CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  First Summoning

  The ‘ping!’ of the elevator doors woke him from his daze.

  “Ha~~ah,” he groaned.

  He had been staring listlessly at them throughout the ride, but now those doors opeo a pristine white space that had bee the setting for his worst nightmares. The sight of this lobby filled the tan-skinned man with the kind of dread that left him feeling paralyzed.

  “You alright, Hajime?” asked the woman leaning on the wall beside him.

  Hajime giredly to his right.

  “Bridget-san…I don’t think I do this anymore,” Hajime admitted in an exhausted tone.

  The blonde woman with a wide brow and almond-shaped hazel eyes offered him a sympathetic smile. “You say that every m.”

  “I mean it this time.” Hajime pulled out the crumpled white envelope he had been keeping in his jacket’s breast pocket for months now. “I’ll turn in my resignation today. Right now!”

  Bridget ughed.

  “You say that every m too,” she reminded him just before patting him gingerly on the shoulder. “e o’s clo before the crisis hits.”

  As she walked past the opeor doors, Bridget gnced over her shoulder and offered Hajime a sarcastic grin.

  “I ’t wait to see what other unreasonable demands Corporate’s e up with i…” She checked her smartwatch. “…Four hours since we clocked out.”

  “H-How are you not feeling as dead as I feel?” Hajime pined.

  “I got to shower earlier!” Bridget yelled as she left him behind.

  Hajime s his armpit, his nose ging at the strong odor wafting out of him that his deodorant barely cealed. “I wish I had time to shower…or have breakfast…”

  A nap and a ge of clothes were all Hajime could manage iime he had before ing back to work after another all-nighter. There were a lot of those retly. Weeks of ch time and rushed work all because their corporate overlords insisted the studio keep to its highly unrealistic release date pns for their riple-A game.

  “I’m going to die from overwork…”

  As the lead game designer for the test installment of the pany’s blockbuster franchise, Space Age: the Dread Fool, Hajime oversaw nearly every aspect of game design. From cepts, characters, settings, storyline, and gamepy—he led the development team in ensuring the group’s overall vision came to life in anroundbreaking virtual masterpiece. At least that’s what his job looked like on paper. Iy, Hajime, one of the st of the O.G. staff that had helped turn his gaming pany into a triple-A studio, had also been put in charge of ‘Project Ma for Development’ sihe guy who had the job before him quit due to the high-stress enviro of today’s gaming industry. Corporate promised it was a tempig, but three months had passed sihen, and Hajime was still grinding it.

  With a defeated sigh, Hajime stepped out of the elevator.

  The first thing he saw once he exited into the expansive white space of the studio’s lobby was the logo that fshed on the white wall to greet arrivals.

  WELE TO BIOSOFT

  “Bakayar? …” He flipped his once beloved studio logo the middle finger before it vanished bato the wall. “I’m going tn today.”

  Hajime didn’t resign though. He couldn’t. It wasn’t in his nature to quit no matter how grueling the challenge was because he had been raised with the honorable samurai spirit of his mothernd which he tio uphold even in this gloomy, smog-filled New York weather.

  So, while mentally and physically exhausted, Hajime Hideo Miyamoto, a Japanese-born thirty-six-year-old man once uded as a game-developing prodigy who’d rehe public’s i in the possibilities of virtual reality games, spent his st day as a free soul sving for the studio he once loved. Still, a m of grueliings with the corporate overlords over discussions of cutting tent for the sake of hitting Space Age’s unrealistic release date was the worst start for aaxing day.

  “’t we just cut out the third act of the story and repackage it as downloadable tent ter?” one of the faceless suits suggested. “A DLC will make us more money, won’t it?”

  “C-Cut out the third a-act?!” Hajime sputtered.

  He was so frustrated by this suggestion of btant greed that his samurai spirit seemed ready to burst out of him so that it might cut down the offensive speakerphone from which the greedy devil’s voice exuded.

  “Without a third act there’s no ending, you—”

  In the nick of time, Bridget reached over to the speakerphone and pressed the mute button.

  “—bakayar?!” Hajime howled.

  “What was that, Hajime?” asked another faceless suit. A female ohis time. “We didn’t catch the st part?”

  Bridget mouthed ‘Calm down,’ while the other leads around the table repressed their giggles.

  “Ahere?” asked the faceless male suit.

