Blood and Cupcakes

by Taj McCoy El

  Gyasi.Butler@CrysWeb 13:29 EST – Oh, my little mighty mite. Sounds like someone dropped a big ole load of responsibility on your shoulders. I don’t think I even have to guess at who would do that. You have always dreamed beyond the scope of the ordinary. I'm sure that at least some of the changes you would like to see are definitely causing waves. Just remember to trust your allies and crush your enemies. At least until they understand that you just want what’s best for them. Also, do your breathing so you don’t go crazy in your head. And always, always, always remember we love you.

  Mayah took a moment to center herself. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She exhaled, pulling all the energy from her hands and feet up to her chest and pushing it out on her breath. She inhaled again, imagining her feet expanding from the pressure of her lungs and reaching into the ground like tree roots.

  She repeated this for ten minutes, growing roots down into the earth and reaching her spirit up and out like the branches of a tree. She opened her eyes and felt much more calm and stable.

  Mayah.Butler@CrysWeb 13:30 EST - Thanks Dad, the breathing is helping. I just had to slow it down. I think I can handle it now. I love you guys.

  Gyasi.Butler@CrysWeb 13:32 EST- We love you too. We’ll be right here if you need us.

  Mayah.Butler@CrysWeb 13:32 EST - Make sure mom gets some sleep. You could fall asleep in an earthquake so I know you’re getting rest.

  Gyasi.Butler@CrysWeb 13:34 EST - Losing you is worse than any earthquake.

  Mayah sat back in her chair. Her lip trembled dimpling her chin, her eyes burned and she felt the hot tears stream down her face. Her chest heaved up and down as she tried to fight back this flood of emotion. She gasped, a racking spasm and let out a silent wail that echoed only in her ears. Her arms wrapped themselves around her body and she shook her head trying to deny the pain she felt. The sorrow fought back choking off her voice. Her knees attempted to pull into her chest as her feet danced a strange tip-toe ballet of misery and angst while her heart was ripped and rent by the absence of her family.

  She bit her finger to stifle the lamentous cry that ached to be released from her breast and covered her nose and mouth with the other hand. The tears rolled down her cheeks, across the backs of her hands into a swan dive onto her knees or the floor of Verbum Vitae.

  …..

  Mayah.Butler@CrysWeb 13:37 EST - Love you so much.

  Gyasi.Butler@CrysWeb 13:38 EST - Love you more.

  Mayah wiped her face on the hem of her cloak to remove the debris of the emotional wreckage that remained firmly buried in her heart. She stood up and stretched her back, taking a deep breath and releasing it with a sigh. Relatively sure that she was back on emotional firmament, she thought about Grax and Margaret. Sure that they were still deep in choosing their trades, she went to look at the glass cases that held the Class Skill books. As she read the descriptions on the spines, she began to understand that these weren't magic books so much as life paths. There was a Class Skill for space ranger, another for cleric, and one for paladin.

  That’s kind of funny, a paladin choosing Paladin as a class. She imagined the conversation between a Majestan and a paladin2. ‘Excuse me paladin, what’s your class?’ ‘My class you ask? Well I’m a paladin.’ Total facepalm action for days.

  She slowly walked past the numerous binders of the Class Skill books, studying them intently. This was going to be a tough decision for her. She needed to get to level nine to learn more about these skills. Her frustration was palpable, her dress scrunched up in her tiny hands.

  But if these aren’t magic books, does that mean you get another magic along with your Class Skill? That would be awesome. I gotta ask Ibn about that.

  She walked over to her friends and peeked around the corner. Grax was picking up multiple copies of books and dropping one into his bin and the other into Margaret's. Margaret was sitting there, seemingly afraid to touch the books. Probably for fear of learning something she didn't want to.

  Oh no, this definitely will not do, Mayah thought.

  “Hey guys, need some help?” Mayah said as she approached the pair.

