“Where did you get that?” Commander Zideo’s was that of someone who had just taken a big bite of a juicy orange, before realizing it was actually a lemon. “We went through… the whole Ice Level–”

“Blue Frost,” said Addrion, although Zideo was not as grateful for this correction as he might have been.

“But… we looked for you. Where did you land?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “Not on the ground, anyway. Turns out these things–” and here she pointed to one of the floating hillocks of land “are all over the place. Even up there.” Addrion indicated a patch of clouds above.

“You were in the clouds?” Zideo’s confusion was plain.

“I was… on them. There wasn’t much there. Your boots kinda… disappear into them. But underneath it’s hard ground.” Her hand went to her lower back, and she winced at the memory. “Got the bruise to prove it, too.”

“And this thing was just, like, out there? Free for the taking?”

“More or less. No guards, zero hostiles. It was locked up tight, but nothing a charged up Thrak & Ezvon XLZ Tactical can’t handle.” She indicated her hand, which blurred and elongated, becoming the weapon before our very eyes.

“We did so much work. And you just… stumbled onto the Blue Radian.” His eyes focused far away, and he shook his head in the purest denial. “I went into a burning house and got beat up by a dragon. I went to jail!” He nearly coughed on his own disbelief. “I fought a psycho snowman!”

Addrion raised her seed-shaped gun lazily, at the elbow, and dropped it again, unwilling to commit to even a shrug. “I guess what bothers me is I’m the only Player here. Why did it let you pick it up?”

Helmgarth interjected, “Lots of rules clash these days. We’re all still figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

The warrior glowered. “Yeah yeah, we know. You’re King Shit of Kissmyass Mountain. Well, I’m a main character, you know.”

I watched the calculations work themselves out on Zideo’s face. “But then… you actually make the least sense,” he said. “Who’s controlling you?”

“Nobody controls me,” she spat. “I’m here because of loyalty. Which is more than I can say for–”

Helmgarth cleared his throat. “I think what Addrion is trying to say is that we should get moving.”

“Don’t talk over me,” she snarled, and stabbed the air in Zideo’s direction with her finger. “You’re just like every Player that’s ever been. You think the universe revolves around you. Well, it doesn’t. You get everyone all worked up, falling all over themselves to kiss your feet, and then you forget about us and move onto something else.”

“No,” said Zideo. I could see his temperature was rising. Most people would have taken a step back under the space exterminator’s withering words. But Commander Zideo, who I can’t remember if I have mentioned that he is the utmost specimen of humanity, took a step forward. “Not me.” He jerked his thumb toward his chest. “I finish the job. Ya boy sees credits. Every time, or it bothers me.”

“You’ve never left a g-word unfinished?”

“I mean,” he stumbled on his words. “Like. Probably somewhere along the line. We were all kids at some point, right?”

“No,” said Addrion. Helmgarth shook his head. His countenance told me he wanted to throw a rope down to Zideo to escape this conversation, but he was fearful of the crossfire.

“Oh yeah, I guess not. Well, what can I say?” He threw his hands up. “Humans in the real world aren’t… we’re not coded fully grown! We’re born and we grow! We’re not perfect!”

“No shit,” she said. “Do you have any idea what that feels like? I was abandoned once. In Xessalonika. I’ll clue you in: it’s not great. One second you’re filling a hive of Chondria full of chitin-penetrating plaz-bursts and hyper-phosphorizing the nest. The next, your spirit just leaves you. Your will. All your inspiration. You have no reason to be there, and you can’t pull the trigger. Even the bugs gave up fighting. They pitied me. My entire mission was just snatched out of my hands and I was left to rot. It’s like your whole existence hits a steel wall at a hundred miles an hour. You cannot even imagine what that’s like.”

Helmgarth would have taken cover if he could.

“I do,” said Zideo, in a quiet voice. His eyes were on the ground. She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t want much, but I found my scene when I started creating content.” By the looks on their faces, Addrion and Helmgarth had no idea what this meant, and neither did I. But I guessed it had something to do with the time he spent in front of that fateful, medium-sized, glowing rectangle on his desk in the sleeping-office. “I got competitive. I got good. And I worked my way up, and finally joined Team Plasma. The best esports team in Arizona.” There he went again, with his funny pronunciation. “We streamed in our down-time. Between practice, and scrimmaging, and working out, and tournaments, and exhibition matches, and everything. Never not grinding. We didn’t even stop to eat. So one night I’m just doing a stream for me, taking some Zideo time, you know what I mean?” He started to laugh, but it died on his lips. “And this… total asshole I roomed with, he just walks over and grabs my mic. And he screams a bunch of…” He glanced at me, suddenly conscious of sensitive ears. “Well, I won’t repeat it. But you get it.” We didn’t. “And that was it. Banned from Twitch. Kicked off the team. Unfriended from everyone. Lost a bunch of followers. Everything I worked for… just gone.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

His eyes told us he had returned from the memory’s depths. “So yeah, I’d say I know a little bit about being abandoned.” He chuckled grimly, as though we would understand the implications. But for the first time, the other humans were just as in the dark as I was.

“Heck,” he said. “Maybe that’s why the Princess summoned me here.”

Addrion, made the same sound she had when she’d learned his name for the first time. “You were not summoned by her majesty.”

“Then who?”

