Chapter XII – Lost in Time & Space:
Sinon's world was awash with light. Every colour of the spectrum flashed in and out for what seemed like forever until she felt a sudden thud and saw the calming brown of simple dirt.
"Ow" groaned Riordan and Sinon's vision shifted again.
Riordan gently rolled her off of him and onto a patch of grass they had landed on. She was still trying to orient herself, but at least the blue sky overhead was normal and not some chaotic dimension that Riordan had implied they could end up in.
Several questions raced through her head, all vying to be the first one out of her mouth. It took her a moment, but she settled on what she figured was the most important.
"What the hell was that thing?" She asked.
Riordan groaned heavily once more before responding. It seemed like he was much more disoriented than she was. Maybe he was affected differently because he's entirely virtual? She wondered.
"That... was a Hound of Tindalos." he finally replied.
"Okay, can you pretend that I have no clue what that means?" she responded glibly.
"They are extra-dimensional beings that exist outside of reality. They are also by far the hardest non-boss monsters in the game; I've only fought one once. I wasn't even able to actually kill the damn thing, and it almost got me in the process. From what I can tell, in addition to being tied typically to really hard quests involving time travel; the system admins have been known to send packs after players that have tried exploiting glitches in the game."
"Wait, wait, go back." Sinon said as she pulled herself into a sitting position. "You said, time travel? So, it might not be a matter of where we are-"
"But when." Riordan finished, coming to the same realization Sinon had.
The pair finally looked away from each other and took in their surroundings.
They sat inside what seemed to be a massive square flowerpot, only this one had large exotic trees sprouting out from it that blanketed the nearby area with shade. Beyond that were dozens of other similar sections, some atop terraces and others supported by massive columns, but each contained various types of flora and fauna. Connecting them all together were dozens, if not hundreds, of cris-crossing marble pathways that streaked up and down in a pyramid like shape for a hundred feet in either direction.
At first Sinon thought that the marvel of engineering was made of some type of stone, but as she placed her hand upon the boarder in which they sat, it was clearly made from some kind of hardened mud that had turned pale in the sun.
"Looks like we're not alone." Riordan said as a few NPC's casually strolled about the gardens wearing very lite but colourful flowing garments that looked like long t-shirts made of some semi-translucent fabric.
"Doesn't look like they care much about us." Sinon noted as several of them strolled right past without giving the pair a second glance.
She heaved herself off the grass and onto the pathway before offering a had down to Riordan. He still looked a little groggy from their trip and took it without hesitation. It turned out that he was a little heavier than she had expected given how fast he moved in a fight, but she still had no trouble pulling him to his feet.
"It's not like we've really travelled through time," Riordan said. "It's just an instance and we need to figure out how to progress the quest to get out of here."
"Yeah, I know that. Even so, I wonder where and when we are. This place seems very vaguely familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it. It certainly doesn't have the same game aesthetic, I can actually see the sun."
Sure enough, as the pair walked over to the edge of a nearby terrace, the world spread out before them. The sky was a radiant light blue and the sun bathed their bodies in a glow that would have been too hot were it not for the cool breeze that swept up from a lake below. Sinon breathed deeply and as the air filled her lungs, cascading waves of refreshment washed over her.
"Two months with nothing but bleak and dreary sky..." Riordan said as he looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun with his arm. "I could get used to this."
"So... what now?" Sinon asked.
"Good point, I mean the hound isn't after us anymore, but it's not like it's very obvious how we're supposed to track down the ghost's father. So... lunch I guess?"
Sinon laughed loudly despite herself. "Sure, why not?"
The pair descended a nearby staircase that led down to a small group of stalls run by NPCs. One of the stalls supported an old wooden awning and had the smell of sweet baking about it which immediately drew their attention. The female NPC behind the counter wore a light pink version of the clothes they had seen on all of the others hanging down to around her knees. She didn't speak to them, just smiled, nodded, and went to fetch something from another room.
A few moments later, the sweet baked smell began to radiate strongly from the back room, and she soon returned baring two plates that were clearly the source of the delicious aroma. Each had a slice of flatbread on it with some kind of dark fruit baked into it that looked like large raisins.
"Thank you," they both said in unison and a moment later a small portion of money was removed from each of their inventories automatically.
Neither of them wasted any more time on pleasantries and each took a large bite of their meals.
Sinon's world lit up as the flavors hit her mouth, taking her mind back much farther than she had been in ages; to a memory that, while faded with time, still held a tight grip on her heart.
Everyone was wearing black and tears welled in their eyes. Her mother held tight to Shino's tiny hand as she dabbed her face with a tissue, staring at a coffin with her father's picture atop it; though the photograph was so faded she couldn't make out the image. Shino squirmed innocently against her mother's grasp, she didn't want to be here anymore, she didn't understand where her father had gone. She just wanted to see him again.
Eventually Shino managed to wriggle herself free, but her mother didn't stop and reprimand her, she just stood there crying as if Shino had escaped her notice entirely. The little girl weaved her way through the mourners, following her nose to a small table of food that had been laid out. Most of it was traditional Japanese cooking, but there was one plate that stood out from the others. It was one of her father's favourites that he had taken a liking to overseas. She reached up to the tall table with all the strength her two-year old arms and legs could muster and snagged the edge of one of the pieces of flatbread and knocked it to the floor.
Shino clamoured for the fallen bread, a little piece of her father that she could still feel, and took the biggest bite she could. The bread was tough, but the bits of fruit inside were caramelized and flavourful, contrasting the strange bread well. The sweetness that filled her was not just from the food, but from the thought of her father eating the same thing not so long ago.
Her mother had never been fond of the dish, or anything that reminded her of her late husband, so Shino hadn't eaten it again for a very long time. When she had grown a little older she still recalled the food that had given her comfort that day and had done some research on it's origin. She learned a lot about an ancient civilization that had eaten them, and about the near mythical wonder they were said to have constructed in their time.
"I know where we are." Sinon suddenly said after finally swallowing her first bite.
"Hmm?" Riordan responded, his mouth still stuffed full.
"We're in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon."
"No kidding?" he mumbled and looked around while finally swallowing his food. "I guess that fits now that you mention it, but why here of all places?"
"Yeah... I was wondering the same thing." Sinon looked back down to the meal she was eating. Of all the places to be and the foods to eat, what were the odds?
The pair ate in silence for the next few minutes, both enjoying the unique food and relaxing as the warm sun heated their backs. Sinon's mind drifted back to that hazy memory every time she took a bite, making the food taste bitter-sweet.
