It was decided — Bernadette would work on Helena and Rachel. Bernie had also enlisted Cal and Berryhop into distracting Braelyn with some kind of contraption Berryhop had been wanting help building, trying to play on her inquisitive nature I guess.

  My job was to ingratiate myself with Hector, since I had been the one with the most contact. I poured us both a drink, and sat.

  He nodded, checked his slate, slipped it into the pouch on his belt, and said, “I really should be going.”

  “When’s the last time you saw Helena have this much fun? Least we could do after nearly killing her.”

  “Hmm.”

  In hindsight, it was probably best to steer clear of that topic.

  “Besides, it’s not like you’re driving. You’re taking a teleport.”

  “Fair,” he said, grabbing his cup, and taking a sip.

  “So what was Helena like, as a kid?”

  Hector’s smile seemed sad.

  “I didn’t know her as well as I wanted. I had her too young. Her mother took her back to Mexico to get help from her mother. At the time, I was in the Marines. Made it all the way to E-6 before I started to feel like I’d missed something. My kid was growing up without me, for one. For two, I was tired of being around men all the time.”

  I did some quick mental math.

  “That would have put you in the last years of Afghanistan?”

  “Yep.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yep.”

  “And now you’re here. And so is she.”

  “In some ways it’s not as bad as when I went through it. They have arrows, and cannons, and fireballs, but the chance of a stray bullet taking your head off is pretty low. It’s the chaos, the sheer, fucking randomness of it all that gets you. Here, you can live by the strength of your arm.”

  “Or magic,” I said.

  “Or magic. I picked cleric because I wanted to make sure she’d have a fun time in the game. But it ended up suiting us well.”

  “So, what was 12 year old Helena like?” I asked, trying to get him back to a more nostalgic topic. People usually couldn’t shut up about their kids, if you got them started. And I wanted him to like me.

  “I wish I knew. Her mom passed, so I moved back to Chihuahua to take care of her. I didn’t get to see her happy til — well til she started growing up here.”

  “That’s rough,” I said, because what else could I say. I put my hand on his shoulder.

  He smiled that kind of smile you only do when the pain is too much, and I was reminded that he was a good looking man. He kept his hair trimmed just longer than military short, with grey creeping in from his temples. He had to be entering his fifties, but he hardly looked it. His beard grew sparse, but he seemed to shave often, just a little more than a five o’clock shadow.

  His brown eyes were lighter than his daughters, and his crow feet sunk into his cheeks. Now that I looked, I saw that he had a scar that crept from behind his ear, across his neck.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  I took my hand back.

  “So, she’s happy here?” I asked.

  “She is. I can’t get her to settle down, but we’re at war. And I’ve long ago given up on the idea of grandkids.”

  “Is she really happy with the Queen?”

  “I see what you’re working toward. I don’t know. I’m not a ‘grass is greener’ guy. She is. I just have to get her to realize that building something with what you’ve been given, is all any of us can do.”

  “What if where you want to build, and where she wants to build isn’t the same place?” I asked, gesturing towards the group of girls, Rachel, Helena, and Bernadette. Helena had her arm around Bernie, and Rachel had her head in her hands, laughing from embarrassment.

  Hector looked at the group for a moment, then turned back to me.

  “What can you tell me about Rachel? I don’t know if I understand the —” he cut himself off and gestured with his hands as if he didn’t know how to describe it.

  “I think they’re a lot alike. They both like to fight. They both seem very protective of those they care about.”

  “I can see that,” Hector said, eyes drifting as he pondered.

  “But Rachel’s also smarter than me. Not book smarts, really, but she notices other people, social situations, even just simple stuff that I miss. She’s considerate, but also —”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, do you know Captain Wen?”

  “We’ve met several times,” He said with a smile that let me know that he was more than just acquainted with her.

  “Well, she ingratiated herself in with Rachel’s crew, then slaughtered them all. It sort of changed her. But when they’re together, her and Helena, I see some of who she was before that.”

  “Captain Wen is a vicious attack dog. It hasn’t earned her many friends, but she gets the job done.”

  “Boy, does she.”

  “So, Rachel drinks?” he asked.

  “We all drink,” I reminded him.

  “We do,” he admitted, taking another sip from his cup. He placed the cup down and changed the subject. “So, my intelligence says that The Tyrant and his army headed North, yet here you are down South. Why is that?”

  I thought for a moment. If our gamble to win them over didn’t work, I could be handing our plans directly over to Sofia. But how did Helena find us here in the first place?

