Charlotte began to tear up, placing her left hand over her face, “I can still hear his voice echoing in my head. His last words to me... to us. I just can’t get them out of my head. I am a part of this team, and I can’t let it pull me downwards.”
Nick looked at her, “So you are that determined?”
“Yes.” Her answer cut right through her pain.
“Then rest tonight, go to your room and rest, tomorrow you should talk to Tuomas and Elana, I bet they could help you with your thoughts.” Nick told her, “They probably were in something similar when Tuomas thought he lost her.”
Charlotte glanced over at the training dummy, then back at Nick, “You’re right.”
“Good, now do you mind helping me back up the stairs? It was a pain coming down alone.”
Charlotte chuckled, wiping the tears from her face, “Yeah, yeah.”
She let him put his arm around her shoulder and they took to the stairs one step at a time. Nick was surprising light to her. She wasn’t sure if she was just much stronger than she thought or he was incredibly light.
They reached the top of the stairs and Nick left her there and wandered towards his room. Charlotte stared back down the stairs to contemplate going back down and practicing more. She looked up at one of the stone pillars and let out a sigh. She was hurting and she did not know what to do. Maybe Nick is right. I need to get some rest. If I don’t I won’t make it very far.
She made her way back to room and pulled off her clothing and set it on one of the dressers. She looked down at herself, the wolf’s bite marks had left a scar on her forearm. Fitting that this scar is physical not mental.
She laid down on the queen sized bed and let out halfhearted chuckle. She pulled one of the pillows from Scott’s side over to her and cuddled with it, allowing her to drift off to sleep.
16:
The morning sun rose and the servants began to scurry around the house doing their daily routine. Tuomas was staring out the main hall window looking out past the city wall: It all changes here, once Nick heals ups, I still don’t know we will be able to get out of here, we may need to recruit some of these beta testers from the public test… that is if we can level them fast enough. This is going to be tough, but we need to get it done. Why hasn’t...
“Tuomas?” A voice brought Tuomas back to reality.
He turned to see Elana and Charlotte standing behind him, “Yes?” he responded.
“She needs to talk.” Elana said.
“I think I know just the thing, come.” Tuomas said, turning and beginning to walk towards them, as if he had been waiting for Charlotte to come and find him. He walked past them and gestured for them to follow.
Elana and Charlotte followed him. He led them out to the garden where they first saw Elana.
“I know what you are thinking about, and how you are feeling Charlotte. It is hard isn’t it?” Tuomas asked her as he stopped near the tulip field.
“Yes.” She responded, her voice soft.
“I was this way when I thought I lost Elana, days of darkness came over my life. It was horrible, and don’t want to see anyone fall to where I was in those days. We will do what we can to make sure you stay strong.”
“I want to become stronger.” Charlotte spoke up.
“But first you must become weak.”
Charlotte looked at him with a strange look, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. You have to go through the pain of the loose before you can re-forge yourself from the embers. You have to come to terms with Scott’s death, and then start from there. Until you can do that you won’t be able to become whole again. Then we all five of us will build you back step by step, and you will overcome any doubt and you can harness your feelings for Scott as a strength to help us get out of here. To keep you focused on the bigger picture.”
Charlotte nodded.
“Being alone after losing a loved one is hard, Charlotte, we both can tell you that, but we will help you become strong from it.” Elana said.
Charlotte tried to smile at the words that she heard, “It’s going to be a long road isn’t it?”
Tuomas and Elana nodded, “Very much so.”
The day was spent on routine and night arrived as it always does, clouds began to form over the city, delivering a light down poor of cold rain. A light bedding of fog covered the city and the mansion grounds, giving it an eerie feel to those who were traversing the weather. Alissa and Donovan were down in the forge, they had been working closely together now, Alissa learning more about smithing, and Donovan about alchemy. They were thinking of starting a small business that they could see the equipment at. The rumor spread in the mansion pretty quickly. Tuomas asked them to hold on the idea, but not to trash it completely. He had asked for time.
Charlotte went down to the training grounds once more and expelled her anger and frustration upon another mannequin. She couldn’t sleep and her mind was going through the fight once more. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. She missed Scott. It had been a long time since she had to deal with this kind of pain, a pain she had hoped to avoid ever again. Tears filled her eyes as she swung out at the mannequin. Nothing: Her mind raced as she slashed at the mannequin: There was nothing I could do! No matter how many different ways I think about it!
She swung harder and harder, breaking down the mannequin, her eyes filled with tears. Why? Why do I have to go through this pain again!
The door creaked and Charlotte twisted toward the sound threw her sword at the door. Tuomas yanked it shut before he was impaled. He slowly cracked the door open and looked to see Charlotte on her knees, her hands over her face, her sobbing filled the room. Tuomas pushed the door all the way open, “Nick said you might be here.”
She looked up, tears were rolling down her face. Tuomas knew she was in no condition to keep fighting until this was resolved, “Can you come with me?” Tuomas asked: I need to get her distracted from Scott’s… passing.
