Playlist for the Dead(35)

Okay, Archmage, I get it.

I played as Hayden for a while, just to see what would happen. I wandered through the woods in the game, finding a castle I usually ignored because the mission was to go in and save a bunch of serfs I normally didn’t care about. But I was ArchmageGed now, and it was my job to do things like that. It felt strange pretending to be him, and even stranger pretending to be him pretending to be someone else, especially since I felt an obligation to honor his playing strategy and fight for good, instead of just wreaking havoc like my character tended to do.

But it was getting me nowhere, and I was struggling to keep my eyes open. What was the point of all of this? Why wouldn’t ArchmageGed just let me sleep?

I could almost feel the Archmage getting sick of me being so dense. Surely there was a reason he’d not-so-subtly nudged me over to playing Hayden’s game as Hayden on Hayden’s computer. I had to be missing something basic.

Thankfully, before ArchmageGed could make me feel like even more of an idiot by doing it himself, I figured it out. I clicked on the in-game chat window and waited. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for; maybe ArchmageGed would tell me I’d done the right thing, or would give me a hint about what I was looking for. But five minutes went by, and then ten, and I looked at the clock again to see that it was almost three in the morning. I couldn’t believe how the night had flown by, but my exhaustion had passed and now I was wired—there was no point in trying to sleep. I’d have to overdose on caffeine in the morning if I wanted to make it through school.

For now, though, it looked like I was on my own. Okay, Hayden, if you won’t come to me, I’ll find a way to you. I clicked on the chat logs. There were hours and hours of records of chats between me and Hayden, and a bunch of logs of chats with the random people we encountered in the game. Hayden was unfailingly polite to them, whereas I tended to get into online screaming matches with the strangers I encountered. But then, in addition to all the logs I was expecting to see, there were several files’ worth of chats with someone else.

Someone named Athena.

So Hayden had another friend in the game, one I’d never known about, one significant enough that he’d used the name Athena as his password. I couldn’t wait to find out more.

I decided to go back to the beginning. It had started last summer.


ArchmageGed: How lovely to meet such a fair maiden.

Athena: And thou as well, good sir.



Nauseating, but not shocking. Hayden had this thing about being courtly to female characters, as if the game were some extension of the Arthurian legend and not the thinly veiled excuse for violence it really was. It was the only place where he was willing to take the risk of actually talking to girls. Most of the time it bit him in the ass—there were tons of dudes who created weak-looking female characters to trick saps like Hayden into letting their guard down so they could steal their weapons or beat them up in the most humiliating of ways. If Trevor had been in the game, that was probably what he would have done; my initial reaction was to think that Hayden was being set up.


ArchmageGed: I see thou has accumulated much gold. Art thou as crafty as thou art beautiful?

Athena: I do not believe thou hast chosen the right adjective. Though I am but woman, I have studied the art of swordsmanship since I was a little girl. Every piece of gold I possess was hard fought. Athena is, after all, the goddess of war.

ArchmageGed: Forgive me, my lady, for making such an unfair assumption. I can see thou possesseth great skill.



She’d let him off the hook for that minor misstep; his chivalry, for once, was being rewarded. And while her player history bore out her claims about being good with a sword, it also indicated that she might really be a girl: she spent a lot of her accumulated gold on jewels and armor that looked like dresses. And she was definitely playing the fair maiden in those early chats with Hayden. It was enough to make me gag a little, but clearly they thought it was super cute. They carried on for hours; it was the flirtiest I’d ever seen Hayden. Whoever this girl was, she really seemed to like him. I didn’t yet know what role this Athena had played in Hayden’s decision, but I was starting to suspect it might be a big one.

I kept reading. They finally dropped the Lancelot/Guinevere-speak and started sounding like normal people after the first chat session.


ArchmageGed: I had a great time talking to you yesterday, but trying to remember all those “thous” and “dosts” was giving me a headache. Would it be okay if I was just myself today?

Athena: More than okay. I was starting to worry I’d have to find an Olde English dictionary. But you were doing a great job.

ArchmageGed: Thanks! I’m not usually a words person. It was fun to think of it like a puzzle.

Athena: I know what you mean. I would have kept going, just to keep talking to you. This is better, though.



They were like this at first, flattering each other a little, both wanting to make it clear that there was something there but without having to say it too openly. That broke down pretty fast, though, and after a week or so of chatting they started getting real.


ArchmageGed: Sometimes I worry that I’ll always feel as alone as I do now.

Athena: Me too. But it makes me feel less alone to know that you feel the same way.



It was so fucking sad. I hadn’t known Hayden thought that; we’d been around each other for such a long time that I’d felt like it would be a betrayal to admit to him how lonely I was, even with him as my friend, and it turned out he’d felt the same way the whole time. It made me think I could have been helpful, if I’d just spoken up. Even as I discovered there were other reasons Hayden might have made his decision, it still seemed even more my fault.