“We seek perfection.” The person on the left says. Their companion, positioned to their side and keeping a suspiciously specific set distance from them, nods.

It’s not much as far as greetings go. Mark is pouring them shots from a bottle that I think gives you a bonus percent to healing if you can take it without wincing, and I doubt they will. He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t comment as he flips the bottle over and slides it back onto the shelf behind him.

Jules and Six are discussing something a table away, though they’re both clearly listening in. I think they’re not especially interested in our newcomers, but are willing to be surprised.

I size up the two potential optimizers. They’re not quite identical, but they’ve got a shared style. Digitigrade legs, no shoes, clothing made out of a dozen banners and an equal number of belts that all dangle with charms and trinkets of varying descriptions. They’ve both got sashes with a pair of swords sticking out on their flanks. Fur, too; mostly orange, bits of white on the cuffs and chest. I think their faces are vulpine, but I’ve only lived a few lives with access to things like libraries or infospheres, so I’m not sure if that’s the right term or if it would be impolite.

“Hello.” I say, trying to be friendly. “I’m Luri. I seek novelty, mostly.”

“Ah, a hedonist.” The older fox samurai nods at me knowingly. “You must yet be young.”

I will not be answering that one. Instead, I just grin and signal Mark to add a third drink, moving past them to steal a barstool out from under their long snouts. “So, what kind of perfection?” I ask.

I’m not exactly expecting to be wowed by their answer, but I’ve been wrong before, and I still like talking.

The older one flicks his ears at me and I don’t know how to interpret that. “We wish to find the challenges of the between, and conquer them.” He says. His words are stupid, which makes it kind of annoying that his voice is a rather sexy villainous rumble. “Distance, experience, violence, it does not matter. We seek to overcome this life, and draw strength from the attempt.”

“Sounds like fun.” Mark says as he slides their drinks to either side of me, adding my own shot glass in the middle. “Find anything good yet?”

“The discovery is the first challenge.” The younger fox says. I’m pretty sure they’re male, but their voice is decidedly feminine. Nice combo, really. Though I’m obviously biased. “It would be no challenge if it did not require looking.”

The two of them move around me, grabbing their drinks and downing them in a single motion. I do the same, the bitter flavor familiar to me. Watching both of them repress gags out of the corner of my eye is fun, though it might be mean that I take a certain amount of pleasure in denying them the bonus.

“That is vile.” The older one growls.

“Yeah, that’s… that’s the point?” Mark shrugs. “You asked for a buff!”

“Think of it as a free challenge?” I suggest coyly.

“It’s not free, I charged them.” Mark flashes a pair of marks in his off hand. “No refunds, I think. I dunno, I’m not good at this one! Luri, do we do refunds?”

“You are the proprietor here?” The older fox asks, somewhat harshly. “Fascinating.”

“It’s more of a joint venture.” I answer, keeping it friendly. “We pool resources to trade for odds and ends. Actually, speaking of, if you have any books on you, I’d be happy to help you on your seeking?”

The younger one slumps a bit, as the older fox shakes his head. “We do not carry extra weight or distractions. Our heartbeats are spent in constant pursuit of the discovery, and our lives are devoted to enlarging our time here in the between, the source of reality.”

My smile freezes on my face, though I do my best to keep the mask up. And my best is very good. I’ve heard this kind of rhetoric before. These are a different breed of optimizer, but I can read between the lines. “Ah. Well, so much for trade then.” I say easily. “Unless you wanna buy some of our pile of [Strikes] off us. We have a lot of the things.” Meta-items wouldn’t weigh them down.

“Unneeded.” The older fox says.

I nod. “Well, I dunno how many heartbeats you have left, but if you want, I’ve got a handful of books that give next-life buffs if you read them. I could rent one out to you, if you’re a fast reader and have ten thousand beats to spare.” I make the offer casually, making sure to downplay it. “They’re not that impressive, but if you’re not getting anywhere new this between, they can be handy.”

His interest looks piqued; after all, he’s the kind of person who bought the worst tasting crap we have just for a chance at a single percent of advantage. It doesn’t take much to haggle out a quick deal with him, and I set him up with a novel at one of the downstairs tables, making a casually false-hidden show of faking a security system on the upstairs.

Specifically, at the table farthest from us at the bar.

A quick signal, flicked eyes and the click of a tongue, gets Six and Jules speaking slightly louder. When they wake Ellin and she joins them, it doesn’t even require faking anything anymore. Not so loud as to be distracting to a reader, but loud enough enough to act as a barrier between him, and my target.

“So, kid.” I say, voice firm as I turn to the other fox still standing by the bar. “How many lives have you been following him?”

