When Ben opened his eyes he was lying on his back on the cold stone floor, surrounded by the white light of the waystone. He immediately looked down at himself and frantically reached for his abdomen, remembering the horrible pain and the arrow that skewered him from front to back. At first, he felt his panic rising - the hole was still there! How could they respawn him with a hole in his belly! - but then he kept prodding with his fingers into the bloody tear in the leather and visibly relaxed. The hole he was seeing was only in the leather armor; his own skin was unblemished and there as no trace to the agony he felt only a few moments before.

Sighing in relief, Ben looked up to see what was going on but couldn’t; a huge prompt filled his vision, making it impossible to look at anything else:

You have died and been respawned.

No shit, he thought, but more words appeared. Dread filled him as he read the consequences of his failure.

As you have died inside an active dungeon, you respawned in the waystone closest to your location of death. HP, stamina and mana points are fully restored. As you have been a Party Leader at the time of your death, all party members following you have been instantly transported to your respawn location. Beware: since you led your companions to untimely disaster, each is given an opportunity to unfollow you, thus leaving this party and your leadership. Personal penalty for dying in this dungeon: Curse of the Deep 1. Despair, for you have been marked and cursed! Curse of the Deep is an ancient bane, devised by the duergar clerics with the purpose of frightening away any who dare to venture too deep into their midst. This curse marks you for all to see and makes you extremely vulnerable while exploring the dark dwarves’ domain. This is an ongoing curse. Each time you die in this dungeon, the curse will worsen until all that is left of you is a worthless shell. After that, you will become a spirit that would forever roam the halls of the lost souls of the duergar. Current penalty: defense -5

The prompt dissipated, leaving Ben overwhelmed and somewhat frightened. His defense - which wasn’t very high to begin with - just suffered a serious hit. He was weak. He was a naive character who just died from the first real attack coming his way. He was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Walking right around that bend in the tunnel, straight into danger. Stupid! S-T-U-P-I-D. Not even trying to sneak and take a look, not to mention using his new scouting power. Plain stupidity. Ben opened his mouth and screamed his anger at his unbelievable lack of thinking. He raised his arms to the air in his rage and screamed until his throat was raw, waving his fists like a maniac.

“Jeez man, would you stop? You’re mad, we get it. Now get yourself together!”

Red’s angry tone snapped the scout away from his tantrum and the warrior’s face appeared above him, blocking his view of the chamber’s high ceiling. Ben blinked and shut his mouth, taken aback by what he saw. The white aura that emanated from the pillar surrounded Red’s face, giving it an oval and holy aura and making the mercenary look like some kind of a black and angry angel. Ben half expected the furious angel to keep rebuking him and was surprised when the man grabbed him by his leather armor and pulled him to his feet.

“There,” said Red gruffly. He waited for a brief moment to make sure Ben was steady on his feet and then drew away. “Take some deep breaths and try to relax. Dying for the first time isn’t fun, and I have no idea what penalties you got. Is it bad?”

Ben didn’t answer at first. He stood there and looked around him, seeing that all of his three companions were looking at him with... concern? He looked again to make sure. Indeed, instead of the baleful glares he was expecting to get, the others seemed worried and somewhat sympathetic. Even the stoic Milenna half-smiled - although hers was a careful smile, the one you give someone who is on the verge of a hissy fit. She probably thought he was going to start screaming again.

Shiraz seemed to take her concern one step further - she reached for his face, and he was startled (but not displeased) when her finger slowly caressed his cheekbone. Was she making a move on him? Now?!

“That’s new,” said the shadow mage as she withdrew her hand. “I’m guessing... a mark of some sort?”

It took Ben a couple of moments to understand what she was saying, but then he remembered what was written in the prompt. Swallowing, he nodded. “Yes... you don’t happen to have a mirror here, do you?”

She didn't, so Ben looked around for something that could serve as a replacement. A flicker caught his eyes and he fixed his gaze on Red’s belt and his shiny new sword. The warrior noticed where the scout was looking and sighed. “Of course you would ask me to turn my killer weapon into a freaking mirror,” muttered the mercenary, but he unsheathed the weapon nonetheless. He then held it in front of Ben’s face, giving the scout a few moments to check his reflection on the polished silver of the blade.

