Chapter 26: Clogged Box of Disorder

  My frame had maintained cohesion. As I lifted my bones up from the gritty mesa scape, I realized something truly empowering had occurred. Mere days ago, a blast like that would have rendered me into a mess of vine and bone-parts.

  I dusted off my [Grim, Dim Purple Coat] and retrieved my tablet from its leathery hip case. A half-moment before it pinged to life, I glimpsed my skull-face reflected in the sea glass.

I had attained a new level of autonomy. Unbound to Azwold, or Trojainous’ will, I wondered how deeply the game had altered my meta-status. Did it think me more player-like now that Azwold had gone... wherever he had gone? I did not sense him within the Scepter.

I noticed many messages pending on my tablet screen. Attending to them was on my list, but first:

[Player Search: Relja. Level 27 Air Mystic. Location: Soleus Mesa]

[Player Search: DarkNeon. Level 33 Light Rogue. Location: Deserts of Nevahj]

Reluctant, I decided to search for the mage:

[Player Search: Azwold. Level 34 Spirit Mage. Location: Spirit Realm]

“Oh my,” I said.

Despite his class title, Azwold had yet to take me to the Spirit Realm. I only knew how to get there by dying. To conduct class business, however, arriving there alive was a prerequisite. Jumping off a cliff would yield flat results.

I recalled Relja performing [Spell: Spectral Reflection] at the Remembering Ring. Examining my mini-map, I saw her dot was not far away at all. In fact, it was approaching my location.

Soon my party mate and I came in sight of one another. She on her teal mesa strider and I in the Gremlin. Azwold’s belongings had been coded over to me, it seemed. The vehicle’s control panel looked less vexing, and I had lost my fear of piloting it. Moreover, I learned that most of my new in-box messages were addressed to him, not I.

“There you are!” she called to me. Fizzu squawked a greeting, too.

I slowed and let the Gremlin come to an idle.

“Aye, good to see we both survived the blast,” I said.

“It was that Telemoon Chemist,” she said. “I saw him throw something to cause a glitch-out.”

“Truth be told, I gave him the secret of a vulnerable exploit. I have discovered an ability to communicate with game monsters. A mini-boss called the Molar Soldier helped me escape.”

This information did not seem to strike Relja as noteworthy. “I can’t believe what happened to Azwold,” she said. “The Trojainous guy forced you to do that, right?”

“Horrible,” I said. “Hard to believe. Ralos’ decoy avatar sacrificed his class weapon to compel me. There was no other way.” I breathed. “Do a player search for Azwold.”

But Relja’s floating tablet had Azwold’s location as “Unknown.”

“Strange,” I said. “Mine has his location as the Spirit Realm. But the mage never showed me how to get there.”

“By dying?” Relja shrugged.

“Well, yes, but we cannot accomplish anything of worth doing it that way.”

“You can drive now?” she said, glancing at the [Hive Scepter] laying in the passenger seat. “Can you access his other stuff, too?”

“His inventory and in-box messages,” I said. “So far.”

“Hmmm,” she pondered. “Should we snoop his mailbox?”

“Our mail has combined, so I doubt it would be criminal to have a look.” I opened the in-game mail interface. “What a clogged box of disorder,” I said. “How would anyone correspond this way?”

Relja clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Lots of mail is no excuse to let it get so messy. How’re we supposed to learn anything good? We could try sorting, but that might make it worse.”

“I know not.”

“Welp, my map says DarkNeon is in the Nevahjian desert,” said Relja. “Maybe we should find out where that Dust Dactyl dropped her?”

Relja rubbed Fizzu’s soft jaw feathers, gazing toward the Crescent Mountains.

I envisioned an expanse of desert beyond the jagged ridge.

“My priority ought to be the mage,” I said. “You know a bit of Spirit Magic, no? With your mirrors and moths and such?”

“What happened in the Remembering Ring was a whole different dust storm. I can’t get you to the Grandfather NPC, or anything like that.”

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“Do you say?” I stared at her. “Even so, I must find a way. DarkNeon will find us. Just like you did. Alright?”

“You’re probably right,” she said, glancing off toward the desert again. Then she looked down at my tablet as I was scrolling through mixed missives.

“Stop,” she said, pointing at the screen. “Go back.”

I had been scanning for any name or subject line that caught my eye as suspicious or auspicious. I had seen little of interest, but now the Air Mystic had.

“There!” she said. “Wow. That is. I guess Azwold is cooler than we thought.”

“What do you see in this message?” I said, noticing the the message’s date and time-stamp. It was near the day when Azwold first raised me from below Gnarlroot Hill. Her answer became of keen interest to me.

“Ursamigo is the most famous Druid on the server,” Relja smiled, eyes a-sparkle.

Staring at the letters in the name, vague recollection flitted through my memories. I believed Relja was rendered some flavor of star-stricken, and her state fed my déjà vu. I recalled the name through my previous life as a player. Ursamigo must be famous, indeed.

“Why was Azwold in parleys with a celebrity mere days before my first summoning?”

“That is an eerie coinkydink, isn’t it?” Relja hummed quizzically to herself. She gasped, then stared up at the clouds to think.

I waited.

“What if...” she tapped her chin.

“Yes?”

“Why don’t we try to find Ursamigo?” she was holding in her glee.

“Mayhap we should.”

“We get to go where Medett and Berem are from!” she hopped and clapped.

“A Druid in their natural habitat might be hard to find,” I said. “Even famous ones.”

“Well... let’s read the letter? No need to waste [Whisperleaf] if we’ve got leads right here.”

“Agreed.” With apprehension, I opened Ursamigo’s missive. The subject line said only: “Read Quick AZ.”

