"Uh..." Rydr panicked. He hadn't thought about how ridiculous his strength had grown for a level three. "Not...really? The skill is something called an innate skill? I think anyone who hits 75 strength will get it." Rydr tried to defend himself with logic.

"You're level three! Freaking, three!" Urginok pierced the shield of logic with the sharp barb of common sense. Syrna stood in front of Rydr and just massaged her temples.

Overwhelmed, Rydr felt himself start to apologize. He opened his mouth and...closed it. He knew that they were just shocked and not intentionally trying to shame him. Rydr steeled his heart and said, "I've gotten lucky with a few feats before now; they gave me a lot of free stat points."

He took a few breaths to calm down and continued, "Please, don't make a big deal about it. Please. The game has helped a little already, but I-I have terrible anxiety, to the point of near anthropophobia. I will interpret anything you say negatively if my anxiety has the chance." He didn't realize it, but Rydr had squeezed his eyes shut at some point.

He waited for them to say something, but the giant felt a hand on each of his arms a moment later. Rydr's eyes snapped open to see both the blonde archer and brown-haired tank staring at him with their hands resting on his upper arms. He flinched internally, expecting to see pity.

Instead, he found understanding in the eyes of two near strangers.

Syrna squeezed his arm and finally opened her mouth to say, "I'm considered...extremely eccentric in my line of work. A lot of people find my focus...alienating?" Her face twisted in sympathy, "I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. I like to tease, but I'll try to be gentle."

Urginok nodded, brow furrowed and lips pursed as he listened to Syrna. He spoke when she finished her piece. "I feel bad that I can't go into detail, but, uh...basically, my entire life is a lie," he ran a hand through his short brown hair.

"I've been more myself in the last couple of hours with you guys than I have been with anyone in years. This game is an escape for me. Please, man, let me know if I overstep with my teasing too."

Rydr bowed his head quietly for a moment before he raised his eyes to meet theirs again, "Thank you...thanks for taking me seriously." They both nodded at him wordlessly.

Each of them was able to understand, at least a little, the others' plights. They each needed an escape from the stresses of the world outside of this fantasy. Rydr became so choked up that his eyes misted over. He wiped at them surreptitiously and cleared his throat.

"Right, let's go get my pickax so we can get the ball rolling. The sooner we finish my ore quest, the sooner I can start to make us some armor and weapons." Rydr clapped his hands together and started to walk out of their kill-box and back into the forest.

He puzzled over why their commiseration made him feel so uncomfortable. It was almost worse than his newfound friends just being judgmental. I guess...I guess I'm not used to kindness.

Ryan laughed to himself. That sounded crazy, but the only people he remembered truly caring for him were his older sisters. But even the majority of their behavior towards him was cool and distant to protect themselves.

Rydr sighed and abandoned that train of thought to follow his trail back through the forest. It was easy, as his rapid dash left a huge line of destruction in its wake.

Between Rydr and the Alpha, they simply destroyed any vegetation that was in their way. He could hear Urginok and Syrna as they followed, easily strolling under canopies that forced Rydr to duck.

The initial journey felt like it had taken mere moments, but the walk back to the clearing took almost five minutes. Rydr found where he chucked his boulders to get the pack's attention.

The giant quickly trotted across the intervening space and stepped under the rock ledge the pack had used for shelter. Rydr's pickax lay on the ground where the Alpha used it as a chew toy.

With great relief, Rydr scooped his wayward weapon from the ground and inspected it. The durability dropped a few points because of the Alpha's gentle ministrations, but Rydr found the pickax in almost perfect condition.

With the tool back in his possession, Rydr itched to get started with his ore quest. There was only one problem...

"Do you guys know where the local goblins are? I was told they were in caves to the East of Grotto, but I haven't seen any of them." Rydr turned around to regard his companions, who picked their way through the debris-strewn clearing. Rydr stepped over many of the obstacles they were forced to walk around.

Urginok looked up at a Rydr and shrugged, turning to look askance at Syrna as he brushed his brown locks out of his eyes. The blue and brown-clad archer paused to think before she nodded.

"I briefly touched the edge of their territory during a fetch quest. I couldn't read their levels, but," she shrugged, "a goblin is a goblin. We are probably half an hour away from where their patrols start." Syrna returned Urginok's shrug like it wasn't a big deal, but Rydr and Urginok were lost, as they imagined a whole group of goblins as strong as the Alpha Wolf had been.

The faraway look and hand gestures that Syrna made were enough to tell Rydr that she checked her map before giving her answer to the boys.

None of them thought for a second that they could handle a whole team of over-leveled goblins. Heck, if all three of them worked together perfectly, they would still wipe against a party of three goblins.

Despite that knowledge, Rydr knew that he had to kill or get around the goblins to get even a little ore.

Rydr just really wanted to kill the goblins. They had the potential to drop ores of varying types, plus they gave the three divers the experience points they needed to stay competitive with other players.

A headache started to form as Rydr was left with just one option. They needed to repeat their strategy with the wolves and control where combat happened. If they could limit the goblins that could reach them to, at most, two, they could handle it. Maybe. Any more, and Rydr was certain that they would be wiped.

