Chapter Seventeen – The Hunt for Bugbear

There was a level of disappointment involved when we finally left Variak. I’d done so once before, even going so far as to leave the safe zone for my visit to Dungeon Home. I’d done that alone though. Now I was here with others and didn’t feel quite so afraid.

I well remembered Miss Tutorial’s warning that dinosaurs might eat me outside of safe zones. Last time, seeing Bugbear again had been worth the risk to me. Seeing him in my original form.

That was still my goal, but I needed a bit of direction first.

I pulled out Francis’s flute.

“What’s that?” Akwa asked curiously. Bellcandy seemed just as curious, looking at the item as I held it out for Akwa’s inspection.

Francis’s Flute

Signals Developers that Gell the Jellyfae is in need of assistance when blown.

Soulbound

I let them read the description of the item and both of them blinked. “Wait, this alerts the developers? Like the actual game developers? And what? They just… come when you call?”

I flushed, a little embarrassed but not sure why. “Y-yeah?”

“Holy shit, they really did meet you. Did… did they create you, Gell?” Akwa asked. She tried to make the question sound casual, like she didn’t care much about the answer, but there was a fervor in her eyes that made me a little uncomfortable

“No. At least, Francis says he didn’t. He said I was made by another developer. One they haven’t been able to find. They said he might be… uhm. Dead. Y-your world’s kind of dead. Not mine,” I said softly, remembering that conversation. Remembering when I learned that my entire world was a lie, a game. A way for real people to have fun.

I tried not to be bitter, and it was easier than I might’ve thought. When I died, I came back. That wasn’t true for any of my friends. Apparently, just living through cycles would kill them all sooner or later. I couldn’t hate them for making an entertaining world where they would be safe a permanent end for the time that they had.

This world was mine. My game. My lie. As real to me as any adventurer had ever been.

Akwa noticed the look in my eyes and decided to change the subject. “So uhm, they just come whenever you call?”

“I’ve only used it once, and one of them did. It wasn’t Francis himself though. I’m… hoping they might have more information on where we should go from here. Honestly, I have no idea where Bugbear might have gone. All I know is that I’m pretty sure he left Dungeon Home.”

I was also terrified that they would tell me they’d already found him. Already removed the part of him that made him different. The part of him that defied the instinct.

“Pretty sure?” Bellcandy asked with an annoyed eye roll. “Ughh this is going to be the biggest wild goose chase ever isn’t it?”

“I… I don’t know,” I replied before taking back the flute. “Hopefully Francis or Tyrone can help us.”

“Well, at least we get to meet one of the freaking developers. That is actually pretty cool,” Akwa said to Bellcandy.

Bellcandy took a moment to ponder that, putting a hand to his chin before nodding. “Good point. Let’s hope we find this Bugbear of yours alive and well though, eh Gell?”

“Alive and… well? Bugbear can’t die like you guys do. Either we find him alive or we won’t find him at all,” I said, assuredly.

Bellcandy held up a finger before dropping it back down. “Huh. I… it’s an expression, Gell. Alive and Well. It doesn’t usually literally mean alive and… and well. Except when it does. It… gah.”

“Actually, that’s a good point,” Akwa piped up. “If Bugbear dies, wouldn’t he just respawn here at Dungeon Home?”

I frowned. “Are you suggesting we just wait for him to die? I’ve only died once since Francis turned me into an adventurer like you guys but it doesn’t hurt like it does for NPCs. No! I want to find him and protect him, okay?”

She held up her hands. “Just saying, Gell. It’s a mob. It’s going to die sooner or later.”

“He isn’t just a mob. He’s my friend, and I’m not going to let him get hurt if I can prevent it!” I insisted, getting a bit angry.

She shrugged. “Fine, fine. It’s not like it’d be very exciting waiting around for a wandering mob to die anyway.”

I glared at her, but let it drop after a minute. Akwa didn’t have to be here. In fact, neither of them gained much by spending their time helping me find my erstwhile friend. We disagreed on how to treat my Kin but that didn’t mean they weren’t my friends.

“Thanks,” I said. “Sorry. I just… I care about him. I don’t know if you guys can understand, but for almost all of my life, Bugbear was the only thing that changed. The only thing that kept me interested in becoming something more than the instinct made me.”

Bellcandy smiled at me, as bright and cheery as he’d ever been, despite whatever Dull Beauty had done to frustrate him.

Akwa seemed more reserved but gave a conciliatory nod before gesturing. “If he’s important to you, he’s important to us, Gell. Go on. Summon us a wild Developer to destroy our enemies! Or… at least to find our friends.”

I laughed and put the flute to my lips.

The note wasn’t beautiful or anything, and not for the first time I was annoyed that I couldn’t make pretty sounds like North Cross’s harp. The same as last time, the warp of teleportation came a few moments of quiet waiting later.

Francis himself appeared out of the warp into the shining third-cycle sunshine, and I couldn’t help a sad little pout at the fact that it wasn’t Tyrone. I was glad to see him though. I needed to talk to Francis again.

One of the things that had never changed about Tread the Sky, even after all I’d learned since escaping dungeon home and being cursed or blessed with a human form was the rotation of the cycles. Thirty-four cycles. Thirty-four different weather patterns, with a few random extra ones on occasion. Night and day lasted for a cycle each. Odd cycles were daylight, even ones, night time, based on how I’d numbered them anyway. This was the third cycle in the thirty-four cycle loop. While the weather in the third cycle was absolutely comfortable, I suspected Francis Delaney could look uncaringly bored and tired no matter how rough the cycle’s weather. The blizzards of cycle thirty-three, or the rainstorms of twenty-seven and sixteen, Francis would stand there in the middle of it all, sipping Saint Joe without a care in the world.

