/Enough,/ the voice boomed in her head. /You live for now. But the hardest is yet to come./
Chapter Thirty-Four
TERRIBLY BLAND CHRISTMAS music, synthesized instrumentals with cymbals and snare beat that was probably supposed to sound jazzy, drifted through the crafts supply store in Chen’s suburb. It set his nerves on edge, even more than the pitying smiles and so-called holiday wishes from the skeleton staff working mornings the third week of December.
The other shoppers got “Merry Christmas” and questions about whether they expected family to visit. But not Chen. Not with his ethnicity written baldly on his features.
Of course, he tried to tell himself they were actually trying to be polite by not assuming he celebrated a holiday that belonged to the country’s dominant religion. He got that. But he’d been born in Minnesota. Yeah, his parents had come from Southern China, but they’d done everything they could to raise him in their adopted culture. A Christmas tree stood in their living room, smelling of the forest and dropping needles that got tracked into every room in the house. Chen had a shopping cart full of ornament-making supplies—a project that he hoped would drag Mei out of her latest funk.
But they still smiled patronizingly and treated him like a visitor from the mysterious Orient.
Chen sighed. Or maybe he was just imagining it.
“Is there anything else you need assistance with?” the automated checkout kiosk asked in a tinny voice once the scanning bot had finished sweeping the air around the cart and registering his purchases.
Chen shook his head and waved his wrist over the payment sensor. He tightened the scarf around his neck, then loaded the ornament supplies into his backpack. Shoving hands into his pockets, he stepped out into the frigid December air. An autocab was already waiting, sparing him the need to press a palm against the icy glass of the hailing pad.
As he dropped into the seat, the door slid shut and cut the frosty plume of his breath in half.
Chen gave his address, then sat back. It had been nice to take some time away from Relic Online and his current discomfort with violence in the game. Mei had actually laughed to see him curled up in the corner of her bedroom when she woke. It hadn’t taken long for the pall of her depression to once again darken her mood, but those few moments where she’d smiled had been worth it.
Maybe he would see more of them while they tried to figure out how to use the hot glue gun and glitter tape.
Snow swirled through the air, small flakes that never seemed to land, as he stepped out of the cab and trudged up the sidewalk to his front door. He squeezed the latch and shouldered the door open, then blew on his fingers to warm them after the contact with the icy metal.
Compared to outside—even with the clouds and the snow—the living room felt strangely dim. He looked around for Mei, noticing as he did that the Christmas tree lights had been unplugged. That must have explained the sense that darkness filled the home. After kicking the traces of snow off his boots, he pulled them off and set them beside the door, then padded across the carpet to the electrical outlet.
“I unplugged them to save power,” his mother said as he picked up the cord.
Chen turned to see her standing awkwardly in the hallway leading to the family’s bedrooms.
“Mei loves the lights,” he said, stooping again to insert the plug. As the multicolored light flooded the room, he heard his father’s unmistakable throat clearing.
Chen’s breath slowed. He swallowed as he dropped to a seat and turned to face both parents.
“What happened?” he asked. “Is Mei okay?”
“The psychiatrist was worried after her last appointment,” Chen’s father said. “He recommended that she spend some time in an inpatient facility.”
“You sent her away?” Chen spat. “The week before Christmas?”
What he didn’t ask—but wanted to—was why no one had warned him. They had to have known for days at least. But there was no point in saying anything more. He’d already gone a step too far by questioning his elders. The backpack with the ornament supplies dragged at his neck. He stuffed it behind the tree as he unplugged the lights, then he headed upstairs to log in.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“CAN YOU CLEAR something up for me?” Devon asked as she and Bob stood at another fork in the corridor maze.
“Depends on whether you remember to express yourself clearly. That’s been something of a sticking point for us.” Bob gave its version of a shrug, then started bobbing down the right-hand passage. Since it didn’t seem to matter much which hallways they took, Devon had fallen back on her old habit of always making right turns to explore a dungeon.
Devon ignored the jibe. Of course, figuring out how to phrase her question clearly was an issue here. Problem was, she didn’t understand the subject well enough to be specific. “I always assumed you were…hmm… One of Veia’s creations. Some of the comments you’ve made recently have caused me to reconsider. Can you tell me how your kind came into existence?”
Bob stopped moving and hung in midair. “You understand that’s not a particularly straightforward question, right? I mean, why not just go whole hog and ask me for the meaning of life. Or maybe you could query for my thoughts on whether we subscribe to a shared reality, or whether each person creates their own universe.”
When the wisp didn’t move, she sidestepped around it. “Okay. Let me explain it this way. As I was taught by someone in the starborn realm, all of Aventalia was created by two competing deities. Veia and Zaa. But you speak as if the arcane realm is somehow separate.”
Bob gave a dismissive snort sound. “Of course it is.”
“Then you aren’t one of Veia’s manifestations.”
“No more than you are.”
Yeah, but Devon was a player. A visitor from another…reality, she supposed. The wisp existed entirely within the game. If neither of the creator AIs had spawned the arcane realm, how had it come into existence? Did the developers even know of it? Or had Veia spawned it after all, somehow disguising her influence from the realm’s denizens?
