Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
Last night wasn’t as awkward as I assumed it would be. I guess Miko and Joshua like to keep things private because they didn’t even flirt while I was in the room. I was more than happy with that, but I still had difficulty sleeping.
I couldn’t stay asleep for long. Intrusive thoughts shook me awake every time I drifted off.
Mom is dead. Remember the harpy’s dead eyes?
Remember the dracaenae’s decapitated body?
Cait doesn’t remember you. Guy doesn’t remember you.
They don’t remember that incredible night when the three of you became one.
Alexander thinks you’re unprepared, and you’re going to die.
You’re going to die, Lauren. Just like Mom, and you never got to say goodbye.
I’m haunted by them even now, fully awake and walking with my friends toward the palace where Princess Khione lives. We asked the innkeeper this morning how to get an audience with her. He told us that we simply had to attend the daily court she sat in.
Since there was a blizzard overnight, there aren’t many people out and about today.
I expected this from the players. Who wants to quest in shin-deep snow?
I thought there would be more NPCs out, though.
They’re programmed to ply wares. However, there are very few out here, and those outside are silent as the grave.
“They’re broken, aren’t they?” Cait asks as we pass by a mostly empty market street.
“Seems that way,” I answer.
Cait clears her throat and with a blush asks, “So, um, we did stuff?”
“Yes,” I say, not holding back the longing in my voice.
“H-how much?” Cait asks.
“You and I know each other’s bodies intimately,” I tell her.
“Did you and…?” She points her eyes in Guy’s direction.
I nod in response.
“Did he and I ever do things?” she asks.
“Not as much as with me,” I answer. “You’re not into him sexually. That’s what you told me, at least.”
Cait let out a sigh of relief. “I don’t,” she admits. “I mean, I love him, but I don’t feel any sexual attraction.”
“You love him?” I ask her.
“Yeah,” Cait answers.
I smile. “That makes me so happy.” It really does.
“We’re here,” Alexander says, pointing at the steps into the palace. “I will ensure we can join the court audience when we—”
An arrow whips through the air, narrowly missing Alexander.
“Fuck,” I mutter. “Haven’t even made it into the palace, and this bullshit is happening.”
Cait and Joshua have their weapons out immediately. Sylvia knocks an arrow into her bow. Guy, Miko, and I get our staffs from our backs. Alexander had his shotgun out before any of us were ready to defend ourselves.
Sylvia spots the player who shot at Alexander and lets an arrow loose. The player dodges out of the way. Before any of us can throw another attack at him, though, he gags on something and slumps sideways into an alleyway. Then, from the shadows, out steps Tara.
She smirks at us, showing off the daggers in her hands. “Like ’em? Just bought them yesterday. Ismarus really has the best stores.”
Sylvia runs to Tara and wraps her in a bear hug. “Oh God, you’re alive!”
Tara laughs. “Of course, I am. I’m like a cockroach.”
“We need to head inside,” Alexander says. “There could be more players ready to attack us.”
“Oh, there are a lot more,” Tara says. “Out here and in there.”
“Shit,” Miko says. “How outnumbered are we?”
“Oh, if it’s just y’all, maybe five to one,” Tara answers.
“What if it’s not just us?” Doug asks. He turns to Miko. “What if we call in a favor from the newbs we just helped level up?”
Miko crosses her arms and tilts her head. “Do you really think they’ll do it?”
“Can’t hurt to ask,” Doug says with a shrug.
“How will we even get them here in time?” Miko asks.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Tara says.
She snaps her fingers and around every corner come the players we’ve helped since coming to Ismarus.
But it’s not just them. NPCs step out of their homes, carrying knives, canes, and all manner of tools that could be weapons in certain contexts.
There are easily forty people approaching us.
Their voices overlap as they tell us they want to help.
“I hear a lot more than you think through our earrings,” Tara says, tapping at her earlobe. “When the Zeus worshippers I was spying on got here, I took care of them and gathered the allies you’ve made while here.”
“Wait, do you remember me?” I ask her, deciding I don’t want to know how she “took care” of the Zeus worshippers.
“Of course,” she says. “I was in your ear, even when you and Sylvia were in the nothingness. There was never a moment when I could have forgotten you.”
I tapped on my ear. The earring was still there. I guess whoever disrobed me to become a horse didn’t bother to take off that piece of jewelry. Maybe they didn’t even notice it was there.
If we didn’t need to get into the palace right away, I would fly over to Tara and hug her, just as Sylvia did. However, we have to press on. If we all survive this, I can give her all the hugs she’ll tolerate.
“Okay,” I say, some hope filling my chest at last. “Let’s do this.”
I move past Alexander, but he grabs me by the wrist. “You must stay by my side. Aphrodite insists.”
Dear old Grandma must be worried about my safety since I was kidnapped after our last meeting. She said she wouldn’t let me die. I’m not dead so far, despite her king’s best efforts.
“Fine,” I tell him. “I promise, I’ll stay with you.”
Alexander, my companions, and dozens of players and NPCs join me in climbing the stairs to the palace. I hope that whatever waits on the other side of the door doesn’t kill all of us.
Despite the floor and walls being made of marble, the interior of the palace is almost dead silent.
At the end of a long hallway is a large, closed door.
More than a dozen people stand in line at it.
I hear loud, overlapping voices when the guard beside the large door opens it to let in the person in the front.
There are people on the other side talking over each other. The conversations seem quite intense by the volumes coming from then. However, as soon as the guard closes the door, the library quality of the room resumes.
