Auction of Souls: Fantasy GameLit RPG Series (Pixel Dust Book 3)

by David Petrie

  She needed to take control of the situation, and with the ban in place, she could afford to be more assertive with them. It wasn’t like her to be a pushover anyway. It was time to take charge. She turned toward Ginger and Max, taking a breath to psych herself up, then started jogging to catch up.

  Max immediately spun and stomped toward her, sending her heart into her throat as he drew one of his pistols. Seven froze, dead in her tracks, only to watch him blow right past her. Of course, that was when she realized he was stalking toward Nix, who was standing behind her.

  “Oh hi, Max.” The strange but non-threatening reynard raised her hand to wave as he approached. He responded by unloading his gun directly into her head, sending blue light bursting from the back of her skull. “Very mature.” The azure glow faded, leaving her unharmed under the protective ban.

  “Yeah, but it made me feel better,” he growled through his teeth.

  Seven slapped a hand to her face as Max stomped his way back to her and his housemates.

  Why me?

  Chapter Seventeen

  After making their way to somewhere secluded, Max leaned back against the railing down on the lower deck where Kegan and his team had boarded earlier that night. He wasn’t leaning to rest, though. No, he was trying to get away from the woman jabbing him in the chest with a finger.

  “Can you not fight with people every five seconds?” Seven poked him again.

  He looked to Ginger for help, but she only smirked at his discomfort. Farn was even less help, fixated on Echo, who was sitting dangerously on the railing. Corvin and Kegan actively avoided the conflict, the Blade playing a game on his emulator and the Leaf pretending to take a nap despite that being impossible in Noctem. Max didn’t bother looking to Piper for help; there was already enough hostility in the situation, and adding her in would only make things worse.

  “And you!” Seven swept an accusatory finger to Farn. “Have you ever heard of asking questions before immediately killing someone? Cassius was here to help.”

  “Ahh–” Farn stammered, clearly feeling bad about her reaction earlier that had deleted Seven’s backup.

  “In all fairness.” Kegan rolled over on the deck. “You did kill him earlier too, Seven.”

  “I didn’t know it was him at the time.” She stomped one foot. “And weren’t you pretending to nap over there?”

  “Yeah, sorry, just talking in my sleep.” Kegan rolled back over, emitting a few fake snores to sell the performance.

  “It’s okay, these things happen.” Ginger attempted to placate Seven’s melt down.

  “Oh yeah, and thanks for making me an accomplice, by the way.” The Venom mage pulled out the hatchet she’d liberated from the auction and waved it around. “You do realize that taking this was grand theft, right?”

  “I didn’t see you rushing to give it back.” Ginger hit the nail on the head like she usually did. “Pretty sure you wanted to keep it.”

  “Oh yeah? Then would I do this?” The woman tossed the hatchet over the side of the ship. Max couldn’t help but notice a pained look in her eye as she did, like she’d just thrown a cherished family heirloom overboard.

  Ginger simply folded her arms and waited. After a few seconds, Seven beckoned the hatchet back, catching it without looking, like she had become used to the weapon.

  “That’s what I thought.” Ginger smirked.

  “Okay, fine, I like the hatchet. But I feel terrible about taking it. Honestly, I just want to get through this night without making any more moral sacrifices.” Seven turned back to Max and tapped the back of her hatchet against his chest. “So please, can you just not shoot anyone in the face for five damn minutes?”

  “I was testing the ban.” Max brushed Seven’s weapon aside, wondering why the random low-level was even still hanging around them, let alone getting in his way. “None of this matters if we can’t fight Nix when the time comes.”

  “Listen.” Seven walked away from the rail and paced across the deck. “Leftwitch would like our houses to be allies here, and I’ll do my best to help you out at the auction. But to do that, I need the auction to actually happen! So can’t you just forget about whatever ridiculous feud you have with Nix for one night?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Max fought down the urge to raise his voice as she belittled everything that had happened.

  She rolled her eyes. “What could Nix have possibly stolen from you all to warrant this kind of dedication to hunting her down? This is all just a game, for Christ’s sake.”

  “She stole our friend,” Max growled through his teeth, becoming increasingly irritated.

  “What does that even mean?”

  Ginger stepped forward to stop him from blurting out the truth. “We can’t trust her–”

  “It’s fine, no one would believe her anyway.” He let out a mirthless laugh. “How could they? I don’t even believe it.”

  “Believe what?” Seven’s eyes flicked between him and Ginger for a silent moment.

  “I’m going to offer you a choice.” Ginger’s voice went cold. “You can leave now and go about your life, or stay and have your world shattered.”

  Seven raised an eyebrow as the corner of her mouth wavered, like she was holding in a laugh. She probably thought Max and the rest of Lockheart were just a bunch of dedicated role-players, acting out an overdramatic fantasy. She crossed her arms stubbornly and held her ground.

  That’s that then. Max lowered his head.

  “Nix hurt Kira,” he whispered, the words nearly choking him.

  “So? It’s a game.” Seven dropped her hands to her hips. “You all hurt each other all the time, from what I can tell.”

