by Rachel Aaron
By the time he finished, James felt like he’d dropped his heart on the floor and kicked it into Gray Fang’s lap. He held his breath, waiting for her to speak, but the elder just stared at him, her yellow eyes never leaving his face as she puffed on her long carved pipe.
As the minutes ticked by, James began to sweat. He wouldn’t wish what he’d been through today on anyone, but James was still sad that there were no other players around. A friend would be most welcome, but even a stranger would work. He just wanted someone from his own world who could understand, because standing alone in front of the furry, fanged, alien-looking old woman as she stared right through him was becoming more unnerving by the second. For all he knew, though, there were no other players. Maybe whatever this was had only happened to him. Maybe he was the only Earthling left in this entire world.
James swallowed. He didn’t want to believe that was true, but if it was, then convincing Grey Fang to trust him was more important than ever. The world of FFO was full of NPC towns and factions, but James wasn’t naive enough to think they’d welcome him any more than the jubatus had. If they really were all people who’d been trapped playing roles in a game for his amusement, then the entire population of this planet probably hated his guts. That was a horrible world to walk into alone, but if he could save Lilac, then maybe Gray Fang and the jubatus of Windy Lake wouldn’t want to murder him quite so badly. It was a long shot, but ensuring there was at least one place that didn’t see him as a monster was starting to feel like a very important thing.
He was still thinking about it when the elder set her pipe down at last. Whether it was to accept his aid or order his death, though, James could not begin to guess.
Chapter 5
Tina
SilentBlayde was trying to stop a murder, and it wasn’t going as well as he would have liked.
“I’m going to kill him!” hissed NekoBaby, clutching SB’s short cape across the ripped front of her robes.
“Please don’t,” SB said. “Anders wasn’t in his right mind, and Roxxy stopped him before he did anything truly regrettable.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that he tried to do it,” the jubatus Naturalist hissed, her yellow cat eyes narrowing to slits. “And he ripped my robes! Do you know how much grinding I had to do to get this set?” She looked down at the torn white-and-gold fabric with renewed fury. “I’m going to kill him slowly, then I’m going to rez him so I can kill him again!”
SB sighed. Tina had asked him to keep things calm, but he couldn’t blame Neko for being upset, and not just because of what had happened with Anders. He had no idea what Neko looked like in real life, but her character model was a five-foot-tall cat-girl with pert little ears, swaying hips, and breasts bigger than volleyballs. The proportions were inhuman, even for a jubatus, and every dude in the raid was having a hard time keeping their eyes to themselves. It was enough to make SB feel uncomfortable too, and he wasn’t even the target.
Fortunately, their position at the front of the raid meant that everyone else was stuck staring at their backs rather than Neko’s exposed chest. SB had been hoping they’d get bored as the march dragged on, but he should have known better than to underestimate male gamers’ interest in breasts. One of the Berserkers actually walked into a dead tree because he was trying too hard to get a peek at NekoBaby’s front, earning himself a hiss from the healer as she brandished her stubby claws.
“It’s so damn annoying,” she growled, clutching the cloak tighter to her chest. “I swear, I’m gonna fry the next one. Chain lightning, right to the balls. Bam.”
“Maybe they think you don’t mind, dude,” SB said nervously. “I mean, you used to strip down to your underwear and dance on the mailbox for tips. The attention never bothered you then.”
“Yeah, well, it bothers me now,” she huffed. “And don’t call me dude. I know English isn’t your first language, but that shit’s not cool.”
SB blinked. “Why not? I’ve always called you dude.”
“It was fine before, but shit’s gotten real now, and I can’t risk anyone finding out that I’m a guy in real life!” She lowered her voice to a hiss. “I made this character for me to enjoy! You know, cute name, female voice filter, shake that booty so douchebag bros give me raid spots and phat loot. Back in the game, if anyone found out the truth, I’d just threaten to tell their guild buddies they were hitting on a guy, and that was that. But this is my body now. These stupid ears and tail and giant hooters, they are me, and it fucking sucks!”
