Mage

by L. J. Swallow

  But the main reason I can't look back is because I’ll expect Jay to run behind me. And if he doesn’t appear, I’ll be tempted to go back.

  Neither will or can happen.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I sit beneath a tree, in a copse hidden from the path. The goblins chased us down for half a mile and the stopped. Visions of Jay's body on the floor cycle over and over as we pant for breath in silence. Aidan has changed from demon to human form, switching from terrifying creature to traumatised guy.

  I smear the healing salve across the scratches from the goblin’s attack and attempt to eat to regain my health points. The food sticks in my throat, but I eat through the nausea.

  "He won't be dead dead," says Aidan, half to himself. "Games don't work like that."

  "Where is he, then?" I ask.

  "I don't know, maybe he resets to a spawn point. Or something. The rules are confusing. This isn't an exact replica of our online game."

  "I'm aware of that," I snap, "Otherwise I would've found the end by now."

  Zara remains silent, head against the tree trunk. "Everything will work out. We play. We win. Now? We get the hell back to the town and regroup.”

  I protest about leaving Jay in the goblin's grasp but Zara’s right that we need to leave. I'm reluctant to walk away from the situation. Early failures fighting as a new character are normal—we can’t expect perfect kills at such a low level. Especially with such a crap arsenal of spells and a stick for a weapon. In my real life game, my character would revive and start again. What happens in this game?

  We need to choose a different route back to the town, or risk coming across the goblins again. The path forks after a mile, and the map reveals a route which circles away from the village. Following this morning's disaster, venturing into unknown areas concerns me.

  "I'm bloody sick of the starter zone," grumbles Zara. "What do you think the next area looks like?"

  I shake my head. "No idea. This is bad enough."

  “I'm not going anywhere else until I'm better skilled so the quests and killing are easier,” says Aidan

  I want to keep asking where Jay is and to find reassurance he isn't dead. I hardly know the guy, but we’ve bonded quickly, thrust into the same world and need to fight alongside each other. The dead group member could’ve been any of us—including me, and this has brought a new horror to the situation. We could die. Any or all of us. My numb brain repeats the denial over and over: Jay isn’t dead. If he is, it’s temporary. He’ll be back.

  If I don't focus on this as true, I’ll break down.

  Every moment that passes with no reappearance by our healer adds more tension.

  The map expands to reveal a low wooden bridge ahead, which crosses a small lake that sparkles invitingly beneath the summer sky. I’m willing to bet there are uninviting residents below the surface.

  "Shit, I hope no monsters are hiding under the bridge," mutters Aidan.

  As we approach, I spot a man fishing nearby. His back is turned away from us, and the tall guy’s sinewy figure is clothed in dark leather trousers and a grey tunic that reaches his hips, belted by leather too.

  He glances around when he hears our voices. "You took your time."

  The man reels in a fish and removes the wriggling body. The water splashes as he throws the fish back in.

  His dark hair obscures his face, and as he approaches, I'm startled by his bright blue eyes. He's also around our age, tall with the same build as Aidan: lean but not bulky.

  I glance down at my silver band, but no name flashes on my screen.

  He gathers up his belongings from the river bank. "I've waited for you all morning."

  "Who are you?" asks Zara.

  He grins. "A friend."

  "A player?" I ask.

  He ignores me and inclines his head across the bridge. "I’ve waited to talk to you, but we can't talk here."

  I turn my back on the guy. "Has his name appeared on your wristband?" I ask quietly.

  Dean's face matches my consternation. "No."

  "Malfunction?" suggests Aidan.

  "I'm Ethan," he says from behind us. "Are you coming with me?"

  I wait for the familiar ping and accompanying quest text to appear onscreen.

  No words onscreen. No ping.

  "What do we do?" I whisper.

  Zara wrinkles her nose. "Dunno."

  "Aidan? Dean?"

  I receive a shrugged response from both.

  I turn back to Ethan. "Coming with you where?"

  "To talk."

