“Orc teeth grow back. Right?” Reeve said, her words slurred by a lower lip that felt as big and floppy as a latex glove full of water.

“They do,” Dusk said from where she sat on her stone bed, “so yours should grow half-back, half-orc.”

Dusk’s grin was playful, but Reeve still felt slightly annoyed as she considered the perfect, shining, complete set of teeth in the grin.

Reeve turned away from the immaculate smile. “How long did she stay as a woman this time?” The bird in question was watching Walter, who, prone on his bed, was queasily waiting out the death debuff.

“Only until she regained consciousness,” Dusk said, “then, zwoop.” She used her hands to pantomime sudden shrinking.

Reeve stood and walked over to her father’s bed, where she leaned against the wall and slid down to sit with her head near his. “I think some of the pre-release features Viv added to accompany the higher level AIs must involve new races. Mom’s apparently a shape-shifting bird, an impundulu, which I’ve never heard of before.”

Walter’s head nodded, but his face remained buried in the bed’s watery cushion.

“She seems to be having some trouble controlling the shift.” Reeve tongued the gap in her front teeth.

“I’m sure your mother will do whatever you need her to do, Evie,” the halfling said into his bed.

“I’m sure she’ll try,” Reeve said. Raising her gaze and her voice to catch Leaf’s and the twin’s attention, she said, “You know anything about the race my mom is? Impundulu?” Reeve turned, startled, as her father was the first to respond.

“It does sound familiar.” He raised his head an inch. “Granpapa and Grannana told me stories about the impundulu when I was little, I think.”

“Your grandparents?”

“Uh-huh.” Walter lowered his head, his words becoming muffled again. “Something about storms. Haven’t thought about that in years.” He exhaled into the bed. “I don’t remember the details, but those stories scared me something good…I wonder if that’s why I’m not the greatest fan of weather?”

Reeve looked away from her father, trying to process the generational knowledge that had suddenly resurfaced, decades later, in her story mode. Leaf was nodding.

“What little I know matches that which Wurmslayer says.”

“You’ve heard of it too?” Reeve said.

“Only a few stories, heard long ago from elders by the cooking fire. ‘Lightning bird,’ they called it. A shapeshifter that needs to dine upon blood.”

“Well,” Reeve said, “that clinches it. The lightning and shapeshifting were already enough, but if she’s going to need to feed on blood to keep her health up...” Reeve snapped her fingers toward the bird, which affixed her in its gaze and started toward her. “Hold on! Just stay there!” Reeve said. The bird stopped. “You can understand me?”

The bird nodded.

“Awesome. I need you to log out. But wait!” Reeve extended both hands, palms raised, lest her mother leave without clear, simple instructions. “Once you log out, I need you to come right back in, as quickly as you can, to tell us what’s going on, but I need you to switch to a different race so that you can communicate with us without knocking us out,” she glanced at the top of her father’s halfling head, “or killing us with lightning. So, something simple—human, dwarf, elf—just…simple.”

The bird nodded.

“Simple. Then quick. ‘Cause however long you’re out there will be seven hundred times longer for us in here.”

The bird disappeared.

With a speed she found slightly concerning, Reeve put her mother’s comings and goings out of her mind. She decided Future Reeve could worry about that. “Any change with Bunce?”

Dawn, who had been pacing, stopped next to the honey badger, whom they hadn’t bothered to roll back upright. “Alas, nothing yet.” She gently prodded Bunce with the toe of her boot. “Though she seems no worse from the bird’s lightning and thunder.”

“Tough cookie,” Walter said into his bed.

Reeve returned her attention to the issue of how they’d gotten into this windowless, doorless room of stone, and how and when they’d be getting out. After her father had respawned on his bed, she’d checked her own spawn and found that it’d updated to the room as well, so an intentional death to respawn somewhere earlier in their travel wouldn’t fly.

Reeve leaned her head back against the cool stone and stared up at the wavering light being cast onto the ceiling. It reminded her of looking up at the underside of the Jacobs' patio umbrella and watching afternoon light, thrown back skyward by their pool, ripple across the fabric. It was soothing. She tongued at the empty spot in her teeth, which still tasted faintly of metal, and dropped her gaze to the reflecting pool. The pool was still, and on its surface, she could again watch the light dance across the ceiling. She raised her head slowly and looked around for the source of the light. There were no torches or other visible point sources. It seemed to emanate steadily from the walls. She rose. Once on her feet, she stretched to place a palm against the ceiling, which was cool to the touch. The dancing light remained upon the ceiling and did not spread to her hand. “The light’s coming through…,” she said. She looked at her companions. “We’re underwater.”

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Reeve’s companions, save Walter, who kept his face buried in his bed, turned as the water in the pool began to move, and Reeve had an uncanny feeling that the water had been spurred to action by her conclusion. The water’s motion was subtle, as though a gentle plume had risen from below to spread horizontally along the boundary with the air.

Three heads broke the surface simultaneously, their unexpected appearance from the pool all the eerier due to the complete absence of water on their hair, skin, and orange robes once free of the surface. The three—two female, one male—were elves, and their robes were identical to those worn by Reeve and her party, save for a thick black band of cloth ringings the cuffs at the end of each sleeve.

