Our Story

(Talc's POV right before Melina meets Solas)

I hugged Melina tightly and said good night. I'd never been much of a touchy-feely person, but Melina had worn me down over the years. I watched her walk away. It seemed rude to turn my back on her first after the day we'd had. When she was far enough, with her head in the clouds and gazing at the stars, I turned to my cabin door and swung it open. I just wanted this day over.

The inside of my cabin was cozy and well kept. I sighed. The bed was quality but too small. I wasn't surprised. I had a feeling everything would be too small till I could find other Qunari. I opened the windows in the cabin to let the moonlight pour in. I couldn't see anything and, unlike Melina, I couldn't shoot fire or whatever from my fingertips to light any of the candles around.

I pulled a crudely wrapped, foot-long package Varric had given me earlier today out from under my leather belt sash. Wrapped in pieces of animal skins, it had been kept safe from the elements. It was a cylindrical canister carved from some kind of wood. I opened it and emptied its contents onto the table. A scroll, an ink well, and a writing reed bounced onto the hard surface.

I'd asked Varric about getting these after my blow up with Melina. I was lucky to have Varric, I'd be lost without that nutty dwarf.

I chuckled at the irony of it all. I was trapped in this virtual world with my best friend and my source of comfort and constant companion was the dwarf.

I looked up at the stars through the window. Their hard, crisp light was more beautiful than anything I'd seem so far.

How wild that it was all just code, scribbles on a text sheet. But it looked so real. How did we even end up here? Inside a game just like Wreck-it-Ralph. A whole world of self-aware pixels.

Watching the clouds drift across the sky, I thought back on the day I had just had. I was glad things were patched up with Melina, but the conversation with her had led to more questions than answers. At least I had an idea of what I needed to do.

"If we want to get out, we need to go back the way we came in." I nodded to myself as though that was the most brilliant thing I had ever said. From our conversation on the frozen bank I gathered we had somehow fallen into this world through the breach. Melina hadn't said anything about it, but if that was some kind of demon doorway, it made sense we got pulled through it. Maybe the swirling death cloud was our ticket home.

A cloud moved across the moon, blotting out the light. The haunting green light was a constant reminder of the Breach.

But the Breach was in the sky, how could I reach it? And even if I reached it, could I survive the realm of demons? Was it toxic? There were some pretty big demons popping out of those tiny rifts. No doubt they got bigger deeper in. I'd needed to be incredibly powerful if I was going to entertain any thoughts of protecting Melina and myself on the way back. I guess it was time to figure out how to level up.

I turned away and knocked over a flower vase on the table. I caught the vase before it fell but some of the flowers petals scattered around the floor.

"I wonder what happens when we die?" I surprised myself with the thought.

It was a game so there must be a respawn site or would we go back in time to the last checkpoint? "To die would be an awfully big adventure." I couldn't help but quote Peter Pan. Best to avoid that adventure for as long as I could. I'd hate to wake up in that cell again.

Besides, we had to consider how we were trapped here in the first place. Was it magic? Was it science? Something in the programming of the game itself?

Playing the story like Melina wanted would be a waste of time . What if beating it didn't get us back?Melina seemed intent on pushing the game forward. I rolled my eyes. It was obvious she just wanted to live in the limelight for a while. I doubted she had spared any thoughts on how to get home. I wouldn't interfere since it'd probably be the fastest way to level up for now, but It was obvious I would need to have a plan B.

It was time to conquer this digital world. To do that, I needed to know everything about it.

I turned my attention back to the scroll and uncurled it. It was also made from animal skins, cured and well-prepared. I wasn't able to get the scroll myself, no one would trade with a Qunari. I'd told Varric not to worry about quality but it seems he'd gotten me the best this Podunk town produced. I smiled. I'd owe him later.

I opened the ink well and dipped the reed. I let it hover over the scroll for a moment. This was a game. That means everything here was made of codes floating around in a database.

In games, there's always a menu, an inventory, and a world map of some kind. If I could control any of those things, I could get us a step closer to that Breach.

