Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

“Let us out you fucks!”

“The longer we’re here, the more likely this thing is to spread!”

“My kid is by herself alone. Bastards can’t just lock us up, there’s people outside relying on us!”

Panic was spreading quickly. In a way, it was oddly nostalgic of the early days when we first discovered the dome. I spotted Nick by the elevators doing his best to hold back a small crowd of increasingly irate adventurers clustering around him. Not good.

Factoring time, they’re too panicked. Did someone turn? Or—

A howl came from a closed medical tent—a man—followed by a more feminine scream from another tent that was almost blood curdling.

Now it made sense.

Most of the Court was clustered outside their accoutrement, holding defensively and doing nothing to quell the panic coming from members of the Order.

God dammit. Okay. Think. Triage. Whoever’s being operated on in the tent is lowest priority. Good chance they die or they’re too far gone to save. If I waste time on them first, Nick may lose control of the situation and then we’re completely fucked. Priorities are Julian’s glamour, elevator, court, tents.

I fired off tagged with calming thoughts and images towards some of the loudest voices in the elevator crowd and waded in, simultaneously looking for Charlotte. I found her near the back, her eyes wide.

“Princess!” I waved her over. She started towards me, then froze in her tracks when she saw Julian. “He’s fine. Just needs to be checked out, low prio. Better to dispel him now if you can.”

“What happened?” She rushed over, pushing hair out of her face as she began to cast something.

“Took a beating and did his thing.” I said, staying vague in case she was out of the loop. With the way she jerked up and looked at me, she knew. “Passed out after he healed himself.”

“You idiot.” Charlotte hissed at Julian, then finished her casting. As soon as she was done, she reached towards me.

Wait.

“Later.” I told her, making the decision immediately. “I need to get a lid on this.”

“They won’t recognize you—”

“I’ll circle back.” I paused, realizing the position I was in. With the glamour in place most people wouldn’t recognize me, but Charlotte could. While the Ordinator’s abilities were mostly imperceptible, if I didn’t give her anything other to do than watch me from afar, she’d inevitably pick up that I was doing something to work the crowd. I looked towards the tents. Might be able to kill two birds with one stone. “Actually, do you have a muffle? Anything that could dampen sound in an area?”

“To quiet the screams.” She realized, looking back and forth from the tents to me.

“The louder they are the more people are going to feel trapped, and the more they’ll panic.”

“Uh, shit.” She stared at an invisible screen, scrolling through. “I have an envelope hex, but that blacks out an entire area.”

“Counterproductive, probably.”

“Nothing.” Charlotte grimaced in annoyance. “Have a few points to spend, let me check the list.”

Another scream echoed out of the tent. I cringed. “Why the fuck aren’t they being sedated?”

“They can’t.” A nearby man said. He was tanned and enormous but unarmored, smoking a tiny stub of a cigarette that seemed even tinier in his hands. From the shell shocked look in his eyes, I immediately realized he’d been inside the tents. “Nothing they give the sick ones puts them under.”

“Who are you and why are you here?” I asked him, trying to sound terse rather than rude.

“Phineas Briggs. Alchemist, crafter, and supplier extraordinaire.” He said, his voice a calming baritone.

Less trustworthy than he looks. But with the gentle giant schtick, he looks very trustworthy.

“Yourself?” Phineas asked.

“Matt.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He squinted in recognition. “Matt as in—”

“Found it!” Charlotte interrupted excitedly. “Creates an invisible barrier outlining an area of the caster’s choosing. Filters out any vocalizations not amplified by magic.”

“Perfect, you’re a lifesaver.” Charlotte made a selection and hurried towards the tent as I turned my attention back to Phineas. “Yes, that Matt. Got armor on you?”

Phineas hesitated. “I’m not a combatant.”

“Don’t need you to fight. Just need you to stand somewhere and be friendly-yet-impassable.”

He barked out a laugh. “Been doing that my whole life. I got armor, yeah.”

“Wanna help me out here?”

“Not to be a total piece of shit given the circumstances,” Phineas said slowly, dropping the cigarette butt and stamping it out. “But what’s in it for me?”

Merchants.

“Allegiance?”

“Here assisting the good ol’ AG. Few friends inside that vouched and since folks can’t use the system store inside the tower, figured I’d provide my services as a stopgap.”

