by Rachel Ford
He’d been so focused on his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed Migli stopping in his tracks – not until he careened into the dwarf’s back, so hard he bounced off and went sprawling backwards. The dwarf seemed completely unfazed by the impact. “Look there, friend Jack,” he said, pointing to a distant cottage. “A farm.”
Jack picked himself up and glanced around. “Where the heck are we Migli?” He’d been following the dwarf without much attention to their direction – obviously, since they’d gone off the main road somewhere along the way and turned onto this small trail.
“It seems to be a farm.”
“No stuffing. But where?”
Migli ignored the question. “We should talk to the farmer. We may be able to buy something to feed Fafnir.”
Jack glanced at the little cottage, with smoke rising from its chimney, and a similarly styled barn off the side. There was no chimney in that building, but it had a fenced in yard for the chickens. Outside, goats grazed on the end of long tethers.
Then Jack glanced at his purse. He’d only just gotten back over a hundred gold pieces at Ieon’s place. He thought long and hard, turning his eyes from the goats to the coins.
“I’ve got a better idea, Migli,” he said.
“Sir Jack?”
“It’s almost night. Let’s wait a little.”
“Shall we speak to the farmer? They may offer us a meal and a cot.”
Jack shook his head, though. Announcing himself would defeat the entire purpose. “Better there are no witnesses that we were ever here.”
Migli frowned at him. “What do you have in mind?”
“Wait and see, Migli. Wait and see.”
They did wait, another two hours. Jack ate some of his provisions. He listened to evening crickets and waited patiently. The shadows of dusk melted into the darkness of nighttime. The farmer came out with a lantern to herd the goats inside. Then he returned to his home. One by one, the windows went dark until only a small glow lit the place – and it corresponded to the chimney, and the fire in its hearth.
Jack grinned. The farmer and his family, if there was a family, had gone to bed. “Show time, Migli.”
They crept forward through the darkness. The moon provided a little light, but not as much as he would have liked. Still, they made good progress, with only a handful of embarrassing stumbles, tumbles and faceplants along the way. All of them were Jack’s. Migli sailed through any obstacle he ran across unscathed. The obstacles couldn’t say the same. Tree limbs cracked and splintered under his weight, shrubs disappeared underfoot, trampled into the earth; woodland and meadow creatures fled for dear life before the one-dwarf stampede.
They got about halfway to the cottage when Jack pulled up. He was afraid the dwarf was going to wake the farmer. Hell, he was pretty sure he could wake the dead with as much noise as he was making. “Migli, wait.”
“Sir Jack?”
“This next bit requires…well, stealth. I’m not sure you’re cut out for that.”
“No worries, my friend. I can be quiet as a mouse when the situation arises.”
Jack was skeptical, but he nodded. “Alright. Well, uh, the situation has arisen.”
“Copy that.”
They crept forward again, and this time Migli was actually, surprisingly, quiet. Jack found himself suddenly the weak link in their chain with every catch of his foot or snap of a twig – a point the dwarf reminded him of every time. “Careful, Sir Jack: they’ll hear us,” or, “Ohhh, look out for those branches. That’ll be a dead giveaway,” and so on.
Jack’s particular favorite was when he face planted in a patch of gravel. He lost fifteen hit points, and blood trickled from his nose. Migli’s concern extended only so far as a, “Careful there: that kind of ruckus will draw everyone in a hundred miles.”
But aside from a few hit points of damage due to Jack from his own clumsiness, and Migli’s brush with death via his continued commentary on the subject, they reached the barn without incident. Jack slipped over the fence and landed in soft earth. One of the chickens squawked in anger, or fear. He wasn’t sure which, but he ducked down low behind the fence, just in case the noise drew the farmer’s attention. But they must have been noisy creatures, or the cottage walls must have been thick, because nothing happened. The chicken stalked away, and Jack crawled toward the barn doors.
