Chapter 36: Emerald Eyes, Hidden Knives

  The duelist chambers blurred past as I sprinted, burned boots pounding toward the puckered tunnel that led back to the boss chamber.

  I forced myself through the narrow opening, fabric tearing as my scorched clothes caught on the stone. Priorita’s heavy breathing filled my head. I swore—then froze. Someone was waiting in the tunnel, blocking my path.

  “You should have taken my offer, Allan. There is nothing in there but death.” Zephyra’s eyes glittered like faceted emeralds in the light of my sabre. All colour, no white.

  “Out of my way. I don’t have time for your bullshit,” I snarled and tried to push past, watching as Ariel’s HP ticked one point lower. She danced a step to the side, blocking my path.

  “You have time to waste? Help me and I will show you the way out. We can be out in moments.” She made a gesture and a notification popped up in my HUD.

  Party Invite: Zephyra Belladrix.

  Accept?

  I crushed it with a thought.

  “Moments? I thought you wanted me to help find your sister. Unless you’ve found her already, she could be anywhere.” I felt a twinge of guilt and almost dumped her corpse from my inventory. But it would do no good.

  An expression flashed across her face, just for a fraction of a moment. Confusion.

  “Who? Oh. Yes, we must find her. My sister.”

  She was a shitty actor.

  The party invite popped up again.

  I flicked it away, something she had said snagging in my brain. “How do you know that there’s nothing but death back there?”

  Her eyes flicked over my shoulder, shooting a glance at the opening. Could she have been the second combatant from that room? But that made no sense. Her brow creased in a tiny frown, her fingers tap, tap, tapping on the hilt of her sword. I took the chance and tried to edge past her, but she blocked me.

  Another invite appeared. Persistent.

  This isn’t about a sister. She wants something. Something she can only get if I let her into my party.

  “God damn side quests…” I muttered, drawing a raised eyebrow from the Lutantha. If I ditched her, I could lose an advantage, costing time my team didn’t have. But if I let her in… who knew what she had planned.

  Ariel’s HP dropped again. The possession status notification blinked in time to an alien heartbeat.

  So I went with my gut, and my gut said to avoid this shit at all costs. “Look, you can tag along if you like, but I’m leaving.” I pushed past her.

  A ping drew my attention to the progress bar that showed the installation of whatever program had been hidden inside Victor’s watch. My HUD fizzed like someone had thrown a bucket of water over sensitive circuitry. It had climbed to 15%.

  Too much was happening all at once. Made my damn head throb.

  My nose wrinkled as I sped through the tunnel and approached the corpse-filled main chamber. I tried to piece together what Zephyra wanted—her motivations and place in this mess. The damn headache got worse. She obviously didn’t really care about her sister, if she even had one to begin with. So what was she playing at? What would partying with me afford her? In fact, how was it even possible that we could party up? She was from a different species, an enemy faction.

  As I scaled the side of the corpse pile, I expanded the notification window, searching for the invite. Something about it bothered me. It wasn’t there. I scrolled back, past achievements, skill ups, titles, and a heap of random junk that Priorita sent, searching for the party invite she had sent. Nothing.

  The ribs of a long dead giant made a convenient ladder as I brought up the search function. The invites I’d sent to Ariel, Paddy, Tammy, and Tyler days ago, they were all there… only Zephyra’s were absent. My head pounded. I was missing something. And I was pretty sure it was important.

  “Just bloody fantastic…” I grumbled as I crested the heap and set off atop it at a run. I was damn quick now, and the wind whipped at my hair, tugged at my burned clothes, more fragments falling free as I began a circuit of the chamber.

  To my surprise, Zephyra kept up. I tracked her with Stormsense, but still flicked glances from the corner of my eye. Gravity seemed to have a more tenuous hold on her than me. She skimmed along, right on my heels, one light footfall landing for every three times my burned boots crashed into the dead.

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  Ariel’s HP dropped to 40%. I tried to focus on the wall, to spot the secret button, but my eyes were inexorably pulled to that little red bar.

  I dashed onward, the glassy surface seeming to mock my growing anxiety, my sinking dread. Where was the damn button? Was it even at ground level? Or could it be below the surface, or somewhere high above?

  All the while, my team’s life drained away.

  “You must have received many achievements, Allan.” Zephyra sounded a little out of breath, though no strain showed on her face. “Have you checked them?”

  I frowned, my eyes darting left and right, up and down, scanning the wall, finding only smooth, unbroken obsidian. What the fuck was she on about now?

  “Yeah, probably.” I growled, eyeing the popping, pinging, flashing list. “What’s it to you?”

  “You know, Allan. Some of what she says is super important.”

  I froze, skidding to a halt in a spray of broken bones. It felt like ice water had been poured down the back of my shirt.

  The phrasing, the words, the way she said it—it was almost exactly the way Priorita spoke to me.

  “What did you say?” I turned slowly to look at her.

  She didn’t respond. Just stared at me, emerald eyes boring into mine.

