The moment Peter’s broken form appeared on the ground, Beth darted over to his side.

“Peter!” she shouted. She couldn’t see an obvious wound, but the pool of blood on the ground was growing larger. Reaching a tentative hand underneath her husband’s back, she was shocked to discover a mass of torn flesh beneath his torn shirt. “Oh honey, come on. You’ve got to wake up.”

Peter’s eyes flicked open and looked over to her, but they were milky and lacking focus.

“Can’t… can’t feel,” he wheezed, his voice barely more than a breath. There was blood on his lips that bubbled out as he spoke.

“It’s going to be okay. I’ve got something that will help.” Or so she hoped. She looked at the potion Vera had given her. Was she supposed to pour it on him? Make him drink it? Considering the size of the wound, there was no way she could cover it with the tiny amount of liquid in the bottle.

“I’m going to give you something to drink, okay?” she said. “It’ll help, I think. I’m pretty sure it’s magical.”

Despite how much pain he was in, Peter’s mouth still managed to turn up in a brief smile. He looked at her and very deliberately blinked once—Beth assumed that meant he was ready to drink the potion.

There was no way Peter would be able to drink while lying flat on the ground, so Beth heaved him up into a semi-sitting position, ignoring his wince of pain as she positioned him on her lap. She gave him an apologetic smile as she pulled the cork on the vial. “Sorry. I think this might hurt.”

Beth poured the liquid into her husband’s mouth. She was worried he might not be able to swallow it, but he gulped it down without hesitation. Now she just had to wait.

The effects were almost instantaneous. No sooner had his head tilted back than he jerked sharply and rolled over, falling out of Beth’s lap. There was a grinding sound as a disturbingly large dent in his back reformed into a proper position, followed by the open wound pushing out the dirt that had gotten into it, then sealing shut. As soon as the visible damage was healed, Peter erupted into a fit of coughing that left the ground in front of him covered in blood. It was so bad that Beth grew concerned he might have punctured a lung that the potion couldn’t heal, but soon his coughing faded, leaving him on his hands and knees, panting furiously.

Eventually he managed to turn to her and give a weak smile. “What was that you gave me? I thought I was dead.”

“It was in my backpack,” she said, showing him the vial, “along with a note saying that something had happened to you during your trip to the planet. What did happen?”

Peter’s eyes darted around as he visibly struggled for a coherent answer. “I don’t know. I was falling, and I was looking at something, then there was a flash of pain and the next thing I knew…” he shrugged. “Maybe I hit something?”

She sat back on her heels and looked at him with concern. “If you were falling anywhere as near as fast as I was, you would have landed as a red mist, not a bleeding man.”

“I don’t know what to say. It’s a mystery to me.”

Beth’s brow furrowed. “Me too. Whatever happened, though, you’re alive and thank god for that. I wouldn’t want to be doing this alone.” She did her best not to think about how so far as she knew, the rest of the family was doing this alone. Hopefully, they had somehow gotten paired up as well, but something told her that wasn’t the case.

She shook her head, trying to move on from the terrible thought. “We should get going. I got a message earlier saying there were dangerous creatures around here, and it seems to me that a blood-covered clearing isn’t a good place to hang around.”

Peter’s brow pulled together. “What do you mean, ‘you got a message?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, realizing that Peter hadn’t experienced any of the Arenian oddities yet. “They come from your Tome of Knowledge. You know, like Carl mentioned?”

“Carl?”

“Yes, the lizard man from our living room.”

“His name is Carl?”

“Yes. Do try to keep up,” Beth said, giving him a wink to let him know she was kidding. “All you need to do is will your Tome to appear and poof, it’s there. Like this.” Beth held out her hand, and her Tome appeared. She grabbed it and waved it at him. Peter opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, a second book materialized, this time in front of him—no doubt the product of him thinking about it.

Peter hesitated, then took hold of the book. Or maybe ledger was a better term—Beth recognized it as the kind of accounting ledger her husband used when he did the books for the farm. They always ended up getting beaten-up from him walking around with them—Beth kept bugging him to stick to digital—but he refused, insisting on a physical copy as well. Not because he was sentimental, mind you. It was because he was paranoid about getting audited by the government. A lot harder to refute a physical book than a computer file.

“Perfect,” Beth said. “If you look inside, there should be a page that shows your ‘Attributes.’ I believe that’s what they’re called.”

“Oookay…” Peter said. He opened it and leafed through the pages once, then returning to the beginning. “This is what you’re talking about, right?” He turned his book around to show her. For a moment it was blank, then words appeared.

PETER SULLIVAN

Renown: Level 1 – Unclassed

Species: Human

Age: 44

Experience: 0

Experience to Next Level: 300

Base Attributes

Strength – 20

Constitution – 18

Endurance – 14

Dexterity – 19

Willpower – 15

Intelligence – 19

Charisma – 14

Luck – 19

AVERAGE: 17.3

“Any idea what this stuff means?” he asked.

“Not really,” she said. Maybe by comparing them it would shed some light on the topic. “Your Strength and Constitution are much better than mine, not that I’m terribly surprised.” She gave him a sly grin and a nudge, causing him to roll his eyes. “Your Charisma is a bit lacking, though. Maybe we need to get you some etiquette classes?”

“Why? What’s yours?” Peter said.

“Mine’s 23.”

“23!” Peter said. “Christ on a bike! Thank god the Milsom women don’t pick their men for their charming personalities.”

“I was 19 years old. I started dating you because of your muscles, not because of your personality,” she teased. “I certainly wasn’t planning on keeping you around.”

“Good thing I knocked you up,” Peter said, shaking his head. “Thank you, Jose Cuervo.”

