“Lurian?” Jay asked incredulously as soon as he heard the voice. When he turned around, he saw the newcomer was, in fact, Lurian. It made sense; after all, Lurian was the only other player remaining on the island. The timing of his appearance, however, was strange. The party had looked all over for him and found nothing—then, suddenly, he appeared right after a boss battle.
“Do you know what happened to the others?” Jay asked when the Gunslinger didn’t respond. The others had been struck by some kind of magic. The animation of the casting was similar to the Pathfinder’s teleportation portals. His hope that the other party members would return dwindled quickly as the silent seconds ticked.
“I’m not Lurian,” the other player said nonsensically. The other player summoned something from his inventory, leaving Jay nothing to do but watch. The called objects were a partially shaped piece of wood and a small whittling knife. After observing for a few moments, Jay realized it was a head. A head that would perfectly fit a wooden marionette.
He wasn’t behaving like Lurian at all; instead, he was acting a lot like…
“Ichibad?” Jay asked finally. He ducked into his game menus, quickly distributing his statistic points with a focus on Speed. He didn’t have time to check out his level 45 ability yet, but he didn’t want to forget his points.
“About time,” the other player replied, accentuating each word with a pass of his knife over the wood.
“You really are Ichibad,” Jay reiterated. He had many questions about how the other player had entered the island. The compass had functioned strangely, but Jay had keyed in the player names of everyone he intended to take along on the journey to the island. Something strange was afoot.
“I really am,” Ichibad agreed. In front of Jay’s eyes, Lurian turned into the Cat Sith that Jay had come to expect. “You figured that out much more quickly than I expected. What gave me away?”
“It took me a moment, but I recognized that wood as a marionette head. Obviously, I haven’t forgotten our last conversation,” Jay explained. After all, Ichibad’s behavior the last time they spoke couldn’t have been stranger, even if he intentionally tried to be strange. On second thought, that might have been his intent.
Ichibad looked at the wood with the curiosity of someone discovering something they had not yet noticed.
“That makes sense,” He acknowledged, slicing away at his project. The process didn’t seem to prevent him from keeping up a conversation. “I expect you have questions for me. I’ve been waiting a long time for a proper moment to speak. That Paladin friend of yours is dreadfully omnipresent. I couldn’t shake her. She’s always online.”
“That’s my sister, actually,” Jay said, realizing that Ichibad didn’t know everything. That was a comforting revelation, for once. “She is actually online all the time.”
“Why?” Ichibad asked, cocking his head in curiosity.
“You know, her own reasons,” Jay retorted, giving the Cat Sith a taste of his own medicine.
“I see what you did there,” Ichibad allowed, not pushing the matter any further. “But seriously, it’s merely us gentlemen, now. Not even Lucille is lingering in the wings. What do you want to know?”
“How were you able to impersonate Lurian?” Jay asked. It wasn’t the most pressing question, but his curiosity was killing him. The nameplate and game data had all been adjusted to make Ichibad a perfect impersonation of the other player.
“It was an ability, of course,” Ichibad said. “That Demon player used a similar technique to impersonate Maria. Of course, she dropped her disguise once she got to the island. On the other hand, I continued my ploy. I was afraid you would stumble onto me too early. You nearly caught me a time or two.”
“Speaking of T, how were you avoiding her this whole time?” Jay asked. He was curious about what moments he had almost caught the other player, but it was ultimately unimportant. “She seemed to be everywhere. We had to kill her just to get some rest.”
“Exceptionally rude of you to destroy her character,” Ichibad expressed, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “But I suppose necessity is the mother of invention or what have you. At any rate, I can avoid detection from the preeminent gaming corporation in the world. Avoiding a single player is child’s play.”
“That makes me wonder, though,” Jay mused. “Why didn’t you help us kill the Assassin? You might have saved Lester from getting killed. The guild would still have a leader.”
“You weren’t very good at hide and seek as a child, were you?” Ichibad asked. Ignoring Jay’s affronted expression, he forged on. “I was in disguise and hiding from all your friends. I couldn’t exactly start slinging bullets at people; I don’t even have any guns.”
