#the knife just needed sharpening and Cleo was bored

[rayveewrites]

Darren walked into his office and froze.

A woman- the Green Lady- was sitting in a chair that definitely hadn’t been there before, both legs draped over one of the armrests, calmly sharpening a knife.

He went to back out and close the door, but before he could she looked up, her emerald eyes boring into his soul.

“I am not here to harm you,” she said stiffly. “I want to tell you a story.” The knife vanished from her hands, as if it was never there. She sat up.

“A… a story?”

“Yes.” Darren felt somewhat like he was selling his soul.

“Once upon a time, there was a race of people called the !¡ꖎᔑ||ᒷ∷ᓭ- in English, the closest translation would be something along the lines of Players, or maybe Dreamers. However, for an unknown reason, approximately two thousand years ago we had what was later dubbed the ⎓╎リᔑꖎ ⚍!¡↸ᔑℸ ̣ ᒷ- the Final Update.”

“Update?” Darren repeated incredulously.

“Look, video game terminology just happens to be the closest fit. It is not perfect, but it is better than nothing, okay?!”

“Okay, okay!” Darren backed away, wondering if he could outrun her. 

Probably not.

“To cut a long story short, the Final Update removed magic from the world. Sort of. Players were still Players, but their children were not. As time went on, Players died out, and the only race who had biology which ran without magic was Humans. As a result, nonPlayer Humans wound up becoming the only intelligent species left in the world. Well, except for those of us who were Undying, but we were never a particularly large group to begin with and all the rest have been killed off by now.”

“Un...dying?”

“Ghosts, zombie and skeleton ⍑||ʖ∷╎↸ᓭ, things like that.”

“Right,” Darren muttered. His legs felt weak. “Silly me.”

“Anyway, let’s go forward 2000 years, to the here and now. I was part of a group of Players, and we called ourselves ⍑ᒷ∷ᒲ╎ℸ ̣ ᓭ- in your language, hermits. Now, the other hermits experienced their ⎓╎リᔑꖎ ↸ᒷᔑℸ ̣ ⍑ᓭ- Final Deaths-”

“Final…”

“Yeah, we died more than once, do not try to think about it too hard. With the hermits, though… Something odd happened on Final Death. Basically, it… was not. I am not quite sure what happened, but I suspect the Universe chose to keep their code in storage or something, and they have once again started to Respawn.”

“Two of the hermits, ∴ᒷꖎᓭꖌリ╎⊣⍑ℸ ̣ and ʖ↸𝙹⚍ʖꖎᒷ𝙹100, have been in the news lately, although your kind seems to be under the impression that Wels is actually the mythological figure of King Arthur, for some reason.”

“Right. So… the guy isn’t King Arthur, he’s just… a guy who died 2000 years ago and has come back from the dead.”

“Yes.”

“You do realize how batshit this all sounds, right?”

“This is my normal.”

Darren paused and looked at Cleo. Really looked at her. Her fingers were tipped with dark claws, her teeth were razor-sharp, her skin pale green and crisscrossed by stitches. She smelled strongly of flowers- very strongly, almost as if she was trying to mask some other smell. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes sunken into their sockets and glowing eerily.

She was not human. Not even close.

“So, your… friends are other hermits?”

“Yes. Joe, Zed, and Pearl are the only ones I’ve been able to get back here so far.”

“Are those their names?”

“Yes, although Pearl is translated.”

“R-right.” Darren hesitated. “Is there a… reason you’re telling me this?”

“You are an archeologist, yes? And we are the people you have been studying. I expect your… guild?”

“Organization?”

“Sure, that. I do wish you’d stop changing words around, it is very irritating. Your guild, organisation, whichever, would probably like to hear from the last remnant of our race, from people who were there at the height and the decline.”

“I’m guessing this isn’t a free offer.”

“We want help getting the other hermits back, when they return, if they Respawn on a different continent. Starting with Wels and Bdubs.”

“You can’t just… get on a plane?”

“We do not legally exist. Therefore, no passports. And smuggling those two would... not end well.”

“Oh.”

“I will give you some time to consider. If you decide to agree, walk into the forest and scream until one of us shows up.” Cleo stood up, smashed the chair to pieces, picked up a tiny chair, vanished it into the aether, and jumped out the window.

Darren barely managed to make it to his chair before his legs collapsed.

What had he gotten himself into?

#Darren doesn't know what just happened #but he's pretty sure he should do something about it #he just doesn't know what #the knife just needed sharpening and Cleo was bored #cleo has a knife collection #which darren does not find comforting in the slightest #someone help this poor man #last player au #Rayvee actually Writes #I'm on mobile so formatting might be a little finicky #but I'm in a biweekly thing where i spend an hour and a half feeling patronized and i need to do *something* to stop myself from going crazy