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  “Yes.”

  “You’re a Beholder, aren’t you?” Alex finally asked.

  The creature laughed nervously before saying, “Yes, yes, I am. My name is Manny. I’m here on behalf of Myrddin. I wasn’t expecting this kind of greeting, and I must say, I’m a bit flustered. I had heard humans were much more hospitable than orcs, but…”

  “Alex,” George asked, his voice weary and wavering, “you know what this is?”

  “Yeah,” Alex nodded. “A Beholder. Basically, it’s a floating basketball with a hundred or so eyes jutting out of it.”

  “How did you—” Liza started.

  “I’ve seen one before.”

  “Seen?” George muttered.

  “Yeah, Dad. In the game. Beholders are the, ah…recruiters in the VR game, and I’ve seen one before. When I first joined the Riders.” She turned her attention to Manny. “What are you doing here?”

  “You are Alex the Boundless, the blind Dragonrider, right?”

  Alex felt her face go red. If she’d been in Middang3ard, she would have hit Manny for saying something like that. She couldn’t stand it when people labeled her as blind, but then again, she did it to herself all the time.

  Ahh, it was all so frustrating!

  It wasn’t that she was ashamed of it or anything; it just irked her when people who knew nothing about her reduced her to a single character trait. “My name is Alex,” she spat. “And I am a Dragonrider. How did you know I was blind?”

  “Myrddin informed before he sent me here.”

  So, Myrddin did know I’m blind. And he still wants me to come to Middang3ard? she wondered.

  Manny cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was closer. Alex assumed he’d floated farther into the house. Neither of her parents seemed to have an immediate issue with it.

  “Myrddin asked me to give you a gift,” Manny explained. “It seems some of the finer details of coming to Middang3ard may have been left unexplained. Myrddin is, unsurprisingly, not the best at talking to people. Personally, I wish he would just allow me to take care of introductions and recruiting.”

  Liza snorted derisively. “You, in charge of introductions? You’re horrifying!” she exclaimed. Then she caught herself. “No offense.”

  “I’m going to assume you’re only being this rude because you’ve never seen a Beholder and have no idea of our standards of beauty or attractiveness are, but that is neither here nor there. Alex,” Manny said, turning to the young Rider, “would you be so kind as to close your eyes?”

  The day had already been weird enough, so Alex didn’t see the harm in playing along with what Manny or Myrddin was planning. She shut her eyes tightly.

  There was a warm tingling against the back of Alex’s head and in her eyelids. Abruptly, the tingling became extremely hot and brought tears to her eyes. She yelped softly before rubbing her closed lids.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw the outline of her hands.

  She screamed and jumped backward, then whirled around with her eyes wide open, seeing everything for the first time. The world around her was dull gray and green, similar to the color scheme she’d seen in Middang3ard before its first big patch. If it wasn’t for the game, she wouldn’t know what colors were. The game had shown her so much.

  Just like now. Except now wasn’t a game. It was real life.

  For the first time ever, she looked around her house and saw the walls and furniture and the paintings and photographs on the wall. She turned to her parents.

  George’s face looked uncertain as he gazed at Alex. She turned to face Liza, who was still holding her tightly. She looked at her mother’s face and saw the wrinkles and lines and the nose she’d drawn in the palm of her hands as a child.

  Alex saw her mother for the first time with her own eyes and cried, “What’s happening?”

  “It’s like Myrddin said. Being blind isn’t a problem in Middang3ard, not when there’s magic,” Manny explained—not that Alex heard him.

  She was too busy looking at her parents for the first time. Her parent’s faces were…well, beautiful.

  Manny seemed to understand the gravity of the moment and awkwardly floated back and forth as if he were pacing. “Maybe, I should give you guys some time alone,” he suggested before floating past the family into the kitchen.

  Alex was in her room, lying in bed, staring at her ceiling. Staring. She’d read in books for years about people staring—just looking ahead with nothing on their mind, zoning in and out as thoughts bounced around.

