Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

Chapter 301

Fog rolled in from the east, darkness of the early morning bestowing the festive, carnivalesque atmosphere of the tower with a decidedly creepy flair.

The tower was still up and running. As far as anyone could tell, it never closed, and even now there were four early risers decked out in system gear making their way through the empty queue. Ravens—or crows, though they seemed too big to be crows—flitted around the sticky, confetti-littered square, pecking at detritus, eyeing their fellows with jealousy as I tossed the small murder hopping around my feet bits of torn-up bread. They gobbled it down, sparing Talia fleeting glances where she'd curled up and dozed a few feet away.

I'd arrived a little after four in the morning, sleep already a distant fantasy. Most of the previous night had been spent messaging everyone I could, calling in favors, coordinating.

It still didn't feel like enough.

But as much as it felt like I should be doing something, there was nothing left to do now but wait.

Heavy footfalls scuffed concrete. Nick approached the tower from the front, looking half-awake and a little lost. From the looks of it, I wasn't the only one who’d used the recent lull to upgrade. Both the sword and gleaming silver armor looked entirely new. More unexpected was the small luminescent creature wiggling under his arm.

I whistled low. He started, a little, then made his way over to join me.

"Couldn't sleep?" I asked, as he took a seat on the stool beside me.

"Nah." Nick grunted as he hiked himself up on the adjoining stool, metal support beam groaning beneath the heft of his armor. "Too in my head. Got the yips, as the old folks say. Haven't felt like this since the night before my last game."

"Oh, right." Nick removed the creature from beneath his arm. It looked to be a semi-translucent, lightly glowing crab identical to the planners, only larger. He placed it down on the metal counter of the cart, where it skittered back and forth, rotated a few times and plopped down, active camouflage adapting to the stainless steel surface as now barely visible eyestalks flitted between us and the region beyond. "Mr. Crabbington."

"Mr. Crabbington," I repeated slowly.

"Remember all the detailed, 4k, borderline cinematic footage Slenderman and co had of the last event?"

"Trust me, I remember."

He chuckled. "Well, I've been brainstorming our Adventurer's Guild problem, and in the middle of that I got a bug up my ass about it. Didn't seem right that they could sling highly-edited shit at us from the skies while we're down here stuck in the stone ages. So after asking basically everyone I could think of, I reached out to the big man himself." Nick reached over and patted the crab on the head. "He hooked me up."

I stared at the creature. "It... records?"

"It does."

"Is it recording now?"

"No. It's pretty much a magic robot with organic bits. Doesn't even have to eat. There's a command phrase to start and stop, and it can only hold so much before it has to offload it somewhere, so it's inactive."

"You uh... sure he wasn't just fucking with you?"

"Yeah," Nick trailed off, brows furrowed. "It was weird. He had it all locked and loaded. Sybil brought one in as soon as I said something, like he knew I was going to ask. Answered every question I had."

"Even if Hastur isn't perfectly omniscient, he has more foreknowledge than any of us do."

"But why that, though?" Nick pointed out, puzzled. "If we're right that his power is limited until he ascends, or whatever, and he only gets, like, snapshots of possible futures and the steps to get to them in the current moment, why the hell would he waste two seconds of attention on some dipstick coming in to talk to him about a crab?"

He had me there. "You said this had something to do with enticing Tyler and didn't explain how."

Nick sat up excitedly, foisting the crab off the counter back onto his lap. "Right. I was racking my brain, trying to come up with ways going into the tower now instead of later could work to his benefit. Problem is, it's kind of a raw deal for an iffy outcome. He deploys the guild uncertain of how many floors we have to clear, with only our and the Order's word to go on that it's worth his time. If Tyler commits he can't really prepare for the second event, and if we fail, he'll be weaker for it."

"Yeah. I've been coming up empty on that too," I admitted.

"But what if going into the tower and fucking up monsters for the common good actually bags him more recruits. Think about how fucked up people were over the footage. Part of that's because it was explicit, footage of a violent tragedy, sure, but part of it was also because most people haven't had shit to watch since the streaming services croaked. Video affects us more than it used to." Nick shook the crab for emphasis, which wiggled its arms unhappily in response.

"Huh." It was out there. But not so much that I couldn't smell the opportunity.

"We have it film the big battles. Make the Adventurer's Guild out to be badass heroes, raging against the fading of the light." He puffed himself up, comically heroic, before slowly slouching back again. "Course, I uh, have no idea how to go about distributing it. Or how to edit it even." He rubbed the back of his neck, tired and a little shell shocked. "Was so convinced that I had something, but this was all probably a stupid idea to begin with. Guess I ran out of time."

Splitting my attention, I pulled up my DMs and composed a message.

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The answer, one I'd expected back by noon at the earliest, came back lightning fast.

