“Yes I do. If you go into the game feeling like this you might have another panic attack and I don’t want you getting hurt. Now, just try to relax. You have a meeting with Dr. Braun tomorrow morning. I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you about what went on.”
Mandy spent the rest of the night in her room. She was hungry, but she didn’t feel like going to the kitchen to make something to eat. She didn’t feel like doing anything but sitting on her bed and hugging her pillow.
She dreaded her meeting with Dr. Braun the next day. She prepared herself to get chewed out for attaching the pleasure synthesizer. Mandy told him about this and about what happened in the game.
By the end Mandy was crying again. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked up at the concerned Dr. Braun. “I know what I did was wrong, and I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t screw up the experiment. I screwed up everything else.”
Dr. Braun was silent for a moment, stroking his salt and pepper goatee before he spoke. “It was extremely irresponsible of you to put on the Pleasure Synthesizer. You ran a big risk of having more than just a panic attack. I received an email from Dr. Thames yesterday about the game.”
“I imagine he’s pissed at me, too.”
Dr. Braun smiled and leaned back into his chair. “Quite the contrary. While you were in game yesterday, he noted the wave length of your brain waves were abnormally close and came very quickly. You were under a great deal of duress during the session, as if you were having a panic attack. However, the program he installed to boot you out of the game didn’t trigger. According to him, and his program, you kept your nerves relatively steady in a desperate situation.”
“It didn’t feel like I was steady.”
“Of course not, you were distraught. However, you kept control of your fear and channeled it into something else. It kept you from having a panic attack, or at least from a full blown one.”
“That’s good news, I guess.”
“That,s fantastic news. Most people experiencing that type of brain activity, even those not suffering from anxiety, would’ve broken down under those conditions. But you held yourself together.”
“Of course. If I didn’t I would’ve died, or Sphiel would have.”
“Don’t you see how big that is? A few months ago, such an episode would’ve sent you to the hospital. But you’re sitting in the comfort of your own home, talking to a relative stranger. If I’d never spoke to you before now, and then went back into the past and spoke to your former self, I would swear I’d met two different people.”
Mandy lifted her head and a glimmer of a smile played on her lips. “I’m that different?”
“Yes, the progress you’ve made is nothing short of astounding. To let you know how big this is, Dr. Thames and I are exploring the possibility of using VR worlds to treat more of my patients. That’s how strongly I believe in this, and I have you to thank for that.”
Mandy took a deep breath. A weight was lifted from her chest. “I guess it was dumb of me to get so worked up over an NPC. I really shouldn’t have, but I did. I don’t really want to go back into the game right now.”
“I don’t believe it’s dumb. You have strong emotions attached to that game, given the impact it’s had on you. Take a little time and reflect on what happened.”
“What should I do? I lost everything in game.”
“As a professional, I can’t tell you what course of action to take. However, an enemy has wronged you in a fantasy world and taken something precious from you. What would most heroes in that situation do?”
Mandy looked at her psychiatrist quizzically.
Dr. Braun cleared his throat. “That’s our time today. Take care and I will see you after your next game session or next week, whichever comes first.”
Dr. Braun’s face disappeared from the screen and Mandy turned off her computer. She rested her feet on the cushion of her seat and rested her chin on her knees.
TWENTY THREE
Mandy didn’t log into the game for several days. During that time, she stayed in her room reading manga, watching anime, or sometimes just staying quiet, thinking. She didn’t want to go back into the game and face goblins.
She doubted that there’d be another group of goblins like the one she and Shiva faced coming for her again. Keeping an army of that size together would probably be beyond the scope of Gulpgulp. But the wounds from her loss were still fresh and she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to hold herself together while in game, which could be fatal if a group of goblins found her and attacked while she was wracked by grief.
Her sister and father knocked on her door every day and asked if she was okay. Mandy wanted to be left alone, but she knew she couldn’t avoid her family or they’d worry. So she would put on a faux smile and tell them she was taking a little break from the game.
This didn’t seem to sit to well with them, especially Natalie. Mandy knew her younger sister wanted her to go back into the game and face what’d happened, even if Natalie didn’t say it.
Mandy knew her sister was right, of course. She had to go back and address what happened on that horrible day again. Not because she wanted to play the game, but because of a sense of duty she had toward Balanos, and herself.
She knew what her psychiatrist meant when he told her what “most heroes would do.” But she didn’t really know if she wanted to, or even how. She planned various things but none of them seemed right.
When she couldn’t come up with a course of action, she decided instead to just think about other times in the game. The peaceful times meditating on the rock, the fun adventures she went on with Balanos and Shiva, and her torrid encounters with the dryad.
The thoughts initially brought sharp pangs, but eventually, they dulled. It didn’t take long before she was able to laugh about the fun times and feel other, more illicit feelings for a few others. Balanos was gone, but there wasn’t anything she could do. It was a dumb design choice to take NPCs away when they died, but Mandy could understand, in a way. It made companions that much more precious. If she ever got another one, she’d be more careful.
