We’ve had enough sap, right? Enough of the heart to hearts? I don’t really need to go over seeing my parents; the hugging, crying, etc. etc.
Look – it happened you can trust me on that. Mom and dad looked surprisingly comfortable; it seemed that Miller had sent out the bounty and a carriage to collect them when he arrived in Dunn after finding an eerily informative spell cleverly called information scribe. It was a little gnome that answered any and all questions; something that I hadn’t thought of and was particularly clever because he didn’t just answer in game questions but also meta questions.
Miller’s first hours in the game we’re pretty funny to us. He was so out of sorts and unfamiliar to the world of fantasy that a lot of what he had done was pretty random, including casting a number of accidental spells like Ice Storm and Tree Beard but luckily no one died. The long and short of it is that we were all together and decided as a group that we would head out the next morning back to the woods where I had first arrived.
The ride back was pleasant. The days were nice, warm days. The carriage carried my mom, dad, Sarah, Miller and Silas. Drew sat upfront and drove the horses, something he was keen to try since he was unlikely to have a chance when we got home. It was especially heartwarming to see the adults experience this world, in a way they were the kids here.
Jessica, Kappa, Killian and I rode our horses alongside, patrolling the tree line in case anyone should attack, this time however Killian and Kappa shared a horse; I had ridden with him enough and it was someone else’s turn. Just after passing through Redmarsh, Jessica rode up alongside me and with a bit of regret she said, “Excited to get home?”
“Yes and no,” I looked at the trees that bordered either side of the road, “Remember when we first rode to Killian’s campsite and you marveled at the world. I feel that now. It’s pretty amazing here and it feels… good to be a hero in this world.” She nodded in understanding,
“Doesn’t mean you can’t be a hero in the real one. People really like you.” She said with a smile and glanced over her shoulder to Kappa who rode behind us, “You have a good friend in Kappa,” Jessica said almost as if the subject hadn’t change and I nodded,
“I do. She also thinks highly of you,” I added and Jessica smiled.
“What are you going to do with her?” she asked as her smile faded a little bit and for a moment I didn’t follow. Then her eyebrows arched into a look of concern and she continued, “Her and Killian.”
I hadn’t thought about that but it only took a second for me to say,
“They’ll come back with us.” She made a face that seemed a bit hesitant and I added, “I’d been debating it for a long time, about what all of this means, about what we’ve created; whether on purpose or by accident it exists now. It’s real.” I turned to look at them over my shoulder, “They deserve to live.”
“What about everyone else in Dunn?” she asked earnestly. It was clear she too had been thinking about this and I shook my head,
“I don’t know.”
That was the truth. When I swapped out the code the original Dunn world would be removed and every living creature in this reality would be erased unless they came through with us. Sadly it wasn’t realistic to bring everyone through to the real world; even if we had the means to explaining everything to everyone here, the world wasn’t built for them. The thought of it made me uncomfortable because there was no clear solution and Jessica could see the problem she had brought up.
“Sorry,” she said with a shrug.
“No, you have nothing to apologize for, it was a problem I had been ignoring,” I saw her nod back and then she moved off to join Kappa behind me. After a moment of deep thought I trotted ahead to ride alongside Drew who sat in the driver’s seat of the carriage. He had restated himself and while he kept a lot of his abilities he looked like himself for the first time. He smiled as I rode up beside him,
“Lovely day, as always,” he said.
“Have you thought about what will come of all this when we leave,” I asked, getting straight to the point. He had lived in Dunn as long as anyone and had experienced firsthand the humanity the NPC’s had developed. His face fell, revealing that he too had been wrestling with the problem. With a dour note said, “I really can’t think of any other options.” We shared a look of regret. There was no more to be said.
We reached the fork that split to Largen and decided to take a short break. Killian cooked for us, regaling my parents with a violent story about an Orc named Mantlebraun. My dad listened in a placating way that warmed my heart while my mom sat forward, surprisingly engaged in his tale. I tried to focus but ultimately my mind wouldn’t rest and as Kappa fed the horses, I walked over and pulled her aside, “I’m going to back up this world,” I said and she nervously looked around,
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“You’ll what?”
“I want to save a backup of this on my USB.”
She shook her head in confusion; “I thought you lost your USB?”
“I thought I did too but the more I think about it, the more I’m sure I just left it in the computer.”
“But the code…” she started but I interjected,
“…is fine,” I said finishing her thought, “I copied the code off of it and ran that version from my desktop. My USB still has the original code; the untouched version.” She took a breath as if about to protest but I finished, “Kap, if we replace this file everything here will cease to exist. It will blink from existence. Everyone here the creatures, the animals, the friends we’ve made… gone. I can’t let happen.” I could see her chewing over what I said as I continued, “Seeing you; seeing what you’ve become, how real you are, how real Killian is… I can’t do it. I can’t erase an entire world.”
