“Stupid skeletons,” Heather grumbled as she settled into her bath. It had taken her nearly two hours to wipe up the water. Thankfully it seemed to run directly to the stairs and down. This left the third level only slightly wet, and the second level virtually dry. The ground floor was soaked, and it had run down into her lower room, turning it into mud. Finally, she was able to settle into the tub and let out a deep sigh.

Below her just inside her front door stood the bone knight. She ordered it to guard the door so she could have some privacy. She was convinced that the moment she got in the tub, somebody would come into the graveyard adventuring.

She rolled up a town and set it behind her head as she lay back. The water was cool, but she didn't care, nor did she have a way to heat it. Frank suggested she get a metal pot or tea kettle to add hot water to it. She agreed the idea was good, but she had neither a fireplace or a pot. She had some wooden buckets, but they would burn up if set over a fire.

He suggested that maybe she needed to go to the city to buy some missing items. It wasn't a bad idea, but the city was a long way away. Not to mention that Frank couldn't go with her. She would have to carry all the things back herself. Not an impossible task, but she could only carry so much. Frank could easily carry three times her body in weight. If she could get him to help, she could come back with a bunch of stuff.

She got bored and rubbed at her arm. Her panel floated in the air like a hologram, and she looked at her choices.

“How do I grow food?” Heather asked.

The panel beeped and showed her an array of options to grow food. It also listed several classes and two races that had the ability to grow plants.

“A druid can cause crops to grow quickly,” she read. “They can cause a tree or bush to bear fruit in one hour. She read on to discover that the flower singer could grow them as well.”

She shook her head and laughed. “Great, I can have all the apples I want. How do I order a pizza?”

The panel was silent, and she shook her head.

“What nobody in this world has tried to make a pizza yet? I bet hundreds of players have tried to recreate foods from the real world.”

As if in sympathy, her stomach growled. She smiled as she reached down to rub it.

“There, there, I am sure we will go to the city sooner or later. Somebody must be making burgers by now.”

Her stomach groaned again and went silent as if pouting about the wait.

“If we had a village, we could have farms,” she said as she tapped through more options. “That would at least increase the food variety.”

With another tap, she brought up the flower singer. She could grow flowers at will or cause them to bloom in bushes, but that gave her no ability to make food. If she could find existing plants, she could cause them to grow faster. She thought about planting a garden behind her tower to grow a few items. Her mother had a garden, and it was always full of things to eat. She wondered if this world had the same problems with pests and disease. She supposed that it wouldn't matter if a plant could grow to maturity in minutes.

She decided to use a bar of soap to wash her hair and finished her bath. She took a few minutes to sit on a bench in the room and dry off.

“I really do need a fireplace,” she said. “Or a space heater.” She smiled a the idea of a small heater in the room. “Of course, then you would need electricity, Heather dear.”

With a sigh, she went upstairs to her wardrobe and picked out a simple green villagers dress. It had a brown belt at the waist land aced up the front. It ruffled around the shoulders, leaving them exposed, and she adjusted it several times to cover as much as possible.

“This will have to do. It isn’t like I am attending a royal ball.”

She paused a moment to consider the fact that a royal ball was something that she could attend in this world. There was a strange rumbling noise outside, and she instinctively went to her blue window. She had to squint to see through the panes, but she caught a glimpse of a man in armor.

“Figures, my hair is wet, and somebody is here,” she groaned. “Well, it can't be helped. It's not like we can put up an open sign.”

She decided to tie her hair back and put on her sunbonnet. Carefully she descended the stairs of her tower and headed for the door.

“Step aside,” she said to the dark skeleton standing in her way. It moved to the right allowing her to reach the door as another rumbled echoed through the tower. She threw it open wide as the player in full silver armor swung a massive hammer at one of her skeletons, smashing it to pieces.

“Hey! If you shatter all the bones, I can't bring them back!” she yelled from the doorway.

The player looked up and stood motionless for a moment.

“Did you say bring them back?” he asked with a curious tone in his voice.

“You heard what I said,” Heather remarked. “I bring them back so players can earn more experience when they play here.”

The man looked down at the broken bones scattered around his feet.

“My apologies, I never suspected somebody would want to restore them,” he said. He reached up and took off a helmet that had little wings on the side. Heather was pleasantly surprised to see a man with long dark hair and lightly bearded face. He had deep serious eyes set over a warm smile as he tucked the helm under his arm.

“Sir Harkinor, the hammer of the Hawks,” he said with a slight bow.

She folded her arms and stared into his smiling face.

“Heather, the recluse of this tower,” she replied. “Be more careful with my toys.”

“Forgive me, Lady Heather,” he said with a dip of his head. “I was rather enjoying the battle.”

