Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

They’d missed the early briefing, so as far as I knew, this was the first time they saw me in person.

There was a considerable silence as the group took me in. At best, a few of them—Julian, Charlotte, and Lucas—seemed politely interested. Paul and the Queen were less engaged but willing to hear me out.

Nathanial, though? The grizzled knight was pissed. He was making some effort to hide it behind cold rationality, but all the signs were there. He’d been leaning back in his chair this whole time, barely engaging with the others. Now he was sitting with his back ramrod straight, piercing gray eyes lancing through me.

He spoke to Nick, never shifting his gaze. “This… is your Page?”

“Yup.” Nick grinned obliviously. “Ask him whatever. He’s wicked smaht.”

I’m not a genie, asshole.

“Sorry.” Nathaniel rested his chin on his thumbs, still staring me down. “I’m the old man in the room, so maybe I’m just slow or missing something here. Isn’t your Page also the leader of Region 14?”

“That’s him.” Nick affirmed, completely walking into it before I could stop him.

“Right.” Nathaniel nodded, unimpressed. “And on an unrelated note, didn’t the leader of that region directly oppose the guild alliance?”

A wave of realization rippled through the group, ambivalence shifting to caution and even distaste.

“Uh.” Nick stalled, probably realizing how badly he’d flubbed the introduction but otherwise unsure how to salvage it. “He came around?”

The air of skepticism grew. I couldn’t even blame them for it. If Kinsley brought a random stranger into the Merchant Guild’s inner-circle with that weak of an explanation, I’d be looking for my first chance to get them out of the room so we could have a conversation about proper vetting. Unfortunately, passive-follower-Matt—the role I’d intended to maintain—wasn’t going to work now. It would look like I was a trojan horse, doing what they wanted in the short-term until I gathered what I needed to breakup the alliance.

Better to play it aggressively.

“I didn’t.” I stared them down in distaste.

“Oppose the guild alliance?” Nathanial asked, raising an eyebrow, preparing to catch me in a lie.

“Come around.” I corrected testily, glancing at Nick with an annoyance that was all too real before addressing them again. “I still think this is a stupid idea. Instating a court and king and establishing a class system we collectively left behind centuries ago. Aaron pulling my region’s ass out of the fire didn’t change that.”

I let that linger, watching until I was sure I was about to be thrown out of the room.

“However, I spoke to Hastur. And that experience… widened my perspective.”

“Bullshit.” Nathanial countered.

Charlotte seemed to agree. “Not to be rude, but our patron doesn’t speak to outsiders often. As far as I know he never has. Even as one of his chosen, it takes a considerable effort and a multi-step process to contact him at all.”

“Fair.” I made a show of considering that. “If only there was someone here with a more direct-line of communication with management. So you could verify my claim.”

There was a long silence before Lucas sighed and elbowed the doddering old man. “He means you, dumbass.”

“Oooh.” Paul straightened. He appeared—for lack of a better word—senile most of the time, but as soon as he was called on to engage with the gods, he seemed to gain some clarity. Some percentage of the doddering was an act. The question was, how much? Paul raised his staff upward, and everyone else seemed to cringe. I had half a second to wonder if there was a loud noise or other unpleasant magic effects involved before Paul brought the staff down, striking something beneath the table with a meaty thump. Most likely his foot. His eyes literally clouded, a cumulus gray-white rolling over both pupil and iris, and a bead of sweat formed on his forehead while his free hand gripped at his chest.

“Is he okay?” I asked. Given the amount of stress contacting the other side seemed to cause and the man’s advanced age, it wouldn’t be surprising if he’d had a heart attack.

“He’s fine,” Nathaniel said. Short. Clipped. Making it clear he didn’t trust me.

When I didn’t seem satisfied with that, the queen strode over to the priest and pulled a handkerchief from her inventory and used it to wipe his brow. “It takes more effort to speak to any patron within the bounds of the tower. We don’t understand why. Paul can do it. He is Hastur’s ordained chosen. But it takes considerable effort—”

She stopped mid-sentence, caught flat-footed as Paul took the handkerchief from her. His eyes were still clouded over and nothing physical had changed, but his entire demeanor had shifted. The shaking, half-there old man from before suddenly seemed alert but relaxed. He dabbed at his forehead with a practiced motion, far smoother than before. All at once, a dense weight seemed to manifest, pushing my shoulders and neck down until I gripped the rounded table in a forced bow. Several members of the court knelt, while others remained seated, holding onto their cushioned armrests for dear life.

