Loading ...Previously on BfR: The Camelot server has a new Princess, and that Princess has to choose a Champion - a virtuous defender of the Light, a paragon of all Agents, a natural leader who will carry on the fight against any and all elements that seek to bring harm to the virtual residents of King Uther Pendragon’s realm. Surely the daughter of the high king knows exactly who will best usher in a new golden age in these trying times…
“Damn, you didn’t tell me it was going to hurt,” Agent Rowell snapped as he shook his now glowing clawed hand over Merlin’s glowing mirror pool.
“We’re still having trouble getting the Unicorn enchant to work properly with Druid staves since they are also spell foci,” Morgan La Fey sighed as she watched the whole ordeal from the corner. “The problem is that the enchant is designed to cause discomfort and neutralize the deviant, and you, little druid, are about as deranged as they come.”
“I want that gone,” Munchies hissed inside his head.
“I think I’ll keep it on the claws,” Rowell said with his first genuine smile of the night.
“Oh, if that is how you want to play, fleshbag, you are in for a very long night.”
Rowell ignored the voice in his head and instead curtly thanked the bushy-haired wizards who had done their mumbo-jumbo to turn his fist weapon into a scary new addition to his Agent’s arsenal. The serene and golden Druid in the corner motioned him over and inspected the handiwork.
“I don’t think I need to remind you of the greater responsibility you now wield, Champion,” Morgan said sternly.
“Do you have to all keep calling me Champion? I feel like I should be in some Joss Whedon show. I’m just the same evil Yank you love to hate,” Rowell offered.
“Oh my god!” a raspy feminine voice cried as the door to Merlin’s sanctum burst open. Scrolls and papers went fluttering to the floor as a flaming red dervish whipped into the room. She then gasped and rushed to pick up the mess as she realized she had inadvertently started a mini-cyclone in one of her coworker’s offices. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Merlin,” she apologized. “Still not used to this bloody Avatar.”
“It’s lovely, your highness,” Morgan said. “What is this news you bring us?”
Alekto Aurelianus took a moment to take in the group of people tucked in this rather claustrophobic tower in the northern half of her father’s castle. There was the usual fantasy coven of white haired witches and wizards, a lovely golden skin and haired woman wearing a dress made only of strategically places leaves and a crown of antlers, and one rather different sort of druid currently shirtless and rather sweaty. The burning elfin dervish tried to keep her eyes moving around the room, but here in the virtual realm Agent Rowell sported impossibly toned long lean arms, covered in tattoos and attached to a torso that featured rock hard abs and a chest worthy of Michelangelo. She caught a glimpse of his amazingly bright acidic green eyes and began to turn as bright as the crimson silk she wore.
The distraction wasn’t lost on the older woman in the room who smiled slyly and muttered, “Elves do get a pretty render, don’t they, little druid?”
Rowell began to blush as well, but his corrupted blood made his skin verdant instead of flushed, and his one reptilian iris tightened into a menacing slit. He reached for his shirt and jacket quickly and grimaced as his upgrade claws sliced his sleeve to ribbons before he could get it on. As he turned however, Alekto got a good look at the secret Rowell had been trying to hide under reinforced shoulder pads, namely two pulsating knobs of green-scaled tissue and ridges of leathery skin that arched from his spine and around his bumpy mutating shoulders.
“Rowell, are those…wings?” Alekto gasped.
“No!” he snapped, finally yanking on the remnants of his shirt.
“Touchy, touchy, aren’t we, fleshbag?”
“I’m sorry, your highness, you were going to tell us something?” he said, his voice a little softer and less reptilian.
“There was an attack on an entire class of Agents in V.C. Prime. It seems that a new sort of brain hacker was deployed at the Templar Head—”
“The Templar Headquarters!” both aspects of Rowell snapped at once, creating a bizarre echo of man and monster. “Shut up, Munchies,” he then thought furiously.
“Lylandria,” reptilian Rowell still managed to choke out despite his master’s demands.
“She wasn’t on the list of casualties. Apparently all of the Agents affected are on extended leave, but Agent Lylandria was available for this morning’s attack on Thirty-Eight and the Undead Legion. Unfortunately, all fifteen Agents who attacked were killed in the battle and he once again escaped.”
