Page 4 of Level Up
“When did they…?” She holds up the note with Pal’s number on it. “How…?”
“They’re like a flirting wizard,” I say with a laugh, inspecting the note myself. While I didn’t have my eyes on them the entire time, I’m still not sure how they got the note on there without us noticing.
We stop a block over, in front of my mother’s stationery shop, Ink & Well—which happens to be at the front of my grandmother’s house and, incidentally, below my apartment—when Victory suddenly laughs.
“Twenty minutes ago, I thought Pal hated me,” she says, delighted. “And now I’m going on a date with them?”
“Pal never hated you.” I give her a sideways hug. “They talked to you every time you went in; they’re practically obsessed with you.”
“Then they have good taste.” She sweeps her hair back again and this time I think it is on purpose.
I laugh and take a step back to face her. “Are we still on for Wednesday night?”
For a moment, I think she’s forgotten about our plans, but then her eyes light up with recognition. “Yes! Release day. Of course.”
I know it’s a bigger deal to me than it is to her—it doesn’t affect her in the slightest, actually—but she’s always great at being happy for me. Just like I’m happy for her finally getting the nerve to talk to Pal.
“Stones 4midnight release!” I bounce on the balls of my feet, giddy with excitement.
I have been waiting for this moment for nearly a decade—an excruciating decade, as the developer that makes the series, Stone’s Throw Studios, hasn’t released a single game in all that time. I mean, the wait is nothing compared toElder Scrollsfans, but at least Bethesda has made other games since then—though maybe some people wish they hadn’t. Still, it’s about damn time.
Nothing is going to get in the way of my enjoyment of this new game. Not the lukewarm reviews in the press, or slanderous speculation from fans on Reddit, or Scones’s continued existence making my blood boil.
I just have to make it to Wednesday night without self-combusting.
Alas, dear child of the Third Sun Era, let not yourself be fooled by preacher nor practitioner who cites the Fall of Ayor as proof of the gods’ mercy and kindness.
For, when Ayor, King of the Gods, entered the mortal plane, to conquer man and elf and beast alike, the gods did nothing. And when Ayor’s reign of tyranny spanned a thousand years, the gods still did nothing. They did not a thing till Ayor built an army of mortals to ransack the palace of the gods—only then did they act.
The execution of their corrupted King was swift and absolute, but Ayor’s power could not truly be destroyed by man or god. The power of Ayor was splintered into a thousand Stones and scattered across the lands he once ruled, that none may take this power for their own selfish ends.
And here, child, is where the preachers tell you of the mercy of the gods. How the gods selflessly closed themselves off from the mortal realm, never to enter or intervene in our affairs again. To protect us, they say. To keep Ayor’s power from corrupting another god, from creating another King, they say.
Out of the gods’ reach, the Stones can do no harm, they say.
But you and I know this to be a folly. For it is not only the gods whom power can corrupt most wholly, but man as well. And any true tyrant knows the only being more terrifying than a god with indomitable power is a mortal man who seeks to become one.
It is why, dear child, our land is known as Ayor’s Rest. The immense power of the King of the Gods is not destroyed—it is merely asleep.
— Excerpt from “The Truth of the Gods” by Edmund Greaves, inThe Stones of Ayor
two
don’t look a gift horse in the butthole
My grandmother’shouse is a strange place.
From the front, it looks like just another house along the street that has been converted into a shop, which it is. Gram used to run a small consignment shop at the front until a few years ago, when my mother took it over with Ink & Well. And maybe in twenty years I’ll turn it into a mechanical keyboard shop—if only.
But unlike some of the other houses-turned-shops on the street, this one is still used as a house at the back. While plenty of the others have been converted with rental apartments above the shops—which this one has, too—the back half of my grandmother’s house is just a regular semi-detached house. But even with the addition, it’s pretty small.
Tiny, it seemed, when I was growing up there with Mom, Gram, and Marie. I had to share a bedroom with my sister, which was admittedly great for me because I thought she was the coolest person ever at the time, but being six years older than me, she was less than thrilled by the time she reached puberty. Looking back, I don’t blame her.
Instead of fleeing to another province at the firstchance, like she did, I stayed in that house until I graduated from university and started making enough money that I could rent the upstairs apartment from my grandmother instead. Granted, she gives me a discounted rate, otherwise I would not be able to afford my own place in Toronto, but I’m not about to look a gift horse in the butthole.
Despite having my own separate entrance and separate everything, I still see Mom and Gram all the time. Working part-time in Mom’s shop, or when I go downstairs to have dinner with them every Saturday night, like we’ve done for years. I wish I could say I ever had something better to do on a Saturday, but alas.
It’s not that terrible, honestly. None of us can cook worth a damn, so we always order in something tasty and eat together at the dining room table like civilized adults. Until Gram gets on her third glass of wine and insists we all get up and dance to Outkast’s “Hey Ya” or something to that effect.
