“I don’t really know the story too well, but this is what I remember – there’s a sultan with five bodyguards. Hang Tuah is the best of them. Something happened… Um, I believe Hang Jebat rebelled against the sultan, so Hang Tuah had to kill him.”

  “Wait…”

  Everyone exchanged puzzled looks.

  “Isn’t it Hang Tuah who’s supposed to die?” Jesse asked, waving her fingers in the air, apparently checking her task list again.

  “That’s what I have,” Calvin confirmed.

  “What do your tasks say, Peach?” I asked.

  “Oh…”

  Well, if she was so casually saying that the story involves killing Hang Jebat, then isn’t the answer obvious?

  “So… Who’s Hang Jebat?”

  Come to think of it, the game hadn’t told us. I extracted the Encyclopaedia from my Inventory, trying not to linger over the cover and burst into tears.

  This book was truly getting more and more useless.

  “Based on where we were when we arrived in the game,” Jesse said, peering over my shoulder at the garbage that the book was spouting, “I would say that Angry_Bird is obviously the sultan. I would hazard a guess that… Wen Yong, was it?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not –”

  “Save it for someone who believes you, unless you want to take another Vow of Silence.”

  He shut up.

  “Wen Yong is the vizier. He was standing by the throne from the start. So that leaves the rest of us as either ‘Hang’ or an executioner.”

  We all eyed each other dubiously.

  “Then that might not mean that Peach is Hang Tuah,” I said.

  “That’s a good point,” Jesse said. "What's this though: 'Three Hang are involved in the matter'? So far, we've only heard of two."

  “Argh… I wish I remembered more!” said Peach, clutching her head.

  “How do you even know this story, Peach?” Jesse asked. “I’ve never even heard of it.”

  “Oh… There was a movie based on it that I watched once. I was a kid too, so I can’t remember all the details. I was sort of loosely based on the tale, you know? There was like time travel or something… I remember there being this fist fight on a beach. It’s like a fever dream.”

  “I hate to say it…” Wen Yong began, raising his hand like a kid in class.

  “Then don’t,” I advised.

  “But doesn’t that mean that someone still has to die, in the end?”

  Jesse shook her head. “We have time. There’s no need to rush to decisions.”

  Wen Yong made a pondering little noise. “But do we have time? We don’t know what’s going on in the real world, after all. What if… I don’t know, we’ve all been declared dead or something?”

  “Why would that happen?” I snapped. “Don’t talk crazy!”

  “That’s hardly fair, Maria. You were talking crazy just before. Why can’t I?”

  A gloom fell over the group.

  “We’re not getting anywhere,” Jesse sighed. “Let’s take a break to cool off and then come back.”

  She walked back out to the balcony. I moved over to Peach, but Lee Wai Meng popped but between us. “Hey, Mik Tsaam, mind if I talk to Peach first? Like, privately?”

  “Uh…” How weird. Usually I would bonk him on the head and tell him to get in line, but something about his manner made me step aside. “Sure.”

  Peach looked just as confused as I. Still, she followed Wai Meng from the room.

  Calvin had retreated to the balcony too, and looking from him to Jesse, I decided I would probably choke on the atmosphere if I went outside.

  There was no way I was talking to Wen Yong or Angry_Birb, so that left Han Sung-hyuk. He was propping up one of the pillars in the throne room.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked him.

  Stolen story; please report.

  He shrugged. The conversation died before it even started.

  I thought up a dozen conversation topics. His sister? That would probably be far too raw. His life before all this shit went down? Who would want to be reminded of something they might not ever see again? The last scenario? Fuck, I didn’t want to talk about that.

  In the end, we stood in silence. I could feel the pressure to say something building up inside me, but I just couldn’t think of what –

  “You?”

  “S…Sorry?”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Oh…” Oh god, how do I even answer that?

  “Fine,” I said quickly. “I mean, given the circumstances, of course.”

  Circumstances being that I had been forced to create and give birth to a child with a friend who was very much into someone else, all the while not being able to even scream. Delightful.

  I think I was allowed to go a bit crazy.

  “Yeah.”

  At that point, Peach and Wai Meng returned, preventing another awkward silence. But Peach was pale and Wai Meng looked uncharacteristically subdued.

  “Peach, is everything okay?” I asked.

  She burst into tears and threw herself into my arms. “I’m just so sick of it all!”

  I could see Jesse from the corner of my eye, slumped over the railing. She looked exhausted. A spike of fear rammed through my stomach into my throat at the sight. My hands began to shake.

  “Um… Maybe… Maybe I could… Oh, I know!” I pulled the Holy Icon out of my Inventory. “I could try Praying to see if God gives us a buff or something.”

  I placed the picture on the ground and knelt over it, hands clasped, only to hear a chuckle. “… Yes, Jesse?”

  She strolled into the throne room, Calvin in tow, with a little smile on her lips. “It’s just… I never thought I’d see something like this. A real-life saint. Well, as real as this place is.”