“It’s awfully convenient that the one class of Agent most capable of stopping the Undead were neutralized in one night. Do you think the programs are starting to work together despite old prejudices?” Morgan asked.
“That’s what we have to find out. Both the ninja Murasaki and the plague zombie Thirty-Eight are in the upper tier of rogue programs. If the two of them were truly combining forces we might have another incident like the ninja attack of ’07,” Alekto said. “But I still am reluctant to assume that they would work together. Monsters of various types traditionally stick to their own factions. After all it’s how they are designed just to prevent this sort of unholy cooperation. Programs outnumber Agents a million to one after all.”
“But fifteen Agents should be enough to take out one Army. What the heck does this Thirty-Eight have that others don’t?” Rowell scoffed.
“If I remember correctly even you had trouble with his army, little druid,” Morgan teased.
“For one thing he has a Dark Agent’s primary weapon,” Merlin noted as he conjured an image of Katastrophe on his magic pool.
“Yeah, I remember that gun,” Rowell growled. “He nearly tore Ly—Agent Lylandria in half with it.”
“The problem is that Katastrophe was destroyed when Faust was eliminated years ago and the code was banned by both Councils in the US. The Japanese and Australia all deny resurrecting it and none of the programmers in Russia in South America have ever produced anything as insidious or as advanced,” Morgan noted.
“Well then that just leaves Camelot and the EU server,” Rowell said flatly.
A chorus of indignation echoed through the room, but it was Merlin who spoke up first. “Surely you can possibly entertain the notion that any of our wizards or techs would ever re-release this ridiculously dangerous code upon the Network?”
“I log in every night and wonder if a Korean dragon is going to take me over. Nothing surprises me,” Rowell sighed. “But I’m sure you know all the programmers here, and if you say they aren’t responsible, I’m cool with that.”
“Remember your place, Agent,” Merlin huffed.
“Actually he’s a Champion now, Merlin,” Morgan noted. “I think he’s done here, your highness if you want to take him and… debrief him further.”
As the Arch Druid sauntered next to the Princess she gave her a little wink and bumped her into her still blushing Champion. Both Rowell and Alekto quickly gathered their things and ran for the hall, only stopping when they reached a door that made Alekto’s ID bracelet shine brightly. “Um, this is my new loading dock if you want to come in,” she asked softly.
“Sure,” Rowell agreed. A few of the Agents wandering the halls giggled knowingly however as he followed her.
“People love to gossip, don’t they. It doesn’t really matter if you’re in the real world or the virtual one,” Alekto sighed.
“Wow, all I got was a bunch of rocks and trees,” Rowell muttered as he stepped into a massive marble boudoir full of satin cushions, billowy curtains and a magnificent pool that reflected a skylight above. He whistled at the crystal clear sky and full moon bathing the room in gorgeous light.
“Do you like it?” she asked nervously.
“What do you English say? It’s really posh,” he said appreciatively.
“That’s not really what I meant, Grace,” she said lowering her head.
The light bulb suddenly lit over his head. “Oh your Avatar?” he asked quickly. “It’s beautiful – You’re really beautiful.”
“Nice save, fleshbag. If only you meant it.”
Alekto’s eyes lit up and she tackled him with a hug. Rowell gasped as her virtual strength sent him flying into her bed, but once the shock had worn off he started toying with her metallic hair and enjoying the little bit of role reversal.
“I guess I’m still getting used to how strong this Avatar is,” she said softly leaning closer and closer to his green-tinged lips. “You know that pictures of your Avatar don’t really do you justice, Grace. Especially here and now when I can actually touch—”
“Ahem, you’ve been summoned to the king’s court along with your… Champion,” an extremely proper British accent interrupted. Both Avatar’s scuttled to their feet and stood at attention with heads bowed like scolded schoolchildren as one of the castles many “Alistairs” – assistant programs modeled to look like Sir Anthony Hopkins shoved into a doublet and tights – just gave them a withering stare.
“Thank you, Alistair,” Alekto said.
“Yeah, thanks Al,” Rowell muttered. “Why do they have access to the entire castle?” he finished under his breath.
