“Done,” Carpe said into my headset as our avatars turned down a small alleyway.
Sure enough, Carpe set the lead, taking us toward an alley that looked vaguely like the one on the map, though much narrower. Then again, there weren’t a lot of places for a mountain fortress town in the hills of Macedonia to expand.
“You know, despite your complete lack of social skills, I figured even you would have at least tried to scrounge up a thank-you for me by now,” Carpe said.
“A thank-you? What the hell for?” Thank you for almost getting me killed?
“For getting you out of that hostel in Vancouver, for starters. And you’re welcome.”
I was not going to fall victim to Carpe’s bad attempt to draw me into a verbal sparring match well off my script. There was power in keeping to my notes. “You owed me for that book. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, you still owe me,” I said, and hovered the cursor over the spot in the alley that the map seemed to think was the entrance to the next checkpoint on the treasure map. “It says we need to take a right here.”
“That’s a brick wall.”
“Well, no one ever said following a treasure map was supposed to be easy, now did they? Sometimes you need to be creative—or break through walls, or help a friend out with clandestine organizations.”
Carpe swore. “Cheap shot. And I repeat, I did not have to put my neck out to help you out of that hostel.”
“Sure you did. After I twisted your arm all the way down to the joint.”
“No offense, but I think the incubus’s temperament is brushing off on you. That’s a little overboard on the violent imagery.”
“Better him than you.” And it was an accurate reflection of my feelings.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I ignored Carpe and concentrated on the treasure map.
“No, seriously. How am I a bad influence?”
The current path stopped right here, which usually meant stairs—probably down, since the dwellings above didn’t look like they could be housing much of a dungeon. I wondered if that’s where the Level thirteen monsters were hiding. “It means the incubus, as you so like to refer to him, actually thinks I’m a good person. You? You just relegate me to the gutter with the rest of the thieves. No reevaluation, no second chances.”
“But you are a thief.”
I shook my head at Captain. Clueless. “And I repeat. If you’re trawling for a thank-you, you can start with why you skipped over the corrupt and clandestine nature of elves.”
A large window popped up on my screen, shunting my World Quest game screen to a corner. Carpe’s familiar, frowning face was nestled inside. A mirrored video window of me popped up in the lower left corner of my screen, despite the fact that I had disabled the camera—manually.
Today Carpe was sporting a man bun and a flannel shirt on his slight frame. The funny thing was I didn’t think Carpe had the wherewithal to realize he was emulating the hipster movement. Or maybe he did. Maybe his whole not caring was just an act. Regardless, the furrow to his brow and frown told me he was pissed.
I minimized the window.
“They aren’t corrupt,” he said, “exactly. And I did tell you about their bureaucratic tendencies.”
“You told me about the ones who saved innocent chicken livestock over people!” Crazy? Yes, but not clandestine.
Carpe frowned. “And you seriously didn’t think that was a huge warning sign?”
I killed the camera with my finger as I sat back and shook my head at Captain, who was perched behind my computer, roused from his nap and interested in who I was yelling at now.
That didn’t stop Carpe though. “And explain to me how the incubus telling you you’re a better person than you actually are is a good thing? I mean, let’s face it, you are a thief—an unapologetic one.”
“The IAA owes me years of back pay and grievance money.”
“See? Unapologetic!”
I muted my mic with my other hand. “I swear to God, Captain, if he was sitting here . . .”
To Carpe, I said, “Believing that I’m a bad person and can’t become a better person isn’t helping me either! It just reaffirms that I should be a thief.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that me accepting that’s your nature makes me a better friend?”
Completely clueless . . . I didn’t dignify that with an answer. “Just get off your ass and cast Crumble, will you?” Crumble was a low-level spell Carpe had stumbled across a while back. That was another bonus about World Quest; you often found new and interesting spells or skills as the designers invented them. It made things like sightseeing from town to town interesting.
Carpe grumbled something I didn’t quite catch under his breath, but he parked his avatar in front of the brick wall. I stood guard at the street entrance. Remember what I said about the NPCs ignoring our flamboyant nature? Yeah . . . that went out the window if they see you trashing a brick wall. Once you’ve done it and crawled inside, however, it’s like it never happened. It’s while the damage is being incurred you need to worry.
A section of the brick wall and cobble road crumbled into pebbles, exposing a tunnel underneath.
“See? Told you.” I shoved Carpe’s avatar inside before he could give me a snarky comeback, as NPCs were starting to look down the alley in the direction of the noise. I hopped in afterward and watched the screen shudder as I landed. Well, it had worked. As my avatar adjusted to the dimmer light, I saw that we were in a generic, circular tunnel lined with bricks.
“This way,” I said, and started my avatar down the end of the tunnel pointed north.
The headset was silent. Not surprising, since we didn’t have anything in game to talk about until a goblin decided to attack us. My screen pinged though, and I glanced down from scanning the tunnel for traps and writing—anything that would either give us a hint of what was up ahead or . . .
Let’s hope there was treasure left. And no more comments from Carpe about the doomed nature of Rynn’s attempts to encourage me to be a better person.
