The singular groan of a zombie radiated throughout the house as she wiped the remnants of her meal from her mouth. Sharp teeth upturned into a wide grin as her crimson eyes roved around the kitchen. Satiated.
“Can’t beat pancakes for breakfast,” Sally said, sinking into her chair. By far the best thing about taking over the System was not having to exist solely on a diet of fresh brains forever.
Her eyes turned to the doorway, as the half dressed silhouette of Theo walked through into the living room. Well, maybe the food was the second best thing.
“You see the message from Chuck?” the vampire called from the other room.
She rolled her eyes. He knew her well enough to know that she most likely hadn’t checked her messages. And indeed, she hadn’t. “He want’s us to come in?” she guessed, leaning back in the chair.
“Yeah. Have you seen the teleport stone to his place?”
“Nope.”
“Just thought you might have moved it…”
Sally narrowed her eyes. “Where was the last place you left it?”
There was a brief pause. “It was just… with the others.”
With a sigh, she got up off the chair and moved her plate over to the sink. Looking at her reflection in the window, she tied back her excessively long blonde hair. Three months of easy living hadn’t changed much about her. Even being able to gorge on actual food for a change hadn’t upgraded her scrawny appearance. Despite her off-green skin tone, she didn’t feel as undead as she used to… but that might just be the lack of high stakes violence they had previously lived under.
She adjusted her loose white dress shirt to cover her black shorts and relented to going to help the vampire find the stone that was probably right under his nose.
Striding through the doorway and into the living room, she immediately tripped on something and landed flat on top of Theo, who was lying on the floor.
“What are you doing?” She pushed herself up and glared down at him. Much like her, their time of relative relaxation hadn’t done much to fill him out. Slim and athletic, with messy brown hair. His red eyes peered back at her from behind round glasses with crimson lenses.
“Seeing if it was under the couch.” He grinned, exposing his long fangs.
“Goofball...” She narrowed her eyes and bit her lip. “Have we got time to…?”
He shook his head. “Afraid not, Sally Danger. The request was pretty insistent we not be late.”
“Shame.” She moved off of him, giving his abs a prod along the way. “It wasn’t a red alert, right? Or, however he named them.”
“Red means we’re under attack. It was a Gray alert, which means important, but it’s not something life or death.” He pushed himself up to a sitting position as the zombie stood.
She pouted, and went into her Inventory to bring out the Teleportation Stone that would take them to the Architect’s Tower. “Best get dressed then, pup. Any clues on what this could be?”
He frowned at the fact she had the stone all along, but the expression quickly faded. With a glance at his own STAR menus, he stood and switched into his smart burgundy suit. “No. He had been pretty cagey about something for a few weeks, but nobody seems to know.”
“Other than Dent.”
“And he’d never give up Chuck’s secrets.” Theo pouted. “Even getting him drunk had no effect.”
Sally shivered. “Don’t remind me. And I can’t believe we had our alcohol rights taken away after that. Literally 1984.”
Theo shrugged and then brushed some of her hair from her face. “Chuck had to invent pressure washers to clean the village off. Not to mention our own house. There’s only so many times I can scrub brain-vomit out of the furniture and fittings.”
“Must be a few more times than… what, five, now?”
“Eight.” He clicked his fingers. “You going like that? He mentioned all the Outsiders would be there.”
“Really?” She grinned and switched her Equipment options around to dress instead in black jeans and a red t-shirt that said 'Player Hater' on it. “Been a while since we were all in the same room. And you’re sure it’s nothing about danger?”
Theo smiled. “You know what I’m like with secrets, but honestly, I don’t know.”
Sally narrowed her eyes, but trusted him. Despite most of their time spent together having been bouncing from conflict to conflict, now that they had room to breathe... it turned out they were actually a good match. Thanks to the fixes to the System, they could still have their combat ability tested and kill and die to feel some kind of normality - but now they had an actual life together.
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“Let’s go then, fangs. See what new terror threatens to usurp our little paradise.” She grinned and held the teleportation device up.
With the flash of blue light and a wave of vertigo, they vanished from their quaint house in the goblin village and appeared in a circular chamber, illuminated by light blue and domed to a peak.
Other than a gray bench that ran around the entirety of the room and a grandiose door ahead of them, there was no other furniture or defining features to make note of. Aside from the man sitting beside the door, anyway.
He lifted his head up to greet them. A light beard of dark brown on his weathered face, in contrast to his light gray suit. His right arm reflected the light, the visible hand made of some manner of metal instead of flesh.
“Dent!” Sally beamed. “Looking dapper as ever, how is the world’s greatest swordsman doing?”
“I’m doing just fine.” He shot them a soft smile. “Nice to see you both, as always. You’re the first to arrive, could you believe?”
She nudged the vampire with her elbow. “See, there was time.”
“Just the Outsiders due here?” Theo said, trying to ignore her.
Dent nodded. “Well, a couple extras you’re familiar with, but I’ll leave that nice and vague. If you want, you can go and see Chuck before it begins? He could do with calming down.”