“For what?” She asked looking at Tuomas, her face was red and her voice cracked.
“Come with me,” He said again turning towards the stairs, leaving the door wide open for her to follow.
Charlotte slowly got to her feet; she knew whatever he had planned she needed to be there no matter her state of mind. Chasing him up the stairs, Tuomas was standing at the top of them, waiting for her, “That was faster than I had anticipated.”
She ignored the comment and cleared her throat, “What do you need Tuomas?” She wiped her face clear of tears.
“I need you to find us a couple of beta testers, bring them here and we must see their skills,” Tuomas said casually, as if nothing had been happening.
“For what purpose?” Charlotte asked, her voice still holding a tearful sound.
“We are down two people and we will need help on the next fight,” he responded looking at her.
“You can’t be serious, already?”
“If we want to get out before Drake or anyone else catches us, yes,” Tuomas answered her, “and if he figures it out, we are dead. I was able to find a trusted worker out in the real world. She is helping keeping this on the down low, to the best of her ability.”
Charlotte took in his words, “I understand, but why me? What makes me special?”
“Don’t forget I had everyone backgrounds and accomplishments for all of you before we came in here even those who aren’t here. I read everyone’s, I know what you are capable of, miss silver tongue, I know what company you worked for before you applied to Virtual Industry, I know what mask you wear.”
Charlotte looked at him, “You know that I was a negotiator for Grashers, and that I deviated the largest economic upset in the gaming and virtual industry in our life?”
I have to play this right, she needs to think about her old life, where she didn’t care as much for others, I need her dark side.
“Yes, Cogs of War was quite interesting.” Tuomas turned back to the hallway at the t
op of the stairs, “To be fair I was hoping that company would’ve let you go sooner, I had my eye on you ever since that event, I was there you know, scoping out Grashers, I never expected such a young woman to be their first and last line of defense in debates of in game scenarios. You kept that company from a huge government lawsuit because you convinced everyone that the oversite was there, but one little ticket item was missed and that was what caused it all. That one little item is what caused the chain reaction issues keeping all ten thousand of them locked in there. How did you do it? And why did you change, you were so good at your job?”
Charlotte looked at him, bringing up the one part of her life she now hated the most, “I stopped because it hurt too many people. It ruined thousands of people’s lives, and yet I have been praised for doing what I did.” She gritted her teeth, “Almost ten thousand people died, and I just go the last survivor killed!” She was yelling at him at this point. Her sadness was flowing through her words.
“Not to step on the graves of the dead, but everyone you ‘saved’ was an employee at that company who was receiving death threats because of what was going on, the parents, spouses, and so on were not happy, as you know. You did save thousands of jobs and lives for that matter. You prevented that company from a lot more issues, though they still went bankrupt from losing so many other projects to the failure of Cogs of War. But that still doesn’t answer why you stopped.” Tuomas started walking down the hallway, Charlotte followed him, as much as she did not want to. She needed to, to set him straight, to get the real story out. Her story, the one that left her broken.
“There is a line one must draw and that day, life was more important. There was just too much for me, the report says they fired me, but truth is I left, I wanted out, I had them fake fire me so it looked like a coup, I wanted to be left alone, because then I was never left alone all the praise and the paparazzi taking over. I had to live under a false name for years, which I was surprised I received an email from Virtual Industry using my real name, Charlotte, I had been four long years since I used my real name.”
“Is that why you attached to Scott? To right your wrongs? To show that you are still human on the inside, not some monster who let ten thousand people fight for their lives in a virtual game? Did you even tell him that you are the reason that his justice never really came? Did you?” Tuomas rose his voice, he was getting into this fight more than he had planned to.
Charlotte started to cry again, “I fell in love with him because he was the first person in years to see me as a person again, not as a monster, not at the person who doomed him to fight his way out of that game. I never told him, I never had the chance. I couldn’t tell him… he would’ve hated me, for everything that I let happen to him for the sake of a job and a name that the burden that it now has caused no longer means anything.”
“Do you know about what happened in that game at all?” Tuomas probed.
“On the first full day here, Scott told us… Alissa, Don and I a little about it, that’s when I found out that he was one of the survivors. He had always been cautious, like he had been hurt in his past. I assumed it was bad relationships, or he was caught at the wrong place at the wrong time in an alleyway. It wasn’t until he had said that he was a survivor from Cogs… he didn’t go into too much detail. But I fell in love with him before that, before I knew about that. I just wish I knew more about it. What kind of horror he had seen. I always had my suspicions that he knew about me, he is… was smart enough to figure it out. I just don’t know if he would have prompted me about it.”
“True, but you know he truly didn’t know, he probably heard about it. Well he did, he was part of the group that pushed for more government oversite to public safety and pushed for certain restrictions on IVR gear. But I don’t think he really looked into it to where he searched for names. He spent a lot of time recovering from that incident as you know. That whole thing where he was one a handful to come out really took its toll on him, and the others that been in there too. Scott was one of the lucky of those too, most of them ended up committing suicide. They couldn’t handle the painful memories that they had.” Tuomas stopped walking and turned to look at her, “Did he mention who else he lost?”
