Page 41 of A Light in the Dark
While I had thought the incident with the reporters had been rather tame, consequences of the conversations blew through the city-state with the force of a flood. I did as any smart woman would in the face of disaster. I stayed home until the wee hours of the night before sneaking into work, doing my job, and otherwise pretending I wasn’t a besieged mayor in dire need of rescue.
My parents loved everything about my house, and at Joel’s invitation, the flutter sent members over every night so they could get their evening dose of glowing luna moths. My mother learned how to cross-stitch from me, my father learned to sew from Joel, and we planned to raid Yolana’s store so they could have their own stash of precious silks.
I made a fuss over Shifter Five solely to enjoy Joel’s jealousy.
We began the tournament on Saturday, and we warned the other participants that we needed to be finished with our play at midnight so I could go handle being a mayor without anyone breathing down my neck. The first two days were dedicated to building our towns, and Coraline fed me tips, tricks, and strategies via text while I played Joel, pretending like I had zero idea of what I was doing and acting like I followed his recommendations. Well, in some cases, I followed his recommendations, but only when it enabled me to build bigger booms.
I obsessed over building booms, which played well into my plan to hunker in my bunker and destroy anyone to approach my town with glee. As trades were private until it was time to score the game, I worked with my accomplices to make certain I never ran out of supplies to build my fortifications while they played at being slow on the uptake to confuse their partners. As we all played the same game, I suspected we flew under the radar.
Per Joel’s warning, the female models had insufficient dressing options, but I found a black and white pirate themed outfit I loved, and I made him buy it for me using his resources.
That had earned me a few complaints, as he’d wanted his precious gems for building his town rather than dressing his future pirate queen wife. I got my gems and my outfit, and I enjoyed his complaining.
Two weeks after arriving, my parents went back home to start building their new life in Watercrest, where they’d be induced into the flutter there once they unlocked the secrets of shapeshifting. In the meantime, they’d help Joel’s parents care for the larvae and otherwise leave our hometown—and Zac’s grave—behind.
Sometimes, the only way to move on was to move on, and I felt the constant reminders of my brother’s death had eaten away at them in the same way the flood waters could tear away at even stone.
While it took three weeks, I recovered from the bacterial infection and returned to work, delighting in my usual routine. Doing the work of mayor irritated me as often as not, and I made it my goal to limit how often I had to go to City Hall to no more than three times a month, doing the majority of my work from my home office.
Hunkering in my bunker during the game play had some interesting consequences and taught me a few important lessons.
Only idiots came my way, and there were more than a few idiots among the ‘experienced’ gamers, who thought approaching my little slice of gaming heaven was a wise idea. One of my conspirators had helped, leading their jackass of a parent directly onto a landmine, which exploded nicely and left my victim in dire straits. Armed with a rifle Joel had made for me, promising me it was one of the better ones in the game, I’d scored my first headshot, eliminating the fool with extreme prejudice.
My conspirator wisely ran away to live another day, but to make it appear as though I was trying to score extra points, I took a few pot shots, making certain to miss.
As I’d recovered from my infection nicely, Joel promised to reward me for every kill with positive attention in bed, resulting in all the motivation required to take everyone out with extreme prejudice.
Joel delighted in me having scored the first elimination of the game.
With the help of my conspirators, I bought a rare pet from the black market, a winged puppy with a horn that ran out into my minefield, placed new explosives without risk to itself, and kept me company in my town, which grew.
The plunder from my first kill had helped keep Joel in the dark about how I transformed my town into a pirate queen’s palace. As the game even allowed me to design specific chambers, I made my queenly bedroom into a chamber of debauchery, which I would show to Joel once I finished conquering.
Three months into my stint as Stonecreek’s mayor, I’d situated most things to my liking and managed to accomplish my goal of needing to only go in once every two weeks or so to deal with work I couldn’t manage from the comfort of home. The game continued, and I marveled over how my fort became a major point of contention among the experienced gamers, who died one by one to my traps along with some help from my conspirators.
I even helped Joel through sending him a hefty chunk of my prizes so he could work on his empire.
