Interlude – Niminay

The world was falling apart, but in Niminay’s experience that was it natural state.

“We’re seeing incursions in the [Pelgrathi Highlands] that are hitting at the same time as the Consortium is sending strikes against  the [Aquanoids] and the [Rishell Silvermines],” General Aurelite said, as she pushed a series of force markers across the map in the tactical planning room.

Niminay half listened. She’d been the one to deliver two thirds of the intel which Aurelite was working from and as the highest level person in the room she knew she was going to draw the short straw on sorting out whichever problem area was deemed the worst by the collective wisdom of the [Strategists] and [Generals].

“I can see why they’d attack the silver mines, but what do the Aquanoids have that’s worth assaulting them for?” Prince Brandoth asked.

He wasn’t dim, but given the company assembled to wrestle with the problem of the [Consortium of Pain], he looked duller by comparison than usual.

“The Aquanoids don’t build cities, or collect wealth,” Strategist Penswell said, adjusting her glasses as she studied the newest intrusions in light of the previous ones. “A raid on them wouldn’t be predicated on obtaining resources.”

“And yet they attacked both the Highlands and the Silvermines, which are resource rich areas,” General Aurelite said. “Different factions within the same organization perhaps?”

“That would explain why they’re striking so far apart, right?” Brandoth asked. “I mean the highlands are a thousand miles or more from the silver mines.”

“The distance doesn’t matter to them,” Penswell said. 

Niminay could see Penny was ticking through some evaluation and only had perhaps ten percent of her attention to spare for answering questions. Feeling charitable, Niminay decided to help her friend out.

“Their [Breacher Ships] are world jumpers,” she said. “That they can get here at all means they can land anywhere on the world they want, at any time they want.”

“But that means we’re in danger everywhere,” Brandoth said.

Give the boy a cookie, Niminay thought, with perhaps a little less charity that she should have felt.

“That’s on the first page of my report, in the first paragraph,” Niminay said. “It’s why we have to treat this as a global crisis. Not one which any single Kingdom can be expected to manage on its own.”

“And would it be so bad to leave the unworthy nations to fall before the invaders might?” General Nalunker asked. “It could clear up a few long standing problems we’ve had.”

He was speaking of the Goblin city of Toothache. Everyone knew what he meant too. The goblins had arisen to power only a few years ago. In that short time though, they’d tried to over turn the delicate balance of power between every nation around them. 

Niminay could see the temptation flickering in the Generals’ eyes. Allowing the Consortium to eliminate the goblins without any of the Fallen Kingdoms needing to extend themselves could allow the old status quo to return. No more goblin meant the old borderlines would be respected. It meant the dangerous inter-kingdom squabbling could be replaced with a chance to solidify their hold on territories which had grown unruly despite being nowhere near the goblin’s lands. It meant  they could get off the field of battle for a season and just enjoy themselves.

They were idiots. Excepting of course Penny, and Penny wouldn’t have called the others that. She was far more diplomatic. Niminay had been too, but then what felt like several lifetimes worth of calamities had come and gone and rub away all the awe and instinctive respect she’d had for people in high places. 

It was hard to be impressed by Kings and Generals when you’d spoken with literal gods. Harder still when you’d had to beat those same gods back into the underworld where they belonged. Niminay smiled. Those were good times. Good times.

“Yes, it would be fine to allow the Consortium to scour own world clean,” Penswell said. “There’s just the small problem that they’re not locusts. They have a plan, and allowing them any victories means allowing them to advance their plans.”

“And if their plans are to run us to the far corners of the world so we’re too spread out to resist their main attack?” General Nalunker asked. 

“Then we should respond accordingly,” Penswell said. She reached over and took the stick from Aurelite, pushing pieces from where they were to new locations on the map.

“If we keep our army together, can’t we just beat them again, like when they showed up the first time?” Brandoth asked.

Niminay had been a part of that battle, the first major encounter with the Consortium’s forces. It hadn’t been pretty, or easy, and if it hadn’t been for some truly astounding diplomacy to bring together an almost unprecedented alliance, she was reasonably certain the forces of the Fallen Kingdoms wouldn’t have seen the next dawn. 

The stronger adventurer’s would have escaped of course, respawning and fleeing outwards as the Consortium established beachhold. That would have been a massive problem for the Consortium but being able to get revenge for a destroyed village is a far, far lesser thing than being able to protect it.

“The army is no longer assembled,” Penswell said, as the door to the tactical room opened to admit a new participant. “We lost some of its strongest units immediately following the battle, and the adventurers who came when we called for aid are not at all guaranteed to aid us again.”

“They may not, but there are still plenty of us who will,” Glimmerglass said.

“I thought you adventurers tended to rest and recover your ‘Inspiration’ for fighting for months after battle’s like that?” General Nalunker said.

“Usually yeah,” Glimmerglass said. “Something’s changed though. I don’t feel the touch of the divine we normally feel, but I am ready to fight.” She went to the window of the tactical room and opened the shutters to reveal the courtyard which was already thronging with the brightly decorated, motley armor of a dozen adventuring companies. “And so are a lot of others.”

Interlude – Zibby

In the valley below, two young boys were running for their lives. They were supposed to be adventurers. Brave. Strong. Powerful.

But this was also supposed to only be a game. 

This wasn’t supposed to be a scenario where monster could actually eat you. 

The [Rust Raptor] which pursued them hadn’t been given that memo though, or, at fifteen feet tall, armed with a mouth full of serrated metal death, it had simply eaten the memo bearer too.

“They’re going to be below us in about ten seconds, are you ready for this?” Aiemethia asked. He had his weapons ready, but was doing his best to only glance over the edge of the long fall occasionally.

“I have to be,” Zibby said. No way was a child being hurt on her watch.

Their plan wasn’t a complex one. When faced with a fifteen foot tall robo-dinosaur, the best idea, usually, was ‘run’. The kids were trying that though and it wasn’t working since the [Rust Raptor] could run at least twice as fast as they could. That left them with the next best option; smack the monster hard enough that it stopped trying to eat the kids.

Zibby would have had a hard time imagining herself jumping onto the back of a dinosaur, robotic or otherwise, with the intent to kill the thing if possible, but as the moment approached a fire she’d carried inside all her life lit up and made it so simple.

The kids running and screaming in terror could have been her kids, but they didn’t have to be. She would have protected them because, despite the adventurers’ bodies they wore, they were scared, and small, and they needed her. 

“Here we go,” Aiemethia said, leaping off the cliff despite the terror the heights certainly gripped him with.

Zibby felt anger fill her. Not wild and uncontrolled. Not when she had a purpose and a use for it. At other times, it felt like a burning brand, one she didn’t want to wield but couldn’t let go of. Facing down a monster though, it was just the tool she needed.

Aiemethia’s fall was cushioned, to a certain extent, but landing on the robo-raptor’s head and slamming his sword through its neck. On any fleshly creature it would have been a mortal wound but the [Rust Raptor] ran on different systems than a purely organic dinosaur.

Zibby landed directly on its back therefor and plunged her staff into the glowing power module affixed to its side. Even as a low level, mostly protection based, caster, she had a few offensive spells.

And, as a [Mathemagician], she could do all sorts of basic mathematical things with her spells.

“[Force Multiplication][Combinatorial Strike],” she said, outer calm masking the focused rush of channeling almost all of her magic into the single strike.

The [Rust Raptor] exploded.

Picking herself up from the scraps of its remains, she dusted off her robes and turned to the children were were staring back at her, speechless.

Some days were tougher than others, but then some were still pretty good too.

Interlude – Kevin McConnel / Roadkiller

Waiting for the raids to come back online made for a boring night, even if it was Kevin’s last one.

He didn’t know it was his last of course. Sitting in his dorm room, the last thing Kevin McConnel could imagine was that his time could be counted in minutes rather than years or decades.

“Hey, I just heard somebody else say they gotten drawn into the game,” Teddy Jacobs said. Teddy was the raid’s main healer, and while the raid was a no-go because EE had shutdown the zones for some reason, everyone who’d signed up was still hanging out in Discord chatting and waiting for a notice that it was safe to log off.

Kevin didn’t have classes in the morning, only suckers and nerds took early morning classes, so staying up till the stupid hours of the morning wasn’t a problem, but he’d been jazzed to shoot for “World’s First” on at least one of the raids tonight.

His team wouldn’t get it. He knew that before he logged in. They were fine, but kind of losers too. None of them were as good as he was. He basically carried their worthless butts through all the other content they’d done, and in return they didn’t complain much when he snagged the loot he needed first.

“That can’t be real,” he said. “It’s some bored little whiner babies who want attention because we’re all stuck here.”

“I don’t know,” Teddy said. “The people at the tavern I’m in are talking in the local chat channel. They’re passing on things from a Game Master.”

“Can you see the Game Master?” Kevin asked, knowing the answer and wondering how stupid Teddy could be.

“No, they already left,” Teddy said. “But everyone here says there was a GM here about ten minutes ago, so we just missed them.”

“Yeah, right, how would that even be possible?” Kevin asked, but a part of him started to entertain the idea.

It was ridiculous of course. The kind of thing a two year old would come up with. 

But it would be cool.

“They said it happens if you try to logoff, or if your character dies in the game. That’s why the zones are closed and they’re keeping us online.”

There were at least ten million reasons that were more realistic and likely but Kevin was intrigued by the idea anyways.

“So why don’t we just do it then?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Log off,” Kevin said. “See if it happens.”

“Uh, cause then we’d be stuck as our characters?” Teddy said.

“Like that wouldn’t be sick? Come on, we’d be so badass. It would be awesome! What could be bad about it?”

“Dude, think about this place,” Teddy said. “Do you really want a dragon to rip you to pieces and then roast those pieces to ash? Cause we’ve seen that happen in cutscenes.”

“Pff, that’s not gonna happen. Come on, let’s do it.”

“No way man. Even if they’re wrong, what if it scrambles our hard drives. Or worse, deletes our characters?”

“That’s stupid. They’d just roll everything back then. Come on. I’m gonna do it.”

“Don’t! Dude. Don’t do it. If you wreck your account, it’s gonna take forever for someone to gear up another tank for us.”

“Too late man. I’m doing it.” Kevin said and clicked the ‘Logout’ button.

The usual countdown began and Kevin felt a little thrill tingle across his fingers. He knew nothing was going to happen, but it was fun to imagine.

“Wait. Dude. If you get sucked in, what do we tell people?” Teddy asked.

“Tell ‘em to make a character and come join us,” Kevin said. “This is going to be awesome.”

The logout countdown hit zero and for a moment, just as he expected, nothing happened.

Then the world and his body dissolved.

When things started making sense again, Kevin saw that nothing made sense.

He was in the [Dead Lands]. In the [Fallen Kingdoms]. As himself.

That didn’t matter though. He’d just go over to the chapel and respawn as Roadkiller and then start going to town on everything.

Behind him, he heard a howl that was absolutely not from a dog, and not from a wolf.

They might have been called the [Hounds of Fate] but the last thing Kevin thought before his story ended was that they were something he should never have met.

Interlude – Hailey MacGilfoyle / GM Burnt Toast

Some days seem like they’re never going to end, and Hailey was beginning to doubt if this one possibly could.

“Do we have anything yet on the team that went into Elberth’s Crypts?” Marcus called out over the din of the support center. The answer was ‘no’ but Hailey wasn’t going to be the one to say it. Not when she had fifty two other groups that she was responsible for monitoring.

When she’d taken the job on the Broken Horizon’s support team, Hailey had thought she was carving an “in” for herself to her dream career. After years of playing the game, being part of the team behind the scenes had seemed like it would be heavenly. Those dreams had been smashed pretty thoroughly by the reality of being in customer service though, and from the glimpses she got of the working conditions the development team labored under.

None of that however had prepared her for how much worse being on the front lines of a disaster management team the likes of which no one had ever foreseen, much less planned for, would be.

“We’re still getting heavy pings on the help queue,” Elizabeth Banner, Hailey’s workstation mate, said. 

The support team – or “Game Masters” as they were referred to by the players – were situated in a large ‘open office’ plan, where workstations were clustered together in pods of three stations per large cube. In theory it was to allow them to work together better, bouncing questions off each other in they ran into unusual problems or troublesome players. In practice it meant a complete lack of privacy and more unfiltered noise than was at all necessary. The only bright side to it was that most GM-to-player interactions were done through the in-game chat system or via email so there wasn’t a constant stream of chatter or crosstalk. 

“New players or repeats?” Marcus asked. Even with the request turned off, the system was still monitoring who tried to access the request for help function, and Marcus was trying to use the numbers to work out how many people were in true distress.

“Half and half,” Elizabeth said, as she typed an answer frantically back to one of the team’s she was assigned to manage. Meaning at least half the people trying to call for help knew there was no one listening but were desperate enough to try anyways. 

Hailey could parse that data with no problem. 

They were doomed.

