Silas had nearly finished his chicken by the time Jessica had finished telling us how she had come to be in charge of The Goodberry Brigade. She had landed somewhere near a river and for a while was utterly confused (as was to be expected). She explained how a passing traveler filled in most of the blanks and, despite her feeling like she’d finally snapped, she decided to take it in stride. After collecting a number of plants and discovering a forgotten chest near a campsite she had enough to purchase a sword and low-level armor. It was only a short travel on the road towards Largen before she came across The Goodberry Brigade who had already rebelled against the Lawful Evil leader, Gregorious Redbeard.
“But, how did you come to lead them?” I asked, equally marveled and impressed by her tenacity. She made a furrowed brow which suited the thin lines in her face and, after a beat, said,
“I’m honestly not sure.” She looked down at her hands to pick dirt out from her fingernails. “Whenever speaking I’ve been able to convince people to do most anything I want. I even got this armor and sword for half of what the traveler was asking.”
There was an awkward moment when I realized the last time we met was less than optimal and we both shared a knowing look,
“Look, I’m sorry about…”
“No,” she said. “Look it’s fine. I overstepped and misread and…” I nodded and after a pause, as if she was debating whether or not to tell me something, said,
“I had this feeling wash over me when I landed; something I’m trying to explain...” She stopped again trying to find the words. “Do you ever daydream?”
I nodded along, confused as to where she was going,
“That feeling, where your mind is running and you’re looking blankly at the chalkboard?” She paused again and I waited for her to continue. “When I landed it was kind of like that, I could see this beautiful world but I felt outside it; as if I was split between two worlds.”
I thought I understood what she meant.“Like the real world and this.” I said, gesturing to the bar.
“No,” she said firmly. “It was like this world and a view inside me, a sort of inner-Jessica page.” She looked towards me with doubtful eyes, as if I were about to call her crazy, but after all I had seen and done I was happy to believe anything. She continued after I didn’t seem to react. “I could interact with it like a sliding scale and I could see numbers; a pool of points that I could spend from. A view of my body was broken into pieces; social, strength, intelligence, a whole bunch of them and as I changed things on the page I could feel the way I was affected; I could feel stronger or weaker, smarter or…”
“Dumber?” I said and she smiled.
“Technically yes but let’s say more stupid.” She gave a small laugh and continued. “I only had so many points I could assign to certain things. Does that make sense? I could make certain aspects of myself better and I ended up putting a good number of my points in social, to make it as high as I could.”
I understood exactly what she was referring to as soon as she had mentioned the sliding scale. It was all starting to make sense now; how she managed to make it this far, how she got discounted goods and especially how she was able to dispatch such a powerful character. Since she was low level, her Charisma would still only get us so far, but she was definitely the most charming of the group by a long shot. For Silas and me our character stats had already been chosen. We allocated our skill points back when we made our PC’s but for Jessica, she had entered as a blank slate and could spend the points all at once. She had upped her Charisma high enough to be convincing in one way or another to most anyone in the game. I smiled as she continued,
“I don’t know how to explain it, it was like…”
“A game.” I said, knowing where she was heading. With a raised eyebrow she nodded in agreement and gestured to me.
“For some reason we all are in this game, however what I haven’t figured out is why you don’t look like you, Lester.”
In an instant I had completely forgotten that I was still Raydor the 6’4 fighter and I awkwardly looked down at my armored chest, embarrassed. I abruptly turned back to her.
“Wait how did you know it was me?” I said, confused and a little surprised.
“Hay is for horses?” she said knowingly as if presenting me the solution I should have figured already. “You sent me that message moments before all this started. Also,” she gestured to Kappa across from her, “your cousin is here for some reason.”
Silas burped loudly, the bones on his plate rattling, and Kappa sighed in annoyance. I turned to her and after a knowing look she just shrugged as if to say, tell her whatever you want. I debated for a moment before saying,
“She’s not actually my cousin and there’s actually a lot more going on than you realize.”
Kappa arched her eyebrow in a knowing way as if to say you need to tell her everything. Then she slid away from me and exited the booth. “Come on Silas, they have things to talk about,” she said, holding an outstretched hand to the small goblin that sat next to Jessica. He slid across the bench and hopped out as the two went to the bar.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
I explained as much as I could to Jessica. I told her about how I was developing Dunn, how Kappa was an AI and how I had found The Code that night after leaving the bar. I explained to her that I was being sought by the police and how the little goblin was my brother and how he launched us into this world. I also told her my thoughts on what it meant that she was here and how she had spent the points allocated to her all at once. When I had caught her up on the situation, I delved further back in my story’s timeline to tell her about when I used the Code on her.
“After I had changed Kappa, she and I had a bit of a fight,” I said, unable to make eye contact with her as I spoke. “She left and I was feeling pretty low.”
She reached across the table and took my hand as I spoke. My heart began to race.
“Hey,” she said, “It’s okay; you’ve had a lot thrown onto you.”
