Chapter Text
The journey through Level 4 was long and tedious, but the payoff was well worth the effort. The team found an abundance of valuable ingredients for Perry, who was able to brew several reasonably good potions and poisons. Each time that Perry stopped to brew, Laura and a volunteer would have to venture away from the river, which subsequently led to more than a few quality one-on-one conversations.
Danny, for instance, had confided in Laura about her many girlfriend issues on the outside. Kirsch had spent a solid hour discussing his new obsession with canon Distant Worlds lore—everything from the First Orc Rebellion to the Elven Treaty of Julsin to the rise of the Depraved Knight and his undead army. LaFontaine had preferred to discuss strategies and battle scenarios. Mattie, whom Laura had fully expected to be ignored by, talked with her about having attended a business conference in Venice the previous summer. It was Carmilla who chose to socially distance herself from Laura during their time alone, though that wasn’t much of a shock. The two had yet to discuss what happened at the creek in Level 3, and, considering Carmilla’s general disinterest in talking about anything that did not pertain to the game itself, the topic was unlikely to come up on its own again.
The days of travel leading up to the team’s arrival at Level 5 were full of physical activity. Herds of wild boars aggressively attacked anyone who strolled too close, and the occasional little gang of bandits would spring from the hills with machetes and ropes in hand. The adversaries were tough, but manageable. They provided the team with multiple chances to practice working cohesively rather than individually, which was especially important now that the team’s skills were becoming more advanced.
The time would come, LaFontaine had warned, when the adversaries they faced would be impossible to defeat without teamwork.
A welcome break from the violence came when the team reached the city of Vakel, the sole location for Level 5. The fortified town sat cliffside at the end of the river, overlooking a massive waterfall. Vakel was drastically different from the sunny ambiance of Sylsa. Dark clouds shrouded the sky, giving the appearance of night as heavy rain fell relentlessly within its walls. Distinct Gothic architecture lined either side of the narrow, cobbled streets. The people of Vakel hid away in their townhouses and shops, their windows warmly lit up by fireplaces.
After crossing through the gates of Level 5, the team took refuge from the unforgiving storm in a dusty tavern. Their clothes and armor were soaked as they walked through the entrance. All patrons turned to look them over, then resumed their idle chatter while the eclectic team of newcomers claimed a table in the back.
“I’m glad this is an isolated narrative.” Perry declared with relief. “I’m so tired of fighting off pigs and bandits. I don’t want to even imagine how exhausting it would be to run around a city with PvP going on.”
Nodding, LaFontaine added, “We’re fortunate that we’ve only run into one other team so far. Our odds of surviving an attack by pigs or bandits are much greater than our odds of surviving player-versus-player combat, which we do need more experience with.”
Kirsch, who was too busy eyeing the bar to take a seat at the table, suggested, “Maybe we should take a night off and enjoy the town. We’ve earned it.”
LaFontaine considered the proposition for a moment, then proposed, “All in favor of a night off?”
Each member raised their hand in approval, and, before LaFontaine could get another word out, they dispersed all at once. Kirsch and Danny headed straight for the bar; Carmilla and Mattie muttered something about searching for “black market deals” and sauntered out into the rainy streets; and LaFontaine and Perry went off looking for quality shops to trade in.
Suddenly, Laura was left alone at the table feeling like the odd one out.
As she sat in the back of the little tavern trying not to let her insecurities show, she noticed a white-haired man eyeing her from a nearby table. He had a bushy beard and he was dressed like a drowned pirate who’d just crawled out of the sea.
“Can I help you?” Laura finally snapped at the man.
He snarled at her, revealing several gold teeth. With a deep, gravelly voice, he said, “I’ve seen your barefoot kind before. Out in the wild. Savages, they are. Live like animals. Sleeping in the dirt. Painting themselves in mud. Eyes shining in the light like a cat. Gliding through the swamp like crocodiles. Reckon I’d take my chances with the crocodiles over fire-breathing demons.”