"I just wanted to say thanks, for today." Riordan said out of the blue, an unusually warm expression resting on his face. "I know it's just for a quest and all, but being out here like this... it's almost enough to make me feel human again."
Sinon's mind shifted gears in and instant and she tried to keep the concern from her face as she thought of how to reply to her friend. "Friend?" She mentally paused as the thought played around in her head for a moment before it settled. "Yeah," she realized, "I do already consider him a friend."
"You never stopped being human Rio. Take it from someone who plays way to much VR, you're just as real in here as you are out there."
"Were it so simple," he replied with a twinge of sadness creeping into his voice. "Your mind still exists out there and it's just steering an avatar of ones and zeroes... these ones and zeroes are all that's left of me. I don't know if I'm even the real me... what if I'm just some type of advanced program that just thinks he's Al... Riordan."
Sinon let the silence hang for a few moments, trying to ignore the fact that he'd almost told her his real name, before she finally spoke. "Did you know that Asuna and Kirito have a daughter?"
Instantly Riordan launched into a coughing fit, the last of his flatbread getting lodged in his throat. Sinon smirked slyly as she recalled seeing Asuna do something similar to Kirito a few weeks back; it was just as amusing as she had expected.
Eventually Riordan got a hold of himself and managed a "Say what?!"
"Her name is Yui, and she's adopted."
Riordan visibly calmed down after the last statement, but now his surprise was replaced with confusion.
"They found her in Aincrad, near the end of their time there. She's actually an advanced AI that Kirito saved to his nerve gear to keep her from being deleted with the servers. I was, to say the least, skeptical at first; but being around her for so long, seeing her talk and learn and play, she's just as real as the rest of us. Your soul's not in your body, it's in the code that makes you, you."
Riordan's expression visibly warmed again at her words. "I appreciate that, and I hope you're right. It's not like I'm not thankful to still be alive or anything, it's just... this is all I'll ever be." He stretched out his arms, displaying his full virtual self. "I'll never get to live a real life again, no holiday dinners with my folks, no boring office job... no family."
"You still care about her, don't you?" Sinon asked.
"Of course I do, but not in the way that you mean. Asuna and I have been through a lot together, you can't place your life in someone's hands like that for so long and not develop a close bond. However, she made it clear that she wasn't interested and so, while it took a while, I moved on. I'm not some starry-eyed waif endlessly pining over a lost love you know."
"Could have fooled me." Sinon lightly shot back.
Riordan smirked in response and gave her a sly wink, "Don't be jealous."
Sinon's face flushed and Riordan couldn't hold back the billowing laugh drawn out by that image.
Once they had both calmed down, he offered her a warm and genuine smile. "Thanks Sinon, I mean it, I really needed this."
"No problem," she said and threw a light punch to his right shoulder. "Now, don't we have a job to do?"
"Yeah, speaking of that, there's an NPC at my three o'clock that's just been sitting there watching us for a while when all the others have been wandering around."
"What?" Sinon stifled her exclamation as best she could. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"
"You were on a roll when I spotted him, I couldn't bring myself to derail that." He said with a smirk.
"Why you..." Sinon wanted to smack him again but settled on glaring daggers at his smug face instead.
The NPC seemed to have noticed their looks and casually strolled over to them. He stood about six feet tall, was visibly well defined due to him not wearing a shirt, and had a similar style of flowing green fabric tied around his waist that made Sinon think of a kilt, even though it didn't look much like one.
Eyes never leaving the approaching NPC, Sinon slowly slid her arm back into an easier position to unsling her rifle; just in case. She noticed Riordan shift slightly too, gently resting his right hand on the lower nib of his scythe.
"Greetings travellers," the NPC said in a soft, mellow voice. "Have you come from the same place that He did?"
The NPC's eyes were locked into her rifle, so Sinon was fairly certain that he was referring to the man they were searching for. "Yes, we have," she replied cautiously. "Do you know where we can find him?"
"He was a strange one, that's for sure; I can't imagine what place causes you to dress in such a manor or carry such strange things. Last I saw of him, was when I had directed him up to the Temple of Marduk at the top of the gardens, but that was days ago and I haven't seen him since."
Riordan and Sinon exchanged a quick look of surprise before she turned back to regard the NPC. "Thank you very much, we'll be on our way now."
The pair quickly hopped out of their seats and set a brisk stride up the stairway to the top of the Hanging Gardens.
"I thought her father was supposed to have died a long time ago? How could he have been here just a few days ago?" Sinon asked.
"We're outside of time and space on this one. He may have left Arkham a decade ago, but could have arrived here at any time, he may even still be here."
"Wait, so we could actually find him alive?"
"Maybe, if we hurry."
"Kinda really wishing you'd sprung for that quest info now."
"Yeah, me too. Even so, we know that the quest is doable, I'm sure we'll manage."
The pair took the steps up the Hanging Gardens two at a time and made it to the top in just under two minutes. What greeted them was a large square building supported by massive columns upon a raised dais. A large arched entrance way led into the temple proper but the half dozen guards with bronze sickle swords gave them pause.
Riordan took a step towards the door, hand already on his scythe, but Sinon quickly grabbed his shoulder. "Maybe we don't make a scene," she said and nodded to a dense collection of trees and shrubs around the right side of the temple.
Casually, the pair wandered in that general direction so as to not draw the attention of the guards or any of the meandering NPC's. The bushes were lush and green, but didn't hinder their progress much and the large palm trees kept most of the area shaded slightly obscured.
"Can you boost me?" Sinon asked, looking up at the roof over a dozen feet up.
Riordan paused for a moment, clearly considering his answer. "Yeah, sure; nothing to lose by trying," he said as he cupped his hands together.
Sinon clasped her left hand to his shoulder and dug her boot hard into his hands. "That was not the correct response." she stated sternly.
"Yes ma'am." he replied and tossed her into the air with all his might.
Sinon's gear was heavy and her avatar was not terribly light either, though fortunately with Riordan's stats as high as they were, she managed to fly just high enough to clasp her fingers over the edge of the roof. After a few moments of flailing, her feet found purchase in the rough wall and she was able to haul herself over the top.
Riordan casually took a few steps back before sprinting full tilt at the wall. He jumped as high as he could, then used his foot to push off the wall and gain even more height. Under normal circumstances, he would have missed, but Sinon reached down and clasped him by the wrist just as his momentum ran out. Riordan flailed about for a moment, just as Sinon had done previously, before he got his fingers over the top and his feet dug into the wall. With a heave, Sinon helped pull him onto the roof.
