The caravan was truly on its last leg. One wagon heavily damaged. Five soldiers left including the major. About twenty villagers. And Enoch, still hanging with them.

Passing the last corridor, full of traps, had been hard. Long explanations, which Enoch was terrible at, and multiple demonstrations to teach the appropriate timing. Still, they had lost two villagers.

They were getting closer to the Drone Hive, but the mutants were even closer. Determined, they hunched forward, hobbled as they could, carried on with the grind. March forward or get eaten.

Enoch came back to them fast, a pack of running lizards on his tail. The biggest one, the most annoying by far, lashed an impossibly long tongue at the scout. The disgusting appendage, bleeding red and green pixels from the previous attacks, was intercepted by the animated Thorny Spook Bark Shield. Choo laughed to himself with each block. Jolly sadist.

Enoch braked with a long slide between the wagons, turned around in time to see the lizards cut in pieces by the remaining soldiers. Still got a decent share of the XP, pulling officially recognized as a valuable contribution by the game’s engine, and rightly so.

“They’re here Andrej, you won’t make it,” said Enoch.

“Faster,” shouted the mayor to his caravan, willing the impossible.

The chat contributed to discussion, unseen by the NPCs.

“Leave them to die.” Tip | 12$

“They’re done for.”

“There must be a peaceful solution.” Tag | Mom

The text disappeared from Enoch’s interface, faded in the ambient explosion. A barrage of magic missiles rained on the caravan from the front, piercing the NPCs, exploding on the wagon, exploding on the ground, exploding on Enoch. [- 45 Health]. Shit bits.

“They’re in front of us,” yelled Enoch to no one in particular.

Blessedly, the wagons moved, formed a defensive circle. Enoch considered his option. Took cover with the soldiers. He knew the main mutant force would catch up to them in no time. No escape. Would it end here? From the chat activity, he expected enough revenues to cover the commentator, but he would lose Choo. He had to finish in the top ten or reach level 25 to ‘earn’ the golem core as a permanent item linked to his account. If he didn’t make it, the game would delete his Choo, recycle it in the AI database. A surprisingly painful conclusion if he was honest.

“We have to punch through the front group,” yelled Tatiana, trying to cover the ambient battle noises, reloading her oversized crossbow. She jumped on a wagon, crouched, aimed and fired as her employees, the smiths still alive, turned the wagon to face a new barrage of magic missiles. With coordinated grunts, they strained with all their strength.

Enoch shouted with his own rage, used Dashed to beat the wagon’s inertia. Steam filled the corridor as the defensive wards of the vehicles fizzed to cancel the attackers’ magic.

Tons of floating metal sped forward. The wagons’ frames slowly coming undone under the relentless magical damage. The caravan’s cargo spilled out bits by bits. It tripped some humans too focused on pushing or exploded in mid air, showering the battleground with hard shrapnel and soft morsels of precious food.

Lost in the chaos, an eerie beat picked up with chime notes, distant but clear. Awareness of the soundtrack reached Enoch, a strange contrast to the situation. It made it worse. Turned it creepy.

Something was odd. The outsider scout searched for it. Concentrated on his Perception. What was it? What was he missing?

He saw it as Tatiana shouted it, “Move on Andrej.” Surely, she knew what was happening, simply in denial, one last hope thrown at her collapsing digital world.

Andrej, far behind now, his outline barely visible in the steam yet unmistakable. Tiny figures danced around him, their forearms discarded, replaced by wicked blades. They whirled and mutants died. They jumped on the corpses, reached higher, cut deeper, made more corpses. The sheer mass of the mutants’ ranks trampled them. Snuffed them one by one.

Andrej fell backward. Caught in midair by a grotesque humanoid. The old mayor’s silhouette merge with the shape of the mobs. One last thumb up visible over the fray. One last word, heard by the caravan’s members, Outsider included, “Carry on bastards.”

Strong words. Impossible to disobey. Power Word: Last Wish?

Lazlo, Andrej’s lanky friend, apparently immune to the effect, charged the seething mass of the mutants with a long battle axe. A last attack. Wasted. There would be no rescue there. Too many of them.

Of all the NPCs’ deaths Enoch had witnessed, he had to admit this one ranked in the top ten for emotional distress. The game was so real. The emotions so lifelike. The AI so good.

***

The group in front of the caravan had no idea what hit them. Expecting tired fugitives. They ate three wagons full of rage propelled by grizzled survivors, leveled up by days of fighting and mass murder. They burned, they exploded, they fell, flattened by the trampling humans.