Sleep, when it finally came, was less a respite and more a series of disjointed, anxious dreams about writing code for artisanal donut toppings that cast offensive spells. I was woken not by the gentle chime of a phone alarm, but by the enthusiastic crowing of a rooster somewhere outside who clearly thought he was heralding the apocalypse. My back ached, my neck was stiff, and the air tasted of dust and old straw. I missed coffee with an almost primal desperation.

  I rolled over, my leather armor making a sound like a sad, dying animal. Nolan was still a lump under his thin blanket, snoring softly. For a moment, I just watched the sliver of gray light grow wider, illuminating the squalor of our little room. Home was a memory so sharp it hurt, a different dimension of soft beds, hot showers, and Wi-Fi. Here, the highest tech we had was a knight who knew how not to get dysentery from river water.

  “Rise and shine, code monkey,” I grunted, kicking the edge of his pallet. “Big day of finding bugs in the mainframe of evil.”He groaned and burrowed deeper.

  “Five more minutes.”

  “The Shadow Lord doesn’t do five more minutes, Nolan. He’s probably an early bird. Gets the worm, corrupts its soul, sends it to gnaw on the foundations of the free world, all before his first cup of whatever evil overlords drink.”That seemed to get through to him. He sat up, hair sticking out at a dozen different angles, his face puffy with sleep.

  “They probably drink tea. Earl Grey. Hot.”

  “Nerd,” I said, but there was no heat in it. I pushed myself to my feet. “Where’s the cat?”

  As if summoned, a voice dripped disdain from the windowsill.

  “The ‘cat,’ madam, has been contemplating the sheer, unmitigated existential horror of a morning devoid of cream. One is forced to question the very benevolence of the cosmos.” Bartholomew sat perfectly poised, a fluffy, gray silhouette against the grimy pane, his tail giving a single, irritated flick.

  “Right. Cosmic horror, no cream. Got it.” I stretched again, feeling a half-dozen pops in my spine. “Let’s go see if the innkeeper is serving anything that won’t give us scurvy. Kaelen should be back soon.”

  The common room was already half-full, a testament to the fact that when your life consists of farming dirt or fighting goblins, you don’t really get to sleep in. A few grizzled men who looked like they gargled with gravel eyed us as we shuffled to an empty table in the corner. The air was thick with the smell of woodsmoke, stale ale, and something vaguely like frying bacon, if bacon had given up on life three weeks ago.

  The cook, a burly woman with arms like hams and a permanent scowl, slammed down three wooden bowls of a lumpy, gray porridge and a platter of dark, dense bread. Bartholomew sniffed at the offering, wrinkled his nose in a way that was profoundly insulting, and began meticulously grooming a single, unoffending whisker.

  Nolan poked at the porridge with his spoon.

  “Is this supposed to move?”

  “Just think of it as protein,” I advised, taking a tentative bite. It tasted like despair. I washed it down with a swig of lukewarm, slightly metallic water from my canteen. “So,” I said, leaning forward and lowering my voice. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. You see it too, right? The blue boxes.”Nolan froze, his spoon halfway to his mouth. He glanced around the room, his eyes wide with a familiar, hunted look.

  “The… the interface?” he whispered, leaning in so close I could smell the stale sleep on his breath. “The character sheet? The notifications?”I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

  “Thank god. I thought I was having a psychotic break. For weeks, I’ve had this little pinging sound in my head every time I ‘discover a new location’ or ‘complete a quest objective.’”

  “Mine’s more of a gentle chime,” he said, looking absurdly relieved. “Like a classic Windows notification. When I first got here, I spent a day trying to find the mute button in the settings menu.”

  “Is there one?” I asked, hopeful. “A settings menu, that is.”

  “No.”

  “Damn.” I took another reluctant bite of porridge. “So, what are you? What’s your class?”

  This was the first time I’d seen Nolan look genuinely excited. He sat up straighter, his anxiety momentarily forgotten and replaced by the pure, uncut enthusiasm of a geek in his element. He closed his eyes for a second, a flicker of concentration on his face.

  “Okay. So. I’m Nolan Christensson. Level eight… Wizard.”

  “A wizard?” I raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? I haven’t seen you do a single sparky-finger thing.”

  “That’s the complicated part,” he said, his brow furrowing. “My Intelligence is twenty. Wisdom is eighteen. Those are my primary stats. Ludicrously high, I think. My character sheet says my potential for arcane understanding is ‘profound.’”

  “Okay, profound is good. So, what’s the catch?”He sighed, the enthusiasm deflating like a leaky pool float.