Typically the vast majority, 99% or better, of players had no interaction with the support team, and even when support was requested the interactions were usually brief. Egress Entertainment had developed their staffing plan around that reality, employing just enough low paid support reps to make sure that the workload wouldn’t yield too many customers lost to dissatisfaction. It wasn’t a practice peculiar to the Broken Horizons team, paying for support staff was something few businesses enjoyed doing, and to EE’s credit, they did keep enough people online around the clock every day of the year that support request from players were answered in no more than a couple of minutes typically. 

Unfortunately, that level of capacity was orders of magnitude below what was required when every player who was logged into the game needed detailed and elaborate help at once.

Not that Hailey, Marcus, or anyone else was really able to help them.

If Hailey hadn’t seen her coworker Asad vanish right in front of her, believing that the same thing was happening to tens of thousands of people around the world might have been impossible.

Or it might not have been. Weird calls could always be part of some prank, but weird calls from everyone in the game? If it was a prank, it was one with enough player cooperation that even real magic would have a hard time pulling off.

More than that though, there was Glimmerglass. Or Tessa. Hailey didn’t think of herself as “Burnt Toast” primarily, but it was hard not to think of her online friends as their main characters, even when she knew their real names.

Assuming Tessa still considers me a friend, Hailey thought. They’d drifted apart after their guild split up, and Tessa had dropped out entirely a little while after that, but Hailey still remembered her fondly. Glimmerglass had always been so damn positive. More often than not, Glimmerglass had been the one patch things up when an encounter went pear shaped, taking each party wipe in stride, offering ideas on what they could try next, or even just sharing encouragement or groans at the unfairness of what was before them. Whatever it took to keep people going, Glimmerglass was usually the one you could count on to see it get done.

In any other circumstance, Hailey would have been so glad to see Glimmerglass log in, even if she hadn’t been able to reach out to her. Just to know that Tessa was doing ok, would have given Hailey a warm little glow in her heart.

Instead, she’d been praying that her manually hacked together search query for her old guildmates would turn up empty and, of course, it hadn’t.

The one day Glimmerglass could have chosen to come back and it had to be the one when the world turned into the Twilight Zone. Hailey wanted to blame her for it all, but after talking with her, Hailey could see it had come as too much of a surprise to all of them for that to be true.

Not that that made it any easier. The conversation they’d had still tugged at Hailey’s heart. She’d promised to be there for Tessa, to keep her in the loop but against the tide of calls the support team had to handle, there just wasn’t time.

Hailey’s desk was proof of that. She had ten screens open, with chat clients in each so that she could communicate to the players who were “Most in Danger” based on their levels and location. She’d managed to talk a dozen of her fifty-two assignments back to safe locations already but everyone had so many questions before they were willing to comply with direct and simple instructions that Hailey was tempted to let them suffer the fates they were so aggressively courting.

Except that wasn’t fair and she knew it. No one could reasonably expect a game like Broken Horizons to suddenly become a matter of life and death, and spending a little time talking each group through what they knew was a small price if it meant some of them could be saved. 

And Hailey had to save them. It was the only way to make up for not thinking of Tessa when there was still time to warn her. 

Well, almost the only way.

Hailey’s finger hovered over her mouse button as her cursor waited on the Broken Horizons icon on her desktop. 

She’d taken “*GM Burnt Toast*” as her handle when she joined the support staff in part so that old friends might recognize her, but that didn’t mean she’d given up her original account.

Waiting just a click away was her other self. As a Game Master, she was limited in what she could do within Broken Horizons, especially with her admin privileges locked out, but if she logged in as the original “Burnt Toast”? What might she accomplish then?

Interlude – Azma

Azma sensed the shift by noting the clarity in her thoughts. The world had changed and that wasn’t often a good sign. Worse, it appeared she’d changed with it.

“Well, isn’t this tiresome,” she sighed. The wine she was swirling in her glass held an aroma which spoke of the clear, bright fields where it had been grown, harvested, and subsequently stolen from. 

A moment earlier, it had simply been wine. No expressive bouquet, no noteworthy history, just a glass of red to go with an otherwise unremarkable meal. Between one tick of the clock and the next though, her meal had become a dinner of fine cuisine.

She didn’t mind the dinner, good food was always a delight, but its presence did suggest certain alterations which were typically problematic.

“Sir!” Ensign Three-Three came to attention as he entered her room. Exactly according to protocol. Just as he was configured to act.

“Go on,” Azma said. She could have made him wait till she was done eating. As a [Commander] in the [Consortium of Pain]’s primary acquisition wing, Azma was given a fairly wide latitude in how she carried out the objectives assigned to her, and how she managed to resources which had been placed under her.

Waiting for bad news rarely made it better though, and while many [Commanders] would have been inclined to take out any irritation at having their repast interrupted on the poor messenger assigned to do so, Azma saw little value in that. 

There were so many better methods of relieving irritation than penalizing one’s own crew. Better to save the punishments for when they were deserved so as to retain their value in training and indoctrination.

“We have crossed into an uncharted Arcanosphere around the planet,” Ensign Three Three said. “Navigation wanted you informed that it appears to stretch half a local astronomical unit around the planet, and that readings indicate a second, richer Arcanosphere lies ahead at 0.005 AUs from the planet.”

Arcanosphere’s were a typical problem the Consortium faced when opening new worlds. It was why worlds such as her objective, “The Fallen Kingdoms”, were considered so valuable. Any place with deep reserves of mystical energy was a prize. Any place with deep reserves of mystical energy and no inherent defenses for those reserves was a prize to be claimed with the greatest of urgency.

Which was why the Consortium had sent Azma. 

The initial effort to open the world had been botched by that idiot Gernal, proving once again that nepotism could raise any fool to a position they didn’t deserve. 

Azma would make no claim that nepotism hadn’t raised her to a position she didn’t deserve, her only correction to any such claim would be that in her case nepotism had placed her in a position far beneath her true talents. More than one would-be-contender for her position had perished trying to prove that assertion incorrect, which was quite a bother. If any of the fools could manage to show they were worthy of the role she held, her superiors might finally be willing to elevate her to a more appropriate rank.

They wouldn’t of course. If she ever rose in rank again, she would devour the next person above her, and then continue rising. Everyone involved knew it, but it was still polite to adhere to the fiction that she had simply more time in service to log before being worthy of a promotion.

“Take a command to the Communications team,” Azma said. “Go through Gernal’s sealed communiques. I suspect this is something new, but if it’s not even a simpleton like Gernal should have been able to notice two Arcanosphere’s which weren’t supposed to be here.”

“Yes sir!” Ensign Three Three said and turned to leave.

“One moment,” Azma said. “Did the navigation team say which sort of Arcanosphere’s we’re looking at?”

The [Mystic Barriers] world’s erected where like additional laws of physics which prevailed within their spheres of influence. Each one was unique in theory, but in practice there was a great deal of similarity to be found.

“Oh, yes sir!” Ensign Three Three said. “The Arcanosphere we’re in now is an Incarnation sphere and the one closer to the planet is a Twinned sphere.”

“Thank you, Ensign,” Azma said, and frowned.

“Is that bad sir?” Ensign Three Three asked, breaking protocol in the process.

“I’m no expert on Arcanosphere dynamics,” Azma said, which was technically true. Experts were official trained, or constructed with their knowledge. Azma had picked hers up on her own. She preferred learning from the unredacted sources the Consortium didn’t typically allow people to see. Those tended to be more accurate, especially when one occasionally needed to do things one’s superiors might disagree with. “The Incarnation sphere is fairly common. Many planets with mystical potential will raise a sphere in that family. It makes their laws more ‘real’ for lack of a better term.”

“Will that be a problem?” Ensign Three Three asked. He should have left to deliver the message already but Azma found thinking aloud helpful and so she didn’t shoe him away.

“Not particularly,” she said. “It means the defenders of these ‘Fallen Kingdoms’ will be able to fight us on the fields they know, and we’ll have to adapt to the limitations of their reality. For a disappointment like Gernal, that would present a serious hurdle to overcome but any decent Consortium [Commander] should be adaptable enough to adjust to the demands of a foreign battlefield.”

To his credit Ensign Three Three didn’t ask Azma if she fell into the latter category. If anything, she guessed he was curious how far beyond ‘decent’ she was. She had no interest in demonstrating her full capabilities but she knew a small taste via an easy victory or two should bolster the crew’s already solid morale and loyalty.

“What about the Twinned sphere?” Ensign Three Three asked instead.

“That’s a fascinating one,” Azma said. “Very rare. It says that our target is linked to another world, and they’re sharing resources.”

“So we might have to beat two world rather than one?” Ensign Three Three asked.

“Open. The term we use is open. It means the same thing as conquer, except conquered worlds have at least a theoretical chance to revolt, and the Consortium simply does not allow that,” Azma said. “As for having to fight two worlds? That might be the best news we’ve had all day. Two worlds to fight, means two worlds to defeat, and two worlds we can sell for a very tidy profit once we’re done with them.”

Being dead wasn’t any more fun the third time, Tessa decided. The gray mist, which had felt so wonderfully creepy when she’d first seen it, struck her as annoying obstacle and (most likely) a cheap hack by the level designers to cut down on the amount of work they had to do.

“Are you folks ok?” she asked on the party’s chat channel. Being dead was irksome but being able to continue communicating with her team made it slightly more bearable.

“Yeah,” Alice said “That was a hell of a flip. I didn’t know tanks could move like that?”

“It seems easier to move Pillowcase now that I’m inside her skin,” Tessa said, and frowned at her ghostly and all too human appearing form. She probably didn’t need to be reminded of what she’d looked like before, especially since she definitely wasn’t a human in her current state. It was a bit of extra salt in the wound, a reminder that she wasn’t really the badass [Soul Knight] Pillowcase appeared to be. All she really was could be summed up in the body of Tessa Moore, who’s most badass accomplishment was getting up for work after two hours of sleep one night. 

On the plus side though, her team was safe. She knew any number of tanks who would have counted that as a win.

“Uh, speaking of moving around in Pillowcase’s body,” Rip said. “You’re kind of…”

“Blown to bits,” Alice said when Rip seemed unable to find the right words.

“Yeah, I pretty much expected that,” Tessa said. “I don’t hear the [Hounds of Fate] yet, but I should probably get going back to town to revive before they show up. Will you folks be ok while I’m gone?”

Tessa wasn’t looking forward to the run, but she was looking forward to getting eaten by ghost dogs even less.

“Probably, but hold up a sec,” Alice said. Tessa caught a glimpse of Alice through the gray, searching for something in her pack. A moment later, a piercing blue light broke through the mist, revealing Alice’s pale hand holding a gem which blazed with light.

Tessa knew exactly what she was looking at and reached for it without hesitation.

The sensation of the light flowing into caught her breath in her throat. 

She was warm. 

So deliciously warm. 

In her veins, life burned with the flames fury, casting the misty gray aside to reveal a kaleidoscope of color. The memory of the pains she’d suffered rolled backwards, not being forgotten but transforming from the onset of agony to it’s relief. Strength and vitality beyond any she’d ever felt before pulsed through her body as each mote of light coalesced into a new, fully restored form. 

When her vision cleared she was standing beside Alice, her hand resting where Alice had been holding the [Heart Fire Gem] a moment earlier.

“Woah! What are you a phoenix now?” Matt asked.

“Aww, I wish,” Tessa said. “I’d get killed all the time if so. That felt great!”

“Huh, interesting,” Alice said. “The lore never mentions what using a gem feels like.”

“Can I try?” Rip asked.

“You’d have to die wouldn’t you?” Matt asked.

“It’s not really dying if you can come right back from it,” Rip said.

“No, but it is expensive,” Tessa said. “I’m hoping you got that gem as a subscriber bonus?”

“Yeah. They start you off with a stack of them if you’ve been on as long as I have,” Alice said. “They’re not super expensive either, but probably best not to waste them. It didn’t look like [Sky’s Egde] had any in stock.”

“Thanks for using it on me,” Tessa said, noticing that her equipment was all stowed in its normal places on her, despite having been blown in every direction across the field.

“Thank you for being a convenient test subject,” Alice said, with a smirk. “Looks like the binding magics on your gear works too.”

“The what now?” Matt asked.

“There’s a whole lot of simple charms people use in the [Fallen Kingdoms],” Tessa said. “One of the basic ones is a small binding enchantment which keeps your gear with you. So as soon as I rezzed all the things that I have marked as being in my inventory came back to me.”

“So no one can ever steal anything here?” Rip asked.

“Not exactly,” Alice said.

“Yeah, there’s limits on how much you can have in your inventory so anything else you’ve got isn’t covered,” Tessa said.

“Also, the bindings aren’t that hard to break,” Alice said. “And there’s the superhuman level of skill people can develop to consider. A good thief can snatch a twenty pound sword off your back and you won’t notice till you go to draw it.”

“Stealing things out of your pack is a bit tougher though,” Tessa said. “You’re the only one who can access the stuff in there.”

“Most of the time,” Alice corrected her.