One of the female elves stepped from the pool and looked around, her gaze stopping when it reached Reeve, her expression curious. She was no less beautiful than the twins, tall like them, with a complexion somewhere between their extremes. She too wore her long hair braided, but in two braids that fell from either side of her neck and spiraled like a helix down her back. Her hair might once have been entirely black, but silver strands were now sprinkled throughout, and by some process Reeve could not begin to guess, the black hairs all found their way into one braid of the helix and the silver hairs into the other. “Child,” she said, “I can assure you that the ceiling can stand without your assistance. I myself carved this room from the bedrock.”

Reeve lowered her hand. “We’re underwater,” she said.

“An astute observation,” the elf said, “though perhaps less so considering we brought you here through the River Deiluyne.”

“You brought us? Where are we?”

The elf smiled, and a pronounced dimple formed in her left cheek. With the dimple drawing her attention, Reeve saw a faint scar that ran from near one ear almost to the corner of her mouth. “Sadly,” the elf said, “I seldom have time to venture outside these days. It was our sentinels who saw you in distress and brought you here.”

“Which is?”

The elf looked around again at the members of the party. “Food and water will be brought. Please rest. Once we can determine that you mean us no harm, you will be able to roam the camp or continue on your way. You may even join our cause, if you choose.”

Annoyed that her question had been ignored, Reeve reached back slightly and nudged Walter. “Dad,” she said quietly, “do your thing.”

Walter’s head rolled to the side so slowly that Reeve was afraid the elves would be gone before he spoke, but after a few seconds, he said, “Oh. Hi there. You’re new.” He raised his head slightly and looked around the room. “The robes make everyone look the same.”

“Where is here?” Reeve said quietly to him.

“Where is here?” Walter said.

The stern expressions of the two elves who had yet to speak or move turned to warm smiles, and the male began to step from the pool.

A sharp look from the boss elf caused him to freeze and step back onto the surface of the water, but when the boss turned her attention back to Reeve the male elf’s expression became an apologetic one for Walter’s benefit.

Well, thought Reeve, I guess we know which two of you three are Level 4 AIs.

“Here,” the female elf said, “is our refugee camp. More information you will receive once we understand your intentions and whether you be friend or foe. That we will determine soon enough, once we have a chance to hear your tale in full. For now, tell me but the purpose of your travel. What brought you to the Deiluyne?”

“We travel to Fellgrave,” Dusk said.

The elf looked at Dusk, then Dawn, before glancing at Leaf and Reeve. She looked back to Dusk. “You do not know?” She shook her head slowly. “Then it is unfortunate that I must be the one to tell you. Fellgrave has been razed. All of Ase Thhia has fallen. The members of the Royal House have fled or been slain.” She examined the faces of each member of the party. “I would not recommend traveling north of the Deiluyne. There are no laws to protect you there, and soon the other kingdoms will likely hasten to carve the carcass of that which was Ase Thhia, if they do not seek to take the whole empire for themselves outright.”

Reeve frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. Our next objective is pretty obviously in Fellgrave.” She gestured to the twins. “We saved them from kobolds, and they need to get to Fellgrave to rescue the mage to whom they’re apprenticed.” She nodded toward Leaf. “There conveniently was a guide for us in Werfendale, so it’s pretty obvious Fellgrave’s the next stop.” And I’ve seen playthroughs of Fellgrave posted online, she thought. I haven’t watched them, but it wouldn’t…Reeve looked at the elf, then down at her father, who was staring vacantly off the side of his bed. “No one,” she said quietly, “not even the devs, can predict what’s going to happen next.”

“Daughter of the woods,” the elf said, “I fear that your words confuse me.”

“Yeah, no, sorry, they would.”

The elf looked at her a moment longer. “If you will pardon me, I had come to request first the company of the daughters of two worlds.” She gestured to the twins.

Only half registering the elf’s words, Reeve struggled to process the new game reality, now that they’d clearly diverged from the scripted story mode. She had a million questions, and the elf apparently wasn’t going to be answering any of them at the moment. Reeve decided she’d be happy to have some time to think and to try to bring her dad up to speed on what might be going on.

“Child?”

Reeve focused back on the elf. “Yeah, you do you.”

The elf looked to the twins and with the sweep of an arm prompted them toward the pool. The twins exchanged a glance, then walked shoulder-to-shoulder to the edge, where each hesitantly extended a boot to dip in the water. The boots did not break the surface, though, instead finding it firm. The twins stepped onto the water and stood between the two elves who, despite occasional, practically longing, glances toward Walter, had managed to remain silent.

“We will call for each in turn,” the elf said as she stepped onto the water. “Please rest in the meantime and enjoy the food that will be brought to you.”

Reeve watched the five begin to descend into the water, which seemed to avoid them like it would have oil, their robes not becoming visibly heavier as they submerged. Reeve met Dusk’s eyes and gave the half-elf a nod. Dusk returned the gesture and then took a quick breath the moment before her face disappeared below the surface. The water undulated gently for a few moments, and then the room was silent. Leaf emitted a small, derisive grunt and sat back on her bed.

A high tone began to play across the room, the sound soon dropping toward a lower octave and then adding a trill before slowly fading out entirely.

“Ohmagod,” Reeve said. She walked slowly to her bed and sat down.

“I’m finally starting to feel better,” Walter said. He pushed himself to a sitting position. “What was that sound?”

“Honey badger gas,” Reeve said, resting her face in her palms and wondering where her feed’s POV was when it captured that classy moment.