Mason and Kyle started chopping down some of the smaller trees in the clearings. After the clearing was pretty much bare, Kyle read all the help menu entries he could on crafting while Mason chopped some of the larger trees and brought the wood to Jacob. Jacob explored the crafting menu, and Kyle was content to let him do so. Even though Kyle was pretty sure that he could understand the help files more easily than Jacob, Jacob seemed to be getting a sense of purpose from knowing the crafting system, so Kyle let him discover it for himself, only answering Jacob’s questions when asked and only with leading questions about the interface to help him figure it out on his own.

“Hey, Kyle, I tried to make a wall, but it’s only two inches high and two inches long. I figure I’ve got to place a bunch of these together like bricks to make a room, but it takes so long to get into the build menu. Is there a faster way of doing it?”

“Actually, Jacob, are there controls of some kind around the tiny wall?”

“Uh… there’s a little translucent orb floating above it…”

“Have you tried messing with that at all?”

“Oh hey! If I stick my finger in it, I can drag it around to resize the wall! Yeah, I can make it as tall as I want. I bet… yeah, there’s one on the side here that’ll let me make it longer, too. Oh, wow. That costs a lot of wood. Huh. I guess now I have to figure out how to undo these twenty other tiny walls I made…”

By the time night fell, they had a small two room cabin with a working door, glassless windows that opened and closed with giant wooden shutters, four beds (that all lacked mattresses), and large cabinets to store nothing in particular. The house was considered to be “owned” by Jacob. While Mia was outside, he jokingly set the access rights to disallow her entry, just to show that he could. (Mia responded by less-than-jokingly kicking the door down and coming in anyway, again, just to show that she could.)

The transition from “unfatigued” to “fatigued” hit Kyle harder than he expected. It was pretty abrupt; fifteen hours fifty-nine minutes after waking up, Kyle was physically fine. Two minutes later, his movements were sluggish and his muscles less responsive. His head felt fine. Or rather, it didn’t also suddenly get worse. He did have a bit of a headache just from processing all that had happened during the day.

Kyle went to bed on an uncomfortable wooden bedframe. He was in a room with both Mason and Jacob. (Jacob, obviously conservative and traditional, had left Mia with a room to herself.) The rough wooden walls made it feel like some kind of bizarre summer camp. Kyle felt like he should be chatting with his cabin-mates late into the night, but he hardly knew them. What would he talk about with a football player and a dad who “worked in retail”?

“Hey Jacob?” Kyle started.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for setting up the house.” Kyle said.

“Oh, Yeah, of course. I’m sure you could have done it a lot faster, but I’m glad I could give you a chance to keep studying up on how to get us out of this world.”

“Yeah. I appreciate it.” And then, silence. Nothing to talk about. Either that, or they were lost in their own thoughts.

Whatever. Kyle had tried.

Once he made the decision, falling asleep was unusually easy. The night was swift and dreamless.

Kyle awoke in much the same state he was when waking up in the dungeon. His mind just sort of flipped from “off” to “on”, and his body felt ready for the day, with no stiffness or other indication that he has spent the last eight hours or so immobile.

Kyle sat up. Mason was gone, but Jacob was still sleeping in the bedframe next to him. Kyle watched him as he breathed deeply, regularly, and peacefully. Then, suddenly, Jacob’s breath caught, his eyes flipped open, and he swung his legs around out of the bed and looked around in thought.

“Man… that’s weird.”

“Oh?” Kyle asked

“Yeah. Just… suddenly awake.” Jacob said, looking around quizzically.

“It would have made getting to eight o’clock class way easier freshman year, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah, I guess. But it’s just… unnatural.”

“I suppose.’ Kyle looked around. “I’m kind of hungry. Has anybody figured out what we’re supposed to do about food?”

Kyle heard the door open with a thump, and turned to see Mason come in with one of those weird blue squirrel things. “How’d you get that?” Kyle asked

“I saw one of them eating some of those purple berries, so I got a handful of them, approached one of the squirrels, and held very, very still.”

“That’s… positively Snow White,” Kyle commented.

“Then, when it got close enough, I grabbed it and snapped its neck.”

“Okay,” said Kyle, “Never mind.”

“You’re the crafter now, right Jacob?” Mason tossed the dead squirrel to Jacob, who caught it and held it uncertainly. “Can you do anything with this?” Mason asked.

“I, uh…. I don’t know?” He held the squirrel with his left hand and started navigating menus with his right. “Looks like I can turn it into ‘Uncooked Kreyfa Fillets,’ whatever those are. Let me just – Whoops…” Jason cut himself off as the squirrel disintegrated into a half dozen small cuts of meat, which fell on the floor. “I forgot to put it in my inventory first.”

“I won’t tell Mia if you won’t.” Kyle said, picking up one of the fillets and examining it.

“I can’t do anything more with this. I guess we need a furnace or something.” Jacob said.

“Probably more like a campfire,” Mason said.

“We can eat it raw, right?” Kyle picked up his own small slab of meat and bit into it. It was cold, rubbery, and tasted horrible. He forced himself to choke down the bite, then shook his head. “I guess not. I mean, maybe it’s technically possible, but…” he trailed off, realizing that he’d sound really dumb complaining about the food being unappetizing when they had few other options. “Don’t suppose you have any more of those berries?” Kyle asked instead.

“Yeah,” Mason said, pushing some buttons. A dozen berries about a quarter inch wide appeared in his left hand. “I was worried about them though. Berries can be poison, right?”

“They were good enough for the Kreyfas,” Jacob pointed out.

