[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Benedict Carrey]
[Level: 2]
Ben sat in the corner, and watched Verity openly as she chewed on the squid chunks she had been given.
The girl returned the stare with hooded eyes, and odd sheen betraying her wariness. Between sharp chewing, she mumbled, “…At least you preserved it right. A bit salty, though.”
“Sorry that there wasn’t enough freshwater to wash out the brine its been soaking in since it was born.” Ben replied, perhaps a smidge too harshly, “And I wasn’t the one who preserved it.”
“I meant ‘you’ in the general sense.” Verity replied, still chewing at the rubbery piece, “This is Terry’s work, isn’t it? That one was always good at the food stuff.”
Ben didn’t reward that with a response, just watching her with cautious eyes. Between them, Michael sat, tapping his fingers on the rock behind him in a rhythmic pattern. It was grating, sure, but the metronomic regularity of it was beginning to grow on her. Maybe they could stay here, ignoring the elephant in the room in favor of listening to the tapping. Like a physical representation of the tension swelling in the air, practically waiting to break. And it did break.
Verity wasn’t the one who made the first move, like Ben had feared she would. Neither was it Michael, pushed too far by the deceit of his closest friends.
Instead, it was Feathertooth the raven, stretching his arms wide and clanging against the bars in an echoey cacophony. Verity’s head snapped towards the sound like a cat, and Ben saw with obscene clarity as red bled into the whites of her eyes.
Everyone in the room went deathly still, except for the bird, who puffed up its chest and began to rave, “I have had enough of your dithering! Either you choose my fate, or you free me! No more will I be held in this nauseating purgatory by your dithering whelps!”
No one listened to it, instead watching Verity as her knuckles flexed under her skin, muscles tightening as she prepared to lunge forward. Despite waiting for her to jump upwards, when Verity finally did, it was almost too quick for Ben to track. One moment she was sitting down, and the next she was in the air, teeth bared, nails curled into claws.
Ben reached forward to snatch her out of the way, but she knew that the distance between them was too much for her to be able to block Verity’s murderous rage. Michael, on the other hand, who had opted to sit closer to her brought his hand up with practiced ease and shot a bolt of silvery color at her.
Verity slammed headfirst into an invisible patch of solidified air, making her rear backwards, letting out wordless growls as she grabbed at her head. Three inches away from her, Feathertooth stood still, large body plastered against the bars as far away from her as possible, chest heaving far too quickly to be fine.
“You must control that beast.” It hissed, once it had recomposed itself.
“Or maybe you shouldn’t have tested her.” Ben replied, suddenly back on Verity’s side. Not that there was any question about having her back against the stupid bird.
“Verity, you gotta snap out of it, okay?” Michael asked, leaning over her as she continued to clutch at her head, “Are you hurt? I didn’t mean to shoot the field up that hard, I swear.”
“It’s okay.” Verity mumbled, her voice nasally as she kept her hands clasped over her nose, “I- went a bit off the deep end over there. Sorry.” Her voice was at least stable, and as she turned around, Ben was relieved to see the whites of her eyes gleaming through the bangs of her hair. Her eyes were fixed on Ben, watching her warily for her reaction.
That hurt because Ben wasn’t scared of her. She liked to think that she knew who Verity was. Harbinger or not. It had been a shock once the truth about the Harbinger status was revealed, sure, but her main aim right now was to find some way to control these hot flashes of rage that Verity was prone to now that the Card of Compulsion had lost its effect on her.
“Don’t apologize.” Ben sighed, reaching up to shake the cage enough to rattle Feathertooth, “This one is a little shit and shouldn’t have set you off.”
“But it’s going to happen again.” She whispered, chewing on a nail that was worn down to the quick. Her nails used to be well kept, using nail files and cutters whenever she had the chance, to keep them sharp and stabby. Once the excitement of her waking up, and the revelations that followed, had died down, she had made short work of whittling down on them. Maybe it was a product of Verity’s anxiety, but Ben was also considering the possibility that Verity was chewing away at it to remove one more weapon from her grasp.
Michael reached his hand forward, “We’ll figure something out, okay?” He promised, “There’s plenty of cheat codes or Abilities or something out there for us to help you, alright?”
“It’s not going to be fast enough.” Verity insisted, getting up to pace around, waving her hands around as she spoke, “How am I supposed to help you guys in this without flying off the handle at Every. Little. Thing.” She punctuated every bit of that last word with a stomp of her feet.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“And that’s your cue to take a breath. Sit down. And think calm thoughts.” Ben interjected, trying not to sound too condescending. Mission failed, if the way her jaw worked angrily was any clue. But she listened to her instructions and forcefully plopped herself down onto the floor. That was a good sign.
“See, you managed to stay on the handle right then.” Michael grinned nervously yet encouragingly, “If we can get you in the practice of breathing exercises, then we might be able to get your Harbinger instincts to die down on their own!”
“That’s wishful thinking.” Verity told him plainly, “Trust me, I thought the same when-” She broke off, grimacing, and Ben thought that she wouldn’t continue, only for Verity to muscle through it, “When the Hygeia fight went down.”
