Yvvaros: The Clash of Worlds (21 page)

What an astute observation…

Luke pulled Tess into the rune circle with him and a single blinding moment later, they were back in Stark Town.

CHAPTER 22

Stark Town was bustling with activity. Luke and Tess had no trouble slipping away from the Arbiters that had followed after them. They darted down an alley and then doubled back around toward the inn.

Something feels off here…

All of the players they passed had downcast eyes, and wore defeated expressions on their weary faces. Luke had felt an undercurrent of the same depressing vibe the last time that they’d been through Stark Town but it hadn’t been nearly as pronounced.

He paused, holding out his arm at the edge of an alleyway to stop Tess from stepping out into the street. A group of Arbiters was speeding past on the street in front of them. For a moment he feared that they had been discovered but the Arbiters stopped a short distance before reaching their hiding spot and grabbed a different player.

Surprisingly, the player made no noise, he barely even reacted. The Arbiters pulled him past where Luke and Tess crouched. Luke saw the player’s face and recoiled. His expression was blank and hopeless.

He’s given up completely.

“We have to put a stop to this, Luke!” Tess grabbed his hand and squeezed it painfully. “This… this is insane.”

“We will, Tess,” said Luke. “Don’t worry.”

Despite his reassuring words, doubt tore at the edge of Luke’s confidence. There had been a lot of Arbiters on Kantor, far more than he’d been expecting. Even the High Priestess Azalene, one of the games essential NPCs, had seemed defeated.

Luke stood up and felt a wave of fatigue wash over his body. He checked his stamina bar and found that it was still almost full. They’d eaten just before Tess had cast her teleportation spell. Still, he was exhausted.

“Luke? Are you okay?”

He set his hand on his head and waved the other at her.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I just… am getting a bit tired.”

Slowly they crept out of the alleyway, vigilantly watching for Arbiters. The main square of Stark Town, usually filled to the brim with player and NPC merchants hawking their wares, was nearly empty. The merchants who remained were quite. None of the usual boisterous banter that was such a large part of the marketplace trade was present.

The Stark Town Inn was across the street from them. As they walked toward it Luke remembered the words of the Universal Truth at the second well.

Marina’s daughter, Mina, lives in the house next door.

“Tess…” Luke took a deep breath, his guilt over the expedition leader’s death hitting him like a ton of bricks. “I have to make a stop.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” said Luke. “I’ll be right back. Wait here.”

I’m the one who killed Marina. I need to handle this on my own.

Even with all of his resolve, it was hard for Luke to make his feet carry him forward. Each step was a battle of will against his desire to turn back. A pounding began to echo inside of his temples.

He stood in front of the door of Marina’s house for several seconds before slowly lifting his hand to rap on the door frame. A couple of seconds went by, and then it opened.

“Hello?” The girl that answered it couldn’t have been older than eleven or twelve. She frowned at Luke, clearly picking up on just how uncomfortable he was.

“Are you Mina?” asked Luke.

“Yes?” The girl shook her head. “Is this about… the expedition?”

Luke nodded, and swallowed a painful lump in his throat.

“You can come inside I guess,” said the girl. “My mom and dad… did something happen?”

Luke nodded again.

I can’t do it. I can’t tell her…

“There… was an accident.” Luke took a deep breath, his heart and shaky hands betraying the emotion underneath. “Mina… your parents…”

The girl began to shake, too. She turned away from Luke for a moment, and when she turned back tears crested in the corners of her eyes.

“No…” Mina’s lip quivered, and she shook her head. “No!”

What the fuck am I doing here?

“Mina, your mom died…” Luke ran his hands through his hair. “She died because-”

The door opened behind them. Tess was standing there, and next to her was Katrina. The two women walked over to Mina and crouched down next to her.

“I’m so sorry,” whispered Katrina. “Mina, I am so sorry. It’s going to be okay, though.”

“You…” Mina seemed to recognize Katrina, and reached out to take her hand as the guild leader offered it to her. “You’re the one who helped my dad last week.”

Katrina nodded. Tess leaned in close to Luke.

