Chapter 106: Cabin Fever

We walked.

Rather, since even with the evergreens pressing close around us and taking the brunt of the snowfall on their boughs, the remainder came up almost to Lena’s knees, we trudged.

I panned my phone around as much as I could, and Lena still had her smart glasses on. Between us, I think we would’ve noticed any collectible objects in our path. We didn’t find any. With or without Third Eye, we saw only a moonlit sea of trees. Dark branches, dark needles, white crowns.

Had Mask collected everything when he brought his captives this way? Or had we finally found a place so remote Third Eye hadn’t populated it with resources? If I knew the answer to that, I’d almost certainly know whether Third Eye created the things we found or merely allowed us to find them.

I could’ve asked Mask. Two things stopped me.

First, I had no reason to trust his word. Instead of an answer to my question, I’d get another puzzle. I’d end up second-guessing whatever he said to try to figure out his motives.

Second, and far more importantly, the thought of opening my mouth and letting the frigid air into my lungs sounded insane.

Instead, I clamped my mouth shut, fixed my eyes forward, and pulled my soaking, freezing shoes out of the snow for one step after another.

It felt cold enough to hurt. Unfortunately, I had proof my feelings weren’t just me being a wuss. When I checked my phone, I found I’d lost another HP.

I wondered what Mask did with people who weren’t dressed for winter and didn’t have any HP left. The flames of Lena’s custom personification protected us somewhat, and our HP seemed to do the rest, but the cold still bit at my fingers and toes. Third Eye wanted me to know I shouldn’t stay out here.

Way ahead of you, game.

Especially since I wouldn’t get those HP back.

Forget having enough to escape through the Key. Forget winning a match in the hopes of persuading Mask to use said Key.

Did I even have enough HP to survive out here? Though it felt like ages to me, my phone insisted we’d only been marching for fifteen minutes.

If Mask was stranding people out in the frigid wilderness and trusting their HP would keep them alive, that would probably work for most of his targets. Most players I knew had triple digit HP, enough to last a day-night cycle. The “strong” players who caught his interest would tend to have even more.

Hell. He might even be using the threat of freezing to keep people from risking a fight – or flight, when we had no idea how far we’d have to go to get a cell phone signal, or how long it would take for help to arrive. Stranding strong players in an environment that constantly sapped their HP made a certain, awful kind of sense.

Trouble was, my status as a strong player had essentially expired.

If I stuck close to Lena and the cold didn’t worsen – say, from one of the blizzards that must have deposited all this snow – I could muddle through a couple of nights. Once I was reduced to just my original Max HP total, though, the chill would rob me of them before dawn and I’d start suffering its effects for real.

How much would burning our Materials with Fire slow that process? The temperature in our apartment had gone up when we tested it, and Lena had a lot more Fire now than she’d had then. Even I could chip in. Eventually, though, we would run out of Materials. Did I say “eventually?” Because I meant pretty damn quick; unlike the other core Reactants, Fire destroyed the objects conjured with it, and the more Lena pumped in, the faster they decayed. Not to mention, I had no idea how significant the heating effect would even be out in the open.

Could we make shelter? An igloo sounded way beyond our survival skills, but surely we could cobble together some kind of lean-to. We could find branches to lash together and supplement them with Third Eye objects. A sheet of Iron had protected us from broken glass before. However weird it felt, it had to at least lessen the wind, right?

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Lena nudged my arm. “You okay?”

I shook my head. When I opened my mouth to answer, the shock of cold against my teeth made me flinch. I’m sure I sounded real convincing when I said, “Fine.”

She frowned and peeked at my screen. Her frown sure as hell didn’t ease up when she saw my HP. She flicked her eyes up to Mask. “Good,” she lied. “Chin up, Cam. I think we’re here.”

I followed her gaze.

I’d been so lost in my catastrophizing, I’d stopped paying attention to our path. In my defense, the forest had, at least by starlight, looked maddeningly identical.

It didn’t anymore.

