by J. R. Ford
I slept poorly. As day broke, my wardrobe stared me down. I had my last white button-down, a pair of sienna trousers, and two cloaks to choose from. I chose tattered green over boring brown. At least I’d die looking like myself. I retrieved the last few days’ worth of birth control and tried to chew my stress away.
Ana was sitting by the riverbank. Sunlight slipped through pale needles. The water was cool on our feet. “Just like old times,” she said. “Down to the two of us.”
“Maybe we should strip. It’s tradition.”
She chuckled. “What if I told Heather you were making jokes like that?”
“Uh. Please don’t.” Fish tickled our toes.
“It’s not quite like last time. I still have my feet under me.” She said it as if nothing in the world could touch her, so long as she wasn’t half slug. Maybe it couldn’t.
Her strength wasn’t infectious. As soon as we’d touched ground, sprouts of doubt had wriggled from the dirt to tug at my boots.
She punched my arm. “Don’t look so glum just because you don’t get to see me in my underwear.”
“That isn’t it.” Though it would’ve helped. Just because I was dating Heather didn’t mean Ana wasn’t just about the second-hottest woman I’d ever met.
“Chin up. All of us are still alive.”
I shook my head. “I failed her. When the dragon attacked, she told me to nullify her. I should’ve listened.”
Ana barked a laugh. “You should’ve listened? I should’ve listened! She thought going west was a bad idea in the first place, and now half our party’s been captured. I’m not sure how I’ll get us out of this one, but it isn’t going to be with self-pity.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Why? Because it’s yours? How noble of you.”
“You know it’s true.”
“I was the one who insisted we go this way.”
“So did Farrukh. Is it his fault too?”
“No. I’m supposed to be our leader. It’s my job to take us in the right direction, regardless of what Farrukh thinks.”
“And regardless of what Heather thought?”
Ana sighed. “I tried. I listened to her, but I still believed our plan was better. Maybe I just wanted our plan to be better, so I wouldn’t get the rebels’ blood on my hands, too.”
“After Absame killed Ha-Jun, you felt guilty anyway.”
“Every time I make a decision, I feel like I’m rolling dice on the lives of everyone affected by it. I always tried to choose the best odds for us, even if it meant reducing those of our friends. In a way, his blood is on my hands.”
“You don’t owe anyone anything. You don’t even owe me anything, really. I helped you and Heather because I wanted attention from a couple cute girls.” And a death to make my family proud, I didn’t add. “I didn’t expect you to dedicate yourself to me in return.”
“I told you, I’m a woman of my word. As long as I have my promises, every decision I make can be in pursuit of those goals.”
“Sounds like a way to try to wash the blood from your hands.”
She sighed. “I don’t think it works.”
“That’s because it’s not on your hands in the first place. Every decision you make, you make for yourself, and yourself alone. You aren’t responsible for anyone else.”
“You said when Heather or I make a decision, we’re making it for all of us!”
“That’s because I’ve decided to stick with you. I trust that following you will give me the best odds I can get.”
She snorted. “Thanks. I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all I expect from you.” Hopefully that would get her to shut up.
“But you did your best, too.”
“I didn’t. I didn’t even try. If I’d listened to her like I kept telling you to listen to us, we wouldn’t have fallen off the mountain. She wouldn’t have come after me… Why? This is the second time she’s sacrificed herself for me. She should’ve listened to Farrukh. I’m not worth it.” The words spilled out as though from a half-empty glass tilted.
“You are to her.”
Did she think that would be reassuring? “She’s wrong.”
“Don’t you trust her?”
There was no fault to be found in her, except her misplaced judgment. “I admire her. Even when she was just a classless newbie, she was determined. And finding the Fireheart has only made her more so. She didn’t let Edwin keep her down.”
“Would you believe me if I told you she says the same about you?”
“No.”
“Well, she does.”
“Then she’s a fool.” The words felt foreign, like they weren’t mine, but of course they were.