  Asking him why he doesn't have a name plate or quest would be pointless. I've slipped up and mentioned quests to in-game characters before and that resulted in confused silence.

  The game has thrown us a new mystery.

  "Who are you?" I repeat.

  "Somebody with answers."

  "Hell, that's enough for me," I inform the others and walk forward. Dean sets off too, but the other two remain still.

  "Do you think that's a good idea?" asks Aidan.

  "I'm taking the risk."

  "Bloody mad," mutters Zara. "I'm not. I'm too tired for more fighting."

  "Mad? But is anybody here in this Wonderland sane?" asks Ethan. He nods at me. "Listen to Eleanor."

  Zara rests against a nearby tree and drops her pack to the floor. She rubs a shoulder and looks between us. “I’ve had enough quests for today. I’m alive, but I’m sore. Plus, my backpack is heavy. Why don’t we head back to town and sort through our loot? We can come back for this quest tomorrow.”

  Aidan swipes a hand over his hair and frowns down at the floor. “I’m tired too.”

  “Aidan. We need to move on and quest, level and get the hell out of here. Don’t stop now.”

  “Look at me.” He holds an arm out and his skin is tinged with purple still. “I’m exhausted. You don’t understand the health points it takes to turn into one of those things.”

  Aidan’s health points are low, but I don’t need to look at them to know he’s struggling. He’s pale and his forehead is sheened with sweat.

  I’m torn. I really want to speak to Ethan.

  “If El goes, I’ll accompany her,” says Dean. “You two head back to town. I’d rather Zara didn’t go alone either. None of us should go anywhere alone today.”

  He’s more shaken by Jay’s death than I realised. “That’s a good compromise. Aidan?”

  Aidan sighs loudly.

  “I’m not going to attack any of you,” says Ethan with a smile. “I’m non-aggressive.”

  “Do you have a quest?” asks Dean.

  “Of sorts. If your companions wish to speak to me tomorrow instead, that’s fine. I’ll be here.”

  The debate drops away. Aidan’s exhaustion quiets him, and he mutters something about Dean looking after me. Zara announces she doesn’t need looking after. This is probably true, but look what happened to Jay.

  My stomach lurches again. “Maybe Jay will be back at the town?” I whisper. “Look for him.”

  Aidan places a hand on my shoulder. “He’ll be okay.”

  I wish I could believe that as much as I want to.

  Our group parts and I follow Ethan, accompanied by Dean, whose hand remains on his dagger hilt. We follow the lake to a muddy riverbank. The river travels east and then becomes wider. My map won’t show me what’s on the opposite bank, but it’s gloomy and not somewhere I want to go. Yet. I couldn’t cross without a bridge, and we don’t pass one.

  Ethan veers away from the river. The tall trees thin to reveal a small two-storey house, at the end of the path and edge of the area.

  The map indicates a border between Darkwood and somewhere I can only read the bottom half of the letters, because my map hasn’t revealed the full name of the place across the river yet. A new zone to explore?

  I follow Ethan to the house.

  A house that doesn't exist on the map.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I squint, adjusting my eyes from the
bright day to the darker room. The building resembles one of the goblin places—from the position of the identical table and chairs to the small, empty fireplace. I tip my head. The same stairs lead upwards. There’s no goblin stench or mess here though; the place is swept and tidy. The smell of baking bread drifts from the small metal stove nearby.

  “Nice place,” puts in Dean. He tips his chin. “Do you live alone?”

  “No, but my friend isn’t with me today. Please. Sit.” Ethan pulls out a dining chair and I do as he says, confusion mounting. "And you have someone missing too. What happened?"

  "Goblins," I say and swallow. “Killed him.”

  “You attacked goblins?”

  “We were clearing them out as they were getting close to the local town,” says Dean.

  “And gathering treasure.” Ethan chuckles and points at where I dropped my bulging backpack on the floor. “Please don't be concerned. Your healer will return.”

  “How do you know?” I ask sharply. “Where is he? Do you know how this game works?”

