“Screech?” Soise knelt down, handing a warm mug to the little boy. He wouldn’t take it, much like anything else she tried to give him. “You need to have some breakfast, okay?”

  “Where’s momma?” Screech asked.

  “Momma…” Soise ground her teeth. “You’re a player, so you don’t have any mom, Screech. Well not a real mom. I mean you do, in the real world but this isn’t the real world so—”

  Screech sniffled. “M-momma’s gone?”

  “No, she’s…” Soise squeezed his hand. “Screech, Momma was bad.”

  “Momma’s gone?”

  “...Yes.”

  He threw his head back and wailed. Snotty tears ran down his face, staining his grubby shirt.

  Soise facepalmed. “Could one of you please give me a hand with this?!”

  “Let the little tyke cry his heart out,” Master Jujud said, flicking the page of her newspaper. “It’ll build character.”

  “You’re a horrible person,” Soise hissed.

  “For the record,” Catania started. “I agree with Master. The poor guy just learned his mother was going to eat him. If he doesn’t cry, he’ll develop all sorts of repressed emotions.”

  She got a couple odd looks from the rest of us.

  “Do…you have experience with that?” Toya asked innocently.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh…nothing…it’s not really important. Speaking of importance,” he trailed off, glaring at Master Jujud. “We need some answers. Immediately.

  Master Jujud smiled. “About what?”

  “What were you thinking?!” Toya snapped. “I understand setting us up for an impossible mission, but I absolutely cannot accept placing a hostage in danger just to drive home some sort of point!”

  Jujud paused. She sat up. “Elaborate.”

  “You knew the boy was in there, didn’t you?” Toya asked. “Of course you did, Master. Or even if you didn’t at first, you knew the moment we came within three miles.”

  “Master Jujud has that kind of range?” Soise asked.

  Catania whistled.

  “Of course she does,” Toya grumbled. “Master, why didn’t you save the boy?! Why’d you wait until he was trapped, inhaling the fumes of a spell?”

  “Please,” Jujud began, setting her newspaper aside. “Not underestimating your master. If I had thought for a moment that any of you were in actual danger, I would have done something. Keep in mind that the moment I intervene, the mission is considered failed. I only killed the—” her gaze flickered to the little boy. “---One monster—because Grind had pushed himself to the verge of death.”

  Toya held his hands clasped in front of him. “You truly believe he was in no danger? No danger whatsoever?”

  She shook her head. “The monster thought of him as some kind of pet. Maybe she lost a couple eggs, went a little crazy, and adopted the first baby she saw, who just so happened to be the youngest player in recorded history.”

  “I still don’t like it,” Toya said. “Not in the slightest.”

  Sip put a hand on his shoulder. “Brother. I feel your pain. I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “You’re conflicted. But you did good today.” Sip pressed a bag of gold into his hands. “This’ll make you feel better.”

  Toya blinked.

  “Those are enchanted tokens worth one to a hundred Qualms each,” Sip said. “Squeeze the edge of a coin to add it to your account.”

  He smirked, passing out the rest of the bags.

  Master Jujud raised an eyebrow. “I hope you five realize that because you failed this assignment you will not be getting paid. In addition, even if I let you keep the money monsters dropped, it would have been worthless.”

  “I know,” Toya said. He tossed the bag between his hands. “Which begs the question, what is this?”

  “That is a physical Qualm,” Sip stated. “It’s basically a unit of willpower. The economy basically works on the strongest commanders providing effort to everybody else so they can make whatever they want.”

  He cracked a coin in his own hand. “I believe this one was made by Headmaster Xoiae, actually.”

  “Sip, we’re not supposed to get these,” Soise stated. “We lost.”

  He smiled with all teeth, like a shark. A loan shark, specifically. “You know, we made quite a reputation back at the academy. Our odds of loss were a hundred to one. And you four had so much spare cash in your accounts, I had to take the opportunity.”

  “You…” Toya squeezed his fists. “You bet my money—our money—on us failing the assignment!?”

  “If you’d actually beaten this mission, you’d make such a stupid amount of Qualm that what I bet would seem insignificant,” Sip chuckled. “And now that we lost, you can reinvest that money into your stats, so we don’t fail next time.”

  “How’d you get that money?” Catania asked. “We’re flying thousands of feet above the desert, miles and miles from the nearest town.”

  “I have seven gambling themed abilities. They make this whole process quite handy. Hey, Grind, I had to pull a few strings or you would’ve lost your share to that ridiculous debt, so I expect a ‘thank you.’”

  He turned.

  “Grind?”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  I sat on the edge of the floating platform, looking across thousands of feet to the sand below.

  “Hey! Grind!” Sip called. “Did you hear me? We made stupid cash!”

  “Mmhm,” I said.

  “Grind, c’mon, give me a bit of credit, would you?” He continued to chuckle, but had lost the edges of his smile. “You…you feeling alright?”

  “I almost died, Sip,” I whispered.

  There was a lingering moment of silence, save for Screech’s continued bawling.

  “I…” I took a breath. “I don’t want to lose this. This life. It’s nice. For once I’m actually somewhere I want to be doing things I want to do. Sure, the life isn’t perfect. If he and his mother loved each other, and if she really never ate any players, I’d have liked to leave Screech with her.” I took a deep breath. “Unfortunately, that just wasn’t going to work. He needs to grow up somewhere safe. Nowhere is safer than the academy. If we moved him, the Queen would attack and kill players.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “This game is still a hot mess, and I don’t know what’s even good or evil anymore, but at least I understand where I am right now. And I’m winning. I like that. So I don’t want to die.”

