by Natalie Grey
Kevin was waiting nearby, his amarok’s blue-white fur glittering in the lantern light, and he looked around in interest. “Which way do you want to go?”
“You didn’t have a plan?”
“Not specifically. Just wander through town, talk to the NPCs, look around the zone…” The Piskie gave an elaborate shrug. “You know one of the worst things about this game? You get used to emoting a lot with gestures. People at work think I’m nuts now.”
“See, this is why you do what I do,” Gracie joked. “Piss off an asshole, get fired, and then start making money from video games. You never have to leave your apartment, and you just get to sit in your pajamas all day. It’s great.”
Not entirely great, of course, but she didn’t want to bum Kevin out. She started along one of the side streets, looking around curiously at the buildings. Everything here had a strange feel to it. The Aosi buildings, even the rough ones, had an otherworldly elegance to them, but those had long since fallen into disrepair and been added onto by humans and even merpeople. Rough construction and shell decor coexisted with dingy, elegantly-sculpted stone edifices.
“Oh, that’s right. You’re living the high life.” Kevin sounded envious. “And you live with Alex, right? But you’re not together.”
Gracie snorted at the idea. “Noooope. In fact, he’s out on a date right now. Third night in a row.”
“With the same person?” Kevin sounded bemused.
“Do you really never have relationships?” Gracie asked curiously. “Getting to know so many people, and investing so much time and energy in each one… It just sounds exhausting.”
“I don’t know. I have a low tolerance for bullshit.” The Piskie shrugged. “I start talking to someone, and it’s not long before they say something stupid, and I’m out.”
“Do you ever maybe think that you’re writing people off too quickly?” Gracie raised an eyebrow in the real world, knowing it wouldn’t translate into the game. “Hey, this looks cool. Let’s go down here.”
“Down the creepy, poorly lit alley?”
“It’s a video game,” Gracie said, amused. “I don’t get to do stuff like this in real life.”
“Eh, I suppose. Let’s send the amarok in first, though.” Kevin’s character made a complicated gesture and the amarok slunk into the shadows.
Kevin and Gracie trailed behind, Gracie’s fingers fairly itching with the urge to draw her sword. Kevin was right, this alley reeked of being a place you didn’t want to go at night. She couldn’t stop grinning, though. She got to do stupid things in this world and not worry. It was awesome.
“Hey, guys,” said Jay’s voice.
Gracie jumped and swore, and she heard Kevin’s squeaky Piskie voice say, “Son of a bitch.”
“Uh.” Jay sounded a bit confused.
“Woof.” Gracie bent over slightly, her hand over her heart. “Holy crap. That scared the shit out of me.”
“Er.” Jay waited a moment. “Can I ask why?”
“We’re in a dark alley,” Kevin explained. “Gracie had this bright idea to go wandering into danger in Night’s Edge, and— OH SHIT, IT’S A SPIDER! IT’S A GIANT FUCKING SPIDER!”
“Jesus Christ.” Gracie drew her sword and shield by instinct, only to give a shriek as the spider came skittering out of the darkness. “Holy shit! Oh God, oh God, oh God, fuck me sideways. I hate spiders!” She raised the shield as the spider’s fangs plunged toward her and stabbed up with all her might.
There was a scream and a gush of glowing blue blood, then silence.
Gracie stood frozen, trying not to breathe. “It’s all over me, isn’t it?” She turned around to see Kevin with his character’s hands clapped over her mouth. Blue blood was sliding down the golden plate mail and dripping onto the ground.
Laughter caught her ears, and she wrenched off her headset to look at Alex.
“What the fuck just happened?” Alex was looking excessively well-groomed in a tight-fitting t-shirt and dark jeans. He gave Gracie a rakish grin when she noticed the lipstick on his neck. “It’s been a better night on my end, I think. No giant spiders.”
“Just you wait,” Gracie said darkly and plunked the headset back on. “Okay, I admit my mistakes. Let’s GTFO.”
“Way ahead of you,” Kevin called from the mouth of the alley.
“You left me here alone with a giant spider corpse?”
