[Player Log Start!]

[Log Holder: Gideon Tench]

[Level: 2 (Sub-Level)]

Three times before he had been subjected to the unmaking transportation rays, and he still hadn’t gotten over how disorienting it was. As soon as he had landed on the ground, his world was spinning around him, and Tench collapsed onto his knees.

The ground under him was solid but pliant, not hard rock or grainy sand. This was loamy, fertile stuff, pocked through with different textures and weeds and grasses poking out from it. It looked wild, but with the smell of chemical fertilizer in the air, he justified that someone had to be taking care of them.

What a charming thought. Someone taking care of wildflowers that offered no food or fiber.

One look at the horizon that separated the land from the sky, and he realized that the wildflowers weren’t the only charming things in this place. The sky was blue. A bright blue. The type he only ever saw in his dreams or photographs anymore. And they had all run out of photographs when they left ZombieWorld.

He jumped up in excitement, but his knees had turned to jelly after all that sitting, and he found himself stumbling, before a metal prong reached forward to steady him. No, not a prong, he realized, as the mechanism grabbed him by the midsection and secured him upright. One of Lucky’s robotic arms.

“Steady up, Gideon.” She commanded, looking around seriously, “Do not allow yourself to be shown as easily swayed. They may be hunting us, watching for our weaknesses. And our weaknesses are not the simple privilege of a blue sky.” She said, even though the awe and wonderment were shining in her own eyes, now that Tench knew what to look for.

“Right. Yep.” He agreed, tugging on his shirt, “I’m the image of stoicism. Have never felt joy once.” The statement immediately brought up an image of Verity in his mind, and he would have laughed, if not for the current situation they had left behind. He shook his head angrily, trying to dislodge that train of thought. He had come here for an escape, right? Well, escape he would.

He turned his gaze towards the land they had found themselves in. And once again, his breath was being stolen away, this time not by the blue skies, but by the sheer idyllic nature of the world they were in.

It seemed small and compact, but maybe that was just the effect of the white-tipped mountains stretching all around them, almost like a bowl. The air was cool and chilly, their breaths condensing slightly in the cold, rising up to join plumes of white smoke coming from little chimneys in the cottages scattered across this bowl of land.

Fences stretched across the place, dividing this little escape into paddocks and meadows and fields filled with crops, and even now there were people out there tending to them.

There was an instinctive fear in him that almost doubted that there were any people. That these were just Mobs, and that fear didn’t quite leave him, even as he walked forward, propelled by the desperate wish to prove his own paranoia wrong.

“Hey, ‘scuse me?” He asked, hands landing heavily on the closest fence with a bang that made the person tending to the bushes inside jump violently. He leaned forward, chest heaving, “Are you real?”

Their eyes widened, and that seemed human enough, but it wasn’t enough proof. The person stared at him, their mouth twitching in confusion and anxiety as the standoff continued.

Behind him, there was the skidding of wheels on ground, and Lucky’s panting as she wheeled up to them, giving the person who may or may not be human a bright smile, “Sorry about my manic friend. He’s going through a tough time.”

“Oh!” They agreed, a hand reaching to their mouth in a gasp, “You’re a new Gamer?”

That movement brought to attention the device strapped to their arm, just like it was with Linda and Danny. It looked like a screen built into the back of a glove, with buttons and sliders on the fingers shining glowing green light on the fingers.

“Yeah.” Tench agreed, his voice strained, “Linda brought us in. Her and Danny?”

“That’s a good kid there.” They nodded approvingly, a smile on their face that showed that they recognized the names, “They’d have gone straight ahead to the restricted area that you’ll have to get to by foot. And where are your Consoles?”

Lucky held up her tablet, and clicked it open so that the person could see what it was.

“Ooh, that’s an old model.” She whistled, “Got it straight from the Devs, did you? No modding, even. Has to be one of a kind.”

“I nicked it off a Harbinger.” Lucky bragged, looking pleased with herself, “And there are older versions out there. Like the ones Jared and the others are using.”

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“Must be pretty bulky if it can support multiple players.” They considered, “Can we see it?”

“It’s… not here.” Jared replied, rubbing the heel of his foot into the ground.

The person’s eyes widened, and finally, some sort of reaction that wasn’t placid understanding. This was something unexpected, even to them. Which… wasn’t a good thing, he was now realizing. Because if they were both confused, it meant nothing but trouble.

“Well, I’d be excited to check out this Console that can operate across Realms if you ever get the chance to bring them over. I’m Blue Tennison if you think to come back for me.”

“Blue. Blue. We’ll remember you, Blue.” Lucky tapped her chin, “Now, point us to this restricted area that we’re meant to be walking to? And maybe about where the rest of our party members are? I haven’t seen them around, and I’m getting a little concerned.”