“I’m sorry I didn’t think to put on the do not disturb routine. Well I’m sure dad is waiting on us… Um, are you glad I made you my Champion?”
“It was just… surprise. You know I’m an American and only here for a year I thought—”
“Well you don’t have to be!” she said as she led him down the hall. “I’m sure we could get your contract extended if you wanted to stay here… with me.”
Mercifully Rowell’s discomfort was ended prematurely by another servant ushering them into the main hall of Caerleon Castle where the rest of Rowell’s team waited along with the King and some man in a black hood who refused to turn and face the crowd.
“Alekto!” Uther cried proudly as he barreled from her throne and scooped her up in his arms. The fact that he knocked Champion Rowell into a column hard enough to crack the marble in the process didn’t seem to bother him one bit. “Come sit up here while we debrief your Champion’s team.”
“Should I grow some armor for you, Grace?” Munchies offered.
“Who is the grim reaper clone?” Rowell whispered as he shuffled over to Arashi.
The sole female member of the team lowered her mirrored shades and whispered back. “He’s a representative from V.C. Prime’s Dark Council, their liaison between all the Light afflicted realm governments.”
“You must me the famous Grace Rowell,” an incredibly silky and deep voice purred from under the hood. Rowell tried to place the elusive accent from the stranger but could only imagine the bald guy from the Brendan Fraser version of The Mummy crossed with Joe Pesci. “It is an honor to finally meet you face-to-face.”
“That’s your face?” Rowell snipped. “You had them design an Avatar to look like a five dollar Halloween mask from Spencer’s?”
“Yes, you are just as charming as they’ve said,” the stranger purred as he slowly turned around.
“It is that bald guy from The Mummy,” he muttered under his breath as the Dark Agent pulled back his hood to reveal a deeply tanned face, hooked nose and chrome dome. Brilliant tattoos of hieroglyphs peeked from behind the edges of his robes and even on his sandaled feet. His eyes, however, weren’t Egyptian at all but an extraordinarily familiar shade of iridescent silver.
“My name is Inquisitor Sekhemket the Destroyer, and I believe you are an acquaintance of my beloved little sister, Agent Katrina Kalamity.”
“Oh I think you’re in trouble now, fleshbag, and I didn’t have to do a thing!” Munchies giggled.
“K.K. has a brother…and he’s online,” was Rowell’s genius response.
Sekhemket smiled warmly and extended his hand towards the stunned younger Agent. “Why do you look so troubled, Rowell? I wanted to embrace the man who helped Katrina save the Council last year. After all if the Council falls who will we have to annoy year after year?”
Rowell stepped forward reluctantly to receive a man hug from a very large and apparently oiled man wearing little more than a loincloth under his robes. The moment Sekhemket had him in his grasp; however, Rowell felt a sharp pain in his chest. “Bear in mind, you impudent little bastard, that I am Sekhemket, master of curses, curses that can bring pain and suffering upon you in this world like you’ve never imagined. I don’t want you or any of you repulsive bloodline even thinking about touching Ildiko ever again. Are we clear?” he hissed in Rowell’s ear.
“Crystal,” Grace said back as the pain in his chest worsened and spread into his arms and legs. The smile returned to Sekhemket’s face and he shook the American Agent’s hand ferociously.
“Well now that the pleasantries are disposed of, I’m guessing you all want to know why I’ve come here,” Sekhemket said warmly. “Now, don’t you all give me those hostile looks. I know that we are on differing sides of the moral fence but when it comes to programs behaving badly all humanity must band together to control those rogue elements. As I am chiefly a spy and gatherer of information I feel it is my duty to take the information I’ve learned to those best able to utilize it—”
“For a price, I’m sure,” Alekto chimed in. The sudden display of kahones took Rowell aback and he soon became distracted buy just how well rendered his real world girlfriend had become.
“The price was well worth the information gained,” Uther said. “Champion Rowell I want you to lead your team into Camelot Server Seven on a recon mission of utmost importance—”
“Server Seven!” Owen gasped while Arashi moaned. “Oh now you can’t possibly mean—”
“Mean what? What is on Server Seven?”
“Only the most horrid stinking pile of shite ever designed by any programmer in the history of the Network,” Owen grumbled.
