by Rachel Ford
“I am. If you demand it back, the team will get mad at you. She may not even give it to you.”
“She has to. I’m her boss.”
Jordan smiled quizzically. “Well, I’d definitely save before you try it, anyway.”
“There’s nothing you can do? You can’t just pull it out of her inventory, and slip it into mine?”
She hemmed and hawed for a long moment. “I don’t really want to risk it, Jack. There’s going to be sentimentality factors associated with the armor and Karag. I could disrupt your team dynamic all over again.” He was about to argue that it was worth a shot when a smile crossed her face. “But there is something I can do.”
“Oh?”
“You like your armor, right?”
“I mean, it’s alright. But it’s nothing like –”
“I know, I know. I just mean, if your armor stats matched hers, you’d be okay with that?”
His expression lightened too, as he caught on to what she was saying. “Alright? That’d be great.”
“Good. Then give me a minute…” The Migli avatar went deathly still for a good ninety seconds. Then, quite suddenly, it sprang to life. “Okay, check your armor stats.”
Jack started, and then pulled up his equipped items. There was his familiar studded black leather armor. But in lieu of the usual stats, he saw
Armor: matches your base armor level plus any enchantments x 2
He didn’t have armor enchantments equipped at the moment, but he’d reached level fifty – which meant his armor would now protect him from one hundred damage points per strike. Which was pretty damned sweet on its own. And if he added enchantments, they’d be twice as effective going forward.
But the stats just got better from there.
Perk: Magicka regenerates at all times. No wait time between uses required. Regeneration speed x2
Perk: health regenerates at all times. 1 HP per second.
Perk: +25 protection against attacks from unholy creatures.
“Well?” Jordan asked. “What do you think?”
“I think, Jordan, I owe you big time.”
She laughed. “No problem. Actually, that reminds me…you need some more coffee?”
“Always.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jack’s companions were mildly surprised to see him sipping a latte when the game resumed. But when he explained that the mystery item had come from Jordan, they all nodded knowingly. Karag clapped him on the back with what was, he thought, sympathy.
Then they went about the business of looting Krampus’s remaining rooms. Jack found a very good blade. Its stats matched his own, but it had a perk that made it twice as effective against enchanted beings. Here, he faced a dilemma. He’d run out of carry room when he picked the blade up, so he had to choose which of his items he wanted to dispose of.
In the end, he left his old sword, and carried on looting. He found a few potions – a sorely needed healing potion, and two magicka potions. The latter he gave to Er’c. As much as he needed them, the mage would need them more.
He found more baubles, too, and filled his pack until he was almost over his carrying capacity for a second time. He needed, he decided, to visit a merchant before he left the island.
Then they headed back to the Winters. The two women had indeed wrapped things up: they’d freed the prisoners Jack had already found and tracked down the last of Krampus’s loyalists. They’d even chiseled old Mayor Cristobal out of his candy-coated prison.
“He’s quite shaken,” Estelle confided. “And mother had a long talk with him about the changing tides of time and opinion. I don’t know for certain, but I suspect he will not long retain the position of mayor. Not after his fright. Not with the town’s opinion so heavily favoring Mr. Klaus.”
This proved prophetic. As soon as Jack stepped into the courtyard, they found the mayor making a speech. He seemed to be a good way into it, but seeing as how he’d apparently made no point yet, Jack couldn’t be sure. “And so,” the other man was saying, “as I say, it has been my greatest honor to serve as your mayor.
“We have seen good times and bad. We have celebrated many holiday seasons, and we have enjoyed the most cordial of relationships with Father Winter, due – I flatter myself – in some small part to my own capable leadership.
“But, as a very wise woman recently told me, the tides of time wait for no man. And, my friends, I find that I myself desire a change of pace. I feel that I have accomplished all I meant to accomplish. Under my leadership – though, of course, I do not presume to take all the credit to myself – we have at last outed the tyrant of the North. The Vale is free.
“And so it is, with many fond memories, that I feel, my work thus completed, that I may now in good conscience resign my post as mayor.”
A few cheers sounded, which might have offended a more sensible man. But Cristobal raised his hands. “Thank you, my friends: your joy in my joy gives comfort. I had feared, after so many years of selfless service, you might feel this an abdication of my duty to you.
