Boiling Isles RPG

Luz’s POV

Riding with Amity on the back of her bike was a lot harder going to the school than from. In fact it was pretty much all uphill to the point where towards the end they’d actually needed to get off and walk the rest of the way up. Amity didn’t seem to mind though and had repeated multiple times how grateful she was for the Noceda family’s help with everything.

Thankfully, she’d been able to call her siblings the other day after Luz’s mom had left for work and gotten some good news. After listening to a shouting fit from their parents, the twins had apparently overheard them declaring Amity dead to them but they weren’t going to call the police in order to keep up appearances. They’d also had the foresight to go into Amity’s room and grab pretty much anything they could that seemed important before their parents could burn it. They were going to bring it all to Amity after class.

Speaking of classes, Luz could hear the warning bell ring from across the street as they crested the last hill. Luz was trying not to let how winded she was show as Amity released her arms from around her waist and hopped off of the bike. Amity glanced over to the school, Luz was still suspended for another few days so she couldn’t get any closer to the school’s property but she was still glad she could give Amity the ride.

“So my siblings are going to pick me up after their classes to bring me my things and drop me off at your work.”

“That’s the plan,” Luz huffed still trying to catch her breath.

Amity nodded, her face was blank but Luz caught on to the way she was clutching at the hem of her shirt. “Hey,” she said softly, “it’s gonna be alright. We’re gonna figure everything out.” Luz reached out and took the hand that was clenching the shirt in one of her own. They’d talked last night about a better game plan after learning what her siblings knew.

Amity was going to be staying in Luz’s room for the foreseen future, she’d insisted on taking the sleeping bag despite Luz’s protests. She’d also explained her thought process for getting a job at the coffee shop across from The Own House which was alway hiring so that she could contribute to household expenses. Luz had been a little disappointed initially that Amity had picked up on their lack of financial stability so quickly, but on the other hand she’d been happy that she hadn’t needed to bring it up herself.

“Hey Luz?” Amity squeezed her hand a little tighter. “Would it be okay if I told Willow and Gus what’s going on? They’d want to know.”

Luz used her free hand to swipe her sweaty bangs out of her eyes. For the first time in months she allowed herself to think back to them. The girl with black hair that glanced at her in precalc, and the shorter boy who had asked to borrow a pencil on the second day of class. They waved at her at the dance. She hadn’t put two and two together yet, but they’d known it was her, and they’d been excited to meet her. “Yeah,” She heard herself say before she could talk herself out of it. “Yeah, you can tell them.” Luz bit her lip but only for a second. “Tell them I look forward to meeting them when I get back to school.”

Amity’s eyes got wide for a second, then she broke out into a wide grin. Before Luz knew what was happening Amity’s arms were around her neck and Amity was saying “Thank you!” over and over again. “They really missed you, you know,” the smaller girl said a bit more quietly into her ear. “We all did.”

The tardy bell rang but Amity still hesitated before pulling herself away from Luz. Then, as her face left her shoulder, Luz felt Amity plant a soft kiss against her cheek.

Amity’s face suddenly came into Luz’s eyeline and Luz could only imagine her own dumbstruck expression as Amity’s face shifted from happiness into a panic. The girl immediately turned on her heel and began marching towards the school’s entrance while announcing “Thank you for the ride! See you in several hours!”

Luz blinked, staying frozen like a statue as Amity pushed the ‘pull’ door a few times before finally gaining entry to the building and disappearing. Slowly, she placed a hand against her cheek, the spot felt warm and tingly beneath her finger tips. A wide smile found its way onto Luz’s face as she turned her bike around and began pedaling toward The Owl House.

Yes. She would be seeing Amity in several hours.

And she could hardly wait.

Luz spent the rest of the day in the back of Eda’s shop, fixing some items, watching some TV, cooking some food, and just hanging out with King. It was obvious he was missing Eda a bit with the way he occasionally sniffed around the store looking for her even though the shop was closed. Luz was pretty sure he’d also missed all of the one-on-one Luz time he used to get during the summer though since he never refused coming right back to her lap whenever she called him.

She had to admit, she was enjoying the time away from school too, and it was even better knowing that she didn’t need to worry about Boscha when she would have to go back. It had taken her a little while to actually wrap her head around the fact that one of her bullies was actually facing consequences and that she wasn’t going to be in harm's way anymore. Amity’s voice, ‘you won that fight’, kept swimming in her head and Luz couldn’t help but smile.

Luz let out a breath as she and King returned inside from their walk around the block. King, as per his usual, had refused to keep going once they’d reached the halfway point so Luz had needed to carry him the rest of the way. “You’re very spoiled, did you know that?” Luz asked as she set him down inside the back door? King, to his credit, apologized to the best of his ability by rolling over and requesting belly rubs which Luz had never been able to refuse.