It took five months of playing twice a weekend to progress the game to three experienced gamers standing, one of which was Joel. Allasandro and Calden were the other two.
Half my conspirators lived, although they would fall soon enough to my minefield and my headshots.
I’d gotten a lot of practice at executing players from my tower of queenly might.
As Joel wanted to visit his family, I told Coraline that she should encourage them to come try my fort, as surely two wolves could handle the perils waiting for them there.
Joel, who played at a desk nearby, laughed at the insanity. “ This is the longest tournament I’ve ever seen of this game, and you’ve killed most everyone. Are you sure you’ve never played this before?”
“I’ve never played this before. I just really like my town, and people keep insisting on approaching my town. I am forced to annihilate them for daring to come near me and my doggy.”
“I can’t believe you bought the unicorn doggy. Where the hell did you get the resources for that thing?”
“My kills. If they hadn’t come near my town, I wouldn’t have stolen their shit—and their shit helped me get my doggy!” I turned to regard him with wide eyes. “Can I buy the doggy on the live servers, too?”
“Everything you have in this version is available on the live servers, although we have quick play rules enabled. It will take you a while to earn the doggy.”
“I must have the doggy on the live servers, where I will rule as the pirate queen with my doggy at my side.”
“I wish you the best of luck with that.”
“Just kill Allasandro and Calden already. I want to go to bed. I’m tired, and I don’t want this to drag on for a few more weeks. Lure them to my gates. I’ll kill them if you won’t!”
“They aren’t going to just walk to your gates and let you kill them,” Joel reminded me.
“Serve as bait, then.” I pointed to the edge of my minefield on the map. “Go stand there and be bait.”
“Valerie,” he complained. “If I do that, they’ll ambush me, and I’ll die.”
“And then I will destroy them with my boomies.”
I had an entire arsenal of boomies just waiting to go off, and I would scorch the entirety of the neighboring forest and leave nothing but rubble in my wake.
My conspirators were already in place, aware there’d be nothing left but me, my doggy, and their corpses by the time I finished.
“Fine, fine. But you owe me, Miss Chester.”
“What do I owe you?”
“Your hand in marriage would be a good start. I feel I deserve that if I have to go serve as bait so you can kill those two bastards.”
I laughed, as Joel had taken to suggesting that I should marry him twice a day, once in the morning at breakfast, and once before we went to bed to sleep, using his body as part of his campaign. While I’d already made my decision, I enjoyed our daily routine. “And as I told you this morning, last night, yesterday morning, the night before that, and the morning before that, if you want this hand in marriage, you’re going to have to acknowledge Shifter Five has the best silk while offering me a ring.”
“I’m going to put a hit out for Shifter Five at this point,” he groused. “His silk is not the best silk. My silk is. Admit it, woman. My silk is the best silk.”
“And the ring?”
“I already have that, but I refuse to admit any luna moth’s silk is better than mine.”
I giggled, well aware he had the goods and hadn’t had any luck finding out Shifter Five’s identity thanks to some help from Yolana. “Still haven’t figured out who Shifter Five is?”
“Yolana won’t even give me a hint, and she’s gone and changed all the numbers to letters in the shop!”
I snickered at the frustration in his tone. After witnessing me rolling around on sheets made from his silk like some damned fool, he should have figured out the truth already, but no.
I loved him, but he could be an idiot sometimes.
“Very well. If you sacrifice yourself for my victory, I will permit you to propose without the condition of admitting Shifter Five’s silk is the best silk.” Then I grabbed my phone, texted Coraline, and informed her I had convinced my luna moth to sacrifice himself for the cause. “But you’re definitely going to have to convince me in bed.”
“I think I can handle that much. Can I wine and dine you tomorrow night before convincing you in bed?”
As it had been at least a week since we’d last gone on a date, I nodded. “Wining and dining as you acknowledge my status as the true pirate queen would be nice.”
“If it means we can finish this tournament, I would be pleased to wine and dine the true pirate queen, especially if I get to make the true pirate queen my wife.”
“I want a wedding with a bunch of luna moths.”
