Enchanted Ever After (Mystic Circle) (15 page)

* * *

They swirled into the Water Realm by funnel, and hand in hand, hovered over sandy ground a few feet under the turquoise ocean’s surface. Joy bubbled through Kiri and a wide grin spread over her face.

Her hip-long
green
hair moved around her when she craned to see—and her whole body turned—including a tail longer than her legs with a large end fin larger than her feet. She moved, flexed and looked at it.

Gorgeous, an iridescent greeny-blue, like teal sequins. Green hair, tealish tail, Kiri glanced at her hands, received a little shock as she noted they were a light blue. A low ridge of fins rose along her arms.

And she both felt bare and not, and didn’t have any nipples. She put her hand on the minuscule scales of her abdomen.

“It’s rather like a natural armor,” Lathyr said, smiling. “Hardscale.”

She stared at him, his upper body revealed, his lower also a tail, but with a bulge where his sex would be that looked like an athletic cup. She figured that portion of his body would be very well protected. His skin tone was lighter than hers, a silvery blue, nearly white; his hair a lighter shade of green than her own. He looked absolutely right, and pretty much like he’d been the first time she’d seen him that evening in the park, except for no pointy ears.

Her fingers brushed her stomach, as she tried to describe the texture. Cool, flexible, strong, and a few “nots.” Not rubber or plastic or fiberglass. Now that she thought about it, she could feel a softer, inner skin under the tougher hide. She tapped her side with her knuckles. “Does it ever come off?”

He slanted her a look. “Ah. Portions can be thinned for sex or feeding young. As for the rest of the skin armor...only if you’re dying.”

She grimaced.

With a whirl of his tail that looked all too smooth and graceful, he turned and tugged her in the direction of...a pink glow? She tried to follow and flopped around, then thrashed and realized she was
breathing water
and went glug, glug, glug. Pushed with her fin on the bottom of the sea to shoot up and get air.

Lathyr stopped her. “Waterfolk have bilungs.”

He sounded completely serious—and though he usually did, this
was
a game. “Lungs that process oxygen and other necessities in the water as you breathe water, and that process oxygen et cetera in the air. This is the Water Realm. We will not be going above the surface or on land.” He squeezed her fingers. “Going above the surface could harm you if you haven’t learned how to use your bilungs.”

Her eyes got wide and probably bulged.

“The surface of the water is out of the zone, the realm,” Jenni said through the visor that Kiri never felt in the game. “The game parameters would have stopped her.”

Suddenly the Water Realm felt all too alien. She didn’t have legs! Wasn’t like the game Fairies and Dragons where most everyone had wings as appendages stuck to their back. Not that she could feel them. She froze.

“Watch and follow my movements,” Lathyr said, ignoring Jenni.

He flexed his tail in front; Kiri mimicked him. They went through turns and flips, dives and whirls. At any moment Kiri expected Jenni to scold them for fooling around, but the woman was silent.

In a few minutes, Kiri was laughing, sending bubbles of glee bouncing to the top of the ocean where they burst and sounded very odd to her ears.

Finally they faced the pink glow again. There was a click and her vision changed.

“Just your nictitating eyelid,” Lathyr said, and took her hand again with his—his long, four-jointed fingers, with thick webbing between them and nails that appeared fearsome—like her own. They couldn’t hold hands like humans, but the webbing was clingy, at least between them.

The water felt wonderful, sliding against her skin, and her nose actually twitched as more scents came to her than she’d noticed in other areas of the game. Maybe only because she was becoming accustomed to the virtual reality. The fragrance of water magic seemed to soak into skin and scalp, slide along the strands of her hair, gather on the webbing between her fingers, coat her arm and tail fins.

Soon colorful fish joined them, populating this realm. Once again she stopped and Lathyr hovered near, smiling. “Much more beautiful than the koi,” he said.

She had to agree.

“What is that pretty light?” she asked.

“The great Pearl.” Another slashing grin by Lathyr, showing teeth that weren’t human. She vaguely thought that her dwarf teeth hadn’t been, either. He shook his head and his shoulder-length hair floated. “The Merfolk—naiads and naiaders, mermen and merfems, swear by it...though I think it isn’t so big in—”

“A great Dark one comes to attack and slay you,” announced Jenni.

