by S. W. Clarke
“Did you hear her?” Veda asked. They had cut toward the center of the village, and the worse it felt, the more they followed it. Now she could see things—sort of: rope bridges shimmering between the trees, a great old staircase wrapped around a trunk like a vine, the steps sliding in and out of focus.
“Hear what?” Galen asked. And then he doubled over to vomit.
“What did you think you would find here?” the voice whispered. It flitted from one end of Veda’s vision to the other, pulsing. “Did you think you could find her?”
Veda set her hand to Galen’s back. “It’s bad, like Wa said.”
“Yeah,” he said, wiping at his mouth. “It’s pretty bad.” He pushed himself upright, and they continued.
The light followed. It had form now. A face. She was beautiful, her voice vibrating with color. “The closer you come, little fool, the better I can see that hole in you. Like you’ve been shot right through the gut.” Fingers appeared, a hand reaching out to Veda’s center.
When they touched her, she closed her eyes. Her insides wrenched. The bile came out of her in a wave. In her interface, her health dropped to 40/55.
Galen caught her, one hand on her back and the other on her arm. “I hear her now,” he said. “She’s telling me…”
“That you’re hollow,” Veda said. She coughed, pressed her hair from her face. When she stood up, the staff materialized from the air in an arc, caught her on the cheekbone. She dropped to the ground so hard the air accordioned out of her lungs.
“Shit,” Galen said, but before he could reach for her, the staff swung back around and took him in the leg. He fell to one knee, rolled as the staff came straight down. Instead of hitting the ground, it dissolved, rematerialized behind Wanath’s back as she spun in a circle of hair and robes. She was ready, the palm of her free hand upturned.
Her nameplate appeared, emblazoned in gold:
“How do we do this?” Galen asked, struggling to one knee.
But Veda’s mouth couldn’t make words. She gasped, hands pressed to her chest. Her face bloomed with pain, her nerves finally registering the blow. She might be a little broken now. Broken, breaking. That was how it had happened, the split.
Fighting wouldn’t fix it.
“Fight or don’t. You’re already dying,” Wanath said. She was the soother, the feeling that carried you to sleep. And she was right: Veda could feel her body clenching, sickened. “The longer you lay there, little fool, the fewer choices you have to make.”
Choices. You always have choices, Veda. She pressed herself onto her stomach, her fingers clenching grass and—something else. It was crisp. Veda closed her hand around it, raised it to her eyes. Paper. It was folded notebook paper, a note. Mayday, it read. Her hand shook in front of her, and her breath came in little gasps. She could breathe. “I’m hallucinating,” she whispered.
Behind her, the shield dropped with a thud followed by a crack. Veda jerked around, found Galen kneeling behind it. Before him, Wanath’s staff withdrew into the mist of her robes. “I need you to be here, Veda,” he grunted, repositioning the shield to block the blow that came as Wanath spun, swung the staff.
She closed the paper inside her palm. Veda pressed herself to her knees, and then to her feet. When she turned, she slid Wa’s Gift from her back. “I’m here,” she said, and she drove the staff into the ground. For a moment, Wanath’s spirit settled into non-motion, her eyes on the gem, which had a faint and growing glow.
Beside her, Galen vomited again. Red on the grass. He was turning his insides out.
Hurt or heal. That was Veda’s choice; it was Wa’s gift. The staff vibrated in her hand, and everything came to her at once, the anger and the pity. They swelled in her in equal measure, trembling for dominance.
“Let it out, little fool,” Wanath said, her voice a red nectar that carried through the air, dissolved over Galen. He’d fallen sidelong.
And she did. The gem glowed bright as a bulb, green pixels issuing into the air. They hovered like mist, and then they circled down, enveloping Wanath. Veda’s strength seeped out of her, and she gripped the staff with both hands to keep upright. In her interface, her mana ticked down and down until she had nothing left. And then she dropped onto the ground with him.
Above her, Wanath’s face appeared beneath the thatch of the canopy. She was fading. “Why,” she whispered, “did you hesitate?” And then she was gone, swept like sand into the night.
Veda didn’t know why she’d waited; she’d felt both instincts in nearly equal measure before the urge to heal took precedence. She was too weak to say so.
Galen’s head broke through the mist of Wanath’s spirit. He leaned over her. “Veda,” he said, “something’s happened.”
The darkness above them was dissolving, the trees shrinking away. She could see sky, flames ripping through it. “I didn’t save Wa.”
“I know,” he said. “Someone’s beaten the level. I think they took the orc stronghold.”
She pressed her eyes shut. No, no no. “No,” she said. But she knew when he’d said it that Galen was right: her health held steady at 15/55, the nausea and lethargy slipping away. Wanath was gone, the curse lifted. But Wa was gone, too.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You did good.”
“We didn’t help them,” she said, the tears running out of her eyes.
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t do good,” he said. His face was slipping away, the angles of it disappearing into the lit sky. They were losing form, their bodies diffusing into the air. That was her last memory of the world: the tall trees, long stretch of flames, the gnawing in her that was a hurt beyond pain.
It was loss.
