by Natalie Grey
She just had to execute it to the best of her ability.
Down the boss’s health crept, and further down. Jay got caught in the flames once and barely escaped as Chowder came in for a last-second rescue from the adds, and Lakhesis seemed to be everywhere at once with Fys’ ice demon, the two of them making an unsettling but highly capable team.
Gracie, meanwhile, struggled against the sense that all the dice had been rolled at the start of the fight and everything was set in stone already—and still she had to go through it and watch it play out when the conclusion was predetermined.
She was just tired, she told herself, dodging out of the way of a strike she had only caught out of the corner of her eye. She was tired, and she had always known she was going to be the underdog.
“So close,” Jay’s voice said over the channel, and Gracie felt a surge of energy.
She looked at him with a smile, and although she didn’t take the time to emote it, she knew he was smiling, too.
“Ready to finish this?” she asked, speaking just to him.
“Hell, yeah.” He understood her, and she could hear the grin in his voice.
Everyone else fell back, and Gracie charged into the center of the floor. The jets were going to go off in a moment, she knew, but they could just make it if they ran. She swung her sword up and Freon pulled the boss toward him with a spear of ice, abandoning the snares as they reached the end.
Gracie’s sword came down as Jay launched into a flying kick, and the boss’s scream echoed through the room, ripped from its throat, and lost a moment later in the roar of the fire jets.
Gracie laughed even as her health bar plunged to zero. They had done it! They had taken him down, and she didn’t even care anymore if they’d done it first. She was just so proud of this team, and so glad to have them on her side—and so exhilarated by the victory.
DUNGEON COMPLETE. The words flashed up on the screen.
“Hey, we did it,” Gracie said. “Crispify your tank and you can get anything done.”
“Tank kebabs!” Lakhesis added enthusiastically.
“Careful! Now that I’m dead, you’re the next in line for that,” Gracie joked. Disappointment was settling over her like a cloak, but she kept her voice light. “Guys, I think this deserves quite a celebration. We managed to finish a dungeon that—”
“MONTH-FIRST ACHIEVED,” a voice announced, and the words burst across the screen in a shower of fireworks.
“WHOOOOOOO!” Gracie couldn’t even tell who was yelling. She was pretty sure she was, and she could hear the deafening sound of everyone else screaming. She tore her headset off and launched herself into Alex’s arms, laughing as he swung her around and their headsets blared tinny cheers.
In the background, her computer dinged for a video call.
“Just—goddammit—” Alex staggered over that way, still spinning.
Gracie laughed as she pressed the start button for the call, and her heart gave a little sideways leap when she saw Jay’s face. “We did it!” she exclaimed incredulously.
“Yeah, we did.” Jay was grinning. “One more thing, though. You should check your ranking.”
“What?” Gracie pulled her headset back on.
Her jaw dropped. “RANK 1 ACHIEVED,” a pleasant female voice was saying. “RANK 1 ACHIEVED.”
“Holy shit,” she managed.
“Move left,” Thad ordered, his voice tight. “No, my left, your right. Jules, MOVE!”
“Uh, Thad?” Evan’s voice was tight.
“Not now,” Thad snapped. They were so close to taking this boss down, even without him, and he was going to make it work if it killed him.
“No. Thad, it’s…it’s over. The other team got it.”
Thad straightened slowly and turned his head, his eyes focusing on the screens on the other side of the room. In his headphones, Jamie was calling for directions and one of the mages blundered into a set of fire vents, but Thad didn’t care anymore.
It was over.
It was over, and they’d lost.
Jay leaned close to the screen to watch as Gracie clapped her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were hidden by the headset, but he could see her shock and pleasure in the way she was laughing and bouncing up and down.
Alex gave him a thumbs-up and a wave, and Jay waved back.
“We did it,” Alex called.
“She did it,” Jay said. “She made us drill. She saw the way the dungeons worked and took the risks. She learned the spacing and the buffs. We were just along for the ride.”
