Nathan took the lead, his new staff doubling as a walking stick. Maya followed behind, her fancy spear serving as an even fancier trekking pole.

Nathan’s shoulder throbbed under his bandage with every step. Random bug bites and thorny branches were doing a number to his shirtless body. But none of these irritants were at the front of his mind. All he could focus on was how badly he needed to relieve himself.

He’d been holding it since before Asahi and Johanna were injured, but events had been non-stop. Now that he was hiking and had time to dwell, the situation was becoming dire. But despite his discomfort, it was too embarrassing to say anything to his travelling companion.

Feeling the fool, he finally turned to Maya. “I need to use the restroom.” He blushed. Why was he so nervous? He took a deep breath and plowed on. “Mind waiting a minute and letting me go ahead?” He could hear the awkwardness in his voice.

Maya looked amused. “You better not go off alone, a beaver might get you.”

“Uh…” he replied, completely flustered.

“I’m just kidding. The next attack isn’t for another forty-five minutes or so. Anyway, I lived with four brothers growing up so I don’t care if you use the toilet here... assuming it's number one. I hate to say it but I have to go as well. Trust me, this is way more embarrassing for me than you. Somehow it just isn’t socially acceptable for a lady to go in front of a man.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle at her blunt response. And despite her saying it was worse for her, she didn’t actually project any obvious embarrassment like him. “Alright, I’ll go on,” he said. “I’ll wait for you to catch up when you’re done too. Just don’t go trying to catch a peek.”

She laughed. “Same goes for you... so just watch yourself Mister. Don’t forget, I'm the one with the sharp stick.”

He smiled then walked out of sight. After finishing, he waited for her. While he passed the time, he began inspecting the changes to his body. It was crazy how much he’d changed since that morning, especially concerning his mind.

He was thinking more clearly, making deductions he wouldn’t otherwise. He was grasping concepts and seeing solutions that he might not have previously. His anxiety seemed to be more manageable as well, though that could be desensitization from his constant exposure to danger. But could he really acclimatize to the horror and violence in only a day? No… more likely it was due to the nanites and their Mental improvements.

But as for his Physical stat, he’d been too busy to examine himself since the prelims. He figured increasing Physical by only one was equivalent to intense training every day for an entire month. So far, he’d bumped his up by 5. He touched his bicep and flexed. He was still lean, but drastically more compact. He rubbed the outside of his thighs, marveling at the muscle tone. He hadn’t been this fit since his college days running track.

Odd how natural the changes felt. It was as if he’d always been this toned. Perhaps his brain was adjusted as well to make the improvements more seamless in transition? A momentary panic flooded him as he imagined the nanites tinkering inside his body. He sighed. The Mental stat improvements certainly helped, but he wasn’t completely over his random anxieties yet.

He looked down at his torso, annoyed at being shirtless. Bugs were biting him in swarms like he was a Chinese buffet at lunchtime. He hoped they weren’t giving him malaria or the alien equivalent. He swatted at a particularly persistent horsefly. He blinked when he noticed it had an actual horse’s head on its insect body. Nathan chuckled. Tygerion seemed to have a sense of humor at least. If Nathan received an opportunity to kill him, he’d at least try to compliment him on his world building first.

Nathan traced his finger over his abs, feeling the clear definition and melted fat. It was satisfying. No question, he’d never been this fit even at the peak of his training.

Looking up, he realized that Maya was clutching her side laughing. “Don’t mind me; the show must go on!”

Nathan ears turned scarlet. He’d become completely lost in thought. “Uh… sorry about that, was checking the result of my Physical stat increases.”

Maya’s interest was visibly piqued at the mention of stats. “Well, let’s see them.”

Nathan choked and he blushed even harder. “Umm,” he stammered, not sure if she was meaning his abs or his bicep. Choosing the less embarrassing option, he lifted up his arm to flex it.

“Not that,” she laughed. “God, that’s brilliant! No, I mean the stats in your interface. Hopefully you have some latent Mental stats residing in those muscles.”

Beads of sweat dripped off him in droves. “My Mental stat happens to be 119, thank you very much.”

A mischievous smile twisted her lips. “I’m not familiar with the measurements in the States, is that bigger than your shoe size?”