  She hadn’t realized she’d had no idea what staring was like. Letting her mind wander in the blackness she’d grown up in was so much different than this. She couldn’t understand how anyone could look at a wall for longer than two or three minutes. There was so much else to see.

  After Manny granted Alex her eyesight through some kind of magic, she’d cried for what felt like hours before she realized this was far too big of an occurrence to deal with surrounded by three other people, one of them being a Beholder who was likely from an alternate dimension.

  She sat up and looked around her room. It was odd how much she’d decorated without seeing any part of it. She’d chosen the color of the walls based on her parent’s descriptions and covered them with posters she’d urged her parents to buy her. The posters were of bands she loved, movies she’d watched with her folks that were particularly important, and other things of that sort. It amazed her how her room could have so much personality, so much of her personality, without her ever seeing it.

  Out of curiosity, she stood up and went to her bathroom. She flipped on the lights and looked at her favorite shirt, the one she was wearing that was covered in rhinestones. She couldn’t help but laugh. Her mother was right; the shirt was gaudy and somewhat disgusting. The drawing of the unicorn looked like something a six-year-old would wear. She was thankful her mother always talked her out of wearing it in public.

  Myrddin gave this to me, but is it only so I can go to Middang3ard? Alex thought. That seemed extremely cruel to her. What if, after all this, she decided she didn’t want to go? Would Myrddin take back her eyesight? What kind of man would do something like that?

  The questions were pointless, though. Alex now knew Middang3ard was real beyond a shadow of a doubt. The only thing that mattered at this point was getting there. What did Myrddin have lined up for his recruits on the planet? Where things as dire as the online rumors said?

  Folks who had allegedly signed up for Middang3ard were saying there was a huge war going on, one they were hiding from the citizens of Earth. The war was something that could tear apart everything humans knew and loved.

  Even with thoughts of war, Alex didn’t want to spend the rest of her day in her room when there was so much more to look at. What surprised her the most wasn’t that she wanted to explore her neighborhood, it was that she didn’t.

  There was only one place Alex truly wanted to see, and she needed to talk to Manny about that.

  Chapter Seven

  George, Liza, and Manny were in the living room when Alex descended the stairs. Her parents were trying to make small talk with the Beholder.

  Even though Alex hadn’t had much experience reading her parent’s body language, she could tell it was an awkward conversation. Manny kept wiping his face with his eye-tipped tentacles. Occasionally, as he swiped one across his face, Alex’s vision would blur.

  She walked into the living room and sat between her parents, wedging herself in until they had to move. Manny was floating back and forth, looking as nervous as someone applying for their first job.

  He cleared his throat multiple times but didn’t say anything. Neither did Alex’s parents. It was obvious she was going to be the one to get this conversation going. “How did you do that, Manny?” she asked. “How did you make it so I can see?”

  His body puffed up as he smiled brightly, his fangs glimmering. “Well, it’s not the real deal,” he explained. “I cast a simple spell that allowed
you to see through my eyes, so everything wasn’t as confusing.”

  “So, you’re saying I can’t really see? But you weren’t in my room with me. How could I see any of that?”

  “Oh, well, I am a Beholder,” he lectured. “You know, one of the ancients who sees many things. My eyes aren’t limited in the human sense. I see everything in this house at once. Each eye sees a different layer of reality. I just tapped you into one.”

  Alex’s heart dropped. Myrddin granting her sight for the sake of helping her was too good to be true. She knew she shouldn’t have assumed anything else. So, was Myrddin hanging potential sight over her head like a carrot to get her to come to Middang3ard?

  George crossed his arms as he leaned forward on the couch. “What is all this about? Does your boss make it a habit to send you to people’s houses to scare the crap out of them, or is this a special occasion?”

  Most of the Beholder’s eyes flipped around to look at George. “I don’t think it’s intended to scare the crap out of anyone, but it happens often enough,” Manny admitted. “Usually, I only meet with the potential recruit, but this was a special situation, with Alex being a minor.”

  Anger overwhelmed Alex, and she blurted, “I can make my own decisions!”