“True, if someone kills you they gain limited access to your pack, so you can lose stuff you’ve got stored. That’s why you put all the really valuable stuff in the bank.”

“I didn’t see a bank in [Sky’s Edge],” Rip said.

“It’s too small of a town,” Alice said. “Lowbies like us don’t have anything that qualifies as ‘really valuable’.”

“On that note, did we get any good items from the Lasher?” Tessa asked.

“Some gold from it and the bugs,” Alice said. “Oh, and check the treasure pool.”

Tessa opened the temporary extension of her pack’s inventory space which held the valuables the party had looted from the bodies of their fallen foes. Items within the treasure pool could be claimed by anyone on the team and transferred to their personal storage, with conflicting claims being resolved via a random roll.

Most of the items waiting in the pool were the typical filler pieces from the monsters they fought. There were several doses of a weak poison from the Centipedes, a few assorted body parts similar to the [Rat Tails] Pillowcase had to collect for her intro quest, and, down towards the end of the list, a [Chain Shirt] and a pair of [Iron Leggings].

They weren’t phenomenal armor but they were definitely preferable to the complete lack of armor Pillowcase had to work with in the fights she’d been in.

“Nice! Anyone mind I claim those two?” she asked. No one else was set up to use either piece but years of party etiquette had drilled into Tessa head the importance of checking with her team anyways.

“Nope, go ahead,” Alice said. “The tougher you are the better it is for all of us.”

“Yeah,” Rip said. “Imagine how things would have gone if there’d been a second Lasher there?”

“There will be,” Alice said. “That thing gave us trouble, but it was basically nothing compared to the kind of things we’ll wind up fighting if we continue on.”

Tessa watched the two younger party members to see how they reacted to the news now that they had a sense of what fighting was actually like.

“How much worse does it get?” Matt asked.

“We had one Total Party Kill here where we all died,” Alice said. “On a typical night for a new raid at max level you can expect to TPK at least a dozen times an hour until you work out all the mechanics.”

Tessa wasn’t sure if Alice was exaggerating or not. Her experience with max level raiding tended to be with groups who weren’t at the forefront of tackling hard content. Her groups were usually a raid or two back behind the leaders, working to implement strategies that other people had already worked out before them. Even that could be brutally hard and lead to repeated deaths but within more reasonable limits than every five minutes.

“Can you get enough of those [Heart Fire Gems] to cover that many deaths?” Rip asked.

“By the time you get to an end game raid? Yeah. They’re pretty plentiful by that point,” Alice said.

“That doesn’t sound too bad then,” Matt said.

“We’ve got a long way to go before we need to worry about that,” Tessa said. “And the difficulty should ramp up in stages as we go.”

“Maybe,” Alice said. “Even the actual game wasn’t always great about making sure the challenge fit the characters who were undertaking it though and we’ve seen there’s either bugs with this expansion or the mobs just don’t act the same as they did in terms of sticking to level appropriate places.”

“Factoring that in will probably mean more deaths, but we can hedge against that too,” Tessa said. “Take this field for example. In the game we probably would have bypassed it and headed on to the dungeon we heard about. The Centipedes aren’t worth much experience at this point and the items they drop don’t have much value.”

“But they’re not particularly objectionable to fight, or dangerous. Yeah, we might as well just farm them, shouldn’t we?” Alice said.

“If this was a brand new game, I’d say trading speed for safety might be a mistake, but there’s so many people who are at the level cap now that I don’t think we gain anything by rushing at this point,” Tessa said.

“So, we keep fighting bugs?” Rip asked. “What do we do when we need to train up?”

“Train?” Tessa asked and checked her character screen.

[Soul Knight Level 3 Achieved!]

[Strength Improved!]

[Endurance Improved!]

[Artifax Trait: Regeneration gained!]

[Trait: Forged Soulbond gained!]

[Skill: Jumping gained!]

Tessa turned to look at the others and saw they’d all leveled too.

“What is this ‘Forged Soulbond’ thing?” Matt asked.

“Must be something new?” Alice said. “Did anyone else get something like that?”

“Yeah,” Tessa said, her mind racing. “That wasn’t in the class write-ups from the beta. Rip did you get something like that?”

“No. I just got Archer stuff, and some improvements to Dexterity, Agility, and Perception.”

“Perception?” Alice asked.

“Yeah, it says [Skill: Combat Perception] gained. Isn’t that an Archer thing too?”

“Not typically,” Tessa said. “I’ve never heard of the [Jumping] skill I got either.”

“That’s not a great sign,” Alice said. “One of our big advantages was supposed to be that we know the game system here.”

“We still do,” Tessa said. “I got the Strength and Endurance stat increases I was expecting at level 3, so it’s not all different. There’s just more to it.”

“Could it have been another new system that the developers put in to the new release?” Rip asked. ‘Like that stuff with the hidden quests?”

“I think they would have tried to sell it more,” Tessa said. “The hidden quests thing my GM friend talked about are something you want to keep secret by its very nature, but this is something people would notice almost immediately.”

“Think we can get in touch with your friend to check?” Alice asked.

“Worth a shot,” Tessa said and sent a message to *GM Burnt Toast*.

The reply came back immediately. The GM’s were still experiencing higher than normal request volume and so petitions for their attention “are shut down until further notice”, which Tessa took to mean “shut down forever” given the circumstances.

“We’re still on our own,” she said.

“Yeah,” Alice said, looking back at the team. “I checked with Cease All and the dungeons to give access to the [High Beyond] are still offline. They can’t get here until they figure out another option.”

“Can’t just fly up here on gryphons I guess,” Tessa said. Flying mounts had been added about halfway through her time in the game, but had come with numerous restrictions to save development time.

“Apparently not, though they did try that,” Alice said. “I guess the air starts getting realistically thin far below where we’re at. They didn’t even get close before they had to turn back. ”

“So still no rescue from other corners, meaning we’re on our own for a while more,” Tessa said.

“Sounds fine to me,” Matt said.

The second battle with the [Chain Lasher] did not go as planned. No battle ever did though, so Pillowcase wasn’t surprised.

“There are definitely more [Chaos Centipedes] above ground now,” Rip said as the farmhouse came into view.

The field which lay between the road and the house wasn’t precisely swarming with giant centipedes, but there were enough that Pillowcase didn’t think her team could cross it without attracting a significant amount of attention. 

“Where’s the Lasher?” Matt asked. He had his staff raised in one hand and a spell at the ready in his other.

“No sign of it,” Alice said. “It might have retreated to its lair. That would be typical reset behavior.”

“We should be ready when we engage the centipedes,” Pillowcase said. “It hasn’t been that long so it could still be waiting for us.”

“Doesn’t it think we’re dead?” Matt asked.

“It is was intelligent it might,” Alice said, “but, if its smart enough, it’ll know that adventurer’s come back more than once, and if it only has animal level intelligence it will simply remain agitated for a while. Our deaths would only fool it if it’s intelligence is in a pretty narrow range.”

“So we have to assume we’re not fooling anyone then,” Pillowcase said. “So start with taking a look around. Were are some good spots for fighting?”

She put the question to Rip and Matt as one final test before the battle began again.

“The best spot nearby is about a hundred yards back up the road,” Rip said, “but we wouldn’t be at a good range to shoot things from there.”

“What spaces around here would work then?” Pillowcase asked.

“We could setup behind the wagon up there,” Matt said, pointing a long abandoned cart just inside the split rail fencing around the farm’s fields.

Pillowcase looked at Alice, who shrugged. It wasn’t a great spot, but the broad flat fields didn’t offer much in terms of perfect sniping locations.

“I’ll setup out on the road leading into the farm then,” Alice said. “Maybe about twenty feed back from the gate?”

“The fence won’t hold the centipedes back but it might help channel them to me,” Pillowcase said. “I’ll start the fight just inside the gate, so about twenty feet away from each of you. As we get more centipedes joining in, I’ll pull back and hold them there.”

“Don’t pull back too far,” Alice said. “I’m more or less immobile, so I can’t adjust where I’m at while I’m casting, if you back the fight up over me, things are going to get ugly fast.”

“Right, I’ll be careful when I’m backing up, and when we’re ready to move forward, we’ll do that slowly too,” Pillowcase said. “The last time the Chain Lasher waited until there was fighting inside the house before it came up from its lair. It got pretty beat up in the first fight, so hopefully it will do the same this time.”

“And if it’s out for blood?” Rip asked.

“We don’t want to bring it to half health with the centipedes around,” Pillowcase said. “Those are the first priority to remove.”

“But it was able to eat the dead one’s right? So how do we stop that?” Matt asked.

“When one falls, use your staff’s basic attack on it,” Alice said. “A couple seconds of that will give the corpse the [Immolated] status and reduce it to ash. It’ll mean we can’t loot the body, but these things don’t carry much anyways.”

Plan in place, they marched forward, alert for danger and expecting trouble.

Unfortunately, trouble was also alert and expecting them.

“I’m going to pull the three that are in front of you,” Pillowcase said, advancing forward and gesturing to a trio centipedes around one of the giant holes in the field. “[Casting spell: Lesser…”

She didn’t get to finish the incantation before a razor tipped chain flew past her face. It missed spearing her through the skull only because she reflexively dodged in time.

From a hole which had seemed empty, or at least devoid of centipedes, the [Chain Lasher] emerged, retracting the the chain tentacle it had fired.

“Take down the centipedes! Don’t let them close with the Lasher!” Pillowcase shouted the orders as she braced for the Lasher’s impact.

Unlike the flimsy wooden shield she’d been carrying, the new one Alice had bought for her held firm against the Lasher’s onslaught.

Sparing a glance for Rip and Matt was tricky with the number of attacks she had to block from the Lasher, but from what little she could make out, they weren’t doing too badly. 

Between the slowing effect of Matt’s [Lesser Spectral Wounds] and the overall damage the two of them could dish out, none of the three centipedes got anywhere close to them.

“More centipedes on your left!” Alice’s cry caught their attention while Matt was still burning the first of their fallen foes.

“I got them,” Rip said, all confidence and certainty.

Pillowcase wasn’t sure how much of that was warranted but the Lasher was trying to climb over her, so evaluating other people’s problems couldn’t be a priority.

“Don’t think so,” she taunted the Lasher using her sword and shield to hurl in back onto a broken wheelbarrow.

She was pretty sure Alice’s healing spell could stretch a bit farther, so she leaped after the Lasher, hacking with the edges of both her blade and shield to keep it off balance. Against a human foe that would have worked well, but monsters made of anger, steel, and exposed muscle tissue don’t really have an “off balance” state.

Six chains flailed around, two deflecting off Pillowcase’s sword and shield as she parried and stepped back but the other four punctured through her legs and torso.

[Casting spell: Lesser Spirit Drain],” she said through gritted teeth.

The Lasher stabbed her again, right where Tessa’s heart would have been, but Pillowcase wasn’t built with such simple weak points.

“I’m going to enjoy carving you apart,” she said, jamming her sword through one of the muscle patches which bound the Lasher together. It didn’t penetrated deeply or take off much of the creature’s health, but the Lasher’s snarl of pain was exhilarating nonetheless.

Pillowcase wasn’t sure where the dark pleasure at hurting the creature rose from. Battle frenzy was useful for ignoring wounds until healing could be applied, but sadism was a waste of energy. As with other concerns though, that was a worry for some moment when a chain monster wasn’t trying to tear her to pieces.

“Pillow, go defensive,” Alice said, and a moment later the stream of healing she’d been feeding to Pillowcase dwindled to nothing.

The lose of the healing spell was puzzling until Pillowcase heard Rip groaning.

“Status!” she called out.

“We’re fine!” Rip called back.

That was true though Pillowcase knew it had been a close call. Rip Shot’s health had been down in the single digit percentages before Alice had caught her with a healing spell. That was what a good healer did though. Alice was still lacking a lot of the healing options she needed to handle a full party but she was able to make a big difference in a fight simply because she was always aware of the party’s health and who needed her support at each moment.

The [Chain Lasher] tried to capitalize on Pillowcase’s lack of support, but the [Lesser Soul Drain] combined with Pillowcase shifting away from an offensive footing greatly diminished the impact of the attacks which did get through. It was still an endurance battle, one which Pillowcase couldn’t win on her own, but she didn’t need to. All she needed to do was lose slowly enough for the others to bring in the win. Because that was how a team worked.

“Ok, we’re ready to start on the Lasher,” Rip said. “Can we open fire yet?”

“Affirmative,” Pillowcase said. “Burn him down.”

“What about when we get him close to half?” Matt asked.

“Keep pushing,” Pillowcase said. “I’ll start kiting it then to stay away from the buzzsaws.”

“Just keep it away from us or any of the centipedes,” Alice said. She was stating the obvious, but Pillowcase didn’t mind. The team was new, and even experience teams benefited from making sure no one forgot obvious things.

It was a good plan, and more importantly a simple one.

Rip’s arrows and Matt’s spells proved vastly more effective at damaging the Lasher than Pillowcase’s sword, mostly because they were backed by special skills and magic where her strikes were no more damaging than an actual sword swing would be.

