In the end they just needed to feel like they had an unfair advantage. Like someone on their side was a cheat code. Ava can relate.

It feels good when the overpowered character is on your team, so the townsfolk lionize Uri right there in the road even while Ava helps Ellie slip away unnoticed.

Ava leads her by the hand and closes the door to the healer's hut behind them. Can't have the townies discovering that the cheat code can cause sudden blindness.

“Will you be okay?” She helps her sit on the edge of the cot which Uri had been convalescing upon only a few minutes earlier.

“Get back out there,” Ellie says, avoiding the question, “keep up the momentum.”

Because now the villagers are ready to fight. Some of them—perhaps many, or even all—will die tomorrow morning. But for now it is midday and they work. Artis crafts bow after bow. Others carve staves and spears from the cartload of [Medium Log(s)]. Everyone chips in. Everyone gets to work.

Everyone works to distract themselves from the reality of the situation.

Ava watches Ostby instructing a group of men and women who have been selected as the most capable archers. He shows them how to wrap their missiles in thin strips of linen coated in old cooking grease. The result is the basis for a [Fire Arrow].

Then she sees the Slaps set up an assembly-line spitting out plastic arrowheads and another producing spear-tips.

What has she eaten? Mushrooms by the campfire that morning? They're not sitting well.

She watches the town rallied toward war. The children laboring at their lethal trinkets. The adults puffed up because they think Uri is magic.

She's responsible for all of this.

Optional Goals: 2) Equip 50 townsfolk with arms(50 of 50) COMPLETE!

That churning in her gut is some mix of pride and guilt and outright revulsion.

But it's just a game.

She keeps telling herself that. Reminds herself that she's simply completing a quest.

But what is a quest, really? Is that actually even a thing? Or could 'quests' merely be a means of controlling the narrative around her bizarre and bad acts? A coping mechanism granting her a false sense of control in an incomprehensible world?

“Ma'am.” The littlest Slap—he likes to be called 'Cobra'—presents her with a quiver full of arrows, their tips a rainbow of brightly-colored plastic like a party-pack of missiles. She accepts the ammunition and he scampers away on his next mission.

A walking tour of the preparations for war doesn't do much for her mood. Bach supervises while the villagers eagerly pollute the outskirts of their town with his deadly traps. A smattering of Slaps study his every instruction, soaking up all the Slayer knowledge they can handle.

The piano which was rotting in the corner of the pub has been disassembled and its strings used to lay down tripwires.

Bach shows them how to wrap a stone with sharpened sticks until it's pricklier than a porcupine and then he teaches them to suspend these crude morning-stars in the tree branches so that when triggered they will swing down to brutally crush and impale intruders.

“If you can,” he leans in like he's telling some big secret, “smear the spikes with feces.” He gets a lot of confused and disgusted looks but just laughs. “Listen, anyone with a working anus can make a bio-weapon. This is war.”

He oversees the excavation of deep pits bristling with shaven-timber spikes. Tree-branch whip-traps armed with more crap-smeared spikes and burlap sacks stuffed with bricks and stones, hoisted up into the treetops with ropes and pulleys – avalanches to be called down on demand.

Ava wonders how long it will take the survivors to undo all these wicked devices they've just installed in their own backyard.

Optional Goals: 3) Deploy twenty traps(20 of 20) COMPLETE!

And as the sun begins to set it finds every able-bodied man and woman working collectively to raise and mend the palisade. Crews dispatch all over town, delivering fresh lumber to replace rotten sections. The timbers are lifted and the perimeter is made whole and sturdy.

Ava can hardly believe it. They're actually going to accomplish every task laid before them with time to spare.

Optional Goals: 4) Repair the palisade COMPLETE!

Time Remaining: 10 hours 12 minutes

They have combined their purpose toward resisting Horst's demands and it was her. She did this. No one else even knew they were undertaking a quest. It was hers and hers alone – and here comes Pride again. And she accepts it. Why shouldn't she be proud? And the townsfolk ought to be, too – every last one.

Suddenly the only task they have left is to wait out the hours until morning.

But when the sun sets the atmosphere becomes more nervous. The villagers huddle together with their bows and their spears and their crude clubs. They huddle together with their kin. Their homes have become their foxholes.

“Keep these lamps burning.” Bach touches his torch to a lantern hung at the main gate. “And be ready. I'd bet Horst attacks before sunrise.”

“Why do you say that?” asks Ava.

“Simple element of surprise. Why wouldn't he exploit every advantage at his disposal?”

Time Remaining: 0 hours 12 minutes

“You think he's gonna show?” Cobra wonders. He's up approximately ten hours past his bedtime.

“If he thinks controlling Cripple Creek is vital to his interests,” Bach says, “then yeah. He'll show.”

But why would he? Ava wonders. She says, “what does he gain by keeping these people under his thumb?”

“The mine.”

“But now that everyone knows he was lying about the Scums – does he really think having a single outsider hung will make his point?”

“Maybe he still intends to hang us all.”

