After two weeks of looking over our shoulders as we hiked through forests, fields, and bogs, we had finally found a road. This blessed road led us to an unnamed village that included a roadside inn. Tonight, I would get to sleep in a real bed with a roof over my head. Perhaps tonight, I could finally sleep in peace.

  Our flight from Danver had been a brutal endeavor, made worse by the wound that Bhatri had left on my belly. It was healing fast, but it was still tender, and I had to move carefully.

  During our journey here, we encountered our fair share of desperate scavengers, ne'er-do-wells, and fucked-up wildlife. We had to fight some giant demon frog thing in a bog for Heaven’s sake! It had scared the hell out of me, but Ersabet had neutralized the threat quickly. There had been other mishaps and small adventures along the way, but we were safe now. Mostly.

  I said mostly because something far scarier than bandits or demon frogs was hunting me.

  On the second day of our flight from Danver, Val had detected a Voxal in the area. She panicked and put the fear of God into me before diverting every kilobyte of her attention to shielding our presence from the Voxal.

  It worked, but Val had to maintain her efforts for a long span of days before we were out of the Voxal’s range, and the work had taken a toll on her. Val is still her same annoying self, but now she’s running on fumes, and it has had quite a negative effect on her disposition. Her irritability about being the robot equivalent of 'tired' reminded me of my wife, Elena. That wonderful soul had required coffee to sustain her throughout the day. If she hadn't found a coffee before 10:00 AM, then the world became her enemy, and I feared for all who stood in her path. But, alas, a hero (me) would come to the rescue with a fresh and piping hot flat white from Starbucks, and Elena would return to her blessed and lovely true form.

  Val was like Elena without her coffee. Val was low on power, and I desperately needed to get her recharged – one that didn’t involve her exploding out of my brain to slip into some random human with a magical affinity to charge herself. Thankfully, there was another way. Val once told me about something called a channel crystal, which allows non-magical beings to briefly channel magical energy.

  I'd find one and use it to refill Val with the quantized energy that existed everywhere withing the alien sphere that encircled Earth, or Erda as it is now known.

  “You look like you could use some company,” Val said as she materialized, her avatar lying uncomfortably close to me on my bed. I groaned. I had only just laid down after cleaning myself in a small, cold washbasin. Thankfully, I had some stolen soap stashed in my quantum inventory, and the lather was rather refreshing.

  I closed my eyes, praying I would fall asleep. If I just ignored Val, maybe she would go away.

  “The others are all downstairs,” she said. “They’re celebrating. We are out of the Voxals' reach now. We are safe.”

  "I'm very happy about all that," I said. "But I'm tired, Val. I need a break."

  “From the others?”

  "From all of you."

  “You are their leader,” Val said. “It would be prudent to act like one.”

  I sat up in bed, and Val rose with me.

  "You do not get to boss me around, Val, and I'm not their leader. Ersabet and I are in this together, but I’m not leading anything.”

  'The others are valuable allies,' Val said. 'At first, I thought it best that Kitz leave on his own, and we find a home for Delen, but both have proven themselves capable in a variety of ways. They could be beneficial in our journey.'

  "They can do whatever they want," I said. "I'm honestly surprised Kitz hasn't bailed yet. Maybe as long as he has Petri, he's content enough to stay with us. “And Delen," I blew out a long breath. "He's not the most pleasant travel companion, to put it lightly, and he and Ersabet bicker endlessly. Then again, he's whip smart and is like a Medieval MacGyver, so I wouldn't object to him sticking around if he wanted to."

  Val leaned close to me, and I couldn't help but glance at her ruby red lips. I turned off my thoughts and looked into her eyes.

  “If you want them to follow you, you must be a leader worth following. The first step to being a leader is to exist. Go to them. Engage with them. Celebrate this victory with them.”

  "Celebrate this victory?" I scoffed. "What victory? We should be mourning my failure, not celebrating our success in running away from it."

  “If you don't turn that frown upside down, I will activate your dopamine receptors, and you will have no choice but to feel like the friendliest man in the world.”

  "Please don't mess with my brain, Val." I sighed. She was right, and there was real wisdom in her words. My failure had been my desire to share my burden, to bring the masses to war with me against the enemy, but it couldn't be done. The Triarchy was just too strong. Even if all mankind regained their memories and revolted against the Triarchy, they would be crushed in a matter of weeks.

  However, a small group of unique and powerful individuals might be able to cause some real trouble without drawing too much attention. I could have myself a merry gang of thieves running about the world doing good deeds to the betterment of mankind, thwarting the Triarchy every step of the way.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  And eventually, my merry gang could help me trap a Voxal, steal their controller, and then let Val do whatever it is she needed to do to put an end to this game once and for all.

  I would get more details on the last part of her plan soon, but first, I needed to go downstairs and not look like the broken wreck of a man that I was. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and opened the door. Val's avatar followed.

  ***

  "Look who finally decided to join us," Delen said as he caught sight of me approaching their table.

  "Ha!" Kitz said, pointing at Ersabet. "You owe me a gold piece."

  I couldn't contain my smile. The kid was finally coming out of his shell and developing a real personality.

  Ersabet rolled her eyes and groaned. The gold coin popped into her hand like magic, having been pulled direct from her inventory. She flicked it to Kitz, who caught it with one hand. He held it close, eyes wide.

  Ersabet gave me a slow smile. "I never doubted."

  "Your wager says otherwise,” I said. “You should know by now not to bet against me."