“But you are right: I do deserve to enjoy my time, too.”
Cristobal went on, listing the accomplishments that he attributed either directly or indirectly to his leadership. Jack didn’t stick around to listen, though. He needed to find Mrs. Winter. He had a game to play.
He met Klaus first. The other man seized him by the hand and shook it vigorously. “My dear Jack: my dear, dear friend. I cannot tell you what your service to this island means to all of us.
“Lady Winter tells me you mean to leave, and I cannot resent your departure, though I will miss you sorely. But of course, you have earned whatever you desire, and if your business calls you away, we must deal with the loss as best we can.
“But I implore you, when your task is complete, return to us: you will always be welcome. I do not know where you will find me when you return. It may be – although, I hope I am not vain to think it – in the mayor’s house, in an entirely new role. Lady Winter, you see, thinks that I have what it takes to run the place.”
“She’s not wrong,” Ceinwen said. “You led the village into battle and into victory.”
His red cheeks reddened a little further. “Well, I did very little, Miss Ceinwen. The victory belongs to all those who took the field.
“But I will put it to the people. There will be an election, now that Cristobal has resigned. And if they share your faith in me, then I shall do my upmost to justify it.
“And I do have many ideas. We are in unprecedented times. We have made many new friends today and said goodbye to many long-term residents. Mr. Abominable says he does not wish to take up residence in the village proper – he prefers his cave, you see. But he is as much a member of this town as any. And I fear it has been many long years since he has found a true welcome.
“If I am honored with the people’s trust, well, that will change. Even if I am not, he will always be welcome in my humble abode.”
Klaus went on, detailing his plans to integrate Krampus’s freed slaves and the people of the Vale, to welcome the abominable snowman into the village’s life, and to establish more regular communication with the people of the North Pole. Isolation, he felt, was the biggest threat left, now that Krampus had been taken out of the equation.
It all sounded good to Jack. But none of it mattered as much as getting on with his mission. So he left the little man as soon as he could, with a few words of encouragement and a promise – that he had no intention of keeping – to be back as soon as he could.
Lady Winter was waiting for him by the sleigh with Estelle, Miss Mint and Elfkin. One by one, they embraced Jack or shook his hand. “The sleigh,” the old lady said, “is at your disposal whenever you have need of it.” She held up a whistle that looked like a round peppermint candy. “You need only blow this whistle, and Donder, Dancer and Dasher will find you, wherever you may be. It can take you to and from the island; and of course, you are free to use it while you are here, as well.
It will save you a good deal of travel time.”
“If you do decide to stay,” Estelle said, “you should speak to the residents of the Vale. There is much work to be done yet.”
“And, if you run out of things to do down there,” Elfkin put in, “we will be happy to put you to work in the North Pole.”
“We will pay you, of course,” Miss Mint added. “We know that the calling to help is not inherent to your kind like it is ours.”
Jack assured them that he would keep it in mind.
“But you must go,” Estelle said with a knowing nod. “I know. You have urgent business. We will not keep you. Thank you, Jack, for all you have done. We are forever in your debt.”
Jack and his companions piled into the sleigh. It was only then that he realized he’d lost track of Frosty. The little dragon was exactly where he’d left him, sleeping contentedly. Deciding that he was, apparently, a shit parent, he squeezed in beside the little one, careful not to wake him. Then, he flicked the reins, and the sleigh took off.
Despite the urgency of his quest, he didn’t immediately leave the island. He’d expended almost everything he had in the last boss fight, and he’d picked up a lot of trinkets that he needed to sell off. So Jack set off for Pleasant Vale.
The town looked much as he remembered – and very different, too. Though he’d left them all back at Krampus’s lair a few minutes earlier, the residents had somehow all returned before him. The streets bustled with happy, singing people, all attired in festive garb, all calling out merry greetings.
But among the humans mingled goat creatures. He even spotted a skeleton man clacking his way down the street, decked out with a giant red bow at his neck. They waved at Jack as he passed and called out greetings. In the case of the skeleton, it merely moved its jaws at him in a friendly fashion.
