NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22: The Far Gate
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Mau_dev: So I said, we've got three servers and players can't cross over due to lag, let's just copy the same map three times, and they said no. So I said okay, if you want them distinct and interacting, let the devs have creative freedom to make them meaningfully different, and they said no—cosmetic changes only. And then they pitched me the avatar system, and wanted me to give each player their own servator AI. So it was my turn to say no.
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Sunday, November 10th, 2091, about 11:00 am MST, Montana City
The Far Lands gate was much more impressive in person, Gordon thought. Arching spires of glacial ice rose like cathedral columns, bristling with icicles the size of trees, varicolored lights glowing from deep within. For all that this was mostly a functional trading hub, it certainly looked eldritch enough. A smooth sheet of white ice sealed the entryway completely, glowing faintly from within.
Claire stomped her boots, rubbing her hands together. Her VR settings were pretty realistic—straight neurolink players could experience the chill properly, like Karen and Gordon couldn't quite. "It's certainly pretty," she commented. "Harry, darling? I want one."
"One portal to other worlds?"
"Better make it two," corrected Karen. "You can gift it to me, and that way I'll always be connected to my very best friend!"
The taller woman picked Claire up from behind, spinning the sputtering woman around in circles, her barbaric headdress flashing brassy fire and her staff clattering to the ground.
"We should probably focus," Harry suggested. "As much as I like horseplay, I'm not sure how close we can get to the gate without setting off the guardians."
Doppelgangers. Gordon was not taking care to avoid repeating content. This was too important.
Harry's newest acquisition, the faerie hound, snuffled around behind them, werelight playing about its eyes and heavy jaws. Harry had broken out his best two-handed sword, his door-sized shield, and two bandoleers of health potions. Claire was supplementing her usual lava staff with a second one, this one forked and smelling of ozone. Gordon wore his normal kit, two guns, crossing bandoleers of pre-packaged six shot reloads, and a leather duster. Stubbornly boring, a cobbler sticking to his last. Even Karen had taken the opportunity to do something different, wearing a long and flowing scarf in eye-catching green over her usual dark leathers. It set off the feathers in her floppy hat nicely.
They bobbed in the cool breeze off the glacier.
"I had a plan," Gordon reminded Harry for the umpteenth time, "And it would really go more smoothly without the dog. Are you sure we need him along?"
"I can summon him," Harry argued. "Which means a dog is going to be on the field, whether or not we want him there. Might as well have ours out too." His face was harder to read in his new helmet—though he looked appropriately fierce, almost golem-like.
> xTreme_Snooze: Besides, leaving the good boy home would be unfair.
> Precious_Taters: Bestest boy!
"It looks like he's more popular than you are," snarked Claire. "I think we'll be alright as is."
"Alright. Everybody remember the rules?" asked Gordon.
"No lava," Claire said sulkily.
"No summons," agreed Karen. She wasn't much for one-use magic items anyway, but agreed for the spirit of the thing, camaraderie with her magically-limited sister in arms.
"And maybe 'kill the dog first'," added Gordon.
The hound focused beady, unintelligent eyes somewhere beyond where Gordon stood, a deep rumble coming from its massive chest.
"Same to you, buddy."
Gordon recognized that he was stalling. He'd been preparing for this moment for so long, and it could go wrong so easily.
Still, what was the harm in another minute?
"Okay, guys, the timing isn't exactly high drama, but I need to go use the little cowboy's room," he told everyone. "My bad. Give me … ten minutes."
Without waiting for commentary, he slipped his VR rig off his head, the muted lights of his room swimming into view. Across from him, Karen slipped hers off as well, nearly in sync with him, shaking her head to clear her long blonde hair from the headpiece straps. "You're choking!" she accused, green eyes squinting merrily. "Gordon Stone, leader of the Mighty Stoners, is choking at a boss fight!"
"That's not our group name," he protested, popping the metal buttons fastening the torso piece and dropping the rig onto his bed, where he sat and pulled off the leggings with quick, hurried movements. "And I really do have to go."
"I think I read once that urination is a common fear response," she told him with mock sympathy.
"Har har," he told her, walking across to the en suite bathroom and closing the door on his view of her smirking face.
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Karen watched the door close, then settled onto Gordon's bed to wait, the perfectly smooth jersey cotton sheet wrinkling under her weight. She resisted the urge to look around for the trash she'd left last time—probably a greasy fast-food bag crumpled somewhere behind his desk or under the bed. His room was too tidy for someone like her, and she always meant to clean up after herself, but between the VR setup, her classes, and her godforsaken night shifts, it was hard to remember things like that. Still, she felt vaguely guilty.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
But Gordon never mentioned it—his Roomba probably swept up her crumbs before she left, humming quietly as it swept through the heavy carpet that softened every step in his room. The carpet was thick enough to feel luxurious underfoot—so much nicer than the cheap linoleum of her dorm—and paired with the cool air, the space always felt like it belonged to someone who… actually had their life together. Add the faint smell of sandalwood from the incense Gordon lit before bed and the subtle whiff of his shampoo, and it was hard not to feel relaxed. How could she not want to hang out here?
Karen sighed, lying back fully now and letting herself sink into the mattress. She could tell he'd been plotting something—for the last few months, she'd occasionally seen the Far Lands gate game wiki page open on one of his desk screens, the iconic gate displayed so often she half expected to see it burned into the pixels. His desk was a fortress of tech, a command center with screens angled perfectly for visibility from one viewpoint, the glowing LED fans of his PC tower humming at the edge of hearing. Across the room, the two VR omni-treadmills gleamed, their surfaces pristine. She knew, it'd been her turn to scrub them down this morning. She imagined the foam blocks stacked neatly in the corner—Gordon's parkour props rarely used in front of anyone but her.
