by James Hunter
“Roast garlic stew,” Kaz said, pointing out the dish. “Garlic, pepper, and Ice Bear skewers. Saber Boar Bacon sautéed with garlic. Wild Fowl wings with a spicy, garlicy sauce. Lemon and garlic buzzfish with a dash of tarragon. Garlic bread spread with garlic butter.” There was a quick pause while Kaz swiped away a bit of drool with the back of one huge hand. “Blackened garlic chips with a garlic and chili dipping sauce. And last but not least, a wild fowl potpie with mixed vegetables and garlic.”
Roark smiled. Kaz’s enthusiasm for every new ingredient he came across was a good reminder that there was a life outside of running the Cruel Citadel and the Troll Nation.
“There’s too much here for Griff and me to finish by ourselves, Kaz,” he said. “Why don’t you help us eat some of it?”
Kaz looked longingly at the food, then shook his head. “It’s not right for the chef to steal food from the mouths of his customers.”
“But what if your Dungeon Lord ordered you to eat with him?” Roark asked, quirking an eyebrow. “It would be an awful shame if some of this went to waste.”
“Yes, such a terrible shame,” the Mighty Gourmet agreed, still staring at the garlic-laden food. “Kaz supposes the apprentices will be all right for a little while. Mai will be back in the kitchen soon to keep them in line. And Kaz would never refuse an order from the Dungeon Lord.”
With eyes the size of tea saucers, Kaz reached for a wild fowl wing.
“So, what sorta business are we on, Griefer?” Griff asked, fixing Roark with his one-eyed stare. “Should we send for Zyra?”
Roark shook his head. “I don’t want to disturb her while she’s dealing with a new round of apprentices.”
“You mean murdering a new round.” The grizzled trainer chuckled under his breath.
Roark rolled his eyes. The man wasn’t wrong.
“I’ll bring her in on it later,” Roark said. “The basics of it is that we’re lacking in almost every form of governance. True, we’ve got a charter that says no allies can kill one another on Troll Nation soil, but they seem to be doing everything short of killing one another.”
“And setting things on fire,” Kaz added around a mouthful of potpie. “Kaz saw them setting fire to several buildings in the magick quarter.”
“Exactly,” Roark said. “We’ve got no true laws and no constabulary to enforce laws even if we had them.” He gestured with his newly refilled cup. “We also lack magistrates to try the lawbreakers. The only thing we do seem to have in abundance is chaos.”
“And fire,” Kaz repeated helpfully.
“Everyone’s trying to do their part to keep the Troll Nation running, but things are falling through the cracks that we can’t afford to fail at.” Not to mention, the cleanup always seemed to land squarely on Roark’s shoulders. “I need to be focused on finding a way to defeat Lowen and kill Marek, not running off every five minutes to stop street fights.”
“And put out fires,” Kaz said, licking some garlic sauce from his fingers.
“We need a better system,” Roark concluded.
Griff chewed thoughtfully on a mouthful of skewer meat.
“That’s a tall order,” he said finally, scratching his stubbly chin. “A right bucket of fish you got there. Making up laws and finding effective ways to enforce ’em will take time. And to be frank, building legal systems isn’t something I know too terribly much about.”
At this, Roark felt his wings sink a bit, coming to rest against the back of his chair.
“I was hoping you would have an idea.”
“Now, don’t go getting disheartened on me, Griefer.” The old arena hand polished off the last of his skewer. “We’ll think of something.”
Kaz slurped some of the garlicy potpie. “Mai set guards over Flavortown to keep the customers from rioting. She found some Trolls who were hopeless at cooking and serving but wanted to be part of the inn, and she ordered them to escort any troublemakers out of the tavern.” Kaz’s eyebrows climbed toward his bright white Mighty Gourmet’s Toque. “With extreme force, if necessary.”
Griff pointed his skewer at Kaz. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Getting together a group of guards to keep the peace until we set down some rules’ll go a long way. Like you said to me earlier, it ain’t nothing more than a short-term fix, but if it keeps you sane in the here and now, Griefer—”
“Then I’ll gladly stand for temporary,” Roark finished for him. “Would you be willing to lead them?”