A look of realization dawned over Michael, and at the same time, Ben was hit by the memory of a bloody whirlwind Verity had been reduced to when it had first begun. Back then, she had thought that it was simply Verity getting caught up in the moment, but with now… Ben wondered how much of that she was even aware of, let alone responsible for.
“So we’ve got to figure out some proper way to make sure it doesn’t happen.” She decided and was surprised to realize that this was the first time someone had said it out loud.
But there was no other way to go about it. They needed Verity, and if they had to get into the guts of this System, then Ben would have no qualms about doing that.
“I don’t think that it’ll ever truly go away.” Verity replied, hysteria and desperation kicking in, “You all are better off just putting me under the Compulsion again, and hope it sticks this time!”
“You’re smart enough to know that’s an unreliable method, since it was failing even before Jared was forced to Deactivate it.” Ben rebutted, “And Lucky has refused to do it. Since we’re not handing it back over to Jared, and she’s the only person who’s used it, which had… less than desirable results.”
“Well, what do you suggest we do?” Verity asked.
Michael tilted his head, considering the question seriously, “I mean, this is a Game, right?” He asked, “Like, take away the capitalization. It really is a game like any other kind stored on the computer. Which means you can look through the files with your computer, modify them some if you’ve got the right apps for it, that kind of thing.”
“I don’t think messing with the fabric of reality is very smart.” Ben cautiously interjected. Michael had the audacity to scoff, reaching his hand out to let wisps of green and yellow emanate off his fingertips.
[Michael Kapok Is Applying Sorcery!]
A dialogue box duly reported. He looked her in the eyes as he continued stirring it around, making the air around it ripple like a heat-induced mirage. Except for the total lack of any heat.
“Isn’t this already messing with the fabric of reality?” He asked.
“That really doesn’t count, and you know it.” Ben replied, “Sorcery and Affinities and all those other Abilities are messing with the rules, sure, but they were made to do that. With people who knew what they were doing.”
“Also people who are trying to destroy the world.” Verity added, “If the Consoles really are made by the Developers. Which, I mean, who else could it be?”
“Seems counterintuitive to build in crazy measures.” Michael hummed in agreement, “I don’t see why they would do something like that.”
Ben could feel her eyebrow twitch. So maybe they were right. She could handle being wrong as well as the next person, but seriously, they couldn’t dismiss their best hypothesis for a stab in the dark (Well, Verity might, but they wouldn’t get into that.)
“What happened to Occam’s razor, you two?” She asked, “The simplest answer is probably the right one, and as far as we know, the Developers are the only ones with any type of control over the System, or the Game, or whatever this is.”
“That’s not… necessarily true.” Verity replied, and before Ben could tell her that was simply conjecture, she continued, “Mo- Eleanor Monroe could do it, too.”
Ben found herself at a loss for words. Because she was right. Eleanor Monroe had indeed shown a propensity for controlling the Game and its elements, if the Console, Jared’s testimony, and Verity’s entire existence was evidence to it.
“Huh.” She said, her voice small.
Verity’s on the other hand, was getting louder, excitement dancing over it, and not the aggressive kind either, “And these Developers, there’s no telling what sort of beasts or creatures they are. Could be eldritch horrors for all we know. But Eleanor was human. I know she was human. And if humans can manipulate the System, that means that we might- we might actually have a shot.” Her voice quavered at the last sentence, as if she could barely voice the sentiment, “I might… not have to be a Harbinger anymore.”
They stood in silence, digesting that information, before Michael gave an affirmative grunt, “That’s right. We’re going to make it happen. I’ll look into the Console, and see if there’s anything I can do. Without my Computer Affinity. I think that will hurt more than help in this situation.”
“I’ll… go keep a lookout.” Ben replied craning her neck towards the earthy ceiling, “I keep expecting some bird or the other to track down Feathertooth and come back to reclaim it. Maybe they’re having a hard time searching places guarded by water like this?”
“Unlikely.” Feathertooth rasped, “We have a database of all the coves in the area. With air-reliant creatures such as you, they would undoubtedly check those first. And this is on that list.”
“So maybe they don’t want to come for you because you’re so pissy.” Michael said, mostly as an insult, but when Feathertooth stiffened in offense, he capitalized on it quickly, “Which, I mean, considering they didn’t tell you about the humans that still existed, despite being a raven…” He trailed off, implications clear. Feathertooth shrank as much as a bird his size could.
“That-” It snipped, “Is highly inappropriate-”
“Yeah, whatever, I’m leaving.” Ben shook her head, climbing out of the cove.
“Wait!” Verity cried below her, “I’m coming with you.”
Ben looked down at her, “You don’t have to.”
“But what if I do something?” She asked, her voice shaky and soft in a way that it never was before, betraying her lack of trust in herself, “What if no one stops me in time, with Michael being distracted?”
Ben wasn’t worried about that. Maybe she should have been, but this was Vera. It was impossible to see her as more than the badass kid she was. But it was clearly a concern for Vera, so she nodded and let the girl climb out with her.
The moment she straightened up above ground, though, her eyes met a crow’s single golden one. And she knew that she had severely miscalculated.
“Vera, get behind me.” She said, voice sharp as a whip. And maybe that would startle the girl in ways they really didn’t want, but she didn’t care at the moment.
[Player Log End!]