I smiled a pained smile and continued,
“Thanks but I need to tell you something, as I said you were added to the code when Kappa and I ran into you and your friend in the woods…”
“Sarah,” she said dismissively.
“Ya, Sarah,” I confirmed trying to press forward but before I could continue her eyes grew wide,
“No, Lester! Sarah!” she said, grabbing my hands with both of hers. “She’s in Dunn too!”
“Oh shit.” I said.
Jessica and I ran up to Silas and Kappa, who were sitting at the bar, with such speed that they both nearly spat out their drinks in surprise. I did a double-take at Silas, who was drinking from a large flagon of honey mead, before turning to Kappa. “He’s drinking!” I said loudly. Kappa stared at me blankly as if waiting for me to finish the thought. “He’s only 13!” I said, as if it meant anything to Kappa who had literally no knowledge of drinking ages or what they meant. I shook my head and removed the flagon from my brother’s hand, placing it back on the bar with a splash.
“We need to go.” I said as Kappa dropped some gold coins on the bar, eyeing Jessica and I. “Jessica’s friend Sarah from the woods, she’s here too and we need to make sure she’s alright.”
“Your parents too.” Kappa said.
Silas hopped down and looked at me. “Mom and Dad are here?” he said flatly.
I grimaced, “I think so but I’m sure they’ll be fine.” I doubted the words as they left my mouth. I could tell he was nervous but I was happy he didn’t show it as we headed to the exit.
Outside, the cool night air was refreshing against the heat of the bar and I turned to the others.
“Maybe we should split up.” I said but as soon as the words left my mouth Jessica chimed in.
“Never split the party.” She said flatly. I turned to her.
“Never split…”
“The party.” She finished, saying it more like law than a suggestion. “I’ve ran enough Dungeons and Dragons games to tell you that the minute you split the party, trouble’s brewing.” She nodded to herself. “Besides, Kappa looks like the only one that can defend herself and unless I’m there when Heckle and Jeckle decide to pop back up, it’s going to be a bad time.”
I realized she meant Hestle and Ergon but I had to laugh at how accidentally close she came to their names. I nodded in agreement. “Fair enough.” I sighed. “Where do we start looking and who do we start with?” I asked the group.
“Silas landed right beside you, correct?” Kappa said without missing a beat; after all, her mind was as quick as a computer.
“Correct.” Silas said in response.
“It also sounded like you were a fair bit down the road, right Jessica?” Kappa said Jessica’s name with a hint of awkwardness, as if saying it hurt her. When Jessica nodded, Kappa continued. “It sounds to me like wherever we were in proximity to real life is where we landed in Dunn.” She bent down and in the dim light of the tavern window drew a rough map of the surrounding area. Being from here, her map was not only detailed but accurate, (she even included a small scale in the bottom corner, ) and after a moment of drawing we each bent down to join her. “You both started here,” she marked an ‘x’ in the woods outside of town to denote Silas and myself, “and Jessica was here, yes?” Jessica nodded. Kappa marked another ‘x’ on the road leading west.
“Where were your parents when The Code loaded Dunn?” she said and with a curious look I studied the woods where the first ‘x’ lay.
“Well, they were in the house, so they should’ve been right by us.” I said with a furrowed brow. Kappa pursed her lips, “Is there nothing else in these woods?” she said, an air of desperation in voice,
“No, not really; birds, trees, some ruins maybe?” I said, searching my memory. “Nothing that would…”
“The mines.” Silas said, interrupting my thought.
“The mines?” I said, shaking my head. “No Silas, they start over here.” I gestured to the west of the woods. He watched me wave my hand, then grabbed it.
“They move this way under the map.” He said, moving my hand as if to trace the tunnels beneath the woods.
I leaned back a little and reassessed my thinking. Creating the game was so different than this; the entrance of a mine only meant that it brought the player to a new screen, essentially another part of the game completely different than the main world. It would load them in another area and start the map fresh. With this in mind it took me a second to realize that Silas was superimposing the mine map beneath this one; considering the direction one would enter the mine and the direction of the tunnels. Since Mom and Dad were on the floor below us when we entered Dunn it made perfect sense that they were spawned in the tunnels below the woods. I shook my head impressed by him once again and corrected myself. “He’s right, Jesus. Silas, well done. I never would’ve realized that.” I was too surprised by Silas’s mind to realize what that meant but Kappa had gotten there first.
“Oh boy.” She said as I looked back down at the map still grinning. She waited to meet my gaze as I studied the map and eventually it clicked.
“Oh shit.” I said as I looked back up to her. “Well, we’re going there first and we’re going there now.” I said, standing up. I felt for my sword.
Jessica stood up as well and turned to me with a questioning look. For a moment her eyes flashed to Silas, nervous of what to share but the look on his face revealed that he was already aware of what the mines held and so without hesitating she asked,
“What’s in the mines Lester…”
“Orcs,” I said with a chill that ran the length of my spine, “and not the kingly bartender kind.”