It's a gamble for Horst. Does he trust these people to stay out of the mine now that his lie has been exposed?

“I don't know,” Ava says, “it's not like he's after justice. He just wants to have an execution so these people will believe he's serious. And dangerous.”

“And if there's no point in proving it,” Bach continues, “if he's decided this little rebellion you've got going here won't be stopped simply by hanging us....” He trails off, staring into the middle-distance, a hint of a smile creeping into the corners of his eyes.

“Then what?” asks Cobra, “you think maybe Horst'll just leave us be?”

“Oh no, not at all.” Bach snaps out of his brief trance and scoops the boy up. “Quite the opposite. I think if he's decided this town no longer suits his interests, he'll exterminate us all.”

And looking around Ava can't help but silently agree. There's no more profit to be extracted here. This town isn't just depressed – it's obsolete.

But just as her worries intensify:

“He's not coming,” Ava mumbles, “we won.”

“Guess you were wrong, Mister.”

And Bach sets Cobra down roughly and snarls, “get outta here, kid.”

The piano has been disassembled but that doesn't stop them. They dance in the road, kicking up dirt, clapping and stomping and singing. Their woods are lousy with traps but their hearts are full of relief. After two days making preparations for war the people can finally breathe again.

It's as though they're shaking loose some sort of mass delusion.

“What were we thinking?”

“We sure had ourselves going.”

“Horst would've massacred us all.”

Ava can't help but overhear similar conversations all over.

Guess I should just be glad they aren't blaming me.

But she has to wonder, too: why did she let this almost happen? Looking around at all these impoverished people, many of whom would have died to protect – just what, exactly? Their lumpy, mud-packed hovels? Their hard-earned scraps of plastic?

These people have nothing to lose – and yet they almost did. Because Ava had to complete her quest. She rallied them all to an unwinnable war because the game suggested it. But why was she so willing to cooperate?

What if the game isn't benevolent – or even neutral?

She looks around the thoroughfare at the dancers she very nearly led to their doom.

What if the game itself is evil? Coaxing you with 'quests' to do its dirty work?

She looks more closely at these people dancing in the street.

But they aren't really people – are they? No, not at all. They're just NPC's. Is that why she was okay with some of them being killed?

And then the question isn't as simple as: what if I'm doing the bidding of an evil game?

It's more like: what if I'm not?

Lucky for Ava it's not easy for such a dark line of thought to persist as the town's relief turns to pure revelry. The festivities intensify, a fiddle comes out and someone has been keeping a harmonica hidden for just such an occasion.

It's still early morning but it's time to party. The barkeep rolls a keg into the road in front of the public house. Ava sees Bach passing around his flask of truth wine. Cripple Creek is fitting to get properly lit.

The Slaps are paraded around on the shoulders of their parents. They're just kids, after all – and finally it looks like it. And their folks finally look like elders instead of cowards. All these little family reunions between parents and children who have always lived together – maybe bringing them together was the real point of Ava's quest.

Pretty convenient ret-con, she thinks.

This party just makes her feel out of place. She nods to Bach and he nods back with both his brow and his flask and then she leaves. She walks around the perimeter of the revelers to get to the healer's hut, intending to drop in and check on Ellie. But when she gets there a message flashes in her mind:

This must be what the quest reward meant by 'base unlocked.' Ava decides to delay visiting Ellie so she can investigate further. A quick walk around town reveals several more upgradeable structures: the blacksmith, the stable, the school, the hunter's lodge, and the pub.

At present they all seem to perform their various services to bare minimum effect. But how does she go about upgrading them? Are there more quests? Or does she need some sort of item?

Why wasn't this covered in the Tutorial?

In any event, she's reached an impasse. She'll just have to wait until the Invisible Arbiter decides to unlock this most recent secret. For now, this content is just a tease. But she wants to know how she can help these people live better lives. She adores the idea of leaving this place better than she found it.

In a way this crappy little town is her home. Where else can she go? They accept her. They appreciate her – heck, she's what the Arbiter calls 'Honored.'

Even after she almost got them all killed with her hubris.

“How is she?” Ava asks Uri. He's sitting on a wooden stool beside Ellie's cot.

“I'm right here.” Ellie stays laying down and doesn't move a muscle more than just her lips. “I can still hear fine.”

“She can still hear fine,” Uri repeats, grinning.

“Sorry.” Ava takes her hand. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Naw, just feels creepy keeping my eyes open when I can't see.”

Uri purses his lips and nods playfully at Ava, as if to say, “yes; completely cool and normal.”

“So, still no change?”

“Nope, still blind as a bat—“ Ellie interrupts herself to say, “sorry, Uri. Still too soon, I know.”

He just chuckles.

“Well I'm glad you've still got your sense of humor.”

“What am I gonna do?” she scoffs. “Just give up and die?”

“Guess I'm just surprised you aren't madder.”

“I knew the risks.” And with her eyes still closed she turns to smile at Uri. “And I'd do it again.”