Heather liked being addressed as a lady and fought the smile that wanted to curl her lips. She took a step down as he set his hammer to the ground, so the shaft stood in the air.

“So why is such a lovely Lady living in a remote tower in a graveyard?” he asked.

“I value my privacy,” she said. “You're not a low-level player. What are you doing out here?”

He nodded again and smiled broadly. “The northlands are rather dull sometimes. Players spend most of their day dueling. If you want any real adventure, you have to go beyond the far spawn points. I hear the wilds are rather dangerous.”

Heather thought back to the scissor jawed lizard and silently agreed.

“How were you making that rumbling noise?” she asked.

“How was I making the noise?” he repeated.

Heather nodded silently.

“My Lady, I am a Thane.”

Heather had no idea what that was and had to fight the urge to open her panel to find out.

“I am not familiar with that class,” she said.

He looked shocked and shook his head, still smiling. “My lady, it is a warrior who follows the service of the God of thunder and lightning, Thor.”

Heather knew that name from the movies but wasn’t sure what that meant.

“I see you still have no idea,” he said. “I can call on the power of storms to aid my strikes. The rumbling your hearing is a form of lightning that I am using to enhance my attacks.”

Heather wanted to laugh. She just solved her electricity problem. She held her tongue and tried to think of something more intelligent to say. She was rather curious about how this worked and decided to ask.

“Can you show me?”

Harkinor turned around with his arms out.

“Alas, we are out of skeletons.”

Heather smiled and walked down the steps of her tower.

“I can remedy that,” she said. “Go stand in the graveyard.”

He nodded and lifted his hammer with one hand. He carried the heavy weapon into the graveyard and waited.

Heather picked through her three shattered skeletons to find the one that looked mostly intact.

“You broke bones on all of them,” she snapped as she pushed some together.

“It isn't every day somebody offers to raise them back up for you,” he replied.

She managed to piece one back together and waved a hand over it.

“Arise and serve!” she commanded

The dead eyes of the skull glowed with a red light as the bones knit back together. The skeleton stood up with a cackle and immediately looked to the man in the graveyard.

“Now you can show me,” Heather said. She could see him staring at her with a confused expression, but he lifted the hammer anyway.

“As you wish,” he said. “You should stand back by the doorway.”

Heather nodded in reply as he put his helmet on. When she as safely on the steps, he ran in with a boisterous shout. He lifted his hammer high and cried out, “By the tempest, I smite you!”

Heather's eyes went wide as electricity crackled up the shaft of the hammer collecting at the square metalhead. A rumbling like distant thunder filled the air as the hammer sent the skeleton back to pieces.

Harkinor lifted his hammer and returned to smiling.

“Very impressive,” Heather said. “But isn’t that a bit of overkill?”

He nodded. “It is, but I get so little opportunity to use my skills.”

“Oh, Yummy!” Quinny's voice called from the graveyard.

Heather looked up to see her coming from the gate to the forest. Harkinor reacted by lifting his hammer as if preparing to strike.

“Hey!” Heather shouted. “Quinny is a friend!”

He turned back to her with a blank look. “The zombie has a name?”

Heather sighed and nodded. “That's a player. She runs the forest so people can fight there.”

Harkinor looked confused for a second as he lowered the hammer. Quinny arrived at Heather's gate and looked him up and down.

“Finally, somebody who knows how to tweak the character sliders,” she said.

“What is that supposed to mean? Heather called.

Quinny smiled at him as she drew near. “It means he looks cute.”

Harkinor smiled and gave her a pleasant nod.

“Quinny, you’re terrible,” Heather snapped.

Quinny shrugged as she walked to join Heather.

Harkinor watched her go as she blew a kiss his way before standing beside Heather.

“So, you two work together to make a place for people to play?” he asked.

“Frank helps too,” Quinny said. “He is probably down in the tunnels.”

“Frank?”

Heather could see he was taken aback, so she filled in the blanks for him.

“I run the tower and the surrounding yard, Quinny runs the forest, and Frank manages the graveyard. We are here, so new players have someplace to level up a few times before going north.”

Harkinor nodded his head and rubbed at his chin. “A noble pursuit to help the new players. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.”

“Why is this so shocking to you?” Heather asked.

Harkinor turned around to take in the graveyard. “Because nobody plays monsters anymore.”

Heather huffed and folded her arms again. “That’s because people insist on making them reset.”

Harkinor nodded as he returned to looking at them. “I suppose it is.”

“Doesn't anybody see the value in sharing the roles you play? If you let the monsters build, then you wouldn't have to walk out here to find someplace to play.”

He smiled and again nodded his agreement. “I suppose that’s true, but then the monsters have visited it back on the standard players several times.”

“What do you mean?” Heather asked.