Laura felt oddly insulted, as if she herself was being personally attacked, but the slurred speech of the visibly inebriated man kept her from speaking out.
“Your kind…” He continued, leaning in with an elbow on his thigh. “Uncivilized. Undisciplined. It’s not right. Out there living like that. Even the orcs left the marsh. But not your kind. No. Still out there. Still wild. There’s that old saying…’not even the gods themselves could pull an elemental from its hole in the ground’.” He pointed a finger at her. “But, as I live and breathe, here one is. Right in front of me. Your companions have even dressed you up. Got you looking like us normal folk. Except the feet, of course. Can always spot one of you that way.”
“Guess you don’t see many strangers come through here.” Laura replied flatly. She looked over at the bar, dread filling her as she saw that Danny and Kirsch were too busy arguing over who could consume the most ale to help her deal with this drunk old man.
“Oh, we got strangers alright.” He paused to sip from his cup. “Too many, if you ask me. Starting to take over. Not right. That mayor, he’s a fool. Thinking that foreign wife of his can be trusted. Never met a vampire I could trust. About as rare as seeing an elemental congregating with civilized folk.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t stereotype people.” Laura muttered back distractedly, already checking out of the conversation.
“What’s that you said?” He scooted his chair closer. His drink sloshed onto the table as he moved it with him. “Took a blast of magic from a fairy to the left ear when I was a boy. Been useless to me ever since. Nasty little shits, those fairies. World would be better without them, if you ask me.”
Laura gave him an incredulous look and said, “I didn’t ask.”
“Ha.” He chuckled. “You’re a feisty one. Yeah, that fire is in you. It’s there. I see it. In your eyes. The eyes always talk. They say what the heart won’t.” He took another swig from his cup then added, “That’s why there’s no trusting a vampire. The eyes are dead. No life in them. No truth.”
“There are good vampires.” Laura defended. She wasn’t sure why she was arguing with a virtual character, but she couldn’t help herself. The tavern, the drunk man, the musty smell of unwashed bodies and ale. Everything mixed together to perfectly fool the senses. To make the player forget that they were playing anything at all.
“Good vampires? Ha! Like saying orcs can fly. Ridiculous, that’s what that is. One look at the mayor’s wife is all you need for you to know how it is. Bloodsuckers aren’t to be trusted. Killing is too much a part of who they are. All they know. Fiddling with blood magic, hypnotizing their victims…it’s unnatural.”
Sensing a recurring theme, Laura questioned, “What is it with you and the mayor’s wife?”
“Since you asked…” He smirked and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I’d bet my good ear that she’s the one snatching up all those people. Drinking their blood. Draining the life out of them. Dumping the bodies over the waterfall. No evidence that way, you see. Smart, that’s what that is. Mayor is allowing it, too. Probably under her spell. Poor fella doesn’t even know his own name, I’d reckon.”
“Wait. So…people are going missing?” Laura asked.
He nodded. “More than a few. Got all the sensible folk frightened. Hasn’t been a terror like this around here since the old days. Making folks remember what used to be. Folks don’t like that.”
Laura waved to Kirsch and Danny, frantically attempting to get their attention. When the orc and the elf finally noticed, they returned to the table and Laura asked the stranger to repeat what he’d told her. And repeat he did. Word for word, he repeated everything to Kirsch and Danny. Each expression, every chuckle, even the way that the lines on his wrinkled face moved, was all exactly the same.
“Nice.” Kirsch grinned when the stranger finished retelling his scripted words. “So, like, we need to go capture the mayor’s wife, right?”
Danny gave him a skeptical look as she said, “Are you kidding me? The wife is obviously a red herring. It’s probably the mayor who’s behind everything.”
“Oh, sure, it’s just so obvious.” Kirsch mocked.
“Orcs.” The stranger scoffed. “Nothing but a bunch of dimwitted imbeciles. Try to pretend to be one of us, but they’re not. One foot always in the muck, I’d say.”