Griff screwed up his face in disgust. “No, lad, I’m already swamped with the training yard. Could do some recruiting for you, though. You might ask Druz, the first-floor overseer. She might turn out to be a good fit. Good head on her shoulders, that one.”
Roark shook his head. “She’s too low level. This would need to be someone strong enough to neutralize our highest-level visitors. Druz just made level 16 the other day.”
“Grozka the Zealot?” Kaz offered. “Grozka is very scary and strong, and she likes order and hurting people.”
Roark sipped his scotch and considered it. Grozka wasn’t a bad choice.
“I’ll talk to her about it,” he conceded.
“No, boy, I’ll talk to her about it,” Griff said. “Weren’t you just saying how you need to be concentrating on bigger pictures and preparing for that Lowen fella? You can’t do that if you’re running petty errands all the time.”
“Fine,” Roark conceded. Then, realizing he should be glad to have that small measure of extra weight off his shoulders, he added, “Thank you. But we need to make certain we recruit patrol guards as well. And they can’t just be Trolls, or the other dungeons will claim we’re trying to monopolize the ruling of the nation and push them out of power. Best to recruit widely.”
Griff nodded. “I’ll get Grozka on track tonight and start scanning the trainees that come through the pits. Try to recruit anybody with decent potential.”
“Excellent,” Roark said, already feeling a little bit better. There was still a lot to do, but at least they were making progress.
Disappearing Act
RANDY SHOEMAKER KEPT his head down and beelined for his office, praying that no one would try to talk to him. Worst possible time to have the office directly across from the employee lounge.
Would this be the day he lost his job? No one from Frontflip had contacted him all weekend, and no one had come to see him even though he could always be found at his desk, working the hours away. Not so much as a company message.
They had kicked him off the Hearthworld Modder project and taken away his clearance before end of day Friday. Wouldn’t they have fired him then if they were going to? They must realize that he was still around. Right?
Then again, for all the corporate hype about Frontflip Studios being one big family and a place to be creative and chill, it was still a pretty big company. Maybe he was slipping through the cracks?
Randy swallowed, anxious sweat wetting the pits and back of his button-down shirt. Was a weekend without contact the sort of radio silence that was “too quiet”? Should he expect someone to spring the trap when he stepped into his office and sat down?
Ahead, he heard a Ping-Pong ball tocking and pocking back and forth in what sounded like a raging match. And since this was Monday morning, it was probably Danny, the marketing director. He loved to give someone a Ping-Pong beatdown Monday mornings. Part of his “ritual.” He said it helped him start the week right. Randy flinched. Every hollow clack of the ball felt like it pinged off the back of his neck. His stomach rolled. He shouldn’t have had that second strawberry Pop-Tart, but he’d wanted to be prepared for whatever came today, and they said breakfast was the most important meal of the day.
Just a few more feet to his office door. He could see it up there, waiting for him, like a portal to safety. He was so close. Five feet. His heart slammed against his pocket protector. Three feet away. Seconds from his desk. One foot.
As his left loafer crossed the threshold, Randy’s shoulders slu
mped with relief.
“Hey, Rando.” Danny’s smug voice grated against his eardrums like microprocessors across concrete.
Randy flinched and sloshed hot coffee across his hand and wrist. He gave an undignified yelp of pain, switching his coffee to his dry hand and trying to shake the burn and wetness off. Already little Wet/Dry Vac bots were scurrying to suck up the mess from the industrial carpet.
Danny chuckled. “Mondays, am I right?”
The VP of marketing leaned against the doorjamb of the employee lounge, Ping-Pong paddle resting on his shoulder like a tennis racket. He looked way too content for something as trivial as winning a Ping-Pong game.
Randy stiffened, forgetting about saving his hand. Surely they wouldn’t send Danny to fire him? True, they had kept the smug jerk on the project even after kicking Randy off, but that didn’t mean they would hand over the HR reins to him of all people, would they?
