Chapter One
The first time Dotty had been in Insea, her avatar had been a young dwarven woman, a caravan guard who knew little about the world around her. She had soaked up the legends of the city—and had done her damnedest to eat her way through every food stand she could find.
She hadn’t come close.
This time, she was determined to rectify that. When she swept out of the alley she’d materialized in, she hurried directly to the nearest food stall, which wafted smells of something spiced and fried.
As she walked, she noticed people turn to look at her, and only then did she notice her outfit. It could be defined as “a red dress,” but the phrase didn’t do the garment justice. It could be more accurately termed a construction rather than a garment, although she thought contraption might also work. She raised one glittering hand and layers of sheer silk fell away from her arm while others—tethered to her jeweled bracelets and rings—billowed prettily.
She spent so much time admiring the elegant fall of her sleeves that it took a gust of wind for her to notice the front of her dress.
There wasn’t much of one, unfortunately.
“Prima,” she said before she could stop herself. Several people looked at her with interest and she whisked herself into an alley.
“What?” the AI asked. “I think you look nice. I looked up all kinds of costumes from fantasy games so I could make you a good one. I even toned it down for you.”
“This…is what you would call toned down?” She stared at the diamonds, the silk, the gold thread, and the exposed skin. If it weren’t so perfectly warm in Insea, she would have noticed all of this much sooner.
“I could show you some reference art. Would you prefer something more practical?”
Dotty was about to snap that yes, of course, she wanted something more practical. However, several ideas came to her in close succession.
“Is it possible for the dress to fall or…come off or anything?”
“You can take it off if that’s what you mean.”
“I mean, will it flutter in the breeze and show everyone in Insea…well, everything?”
“Oh. No. All the pieces that need to stay on will do so. You see how the sleeves are off your shoulders but they don’t slide down? I was very proud of that.”
“I was worried about the pieces closer to the center,” she muttered, “but yes, I do see that. Er, could I have a mirror?”
“Done,” Prima said promptly. A mirror appeared, suspended in midair in the narrow area.
She turned and examined her dress as she did so. Red silk clung to her torso and draped from her hips in perfect folds that billowed and swirled as she moved. Her arms, if held at her sides, were shielded by capelike sleeves of sheer silk attached to her upper arms with tiny diamonds. This being a video game, there did not need to be any unpleasant adhesive or biting hems.
The AI had remembered all her favorites for combat as well. Two sheaths of metal across her forearms looked purely ornamental like faux armor, but when she looked closer, she saw that the decorative flourishes hid two long, wickedly sharp daggers with ornate hilts at her elbows. She drew them both at once and they came out whisper-quiet.
Good. She had discovered a talent for magic, not to mention a love of it, but it was always wise for a lady to be armed. As far as she was concerned, her grandmother—who had been fond of saying that all a lady needed for armor was good manners—could kick rocks.
Gems glittered at her fingers, neck, and ears, and her golden-brown hair was held back in a crown of braids. The hairstyle was the same as she had worn on her wedding day, but she hadn’t had rubies and golden pearls woven into it on that occasion.
The woman in the mirror blushed.
“You should say it,” Prima said.
“Say what?”
“That you look good.”
Unexpectedly, tears trembled on her lashes. Harry had told her that she looked beautiful every morning and had said the same things as Prima. He wanted her to say it, too. Dotty, as she had done every morning while Harry was alive, shook her head wordlessly but she was smiling.
“You are smiling and also sad?”
“Yes, Prima.” Dotty made another turn in front of the mirror—it was fun to have a dress that swished, no matter how scandalous it might be—and stepped out of the alley.
The smell of food was driving her crazy.
What she finally walked away with was a paper cone filled with a jumble of things that seemed to include fried potatoes, corn, onions, and peppers, although that seemed to be only the start of the ingredients. She held it carefully away from her dress.
“Yes,” the AI said before she could ask, “you can spill on it and I’ll make sure it doesn’t get dirty.”
“You’re wonderful,” she replied with her mouth already full. “Oh. Hot. Oof.”
“Too spicy?”
“No, not after the orc village.” In her second incarnation within the world of PIVOT, she had spent time as an orc. The range of orcish foods included far too much dried fish, as well as a stew that was spicy enough to make her pray for death. She took another bite of the potato mixture. “This is merely hot—temperature-wise. Oooh. I like this.”
She ate as she strolled. The potato was soft on the inside, gloriously fried on the outside, and deliciously mingled with other pieces of vegetable. She only wished she had pan bread to eat with it. Before long, it was finished and she looked around for a trash bin.
Did fantasy cities have trash bins?
Slowly, she pivoted and looked at the street corners. She located nothing close by, but she had passed a little park a few streets back. Perhaps she should go there and check. She stood out of the way of a carriage, rolled her eyes at the rude yells from the driver and the extravagantly-dressed noble inside, and set off.
While she was at it, she should look for another snack. Dotty licked her fingers as she walked. The shoes Prima had given her were made of the same red silk and managed to not pinch her feet at all. In the real world, her feet always pinched in shoes, but she was more than happy to not have the game be accurate in this regard. There were certain aspects of her youth she wasn’t keen to relive.
One street over from the park, she saw an alley that cut through into a shaded arbor. She ducked into the narrow space, thanking whoever had come up with the idea of a city made of one block of stone. It meant alleys without puddles or crumbling paving stones.
Two men stepped out of an alcove and she stopped in her tracks, her skirts swirling around her. This wasn’t the Insea she’d experienced before. Now that she thought about it, though, she remembered the way the other citizens had looked at her—unfriendly and even annoyed. There were so many bodyguards now and people on street corners in ragged clothes. She had seen bands of armed soldiers with no livery—mercenaries for hire, she realized, and none of them seemed to be short of coin.
What had happened there?
“Look, Eto,” one of them said to the other. “It’s a noblewoman out for a midday stroll.” His head was shaved and his beard was very neat—which made the scar that ran through it all the more noteworthy. Dotty could see the muscles beneath his clothes.
“What a kind thing,” the other one said. He was taller, with eyes that were so heavy-lidded, they seemed to disappear. Like the other man, he kept his beard neat. He strolled toward her. “It’s nice for the nobles to show us how they live, don’t you think, Jel?”