Strings

Mercedes has always found escape from the tedium of daily life in fantasy books and, especially, in games, where she can enter another world and become Ambrosia the Sorceress, wielder of powerful spells. After one too many afternoons in detention, she returns home to find that someone has left a new computer adventure game in her mailbox. Mercy and her reluctant friend Bernard take an unauthorized day off to try it out, only to discover that they have literally, left their mundane world behind and entered a realm of elves and dwarves and stranger things. Forced into a quest to recover a powerful magical artifact, they soon learn that they're not the only ones seeking the prize, and that, when you can't set the keyboard aside and walk away, a game is no longer a game. Instead, it's something like life.

In the conclusion of the story that began in "Shards", Mercy, Bernard, and their allies must face a horror that once ravaged the continent, then make a perilous journey across the mountainous Fists to confront the enemy who unleashed it. Along the way they discover that the quest they are on may not be the quest they started, that the opponent they must ultimately defeat may not be the one they expected, and that the cost of failure may be much higher than they imagined.