Maya! Thank you for responding. I’m sorry I sounded so freaked out, I was pretty confused at first.

Don’t worry, I’m better now and we’ll be together again soon. I can’t wait to hear about everything you’ve been doing while I was, well, away shall we say? I hope I can prove myself still worthy of your trust and love. I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me, arranging this all. I swear, I’m not ungrateful, even if it may have sounded that way at first.

Please forgive me. I’m on my way. As soon as World 9352 has an opening, I’ll come to you.

Love,

Darrow

[Sent 2383-04-03; unread by recipient.]

Book Two

Trickster's Chance

Maya Stader took a deep breath.

She stood atop the apartment building in the market district of Kalyx City in the form of her secondary character, Mayon Windheart. His sprite wings fluttered behind her, and she held his Acrobat’s Grapple class item in her hands.

She was done being afraid. Or, at the very least, done letting her fear dictate what she would or wouldn’t do.

She’d come here expecting to panic, expecting to freeze, expecting her heart to race. But instead, she felt only a deep tension, a slow steady pressure in her chest that heralded neither terror nor paralysis.

One step. Two. Three, five, eight, and then she was moving faster. Not quite running, but not walking. She neared the edge, and then there’s the vertigo; dizziness assailed her, and she threw the grapple out into the space between her building and the next. She didn’t jump off the edge of the building, she couldn’t bring herself to do that, but she did jump. Just shy of the edge, jumped and grabbed the rope and pulled as hard as she could, letting momentum carry her and the arc of the rope catch her, and she swung out over empty air..

For a moment, her stomach lurched as the world tilted and twisted beneath her, she caught a glimpse of a four-story fall, then the blinking icon warned her of a collision approaching. She released the grapple and threw it wildly, snagging on the windowsill of the building behind her. She continued to plummet forward and downward until the rope snapped taught, reversing direction and swinging her back like a pendulum.

"Eep!" She detached the grapple again, threw it at the other building, and missed. The ground was too close, she didn’t have time to try again.

Maya gasped, instinctively covered her face, and crashed into the cobbled street.

-15 health.

She lay there a moment, trembling, then took a deep breath and stood up. "See?" she told herself. "Nothing to worry about. Falling is not the end of the world. It’s perfectly safe. Perfectly normal to jump off of things."

Her speeding pulse begged to differ, but she was done giving in.

"Time to go again. Just keep going. You got this, girl. Hoo."

She stood another moment, just breathing heavily until she felt able to carry on, then jogged into the building and up the stairs to the roof exit.

"When do I get to push you off?"

Sevard lounged on the rooftop behind her, sprawled in a chair he apparently carried with him in his inventory at all times. Maya still felt a twinge of guilt every time she saw the generic Necklace of Speed he wore ever since she’d cost him his most valuable possession, a Unique Amulet of Postponement. But he insisted he didn’t hold it against her, so she’d stopped bringing it up.

"No pushing yet," Maya answered. "I’m still working on my aim."

"A little extra incentive would go a long way," Sevard offered, grinning.

"That’s why you’re here. To keep me from chickening out. If I refuse to come back up, then you have my permission to drag me up and throw me over. Fair?"

"A bit boring. We should go to the new zone and practice with the crystal pits."

Maya shook her head, wings vibrating irritably at her back with a faint buzz. "No. No way we’re going into a tier seven zone. Are you crazy? Shardlord went there and he never came back!"

Sevard ignored her protest. "They’re deeper, they have more things to grapple onto, and there’s some actual incentive not to hit the bottom," he counted out on his fingers.

"Did you finish your tier trial without telling me?"

"No. Sadly, I’m still stuck on the same stupid riddle door."

"Then why are you so interested in the new zone?"

"Who isn’t? Come on! The Frozen Clefts is great and all, if you’re into dull, repetitious land-bound glaciers and creepy rifts full of angry traitorous harpies, no offense, but the Crystal Desert? I can’t wait to explore it."

"Well, pass your tier trial, and maybe we can go. But I need to get to level 20 at least."

Sevard hummed thoughtfully. "You’ve been standing and talking for a long time instead of jumping. If you don’t get a move on, I’m going to take that as permission to push you."

Maya sighed. She hadn’t been consciously putting it off, but procrastination had a way of sneaking up on a person. She readied the grapple and, with that familiar tightness in her chest, started toward the edge.

This time she aimed further down the street, toward another apartment building of roughly equal height to her own. The Acrobat’s Grapple was a special class item, which could extend its rope as far as necessary. If there were a limit on its reach, Maya had yet to encounter it. It didn’t always fly exactly where she wanted it, but it when it fell short it was never due to running out of rope.

She tried to wait until the last step to jump, but instead reached the edge and stopped dead. The grapple caught, but she’d lost her momentum. It stretched taut, and she stared down dizzily.

Sevard pushed her.

