For what little I could sleep I did. I remembered very little about what I dreamed of. There was a vague feeling of warmth, but nothing else I could catch. Luna sat beside me. Aria. Aria sat beside me.
I looked at her and tried to think if I could imagine calling her that. I thought I could, and started to smile. I’d have to refrain in public, though. Who was I to spread her name around like that when she—like me—chose to hide her real name behind an alias? I didn’t know if I considered hiding my name when choosing Dex for this game, but some part of me inside must have thought about it. It wasn’t just because that’s the thing you do for video games. I know it.
“What’s on your mind?” Aria asked. I looked at her, noticing she had woken up when I was in my thoughts. “You seem troubled by something.”
“No, not troubled. Just curious.”
“Hm?”
“How’d you come up with the name Luna? Like, going into the game why didn’t you name yourself Aria?”
“Uh...”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it to sound antagonizing...” I quickly added. “Just the curiosity. I was wondering the same about myself.”
“Well, I really liked reading Harry Potter when I grew up—that was one of the sets of books I was able to have at home.”
“And is Luna a character in those books?”
She looked at me, astonished. “You never…?”
I shook my head. “I know, cultural sin and all that.”
“Well, I really like how she thinks about the people around her and does her own thing—entirely unbothered by what people think of her. She doesn’t appear too much through the books, but I always had the biggest smile on my face whenever she did appear.” She smiled as she said it, remembering fond memories. “We should go through them sometime. We don’t have to read the books—they are extraordinarily long, but the movies would be a good time I think.”
“That sounds like something I’d be up for,” I said. “But you still haven’t said why you chose it over your own name.”
“My, my. Prodding, aren’t we?”
“I care about it,” I said. “I mean, I want to know.”
“I guess a part of me wanted to stay outside—that part of me that I consider most me. You know? My name is something that nobody else can take away from me, yet I kept it most hidden of all.”
“I figured it was along those lines,” I said. “I feel the same way, but have never really consciously thought of it that way before.
“What’s got you so introspective lately?”
“I dunno, I just had a dream I feel like I was lucid for but I don’t remember anything from it.”
“I have those all the time. Don’t really have the ability to say heads or tails of ‘em either way so I just leave them where they lie,” she said.
“Yeah. I guess.”
“So, about today’s training—I’m thinking we continue to work on your fundamentals. Once you get in the habit of doing the same motions over and over you’ll feel more comfortable to adapt to the different situations that come up.”
“Makes enough sense.”
“I’m thinking once you’re comfortable we train as a pair.”
“Isn’t that what we’re already doing?”
“I mean fighting together—not against one another. We could head up to the second floor and find some mobs. If we’re going to be in the same party we need to learn to depend on each other in combat—discover the other’s weaknesses and help cover them.”
“You mean discover my weaknesses,” I said, coy.
“No, I mean our. I’m not perfect in combat and I’m sure I leave myself open in ways I don’t realize. That’s what having a second opinion is all about.”
“Okay, I get where you’re coming from,” I said.
She nodded, “There’s no need to be defensive. You’re among a friend.”
“Yes, I’m sorry for doubting you.”
She shook her head. “No, you only doubted yourself. Now come on and get up. We’ve got some work to do.”
~...~
We trained like I have never before. Every second that we weren’t resting we were out in the forests taking down wolves and boar-like creatures with gargantuan tusks. I felt my blade lighten in my hands as if it were made of butter—easier to swing and quicker to the cut. I noticed what she had meant about weaknesses that she hadn’t realized. Whenever she unlinked her Failnot into the two daggers she tended to bring her focus closer around her. It makes sense with weapons that are suited for close combat, but I found it easy to step in and assist when a wolf out of her view tried to charge her from behind.
As the days pressed on I felt a growing presence looming over me coming from the direction of the barrier. There was a low darkness that hung heavy in my heart as I saw the timer tick down. It was now sitting at just above three hours remaining. That feeling coalesced to the dream I had just woken up from.
We were back in the inn and I was sweating and breathing heavily—my lungs felt like they were on fire. I instantly remembered the vague warmness that invaded my dreams almost a week ago and remember with a terrible clarity the context.
Fire. There was fire everywhere. I saw the entire first floor engulfed in flames. It continued upward and I followed as if I were a spirit there to witness it all. The forest was dyed a brilliant red as it consumed all it touched. The last thing I saw was the timer on the barrier reach zero.
It wasn’t a countdown to when the barrier would be removed. It was a timer until we were all killed.
Something in my heart now knew that as the truth and I had no hesitation in waking Aria up from her slumber. She was weary, but when she saw the concern plastered on my face she listened intently to the contents of my dream.
“Are you sure you can trust what you saw? I’m not doubting you, I just want to make sure.”
I nodded. “I’ve had this feeling in the pit of my stomach for a few days now—ever since we were stopped by the barrier and I now know that it’s because of that dream.”
“Well shit,” she said, “what do we do?”
“We have to go back there—there just has to be a way to cross it.”
“What if there isn’t?”
“I’m not considering that.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “I’m with you.”