He laughed. “I wear a size ten... so just a bit. What are your stats?”

“You should never ask a lady her statistics.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder in exaggeration. Contrary to her teasing, she opened her blue screen and held out her arm. Her character sheet was written in a language he’d never seen before. He should be able to read Hindi thanks to his Language skill, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“Weird, I can’t read the language even though I speak it,” he told her in Hindi.

She laughed at his confusion. She then matched his language and said, “That’s because it isn’t Hindi.” She switched back to English. “It’s Kannada. A language I doubt you even knew existed.”

“I thought you were from India?”

“I am. Not everyone in India speaks Hindi. For me it was my fourth language. Kannada is my state’s official language.”

“Huh, crazy. I had no idea. So you speak four languages? That’s kind of incredible. I was halfway convinced you already had the Language skill since you speak English so much better than me.”

“Seven languages, actually. And no Language skill either. My versatility in communication landed me my project liaison role in London. We had a team of French programmers in Paris and a set of Indian programmers in Bangalore. I coordinated them with the main office in England.” She glanced down at her other wrist, probably by habit. On not seeing a watch, her brow furrowed. She looked back up at Nathan. “We need to get moving. Lead the way, muscle boy. I will tell you my skills as we walk.”

She began translating her character sheet while following behind.

[Player D-7681 Statistics]

[Physical: 121]

[Mental: 137]

Her insanely high Mental stat made him stop and look back at her. He wasn’t a dummy but her stat dwarfed his. “Whoa, you must be a genius.”

For the first time since meeting her, she looked genuinely embarrassed. “It’s definitely my strong suite. My original stats were 112 Physical and 135 Mental so most of my gains have been in the Physical department.” She quickly read off the rest of her character sheet as they continued hiking.

[Elemental Affinities: Fire 3 (Prime), Wood 2, Earth 2, Metal 0, Water -1]

[Nanite Points: 22.5]

[Energy Points: 36 / 36]

[Skills: General Fitness II, Quick Study I, Improved Heart I, Debuff Immunity I, Quick Reflexes I, Pole Weapons I]

There were only two skills he didn’t recognize. “What does Improved Heart and Debuff Immunity do?” he asked in Hindi. He figured he should speak in a language she was more comfortable with.

“You can keep talking in English, I speak it better than Hindi these days. Improved Heart is brilliant. It boosts my base EP regeneration rate by 30% so I can activate skills more often. What’s most interesting is it's a Fire Prime skill. This means that other Prime element players can’t learn it even if they have the affinity.”

“Wow, yeah. Must be because it’s overpowered. 30% EP regen boost, that’s nuts! I have one Fire skill myself but it didn’t have the Prime restriction. So only Fire Primes will ever get this particular souped up EP regen skill.”

“Exactly. Now the other skill, Debuff Immunity, is my only activated skill. It’s an Earth aligned skill that lets me become immune to negative status effects for ten seconds. So far, it’s been entirely useless.”

“If you find yourself in a situation where you actually need immunity to debuffs, then things have gone horribly wrong. It could save your life.”

“Let’s hope I never meet a situation where I have to find out. Now your turn to show and tell.”

He read her his stats and skills, stopping to answer questions throughout. Maya’s appetite for knowledge was insatiable, she grilled him for every single tidbit. Anything from the conditions he met to learn his skills to even the skill options he didn’t choose.

He was finally saved from her interrogation when he spotted the tree with the pine needles. He’d already gathered the dry moss and the brown grass for fire starting minutes before so they only needed the antiseptic root after this.

“Okay, you should pick the needle,” he said. “It might let you unlock the survival skill.” He also recited the little information he knew regarding the tree, in hopes it would help her learn it.

Maya yanked a solitary needle from a branch, passing it to him. He examined it, noting the wickedly sharp point as he pricked his finger. No question if it would pierce flesh. But the lack of an eye would make tying the thread difficult. Its tapered shape looked promising, becoming wider and flatter the further away from the sharp end. He would need to make a hole through it somehow. Thinking of how it could be done, he mentally face palmed at the simple solution.

“Let me have another needle, please. I’ll use one to puncture an eye through the other.”

