“Is that...am I looking at what I think I am?” KC asked, leaning closer to the monitor. It clicked then that he hadn’t switched over the audio, so he typed out the words frantically as he studied the screenshot.

“Yeah, it’s there for sure,” Bri said.

KC lifted the jewel case for the game with shaking hands, holding it up so he could look between it and the semi-pixelated version on the screen.

PreciousPogo: Okay so? One of the set people left it in the wagon by accident.

“No,” KC breathed, shaking his head and setting it down. It wasn’t a set. He was sure of it. But the fact that there was a copy of the game in the game...what did that mean? Did one of the programmers code it in there as an Easter Egg? That would be the most logical explanation, except that none of this was fucking logical.

“If we’re playing along,” Bri continued, “and dude I am 100% all in on playing along...then we have to think over how a copy of the game, or the game case at least, got into Rhizi’s wagon. It could mean that somebody else has been in the game before and brought it in with them. Or...maybe one of the demons in-world is responsible for sucking people into it. Maybe there’s a sentient character that created the disc as like a portal or something.”

KC leaned back in Rosalyn’s chair, scratching the back of his head in frustration and linking his fingers there to stretch for a moment. Regardless of the fact that these guys were just ‘playing along’ and didn’t believe any of it--hell, he was sitting here staring at it and it was hard to believe it, Bri brought up some interesting theories.

Nothing was happening in the wagon at the moment, so he flipped over to the private chat’s audio. “I was also thinking that maybe the game creator coded it in like an Easter Egg, but it seems like a weird spot to put it,” he said, staring at the image. The case was tucked between two top-shelf jars in the wagon. Someone must have been going through the whole stream frame by frame, because it was just in Rosalyn’s periphery and she clearly hadn’t noticed it. If there had been a better shot of her looking directly at it, they would have screenshotted that.

“Totally a weird spot, and so early in the questline, too,” Bri replied. “Usually Easter Eggs are for people that are already invested. Because nobody has heard of this game or company, it wouldn’t make sense to put something like that right at the beginning of the game. So I’m thinking it’s either there from a previous traveler...I mean, she spawned in with her slippers and shit so...”

“I love that she wears PJ pants and fuzzy slippers underneath her glamorous upper half,” somebody else quipped, one of Bri’s friends, but KC ignored it.

“So you’re thinking if someone was holding the case when they got sucked in, then they would have spawned holding it?” he mused, nodding. “Makes sense.” He scrubbed his hands down his cheeks. “I mean, fuck, none of this really makes sense. But it we’re trying to find some kind of order here, then that would fit. If it’s the other thing you said, though, then that would make for a totally different set of questions. If it’s a previous person, then the questions are where are they, did they get out, shit like that. If it’s that someone in-game is the person behind all of this...then that’s a whole other level of batshit. How did they orchestrate any of this? Opening a portal to our world? Having it manifest as a video game? And why did it just suck in Rosalyn and not me when I sat down in her spot? Could this person send her back?” He fingered his bottom lip in thought as he stared through the image, not really seeing it anymore.

“That would be the hopeful option,” Bri cut in. “Because that way we could figure out who it is and she could go to them and make them send her back, right? Maybe that’s where this whole quest leads.”

KC took in a sharp breath through his nose. “How do we figure out who that is?” He shook his head, that deep feeling of helplessness gnawing at his guts. “We don’t have anything about this game. If the disc itself is something fabricated then there won’t be any documentation about here at all. It’s not like we can just look up a walkthrough and figure out who the bosses are. Who the magical wizard is that pulled her through.”

“What about that first dude?” the person who’d interrupted about the slippers and PJ’s asked. “That guy was all magical and shit. And he literally has a spell that’s gonna pull her back to where he is whenever he wants.”

KC contemplated that for a moment, goosebumps rising on his arms. Could it have been that simple? That it was that first asshole all along?

“I don’t know, I don’t think so,” Bri argued. “He didn’t seem to know what was going on with the respawn, and didn’t know what Rosie was. It didn’t seem like he’d ever seen a human before. And even if that was all an act and it was him, he’s got an agenda for her. I don’t think he’s going to be up for making any deals until she finds the heir or whoever she’s supposed to find.”

