by Edwin McRae
Though their constant vigilance made it seem longer, it only took them a few hours to reach the waypoint. It was just as well too. The sun was setting and none of them were willing to brave the Barrens at night.
When they got back to Citadel, they shared a hot meal together in the library. Afterwards, Arix excused himself to go take a bath and then head off to bed. Citadel was happy to sink back into the fortress, to spread his mental wings and enjoy the various goings-on of the villagers within. More people were arriving every day, seeking shelter from the rising corruption that was destroying their homes and livelihoods. Calder had taken on the mantle of honorary mayor, seeing that everyone was fed, watered and applied to the work of building the village’s capacity and strengthening Citadel’s fortifications. He and Citadel worked closely together in this, and it was a partnership that both seemed to enjoy.
After she and Mark had shared a luxurious bath together, and dressed in fresh clothes, Vari led Mark to the top of one of the towers and dismissed the ranger on lookout there. It was time she and the warlock had a heart to heart. Mark look absolutely terrified by the prospect.
“You look like you’ve cast Terrifying Manifestation on yourself,” she said with a laugh.
Mark relaxed, but only a little. “Sorry.”
“Are questions really that scary compared to what we’ve faced in the Barrens?”
Mark hesitated then sighed as he turned to look up at the mountains. The sun was about to disappear behind the peaks and the first stars were twinkling in the clear sky.
“What scares me is that you won’t like the answers.”
“That’s up to me, isn’t it?”
He looked at her, anxiety in his eyes, and nodded.
“Then let’s start with an easy one,” suggested Vari. “What were you before you became a warlock? What did you do with your days?”
“I worked at a market that sold food and other goods. It was my job to unload the trucks and get all the stock ready for distribution out to the shelves.”
“Trucks?”
“Wagons, basically.”
“You unloaded the wagons yourself?”
“No, I controlled a drone forklift. Kind of like one of Braemar’s stone golems. Big, strong thing made of metal rather than stone.”
“And it did what you told it to do? Like Commander Serik did to those cannibals with his Helm of Supremacy?”
Mark laughed. “Pretty much, but I could only control the drone, not people or anything. It’s more like how you can turn corpses into puppets.”
Vari breathed a sigh of relief. This was going better than she’d anticipated. “Did you like your job?”
“I like being a warlock a lot more.”
“You’re pretty good at it, too.”
“Thank you.”
“But a wagon boy doesn’t have to face danger, apart from the odd falling barrel. You didn’t have to suffer death over and again like you do now.”
His jaw tightened and there was anger in his eyes. “I was suffering death. Just a little bit at a time.”
She took his hand and squeezed it until she felt his muscles relax. “What about your family? Your loved ones?”
He shrugged. “Only child. My father’s dead and my mother and I don’t get along. I had a wife but that didn’t really work out.”
“Did you love her?”
“Thought I did for a while there.” He sighed. “Don’t think I even knew what love was, until...”
Vari felt a surge of warmth so sweet it almost made her sick. She desperately wanted to pull him close, to hold him and tell him that nothing else mattered as long as they were together. But she held back because she knew that simply wasn’t true. There was a lot that mattered.
“Until us?”
He nodded but didn’t look at her. He was struggling with something and Vari needed to know what it was. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to settle her own anxiety.
“Now for the hard questions. Are you ready?”
Mark turned to her, his eyes fixed on hers. “Fire away.”
Her breath faltered and fear got the upper hand, spreading through her gut and bowels, clawing and scratching as it went. She didn’t want to know the answer to this question. She needed to know.
“Do many people in your world know about my world?”
“Kind of.”
“That’s not an answer, Mark.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Are you calling me stupid?”
He looked shocked. “Of course not. Never.”
She forced a smile. “Then trust me.”
“Okay. Yes, people know your world as the setting of a game called Reign of Blood.”
“Reign of Blood?” Vari stifled a laugh. “Sounds like something a reiver would come up with.”
“Yeah true. Kind of is, eh.”
“And it’s a game? What sort of game?”
“It’s a thing called FIVR. Full Immersion Virtual Reality.” His brow wrinkled as he struggled to explain it. “Remember when I cast Doppelganger into the beetle nest?”
“Are you trying to say that my world is an illusion?”
“Kind of.”
“There goes that non-answer again.” She squeezed his hand again, gently. “Please, Mark. Try, for me.”
“It’s like a vivid dream that people can enter, one that can be seen, smelled, heard and felt like it’s completely real.”
“Are there others here? Like Arix? Is he another dreamer from your world?”
“Yes, Arix is, but he’s the only one I’ve met. It’s strange. In other versions of Reign of Blood there are thousands, even millions of dreamers. But not here. Not in Garland or the Barrens. Probably not in Karaji either.”
“I’ve never met anyone like you before,” confirmed Vari. “I don’t know anyone who has, either.”
“Sid has.”
“The warlocks that came before you? They were from your world?”
“Seems that way. At least some of them.”
He released her hand and gripped the battlement as he looked over the evening bustle below. Dinners were being cooked, children put to bed, final chores finished off while there was still light. Vari heard Calder’s gravelled voice above the others as he sharply reminded a group of young men to pack their tools away before calling it a night.
