Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

The summons were raucous in my mind, their warring voices muting my trudging footsteps along with the ambient noise of the floor beyond.

"We're in trouuuuuble," Audrey groaned. She'd been off happily hunting for most of the exchange, and seemed overwhelmed and stressed out by the other two.

"It makes no sense. It makes less than no sense. Miles made it clear that he is the enemy of our pack. That he intends to stand in our way and create obstacles. He already knows our den, where we hunt, where we take shelter. What idiocy prompted him to reveal even more?" Talia lamented, speaking at an accelerated clip that was difficult to parse, let alone offer a reply.

"Where we hunt?! HOW DOES HE KNOW?"

"Not really the point, Dree," Azure said, his tone soothing and calm. "I agree that it's bad. But give Matt a little credit. He's spent a lot more time than any of us socializing with humans."

"A practice, by his own admission, he is terrible at!" Talia snapped, her voice growing increasingly shrill.

"Not when it's important," Azure turned harsh, losing his cool. "Navigating casual social settings and acting decisively in a crisis are different skill sets. He's gotten us out of tighter spots before."

"Tighter than handing a highly capable enemy a neatly organized list of his strengths and weaknesses?"

"Stop." I halted mid-stride and closed my eyes, trying to filter out the chatter. Surprisingly, it had the opposite effect. Within the darkness behind my eyelids, I found my three summons represented as blue ghostly apparitions arranged in a half circle, paused mid-conversation. "What. Have I just, never noticed? Are you guys always here?"

"Uh." Azure quickly stood to his feet, his boyish features twisting in a half-smile. "Yeah. This is the void. It takes more effort to access when I'm in item form, but this is where we spend our time unmanifested. How are you here?"

"Dunno." I glanced over to Talia, who was at least three to four times larger than her manifested form. "Can you choose your own appearances within the void? Or are you just astralogically huge?"

"Huge? Huge?!" Talia raged. "This is the size I was before you plucked me out of the adaptive dungeon! It is a perfectly acceptable—"

I opened my eyes, pastel colors of the tower floor flooding in.

"—Do not disappear when I am speaking to you!"

"He can still hear you, idiot," Azure said, his voice long-suffering.

"I could hear you the whole time," I added, continuing to trudge up the hill. They fell silent as I pulled up my DMs and sent Nick a blank message, testing the permeability of the floor, hoping for a spot with service. It didn't go through.

"These two, faithless traitors. I never doubted you," Audrey suddenly proclaimed.

"Whatever you say, Dree."

"Stupid plant," Talia snarled.

"Look. There's nothing wrong with having doubts, or questioning my actions. It's better for everyone in the long run if there's not a chorus of voices in my head, rubber stamping everything I do. Just don't talk about me like I'm not present," I said, scanning the approach to the elevator. There were enough people around that doing what I needed to do was likely possible, but Miles having me under a microscope made it difficult.

"To be fair, we didn't know you were present," Azure pointed out.

"Noted," I grunted. "Now, obviously, from what I heard, you all have questions. We have a brief window I can answer them, but after that I need Azure."

"Ooh. What are we doing?" Azure asked. "I could take Miles' form and start calling guild-masters and associates. Make him out to be a raving lunatic and start eroding his credibility with conspiracy theories."

"Absolutely not," I shook my head. "You have enough juice regenerated for a couple transformations, though?"

"In the tower. Outside... it'll be hard to manage one."

"But you can maintain it outside the tower?"

"Yessir."

"Perfect." I waved to Tyler, the Guild Master of the Adventurer's Guild, not expecting to find him still here. He seemed to be negotiating with a small group of merchants, all of whom wore the Merchant's Guild sigil around their necks, a golden coin—Greek, if I remembered correctly—that depicted a ship traveling diagonal, an olive branch crossing it in the opposite diagonal.

Tyler seemed attentive to my arrival, and almost looked ready to break from the group and speak to me before I broke eye-contact and smoothly changed directions, routing around the public towards the door. On an ordinary day I'd have no issue taking a few minutes chatting with Tyler, but from the moment I sent Miles my character sheet, the clock was ticking and every second mattered.

Thankfully, he didn't follow.

"Two minutes. Questions, go."

There was a dull growl from Talia, typically a sure sign she was amping up to something. But Audrey's warbling voice spoke before she could. "Miles has a summon."

"Yes," I agreed.

"A bird."

"That's accurate."

"Birds taste good."

There was a collective groan from Talia and Azure, so I attempted to spur the plant along. "Audrey, do you have questions or just observations?"

"Yes question. Because Miles' summon is bird and bird taste good. If someone were to eat bird, couldn't he just re-summon it?"

Come to think of it, I hadn't seen the hawk since I left. I'd been looking for it, half-expecting to find it flying overhead. "Audrey. Did you eat Miles' bird?"

"...no," Audrey answered, after a long hesitation. "Just... thought about it."