  “Did we get cut off…?” added the faceless female suit.

  At the head of the fereable, Chris—the game’s gaunt-faced, sandy-haired, mustachioed Executive Producer—sighed heavily. He shrugged in a defeated manner and whispered, “Uhe darn thing so we get this horseshit over with.”

  With a wink at Hajime, Bridget uhe call. “Suys. Teical difficulties on our end…”

  By the time the meeting from hell was over, Hajime’s soul looked ready to flee his body. He would’ve remained crestfallen for the rest of the day too were it not for the cup of instant ramen noodles that he found waiting for him at his desk afterward. A Post-it note apahis veritable potion of healing.

  ‘Keep pushing back against those bloodsug bastards — B.’

  A wan smile flitted across Hajime’s face. “Arigatou, Bridget-san…”

  In his mind, Hajime recalled his patriot’s appearahe shoulder-length blonde hair framing Bridget’s oval yet square-jawed fad the wide cheekbohat made her smile seem more promi—yes, Bridget Fowling was indeed Hajime’s guardian angel.

  Thoughts et and his one-sided crush on her filled Hajime’s brain, reinf him for another day of managing underpaid programmers and designers, who, like Hajime, were sacrifig their mental health and family time in the name of honor—and not disappointing the legions of fans who loved their studio in a way they’ve fotten. Typically, this led to another all-nighter that ended with Hajime crashing onto his bed without the strength to even brush his teeth.

  “I’ll resign in…” He just had enough left in him to check the clo his bedside table. “…two and a half hours…”

  Hajime yawned.

  “I’ll do it this time. Hontoudesu…”

  As these words spilled from his mouth, Hajime, with tears poolih his closed eyelids, fell into a deep sleep. He wasn’t waking up in two and a half hours either.

  Earlier, when Rowan had asked Bram to think of a mortal who could aid them in their great uaking, the prince had drawn a bnk. His knowledge of the other world wasn’t omnipotent. her did Bram know the inner ws of the ‘virtual reality’ that he deemed was the perfect tool for fooling the humans of the other world. However, there was one phrase from his visions that Bram recalled with strange crity…

  “Game designer,” he whispered.

  Bram couldn’t say how he khat phrase, which vision had taught him these words, or why ‘Game Designer’ evoked such passionate and wistful refles in him. The ohing he was certain of was that they needed someone who could design the narrative they wished to push forward.

  “A single phrase isn’t much to go on,” there was the barest hint of a furrowed brow on Rowan’s face, “but perhaps if we bi with your ideas…we may find the missing pieces of this puzzle.”

  With her eyes closed, Rowan’s head swiveled to the right, then to the left, and then back to the right. These same motioed tinuously and quickly—so quickly that afterimages were formed, making it seem like the trickster had many heads instead of one.

  Bram could only watch as this bizarre sight tinued for long seds…

  Then, without warning, Rowan’s eyes flew open. She gasped, fiightening around the prince’s hands. She might have stumbled out of the air if Bram hadn’t been supp her.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I looked into the lives of twenty million mortals,” she whispered.

  Roaused, Bram waited on bated breath, and time seemed to extend into hours before the trickster raised a finger.

  “I’ve found him,” she revealed. “One person iy million lives. The only mortal with the talent to aid us in beginning rand uaking.”

  “Only one?” Bram asked doubtfully.

  Rowan nodded. “For the role that you desire—just the one, My Prince.”

  The siy in Rowan’s gaze washed away the doubt from Bram’s mind, leaving a spa his brain that was quickly filled with a spark of anticipation.

  “Then we must bring them here this very moment,” he insisted.

  The trickster smiled impishly. “‘Tis already begun.”

  At her words, the line of blood spiraling around the chamber's heart began to glow an eerie crimson hue.

  “We need only wait while the ritual harkens to the one beyond the veil between worlds, and like a siren i, drag this poor mortal’s soul into the depths of Aarde.”

  A long while passed while they waited yet the summoning remained unfulfilled, causing a frown to grow on Bram’s face. He was so bored that he was just about ready to burst into song to kill some time. The only reason he hadn’t yet was because he didn’t want to risk disrupting Rowan’s ritual.

  “Could the ritual have failed?” he asked.

  “Patience,” Rowan chided. “It takes lohan ten mio steal a mortal’s soul from another world.”

