Part-Time Gods

by Rachel Aaron

  “I see what you mean,” Julius said, stepping closer to Marci as they pushed into the teeming, noisy crowd that smelled strongly of sweat and human at bottom of the stairs. “Crime here must be ridiculous.”

  “It varies,” Marci said, turning them down a side street that, while still crowded, at least had breathing room. “If you stay in areas where people can afford to pay their police fees, it’s not bad at all. If you go where they can’t, well…better not to do that.”

  Julius nodded silently. Now that they were actually down in it, he could see the glitz of the tourist area was only on the surface. The main streets were full of vendors and tourists, but the side streets were packed with a very different crowd. Humans in filthy clothes sat together against the buildings, their eyes glassy and empty. Others waited on corners, watching the crowds of tourists like predators eying a herd. Every now and then, one of them would duck off only to come right back with a purse or shopping bag tucked under their arms. Julius shook his head, rolling his eyes up to the sooty black underbelly of the elevated highway that served for a sky in this place. “Why do people put up with it?”

  He’d meant that to be a rhetorical question, but Marci answered immediately. “Opportunity. The Lady of the Lakes might care more about fish than people, but this is still the Magic City. There’s no immigration office, no background checks. Anyone can come here with nothing and try to make a new life. That’s a powerful draw, and there are a lot of jobs here, especially if you aren’t too squeamish.” She shrugged. “I think of it as a gamble. The DFZ is dangerous and unfair and full of weird magic, but if you’re willing to brave the risks, you can win big.”

  “Or lose everything,” Julius countered, eying a line of drugged out humans taking refuge behind a dumpster, several of whom were children. “I don’t know. It seems kind of like a step back.”

  “Maybe,” Marci said. “But it is what it is, and the city’s held on this long, so something must be working.”

  “I suppose,” Julius said, but only to be polite. Honestly, he didn’t see how a city ruled by an ancient spirit who clearly didn’t care at all for human life, where the rich lived literally on top of everyone else, and you had to pay a fee just to call 911 could be anything other than a dystopia. He didn’t want to rain on Marci’s enthusiasm, however, so he kept his mouth shut, sticking close to her side as they walked away from the bright, jangly tourist area into a slightly quieter, more residential part of the crowded Underground.

  “So,” Marci said, smiling at him. “I probably should have asked you this way earlier, but what’s your name? Unless you want this to be a secret contract, of course. Again, not judging.”

  “Not that secret,” he said, laughing. “And my name’s Julius.”

  She nodded. “Julius what?”

  Julius faked a cough to buy himself time and grabbed his phone in his pocket, popping up the AR display only he could see right through the fabric of his jeans. It still took him a few seconds of fumbling before he was able to navigate the new menus to see what last name Bob had put on his residence ID. “Quetz,” he read, gritting his teeth. “Julius Quetz.”

  “Quetz?” Marci repeated incredulously.

  “Short for Quetzalcoatl,” he explained, letting the phone go with a huff. “It’s an old family name.” And Bob’s idea of a joke. Or at least, Julius hoped it was a joke. There was no other reason a sane individual would think using the name of the most infamous feathered serpent ever to terrorize the Americas as a cover alias for a dragon in hiding was a good idea.

  “Wait, you shortened your last name?”

  Julius missed a step on the uneven sidewalk, eyes wide. Was that not something humans did? “Um,” he stalled. “It was too hard to spell?”

  That explanation seemed to fly, because Marci nodded. “I see. It’s too bad, though. I think Quetzalcoatl would have been a pretty awesome last name.” She shrugged and flashed that infectious grin of hers at him again, stopping to put out her hand. “Well, Julius Quetz, I’m happier than you can know to be doing business with you. And speaking of which, I hope you don’t mind signing a standard U.S. contract. As I said, I just moved here, and I haven’t had a chance to get my DFZ paperwork in order, such as it is.”

