by Dean Smith
Princess Rita was always an open book before but now she had awoken to the truth, she had changed. Gone was the airy but harmless princess and in her place was a quiet contemplative woman of power who was difficult to read. Everything had changed and focusing on anything that wasn’t the goal in front of them made Valiant’s head spin. It all could wait, it had to.
Valiant barely took a step before a guard came rushing towards them.
‘Sir Valiant! You have returned! The King is waiting for you!’
Another floating box appeared in thin air.
‘Go to the Castle?’
‘Yes’ ‘No’
They were heading there anyway and so Valiant and Princess Rita went along with it. Everything went dark as they were hit with another loading screen before appearing in the throne room before the king.
‘Sir Valiant! Thank goodness you were successful in bringing my beloved daughter back to me!’ He motioned to the empty seat beside him and looked to it lovingly.
‘Dad?’ For the first time since they woke up in this new reality, Princess Rita sounded vulnerable, scared even.
The King didn’t respond to her and instead carried on speaking.
‘But now that the Princess has returned, another enemy has appeared! The hateful Mordoom has returned to plague our nation! Will you, Sir Valiant, offer us your aid in defeating him once more?’
Another box appeared, asking if he’d like to accept the quest.
‘DAD!’ Princess Rita screamed at the king but he didn’t acknowledge her. He waited on Valiant for his answer. She screeched and ran up to him, shaking him to get a response that would never come.
‘ANSWER ME!’ Her hands glowed as a flurry of 1’s and 0’s gathered around her.
‘Princess!’ Valiant cried out as he ran towards her, he couldn’t let her lose control and do something she would regret but as he approached, he was blasted back by a wave of energy that shook the castle itself and shattered the windows around them. Princess Rita was overflowing with her strange magic and it was bursting forth in waves that extended throughout the throne room and beyond.
‘Princess Rita! Please!’ He called to her, he didn’t know what she was doing, but he feared the worst. She could end up destroying everything. Valiant wondered what the right thing was to do, it was harder now he didn’t have someone to control his destiny. He couldn’t help but freeze as the answer lay beyond his grasp. He couldn’t get close, he couldn’t reason with her and he couldn’t consider the thought of subduing her with force, it wouldn’t be heroic, it wouldn’t be right.
As he got back on his feet, he noticed that the waves emanating from her were growing weaker, they were subsiding and within five more waves, the glow and the numbers that enveloped her had faded. She fell to her knees and Valiant ran to her side. She was sweating and panting but otherwise she seemed fine, if exhausted.
‘Rita?’ She gasped, and they both looked up at the king looking down at them both with concern.
‘Dad?’ Princess Rita looked as though she was on the verge of tears as she stood up and hugged her father. Somehow she had gotten through to him and judging from the confused murmurs around the throne room, he was not the only one. Valiant looked around as he made sense of what happened. It had to have been Princess Rita’s strange magic, the Source Code. She had unleashed it and somehow awakened everyone in the throne room from the code that held them prisoner like how Valiant and Rita had been awakened by the rift.
‘What’s happening? Why do I have this strange fiction in my head telling me that everything is a game?’ King Theodore looked to Valiant for answers that Valiant couldn’t provide. Instead, he opted to fill the king in on what happened.
‘This is a lot to process.’ The king was a master of the understatement. ‘I don’t know how to proceed or what to do with this information.’
‘We can only carry on carrying on, I guess, your Majesty.’ Valiant answered with a shrug.
‘Quite.’ King Theodore responded. ‘Our world has changed, we must adapt to it. We must try to keep things as normal as possible, it will be difficult knowing the truth but the news of Rita’s return will help calm the people.’ Rita’s magic had likely extended beyond the throne room to god knows where and Valiant suspected that everyone in the Kingdom now knew of the truth.
‘We’ll need a united front, Rita, now more than ever, you must be the princess the people need you to be.’
A sour look crept across and darkened her face.
‘I don’t want to be just a princess, I have real power now. I can change things for the better.’
‘Being a princess won’t stop you from changing the world.’ The King replied, his eyes betrayed his worry at what the princess was saying.
‘But staying here and governing the people will, I need to take this power out into the world. Venturis has become limited in the wake of this revelation and maybe I can do something about it. Maybe I can make a difference!’
King Theodore paced for a minute before responding.
‘I can’t stop you, can I? I certainly can’t tell you what to do with that power you hold..... Valiant?’
‘Your Majesty.’ Valiant offered a brief bow.
‘If Rita is to go out into the world, I want you to go with her and protect her. I want you both to figure out what’s going on and find out if there’s a way to fix things.’
‘Of course, your Majesty. Although, judging from what I’ve seen, Princess Rita needs no one’s protection.’ Rita shot him a beaming smile.
‘If that’s the case, go forth and be the heroes you’re meant to be.’
Princess Rita hugged King Theodore. With his blessing, their adventure would begin.
***
Vampires.
