by Mia Archer
So. It seemed that her majesty was doing the same thing I was on the open road. It also seemed that her majesty was having one hell of a good time. Blood pumped behind my ears and I felt lightheaded. Both because this was the gorgeous Erin I’d been fantasizing about for most of the week sitting in there doing the mundane business of eating lunch at a greasy diner and because this was the queen of Alternate Realms sitting in there like a sitting duck just waiting for some opportunistic and powerful sorceress to have a little fun.
And it just so happened that I knew a friendly powerful sorceress who was willing to do something stupid in the name of a virtual dick measuring contest. Not that either of us had dicks, but the metaphor still worked well enough.
I pulled up my phone and quickly glanced through my list of spells trying to decide which one would be best for this situation. I had to move fast. At any moment I expected to hear the telltale beeping sound from one of their warding spells warning them that someone was looking through their spell list nearby and might mean them harm. The game was set to flag anybody who was a potential unfriendly.
The beeping never came. Could they really be sitting in there with no protections at all? Especially after they were bragging about all the people they’d taken out on the road? Were they really that overconfident?
There was also the possibility that they were just that good. That they didn’t need any warding spells because their characters were so powerful that they’d be able to knock out anything I threw at them. Only one way to find out though.
I decided on a fireball. Nice. Simple. Elegant. High enough level that it had a good chance of doing some serious damage even if it wasn’t going to take them out. I just wanted them to know there were some serious players in the room and then get the hell out of here. I didn’t want to start a war or anything.
I peered around the entrance to the diner again. Sure it wasn’t strictly necessary that I have line of sight in the real world as long as I had line of sight in the virtual world, but I wanted to see this. I wanted to see the first real challenge I was going to face on my way to the Gathering. I hit the fire button and my phone switched to the local grid.
The fireball flew out and my phone made the telltale sound at full volume, the game was set to override every mute setting short of ripping the speaker out of your phone. Their reaction was immediate and comical. The guy actually ducked under their table, as though that would do him any good. The reaction was also too late. On screen my fireball slammed into the dots representing their characters. It landed with a spectacular animation that showed splash damage being done to all three.
“What the hell!” the guy screamed from his hiding spot under the table.
The death notification rang out across the diner. I blinked. Did I really just take out the queen? Did that mean I was queen too now, or did the assassination have to be done at the Gathering to be legally binding? The dude and the girl, not Erin the queen, looked down at their phones and started swearing up a storm. The few other people in the diner were looking around as though they expected an attack to come from somewhere, though they looked more the trucker type and less the Alternate Realms type so they were probably okay.
Erin merely looked down at her phone, calm as could be, and then looked up. Straight at me. We locked eyes and I was paralyzed. That gaze. Those eyes. That face. I was under a spell that was setting me on fire and it had nothing to do with any of the spells in Alternate Realms.
“What’s going on? I thought I heard AR death sounds over here,” Colin said, ripping me away from Erin and her hypnotic gaze.
That question brought me back to reality. Or back to Alternate Reality. I’d just thrown a fireball at the queen of Alternate Realms and killed two of her friends in the offing. Sure it was their fault for not being prepared, but I had a feeling that retribution was going to be swift and messy. I grabbed Colin by the arm and yanked him towards the exit.
“What are you doing? I haven’t paid for this stuff yet!”
I batted the chips and soda out of his hand. “No time for that. We need to get the hell out of here. Now!”
We reached the door and I turned to look towards the diner one last time. She was standing there. The queen. Erin. Staring at me. I expected my character’s imminent death, but instead a small smile played across her face and she nodded ever so slightly. A gesture of respect.
“What the… holy shit!” Colin said, his eyes finally falling on the queen and probably putting together at least part of what had just happened. “What did you do Anna?”
There’d be plenty of time to explain later. For now I grabbed him again and pulled him out of the diner, thankful that I was going to survive this encounter with the queen and not incur her wrath. Disappointed that I didn’t actually get to meet her, talk with her, and maybe explore some strong feelings on the other end of the emotional spectrum.
5: Digital Destruction
I stared at the girl for a moment. There was just something about her that drew my attention. She had the whole cute girl next door thing going for her with a dusting of freckles on her cheeks that I just wanted to kiss.
There was no doubt in my mind she was the one who’d just attacked us. I didn’t even need to look at the local map grid on my phone or pull out my glasses, a custom set given to me by the development team at ARealms, to know that she was flagged and logged into the game.
No, the panicked way she was bolting for the door and tossing food out of her friend’s hands made it obvious enough who she was. Someone who didn’t want to get caught. Someone who was in a hurry to get the hell out of Dodge.
Someone who set my pulse racing when she turned to look at me and bit her lip.
Damn.
Then she was gone. The door to the gas station portion of the rest stop chimed as they stepped through.
“Did you see who did it?” Danielle asked. “I was tracking someone logged in on the local grid, but it wasn’t giving me a lock on them because my character was dead.”