“Something big then?” Sally asked as they made their way over to the door.
“You know how he is.” He shook his head. “Imagine having to deal with it all day long.”
“I couldn’t,” Theo said, holding a blank expression across his pale face. “Our domestic life is picture perfect.” As they stepped forward, he tried to ignore the glare the zombie burned into the side of his head.
With a comforting creak, the wide doors opened to reveal a similarly domed chamber, but this one was larger. In the center was a round table with at least a dozen chairs around it. White lights pierced through the glowing blue of the odd room, to give a soft natural ambience. At the opposite end of the table, Chuck was already sitting.
Three intangible screens of data hovered in front of him, illuminating his concentrated face in light blue. Also wearing light blue robes, it gave him an almost ethereal look, which suited the fact he was almost literally the new god of the System. In seeing them enter, he dismissed the screens and his furrowed brow melted away into a soft smile.
“Ah! Didn’t expect you two to be here first. And not even as unkempt as usual.”
“The advantages of catching us in the morning before any of our Quests and Dungeons came up,” Sally grinned back.
“I’ve already canceled your appointments for the day. Apologies, but I didn’t know how long this would drag on… or how you’d feel after.”
They both exchanged a glance before sitting down. “Aw, I had a graveyard mini-boss job on today,” the zombie groaned, deflating onto the table.
“Trust me,” Chuck waved a hand. “Your mind will be elsewhere once we get settled in.”
“No hints before the others get here?” Theo asked, leaning back in his chair.
“Nope. Only that the System is safe. This isn’t about any danger or problems in our world.”
Sally furrowed her brow. Maybe she was reading into how he worded that too much. Did that mean it was danger or problems in-
The door opened up behind them, interrupting her thoughts. They turned to see a short figure in drab leathers, a dark gray hooded cloak obscuring their face aside from two eyes of bright crimson.
“Hey Lucius!” She grinned.
“Sally, Theo, Chuck.” A speech bubble appeared beside his head with a waving hand inside, before it was replaced by a yellow, smiling face. “Did you know Theo keeps rescheduling his appointments?”
Sally turned to glare at the vampire.
“What?” He awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “This isn’t an intervention, is it? I’m fine.”
“You can be fine at your appointments, then.” She jabbed him in the chest with a finger. “We’ll discuss this later, fangs.”
“No pressure,” Lucius added as he sat down, earning a narrowed glare from the vampire.
Sally was getting excited now. Although the Outsiders had kept in touch and seen each other regularly now that they were settled and technically disbanded, to have them all back together in the same room had her at the edge of her chair. All that was left now was-
A flash of blue illuminated the side of the room as a figure teleported in. A soft blue suit that matched glowing blue eyes. The demon grinned widely as he brushed his hair past short horns. “Ah! I am not as fashionably late as I’d hoped.”
“Edwa-“ Sally began.
“Edward!” Theo spoke over her.
She rolled her eyes as the demon gave them a bow before taking a seat. Although not part of the core Outsider Party, Edward had been a key player in several of their battles along the way. She should have known it would be inevitable that he’d also show up. The fact that he was close friends with Theo now would be more grating if she didn’t also like the demon.
The door opened up and Dent stuck his head in. “Your teleport is supposed to come out here, Edward. Don’t make me tell you twice.”
The demon rolled his eyes as the door closed, before catching the narrowed glare of the Architect. “Alright. Hard to be the grand betrayer these days, when everyone is so friendly and comes back to life anyway.”
“Jealous that everyone stole your cool ability?” Sally stuck her tongue out at him.
“Glad I no longer have to worry about any of you dying long term.” He smiled and leaned back in his chair in a similar manner that Theo was.
Chuck rubbed at his head. “I forgot how crowded it gets with all your personalities in the same place. Hopefully, once the others-”
Before he could finish, the doors opened once again. This time, two figures stepped through. The first almost eclipsing the light coming in from the other room. A large suit of dark metal armor with a skeletal face, crimson flame flickering behind his crown-like helmet. The Death Knight stepped aside to let the slimmer figure behind him step in.
“Sorry we’re late,” the Mummy said, her yellow eyes warm on seeing everyone gathered. “Somebody couldn’t find the teleport stone.” She pushed her gray hair from her face as she gave Humphrey a wry grin.
“Norah found it.” He shrugged in return. “We have so many of them it’s hard to tell them apart sometimes, ha-ha.”
Dent came in behind them as they went to take seats at the table. “That’s all. I’ll be sealing the door and putting wards up.”
Sally was practically brimming with energy at being around everyone again. She bounced in her chair a little as she beamed at each of them in turn, hardly worrying about why the swordsman would need to take such precautions. Eventually, her eyes switched to him as he moved around them to sit beside Chuck.
The Architect smiled, some nerves tugging at the edges of his expression.
“Thank you for all being here,” he said, before sighing. “I’ve been prodding about at the System for a while now, getting things ready to present this proposition to you…”
His smile turned into more of a grimace as his eyes settled on the two half-Players of the group.
“What do you know about the simulation theory?”