Demons of Erayiniel: A Plaza Story

The first two chapters of a story set about five years from now in an MMO called The Plaza. Feel free to critique it. I’ll finish it (it’s short) if there’s interest. First chapter before the break and the second after.
—
Demons of Erayniel by Brenda Holloway
Lightning flashed theatrically behind the castle, thunder crashing lazily through the hills. It was always dark here, and nearly always about to rain. The Romanians who sold us this adventure had a macabre sense of humor about their famous little province, from the horrified villagers in a painstakingly recreated medieval Sighisoara, to the thick, damp forest crowding the muddy road, to the suddenly too-near howls of a wolf pack on the hunt.
The faint sounds of the clock tower from the village tolled the hour. I urged the horses forward and let a servant bring them to the stables, rushed to the entrance gate just as the first fat drops began to fall.
Banked fire glowed from the massive fireplace that dominated the room, leaving the edges in shadow. Drear music played – not one of my pieces. It was one Jun had liked. He was always moody.
The night we’d fought our way to the castle had been one of our good nights, the ones that paid for all the sullen times when he’d shut himself away, silent, unapproachable. He’d gone ahead, Ra’s light shining from his staff as his herd of vicious goats kept the wolves at bay, while I shot the dazed bats and vampires with my blessed bow. We found later that we were supposed to have roused the villagers to help us with their torches and pitchforks, but we’d slipped away from the priest’s tedious ceremony mid-prayer.
Jun blazed like a star as we fought our way, side by side, down through the endless tunnels and cellars, his goats as much a danger as the undead as they blocked the passage ahead and our retreat behind. We found the boss vampire in his lair, Ra-light and ferocious goats keeping him from reaching us with his deadly fangs until I sunk one pure arrow of ancient mahogany into his chest.
We found the deed to this castle in his coffin, copied it excitedly to our own private shard. We were never happier than that moment.
When we split two months later, I got the house, but he got the kids.

—–
I hurried to the Dressing Room. My thick woolen dress, bonnet and shawl didn’t fit the theme of tonight’s adventure, and would not be allowed in. Appearing naked in a crowd of friends is such a noob thing to do. I chose a set of soft forest green leathers I’d farmed from the Sherwood Forest instance, a short sword of polished ebony, a bow of enchanted mirkwood, and ash arrows tipped with deadly points of dwarven iron. The Forest of Erayindiel allowed only elves, so I selected a thin, tall form I’d bought from their online store and melded in. Erayindiel Elves are freakishly tall, cousins to the trees they command, but they had a sort of inhuman fascination some found irresistible. I opened the far door with the key sent me by the raid leader and stepped through into green mist.
“THERE she is!” rang a voice from beyond the mist. Shadows resolved themselves into trees, bushes, undergrowth and the milling forms of the others of my guild as my machine copied the adventure from the server. Our monthly dues went to paying for access to a wide selection of adventures; sometimes a guildy would run of their own creation. Tonight would be our third in the Forest. Our supplies were holding out, but we would need to find a camp tonight. Elven camps were nearly impossible to find; that was one of the challenges of this adventure.
And for certain, the Elves wouldn’t help us any. They had been pacing the raid a hundred yards to either side of us. They’d contracted us to destroy the ravenous fire elementals who stalked the southern reaches of the forest, but that didn’t make us their friends. Metal weapons were left back in our Dressing Rooms – a limb carelessly sliced from a tree would be answered by a devastating hail of Elven arrows. Destroying fire elementals using flammable weapons was going to be all sorts of fun.
Ivan stalked up to me. He was usually short, round, with a hearty laugh I never tired of hearing. He was thin here and tall, as were we all in this Forest, but the voice was all Ivan. “Lana, there’s trouble. A Rival has stolen a cart of supplies. It looked like –”
“Anala.”
“Yes.” Ivan looked at me askance. “You knew?”
“No, but I’m not surprised. She’s been quiet for so long… you remember where I left her. But you know how the game is. Someone forgets to feed the hamster running that server and all kinda of crap come running out. I kinda expected her at the Feast of Brayhall. She loves ruining those for me, and when she didn’t come then I figured she was just waiting until I was far from the safety of an Imperial town.”
“Aye,” he said. “Rivals are like that. Mine is still imprisoned in the dungeons of the Clay Men, and may he rot there forever. You know you alone must confront her and return the supplies?” I nodded. Satisfied, he smiled. “We’ll miss your keen arrows this night, m’lady, I’ll speak to the officers and see that you get your points. Now be off with you. We believe she left to the north.”
No mystery there; the path of bruised grass and scraped moss was clear, and headed to a small, thick copse in the distance. Nobody else could see that stand of wood – it was for my eyes alone.
When I’d first started playing The Plaza, the massive game that was a meeting and shopping place for millions with doorways to a hundred commercial worlds and thousands of hobbyist realms, I hadn’t know much of Rivals. I knew that while I was designing my first avatar with BodyShop, the free avatar construction software most people used to design their appearance in the virtual world, that I was also designing my Rival – a game-controlled character that would appear occasionally to make my gameplay more challenging. As I gained in power, so would she. It was a guild rule that we make sure our Rivals cannot interfere with our raids, but the occasional lapse was overlooked. I thought I had left Anala married to a demon lord – I’d traded her to the demon for my freedom the last time we’d met – but apparently she’d slipped free of that. Probably, I thought darkly, around the same time Jun and I split.
And she’d been stalking me since without me knowing.
Without those supplies, we’d never make it all the way to the fires – not tonight, at least, which would mean another evening here, ruining the schedule for the whole week.
Fucking Plaza. It’s well known that when you start work there, they remove all that is good or kind and leave twisted little mean people who go around springing your Rivals at bad times as they laugh maniacally in high squeaky voices.
As I crept into the copse, tapered, hardened ebony short sword gleaming with its subtle Southern magics, the Forest fell silent around me. I was in a private instance, my own little world; nothing from outside could interfere. I came across a spilled bag of flour; some Crafter could have made food for a night from that. I whispered a few words of power and my skin and leathers took on the pattern and texture of my surrounding. Unless I moved quickly, I would be very hard to see. I crept forward.
Anala was busy knocking the wheels from the wagon. She either didn’t see me or was ignoring me. Her golden hair cascaded in curls down her back. She no longer wore the enchanted wedding gown that bound her to the Demon Lord; tricking her into putting that on had freed me from her the last time, and the demon wasn’t all that picky about who (or what) was to be his bride. Instead, she wore new-looking leathers of Elvish fashion. She must have found the Elven camps. If I could get their location from her, that would more than make up for the delay in tracking her down.
Obviously, Rivals didn’t face the same restrictions Players did, for she was still in her usual human form.
I try to be Good, I really do. But I just don’t have time for it sometimes. I hurled my sword at her back and leaped sideways with a cry. She turned slightly, seeing me for the first time and fading into the foliage as she went stealth. Then blood sprayed from her side as the sword sliced keenly into her side as it returned to my hand. She popped fully into view again as her hands clutched at her ribs. “Lana!” she gasped. Then she turned white and fell into dust.
I hadn’t seen the last of her. Rival fights are never this easy. Something else was going to happen, but I couldn’t think what. I balanced the wagon on its remaining three wheels and began to pull it back to the raid.
On the road, I found the body of a goat. Its stomach had been neatly sliced open.

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