your wounds?”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I took the easy way out. “Shouldn’t be too bad, as long as I keep out of trouble. Better than on the six-hour walk here.”
“We had something similar to get here from White Fir,” she said.
“It was the yammering that got me. One of my companions did nothing but complain. I’d go on, but I don’t want to be a hypocrite.”
We both chuckled, but she sobered quickly. “I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like to be attacked by bandits.”
“Technically it was me attacking them. They were sticking up Emily and Jacques.”
“What happened?”
An image of the bandit with the smashed face appeared, only it was my own face ruined and bloody. I shivered. “There were four of them versus me and my friend Farrukh, although I didn’t think he was coming. I thought to myself, even if I died, I’d be doing the ri
ght thing. It was over before I knew it.”
She looked at me earnestly. “And are you — how did you put it — holding up?”
How did I answer that? If I told her about how I’d thought my injuries were fatal, she’d realize I was weak. If I told her that Farrukh hadn’t wanted the fight but I’d rushed in anyway, she’d realize how quickly I disregarded my companions when their needs didn’t suit mine. If I told her about the visions of my own body mutilated, I didn’t know what she’d get out of that, but definitely nothing flattering.
Besides, don’t want to be a hypocrite. “Yeah,” I said. When she didn’t respond, I took the opportunity to shift the focus away from myself. “Why did you come to the city?”
She opened her mouth, closed it, and eventually said, “Ana had her scheme to get rich instructing. But that’s all over now.” I followed her eyes. Nope, just an ordinary table.
“I meant you you. She ask you to come along?”
“She didn’t ask, but I wanted to learn to fend for myself, and she promised to stick with me until then. I don’t think she knew what she was signing up for.”
“The way she acted yesterday, she was prepared.”
“I’m not sure that’s better.” She turned as Ana came down the stairs.
“Look at you two early birds. How long have you been down here?”
“Two minutes,” I said, at the same time Heather said, “Half an hour.”
“I’ll grab some breakfast, and we can bounce.”
Out the north gate, a blocky stone bridge spanned the river, a twin to the one in the south. The wall’s circuitry shimmered in the weak early light.
Over the bridge, we passed into an unpaved plaza. Wagons, travel animals, and drivers lounged in the sunlight. Donkeys, horses, oxen, nothing unordinary. It smelled of manure, a cloying, salty-sweet scent which transported me to rural Georgia.
A carter called to us, “Need to get to Frostbank or the Sunlands? Five gold apiece, I’ll have you at either in a week.”
“Riyaasat?” I called.
“No way. I’m not trying to get myself killed, and you shouldn’t either.”
Heather asked, “Why? What’s out there?”
The carter shook his head. “Nothing good.”
Heather gave me and Ana a nervous look. I tried to appear unconcerned. The northern plains awaited us.
Fields of amber swayed. The dirt track extended straight north as far as we could see.
Ana took the lead early, taking the tent pack and pushing hard through the morning. Heather and I did our best to keep up. We passed farms and hamlets, but no other players. The quest boards in the nearest settlements were sparse, but as we ventured further, the crops gave way to untended fields of tall grass, and the quest boards became crowded with notices.
One village offered a multitude of quests. “Kill 10 fermids. Reward: 10 gold,” “Kill a fermid queen. Reward: 100 gold,” “Clear Riyaasat of monsters. Reward: 100 gold,” as well as some for clearing nearby farms.
When I tapped on the first notice, a notification flashed: “Quest accepted: kill 10 fermids.” Similar bulletins popped up for the fermid queen and clearing Riyaasat quests. I tapped one of the farm quests — because why not — only to get “3/3 quests already accepted.” Heather and Ana accepted the same three as I had.
The sheer number of quests available made me nervous, but Ana wouldn’t be dissuaded. The heavy smell of grass enveloped us.
Heather really sucked it up. “How does this compare to the West Country?” I asked.
She released a deep breath and opened her eyes. “Better. Way better.”
“You like the grass that much?”
She gave me a suffering look. “It’s not the grass. It’s everything. The adventure, the wonder, the magic of it all. And it feels so real.”
“I suppose it is, in a sense. Sure, we can’t die here, but I’m real, and you’re real, and my excitement sure is real.”
“And that bully from yesterday is, too.”
“Don’t worry about him. He got lucky finding that whip, but he still knew that in a fight Ana would kick his ass. I could see it all over his face.”
“When I get that power, I won’t use it to intimidate and belittle people,” Heather said. “I swear it.” Then she laughed. “I’ve always wanted to make a vow like that.”
“How does it feel?” I asked, though I already knew. I had sworn a similar vow the day before, a promise unspoken.
“It’s empowering,” she said. Then her face fell.
“What’s up?”