“Oh no it’s such rubbish,” Arashi added.
“What is it? The lost works of Uwe Bolle? Postal 3? Big Rig Racing?” Rowell asked.
“Only the most pathetic attempt at capturing the magic of Japanese RPGs by a Western gaming company—” Owen started.
“Sweaty Dragon Fever IV,” every Brit in the room finished.
“Sounds like a bad porno,” Rowell deadpanned.
“If only,” Owen said sadly. “Imagine if a bunch of drunken game design students with absolutely zero talent got together and tried to write an epic Final Fantasy style RPG entirely in that terrifying language known as ‘Japlish’.”
“And then farmed it off to a bunch of extremely talented Korean animators who were never given an copy of the script, not told that there were three other teams simultaneously animating it,” Arashi added.
“Did you mention the fourteen hour nose-hair-picking minigame?” Taymor finally piped in from the back.
“I heard it had a cooking quest that could take over forty hours—”
“And the best weapon in the game came from a stupid side quest in the first area that now one ever bothered to do—”
“Oh god don’t forget the absolutely stupidly hard boss fights that had no real purpose… or was that Ruby and Emerald weapon?” Alekto offered.
“I’ve never heard of this game, and I thought I’ve played every terrible bargain basement title in existence,” Rowell sighed.
“Don’t you get it, the game was so bad it was cancelled in the real world, but one of the producers was an extremely hot woman from Leeds that a bloke from our Network was desperate to shag,” Arashi moaned.
“So we’re stuck with it. As part of our required training all Camelot Agents have to spend three weeks surviving in there,” Owen said, still shaking. “And believe me if you can take one of those elflets singing and dragging you into the ‘harmony dance’ you can face anything the Dark Agents or programs want to throw at you.”
“We have reason to believe that a program in Sweaty Dragon Fever IV is starting to break out of its routine and go Rogue. This program may indeed be a point of contact for Thirty-Eight’s minions and our very own Agents and Techs,” Uther interjected. “If you think about it, it is the perfect cover, because what Agent in their right mind would ever go snooping there? My thought was that since Champion Rowell here has never experienced the wonder that is our training game server I think he should go in there with an objective eye and see if he notices anything unusual, while you, his team, start tracing traffic going in and out of there.”
“You mean we don’t have to go in?” Taymor, Owen and Arashi all asked at once.
“Only if Champion Rowell can’t handle a few Training programs and a bunsh of elflets,” Uther said.
“I could go with him!” Alekto offered. “I’ve only seen some of the simulations – I’ve never been through it either.”
“No I’m sorry, my dear, you’re going to have to enter negations with the Alien Liberation Front this week. It seems that the Zerg wandered into Flood territory on conduit thirteen—”
“So I have to snoop around an RPG for a week and try to find a program acting suspicious. How tough can it be?” Rowell asked with a cocky grin.
“Oh for the love of god, take me over now, Munchies! I can’t take another second!” Rowell howled as the obnoxious strains of “Love, Peas and Harmony – the Elflet Way” repeated for the fifteenth time as he tried to find his way to the exit of the utterly confusing and horridly planned Tree-Moonly City, the eternal home of Rowell’s slightly smaller but bigger eared cousins – the Elflets.
“I would rather endure another marathon of Sex and the City with your insipid girlfriend.”
Rowell banged his head against a signpost that was inexplicably written in German as he kept looking for any route of escape. Next to him the same pair of big eyed, blonde-haired children that had taunted him for thirty minutes pranced by and squealed, “Konnichiwa! Howdy, strange!”
He decided to once more climb up the “Center Tree” to get a better look at the multiple rope bridges without clear entry points that led to the other trees that made up the city. Lots of mist kept drifting across his field of view obscuring the big iron gate to freedom.
He rubbed his communication stone three times, chanting the name of his most loyal team member. “Arashi, can you please tell me how to get out of here. The music is destroying my soul,” he begged to his little rock.
“Are you having trouble, captain?” she giggled back through the stone. “Owen is telling me not to help you… have you tried asking a guard?”