I vaguely clued into the fact that my phone was buzzing on the table. I scrambled to grab it from underneath Captain’s impressive bulk before it went to voice mail.
“Speak of the devil incubus,” Carpe said.
I muted my game mic before answering. “How goes security?” I asked Rynn.
He exhaled a sigh. “Well, no more sign of the mercenaries. How about on your end? Any ideas where Jebe’s resting place might be?”
“Yeah. About that. There’s good news and bad news.”
“Good news.”
Yeah, he usually went for the good news. “Well, I’ve narrowed the burial site down to my top two.” I’d gone on the idea that, sentient or not, the last thing the suit would want was to be tied to a corpse. It was attracted to death and destruction. So, in order for Jebe to foil it, he had to eschew the traditional unmarked burial place: it was too easy for the suit to call out to passersby to dig it up. Which meant it had to be in a location that deflected magic or kept people out, meaning temple. “One is a temple in the Tibetan side of the Himalayas, and the other one is back in Nepal in the Mustang region.” Thankfully far away from where the mercenaries were still looking for me. “Both were used by the khans to hide their treasure.”
“That sounds promising,” Rynn offered. “I’d recommend we start with Tibet. Less chance of running into the mercenaries, and if it’s the right location—”
“Yeah, about that,” I said, cutting Rynn off. I glanced up at the screen. Still no monsters, and Carpe hadn’t said anything. “There’s a minor complication with Tibet.”
Rynn waited.
“I might have had a less-than-friendly altercation with the Chinese antiquities authorities last month.”
I counted to three while I waited for Rynn. “Over?” he fina
lly said.
“A handful of terra-cotta warriors I was relocating.”
Rynn swore. “Why am I only hearing about this now?” He kept his voice civil, but I could hear the strain.
“Because I knew you’d be upset, and I figured it was on a need-to-know basis.”
“How is an altercation with the Chinese authorities on a need-to-know basis?”
“Because now we need to go into China so now you need to know?” I offered.
I knew he had to be frustrated and tired, because he let it go. “Fine, I’ll look into it. Anything from the elf about the spell book?” There was tension in his voice as he asked.
“Not yet. Working on it.”
“Let me know when you have something,” he said before hanging up. Less personal than usual, but considering I’d thrown the China problem at him, he was taking it in stride.
I glanced back at the screen. There was a single word written in our pop-up messaging window that hadn’t been there before.
Thief.
Asshole. I closed the message screen and got rid of Carpe’s video.
A moment later it was back up. “Look, I’m not saying you are a bad person. What I’m saying is that things can’t change their nature. It’s like asking a tiger to be a pigeon. It’s just not going to fucking happen.” He inclined his head as if he was thinking about it. “Unless you used a lot of magic.”
I unmuted my mic. “No magic!”
“And even then I have a feeling the tiger-pigeon would try and cannibalize his new pigeon buddies in a nascent reign of terror.”
And that was where Carpe and I fundamentally disagreed on life. A tiger might not be able to turn itself into a pigeon, but a person could change who they were. And at the very least they could try.
Carpe was right about one thing; Rynn’s views had been rubbing off on me.
“No, you’re right, Carpe, I am a thief, but as opposed to settling for whatever dark and gloomy reflection you keep shoving at me at every turn, I’d much rather sign up for the one Rynn tries to show me.” I muted the mic once again. I realized that the way Carpe saw me—an unchangeable thief—didn’t sit well with me. Not one bit.
I caught the red light on my screen map indicating monsters. Finally. “Goblin up ahead,” I said. I saw a series of magic missiles shoot past my avatar’s head and registered the audio as they all found their mark. If there was one sorcerer’s spell to level the heck out of the playing field, that was it.
There was a pause in the action as we waited for the smoke to clear and any remaining goblins to take their turn.
“So what you’re saying is that you, Owl, international antiquities thief extraordinaire, believes what she’s doing is wrong and is attempting to turn over a new leaf?” Carpe prompted.
I clenched my teeth. “I’m saying I can see Rynn’s point and I’m not ruling it out—one day. After I finish exacting my revenge from the IAA in sweet, sweet, expensive antiquities.”
The smoke cleared off the game screen at the same time that one last bad guy light appeared on my map in faint yellow. One goblin left, and he was running. Though he might not be dead, the yellow meant he’d be an easy kill. “I’ll do it,” I said. Easier for me to sneak up and put the goblin out of its misery than to have Carpe cast Magic Missile again. I set my avatar down the tunnel.
“And it’s not like I haven’t ever changed my mind before,” I added. “Look at the supernatural thing. I used to hate supernaturals.”
“And now there are a handful of supernaturals that you’ve decided are an exception to the rule. Again, tiger dressed up as a homicidal pigeon.”
Okay, Carpe’s pigeon analogy was starting to unnerve me. “You have an unhealthy obsession with homicidal pigeons,” I told him.
“Look, let’s just get back to the game,” Carpe sighed. “And whatever it is you really brought me here to ask.”
“Why does there have to be an ulterior motive? How do you know I want to ask about something other than World Quest? Maybe I just want to play a game?”
