She ran. Her eyes were wide, her face dirty from blood and tears, her breaths coming out hard and fast. Thin branches appeared in her path but she put her arm before her to protect her face and charged on, ignoring the shallow cuts that accumulated along her forearm. Her legs were strong; she had always been a fast runner, but fear seemed to crush her resolve, to turn her muscles into jelly. It was all she could do to keep running and not cower behind one of the trees and wait until the danger passed.

She decided to risk a glance back, looking between the trees toward the farmhouse where she’d been just minutes ago. Black cars were now parked next to the entrance and people in suits were exiting the vehicles and walking toward the door. She counted six men and was horrified to see that some were holding guns. Raxlon was right, she thought in despair.

Just then her foot caught under a log that was hidden under some thick foliage. She couldn’t stop herself in time and lost her balance, flailing and flying headfirst into the ground. She rolled at the last moment to avoid smacking her face but still hit hard, the air in her lungs coming out in a whoosh. Pain shot through her body - her ribs caught the bulk of her fall and the agony, so different in real life than in VD, left her gasping as she lay on the ground, her eyes once more filling with tears.

She would have stayed there, but now she could hear distant shouts - alarmed shouts - coming from the direction of the farmhouse. They found out about me. The thought gave her the strength to get up, though she had to bite her lip when the pain from her ribs intensified. They saw the bloody knife. They know I was there. She looked at her left wrist, which was so bloodied that just the sight of it made her feel dizzy. She wondered just how much blood she had lost. I must get away from here. I must seek help.

But where would she go? Raxlon had left her with very little choice. Doesn’t matter now. I have to run. She looked back again and saw the men spilling out of the house. What would they do to her if they caught her? Her thoughts went back to what happened just a few minutes before...

They had been sitting on his porch, just him and her, surrounded by open fields and beyond them - a vast forest that seemed to stretch endlessly in all directions. A lonely road provided the only access to the farmhouse and, from their vantage point, they both watched the cab that had brought her there moving away until it vanished in the distance.

“Well, here I am, Raxlon. Summoned by the great DM to his secret farmhouse out in nowhere.” She smiled nervously as the man on the other side of the small table sipped from his lemonade and watched her with penetrating blue eyes. “The all-powerful world builder,” she continued, “who secludes himself in this forest refuge and hides from the real world, God knows why - “

Raxlon put down his glass. “You always did speak without thinking first, you know. You don’t have to do it while you’re here, Shiraz.”

She frowned at him. “My name is Effie.”

He smiled at her. “I know. But Shiraz is the name you really want.”

Effie didn’t answer that, though he was right. Instead, she got up on her feet and went to stand next to the parapet, looking around her at the vastness of nature that surrounded them. She fixed the baseball hat on her bald head to protect her eyes from the glare of the sun. “So here I am,” she repeated. Her voice was still bitter. “Here, instead of adventuring with my friends in your Quest. Why?”

Raxlon stood up as well. He was a short man, shorter than her, and, by his stocky appearance, seemed to pass most of his time sitting and drinking lemonade - which made sense considering the stories about how he had spent nearly his whole life programming his VD world. His head was as bald as hers and her trained eyes could see the white rectangular outlines on his smooth skull where he regularly stuck the electro-pads of the VD console. She had similar markings on her own shaved head.

He joined her by the parapet and looked at the forest that loomed some dozens of yards away. “I called you here because you’re the only one I can trust,” he said at some length.

That was strange. “Trust with what? And why me? I don’t - “

“I trust you because I have known you since you were six years old, Shiraz. I’m a friend of your parents.”

She should have been surprised, but she wasn’t. Effie had, for a long time, wondered how her parents could afford all they did when it came to VD. She always suspected they had powerful friends in this gaming industry but they kept denying it when she asked, so finally she let it drop and just enjoyed the games. VD became her greatest love and pastime.

Raxlon, seeing she wasn’t going to answer, kept on talking. “I also trust you because I know you have the true heart of an adventurer. You play for the sake of the game, you have no secret agenda. And I know…” he hesitated. “I know about your promise to help Ben.”

She looked at him, sharply. “Of course you know. You heard my conversation with Milenna. But Ben…” She gulped. “He thinks… he thinks that I abandoned him. He thinks that I chose to leave him because of what you told me to do! No. What you forced me to do. Why did you - “

“I had to do that,” Raxlon said. His face darkened. “I had no other choice. I had to make them think that you left the Quest of your own free will.”

“Them?”

He took a deep breath and when he looked at her she felt anxiety growing inside her - what else could one feel when the greatest DM in the world looked at you with what could only be described as fear in his eyes?

“Listen, child,” he said in his deep voice, which sounded troubled. “I got involved in something, something big. And now things are getting out of my hands... and I need your help.”

She looked at him but couldn’t find words, which was a strange experience for her. Finally, she licked her lips and forced out a question. “What happened?”