“Screw Owen!” Rowell snapped back. “I can’t even tell who a guard is, all I see are the extras from the Record of the Lodoss War walking in circles. No one is understandable – they keep lapsing into a mix of Japanese and bad English and then there are two and three with really blonde hair and unknown European Accents that are even harder to understand.”
“Did you read the manual?” Arashi asked.
“I’m a guy. What do you think? Grr, this mist is so frustrating. Who though that would be a good idea? Let’s shroud everything useful with an impenetrable fog that moves randomly from point to point and make everything the same five textures and two shades of brown and green so you have no idea where you are going and where you’ve been.”
“Well, where are you now?”
“I’ll tell you where I am, I’m in the big brown and green tree next to three other brown and green trees. You know the one filled with blonde elflets!” Rowell snapped.
“You’re not being helpful,” Arashi sighed.
“How can I be? Everything looks… the… same—” His voice trained off as a completely different style of program stepped out of the mist.
In realm full of simplistic and childlike characters wearing the same green and white dresses, this young woman drifted through the streets in shades of soft peach and cream with pure white hair and golden jewelry dangling from her long ears. Freckles dotted her ivory skin and Rowell noticed painstakingly brushed on eyeliner and individual eyelashes around her flashing gold eyes. Grace’s eyes wandered down her long arms dripping with lace in the form of a kimono sleeve but much to his surprise there was no ID bracelet clamped over her left wrist.
“That’s a program?” he whispered as she serenely moseyed even closer. She turned her head his way, and a perfect breeze blew her feathery hair and silky ribbons in front of her blushing cheeks. Her voluminous skirt rustled and even scandalously revealed her completely rendered three-toed elf feet daintily clad in sandals with heels.
“Tasukete kudasai!” the strange woman breathed in a voice every bit as dainty and lovely as her form.
“I’m sorry… I don’t speak—”
“Fleshbag, look out!”
An entirely different creature burst from the mist, an amorphous blob of smelly, vile jelly studded with decomposing parts of unlucky elflets. It lashed a tentacle straight for the helpless elf maid as the claws on Rowell’s hand spontaneously lit on fire.
“That’s not supposed to be here,” Rowell muttered as he hurled himself at the girl and shoved her out of harms way. Unfortunately for the both of them, the wooden beams surrounding this level of Tree-Moonly City weren’t rated for two Avatars and Rowell could only watch helplessly as what seemed like an infinite drop awaited them. Far above he could here and Asian accented voice bark, “Baka! She wanted the elf girl alive!”
“Oh this is going to hurt in the morning,” Rowell whined inwardly as he saw arrows and shuriken whizzing by his cheek and the ground still way too far away. He also noticed his green wrath filling rabidly as the dragon in his head noticed just how bad a predicament they had gotten into.
The girl made the mistake of looking down and screamed, clinging desperately to Rowell’s chest. Even though she was just a program he could hear her heart pounding next to his. She screamed again and buried her face against his so fiercely he couldn’t see the golden light pouring from her eye sockets, but his heads up display suddenly flashed with “Enhancement Aura Lv. 2,” while his wrath bar pulsed at full.
“I’m going to regret this, but help me here, Munchies.”
“Entering high definition cinematic,” his screen warned as the blurry pixilated garbage of an environment melted away and was replaced by fully articulated tree branches, individual leaves, and little unique elflets screaming from their thatched roof homes along the trunk. A string orchestra and a choir of children replaced the insipid MIDI refrains, and brilliant green light exploded from Rowell’s mouth as he grabbed the central talon on his necklace. Suddenly the sound of leather ripping and bones cracking eclipsed even the background music. The girl looked up in wonder as two distinctive green triangles briefly blocked out the sun in her world.
“Tsubasa… sugoi…”she gasped.
A very different Champion Rowell roared as he flapped his way back to the broken platform. He set the girl down with the cowering pair of elflet children and turned his attention to the blob and three ninjas that had so rudely attacked him earlier.
“You shouldn’t have made me angry,” Bae sneered. He then smiled a fang filled smile and laughed. “Who am I kidding? I love it when I get to take over.”