“You’re a doofus,” Beth said. She punched him in the shoulder, then stood and got her bag. When she turned back around, she saw Peter staring at a mountain off in the distance with a dark look on his face. “Is something wrong?”

Peter looked back at her and smiled, dropping the melancholy expression. “You mean aside from the whole family being transported to a bizarre game planet? Nope, other than that, I’m fine.” He pointed to the mountain. “I saw that mountain when I was falling; it was somewhere to the southeast of here. I’m thinking that if we keep it behind us and just off to the right, that would have us travelling roughly north…”

“…and since this Palmyre place seems to be a fairly large city, there should be roads leading to it,” Beth said, finishing his thought. “Even if we miss the city, maybe we’ll hit a road and can follow that the rest of the way. Sounds like a plan.”

They did a quick inventory and discovered that while Peter’s backpack had not been damaged—it must have materialized after his injury—it unsurprisingly lacked the potion that had been in Beth’s. It did include an extra shirt that Peter could change into, though. Which was good, considering his current one was a shredded mess.

Once settled, they began their journey through the woods. Beth left everything in her backpack, but Peter looped the camp knife onto his belt “just in case.” They both knew it was more for comfort than anything else. The tool was one of the worst camp knives Beth had ever seen and was probably useless in a fight with anything tougher than a potato. Even then, she’d put even money on the potato.

They headed into the woods, following Peter’s advice and keeping the mountain behind them on their right. The forest around them wasn’t as barren as in Southern California, but the groundcover often broke open into bare sheets of rock, which allowed them to set a decent pace on their journey. After about 20 minutes of walking, both Beth and Peter were surprised when pieces of paper appeared in front of each of them. Beth’s was very polite, appearing off to the side so as not to obscure her vision, whereas Peter’s flitted directly in front of his face and caused him to trip over a root. Much to Beth’s surprise, she didn’t even need to read the page to understand what it said.

NEW SURVIVAL SKILL LEARNED!

Hiking – Skill Level 5 (Tier-0)

Ah, the great outdoors.

*Since this Skill predates your arrival in Arenia, it has been set at a level commensurate with the practical ability you already possess.

250 XP Earned (cumulative)

“Oh! I got a Hiking Skill! Level 5, Tier-0” Beth said. She glanced over at Peter as he picked himself up off the ground, grabbing the paper out of the air once he was back on his feet. When he finished skimming the contents, he looked at her in confusion.

“I got the same thing, but mine is Level 16, Tier-1? Why would they be different?”

It actually didn’t surprise Beth all that much, given what had happened with her Yoga Skill. “I’m pretty sure it’s based on our lives back on Earth. You went hiking more when we were younger, so yours unlocked at a higher level.”

He nodded and was about to say something when another piece of paper appeared in front of him. He looked it over and frowned. “I’m confused again. Now it says I’m Level 3. Didn’t it just say I was Level 16?”

Beth patted him on the arm. “Your Hiking Skill is Level 16. Your overall level, what they call your Renown Level, is Level 3. Congratulations!”

“Um, okay. What’s your Renown Level?”

Beth took out her journal and looked at it. “I’m Renown Level 5. Darn, I need 900 more experience points to get to Level 6. How am I supposed to do that?”

A pensive look came over Beth’s face. She gave Peter a sly grin. “Peter? I’d like to… test a theory.”

Stepping close to him, Beth wrapped her arms around Peter’s neck and pulled his head down into a long, deep kiss. At first, he was surprised. Then he readily joined in.

NEW GENERAL SKILL LEARNED!

Pickpocket – Skill Level 1 (Tier-0)

Aren’t you the sly minx? Someone is starting to get her head around how this world works.

50 XP Earned

“It worked!” Beth shouted. She pulled back from a now-confused Peter and dangled his camp knife in front of him. “I distracted you and stole your knife. It gave me a new Skill and a bit of experience towards my next Renown Level! Not that I know what you use Renown for, but I’m sure it’ll come in handy at some point.”

Peter blinked at her in confusion, still trying to recover from the kiss.

“Huh? I… wow. Okay. Um, I have no idea what half the words you’re saying mean. Heck, I’m still coming to terms with the fact that you’re two Renown Levels above me. Didn’t we arrive at the same time?”

Beth winked at him. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll catch up. We should see if you can get some new Skills.”

Peter ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Honestly? I’m a bit overwhelmed by all this game stuff right now. I just want to get to our new home and hopefully find our kids.”

That sucked all the wind out of Beth’s sails. She’d gotten caught up in this strange new world, and mention of the kids brought reality crashing down. They were stuck here. REALLY stuck here, with no avenue home and no way of knowing whether their kids were okay. Or her grandfather.

Peter cringed when he saw how his words affected his wife. “I’m sorry, hon. I didn’t mean to bring you down.”

Beth shook her head and gave him a tight-lipped smile. “No, you’re right.” She handed his knife back and resumed hiking. “There’s a gaminess to this world, but it’s not a game. We were lucky and arrived together, but the kids? Angela never liked camping, and Mark only did a few years with the Boy Scouts. And then there’s Grandpa Jack… He’s been such a good man. He doesn’t deserve to die alone in the middle of the woods.”

“You may want to pump the brakes on that one,” Peter said. “I’m just as concerned as you about the kids, but your grandfather is a tough old root. He’s the last person I’m worried about.”

“He’s 95-years-old, Peter!”

“He fought Nazis, Beth.”

She scowled but let it slide. “I guess there’s nothing to be gained by worrying. He’ll do his best, just like the rest of us. All we can do is get ourselves to Palmyre in one piece.”