Valiant and Rita (she insisted he drop her title) had just arrived at their first village after leaving Wingcrest to find out more about the effects of Rita’s powers when the villagers had offered them a quest. Vampires had targeted the village and would take a villager away every night to their lair, a cave not far outside of the village. Rita accepted, flexing her fingers as she did. She had fought in every battle against any monster that had come across them on the way here and with each passing battle she seemed to gain more of an understanding of her powers. Valiant however was still struggling to what Rita referred to as ‘turn based battles’. While she was allowed to act freely in battle, most likely due to her powers, both their enemies and Valiant were limited in their actions. Valiant would have to wait his turn to attack an enemy and in the interim, he could only try to defend against oncoming attacks. It was frustrating and Valiant longed for the days where he could fight freely but he supposed those days never existed. This had always been how he fought, his perceptions of battle were merely different to the reality of it. It was something that Rita confirmed on their travels. She had dived into the source code whenever she had a chance, she was desperate to understand their world better and she had let him know everything she discovered which wasn’t much for the moment. The source code was vast and difficult to understand and it took time for her to comprehend it.
Now however, they had a quest to worry about, they had people to save and that was Valiant’s priority but he was happy for the distraction. Ever since he learned that he was a character in a video game, he had felt limited by it. Before he was a hero of great renown, he feared nothing and he always saved the day without fail but now he felt lost and confused and, worst of all, scared. He despised feeling like this, he told himself he was a hero, that it was his job to be brave and that he had no time for fear. If he was scared and if it caused him to hesitate, it could be catastrophic. He had to stay focused and positive, he had to maintain a confident and happy persona, he couldn’t let anyone know how he felt for too many people relied on him to go above and beyond what they were capable of and he wouldn’t let them down.
Valiant and Rita journeyed to the cave a few hours before the sun was due to set, they would take the vampires by surpr
ise and end the villagers’ ordeal before nightfall.
They found that the vampires were still sleeping in their makeshift beds and Valiant prepared for battle but Rita motioned to him to step down. Her eyes become a blizzard, a sign she was looking into the source code, and she lifted her hand as a ball of numbers and strange text floated above them.
‘Rita?’ Valiant asked uncertainly as the ball lifted higher into the air and grew larger.
‘Give me a moment.’ She replied. ‘Right, ready. You might not want to look at that ball directly.’
She clicked her fingers and the dark cave filled with a hot light so bright that Valiant had to shield his eyes. He could hear a cacophony of harsh and shrill screeching and could see smoke through the light. The light faded once the screeching ended and Valiant, once his eyes returned to normal, saw that piles of smoking ash surrounded them in place of the sleeping vampires.
‘What was that?’ Valiant asked. He was amazed and, although he’d never admit it, scared of the power he witnessed.
‘It’s something I’ve been working on, the source code doesn’t just allow me to delete things, or change them. I can also create things so I created a temporary sun to kill the vamps but that’s not all I can do, look!’ She waved her hands, and the cave disappeared around them. In its place was a forest clearing covered in wildflowers.
‘Wow.’ He wandered around the clearing, taking it all in. In just a matter of days, Rita had developed her power beyond all expectations. The source code seemed to hold infinite potential and Valiant could only guess how Rita’s powers would manifest next but that was something for another time as their work was not over.
With the threat destroyed, it was time to turn the quest in at the village. Upon doing so, the villagers gifted Valiant and Rita with gold and items and adoration. Valiant showed his gratitude as always, he was happiest when he was doing a good deed and he looked to Rita, expecting her to be overjoyed at completing her first duty as a hero but she seemed subdued and it didn’t take Valiant long to figure out why. All the attention was on him, nobody had even acknowledged Rita’s presence and, thinking about it now, Valiant didn’t think the villagers did when they first arrived either. She had once again been ignored like she was back at the castle before she awoke King Theodore to the truth of their world. When they left Wingcrest, they discovered that the entire kingdom had been awoken by Rita as a result of unleashing her power at the castle but it seems like this village had not awoken yet. To them, Rita did not exist, there was only Valiant who came to save the day. Valiant tried to see if he could get them to acknowledge Rita’s efforts but they spoke only the limited words that the game allowed them to.
Rita was quiet for hours afterwards and she only spoke just before they were getting ready to sleep at the village inn.
‘I thought it would feel good to be a hero, but that didn’t feel good, it felt... Pointless.’ She said with an edge as she sat on her bed, Valiant looked over from his.
‘Being a hero isn’t about recognition or rewards, being a true hero means going above and beyond even if you get nothing for it.’
‘Easy for you to say, you are loved. It’s easy to downplay recognition when you’re drowning in it but that’s not all.’ She crossed her arms before continuing.
‘It didn’t feel good to save these people because, well, they aren’t people. I’ve looked into their source code and it’s no different to that of a rock or a monster. It’s all the same. It’s all just data and code. Don’t get me wrong, so are we but our code is something different, something new. We are more than those people. When we awoke to the truth, we were brought to life but the people we saved today, they’re just objects, distractions.’
Valiant didn’t like where this conversation was going.
‘They still needed our help. We did a good deed today, we saved the village.’
Rita rolled her eyes.