She took another needle, being careful not to stab herself on the deadly tree. After handing it off, she gathered several more, pinning them through her pajamas carefully. “Always take resources when available,” she offered by way of explanation when she noticed him watching. He gave her a nod of respect.

Using the second needle, he punctured an eye through the first. It worked better than expected. It made him wonder if Tygerion had artificially created the needle plant specifically for medical use. Following Maya’s example, he speared the two needles through his khaki pants for transport.

With needles secured, Maya gently punched his arm. “No skill unlock. You suck as a teacher.”

“Maybe it's the student?”

“Doubtful. Anyway, let’s go. Monster attacks are still on a timer. And don’t you still have a pretty flower to pick?”

He led the way again, glancing once at his wristband noting he was at 16 EPs. He kept track as his counter ticked upward. He didn’t stop their hike again until he reached 20.

“First Aid!” he called out, activating the skill. A surge of multi-colored energy left his hand as he touched his hurt shoulder. The sensation was oddly pleasant. In fact, that was understating it. The tension of struggling in a life and death scenario momentarily drained away. He immediately felt better. He fumbled at his shirt bandage with his right hand, untying it. The pain was totally gone.

Maya stepped closer to see as he removed the bandage. “Wow. Brilliant. It’s completely healed.”

He then looked for himself, shocked to find the bite marks completely vanished. No scars remained. Always before with Physical stat gains his healing had left marks behind, but First Aid must prevent scarring too. He was even more impressed with the skill.

He buttoned the sleeveless shirt back on, glad to be clothed again. He had to wonder if wearing the stinky and soiled material was actually an improvement over being shirtless. Then he remembered the horse headed fly, and decided it was.

Nathan started off again and Maya fell into step. First Aid was definitely a strong skill and he couldn’t wait to upgrade it to level two. Unfortunately it required 125 Mental, so it would take some time before he would become eligible. He would hopefully be quite a bit smarter when he got to that point too.

He wondered how the Mental stat gains were affecting geniuses like Maya. Not all intellectuals possessed common sense, his best friend Logan exemplified that fact. But Maya also seemed pretty sharp in a street sense. Everyone was different, yet their stats were averaged into only two numbers, not really reflecting the complexity of people. So did the Mental improvements buff wisdom in addition to intelligence? Did it weigh one more than the other, trying to shore up a deficiency in a person? Depending on the player, the nanites could probably make custom changes accordingly.

His mind kept going back to how much greater Maya’s combined stats were than his own. Just like Asahi’s had been too.

“It seems that everyone I’ve met is either really smart, really fit, or both,” he observed.

“Exactly,” she said. “I was curious about why I was picked for the trials so I asked the Tutorial Guide what the selection process entailed.”

Of course she had. He could imagine Maya enjoying a pleasant cup of tea with the Guide while they discussed the finer details of the trials.

Maya continued explaining, “She informed me that each player must meet certain criteria to be semi-randomly selected. The main requirement was stats. They effectively narrowed the selection down to the top 10% of the human population using the composite score when Physical and Mental stats are averaged together. Only humans aged fifteen to fifty are used for these figures.”

Nathan immediately thought of Kean, a fifteen year old whose high Mental stat had skewed his composite score high enough to be selected despite his low fitness level. A flash of anger welled up in him at the cruelty of the prelim tests. He kept it to himself as Maya continued speaking.

“Secondly, we had to be healthy without any pre-existing physical or mental disabilities including mundane things like vision defects, severe allergies, attention deficit disorder, and the like. And thirdly, they weighted their selection to get an even mix of demographics that might otherwise be skewed by imbalanced population distributions.”

“I see,” said Nathan, trying to ignore his previous emotion. “So even though India has like a billion people, they’re as likely to produce one person to every one person from say... a tiny island like Fiji.”

“That’s right!” Maya said. “Although I assume it's not so much based on nations specifically. They are going for diversity in ethnicity, age, gender, and so on.”

Nathan jumped over a log lying across the trail and glanced back at her. The excitement from sharing information was plainly visible on her face.

