Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

Ellison's penthouse, perhaps unsurprisingly, was serial-killer clean. A brief rifle through his cupboards revealed rows of glassware and plates coated with a layer of dust, moving air displacing enough of it that it swirled in the late afternoon light piercing through gaps in closed shades and drawn curtains.

The only evidence that he'd even lived there at all was the way his bed was made, and the simple black box left behind at the foot of it. On closer inspection, it wasn't exactly black—just the deepest, most somber navy. The box, so far as I could tell, lacked any discernible way to open it. No keyhole, uneven surfaces, or sections that gave any flex. Not so much as a seam. I inventoried it and moved on, finding little beyond a growing sense of unease that was impossible to place until I looked at the room as a whole, and realized what was bothering me.

It was the asceticism. When I'd moved in, my place had been pre-decorated. Either by the previous occupant or the owner of the building. Nothing beyond the stock kitschy Eat-Pray-Love shit and pop-art still lifes. It wasn't exactly to my preferences, but it was color and texture, and as I wasn't exactly keen on taking a few days off to redecorate the place, I'd decided it could stay as it was. The irony was amusing. And at the very least, it made me look like less of a psycho.

Judging from the bundle of assorted art, hanging word-pieces, and a number of tertiary appliances I found in one of his closets, Ellison, by contrast, had stripped the walls and blacked out the mirror in his bathroom with masking tape. Someone's personal space says a lot about who they are, and as far as I could tell, either Ellison was making an intentional effort to say nothing, or he was doing worse mentally than I'd realized. My brother got like that, sometimes. When he was frustrated, particularly with his own failures, he'd strip away distractions, carving away at any variable that could even fractionally affect his focus, throwing away sentimental treasures or pawning pored over books close to his heart.

It seemed over the many lifetimes he'd supposedly lived, he'd perfected that approach.

I could have spent hours there, turning everything over, cutting open mattresses and removing floor lining, checking all his typical hiding places. My brother was occasionally sloppy and prone to oversight, but the room itself told me that wouldn't be the case here. Generally, when he was making this much of an effort to be fastidious, the results were impeccable. So I moved on, hoping he'd been too busy to bother with the one place I might find traces of the brother I had before.

Our old place. Much as I'd come to hate the cramped walls and cracking foundation, it'd haunted my dreams as of late. The brass knob turned easily in my hand, hinges emitting the tell-tale squeak that'd so often given away my comings and goings.

It felt strange, being back. Doubly so with the mask on. I slid it off, seal breaking as cool air rushed in, chilling my cheeks, a wave of nostalgia pouring in as the emotional suppression effect faded. Not entirely intending to, I stared down at it, feeling a familiar weight pressing down on my shoulders. Without the all-father's interference, there was no question I'd be dead. Becoming Myrddin had allowed me so much more flexibility and slack than I'd be afforded otherwise. Beyond that, the identity created a near-perfect outlet for the more volatile aspects of my personality. Myrddin could thrash and burn, escalate as much as necessary without fear of reprisal, and stamp out potential threats before they gained momentum. It'd been a worthwhile undertaking, and with a few notable exceptions, I didn't regret it.

But for the first time since I donned the name, Myrddin's future was murky. The purpose he'd served was more or less complete. Matt had established relationships and clear in-roads with both the Adventurer's Guild and The Order of Parsae. Contrasted with Myrddin, who was held at cautious arm's length by the first, and almost universally reviled by the second.

After the last mission with the strike team, my alter-ego had effectively served his purpose. Now he occupied the awkward space between hindrance and help, sliding more towards hindrance with every passing day. If he was truly another person, an ally, I'd start looking for ways to shelter myself from the half-life. Wouldn't cut ties or burn bridges, exactly, but there was no doubt I'd start distancing, relying on others where I might have turned to Myrddin, instead.

Of course, I didn't have to worry about doing any of that. It wouldn't be messy. I could just let it go. Retire the identity and be Matt again. It wouldn't even be that big of a change. My accumulated power and Ordinator abilities would persist. I'd need to be more careful about how I used them, of course, but caution was nothing new.

Once Vernon achieved a high enough level to uncover what lay at the top of the necromancer tree, and Jinny's death was resolved, one way or another, there was a real possibility it was time to move on. Grow up. Stop giving myself carte blanche to do whatever the hell I wanted, whenever the hell I wanted.

Learn to put the hammer down again.

For the moment, I retired the train of thought and carried on my search. As I'd hoped, Ellison's room was mostly untouched. Clean, but not impeccable the same way the penthouse was. I gathered enough hair from the creases between the carpet and beneath his bed, filtering them into a plastic bag until I had something that resembled a clump, and moved onto the second, more difficult piece of the puzzle.

"Object of great importance," I murmured. Yakov's description implied a degree of sentimentality, which was going to make this hard, as my brother tended to keep anything he truly cared about under wraps. There were a number of books that potentially qualified—a fraying, goodwill acquired copy of The Name of the Wind that he'd reread so many times the spine was in tatters, along with several battered volumes of The Stormlight Archives. Problem was, Ellison's tastes were mercurial. He'd alternate between lauding an author's praises to bashing them vehemently, expressing vitriol that bordered on loathing. After a moment, I inventoried both books, deciding to aim for quality rather than quantity.

I did a double-take. Through the gap in the books, a miniaturized cartoon figure holding a book beneath its arm stared back. Its head was coiffed with long, flowing white hair, pointed ears extended out to either side, the points long enough that it had to be elven, or at least elf analogous. Red smudges marred a flowing white tunic fringed with gold, perhaps depicting wounds. Tentatively, I picked it up, inspecting it in greater detail. The faintest scent of iron gave it away before my mind even made the connections, and the slow, growing sense of alarm I'd felt since his disappearance accelerated exponentially.