After wiping off her boots, Luz returned to the kitchen to see how else she might be able to fill the next two hours before Amity was supposed to return when she noticed the light on Eda’s antique voicemail blinking. Luz sighed and rolled her eyes. It was probably those prank callers again, or maybe someone from the zoning committee that Eda had been dodging calls from but Luz still needed to review it just in case.

Luz pressed the button and her ears were immediately assaulted by a clattering and Eda’s voice shouting over someone “Of course I’m sure! I’ve never been more sure of anything in my- oh my voice message stopped. Hey Luz!” Eda shouted into the receiver of her phone causing Luz to take two steps back from the answering machine. “Don’t know where you are right now considering you’re supposed to be at The Owl House where you, yah know, are being paid to be! When you get this call me back!”

Another voice, this one much softer and a little farther away from the transmitting phone spoke up. “Eda, again, I know you have a tendency to exaggerate when it comes to accomplishments, but it’s okay if you weren’t telling the tru-“

“Rainstorm, I have never exaggerated anything in my entire-“

A loud beep interrupted the conversation as Eda either finally hung up the phone or the messaging machine simply decided it had heard enough of her voice. Luz sighed as she dialed the number to Eda’s cell phone.

She drummed her fingers on the kitchen countertop while the phone rang. On the fifth ring Eda finally picked up and, in her usual shout that had Luz holding the receiver a foot away from her face, said “I don’t care if you’re in hell itself, I will find where you scam callers live and make you regret the day you were-”

“Eda, do you not have your own store’s phone number saved on your phone?”

There’s a moment of hesitation before Eda pipes back up much more chipper, “Oh good it’s just you.”

Luz felt herself smile, “Yeah, I just came back from walking King.” She reached down and gave the good boy in question a scritch between the ears. “So, what did you need to talk to me about?

“Yeah, hang on. Raine! It’s her!”

A moment passess and a softer spoken voice comes through. “Hello, you must be the famous Luz I’ve heard so much about.”

“And you must be the famous person I’ve heard so much about.” Luz felt the smirk pulling at her mouth as she leaned against the counter. “I’ve got to say, it’s nice to finally put a face- er- voice to the… well, the vague references Eda’s been making about why I suddenly need to dogsit.”

Raine chuckles on the other side of the line and Luz can hear Eda grumbling over it. “Okay, that’s enough from the two of you! Luz, I called because I wanted to ask about that thing you did. The video game thing. The one you asked me to help you with.”

Luz tried to wrack her brain at Eda’s incredibly unspecific information. “Are you talking about a console I fixed or-”

“No, no, I mean that thing you asked me to do voice stuff for.”

“Oh!” Now, Luz knew what she was talking about. She’d asked Eda to record voice lines for the character of Kikimora for the Artificer’s Mansion. “Yeah, what did you want to ask me about?”

Raine piped up instead of Eda, “So, you designed a level for The Boiling Isle’s RPG?”

“Yeah, on one of the private server things they offer. You guys sounded pretty insistent in the message, what’s up?” She wondered if Raine was a fan of the game and that’s why they brought it up, but that sounded like a weird reason to call out of the blue about.

“What’s the name of the level you designed?”

“Uh, I called it The Artificer’s Mansion, why? Are you a fan of The Boiling Isles?”

Eda started cackling on the other side of the line. “Are they a fan of- ah ha ha!

Raine seemed to pull the phone a little farther away from Eda’s obnoxious laughter. “Well, you could say that,” they continued, “but that was really you who did that right? Did you work with a team, about how much time did you spend working on it, and the reward at the end, were you the one who designed that too or did you simply see it on the public forum a few months ago?”

Luz felt her brain fizzling slightly at the onslaught of questions. “Wow, guess you’ve played my level huh.” A smile pulled at her lips, it felt kind of good to know that someone a few hundred miles away had played it. “Well, I pretty much did the whole thing myself with Eda and her sister doing the voice acting. The staff at the end was something I’d made pretty much right before starting on the level. I was just kind of looking for something to do in my spare time.”

“Hang on a second.” It sounded like someone was typing something. “You said that you started on the level after finishing the staff, but the staff was released only a few months ago.”

“Uhh, yeah.” Luz sighed to herself as she thought back to a few months ago and the mental state she’d been in. She wasn’t even sure if she was completely separated from that low point but at least she was better now. “I just had a lot of free time after school and needed something to do?”

There was a pause on the other end. “You designed and created an entire video game level… in your free time after school?”

“Yeesssss? But a lot of it was just using resources from the website and some shortcuts I found on YouTube, frankly there’s a random pumpkin at the bottom of the elevator shaft that if I tried to take it out the whole thing crashes so it’s not that great.”

“Okay,” Raine sounded unsure as they continued typing. “And you’re sure that this was you, who designed the level, you’re not taking credit for something you didn’t do?”

Was Luz sure that she’d spent hundreds of hours hyper fixating on every detail of a virtual world to distract herself from reality? “Yeah, it was me.”