“Three.” They say proudly, puffing out the white plume of fur on their chest. A riot of trinkets and charms rattle on their belts as they do so. Though less than their mentor. “I am lucky to have found him! He is guiding me through the nature of reality!”

“Uh huh.” I grimace, and Mark leans over the bar. We both motion for the kid to sit, and they give us a confused look before claiming one of the stools, fumbling with their tail. “You get used to that.” I say, pointing to the limb. “After you’ve lived with one for a while. They had you change your whole body?”

“This is a more optimal form for exploration.” They instantly answer. Like it’s been drilled into them.

“How does this keep happening?” Mark asks me, sighing deeply.

“Charisma powers, mostly.” I say. “The shittier kind that don’t count as attacks. Attraction based ones. I dunno, did you hear how sexy that guy sounds?”

“Sure, I’d fuck his voice.” Mark shrugs. “But he’s a maniac, right? That’s where this is going. I’ve been here long enough to see the signs, and you and Ellin talk about it.”

The fox barks sharply at Mark. “Do not say that!” Their voice is shrill, but a quick glance shows their master isn’t paying attention. “They have lived a thousand lives!”

“Doubtful.” I say quietly. “Would you like to hear my evidence? You’ve lived at least three yourself, you should know the value of hearing someone out.” They settle back, my calm tone easing their hackles down as they eye me suspiciously. “Alright. You’re carrying artifacts from at least four different worlds, judging by art style, but half the stuff you have on you is vendor bought here in the between. You look surprised by that, so I’ll assume your master gave it to you. If you don’t have an [Identify] or [Analyze] or [Eye Of Truth] or something then you might not know, but a lot of that stuff isn’t going to be doing you any favors. That,” I point to one in particular, “is a [Friendship Charmer], which makes you slowly change your mind to like someone as long as you carry it willingly. So’s that. So’s that.” I think they might have one on their back too but don’t say it. “Your master is talking like he knows the nature of the between, but everyone who actually learns anything about the between leaves. You can feel it when they do. It’s a whole event. Deeply unpleasant. Also, no one who has lived more than ten lives, who has a developed sense of interlude maturity, falls for getting separated from their apprentice so that a couple strangers can deprogram… them? Him? Her? Sorry, what pronouns for you? Hi, I’m Luri, by the way.”

They stare at me with eyes filled with cunning and violence. Artificial, both of those things. It’s not hard to feel the fear coming off them. The fear at admitting they were wrong, and at being fooled. Fear at being changed.

“You think I am being lied to. Taken advantage of.” Their words are an incredulous yipping. Claws try to dig into the bar, but that’s not how the between works. You’d have to be really strong to make that happen, and I don’t think they’ve got the stats. “…why?”

“Why to which part?” Mark asks, setting a glass of orange juice in front of the fox, complete with a straw. I know I watched them both down a shot without problem, but muzzles make straws a lifestyle necessity at a certain point. “Why’s he doing it?”

“Why are you telling me?”

“Oh. Because I’ve heard talk like his talk before.” I say. I turn and stare at nothing in particular, my eyes just defocusing as I point them in the direction of the corner of the room and a point where the wooden boards of the wall start to angle up to form the roof. “I’ve heard people talk about harvesting heartbeats. Especially people who walk around with swords on their hips, talking down to anyone spending quiet time with their families.” My eyes meet the fox’s. “He means genocide. Rack up kills, get those points, buy some more combat traits. Right? How many times have his instructions come back around to the idea that the other people on the worlds you live on aren’t real? How often does he try to drill you on achievement lists that involve murder?”

“I… they are… reflections.” The fox says. “That is the known philosophy of the between.” They find their spine and straighten up as their reply comes faster. “If the worlds are not reflections, then why do parts of them mirror what is found in the between? Why are there so many of them, if they are not disposable parts of a greater machine?”

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

“Why do you assume the reflection is one way?” Mark says, polishing a glass with the edge of his toga. For someone who doesn’t know how to be a bartender, he sure is having fun with the image of it. “Come on, how many years on you now? You can think better than this.”

“Well.” I shrug, and tap one of the toxic charms. “Maybe lose those.”

“They help me accumulate achievement.” The fox mutters, looking down at their bandolier. “They make me strong.”

“Do you feel strong?” I ask them bluntly. “It took me a handful of sentences, and a mild distraction to get your ‘mentor’ out of the way, and your worldview has holes in it that you know will eat at you for a long time. Unless you do something about it, of course.” A hand runs across the bar surface, as I savor the sensation of texture in this favored form of mine. “I don’t think words will turn him away from whatever nightmare he’s making. But you? You look…”

I trail off, words suddenly catching in my throat. Mark picks up effortlessly where I stop, covering for my lapse as a memory collides with my rhetoric and throws me off my game. “You look too kind for this.” He says for me. “You’re wired to be angry, but we can tell that’s running into what you’re actually thinking. You could do anything. Don’t do this.”

