CHAPTER 21 — END GAME #4
She winces. “That was super unfortunate! Again, Team Zuldana regrets how your gameplay began, how in the dark you were—but you’re here! Without spending one game coin, you've completed your quest!”
“I’ve completed my quest…” I say, stunned. “Wait. Explain the game coins. They kept appearing and even disappearing.”
She tugs her hair, which is styled in soft corkscrew curls, over her shoulder.
I remember the days I could style my hair like that.
My hand closes over my thick braid, which Ulda taught me to do up myself.
I don’t even have to look in a mirror anymore, even though Roarg bought me two and installed them angled to each other in my room so I can see my front and back.
“Yeah, you earn them when you complete objectives, and your coins are supposed to buy your way to answers and hints, extra lives. Stuff like that. And—”
My heart starts pounding more erratically. “Wait, extra lives? The game I’ve been living for months can take extra lives? Like I could have died?”
Her eyes widen, and she edges back from the counter.
“Usually, players sign a waiver before they begin the game so they know what they’re getting into, but you and your friends started your games when the Zuldana employee manning the booth was taking an unscheduled lunch break.
” She frowns and makes a private tsk noise.
“Team Zuldana wants to assure you that corporate did take immediate disciplinary action—”
“Kind of too little too late!” I shout without meaning to.
“We didn’t know the freaking game was real!
” I explode. “We got sucked here and split up and—” I search her slightly fearful face.
“What happened to Lisa? Esther’s wolf guy told us that she’s okay—but I haven’t actually seen either of them. Are they okay?”
My gamemaster nods quickly, relaxing and evidently relieved to give me good news.
“I can confirm that we have made contact with players Lisa and Esther. The Beast and Princess quests were completed—and now your Orc quest is finished too!” Her bubbly expression seems genuine when she sings, “Congrats on making it to the end!”
The end? I stare at this fellow human, the promise of returning to a normal life rushing over me—but it doesn’t fill me with relief like it definitely should.
My job, my apartment, my car, my coworkers, my world…
not to mention the endless distraction of Facebook notifications, TikTok videos, Twitter tweets, Snapchat pictures, and YouTube channel subscriptions.
All of it will be in the palm of my hand again.
Except… I don’t hardly miss it. Not any of it. After the peace and quiet I’ve been treated to these last few months, all of that sounds downright overwhelming.
And it’s downright upsetting to consider that if this world I’ve been living in is really about to end, I’m about to be separated from my Orcs.
“All of this has felt absolutely real.” I whisper. “Is it real?”
The woman’s lashes flutter. “Gameplay experiences are an alternate form of reality. Players usually begin the game after this is all explained to them—”
I cut her off. “I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant with Roarg’s baby!”
Actually, I’m like 99.9% positive that I’m pregnant with Roarg’s baby.
“If I go back, what happens to my…” My hands hover carefully over my stomach, then cup my belly. “To this little pumpkin sprout I’m carrying around inside me?”
My gamemaster’s gaze had gone smack dab to my stomach when I started talking, and now she’s avoiding my eyes. “On behalf of Team Zuldana—”
“FUCK Team Zuldana. Just tell me!”
She winces at my shout, pressing her lips together. Then she says, “I’m sorry, but players don’t get to take anything home with them.”
I stare at her, horrified.
“But since you’ve got a stowaway inside you, I guess you’ll probably get to keep that.
Although, I don’t know how you expect to raise a half-human, half-Orc in the normal world…
” she says slowly. “I need to consult the Rules Division. Hang on, let me put in a help ticket to them.” She raises her phone and starts tapping.
I’m carrying a baby, and its existence depends on freaking Corporate.
My stomach pitches like I might be sick. I double over and dry heave.
“Oh no, are you okay?” my gamemaster asks.
This has all been a game.
Except it hasn’t felt like a game. Not for a second.
My hands clutch my belly. And games don’t have real-life consequences. This has been the least ‘game-like’ experience of my life.
“Stephanie!” a male voice thunders.
It’s Roarg. And just hearing his roar fills me with relief.
I straighten, wiping my mouth, and turn to him, finding his broad shoulders filling the door. He’s wearing Opkug in a sling over his heart—and a daddy Orc proudly carrying his daughter? Ovary overload.
I hear the gamemaster girl sigh dreamily at him, obviously digging my chick magnet with his bulging arms and defined chest, his sexy tusks, and his baby girl strapped to his front.