Okay, message received.

"That why you didn't message me about it? Worried it was stupid?" I guessed, feeling a little guilty.

"No. Well—is it stupid?"

Seizing the enemy's propaganda machines and repurposing them for the common good?

"Not even a little."

"Oh." Nick said, encouraged, then scrunched up his face. "Wasn't afraid of making a fool of myself. Not just that, anyway. You're doing a lot you can't tell me about and even if I'm not getting the play by play, I can see how busy you are. Just trying to be choosier about when I blow up your DMs."

I held my fist out on my leg silently, and he bumped it. "As much as I appreciate the discretion, never hold back when we're talking about something with this much potential."

"Look at us." Nick slapped me on the back with a grin. "Communicating, establishing boundaries like grown-ass adults."

"Got the ass part right."

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"I always get the ass part right." Nick grinned, in a manner not so different from his old self, before the smile faded. "We have to show up, today."

I agreed. "Carry, if needed."

"I think..." Nick hedged. "I'm gonna cut loose. Really tackle the first floor full bore. Inspirational hero shit. Opinion?"

It was obvious he was waiting for me to advise caution, expecting a warning to pace himself. But we were past that. The AG was already on the verge of throwing in the towel. Their members had likely already picked up on the uncertainty from leadership. We needed more than a win.

We needed a victory.

"A lot of bad shit happened in the trial." Noticing the way he immediately stiffened, I hurried on. "Because of that, we don't think about the rest of it much. And it wasn't all bad."

Nick scoffed, gaze unfocused, full of regret.

"You saved my life."

He rolled his eyes. "Another hour and you would have figured out a way to handle old stretch-neck yourself."

"These days, maybe." I shrugged. "Back then, I'm not so sure. It was a weak start. Fewer summons, less resources and contingencies. And the spider wasn't weak. She had me in check. I've never told you this, but I was watching the whole time."

He took a second to recall it, but once he did, his face flushed bright red. "How?"

"We had the same patron. Convinced her I was on her side and she let me hold the strings. Had front row seats the entire time."

"Oh." Nick covered his eyes with a hand. "It's always hazy when I'm that pissed off, but from what I do remember, it got... a little crazy. You saw all that, huh?"

"I didn't just see it. It was everything I could do to not just gape, slack-jawed."

"Stop."

"I'm serious. And sure, parts of it were a little terrifying—never going to forget you beating a bug to death with another bug—"

"—Come on, man." Nick groaned.

"But it was inspiring. You had this placid fury, this flow, that was humbling to watch. Utter purity of purpose. You were good when we fought together before that, but as soon as I was deep in shit, it was like someone flipped a switch. I realized two things at that moment. The first was that I never wanted to fight you. Ever. For any reason. And the second was that I trusted you implicitly."

He trotted out the beaten puppy expression. "You didn't trust me before that?"

I pushed him lightly. "Shut up. There are levels of trust. What I'm getting at is, if you want to bring that guy back, start the camera up and go for it. Even if we don't find a way to use the footage, it'll wake the people who are there the fuck up. So go nuts. Take chances, be flashy as hell. And I'll make sure the cards come up in your favor."

Be who I know you can be.

"Much as I appreciate the support," Nick stared at the ground, his smile fragile. "I'm not sure I have that guy in me anymore. It changes a lot, knowing..."

"...how quickly you can lose someone." I finished. In the recesses of my mind, stirred.

Tell him.

No.

I shook my head ever so slightly, trying to banish the thought from my mind.

"We just said that we need to give this our all." Nick said, voice strangely calm. "If you thought of something that could help—"

"It won't help." I snapped. "It's cruel, and shitty, and manipulative." Nick was already holding the weight of the world on his shoulders. Add any more, and there was a real chance it would break him.

"Damn, I didn't realize it was all lip service."

"Fuck off."

"Matt. We've been here before." Nick lowered his arms to either side and pushed a few times, mimicking rolling a wheelchair. "No one's ever been honest with me the way you were then. It scared the life back into me. If you have a way to get in my head and help me lock in, cruel or manipulative doesn't matter."

"I don't want to." My voice wavered as I slipped off the stool and backed away from him. He was nothing to me, when we met in rehab. An idle curiosity with an inevitable end. And even then, I'd only gone through with it because nothing else seemed to work.

Funny. How different things are with time.

Now, hurting him was the last thing I wanted.

"Okay, okay," Nick gestured with both hands palm out, as if warding off an attack, suddenly looking haggard and fatigued. "My bad. That was a shitty thing to ask. You only came at me that hard because we weren't really friends yet. I just thought... you know."

Talia's voice echoed in my mind. "I cannot know how you intended to motivate our packmate. With the recent developments, I can only guess. What is certain, is that he will continue to wonder what you might have said. And imagination is often far crueler than reality."

