Alex had long ago learned that one of the most effective methods for blending into a crowd when one didn’t want to be seen involved somewhat the opposite of what people usually believed– sticking near enough to a group so as to seem like one was plausibly part of it, while far enough away as to not be a bother, and moving with what seemed like a purpose even if it was taking you in circles.

As Deyana, she was putting those techniques into practice as she approached the meeting place she’d set up with LJay. He’d somewhat assuaged those concerns over the private messaging they’d done before, but her paranoia had been, she thought, fairly justifiably inflamed when it came to Alliance guild members.

She’d been sent a picture of the person she was supposed to be meeting up with, a girl who looked maybe a year or two younger than she was with straight black hair and brown eyes, and according to LJay she hated crowds.

Which made it all the more galling when someone touched her elbow, and she spun around to face that very person.

“Who– how?”

“This was your third time through the meeting place. I thought you were lost.”

“Ugh. Wow. You noticed me on my first time through, then. I wasn’t sure I actually saw you, though.” Deyana complained. It was worse than she was letting on, even– she’d thought she saw the right color of coat, where she was actually wearing a longer cloak with a lot of visible runes on it. It wasn’t an uncommon choice, exactly, but most people would have gone with something less… complete, either to make it cheaper in mana cost or actual production cost.

“I see. Well, that makes sense. But why didn’t you ask if it was me?” she asked, tilting her head. Her gaze was a little unsettling, and it felt a little like she’d seen something mildly interesting and not bothered to look away yet.

“I thought you might have an ambush waiting for me.” That earned a blink.

“Why didn’t you ask me, if I did?” Deyana stared. Was that a serious question? Or was it being asked to taunt her? Better to treat it as serious, at least. If she was taunting it would throw her off her game.

“Because you could have lied to me?”

“Oh. I forgot.” The girl responded, and Deyana held back a giggle, though not the grin.

“I wish everyone was as honest as you, if that’s true. LJay probably told you I’m Deyana?”

“He did. You used to be Novsha, right? You deleted her because of our guild’s betrayal. I’m sorry to have been a part of that.”

“I… did. I was hoping he wouldn’t tell you that.”

“He didn’t,” she responded, “so please don’t be angry with him.”

That threw her for a loop. Was she really that obvious? It didn’t seem like it to her, especially when there were a number of impersonators of her former character around, of both genders in real life, who were closer to her original character than this one was. Not many, given that a lot of them were people who only cared about highlight reels where she featured and therefore missed things over camera angles, but still.

“Who did tell you then?”

“Nobody. You walk the same.”

Deyana raised an eyebrow. “And that’s enough for you, uh. Whatever your name is?”

“My name is Geria, in-game. It is not enough on its own, no, partially due to my own imperfect memory. But it was a convenient shorthand for a number of other things I noticed until you asked about it.”

“Can we talk about this somewhere else?”

“If you’d like, yes.” Geria said, not moving from where she was standing. Finally, after a second, Deyana thought she’d figured it out.

“Could we do that now?”

“Oh! Yes, come with me. We have a safe area nearby where… our former friends haven’t been able to find yet, according to our current friend staying with them. I was here to take you there and tell you about what has been happening.”

When Geria didn’t talk the whole time she was leading, Deyana used that break to gather her thoughts.

The girl didn’t seem to be hostile towards her, at least, but that didn’t really mean much. Reading her was difficult, and it was throwing up red flags all over the place. It didn’t seem fair to blame her for that, though, and was probably just paranoia rearing its ugly head.

She’d had a bit of an edge to her thoughts since the incident with LJay, creeping in on everyone. So when Geria keyed in a code on an apartment building, ushered her through the door, then turned around and activated rune warding that lit up almost all the walls, her eyes went wide and her hand went to her sword.

Geria turned when she was done, then saw the sword and slammed her back into the corner. She looked mildly worried, and her throat seemed to work for a moment, two false starts audible before she said anything for real.

“I would prefer it if you didn’t kill me.”

That did it, for some reason, and Deyana felt like a monster.

“I’m sorry. You’ve been nothing but helpful, if a little bit creepy. I’m just a bit on edge.” She didn’t take her hand off her sword, instead tossing it behind her.

“Apology accepted. Do you want to start with questions, or what I meant to bring first?”

“One question first. How the hell do you know who I am, if LJay didn’t tell you?”

Geria chewed on the inside of her lip for a second, and Deyana noticed that she was still in the corner between the door and the wall.

“It will make you think I’m creepier. Do you still want the answer?”

She thought about that for a moment, actually considering it, before she answered. In the meantime, she’d glanced over the room behind her. It was basically bare except for a single mattress, directly on the ground, with some sheets over it.

“Come on, sit down with me, and then tell me. I’d rather know if something I did gave me away.”

It was obvious that Geria was still uncomfortable, but Deyana wasn’t planning to push any more if she didn’t get a satisfactory answer. She’d need to figure it out regardless, and this just seemed like the most effective way.

“I… I don’t recognize people’s faces. I can’t remember them at all. You walk the same, though in a different body, and your voice is the same. The face is somewhat useful, because you left cheek asymmetry that the attractiveness slider doesn’t like even if I think it’s cute. I was a fan of yours for a while, so I remember some. Your hair is the same shades, too, but that’s less useful here because a lot of people match that or use the game to try out being blonde.

