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"Oh, yeah. He sells them on eBay. Like how I bought Stryker."
Dance recalled the strongbox they'd found under the boy's bed. So this was how he'd made the cash.
Jason tapped the screen. "Oh, and there?" He was indicating a glass case in which rested a crystal ball on the end of a gold stick. "That's the scepter of healing. It took him, like, fifty quests to earn it. Nobody ever got one before, in the whole history of DQ." Jason winced. "He almost lost it once. . . ." An awestruck expression washed over his face. "That was one messed-up night."
The boy sounded as if the event were a tragedy in real life.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Medicus and me and some of us in the family were on this quest in the Southern Mountains, which're like three miles high and really dangerous places. We were looking for this magical tree. The Tree of Seeing, it's called. And, this was sweet, we found the home of Ianna, the Elvish queen, who everybody's heard of but never seen. She's way famous."
"She's an NPC, right?" Boling asked.
"Yeah."
He reminded Dance, "A nonplayer character. One that's created by the game itself."
Jason seemed offended at
the characterization. "But the algorithm is awesome! She's beyond any bot you've ever seen."
The professor nodded an apologetic concession.
"So we're there and just hanging and talking and she's telling us about the Tree of Seeing and how we can find it, and all of a sudden we're attacked by this raiding party from the Northern Forces. And everybody's fighting, and this asshole shoots the queen with a special arrow. She's going to die. Trav tries to save her but his healing isn't working. So he decides to Shift. We're like, no, man, don't do it! But he did anyway."
The boy was speaking with such reverence that Dance found herself leaning forward, her leg bobbing with tension. Boling too was staring at him.
"What's that, Jason? Go on."
"Okay, what it is, sometimes, if somebody's dying, you can submit your life to the Entities in the High Realm. It's called Shifting. And the Entities start taking your life force and giving it to the person who's dying. Maybe the person will come back before your life force is gone. But it might take all your life force and you'll die, and they'll die too. Only when you die because you've Shifted, you lose everything. I mean everything you've done and earned, all your points, all your Resources, all your Reputation, for as long as you've been playing the game. They all, like, just go away. If Travis'd died, he would've lost the scepter, his house, his gold, his flying horses. . . . He would have to start over like a newbie."
"He did that?"
Jason nodded. "It was, like, way close. He was almost out of life force, but the queen revived. She kissed him. That was, like, epic! And then the elves and us got together and kicked some Northern Force ass. Man, that night rocked. It was epic win. Everybody who plays the game still talks about it."
Dance was nodding. "Okay, Jason, thanks. You can log off."
"Like, you don't want to play anymore? You were kind of getting a feel for how to move."
"Maybe later."
The boy tapped the keys and the game closed.
Dance glanced at her watch. "Jon, could you take Jason back home? There's somebody I need to talk to."
A to B to X . . .
Chapter 32
"I'D LIKE TO see Caitlin, please."
"You're . . . ?" asked Virginia Gardner, the mother of the girl who'd survived the June 9 car crash.
Dance identified herself. "I spoke to your daughter the other day at summer school."
"Oh, you're the policewoman. You arranged for the guard for Cait at the hospital the other day, and out in front of our house."
"That's right."
