Never Split the Party

by Ramy Vance

  “Like a superhero or something?” Suzuki mused.

  “I would not go so far as to describe any of you as “super.” Just not excessively fragile.”

  Suzuki walked over to a tree stump decaying in the rancid mud. He reached for it and lifted part of it out of the mud with hardly any strain or effort. “I don’t know man. I kind of feel like I’m Captain America.”

  “And given how fast our wounds heal here, I’d say Captain American spliced with Wolverine.”

  “What are you doing with that tree?” Sandy asked.

  Suzuki dropped the stump back into the mud. “I was just messing around with the tree, trying to figure out exactly how strong we are now. That’s something we haven’t really done since we’ve gotten here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We hardly know how anything works. Sandy, how do you cast a spell? Stew, how are you going to go Berserk?”

  Stew and Sandy stared blankly at each other.

  Suzuki drew his sword. He brought it crashing down on the tree trunk. The trunk split in two, sending chunks of wood flying everywhere. “The only thing I’ve figured out is that I’m strong as hell. It never even clicked before that this sword is probably the heaviest thing I’ve ever lifted.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Stew interrupted. “You’re a weak nerd’s wet dream. Now you have the strength to do basic activities.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Trust me, dude. It can’t be too hard. We’ll figure it out.”

  Sandy smiled reassuringly at Suzuki. “Yeah, it shouldn’t be too hard. I burned down those plants without a problem. Plus we have our familiars.”

  “We should still have a plan.”

  Stew let out an exaggerated yawn. “What kind of plan are we going to need for some flies? Unless you wanna conjure a giant flyswatter. Otherwise, let’s just have Sandy torch them.”

  Sandy mimed shooting a gun. She blew imaginary smoke from the barrel. “Toast.”

  “Fine, fine,” Suzuki agreed. “Guess we’ll only know when we get there.” He pointed to the sky. “The sun’s almost down. Guess we’re camping tonight.”

  “Out here?” Stew objected.

  “Seriously, dude. Where did you think we were going to camp?”

  The barbarian threw up his arms in frustration. “I don’t know. I didn’t think we were going to be walking all day.”

  Suzuki shrugged. “Well, unless you want to be walking all night too, we’re gonna have to set up camp. Come on, let’s look for some dry land. Or at least something stable enough to pitch a tent.”

  The Mundanes continued on through the mud. The air was full of buzzing mosquitos. There were strange bird calls. These were accompanied with sounds that Suzuki had never heard before, sounds that served as a reminder that the swampland was teeming with life.

  Sandy and Stew had stopped talking. Stew was practically pouting. He looked like a giant hulking child poured into some armor. It was hard to take him seriously, especially since none of them were getting tired at all. Suzuki figured Stew was just complaining out of boredom.

  If Suzuki were honest with himself, this wasn’t how he thought his first adventure into Middang3ard was going to be.

  That being said, he was glad that they hadn’t taken on anything too advanced. They were still new to this whole MERC thing…best to take things slowly until they knew more.

  The Mundanes came to a patch of solid ground, and Suzuki surveyed the area until he was comfortable with the spot. Spreading his arms wide, he theatrically spun around as he spoke. “This will make a fine base camp.”

  “You’re not impressing anyone,” Stew grumbled.

  “Jesus, Stew,” Sandy jabbed. “Haven’t you ever gone camping before?”

  “No. I haven’t. If I had known camping required being eaten alive by mosquitos, I might have objected.”

  The sun had already begun to set, so Suzuki got to picking up sticks for a fire. When Sandy saw Suzuki working, she did the same. Stew reluctantly joined in after a couple of minutes, and once they had gathered a substantial amount of wood, they stopped to admire the stockpile.

  Then Suzuki picked up a few sticks and piled them neatly before digging a small moat about them. “Could you do us the honors, Sandy?” Suzuki asked.

  Sandy walked up to the bundle of sticks, snapped her fingers, and the wood burst into a modest fire.

  “Good to know that you got fire down.”