The karmatic irony of Neko’s situation wasn’t lost on SB, but pointing out how fitting a punishment this was for the Roughneck’s most obnoxious homophobic troll wouldn’t help the current situation. Terrible personality aside, NekoBaby was still a guildmate in trouble and an ally in a world where those were few, so SilentBlayde shelved the sharp retort he’d been writing in his head and focused on the crisis at hand.
“It’ll be okay,” SilentBlayde said gently. “I’m pretty sure Roxxy and I are the only ones here who know you’re a guy in real life. We’ll keep your secret. I promise. Just be sure to stick by us and other Roughnecks who aren’t Anders. Our guild should be safe, but I’m not sure yet how many of the tryout recruits we can trust.”
Neko nodded rapidly. “Thanks, SB! I really appreciate you guys having my back.” She looked nervously over her shoulder. “FYI, though, I don’t actually remember all the people I scammed. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them were in this raid right now, so heads up.”
SB pressed a hand over his face. Leave it to NekoBaby to save the worst until after he’d made a promise. “I’ll let Roxxy know to be on the lookout,” he said tiredly.
“Thanks,” she said again, reaching up to poke her twitchy cat ears. “I still can’t believe I’m stuck in this porn body, but I guess it could have been worse. At least I’m not like MuffinBurgler.”
“Who’s MuffinBurgler?” SB asked, confused. “Is he in our raid?”
Neko laughed. “No. It’d be funny as hell if he was, though! He plays a short, fat, pug-eyed Schtumple. Dude looked like a pug balloon on legs, and that was before shit got all hyper realistic.” She pressed a hand over her mouth. “Oh man, I hope he was in game when this hit! I’d kill to see him running around on those short little Schtumple legs!”
SB didn’t think that MuffinBurgler would find it funny, but he forced himself to laugh along with Neko in the hopes of moving the conversation to safer topics. Hopes that did not pan out, because the moment she stopped laughing about poor, possibly ill-fated MuffinBurgler, NekoBaby went right back to fuming. After the fifth deadly glare over her shoulder, SilentBlayde sighed.
“Please don’t kill Anders. We need him.”
“Yeah, well, I probably can’t, anyway,” Neko said sourly, glaring at the staff in her hands. “I’m stuck as a stupid healer, which means my damage is too gimpy to kill a rabbit. But I want to kill him so badly.” She tapped her lip, thinking. “Maybe I can poison him. I’ve got some herbs in my bag. I bet I could brew them into something deadly!”
“Those herbs are the only edibles we have besides the bread in Roxxy’s backpack,” SB chided. “Don’t go wasting food on revenge.”
“All right, all right,” Neko grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest. “But I’m not healing him.”
SB nodded. “Fair enough.”
“And he should give me his robe since he ripped mine.”
“You’ll have to get Roxxy’s okay on that one.”
“What’s her problem today, anyway?” Neko asked. “She’s been an off-the-charts bitch since this bullshit started. Did PMS hit along with the craziness or something?”
SilentBlayde’s jaw clenched. He would have been happy for any change of topic except for this topic. The cat-girl-guy healer wasn’t the only one complaining about Roxxy’s hard-line methods for keeping things together.
“Roxxy is stressed out to the max,” SB said, more loudly than was necessary for only NekoBaby to hear. “She’
s always felt responsible for her raids, no matter who’s in them. Right now, she needs us to follow orders for everyone’s safety, but some people aren’t taking things seriously enough, and it’s causing friction.”
NekoBaby snorted. “Friction, huh? I heard she damn near murdered Anders earlier. Not that I mind, of course, because certain fish-heads deserve to be filleted!” She shouted that last part over her shoulder, and SB winced. “Still,” Neko went on, dropping her voice back to a normal level. “What she did to that Berserker earlier was some straight-up gestapo shit.”
