CA Chapter Six (Patreon)

When Ava went into ‘her’ pod for the third time, she could see Quinn and Dean bustling around the other pod, getting it ready for Amy. LeeAn settled Ava’s mask into place, and for the first time, instead of leaving Ava in darkness until the game started, her view immediately switched to that of the mask’s external cameras.

“Why do we even need this?” Ava asked, reaching up and tapping the mask as LeeAn leaned into the pod to hook up the IV and other tubes leading from Ava’s suit. “Doesn’t the game feed directly to my ocular implants?”

LeeAn hesitated as she reached up to grasp the edge of the pod’s lid. She glanced at Dr. Veralt, who was busy supervising the two male nurses. “I asked the technician who installed the pods the same thing. He said during the betas, they didn’t use the mask, but something happened and they realized that having a backup system in place was important. That’s all he’d say. You ready?”

Ava nodded, laying back. LeeAn sealed the lid with a soft shoosh as the seals engaged. The biogel rose around Ava, the sling dropped away, and she forced out her last breath and sucked in gel, letting herself fall into the whirling planet that was the load screen for Veritas Online.

Waking up in a soft, warm bed was a pleasant change from the hard ground beneath the tents Ava’s main character, AlphaOmegadon, had slept in for a month and a half, thanks to the way the game doubled time experienced while online. For a moment, she lay there, savoring the feeling of the thick, heavy duvet and the sound of gentle birdsong coming from the garden outside her window. If things went well, this was the last time she’d experience this for almost two weeks.

A knock sounded at her door, and she sat up, sighing. “Yes?” She knew it wasn’t Veralt. He didn’t knock.

“It’s almost time for Princess Amy to wake, Lady Ava,” a female voice said. “Do you need help getting ready?”

Ava had gotten to know a few of the NPCs in the castle, and she recognized the speaker as Petunia, a young maid who seemed slightly less flat than most of the generic non-player characters in town. Though it was possible that Ava was imagining the difference, and just paid more attention to her thanks to the barely visible scars on the girl’s right jaw and arm. It seemed like those scars must have a story behind them, which made Petunia a bit of a puzzle in a place where everything else was boringly bland.

Ava looked down at herself. She wore the same clothes she’d gone to bed in, and it still fell in the same perfect folds as it had when she pulled it from her inventory. While items could get dirty, wrinkled, and even damaged in combat or during other activities, sleeping wasn’t one of those things, so most players just wore their clothes to bed, since they could still get the Well-Rested buff even without changing into pajamas. The only exception was that they had to take off their shoes, since apparently the programmer who created the buff didn’t believe anyone could sleep well in footwear.

With a thought, Ava made the soft slippers that went with the outfit appear on her feet. She knew her hair would still be in its smooth, shoulder-length bob, too, so she crossed to the narrow door kitty-corner to her bed and opened the door, smiling down at the preteen girl standing there. “No, I’m ready. Thank you, Petunia.”

The girl bobbed a curtsey and scurried back to join the gaggle of maids already hovering around the silent figure in the bed. This wasn’t the first time Ava had seen ‘Princess’ Amy’s avatar, but it still startled her to see a silent duplicate of Amythyst lying there. The small changes left by the cosmetic surgery that had repaired Amy’s face after her accident were gone, and she no longer looked thin and wan. If she had opened her eyes and started teasing Ava about her ridiculous clothes and haircut, it would have been less surprising than what did happen.

The mossy green eyes blinked open slowly, looking hazy and unfocused. The room fell silent as everyone waited for the motionless figure to do something.

She didn’t.

Finally, Ava managed to shake herself from the strangely somber feeling that gripped her and turned to Petunia and said, “Get the Princess’ chair.” Glancing around, she picked out Florence, Petunia’s mother, who Ava had always felt would look more comfortable with a sword in her hand than a feather-duster. “Help me get her up.”

Florence hurried over as Petunia pulled the wheeled chair from its hiding place in an alcove behind a long tapestry. With Florence on one side and Ava on the other, they managed to get Amy’s limp body out of bed and into the chair. Once there, Amy seemed to realize that something had changed, and she sat up slightly, her eyes focusing on the single window that showed the garden outside.

Ava assessed the situation. Amy wore a rich, green gown that highlighted her eyes, but the thick, heavy skirts wouldn’t be easy for anyone to move in, much less an invalid. Her bare toes peeped out from beneath the long skirt, and the material threatened to tangle in the wheels of the chair.

“Florence, does the princess have anything less,” Ava gestured toward her own skirt, which was one of the lighter-weight, split ones she’d hired the tailor to make for her, “voluminous? I’m afraid the fabric will get caught in the wheels, and make her tip.”

Florence hesitated for the barest moment before shaking her head. “All of her Highness’ dresses are like this.”

Of course they were.

Ava pulled the second split skirt and a shirt from her inventory and handed them to the other woman. “Get her into this.” It still made her uncomfortable to give the servants orders, since they had no choice but to obey, but it would take her half an hour to get Amy out of the ostentatious gown and into the simple skirt and matching blouse.