  "Betting for you..." She held her hand flat and tilted it back and forth. "Betting against you. Both are losing wagers. You’re too unpredictable."

  "I'll take that as a compliment." I found a seat across from Delen. Kitz was sitting next to him, and Ersabet was on my right. Val sat in an empty chair near the table, which I found curious in itself.

  This inn was small, containing only six rooms. The dining area/bar was equally small, with eight tables of various sizes and not enough chairs for the lot of them. We were the only patrons at the inn this night, so we had our run of the place.

  A waitress came, and I ordered a wine. Everyone else was already drinking. I glanced at Kitz's cup and saw what appeared to be milk.

  "How do you find your room?" Ersabet asked.

  "After sleeping on the ground for so long, the bed feels like heaven,” I said.

  "I would like to propose that we stay here for two nights," Ersabet said.

  It wasn't an idea I had any objection to. A short break would do us all good, but still, I was curious. "Why?"

  "Because we have been running non-stop for weeks. We are all tired, and you need time to come up with a plan."

  "Plan? There is no plan other than to put as much distance between ourselves and Danver as possible."

  "That goal has been achieved," Ersabet said. "We are out of the Voxals' reach, are we not?"

  "For now," I said.

  When I first told the group that I, and by that, I meant Val, had detected a Voxal a few days into our journey away from Danver, it created all sorts of problems. I was hesitant to tell them, but they deserved to know the danger they were all in because of me.

  Kitz hadn't quite come out of his shell at that point, so he accepted the existence of Voxals with indifference.

  Delen, on the other hand, had trouble believing there was a fourth intelligent species living on Erda. I wasn't ready to loop Delen in on the full truth, not if he was going to be leaving the group anytime soon. So, all I told him was that yes, they did in fact exist, and a single Voxal was more dangerous than the dragon that attacked Danver.

  Ersabet had asked me how I could know that there was a Voxal in the area, and in an attempt to hide Val’s existence, I had told her I knew about the Voxals the same way I knew where players and special NPCs were located. That non-answer had pissed Ersabet off for days, and by the time we all made it safely out of Voxals' detection range, we were so thoroughly pissed off with each other and the world in general that it didn't matter.

  Only now, safe at this roadside inn, were we able to find our smiles.

  "Look, I know this journey's been hard, and the last weeks have felt aimless, but I do have a plan,” I said.

  "Please tell us about this plan, John," Ersabet said.

  I had to be careful with my words, since Delen and Kitz weren't aware that I was a player, or that players even existed in the first place.

  "We will continue heading south," I said. "We'll find a town that is friendly to Dalari, and we'll settle there for some time. I haven't decided on where exactly yet, but when I have something in mind, I'll run it by the group. Fair?"

  "Fair enough," Delen said. "But what does 'settle there for some time' mean? A month? A year?"

  "As long as I need to," I said.

  "And just what is it you plan to do in this unknown southern town?" Delen asked. "Start another uprising?"

  I shook my head. "Never again. I plan to help people, Delen. I'll do contract work for whoever needs it. The real question is what will you be doing?"

  Delen straightened in his chair, a sour look on his face. "Considering all my tools and life's work are likely in cinders, I cannot say."

  "You could hang out with me," Kitz said.

  "In the woods? No thanks, boy."

  Ersabet swatted Delen rather hard with a cloth napkin. "Be nice to the child, or do not speak."

  Delen held up his hands. "Fine. I see I have no friends here."

  "I'm your friend," Kitz chimed in.

  Delen continued. "I mean, I have no adult friends at this table, and so, I will retire to my room for the night."

  "Don't worry about it, Delen," I said. "I've been trying to be friends with Ersabet since the day I met her, and she still won’t even give me a hug."

  "I agree,” Delen said as he was walking away. “She is quite terrible.”

  I chuckled to myself.

  "What are you smiling about?" Ersabet asked.

  "It's just good to have another guy…umm, another adult guy around."

  "The current ratio of sex among the group is not equitable," Ersabet said. "One female to three males is hardly fair."

  If only she knew about Val.

  "Well, hey, maybe we can find a kind Kurskin gal out on the road to invite to our merry band of adventurers."

  Ersabet huffed. "I'm going to bed. Do not wake me up unless we are under imminent threat."

  I said goodnight and waved her off.

  It was just Kitz and me now. I liked the kid, I really did. He had always been shy, awkward, and quiet, but over the past few days, as it became increasingly clear that we were going to make it safely away from the Voxals, Kitz began to come out of his shell. He started talking to me and the others, and not just his hawk, Petri. Ever so slowly, a real personality was emerging beneath his shy exterior, but I sensed he was shyer around me than with the others.

  "So, Kitz, are you going to stick around with us a while, or are you still looking for a nice piece of wilderness to call home?"

  He met my eyes once before looking down at the table. "I want to stay. For now. We've been outside a lot, so I've been happy. And if we keep traveling for a while, then we'll still be outside most of the time, and Petri can fly free, and I can find new friends. It's also nice being around people who don't care that I'm a freak."

  I laughed. "We're all freaks in this group. What about when we get to the city? My goal is to settle in a sizable town."

  Kitz shrugged. "I'll figure it out then."

  I smiled. "Sounds like a solid plan to me." I tapped the table. "It's getting late. You ready to call it a night?"

  Kitz nodded. "Before you go to your room, will you help me with my window? It's stuck, and I couldn't get it open to let Petrie in."

  I put a hand on Kitz's shoulder. "Fear not, my young friend. Petrie will be sleeping in luxury tonight."