“Right, right,” Breck said, wiggling Reef’s goggles into place over his eyes. “We’ll all get ourselves to Canada in no time.” He flashed another smile that made his cheeks bulge under the weighty goggles. Reef bottled his rage. Save it for the dungeon, where you’ll need it, he told himself.
“I’ve got an Impervious Elixir in my inventory,” he told Breck. “You might want to drink it now.”
Olly led the way through the opening in the razor wire to a pair of battered metal doors. A heavy chain dangled from one handle, its busted padlock lying in the grass below. Breck pushed his way to the doors and let himself in first. Aedric’s gaze lingered on the padlock. “Think he slept with her?” he asked Reef. The hatred in his eyes unsettled Reef. He was about to answer no when a wave of uncertainty hit him. Breck had visas. He lived on the Floating Isle. Why wouldn’t Cadence sleep with him before sleeping with a guy whose house wasn’t even big enough to stand up in? A new brand of hatred formed in Reef’s heart.
Inside, Breck was testing Reef’s new sword, swinging it through the empty air.
“Don’t forget,” Aedric said. “Breck makes the kill. Reef picks up the silver scepter.”
Reef scrutinized him, wondering at the desperation in his voice, but the next moment their goggles flashed to life. Leafy vines wrapped themselves around the steam plant’s huge concrete beams and rickety metal ladders. Flame-colored flowers and fronded trees exploded through every opening in the levels overlooking the main warehouse. The towering white turbines barely visible in the moonlight were transformed into enormous hives shuddering with some inner turmoil.
“I don’t think we want to get too close to the dragon nests,” Olly warned, staring up at the hives.
The sudden barrage of images left Reef’s head spinning. Get a hold of yourself, he thought. His breathing had gone erratic. A warm, dizzying sensation spread through his chest and out to his limbs, courtesy of the resin now going bland in his mouth. For a moment he felt pinned in by the chest-high plants projected by his goggles.
He batted aside a spreading branch to find a grimy control bank that shouldn’t show while he was wearing his goggles. It was part of the steam plant, not the game world of Alt. Bad design, or patchy edit? he wondered. He didn’t have long to think about it.
A swarm of fairies came ripping through the leaves, engorged with foul nectar that they spewed over the concrete floor. The effect from Reef’s goggles was to make the floor steam as though it were being eaten by acid.
“Watch your step,” someone called, and the voice rang in Reef’s ears. He took a steadying breath and forced his mind to focus on the game.
Night hares came next, tall as Reef’s knee and baring long tusks for teeth. Reef blinded them with a Flash Spell, and the rest of the group used various Mage Blades and Longswords to dispatch the creatures. Olly snatched up the Shield Spell the hares had dropped and then led the way up a clanging metal staircase to where the plants were jungle-thick and blooming with tentacle-like flowers. Just as Reef was wondering if the enormous blossoms were duplicated from the Other Place or if they were from some game designer’s imagination, one of them locked on to his leg with its finger-like tendrils. He hacked at it with a dagger while a mage made his entrance with a swarm of toads swollen to the size of dogs.
“Hang back,” he shouted to Breck. “Let Olly take the damage.” Breck made some useless gestures with his electronic glove and threw out spells that fizzled in midair. One of the toads stretched its blue-black tongue and came back with the crystal dagger that had been strapped to Breck’s arm. Reef’s crystal dagger.
“I said stay back!” Reef cried in frustration. He groaned at the memory of what he’d gone through to get that dagger—defeated a Dark Elf and then assembled the two dozen materials required to turn its fang into a blade.
“Sorry, really sorry,” Breck called, and made another attempt at a spell that was too difficult for him.
Aedric’s alien friend, playing as a Light Elf, got busy casting healing spells on Olly while the mage attacked. Reef’s goggles created the illusion that veins of magic flowed through the alien’s skin, and Reef thought to himself that he’d never seen an alien look so alien before. The mage finally crumpled, and they were off to find the stairway to the next level.
Reef hung back. Now was his chance to get the visa off Breck’s account. He rifled through Breck’s hard drive until he found it, reached for the disc zippered into his jacket pocket—
A flash of white showed against dark green leaves. Reef froze. That was no night hare.
He plunged into the bushes. Another white flash. Reef brought down the flat of his sword, pinning the white rabbit against the floor.
He felt like shouting. He’d done it—finally. He yanked the rabbit up by the ears. This was it—one free help was his. If only white rabbits gave out visas, he thought grimly.