The first thing Ben noticed was that he looked… better. Could it be? His features seemed more defined, more appealing. He never thought he was ugly, but right now he was looking better than he had any right to be. Handsome, even. Was it all because of the three points he received in charisma upon becoming a leader? Then his face darkened as he saw what made Shiraz touch his face. There was a small black tattoo on his right cheekbone, just below the eye. It was shaped like a broken arrow, with a droplet of blood just below the arrow tip. The curse marks you for all to see. The true implications of the mark fully dawned on him: anyone who would see him now and was familiar with the curse would know that Ben had once died in this dungeon - and that he is probably damnably easy to kill again.

Ben touched the mark, but his skin didn’t feel any different. He sighed, guessing there was nothing to be done about it now. The big question now was - will his party members stick with him or leave to fight the dungeon on their own?

“Listen,” he said quietly, addressing all three of them. “When I respawned I got a prompt, saying that you all got a choice…”

“Yeah we got it,” said Shiraz, cutting him off. “Untimely disaster and all that shit. I’m staying with you, Ben. You were careless and got yourself seriously fucked, but I’m guessing you’ll never be so reckless again after what happened. Am I right or am I right?”

Ben’s eyebrows rose an inch. Shiraz was still standing very close to him and the light touch of her fingers on his face was still fresh in his mind. He found himself longing to embrace her. Instead, he grinned. “Right you are,” he agreed. “I promise. I know what to do now.” He turned to look at Red and Milenna. “What do you say? Would you follow me a little while longer?”

Milenna answered first. “I am guessing,” said the sorceress slowly, “that this is not your first RPG experience. Am I right?” Her voice was melodic and deep and Ben was suddenly transfixed, his attention focused solely on the beautiful and majestic sorceress who was talking to him. He wondered if that’s how Frodo was feeling when Galadriel spoke to him in the forest of Lothlórien. Ben nodded, thinking about all his old D&D sessions and occasional experience with MMORPG. He had quite a bit of experience in role-playing.

Milenna smiled. There was definitely something patronizing about the way she looked at him, but Ben was willing to let it go for now. “Good,” said the sorceress. “You have to remember that while being a noob here is a real challenge, this place is not that much different from other games. VD is amazing, but ultimately, this is an RPG game in which you are an adventurous hero with super-powers and skills. Remember: there isn’t a quest in VD that is impossible, even here. And I truly believe that nothing happens without cause…” She briefly glanced upwards and then looked back at him. “There must be a good reason you became our leader. I’m with you as well.”

Ben listened attentively to her words. When she finished, he stood up a little taller. He knew that he was responding to her speech the same way a child would after receiving a pep talk from his parents, but he didn’t care. He was filled with such a boost of confidence, he was ready to storm the dungeon on his own. “I understand,” he said. “Thank you.”

And of course, Red chose that moment to snort, perfectly ruining the romantic scene. “Don’t get teary-eyed on us just yet, skin,” he said crisply, sheathing his sword with one smooth motion. “I still want to see how you tackle that skelly dude with the burning eyes. What the hell was that?”

Ben grinned. He didn’t forget his anger at Red after finding that the mercenary was manipulating him, but as it was, Red didn’t know that Ben knew about Red’s RLP powers so... he guessed two could play this game. As long as Red was nice to him, he decided he would return the favor.

“It was a guardian skeleton, level four,” he answered. “That’s all I got from identifying it before the sonofabitch killed me. It also has either an amazing weapon or it’s just disproportionately strong; I didn’t have a chance against that arrow.”

“Well you did walk right into its line of sight and it is two levels higher than you,” said Shiraz, “so I wouldn’t necessarily call it disproportionate.” She winked at him and once again he saw that ominous blackness passing through the whites of her eyes. “But whatever it is, one thing is clear: a guardian must guard something,” continued the shadow mage, “and I can’t wait to see what it is. So… what do you say we run this time? I don’t know exactly how much time we got left until logout but I really want to fight something before we do.”

Logout! Ben didn’t even think that their logout time was drawing near. Now that Shiraz mentioned it, he remembered that Raxlon had said they had only 4 hours of gameplay for this first session. Making some quick calculations in his mind, he estimated that they had half an hour at most before having to return to their real lives.

Ben cracked a smile and nodded. “Let’s run.”

