Players did die in VR.
Ann remembered a time when the media kept a weekly tally of accidents, back when the industry was still finding its feet and VR companies could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare. Even then, cases of player deaths were rare. Improvements in technology – spurred by fierce competition for what shaped out to be a multi-billion-dollar business – brought fatalities down to near zero. The occasional exception was therefore all the more shocking and never treated lightly.
Especially when foul play was suspected.
A man had died during the tournament that sunk Ann's career. Derek Cardmon – a newbie player, barely scraped by in the rankings to compete. Ann had never formally met Mr. Cardmon. She had seen the smoking pod as soon as she'd woken up in hers – behind a police barricade, because she was both a suspect and in real danger of getting penned in by the mob of reporters and angry spectators who had flooded the scene.
Ann chewed meditatively on her cold breakfast of bread and berries. She hadn't thought of Derek Cardmon in a long time – tried hard not to think about him, if she were to be honest. The nightmares never really stopped. She still woke up with the smell of burning plastic in her nose in the middle of the night, the image of a man's remains, half-fused with a charred gaming pod, burned into her brain.
"What do you think?" Max asked. Tarah watched her warily from across the table, having finished her account of their shared instance. Her eyes darted from Ann's mask to her own clenched hands.
Ann swallowed, the bland bread turning bitter in her mouth. "They came to Lona to die."
Tarah's dancing partners had stories to tell. Scant few sentences each and most only half-remembered after a night of terror, to James' undisguised disgust, but enough to pick out common threads. The young nobles came from declining households. They sought to build relationships with Castle Lona on behalf of their noble houses, eager to prove themselves against better-favored siblings in internal struggles over titles and inheritance.
"But in reality, they were being shipped out for slaughter," Ann finished.
Even so, most could not put away their pride. Ann had heard not a few unsavory whispers about the Lord and Lady of Lona – and how they were not of noble blood at all.
She popped a berry in her mouth and chewed while the others discussed the merits of her theory and their own interpretations. K, who had been asleep with his head pillowed on his arms last Ann had noticed, slanted her a measuring look through his lashes.
"What?" Ann asked.
K closed his eyes and didn't answer, seemingly awfully pleased for no reason Ann could discern.
The others had exhausted the topic of its worth and were now picking at their breakfast in absentminded silence.
"Was it very scary?" Cilla asked, the question obviously long on her mind.
Tarah nodded a little too enthusiastically. "I was lucky Ann was with me," she said.
Ann glanced at her. Tarah smiled tentatively, and Ann smiled back.
"Oh, please. You walked out without a scratch. A mod even stepped in to help, like you didn't have it easy enough," James sneered. To Philip, he said, "I told you this would happen if we took two newbies in. The instance's been nerfed down to a joke!"
Tarah sat up, bristling. "Easy? I've got burns on my arms!"
She laid one of her arms on the table demonstratively. Cilla immediately crowded close and then hissed in alarm. There were indeed burns on the insides of Tarah's arms, long swatches of skin peeled pink and wet by fire, like a bruised fruit.
"Does it hurt?" Cilla demanded.
Tarah shook her head. "Just a little bit. What're you making that face for? It's just a game, remember?"
Cilla fussed some more, very much unconvinced. Max was similarly perturbed, and left to look for something to dress the wound. Ann glanced at Philip and James. Their expressions were as grim as hers, but no one spoke, so she kept quiet as well.
"Who was that man in the mask?" Tarah asked, in part to shift the conversation away from herself.
"He was probably a mod," Philip answered quickly. He gave James a warning look, but James wasn't in a hurry to yap this time around, too caught up looking at Tarah's reddened arms. "A game moderator. They step in when a game glitches."
"VELES games don't glitch," James scoffed instinctively. A flash of uncertainty passed over his expression the next instant and he quieted down again.
Max returned with the bandages and a salve he'd procured from the castle's servants. Cilla helped Tarah dress the burns while Philip and James discussed something in low tones.
Ann pulled up her game log. She had already detailed the circumstances around the ceiling collapse and the involvement of the masked man. A player feeling pain in-game was infinitely more troubling, as far as glitches went.
There was still time until the sun fell and the second task begun. They split into pairs as they had the first morning at the inn. K was the odd man out, but he decided to head out on his lonesome before the team even discussed what areas to explore.
There was no map to the castle and no servants to ask for directions. "We will meet back here in an hour," Philip decided. No one had any reason to disagree, although Tarah did not appear too excited to be stuck touring the old keep with James for company.
