“It’s rabid?” He followed her and unsheathed his sword. The animal moved more quickly now and they increased their pace slightly.
“We haven’t exactly been quiet,” she called over her shoulder. “And it’s still there, so either it’s starving—which is not the case—or it’s rabid.”
“The lady has a point.” Lyle brushed past him, his fists readied.
“I’m not a lady,” she told him crossly.
“She has a point about that, too,” the dwarf agreed.
“Are you going to punch a wolf?” he asked as he hurried behind them. He had a bad feeling about this wolf. Zaara was right. It should be able to hear them and it didn’t seem to care at all that they were there.
The bleating of the lambs made his mind up for him. One of them trotted to its mother in the moonlight and he immediately broke into a run. There were lambs in this field and sheep that did not have a chance in hell against this monster wolf from hell. He did not intend to sit around and watch pixelated sheep die. His unease pushed aside, he held one hand out and prepared to throw a fireball—
“Are you crazy?” Zaara caught him as he moved past, held his sword arm out the way, and tripped him. “Fireballs in a pasture?”
“Ow,” Justin said. “Listen, I—”
“Stoooooooooooout!”
Justin and Zaara exchanged a glance before she yanked him to his feet and they sprinted after Lyle. They hurdled the fence and pushed through the herd of sheep, all of whom seemed determined to put themselves firmly in the way.
To their teammate’s credit, the wolf seemed as surprised as they were. The beast had stopped at the edge of the meadow in a larger patch of shadow than those around it, and seemed to be under the impression that no one would be stupid enough to run directly up to it and punch it in the nose.
It had not bargained on Lyle Stout, who did exactly that. After a surprised yelp, the wolf backed away and snarled suddenly. It snapped its teeth and padded forward.
With a low growl, it slunk away again as Justin tumbled over the second fence and narrowly missed impaling himself on his sword. He rolled, ended on his feet, and swiped his hand to clear the CLUMSY, LEVEL 8 that flashed up on the screen.
The wolf now stared dubiously at him, and he didn’t wait for it to recover. He went on the offensive at once with a battle cry. Over and over, he brought the sword down to slash, and thrust, and wave it like a battle-ax.
It wasn’t a winning strategy, but it didn’t have to be. The wolf continued its retreat and backed away step by step, so it seemed to be working.
In the next moment, Zaara barreled into it from the side. She tumbled over it and one of her knives found flesh. The animal opened its mouth in a snarl of pain, but the light was already fading from its eyes. It slumped heavily and she heaved herself free.
“Good job,” she said, panting. “See? One wolf, no big deal.”
“Hey!” The call came from across the field. A man hurried toward them dressed in the baggy, patched clothes of a villager. “Are you from East Newbrook? Did you kill the wolf?”
“We did,” Justin said. He panted as he sheathed his sword.
“My thanks, my thanks.” The farmer reached them and looked at each of the adventurers in turn. “There’s a purse for you to split and another half to be given by the mayor. He knew once the wolf had finished with my flocks, he’d look for others.” He held the purse out to Justin. “And there’s something else for the lady.”
“I’m not a lady,” Zaara muttered.
The farmer smiled and withdrew something from under his shirt. It was wrapped in heavy fabric and he opened it as gently as if it were a baby. Nestled in the black cloth was a well-worn sheath and one of the most beautiful daggers Justin had ever seen.
She drew her breath sharply.
“It was my grandfather’s,” the farmer said. “I never had the training for it, and he was a wild soul—wouldn’t like it being used for sheep shearing or a kitchen knife or naught like that. When I heard an adventurer was in town with daggers, I thought maybe I’d sell it. But you saved my flocks and because of you, my children will eat this winter. Have this knife. My grandfather would want that.”
“Thank you,” she whispered as she picked it up. “Oh, thank you. It’s beautiful.”
“If he were still alive,” the man said, “he’d have gone after Sephith, himself, no matter that he was ninety and blind. Go. Free other towns.”