Maybe that was just another power that came with being a false god? Being unaffected by weather?

Akwa and Bellcandy seemed poleaxed. Both of them looked a little star-struck, just like those people in the Builder’s guild had been when I’d first met Francis. Despite his strange clothing though, I still didn’t see anything different between him and my friends though.

“Gell. What a pleasant surprise! I was just about to contact you. I see you’re still in human form. Taken a liking to a regular body?” He asked, before taking a loud sip from his coffee mug.

I folded inward. Was I?

“I… don’t…”

I still wasn’t comfortable in this body. No matter how much time I spent as a human I still felt like my skin wasn’t right around me. I was a Jellyfae, but I was also a human because all my friends were human. As a Jellyfae, I couldn’t relate to them. As a Jellyfae… I had no one.

Unless I found Bugbear anyway. At least I might have him.

“Gell?” Francis asked.

“Yeah. Just… yeah. I’m sorry. I just realized that maybe I am becoming more comfortable like... this.” I said, trying and failing to hide the disgust in my voice.

Francis’s eyes widened. “Oh. I’m sorry Gell. That was… that didn’t come out like I intended. I know you aren’t human and… well, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s something I have to deal with.” I stated, shaking myself out of my grim thoughts. “Listen. Did Tyrone talk to you?”

He wrinkled an eyebrow before making a wary glance at Akwa and Bellcandy. “He… did.”

“So? Uhm. Were you guys able to find Bugbear? And… did he mention my request?” I asked anxiously.

Francis sighed. “If Bugbear is out there roaming the system against his behavioral code we haven’t been able to find him. We can’t exactly just search for mobs based on the amount of personality they’re coded with and their location stat changes with them. We are searching for him. If and when we do find him, we’ll likely do the same thing for him that we did for you. Heaven forbid he pick up more than six items and get me paged at one a.m. again.”

I watched Akwa look to Bellcandy and mouth the words “Six items?” I giggled when Bellcandy made an amusing face and shrugged.

Francis grinned, amused. “For what it's worth, it makes more sense for him to have gone East rather than west. The level of monsters out that way is quite high and I feel like we would have livestream of players encountering Bugbear by now if he had gone towards the more populated areas.

I smiled. That was good. Bugbear had gone where he would be safer. Maybe he would’ve gone where he’d assume I would go. Somewhere that bigger and stronger members of my kin could protect me. To him, adventurers were probably still the enemy. But he’d protected me from the other, less developed Bugbears. Would he remember that?

Or… maybe he just chose a direction at random?

I ran a frustrated hand through my hair tendrils, feeling them float around. My freckles glowed an anxious orange. On the one hand, Francis not finding him was good news. On the other…

“If… if he picks up that many items will it break the world again? Like… like I did?” I asked, worriedly.

Akwa blinked. “You broke the world?”

Francis grinned at Akwa. “You know the Wighthollow Downs? That area of the game that was generated for about an hour at midnight a few months back? That was thanks to Gell here crashing one of the servers on accident. Keep that close to the vest though, eh? It was fixed easily enough and actually created some unusual locations and terrain, once we tweaked it a little. Win win.”

“Oh hey, yeah I heard about that. Most of it is too high level for us to visit though,” Bellcandy said.

I hadn’t heard about this, and was a little curious to ask more but…

They just… tweaked it. They tweaked the world. I wanted to know how. To understand.

“H-how? Uhm. I mean. Francis, did Tyrone ask you about the other thing?” I asked, now even more anxious than I had been before.

Francis got a pained look on his face. “Well. I think that covers it. Gell, I hope you can find your Bugbear. If you do, let me know. We can make him a player like you. If the game can support one of you, it can surely support two.”

My eye twitched. Was he ignoring me?

“That’s… great. Thanks, Francis. But, about my other ques–!”

“Gell,” he said harshly and I flinched at the ferocity of it. “Remember” he paused, “everything you say and do is subject to the board’s oversight. If they decide you are too dangerous to keep around they will remove you. Learning to program? Learning to be a developer? It's not in the cards for you. I’m not even necessarily telling you ‘No’ for them, though. For my own peace of mind, it is not wise to allow you to learn how this world works at that level.”

I flinched as if slapped. “But… why!? I could help! If I could learn how it works I could fix it! I could… I could maybe make it real!”

Francis’s eyes narrowed in a way that genuinely scared me a little.

“That is what terrifies me, Gell. No. I won’t allow you to learn programming. For your own good, as well as the game’s. Please be happy with what I can do.”

Bellcandy and Akwa were looking between us uncomfortably but I barely noticed turning my glare back on Francis. “This is so unfair! I live here! Don’t I have a right to know how my world works?”

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “You aren’t… Gell I’m trying to keep you alive, okay? Keep asking questions like that and not only will the board demand I erase you, they will make me do it or lose my job. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I hope you find Bugbear.”

With that, he winked out of existence. He didn’t teleport. He just vanished.

My teeth grit against each other. My fists were shaking. I wanted to pound my foot on the ground. Punch something. I settled on the nearest tree and shocked it, frustrated when it didn’t react at all.

“Why!? Why, Francis! I…”

“Gell… maybe. Maybe it's for the best for now. Okay?” Bellcandy said consolingly. “You should learn more about our world before trying to understand how yours works. Maybe then, once you’ve earned his trust, he’ll help you.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Akwa piped up. “It sounds like he’s trying to keep her and everyone else safe. I’m glad to see he cares enough to protect…”

She trailed off, leaving what Francis was protecting left unsaid.

I barely heard them.

“Come on then. Let’s go find my friend,” I said. If I couldn’t understand my dead world, at least I might be able to share it with Bugbear.

Besides, there were other false gods.