Together they drove the Lasher to half health, only this time Pillowcase put some distance between herself and the Lasher before the flurry of buzzsaw blades erupted from the creature. 

“Ok, we’re in a new phase of the fight,” Alice said as the cloud of buzzsaws gave chase to Pillowcase.

“What do we now?” Matt asked.

“Keep firing,” Pillowcase said, backpedaling from the Lasher and watching the attack pattern of its new weapons.

“What else can this thing do?” Rip asked.

“Probably nothing,” Alice said. “It’s a low level boss monster. They don’t have a wide range of abilities. Between this and the gas attack it did, that’s probably the limit of the tricks it has at its disposal.”

“Watch at quarter health too though,” Pillowcase said, standing firm again. She’d positioned herself on the opposite side of the Lasher from her team, which gave them unobstructed shots at its back. 

Buzzsaws tried to tear into her but since they needed to avoid running into each other, their attack pattern was simple to predict. Even better, while sword strikes against the chains which held the sawblades weren’t able to slice through the metal links, they were able to slice apart the weird muscle groups which were powering the saw’s spinning. 

The fight to get the Lasher down to a quarter health was tense but also perfectly controlled. Rip’s shots and Matt’s spell landed in a steady rhythm while Pillowcase’s strikes knocked out one buzzsaw after another.

“Brace for something new,” she said as the Lasher crossed the twenty five percent line. 

Surprisingly no new problems arose. As Alice had predicted the Lasher fought on like the murder machine it was, but without deploying any new tricks. Pillowcase was almost disappointed. Wasn’t she meant to fight greater foes than this?

The answer that came to her wasn’t pleasant. 

She wasn’t meant to fight monsters at all. She’d been designed to fight the defenders of the [Fallen Kingdoms].

The [Consortium of Pain] had designed their Clothwork Artifax as powerful troopers to send against the strongest armies the [Fallen Kingdom]’s could musters. Pillowcase wasn’t exceptional in that. She hadn’t been one of the Elites woven of special mystical threads with the intent of slaying the powerful heroes among the defenders. She was just a normal soldier, though that meant she was intended to outfight a large number human foes, each of whom might possess a far wider range of abilities than the simple alchemical cast off in front of her.

So why was she so much weaker than she had been?

Defeat had cost her the [Soul Spark] the Consortium had animated her with. She had lost everything she was, apart from her body and the ghost of her memories.

Lost everything, but gained the one thing she’d never known she needed more that the rest.

“Uh, I think it’s doing something new now!” Rip called out the warning without slowing her shots.

Pillowcase shook her head, clearing out the distracting thoughts and saw they’d pushed the Lasher down to less than five percent of its health.

It wasn’t going to go out gracefully though.

Huge shudders ran through the things form and the round central mass started to warp and bulge.

Pillowcase was leaping the moment she heard the first cable inside the monster snap.

As Tessa she never could have made a standing long jump over the Lasher’s body to land behind it and interpose herself between it and the rest of her party.

As Pillowcase she just barely managed it before the Lashers body detonated, the constraints on its central cable’s shattering and sending razor edged lengths of metal spewing across the battlefield for more than a dozen yards in every direction.

To create a shadow which would cover both Alice and the kids, Pillowcase’s only choice was to land close to the Lasher. That she was able to do with no problem. 

Surviving the razor bomb however was another matter.

There was a monster and monsters needed to die. Tessa knew both of those statements were true. What concerned her was whether she was the monster in question.

“Rip, Matt, keep yours eyes peeled,” she said.

“What should we look for?” Rip asked. She’d already been focusing on their surroundings, her bow at the ready. Being killed had put an edge on everyone, so they were all more aware than they’d been on their first trip out of [Sky’s Edge], but Rip was taking her job as the team’s lookout seriously.

“Check for wandering monsters. They’re supposed to be pretty weak, but that was true when the areas were all segregated into level appropriate encounters. With what we’ve seen so far, assume anything we run into out here will vary from stronger than us to stronger than a demigod,” Tessa said. “The more warning we get of the things we run across, the more time we’ll have to evaluate where they fall on that spectrum.”

“Look for good fighting spots too, like you did in town,” Alice said. “If we do run into something a lot stronger than we are, we might still be able to beat it if we can fallback and stay out of its range.”

“Call out the places you see, and how you’d get to them,” Tessa said.

“And what could make you abandon them,” Alice said.

Thanks, Tessa said privately to Alice. Can you chat while we walk?

Sure, what don’t you want them to hear though? Alice asked.

I just wanted to check in on how your doing? Tessa asked.

Dying sucked, but it wasn’t your fault, Alice said. You’re doing fine for a lowbie tank.

Thanks, but I was wondering more about how you’re doing with the fighting, Tessa asked. We knew fighting like this was going to be different than anything we knew back on Earth. It kind of can’t help but change us.

And you’re worried that I’m going to crack? Alice asked.

Tessa felt words of denial rush to her inner voice. ‘No, you’re fine’, ‘I just wanted to make sure’, ‘I’m sorry’. Her life had shown her that you couldn’t push people too far, or make things too uncomfortable for them. If you did, they would leave you.

That wasn’t what life had taught Pillowcase though. The Clothwork Artifax had learned that; following the rules those in authority imposed on you, got you used up and discarded. Staying silent was a tool of oppression you wielded against yourself.

Tessa didn’t think she’d lived Pillowcase’s made-up life, but the echo of those memories were there. They didn’t give her courage, but the perspective they provided was enough to push Tessa past her natural reserve to express the concern which was eating away at her.

You said we’re going to ‘murder the Lasher properly’. I’m not saying I disagree, I’m saying it worries me that I’m fine with that idea.

There was a longer moment of silence than Tessa had been expected. 

“That one would offer some cover,” Rip said, pointing a gnarled and withered tree which stood alone about twenty feet off the road.

“Real easy for something like that Lasher to charge up on you though,” Matt said. “We’d be better off getting up on those bounders.

The rocks by the side of the road where rough and irregular. The one Matt pointed out was about ten feet high and sloped strongly enough that ascending it was more a matter of climbing than walking or running.

I don’t know about that, Alice said, privately, though for a moment Tessa wondered if she was talking about the boulder. I mean, I don’t know if I am cracking, but maybe I am? I hadn’t noticed the bloodlust. It was just kind of there after we lost.

You said you didn’t have a backstory laid out for Alice, Tessa said, searching for where Alice’s bloodlust could have originated and landing on ‘she’s a vampire’ as a reasonable first guess. Could she have one that you don’t know about?

Again silence as they walked on. The party wasn’t making bad time getting back to the farm house, despite the shared concern over what they would find when they got there.

“So we need to make sure the Lasher doesn’t eat any of the centipedes this time, right?” Matt asked.

“That seems to be what triggered its explosive move last time,” Tessa said. “But the explosion might be something it does once it’s wounded enough, so it’s possible it’s unpreventable and we need to do something else to avoid being caught in it. Unless we run into someone else who’s already fought a [Chaos Lasher] we’re stuck figuring out its abilities on our own.”

I don’t think so, Alice said, again forcing Tessa to context switch. I don’t think Alice is her own person, with her own history. I think it’s just me. I said I was worried about what killing people would do to us but maybe I was just worried about what it would do to other people. I’ve had too many people say they wanted to kill me in the real world. In a place like this where there’s nothing to hold them back? I can only imagine what the players are going to descend to.

You’re thinking we’re going to go all Lord of Flies? Tess asked.

Or worse, Alice said.

Want to call this off? Tessa asked, despite the growling hunger in her hands for both revenge and an aching desire to prove herself.

Yes, Alice said, I want to call this all off, I want to go home, I want to run away from all of this and I want be back with Kelly.

Were your friends able to reach her? Tessa asked, remembering the claim Alice had made that her guildmates were taking care of contacting the girlfriend Alice had left behind.

What? Alice said and then recovered quickly. Oh, I haven’t heard from them. So. No.

“Hey Rip, Matt, hold up a second,” Tessa said, pulling off her pack to cover the delay.

Backpacks in the Fallen Kingdoms were almost universally magical. Every adventurer got a [Storage Pack] which took up a small area on their character model, usually around the size of a belt pouch unless the character was wearing a purely cosmetic outfit of some kind.  Despite their size [Storage Pack]s could hold hundreds of pounds of gear and handled organizing their contents without input from the player.

We can tell them we’re changing the plan, Tessa said. Head for some other monsters to fight or even go back to town.

Alice sent a weary sigh over their private channel.

I wish we could. She caught Tessa’s gaze with a glance. I think we need to do this though. That Lasher is tough but in a few levels it’ll be trivial. Now’s the right time to learn to deal with harder foes. We need it as a team, and we need to get stronger if we’re going to survive the people I was worried about.

Ok, Tessa said. I’m onboard with that, but I don’t want any of us losing ourselves to this. We’re going to get home. We don’t want to be unrecognizable when we get back there.

As she said those words though, Tessa felt the lie inside them.

What did she have to go back to? Why did she want to stay like she was? Did she really like who she was that much? Did she really like who she was at all?

A cold certainty that those were questions for another time and a safer place settled over her.

“Here, take some of this,” she said, handing Rip a strip of something that bore a slight resemblance to beef jerky, and Matt something that was very definitely a cookie.

“I’m not really hungry,” Rip said, eyeing the beef-esque ‘treat’ before her with deep suspicion.

“It’s not for appetite,” Tessa said. “Food improves your stats. Or at least it did in the game. Chow down and see if it does anything for you here.”

“You’re not eating anything?” Matt asked, looking guilty for getting a tasty cookie when his friend had to suffer with mystery meat.

“Pendant’s shop didn’t have any good tank or healer food than I saw,” Tessa said.

“He had some drinks, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be quite the lush my main character was while leveling,” Alice said.

“Drinks help? Can we have those?” Rip asked.

“Sorry, wrong buffs for an Archer,” Tessa said. “Matt might be able to use some of the higher level ones, but we’ll have to see what other effects they have on us here. Being a Drunken Master of Fireballs is great when it doesn’t come with a massive hangover afterwards or impaired judgement when you’re targeting your spells.”

“I can’t drink,” Matt said, eyes cast downwards.

The first thought that occurred to Tessa was ‘but he’s too young to be an alcoholic’, but she knew that was both wrong and far from the only reason Matt might choose to avoid alcohol.

“Right, I’m sorry,” Rip said, wincing. 

“Muslim?” Alice asked.

“My grandmother is,” Matt said. “My mom converted, but…”

But probably not for reasons that worked out so well for Matt if Tessa’s guess was correct. 

“I got on pretty well with my gran too,” Tessa said.

“I dated a Muslim girl for a while,” Alice said. “If you need anything, like a place to pray, just let us know ok?”

“Thanks,” Matt said, looking up with renewed spirits. “The cookie is good.”

“And this stuff is worse than a shoe,” Rip said, scowling at the jerky. “Uck. The stats better be worth it.”

“They’re not going to be a make-or-break thing,” Tessa said. “Food’s there to give you an edge but the fight still mostly comes down to your skills and how well you use them.”

“Speaking of that, we should talk strategy,” Alice said. 

“Can Pillow get the Lasher to chase her like she did with the [Wraithwings],” Rip asked.

“It’s a little faster than I am,” Tessa said. “I think I can kite it for short periods, but I need to stay in range to keep aggro on it or it’ll go for you folks.”

“Also, if she’s running around she’s likely to run into more of the centipedes,” Alice said.

“Can we clear them out first?” Matt asked. “Make sure there won’t be any for the Lasher to pick up once we start fighting it.”

“Clearing them out may be impossible. I suspect there’s a ton hiding in the tunnels we saw,” Tessa said. “Thinning their numbers out should be doable though. It we can create a clear space away from the tunnels that’ll at least give you time to snipe any that try to come in and join the fun.”

“Speaking of that, I want to try switching things up,” Alice said. “Matt, you’re with me on centipede duty, and Rip will work with Pillow on burning down the Lasher.”

“No, it’s ok, I can handle the centipedes,” Rip said. Tessa could see her pleading for a second chance to ‘do her job right’.

“I know,” Alice said. “You did fine with them before. The Lasher’s mostly metal though and monsters like that resist Matt’s psychic damage a lot. Your arrows are equal opportunity damage, not super strong or super weak against most things. Bird-types being a notable exception. You get to shoot those all day long.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Matt said. “My spells will slow the centipedes too so they can’t get to the Lasher as fast.”

“Can you slow the Lasher?” Rip asked. “That would let Pillow dodge more easily right?”

“It would,” Tessa said. “And since we want that thing dead as fast as possible, we could start with both of you dumping pain into it.”

“Can you hold aggro if they go all out?” Alice asked.

“Yeah. I just need to use [Lesser Soul Drain],” Tessa said. “That puts me well above their best damage for now.”

“And if you get interrupted?” Alice asked.