  Liza rested her hand on Alex’s and smiled sweetly at her daughter. “Honey, I don’t think this is the time to be having the independent teenager conversation.”

  Liza turned to Manny and asked, “Just what is this recruitment that you and this Myrddin… Did I say that right? What is it that you are trying to recruit my only daughter, who I love enough to kill for, to do?”

  Manny forced a smile as he tried to disguise how awkward he felt. “Myrddin wanted to speak with the three of you himself,” Manny stumbled. “So, if you don’t mind, I can patch him in, and he can explain all this. How’s that sound?”

  Liza, George, and Alex were silent. All had their arms folded and wore identical annoyed looks on their faces. “Damn, this is a hard crowd,” Manny mumbled. “All right, so, let me go ahead and pull Myrddin in.”

  One of Manny’s eyes began to twitch, and the tentacle it was attached to grew longer until it was right in front of Alex’s family. The eye jiggled in its socket and went white, then a bright beam shot out from the eye, and a column of light sprang up.

  The column slowly took Myrddin’s shape.

  The old wizard smiled encouragingly at Alex and her parents. “Thank you so much for inviting me into your home,” Myrddin gushed. “I have been waiting to finally meet the parents of one of my top players. Your daughter has excelled in Middang3ard in a way I never believed a human player could.”

  George couldn’t help but look proud of his daughter—and then Myrddin’s words made sense. “Thank you, but, er...did you say human players?” he asked. “Implying there are non-human players?”

  Myrddin nodded as he took a seat in one of the empty chairs in the room. “Yes, yes.” He spoke as if he wanted to rush through the conversation. “We use the Middang3ard for basic training for most of the elves and dwarves.”

  Myrddin fidgeted in his chair before continuing, “Humans are the only race where we use it for recruitment. The rest of the races haven’t lost touch with the magical world around them, so they don’t need as much convincing.”

  Despite herself, Liza was interested and leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

  Myrddin waved his hand as he spoke. “For them, it’s mostly the game of politics, trying to figure out how many recruits we can expect to have and what their nations want as payment—all that diplomatic nonsense. Luckily, the human leaders have been much more accommodating.”

  “And humans are different?”

  “Generally, we only have to deal with the lack of belief on a personal level, and if I'm honest, that is much easier than trying to persuade a Drow lord to promise at least two hundred of his finest warriors instead of enrolling them into his guard. I have really lost interest in that conversation.”

  Liza and George stared at Myrddin blankly. “I’m afraid I’m not following any of this,” Liza stated.

  Myrddin lowered his head and rested it on his hands. “I’m so sorry. Let me back up some to give you a better idea of what is going on. The world you know is only a fraction of what exists. There are seven realms, or perhaps nine, depending on how you’re counting. Those realms are all sandwiched on top of each other.”

  George scoffed as he sat up in his chair. “You really expect us to believe that load of crap?”

  Myrddin gestured toward Manny, who was now rubbing some of his slimy eye tentacles on the fireplace. “My emissary is proof enough of the reality. I heard one of you managed to hit him?”

  Alex meekly raised her hand. “It was me,” she admitted.

  “Fantastic! Even out of the game, you show your warrior spirit. Now that we’ve covered all that, what do you say about coming to join us on Middang3ard?”

  Liza stood up, waving her hands in front of her as if she could wave away Myrddin’s words. “Hold on a second,” she said. “You haven’t told us anything about what you are trying to recruit my daughter for. All you’ve said is that magic and elves exist.”

  Myrddin pressed his hand to his chest. “Oh, dear, I am terribly sorry,” he apologized. “I neglected the most important thing. These realms are in danger. There is a great evil that threatens the very reality of each and every realm. I believed I had more time to prepare for this evil…”

  Myrddin waved his hand and the living room disappeared. They were all now sitting on a ridge. “I was wrong, though,” Myrddin whispered.

  Off in the distance, orcs were gathering. They were nearly seven feet tall. Their gray bodies were covered in war paint, and all carried axes or swords. “The Dark One came,” Myrddin explained. “And with his arrival, he brought death and destruction to the realms.”

