Binary Systems [Complete, Slice-of-Life Sci-Fi Romance]

––––––

Gordon: I can't believe she said 'yes'. What's she playing as?
Karen: A wizard. Nobody wants to be pirate-ninjas with me.

––––––

Saturday, November 9th, 2091, about 4:10 pm MST, Ghostlands, Kingdoms Server, Mournhollow (11,140 viewing)

Harry unslung his greatsword from his back and showed Gordon. The blade was useless—a frozen club. The big sword didn't have a sheath—you can't unsheath at that angle without ridiculously convoluted gear. Instead, it was slipped through steel rings, and thus exposed to the cold and wet, had been colonized by the hoarfrost. His shield, newly retrieved, was at least still serviceable for blocking things. The scabbard for the knight's one-handed arming sword hung useless and empty, the sword still put to use as a piton at the glacial wall's top.

"We're screwed if they jump us now," he remarked, but he didn't sound unhappy about it. Harry never sounded properly pessimistic. It was part of why Gordon liked keeping him around.

"We'll melt it later," Gordon said. "Claire still has lava. Where to, big guy?" Gordon adjusted his hat to dislodge ice pellets from its rim, and they scattered into the snow at his feet.

Harry looked around. "We'll take the scenic route."

That didn't tell anybody anything, but he set words to motion and walked near the cliff-face, perpendicular to the manor they'd seen in the distance. An arching path would still take them there, and without going through the unsheltered, blasted, frozen heart of the map.

In the distance, their destination loomed—stepped stone stairs rising toward towers aglow in gold and blue light. Banners flapped in the wind. Beautiful. Dangerous.

Apparently flammable, so that was nice to know.

"You fall off the edge," Karen said, "you respawn without your gear."

"No kidding," Harry muttered.

He'd been falling off things a lot. It wasn't his fault—knights have poor will saves. But this time there'd be no diving in and retrieving his corpse. Whatever was down the deep crevices or off the polar cliffs of this strange subterranean ice-scape, traversing it would be a struggle they weren't equipped for.

He took the next step—and the ice shattered beneath him.

He vanished.

"Harry!" Claire lunged forward, fire already forming in her hands.

Beneath the ice, waist-deep water churned in a hidden channel, a subterranean current dragging Harry toward the cliff's edge.

The dark shape of Harry, in full armor, flailed beneath the ice.

"Hold on!" Karen shouted.

She dove forward, grabbed his wrist, and skidded halfway in herself, her small figure not up to hauling his massive frame. Gordon joined them, hauling them both up as Claire rained fireballs ahead—melting the ice in furious, rapid pulses. His enchanted footwear was the only reason the shock of catching their momentum didn't slide him in alongside them.

Steam hissed. Ice cracked and groaned. They dragged Harry out, armor soaked, breath ragged.

He coughed and shook, steam rising off him.

"Next time," he said, voice tight, "don't give the AI a setup like that, Karen, huh? Please?"

"My bad," she acknowledged, shivering.

Dungeons had their own AI that tried to make things dramatic and exciting. It was best not to tempt fate.

"Not far now," Gordon reassured him. An ancillary benefit of the accident was that the channel had carried them further from the cliff than they'd intended, depositing them on the open flats of the mesa. From their new position, Gordon could see the path they'd been meant to follow. He pulled Harry to his feet with one hand and a heave. "Look, it's paved."

They walked the flagstone path in silence, eyes alert for traps—but nothing showed itself.

The lights in the spires ahead shimmered like fireflies caught in crystal. Cold wind tugged at their cloaks. Gordon was the only one both wearing full coverage clothing and dry, so he draped his jacket over Karen instead. The choice between his icy step-sister, who had chosen her skimpy outfit on purpose, and his friend, whose full-coverage leather armor was soaked due to her helping Harry, was easy. Harry, who was too large for his jacket to fit over, wasn't in the running.

They reached the manor steps.

Claire brushed frozen sweat from her brow and muttered, "Let's get this over with."

She took the first step. The party followed.

At the top, the ornate doors opened for them unattended, and they stumbled, rime-coated and exhausted, into a ballroom scene. Beautiful faeries glittered and twirled in the central square of a great courtyard, paved with tiles that sparkled like gemstones. Along all the walls were tables piled with delicacies and pyramids of stacked, filled glasses of wine and water. Across the courtyard stood the lady of the court on a dais, low steps approaching it like a throne. Her most trusted courtiers stood close to her. Something about the look in her eyes made one think of insects—too glittery, like they'd be compound if one could see beneath the glamour. Her face was remote as she watched the spinning dances of her charges. Kneeling along the steps of her dais, two on one side and one on the other, were the shackled forms of the husband and two children of the NPC woman at the dungeon entrance.