“I’m starting to wonder if the previous warlocks were mostly developers, popping into this world to test their creation.”
“Gods?” wondered Vari.
Mark shook his head. “No, very human. But yeah, to someone looking out at them from this world, they could seem like gods.” A faint smile crossed his lips. “Gods who sit in swivel chairs all day, staring at screens, clicking mouses and tapping at keyboards. Pretty much like scribes or monks, I guess. Just the tools are a bit different.” His smile grew stronger. “For some reason, this version of Reign of Blood, your version, feels more real than anything I’ve experienced in FIVR before.”
“There are other worlds in this...FIVR?”
“Yup, thousands. And it’s not the land or the buildings that look and feel more real. I’ve played many games with this kind of fidelity. It’s not the monsters or the animals either.” He turned and looked at her. Really looked at her. “It’s you and Sid and Dayna and Braemar. Calder and Dennistan too. Even Serik and that murdering sergeant. You’re like no NPCs I’ve ever met.”
“En-pee-see? What is that?”
“It’s actually three letters. N, P and C. It stands for non-player character.”
She was right then. She was in one of those stage shows that traveled about Karajan, an actor in a troupe. Except she hadn’t known she was playing a role and that her whole world was just set decoration and props. But she didn’t feel like an actor, a non-player character. She felt like Vari of Karajan. She felt like a little girl who had grown up in a small highland village, a village that had burned to the ground the day the slavers came. Her parents weren’t actors
and they hadn’t screamed like actors as the reivers hauled them away, as gauntleted hands bundled her into a cage with all of the other children. She was there, experiencing it all. She knew firsthand what it was like to grow up in a slave camp. She learned how to keep her misery at bay by studying the cockroaches and flies, by dissecting the rats, mice and birds she caught. She came to know every sinew and bone in the weekly ration of roasted chicken.
And she shared it all with Mark, there and then. She told him how she’d caught the eye of an inquisitor and been initiated as a figurist. She dissected the bodies of slaves who had once shared her pen. She mended the flesh of slavers while villagers died with pitchforks and hatchets in their hands. She lulled her mentor into trusting her then slipped him a poisoned healing potion after one of his rabid creations tore a hole in his guts. She watched the inquisitor die, wide-eyed, frothing at the mouth. Then she stole what she could carry and ran.
She didn’t tell him because she wanted to prove she was real. She told him because it all made sense. The world was full of cruelty and brutality, and before meeting Mark she’d accepted it, warts and all. Like the other slaves she bowed her head and got on with what little life could offer. Now she knew differently. This wasn’t even her world. Someone else had made it from the comfort of their swivelling chair. They’d fashioned it to be cruel and brutal so that people could come here and strive to be kind and just.
“Kind and just? I wish players were really like that,” said Mark somberly.
“You are.”
“I haven’t always been.” As he spoke, there was more sadness in his eyes than Vari could bear to witness.
“What were you like?”
“When a child sees a broken world he breaks his toys to match it.”
“Sounds more like Arix than you, Mark.”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Nothing pretty about it, Mark.”
The sun sank behind the mountains and a cold wind rose to rustle the rusty autumn leaves of the forest. Mark drew Volcanic Bastard and lit the brazier with it. Together they huddled next to the fire and warmed their hands. Vari cupped Mark’s face in her hands and drew him into a kiss. As their lips parted, she held him there, gently, and looked into his eyes.
“Is this really you, Mark? Am I here with you or with your character?”
Mark’s smile was bleak. “There’s a pile of meat, blood and bone in RL. Real Life. It looks like me, but I’m not there. My mind is here.”
“Magic?”
“Technology. Same thing, really. I’m being looked after by my world’s version of figurists. We call them doctors. And my mum will be making sure they do their jobs properly. She’s good like that.”
She stroked his cheek. “This body? You don’t really look like this?”
Mark laughed. “I don’t have abs in RL, but otherwise, this body is me, just in better shape.”
“The Developers made this body for you?”
“Yup. Instant adult. Just add XP.”
Vari dropped her hand from his face and folded her arms. “I had to grow up the hard way.”
“So did I, Vari. Just not here.”
He looked at her and his sadness was gone now. Instead, his eyes were full of wonder.
“What?” she asked him as she hugged her chest a little tighter.
“You’re amazing, Vari.”
“Why? Why am I amazing?”
“Because Arix is wrong. You’re not an NPC.”
She could feel anger welling up inside her now, and confusion. It felt like he was lying, like he was desperately trying to convince himself of something. And what made her angry was that she wanted to be convinced too.
“You’re a player,” she snapped. “I’m not. That makes me a non-player character, doesn’t it?”
He shook his head. “NPCs are no different from your puppets, Vari. They look and sound like real people, but they’re not. They follow a script. That’s it.”
“Like actors in a show.”
“Exactly. But you, Vari, you’ve lived an entire life in this world. You’re not just reciting a backstory, are you?”
Vari shook her head. “It would take a playwright an entire lifetime to write my backstory, to capture every detail and feeling I remember. It’s impossible.”
“Yes, you’re impossible, or I would’ve thought so before coming here.”
