Play of Shadows

4.06: Where All Masks Fall

Their path led to the river.

The call to a specific point within the game was not covert. Ann felt the pull as the sea might the moon's orbit – an insistent force that swelled ever forward, crashing toward some unknown shore. A lit-up trail with cartoon arrows pointing in the right direction would have been more subtle.

The players fought for every step. The NPCs were ferocious in their onslaught, seeking to crush the players with sheer numbers and brute strength. They did not falter as their brethren fell, as they themselves lost limbs and unraveled to glitched code. Although the horde lacked coordination and strategy, the players could not hope to best them. On an open battlefield, surrounded on all sides, they had not a prayer of escape.

Even with support, the going was tough. They lost most of their doll entourage to the mob. Ann offered a silent apology to the Seamstress as she stepped over the broken pieces of her ferocious little army. The marionette horse, too, suffered enough damage that its Dullahan rider was forced to dismount and join the melee on the ground. The last stretch of road – through a deserted market, down a cobblestone street – was a fight so close even the players were not spared despite their guardians' vigilance. Ann, forced into a solid body in order to carry her injured teammate, bore deep claw marks down her arms from a near-encounter with an NPC that vaguely resembled the orc she had once asked for directions.

The fight did not cease until they reached the high bank of a hollow river. The players were rushed down the slope by their minders, the horde grasping after their shadows. The distorted mass of avatars howled after them but did not follow. They clustered at the invisible boundary that separated the river from town and fell silent, a forest of glowing eyes.

"Have we reached a safe area?" Lieutenant Arendse gasped.

The woman had fared worse than the rest of the group. She had joined the fight as their guard staggered, a last line of defense for her team. She was barely standing. Her VR suit bore deep gashes and wounds that did not bleed, but gaped empty instead. The woman was rendered with holes.

"Wouldn't call it safe," Vernon grunted, steely eyes narrowed.

The riverbed was deep and wide, the opposite shore a thin line in the distance. Pale light spilled down the bank in rivulets. It looked like the moon had melted from the sky. Like liquid mercury, a poison the emperors of old thought the secret to immortality.

In the center of the barren riverbed was a man.

Ann barely remembered to set Sasha down before setting out again, pace just shy of a run. The players called after her but their voices ebbed away, distant, unimportant. The force that pulled her forward only grew stronger the closer to K she was. Like a stray asteroid caught in a sun's orbit, plummeting towards its core and burning as she went down.

K turned to face her. The red mask was twisted in a perpetual frown, but his voice held a smile.

"You are here."

Ann did not speak. The bone-deep sense of contentment, of completion that swept over her crested and faded, seeping out of her like water through a sieve.

"So is she," she noted.

K did not look at the shadow that stood against the brightening horizon like a creature out of a nightmare. Maya Barton was far down the river, the distance between them so great that the woman appeared shapeless. Only her mask – the mask Ann had once worn; the mask Barton had stolen – was clearly visible. The grin etched into the bone porcelain made Ann shiver.

"You wore it better," K said.

Ann huffed out a startled laugh. "It would've been useful to know what it was, when I had it," she said pointedly.