  “Strength is six. Dexterity, seven. Constitution, eight. And… uh… Mana: zero out of zero.” He looked at me, his expression a perfect blend of pride and humiliation. “I have no mana pool. Not a drop. I can’t cast anything. Not even a simple Cantrip.”

  I stared at him.

  “You’re a wizard who can’t do magic.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re basically IT support for the magical world. You can understand the theory, troubleshoot the system, but you can’t actually run the programs.”

  “That is… a depressingly accurate analogy,” he mumbled, slumping back over his porridge.

  “It is a gross oversimplification of the sublime architecture of Creation,” Bartholomew interjected, having finished his grooming. He hopped silently onto the table, his yellow eyes glowing with contempt. “You mortals, with your crude interfaces and paltry statistics, attempting to quantify the unquantifiable. You see a ‘Character Sheet’; I perceive the intricate tapestry of a soul’s potential woven into the fabric of reality. You speak of ‘Mana’; I feel the ebb and flow of the ley lines, the very lifeblood of Eldoria pulsing beneath this wretched soil.”

  “So you see it too, Bart?” I asked.

  “I do not ‘see’ it, you simpleton. I am it. I am a Warden. My existence is intrinsically linked to the operating system you are only just beginning to perceive. To ask if I ‘see’ it is like asking a fish if it ‘sees’ water. It is the medium in which I exist.” He sniffed. “A medium, I might add, that is becoming increasingly corrupted by a particularly nasty virus with delusions of godhood.”

  Nolan and I exchanged a look.

  “The Shadow Lord,” Nolan breathed.

  “Precisely.”I leaned back, my spoon clattering into the bowl.

  “Okay. A wizard who’s all theory and no practice, a cat who’s a sentient antivirus program, and me.” I closed my eyes, concentrating, and called up my own mental screen. The blue box shimmered into existence behind my eyelids.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  [Player Name: Paige Hawking] [Unique Class: Sarcastic Sorceress] [Level: 9] [+2 Item: Nighshade]

  [STR: 11]

  [DEX: 14]

  [CON: 13]

  [INT: 23] [With Wit’s Sharpness]

  [WIS: 20]

  [CHA: 18]

  “Level eleven, Sarcastic Sorceress,” I said, opening my eyes. “Apparently, my biting wit translated into a class. My highest stat is Intelligence. My best skill is literally Sarcasm.”Nolan managed a weak smile.

  “So you’re the party’s ‘Face.’”

  “I’m the party’s professional smartass,” I corrected. “Looks like my only real weapon is my mouth.” I looked from Nolan’s worried face to Bartholomew’s imperious one. A knight, a non-magical wizard, a talking cat, and a sarcastic comms major. It wasn’t a party. It was the setup for a very strange joke.

  But as I looked at the stats again, at Nolan’s sky-high Intelligence, a thought sparked. He wasn’t IT support. He wasn’t a failed wizard. He was a hacker. And we were living inside the system he was born to crack.

  “Okay,” I said, a new energy coursing through me. The porridge suddenly didn’t seem so bad. “Okay, I can work with this.” The cat was the guide, Kaelen was the muscle, Nolan was the brains, and I… I was the one who would talk us past the guards while Nolan disabled the security system.

  “Right then, let’s shuffle,” Bartholomew announced, nudging the deck of cards towards me with a paw that possessed an alarming amount of dexterity for a feline. “A swift game before our next… engagement.”

  “Engagement?” I echoed, raising an eyebrow. “You mean like a date? Because I’ve been single for so long, I’m pretty sure my ‘relationship status’ in this world is ‘object of pity.’”Bartholomew sighed, a sound that was surprisingly resonant for his size.

  “I meant an encounter, my dear Paige. With the less-than-desirable elements of this world. One must always be prepared. Besides, I can assure you that you were an object of pity in your own world as well.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I muttered, raking the cards. “I’m prepared for a nap. And maybe some actual human interaction that doesn’t involve a talking cat judging my life choices.”

  Nolan, meanwhile, had been unusually quiet, his eyes glued to the worn wooden table. He kept tracing invisible patterns with his fingertip, a nervous habit that was somehow more endearing than irritating.

  “Paige,” he began, his voice low, “about this ‘system’ you mentioned… you think this whole world, Eldoria, it’s… coded?”I shrugged, dealing out the cards.

  “I don’t know about coded, but it’s definitely structured. Rules, levels, stats, skills… it’s not unlike the games people play back home. And your skills? ‘Hacker’ makes a lot more sense than ‘failed wizard.’”He flushed, a deep crimson that spread across his face.

