Slade and his new friends dominated the first floor of the keep. The raiders had brought food, ale, and more potent drink and were all getting smashed. Some of the lower-ranking raiders were manning the watchtowers to ensure we weren’t overwhelmed by goblins in the middle of the night.

It was nice of Slade to wave me over to the hooligans he was drinking with, but I declined. This was his moment; these were his temporary friends. I was a little worried that another drunken incident might not end well for Emma, but she was nowhere to be seen, probably sleeping somewhere since she hadn't gotten any the night before.

With a wave to Max, who didn’t seem to be enjoying the rough behavior of the raider or Slade, I left the party and climbed the stairs all the way to the roof. This part of the keep was a wooden structure built on top of the two stories of stone that made up the base of the building.

I ran a hand along the parapet, marveling at the feel of the rough wood on my skin. It felt so real, but it couldn’t be. I was somewhere a dozen stories underground and playing a game. A light wind caressed my face, and I could see thousands of twinkling stars in the night sky. This was my first moment alone since the first night in the woods. I basked in it.

“Hey,” Max called out from behind me. “What are you doing?”

“Just enjoying a moment,” I said.

Max joined me at the parapet, leaning against it next to me. “Slade’s going to be up for a while.”

“The party is not your cup of tea?” I asked.

“Not even a little.” He replied.

“Were you in a frat? Dorms? Something else?”

“A frat?” He said, disgust dripping.

I laughed, “Yeah, I should have known.”

“And which sorority were you in?” He smirked.

“Right?” I snickered, “What even happens in a sorority? Frats, like the one downstairs, are all about drinking. But what do the girls do?”

“Sip wine?” Max offered.

I laughed, “Yeah, and start their cat collections. Naw, I wasn’t much of a joiner. I was totally content to just go to classes and skip all the extracurricular crap.”

“Same here,” Max said. “Dorms for me. And even that was a trial. My first roommate was a total pig.”

“Off-campus apartment. Two dudes and me. I had to bust skulls to get the master bedroom and attached bathroom. And thank goodness, their bathroom was just gross.”

Max perked up as if a thought just occurred to him, “Where’s Emma?”

I shrugged, “I assumed she went to get some sleep. She was up all night last night.”

“She wasn’t at the party,” Max said. “Should we be worried?”

I stood, “Should we? It’s not like she’ll go wandering off in the wilderness again. Is it?”

“She said the glitch left…” Max said, but his eyes were wide and alert.

A tickle of panic shot through me. “I never checked the dungeon. Would she lie about that?”

We stared at each other for a moment, and then both turned for the stairs. As we began our descent, Max asked, “Would she lie about that? Why would she?”

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“I don’t know, but she’s been extra squirrelly since we encountered it,” I said, a dark thought gnawed at me. “What if something happened to her when she touched it?”

“Something like what?” Max said. We were both jogging down the stairs now.

“Beats me. An infection? Mind control? I just don’t know enough about this game.”

Max and I spilled out into the main hall of the keep. The raiders and Slade were singing drinking songs. Slade had his guitar out and was strumming on it madly, and honestly, he wasn’t terrible. Emma was not in sight, which only added to the worry.

“Victoria! Mashk!” Slade roared, “Comesh have a drink!”

We wove through the raider that roared and lifted wineskins to us. I held up a hand, hoping Slade would continue entertaining his new friends, and then I plunged down the stairs to the dungeon.

The stairs were lit, at least well enough to see. All of the wall sconces had lit torches. The first room was also well-lit, and the door to the room with the glitch stood open.

Pushing into the cell, I saw the table that had once held the odd chess set. Emma had pulled a chair into the room and was sitting with her back to the door staring at the wall of triangles. A massive wave of relief flooded through me. There was no glitch.

She turned when we entered and smiled, “Victoria, Max, what are you up to?”

“Checking on you,” I said. “Why are you down here when there’s a party upstairs?”

“Oh, yeah. I meant to check on that,” she said. “But I wanted to read the book.”

“The book?” Max asked.

“The one that was in here,” she held it up.

I reached out, taking it from her. “The Voyage of the Enneaxi.” The cover showed a black ancient ship with three sets of dark triangular sails. It was sailing across black waters in the dead of a starry night. Dark waves split across its bow as multicolored jellyfish dotted the waters beneath it. But the ship had no crew, none that I could see. It looked like a ghost ship sailing through the night. Honestly, the image gave me the jeebies.

“You should read it, Victoria,” Emma said. “It’s really short. I think it’s a children’s book.”

I really didn’t want to, had no intention of opening the book at all, but my hand flipped it open to the first page. And without any further thought I started reading it aloud.

“The Voyage of the Ennaxi. In the vast dark of night there were places that defied the comprehension of peoples, unlike anything they had known. It was here that the peoples of Enneaxi dreamed thoughts like water, constantly shifting, vast, and flowing. They had wisdom and knowledge other people could not know. And they wished to share it. And thus they embarked on a grand voyage.

“And so, they built a ship, a strong one capable of sailing through the seas of night. Like the Enneaxi it too was Enneaxi alive and strong. The Enneaxi and the Enneaxi traveled for many long times. They saw many wonders and faced many challenges but their determination never wavered.

“As they travelled through the seas they began to change. The vast ocean and passage of time had a profound effect on them. They became more fluid their minds more vast. Patterns of the sea changed as did they, the Enneaxi saw patterns and connections invisible to others peoples.

“After countless times, Enneaxi and Enneaxi and they arrived at another. A land unlike their own. With creatures. And peoples. Unlike their own. Stranger and more enigmatic than their own.

“The chaos and confusion was unlike anything they had ever known. Understanding was confusion and frustration. The peoples were completely strange. Incomprehensionable.

“But they were undeterred. Understanding must. And so the Enneaxi and the Enneaxi and the peoples tried with different ways. They copied the light and used the fluid of thought to mimic and thus drink understanding. Complex and strange became the nature of the peoples.

“The Enneaxi transformed in ways they could never understand. They left their lands for strange new ones across the many times. They had become more. The fluid of knowledge grew deeper, like the ocean they sailed upon. But still too shallow. The thirst remained and so they emptied the waters in hope the peoples will drink.”

I closed the book. I closed the book I’d never intended to read, let alone aloud.

“Emma,” I whispered. “What did you do to me?”

She looked hurt, “I only showed you the book. You read it.”

But I hadn’t wanted to read it. Something odd was going on with Emma, and I was afraid that now it would happen to me. Could I be angry at her? What was I even angry about? We could be killed with violence, a sword or spear through us. At least, we’d been told that, and I wasn’t eager to push testing it. Could other things kill us? Were illness or infection on that list?

“Max,” I asked, “Did you listen to the story and all the weirdness that was in it at all or not? Did it make any sense to you at all, or was it just run-on gibberish that went on and on and on?”

Max looked at me oddly.

That was what I was afraid of. I was terrified that Emma had infected me with something that wouldn’t kill me immediately. That she had killed me with something I’d never see coming, that ultimately, I’d become not me.