A phone ring was what woke Leo up from his slumber. Groggy, he reached over the bare chest body next to him and grabbed his cell phone from the dresser. "Hey, Val," he said after answering.
"Leo, you have Sweven right?" Valeria asked.
He sat up, rubbing his eyes. "'Course, is that even a question?"
"Feel like teaching me how to play?" She asked him.
"Sure, I mean, it's not really your thing."
She took a beat, "I'll be over in ten minutes."
"Jesus, okay, uh," he slid of the edge of the bed to grab his jeans. "Lemme get dressed at least."
"Okie dokie," Valeria's voice chimed as he buttoned up his pants and secured his belt. "I'm walking over now."
"Okay, you want hashbrowns?" He offered. "Takes ten minutes."
"I'm good. See you in a bit."
"Chow," he hung up, tossing his phone onto the bed before grabbing a shirt. "You gotta go, my friend's coming over."
The guy turned onto his side, "Hm, should I be jealous?"
Leo chuckled, putting the shirt of his head and stepping over the clothes covering the floor of his bedroom, "Nope, you want hashbrowns?"
The guy sat up, propping himself on his elbows, "Yeah, sure."
Heading downstairs while his guest got dressed, Leo made his way downstairs into the kitchen where he put hashbrowns in the toaster oven, watching Sweven streams in the meantime.
Now this is something that's never been done before, getting past the entrance of the Whein. It only opens at dusk, you guys have no idea how many times I've camped overnight but the entrance is so slippery, you almost have to not want to enter to get past it.
Leo paused the video once the young man entered the kitchen, "Is that that stupid game you keep playing?"
Leo mocked his tone, "I told you my friend's coming over, she wants to learn how to play."
His eyes darted up, "Oh, it's a girl?"
"Yes, Kev, she's a girl," he stressed, handing him a hashbrown after taking it out of the toaster oven.
"You've heard about the disappearances, right?"
Leo nodded, "That's why she wants to play."
"How do you know that?"
"Her sister," he caught himself. "I've seen her in the White Rabbit gathering intel, she doesn't ever disconnect."
"What's the White Rabbit?" Kev asked.
"It's a bar connected to the Cheshire Cat in the Raury, which is like speakeasy central. You need passwords for everything: to get in, to order drinks, take a piss."
"Sounds exhausting," he noted.
Leo shrugged, "It's like dreaming. Time goes faster when you're in Sweven. Five minutes is an hour."
" — you have a passport." Leo blinked, seeing he was now in dark wooden cabin where creatures sat around a table playing the Sweven board game. The projector screen resembled Jeopardy a bit, selecting cards and currencies to weave their way around the map. He saw the color of her hair changed. "That's a first."
Valeria took hold of Leo's arm, "Holy shit — I can ... "
"Remember your hands," Leo reminded her. Her eyes slowly made their way down but her arms weren't moving. "Now you know."
He could feel her heartbeat through the tips of her fingers, pulsating her veins. "You said something about a passport?"
"Yeah, on your watch," he pointed out, seeing she was now wearing a band with a screen on it. He tapped the screen and a hologram of different selections and apps appeared in shades of blue and orange. "This is your passport, it allows you to identify yourself but you're a King so you'll have access to anything and everywhere. And when I'm with you, so can I. This is your map, it shows you — whoa."
"What?" She asked, only making out his bushy brows through the hologram. The room was dark, the only light sources was the screen and her watch.
"Your map shows you where everyone is. I've never seen this before."
Valeria moved her arm down to see his face, a kid in a candy store. "There's too many names, how do you find one?"
"Beats me, I don't have this type of clearance," he shrugged. "Try finding a search bar."
Messing around with the hologram, she tapped on islands and names, people's passports appeared. Finding what looked like a search bar, there was no keyboard. "Find Andromeda," she projected after reading the brief instructions.
"Who's that?"
"My sister."
Leo paused, "I thought her name was Star."
"Andromeda's a constellation of stars," Valeria blurted as the map zoomed in on a spot in the upper right corner of the world. "She's at the Hall of All Livid Things."
Leo scowled, "Oh, we're not going there."
"Why not?"
"That place is like a fortress, you make one wrong turn and you're back where you started except the layout is different and — I tried it once. I made a wrong turn and it went from a hotel to an underground colony in a split. Not to mention it takes three hours to get there — by plane."
"But if she's there — "
"You can keep track of her," he interrupted. "You're King for a reason. You'll find her but you have to make the strides to ascend just like everyone else. You can't just bend the rules because you're here for her, you have to play. Just like everyone else."
"Okay, well, what — "Valeria blinked and they were back in his living room, sitting on the floor, with earphones over their head. She brought them down, " — do I have to do to ascend?"
Leo removes his ear phones, reassessing the time clock, "You have to acquire a strain called Star Crossed Sativa. When you smoke it, you ascend."
She blinked, "What's the point in that?"
He shrugged, "Honestly it tastes like blueberries to me. I hear it's the player's favorite fruit."
"That's so pointless," she mentioned, rubbing her eyes. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
"It takes time to recharge," he told her. "We were only in there for twelve seconds."
"Wait — what?" Her lips parted. "You said five minutes."
"Yeah, five minutes in the game world," he explained. "Five minutes out here is an hour in Sweven. It's why it was so hard to get your hands on after the update, because people didn't need to spend so much real time invested in a video game. They got to live separate lives in their own time."
Valeria shook her head, "No wonder she liked it so much, it's just like — "
"Like what?"
Valeria tilted her head, "Can you use your ability in the game?"
"Oh, most definitely, it's how the game was designed; to use your ability to your advantage to find the Diadem of Orion. It's the object of the game. But no one's found it yet."
"What happens when you find the diadem?"
He shrugged, "No one knows."
The two of them looked at the tablet when it dinged, it'd recharged. "Are you sure you wanna ascend?"
Valeria had already put her earphone back on, "Damn straight."
He couldn't help but smile, "Okay, I'll put an hour on — "
"Three."
He met her eyes, "That's an expensive — "
"I have unlimited currency, right?" The corner of Leo's mouth creeped into a smirk, seeing the colors of the air around her shift. "What?"
"You're pink, now."
She looked embarrassed, "Is that a good thing?"
He nodded, feeling sweat formulate at his underarms, "Yeah, um, three hours ... right."
"Have you been in there for that long before?" She asked as he tapped the screen.
He watched the countdown, "I was once in there for a whole day."