“What are you going to do?”
“Well, if I don’t wake up back in my own bed in a few hours, I’m going to make the most of it by getting rich singing a whole bunch of pop songs none of these yokels have heard before,” he said. “Think about it. I could be the Beatles of this place! You can be my Ringo if you want. I’m not selfish.”
“So, you’re not going to help me find the others,” Eriko said.
“Oh, I want to find the others! You think I’m not going to look for my sister? I just don’t want to engage in daring acts of heroism. I don’t want to die.”
“Maybe dying is the only way we get home,” Eriko said.
“Or maybe if we die here we die back home,” Tobias said. “I wouldn’t rule out the worst-case scenario.”
“I thought you were the optimist in your family,” Eriko said.
“I come from a family of optimists,” Tobias said. “But none of them have been trapped in a virtual reality medieval death trap. I’m working within different parameters.”
Eriko heard a soft clatter of plates and stealthily watched as the guard cleaned up and prepared to go.
“Gotta head to the gates. There’s a caravan due in,” the guard said. “I’m on inspection duty.”
“I’ll see you later on?” the girl said.
The guard beamed at her.
“Of course,” he said.
After the young couple exited, Tobias and Eriko exchanged a pair of half-hearted looks.
“I guess we could go see who’s coming into town,” Eriko said.
“Beats sitting around being a creep listening to people,” Tobias said.
“Oh, I’m going to be a creep and listen to people there,” Eriko said. “I just want a wider variety of options.”
Chapter 6: This is what magic feels like
Tamsin could feel mystical words creeping around in her skull like poetry.
It was more than a little upsetting.
Morgan had returned to the front of the wagon to talk more with Bobrick, leaving Tamsin inside. I swear, she thought, if this is real, it’s some kind of world inside Jack’s mind, that’s exactly the sort of stupid name he’d give a throwaway character in a story. They’d propped the tarp open so she could sit right behind them and join in on the conversation, but mostly the driver rambled on about the chief exports of Moderate Expectations, like rhubarb and radishes, and how some weird new culinary trend had picked up steam among humans that they’d heard was popular with the elves where they’d refuse to eat animal flesh, which was the stupidest thing Bobrick had ever heard of, begging your pardon, young lady, didn’t mean to insult elves in general, he said, but he didn’t know how life was worth living without bacon.
Eventually the conversation made Tamsin’s mind drift. She started tugging at those poetic magical words in her mind, turning them over and over like found art.
This must be what magic feels like, she thought. But maybe not, Tamsin wondered. Maybe the way this world works is, just like the game they’d been about to play, the way the players made it work. Maybe magic works this way because, after years of reading fantasy and adventure books, after hours upon hours spent with Harry Potter and Harry Dresden and Harry D’Amour—there’s a lot of magicians named Harry, apparently, she thought—that what she was experiencing now was her own mind making sense of magic, applying rules that were logical to her.
Or maybe she was overthinking things, Tamsin thought. I still haven’t even cast a single spell yet.
The conversation on the front of the wagon came to an abrupt halt, disrupting Tamsin’s reverie.
“Gods dammit,” Bobrick said.
“Tam,” Morgan whispered. “Trouble.”
Tamsin peered carefully out from behind the tarp acting as a door to the wagon. She could see a man standing in the middle of the road. He looked worse for wear, dirty and tired, but he smiled, casually brandishing a sword in one hand.
“Welcome to the Shallow Woods,” the man said. “You may not be aware of this, but there’s a small tax to use this road. “I’m here to collect.”
“Get a job,” Bobrick said. There was a sharp whistle, followed by Bobrick grunting in pain. The old man started cursing bloody murder.
“You didn’t have to shoot him with an arrow,” Morgan said, his voice deep and suddenly filled with authority. Was he getting into character too, Tamsin thought? Or was this covering for his own anxiousness?
“Careful now, friar,” the man in the road said. “We prefer not to draw blood from a man of the cloth, but you wouldn’t be the first.”