“Just a year ago, all the goblin races, the orcs, ogres, trolls, and even some giants banded together and marched into the kingdom of Niverain. They burned everything in their path, resetting thousands of players.”

“I read about that before I joined,” Quinny said. “The article said that those races were trying to form a kingdom, but the standard races kept raiding them and wiping them out.”

Harkinor put up a hand as if to deflect her words. “I have never reset a player or monster in my time here.”

Heather studied his reaction as he spoke. He seemed truthful, but then so did most of the men she had tried to date. The truth came to the surface later when any pressure was put on the relationship. Something niggled at her mind about his statement though, and she realized what it was a moment later.

“Why would giants help them?” she asked.

Harkinor smiled again. “They were sick of being raided as well.”

“But they are monsters. Why would they help monster players?” she asked more directly.

“I see what your asking,” Harkinor said as he rubbed his chin again. “These giants were players.”

“Pfft!” Quinny said. “Players can’t be giants. I looked when I was picking my race .”

Harkinor shook his head at the comment. “I swear to you these were players. I have no idea how they managed it, but they were players.”

“He’s lying, curse him with that flesh rot thing,” Quinny said.

Heather studied him for a second as she remembered what Frank said about King Kevin's dragon. He insisted it was a player, but players can't be dragons, or so Frank said. Heather never bothered to check herself, but she knew Frank would be right. She also remembered what he said about NPC characters and how some of them could be very convincing.

“Couldn’t they have been really smart NPC’s?” she asked.

Harkinor shook his head. “I met one of them. He knew about the real world. Said he was from England.”

Heather glanced at Quinny, who shook her head again. “He has to be lying.”

“You were just falling over him a second ago,” Heather quipped. “Now, you're calling him a liar?”

“The good looking ones are always liars,” Quinny laughed.

Heather shot her a glare and turned back to Harkinor.

“I suppose things are going on in the world that can't be explained. Isn't King Kevin's dragon supposed to have been a player?” She asked only to cast the illusion that she wasn't new to the world.

“Indeed, I am told it was,” he said. “I have never met the dragon before her disappearance.”

Heather went reply when a loud groan issued out of her stomach, causing Harkinor and Quinny to look.

“You be quiet!” Heather growled. “I told you I would look for a pizza or something if we go into the city.”

“If it’s pizza you want, don’t go into the city, go to the Mittingdells. Papa Stonebeards is the best dwarven pizza in the land,” Harkinor said.

Heather looked up with a twitch in her eye as her stomach cried out again.

“You’re serious?” she asked.

Harkinor nodded. “It's just two days northeast. You turn right the crossroads to the city. That takes you to the hammer gate into the Mittingdells.”

“So, they have actual pizza?” Heather asked.

“They are a little heavy on the cheese, but I like a lot of cheese,” he replied.

Heather's stomach replied for her and tightened a hand over it.

“It sounds like your stomach is demanding some pizza,” he laughed.

Heather took her hand away and tried to remain dignified as she looked up.

“I may have to take a walk out there. Thank you for telling me where it was.”

“For my Ladies, it is a pleasure,” he said with another bow. “Well, I must be off. It was lovely to meet you both. If you do go to the dells, find the village of Bronburg. Papa Stonebeards is there. Tell the waitress that I sent you. She will take care of you.”

Heather watched as he blew Quinny a kiss back and waved as he walked off into the graveyard.

“I hope he comes back,” Quinny said.

“What was that kiss you blew him?”

Quinny smiled. “Just letting him know I would entertain his affections.”

Heather laughed. “You’re a zombie.”

“I hardly look undead,” Quinny said. “All I have are a few scars on my face and the black eyes.”

“And pale white skin,” Heather reminded her.

Quinny held up her arms to show her figure. “And all of it is intact. It all works just as it should.”

“It’s all dead,” Heather remarked.

“That just means he has to work hard to get my blood flowing again,” Quinny teased.

“Eeew!” Heather laughed. “Are you sure you didn’t want to be a succubus?”

“That was my second choice.”

“It was?” Heather asked. “What made you choose the zombie?”

Quinny smiled and glanced at Heather.

“I flipped a coin.”

Heather burst out laughing. “You were willing to commit to being a zombie or succubus on a coin flip?”

Quinny bumped her with a hip and sauntered down the steps.

“Some of the best things in life come by taking a chance,” she said and walked off.

Heather watched her go and couldn't believe anybody would leave such a decision up to pure chance. Then she thought about and realized she was in no position to criticize. At least Quinny knew she would be happy with either race. Heather had picked most of her choices under duress and without fully understand the choice.

“Maybe I could take a chance and go look for this pizza place?” she muttered.

Her stomach cried out as if in answer, groaning loudly.

With a sigh, she turned to go back inside and get an apple, but she knew she was going to look for that restaurant soon.