‘But it doesn’t matter, they don’t matter. Can you really act like we did something good today when we were just following the script of this world? What’s the point of it all, what’s the point of being a hero if we’re just saving bits of inconsequential data? Nothing we’ve done today mattered.’
Valiant didn’t respond, he felt like he needed to say something to her, to show her the error of her way but nothing he could think of would sound like anything other than platitudes she would reject. He could only hope that in time, she would grow to understand what this life meant and that, no matter what their code comprised of, saving people was worthwhile whether or not they were awake to the truth. Valiant had to hope that was the case, he didn’t want to think of what could happen if Rita, with all her power, became disillusioned with the world.
***
Rita had conjured up a campsite and dived into a tent without a word to Valiant. Three months had passed since that since that night in the inn and they completed another successful quest, one that involved saving a town from a horde of gargoyles which Rita had solved with a wave of her hand. This town, unlike the first village they came to months ago, was awake to the truth of Venturis and they acknowledged Rita’s deed with rewards, anxious glances, hushed voices and abject fear. Rita’s ability to create and destroy at will was unlike anything they had ever seen before and it soon became clear that the potential of that power unsettled people and Rita’s cold persona didn’t adhere her to the people they saved. Valiant could tell that being ignored for destroying those vampires had cut her deep and now this terror she had invoked in the people she was trying to save was only making it worse. Valiant had tried to be there for her, he had tried to explain to the townspeople that she had saved them, that her power was not to be feared but his words fell on deaf ears. The fear of seeing the world for what it was and knowing that one person had the power to change or destroy it so easily was too much to handle for most people.
Valiant couldn’t blame them for their fear, they had all lived in a world where people with absolute power were more often than not villains, Valiant had lived through that trope enough to know how true it could be. A villain would appear with power far outstripping that of any hero and Valiant would have to go on a quest to find a magical deux ex machina to overcome their power and save the day. It was such a tired plot device that Valiant could not understand how he didn’t see it earlier. Every great adventure he went on unfolded the same way but now they were off script. The old adventures didn’t matter because this was something new. There was no great evil to defeat, only questions to be answered and once they found the answers, maybe then the people wouldn’t fear Rita as much. That is what Valiant hoped, she had so much power, so much potential it would be tragic for her, and Venturis if she was lost to the darkness of fear.
Valiant tapped her tent.
‘Can we talk?’
‘Is there any point?’ She sounded so defeated. ‘Everyone is scared of me. I save people and they look at me like I’m the monster. Ever since I learned the truth, I wanted to be more than I was. I wanted to be a hero, to no longer fear the world like I did before.’
‘You can still be a hero, the greatest hero, even. Think of all the good you can do.’ He sighed, she would not listen to platitudes.
‘Rita, I can’t do this without you. You’ve been changed by what happened but so have I, I’m trying to be the hero I’m meant to be but it’s so difficult. The world is changing and becoming scarier by the minute and I don’t know if I can do anything about it. Saving the day was never difficult for me before, knowing what to do came natural but now I feel like I’ve been swept up by the tide. I’ve got to relearn how to fight and even navigating the world comes with challenges I’ve never experienced before, but in all this uncertainty and fear, you’re there to guide me along the way. You’re my hero, Rita. You truly are.’
Rita opened the tent and smiled at him. Before they became self aware, they were in love but that love was based on the narrative of the game, Valiant had to be the ultimate hero that saved his love from evil
and she had to be that love that was always in danger. Now they were awake, everything had changed. Valiant didn’t feel love for her like he did then and he could tell by the way she acted that she most likely felt the same way. There was nothing romantic between them anymore but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends, or at least partners.
‘You should get some sleep instead of inspiring me with speeches, we probably have a lot of quests to do in the morning, hopefully one of them will lead to some answers.’
He nodded, she was right. They had a big day ahead of them, every day was a big day now.
***
How did it all go so wrong?
Yesterday, it felt like everything would fall into place, Valiant’s admission about his own vulnerabilities had seemingly done a lot to help Rita with her own issues and Valiant believed that they could move past the fear that people had for Rita but Valiant did not understand how deeply Rita’s problems ran.
It started, as always, with a quest. This time they had found themselves in a kingdom close to Wingcrest. A forest kingdom called Faundale. Faundale’s princess, Princess Violet, had been taken by a great dragon deep into the forest and Valiant and Rita were tasked with rescuing her. Faundale, unlike the previous town, had not awakened to the truth which created more questions about how people became aware but it also meant the king that asked for their help could not acknowledge Rita, something which soured her mood.
After accepting the quest, they tracked the dragon to a forest clearing. Princess Violet was chained to the dragon itself which made the ensuing battle difficult. Valiant had to aim his blows lest he hit the princess and double so for Rita who had to use a restraint she was not used to before.
‘HELP ME! I’M BUT A WEAK PRINCESS! I NEED A HERO!’ Princess Violet was shrill and repetitive with her limited lines and Valiant could feel the frustration from Rita as she was forced to listen to it.
‘OH HELP ME, SIR VALIANT! YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE!’