by L. E. Price
The table fell into an amused hush as he strode over. Merisaude eyed him over her goblet.
“Hello, puppy.”
“You know this…thing?” one of her hangers-on asked. He hadn’t been at the battle with the abomination. The man sitting across from him, sheathed in black leather with a scimitar on his back, had: Jake remembered the creature’s tentacles ripping him in half. The resurrected warrior shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable.
No one looked happy to see Jake, and he could understand why. They’d screwed up, and the only reason they hadn’t lost every scrap of treasure was because Jake and his friends were there to step in and rescue Merisaude. Dusk elves, he gathered, weren’t big on gratitude. At least Merisaude seemed more curious than annoyed to see him. For the moment.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday,” he told her.
She gave her goblet a languid wave, her heavy-lidded eyes expressing nothing but boredom. “All humans should. Reflecting upon true wisdom might elevate your pathetic little species.”
“About Lord Tyrmok, I mean.”
Now he had her attention. Every new player in Paradise Clash was a soul waiting to be turned into divine currency: an infusion of power for the god they picked, with a kickback to the worshiper who handled the conversion. She’d already made overtures, back in Hurst, and Jake figured Merisaude’s hunger for power outweighed her dislike for the “lesser species.”
“Could it be?” she said, playing to her entourage with a glint of hunger in her eyes. “Has a lowly human heard the Litanies of Spite? Has his heart been opened to the true glory of hatred?”
The man to her left scoffed. “Unworthy,” he said. Jake was tempted to remind him that he’d stepped in and saved the day when the abomination used him for a chew-toy, but he held his tongue: this wasn’t the time to pick a fight. Merisaude took care of it on her own; she shot an angry glare at him.
“I decide who is worthy and who is not,” she said. “Unless someone believes they’d be a more worthy leader, here? Would that someone like to rise up and challenge me for the title?”
The elf bowed his head. “No, Mistress Merisaude.”
“Much better,” she said, mollified. She turned to Jake. “Our dark lord is always welcoming of new servants. You can never rise as high in his hierarchy as a dusk elf, of course, but there are still ample blessings to be reaped by one faithful enough. Would you like to convert, here and now?”
She bit down on the hook. Now he needed to reel her in. He played hesitant, bashful. It was all about the body language: ducking his head by half an inch, shoulders in, not quite meeting her steady, demanding gaze.
“I think so,” he said. “But I had a few questions, if that’s okay. I mean, it’s a big decision.”
She set down her goblet and spread her hands, magnanimous. “Of course. You’re in fine company for that. I and my followers will be happy to educate you. We wouldn’t want you to have any regrets, after all.”
That got a few chuckles from her fans. Jake hedged a little more.
“It’s, um…it’s just that one of the questions, it’s…kind of embarrassing. If I could ask you in private—”
“Now I definitely want to hear this,” one of the other elves said. The others snickered, savoring his discomfort.
“You know,” Jake said, taking a half-step back from the table, “forget it, I — I should really take some more time to think about this, I’m sorry I bothered you—”
Merisaude pushed her chair back.
“Nonsense,” she said.
She wasn’t letting a new recruit wriggle out of her clutches, not that easily. She rose and circled the table, her dark fingertips brushing across her followers’ shoulders to reassure them.
“I’ll be happy to answer your questions, put your fears at rest, and oversee your conversion. Shall we?”
“Right this way,” Jake said.
The Chalice had rooms for rent. His was the third door on the left, down a smoky corridor and away from the raucous din of the tavern. He opened the door and Merisaude sauntered ahead of him.
She had just enough time to take in the room — a straw bed, a shabby dresser with a softly burning oil lamp, and Prentise — before Jake turned and shut the door. The lock clicked, sealing the three of them inside.
28.
Merisaude glared at Prentise. She turned on her heel and stood almost nose-to-nose with Jake.
“What is this?” she demanded. “What is she doing here?”
“Sorry for the deception,” Jake said, “but we needed to talk. Alone. And giving you a deniable reason for it, an excuse you can give your buddies if they ask later, is for your safety as much as it is ours.”