“Man, Randalicious, it sucks out loud that they kicked you off the modder sitch.” Danny clucked his tongue a few times as if he sympathized. “But you know what it’s like for guys like you, way down the totem pole. They can always find a new... what are you, like a programmer or something?”
The smallest flame of anger kindled to life in Randy’s belly. Danny knew very well that Randy was a senior software engineer, he was just trying to get a rise out of Randy. Still, it stung Randy’s pride because he knew he was replaceable. Well, at least that’s what the higher-ups thought. The truth was no one in Frontflip could do what Randy could. He was the best they had. The fact remained, though, that guys like Danny made friends with the CEO and cultivated their popularity with everybody at the studio, while guys like Randy kept their head down and did their work. And even if that work was essential, you simply didn’t feel bad about firing somebody whose face you hardly remembered.
“Should’ve worked a little harder on making yourself irreplaceable,” Danny said, spinning the Ping-Pong paddle between his hands. “Mike and I—well, Mr. Silva to you. I call him Mike—we were just talking the other day at the range about how half this biz is networking, and you nerd types always overlook that. It’s vital, Randmeister. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll work your way back up in time. If you can learn to play the game, that is. Toodle-loo!”
Danny spun on his heel and disappeared back into the employee lounge.
“Who wants to take on the champ?” the VP of marketing yelled. “You want a piece of this, Tomihiro? Well, bring it on!”
Out in the hall, Randy dripped coffee from the wrist of his now wet sleeve. A Wet/Dry Vac bot slammed into his loafer, trying to get at the liquid soaked into the carpet beneath.
Randy shook himself out of the haze of anger and frustration and went into his office, shutting the door softly behind him. What was left of his coffee went on the coaster, then he opened the top center drawer of his desk and found the stash of neatly stacked napkins he kept in the back corner, just in case. He dried his skin and dabbed at the wrist of his shirt. What removed coffee stains? He would have to look that up before he left work today.
The upside was they hadn’t sent Danny—or anyone else—to fire him. Yet.
Randy threw away the used napkins and ran his fingertips lovingly across the perfectly straight spines of the books on the shelf above his desk. Rational Database Theory and Applications. Advanced Digital and Systems Analysis. Fundamentals of Radiant AIs. Refactoring. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Though he knew each one practically by heart, he kept them close at hand, like a safety blanket. Seeing them lined up in perfect order gave him a sense of peace. Everything in the world could go wrong, but those manuals would still be there, holding true. Anchors of reality.
With his anxiety calmed slightly, Randy sat at his desk and logged in to his station. Even though he’d been kicked off the project, he couldn’t help but poke around just to see if they had made any progress over the weekend.
Turned out, there had been plenty.
Something big was definitely going on. There were dozens of new folders and pathways, but he couldn’t open them, not now that he was back to regular clearance. It was all locked away from him.
He could crack it, though. He hadn’t been made senior software engineer just for his networking skills—unlike some VPs of marketing he could name. But the second he got into the files, the security crawlers would alert like crazy. Everybody would know, and he would get fired for sure. Maybe even arrested.
Was it prosecutable as corporate espionage if he was spying for an anomaly from another world?
Randy shook his head. He was thinking like a coward again. Hadn’t he just the other day given PwnrBwner a rousing speech about how they could be the heroes for once? Real, honest-to-gosh heroes who saved whole worlds and really helped people. Heroes couldn’t run away just because they were scared that they might lose their jobs. They stood up for what was right, no matter what that might cost them.
Untold lives, Roark the Griefer’s entire world, depended on Randy being brave. Being a true hero.
“Woo, yeah!” Danny bellowed in the employee lounge. “Suck it, Tomihiro! Who’s next?”
Sudden inspiration struck.
Randy blinked. No, that would never work.
Except... Except it might.
Danny still had clearance. If Randy logged in from Danny’s workstation, he could access all the locked files, and no one would bat an eye because Danny was still in Mike’s inner circle.
