Rohan’s jaw tightened, but he picked up the bowl and threw it.

  “Rohan! Wait!”

  “For what, Mik Tsaam? Are we just going to sit here until we die of boredom?”

  “Maybe there’s another way – the scenario doesn’t say specifically that we have to get the Golden Water, it just says to seek our fortunes. Do you even know how this fairytale goes?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care.” The bowl was almost out of sight. “Go find your fortune somewhere else, if you want.”

  He hurried away, a stranger.

  I sat down.

  The sounds of his departure soon faded.

  “Is it wrong that I want everyone to live?” I asked the old dervish. Hardly the kind of question you usually turn on a stranger, but I was desperate.

  “No, child. But you cannot save everyone. And not everyone wishes to be saved.” His dark eyes were kind as they peered at me over the overgrowth of his beard. “Sometimes you have to let go.”

  “But what if I’m right?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “And if they die?”

  “That…” He sighed deeply, “is their choice.”

  I didn’t want to think about it. I raised the scissors again. “Let me trim your beard too.”

  “Thank you.”

  When I was done, we sat and shared the dried fruit I had brought. Red had been right, we hadn’t needed to eat on our journey. Sleep too, seemed less like a necessity and more like something to do, just for the routine and ritual of it, if only to keep us sane. We could walk for much longer than we could in real life too, covering distances that no legal clerk, gamer, and marketing desk slave could ever hope to cover.

  There was a clattering sound.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, and counted my breaths.

  I felt the cool touch of wood against my arm. The old dervish was holding the bowl out to me.

  “Child, I do not know if this will help, but you have been very kind to me, and I can see you have a tender heart. You must find some way of ignoring the calls on the mountainside. Block your ears somehow, or the voices will break you.”

  I swallowed, and took the bowl.

  “It is not a sin, to be gentle in a hard world. In fact, it’s almost a miracle. Intelligent empathy in a time of hardship and pain is a rare, rare thing, and I hope you can hold onto it. It is too easy to turn hard and callous. But it will hurt. Go well, child.”

  My face felt hot with the effort of not crying. Swaying, I stood, and tossed the bowl with a feeble jerk of my wrist. The bowl, as always, twisted and landed, rolling away, and I followed it slowly, not looking back.

  The bowl rolled on and on, taking very unnatural twists and turns along paths, until I found myself at the bottom of a mountain.

  Or perhaps a very tall hill. There were certainly taller mountains around Hong Kong, but I was still grateful that I was fitter here than I was in real life. Climbing would have been a nightmare.

  The whole mountainside was covered in black rocks. My eyes lingered over them, wondering if any of the ones I saw was Rohan or Red, how far up the mountain they had gone before they had been transformed.

  Slowly, I raised my hands to my ears, and pinched the holes shut. All I could hear was the steady rush of my own blood.

  I began to climb.

  Even with extra strength and endurance, climbing with one’s hands over one’s ears is very difficult. I fought to keep my balance, inching painfully slowly up the rough terrain.

  At first, the voices were barely audible over the sound of my pumping blood, but the higher I got, the louder they were, until it sounded like they were inside my skull.

  “Perfect, perfect Maria,” said a mocking voice.

  “Stop trying to lead everyone’s lives for them,” hissed another. It sounded like Rohan.

  “What an idiot. A perfect bleeding heart, easy to fool,” said another. It sounded vaguely like Red.

  A voice from above me was yelling too, although I couldn’t even look up to see where I was going. Head down, eyes focused on my feet, I shivered and sweated as I painstakingly climbed.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “You know nothing, Mik Tsaam! You don’t even know how to deal with your own problems! How could you possibly think about saving others!”

  The rocks were thinning out here. I had to be close to the top, but I couldn’t look. I had to just keep going. I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t-

  And then, another.

  “Ah Tsaam, why are you so stupid? Who do you take after? You’re careless, ignorant, and a coward.”

  That voice. Oh, that voice.

  There were tears mixing with the sweat now. I couldn’t see where I was going. Was I still going upwards?

  “Why are you like this? Are you trying to make me angry?”

  “Mik Tsaam…”

  The voice that I had heard from above was still there too. I redirected. Was it leading me back down? I didn’t know. I didn’t care anymore.

  “Useless.”

  “Mik Tsaam, don’t listen. This way!”

  “I wish…”

  “Mik Tsaam, you’re nearly there.”

  “… I had never…”

  “Mik Tsaam, two more steps!”

  “…I wish…”

  “Mik Tsaam!”

  The top of my head bumped against something solid and metal as I blundered forwards. Falling back, I looked up to find I was staring at an enormous brass cage.

  And inside the cage, sat a small girl.

  Well, she was probably actually a young woman, but she was petite and cute and the cage was so oversized in comparison to her. She clung to the bars, gazing at me anxiously with watery eyes.

  “Mik Tsaam, are you alright?”

  “Who-”

  “Ah, I’m Pretty Princess Peach! Sorry, I heard one of the voices calling out the name Mik Tsaam, so I thought- How should I call you?”

  So this was Pretty Princess Peach.

  And she was adorable. A tiny little woman with peach-pink hair in two low buns, with a sweet face and a crisp pink hoodie with a husky’s face on it and white shorts. She had chunky, shimmering sneakers on her feet. Overall, just how a popular streaming idol should look.

