[PP-F9] <<Bandit Camp>> Cut to the Chase

[Acanthus 0]

Where was she even supposed to begin? Big feelings weren’t meant to be shared. They were meant to be quietly processed and stored, far away from other people. Her entire family had taken that to heart, and it left Acanthus struggling to express what had just happened in a way she felt comfortable. Her only experience with conflict was in her professional career, and that hardly qualified. Cheesy workplace posters chimed in, unbidden: Managing workplace conflict: deescalate and communicate! Acanthus fought an inappropriate laugh—those kinds of posters were for idiots stealing lunches or gossiping. She doubted that the people that hung those anticipated co-workers trying to kill each other.

Deescalate. Her legs gave out, one after the other. Leaning against a crate of the bandit’s supplies, Acanthus deposited everything she owned in her inventory. Armor, weapons, trinkets—even the items that didn’t matter, like NIGHT’s cape. She sat in front of her party in nothing but default clothes. If she lost control again, they wouldn’t be in any danger.

Her hands wound their way up the sides of her face, holding tightly to keep the floor from spinning. Acanthus tried following molten cracks in the ground to distract her from what she’d just done, watching them splinter and spiral, disappearing and reappearing from under rocks or crates, or the quickly vanishing bodies they, no she—she had murdered.

SHE THINKS THEY WILL UNDERSTAND. THEY CANNOT.

Communicate. “I hear things sometimes. A voice. I know it isn’t real. But it says cruel things: about me and about other people.” She took a ragged breath. [Link to Demonic Quarry] “The happier I am, the less it speaks. And the only thing I’ve found that makes me happy is the fighting.”

—VIOLENCE. ALL OF AINCRAD'S BEAUTIFUL QUESTIONS, AND SHE RETURNS TO THE SAME ANSWER EACH TIME—

“I don’t like killing.” Her eyes welled up. “I just… I miss feeling like I’m in control of my life. I miss feeling like things make sense. And the fighting here is the only thing that makes sense. It’s a series of numbers and probabilities I can look at and *know* what’s going to happen. So when I fight, I’m in control. And when I’m in control, I’m happy.”

She hadn’t looked up yet. They could be standing over her, blades ready to fall and she wouldn’t have cared. The only thing worse than death was the mortifying ordeal of being known. But the more she talked, the quicker her thoughts fell into place. “That doesn’t explain the things I said to you, Teion. I don’t know if I have an answer—”

SHE DOES. SHE REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE HER MALICE TOWARDS SOMETHING SHE BELIEVES CANNOT RECIPROCATE. YET IT HATES HER ALL THE SAME.

—So she would simply be unkind in return—

Bile rose to the top of her throat, and she paused to swallow. “I’m not doing well. I don’t want sympathy for saying that. I want you to keep a safe distance.”

ENOUGH.

Her thoughts collapsed in on themselves, and her mind went dull and blank. She laid her head in her knees, and spent what little energy she had left to keep from crying.

—Careful, now. Dry your face before you show yourself.—

Edited February 27 by Acanthus

[Teion 0]

The boss fell and they were left alone. Morningstar glared at Acanthus with even more intensity than her. For the briefest of moments, she wondered if he would simply cut her down. If this was any kind of setup, any sort of scenario that he was actually in on, he was a phenomenal actor.

No. There was a hardness in his eyes before he finally decided to speak a single word. MorningstarStar was just as much in the dark as she was, Teion decided.

The bottle in her palm vanished silently, back to her inventory. She watched wordlessly as Acanthus rid herself of her weapons--her everything--and sat in dull melancholy. They waited. Teion took a few small steps to bring herself closer to them. She found a different crate that stood up to her hips and she straddled the corner to take most of the weight off of her feet. Acanthus began to speak, and she listened.

"That doesn't make sense." She said flatly. Her arms were folded loosely across her stomach when she was finished. Her voice didn't carry the same venom as before; her tone wasn't so harsh. But her words weren't exactly kind. "You like fighting because it makes sense. You can control the game. I get that. But if it's supposed to bother you less when you fight, why would you fly off the handle then?" She tried to point out how Acanthus' explanations sounded backwards to her. Maybe she knew that. Teion held onto her mild frown, but her eyes gradually lost their sharpness. The longer she watched Acanthus curled in on herself, thoughts laid bare under their scrutiny, the more she remembered that there was a person sitting there.

She cast a short glance towards Star. They were both strangers to her, and so she wondered about the depth of whatever relationship the two of them shared. She averted her gaze and a sigh escaped through her nose. She wanted to say more. It felt like she was supposed to say more. Instead, her jaw briefly tightened and the conversation continued.

[Morningstar 0]

Morningstar blinked. He knew she was weird, but hadn’t pegged her as crazy.

He listened while Acanthus tried to explain herself. Morningstar could see the remorse in her hunched, curled posture; in the tremor in her voice; in the tears that soaked the molten rock below. It hadn’t been intentional–he could tell she regretted it.

But what was done, was done.

Teion countered with a fair question. Clearly, fighting was no longer enough to keep the voices at bay–or at least, to keep Acanthus in control. She was a loose cannon and that was a problem. 

Morningstar exhaled slowly. “Twenty-four,” he finally said. “That’s how many players were present during the fight with Callisto. Twenty-four. When we’re in the boss room, fighting for the lives of every person in the game, everything relies on trust. I have to know that whoever’s behind me has my back–because if they don’t, it’s over.

“With you, I don’t know that. I can’t.” His voice hardened. “You’ve proven that tonight.”

He stood, brushing dust from his dark pants. “I like you, Acanthus. But if you’re going to continue as a frontliner, then you need to figure this out. Because that? That was not okay–whether it was an accident or not. Find a solution, or don’t bother showing up to the next raid. I can’t go against a boss worried that my party might get PKed.”

A blue crystal appeared in his off-hand. He tossed it to Teion. “Don’t stay too long. The mobs’ll respawn soon.”

He turned to leave, but hesitated. His throat tightened. He had more to say, but not now. Not like this.

“You know where to find me,” Star finished.

Without another word, he stepped out of the bandit camp.