She logged into the game after a two week hiatus. There was a sting in Sphiel’s hand from where she hit the tree. She pressed her wound into the hem of her tunic to stop the bleeding and walked back in the direction of the clearing.
It was surprisingly easy to follow the trail she made. She could find the small indentions she made in the dirt on her way there, and where there weren’t prints, she noticed irregularities in the foliage she created during her panicked run. No wonder the goblins were able to track her and Balanos so easily. She would have to take greater care to not leave so many signs of her passing when she went through the forest.
Your skill with tracking has grown to 1!
Sphiel followed her trail back to the clearing. The grasses were completely burned and many of the surrounding trees were blackened stumps. The small pond had very little water. Dried lily pads that once rested on the surface now lay dried up and shrivelled in hardened dirt.
Sphiel feared that she’d find the body of her former companion lying in the clearing, but it wasn’t there. After the battle was over he probably turned into a blue flame and soared into the digital blue sky above.
Balanos’s tree was still there. It stood skeletal and blackened, bereft of any of the beautiful silver leaves on its branches. The elf walked to the and frowned at it. It looked more twisted and decayed than the other trees surrounding it. She imagined that losing its dryad caused all of the life force within it to flee, bringing it to its current, wretched state.
The elf felt like she should say something but she didn’t know what, so she recited an old religious passage she learned when she was a little girl. She made sure to include the parts about life being precious and a never ending journey. She knew that she forgot a few important parts, but she got her point across.
When she was done, she drew her short sword and carved a holy symbol that represented nature into the ba
rk. She stepped back to admire her handiwork. It was as horrid as the bark that it was carved on. A pitiful remembrance.
Her sharp elven ears made out light footsteps in the wood. Sphiel tightened the grip on her short sword and turned, looking left and right for places to flee in case she came into contact with something fierce.
Something fierce did walk through the soot covered tree stumps, but it was friendly. A troll with a spiked mace at her belt and black wolf skins adorning her body smiled at her.
“Sphiel, hey. Glad to see you’re back,” Shiva said. The troll walked over and slapped her friend on the shoulder, jostling the elf.
“Hey, Shiva. Sorry I was gone for so long.”
Shiva shrugged. “I didn’t know if you were coming back or not. I followed the trail where you ran and I didn’t find you so I figured you logged out. I waited for you there but didn’t find you, so I came back here hoping I’d find you.”
“Guess it would be the most obvious place.”
“Well it was either here or at Gulpgulp’s village. I was afraid you’d go there in a rage and attack him.”
Sphiel laughed for the first time in a fortnight. “No, I learned my lesson. I’m not stupid enough to think I can take a whole village of goblins by myself.”
The elf looked at the ground and clasped her hands behind her back. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you when you said to run. It was my fault all of this happened.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it. I don’t blame you for being bold. Besides, that’s what I like about you.”
Sphiel sighed. “It’s kind of hard to like when it all blows up in your face.”
“It does that sometimes. It wouldn’t be fun if it always worked out, would it?”
The elf chuckled and looked up at the troll. “No, guess not. So anyway, what’ve you been doing since I was gone.”
“Just doing a little adventuring. I got to test out my mace more on some goblins. Turns out if you allow the poison to run its course it will kill a goblin after a day if they don’t get treated.”
Sphiel cocked an eyebrow. “You waited a whole day and watched a goblin die? Wouldn’t it have been easier to bash his brains in?”
“Yes, but watching the poison take effect was much more satisfying. I was feeling a bit melancholy after the attack, but watching that goblin squirm and gasp out his last picked me right up out of my funk.”
“That sounds sadistic.”
A particularly nasty grin spread on Shiva’s face. “If you give it a chance, I think you’ll find there’s a little sadist in all of us. Oh, that reminds me. One of the customer support people, um Jaelmuth I think, appeared to me. He said he was sent by ‘the gods’ to deliver a message.”
“Oh, he’s the guy who did my introduction to the game. What did he have to say?”
“He said customer support received an email from you about your NPC companion dying and you felt it was a bad design. After a quick meeting, they agreed and he gave me this.”
Shiva reached into her inventory screen and pulled out a small totem carved in the shape of a tree and painted in bright green. “When you came back in game, Jealmuth told me to give this to you. It’s a magic item that’ll summon back Balanos each time he dies. So you don’t have to worry about him dying in an encounter again.”
Sphiel frowned. “I never sent them an email about that.”
“Well, whoever did must’ve been really pissed. He apologized profusely about causing you trouble and didn’t understand the implications of your participation in the beta test.”
The elf clenched her fists. She didn’t know whether it was one of the doctors that was administering her experiment or her sister that sent the email, but either way, it pissed her off. She was perfectly capable of telling customer support how she felt. She was unhappy about Balanos’s death, but the ordeal didn’t require someone going to customer support on her behalf. She could take care of that on her own.
Sphiel took the totem and Shiva told her all she had to do was wave it in a circle and chant a phrase to summon Balanos. She formed an arc with the totem and started chanting, but stopped. She held the totem up for a moment before dropping her arm to her side.