  “Yeah,” Sandy answered. “I was chatting with Niv while we were hiking. I figured he probably knew about how magic works seeing as how he’s the only way I can use magic.”

  Suzuki selected his camping gear from his HUD’s inventory and it materialized in front of him. He got started setting up his tent. Sandy chose her camping gear as well. She stared at it blankly when it materialized at her feet.

  When Suzuki saw the obvious confusion on Stew’s and Sandy’s faces, he finished up his tent and came over to them. “You guys don’t know how to pitch a tent, huh?”

  Sandy smiled sheepishly as she played with her robes. “My family and I grew up in a city. We didn’t really have anywhere to camp.”

  “What about you, Stew?”

  Stew turned bright red and stammered. “It’s not important! I just don’t know how to make up a tent. Not everyone is Bear Wilderness. And how’d you figure out how to do this shit anyway? You’re kind of a pasty nerd.”

  “I am not pasty!”

  Sandy laughed as she manipulated the flames of the fire with her hand. “I think we’ll all benefit from being out in nature. And Stew and I are going to share my tent.”

  Stew’s eyes got wide. They quickly narrowed as he rubbed his hands together.

  “All right,” Suzuki said. “But please, for the love of God, don’t—”

  “Don’t worry, Suzuki.” Sandy chuckled. “It’ll be like a silent film.”

  Suzuki nodded, lifting a finger up in the way he always did when he was about to say something interesting. Well, interesting to him at least. “You know the first silent films were actually nickelodeons. They weren’t kid-friendly, though. Most of them were porn and…oh…I get it,” he added when he saw Sandy’s massive grin.

  Stew trotted over to Sandy’s side and smacked her butt as he passed. “All right. I could get into this camping shit.”

  “Good.” Suzuki sighed. “Then let me show you how to get this tent up.”

  “It’s not going to be the only thing getting up tonight,” Sandy muttered under her breath.

  “Okay, okay,” Suzuki exclaimed. “I get it. You two are fucking tonight. Now give me a hand.”

  Suzuki walked them through how to get their tent up and going. He explained each step of setting down the spikes and how to get up the canvas of the tent. The work was satisfying to him.

  The MERCs hadn’t supplied them with anything fancy. Instead, they had been given traditional tents that required a bit of know-how to get pitched.

  Suzuki wondered how many of the new MERCs were floundering about trying to figure out the basics of getting a comfortable night’s rest.

  Stew hammered in one of the spikes with the hilt of his sword. “How’d you learn all this shit anyway? All jokes aside, I never pegged you as someone who spent much time outdoors.”

  Suzuki stretched the canvas over the frame of the tent and motioned for Stew and Sandy to pull the canvas up and over the various rods and spikes. “I really liked Lord of the Rings when I was growing up. I used to make my parents take me camping out in the forests so I could pretend that I was one of the Hobbits.”

  “Niv says they’re halflings,” Sandy chimed in.

  “No, hobbits,” Suzuki corrected. “Hobbits and halflings are different.”

  “Yes, but Niv tells me we’re not allowed to use the word ‘hobbit’ because Tolkien’s people copyrighted it.”

  Suzuki looked around. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Who’s going to sue us out here?”

  Sandy lifted a silencing
finger to her lips. “Shush—you never know who’s listening.”

  Suzuki threw his hands up in surrender. “Whatever…the point is that when I got older, I started LARPing with a couple of friends. We used to go out and camp in the forest a couple weekends out of the month.”

  “God, you even have nerdy reasons for being outdoors. I guess you’ve been training for this whole fantasy life for a long time.”

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that. But haven’t we all?”

  The Mundanes finished setting up their tents and stepped back to admire their work. Even Stew looked impressed with what they had accomplished. Suzuki made his way to the fire and sat down. Sandy and Stew joined him.

  “So what do we do now?” Stew asked. Irritation and impatience were creeping into his voice.

  “Well,” Suzuki mused. “My parents used to bring instruments along so we could sing, but I guess we don’t have any. And my friends used to bring beer, but that’s out of the question too.”

