by Natalie Grey
“To be clear, I was pretty specifically not supposed to create a character and go around adventuring with people,” Jay said. “But I hadn’t seen anyone else go fight in that temple. None of us even had. We were all trying to get to Kithara and get new gear and stuff—see all the high-level content, you know? So I followed you.”
“Creeper,” Gracie chided affectionately.
“Yeah, see, you say that, but guys are terrified of being creeps.”
She looked at him. “Sorry. So you work for Dragon Soul again?”
“Yeah.” Jay caught up with her. He looked at the sky, where stars were beginning to appear. “I know they won’t exactly trust me, but I’ll at least be there. I’ll have an idea of what’s going on. We’ll have a link.”
“I like that,” Gracie assured him. She headed down the other slope, making her way toward the temple. In the moonlight, it looked almost exactly as it had that first night. She felt a jarring sense of déjà vu.
They didn’t speak as they approached the temple. The outside had been cleaned, which only made the chips in the stone more noteworthy, but it had also been hung with paper flags and little ornaments made from rocks and twigs. After a moment of hesitation, Gracie pushed open the door and stepped inside.
The temple was nearly deserted, but fires burned in low braziers, the stone was all clean once more, and there was the sound of distant music and running water. Gracie looked around, nodding to the kobold monks moving around the room, then walked down the sloping path into the belly of the temple.
“You know, I came in here.” Jay’s voice was low, but it still made her jump, “and I saw that room, but there was no door for me. No passageway either.”
Gracie flashed him a smile. “You’re not the queen.”
Jay laughed.
They came into the lower chamber to find it awash with blue light. The stone was radiant, filling the air with a glow that was somehow soft and thick with magic. Gracie reached out to swish her fingers through it, half-expecting it to feel like water, and shook her head at her own foolishness.
“So this is where it started,” Jay said. He looked around.
“While they fought to the death upstairs,” Gracie said, “finishing a fight I’d started.” To her surprise, her throat was tight. “You can’t right wrongs without losing something in the struggle. It’s not fair.”
Jay said nothing, just looked at her.
“They were taking back what was theirs,” she explained. Then she realized what was tugging at her mind. “Like Harry tried to take back what was his.”
“It isn’t his anymore,” Jay said. “It doesn’t belong to any of them. It belongs to you now.”
“No.” Gracie shook her head. “It doesn’t belong to me, Jay. I’m not a queen, I’m a steward. I’m going to keep it safe.”
“From Dan and Dhruv?” Jay asked.
“Maybe.” She frowned. “I don’t know, actually. I just know…something’s coming. And we have to be ready.”
Jay nodded at her.
“Hey, guys!” The voice that came over the guild channel was upbeat and made both of them jump and swear.
“Uh…hey, Cas.” Gracie pressed a hand over her heart. Then her brain caught up with her. “Whoa. You’re…not fired?”
“Oh, no, I’m—well, I don’t know what I am. I’m not there anymore.” Caspian sounded excessively happy, and—now that Gracie was listening, more than a little drunk. “Kevin’s letting me crash with him.”
“What up?” Kevin was also slurring his words. “Turns out tequila’s pretty good.”
Gracie laughed despite herself. “Oh, dear. Anyone have any quests they want to do?”
There was a drunken chorus of yesses.
“Okay, then Jay and I will help—if, and I mean this seriously, you both go get a big glass of water first.” She shook her head. “Otherwise, tomorrow’s going to be rough. Go. Drink up. Chop-chop.”
Chapter Seven
It was a solid five minutes before Caspian and Kevin got back, and when they did, there was a lot of swearing and a few muffled thuds.
“Guys?” Gracie asked. “Everyone okay over there?” She and Jay were close to Kithara now, making their way along the winding road. The sky was still dark, and the stars were brilliant.
“Yes,” Kevin said much too quickly. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine; we’re all fine here. How are you?”
“He fell over,” Caspian said in a stage whisper.