Kappa took a long time before speaking and then said, “Lester, that’s the first bad idea you’ve had that I can get behind.”
A smile crept over my face and I said in a hushed tone, “However that means I’m going to need even more time in my room to save the file first. Which means…”
“Which means we’ll need to cover you for that much longer,” she said in understanding, “alright well, we need a plan.” She turned to the group who sat around the fire and with an authoritative voice said, “When we get through we’re going to have to stay out of trouble for a good long time…” she said with a chill.
“Why?” my dad said and I held up a hand to pause him.
“Not important right now suffice it to say that we’re on the clock and we need to set up the house to… survive a bit of an assault.” My mom’s eyes grew wide and I turned to her, “Mom, I know, but let’s worry about all that later. You two are going to be safe somewhere in the house anyway.”
“The hell we are,” my dad said as he stood up, my mom following second later. Suddenly their parenting mode clicked into full gear and I could already hear the protesting. However my mom put a hand on Dad’s chest and calmed him. With a compassion that only she knew, she turned to me and said “Lester, this isn’t a movie. We can’t hide in a corner while our son and his friends protect us. We’ll all work together.”
I cast my gaze around the others who were equally in agreement and why shouldn’t they be, after all they were right. I stared at my parents for a moment and then with a sigh explained to them what we were up against. Luckily it wasn’t hard for them to stretch their imagination being that their youngest son sat beside the fire as a Goblin and after a detailed description of the creatures, my mom cleared an area next to the fire and began drawing a map of the house. Kappa corrected only a few minor spacing errors and my mother walked everyone through the layout. Then she looked to me,
“Well Lester, how can we defend against these things?” she asked.
“I think the key is to just slow them down, if we can kill them… great but I think doing our best to make sure they don’t even get inside is the way to go.” I said and looked towards my dad, “that means a lot of hammering board onto the windows.” He made a pained face while my mom, focused on the task at hand, said,
“There are linens in this closet and you can use this table to bar the door, but please…” she said in a mom voice that seemed so out of place in the middle of the woods, “please don’t use the oak table, use the particle board one from the office?” Killian stared blankly at her for a moment and then nodded slowly as if he understood. She thanked him and with genuine embarrassment he blushed.
We spent the rest of the evening outlying the plan and preparing for tomorrow. Everyone had their jobs, their positions and knew the stakes. Despite the nervous energy that washed over us, we were all eager to greet tomorrow and one by one people left the dimming firelight until it was just Kappa and I. I sat closest to the fire, stoking the coals, sending small fireflies of ember up towards the night sky as Kappa watched them climb and vanish. We felt alone in the world for a moment, watching the stars above impossible in their numbers and as my mind searched the beyond the twinkling lights Kappa broke the silence.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” She took a deep breath and turned to her side. She had stretched out along a deer skin and faced me, he pose almost careless, “A place like this; a world to escape to, to leave the real world behind.” I smiled and after a moment said,
“I did.” I nodded in agreement, “but now that I’m here, I want to go home.” She sat up a little bit.
“Why do you think that is?”
I thought for a long time before answering. “I think Dunn was an escape from a world where I had no one; a place that felt like I didn’t belong. However, since coming here I’ve found what I’d been looking for.” I wasn’t looking but I knew Kappa was smiling, “shut up.” I said playfully. I stoked the fire absentmindedly and added, “I just mean to say that I think I was less concerned about bettering myself and more interested in trying to make the world fit to me… but I wasn’t perfect. I’m still not. I can be better.”
“I wanted to tell you something…” she said interrupting my thought.
“You kissed me, I know.” There was a silence as she waited, “I know I don’t need to tell you the hypocrisy in kissing me without my permission.” I said with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “it was really, really wrong.”
“It was.” I said standing up from the log I had been sitting on. I leaned the stick I had been using against the glowing coals of the fire as new flames emerged and began to greedily feed. Then I turned to her, “Why did you do it?”
Despite the red hue of the fire I could see her burn a crimson colour. “I wanted to know what it felt like. I didn’t know if there would be another chance. I didn’t know if I’d have a tomorrow.”
“You thought you were going to die?” I asked.
“That or… maybe I’d be deleted along with the game.”
“I would never,” I said in a tone that was heavy and honest, “Kappa, no matter what - it never crossed my mind to leave you in this world. You are my best friend and always have been.”
“Forevermore?” she smiled a coyly and I nodded as we watched the flames consume the stick and send sparks into the night air, nervous and excited for what tomorrow would bring.