“But…” the kid starts to say something, then looks sideways. It’s not hard to detect the motion that newbies make on reflex when they automatically check all their notifications. “I don’t understand.” They whine. “Why? What does he gain from it?”

“Oh, no, kid.” I wave a hand. “Don’t think of this as material. We’re in the between; transactions here aren’t the same as out in the worlds. He’s not using you for wealth or power, even though he might get achievements for your actions if he influences you enough. He probably doesn’t even think of it as using you, really. You’ve got [Friendship Charmers] on you because he wants you to be his ‘friend’, maybe more. And he’s teaching you his philosophy because he probably legitimately believes it.”

“Is his conviction not valuable?” The fox asks me, confused.

“His conviction says that he should treat people as points, as long as he can kill them fast enough.” I remind them. “None of us here are unbloodied, but you tell me what that sounds like to you? Use that cunning you’re told you’re gifted with.”

“How did you…”

“It’s all reflections.” I say with a twisted grin. “What direction do the reflections go? Who knows. But you’re wearing a reflected body and barking at the mirror.”

Mark leans over the counter to me. “Luri, normally I go along with you, but that… that doesn’t mean anything.” He stage whispers.

“Mark, please, I’ve only been dead for a day. Cut me some slack.” I frown as I try to adjust his dragon feather toga; his antics have it all bunched up around the shoulder. My attempt takes longer than I would have liked as I fumble with it and he just leans forward trying not to laugh, while our fox friend has an existential crisis next to me.

Eventually, the fox speaks again, staring down at the cup of juice they’re trying to sink their clawed paws into. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Whatever you want.” Mark and I say at the same time. I pick up the talk from there. “Ditch the charms, probably. And then just live. Be happy.”

“Hedonism.” The young fox snarls the word. “I was warned.”

I don’t smirk. That’s the wrong move here. Conversations like this here are like dueling someone on top a crumbling edifice. Limited time, and you need to make your strikes count. I have more experience with both than I’d like. “Yeah, sure. By whom?” I ask pointedly.

“But…” The word is sad. Pitiful, really. It represents a fork in their potential future; either they fall harder into the worst kind of optimizer philosophy, or they splinter off and find their own way. “I…”

“It’s not like you have to be alone.” I offer lightly. With any of my friends, I’d accompany the words with a hand on the arm or back, but I don’t know this person, and I don’t want to push them away. “You can always find us here in the between. I can help you set up a door, if you want. Just stick around when he leaves, and we’ll sort it out. Either that, or you can go your own way, and we’ll help as much as we can.”

“Why?” They ask as Ellin’s laugh fills the rest of the room and I hear her putting Jules in a headlock of some kind behind me. “What do you gain?”

Mark laughs. “There’s no gain, kiddo.” He reminds them, glancing over at the older fox who is almost finished speed-reading the novel. “It’s philosophy. Ours is that you shouldn’t empty worlds of life just for a high score. And we want more people to follow it, so we talk to people like you when we get the chance.” He shrugs. “You’ve got all the time you could ever want to get better. Why do it in the meanest way possible? Are you in a rush?”

“Yeah, take it slow. Reality isn’t going anywhere.” I say, spinning the shot glass in front of me under a fingertip. “I mean, as far as we know. Besides. Not everything needs to be a stat buff to be good.”

The fox stares down at the bar’s counter silently, fingers clenching on the glass they still haven’t moved. Heartbeats pass, and Mark and I pull back. Both of us have a lot of experience with this, and know that this moment can’t be forced. Only set up to tip the way we want.

After long enough that I start to worry the older one will finish and come ruin things, they start to move. Slowly, the fox leans forward and sticks the straw into their muzzle. Takes a sip of orange juice. Looks back up at us with eyes that have been redesigned to not cry. “This is delicious.” They say.

“Right?” I ask, smiling.

“My name is Tenebral.” They look down at the belts covering their chest, and start plucking the offending charms off to set on the counter in a pile. As they remove the last one, a wave of confused relief washes over their face. “I… it is… I am glad to meet you, Luri and Mark.”

Things move a little fast after that. We quickly figure out how to get Tenebral back to their return room, and quietly pool marks with the others to afford a one-way one-use door for their next life to make it back to Bastion’s if they choose. Some of the points come from their master renting the book they’re reading, which I wish I could hose down with spiritual disinfectant after he’s done with it, but that’s not something I’ve ever discovered sadly. It’s an amusing irony though.

