A Gamer's Guide 396 (Patreon)

Still glowing, he nodded at her. “That’s the part I’ve always had trouble with. I don’t feel sorry about what I did, so the apology feels tacked on and fake.”

“Getting an insincere apology is the worst,” she agreed. “It doesn’t make either side feel any better about what happened.” The light emitted by her odd friend increased in potency by a few notches. Was it a Godsend or an invasion of privacy that she could, at an instant, judge his state of mind? She shook the thoughts out of her head. “But… there’s still a point to them. If nothing else, it informs the other side that you don’t want to fight anymore. Not a surrender, so much as it’s a request for a ceasefire.” Under her breath, recalling the pie-incident, she added, “Not that everyone sees them as such…”

“Oh. That makes sense. In that case, I’m sorry about not having noticed the war earlier. I’ll try to be more observant in the future regarding these things,” he said. Abruptly frowning, he soon tacked on, “Man, your brothers kind of sucked. All that screaming over a pie that wasn’t even good?”

Before she could reply to his apology with one of her own, explaining that she was exhausted from a tumultuous day and hadn’t meant to chew him out that harshly, her mind got stuck on something completely different. The other thing he’d said. Discomfort tugged at her brain, twisting her lip into an expression that mirrored his, save for the added revulsion. “I didn’t say anything about the pie,” she said. “How do you know about that?”

“You didn’t? That’s weird. I’m certain I heard you. Are you sure you didn’t mutter it, or…?” 

“I didn’t,” she said, repeating herself with greater force. This wasn’t the first time, and it was starting to make her sweat. 

“Oh. I’m sorry. I don’t know why…”

<You have received a message.>

Rafiloe waved it away. “It’s fine. Just… Try not to… do whatever it is you did. Please.”

Fully sitting, facing her, his light began to slowly fade. The last glimpse she got of his face was entirely unintelligible, lips neutral, eyes neutral, face neutral. Only when the light had gone away fully and the darkness once more permeated the cellar room did he speak, his voice oddly melodic as he said, purposefully, knowingly, “I think you’d better check out that message. It’s important.”

The room felt cold again. Way too cold. Goosebumps crawled up her back to nestle in the nape of her neck, cold and spindly and slightly wet. She opened her mouth to speak, maybe to chastise him for instantly going against her wishes, maybe to ask if he had done it again, but nothing came out. Her tongue refused to move and her lips were incapable of doing anything other than trembling slightly. Without responding to him, she pulled up the message, the darkness around her suddenly appearing very, very empty.

<ProperPrognosis[F63]: Good afternoon GeckomancerOfYore.

This message is something I have spent over two hours now

ruminating on whether to send or not, as it is

slightly a bit tantamount to treason, which may 

cost me my life should his Honor the Archjudge find out about it.

You are an odd one so I cannot be certain of your good intention

and therefore cannot trust your discretion. But his Honor the Archjudge

is also extremely drunk at this very moment and therefore I doubt

he could understand the current … circumstances even if things were 

to go to plan. The plan being that … how ought I to explain this?

Pardon the roundabout explanation. I am exhausted, today has been horrible,

and I am uncertain as to whether or not I will live to see sundown.

Either way, allow me to briefly explain the reason why his Honor the Archjudge

chose to meet with you today on such short notice. It is because his Honor the

Judge of Norm, General Ieruit, has been EXCEPTIONALLY bad with communication.

We asked him to inform us at minimum a week before his arrival. He told us

YESTERDAY that he was almost here … Infuriating!! Fearing that even

his Honor the Judge’s army of … 40k-ish strong would be insufficient

in undoing the siege, his Honor the Archjudge demanded to use the strength

of us humans as well. This is illegal but I can’t complain about it because

he hasn’t paid me yet this month and I am SO TIRED of eating 

fantasy world beetroots. Had the meeting continued longer

he would doubtlessly have pulled you into the battle to come. 

The battle to come sometime today. Perhaps it has already come. Who is to say?

According to his Honor the Judge’s proxy, they were meant to be here

TWO HOURS AGO. WHERE ARE THEY?? I hate this job. 

I send this message because you appear to have some idea of 

how this may affect the situation as a whole. Perhaps you can talk 

sense into his Honor the Archjudge, or his Honor the Judge, or 

the … Casper the Ghost? Him. We are both death-fearing humans. 

Let us not make this city our grave. 

Best, //Prop.

PS: I believe there is a chance that the besiegers may be

considering the positive and negative outcomes of 

defenestrating his Honor the Archjudge … Help?>

When Rafiloe raised her hand to close the window, she found it trembling, and unable to press the right button. How silly of her. After reading something like that, it was only obvious that she would need a moment or two to pull herself together. How was she supposed to figure anything out if all she could do was hyperventilate? But if she wasted time calming down before closing the message, then she would have to look at the message and face the fact that it this was it. This was the end. She’d done her best, but it hadn’t been enough, and now she could only hope to escape in two or three pieces at least.