“That’s a good point,” Tessa said and turned to her two younger teammates. “If I go to cast and the Lasher clips me, then you stop attacking ok? Both of you. That’ll let me buy some distance and cast again.”

“What about the centipedes though?” Matt asked.

“I’m stuck maintaining the channel so I can keep an eye out for them,” Alice said. “If I see one incoming, I’ll call out it’s position.”

“That’ll be a sign for Matt to break off and take it out,” Tessa said.

“If we start getting swarmed, I’ll call for you to break off too Rip,” Alice said. 

“Who will take out the Lasher then?” Rip asked.

“Once the centipedes are cleared, both of you can turn back to the Lasher,” Alice said.

“Will Pillow be ok?” Matt asked.

“I’ll have to be.” Pillowcase answered.

Tessa was dead. It wasn’t the best feeling. What really stung though was knowing that she’d failed.

“Well, that sucked,” Alice said, her ghost appearing in the [Deadlands] above the ground where she’d fallen. She rose, dusting herself off although none of the wispy grey smoke which blanketed the land clung to her.

Tessa hadn’t had time to peer into the living world but she could easily guess how things had gone.

The [Chaos Lasher]’s special [Explosion] move had been more than enough to shred a her, and once she was down the boss monster was free to eat the next person on its hate list, which was Alice thanks to all the healing she’d done. 

Surprising neither Tessa nor Alice, Rip and Matt appeared in ghost form a moment later. Once the healer was down there was basically nothing preventing the Lasher from turning them into confetti, so of course it had. 

“Hey, we’re alive!” Matt said, patting his once-again-human body. Or rather the ghost of his human body. “Well, maybe not alive.”

“That was as bad as the [Wraithwings],” Rip said . She looked less thrilled at having been knocked in a ghostly state, but also less surprised. Tessa’s first inclination was to correct that point, but there was a more important matter to deal with at the moment.

“We need to move,” Tessa said. “Back to the chapel.”

“But I don’t hear any of the wolves.” Matt had his head cocked, listening intently.

As if on cue, the howling of the [Hounds of Fate] echoed in the distance.

“At least we don’t have to go far,” Rip said as they ran from the farmhouse back into [Sky’s Edge].

They didn’t sprint the whole distance, but it was still a much faster jog than Tessa could have sustained in her normal body. Apparently despite looking like her human form, her ghost body wasn’t bound by the same limitations. Judging from how well the others kept up, the same seemed to be true for them as well.

For as convenient as being an untiring ghost might have seemed though, Tessa had no desire to remain in her ghost state any longer than necessary. With each step closer to the Chapel, the baying of the hounds seemed to draw three steps closer. Without discussion the party picked up their collective pace until they were outpacing the best sprint Tessa’d ever run in her life.

“How do they know we’re here?” Rip asked, scowling at the injustice of being chased after they’d already lost the battle.

“Maybe they can smell us?” Matt offered. He couldn’t shrug with how fast they running but the sense of one was there.

Tessa wasn’t immediately concerned with how they’d been detected, only with whether they would make it to safety of the chapel before the hounds arrived. She relaxed her pace a bit when they entered [Sky’s Edge] with time to spare, but then she caught sight of the other ghosts.

“Who are you? Where are we?” a tall and exceptionally thin man asked. Over his head a nameplate reading “Count MeIn” floated. Around him, five other people were clustered, with the same stamp of disbelief and bewildering punched into their faces.

“I’ll get them, you all get to the chapel,” Tessa said to her team. She wasn’t really a Tank, and she wasn’t a leader either, but sometimes circumstances make demands anyways.

Alice broke her stride and seemed to wrestle with following the order. After brief moment, and a glance at Rip and Matt though, her hesitation broke and she took off with them, shouting a quick “don’t waste time,” to Tessa as she left.

“What’s happening?” Count MeIn asked. He didn’t look like a leader either, but he was talking and the people around him were listening for a moment so Tessa jumped on the opening.

“You’re in the game, or somewhere that looks a lot like it. That howling means we need to get into the chapel over there for safety. Follow me.”

She didn’t wait to see if they would or not. Staying behind to answer questions or debate the issue would do nothing but get them turned into ghost doggie kibble. If the crowd was sensible enough to survive here then they’d follow her to safety. If not, then she wasn’t going to do anyone any good getting eaten with them.

Unsurprisingly, the new ghosts followed her, people being generally receptive to the idea of fleeing to a place of obvious safety when the world around them turns into a nightmare.

Inside the chapel, Tessa found all three of her teammates waiting for her. That gave her a brief ping of happiness. They could just as easily (and reasonably) have respawned within the chapel. They didn’t have to wait for her, and doing so was on some level a show of solidarity which Tessa wasn’t sure she’d earned yet.

“Ok, first, what the hell, second, no seriously, what the hell?” a woman named ‘Allwin’ asked.

“You were just playing Broken Horizons and your character died right?” Tessa asked. A chorus of affirmative responses answered her. “Let me bring you up to speed on what we know so far then.”

It didn’t take all that long, since there wasn’t that much Tessa could tell the new arrivals, but that didn’t stop them from asking a million and one questions anyways. A few dozen answers in, Alice whispered to Tessa telepathically to let her know she was going to take Rip and Matt into the living world to look for some things in [Sky’s Edge].

Sounds good, Tessa said. I’ll join you there once this bunch settles down.

We’ll plan our next move then, Alice whispered back.

“So, you said there’s a way back to Earth,” Allwin asked. “We just need to complete a quest?”

“That’s what my class guide said. Or that the quest would let us talk to someone who might be able to get us back. The quest requires access to a much higher level zone though, and there’s no guarantee that we can go back even if we finish it,” Tessa said.

“And communications with the support team are down?” Count MeIn said. “But we can messager each other?”

“Yeah, give it a try. We’re all telepathic now,” Tessa said.

There was a long moment of silence while the crowd around Tessa tried out their new abilities to communicate.

“Uh, I can’t do that,” a man named ‘Sly Blue’ said, tapping at the air in front of him as he tried to work his virtual keyboard.

Tessa was about to explain in more detail when she saw him stiffen, blink, and then nod.

“Oh, got it,” he said, responding audibly to instructions Tessa was sure had been provided telepathically.

From there the conversation grew much quieter as people discussed things privately with only the occasional question for clarification from Tessa. In the end she saw them come to a consensus when Allwin and Count Let MeIn nodded and turned back to her.

“This seems ridiculous,” Allwin said. “But hard to say its not real too. We’re going to respawn and take some time to get a lay of the land here.”

“We’d like to add you and your team as friends though, if that’s ok?” Count MeIn asked.

“Sure,” Tessa said. “Well, add me anyways. You’ll need to check with Alice and the others if they want to do that. I’m happy to act as a liaison in any case though.”

“Are you heading back out there?” Allwin asked.

“Eventually, yeah,” Tessa said.”We had a setback in the last fight though, so I need to see how the others want to handle it.”

“What happened?” Count MeIn asked. He seemed to be conscious of his size and took care to stand a little farther away to not be overbearing.

Tessa described the farmhouse battle and the [Chaos Lasher] which had all but ambushed them.

“Then it exploded and that was it for us,” she said. “We made it back here just before hounds caught up to us.”

“Oh, I don’t know that they were chasing you,” Allwin said. “Our party got taken out by a [Void Dragon] and we heard the hounds the whole time we were running back to town.”

“You fought a dragon! Where?” Tessa asked.

“There’s an invisible bridge about ten minutes north of town,” Count MeIn said. “We thought it was a glitch, but it took us into a new zone.”

“Fortunately when we died, we popped up outside the dungeon,” Allwin said. “I don’t remember seeing a [Heart Fire] inside it, so maybe we couldn’t? Anyways, we kind of panicked and all followed Sly back to town but then we had no idea what to do.”

“Have you played Broken Horizons before?” Tessa asked.

“Yeah, most of us have,” Allwin said. “I think we were just in shock.”

“Take some time to catch your breaths then,” Tessa said. “I’m thinking we might be in this for the long haul.”

“I can’t see how we wouldn’t be,” Count MeIn said. “Let us know if you need anything ok? We’re all low level nobodies, but we might be able to help you out with something.”

“Yeah, we’re in the same boat, so you call if you run into anything too. Worst case, we can at least keep each other in the loop on what’s happening in the world.”

With that, they each respawned, Tessa going first and leaving the chapel once she was embodied in Pillowcase’s cloth-like flesh again, with a mission to find her team as her next objective. Fortunately, [Sky’s Edge] wasn’t a large town, so it wasn’t an epic quest to discover their location. They were gathered at Mister Pendant’s store finishing up their transactions.

“When you’re ready to carry stronger gear, let me know,” Mister Pendant said. “And if you have any items you wish to sell I can handle placing them up for auction.”

“What cut do you take?” Alice said.

“Auction services include a 5%, non-refundable, listing fee, and a 10% cut of the final sales price, minus the listing fee,” Mister Pendant said, his voice as smooth and warm as honey.

“Interesting, I thought it was 20%?” Tessa said.

“They reduced it a couple expansions back,” Alice said. “Too many people weren’t bothering with the auction house and the population was starting to thin at the lower levels.”

“With more crafters available, merchants such as myself are able to get quality wares more consistently as well, so the need to hedge against a lack of availability has been greatly reduced,” Mister Pendant said, gesturing to the items on the counter.

“What did you get?” Tessa asked, not sure which of the items were part of the purchase.

“These to start with,” Alice said and passed Tessa an [Iron Sword] and a [Guard’s Shield]. 

“You bought gear for me?” Tessa flushed. Starting adventurers didn’t have much cash as a rule. She had a small pouch of gold coins she received as a subscriber benefit when making a new character but it was nothing compared to the loot a high level player could collect, and not terribly impressive compared to the cost of even basic gear.

“I sent some money over from my main character before I made Alice. So we’re all set there. This should help protect you a little better. I’d have gone for armor too but the weakest gear he sells is still too high level for us.”

“Why can’t we just put it on anyways?” Rip asked.

“You could,” Mister Pendant said. “It wouldn’t offer much protection though because you’re not able to empower it properly. And you wouldn’t be bound to it.”

“I understood none of that,” Matt said.

“Items such as the armor I carry derive their value from more than their material composition,” Mr Pendant said. “The clothes you are wearing now are every bit as protective as the [Chain Shirt] I have in stock, at least for you.”

“How is that possible?” Rip asked. “I’m wearing fabric. The armor is, like steel or something isn’t it?”

“The fabric you wear is reinforced with the magic you carry,” Mister Pendant said. “Against a weapon or creature unable to penetrate the charms woven into each thread, it would stop even a spear thrust from an Ogre.”

“Except that Ogre’s have inherent magic too,” Alice said.

“Ok, but it’d still be good to have it for when we do reach a high enough level right?” Matt asked.

“It would, except there’s decent odds that we can find better gear if we defeat the right monsters,” Alice said. “No sense buying something we’ll never wind up equipping.”

“What about Bows and Staves?” Tessa asked. “Did they have anything for the rest of you?”

“For me and Matt, yes,” Alice said. “For Rip?” She gestured to the new bow Rip was proudly holding in her hands.

“I got this in my inventory when we were fighting!” she said, holding out the weapon for Tessa to see.

“Oh yeah!” Tessa said, remembering the treasure which dropped from a centipede during the fight. “You must have been the last one standing?” Otherwise the treasure pool would have fallen to Matt.

“Yeah, I was a little farther from the Lasher,” Rip said, a ripple of guilt sweeping across her face.

“She was protecting us from the centipedes,” Matt said. “I tried to buy time against the Lasher but I don’t think two seconds helped much.

“That’s ok,” Alice said. “We’ll do better next time.”

“Next time?” Rip asked.

“Yeah. Unless there’s something else you need to get, I say we head back to the farm and murder that [Chaos Lasher] properly this time.”

Walls of four-inch thick, solid wood don’t break easily. But they can break. Pillowcase watched her health plummet to a tiny sliver as she picked herself up and marveled at the hit she’d taken. She was outside the farmhouse. A moment prior, she’d been inside the farmhouse and now there was a new hole in the wall just a few feet to the right of where the door was.

“Destructible environments? Huh, that’s new,” she said, rising back to her feet and readying the half of her shield which remained on her arm.

“Destructible gear too it looks like,” Alice said as she renewed the [Minor Blood Channel] spell.

She’d broken the link when she fled from the farmhouse’s doorway. Pillowcase had been concerned about that, given that she’d charged inwards to hold back the [Chain Lasher] while the others retreated to stay way from the razor scythes on the end of the cables which made up the greater portion of the creature’s body. Tactically it hadn’t been the worst maneuver, but it did put Pillowcase out of line of sight from Alice, who therefor couldn’t provide any of the healing support Pillowcase so desperately needed.

The [Chain Lasher] had solved that problem by slamming Pillowcase through the farmhouse’s wall, and in the process confirmed itself a much deadlier threat than the [Chaos Centipedes] had been.

“What do we do? Run?” Matt asked. His attention was locked on the unearthly mass of chains and sinew which rolled out of the farmhouse.

