by S. R. Witt
She leaned away from me, and I shot her a saucy wink. “Promises, promises.”
Her forked tongue darted out and flickered over the tip of my nose. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The lizard woman slipped back to the edge of the table, putting distance between us just as the priestess opened the door.
The Hoaldite acknowledged the archer with a quick tilt of her head. “You may go. Leave whatever you found on the pile over there.”
The archer pretended we hadn’t spent the past few minutes interrogating one another. She stacked the lacquered boxes on the top of the remaining pile and left the room.
The priestess waited for the door to close, then slammed her palms onto the tabletop and shoved her face close to mine. “Why was the door to this room locked?”
Was this a trick question? “Because you locked me in here?”
My witty rejoinder was a mistake.
Saryle smiled at my words and then pointed one red-painted nail at the open door. “But Mercy had to come in here to drop off those boxes, didn’t she?”
The urge to babble another lie made it hard to think. I bit my tongue and took a moment to compose my thoughts. I couldn’t afford to arouse Saryle’s suspicions any further, not if I wanted to get out of here in one piece. If she got her hackles up and had one of the Templars pat me down, even those idiots would be able to find the Burning Codex and the book of maps I’d stolen and tucked inside my cloak’s hidden pocket.
Then, things would get gruesome.
“I was busy doing the work you assigned me. I didn’t realize paying attention to what your other lackeys did when they came and went was in my job description.”
I said I’d taken the time to consider my words, not that I’d tempered them. Being a smartass is genetic, and there was no way to filter it without sounding fake.
Her smirk soured into a frown. “I’ll have a word with her, then.”
The words slipped out before I could catch them. “What the hell do you think I would do? I haven’t done anything to give you people the idea that I’m up to no good. You sent your goons for me, I showed up, I did the work you asked. There’s no blood on my hands.”
That last part was a lie, but there was no point in letting on that I was, in fact, a murderer. Lyr’s death still hung heavy on my conscience, but it wasn’t like I’d had a choice. We were friends, at least until she found out what I was and decided to score some easy money by turning me into the guard. Killing her wasn’t what I wanted, but it was the only option she’d left me.
At least that’s what I told myself, so the guilt didn’t smash me flat.
The priestess watched me with a hawk’s scrutiny. After the stunt she pulled in controlling me, I didn’t know what else she was capable of doing. Maybe she was prying through my thoughts right that second, picking out evidence of my guilt to use against me—
Enough of that bullshit. She was just messing with me.
We waited in silence for several seconds, before the priestess decided to tally my accomplishments. She tapped each box in turn, then rested her palms on top of the stack. “You did as you were asked.”
I sketched an exaggerated salute before my mouth could run away with me again.
She pointed at the slender boxes the archer had left behind and asked, “What about these?”
I shrugged. “No idea. She just dropped them off. I haven’t even examined them yet.”
More moments of uncomfortable eye contact passed between us. She pinned me in place with those cold eyes like an owl staring down a mouse scurrying across an open field. She was fishing for something, some reaction from me, but I refused to play her game. She could suspect all she wanted, but I wouldn’t give her any ammunition she could fire back at me.
Finally, she broke the silence. “Get out. Don’t touch anything on your way, don’t look at anything. Walk out the door, take the first aisle to the front doors, and leave. I’ll send for you when we want your skills again.”
A part of me wondered if the Templars could reach us before I stuck a knife in her ribs. The table was between us, but if I could distract her for a second, just a second, I could close that gap and silence her before she could make me her puppet.
And if I’d remembered to take my stilettos out of my damned backpack, maybe I’d have taken the shot.
Instead, I kept my mouth shut and squeezed past her and out of the little room. The Templars smirked at me as I left the library with my tail between my legs, but their nasty faces didn’t bother me. I had what I’d come for, and they didn’t have a clue how much trouble I was going to cause them.
Exhaustion crept up behind me with a big mallet and smacked me in the back of the head as soon as I left the library. Reading the Burning Codex and reviewing the book of maps was at the top of my list of important things to do, but I could barely keep my eyes open.
But, just because I didn’t have time to read everything in-Game, didn’t mean I couldn’t take a look at it at my leisure later.
After checking my trail to make sure none of the Templars were following me, I curled up in the shadows of a deserted alley and flicked open the in-Game user interface.
The developers had given us a bunch of ways to manipulate our inventory and even more ways to interact with the game when we weren’t directly connected to Invernoth. I found the icon that represented the Burning Codex and tapped it with my fingertip. A menu offered me a variety of options, and I selected “email attachment.”
The system should have responded by notifying me the text of the document had been shipped to my email address. Instead, a red warning box flashed up.
This is a Quest Item. Downloading this document will be considered the same as reading it, which will trigger the quest.
Do you wish to continue?
Hmm. That was odd. I still didn’t know that much about the quest system, which is the only explanation I’ve got for the mistake I made. Instead of waiting to read up on how quests worked, exactly, so I would understand the noose I was sticking my neck into, I shrugged and clicked the Yes option.