  “I’m not a saint. I’m just me.”

  “Do you have any idea how you look right now?”

  I was hunched on the ground wearing a bright red hoodie over a bloody cassock. Exhausted? Insane?

  “You’ve got a permanent halo, you know?”

  “Sure, but…” There was only so much a halo could do.

  Still, Jesse continued to gaze down at me as though she were seeing something I couldn’t, a look that made me want to cry with frustration. I had to look away. I closed my eyes and bent over the Holy Icon.

  Please, God… We’re all just so tired. Please help us. Haven’t we been through enough?

  Like a moody teenager. Seriously.

  Still, a warmth suffused my fingers and toes that had nothing to do with temperature, although I realised my extremities had been stiff and numb. It was like being bathed in warm sunlight, a delicious sensation that made me feel drowsy like the end of a long and satisfying day. I even found myself yawning.

  So was everyone else.

  “I don’t know what you did,” Wai Meng said, flexing his fingers, “but I feel pretty good. Sleepy, though. For the first time in… well I guess it’s years, at this point.”

  “It really is…”

  The sun was setting, a fluorescent orange glow sliding in through the open doors of the balcony. Peach rubbed her eyes and blinked slowly.

  “Maybe it’ll be a good time to sleep,” Jesse suggested. “I’m sure it’ll be good for our mental health. At least it’ll be something.” Was it my imagination, or did her eyes linger on me for a moment?

  Wen Yong called for some servants, explaining that everyone was exhausted from planning all day, and that we had no need for food, only rest. The servants bowed obediently, and we were led in separate directions – Angry_Birb and Wen Yong in different locations deeper into the palace, and the remainder of us to the guards’ quarters.

  Guards greeted us as they passed. I noticed that they seemed to be paying particular mind to Peach, which meant her character had to be a popular one.

  As Han Sung-hyuk passed, however, the voices of the guards dropped to mutters. They nudged each other, gesturing at him with their eyes.

  Was he Hang Tuah, then? His character didn’t seem to have a good reputation. It would make sense if his execution were ordered.

  But then why were Peach’s tasks related to a ‘Hang Jebat’?

  Without knowing the story, I was simply like a dog chasing its tail. Jesse was right. The best thing to do would be to sleep a little and wake refreshed.

  The Hang brigade seemed to have things better, with separate rooms within a standalone building separate to the main guardrooms. Left alone with a basin of hot water by the servants, I washed my face, then decided to strip and clean my whole body before redressing and lying down on the bed. It was clean and comfortable enough, so folding my hands on my stomach, I closed my eyes and pretended I was dead until I fell asleep.

  I woke, heart hammering, in the dark.

  Why had I woken? Something had jolted me awake, but in my state, I couldn’t tell what that was. I thought I had heard something… Had I imagined it?

  If I had heard something, it had to be something alarming. And since, casting about the room, I could see and hear nothing, it had to have been something outside the room.

  Meaning it had to have been something relatively loud.

  A knock? A crash? A scream?

  This far into my thought process, I hurled myself from the bed and dashed through the door, into the corridor that linked the different cells. One of the doors stood open, and through it, I could faintly hear muffled sounds, gasps, sobs.

  Slowly, ready to cast Sanctuary at any moment, I edged around the door.

  Peach was curled on the bed, weeping. Her bed covers appeared to have been torn by a blade. Jesse was on her knees, panting and, I realised, softly muttering fuck fuck fuck. There was a long knife in her hand, the sort of thing I imagined a fantasy character would carry around as they hunted in the woods.

  There were also two bodies.

  That wasn’t quite right. Angry_Birb wasn’t dead. The sight of the small woman he inhabited, struggling to breathe with a deep laceration to her throat, was oddly

  Lee Wai Meng was dead. There was a jewel-encrusted knife jammed through the base of his jaw. Blood ran from his mouth, his eyes staring at the ceiling, almost surprised.

  “Wai Meng… Wai Meng…” Peach was whimpering over and over, almost inaudibly. Jesse raised anguished eyes to my face.

  “What happened?” I heard myself say.

  “I thought maybe someone would try and attack Peach,” she said, her words hitting the air dully. “So I asked Lee Wai Meng to come with me and wait…”

  “What about Calvin? Or Han Sung-hyuk? Or me?”

  “The three of you have had a rough time, recently.”

  “Yeah… Yeah, we have. And now, again, because another of my friends is dead, when I could have…” I pressed my hands to my eyes so hard I could see stars. Peach was crying in earnest now.

  “Angry_Birb came in with the knife. Wai Meng tried to…”

  Angry_Birb wheezed and choked, tears streaming down the face of the body and into its ears.

  “Wen Yong.” I dropped my hands, almost passing out as a wave of rage engulfed my head. “He…” I looked at the avatar of Angry_Birb. “You should put him out of his misery.”

  Jesse blanched.

  “Can’t do it?”

  “No, I can.”

  I turned from the room and ran for the main palace as I heard Jesse tell Peach to cover her eyes.