The roof itself was at a very slight incline, save for a raised section in the centre that stood like a small tower. Running up its side were sets of large slats that allowed sunlight to filter down into the main temple below. Wooden awnings covered the slats to keep rain out, but they would pose no real obstacle.
Sinon moved up first, her rifle at the ready and Riordan right in her heels. She peered down into the temple below and saw a large empty room with tiled walls and gold platted supports. Along some of the walls were terracotta cones with lit torches ensconced in them, but no sign of any NPC's.
"Looks clear." She whispered and leaped down into the temple.
Sinon landed gracefully, absorbing the impact with her legs and left hand while keeping her rifle ready in her other. A moment later, Riorden landed silently behind her, scythe also at the ready.
"Maybe you should let the melee go first next time," he whispered.
Sinon ignored the jibe at her tactics, instead looking around the room to find nothing more than she had seen from above. "What do you suppose we're looking for if he's not here?" she whispered back.
"A clue like last time maybe? Keep your eyes peeled."
The pair didn't leave each other's line of sight, but still spread out enough to search the area. There wasn't much too the temple itself, barren corridors lit by ensconced torches that led through empty hallways. Sinon would have sworn that they seemed to almost loop back on themselves if she hadn't known any better.
Eventually, the duo found their way to a large chamber that was empty save for a massive golden statue at the far end. The statue was a good head taller than Riordan, not including the large crown that added another foot or so, and was sculpted with lavish robes flowing across it's figure. At his feet rested a small golden dragon, and his hands were outstretched as if welcoming them into the room.
"Honestly, I think I'd feel more at ease if something did come out and attack us." Sinon mumbled quietly as they slowly walked into the room. "This abandoned vibe is giving me the creeps."
"Maybe it's not so abandoned after all," Riordan said, pointing to the base of the statue.
The floor was covered with a thin layer of dust, however on the right side of the statue, it was clean, as if it had been shifted to it's side.
"Hey Rio?" Sinon asked as she inspected the disturbed area. "Didn't that NPC say this was a temple of Marduk?"
"Yeah, I think that's what he said. You know what that means?"
"He's the main deity of the Mesopotamian pantheon, think of someone like Zeus or Odin."
"Okay, what about him?" Riordan asked.
"Well, I just thought it odd that there would by a depiction of Nergal, Lord of the Underworld, on the wall behind a statue of Marduk in his own temple."
Riordan leaned over Sinon's shoulder to look and beheld what looked like an image of a staff with twin serpents coiling out of the top of it. "I'd say that counts as a clue then." he said and the pair nodded to each other.
Rifle still ready in one hand, Sinon reached forward and touched the symbol.
The room shook with the grinding of rock against rock as a section of the wall shifted slightly, then slid quickly to one side. Riordan careened his neck to see through the slat that was opening, but there was only darkness on the other side. Until there wasn't.
In a flash of twisted limbs and sinewy skin, the Hound of Tindalos leaped from the passageway straight for them. Both Riordan and Sinon's sanity meters took a swan dive as the creature's fleshy maw split into three parts as rows of jagged razor teeth to engulf Riordan.
The veteran quickly shoved the back of his scythe's blade into the creature's jowls and braced the base of the snath against the floor. It stopped inches short of clamping down on him as what passed for it's cheeks lodged onto the metal of the scythe.
Riordan tried to use the monster's momentum against it and throw it over him and into the room; however as he tried to do so, time seemed to slow. Out of the creature's gullet shot a vile proboscis with a needle like point on the end. Riordan could see the trajectory, sense its speed, he knew it was going to plunge right into the side of his neck and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Sinon's rifle barked and a spray of ichor splashed across Riordan's face. The Hound's attack went wild and time seemed to resume with Riordan redirecting the hound's momentum to throw it into the room.
The creature splayed across the floor for only a moment, dripping purple ichor, before it spun back around to face them. Riordan locked his scythe into his ready stance, confident that Sinon had his back, and stared down the monster while trying not to focus on the ticking of his sanity bar slowly depleting.
Suddenly a hand clasped tight to his shoulder and pulled him back.
"This way." Sinon shouted as the hound leaped for them again.
Riordan barely had time to turn his gaze forward to see another portal was behind the wall. A moment later, they crossed the threshold, and their world was once again awash with light.
Sinon wasn't as panicked by the strange lights and sounds of the portal this time, even so, the rush of colours and sense of free-fall caused her stomach to churn wildly. Much like last time however, it only lasted a few moments before she found herself deposited in another random location. She was ready for that as well though and after hitting the ground hard, she rolled up into a crouched position with her rifle at the ready.
The area around them was full of ornate brass pipes that criss-crossed among themselves, twisting into the darkness above. Even the floor was covered in them for as far as she could see. A sharp sound caused her to turn her head as a jet of steam shot out from one of the pipes on the wall.
"Rio, are you..." she trailed off when she saw the look on her partner's face.
Riordan was ashen, as though he had just seen a ghost. He sat up, hands clasped so tightly around his scythe that his knuckles were turning white, but other than that, he didn't move a muscle.
"I take it you know where we are?" she asked.
It took a few moments for him to respond, but eventually he did. "Yeah... I do."
Sinon slowly got to her feet, eyes never leaving her companion as she waited for him to respond. Eventually she had to prod him again. "Well?"
Riordan took a deep breath and planted the snath of his scythe in between a pair of pipes, using it to pull himself to his feet. "This is the labyrinth of invention. We're on the steam-punk themed seventy-third floor of Aincrad."
"Aincrad, for real? I mean, not for real, but... you know what I mean. I mean I know we're still in ETO." Sinon internally chided herself for rambling, but Riordan's sudden change in demeanour was starting to freak her out.
"How did you know?" Riordan asked.
"Uh... how did I know what?"
"That we were in The Hanging Garden's of Babylon. You weren't sure, but then you just knew."
Sinon looked away for a moment, recalling the memory again. "Just something from my childhood, nothing super important."
"Huh..."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.
"It means that I've got a bad feeling about this." he replied before hefting his scythe over his shoulder and beginning to walk.
Sinon was stunned for a brief moment before she quickly jogged a few paces to keep track up with Riordan. "Are you going to tell me what this is all about, or did you suddenly decide that moody and evasive is now your thing?"
"I don't really want to talk about it, but if my hunch is right, you'll find out soon enough anyway."
"Oh, come on, damn it!" she shouted, stopping to stomp her foot for emphasis. "You know what we're really up against here and you expect me to just ignore that you're suddenly acting totally different? I know that we haven't known each other for very long, but I'd like it if you could think of me as a friend and just talk to me."