The figurine's wounds weren't wounds at all.

/////

"His blood?" Yakov confirmed, inspecting the figurine in the overhead light of the butcher shop.

Wordlessly, I nodded, still reeling from the revelation and fighting a sensation of growing nausea. At some point in the last few days, after our window of communication had closed, Ellison had come home. I'd found more traces of blood in his bed and beneath a flipped over couch cushion. The cache of cleaning supplies beneath the sink had been unsettled, meaning he wasn't injured so badly he couldn't afford to cover his tracks, but most of the gauze and bandaging materials in the first-aid kit above the fridge were gone. "Will this be enough?"

The older man placed the figurine on the counter, looking it over. "Blood best source. Will work. Statue, important?" His expression was dubious.

To be honest, I still wasn't certain. Ellison had never mentioned the figurine, but that didn't mean much. What stuck out was that in spite of whatever dire straits he was in, he'd sought it out and clutched it, not unlike the way a person might hold a precious memento or rosary for comfort. "Pretty sure."

"Okay." Yakov squared his shoulders. "Should be enough."

I tailed him, moving at a brisk pace to match the man's long strides as he led me past the new machines glinting in the dim light. Yakov moved a clothes-stand overloaded with aprons and other apparel, opening a small door that led to a stairway down. He paused in the opening, giving me a long, cautious look before he spoke. "Clients like results. Way to get them, less so. Trouble for squeamish. This problem?"

If Julien's bleeding heart could handle whatever methods his Uncle used well enough that he was happily making referrals, I got the feeling I'd probably be fine. "Not at all."

Yakov acknowledged that with a nod, not looking particularly surprised. His mouth formed a grim line, and he chucked a thumb towards the stairway. "Follow."

With a small amount of trepidation, I followed Yakov down a set of creaking wooden slats that served as stairs. The walls of the dimly lit basement were comprised of dingy tile and drains. A braided line of seeping organic material formed a wide circle, approximately eight feet in diameter, and within it, a crystal basin of dark blood sat squarely in the center. If I'd simply stumbled upon it, the ritualistic display would have looked much more sinister without context. But the intestines that formed the circle were too broad and thick to be human, and Yakov's vocation went a long way to explaining where the materials were sourced from.

I knelt across from Yakov, as the butcher arranged the items I'd brought with no discernible pattern, placing them perpendicular to the basin, scowling as he made minute adjustments to the circle to better suit some highly complex and unknowable schema only he could perceive.

"Hold snapshot in mind. Real memory, no imagination. No fear. Familiar," Yakov instructed.

As I did so, he began to chant guttural, primal words in an ancient language. The mental image I'd chosen was a mundane one, Ellison and I walking home after I'd picked him up from the local library, casually navigating the moonlit street. He was half-smiling, overtly trying not to laugh at something I'd said, adjusting the strap of his backpack—

A psionic scream overwhelmed me, as the familiar surroundings within the memory ripped away. The scent of gore and oozing flesh grew stronger, more prevalent. The city streets that surrounded him fell away, my brother's jovial face replaced with a more modern visage. Dark bags weighed heavy beneath his eyes as he sprinted, darting through countless burned out husks of trees that formed a dead forest, the sky overhead burgeoning with storm clouds. Rustling followed him, unseen creatures pursuing through the underbrush at blistering speed, just out of view. Ellison stumbled, swearing furiously as he lost his footing and tumbled head over heels down a long slope, slamming shoulder first into a tree and uttering a pained cry.

"Not... yet," Ellison muttered through grit teeth, pulling what looked like a high-tech crossbow out of his back and jerking it towards a thick copse of nearby trees. He fired, the immediate explosion loud and sudden enough that I nearly opened my eyes.

"Focus," Yakov broke from his chanting long enough to bark.

I held firm. Even as the scent of smoke filled my nostrils and the acrid smell of burning flesh made my eyes water, I forced myself to stay with it. Just a little longer.

Ellison dropped the crossbow, shifting upward against the tree he'd hit, bracing his back against it. Several creatures emerged from the flaming circle of trees, screeching, struggling to put themselves out before falling to their knees and laying still. They were familiar. Part animal, part person. It was difficult to say from the aftermath, but these looked almost exactly like the same sort of chimeras that attacked my region only a matter of days ago. In the distance, after my vision cleared, I could make out some sort of gargantuan structure, lined with parapets.

Shakily, Ellison rose to a standing position and began to retreat from the fire, right arm hanging uselessly. His breathing was ragged and bare, every labored inhale tearing at me as he limped towards the castle. Above him, I felt my stomach turn as something fluid and flexible dropped from the branches in a brown-spotted, camouflaged blur.

The oversized constrictor snake seized Ellison, encircling him tightly. For a moment there was hope, because my brother was fast. He managed to get his forearm vertical, quickly drawn knife glinting as he struggled in the snake's grip, waiting for an opening.

Then three more slithered out from beneath the underbrush. Ellison saw them coming. I waited, holding my breath, as he pivoted, struggling under the massive snake's weight, buying time and distance.

It was mostly obscured. If I hadn't seen one before, I might have missed it entirely. But there, in the distance, was a runed, circular pillar that looked exactly like an elevator platform. And despite the many realms of Flauros I'd entered, there was only one place with lifts that looked like that.

The tower.