Trailblazer

by Zen DiPietro

  Sally stared at him mutely. She understood him, but couldn’t find the right combination of words to clarify what she meant.

  Essley said, “I think she might mean she’s surprised that no adventurers recognized her. Is that right, Sally?”

  Sally nodded in agreement. “Why not?”

  Darthrok shrugged. “They don’t expect to see you out here. And they don’t expect to see you dressed like a well-to-do adventurer.” He flicked a finger at her expensive blouse and corset dress, then at the backpack and crossbow she wore. “People are really good at not seeing what they don’t expect to see.”

  Sally nodded slowly at first, then as the idea settled, more quickly. His words made sense. She’d been like that, too, before.

  “What would you like to do next?” Essley asked.

  Sally hitched her head in the direction they were walking and waved at the buildings. In silence, they continued through Pivot, allowing Sally to see all the places she already knew but had never seen.

  The jail. The tavern. The forge. These were larger constructions with heavy walls and many wheels to convey them from place to place. Sally had to wonder at the amount of steam power that would have to be generated to move that much bulk.

  The stores, in contrast, were made of wood and designed to be as lightweight and maneuverable as possible. She liked these vehicles best because each one had its own unique design. The haberdasher’s shop had a window in the front, with a pair of automatons that went through a series of movements to show off the latest fashions. Sally lingered there, watching the machines repeat their programs over and over, exactly the same way, every time.

  The tiny flower shop looked more like a standalone closet than a store, but its outsides were so cheerfully covered with paintings of bright flowers that it exuded a unique charm. Plus, a magnificent aroma of mingling scents she couldn’t even begin to identify filled her with a type of happiness she’d never felt.

  Moving on, she stopped in front of a technie store. The outside had a plain appearance, but on the front of a door hung a contraption that Sally had never seen.

  Gadgets were similar to puzzles, which had always made Sally a big fan of technology. Gadgets didn’t try to be mysterious, and puzzles had no function except to be mysterious, but outside of that they were pretty much the same thing. At least, in Sally’s estimation, anyway.

  She took a step closer to the contraption on the door.

  Essley put a hand on her arm. “Not that one,” she said. “It’s by appointment only. Sujan gets angry when people come in unannounced and interrupt his work.”

  Sujan. She knew that name. She’d often suggested to adventurers that they take some highly specialized bit of this or that to him rather than sell it to her. She was no maker, but she knew a valuable mechanical bit when she saw it, even if she didn’t know what it was for.

  She wanted to meet this Sujan, and see what wonders he was working on, but that would have to wait.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Darthrok said. “What do you think of Pivot, Sally?”

  She didn’t like his characterization of her. She wasn’t quiet. She had lots going on in her head, and she’d say as much once she was ready and had the means to do so. Her lack of spoken words didn’t make her impassive or without opinion.

  “It’s fancy,” she said, using the phrase she’d put together to show approval. “I love it.”

  “The whole town or just Maker’s Alley?” Essley asked, twirling a finger to indicate their current surroundings.

  “All of it,” Sally said. The air changed suddenly from simple fresh air to an aroma of…well, of something. She stood still, inhaling. Her stomach growled.

  She slapped a hand to it, wondering at this new, uncomfortable sensation. Was she dying? Had she been outside of her store for too long?

  “What’s that?” she managed to ask.

  Darthrok took a deep breath, then hummed in appreciation. “It’s churros, I think.”

  Sally stared at him mutely, rubbing her stomach. Was “churros” fatal? How had it gotten in her stomach?

  “Come on, we’ll grab some.”

  Hang on, they wanted to get churros?

  She had so much to learn about this strange and wonderful world!

  She followed him and Essley, her steps slow and careful. She kept her hand on her belly, worried about what it might do next.

  Darthrok handed a coin to a woman at a cart and she handed him three long sticks, each wrapped in paper.

  He handed one each to Sally and Essley, then took a bite of his.