We headed off to the forest. We tried to convince everybody that we passed that we needed to pass the barrier before the time limit ran out, but those that did know about the wall brushed us off. Aria vouched for my word and I looked at her, stunned, smiling deep down, but it wasn’t enough for the others. They brushed us off and we both looked at each other, concerned.
“What do we do?” She asked.
“I...I don’t know,” I said. “We’re running out of time.”
“Well we need to first secure the way across,” she said, looking down to the ground. “If we spend all of our time gathering everybody what will we do when we get there and still can’t find the way?” I thought about it, hating that she was right. “We have to convince them—and the only way we’ll be able to do that is by finding the way across.”
“Yeah, I read you.” I nodded. “Let’s go.”
The forest greeted us with silence. Not even the wind blew nor a single mob crossed our path as we followed the arrow leading us to the barrier. The trees hung still as their branches raked for the sky silently.
“Keep on your guard,” Aria said. “Never know when something’s going to pop out and take you by surprise.”
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“Got it, thank you.” I said.
“Wait,” she stopped, “Do you hear that?”
I stopped just after her, straining my ears to hear anything. And then I did start to hear what she did—it was almost like a metallic clang. Instantly my mind rushed back to the scene of Sam surrounded by all those wolves and instantly we began running.
The sound came from the wall—it must have. We followed the arrow until the sound of voices began to fill and populate. I broke the lining first and saw that there were five people altogether at the base of the wall—four of them encircling the other two who looked to be circling one another as if in combat. One was a girl with long brown hair and a staff clutched in both of her hands and the second was a larger boy with short brown hair clutching a halberd. He raises the axe above his head and instinctively I shouted out and reached out my hand to them.
“Stop!”
He turned around but committed to the motion—the axe caught in the girl’s gut and she yelled out, stumbling backward. Her head was about to slam against the barrier, but she fell straight through instead.
“What the hell is going on?” Aria caught up beside me, and she was looking at them now—and they looked nothing more than a group of kids—fourteen at the oldest.
“I...” the big one was stammering, too stunned at what happened to answer correctly.
“We just found out the secret to the wall,” one of the others stood up to us, He had bright blue hair—dyed—and wore a thin frame of glasses. His robes suggested he was some sort of mage. “Dagger was just confirming a theory I had about being able to cross this wall.” The mage said.
“Are you okay?” I called the girl beyond the wall—she still looked to be in agony—she had taken the boy—Dagger--’s halberd with her.
“It...it hurts...” she said. I could see her health meter was just about empty.
“Oh you’ll be fine,” the first boy had said, “You’ve got your potion.” He turned back to us, “I assume you guys are looking for a way through as well?”
“We...were,” Aria said, choosing her words carefully. “But what just happened here?”
The first boy nodded, “Well I had a thought about this wall—”
“Yes, you said that,” I said. “And who are you?”
“My name’s Jax,” he said, holding his hand up to his chest. “Here we’ve got Pella,” he pointed to a blonde next to him with her hair cut short and in similar robes to himself, “...and I’ve already said Dagger,” he pointed to him. “Finally we have the joke that keeps on giving,” and pointed to the tall and skinny blond boy in the back. “This is Book.”
“Book?” I asked.
“Yeah I wanted to see if anybody else took the name and...” the kid named Book shrugged.
“Oh! Yes and there’s Seraphina,” Jax reminded and turned back to the girl. She had managed to grab out the potion from her inventory and was holding it over her lips—her arms shaking from the pain. She took a swig and instantly her eyes went wide. She clawed at her throat and a gurgling mess came out as her arm lifted to the sky.
“What’s happening?!” Aria asked.
Seraphina’s hand began crumbling and breaking away. She screamed until she was no more.
“Woah woah what happened?” I asked, running up to the barrier. The others beside Jax were right next to me—screaming her name and calling out for her. Dagger only looked at his own hands as the realization dawned on him. “I...I just wanted...she didn’t...”
“Now it seems we know the limits of the land beyond the barrier,” Jax said, and turned to me. “It seems you cannot cross the barrier until you’re on your last legs—and that means no healing.”
“What?” Aria asked. “It’s a gauntlet run?”
The others beside him turned to him—chastising him for being so unemotional about Seraphina’s death. It was all noise that I couldn’t stay around. I backed off and rubbed my hands together. Aria came to my side, “What are you thinking?”
My eyes were darting all around the ground. “I...I think we should go.”
“Are you sure? I’m not doubting you, but I want to make sure you decide for yourself. Now that we have a way forward I do think that we should go.”
“There’s a crazy amount of risk involved,” I said. “I do know that, but at the same time, I’m almost positive that if we wait out this time limit we will be too late to save Klein and Sam.”
“No, no I agree. But are you okay with cutting your health like this? There won’t be any room for mistakes.”
I stood there for a moment and gripped my hands tight. “I am. I won’t be dead weight. I’ll be careful.”
She nodded slowly, “I don’t know any of what’s going to be beyond this floor—so my experience as a beta tester isn’t going to help us any.”
“I wasn’t expecting it to,” I said. “We can’t rely on old information in what could have been a mountain of changes since then. I’m good to go forward if you are,” I said.
She nodded, and then pulled me close. “We’ve got this.”