“No!” Pillowcase rolled away from the Lasher’s next trio of attacks, vectoring away from her group. The Lasher remained focused on her, despite the distance she put between them, but Pillowcase knew that was as much the result of no one else attacking it as any enmity she’d managed to accumulate. “We can take this thing.”

She wasn’t certain of that. Creatures frequently grew more deadly the more wounded they became, which meant they hadn’t seen any of the [Chain Lasher]’s more frightening abilities yet. Given that its attacks hadn’t invoked the “One Shot” code which prevented higher level monsters from killing a player with a single blow though, Pillowcase was reasonably sure the Lasher was somewhere near their level, which meant as a team they should be able to take it down.

“Eyes all around,” Alice said, speaking as much to Rip Shot as anyone else.

“Yeah, keep the area clear of the centipedes,” Pillowcase said as she struck the Lasher to force its attention to remain on her.

“There’s a lot of them around us,” Rip said. “Where do I start?”

“Wait for them to approach,” Alice said. “They may stay out of the fight until the Lasher summons them.”

“Hold your abilities till then, but free fire regular shots at this guy,” Pillowcase said. 

A scythe tip caught Pillowcase on the arm and nearly severed it at the shoulder. The loss of control over her sword left her open to two more attacks, both of which struck solidly.

“Turtle up if you can, I can’t keep you over half health,” Alice said.

With half a shield left and even that showing cracks running through it Pillowcase had no idea how well she could “turtle up” by switching to pure defense, but she tried anyways.

“Matt, you are free to cast as fast as you can. Burn this thing down,” she said, taking advantage of the open space outside the farmhouse to incorporate more movement into her defensive strategy.

The arm she’d nearly lost was good as new a few seconds later as Alice’s spell knit her tore clothy flesh back together. The moment she regained feeling in it, Pillowcase tumbled forward, snatched her dented sword up from the ground where it had fallen and rained a pair of blows in on the Lasher.

The dented sword achieved little with each hit. Metal on metal was never a good contest to engage in, but Pillowcase wasn’t looking to do much damage. All she needed were tiny knicks which her skill could amplify into a compulsion to keep the Lasher attacking her.

Bolts of magic began to pepper the monster as Pillowcase blocked, dodged, and occasionally received grievous wounds from the Lasher’s attacks. Matt was making an effort to kill their foes before it took Pillowcase down, but Pillowcase saw a problem forming right away.

As a ball of metal, muscle, and rage, the Lasher didn’t have much of a mind directing its rampage. There was some minor level of awareness within it, but the psychic damage Matt’s spells were designed to inflict found very little in terms of weak spots to disrupt. He could damage the Lasher but each spell had only a small fraction of its usual impact. 

“I’m running out of magic,” he said, nerves plain in his voice.

“Switch to attacks from your staff while your magic recovers,” Alice said. She was rooted to the spot again in order to keep her spell going but was otherwise able to keep an eye on things.

“How’s your magic doing?” Pillowcase asked. She trusted Alice to warn her when things were getting critical, any decent healer would do that, but in the long run it would be better if Pillowcase could keep intuitive track of that sort of thing without Alice having to waste time or brainpower on reporting it.

“Holding up so far,” Alice said. “Might need to have you kite without a heal if this fight goes on as long as it looks like it will.”

“I can manage that,” Pillowcase said. Better, she hoped, than she had with the [Wraithwings]. “I’ll try to take some of the load off you now too.”

The key was to buy herself some space, as space in turn provided time, and time could be spent for all sorts of things.

What about this? Tessa thought, and stepped forward allowing Pillowcase to complete a front snap kick which knocked the Lasher back by a good ten feet. Pillowcase followed the attack with a backwards flip which put her even farther from the Lasher and gave her plenty of time to cast without being interrupted.

“[Casting spell: Lesser Spirit Drain].” Lines of magic shot from her and began siphoning away energy from the Lasher, and restoring a little of Pillowcase’s health. It wouldn’t have been enough to save her from the Lasher if she’d been alone when she encountered it but added to Alice’s healing it meant her health was able to rise to a much higher and more comfortable level.

“We’ve got centipedes incoming.” Rip’s yell didn’t surprise Pillowcase. The centipedes and the Lasher had to have some kind of symbiotic relationship given the close proximity of their lairs in the farm house.

“Take them down,” Pillowcase said, closing with the Lasher again to make sure her control over its attention went unbroken.

Apart from her failing equipment, Pillowcase felt reasonably good about the battle. Matt’s hits were being resisted but he was making slow yet steady progress, and the secondary effect of his attacks, the slow, seemed to work just fine on the Lasher. Alice seemed to be doing fine on magic and giving her time to refill looked like it would be doable. Even Rip seemed to be doing her job well.

“They’re not dropping fast enough,” Rip said. “Four incoming. Might drop two before the others eat me.”

Ok, maybe Rip’s not quite up to this yet, Tessa thought. She saw the young girl firing wildly as the centipedes charged at her. None of the shots spent enough time to be properly empowered by her skills and so none of them did fatal damage to the centipedes. To her credit though, Rip kept firing. In the face of impending doom, she did what she could to keep helpping her team and Tessa was proud of her.

“Come to me,” Pillowcase said. “Drag them close and I’ll tank them too.”

“Can you hold that many?” Alice asked, no doubt thinking of hundreds or thousands of Tanks she’d met who bit off more than they could chew because they were convinced they could take on everything the world had offer. 

“Holding them won’t be the problem,” Pillowcase said. Alice’s spell was phenomenal, but it did have limits and several centipedes piled on top of the Lasher was on the borderline of exceeding those limits.

Rip raced by, firing arrows behind herself as she ran. Her expression was more than a little panicked but she handled the move well, brushing past Tessa by less than a finger length and continuing to run until she was at roughly half her max range. Far enough to be safe from melee attacks and have a headstart if Pillowcase lost the monster’s interest, but close enough that the rest of the group could still help her if new trouble arose.

Pillowcase didn’t try for another spell, despite how useful it would be. With five attackers to contend with the chance of her casting being uninterrupted was essentially zero. Later on she would gain various methods of dealing with that, assuming she survived that long. For the present though she needed to focus on what was reliable. Laying out a quick barrage of hits which switched rapidly from one to the other left her open to more attacks but she was fine with losing the endurance portion of the battle faster if it meant her team was safe.

Rip and Matt teamed up without prompting to capitalize on the effort Pillowcase was making. With spells and arrows they reduced the first of the centipedes to a quivering pile of good which was quickly left behind in the battle.

In the side of her vision, on one of the transparent screens which resembled the game’s interface, Pillowcase saw a small icon appear for a shared item dropping into the group’s treasure pool. Pillowcase ignored it, knowing they were better off dividing up the loot later, after they had dealt with all the threats around them.

The [Chain Lasher] noticed the death of the centipede too which triggered an instant alarm in Pillowcase’s mind. She tried to keep it from rolling over the fallen corpse but to no avail.

That’s when things started to go bad.

As the Lasher rolled over the centipede’s corpse, it screamed. Then it began to belch an ugly green smoke from vents in its chain tentacles.

“Stay away from that,” Alice said, although Pillowcase didn’t need the warning. Obviously poison gas was nothing she had any interest in messing around with even if her body was mostly cloth and shouldn’t, in theory, have been vulnerable to poisons of any variety.

The problem with that theory was that in a world steeped in magic, things had a tendency to take on magical properties in direct proportion to how much you’d prefer they didn’t. Something like chlorine  gas shouldn’t have had any affect on someone who didn’t need to breathe, but from the sparkles of light and the skulls which forming in the swirling green mists, Pillowcase was quite sure that whatever poison this was it could hurt her all too readily.

“Change targets,” Alice said. “Kill that metal thing before it powers up anymore.”

Pillowcase wasn’t sure that was the right call but she bowed to Alice’s greater experience as a battlefield commander.

It would have been better if she hadn’t.

The combined assault on the [Chain Lasher] was effective in dropping its health faster. From about seventy-five percent the Lasher’s health plummeted to around fifty percent over the course of a minute of solid fighting.

Pillowcase’s own health was hovering around a third of her maximum both from the extra damage from the three remaining centipedes and from the necessity of venturing into the poisonous mist around the Lasher to maintain her control over its attention.

As the Lasher’s health reached an even fifty percent though, the buzzsaws came out.

The motion shook the Lasher like it was vomiting the blades out of its skin but they deployed to deadly effect nonetheless.

Pillowcase dove away from their reach, losing the use of one leg in the process, but her troubles were only beginning there.

The [Chaos Centipedes] weren’t able to dodge the buzzsaws with anywhere near the dexterity Pillowcase possessed. They were sliced to ribbons in less than a second and scooped up by a hundred smaller cables. 

Gases of all sorts began to spew from the Lasher, mixing, reacting, and, in a searing flash, exploding.

Being one legged didn’t slow Pillowcase down much, but even at her fastest she couldn’t have outrun the blastwave that blew her into a dozen pieces.

Tessa approached the shadow wrapped farmhouse but it was Pillowcase who first ventured inside.

“Centipedes, come out and play,” she sing-songed, keeping her sword low and her shield ready. Taunting the enemy without employing a specific skill to compel them to attack you wasn’t part of her creator’s design, which made Pillowcase even happier to do it.

Not that she intended to toss aside all of the knowledge she’d been constructed with. The tactical prowess she possessed was valuable no matter who had supplied it. The [Consortium of Pain] were deplorable monsters, but that didn’t change the value of the power they’d built into her. All that mattered was what she chose to do with it, and in her present circumstances that meant evaluating their environment to understand what her team was facing.

Neither Tessa nor Pillowcase were students of architecture. They couldn’t tell you which Earthly region’s wood working techniques had inspired the two story boxy edifice which lay open and deserted before them. To Pillowcase’s eyes it was a basic human dwelling. Large enough for an extended family and then some, which gave her a catalog of things she was likely to find inside.

Potentially. 

Given the state of the house it was likely that a fair amount of the interior was destroyed or missing. The walls were made from thick slabs of some wood which the shadows painted an unremarkable black but even in the dim lighting they showed signs of abuse and long neglect. From the few jagged spikes of glass and shards of wood which remained, it looked as though there had once been windows and shutters but neither had held off whatever catastrophe had come to visit the farm.

Pillowcase noted the contrast with the state of the walls. Where no windows seemed to remain, the damage to the walls was less severe. The small holes in the walls looked to be the result of decay while the one big hole on the second floor suggested a singular creature had smashed a path inside. It had to be a single creature, Pillowcase reasoned, because if there’d been more than one able to make a hole as tall as a human man in a wall as thick as the width of her palm, she was reasonably sure the house would no longer be standing.

Tactically then, the most important question was “did the creature break in and leave once it had what it wanted, or did it make a lair of the farmhouse”?

“Do you think there’s more of them in there?” Matt asked. He held the pre-casting charge of an attack spell in his hands just like Alice had instructed. 

The light from the arcane energies cast a rippling illumination inside the farmhouse’s kitchen but Pillowcase didn’t need it to see. Darkness was an encumbrance which could limit a warrior’s abilities so Pillowcase’s creators had given her eyes which weren’t limited by a need for light.

“Yes,” Pillowcase said, focusing her awareness on listening for the telltale signs of an approaching enemy. She’d never fought an invisible foe, but the threads of knowledge woven through her contained echoes of experience she could draw on. She knew what it was like to be stalked by something you couldn’t see, she knew how nocturnal creatures made use of shadows, and she knew how to punish those whose relied on stealth as a shield.

“Where are…?” Matt began to ask, but Pillowcase’s sword strike cut him off.

The [Chaos Centipede] was no bigger than the others, but a five foot long writhing worm of teeth and claws and eyes was jarring to find silently lurking on the wall over your head.

Having as many eyes as it did was a mistake though.

It gave Pillowcase so many vulnerable targets to strike at.

Matt raised his hands to cast the spell he was carrying but Pillowcase stopped him.

“Hold, wait for my mark,” she said and caught an attack from the centipede on the flimsy wooden shield she’d scavenged up.

The centipede dropped from the wall, gurgling a noise that was somewhere between a hiss and a bout of projectile vomiting. Pillowcase swept it away from her and Matt, casting it into the center of the room where it landed on the shattered remains of a large kitchen table.

Overhead, another pair of the centipedes woke and began scuttling across the high ceiling towards them.

Those were the threats for her team to deal with.

“Mark Prime”, she said casting a target over the nearest one and “Mark Secundus” to indicate a kill order for Matt. “[Casting spell: Lesser Spirit Drain]”

Ribbons of light lashed out drawing raw energy from the centipedes. The weak Provoke effect on the spell centered all of their attention on her and slowed them long enough that Matt was able to unleash his attack.

“[Casting spell: Lesser Spectral Wounds],” Matt said and unleashed a flare of pink light which pierced into the lead centipede.

The spell didn’t hit with any physical force but the convulsion it sent down the centipede’s body teamed up with gravity to send the creature plummeting onto the floor below.

