by J D Astra
Otto set his drink down. “That was like drinking a flagon of mead.”
“Why didn’t you warn me!” I looked at the bartender, then back to Otto. She hurried away, either irritated by my raised voice or to get someone to take care of me, I didn’t know which.
“I forget you’re not from here sometimes!” He shrugged.
“Well, that’s jus great.” I stood from the bar and stumbled back. Otto caught me by the robe and pulled me upright. “What the heck is goin’ on?” A pop-up appeared in my vision.
<<<>>>
Debuff Added
Poisoned: There is a significant amount of Camoa-moa poison in your system! Your movement speed, Dexterity, and Intelligence are reduced by 30%. Your Constitution is increased by 20%, and you are 50% more likely to critically strike with all melee abilities.
Psychotropic effects may apply!
<<<>>>
“It’s poison?” I shouted as I stumbled back to my seat. It was kinda cool poison, honestly. Dat crit strike, tho. Man, I wished I’d rolled something like a Rogue or a big old battle-axe carrying thing. I wanted to crit some stuff! And also the sounds were really nice.
“Do you dance, Otto? I really wanna melt like them.” I pointed out to the dance floor and noticed my hand was already moving to the music. “Whoa.”
A deep voice from nowhere asked, “Do you need assistance?”
“No, I jus need’ta get on the dance floor.” I pulled my arm in to get a better look at the fingers wiggling all on their own. Some creamy-skinned person grabbed my hand and I followed their wrist up to their face. They had a buttery face too, but it looked pretty upset.
“A face that creamy shouldn’t look so mad.” I felt like he needed to know, but when I said it, his eyebrows got closer together, like he was even more upset. Weird.
“She drank too fast.” Otto smiled to the angry man. His tusks were poking out of his mouth so far. How were they almost up to his eyeballs? My other hand reached out to touch his pokey white canines. Otto’s big, warm hand grabbed my whole arm somehow and put it down. Was I becoming doll-sized?
“Imma shrinking?” I looked up six stories to the people around me.
Otto put his arm around me as he stood from the stool and dropped some tinkling stuff on the counter. Money, probably money. “You’re not, you’re just intoxicated,” he said without a smile for me. Rude. I reached up to put a smile on his face but he put my arm down again.
The music was still going, but I could see a lot of bodies were no longer melting to it. The eyes on those bodies were looking right at me. Oh my god, why were they looking at me? I must be shrinking.
Creamy Face was still holding my other arm, his grip getting tighter. “She’s going to have to come with us.”
“But I don’t like you.” I pulled on my hand and the man held fast. He was never going to give my arm back. “Let go!” I tugged harder, until it felt like my wrist was going to pop off, and the man reached for my other hand.
“Otto, don’t lettem take my arms!”
“Please.” Giant green hands grabbed the creamy man at his wrists. “Let me take her home. This was her first time, she didn’t know, I didn’t tell her to be careful.”
“The law is the law, article three point five, section sixteen, claws bee. Anyone inbeibriated or intoxicated Shelby removed from the public—”
Well, that was boring. I looked back at the dance floor. Some of the eyes were still watching, but the bendy moves were happening again. Oh shit. We were supposed to be create a distraction for Eisen. I needed my hands back so I could distract them.
I started the cast for a fireball and—Oh. My. God. The cast time was like seven years long! Damn Overburdened Movements debuff. I looked up at the man detaining me and his mouth was still flapping about the law. I wondered what law I’d be breaking by casting a fireball while he was trying to take me?
“Hey,” I said as I shook the Peacekeeper’s hand until he looked down at me, veins popping out on his temples. I smiled, my cast for fireball two seconds away. “Better get summa’that cream from your face for this burn.”
Fire ignited in my palm and I held it open, dropping the little flame onto the man’s shoes. His hand opened reflexively and I bolted for the door at 70% speed. “Run, Otto!”
Fireworks
“OTTO, KEEP UP!” I SLAMMED into the door of the club and rolled down the steps into the dirt. Sky, ground, sky, ground; my head was spinning. Several disgruntled noises and cries of offense were pushing into my ears, but I needed to listen for more important things, like Peacekeepers.
