A Gamer's Guide 391 (Patreon)

There was a 50-50 chance that the city would either get Magdeburgized, or spared entirely. Either way, Rafiloe did not want to be there when either one happened.

As she ran with her breath in her throat and her skirt raised to her knees, she had the sudden, rueful realization that she had been running far too much that day, a sentiment shared by her shoes, which had now decided to have the breakdown she was saving for later. She fell, rolled three times, and then crashed into a wall face-first, her loose sole clattering to a stop only a meter away. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to throw a fit over her shoe going bust, so instead of picking up the sole, she tore off both of her shoes, got back to her feet, and resumed her running. 

The tutorial center was in sight. All she had to do was grab Maggie and then they could sneak out during the tumult. Sure, she would have to explain the whole thing to Maggie, but at least she wouldn’t have to explain to Kitty that she was a founding member in a club dedicated to the anthropological study of his life and times. The fact that she had been so wrapped up in travelling to wherever he’d been to the point where she forgot to message him like they’d promised could be overlooked since he didn’t message her either. But this? No, this was beyond that. 

The worst thing was that even if she tried to tell him, she had no idea how to do so without him assuming that it was some kind of romantic stalker thing when it really, really wasn’t. In truth, she barely even saw the two of them as the same person. It was the difference between knowing a musician in person and listening to their music. Death of the author. All of that.

She could explain that to Maggie, but Kitty? 

Rafiloe burst inside the tutorial center, which was—as always—entirely empty, save for Maggie. The black-skinned woman turned to her and gave Rafiloe a look of genuine worry. “Now what in the hell are you doing back here again? And where are your shoes and hat? Don’t tell me the Arch-jerk threw you out without either.”

Oh, yeah, my hat, Rafiloe recalled, running a hand through her straight, sweat-shining hair. She must have forgotten in it the hubbub of getting everyone to the main gates. Shit, she thought, but it was really okay. She could get another one. It hadn’t been that difficult to sew. It was only a cone with a brim, after all. 

…But it was my cone with a brim, damn it!

Trying and failing to get her breathing under control, Rafiloe strode through the empty room, all the way up to Maggie’s desk. “Maggie,” she wheezed. “You, ah, uh… My message…?”

“Your message?” Maggie parroted. “Aw, shit, did you send something more than the warning about Honey? ‘Cause after you sent that I kinda got caught by Honey… Long story short, we had a fight, but he’s off cooling his head now. Sorry girl, I totally forgot about the whole group chat thing, I was just proofreading the analysis I’ve been writing about Meow-Meow’s pre-tutorial life, what with being the number one TMM player for a while. After you’re done retelling exactly what happened with the Archjudge, do you think you could go through it one more time? You’re the expert on his pre-tutorial life, after all.”

The only good thing that had come out of Maggie’s reply had been the extended break it gave Rafiloe, allowing her to finally breathe properly. “Right. Um. Maybe later. I just… Can we leave now? Like, now-now? I’ll explain everything on the way.”

“Leave? Leave how?”

“The city,” Rafiloe said. “Leave the city. Some stuff happened and we now have an opening to go, but we kind of need to do so now, before…”

In the distance, slowly rising in both volume and proximity, came the sound of music. Trumpets blaring and drums beating rhythmically. 

“Now, what in the world is—”

Maggie could say no more as the door to the tutorial center burst open and a young boy, one in a gaggle, shouted with triumphant glee, “The siege is over! Gods be blessed, the siege is over!” And then, not bothering to close the door, he darted to the house next door, tore open the door, and shouted the same refrain: “The siege is over! Gods be blessed, the siege is over!” 

They watched the open door for a moment. With the door open, the sound of music was even louder, partially drowned out by the cheering of crows and the loud thumping of footsteps as people rushed through the streets, making way, arriving to gawk, all their eyes honed in on an approaching figure. Rafiloe went up to the door and gazed out. The street was filled with people, packed tightly enough to become impenetrable. Far down the road, something was approaching. That’s where the music was coming from. As the music approached, the crowd, thick as it was, parted. The overstocked members of the group were pressed into the alleys and houses, wherein both aboriginals and guests alike stood shoulder to shoulder, pressing their noses against the window pane or peeking their heads out of the open windows. 

