[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Lucky Paine]
[Level: 2 (Sub-Level)]
To the others, the information they had gleaned from their time in Delica was of no importance. Interesting to know, certainly, but had no effect on their goals. For Lucky, it changed everything about how she planned to go forward.
In her hands, she had the Console. Simply staring at its open back. Looking at the computer components that she could only make wild stabs at understanding. She understood that the ones marked as processors were bulkier with the more calculations they had to run. The Harbinger part of the core, the one she had disconnected, was smaller, in comparison to the cracked one she had been given.
The wire for it was still intact. She could reconnect it at will, enabling the Harbinger Game to begin, and gaining access to the Realm-jumping feature. This whole song and dance about a Perfect Day could not control her. Would not make her complacent.
Because they were not a fool. This perfect world would never be that. She’d thought she lived in a world where people could be trusted, and her own instincts would never lead them astray. And they had been wrong about that. Which was fine. They were allowed to fall victim to magical influence. But only once. After that, it just got embarrassing.
Their hand hovered over the wire. A flick and a twist and a somewhat clumsy insertion. That was all that she needed to do. Then a new world of possibilities would be unlocked. And all the drawbacks that would come from it.
Burks had been a Harbinger, she knew, and the memory of him made their chest feel tight and panicky. He was still in his cell, she tried to console herself. He wasn’t going to escape without his Console, or his Card, or his allies. The man had failed them too many times to be considered an asset. Maybe her people had murdered him. Good riddance.
The sole purpose of a Harbinger was to sow discord through the Realms. They sought to destroy, and leave nothing behind. Switching to the new Game would likely result in all that programming overwriting her control. It would be the Compulsion Card but worse.
Verity was also a Harbinger. There was that to consider. She managed to fight the conditioning, but only through an intervention from Eleanor Monroe. An intervention that was not available to them. And even with it, she was struggling to keep the violence at bay. Lucky would definitely be having a worse time with the repercussions.
A hundred times a day, she had run through the pros and cons of this course of action. As if listing it all one more time would result in an outcome other than a standstill.
The sun dipped below the horizon. They weren’t even surprised when a sign blinked in front of them, announcing that they had failed the Objective. It was just an Alright Day today.
In the room next to hers, there was a whooping sound. Someone had managed a Perfect Day, it seemed.
Their wheelchair quickly shuffled out of the room, making for the reading nook that Terry was particularly fond of. But the one who had a Success notification hanging above his head was not Terry.
“Jared?!” They couldn’t help the indignant screech that erupted out of her. It was only right to be annoyed, after all, “Out of everyone, you were the one to achieve the win state?”
He grinned, turning around to look at her, “Yeah! Sweet, isn’t it? I was just having a good time here, so I’m not surprised-”
Over his shoulder, Terry caught Lucky’s eye for a quick second. He rolled his eye in a flicker of humorous disdain, as Jared continued to yammer on. Above the boy’s head, the day’s summary said: A Lonely Day. Had he been here for most of that day? They didn’t think so. Terry was always following someone or the other around. Usually Asadullah.
“So, you planning on leaving now?” She asked, cutting to the quick.
Jared shut up immediately, rubbing at his neck, “Well… I’m supposed to, aren’t I? Going to catch up with Ben, Vera and Mike back on the Main Level. We had a meeting set up with the birds that we missed, and I need to see how it turned out.”
“I get that.” Terry agreed, standing up from his bed to put his hand on Jared’s shoulder, “And you should go. You earned it. First of us to reach the Objective, right?”
“Any points for us failures?” Lucky teased.
The corners of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t look particularly proud of it, “You want to fall in love with this place.” He admitted, “Gonna be a bitch to leave, though. Because now you’re attached to the place and you gotta leave.”
They all sat there for a few seconds, letting Jared sit in his confession. Lucky wasn’t Jared’s biggest fan at the moment. Or ever, even. But that didn’t mean that they couldn’t sympathize what he was going through, even if comforting him was out of the question.
“Here’s what you’re going to do.” They decided, sitting up, “Get back to the Main Level, find Ben, and tell us where we’ve all been held up. From there, get the Console, and send us a Direct Message back about what’s happened there. Try to keep moving forward, and we’ll cover for you here.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Any last requests?” Terry asked.
“I’m not dying.” Jared shoved him. The amateur mycologist laughed, removing his hand from Jared’s shoulder, even as Jared added, “Manny gets sick every two weeks, apparently. I don’t know why no one picks up on that pattern, but it happens. And someone needs to play dealer for when he’s gone. Also, Conner’s working on a life-sized horse animatronic. Not that he knows that that’s what it’s called. Someone should help him with that. And Julian-!” His mouth clicked shut, “Sorry, I’m trying to leave now. This place is like a parasite. I gotta cut it from the roots.”
“Not how parasites work-” Terry tried to correct him, before their infamous negotiator disappeared into a shower of pixels. Terry let out a shallow breath, looking down at Ben in their chair.
“He’s gone, huh?” She replied, shaky for some reason. She really had begun to think it was impossible to leave this hell of perfection. But someone had gotten out. Proven that theory wrong.
They didn’t get to celebrate this win for long, as the front door slammed open.
People were yelling in a panic. Something was being dragged around. More doors and drawers banged and rattled. Terry and Lucky looked at each other, before she began maneuvering out of the room, to see what was happening in the hall.