  “Will all our future summoning rituals be this…challenging?” Bram pressed.

  “The first time is always hardest,” Rowan expined. “Though once a soul is summohe need for the ritual disappears so long as a tract is established between the summoner and the one who was summoned.”

  “A tract…”

  A memory fshed in Bram’s mind, one of Roressing her lips against his ned drinking his blood.

  The trickster noticed his paling pallor and giggled.

  “‘Tis nothing like the bargain you and I have struck,” she promised Bram. “The method will be less intimate.”

  Relief filled the prince’s mind, although he wasn’t certain if the thought of having to drink the blood of legions or the idea that Rowan might have to fulfill this task herself was what caused his stomach to .

  “Will I have to establish tracts with a thousand souls?” Bram wondered aloud.

  In his mind, the prinew that ohousand otherworlders was a very servative estimate. For the great uaking’s success, millions would have to be called into service.

  “Binding thousands of souls to yourself would be inadvisable.” Rowan’s reply indicated that she thought the same as him. “Though such dark sorcery might give you great power, it would drive any mortal mad, turning you into a destroyer rather than the benevolent ruler you hope to bee.”

  A dark look fshed orickster’s face.

  “Only a god would sider such depravity,” she grumbled. “To attempt it yourself would mean a challehat their pantheon ot ignore…”

  “…And we’re not ready for a frontation with the gods,” Bram agreed.

  “Not yet,” Rowan sighed heavily. “Not while I remain in this weakeate.”

  With all that she’s shown him, Bram couldn’t imagine ever calling Rowan weak. It made him wonder just how powerful the rebel trickster of legend truly was during her prime.

  “Iure, we shall set up a more petehod of summoning the otherworlders to Aarde,” Rowaerated. “It shall require a proper summoning circle in Lotharin with a simir totem oher side to ensure a stable e between our two worlds.”

  Once more, the vision of the bck box and visor flitted across Bram’s mind. He thought that such a device would suffice as a totem, though he would have to discuss it with the mortal who was taking their time arriving on Aarde.

  Bram let out an exasperated sigh.

  “Patience,” Rowan reminded him.

  More time passed, and with his impatience growing further, Bram’s eyes drifted down to the glowing lines of blood. His gaze followed them to their source—the red grizzly’s corpse.

  “Why is a blood sacrifiecessary?” he asked.

  “Apart from emp the ritual, the blood offered shall be the matter that fes the body the otherworlder’s soul reside in,” Rowan answered. “We will need a stant supply for every first summoning. Not just blood—”

  “—But the way the sacrifice is sin matters too?”

  “A violent ending strehe ritual.”

  “Then we’ll o train soldiers for the hunting and sying of beasts to sacrifice…”

  Bram’s brow creased at the thought of tainting his soldiers with his sins. Then again, not a lot of them were trustworthy enough for this part of the great uaking.

  “We’d need a skilled group reliable and noble enough to work with…”

  Noble…

  This word brought baemories to the forefront of Bram’s mind; a night in the woods celebrating in the pany of hieves.

  “The Mighty Greenwood Gang do know how to hunt,” he mused aloud. “We’ll also require sorcerers who perform the first summoning rituals… I ’t have you stuck here and focused on just this oask…”

  “And I would never agree to such a b assig,” Rowan replied with a giggle. Her hand brushed against his hand. “My pce is by your side, though my focus will be on maintaining the Loom’s operation. So, I hope you don’t expect me to fight as well.”

  Bram shook his head. “I’ll swing my sword enough for the both of us.”

  It romise he meant to keep even if the numerous lives he would take as a result turned him into a demon of the bde, one ed by the thought of murder. Such damnation would be a small price for the great uaking’s success.

  Bram’s brooding didn’t st long though, for their wait was finally at an end. The prind the trickster were enveloped in a fsh of brilliant crimson. When the light had gone seds ter, they became wito an incredible sight.

  The lines of blood by the tral crevice rose into the air to weave an intricate pattern of roots that were the veins at the core of man’s form. From these veins grew sturdy bone and pulsing an that muscle and sinew would around. Skin and hair spread over flesh, and soon enough, Bram and Rowan were no longer alone.

  A an-skinned man with dark hair was standing close by, his snted eyes widening as he looked upon his kidnappers.

  GD_Cruz