"Hey!" she screamed, wings fluttering madly as they tried to catch the air. But though Mayon was a sprite, his wings were purely aesthetic and provided neither wind resistance nor help with steering. She quickly hauled on the rope, twisting into a swing, then scrambled to detach the grapple as she neared the bottom. She tumbled to the ground, her fall slowed but not stopped.

-4 health.

That … actually wasn’t so bad. Maya got to her feet and started back to her apartment building. Then she grinned, and tossed the grapple toward the roof. It caught on the edge perfectly, and she started running. Using her momentum, she made it halfway up the wall before vertigo assailed her again, and the tightness in her chest made continuing up higher feel like a very bad idea.

"Not giving up now," she whispered, and closed her eyes, clinging to her rope as she hung halfway between roof and road. Then she exhaled, and started climbing.

She didn’t look down, but she finally reached the top.

"Hah!" She put one arm over the edge to drag herself up, out of breath for more reasons than exertion, but she’d made it.

Sevard grinned down at her.

"Don’t you dare," she growled, as he moved one foot teasingly toward her arm.

Sevard laughed, but only leaned down and offered his hand to help her up. "You’re doing great," he said. "I’m impressed. Not everyone is willing to go to such lengths to conquer their fears."

Maya straightened and toyed with the grapple. "I don’t want to be everyone. I want to be the best version of myself I can be. And that takes courage, and willingness to fall."

Sevard grinned, raising an eyebrow.

Maya sighed. "Alright, go ahead."

She wasn’t prepared for how fast he moved. In a flash, he’d tripped her legs out from under her and shoved her backwards in the same movement. She spun the grapple and it flashed out, snagging on the edge of the roof. Her fall turned into an arc, landing her back on the side of the building. She crouched as she hit, absorbing the momentum, then pushed off again as hard as she could. She reeled in a few handfuls of rope as she swung upward, then angled herself as she fell so she hit at an angle. This time, she used the momentum of the fall to run a few steps along the side of the building before launching herself upward again.

Somehow, the tightness in her chest had transformed into excitement at tackling a challenge, the urge to show Sevard she could overcome this too.

She reeled in another meter of rope, then changed tack as she began falling and released it all, turning her plummet into a controlled swing that brought her in an elegant arc straight to the ground.

And into it, far too fast.

-12 health.

She crumpled, bounced, and landed in a heap against the wall.

"Oof." Sevard jumped down, landing in a controlled crouch beside her. "You alright?"

Maya accepted his hand and he pulled her back to her feet. Her stamina was a bit low from all the running and jumping. Mayon didn’t have much in the way of equipment yet, and he was much lower level than her main.

She automatically said, "Yeah, I’m good," then realized what she’d said and stopped. She was breathing hard, her heart beating fast with exertion, but this was working. She’d just fallen, and she wasn’t freaking out.

She could do this.

Maya grinned. "Let’s try again."

She detached the grapple and they headed back to the roof.

"So, what’s been going on in your life?" Maya asked. "Still working for Domitius?"

Sevard chuckled. "Nope. He pays well, but his expectations are a little … unfun? A few weeks at a time is more than enough for me. Now he’s not offering extra incentives any more, I’d rather work on my own advancement. If I wanted another job I’d get one on an integrated world."

He pulled a second chair out of his inventory and set it up beside his own, then motioned for Maya to sit. She did so gratefully, twitching as the wings at her back crumpled against the back. She hadn’t spent much time playing as Mayon and kept forgetting they were there. She adjusted her seating, shook the wings to straighten them, and leaned back again.

"So what have you been doing?"

Sevard tilted his head from side to side. "This and that. I have a new quest chain I’ve been working through. If you ever decide you’re ready to try the Crystal Desert, I’ve heard of a few places."

"Not until you tier up," Maya insisted. "And probably only with the help of every NPC mercenary we can hire."

"There aren’t many available outside of the cities, and those in Nirsym aren’t going to be much use in Zone Seven. You’d be better off hiring Standalone. His tames are better than the most powerful mercenary company you’ll find."

Maya laughed. "I’m pretty sure his rates are outside my range."

Sevard grimaced. "Yes, but bringing people from Zone 4 into Zone 7 is just throwing money away. They’ll be dead before we even find the outpost."

"I suppose you’d know better. I wonder how they’re doing."

"Who?"

"The Nirsym mercenaries. I traveled with them for a while, when I was trying to break into Domitius’s base. The first time, not the most recent one." She still felt unreasonably embarrassed every time she remembered the first trip. She’d been right there. She could have saved everyone so much sooner, if she hadn’t been such a moron.

"Mye?"

She nodded. "Sorry, just another self-destructive mental spiral. You know me." She laughed, trying for lightness, but couldn’t quite control her tone that well.

"How long are you going to stay away?"

