Chapter 21: Chapter 21

With a final stab from Clare, the giant alligator boss fell still. Sara’s HUD informed her of her XP and gold rewards. She also received some pieces of leather and a rare healing gem. She equipped the latter before switching out her bow and materializing her spear. She then walked over to join her tank.

The two women were in a cavernous room of the underground sewer instance. A stone door nearby rose now that the boss was defeated. The room beyond the doorway looked darker than the current area.

“That was easy,” Sara said suspiciously. “I really don’t get this quest—it feels so slapped together. A linear instance with a handful of weak trash mobs, and a straightforward boss. There has to be some kind of trick coming. May and Pari were attacked by that giant mob of monsters earlier, after all.” Although they were far away, the grayed out status bars of the rest of the party and their enemies still appeared in Sara’s HUD.

“Our quest is similar to a dungeon—I expect the final boss will have more complicated mechanics.” Clare sounded disinterested when she said this, like her mind was somewhere else. But even if she was distracted, Sara had not noticed any decrease in her combat ability.

The healer nodded to her companion before leading her into the next room. It was even larger than the last. “How is this a sewer?” she asked in disbelief, holding out her free hand to indicate their surroundings. “This is bigger than a subway terminal! And why is there a sewer when no one even uses bathrooms in this game?” Her observations drew no reaction.

The door they had just entered through suddenly slammed shut.

Sara took in her surroundings. The expansive room was constructed of stone, with a large number of pillars spread regularly throughout. Torches affixed to the pillars gave off weak light, and there were long shadows all over. The walls had various circular holes leading into giant pipes, but these were each covered with impassible metal bars.

The pair started forward and soon came upon a tile in the floor labeled with the number one. There were more tiles continuing away from the entrance, each incrementing the count by one. “Don’t step on these, they might do something,” Sara warned.

They followed the tiles all the way to fiftieth. This journey had brought them across the entire room. Past the end of the tiles was another door. Written on it was a sequence of numbers:

“Those are the initial prime numbers,” Sara observed. “Wait, since when does Fantasy Justice have puzzles? I haven’t read about anything like that.

“But it seems obvious what we’re supposed to do—continue the sequence. I’ll stand on nineteen, and you stand on twenty-three. I’m almost certain that will open this door.”

“So we’re trapped in here until we both agree to leave...” Clare said. She was not looking directly at Sara. By the tone of her voice, she seemed to find this fact very significant.

“Um, yes, that’s right,” Sara answered, confused.

“Then I want some answers,” she said, looking to Sara with sudden anger. “Is it true you’re an anarchist?”

The healer was not able to keep her surprise out of her expression. “Clare, you can’t seriously want to talk about something like that in the middle of a quest?”

“ANSWER ME!” she screamed. An echo carried through the room.

Sara was shocked by the other woman’s rage. “Whatever you think an anarchist is, I’m not that. I’ve never hurt anyone. But it’s true that I don’t support the current system our country has. I want it replaced by voluntary and directly democratic organization. So I am an anarchist in that sense.” She sighed. “You’re not going to leave the party over this, are you?”

There was a pause before Sara’s HUD informed her that Clare had left the party. The tank’s nameplate was updated to reflect this. “Clare!” Sara pleaded. But then she noticed the other woman shaking in anger and tightening her grip on her sword. The blade was still alight with its usual purple electricity.

Sara felt complete disbelief when her HUD displayed a simple sentence.

The tank’s status bars, which had disappeared when she had left the party, now reappeared lower on the HUD where enemies were listed.

The combat start delay was hardly enough time for Sara to recover from her shock. Clare launched herself at the healer with an incoherent scream, stabbing directly at her heart. Sara barely managed to jump out of the way in time. She then held up her spear and blocked follow-up attacks.

“Please stop!” she cried out, but Clare did not relent. Sara was forced to counterattack—she would not survive a minute against an opponent as skilled as Clare if she let her attack freely. The sounds of her spear clashing against sword and shield filled the forbidding darkness of their battleground. Sara’s heart raced—she had never been this frightened before.

“It was all lies! All of it lies!” Clare shouted. There were tears in her eyes and unrelenting fury in her gaze as she continued her offensive. “False kindness! Pretending you didn’t want to kill! That you weren’t already a murderer! ALL OF IT SO YOU COULD USE ME!” The tank’s sword left a cut on Sara’s arm, and she cast a lasting heal in response.

“I only kept my politics from you! Everything else was real!” Sara quickly analyzed the situation as she fought. She hardly ever won against Clare in their practice duels, so her odds of survival were low. She did at least have a better speed gem, which increased her normal advantage in mobility. Also, Clare was not using her typical fighting style.

The tank was normally calm and methodical, combining a nearly impenetrable defense with sudden and cunning attacks. But in this battle she was wild and aggressive. Though she was still protecting herself—Sara landed a few scratches here and there, but any of her attacks that might have been lethal were still easily blocked or evaded. Could Clare’s emotional volatility leave her vulnerable in some way?