Raxlon turned to look back at the trees. “I am losing control over my world.”

Effie tried to keep her expression steady. “What… I don’t understand.”

He sighed. “It’s been happening for a time now. I still have control, but I don’t know for how long I’ll be able to keep it. You see, there are two powers vying for domination of Nolxar, one from inside the VD, and one from this world…” He looked at her. “I think you should sit down, Shiraz. I will tell you what I know.”

They sat down next to the table, and for the better part of an hour, Raxlon told her his tale. He told her of his pursuit of the special VD consoles, of his involvement with SH Gaming and about his suspicions that their CEO - one Sullivan Vincent - had used the open permission Raxlon had granted him to infiltrate agents into the game. He told her of his meeting with Ben, and how he - Raxlon - was a complete fool because it was because of him that Ben was now using a special console. It was at this point of the tale that Effie stopped him.

“I still don’t understand,” she said. “What do they want with Ben? Why go to all this trouble so he can play the game with their console?”

Raxlon nodded gravely. “I thought about it a lot,” he said. “This special console Ben is using, I’m pretty sure - no, I know for a certainty - that it lets Ben connect with my VD world in a way that’s never been done before. You see, Ben has a unique mind, one of a kind. When he made the connection with my program, using the VD set that was designed especially for him, his brain had somehow reached deeper than I thought was possible. His brain cells were altered… and I think it altered more than just how his brain functions. I think that he draws so much from the system that whatever happens to his character is also influencing his real-life body. I think that the powers he gains in VD remain with him in here as well... ”

It was a lot to swallow, but - even assuming she believed it - it didn’t answer her question. “Let’s say you’re right,” she said slowly. “Why would they not just give him the console and tell him what it can do?”

“Because,” said the DM, “they want to make him their own.” He pressed his lips and took her hand in his, squeezing it to emphasize the point. “They want to corrupt him, child. I don’t know how they learned about his abilities, but they’re trying to groom him to become their very own superhero… a man with special powers that will work on their behalf. You see, the changes he’s going through, they affect his personality as well. If I read their plan right, they want to make him lose his identity, to become someone whose only desire is to achieve power. When he becomes such a man, they will just give him more missions - more quests, if you like - that he will have to complete to gain more power. Only... these quests will happen not in VD, but in real life…”

Raxlon swallowed. His eyes glistened. “Should he become such a man, nothing and no one would stop him. He will forget about what’s wrong and what’s right. And I’m afraid he already started down that path, child. They made him hurt someone, and it happened here, not in the game…”

Effie stood then, abruptly. This was definitely too much to take in. As she tried to circulate all of that in her mind, something Raxlon said surfaced to the front of her mind. “Wait. You said there are two powers vying for dominance of your world. SH Gaming is one, but what of the other one? You said, one from inside the VD…”

He looked at her. “Yes. His connection with the system I programmed somehow changed it. Made it… independent. The VI…”

Raxlon suddenly stopped, narrowing his eyes. Before she could do anything, the man jumped to his feet so hurriedly that his chair fell on its side with a bang. Then he ran to the edge of the porch, from where he could see the long road that stretched away from the house. He started to curse.

Effie went after him. Squinting her eyes, she could see three black cars in the distance, making their way toward the farmhouse. By her estimation, they would reach the house in a matter of minutes.

The stream of curses that were uttered from the man’s mouth was truly impressive. “It’s impossible,” he muttered. “How did they know?” He suddenly looked up at her. “Your phone!” He said and she was alarmed to see how pale he had become. “Where is it!”

His panic was catching. “My… my phone? I left it at home as you asked me to. Why - “

Raxlon bit his lip, his pupils rapidly going left and right as he thought. “No phone. Then how - “ He suddenly grabbed her arm, looking horrified. “Your V-watch!” He exclaimed. “You have one, don’t you?”

Effie looked perplexed. “Of course I have one. Everyone has one. Why - “

She had to stop again when Raxlon pulled her after him as he ran into the house. Effie, now confused and afraid, let him drag her inside.

When they were inside Raxlon left her, ran into the kitchen, and came back holding a sharp kitchen knife. When she saw it her eyes widened and she took a step back. “What the hell are you doing?” Her heart was pumping madly inside her chest.

Raxlon shook his head. “We don’t have time. They’re tracking you through your V-watch. Why didn’t I think about it? This is how they got to Ben. This is how they know what he’s capable of. We have to get it out!”

Effie felt as if she was dreaming, but this time she didn’t step back again when Raxlon came closer and grabbed her arm again, turning it inside out. “Activate it,” he said hurriedly. “I need to see exactly where it is.”

A weird feeling of detachment overtook her. She sent the internal command and red digits appeared on her skin, telling the time. It was mid-morning, she saw. She suddenly remembered that the login time to Raxlon’s Quest was scheduled for 7:00 am, which meant Ben and the others were already deep in the game -

Raxlon’s knife penetrated her freckled skin and she screamed, though she didn’t know if she was screaming because of pain, fear, or frustration. The DM pressed the blade down and the pain intensified as more of her skin was ruined, but then the red digits that told the time blinked and were gone. The DM had disabled the device.