Riordan sighed. "Well, when you put it like that, I sound like an ass."
"Go on."
Despite his best efforts, Riordan couldn't keep a chuckle from escaping his mouth, nor a slight smile from finding his lips. "Okay, okay, you've got me," he turned and continue to walk, but this time spoke as he did so. "Remember when I told you that after the assault team raided Laughing Coffin's base of operations, I tracked down and killed all but one of the members that had escaped?"
"Yeah."
"I found the last one of them in here. There was a new skill you could acquire on this floor, but since all the top players had their skill slots near maxed out, no one wanted to toss something they had put so much time and effort into just to pick it up. That meant it was basically never seen in the original version of Aincrad, except here, by me."
"What was it?" Sinon asked.
"Explosives. At the time we basically knew nothing about the skill itself or how it could be used, that led me to some... rash actions."
Sinon was about to ask for clarification when they rounded another corner to find three people that looked like players at first glance, but given their situation, Sinon suspected otherwise.
The first had a red cursor over his head. The man wore light brass armour that blended in well with the surrounding architecture in the dim lighting. He was sitting on the ground, his back to the corner of the room and his arms lifted high in surrender. Grime was matted in his black hair and his face was contorted in a look of sheer terror as tears rolled down his eyes.
Sinon couldn't see the faces of the other two as they were facing the red player and had their backs to her, but the one on the left was wearing what looked like a lighter variation of plate armour and carried a falchion in one hand and a large heater shield in the other. To his right was slightly taller man with long brown hair flowing out under their helmet. They wore a dark maroon gambeson and held a naginata firmly in their right hand with the end of the staff planted in the ground.
"We can't Rio, you're going too far this time. He's surrendered." the man on the right said.
"Damn it Tetsu, we don't know what this guy is capable of. Even if we stashed him away in Black Iron Palace, no one knows how the Explosive skill works yet; even Argo couldn't get us any info on it. All we do know is that he was able to trigger them remotely when we came after him, what if he's got some stashed away somewhere and sets them off from the safety of his cell. We can't take the chance; people's lives are on the line."
The current version of Riordan approached the pair from behind with his scythe drawn as they spoke. "I'm not watching this play out again." he said and slashed his past self in the back.
His weapon however went straight through what was only an image of his former self with a flicker of distorted pixels. Undisturbed, the NPC's continued talking as if nothing had happened.
"But we don't know that for sure. This isn't like the others that fought to the death, he's given himself up. We can't strike down an unarmed player." Tetsu insisted.
"If he were a green player, or maybe even an orange player, I'd agree with you, but he's a red player; he's already killed at least one person. Do you want who knows how many deaths on your head if I'm right?"
Tetsu was silent for a moment, "and do you want his if you're wrong?"
"Then a killer got a harsher punishment than some of his accomplices, I can't say I'm happy with it, but it's better than the alternative."
"That's what I was afraid you were going to say." Tetsu looked away from his old friend. "I'm sorry, but I can't be a part of this."
"Then I'll keep your hands clean."
Riordan's past self walked the last few paces to where the member of laughing coffin was trembling on the floor and looked down at the pitiful excuse for a man. "I'm sorry, but you brought this upon yourself."
"Please no, NO!" the man screamed as the memory of Riordan plunged his falchion into the killer's chest. A few seconds later, one of the last free members of Laughing Coffin exploded into a shower of pixels. Despite the act, since the player who died had been red, Riordan's cursor stayed green.
"I suppose you really are The Reaper of SAO now." Tetsu said refusing to look his companion in the eye.
"Damn it Tetsu, you know how much I hate that nickname."
"Maybe that's because deep down, you know that you deserve it."
The images washed away like a sandcastle before a rising tide and in a few moments, Riordan and Sinon were left there alone.
"I never found out." Riordan said as Sinon silently walked up beside him.
"Never found out what?" she asked cautiously.
"If I was right. As far as I'm aware, no one else ever picked up the Explosives skill in SAO. Argo never got anymore data on it before the end of the game and with the severs gone, there was no way to find out from that end either. I'll never know if I actually saved any lives that day, or if all I did was take one."
Sinon took a deep breath and placed her hand on Riordan's shoulder. "You were working with what limited information you had and there were lives at stake. I... don't know if I would have been able to make the same call... but I think you did the right thing given the circumstances." She wasn't sure that she actually believed that herself, but she did believe that Riordan was a good person, and that it was what he needed to hear.
Riordan looked back at where the scene had played out before him, his expression a mask of stone. "I did the necessary thing... that's not always the same as the right thing."
Suddenly, the ground shifted below them and they were both forced to grab each other to hold their footing. Below them the brass tubes swirled and reshaped themselves, forming into another portal that the pair had no choice but to fall through.
The sudden combined landing was becoming a regular occurrence, and now Sinon thought nothing of gently shoving Riordan off of her and onto the nearby ground.
Sinon shook off the disorientation faster this time and took stock of their new surroundings. What she saw sent a surge of ice through her veins so cold that it froze her solid.
"That was weird." Riordan said groggily. "No hound that time, and what was with the portal showing up right underneath us?"
"So where did we end up this... time." Riordan paused, looking around the room, then back to Sinon. "Is this?... of course it is."
The pair sat on the floor in a small plain looking room with beige walls that had flyers and adverts plastered all over them. Behind a counter stood several people in business suits going about their daily routines while a middle-aged woman in a grey and blue shirt spoke to someone at the till.
A moment later, in walked a haggard looking man in a brown sweater and simple grey baseball cap. His eyes were vacant at first and he was drooling out of the corner of his mouth, but as he approached the counter, a steely look of determination took over his features.
"No... no way, I'm not watching this." Sinon's voice trembled as she spoke.
Turning away from the scene playing out before her, Sinon strode as quickly and confidently as she could out of the bank's front door. However, the first step out the door put her right back where she started, facing the counter, and watching the memory.
"What the hell?" Sinon tried to close her eyes, but while she could still feel her eyelids closing, she could see right through them. "What... is wrong with... my avatar?" Her breaths started to come in ragged gasps as the man pulled out his gun and started waving it around.
The first shot rang out and Sinon couldn't help but wince and flinch away. Her heart began to race, her limbs began to shake, and her mind reeled from what she knew was coming; what she couldn't turn away from.
Riordan stepped into her field of view in that moment and wrapped his large arms around her, pulling her into his chest. She wasn't in a mental state to wonder why she could see through her own avatar, but not Riordan's, she was simply thankful to no longer be watching.