Mask had stopped. His cloak pooled atop the snow and his arms were folded over his chest. For the first time, though, I found him hard to see against the backdrop.

I could just make out the rough outline of a structure in front of him.

A house?

Not a house, a cabin. The rounded pattern along each edge came from the logs used to make its walls. In the dark, I couldn’t judge its size or even shape. I also didn’t give a shit. Even if it was one of those Hollywood facade buildings, just a single propped-up wall, it would cut down on the windchill and give me a better chance to survive.

Lena pressed closer to me as we approached. That was my first thought, but then I realized she was actually pushing me to the side. I let her guide me around a series of odd snowdrifts.

I raised my phone to see what her smart glasses showed her.

Through Third Eye, the cabin was surrounded by two layers of Stone outer walls. Lena had guided me through a pair of open Wood gates with Iron hinges. From the inside, I saw more Wood beams bracing the outer wall. Snow dusted everything, but not in the same quantities it piled up on the fully real objects. Under better circumstances, it would’ve been fascinating to watch how it interacted with the presence of a Third Eye obstacle.

Lena mouthed, “The hell?”

I shook my head.

Mask would either explain the weirdness of the situation, or he wouldn’t. Right now, I just wanted to know if he would let us into the cabin.

When he saw us following, he stomped up the snowy wooden steps and rapped his knuckles on what I assumed was the door.

Through the haze of cold, I had just enough presence of mind to realize the interaction seemed odd.

Mask had plenty of power in Third Eye, and he’d struck me as damned good at using it. Quick, creative, decisive. Add Phantom and you got an absolute nightmare to face in PVP. Still, the actually unique power he wielded, among everyone we’d encountered, was his Key.

Boil his powerset down to its core, and you could say it was opening things.

So why, when approaching the structure where he’d presumably stashed the people he’d abducted, did he knock instead of just unlocking the door with his Key?

Because at least one person inside wasn’t his victim, but his accomplice.

I’d let myself get sucked into assumptions about Mask again.

When we first encountered him, I speculated that he might be the tip of the spear for a team where he was PVP-mad, backed up by more research-oriented players. Something like Matt’s relationship with the rest of the wiki team, just weaponized.

I’d dismissed that idea in part because Mask kept fighting alone against bigger and more experienced groups of players. He hadn’t really been fighting alone, though, had he? He’d had Phantom with him all along.

No, the real reason I hadn’t expected Mask to be part of a team was because I found his persona obnoxious. In my head, no one else would put up with his edgy antihero schtick. They’d either find it laughable, like I did, or they would insist on being top dog.

I could think what I liked, and if I’d only been risking myself, then I deserved whatever I got for it.

I hadn’t just risked myself, though. Lena and I had planned from the start to grab onto Mask and follow him through his Key if we couldn’t persuade him to take us to our lost friends. At every step of that planning, she and I agreed it would be fine, because Mask would fight alone and we’d fight as a team.

Instead, my stupid assumptions had delivered Lena to Mask’s team. The first time I failed to deflect any serious Third Eye attack, I’d lose the last of my HP.

Lena would be the one fighting alone.

Ahead of us, the door swung open.

Apart from the moonlight, the only illumination came from a small lamp inside the building. Its glow framed part of a human figure who ducked behind the door. Then Mask swept in and blocked most of the light.

I touched Lena’s wrist and caught her eye. I whispered, “I’m sorry.”

She cocked her head. “Huh?”

“I fucked up. I shouldn’t have asked you to come with me.” I averted my eyes. “I thought he’d be alone.”

“Cam.” Lena reached up and tilted my chin till I was facing her. “It’s cool.”

“No, it’s freezing.” I flashed a wan smile.

She grinned. “I mean it.”

“How can you say that?” I asked.

Her grin widened, hardened. “If we bet wrong and there’s a whole team waiting to ambush us? In that really old wooden building?”

I nodded. “That’s what worries me, yeah.”

“Then,” she said, “they’re gonna find out how real seven Fire can get.”