The hostages, front and center. Thematic. Gordon barely glanced at them—truth be told, he wasn't all that worried about the quest, or the how of clearing the dungeon. If Harry got in over his head, Gordon and Karen would bail him out. For now, it was just a low-stakes, themed encounter.

As they approached the dance floor, a beautiful woman broke away from the courtiers milling around the periphery, approaching Harry with a hand outstretched in clear invitation. Gordon noticed Harry's eyes widening and wondered idly if the NPC looked different under the Adults Only filter, which he personally didn't use—it would have violated the streaming guidelines. Claire gave her fiancé a look, equal parts exasperation and fondness, and stepped forward, taking the fae courtier's hand.

"We will be dancing," she told her. The faerie laughed, delighted, and folded Claire into her arms, whirling her off into the dance, Harry watching Claire with something like awe. Karen shook her head and muttered to Gordon in a 'just us girls' way: "Men are all pigs." Gordon nodded dutifully, and the two took Harry's elbows and dragged him down the central path, which the dancers were coincidentally leaving clear.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"He'd have been drooling over her and completely flubbed the dialog checks, bet you a crisp twenty," complained Karen as though Harry weren't right there between them. "Claire took the bullet for him, and the stream."

"She looks happy, though," Gordon said, watching Claire being dipped by the dancer she was with. She had always loved dancing—even barefoot, she seemed entirely in her element.

"She doesn't get out much. Probably comes of dating a nerd."

"Hey, I'm right here, guys!" complained Harry.

"You should take her dancing," Karen confided in him. "She'd love that."

"I'll do that," he promised.

They pushed him forward, Karen leaning up onto Gordon's shoulder, arm in hand, as they watched him move on.

"You know, if he'd let her take a dance, she'd have overwritten his default animation with an Irish step dance? Fae can override anything they 'ask' for—like how that Indian streamer, Rumplestiltskin, lost his original name."

"—Gordon, now isn't the time."

He looked down at her hopeful face. "We could join in the dances, get a good vantage point," Karen said, sounding reasonable. "Claire makes it look like a good time. I haven't been dancing in ages."

"She has the advantage of a partner who knows the dance," Gordon admitted. "Whereas I—"

"It's with the other stored animations," Karen protested.

"I might have used those slots up already—"

Karen looked ready to press the point when a swirl of motion overtook the court, the dancers shifting positions in a smooth, eerie circle. Suddenly, a pair of figures stepped forward, blocking the path with liquid grace. One carried dueling pistols at his belt, the other two sabers, both shimmering faintly with magic.

Gordon nudged Karen with his elbow, nodding toward the figures. "Looks like we've found Harry's big moment."

Karen crossed her arms, leaning just slightly into Gordon's side as they hung back to watch. "We'll talk later," she allowed, her tone still skeptical.

Both Gordon's and Karen's builds had been designed to break tanks, so the AI was giving Harry a combat encounter to challenge him and see if he could overcome them both. The AI weren't going to be nearly as deadly as the players, though—the guns had two bullets apiece and wouldn't be capable of being fanned or quickdrawn, and the swords, while probably as good as Karen's sabers, wouldn't be wielded by Karen and would thus be less dangerous. They stayed back to let him have his moment in the spotlight.

Harry stepped forward. "Your pardon: I must get by," he told them. He was trying to be courtly, but was just a college kid and didn't know exactly how to phrase things.

The two stopped, not separating immediately, the woman still draped over the man. Their faces had been made to be strongly reminiscent of Karen and Gordon. Karen looked from them to Gordon, an eyebrow raised.

Gordon turned the chat back on. There was making a point, and there was pointlessly avoiding fan engagement.

> Randoon_the_Wizard: Good to be back

> x_TremeSnooze: AND just in time. Look at that power couple.

"He wants to get by, my dove. Shall we oblige him, mmm?" said the man, in Gordon's voice. It was a silken, honeyed tone he would never have used in real life, utterly strange to hear from foreign lips.

"Such boorish manners," chided the woman in Karen's voice, but husky and almost purring, running her fingers across her partner's pectorals. "Perhaps we oughtn't, lest he grow too used to seeing the fair folk give way to his whims."

Gordon felt a frisson run along his spine, watching the two. Karen, nearby, chewed her lip and seemed to be looking for something amidst the whirling dancers.