  “Churros,” he said encouragingly when she didn’t follow his lead. “They’re delicious. Try it.”

  Essley took a big bite of her brown stick and nodded encouragingly.

  Oh! Churros wasn’t some medical ailment, it was food. Okay. She could do this. Sally opened her mouth, inserted the churro, and clamped her teeth down on it.

  Her mouth filled with aromatic bliss. Sandy grains rolled over her tongue as she carefully made her jaw open and close in regular intervals, mimicking her friends.

  “Good, right?” Essley prompted. “Churros only come around once a week or so.”

  The words “churro” and “delicious” weren’t in Sally’s limited vocabulary, so she copied the humming sound Darthrok had made earlier. “Mmmm.”

  They both grinned and they stood, quickly devouring their treats.

  Sally extracted the last bit of fried dough from the paper and chewed it slowly.

  Churros were amazing. What else did this fascinating world have in store for her? She wanted to taste everything, smell everything, touch everything.

  She pressed the paper against her tongue to transmit the remaining grains of sandy sweetness to her senses.

  “So, what now?” Darthrok asked, collecting their wrappers and throwing them away in a waste bin. “Want to check out some clickers? It’s a good way to work on your skills.”

  Sally touched the crossbow on her shoulder. Putting it on had made her feel cool, but the idea of using it made her anxious. She did want to try everything, though, and this was the second time he’d mentioned this activity. He had experience at being an adventurer, while she did not.

  She’d follow his example. “Okay.”

  “Great!” he clapped his hands together. “I’ll lead.”

  Indeed, he took them away from the town. At a distance, she could see that was mostly just a somewhat ovoid ring of vehicle-buildings, with a lot of people milling about.

  As she followed her companions away from Pivot, she thought, perhaps a town wasn’t so much about the land and buildings, but the people taking part in it. The further she got from the town, the less significant it looked. Once it was lost in the distance, it was almost as if it didn’t exist.

  The grass grew higher the further they hiked, and Sally began to wonder if Darthrok might have ill intentions. She didn’t have any reason to think he did, but she didn’t have any reason to think he didn’t either.

  Had she made a mistake in letting him lead her out here?

  Despite her considerable wisdom and intelligence, she didn’t have the experience to put either attribute to use. Maybe that meant experience was more important than anything else.

  Finally, they arrived at what appeared to be an old, abandoned factory. A single dirt road led up to it, but had been washed out by years of rain, making it so rutted that no vehicle could have traversed it. The factory itself sprawled away from their vantage point, appearing very large. Some of the building’s windows remained intact, but others had holes in them or were broken out entirely.

  Strange to see such a place in the middle of grassland. What might it have been in the past?

  “All we have to do,” Darthrok said, “is trip the proximity sensors. The clickers will self-activate and come out here.”

  “Shoot?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Darthrok agreed. “You can stay at range and take potshots with your crossbow. That way, they won�
�t get too close to you. Once your weapons skills are up, you can try some closer contact. We’ll split whatever we get from selling the parts three ways…ahh…” he trailed off.

  She was the person who bought such parts. She suspected he felt a bit awkward about that sudden realization.

  “It’s five,” she reassured him.

  Well, doot, she mentally cursed. As far as the Everternian profanity filters allowed her to curse, anyway. But she’d meant to say fine rather than five. The word had slipped sideways in her mouth and come out wrong.

  “Did you say five?” Darthrok asked.

  Essley interjected, “I think she meant fine.”

  He nodded. “Sure, I’m sure that’s what she meant, because ‘it’s five’ makes no steamin’ sense. But did she just work around her vocabulary limitations by using a word that was similar to another?”

  They both looked at Sally.

  She hadn’t been trying to do that, but it was what had happened, so she nodded. Next time she was missing a word, she’d slip in something similar and see if they understood.

  Darthrok grinned. “That’s the spirit! Always find a workaround.”