“I heard that.” Gracie took her headset off and looked at them both. “And there’s no one who’s ‘just along for the ride’ on my team. We have ten people who bring their A-game every time. All the good management in the world won’t compensate for people who won’t give things their best shot.”
Jay grinned at her.
“Well, then,” he said to Alex. “We did it.”
“Hell yeah, we did,” Gracie said.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“What I don’t get,” Jay said, “is why. This is the hour of your—hell, your triumph—and you haven’t logged in? You’re a hero right now, so why not milk it for all it’s worth? The team wants to buy you a beer. I know it’s pixelated beer, but still…” He gave a little laugh as if to jumpstart her own, then sighed. “Seriously, Gracie, what’s up?”
“It’s stupid.” Gracie groaned and let her head thwump back against the couch. “It’s really stupid.”
“You keep saying that.” He took a bite of Chinese food. “Come on, give me a try. Also, why are you sitting in the dark?”
Gracie considered that. “Fine,” she said at last, “but don’t judge me. And I have a good reason for sitting in the dark, I promise.”
“I doubt that, and I will a hundred percent judge you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.” Jay gave her a meaningful look. “I may also judge you for the fact that I’m out of Chinese food.”
Gracie started laughing. “How is that my fault?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure you had something to do with it.” He settled back in his chair, grinning. “So. Go on.”
“Ugh.” Gracie heaved a sigh. “All right, here’s the deal. I feel like if I log back in, I’ll find out I dreamed the whole thing and none of it was real, and…yeah. I’ve been enjoying the dream.” She let her eyes slide sideways. “Also, the money hit my account, and I don’t want to give it back.”
Jay burst out laughing. “For the last time, you don’t have to give the money back. You earned it.” He twitched one eyebrow. “And a whole bunch of people saw you win and seriously suspect that Demon Syndicate had some help going in, so Dragon Soul can’t really get on your case without touching off a firestorm.”
“What I don’t get,” Gracie said, annoyed, “is that a Cinderella story should be good for them, right? Some unsponsored player coming out of nowhere to storm the rankings? That should draw people in.”
“I mean, you’re right.” Jay bounced his back against the chair as he considered. He blew out a long breath. “I think it’s more that they can’t control it because of the quest line, and that neither Dan nor Dhruv deals well with things not going to plan. When you started climbing the rankings, they panicked.”
Gracie rolled her eyes. Some people, in her opinion, shouldn’t be in charge of companies. Still… “I had fun reading their congratulations post,” she admitted with a mischievous smile. “You could tell it was written through gritted teeth.”
“Oh, it definitely was,” Jay agreed. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I don’t want to add more stress to your plate…”
“Uh-oh.” Gracie crossed her legs and sat up straighter. “What’s going on, man?”
“Well, I got a message.” He gave her a meaningful look. “From Harry.”
“Yeah, I don’t know who that is.” Gracie held up a hand as the door to the apartment opened, then grinned and held her finger to her lips. As quiet footsteps made t
heir way into the room, she flipped on the light and crossed her arms. “Just getting home?”
Alex jumped. “Jesus fucking— Goddammit.”
“So.” Gracie bounced in her seat. “How was the date?”
“How did you even know that was where I was?” Alex waved his hands.
“You were extremely shifty about not wanting to get dinner and disappeared in a cloud of cologne that has lingered for hours.”
Alex winced. “Oh, God. It’s been a while since I dated.”
“Yes. I know.” Gracie rolled her eyes. “So, how did it go?”
“Better than your recent dating efforts.” He gave her a look.
“Ouch. Touché.” Gracie leaned in to stage whisper to Jay, “He’s grumpy. Maybe he couldn’t close.”
“I closed!” Alex said indignantly. He stripped off his dress shirt and narrowed his eyes. “I may not have dated in a while, but I have game, I will let you know. I took her out to a really fucking romantic dinner and got her flowers, and we— Ohhhhh, you sneaky bitch.”
Gracie gave him a smug grin as Jay burst out laughing. “Excellent. That was all I needed to know. You can go now.”