Max and Ann followed the servant paths, deeper into the castle. Ann was hopeful about finding something of use in the servant quarters or the kitchens, whichever they stumbled upon first.
"There is something not quite right with the staff," Max commented as they made their way down a dark, winding hallway. "You don't suppose they are..."
"Dead? Very likely," Ann said.
Max looked at once doubtful and disturbed.
They found the kitchens. Ann rummaged through cupboards and peered into stoves while Max kept watch at the door. The food stores had long rotten, right along with much of the furniture. On her knees under one of the worktables, Ann finally found something of interest – an old photograph, the ink distorted by stains and time. Ann still recognized it at a glance; she had seen it before, after all.
"How long until we have to head back?" Ann asked. Her system was not linked to the game clock – an inconvenience she had already recorded for her debrief with VELES.
"Twelve minutes or so," Max said.
"I'll stay here. I have something to deliver," Ann said.
She explained about the innkeeper's task and showed Max the photo the old man had entrusted in her care, along with its weathered twin.
"The castle's staff may not exist in the present," she said. "We may have entered a time loop of some kind; we are experiencing events that have both come to pass and are yet to come."
"I'll stay with you," Max offered.
Ann shook her head. "The others will worry if neither of us shows up. I won't be long, I promise."
Max was forced to agree. He left with great reluctance; Ann watched him go, a small smile on her lips.
She leaned against a wall and waited. At some point, she must have closed her eyes; the next thing she knew there was light and warmth and the clatter of plates all around.
"Does miss need anything?" a curt voice demanded.
Ann blinked at the stout woman in a servant's uniform staring her down.
"I – um, I'm looking for," Ann glanced around the room, eyes locking on the thin youth peeling potatoes at a familiar table. She pointed in his direction. "Him!"
The woman glanced over her shoulder. "Toby? What do you need with him?"
"His father sent him something," Ann explained.
The woman didn't seem too sure about her story. Still, she called Toby over and then stared at them both in the manner a cat might a bowl of fish.
"Your father sent this, along with his love," Ann said.
She handed the photo to Toby. The youth smiled when he saw it, his gaunt face gaining some color. "I haven't seen this one before. There's only a few we have of mom..."
He cut himself off there, smile fading. The servant monitoring their talk dropped her glare. She patted the youth on the shoulder and ambled off, leaving them alone.
"Thank you," Toby whispered.
"Can I do anything else?" Ann asked.
Toby shook his head. "Ma got sick," he said, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. "A lot of people did, all at once. We had a doctor look at her, but there was nothing – nothing he could do. For any of them."
"I'm sorry," Ann said quietly.
"It's this place," Toby whispered, "this wretched place. The longer I stay, the surer I'm of it."
"What do you mean?" Ann asked.
Toby looked at her, the photo in his hands, then glanced warily over his shoulder. He leaned in at last and whispered,
"There's a garden in the castle. They say flowers bloom from bones, and can take a man's spirit right out of his body."
"Have you seen this garden?" Ann asked.
Toby shook his head. "Servants aren't allowed in. The gardener is very picky about who can visit. He won't allow as much as a lit candle through the gate, for fear of a fire."
Ann had more questions, but someone called for Toby and the youth excused himself.
"Thank you again, miss," he said.
He dropped something as he left. Ann bent to pick the object up, turning it over in her hands. It was a matchbook with four unused matches left inside.
[Item: Toby's matches
Rank: Ordinary
Function: Regular matches.
Burn down your fears.]
The servants were busy clearing the table when Ann stumbled into the dining hall. They bustled around like ants, dark garb in neat contrast to the white tablecloth.
"Where have the guests gone?" Ann asked the first servant she could grab, a young woman with a stare fit for a dying fish.
"Answering Miss, the Lady and her maidservant have retired to their rooms, to prepare for an afternoon audience with his Lordship, Lord Dane," she said.
"And the others?" Ann pressed.
"His Lordship departed for the gardens, in the company of the other esteemed guests," the woman said, her thin lips stretching in a strange smile.
The gardens lay deep inside the castle. Ann had to ask for help several times as she hurried down long, twisting hallways. The sun had long set. Soft candlelight flickered where Ann passed, the flames stretching hungrily to lap at her shadow. The stone walls echoed wanly with her footsteps.
Ann paused at the mouth of an open gate that let in the mountain wind. Beyond it lay darkness without an end. There was no light, nor a path to follow. Far above her head, a circle of dark sky hung like a hollow eye.