  “I do, but Grax has been explaining to me why I need cooking when I already know how to cook.”

  “Yeah, if you haven’t learned it in game you won’t be able to make food for your avatar. You can learn it by hand but it’s much easier with the book. Food can have buffs that make you stronger or can cure poisons. Which is why you should have herbalism so you find edible and medicinal plants, which is why you should have alchemy so you know how to prepare them properly. The rabbit hole just gets deeper.”

  “Yes, it most certainly does. But what concerns me is the book for mortician. Do I have to?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. You use dead bodies, and learning how to take care of them will make them last longer. In other games, I’ve even seen necs sew body parts together to make a bigger, stronger creature. I'm not saying that's what you want to do. But if you know how it's done you may be able to find a weak spot we might overlook. Maybe look for taxidermy too.”

  “And stonecrafting?” She held the book firmly between two fingers.

  “Just a bit of prep for whatever may come our way. Speaking of, have you decided on your next magic skill?”

  “I've been reading the web guides, but I haven't found anything that I think really suits me,” she said with a thoughtful look.

  “Well, in your imagination when you think of yourself doing magic what does it look like?”

  “Ooh… I always imagine myself throwing lightning bolts and yelling ‘YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!’” She held her hands up like Ian McKellan’s illustrious Gandalf.

  “I didn't know you were a fantasy girl.”

  “I’m not. Not really. My husband loved fantasy and science fiction. Some of it rubbed off on me. I always loved Ganondorf.”

  “Gandalf…” Mayah coughed.

  “What? “

  “Nothing, just a little book dust.” She looked around at the books and caught Grax doing the same while rolling his eyes.

  After a brief, awkward moment where Margaret looked between her and Grax, Mayah said, “So, I'm going to go see if I can find you a lightning spell. You need to really start going through those books. Grax can't know what's in your head and may be picking things for you that are more for his enjoyment than your expertise. Just don’t open them.”

  “Now that, I have learned.”

  Margaret bravely reached out to the books on the shelf as Mayah walked to the magic books and began her search.

  …..

  “Remind me to get rid of Hazer one of these days,” Auset said to Hicks through a sneer. “He’s useful, but he’s become too smug. I don’t like smug. Smug leads to mistakes.”

  Hicks moved out of the shadows that hid him from the holo projector. “Yes, sir. How shall we proceed with the Evac?”

  “Tell the men to take what they can carry. We’ll burn everything else. I want the data drives to be top priority.”

  “Where are we headed now, sir?” Hicks was again at Auset’s elbow.

  “I'll tell everyone in transit. That way there are no loose ends.”

  “Sir.” Hicks nodded and hustled off to inform his inferiors of their plans.

  Auset stabbed a finger at the comms button on his desk and spoke. “Auset-Alpha 319, Auset-Alpha 319… Red alert. All hands ready for evacuation. I repeat, red alert, all hands ready for evacuation. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. All hands ready for evacuation. We will have an exit window approaching in 15 minutes. This is a scorched earth protocol. I repeat, this is a scorched earth protocol…”

  …..

  He had looked everywhere in the village except for the dorms. He could not gain entry to any room but one. She may be outside of the barrier. That was one of… how many probabilities? He had lost count. That had never happened to him before. He had learned what hunger was. After he had forgotten the other thing. Yes, to eat. That ...hurt. He had eaten before
but he did not know the purpose of it until that moment. He had seen many strange new things.

  He had heard new words. He knew the meaning of all of them but their context was strange. He suddenly hit his head with the heel of his hand. Why won’t the information stay where I put it???? His recall was so slow. He tried to recall a conversation he had overheard, but only bits and pieces could be studied at once. He had all of the information, but instead of a computer to access it, he had a typewriter. And the typewriter was strapped to a wheeled table on the stormy deck of a ship being tossed at sea. That dark sea was his mind.