“I go pick your ridiculously tall ass up from the airport, and this is the thanks I get?” Kevin sounded aggrieved, which was hilarious in the Piskie voice filter. “He got me drunk on tequila,” he added mournfully. “I don’t even like tequila.”
“You drank an awful lot of it for someone who doesn’t like it,” Caspian said smugly. To the others, he added, “The only people who don’t like tequila are the ones who haven’t had the good stuff.”
“Sure,” Gracie agreed doubtfully, her mouth twitching. “So, where do you two slap-happy kids want to go adventuring?”
“I don’t know,” Caspian said. “I just wanted to—” His voice cut off very suddenly.
“Cas?” Jay asked.
“Sec.”
A moment later, Gracie’s phone buzzed. She popped her headset off, frowned at it, and opened a private channel to Jay. “Caspian says Kevin’s having a hard time and he wanted to come online and cheer him up rather than having him be all morose and drunk.”
“Oh?”
“Well, what he actually said was ‘Kev id drubk sad we should cheer hio op,’ so I paraphrased. I’m pretty sure I got it right, though.”
Jay was laughing on the other end, his character’s shoulders shaking. “Yeah, I’d say that’s a solid interpretation.” He switched back to the main channel. “Kev. Didn’t you have some quests to do?”
“I don’t think so.” Kevin’s voice was still slurred. “Lemme check. Moment. Why the fuck can’t I open my quests? Goddammit.”
Gracie grinned. They had gotten to the huge gates that led into Kithara, and she could see Caspian and Fys standing in the very middle of the road. Since it was midday in real time, the servers weren’t very full, but a few people were looking at the tabards the two were wearing.
Everything associated with Gracie was becoming noteworthy.
“That’s interesting,” Kevin said after a moment.
“What’s interesting?” Gracie got closer and waved.
“Did you check your messages?” Kevin asked. “Because I just did, and I just caught a glimpse of one about a new king…which disappeared a moment later.”
“Of course, he did that,” Gracie said, rolling her eyes. “Of course he set the server up to send everyone a message about how he was here to rule over them like a benevolent dictator. I bet he expected everyone to go into paroxysms of joy.”
“’Aa sounds dirry,” Caspian slurred.
Gracie gave a somewhat exasperated huff of laughter. “All right, no more tequila for you two.”
“No,” Caspian agreed. “’S all gone.”
“You drank a whole bottle?” Jay said, sounding horrified. “Good God, how are you two upright?”
“He’s really big,” Kevin explained. His avatar gestured widely, opening her arms like an alligator’s jaws. “Just…really tall. Lot of person there. Doesn’t get drunk easy.”
Caspian said nothing but he was swaying drunkenly.
“Right,” Gracie said. “Well, I’m excited to see what’s different about my character, because it looks like I have some new menus available. Also, someone should keep an eye on you two, so you don’t…I don’t know, rob a bank or whatever.”
“Is that what straight people do when they get drunk?” Kevin asked suspiciously. “What is even going on with the heteros?”
“I’ve never robbed a bank,” Caspian said.
“Mmm.” It sounded like Kevin had more to say on the matter, but he didn’t share it, whatever it was.
Gracie tabbed
through her menus as the rest of them came up with a location, so she set her character to follow Fys—the Piskie was so short that it felt like she was walking around on her own—and examined the tools she now had available.
She couldn’t believe she hadn’t looked last night. The setup was completely different now. There were actions to ban players, unban them, mute them, and hide them from one another. She could award ranking points or take them away. She could dissolve guilds. There were also controls that looked as though they dealt with the internal metrics of the game’s various playing and non-playing races.
“This is crazy,” Gracie said quietly.
“Come on through the portal,” Jay told her. “Then you can show us the crazy.”
“Right.” Gracie nodded and stepped through the portal. She barely took notice of where she was going and laughed when she saw that it was Night’s Edge. “Of course, you chose this.”