“You haven’t met your teammates because the Warp Point has a scatter mechanic built into it.” Blue explained, “It’s the main difference between Warp Points and Spawn Points.”

Ohhhh. That explained a little bit of how this worked.

“If you’re looking for them, I’d suggest you do a circuit around the abode, and check all the public areas. But if you wish to meet up with Linda and Danny, head to the town hall.” They pointed to a small shack in the center of town, where a lot of the dirt paths were leading to.

“Town halls. It’s always town halls.” Tench muttered bitterly as they walked away.

“You have a problem with… halls in the center of town?” Lucky asked bemusedly, following him.

“It’s not the halls themselves that are the problem.” Ben explained, “It’s just… Hygeia had a town hall. And that was the first place we got taken to there, as well. This whole adventure is bringing up all kinds of déjà vu already.” He not so subtly craned his head around to look at Blue, still not trusting her to not be staring after them.

But they weren’t. They had their head down and was tending to rhododendrons, humming a repetitive tune that was worming his way into his head already.

“Do you hear that?” Lucky asked, looking around, “Like a tune that goes…” She hummed along the same tune that Blue was. The infection was spreading.

“Yeah, it’s just that thing the Blue person is singing, don’t let it get to-” Tench was quick to dismiss, before he fell silent, listening to the tinny music that was floating through the air, certainly not connected to any human voice. It almost sounded like it was coming from speakers, but there was no direction that the sound was louder. Huh. That was different.

“Is this… ambience?” He asked.

“I do not dislike it.” Lucky noted, doing a slow whirl on her wheels, “Unless what you mean by ambience is meant to signal impending doom.”

“No! Nothing like that.” He rushed to assure her before she inspired another catastrophe, “There’s enough doom already. Ambience is this thing in games where music plays to get us in immersed and in the zone. This sort of lo-fi stuff was very popular in slice-of-life video games you could simply lose yourself in. Windchime Hills got me through med school if you can believe it.”

“You are right, I do not believe it.” She said blankly, “What is a slice-of-life video game?”

“It’s meant to be a little snapshot of ordinary life molded into something cute and comforting that you can play.” Tench explained, his legs kicking up excitedly at the mere memory of it, “They were just so fun! You could customize your character, your home, your clothes, get in-game currency by fishing and tending to your gardens, and there were all the side characters that were so cute and dramatic and you absolutely fell in love with them-” He froze up as a realization hit him.

“What? Have you discovered the murder trap?” Lucky asked in alarm as she wheeled back to look at him, “Tell me what to aim for, I have torpedoes built into this.”

“You have what?” Tench snapped, his shock replaced with panic, “Jesus, don’t fire that. What’s wrong with you? I was just thinking that this place – Delica – is kind of like a slice of life game. Like. Exactly like one. It’s almost uncanny.” And their Objectives hadn’t loaded yet, too. That was more evidence.

“But you claim that slice-of-life games are safe, right?” Lucky asked.

“Well, I’d like to think that, yeah.” Tench agreed, “But should we really take that risk? What if we… catch too many bass and then all the bass we caught morph into a giant monster we need to kill?”

She looked at him blankly, “Has anything of the sort ever happened before?”

“Don’t tell me no one told you about Terry’s pet zombie that went feral on us.” Tench sighed, “Because after that and the talking animals we just ran away from, I don’t know what isn’t possible.”

Lucky laughed, “You say that after spending a year in the company of a tech wizard.”

“Michael is an exception. He’s…” Tench began to say, but he fell flat. He was what? Reliable? One of them? That meant little in their world. But Michael had never felt like anyone that could be untrustworthy. He was always just… there. Playing catch-up with the rest of them, a miracle up his sleeve whenever they needed one. A witty remark if that was more fitting.

Tench had once read a supernatural mystery book where the twist was that the main antagonist in the group was one who had been supernaturally sliding the suspicions of the main character off him, transferring them to the people around him.

He had almost that it had been Tench who embodied that character more, but now, he had to consider that maybe it was Michael who was the perpetrator all along. After all, what other reason could there be for why they had never considered him to be the threat that he clearly was?

“You look like you are thinking some heavy thoughts.” Lucky whispered, “Care to what has startled you so much about me bringing up Michael?”

“I had never questioned what he was doing there.” Tench admitted, gulping, “You made me realize, woah, he shouldn’t be here, should he? He’s much more powerful than any of us, and we don’t respect him for it ever. And he just goes along with it. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’m sure your missing Party Member will be heartbroken to realize that you are planning to oust him while he is stuck Realms away from you.” A different voice laughed, and the two teammates looked up sternly to watch the newcomer standing in front of them.

She was a kindly old lady, platinum blond hair and cat’s-eye glasses dotted with rhinestones. And when she smiled, it was a shape that was remarkably familiar to Tench. He was more used to it on a younger face, though.

[Player Log End!]