Phanya felt equal parts relieved and disappointed once beyond the veil. All that tension and buildup to find a regular convenience store with bare metal shelves and more litter on the floor. This store went a bit deeper than her empty holding cell, and Phanya could see as they went inwards that the shelves held progressively more and more product.
Including food! The neat rows of colorful pouches hanging on hooks suddenly made Phanya very aware of just how hungry she really was, beckoning her with promises of a full belly. Warnings of a guard kept her from rushing forward, but the food was only a few rows down...
Even with her head on a swivel Phanya was still startled when a creature stepped out in front of her, snarling from far below her eye level. It was a giant mutant rat, or maybe a hybrid with so much rat DNA that they've gone feral. Too large to be a regular rat and they wore a neon green baseball cap backwards with matching sunglasses, but otherwise covered in bristly fur. At least the other raiders had the decency to wear pants, a minor reassurance to the beast in front of her now.
Tapper sensed Phanya's hesitation and prioritized his protection directives. He positioned himself higher on Phanya's shoulders, much to her annoyance, to get a better vantage and spoke slowly and clearly, "Hello there! Are — you — sapient — or — a — monster?" It didn't say anything in response but it also didn't attack, just shifted from side to side slightly and coughed up a globule of something gross and brown that left a steaming splatter on the tile floor. "You see Miss Phanya, it is important to establish — look out!"
The creature reared its head back to take a wet, rattling breath. An unnatural heavy mist started billowing out of its jowls, and that unknown variable registered to Tapper as a direct threat towards his proprietor. Tapper leapt into action by leaping off Phanya's shoulders, landing on the rat monster just as it released a massive gout of thick mist. The thick cloud of steam filled the entire aisle, with most of it sticking close to the rat — and now Tapper — like a cloak, obscuring most details save for the occasional fist or tail whipping into and out of view.
Hesitation on whether to jump in and help Tapper allowed the expanding mist cloud reach Phanya without her notice and she breathed some in. She coughed and tried to wave the cloud away, but a slight dizzy sensation quickly numbed the mounting panic. Whatever this stuff was, it felt similar to the stash that Ms. Uxral would smoke when she had a real stressful day and thought no one else was looking.
Phanya managed to sneak a sample of the hidden stash once and happy memories flooded in, losing herself to a time when life wasn't so stressful. She didn't have to take care of everyone, she wasn't constantly running from one problem to the next… By the time Phanya managed to shake off the distraction the cloud of vapor had cleared, now little more than a thin carpet around the fight's aftermath and shrinking by the second.
A too-large rat lay dead and crushed on the ground and a robot struggled to untangle itself from the tail wrapped around its neck. Somehow the neon green hat swapped heads during the struggle and sat askew on Tapper's chrome dome without his notice, glittery block letters shouting #SWAGGIN, and Phanya laughed. It started as a giggle at the absurdity of the sight before her, but grew and grew until she was doubled over with her hands on her knees and stomach cramping with uncontrollable laughter. All the emotions that Phanya had been barely keeping in check spilled out through the laughter, all the sadness and fear and anger mixing together into a slurry that could not be stopped until they were fully used up.
When the torrent of laughter finally stopped Phanya stood straight and wiped tears from her eyes. The stuff she had snuck away from Ms. Uxral wasn't nearly as strong! She felt numb and empty, but also surprisingly refreshed from finally letting her backed-up emotions out.
And with that refreshed clarity, Phanya took a second look at the gleaming fangs of the rat thing and realized with a start that she would've been completely defenseless if not for Tapper's quick reaction. A pang of guilt hurried her to help untangle Tapper and check him over, but aside from a few scratches he seemed fine.
Physically Tapper was fine and had only accrued a negligible amount of HP loss, which would correct itself in short time. But his emotional feedback was having trouble working through a conflicting mix of pride, shame, and concern. Pride for earning 2 XP for defeating the Mall Rat fought with shame at his proprietor laughing at his performance; which was replaced with concern for her health when Tapper reviewed his status updates and realized that the vapor cloud carried a potent poison.
The pop up only said that he had successfully saved against the poison, and as soon as the Mall Rat died the mist started to fade so there was none left to run through his olfactory sensors for a proper diagnosis. But luckily Phanya seemed to succeed at her own save as she helped separate Tapper from the dead monster. "Thank you, Miss Phanya. My apologies for not disposing of the monster sooner, are you feeling alright?"
"You don't need to apologize Taps, that was amazing! And I feel fine, just —" Her stomach growled again. "I'm just so hungry." She stared unwaveringly at the rows of hanging snacks, and despite the fresh corpse laying in front of them Phanya's mouth started to water. Maybe it was a residual effect of the drug, but right now she didn't care, and after two careful steps the rat was behind her and out of mind.
