Morlekai glared at a grinning Eric for long moments. “Eric, what the hell just happened?”

“Glorious things, that’s what,” Eric enthused. “We just got a green light to rob a fucking fortune in gold, while the orcs are all distracted by the elves pushing to claim the city! Even better, instead of having to fear getting accosted and robbed on the way to Freetown, or have any or all of our gold impounded as taxes and fees... in other words, robbed on the way to Freetown, they’re going to give us a royal escort straight to Freetown’s central bank! And you’re welcome, by the way.”

Alice, however, was still favoring him with the strangest look. “Alex, sweetheart, are you… royalty?”

Louie shook his head in disbelief. “He was talking to Sylvan elites like he was a made man talking to a bunch of dons. Hell, like he was the firstborn of a syndicate head! They kept calling him a scion! And don’t think we didn’t catch you denying it left and right. Shit, Eric, are you even human?”

Eric smirked at this, deliberately holding up his flame-colored hair. "Look at the shape of my ears. What the hell do you think?"

Louie shrugged. “I always knew you were holding some cards close to your vest. You’re too damned powerful for ninth level, for one thing. But you were always on our side, so I sure as hell didn’t care. But this? Honestly, kid, I don’t know what to think.”

Eric took a deep breath, holding back his the sudden twist of bitterness in his gut. “I’ll pretend you guys aren’t gazing at me like I gained a second head. So let’s start over… Hey, guys, I managed to strike a deal with the bloody Sylvan Alliance, of all things! A chieftain to kill and some cannons to sabotage, and then it's pure distraction while we get rich off our wildest dreams! And if a bunch of tertiary spear-chuckers wanna pitch in and grab immunity and light blue status with the elves, the door's wide open for them too, which means we'll be up a few dozen Human Champions who we WON’T have to kill. Fellow natives who won’t be sniping us with weapons that just might cut through my bulwark and our armor all too fucking easily. And if we’re really lucky, they’ll be fighting for team Elf-Human Alliance! What’s not to love? We’ll even get a red-carpet escort out of here, so no need to worry about being ambushed by orcs, humans, or elves, and you’re all still looking at me like I somehow turned to fucking Mayor Stibbs… seriously?”

Eric clenched his jaw, hating the way his voice went from snarky bemusement in full control of the situation to the plaintive sound of a boy hurt more than he wanted to admit that his friends suddenly seemed uncomfortable with him.

Or worse, suspicious.

“So, was this your play from the very beginning?” asked a hard-eyed Morlekai. “Are you using us for your own ends, Eric?”

Eric couldn’t quite hold back the bitter chuckle bursting forth from his lips. “Are you serious right now, Morlekai? How the hell am I using you? All I’m using is the opportunity before us. And everyone’s eyes are open to motive and goal, so no one is ‘using’ anyone. I’m making an opening for the elves to strike, and they, in turn, will be distracting the orcs and giving us a green light on the heist.” Eric furrowed his brow and shook his head. “What the hell, Morlekai? I thought you’d be all kinds of excited by this.”

Drake flashed an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Eric. But you gotta understand. After being screwed over by the mayor… it’s hard to trust. And when you've been in the game for awhile like we have… avoiding getting double-crossed is almost as important as pulling off the heist in the first place.”

Eric’s lips thinned. “Sure, I get that. But how the hell did we get from ‘thanks for saving our asses from psychotic 30th level psychos, Eric, we’re all friends for life,’ to looking at me like I’m auditioning for Gameboard of Thrones and Treachery 2.0?”

“When we found out you were far more than just an unfortunate scarred kid with a knack for the adventuring life, but an actual scion of the Sylvan Alliance?” Morlekai said, crossing his arms.

Eric just shook his head, gazing at Morlekai with disappointment. "Seriously? What the fuck, Morlekai. I told you who my mother was, almost as soon as we met! Only reason why I even hold back is because I don't want people staring at me with pity because of how far I've fallen with my scarred-ass face, or because they think I'm a liar who's desperate for attention!"

Alice nodded her head thoughtfully. “He’s right, Morlekai. he’s never broken character once. If this was all an act...” then she chuckled throatily. “It’d be worthy of Aurelia Silver’s firstborn.”

Eric smirked. "Thanks. And that's the irony of it all. I can't act. Or at least I'm no better at acting than literally ten thousand others who could easily outshine me on any stage. Even the Interface acknowledged me as only starting at Rank 2, and that was after years of trying to be the perfect talented son my mother had always wanted to be.”

He flashed a rueful smile. “As far as closing my eyes and instantly becoming my character, seeing the world and responding to it through their eyes, knowing my role so well that I don't even need the lines, and whatever comes out of my mouth instantly becomes the lines, fitting the scene so well that the director demands everyone just roll with it between shoots, like what happens with my mother and Elonia?”

Eric gave a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “They leave me so far in the dust that absolutely everyone can see just how stark the contrast between us is, when I constantly fumble my own lines like a nervous idiot, and earn smiles of sympathy, even from the extras! And they aren’t even mocking me, they genuinely feel for me, seeing me as one of their own.”

Eric wiped at the frustrating sting in his eyes, ignoring the lump in his throat. “And how the hell do you think I feel coming back to the trailer after a long day under the hot sun, my skin itching under all the lotion I’m wearing so I don’t burn my face off while I’m boiling alive, only for my mom to smack the shit out of me and scream at me to stop embarrassing her and Elonia, after fucking up all my lines? Telling me in no uncertain terms that we're doing all the scenes over from the top again tomorrow. And if I want to eat, I'd better stop playing the fool and do my part. Or that the only thing keeping her from belting me harder is the fact that Elonia's screaming at her to stop, asking her what the fuck will happen if I look like shit in front of the camera tomorrow?"

