“I guess I got lucky,” Chloe lied. “The alpha test was exclusive, and I had to sign a buttload of NDAs. I shouldn’t even really have told you guys that I was playing in one.”

  “Or the 200 or so viewers currently watching us?” Gideon winked.

  Chloe stomped in frustration, unable to believe she had tripped again. She thought of Mia and Demetri back home and wondered what they were thinking. There hadn’t actually been a mention of needing to keep the pod secret, but the last thing she wanted to do was make Gideon and the others jealous or even suspect who she was in real life.

  Chloe Lagarde was not the same Chloe who was in the game.

  “Yeah, like those,” Chloe said.

  “Imagine if you didn’t have to take breaks from the games, though,” Gideon said, eyes alight as he paused in deep thought. “You’d have the ultimate advantage over every other player. Advertisers would love you. Imagine the money you’d make.”

  “What would you do with it?” Chloe asked, suspecting she already knew the answer.

  “I’d move out of my mom’s house for a start. Break free of my brother’s financial hold over me.” He tapped his chin. “I’d cover the cost of my nana’s care and, if I had enough, pay off my mom’s mortgage.”

  “Really? I thought you hated living with her?”

  “I do,” he said sadly. “But as much as it’s a pain in the ass living beneath her roof, that doesn’t mean I don’t love her. She’s been there for us, even without Dad around. I’d like to show her my gratitude for that.”

  Chloe fell quiet, comparing the completely different paths that she and Gideon had taken through life. While Chloe had had all the money she could wish for from as far back as she could remember, Gideon had had to skimp and struggle to survive.

  While Chloe’s parents had been partly absent due to overwork and battling with fame and infamy, Gideon’s father had been completely absent for most of his life.

  Chloe tried to put herself in Gideon’s shoes, imagining what a life in which she needed the basic things would be like. In which she couldn’t afford to simply put on some heels and head out to the city’s top-end bars and clubs, pouring money into the bartenders’ pockets like it was an infinite resource.

  Had Chloe ever really experienced “want” or “need” for more than five minutes? She’d had everything she could ever dream of—and the weight of a family’s legacy resting on her shoulders.

  What would it be like to help someone else instead of focusing entirely on herself?

  She placed a hand on Gideon’s shoulder, the affectionate gesture of an older sister giving her younger brother advice. “You’ll get there,” she told him. “Someday. You will.”

  Gideon looked at her with hopeful eyes. “You think so?”

  Before Chloe could answer, they heard the sounds of splashing up ahead. Looking down the hill, they could see Ben lining up to sprint along a rock that jutted out from the shore. He launched himself off the end, cannonballing into the water with glee, narrowly missing the sopping dwarf.

  “Hey, Chloe! Gid! What are you waiting for?”

  Jessie beamed at them, pulling her top off over her head (much to the pleasure of the wide-eyed men staring at her chest) and jumped into the water after them.

  “That’s ‘bingo,’” Chloe mumbled, remembering Mia’s message.

  “What’s bingo?” Gideon asked.

  “Never mind.” Chloe winked, then ran down the hill, using the slope to help her gain speed.

  Chapter Eleven

  “You know what I miss?” Tag asked the others, hands laced behind his head as he basked besides the party in the warm sun.

  “Wearing clothes?” Ben replied, unable to get the image of the naked dwarf beside him out of his head even though his eyes were shut. While his private parts had been pixelated, the dwarf’s hairy chest and slight muffin top were almost impossible to erase.

  “Nah,” Tag replied smugly. “It’s nice to let the ol’ twig and berries air out once in a while, y’know? Feel the sun in the places the sun normally can’t get to.”

  “Do you make a habit of sunbathing naked in your real life?” Chloe asked, slightly nauseated.

  “Not since the last time I got arrested.” Tag winked, levering himself up and resting on his elbows as he looked over the stretch of lake they had swum. Gideon was still making his way across, his arms flailing as his cloak dragged him back. “He’s a persistent bugger, isn’t he?”

