Left! Roll left!”

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it!”

Five seconds later, staring up at the briar-and-circuitry-covered crotch of a Dark Faerunner, Wayne had to admit she did not got it.

It’d been a long, long day.

“I’ll res you, just gimmie a sec.” Sigmund’s voice came through the computer’s speakers, accompanied by the sharp clash of swinging axes. On her screen, the Faerunner’s gloating over Wayne’s lifeless corpse was interrupted by the arrival of Sigmund. Or, well, his avatar, at any rate.

Hack, slash, whirl. Wayne followed the motions, writ large in bright HD. A standard chain, followed by a Cleave on the follow-up. The Faerunner pulled back, lights dancing down its arms and in a whirling arc on the ground, pulling together the beginnings of its Blackstatic attack.

Wayne hated that attack. That attack was why Wayne was currently lying on the ground, yelling, “Dodge! Dodge!” into her mike.

Blackstatic wasn’t a one-hit, but it could be close. Getting stuck in it would knock Sigmund on his perky blonde ass, taking off a good third of his health and leaving him with a paralysis effect that would make further dodging almost impossible. That was what had happened to Wayne, one of those, followed by two stacks of the Faerunner’s follow-up, Bad Dreams. That one bled health. Together with the static, they were why every Dark Assiah player hated traveling the rose-thorn and steel tangle that was Tiferet.

Above her, Sigmund gave one final twirl, leaping upward with a roar and landing straight on the Faerunner’s head. The thing screamed, clawing at its face as gouts of thick, black blood began to leak from its limbs, gradually fading into bright blue geometric code that sucked its artificial life right out of the withered husk of its body.

A body that, when it hit the ground, was little more than a badly carved doll of burnt wood and rusting wire.

“I hate those things.” Wayne huffed, watching Sigmund crouch over her, hands waving in the air, summoning together the gold-lit code that would jolt Wayne back to life.

“Aw, they’re not so bad.”

“Well, not to you. You’ve got interrupts. And a shield.” Sig was a Protectorate, a tank class. He didn’t go down easy, despite his tiny frame.

Wayne would be lying to say that didn’t bother her a bit. The fact that Sigmund always made his avatars into the sort of pale, blonde waif-fu girls that would make Joss Whedon cry.

Then again, Wayne was playing a four-foot anthropomorphic cat with pink fur, so maybe she shouldn’t judge.

Thirty seconds for the res, and they were off again, Wayne trying to stay behind Sigmund’s tiny, ax-wielding frame. They’d been playing DA all night, just the two of them, Em off on a date with some guy she’d met playing Dota2. Em was the Cybermage, the healer, and her absence meant no big boss fights for just the two of them. So they were out grinding in the PvE, mining Briarwood and Faestones for their Keep instead. Wayne wanted new crafting tables; Em said they needed to upgrade the ballistas before the next shadowsiege came through. This way, they could gather stuff for both.

Even if it did mean dealing with the Faerunners.

Another pack of two loomed ahead, this time standing right on top of a tangle of thorny wood, just right for mining. Sigmund targeted the guy on the left, then leaped in, ax raised, the gold light of his shield flickering to life. Wayne gave him a second, then followed, vanishing in a cloud of darkness, reappearing behind the Faerunner with a pistol shot to the face and a dagger to the heart.

The second Faerunner shouted as it picked up the aggro, turning on Wayne. Sigmund hit it with a slam of his shield, sending it tumbling in a cascade of golden sparks. Meanwhile, the first one started giving off the telltale crackle of Blackstatic.

This time, both Sigmund and Wayne made the dodge.

Then another dagger to the heart, plus a pullback for the head shot. The first Faerunner went down just as the second raised its arms in front of its face, giving the inhale for Bad Dreams. Wayne teleported back in for Weakspot, a nice euphemism for the kick-’em-in-the-crotch move that would stagger the Faerunner and stop its attack, but she was half a second too slow, and Sigmund got caught in the scream of bile and nightmares.

