A miniature army of familiar brown bugs had airlifted a table and rickety chairs in from some distant wing of the castle, and now Reed, Bayce and I were poolside attendants of a pretty enraging tea party. I would take a look at that Map now, but I was too busy reading through the Queen’s stream of messages to me.
This was all making sense. And yet…it made no sense. That was the truly infuriating part. Though Bayce and Reed looked haggard and we all refused to drink from our dainty, dust-coated teacups, at least they weren’t poring through this wordgarbage.
Reed…I had barely gotten a chance to check in with her post-battle. A whisper, a hand on my paw, and a steady gaze had told me she was relatively alright. It seemed she was unharmed, save for a few sores. Fortunately Bayce was here to keep consoling her, all while the two of them maintained death glares at our tormentor the Queen.
As I was learning now, though, she actually had a name. Which was good, since aside from her looking cool and mysterious sometimes, I didn’t associate her with any kind of noble behavior. Then again, Sierra was a goddess…
And that’s why I tormented you
Logy’s story had come to an end. An abrupt one, I thought.
Slamming the Spirit Board onto the table—and not incidentally cracking my teacup, spilling its tea across a millennia-old platter—I spelled out, “OK WHY DIDNT YOU WRITE ANYTHING USEFUL IN THE BOOK???”
Logy blinked.
Haha
You thought I could write? Why would you think I could write
…Uh…what did I even say to that…how did I even say to that…
The person sitting across from us looked odd, and now that we were both standing still and nobody was really panicked, I got a good look at her for the first-ever time. There was no ethereal glow, no wafting darkness, just a person.
Her hair was long, black-purple, with pops of white that I almost confused for reflective shine. Two antennae stuck up from just beneath her hairline, thin from sone angles and much thinner from others. Her eyes were the same flat black as the rock—or void—outside this castle’s windows. Baggy pants and an ill-fitting white shirt, flagrantly stained by grass and dirt, almost revealed the little pink things on her larger chest bobs. I also had yet to see her drink, though she had held a cup to her mouth…or where her mouth should be. Though I swore I’d seen her smile in the past, either she just outright had no mouth or her lips were really, extremely thin.
That’s almost like thinking I can speak
Inwardly I sighed. “FINE BUT ANSWER THE QUESTION,” I spelled. Reed and Bayce watched my finger with a bit of wonder, never letting up on their lowered brows. I felt bad for them, only able to follow the quieter end of this conversation. But also bad for me, who endured it.
Our Systems are very much alike. They don’t give us the capacity to write
Even my power to read was incomplete until I forced the System to give me more features
This is simply a book that I found. I infused it with my will. It acted from there
Didn’t it help?
“NO,” I said immediately.
It did help. It made you curious about me and that brought us together
My eye twitched.
The gist of Logy’s whole big long story from earlier was this: like me, she was thrown into Vencia by the powers of an Arkmagus. Unlike me, she had little guidance. Even her System wasn’t cooperative, though apparently she’d found ways to glitch and break its architecture—whatever that meant in practice. But she did have a few messages and instructions she’d found in her System files.
Her “Maker,” or Arkmagus, had commanded to her to meet someone who could be “a rival and a friend.” Together they would be a strong-enough duo to brave the dangers that had trapped…her Maker themself.
So she saw herself as being on a rescue mission for her god. But even though she looked fairly cool, and decently mysterious, and she could raise her INT Stat, and I was sure her INT Stat was fairly high, she saw no problems with the way she’d gone about her plan to make me simultaneously a rival and a friend.
“IF THE BOOK HAD ASKED NICELY FOR ME TO BE YOUR FRIEND AND HAVE FRIENDLY FIGHTS WITH YOU,” I told her, “IT WOULD BE FINE. BUT YOU GLARED AT ME AND MADE BUGS EAT ME! HOW DOES THAT MAK ESNESE?????”
I did not write the book!
“OK WHY DIDNT YOU WALK OVER TO ME AND GIVE ME PRESENTS?”
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What?
Are you supposed to give presents to your rival?
I genuinely couldn’t tell if she was being acidly sarcastic or flabbergasted.
“ARE YOU ASKING ME OR TELLING ME?”
Logy “sipped” her tea.
I hate words
A finger tapped my shoulder. I looked to my right and found Reed and Bayce turned my way.
“Are you getting any answers?” Reed whispered.
I can hear you
Don’t care, I thought. Then I shook my head to Reed.