Twelve
Her eyes opened to blackness. Veda was herself and not. She sensed she was still in the game, but in this place she was disembodied, just a brain. And that brain’s synapses fired hard, wild. If she had lungs to hyperventilate, she would have. As it was, the whole of that world poured through her head: the field and the orc who axed her; Amy in the trees, dying in the leaves; Eli and her math; Galen on one knee; Lei and his bucket of paint; Wanath the terrible; Wa and her gift.
All of it was gone.
Had she done it right? She’d tried to save Wanath, but she was slowed by her anger. Veda had nearly delivered a lightning bolt, and the decision had occurred on a knife’s edge. She’d never thought of herself as angry—not once. And that, of all things, was the reason they were gone. And though she wasn’t permitted to close her eyes, Wa’s wrinkled, hopeful face sat in her mind like a talisman. Did the old elf really exist now only in Veda’s memory?
Send me back, she tried to say, but speaking wasn’t an option in this place. There was only the character sheet.
Veda’s own image appeared before her: tall and delicate, frizzy hair past her shoulders. Her mouth was set, and she stared ahead as she spun slow, slow in her simple cloth from the compass world. She held Wa’s Gift in her hand. That was her? Looking at herself was how most people experienced hearing their own voices, but this person—she wasn’t hunched, her eyes weren’t closed or downcast. She looked like a miraculous version of herself, the kind of Veda that she might have dreamt existed.
“Congratulations, Veda Powell,” Sicora’s voice said, comforting and easy. It pressed in on her from all directions. “You’ve survived the first level. Class chosen.”
Above her model’s head, the letters appeared one by one, dropping to place: HEALER. At once, her sheet unspooled next to the tiny version of her.
NAME: Veda Powell
CLASS: Healer
LEVEL: 2
HEALTH: 65/65
MANA: 85/85
AC: 4
So there it was. She understood immediately what had happened: she had helped Amy, chosen to heal Wanath. In doing so, she’d revealed her choice. She had picked her path, and now she would be on it
until the end, for better or worse.
Beneath her vitals, six categories unspooled with blinking zeroes next to them and +30 below.
STRENGTH: 5
STAMINA: 6
DEXTERITY: 6
INTELLIGENCE: 5
WISDOM: 5 (+5 from Wa’s Gift)
CHARISMA: 5
+30 points available
She understood now that this might be a shifting world, but her stats remained consistent through the levels. She’d gained +10 to her base health and mana on leveling. And thanks to all that running and climbing in the first world, she had received +1 to stamina and dexterity.
She spent some time considering how to allot her points. She was a healer, and she had 10 wisdom, which she understood had increased her mana to 85. Galen had said that wisdom was for healer types. She assigned 15 points to wisdom and gave herself 10 stamina—the longer she could stay alive, the more she could help. She also allotted herself 5 points of charisma, something she’d always desired in life and which she felt sure—after that first world—would serve her handily.
Veda let the choice sit for a moment, and then she finalized. The numbers depressed, locking in, and her title flashed. Her character sheet updated:
NAME: Veda Powell
CLASS: Healer
LEVEL: 2
HEALTH: 115/115
MANA: 160/160
AC: 11
STRENGTH: 5
STAMINA: 16
DEXTERITY: 6
INTELLIGENCE: 5
WISDOM: 20 (+5 from Wa’s Gift)
CHARISMA: 10
115 health. She wouldn’t be swinging her staff very hard, and she wouldn’t be dodging very fast. But she certainly could take the hits. If Veda could have smiled in this strange half-space, she would have; in real life she was a leaf. Here she would eventually become unputdownable.
She had also gained a spell.
SPELL: Minor Heal
COST: 16 mana (scales with level)
COOLDOWN: 1 second
DESCRIPTION: Restore between 18-20 health (scales with level). May be cast on yourself or another character.
So the spell cost 10% of her max; she had to be conservative with using it. And she had to learn how to regenerate any she’d already used.
The bottom of her sheet contained a final section:
SKILLS:
Archery, Lvl. 1
Climbing, Lvl. 1
Staves, Lvl. 1
Perception, Lvl. 5
EQUIPMENT:
Leather Chestpiece (Common)
Leather Pants (Common)
Leather Boots (Common)
Leather Strap (Common)
Wa’s Gift (Rare)
Recurve Bow (Common) Quiver (Common)
ITEMS:
Hypericum Moss
So her skills and items came with her, too. Not only that, but her plain cloth and leather strap, which originally offered 1 AC, had naturally upgraded, more than doubling her AC from 4 to 11. She understood now that everything she did—every choice she made, every item she picked up—was bound to her, whatever the next world brought.
And as she thought it, Veda’s character sheet began fading to black.
“Selection finalized. Exiting the user interface in 10 seconds,” Sicora said, counting down the numbers. The rotating model of herself faded into shadow, and Veda kept her eyes on the high chin, the lit green irises for as long as she could.
That was her. That was her. That was her.
She was back behind her own flawed eyes. The circulated air had dried her throat and lungs. Her mouth felt packed with chalk. Veda lay impassive; she was good at impassive, at the quiet, necessary waiting that came with a world that favored vision and people who could see.