"Hey, it's okay." he said gently into her ear. "You've faced this before, over and over again, and you aren't letting it control you anymore. It's no more real than your memories, it has no power over you."
A second shot rang out, followed by...
"Focus on me, on my voice." he insisted. "Think about anything else. Don't you think that this is all wrong? A game shouldn't be doing this kind of thing to us. Whoever's behind this could be trying to get to us, push our buttons, we can't let them have this kind of power over us."
Another shot, she knew that the final one was coming soon, she knew that he was about to die again. Sinon could barely breath, the little bit she could get in was coming in ragged gasps and she could only stand there, not knowing what to do. How had I ever faced this before? She wondered.
The image of Sachie and Mizue Oosawa flashed into he mind, and the adorable little drawing that she had received the day she had met them again. With their memories returned the feeling of having saved lives instead of taken one.
Sinon recalled how she had come to meet them and the image of Kirito flashed into her mind next. They both sat in a cave during GGO's BOB that they had later won together. It had felt good to have someone who understood, who had been through what she had and was still fighting with it.
That thought brought her to the present day, to the man who now held her firmly, but gently, in his arms. He was the same as them, she had just seen it for herself minutes ago, and she had forgiven him... did she not deserve the same? Or was she just a hypocrite who could forgive others, but not herself?
She thought about what she knew about Riordan, he seemed so dark and stoic from the outside, but now that he was opening up to her, she could see the soft underbelly that he tried to hide. She was pressed up against it now, so much that she could even hear his heart beat. Contrary to the last expression she had seen on his face, it beat furiously. He was just as frightened as she was, albeit for different reasons.
Sinon knew that alone, she would struggle and falter, but with her friends by her side, she could face down her daemons. Kirito and Riordan fought their own daemons just as she did, and she would be there for them when they needed her, just as they were there for her; she refused to succumb to despair and abandon them. A calm acknowledgement settled over her, and she was now able to once again control her breathing, her legs stopped trembling, and she regained the use of her arms; which she gently wrapped around her newest friend.
Only when the floor began to shift beneath them and her head pulled back from Riordan's chest did she notice that the world around her was vanishing, just like Riordan's memory had before. They were falling once more through another portal.
In the last moments of that place, Sinon realized that she had never even noticed the final shot.
The first thing Sinon thought after hitting the ground again was that this was getting really old, really fast. The second thing was that she was surprised that she was at peace enough to worry about a minor annoyance after where she had just seen. Yet the calm she felt radiated through her body and despite the feelings that were still buried deep within her. For the moment at least, she felt at ease.
"Any idea how many more of these there are?" she asked, not having bothered to open her eyes yet.
"Well... unless you recall ever seeing a world like this before, I'd imagine this is the last one." Riordan replied.
Sinon finally sat up and took stock of their surroundings once more.
They sat on a platform made of some kind of rust coloured dirt and stone. It was large and entirely flat, but dotted around it were towers about twenty feet tall that looked to be made of solid obsidian. Though sleek and smooth in design, they all had jagged protrusions jutting out from them at seemingly random locations that felt uncomfortably out of place to the eye.
In the distance the grounds dropped off into a void of swirling dark purples, reds, and black. Yet in some places, other large sections of land stood with the same makeup as theirs; either connected by land-bridges over the void, or simply floating in mid-air with no obvious route of accessibility. Other islands, for lack of a better word, seemed to defy the laws of physics themselves, twisting and turning at strange angles with no rhyme or reason; all in defiance of the gravity that Sinon could still feel.
"Yeah... never been here before, that's for sure."
They were silent for a few moments before Riordan finally said. "Are... you doing okay?"
Sinon looked over to her companion and offered a dry, but honest smile. "Yeah, I think for the moment I am... Thank you, for being there for me. Even when I talk about it... it's still, for the most part, something that I've always had to face alone. I meant a lot to have a friend there."
Riordan's looked away awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah... likewise."
Sinon couldn't help but smile at his reaction. It was odd, but also comforting to see this side of him. When they'd first met, he'd seemed so stoic that she thought he could give Kirito a run for his money, but then again, she hadn't really know much about him at the time.
"Hey, what's that?" Riordan asked, breaking Sinon from her thoughts as he pointed to a small shape moving on one of the platforms in the distance.
Sinon quickly pulled a pair of binoculars out of her pack and looked in the direction he was pointing. It was small, but he could see the outline of an NPC clamouring over a rocky outcropping and heading towards a large structure made out of the same material as the scattered pillars. On his back, Sinon could barely see that a large rifle hung, likely on a strap around their shoulder.
"Looks like you were right. He seems to still be alive after all."
Riodran got to his feet quickly and drew his scythe. "Then we'd better hurry, chances are he's not going to stay that way for long."
The pair rushed across the barren landscape at top speed, constantly vigilant for traps or enemies, but never finding any. They stayed away from any of the strange warped terrain which did slow their pace somewhat, but the were still making good time to their destination.
"Hey?" Sinon asked as they ran. "What you said before, about whoever's behind all this using our memories to mess with us? Did you really mean that, or were you just trying to take my mind off things?"
"No, I really meant it. I mean think about it, what purpose would a game have for dredging up our most painful memories and making us relive them. From what I understood about ETO, it could read certain fear queues, like if if your heart rate spiked when you saw a spider, it would increase the spawn rate of spider monsters on applicable quests and such; but nothing anywhere near this invasive or intense. What would be the point of traumatizing the audience playing your game? There's no profit in that."
"Yeah, I suppose that does make sense. Do you think that's how the other players went crazy? This game reaching into their mind and tormenting them."
"Maybe, but I couldn't have been in the exact same way we experienced it, this quest is new after all, several people went crazy before it was even implemented in the game. On top of that, the guy I learned about this quest from still seemed to have his shit together."
"Feels like we figured out a piece, but we're still not seeing the whole picture." Sinon mused.
"Yeah."
The pair kept to their own thoughts after that as they ran. After about five minutes at a near full sprint and crossing several land-bridges, they made it to where they had seen the man in the distance.
The only word the could think of to describe the structure before them was "castle" because of its size and vaguely cubical shape, but that was where the comparisons ended. The outer walls could perhaps broadly be defined as parapets, but they seemed to start and stop without reason and had no easy way to move between them. Roughly in the centre, but askew to the right side and at a slight angle, was a tall jagged tower that had, what appeared to be, a bridge leading to nowhere jutting out from the top. In front of them was an archway the seemed to melt in on itself on the right half and had no door to keep people out.
