Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

Chapter 214

Loss, despair, and a tiny flicker of hope all tore at my mind, burning any semblance of cognizance to ash. Nothing mattered. Not the order, not whatever overcomplicated bullshit I was trying to accomplish here. None of it meant anything if Ellison was gone.

Was he? He knew. Had to. Somehow concluded that once we were out, the system would reward an artifact and made sure it went to me—did he know that because he was aware he and his companions weren’t traditional Users and were therefore exempt from receiving the artifact? Or because missing the Nosferatu’s head was a critical mistake, and he’d lose, and what kind of fucking time loop was it for fuck’s sake? If Ellison died did everything reset? Or were there quantum elements in play, and every time he died he moved to a new timeline?

Too many fucking unknowns.

Crack

I put my fist through a stone coffin, barely feeling the impact. It fractured in a series of spider webbing cracks and collapsed, spilling out desiccated bones and dust. It barely registered that the coffin was nearly an inch thick, and I shouldn’t have been able to break through it.

The panic blew the lid off, growing more sharp and pronounced, a tingling fraying ache that threatened to paralyze me. I put my fist through another coffin, and again, the stone obliterated as if I’d struck it with a hammer. It hurt more, this time, and I felt a pulse of pain in my fist that granted a moment of clarity before I plunged into a never-ending pool of anxiety.

“Myrddin.”

Someone was calling out to me. Someone I didn’t care about.

Go back go back now you have to know for sure you have to see go now go now GO NOW!

“Myrddin.” Miles caught my shoulder before I could jump back in the ripple.

I pivoted and swung a blind backhand that hit nothing, trying to get around the interference so I could—

Do what, exactly? Save him? If the worst had happened Ellison was already gone. Go anyway and bet on the astronomical odds he’d dropped a core? The Nosferatu would pick me off as easily as breathing. And I’d seen its power first hand. Payback was out of the question.

At least for now.

Slowly, I stopped moving. That old familiar feeling of helplessness overtook me, rooted my feet in place.

The tunnel vision faded, and I stared down the threaded barrel of a Glock, dimly realizing what happened. I fucked up. And in my brief lapse of sanity, Miles had taken the initiative and now held the advantage. His right eye aligned with the sight, his expression emotionless and cold.

When I spoke, my voice was so twisted and raw I barely recognized it. “You got a memory loss issue, Miles?”

“Stay. Back.” Miles said.

“Because you had ample fucking opportunity to throw me into an abyss a few minutes ago, and let it slip through your fingers.” I growled and took another step forward.

Miles retreated, keeping a constant distance of around five feet between us. A less experienced shooter harboring the same level of anger might have pressed the gun against my head and made for an easy disarm but Miles never missed a beat. “That was before you started punching through stone. And just because I overlooked half-pint backing you up again in the moment, doesn’t mean I am now. Not without one hell of an explanation.”

I gritted my teeth, and tried to banish the image of Ellison that popped up in my mind. “If you want answers, get the goddamn gun out of my face.”

A mental recoil sent a wave of pain through my neurons. It felt similar to when I tried to cast on a target with elevated Intelligence. Only, I hadn’t.

Miles’ grimaced and lowered the gun. He didn’t inventory it, just gripped it at his side, and when I tried to walk past him towards the elevator, he still retreated as before, staying between me and the elevator.

“That bounty notification probably went out to everyone at the tower. It’s possible the Adventurer’s Guild is playing interference, but if some actual monsters down there in the line decide they want a shot at you, there’s only so long the guild can hold them off. All of which means we have a tight window to get you out.” I glared at him. “Make up your fucking mind.”

Every part of me wanted to abandon this course altogether and rush back into the ripple. Even before the dome and the transposition, I had trouble trusting Ellison, probably because of the many similarities we shared. What I’d missed was how that lack of trust frayed our relationship, slowly wore it down and fostered resentment. Maybe he had just been trying to get some space that last breakfast at Sam’s, but the only reason his words cut so deeply was because they were steeped in truth.

At some point, I’d lost sight of who he was, and just saw the parts of him that reminded me of myself.

If I wanted to make a change—for Ellison to trust me again, I needed to return the favor. There was no faking the tiredness in his voice. He’d been doing this for a long, long time. And he’d specifically told me that if I took too long getting Miles clear, it would make things harder in the long run.

For now, I’d believe. It didn’t come naturally and directly conflicted with my tendency to think the worst. But I’d believe just the same. Ellison wasn’t dead. He just wasn’t a User.

Because—let’s face it—if I looked at all this in terms of game balance, a time loop ability was completely overpowered. And another layer of system fuckery was pretty much par for the course at this point.

