Desperate thoughts flashed through Saffie’s mind as she fought to resist the nausea, but as quickly as it had overcome her, it passed.

She steadied herself and blinked a few times, noticing that Nate and Cora seemed to be recovering too, although they were looking around very curiously.

Saffie at first couldn’t understand what they were looking at, until she realised the surrounding area seemed twice as busy as it had just a few moments ago. The strange thing was that half of the players appeared to be frozen in time.

“What I gave you is something called a Snap Shot,” said Ruben. “It is allowing you to see a freeze frame of the time and date of the clock I inserted into the mix.”

He stepped to his left, revealing an ominous, hooded figure standing with her back to them.

“The moment the Green Woman visited you,” said Cora.

“Precisely.”

At the sight of the woman, another sensation coursed through Saffie’s body that was just as troubling as the nausea. The fact that there was a long, sharp, curved katana blade strapped to the woman’s back might have had something to do with it.

Saffie slowly crept around to the woman’s front. Her face was was covered by an eery white mask, and hovering, or rather, floating by her side, was an airborne octopus covered in a shimmering mix of black and green slime. Saffie now understood where the trail of gunge in Dax’s apartment had come from.

“As much as you’re clearly enjoying showing off this Snap Shot potion,” said Cora, “how is it going to help us? We still don’t know where we can find h-”

“Guys, look at this,” Nate interjected.

He was crouched down, staring at the woman’s left hand. She had razor sharp green false nails, although that wasn’t what Nate wanted to show them. On her ring finger was a silver band with a symbol engraved into the head. It was kind of like an “S” but the top and bottom of the letter didn’t end where they usually would. Instead, the top came out, then folded back on itself, curving down behind it, and the bottom came out and folded upwards on the right, forming a circle that wasn’t quite closed.

Ruben scooped away some bottles on his desk, spread out a piece of parchment, and drew a replica of the design. The group peered at it.

“Do you think it’s some kind of rune?” said Nate.

“Either that or an ancient hieroglyph of some kind,” said Ruben.

“It looks, maybe… Aztec? Mayan?” suggested Cora.

There was a sarcastic chuckle, and they all looked up. It was Geoff, the guy who had eaten some of Ruben’s ingredients while he’d been away.

“That’s no ancient rune,” he said. “That’s the logo for Sakata Sushi in Soho. I ordered take away from there two days ago. They do the most delicious sashimi. He pulled a folded flyer from his pocket and handed it to Saffie.

Geoff was right, the restaurant’s logo adorned the top of the flyer proudly, followed by the slogan:

The True Taste of Japan.

“The owner gives me the creeps, though,” Geoff continued. “She tried getting me to join her cult once.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Her cult?” said Saffie.

“Yeah, she’s an Overworlder, just like us. She was spouting something about an Onyx. Got this weird octopus panion. I think her name’s Jasmine, or… Jackie, or something like that.”

As Geoff carried on with his own business which seemed to involve glowing garlic-like bulbs, Saffie turned the flyer over and peered at the small print. There it was.

Restaurant Owner:

“Jade Sakata,” she read out loud. “Why does that name ring a bell?”

While the others shook their heads and shrugged, a vague memory of her dad’s voice brought itself to the front of her consciousness.

“He was reading about her in the paper,” she muttered to herself. “Something about a restaurant owner buying a ton of space in the new Trellis skyscraper. Something about investors being unhappy with her.”

The group looked up at the frozen illusion of Jade, but it fizzled into nothing as the effects of the Snap Shot potion wore off.

“What are you doing?” Ruben said to Cora, who had pulled a small device from her robes and was now tinkering with it close to Ruben’s shelves. “Be careful over there! Some of those bottles are very fragile.”

“I’m not interested in your silly potions,” Cora replied, pressing a button on the device.

A neon blue mesh of a bunch of shapes projected itself in front of her.

“What is that?” said Saffie.

“It looks like a floor plan,” said Nate.

“Correct,” said Cora, turning the 3D outline with her free hand. “This is every room and every door of Sakata Sushi, so long as Jade hasn’t done any major structural work in the last four years. It’s the most recent plan available online.”

“It’s massive,” said Nate.

“One of the largest restaurants in Soho apparently,” Ruben chimed in, showing them the official website on his phone.

“This is the front of house, and this is the kitchen,” Cora explained, pointing to two large partitions. “Beyond this point,” she said, shifting the mesh across the air, “is the back of house. Most likely where Jade lives. And most likely the place where we can find the eternity ink, the Onyx, and Liam.”

“And Jade herself,” Ruben said dryly.

Saffie was surprised by how many rooms there were in the back of house. There was one large circular space joined by three corridors, six smaller rooms, and dozens of what had to be little storage rooms. The three things they needed to locate could be split across any or all of them.

“I don’t think Jade’s going to allow us to just go snooping around back there,” she said.

“That’s why we need to make sure she doesn’t know we’re snooping around back there,” Cora replied.

“And how will we do that?” said Nate.

Cora turned the projection off and spun to face Ruben.

“You think you can cook us up some invisibility potions?” she said.

A grin spread across Ruben’s face.

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” said Saffie, “but I get the impression that Jade might be able to see through simple potions like that.”

Ruben’s mouth dropped open.

“Are you calling my invisibility potions ‘simple’ potions?”

“As much as I hate to admit it,” said Cora, “I have seen one of his most potent invisibility potions in action. Even my scans couldn’t detect the player.”

“But what about CCTV?” said Nate. “She’s bound to have security cameras installed. If we steal a bunch of stuff from her, she’ll watch the tapes back and she’ll see us snooping around.”

“You’re underestimating the power of Overworld,” said Ruben. “All in game effects are shown in recordings to anyone playing the game. If she watches the footage back, we’ll be just as invisible to her onscreen as we are in real life.”

“We can assign each of our tasks to one person,” said Cora. “One looks for the eternity ink, one for the Onyx, and one for Liam.”

“But there’s four of us,” said Saffie. “What about the fourth person?”

“The fourth person will need to keep Jade distracted while broadcasting an audio feed to the others through group chat in case she reveals any information on the locations of the three things we’re looking for.”

Nate laughed.

“I’m not sure one of us can just rock up and be like, “Hey! Love the scary mask and the slimy octopus, can I chill with you for a while?””

“Didn’t you hear that Geoff guy?” said Cora. “Jade’s trying to recruit players into some kind of cult. The fourth person will have to pretend they’re interested in joining.”

“How do we decide who the fourth person is?” Ruben said, averting his eyes.

“I’m sure we could use some plant stalks in place of straws to draw,” said Cora, making to head over to the fauna quarter, but Saffie grabbed her wrist, stopping her.

“There’s no need,” she said.

After weeks of confusion, sleepless nights, and set backs, she was ready to come face to face with the woman who had orchestrated Dax’s coma.