  Gideon had refused the option for help, wanting to earn his own skills in swimming in order to keep up with the others. Chloe watched him now, pity on her face. If only there were a spell that could help him that he wouldn’t realize was being cast.

  “What do you miss, then?” Chloe asked, drawing attention back to Tag’s question.

  “City living,” Tag said. “Working your way around the built-up areas of buildings and gates. The mystery of who you might meet each day, The guilds, the academies, the palaces and castles. I’ve never had as much fun as that time we went quest gathering in Relic Hunter V, seeing just how many people we could get to ask us to do things without having to actually do them.”

  Ben chuckled. “Three days very well spent.”

  “And that was your best experience in a game to date?” Chloe said, wishing she had sunglasses so she could give them a sassy look over the top.

  “Well, one of them,” Tag said, blushing. “Don’t get me wrong, as much fun as being propelled out of an active volcano is, it’d be nice to go back to the classics of MMORPGs. Know what I mean?”

  “I wish I did,” Chloe said, reminding the others that Obsidian was her first experience inside a game like this.

  Not too far away from the shore, Gideon was gasping and floundering.

  “Are you sure you don’t need help?” Ben called.

  Gideon shook his head, sinking a little as he momentarily fought for buoyancy.

  “You’ve got this, buddy!” Tag added.

  When Gideon eventually did make it to shore, he spent a goodly amount of time laying on his face in the dirt, his breath coming in quick bursts. Eventually, he rolled over and punched a limp arm into the air. “Level 2. I did it!”

  Chloe and the others congratulated him, laughing at the state of the waterlogged mage. They waited until his stamina had recovered enough to sit up, then they cooked some meat over the fire and chatted for a while, each taking a turn to talk about what they were hoping the road ahead would yield.

  As the sun arced over the sky, they packed up their things and hit the road again, finding a winding dirt path, flattened and packed, through the grasslands. They followed the ribbon until it joined a wide road, something they had yet to have seen in Obsidian.

  “An actual road,” Gideon said, practically on his hands and knees as he ran his hand over the stonecraft.

  “You’d think mage-boy had never seen a road in his life,” Ben said, jerking a thumb toward Gideon’s crouched form. He leaned down beside him. “It’s a brand-new kind of magic called ‘transport.’ Men with bricks and tools make the ground flat and create routes for chariots and horses to ride along.”

  Gideon turned his nose up at Ben, clearly not appreciating the sarcasm.

  “Where do you think it leads?” Chloe asked, turning to Jessie for guidance.

  Jessie shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. Most of my journeying has been from one city or village to another. I hitch in the back of smugglers’ wagons and don’t see much of the road. What I can say is, Hitchers Cove is probably around three miles that way.” She pointed to their right, alongside where a narrow river was flowing. “And Gallen Hollows is…” she wet her finger and tested the wind “about fifteen miles in that direction.” She pointed left.

  “That’s some guessing,” Chloe said, not quite sure what to believe. “Did you pull that from your ass?”

  Jessie shook her head. “I pulled the information from there.”

  Chloe followed her finger, blushing when she saw the signpost located a small distance in front of them with three sets of arrows. One pointing toward Gallen Hollows, one pointing toward Hitchers Cove, and another beneath it was labeled Narlath Desert.

  “Well, at least we know what the common people call the desert now,” Chloe said, standing tall and ignoring Jessie’s smug gaze. “Now, MegaQuakers, to the Hollows or to the Cove?”

  “Which way is your next armor acquisition?” Gideon asked.

  Chloe flicked open her map. The nearest piece looked like it followed the path to Gallen Hollows.

  “This way.” She pointed.

  Ben and Tag glanced at each other, then said together, “That way it is.”

  “Oh, and stop just casually throwing party names into conversation like it’s been decided.” Tag winked. “That is a group decision.”

  Chloe blushed again. She’d thought she’d snuck one past them.

