"Bet you drinks for a week that's almost exactly when we arrived," Sekhmet says, ears and tail straight up.

"No bet," Hikaru says, pressing glasses he's not wearing up the bridge of his nose. "What's the phrase? Twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action?"

We've gathered at an inn that Sekhmet found. Technically it's called 'La Jarra del Dragon,' with its Koboldt innkeeper, but the whole playerbase calls it The Dragon's Flagon.  The same place we used to patronize when this was just a game, still the best value in the square and packed wall to wall with a tense and frightened mixture of players and locals, collectively at a roughly a 'metal concert' volume level.  

Ironically, this gives us some privacy in this sea of bodies.

Sekhmet, sitting at the table with me, is fidgeting with a copper coin - a sheaf, with the bundle of wheat stamped on the back and the stern face of an Yberian queen on the front. Ace, absentmindedly, kicks a ball in place with one knee while rubbing the other, turned aside. Alesha sits with her back to the wall, struggling to keep the tension out of her limbs.  The only thing helping her relax is the signs we've see to indicate that her daughter is safe.

And I sit between Alesha and Hikaru, leaning on the table with a hand over my palm, thinking. As hard as I can, about what everything implies.

"An EMP on the surface would knock our Neurohelms offline while we're using them, but it would glitch out the orbital servers - totally glitch them out, not only glitch out the fast travel," I say.

"Agreed," Hikaru says. "It can't be a war on Earth. We'd get glitches nowhere or everywhere, not just with the Waygate system specifically."

"Cold comfort for Bacon, I think," Alesha says. "But it's comfort nonetheless, and we should loop her in and keep her close. She has very specific insights about neurohelms and I'd love to know why."

"Her FC - the Rainbow Connection - were a serious progression guild," Hikaru says. "I seriously doubt anyone here has the usual spurious objections to a close relationship with them, and I think an alliance - to share information, if nothing else - will likely save us both a lot of grief."

"And she's already promised free brain pills to people who need them," I add. "Helping her out got us on the good side of the Temple of Flamma, and one good turn deserves another, right?"

Sekhmet considers her coin. "Who the hell profits from fucking up the fast travel and trapping us in the game? That's what gets me. Kind of a specific pair of glitches to happen at once, yeah? What does anyone get out of it?" she asks.

"Their own personal colony with slaves to work their plantations," Alesha says, voice very dry. "At least that's what that one PC Erandite priestess was working for, anyway."

"Lil' extreme to put your IRL body into a coma for it - if Bacon's right, and I don't doubt em - and it's not like you couldn't try that in the game as is anyway," Sekhmet counters. "Every country in the game and Delvar besides would immediately make you a high priority sidequest if you got caught, but it's not impossible."

"We're missing something," I say, sighing.

It's about this point that a waitress arrives with dinner - pilaf, sausage, and salad along with drinks - which each of us accept. Sekhmet raises her mug of beer in response with a smile, and drops some change on her platter; the waitress curtseys and smiles back at our feline friend before wheeling, skirts spinning, to the next table with her tray.

"I noticed you tipped generously," Hikaru says, voice neutral, barely smiling.

"If we gotta pinch pennies, imagine how much worse it is for her," Sekhmet says, sotto voce. "You can't tip, you can't afford to eat out, full stop."

"Yeah, no shit," Ace says, the first time she's spoken since we all sat down. She puts her ball aside and starts to fill her plate.

As do us all. 

The rice has, like paella, been braised along with lamb - no, it's much richer than that, with mature mutton - scant amounts of pepper and fish sauce and generous amounts of herbs, vegetables, and seafood. Rather than saffron, which would push this two-guilder family meal into a 10 guilder personal pan at best, it's flavored and tinted with turmeric and cardamom, and I can taste how a little of it went a long way. Where it touched the pan on the bottom, the rice is crispy, like in a good bibimbap; and the garden salad, fresh bread and butter, pecorino-like cheese, and quince-ginger jelly served alongside takes it from satisfying to one of the greatest comforts I've had since we arrived. Little wonder, then, that our party was silenced for a good minute or ten just eating.

Finally, I turn to Ace. "You're pretty good with that ball," I say.

"Huh? This?" Ace turns to you, a bit distracted. "Yeah, uh, it's a proper soccer ball that some kids kicked at me. I tried to give it back but I'm one of those terrifying fucking supersoldiers outside the gate, apparently, and they ran away before I could return it."

I'm a little taken aback by that response. "I'm, I'm sorry you had to deal with it."

"It's fine," she lies. "Few of the locals saw and gave me dirty looks, too, like it was my fault. Heard them, uh, talking about the situation."

Alesha sighs. "As bad as the Contessa said, huh?"

"They're calling it the Siege of Viacruz, Leesh. I mean, Alesha." Ace winces, edging slightly away from her.

Hikaru pinches the bridge of his nose, again. "And hoping they're joking," he says.

"For the record, I hope so too," Ace says. "Cause, like... I get it. We shouldn't be here. We should be, uh, at home, feeding our cats right now."

Alesha raises her glass, a goblet of red wine. "I'll drink to that," she says, and clinks Ace's cider mug. "To going home, to pet our cats and dogs, and may God - and His angels - hear our words."

"To a way home," Hikaru agrees, clinking his beer stein.

Sekhmet, wordlessly, clinks her own glass - mouth pursed tight. My eyes flick to them, and I raise my own cider glass, and...

I can't bring myself to dedicate this toast to going home. There's not much there. Few friends. A dead end job.

But I don't know nearly enough about what's going on. I don't know if I like life here, even - stories of interdimensional transplants going native filled my head when I was growing up, but it's not like that at all. Besides, I want to be nothing like the would-be kingmakers and womanizers from those stories, anyway.

I look at the faces of scared players in armor and robes and jewelry, and then at the faces of scared peasants and merchants in nothing but cloth.

Nothing at all like my animes, no.

"I dedicate this drink to finding our way," I say, finally, "and... and may the wind carry this to Sylphan's ears, and the ground to Flamma's, and from them to the Lord."

I tip my glass, just a little, and let a tiny pour slosh out of it and into the earthen floor below. It's a pretty weaksauce libation, but it can't hurt, can it?

I take a deep breath, clink glasses with my friends, and drink; and feel a cool breeze from the window sweep the sweat from my brow, and feel the warmth and light of the candles that the barmaid lights as it starts to get dark.