  I thought back to all of the times that I felt like I was being watched, and considered that maybe Sofia had been looking in on me with magic. I mean, she could raise and control an undead dragon, so she probably had a scrying spell too. Could be he wouldn’t learn much that she didn’t already know, at any rate.

  How much of the truth should I tell?

  Figured I’d do my tried and true method of ‘as much as I can,’ and see how well it worked.

  “Caleb was hit hard by the death of his son Pellas. So he’s not in a position to listen to what we think is right. He’s going after the Mountain People. We decided to go after the dragon.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Flaymeskerg? That’s a level 14 quest. Not an easy one for a group at your level. But you could secure the wealth of an entire kingdom.”

  “I mean, it’s not about the money. It’s about what’s right.”

  “For some people, ‘what’s right’ tends to earn them good money.”

  I thought about that for a bit. Hector stood, and walked toward Cal and Braelyn. Now, that was interesting. What did he have to say to them?

  Rachel, Bernie, and Helena headed back to the long table. I was greeted to a conversation in progress, as they sat across from me.

  “I’m usually so excited to be with a woman,” Rachel said, “that I’m more just focused on them.”

  “Really?” Bernie said. “Only time I was with a girl, she let me take over once she got tired.”

  “See, there’s the problem,” Rachel smiled sheepishly. “I don’t get tired.”

  “Woah!” I heard myself say. I could feel the redness creep into my face.

  “Alright,” Rachel said apologetically.

  “Are we making you uncomfortable,” Helena said with a sly smile.

  “A little,” I admitted. “But we’re all adults here. I’ve had sex,” I said lamely.

  “We know,” Rachel said.

  “Wait, what?” Bernie asked.

  “Tents don’t tend to have a lot of sound proofing,” Rachel said matter of factly.

  “Oh, my god,” Bernie said, eyes wide, mortified. “I’m gonna leave.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Eh,” Rachel admitted, “I tend to fall asleep quickly, so it’s usually not a problem.”

  Helena fell into uproarious laughter.

  I got up to go after Bernie. I wasn’t sure what I was gonna say, but I wanted to comfort her anyway. Then I felt a pull. Something, some instinct or force, tugged me in a different direction.

  I walked outside. Cold had moved in. The air felt crisp.

  The moon was a glowing eye seconds from slumber, just the faintest hint of light escaping from heavy shadowy lids. The night sky seemed like it’d been split open, and a trillion million stars spilled out like viscera. The remaining couple buildings in the village stood like squat, dark corpses.

  I felt danger prick at the back of my neck. Maybe it was the cold, or maybe it was this feeling, but the hair on my arms stood straight up, itchy in my sleeves.

  A woman walked down the street. Her black robes shone with silk, and her cloak was colored such that it seemed to disappear into the night. Just the faintest hint of her silver hair peeked from her hood.

  I backed into the firelight of the torch lit for customers over the sign of the Happy Badger, and waited, not sure what to do.

  Upon getting closer, the light of the torch lit her cloak. It was a warm woolen red. She let her hood down, and revealed her beautiful silver hair, done up in an intricate bun, two braids wrapped elegantly around it. Her lips thinned into a smug smile.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  I wanted to punch Sofia in her dumb beautiful face, and that scared me. When I fought someone like Helena or Rachel, I saw them as warriors. I very much still saw Sofia as a woman, and I didn’t like the rage she made me feel. It didn’t feel right. It felt like something she poisoned me with, rather than something I gave myself.

  But behind it was the fear. What was I going to do? What could I do against her?

  “I am here to get my people,” she said.

  “They’ll be along soon. You can leave now.”

  “No,” she said, her beautiful blue eyes searing into me, “I don’t think I will.”

  She stepped closer.

  I felt my heart hammer in my chest. Part of it was the enormity of what I knew she could do. But part of it was the thrill. Even after all this time, my body seemed to betray me.

  I felt my throat tighten.

  I cleared my throat with what I hoped read as nonchalance.

  “You could have just sent them a message on the slate. What are you really doing here?”

  “Do I need a reason?”

  “If you step in there, with all the people who are in there, it’s gonna start a fight. One I’m sure you will win, but can you afford to lose Hector? And are you sure Helena will jump immediately to your defense?”

  “Oh, I am not worried about her loyalty in the slightest. My subjects love me.”

  “But why push it? They’re on their way to you. Do you really need to hold their leash so tight? A tight leash makes for an uncomfortable neck.”