Ana punched me again, less playfully this time. “Don’t disparage my best friend. You’re the fool.”
“Never said I wasn’t.” Not that I hadn’t deserved that punch, and worse. I chose my words carefully. “I’m weak. I’m good at killing, sure, but I can’t keep up with the three of you. I feel like I can’t move, and she can fly, but she’s so kind she stays with me anyway. But while she’s with me, she isn’t flying. I hold her back. Is it any wonder I can’t trust her when, despite everything, she still holds on to me?”
“You always make it wherever we’re going.”
“I have to drag myself every step of the way.”
“And you still can’t see why she thinks you’re strong?”
“If I were strong, it wouldn’t hurt.”
Ana gave me a hard look. “Whatever. What was it Farrukh said? ‘Wanting something to be true doesn’t make it so’, or something pretentious like that.”
“I don’t want to be weak!” I said. “I want to be strong. I want to be like her, and you, and Farrukh.”
“You know what I think? I think you’d rather wallow in self-pity. If you think you’re weak, you don’t have any responsibility. Any time you fail, you can shrug and say, ‘I’m weak.’ It’s an excuse so you don’t have to better yourself, an excuse to not even try in the first place.”
“How can I be strong?” I asked. The river’s sparkle had gone blurry.
“I can’t do this for you, Pav.”
I wanted to curl into a ball and cry. Her words hadn’t given me strength. Like everything else she did, they only reminded me that I wasn’t her.
But she was right in one regard. Pity wouldn’t save Heather. Ana looked forward magnanimously while I wiped my eyes.
We watched the forest sunrise for a couple minutes. The river babbled. Trees chirped the morning’s chorus.
Once I could trust my voice not to crack, I asked, “Why not drop directly into Bluehearth?”
“Partly, I wanted to say goodbye. This place has been our home the past few weeks. Probably the best weeks of my life.”
She sounded a lot like a certain dour Indian boy. Then again, I would’ve said the same, and likely Heather would too.
“It’s not the same without them,” she continued. “With all of us here, it was our home. Without us, it’s just a house.”
I put my arm around her. She sounded like she needed it, though not as badly as I did. “Home is wherever we are, as long as we’re together. And we’ll get her back.”
“See? This time I didn’t have to strip for you to get your resolve back.”
“Yeah, yeah. Would’ve been a lot easier if you had.”
“You rogue. I’m telling Heather.”
“It’s a joke. You know I never mean what I say.”
“Even your promises?”
“Especially them.”
Ana frowned. “We’ve spent the last month chasing the Sanguine Knucklebones on a promise I made you.”
“That was your promise, not mine. Much more valuable.”
Ana laughed. “Is there anything you stand for?”
The question caught me off guard. I don’t lend much credence to words, and even actions can deceive. I’d proven time and again I wasn’t loyal, or honest, or even concerne
d with doing the right thing. The only thing I was good at was killing, and that was only because Ana had taught me. Putting stock in myself seemed like a financial disaster.
I licked the bittersweet aftertaste clinging to my teeth and considered “Getting laid,” but figured it would be in poor taste. Lacking that, I tried lying, but the words turned sour on my tongue, and I swallowed them back down.
How did I answer her, Ana, who was prepared to fight half the player base to restore my hand, and had done just that for Heather?
But I’d fought beside her. “I care about you three.”
She smiled. “You mean that?”
I thought so, at least on a surface level, and as long as I didn’t go diving I could pretend that was the entire iceberg. But how could they trust me when I couldn’t trust myself?
When all else fails, deflect. “Farrukh likes you, you know.”
She snorted. “Yeah, I know. You two aren’t half as quiet as you think you are.” Then, seeing my face flush, she added sheepishly, “Plus, Heather told me.”
“And you kept him in purgatory?” I asked.
“I needed to sort my own feelings out,” Ana said. Then, seeing my incredulity, she raised placating hands. “It’s true! I don’t, in fact, always immediately know the right thing to do.”
“Well?” I asked.