There was bewilderment gnawing at the corner of her sanity. She could feel it, a dark, hungry mass. But she wasn’t going to let it in. She would do what she always did. She would understand it. She was a figurist, and it was a figurist’s responsibility to study and make sense of life in all of its forms. Though he had deserved to die, there was much she could thank her mentor for.
“Where is here?” asked Vari. “Where is my world in relation to yours?”
“Inside a thing called a computer. A very big and sophisticated computer.”
“What’s a computer?”
“Think of it like a brain, but made of lightning and metal.”
Vari tried to picture it but it was beyond her. Eagerness overcame her bewilderment. She would dearly love to dissect a brain like that one day.
“The Developers, they control the computer?”
“Kind of.”
“I might have to Rend Flesh your testicles if you say ‘kind of’ one more time.” She was joking, kind of.
Mark grimaced. “Sorry. To me, this version of Reign of Blood feels like it’s been set up and then left to its own devices. Even the quests. They respond to what we do, not the other way around. It’s like this world makes the quests up on the fly and just offers them for the sake of clarifying our goals. Yes, we get XP if we complete them, but nothing’s stopping us from just ignoring them altogether.”
She encircled his waist with her arms and laid her head against his chest. His heartbeat was a muffled thrum beneath his shirt.
“Like we could ignore the Chasm of Corruption quest?” wondered Vari. “We could ride for the Garland capital. I could earn us a good living as a healer.”
“What would I do?”
“Let’s see. You can breathe fire, turn into mist, create scary visions and move objects with your mind. Children’s entertainer?”
“A nice change from monsters made of corpses.”
Vari sighed. “Those monsters would turn up sooner or later, wouldn’t they.”
She felt Mark nod and then place his chin on the top of her head. “Afraid so.”
“So we can’t really ignore the quest, can we.”
“Others might.”
“Like Arix?”
“Yes. But you and I can’t.”
“No, my dear warlock, we can’t.”
She gently extricated herself from his embrace and looked up into his eyes. “Thank you, Mark. For being honest with me.”
He smiled, but there was worry in the lines of his face. “You’re taking this all incredibly well, Vari. I’ve just told you that your world is a game inside of a metal brain.”
Yes, she thought, the bewilderment is there to tell me it’s true, and it doesn’t change a thing.
“I’m a figurist, Mark. I see inside bodies. I control corpses with my mind. Flesh knits together and falls apart at my command. We’re all just made up of bits and pieces and we make what we can with what we’ve been given. And you know what?”
“What?”
“In RL, as you call it, you can die? Like, properly die?”
“Yes. I only get one shot there.”
“Then you and I are not so different after all.”
Mark laughed. “When you put it like that, I guess not.”
She cupped his face once more, kissed him, then drew him down with her to the floor. It was warm next to the brazier, sheltered from the wind by the battlements. Warm enough to shed their clothes. Warm enough to make love beneath the star-filled sky and to forget that they were from very different worlds.
20
[Karina]
“S
earch the chamber again. Leave neither nook nor cranny uninspected. If you miss anything, I’ll be exploring your nooks and crannies with a hot poker. Have I made myself clear, Sergeant Gunder?”
The reiver gave her a crisp salute and went back to hollering at his troops with increased vigor. There was a shrill edge of fear to his bellowing.
With a start, Karina sensed Maribella’s presence behind her. The woman hadn’t been heavy-footed before the transformation but now she walked as if her boots were made of silk. She could feel the wafted heat of the wardog’s breath on the side of her neck. A little too close for comfort. Unbidden came the savage image of canines puncturing her skin and tearing through her flesh. She excised the thought and cast it into forgetfulness, a technique she’d learned early in her inquisitor training. Then she waited a moment longer to ensure that her voice belied nothing of her moment of weakness.
“Yes, captain?”
“Begging your pardon, madam, but we have the Altar of Solmora. The quest is complete. What are we looking for now?”
Maribella was right. They’d both received the notification when the captain, in her wardog form, had simply leaped across the tile puzzle rather than bothering to solve it. Given time, Karina would’ve worked it out, having studied the Vorasii logographic writing system in some depth. But Maribella’s transformation seemed to have made her as impulsive as she was stealthy. It concerned Karina that her wardog was exhibiting autonomous leanings. She would have to tame her, even break her, if Maribella didn’t learn to rein in her independent spirit.
Gunder hadn’t worried about solving the tile puzzle either. He’d simply ordered his engineers to build a bridge over it. Such was the way of the reiver empire, Karina supposed with a sigh. Though she and the other inquisitors did their best to lend a little sophistication to reiver culture, at the end of the day they were a brutally practical lot. They weren’t interested in delving into the greater mysteries of life and existence. They just wanted a quick and dirty fix so they could get back to their drinking and fucking.
Karina had known she was different from a very early age. While other children played in the mud, she snuck into the local commander’s house to read his books. The commander had a mighty plum tree beside his house. Other kids would plunder it mercilessly, eating sweet plums until their bellies ached. Some were invariably sick, although they had the good sense to return to the street before doing so. The commander would’ve flogged any child found vomiting onto his floorboards.