Florence leaned over Amy, her hands flickering as she triggered a skill, and a moment later the princess was wearing the new clothes. Ava breathed a sigh of relief. She had seen Petunia and the others wielding brooms and dustcloths with an efficiency that indicated they were using some kind of Maid class skill, and she’d hoped there’d be a dressing-related one as well.

“All right then,” Ava said briskly, taking hold of the handles at the back of the wheelchair. “I’m going to take Princess Amy out for a walk. You may all return to your regular duties.”

Not a single one of the maids protested. They simply curtseyed in mechanical unison and left the room, going back to whatever they did when there was no one around to watch them. Ava pushed Amy’s chair forward, then stopped abruptly as she realized the door to the garden was still closed, and barely managed to catch Amy before she slid from the chair.

“Damn it,” Ava muttered. “How is this going to work? She’s like a rag doll.”

“Dol-ly.”

It was the first word Ava had ever heard Amy say, and it was so slurred she could barely understand it. Still, when she looked up from where she was crouched in front of the chair, holding Amy in place, she saw that the familiar green eyes were focused on her face.

“Amy? What did you say?”

But the moment was gone. Amy’s eyes had returned to the window, and her head lolled to the side.

“Damn it.” Ava resisted the urge to shake the other woman, and instead stood, opening the outside door. The building was surrounded by a garden that was an almost exact copy of the one outside Amy’s window in the real world. Amy spent most of her time staring at that garden, and Veralt, or someone, had apparently decided to replicate it here.

::Aspen? Silus? Are you ready?:: she sent over party chat.

::She’s back!:: Silus squeaked excitedly, even as Aspen said ::Aye.::

Ava shook her head and pushed the chair out into the sunshine. The wooden wheels rattled as they rolled onto the bluestones, but only one of the two gardeners glanced toward the noise. She saw his lips quirk in the shadow cast by his ragged hat before he looked down at the rosebush he was trimming.

::I need more straw,:: she sent. ::I need to get [Enchant] up to level ten. Today, if possible.::

Aspen nodded without looking away from the tiny white tea roses. ::I can get that easily. There are bales of straw in the gardening shed. It’d be better if you used different materials, though. You’ve used the straw too much.::

Skills in Veritas Online increased in level as they were used. If you just used them the exact same way, however, the amount of skill experience you got diminished as the number of repetitions increased. Ava had run into trouble with [Enchant] because she had to make the enchanted item herself, and use the skill just before she finished. The better the item she made, the longer the enchantment would last, but for now, the most important thing was simply succeeding at all.

When Ava was last online, she’d been inspired by Aspen’s obviously handmade hat, and had tried weaving simple things out of straw, which let her raise the skill to level three. Unfortunately, because of the diminishing returns, the skill had basically stalled out at that point, and she’d dropped it in favor of others that were easier to level.

::I know, but I don’t have anything else I can use,:: she said, trying to keep her frustration out of her voice. If she had to, she could wait until evening and [Steal] some tools from one of the local artisans, now that she knew Amythyst could spoof the contents of her inventory, but that meant she’d have wasted hours. At least weaving straw was something she could do while she was with Amy, and if anyone caught her, she could claim she was just fiddling with it to keep her hands occupied.

Aspen tilted his head toward the ground, and Ava looked, but didn’t see anything besides the mulch around the base of the rosebush, and the short grass beyond. Grass might be more flexible than straw, but it was too short to do much with, so she wasn’t sure what he was trying to show her.

Reaching down, Aspen parted the mulch and picked up a handful of soft, rich earth, which he let trickle through his fingers. ::Dirt,:: he said. ::Or rather mud. Recently, Juniper has started bringing home these balls of mud. At first, they were just packed dirt, and they crumbled when they dried, and made a mess everywhere. Her mother told her she couldn’t bring them inside any more, but she’s stubborn.::

He chuckled, and put down his shears, using both hands to start shaping the dirt into a sphere. ::She started mixing the balls with different things, and using different kinds of dirt, trying to make a ball that wouldn’t crumble. It took her a while and some advice from William, but she figured out how to do it.:: He opened his hand, revealing a soft, black orb that almost immediately began to slump into a mound again.

::You don’t have time to make them like she does, but there’s a shallow stream at the other end of the garden, and its banks are mostly clay. I bet you could make something that would work well enough to enchant, at least briefly, and the only things you’ll need are your hands.:: He dropped the dirt to the ground and covered the small hole with mulch.

::Follow me for more tips!:: Silus piped up, and Ava almost choked on a laugh.

::What?:: she asked, glad she wasn’t trying to speak out loud.

::It’s what Rouge says when she comes up with an idea,:: the bat said, proudly.

“Usually bad ones,” Aspen muttered out loud, probably so Silus couldn’t hear from wherever she was hiding.

Ava just shook her head and pushed Amy’s chair down the path toward the stream, but she smiled as she went.