  “No.” Ginger shook her head. “He doesn’t mean in game. Nix kidnapped Kira’s body in the real world and the system recorded a death when it happened. We’re not sure if she’s alive or dead.”

  “What?” A quiver entered into Seven’s voice as she gestured to Echo. “She’s sitting right there.”

  “Have you wondered yet why she doesn’t speak?” Max avoided looking at the avatar. “It’s because she can’t. That’s not really her. It’s just an echo of who she was, animated by the system from our memories.”

  “That’s not possible, the system can’t just–”

  “It can, and it does whenever it lacks information. It uses your own memories to fill-in the blanks. That’s all Echo is, just a blank being filled in. The lights are on, but nobody is home.”

  “How is that…” Seven turned to the fairy for confirmation, getting a confused look in return. Suddenly, she clasped her hands over her mouth. “Oh my god, I ate something earlier that tasted familiar. Is that how–”

  “Yes.” Ginger tapped her head. “The system probably asked your mind to produce a flavor, because it didn’t have a way to produce the sensation. It doesn’t go digging through your head for just anything, but technically, it has access to everything you know. Noctem uses those memories when it needs to represent something that the system doesn’t understand. In our case, it stopped receiving input from Kira but never received a log out, so from there it started using our minds to keep her avatar active. From what Alastair tells us, this isn’t uncommon when a player dies in their sleep, although other echoes usually destabilize in a matter of minutes. Apparently, we knew Kira well enough to keep her avatar running.”

  “We call her Echo because it helps us remember that she’s not real.” Max crossed his arms.

  “But how?” Seven staggered backward. “How could Nix have hurt her?”

  “She set us up.” Max slammed his fist into the railing. “Nix was working with Neil Carver back before he was fired by Checkpoint. They have been pulling our strings for years. Practically since Noctem’s launch.”

  Ginger took over, recounting the events that led up to the present. The quest that had nearly brought Noctem crashing down and how it bound Kira to a god-like artificial intelligence. She explained the heist six months ago, wh
ere they’d helped two federal agents take down an international arms smuggler. Then how Nix had set Kira up and how her sacrifice stopped the sale of a biological threat that could have killed billions.

  “After that,” Max finished the story. “Nix sent two men to break into Kira’s home and take her body. I lived next door and shattered my wrist chasing their van as it drove away. I’ll never get full use of my hand back.” He made a fist, opening and closing it to remember the pain the action held in the real world. “That’s why we need to catch Nix and make her tell us the truth.”

  All the color drained from Seven’s face as she dropped to the deck. She sat there blinking away tears with no words to describe the shock she must have been feeling. Max almost felt bad; there was no going back for her.

  “We’re sorry to tell you all of this.” He crouched down next to her.

  “Sorry!” She shoved him so that he fell back. “You’re sorry? You just told me that the world almost ended six months ago. That the only reason it didn’t was because your friend gave herself to a digital god and may have died for it. Christ, there is a woman on board this very ship, who abducted someone out there in the real world and probably has the resources to do anything she wants out there. I freaking spoke to her and didn’t even know. So, no, sorry is not going to cut it.”

  “I know.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “But you did ask.”

  “Argh!” She threw her hands into the air in frustration. “I’m only here because I needed a job, and my boss told me to get close to you to get information for her show. But Christ! I can’t report back with any of this. Leftwitch will think I’m insane, or a liar, or both.”

  “That’s good to know.” Ginger sat down beside her. “So Leftwitch asked you to spy on us, huh?”

  “Obviously!” Seven stood back up abruptly. “I have to get out of here. I can’t do this. I don’t want…” Without finishing her sentence, she bolted toward the railing.

  Max jumped up and reached for her, afraid she might throw herself over the side to escape. The Venom mage crashed into the railing before he could catch her, leaning over the side. He lowered his hand as she began to dry heave.

  “The system won’t let you throw up in Noctem.” He approached her cautiously, not wanting to freak her out any more than they already had.

  “Of course it won’t.” Seven coughed a few times then hung her head in defeat.

  Max and Ginger leaned on the railing next to her, letting her take all the time she needed to get under control. After a few minutes, she’d calmed down for the most part. Kegan and Corvin joined them as if accepting her into their inner circle. When Seven finally opened her mouth to speak, she said the last thing Max expected.

  “You should follow the money.” Her voice sounded surprisingly rational.

  “I’m sorry, what?” He wasn’t sure he’d heard her right.

  “You want to find Nix out there in the real world, and she has been pulling strings for years. Then I guarantee she has been involved in some way since Noctem’s early development. If Alastair took money from the twins running this auction, then there will be other investors to look at. If Nix has the resources you think she does, then I bet she’s in there somewhere. There’s always a trail.”

  “I don’t even know where to begin with that.” Max felt a little stupid at his lack of knowledge on the subject. Hell, he didn’t even know how to do his own taxes.

  “You should use your connection with Alastair to get access to Checkpoint’s records. Money doesn’t lie. Trust me, I’m an unemployed accountant.” Seven’s head jerked up. “Wait a second, you said you never saw Kira’s body, right?