The thought put a smile on her face.
Her hands wandered over one of his prop pistols, discarded near her, a weighted plastic replica dotted with reflective sensor stickers. The texture was cool under her fingers, and she idly spun it once before setting it back down on the bed beside her. When she'd invited him to join her party, all those years ago, she'd expected him to play something more conventional for a fantasy setting—a bard, maybe. She thought he'd be a good bard. Sometimes, when she arrived early for the pre-game setup, she could hear him singing in the shower, his voice surprisingly unguarded and full of emotion.
That thought, too, brought a smile.
Gordon's bed was stupidly comfortable. Not like her own hand-me-down mattress, a relic of her dorm room that had probably last been replaced sometime in the 2030s. His bed didn't even have a duvet, just the one smooth jersey cotton sheet, as if even bedding was too much hassle for him to bother with. He slept in a bathrobe, anyway. She'd seen the pegs in his bathroom, each one holding a different robe and a matching pair of house slippers she'd never seen him wear. Gordon's meticulousness was ridiculous in every way, and yet his room managed to feel homey and inviting.
The VR suit wasn't as flexible around the waist as normal clothing, but Karen gave in to the temptation to just lie down fully suited, resting her back and letting her eyes drift closed. Between the cool air, the faint sandalwood scent, and the quiet hum of electronics that seemed to fill the space, it was too easy to relax.
Her schedule was so screwed up, she reflected. Night shift at the fabrication plant, morning classes, prep with Gordon, streaming, then sleep. If she weren't able to do homework during the fab work, she'd never get any time to herself. As it was, his bed was calling to her—she needed a day off. Or at least to sleep in. A body would only run on coffee for so long.
Her gaze wandered over the four screens mounted on the wall above his bed, forming a soft arc that Gordon could see while lying down. A dozen screens in total—eight at his desk, four over the bed. Metal brackets mounted them to the walls, their industrial practicality balanced by the warm track lighting that ran along the perimeter of the ceiling, soft enough to prevent the room from feeling like a computer lab.
They were dark now, mirroring her reflection back at her, but she could imagine their glow in the evening when he sprawled out in one of his ridiculous bathrobes, gaming or watching something in the comfort of his perfect little world. That memory—him sitting cross-legged on his bed in a dark blue robe, the light of the screen illuminating his focused face, her, pitching Ghostlands to the perpetually-busy corporate heir in training—was sharp in her mind, even though it had been years since she'd first invited him back into her life.
She'd missed him, she realized, in a way she didn't fully understand back then. Inviting him to game with her had been casual on the surface, but she'd wanted more than that. Twenty years ago, she'd only known Gordon as Claire's quiet, serious stepbrother—tagging along when Karen came over to play after school. He'd been kind of a dork back then, always nose-deep in books, talking seriously about family obligations and his father's expectations, but he'd had time for his step-sister and her annoying friend, and took her seriously when she ranted about her new historical martial arts hobby for hours on end.
She couldn't think of many other teenage boys who would've spent their free time with a couple of giggling elementary school girls, much less given them real attention. He'd been the first person to make her feel like what she said mattered. She'd been so impressed by his wall flips, and he'd let her show him her foam swords, and somehow he'd gotten even more interesting while she was away at college—all six years of it, so far.
She sighed. The timing just hadn't ever been right. She'd spent years waiting for the right moment, but maybe there wasn't going to be one. Or maybe it was time for her to make her own.
She must have dozed off, because the next thing she felt was Gordon's hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently. She opened her eyes to find him sitting next to her on the bed, his weight settling beside her as he leaned down slightly.
"Hey, you dozed off," he said, his voice amused but gentle. "Good to go?"
Sometimes she thought of that as his 'radio announcer voice'—velvety smooth, not like the hard persona he put on in front of his father, or the drawl he affected for his cowboy character. Genuine. No pretense. She liked it.
Karen kept her eyes closed for a moment longer, letting the comfort of the bed soak in for just a second more. "I love your bed," she told him lazily, smiling. "It'll be a three-way wedding."
"What?"
She opened her eyes, giving him a coquettish flutter of her eyelashes.
"You, Claire, and my bed?" he pretended to guess.
"Mmmm…" she groaned, stretching. "That does sound nice. Tell her we need a nap before the stream."
She watched him as she stretched, but couldn't tell what was going through his mind from his face.
"Very funny. Here, I made coffee," said the most wonderful person in the world.
She knew that's who it was, because he'd said the coffee word. Karen sat up, bleary eyes roving in all directions for a moment before spotting the carafe on Gordon's desk. "That's mine."
"One of these days I'll get you an IV drip so you can pursue your addiction more efficiently," he mocked, threading his feet back into his VR foot pieces. The elastic material outlined his body like a second skin as he bent over, back to her, but she pretended not to notice, pouring herself a cup and sipping the warm, but not hot, liquid. Not that she looked away. Gordon was a heretic who liked to let his coffee start to cool off before gulping it down, rather than savoring his caffeine hot like it was meant to be enjoyed. She'd begrudgingly become used to it—gulping hers down as much to get it over with as to facilitate a quick return to the stream. She deserved something for her pains. Today's blend was hazelnut and vanilla, a small note of grace, but the temperature was still wrong. She forced it down with some effort.
"All done choking?" he asked, devoid of pity. He'd never understood.
"I've kept down worse," she assured him. Last time he'd made her coffee, she didn't elaborate.
"I think I'm good to go," he prompted her. "And hey, traffic's picking up—14k and counting." Pistols back in holsters, he shot finger guns at her. With an eye roll, she slipped her helmet back on.