Chapter 85: Campfire Story

Lena gripped my arms and hung on as though for dear life. “What the hell, Cameron?”

I drew back. “Huh?”

She looked up at me, wide-eyed. “You might as well have said, ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’”

I laughed.

She didn’t. Bernie growled, and she nodded along like he was agreeing with her. Maybe he was. “You can’t just trip a death flag like that and then traipse into a mysterious environment!”

I tried to swallow my laughter, but it still escaped as a snort.

Lena glared at me. “I’m serious.”

“I know.” I leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. “That’s the best part.”

“Just don’t do it, okay?”

“I promise.”

“Good.” She rested her forehead against my chest. I felt her sigh.

We spent a couple of our twenty minutes that way. Erin beamed at us, Zhizhi smiled, Donica tried not to.

Even Miguel’s satisfied smirk didn’t spoil the moment for me. Much. I didn’t see what he had to look smug about. It wasn’t like Lena and I had actually taken his advice to hash things out; we’d both been too stubborn to do that until Third Eye forced our hands.

Okay, maybe he had a little to look smug about.

“Hey.” Lena wiggled her eyebrows. “I know how we can spend the time.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but how do we ditch these losers?”

She poked me in the ribs. “Not that.”

“You’re talking about the surprise you asked me to pick up?” Erin asked.

“Mmhm!” Lena let go of me and turned to the Yukon. “I saw the box when we were getting our gear. No time like the present to try them, yeah?”

“I don’t see why not,” Erin said. “If this works, it’s going to be so cool.”

“Right?”

Something about the gleam in Lena’s eye sent a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with either the cold air I barely felt or any Third Eye shit.

Erin opened the back door of the Yukon and rooted around for something. She emerged with a box.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Really?”

“Of course,” Lena said. “I know how much you must love them.”

“You’re never going to let the camp thing go, are you?”

“Nope.” She looked so delighted, I almost managed not to feel annoyed.

Erin opened the box. It contained graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows, and a pair of tongs. A s’mores kit.

“With that said,” Lena said, “this is actually important, serious business Third Eye stuff.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Not that I’m going to turn down chocolate,” Zhizhi said, “but this I’ve got to see.”

“If it works,” Lena said, “it’s probably going to be the best part of your video.”

She and Erin must have arranged this in a DM, because it was the first I’d heard of any of it and Donica looked just as blank as I felt.

Erin held the kit out and, since I wasn’t going to let it fall, I took it.

She and Lena stepped a few paces apart and faced each other. They took their phones out and flicked through the menus. I raised my own to watch them work in Third Eye.

Erin conjured a plate of Iron and shaped it into a wide bowl, similar to the one she’d used Earth to create when we practiced together in the park. So far, so normal.

Lena activated Wood with Fire, and the conflagration hovered in the air above Erin’s bowl.

I realized what they intended to try.

“Magnificent,” Miguel said. “I cannot wait to see if this works. It seems as though it should.”

“I’m not sure I can get it hot enough,” Lena said. “But we’re going to try. Cam, you want to do the honors?”

“Sure,” I said.

Lena stage whispered, “Told you he was a total camp geek.”

I narrowed my eyes and took my time assembling a perfect s’more. My camp counselors would’ve been proud, for probably the first time that didn’t involve a scavenger hunt. I took the tongs from the kit and held my creation out toward the fire.

Nothing happened.

I’m sure *something* happened, or at least I suspected it did, because I’ve eaten marshmallows in ninety degree weather and they do get gooey eventually, but they certainly don’t melt or toast the way they would over an open fire. Nothing *visible* happened.

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“Test one, failed,” Erin said. She didn’t sound unhappy.

“How long did the two of you spend planning this?” Donica asked.

Erin lowered her eyes.

“About as long as it richly deserved,” Lena said. “Let’s take it up a notch.”

I wondered if she was going to try manifesting a material with a higher ignition temperature than Wood. I wasn’t sure if that was how Third Eye worked, nor if I wanted her to try. Some Materials seemed like they might have unpleasant effects on food if they could alter it. Nobody wants marshmallows with the aftertaste of burning Plastic.

Instead, the burning Wood in the pan remained, but the flames consuming it intensified.

I took a half step back before I remembered that, however real they were, they didn’t seem to be real enough to melt marshmallows, much less hurt me. I extended the s’more again.

This time, I thought I could see it begin to sag, and not just from the force I was applying with the tongs.

Lena and Erin flicked glances at each other.

“Oh wow,” Erin said. “I know it’s not as intense as some of the other stuff we’ve seen, but it just feels... I don’t know how to say it, you know?”

“Yeah,” Lena whispered.

I tilted the tongs. “What are you actually doing?”

“I’ll tell you in a sec.” She fixed her gaze on the Wood. The edges of the board had burned away, and as the flames climbed higher, it shrank more and more. Her fingers moved across her phone screen, and again, the blaze redoubled. The Wood crumbled to ash and tumbled over the edge of the bowl.

And the s’more I clutched gave a satisfying squelch.

I turned it over and watched as the marshmallow turned squishy, then gooey, then started to run down the sides. Even the chocolate softened. The edges of the graham cracker began to darken.