Asadullah was fallen on the ground in a dead faint, his head supported by a pillow. His arm was splayed out, leaking blood from his glass bangles, which were colorless now. Lucky remembered Asadullah’s barebones explanation of how the bangles worked to contain the djinn, enough to remember that the bangles were a type of vein jewelry, through which the blood flowed. She didn’t understand the process to keep the djinn contained, but an important factor was to keep the bangles intact.
“What happened?” They asked, pulling herself out of her wheelchair to sit down on the floor and check Asadullah’s pulse.
“I don’t know!” Simon, the one who had brought him in, replied in a panic from the kitchen as he poured water into a pot, “We were just talking! He brought me to the bottom of the cliff using his powers, but then he just- he just- collapsed.”
“Did the bangles break on the journey here?” Terry asked, hovering at the edge of the gathering. Tench was looking through the dresser at the side of the cottage, picking out poultices and bandages and other miscellaneous medical tools. Katherine was standing at the doorway, even as Nina stood in front of her and tried to get her to leave.
“No.” Simon replied, “When he fell, they were already broken. Maybe it cracked during the way down?”
Lucky doubted it. She had seen Asadullah take plenty of harsh hits and falls. No journey down a mountain would break the bangles so easily. Not unless he fell straight down a cliff and landed on his arm. And maybe not even then.
But those hits before… that concerned them. Any of those could easily have built up to deal the killing blow. And Asadullah wouldn’t have said a thing.
“Someone get a cloth to put under his arm!” Tench announced, sitting down next to Lucky, his hands filled with supplies. Simon came in with a pillowcase and a pot filled with water, and both of them got to work.
“You’re a good engineer, Lucky.” Tench told her as he stretched out Asadullah’s injured arm to the fullest, allowing them access to the mess of blood, cuts, and broken glass. Lucky nodded, not entirely sure where this was going, until he put a pair of tweezers in their hand, “Think you can pull most of the bangle off him? I’ll work on the smaller pieces of glass.”
“Got it.” She nodded, reaching for the edge of the metal cuff that supported the glass structure. She’d known that the bangles weren’t really bangles, but upon pulling the ruined device apart, only then did she get a good look of the spiral of glass that wound around his arm.
Now, the device was split into two. Smashed apart from one angle. With steady hands, Lucky unlatched the metal cuffs from both sides and took off the bangle set. Beneath the metal cuffs, there were needles inserted into his veins, which left behind holes through which more blood to leaked out from the already shredded arm.
Thankfully, Tench moved quickly to cover the wounds, tying a tourniquet around Asadullah’s arm and trying to slow the bleeding, even as he picked out the pieces of glass embedded in his arm.
Asadullah’s breath hitched sharply, and he jerked away from Tench’s tweezers. The medic was unfazed, too practiced in helping struggling patients, and made shushing noises to keep Asadullah pinned to the ground.
“It’s gonna be okay.” Terry whispered, his voice tight and muted, “C’mon, Asad.”
Lucky, seeing no place for her at the scene, carefully pulled themself off the ground and back onto their wheelchair, holding the broken bangles in both hands to keep it together.
There was something strange about it, she realized, as she held it carefully. It was almost like the device was… glowing slightly. Vibrating in their hands. The strangest feeling came over her. As if she was in acute danger right now.
What was a djinn, again?
A thin film of black appeared around the bangles, and it was only her common sense that kept them from chucking the broken glass across the room and cause more of an issue. More and more of the black aura came out, creeping out of the bangle like cockroaches coming into the light.
What she had initially thought was a gas roiled in the air, gracelessly molding itself into a tiny, blobby lump, with two pointy edges sticking out from the top, all sitting atop the broken pieces of bangles.
Two wide yellow dots appeared in the mass of black. They looked almost like eyes. Then they opened and closed, like a cartoon character blinking, and that presumption solidified in her mind. It’s foggy body tilted its head, and Lucky found herself mimicking the action, stuck maintaining eye contact with whatever this creature was.
“…Er, guys?” She called out carefully.
“Is it more important than this?!” Simon asked, wiping another thick layer of blood off Asadullah’s arm.
The creature’s expressive glowing eyes flattened. Lucky felt a severe connection with it, even though there was high chance that it would go berserk and kill them all.
“N̵o̴,̴ ̴n̶o̴,̷ ̶I̴'̸m̷ ̸s̷u̴r̵e̷ ̸y̸o̸u̵'̸r̸e̸ ̸a̵l̸l ̶v̵e̵r̵y̵ ̵b̷u̷s̴y̴.̶ ̴D̶o̸n̵'̴t̸ ̷l̵i̵s̴t̶e̵n̴ ̴t̶o̴ ̸H̴E̵R̵.̶ ̴N̴o̴t̵ ̷l̵i̵k̴e̸ ̷s̵h̶e̸ ̷c̶a̷n̶ ̶s̵e̸e̷ ̸s̶o̵m̴e̵t̵h̷i̶n̷g̴ ̴y̴o̶u̶ ̴d̸o̴n̴'̸t̶.̴” It said, the voice distorted as it emanated from the creature’s void-like body.
Everyone’s heads snapped towards Lucky and the creature standing on her hands. A tail snaked down from its amorphous body, whipping around like a snake.
“H̷i̶.̸ ̴I̵'̸m̶ ̷t̸h̵e̴ ̴d̶j̴i̴n̸n̷.̴” It announced.
[Player Log End!]