"For your first assignment, you are to complete quests in the Kalyx City zone until you gain enough reputation to trade in for a Kalyx City faith token. This should take less than a week, and also provide opportunities for you to level. It does not matter how much time you dedicate to the task. Simply ensure that you have at least one Kalyx City faith token to turn in by this time next week."

"Understood and acknowledged," Maya replied. "I have been meaning to ask, though. Is there any sort of housing provided? Right now all I have is the noob apartment over by the beginner plaza. Oh, and do we get a bonus if we get more than one token?"

"If you require a secure safe location, Domitius's compound west of Kalyx is open to you. And of course any additional resources you're able to collect will hasten our goals. If you wish to earn multiple faith tokens, by all means do so."

"Rominian must turn those things in like candy."

The trickster on the other end of the connection laughed. "If you consider Rominian as your example, then you will do very well. Good luck."

Maya turned to Julios. "Our mission is to collect Kalyx city faith tokens. And my Dust of Recall was confiscated. Do you have any?”

“Yes. In fact, I have yours.”

He handed her the pouch, and she tossed it into the air while he did the same. After they stepped into the sparkling field, froze and waited out the countdown, they reappeared at the Nirsym City leypillar and from there were able to transit to Kalyx City without any problem.

Maya considered the quest board dubiously. “Any suggestions for where to start?" She would have gone for non-combat quests if she were alone, but she doubted Julios would see it the same way.

"Oh yes. I've been running Kalyx quests for three days now! Follow me, Emma."

"Then lead on."

Of course, it wasn't as simple as that. Maya had to put up with constant running commentary from her partner. Julios was convinced that he knew everything, Maya knew nothing, and the best way to rectify that was to tell her everything all at once.

She quickly tuned him out in favor of considering the landscape they traversed. He’d set them on a northward trajectory, heading along the trade path toward the second town which Maya hadn’t visited and couldn’t remember the name of.

The grasslands were grassy, and the hills hilly, and the distant mountains quite mountainous.

The landscape was still more interesting than listening to Julios.

Finally, after far too long, they arrived at the little town where Julios declared they would begin their crusade. Of course, he didn’t say as much in so few or concise words, but that's what he meant.

Maya was really getting tired of him by now.

“First, we should check to ensure the quests haven’t been finished by anyone else before we got here,” Julios declared, and proceeded to do just that.

The townspeople he asked all shook their heads and seemed quite confused by his offer of help.

Maya tried asking some, but they were apt to glare and slam doors rather than engage in a conversation with her.

It seemed her -100 luck did nothing to endear her to the locals.

“Well, this is pointless,” Maya said, when they’d finished looking for quests from everyone in the town. “Is there anything else you’d like to suggest?”

“Naturally, we need simply wait. Another quest will appear. Until then, best to start gathering the supplies we’ll surely need.”

“And those would be?”

“Trophies from all the monsters around, naturally. If they decide they want wolf pelts or goblin spears or rat tails or drile wings, we’ll be ready.”

“What’s a drile?”

Julios considered for a moment before answering. “Rather like if you took a rat, but gave it wings for feet, and curled horns. Very skittish. Hard to catch. Their quest only shows up uncommonly, but it tends to be more rewarding than those of its level—”

He continued rambling on about quest rarity and monsters in the area, and Maya stopped listening to him.

If they were about to be fighting, that could be a problem. She still couldn’t use her energy.

Though she’d been freed for hours, Domitius had failed to mention how to dispel whatever debuff his people had inflicted her with, which was beginning to really annoy her. She relied on magic very heavily. Throw Knife was her only combat ability that didn’t require energy. How did he expect her to help kill anything with her energy at 0?

“Julios, do you have a spare sword or something I could borrow?” Maya asked, cutting across whatever he’d been saying.

“I do, but not with me. Why?”

“I’m a mage, but my energy is currently locked at zero for some reason.”

Julios frowned. “Really? I’ve never heard of something like that.”

“Well, you know, I was a prisoner until very recently.”

“If none of the goblins drop something usable, we’ll stop back at town,” Julios decided.

“Sounds fine to me.” Until then, Maya drew her throwing knives. It wouldn’t be the same as a supercharged Wind Whisper, or a Windborne Blade that could probably oneshot a low level foe, but it was better than nothing.