“We’ve already lost someone...” SB said, sending the jubatus’s ears flat at the mention of the Sorcerer they’d failed to resurrect.
“Yeah well,” Neko said. “According to you, it wasn’t her fault he died. She needs to stop taking it out on all of us. How is all this abuse taking care of people?”
SilentBlayde fiddled nervously with one of his long ears. He didn’t really have a good comeback to Neko’s accusation, especially since he’d disagreed with Tina’s treatment of Anders. Even so. “I don’t know what the right thing to do back at the Dead Mountain was, but I know that all of us owe Roxxy our lives. I couldn’t have gotten Anders to cleanse the raid on my own, and while she might have gone a little too far with the Berserker, it kept us moving and together, which is probably why we’re still alive.”
“Stop White Knighting her,” Neko said scornfully. “You always cut Roxxy miles of slack.” Her lips curled in a sneer, showing her sharp cat teeth. “I bet she’s just having that time of the month and taking it out on us. Not that our Glorious Leader has ever needed an excuse to be a hard-ass.”
SB scowled. “That time of the month is coming for you too now, you know.”
The look of horror on NekoBaby’s feline face was priceless, and SB was just angry enough to enjoy it. He was pretty sure the jubatus healer didn’t actually mean it—Neko had always had a bad habit of saying whatever popped into her head—but SilentBlayde was extremely tired of listening to her bash Tina. As good as it had felt, though, that comment had been an uncomfortably low blow for him, and SB guiltily pulled his mask farther up, tugging on the cloth until it was right below his lower lashes.
They were both quiet for several minutes after that. The silence stretched on so long, SB was starting to hope the whole topic had been forgotten when Neko suddenly boiled over.
“Oh my god,” she said, her voice squeaky with horror. “What if I do get a period? I mean, I’m a girl now, and that’s something girls get, or have, or whatever. But what if there’s blood? What will I do?”
“You’ll live,” said the curt and deep voice of Roxxy from behind them.
They both jumped. Despite being half a ton of rock-person covered in layers of magical plate armor, Roxxy had an uncanny quietness to how she moved. The dust didn’t even rise around her unless she was stomping or running. Since Tina was not a quiet person by any definition, SB attributed this trait to the stonekin race itself.
“What’s up?” SilentBlayde asked, angling his head to smile up at her.
She smiled back, but her copper brows stayed furrowed, and SB stiffened. He knew that look. “You have a job for me, don’t you?”
“A nice one this time,” Roxxy promised, reaching back to pull the raid’s second tank, DarkKnight, up beside her. “Take DarkKnight and NekoBaby over to do the Last For One quest. It’s in that forest just ahead on the left.”
SB blinked in surprise. “The ghosts quest?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
Roxxy grinned knowingly, showing him a row of white marble teeth. “Because it has a cloth robe as a quest reward, and no one ever does it, so I’m sure that Neko can do it now.” Then she leaned over, her breath brushing the inside of his long ear. “And while you’re out there, teach DarkKnight how to tank.”
SB had to work to keep the surprise off his face. He shot a look at DarkKnight. The other tank was looking down at the ground and shifting his feet in the dust as if he’d done something wrong.
“Got it,” he said, covering up his confusion with enthusiasm. “You heard the rock,” SB said as he waved for the others to follow him off the main road. “Let’s roll!”
DarkKnight silently fell in behind him. NekoBaby followed more reluctantly, shooting curious glances at the second tank like she knew something was up. When they’d walked down the trail just far enough to be out of earshot of the rest of the raid, both NekoBaby and SilentBlayde stopped to turn on DarkKnight.
“Jake, man, what’s going on?” SB asked. “Why is Roxxy asking me to teach you how to tank?”
DarkKnight pushed up his visor with a look of embarrassment. “Well, that’s because my name ain’t Jake. It’s Frank.”
SB jerked back. He’d thought his friend had been acting weird, but their situation had everyone acting weird. The man in front of him was definitely DarkKnight, though, or at least his character, which begged the question…
“How did you get Jake’s character?”