  “Not quite,” Sandy chimed in. She tapped her HUD a couple of times, and three beers and a lute appeared next to the fire. “Niv told me I should grab a couple of drinks for the road. I put them on Milos’ tab and figured he wouldn’t mind. When I saw the bar had a lute, I asked to borrow it. I used to take lessons when I was a kid.”

  Stew let out a roaring laugh. “The semifinals for the world’s biggest nerd continues. The competition is fierce.”

  Niv popped out from behind Sandy’s back. He hopped over to the fire, sat up on his hind legs, and warmed his front paws. “You don’t mind if I join you? It’s a beautiful night, and you have a very toasty fire.”

  “No, no.” Suzuki gestured at the fire. “Please do.”

  Sandy plucked a few strings on the lute and began tuning as Suzuki pulled a bag of salted meats from his inventory. He passed the jerky to Stew, along with a beer.

  Sandy started strumming the lute as Niv sang softly under his breath.

  Suzuki couldn’t tell what the almiraj was singing, but it sounded like another language. The words flowed together like water, and Niv had a soft, sweet voice. After a couple of minutes, Suzuki saw that GB had walked out from behind Stew. He was listening quietly, his donkey face looking more than a little sleepy. Suzuki wondered if Fred was interested in joining them.

  “Hey, Fred,” Suzuki broached. “You wanna hang out with us?”

  There was a long pause before Fred spoke. “I suppose.”

  Suzuki felt a slight jerk and Fred exited his body, floating above him for a moment before perching on a tree branch.

  When she was finished playing, Sandy stretched out and rested her head on Stew’s lap. “So how’s your first camping trip, babe?”

  Stew took a sip from his drink and nodded his head. “Not half-bad,” he replied.

  Even though he was happy for his friends, Suzuki couldn’t help but feel jealous: watching Sandy and Stew just reminded him that Beth wasn’t with them. Even if she had been, he doubted that he’d have had the guts to put his arm around her or even flirt. Nothing with him and Beth seemed as easy as with Sandy and Stew. Ever since they’d started playing together, Sandy and Stew had been inseparable. He wasn’t surprised when he heard that they were dating. Sometimes he was surprised that they were still dating, but that was another story.

  But him and Beth?

  Nothing about them ever seemed easy.

  Stew cocked his thumb upward. “You know, I’ve never seen these many stars before. I’ve never been anywhere that I could hear bugs.”

  From overhead, there was a plume of smoke, and Fred descended to sit with the rest of the Mundanes. “The stars each have a story. The old ones, such as me, have names and stories for all of them.”

  “You mean like constellations?”

  “No. Each star has a name and a story. Unlike humans, we do not need to make up tales. We have seen each star come into life, and we shall watch as they all fade.”

  “Could you tell us one?” Sandy asked.

  Fred pointed to a flickering red star. “That is Glagorethroashin. One of the first Elder Ones was born from its fire. He drowned the first created realm in his madness and was banished by the other Elder Ones. It is said that he will return when the realms have achieved peace and will spread his madness to all of the realms once more.”

  “Damn, dude,” Stew grumbled. “You really know how to be a buzzkill.”

  “What buzz have I killed? It will be a beautiful thing to see all of reality thrown into confusion and chaos.”

  Sandy laughed and pointed to a group of stars directly above her. “Okay, my turn. My mom told me a story about that constellation over there. The one with the bright white star at its apex.” Sandy waved a hand and the constellation illuminated. “According to Chinese mythology, that’s Vega. In the story, she’s in love with this human farm boy, Niulang, something forbidden by the gods. Still they continued to defy their fate, and when the gods eventually saw their love was true, they allowed the two lovers to meet, but only once a year—on the 7th night of the 7th moon, when a bridge of magpies forms across the Celestial River. Now China celebrates that time as the Qixi Festival. Kind of romantic, right?”

  “Yeah,” Suzuki agreed. “I wish Beth were here to hear that one.”

  Sandy nodded and took back up her lute. “You should show them to her the next time you see her, Suzuki. She’d probably get a kick out of it. She’d love it.”