She shook her head, “His brother.”
Charlotte clasped her mouth in shock, Tuomas continued, “Yeah, it was a tragedy that wasn't fully truthful when the reports came out. Out of what, ten thousand, four were left up until a few years ago… and now we lost him.”
Tuomas gave her a heartfelt look, “Do you regret not telling him about it then?” Tuomas asked.
“I don’t know... I am not sure... I never actually thought about telling him about that, at least not anytime soon... But thinking about what he had been through, he really was the strongest of us all wasn’t he? His mental fortitude.”
“Well I can’t fault you for making that decision, but he was for sure.” He paused, “I was so sure he was going to be here with us to the end.”
“Yeah, I thought he would have been here too that he would have been the one to be by our sides. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Tuomas countered as he started to calm himself down from the interrogation, “Staying focused on what comes next is important, I can trust you to get those beta testers? We only need two.”
“Yes, you can, and one other thing Tuomas.” Charlotte said, wiping her face.
“And that is?”
“Do you think we will ever get to go home again?” She asked him, sniffling.
Tuomas sighed, “I don’t know, I can’t say yes, and sure as hell won’t say no. There are just too many factors right know that I am trying to account for, the time factor of Nick healing without current medical procedures, now that we need to recruit beta testers to help us get out of here.”
Charlotte nodded at his words, “We will make it work. I will make it work.”
The two went their separate ways from the middle of the corridor that they were now in. Charlotte knew what she needed to do now, how she was going to grow as a person and put in even more effort in the group. She was going to be the woman she needed to be, not just for herself but for the others too, to survive they all needed to get stronger, and in more than just the physical sense.
17:
Charlotte started her hunt for beta testers as they entered the city, but it was hard for her to tell, they all looked similar to the rest of the world’s adventures. She spent a few days but every beta tester she came across was subpar to what Tuomas would want for them work with. There were points where she gave up for hours trying to find anyone. She took Alissa out for small jobs with Sir Belthor to clear out rodents clearing out small packs of wolves getting to comfortable by the farmlands outside the walls. Alissa used the time to test some of her poisons she had been developing. Most of them worked, but they had to stay ready for the handful that didn’t.
Tuomas had long days in his personal study, rarely coming out to join them he had to finish programing what would draw out the sorcerer and whatever deity that he followed. He was worried there was a person that he was still waiting on to get back to him, but nothing had come, it had been days. Tuomas started fearing the worst and that their time was starting to run dry. One of the days he left the study for a few hours and went to the apothecary hut to find something to help him calm down and get an overall health checkup.
Donovan was always found in the forge blacksmithing away. The armory was getting full, Donovan couldn’t seem to get rid of everything fast enough. He had remade Nick’s two axes and his own that they lost on the top of the mountain during that time. Donovan started pushing for opening up a store again, his coping mechanism was starting to crowd the only place they could store items.
Everyone except Tuomas visited Nick to see how he was doing, though the servants of the house were taking care of his every need due to his injuries. To everyone the days grew long, they knew they needed to train and move on the next major fight, but without the beta
testers that Charlotte was hunting for they were losing time.
Night crept upon them on a week after they had lost Scott, they were all in the dining hall when Tuomas entered and took a seat. The smell of the food had their mouths watering, the chefs never disappointed. Tonight was a platter of beef cuts, potatoes, broccoli. They had started with a soup this time, which was an unusual item for them to be served, a chicken noodle soup, in a small bowl. It wasn’t the best soup they had ever had, but the chef came out and asked them to try what he was calling an experiment. The food was served but before anyone had said a word, “There is something we all need to talk about.” Tuomas spoke as everyone picked up their utensils.
The others looked up at him, “And that is?” Alissa asked, having her spoon in the soup.
“I have an idea on how to catch beta testers coming through the city,” he answered.
“What would that be?” Charlotte asked.
“I am going to purchase a tavern here in the city, some of us are going to work it, along with some of the house servants.”
They all looked at him, “That isn’t actually a bad idea.” Nick said.
“I want you to forward the ownership Nick, since you won’t be able to join us in the next few battles.”
Nick nodded, “As much as I don’t want to, it will keep me my mind off things.”
“Does that mean I can sell some of the weapons and armor I have forged out of there too?” Donavan asked.
“Yes, Don, you will be able too, this is why I asked you to wait, I was collecting the money to purchase the building.” Tuomas shifted in his chair, “I will let you all figure out who helps Nick out while he is still crutch bound.”
Nick nodded, “Can I have a say at least?”
“Yes.” Tuomas said, “Anyone specific?”
“Not really, but I was thinking none of you here, you all need to train.”
Tuomas looked at him, “I will ask her.” Tuomas knew who he meant.
The Seeds of Evermore Page 15
