PART TWENTY-ONE

MPD: 101

I logged out of BV and found I already had an email. It was from [email protected]

I tapped it open and it said:

LOL PSYCH

AS IF

In Comic Sans.

All the blood left my body. I don't mean metaphorically. I mean literally. I was one big flap of skin wrapped around some hollow bones, those metal plates from my accident, and a slightly moist brain.

I got full-body pins and needles, my pale white hands started to shake, and I knew I'd drop my phone and it'd smash and I wouldn't be able to replace it.

Why had she done this to me? Probably because I was weird and not as funny as I thought and because I'd told her that my best friend was a piece of code.

While I mentally replayed every mistake I'd ever made, I got another email. This one was from [email protected] My thumbs knew what to do. I read what it said:

Soz about that. I couldn't resist. If we're not going to be online at the same time I won't be able to tease you to your face. Consider yourself pranked.

To business!

I was thinking about what we should do next but I think I got information overload and forgot half of what you told me. I hope you aren't always this exciting. Can you sort of condense/summarize what we need to do? And tell me what your plans are and why - that'll help me get into the right mindset.

I had to read it three times because that's how long it took for my body to start feeling normal. I think I actually let out a little 'gah' noise when I started breathing again. Bodies are weird. I spent so long standing there looking down at my phone that I started to get a sore neck. I also got a follow-up mail.

Also, I've not played half your games. Describe them to me.

I don't know what came over me but I briefly turned into Errol Flynn or someone. Maybe it was the sensation of discovering 10 pints of blood sloshing around inside me. I shot off a reply without agonising over every word.

No. Guided tour. Tomorrow at 8. Go straight into Austeralia. Dungeon gets res from you being there.

Then I went to buy some noodles and apples and when I'd eaten them my head was back on straight and I had a one-word response in my inbox (just said 'okay'). I typed out a longer reply to her other questions and it ended up being a kind of essay about dungeon management. It ended like this:

As you know, I've been focused on the fun side while neglecting the defense. The challenge will be to kill anyone who comes to play rough without trashing the reputation of the park. Mouse Company can survive the occasional rollercoaster decapitation because no-one thinks they do it deliberately. We don't have that luxury. I have the germ of an idea. I'll sleep on it. See you tomorrow.

Abs-olutely Fabulous

It's hard to describe how I felt when I portaled onto my spawn point and jogged towards the cave. She hadn't mailed me back after I sent her my dissertation. What was I worried about? That she wouldn't be there? Or that she would?

But then I remembered Circe Polka Jr and went through the cave entrance ready to start barking out commands. I was as puffed up as a drill sergeant, with twice as much testosterone. "386! Look sharp. Today's the first day of the rest of your life."

He didn't click his heels and salute like a good cadet. There was no little amusement in his voice as he said, "They're in the Entrance Arcade."

"They?"

He didn't reply so I assumed he meant Valentine and Lennie. As I marched in that direction I mentally slapped my forehead. The little girls! He meant Valentine and the little girls.

I burst into the kid's room ready to put on a performance of whatever the opposite of toxic masculinity is. Inert masculinity? That doesn't sound right. Anyway, if you have been paying attention you'll know that what I wanted to happen is not what happened.

"Ah, you must be Bain," said a tall, muscular, aggressively handsome blonde man. He was wearing the armor of those Sword of the Scales nutjobs. His chin was chiseled so sharply that had he been born in the middle ages he could have single handedly brought the Renaissance forward a few hundred years. He thrust a hand towards me and when I shook it he turned mine sideways in a show of lazy dominance and then he PUT HIS OTHER HAND ON TOP AS WELL and that was it. I was toast.

"Uh," I said, looking at my hand like it was made of beans.

"Excellent!" he roared, and slapped me on the shoulder. "Allow me to introduce the crew. This little band of brothers." He laughed merrily. Merrily, reader. Not happily. Not 'with post-modern irony'. He laughed MERRILY at his own non-joke joke. Three other beefy boys were in the room. They all looked similar to this sigma male - there was another blonde and two with black hair. They looked up from the games they were playing to beam at me with their shiny teeth and their abs and their manly thighs. You might have guessed I don't know loads about the opposite sex but if I'd been a woman my ovaries would definitely have started bubbling.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, bro, they're just avatars. People choose their avatars when they start playing and everyone wants to be attractive. But you start to develop a sense when you're in the BetterVerse - you can tell who looks totally different (Valentine) and who looks like they do in real life but optimised (me). These beefcakes looked like they did in real life. I knew it instantly.