  “Nobody wants to die,” Sip chuckled half-heartedly.

  The rest of the party barely heard my whisper.

  “I really, really don’t want to die.”

  Master Jujud clapped me on the back, sending goosebumps down my spine as I lurched toward the open air.

  “You did good today!” She said, smiling. “Be proud of that. Now get some rest you five. We’ll be back to the academy by noon. You’ll have school after.”

  I took the money from Sip. “About that. How are we supposed to get back without a ship? Our hovering little platform only hovers, and I don’t think Toya has enough mana for a sail.”

  Master Jujud started floating in the air. “Child’s play.”

  She flew to the back, tapping the side.

  The whole craft shuddered, picking up speed directly westward, accelerating until the hurricane force winds pushed us down one side of the craft.

  There was another blast of mental energy, and the wing slackened, deflecting off an enchanted field.

  We were still moving fast, but a secondary internal bubble shielded us from the harsh wind.

  Sip took a shaking step forward, grabbing me by the arm. “Buddy? How long until you can start doing things like that?”

  I flicked one wristband.

  “Maybe I already can.”

  “Great. Do you have any idea how much money we could make with power like that?”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Sip.”

  Our ride back was long. Even with Master Jujud’s power, there was a limit to how fast we could move.

  “Eat!” Soise pleaded, summoning a platter of food from her inventory.

  Screech just wailed and wailed, drowning out the sound of rushing wind.

  Soise threw the plate on the squishy floor, grabbing her head in her hands. “I want to help you, so won’t you please stop crying!”

  “That’s not going to work,” I sighed, sitting beside the boy. “Master Jujud was mostly right. We should let him cry.”

  “I know, I know, but he won’t stop!” She began. “And he needs to eat food and drink some water! From the looks of his passive afflictions, he hasn’t been getting a balanced diet. He can’t last much longer like this!”

  “First things first,” I started. “He’s crying.”

  My bands had been strengthened just a matter of hours before, and yet, with what I’d gone through since then, I felt the presence diminished. I could do a little.

  Think back.

  How did it feel?

  How did it smell?

  I pressed my hands together.

  The Queen had dropped a feather.

  It had been trapped in the web.

  Explosive pain shot through the back of my head, flashing white in my vision. But I pushed forward, making the summon work.

  Soise noticed it immediately. “What’s that for?”

  I took the dense feather, concentrating on the finer details. The grain of keratin. The pattern of color.

  “That’s not going to help!” she said. “It’s too soon to remind him of anything.”

  I leaned forward, slipping the end into Screech’s hand. He reacted immediately, squeezing his eyes, clutching his mother’s feather to his chest.

  And he cried all the more. But those tears would be different. Eventually, they would stop.

  Soise frowned, softening her voice. “That’s not even a real feather.”

  “When I was younger, I lost a lot of people,” I said. “I cried a lot. I still do, really. When the people I loved died, there was nothing left to remember them by. I wanted something, anything, so, so bad. Just to remember who I lost. If I stop remembering them, it’s like the person I know never existed.”

  Soise looked at the floor.

  But it was more than just losing someone.

  They’d be reset.

  Back to who they were before.

  The person who’d be alive, but the family who was dead.

  Screech grabbed hold of my tattered shirt, pulling himself closer to me. I wrapped my arms around him, and we cried together.

  Hours passed, and he cried less. Soon, he fell asleep in my arms.

  Soise knelt beside him, summoning a blanket from her inventory. “When he wakes up, is he going to start crying again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I sat on the floor and closed my eyes. They burned a little.

  Why had I started crying? Wasn’t I happy?

  Maybe happy people can cry too.

  “Grind?” Soise asked. “You care about people a lot, don’t you?”

  “I hope so,” I said. “I really hope so.”

  “...Sorry for hitting you. That one time.” She sat beside me. “We got off to a bad start.”

  “I deserved it,” I sighed. “Sometimes I get caught up in myself. If Master Jujud had missed…”

  I shook my head.

  Soise nodded. “Hey, did you eat something yet? You look dreadful.”

  “I feel dreadful,” I chuckled. “Got a granola bar or something?”

  That got her to smile. “Or something?” She summoned a steaming plate of steak, mashed potatoes, and broccoli. “Don’t worry about Screech’s meal. I have his in my inventory too, for when he gets hungry.”

  “You store precooked meals in your inventory?” I asked. “Hang on. They’re still warm when you pull them out? How’s that supposed to work?”

  “I think my inventory puts them into some kind of stasis,” she said.

  Interesting.

  I briefly contemplated being polite and refusing the meal.

  Ten seconds and three napkins later, I finished breakfast.

  Soise laughed, summoning a basket of bread from her inventory. “If you’re that hungry, why didn’t you say something?”

  “If you’ve had two courses in your inventory, why didn’t you say something?” I asked.

  “Two?” She scoffed. “I have nine.”

  “Hold on—”

  “Bacon and egg, ham and potato soup, rice and pasta, falafel, salmon, deathtuna—if you have a specific airborne illness—fourteen slices of pizza, bread, in addition to the mug of hot chocolate and spiral cut ham for Screech. It’d have been ten, if I were to include your meal. As team leader, I need to provide for the needs of my party.”

  Sip perked up. “Whoa, hey. Buddy… could I get some?”

  Catania bonked him on the head. “You wait until we reach the academy.”

  “But I made you money!” He whined.

  “Calm down. Sip’s right. It’s only fair,” Soise nodded, handing Sip the plate of smoked salmon. Or a fish that looked a lot like salmon, anyway. “Sixty.”

  Sip blinked. “Sixty…”

  “Qualms.”

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

  // {Notice} //

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