Getting into Danny’s station would be no problem at all. Company policy prohibited him from locking his door, and Randy had been in the marketing VP’s fancy corner office before, so he knew he kept his password on a sticky note stuck to the top of his desk. Logging in wouldn’t be Mission Impossible 49.
The real test would be getting into Danny’s office without him finding out. Randy was no cool, collected super-spy. Just the thought of trying to sneak in had his stomach roiling again.
He leaned back in his ergonomic desk chair and stared at the manuals on his shelf, forcing himself to breathe through the anxiety. Their spines were still perfectly straight. There was still order in the world.
Randy’s spine straightened, too. He nodded at them. Millions, if not billions, of people from Roark’s world depended on him. He would find a way.
With renewed purpose, Randy grabbed his coffee cup, but the dark roast inside had gone lukewarm while he was clicking around the Hearthworld modder project folders, trying to figure out what to do.
Randy sighed and got up. There was an expensive espresso machine in the employee lounge across the hall, but he never got coffee from there. Too much chance of running into someone who wanted to talk to him.
Instead, he speed-walked down the hall to the elevator lobby the tours passed through. Glass walls showed the visitors a glimpse into the “funventive” world of Frontflip, complete with brightly colored carpeting and walls and devs at treadmill desks, jamming to music, and tossing squishy little stress balls back and forth across the room while they worked.
Whenever Randy saw the place, he was glad he didn’t have to work in the desk pool anymore. All that pressure to have fun while he worked was too much. It had stressed him out bad enough to give him hives.
The one good thing about it, though, was that there was a coffee dispenser in the elevator lobby, always stocked with the finest organic roasts for the tour-takers. Randy set his mug under the spout and selected a dark roast. The machine gurgled and chattered with itself as it percolated.
The elevator dinged, setting his heart thumping against his pocket protector again. It wasn’t time for the morning tour to come through. He glanced over his shoulder to find that the situation was even worse.
Out of the elevator car stepped Helen Rose, one of the most gorgeous and recognizable employees at Frontflip. A willowy blonde with a magenta underdye, perfect skin, brilliantly white teeth, and vintage square-framed glasses perched on an upturned nose, she was a game critic and social influenc
er. She’d been offered a job with Frontflip two years ago because of the literal millions of seed followers who hung on her every word about ultra-immersive RPGs like Hearthworld. He’d had a crush on her since he found out she had graduated with degrees in both astrophysics and astronomical geology.
Unfortunately, Randy could never talk to her. Never again, anyway. Not after last year’s Christmas party. Randy had tried to strike up a conversation with Helen Rose about the recent discovery of geological striations below the cloud layer on Saturn, but Tenya had blundered in drunk and vastly misrepresented that time that Randy had accidentally forwarded the confirmation for a prostate exam from his doctor to everyone in Dev. At the time, Randy would’ve given anything to disappear, but since he wasn’t an Arboreal Herald IRL, the best he could do was slink away, face burning and tail between his legs.
In the elevator lobby, Randy wished again that he had his Hearthworld main’s vanishing abilities. Or even just his confidence. It seemed so unfair that he could play a tough, cool hero in a video game, but be so awkward and uncomfortable in his own skin. If he were in Hearthworld, he would probably make a glib joke that would make Helen Rose laugh, but Randy Shoemaker’s larynx was frozen, his mouth half-open like a total schmuck.
He ducked his head and stared at the jazzy patterns on the carpet. When you couldn’t be cool or disappear, the next best thing was to try not to draw attention. Hopefully, she wouldn’t even notice him.
She hadn’t said anything yet. Maybe it was working. Or maybe she’d forgotten about him. That would be ideal.
With a final gurgle, the last of the coffee Randy ordered drained into his cup.
Grab it and go, he thought, forcing himself into action.
But as he reached for the cup, Helen Rose bumped right into him. Coffee sloshed all over his hand again, and worse, soaked the front of her vintage Flamingoes Never Say Die T-shirt. She gasped and threw up her hands a second too late. Randy’s eyes widened as his mug dropped onto the carpet with a thud, spewing more of the hot brew all over her trendy sneakers.