She folded her arms, tight. “I gave you everything I promised yesterday. Our deal is done.”
“We need more,” Prentise said.
“And people in hell need ice water. I can’t give you more. I already took a massive risk by telling you about Starcrest Farm—”
“And your buddy, the gamemaster in disguise?” Jake asked.
“She’s not a—” Merisaude tripped over her words. “I mean, I don’t think she is. Look, you can’t do this to me. If they find out I talked, I’ll be cut off. Shut out. I need this.”
“You haven’t told us what ‘this’ is,” Prentise said.
“And I’m not going to.”
She tried to side-step around Jake, making for the door. He moved to cut her off.
“I can kill you with a single spell,” Merisaude hissed at him. “I’m just deciding how much of a mess I want to make. Move or be moved.”
She was right, and this opportunity was running out fast. Jake weighed his options like cards in his hand and decided there was only one play worth making. The truth.
“People are dying,” he said.
“People die every day—”
“Not here. Out there. In the real world.”
She stopped in her tracks.
“What?” she said.
“My name is Jake Camden. I’m a private investigator. You know an adventurer called Trevanian Kess?”
“Vaguely,” she said. She tilted her head, uncertain, deciding if she believed him.
“His real name is Trevor Kensington; he’s an arcology kid in Philly, and he was part of a team of sea-dragon hunters. While he was digging into the dragon myth, he found something. Something else, something he wasn’t supposed to find. And now he’s in a coma. He’s trapped, technically logged into Paradise Clash but his character is missing, and the doctors say there’s a risk of brain damage if they disconnect him by force.”
“That can’t be true. I would have heard. Everyone would have. Hell, that would be the scandal of the decade—”
“SDS is keeping it quiet,” Prentise told her. “They’re hoping Jake can clean up the mess before the news breaks and their stock goes down the toilet.”
“Trevor’s not the only victim,” Jake added. “His teacher, another dragon-hunter, was murdered. Happened right in front of me.”
“And I’m supposed to, what, just believe you?”
Jake shook his head. “No. I’ll give you the handshake code for my Eva. You can contact me outside the game, look me up, whatever you want to do. I’ll give you every scrap of proof I can, short of walking you up to the kid’s bedside and letting you poke him.”
“But it’s true,” Prentise said. “And we wouldn’t be having this conversation if we didn’t need your help.”
Jake locked eyes with Merisaude. His voice was strong but gentle, every word driving his point home.
“You are our last and only lead. And right now, a teenage boy is comatose, hooked up to machines, surviving on an IV drip. I don’t know how much longer he’s got. So please, Merisaude: will you help us bring him home?”
Something changed in her. The dusk-elf glanced off to the side, toward the softly burning oil-lamp, and her posture shifted. Her cold arrogance vanished, replaced by something softer,
something vaguely sad. She sat down on the edge of the straw mattress. They could hear the noise of the tavern, the laughter, the music, muffled through the door, but it all seemed to fade as if silence was blooming from Merisaude’s slumped shoulders.
“You need to understand something,” she said.
Jake stayed quiet. He gave her time to gather her words.
“My name is Angie,” she said. “I’m a hospice nurse, out in the SeaTac tangle. Merisaude is my character, okay? I’m not evil, I’m not some baby-eating monster, this is just…I literally spend all day, every day, helping terminally-ill patients get ready to die. That’s my job. So at the end of my shift I come here, and I can be somebody else. Somebody who doesn’t care. Somebody whose heart isn’t always…”
She trailed off. Prentise put her hand on Merisaude’s shoulder. She didn’t shrug it away.
“What I’m trying to say is, you’re talking to the real me now. And of course I’ll help if I can. But I’ve got a family, too, and if people are actually getting hurt out there I can’t put them at risk. You understand?”
“Absolutely,” Jake said.