The nearest thing within reach was a cone labeled as a ham and cheese sandwich — scratch that, a handwich. Weird. The instructions just said to pull the tab and wait five seconds, and when she did the top of the cone popped off to reveal a mound of steaming, gooey, delicious ham and cheese in a bread cone. And there wasn't a hint of corn or corn derivatives anywhere!
It was so delicious that Phanya almost cried, and she wolfed down a second one before she let out a happy sigh. For the first time in several days Phanya had a properly full stomach and she could take proper stock of the situation, backtracking to find all the little things that had slipped her notice under the constant mild hunger gnawing at her thoughts.
Particularly, the robot. Tapper was focused on the rat corpse, and a small hologram suddenly appeared in the air over the body. Something spherical and brown with little yellow discs that vanished when Tapper touched the hologram, but Phanya didn't jump at the sight. She just chewed her last bite of the bread cone, deep in thought as she mentally replayed the last few hours since the robot almost fell on her. Phanya cleared her throat and locked eyes with Tapper to get his full attention.
"So how did you get here? Tell me everything."
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Tapper talked, and Phanya listened. She only spoke up to speed Tapper through the longer portions of running and waiting when he was describing everything, and a few times when she asked him to repeat a strange term, but otherwise absorbed the entire impossible tale in total silence. She even had him describe the process of creating the spell that broke them out of holding, and she noted that Tapper's description of the internal spell space became much more metaphorical and less exact. Less computer-like, less… robotic. Something to ponder, but something small compared to the great pile of things to ponder that filled the silent room when Tapper finished his tale.
For approximately 1.6 minutes Phanya didn't say anything, just stared into the middle distance while she idly played with a forgotten handwich wrapper, and Tapper was working up the courage to break her concentration when she finally spoke. "And what kind of system is feeding you all these weird messages? What's it called?"
Tapper expected his proprietor would have a litany of questions about his decisions and conduct, but not something so fundamentally basic. The earlier internal queries about his proprietors refreshed itself in Tapper's mind without his input, now with additional worry. "The system that tracks my performance as a bartender and an adventurer? I don't believe I have clearance for the higher-level functions to find a name. You and Mister Ricky would have access, you installed it for my appraisal review..."
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
"No, Tapper. No we did not." Phanya was still staring into the middle distance, but blinked rapidly and looked around as if she had suddenly awoken from a deep daydream. "Whoa, lost track of time there. How long have we been here for?"
"Approximately 2 hours and 7 minutes have passed since we entered the 'Quick Pit Stop' store," Tapper answered automatically. Math was easier, math didn't have questions.
Phanya sputtered and leapt to her feet. "Strangle my ass, we gotta go!"
"But Miss Phanya —"
"No butts, we're just down the hall from my prison and it's been hours! This is the first place they'll look!" Phanya grabbed a handful of unopened handwiches and crammed them into the plastic bag on Tapper's arm. "Look I get it, I have just as many questions as you do but we cannot stay here. We get out, we get home, and then we freak out about whatever pirate software you have installed."
Her voice dropped to a harsh whisper, despite the complete lack of any change to the store, and she hoisted Tapper onto her back before he could raise any objection. She strode forward and, when the blurry barrier prevented Phanya from seeing anything, across the threshold into the hall.
A beam of red light lanced over the two as a klaxon drowned out the muzak and shocked Phanya to her knees. She frantically looked back and forth before breaking into a dead sprint, the sound of scattering litter doing nothing against the siren at their wake. Tapper could hear a code hidden in the highest wavelengths of the klaxon, identifying a location for thieves to apprehend, and he looked at the bag on his arm.
"Miss Phanya, it's the food!" Tapper kept slipping off Phanya's jostling shoulders, adding an edge of panic to his voice. "What is looted from foes we claim by right, but we never paid for the food!" Phanya made no indication that she heard, focusing on not falling as she skidded a corner and almost slid directly into a waiting robot.
An oblong dome loomed, widest at the bottom over hidden wheels and tapering off to a curved point where a small red siren spun in circles, with two fat arms folded out of the sides. Immediately a forcefield enveloped both Phanya and Tapper, a bubble of pale yellow that froze everything within it. Phanya could still breathe just fine, somehow, but every other muscle was entirely unresponsive.
The bubble split without breaking and yanked the two apart, allowing the security robot to run a scan over each person. Without any warning Phanya fell to the ground with a whump, but the machine chimed when it scanned Tapper and an old speaker crackled to life.
"Larceny detected zzzt four counts. Restraint authorized."
A split opened down the middle of the long torso to reveal a hollow pocket just large enough to hold an average adult. Tapper started to shout something, instantly interrupted by the sharp crack of an electric discharge that sent blue streaks of light erupting from Tapper's body.
Years ago, a younger Phanya watched some adult touch a live wire on a drunken dare. He lived, but the way he seized up was burned into Phanya's memory and that was nothing like Tapper's display. This arcing of sparks was like something from one of Ricky's lame public domain comic heroes, Nikola something. Before she could make it to her feet the big robot had already thrown Tapper into the pocket and sealed it shut with another happy chime.