Frank raised his hands at once. “I’m very sorry. As I already told the rock lady, I didn’t know this account was stolen.”
“Wait, you’re playing DarkKnight’s hacked account?” Neko shook her head. “Shameful.”
“The site said it was official!”
“They always do,” SB said, scrubbing a hand over his face. “But there’s nothing we can do about that now. How long have you been playing his character? Jake was at the main raid this weekend, so it can’t be more than a couple of days.”
“Actually,” Frank said nervously, “this is my first day. And my first MMO.”
SB couldn’t believe his long ears. “Is this also your first video game?”
“Yes sir,” said Frank. “I tried playing my friend’s Atari once, but it wasn’t much fun. I never did get into computer games after that.”
“Atari?” NekoBaby cried. “Dude, how old are you?”
“Eighty-six,” Frank said proudly with a tip of his helmet.
SB and Neko exchanged a dumbfounded look.
“Christ,” the healer muttered. “Where do we start? Do you even know what HP is?”
The Knight looked baffled. “You mean Harry Potter? ’Cause I haven’t read that, either. Sorry, kids.”
SilentBlayde shook his head. “Let’s just keep moving,” he said, pointing down the trail that wound through the spindly dead trees. “The quest used to be right over there, but since everything’s so much bigger now, we’ve probably got a mile or so ahead of us, and we don’t want to get too far from the raid. I’ll teach you about tanking while we walk.”
“Why, thank you very much,” Frank said sincerely. “Though I gotta admit, I’m a little confused. I thought this game was about swords and magic and stuff. I would have tried it a lot earlier if I’d known it had tanks!”
“Not military tanks like you drive,” SB corrected quickly. “Tanking is a role. In a raid—a large group of players fighting together—the heavily armored classes like you and Roxxy go out in front and get the monster’s attention so they don’t attack the less sturdy players like me and Neko.”
Frank looked horrified. “Why would I do that? Sounds suicidal.”
“’Cause you’re hard to kill,” NekoBaby said. “Your job is to take the beating, and while you’re doing that, damage-dealing classes like LoudBlayde here are free to actually kill the monster.”
“I’m an Assassin,” SB said in a stage whisper.
The warrior didn’t look reassured. “And what’s to stop me from dying while I’m doing this?”
“Your shield, heavy armor, giant health pool, and awesome defensive abilities,” SilentBlayde said, rapping his knuckles on Frank’s two-inch-thick enchanted breastplate.
“And me!” said Neko. “I’m a healer. I can repair any damage you take as soon as you take it because I’m amazing and my gear is top notch.” She brandished her glowing green staff, causing its eternally dancing autumn leaves to scatter in a beautiful explosi
on of gold and orange through the gray light of the Deadlands. “So long as you keep the monsters off me, I’ll keep you alive long enough for even the weakest damage, like GossipBlayde, to finish them off.”
SB rolled his eyes, but Frank still looked confused.
“But Roxxy is a tank, too, isn’t she? I’ve already seen her lay down some damage.”
“We’re just telling you how it was in the game,” SilentBlayde said quickly. “Roxxy is different. She has a…um…talent for violence that’s come into its own in this new world.”
“Her final form has been unleashed,” Neko added cryptically. “Make peace with your gods.”
SB was giving her another dirty look when a chill went down his spine. Insult forgotten, he scanned the spindly white trees and spotted a group of pale, shimmering figures dancing in a circle through the mist, just a dozen feet away.
“Whoa,” NekoBaby whispered, eyes wide. “Those are a lot scarier now that this is real.”
Frank gulped. “Wait, we’re fighting ghosts? How do you kill a ghost? Do swords even work on them?”
Given how many ghost-based kill quests there were in FFO, SilentBlayde couldn’t help but laugh at that. “We’ll be fine. We beat up ghosts all the time! Just get in there and start whacking. You’ll get their attention.”