“Shit!”

Annoying, but not enough to send him down. And a Cleave and a Heartbreaker later, the Faerunner joined its double on the ground.

They weren’t carrying anything interesting, just some vendor junk. So Wayne got to mining while Sigmund stood guard, waiting for respawns. She’d cut maybe two feet into the briar when she heard him say:

“So I asked Lain to DnD today.”

“Like . . . on a date?” Wayne had heard about Lain. Ooh, boy, had she ever, both from Sigmund and from Em. He was pretty much all the former had talked about since New Year’s.

“Uh. Yeah.” Wayne heard the echoing creak as Sigmund shifted in his chair. “Like on a date.”

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“To DnD?”

“Yeah.”

“You are such a dork.”

That earned her both a chuckle and a /rude. “Yeah. But he said yes, so he can’t think I’m that hopeless.”

“I guess this means I finally get to meet him, huh?” That’d be something. Meeting the King of the Hipsters. “Did you tell Em?”

“Uh . . .”

“You didn’t?” Chop, chop, chop. Another foot of briar down, another stack of supplies for the Keep.

“I got distracted!”

“You are so dead.”

“Why? She has premades, right?”

Which, of course, was exactly not the point. Because Sigmund was, quite possibly, the most clueless of all clueless males on the planet. Which is how he’d managed to go nearly a decade without realizing his best friend would totally have jumped his bones, if only Sigmund had ever displayed a single ounce of interest.

Wayne sighed. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” She’d been sworn to secrecy on the Sigmund Crush Issue for years. No point starting something now.

Wayne made a note on her phone to buy Em extra wine and ice cream.

“So is Lain, like, your boyfriend?”

“I dunno. Maybe?”

Gods. Sigmund, clueless. So much. Wayne rolled her eyes, glad Sigmund couldn’t see it, and asked, “Have you Googled him?”

“What?”

Point proven. “Google. Jeez, dooder. Get with the twenty-first century. You always have to Google someone before dating them in case they’re, like, a serial killer or something. He’s got a weird last name, right? So he should be easy to find.”

“Wayne! That’s like, invasion of privacy.” Except Wayne could totally hear mouse clicks coming through the speakers. “Besides,” Sigmund added. “I think he’s been lying about his name.” And Sigmund would know. What with his Thing. With the lies and all. The one Wayne believed in, and Em most definitely didn’t.

“All the more reason to do it, then.”

Down the wire, Wayne heard the clatter of too-loud mechanical keys. Then silence, then:

“Oh . . . wow.”

“What?”

A weird crackling down the headset, like . . . lip licking, maybe? “Lain’s last name is Laufeyjarson,” Sigmund said, then spelled it out. Catching the hint, Wayne alt tabbed to the second monitor, bringing up the browser and typing out letters she wouldn’t have guessed from the pronunciation alone.

Google delivered a page of results, and Wayne picked up the theme straight away. “It’s the last name of Loki,” she said. “Douchebag god of the north. So? I’m sure normal people are called that, too.” Probably. Somewhere.

“Google Lokabrenna,” Sigmund said. “As in the company, but don’t look at those. Find the Wiki page that says where the name’s from.”

Wayne did as instructed, winding up on the Wiki entry for the star Sirius. Also known, according to the text, as Lokabrenna, literal translation “Loki’s torch.”

Wayne’s phone, a Pyre Flame, was sitting on the desk between her monitor and keyboard. She gave it the side-eye as she read. LB really was keen on giving its products ridiculous fire-themed names. Go figure.

“So?” came Sigmund’s voice.

Wayne tabbed back into game, where her character had run out of reachable briar. She inched forward a few steps and resumed the task. “So . . . what?” she said. “You think Lain—or whoever he is—is like some corporate spy?”

“No.” The answer came out in a staticky huff that Wayne knew really meant yes. Sigmund added, “It’s just . . . it’s a bit of a coincidence, right?”