Maya tuned him out again. She needed to consider her plans for the future, and how in the world she’d get out of this ridiculous situation she’d landed herself in the middle of.

She’d had a lot of time to think during her imprisonment, a lot of time to consider who she was and what she wanted from her new life.

As much as it had been stressful and horrifying, it had also been strangely freeing. A chance to step outside the moment to moment rush that kept her constantly running behind schedule.

And she wasn’t sure she liked what she saw.

She couldn’t be sure if she’d always been impulsive, always been forgetful, always been stubborn, always been so maddeningly oblivious. But her reaction to Sevard’s suggestions regarding fixing her problems had been so ingrained, so instinctive, she rather suspected her mental issues weren’t new.

Yet the thought of changing who she was terrified her. She may have problems, yes, she may be as frustrating to others as she was to herself, but at least her frustrations were familiar. She may hate parts of who she was, but could it be worth the risk of losing the parts she liked?

She hadn’t thought so a week ago. But that was when she could ignore her issues, put them off with action and pretend that all that mattered was moving forward.

Silent, lonely contemplation had a way of exposing one’s weaknesses. There was nowhere to run from her demons, nothing to distract her.

And she’d realized a few important things.

She didn’t like who she was. And she wasn’t doing anything to change it. She constantly made excuses, as though being stuck with what she’d been dealt was inevitable.

That may have been true on earth, in the 2020s. But was it still? She was a digital representation of a person, living in a hyper-realistic video game hundreds of years into what she still thought of as the future.

She still hadn’t come to any decisive conclusions one way or the other. Days of thinking still only cracked the shell of who she’d been before, insufficient to reshape her entirely. But it let her start to think beyond the instincts she still carried from her real life, to see the lies she told herself (and everyone else) for what they were.

Maya Stader/Starborn/Twinkle/Circe/Emma/whoever else she pretended to be, was not okay.

And as terrifying as it was to consider changing who she was, it scared her even more to imagine how easily she could have remained the same forever. If she’d just kept acting like everything was fine, like nothing mattered, she could have whiled away the centuries jumping from one diversion to the next.

She might have spent eternity running from herself, never realizing that escape was impossible.

“Maya Starborn?”

Maya stiffened and glanced at Julios. She hadn’t expected Sevard’s voice to break into her thoughts, though she probably should have.

"Yes, that's me."

“Hm?” Julios asked, looking around. “Ohhh, another call?”

"Maya? Finally! I haven't been able to get through to you in days. Everything you said came out garbled. Did you say Zarene had captured you? Did you escape? Where are you?"

“Who is it? Do we have new instructions? There aren’t as many monsters around today as there should be, in my opinion. Probably Shardlord interfering again.”

"We are looking for quests around Kalyx city as ordered," Maya said stiffly, gesturing for Julios to shut up. "Domitius needn't worry, we'll have the tokens in time."

Sevard laughed. "I see. Am I correct in assuming that you are not alone and cannot speak freely right now?"

"Yes."

"I didn't realize Domitius was going for low levels these days. I guess you're his now?"

"Not necessarily."

"Really? My, you are one to wriggle out of things." Sevard fell silent for a moment. "Is your current problem of the nature I could solve with discrete application of violence?"

Maya toggled her PVP flag on long enough to check. Julios did not have his on, so she flipped hers off again as well. "No."

"Do you require assistance? Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No. I think we’re good. I'll check in if I have any questions. Thank you."

"I take it our current arrangement will have to be put on hold though? If you're an acting Domitian now, will you have any time for little old me?"

"If you're that concerned, you're welcome to join us. We'll be running quests around Kalyx so it should be easy enough to find us."

"No!" Julios protested. "We don't need help, and we don't need supervision! I've got this. Emma, tell him I got this."

"Julios insists we do not need help." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "He's very convinced that he's got this."

"Julios? Hang on a sec.” Sevard fell silent, then finally laughed. “Level 12? Is he the only one?"

"Yes. He's doing a fine job," Maya smirked. "We haven't been attacked by anything he couldn't handle."

Sevard laughed.

Julios frowned. "Are you making fun of me?"