  She shook her head, and stifled a quiet chuckle.

  “Since when did you get such a way with words?”

  “You never really knew me,” I said.

  She took another step closer, and she was within arm’s reach, closer even.

  “What if,” she began, almost whispering, “I burned this whole place down, right now?”

  “I’m sure you could,” I said. “But why would you want to? What have these people done to you? With Swordfall, it was the seat of Caleb’s power, easy to sell that as a hard thing that must be done. But this place? What would Hector and Helena think of you then? Do you have so many allies that you’d drive them into our arms at a whim? You don’t want that.”

  She took one more step forward. I could feel the heat of her body. She took up my whole vision.

  “What do you know about what I want?”

  Then it hit me, the missing bit of her motivation. Why did she keep trying to kidnap me? Why not simply kill me? Why not kill Caleb?

  “I have a pretty good idea that you can’t kill us yet,” I said. A shiver went down my spine. I hoped I hid it. “You have a quest too. You don’t need the experience points. So, it must be the last one. It must be your ticket home. If my hunch is correct, you need to get the band back together to open the door.”

  Her brow creased in anger, and her smile faded.

  “That’s where you are wrong. Or only wrong in part.” Her smile returned. “Yes, I can go home if we are all together, united under my banner. Or I can simply kill you all.”

  She let that last part ring in the air a bit, then continued.

  “Of course, once I choose one course, I must follow it through to the end. And I’m not sure that you’ve earned death yet.”

  I exhaled. My shoulders relaxed. It started to make sense.

  I could feel a pool of confidence in me that I somehow didn’t know I had before. Girls liked me. Bernadette liked me. Sofia, under all her power and under all beauty, was just a girl. And if she wasn’t just a girl, maybe she wanted to be. Maybe we still had a connection, through all the violence, and through all the things we’ve been through, and done to each other.

  I decided to take a wild swing.

  “Huh. After all this time, you’re still kinda into me.”

  Her face scrunched up in what I could only assume was petulant, childish fury. I instantly felt the fear subside. She exhaled, and took on a more regal posture.

  “Just like a mediocre man, so sure of their primacy in a woman’s mind. So quick to think he’s desired. I hardly think of you.”

  “Sure, maybe. But maybe a part of yourself wonders what it would be like if we finally got together. Would you be who you were? Could you get a piece of yourself back that you lost somewhere along the way?”

  “How do you not know that this is who I want to be?”

  “If this was who you wanted to be, you would have walked right past me.”

  Her eyes darted behind me, to the window on the door, then back to my face.

  “Just tell Hector to wrap it up,” and like that, she turned on her heel, and walked away. In moments, she disappeared into the darkness.

  I fell back into the tavern door, and an unhinged chuckle bubbled up from my chest. That was so stupid. She could have killed me.

  I didn’t know what had given me the ability to feel Sofia out there. Maybe it was fate, or destiny or something tugging on me. Or maybe it was magic, some kind of magic I’d tapped into underneath the magic of whatever system that controlled the game here.

  Whatever it was, it was scary.

  I turned around, and walked back into the tavern.

  Bernadette saw me, and approached immediately.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  I grabbed her shoulders, and kissed her. She melted into me like she often did. I felt the last lingering traces of the fear I’d been holding onto wash away. I loved her, and we could face anything together.

  “You’re drunk,” she said.

  “Not just that,” I said. “I just talked to Sofia.”

  “I thought you said you were ignoring her texts?”

  “No. She was here. Right outside the door.”

  She cursed, and her hand went to the dagger at her hip.

  “I chased her off,” I quickly added.

  “Shit.”

  “She walked right up to me, and threatened to firebomb us all.”

  “How did you scare her off? You’re a terrible liar.”

  “I told her it would turn Hector and Helena against her.”

  “Oh. Wow. Can’t believe that worked.”

  What I didn’t say was that I thought she was still into me. But that would just confuse things. I wasn’t into Sofia. Or well, I wasn’t into Sofia in a way that was a threat to Bernadette and I. We were solid. Why introduce anything to make her doubt it?

  “Me either,” I said.

  Braelyn rushed past, tears streaming down her face. Rachel chased her, but stopped before following her past the door out. A flash of light indicated that she teleported away.

  Rachel cursed.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I just think I fucked that all up.”

  I put my arm around Rachel, and led her back to the long table.

  “If she really wanted you,” I said, “she’d have stayed here.”

  “Yeah,” Rachel added, “that’s what I said too.”