We turned back to the others, “So, we’ve decided that we’re going to move forward—despite the danger.”
Jax stepped closer to me, he was looking up at me—probably hating that he was so much shorter. “Yeah? I’m with you—I like your spunk. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Dex.” I said.
“Luna.”
“Okay, okay,” he nodded. “We’re a bit of a rag tag team but we’ve got good teamwork.” He turned to the rest of them, “What say ye’? Are we going to kick this game master’s ass?”
The others didn’t look to be in the fighting spirit—least of all Dagger. But one by one they stepped forward and nodded their heads.
Except Dagger.
“What’s going on?” Jax asked. “You chicken-shit?”
“I’m not going.”
“What do you mean you’re not going?” he asked.
“I never should have even come here! You fucking knew this would happen, didn’t you?!” He cried. “I just wanted to get to know her! That’s all! Person A and Person B and nothing in-between!”
Jax looked at him and didn’t skip a beat, “You impaled her with an axe.”
“Because you made her think I was coming off weird! You kept joking about me the entire time!”
“You were weird.” Jax said. “You’ve got a bit of an anger problem, amigo.”
Dagger shook his head. “Know what, fuck you. I’m headed back to town. Go fuck yourself.” He stumbled off and walked back into the forest.
Jax turned to the others and then back to me. “Well I don’t know what we really needed him for anyway,” he flashed a big grin. “Looks like we have some room after all. We’re all ready to go, right guys?”
The tall boy—Book—shuffled uncomfortably in place. “We all were ragging on him a bit extra...”
“AWESOME,” Jax slammed his palms together and smiled wide. “You were volunteering to go first, Bookie Boy?” He turned to me, and then onto Aria. “Or maybe one of our guests?”
“Don’t touch me,” Aria looked at him.
“Yeah, on second thought we’re just going to go on ahead,” I said.
“What!” Jax exclaimed. “Aw come on you guys can’t take a joke! Okay, okay, fine. I’ll go first. Hey Pel, you want to do the honor?” He looked to her and grinned.
The poor girl looked skittish as he called on her, she gripped her elbows tight and shook her head fervently. “I can’t.”
“I will,” Book stepped up, grabbing his sword from its sheath and holding it out in front of him awkwardly. “I’m going to enjoy this,” he laughs.
“Hey now slayer,” Jax said. “We’re not here to kill each other, take it slow.”
He shrugged and cut his friend once across the side. Jax bit down hard and was shaking from the cut. “A-Again.” He did. This time he couldn’t hold back his pained scream and he fell against the barrier—as solid as ever. “Again...” he whimpered.
“Maybe you were wrong...” I said. “Maybe it isn’t,” but Book was already on the case. He stood behind Jax and held the sword in both of his hands and drove it down through his spine. His back lurched up and his breath caught in his throat, but then he fell through the barrier as if it wasn’t there to begin with. Slowly Book removed the sword from his spine and Jax crawled onto the other side, moaning. He was breathing heavily He turned around to us and looked at us.
“Well...what are you...waiting for?” He asked in between breaths.
Book looked from him to Pella, and then to us. “One of you two want to go next? I can...uh, help you over if you don’t want to do it.”
Aria looked to me and cocked her head, “Are you sure?”
I looked back at her and nodded, and then turned to Book. “Yeah, I’ll go.”
“O-Okay, I promise I won’t uh, enjoy it as much as I did with Jax,” Book said. I knew he was trying to lighten the mood, but it wasn’t working.
“Oh f-fuck you,” Jax spat out, finally pulling himself up onto his rear end.
“Uh...yeah.” I walked up to him.
“Do you have...uh, a preferred place?”
“Don’t go for the spine….” Jax moaned from the other side of the wall.
“Um, if I may?” Pella interjected. I turned to her. “I mean I may be wrong, but I think you should get stabbed in the butt.”
We all looked at her with a shared, confused look. Aria probably even moreso than my own. “Er, what?” I asked.
“Well,” she was now getting even more flustered, “...there’s a lot of uh, body fat in the butt, and it’s not near any vital organs.”
“It’s near one pretty damn vital organ!” Jax called from behind the wall.
“Oh shut up!” She hissed back. “Book was right—you did talk too much.”
“I didn’t—” Book started, but Pella cut him off.
“No, please. I don’t ever get to get a word in.” Book nodded her on and she smiled small to him. Turning back to me, I could see the will it took for her to speak up burning in her eyes. “The butt would be the best choice for you—especially here of all places where we do not bleed.”
“I...I don’t think that is much of a benefit,” Jax wailed, still breathing heavy. “My...My back is still open.”
I looked at him, and where the sword entered through his spine was definitely still fresh, but where the blood would be was rainbow light shimmering and flickering.
“It seems that until we can heal ourselves properly we will have to live with the wounds we inflict,” Pella said. “Or we could go back to town and wait it out with Dagger.”
For the slightest of seconds I hesitated—wondering just how it would feel to carry a near-mortal wound for long—for any length of time. I was scared. I looked back to Aria and something about the look in her eyes strengthened my own will like steel.
“Okay,” I began, “in the butt.”