Having worked through his own inner conundrum, Miles inventoried his weapon. He stared at me, as if expecting a sudden attack at any moment. When none came, he finally seemed to relax.

“Now. You said something about answers.” Miles raised an eyebrow.

/////

I multi-tasked, checking in with Azure and chatting with Kinsley as soon as we came back into range. The situation in the lobby wasn’t great. The Adventurer’s Guild had acted quickly, leveraging their influence to protect Miles and suspend elevator entry as soon as the bounty notification went out, but things were deteriorating quickly. They weren’t able to stop anyone inside the tower from using the elevators, so I instructed Azure to disguise himself as a random adventurer, go down to the lobby, and report to Sara as me. After some convincing I let my summon handle explaining why I’d missed what must have been a never-ending mess of red-alerts and all-hands-on-deck. It was difficult to take a hand’s off approach for once, but Azure’s talent was crafting narrative.

Getting Miles out was an outright pain in the ass, largely because the tower was protected. I dropped a hint for him to coordinate with Kinsley and see if there was anywhere in the tower she could door to, while I coordinated with her from the other side. Once he was out, she’d immediately spirit him away with her sanctuary ability, until we could figure out next steps.

While the lower floors of the tower weren’t blocked from communication, they had a hell of a lot more protections in place to protect from unwanted entry and teleportation. Kinsley went through, painstakingly testing each floor and failing to find an entry point until she landed on the fourth floor. She warned me it felt unstable, that the tower’s security seemed almost intelligent and she didn’t think she could open a door inside the tower again.

Which meant me, Nick, and the rest would be on our own.

I just took that in stride, because I had my hands full just telling Miles the truth.

Or at least, doing so without giving him enough rope to hang me with.

It was a mostly undeveloped theory. One percolating in the back of my mind for quite some time since the Allfather revealed himself as my patron, and was reinforced every time a god interfered.

“They’re cheating.” Miles said aloud, as if wrapping his mind around the idea.

I nodded. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. The Overseer's public statements imply they’ve been doing this for some time. And while I can’t exactly show hard evidence for this, the Allfather’s, proctors, and Nychta’s comments all seem to imply these inquisitions have been going on for a staggeringly long time. My class. Your class—unless I’m completely wrong—and the way they screwed with Tyler’s truth-sight ability right when it would have the most devastating outcome. Now, granted, all of those prior cases have justification. I’m guessing you answered questions within the void before your class was assigned, just like mine?”

Miles nodded, his mouth tight. josei

“And divine-tainted monsters wounded Tyler, which is a little more borderline. But Hastur is running his own fucking guild, and more problematic, Nychta outright granted me something I needed at the perfect moment.”

“Things are devolving.” Miles finished.

“Right now they’re running a proxy war. Using third-parties to snipe at each other, jockeying for position, all while maintaining plausible deniability. Remind you of anything?” I asked.

Miles looked troubled. “Might as well be pulling directly out of the spook playbook. Fund the ragtag resistance against the regime you don’t like, arm and back them—at least until they either crumble, overthrow the regime, or do something you don’t approve of—then call it a day.”

“Rarely ends well for the resistance. Even if they win.”

“That’s a goddamn understatement.” Miles said, rubbing his chin. Then he caught himself and reentered his focus on me. “Though all this spitballing is feeling like a distraction.”

“How so?”

“None of it explains what happened in the tunnel. Or why you waltzed into a goddamn death camp and spared the necromancer running the show.”

I winced. Largely because he wasn’t wrong. That was what I’d done. And sure, it looked far worse from the outside, but there was only so much I could tell him without putting Kinsley in hot water. This was a critical pain point with Miles. I couldn’t deflect or blow it off. Whatever he believed or disbelieved, this was what he needed to buy in more than anything else.

We were in dangerous territory now, specifically regarding the tunnel. I was technically safe for as long as I was a member of the Order of Parcae and the geas remained effective, but when Miles found a way around it and also happened upon someone who could unequivocally confirm what actually happened that day, I was fucked.

And he would, eventually, find a way.

Which left me with two alternatives. Make myself so critical and valuable to both the feds and the Adventurer’s Guild that eliminating me wouldn’t be workable when the news broke.

Or eliminate every witness from the Order in attendance that night.

Both felt flimsy—the more contact I had with Miles, the more likely he was to connect the dots. And the second option…

“I have a family.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to banish the voice, then centered myself, piecing together the best version of what to tell Miles. When I opened them, he was still standing across from me on the elevator, his arms folded.

“The Order of Parcae approached me early.”