DOMINION QUEST INITIATED
I should’ve stopped and taken a better look at what I’d done right that second. Instead, I let my weariness get the best of me and staggered down the road. I could’ve logged off in the alley, but that wasn’t entirely safe. If another character found me before I was fully logged out of the Game, they could rob me blind. No sense in risking that, when I could walk down to the tavern and log out in safety.
The place was full of adventurers when I stumbled through its doors, but none of them gave me a second glance. Adventuring parties were forming all around me, other players putting their teams together to conquer quests, explore ancient ruins, or murder monsters for their treasure.
A stab of envy pricked my heart. These people were having fun. They weren’t worried about how to pay their bills. They weren’t concerned about whether or not they’d have a positive return on their connection time investments.
And they certainly weren’t afraid of being uncovered as thieves.
I found a quiet booth in the corner, propped my heels up on the table in front of me, leaned back in my chair, and logged out of the game.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Karl was asleep in his bed when I popped out of Invernoth. His heavy snoring greeted me from the other side of the thin wall between our rooms, and I let out a sigh of relief. He wouldn’t keep me up for another hour squeezing the details of what I’d been up to in Dragon Web Online since we’d parted ways.
The first rays of dawn were crawling through the cracked blinds over my bedroom window, which told me I’d been in-Game a lot longer than I intended.
Before sleep could pull me down into its velvet depths, I peeled the CIN from around my neck and swabbed its slick acrylic surface with an alcohol wipe. I scrubbed the residue of sweat and grime from the patch of my throat the CIN had occupied to keep from picking up a nasty rash and flopped back on my bed.
My bed’s vibrating alarm shook me awake far too soon. Three hours wasn’t enough, but it would have to do for now. The Burning Codex was waiting for me, and I wanted a chance to read it before Karl started peppering me with questions about what I was doing in-Game.
“Food,” I grumbled and, like a zombie, staggered out of my room in search of something to shovel into my belly.
The money I’d earned from my first big heist kept the wolves from the door, but things were still tight. My mother’s medical expenses were covered, and we had enough left over to supplement her Social Security for rent, but we were spread thin. Electricity wasn’t getting cheaper like we were promised when we let the solar cartel’s tax fossils fuels into oblivion, and that expense ate into our meager funds. Game time soaked up most of the rest, which left us just enough cash to afford generic cereal, bricks of neon yellow processed cheese food, stale bread, and gritty peanut butter. We were too poor to even afford jelly.
I smeared peanut butter across a pair of bread slices and mushed a slab of fake cheese between them. It didn’t taste any better than it sounds, and I had to dig globs of it from behind my molars when I finished eating, but at least I wasn’t starving. Protein, grain, and whatever the cheese was had to be enough to get me through the day.
Logging back into Dragon Web Online was out of the question. It was a huge waste of money to sit in the game reading a book I could just as easily go through offline, and I didn’t want to have to explain to Karl what I was doing logged in if I wasn’t trying to earn money with him.
There was also the matter of Karl’s attempt to become a Hoaldite paladin. He was my brother, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t smack me around if he found out I was actively screwing up his plans to get on the church's good side.
I decided to keep a low profile until I had a better idea what was going on. Checking my email on my phone wouldn’t arouse my brother’s suspicions. It was one of the little secrets I felt bad about keeping from him, but it served him right. He’d never pass up an opportunity to tell me how much better he was at games than me, so I hoarded whatever edges I could find.
A dull chime from my mother’s room summoned me to her bedside before I could dig into the book. The machines didn’t need much attention, but there were still things they couldn’t do for her.
She forced a pained smile when I entered the room. She looked more tired than I felt, which told me she hadn’t slept at all.
“Good morning,” I said and forced a smile of my own. Mom never wanted us to feel sorry for her. She wanted us to go on with our lives even as hers came to an end.
I wasn’t ready for that. I’m still not.
Talking was hard for her some days, so she hooked a finger in my direction and waited for me to take it. Her grip was so weak I only knew she’d squeezed my hand because I could see the tendons tensing in her wrist. Her hand was so cold, I couldn’t stand it. I closed my fingers around hers and willed warmth back into her frail body.
It didn’t work.
The alarm bonged again, and I checked the glowing panel next to the head of her bed. Green bars showed her respiration, heartbeat, and blood pressure was all within safe parameters. Nothing you’d call healthy, but stable and as good as they were going to get. The disease took its toll, but we were holding it at bay. Everything we did was to keep death away from my mother’s door.
Everything.
I flicked through the menus searching for the cause of the alarm and found it on the third page. “I need to move you, mom.”
She twitched her head from side to side, but I ignored her feeble protest. Moving my mother around hurt her, but it was for her own good. If she stayed still for too long, she’d wind up with bedsores, and those would get infected, and that would start a downward spiral that ended in a terrible way.