Sara immediately rejected the idea of trying to anger her opponent further to increase her recklessness. She desperately wanted a peaceful resolution. “Stop! No one has to die here,” she pleaded. “I’ll leave the party if you want. Please just tell me what to do to make this stop!”

“SHUT UP!” Clare cried. Sara jumped backward to avoid one of her attacks, landing beside a pillar. She then ducked under a following strike. Sparks of void lightning appeared when Clare’s sword passed through the space where Sara’s head had been and struck the pillar. The healer jumped back again to counter-attack, but her spear was once more roughly turned aside by her adversary’s shield.

Sara kept up with her usual melee tactics—striking from a distance, jumping away from attacks. Neither woman could land a decisive strike. Sara was landing more minor wounds, but Clare’s hits drained much more health because of her void strike.

Still, the math was in Sara’s favor. She could heal her own damage indefinitely, but Clare could only rely on her extremely slow combat regeneration. Consequently, while Sara stayed close to full stats, Clare’s health slowly dropped. The longer this fight went on, the better Sara’s position became.

Clare knew this as well. “Can you do anything besides jump away, you coward? Evasion, misdirection—even your combat style is nothing but tricks and lies!”

Sara ignored these taunts. The tank’s aggression was putting much more of a strain on her stamina than normal. And the more her health dropped, the slower her stamina regenerated. Unfortunately, Clare did have potions to fall back on—and they were likely to hold out longer than Sara’s luck.

As the pair continued to fight, they passed through the row of tiles in the floor. Clare briefly stepped on one as she pursued Sara. The high ceiling was difficult to see, but it appeared to drop slightly as a rumbling sound was heard from above. The healer led the fight far from the tiles, not wanting a repeat of this occurrence.

Sara desperately tried to think of more to say that might resolve the conflict, but she was almost out of ideas. “Clare, I’m sorry that I lied to you about being an anarchist! It was wrong of me. But I swear I was being genuine when I tried to be your friend. Please believe me!”

Clare’s only response was another incoherent cry of rage as she continued her assault.

The tank’s health soon approached fifty percent, and despite her human bonus her stamina was dangerously low. She dematerialized her shield so that she would have a free hand to draw a potion from her inventory.

Sara was ready for this. When the potion appeared, she struck suddenly. The small flask was smashed to pieces by the point of her spear, the liquid inside spilling uselessly to the ground. If the healer could keep Clare from drinking a potion, the angry swords-woman would soon be out of stamina and unable to properly defend herself. Surely she would surrender in that situation.

This plan fell apart almost immediately. Clare anticipated that Sara would repeat her tactic, and was ready. As the potion materialized, she jumped at Sara and attacked. The healer was not quick enough to block the strike entirely. She only partially deflected it with the shaft of her spear—instead of the blade burying itself in her heart, it struck Sara in the shoulder and rendered her arm temporarily useless.

Sara had no choice but to jump away before Clare could attack again. She cast a heal to help her recover. By the time she regained the use of her arm a couple seconds later, Clare had already drunk her health potion. Both her health and stamina refilled. All the progress Sara had made was lost, and the shield reappeared in a white glow.

The fighting continued much as it had before, but with once difference. Clare finally dialed down her aggression enough to gain better control of the conflict. Sara felt much more the underdog now, but she managed to keep barely avoiding a fatal strike. Both women attempted as many tactical gambits as they could think of, to no great effect. Each knew the moves of the other too well.

Clare tried to use her void burst as a distraction, but Sara kept her focus. The healer faked vulnerability after one attack to goad Clare into a careless follow up—but her opponent saw through the ruse. And on it went. A minute felt like an eternity when one was a single thrust of a blade from death.

Miraculously, Sara lasted long enough to force Clare’s health stat back down to the half-way mark. Once again, Clare disappeared her shield and materialized a potion. This time the healer feinted at the potion and attempted to trip her opponent with the shaft of her spear. The maneuver paid off, with Clare losing her feet and falling onto her back. The potion tumbled from her grasp.

Sara followed up instantly. Before the tank could react, the point of the spear rested against her chest. Clare had no chance of knocking the spear aside before it could strike her heart. She froze.

“It’s over!” Sara cried tearfully. “Just promise you’ll stop attacking me, and I’ll let you go. We never have to speak to each other again if you want. End this insanity—I’m begging you!”

“You humiliated me! I’d rather die than surrender. Kill me or I’ll end you!”

Sara shook. She had no choice. She willed herself to thrust the spear home...but she could not do so.

She backed away and dropped the spear. It soon disappeared into her inventory. Clare looked to her in shock. The healer sobbed and screamed at her. “I CAN’T DO THIS! Killing a stranger would be horrible enough, but this? I’m supposed to kill someone I thought was my friend?! If that’s the price of surviving in this place, I won’t pay it! I’M DONE! KILL ME IF YOU WANT, I’M FUCKING DONE!”