“I will be honored to use this,” Zaara told him, and for the first time, Justin saw something in her face and thought he understood why she didn’t want to go home. This was the kind of story she would never hear if she were a nobleman’s wife.
He was silent as they walked to town, sad without knowing why.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Birds chirped merrily the next morning when Justin awoke. He took a moment to stretch before he remembered that he wasn’t stretching for any reason. This game could mimic many things, but one it didn’t—hopefully by design—was the way you could toss and turn in your sleep or wake up with a crick in your neck.
“You awaken feeling well-rested,” he murmured as he sat. He pushed the shutters open to see the bird that trilled so happily. It turned to look at him, chirped, and failed to notice the drifting, magical ember on the wind.
The change was rapid—the bird ignited and the flames swelled and twisted with darkness. It uttered a low cry that pierced him to the bone and collapsed into a puddle of greenish goo below the window with a muted plop.
He sat with his hand over his mouth.
“I gotta do something about that,” he muttered hoarsely when he had recovered enough to talk. Although Sephith had been defeated, he had ruled the valley for years and the residue of his battle to take the tower remained—a kind of magical fallout that could sicken people, crops, and livestock. He had seen more than a few villagers with withered limbs or burns on their faces and shoulders. This was the only place where people wore their hoods down in the rain and up in the sunshine.
Downstairs, the innkeeper was serving beans, cheese, and bread to Zaara and Lyle. Justin narrowed his eyes and looked more closely. The innkeeper was serving her only, and she had decided to sit at the same table where Lyle had passed out the night before.
Justin smiled as he joined her. “How are we saving the world today?”
“First, we’re eating breakfast. Do you want some?” She tipped her plate of beans at him.
They looked way too similar to the bird-goo and his stomach heaved.
Zaara raised her eyebrows. “I’ve never seen that look on a man before. You’re not a woman, are you? Secretly with child?” She ducked under the table to peer at his stomach.
“I’m not a woman,” he said in annoyance. “But…no beans. Bread.”
“Right.” She scooped a spoonful into her mouth and laughed at the look on his face. “Well, don’t look. But do eat. We’ll need our strength.”
“I thought—thank you—” Justin accepted a hunk of bread from the innkeeper, along with a mug of something that was vaguely tea-like if tea were made with pond scum. “Ew. I thought we were retrieving a wedding ring?”
“Sure, but first we have to drag Lyle out to the fountain and dunk his head in until he wakes up.” Zaara took a sip of her tea. “Try it. Despite appearances, it’s good.”
He sipped it, winced, and was surprised to find that it tasted a little like a smoothie—fruity and chalky at the same time, but warm. He could work with that, he decided.
Once they had finished, he took a piece of bread to go on Lyle’s account, and he and Zaara dunked the dwarf successfully under the water a few times before the three of them set off toward the edge of town. Justin waited for Zaara to ask how he always knew where to go, but she never did. It was a shame, he thought. He’d looked forward to explaining the concept of a mini-map.
The widow lived in a surprisingly picturesque little cottage. He was sure that if he stood close enough, he’d be able to iden
tify the pixels, but he’d taken considerable flak from his teammates about that before.
Justin knocked on the door, and it wasn’t long before the widow opened it. She was bright-eyed and vibrant but frail.
“Adventurers,” she said with a smile. “Are you here for potions? Could I interest you in a quest?”
“To find your wedding ring?” Zaara asked. “If so, that is why we came. We wanted to find it for you.”
“Oh, bless you, children.” The woman smiled and waved them to a table.
The interior of the cottage was spotless, with copper pans and ladles on the walls, a small bed with a quilted bedspread, and a merry fire in the grate. A thin workbench on the other wall was packed with bottles and herbs, a scale, and a mortar and pestle. Onions hung from the rafters in bunches and braided rag rugs covered the floor.