“Hola, Mr. Spirit Mage,” he wrote. “The last batch of [Runner Vine]s should be done in an hour. Good thing too. I’m behind on my Herbalism daily quests. Need them inventory slots. Reedwae, 2PM server time. Be there, or be wreck-tangled!

-Ursa”

Strange, existential shivering rattled me momentarily. “We have a lead.”

“Should we go see the siblings first?”

“We are bound for their starting zone? Consulting them first seems wise, aye,” I said. Then, with a sudden certainty: “Take me to your Remembering Ring. We must try something.”

“What? No way. We really shouldn’t.”

“Apologies Relja, but I only just gained my liberty. I cannot abide lack of control. I am set on my decision to find Azwold if I can.”

“How will the Remembering Ring help you do that?”

“To confirm the mage’s location,” I said. “I tire of wasting time and resources traveling.”

“Mirror Magic isn’t within my school, so I have to use books. Besides, that good mirror broke and we flubbed the spell, remember?”

“I have a different spell in mind. It seems I have access to a few of the mage’s class spell now. This is an exciting thing. Your Remembering Ring is like the Cave O’ Whispers; a Sprit Realm Nexus. We might be able to enter the Spirit Realm without help.”

“I can’t say I’m not curious,” she said. “I’ve only been there as a ghost; running to my body. Spirit Mages do get some cool stuff. But DarkNeon won’t find us there.”

Relja noticed the dust rise of an approaching mount when I did. The conveyance was strange, perhaps stranger than the Gremlin, with all its antennae and Gadget Craft tinker-work. I saw the driver was Vick5. His dune buggy style mount had a plain, matte brownish paint job, not the conventional navy blue. The way it blended in with the pallet of the Soleus Mesa zone, I wondered if it was a technological modification that gave camouflage properties.

Vick5 drove up within a fathom or two from us and un-summoned his vehicle in a gear-swirl of metal pipes and wiry zapping. He raised up his hands, one in a metallic gauntlet, the other a tattered rag of a glove. He had suffered damage in the cave blast.

“We may have been right about the Rogue’s tenacity,” I said, noticing her yellow dot in motion on my mini-map. “She appears inbound from Zephyr’s Outpost.”

“That’s the Mesa’s northernmost flightpath,” said Relja. “But she’s moving fast, huh? Maybe she’ll get here in time to help us deal with this guy.” She dismounted Fizzu to begin casting defensive buff spells.

“To be on guard is wise,” I said, exiting the Gremlin and un-summoning it as Vick5 had done his. “But I gave him the means to set that trap. His help was pivotal.”

Relja slowed her melody, pausing; “You really think he would G-quit, just like that? All he did was see Azwold. It takes more than friends to break away from Telemoon.”

“He is walking our way,” I said. “Let us ask?”

She gazed at me with her honey-colored, sharp eyes. Pondering the wisdom of listening to a skeletal minion, I reckoned. Could she not see my WIS aura?

“Greetings, Gnarlroot_The_Eld,” said Vick5. “And associate.” He looked Relja over, scanning.

The look of him was jarring, yet complex. Like a cyborg made of fantasy novel parts: [Stonewood], [Amberglass], [Golem Tube], [Spider Wire], gear cogs of tiger’s eye and lapis lazuli.

A flash of reality sparked at the idea of a cyborg. A human-machine hybrid created with surgical and technological mending of fibers and wires; it was not a programmed Eld memory.

And fantasy novels. I felt like I had read them both inside and outside Realms of Lore. This separation from Azwold had shoved me toward deeper cohesion of my identities. And it was vexing to know that cohesion and confusion can coexist.

“I require Spirit Mage Azwold’s location,” said Vick5, breaking my meta-thoughts.

Azwold. Alkali Hollow. Molar Soldier. I remembered then that my quest reward chest was still locked. I was eager, but waited. This Telemoon defector came first.

“I’m sorry,” said Relja. “You were just in Telemoon. You’re gonna have to explain really well. Like really well. And fast, please.”

“Thank you for helping in Alkali Hollow,” I said, “but I too wish to hear your reasons. Consider it a review of your methodology.”

“I had been assessing scenarios and testing ideas,” said Vick5, “searching for a way to leave with the least number of penalties. Of all hypotheses and calculations, tonight offered a superior and potent catalyst; high odds of a dramatic and successful G-quit execution.”

“A simple explanation,” said Relja, “with lots of extra words.”

“Suppose we assume you truly are guild-less,” I said. “What would be your next objective? Why seek us?”

“Observe my class,” Vick5 pointed above his head at his nameplate. It read:

Vick5

Water Mage?

Level: ??

“You may conclude from this data that I am underpowered and undefined at present,” he slumped in his vest frame. “Among my objectives is to locate Azwold. He is my former guild mate and I have a strong hypothesis; he might help me repair Telemoon damage.”

I was sympathetic to his reasoning and willing to listen further, but Relja said, “Or maybe you’re after him to finish him off?”

“Negative,” said Vick5.

“An idea has occurred to me,” I said. “Tell us secrets. Telemoon secrets. Would you help us defend against them? Or mount an offensive? Can you prove your loyalties have shifted?”

“You require classified guild information as proof?”

“Yes,” said Relja. “If you can help us take them down, I’m willing to give you a chance.”

“Then allow me to start with the best card in my hand, so to speak.” A thin iron tool extended from his fingertip. He poked it into a slot in this neck. There was a whirring and a twirl of tiny gearworks there.

Vick5’s cyber eyes brightened slightly. “Apologies," he said. "I manually disabled a confidentiality protocol. Proceeding... Telemoon has summoned a deity.”