He didn’t address the status of the guild leadership, which Jay thought was suspicious. After considering it, Jay wrote off his suspicions on the reasonable explanation that Ichibad didn’t even know what was happening with the guild. He was stuck on the island, too.
Jay paused in his tracks. He could get lost in the sauce of Ichibad and his oddities for hours. However, he had no assurance that the other player would stick around to answer all his questions. The Cat Sith had a habit of disappearing whenever the fancy struck him.
Jay considered what questions he most needed the answer to. The top of his priority list was figuring out where the second trial dungeon was located. Immediately, he shifted the course of the conversation to that topic.
“Do you know where the second Angerine trial dungeon is? We’ve been looking across the island for several days. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of it. I know this is a long shot, but you seem plugged in. How do I find it?”
“I think the solution is obvious,” Ichibad shrugged. “You have to look somewhere you haven’t looked before.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Come on,” Jay groaned at the further nonsense. “Just give me a hint. I’m sure you know where it is. I could be searching this place for days. This whole thing is just a sidetrack on the way to level one hundred.”
“No,” Ichibad said firmly, holding Jay’s eyes for an uncomfortably long interval. “Finishing the trial dungeons is your most important task. That’s how you achieve your goals, even if you don’t know what they are. It’s also how you prevent Tumult from achieving theirs; you don’t want them to be successful.”
Jay thought over the explanation, and it resonated with him. He didn’t want Tumult to achieve their goals if the vision he saw was akin to their actual plans. They wanted to steal. They wanted him to be the guinea pig, allowing them to reverse engineer someone else’s intellectual property.
Thinking it over, Jay wasn’t even sure that was legal. He could have some liability; it was worth checking with his lawyer. Especially since he now knew of the plans, if anyone could prove that. But first, he needed a new lawyer, preferably one he could trust.
“That’s interesting you mention that,” Jay offered. “I did see something pretty strange relating back to the corporation. Actually, I think the game showed it to me. It was part of the alligator versus crocodile scenario on the island.”
Ichibad’s head slowly turned back on Jay. For the first time in the conversation, he stopped whittling. His complete attention exerted tangible physical pressure. Jay could tangibly feel the force of his personality.
“What did you see, Jay?” he asked, emphasizing the name.
“It looked like there was a security camera in the room. It must have had a mic since I could hear the two men speaking, too. They were talking about something called Project: Strogian—”
“Stop,” Ichibad commanded forcefully.
Jay acquiesced, more from surprise than anything else. The man was obviously earnest about it. Jay waited for the other player to add some more context. He was afraid to say too much since he knew the other player had some kind of protective field that blocked out Tumult Corp. If he didn’t want to discuss it, there had to be a good reason.
“We should discuss that in person,” Ichibad advised. “Commit what you saw and heard to memory. This is very important. And then I want you to tell me the whole story when we meet.”
“In person?” Jay asked.
“Yes,” Ichibad confirmed. “I’m going to fly to your city, and we’ll choose somewhere to meet up. Do you have someplace in mind?”
“Roscoe’s Diner,” Jay said automatically. “I used to work there, so we should be able to find a private place to speak without interruption.”
“Excellent,” Ichibad said. “I’ll be there in one week at seven in the evening. Don’t forget.”
“Well, that’s settled,” Jay acknowledged. He wasn’t likely to forget what he saw any time soon, but at least he could have a drink at seven pm. “So, the trial dungeon?”
Ichibad threw his hands—paws—up in the air so hard that the whittling knife and wooden project nearly flew away. “Well, it wouldn’t be much of a trial dungeon if you could ask your friendly neighborhood cat. Look somewhere new, discover and sea; that’s all I got for you.”
Jay pushed down his annoyance. The Cat Sith knew how to be aggravating, but he was all Jay had for the moment. “Alright, fair enough. Next question. What can you tell me about the Monster Hunter class? It’s been weird the whole time. There’s more I can’t talk about until we meet up, but I want to understand what’s going on.”
