Meanwhile…

There was no pain, no torture, no more exquisite torment… than a voice call.

Tammy was struggling to psych herself up. She’d managed to get through most of her career in Conquest of Souls with minimal vocal interaction. Used in-game chat whenever possible and kept her mic muted whenever she could get away with it.

But she couldn’t hide behind her character, Clive, until he respawned on Tuesday. And she couldn’t stay muted in a one-on-one call, either. Without Andrew and Mel gossiping to fill any moment of silence, or Orlina and Juri stepping up to get shit done, or fucking Rumi being a creepy little shit, she didn’t have a choice.

So it was time for the last resort.

“Hello,” Tammy said into her mic as it played her own speech back to her through her headphones. She pitched her voice low and gravelly as she could, trying to mimic Clive’s in-game voice. It was still too high. She downshifted again. “Hello. Hello. Hello! Hello? Hello… Hell… Oh?”

Every time was just not quite right. Her natural voice was way too high now. Too much practice. She coughed twice, cleared her throat, and took a long sip of too-hot tea with honey.

“I’m Batman,” she said, putting on the lowest, most gravelly voice she could. That was way closer than anything she’d tried so far. “Swear to me! Where are they? Where’s Rachel?” Her natural voice was so high she still sounded more like Margot Robbie than Christian Bale, but it was the closest she could get without screaming until she had laryngitis.

She wanted to keep trying. But there wasn’t time. The message popped up and flashed, telling her that she was receiving a call request from Fidelis.

Tammy swallowed hard, and accepted the call.

“Clive!” Fidelis said, with clear enthusiasm. “Great. Thanks for talking to me. Sorry if I’m a little scattered, got a lot going on right now to get this in order.”

“No problem,” Tammy said in her Batman voice. “We’re all just waiting to respawn, right? Ha ha.” She cringed at how bad her laugh sounded. She just said “ha” like it was a word.

“First, I really gotta tell you,” Fidelis began, apparently too self-absorbed to think about Tammy’s shitty voice acting skills. “Don’t say anything to the others, but you’ve always been my favorite officer. Everyone else wants to claw a piece of my power off of me within the guild, but you’re out there every day, building your own and making yourself better. I have nothing but respect for you, man.”

Tammy gritted her teeth, letting him ramble. She wanted him to get to the fucking point, but Fidelis was used to dealing with the others, and every one of them wanted their ego stroked before business could be done.

Or they wanted something else stroked.

“As far as I’m concerned, you did more than anyone else against the Merciless One,” Fidelis went on. “You kidnapped his little butt buddy and almost took him out yourself, with your own underlings. And you did it without asking for help. Before we even knew what we were dealing with.”

“You know me,” Tammy grumbled. “Just doing what’s put in front of me.”

“And the man is humble!” Fidelis said with a laugh. “But it’s not nothing. You almost took him out without anyone’s support. If you knew what you were up against, and took him on with proper preparation, you coulda got him. If anyone deserves a second shot, it’s you.”

Tammy almost blurted out “what are you talking about?” without Batman-ifying her voice. She hid it with a cough before growling: “what do you mean?”

“You guys all know I’ve got connections,” Fidelis said, his voice turning cold and calm.

Tammy tried not to let the shift in his attitude spook her.

“I was hoping I would never have to use them. But that’s how favors work, I suppose. You can’t take them with you, after all.” He laughed and there was a darkness behind it. “It’s a risky proposition, and it will demand a sacrifice. But I want only the best for it.”

“And you think I’m one of them?” Tammy asked.

“Without a doubt,” Fidelis said instantly. “Mel and Andrew cost us everything with their harebrained schemes. I’ll never be able to trust them again. But you? I know I can count on you. I always could.”

Tammy wanted to argue, but instead kept her lips pressed together. She stared at Fidelis’s bearded portrait image on the chat client. Despite whatever physical distance was between them, his intensity scared her a little. The hair on the back of her neck was standing up and tingling.