“What’s wrong?” Shiva said. “Are you going to complete the ritual?”
The elf raised the totem to start the chant again but something stopped her. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Well, you know how to do it. I’m sorry to ask but, would doing it make your anxiety flare up?”
Sphiel shook her head. “I don’t really know how to explain it but, this doesn’t feel right.”
“Why not? Do you feel like you’re cheating or something?”
The elf’s brow furrowed. “In a way, yes. I went through all of that and it’s like, poof, he’s back.”
“Isn’t that a good thing? You’ll have your companion back.”
Sphiel’s face screwed up in thought for a second before she shook her head. “No, it’s not. I won’t have him back. He won’t be the real thing, just a replica.”
“He was a replica to begin with. Just a character programmed by the developers.”
“Yes, but he’s not the dryad we rescued. I don’t really know how to explain it to you. It feels wrong to summon him back. He died. Those goblins killed him. I can’t just bring him back.”
Shiva was silent for a few beats as she watched the elf’s shivering hand hold the totem. “I can’t say that I understand it, but you shouldn’t bring him back if you don’t want to.”
Sphiel chewed on her cheek. “I wish they would’ve asked me first what I wanted.”
“That would’ve been the right thing to do, but you always have the option to bring him back if you want.”
The elf weighed the totem in her hand. It would be easy to bring him back. Just wave a little circle and he’d be standing before her. If only everything else in life could be that easy.
She made another half-circular gesture before she stopped again, as if it hit a magic barrier. Memories of rescuing Balanos from the necromancer, the adventures they had, and other special times flooded her mind. There weren’t many memories, but each one was fun and special, even if they were with a “robot.”
She had the tool to bring him back. All of those memories could be reality again. Just a simple flick of a wrist and everything would be back to normal. If only real life could be that easy.
But it wouldn’t be normal. Real life wasn’t that easy. It would just be her getting her way without facing any sort of consequence. She screwed up, but she learned and moved on. What would that say if she just brought Balanos back? What if the game designers changed the way NPCs were handled? They could just come back like players, and they wouldn’t mean anything.
Sphiel took the totem over to the husk of Balanos’s tree. She drilled a small hole with the totem and mounded dirt on it so it would stand in place. When she was finished, the little ornately carved emblem of a tree stood about a foot out of the ground. The elf stepped back and smiled at her handiwork. There, that made a much better tombstone than her little carving did.
A white glow formed around the base of Balanos’s tree. It spread upward and enveloped the burned out bark in a white light. The tree trunk sprouted upward and thickened, the branches reached outward and small leaves formed on them.
When the transformation was complete, the tree was eight feet in height and completely covered in silver leaves. The bark was a bright shade of white and radiated uplifting vitality. Green blades of grass and small wildflowers sprouted near the tree. Sphiel smiled.
Shiva walked beside the elf. “Hmm, well that was cool.”
The smile on Sphiel’s lips grew and she nodded. “Yeah, it was.”
“So what do you want to do now? Want to go back and get your treasures? We can gather everything up and go to that one city in the south I told you about. Maybe you could get a better price for your stuff since you’re not a big, ugly green monster.”
Sphiel sho
ok her head. “I’m not ready to move on just yet.”
“Why not?”
The elf grinned at her companion. “Because, we have a score to settle with Gulpgulp and his little green thugs.”
Shiva grinned back wickedly. There was a murderous twinkle in her beady black eyes.
TWENTY FOUR
Sphiel and Shiva peeked out from behind two trees on either side of the causeway leading up the large hill that overlooked Gulpgulp’s village. Four goblins stood stood in leather armor and helmets, holding spears and keeping a sharp eye on the pathway in front of them.
Shiva told her that security was tightened since their last encounter with the goblin. Though to what extent, the troll didn’t know. She wasn’t able to get close enough to the village to find out. There were apparently sentries posted on all sides of the village. Behind them was a large brass gong.
One of the goblins looked their way and elf and troll ducked back behind the trees. They hadn’t made a plan of attack. They just went toward the goblin village, taking out a few goblins along the way, and talked about how the ground would drink goblin blood. Now that Sphiel looked at how prepared the goblins were for an attack, she regretted not having some idea of what to do.
From across the way, Shiva pointed to the goblins on the hill and shrugged her shoulders. It looked like the troll had as much of a clue as she did. Sphiel thought about using her spell song to call forth animals to attack, but the goblins would have plenty of time to alert the village of their presence. A direct attack would be foolish because they wouldn’t get far up the hill before the goblins warned their allies. They could try another access point, but all four entryways were uphill and they’d probably face the same problems.
They’d only just started on this quest to avenge Balanos’s death and they already failed. Sphiel guessed it was time to give it up. They didn’t really need to get revenge, did they? Balanos had already been laid to rest and she’d moved on. It was time to let go. Besides, the dryad wouldn’t want her risking her life to avenge him, would he?
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