Metamorphosis Online Complete Series Boxed Set; A Gamelit Fantasy RGP Novel: You Need A Bigger Sword, The New Queen Rises, Reign With Axe & Shield

by Natalie Grey

  Still, Jay said nothing. Saying the words to Dhruv felt like a betrayal. He wanted to speak about smiling at Gracie on the roof of Saladin's Keep, but that memory was theirs. It was for people who cared about both of them.

  "If she's the woman you think she is," Dhruv said, "you have nothing to worry about." With that not-very-reassuring sentiment, he stood and smiled. "Ask her if she's willing to share the menus she has. You might be surprised.”

  Jay said nothing. He stared at the whiteboard while Dhruv left. The problem, he decided, was that you wanted to like Dhruv. He spoke openly, and he told you when he was angry. You knew what you were working with.

  Jay got up and poked his head out into the hall. "Hey. You have another minute?”

  Dhruv turned to look at him and came back with a curious smile. Jay could see the people nearby craning to get a look as subtly as they could. Jay and Dhruv were on speaking terms? Dhruv was leaving Jay's office without it being a screaming fight? What was going on?

  "Talk to me about the fights," Jay said, tapping the board.

  2) Harry believed that people should not be allowed to do whatever they wanted in-game because it would make them bad people outside the game.

  3) Dhruv believed the opposite. They fought about it, BUT—

  4) Harry didn't make the quest until Dan and Dhruv booted him out???

  Dhruv's eyebrows went up. "And you want a summation that fits in...a minute, I believe you asked for?" He shrugged. "He's a douche.”

  Jay pressed his lips together. "Okay, I deserved that. Do you have enough time to walk me through that part, though?”

  Dhruv heaved a sigh. "Yeah, I think so," he said finally. "I have a meeting with Brightstar, and it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to let them stew a bit." He typed something quickly on his phone and shut the door to Jay's office before starting to pace.

  "Harry liked me," he said finally, "for the same reason he hated me: I talked back to him.”

  Jay sank into his chair and watched the man pace. Dhruv was running his fingers through his dark hair, which he kept on the long side.

  "When we were roommates, it was....fine." Dhruv grimaced. "I thought he was an asshole—not incorrectly—but he was smart and funny, and he was willing to 'try out' letting other people win arguments. By which I mean, he won and lost the same number of arguments; he just admitted when he lost them." He rolled his eyes and perched briefly on the arm of the second chair before springing up again to pace some more.

  Apparently, Dhruv did not excel at sitting still.

  "Dan was Harry's kryptonite," Dhruv continued, "because he never just comes out and fights you on anything, he just sort of pivots, and you end up arguing with thin air. Harry couldn't pin him down. He was stupid enough to think that was because Dan agreed with him all the time."

  Dhruv shrugged. "It works for him, I guess, but I don't do things that way. Anyway, the long and short of it was that Harry always had to think of someone winning an encounter. There was the person in charge, and then there was everyone else in some sort of crab-bucket battle royale.”

  Jay blinked, trying to picture this.

  "Harry talked a lot about Metamorphosis when we were in college," Dhruv explained, "but no one thought he could pull it off, and he hadn't built the whole world out. We were the ones who did the early planning and tests with him. We stress-tested his ideas. It wouldn't have been possible without us. He acknowledged that, but he still had to be in charge. He couldn't deal with someone else having a good point, definitely not in public. You could get around him sometimes. You could see him in private, and sort of talk him into agreeing with you, and then he'd pretend the idea was his." Dhruv gave a disgusted look. "Dan found that out. I did it once and... Well, I tried it once.”

  Jay, despite himself, laughed quietly. He couldn't imagine Dhruv sneaking around, trying to maneuver someone into taking credit for his idea.

  "Yeah, laugh it up," Dhruv said sourly. "We had a screaming fight, and I never tried it again. My point is, Harry always had to win. Not only win but be so far ahead that no one else could come close to beating him." He finally sat, dropping gracelessly into a chair. Dhruv in motion was one thing, but at rest, he looked lanky, like a figurine with slightly wrong proportions.

  Jay considered this. "Gracie said there were controls to mute people," he said, "or block them, ban them, that sort of thing.”