“Well, it would help if he weren’t so rude all the time! Hell, if he asked me out, I’d probably say yes.”
“Only probably?”
“Don’t leave that out,” she said. “I want him to have some fear in him. Might make him treat me with a little respect.”
I laughed, the first genuine laugh I’d had in too long. “You conniving…!”
She looked away, grinning.
“What about Jeremiah?” I asked.
“What about him? I’m used to having guys chase after me. It comes with talent and humility. You should know.”
“Yeah, okay,” I chuckled. My mood sobered quickly. “I’ll get Farrukh to ask you, if we ever see him again.”
“I didn’t tell you to bring us here just so I could say goodbye to some dusty old cabin,” she said sadly. “He told Pradeep about the trollbats, and there’s only one nest left in this entire forest.”
“Wait, we’re saving Farrukh first?”
“He’s a fool, but he’s good with that bow.”
“Heather is your best friend! You just said so!”
“And Farrukh is yours. Why the fuss?”
“Heather can melt city walls!” And, sorry Farrukh, but she was my girlfriend and had gotten captured as a result of my own incompetence. Rescuing her was my only redemption.
“If you’ll follow me,” and she damn well knew I would, “then know I’m playing to win. Pradeep will be taking Heather to Bluehearth personally, and we’ll need all our strength to face him. That starts with Farrukh. Let’s go.” She smirked and cracked her knuckles. “It’s time for us to play the dungeon masters.”
19
An object at rest stays at rest. I sank into the earth’s embrace.
Ana interrupted my reverie with a nudge. She was sitting on her knees, the Lightning Blade across her lap. “No napping.”
I groaned, “They might not be here for hours.”
“They seem pretty organized. Bet sooner, rather than later.”
“Think they’ll bring Farrukh?”
“If not, he’ll be nearby. The bats are worthless without his cantrip.”
“I guess.”
We sat in the shadow of the last bat-infested tower. It was blocky and had the grainy texture of water in a crate — most likely transmuted by Alchemists during the Beta. Some of the resident trollbats would likely be out hunting, the rest sleeping.
“If the orcs find us and are about to kill us, don’t wake me,” I said, pulling my hood over my eyes and shifting to look away from Ana.
She didn’t take the hint. “I need you sharp, Pav.”
She misinterpreted my silence as an invitation to continue. “Do you think what Pradeep said is true? That the orcs are just players with some filter on?”
If you can’t beat them. “They’re smarter than any other monsters we’ve seen.”
“Those fermids were pretty smart,” Ana said.
“They were ant-smart. They were big, but they acted like ants. These orcs have human-level intelligence. And they’re geared like players. That one in the Vale had a Lightning Blade like yours.”
“Maybe it was the developers’ way of giving us smarter enemies without having to code smarter AI,” Ana mused. “But it doesn’t matter. Whether or not they’re players, they’re the enemy. It’s us versus them.”
“We said that about Edwin’s apprentices, too. But look at Troy and Linsey.”
“I won’t feel bad about killing orcs. They attacked us first.”
“The ones that attacked us are dead,” I said. “And one ambush doesn’t give us a blank check on murder.” But Ana was right. It didn’t matter. I’d commit genocide in cold blood if it meant getting Heather back.
I wondered if that made me evil, but Ana wasn’t evil, and she was prepared to murder alongside me.
Murder was the wrong word. Kill. Killing was what one did to one’s enemies. It was a burden borne, a sacrifice on the shoulders of every soldier fighting for their homeland or beliefs or survival. A hungry predator killed. A paladin defending her home killed. Squelching regret is preferable to the alternative.
Perhaps I was no better than these orcs, these foreign players. But they were no better than I. And if it came to me or them, there was a choice I’d make every time.
If that made me evil, well, I was too tired to care. My ruminations did nothing for my morale.
Ana woke me around mid-afternoon. Indecipherable orcish and the clinking of armor emanated from the other side of the tower.
