Maya Stader did not know how to make a spectacle of herself.

She much preferred to stay out of the spotlight, but if she was going to attract enough attention to get into World 01 she had to change her approach drastically. Staying out of the spotlight, avoiding notice, and doing her own thing would no longer serve her.

She kept telling herself she needed time to prepare. That it was better to let tensions die down, give Domitius some time and distance to forget about her before she started anything.

Well, she’d done that. She’d disappeared completely. No one but Sevard knew she was even still playing. Maya Starborn, her first and main character, would no longer show up on the leaderboards. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, she’d left.

But if she was going to succeed, she’d have to go back. Back to the chaos of juggling what felt like a dozen alliances and relationships. Figuring out how to deal with the Trickster and Domitius. It would be hard and uncomfortable even if she weren't planning to race Domitius to the top of the leaderboard.

At least she had the same advantage as Domitius and Cydrin: the trickster class. Two of the three leaders were exploiting the powerful rare class’s abilities to stay at the top.

Shardlord, the only leader without the trickster class … well, Maya wasn’t sure exactly what his deal was. From what she’d seen, he lurked about in the mage academy and criticized her at random. Rominian had claimed Shardlord spent all the academy’s resources on running high-level exclusive dungeons to stay ahead of Domitius, but if that was true Maya had never seen evidence of it. Then Shardlord had mysteriously logged out and not been seen since.

Maybe if she thought about it some more, the right idea would come to her. Some way to cut through the interim chaos and skip to the part where she and her brother were reunited, she was no longer a useless broken person running away from life, and maybe she’d understand why she’d survived her untimely death.

It was too coincidental, too bizarre to be anything simple. Surely God had some plan for her. But for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what it could be. She’d never been the strongest believer. Never really bothered with more than the requisite trappings of her faith. It was easy to tuck the confidence that she was part of something bigger away in the corner of her mind, rest in the assurance that whatever happened it was meant to be, and just not worry about it beyond that.

Then she’d died and woken up inside a video game, and things like meaning and purpose felt so distant. Here she could almost pretend to be someone else, someone confident in herself and not the worthless, broken mess of a person who’d died young without accomplishing anything in her life.

Almost.

But no matter how far she ran, she stayed the same person. No facade could reach deep enough to change who she truly was.

Nope. Not helpful. Stop.

She flicked her right palm with her left ring finger, a long-engrained physical signal for ‘snap out of it’.

For a moment, she was surprised to see the delicate pale chitin of Mayon’s hands instead of the feathered claws of her harpy main.

She took three slow deep breaths while thinking only about her immediate surroundings.

Summer-green grass rippled out across the low hills all around her. Behind her to the south and east she could see the edges of the forest. The trees in the Kalyx City zone grew more widely spaced than those further east in zone three. The Forsaken Forest could be seen by the sharp delineation where the trees grew far taller, with vines and underbrush close and thick around them.

Ahead, the city itself sprawled by the shore of the bay. Its walls stretched out northward in a rough half-octagon; straight north from the water, then slanting off north-west before running parallel to the bay, then slanting in perfect mirror on the other side. Inside, the streets were much more chaotic, the districts divided by uneven lines, but the outer boundaries were perfect.

Toward the north, she could just make out the glimmering gem-like spires of the mage academy. It always filled her with a strange yearning ache, a desire to run back immediately coupled with a deep anxiety and certainty that she would be only causing more problems if she tried to return.

It was probably irrational. She knew herself well enough to know that she was at heart a chaotic and irrational person, despite all her best efforts toward training herself to think logically.

She flicked her palm again and looked down at the pebbled road beneath her instead as she jogged toward the city. Despite the fact that this was a virtual world, it looked and felt thoroughly real. The texture of the ground didn’t repeat, the stones moved beneath her feet, dust puffed when she scuffed her foot through it. Light refracted in bright glints through Mayon’s dragonfly wings, and she fluttered them as she ran, watching the light on the ground shift and warp in response.

But the shape of her shadow felt wrong now, even though she’d been playing almost as long as Mayon as on her first character. She missed her feathers, missed the familiar drag against her arms.

Maybe she should go back.

Well, no. She definitely should go back. But maybe now she could. Maybe she didn’t need to wait for her checklist to be completed. After all, there were a lot of new players at present. It would be far more time-effective for Mayon to come back for the Overdrile sometime when it wouldn’t be spawn-camped by dozens of newbies. She’d been searching for days and still someone always beat her to it.

She reached the city gate and jogged through, smiling to the guards by sheer force of habit. The NPCs nodded back respectfully. Though Mayon didn’t have as much local reputation as Maya, he’d been running quests regularly enough to attain friendly status with Kalyx City.

Out of habit, she glanced at the leaderboard and quest board prominently displayed just inside the city, and did an immediate double-take.

Shardlord had logged back in.

"I think you’re right."

Sevard grinned. "Of course I am." Then he hesitated. "About what?"

"I need to stop procrastinating."

"I don’t remember saying that."

"You haven’t, but it’s been clearly implied."

Sevard weighed his hands in a ‘well, maybe’ gesture. "I would never presume to dictate another player’s life."