I was practically holding it in the fire, and it still wasn’t melting as fast as it would over a real campfire, but the fact it was doing all that while the heat source remained invisible to my naked eye still blew me away.

The flame started to die down as the last of the Wood crumbled into the bowl.

I pulled the s’more back.

Lena waved me on. “Give it a try.”

“I will, but you have to promise to explain.”

She and Erin bobbed their heads.

I took a bite. It could’ve done with more toasting, as I’d suspected, but it still felt warm and gooey in my mouth, more or less like it was supposed to.

Amazing.

I let Lena take the tongs, plucked the s’more out from them, polished it off, and licked my fingers. The taste of chocolate and marshmallow lingered on them, as it only would if both had melted.

Through the last mouthful, I mumbled, “Explanation?”

“You know how when you activate a second Reactant with the same Material,” Lena said, “you get to manipulate your object in a different way instead of manifesting a new one?”

I nodded.

“It works if you use the same Reactant over again, too. Instead of letting you do a different thing, it makes the effect more intense.” She put her hands on her hips and tilted her head back. Preening, and, as far as I could tell, deserving it.

“Holy shit,” I said. “That’s awesome!”

“I know,” she said. “Not many people seem to have more than one unit of a Reactant, and I’m not sure what exactly it’ll do with the others, but it works great with Fire.”

“When did you figure this out?” I asked.

She clasped her hands behind her back. “Well. Technically.”

“It was actually posted on the wiki yesterday afternoon,” Erin said. “People are discovering new things all over the world.”

“Yeah, but the dude who posted it didn’t realize it would work in the real world. He was just talking about magnifying gameplay effects.” Lena kicked at the snow. “Really, I think that makes me the innovator.”

“If you told the wiki users that their abilities had real-world effects,” Zhizhi asked, “wouldn’t they have already figured it out?”

Erin looked away.

“I think it’s more likely that they would conclude the wiki administrator had gone mad,” Miguel said.

“That checks out.” Zhizhi approached. She got deeper into Lena’s personal space then I figured Lena appreciated, and I shifted to keep them apart.

“What?” Lena asked.

“Are you going to toast s’mores for all of us, or not?” Zhizhi asked.

Lena chuckled and handed over the tongs. “Each instance costs an extra MP, so you all better appreciate this. Also, maybe gather around and toast them at the same time so I don’t have to spend so much?”

“We’ve only got one pair of tongs,” Donica said.

“Well,” Lena said. “Shit.”

Ultimately, we found we were able to get three s’mores toasted for each time Lena activated her three Fire.

Six MP for three toasted marshmallow sandwiches. Not a great rate, until you considered that she seemed to be conjuring heat from nothing.

“I’ve got to test Water,” I said around another mouthful. “Did they say on the wiki what that would do?”

Erin shook her head. “Fire is the only one that seems to have an obvious effect when stacked.”

“Ah, well,” I said. “I’ll have to figure it out later.”

Until I’d burned up two units of Water trying to hold back the flames at Lena’s old apartment, I’d had four, which was more than anyone else I knew and as many as the most I’d seen anyone post on the wiki. It made sense. The Water I collected had flooded the entire tunnel.

I wondered what I could’ve done if I’d realized the resource I’d had.

Whatever. We’d all find more, I was sure, as long as we kept playing.

For now, we gathered around the invisible firepit and toasted snacks on the invisible fire. As much as Lena harping on camp annoyed me, I had to admit, this felt pretty companionable.

“I think I can get a fourth instance of Fire from Bernie if I ask him for it,” Lena said. “It doesn’t even cost MP.”

“Incredible,” Erin said. “You tested it last night?”

She nodded. “Although I didn’t have any marshmallows to toast, so I’m just guessing that it will work the same way.”

“A serious oversight,” Erin said.

Lena laughed.

We finished the whole box. Erin lowered her Iron bowl to the slush at our feet. Rivulets of water ran from beneath it; it must’ve been heated by the Fire Lena conjured close by, or by the falling ash. Proof that not only did Third Eye affect both other objects created within the game and the real world, but that changes to the physical properties of game objects were further transferable.

Lena lay her head on my shoulder and I put my arm around her.

We watched the water run, melting snow until it cooled and froze itself. I could still taste the marshmallow and chocolate she’d cooked in the recesses of my mouth.

The game, or whatever it was, truly was amazing.

“We’ve got a few more minutes,” Donica said.

I blinked and looked up.

“Why don’t you do some experiments with double Water?” she asked.

“Couldn’t hurt,” I said. I’d neglected my practice because I hated to burn my unrecoverable MP, but they weren't doing me any good if I didn’t use them.

I gave Lena a peck on the cheek and we separated. I stepped back and rubbed my hands. I pulled up the Third Eye app. What to test with? Water and Wood. Both because its effects were the most spectacular, and because Wood remained the most plentiful Material.

A voice from the edge of the construction site stopped me. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

I froze.

Erin smiled. She was the only one who did.

Lena and I turned to face the newcomer. CannibalHalfling, I presumed.

Which wasn’t the name we knew him by.

Smart glasses. Bomber jacket. Broad body. Short hair. Infuriating smirk.

“If you’re going to return to a potentially hazardous environment,” Matt said, “you shouldn’t spend your MP on parlor tricks.”