  The orcs in the canyon roared with rage. They clanked their swords and axes on their shields as they gnashed their teeth. Furious, they raced toward Alex and her parents, shredding everything in front of them.

  Myrddin walked away from the rest of the group. He held up his wand, and a bright light shone from it. “In all of this, humans have only one group that stands for us: our military. But there is a cross-species group known as the MERCs, and within MERC, we have multiple smaller outfits.

  Myrddin paused. “George, your daughter was unknowingly training for one of our most prestigious groups, those known as ‘the Dragonriders.’ No human yet has been capable of what she has done.”

  The canyon faded, and Alex was back in her living room sitting between her parents. Myrddin and Manny were still there as well. It became painfully obvious now that none of this was fiction. There was a war going on.

  Myrddin shifted in his seat. He didn’t look uncomfortable and his stoic face didn’t reveal any awkwardness, yet his body would not stop moving. His eyes locked with Alex’s and did not blink until Liza spoke up. “Are you saying you want our daughter to go to war?”

  Manny glanced around the room, his eyes wild as he tried to determine where he was supposed to look. “We are at war already,” Manny explained. “None of us chose this war. We are already in it.”

  Liza stood and ran her hands through her hair as tears formed in her eyes. “No, you can’t ask this of her. She’s only a child. You can’t take a child to war. You can’t!”

  George stood and took Liza in his arms. “Honey, hold on. We need to think about this. We can’t jump to any conclusions.”

  Liza pushed George away, her eyes fierce. “Are you kidding me?” she shouted. “You have to be joking. You’re actually entertaining the idea of sending our daughter to war? She isn’t even an adult yet, and you want to send her to fight? She could die, George.”

  George sat back down on the couch and looked at Alex. “If there is a war, who are we to stop her from doing what she thinks is right?”

  “Just because you served and think it was the best decision of your life, it doesn�
�t mean everyone else does. Do you remember how worried your parents were? How much sleep we all lost, wondering if you were safe?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Alex interrupted. “I couldn’t go to Middang3ard even if I wanted to. All Manny’s done is let me see through his eyes. I’m still blind. Nothing is going to change that. I couldn’t ride. Period.”

  Myrddin looked at Alex and smiled. “Goodness, child, do you think I’m a second-rate sorcerer? Your lack of sight has never been an issue. I can solve this issue with a wave of my hand?”

  “But it’ll only be solved if I come to Middang3ard?”

  Myrddin turned his eyes away from Alex. He took a long time answering. “My services are for those who defend our realm,” he finally said. “What I can give you is for Middang3ard and Middang3ard alone, but I am not here to bribe or blackmail you. We need warriors—willing warriors. That is why I have decided that whatever you chose, I will restore your eyesight. Stay and hide, and you will do so sighted. Come and fight, and the same awaits you.”

  Liza ran over to Myrddin and got in his face. “There is nothing wrong with my daughter,” she shouted. “She doesn’t need your magic to fix her. She’s not going. You’re not putting her in that kind of danger.”

  Alex watched her mother speak. Her mom was right. She didn’t need to be fixed, but it made her angry that her mom thought she had to speak for her. I’m not a kid, Alex thought. I should at least have a say in all of this.

  Alex opened her mouth to speak, but her mother raised her hand, cutting Alex off before she could say a word. “That’s final, young lady,” Liza growled. “You’re not going to Middang3ard.”

  Chapter Eight

  George and Liza argued back and forth, but Alex didn’t hear anything. She was still in shock from her mother’s last words. She wasn’t going to Middang3ard. Hearing the words spoken aloud was almost too much for her, especially since the decision didn’t seem to be hers to make.

  Listening and seeing Myrddin describe the state Middang3ard was in against the Dark One had done a little to change her opinion about going, and it didn’t help that Myrddin said he would restore her eyesight no matter what she chose. If only the condition had been set that she must come to Middang3ard as well.