Alex gave her a long, narrow-eyed glare before disappearing toward his room.
“Mission accomplished,” Gracie said with satisfaction. “You ever had one of your friends start to get a little bit sad around the edges?”
“Yeah.” Jay took a sip of his soda. “Is he okay?”
“Oh, he’s fine.” Gracie peered down the hallway to make sure Alex’s door was closed. “He was really enjoying the single life for a while. Eat whatever, sleep whenever, spend money however he wanted—all that stuff. You know, it can be fun. But he’s been starting to get…well, like I said: sad around the edges. A bit aimless. Didn’t like his job but wasn’t looking. Didn’t really like being single anymore but wasn’t looking.”
“To be fair,” Jay weighed in, “dating is the worst.”
“No. I mean, yeah.” Gracie stared at her feet rather than look at him. “Anyway, so I gave him a little nudge.” She took a deep breath to steady herself. “So what were you saying? About Harry?”
Jay gave her a long look, but let the dating topic go. “Harry was one of the three founders of Dragon Soul,” he explained. “He was apparently a nightmare to work with, liked to think he was better than everyone else, and threw fits when he didn’t get what he wanted. All of that, so Dan and Dhruv kicked him out. The operating theory with your quest line was that Harry built it as a sort of a… Well, we don’t really know.” He considered. “I suppose that’s part of why the Ds were gunning for you. It was personal. Even though you hadn’t been involved before, Harry had, and they knew he was likely to screw them over in creative ways.” He gave a pained smile.
“That makes a lot of sense, actually,” Gracie said. “I wish you’d told me all of that sooner. I thought they were just being dicks. But if Harry built the quest, and they thought he was trying to take the whole game down or something…” She rubbed her head. “Now I feel guilty. Maybe I should delete my account or reroll or something.”
“No! Don’t.” Jay nearly tipped over.
“Why not?” Gracie gave him a look. “Give me a good reason, man.”
“I gots to know!” Jay said, shaking both fists. “Gracie, I am so curious. And I don’t think it’s just him trying to screw them over, either. You remember the things he was saying to you when you were in the dungeons? Like, he would say that no virtue or cruelty was wasted? I think that’s… I think it’s real.”
Gracie frowned at him, tilting her head to the side quizzically.
“Hear me out,” Jay said. He paused while he collected his thoughts. “Metamorphosis Online is the first game of its type. Ever.”
“Sure,” Gracie agreed cautiously.
“And you said yourself,” Jay continued, “that it’s way more immersive than D&D. It’s intense, okay? In the heat of the moment, you make choices. You can be brave or you can…not. You can stand up for what’s right, or just take the XP and the gold and keep your mouth shut, right? And yeah, it’s just a game, except…what if he’s right? What if it’s not just a game, and what you do—the choices you make—change who you are and ripple back out?”
Gracie considered this. “I…guess I never would have doubted that they did,” she said finally with a shrug. “It’s important to do the right thing even when it seems stupid and pointless. Who you are—who you really are—shows in the small moments more than the big ones.”
Jay smiled at her.
“What? Oh, come on, you got philosophical first.” She felt obscurely self-conscious.
“It’s not that.” Jay couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “It’s just that I don’t think it was a coincidence that the quest triggered in the way it did. I think— Okay, look. Harry was an asshole. Probably still is. But I get the sense that this game was important to him, and I think that was part of why he fought so hard to stay involved, and why he got so pissed when they kicked him out. He still had stuff he wanted to do.”
“So he reached out to you,” Gracie said slowly.
“Yeah. I don’t know how he even knew who I was,” Jay said. “Well, not a mystery, I suppose; He must still know people. He’ll have heard rumors about me being fired, and he’ll probably be aware that they were trying to take his quest down.”
“So why’d he contact you, then?” Gracie settled back on the couch, pausing only to give Alex a sunny smile as he walked past on the way to the kitchen. He shot her another mock-glare.
“Still hasn’t forgiven you, huh?” Jay asked, amused.