“Then the offer is a preferential contract with the Merchant’s Guild and a metric fuck-ton of goodwill.” I tried.

“Done. Word is Miss Kinsley’s been driving a hard bargain lately, I’d be a fool to pass that up.” Phineas grinned and his body blurred as he equipped a set of chrome armor that gave the impression it was more flashy than practical.

“Circle around,” I pointed to the elevator. “Get next to the big guy with the aww-shucks face, join him from the side so it’s clear you’re with him, but don’t push in on them. Just let him know Matt sent you.”

“Present myself as a force multiplier but don’t fence anyone in. Got it.” Phineas waved at me and lumbered towards the elevator. I waited, creating distance and checking my surroundings and Charlotte before I pulled the out of my inventory and put it on. Immediately, it amplified my Title’s voice so loudly it competed with my thoughts. I waded through the crowd of twenty-something adventurers all but invisible, trying to filter out any title commentary and listen for the loudest voices.

“There’s something they aren’t telling us.” Someone announced loudly. A middle-aged man balling meaty fists. “We’re all fucked if it’s airborne. That’s why they’re not—”

“Shut the fuck up.” I hammered him with tagging it with a mental image of the crowd he was in the middle of trampling him in a blind panic. Sensing acceptance and little resistance, I moved on.

“My daughter is alone.” A woman this time, mage’s garbs. Not great. Mage meant high intelligence, and that could be a problem if it was higher than mine. Struggling with the mess of feedback from my abilities and title in the emotional crowd, I grabbed her shoulder to help isolate her mind from the noise.

“And you’re displacing guilt because YOU left her alone. Could have left her with a friend and didn’t. That was your choice, no one else’s. Stop making your fuckup everyone else’s problem. If you want to ensure she still has one parent around to protect her during the second transposition, cooperate.”

She jerked away from me subconsciously, her eyes wide. Then her expression hardened.

Fucking INT.

No choice. Just had to hope her stats weren’t too high for the alternative.

The woman stopped, frozen in time, slowly turning towards me as if seeing me for the first time, waiting attentively. Waiting for orders.

I gave them silently through suggestion. “You are a bastion of calm. You’ve always been that way, keeping your head when everyone else is losing theirs. It’s a good thing you’re here and willing to help keep the crowd in check, because leadership clearly can’t handle it all themselves. That’s why I picked you. Because you’re special. I need you more than anyone else has ever needed you.” The woman nodded and even smiled a bit, pleased with herself. Belatedly, I added the postscript I’d used ever since I discovered it worked when was used in a simple context. “I may have more orders for you later.”

“Anything you want.” She said aloud and winked, leaving me with a vaguely nauseous feeling.

The last, loudest voice in the crowd was both the most difficult with the worst justification. Another mage, yelling about untended experiments. His INT was high enough that neither nor made a dent. Even worse, he seemed to notice the intrusion, looking around in alarm.

Fuck it.

I pulled the out of my inventory, slipping it around his neck as discreetly as I could and holding it with one hand, keeping it tight enough for a consistent drain but not so tight he’d drop on the spot, yanking his head back so I could whisper in his ear. For once, I let speak directly. “One word, one single cry of alarm or whimper of distress and every single person in this dome will find out about the weird sex golems you have cooking in the basement.”

The man went limp, completely compliant.

“Put your arms down.”

He released the garrote string and stood, awkward and uncomfortable, but still cooperative.

“Turn.”

I guided him, still holding both sides of the garrote with one hand and walking him out of the crowd. Once we were far enough, I tightened the slack, sapping what little mana he had left until his eyes lost focus, then helped him sit down propped up against a wall. I walked away then returned, crouching in front of him and snapping my fingers, borrowing Phineas’s rich baritone. “Everything alright buddy?”

“Uh.” He came to and peered around through thick glasses in confusion, hand going to his naked throat. “I’m not… really sure what happened.”

“You just wandered over here out of sorts, all lost. Lightheaded or somethin’?”

“Someone—I think someone just threatened me.” He scanned the room suspiciously. “Did you see anything?”