I scooped her into my arms and marveled at how little she weighed. It was like holding a bundle of sticks wrapped in tissue paper. The only thing keeping my tears locked up behind my eyelids was how much she hated to see us cry. I adjusted her position and eased her back into bed, then pulled the covers up over her shoulders. The monitor gave a brief bleep-bloop noise, but all the lights stayed green. Perfect. “There, that’s better.”
She gave my arm a clumsy pat and turned her face away to hide her tears of pain. She knew this was for her own good, but she couldn’t fight the agony it caused. It killed me to know I caused that hurt, even if I was only trying to help.
That’s why Karl stopped helping my mom, I think. She’d always been his biggest supporter, and he didn’t know what to do once she needed him to support her.
The only good chair in the house was next to my mother’s bed. If we had to spend a lot of time in here, at least we’d be comfortable. I eased into it and popped my phone to life, looking through my email until I found the Burning Codex message.
It didn’t take me long to realize things were about to go south in a big hurry if monsters got their hands on the Burning Throne. Whoever claimed the Throne gained control of Frosthold through something called the Dominion. It was a game system that allowed players or NPCs to make adjustments to the town and its surroundings.
The more I read, the unhappier I got.
Everything I had was in Frosthold. The Society of Shadows, my character, and everything else was tied up in that town. If some asshole seized control of it, I was well and truly fucked.
The rules governing the Dominion system were dense and too complicated for me to wade through when I was so wiped out. I saw enough to know it was going to be a problem if I didn’t keep my enemies from taking the Dominion. That’d have to be enough knowledge for the moment.
There wasn’t time to catch another nap. I had to log back into the game and get the maps back to the Grandfather.
First, though, I needed to hydrate. All that time in-Game yesterday had dried me out like an old apple slice on the sidewalk.
I went into the kitchen for a drink. The sink banged and burbled when I turned the handles. Nothing happened for a long moment, then a sludgy brown squirt burst from the faucet and splattered the sink. A few seconds later the water finally started to flow. I let it swirl down the drain until it was as clear as it was going to get, then ducked my head beneath the sink and took a big gulp. The water tasted terrible, and there was some unidentifiable grit in it, but I didn’t care.
I gulped what felt like five gallons of water then waddled to the bathroom and emptied my bladder. I scraped my teeth with the toothbrush and the little bit of toothpaste I could afford. I was so tired I missed the toothbrush holder when I was finished. My toothbrush bounced off the sink and fell.
It tumbled toward the floor, and I reacted from pure reflex. My bare foot shot out and grabbed the toothbrush before it could hit the floor. The handle slipped between my toes, and my muscles squeezed on it before the head could touch my foot. I flicked my toes and the toothbrush arced up into the air and fell into its holder above the sink.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled. I stared down at my foot, which was still hovering a few inches off the floor. I had no idea how I’d just done that.
Something was changing. I didn’t know how, but I was getting faster, more coordinated.
That warning about not spending too much time in the game? I probably should’ve taken that more seriously.
Leaving my worry behind, I returned to my bedroom, snatched my CIN out of its case, and threw myself onto the bed. There wasn’t time to concern myself with whatever was happening outside of the game because I had to find the Burning Throne and make sure it was safe.
Frosthold was my town. I wasn’t about to let a pack of mutant freaks take that way.
The CIN was almost around my neck when the lights in my room flashed red, and a dull, whooping siren sounded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I threw my CIN back into its case and rushed out of my room with my guts tied into knots.
Karl burst out of his room without looking and ran right in
to me. We tangled together, banging off one wall, then the other before he steadied me. “It’s mom.” He said, eyes wide and voice tight with panic. “Something’s wrong.”
We helped each other into my mother’s bedroom, Karl still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, me still bone tired and trying to get my head on straight. Exhaustion sent my thoughts racing in every direction at the same time. I felt like I was losing my mind.
Shaking Karl off, I staggered to the head of my mother’s bed. The tablet was a confusing jumble of flashing red icons and warning stripes. I didn’t have the training to interpret what all of them meant, but none of them were good. “We have to get her to the hospital.”
Karl paced the floor on the other side of my mother’s bed. He chewed at a hangnail and did his best not to meet my eyes. “We can’t afford an ambulance.”
There was no disputing the cold, hard truth of his words. If we could even get an ambulance to respond to a call from our apartment building, which was unlikely at the best of times, the cost would be astronomical. We had some money socked away, but not enough to cover that.
“See if you can get Smokey’s car. Your license still good?”
Karl had gotten his driver’s license years before, an act of vanity more than practicality. Even in his best days as a professional gamer, he couldn’t have afforded a car, or even a motorcycle, of his own. Still, it was handy to have a license for emergencies.
Like this one.
My brother raced out of the apartment. Smokey was an old man who lived at the end of our hall, and he had an ancient sedan parked in our building’s mostly-empty garage. The thing was his pride and joy, and though he kept it in tip-top shape, I don’t think he drove it more than a hundred miles a year. The number of toll roads and access restrictions made it tough for poor folks like us to even own a car, much less go anywhere in this godforsaken city.