“My credits are on the Boss Council.” From what I know of the practices of humans delivering bad news to one another, anyone with a shred of sympathy would have the decency to look away, but she stared him down cruelly to see what he would do.

Helmgarth piped up. “That cannot be.”

Addition deigned to shrug. “Wouldn’t you, if you were them? Think about it. Instant access to Ludopolis, and now they’ve got an asset on the inside.” She did not raise her weapon, but neither did she put it away. I stood. “They’ve already busted up our planet. Everything gone but us, an oversight they’re trying to remedy. So they went the attrition route. They stopped our river. They took our light. Why not send in the greatest disruptor of all? Sow chaos inside the walls?”

“No,” said Helmgarth. His lips were tight. “No, it makes no sense, love. Players are the bane of Bosses. Their only blind spot, the one string they cannot pull. Players stop Bosses. It is their specialty. Why would the Boss Council bring that on themselves?”

Addrion waved it away. “You tell me. They broke everything so they could make it their own. Chaos first, then a new order. And it’s working.”

“Not completely,” said my human, “we have the Blue Radian. One fifth of the sun, right? Look.” He cleared his throat. Helmgarth rubbed the bridge of his nose and let out a long sigh. “Wait, what did I ask last time? Hey, book! Uh, how many Radians do we have?”

“God da–” began Addrion, but the book whirled to life in a ripple of parchment leaves and the creak of binding.

* Radians in the World

* * Blue Frost: Location Unknown

* Golden Plains: Location Unknown

* Purple Deeps: Location Unknown

* Rolling Green: Location Unknown

* Red Hot Caliente Zone: Location Unknown

It swirled back into nothingness. Zideo’s fluency with bringing the book to life and sending it away was becoming second nature. I recalled my halted stumble in the caves and appreciated the brevity all the more.

“Why didn’t it register? It didn’t count it.” An idea came to life in his eyes. “You said it was locked away, but you didn’t fight a Boss for it? Could it be a fake-out?”

Addrion did not think so. “I think you fought the Boss, and this was hidden away to keep it from the OppFor.” We blinked at her. “The opposing force.” Silence followed, and she became agitated. “That’s us. We’re the opposing force.”

Zideo was not satisfied. “But it’s not counting. Why not?” The idea struck them gradually, but completely, although I could not follow wherever human logic was leading them. Helmgarth looked at Addrion. Zideo did as well. Addrion’s eyebrows lowered defensively.

“No. You can’t have it.”

“Why not?” asked Zideo.

“It’s fine where it is. I have an Inventory too, you know.”

“Yeah, but…”

“But nothing. It’s safer with me.”

“But it doesn’t count!”

Helmgarth pleaded with his eyes. Zideo waited. I wagged my tail, just happy to be a part of the conversation. Even the wind took a side, blowing toward the exterminator and stirring her green hair across her emerald armor. “Fine.” She produced the Blue Radian, once again painting the nearby world around us in that same monochrome hue. She put it in Zideo’s hand, and he closed his fingers around it, whereupon it vanished just as fully as someone had turned off a lightswitch.

“Hey book…”

* Radians in the World

* * Blue Frost: Acquired!

* Golden Plains: Location Unknown

* Purple Deeps: Location Unknown

* Rolling Green: Location Unknown

* Red Hot Caliente Zone: Location Unknown

“Lerk! Dat derd it! Erps…” He dismissed the book. “That did it. It has to be in a Player’s inventory.”

The warrior boiled. She stared laser beams through him, which I am sure would have been emerald green, had they been visible. She returned her weapon arm to a hand, and turned to reconnoiter the hazel and chestnut landscape before us.

“Like you said,” Zideo said to Helmgarth. “We’re all figuring out what works.”

Helmgarth pulled his backpack straps tight, clearly wanting to get moving.

“What’s this?” said Zideo. We turned. He was staring down at his feet. His Jordan-shoes were sliding forward, pebbles grumbling beneath his soles. He inched forward infinitesimally in the dirt, without taking a step. Blades of amber grass flattened under him. “What’s going on?”

“How are you doing that?” asked Addrion.

“I’m not doing it,” he replied. He worked his elbows, and I noticed they would not extend far behind him. He leaned back, and was suspended as though against an invisible wall. “Something is pushing me.” He slid slowly down the hill, and across the clearing. When he nearly passed me, I felt it too–like a wind that was solid and slow. I could not retreat into it or move against it. I slid beside him. Addrion and Helmgarth wisely backed away from us, in the direction the “wind” was pushing.

“God, this place,” said Zideo. “Every time I try to do something, something is done for me. I’m sick of it.” He turned and spat into the wind. His gob of saliva penetrated it easily–indeed, it was completely unaffected, and splashed in the weeds. “Is this another cutscene?”

Helmgarth shook his head. “No… oh. I think I know what this is. Skypatch told me about this. It happens in some Platform lands. It is the Wall Force.”

“That’s what it’s called?” said Zideo, who was leaning hard against it yet sliding forward, now up a hill. He lost his footing and was herded like a tumbleweed up the hill. “Aaahh! Oop, ow.” He got his hands underneath him, then his feet, and got ahead of it. There was no sign of the moving Wall in the grasses or the dirt. It left the trees alone, and seemed to operate separately from the other, milder breezes and winds.

“Oh great,” said Zideo. “I know what you mean now. It’s a dang auto-scroller.”