Maya sighed. "Why do you put up with me?" she asked despairingly. "I wouldn’t put up with me if I had any choice in the matter."

"Would it be impolitic to say I like having a fellow trickster around who isn’t cultishly obsessed?"

Maya gestured down at Mayon’s insectine body. "Acrobat, not trickster."

Sevard laughed. "If I let you out of my sight for more than a day or two, regardless of what char you’re playing at the time, I doubt I’d ever be able to find you again."

"I’m not that good at hiding."

"And how many of your friends have you gotten in contact with since this impromptu vacation of yours?"

"Um…"

"I’m not claiming to be an expert judge of character, but I know you’re not the sort to put in the effort if someone doesn’t make it perfectly clear that they want to stay in contact."

"I don’t want to impose. If they don’t want me around, I wouldn’t want to force anyone to put up with me."

Sevard smirked. "Exactly. And I don’t find your company something to be put up with, but something to enjoy. So I must make it very clear to you, lest you decide to disappear and never return."

Maya blushed, and knew that Mayon’s face would show it clearly. She really missed her feathers.

"I don’t know why," she mumbled, looking anywhere except at Sevard.

"Do you think so little of yourself?"

"Well, I’m basically useless. Even with an overpowered class I still managed to mess up more often than I succeeded."

"And failing makes you a failure, rather than a person who may have failed?"

"No. Being a failure makes me fail. Trust me, it’s no fun."

Sevard didn’t answer for a long moment. "Have you considered that you might accomplish more if you believed in yourself more? If you didn’t cling to such a negative self-image?"

Maya laughed. "Yeah, no. I’ve tried doing the whole ‘positive thinking’ thing and it only adds arrogance to stupidity."

"Is that such a bad thing?"

"Yeah, I’d say it is."

"Then I have a suggestion. And please, hear me out, before you rule it out completely. Okay?"

Maya shrugged and nodded.

"What if you stopped listening to your own self-assessments entirely?"

Maya snorted.

"No, really. Listen. You’re here, in a virtual world. You’ve already proven you’re capable of cutting ties and running away. You’ve already got a backup plan. An escape route. If you mess things up too badly, just come back here and we can start over someplace else. But isn’t it at least worth a try?"

"It won’t work," Maya said, frustrated. "Do you think I haven’t tried?"

"You’ve been here less than two months. That’s not long enough to try anything."

Maya blinked. "Well, but—"

"This isn’t earth. This isn’t the twenty-second century."

"Twenty-first," Maya corrected.

"My point is that you’re still carrying too much baggage from your first life. You’re making great progress in doing away with your mental limitations, your physical scars. But what about your emotional ones?"

"Having a broken mind isn’t something you can overcome by jumping off a building," Maya pointed out.

"No. But it doesn’t have to be permanent. This is a virtual world. If you don’t like the way you’re wired, rewire it."

"Isn’t that dangerous, illegal, and borderline insane?" She’d seen the advertisements for quick fixes, hacked underworld software to directly edit your virtual soul, but shied away from trusting anything like that.

"I’m not suggesting you jump on one of those stupid revision scams, I’m talking about the proper, old-fashioned way. You change yourself by changing yourself. Just like you’re changing your mindset about heights, you can change your mindset about your value. Your mindprint will shift toward your new shape gradually. The same way you can learn new information, you can learn new patterns of behavior."

Maya felt a burst of emotion, sudden and sharp, and it took her a moment to recognize it as excitement. Hope.

She must have smiled, because Sevard’s expression lightened. He smiled back. "So you’ll give it a try?"

Maya’s brief hope flickered. "I don’t know how. I wouldn’t know where to begin."

"That’s what I’m here for."

"You have other things to do. You barely have enough time to meet me here for a few hours, let alone follow me around correcting my mindset whenever I slip into self-deprecation."

"True enough! But I’m far too grouchy and demanding to be what you need anyway. I’m sure you’d run away after a few days in my company. But, fortunately, I know someone else who can be supportive and is between jobs at the moment."

"Of course you do. Is there anyone you don’t know?"

Sevard only smiled.

"So, who’s this mysterious contact, and where do I find him?"

"Her. Just return to the mage academy like you’d planned, and I’ll let her know to get in touch."

"Slow down, I haven’t decided to go back yet."

"Haven’t you?"

Maya hesitated. "Maybe."

"If you need me, you know how to get in touch. And do keep thinking about my riddle door! If you come up with an answer—"

"Riddle door! Oh, I think I might have the answer to that one, at least."

Sevard blinked in surprise. "What, really? I’ve been stuck for months—"

"Yes! I have— well, Maya has— oooh! I don’t know, it might not work, but I have an idea. Can you get us there?"

"Of course, but—"

"Nope, no time. Meet me at the leypillar!"

Maya logged out, her virtual heart racing with excitement. She’d worried about how she could possibly repay Sevard for everything she’d cost him, both in time and items, for staying by her when he could have easily betrayed her to Domitius or the Trickster.

But she did have one thing Sevard didn’t.

She only hoped it would be enough. It was a hunch, and not one guided by the in-game luck system which often nudged her in the right direction, so this might end up being a huge waste of time. But if not, maybe she could start this new venture off on the right note.