Fuck.

Talia sprang to her feet and took off, heeding the mental command to scout the perimeter. I waited there quietly, praying that I'd somehow been lacking and there was an entire survey unit parked on a roof somewhere.

Eventually confirmation came back. We were in the clear.

I reached into my inventory and withdrew the feeling the signature coldness as it tightened beneath my chin.

"This really what you want?"

"Yes."

"Vernon's close, Nick." I didn't bother turning around. Didn't need to. His jaw was on the floor, and he was on the verge of falling off his stool. "All signs point to resurrection being the next skill he unlocks."

Like clockwork, metal smacked against metal as he held onto the counter to steady himself. "What?"

"Did I stutter?"

"You—you told me he was at a progression wall. That it wasn't promising!" His eyebrows furrowed, surprise shifting to anger.

I turned then, giving sound to the silent voice that tormented my fears, my failures, my every doubt. Aiming outward, instead of in. Leveraging it like a weapon. "Yeah. I fucking lied. That really surprise you at this point?"

"Why would you—" His lip trembled, "What the hell is wrong with you, man? I've been worried sick!"

Nick put his hands on me, but I knew the shove was coming long before he moved. I broke his grip, slamming against his center plate with my palm, sending him back pedaling until his armor collided with the cart and he hit the stool. "Come on, let's hear it. Go ahead. Tell me how it wouldn't have been a problem. How you wouldn't have started counting down the days, dropped in on Vernon at every opportunity and tipped our hand. That the dim prospect of resurrecting Jinny becoming not only real, but imminent, wouldn't have been a constant distraction that could have easily gotten you killed."

He bit his lip and looked away.

"Exactly. So yes, I kept it from you. The only reason we're even talking about it now is because I can't stomach the sniveling anymore."

"You don't mean that."

"Sure I do. For once, I mean every, fucking, word." I grabbed him by the collar of his chestplate, pushed him back. "This is what you wanted. Honesty. Well how's this for honesty, Nick? You've been so screwed up over whether or not you might be able to bring back a dead girl, that you haven't even considered what you might be bringing her back into."

"Of course I've considered it! We've been trying to make things better. Trying to put an end to this." Nick snarled. He had a lot more fight in him now than he had in rehab. That meant I had to peel the resistance back, layer by layer.

"Then actualize, motherfucker. Because we are running out of time. And the difference between you stepping up or tripping over your own feet could be the difference between bringing Jinny back to a mending society or a hellscape."

He gripped my wrist tightly, trembling with rage.

I leered at him outwardly, feeling nauseous as the guillotine's blade began to slide. "The second event will be worse. I barely lived through the first, Nick. Me." I jabbed a thumb into my chest. "Jinny had a lot of firepower in the early days, but every User still breathing has come a long way since then. She'll be weak at first. Vulnerable. Maybe you can protect her. Maybe you can't. But if you really want to protect her, you can't just fixate on her alone. You have to end this. Save everyone. And if you're too selfish to see that, then you may as well not even try."

His grip around my wrist relaxed. But his eyes were fathomless. Cold as forged iron. "Remove your hand."

I almost didn't. But the message beneath his impassive expression sent was crystal clear. If I kept going, finished the thought? I didn't know what he'd do. But it scared me. He reached out. Too slow to be anything aggressive, but I still fought the urge to back off, create space. The sense of danger he was giving off was almost palpable.

Fresh air hit my skin, as he tugged the mask off.

"The last time someone tried that, it didn't end well for them," I joked, catching a chill.

Nick embraced me in a rough hug, the cool metal seeping through my armor. "Sorry I pushed. It wasn't fair."

"I wanted to tell you the necromancy details. It's been driving me crazy. But you'd already been through a lot, so I held off, and... the right time never came."

"You were right." Nick said simply, sitting back down on the stool. "About everything. I've been short-sighted. Just, completely focused on an endpoint that isn't even the end. Even if it doesn't pan out, and the next ability Vernon unlocks is sentient jack-o-lanterns... it'd suck to say goodbye to her without knowing I'd done everything possible to end this. Jinny didn't talk about her life much."

Nick was saying all the right things. Making jokes, setting low expectations, engaging in self-deprecation. But I knew what I'd done. The cruelest thing you could do to a person, when the future was uncertain. Beyond the cajoling and crudeness of the wake-up call, I'd given him hope.

And he burned with it.

Nick held his arm out, checking how steady it was, lowering it satisfied. "Good news. The yips have been vanquished."

In the distance, the fog brightened, parallel high-beams casting long fingers through the haze. Another pair appeared behind it, and another.

"They're here."

My friend stood, somehow seeming both younger and older than he had minutes ago. "Let's get this party started."