“I’ll do a lot for my friends, but not that.” Kevin made no apologies as Gracie came back out into the street. “Oh good, the armor is clean again. Let’s try to forget this ever happened.”
“Right. Hi, Jay. Want to join us?”
“I’m not sure I do.” Jay sounded like he was laughing. “Just kidding, I’m on my way. Had a weird discussion with Harry, by the way.”
“Who’s Harry?” Kevin asked.
There was a pause. “Former coworker,” Jay said smoothly. “You know that I worked at Dragon Soul? Anyway, he’s worried the quest line Gracie’s on might have been deleted.”
“That wouldn’t be the worst thing,” Gracie pointed out. “Then maybe the devs would leave me alone.”
“There’s a purpose to it,” Jay argued, “and I want to know what it is. For now, though, let’s see what Night’s Edge has that isn’t creepy alleys.”
“Agreed,” Alex said. “Although watching Gracie fight one from the other side of the VR headset was hilarious.”
“I will kill you ‘til you die from it,” Gracie told him. “And then sic the giant spiders on your corpse.”
Chapter Six
Kevin and Gracie were firmly ensconced in a well-lit tavern by the time Jay arrived. Although the game had long-since restored their gear to being perfectly clean, both of them kept looking at their hands and bodies as if to make sure that they weren’t still dripping glowing blue spider blood.
“So, where should we go next?” Jay asked. He sat down at the table, his character carrying a large mug of beer. “An all-alley tour of Night’s Edge?”
Gracie gave a full-body shudder. “Have fun. May your death be everything you hope for.”
“We’ll mourn you from here,” Kevin chimed in. “Gimme that beer.”
Jay laughed as the door opened and Alex came in. There had been plenty of opportunities to upgrade his pet into something rarer, but he had stuck with Teef, the panther he’d gotten at level 2. He also went to go buy a pixelated drink, then came to sit, Teef lurking at his side.
“Good date?” Gracie asked.
Alex said nothing for a moment, then looked up to see everyone staring at him. “Oh, right—facial expressions don’t translate. Yeah. Yeah.” He couldn’t quite keep the grin out of his voice. “Real good date.”
“Ha,” Gracie said.
“I don’t know what you have to be triumphant about,” Alex said smoothly. “Because you had nothing to do with her getting my number in the first place, right? You swore.”
Gracie froze and had her character take a sip from her beer. “I mean, uh—”
“Uh-huh.” Alex shook his head. “Well, whatever. You’re absolved. Pity you can’t seem to pick as well when it comes to guys.”
Jay shifted uncomfortably. His feet were aching, he told himself. They should make the most of their playtime. Or something.
Anything to avoid this topic.
“Should we go adventuring?” he asked lightly. “Kevin, you said you thought there might be other things in this zone?”
“Yeah.” Kevin sounded meditative. “It has a different feel than some of the others, don’t you think?”
“I suppose.” Jay considered the topic. If Harry had suggested he look here, and the gear had been hidden here… “I wonder when this zone was created?” he said half to himself. “I wonder if it was one of the earliest ones.”
Gracie looked at him with a wordless question.
“When Harry was still on the project,” Jay explained.
“What’s going on?” Alex asked.
“Something about an old
coworker of Jay’s,” Kevin explained. His character, visible only because she was standing on her chair, shrugged her tiny shoulders. “I don’t know, I guess it’s possible. He didn’t say?”
Jay shook his head and drained his beer, appreciating the play of colors in the mug. “No. He’s being really cagey about it.”
“Because he’s up to something,” Gracie cut in. Her voice was quiet but authoritative. “Every time you tell me about him, Jay, something feels off.”
Jay swallowed. There were a hundred things he wanted to say, but he knew she wouldn’t respond well to any of them. She wouldn’t approve of him doing this for her sake, both because it was trouble he was going to on her behalf and because he’d learned that Gracie hated anything that felt like pity or a handout.
He guessed it was part of why she disliked her ranking so much. Although her grasp of the game had let her go toe to toe with some of the top guilds, and she had started this by beginning a quest anyone could have begun and then fighting tooth and nail to triumph, Gracie didn’t like the randomness of it all.