But Roarg is wearing a serious frown on his face as he stares at me, and then behind me at the gamemaster. “Is this a kinswoman?” he asks, his gaze flicking from me to the other human.
He’s worried. Something in his eyes is… unsettled.
He suspects what this is. Why I’ve found myself here.
I swallow.
The gamemaster clears her throat. “Stephanie, I’m going to need you to sign a release form for me.
” When I don’t tear my eyes away from Roarg, she offers a nervous, “Why don’t I read it to you?
I’ll, uh, I’ll summarize. Basically, everyone at Team Zuldana wants to ensure that you don’t feel the need to take legal action for the glitch you encountered.
Your friends didn’t exactly get a chance to—well, once you sign it, we’ll officially be able to end your game and can leave here instantly—”
Roarg’s face has turned from emerald to ashen. “Leave here?” he echoes, voice hoarse. “No... No, kwa?ara...”
The door opens at his back, and Namak?ga and Joktepitha push him forward so they can enter, each of them carrying shopping satchels and kittens and babies.
Ulda enters and distractedly presses around them, her eyes for no one but Opkug.
When she connects gazes with her adopted daughter, she smiles.
One of her hands is bracing her kitten perched on her shoulder.
It’s the runt of the Siamese litter, and her big thumb is brushing against the cat’s tiny shoulders with warm affection.
Then Ulda looks up at Roarg—and she jerks back, startled to find his face ravaged. Slowly, she turns around, and sees me. And then the gamemaster behind me. Her startled eyes fly back to mine, and I watch them fill with alarm.
Namak?ga and Joktepitha have shifted their attention from the gameboard—enchanted honeycombs, five coins; dragon eggs, twenty coins; lambskin condoms, FREE—to me and the gamemaster too.
“What’s going on here?” Ulda snaps sternly—and the gamemaster jumps. She jerks her phone up to her ear and starts rapidly whispering into it.
I can barely pay attention to her. I’m staring at the family I’ve been a part of for—make that through—some serious stuff. The normal things, good times and sad, but through loss and blessings too. I’ve forged such deep bonds with them.
And now I can go home. I can leave this all behind.
“Stephanie,” Roarg utters, voice rough with pain. He extends a broad hand, beseeching me. “Don’t do this.”
I can only stare at him.
The gamemaster taps a stack of papers, sounding like she’s straightening them.
“Zuldana players usually get informed of this before their games start, but time is being held at Reality’s side—for now.
If you go back right now, not a moment has passed since you started your game.
The gold coins that you collect along your quest are usually spent by the time you finish and normally never follow to your Reality.
However, due to the inconvenience you and your friends faced during your playing experience, we are permitting the transfer of all remaining ZULDANA coins you’ve collected here to real-world funds you’ll be provided upon your return to Reality. ”
I can go back to my other life and treat all of this like it was just a game. And I’ll be a little richer. Or, if Zuldana transfers my gold here to gold prices in my world, I’ll be seriously richer.
My kitten, claws hooked into my dress, purrs like she’s reminding me of her presence. Absently, I pet her.
I’ll go back to a sterile existence, where I’ll have to find a new job, and probably work in a cubicle farm where I’ll know no one more than superficially, and my online acquaintances are obsessed with the latest reality tv show and everyone connects through screens and social media.
No more spending all my days with the women I’ve come to respect and admire, and… consider sisters.
I meet each of their eyes, taking in their woebegone and horrified and thunderous expressions. I love these women like sisters.
And I love Roarg. My gaze finally lands on him, and my heart trips at the wild look in his eye. My hand moves to my belly, gripping it.
And Roarg’s eyes, which had been alarmed before, turn to molten steel and he lunges forward, snatching my wrist.
“No you don’t,” he growls, and he hauls me to his side. He stabs a long, blunt-tipped finger at the gamemaster. “I don’t know who you are, witch, but you’ll say no more to my wife!”
A green hand closes gently but firmly over my shoulder—and I look up to see Ulda has me, her face worried and grim. She meets my eyes before darting a glance at Namak?ga and Joktepitha.
I finally move my gaze to the gamemaster again, to find that her face has gone pale, and her eyes are round as saucers as she stares up at a furious Roarg. Her panicked attention flits to me. “Um, you need to decide right now, go or stay—because with or without you, I’m going to go.”