The Rebel's Proposal

It felt as if my body was being torn apart. I fought to keep consciousness, and the pain slowly subsided. I sat up and blinked roughly to try and clear my vision. I stood up and returned to my usual hover above the ground. Matthias and Finley wore matching concerned expressions, and I smiled awkwardly to ease the tension.

“Are you alright? That looked painful… Matthias, what curse was that?”

“Nothing I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s one of the Queen’s?”

Curse? No, it must be because I’m missing my avatar. Or maybe it’s Faye’s memories?

“Hey, um… What exactly did the ‘curse’ look like?”

“Well, you looked like you were… ehm… covered in squares? And they kept shrinking and growing all over you.”

Glitching, just like when Faye found me. So it isn’t just her memories.

“You look like you realized something. Care to share it?”

Matthias narrowed his eyes and stared at me. I clenched my fists, trying to come up with a believable lie. A moment passed, and Finley began to look at me skeptically.

“It’s… hard to explain. The curse you saw doesn’t come from your magic system. It stems from the very, um, essence of this world.”

Please believe me, please believe me.

Finley closed her eyes and crossed her arms, her face scrunched up in thought. Matthias scratched his head awkwardly, then turned to Finley.

“Sounds like a bunch of nonsense if you ask me, but I’d bet we could find an arcane scholar who knows something.”

Finley opened her eyes, which wavered slightly as she stared at the ground. When she looked back up at me, I could see the scrutiny in her gaze. She stepped closer, and I resisted the instinct to back away. She looked me over head to toe, then leaned back and chuckled.

“Something tells me you’re still hiding a lot of information, buuut the Queen’s looking for you as we speak so let’s just move this along.”

She moved her left hand toward me, unfurling the paper to reveal a short, tattered letter. I raised my hand to grab it, then leaned in to read its contents.

Right. Can’t, um, touch anything like this. At least cranking my neck won’t hurt— since I don’t have any muscles… or bones.

It was then that I realized how freeing my current state felt, how light and unburdened I was. A small desire to remain this way formed in my mind, and I had to push it down.

Being like this is amazing, but I can’t abandon who I really am. I have to go back, to apologize… who do I need to apologize to again?

“Hey, snail-brain. Pick up the pace already, will you?”

Matthias’s rude comment snapped me out of my thoughts, and I quickly scanned the page in front of me.

To My Dearest Knight,

It has come to my attention that an otherworldly being is traversing the lands. They will appear to have no body, akin to a deadly specter. Find them and make nice with them. If they react negatively, retreat and send notice. Although failure is an option, heed my warning: I will not take kindly to disappointment.

Returning to a relaxed position, I gave Finley a quizzical look. She returned the letter to the table and faced me. Her fingers drummed on the worn wood, and the look on her face said she was waiting for me to speak.

“I know you’re hoping I’ll know something, but I’m completely in the dark here. I don’t know your Queen, or what any of that letter meant. Although if she’s asking for me to come quietly, then it is entirely possible that she needs something from me.”

“Yeah, as if we didn’t know that already. Finley, I’m not interested in following another one of your wild goose chases. We should be out there, looking for a mage to rival the Queen’s magic.”

“… I know, but what if she’s magic? What if whatever’s holding her together is what makes the Queen unkillable? This could be exactly what we’re looking for!”

Matthias scoffed and turned away, glaring at me from the corner of his eye. I avoided his gaze and floated towards Finley. She extended out a gloved hand, as if reaching for a handshake. I looked down at it and she laughed.

“Right, you can’t do that. What I’m tryna do is offer you a deal.” Her hand fell back to her side and she beamed up at me.

“We can’t tell you what to do or force your actions, but we’d really appreciate it if you joined us. At least until we learn more about what you are and see if it can help us. You must be lookin’ for answers, too, right? What do you say?”

At a loss for words, I turned to look at Matthias. He was now standing in a corner, fiddling with an arrow. After a lack of resistance, I pondered what Finley’s proposal could mean for me.

I do want answers, and I do want adventure. That’s what I came here for and that’s what I’ll get, one way or another! They did say to explore everything this world has to offer, didn’t they? Or, uh, did they not…? I can’t seem to remember…

Finley cleared her throat and I jumped in surprise. Embarrassed, I gave her my best salute.