Urginok turned to Syrna. "Did you see how many were in a patrol?"

"Roughly four to five of them, per."

Urginok let out a low whistle, his eyebrows hidden behind his bangs, and said, "That's a huge goblin clan, then. How're we supposed to kill them?"

Syrna nodded. The bitter expression on her face matched the trepidation on Urginok's. Rydr listened to his teammates, but he failed to appreciate just how big the goblin clan was with almost no frame of reference.

So Rydrasked, "Is that especially bad?"

His friends turned to each other, and Syrna mouthed noob at Urginok, who nodded in understanding. Then, almost like they'd rehearsed it, they turned back to their large teammate.

Urginok scratched the side of his face as he said, "For a goblin clan? Four or five-person patrols are insane."

Syrna's mouth popped open the moment Urginok paused, "In other games, there would be infrequent patrols with two, at most three, members. Most of the time, there aren't any patrols for a starter-town goblin clan."

"Patrols only start once a clan is big enough," Urginok interjected, "if they behave the way they do in similar games I've played.

Syrna pointed at Urginok and nodded emphatically, agreeing with his point. "So the size and level of organization that is obviously at work are way too big for a starter goblin clan." The archer finished speaking and sat down to start fiddling with an arrow. Rydr noticed her doing this whenever they stopped and talked but didn't comment on it.

Rydr nodded, wrapping his brain around the information they provided. "So...how do we fight them or get into the caves to mine ores?" He couldn't think of anything by himself, so Rydr tried to brainstorm with his teammates.

"A distraction? Maybe get them out of the caves, sneak in, get some mining done? Rinse and repeat?" Syrna threw out an idea, not looking away from the arrow in her hands, which was now in three pieces.

Urginok shook his head. "How do we know they won't give up and come back, trapping us?"

"We don't," Syrna replied nonchalantly.

"Hm, that one has too many variables. Urginok?" Rydr turned to the tank, interested in his ideas.

Urginok, as was becoming the norm, took his time to answer. As he paced back and forth, he seemed to entertain and then discard one plan after another. Rydr wasn't in a hurry since he had retrieved his pickax and was content to wait for the tank's reply.

"What if we didn't try to escape at all?"

Almost five minutes of pacing seemed to have cost Urginok his marbles. Rydr blinked and stared at the smaller man, faintly motioning for him to keep going.

Urginok grinned and kneeled in the dirt. "So, I'm thinking that we try the same thing as before. We need a bottleneck." He started to draw in the dirt as he spoke, "Goblins are a lot smarter than wolves, so a simple "hallway" won't cut it; they'll just climb over the side, right?"

Rydr nodded to show he was following along. Syrna played with her arrow but would glance up to show her attention now and again, her expression slightly stormy.

Urginok continued, "We can't take them all in a straight fight, and we can't take them on in the forest because they are sentient; Half measures wouldn't work. We need to fight them inside the caves. There have to be offshoots that they use with only a single entrance, right? I say we find one and make a huge target out of ourselves."

Syrna seemed skeptical at the idea of trapping themselves in a cave of bloodthirsty goblins, but Rydr's imagination lit up as he listened to Urginok. He just needed to know one thing.

Rydr turned to Syrna, "Are goblins humanoid?"

Syrna snorted at him, "Duh, of course, they are, dork." Her expression was impish, and her tone turned gentle on the last word, trying out the teasing again.

Rydr noticed and nodded at her, smiling his reassurance that he was okay. The blonde smiled and nodded back.

Rydr hummed to himself, and the other two got to watch him pace, mirroring Urginok. Suddenly, the giant's face broke into a grin. "Be right back!" The other two watched the pacing giant disappear in a beam of light.

Shocked silence stretched between the archer and tank as they stared at the spot Rydr stood a few moments ago. Urginok croaked deep in his throat while Syrna groaned and dropped her face into her hands.

They didn't think that Rydr had abandoned them. They were afraid of what his sudden idea was and what it might mean for them.

They weren't kept waiting for more than a minute before Rydr reappeared in the same shower of light that took him away. The lumbering warrior whipped his head around and found his teammates where he left them.

A flare of happiness shot through him when he saw that his team had stayed instead of leaving him. For the brief time he was out of the game and in his "lobby," he managed to convince himself they would become disinterested and abandon him.

Outside of the game, he was just Ryan, without the protective blanket of his in-game persona.

Rydr forcefully moved past his negative thoughts, repeating the mantra, That's not true, it's not true. Rydr focused on the thrill of their upcoming challenge and used it to distract himself.

"Sorry about that," Rydr grinned sheepishly, "I realized that, while there isn't a lot I could have done better with the wolves without weapons, I can prepare to fight goblins." Rydr started to draw in the dirt next to Urginok's plans, this time with the haft of his pickax instead of Urginok's hammer.

"I think Nok is right," Urginok and Syrna exchanged amused expressions at the new nickname. "We can't fight them in the open, and we can't guarantee a distraction will hold them."

Rydr gestured to Urginok's facsimile of a closed room, "If we can find a choke-point, preferably with a door or something, then I think I can take care of at least one goblin on my own. If we let them in two at a time, then you guys would be able to take the second."