“Of course, we did,” Jay said, sounding pleased. “I still think there’s more here than we found the last time.”
“Hmm.” Gracie looked around, then put away the menus. “One second, I want to try something. Wait here.”
She trotted off down the sloping streets until she found one particular alley. Here they had once found…
Ah, yes. A rustling sound came from the dark. Gracie tilted her head to the side and unsheathed her sword and shield. “Hello. Let’s try this again, shall we?”
The spider came at her in a rush, easily twice as tall as she was, mandibles clicking and eyes glowing red. Gracie gave a yell she hoped would pass as being warlike instead of frightened and bashed her shield into its round body before thrusting the sword straight in. There was a scream and a lot of glowing blue blood, and the spider’s body disappeared.
Gracie turned, trying not to hunch her shoulders. She wasn’t actually covered in blue spider blood, after all. Not really. Nope.
Ew.
“So, I one-shot things now,” she reported as she sheathed her sword. “But apparently, I do not have a magic clean-up button.”
“Let me tell you,” Jay said queasily, “those liquid dynamics animations are really realistic.”
“I’ll be right back,” Caspian managed. There was a thud as his VR headset dropped to the ground.
“Huh,” Kevin mused. “I guess the kid gets drunk after all. What d’you know? I’ll be right back. I’m going to bring him more water, and maybe some saltines.”
“Solid,” Jay said. He wandered over to one of the lanterns on the walls and glanced at Gracie. “Hope you don’t think I’m a coward, but there is no way I’m hanging out in that alley.”
Gracie laughed and came to join him.
“So,” Jay said. “Tell me about the new controls.”
“They’re insane,” Gracie replied. “You can ban people, mute them—specifically mute connections between them. It’s like a dictator’s wet dream, honestly.”
Jay must have taken the opportunity to take a sip of water because there was a snort, then the sound of someone trying desperately to clear his throat. “Okay, file that with sentences I never thought I’d hear.”
“It was the easiest way to describe it.”
“Easy, hell.” He crossed his arms. “You have an uncanny sense for when I’ve decided to try to drink something, and you do your utmost to have me get it up my nose.”
Gracie looked away airily. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Ooooof course, you don’t.” Jay had his character lean against the wall. “So, you’re basically a god and now you can wrath-of-god anyone who disagrees with you.”
“That’s Harry in a nutshell,” Gracie said grumpily.
“There’s…something else you should know.” Jay recapped his phone conversation with Harry, speaking quickly. He shook his head when he was done. “I should have tried to get more out of him. Played along.”
“Maybe,” Gracie said after a pause. “But I think that’s a fine line to walk. He’s smart, Jay. He might just as easily play you as having you play him. And it’s not necessarily bad for him to see people being loyal to one another. I’d rather have him wondering if he’s missing something. If there’s another way to be.” She shook her head. “Honestly, I think it was for the best. Just don’t play his game.”
Jay emoted a smile at her. “It’s a weight off my mind to hear you say that. Honestly, with everything else that’s been going on, I forgot about Harry being a jerk.”
“I see what you mean,” Gracie pointed out. “I often forget to mention that the sun is shining.”
Jay guffawed, but when he spoke, he sounded worried. “Gracie, you know he’s not going to give up. Him, Dan, and Dhruv… Hell, I don’t know, even the other guilds.”
“I’ll just ban all of them,” Gracie said with a shrug. She shuddered. “Ugh, even saying that made me feel greasy. Blech.”
“Yeah, you don’t have that villain flair to you,” Kevin said. “Good news, guys, Caspian expelled the demons.”
“Hi,” Caspian said weakly.
“Are you okay, man?” Gracie asked. “You could go to sleep if you wanted…”
“Nah, I feel much better,” Caspian said. “Really. Better out than in, as my grandfather always said.”
“He sounds fun,” Gracie commented. “Well, if we’re looking for something strange. What do you say we head to the water?”
