I barely knew these three—I couldn’t believe one of them was LostAxis. But if GamesLost was at the game-dev meeting, it had to be one of them.
“Maybe bring Daniel to Jayden’s party?” Aimee said. “Those three will be there. I am sure you and Daniel can focus on them and draw them out.”
“I can’t bring Daniel to Jayden’s. HisDragon Arenacharacter is level fifteen, not fifty.”
“Buy him a level-fifty character,” Cass said.
“Isn’t buying leveled characters against the game rules?” Aimee asked.
“Yes,” Cass said, “but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I know a place on the dark web where you can get one.”
I shook my head. “Daniel’s not experienced enough to play a level fifty. I’ve never even seen him play online before.”
“So play with him. Figure out how skilled he is. If you think he could manage a level-fifty Dark Mage, let me know and I’ll venture to the dark side of the internet and get one.”
I cringed. This all sounded so shady. But maybe this was the only way to find out exactly who was out to get me. Because I didn’t want to lose the game-dev club over this.
“Okay. I’ll play with him tomorrow and see.”
That settled one thing: I wasn’t going to end this fake relationship with Daniel—at least not until after the party.
It took about six minutes of playingDragon Arenawith Daniel on Tuesday night to realize that no, there was no way in hell he could handle a level-fifty character. Since I’d met him, I’d been impressed with him so many times. His baking skills, his hockey skills—hell, even his skill with calculus was better than he seemed to think it was. But Daniel Ramos was a terrible, horrendous, complete newbDragon Arenaplayer. Questing with him was ... challenging. He never paid attention to what I was doing when we were fighting together. Hell, he barely paid attention to whathewas doing. Or to his own health bar. I spent way too many of my magic points making sure a low-level pixie didn’t smoke his ass.
“Oh my god,” I said as I used yet another crow feather to resurrect his dead body while blocking a centaur at the same time. We had a phone call on speaker so we wouldn’t have to worry about typing on the chat while playing. “Don’t start a destructive spell while I’mhealing you! In hockey you watch what the other players are doing, don’t you?”
I heard his chuckle. “There are no fire-burning dragons in front of me on the rink. Which is good, because then the rink would be a puddle.”
The crow’s feather had resurrected Daniel’s mage by now, so I told him to head farther in but stay on the edge of the horde while hitting them with destructive spells. But he got too close, and soon the centaur leader was pummeling him again. I tried to keep up with my healing spells, but he kept locking on to other centaurs, which made them join the leader.
“Don’t do anything while I’m healing you, then ready up a lightning on the leader,” I yelled. “We can take care of the others later!”
He did the lightning spell right away. Before I’d healed him. Which meant my heal bounced off his spell and healed the centaur instead. Who then killed Daniel. Again. And I didn’t have any more crow’s feathers.
“Damn. This is way harder with two people,” he said.
I moved my character toward his corpse. “Imagine it with a party of at least twenty at Jayden’s on Friday.” I had already explained to him what had happened the day before at school and on Earl’s Whispers.
“I’ll practice more. Tomorrow’s Wednesday, so I have hockey, but I can do this some more after.”
I exhaled. “Daniel, there’s no point. I hate to break it to you, but you suck atDragon Arena. Maybe with tons of practice you might get better, but there’s no way you’ll be able to play on Friday.” I was doomed. “You can’t come to the party.”
He was silent awhile. With Daniel dead, and me not having the ability to revive him, I had no choice but to transport his body out of the cavern to the healer’s hut, where he could be revived. We would not be completing this quest.
“Why don’t you skip the party, too?” he asked.
“This is the best way to figure out who this GamesLost person is. Plus, I promised Jayden I’d go so I could be the game-dev captain. If I don’t show, he’ll be so pissed that he’ll mount an insurrection.”
“Your friend Jayden is an ass,” Daniel said.
“He’s not my friend. And anyway, every friend group has an ass, doesn’t it?” I asked.
Daniel chuckled low, and it sent a shiver down my spine. Apparently being terrible atDragon Arenawasn’t enough to extinguish my crush.
I sighed. “Don’t worry about it,” I said as our characters made their way back to the village. “Our deal was two dates plus the dance. No one said anything about mastering a video game, or even helping me draw out a catfisher. I’ll figure out some other way to identify them.”
It was a while before Daniel responded. We’d reached the village and had to head to our own huts to log off. Finally, after I’d shut down the game, Daniel spoke, in a quiet voice.
“I don’t mind. I like to do things for you,” he said softly. “I’ve grown a little bit attached to you. You make me happy.”