"Okay." Given the gravity of what was happening around us, and the intensity Talia was giving off, it wasn't the sort of thing I wanted to spend a lot of time addressing. But what I'd learned from the nursery was that I couldn't just shrug off simple queries from people that relied on me and treated my word as gospel. There could be serious repercussions otherwise. "You're a summon. I can bring you back if you die. Why shouldn't I just serve you up to Talia whenever she eats, vary her diet with a side of greens?"

"Because it would hurt!" Audrey exclaimed.

"It hurts other things when you hunt them."

"But once they die, they're dead," My plant summon argued. "Can't feel pain anymore. If you let the wolf eat me—"

"—Not that the wolf would," Talia groused.

"—I'd feel that pain every time."

"And it would be worse, because you're more intelligent than you were as a basic flower fang." I internally apologized to Socrates and hastened the conclusion. "As far as I can tell, most summons are like that. Gain a degree of amplified intelligence that varies based on the summoner's stats. So not only would you feel the pain, you'd remember it and grow to dread it. How would that affect you?"

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"Bad," Audrey's voice held a shudder. "She's a messy eater."

"—Excuse me?!"

"Then, taking everything we just talked about and applying it to Miles' summon, knowing it likely feels similarly on the matter, should you eat the bird?"

"No," Audrey pouted.

"Great. Next?"

"I'm not even sure that I have a question," Talia spoke quickly this time, reserving her place before anyone else could. "It'd be more accurate to say that I'm resentful. For the fact that we are now placed in this position."

Azure scoffed.

"No, let her speak. Talia, what you really mean is that you're resentful that I placed us in this position, correct?"

I ignored the part of me that whispered arguing with a summon was pointless. Talia operated best with a considerable helping of autonomy. She'd saved my life before, acting of her own volition. If we were going to survive the next few weeks, I needed to get my house in order. Which made this as critical, if not more, than everything else I needed to accomplish before the morning.

"Yes. I suppose that's true," Talia relented, breaking the silence.

"Unfortunately, there wasn't really a moment to seek your counsel beforehand. I did my best. What would you have done differently?"

"Killed him," she hissed, her voice vicious and regretful. "Scattered him to the wind."

"Miles has done a lot of good. Helped god knows how many people. That doesn't stay your bloodlust?"

"Bloodlust has nothing to do with it," Talia argued. "He threatened the pack. And all who threaten the pack must fall."

Okay. This wasn't the same as Audrey, where there was a simple gap in logic preventing point A from connecting to point B. I wasn't about to get into the pack stuff—we'd been together long enough to read between the lines that Talia's previous pack had met unpleasant ends, which made the entire topic a projection landmine disguised as a cultural difference. But if the ethical angle wouldn't work, the practical might.

"There were a few reasons I didn't. The one you'll find most relevant is that Miles is very much like me. Potentially smarter, and definitely more experienced."

"So you spared him because he was similar?" Talia said, distaste heavy in her voice.

"No. If I was Miles, the first thing I'd do before confronting a highly placed, dangerous person, would be making sure Kinsley and a handful of others knew exactly where I was going and when it was happening. I'd trust at least one of them with the identity, whoever had the most power—Kinsley in this case—and all the information they needed to dismantle the bastard's entire world if it went sideways."

"With immediate scheduled check-ins after the fact, so if you miss them, they can start nuking said bastard from orbit before he has time to maneuver," Azure added.

"Why give him your sheet?" Talia asked, apparently finding her question just as Azure said, "I don't understand why you didn't Mind Spike him." There was an awkward silence, and imagining the way they were bristling at each other didn't take much of a leap.

"Both answers are related," I sidestepped another User as I scanned the now mostly abandoned camp for a vacant tent. "Riddle me this. What do we fear most?"

There was a brief silence before Azure answered. "The unknown."

"Yes. And in this case, to Miles, I am the unknown. He's seen me do a lot of shit. Especially as Myrddin. Achievements I've made through methods he can't understand."

"You could have pieced it out. Revealed abilities over time, like breadcrumbs, instead of dumping them all at once."

"If our relationship was better, I likely would have done just that. Problem is, I've lied to Miles. A lot. Tried to give him as much of the truth as I could, but right now it's too personal, and all he can see is the lies. So I gave him something concrete. Something that spells out, definitively, how useful I am, and how much of a threat I pose. Made the unknown ascertainable. Miles has a flexible relationship with the truth himself, so eventually, he'll come around and realize I was more honest with him than it seems. But I had to take the mystery out of it. The fear. There was no choice."

"I'm following the reasoning..." Azure trailed off, "But I think he'll be more afraid of you, rather than less."

"Because of Mind Spike?" I asked.

"That and Subjugation. He's sharp enough to connect the dots, intuit how they work together."

I sighed and checked back towards the clearing. No sign of Miles yet—he was either taking his time reading or intentionally widening the space between us. "Yeah. That's part of why I was in a hurry to leave."