“I was near the sewer grates,” the widow explained. “Up on the king’s highway, you know. We have nothing so fine here in East Newbrook, of course.” She laughed.
Justin, who had never considered a sewer to be a cause for celebration, forced a smile.
“Well, Sweetgrass grows out of the sewer grates, and as I stretched in to harvest a clump, my wedding ring fell off.” She turned over a piece of paper that had lain on the table. “I marked the location very carefully. It’s the grate fourteen paces west of the 485th league marker.”
“Okay.” He looked at his two companions and was pleased to see them both nodding. Someone, at least, seemed to know where they were going.
“I’d go find it myself, you see, except these old bones wouldn’t take that very well.”
She shook her head with a laugh. “And I’d wait, but the same old bones tell me there’s a storm coming. Where there’s a storm, there’s water, and any chance of finding my ring will be gone.”
“Of course.” Zaara picked the piece of paper up and smiled. “We’ll be back with your ring, ma’am.”
“He seems to be making friendships,” DuBois remarked.
“Hmm?” Amber looked up from her ledgers.
“Justin.” The doctor gestured at the screens. “He’s bonding with the characters in the game. He wants to keep them from getting hurt.”
“It isn’t surprising. Did you know a study was done with robots that looked nothing close to human, and the human test subjects still refused to destroy them? They didn’t want to ‘hurt’ them.” She smiled. “Humans will pack-bond with anything.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t seem convinced. “Sure, he could have simply wandered around, pushed people into lakes, or swung his sword every which way, and I tend to think many people might do that—sudden freedom from social judgment, after all, and no consequences. But Zaara was right—he could also have holed up in a tavern and refused to interact.”
“I was worried he would when we sent his parents’ message through,” she admitted, looked at her research, and sighed. She was getting nowhere fast so might as well take a proper break. “I thought if he knew there was a real chance of dying, he might simply stop trying and we’d have to back him into a corner.”
“That wouldn’t have been pleasant for anyone,” DuBois said. He nodded at her work. “I’m sorry to have taken you from that. You did sigh almost continuously, though. I thought perhaps you could use a distraction.”
“Thank you.” She was always surprised when he did something human, although she had begun to think he was the type to observe carefully and interact more fully once he knew people. He now picked up everyone else’s favorite snacks at the grocery store too, and if he was listening to jazz—which Nick couldn’t stand—he always turned it off before the man was due to arrive for the day.
“Is there a problem?” the doctor asked.
“Well…” Amber gestured for him to approach her desk. With all the new equipment, she had moved from the center of the big room to one of the corners. She pointed at the screen. “I can find nothing that tells me who this benefactor is, and the timing is—”
“What timing?”
“When this all leaked to the press?” She raised her eyebrows and pulled her phone out of her pocket to show him. “Look—forty-eight missed calls. My old roommate’s getting calls and my classmates are getting calls. I emailed the people at your lab and they told me they’ve had to unplug their phones.”
“Ah, yes.” He nodded his head seriously. “This is why I don’t have a phone.”
“What if someone needs to reach you?”
He shrugged. “My lab knows where I am. And the truth would come out sometime, wouldn’t it? The press is always looking for something. The only thing that surprises me is that more details haven’t emerged yet. They aren’t very good at looking, are they?”
Amber could only laugh at that. DuBois was a man whose career had almost been ended by these same forces, and he was offended on a personal level that the people who tried to destroy them weren’t better at their jobs.
“Well, why don’t you see if you can resolve this puzzle.” She pulled the chair out for him. “Justin’s sleeping, after all, and—”
“And?” DuBois looked at her with a small frown. “What’s—”
“Here’s all the info.” She tapped the screen. “Read it and let it sink in.”
She took a careful step and sank to the floor before she slunk around the maze of desks and cords. While not exactly a ninja, she could move quietly when she needed to and the hums and beeps of the machinery covered her movement.