  His consciousness was being tossed from wave to wave by every new stimulus, and here there were many. It was hard to remember his goals. “Find her and destroy her. Then destroy everything else.” He repeated it to himself, again and again and again. It calmed the seas. It made everything clear. Oh, so clear.

  …..

  “Okay I found the spell you wanted. But I also found this other spell you might like.”

  “What is it?”

  “Shadow lightning.”

  “Shadow lightning?”

  “Yeah. You know how lightning makes light and cast out shadows. This one makes shadows and casts out light.”

  “Why would I want that?”

  “It’s a bit more in line with your first skill. Zombies are usually creatures of the dark. So, my thinking is that the more you use dark and shadow the more powerful your zombies may be.”

  “I’d prefer it if you called them dolls,” Margaret shuddered.

  “Understood. Plus, I want to see if you can put shadow lightning on an arrow.”

  “You want me to do what?”

  “It’ll be fine. There’s only a small chance it’ll explode before you launch it.”

  “Explode? That sounds dangerous.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t really get hurt.” Mayah winked at Margaret

  “Good point.”

  Grax sniggered in the background.

  “Here,” she said motioning to their surroundings, “you can do whatever you put your mind to. Fall off a building and wake up a few hours later like nothing happened. Or even logout for the mandatory hour.” She paused at that and made a quick sniff dismissing the thought. “The point is you can’t get hurt here, At least not physically.”

  Margaret put her hand on Fluff’s shoulder. “Well I'm going to do my best. Shadow lightning it is.”

  “Really? Awesome. Now I need to tell you the rest of my plan. After we buy the books we’re going to read them. Then, Mags, I want you to go see Cloutus and ask him if we can stop by in an hour. Message me and let me know what he says. Grax and I have a little errand to run.”

  “Another errand?” Grax moaned.

  “Trust me, you’re gonna like this one.”

  …..

  After sitting in the chairs in the back of Verbum Vitae and reading the trade and magic books, they parted ways. Grax and Mayah were headed towards the Leatherworkers shop.

  “So, what’s this errand we have to run?”

  “I was running through some strategies for the tournament and well…” She thought about how to phrase this, “I need more data.”

  “And we’re going to go get this data?” Grax probed.

  “Hopefully. So… what it comes down to is that we need to duel.”

  “Really...???”

  Grax stopped and rose to his hind legs and pointed at his chest. “You want to duel me?”

  “Just because I haven’t seen you fight. I need to know what you’re capable of.” She hoped she hadn’t offended him.

  “Really???” He threw his hands up and swaggered in a small circle. “You want to duel me? You know this means our bet is still on.”

  “What bet?”

  Pinky extended he tugged on the bowtie with one paw. “This bet.”

  “Oh… that bet.” Now there was something at stake, she could feel her ambition rise.

  He nodded. “After I get my new gear we’re gonna have ourselves a little rumble in the jungle.”

  Mayah was starting to feel alive again. “Oh yeah, a rumble in the jungle.” She rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck.

  …..

  “You know Mayah’s going to enter the tournament, right?” Ronald asked Kyle.

  “I kind of figured.” Kyle responded in his usual unenthusiastic way.

  “Hey, Ron!!” he said, snapping his fingers and pointing to the monitor. “Looks like the drones are down. I just got the message from SEC-9 they’ve been down for three minutes and their team on site is out of communication.”

  “You want to tell Josh, or should I?” Ronald asked. Kyle did not like being the bearer of bad news.

  “Well, you get paid the big bucks,” Kyle responded. “I'll go over the last bits of footage and see if we can find out what happened.”

  “Get on it then, slacker,” Ronald laughed and made a run for the office block.

  …..

  5.4 Sword and Hammer

  They stood across the clearing from each other. It was the same clearing where she had practiced runes. It wasn’t too open, nor too closed in. It gave a balance of terrain to the two warriors. Grax would be able to use the shadows of the trees to disappear and Mayah would use the open space as a buffer from any sneak attacks. They were both ready, Grax in his new tactical vest with the daggers thrown around his hips. Mayah held Happiness in her hands spinning it impatiently. Her eyes daggers, looked into Grax’s. He returned the look.