And so they ran. As they did, Ben opened his map so he could track their progress and stop before they reached the room with the guardian. They ran single file and after a few minutes, Ben realized that running here was much easier than it is in real life. He never was the running type and would get tired after a lengthy jog, but it seemed his virtual avatar could keep up with the others without too much difficulty - at least for a little while. After about ten minutes Ben started to breathe heavier and when he opened his status bar he saw why: his stamina was slowly dropping. The exertion was taking its toll and his stamina regeneration - 0.6 per second - wasn’t able to keep up. At that rate, he would run out of breath in about another ten minutes.

Fortunately, that didn’t become an issue. After only five minutes, Ben’s blinking icon on the map nearly reached the end of the tunnel and he motioned for the others to stop. He, Shiraz and Milenna all had to take some deep breaths to recover from the run, while Red didn’t seem worn out at all. Ben looked at the warrior with envy, thinking that raising his own constitution some more was definitely a priority when he reached level 3.

“We’re about to get to the end of the tunnel,” he said quietly to the others. “Red, would you dose that light? That ugly skelly could see me quite clearly the last time because of that torch.”

Red had the decency to look a bit ashamed. He smiled goofily and quickly did as suggested, leaving them all in darkness. Then they blindly walked the remaining distance, touching the walls to keep their bearings, until finally, Ben could see the faint purple glow coming from up ahead. He could also distinguish the bend in the tunnel. The place of my death, he thought and shivered slightly. He stopped his forward movement, which caused Red to bump into him from behind. The warrior cursed quietly and then cursed some more when Millena stepped on his foot. The only one who remained silent was Shiraz, who seemed to blend into the nearly complete darkness with ease. An idea formed in his mind.

“Shiraz,” he whispered.

“Yes?” The voice came so close to him that he could feel her breath on his face.

“You said you can manipulate shadows.”

“I did indeed.”

“So… can you make it look like someone is trying to sneak up on the skeleton? I mean, make him think he is seeing an intruder? I need it to look away from our position.”

Shiraz thought about it for a moment and he thought he could see her head nod in the darkness. “Sounds doable. I can move the shadows to make it look like a humanoid. I don’t know if it would fool that monster, but it’s worth a try.”

Ben turned to Milenna, although he could hardly see her in the darkness. “I remember from my… earlier RPG sessions,” he smiled to himself, “that skeletons hate fire. What is the chance that this book of yours contains a fire spell?”

Millena’s answer was music to his ears: “I was about to suggest it myself. Casting firebolt on that pile of bones seems like our best option.”

Ben took a deep breath. He could see the plan clearly taking form in his mind and shared his thoughts with the others. None of them argued. Ben wondered if they were simply giving him a second chance, or they were just eager for some action. Or maybe it was simply a good plan and they had nothing bad to say about it. “First, though, I need to make sure there is still just the one skeleton,” said Ben. “Hold on a bit? I want to try something.”

The others assured him they would wait, so Ben grinned in the darkness and activated his scout power 1: Hawk Eye.

Activating the power for the first time took him a bit of searching, but after a few moments he found out he could access it from a virtual hotbar in the lower part of his vision. He mentally clicked on the icon - shaped like a hawk’s eye - and immediately felt… something… course through his body. The energy started at the back of his head, moved to his eyes, then to his hands, until suddenly his point of view changed slightly, even though he didn’t move. He was now looking at the world as if his eyes were located near his fingertips.

That moment in his life was by far the coolest of all - first kiss included. It was magic! Ben experimented, trying to move his new “eye”. He quickly mastered the method and after a few seconds, Ben was the proud owner of a magical invisible drone. It was then he noticed the timer next to the icon and realized that he had three seconds before his mana dropped to zero and the power expired. Ben swiftly flew his new eye beyond the bend in the tunnel. It disappeared shortly after, but not before Ben managed to glimpse their enemy, standing in the same spot as before and holding the same deadly longbow. There was one difference about it though...

“It lost an eye!” Ben whispered enthusiastically when his eyesight returned to normal. “The skeleton! It has only one burning eye! My bolt got it!”

Red chuckled. “Good job skin. Not going down without a final say. I like it.” The warrior drew his sword. “Now are we going to take it out or what?”

His confidence boosted, Ben readied his crossbow and loaded it with an iron bolt. He was ready for some justified retribution. “Let’s kill the bony bastard.”

As plans go, theirs worked flawlessly - until it didn’t.