They paused, then we heard them coming around the sides. Our plan of trapping them inside with the bats went out the window, but there was another window, just above our heads. Ana scampered up the rope we’d laid earlier. I wrapped it around my gauntlet and kicked with my legs while she hauled me up.
A trio of chainmailed orcs rounded the corner and barked something, dropping their swords and going for bows. Arrows screeched on stone as I wriggled through the window.
It was dim — that was the only window. A staircase flanked both sides of the landing we’d entered onto, descending on the left, ascending on the right. No bats, only racks of rusted weapons. I made for the javelins.
We’d scouted this room when we tied the rope, and our reconnaissance had netted us 100 points in the form of a “Javelin of Impaling” with dim red circuitry inscribed on the shaft. Time to try it out.
The orcs outside the window were shouting something. I adopted the T-pose Farrukh had shown me, and the circuitry flared red. Strength surged through my arm as I hurled the javelin.
It whipped toward the orc fast as an arrow. He tumbled backwards, impaled through his chainmail.
Plus 50, whew. Shame the javelin was down there now. Two angry orcs raised bows in retaliation, but I ducked away.
The door downstairs banged open. The keen-eared trollbats upstairs would be rising. But boots pounding up the staircase gave us precious few options.
Ana perched to the side of the stairwell. I hurried halfway to the next level, waiting where the staircase turned.
The orcs were cautious. Upon seeing me, instead of charging, the lead orcs stepped back and let friends with bows step forward. I hid behind the turn of the staircase, repeatedly nullifying my own momentum to full mana. I counted six in that group; if they had sent three along either side of the tower, that meant twelve in total, minus one.
They had no choice but to proceed. They would know Ana was here, but none of them had seen her. Anyway, she was like a house fire — knowing was far less than half the battle.
A trio of spears edged up the staircase, blocking their archers’ line of sight. When their heads breached the
line of the floor, I unleashed redirect mana.
A torrent of vibrant mana bowled the orcs over. Two strikes, two flashes, and two orcs were smoking in their armor. The third struggled to his feet and pressed Ana back. We bounded to the next level before the archers could react.
This floor was arranged similarly to the last, with a window on the landing and rows of beds down the room. Maybe we could’ve harassed them all the way up, whittling them down. Alas, this was a bat tower. Claws scraped on the floor above us.
I looked to Ana for guidance, turning my back on the window.
“Pav!” she cried. Bright sparks of pain flared through the impact of a massive furry weight driving me onto the floor. My breath left me. Wriggling didn’t free me of the claws in my back. There was a flash, and the beast jittered painfully. Ana shouted, and with another flash, the claws stopped convulsing. She ripped the severed feet from my cuirass, as the crimson-glowing bat tumbled out the window. Blood rushed hot down my back. I crawled away while Ana braced against the green tide.
“Up!” she said, beating a spear shaft away then taking another in the arm. She staggered but parried the follow-up and crashed her sword against the gauntleted hand of its wielder. The orc fell back, and we raced up the stairs.
Another trollbat was waiting. I dodged past snapping jaws and tried to get in close for dagger-work, but its wings beat a gale and sent me tumbling across the room. I crashed hard, the pain in my back making my vision spin. Ana landed metallically beside me. The wind and dizziness made it hard to get up.
“Window,” Ana said.
The orcs arrived, jabbing at the bat. It fled through the window, the buffet dying down. I saw it wheeling in the sky as the orcs fanned out.
We were in some sort of captain’s quarters. I’d hit a hefty chest, beside a desk, wardrobe, and bed. There were five orcs in our way, more pounding up after. Our odds weren’t getting any better.
Ana rushed the center one, drawing the ire of all. She drew up short of five spear thrusts, and I lunged for the leftmost orc.
When I’d had two hands, my technique of parrying with my dagger while simultaneously stabbing with my rapier had earned me more points than I could count. With one hand, the mechanics were different, but the principle was the same. When the orc swung his spear, it met a null circle at the same instant my dagger gave him a fatal kiss. Plus 50.