"Let me guess," I said, reacting to their handsomeness with snark and bitterness. I pointed to the three men in turn, "Dancer, Prancer, and Blitzen."

There was a moment's silence. The head beefcake shook his head, sadly. "No, Bain." He pointed in a different order. "THAT's Dancer. That's Prancer. And that's Chad."

I had to laugh. They all smiled. "Now seriously," said sigma. I realised his arm was around my shoulder, which is what you'd expect from a friend but also what you'd expect from a boa constrictor. "I'm Adam. That's Ben. Charles. Damocles."

I shook my head. "I notice Damocles doesn't have a sword."

"No," said Adam. "He's a stealth archer. He has zero imagination."

I twisted so that the guy's arm flopped off me. I looked around. There was no Valentine. Not that I'd have any chance with her if I was versus this lot. I put my fingers to my temples. "I must have been really drunk last night. I don't remember booking a boy band."

The bros looked at each other and burst into warm, genuine laughter. Ben spoke. "Bain, can I ask you a question?"

"I doubt I could stop you."

He was one of the black-haired ones. He had dark, Mediterranean eyebrows. Not quite swarthy, but not far off. "What is this place really?"

I didn't know who these people were or what they wanted. "What do you think it is?"

"Nick asked us to come and told us it was a theme park. But there aren't any theme parks in the BetterVerse."

Nick. Nick? Ben was next to a Hoops, spinning a ball on his fingers. It looked like 386 had decided to include every game we'd ever made. I nodded to Ben's right. "Want to play Lair Hockey?"

"Lair Hockey!" They all laughed at the name and crowded round while I gave Ben the trashing of a lifetime.

"2-1," I said. "That's it. We only play up to three. I mean, best of three." I'd been very lucky with one last-second reflex save and the guy's hands were lightning fast. Over a full game he'd definitely win.

He just smiled at me and fixed me with his dreamy, kittensoft eyes - the only soft thing about him. Ugh. Vom. "Did you design that pinball machine?"

"Yeah, sort of." It was nice getting to know The Glistening Biceps or whatever their group was called, but I had things to do. "If you'll excuse me," I said, heading towards the door.

They all sort of crowded around in front of me, but they made it look... unthreatening. Apologetic. Adam tried to explain. "Nick is late. She said you'd promised her a tour and that we should try to distract you until she got here."

My eyebrows did a little dance that ended with one being slightly raised. "Why?"

Adam shrugged. Charles scoffed. "Buddy, you know why."

No, I didn't know why. I stared at them all, looking for clues. Then I got sick of whatever game this was and started to plow through them. NOT LIKE THAT.

Ben said, "Wait!" In a more controlled voice, he said, "Wait, please. We're here to help. Nick told us to go into the room on the right and try to keep you there."

Damocles eased away from the beefcake blockade towards the nearest Cannonball machine. He put his back to it and looked at me, chiseledly. "She's late on purpose so we can get to know each other."

"What?" said Charles. "How do you know that?" He was another blonde and the prettiest and therefore my least favorite.

"It's obvs," said Damocles.

"D is right," said Ben. "Her excuse for running late was awful. Got my spider senses tingling."

"So," said Adam. "What say you, Bain?"

I started to shake my head, but 386 whispered in my ear. "They're all level 20. Don't repel them like you did with the woman."

I shrugged. "I don't know what's going on, but fine. Let's bond. Let's be superfriends. Shall we gather round in a circle and sing kumbaya?"

"We didn't bring our guitars," said Ben.

"No problem," I said. "I think I see one behind Charles's ear." I took a couple of steps towards him. He stiffened - NOT LIKE THAT - and I reached and plucked a violin from behind him. I looked at it. "Excuse me a moment." I walked to a far corner and had a whispered argument with 386 which boiled down to: he didn't have the recipe for a guitar. "Ugh," I said, turning back to the room. "Guitars are out of stock."

Charles, ludicrously, ran his hand behind his head, and when the others laughed at him he laughed too. "That was sick. How did you do that?"