They crept together in the darkness, trying to make as little sound as possible. Ben’s stealth skill rose by 1 point but he minimized the prompt telling him about it and looked around the bend in the tunnel. The skeleton guardian stood there as it did before, thirty feet away, blazing in purple and orange and holding its massive bow. Ben was pleased to see that now that his identify skill was at level 2, he could glean just a little bit more information about the monster they were about to face:

Guardian Skeleton, Level 4 This is a reanimated skeleton of a duergar warrior, raised to protect her former homeland from intruders.

Ben remembered from classic D&D that knowing the creature’s HP, powers and resistances could make all the difference. Right now he knew next to nothing, but he guessed that the further he advanced the skill, the more information he could find out. All things in good time, he mused.

The scout touched Shiraz’s shoulder, silently signaling her to begin her part in the plan. In response, the woman did something with her hands and Ben’s high perception could see how some of the shadows that shrouded her continued down the tunnel, seemingly of their own volition.

He held his breath. As the shadows got closer to the skeleton, they took on the shape of something big that walked on two legs. Not exactly a humanoid, but big enough and out of place enough to draw the attention of anyone looking for intruders. The guardian’s burning eye socket immediately turned in the direction of the interference, searching the darkness and aiming with its bow.

“Milenna, now!” whispered Ben.

The sorceress, who waited silently behind him, sprang forward, extending her hand with two of her fingers pointing at the skeleton. A small bolt of flame appeared along the length of her fingers, illuminating her beautiful face for a split second before shooting forward. The firebolt sped through the air, lighting up the tunnel’s walls as it flew - and struck the distracted guardian squarely in its breastbone.

The undead creature’s ribcage instantly ignited, the magical flames hissing and spreading to consume more of the connected bones. The flames also gave additional light to the tunnel where the guardian stood and Ben could see that there was another skeleton on the floor by the archer’s feet, although fortunately, this one didn’t seem to be animated.

Despite taking a serious hit and being burned, their undead adversary couldn’t feel any physical pain and so it remained eerily quiet. It did, however, understand what the real threat was. A second after Milenna’s successful spell, the skeleton adjusted its aim - and released the arrow straight at the sorceress.

It would have hit her - she was still recovering from casting her spell - but this time Red was there to take the blow. The warrior, who had his shield strapped to his forearm, moved past the sorceress just in time to deflect the powerful shot. Ben, remembering how easily the shot had skewered him - armor and flesh included - half expected the powerful shot to pierce the shield. He was glad to be mistaken, though; the quicksilver flashed white when the arrow impacted. There was a loud bang and the projectile was thrown harmlessly sideways.

It was Ben’s turn.

The scout moved past Milenna as well and kneeled behind Red, using the massive bulk of his companion as cover and aiming his own badass ranged weapon at the skeleton. The Crossbow of Skewering felt absolutely amazing in his hands, as if it was designed especially for him. He gripped the smooth leather, aimed and released right after the skelly’s arrow was thrown aside.

Ben’s bolt flew faster than the eye could follow, hitting the burning skeleton in its right shoulder blade, just as the monster was reaching for another arrow. The blow seriously fractured the bone and took away a staggering 15 points of damage from the monster, but more importantly - it caused the guardian to drop the arrow it was holding.

The monster changed its tactics. Instead of continuing to fire arrows, it dropped the bow and started to run toward the companions, ignoring both its burning chest and fractured scapula. As it ran, a blue-white longsword suddenly appeared in its bony grip. The sword flared once, and the flames that ate the monster’s bones were significantly diminished.

“It has magic!”, breathed Milenna.

“So do we,” said Shiraz. The shadow mage leaped forward before anyone could stop her. Ben winced, thinking she would be impaled on the skeleton’s magic blade, but just as she reached the guardian, she became one with the shadows - and reappeared behind the creature. Her shadow dagger flashed once, twice, thrice - and the fractured shoulder blade shattered completely. Then the ruined bone crashed down to the floor, together with its entire arm.

The skeleton staggered, nearly losing its balance as it lost so much of its weight. The monster whirled to face the unexpected threat from behind, which was just what Red was waiting for; the mercenary charged with uncanny speed, using a maneuver that looked strange at first - he thrust both his hands forward as if intending to hit his foe simultaneously with both the shield and the sword. At the last moment, he changed the position of his sword hand and brought the blade an inch above the shield. She shield flared white again, enveloping the sword in its magical light just as it connected with the massive ribcage of the undead duergar.

Ben didn’t know what kind of power the warrior just used, but the result was definitely terminal for the skeleton, as it unceremoniously exploded from the inside.

