WORD COUNT: 1,828
It was dark. The stars couldn't be seen through the foliage, though a few slivers of moonlight seemed to slip through, here and there.
"Is that...water? Running water? Like a creek? I hear, like, a waterfall or something," Alex observed.
"I'm impressed you heard it before I did, I'm usually the first one to pick up on that," Joan confirmed, "It's a river. It means we're getting close."
"Finally!" Eli exclaimed, slouching a little bit with relief.
"Is he always this much of a drama queen?" Amber asked Alex, who, in turn, laughed and nodded.
Did Eli hear the comment? Yes. Did he pretend not to? Maybe.
"We have a creek near our house," Eli said, instead, kicking pebbles and twigs around as he walked.
"Wait, there's a creek near your house, too? You never told me that," Alex asked curiously.
"Well...there's one near your house, and I'm always there and—I mean, like obviously it's not our house, it's your house, but-"
"Dude, chill. I was just curious," Alex replied, smiling at Eli when he nodded his response. He could practically hear Amber's eyeroll when Eli smiled back.
Within the next hour, they had arrived at a minuscule clearing in the large trees. In the middle of the uneven patch of grass and twigs, a tall daisy grew. Joan bent down to pick it.
"Are you serious?" Eli groaned inwardly, "Do we really have time for this?"
"Elijah, you are driving me up the wall. Please, for even just a few minutes, shut up," Joan snapped, pulling the flower up. The stem didn't break, but rather, grew longer and longer until it was nearly Joan's height. Then something clicked, and a patch in the grass lifted. There wasn't dirt underneath it, like there was under every other patch of grass; there was a wooden staircase leading downward into a place too dark to see clearly.
Surprisingly enough, Eli shut up pretty quickly after that.
Amber was the first to enter, and Joan was the last, making sure that no one was following them in before pulling the flower stem back down from the roof and watching the trapdoor close.
"It's dark in—oh, hey! I didn't think there'd be electricity down here." Alex commented, looking up in wonder at the dim lamps that all seemed to have flickered awake.
"There's not," Joan replied, clapping his hands like he was dusting himself off.
"Wait, did you do that? With your hands? Like I know you have lightning or whatever, but can you, like, power electrical stuff?" Alex asked, fascinated.
"Yes," Joan said simply, standing a little straighter and suppressing a smile. It was nice to be admired once in awhile. Once a player was used to magic, it was easy to forget just how amazing it was. To be 'special' again felt sort of uplifting, especially to someone who was so accustomed to 'special' things.
"That. Is so. Cool," Alex gawked, touching one of the lamps lightly with one finger. It got zapped in a way that one gets zapped on a playground slide or a balloon with too much static electrical charge. Although it hurt a little, it only made Alex's smile grow. Joan had to turn away to hide whatever sort of laugh was trying to escape him.
"Goodnight, everyone!" Eva said suddenly from her place in the hallway, just across the room from Joan. She was already in pajamas (Alex noted that her sleep clothes were the exact same colors of her last outfit), and she looked quite tired. She ducked into the first room on the left, closing the door behind her.
"So you guys all live here?" Alex asked Joan, "Like you were all programmed to share a house? Or is this some sort of headquarters?"
"A mix of both," Joan said, shrugging off his robe with a happy sigh. It flashed a couple times when it hit the floor before disappearing.
"Woah. Does that happen to anything that hits the floor? Is that just part of the game?" Alex inquired, staring intensely at the ground where the robe was a few seconds ago.
"No, that robe just disappears when the first day of the game is over. I have to wear it at the beginning of every game. Every time a player that I'm actually required to talk to logs on, I have to look the same. The problem is, the creators of the game have a weak concept of what wizards are and they gave me a stereotypical children's costume of a wardrobe to guide players in. It's humiliating, really, so I'm always relieved when it disappears. That is, until another important player joins the game and I have to wear it again," Joan said, all the while brushing off and straightening the grey shirt and pants he had had on under the robe.
"So the game chooses what you wear? Does that apply to me, too?" Alex asked, looking around the room.
"Yes. The colors that you're wearing now will appear in every item of clothing or armor that you wear until you've completed the game. When given the chance to choose between people to play as on character select screens, people most often pick the person with the most aesthetically pleasing clothing options. Often, favorite colors impair judgement on what actually looks decent and what doesn't. The programming assumes that that's how it works on Earth; the only colors humans choose to wear are strictly their favorites. So it looks like you'll be seeing a lot of blue, red, black, white and grey in the next however-long-our-little-adventure-will-take," Joan told him, crossing over to the hallway.