“Nope. And that bitch can hold a grudge, let me tell you.” Gracie pitched her voice to carry and grinned when Alex stuck his head around the door.
“I heard that,” he said.
“You were meant to,” Gracie deadpanned.
Alex gave an anguished groan and disappeared again.
“So. Harry.”
“Yeah.” Jay sighed. “He…found a back way into the database, and wants me to work on a project with him.”
“Jay.” Gracie’s face fell. “Jay, you know that guy is bad news.”
“I don’t, though! I don’t know that.” Jay shook his head. “I know that Dan and Dhruv are making some decisions I definitely don’t agree with, that I think compromise the world, and… Gracie, I’m so curious. I gots to know.”
“Oh.” Gracie started laughing. “You aren’t even sure you want to help him. You just want to know more about how he did it.”
Jay gave her a guilty smile. “Busted.”
“I didn’t bust you, dude. You figured it out on your own.” She chewed on a nail. “Look, I’m just worried. You like this world, and you know Harry is pretty vindictive, right? What if he’s trying to use you to screw them over and there’s nothing honorable about it?”
“I thought of that.” Jay held up a finger. “And it’s an awful lot of weird effort to go to for that, Gracie. Why do this whole dungeon thing and bosses, and why me? He didn’t know I’d run into you. If it was just to take them down, this was a really weird way to do it. Not to mention, he must need me for something.”
“What if that something is to be his fall guy?” Gracie asked tartly.
“That’s…a better point than I was expecting you to make,” Jay grumbled.
“Gracie can be a real buzzkill,” Alex agreed, coming through the door. He spoke through a mouthful of cereal and gave Gracie a look. “What? It’s the truth. He should know.” He narrowed his eyes at her and went back to the kitchen, but she caught the corner of his mouth twitching.
“I at least want to figure out what he wants,” Jay said. “I think it’s worth doing that.”
Gracie hunched her shoulders. “I think it’s a bad idea.”
“I think he’s not squaring with me,” Jay admitted. “But look…if it gets bad, I’ll take it to Sam, all right? He didn’t get fired, by the way. Everyone claimed to be responsible for leaking the wrong info to
Demon Syndicate, and they knew better than to fire the whole department.”
“I’m glad they didn’t fire him,” Gracie said soberly. “Look, just be careful, okay?”
“I will,” Jay promised. “I’ll keep you updated, too.”
“Sure.” She waved at him and signed off, biting her lip as she stared at the dark screen.
She was being a coward, she knew, avoiding asking him the one question she really wanted to, but the thought of it was terrifying.
“Maybe tomorrow,” she told herself. There wasn’t a high chance, given that she’d said the same thing for the past two days in a row, but she could at least feel like less of a coward this way. She smiled slightly and went to put on her headset.
“Heyyyy!” Kevin’s greeting echoed across the line with an audible smile. “There she is.”
“Gracie!” Lakhesis sounded excited. “Where are you? The inn? Don’t move, I’m teleporting there.”
“Why—” Gracie began, but Lakhesis was already in transit. She grimaced, but she was laughing. When Lakhesis appeared in front of her, Gracie planted her hands on her hips. “It’s a magical world. We can hear each other from wherever.”
“Yeah, but I wanted to see the 1!” Lakhesis pointed over Gracie’s head. “Aw, yeah. That’s sexy.”
“That’s what girls find sexy?” Alan teleported in as well, Mirra wearing a shiny new set of robes. “I’ve been misinformed.”
“It’s not like we made a secret of it,” Gracie joked. “We put it in the minutes from the last meeting. They’re all available as PDFs on the website.”
Chowder laughed as he teleported in. He gave Gracie a two-finger salute and a nod. “I guess I know what my next research project is going to be, then. Hey, did anyone get hold of Jay to tell him Gracie’s here?”
Gracie flushed. “He’s, ah— I talked to him. He’s handling something, but he’ll be here in a bit, maybe. And Alex just got home from a date, so everyone needs to give him shit when he logs on. He might not tonight, though.”