“This is not the end,” Fidelis said, almost snarling the words. “I won’t let it be. Andrew and his genius Plague-escape idea, and Mel with her honorable sacrifice to deal with the blowback. Their incompetence can’t sink what I’ve built. What we’ve built.” There was a thump as his fist hit his desk. “Last of the Strong is bigger than this!”

Tammy swallowed hard. She felt a mad urge to say something snarky about overcompensation, but she just needed to stay quiet. Fidelis was on one of his big dramatic kicks, and she just had to sit and listen until he was done.

As usual.

“We’re going to rebuild, of course,” Fidelis continued. “Bigger and better than ever. That can’t happen without you. Our Architect. And so I want to give you a show of good faith. You get first dibs. You get in on my plan, and the opportunity it offers. And I promise, I’ll do right by you when we’re climbing back to the top again.”

She almost blurted out that she was planning to quit.

Tammy had been looking for an excuse before now and this was the perfect chance. Clive was dead and all her gear was gone, and she couldn’t even requisition replacements from the guild.

She didn’t want to farm another Cosmic Barrette. Tammy just didn’t have that kind of time anymore.

Even the housing game she was passionate about was stagnant. She was getting bored with how infrequently Fray was adding new housing items.

But more than that, she was fucking tired.

She was tired of these people and their petty infighting.

She was tired of this guild and its stranglehold on Inoha, eliminating all the challenges that she once found exciting.

She was tired of this fucking game.

And this whole incident was the perfect chance to cut the old part of her life out and leave it behind at last. She wanted to find a new MMO family where people would know her real voice. Where she could relax and be herself.

But she couldn’t say that.

The things Tammy was tired of were the things Fidelis had built his whole identity around. He didn’t have anything else going on. No real life friends. Not even a partner or spouse. His job was slave-wage retail that barely kept him online.

If she said anything, she would be spitting in his face and saying his life was worthless.

Even if he didn’t know where she lived or even what she looked like - or even that she was a woman - a tiny voice in the back of her mind warned that if she offered him that kind of insult, it could be the last mistake she ever makes.

“What do you need?” she growled instead. The fake voice felt all the more fake from her insincerity.

“Excellent,” Fidelis said, so absorbed in his plan for how this was going to go that he didn’t even notice how unenthusiastic she sounded. “I knew I could count on you, man. Not like the rest of those pussies.”

Tammy felt gross.

She was going to have to take a shower after this.

“Remember, this isn’t a crisis,” Fidelis continued. There was a familiar squealing noise that she knew was the ancient computer chair that his cheap mic picked up every time he adjusted his weight. “This is an opportunity. I’m going to make you a king for a day. And then we’re going to work together to make ourselves gods tomorrow. And we’re going to leave the chaff behind.”

“So what is the plan?” Tammy growled. “What do you need from me?”

“Long term?” Fidelis asked with a cackle. “We’re going to stop being midcore as fuck. We’ve been straddling the line between Intricacy and Battle Orders. And we’ve been backsliding towards Intricacy for over a year. We’re not here to be casual scum like them, are we? No. We’re the Last of the Fucking Strong. We’re going to put Battle Orders in the number two for world first someday, right?”

Fidelis paused, obviously waiting for a response.

“Right,” Tammy grumbled, before the pause could become awkward.

“Damn right,” Fidelis agreed. His chair squeaked again. “Let’s get down to brass tacks. I’m going to call an emergency officer meeting. Whatever you’ve got going on, cancel it. Make sure you’re there. Because I’m going to ask for volunteers. And I need you to be one of them.”

Tammy winced at that. Unlike Fidelis, her free time didn’t revolve around this game. She didn’t want to have to cancel movie night with Bryce. Or, even worse, call out of D&D.

But what choice did she have? This was what she hated about voice calls. She didn’t have time to think about the consequences of her actions until the other person was beating her over the head with them.

“Okay,” she said, struggling to hide her resignation. “I’ll be there.”