  Julius shook her hand after only a slight hesitation. He was about to tell her a U.S. contract would be fine when Marci turned around and walked over to the dusty car parked on the sidewalk beside them. It was a beat-up old junker that looked a good ten years older than Marci herself, but it wasn’t until she walked around to the trunk and started wiggling the key—a metal key, not a wireless fob—into the ancient lock, that Julius realized this was her car.

  With that, the last of his fears that Marci was a trap set by another clan vanished. If there was any draconic trait even more universal than their love of plotting, it was snobbery. No dragon, no matter how cheap or desperate, would be caught dead using a human who drove a car like this. With that settled, though, there was only one question left. Why had Bob set him up with this mage?

  He was still wondering when Marci finally got the trunk open. “I normally charge a flat hourly fee plus expenses,” she said, pulling out a stack of slightly creased papers. “But I promised you a discount, so I’m cutting my rate in half and waiving my retainer.” Closing the trunk again to use its hood as a writing surface, Marci crossed several clauses off the top of the contract with an expensive-looking marker she’d pulled from her pocket. Once it was all marked through, she wrote in the new rates by hand before giving the contract to Julius. “Is that okay?”

  Julius took the pages with trepidation. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen an actual physical contract, let alone signed one. The paper felt odd, too, almost tingly. “Is there a spell on this?”

  Marci’s eyes widened. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I forgot to mention that. Yes, a minor truth spell, just the usual security against falsification. It’s all on the up and up, though, see?” She pointed at the top of the page where the paper had, indeed, been notarized by the State of Nevada Magic Commissioner’s Office. “Nothing nefarious.”

  Julius studied the seal for a moment, and then he glanced through the rear window of her car at the backseat, which was packed high with bags and boxes. There’d been boxes in her trunk as well. Clearly, Marci Novalli had left Nevada in a hurry. He wanted to ask why, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to pry, and with the discounted rate she’d written down, he was getting her services for almost nothing.

  He felt kind of bad about that, actually, but he needed a mage, she needed work, and a paper contract would keep his name out of any databases that could come back to haunt him. So, before he could second-guess himself into paralysis, Julius took the pen she offered and signed his first name on the dotted line. Only his first name, since the truth spell would have outed his last as a fake. Marci arched an eyebrow, but she didn’t comment as she signed her own name on the line below.

  “You won’t be disappointed,” she promised as she snatched the paper up, tucking it into a plastic envelope, which she then slipped into one of the many pockets of her shoulder bag. “Now, what kind of illusion did you need tonight?”

  “Well,” Julius said, walking around to the old car’s passenger side. “I need to get into this party.”

  Marci’s eyes widened in astonishment, and then, to his surprise, she blushed, her whole face turning bright red. “What kind of party wouldn’t let you in?”

  He tilted his head curiously. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing,” she said quickly, hurrying around to the driver’s door to unlock the car. “It’s just, you don’t look like the sort of guy who has trouble getting in anywhere, if you get my drift.”

  Julius didn’t, but Marci was still blushing for some reason, so he didn’t push the issue. “Not this one,” he said, getting into the car. “It’s some kind of exclusive mage thing, and I’m not a mage.”

  “Say no more,” she said, tapping a destination into the flickering con
sole that passed for an autodrive in this relic of a vehicle. “We’ll have you looking magical in no time. What kind of mage do you want to be?”

  Julius winced as the car sputtered like an asthmatic old dog, but it made it out of the narrow parking space and down the road without dying, and he eventually relaxed into the threadbare seat. “What are my options?”

  Marci’s enormous smile caught him completely off guard, but he had plenty of time to recover as she passionately recited the seemingly endless variety of magical vocations, with commentary, that he could choose from.

  I hope you enjoyed the sample of Nice Dragons Finish Last!

  If you want to read more, the entire Heartstrikers series is finished and ready for you to binge! The novels are available in ebook, Kindle Unlimited, in print, and as audio books featuring the award-winning narration of Audible Hall-of-Famer Vikas Adams. Click here to see all the books in the series, or look them up at your favorite book/audio book retailer!

  Thank you for reading!