Clare stood and approached. Still crying, Sara closed the heads up display and shut her eyes. She did not want to see her death, or that horrible “game over” screen she had read about.

Sara felt a horrible pain in her chest. But then the agony lessened, and somehow she remained standing. She dared to open her eyes. She had a wound in her chest where the sword had struck, but it was not over her heart.

The expression on Clare’s face went beyond confusion—she looked as if she doubted her own sanity. “What...what is this?” she whispered. “Why would you let me kill you? What is this?” She began weeping, and fell to her knees. She dropped her sword and let it disappear.

After all that had happened, Sara felt she ought to be angrier—but Clare looked so lost and full of despair, it was impossible not to feel sorry for her. “I don’t know why you’re so convinced I’m some kind of monster,” Sara told her miserably, wiping away her tears and jostling her glasses slightly. “But it’s not true. Maybe my politics make me some naïve idiot, but I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’d never kill except to protect someone, or in self-defense.” She gave a bitter laugh. “And I didn’t even have the nerve to do that when the time came.”

Clare continued to stare at the ground. “But...if you’re not a murderer...what if I killed them for nothing?” she asked softly, still crying.

Sara approached the other woman and knelt in front of her. “Clare, please tell me who you’re talking about.”

The tank finally looked up and met her gaze. “My parents...my real parents. W-When I was seven, I found some books at home. About anarchy, and making bombs. The posters and lessons at school said that if you found things like that, you were supposed to tell a teacher. So I did...

“My teacher told the FBI. Some agents posed as extremists and pressured my parents to make a bomb for them. After they were convicted, my parents died here in Fantasy.

“But if you’re not a killer, that could mean they didn’t want to kill anyone either. What if they were telling the truth at the trial? They said they were promised that the bomb would only be used against a fully automated factory.

“I...I killed them for nothing. You’re the only person who’s been nice to me since they died—and I tried to kill you too!” She looked down at the ground once more and hugged herself. “I’m the murderer. ...I don’t deserve to live,” she whispered.

Sara could hardly bear the thought of anyone being put through such torment. She leaned forward and hugged her friend fiercely. Clare went stiff as a board in surprise. Sara stroked her hair. “It’s okay. You didn’t kill them,” she said soothingly. “You didn’t threaten them into making that bomb, and you didn’t put them in Fantasy. There was no way you could have known how it would turn out—you were just doing what you thought was right. And you were too young to know better. It’s not your fault.”

“How can you say that, after what I’ve done to you? How could I ever even ask for your forgiveness?”

“You were just confused. I understand completely now. You couldn’t believe me without feeling responsible for what happened to your parents. ...I forgive you, Clare.”

Clare drew back from the embrace slightly, so that they were face to face once more. “You can’t really mean that!” she sobbed.

“I do. Please don’t feel badly. I think all of this has been the first step toward letting go of all the pain and anger you’ve been holding inside.”

“I can never make this up to you. If I lived a century I could never make up for what I’ve done. But I’ll try. I’ll protect you from now on!”

Sara gave a comforting smile. “The only thing I’d ever ask of you is that you not hurt anyone else without cause. And besides, you can’t really make a promise to keep anyone safe in a place this dangerous.”

“Then I’ll die before I let anything happen to you! I swear it! Unless you send me away, I’ll always stay by your side.”

Sara took Clare’s hands in her own. “If that’s really what you want, then please join the party again and help protect everyone.”

Clare looked away in shame. “But they’ll never accept me after what I’ve done.”

“I’ll admit, this is going to be really difficult to smooth over with May and Pari. But once they know the full story I hope they’ll understand.” Sara opened her HUD and invited Clare back into the party.

Clare met her gaze once more and nodded. The healer received the message that Clare’s attack was ended, and that she had accepted the invite.

With all the adrenaline that had been pumped into her system long since gone, Sara felt shaky and run down. Both women finally parted and sat back. They were silent for some time before the healer spoke again. “As scary as this was, at least we got our first real PvP combat out of the way.”

Clare made a noise that was half way between a laugh and sob. After some time, she replied. “I know I don’t have any right to ask anything of you. But please don’t let anyone else hurt you like I did. The decision to spare my life may have worked out for the best—but it was the wrong choice based on the information you had at the time. ...Even I didn’t know that I would spare you until the last second.”

“...You’re right,” Sara admitted sadly. “I let the despair of this place get to me. I promise it won’t happen again—if you really do want to protect me, then I won’t make that any harder than it has to be.”

She paused to consider their situation before continuing. “How do you feel about finishing the quest today? I’m worried that if we leave it for another time, they won’t let us back in.”

Clare nodded. “I’ll just need a while to get a hold of myself.”

“I know exactly how you feel.” It had not gone as planned, but Sara was relieved to have her differences with Clare resolved. Now all the magical girls had to do was survive their quests.