Stories of Stardust (pt2)

236. Shifting Currents

My heart pounded in my chest; the world narrowed onto his words.

Do I know you?

The moment burst, the light faded from his eyes, and the cutscene returned to normal. My fingers drummed on the table, and I reclined back in my chair as I absorbed the freshly booted reality.

What was that?

Zenith Online was a video game. NPCs like the merchant were not just bound by their programming–every twitch of the eye and every pixel of their skin was predefined by the programmers, as every aspect of a story was bound by the writer. The stories I'd read never changed after my appearance. Zenith Online shouldn't have either. But then, it should have been impossible for me to interact with players and NPCs the way I had in the world.

I lifted a hand to my temple, rubbing it slowly. Thinking about it–and how spaciotemporal magic worked in genera–was headache-inducing.

The colors on the screen shifted to the first appearance of the Djinn. My teeth sliced through my lip, a tiny droplet of blood welling up before I licked it off as I leaned forward, watching for any alterations in the Djinn's attitude.

Nothing...

"What are you standing around for?!"

Pineapple Pizza whipped the longsword off his back and charged the transformed Djinn.

My hand wrapped loosely back around the mouse. With the combos I'd mastered during my time in the game, I typed out the sequence I wanted Blaze to move through. Too quickly, he shifted from Toss to Gust, resulting in neither doing what I expected. The flow of battle through a keyboard was much different than the flow of combat in person.

Different...

What was different? How had the merchant noticed me one moment and returned to normal the next?

Ani leaped onto my desk, pawing at the characters on the screen. Automatically, I moved to swat him away. My hand froze.

My grip on the mouse went slack as I divided my focus. I guided Blaze's actions on the keyboard, moving too swiftly or too slowly through the movements while the majority of my attention was focused on casting mental magic once more. Doing both at once was difficult, as I didn't yet have the muscle memory needed for either task. At first, I felt nothing. Then, as though I were pressing my eyes up to a veil, I noticed the muted, distorted presences I'd seen while playing Zenith Online.

I locked on the presence of the Djinn and tugged at the veil shrouding its presence. On-screen, the wolf dissipated into a cloud of smoke.

"Did we pineally get him?"

The smoke swirled up into the massive form of the floating Djinn. The grass swished beneath his feet as he drifted to Blaze, towering over his form.

"YOU HAVE RETURNED. YET YOU ARE NOT HERE."

Unfortunately, NPCs such as the Djinn were not included in the chats. To interact with NPCs, one simply selects among the provided dialogue options, of which there were obviously none. However, I'd learned in my travels that words weren't necessarily the only method of communication.

Perhaps, if the Djinn were willing...

My hand slid down the spine of the mouse as my eyes slipped shut. I shut out Ani, the computer, the wind howling against the window, and all other distractions one by one. Tiny golden threads drifted before me, shifting and wriggling as though caught by a current. I found the thread that connected the space between here and there. Stretching my mind out to its limits and further still, I reached across realities until I didn't just sense the Djinn's presence but was right next to it. In this space, his smokey form danced out of my reach.

"I SEE." His eyes–his real ones–flicked over to my direction. A flickering golden light, shifting like a flame, reflected in his eyes.

His attention returned to the frozen Blaze. I glanced over, catching sight of the sparks and embers that danced beneath Blaze's skin. Behind me, a powerful presence raged. I turned to see the waterfall cascading beneath Pineapple Pizza's skin. It was a powerful presence, enough to crumble most enemies to dust. Yet it was merely a tiny echo of a much larger ocean.

The dancing sparks and embers, then, must have been the remnants of my magic.

"THIS IS AN AVATAR." The Djinn smiled at me, his teeth wicked sharp in the light. Back in my chair, I swallowed nervously. Sweat dripped down my face.

His massive hand reached out toward Blaze, stopping an inch from his body.

"VERY WELL."

His physical and magical presence both vanished, the smile lingering briefly in the smoke before it, too, disappeared into the wind.

I opened my eyes.

[Ability Transform migrated to avatar.]

[The system is currently processing additional data. Please wait.]

"We pineally beat him!" Cove exclaimed, forcing Pineapple Pizza to zip through the clearing, searching for dropped items.

"Did you..."

Cove's response was a distracted "What?"

"Never mind." Doubtless, if Cove had seen what happened on his end, there would have been an endless stream of questions from him.

I wiped the sweat from my brow, my limbs feeling leaden with exhaustion.

"Oh, by the way," Cove said conversationally, "my father wants to meet with us tomorrow."

I rubbed my eyes. "I'd best sign off and get some sleep then." It was as good of an excuse as any. My finger shook as I clicked out of the game.

However, my mind was already miles ahead of the meeting, shifting plans and altering schedules. As soon as the meeting was over, I'd have to make another trip to the library and check the ancient records on spaciotemporal magic. There had to be some explanation for what had just happened and how Cove and I could have viewed two events simultaneously.