  "There we go," Dhruv said. "Now we're getting somewhere. Has she used them?”

  "No." Jay looked at him like he was crazy.

  Dhruv tilted his head to the side. "Why is that so weird a question?”

  "Why would she use them?" Jay said. "She has no interest in—well, okay, if Harry showed up, she'd probably ban his ass.”

  "You know, that I wouldn't mind.”

  Jay gave him a two-finger salute. "I'll tell her that. But otherwise, there's no reason for her to ban anyone.”

  "Mmm." Dhruv looked at him. "You really believe in her, and so far, she's only led you in battle.”

  "It's...that's wrong." Jay shook his head. "You know what you said about Harry? How he always has to win? Gracie isn't in charge of Red Squadron that way. I suppose she does choose where we go and what we do, but it's not absolute. If someone else wanted to do something, they could. It's... She leads by example.”

  Dhruv settled back in his chair.

  "She's not a leader the way Harry would ever think of one," Jay said, at a loss for how else to explain it. "She tells you what she knows, she does what she thinks is right, and she expects other people to do the same. And she collects people who do.”

  "Interesting." Dhruv frowned. "Still, no one rises without being hated. I know for a fact there are people who don't like her.”

  "Your Brightstar executives, for one thing," Jay shot back with a tight smile.

  Dhruv said nothing in reply, but one eyebrow rose sardonically. "My question is this: if you know her so well and she wants people to do the right thing, where is she going to draw that line, Jay? When someone is interfering, when someone is harassing people? How long until she starts to use those powers Harry gave her? How long until she turns into him just because she can?"

  Chapter Seventeen

  "Ushanas!" Gracie called. "Flank right! Right! You have an opening!”

  She looked over her shoulder and swore. Ushanas was casting, hands out and ready to call down a storm of fire from the heavens. The Ocru male had robes of a deep red. Theoretically, they should have looked ridiculous on someone so bulky, but they managed to look insanely intimidating instead.

  Except Gracie knew that Ushanas was about to get steamrolled by the Piskie rogue that had just come in here.

  "Ushanas, get out of there!”

  "Sec!" Ushanas called back. “One—second—more—and—dammit! Oh, hey." The rogue had gotten him, and in a flurry of strikes, had him down to half-health, but the firestorm had begun, and every enemy in the main battle was now taking damage over time as fireballs thudded to the ground.

  Gracie admired the way the game's creators had handled similar animations. If you were on the team targeted, you saw the rain of fire in all its glory. There was roaring, there was burning, your haptics shuddered, and it was hard to see. If you weren't on the team that was targeted, however, you could choose between seeing all of the effects or simply having your opponents glow orange for flame damage, green for earth damage, or blue for frost damage.

  Gracie much preferred the immediacy of seeing the fire and reveling in the chaos of the battle—but she had learned at this point that it hampered accuracy too much. She had reluctantly switched to the other effect for now.

  They were trying to win, after all, not be distracted by the game's particle effects.

  "Come on!" Ushanas called. "Let's go!" He took off, running heavily toward the door at the end of the library.

  The rogue, however, was following them. He hopped along behind Ushanas, applying a slowing poison, hamstringing the mage, and avoiding the rain
of fire on the other side of the room. Gracie threw her shield at him, but it didn't do quite enough. He stumbled and got a simple stun, which she used to get Ushanas out of the room, but the rogue was back soon after, running down the hallway after them, and disappearing into stealth.

  "Fuck." Stealth made him slower, but they had no idea what he was planning right now.

  Gracie heaved a sigh as she and Ushanas pelted around the corner and into the long hallway lined with the tumbled-down former suites for Saladin's guests. "If you'd left when I said to, we'd have avoided that kerfuffle.”

  "Aw, come on." Ushanas didn't seem worried. "I wanted to help our D out a little.”

  "Let the D handle itself," Gracie said wryly.

  "You're definitely a chick.”

  Despite herself, Gracie laughed at that. "Lakhesis, Chowder, what's going on? We don't see you over here.”

  "You said east, right?”

  "I said right," Gracie said. She had her character jump to hurdle a fallen block of stone.

  "East is right," Lakhesis said. "On a map.”

  Gracie groaned. "And on your mini-map?”