She shrugged. "I don’t know. Until I’m not a liability to everyone around me, probably. Do you know how many times the academy was attacked in the past week alone?"

"Zero."

"Yep. And you know what else happened zero times last week? Me attending."

Sevard shook his head. "Every time I think I have you figured out, you go and do something like this. I thought you were friends with the mages."

"Some of them." Maya shrugged. "I told them I needed to log out for a while and would come back when I was ready. They didn’t mind. People have personal scheduling conflicts all the time. It’s not a big deal at all. I promised to do an open workshop day next time I have high luck, so they’re all scrambling to refine their theories into something good enough for my luck to work with. I’m not worried. That could keep them busy for years if necessary."

Sevard didn’t answer, and Maya let the silence expand. The view from her apartment roof wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible either. Behind them, the city stretched out, broken by the distant arena which stood out like a modern stadium dropped into the middle of a renaissance town. Ahead, the Travelers’ Hall and trade market for new players bustled with activity. The rush on 9352 still hadn’t died down, though Maya estimated that a good half of the players who’d joined in that first wave had either advanced to zone 2 by now, or decided world 9352 wasn’t for them and moved on.

"I haven’t seen Rominian rushing by in weeks," Maya commented.

"Hmm."

"At least when he was running quests like a good little obsessed minion, we knew Domitius was doing something relatively normal. For him to disappear completely? Something’s up. Do you think Domitius is planning a counter-strike against the academy?"

"No. Last I heard, he’s only gotten more obsessed with unlocking zones. The more his momentum builds on itself, the more he recruits. He thinks he can get Zone Eight even faster than they did Zone Seven."

"Do you know anything about the zone unlocking process? Why did he need these ‘faith tokens’ anyway?"

"In order to prevent early zones from becoming obsolete, each new zone requires an increasing number of reputation earned from earlier zones as well. So new players can still help, even if they’re tier 1."

Maya stood abruptly. "Which reminds me, I need to find an Overdrile so I can break this cap."

"Want help?"

"No, but thank you. You’ve been plenty helpful already. Same time tomorrow?"

"I’ll be here." He stood as well, collected the chairs which disappeared into his inventory, then glanced at her with a contemplative expression. "Before you go, can I ask something?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Do you know anything about The Oracle?"

Maya froze for a second, trying to decide how to reply, then shrugged. "She’s the Trickster’s cousin or sister or something, and they don’t get along well. I haven’t really researched the pantheon, so I mostly only know what he’s told me. Why do you ask?"

"I’ve been looking into the major and minor deities of this world - and goodness are there a lot of them; whoever coded this thing practically just dumped every database he could find in, then smushed them up into an unholy conglomeration of old Earth religions and stuff he made up from the pieces - and while there are mentions of the Oracle’s name scattered around, there’s no actual information about him."

"Her."

"See, even that is more information than I was able to find."

"You should ask the Trickster. He knows more about it than I do."

Sevard grimaced. "I already used all my summons for the month. And may have borrowed on next month’s too."

Maya almost volunteered to ask for him, but remembered just in time that Mayon wasn’t a trickster and right now she didn’t have access to her main’s class abilities.

She didn’t want to log back in as Maya Starborn until she was ready.

"Push me off the roof one last time before you go?"

Sevard grinned, and a moment later she was falling. She threw the grapple and closed her eyes as it caught, swinging her in a rush of wind and controlled fear.

"See you tomorrow!" Sevard called after her, then tossed a field of glittering dust into the air to teleport away.

Mayon Windheart Average Male Sprite Level: 9 Affinities: Magical Physical Tier: 1 Class: Acrobat Total Base Items Modifiers Sturdiness: 11 8 4 -1 Momentum: 40 42 0 -2 Agility: 100 8 92 0 Control: 11 8 0 3 Attunement: 14 8 3 3 Focus: 10 8 0 2 Intelligence: 12 8 4 0 Flexibility: 14 8 2 4 Unassigned: 0 Health: 92 of 92 Will: 20 of 20 Stamina: 232 of 232 Energy: 90 of 90 Speed: 312% Switch penalty: -49%, 9.9 secs Stealth: 376% Chain bonus: +13% Awareness: 78% Cooldown: 93% Max abilities: 3 Item Name Slot Stu Mom Agi Con Att Foc Int Flx Midnight Armor of Agility Body 92 Newcomer's Leggings Legs Basic Shortsword (2 dmg) Held 1 Plate Helm Head 3 4 2 Ring of Sturdiness Ring 1 4 Acrobat's Grapple Special Inventory Money: 2 Silver 93 Copper Quality Item name Details Normal Dust of Recall x1 Normal Universal Dye x1 Flimsy Newcomer Tunic Normal Goblin Spear x19 Normal Drile Wing x5 Mission Description

Time Reward Tier Trial 1 Kill an Overdrile unassisted - Advancement to Tier 2

Specializations unlocked