“You’re talking to a wall here,” Bayce said.
I’m clearly not a wall. How ignorant can you get
I squinted hard at this…but I took pity on Logy. I spelled out, “ITS A METAPHOR. IF SOMEONE ISNT COOPERATING WE COMPARE THEM TO A WALL”
Oh
Reed huffed. “If this discussion isn’t getting anywhere,” she told me, “then the way I see it…we have two options.”
I knew them: escape or fight again. Both would take an enormous, terrifying level of craftiness on our part.
Before I could mull on that, Bayce, who’d been staring dead-eyed at the Spirit Board for several moments, snapped her fingers. “It’s just like I said,” she murmured. “She’s just clueless.”
That doesn’t sound proper for a tea table
I flinched at Logy’s message, but when I turned her way, she looked just as stationary and un-powered as before, and the buzz of the krigries hadn’t been here since the tea was poured.
“PLZ SAY SOMETHING LESS LIKE A THREAT,” I told Bayce.
She looked Logy in the eye. “I meant she’s hilarious!”
Logy had no response, physical or otherwise.
“ALSO YOU HAVE A KIND HEART,” I spelled. “I KNOW IT BECAUSE YOUR DIARY SAID! YOU JUST WANTED A FRIEND. FOR THINGS TO MAKE SENSE.” Words that started as a saving throw to calm Logy down—what did I know if she had a “kind heart,” she’d never shown it—became more genuine.
The way out of this wasn’t to escape (and fail) or fight (and fail). It was to fulfill “her Maker’s” request and give Logy what she’d been seeking from the start. The idea of befriending her felt like poison in my veins, but would be far better than allowing this mess to continue. There would be no more of her crashing Reed’s cabin to kill me. Only us mutually agreeing on some other place for her to kill me.
Thinking back…I had never gone into a situation wanting to make friends. Either I had been pressured into it, or it’d just sort of happened, like when Heidschi fixed Reed’s quilt for me, or when that possum became a sort of ally.
Once I got stronger, I could reconsider this, throw Logy off my back without fear of her taking revenge or anything. I might take a look at her “heart” and find it bitter beyond saving.
But in this moment, she seemed like a lost butterfly who was bitter because she was wild, confused because she was wild, and lashing out because she was wild and figured that was what you did with friends and rivals. A tiger cub plays rough with their siblings…and maybe a butterfly might if they had weapon-limbs fit for playing.
Logy had claimed that she’d put us in mortal danger and terror just to test us and make sure we—mostly me—were strong enough. Maybe she acted this way because she was wild and scared, with no real idea what it would take to rescue her Maker.
I was not quite ready to make an offer of friendship yet, though my mind was now set on it.
“WHY ARE YOU SO DETERMINED TO DO THIS?” I asked. “TO SAVE YOUR ARKMAGUS”
For the first time, I noticed her body language change. Her shoulders tightened.
It’s what I was reborn to do.
You weren’t?
I didn’t know what to make of this. “NO”
Do you just fool around?
“WELL, KIND OF”
Her stare hadn’t changed at all, yet I felt her look was trying to shame me. Which might’ve been fair. Then again, Sierra hadn’t exactly burdened me with any direct directives besides “have fun” and “get a Treasure.”
…I did have another directive, actually, and one that, in spirit, I didn’t mind following. I preferred having friends to having enemies.
Though it was empty flattery with a bit of hope for now.
“IM GLAD ITS SETTLED, LOGY,” I said—being hasty and presumptuous on purpose. “I MADE A NEW FRIEND AND RIVAL TODAY. IM REALLY GLAD WE CLEARED THAT UP!” (“Glad” wasn’t my main emotion here.) “LETS ALL LEAVE IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY!!!”
Suddenly, Reed leaned forward and offered a smile. “Yes!” she cried. “What little I saw of the sky today was enchanting.”
“What a great idea, to celebrate it with our new friend!” Bayce said. I hoped Logy would read her tone as amusement, and definitely not laughter in any way.
Logy looked around. She looked at the tea, which had not been enjoyed by anyone but her.
“I think in this case,” Reed said, “it would be more polite for us to offer all of the tea to our benefactor rather than the other way around.”
Logy’s antennae twitched. She sent me a quick question.
“SHE ASKS WHY”
“Because if humans drink this, we will die. And it would be extremely rude for us to die on you.”
“SHE SAYS WE ALL LEARNED TODAY. I GUESS THAT MEANS ‘THANK YOU’”