DuBois muttered to himself as she eased out from behind a desk, took a look at the server wall, and shook her head.
Stealth.
And speed.
And don’t destroy the servers. She stood as quietly as she could, took two long, quiet steps, and put the intruder she’d seen in a headlock. The camera tumbled free and she kicked it with every ounce of strength she possessed so it skidded into the darkened interior of the room. The intruder, meanwhile, screamed.
“What’s going on?” Across the room, DuBois stood with a horrified look. “Who is that?”
“A reporter, I think.” Amber flipped the woman over her shoulder and onto the floor, where she yanked her hands up behind her and knelt on her back. “I’m right, aren’t I? You’re a reporter?”
“This is assault,” the woman said shrilly.
“Oh, no.” She hauled her up. “How terrible for you. You snuck into private property to try to take pictures of trade secrets, potentially disrupting experiments in progress, and with what goal, exactly?”
“The world deserves to know the truth about Justin Williams,” her captive said as Amber began to force her down the hallway.
“Who?”
“You know exactly who I mean. He’s in that…that pod thing, isn’t he?”
“To be clear, you think there’s a missing person in our lab and you’ve decided the best way to save him is to come in and look at our server blocks?” She shook her head, kicked the outside door open, and ushered the woman firmly into the sunlight. “Here’s a fun suggestion. Why don’t you…I don’t know, do your research and find out who we are before you sneak onto our property. There’s also a doorbell.” She slammed the door, locked it from the inside, and walked away, ignoring the woman’s shouts about her camera.
In the lab, DuBois stood and stared worriedly at the door. “Are you sure you should have done that?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Did you make any progress with the information?”
“There’s hardly enough to make sense of,” he said with a shrug. “We’ll have to wait until—oh, look, he’s waking up.” He snatched a bag of popcorn and headed to the monitors, and Amber laughed ruefully before she returned to her computer.
Whether this was enough information or not, the reporter’s visit had shown her one thing. They needed to identify the players in this game and they needed to do it fast. Not for the first time, she wished she could swap places with Justin.
If she had to fight mysterious strangers, she’d rather have a sword
and some fireballs.
The King’s Road was like an entirely different world. Justin had become familiar with the villages and dirt paths, but the big road half a league away was made of shining white stone. Weeds grew here and there, of course, but in general, it was in remarkably good repair.
“People come every year to clean it,” Zaara explained. “And reset the cobbles and all that. You can see who did which parts—the stones are all engraved with who was ruling when the stone was laid. So…look, most of these are from Hieronymous, who was the first one to extend the King’s Road out this way, but this stone is more recent.”
“Huh.” Justin shrugged. “Chipping the King’s name into thousands of cobblestones seems like…maybe a waste of time?”
“The kings don’t think so,” she said and mirrored his shrug.
“The kings don’t have to do it, I assume. Okay, there’s the bridge and the mile marker, so we have to go west of that—or east?”
“West.” Zaara picked out the small grey stone at the edge of the road. “I’ll go count the steps.” Lyle and Justin waited as she approached the marker and counted the required number of steps before she laughed in triumph. “Ha! Right where she said it would be. Now, I guess we need to find a way to get this grate up.”
“Let me.” Lyle marched to her, felt under the stone, and gave a satisfied grunt. He pulled his knife out and stuck it under the grate. Stone and steel scraped together jarringly before he hauled the cover up and threw it into the grass. “There it goes. It’s a dwarven make and locked in so someone can’t simply take a nice hunk of iron, eh? Anyhow, in we gooooo!” He sat on the edge of the opening, pushed off, and disappeared. The sound of boots hitting wet stone followed moments later.
“Did we even check to see if the ring was simply there?” Justin asked.
“Nope,” Zaara said. She sighed as she leaned over. “I don’t see it, though. You know, I’m not looking forward to this.” She levered herself down more carefully, then called, “It’s barely a drop for a human, don’t worry!”
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