“No,” I lied. “Didn’t see anyone.”
I’m not sure why I lied. It’s not like it would be a big deal to let them know there was a stunningly beautiful girl out there who was obviously a pretty high level magic user with some skill in using that magic. That was the sort of thing that gave you an edge at the Gathering.
But no. I wanted to save that moment, that sexy look while she was biting her lip, just for me. Besides, having a shark like that swimming amongst the minnows when they didn’t even realize it had the potential to make things interesting at this year’s Gathering.
I desperately needed something to keep things interesting. Taking potshots at people driving to the Gathering was boring no matter how much I acted like it was a good time around Danielle and Trevor. It was just an indication that I could look forward to more of the same old same old this year.
“So who do you think it was?” Danielle asked. She was peering at a trucker whose T-shirt was doing a completely inadequate job of containing his massive gut. It was a wonder the guy could get behind the wheel of his truck with a stomach of that size. As though any of those guys would be playing Alternate Realms.
Something told me the interstate system was probably pretty devoid of Alternate Realms players at any other time of the year.
It suddenly occurred to me that I could have some fun with this though. Maybe try and keep Danielle and Trevor on their toes while at the same time getting the rumor mill going when we reached the Gathering. I wasn’t above stirring the pot occasionally. Especially since stirring the pot was the only fun left to me considering that before ten minutes ago it had been years since someone had attacked me.
“Finding us in the diner like that was too convenient,” I said. “People know what city I live in and they know the likeliest route I’m going to take to get to the Gathering. It’s obvious someone out there in one of the factions is trying to move against us.”
Danielle blinked. “Seriously? You think that was deli
berate?”
I didn’t think anything of the sort, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. I almost felt bad about using my friend like this, but I knew there was no better way to get a rumor started than by letting a detail drop to Trevor or Danielle. They enjoyed having inside knowledge, one of the perks of being best friends with the queen, and what better way to show off that insider knowledge than by spreading the good gossip their positions afforded them?
“It does make sense,” Daniele said.
“Of course it makes sense. A fireball aimed right at me? That screams assassin!”
The girl I saw seemed like anything but. She had a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye that I recognized. I felt a kinship with that girl even though I hadn’t even gotten a chance to talk to her. I recognized the look of someone who was stirring the pot just because the pot was there and it looked like fun.
No, what happened here is there was a new player traveling to the Gathering. A very powerful and crafty player who knew her business and managed to get the drop on my friends even if I’d been prepared. A player who might provide a challenge once we got to the Gathering, and I found myself looking forward to that almost as much as I was looking forward to the opportunity to spend more time with that beauty.
Assuming I could find her in the thousands of people who were attending. I wasn’t too worried, though. If she was audacious enough to try and take me on in a rest stop diner then I had a good feeling we’d be seeing each other again at the Gathering.
“Whoever it was, they managed to get both of us,” Danielle said.
“Oh I know. I heard the notification right after the fireball went off. Sloppy.”
“Tell me about it. Sending out a fireball like that? I mean what were they thinking?”
“I was referring to you and Trevor when I said it was sloppy. You both got yourselves killed. I don’t know why you’re going on about what a bad player the person who got the drop on you was.”
“Hey!”
Danielle sounded insulted, but there wasn’t much heat to her voice. I turned to her and she was blushing. Obviously it embarrassed her that someone got the drop on her and now she was compensating, but I wasn’t going to put up with that crap. If someone took you out then you owned it and learned from it.
The problem was that Danielle and Trevor had spent so much time enjoying the ride on my metaphorical coattails that they’d forgotten how to play the game. That was assuming they ever really knew how to play it in the first place. The jury was still out on that one.
“So are you going to resurrect me?” Danielle asked.
I turned and arched an eyebrow. No words were necessary. Danielle sighed and put her hands on her hips.
“Come on. You’re not going to get pissy now of all times, are you? You need us to protect you!”
“Protect me? I’m the only one who’s done anything on this trip, and the one time we come under a real attack the two of you get killed leaving me to fend for myself!”
“How did you survive that anyways?” Danielle asked.
“That’s for people who actually survive in this game to know,” I said.
It was simple enough. I’d taken the time to set up a couple of shielding spells that took the brunt of the damage when that fireball went off. Of course that also had the unintended consequence of deflecting and amplifying most of the damage from said fireball onto my friends’ characters killing them instantly, but that was as much their fault for not bothering with their own protection as it was mine for picking something that put the people surrounding me in more danger than usual.
Still, I knew she wasn’t going to let up until I told her how I survived, and I wasn’t going to go into it with her. The last thing I wanted was to get into another spirited discussion about her and Trevor’s habit of ignoring basic fundamentals. So instead I pulled up my spells and cast one that brought her character back into the realm of the living, though with a lot less health than she’d usually have if she was ready for a fight.