Chapter 16

“WHAT!”
DEMANDED LATHYR.

“A great Dark one, the most fearsome villains in
Transformation, attacks,” Jenni said.

Lathyr swore and grabbed Kiri by the arm, pulled her from the
turquoise water and into a rough cave entrance she hadn’t noticed since seaweed
and stalactites obscured it. She scrabbled to find info on “a great Dark one” in
her belt pouch. Deformed. Evil. Kills questors and sucks magic.

Didn’t sound good.

Archvillains—that sounded even worse.

“Prepare to fight,” Jenni said, “the great Dark one can sense
you.”

Lathyr handed Kiri a speargun with nasty barbs on the end,
pulled a long and shining blade from an open treasure chest. “Does it have
minions?” he asked.

“No minions at this time,” Jenni intoned.

“Ready your spells,” Lathyr said. “This Dark one is vulnerable
to poison. You have a poison spell, right?”

For not knowing the game, the guy was moving ahead fine, right
on top of events while Kiri struggled to keep up. Her spell info gave her the
proper words and gestures to initiate the poison from an herbal mixture she had.
When she touched her shell-belt bag a vial fell into her hand.

“Stay out of reach of your spears and my sword,” Lathyr said
grimly. “They’re silver and can harm us.”

She glanced at the hilt that looked wrapped in snakeskin or
sharkskin or crocodile or something. “Why—”

“They’ll hurt the great Dark one more.”

That was good, but she eyed the weapons.

“He’ll be within range in thirty seconds,” Lathyr said, angling
his body behind the cave wall so she could have a good shot. “Fade back—”

“I know!” She flipped open the shell top of the vial—good thing
they didn’t use a damn cork—and poured the oily mixture all along her spearhead,
chanting what the spell instructions told her to. Her heart beat fast. Sure
didn’t feel like a game.

She tucked the empty vial back in her belt, sighted the gun.
Gritted her teeth as she heard a high-pitched garbled sound and a grotesque
thing
came into view, vaguely humanoid but
massive. Schools of fish scattered.

Head shot would be best, especially since he was leading with
that as he swam toward her. Then his head tilted up and she saw glittering red
eyes and a huge mouth with jagged teeth.

Don’t choke. Too much at stake. Lathyr was beside her and if
she missed the shot— No!

She sighted, pulled the trigger slowly.

Shhzzhht! Thunk.

The monster had been fast, dodged, but took the spear in his
throat. A roar hit her ears. With long, bony fingers the thing pulled the spear
from his throat, and the gaping wound began to heal like a zipper going up. He
yelled again and his eyes glowed bloody as he saw her.

She backswam, fast. Luring him.

He shot into the cave.

Lathyr decapitated him.

Black ichor gushed from the severed neck, clouding the water
and a huge suction swept her out of the cave, sending Kiri’s heart racing into
panic. She couldn’t see. She wasn’t on ground! Pressure—
stuff
—pushed on her. She was in some three-dimensional space;
enemies could be under or above her. That was okay in Fairies and Dragons, but
not here, not in virtual reality.

She wanted to scream but the ichor coated her tongue and she
spat and spat and spat,
naasssty!
She tried to stay
in the same place, forced herself to calm—and as her fear eased, she
felt
Lathyr near.

“Thing’s dead and disintegrated. Great Dark ones do that fairly
often,” Lathyr stated calmly. He sang a lovely snatch of a strangely foreign
song and the water cleared. Fish abounded, but she was within a large bubble
with him. As she settled, she realized that she hadn’t seen some of the fish
before and a couple were large and gobbling at...the great Dark one?

“Scavengers,” Lathyr said. “Lowering my shields now.” The
bubble vanished.

Lathyr pointed. A great peach-pink pearl, as large as a truck,
was embedded halfway in a cliff wall.

“Well done!” Jenni said.

“What’s with the pearl?” Kiri managed.

“That is your first goal, to find the great pink pearl, defend
it from those who wish to take it and learn what you need from it.”

“Learn what I need? What, like the next clue?”

“You might say that,” Jenni said.

“I didn’t know of this goal,” Lathyr said. His body, nearly as
fluid as the water around them, went stiff and tense.

“It was changed just as you departed. It’s a later goal from
the game that we decided to insert now.”