“I think it’s best if you see what’s going on for yourself. And you don’t have much time: the ticket-taker — that’s what we call her — is going to make one more stop at Starcrest Farm tomorrow night. One hour after that is the main event. If you miss it, there isn’t another one until this time next month.”
“What do we have to do?” he asked.
“Two things: pay up and keep my name out of it. You need to fork over ten realm keys or the equivalent in fragments, and that’s ten for each of you. It’s a different realm each month; this time around, it’s Goseris.”
Jake caught Prentise wincing when Merisaude stated the price. He had a feeling this wasn’t going to be easy.
“And then?” Prentise asked.
“And then,” Merisaude said, “if they decide to trust you, you follow their instructions and go to the main event. When you see it, you’ll understand everything. And if you see me there, do me a favor and pretend you don’t.”
“We never had this conversation,” Jake said. “Nothing comes back on you. That’s a promise.”
Merisaude rose from the bed. Jake stepped to one side and unlocked the door for her.
She rose her chin, pushed her shoulders back, and her mask slipped on like a comfortable old coat. Jake saw the shift in her eyes as they went from soft to an imperious, razor-edged glare.
“And if you even hint at the possibility that I might have a heart,” she said, “I’ll do what your parents should have done when you were born. Namely, stuff you in a burlap sack and drown you in the nearest lake.”
Prentise gave a little wave. “Hate you too, Merisaude.”
The dusk-elf snorted. She saw herself out, and Jake shut the door behind her.
“Didn’t expect that,” Jake said.
Prentise shrugged. “For a lot of people, roleplaying is a kind of therapy. Or a pressure-release valve. Kind of nice to know she’s not that big of an asshole in real life.”
“True. Well, her secret’s safe with us. I saw that look on your face when she said how many keys this was going to take. Tall order?”
“Realm keys are…steep.” She rubbed her thumb against her middle finger. “Give me a week, I could line up deals all over the place and get it done. But.”
“But we don’t have a week. And Trevor doesn’t have a month to wait for our next opportunity. If we don’t have those keys by tomorrow night, we’re dead in the water.”
Prentise pursed her lips, thinking. “Most ascension and raiding guilds stockpile keys in a shared bank. Everyone contributes, so they can be sure to have a good supply on hand no matter which realms open up in a given month. And since Goseris has been sealed for months, somebody has to be sitting on a mound of them.”
“Unless people like Merisaude have already snatched them all.” Jake snapped his fingers. “Tim. Woody’s already buttering him up, and the Crewe of Dreams might have a few keys handy. Tim can get us access.”
“It’s worth a shot. Meanwhile, I’ll send some feelers out. I might have to go RMT for this.”
“RMT?”
“Real Money Trading,” Prentise said. “It’s against the terms of service and punishable by account ban, but people do it anyway. Third-party auction sites, outside of SDS’s purview, where people list their virtual goods and sell them for real cash. Some just act as a currency exchange: pay a dollar, get a gold coin. It’s dodgy, because you have to pay in advance and then meet up to make the trade in-game—”
“Meaning they can take your money and run,” Jake said.
“Exactly, but RMT traders get trust-rated by happy customers, and you can usually count on the established ones to follow through on the deal.”
“People actually pay for stuff they can get just by playing the game?”
“Sure. People are impatient. And if you offer them a way to jump a line or speed their progress to the top, they’ll take it. Maybe they just want some cool and shiny thing that’s too hard for them to earn the honest way.” She pointed at the bolas draped over Jake’s shoulder. “Or maybe they just made a horrible, tragic and irrevocable choice, and they’re compensating.”
“Cute.” He thumped one of the dangling, heavy balls, making it clack against its twin. “I might just learn how to use these. So how much does a realm key cost in real-world money?”
“They aren’t cheap, especially if there’s been an artificial spike in the market. We could be looking at a hundred bucks or more, each.”
Jake felt his gut clench. That wasn’t small change. “Send me the details and I’ll take care of it; I think I can get the client to pay.”
“You don’t know how to deal with these people,” Prentise said. “I do, and I can get it done quick.”