  The road felt strange beneath their feet. After journeying through dirt, sand, ash, and grass, having solid brick beneath them was something a luxury that Chloe associated more with home. Not so much with the smooth and measured paving slabs of the city, but rather the rural cobblestone paths of her parents’ holiday houses in the country.

  They had hardly visited those houses since they were usually tied up in work, but Chloe had fond memories of family vacations as children, back before life had become all about business. Those had been her early years, ones she remembered through that hazy, rose-tinted lens that accompanies nostalgia.

  Now, walking under the afternoon sun, Chloe could close her eyes and imagine she was back with her au pair Sandrine, running along the paths and giggling as the horses whinnied from afar. If she strained her ears enough, she could hear them now, clip-clopping toward her.

  When Chloe opened her eyes, she could still hear the horses’ hoofs tapping the brick road behind them.

  She paused, holding her arms out to stop the others. “Can you hear that?”

  Tag shrugged. “Sounds like horses.”

  “Right,” Chloe said, unable to explain why she was suddenly so afraid. She wondered who could be riding along the road toward them. Friend or for? Human or...something else?

  Chloe looked at the side of the road and saw a stand of dense bushes with bright purple berries. She persuaded the others to accompany her, hiding behind the bushes in silence and keeping an eye on the road.

  The horses took a long time to appear in their field of vision. Eventually, they saw three horses with riders clad in brown leather armor. They each carried spears in one hand and held the reins in the other. They were a jovial troop, throwing their heads back and laughing as they rode along the path.

  “And I said to Dinera, ‘I’m sorry, darling. If you really want it, you’re going to have to beg for it,’” the rider closest to them said, eliciting a string of laughs from the others.

  “You didn’t?”

  “I did! You need to teach a woman her place. Women are like dogs, see? Let them think they’re the alpha, and they’ll walk all over you. Treat them like they’re your pets, and they’re obedient as all hell.”

  Chloe eyed the loud-mouthed rider curiously. He was a skinny one, with a gaunt face and tired eyes. Chloe could hardly imagine anyone on their knees, begging for a taste of whatever he had to offer.

  “Aren’t you worried at all about the new laws?” the rider on the far side asked, wiping a tear from his eye and trying to stop his laughter. They were level with the adventurers now, and Chloe found she was holding her breath. “You know as well as I do that Lady Gwent doesn’t take kindly to displays of dominance and subordination.”

  “The hell what she thinks!” the first rider said, a flash of anger in his face. “As far as I’m concerned, she’s the pinnacle of my point. No one has given her a good beating in years. Give her some time, though. Wait until she finds a new suitor.” He coughed into his fist and stroked his shoulder.

  “You’re not going for it?” the middle rider said, mouth open in disbelief.

  “You bet your ass I am. Take a good look, boys. Soon old Roderick Snider will no longer be just a guard in Gallen’s Hollow. You’ll be kissing my feet and calling me sire before the month is through.”

  They fell into laughter once more as they retreated down the path, their voices lost to the wind.

  Chloe waited until they were out of sight before climbing out of the bushes, pricking her arm on some of the thorns.

  “Well… Those guys are certainly—” beep. “Oh, for God’s sake. I meant to say it like…” She paused, pulling a small thorn from the bush and presenting it to the others.

  “Pricks?” Tag asked, clapping a hand to his mouth as he realized he had been able to say a crude word that Chloe couldn’t. “Oh, my God. Am I free of censorship? Okay, erm—” BEEP! “Dammit!”

  Ben howled with laughter. “Nice try, dweeb. I guess context means quite a lot in this game. The AI must be smart enough to sift offensive words from their not-so-offensive counterparts.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Tag growled.

  “What were they talking about? A lady searching for a suitor?” Chloe asked, making it back to the road and staring in the direction they were heading.

  “In these types of games, most civilizations still very much follow a patriarchal power structure,” Gideon answered. “It is the duty of the father to sell off his daughter to the highest bidder, most often to those men with the highest stature, regardless of feelings or affection. Among the powerful in games, this is usually the case. It’s usually only the peasants and lower-status people who are free to make their own decisions.”