He said, “I wouldn’t rule out nationality as a criteria. The three players in my prelims were all immigrants of one sort or the other. The player who didn’t make it, he was Irish but living in Germany. Johanna immigrated from Russia to Sweden, and Asahi is Japanese but his grandparents were Chinese. You yourself are an Indian in the U.K. So what I don’t get is why I’m the oddball? I’ve no mixed racial background that I know of and I’ve never even left my country before.”

“It’s obvious,” she said. “It wouldn’t be actual diversity if everyone was an immigrant. You’re from Tennessee, right? The aliens needed a few rednecks too.” She was smirking when he glanced back.

He laughed, “When you’re roughing it in the woods, who do you want on your team? A redneck is who. We are masters of improvising solutions.”

“So that’s why they gave you the survival skill… because of your inherent redneck-ness? I’ll add that to my mental catalog of arena facts.”

He chuckled. “You know you might be onto something there. I’m kind of a hardcore hiking and camping guy. Seems more than coincidental I’d get a related skill.”

“It’s possible. I need more data before any true patterns can be determined. Anyway, I was explaining the criteria for selection. Let’s take you for example. Your base 125 Physical plus 114 Mental gives you a composite average of 119.5. I’ll be honest and say that your starting stat is the lowest possible to be selected.”

Her statement surprised him enough he stumbled before regaining his balance. “Huh, so what’s average for a regular person then?”

“100 Physical and 100 Mental.”

“Wait, what? If 100 is average, how am I the lowest player here?”

“You weren’t listening. 100 is average for a regular person between ages fifteen and fifty. That includes fifty year old cripples and such. Players are selected from the top 10%. Since the standard deviation is 15 as stated by the Guide, your score of 119.5 puts you right at the 90% threshold of the human population in terms of stats. That is normally awesome. In the arena though, it's the minimum requirement to be eligible for selection. Essentially, every player here is at the same or very likely higher percentile than you...” She suddenly stumbled over her last few words. “Umm, sorry, I get a bit carried away sometimes.”

“No problem,” he assured. “So I’m normally awesome, but everyone here is more awesome?” He flashed a smile over his shoulder.

“If it makes you feel better to think that... then sure,” she said, grinning back.

One thing that bothered him about this information was the fact Kean had been so horribly unathletic. “This really high Mental stat kid in my prelims, he had only 105 Physical. At the time, I didn’t know the average was only 100 to compare. But now that I do, it doesn’t make much sense. He was so out of shape there is no way he was above average in physical fitness. He was winded after running ten steps.”

“Hmm,” she said. “You sure you’re not overestimating the physical capability of the average person?”

“I don’t think so,” Nathan said after a moment’s consideration. “I guarantee this kid would’ve been picked last in gym class.” He felt a pang of guilt talking bad about Kean, especially after failing him, but he needed to understand how these stats worked.

“Okay, maybe some other aspect made up for it. Perhaps really good vision or hearing senses?”

Nathan nodded, considering. “He did mention he was a pro Fortnite player...”

“Uh, I have no idea what that is.”

Nathan chuckled. “It’s a video game, a shooter. I was kind of confused how that translated to his high Mental stat, but maybe it wasn’t correlated after all. He could have just been independently smart. Maybe it was his reflexes, or his hand eye coordination, that skewed his Physical stat higher than it should’ve been.” Nathan shook his head at the tragedy that befell him. If the kid had only 1 less point in either Physical or Mental, he would’ve never been brought here. He would be alive and well, playing his game at home.

“You are on the right path, I think. On a semi-related topic, it is encouraging that everyone here does have a chance to succeed, we all have enough rice in the cooker, so to speak.” Her voice took on an optimistic tone. “For instance, the Immortal Collective didn’t give women any extra stats...”

“What do you mean?” he asked, curiously. In sports, he knew top male athletes generally outperformed female head to head. Nathan himself had once run a 1500 meter race only three seconds slower than the current women’s world record, and he had only gotten ninth place in the men’s event.

“If Tygerion selected a female player, her stats already met the criteria for all humans, not just compared to other women. I haven’t met a really high Physical stat woman yet, but if we do, expect her to be world class. So if you meet a girl in the trials and you assume she needs protection solely because of her gender, you should forget that notion. She is statistically more likely to be the one giving you protection.” She spoke the last remark triumphantly.