Otto scooped me up under my arms, confirming I was now doll-sized, and held tight to my hand as he took off down the street.
“Move!” Otto projected, and the people trembled. I could see the shock waves of Otto’s booming voice push the night-lifers aside, clearing a path for us.
“Otto, didju just use a spell on them? Part the seas!” I cackled as the stunned citizens shielded themselves from our passing.
“This was not the distraction I was hoping for!” he yelled, and I looked over my shoulder. He was right, not nearly enough people were following or looking at us. I could fix that.
I turned my right arm up to the sky and initiated Inferno Blast. It would take two seconds to start, just enough time to belt it out. “’Cause, baby, you’re a—”
Fire blasted from the palm of my hand and ripped into the sky with a roar, streaking the black with orange and red. Boy, was it pretty. Startled screams and shouts of anger came in reply. Job well done.
“That’s not making it better!” Otto snapped, and I checked over my shoulder.
At least half of the people on the streets were after us, Peacekeepers running full speed between them, getting tripped up and falling. “Oh yes it did!” I laughed, aiming my hand up for one more quick burst. “Watch me shoot across the night!”
I left the ground and was over Otto’s shoulder a second later. “What the hell?” I slapped my hands against his back as his muscled arm pinned me down.
“You’re too slow! Give me the scroll!”
I fished around in my inventory as my stomach bumped against his shoulder, generating a wave of nausea. The quest scroll was highlighted, and shimmering, apparently letting me know it was time for it to be used. I pulled it out and passed it to Otto’s other hand.
Sweet, burning blue curaçao flavor was on the back of my tongue, and the constant punches to my gut were starting to create a dangerous—
My mouth flew open and I spewed brilliant blue mixed with Quarry Grub down Otto’s backside.
“I’m sorry,” I cried as there was a break in the vomiting. The citizens running after us slowed down, no longer gaining on us, at the sight of my illness.
“Abby,” Otto said, sounding like a furious dad about to scold his three-year-old, “you’re not allowed to drink anymore.”
“That’s not fair! You didn’t tell me it was poison! I thought it was a shot!” My words were punctuated by “ughs” and “erps” as Otto’s shoulder kept pushing up into my diaphragm.
The crowd behind us was dwindling to a few out-of-breath Peacekeepers and some angry citizens as Otto turned a corner that took us back into the residential district. Sirens, not unlike the Emergency Messaging system integrated into all the devices back IRL, blared as we crossed another intersection, Otto still running at full stride.
“Get ready!” he called.
I started the cast for Smokescreen, hoping to give us some cover to escape through. The black cloud finally puffed up behind us, and I heard a chorus of coughs.
“Muahaha! Breathe my volcano farts!” I screamed as two people came stumbling out of the cloud, doubled over and holding their knees.
“Her ’ee go,” Otto shouted through something in his mouth. I heard the ruffling of paper in the wind and without warning, bright light accosted my eyes.
The world twisted and warped, looking like a giant soap bubble mid-pop, then everything came back i
nto focus. Otto and I were on the ground in the dark, the sounds of the city and pursuit completely absent.
I rolled off his shoulder and crawled to the nearest thing, it felt like a cat scratching post, and wrenched myself upward. I blinked, looking up at the sky to find a sliver of yellow amid a twinkling of red and white. A belt of blue and gold cut through the night sky, mimicking the Earth’s Milky Way.
The sky popped and sparkled as meteorites streaked their way across. I wondered if the game code was executing these make-believe shooting stars because it knew I was looking up there, or if it would just shine no matter if anyone was looking at all.
I took a long, deep breath through my nose and let it out in a whoop. “Woohoo!”
“Quiet!” Otto barked, and I heard him ripping the soiled leather disguise from his body. I took my spare robe off a little more gently this time, not having a magical wardrobe to mend it for me overnight, and stuffed it in my inventory.