There had to be a way to access all of it from inside the game itself. I blushed with embarrassment. Before Melina had found me with Varric, I'd spent the afternoon shouting, "Menu, open!" And other commands at the sky. Varric was constantly wondering what kind of torture I'd been through since I'd obviously lost my mind.

I was hoping maybe a different medium would work since voice commands had miserably failed. I'd studied coding for video games not too long ago. Back home, I had multiple books on my desk with Java, C++, Mel, Objective C, and Python to name a few. I loved the stuff. But I was still a pretty new at it and a master of none.

The devil was in the details. If I could figure out which language to use, I could be well on my way to surviving this nightmare and getting both of us home. The reed hit the scroll and I began to write.

The morning light crept up on me like a snake. I'd tried every command I knew in every language I knew. Meticulously checking each one to make sure I hadn't left out a single tic mark or put a semi-colon in the wrong place. Nothing had worked so far. Not that I knew what I was waiting for; what sign I would get that it had worked.

"Something magical." I thought with heavy sarcasm.

I finished writing the final string of code to open the player menu's UI for what seemed the millionth time.

I looked over the scratches written on the last bit of scroll. If nothing else, it would confuse the mess out of people. I noticed I'd left off a tic mark between line 6 and 7. I added it and waited.

Nothing happened.

I let my head fall on the table with a hard thud. We were never getting home. I was going to die here magically blasted to smithereens. I chuckled in spite of myself. The thought of the Lucky the Leprechaun blowing me away to kingdom come was funnier than it should have been.

I tossed the scroll over my shoulder and waited for the satisfying sound of it clattering on the floor. Again nothing happened.

I swung an arm over the back of my seat as I turned to see where the scroll had fallen. I panicked and jumped to my feet so fast the chair went flying.

The scroll was floating in the air!

I didn't dare to breathe as it uncurled itself.

I could see my codes fading into the animal skin, bleeding into it. The last line of code I had written lingered the longest. I moved closer, reaching out to touch floating parchment.

The writing suddenly flared like the sun! I tried to shield my eyes but it was useless. The light burned through my eyelids.

It felt like an eternity before I could see again. I blinked painfully to clear the blackness away. When I could see, the most beautiful sight met my eyes. It flickered like a holograph as it hovered above the earth at my eye level. The player's menu screen.

"YEEAAH!" I hollered with a victory fist pump or two, or three...okay, I made a dance out of it. Victory fist pump dance.

I lept over to the screen. It was my Player Menu. A picture of me was surrounded by the inventory items menu. It showed the scroll, ink well, and the reed in my possession. I picked up the reed and Tapped on its icon. There was a STORE option. I selected it. The reed vanished from my hand. I selected the EQUIP option, the reed appeared in my hand again. I giggled like an idiot for five minutes.

The scroll lay open on the ground. All my writing had vanished. I closed the scroll and the floating menu disappeared. I wasn't worried. Now I knew the code.

I realized how cold it was.

"Now I can do something about it." I laughed

I wrote a new string of code on the scroll and stepped back. The codes flashed with considerably less intensity. With a quiet PING, a small, glowing, blue box popped into existence. It was just smaller than a baseball.

"Well that's not what I asked for." I thought scratching my head.

I picked up the small cube to inspect it. Inside, I saw the object of my desire and it made sense to me. I threw the cube at the freshly swept fireplace. As it shattered into blue pixie dust, wonderful light and warmth poured into the room as an inferno instantly set the logs ablaze.

I reached out toward the warmth. I chuckled at first but it soon grew into a maniacal, uncontrollable laughter. "Perfect." I finally managed to gasp.

I was a tiny step closer to figuring this all out. I had a skill that would keep me alive. My coding wasn't nearly advanced enough yet for anything big, but it would get there. In the meantime, I'd use it to boost my skill levels once I found them. Melina's too if that was possible.

I rolled up the scroll and stored everything back in the cylinder I'd pulled it from. Best to keep this on my person at all times. I tied it to my belt like a ninja dagger.

It was going to be a beautiful day. I threw myself onto the bed. Most of my body hung off of it but it was wondrously soft. I'd need at least some rest before everyone started to wake up. I closed my eyes with a large grin on my face and the world vanished.