Tessa wanted to hit it with a quick sword strike to make sure its attention stayed on her. She’d seen too many spellcasters be eaten by monsters, but Pillowcase knew better. The Provoke effect from the [Lesser Spirit Drain] wasn’t a long one but it was long enough to hold and she couldn’t afford to move out of position.

Damager dealers were always at risk in a fight, but even more important than protecting them was protecting the healers. A dead damage dealer could be revived. A dead healer meant the rest of the party would be joining them at the nearest chapel shortly.

As the first centipede rallied and lunged at her, Pillowcase stepped forward, into the attack and introduced the giant bug’s toothy maw to the broadside of her shield.

It crashed back to the ground, stunned for a moment, and providing a golden opportunity to attack. Pillowcase passed up her chance though, taking advantage of the free moment to switch her target indicators between the two centipedes she’d marked.

Matt understood the reason for the change and fired again, sending the third centipede crashing to the ground as well.

With the fight reduced to two dimensions rather than three, the tactical options seemed to condense to a more manageable set of choices. Pillowcase didn’t make that mistake either though.

“Rip, eyes up,” she said. “There’s a second floor. Expect more to come from above. Call out any that show up and engage them at will.”

“I can hear them moving already,” Rip said.

“Good. Let’s see what path they take to get to us,” Pillowcase said.

That was all the time they had for tactics. Even with the slow effects from the spells they’d been hit with, the Centipedes were still able to close the distance to Pillowcase from where they’d fallen.

Pillowcase was pushed onto her back foot, retreating a pace to make sure she was positioned between the centipedes and the rest of the party.

Unlike the earlier fight where she’d had plenty of room to move and dance around her foes, fighting inside the door to the farmhouse meant Pillowcase had to hold her ground. There was no exploiting the mindless hunger of the centipedes with tricky moves to leave them straining to attack when they were just out of range. Here she simply needed to withstand their assault.

It wasn’t easy, or especially pleasant. There were too many teeth and too many claws. For all her focus on blocking blows and parrying bites, many slipped through.

Tears in her cloth skin weren’t like tears through flesh though. There wasn’t the same burning sensation and the loss of her health didn’t come with human foibles like the weakness and mental fog which accompanies blood loss. 

It still hurt though.

Pain can be a great motivator, and an important part of learning to fight. Those weren’t the only reasons the [Consortium of Pain] had designed a capacity to suffer into their constructs of course but they were the only reasons Pillowcase was willing to accept any longer. 

[Casting spell: Lesser Spi…],” she began to say but was cut off when one on the centipedes dove below her shield to bite onto her knee.

She forced it off with a blow from the edge of her shield while parrying another bite from a second centipede.

“You’re at half,” Alice said. “Going to start refilling you. [Casting spell: Minor Blood Channel].”

Because she was safely in the back row, Alice’s spell went off unhindered and Pillowcase felt her pain subside as her wounds knit back together with mystically enhanced speed.

The third centipede chose that moment to leap over its nest mates and try for the juicy prize that was Pillowcase’s face. To its great detriment though, it was the one which Pillowcase had marked for primary fire and Matt’s next spell was ready.

The [Lesser Spectral Wounds] caught it full in its maw and exploded down the length of its entire wounded body.

On death, spells and elemental damage in general can have special added effects. In the game, it was simply a matter of providing a little extra pizazz to the event, but in person watching a five foot long centipede explode into a shower of pink sparks was a bit more exciting.

“YES!” Rip shouted, throwing a fist up in celebration.

Even Pillowcase felt renewed by the light show. She hadn’t had any doubts they would win of course. Doubts were a weakness. But her morale did feel a bit higher.

“Should we push in?” Alice asked.

It was a sound idea. Typical dungeon clearing strategy did call for pressing inwards faster than an alarm could be spread. Being able to engage foes who were unprepared was an unequaled tactical advantage.

Tessa held back.

“No, this is a good, defensible spot,” she said. “Let’s use it as a choke point and get them to funnel to us here.”

“Sounds good,” Alice said. “No point overextending.”

Pillowcase shook her head, clearing away the idea of rushing onwards. Where had that come from? In the game you could never take monsters or anything ‘unprepared’. Creatures were instantly ready for battle and would fight to the death no matter what kind of force was arrayed against them.

She was thinking like this was real.

Which it was now.

She missed a parry and had to hit the centipede on her left with a snap kick to force it back.

Wait, since when was kicking an option? Especially kicking with knock back?

It doesn’t matter, Tessa thought, we’ll figure it out later.

And that was the right idea.

With her focus restored, Pillowcase still suffered claw wounds and a couple of bites but she was able to squeeze in another [Lesser Spirit Drain] spell and easily kept the centipedes focused on her while Matt burned them to the ground.

“They’re coming out of the roof!” Rip said and Pillowcase heard her charging up an arrow.

“Pull back outside,” Pillowcase said as four more centipedes swarmed through the door on the far side of the room.

“We’ve got four coming from above too,” Alice said.

“Make that three,” Rip said, unleashing her [Charged Shot].

“Nope, still four,” Alice said as Rip’s shot damaged but did not instantly kill her target.

“Are you kidding?” Rip said, knocking another arrow.

“Regular shots to finish it off,” Pillowcase said and cast another [Lesser Spirit Drain]. “This is an endurance battle. They’re not strong enough to one shot us but they can whittle us down so spent your resources carefully.”

“Magic is good here,” Matt said, bringing another spell online as Pillowcase began marking targets. 

She put primary fire on the one’s scuttling down the outside of the house, knowing she could keep the other four pinned in the kitchen if she simply remained in the doorway. Having eight focused on her wasn’t going to be thrilling but the [Minor Blood Channel] would probably be able to keep up with it. If not, she had her own reserves to draw on.

“We’ve got this right?” Rip asked, loosing a normal arrow which nonetheless managed to send the injured centipede crashing to the ground as a corpse.

Pillowcase considered saying yes, but before she could make a warning of being overconfident, the floor of the kitchen exploded.

Rising from the basement, a mass of long metal claws bound together by wrought iron cables and stitched with the sinews of many different creatures pulled itself forward and screamed in rage against its own existence and the existence of the world.

Pillowcase knew how it felt so she screamed right back.

Tessa knew what she had to do, and, as a welcome change, it was something she was able to look forward to putting in the work it required.

“We have to become a team,” she said, casting her gaze towards the farmhouse which waited, dark and foreboding off on the distance. It stood there, a silent and deadly challenge that a part of her couldn’t wait to tackle, while a smarter part reminded her not to try tackling it alone.

“I thought we already accepted your invites?” Rip said. “I can see you on my party window.”

“Yeah, we’re a party now,” Tessa said. “Anyone can be part of a party though. Just accept the invite. Just show up. Just stand around. Being part of a team takes a bit more. Team’s work together. They know each other’s moves. They have plans and they have each other’s backs.”

“We’ve got your back,” Matt said, ernest seriousness writ clearly on his metal face.

“Not yet you don’t,” Tessa said. “We don’t know each other’s abilities well enough. We don’t know what each other’s limits are. We don’t know how to maximize what we can do collectively so that the four of us can accomplish more than four times what any one of us could do alone. We’re are a party, but we need work to become a team.”

Rip looked like she was going to argue but Alice cut her off gently before she could speak.

“She’s right, and it applies to all of us.”

“But you’re a veteran, you know this game like the back of your hand don’t you?” Rip asked.

“Yeah, I can carry us to some extent,” Alice said. “But Pillowcase is right. There’s a huge difference between a group where one skilled player is handling all the problems and a group where everyone is working together.”

“Well, we’re trying,” Rip said.

“Good,” Tessa said. “That makes four of us then. Alice has the most experience here, but as a healer she needs to be nearly precognitive, and she can’t do that without knowing us really well. She needs to know how we fight, when we’re likely to take damage, and how dangerous it is to leave us partially healed.”

“I’ve got a a bit of a learning curve to deal with too. My class, [Grave Mender],is a new one, so I’m sure there are some surprises or optimizations I’ll need to work out,” Alice said. “And, even beyond that,  I’m not used to being this low level, or fighting immersively like this.”

“So how do we become a team then?” Rip asked.

“We march in there,” Tessa pointed to the farmhouse. The dark wood which made up its walls seemed to swallow the abundant moon and starlight which lit the High Beyond’s night. In places where the thatching on the roof had caved in though the darkness took on a seemingly tangible quality. “It’s not a dungeon, but it’ll help us get ready for one. Before we do that though, let’s go over what we can do now.”

Tessa went first, describing what a [Soul Knight] could do and what her role in the party was meant to be. For Rip and Matt’s sake, she described the basic mechanics of tanking in the Fallen Kingdoms, how tanks had significantly more durability than any other class and how different tanks were setup to achieve their enhanced survivability, from being able to simply shrug off blows, to possessing preternatural reflexes which allowed them to dodge heavy hits, to (in the case of [Soul Knights]) being able to recover health which they’d lost by stealing it from their foes.

She also covered the general rules for “hate management” or controlling who a monster was going to attack. From the specific [Provoke] effects which forced a monster to attack the one who provoked them, to the more complicated [Emnity] calculations which monsters used to determine who was the biggest threat based on things like damage done, conditions inflicted, and distance.

“Hate shouldn’t be a problem for us right away,” Tessa explained. “I’ve got a couple of abilities that should let me drag mobs away from you even when you go all out. I want to hold off on using them though because I want you both to learn how to pace yourselves so that, once your abilities can outstrip the tools I have, you’ll already have a sense of when it’s safe to burst something down to the ground and when you need to hold back and let me keep whatever it is focused on me.”

For Alice, Tessa went on and explained some of the mechanics of the personal healing she had access too, both in terms of how strong it was and the limitations on each ability.

“I’ll try to keep from topping you off then unless we’re fighting something hellacious,” Alice said. “I have a passive skill which boosts my healing on injured targets, so I’ll be a lot more efficient if I’m healing you when you’re below at least three quarters of your max health. If you can fill up the rest, I should be able to space out the heals even more to make sure I don’t run out of magic mid-fight.”

From there, Tessa took her turn, describing the healing role [Grave Menders] played. She offered contrasts with her main class, [Solar Priestess] too, noting how her new class lacked the ability to convert damage she healed into spells which inflicted damage back on the enemy. In exchange [Grave Menders] had some of the strongest group healing in the game. 

“I don’t have [Mass Life Return] yet but the beta-testers were calling it required for raids going forward,” Alice said, sounding less than entirely thrilled with the idea.

“When does that show up?” Tessa asked.

“Level 60,” Alice said. “So, not really a factor for us.”

“How long will it take us to level up that much?” Rip asked.

“If we were being power leveled?” Alice said. “We could probably make it to 60 in a couple of hours. On our own though it’s going to take longer. A lot longer.”

“A few days longer, or like a week?” Rip asked.

“When I leveled up my first character the level cap was still 60 and it took me about ten months to make to 60,” Tessa said.

“It’s gotten easier and quicker since then,” Alice said. “But that’s in the game where we can take all kinds of risks. We’ll have to see how things go here before we can really say what our leveling speed is going to look like.”

“I wonder if we’ll even be here that long,” Matt said. Tessa thought he sounded unhappy at the prospect that they might not be, but he was able to keep his metal features schooled into a neutral expression.

“My suggestion is we act like we will be,” Tessa said and glanced over to Alice. “I’m not saying we have to commit to being a team from now till then, but right now it doesn’t look like there’s an option for getting back and making plans around that is like building a sand castle on a cloud. If we can keep up contact with the folks back home, we can use that to keep our option open, but for now I think we need to make sure we can survive and prosper here if we need too.”

Matt nodded, his voice mute but the tension in his body eloquently expressive. He was more than happy to make sure he and Rip had a stable life here, which told Tessa everything she needed to know about what his life was like back on Earth.

“If we can find a portal back to the regular zones, I can get you all invites to [AOL], the guild my main character is in,” Alice said. “They’re idiots, but they’re a good bunch, and they can handle most of the stuff this game throws at us.”

“I’d be glad to sign up,” Tessa said, “but shouldn’t most of them still be on the other side of the monitor?”

“Hopefully,” Alice said, though her expression indicated it was probably a hope which was unlikely to be fulfilled. “That’ll limit what they can do for us, but for low level quests, it’s probably safe for them to help out, and Cease All is a full crafter so she can make whatever we need, equipment-wise.”

“They’d take us even though we’re low level?” Rip asked.

“Yeah,” Alice said, “We take in fresh blood whenever we find people who are worth playing with. It’s how we’ve kept the guild going for this long.”

“That’s good,” Rip said. “I was just worried we wouldn’t be able to do enough.”

“Right now, we’re in a weird position,” Tessa said. “We’re incredibly weak because we’re so low level, but we’re also free to try things that the players who haven’t been drawn in yet can’t risk.”

“In level shifted areas there’s plenty that you can do already too,” Alice said, and began to break down the role and abilities of Rip Shot’s [Archer] class.

