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I cannot fucking believe the words coming out of his mouth. I know them by heart, having heard them hundreds of times before.

“Where dragons fly untamed, where beasts reign supreme, and where riches are awarded to those who earn them through trial by fire,” I finish his sentence.

Ornix looks at me with absolute confusion written on his handsome features. “How did you know what I was going to say?”

“Because it’s the tagline to one of the biggest MMORPGs out there right now. Dragon Fire Eternity has millions of players, and they all know that speech; it comes from the title sequence. I must be losing my mind.”

He draws away, his upper lip curling with something like disdain. “What is a MMORPG?”

This is the problem with sleeping with the delirium-induced incarnation of an older man. They don’t know anything about contemporary culture or games.

“A massive multiplayer online role-playing game. I see it now. I mean, I’ve never been in the Golden Keep this deep before, but I recognize the map.

” I start walking around the room, pointing out of the windows, each one of which matches the cardinal direction of another important zone.

“That’s the Cauldron of Hades,” I say, pointing at the volcano.

“And those are the Sheets of Siren,” I add, pointing at the ice.

“That’s the forest of the Wild Nymph, and over there is the Great Deep, the ocean. ”

I laugh at the expression on his face as he stares at me in complete shock. It’s nice to not be the only person who doesn’t know what the hell is going on.

“Those are all the names of our most ancient and sacred locations,” he breathes.

“I know. They’re all in the game.”

“The game. ” He repeats the word back to me as if it is a deadly insult.

I actually feel a little trickle of fear at having spoken to him that way, though it was the truth.

I hope whatever drug I am on wears off soon, because this is a hell of a vivid hallucination and I’m starting to wonder if I will get my mind back from it.

“I need to speak to someone,” he says. “Get some rest. Do not leave this room for the moment, not until I return.”

I nod and I let him go on his way, then I make my way over to the bed and I sit down on it, then lie down, then close my eyes and will myself to wake up back in a reality that makes sense.

Ornix

I know precisely who is behind this. There is only one in the house of my bloodline who would dare engage in such blatant sacrilege.

“Nox!”

I bellow my nephew’s name as I enter his chambers. Not entirely out of rage—though I am very unhappy—but out of necessity because his ears are covered with big, thick headphones that block out all the other sounds of the world.

My nephew looks like a younger version of me; well, technically, my brother.

He has the same long, dark hair, golden eyes, and a general facial resemblance, albeit less mature.

He is wearing an oversized pink sweater and sitting in front of equipment designed in the human realm.

He begged for it. He promised me he would work on tools I could use in the human world.

The computer is a mystery to me, but he gave me very specific instructions for what he wanted.

He does very little other than look at those screens now. I haven’t actually seen him in months. He’s been working on a project, some kind of code. He explained it to me once, but I wasn’t entirely listening. I have little interest in human baubles with no inherent virtue or value.

He pulls the headphones away from his head and gives me a smile. Equinox has been in my guardianship since the unfortunate incident with his parents, my brother and sister-in-law, when he was just a little whelp.

“Hello, Uncle.”

“I have taken a human mate, Equinox.”

“Good for you, old man.”

I just barely resist the urge to cuff him around the ear. He may yet be due a beating, but I want to make sure I give it for the right reasons.

“Why does my new human mate, who has only just arrived in our realm, already know the entire geography of our continent?”

I ask the question quietly and carefully, not wanting to tip my hand to him. I want him to make a confession.

“Oh,” he says. “Well.”

“Well?” My brow arches.

He looks nervous. “I can explain. Almost.”

“You can almost explain?”

He has the grace to look very slightly ashamed. “I wanted to tell you, but once it all blew up, I couldn’t find a good moment and I thought maybe it would all blow over before I really even needed to tell you.”

“What blew up, Equinox?”

“Well, you know, the humans were hiding from the sickness, and we couldn’t go and visit them for years. I missed their company.”

“Go on,” I prompt him.

“So I used the computer to make a video game. Which…” He looks at me, as if trying to gauge how much I will possibly understand.

“It is a digital world that people could enter from their phones, or their laptops, or their desktops, and then it came out on consoles. The phone version was a cut-down version, in which some currency could be transferred to the main game, so you never had to stop playing.”

“None of this explains why a human just told me the geography of a world she has never seen before.”

“I had to make a world for the game to take place in, and I already knew this one, so…”

“Inspiration? Or you designed our world inside this game world and now millions of humans have been exposed to the realities of a realm they were never supposed to know about, let alone be familiar with.”

“Okay, so. It might be more the latter, but to be fair, Uncle Ornix, nobody ever said I couldn’t do that. Am I wrong?”

“Yes, Equinox. You are wrong. The primary edict when it comes to the human world is that the secrets of the realm…

“Should never be shared unless the human is to be brought here for all eternity.”

I hear my voice come through the speakers of the computer, finishing my sentence the way Melissa finished one earlier.

“I might have recorded some of your more common sayings and used them for the world boss,” Equinox explains.

“I’m the boss of a game world?”

“Well, sort of. It doesn’t mean the same thing to them. You’re not in charge of the world, assigning tasks. World boss means you’re more the final villain. Humans have to team up in groups of fifty to try to defeat you.”

“You created a game that reveals our world, and encourages them to group up and slay me?”

“It sounds bad when you say it like that.”

“It is bad, Equinox. It is very bad. I should destroy that computer of yours.”

“Well I don’t run the servers from here anyway so all that would do would delay the release of the DLC.”

“And the DLC is?”

“I’m adding an expansion pack in which players can build ships and use them to battle dragons.”

“Oh, so yet again, the humans are encouraged to, let me understand this correctly… hurt dragons.”

“Humans have always wanted to slay dragons. It’s not my idea. I’m just running with what works. You’ve got to follow the market. You can’t define it. That’s just arrogance. Humans slayed us out of existence in their world. They’re very into it.”

“Equinox, you are on the verge of spending the rest of your life in my deepest, darkest dungeon. I imagine they are also a playable area in your little game.”

“They might be.”

I sigh. Deeply. “Shut it down. Shut it all down.”

“Uncle Ornix, the game is on track to make eight hundred million dollars this year.”

“Excuse me?”

“It gives humans the chance to use their natural impulse to gang up and slay a dragon. It calls to them. It’s designed to keep them coming back for more, more gear, more levels, more content.

I have a studio in the human realm that employs hundreds of artists, coders, musicians, writers…

the list goes on. Shutting this down means removing a cultural touchstone. There’s merch.”

“Oh, there’s merch? Well, I didn’t know there was merch.

If there’s merch, then by all means continue to slather our sacred, ancient business all over a mortal realm that does not deserve even a fraction of our magic.

Continue to break all the laws handed down to us by our ancestors because the humans are entertained. ”

“Thank you, Uncle Ornix. I knew you would understand. Ow!”

I clip him over the ear.

“This cannot go on as it has. If you want to keep the game running, fine, but you need to adapt it so it is a unique creation and not giving away the secrets of our world. I assume it is limited to the geography.”

“You can assume that, Uncle.”

“Make the changes, Equinox. You will not leave this room until you do.”

“Uncle Ornix!”

I seal him inside his chamber with a ward that will not allow him to pass.

“Uncle! I need to pee!”

“Code fast,” I growl at him through the door.