"Hm?" Azure sounded confused.

"Miles doesn't make a move until he feels completely in control," I mused. "He's disturbingly patient."

"He seemed more heated and vulnerable than in control," Talia commented.

"That's probably intentional."

"The anger was genuine," Azure disagreed.

"That's what makes it solid bait," I dragged a hand down my face, feeling a wave of fatigue wash over me, along with the aches and pains of a dozen still-healing injuries. "Anger makes you sloppy. Prone to rush things and make mistakes. He's letting me see it to bait me into capitalizing with the expectation of sloppiness, when really, he's as locked down as they come."

"You're sure?" Azure asked.

"If there isn't a fed, or someone fed-adjacent, waiting in the lobby to cast squelch as soon as we get there, you can all collectively call me an idiot."

"Hm."

I blocked the entrance, allowing Azure to slip into my shadow and the tent beyond. He stepped out after a moment, wearing the face of an unfamiliar, unremarkable male User with short-cropped hair.

"Addressing the other point," we continued the conversation silently as I walked side by side with him towards the elevator. "You're right. Miles is going to connect the dots. It'll spook him. But he'll also piece together that I had an easy win and didn't take it. Ample opportunity to cripple his intelligence and subjugate him into submission, making whatever precautions he'd taken completely pointless."

"You're putting a lot of faith in his capacity to reason without bias," Azure noted.

"Guess I am." I hoped that I'd showed enough good will through action alone that it was enough to offset any immediate, visceral reaction from Miles, but that was hardly guaranteed.

"I get why you left."

"Thinking you were holding the gun the whole time, only to realize you were looking down the barrel is better in the past tense. If I stuck around, it wouldn't be a discovery. It'd be a threat."

"If he panics," Azure mused, "it'll be obvious he can't let you back into the tower. You hold too much sway with the group he put together, and it's not much of a jump to see how badly that could go for him. He'll also realize how easy it would be, with your skill set, to simply disappear into the tower or some other dungeon. If it goes that way he'll move tonight. Limit the potential for collateral damage."

"He won't," I repeated. But the conviction wasn't coming from a place of logic or reason. It was a hunch. A feeling.

And feelings could be wrong.

Finally, we crested the rim of the wide, circular elevator platform. Azure was smart enough to walk a small distance away, so it was clear we weren't together.

His voice echoed in my head, as he repeated the earlier question. "Orders?"

"I need to do... fucking everything," I groaned, overwhelmed by the growing mental checklist. "Can't knock out any of it with an involuntary escort. Down to be me for a bit?"

"My favorite role," Azure grinned. "I'll make the swap in the elevator once we're clear. Take it me-you is obediently following Miles' instructions?"

"Yes," I answered immediately, then reconsidered. "Actually, no. He'll have several cars running the tail. Three minimum, driver and passenger. Once you're back at the apartment, they'll scale down to less. Again three minimum, two on the exits, one on the roof. Miles is eventually going to realize they're only watching one of me and he never got an explanation. The natural response will be sending the auxiliary to my usual haunts. We want to delay that."

"So you're saying there's room for mischief?" Azure asked, a twinkle in his eye.

My first instinct was to shoot it down, but I changed my mind. Azure was at his best when he had room to be creative, take something and run with it. "Yes. Mundane mischief. Pick up something to eat. Go shopping. Talk to random people. Nothing out of character. If you can keep them in a state of sustained concern without causing outright alarm, all the better. Just keep it subtle."

"How am I supposed to talk to random people and stay in character?" Azure asked, grinning ear to ear.

"Just... shut up." I punched the center pylon on the elevator. The ground swayed beneath me as it rose, stimulating the growing nausea in my gut. The sky and clouds became more concave, revealing themselves as a masterwork facsimile just as we passed through them, replaced by an encompassing cone of walls.

Across the elevator, Azure was facing me. His—my—dark eyes glittered, reflecting the blue light of the control pylon. "You're afraid. More than you're letting on."

"Who wouldn't be?" I murmured, letting the chill I'd been suppressing since the confrontation with Miles finally tear through me.

"Just remember that you have a plan. It's a good plan, Matt."

I cocked my head. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but what's with the pep talk?"

He gripped his arm, hoodie sleeve crinkling beneath his fingers, the calmness in his expression strained. "Nothing. It's just. You've built a good thing here. Grown so much from what you were, before we met. I know when things get bad—when they get really, really bad—your natural inclination skews to the extreme. Because sometimes extreme is efficient."

A bolt of anxiety shot through me. But my summon's silence was a period, not a comma.

"We've been through worse. This is just... more of the same. Another bump in the road."

"Maybe. But something about it seems different," Azure said, barely audible over the whir of the elevator.

He was right about that much, at least.

I slid the mask over my face, breathing deeply as the artificial wave of calm washed over me and my emotions grew muted.

"There's nothing to worry about." It didn't feel like a lie, when I said it.

But feelings could be wrong.