  Ethan raises a brow at my demands. He sits beside me and rests his arms on the table and a sleeve rides up, revealing muscled forearms covered in dark hair. No silver wristband. "You ask a lot of questions, Eleanor."

  “Do you know the way out?” I whisper, hope rising. “Has Jay escaped now he died?”

  “I’ve seen many people die and return. Death isn’t the way out. Don't you know where you are?" He tips his head as he studies each of us.

  "Funnily enough, no. I didn't buy into this experience, I just arrived." Dean yanks out a chair and sits, straddling the seat to hold the back.

  "Interesting.” He taps his fingers on the table. “You’re in the Fringe Realms. Have you heard of the game?"

  "Shit. I know that name," says Dean. "I think I played the beta." He rubs his temples. "I can't remember anything about it though."

  "How can you play a game and not remember anything?" I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Or maybe I’m imagining that. It sounds familiar— I play a lot of betas. Fringe Realms obviously wasn't an interesting one or I'd remember."

  "I never played it, so that can't be the connection. Was it VR or straight MMORPG?" I ask.

  "Again, not sure."

  "You mean this could be virtual reality?” I ask.

  "It's not VR," puts in Ethan.

  "Then what?"

  "The Fringe Realms is a game experimental in nature—or it was experimental when I walked in."

  Relief joins my apprehension. “Which means we can walk out somehow? Level up and win?”

  Ethan rests an elbow on the table and rubs an eyebrow, not responding.

  "We're players, yes?" I hold out my arm and tap the silver bracelet. "Stats, levelling, quests."

  “You play the game,” says Ethan quietly.

  "And you are?" asks Dean.

  “I stopped playing.”

  The room lurches. “But you’re still here. How long have you been here?”

  Ethan shrugs. “A while. I’m unsure. Time is strange here.”

  "You're stuck in the game?" Dean swallows visibly. "Shit, please tell me this is a bizarre quest line."

  "Myself and others are stuck, but we are working together to find a way out."

  "How? What skills do you have? And if you’re an ex-player, why don’t you have a band?" I ask.

  "We're hidden and don't exist as far as the creators know. Players disappear occasionally. Every game has bugs." He pauses. “We’re waiting for help and think you've been sent to help us.”

  "Who?" I point at myself. "I have? How?"

  “Your arrival is significant because we’ve hardly seen any players for what seems like months. I thought perhaps the game had been shelved and that’s why we were stuck. One of us has watched you, and the more we learn the more certain we are that you’ve been sent here.”

  “By?”

  “I’m unsure. A developer perhaps. Someone on the outside. I wonder what happened out there? I don’t think their experimental game is working.” He gestures at me. “I think you’ve been added as a solution.”

  “What?” Each moment with Ethan confuses me further.

  “Tell me, what have you achieved so far?”

  I glance at Dean and he nods. We sit in the quiet house, the three of us around the table as if we’re businesspeople at a conference. In an unsteady voice, I tell Ethan everything. Each quest, each storyline. Aidan's appearance. Sonara's quest to collect flowers. Our converging lives and quests begin to make sense as he listens impassively. Dean interjects a couple of times when my panic takes hold and chokes the words in my throat.

  Ethan drags a hand down his face as he studies me. “Somebody decided you're to learn temporal magic. That’s why you could see the runes on the stone and why Reuben sent you on a quest for the Artefact. You’ll be able to manipulate the game with this magic, if you successfully follow the skills path you unlock at level 20. Your accomplices..." He gestures at the others. "They were placed here to help, I suspect. The Holy Trinity—defender, healer, and damage dealer, plus a couple more for luck to help you fulfil this role.”

  I grip the edges of the wooden chair, heart thundering in my chest. "What if I can't learn? What if I fail?"

  "You won’t. We will help. The Dryad connection is interesting,” he says. “The flowers. I am sure your connection to this and the potion master is significant. I want you to ask him about the Tears of the Sky and find out what potions they are used in. We need that potion.”

