13. Vesper
VESPER
I come to violently, gasping for air, my hand going to my chest where the snake had sunk its fangs in.
I’d been dreaming of that damn Boiúna, and I’m pretty sure I was screaming when I came to.
I’m soaked with sweat, but it’s not hot where I am, cool air flows across my face and body.
I blink and look around, trying to figure out where exactly I am and how the fuck I managed to find myself here.
My feet are bare, my boots dropped on the ground messily beside the bed.
My clothes are still in place but they’re crispy as if they’d gotten wet and dried.
They itch when I move more than usual. There’s a blanket partially wrapped around me that is still slightly damp and I toss it fully off me to the floor.
I don’t recognize the room I’m in, but it’s nicer than anything I’ve ever had in Dross.
The walls are made of stone, but they’re clean and free from dirt.
The bed I’m sitting on is raised off the ground, so there isn’t a chill like our mattress pads had in our apartment.
The blanket and sheet are soft cotton. My fingers run over them repeatedly, relishing the feeling of it.
I’ve never had cotton bedding. I want to just lay back down in them and curl up, but I have to figure out what’s going on first.
There’s a small table beside me with a glass of water and what looks like some sort of food.
I don’t touch it immediately because I don’t know where it came from, but I do reach for the small square of food with my left hand to smell it.
A heavenly sweet scent reaches my nose and it takes everything in me to set it back down and not shove it in my mouth.
Only once I do so do I realize that my arm is uninjured.
“What . . .” I roll my shoulder and realize it’s back in its socket where it belongs. I look down at my chest where I know the snake had bitten me multiple times. My skin is unblemished save for some minor bruising that looks like it’s already weeks old.
I look around the room again and stand, searching for any evidence of what happened after the Boiúna. No Locke. No snake. I find nothing but the comfortable bed, a table, a chamber pot, a sink, and a basin for washing.
“Cipher?” I say out loud hesitantly.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Vespera,” Cipher replies immediately. “I’ve been waiting for you to regain consciousness.”
“Where am I?” I ask, frowning.
“AppleFrogs, a safehouse within the Secret Abyss. You’re inside one of the healing rooms.”
There’s a mirror over the sink and I catch my reflection in it as I move around. I lean forward, frowning at how dirty my face is. “And how did I get here?”
“To the room? Or to the safehouse?” Cipher asks plainly.
I roll my eyes. “Both.”
“I see.” Cipher pauses. “Player number three million, six hundred and seventy-three thousand, five hundred, and seventeen carried you after your battle with the Boiúna. You were unconscious and the water was rising.”
I squint my eyes. “You mean Locke carried me?”
“That is correct.”
“You could have just said his name,” I grumble. “There’s no need for the long ass number. Where is he?” I look around the small room, but he’s clearly not here. Maybe he was injured and is in another room?
Cipher sniffs. “I am not his keeper.”
Shaking my head, I pad across the stone floor on bare feet toward the door.
First, I need to find Locke and make sure he’s okay.
Second, I’m starving. I don’t remember the last time I’ve eaten.
It was in Dross. That much I know. But I don’t know how long that’s been and I can’t be bothered to ask Cipher right now.
“You’re a real asshole sometimes, you know that? ”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t bother arguing. It’s apparently a fact.
The building I’m in seems to have been carved from the cave walls, built into the very system it resides in.
The place is set up with strange booths and tables, a large bar in the center of it.
It’s clean, and comfortable, and not decaying at all, not like home.
There are people throughout the place, some sitting in booths, some sitting at the bar, but only a few of them seem to be human.
The majority of the people milling around, including the current bartender, have large bulbous heads and wide mouths.
They look like larger versions of some of the small creatures we’d seen in the Whispering Canopies, but we hadn’t gotten a close look at them before the howler monkey situation.
I wonder if they’re some sort of version of those.
One of them goes to pass by me and I can’t help but stop them.
“Excuse me,” I say. “Could you tell me . . . what . . . you are?”
The male sighs heavily and looks at me with large eyes that reflect my appearance.
He’s wearing a gray jacket and a blue shirt, a hat on his head, but his face is the same wide mouth and giant eyes as the other creatures.
“You players are all the same, aren’t you?
” He makes a sound deep croaking sound in his throat.
