Dex Warrior (Libertas Online)

25: Do or Die

I awake at dawn, the glow of sunlight just beginning to warm my bedroll. Sleeping on the sandy beach isn't bad at all. In fact, I'd wager it's better than any sleep I've ever had before the invasion, all thanks to the coding in Libertas. A flock of white birds flap thunderously overhead as I ponder the old Earth days. Then, dread and guilt bubble up in my belly as I remember last night's conversation with Rin.

With a groan, I clamber out of my bag, pick it up, and re-kindle the small fire pit between Rubble and I. Sitting right before it, I watch the flames and contemplate what to say to Rin. I get the feeling that I was too open with her and scared her away. Finding the right words to apologize and try to restore any gap I've created becomes the single focus of my mind. The big guy doesn't stir me from my thoughtful staring for nearly an hour. When he's finally up, we small talk for about five minutes, neither of us commenting on our missing companions, before we decide it's time to get this show on the road again. I break the ice with a message:

Aiden Rockwell: Hey, guys. Ready to run this dungeon again? I figure we have five more play-throughs before we all reach level 20. We can get it done before noon if we start now.

A long and unsettling minute passes. I become a nervous wreck, my mind spiraling around thoughts about how Felix must know what I said to Rin last night and how it's destroyed our party's ability to work together.

Rin Akari: Sure. Logging in.

Felix Brandt: omw

I sigh in relief and mutter thanks to myself when I see those messages, which makes Rubble raise an eyebrow at me, curious.

I shake my head, and say, "Just thanking the entire universe..."

The big guy shrugs, and we wait while the others appear just a short distance from our little campsite. Felix approaches us first, his cassock robes flapping in the breeze, and quickly goes to fiddling around in his HUD. Rin, on the other hand, comes as graciously as princess. On light steps, the sand parts under feet. Her eyes are cast ahead, but she doesn't even acknowledge me with a glance. I'm happy that she's here, and I want to say something, but I'm afraid of making things worse. So I stick to game-related topics and ask her a question.

"What are you going to do with that seeing orb?"

Her head swivels down to me, casting her gaze my way for the first time. There's a new kind of tenderness in her violet eyes that I've never seen before. She looks reserved, detached, maybe even somber. In a quieter voice than usual, she simply says, "I'm going to turn it in to Wilford when we hit level twenty. I'd rather take a smaller risk than a bigger one right now." Rin looks away towards the ocean before I can even nod or add more to the conversation, making this the first time I can ever remember getting the cold shoulder.

Not much more is said between us for the next five minutes, the next hour, or the hours after that. The morning turns into an endless cycle of dungeon-clearing, boring and dreary. We go through the motions of clearing The Dead Bay again and again until we're practically machines. The entire time we're grinding, I just wish that Rin would say more than two words at a time. Her stubborn silence makes me pretty sure that what I said to her last night has upset her. I feel bad, and know that we need to talk about it more. In private, preferably, as I don't think that anything but a face-to-face conversation can set things right. Until the time comes, I brood on what I'm going to say as we work on leveling up. We're so practiced by our final run that we set up the cannons for Jelly-Joel without a single word and before anyone takes a single step onto the main deck.

When the big boss goes down, and that magic moment of hitting level twenty comes, I can't help but feel a little underwhelmed about it. It feels good to reach another step closer to the end goal, but somehow things just don't sit right with me.