The two of them leave together, with Tenebral having only forty thousand heartbeats left regardless. Their master never offers us a name, and is already talking about achievements for things like multikills when the two of them walk out. From the master’s perspective, Tenebral will simply never be seen again, and they won’t know why. The odds they stumble back in here to cause trouble will be low. Bastion’s isn’t perfect, but nowhere in the between invites hostility in.

“We’re gonna need to get that kid a new body.” Ellin says, grunting as she drops onto the barstool next to me. “Did you see those eyes? Oy. Fucked.”

“I hope our interference was adequate.” Six says, stepping to the curved end of the bar to stand and watch us. “And that the new one does not regress.”

That’s always the question, isn’t it? Because it’s possible we’ll just never know. It’s possible we just wasted a bunch of points for nothing, or got scammed. Or that Tenebral will just change their mind. Or be swept away by another philosophy of the between.

In the end, though, I would rather try and fail than do nothing.

There aren’t really stakes here, the way there are for mortals. For most people in the worlds we live in, there’s always the looming shadow of death waiting as a fail state. Every idea, every policy, every philosophy, all of them can be measured against death. It’s an endless eternal war; does this, as a tactic, kill us faster, or slower? A question that can be asked over and over, often with no good answer. Or with no way to measure the results in a meaningful way.

And on the line, is always the thinker’s own life. You can’t speak in a world and not participate; you’re there too, with everyone else. Your ideas can backfire if not stated clearly, or they can attract the wrong kind of attention, or they can just suck and end up causing some kind of ecological disaster. So many things to go wrong, all of them moving the fail state closer and closer.

Here, in the between, for us, it’s different. We cannot die, no matter how much we might sometimes wish it. No matter how tired we are. The end is never. A word I often hate, but then just because I don’t like something has never stopped it from being real.

So our philosophies have a different texture to them. We’re playing a game, with the population of whole worlds as the pieces, but we’re not really in there with them. Death isn’t real for us, and so the stakes don’t quite feel the same.

Oh, if you have a heart, then it’s no real change. For those of us that drink empathy like fine wine, there’s very little difference. We still love and care for others, we have families and make friends and want the best for them. Just because we can’t die doesn’t mean we want our lovers to suffer.

And in the abstract, that extends to the broader philosophies here as well. We want people to thrive. And our enemy wants to hurt people.

We can’t kill them. We don’t know a way be reborn to the same worlds and put up defenses. Although it is possible to hurt, debuff, cripple, or rob people in the between, should you be willing to pay the cost, we have no real tools to stop them. Though by association, they can’t do the same for us. And, while we’re not exactly organized because of the way the between works, our side works together a lot better.

Our battlefield is the minds of everyone we meet. And this is as close as I get to an act of faith. In an infinite reality, with an unending number of us being reborn, I think that our side can win. I think that we can put out more kindness than we take away.

“I think we’ll see them again.” I tell Six confidently, pocketing the stupid [Friendship Charmers] into my inventory to sell to a vendor later. “And you did great. Thanks.”

“Anything you ask of us.” Jules says, wrapping me in a tentacle hug. “Certainly if it means disrupting someone like that. I don’t believe he was older than two or three lives himself, though how long they were is anyone’s guess. He had the cadence of one of those sect elders, perhaps that was his first life.”

“Ugh. Immortals.” Mark pulls a face. We all slowly turn and stare at him. Even Six adds to our panorama of disbelief, though he does it with his usual flat expression. “What?” Mark asks. “I’m just saying. Have you ever met an immortal you didn’t want to punch?”

Ellin spins her stool over to face me. “Luri, you’re as old as I am. Can you get head trauma in the between?”

“Apparently.” I huff back. “Also hey, aren’t you a pacifist?” I demand of Mark.

“I’m against killing.” He says. “Immortals don’t die Luri.”

“Then how do they get here?” Jules fails to realize he’s making this entire situation worse by falling into Mark’s mad anti-logic. “Oh? Luri, are you alright? You seem unwell.”

I groan out a muffled voice from where I’ve pulled the robe around my face and buried my head in my arms on the bar. “I’m fine, I’m just hiding until this stops.” I say, before throwing myself upward and taking a breath of cool air. “Okay, ignoring Mark. That went… okay. Yeah. I think that went okay.” I look down as Mark slides my personal cup across to me. “What’s this?” I ask.

“A toast.” He tells me, flicking everyone else’s cups to them. “To good luck, for our new mayhaps friend.”

I smile, hope playing across my lips, as I raise my glass with the others and tap the rims together. We drink, and I regret it instantly, as this is surely the worst thing we have on offer here. But as the room goes back to feeling like just the five of us, and we return to sharing small stories of people we met last life or bizarre traits we’ve unlocked or setting up a game that we’ve been waiting decades to pick up again with each other, I relax into sipping at the wretched beverage anyway.

It tastes like kelp. I don’t know why we have this.