"Well... this seems inviting." Sinon remarked.
"I'm not sure if I'd be more afraid of something that felt inviting in a horror game, being that out of place would feel even more like a trap to me."
"Fair enough," she replied as the pair made their way inside, weapons at the ready.
The labyrinthine construction was apparent from the moment they walked inside, but it was far more than that. The walls bent and twisted in awkward ways curving back in on themselves, or off into nothingness. On top of that, the pathways that did somewhat make sense weaved about themselves with a defiance to gravity akin to a hyperbolic geometry painting.
It all gave Sinon a terrible headache and her sanity meter didn't much care for the effect either, so she stuck close to Riordan and kept her eyes on his back, trusting him to guide her. Though as she walked, she began to wonder how he was so sure of their path and why it wasn't effecting him at all.
"How do you keep this from bothering you?" she finally asked. "It makes me dizzy just looking around this place."
"One of the benefits to the 'new me' I suppose." He said as they climbed a set of stairs made of what looked like melted oval discs. "I was able to get onto the GM network a while back to keep tabs on things and see if they had any information about what was going on. While I don't have their admin codes, I can still access some of their data. It was a bust on my original angle, but with the data I imported to myself, basically I can perceive the way the level was designed before they twisted it all up to look like this and overlay it in a way that makes sense. I can't exactly "see the matrix" but it works well enough."
"Nice, never hurts to have updated map data." Sinon replied, trying to keep the conversation going and her mind off of their surroundings.
"We're almost there, get ready."
Sinon snapped to attention at his words, bringing her rifle up and placing her finger next to the trigger. She took a deep breath to prep for the inevitable dizzy spell and looked past her companion.
The room they walked into looked much more normal than everything else, but that just put Sinon's meta analysis on high alert. After all, the designers wouldn't be able to make a room for a fight in which you couldn't look around.
At first she thought the room was octagonal, but it turned out there were actually nine sides, and at several odd angles making them difficult to count in the first place. Multiple pillars similar to those outside dotted the room, and at the far end upon a raised dais sat a plinth with a strange object atop it. It was hard to see from a distance, but to Sinon, it just looked like a mess of pointy geometry.
Climbing up the uneven steps to the plinth was the man they had come all this way in search of. He wore a brown leather juster and a matching fedora. He held in one hand, the Mauser Gewehr 98 they had come all this way for, and his other reached out for the strange object on the dais.
"Wait!" Sinon shouted as he reached for the object.
The man spun around at lightning speed, his rifle raised and loosed a single round.
Sinon read the action clearly and moved on instinct, dodging the location where the bullet would most likely pass. It turned out to be unnecessary however, as Riordan's scythe whipped out in front of her and deflected the shot.
"Easy there, we're not here for a fight." Riordan said.
"My mistake, just out for a date night then? I mean, I would have just gone to the drive in, but I suppose some people might get a kick out of walking around armed to the teeth in another dimension."
"Oh, I do not care for him." Sinon murmured under her breath; her rifle trained on the man she was supposed to be rescuing.
"Well, we were actually looking for you as it happens." When Riordan said those words, the man pulled the bolt back on his sniper, loading another round into the chamber, but didn't fire. "It was actually your daughter that sent us to find you, though she thinks you're long dead."
"What?" His grip on his sniper, faltered, but he adjusted quickly pointing it directly at Riordan this time. "Impossible, I only left home yesterday."
"Time works a little funny in here it seems. Where we come from, or should I say when, you've been missing for ten years... I'm sorry to say, but your family has already passed."
The shot loosed without warning, but with a scythe blade as large as Riordan's, it wasn't hard to use it as a shield and deflect the round once more.
"Liars!" he shouted. "I'm going home with this thing and we're going to be on easy street! I won't let you stop me!"
The man stepped back towards the plinth, one hand reached out behind him to grab the artifact while the other still held the rifle at the ready to keep Sinon and Riordan away. With his eyes focused ahead of him, he couldn't see the smoke that began to seep out of the jagged points on the artifact, slowly forming into a grotesque shape that had become all too familiar to Sinon.
"Look out behind you!" Sinon shouted.
The man just laughed nervously at her. "As if I'd be stupid enough to fall for-"
The Hound of Tindalos was on him in an instant, the impact from behind sending the man's rifle flying from his grasp. Jagged claws with spongy centres clamped onto his shoulders and his ankles, pinning him face down on the floor. The monster's vile proboscis whipped out of it dripping maw and plunged into the nape of his neck causing a short spurt of blood.
An agonizing scream the likes of which Sinon had never heard loosed from the man's mouth as he trashed wildly under the creature, to no avail. Her sanity meter faltering at the sound, Sinon breathed deep to calm herself and loosed a round that took the Hound clean in the head, blowing apart a portion of its face in a shower of viscera.
Her eyes never moving from her target, Sinon subconsciously reloaded her rifle. The abomination's face quickly knitted itself back together of it's own accord as the man's screaming intensified for a moment, then went silent. She looked down at him to see nothing but ragged cloths covering a shrivelled up husk that was once a man.
Riordan was on the hound a moment later, bringing his scythe down to deal a decapitating blow. The beast had seen it coming however, its proboscis whipped back into its mouth in an instant and it leaped away in a flash, cleanly avoiding the strike. All that was left in its wake were some tattered cloths and dusty bones.
Reloaded and ready Sinon drew on the hound again, but it vanished into a dissipating mist near the plinth before she could get off another round.
"Watch the points on the pillars!" Riordan called out. "It could appear from any of them!"
Sinon did a fast three-sixty spin, looking for any sign of their target, but saw nothing. Placing her back to Riordan and trusting him to watch it, she swept one-eight degrees back and forth as she slowly walked backwards towards her partner.
"Shit, my scythe!" Riodan called out.
Sinon spun around, rifle ready, to see the Hound of Tindalos forming out of the sharp blade of Riordan's scythe. He didn't waste a moment, tossing the weapon from his grasp, but the partially formed hound was already lashing out one of its front claws at him. She pulled the trigger without hesitation, impacting the creature in its front shank and causing the attack to go wild.
Riordan rolled out of the way of a follow up strike and came to his feet wielding what looked like twin sickles; but which had long shafts before the bladed ends that looked more like short swords with sickles on the end. She wasn't positive, but Sinon believed they were called Khopesh's
Sinon hurried to reload as the hound lunged at Riordan again. He blocked the first blow with the hook of one weapon and dodged to the left, keeping out of the area where the hound could launch it's proboscis at him. He readied an attack with his free hand, but a whip like appendage sprung up from the creature's shoulder joint and lashed at Riordan, striking him in the chest and driving him back with a minor dip to his HP.