“Thinking about what that driver said. I don’t know what I’d do if I got all of us killed on this silly quest.”
“The quest isn’t silly. What good is playing at all, if not to do things like this? Going on adventures with your friends, trying to make the world a better place — there’s no goal nobler. And if we die in the process, well, at least we had fun trying.”
She remained sober. “But then we’d be back in the real world. Back alone in the middle of nowhere.”
“You bought in, didn’t you? I’m sure you have the money to travel. You could visit me in Atlanta.”
Her expression told me my assumption had flown wide. “My father doesn’t like me leaving the estate.”
“Well, I could scrape together some money and come see you, once I’m done with high school. Or maybe I’ll win some.”
“He doesn’t like for me to entertain guests, either.”
“We’ll find a way to make it work,” I insisted, my heart too overfull with excitement to dwell on the lie. “But that’s a river to drown in when we come to it. Right now, we’re finding you the Storm’s Breath!”
She didn’t reply, just kept walking.
“What about college? Where do you want to go?”
“I’ll find some online uni,” she said quietly. Then, seeing my frown, “It’s not so bad. The internet’s gotten me through my GCSEs and AS-Levels fine.”
“Your whats?”
“High school would be what you call it, I think.”
The sun stretched out overhead as the day wore on, often mitigated by a thin layer of cloud. We all applied sunscreen. It had been hours since the last settlement, and we could see none ahead, but neither had we encountered any monsters.
Heather walked beside Ana, and I couldn’t hear their words, only a murmur in the wind. Unjustified paranoia insisted they were talking about me. Logic would not assuage my fears, so I retreated to daydream.
If silence is a blank television, imagination turns it on. Ana provided ample source material. But the actress playing her only had the conviction I could provide, and my imagination lacked the muscle to swim against the current of truth. One thousand “no”s played on my screen.
I eventually grew bitter enough to change the channel. It gave imaginary Heather, pretty in her pale-blue dress, an opportunity to try the word out.
The scenery blended together. Nothing but the same brown grass, ranging from waist to shoulder height, as far as we could see. Not that it disheartened Ana, who pressed on as relentless as ever, legs pumping. Shame tugged at me when I realized that my viewers would notice my leering. I sped alongside her, part keeping my eyes from latching, part hoping some conversation would slow her pace.
“Do a lot of hiking back home?” I asked.
“Not much. Hard to leave the city.”
“Where you from, anyway?”
“New York. There are some good trails upstate, but it’s hard to get out there often, what with school and all. Fortunately, only another year and then I’ll be free, free to go to college and nothing will change.” She laughed, as if it meant nothing.
“You have your heart set on college?”
“My parents do, and I don’t want to disappoint them. Though if I decided to not go, I’m sure they’d be nothing but supportive. There’s always my brother.”
The grasses swayed in the mild breeze. I draped my cloak over one shoulder and rolled up my slee
ves, basking in the sun’s warmth. The air was rich with the scent of deep earth.
“I’m only a year from graduating as well,” I said. She didn’t seem to be slowing. “Though I don’t think I’ll head on to higher education.”
“Trying to join the workforce, or just onto Standard?”
“Probably Standard. Nothing seems any good, to be honest, career-wise. And I’ve never been too caught up on money.”
“Easy to say, until you want something.”
“Do you want something?”
“No, because I have money.” She skipped across stepping stones spanning a brook. Bubbles babbled as I followed in her footsteps, teetering a bit, unused to the weight of my pack.
“Then why go to college?” I asked, regaining her side.
“No way I’m letting my little brother take over the company. That goofball would run it into the ground.”
“What’s the company?”
She tapped her nose. “Not telling.”
“Afraid your massive corporation has done me unjust?”
“Nah. But I’d still rather keep it private.”
“If you didn’t have a company to take over, what would you want to do?”
“At the risk of sounding like a walking stereotype, I’d want to travel. In the long term, I don’t know. I’m only sixteen. I’m not supposed to have everything figured out yet.”
That was reassuring. Even Ana had no idea what she really wanted. Even though her future was better paved than the road we were walking on, she was as clueless as I.
“How did you convince your parents to let you come here, if you’re busy training to be some heiress-CEO?”
“The company isn’t going anywhere any time soon. It was harder leaving my friends, but maybe we’ll die tomorrow, and I won’t even miss a grade.”
“If anyone is going to survive until the end, it’ll be you.” The EULA had detailed that we’d be permitted a maximum game time of five years before we were kicked out. A long time to be gone. Ana’s friends would’ve graduated college.
From what Heather had said, it seemed like she was in the same boat as I. But Ana probably made friends with everyone she met.
“Then I’ll make new friends,” she said, making me feel very intelligent. I didn’t doubt it would be that easy for her. She coughed then said, “Ack. You smell that?”