Migli followed behind, noiselessly as a ballerina. How on earth a four hundred something pound square block of a dwarf could get around that silently, he couldn’t fathom. Still, he was glad of it. He didn’t need an angry medieval peasant, bleary-eyed and impatient at being roused from his beauty sleep, stumbling out to find him here.
The smell of damp earth and chicken waste mingled in his nostrils. Stronger, more unwholesome odors wafted out from the barn. Jack grimaced and crawled along, reminding himself that everything he touched had been generated by a computer, and none of it was real. Including the chicken poop.
The door swung open with only the faintest hint of a metallic whine. Jack stepped in, and let his eyes adjust to the near total darkness. He heard a few surprised bleats, and a lot of low, uninterested breathing. Slowly, he saw forms in the dimness. He saw goats and sheep, and even a llama.
Jack glanced between them. The llama looked a little too big, and a little too strange, to mess with. The sheep looked fat and lazy, like they’d be a lot of trouble to wrestle up a mountainside.
But the goats? They looked leaner and more active. Anyway, goats were mountain creatures. Or some of them were, anyway. He didn’t know if this particular breed was a mountain goat or not. The truth was, Jack didn’t know much about farm animals, except how they tasted on his plate. He’d never been a farmer and had no interest in any profession that involved large amounts of waste: human or animal. So he was speculating at the moment.
Still, a mid-sized, lean, athletic looking animal seemed the best choice to his untrained eye. Plus, they already had collars on. So Jack scoured the barn until he found the tethers, hung on hooks against a far wall. He retrieved one and secured it to the collar of a rather ugly animal with a great, white beard and long, sloped horns. “Come on, ugly,” he said. “Someone’s waiting for you.”
The goat walked obediently toward the door. Jack almost jumped out of his skin when it bleated, though. “Shh,” he scolded. “Don’t do that. You want to get me killed?” Then, he figured the goat probably did, or at least would have, if he knew the purpose of his kidnapping.
Then, Jack realized he had a whole slew of potential jokes about kidnapping in its truest form, since he was making off with a baby goat – a kid. Which probably wasn’t entirely accurate. He assumed this fellow’s long beard precluded him from being too young. Still, he figured the joke potential was just too good to pass up, so he’d allow himself a little inaccuracy.
Anyway he’d been looking for some witty opening for Jordan. Now, he had it. So he set his mind to coming up with some real groaners for future use. It helped keep him focused on the task, rather than worrying about what could go wrong.
They’d crossed the yard and reached the gate, and he’d stored away half a dozen really awful puns to his mental archives, when the goat bleated again. “Dang you, be quiet,” he hissed. “Move, you little monster.”
He tugged at the rope to hurry it, and the goat picked up his pace. They covered another few paces when a third bleat sounded. But this time, it wasn’t Jack’s goat. It was one of the others.
He felt his jaw slacken. The whole barn had emptied into the yard, and half of it had already spilled outside. “Migli, you didn’t shut the doors?”
The dwarf stared at him blankly. Another goat bleated, and a light sprang on inside the cottage.
Jack loosed a string of swears, and yanked at the goat’s rope. “Come on, let’s go.”
They ran haphazardly for the trees, and then crashed through the brush. The sounds of a door opening, and someone shouting in surprise and exasperation carried on the wind behind them. But he di
dn’t stop to see if the farmer had caught sight of them. He didn’t stop to see if the other man needed help retrieving his flock.
He just ran like hell into the night.
When they finally slowed, Jack had no idea at all where they were. There were trees all around, and occasional patches of grass – but no road and no path. There wasn’t even a game trail.
Jack took a break to look at his map. It showed him a mostly unexplored area, with a few marks indicating places they’d been, or had to go. Ieon’s Tower was a red cross in the middle of a cloudy patch of blurred map. The dragon’s pass was another red cross, but it was surrounded by visible markings this time – because he’d visited it already. He could see all the places he’d been clearly: Dragon’s Run and Watersfront, the little towns he’d visited in the beginning of the game; the two islands he’d stopped at on the great sea, and a path across, clear and visible. The rest of the sea remained a blue blur, like the landmasses stayed gray blurs. He assumed the blurry bits would become visible when and if he visited them.