  “I challenge you to a duel,” said Grax.

  Mayah with a smile on her face said, “I accept.”

  Then both of their smiles turned into something more predatory. Like sharks smelling blood in the water.

  They began to circle each other. Grax said nonchalantly “Are you recording?”

  Mayah thought about it and in that split second Grax closed two-thirds of the distance between them, leapt into the air, twisted to dodge around Happiness and hit her with a right hook to the nose. Her head recoiled backwards as Grax flew over her left shoulder.

  Where did he go?

  She knew once she lost sight of him the pain would start. She felt slashes across her back and her health dropped to 134/193HP. She spun left, hammer in a defensive position to protect her precious backside and felt a blade drag through her right hamstring. Her useless leg buckled, taking her to the ground. She ignored multiple red debuff notifications as she cast Shield (F) followed by Acid (D). She saw a flitter of black out of the corner of her eye and tossed the green blob in the direction it was moving.

  “Aiiie, that burns!”

  “You’re a sneaky little guy, aren't you?” She spotted him over on her right shoulder and struggled to spin towards him.

  “You just figure that out, genius?” He rubbed some dirt on the small spot that was still sizzling on his shoulder. He sported two slim katanas with sheaths rising from behind his shoulders. A mask of black fabric covered the top of his head except for the eyes and ears. And of course, he was wearing the bowtie. He looks so cute!!! Wait, get your head back in the game... He looked devious… cunning. This wasn’t Grax. This was Graxiel Destruir, and he was fighting for real.

  Mayah activated Achilles Heel and saw the normal spots you would find on a human body that had a leather vest and no pants. The problem was, he was so fast and so small it would be hard to land a hit on him. Especially being hamstrung. How could she slow him down?

  He dashed behind her and she couldn’t turn to follow, so she swung Happiness in a wide arc behind her, hoping for a lucky hit. She activated Spike (W) on the hammer for good measure. He stepped in closer, caught her handle on his on his katanas dipping under the swing. As he came up, he sliced through the muscles in her left arm with an icy piece of steel. She kept hold of her hammer, barely. The force of the swing and the weight of the hammer toppled her over her ruined leg and she fell to the ground.

  I won't lose like this.

  She dumped 90% of her remaining stamina into man
a and with her bad arm, she summoned Vergie who leapt out and circled around towards Grax, growling.

  He backed up to the edge of the clearing, lazily twirling his swords then pointed one at Vergie, laughed and said, “Your turn, kitty.”

  White flowers petals started to fall from the sky on a strong breeze. They flitted on the wind around Grax, becoming a concentrated cyclone of petals. Vergie pounced on the swirling mass. Her claws passed through the maelstrom of petals, striking nothing. She quickly looked around and sniffed the grass in surprise. A black ball of fur crashed through the branches and flew out of tree. It descended rapidly, extending two swords and driving them right through the back of the big cat’s neck. Grax had targeted right beneath Vergie’s shield stabbing into the soft shadowy parts that it covered. He spread the swords apart to do more damage and Vergie turned to shadows and drifted away on the breeze.

  “Petal shower. That’s my second magic skill. Now are you gonna give up yet, or what?” Grax mocked the maimed Princess named Cuddle Fluff.

  She relaxed back onto the ground, tired and suffering from the debilitating cuts and bleeding debuffs. She couldn’t think her way out of this one. “I give.”

  A woman's voice filled the air. “Graxiel Destruir has won the duel. Thank you for playing Majesta.”

  “I thought you were going to get teleport?”

  “I was until I saw this. It’s basically a mass blindness spell once I level it up. I can get teleport next.”

  Her leg throbbed. It was only 30% of what the real pain would actually feel like. “God, this hurts.”