“Where are we?” I plopped down in the dirt, surveying the dark deciduous trees around.
Otto grumbled as he tossed the regurgitation-soaked top far off into the bushes. “We’re a mile off the road that the caravan will be coming through. They’re likely camped for the night, and we should too. Get an early start in the morning.” He walked around the clearing we’d landed in, bending down to pick something up every few seconds.
“Can I help with whatever you’re doing?” I pushed my hands into my knees and gradually gained my feet.
“I’m gathering firewood. You should sit down. You’re still poisoned.” His voice didn’t hold much sympathy for my predicament.
“Are you mad?” I lowered myself back down to the ground, and I felt around for dry grass or leaves.
He was silent, and it piqued my anger after a moment. “Great. You’re mad at me for doing exactly what we needed to do.”
There was a clattering and I looked up to see the silhouette of Otto throwing down his kindling. “I’m not mad at you, Abby, but I am upset. You’re always running in with a half-hatched plan, not following it, and then we barely make it out alive.”
“But we still made it out alive!” I protested. Heat filled my cheeks. “Plus, I’m supposed to be having fun, it’s just a ga—” I covered my mouth reflexively. I wished I could reach out and reel the words back into my mouth, chew them up and swallow them down where he could never hear.
“You think this is a game?” Otto demanded. “My people are going to die, and we don’t get to come back like you. This isn’t fun for us, Abby, we’re trying to survive.”
“Otto, I didn’t mean it—”
“Yes you did.” He fumed.
I chewed my tongue and Otto returned to collecting his firewood. I pulled up grass and leaves, arranging them under the tipi triangle of sticks and branches Otto had laid out. He knelt at the side of the wood, scraping on his flint. The sparks shot into the kindling, but it refused to catch.
“Here.” I moved in and dropped a fireball at the bottom. Within a few seconds, we had a crackling campfire. My Camoa-moa poison debuff had dropped sometime between the shouting match and kindling gathering, leaving my stomach empty and acidic. More than that, I felt the hollow space in my chest wasn’t just hunger and thirst, but my admission of guilt.
“Otto,” I started, and he put his hand up. I pressed on anyway. “What I said was wrong. Life isn’t just a game. Even if I get to come back, there are many people around me that I care about who won’t. I would like to put the blame on the Camoa-moa poison for what I said, but I can’t.”
He sat back, the firelight dancing on his perplexing expression. I couldn’t tell if he was mad, sad, or disgusted. Perhaps something of all three. I sighed. This wasn’t going to get better unless I really came to terms with it.
“I’ve treated your world more like a playground than I ever did my own. I was so risk averse back in my world, I literally never took any chances. I checked, double-checked, triple-checked everything. I always had a plan and three backup plans. Coming here, getting this second chance at life, it’s made me realize just how much I’ve missed out on.
“That’s not to say that the risks I’ve taken here are good ones, or smart. I’ve been trying to let go of some of the things I didn’t like about the old Abby. My world will die in a few days, and I thought that was a good opportunity to leave behind the things I didn’t like about myself, start fresh, and maybe have a little fun.”
Otto was quiet, his face not any bit more readable. He hadn’t known me before: the scheduled, outlined, detail-oriented, “follow the plan” Abby. I didn’t want to be like that for the rest of my life. I wanted to go with the flow, be flexible, figure it out on the fly, not stress about deadlines, or project plans, or incident reports.
I took a long breath in and let it out as I questioned what life would be like without Otto. What would I have done if he’d died in the secret zone? Would I still have gone off on my own to find out more about the Faction Seal? Or would I have played it safe and stuck with Jack?
“I understand your behavior,” Otto said, pulling me from thought. He looked less angry, at least. It was time to put a bow on the apology... and actually apologize.
“I don’t want to put you at risk, or Renzik, or anyone. I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”
We watched the crackling fire grow from eating up the small kindling to gnawing at the larger branches. It was not comfortable for me to keep enduring the silent treatment from Otto, but I had learned over the past week of pissing him off that if I waited, he’d come around.
