by Oliver Mayes
The second quest is tied to decency,
A ruler must be pure of heart and mind,
If you’ve erred and don’t unwrite your history,
Your palms will fill with hair as you’re struck blind.
What kind of weird threat was that? The doors to the courtyard were wide open. Lillian could even see across the pristine lawn to the doors of the castle keep proper, where another plinth lay in wait. Goody goody gumdrops. She managed to restrain herself from marching in. Neither of those consequences sounded good, and the last riddle had become functional with a bit of work. They could handle this if they just applied themselves.
“Gate’s open, come on in!”
Lillian looked up from the plinth to find Mr. Healy applying himself. He was standing out in the courtyard. She hadn’t explicitly told him not to, but still had to prevent herself from yelling at him. At least he’d spared everyone else having to test the consequences. Which appeared to be nonexistent. Mr. Healy was perfectly fine.
For about three seconds. Then the confused yelling started. The rest of the party watched in alarm.
“Guys, I can’t see! What’s going on? Guys?”
He had his hands stuck out in front of him to feel by, creating quite the spectacle: the plinth had not been kidding. Hair was pooling out of the bottom of his gloves, the same color as that on his head but far longer. After a few seconds, it was long enough to drag on the floor. He tripped over it with a pained yelp, which prompted some in the party to greater alarm and more to peals of laughter. It was absurd. Off to the side, Hammertime was still glancing between Lillian’s hairy-handed healer and the plinth that had foretold his condition. Judgementday was among the more concerned of the party.
“Come this way! Over here, just follow my voice!”
His assistance was hardly necessary given the amount of noise the party was making in response to Mr. Healy’s plight, but the priest eventually managed to make his way back across the threshold of the door, his new luscious locks dragging behind. Almost as soon as he’d crossed, the hair began to recede back into his body. It was only as it was all gone that he blinked and looked around himself in relief.
“What was that? What does that mean?”
“It means—,” Lillian started, “—that you should read the instructions. It also means, apparently, you’re not pure of heart and mind. Are you completely fine? Can you see again?”
“Yeah, all good. That was super freaky! I’m gonna do it again!”
“No, please don’t do it again. I’d like to get through this as fast as possible.”
She turned to Hammertime, who was still reading the plinth. Andrew was standing to the other side of him, his brow furrowed in thought. These two were more likely to provide useful input than the rest of the party, even if they were also the two Lillian felt the least like communicating with.
“Hammertime, you did all the groundwork finding the last riddle and your research was crucial to the solve. Aetherius, it was your comment to me about the beam that got us the rest of the way to the answer. You’re actually taking the time to think about this rather than blundering in or laughing. Any thoughts from either of you?”
Hammertime didn’t even look up from the plinth. To be expected, but not promising. Andrew was frowning.
“So long as there are no long lasting consequences...scientific method?”
Lillian nodded. That was a good idea.
“Alright everyone, line up. We’re trying this one by one to see if it’s the same result for all of us.”
She thought about it a little more. It was Andrew’s idea, he could handle it. There was something more important to be done.
“Andrew, if you could please watch the rest of them and tell me how it goes? I’d like to talk to Hammertime. Alone.”
Andrew swiftly left to overlook the proceedings, just as OhHolyLight started yelling as he pressed his hairy hands to his eyes. Hammertime was still staring at the plinth. He was still sulking.
“You said if I became unfit to lead, you’d take over. How was I supposed to react? What choice did you give me? How would you have dealt with me, if I’d done what you just did?”
Hammertime still didn’t look at her. He just waved a hand at her dismissively, then went back to irritably tapping a finger against his lips. That wouldn’t do. Lillian needed an answer.
“This quest could take all night, or even longer. Neither of us is going to get through it by not talking. I need you to communicate with me.”
The finger stopped tapping. Hammertime went into his menu and started clicking and typing away, but he began talking to her. A measurable improvement, Lillian felt. Until he’d gotten enough words out for the meaning to kick in, along with the tone. The longer he spoke, the more obvious his anger became. Much as Lillian’s own did.
“I did talk to you. I told you exactly what you needed to do. You had to choose between Andrew, as you keep calling him, and the rest of the party. I can’t believe, after all this time, you chose him. You sent him toward the best cover and sent Trinytea through dangerous open territory, when you could’ve easily removed him from play by swapping them round. I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Then, you gave an order that put her at direct risk for the sake of his safety. If she’d followed it, she’d have run out of steam and been killed long before she got within our reach. Finally, when I took the initiative and gave you what was best for the party on a silver platter, you put yourself and all your own followers at risk on his account.”
He stopped typing and closed his menu, then turned to face her directly. Looking down on her.
“I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it: the mighty Lillian, putting her abusive ex-boyfriend ahead of her own party. There’s a good reason I didn’t want him getting this far. Don’t you see? He’s using you. It’s obvious to everyone else. It’s embarrassing. If you get Excalibur, it may as well be in his hands. I won’t allow Andrew to run Camelot the way he ran Rising Tide, least of all with you as his obedient little puppet. Fortunately I’m not stupid, Lillian. So that’s not going to happen.”
