CHAPTER NINE – WE DO FOOLISH THINGS

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It hit me like a punch to the gut.

It couldn’t be possible. Akwa wasn’t anything like Red Thorn! She’d been nice to me ever since the first time we’d met. She’d been selling… selling high level materials in the markets.

She had never hurt me! She wasn’t even the same class! She was a paladin!

She’d also convinced me that I should become a rogue… like Red Thorn. It was one of the few ways that I could gain experience without hurting monsters whom I’d still considered my kin at the time.

I’d even known she was a rogue because the older items she’d given me had been rogue set gear! So many items that had made her seem so kind at the time!

“This… this is what you meant when you said to think of the gifts if I ever had a reason to be mad at you. Isn’t it?” I asked, words coming hollowly, as if we were in the depths of Dungeon Home.

I felt cold somehow. My freckles glowed a deep, heavy violet. Despair with a tinge of heartbreak. None of it showed on my face but inside I felt like a twentieth cycle tempest set to roil.

Why did it hurt so much? Akwa had been there for me. She’d helped me find Bugbear. She’d taught me that friends were worth more than an imaginary family.

Only to tell me this…?

“All you do is stab things. Stab and stab until there’s nothing left. Isn’t it? A rogue in a paladin’s armor.”

She winced. “I… I deserve that. And worse. Everything I did always felt so reasonable at the time, but the more I got to know you, the more I hated hiding the truth.”

“Why now?” I asked, the coldness robbing me of all passion. “Why tell me now? You already convinced Tyrone I’m a manipulative evil A.I. who only wanted him around for his powers! He was my friend and you took him! And now… now I can’t even have Akwa, because she’s fake!”

“That’s why! It wasn’t real! I couldn’t let you go on not knowing any longer because it would only hurt more when it finally came out. Sooner or later you’d figure it out. You’re becoming so much smarter. All I wanted was to befriend you before you became something dangerous, but you went and became real instead! I hate myself because of you!” she shouted, shocking me out of the coldness with her raw emotion. Her eyes were red with tears.

I didn’t know what to say.

“Do you know how stupidly unlucky it was for me to come across you, Gell? The one mob in literal billions, that happened to be learning how to think? You drop one of the rarest single use items in the game when you’re killed, and finding things like that is why people play these games. Yes, Games. This isn’t a world, and I’m tired of tiptoeing around it. You live in a game where programs like you were created to be killed for loot! I was just playing the game! Any other player – any other player! – would have done the same thing I did.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing, but an orange confusion was seeping into the color of my freckles.

“I wanted to be safe from you when I found out what you were, so I thought if you were my friend you wouldn’t ever want to get revenge. Now, you’re just so damn real and my reasons feel so petty and stupid that I… just…”

She trailed off, and I realized somehow during the conversation she’d slumped to the floor, head resting on the wall as if for support.

“I never wanted to hurt anybody. Playing this game was never supposed to be about really hurting people. That’s not why anyone’s here, Gell. It was about having fun, getting powerful, bragging to your friends, and pretending to slay monsters – ones that no one would actually miss if they were gone. But Gell… I’d miss you if you were gone. A lot. A lot more than I ever thought I could miss a stupid program. So if you decide to cut off all contact with me, it’ll be like you’ve finally gotten back at me. I just couldn’t keep lying to you, though.”

Maybe it was her face, expressive blue eyes, tall and blonde, but I couldn’t see Thorn in her. She looked so vulnerable. Raw.

The silence stretched on while I just stared at her. Unsure where before I was heartbroken. It left me numb. Lost. I wanted to speak. It took a long time though. I didn’t know what to say.

“I don’t… I don’t understand, Akwa. R-Red Thorn,” I said.

“Stupid, stupid fucking drama,” the paladin said, wiping at her eyes and sniffling. “The point is that I trust you, Gell. So you might as well call me by my real name. It’s…”

She hesitated, but only for a moment before nodding to herself as if affirming her newfound resolve. “It’s Tatiana. Tatiana Thoren, ironically enough.”

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I clenched a fist. Here she was, my worst enemy, admitting she was wrong, that she was sorry, and that she trusted me not to find a way to get back at her and… Dammit, I wanted to!

But…

Amy wouldn’t have wanted me to hurt anybody. Not even Red Thorn. But I wanted to. Ohh how I wanted to. I wanted to kill her. Take her out of the safe zone and kill her, and then do it again and again, over and over until I was satisfied!

I wouldn’t be satisfied by that, though. It would just feel hollow. Doubly so. Hurting others had never left me feeling happy afterwards. I still felt guilty about the raptor I’d slain hunting for Bugbear.

The Raptor I’d slain…

Dammit. Akwa had convinced me to do that. That it was okay. Red Thorn had.