  Essley smiled, too, but rather than looking amused, she looked thoughtful. “That’s a really interesting idea.”

  Sally waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. Essley just kept standing there with that speculative expression.

  “What?” Sally asked.

  Essley shook her head slightly and shrugged. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on with you. Is it an advanced AI?”

  Sally sighed. They’d asked her questions like that before. She didn’t exactly understand the phrases they used, like the “GM” word they often mentioned.

  They still seemed convinced that she was some sort of puppet. It was annoying. She wasn’t an automaton, like the ones in the haberdasher’s shop. She was as real as they were.

  “I’m doing my best. If you don’t like it, run away.” She crossed her arms.

  Darthrok looked from Sally to Essley. “I think you hurt her feelings. Just leave her alone.”

  Essley’s brow furrowed. “I’m not trying to be a jerk. I just want to understand what’s going on. You know, what we’re really supposed to be doing. There must be something.”

  “You still think this is a quest?” Darthrok asked.

  Essley chewed her thumbnail. “No, not exactly. I just think that if something in the game changes, it means something. It’s been a long time since we had an expansion, so maybe this is something new that’s been in development. She’s so different from how she used to be. From how all the other CMs still are.”

  Sally had a sick feeling as they discussed her as if she weren’t even there. She’d never felt this stomach-churning queasiness, not even when she’d thought she’d had a churros disease. She didn’t like it one bit. With effort, she said, “I’m here. I’m from here. Your quality now isn’t good.”

  Darthrok frowned. “You’re upsetting her, Ess. Stop.” He continued, “We’re sorry, Sally. We just get confused sometimes. Right now, we aren’t sure what questions to ask, and we’re doing our best. We like hanging out with you, and don’t want to make you sad.”

  She looked from him to Essley. Funny, she’d found Essley the more trustworthy one before, but now Darthrok seemed perfectly reasonable and much more sensitive to how she felt.

  She wanted them to understand her, but even if she had all the right words, how could she explain herself to them when she didn’t even know why she’d changed?

  Carefully, she said, “I’m new. All new. No one else knows.” She added, “Just be fool.”

  Darthrok blinked and looked to Essley. “Just be…fool?”

  Sally shook her head.

  Essley guessed, “Just be cool?”

  Sally nodded and gave her a thumbs-up.

  Essley’s expression softened into a smile and Darthrok laughed.

  “Let’s go with the flow,” he suggested. “Let’s not question everything. We’ll just see what happens, like anything in life.”

  Sally was doing enough questioning for all of them. They sure didn’t need to do it, too. “Let’s go with the go,” she agreed.

  “Close enough,” Darthrok agreed. “Ready to try some clickers?”

  Sally nodded.

  “Stay back, and get your crossbow ready,” Essley advised. “We’ll get aggro and pull them out for you.”

  She’d sold plenty of crossbows just like the one she held. Never once had she considered firing one. Carefully, she extracted a bolt from the pouch she wore, shrugged the crossbow off her shoulder, and loaded the bolt into the weapon.

  She lifted the ungainly apparatus, and it occurred to her that this was ridiculous. This is how a person learned to use a weapon? Just ignorantly wave it around and see what happens, then hope you could do it better the next time? How did that make sense in a civilized society of modern science and reason?

  Surely there should be classes for this kind of thing. Training. At least a beginner’s lesson from an expert, for steam’s sake.

  Preposterous!

  She balanced the oddly-weighted weapon while looking down its sights, envisioning herself taking a shot with it.

  She imagined shooting one of her friends in the ear.

  Visualization apparently wasn’t going to help with this.

  Taking a deep breath, she held her weapon ready, imagining herself as Tilly Hightower, the legendary tough. Tilly Hightower would never shoot her friends. Well, maybe she would, but it wouldn’t be accidental.

  Sally heard sharp clicking sounds, then six crab-like creations scrambled out of the factory, waving their little metallic claws. They looked anything but menacing.