He laughed. “We’ll plan it for when we know there’ll be a hatch and host it at my parents’ place. They’ll love it, and you’ll have all the luna moths you could ever want in attendance, thus allowing our flutter to attend in human shape.”
“I suppose that would work.”
Joel’s larvae had gone into their cocoons to become luna moths, he’d gotten a chance to breed a handful of color morphs, and their eggs had gone to his parents for care. The color morphs had lived their lives out in my basement, and they’d joined Joel’s beloved collection of preserved moths.
While short, their lives had been sweet, and they’d been given every security and comfort we could .
To simplify matters, Joel conference called Allasandro and Calden. “We finish this, you furry bastards. Meet me outside Valerie’s fortress, and we’ll settle this once and for all.”
“Oh, we’re going for a duel, are we?” Moonriver’s leader asked, and the man snickered. In the background, I heard his partner, one of the women who’d enrolled to be a date, laugh.
She then said, “This was not what I was expecting when I joined up hoping for a date, but I’ll admit, this is rather fun.”
“But are you going to actually date him?” I asked, well aware the wolf shifter was the definition of skittish and the woman had the patience of a saint.
“At this stage, I think it’s going to take force, but I’ve worked my way into gaming in his house, so that’s something. Have any recommendations, Valerie?”
“A leash. I hear it worked for Calden and Coraline.”
The couple in question burst into laughter.
“Do what you want with Dad, Helen, just leave him alive when you’re finished with him.”
“My, what a high bar. Any other requests?”
“A sibling would be nice.”
I snickered while Allasandro spluttered.
“I think I’ll start with the leash and see how it goes from there,” the woman replied. “Allasandro, go to that fortress already. Calden promised he’d help me start my town on the live servers when you’re busy working. Coraline’s going to make her own town, too.”
Moonriver’s leader sighed. “Do you know what’s going to happen if I step out of that forest, Helen?”
“Death and destruction come to mind. ”
“Oh, you’re already in the forest, Allasandro?” I asked.
“Calden and I may have forged a temporary truce trying to take you and Joel out. It’s not a loss if I’m working with my son.”
“Prove it,” I demanded. “A signal flare from each of you. Calden, you get pink. Allasandro, purple. At the count of twenty.”
I counted to twenty, and sure enough, the men were in my woods within plenty of range to be destroyed by my artillery fire.
Without missing a beat, I pressed the appropriate buttons to trigger the apocalypse, leveling the entirety of the forest and the surrounding landscape. According to the game, I’d gotten everyone except Joel, who’d emerged with his health bar in critical condition.
If I didn’t go help him, he’d bleed out on the battlefield.
As I was a cruel pirate queen, I waited for him to die before I made use of my glider to bypass my minefield, enter the smoldering ruins of the forest, and loot the corpses. “Long live the pirate queen!” I clapped for myself between searching the bodies for their resources while listening to the complaints of everyone around me.
“That was not nice,” Joel informed me. “You killed me, too!”
“You were the last gamer standing, though. Victory, however, is mine.”
“You blew up most of the map!”
“Well, what else was I supposed to do with all those cannons and my explosives?”
Joel grunted. “Not blow me up with them comes to mind. ”
“All’s fair in love and war,” I reminded him.
“Where’s the love portion of this? Where’s the love?”
I turned and smiled at him. “Ask me that again tomorrow, Mr. Sampson.”
After a quick goodbye to our friends, Joel hung up his phone, eyed me, and said, “But will you say yes this time?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out. But I have a little secret that might make you feel a little better about life until then.”
He got up from his seat, came over, and leaned over, meeting my gaze in open suspicion. “What secret?”
“I absolutely love rolling around on Shifter Five’s sheets before you get your hands on me and do your best to earn my submission.” I reached up and pressed my finger to his lips. “And after that victory, I think I deserve having my every need catered to on those sheets. What do you think about that, sir?”
He blinked, and as was his way, he kissed my finger. “Wait. Five’s my number?”
“Five is your number, sir. Now, what are you going to do about it?”
“Make more sheets, apparently. We’re going to need them.”