  Max felt a familiar thread of hope tug at his heart. “That’s the detail that we keep coming back to, but it’s hard to hold onto the hope sometimes. The system registered her death, and all the servers she was occupying melted. As much as we don’t want to face it, there might not be a Kira left to rescue.”

  “So what? Errors happen all the time with computers. Those readings could be false. Why else would Nix need to steal her body?”

  “Finally!” Farn shouted from behind them. Max turned to find the Shield standing there pointing at Seven. “Finally, someone agrees. She can’t possibly be dead.” The Shield wore a manic grin on her face. “The sooner you all accept that as fact, the sooner we can focus on getting her back for real. Not just how to get revenge on Nix.”

  The hope on her face hit Max like a truck. He wanted to believe, he really did, but it had been six months, and all the facts pointed to the worst.

  He sighed. “I know, Farn. I want to, it’s just–”

  “It’s just nothing.” Her lip quivered. “I’m sick of all your faces whenever we talk about her. You say things like we’ll get her back, but none of you really mean it. I can hear the grief in your voices, and I know you’ve given up.” She threw one hand out to one side as if shoving the thought away. “I know you all think that I can’t let her go, and that’s why Echo is still here. But I’m telling you now, that’s all on you. I know this thing isn’t real.” A tear slid down Farn’s cheek as she glanced at the vacant avatar. “No offense.”

  The fairy blinked and silently mouthed the words, “None taken,” while nodding happily.

  “Look, I know having even just a little of her still here is comforting.” Farn dried her cheek on her shoulder. “But I would love for whichever one of you that’s holding onto her memory to release her, because I don’t need her.”

  Her words caught Max off guard, his chest aching at the thought that it might be him clinging to Kira’s ghost. He opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t know what to say. Farn didn’t wait for him to figure it out.

  “For you, Kira is a constant that has always been there for you. And now that she’s gone, you put her in the past and mope about what you’ve lost. But I didn’t have decades to be with her, so to me, she’s the future. Kira is the first person that I’ve ever said I love you to and really meant it.” Tears fell as she spoke. “I don’t want a replacement and I can’t give up on her. I have to believe she can be saved. So you all need to shut the hell up and get on board with that, or I’m done here.”

  Max looked into the frustrated Shield’s eyes, then dropped his head to the floor, unable to honestly give her what she’d asked for. She immediately spun and stormed off with Echo following her close behind.

  “I’ll be on the upper deck. Call me when you need me.”

  Max motioned to go after her.

  “Let her go.” Ginger placed a hand on his chest. “She’s been practically numb for months. I think we forget how hard this has been on her sometimes.”

  Max sniffed once, then nodded his head. Farn could believe whatever she wanted. What really mattered now was finding Nix. His jaw tightened at the thought of their real enemy and he absentmindedly ran a hand over the grip of the small knife sheathed at his side. It had her name on it.

  “Farn will be fine. She’s one of the strongest people I know, and we can count on her to be there when it matters.” Max turned back to Seven. “You, on the other hand, I have to ask, now that you know what we’re up against. What are you going to do?”

  Seven closed her eyes and let out a breath. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Farn sunk her face into her hands, leaning her elbows on the countertop of a small bar on the Night Queen’s forward deck. The NPC behind it set down a mug of cider in front of her. Its AI must have retained her order from when she’d purchased a drink earlier. She had needed something to do when Piper had used the shift beads to sneak into the auction.

  Farn laughed to herself as she placed her hand on the counter to process a transaction. They wouldn’t need to sneak anyone in again, not when most of auction’s guards were dead. She immediately felt guilty for the thought.

  What the hell have I become?

  She clasped her unarmored hand around the wrist of her gauntlet, sending just enough stolen life into her claws to
make them glow. Back when she had gotten the Death Grip, she’d told herself that she’d never use it.

  Then she lost Kira.

  After that, Farn had given into the temptation almost immediately, telling herself that if it was to win back the person she loved, then anything was worth it.

  Part of her couldn’t help but wonder if she’d fallen too far. Before, she thought only of protecting others, but now, not even an hour ago, she had killed Cassius solely on reflex.

  Would Kira even want what she’d become?

  A memory rolled through her mind of how upset the fairy had been back when Ripper had used the Death Grip to slowly drain the life from Luka. Kira had blamed herself for breaking the contract system and allowing an item like the Death Grip to be born.

  Farn had never dragged out the Death Grip’s drain ability for any of the players she’d killed with it. No, she always made it quick, not wanting to cause any of the discomfort she had felt when the instakill ability had been used on her. Still though, there was no honor in using the contract. It was cheating, plain and simple.

  “Could you stop that?” Farn grumbled at Echo, who sat on a stool next to her, gently spinning it around like she was bored. “You’re driving me nuts.”

  Echo caught herself with her foot and lowered her head apologetically.

  Farn let out a long groan. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.” She took a sip of her cider. “You’re not even real. How could it be?”

  Echo shrugged.

  “Sometimes I just want a break, you know?” Farn glanced to the avatar out of the corner of her eye. “But you’re always here, imitating her. Always doing the fun and ridiculous things that she would. Always beside me, the image of everything I hoped for and fantasized about since I met her.”

  Farn tipped her mug back, if only to give herself an escape for a few seconds.