“Good point,” he said. It was a concept he hadn’t fully considered until that moment. The stats were not relative to their respective genders, they were absolute. A woman’s 125 Physical stat wasn’t different from a man’s 125 stat. The two players would have equal strength or speed.

She said, “Your stat difference from other players isn’t that bad though, the differences in starting stats will become trivial after everyone learns several skills, assuming gains are linear. If there are diminishing returns, it will be even easier to catch up. Considering you’ve already learned several critical support and survival skills, you will be really important to our group regardless.”

“So we’re a group now? I don’t remember negotiating any contract pay...”

He halted abruptly as a crunching sound from further up the trail caught his attention. A shape came into view, followed by two more. Maya stepped up beside him with her spear held forward. Her fighting stance exuded professionalism, a marked difference from before. He so needed to learn Pole Weapons as soon as possible too.

“Eh, there are people,” the shape in front spoke.

The moving forms quickly revealed themselves as players. Specifically human players. There were three of them, hiking in single file. The man in the front had a wooden spear similar to Maya’s. They must have defeated a goblin too.

“Hello,” greeted Maya.

“Hello,” the man replied with a wave. “I’m David Northam from Whitehorse in the Yukon,” he informed them as he drew close. He held out his hand for Maya to shake. The Canadian man was Caucasian with fair skin. He was wearing a red shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the buttons undone down the front, revealing a hairy chest and belly. He wore blue jeans with work boots and he sported a big bushy beard. The man’s silver stone on his collar symbolized he was a Metal Prime.

“I’m Maya,” she replied. “I live in London but originally from India.”

David held his hand out to Nathan and they shook. The man’s grip was even more crushing than Harrison’s.

“I’m Nathan. I’m from Nashville, Tennessee.”

“Nashville! I love that city!” David exclaimed. “My wife and I stayed there for a week for our first anniversary. We had the best time hitting up every concert and walking downtown. We ran into Justin Timberlake at a barbeque restaurant which just doesn’t happen back home. I’m fairly sure my wife would have left me right that moment if he’d asked her to. I wouldn’t have blamed her either.” His laugh was full bellied. Then the man’s big smile slowly began to fall. Nathan figured he was contemplating being taken from his family to only be dumped here.

“Glad you liked my town,” Nathan replied warmly, hoping to lighten the mood again.

The other two players stepped around the big man to introduce themselves.

“Hello, my name is Lillian,” said a dark skinned woman in flawless English twinged with an African accent he couldn’t place. She was wearing a blue mini-dress and was barefoot. The yellow stone indicated she was an Earth Prime. “You can call me Lilly though. I’m from Nairobi, Kenya. I knew a little English before but have learned a Language skill which lets me speak it fluently now. Please excuse my party dress. I was at a discotheque with friends and when I went to the washroom... well, you know... forest, trials, beams of light.” She looked down at her feet. “I lost my heels during the first challenge; I couldn’t keep them on and dodge fireballs.”

Fireballs? Holy crap. He might have honestly had an easier preliminary than the others. She was holding a nice sized rock in her hand. He wholeheartedly approved of her weapon choice. A Mrs. Rock if he’d ever seen one.

Lilly was tall and athletically built, her long dark hair styled fashionably to the side. He was surprised the hairdo had lasted until now. She might’ve still been mistaken for going out for a night on the town. The only thing that ruined the image were the blood splatters on her dress.

The last player didn’t step forward when Lilly turned to give him an opportunity to speak. He had Asian features and appeared reluctant to introduce himself.

Nathan prompted him, “What’s your name?”

“Zhang Yong,” he stated. The man was wearing a red shirt under a white and navy tracksuit with worn tennis shoes. A green stone showed he was a Wood Prime.

When not further elaboration was given, Nathan asked, “Where are you from?”

“China.”

The man wasn’t really a talker. He did understand English though. Since Lilly had the Language skill, he likely did too.

Maya said, “We have more players waiting for us back at a creek. We’re here specifically on a mission to gather herbs for medical purposes. We would be happy if you joined us.”

“I have the Wilderness Survival skill which informs me of their uses,” Nathan added. “The flowers we need are only a few minutes back the way you came.”