The resurrection sound piped from the game on her phone. She looked down with a smile that quickly turned to a frown.
“You used a low level rez spell on me? Seriously?”
“Think of it as a lesson in being more prepared. I can’t protect the two of you all the time, you know,” I said.
Danielle sighed and then groaned in frustration. “Fine mom. Anything else?”
“Go take care of Trevor and then we’ll head out. And make sure to get a receipt so we can comp ARealms for this.”
“Sure thing,” Danielle said. “You’re not coming?”
“I’m going to hang out here for a few and run guard duty. Make sure nothing else crazy happens while we’re trying to pull together.”
“Would be easier if you gave me a full resurrection instead of this halfassed stuff,” Danielle muttered as she went back into the diner.
I ignored her. She had no way of knowing there was no real threat out there. Just the hope on my part that the specter of a real threat might be enough to whip her and Trevor out of the complacency they’d developed from their years in the royal entourage.
Instead I moved over to the front entrance and looked out. They weren’t out there. I’m not sure what I was expecting considering how quickly they’d been trying to get away from me. Maybe she was afraid I was going to try and retaliate instead of just being impressed that someone had a pair big enough to take a shot at me. Not to mention being distracted by the sexy, but that was neither here nor there.
I really hoped I’d run into that girl at the Gathering. Sexy and confident. It seemed like an interesting combination. If she was interested in girls, something that seemed like a definite possibility considering the way she bit her lip when she looked at me, then it would be yahtzee all around.
“We’ll have to be on our guard at the Gathering,” Danielle said, coming up behind me and distracting me from thoughts of my sexy virtual assailant. It pleased me that Danielle was already thinking in terms of being careful.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Trevor standing beside her with a properly embarrassed look on his face. No words were necessary with him either. He sighed and rolled his eyes when I looked at him. Yeah, he knew he’d screwed up. It had been so long since anyone attacked us that they just assumed it couldn’t happen. They were overconfident and needed to be knocked down a peg or two.
I could do without the peg knocking, of course. The girl hadn’t managed to off my character despite trying with a pretty damn powerful spell.
“Just make sure you aren’t letting your guard down in the future,” I said. “That’s how you get offed. I just hope word of this doesn’t spread. Other people might get the idea that it’s open season on the Alternate Realms royalty.”
Trevor and Danielle exchanged wordless glances, though I didn’t need them to say anything. I knew exactly what was going on. They’d probably already been messaging their friends telling them all about what just happened and now they were trying to figure out if they should tell me or not.
“So are we ready to go?” I asked. “We need to get there early enough that I can go around to all the camps and give the pre-Gathering royal buffs.”
“Yeah, getting out of here sounds like a good idea,” Trevor said, seizing on the lifeline he didn’t know I was throwing him.
A few minutes later we were back on the open road and I had my phone out and my custom glasses on scanning the road. She was out there somewhere. A little voice told me that the girl was probably speeding well ahead of us to avoid any chance of us catching up and exacting revenge. That same little voice also whispered that someone that confident wouldn’t log out of the game.
Still, there was the chance that one of the many dots showing up on my map display when I cast a spell to reveal players could be her. I could hope. And if they weren’t then I could have a little fun with target practice to pass the time until we got to the Gathering.
A Gathering that I was truly looking fo
rward to for the first time in years. That girl was going to be there somewhere, and I had to travel to each of the camps to give the queen’s blessing, an area of effect buff that had a very small radius which necessitated the queen traveling to most of the campfires at the Gathering.
Most years it was exhausting and just one more reason why I didn’t look forward to another live Alternate Realms event, but this year it meant I’d have the perfect opportunity to track down that mysterious girl.
I couldn’t wait to see her again.
6: First Night
“So you see the queen, the most powerful player in the whole damn game, at a random truck stop diner.”
“Yup.”
“Surrounded by a couple of her friends who are also presumably pretty damn powerful.”
“You’d think.”
“And your first inclination is to attack them? What the hell were you thinking?”
“To be fair, I did manage to kill two out of three.”
“And to be fair the only reason we’re still alive is because I peeled out of that truck stop faster than the law allows!”
“I think you’re looking at this whole thing the wrong way Colin,” I said.
“Yeah? Because it’s looking like you’re starting off the Gathering by doing something that’s stupid and likely to get us killed before we even get there!”
“It’s not like it matters,” I said. “The campsite is an out of character zone and everyone gets resurrected the next morning anyways.”
“That’s beside the point!”
“Then what is the point?”
Colin sighed. I glanced over and noticed he was holding the steering wheel in a white knuckled grip. I decided it might be time to make a peace offering. I didn’t want him stressed out while he was steering a giant hulk of metal that was hurtling down the interstate at seventy miles per hour.
“Come on Colin. We weren’t ever in any danger and everything worked out.”
“That’s what you always say. You do something stupid and you say that it’ll work out.”