  “I… I just optimize systems. Find vulnerabilities. Break them down. It’s not magic, it’s… logic.”

  “Which, in this context, is basically magic,” I said, a grin spreading across my face. “So, Mr. Logic, what’s your assessment of our current situation? We’re fugitives from Aethelgard, apparently, and the Shadow Lord’s creeping ever closer. Not exactly a vacation package.”

  “We need information,” Nolan said, his gaze finally meeting mine. “And we need a place to lay low. The capital is too dangerous now.”Bartholomew flicked an ear.

  “Indeed. The whispers in the dark grow louder. Even the trees seem to hold their breath, waiting for the inevitable.”

  “Great,” I huffed, dropping my cards. “So, ‘inevitable’ is on the agenda? Fantastic. Anything else? A parade? A ticker-tape welcome for the new fugitives?”

  Just as the sarcasm was about to pour out of me in a full tidal wave, a thunderous pounding echoed from the inn’s front door. It wasn’t just a knock; it was a declaration of intent. Guards. Armed guards.

  “Surrender, Paige Hawking!” a gruff voice bellowed from outside, the sound amplified by the thick wooden planks. “We know you’re in there! Come out with your hands up!”

  I exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Nolan. Bartholomew flattened himself against the floor, the picture of feline indignation.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I muttered, scrambling to my feet. “Can’t a girl get a decent meal and a few rounds of cards without the entire kingdom kicking down her door?”

  I crept towards the window, peeking through a crack in the shutters. The street outside the humble inn was no longer quiet. It was alive with the glint of steel and the nervous whinnying of horses. A troop of at least a dozen heavily armed guards, their armor bearing the crest of Aethelgard, were lined up across the muddy track. Their captain, a burly man with a scar bisecting his left eyebrow, stood at the forefront, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

  “Come out with your hands up!” he roared again, his voice laced with impatience.

  “Well, this just got interesting,” I whispered, turning back to Nolan and Bartholomew. “Looks like my reputation precedes me. Or maybe they just don’t like people who chew with their mouths full. Which, by the way, I didn’t.”

  “You don’t have a reputation, Miss Hawking.” Bart chided. I ignored him.Nolan’s face was pale, his eyes darting between me and the door.

  “They know you’re Paige Hawking. But… how? We’ve been so careful.”

  “Careful is relative, darling,” Bartholomew drawled, his tail giving an agitated twitch. “Perhaps your… striking appearance drew undue attention.”

  “Or,” I countered, my mind already racing, “maybe they have spies. Or a really good informant. Or maybe this whole ‘being sucked into a fantasy world’ thing isn’t as discreet as I’d hoped.” I looked at the guards again, their faces grim and determined. There was no reasoning with them. They were here for a job.

  “So, what’s the plan, oh great Sarcastic Sorceress?” Nolan asked, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice. “Are you going to insult them into submission? Turn them into frogs?”

  “Tempting,” I admitted, a wicked glint in my eye. “But I suspect my witty repartee might be slightly less effective against a pointy metal object. We need to be smart about this. Nolan, you said you find vulnerabilities, right?”He nodded, his brow furrowed in concentration. “In code, yes. This situation is a bit different.”

  “Think of it as systems analysis, but with more mud and less Wi-Fi,” I said, pacing the small room. “They’re expecting me to bolt, or to surrender meekly, or maybe even to fight. They aren’t expecting us to vanish. And they certainly aren’t expecting me to use my words to buy us time while you do… whatever it is you do when you’re ‘optimizing systems.’”

  Bartholomew let out a low purr, a surprising sound of agreement.

  “An excellent diversion, Paige. Diplomacy through distraction.”

  “It’s not diplomacy, it’s pure, unadulterated stalling,” I corrected, a plan beginning to form in my mind like a poorly rendered NPC. “Okay, Nolan, I need you to get ready. When I give you the signal, I need you to move. Fast. Don’t worry about the guards outside; I’ll handle them. Bartholomew, you’re with me. Keep your mouth shut unless absolutely necessary. We’re going to create a spectacle.”

  I took a deep breath, the scent of stale ale and fear filling my lungs. “Alright, let’s go play dress-up with the state.” I walked towards the innkeeper, a meek man who was currently hiding behind the counter, his eyes wide with panic. “Excuse me,” I said, my voice dripping with forced politeness. “Could you tell those gentlemen outside that I’ll be right out? I just need to… prepare myself.”

  The innkeeper stammered an affirmative, and I turned back to Nolan and Bartholomew, a tight smile on my face. “Showtime.”