When Anya unsealed the capsule and pulled the retainer from her mouth, Veda spoke first. “I’m okay,” she assured her.
There was a pause before Anya lifted the helmet from Veda’s face. “Good,” she said. She smelled like onions, which probably made it early afternoon. All that time in the game, and the sun hadn’t even gone down in the real world.
Anya pulled the sensors off her hands and feet quick and easy. But when it came to the port at Veda’s neck, a pure band of white electricity poured through her head, and she gritted her teeth, pressed air between them. It was a dizzying shock, and for a moment she forgot where she was and why.
“Veda,” Anya said, setting both hands on her shoulders. She realized she had been struggling. “Be calm. Does the removal of the visual plug cause pain?”
Veda blinked as though she could see. The pain might have been from the overstimulation that she’d been warned about in her interview. If she were truthful, they would investigate her. They might find her unfit for testing. She had to be careful in the next level, keep calm.
“No,” she whispered, “I was in there so long I forgot where I was.”
“I see. It can be jarring the first few times,” she said, and she helped Veda swing her legs from the capsule and rise to a seat. “Drink.”
Veda held out her half-cupped hand by instinct, received a paper cup. The apple juice tasted sweeter than anything she’d drunk as a service admin.
She listened, but no other sounds came besides Anya setting things on the metal table. “Where are the others?”
“The dorm. You took longer coming out, and making your character selections.”
Anya set something in Veda’s hand, and for a moment, Veda didn’t recognize the feel of her aural aids. She’d been that fully immersed.
Five minutes later she came into the hall, where she sensed someone waited. Veda stopped, lifting her face.
“Hey, healer.” It was Galen, his voice a little tight. “Let’s talk.”
She folded her arms over, gripping her elbows. Veda felt almost unsure around this person, the real Galen, somehow different than the guardian she’d spent days with. A stranger. “About Prairie,” she said.
His breathing hitched. Galen came to her, stood close enough she could smell him: musk and pine. “If you want to last here, don’t say that name.”
“I was given—”
“Stop,” he said. “Not here.”
“Where?” she said.
“Nowhere.” He paused, sucked air between his teeth. His voice was hardly audible. “I haven’t earned this, but I need a promise.”
She waited, silent.
“Don’t trust anyone but me and Amy. Not the testers, not the staff, not even Sicora.”
“Not Eli?”
“Just us.” He squeezed her shoulder. “You would have died twice in that first world without us. But we need you alive, too.”
Galen was right: she would have died and already be seated on the hyperloop back to Columbia by now. But why did they need Veda? It must have to do with Prairie; they were the only two aligned with her that summer. The only two that cared.
The truth was, she already trusted Galen Cole. Not just because Prairie had trusted him, but because she had seen something of him in the compass world. His spine. His solidity. Veda just trusted him. “Okay,” she said.
“Okay?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“I thought you’d be…”
“Difficult?”
“Maybe.”
She smiled faintly. “We’re not all the same, Galen. I’m only 98% efficient.” She positioned herself against the wall. “Do you know what happened to Eli and Amy?”
His leaned next to her. “They made it. A lot didn’t.”
“How many?”
“Fifteen are left.”
Veda lifted her face, her eyes opening to stare at him. She’d forgotten again that she couldn’t see. “Nine testers out after the first world?”
“No one’s ever made it past world four, Veda. If I’m being honest, I think they made it impossible.”
“Then why did you enter?”
Footsteps. Veda turned her head, listening. They were light, quick, female. And then they were ru
nning, and at once Veda had another human pressed to her, slender arms wrapped around her chest. “You’re a healer,” Eli said, “I knew you would be.”
She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had hugged her. Veda lifted her hands, set them on Eli’s back; she was as slender and petite as in the game. Not even Eli, Galen had said. “How do you know?” Veda asked.
“There’s a readout on all the telescreens. I’m a guardian, of course,” Galen said.
“And I’m a mage,” Eli said. “They gave me a wicked spell after all that orc-crushing.”
“Eli…” Galen said.
“What?” Eli said. “I heard that tone.”
“Where’s Amy?” Veda asked, shaking her head almost imperceptibly; she didn’t want to talk about Wa yet.
“Last I saw she was salting her french fries with tears because she didn’t get the killing blow on the boss,” Eli said.
“Orc boss?” Galen said.
“Yeah, this huge uggo called Nath,”—Veda sensed Eli moving, and she guessed her arms had gone out for effect—“with this staff that cast area-of-effect lightning spells. It took all of us to bring it down.”
Veda squeezed her eyes shut. There it was. She could see the old face dropping to the stone, the body separating into a million motes of green powder. “And who brought her down?”
“Wilt Waters,” Galen said. She could nearly hear his teeth grinding. Veda couldn’t place the name at first, and then it came to her: “peanuts are peanuts.” Sarai, Wilt, and the third unknown in the trees.
“He got a bow shot in right at the end,” Eli said. “And for that, 100 Pyro Points to spend on gear, weapons, stats—or just hoard up. No justice.”
“Oh, there’s justice,” Galen said. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“So when do we like, powwow?” Eli asked.
Veda and Galen were silent.