“Nope.” I patted his shoulder. “From a distance it just looked like you misplaced a few marbles and the mental gps lost service, but it’s a high-stress situation. Bound to happen to anyone, eventually. Just glad you didn’t fall or hurt yourself. Grace of god and all. Maybe don’t push it and catch a breather for a while.”

It took a second, but his suspicion ebbed into exhaustion. He leaned his head back against the wall. “Got any water?”

I smiled and put my thermos in his lap. “Course. Don’t worry about returning it, I got others. And feel better pal, alright?”

“Thanks.” He said, clearly unhappy but too disoriented to push things further.

“Hey,” I grinned back at him and winked as I walked away. “My pleasure.”

With the key instigators disarmed, the crowd calmed, losing steam. I ducked into an empty tent to remove the mask and exited, approaching where Nick stood at the front. I sighed and said the pass-phrase.

“Thundercats.”

“Woah-ah-oh.” Nick returned, jerking around to look.

“Here.” I stood beside him, hands in my pockets.

“Matt? You still glamoured?” He asked, squinting at my face.

“Not for long, but yeah. What the fuck happened?” I asked, my voice low.

Nick looked over to several large members of the adventurer’s guild standing at the side. “Take over for me? I’ll be back, just gotta bring someone up to speed.” As we walked away, his face turned grim. “We may have screwed up a little.”

“How many infected?”

“Only two, way better than it could be.” Nick bit his lip. “Healers figured out this was out of their wheelhouse real quick, sent for an expert. Contacted Tyler as well. He’s in a meeting with the tower folks.”

“Expert being—”

“Someone with the hazmat crew working region six. Prim, Pam?”

I waved him off. “Good. I’ll get the name later. What was the mistake?” A second later, I realized it before he told me. “You had to send someone down the elevator to get word out.”

Nick winced and gazed towards the medical tents. “Yeah. Then the screaming started, which… really didn’t help. Thankfully, the crowd seems to be cooling a bit.”

“Lucky.”

“You alright?” Nick asked. “Boss a pushover?”

“Yes… no. Need to get this glamour off and get in the med tent, more details later. Anything else pressing?”

“With all this chaos I have the irresistible urge to binge eat and not nearly enough food in my inventory to make that happen.”

I stared at him dolefully, then slowly handed him the sandwich I’d packed.

“That’s a start. I should probably get back to the line.” Nick grinned.

“Stay safe.” I paused, twisting around. “Of the two infected, who’s worse off?”

“That would be tent numero uno.” Nick grimaced. “The dude you dressed down. Not sure who the woman is, but she got hit way later.” He hesitated. “Heads up though, Ansari’s the one in there. It’s spreading too fast for them to wait.”

“Great.”

I left Nick to hold the line and returned to Charlotte. She started at my appearance, and I got the sense she’d been looking for me for a while.

“Ready?” She asked.

“Hit me.”

The dispel acted quickly, leaving an unpleasant buzz in my fingertips as I shed my last layer of anonymity.

“Wasn’t sure where you went.” Charlotte fished, but her curiosity seemed innocent enough.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Everywhere.” Absentmindedly, I glanced at the now silent tents. “Good fucking job Charlotte. Between the glamour and the mute you really came in clutch today.”

“Oh.” She seemed surprised and thrown off. “It was nothing.”

“It wasn’t.” I paused, glancing up at the crowd. It’d stilled and a few people had walked away, but there were still too many. “And I hate to keep asking for help, but any chance you’d be down to loop some of the court into admin duty?”

“Sure. Most of them just aren’t sure what to do, but they’ll help.”

I breathed out, leaning back and forth on my heels. “We need to pull people away from the elevator. I’m thinking… two tables set-up in the center. First one designated for anyone who has pressing business outside that can’t wait. Emergencies, dependents, so on. Write them down, note their full names and the full names of anyone pertinent, and once we have someone cleared, we’ll send them down to send messages and coordinate with our people outside.”

Charlotte pulled an old android phone out of her robes and jotted down notes. “And the second table?”

“Sign-up for takeout, when it arrives. Barbecue, pizza, something universal. Complimentary.” I looked at her meaningfully. “For anyone that’s already seen a healer, of course.”

“Got it.” She paused. “Okay. Just, I have to ask. What did you do before this?”

“Eleventh grade.”

With that, I jogged towards the first medical tent and braced myself. Then unzipped the flap and stepped inside.