Once she had admitted to Jay that it was a knife’s edge. “What if I hadn’t decided to help the kobolds? What if I’d been tired that night, or had decided to ask a different NPC about the lore?”
Jay hadn’t had an answer that satisfied her—not then, at least. But everything in him told him that it hadn’t been random…not exactly. Gracie had come through this so far because of what and who she was. If she had washed out on any of those quest fights, who was to say what would have happened? She had triumphed, however, because she thought quickly and led her team well.
“Jay?” Alex’s voice was tentative.
He’d been quiet for far too long, and Gracie was looking away.
“Sorry, I was thinking about what Gracie said.” Jay cleared his throat. “The thing I keep coming back to is that I want to figure out what’s going on. This is just one of the ways I’m trying.”
Gracie said nothing for a moment, but then she nodded. “Yeah, I get that. Let’s go, then.”
“I just want to be clear,” Kevin said, hopping down from his chair, “that I was just talking about poking around and seeing if we find anything. There’s a very grim ‘you can’t handle the truth’ vibe going on right now, and that was so not what I was going for today.”
Gracie gave a snort of laughter. “Right. It’s just kind of a bummer that ever since I’ve gotten here, things have been weird, you know? I’d just like to enjoy the freaking game.”
“Minus the spiders?” Alex asked wickedly.
“Mention spiders again and you’re going to wake up with some in your bed,” Gracie said darkly. “I’ll do it, too. See if I don’t.”
Alex was still laughing as Kevin—knee-high to most of them, even with his elaborate hairdo—led the way through the shadowed streets.
“Let’s start at the water,” Gracie suggested suddenly. When everyone looked at her, she shrugged. “The Aosi claimed this from the merpeople, right? That makes the shore the clash of worlds, so to speak. I bet there’s some cool stuff there, lore-wise.”
“Solid.” Kevin nodded in agreement and pointed with both hands. “That way, then. Easy to tell, since everything slopes down to the water.”
They followed him, conversation lapsing as they took in the sights and sounds of Night’s Edge. Last time they had been overwhelmed by the newness of it and excited about their trip out to the glitchy area, but this time they were here to appreciate what was around them.
There was a haunting melody playing. Like most games, Metamorphosis Online had a background soundtrack, but the ambient music wasn’t usually so definitive. Night’s Edge was supposed to be a town ever poised on the brink of night and death, but the melody, which seemed to come from everywhere, spoke clearly of things that had already been lost and would never be recovered. The music spurred Jay ahead, wanting to seek comfort and give it—
He remembered at the last minute that there was no way to take Gracie’s hand in this world, so he dropped his back to his side and fell back before she noticed him.
As they approached the water, the bay stretching out before them, the stately Aosi buildings trailed away and were replaced by shanties, some human and some obviously built by the merpeople. Channels of water had been cut down to the sea, and wide pools glimmered in the darkness of the huts.
There was a bad feel to the place, now that they were paying attention. Jay could see everyone scanning restlessly ahead, waiting for the attack.
It wasn’t long before it came: a group of three, two humans and a merman, their faces shadowed.
“Adventurers,” one of them growled. “They think because they fight for their lords, they’ll be safe here. But this isn’t a battlefield with pretty posturing.”
“Behind us.” Gracie’s voice was sure. “They’re going to surround us. What do you think, guys? Want the fight?”
“Always,” Jay said before he thought. When the rest looked at him, he shrugged. “What? It’s been a hard few weeks.”
Kevin laughed and made a ball of fire dance in the Piskie’s palm. “I’m up for it too.
“Good,” Gracie replied, ‘because there are definitely more behind us.”
“On it.” Jay pivoted smoothly and gave a shallow bow to the three mermen coming up behind him. “Shall we?”
Behind him, he heard Gracie charge toward the other group with a battle cry, and Kevin’s amarok charged into the fray with him. There was the twang of bowstrings and Alex’s encouraging shouts.
