{-Llewel-}
They caught up with the players fairly quickly, though none of them said anything until they got to where the workers were.
“What do we do now?” Reynneak asked quietly. “We can’t just barge in there.”
“Yeah, whatever it is, we’ve got to make sure that they don’t realize that we’re there,” Zetai sighed.
“We might do a bit better if we do, actually,” Tinath remarked.
“Even if they can’t do anything to us, that doesn’t mean we should just waltz up to them and ask what they’re doing.”
“That’s not what I meant. I know these guys—I’ve practically worked with them for the past two years. If there’s one thing I know about them, it’s that they’ll listen to anyone who sounds more authoritative than them.”
Reynneak shook his head. “Esaphi said that there was at least one supervisor here, right? Wouldn’t they just listen to them?”
“You probably underestimate their cluelessness. Besides, I don’t see any supervisors out there. Looks like everyone’s just doing something to make themselves look busy, and that wouldn’t pass by any supervisors.” Perhaps knowing they would still oppose, Tinath pointed out, “It’s the best option we have, unless one of the two of you has a better idea.”
After the only response was mumbles, Tinath walked out from behind the bushes and began shouting orders. “What are you idiots laying around for? Get to work! We don’t pay you to waste your time!”
Immediately, all of them started scrambling, now actually seeming to be doing work. Tinath looked rather pleased with herself, then went on to her next order of business.
“Hey, you! New guy!” She took the shoulder of one of the workers passing by, someone who looked younger than most of the others—he was in his twenties, maybe, instead of his forties. She’d undoubtedly gone with him, out of all the ones that passed her, because of it.
“A-ah, yes, ma’am?” he asked, nervous.
“I just got transferred over here to make sure things went smoothly. What’s the update on the situation?”
“E-everything’s in working order, ma’am. We’re almost done with phase two. After that, we’ll pack up our things and see what happens from there.”
“You’ve got someone checking on it?”
“Yes.”
“‘Yes’ isn’t enough of an answer. Who’s the other supervisor?”
“W-well, we had several for a little while—”
“Just tell me who’s here now.”
“All but one of them left. Mrs. Rogers is still here, though. She’s looking over things inside. W-would you like me to get her? Or show you to her?”
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“Thank you, Matthew. I think I can take it from here.” Rachel walked past, stopping in front of the players. The worker dutifully nodded and quickly left. “I didn’t think this was the place where I’d see you, Tabby.”
“Mom,” Tinath mumbled. She quickly decided not to dwell on it, though, and instead said with confidence, “Look, whatever weird thing you’re doing, we’re not going to let you do it. And you can’t do anything to stop us.”
“I can do just as much as you can in this situation.”
“I’m not taking that as an answer,” Zetai remarked. “You mess with the twins, and you mess with us—specifically me. And Reynneak can back me up in saying that you do not want to mess with me.”
Reynneak nodded, though overall he seemed the most nervous out of all of them. “You definitely don’t.”
“Then I suggest we go our separate ways before someone is forced to do even more things that they want to.” Rachel looked between some of the other workers, who for the most part looked like they weren’t interested, to the players, then the forest they came from.
And Llewel was quite certain she was just as startled as he was when she noticed him, then Myr, then Esaphi.
Still, the players were unaware. Tinath sighed and said, “Mom, we’re not going anywhere until we’ve done something about this.”
Rachel slowly turned her attention back to the players. “Then go ahead and stay. I can’t budge on this either—not like I’d expect any of the three of you to know why. But I can tell you. Then maybe we can avoid a greater conflict.”
Zetai cautiously asked, “What kind of story is this?”
“The origin story, I suppose. The beginning of everything you see around you—the beginning of the twins and the decisions that never should have been made. Please, listen through the whole story. It might seem familiar, but everyone has things that they’d rather keep secret.
“You’re all aware of a bit of it, I think. A handful of kids met in college, worked on projects out of the basements of their parents’ houses. We were no one. We wouldn’t be anything else, unless you took a step further back in the story.
“One of our professors always mentioned something that all of us could do, to make the games we would work on come to life. He never told us what it did, exactly, but every now and then he would go over how to do it. Every other student thought that he was simply going insane—it was far from the strangest or wildest things that he tended to ramble about. But we listened. We decided we’d try it out, see how it went. That’s how we got these foundations—the ever-changing worlds, the life-like characters. All of that was thanks to him.
“We realized from the beginning that it was only a matter of time before we could become just as good as the greatest. We were a small team but with big ambitions, Mr. Mair leading us through all of it. After college, we made a name for ourselves, famous for the techniques that our professor had taught us. In the background, we slowly started working on this, which Mr. Mair assured us would be our crowning achievement.”
She gestured to all of their surroundings. “Then about three years ago, he said that we were ready. We would be able to stand next to the big companies and be considered one of them. Our team practically tripled overnight, full of unfamiliar faces, and thrusted into offices so much stricter than we were used to. But we did have one thing: the money, resources, and people required in order to make the game that Mr. Mair had always dreamed of.
“We spent that year piecing everything together, trying to make sense of the sudden changes. I was in charge of character development—making this lifelike world and all its unique characters. We… realized something then, though, a few months before release. It had never been a problem before—our games were smaller and for regular consoles. But somewhere along the way, we crossed the line. What we were doing here changed more than we thought. It had the chance of hurting people, bending a bit of what’s known as reality and the game to the player. We knew that we couldn’t let it happen.
“Mr. Mair decided that we’d keep all of the information related to it to ourselves. This wasn’t the kind of thing we could let the public know. We tried to fix our mistake before it was too late to do anything. We thought we did but, well… Cassidy knew the original plans and she hadn’t been told the reasons why it couldn’t stay that way. She ‘fixed’ it. We thought we’d done what we needed to to ensure everyone stayed safe, but we wouldn’t be here now if it had worked. We’re still just trying to make sure no one else gets hurt.”