closely by her Level 50 Rainbow Cat.
What was a low-leveled newbie doing with such an expensive pet? Queen Lorelei removed her interface circlet and hit the button on her console that instructed a servant to bring her some coffee. The next step would be to probe the girl’s collected cache of memories.
The board had been set two hundred years ago. If this was Lily’s first move, it was long overdue.
It’s a tricky business, she reflected, trying to keep the peace in a world so remarkably insane, so selfish for enlightenment . Human nature, after all, was so hooked on freedom and curiosity it took intelligent, determined, far-sighted people like her to do something about it.
VI. Crossroads
“Wise men make more opportunities than they find.” – Sir Francis Bacon
Shortly after Gerrit took his leave, Raine continued her trek up the carpeted path, avoiding the odd little monsters that materialized off to the side and the people who were destroying them.
A farmer informed her that she could avoid random encounters by staying on the road and keeping her hands free of weapons; the small risk of an ambush didn’t faze the girl – the goal was to find SBB before waking up. Then whatever advice Raine’s subconscious was trying to impart might give her some direction in life; or so she hoped, anyway.
Mostly she was happy to be in a large open space without ads or billboards, and to catch her breath. There might be no concrete sign of her quarry, but for the time being she didn’t really mind. She had a lead, no matter how faint, and that was something.
Seven of the nearest paths matched up with the colors of the rainbow. It was difficult to see where they led to in the blazing sunlight. She inspected one of many floating prism-maps.
“There’s tons of stuff to do here, Chance,” she beamed. “Let’s see what they’ve got to offer.”
The familiar floated up and joined her inspection of the 3-D tableaus on the regional map.
“The green path seems to go straight towards those snow-covered mountains. It looks like there are frozen zombies there. I don’t quite have the clothes or stomach for that. And the violet path…” She considered the odd video loop of several dinosaurs tearing a person to shreds, complete with a pile of crudely drawn human body parts. “It looks to end in a violent encounter with prehistoric reptiles.”
Raine took a step back from the violet path. The blue path, she noted, ended in an underground mine. It would be terrific to ride a mine-cart, but she was having too much fun enjoying the sunshine. The yellow carpet led to a structure that resembled Stonehenge, except it hosted a large swimming pool with multiple water slides, surrounded by a deluge of RVs.
“We’ll save that for last, so that when I wake up,” Raine said to Chance, “The memory will be vivid enough that I can cross visiting Stonehenge off my bucket list.”
As far as the rainbow pathways were concerned, that left the orange road, which ended in a fiery volcano by a mountain resort, and the indigo and red ones, neither of which featured on the map.
“Excuse me,” she called to an Orcish merchant pulling a cartload of expressive masks. “Where do these two roads go?”
“Under construction,” came the curt reply from behind bored eyes. “Something to do with the war. Trade taxes or whathaveyou. No place for a newbie.”
The orc’s gruff manner did nothing to quell Raine’s sense of wonder. Gerrit did mention that the paths to Atmoya were in disrepair, after all. But if that was the fastest way to her destination, it was the way she wanted to go.
She took out her theater binoculars and had a look down the indigo ribbon. It went straight into a large forest. It didn’t seem nearly as lovely as the red carpet, which ran a lonely circuit through golden fields for miles on end. But most of all, it hewed closest to the desolate hills where she spotted SBB. An inn beckoned at the end of a long
What was a low-leveled newbie doing with such an expensive pet? Queen Lorelei removed her interface circlet and hit the button on her console that instructed a servant to bring her some coffee. The next step would be to probe the girl’s collected cache of memories.
The board had been set two hundred years ago. If this was Lily’s first move, it was long overdue.
It’s a tricky business, she reflected, trying to keep the peace in a world so remarkably insane, so selfish for enlightenment . Human nature, after all, was so hooked on freedom and curiosity it took intelligent, determined, far-sighted people like her to do something about it.
VI. Crossroads
“Wise men make more opportunities than they find.” – Sir Francis Bacon
Shortly after Gerrit took his leave, Raine continued her trek up the carpeted path, avoiding the odd little monsters that materialized off to the side and the people who were destroying them.
A farmer informed her that she could avoid random encounters by staying on the road and keeping her hands free of weapons; the small risk of an ambush didn’t faze the girl – the goal was to find SBB before waking up. Then whatever advice Raine’s subconscious was trying to impart might give her some direction in life; or so she hoped, anyway.
Mostly she was happy to be in a large open space without ads or billboards, and to catch her breath. There might be no concrete sign of her quarry, but for the time being she didn’t really mind. She had a lead, no matter how faint, and that was something.
Seven of the nearest paths matched up with the colors of the rainbow. It was difficult to see where they led to in the blazing sunlight. She inspected one of many floating prism-maps.
“There’s tons of stuff to do here, Chance,” she beamed. “Let’s see what they’ve got to offer.”
The familiar floated up and joined her inspection of the 3-D tableaus on the regional map.
“The green path seems to go straight towards those snow-covered mountains. It looks like there are frozen zombies there. I don’t quite have the clothes or stomach for that. And the violet path…” She considered the odd video loop of several dinosaurs tearing a person to shreds, complete with a pile of crudely drawn human body parts. “It looks to end in a violent encounter with prehistoric reptiles.”
Raine took a step back from the violet path. The blue path, she noted, ended in an underground mine. It would be terrific to ride a mine-cart, but she was having too much fun enjoying the sunshine. The yellow carpet led to a structure that resembled Stonehenge, except it hosted a large swimming pool with multiple water slides, surrounded by a deluge of RVs.
“We’ll save that for last, so that when I wake up,” Raine said to Chance, “The memory will be vivid enough that I can cross visiting Stonehenge off my bucket list.”
As far as the rainbow pathways were concerned, that left the orange road, which ended in a fiery volcano by a mountain resort, and the indigo and red ones, neither of which featured on the map.
“Excuse me,” she called to an Orcish merchant pulling a cartload of expressive masks. “Where do these two roads go?”
“Under construction,” came the curt reply from behind bored eyes. “Something to do with the war. Trade taxes or whathaveyou. No place for a newbie.”
The orc’s gruff manner did nothing to quell Raine’s sense of wonder. Gerrit did mention that the paths to Atmoya were in disrepair, after all. But if that was the fastest way to her destination, it was the way she wanted to go.
She took out her theater binoculars and had a look down the indigo ribbon. It went straight into a large forest. It didn’t seem nearly as lovely as the red carpet, which ran a lonely circuit through golden fields for miles on end. But most of all, it hewed closest to the desolate hills where she spotted SBB. An inn beckoned at the end of a long
Similar Books