"Hello?" Ann called. "Max? Philip?"
Her voice was swallowed by the night. Not a whisper followed.
Ann prepared to call out again. A nasal voice sounded at her elbow before she could gather her breath.
"Miss, I must ask that you refrain from shouting," the butler said. "I will take you to your companions."
Ann lowered her fist. "Lead the way," she said graciously, as if she had not been just about to take a swing at the man.
The butler led her down sloping ground, toward a small lake that glowed softly, reflecting light from a scant few stars blinking sluggishly behind a heavy cover of clouds. As they drew closer, Ann saw the other players gathered at the edge of the lake – only it was not a lake at all, but a bed of blooming flowers, so pale they shone in the dark.
"Is it time?" James asked a man standing among the flowers.
The man in the garden was old and stood with his back bent, his hair white and thin over his temples. But his face was young, and he held a pair of shears in delicate hands.
"Those things – are they really flowers?" Max asked whispered to Ann.
Ann shrugged. "The servants think them a cure for all ills," she said.
Then she walked past Max and grabbed Philip's arm, halting the man as he was about to take his first step into the flowerbed.
"Cilla is calling for you," she said.
Philip turned on her immediately. "Why? Did something happen?" he demanded.
"I'm not sure. Tarah caught me as I was hurrying over, and she didn't say anything else," Ann said.
"The task's about to start," James hissed, face dark.
"I know, I just – she wouldn't ask for me for no reason," Philip said, peering into the dark as if he could make out the castle and Cilla in it if he strained hard enough.
"It seems exactly the kind of thing she'd do," James snapped.
Philip's expression fell. Ann stepped between them before they could really get going and said, with feigned reluctance, "There's no time for this! Go if you have to, I can step in for you."
"That's right! Go!" James spat, his eyes glowing pale with the light of the strange flowers. "I don't need either of you."
He marched into the garden. Philip stared after him, visibly torn. In the end, he thanked Ann and left in the opposite direction.
Ann waved Max's concern away, along with his offer to go into the task in her stead. She caught up with James in a few strides. The man didn't try to chase her off again. He didn't look at her at all, his jaw a taut, angry line.
The youthful old man rasped out a greeting. "Welcome, dear guests! I am the garden's keeper. Walk this way, this way, please. Mind your step and hands, for every flower is worth a life."
The man toddled off, still talking. Ann and James hurried after him and strained their ears to catch his muttering. An ancient king ruling in a turbulent time. Famine and plague, and then, peace at last, built upon the king's bones.
They were in the depths of the garden, the flowers a swaying mass around them, when James leaned into Ann and spoke in her ear, "Follow my lead." He pitched his voice louder as he exclaimed, "A wilted flower? What a pity."
"What?!" the gardener cried. "Where! Where is it?"
James gave Ann a look. Catching on, Ann quickly pointed to a spot far away, back the way they had come. "We passed it just now."
The gardener slipped through the flowerbeds like a reed through water, not bruising a single bloom. Every few steps, his bulbous head turned on its thin neck, urging Ann in gravel tones.
"Hurry, hurry! Where's the rot, where did you see it?"
Ann kept up with some difficulty. She could not step as lightly and had to be careful not to crush any of the flowers in her way. "There, that patch. It is just a bit of browning, no need for fear."
The gardener was obviously of a different mind. His entire face was red, eyes bulging in their thin sockets. Ann gave the thumbs up behind her back once the man was properly distracted.
James bent his waist and quickly cut several flowers in succession. The small knife in his hands flashed as he worked. It was all done quickly and neatly, without a moment or a motion wasted.
The gardener stopped dead in his tracks as soon as the first flower was cut. Ann watched his smooth, sunken face twist in a painful grin, the skin pulled to bursting. Her own heart dropped to her toes.
"One, two, three, four, five," the gardener sang. The shears snipped the air, the metal dark against his thin, pale fingers. "Five pieces, I will cut. Bear it well, for your sins."
When the old man moved, Ann screamed a warning. The gardener was not a human at all and his speed was that of the wind through tall grass. She could not have held the man back even had she had the chance to try.
James was not sitting still but his movements were severely hindered by the twisting flowerbeds. For every step he retreated, the gardener advanced ten. The man sprouted among the flowers, his wispy hair shaking wildly. When he appeared in front of James at last, his stooped body leaned over the man like a drooping blade of grass.
"Wait, there must be a misunderstanding," James bluffed, breathing hard.
The shears cut through the air.