“The reason I knew who you were was because I recognized your shape and way of walking on the train while LJay and I were getting away, so I sent him to follow you more directly while I threw off the people who were following me, because I could do that faster than he would be able to. He’ll probably let them kill him soon, so that they don’t know where he went.”

The words came out in a huge rush that left Deyana processing for a few seconds.

“Wait, if you knew who I was already, why did he ask me?”

“LJay is very nice to me, but he doesn’t usually believe me.” More honestly than she’d been expecting, again.

Before she could contain it, the question that had bubbled up in the middle of Geria’s confused rush came out of her mouth. “Cheek asymmetry?”

The other girl nodded, then pulled out a field drawing tool. Useful for certain types of casters, but she could see any drawing that would be going on, so she wasn’t that concerned about it.

Geria drew on the bed in glowing lines, first two near-circles of the same size. In both of them, the other girl added two curved lines over the word “blue” written on each side, two diagonal lines underneath that, and two near half-circles below that, open sides facing in.

She pointed at the one with a slightly thicker straight line on the left side. “Like that.” Geria pointed to the other. “When people use the attractiveness slider, they get the other one.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Deyana said, “But it apparently let you identify me. Can you explain why you did that, now?”

Geria nodded, but left her head down, fidgeting with her hands as she talked. “So… I was an early Alliance member. Not one of the founding five, but member seven. They’re… they were… my friends in the game. They said they wanted to make a guild that dealt more fairly than the others, and I liked that, so I joined. And it seemed like that was true. Now I think they might have been lying to me, but I don’t know.

“I… used to be a fan of yours. Not as much anymore, but not because you got any less cool! I just… had less time recently. But I saw a lot of what was going on with you anyways, with the bad guild experiences.”

She was determinedly looking down now. Some of her hair had fallen in front of her face, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“So I reached out to Hyrd, said that we should hire you honestly to break the string. And I think he meant to, at first…” Now she looked ready to cry. “But then, the whole thing with the rune happened. And he killed you! And that wasn’t allowed, so he was lying to you… and I just, I can’t live around that! So I. Um. Killed Jennet. Then I took the rune to try to give it back to you, and made it seem like he was still there for an hour, while I made a very big show of leaving because of them lying. I said some stuff, said that people should leave with me.”

She froze her hand motions, then nearly whispered. “Only LJay left with me.”

It was a lot to process. For one, The Alliance had actually been known for its honesty and fair-dealing, and that hadn’t really waned recently, even though they’d basically stopped using people from outside their guild. Which left her one real conclusion: they had been honest, but that was a calculation, not a trait.

Hyrd had probably seen how, at the time his guild was starting, the lack of fair-dealing had gotten more than a few guilds wiped out as people blamed each other and got in the way, and had seen an opportunity to create a reputation.

That reputation was no longer quite so useful, though– in the current climate, basically all of the major players were already attached to a guild or guild family.

Which only left her one conclusion. Hyrd had thought that his guild’s multi-year reputation was a worthy trade for the rune that she now had in her possession.

Still, that wasn’t what stuck out to her the most about the story, though. “So, wait. You knew these people, were friends with them, before you’d even heard of me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So you’re now being chased all over by your former friends, emphasis on former, entirely because they screwed over somebody you’d met once and you turned on them to try to fix what happened.”

Geria’s voice broke. “Yeah.”

Suspicions confirmed then. Deyana couldn’t keep the silly smile off her face anymore. “Girl, you are fucking awesome, and if someone tries to lie to you and tells you you aren’t, you tell me so I can slap some sense into ‘em.”

Geria’s eyes snapped up, meeting hers again. “Huh? But–”

“I’m not hearing it. You tried to do something nice, someone else stepped on it, and you still are trying to make it work. Actually, can I hug you?”

“Yes? What–”

Deyana cut her off before she was able to say much more, pulling her tight for a few seconds before letting go. She was still smiling, and things were whirling through her head like crazy.

“You know about how Legendary runes are special.”

“I. Quest, yes.”

“I have it, right now, and this character… she’s different than my last. I’m going to be a hybrid of crafter and fighter, pick up whoever, and just do stuff for fun. Not going to sell this thing, even though it’s probably the smart decision.” She paused. This was going to commit. “And if you’re willing, I’m going to finish that damn quest, learn the rune, and rub it in the faces of the people who messed with you.”

Geria’s voice was quiet. “I… I don’t really want to hurt any of them. I still… care about them. But…” she looked up again, and even though her voice was quiet and she hadn’t been anywhere near controlling the conversation, her eyes pinned Deyana in place as they sat in the bed in the nearly-empty apartment. She saw something hard flash inside them for a second, before a tiny nod let her breathe again. “But they lied. They betrayed you and… and me, too. I can’t trust them, all because they wanted something that was yours. I don’t want to hurt them but… I will help you lock down that rune.”

It was probably a mistake. But then, this whole endeavor was, and apparently from more than one person, even! There were people after her, and there were going to be more once The Alliance gave up on regaining their property and started caring more about seeing that they weren’t outsmarted.

She pulled the rune scroll out of her inventory.

Start Rune Quest for |Merge|?

No (Scroll remains tradeable. Will drop only when killed in unsafe zones by a player not in your party)

Yes (Scroll becomes non-tradeable. Dying to another player, even party members or in safe zones, will cause it to drop)

Alex paused for a moment. Deyana took a breath in, then selected yes.

Rune Quest |Merge| Begun!

Phase 1/20