“Because you don’t! Look, will you just cut the crap?”
I turned the corner and found the dazed goblin shaman panting in a corner. Blood spurted up as I did the coup de grace. “Hunh. Since when did World Quest go for the blood splatter?”
“Player feedback. Said it wasn’t realistic enough.”
I got a good look at the goblin blood that stained my avatar’s face and clothes. “No offense to our upstanding community of players, but—”
“Ah, you know the rules. Question not their sanity or anything else that comes out of their mouths. Just give the horde whatever the hell it is they think they want, and maybe they’ll go away.”
“Elf proverb?”
“No. Best practices for dealing with the internet. Now fucking spill.”
I started checking the goblins’ inventory. Unlike other RPGs, when you loot a fresh corpse in World Quest, you actually see your avatar manhandle the body, looking for things. You start off gently and respectfully looking through their items, but the longer you hold down the button, the rougher and less respectful it gets. You also uncover more loot, sooo . . .
“Well?” Carpe probed.
“A couple spell scrolls, a couple decent knives, gold. Want a half-eaten goblin chicken wing?”
“I meant will you hurry up and ask me. . . . Wait, goblins don’t keep chickens.”
“I said goblin chicken. What lives in dark, dank tunnels underneath a city and are goblin-sized to eat?”
“No, I don’t want a half-eaten rat! Gross. What the hell are the game designers thinking?”
“That if they have to do the blood spatter to appease the horde, they might as well trick them into eating rats?” I said as I finished looting the goblin corpses.
Regardless of the ease of the goblins, I wasn’t detecting any more threats on the immediate game map, so I turned my attention back to Carpe. “All right, fine. Let’s start with what it is the elves want with the Electric Samurai?”
I swear to God he had the audacity to lift his nose at me. “They don’t want anything with the Electric Samurai.”
“Jesus Christ, Carpe. If you were planning on lying in the first place, why the hell bother getting me to ask you?”
“Because otherwise you’ll hold it over my head.”
I started to say something and stopped. It was useless for me to argue with him. “All right, then. Why are the elves interfering with my investigation and attempts to find the Electric Samurai?”
“Now that I don’t know. But technically they can’t interfere.”
“You used a qualifier in there, Carpe.”
“They can’t interfere because the elven council asked Mr. Kurosawa to get the suit for them. Scuttling their own deal would be against the rules.”
I shook my head again. “You just told me they didn’t want it.”
“Since when has not wanting something stopped people from asking for it?”
Goddamn it. It was like talking to the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. I was starting to suspect Lewis Carroll had had numerous run-ins with elves. . . . “Okay, despite the fact that that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever—”
“Interfering would nullify whatever agreement the elves made. If you found the Electric Samurai suit despite our interference, then you wouldn’t be bound to pay the fuck up, as you like to so eloquently put it. And if you couldn’t find the suit, we’d still have to hold up our end of the bargain.”
Okay. In a warped, roundabout way, that actually made more sense. The tunnel turned onto a dead end. The map showed a red X just ahead. We’d reached the treasure vault.
“Hold that thought,” I said, and started another scan. “So, just so we’re on the same page here, it has nothing to do with a sense of altruism or doing the right thing, and everything to do
with making sure you don’t fuck up your own deals?”
“Well, when you put it that way—”
“No, no. Leave it. I actually have an easier time swallowing that, all things considered. Still doesn’t explain why someone would risk it.”
“Again, you have no proof.”
“Except we know it was an elf. Or something that smelled like an elf.”
Carpe made a face. “Shit. I forgot about the incubus.”
“Rynn.”
“Whatever.”
“Just answer the question. Why . . . or even better, who is trying to screw with my getting the Electric Samurai suit?”
“Okay, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I doubt they’re trying to prevent you from finding the armor. Why ask for it in the first place?”
“What about factions?”
“And they’d still be bound to the same deal. My guess is they’re trying to hide something about it.”
“Why?”
“There you have me. Probably don’t want the dragon knowing what it can do. Or maybe they just don’t like the idea of you knowing? Or maybe they think it’ll piss off Rynn. He has a reputation amongst some of the higher-ups—and not a good one.”
I watched Carpe’s face. It was guileless, but somehow . . . “What are you not telling me?”
“Lots—because you’re not asking me the right fucking questions.”
I swore. “What do you want from me, Carpe? What does the suit do, who wants it, why can’t you elves agree, why are elves a fucking pain in my ass?”
He held up his hands. “And none of that I can answer.”
I shook my head and switched topics as I set about opening the vault door lock. It still didn’t sit right with me though. The lock wasn’t particularly hard, no traps . . . “Carpe, does it strike you that this tunnel is not what it might appear to be?”
“How so?”
“I mean, it’s supposed to be Level seventeen with a Level thirteen monster, but even with that shaman those goblins were barely a Level ten, let alone thirteen.”
“Maybe they were sent as a nuisance. To drain our spells? Or maybe the World Quest duo are going senile in their reclusive state.”
Owl and the Electric Samurai Page 22