“Katrina did a quest for her father. She helped with outfitting the expedition for the trip,” she whispered. “She knows Mina. Not well, but better than we do.”

“Mina, I’m going to stay here with you, okay?” Katrina was blinking back tears of her own. She looked at the girl and set both hands on her shoulders. “I won’t let you be alone.”

“I am alone…” whispered Mina.

Luke opened his mouth, finally finding the courage to say what he’d come there to say. Before he could, Tess was pulling him back out through the door.

“You can’t tell her, Luke,” she said.

“What?”

“She doesn’t need to know.” Tess shook her head and wiped moisture away from her cheeks. “It’s not fair for her to know.”

“Tess, I-”

“It’s not about you,” said Tess. “Telling her is only going to make you feel better. This time… it’s not about you.”

I killed her mother…

“She’s going to wonder, Tess.”

Just then, Katrina poked her head out from the door of the house. She looked sad, as though she’d absorbed some of the girl’s loss as her own.

“I’m going to stay in Stark Town for the next couple of days,” she said softly. Luke nodded.

“Alright, I understand.”

“Silverstrike is over at the inn having an ale,” said Katrina. “Can you let him know for me? I’m sure he’d also love to check in with the two of you.”

“Yeah, of course.” Luke took a deep breath and tried to clear the chaotic thoughts circling in his fatigued brain.

Am I just seizing this as a chance to run away from responsibility?

“We’ll have someone from your guild stop by to bring you messages and keep you filled in,” said Tess.

Katrina forced a smile.

“Speaking of which, I used that money you gave me to make some upgrades to Dunidan’s Rest, Luke,” said Katrina. “I think you’re going to like what I’ve done.”

Luke smiled.

“Thanks, Katrina,” he said, nodding toward Mina’s house. “For everything.”

Katrina ducked back inside the house and Luke and Tess headed next door to the inn. Compared to most of the other times when Luke had stopped by the gathering hall, it was practically empty. Silverstrike was easy to pick out, one of the few patrons seated at the bar instead of at a table.

I need to move on from this, and this seems as good of a way as any to get started.

Luke walked over and took a seat at the bar, waving to the bartender to bring him a mug of ale.

“Hey buddy,” he said. “How’s it going?”

Silverstrike hiccupped, and looked at Luke, confused. Tess walked over and sat down on a stool on the other side of him.

“Yo, Silverstrike.” Luke poked his unresponsive friend in the shoulder. “You okay?”

“Oh… Kato.” Silverstrike shook his head and laughed. “Sorry, I’m going a bit overboard today.”

“Yeah, you can say that again.” Luke frowned at Tess, who furrowed her brow.

This doesn’t seem like it’s just from the in-game alcohol effects…

The bartender set Luke’s ale down in front of him. He took only a tiny sip of it, finding that he wasn’t much in the mood for drinking anymore.

“The Elemental Wells,” said Silverstrike. “Kaoru, uh… he said you found the first one?”

Silverstrike’s cadence was slow, and labored. Luke scratched his head and nodded, wondering if there was something that he should say or do.

“We actually just claimed the second one,” he said. “Only one left. What about you? What about the alliances, Silverstrike?”

Should you really be in a bar when we need you as our ambassador, setting up treaties?

“We’re almost done.” Silverstrike grinned at him and waved a finger in his face. “Kato, I’ve already made most of them. The big guilds are in. And yes, it was me, so take your self-righteousness and…”

Silverstrike trailed off and took another swig of ale. Luke shrugged.

“Good,” he said. “That’s really good, actually. Sorry, buddy, I didn’t mean to sound skeptical. I’m just… concerned.”

Silverstrike saw something on Luke’s face and instantly transitioned back into seriousness. He finished his ale, shivering as he set the mug down, and then wiped his hand across his mouth.

“Kaoru has gone undercover,” whispered Silverstrike. “He’s up in Kantor, dressed as an Arbiter.”

Luke leaned in a bit closer, shielding their conversation from the other patrons.