Bob gave an exaggerated sigh as it zipped forward to once again glide through the air beside her. “If you must know, the arcane realm has followed a different track than one finds in traditional creation myths. No one created us. Rather, our collective mind, of which I am both an individual fragment and a ghostly echo, emerged from the void over time. Our communion continues to grow and change, gathering resources as we sense them.”
Devon sighed. Well, that had cleared up exactly nothing. Anyway, it didn’t much matter where Bob came from. The wisp was equally annoying as a creation of Veia or some weird emergent AI rising from computational interstices. Devon shrugged and continued on.
“Actually, wait,” she said, stopping short.
“Yes?”
“If you’re not one of Veia’s creations, why is it that both you and the game text spend so much time making fun of me?”
Silence fell while Bob hung in the air beside her.
After a moment, the wisp sighed. “I realize that starborn have different levels of awareness when it comes to personal development, so I’ll give you a pass on not knowing this tidbit. But there is a certain maxim many wise minds employ: if you see a pattern in the way others respond to you, it’s not the world that’s the problem. It’s you.”
Devon flared her nostrils. “You really are a jerk, you know that?”
“Yet here I am, accompanying you on a fool’s errand through hell.”
“Which is the only reason I haven’t fired you.”
“Fired me?”
“As a guide.”
“As if you could.”
“Never underestimate a starborn with a thirst for vengeance.”
“Never underestimate the tenacity of an arcane manifestation who endured a thousand years as the sole companion of a slowly decaying arch-lich.”
Okay, so maybe the wisp had a point.<
br />
Devon glanced at the quest timer—forty-five minutes left. So far, the challenges in the dungeon had simply arrived when Zaa decided to start another trial. She wasn’t sure it mattered whether she sauntered or jogged other than the perception it created. Zaa liked to feel power over her. If that’s what it took to get out of this place, she could swallow her pride and hustle her hooves.
Ahead, the corridor forked again, and Devon took the right-trending branch.
Straight into a wide chamber with a ceiling lost in the haze.
“Well, this is a change—” Bob began, only to be interrupted when yet another of Zaa’s trademark iron plates clanged down behind them and sealed off the tunnel from which they’d emerged.
Devon groaned as a popup appeared in her vision.
Prepare for the Trial of Ruthlessness.
Ruthlessness?
Ugh. Great. Not knowing what to expect, Devon cast the first charge of Demonic Frenzy on herself. Her heart beat faster when the spell landed. Faster and louder. Her pulse thundered in her ears, deafening in the silence of the chamber.
Abruptly, a panel in the floor slid aside, and a stone altar rose from the ground. Black stains overlapped on the top, and streaks of the same darkness ran down the side. She didn’t have to think too hard to know what had dried there.
Devon grimaced. She had a feeling this would be the least pleasant of the trials.
Another few seconds of silence dragged on, Devon’s breath audible as it hissed through her nostril slits.
Between her and the altar, a purple gash rent the air. The void opened wider and wider, until, with a sudden crack and flash, two figures tumbled from the darkness before the portal clapped shut.
The people, a man and a woman, squealed and scrambled backward and put their backs against the altar. Their eyes locked onto Devon.
“So…uh…did you start a quest without warning me?” the man asked.
Curling her lip, the woman shook her head. “You mean, am I an idiot? No. What the hell is this?”
“I don’t know. But it seems pretty damn disturbing for level 5 content with no opt-in. I’m surprised the ESRB isn’t all over these guys.”
“Actually, Todd, you did opt into violent imagery. You just didn’t read the text.”
“Fair enough.” The man shrugged and stood. “Anyway, that’s why I have you. To read my privacy policies and user agreements for me.”
The woman snorted as she joined him on her feet. “So aside from the surprise teleport, this place is kinda cool. What do you think we’re supposed to do? Give this demon thing a smackdown? It doesn’t even seem aggro.”
/You see. They don’t even fear you, worm. How can you command my legions, striking terror and despair into our enemies, if you can’t intimidate a pair of neophyte starborn? Make them regret their insolence for the remaining minutes of their pathetic lives. Or join them in their deaths./
So Zaa wanted her to torture these people? Devon snarled in horror, causing the woman to shrink back against the altar. She seemed to notice then that her forearm was pressed against the stone, and she grimaced as she pulled her flesh away and looked at the tacky blood clinging to it.
“Ew,” she said. “Todd, check this out.”
Devon remained frozen. Whether to save Owen or not, she didn’t think she could bring herself to…what did Zaa want…to fling these people onto the altar and slowly kill them?
Actually, she had the horrified feeling that even that wouldn’t be enough to please the dark god. There was a reason he had summoned two players, and Devon had a sinking feeling it related to her Enthrall ability. What could be more ruthless, more sadistic, than charming one of the players and forcing them to torture and kill the other?
Her stomach clenched at the thought, and her vision swam.
“Shit,” the man, Todd, muttered. “I sure hope we aren’t supposed to fight this thing. It’s level fricking twenty-two.”