That was a lot to process. She knew where Hammertime was coming from. From his own perspective, that must have all seemed very reasonable. He was so hopelessly wrong, on so many counts, in such a short span of time, that it was hard to know where to start untangling the thread he’d so meticulously knotted in his own head. Especially when he’d made her so very, very angry. She’d thought they had something resembling mutual respect. In his eyes, she’d only ever been Andrew’s lapdog.
It would be easier to kill him. His Berserker Rage was on cooldown and that was the best tool he had; killing him while he didn’t have access to it would be child’s play. Kill him. He thinks he knows what he’s talking about when he has no idea. He’s beyond reasoning. He’s too dangerous to be kept alive. Kill him. For the good of the party. If you don’t kill him now, you’ll regret it later. He’s told you in plain terms that he doesn’t want you to complete this quest. Kill hi—
“Lillian, everyone’s run through the threshold and I have the results. Trinytea and Judgementday are completely unaffected! We might have enough data to figure out how the riddle works.”
Lillian ignored Andrew completely and kept staring at Hammertime, her hands clenched into fists. Her killing instinct was so strong that she had to actively concentrate on preventing her Divine Might from activating. Hammertime took the initiative away from her.
“Not everyone has gone over the threshold. Lillian and myself are also members of this party. Ladies first?”
Lillian stared at him numbly. If she killed him, the party would dissolve. Many of the other party members, Rising Tide and Godhammer alike, were squishies with high damage. Many would die during the infighting before she finished Hammertime off and could turn her attention to restoring order. She’d be at the epicenter of her party’s fracture. Hammertime wanted her to fight him, even if he died. This was his goal.
She wouldn’t
give him the satisfaction. She stalked over the threshold of the gate to stand with Judgementday and Trinytea and folded her arms, bracing herself. Everyone was watching her. Again. Waiting to see whether or not she’d fail. Whether or not she was pure of heart and mind.
Ten seconds passed. Nothing happened. She was clear.
“Hammertime, it’s your turn. Get—”
Her vision started to blur. Her palms were itching. Dammit. Why was this happening? Which was when she saw the outline of Hammertime purposefully walking toward her, over the threshold, his hammer materializing in his grasp. She tried to do the same, focusing on equipping her sword and shield. They materialized in her hands, then fell to the floor. She couldn’t hold them. The hair in her hands was blocking her grip. She’d been rendered completely helpless by this stupid curse. The last of her vision faded away and she was left in the dark.
Hammertime brought his head down to her ear.
“Let the record show, if I wanted to kill you it would be easy. You’ve played right into my hands, just as you’re playing into Aetherius’s hands. Sort yourself out.”
Andrew bellowed out to them from behind the threshold.
“Did you solve the riddle? Share it with the rest of your party and put your weapon away. Now.”
Five seconds went by in complete silence. Lillian needed to see what was happening. She started feeling her way forward, back to where Andrew’s voice had come from, when she was pulled back by the scruff of her breastplate. Hammertime was holding her there.
“I’ll need you to stay for a little longer, Lillian.”
“Let her go.”
“Don’t play hero, Andrew, it doesn’t suit you. Lillian will be fine. I won’t do anything to her. Unlike what you’ve done.”
There were footsteps all around her. Lillian tried to fight off Hammertime’s grip, only to have the hair growing out of her palms yanked and then held. It was humiliating, painful and disgusting. She cried out, her voice cracking despite her best efforts.
“Andrew, what’s happening?”
“Hammertime and Godhammer are splitting the party is what’s happening, but you knew that already.”
Hammertime was pulling Lillian backward, one hand on the back of her breastplate, the other occasionally yanking the hair on her hands when she failed to comply.
“If you were in my place, you’d have killed her outright. Then bragged about it.”
“You’re holding the party leader hostage, taking advantage of her, but you want to spin this on me?”
“We’ll be on our way in just a few seconds and she’ll be all yours again, unless she learns better. Everyone, any side effects? Blindness? No? Good.”
Hammertime dragged Lillian back to talk in her ear.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way. We’re moving ahead. You’re hereby relieved of command.”
He roughly shoved her forward, leaving her to stumble shamefully back to safety. Andrew grabbed the backs of her hands and held her steady.
“Are you hurt?”
Yes. She was. She felt like crying, but that would only make her look even more pathetic. Light started reentering Lillian’s vision, and the hair on her palms started to recede. Judgementday tentatively walked across the threshold to retrieve her sword and shield, which had been left in the courtyard. Where she could not go. Hammertime and all of his own guild-mates were at the far end, gathered around the plinth. He’d figured out the riddle on his own and shared the answer with his guild-mates in private chat, leaving the rest of them behind. At the same time as he’d been putting Lillian down.
Andrew was the first to break the long silence.
“Lillian, we need to solve this riddle as soon as possible. We can’t fight them unless we figure out how to stop the ailments from happening. Judgementday is immune, so it’s not impossible. OhHolyLight and Sabrina were both affected when they crossed the first time, but not the second. Whatever the solution is, it can be implemented almost instantly. If we act now—”
Lillian shook her head. She was in no state to do anything. She should’ve quit while she was ahead. Today was her failure. She needed to sleep.