“Now, now.” Paul chuckled, but I had a strong suspicion it wasn’t really Paul anymore. He reached down and patted Mari’s head. “Rise. No need for kowtowing amongst friends.”

Hastur.

The presence seemed to ease some. Beside him, the queen rose first, expression stricken with adoration and gratitude. “I am unworthy.”

Nathanial—to my surprise—seemed almost as affected. He rose from his kneeling position, all attention shifted off of me and onto Hastur. “We did not intend to summon you, my lord. We only sought confirmation.”

“I was aware of that.” Hastur assured him, then winked at me. “But a father doesn’t need an excuse to visit his children. Forgive my self-indulgence.”

Several heads turned back towards me once they realized I was being included in the statement, and I inwardly sighed. While I appreciated the backup, this was drawing far too much attention, potentially solving one problem by creating another. The more people were aware of me, the harder it was to operate in any meaningful capacity. And if Aaron ended up catching wind of this, I wasn’t sure what conclusions he would draw.

“How are you, Matthias?” Hastur addressed me directly.

I allowed a small smile, if only to cover up the internal screaming. “Odd question, from the omniscient.”

“My nature allows for great insight, not unlike yours. But we’re both aware that’s hardly a replacement for hearing it from the source.” He tapped a spot on the table to his right. “Come. Speak with me.”

Fuck. I didn’t know how to play this. He wasn’t giving me anything to go off of. While part of me was terrified he might say something to out me as Myrddin, I knew refusing him here in full view of the court would be beyond stupid. Begrudgingly, I approached and leaned against the table beside him. When he stared at me blankly, I realized he was still waiting for an answer to his previous question.

Fine. If he won't give me anything else to go off of, may as well be honest.

I was all too mindful of the eyes on the back of my head as I answered. “Stressed. Conflicted.”

Hastur gave me a proud smile. “Yet you performed admirably, regardless.” There was an undercurrent of pained sympathy in the statement.

“I only did what was required.”

“And that was no small matter.” He looked past me, addressing the room now. “Matthias had his doubts about our institution. Doubts that were entirely justified given a history I will not share out of respect. But this is a new age. One where it is unnecessary to label skeptics as heretics. More importantly, he holds the same spark of potential within him as the rest of you. I sought him out after the assault on his holdings, we conversed, and in the wake of our recent intervention I asked him for something incredibly difficult. Something only he could do. And he came through. While he may not be a member of the order on paper, make no mistake. He is one of us.”

Just like that, Hastur was gone, leaving a bleary, disoriented old man blinking in his wake.

I turned, facing the rest. They were still stunned and flatfooted from their patron’s sudden appearance, and I needed to strike before they recovered. “Again, I have my doubts. But same as the rest of you, I still have people living in the dome that I care for, people I don’t want to see put through another transposition event.” From the way their expressions darkened, they understood. “A tenth of us died during the first event, and if the trajectory of the game is anything to go on, the second will be worse. Stopping it is all I care about. And despite my position, there’s not a political bone in my body. So long as we’re inside the tower, I’m not here as the leader of Region 14.” I inclined my head towards Nick. “I’m here as Nick’s attendant. A page of the court.”

It was a big swing, putting myself in the same boat as them. Risky enough that I wouldn’t have dared to do so, if Hastur hadn’t interfered directly.

For a long time, no one spoke. The inside of the tent was deadly quiet.

Mari broke the silence. “Perhaps, a simple test. To establish if you are as capable as the Gilded Knight believes you to be.”

“Go ahead.” I said, half-expecting the giant of a woman to challenge me to a duel, right then and there.

“You heard our earlier discussion.” She tapped the round table. “The issues broached and solutions given. With that in mind what is the best path forward?”

Arbitrary as it was, unearned as it was, these people obviously cared about rank. I declined to answer and stared down at the floor. “As an attendant, it is not my place to say.”

“And if it was?”

Well, you asked.

Dropping the faux modesty, I looked over to Charlotte. “What sort of curses can you cast?”