Rafiloe closed the door and locked it from the inside. 

No exit that way, she thought, the disreality of the situation morphing her panic into apathy. “Maggie, we have to go,” she said. “The upper floor is still only storage, right?”

“Yeah, it is, but what the hell is going on out there? Is the siege really over?”

“Might be,” Rafiloe said, pushing her way past Maggie and into the small hallway that led upstairs. 

“Gecko, please, you’re being way too mysterious for my nerves,” Maggie called, following her upstairs. 

The second floor was storage, but also Honey’s office. It smelled dusty and was filled with cobwebs and old things not even Honey knew what to do with. Behind her, Maggie coughed, pinching her nose to keep out the overwhelming dust. Striding over to one of the barrels there, Gecko gave it a knock and sniffed the lid. If she remembered correctly, this one contained emergency provisions in the form of pickled gnobs, a vegetable similar to peas, aside from being roughly marble-sized instead of pea-sized. If they did this right, Rafiloe felt fairly certain that they could ride this whole thing out without issue. Honey would keep them safe, if it came to it. As long as they didn’t—

“Wow, what a parade!” Maggie said from the other side of the room, opening the window that faced the street as she did. Music loud enough to shatter eardrums blasted through the open window, triumphant and militant in equal measure. “Shoddy uniforms, though. If that can even be called uniforms. Hey, get yourselves some real outfits!”

Hands still on the barrel, Rafiloe turned towards where Maggie stood, framed by the open window. A tremble began creeping up her legs, her stomach, all the way to her hands and head. “M—Maggie, wait—”

“Look, Gecko! There’s a human, too! Why’s he on one of those carrying-thrones? Pimpin’ outfit, though. If it weren’t for the glasses, he’d look exactly like…”

Gecko flew across the room over to the window.

There he was. Carried on an eight-man litter, draped across the chair with all the misery of a dead cat, clad in a long leopard-print fur coat that would have looked luxurious on anyone else, alongside a pair of stark pink Lennon-glasses, was Kitty. Meow-Meow. Lo Fennrick. ThatGentleNight2. Many names for a single individual who, at the moment, appeared less like a living breathing person and more like a corpse being paraded around.

The booming trumpets and drums deafened her and in her unhearing, unfeeling state, she thought, if only briefly, that maybe he really was dead. The thing atop the chair did not look alive to her. It had the pallor of a corpse, yes, but the countenance of one, too. Mouth slacked open, eyes wide, with every limb splayed out in a manner that seemed not random, but instead calculated by the dying of nerves, the final tensing of tendons. 

Dead, she thought. The word echoed soundlessly through her skull. Kitty is dead.

He looked at her. 

The world froze in motion as the pink-hued gaze of the corpse affixed itself to her, hawk spotting a mouse. Every inch of the body remained dead save for the face which had turned to her in rigid immobility, almost as though propped up by invisible puppet strings. She met his eyes. There was nothing else she could do. And even as she looked him dead in the eye, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was not alive, and she was still looking at a corpse which had merely been put in motion. Inhuman, inanimate. 

She blinked, and the corpse was gone. 

Her legs gave away from under her, or maybe they were faster at thinking than her, and with speed that surprised even her, she ducked down into the shadow of the wall, away from the scrying gaze of the window. Outside, the cheering continued. The orchestra did not pause their omnipresent music. It was as though nothing had happened. Like the dead-alive feeling he gave her, this did not soothe her. 

Didn’t they know? Hadn’t they seen? 

Dread coiled in her stomach. Nausea slithered up the back of her throat, demanding to be expelled, anywhere. Her feet ached. But she could still run. She was certain of it. If she just healed herself, then she could…

A shadow fell over the window. 

She didn’t spot it at first. It got darker and then Maggie backed away from the window before stumbling and falling on her ass. Then she realized that the light from the window was now blotted out by the shape of a man. 

She turned to look up at him where he sat hunched in the frame of the open window. He sniffed the air, once, twice, before turning to look at her. His eyes shone like jewels behind the stained pink glasses. 

“Oh, hey, I thought I recognized you!” He smiled at her before cocking his head in a way that seemed simultaneously animalistic and fatal. “You look really different without your hat, Gecko. Isn’t it cold without it?”