"Have we been attacked by something you can’t handle, then?"

"Well, no. But level three goblins would hardly pose much—"

"Then shush," Maya cut him off.

"So Domitius assigned you to do noob quests around Kalyx with this Julios. Do you want an out? Toggle on PVP, I can kill you, and you can respawn wherever you like."

She could. She could disappear, switch to Twinkle, and she and Sevard could be off before anyone knew any better.

But as annoying as Julios was, she had to make some good-faith effort before ditching Domitius and disappearing. She didn’t want to run and hide from the most powerful group in the game if she didn’t have to.

"You can check on us tomorrow, if you want, but I think we're good for today."

"You sure?"

"Positive. Emma out."

Julios took that as the signal to start talking again.

Maya immediately regretted her decision.

“You know,” she interrupted, “we might make more progress if we split up.”

“Why would that help? We’ll kill things half as quickly.”

“Yes, but we’re spending more time walking between groups of enemies than actually fighting. If we split up, we can kill more things and get more loot.”

Maybe…?

But Julios shook his head. “Protecting you is more important. We’ll stick together.”

Maya sighed. She could come right out and say ‘as long as you’re with me, the loot will remain absolutely minimal’ but his loyalty was kind of adorable. Who needs a pet when you’ve got a guard-sprite?

She giggled, then realized how odd that would be out of nowhere, and tried to think of a way to cover it.

But Julios didn’t seem to notice; he’d already started telling her about the upcoming shift of daytime monsters to nighttime monsters in the region.

“—should be on the lookout because there are rumors of a few very rare mini-bosses that hang out around here. The Overdrile, the Goblin Champion, the Great White Rat. I hope to find one someday, but not while you’re basically weaponless.”

Maya shrugged, pretending to listen while she returned to her own musings.

Shardlord thought she was spying for Domitius. Domitius thought she had betrayed everyone else and joined him. Zarene thought her trickster friends were interrogating Maya for the Trickster, while they were actually working for Domitius.

Come to think of it, Shardlord’s suspicion that everything pointed back to his vampire rival for the top position didn’t seem so ridiculous any more now that she knew just how much power and sway Domitius did have.

They never did arrive at a quest that wasn’t already completed by someone else, but they killed a lot of low-level creatures that nonetheless provided a moderate challenge.

Julios frowned at their minimal loot, growing more and more grouchy as the day wore on.

Maya knew the lack of rewards must be her fault for being along, but didn’t feel the need to say anything. She wasn’t clear exactly how much information about his ‘contact points’ Domitius had spread through the ranks and she wasn’t going to give them any more than they already had.

There was something exciting about being a double-triple agent. Of having so many sides to choose from, and just wreaking chaos upon them unawares.

Domitius had forced her into this? Well, he should learn that employing tricksters had upsides and downsides. Like the perpetual failure to find active quests, and the lack of loot for poor little Julios.

Not that it stopped him from talking incessantly, much to her disappointment.

Still, he did his job capably enough. Neither of them died, and tuning him out left Maya to her thoughts.

Other tricksters in Domitius’s ranks keeping secrets from him implied that not all was well. If they’d been forced to promise their service under duress as well, Maya could see how it might be preferable to keep a tiny bit of information back. Seemingly inconsequential information that he could learn elsewhere, but enough to prove to themselves that they were more than mere slaves.

She wondered how hard it would be to create a trickster rebellion. They could communicate secretly with each other, that had to count for something. If there was anyone better placed to form a secret movement than tricksters, she couldn’t think of who.

But there was the fact that Maya was the only one with an out. Her not-quite binding oath was an advantage none of the other tricksters would have.

The two of them wandered through the wild areas, fighting the low-level creatures that attacked them, and continued to find very little in the way of loot.

When Julios finally stopped explaining things he’d already told her about multiple times - not that she was paying attention - and switched to constant grumbling about how long this was taking, how all the good quests were taken, and how he should have gotten at least a single coin by now, Maya decided she’d had enough.

“Let’s head back to the compound for the night,” she suggested. “I could use a good nap.”

Julios nodded reluctantly. “I think you’re right, we should wait until the population turnover and maybe then we’ll have better luck.”