“It will be an honor to help the… what are you?”

Finley squealed and glanced at Matthias. He groaned and trudged over to her side, pulling up the sleeve on his left arm. Finley followed suit, the exposed wrist displaying a unique tattoo. Matthias carried the same design: an eight-pointed sun with a tilted white crescent at the bottom right of the circle.

“When the late King announced his marriage to our new loathsome Queen Eris, he said she descended from the moon as a gift from the Goddess. After takin’ over, she boldly renamed the world Lunagard. When my grandfather started the rebellion, he made this symbol. He wanted to bring back the kingdom that spread light and peace over its subjects, so he drew a picture of the sun eating Eris’s moon. Ever since then, it’s become the symbol of our resolve.”

Finley lovingly gazed at her tattoo. I could see a mix of emotions in her eyes, ranging from sadness to delight. Beside her, Matthias was also fixated on her tattoo. His expression was hard to read, but his eyes shone with intense emotion. When he noticed me staring, he looked up and averted his eyes. The corner of my mouth twitched as I hid a smirk, and the two rolled up their sleeves.

“We are the uprisin’, banded together to take our home back from evil. It is our duty and our privilege to protect and nurture it. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“… Yeah, of course…”

Sun eating the moon, Queen Eris, and Lunagard. That last bit doesn’t make sense. Don’t I remember the name Solagard?

A pain echoed through my body, and I gave up my memory search. I didn’t want to get into the habit of passing out every few hours.

If the glitches are connected to my memories, then it’d be best to stop thinking too hard about them.

Finley put her arm around Matthias’s shoulder, pulling him down to her height. He shuffled slightly, discomfort painted all over his face. She smiled and pointed at me enthusiastically.

“You’re one of us now ghostie, so listen up. I don’t know if whatever-you-are sleeps, but you’re stayin’ in my tent tonight. Come first light, or whenever Matthias pulls his groggy behind out of bed, we head out and search for whatever magic-addicts we can.”

I nod and put on the most confident face I can muster. I see Matthias smirk cheekily and shoot him a glare as Finley lets go of him to turn toward the exit. Matthias calls out to me as I rush to follow her.

“Look, I don’t trust anything I can’t understand myself, so stay where I can see you and we won’t have any problems.”

My first instinct is to nod submissively, but the reality of the world I’m in comes back to mind. I clench my now painless jaw and glare at the jerk opposite me.

I can’t be the passive nobody from before. Not in this world that revolves around players like me. I’m the hero who’s going to save the day— and get my body back while I’m at it. This NPC couldn’t do anything to me if he wanted, anyway. And that’s not just me being confident because I’m virtually indestructible…!

After taking a moment to reassure myself, I point accusingly at him. His eyes widened, showing me that I succeeded in surprising him.

“You can’t do anything to me, so you mark my words. I’ll do whatever I want, which currently means finding out what’s happened to me and how to fix it. Get in the way and you can say goodbye to finding your Queen-beating magic.”

I puffed my chest victoriously and stared him down. He clenched his jaw, almost like a pout, and turned his head away.

“Damn it! If we find a magic that works on you, don’t think I won’t be eager to test it out!”

He barged out the door like a troubled child, and I had to stop myself from cackling. I floated through the closed tent flaps and met Finley. Matthias was already making his way to his tent, and Finley gestured to follow her.

We quietly made our way to a small tent nearby. Finley slipped inside and I followed. The inside of the tent had a cot lying at each end, with a low table between them pushed against the back wall. Finley crawled into the left cot, and I hovered over to the other.

“That used to be where my grandfather slept. I’m glad it’s goin’ to good use… You won’t just sink through it into the soil, right?”

“No, I’ll try not to.”

I hovered slightly above the cot and folded my hands. I waited for any sense of fatigue, but none came.

“Rest well, ghostie.”

“…”

Finley’s breath slowed and I lay still while the sound of gentle snoring filled the tent. I waited for anything to happen, but my mind remained alert. I closed my eyes, relieved that I still had functioning eyelids. Although the view behind my eyelids was bright, I let my mind wander as time passed.

Pain circulated through my body each time I tried to remember the world outside the game, and I eventually gave up. I listened to the distant howling wind and waited patiently for daylight to come.