  I could hear Priorita breathing in the back of my mind, her excitement almost tangible. But what did it mean? I’d long suspected the instance of Priorita assigned to me was trying to slip me secrets, but how the hell would Zephyra—an alien, and an enemy, know that?

  The list of notifications abruptly full-screened without me clicking it. I swore, jumped back, and closed it reflexively, but not before I noticed one of the lines flash.

  In the back of my mind, Priorita made an irritated, tut.

  Zephyra’s brows creased, just a tiny giveaway. I tensed, ready for an attack, but instead the notification list full-screened again.

  My antivirus strobed.

  What the hell?!

  Through the semi-transparent window that filled my vision, I met her eyes. My stomach sank… this no longer felt like a side quest. But I didn’t have time. My team’s portraits were now just above 35%, while the installation progress had nearly reached 20%.

  I scrubbed my fingers through my hair, stress headache pounding, crossed my fingers, and dumped all of my free points into Intelligence. It was time to figure this shit out, and quick.

  I braced, hoping for some flash of insight, a moment of glorious clarity… but I guess the Intelligence stat really didn’t mean much. Actually, I was pretty sure my headache eased a touch… but that was about it.

  Stuff it.

  Speed over safety—it was time to force the issue.

  “Look, Zephyra,” I said, closing the achievements without investigating. “I don’t know what you want, and I don’t have time to figure it out. You can tag along, but I’m not letting you join my party. I don’t trust you.” I spun the sabre in my fist, tassel flaring as the blade burst to incandescent life. “Either that works for you, or it don’t, and we have it out right now.” I gave her a grin that was all teeth. “Make the call.”

  She jabbered something in her native tongue, her sharp teeth clicking as she bit off the words. That was a funny thing I’d noticed about Priorita’s translation software—just like when Ariel spoke French, it seemed to choose when, and when not, to work.

  “Didn’t catch that, mate.”

  She tossed her blonde mane, swished a finger at me, and jabbered some more, and though I still didn’t understand the language, I was pretty sure I got the gist of it.

  “Right then. So, you want to build trust? Where’s this door?”

  She stormed past without a word, bones crackling underfoot even though I knew she could walk lightly.

  I smirked, but only once she had passed me so she wouldn’t see. Intelligence may be my lowest stat, but I wasn’t a complete dumbass.

  She set off, a single light step launching her away, but stopped abruptly after only a few strides. I skidded to a halt, nearly bowling her over.

  “What the h—”

  “Two minutes.”

  The invite popped up again, but the font was wrong.

  “Accept, and we will be at the exit portal in two minutes.”

  We locked eyes. Neither of us blinking.

  The bars ticked another point lower.

  I was gonna regret this… I just knew it.

  But hit accept anyway.

  It was easy to accept risk for myself, if it meant I could help my team.

  Her name appeared in a strobe of glitching text, slotting into my party list—then jittered, cycling through titles I couldn’t read before settling on Zephyra Belladrix again.

  Well that was bloody ominous.

  Zephyra led the way, a tiny, trumphant smile on her red lips. It turned out that we were already pretty close to the button. Close enough that I should have spotted it from where we had spoken, but I hadn’t. I had this nagging suspicion, that it hadn’t appeared until the moment I clicked accept. The thing could barely have been called hidden, being in the centre of a circular mass of squiggling pictograms carved into what had otherwise been mirror-smooth walls. I was reminded again of my assessment of the idiocy of the average alien.

  She slapped at multiple points on the design in an intricate pattern, her hands a blur. The whole thing rotated, then shattered to reveal a doorway. Zephyra pushed ahead, not bothering to look back to see if I’d follow.

  I smothered a grin. Sure she’d gotten her way in the end. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t pissed at me. I’d had girlfriends give me the same treatment.

  The tunnel was dark. Remembering how I got myself into this mess to begin with, I flared my sabre and took cautious steps ahead. Head swivelling, ears craning, wary of traps. I needn’t have bothered. Zephyra, it seemed, knew all about this place. She tapped secret buttons, jumped trick steps, and snipped tripwires without slowing, all without comment or looking back. Glancing at my team’s portraits, their HP now below 30%, I felt grim satisfaction about pissing her off, it had surely saved both small talk and time. But I wondered what it would cost me.

  We stopped before a jade doorway, its frame carved with curling sigils, its opening the familiar inky black of a portal.

  “So… that’ll take us back?” I asked, breaking the silence.

  Zephyra tilted her head. “How many wings has your team cleared?”

  I kept my face neutral and flicked open the Quests tab. “Three down. One left. Sitting at ninety percent on the last. Why?”

  Her lips curled. “Then it’s the boss chamber. Your team has already fallen afoul to the vault’s final trial.”

  My suspicions had been building the longer I spent with her, and now I was certain. I hadn’t told her where I needed to go. I hadn’t told her why. She shouldn’t know my team was in trouble.

  But she did.

  This fucking game.

  Everywhere I looked, the deck was stacked.

  Everywhere I turned, someone was cheating.

  Zephyra stepped through the portal, I followed, and in the moment before the darkness consumed me, a notification pinged.

  Installation of the unknown program jumped to 25%.

  And it made me wonder, was I cheating too?