Antlers extended from Rowell’s forehead while his once normal hand stretched into a second pair of wicked claws. His Druid’s staff melted into a row of spines on his bleeding back and his once normal green eye turned into a beam of chartreuse energy. The blob lurched towards him once but didn’t have time to react to the explosion of green lightning from Bae’s spines. The dragon-man then shredded through the jiggling remains of the monster, spraying the hapless pajama warriors with stinky goop.
“All this work is making me hungry,” Bae growled. “You aren’t much—”
“Run away!” the first ninja cried as smoke bombs were dropped. Two of them managed to disappear into the mist but the third was snagged by Bae’s talons and promptly dragged back to the gaping dripping maws of a Mana Eater.
The elflets screamed and covered their eyes as too bright red blood sprayed over their green and brown paradise, but the princess in peach watched the entire murder – her eyes locked on the limp ninja until he exploded into pixel dust. She remained steadfast as a hunched and horrifying beast whipped around to glare at her.
“Now you look pretty tasty,” Bae said with a wicked smile.
The girl merely pointed a finger at him and said a single word, “Nero!” and the ravenous dragon collapsed at her feet.
“Dragon-sama, Mr. Dragon, are you feeling of good constitution?” a sweet voice asked as Rowell fluttered his eyes open.
“Huh? Where? Where am I?” he choked as he rubbed his temples. The words “Operator Connection Terminated,” flashed in front of him as well as the warning on his internal clock that he had less than thirty minutes before mandatory disconnection. He fumbled blindly for his staff and gasped as he stared at a completely human left hand for the first time in a year.
“What happened?” he gasped as he touched his face and felt no scales, no bumps, and no buds of antlers trying to break out of his skin. “Munchies? Munchies are you here?” he thought.
“Syome has put sleeping on the darkness of your soul’s purposely,” the same voice said.
Rowell blinked and became more cognizant of his immediate surroundings. He was lying on a mattress on the floor of one of those huts he’d passed countless time in his aimless wanderings of Tree-Moonly city, although this one was filled with fresh flowers of every color of the rainbow. Next to him, the girl in peach knelt by his side, sponging his forehead with a cool rag and tending to a suspicious circle of stones and incense. Rowell finally looked down and saw a large Kanji character pained in what seemed like blood across his chest and stomach.
“What did you do to me?” he yelped as he tried to sit up further. Phantom hands that reached from the incense smoke and shoved him back to the floor immediately impeded his progress.
“Syome only wanted to be the helpful,” the girl apologized. “The Elders spoke council of your danger and called you akama.”
“I’m a character from Street Fighter?” Rowell wondered out loud. “Hey, I had a special stone in my pants pocket… oh my god where are my pants?”
“The clothing of yours needed cleanliness with most urgency – to the Espers of Syome it went.”
“Syome?” Rowell asked, still trying to get his bearings in the oppressive sweet smell of her circle. “Is that your name? Syome?”
The girl smiled and nodded. “Syome Starfallen, highly priestess of the moon here in city,” she said, taking his hand. “Much is owed for you, Mr. Dragon.”
“Rowell,” he offered. “My name is Grace Rowell, here at least. You kinda met my other half a while ago, his name is Munchies.”
“Munchies?” she asked with a little giggle. “How strangely.”
“How strange,” Rowell corrected.
“Funnily you talk,” Syome said. “Rest should you.”
“You mean I should rest. Doesn’t anyone here speak real English?” He banged his head a few times against the floor, much to the horror of his Elflet attendant. “How am I supposed to get anything done around here?”
Syome rose to her feet and padded over to the bookshelf in the corner of her round house. Her cheeks turned bright pink as she found just the incantation she was looking for. “Oh no, no, no, Syome cannot do such that,” she muttered. “Understanding of this English is what is of need, Mr. Dragon Rowell?”
“Yes, Syome, understanding of English would be really helpful right now, but what would be even more helpful is finding out why ninjas appeared in this game and attacked you. Is this game so bad that ninjas just appear in a fantasy village every week?”
The elflet stared at him blankly. She then pulled out another book and padded back to him. Like all the signposts and graffiti, this test was in horribly squiggle Gothic font and German language. The pictures, however, were clear enough with fearsome fire breathing dragons terrorizing villagers. She then turned the mage to show the shadow of a man with spiky hair and a big sword standing defiantly in front of an army of dragons.