> Stickythebear: After this stream, the WHOLE TEAM is going to need couples therapy

Gordon blinked away the text in irritation, then met Karen's eyes with an apologetic smile. "Faeries, huh?"
She nodded, turning back to the spectacle in the center of the court.

"I am a knight, on a quest. You know how this goes," said Harry. He knew, and the devs knew, and so the fae knew too, that there were certain archetypes which had always been expected. The Knight visits the court and gets an audience was one such—just a rhythm of the world. "Let me by."

"My stallion," murmured the woman, to all the world as though she were ignoring him and nothing but her partner existed, but projecting her voice magnificently nevertheless, "His voice pains me. Make him suffer for my pains."

"A river of blood for every hurt, dearest," promised the man with a deep kiss on her lips. Gordon's stomach lurched. Karen blushed, then, to play it off, turned and whispered "My stallion" to Gordon, who also felt a rush of heat and embarrassment. The chat seemed to have found the pet name just as funny as she did, especially for a cowboy-themed character.

The two broke apart smoothly, the woman's swords suddenly in her hand as though teleported there—a quick draw perk. Perhaps they were imitating the originals more closely than Gordon had thought. The man languidly drew his pistols, weighing them and looking at them as though for dust, before finally deigning to address Harry.

"The first move is yours, by guest-right," the man told him, contempt in every word, so weird to hear in Gordon's own voice.

"On the contrary," rebutted Harry, "I forfeit my guest-right unless you draw the first blood. Are you so blinded by lust that you forgot your own laws, or just too stupid to understand them in the first place?"

x_TremeSnooze: Harry goes HARD!

The lady of the court's remote gaze did not change, but the smiles on the faeries still spinning in smooth waltz-step around them might have deepened perceptibly.

"He's just too lacking in real honor to avenge the slights against his lady without the thin excuse that you started it," said Gordon loudly. Karen gave him an acknowledging nod.

The man looked angry now. "So be it. A wager—my satisfaction, for your passage," he ground out, almost spitting the words. Gordon recognized that tone of voice—begrudging, hateful—from many an argument with his father.

"The first whose blood pollutes the floor of my hall shall be found guilty of wrongdoing in the Court of Shayla," announced the fae lady, without preamble. Her high, cold voice cut through the court. All dancers stopped still for a moment, acknowledging her speech and waiting for her to finish. "Should my faithful falter, it is natural that the knight should approach, his guest rights intact, while should the bravery of a brave knight prove insufficient to the ministrations of a mere two of my courtiers—well, he'd hardly be a knight at all, and clearly a provocateur to boot."

> Randoon_the_Wizard: An honor duel: first blood loses. No way that's going to go wrong.

The fae murmured their approval and stepped in unison into a series of rings around the court, clearing an arena for the fight. Claire, clearly a bit overheated, gratefully took a glass of cold water from her erstwhile dancing partner. Harry saw it, but too late.

At Harry's shocked gasp of horror, Gordon tore his eyes from the magical rime-blunted edge of Harry's sword, which would not suffice to draw even a bead of blood, to the edge of the court where all other eyes around him were turned. A sad, braying sound preceded his locating Claire by an instant—and he already knew. Midsummer Night's Dream—donkey head.

Claire had drunk fae drink, accepting a gift of the fae, and thus had owed the fae a gift. They had chosen her dignity. Like all fae curses of transformation, it would revert at midnight, or with waking from sleep, or with various other charms—but there was very little time to focus on her plight at the moment. He wondered if Ghostlands would still allow her to talk.

"Eeeeaaaawwww!" she said indignantly.

That was a 'no'.

"Truly," said the lady of the court, "The old jests are still the best jests. Sarvestian—pray, begin."

The hitherto-nameless courtier, Sarvestian, raised his pistol without pause and fired point-blank at the visor of Harry's helmet. Only the dialog cue gave him the wherewithal to duck as white-hot sparks flashed from just above the armet helm's eye-slit. Bullets in Ghostlands had been nerfed considerably to make knights and guns plausible in the same setting—almost no armor penetration, but extremely high damage output when hitting weak spots. Heads, say.

BLAM, CLANG. The sounds were almost simultaneous as the dueling pistol fired a second round, Harry frantically swinging up his shield to block the round. It clanged like a gong. Swift footsteps, putting him in mind of Karen, sounded on his left and he had just enough time for a hoarse "OH SHIT—" before a Karen body-double flung herself at the lower half of his shield, gripping it with her hands and rolling to the side to rob him of his cover.

Harry, as a knight, was heavy. And big—he'd maxed out the character height and width bars, both.

Gordon watched as Harry allowed his full weight to fall onto his shield arm.