With Riordan now out of the way, Sinon fired again. This time however, the hound deftly dodged the attack; the wound to its leg from moments before having already healed. Sinon quickly moved to reload again, but the hound was out for her blood now.
It sped towards her with undulating gallops before Riordan could recover from the strike and pursue. Without time to reload, Sinon drew her sidearm and emptied it into the approaching monster, but the rounds did nothing to halt the oncoming abomination. The hound sprung at her like it had been launched from a cannon, it's salivating jowls hungering for her flesh.
Sinon dropped her sidearm and swung up her rifle in both hands, wedging it in between the jaws of the monster, like she had seen Riordan do with his scythe earlier. Fortunately, her rifle was just wide enough to keep the creature's teeth from slamming shut, as well as keeping it's proboscis trapped inside of its mouth. Even so, Sinon's sanity meter plummeted as the macabre creature pressed its weight down, eager to devour her.
She barely had a moment to think before the hound brought up one if it's back claws and raked it across her chest and down her legs, leaving deep gouges in her armour and taking away just over half her HP. The pain was blunted by the system, but she still screamed in frustration at barely holding the creature off.
Sinon tensed, ready for another attack and unable to do anything about it as her sanity meter dwindled quickly, blurring her vision. Suddenly, the creature roared and leaped away. As it scrambled off of her, she caught a quick glimpse of one of Riordan's weapons buried deep into its front right shoulder.
"What took you so long?" she asked as he quickly helped her to her feet.
"Got you a present." He replied, handing her the Gewehr 98 sniper rifle they had come all this way to get.
"You sure know how to treat a lady." Sinon said with a chuckle as she pulled back the bolt, chambering a new round.
"I recall hearing somewhere that ladies like superior firepower." he replied with a smirk, still searching the area for the hound.
Sinon had seen the NPC fire the weapon twice, so at best she had three rounds remaining; though she didn't have a free moment to confirm if he'd fired any before they'd met him, as the hound had dissipated on them again. Constantly scanning the room, the pair slowly walked back to back over to where Riordan's weapon had landed after the hound vanished again. Without taking his eyes off their surroundings, he slowly bent down and picked it up again.
With one hand holding her rifle, Sinon dug through her pocket and pulled out her bottle of laudanum, quickly downing a drop and watching her vision clear. She scanned back and forth across the room, eyes on the sharp edges of the pillars, but there was still no sign of the hound.
As Sinon continued to scan the room, her peripheral vision noticed a small buildup of mist near her legs. Immediately, she jumped forward, spinning around to get a shot. The hound was already half formed in between them, coming up from the jagged dirt on the ground. Before she could shout a warning, the monster's ragged tail whipped out, striking her in the shoulder, causing her first shot to go wild, and sending her rolling across the floor.
Riordan turned at the sound but wasn't fast enough to attack before the hound pounced onto him. He brought both his weapons up blocking each front claw with their hooks but, he still couldn't hold back the hound's sheer momentum as it drove him to the ground. With a roar that somehow twinged with a note of satisfaction, the Hound of Tindalos sunk it massive maw into Riordan's shoulder and his HP plummeted in response.
Sinon came out of her tumble through the rough ground by crashing into a nearby pillar just in time to see the hound clamp down on Riordan. She whipped up her borrowed sniper as fast as she could, chambering a new round at the same time. Without taking the time to aim as well as she would have liked, she loosed the shot at the monster.
The round impacted the hound in the right flank, but where previous shots had barely phased the creature, this time most of it's back end exploded in a shower of gore. Despite the loss of most of it's body and it's entrails seeping out onto the ground, the hound still lashed violently at Riordan, trying to take him down with itself.
As his health dropped below twenty percent, Riordan let go of his weapons; the creatures claws now flailing aimlessly anyway, and gripped tight to the weakened creature's jaws. With all the strength he had in him, Riordan slowly pulled apart the creature's mouth, causing his health drop to change form pouring out to a slow trickle.
The hound's proboscis shot out in response, trying to sap Riordan's life to regenerate itself again, but Riordan had expected the attack and threw his head to the side. The creature's stinger nicked Riordan's cheek slightly before burring itself in the gravely ground beneath them.
"You're dead." Sinon said, now standing over the pair, and pulled the trigger once more. Her last round tore the hound asunder and it's smouldering remains collapsed onto her companion.
Riordan sat there panting, his health bar barely above ten percent and his sanity meter not doing much better. "Let's not... do that again." he said with an exasperated sigh.
"Don't worry, I think I'll get a lot of mileage out of this." Sinon said with a smile while she offered Riordan a hand up.
"Yeah, that was certainly something." he said, letting Sinon pull him to his feet. He wobbled for a moment, adjusting to the dizziness before taking some of his own laudanum to take the edge off. "I've never seen that kind of firepower in here before, that can't be just from the rifle, it's way too OP."
"Maybe the ammunition?" Sinon suggested. "But I can't exactly inspect it, it's all used up now."
"Not necessarily." Riordan said as he made his way over to the body of the man they had been sent here for.
Riodan pulled out a large burlap sack and, as respectfully as he could, began gathering up the man's bones for transport back to his daughter's grave site. Before tossing his cloths in afterwards, he leafed through the pockets and found four additional magazines that he passed to Sinon.
Sinon pocketed three of them but stopped to inspect the flavour text on the last magazine. Consecrated Sniper Rounds: Crafted from the most prized articles of faith possessed by true believers, the power to banish the unnatural in these rounds is unparalleled. It seems to matter little if what they believed in is true or not, only that they held such conviction that it transcended the laws of the physical world and became a force of nature unto itself.
"Well that sounds helpful." Sinon said as she pocketed the last magazine. "Though I doubt I'll be able to restock these things very easily."
"With how much of a punch they pack, I'm not surprised. Still with a limited amount available and them basically being useless in PvP, I guess it's sort of balanced." Riordan looked up to see a dimensional portal had opened up on the bridge that previously led to nowhere. "Looks like we're done here."
"Fingers crossed." she replied.
The pair shouldered their weapons and without another look back at the twisted world they had just fought in, they stepped through the portal back to Arkham.
Thankfully, the portal did in fact return them to the study in which they had started their otherworldly trek. Once back, it was a simple matter to take the trolley to return to the south-side graveyard and lay the bones to rest in an, admittedly hastily dug, grave next to his family. The little girl's spirit appeared once more, thanking them and telling Sinon to keep her father's rifle as thanks for their deeds, before departing for, presumably, the afterlife.