“I’m a slippy toad.” At my look of confusion, he adds, “Frog folk, player. Frog folk. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back to my meal. ”
“Of course,” I say, side stepping him. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”
The male continues on his way and takes a seat in one of the booths where he just sits there and stares at the wall. He doesn’t touch the plate of gross food in front of him. He doesn’t move again except to blink those large black and gold eyes.
“What’s wrong with him?” I ask Cipher.
“That is an NPC, Vesper,” Cipher answers. At my immediate confusion, he adds, “A non-playable character. He is here for aesthetic reasons and nothing more.”
“Okay,” I say, drawing the word out. “So . . . he’s not real?”
“He is very real.”
“But he’s not a player?” I clarify.
“Not anymore.”
I frown. “What does that—”
“Welcome to AppleFrogs, where you’ll be eatin’ bliss in the Secret Abyss. Riiibbit. My name is Paddles and I’ll be your hostess this afternoon. Can I offer you a booth?”
I blink at the female frog folk standing at the door. “Uh . . .”
“Right this way. Ribbit,” she says, gesturing for me to follow her despite not answering.
She’s wearing a short-pressed dress, her slimy legs with webbed feet on full display.
Her skin is black with bright spots of blue and yellow.
There’s bright red paint in the center of her lips, as if she’d painted them like I’d seen some of the working girls back in Dross do.
The tips of her webbed fingers are painted red to match.
As she walks, she makes the same ribbit noise every so often, as if she can’t quite help it.
I follow her into the table side and take a seat at the booth she gestures to. She hands me a plastic folder with words all over it and I stare down at it, confused. What the fuck is this thing for?
“That there is the menu,” Paddles declares.
“You can order whatever food you want from it, the kitchen’ll cook it right up, and I’ll bring it out.
Ribbit. It’s free in the safehouses, and you can order as much as you want.
I’ll give you a few minutes, darlin’. Ribbit!
Remember, my name is Paddles. Just call me when you’re ready to order.
Ribbit,” she says, winking at me and going over to the bar where she stands and does absolutely nothing except look away from my direction. Apparently, she’s also an NPC.
There are more glass boxes like the one I’d had to put a coin in to enter the Harrow around the safehouse.
They hang from the ceiling and play some sort of pictures across them I don’t understand.
I’m staring at it, trying to figure out what the strange pictures even mean, when someone sits down on the other side of the booth from me.
“Locke!” I cry. “You’re alive.”
He winces and puts a hand to his head. “Barely. I think the bartender drugged me.”
“What?”
He waves away my concern and picks up the menu in front of him. “This all food?”
“Apparently,” I say, finally looking at it myself. “I don’t know what most of this is, but I certainly don’t want whatever a Bowl of Flies is. It looks disgusting.”
“The Bowl of Flies is our house special,” Paddles says, suddenly beside our table again.
We both jump in surprise, staring up at the frog folk. “What is . . . bacon?” I ask, not sure what to order. “Never mind. Can you just give me your biggest meal that doesn’t have any bugs?”
“No bugs?” she asks, surprised. “Honey, no wonder you’re so skinny. Riiiiibbit. You need some protein.” She pulls out a notepad and writes symbols I don’t recognize. “No bugs, but I’ll make sure there’s plenty of meat so we can fatten you up.” She turns to Locke. “And for you, sug?”
Locke blinks. “I don’t know. I’m really hungry though.”
Paddles smiles. “I’ll load you up, big boy.
Big strong man like you needs his nourishment.
Ribbit.” She winks and Locke frowns, but she leaves before he can comment on the obvious flirtation.
I watch her walk away, frowning at the extra sway she adds to her hips when she thinks Locke is looking.
A small flying insect comes buzzing in around her face, and as I watch, she turns toward it, her eyes tracing its chaotic flight path.
I’m staring so hard, that when she opens her mouth and something snaps out of it to grab the bug, I nearly jump out of my seat.
I gasp, and she looks over at me with a smile.
She tosses me another wink and then goes back to staring at the wall.
Locke leans across the table. “Does this cost money or something? I only have three Harrow Coins.”
“Paddles said it doesn’t. She said we can order as much as we want,” I reply, looking around the AppleFrog’s. I realize the glass pictures have changed since the last time I looked at them. “Do you know what those are?”