Kirsch glared at him. “You want to go, old man? Keep talking. Come on. Make my day, bro. Let’s do this. Right here, right now. Come on. Let’s go. Square up, grandpa.”
Danny nonchalantly moved so that she was standing between Kirsch and the stranger. Looking down at the man, she asked, “Who are you? Why should we believe you?”
Hesitantly, the man answered, “They call me Blacksword. Name used to mean something. People got no respect for heroes now. Last of the elite, that’s what I am. We were the ones who stayed and fought while the cowards went running for the hills. The undead army, they came to take Vakel. But we stood our ground. Saved this town. No respect for it now. The young, they don’t know. Time changes things. Changes us. Names that meant something…not now.”
Kirsch’s entire demeanor shifted from pompous frat boy to enthralled fan boy.
“You…” Kirsch dropped to his knees on the tavern floor, staring at the man with his mouth hanging open in awe. “You’re Blacksword? Blacksword of Vakel, slayer of the undead?” He looked back at Danny and Laura to add, “This guy is a legend. He led the Defense of Vakel. Like, fifty years ago, the Depraved Knight tried to take control of the city. Blacksword and his friends stopped it. They saved everyone. The dude’s a war hero.”
“Huh.” Blacksword eyed Kirsch suspiciously. “An orc who knows his place. Time changes some things for the better, it seems.”
Understanding that he was still being insulted, Kirsch jumped back to his feet. Keeping his temper under control, he looked the old man up and down and said, “And time changes some things for the worse.”
Danny, directing her words to Laura and Kirsch, said, “We need to tell the others about this. If people are going missing throughout the whole town, this is probably the narrative we have to beat to move on to Level 6.”
“What happens if we never beat the isolated narrative?” Laura asked curiously.
“We replay it until we beat it. Or, you know, until we run out of lives trying.” Danny answered, eyes already glazing over as she paused to send an urgent message to their teammates.
--
“Okay. So, here’s our list of suspects…” LaFontaine pointed to their handwritten notes. It was late into the evening, and the team had split up and reunited close to a dozen times in search for clues about the missing townsfolk. “Mayor Glepp is the democratically-elected political leader of Vakel. He’s said to be very likeable, but people are beginning to question his leadership with the continued disappearances remaining unsolved.” LaFontaine moved on to the next name on their list. “The mayor’s mysterious vampire wife. Apparently, she is the daughter of a foreign vampire king who disowned her for unknown reasons. Next, we have Yul, a pacifistic werewolf who is Mayor Glepp’s political rival. He is currently benefiting from the growing civil unrest. Should the backlash continue to grow, Yul would be the likely successor to Glepp. Then we have Damien, the mayor’s eccentric former housekeeper. Damien was fired for allegedly stealing a valuable necklace from Mrs. Glepp. And our final suspects are a group of female orcs who’ve recently moved into town, though I suspect the townsfolk are merely expressing prejudice with their accusations against the orcs.”
“Don’t forget to put down Blacksword.” Mattie replied, openly glaring at the old man at the next table over. He was passed out and drooling, but that was probably for the best. There wasn’t a single member of the team who wasn’t ready to show ol’ talkative Blacksword the back of their hand.
“Ah, yes. Thank you.” LaFontaine quickly jotted down the final name with their charcoal pencil. “Mustn’t forget the disgruntled war hero turned bigoted town drunk.”
“So, what do we do now?” Perry questioned the group.
Carmilla lazily gestured to the list and said, “We need evidence that one of these people is causing the disappearances.”
“Stakeout time!” Kirsch rubbed his big hands together excitedly. “Just like on the old cop shows.”
LaFontaine shrugged and said, “That’s actually not a bad idea, Kirsch.”
“We’re splitting up?” Perry asked. “Again? What happened to all of that talk about teamwork?”
Mattie explained, “We don’t need seven people to watch one little mayor. Splitting up gives us a chance to watch multiple suspects at once.”