  “They’re cute,” she called to her companions, who seemed to be trying to distract the little devices.

  “What?” Essley called, glancing back to Sally.

  “They’re cute,” she said in a louder voice. With one hand, she flipped her goggles down from her head and settled them over her eyes. She recognized the clickers immediately. She’d bought millions of them. But when she did, they were busted, broken, nonfunctional pieces of scrap. These were moving, working constructions. Someone had put their ingenuity and effort into making them. They moved and behaved exactly as they were designed to do, displaying a certain technological beauty that Sally appreciated.

  With a practiced motion, she slid the goggles back up onto her head.

  “Just shoot them!” Darthrok directed.

  Sally regained her two-handed grip on her weapon and took aim at one of them, carefully lining up her sights. She tightened her finger against the trigger.

  They really wanted her to do this. She should just do it. They said it’s normal, and so far she hadn’t caught them trying to mislead her. Most importantly, she really wanted to be an adventurer, and these two people were the only people who might possibly understand why.

  She needed to ignore the resistance of her mind and just do it.

  She needed to.

  Just one finger movement, and she could please them, while also taking a step toward being an adventurer like them.

  But no.

  With a sigh, she let her shoulders drop and she lowered the crossbow. “I don’t want to. Their quality is good.”

  One of the little gizmos grabbed Essley’s foot and she knocked it loose with her sword, then scooted it further away from her. “They’re just clickers, Sally. All adventurers start hunting here, or someplace like it.”

  “No.” Sally unloaded her crossbow and put it back over her shoulder. As much as she wanted to be like other adventurers, she wasn’t going to destroy such clever little inventions when they posed no danger. “It’s a waste.”

  “Let’s disengage,” Essley said to Darthrok, and the two of them began doing a rather funny little dance of running back a few steps, zigzagging from side to side, and running back a few more steps. After they’d repeated this little jig several times, the clic
kers seemed to lose track of them. They joined together as a group, shuffled about briefly, then crawled their way back into the factory.

  When the adventurers rejoined Sally, Darthrok looked mildly annoyed while Essley wore a look of puzzlement.

  “Sally,” she said, “What’s your alignment?”

  Understanding dawned on Darthrok’s face. “Ohhhh, right, that makes sense.”

  Sally didn’t know that word. Not only was it not in her vocabulary, but she didn’t grasp its meaning, either. The only alignment she was aware of was the kind that made sure two parts fit together properly so they could do their job. She was pretty sure that wasn’t what they were talking about.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “You know,” Darthrok said encouragingly, “lawful or not, evil or good, that kind of thing. “We’re both neutral good.”

  Oh. That, she understood. Her companions were neither lawful nor unlawful, and they weren’t evil. She already knew that from assessing them, but they looked at her expectantly, as if she was supposed to find meaning in such a pointless statement.

  “Nothing’s that easy,” she said slowly, pulling the words together into a sequence she’d never used. “Nobody’s only good. Nobody’s only evil.”

  “So you’re true neutral?” Darthrok asked. “Rough gig.”

  “No,” Sally said. It was the second time she’d said that word that day, and she began to like the way it felt in her mouth. It was all smooth and roundy. “No,” she repeated, just to feel it again. “I’m Sally.”

  Essley and Darthrok had a conversation with their eyes. She realized they did this frequently, when they weren’t sure what to say to her.

  Essley ventured, “So you don’t have an alignment?”

  She realized another thing then, too. The more she experienced, the more she understood, and a new type of knowledge nestled into her mind. Like before, when she’d inadvertently gained experience from the puzzle and began experiencing her life differently, Sally felt her perspective widen.

  She’d gained wisdom.

  More importantly, she realized that Darthrok and Essley had no concept of her reality. They thought she fitted into some category of thing they’d known before, and that all they had to do was figure out which one. But Sally didn’t fit into any of the categories they knew, or any of the ones she knew, either. She didn’t fit into any categories at all.