“I can’t tell you much,” Ichibad confessed. “I was hoping you could add more information to my understanding. But we’ll need time to determine if you have what I need.”
Jay appreciated understanding more about how the Assassin ended up on the island. Still, it was one of the least important questions. He needed to confirm or at least have Ichibad look into what he saw in the vision from the alligator Elder’s pool. Even the Monster Hunter class was a dead end, for now. His only other immediate need was to regain his Synthesization abilities.
“Hang on a second,” Jay articulated. “You can manipulate the game a little bit, right? You were able to use that ability to hide from Tumult and their recordings.”
Ichibad hesitated before addressing Jay’s question, adjusting his focus to the marionette project in progress. It was actually getting close to completion. “I have some limited ability to interact with the game from areas outside of Tumult Corp’s control. That’s true. What do you need?”
“Tumult turned off part of my character sheet. They said they couldn’t confirm the validity of the abilities,” Jay complained. “It’s called Synthesization, and I heavily leaned on those powers. Can you help?”
“They turned it off? I actually can,” Ichibad confirmed. He pulled up his game menus and started manipulating something within them. The silence droned on until Jay’s thoughts wandered out of boredom.
He debated how truthful he should be about the vision he saw. His plans didn’t involve telling Mr. Georges or other Tumult employees about it. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure how much he should trust Ichibad, either.
The enigmatic man was fascinating; that much was certain, but he hadn’t exactly proven he could be trusted. The information he and Lucille had provided on Lucas and Lester Green certainly seemed accurate. Lucas was even shadier than Jay had expected, but that didn’t make Ichibad trustworthy.
He would need something more when they met at Roscoe’s.
“Here you go,” Ichibad said, offering a small bag of items. “Take the bag, reach inside, and pull out the potion. There’s another item in there. I need you to take this next piece very seriously.”
Jay grabbed the small satchel of items as Ichibad continued. “Do not dare pull the other item out of the bag until the time is right. You’ll know the time is right when you reach the final boss of the third Angerine trial.”
“How will I know I’m at the final boss?” Jay asked.
“You’ll know,” Ichibad promised, relinquishing the items. “Promise me you won’t pull out the other item until then. Don’t inspect its game information. We need it to remain hidden.”
“Sure,” Jay said, curious but uninterested in arguing with the other player about his bizarre behavior. “I promise not to take the item out until the final boss.”
“Good,” Ichibad nodded. “Drink your potion.”
System Message: Potion of “Tumult Corporation Sucks.” This potion will relinquish all restrictions placed on the Monster Hunter class and prevent reinstitution in the future.
Jay’s eyes bulged at the item. It was as nonsensical as the Cat Sith himself, at least in game terms. He didn’t see how it was even possible for Ichibad to ensure the item’s programming, let alone generate it. The Cat Sith was obviously underselling his access to the game system. Jay couldn’t help but wonder if he was aiding and abetting a hacker. A substantially talented hacker, too. Strangely, the idea didn’t bother him as much as it would have before Mr. Georges had made his job so difficult.
“Get your head out of the clouds and drink the stupid potion,” Ichibad said.
Jay drank the potion, noticing that Ichibad had finished creating the marionette head while Jay was distracted. He held it in one of his hands, although the whittling knife had disappeared.
“You’re going to need this, by the way,” Ichibad said, unceremoniously tossing another small item to Jay. Jay caught it easily. The object was another Mercuran Heart. Ichibad had started the conversation by saying he would need three, and now he had them.
“What’s this for?” Jay asked. Throughout the whole conversation, the Cat Sith had never explained what the items were for.
“Something important,” Ichibad promised, princess-waving to Jay. Slowly, the other player disappeared from sight. He habitually did that, but it still made Jay sigh deeply.
Jay activated his Jungle Tracker, forcing himself to squint and comb the area for the enigmatic player.
When he finished searching the area, he found nothing except for a simple, whittled marionette head.