Should Have Let Me Die

"Do you know what is wrong with them?" I asked as Arrentia looked the three of them over.

"Nothing that I can see so far. It just looks like they are asleep, and they have no wounds," Arrentia said, stepping back from then girls.

"Let me scan them. I will talk over your body to do an examination of the girls," Eva said over my intercom, startling Arrentia.

"Yes, sorry, Eva is going to take over my body, so if I talk to you it will be from a speaker. Okay, now my voice should sound a bit different," I said switching places with Eva.

I was now projecting my voice to Arrentia from the back of one of my shoulders. There was also a small camera that let me see the shocked look on her face.

"What happened to you?" Arrentia asked in confusion.

"A lot of things have happened since I got back, but has anything weird happened while I was gone? Titania evolved, and then so did Haruna twice, but that all just happened before I got back to the ship in front of the first island. Did some leave or are we missing someone?" I asked Arrentia, but she shook her head.

"Sorry, I don't know if there is anyone unaccounted for, I hadn't been feeling well so I don't know what everyone is like or doing right now. The weird motion of the ship puts me out for a day after flying. The same thing happened when we went to the first island, but it was a lot worse," Arrentia told me.

"I found something, but I think you are going to want to take a look before deciding what to do. Each of the girls has thorns in their feet, but whenever you get close to the thorns, they start to burrow deeper," Eva explained to me.

What could have caused this? The better question was who caused this? 

"Eva, switch back with me and keep a monitor on the girls. Arrentia, please get ready to heal these girls, and then we need to get the other in here to get some answers," I said getting ready.

"Are you sure that this is a good idea?" Arrentia asked.

"I don't think that we have a lot of other choices. I can move faster than the thorns shouldn't be able to react. So, I should be able to get all three out before anything can happen and you should be able to heal them if there are any problems, okay?" I asked Arrentia from my own mouth.

"Please give me some kind of warning when you do that! Yes, I can do that, just be careful, you don't want to hurt the girls and we don't know what this is yet," Arrentia said while coming over to me.

'Do you think this will work, Eva?'

'It should be fine, but I wonder how they got there?' -Eva.

'My guess is that it has something to do with Reginold. I faced him in one of the challenges on the first island. He could have been disguised as one of the crew members and been with us the whole time. It's not like I have any way to sense him.'

I didn't want to talk out loud about this, there was already enough stress for Arrentia to deal with. This was a bothering fact though, and how many others had this happened to? What about the girls back home?

I concentrated, I needed to get my head into the game. I looked at Arrentia, and she nodded to me, so I dialed up and the world quieted, slowing down.

I quickly moved, plucking each one of the two centimeter-long black spikes out. It was hard to believe that they could even walk with these in, but I was about to crush them when Eva stopped me.

'Wait! Let me absorb them and take them apart while they still can't react," Eva instructed me, and I decided that it was for the best to let her work.

After a few moments, Eva let me know that I could slow down, she had disabled the devices. Someone had planted a controller spike or something like that.

It would allow the owner of the spike the block certain things, or make the person act as they wished. The dirty shit that Dave had ripped out of the girls on Second Life so that almost made it sure that it was him.

The problem was that he was dead, and out of this game, or at least he should have been, but who knew? The other option was that it was something to do with Talon, the Game Master.

I let the time catch back up and Arrentia started to move again. She looked at me, but then turned to the women that were starting to move on the bed.

"What happened… wait, HYDE!" 

Titania had been groggy at first, but something had struck her, and she screamed my name. I rushed to her side and looked into her eyes, they were scared.

"What have I done?" Titania asked with tear-filled eyes.

"Nothing that is your fault, who did this to you?" I asked as Arrentia stepped around the bed to check on the other girls, letting me in.

"I don't know who it was, I had no idea that I was even being controlled. I made all those things for whoever it was, and then I set a timed bomb before I left," Titania said, face filled with tears.

I brought her into my chest, but I could see that both the other girls were in tears as well. What the fuck is going on and how did this happen right under my nose?

"Arrentia, Please get everyone else in the ship to come down to the pool area and sit down with shoes off. Sooner the better, now that I know the problem, we need to make sure that there aren't any other cases, and get Dalmia and Nika to come in here right away with Kyla," I asked.

"Sure, the girls all are healthy, whatever it was, you seemed to have got it all. I will get the other ready to be checked but I will keep it quiet. I can't believe that something like this is happening," Arrentia said as she gave me a kiss and left the room.

"Hyde, I…" Kyra tried to say, but I hugged all three of them close, tears coming from all of them.

"Don't, I get it, and it wasn't your fault, but this is all because I broke rules that Dave and I set out before even coming to this game. None of you should be with me right now. You should all be back at Dreams being protected while I get everything straightened out," I explained to the girls.

'This has to be something to do with the Game Master. This spike is a registered tool for Game Master's, so that means that he is the one doing this.' -Eva.

That made perfect sense. Dave said that we just had to build a fortress to protect the girls and then rush the worlds, not do what I had been doing.

Still, It was hard to just tell the girls to stay behind, but it looks like I might have to do that for a little while. I was starting to play right into the Game Master's hand, and If I kept this up one of the girls or more were going to get seriously hurt.

"What are we going to do now?" Haruna asked.

"You, my love, are going to tell us a story if you don't mind. You left the second we got here, so I will assume whatever happened to the others was don't to you once we got back, or am I mistaken? Are you the one that brought whatever it was back?" I asked Haruna, but the sound of small pattering footsteps made me stop our conversation.

"Mommy! Dad! Everyone else!" Kyla called out as she came running into the room.

I turned to scoop up my little girl and see Dalmia and Nika come into the room. I stood up and handed Kyla to Kyra.

"Can you two please sit down?" I asked the girls. "I need to do an examination to check for something."

"Are you sure you want to play doctor with so many other people in the room?' Nika jokes but still took her seat.

I let Eva take over, and I watch the four on the bed. I would have to get everyone back to their dreams, and then I could come back here at a later time. 

The robots that Titania had been working on were going to have to be found and I would need to deal with the Mainland problems first, and then I could come and tackle this.

I think this might have all been part of a diversionary tactic by the Game Master to keep me from making progress on the main continent of Bjrothrone. I would have to put this little venture away, for now, there was a storm coming.