The pair then made their way across Arkham once more, stopping to pick up some regular ammunition for Sinon's new rifle, before arriving at the train station. Riordan would take it to return to his post at the Innsmouth bus station and Sinon could log out with decent access to wherever she would need to go once the crew started back up in earnest.
Both NPC's and players milled about the train station waiting for transport to whatever part of the game world they needed to be in. The station itself was mostly just a large platform with a building to buy tickets at and an overhand to shelter from the rain of the perpetually cloudy world.
"You sure you don't need me to come watch your back?" Sinon asked as they saw Riordan's train appear in the distance.
"It's okay, I've got it covered. The guilds are getting craftier, but they don't have me beat just yet." he replied with a smirk.
"First time for everything, we kicked your ass after all." she elbowed him in the side gently as she took the shot at him.
"Fair enough, though I think it was a pretty even fight all said and... done." As Riordan's train pulled into the station, he took notice of someone he could see over Sinon's shoulder.
The player wore a full body cloak, similar to the one Riordan used to conceal his identity as The Reaper, and shambled about the platform in what seemed like a dazed state. However, what caught Riordan's eye was what was odd about it beyond that. The person held something high up in their right hand very steadily, despite their otherwise swaying motion.
In his peripheral vision, Riordan noticed Sinon looking agitated that he wasn't paying attention to whatever she was saying, but his mind was now entirely focused on the strange player who tilted their head back and shouted "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!" before opening their hand.
Riordan only caught a glimpse of the object, but he instantly understood what it was. He grabbed Sinon, pulling her into his chest with a surprised yelp and throwing them both to the ground while bringing his armoured cape up to cover them both.
In instant later, an explosion rocked the platform, killing players and NPC's alike and sending dozens of others scattering in every direction. Riordan took a piece of shrapnel in the back that knocked out a solid chunk of his HP, but otherwise the pair was unharmed. After a few moments the sounds died down from the blast and all that could be heard were the screams of NPC's and the shouts of confused players.
Sinon tapped him gently in the chest and only then did Riordan realize that they were practically nose to nose. "You can get off me now hero." she told him as calmly as she could manage.
Taking her advice, Riordan swung up to his feet in a dramatic flourish, drawing both his Kopesh's rather than his signature scythe, and looking around for any threats. Aside from the crater left by the bomber, the ruined train, and the throngs of confused people, there didn't seem to be anything malicious looking or out of place; though it was so chaotic is was hard to tell.
"What the hell was that?" Sinon asked, getting to her feet. "Some kind of crazy event?"
"No," Riordan confirmed. "That was a player for sure. There have been some crazy RP'ers in this game, but I've never seen anything like that before."
"Could they have been trying to keep you from getting back to the station?" she wondered aloud. "I mean, it was your train that was hit."
"It's possible... but I have my daily recall spell set to the station, and all the top guilds have already figured at least that much out."
"Even so..."
"You're right, better safe than sorry." he agreed. "You head on back and let the others know what we've found, both on the quest and here. I'm sure there's more to both of these than we realize, call it a hunch if you have to. I'll get back to the station and do my job there."
"Alright." Sinon agreed and held out her fist. "See you soon."
Riordan bumped it quickly and took a step back. He muttered a few words in the strange language of the game before shimmering for a moment then disappearing.
Sinon didn't waste any time either, quickly pulling up her in game menu and hitting the logout button. The sight of the burning station and the still panicked players and NPC's slowly faded away as she felt her consciousness being drawn back into her physical body.
As they had discussed, Sinon reported everything they had encountered to Agent Shirai since she didn't actually have Agent Nishiyama's contact information. Shirai assured her that while the still had a few more leads to follow up on their end and that they would resume operations the day after tomorrow; until then there was nothing more to be done. It was the extra time on her hands now that brought her to where she stood.
Before her was a barred gateway that blocked a path leading to a massive two story white and grey house that was supported by half a dozen overly ostentatious white pillars at the front. It felt oddly surreal coming here, as it didn't match up with Sinon's perception of her friend at all. She could hardly imagine the warrior Asuna being comfortable in this gaudy place when she seemed so at home in her simple cabin in New Aincrad.
Sinon tapped the buzzer next to the gate and waited waited for a response.
After a few seconds Asuna's voice came over the intercom. "Hello?"
"Hey Asuna, is me."
"Shino, what a surprise! I'll be down in just a minute."
A moment later the gate slid open and Sinon plodded up the long walkway to the front door. She didn't bother to knock and waited for her host to arrive. A little over a minute later, the door flew open and she was greeted with a warm hug.
"It's so good to see you, but what brings you all the way down here?" Asuna asked before finally releasing her friend and inviting her into the foyer.
"While I'd like to say that this is just a social call... I wanted to ask you something in private."
"Oh? Is everything okay?" Asuna asked, a hint of concern seeping into her voice.
"Yes, more-less. I uh... just wanted to know..." Sinon paused for a moment before continuing. "Back when we first met, you and Liz helped me by tracking down miss Oosawa and brought her all the way down here to meet me. I... need to know if you can do something like that for me again."
"You... don't have miss Oosawa's contact info?" Asuna asked puzzled.
"No, no, not that. I mean, could you track someone else down for me?"
"Yeah, if it's important, I don't see why not."
"Great!" Sinon's face now filled with a mix of hope and worry as she regarded her friend. "In that case, I need a favor."
Hey everyone, long time no see. You all know the song & dance by now, life got crazy, blah blah blah. Sorry it took me so long to get this out, but I'm hoping that it being by far the longest chapter yet helps make up for it. Please, let me know what you think about it, I'm really hoping that I was able to nail down Sinon and Riordan's dynamic, it's not typically one of my strong suits in writing.
Writing in general's been good though, already got some work done on chapter 13 which is looking to be a fair bit shorter so far, so hopefully not much of a wait there. Though before I get to that, I'm not super happy with how chapter 11 turned out in retrospect, so I'm probably going to go give that a fresh coat of paint first. Nothing plot wise is going to change, so no need to go back and re-read it.
Also, if you were a fan of my short story The Long Road; part 2 is finally done after almost a year of trying to wrestle that beast to the ground, so feel free to go check that out too if you're interested.
Lastly, huge shout out to both Tigercry and commandocucumber for their fantastic edits, they are both great writers and you should go check out their stuff too. :)
Until next time,
-Tawnis