Wayne leaned back in her chair, legs folding up underneath her. “Well . . .” She twirled a candy pink dreadlock around her finger. “You met Hale, right? Mr. Bigshot CEO?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Wayne grinned. “And you said he was kinda cool, so . . . maybe he thinks you’re cool, too, and he’s sent down some guy to keep tabs on you.” Because Sigmund was a dork who’d managed to not recognize the world’s third richest man, and now they had teasing fodder until they died.

“Wayne!” Sigmund laughed, self-conscious and forced. “No.”

“Oh!” Except Wayne was warming up to her idea. “But the guy fell for you first—”

“Wayne . . .”

“—and now it’s going to be the dodgy corporate spy with the heart of gold versus the world’s third richest man, vying for the most eligible bachelor in third-level support.”

“Wayne, seriously. I’m pretty sure things like that don’t happen in the Really Real World.”

“Why not?” Wayne asked. “Rich people have to da— Oh! Oh, I’ve got an even better one.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Wayne could hear Sigmund shifting in his chair, the creaking echoing down the wire.

“How about,” she started, “Lain is Travis. It kinda makes sense, what with the whole fiery Norse mythology obsession and all that. Maybe it’s easier for him to, like, date if he pretends to be a nobody?”

“Wayne, they don’t even look the same.”

“Don’t they?”

“No!” His voice was nearly a squawk, and Wayne couldn’t help but grin at his discomfort. Em would be proud. “They are not the same person,” Sigmund continued. “Lain’s a redhead. Hale is like, I dunno. Egyptian or Turkish or something.”

“Suuuure.” With a name like Travis Cameron Hale. Yeah, right. That was almost as likely as—

(oh! perfect)

Wayne grinned a wicked grin and said, “So maybe they’re both Loki, asshole god of Pandemonium. He’s a shapeshifter, right?”

“No. Just. Stop, now. You’re giving me a headache.” Sigmund’s voice was muffled, mike giving off a bunch of dull thuds as if something kept bumping into it. Something like a hand, rubbing over a brow.

Wayne was laughing, but decided Sig had had enough. He got headaches a lot, that was a serious thing. Like, not Buffy-level brain cancer serious. But Wayne didn’t want him to be in pain.

“Well,” she said. “You know what this means, right?”

“What?”

“Either Lain is, like, a, the hottest guy on the floor; b, a bazillionaire in disguise; or c, a god . . . and you invited him on a Dungeons and Dragons date.”

Silence for a moment, then one long, low groan. “Oh my god. It’s true.” Then a crack, as if Sigmund’s head had just slammed into something solid. The spacebar, judging by the way his avatar jumped. “Biggest. Dork—”

“In the universe,” Wayne finished, just as the Faerunners respawned.

----------------------------------------

Meanwhile, across the other side of town, hidden in the darkness just beyond a young man’s bedroom, something was listening. Not for much longer. Not when, after scouring every Realm and back, it’d finally—finally—found what it was looking for. What its boss had sent it to find.

The kid had been the tip-off. The sort of Wyrdtouched brat that could’ve gone his entire life without anyone noticing what he was. If only he hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time, lost in the Járnviðr. Something had happened in the forest; Munin wasn’t sure what, only that it’d woken something up. That one brief, bright flash, as cold and endless as a glacier, and they’d all felt it. The boss included, which is why Munin was here, perched in a tree, eavesdropping on mortals.

All it’d taken was a name, the sound of something that should be dead and wasn’t. Then everything had fallen into place, connecting the dots between old memories and dead gods. The boss was gonna kick himself when Munin delivered the news, since it wasn’t like his killer had kept a low profile in Miðgarðr. But delivering bad news was half the fun, wasn’t it? And fun had certainly been thin on the ground lately, especially after what happened to Hugin.

Poor Hugin.

Munin waited until the boy’s soft bed sounds had quieted down and he was sound asleep. Then the huge raven shook itself down, opened its wings, and took to the sky.

It had a message to deliver.