Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

Time stretched thin.

There was a blur of darkness behind her, something almost imperceptible to the eye. The sound of a low moaning growl combined with the smooth swish echoing down the plastic slide was profoundly unsettling. If my sister had all her senses, she would have heard it too. But while she was astoundingly perceptive in countless other ways, no amount of wishful thinking could change the fact that my sister was deaf.

The button at my pocket popped open with the flick of a thumb and I drew flipping the tip of the blade between my fingers and preparing to throw it. The weapon housed one of my summons, and if I could thread the needle between my sister’s upper torso and the exterior wall of the slide behind her, it would place a giant pissed off wolf between her and whatever the hell it was hurtling down the slide.

What if you miss?

An intrusive voice whispered, forcing me to hesitate for a fraction of a second. Iris had no context for what was happening. From her perspective, I’d gone from lounging, to running straight for her. We had a lot of trust but she was still a kid. I was experienced enough to know I could hit my mark—I’d spent plenty of time with the blade and made more difficult throws in the past from greater ranges—but that wasn’t accounting for human error.

If she flinched? It was over.

I wouldn’t make it in time. Whatever it was had reached the bottom and I could see nothing more than a maw filled with countless teeth homing in on her, glistening with saliva.

There were options. Not many, but a few. All of them involved breaking my own rules.

I did it without hesitation.

a new Ordinator ability, extended from my fingertips in a nearly imperceptible spear of blue light. It met temporary resistance from Iris’s mind, like she was poking at it, unsure of what it was but accepting just the same.

Roll over the right side NOW.

My sister responded immediately, awkward scrambling off the side just as a twisted, nightmarish amalgam of teeth and flesh snapped viciously at the bottom of the slide. It was an asymmetrical abomination, and what little I could see of it was impossible to make sense of. Devoid of an obvious target, I plunged in the sickly yellow flesh above its mouth.

It squealed, shrieking as Talia took form and ripped into it in a mess of growls and guttural tearing. A yelp followed.

“It's strong.” my summon warned, pained voice speaking directly into my mind.

“How strong?”

“I may only buy you a small window. Run!”

I was already scooping up Iris, leaving a small, child-sized imprint in the peat as I held her to my chest and ran.

There was more movement at the corner of my vision, monstrous and hulking.

Whatever they were, there were more of them. I reached in my inventory and grasped the flight charm, intending to fly directly back to the adventurer’s guild meeting hall.

A shadow loomed overhead, shattering my focus. A macabre raven with five eyes stared down at me, pumping its wings above. Several others circled at a higher altitude.

Shit. They look agile, and the charm takes a while to wear off. Can’t risk flight.

Iris said something but I couldn’t hear her, my mind too full, trying to simultaneously send out an emergency message to everyone I knew, and get a grip on what was happening and why.

Outside of dungeons or other realms of Flauros, native monster attacks were rare. Which implied that this thing was either someone’s creations or under their direct influence. They were targeting either Iris or me. I had a hard time believing the former—Iris was too valuable of an asset to kill, at most an antagonistic third party would want to kidnap or take her hostage. But the latter made little sense either. If I was out and about as Myrddin, there was no shortage of people who’d want to swing at me given the price on my head. But here in my home region, I was acting as Matt.

Matt, who held the status of Leader of a region that traded mostly on the value of its enchantable lumber and was heavily connected with both the Merchant’s and Adventurer’s Guild? He was supposed to be almost untouchable.

Apparently not.

I finished the emergency message and fired it off slipshod to every friend or acquaintance who owed me a favor in my contact list, embedding a location pin, praying that we’d have backup before it was too late. A landslide of messages returned, all of which I ignored as I ran, pressing into the more heavily wooded area for cover and making as much ground as I could.

In my arms, Iris squirmed, face contorted in panic as she whisper-cried and began to hyperventilate. I swore internally and swerved, ducking beneath a branch and planting my back to a large tree. I looked down at her and mouthed. “Deep breaths, kiddo,” demonstrating by taking a few exaggerated inhales and exhales myself.

She was still ghostly pale, and scared, but she caught on quickly, breaths spreading out and normalizing. “Head hurts. What’s happening?” she whispered.

The headache was an unfortunate side-effect of Unlike most of my abilities, it wasn’t subtle. The target would feel the influence as coercion, and a successful cast meant they were forced to carry out what I commanded in a painfully-short-term window. And if the actions went against character, they’d come back to themselves, clearly understanding what had transpired.

“Figuring that out. Watch my back?”

Truth be told, I wasn’t really expecting her to. Iris had been shielded from most of this since the beginning, outside of some of the early event and riot, and as an unfortunate byproduct, this was her first real brush with mortal danger. She’d be doing well if she didn’t freeze up completely.

It was more about giving her something to do, blunting the trauma of helplessness.

Still, Iris nodded, her lips tight and quivering.

I took a half second to scroll through my messages until I spotted Grit and Ire, the hired mercenaries who escorted me whenever I left the Region as Matt.

Grit’s messages were mostly expletives, but Ire was mostly coherent. According to him they were en route, and Ire also sent the coordinates for a nearby block corner where they’d stop.

Less than a hundred yards away.

I oriented myself eastward and ran, huffing as the greenery blew by, trying to run straight and keeping my head on a swivel for threats that might have been lurking behind the large trunks of nearby trees. Heavy footsteps crunched through the asphalt behind me, gaining ground as I catapulted through the urban forest, eyes set on the white glow of the tree-line until I broke through, tripping and awkwardly stumbling, trying to find my balance without dropping my sister.

My eyes slowly panned up to the intersection.

This was larger scale than I’d realized. The monsters looked less like monsters in the clear light of day. There weren’t many of them, but the warped human faces mounted on monstrous bodies, and the sheer deadliness of those bodies ensured no one would take them lightly. A few fights had already broken out.

And the pavement, where Grit and Ire were meant to arrive, was empty.

“Someone throw me a fucking bone here,” I snarled, summoning my system-Prius and loading Iris into it. My sister scrambled into the passenger seat, leaning back, her eyes wild. “It’s going to be okay.” I told her, only to be cut off by an overhead screech.

The ravens from before had found us.

A giant bird ahead of the pack was diving straight down at me on a collision course, its talons outstretched.

shot my hand-crossbow’s butt into my palm and I focused on the raven’s middle eye, my wrist automatically adjusting to correct the shot.

The twang of a bow matched my trigger-pull.

The raven spiraled from the twin impacts, one of them exploding, plummeting off-course and spiraling downward, caving in the roof of a nearby car with considerable force.

A few slabs of sidewalk away from me an archer stood from a kneeling position. The recent addition of a floating cowl that flowed behind him beside the thickly weaved body armor, green eyes, and tightly coiffed blonde hair made his visage almost nauseatingly picturesque.

Fed turned Prince Charming.

“Nice shot, kid.” Miles said, nocking another arrow.