The woman’s eyes had gone distant, a sure sign she was checking her user interface. “I’m checking my combat log. It says we were summoned by someone called Zaa. That makes me think…”
The man turned to her. “You don’t think this is related to that shit that went down in Eltera City?”
Devon could almost see the realization sinking in. These two might’ve been pulled away from a level five newbie quest, but they were now realizing the gravity of their situation.
“You know, I’m starting to get a bad feeling.” The man cast a nervous glance at Devon. She growled, hoping to keep Zaa off her back for a moment while she figured out what to do. Both players backed away, splitting up to round the altar and put the heavy block of stone between them and her.
//Perhaps the quest timer isn’t sufficient motivation to remind you of your duties, worm. Or perhaps it was simply too long.//
With a flash, the timer in Devon’s vision dropped from forty-two minutes to nine.
She howled and took a step toward the pair, the demon inside her thrashing harder in fear over disappointing Zaa. Her body trembled with the effort of resisting.
Devon racked her brain for ideas. “Pathetic humans,” she spat in her demonic voice. “Too ignorant to flee while they still can.” While she spoke, she stared hard at the pair, willing them to figure out some method of escape. Maybe one of them had some sort of recall spell or level five teleport.
“Listen,” said the man. He stood from behind the altar. “We seem to have arrived here by mistake. We’re just noobs, okay?”
Devon roared, the sound sending him staggering. Her demon-self clawed harder at her psyche, widening cracks in her defenses. Seeing the cowering humans, she did want to make them suffer. Weakness deserved punishment. Devon’s attention snapped to her Adamantine Strike ability. A single blow could sever one of these worthless cretin’s limbs.
“No,” Devon growled, shoving the demon back down.
“No?” the woman asked. She looked like some sort of rogue class, clad in scuffed leathers with a dagger on her hip. “What is this? What’s going on?”
Devon howled to shut her up. The woman complied, taking a couple stumbling steps backward.
“Devon,” Bob murmured, almost too quiet to hear. She jerked when she realized the wisp was sitting on her shoulder. What was it now, an arcane parrot?
“What?” she roared.
The humans looked at each other and shrugged. “Beats me,” said Todd.
“You’re a Deceiver,” Bob said in the same low voice. “With powers granted by Veia. As powerful as the gods are, their greatest weakness is the inability to interfere with—or even understand—the other’s work. Why else do you think that Zaa’s oblivious to who has control of your body right now?”
She blinked slowly as she let his words sink in.
A deceiver…could she actually trick a god?
Chapter Thirty-Six
EMERSON GAPED. HE knew there wasn’t any other word to describe what he was doing. His mouth hung slack, and his eyes were wide as he stared at the high wall and towering keep before him.
Hundreds of sounds penetrated his ears: shouts of humans and dwarves working on what looked like a taller inner wall that strengthened Stonehaven’s defenses; chatter from the flock of birds in the orchard to the right of the town; the fricking rustle of grass as something—probably a small rodent—slipped through it.
It was so…real.
All this time, he’d assumed it took imagination on the players’ part to fully feel immersed in the world Veia had created. Thinking about it now, he wasn’t sure what had prompted that conclusion. Some sort of insecurity on his part? An inability to believe that his AI was capable of everything he’d hoped? Or did he secretly want to look down on the gamers, imagining that their world could never be as impressive as true reality? He’d never been very good at games and had often felt like he was something of an outcast. Maybe his vague disdain had been compensatory.
But now that he u
nderstood what Relic Online offered—no doubt just a fraction of what it offered, actually—he was determined to learn how to play.
Though probably not using a GM avatar.
He looked down at the body he’d spawned in and felt the heat rushing to his cheeks. Apparently, the customer service person who’d created this avatar had held a deep-set need to impress or feel powerful. Emerson wore the most ridiculously ornate robes he’d ever seen, a rich purple embroidered with intricate gold and silver runes, a cloth-of-gold belt, and a loose tunic in burgundy layered over the top. Enormous gems crested his fingers, and there was enough gold in his bracelets to plate his Tucson house.
As he approached the first gate leading into Devon’s home, characters stopped and stared. His game master HUD had an extra overlay that identified the humans and dwarves as either a player or NPC, giving a bunch of additional information that Emerson had no idea how to interpret. Grimacing, he waved his hand in front of his face in an attempt to brush the UI away.
Behind his hand, a trail of shimmering motes formed and then slowly faded, but the HUD stayed firmly in place.
He sighed and decided to live with the overlay.
“Jarleck!” a woman shouted. She stood atop the settlement’s outer wall and pulled on a rope to raise a bucket of what looked like mortar. “Get out here.”
As if goosed into motion by her words, other workers stopped their work and retreated through the gate in the outer wall. Few made eye contact, which made Emerson wonder whether they considered him an enemy, an unproven stranger, or a ridiculous fop in an obnoxious robe.
As he reached the gate, a big man stepped forward to bar his path. Muscles played across his forearm as he folded his arms over his chest and stared Emerson down.
“Greetings, traveler.” According to Emerson’s interface, the NPC’s name was Jarleck.
“Hi.” Emerson smiled in his best ‘I mean you no harm’ expression.
Citadel of Smoke: A LitRPG and GameLit Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 4) Page 27