Tessa had always like good archers. Unlike melee fighters, they tended to be out of the range of wide area spells and effects which boss monsters unleashed. As a wise man once said “the best defense is not to be there”, and for a healer that meant not having to worry about healing [Archers] at all most of the time. 

On the other hand though, when an [Archer] did manage to draw the monster’s hate off the tank, things could get ugly very fast. Unlike Pillowcase, Rip Shot’s defenses were roughly the equivalent of tissue paper and even once she was higher level they wouldn’t be improving by very much. 

Good positioning could help a lot there, and [Archers] did get movement related abilities which helped keep them away from things that wanted to squish them. Additionally in a duel against other ranged characters they had some nice tricks like short hops of instantaneous teleportation and even the ability to snatch projectiles aimed at them out of the air, but those were all much farther down the line for Rip. 

For the time being her strengths were simple. She could shoot things and make them dead.

“That leaves you as the one who we’ll eventually want to have keeping an eye on the overall battlefield,” Tessa said. “There a lots of fights where additional monsters are scripted to spawn in during the battle and being surprised by them sucks horribly.”

“I can do that now though can’t I?” Rip asked.

“It’s something to practice now,” Tessa said. “When we go into the house, I’m going to want you to hang back and be the last one in. It’ll be your job to tell us if anything is coming in from the surrounding area. More importantly though, I need you to follow the kill order I setup. We need to make sure we can coordinate and focus down the right enemies or we’re going to get torn apart by some of the tougher ones.”

“What about me?” Matt asked. “What will I be doing?”

“You’re our controller,” Alice said. “Rip’s all damage, all the time, but your spells do damage and have other effects.”

She and Tessa took the most time running down how the various conditions in the game worked, from [Paralyzation] (which randomly locked up movement and blocked ability usage), to [Sleep] (which temporarily incapicitated the target but left them in a state where a single tick of damage would wake them), to [Mystic Breach] (which left the target vulnerable to magical damage of all types). 

Matt’s class, [Dream Spinner], was an illusion-based caster. His early spells were simple damage dealing ones, though they also slowed the targets abilities and inflicted their damage through psychic channels where few things had much resistance.  Later on he would get ones which summoned illusionary figures or even incapacitated his target, but for the time being he was essentially a weaker ranged damage dealer than an [Archer] but with a few added perks in terms of slowing the monsters they were fighting and making them more vulnerable overall.

“I want you to be focused on what we’re fighting,” Tessa said. “Different enemies will throw off the effects of what you do faster or slower. You need to learn to pick out when one of the effects fade, or eve better when it’s about to fade, so you can renew it. Just casting things randomly means you’ll run out of magic really fast and not deal anywhere near as much damage as if cast the right spells at the right time.”

“I can do that!” Matt said, an excitement kindling in his eyes which warmed Tessa’s heart to see.

“Good,” she said. “Then let’s make like real adventurers, find the scariest place around, and go kick its butt!”

Tessa collapsed. With the battle finished, she couldn’t do anything else. 

It wasn’t that her body was tired. It wasn’t that she was injured. It wasn’t even that she was sickened by the carnage around them.

“Are you ok?” Alice demanded, her blood red eyes flaring wide in concern.

“Probably not.” Tessa’s short laugh wasn’t a sign of an impending breakdown into madness, but she wasn’t entirely sure if that was because she was managing to hold things together or because her psyche had already fractured. In either case though, Alice’s hands on her shoulders felt really nice.

“What happened?” Alice asked, the concern locking her jaw relaxing by a hair’s breadth. Behind Rip and Matt had come to a halt a few feet away and were watching with worry writ large on their faces as well. To their credit though, they were also keeping an eye on their environs as Alice had been teaching them.

“I’m not sure,” Tessa said. “Just wasn’t feeling like myself there for a bit, then once the fight was done everything kind of snapped back.”

“What about now?” Alice asked, searching in Tessa’s eyes for…what? Signs of a concussion? Or a stroke? Could Clothworks have strokes?

“I’m all me,” Tessa said. “I think it comes on when I’m fighting.”

“That sucks. We can’t have you collapse in the middle of a fight. Maybe we should head back,” Alice said.

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Tessa said. “I’m not falling apart when it happens. If anything it seems to make me stronger. Like this is all old hat. Like I was built to fight like that.”

Alice narrowed her eyes, searching for understanding but it was Rip who asked the question which showed she already did.

“Is it like you’re becoming Pillowcase?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Tessa said, knowing how ridiculous that sounded. “Except it’s not like a transformation, or like she’s taking over my mind. It’s more like she’s already there. Already ‘me’, and hearing her voice is just hearing another side of myself.” Tessa paused, searching for words that were hidden behind a veil of personal experience. “I don’t know if that makes any sense? Did any of you feel anything like that?”

“No,” Alice said and released her hold on Tessa, backing away to give Tessa room to rise.

“Yeah,” Rip said, meeting Tessa’s eyes and nodding.

“N-No,” Matt said, tripping over the word and leaving Tessa to wonder why he was lying.

“You felt like that too?” Tessa asked, ignoring Matt for the moment to focus on Rip.

“Yeah. It felt like Rip Shot was the one doing the fighting. She sounded just like she does in the stories I wrote about her too.”

“You’ve written fanfic about the character you just started playing?” Alice asked.

“I started playing her here because I’d already written about her,” Rip said, a spark of indignation heating her words.

“How about you?” Tessa asked, looking to Matt. “Are you a writer too?”

“Oh? Me? Nah. I just thought the name was funny,” Matt said, which was Tessa had expected. 

‘Matt Painting’ was a nice play on words  for an illusion casting character like a [Dream Spinner]. If anything was surprising, it was that the name had still been available given how many illusion using classes there were and how many players had made characters on the server in the last fifteen years.

“You could have taken Gallaway,” Rip said.

“Gallaway?” Alice asked.

“He’s a character in her stories,” Matt said. “Rip’s best friend, in the stories she writes I mean,” he turned to face Rip, “which would have been cool, but Gallaway is your character. I can’t play as him.”

“But you were the inspiration for him!” Rip said, and Tessa could tell they were drifting into well worn discussion territory between the two.

“I think we’re drifting off course here,” Alice said. “So you’re turning into your characters? Is that dangerous? What are they like?”

“It’’s fine,” Rip said. “Rip Shot’s cool. I mean, the one I wrote. I guess this one is pretty much the same?”

“Yeah, I think we’ll be ok,” Tessa lied before backing it up with the truth as she saw it. “Pillowcase isn’t more like a part of me. I’m not going to turn into a Team Killing berserker or anything like that. I just might be a little more…” she sought for a word that wouldn’t terrifying the three people around her and had to settle for, “…intense. During a fight. Once the battle music faded, Pillowcase was done. I don’t think she makes sense for calm moments like this.”

“Is that what it’s like for you too?” Alice asked Rip.

“Yeah, sort of,” Rip said. “It’s not like a light switch or anything though. It’s more like, wait are you a writer?”

“No,” Alice said. “I mean not anymore. I wrote some stuff when I was kid but it was garbage, so, no.”

“How about you?” Rip asked Tessa.

“Not really. I used to make up backstories for my characters, and I did a bit of fanfic back when I was playing, but that was a while ago.”

“How about for Pillowcase?” Rip asked. “Did you make a backstory for her?”

“I didn’t write anything down, but, yeah, I kind of had one in my head. Why?”

“Maybe that’s why we can feel our characters?” Rip said. “We gave them voices before we came here, so they became real when this place did.”

“Ok. Maybe. But where did their battle knowledge come from?” Tessa said. “It’s not like I had a lifetime of fight experience to draw on, so did it just pop up out of nowhere?”

“It could have,” Rip said. “The town, and the monsters, and everything else here looks a lot more detailed than the models in the game. Maybe this place took what was in the game and fleshed it out with what missing.”

“Including us?” Matt asked.

“Sure,” Rip said. “Maybe we were drawn in because the characters needed souls and since we were controlling them, that made us their souls?”

“One problem with that idea,” Alice said. “If you had your character’s experience, why was the fight so hard for you? We need to go over a bunch of things you two did back there before we get into another battle.”

“We won though didn’t we?” Matt asked, his unsteadiness suggesting he wasn’t sure if that was true despite the mound of bug corpses which attested to his assertion.

“Pillowcase was right,” Tessa said. “That fight wasn’t about winning. It was about practicing how to fight the right way.”

“Pillowcase was right?” Alice asked. “Can your Mr. Hyde talk through you too?”

“Pillowcase isn’t my evil other half,” Tessa said. “It’s all me, just not the me I was back on Earth I think, so, yeah she can talk. It’s just me talking, but with a head full of different perspectives. You don’t feel like that at all?”

“No. I just feel hungry,” Alice said.

Tessa was ready to brush that off as a minor complaint but then she considered which race Alice had chosen and saw the concern the healer was holding back.

“Hungry like you want some more rations?” Tessa asked, hoping that her guess was wrong.

“If by ‘rations’ you mean an extra bloody steak, hold the steak, then sure,” Alice said.

“Oh. Oh wow. That’s not great. Is it going to be a problem?” Tessa asked.

“We’ll see,” Alice said. “I don’t think so. The game lore and the mechanics say that [Bloodborn] characters can get by fine without blood. We’re just not superhumanly strong without it, and some of the racial passives which I don’t have yet are only active if I’ve fed recently.”

“We are kind of a mess aren’t we?” Matt said.

Tessa could see his mistakes from the battle burrowing into him. They were a mirror of the ones she’d made as a beginner that had left her feeling like an idiot long after she’d outgrown them.

“Of course we are,” she said. “This was literally our first fight. The whole point was to find out what we need to work on with as few trips to the Chapel as possible.”

Alice cast a glance at Tessa and softened her expression.

“She’s right. There were some things we could do better, but overall this was a solid win,” Alice said. “No one died. No one needed an emergency heal. You even listened when I gave instructions.”

“Yeah, but I messed them up,” Matt said. “I didn’t mean to shoot those guys, but the spell went off when I tried to focus on another target.”

“We’ll work on it then,” Alice said. “Don’t sweat a mistake like that. You can practice that kind of thing away easy.”

“Some of that’s on me too,” Tessa said. “Giving tactics in the middle of a fight is inevitable for some things but the general strategies are things we can work out before hand.”

“I was tempted to do that, but I thought it would be a bit easier to do after we’d seen what an actual battle looks like here,” Alice said. “It’s a lot harder to keep track of things in three dimensions than it was on the monitor.”

“Some of that could just be that we’re more used to parsing what was happening on screen,” Tessa said. “I remember when I started playing how confusing all the battle messages and effects were. After a while all that just drifts away though and your eyes start automatically picking out the bits that you need to look for.”

“So,” Matt asked. “You’ll keep going with us?”

Tessa titled her head trying to parse what he meant for a moment before her conversation with Alice in the town square came back to her.

“Yeah, you’re doing fine so far,” Tessa said.

“And if we don’t?” Rip asked.

“If you can’t handle this stuff, we’ll make sure to get you some place safe,” Alice said. “The worse thing you can do with a party is try to drag along people who don’t want to be there, or want it but can’t cope with the challenges your tackling. It’s not fair to them and no one has fun.”

“Is fun a consideration any more?” Matt asked. “Don’t we need levels to survive?”

The question rang a bell in Tessa’s mind, sending her thoughts tumbling back down the years.

If you’re not having fun, then you’re doing it wrong and you should do something else. It had been her mantra when she was playing, but it was more complicated than it sounded.

To Tessa, the game didn’t have be pulse pounding fun every minute of play. There was plenty of room for quiet moments, or even mindless ones where she could zone out while performing some trivial task. What she drew the line was at continuing to engage with the game when it had clearly become something the player hated. 

When all that was left was disappointment and discontentment, continuing on seemed like an exercise in masochism, when in reality it was more likely that change was simply too scary for the player to face. 

It was ugly, and led to the worst behavior, and it happened far too often. She’d seen too many people who couldn’t let go and take the chance on searching for something new. 

Even in herself?

She thought of her job. 

When had she forgotten how important it was to love what you did?

Not that the real world accomodated that kind of sentimentality very well. Leaving a job was a lot harder than leaving a game.

Normally.

Under the present circumstances the reverse was kind of true. Where leaving the game was impossible and leaving her job was going to be effortless. Probably.

And that was fine. If they got in a few hours then maybe things could go back to how they’d been, but Tessa knew that wasn’t going to happen. She was going to lose her job.

She laughed, and felt a stirring of agreement from Pillowcase at the thought that rose within her.

Whatever programming work was on her desk didn’t matter. She had much more interesting bugs to squash now. The pay check that she was waiting for was just as irrelevant too. The bag of starting gold on her hip could buy her boss five times over. 

For all the danger that awaited them, for all the uncertainty over what their fate might be, Tessa felt her younger self screaming a memory back into her awareness.

“We have to have fun,” she said. “We have to love this world. Otherwise we’re just killing ourselves by being here.”