“What does it say?” came a voice from the darkness. It was only barely louder than the thumping of her heart, and as the words settled into the grooves of her brain, she found herself failing to comprehend the voice as human. It was something other, some animalistic noise, or perhaps the sound made by intangible darkness coiling and uncoiling itself. “Is it, um… something bad?”

A flicker of nervousness and light once again joined them in that dark, dank basement. Now, she could see that the voice was only Kitty, who had curled his knees to his chest in worry. The abrupt, slithering fear she had felt only moments ago was replaced with cold and hard anger. “Couldn’t you hear it?” 

“Hear what? Is something going on?”

“I thought you could—” the light grew brighter, and his expression grew even more pitiable. She knew that look on his face. The look of a child being scolded for something they didn’t understand. A look she had shared many times herself, though seldom received pity for. Damn it, she thought to herself, deflating out of her anger. “Sorry. I’ve been stressed all day, and now it’s going out on you. That might not matter in a few hours, though. We’ve got company on the horizon, and I doubt we’ll be able to…” She felt her brows knit together. His light was starting to fade again, but she didn’t rue the darkness this time. She always had her best ideas in the dark, long after bedtime. “Then again, if he’s bad at communicating, then maybe he won’t arrive today… Lajon won’t be too keen on a hasty retreat, but if I can have Kitty tell him to do it, then he’ll be sure to listen… A full-on battle would be a massive loss on both sides, not to mention that the civilian population would be sure to take damage… So, if we simply retreat immediately, escape far away, then…”

“That explains it,” Kitty muttered through the darkness. 

Rafiloe twitched, trying and failing to hide how she had again forgotten that she wasn’t alone. “Explains what?”

“That’s, um…” He lit up again. Worrying. Chuckling, he crossed his arms, turning away a little. “But I’m sure we can still do your plan! Like… if we sneak out the back, maybe?”

Rafiloe had always considered herself a sensible person. Slow to anger, quick to forgiveness and positive thinking and all that. Now, however, as she watched Kitty’s body grow brighter and brighter, his lips twitching into a nervous smile, scratching absently at his own leg but failing to draw blood, she felt a sudden and explicable urge to strangle him. This was in spite of knowing perfectly well that attempting to do so would only leave her hands sinking through his form to grab at nothing. “Kitty, what do you mean by that?”

“Oh, it’s, um…” He waved absently in the air, as though trying to find and grab words to make up his sentences with. “Garath, my friend, um… He’s outside the city right now, and a few minutes back, he kind of told me that he saw another army showing up, but that they seemed kind of neutral, so no need for worry. There were dragons among them too, so he was going to have a chat with them and then he’d report back to me if they were okay or not. He hasn’t said anything for a while now, but I’m sure it’s fine. He may be a dragon, and he may have done some bad stuff in the past, but Garath is actually pretty good at diplomacy, I think!”

Although Rafiloe was well-versed in being angry at stupid people, this was a new situation entirely, if only because the ever-expanding sense of dread and horror did an excellent job at drowning every other emotion attempting to breathe life into her lungs. “Y—you…”

There was a great bang and the earth shook. Then another, and another. 

Lit by the wavering light of Kitty’s anxiety, great clouds of dust began to fall from the ceiling, accompanied by the worrying whine of the castle’s foundations shivering—a sound eerily similar to the grating of Rafiloe’s own teeth. 

“I think we’d better,” Kitty said, interrupted by another bang that shook the whole city that made him flinch, “get out of this basement. This might get…” Not quite listening to him, Rafiloe tried to get to her feet, but another shaking bang startled her to the point of collapsing again. The sight made Kitty frown, and as the light from his body began to dim once more, she heard him say, “Alright, I’ll get us out of here, just try not to get too spooked by the darkness, okay?” Then, the light was extinguished, and a darkness comparable only to that of the grave descended on them once more.

She had no time to linger on it before two bony, corpse-like hands took hold of hers, pulled her to her feet, and began gently—oh so gently—leading her out of the basement. Every ten seconds or so, the earth would shake and the banging would happen again, rumbling and horrible. It was almost making her go mad. The only sensible thing left, all she could focus on that didn’t seem to be on the verge of killing her, was his voice, soft and gentle as he said, “Damn it, Garath, take it easy…”

Though the basement was dark, the stairs up were very close by, and without having to spend more than a minute in the cold, dark emptiness, they were scaling the stairs, one step at a time, hands clutching the others’ tightly to keep themselves from falling due to the rumbles. The doorway to the first floor yawned open, Rafiloe squinting into the brightly lit hallway. 

“And now…?” Kitty turned to the left and right, his eyes scanning the doors and the various staircases loosely, unable to fix his gaze on any one in particular, even less his mind. 

“Defenestration,” Rafiloe muttered, mostly to herself. “The archjudge might be… We need to get back. Here,” reversing their positions, she took his hand, and began leading him up the staircase she had previously went down to find him. Up, up, up. The rumbling was beginning to grow slightly fainter, but the foundations of the castle still shook enough to make all the chandeliers sway and the railings tremble. One such rumble made her feet slip on a step, though her fall was quickly caught by Kitty. “Th—thanks,” she muttered, and on they went.