“It’s not like there’s a huge penalty for dying from poison berries,” said Kyle. “Another 24 hour nap, right? I’ll be the guinea pig.” Mason shrugged and handed him the berries. Kyle popped one in his mouth. It was mellow and sweet with a subdued tang, sort of like citrus but not as strong. “Tastes better than raw meat. if I’m poisoned, I can’t tell. I’ll let you know later if that changes.”

“I’ll try and figure out how to get a fire going if you grab some more of those berries,” Jacob said to Mason.

“Sure. Kyle? Want to help?”

“Can’t guarantee many berries will make it back, but yeah, I’ll help.” Kyle followed Mason out the door.

The clearing was still mostly dark because the sun was low enough in the sky that the trees blocked the sun’s direct rays. The sky directly above them was gradually brightening, however. He looked towards the forest edge, and saw a few of the bushes full of purple berries. Not enough for a meal though. They’d have to forage a little further. “So, where’s Mia, anyway?” Kyle asked, hoping to make conversation.

“She went out hunting too. She thought the best way to catch one of those squirrel things was to chase it, and ran off into the woods.’ Mason shrugged.

“Should we be looking for her?”

“I don’t think so. If she’s as good at games as she claims, she can take care of herself. If she’s not as good as she thinks she is, that’d be good for her to figure out. I guess maybe she ditched us to try and get to the crystal by herself. In which case, good riddance.”

Kyle glanced up at the bundle of health bars he put above his head the day before. Mia’s was still there, meaning she was still in the party. Well, whatever.

Kyle ate about twice as many berries as he stashed in his inventory. They weren’t very filling, but they sure were tasty. Mason seemed to have better self control in that regard.

A few minutes after they started gathering, Kyle heard Mia’s voice call out from the woods. “Hey? Mason? A little help here?”

Kyle stuffed the berries in his mouth and took off at a run towards the sound of the voice. Mason hesitated a little, but when he decided to start moving, he quickly overtook Kyle. They bounded through the brush, eyes mostly closed and hands stretched out in front of them to try and deflect branches from their face.

They found Mia a fair distance away, dragging one of those single-horned deer-like creatures behind her. It had Mia’s axe through its skull. Kyle and Mason stopped and stared. “Could I get a hand taking this thing back to the cabin? It’s a little heavy for me.”

“Did one of those things let you walk up and kill it?” Kyle asked incredulously.

“No. You’ve got to attack it from a distance. But you can throw axes, obviously.” She dropped the leg she was holding and leaned over, breathing heavily. “I can’t wait to get this thing cooked,” she said, straightening up. “It’s gonna be so much better than eating a stupid squirrel.”

Mason smiled. “You gonna tell her about our campfire situation, or am I?”

* * *

There seemed to be no good way to take down the cabin. Hitting it with their axes seemed to just damage it rather than convert it back into usable wood like the trees gave. At a loss, they left it there as they walked off towards the crystal.

The group came to an unusually large clearing. At its center was the crystal; a ten foot tall octahedral blue gem, banded with gold and slowly rotating. From its uppermost tip, a giant beam of light shot into the sky. It was at the center of the clearing; from the edge of the woods, Kyle could see clearly about five-hundred feet around the crystal. It would be difficult to ambush anybody trying to go for the crystal with so little cover around.

Although, come to think of it, anybody trying to defend the crystal would get five-hundred feet of warning if anybody approached. With a fort at the middle, this might be a pretty defensible spot.

“Do you see anybody there?” Kyle asked.

“No,” Mia said. “Just a mob of some kind. See? There, by the small mound?”

Kyle squinted. Yeah, there was a smaller humanoid figure crouching over a knee high pile of brush, just under the crystal. It was hard to make out details from this distance, but it was obviously moving. “Whatever it is, is seems unarmed,” Kyle pointed out.

“That’s actually pretty scary,” Mia said. ‘If it’s a caster of some kind, we’ve got no clue what its capabilities are. We’ve not run into magic yet.”

“Maybe it’s friendly,” Jacob said.

“It’s a guard,” Mia said. “No way it’s friendly.”

“I think it’s cute,’ Jacob said. “Doesn’t it look kind of fuzzy from here?”

‘I guess?” Kyle said, still squinting to try and make out features. It did look sort of fuzzy. Kyle thought maybe he could see long ears on it too.

“You throw axes, right Mia?” asked Mason. “Can you hit it from here?”

“You’re the football player,” Mia countered. “Wouldn’t you be better at throwing things?”

“Linebackers don’t throw passes. That’s a quarterback you’re thinking of.”

Mia shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Like I’d know the football meta.”

“Look, guys,” Kyle said. “We don’t have enough information here. All we know is there’s a three foot humanoid mob up there in front of a crystal and a pile of brush. Tell you what; I’ll slowly get close, and if it tries to come after me, I’ll kite it back towards you and you can pop out of the woods and axe it to death. Deal?”

“Let’s send Jacob,” said Mia. “He’s a non-gamer, so he’d be better, right?”

Kyle spared a moment for a disgusted look at Mia. “No,” Kyle said, “I think we need somebody who knows convention enough to respond in an educated way if it starts shooting fireballs or grows wings or something.”

“I’d go,” said Jacob. “Really. I still think it’s too cute to be dangerous.’

Kyle thought so too, but in a new game, everything should be approached with caution. Generally designers decided to make cute things safe and scary things dangerous, but that wasn’t always the case. “It’s fine. I’ve got this.” Kyle stood up and walked into the clearing without further discussion.