“How can one door block that much noise?” Miko asks.
“I think they have a type of silence spell connected to it,” Guy tells her.
“The silence spells are your favorites,” I say.
Guy turns his attention to me. “They are.”
“I’ll get us a spot in line,” Cait says. “The rest of you stay out of sight. Especially you, Lauren. We don’t know who might know you by sight here.”
When she walks off to talk to one of the guards, Guy comes to my side and leans in to whisper, “Earlier, you said I was beautiful. Did you mean…” He looks down. “Actually, don’t worry about it.”
“I meant what you shared with me,” I whisper in response. “About what happened before you came here and why you’d had so much to drink the night you wound up here. About what you hated when you looked in the mirror.”
Guy lifts his eyes to lock onto mine. “I told you that?”
I nod. “When you told me, I realized I love you because it wouldn’t matter how you looked. I’d still want to spend hours sharing parts of ourselves with every kiss.”
His throat bobs. “You would?”
“Are you kidding me?” Cait shouts from the line.
We turn our attention to her conversation with the guard. He says something, but we can’t make it out because he’s talking at a reasonable volume.
Cait’s response isn’t even-toned at all. “I don’t care if court ends soon, this is vital! We have a message for Khione!”
At the mention of Khione, every guard in the hallway readies his weapon. Even the people in line have pulled out daggers. Cait’s temper has given away who we are. Well, I guess this fight was coming at some point. Might as well get through these folks before we move into the actual court area.
Guy, Miko, and I whip out our staffs. Cait raises her great axe, ready to bring it down on anyone who gets too close.
Joshua’s short sword sings when he unsheathes it, and Doug’s bastard sword reflects the candlelight brilliantly.
Tara’s expert fingers help her hold several daggers in both hands.
Sylvia has already knocked an arrow. Alexander seems quite pleased to bring out his shotgun.
All the newbies and NPC allies get their weapons ready as well.
The guards are the first to lunge at us. Cait makes quick work of the ones near her. When they fall, they slip on their own blood on the slick marble floors. Sylvia looses arrows at the guards near the exit doors, and Tara flings dagger after dagger at the ones at the other end of the hallway.
Meanwhile, the NPCs that were in line rush over to Guy, Miko, and me. They’re all dressed like proper nobility, regal and groomed. This makes their savagery almost comical. Almost. It’s hard to enjoy a good chuckle when people are trying to kill you.
Guy lifts his staff and shouts, “Ice Blast!” Dagger-like icicles shoot from his palms, planting one into the forehead of a rabid nobleman.
Miko summons an earth elemental, which splits into two.
Both copies pummel anyone who tries to get past them to us.
Our new allies fight off the stragglers and help finish the guards who got past the worst attacks we can throw at them.
I stand beside Alexander, ready to heal anyone who might need it. He takes precise shots at any enemy who stands still long enough.
I bet this guy would love a good old-fashioned spaghetti western.
There are so many of us, far more than our enemies here.
It seems too easy when we finish up our battle, especially since I only had to cast a couple of Heal Minor Wound spells on the newbie players in the room.
Tara said there are tons of people waiting to kill me in the palace, though.
I can only assume most of them are in the court, which sounded quite crowded when the door opened.
“Are you ready?” Alexander asks me.
I don’t answer. Instead, I take a deep breath and walk toward the large door between us and the court.
Alexander’s steps match my own as he walks just behind me.
Guy comes to my right side and Cait to my left.
They still don’t remember me, not really, and yet they seem just as committed to helping me as before they lost their memories.
Is that because I’m the NPC breaker or because they want to know more about our relationship?
Maybe it’s just that they’re good people.
That was the first thing I liked about both of them when we met, after all.
When I open the door, I’m immediately hit with a cacophony of raised voices.
No one even blinks at our entrance, which is surprising.
There are dozens of us, and we’re all covered with signs of battle.
No one in our group is free from blood, sweat, and grime.
I suppose our presence isn’t enough to distract everyone away from their arguments.
Every noble in this court looks ready to stab each other.
The only calm people sit at the other side of the court in their thrones.
King Boreas and his NPC daughter, Khione.
Boreas, God of the Winter Wind, is a giant of a man, pale with a cloud of white hair, marble white skin, and ice-chip-blue eyes I doubt ever held a flicker of warmth.
It’s strange seeing a god like this, sitting in a palace instead of inhabiting some world outside of the game until a player prays to his statue. He isn’t a major god, however, so maybe the others didn’t think he was worthy of a spot in Olympus.
Khione looks like deep snow on a moonlit night.
Like her father, she has white hair. She wears it over her left shoulder in one long thick braid that reaches her hip.
Her eyes are as blue as her father’s as well.
That’s where their similarities end, though.
She has a dark tan and a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks.
Both the king and the princess stare right through us like we aren’t even there because we haven’t initiated contact. Once I do that, I’m sure all the attention in the room will finally turn our way. Given the reception we received out in the hall, I doubt it will be pleasant.
This room is smaller than I thought it would be, and it’s so crowded that my social anxiety is peaking. I clench and unclench my fists while I try to regulate my breathing. Then peace washes over me. Thank God—no—thank Aphrodite for that Soothing Grace favor.
“You said Aphrodite wants you by my side?” I ask Alexander.
“Yes, she wants me to protect you,” he answers.
“Right by me though?” I ask.
“Yes,” is all he says, not having any further information to give me, I suppose.
My lips vibrate from the nervous puff I let out. “Well, I guess, let’s do this, then.”