Still hesitant, Perry asked, “Do we have to do it right now? This can’t wait until morning?”
“Afraid not.” LaFontaine replied. “The townsfolk say that the disappearances have almost exclusively happened overnight. Their loved one goes out for a stroll and never comes home, or goes to work early but never makes it there. We’ve yet to encounter anyone who knows for a fact that someone was taken during daylight hours.”
“Fine.” Perry relented. “How do we pick who watches who?”
Carmilla stepped forward and declared, “I call watching the mayor’s house. If he makes an appearance, I’ll be able to use my enhanced charisma to get the truth out of him.”
“Fair enough.” LaFontaine looked around. “Any other volunteers?”
“I’ll go.” Laura offered. Though it was true that she secretly wanted to spend more alone time with Carmilla, she mostly volunteered to to save the vampire the embarrassment of seeing that no one else wanted to.
Danny pointed to a name on LaFontaine’s list and said, “I’ll watch the werewolf, Yul. I’ll be able to keep a safe enough distance away that he shouldn’t be able to catch my scent.”
“I’ll go with you.” Perry told her.
“Kirsch…” LaFontaine turned toward him. “I think it would be best if you kept an eye on the tribe of female orcs. They’re likely to be more friendly with another orc than with the rest of us.”
Kirsch flexed his biceps and said, “No problem. These bad boys will dazzle those ladies into spilling all their secrets. It works every time.”
LaFontaine blinked, then continued, “Anyway…that leaves Damien, the mayor’s former housekeeper, for myself and Mattie to watch.”
“Let’s hurry.” Mattie replied. “It’s late enough as it is, and we still need to find out where some of those suspects live.”
LaFontaine nodded and said to the group, “Okay. If you find anything suspicious, message the group chat. If you find yourself under attack, run. And if you get caught…” LaFontaine dramatically moved their hand to their chest to cover their heart. “Die with honor.”
--
In a dark alleyway behind a row of identical townhouses, Carmilla and Laura huddled together beside a brick wall and beneath a makeshift tarp—and neither the wall nor the tarp did much to keep the rain from soaking them.
Shivering, teeth chattering, Laura asked, “Are we sure this is the mayor’s house?”
“Yes.” Carmilla answered grumpily. “There’s a fancy little sign on the front door. I saw it earlier.”
“Do we even know that he’s home?” Laura wondered aloud.
Sarcasm dripped from her tone as she replied, “Good question. Why don’t you go knock on the door and ask?”
Laura didn’t particularly want to ask her next question, but the chilling cold rain and the unnerving darkness of an unfamiliar town gave her just enough distractions to push through it.
“Are you mad that I volunteered to come with you?”
Carmilla’s jaw clenched, then relaxed. Carefully, while refusing to make eye contact, she answered, “I’m not mad at you.”
Since the ball was already rolling, Laura didn’t hold back as she said, “Look…I get it. You don’t want to be friends. That’s fine. I mean, I think it’s bullshit, but that’s just my opinion, and we’re all entitled to our own opinion. Wow. Uh, okay. I’m not really saying this the way that I want to. What I’m trying to say…is that I understand you have a no-friendship boundary and I’m not trying to cross that. I’m just trying to talk to you. Just a conversation between teammates. Communication is necessary for us to work together, you know.”
“Is there a reason I’m being lectured?” Carmilla asked with a raised brow.
“I’m just trying to make sure we’re still on the same page.” Laura clarified. “I don’t want you mistaking my intentions for something they’re not.”
“Cool your jets, cupcake.” Carmilla replied.
“Wrong realm, sugarpie.” Laura countered.
“Oh?” Carmilla smirked as she looked Laura over. “Touché.”
As Laura stared into the vampire’s eyes, she didn’t care that cold rain was beating down on them. As Laura intently watched Carmilla lick her lips, she didn’t care that crouching in an alleyway made her knees hurt. As Laura waited, eyes now locked with Carmilla’s, she felt the heat in her core spread throughout her limbs, warming her whole body.