  "I have mine set to cardinal directions," Lakhesis said.

  "And I was following her," Chowder chimed in.

  "Oooookay." Gracie wanted to stop and bash her head against one of the stone walls, but she knew that wasn't exactly a productive thing to do at this juncture. "Next time, we...well, let's just use cardinal directions from now on. My bad, I guess.”

  "We're coming back around," Lakhesis said. "There was nothing over there anyway. And—goddammit!”

  "What is it?" Gracie asked, although she had a sinking suspicion she already knew.

  "Rogue," Lakhesis said. “Chowder—Chowder, come back. No, stun him. Goddammit.”

  "He's fast," Chowder said defensively. "And he keeps hopping around like crazy, and I can’t…fuck, where the hell is he? Come back here, you little devil munchkin thing!”

  "Should we go back for them?" Ushanas asked.

  Since you're the reason for the rogue being there, yes. Gracie didn't say that. She forced a smile before remembering that Ushanas couldn't see her. "No. Keep running. Guys, corpse-run over to the Dining Hall when you die, okay?”

  "It's a little rude to assume we'll die," Lakhesis said, prickly.

  “Sorry. If you win—“

  "No, we did die, I'm just saying.”

  Gracie wanted to scream with frustration, but she tried to focus on their objective. She came around the corner and skidded to a halt, jerking her torso back in the real world as a reflex for stopping legs that weren't actually moving.

  There were five defenders waiting for them. Five? How could there be so many?

  She launched into action, throwing her shield and stunning one of them while Ushanas began a group spell, but without any slowing abilities, and without proper melee DPS, they were taken down quickly. Gracie balled her hand into a fist and clenched her teeth as her screen went black and cleared to the blue-and-white of the spirit world.

  "They were waiting for us," she said as she waited to resurrect. "Why do you think that was?”

  No one answered.

  "It was because the rogue warned them," Gracie said, falsely pleasant, "and several of the people there were available because Ushanas had killed them with the firestorm and they resurrected at their own graveyard.”

  "Whoa, hey." Ushanas sounded annoyed now. "Are you blaming me for this?”

  "Yes," Gracie said, her calm breaking now. "Of course, I'm fucking blaming you. I told you to come with me. We had an opening, and you squandered it with defense we didn't need to spend and hamstrung the offense we were trying to run. Yes, I'm blaming you.”

  "Oh, come on, like you don't think it made sense to help our defense out? There were three people there, and they—“

  Gracie wrenched her headset away from her head and stood there staring up at the ceiling of her apartment with her heart pounding.

  She was furious. She had spent this entire morning trying to fight through the distraction and constant unpredictability of PvP, and the rest of her team wasn't putting in the effort. They were constantly drawn off-track, helping allies, attacking enemies, and getting pulled into fights that didn't need to concern them.

  Yes, PvP was uniquely immersive in Metamorphosis Online, but they didn't have the time to waste dicking around right now.

  When Harry showed up, they had to be ready. How could Gracie hope to win against him if her team wouldn't even follow her orders?

  She felt the haptics shudder and put her headset back on to find that someone had camped her corpse. She stared at the blue-white screen and the countdown timer and wondered if she was actually going out of her mind.

  "Gracie?" It was Ushanas. "Are you there?" He sounded genuinely worried, and at that moment, she felt a deep stab of guilt. Her team was trying. They were.

  It wasn't their fault she was entirely out of her depth here.

  "I'm here," she said. "I just needed...a reset. Give me a sec.”

  "Come on," Ushanas urged.

  "I just said—“

  "Yeah, and before that, you said for people to run to the other team's graveyard and rez there. Come on." He led the way, his character's robes turned a ghostly white by the world of the dead.

  Bemused, Gracie followed him. It was her order, although it had been back from when they had thought they might still win.

  As if Ushanas could sense her thoughts, he turned to look at her over his shoulder. "You didn't give up, did you? Because if so, I'm afraid I'll have to believe you got replaced by your evil twin. Does your sister look a lot like you or something?”

  "My sister wouldn't get near a video game if you threatened her life," Gracie replied, rolling her eyes. "She's off on Nantucket or something, wearing seersucker and planning her surprised face for when her boyfriend proposes on the 4th of July.”