  “Maria,” I said.

  “Maria, got it. Just call me Peach. You’re looking for the tree and the water, aren’t you?”

  “Yes… are you supposed to be the bird then?”

  Peach pulled a funny face. “Apparently. Isn’t this weird? Still, it’s better than the first scenario. At least I seem to be safe here.”

  “What was your… Wait, I’ll get you out.”

  “Take your time, there’s no need to rush. You can’t turn into a rock from now. And you look very pale. I’m fine in here.”

  She too was looking a little pale. I made myself more comfortable next to the cage. Peach sat down next to me.

  “What’s your class, Maria? Priest? You look like an apprentice priest or whatever they call them.”

  “Acolyte, yes.”

  “Very cool. I’m an Artificer. I was a streamer in real life, so I guess it makes sense.”

  “Yeah, Red… Striking Red Crane was… is… one of the other players in this scenario. We saw your name in the player list and he said he knew of you.”

  “Striking Red Crane? Here? Are you the third person to climb the mountain?”

  “Yes?”

  “He mustn’t have made it very far,” Peach mused. “I didn’t get a notification about him. But I saw one for… for ‘Dr Uchiha’. And one for you.”

  “He was the first.”

  “Hm.”

  “I’ll get you out.”

  “Are you sure? Don’t you need to rest more?”

  The lock on the door was simple, but it could only be opened from the outside. Peach could not reach the mechanism from within, yet it only took me a moment to open it. She jumped straight out and into my arms.

  “Wait, I’m really gross from climbing-”

  “That’s okay, you deserve a hug! Now, let’s get you the tree and the water, and we can rescue everyone.”

  “Rescue everyone?”

  “If you put a drop of water on the rocks, they’ll turn back into humans,” Peach explained. I felt my knees give way.

  “Maria?”

  “I thought they were dead,” I whispered. “I thought I’d let… I thought I’d let them walk to their deaths.”

  “You didn’t. It’s okay, Maria. They’re alive. You can save them.”

  Peach grabbed my hand and led me past the cage, over the crest of the mountain. On the other side, just out of sight, a graceful tree hung silvery branches over a fountain where golden water bubbled. A terracotta jug sat by the fountainside.

  “Isn’t fairytale logic the best?” Peach asked, handing the jug to me. “Fill this, I’ll grab a branch of the tree. Apparently, it will immediately grow into a new tree when you stick it in the ground. Easy, right?”

  I filled the jug, and we both headed back to the mountainside where I had climbed. Slowly, one by one, I poured water on the rocks. Behind me, I could here the sounds of confused voices as the rocks began to return to human form. By the time I reached the foot of the mountain, a babble of voices followed me. My back was a little sore from stooping. I could feel myself shaking still, from the effort of climbing the mountain, of fighting the voices.

  If this is an easy level, I’d hate to see a hard one.

  Peach squeezed my arm.

  “Maria? Wow! Maria, you did it!”

  It was Red. He stumbled over as if he was relearning how his legs worked, a big smile on his face. I introduced him to Peach.

  “So you’re Pretty Princess Peach? Can I… Ah dammit, I wish I could get an autograph…”

  Peach laughed behind her hand. “When we return to the real world, message me. I’ll send all the autographs you want!”

  The back of my neck prickled. I turned to find Rohan staring at us. Seeing I had caught sight of him, he reluctantly approached.

  “This is… Dr Uchiha.”

  “Nice to meet you! I’m Pretty Princess Peach.”

  Rohan nodded jerkily.

  “What happened, R- Uh, what happened?”

  “Nothing. I was caught off guard.”

  “They were really rude!” Red yelled. “They said all kinds of mean things! I… uh… well I tried to run up the mountain to avoid listening to them, but I slipped and fell backwards and… ha ha…”

  “You’re really lucky Maria beat the mountain,” Peach scolded. “We all are. I could have been locked in the cage for the rest of eternity if you’d all failed!”

  Red had the grace to look embarrassed, but Rohan looked away bitterly. I watched him closely as people began to descend, shaking off looks of confusion, until I realised that Peach was staring at Red, a finger to her lips and a frown creasing her cute features.

  I nudged her gently. “What’s wrong?”

  “I… I don’t think that’s Striking Red Crane.”

  “I checked. It is.”

  “You checked?”

  “I have an ability…” I hesitated. Could I trust her? “I can see certain information about people.”

  Peach stared at me. She seemed to be chewing her tongue. Was she… afraid of me? I relented. “It’s just a person’s username and real name if they’re a player, and character name if they’re an NPC.”

  The small woman continued to stare as if she didn’t believe me, but at last she said, “Why not just ask them? My real name’s Penelope.”

  “Sometimes people lie.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Like you’re saying Striking Red Crane is lying.”

  “What real name did you get for him?”

  “Wén Yǒng.”

  Peach shook her head. She had sparkly little earrings that caught the light as she did. “The public doesn’t know this, but Striking Red Crane is actually a Japanese guy who really loves wuxia novels. I think this Wén Yǒng has just taken his username.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Maybe he’s a fan? Maybe he panicked in the character creation area and just grabbed whatever name first came to mind?”

  We both looked at him again.

  Why was he pretending to be someone else?