{-Llewel-}
“Struggling is only going to make it worse, you know!”
This was a nightmare. It had to be. To have someone on either side of him—neither allies, trying to usher him towards some dark place—with full knowledge of who he was. Knowledge that he didn’t even understand. He didn’t know where Myr was.
It was instinct from those forgotten enemies that kept him from staying still. He wasn’t going to listen to reason, not when this fear controlled him.
Yet he couldn’t get away from them and his panic kept them from going anywhere.
“Hey, you! Do you think you can calm him down?” one of the workers asked.
Reynneak gave the whole situation a nervous look. “I actually think I’m supposed to be helping him escape…”
Llewel did manage to get one of them to let go of him—and the same person punched his shoulder in warning and held a tighter grip on his arm.
It was enough to get Reynneak moving, though, cautiously walking around them to stand in front of Llewel. “I can’t say it’s going to be alright, but I know that you’re just going to get yourself hurt if you keep doing this.”
He shook his head. “I—I can’t—“
“We’ll figure something out.” Reynneak, somehow, could manage a relatively reassuring tone. “It sounds like Zetai and Myr are already with them. Will all four of us, we’ll be able to think of something.”
“I’m going to pretend like I didn’t hear that,” one of the workers remarked.
Following Reynneak’s silent instruction, Llewel took a deep breath and finally allowed himself to calm down. It didn’t make him any less afraid of their current situation, but he tried to tell himself it would be okay. Maybe he wasn’t just walking towards certain death.
He didn’t know how he felt about reminding himself that Myr would be there too.
They were led to one of the rooms near where the hallways combined; much larger than any of the other rooms they’d already been. There were two more workers along with Zetai, Tinath, and Myr. The moment all three of the workers who’d been with Llewel and Reynneak went to the others, Myr rushed towards him.
For a minute, she didn’t say anything—but her tight hug said more than enough.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” Llewel asked, unintentionally barely anything more than a whisper.
She shook her head. “You?”
“Good enough.”
Zetai disrupted whatever quiet mood might’ve otherwise settled. “Rey! What did you do, just stand there?”
“I’m not you!” Reynneak defended quickly. “I don’t like challenging authority figures!”
“They’re not authority figures! They’re trying to get rid of two kids!”
Tinath let out a hollow laugh. She kept her eyes on the ground and her hawk rubbed its head against hers. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”
“Careful, Tabby,” a woman warned. She looked like Tinath—Llewel realized that it was probably her mother. “Mr. Mair told us not to interact with them without him. I… actually don’t know what we’re supposed to do in this situation…”
“You don’t know?” the complaining-about-cleaning guy—Jacob?—questioned. “He had to have considered this! What were his other instructions about when he’s out talking to Cassidy if something happened?”
Another worker opened his mouth, looked around the room, and said, “His exact words aren’t exactly… appropriate for the situation. But generally, ‘just wait and don’t mess up.’”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Tinath’s mom glanced at the most reliable-looking person in the room. “What do you think we should do..?”
“Wait for Mr. Mair,” he decided without a moment’s hesitation. “Cassidy’s going to find it suspicious if he suddenly leaves, so don’t contact him about it. It shouldn’t be that hard to keep a couple of kids from running off.”
“Zuradu—”
“—is practically incompetent and somehow still has his job.” He gave a dismissive wave. “I’m going to make sure no other players wander in here. Do your jobs.” Then he left.
Zetai almost immediately hopped up but Tinath stopped her before she had a chance of getting close to the others.
“Do you really think we’re going to let you stay together?” Tinath sighed. She pushed Zetai back to the ground. “You’re just going to make things worse for all of us.”
“I regret ever thinking it would be fine to have you around,” Zetai grumbled.
“I told you were going to realize I was a risk. Unfortunately for you, it’s too late to do anything about it.” Tinath stepped closer to Reynneak, but he didn’t need any pressure; he willingly wandered over and sat a little further away from Zetai.
Tinath’s mom walked towards the twins and gestured to a spot on the other side of the room. “We’re not going to separate you, as long as you stay quiet.”
“You’re being too easy on them, Rachel,” Jacob said. “You don’t know what they could end up doing. Mr. Mair’s always saying how dangerous they are.”
“I suppose… it’s easy to forget that they’re not real.” She glanced in their direction but must not have liked the way they both looked at her. “I’m going to prepare some other things. I can’t watch this…” She kept her head down as she left through a different door.
Tinath nudged Zetai. “We’ve got plenty of time before Mr. Mair shows up—perfect for some explaining. Now’s a good time, don’t you think? To tell them the connection between Cassidy and Casrane.”
“You said you needed the right time,” Llewel mumbled. “I doubt this is what you had in mind, but… I think it’ll be better to get it out now.” Myr nodded her agreement.
“I’ve already kind of mentioned it to Llewel,” Reynneak remarked. With Zetai’s glare, he added, “I was worried, okay? No one I know takes well to sudden possibly-life-changing news, or not being told anything!”
Zetai spent a moment trying to consider all her other options before apparently realizing there was no way out of this. “I guess I’ll keep it simple. Cassidy was the real name of Casrane—daughter of the head developer of the game and a test player. Unfortunately, she… she’s supposed to be dead. According to everything I found, she died a couple of weeks before the game’s release. In honor of her, they made a version of Casrane that can be found wandering around the map sometimes. I don’t have a good explanation for everything she seems to know, though. It looked like most people only knew about her because of the announcements Nankohm made about it.”
“They… reforged her memory, in a way,” Tinath said quietly. “They took everything they knew about her and let this weird sentient-NPC thing fill in the gaps. She’s practically the exact same person, aside from not being real.”
Reynneak hesitated a moment before glancing at her and asking, “If you’ve known all of this, why have you spent two years looking for her?”
“What would you do if someone you were close to died and you still had something that’s so close to talking to her again? We’d been on good terms the last time we talked, but… there were a few things I was never able to say to her. I’ve seen her a couple of times but she always just disappeared again.” She gestured to Jacob and some of the other workers. “These guys said that if I helped them get the twins, they’d give me and Cassidy some time alone. That still hasn’t happened…”
“Hey, if you’re starting to regret your decisions, you can help us out by getting us out of here,” Zetai remarked. “I kinda doubt Casrane would like them going through with whatever they end up doing.”
“She wouldn’t,” Tinath sighed, “but we’re here now. I have a better chance sticking with them than wondering on my own—because I know from that look on your face that you’re not going to keep me with you.”
In the silence that followed, Llewel realized how right it all felt. Though he couldn’t remember if she ever told them directly, he knew the answer she gave him that night. Casrane could never make them any promises, even if she didn’t say it out loud. It made more sense but complicated a few things, too. Though something else kept him from considering only that.
“Do you know anything about us? If we’re here, shouldn’t we at least know what we did? Who we are..?”
Jacob, previously simply watching, chose this moment to intervene. “We’re not supposed to be telling you anything,” he said, glaring at Tinath. “The more you know the worse it’s going to end up being. Really, it’s already bad that you know as much as you do—we should’ve gotten rid of you in Nafrius the moment we realized a fragment of you still existed. But oh well… once Mr. Mair comes, there’s not going to be a lot more you can do. Then we can all go back to doing what we were actually hired to do.”
The door slowly opened to reveal the man they’d been waiting for. Jacob grinned and said, “Ah, speak of the devil.”