“Is this some prophecy in your game?” Rowell asked. Syome nodded furiously and turned the page to show a particularly large and evil looking bright green dragon breathing poison over a village, changing the humans into glowing green-eyed zombies.
“Oh no,” Rowell said. “I’m not like them! I’m not even from this server—”
“Syome works to cure sweaty dragon fever with all her heart!” she said proudly. “Mr. Rowell’s case most dire of urgent.”
“I’m not sick. Crazy maybe, but not sick,” Rowell tried to explain, but his proper English seemed lost on the priestess. “I’m here to find bad guys, you know darkness of soul’s purposefully?”
“Bad guys?” she repeated, some light shining behind her eyes again. She flipped back to the picture of the man with the sword and pointed at the hero.
“Yes, I’m like him,” he said barely touching her index finger with his own.
“Black wearing men of action…bad guys?” she asked.
“Yes, those are ninjas. Most ninjas are bad guys. Have you seen any more of those around here? In Tree-Moonly City?”
Syome shook her head.
“Look, Syome, I’m not sick, and I’m not going to hurt you, but I need my staff, and my clothes and that stone so I can get help. Do you understand that? Get help?”
She nodded again. “Get help,” she repeated firmly.
“Oh please let her get it,” Rowell begged. He actually giggled with glee as moments later the elflet girl retuned with a neat pile of his clothes, his glowing clawed glove and his staff. “Syome, you rock!”
She cocked her head. “Syome not rock. Syome elflet kind,” she laughed. “So strangely you are, Mr. Rowell.”
“Strange! Learn when to use adverbs”, he admonished.
She bowed politely to him and waved away the oppressive smoke. In his joy of being released Rowell hopped immediately to his feet, allowing the blanket covering him to fall to the floor. His jaw dropped in horror as Syome’s already wide eyes turned into saucers. Before he could so much as apologize she ran from the room, leaving Rowell to throw on his mended clothes in peace.
“Syome, I’m so sorry—!” he cried as he stumbled after her. He stopped short as he saw a gleaming sword pressed to the girl’s neck and a wild mane of violet hair sweeping from behind the terrified girl.
“As they say, if you want something done right, do it yourself,” Murasaki purred as blackened energy sparked down her weapon.
“Not you again.” Rowell whined.
“Operator connection reestablished.”
“Rowell, where the hell have you been—?” Lei snapped in his ear.
“I’m putting visual on, guess who just turned up in this terrible training game,” the thought back to his watchdog.
“What is she doing on a European server?” his Operator wondered.
“Just get a hold of my team and get them in here!”
“You look weak, Rowell,” Murasaki taunted as her stitched on wings flapped obnoxiously and her reptilian eye narrowed with contempt.
“And you look ugly, Murasaki. At least one of us will recover with some rest,” Rowell growled back.
“Mr. Rowell!” Syome whimpered as shock after shock zapped her exposed neck.
“Just let me have this one and you won’t have to hurt, fleshbag,” Murasaki offered. “I owe you that after all we have… shared.”
“I’m getting strange readings from that priest program. It might be going rogue. The data I’m getting now from Camelot says that the program designate Syome Starfallen is a unique entry left over from the early testing phase of Sweaty Dragon Fever IV. I’ve gotten her code set to not recycle, if you destroy her now she won’t reset,” Lei burst in over the radio.
“What?” Rowell thought.
“Hurry up and destroy the priest. It’s obvious that is what the ninjas are after.”
“Mr. Rowell?” Syome begged.
“Rowell, she may be cute but she is just a program… pixels going Rogue!”
“I’m really sorry,” Grace said as lightning charged through his staff.
“Operator Connection terminated.”
Rowell stood alone on the balcony outside Syome’s hut, staring guiltily at the blackened patch on the decking and a tattered scrap of peach-colored silk. He picked it up gingerly and began wiping away the caked on Kanji on his skin. The moment the character was broken, a familiar sensation slid mercilessly under his skin.
“You sometimes surprise me, Grace,” Munchies grumbled as Rowell’s eye turned into a slit.
“Just shut up and do it again, Bae,” he thought back. “We’ve got a flying ninja to catch.”
End of Episode Thirty