Which, no matter how it had been intended, put a shiver up Jack’s back. But he made his way toward the shops. He picked up a stash of herbs and magical ingredients from Holly’s Alchemic Emporium, and several healing and magicka potions too. He stopped by Claus’s Armor Shop to sell off the random pieces of armor he’d picked up along the way, and picked up some more arrows at the weapon smith. And he sold off all the trinkets and baubles he’d acquired at Jolly’s General Store. In the end, he ended with about as much gold as he’d started: sixteen hundred and some odd pieces. He wasn’t rich, but he wasn’t broke, either.
Then they headed back to the sleigh. Snippets of conversation reached his ears. People talked about one of the goat families taking over Gryla’s home. Someone mentioned an election the next day, with Klaus being a shoe in for the job. “Hard to lose, when no one’s running against you.” He even heard someone mention the abominable snowman and the Yule Cat – the latter having apparently moved into the former’s cave with him.
It seemed the developers had wanted to leave the player in no doubt at all that happily ever after was afoot for the people of Pleasant Vale. Which, though Jack would never admit it aloud, sat alright with him. As annoying and over the top as it all was, he was glad to leave the Vale a better place than he’d entered it.
But he was glad to be going, too. So he wasted no time in urging the reindeer up and piloting the sleigh off the island.
They reached the coast. Their little raft lay frozen in place, far below them. An alert flashed through Jack’s mind.
You’re about to leave the island and proceed with your pursuit of Kalbidor. Do you wish to proceed?
He chose the yes option.
The world went dark for a moment, and in-game time raced by. Then the horizon brightened, and the sleigh and his companions appeared once more. Only now, they were not flying away from a snow-covered island. Now, they flew toward a great, green coast. A moment later, the sleigh set down, and they all disembarked – even Frosty, who by now had risen.
Then the reindeer took off again, and the sleigh grew smaller and smaller against the northern sky until it vanished from view.
“I hope we shall see them again,” Ceinwen said. “I shall think often of that merry place and its merry people.”
“Not I,” said Arath. “I shall think no more of it, or its fickle women.”
Migli nodded. “On to better and brighter futures.”
Chapter Thirty
They had not gone far when the game paused. Migli pivoted mid-step, and said, “Jack?”
“Jordan?”
“That’s right. I’ve got Dr. Roberts here.”
“Oh, great.”
An unfiltered and rather disinterested voice sounded all around him. He recognized it at once as the doctor who had been assigned to his testing. “Jack Owens?”
“Yes.” He wanted to say, Obviously. Who else would be stuck in the videogame? But he kept that to himself.
“I understand you’re having some problems. Tell me about them.”
So Jack did, running through his lost time and strange dreams, and all the ways his realities had started to blend.
“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,” Roberts said as he finished. It was what he’d been hoping to hear, but said with so little confidence that it worried him more than a declaration of impending doom. “But, I suppose we should probably be on the safe side.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. It’s pretty odd, doc. You have to admit that.”
“Yes. Miss Knight has impressed the oddness of the situation on me, in rather fanciful and exaggerated terms. Still, I do have to consider the company’s liability.”
“And my life…”
“That too. So, I think we’re going to have run a battery of tests on you.”
“Tests? What kind of tests?”
“Oh, you know…the usual thing.”
Jack didn’t know. How could he? What was – what could be – usual about being stuck in a videogame? He said as much to the doctor, and the other man sighed.
“You can relax, Jack. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Again, Jack had to bite his tongue. He wanted to point out that the other man had said something very similar when he’d been strapped into the VR unit in the first place.
“What kind of tests do you have in mind?” Migli – Jordan – asked.
“We need to measure Jack’s mental response to perceived threats to his digital body, as well as to stimulus to his natural body. We need, in short, to see if your brain is in danger of losing sight of which body is real, and which is not.”
“And how are we going to do that?”
“We will apply certain physical stimuli to your physical body, and digital stimuli to your digital body. But don’t worry, Jack. This won’t hurt a bit.”
Thank you for reading!
Thank you for reading DLC. I’d love to hear your thoughts – please consider leaving a review on Amazon, Bookbub and/or Goodreads. Thank you very much!
P.S. Want to find out what happens next? Book five is available for pre-order on Amazon!
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