"That's weird. So like do you actually need sleep in this game or is it just an optional thing?" Alex asked.
"You do ask far too many questions, Alejandro. I suggest you either join Elijah in the guest player room or you sleep on the couch," Joan said shortly.
"'Kay. 'Night, I guess," Alex replied, walking through the small hallway and pushing on every door to figure out what was what. He had seen Evalyn and Joan walk into their rooms, so he only had to figure out the other three. He made a mental list of everything.
First door on the left: Evalyn's room (And Amber's too? Probably? he didn't see any other rooms that could have been hers, so that seemed to be the only logical explanation.)
Second door on the left: nothing in particular, but it did have some metal tables with tools and unfinished/broken weapons on them
Door in the middle, straight down the hallway: Joan's room
Second door on the right: a storage room
First door on the right:
"Hey, Eli," Alex mumbled, "How are you holding up?"
Eli was sulking on the only bed in the room; it was a twin bed and it was completely white, perfectly made like all video game beds are. His shoes had been kicked off and his legs were crossed, elbows on his knees and chin in his hands as he slouched and looked down at the floor with somewhat of a pout.
"Not great," he mumbled, hand halfway covering his mouth.
"I'm guessing it's because of the whole 'stuck in a video game' thing?" Alex asked with a tired smile, trying to lighten the mood.
"No, Alex. It's because my feet hurt," Elijah deadpanned. Alex looked shocked.
"Sarcasm, Alex! Yes, it's because of the whole 'stuck in a video game' thing!" Eli snapped.
"Okay! Fine! I'm sorry! I'm just trying to help, can you bear with me here?" Alex asked frustratedly, hands up in surrender. Eli gave him a sour look, but it quickly faded so something a little more tired and apologetic as he leaned forward, resting his forehead on Alex's shoulder.
"Yeah, 'm sorry," Eli mumbled, heaving in a deep breath, "I'm just tired and I don't know what to do and I want to go home and I'm kinda wondering if that's even an option anymore. Or if it ever was an option in the first place."
Alex opened and closed his mouth, unable to think of anything that he wouldn't get yelled at for saying. He just sighed, gently placing a hand on Elijah's arm.
"Yeah. Sorry about that. I'm fine, though, you're fine, nobody's hurt, and the wizard said that we could go home after defeating the boss or whatever, and that's assuming we won't find a way out before that," Alejandro said in his best effort to be comforting.
"I know, I guess I'm just overthinking everything. Plus this is a video game, so like if I die or something, I'll just respawn," Elijah reasoned, "It's just really difficult to be here. I don't know how else to say it. I don't know what time it is in the real world, I don't know if time passes the same here as it does on Earth, my eating schedule is probably thrown off, my sleeping schedule is probably thrown off, kinda like a weird version of jet-lag."
"No, yeah, that totally makes sense. I get it, you haven't really had anything to eat since this morning and a whole day has passed in the game, but we don't know how many days it's been in real time. I'm super tired, too. But I guess we just gotta get used to it, right? I'm sure, by the time we get out of here, we'll be a lot better. Like as far as the jet-lag feelings go. As for right now, though, I think we should probably just try to sleep and see what happens in the morning. Sound good?" Alex asked gently.
He didn't get an answer. Eli didn't even seem to move. Alex moved his shoulder a little bit, since Eli's forehead was still resting on it, and by the way Eli's head lolled to the side, Alex quickly figured out that Eli had fallen asleep while he was talking. He smiled, placing a hand behind Eli's back and slowly lowering him down until he laying on his back. He clumsily tried to untangle Eli's legs from each-other and set them straight, pausing with wide eyes every time Eli began to stir. Eventually, Alex was able to pull the white blankets over his friend, leaving the room and closing the door as silently as he could.
As he walked out of the room, he took a quick look around. Outside of the hallway was the room with the kitchen, tables and chairs, sofa, and something of a papasan. Alex sat down on the sofa after a moment, exhaling deeply as he ran his hands down his face. Elijah was right, whatever sort of jet-lag was getting to him was completely disorienting. He laid down, set his glasses beside him, got comfortable, and fell asleep before he could even think to close his eyes.