“Along with an archvillain?” Kiri asked.

“I thought you might be getting bored,” Jenni said
guilelessly.

Snorting in the Water Realm wasn’t wise, Kiri found out.

Lathyr nodded to the pearl. “Go take care of that.”

Slowly she swam up to the large gem, held still. “Learn what
you can from it,” the mission info said. She reached out and brushed it with her
fingers, satin under her touch. Her nostrils opened wide as she inhaled deeply.
Yes, most excellent water magic! This close she saw tiny swirls of bubbles, the
same pink-peach, lifting from its surface as if it were alive like a jellyfish,
instead of a hard gem. She placed her hand on it.

And it popped.

Kiri gasped, heard Lathyr do the same.
Failed Goal,
scrolled across her vision in bright blue. Before they
could take another breath, they were back in the computer room.

The rest of Friday passed quickly. Somehow the Water Realm
simply
made sense
on an instinctive level to
Kiri.

Since it was the end of the workweek, and now more than a full
week since she’d started, a two-hour debriefing had been set for the afternoon.
Though it was a time for Kiri to present her ideas on how to refine the game—and
she was plenty nervous about that—she begrudged the time out. A good and bad
sign that she was becoming invested in Transformation.

Jenni, Aric and Lathyr started the meeting by complimenting her
on her progress, with only one line about her “difficulties” in the Fire
Realm.

When it came to her turn, Kiri handed out suggestions she had
for the program, ideas for story arcs, for new types of character aspects and
costumes.

Those were well received, by Aric with a big grin, Jenni by
interested humming. Lathyr only smiled at Kiri...and winked. He was changing,
too, loosening up. Good to see.

At the end, as the others began to rise, Kiri stood and cleared
her throat, lifted her chin and matched gazes with Jenni. “I’d like to take home
the software again this weekend. And play in the Fire Realm.”

The older woman sat and leaned back in her chair, tucking a
strand of her hair behind her ear. “You don’t think you’re going overboard on
this?”

“No.”

“I do.”

Kiri blinked. “Yeah?”

“Though I must admit that you might do better in the Fire Realm
without the enhanced virtual reality gloves and the visor.”

“Exactly! And if I can make my own character.”

Jenni’s fingers drummed on the desk. “Understood. But I still
believe that you’re pushing this too much.”

Despite herself, Kiri felt her face go into sulk mode.

Leaning forward, Jenni said, “How long did you play
Transformation last weekend?”

Kiri had to sit down and rack her memory for last weekend.
Saturday she’d...pretty much hit the game in the morning and played all day. Her
shoulders wiggled in stiff memory. “Sunday I only played—”

“Worked,” Jenni corrected.

“Gamed a few hours.”

“How many hours total?” Jenni’s brows lifted.

“Um, four?” Kiri made her eyes big and innocent.

“On Sunday, right? How many hours on Saturday?”

Now Kiri’s shoulders wanted to hunch. She kept them straight,
but wet her lips. “I’m not sure.”

“I didn’t see you go out to look at the koi pond last
Saturday,” Jenni said.

Kiri jerked. “Of course I did. I do every day.” She had, hadn’t
she? She honestly couldn’t remember, and that
was
a
warning. The days, the games, reality and realms were running together. She
grimaced, flung up a hand like a fencer who’d taken a hit. “All right. I spent
too much time on it last weekend—last Saturday.” She leaned forward, too. “This
job, this career is important to me.”

Jenni’s face softened. “It’s very important to us, too, but we
don’t want you burning out.”

Kiri longed to push a little, ask for the damn job. But she had
three more days. “I can take it easier.”

“You
will
take it easier. Not only
did you play Transformation, you spent some hours writing up notes, making
outlines of stories.” Jenni tapped the thickish hard copy of the file before
her.

Kiri said, “Yes.”

Jenni swiveled in her chair, angled it toward Lathyr. “And your
take on this, Lathyr?”

“Kiri is doing very well.”

Always good to hear.

“But I think she should slow down and...savor...the realms, the
experience.”

Kiri’s face went hot. She forced herself to meet his eyes. He’d
reverted to serious mode, didn’t look like he was making a double entendre. What
had their brief kiss meant to him—and why the hell was she thinking about that
now! Absolutely the reason workplace affairs were bad.