"Thank you, have a zzzt day."
Desperate to not lose Tapper and be left alone again, Phanya lashed out at the robot and tried to dig into the seams, which earned her own debilitating shock of electricity. Phanya wasn't sure how long she fought against the painful muscle spasms, curled up in the fetal position, but the first sound she recognized made her blood run cold.
"Well well, look who was being a little freeloader." A large metal hand clamped around Phanya's torso, lifting her painfully into the air. "Didn't that cat bitch teach you not to steal?"
"R-rethar?" Phanya was never a fan of the guy, but she could recognize the voice from his rants in town even if she couldn't see him through her tears. "What are you doing here?" Her vision swam into focus to show a wide grin, full of teeth and malice.
"I'm finally getting mine, that's what." Rethar wagged a metal finger in her face as he continued, "The people leading that little skrathole have been keeping me from what's mine, and now they're going to get theirs. Especially that Uxral! But everyone's going to get it, unless they work under me on the winning side."
Now fully cleared of the stun, Phanya looked around to see a small crowd of raiders surrounding her on all sides. The last remnants poured out of a plain door marked 'MAINTENANCE,' a door that Phanya could've sworn didn't exist a few seconds ago, but she couldn't be sure with a mad man in an exoskeleton holding her bodily in the air. She swung back to Rethar's manic grin and opted for begging, given the odds. "Rethar please, what do you want? You don't have to hurt anyone."
"They OWE me!" After dealing with the manager's forked tongue, the straightforward outrage from this greedy asshole was almost refreshing for Phanya. "And after that damn robot of hers broke my wrists, I'll be taking my money AND my revenge."
Begging didn't work and he didn't have a good nature to appeal to, so Phanya dropped the pretense with little resistance. "You're a damn idiot, you know that? We would've helped you if you ever let us, now instead you go and join the raiders?? The whole town mourned you, man!"
Rethar's momentum suddenly halted, his mouth hanging open in silence for a beat. "Wait, mourned?" His voice was quiet, thoughtful.
A glimmer of hope that the man actually cared about Fableton dangled in front of Phanya like a lifeline, and she grabbed at it. "Dude, you've been gone for weeks! And we found an octolusk nest in your home, we thought it ate you! Everyone showed up for your funeral."
Painting a picture of everyone mourning Rethar was supposed to make him miss home, but to Phanya's surprise it only brought a snarl of indignant rage. "My funeral? You gave away all my stuff? ALL MY STUFF?? You're all a bunch of godsdamned thieves, everyone in Skratsville!" His metal hand started to tighten around Phanya's chest, sending her into an instant panic as she struggled to breathe.
"Uh, hey Ret, you're kinda hurting her." The raider almost earned a backhand for speaking up, but the break in his thoughts made Rethar just a little bit less murderous and he grinned again.
"Oh, you naïve little kid. You wanna know why I joined Zero? Because he actually respects a man's right to earn their keep. You've been coddled your whole life, but maybe you'll understand once you do some actual work." With almost casual movements, Rethar threw Phanya bodily into a store and then yanked the gate shut by sheer force. He stood so close that his manic grin through the haze barrier, breathed, "Good luck, kid," and then she was all alone again.
Phanya didn't panic. She didn't panic for more than a minute, two at the most, and after three minutes of not panicking the rage eventually took over. That Rethar was such a bastard! Not just for this, but now Phanya's worst fears were confirmed that Tapper really was not speaking in his weird broken metaphors. He was right about the raiders attacking Fableton, so what else wasn't an exaggeration?
A few deep breaths of composure later, Phanya took stock of her situation. The grate wasn't locked, but it was damaged and jammed shut and she couldn't lift it. Instead of an empty box she was trapped in a functioning store, and with a mental kick Phanya chastised herself for not asking Tapper whether every single shop had monsters in it. This store sold sporting equipment, with various balls and sticks on the shelves and mannequins in colorful uniforms for extinct teams. Everything was in neon colors with sharp angles to the designs, and tubes of neon lights cast deceptive shadows on all surfaces.
One section under a sign reading 'BASEBALL' had sticks with tape around the handle and a thicker head, perfect for clubbing any monsters but made out of strange material. It must've been some kind of smoothed cobwood, only more dense and knotted than normal. With it in hand Phanya made a quick sweep of the entire floor and she made double sure to check high and low this time, too.
Only silence answered. No rats, no security robots, no raiders. Phanya sighed, partially with relief and partially because she couldn't think of anything else to do that would avoid the next step. "Great Hand guide me, please let Tapper be right about this too."
The prayer offered little comfort. One shaking hand reached up to remove the headwrap of scraps and foil she had originally donned in a feeble attempt to block any signals, and she winced as vision returned to her left eye. But even blinding light did nothing to dampen the line of text that Phanya had been adamantly ignoring for the last several days:
[Welcome to level 1!]