“Eh, alright,” David said. “We were looking for water ourselves so a creek sounds good. We found some melons a few kilometers back which helped, though I ate so many I’m sure I’ll regret it later.” He let out a deep laugh that carried across the forest.

Nathan decided he liked the man. He was genuinely grateful he’d met so many people who seemed to thrive despite the grim situation. He shouldn’t be surprised though, they’d all passed the prelims. Those who would give up easily wouldn’t have made it this far.

Nathan led the way and it only took them a couple more minutes to reach the plants. As the yellow flowers with six leaves came into view, Nathan felt a surge of relief. He was glad he hadn’t imagined them. Nathan pointed out the flowers to the others and explained the root’s antiseptic properties.

Walking to the flowers, Nathan reached down to the closest one and yanked it up by the stem. The entire flower stalk pulled up but left the root buried underground. Dang, they’d have to dig them up.

“Does your survival skill say if the flower itself has any use?” Maya asked, sniffing one of the flowers.

“No, only the root.”

“That answers that.” She dumped the flower on the ground and began digging.

David and Maya gathered several of the roots with the assistance of their spears in the same amount of time Nathan managed to extract only one with his hands. Zhang had several big pockets in his jacket so they gave him all they collected for transport. Nathan stuffed one in his own pants pocket as well.

As a group, they headed back towards the creek with Maya in the lead. Nathan fell in behind her who was in turn followed by David, Lilly, and then Zhang. Maya set a faster hiking pace, but still managed to talk over her shoulder.

“I don’t think every player was abducted at the same time, you know, based on the different types of outfits the players are wearing and their corresponding time zones. What times were you guys abducted and what was the date?”

Nathan thought back to his time in the elevator. “About eight in the morning, October 2nd, 2019.”

Maya started giggling.

“What?” he asked.

“I like how you state the year along with the date,” she said.

“Hey, you wanted to know. I was being precise. What’s wrong with that?”

“It makes us sound like weird time travellers, discussing the year we each came from.”

David chuckled throughout their exchange. “Well, it was in the afternoon when I ended up here. 3 PM, October 2nd… in the year of our lord, 2019.” His laugh rumbled throughout the forest.

“See? You are both from the same continent; probably only an hour or two time zone difference from each other. Yet your abduction times don’t correlate. It was ten at night for me as I was getting ready for bed on October 3rd. Even accounting for the different time zones it is not even close. I wish I had watched the news to see if there had been reports of mass missing persons. I worked from home yesterday so didn’t socialize much. Plus my favorite fantasy author just released the final book in her series,” she laughed. “That always causes normal life to halt until I finish it.”

“Was the book any good at least?” David asked.

She turned her head to show them her pouting expression. “Not really. A deus ex machina ending ruined it for me. It figures my last memory of Earth had to be a rubbish ending to my favorite series.”

Nathan followed fantasy books, knowing exactly which book she referred to. He supposed the ebook was waiting for him on his tablet where he’d preordered it. At least he dodged a bullet wasting his time reading it… so yay, thanks again arena death game, saving me from a disappointing book ending.

He focused back on the timeline of their arrival. “So if you were abducted the day after us, how long have you been here?”

“Since this morning,” she replied.

“I arrived in the morning as well,” Nathan said.

“Me too,” David confirmed.

Nathan nodded. “So we were abducted at different times, but arrived here on the same...”

He trailed off as a yip was let loose in front of them.

They halted and readied their weapons. An additional screech sounded from behind. So it would be similar to last time... surrounded.

Maya held her spear forward and Nathan moved up to her left. He held his staff mimicking her stance as best he could. She had an actual weapon skill so knew better what she was doing.

“We have a few rats back here,” Lilly called out after a second screech sounded.

She called them rats. Yes, finally! Thank you!

Nathan glanced back to see Lilly with a two hand grip on her rock beside a weaponless Zhang. David, being the back trio’s only spear wielder, moved between the two to help face the rear enemies.

“Eh, watch my sides,” David said to his two teammates. “I’ll cover the middle.”

“Nathan and I will fight the humanoid on this side,” Maya yelled over her shoulder to the others.