Right now, though, he was more interested in the snaking path of visibility that led to a blue check mark. The blue check mark indicated his present position, he knew. The little trail of visibility was where he’d come. A ways, and a few back and forth loops, behind him sat the little farm – another red checkmark. A ways ahead of him north sat the checkmark that indicated Fafnir’s pass.
“Okay, so we are going a very different way than we came, Migli,” he said. He wasn’t sure why he talked to the dwarf. It wasn’t like he was a real person. Still, being alone in a videogame did get…isolating after a while. It felt good to talk to someone. Even if it was Migli. “But if we start heading more northward, I think we’ll find the right way.”
“I’m disappointed, Sir Jack,” the dwarf said.
Jack blinked. “Look, I know it’s not ideal. But I don’t see you leading us, either.”
“We robbed a man tonight.”
He frowned. “What? You mean, the farmer?”
“Aye. It was most unknightly behavior.”
Now, he rolled his eyes. “Dude, just the other night you left me to get eaten by werewolves while you got laid. I don’t want to hear about ‘unknightly behavior.’”
“I know our cause is just and our need dire. But robbing simple folk cannot be the way, Jack. I cannot abide the idea that we can do no better than theft.”
A thought flashed through his mind.
Your companion Migli is disappointed in you. Be careful not to disappoint a companion too frequently, or they will lose respect for you. If a companion loses respect for you, you will be unable to benefit from any bonuses they bring to your party. They will also be less likely to share their inventories, aid you in combat, etc.
Jack stared into the night, shocked. Then, he laughed out loud. “You’re already worthless in a fight, and you can only carry fifteen pounds. How much worse could you possibly be?”
Migli didn’t answer. He just started walking into the night.
Chapter Twenty
They reached Fafnir’s pass by midmorning the next day. The goat had been cooperative for about the first half of the trip. Then, every step was a fight. It was some time after that that Jack remembered hearing the phrase stubborn old goat. And, far too late to be useful, it made sense.
Still, there was nothing for it but to keep on going, so they did.
Fafnir was waiting for them, curled up in the sun outside of his pass. He stood as they approached. “Ah, you are back again. Have you brought me a snack?”
This time, Jack had three options: to choose something from his inventory, to take his leave, and:
[Offer pet to Fafnir]
He didn’t think of the goat as a pet. He thought of it as a giant pain in his backside. Still, he chose the new option. His character turned and pointed at the goat with a bow, saying, “Eat this, noble Fafnir, and may it sate your appetite.”
“Finally,” the dragon said, “my long fast ends.” Then, it surveyed the goat. “Hold a minute. Have you brought me some manner of living creature?”
Jack didn’t like the skeptical tones in the dragon’s voice. “You…said you preferred fresh, didn’t you? I mean, it doesn’t get fresher than still mooing. Or whatever the heather goats do.”
“You insult me with your barbarism, human, to bring a creature of flesh and blood – alive, no less, to my door and call it food. You are fortunate your cause is as just as it is, for I should cast you out of my sight after such an affront.”
At the same time, Jack felt an informational message enter his awareness.
You have lost goodwill with Fafnir the dragon.
He scowled at the dragon. “Look, lizard, I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve offered you everything I can think of, and dragged a goshdarned Billy goat up a goshdarned mountainside for you. It’s bad enough you’re wasting my gall darned time.
“But if you want me to feed you, you danged well better tell me what in blessed creation you want.”
He didn’t even notice the profanity filter until it got to blessed creation, which seemed a poor stand-in for hell.
The dragon, meanwhile, harrumphed. “You had but to ask, human: I am not a flesh eater. I eat the fruits of the field and drink the nectar of flowers. Long have I desired to sup on the sweet and tender fruit of a wild stayla tree. But men will come with knives and swords and axes if I venture near those natural orchards.
