Yvvaros: The Clash of Worlds (16 page)

There has to be something…

He tore through his father’s desk, finding nothing more than pens and paper clips. He stood up from the chair and paced around the room, wondering how often his dad had done the same thing.

There was a photo on the window sill that Luke hadn’t noticed when he’d come in. It was one of the few of the entire family, taken on a trip to the beach they’d gone on when he was just a boy. Luke stared into the eyes of his four year old self. His parents were both smiling, and warmth radiated out from the scene.

I’ve almost forgotten what she looked like. She was beautiful.

Luke sighed and set the photo down. A single happy memory wasn’t enough to outweigh all of the shame and guilt he felt over his mother’s death. It was because of that guilt that he’d never questioned his father’s brooding, volatile outbursts.

Maybe it was finally too much for him in the end, and that was why he left.

He picked the picture back up, carefully plucked the photo out of the frame, and tucked it into his pocket. Then, feeling a sudden frustration welling up inside of him, he flung the frame across the room, into the waste basket.

The little metal bucket tipped to the side as the picture frame landed in it. Luke started toward the door and then stopped, noticing a crumpled piece of paper that had slipped down behind the waste basket. Luke walked over to it and picked it up, smoothing it out enough to read the hastily scribbled message.

Chris,

I get why you’re doing what you’re doing, and I won’t try to stop you. If you’re right, nothing will ever be the same, and it’s only a matter of time before it happens.

The world state server outside of Plattsburgh is the one you’d want them to secure first. Make sure they don’t touch anything. The government has a way of inadvertently fucking up everything it touches.

It won’t end with this, Chris. I believe you when you say you have to do this, but the problem is bigger than us.

Stay safe, and please, try not to self-destruct.

Josh

Luke stared at the note, turning the words over again and again in his head.
It was exactly what he needed, but something about the tone of it made the words sound prophetic and frightening.

He folded the note, slipped it into his pocket against the picture, and then left the office.

CHAPTER 16

The sun was rising by the time Luke began to make his way back home. He didn’t feel tired, rather, he felt out of place. The shadows no longer hid the fact that he was operating outside of the bounds of regular society. He felt like a stranger in a land that had once been familiar.

He was planning it from beginning. The government, the Arbiters… is it really all because of my father?

Luke frowned. The note had only left him with more questions. It was exactly what they needed. It would allow them to narrow their search to a single city. And yet, the vague and ominous undertone of it continued to gnaw at his psyche.

There was more to his father than what Luke saw on the surface. And there was more to Yvvaros, too.

Dawn had fully arrived by the time Luke made it home. He went straight to his room and pulled his headset on.

It was already mid-morning in Yvvaros. Luke was right where he’d been before logging out. The tent still stood a few feet away from him. The only thing different about their campsite was the fact that Tess wasn’t in it.

He spun around, looking down the sand cliff and then back into the Msitu Wilds.

“Tess?” He started toward the jungle. “Hello? Tess?”

There was no response.

“Tess!” Luke sprinted toward the path they’d taken to get up. Panic fluttered inside his chest, and he only took the time to push the foliage out of his face before running forward. He was moving so fast that he couldn’t stop in time, and crashed into the familiar figure stepping out of the bushes. Luke fell forward on top of Tess, pinning her against a small patch of flowers.

“Ow, jeez, Luke!” Tess pushed him up slightly and rubbed a hand on her head. “Watch where you’re going, why don’t you?”

“Sorry…” He pulled himself off of her and climbed to his feet. “I just thought…”

I just thought the worst. I thought I’d failed again, at protecting her.

Tess dusted herself off as she stood up and then plucked one of the flowers from the patch and tossed it to Luke, winking.

“If only you had some way of making it up to me, a gift perhaps.”

Luke smiled.

“Here,” he said, “Have this.”

He took the flower and tucked it into her hair. Tess leaned in and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. A warm wind blew from the desert, tugging at the hem of Tess’s armor. “We should probably get going soon,” said Tess. “The next Elemental Well is in the far north, on the far edge of the Blue Void.”