“Bloody bandits,” Bobrick said, his voice thick with pain. “We ain’t got anything! We’re just a traveling caravan!”
“Might want to shut your friend up unless you want to be driving that cart yourself,” the man in the road said. “We’ll just have a look through your things, take a modest token fee, and you can be on your way.”
The hell with that, Tamsin thought. She slipped out the back of the wagon, eyes peeled for the archer who shot Bobrick. More magic words crawled through her brain, and she took a chance, whispering them softly. The air around her shimmered with an almost invisible glow. She looked at her hands, and saw that all around her, there seemed to be a sort of shield… a force field? Surrounding her.
Magic shield, she thought. Let’s see what else I’ve got.
She saw movement up on the high ground to the right of the wagon. Without thinking, she grabbed onto another set of words in her mind, these ones glowing with the light of burning embers. Automatically, she threw her hand toward the movement, pointing.
A ball of flame erupted from her fingertip, moving with ridiculous speed toward the hidden person. It struck, exploding, setting fire to leaves and brush and, apparently, to an archer who had just aimed an arrow at Tamsin. The archer screamed and ran down the hill, body on fire like an outtake from a stunt scene in a movie.
“Great,” she heard Morgan say, followed by a stream of curses as something squealed like nails on a chalkboard. She looked up to see an arrow, bent at the haft, careening into the air, apparently blocked by Morgan’s heavy armor. He yelled to Tamsin. “Next time a little head’s up! Initiative order matters!”
“Sorry!” she said. She closed her eyes, trying to grab onto more magic words, but the screaming of her target and the aggression in the man’s voice as he barked orders at unseen lackeys made concentration difficult. Finally she caught hold of a few words, glowing like moonlight, and spoke them aloud. A dart of energy the size of a sparrow flew out of her hand, spun through the air, then splashed against the robber’s shoulder, knocking him backward.
“Forget it! Kill them! Make them an example of…” the man in the road said, and then his voice faded into silence. Tamsin stole a glance and saw that he now looked down at his chest where an arrow protruded just below the sternum. As the robber reached town to examine the arrow piercing his gut with his fingers, another projectile hit him higher in the chest, piercing a lung. He staggered, falling to one knee, then fell to the ground.
“Oh,” Tamsin said, all the mystical symbols in her head jumbled as worry overtook her.
“They killed him!” Someone yelled behind her. Tamsin spun just in time to see another robber running at her, a blade in one hand, aimed down, ready to stab at her. Tamsin’s hands reached for her belt, looking for anything, a knife or something, to block the oncoming attack with, but came up short.
I don’t want to die in this game, she thought.
And then robber was blown from his feet by a spinning battle axe.
The enormous weapon flew out of nowhere, brutally pinning the would-be attacker against the wagon. Tamsin heard strangely familiar laughing.
“I had no idea if that would work,” Cordelia said, emerging from the forest looking, bigger, stronger, and definitely greener than Tamsin had ever seen her.
“What happened to you?” Tamsin said.
“We can talk later,” Cordelia said, viciously yanking her
axe from the side of the wagon while shoving the dead robber off with one foot. “First, duck.”
Cordelia gripped her axe in both hands as if to swing a baseball bat. Tamsin did as she was told, dropping down as she heard heavy footsteps running up behind her. Then, before Cordelia could attack, she heard a creepy, wet thump.
Looking up over her shoulder, she saw Morgan, war hammer in hand, hopping down from the wagon. The crumpled body of a robber lay at his feet.
“Considering I can’t hammer a nail without crushing my thumb, this is alarmingly natural,” he said, hefting his hammer.
“That’s all of them,” another familiar voice said. Tamsin jumped to her feet and ran out from behind the wagon. Jack, dressed in greens and browns with a bow in his hand, stepped out of the foliage and into plain sight.
“That was you firing those arrows?” Morgan said. “You don’t even have the eye/hand coordination to play a first-person shooter game.”
