Blake and Mason met after sunset in the ‘cookery’, sitting at plastic tables with a bottle of Billy’s moonshine and two heated plates of what they hoped were chicken wings.
They waited till they were alone, Mason looking around one more time before he grinned. They stood and walked around the table, a little pause before pulling each other into a hard, overdue embrace.
“You alright? Blake whispered. “Truly?”
“I’m good,” Mason held back the shudder as a few memories returned. “It was a little rough out there. But I’m alright.”
They pulled back but kept a hand on each other’s shoulders as Blake looked Mason up and down. “You look, uh…bigger, and scarier.”
Mason chuckled, no doubt that was true. “Stats, I guess. And I found some kind of magic tree with these sexy nymphs that maybe grew me a little in their pond.”
Blake raised a brow, then laughed out loud. “What the shit? Get me in there!”
“They, er, only want druids, which I guess I am.”
Blake shook his head and couldn’t stop smiling. “You’re in your element, brother, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah,” Mason had to agree. He looked around the strange, almost alien town and nodded at it. “You’re starting to get back to yours.”
Blake frowned and shrugged. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Don’t you want to say it?”
“Say what?”
Blake just stood there with an expectant look on his face, and Mason understood.
“Oh. I told you so.”
Blake closed his eyes and gestured with a hand as if to keep going, but Mason honestly didn’t have much urge.
“I didn’t really predict robot-god transforming the earth into a game. I was thinking…federal government collapse. Nuclear war. Disease. Civil war. Something…you know, plausible.”
“Well here we are,” Blake shrugged. “And right is right. I hope it feels good.”
Mason laughed. “Yeah. Feels great.” He sighed and glanced at his brother’s eyes. “You think we’re going to make it? People, I mean.”
Blake pursed his lips and gestured for Mason to sit again, patting his shoulder as he took his own. “I think if this thing meant to just kill us, it could have done it in a blink. It didn’t, so I guess we have to play its game.”
Mason nodded, and took his seat. They both drank and winced in displeasure.
Then they talked about their time in the apocalypse—about Haley and Seul-ki, the tutorials, their experience with ‘roboGod’, as Mason called it.
“What the hell is all this anyway?”, he said with a mouth full of chicken.
“I have no idea.” Blake sipped his moonshine. “But if I had to guess? The people who said we were in some kind of simulation were right all along. Now we’re in another one.”
Mason sighed and shook his head. “I hate it when nerds are right. We’ll just have to go along. Survive, improve, and procreate, I guess. Speaking of which, I can’t get you in with those nymphs, but there’s a dungeon in the tree to clear. Maybe you, me, and two of our new lackeys. There’s likely some good rewards.”
Blake winced. “Those lackeys were trying to kill us this afternoon.”
Mason shrugged. “I agree it’s not ideal. But it’s what we’ve got. You trust them?”
“I only trust you, brother. But I can read minds now, so that’s a plus. And I’ve been manipulating them for awhile. It should be enough.”
They said nothing for a few comfortable moments, then Mason narrowed his eyes. “Don’t do that to me. Whatever your mind powers are.”
Blake grinned. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I mean, I’ll probably be actively doing it in reality, so, why would I dream of it?”
“I swear to God, Blake.”
The handsome fucker put up his hands, the picture of innocence. “I’ve been screwing with your mind without magic for 15 years, Mason, I don’t need magic to do it now.”
Mason fought the grin.
“Idiot.”
“Moron.”
They ate their chicken wings, and drank their moonshine, then watched the sunset in a little break in the canopy.
Mason felt a question that had burned in his chest long before the new world and statistics arrived to measure it. “OK but seriously, what’s your luck stat?”
Blake looked at him like he’d said the moon was made out of cheese. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Don’t give me that shit,” Mason pointed an accusing chicken wing. “You started on a fucking paradise island with all the help you needed and some hot babe—may she rest in peace—and I started in a God damn war zone.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Blake shrugged. “It’s…perfectly average and what it should be.”
“Just bloody tell me.”
“Tell me yours first.”
“Fifteen,” Mason lied.
“Ha!” Blake pounded the table. “See? Mine’s only 42. Higher, sure, but not that bad.”
Mason shook his head, decades of intuition screaming in impotent victory. “I lied,” he hissed. “Mine is four.”
Blake’s triumphant smile drained away, and he rapped the table with his fingers. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” Mason sagged against his chair, not sure if he was disgusted or happier than ever. I bloody knew it
“Well,” Blake shifted in his chair. “We don’t nearly have the data for that.”
“Shut up. I’m glad you are. Just don’t get too cocky.”
Blake leaned forward like a dog on the hunt. “So how about that Haley, Mr. bad luck? That must have been a nice surprise.”
“Hey I earned that. I mean her.”
“Yeah? You earned one of the hottest women I’ve ever seen in my life, as a sex slave?”
“She’s not a…and yes,” Mason sniffed. “For my shit tutorial, and for putting up with you for almost two decades. Yes I did.”
Blake’s grin turned into a full toothed smile. “I missed you, bro.”
Mason rolled his eyes, not bothering to tell him not to call him that. “I missed you too.”
They were silent for awhile, staring out at the forest, lost in their own thoughts.
“What do you think we’ll have to deal with tomorrow?” Blake asked after awhile, and Mason felt himself smile.
“Not sure. But we can handle it.”
Blake met his eyes and matched his smile. “Yes, yes I expect we can.”
END OF BOOK ONE - BUT FEAR NOT, BOOK TWO CONTINUES...TOMORROW!
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