Definitely one of Jay’s favorite things about the group was that Alex tended to try to encourage everyone, and he was incredibly wholesome about it. It was both hilarious and jarring to have someone tell you very earnestly that they totally believed in your ability to beat someone to death with a staff.
The first merman rushed at Jay, knocking his character onto his back. The world went blurry with the knockback debuff, and Jay could make out the blue-white blur of the amarok defending him. He bounced on his feet and tapped his fingers while he waited for his character to get up. It was only a two-second debuff, but it felt like years.
He launched into motion as soon as he was back in the fight. He had more hit points than the amarok, so he made it a point to gain threat on each of the three mermen.
“Take that!” he called, punching the first one in the face. “And that,” he added to the second, jabbing an elbow sideways. “And that,” he finished, kicking the last one in his vaguely-defined groin. “If you’ve got anything there. Nope, doesn’t look like you do.” A second kick to the chest sent the merman sliding back. “That’s better.”
“Everyone okay over there?” Gracie called.
“We’re doing all right,” Kevin called back. “Want any DOTs on yours?”
“Always. More DOTs, more DOTs, more DOTs. Okay, you can stop with the DOTs, goddamn it.”
Laughter, his and theirs, reverberated as Jay worked to kill the first of his targets. The merman was almost as tall as Jay right now—meaning that he was much taller if his tail was extended—and he was jacked. It was easy to forget that Jay’s character was covered in muscle and feel as if maybe he’d made a terrible mistake.
But there was nothing for it except to fight. Jay swung, stringing combinations together and tapping his fingers in complicated motions to activate buffs and abilities. There was a strange peace in this, he thought. He couldn’t think too far ahead, and he couldn’t get lost in his thoughts. He just had to keep going.
Gracie and Alex were still working on their three when Kevin and Jay finished up, and Jay popped a health potion before heading in to help with cleanup. It wasn’t long before the gang was alone again, gold glittering in their pockets.
“That was more exciting than usual without Alan here to heal us,” Gracie said. She laughed a little. “Oof. This place really doesn’t want to be explored, does it?”
“Not so much,” Kevin agreed. “And I should be up early tomorrow, so I may head
out.”
“Likewise,” Alex chimed in. “I’ve got a new client coming in tomorrow. Software dude. ‘Alex, you’re a nerd. You work with him.’” He imitated his boss’s voice with clear annoyance. “Night, all.”
“G’night,” Gracie said. She looked at Jay. “Welp, don’t think we should try this as a party of two.”
“Another drink?” Jay suggested. “Or a stroll through the more well-lit places in the city, maybe?”
“Ha-ha. I will take you up on that stroll.” She sheathed her sword and headed back up the hill with him. “I don’t know what Kevin thinks is here. There are a couple of quests, and it’s cool to look at, but it mostly seems like a set piece, you know?”
Jay took his time answering. “What you said,” he replied finally. “About how this zone doesn’t want to be explored? I think you’re right.”
“Oh?” Gracie looked at him. He wished he could see her face since her character had the same flat, distant expression as usual.
“I think Harry wanted to make this zone look really cool but be somewhere that people wouldn’t stick around,” Jay said. “I think he wants us to stick around, though. Maybe he thought you might because you like righting wrongs. That’s how you got the quest in the first place. I think we should keep looking when we have a full group.”
“Oh,” Gracie said quietly. There was a long pause, broken only by the crunching of her boots on the ground.
“Is everything okay?” Jay asked her.
“Yes, it’s… Of course.” There was another pause, and he heard her draw a deep breath. “Or maybe not. Am I just a puzzle to you?” Her voice was light, but Jay heard genuine worry there.
Suddenly, he understood. Gracie was afraid that once Jay figured out the quest, he was going to lose interest in the guild.
In her.
He wanted to laugh and tell her how ridiculous that was.
He also wanted to throw up at the idea of telling her how he actually felt, so instead, he let his breath out in a whoosh and shook his head. He was trying to come up with the right words, but between all of the things rocketing around in his head that he couldn’t say, and the fact that he seemed not to be able to figure out jack shit where Gracie was concerned, he couldn’t come up with anything.