“I think we all… know what our characters know,” Jack said. He pulled his hood back and smirked at Tamsin. “I promise this is not what our games are usually like.”
“Morgan’s been filling me in,” she said. She grimaced. “My brother?”
“Haven’t found him yet,” Jack said.
“Or Eriko,” Cordelia added.
Tamsin felt her stomach twist.
“We’ll find them,” Morgan said.
Above them, they heard Bobrick moan pitifully.
“If you weirdos are done talking nonsense, I could use a bandage,” he said.
Morgan and Jack exchanged a knowing look.
“You think?” Morgan said.
“I don’t know,” Jack said.
“Well, I’ll give it a shot,” Morgan said.
“To do what?” Tamsin said.
“Well, if you’re our wizard and just threw a fireball out of your hand without, y’know, knowing actual magic, I’m wondering if the healing spells my character is supposed to have work as well,” Morgan said.
Bobrick moaned again.
“You’ve got a good test subject at least,” Tamsin said.
Cordelia hopped up onto the wagon and easily lowered the slender old man down to Morgan, who placed him on the ground. Morgan concentrated for a moment, hand over the arrow wound in Bobrick’s shoulder. Light pulsed from Morgan’s palm, then spilled down into the wound. The arrow fell out easily. Tamsin watched in a combination of horror and amazement as the bloody wound sealed shut.
“I hate bandits,” Bobrick said.
“Not a fan myself, old-timer,” Morgan said. “You okay if I drive the cart if we put you in the back to recover?”
“You say that like you think I like driving a wagon,” Bobrick said. “You tell me to take a nap, I ain’t sayin’ no.”
Chapter 7: Reunited
“We are one hundred and ten percent being followed,” Eriko said. Tobias almost yelped when she dug her fingers into his upper arm.
“Why does being followed mean you have to pinch me?” he said.
“I don’t think you’re taking this seriously enough,” Eriko said.
Along the edge of the village they’d found that Moderate Expectations was surrounded by a wooden wall, ranging in height from ten to fifteen feet in places—probably as a defense in the event of raiders, Eriko hypothesized. Asking around, they learned that farmlands stretched for miles in every direction, but the walled structure was a safe place to trade and to hide when the various bad things—bandits, mostly—made trouble. They had been skirting the edge of that wall, along which various stalls selling vegetables and tools, were lined up like a state fair. Ahead, the main gate to the town, guarded by a motley crew of constables or soldiers, remained open, with light foot traffic moving in and out.
“Not taking this seriously enough,” Tobias said. “What is there to take seriously? We’re absolutely, definitely hallucinating, Eriko. None of this is real.”
She pinched him again.
“Ow.”
“That feel like a hallucination?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Please stop pinching me.”
“He’s at six o’clock. Look at him.”
Tobias leaned past Eriko’s should, trying to spot their alleged tail.
“I don’t see him.”
“Your six, not my six.”
“You didn’t specify.”
“Why are we friends?”
“Because I make you look smart and you make me look pretty,” Tobias said. “Or is it the other way around?”
“Just look behind you.”
“Are you sure that’s six o’clock?”
“I don’t know. Just look,” Eriko said. “But try not to be obvious about it.”
Tobias turned around dramatically and stared at the passersby behind him.
“Wow,” Eriko said. “Why don’t you just yell out and ask what his name is?”
“I think that’s a great plan,” Tobias said. “Who am I looking for?”
“Older guy, faded brown cloak, beard… you know what? He’s gone,” Eriko said. “He disappeared. Probably because you looked at him.”
“How did I look at him when I didn’t even see him?” Tobias said, spinning back around to Eriko.
“Never mind,” she said.
Past Eriko, Tobias saw a wagon looking worse for wear trundle in through the town gates. He was fairly certain one side of the wagon was covered in drying blood. And sitting on the wagon was, finally, a familiar face.
“Oh!” Tobias said.
“What?” Eriko said.
“Look!”
“Where?”
“There!”
“Why?”
“Morgan!” Tobias said, leaving Eriko standing in the street. She trotted to catch up with him.