“I’m logging off. I recommend you all do the same. If I’m not here, Hammertime’s group can come back and finish off the four of you pretty easily. Sorry I let you down.”
She went into her menu and logged off without another word. The four people still following her remained completely silent, right up until she arrived back in her own room. She was hungry and tired, but at that exact moment, more than either of those things, Lillian just didn’t want to be awake. She removed the headset, rolled over and struggled with her hatred until she finally fell asleep from complete exhaustion almost an hour later.
She woke up in the pitch black, immediately wide awake. Her headset was wailing at her from her bedside table. It wasn’t her morning alarm. It was the one she’d used back in the competition days, before they had everything under control. She hadn’t heard it in a long time, but her reaction to it was still the same.
It was only as she stuck the headset on and hit the ‘Quick Log-In’ button dominating the screen that she started thinking about it. This was Andrew’s private alarm. She’d forgotten she even had it. She’d never thought to disable it. What time was it? 6am. She was supposed to be up in two hours. Why was he summoning her now? Why was he online at all, for that matter?
She’d find out soon enough. She prepared herself for combat, the timer to release from the blue protective sphere counting down. She’d need to be completely ready the moment she arrived. Three. Two. One.
Lillian’s sword and shield were equipped before her eyes were open. They were raised up defensively before she’d blinked. It proved unnecessary. The only person there was Andrew. He was looking nervous, despite not appearing to be in any immediate danger. Or because of it.
Lillian put away her gear and took his trademark for her own, crossing her arms and tapping her foot.
“There’d better be a good reason for this. It’s six in the morning, I’ve—”
“I solved the riddle.”
That was a good reason.
“You must be very proud of yourself, to wake me up with a siren at the crack of dawn to show off about it. Is there also a good reason you couldn’t just send me a message?”
“I’m...blocked. On all your social media.”
She really needed to fully wake up before she started throwing rhetorical questions around.
“So you are. I wonder why? This could’ve waited until evening.”
Andrew threw his hands out.
“Could it? Could it really? Hammertime got through the third riddle at 1am. I lost sight of him. I’m pretty sure if you found out I had the answer all day, then didn’t share it with you, you’d be pretty—”
“Fine! You win! Can you tell me the answer, so I can go back to sleep?”
Andrew had gotten pretty animated for a moment there, looking her in the eyes and actually answering back. It was like watching a worm spontaneously grow a spine. Now he was back to being nervous again.
“You won’t like it.”
“There’s a lot of that going around lately.”
“Yeah, there is, but I’m not trying to add to it...anymore. Do you want the version where you don’t know how the riddle works, so you don’t have to be embarrassed for us? Or do you want the version where you know how it works, so you hate yourself and everyone around you?”
“You’re the only person ‘around’ me.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t hate myself, but I hate you plenty already.”
“That’s why I threw an ‘and’ in there.”
Lillian rolled her eyes to look at the lake above them and exhaled through her nose. Same old Andrew: meticulous, snobbish and obsessed with never being wrong. Even when he was putting himself down. She looked at him sidelong as she considered his offer properly. He was insinuating he could guide her in passing the riddle without her underst
anding how he’d done it.
Challenge accepted.
“Game on. If you can get me across that threshold without me knowing why, you win.”
“Nonono, that’s not how you’re supposed to play the game! This is a team exercise, the whole point is you don’t think about it and we win cooperatively.”
“You’d rather I didn’t figure out how it works.”
“Yes, that is exactly my preference.”
“How long have we known each other, exactly?”
Andrew smiled. He knew what was coming, it was written all over his smug face. It was hard not to smile back, but she managed.
“Just over four years. Not long after we started med school.”
“And over the course of those four years, do you recall a time when someone said ‘Lillian, don’t push yourself, it’s too much’, and I said ‘You’re right, I’ll take it easy’?”
While Andrew still smiled, it was starting to wear thin and he was staring just over her shoulder. Resignation.
“Not off the top of my head.”
“You can’t stop me from being who I am.”
“No. I can’t.”
“Take your best shot at stopping me from being myself.”
Andrew tilted his head, shrugged, just a little, then started giving his instructions in a flat monotone.
“Open your menu.”
“Menu.”
“Go to ‘Settings’.”
“Settings.”
“Go to ‘Multimedia Options’.”
“Multimedia Options.”
“Go to ‘Browsers’.”
“Browsers.”
“Click ‘Restore Factory Settings’.”
“What?”
“Do you want to catch up with Hammertime or not?”
“Done.”
She closed the menu to find Andrew sweeping his hands toward the open gate of the castle, bowing insipidly as if ushering her down a red carpet. She walked up to the threshold, her palms already feeling itchy, and forced herself over the edge. Andrew sauntered over to join her, his hands clasped behind his back. Lillian was counting the seconds.
“It’s okay, if you did what I said nothing bad will happen.”