  An exciting new Epic Fantasy series from Rachel Aaron and Travis Bach!

  It’s not a game anymore...

  In the real world, twenty-one-year-old library sciences student Tina Anderson is invisible and under-appreciated, but in the VR-game Forever Fantasy Online she's Roxxy--the respected leader and main tank of a top-tier raiding guild. In the real world, her brother James Anderson is a college drop-out struggling under debt, but in FFO he's famous--an explorer who's gotten every achievement, done every quest, and collected all the rarest items.

  Both Tina and James need the game more than they'd like to admit, but their favorite escape turns into a trap when FFO becomes a living world. Wounds are no longer virtual, stupid monsters become cunning, NPCs start acting like actual people, and death might be forever.

  In the real world, everyone said being good at video games was a waste of time. Now, stranded and separated across thousands of miles of new, deadly terrain, Tina and James's skill at FFO is the only thing keeping them alive. It's going to take every bit of their expertise--and hoarded loot--to find each other and get back home, but as the stakes get higher and the damage adds up, being the best in the game may no longer be enough.

  Keep reading for the free sample!

  Content Warning

  A note from Rachel Aaron

  This a book about gamers. The characters talk like gamers, think like gamers, and act like gamers, which—as any gamer knows—is sometimes not very well. As such, this book will contain far more cursing, sexual situations, prejudice, and blood than my novels usually do.

  That said, it’s still us. Travis and I do not tolerate hate in our fiction any more than we do in real life. Just because a character says/does something awful does not mean that we agree with it, or that that person will not have to pay for their actions. This book deals with difficult issues many real people face, and we tried our best to give those issues the gravitas and realism they deserve. We might not have done everything perfectly, but Travis and I did our best to get it right.

  Forever Fantasy Online is our love letter to the online games we played obsessively for years. We wanted to show the amazing strength and resourcefulness of the gaming community without painting over its pitfalls. This book reflects that, and we hope that you love it as much as we do.

  Thank you for reading and enjoy the story!

  Chapter 1

  Tina

  Tina Anderson, aka Roxxy, aka guild leader and main tank of the Roughneck Raiders, aka the poor person in charge of tonight’s raid, was trying to drum up a few more seasoned fighters and not having much luck.

  “Where the fuck is everyone?”

  Tina propped her character’s elbow on the edge of her massive tower shield, scowling at the glowing menus. The game’s fully immersive VR engine made it look like they were floating right in front of her, rubbing the long list of grayed-out, offline names in her face. “We had eighty-five people begging for raid slots yesterday, but now that I need volunteers to help with tryout night, everyone’s mysteriously gone.” She glanced down at the deadly-looking elf wearing a killer’s suit of black-and-red armor beside her. “You got anyone?”

  SilentBlayde, her second-in-command and the only Roughneck who never missed a raid night, shook his head. “Sorry, Roxxy. It’s Golden Week here in Japan, and all of my friends are busy.”

  “Damn,” Tina said, pinching the bridge of her towering character’s stone nose. “Thanks for trying. I just can’t believe this bullshit. Look.”

  She waved her hand through the cluttered floating interface, bringing up her browser window showing the tryout-night sign-up sheet she’d posted on their guild forums over a week ago. “We had a full group lined up! Now that it’s actually go time, though, five people suddenly have connectivity issues, four are down with the flu, two have work emergencies, and Chris is claiming he’s got food poisoning for the third damn week in a row.”

  “Chris does eat a lot of weird stuff,” SilentBlayde hedged. “Maybe it’s just bad luck?”

  “It’s lies. That’s what it is,” Tina snarled. “I don’t know what’s worse, the shirking or the fact that they think I’m dumb enough to believe this crap.” Her eyes narrowed. “I should kick them all out.”

  “Hey, it’s only tryout night,” SB said, his slightly accented voice cajoling. “Let’s go in anyway! What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “Are you crazy? We’re eleven short!” She pointed at the truncated raid list floating in the left of her heads-up interface. “If they were all Roughnecks, that wouldn’t be an issue, but these are newbies. I don’t even know what gear they’re wearing.” She sighed. “If we didn’t need new recruits so badly, I’d cancel the whole thing.”