“Morgan looks like he walked off the set of Kingdom of Heaven,” she said.
Their friend, who eyed the town’s streets from above his perch with tired anxiety, was dressed entirely in heavy armor save his head. He wore a gold and red surcoat covering much of his torso, emblazoned with a sort of archaic, abstract sun.
Again, Tobias took off without waiting, leaving Eriko to catch up. He held his arms out at his sides.
“Morgan, you big beautiful bastard,” Tobias said.
Morgan looked at him with confusion, then fear, then with a growing grin across his face. He hopped down from the wagon as best he could in his armor. The men through their arms around each other.
“About time you showed up,” Morgan said. “You’re okay!”
“More than okay.”
“Hey, big guy,” Eriko said, punching Morgan in the chest lightly so his breastplate made a soft clanking noise.
“Just hanging out in town, playing some music, making friends,” Tobias said.
“Y’know, just getting our RP on,” Eriko said.
“Meanwhile we’re fighting off bandits in the forest,” Morgan said.
“Tobias!” Tamsin yelled, hopping out of the back of the wagon and running into her brother’s arms.
Morgan looked up at the wagon.
“Best get this out of the way, old timer,” he said.
“Look at you lot, with friends greeting you at the town gate. Must be lucky to be loved,” the old man said.
Morgan tossed him a pouch from his belt that clinked when the old driver caught it.
“Thanks for the lift, Bobrick,” he said.
“Thanks for the healing magic,” Bobrick said. “I’d tell you this coin purse is too much, but a man needs to make a living.”
“Keep it. You’ve earned it,” Morgan said.
The old man tipped an imaginary cap then ushered his horses onward. As the wagon moved slowly away, Tamsin ran her fingers over Tobias’s face.
“You’ve got the ears too,” she said.
“Twins even on the other side of the looking glass,” he said. He took in her appearance—traveling robes, a belt dotted with pouches filled with spell components, her hair brushed simply awa
y from her eyes.
“You’re a wizard, Tamsin,” he said.
“Not how I’d hoped it would happen, but I guess I’ll take it,” she said. “Hey, I can cast fireball, want to see?”
Everyone from the party other than Tobias sad a firm ‘no’ and backed away slowly.
“Have you see Jack and Cordie?” Tobias said, the smile fading from his face.
“Actually,” Tamsin said, looking over her shoulder as two cloaked figured entered the gate. One pulled back his hood, revealing the familiar face of Jack, a bow slung over his shoulder. Beside him, an unfamiliar figure moved with unexpected power.
“Oh,” Tobias said.
“Yup,” Cordelia as she and Jack joined the group. She wore her hood up to obscure her face.
“Well, green really is your color, Cordie,” Tobias said.
“I think you’ll be okay here looking like that,” Eriko said. “We bought coffee from a half–orc this morning.”
“You had coffee,” Cordelia said. “I beheaded two men today, and you’ve had coffee.”
“You put it that way, I almost feel guilty,” Tobias said.
“Almost,” Cordelia said.
“Yeah, but not really,” Tobias said. “Glad you were the one doing the beheading and not the other way around though.”
“Thanks,” Cordelia said. “So. Now that we can assume we’re not in some sort of too-much-caffeine-before-bed nightmare and we’re really here… what do we do next?”
“Well,” Tobias said, fighting back a laugh. “I do know a tavern we could go to.”
Chapter 8: Really specific character descriptions
“We can, if nothing else, determine that we are not having a pizza-induced nightmare we’re all going to wake up from in a few hours,” Morgan said.
They’d commandeered a table in the corner of the tavern, still a bit early in the day for the place to have grown overly crowded, but full enough they kept their voices hushed as they talked. Eriko scanned the room for anyone who might be eavesdropping. Aside from the bartender and barmaid, whom they’d learned from Tobias were named Darv and Ena—both of whom seemed to love having the bard in their establishment—no one paid them much mind.
Lost in Revery Page 4