I popped open my map to see where we’d landed, and found our little marker about ten miles north of Alaunhylles, a mile off a well-traveled road into the city. The line for the road was quite a bit thicker than some of the smaller trails that branched off to little towns and homesteads along the way.
“Are you hungry?” Otto asked, and I closed up the menus.
“Starving,” I groaned, holding my empty stomach.
He got up from the other side of the fire and plopped himself down next to me. His vacant stare informed me he was rooting around in his inventory, and a second later, a small bun appeared in his hand. He split it down the middle and offered me the larger half.
“Thank you.” I took the bread, realizing that it wasn’t small, but Otto’s hands were huge.
Next he offered me a chunk of dry, smoked meat, something akin to jerky, but nothing like what Lenny had given me. Finally, he dropped a deerskin jug down between us.
“No thanks,” I said, gulping back bile. “I don’t need any more poison tonight.”
He chuckled. “It’s water. Mission rations are bread, meat, and water.”
“Oh.” I dropped the food into my lap and uncorked the jug, which was surprisingly cool. The water inside was likewise refreshing and cold, helping to clear the nasty flavor of digested Quarry Grub from my mouth.
We chewed the rubbery meat in relative quiet as the night air grew cold. Otto tossed more wood on the fire and produced two scratchy wool blankets from his inventory.
“More mission approved gear?” I joked, and he nodded with only the hint of a smile.
“We shouldn’t need to sleep in shifts. We’re small enough not to attract attention,” Otto said, stifling a yawn. He lay back, wrapping the two-feet-too-small blanket across his chest as he rolled to face the campfire. He closed his eyes, and within a moment, his breathing was steady.
I stuffed the last bite of chewy venison in my mouth and looked up at the sky. It was interesting to think back to all those science fiction novels and movies that had humanity colonizing the solar system by the year 2000. How fun it would be to tell those dreamers that instead of zipping off to Mars or the Moon, when a cataclysmic asteroid threatened our world, we’d decided instead to bury ourselves deep underground and become digital. How many minds would’ve been blown away by that concept?
The telltale snort of an oncoming snore vibrated in Otto’s nose, and I grinned. Out like a light, he w
as so lucky. I tossed my blanket over his exposed legs and turned my back to the fire. I curled my arms up under my head and looked out on the shadowy forest.
Tomorrow, we would finally get to the bottom of Osmark’s plot.
Leader’s Bandolier
“HELP ME! PLEASE, SOMEONE!” I panted as I ran flat out. I’d been running for at least eight minutes, at my top speed. Granted, my Stamina bar was almost depleted, and a heavy sweat was collecting on my brow, but I was still making good time while dodging obstacles. It reminded me of those crazy 5K charity runs I did back IRL, except the finish line for this race included a performance.
“Please help!” I shrieked. The main road was visible through the trees, but the shade provided by the leafy branches obscured me well. I could see the heads of librarians and archive guards swiveling about in every direction to find the source of the noise: me.
My legs were hot, heavy, and throbbing with every step, begging me to stop or slow down. Not today, legs, we had a caravan to catch. I should’ve been close enough that a keen guard could pick me out through the swaying shadows of branches moving in the wind. One last desperate cry should do it.
“Help!” My voice gave out mid-scream, tapering off into a high-pitched whisper. I collapsed in a heap about thirty feet from the multi-cart archivist caravan, catching the eye of a bow-wielding Dawn Elf at the front of the guard carriage. The swift, silver-haired man leapt through the trees, arrow nocked and aimed just above my head as he scanned for something behind me.
I reached out for him, fake tears refusing to come to my eyes. It was difficult for me to cry on command, just as it was difficult to get me to cry naturally. That little known fact was the primary reason I lost the lead for Juliet in the eighth grade school play.
After being put in the role of “Woman sitting on a Bench,” I stopped being so interested in Drama class, which lead me to AI and Robotics class, consequently saving my life by leading me to get a job at Osmark Technologies. However, now that I was in V.G.O. never needing to write another line of code in my life, I really needed a bit of the basics from Drama class.