  “How can a potion help us beat a game?” asks Dean. “I’ve used them to heal and give extra power, but they don’t do more than that.”

  Ethan looks at him in disdain. “If Eleanor has been put here, there will be items placed in the game by programmers or developers that are to help us. I believe somebody on the outside is helping—now we need to find the information they have left for us.”

  “So help us,” says Dean.

  "I can’t step into the game and reveal myself yet,” says Ethan. "For now, know that we will help and you can leave. All of you. But you need to support Eleanor, and she needs to complete all the quests to finish her storyline and be powerful enough to do this.

  I stare down at my trembling hands, one question cycling around and around my mind. One I want to shout out and demand an answer to.

  “Is this reality?”

  “This is our reality, Eleanor.”

  When I meet his eyes, the understanding and empathy reflected back scares me. He's revealed little, but I'm unsure I want to know more about him.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Dean attempts to talk to me on the way back to town. Maybe we do speak, but I don’t remember. I can’t think straight and barely remember the trip back.

  I was certain I could play this game and win, and now I’m not sure.

  I could die.

  I might never leave.

  Ethan could just be a side quest to screw with our minds.

  I'm exhausted after the murderous afternoon with the goblins and the sickening events that followed, and I collapse on the bed in my room and drop into a dark sleep. When I wake, I’m refreshed and my brain is calmer.

  Focused.

  I spend time in my room rubbing salve onto my cuts. I marvel as the thick white paste turns clear, and the skin beneath returns to my usual pale complexion.

  I attempt to stay focused, but every few minutes an image of Jay's prone body recreates the fear that flooded my system too. Where did his body go? He died saving me, but using physical force instead of a spell cost him.

  Looting the goblin village began as if we were playing a live action version of a game, including gathering items from corpses or small chests inside the dilapidated buildings. As each injury cut deeper, I began to realise this is more serious than that.

  Death exists here.

  My bulging backpack contains items I hastily shoved in between kills and when I unfasten the leather bag the smell inside turns my
stomach. Something is rotting in there. Not wanting to put my hand inside, I tip the contents onto the polished floor and sit cross-legged to work through what I find.

  I identify the rotten smell straightaway—rank cheese and decaying meat. The meat appears to be an unfortunate animal's hind quarters. At least, I hope it's an animal.

  Poking the offending item away with my blood-stained shoe, I pick through the pile. I push the gold coins into one pile and examine anything that could be useful. No decent weapons—just rusty daggers and broken wands. The cloth pants and tunics are badly made, and my band doesn't flash to tell me they're useful. Looking at the stitching, these would fall apart within a couple of wears.

  I remove the cork from a large bottle and cautiously sniff. Strong alcohol assails me, and I wrinkle my nose before holding it away. I definitely need a drink, but that would scour my insides.

  I conclude that goblins weren't worth robbing. I wonder what was in the big guy's treasure chest? I wish we'd seen, but I also wish Jay were alive more.

  I rub my head as I pick up a rolled piece of yellow parchment from the pile. It's tied with thin grey twine. The paper unfurls as I remove the fastening, and I study the words.

  Recipe: Potion of Waking Nightmare

  Potions Level: Expert

  Ingredients: Tears of the Sky, Tears of the Dawn

  Must be mixed in the pool at the Shrove of Tranquil Waters, at midday following a full moon.

  My heart speeds. Finding this is too big a coincidence after meeting Ethan and him talking about a potion. Maybe this is a quest chain and his story exactly that—a tale from a character in a game. I managed to gather the Tears of the Sky, can I find Tears of the Dawn? I wind up the parchment and tuck it into my pocket. Jeremiah was part of the quest chain when I picked the flowers, and he’s a potion master. I need to see him. If he can’t help, I’ll find Sonara again.

  Pissed off that I don't have anything new to equip that could help, I head to the bathroom for another cold, unpleasant bath and curse the lack of plumbing in this fantasy world.