“Are you sure? Tess and I just teleported in through Kantor and we didn’t see any trace of him.”

Silverstrike frowned.

“Well obviously not. He’s undercover. And you shouldn’t take stupid risks like that, you know. Might as well just turn yourselves over to the Arbiters.”

Tess blushed a bit, and Luke waved his hand and rolled his eyes.

He is right about this, though. And Kaoru is taking that same risk.

“I’m bringing some of the guild leaders together for a meeting early tomorrow,” said Silverstrike. “Can you hold off on heading for the last Elemental Well until then?”

Luke looked over at Tess. He again felt extraordinarily tired, both in body and in mind.

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea,” he said.

“We’re meeting on Carthac Island. It’s one of the smaller islands in the Western Sea.” Silverstrike grinned. “I still haven’t explained to the guild leaders the details of the plan yet. This is going to either make or break our rebellion.”

Luke nodded slowly, suddenly feeling a bit doubtful of their odds.

Can we really do this? Or are we just kidding ourselves?

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Tess. “Luke, you could use the rest of today to rest, and tomorrow morning we could meet up and head there together.”

Luke immediately agreed with her suggestion.

Rest… I could definitely use some.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

The three of them talked for a while longer. Sitting at the bar, just the three of them almost felt like it had when they had first started out in Yvvaros. Before going all in was a possibility and the government was uninvolved, when they were just friends discovering a new world, not trying to save it. They joked and laughed, and for a while, Luke’s responsibilities felt lighter on his shoulders.

“You should probably log out,” whispered Tess. “I can tell how tired you are, Luke.”

He sighed, and then nodded slowly.

“I’ll meet up with you two in the morning, then,” he finally said.

Silverstrike smiled at him, and Luke met his eye. He wanted to bring up Tess, and the chance that he was leaving the two of them with, brother and sister, to bond. But in the end, he didn’t say anything.

It’s not my place to meddle. They have to work it out themselves.

Luke reached into his satchel, pulled out his character record, signed the bottom of it, and felt the world drop out from underneath him.

CHAPTER 23

Luke was back at his desk. He pulled off his VR headset and felt an irrational sense of nervous paranoia take hold of him.

Calm down. I’m in my house. Nothing’s wrong.

The last remnants of sunlight were streaming in through his bedroom window. It was hard for Luke to think straight, and it took him a second to work out when he’d started playing.

I… slept in-game last night?

His stomach growled, and he realized three things at once. He was unbelievably tired, hungry, and he really, really needed to go to the bathroom.

Luke stood up on legs that had almost forgotten how to walk and hurried to the bathroom. He was used to the empty house now, but heading by his dad’s old room made him wince internally.

After relieving himself, Luke wobbled downstairs. Everything that he saw and touched felt off as though he was in a dream. Even the color of the walls and the furniture seemed muted. He had grown accustomed to the vibrant colors of Yvvaros.

There was something in his kitchen that he was sure hadn’t been there the last time he’d been through the house. A brown grocery bag sat in the middle of the counter. Luke walked over to it and looked inside. A note was perched on top of a variety of food.

Please don’t die, Luke. I’m serious. I didn’t pull your headset off this time. It’s your turn to do me a favor.

Sam

Luke smiled. A faint memory, or rather, many memories flooded his mind. Sam had always looked out for him, mainly in the form of feeding him. She’d been sharing her lunch with him since kindergarten.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

He pulled out a box of pop tarts from the bottom of the bag and tore into them. The prospect of having to go outside to buy food felt strange and foreign to him. He was thankful he didn’t have to.

For a minute Luke thought about calling Sam, or at the least sending a text. He hesitated however, wondering if there was any point in trying to hold onto the friendship. He was no longer the same person that Sam knew and he grew tired at just the thought of trying to reassure her he would be okay.

I’ve moved on, Sam. And now it’s time for you to move on too.

Still, he was appreciative of the food. He sighed, and pulled out his cell phone. It was dead, unsurprisingly. He walked upstairs and plugged in the charger. After a minute it turned back on and he found Sam in his contacts, sending her a short text.