"Magic," I said, still pretty irritated with this whole scene. But they were friendly, chill dudes and if they stayed a full hour 386 would get 80 mana - a real bonanza. I clapped my hands to try to push away all my immature bitterness. "While we wait, why don't you play these games and give me ideas on how to make them better?"

Better Never Than Late

Nicki turned up while I was bickering with the men about whether the next pinball machine should be one where you guide a rocket through an asteroid field or one where you smashed bricks like the game Breakout. She had a smug grin on her face like her plan had worked.

"Right, let's get on with the tour," I said, walking past her with a half-nod. I whispered for 386 to make me a little flag on a stick. I held it up and turned to the group. "Hurry up, now, there's lots to see." The stick got a good laugh.

I didn't want to spend a long time in the Mystery Room and you've heard all about it anyway, but I did insist that Valentine should go back to the Mirror of Erised. Her cronies gathered around while she started singing Take on Me. As she failed to hit the high notes, the mirror started cracking and the men cracked up.

"Put a big check mark next to that one," I whispered to 386. "Actually, we should have whole rooms for this. In some countries it's the main entertainment."

"We're not allowed," whinged 386. "Unless you've got a codex full of medieval stadium ballads you can link me to."

Then I led them to something Valentine hadn't seen before. It was the new version of the Demolition Derby. Instead of throwing things at the wall you threw them down a well. Lame, right? WRONG! Above it was a sign that said 'Bottomless Well'. And another sign said, 'Payout: One Silver If Your Offering Makes a Sound'.

Adam sidled up to me. "What's this? Bottomless? Payout?"

"Nicki can tell you offline. We need to press on."

Valentine pulled on my wrist and said, "Give us the Explain It Like I'm Five version."

I muttered under my breath, which probably looked rude but I was asking 386 to give me a glass bottle. I handed it to Charles. "I’ll give you a silver if it makes a noise when it hits the bottom."

He took it and tossed it into the well. We waited for five, ten, twelve seconds.

"What?" said Damocles, trying to peer down the well. "So how deep is it?" I looked at him like he was an idiot and pointed to the word bottomless. "Yeah," he said. "But really."

"Really," I said.

"Bain," said Valentine.

I clicked my tongue. "So what happens is the benevolent spirit of the hill grabs whatever's dropped when it’s out of sight. Puts it in its inventory. It's just like using hotkeys in reverse." Their faces expressed dissatisfaction. "Right. I'm not explaining a single other thing. It's so much more fun not to know!"

Valentine sighed. "You're right, but we need to know if we're going to help. And I told them it's a dungeon."

It didn't seem like the best place to have this discussion but there was no alternative. "And you trust these people?"

"Implicitly."

"Because they're Swords of the Scales?"

"It's the other way round. They're Swords of the Scales because I trust them."

We eyed each other in a slightly heated way.

Ben broke the tension. "He accused us of being a boy band."

Valentine put her hand in front of her mouth, failing to hide her amusement. She collected herself, looked at them standing there all sort of uniformly attractive and well-dressed and started giggling again.

There was something about that unguarded moment that I found fundamentally charming. She was so relaxed around these guys, felt so safe, and if she trusted them, why shouldn’t I? I turned to Damocles. "The dungeon uses mana to create things. But we're trying to build a stock of wood, glass, metal, whatever. Feathers! It can use all that too. So if someone drops a glass bottle down, it's a win. We just have to balance how much we pay out versus how much we take in. 386 is great at those calculations.”

Adam frowned. “So you do pay the silver?”

“Every now and then, we will. This is new. We haven’t actually tested it yet. Maybe the locals won’t be interested. Maybe they’ll prefer the old version. It’s all data.”

"386?" said Charles.

"I’ll explain all that offline," said Valentine, striding off towards the Dungeon Simulator. "Let's hurry up so Bain can talk to the dungeon about traps. That room over there's got the gambling stuff inside. But this is the motherlode. The guns room. I feel like I've been waiting a long time for this, but it's only been a couple of days."

She vanished through the door and I hurried to follow like a little puppy. Then I remembered that I was in charge and I turned to the men. “If you would follow me this way please?” I strode away again, then decided I’d been too nice so I turned and pointed a finger at them. “Remember. You break it - you bought it.”