  “Yeah,” SB said, the good humor draining from his voice. He knew as well as she did how many A-list players they’d lost over the last few months and what that meant for the guild. “It’s the stupid Once King fight,” he said bitterly. “It’s too hard.”

  “He’s the final boss,” Tina said with a shrug. “He’s supposed to be hard.”

  “Not that hard,” SilentBlayde said. “He’s a guild killer. His fight broke Six Ways from Raiding and Richard’s Inferno, and they were the top two raiding guilds in the world. People are starting to say that the Once King can’t be killed.”

  “Fuck that,” Tina said. “Why would they put a boss who can’t be killed in the game? If other guilds couldn’t handle it, that just means there’s room at the top. We are this close to figuring the Once King out. We got him to thirty percent last week. Just a little bit farther, and we’ll be the new number one!”

  Just thinking about that pumped her up. The Roughnecks had scored a world-first kill earlier this year, and it had been the best night of Tina’s life. But that was just the Blood General, a lesser dungeon-boss who was now on farm status for most of the top guilds. The Once King was different. He was the final boss of the Dead Mountain, the hardest raid dungeon Forever Fantasy Online had ever released. His fight was so famously unfair, even non-FFO gamers had heard about it. If Roxxy and her Roughnecks could kill him, they’d be legends.

  Assuming she could ever fill a raid again.

  Armored shoulders slumping, Tina shoved the browser window full of excuses, laziness, and lies to the far side of her interface so she could see her clock. 9:30p.m. She’d been trying to fill this group for two hours now. Two damn hours wasted playing the obnoxious Guild-master-game-of-bullshit-menus instead of Forever Fantasy Online, the most beautiful full-immersion VR game ever made. The game she’d played obsessively for the last seven years. The game she used to love before it had turned into a weekly cycle of nagging and brow-beating a hundred players into acting like the hardcore raiders they claimed to be.

  “Hell with this,” Tina muttered, punching her gauntleted hand through the “Close All” command. The interface chimed when she touched it, and the sphere of guild-management menus, chat boxes, and windowed browser plug-ins surrounding her vanished t
o reveal the ancient flagstone road leading to the Dead Mountain.

  Even a year after release, the dungeon still looked damn impressive. Now that Tina’s vision was no longer cluttered with floating boxes, it really did feel like she was standing at the threshold of a dreadful mountain of death. The Once King’s stronghold rose from the dusty gray valley like a giant black thorn. There were no plants on its slopes, no life. Instead, the barren stone was stitched with battlements where skeleton archers, zombie hounds, and other undead roved in huge packs, their eyes glowing like ghostly blue-white candles.

  At the base of the mountain, where the broken road ended, a giant arched gate stood open in invitation, its four-stories-tall iron doors filled with the vortex of swirling purple magic that marked the entrance to the Dead Mountain raid dungeon. It was all beautifully detailed, a masterpiece of atmospheric game design, which only made it more obnoxious that the rest of the Once King’s zone was a whole lot of rolling gray nothing.

  Tina hated the Deadlands. Unlike FFO’s other zones, which were filled with beautiful elven forests, glowing volcanoes, and endless golden fields, the view here was gray, gray, and more gray. There were dead gray trees, gray roads, gray boulders, gray rocks, and fields of gray dirt spread out below a cloudy gray sky. Even the air smelled of ash and tasted like road grit, which was a total waste of FFO’s revolutionary Sensorium Engine technology. The game automatically muted sensory input that was deemed painful or unpleasant, so at least the dust that was constantly blowing into her eyes didn’t sting, but it was still ugly and depressing. Sometimes, Tina couldn’t believe she’d spent a year in this damned place. When she looked up at the pinprick of blue-white light shining from the Dead Mountain’s peak, though, it all came back. The Once King was up there, and she’d eat all the gray crap in the world if that was what it took to claim the prize of his defeat.