  "I mean, that does sound like an evil twin, so…"

  Gracie laughed. They were close to the other team's graveyard, and they saw Lakhesis and Chowder waiting there, still in the spirit world. The other two waved, and Lakhesis motioned for them to circle up. All of them leaned in, Lakhesis standing on her tiptoes. The human was surrounded by two Ocru and an Aosi, so she was the shortest by far.

  "All right, gang," Lakhesis started. "They think they have this thing in the bag, but what have we learned from Gracie over the past few weeks?”

  "Trust her instincts," Chowder said.

  "Listen to her orders," Ushanas added.

  "Guys, I am right here; this is a bit weird.”

  "Above all," Lakhesis continued, ignoring Gracie’s interjection, "no matter how long the shot is, never. Give. Up!”

  "Never give up!" Ushanas and Chowder chorused. They looked at Gracie.

  ”Come on," Ushanas said again. He was laughing. "Maybe you suck at PvP right now, but we started out Team Underdog, and that's our jam.”

  Gracie's jaw dropped. She knew what he was doing, and she was trying not to laugh. "I do not suck at PvP.”

  "Oh, really?" Ushanas did the side-to-side head bob for a sassy comeback. "Then prove it.”

  "Game on." Gracie looked around. "We ready?”

  "Ready!" the other three yelled.

  They rezzed just in time to see the other team's flag carrier sprinting dead out through the oasis. She had broken away from her pursuers, and she and her attendant healer seemed to think they were in the clear.

  They were very, very wrong. Gracie charged out of cover and took the healer out sideways with a shield bash. Chowder went to town on the flag carrier in a blur of short swords, and Ushanas was handing out DoTs like they were candy. Lakhesis, meanwhile, helped Chowder burn the flag carrier down while saving her interrupt until Gracie yelled,”NOW!"

  Lakhesis stunned the healer, who was a half-second away from pulling out the lifesaving heal, and the flag carrier went down in a heap.

  "Go, go, go!" Gracie yelled.

  The team ch
arged into the enemy headquarters, Ushanas throwing one last fireball at the healer and chortling. "He ate that one in the face. Pro tip, kids: don't eat fireballs.”

  "Citation needed," Gracie told him. She ran for the flag. "Lakhesis, me or you?”

  "You," Lakhesis said without hesitation. "You have more HP, and I like DPS more." She peeled away and began running for the exit. "East or west?”

  "West, and right-o." Gracie grabbed the flag and headed for the west corridor with Ushanas and Chowder in tow. "All right, we're about to have everyone on our ass, and we didn't manage to bring a healer, so just keep an eye on your health bar, okay, kids?”

  "I thought Caspian was unemployed right now," Ushanas grumbled. "What use is an unemployed healer if they can't save us from the consequences of our own decisions?”

  "Good point," Chowder rumbled.

  Gracie let the conversation wash over her. She was smiling, although she didn't chime in. She had scanned to her left as they dashed out of the building and seen the bulk of the other team heading right for them.

  "Get ready, guys. Ushanas, find a hiding spot.”

  "Way ahead of you." Ushanas waved from halfway up a ruined stairwell as Gracie and Chowder sprinted by. "Squishies always have a good hiding spot planned.”

  "Excellent." Gracie, much to her own sorrow, was not able to turn around and watch when she heard the fire start raining down. From Ushanas' hysterical laughter, however, she assumed that the other team had not expected to come around the corner and be trapped in a fireball-filled hellscape without any easy escape.

  "Three got through," Ushanas reported. "A rogue, a sender, and a warrior.”

  "Chowder, Lakhesis." Gracie didn't look.

  "On it." Chowder stopped and pivoted in one smooth motion. "Hello, sender. Nice low health bar you got there. Would be a shame if something were to happen to it.”

  "Threw another DoT on that rogue," Ushanas called. "Now he won't be able to go into stealth.”

  "You're a dream," Gracie called back. She saw Lakhesis hurtle past her in the opposite direction to join the melee, and the two tanks waved cheerily at each other.

  Gracie switched to the main team chat. "I don't suppose there's a healer anywhere near me. I'm coming out of the west hallway and getting close to our headquarters.”