PreciousPogo: There’s gotta be more demon wizards in this world other than that first guy.

Relief washed over KC that Pogo seemed to be playing along for the moment. Even if they thought it was a game, the brainstorming was still helpful. It would be nice if someone other than him could share the discomfort and panic of his best friend being in extreme danger, but that was selfish of him and he had to take what he could get.

“Okay, so if we’re going on this theory, then what’s the next step?” he asked, leaning his arms on the desk. “How do we help her?”

“Next time she’s got her eyes closed and is communicating with us maybe we suggest it?” Bri said. “I don’t know if it’ll really help her much to think about it, but maybe it’ll give her hope, give her more attention to detail? If she can find more clues or at least look around really well whenever she’s in a new place so that we can comb the footage for clues?”

KC nodded. “Let’s just hope that—” He didn’t finish his sentence, because the middle screen lit up. He realized the door to the wagon was opening, and quickly flipped over to the stream audio.

“Out you come, little thing,” Rhizaid called, and KC’s eyes nearly exploded from his head at the sight of bars. beyond the wagon door.

“She’s putting her in a fucking cage?” he cried.

DaisyDuchess69: She’s bleeding she fell on broken glass

snapdragon1985: the blood looks so real dude

KC’s throat tightened, a loud ringing in his ears drowning out Rosalyn arguing with her captor as the reality of this situation really came down on his shoulders. His blood chilled in his veins, gut sinking down to the floor. His heartbeat felt like a slow loud hammer, pulse thumping in his eardrums along with the ringing, an anxiety reaction he hadn’t had since he was a kid.

He struggled to take in a breath, struggled to hear, watching helplessly as Rosalyn raised her palms, and he blinked back sudden tears at the sight of her bloodied hands.

If Bri was right, if someone in the demon world had created some kind of portal to pull her through, he had to figure out how to get in there and get to her. Looking at screenshots and communicating via messenger suddenly seemed so trite, so fucking useless. Everything he did from the comfort of her fucking computer chair was bullshit compared to the amount of death and pain and blood she was shedding in there.

He wasn’t so naive to think that him being there could make a difference in the sense that he could fight the demons better or protect her somehow--but at the very least she just wouldn’t be alone. He’d told her she wasn’t alone...because there were fifty thousand people watching, engaging. But physically...she’d been killed by monsters alone. Tortured alone. Now she was being forced into a cage, where she’d be alone. And bleeding.

“That’s it,” Rhizi was saying as his hearing started to rectify itself, his heart settling for a damn minute so he could catch his breath. “I’ll be back shortly to clean you up with some dry stuff.”

Rosalyn was staring up at the top of the cage, presumably having fallen down. He wanted her to close her eyes so he could tell her he was going to try to get to her. He didn’t think she’d like that, though. And maybe, deep down, that’s why he believed so hard in this being real. Because if it were an act, she would have jumped at the chance to have him in there with her, experiencing things, maybe have them dramatically separated and trying to find each other, something.

He typed out a message on his phone in the streaming software donation box, waiting to hit send until her eyes fluttered closed.

KCxbone: We think the game is a real universe and a magician or something inside pulled you in on purpose.

“What?” Rosalyn asked, and though her voice sounded exhausted, he pushed on.

KCxbone: I’m going to figure out how to get in. So we can get out together.

DaisyDuchess69: SO ROMANTIC

“Shut the fuck up, Daisy,” KC muttered, at the same time that Rosalyn protested.

“No, fuck no!” she blurted, sounding forceful even though still a bit slurred. “I don’t know why or how or...just don’t, KC, I mean it. This place is fucked, seriously.”

KCxbone: We’re working on it. In the meantime make sure to look around everywhere you go really well, viewers are recording and looking really close for clues

“Good idea,” Rosalyn murmured, and he could tell she was drifting off.

KCxbone: Just be careful and try to find out everything you can about this guy you’re supposed to find, okay?

“Yep,” she whispered.

She’d denied him. She’d told him not to come after her. If he hadn’t been solid before, then this was proof. She didn’t want him in there because she was actually suffering. As her breathing evened out, he took a swig of her abandoned beer and squared his shoulders before he had another mini panic attack, flipping back over to the private chat.

“Okay, what have we got?”