There was silence for a few seconds on the other end until Raine spoke again. “When’s the last time you’ve checked the messages for the account of the level you created?”

Luz grimaced, “Well my computer was destroyed almost immediately after I posted the level, so I haven’t gotten around to it quite yet. Why? Do people seem to like it?”

“Luz, this is very important, I need you to check the messages for the game right now.”

Luz’s mind flashed to her desk back home, still littered with various computer parts. She was still trying to find replacements for what was damaged but it was slow going since she usually used her computer for that and Eda’s was... “So, I don’t really have access to a computer right now.” She won't even be able to use the ones at school until next week.”

Eda’s voice piped in again. “Use the computer in the room at the end of the hallway.”

Luz felt her face turn sour. She’d accidentally opened that door once and it was a lesson well learned. “Eda…”

“Luz, it’s the only computer in the house and this is important. Just… keep looking at the floor.”

Luz swallowed as she pushed herself off of the counter. She couldn’t imagine what was so important it couldn’t wait. It had only been a few days, maybe a week, since she’d posted the level. She’d hoped people would like it, Artificers were always looking for new content so at least some people have definitely already played it. But what if they didn’t like it? Maybe someone claimed she ripped it off from something else. Maybe she did rip something off accidentally, she’s played a lot of video games, there’s a chance she may have used something she’d seen a long time ago and didn't realize it.

With the phone to her ear she made the trek to the door at the end of the hallway. Keeping her gaze plastered to the floor, she opened the door and navigated herself to the boxy white computer sitting on the desk. She deliberately did not sit down on the desk chair and as soon as the screen booted up she pressed the hotkey to minimize windows as many times as she could without actually looking at the screen.

“You got it yet kid?”

“Working on it Eda, your computer is slower than a snail.” Finally the computer screen stopped changing color in the corner of her eye and she chanced a peek to see a vacant screensaver. She let out a breath and opened the internet.

After a minute of typing while avoiding pop up ads, Luz finally managed to login to her account on the private server. Even though she chose to post anonymously, she’d still be able to see all of the data for her creation and the messages people sent her there.

“Woah,” Luz mumbled as the screen loaded in a bit at a time. The first thing she saw was the stats for the level. It had been played 1,204 times, well over the 20 she’d estimated and the 50 she’d dreamed of.

“Are you reading the messages yet?”

“Uh, almost there, hang on.” Luz had to tear her eyes away from the number on the screen which had increased to 1,208 as the screen continued to load. Finally the envelope icon at the bottom of the screen revealed itself and Luz felt herself get lightheaded at the sight of 300+ unread messages. “Oh my god.”

Eda and Raine were thankfully quiet over the phone as she started scrolling down the folder. “Oh my god! What the heck?” Dozens of messages about how much people liked her game. Artificers talking about how cool the mansion's mechanics were, people who had played multiple times talking about all the different routes, people who had convinced the rest of their party to play with them after doing a run solo. There were some people who didn’t like it, called her a hack, said it was stupid and way too easy or too hard, some thought she was a developer for the main Boiling Isles game who had leaked it either accidentally or on purpose.

Then she hit a message that had been sent this morning. The username of the messenger read @Boilingislesdev2 which was the official username that the development team of the company used to interact with users. Someone had gotten to the more obvious usernames first and the development team thought it was funny to just put 2 at the end instead of fighting the people who had beaten them there. The subject line read ‘As per previous messages, please open’. Luz felt her eyes grow wide as she opened the email.

‘Dear Anonymous,
As mentioned in previous emails, we, the Boiling Isles development team have taken notice of the content that you’ve created and wish to speak to you further about the possibility of using some of your designs in Boiling Isles RPG. Please respond at your earliest convenience as we are eager to hear back from you.

Sincerely,
Boiling Isles Development Team’

There was an email listed in the email signature for someone named Steve Tholomule, not just the general development team email. They wanted to use her designs in the Boiling Isles.

“Oh my god,” Luz said in awe at the words written in front of her. “Oh my god. Oh my god!”

“Did you find the messages yet, kiddo?” Eda’s voice snapped her out of the wormhole she’d found herself in.

“Eda, they want to use my designs!” She shouted into the receiver. “The development team- they liked my level! They want to use it!” She pressed the phone against her chest to muffle the noise as she screamed in excitement at the floor of the room. “Oh my god!”

Luz pressed the phone back against the side of her face to hear Eda snort laughing and saying “I told you so” to Raine over and over again who was responding with a chuckle and a “yes, you did”.

Then Luz’s excitement faded ever so slightly as the gears in her head started to turn again. Raine had known she hadn’t been responding to something fairly important. “Hey Raine, who did you say you were again?”

Raine’s chuckle turned into a short and very cheerful laugh. “Well Luz, I’m Raine Whispers, Bard-Artificer multiclass and the lead sound engineer for the Boiling Isles RPG, and your level has been quite the talk of the office for the past few days.”