“Bring me fruit of the stayla tree, and I will let you pass.”
Jack sighed, a long, exasperated sigh. “Where will I find one of these stayla trees?”
“Some grow in a little farm south of here. You will need to work on your charm, if you are to persuade the farmer to sell you some; for he guards his prize fruit jealously. Otherwise, you will find a wild grove a day’s march southeast of here, on the shores of the great sea.”
“You know, this would have been a lot simpler if you just told me that in the beginning.”
“It would have been a lot simpler if you had asked. How can I know what it is that you do not know, if you don’t tell me?”
“How can I tell you what I don’t know, if I don’t know it myself?”
Fafnir smiled. “Perhaps there is hope for you after all. Mostly, you speak the nonsense of humankind. But every once in a while, you open your mouth and the wisdom of dragons comes out.
“Go, Jack, and prove your merit to me.”
Jack would have butchered the goat, if the choice had been his. It seemed that a bit of compensation after his long, wasted night was only fair. But Fafnir would hear nothing of the kind.
When he tried to press the issue, the game warned him,
You have lost goodwill with Fafnir the dragon.
So he left the point there – and the goat on the mountainside. It was the dragon’s responsibility now, he decided.
He set out for the seaside. It was a longer hike, but better, he thought, to go there than risk the farmer’s wrath a second time in a day. Especially after robbing him once.
They walked for a long time, until Jack realized he was tired – not his character, but his actual mind. So he built a fire and laid his bedroll beside it. “Good thing we cleared these woods of werewolves, Migli,” he said. Then he let his character sleep, and he did too.
He woke several hours later in real life, and mid-morning in game time. He could have used a few more hours of rest, but he felt more alert anyway. “Alright,” he told the dwarf, “let’s go waste some more time.”
They walked past Ieon’s valley. He saw the outline of a small town in the distance, and fields and farms all around it. “Maybe on the way back, we can stop for supplies.” He didn’t need anything in particular, but he had picked up a handful of trinkets. And knowing how quickly inventory space filled up, he figured he should clear it of everything he didn’t actually need as soon as possible.
They kept walking. Jack started thinking about William Xi again, and the Xi Incident. He tried to recall
the exact conversation.
God, Roberts, tell me we don’t have another Xi Incident on our hands. That’s what Avery had said.
Then Roberts had reassured him. Jack closed his eyes and focused on the words. No, I’m reading full brain function.
He opened his eyes and froze stock still. Full brain function. Which could only mean one thing: the Xi Incident had involved someone, presumably William, ending up without full brain function.
He tried to remember what else they’d said. He’d asked what the Xi Incident was.
Just a guy who had a minor accident early on.
He swallowed hard. How minor an accident were they – could they – be talking about if it involved loss of brain function?
He rubbed his brow. He was sweating again. “Speak to supervisor.”
Migli turned around a moment later. “Jack?”
He breathed a sigh of relief. It was Jordan. He didn’t hear her voice, but the response was too – well, normal to be Richard’s. “Hey,” he said. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah,” she said. “We do. I…I’ve got good news and bad. But you first: what do you need?”
He waved the question away. “Never mind that. Tell me what you found.”
“Okay, you want the good news first?”
“Sure.”
“I found more on William Xi.”
Jack tried to ignore the nervous beating of his heart, and the foreboding rhythm it drummed out. “And the bad?”
“I…I found more on William Xi. He was a tester, Jack, like you. Early on, pre-Dagger of Doom days. He was a play and function tester for the VR engine itself.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. But – here’s the weird thing: I can’t find any trace of him. In the real world, I mean. His social media hasn’t been updated in five years. His website is gone. It’s like – it’s like the guy just disappeared.”
“He’s dead,” Jack said, and he felt his heart sink. “This system killed him. And those cold-blooded rascals plugged me into it after him.”
“Rascals?” she repeated.