“Is that you?” Carmilla asked, voice hardly loud enough for Laura to hear over the thundering downpour.
Slowly, Carmilla let go of the tarp with one of her hands and moved it to gently brush against Laura’s arm. Her fingers felt like ice against Laura’s warm skin.
A bit in awe, the vampire admitted, “I can feel the heat coming off you.”
“Are you cold?” Laura asked, completely certain of what the answer would be.
“Of course I’m cold.” Carmilla answered, completely aware of what Laura was up to.
Recalling the time that she and Carmilla had been trapped in a tree trunk by a red-eyed bear, Laura said to her, “You can relax. I don’t bite.”
With a smile tugging at the corner of Carmilla’s lips, she scooted closer to Laura beneath the tarp, until their sides touched, then asked, “And just how am I supposed to interpret your intentions now?”
“How ever you want, my totally platonic teammate.” Laura smiled in response.
Carmilla laughed and shook her head, clearly enjoying that Laura was still willing to push the limits.
“And don’t worry.” Laura added quickly. “No one has to know that I kept you warm.”
“Don’t go getting too excited.” Carmilla warned playfully. “If I had a choice between you or a wet dog to keep me warm, I’d take the dog.”
“Um, excuse you!” Laura laughed. “A wet dog? Really? That sure is a funny way of saying ‘thank you so much for saving my life, Laura, because I could’ve froze to death without you’.”
“Always so dramatic.” Carmilla teased.
Without missing a beat, Laura countered, “It’s better than being boring like you.”
A beautiful smile slowly stretched across Carmilla’s face. Pleased that Laura was willing to banter with her, she said, “You’re lucky that you’re hot.”
Before Laura could stop to ask if Carmilla had meant hot as in temperature or hot as in attractive—which she was fully aware had been left open to interpretation by the vampire on purpose—curtains on the second floor of the mayor’s home were drawn back to reveal an elegant woman standing in the window. She was young, not much older than they were, and there was a clear sadness in her eyes, visible even through the rain.
“I need to talk to her.” Carmilla decided abruptly.
“What?” Laura looked from the gorgeous woman in the window to the gorgeous woman at her side. “Why? We’re here to watch the mayor and his wife, not talk to them.”
“She’s a vampire. She’ll tell me what she knows.” Carmilla replied. She had yet to look away from the woman in the window.
“Just because she’s a vampire, doesn’t mean she’ll be nice.” Laura pointed out.
“Look at her.” Carmilla smirked. “Nice is the last thing that dissatisfied housewife wants. She’s bored out of her mind. She went from being a princess among her own kind, to living in a town full of strangers that hate her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s picking them off one by one as revenge, but that sounds way too obvious. I’d bet she’s the key to solving the mystery, rather than the source of it. She’s the person in all of this that players would be least likely to question. People probably just assume it’s her right from the start.”
“How are you going to get her alone? The mayor is in there with her.” Laura reminded the vampire.
Carmilla thought about it for a moment, then, without warning, crawled out from beneath the tarp and stood in the middle of the alleyway.
“What are you doing?” Laura whispered frantically. “She’ll see you!”
“That’s the point.” Carmilla replied as she stood out in the open in the pouring rain.
The mayor’s wife, as if on cue, turned her head and caught sight of Carmilla. She stared at her for a few long, tense seconds, then dropped the curtains. They fell into place, and the woman at the window was gone.
Laura, still huddled close to the ground with the makeshift tarp over her head, looked up at Carmilla in disbelief. “What if she tells the mayor that we’re out here!”
“She won’t.” Carmilla answered knowingly.
The backdoor to the mayor’s house crept open. The doorway remained empty, making it clear that this gesture was meant as an invitation.
“I’ll be back.” Carmilla muttered as she fearlessly walked up to the house and through the door.
Laura, now alone in the dark alleyway, still soaking wet and crouching beside the brick wall, grumbled angrily to herself as she began to shiver in the cold again.