by Mia Archer
“Really? Are you joining one tomorrow?”
“I’m not joining a faction, but Colin is welcome to,” I said.
“Oh, lovers’ quarrel?” Steve asked with a smile that wasn’t entirely pleasant.
“Not exactly,” Dave said.
“I keep telling Anna here that we need to join a faction if we want to last longer than five minutes out there tomorrow, but she refuses to listen to me,” Colin said. “Thinks we’ll be able to make it all on our own.”
Laughter flared up from a bonfire near our own. Almost as though the entire world of ARealms was laughing at me for thinking I could go out there without a faction and make it. Well fuck them and fuck Colin for constantly ragging on me about this. Hadn’t I just proved what a badass I was by attacking the fucking queen of Alternate Realms? I figured that should be worth a few badass points in Colin’s estimation, but no. Nothing.
“Well I’m not going to tell you what to do,” Dave said in a voice that made it clear he was about to do exactly that. “But if the two of you do decide you want to join a faction we’re in the Thieves’ Faction and you’d be welcome to join us.”
“The Thieves’ Faction?” Colin asked.
I rolled my eyes. For a guy who claimed to know more about the game he sure could be lacking in the knowledge department. Or the deductive reasoning part, at least. It seemed to me that a faction called the Thieves’ Faction would be pretty much exactly what it said on the tin.
“Yup. We’re a group of outlaws led by a Robin Hood type, but don’t let him hear you say that. He can be a bit touchy about how he likes to play the game.”
“I know the type,” Colin said with a pointed look at me that I pointedly ignored.
“Well the invitation stands,” Jessica said. “Just think about it!”
“So do you think the queen is going to say anything about the attack when she comes around to our fire?” Steve asked.
A chill seized me. “The queen? What are you talking about?”
“Oh she comes around to all the camps to give a little pep talk before the event starts in the morning. The really important thing is she also gives out a special royal buff to anyone who makes it in time. That’s part of the reason why all the camps are set up in a circle like this. Everyone sitting inside gets the buff and a slight advantage over people who show up late or the day of.”
“Remember the year someone figured out they could stack the buff by wandering from circle to circle and they nearly annihilated House Blackstar before ARealms realized something weird was going on and shut things down while they pushed out a hotfix?” Steve asked.
Jessica snorted. “Yeah, I hear they banned the guy who figured it out too. Doesn’t seem fair. It was their bad coding, after all. He just figured it out!”
Their conversation went on, but I was doing my best to try and figure out what to do. The queen was coming out here. I should probably go to the tent. There was no way she wouldn’t recognize me. Not after that look we shared at the rest stop. Or was I flattering myself? Did I want to stay and see if she remembered me? That could be useful knowledge if she didn’t. Unless she knew that would be useful knowledge and she pretended not to recognize me so it would be that much easier to frag me nice and fast when we were actually playing.
My mind was running away from me. I needed to get myself under control. I needed to get to the tent and call it a night even though I wanted to stay out here. Better hidden away than getting caught and recognized, I decided.
The only problem? By the time I made that decision it was already too late. Some jackass dressed in an outfit that looked like an exact copy of the royal herald you occasionally saw on loading screens stepped into the circle and everyone went quiet.
“Hear ye! Hear ye! She comes! Queen of our digital world! Sovereign over all Alternate Realms! Queen Erin!”
And the queen stepped into our midst.
Damn it.
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