Once that was done, Raxlon threw the knife aside and handed her a kitchen towel, which she quickly wrapped around her bleeding wrist. Then she stood there, dumbfounded, and watched as the man fussed about, kneeling next to a drawer and pulling something out. He was talking the whole time.

“SH Gaming, they found me. They tracked you here and found me. They will wrench the control completely out of my hands. But they can’t know what I told you. They can’t take you. You must escape, you must go away from here. You’re Ben’s only hope,” his voice cracked when he said it and Effie was reminded of Princess Leia and her holographic plea to Obi Wan Kenobi. The image was so out of place that she uttered a laugh, though it sounded more like a muffled cry.

Raxlon saw and shook his head as he stood up. “Get a grip, Shiraz. Think you’re in the game! I need you to act the hero now. Here, take this.”

He put two items on the kitchen table. The first was a small USB device. The second was a black electronic card. “Take them,” urged Raxlon. “The card will give you access to my Quest, through any VD console you can find.”

Effie tried to make some order in her thoughts. The towel around her wrist was getting red from her blood. “I have access,” she said weakly. “My own console - “

“No!” Raxlon cried. He looked through the kitchen window. The cars were fast approaching. “Don’t go back home. They’ll wait for you there. You must find another console and log in. You must find Ben and warn him. You must also find out who works with Sullivan inside the game. Do you understand!”

Effie nodded, though she wasn’t sure she did. She wondered absentmindedly why she wasn’t getting a new quest notification.

“Repeat it!” Urged Raxlon.

“Escape,” she said. “Find a console. Log in with this card. Find Ben. Find who works with Sullivan.”

Raxlon nodded and handed her the second item. “Here I gathered what info I could about the players that are currently in the game,” he said. “Any one of them can be collaborating with SH Gaming. I know for a fact that Jarod is, and I suspect Gilly and Dark Heart aren’t - otherwise, they wouldn’t have tried to kill Ben - but I’m not sure about the others. Try to read it before you log in - “

He stopped as both of them heard the screeching of wheels. The cars were driving up the unpaved road that split from the main road and led to the farmhouse.

Raxlon shoved the device into her palm. “Now go!” he said. “Use the backdoor. Run! Quickly!”

Effie started to run, stopped. “What about you?”

Raxlon shook his head. “They need me to run the quest. They won’t hurt me. Now GO!”

She did. She ran through the back door, crossed the open field and stumbled into the forest. And now she was running, wounded and bleeding, away from the farmhouse, her mind ajumble. The forest was wild, full of fallen logs and thick foliage and after her misfortunate fall and the injury to her ribs, she was more cautious as she ran deeper into the woods.

Most of what Raxlon had told her blurred in her mind and she found it hard to think but, as she ran, the quiet of the forest enveloped her and she gradually calmed down. One thing the DM said leapt to the forefront of her thoughts: “Think you’re in the game! I need you to act the hero now.”

Think you’re in the game…

Effie’s world was a rather ordinary one, even somewhat boring. At 22, she was still living with her parents and, other than her swimming team, she had no real interests in her real life. VD was something else entirely. She lived for the moment she could log into the virtual world of DnD, where she could become any number of characters. While in VD she was always so much more than she was in real life - wittier, funnier, more resourceful, more beautiful, more dangerous. Other players always wanted to travel with her and she more often than not found herself saving the day and finding the right solutions to difficult situations. In VD she was everything she wanted to be. She was Shiraz.

I need you to act the hero now.

The young woman stopped, breathing hard. She was alone in the forest. She could hear nothing else other than her own panting. She had left the farmhouse far behind her and as she peered between the trees she couldn’t see anyone approaching.

Be the hero. Think you’re in the game.

Shiraz straightened, though it hurt to do so. In fact, everything hurt. Her ribs most of all, but her wrist as well, and her arms. But it didn’t matter. If she were in the game, all of these wounds would amount to no more than one or two hit points at the most. Nothing that she couldn’t handle.

She leaned against a tree as she surveyed her options. She had a quest to fulfil, but where to begin? Raxlon said she couldn’t get back home, but she needed to find someone she could trust, someone who had a VD console. She had to get back into the game and help Ben. But how...

A thought came to her then. There was one person who might be able to help her. He was a famous VD player, rich and powerful, one of the few who wasn’t afraid to publish his real identity - or the fact that he owned several VD consoles. It was rumored that he used these consoles to host special and hedonistic VR parties, but Shiraz didn’t really care about that. All she could think of was that, just like her, this person had saved Ben’s life more than once. Enough to convince her she could trust him.

Shiraz smiled to herself and started running again, making her way through the forest. She had a plan. She had to find the Red Mercenary.