Luke nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “I just need to send a private message to Kaoru.”

“Okay. I’ll start tearing down the tent.”

Luke pulled out a page of parchment from his bag and a quill. He began to pen the note, feeling Tess’s eyes on him.

“You found something, didn’t you?” She crossed her arms and leaned over him, watching as he scribbled his message.

“Tess… I think we’re closing in on the world state server.” Luke smiled at her. “Kaoru’s plan might actually end up working.”

“You found your dad?”

Luke sighed, finishing the letter and signing his name at the bottom. It glowed white briefly and then disappeared into the air, destined for Kaoru’s satchel.

“No, I found his office,” he said. “I don’t know where he is. I don’t really care where he is.”

“Oh.” Tess set a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry…”

“It’s okay,” said Luke. He walked over to the tent and started helping her tear it down, passing her the bedding and poles. “My life in the outside world… It doesn’t really matter anymore.”

Tess’s eyes saw right through him, disregarding his words.

“I don’t think that’s true,” she said. “I think it matters more now than ever.”

Luke didn’t say anything. They folded the tent’s canopy and slipped it into Tess’s bag. Luke started off, walking along the edge of the sand cliff to the north instead of straight down.

“What about you then?” asked Luke.

“Me?” Tess chuckled. “I don’t have a life in the real world anymore, in case you forgot.”

“I know,” said Luke. “I just mean… you left your life behind. Why shouldn’t I?”

“I didn’t have much to leave behind, Luke.”

“You had Ben.”

Tess was the one who went silent this time. The two of them reached the bottom of the slope, passing out of the borderlands and into the Sarchia Desert. Their path would take them northwest across the desert and the Inner Plains.

“I still have Ben,” said Tess, finally. “Silverstrike.”

“Tess, he’s still Ben in the real world.” Luke looked over at her. “And Ben needed you. He still needs you. Not Silverstrike.”

The second the words had left his mouth, Luke regretted them.

Damn it, I didn’t mean to sound so accusational.

“My brother barely even talked to me before,” said Tess.

“Ben’s just… confused.” Luke stepped in closer to her and slipped her arm through his as they made their way across the sandy, dune speckled landscape. “He doesn’t understand the full extent of what it means for someone to go all in.”

“Neither do I, Luke. Neither do any of us.”

A Dunidan rumbled the sand underneath them, surfacing in the next zone over. Luke paid it almost no attention, completely drawn into the conversation with Tess.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Luke.

Tess leaned in a bit closer to him and set her free hand on the outside of his looped arm.

“I’ve just had a lot of time to think lately,” she said. “And I keep coming back to the same thing. How deeply does Yvvaros simulate people who don’t have bodies and brains in the outside world anymore? Is it at the same level that it simulates NPCs? What level is that… sometimes when I’m talking with an NPC I almost forget that they’re just a programmed facet of the game.”

“Tess…”

“The simulation must have a limit. I’m in a simulated body, but is it actually made of cells and atoms? Are there even neurons in my brain, or am I just floating digital thoughts, controlling an empty vessel of a body?”

How can I answer that?

“Luke, I feel like part of me…” Tess stopped, and blinked back tears. “I worry that part of me died in my physical body, and there’s no way I’ll ever get it back, or even understand what it was.”

“It almost sounds like you’re talking about your soul.” Luke shook his head. “Tess, I don’t care about any of that. I know that you’re you, the same Tess, or Emily, that I’ve always known.”

“But what if-”

“I know it for a fact,” countered Luke. “Here, give me your hand.”

The two of them stopped walking and stood still, coming to rest on top of a dune that was higher than the others in the area. Luke stared into Tess’s eyes, and waited until she was really seeing him, really looking back at him.

“When this is all over, I’m going to join you inside of Yvvaros. Permenantly.”

“Don’t say that, Luke,” said Tess. “Please, just don’t…”

“I’ve already said it. Tess, you didn’t give anything up by going all in. You just stepped through a door. I want to step through it, too. I want us to really be together.”