A grey goblin approached Maya and Nathan via the trail. It could’ve been a twin to the one they fought before. The goblin held a similar wooden spear and wore a dirty animal pelt vest for armor. Nathan flinched when it let out another high pitched yip. Man, that was an annoying sound.

Nathan glanced down at his wristband to see no Attack Up active. He had expended his energy casting First Aid and his EP counter had only regained to 13. Not enough juice to buff himself, but plenty to test out his newest information gathering skill.

He stared right at the ugly monster and shouted, “Analyze Enemy!”

Nothing happened. He frowned in confusion. His EP counter still read 13. The skill was only supposed to cost 8 so he knew he had enough. Surely he didn’t need to actually touch the monster for it to work? That would be a pain.

The goblin approached slowly while the sounds of battle began with the rats behind him. Yes, he was now calling them rats again. Maybe beaver rats to cover all bases?

Despite his mental jokes to himself, the hands holding his staff trembled. The anticipation of the coming violence was intense. He noticed Maya’s spear held a tremor too.

The goblin initiated the attack by lunging forward and thrusting its spear at Nathan. He clumsily blocked it to the side. Maya didn’t waste any time and counter attacked the exposed enemy. Her spear hit its side. But the dirty rug covering its body must have offered decent protection from glancing blows. Her spear bounced right off.

The unharmed goblin flinched from the force of the strike, recovering quickly and striking again at Nathan. It had singled him out as the weak one. He managed to block again which pleasantly surprised him. His improved reflexes and coordination from stat gains were the main thing going for him in the battle.

The goblin followed up with a sweeping strike towards his leg. Nathan, already being off-balance, couldn’t dodge. He struggled to move his staff to block in time.

Thankfully, Maya nailed the goblin again with her spear. The strike caused the goblin’s own attack to veer off course and miss Nathan’s exposed leg by a hair. She hit squarely this time, finally penetrating the pelt armor two inches deep. She quickly pulled the spear free, revealing the tip red wet with blood. Her dexterous movements were obviously aided by her Quick Reflexes skill.

The goblin stepped back, cautiously holding its spear in front of it. It seemed content to wait now that it was injured. A couple of screeches sounded from behind and Nathan risked a glance back. David was stabbing a beaver in its side. He was even more ungainly with his weapon than Nathan, obviously lacking the Pole Weapons skill. The beaver died all the same. Zhang was pinning another monster with his body while Lilly smashed its head with Mrs. Rock. Nice rock attack, Lilly!

Nathan returned his eyes forward to see the goblin striking towards him. Oh right, he’d been foolishly looking behind him in the middle of a fight.

Nathan swept his staff up, knocking the goblin’s spear high. Maya made a leaping thrust, piercing the monster’s flesh directly below the chin. She yanked the spear free and the goblin fell backward. A mist of blood released from the wound. A few seconds later, the goblin turned to pixels.

Nathan blinked at how quickly the fight ended. Combat in real life was totally different than portrayed in movies. Nathan made eye contact with Maya and they shared a smile. Then they turned back to see how the others were faring.

David had his back to Nathan. His spear clutched to his side. Zhang and Lilly were further up the path staring back at the big man. An expression of horror written on their faces.

What’s the matter? Nathan stepped towards the Canadian man’s back. The man’s grip relaxed on his spear and it fell to the ground. Nathan heard a beaver’s screech that sounded like it was coming from right in front of him. He glanced around at the thick vegetation on both sides of the trail but didn’t see any monster. Where was it?

David took a step forward and then fell to his side. Nathan blinked in surprise. A beaver sat resting its head on the man’s chest. Uncomprehending the scene before him, Nathan took another step forward. Then it finally dawned on him... the beaver’s dual horns were fully embedded to each side of David’s sternum. The monster bit and kicked at the man’s flesh, its horns still lodged in place. David coughed once and blood began to drip down the side of his mouth. Then he closed his eyes.

Suddenly, David’s chest began to glow. The light spread slowly away from the horns penetrating his heart, expanding across his body in all directions. The ethereal light engulfed him all the way to his fingers and boots. The glow began to increase in intensity and within a few heartbeats, his whole body began to pixelate. Thousands of suspended diamonds shining all at once. Then the pixel dust dispersed in all directions, scattering with the wind.

The player, David, was gone.