Eric flinched at the pitying look Alice gave him. "Not that it fucking mattered. They just caked on more of the same concealer being used to hide all the acne scars I was getting from the testosterone they were shooting me up with, just so I'd look as buff as any seventeen-year-old can, while still looking youthful enough to appeal to all the demographics, as mother dearest liked to say."

He shook his head, eyes now definitely watery with dust or whatever was in the air. “Fuck, Morlekai, you really think I’m some clever double agent who wants to go back to being under his mother’s tyrannical thumb?” He forced a laugh. “If she somehow got in good with the elves, then great for her! She can go claim whatever fucking territory she likes! Me? I’m taking the goddamn gold and starting over my whole fucking life a free man, under no one’s thumb!”

Alice and Morlekai exchanged a look.

“Sound like someone we know?” she said with a bitter smile.

Morlekai smirked. “Maybe a bit too much.”

“We can choose our friends…” Louie said.

“But not our family," Morlekai sighed. He turned to Eric, looking suddenly discomforted. “Eric, I...”

Eric laughed, waving off the words. “Nothing to say. I love my psycho bitch mother with all my heart, and it means the world to know that she and my sister are okay. Doesn’t mean I have any plans of acknowledging her as anything or anyone other than the woman who birthed me, and between you and me? My interface is blaring warning lights left and right at the thought of formally acknowledging her as anything else, or even seeing her anytime soon. So let’s go while the getting is good, rob these fuckers blind, and fade away long before my mother can ride in with a thousand elven knights at her back, which is so much like the final scenes of a certain movie that I’m getting chills just thinking about it. And not the good kind.”

Drake’s eyes widened. “Wait, are you serious, boy scout? This shit was in the movie your mother was producing?”

Eric clenched his jaw, gazing at his friends for long moments. He slowly nodded. Holding back a wince at their horrified expressions. “And no, it wasn’t like we actually acted out the very scenes we lived through. But Earth suffering an apocalyptic surge of mana that wiped out all technology? Yeah, that was the premise of the whole damn movie.” He shook his head and sighed. "But mostly, it was the story of a rising jewel of a princess, determined to unite our entire world under one glorious banner."

“Your sister,” Morlekai said.

Eric said nothing.

Alice gaze at Eric for long moments, graceful hands trembling as she lit up a cigarette, pinning him with captivating, anxious eyes. “Eric...”

“I don’t know,” he said, turning away. “Even if the elves in the movie really did have the exact same cast to their skin, played by actors with the same Eurasian slant to their eyes, and ears that weren’t upswept much more than Spock’s. And yeah. That much was dead on." He smirked coldly, shaking his head. "Not the orcs, however. In real life, those eight to nine foot tall broad-shouldered fuckers are at least six hundred pounds. But a perfectly designed suit for actors and CGI effects that were almost identical looking, showcasing monsters that really did look like the tusked porcine abominations that they are, far more than your typical RPG green-skinned guy with jaw issues?” Eric swallowed, forcing himself to meet Alice’s gaze once more as she took another nervous drag, before finally nodding. “Actually, yeah. That part was dead on as well.”

Alice blew out twin streams of smoke from perfectly sculpted nostrils, her eyes never leaving his own. “Eric?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you know?”

He gazed at his friend for long moments before slowly shaking his head. “Not a clue.”

“Is your sister really a...”

Eric abruptly turned around, heading back to the topside entrance of their shelter, the only one not blocked off. “We’re wasting time, don’t you think? Only a few more hours till dawn, and who knows how much fun we can have scouting out our targets until then! As long as we can scout out a safe exit point, it might pay to have a base right under the enemy boss’s feet, don’t you think?”

Drake grinned. “Not a bad idea, my man. But a backup hidey-hole far away from orc central also has its strengths, and there are more than a few nice penthouses in this city.”

Morlekai rubbed his chin, scowling for long moments before abruptly nodding. “Alright, we’ll do it.”

Alice raised her brows. “Brother?”

He flashed a cold smile. “I think now’s the perfect time to make contact with whatever resistance we can find. And if we can’t find anything, we’ll make it ourselves. But we won’t do it on their terms. We’ll do it on ours.”

Drake’s eyes widened, a slow grin coming over his rugged features. “My man Morlekai! Time to pull out all the stops, am I right?”

Morlekai nodded. “It is. And since we already know the layout of this city...” He turned to the computer monitors. “Can you pull up that map again, Eric? It's time we laid out the framework of our plan. After that, I think it's time for us to have a little talk with a certain family in the know. Don't you?"

All of them nodded at that, listening intently as Morlekai went over the first phase of their plan. He then pulled a surprised Eric aside, who gave a hesitant nod to his friend’s pointed questions, wincing only once when Morlekai kissed his forehead with bloodied lips before exploding into a flock of crimson crows, and Eric couldn’t help but shake his head with wonder.

He had always thought it an awesome ability. But in a post-apocalyptic city like this in the dead of night, the possibilities were endless, and they were all intent on taking full advantage of them for as long as they could.

In the meantime, he closed his eyes and sat back, heart pounding as his mind split in a dozen different directions, trying not to vomit from vertigo during his first-ever mindmeld with a man who could split his psyche multiple times at once.