“We don’t want you to wash out of the program, Kiri,” he
said.

Now her insides went cold. Her face stiffened into what she
hoped was impassivity.

“So I have an idea.” Jenni raised her index finger and Kiri
turned to listen to her with relief.

“Yes?” Kiri asked.

“We’ll give you the regular program for the Fire and Water
Realms this weekend. You may spend two hours in each realm. There will be a time
limit on the software and it will lock after that.”

“Only two hours each!”

“That’s right. We are not looking for full immersion here, not
this week,” Lathyr said.

Thoughts buzzed in Kiri’s brain.

“I will join you in playing in the Fire Realm,” Jenni said.
“I’d like to schedule that now.” She pulled out her pocket computer, and Kiri
did the same. Lathyr opened the protective cover of his tablet.

“Tomorrow morning from ten to noon would be good for me,” Jenni
said. “Come over to Aric’s and my place then.”

“Fine,” Kiri said.

“And I have invited everyone in Mystic Circle to dinner Sunday
evening at 5:00 p.m.,” Lathyr said.

“We’ll be there,” Aric said.

“I’d love to,” Kiri said.

“So why don’t we schedule our session early Sunday afternoon,
say 1:00 p.m.?” Lathyr said.

“Fine.” Kiri wondered if Lathyr was having the meal catered. He
didn’t seem to be a guy who cooked.

“Your goal in the Fire Realm is to figure out how to cross the
Lava River successfully,” Jenni said. She slid a chip with the software down the
polished wooden table to Kiri, who stuck it carefully in her wallet in her
tote.

“Our goal in the Water Realm is to collect several jewels for a
crown for the Water Queen. All of which are heavily guarded, of course,” Lathyr
said.

“Right,” Kiri said.

“I guess that’s it.” Jenni rose and smiled and stretched.

Lathyr said, “We have no overall project meeting today?”

“Nope.” Jenni linked fingers with her husband. “See you
tomorrow, Jenni.”

The couple left.

“Would you ride to Mystic Circle with me?” Lathyr asked,
circling the desk and holding out his hand.

“This isn’t a good idea,” Kiri said, putting her fingers in
his.

He smiled slowly. “I like the idea fine.”

She shook her head. “Workplace...attractions shouldn’t be acted
upon. It becomes awkward.”

Lathyr tucked her hand in his arm, picked up her tote. “All
will be well, Kiri.”

She didn’t want to argue, and the workday—the workweek
stress—began to roll off her shoulders. She liked being with him.

The car awaited on the street and Lathyr opened the door for
her. They both greeted the driver by name and asked after his day. When the
courtesies had passed, they let the quiet spread between them. She’d never been
with anyone, let alone a man, who she was so easy with. That it was Lathyr was a
mystery to her.

In the evening they walked around the Circle and watched the
koi and went down to Clara’s Creamery for ice cream.

And they kissed again and this time Kiri drew away.

The whole weekend went well, slid softly by with good food and
good company and good fun.

* * *

By lunch break Tuesday, the second to the last day of her time
at Eight Corp on the Transformation project, Kiri had become determined. She
wouldn’t
lose this opportunity. She knew she was
doing well in the games, though they gradually began to feel more and more real.
Her files on the program grew to eight storylines—two that she thought would
work in each realm. She remained unenthusiastic about Fire Realm, and had
completely finished all the current goals in the Water Realm.

She’d sketched out some marketing bullets for the game, added
more alternative character types, including various sorts of humans. She had
lists of new spells, valuable items, weapons and rewards. She’d used the costume
creator of Fairies and Dragons to give some idea of what she thought folks
playing Transformation would like as garb. She’d shot all the files to Jenni,
Aric, Lathyr and the CEO, Alex Akasha, who’d appeared on her company email list
and requested to be updated.

Since it was a lovely autumn day, and Jenni and Aric and Lathyr
were all stuck in a meeting and had told her to take a long lunch, she walked to
the Downtown Mall and ate in an actual restaurant, even outside on a patio,
sitting by herself in the sun. Good.

She was feeling confident, in charge and in control, sure she’d
be fine, when clouds began rolling in and someone near her commented about the
weather and how freaky it had been with the bus accident and all.