Tess looked down at her feet for a couple of seconds.

“Thank you, Luke,” she whispered. “Come on, we should keep moving.”

“I love you, Tess.”

She leaned into him and pulled him into a tight hug.

The Sarchia Desert slowly gave way to the green, grassy fields of the Inner Plains. Luke briefly considered leading them to a pit stop in Stark Town on their way north, and then decided against it.

We don’t have any time to waste. It’s also an unnecessary risk, with the Arbiters still on our tail.

Instead of stopping, he led the two of them around in a wide arc to the west. Luke was a little surprised to see that the Inner Plains were still teeming with new players, many of them fighting with the low level enemies that populated the grasslands.

“Apparently Arbiters and permadeath aren’t enough to scare them away,” said Luke.

“It’s the allure of the game.” Tess smiled and squeezed his hand. “They’re all so innocent, and so clueless. I almost wish I could go back to being like that.”

Luke shook his head.

“I don’t.”

A f
l
ock of birds flew overhead, diving and dodging, ignoring the overcast sky above their heads. The air tasted humid, hinting of rain to come.

It took Luke and Tess all of the afternoon to make it to the thin stretch of trees that separated the Inner Plains from the outskirts of the Blue Void. They had crossed the Inner Plains diagonally, reaching the western edge of the continent and traveling up the coast. Luke shivered remembering the last time he’d made this trip.

“Once we push through the trees, it’s going to start getting cold,” he said. “There is a small gap between where the Teeth of the North ends and the edge of the continent, so we should be able to head to the Ancestor Glacier without having to do anymore climbing.”

Tess nodded.

“Good,” she said.

The forest was thin, and occupied by only low level enemies. It wasn’t a challenge for Luke and Tess to push through. The trees grew stubbornly at constant odds with the harsh climate. Unlike the Msitu Wilds before, the flora of the northern forest was sparse and nonexistent in some places.

The first hint of what lay ahead of them came from the air. It grew colder with every step they took. Tess tucked her arms into her dress armor, and Luke started wishing that he’d used some of the gold that Kaoru had given him to buy furs and heavy cloaks for staying warm.

“It’s not that bad,” he said, shivering. “We’ll just head straight north, get to the Ancestor Glacier, and then turn back.”

“Right!” Tess’s teeth were chattering, and she pulled in a little closer to him.

The trees became even thinner and those that survived were stunted and gnarled. They grew further and further apart, and finally they hit the point beyond which nothing could grow. The ground ahead of them was dusted in a thin layer of snow and frost, and beyond that was white as far as the eye could see. The Teeth of the North formed a wall to the northeast, and further past it, jutting out above, was the massive Ancestor Glacier.

There’s no turning back. We have to do this.

CHAPTER 17

“It’s really cold…”

Tess huddled in closer to Luke as they moved into the Blue Void. The snow on the ground was quickly getting deeper as they passed from the borderlands into the northern reaches, licking at their knees. Snowflakes gently floated down from the clouds above, and a chilly breeze blew in from the west.

“Yeah, it is,” said Luke. “We should be fine though, as long as we keep moving.”

The cold was having more than just a physical effect. Both of their stamina bars were dropping much faster than usual. They still had food left in their bags, but Luke began to wish that they’d stopped in Stark Town after all.

“You’ve been up this way before, right?” asked Tess. Luke nodded.

“Only once,” he said. “It was for the Winter Beast world event.”

And that time, I ended up getting myself killed.

He frowned as he remembered the fight with the massive creature, and the traumatic experience of being torn in two.

“We just need to stick it out,” he continued. “Regardless of how bad it gets.”

The snow flurries grew stronger, to the point where the white flakes obscured the mountains in the distance. Luke looked over his shoulder at where the forest had been behind him and found that he couldn’t see it either.

“Luke…” said Tess. “It’s starting to get late.”

She was right. The sun was hidden by the thick snow clouds, but Luke could tell from the way the light was quickly dimming that they were running out of daylight.