There was a loud boom, followed by the screeching sound of dozens of shattering bones - and few cries of pain, as the sharp pieces of bones flew everywhere and cut the humans that stood so close. Ben had time only to close his eyes and raise his arm in defense, but he couldn’t escape the barrage of small projectiles with his reduced defense. Three of the sharp bone fragments sliced his arm, and one got embedded in his hip, too close for comfort to his family jewels. The blinking notification told him he lost 1 hit point from the unexpected barrage. There was also another prompt:

Your party killed Guardian Skeleton. Shared XP received: 560 (base 400 + 160 for successful tactics). Personal XP received: 140. Total XP: 1950. Points to next level: 1050. Tactics + 1 Leadership + 1 Well done! You have crossed the first threshold for the skill Tactics. You receive -

But Ben didn’t have time to read the full description of his Tactics skill. He dismissed the prompt and opened his eyes, breathing in pain and looking around. He saw that Red was still standing with his sword raised above the shield, while Shiraz’s half shadowy form was a few feet further back. What remained of the skeleton was on the floor; shattered smoldering bones that were once a proud undead duergar guardian.

Dread filled Ben’s heart. He stood nearly ten feet away from the skeleton when its ribcage exploded and still got hit - what did it mean for Red and Shiraz? He ran forward, hearing Milenna coming right behind him. “Red! Shiraz! Are you alright?”

A stupid question. Red turned his face to look at Ben and the scout was horrified to see the bloody mess that was the mercenary’s face. Dozens of tiny bone fragments were embedded in his skin, making him look like a voodoo doll that went through some serious ill use. It was sheer luck that none of the fragments pierced his eyes, but he was still a horror to look at. To Ben’s utter amazement, the warrior’s lips widened in a bloody grin. He reached to pluck a small bone piece from his nose. “That’s. An. Amazing. Power,” he said.

Ben found no words. He turned to look at Shiraz. Even as the redhead was coming their way, some of the shadows that gathered around her parted and Ben was immensely relieved that she looked unharmed. Remembering the way she had given substance to the shadows when she came between Red and himself not long ago, Ben wondered just how versatile and strong the newly made shadow mage was.

“Milenna?” He asked, but didn’t worry overly much; the sorceress stood too far back to get hit.

“I’m fine,” said the sorceress. “Still amazed by the sheer idiocy of our warrior, but other than that, I must say that it played out quite well.”

Ben smiled inwardly, enjoying the fact that this time it wasn’t him who was being rebuked. Outwardly, he maintained a serious face as he looked at Red. “That was… unexpected.”

Blood streamed down the warrior’s face, hands and neck from numerous locations, but somehow the injuries didn’t seem to overly concern the big man. He kept plucking bone shards from his skin and smiled that awful bloody smile. “That is the understatement of the year, brother,” he said. “I admit I had no idea that it would - what the fuck is that?”

Ben saw it too and his eyes widened. A small ball of purple light suddenly appeared hovering over the remains of the skeleton they had just demolished. As the companions looked, the purple sphere shot forward, speeding toward the room with the purple glow that the guardian was previously guarding.

“Stop it!”, cried Ben. He had no idea how, but his intuition screamed at him that bad shit was about to happen if they didn’t stop that flying energy ball.

Shiraz was the closest to it. She quickly conjured shadows to try and block the ball, but was too slow; the thing wooshed by her and the shadows caught nothing.

With no other option, Ben ran after the ball, the others quickly joining him. By the time they covered the short distance, the purple ball was already past the doors to the next room, which revealed itself to be a wide hall. Huge pillars supported a high ceiling and at the far end was a massive stairway leading to a wide balcony that overlooked the big hall. Hovering in the center of the hall in midair, was a large purple ball made out of pure energy. It was five feet in diameter and it gave enough light to illuminate most of the room - including the row of five skeletons that stood motionless beneath it, each holding a different kind of weapon.

The small purple ball sped toward its big brother. Ben could see quite clearly what was going to happen, but it happened too fast for him to do anything about it, so he could only watch, helpless, as the small ball of purple energy met the big one. Purple lightning cracked inside the big sphere and was then released outside, splitting into five smaller lightning bolts. Each of the bolts continued downward and connected with the vigilant skeletons - which immediately started to move, raising their weapons.

“Basically,” said Shiraz, “we’re fucked.”