As Jacob walked home with his friends from his last day of school, a gloomy graduation still lingering in his head, he saw a girl with a doll-like countenance. His mates stared and began to whisper to each other gleefully. Her green skirt was the teeniest little piece of fluttery nothing to ever cover a young lady’s form.

  "Hi Jacob," she said. He gazed carefully into her eyes; They weren’t the right shade but he knew it was her: saw the familiar fairyland in her irises.

  She seemed at least a little aware of his friends' attentions. Despite having seemed to first ignore them with a strange, drifty obliviousness.

  She made to shy away, then almost to prettily wink just a little and let a stray hand fluff the fountain of her hair that had the loveliest tresses brown and burnished he had ever seen; bristling with burnt gold.

  "Wha...What’s your name," Timothy smiled and stuttered at her slightly. Then looked a little embarrassed.

  She looked flattered. “Clearly no-one here follows politics at all. I am Shiver Gray the helpful, new face of Aryan’s Party of Equity and Fairness. The giver of jobs. The saver of lost greens…Wait what was I talking about again?” Her voice trailed off.

  Joey who was very preoccupied with her tight little shirt flowing fairly across the sheer width of her breasts which bright and delicate, female arms brushed against, soon spoke. Her greatest admirer had once said, the tight, tender pairings of her sunless cleavage were like winter lilies.

  “No. You look similar but I have seen her. I know guys who will sometimes turn up mostly just for her, at Aryan's rallies. She is some slinky, curvaceous redhead with the deepest, dark eyes.”

  “True. I merely like to point out the resemblance. It is a little neat being related to someone so famous. “

  His friends had begun eyeing the movements of her tapering legs which like a foal’s had a slight pretty prance about them.

  Suddenly she turned to Jacob. “Jacob, I have something I need from you, come see me later at my place in the dark manor. They won’t be home, don’t worry.”

  His little friend Arkie put down his graphic novel and almost knocked the soda out of a nearby Joey’s hand as he burst out laughing. "Watch it," Joey muttered before going a little gape-mouthed at the young lady again.

  "Wait Jacob are you having an affair with her? Is that why she is babbling about secrecy? Nice one." Archie grinned.

  “No,” Jacob was annoyed.

  “Don’t be such an ungrateful snot. Two other girls hear already like you. Now you’ve got one who looks like she blew out of fairyland. Or the Elven mountains. I wish I had a harem.”

  Jacob couldn’t help smiling.

  Later, he went to Shiver’s place wondering if she would still be in disguise when he arrived. He had never been to Aryan’s manor before and was pretty nervous. It was unsurprisingly just as dark and gothic and beautiful as he had come to expect from the Shiverla and their villainous creators. They all seemingly liked to dwell in these dark, lovely, wicked nests.

  Towards its entrance, we edged closer. it loomed like a turreted monstrosity with dark-gray stone that somehow looked half-polished and half-crumbed. His eyes swept over its foundations as fish flitted prettily through the creek on silveriest fins. Angelic statues grazed his presence with hallowed gazes.

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  He messaged Shiver with a ping he hoped she would hear, to come the door. The manor did at least seem deserted. No Mist or Aryan to deal with.

  She raced out within a minute or half with that tumble of curls of fire and her teeny feet that slipped and slid a little, a rare lapse from her usual grace.

  “Jacob!” She glided over to him and threw her shivering, little arms around him and he noticed his friends were right. Her ears were elfin. They pointed and curled out sweetly from her face.

  Was that another trick of Emanuel and Aryan? Were they not only making human bioweapons and living viruses but also cute, dreamy-eyed, elf-girls plucked from the heart of The Undying Lands of Valinor?

  She then ushered him into the living room and sat on a silver chair with her legs dangling endlessly like a dancer’s; with slender feet that tapped their toes and ankles that ended in a refined point.

  "Jacob I still believe you are The infiltrator or could be," Shiver spoke.

  "I am aware people or whatever you are, seem to believe this but I lost."

  "Yes, but there is a reason. I realized. Jacob you see, that you are a hero."

  He started. "Shiver for heaven’s or I guess hell’s sake, that is untrue and irrelevant. Hereos are men of brightness and bravery and hearts of gold. Do you know what else they are? People who get things done. Who succeed. I didn’t. You won. Can you now please leave me alone? To help my family and friends and fellow people in little ways before you turn us all to ash or whatever your sneaky, ice-queen heart plans?"

  "It is not me, it is him. Aryan. Besides. What I mean is, that you cannot succeed in a game designed to destroy humanity as that is what the villain does. That’s why Emanuel succeeded and you could not. What you can do is win a game designed to spare humanity. You need to circumvent his dark, duskiest games altogether and replace them with games of light. "

  Jacob blinked. What she said made a little sense. Didn’t mean it was anything other than wishful, fanciful thinking. Or so he thought.

  "You see Jacob, the way to defeat him lies during but a brief window, you must strike in the hour between when one wicked, godly beast slays the other ultimate demonic evil." She paused.

  “What's more, I know how.”

  "Then you do it. " Jacob said. "You're likely the only one who may. Prove you actually want your redemption arc. That is so desired and precious according to you and yet you refuse to actually strive for the thing "

  "No," she said quite quietly. Assuredly.

  I am too afraid, too conflicted. I was made as a monster Jacob and if you succeed I will lose everything. My powers and the immortality and beauty of an endless stone. Yet as I told you long ago, though you probably thought it was just more impish tricks, I want to believe in Him. '“In the ending sea-light where He dwells,”' as Emanuel calls it."

  "God’s isn’t a sea-monster," Jacob pointed out.

  "He is to us. For He ends our sea. Yet if He really ‘’‘makes the fire in the yonder cold, all the snow twined with a scarlet thread,’’ as Emanuel so ardently believes (but somehow feels God would accept his vile methods) then I would step down from my reign for such a thing. For such glory. I will lie in the mud to let others walk in the valley of beauty. Yet if this mud is all there is…Then I just want to play muddy and snowy games and do handstands in the sunshine.”

  “Okay so, fine, Jacob said. "How would this work?"

  "I will send you back into the Virtual Landscape with a series of clues on how to win. To find the path to victory amongst our thistles. For they are not as grand a thorns as they appear."

  Jacob felt she was quoting Emamuel again and was suspicious that he had sent her. To torment and play cat and mouse with him, once more.

  "I am and no, he knows nothing of this. Truth is, he is envious of you and every man I even slightly fancy, with all his heart. He longs to see you buried a thousand feet into the ground."

  Jacob flinched slightly: this had a ring of truth.

  Also no matter the odds, even a trillion to one, he had to try.

  She saw the determination starring his eyes. She walked over and handed him a virtualiser. “ Use this to return to the land of the rain-mists."

  Later as Jacob walked home he wondered if the AI would help or hinder him. Since it would have to know what was occurring as it controlled all the virtual worlds and could always read Shiver’s mind. Through some permanently and profoundly wired connection, Jacob didn't understand. He just had to hope that it loved her enough to actually indulge her in this whim with any sincerity.

  With a sigh and lounging in his beautiful, glittering, gaming room that was a boy’s dream and this young man’s now nightmare, he clicked the virtualizer to begin.

  The voice of Monovalent called out to him sad but also just a little mocking.

  “Do you wish to start the Quest to Find the Flower-Glower at the End of the Sea-Light?"

  “Yes.”