  Fred flapped his wings, returning to the tree branch. “I do not understand your story. As is typical of your human stories, it lacks substance.”

  “Maybe.” Suzuki stared up at the shining stars. “I thought it was a pretty good story, though.”

  The Mundanes sat and drank as the night passed on around them. The stars did not grow dim, nor did their laughter or conversation. They shared stories and fears with each other as the night wore on. Stew fell asleep first, and he didn’t wake until Sandy nudged him hard in the side and they both retired to their tent. Suzuki stayed outside a bit longer, watching the stars.

  Then he went into his tent, closed the flap, lay down and drifted to sleep, hoping to dream of Beth, if only for a moment.

  17

  Suzuki rose with the gray dawn and slipped out of his tent as quietly as he could. The marsh was smoky in the early morning before the sun had fully climbed into its proper place in the sky, painting the sky in hues of red and yellow.

  This was the perfect time of day for him. He’d never enjoyed mornings before, but that was back when he was on Earth. There was nothing remotely pleasant about waking up before the sun so that you could go to work or cram for the last test of the semester.

  Even if there were a reason to get out of bed, there wasn’t anything worth seeing.

  The only thing that Suzuki had ever appreciated about waking up early was the silence. The suburbs had a special sort of silence which he’d never heard anywhere else, vastly different from what he was listening to now.

  Even though he had just woken up, it sounded as if the swamp had never gone to sleep. The frogs were still croaking loudly, and birds were singing overhead.

  Suzuki walked a little way from Sandy and Stew’s tent. He wanted to give them a bit more privacy.

  He took some of the wood with him, and when he was far enough away, he knelt and cleared a spot for a fire. There was a piece of flint and stone in his inventory. He selected it and the flint materialized in his hand. It took a few attempts at striking the flint before a spark caught, but the kindling was soon on fire, burning healthily.

  The fire invited Suzuki to think, to let his mind wander. Not that he needed much imagination in a place like this. The last few days had been like a dream. Getting drunk and singing with halflings? Exploring a poisonous marsh? This was way better than any campaign he’d ever played before, even given the hours of paperwork. That, however, had grounded him back in reality: no dream could have gotten that level of bureaucracy right.

  Suzuki wondered if the blackfly quest
was going to be as easy as Milos had made it sound. If the paperwork was any indication of Middang3ard, Suzuki was certain that nothing was ever going to be as easy as it looked.

  Even getting out of the small village and into the thick of the marsh had taken more real-life skills than Suzuki had anticipated.

  Were things any easier for the military?

  How was Beth faring?

  He tried to message her again but was met with the same restrictions. Whatever she used to get around them was tech or magic that he didn’t have access to. Yet.

  Suzuki tried to imagine what Beth was doing right at this moment. Probably waking up. He remembered her saying that she had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. She was probably still trying to get her eyes to stay open.

  Pulling up the screenshot that he’d taken of the last video Beth had sent him, he tried to think of what she looked like in the morning. Her hair was probably a mess, and she’d probably hate talking. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d hit him over the head if he tried to speak to her.

  But he wouldn’t mind because he’d be sleeping next to her, seeing her first thing in the morning, running his fingers across hers, staring into her eyes, feeling himself getting lost as he leaned forward, both of their lips parting slightly.

  An ember from the fire cracked loudly and Suzuki jumped to his feet, unsheathing his sword. He whirled around, looking for the source of the noise. When he realized it was the fire, he sat down again.

  Man, I need to get more comfortable with the sounds of nature…and fire, he thought.

  He pulled up some of the salted meat from his inventory and chomped into it. The meat was indeed salty. His whole mouth puckered, but he thanked whoever was listening that they had gotten enough food to negate needing to hunt. Cooking a chicken would have been a godsend compared to hunting down frogs in the mud. He wasn’t even sure what you would make from frogs.

  Whatever it would be, it didn’t sound appetizing at the moment.

  After he had finished eating, Suzuki stood and stretched.