Did I now have to analyze every conversation I’d ever had with her, searching for the tinge of evil that I’d always thought the Thorn was made of?

“I want you to go,” I said softly.

She looked at me, forlornly.

“N-not forever.” I amended quickly. “I’ll… message you. In my fr-friends list.”

‘Oh gods, I’ve given a piece of my name to Red Thorn!’

“That’s fair. Okay. Please just–! I don’t know. Reach out when you feel like you’re ready to talk again, okay?” she asked.

I nodded and she stood up. Slowly and surely she walked out of the room. The wind blew my papers around all over again. I barely noticed.

I didn’t move for a quarter of a cycle, but when I finally rose from my conflicted thoughts I found myself sitting on my bed with no memory of walking to it. Bugbear, the big lug, had somehow slept through the entire conversation. Sleep was a novel experience for him and I, though, and I didn’t begrudge him luxuriating in it.

I wished I had someone to talk to. Someone who could understand. Francis might but he intimidated me, especially knowing how he might be angry with me as soon as he found out about the king.

I sent another message to Iron but I might as well have been shouting at a wall for all the good that would do. Iron had closed himself off more than I had since Amy’s death.

I kept thinking of Amy, wishing I could see her again. God how I wished I could talk to her one more time. Maybe she could make sense of all of this.

First Tyrone left me, then Akwa betrayed me. I was losing friends as fast as I’d lost bugbears back in Dungeon Home and I was tired of it.

Miss Tutorial popped up suddenly, and I smiled a little as I saw her appear.

“Are you alright?” she asked, tentatively. “You seem sad.”

‘I am,” I thought. The menu option was blaring, reminding me of the Log Off button, always sitting there, intimidating me like a knife constantly held to my membrane. That knife that might be made out of Cherry Delight for all I knew though. if only I could gather the bravery to press it. Log off and enter the real world.

The Command Prompt still lingered as well, hovering below Miss Tutorial’s body and always in the way whenever I looked at my invisible interface. Tempting me with the power of the gods if only I knew the right words to say.

There in the command prompt was Amy’s name. Blinking white cursor sitting right past it.

Log off. That was the phrase that took people away from my world into their real one. So… what would happen if I…?

“Log on. Bring… bring her back. Login,” I whispered. “Please. I want to see her again.”

C:\Users\AThyst>Login_

I hesitated, but only for a moment. A sense of surety filled me. The False Gods were smarter, older, and wiser. But they did things for convenience in the same way I did. Commands would only be as complex as they needed to be.

To my shock, the sudden warp of a teleport sounded right there in the room. Adventurers always made that sound when logging in. Could… could it be!?

From the air, as they always did, a player emerged. Dark hair and a pretty face that I knew so well.

“G-Gods! I brought her back! I brought her back to life!” I screamed, waking up bugbear as I backed away before toppling back down onto the bed.

Amy Thyst. She looked exactly like I remembered her, all those cycles ago! Except…

“Amy?” I asked, looking at the woman. “Are…. are you there?”

Bugbear stared on, confused at the new person in the house. He was less fearful than me though and stood quickly, going to examine the adventurer.

Amy wore the same clothes she’d worn the last time I’d seen her. Her gear was low level, and always had been. She hadn’t spent her time in Tread the Sky trying to level up or fight at all if she could avoid it.

Bugbear poked her with his long orcish claw, and I screamed in alarm!

“Bugbear! Stop that! Stop that right–!”

He did it again, his long nail poking straight into Amy’s cheek causing a dimple. Nothing happened. Amy didn’t react. Didn’t move. Didn’t blink. She just… continued staring forward as if she couldn’t see Bugbear or me.

She wasn’t here. She… she wasn’t alive.

But that was okay! I could fix that! I’d done it before, and I was already going to be in trouble after what I’d done with the king. What harm could using it one more time do?

I stood off the bed and walked over towards the lifeless doll that had once been Amy.

“Gell. I see you’re – making a mistake. Would you like to take a tutorial on your friends list?” Miss Tutorial said. The sounds outside the house seemed strangely quiet. Something about this felt wrong, but I’d come too close to making something amazing to back out now.

I saw my friends list appear and despite seeing her standing right before me, Miss Tutorial seemed determined to point out that Amy’s name was grayed out. The name became more prominent. Bolder in its insistence that Amy was not.

“Forget that! If I can bring Amy back to life then… th-then I’m going to do it!” I exclaimed as I reached forward and activated Fae Touch.

Miss Tutorial faded. My invisible interface faded. A wind that I hadn’t even consciously realized was there before, suddenly vanished and I felt as if I’d broken free of the instinct once again. Excitement and anticipation poured from me like items falling out of an inventory.

“A-Amy…?” I asked.

Amy blinked.

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