Everyone agreed at once, and they trooped down the hill, Kevin singing a sea shanty that started on the topic of Barrett’s privateers and segued mid-song into The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
He had a surprisingly good voice.
When they reached the water, Gracie hesitated only a moment before wading into it. The sounds of sloshing greeted her, and she almost imagined she could feel the cold water swirling around her.
When she plunged underwater at last, she gasped.
Above the waterline, Night’s Edge was a study in life after disaster. It was hopeful and heartbreaking all at once.
Below the waterline, it was entirely different. The world lit up. Stately architecture showed a city that was still whole, with merpeople swimming to and fro along the streets. Ahead, in a temple, something shone a deep, steady blue.
“That’s disappointing,” Jay said. “When I heard you gasp, I hoped there would be something cool down here.”
Gracie turned to gape at him. “What are you seeing?”
“Old ruins.” He looked around. “Why, what are you seeing?”
Gracie didn’t answer. She turned around and swam for the blue light, afraid that if she didn’t find out what it was now, the illusion would disintegrate and leave her with only the ruins Jay saw.
It was so bright inside the mer temple that she could barely see. She swam closer to the light with her head down and her arm over her face. Luckily, the suit knew where her arm was and gave her a bit of respite, but the light was still streaming forward.
When it disappeared, she flailed and looked around.
She was inside a bubble. She could see it around her, shining out into the water.
In front of her was an altar draped in blue cloth. She walked forward, eyes locked on the object that lay there: an axe, plain and unadorned, very clearly meant for death. Never forget what a weapon is, her mind told her.
She reached out to pick it up and smiled when green runes skittered across its surface.
I’m going to find all your secrets, Harry. Every one of them.
Chapter Eight
“No one else is ready!” Thad’s fists clenched in mid-air. He clenched his teeth too, doing everything in his power not to snarl at the Brightstar executives that they didn’t have the first idea of what was going on.
“We’re not telling you how to do it.” Richard, the VP of Strategic Marketing, was by nature a patient man, but his voice had the crisp edge that meant he was beginning to lose his temper. “We do not micromanage. We are simply telling you what needs to happen.
“And I am telling you that it isn’t p
ossible. Not this month, not this quickly. We can’t get a new top-tier healer onto the team in that timeframe without spending a lot more than you want to spend. We’d have to get one from Blood Magic or Shrinra Corp.”
“We’re not telling you how to do it,” Richard repeated. The edge in his voice was stronger this time. “We are simply saying that we are not getting the return we expected. We had a clear goal of becoming the leading guild within six months. We thought you had achieved this, but it was clearly not a lasting success. That is what we need to see.”
“You need to build,” Thad told him desperately. He wanted to run his fingers through his hair, but Evan was there—because of course he was—and Thad knew he couldn’t appear weak. He stared at the speakerphone and fumbled for something to say. Anything that would buy him time. “There’s no competitive e-sport where one team dominates consistently. The top-tier teams sometimes have streaks, but it’s always a toss-up.”
There was a pause while he allowed himself to hope that Richard understood. It wasn’t even a lie, but Thad knew there was desperation in his voice. He had a vivid memory of assuring them that he could make the Demon Syndicate a dominant guild in Metamorphosis Online, that they would have winning streaks no other guild could replicate. They’d been impressed, and he’d gotten the job as guild leader.
“So you’re telling me you can’t do it,” Richard said finally. He put an ever-so-slight emphasis on the word “you.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Thad replied desperately.
“Then what are you saying, Mr. Matthews? This meeting is going in circles.”
“I’m saying I can build a strong team,” Thad replied. An icy cold was spreading through him, which would have been welcome if he weren’t sure that it was panic instead of calm. “First of all, any team will have turnover. People will leave, and adaptation needs to happen. Second, we are in an unusual situation, as evidenced by the fact that Dragon Soul cannot control the rankings anymore. What I need is time to adapt to this. To raise another strong healer so that we can be top tier again.”