“I don’t want to put you out—”
“I’ll put it on my expense account,” she said. The corner of her mouth quirked. It was an offhand comment, breezy, but now she looked like she wanted to take the words back. “It’s taken care of, seriously. You go see what Tim can do for us, leave the merchant game to me.”
“Out of curiosity,” Jake said, “why does your job let you expense purchases for a game?”
“It doesn’t, they just don’t look that close. It’s fine, Jake. Let me worry about it.”
He knew when an interrogation was going nowhere. Still, he couldn’t quite let it go.
“I was thinking,” he said.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “Dangerous.”
“We make a pretty good team.”
“True, true. And I’ll be honest, I was a little ticked that you didn’t kick Woody to the curb, but I understand why. He’s got his uses.”
“And I was thinking, I don’t even know your name.”
Her cheeks dimpled as she gave him a smile.
“Sure you do,” she said. “I’m Prentise Roquelaure.”
“You’re absolutely determined to remain a mystery, aren’t you?”
A little of the smile faded from her eyes.
“You wouldn’t like me in real life, Jake.”
He shook his head, trying to follow. “What, are you actually a guy? Because I wouldn’t care about that—”
“No, that’s not it.” She pushed away from the wall and walked past him. Her fingertips trailed along the nape of his neck, feathery-light. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”
29.
The tavern had cleared out. Nothing remained but a few drunken NPCs and the barmaid, wiping away an eternal puddle of spilled ale only for it to return seconds later, like Sisyphus rolling his boulder up a mountain in Hades. Jake looked her way in passing.
“Where’d everybody go?”
She put her hand on her hip, wet rag dangling alongside her homespun skirts.
“It was passing strange sir,” she said. “Some manner of commotion outside. Be on your guard if you go out there.”
“Don’t worry.”
He patted the heavy rope on his shoulder. “I’ve got bolas.”
He wondered if the Elect had returned, leading everyone off to another party in the sky. He was half-right. A crowd gathered on the edge of the village, gauntlets and gloved fingers pointing up to a shimmering light high above. It was an airship like the one he’d taken to meet Prentise in Hurst, the wooden galleon’s sides lit by dangling lanterns, its billowing sails a blot of shadow against the canopy of stars. He could tell right away that something was off. The vessel listed drunkenly, wobbling. Timbers groaned in the dark.
People were jumping off the ship. One by one, tiny shadows plummeted over the rails. Some flailed helplessly as they fell, while others pitched into cannonballs and swan dives. Jake spotted Woody in the crowd, Tim at his side, and shouldered his way through to meet them.
“The hell is going on up there?” he asked.
“Lollers,” Woody said. “They kept trying their tavern-raid thing, but the Elect weren’t lying about knowing their schedule: they were there to stop them each and every time. So, they’re changing things up.”
Tim crossed his arms. His hunting-leathers were dyed midnight blue, matching the canopy of the sky. “Hijacked the south-province airship. Looks like they’re making the passengers walk the plank.”
“They can do that?” Jake asked.
The galleon listed the other way, almost sliding sideways in the air, then jolted as it caught a hard gust of night wind. One of the towering canvas sails came loose, collapsing in a rats-nest of rigging as the mast creaked.
“If you can take the crew out, and the crew’s no pushover,” Woody said. “There’s a reason it doesn’t happen all that often. Need a lot of skill or a lot of numbers. That’s only half the problem though. The question isn’t, ‘can you hijack an airship’…”
The ship teetered toward the craggy rise of the mountain range. Its rudder slapped from side to side and then froze in place with the sound of metal snapping. The vessel took on a slow, curving arc, locked into a doomsday spiral.
“The question is,” Woody said, “’can you fly an airship.’”
Jake threw up a hand to cover his eyes, screams and shouts erupting all around him, as the night sky lit up like high noon. The galleon slammed into the mountain face and went up in a white-hot fireball. More concussive bursts followed the first, a string of aftershocks, and the growl-throated rumble of a rockslide. The wreckage of the airship rolled down the mountain, burning and crashing along the slopes.