  “Take Rosaline as exhibit A,” Ben added.

  Chloe nodded as she remembered the stableboy’s sister and how he had been filtering suitors for her all her life in the wake of their father’s death. Although that situation had ended with Rosaline showing Jacob who was really the boss in that household, Chloe could imagine other societies being a lot less lenient about women’s power.

  “Well, in that case, I’m glad we’re heading in that direction,” Chloe said. “If not just for the armor, we can have a little look-see and find just what’s going down at the Hollow.”

  Chloe started following the horses, and the others fell in step with her. She blinked open her notifications, surprised to see a quest had appeared.

  Quest unlocked: A Woman in Need

  You’ve overheard the rumor that Lady Gwent is in the market for a suitor, but things might not all be as they appear.

  Track down Lady Gwent and discover the truth of the situation.

  Difficulty: 4/10

  Rewards: 3,400 exp

  Accept quest: Y/N

  Chloe grinned. Well, it’s been a while since I’ve seen one of you appear.

  “Yes! Finally, a chance to get some experience,” Tag cried, shutting his mouth after a simple look from Ben.

  Chapter Twelve

  The familiarity of the town was welcome. After they emerged through a small woodland and the houses and streets came into view, it felt a lot homier than the hours spent in forests, deserts, and, of course, volcanos.

  The road led straight into the town, a series of small square fields on either side before the town really began. There was no border patrol to speak of. No walls or fences to block the people in. Simply the roaming guards with their leather armor and bulb-shaped helmets.

  They passed a small field that proudly sported the leafy tops of some kind of root vegetables, which Chloe was able to identify as carrots. A small part of her was ashamed to say that she had never seen carrots growing, only cooked and steaming on her plate. The amount of work and craft that went into the meals she ate was something that had never even crossed her mind.

  They passed children playing in the street, enjoying the final rays of the sun before the night came and they were shut indoors with their families. They saw elderly citizens sitting on benches outside their homes, and couples holding hands as they walked through the streets.

  Chloe leaned down to Tag. “You’re the bloodhound for taverns. Think you can sniff us out a place to stay for the night?”

  Tag grinned and theatrically took in a deep breath. Then he woofed, eliciting a strange look from a group of young lads who were walking by them holding sticks as though they were spears. Chloe watched them with suspicion as they cast a glance back, clearly checking out hers and Jessie’s asses.

  “It’s a cute little place, ain’t it?” Gideon said, stepping out of the way of a young boy laughing as he chased a girl of fewer years than him. “Not often you see a town at peace in these types of games.”

  “You’re right,” Ben said, his eyes barely blinking as he scanned the town around them, the group already now lost in the dense cluster of houses. “Which makes me think we should probably keep our guard up for a little longer. Remember part of the reason we’re here. Those guards seemed none too friendly.”

  Chloe eyed a couple of guards who had come around the corner of a square centered by a small, trickling fountain. The two horses in the statue on top had reared and were engaged in battle.

  The guards locked eyes, one nodding and whispering to the other as they began their approach. A few locals sped up as they walked past the guards, eyes cast downward.

  “Evening, gentlemen,” the guard said, addressing Ben, Tag, and Gideon. “I don’t believe I recognize your faces. What brings you to our humble little corner of Obsidian?”

  The second guard elbowed the first in the side, drawing a grunt.

  “And ladies, of course.”

  Ben took the role of spokesperson, talking before Chloe had a chance to open her mouth. “Visiting, of course. We’ve come all the way from Fleetwood in order to sample what we’ve heard to be the finest honeyed whiskey this side of the Narlath Desert.”

  The first guard nodded in approval. “A man of coin, then? The honeyed whiskey we’ve procured is indeed the finest on this side of the desert, if not in the whole of Obsidian.” He moved close to Ben, his face a few inches from the elf’s. “A man with enough coin to purchase the honeyed stuff should have enough coin to assist a poor man whose efforts include being on his feet all day and protecting those who reside within the village, am I right?”