The City: PuzzleLocked Book 1

They sat in Mida’s much more organized and smaller office, which had a bookshelf, a small writing desk, and a couple of chairs. Mida had acquired a three-legged stool from somewhere and offered the chairs to her guests, but Flor had decided to take the stool out of kindness or for some other reason. Once they sat, Mida excused herself for a moment. She returned with a pot of tea and then busied herself to find a third cup. Once everyone was served, she sat in her chair at her desk and breathed a slow breath.

“Okay. You’ve sold me on the short pitch. And I have dozens of questions. But, start from the beginning and tell me a longer summary of what’s happened. Don’t leave out the otherworldly parts or violence or cats or anything. You have my full attention. But please don’t mind that I’ll take notes and may ask you to repeat or clarify something.”

Flor jumped in, “Can I ask something first?” Mida nodded, so Flor continued, “You mentioned a thesis, but what else do you get out of this? Like, you seemed like you didn’t believe us. And, certainly, Sithembile didn’t. What’s the deal there?”

Mida looked at Flor blankly. “You talk a whole lot more than most brawlers I’ve encountered. It’s…different…and may take a moment for me to get used to. But, I guess if your story is true, you don’t know or understand the university. So, sure. The ‘Ideas and Theories’ department works on ideas and theories, as you may guess. But those ideas have to be founded in some practicality. I can’t just claim that this table is made of smaller material you can’t see; I have to prove it in some verifiable manner. I could chop it into smaller pieces. That would count, in a sense. Or, I could put it under lenses to see the smaller as bigger. Scholar Sithembile had been working on theories that the world around us is a game and we are but actors within it. It therefore follows, logically, that there would be individuals ‘playing’ the game, but they have not graced us with their presence. Even though a few individuals have claimed they were, they never provided sufficient proof of their reality to verify they were actually players. Sithembile abandoned that project as unprovable. She then brought one of her ongoing side projects into primary focus. I, however, maintain an interest in that original line of thought. But, it’s been a while since someone has come claiming to be a player, and therefore I’m curious if this is just another phase of the game. Does that answer your questions?”

Flor nodded. “It certainly adds more, though. I’ll let Alastair give the summary of our progress.”

“Well, let’s see. To start from the beginning, Flor and I were playing a game set in outer space called Holst’s Solar Explorer. The premise is that you explore, adventure, fight, and gain resources on the planets surrounding a star. We had just finished mining a space rock and were heading to our primary base before a system update. We fast-traveled to the base. But when we woke up, we were on the boat previously mentioned heading toward this island. The first couple of iterations, I skipped and logged out, hoping to return to either the Holst simulation or my reality. But each time, I ended up back on the boat. Flor played through both days but only remembers the second.”

“I had been cat hunting and upon petting it gained a daemon. Is that something you’re familiar with?”

Mida shook her head no. “What’s a daemon?”

Flor continued, “Basically a process that runs in the background. In this case, I think the process keeps track of our progress. It manifests physically if you want to see it?”

Mida said, “Yes, absolutely, but once we get into the specifics. I get so distracted that if I don’t keep you on task, I’ll never accomplish anything.”

“I think gaining access to the daemon allowed me to save my progress, in game terms, which allowed me to remember what I had done. On the third day, I woke on the boat, Alastair finally woke up and we journeyed together from there…”

There is general laughter. Mida said, “Wild! I can’t believe that happened!? What happened next?”

“It gets frustrating from here, but it’s short. I haven’t talked with Flor about what she did after she followed the procession.”

Putting down her teacup, Flor said, “I rushed after the procession and caught up to them about a couple kilometers outside the gate. The carriage was unattended. Some of the guards hacked at a felled tree and the others questioned the thugs. So, I snuck up and used my lock picks on the sorted ruins puzzle. {It was a Sudoku. Flor is just not certain the locals use the same name for games, but there is no reason they shouldn’t.} Then I peeked my head in to tell the kids to be quiet til the cavalry came. Which…eventually Alastair showed up with a wagon of drunk friars. We rescued the kids and were heading back to West Shilgrave when…someone showed up, convinced the mayor that we were up to no good, and then I had a spear in my back. Three hearts down and I woke up on a boat.”

Alastair huffed. “We’re going to find that slag and make her regret crossing us.”

“You felt for that thug and his sister, huh?” Mida asked.

“It was the one thing we had going right for us. I guess we figured out that the mayor is a villain that needs to be stopped, but we were so close to actually having made a difference in a place that it’s …so…challenging to do so.”

“So that was yesterday for you two? And today you decided to come to West Shilgrave University to lead a life of inquiry rather than adventure, right?”

“You’ve heard our challenges. We’re stuck. What do we do next? Where do we go? How do we validate a life that forces us to wake up yesterday every day? If these aren’t questions that get asked in Ideas and Theories, send us somewhere that considers them.” Alastair stood and paced a step. “At least you haven’t dismissed us as crazy. Or you have and you hold it in well. So, what? Do we go to the West Shilgrave sanatorium next?”

Mida stood and popped her neck and her shoulders. “That’s not a horrible idea.”