Urginok knelt on the ground and traced his finger along the "door" Rydr drew at his cave entrance. His forehead creased, the tank pursed his lips again. "How are you going to take care of one on your own? Strength aside, the goblins will tear us apart if you can't manage it." Syrna nodded alongside Urginok's point, chewing her lip as she heard them both out.

Rydr raised his hands to placate his friend and said, "I've noticed it a handful of times now, but this game is a middle ground between how things work in the real world and...well, 'game logic.'"

The giant looked up and met their eyes, his own filled with infectious excitement. Rydr kept going, "Since I started the game, I've ripped off a wolf's jaw and broken the Alpha's backbone, dealing absurd damage each time." Rydr explained his and Syrna's first fight with the wolves and how he used his pickax to swing one around after he impaled it on his weapon.

"It's not a guaranteed thing, but numbers matter, physics and leverage matter." Rydr's breathless excitement wilted when he realized his friends weren't following his logic.

"Let me back up. I believe there are different types of attacks. These aren't like magic, melee, or ranged. Think of it like, ineffective, effective, critical and fatal or crippling blow." Syrna's eyes lit up with understanding, and she jumped to her feet.

"That means...a lot of things, actually. It explains the knock-back on my arrows- my strength is way higher than a normal archer. The rest of it seems standard to me; attack a vulnerable spot for crits, an armored spot for ineffective, but how do you figure the fatal blow?" Syrna was on the cusp of understanding but didn't want to wait.

Rydr continued. "I think it's just common sense. I couldn't have broken the Alpha's back unless I met certain conditions. In this case, I think it came down to two parameters." He held up his pointer and middle fingers on one hand in a "V."

"I needed to have a strength score high enough to do it at all. Once I had the strength- or it might be damage, I don't know- I had to apply it correctly. Breaking the Alpha's back had to make sense physically for it to happen at all," Rydr exclaimed.

Urginok's fist slammed into his left palm, cutting of Rydr before Urginok said, "So you bent the Alpha's back like you were bending rebar! Without the leverage, you couldn't have done it."

Rydr pointed at Urginok and thumbed his nose with his other hand. "Exactly. Whatever the threshold is based on, strength or total damage, or whatever, it doesn't matter unless what you're trying to do makes sense."

Rydr shook his head and grinned ruefully, "To bring this back around to my point...I looked up a how-to video for choking people out." With that said, the giant's grin turned into a full-fledged, shit-eating smile.

Syrna clapped her palm to her forehead and groaned, "Humanoid. That's why you asked if they were humanoid." She stepped forward to smack his arm, laughing in helpless exasperation, and froze, hand in the air as she looked at him.

Rydr blinked, surprised because he was expecting the smack, and then his eyes stretched wide open. He understood. Syrna was trying to be careful of how she treated him in her own clunky way.

Rydr touched that she restrained herself, extended his arm for her to smack. Her hand descended towards his arm, but to Rydr, it was in slow motion.

Unbidden memories rushed in and overwhelmed, the scar on his back burning terribly. A cold room filled with endless tests and punishments surrounded Rydr, his tormenter silhouetted against spotlights that blinded a much younger Ryan. He watched the silhouette raise its cane to strike the young child for answering incorrectly, still detached from what was happening.

The vision of his younger self endured the blow across the top of his head without crying out, even as fresh blood flowed to renew the red streaks across Ryan's young face. The eight-year-old child snapped and glared openly at his abuser. His tormenter's fury mounted with every blow, incensed because he couldn't force the child to cry.

When the silhouette of the young Ryan's abuser threw the child across the room - into one of the four floodlights at all four corners - and stalked towards him, Rydr could no longer watch. He knew what was about to happen.

It defined him every day of his life.

With an internal roar of fury, he charged at the shadowy figure and defended his younger self, screaming, "That's ENOUGH!"

Rydr threw his fist into the shadow's head with enough strength to shatter its skull when the scenery around him blinked.

Syrna's "slap" landed harmlessly on Rydr's arm. This time, she held back even more than before, slapping Rydr being more of a gentle tap than anything. Sun streamed through the treetops. The scent of musty earth and plants filled his nostrils while the reassuring weight of his pickax rested in his hand.

Rydr was far away from that cold, blinding room and the vision of his helpless, younger self, about to be mutilated. The rage still burned deep in his chest. His internal war cries echoing over and over in his head, howling at the injustice.

Syrna chose that moment to look at Rydr and ensure he really was okay. Their eyes met, and Syrna flinched away from the giant, and the shadow of insane rage she saw reflected in his gaze. Her every instinct screamed at her to jump away from Rydr, but the tall warrior saw the fear in Syrna's pale expression and relaxed his face.

As the terrible expression faded from his face, Rydr gently placed his hand atop Syrna's, which still lay on his arm. The blonde archer struggled to meet his eyes, but as soon as she did, Rydr quietly mumbled, "I'm sorry. That wasn't your fault."

Syrna searched his expression for a moment longer before she gave a small nod and raised her eyebrow, "Circumstances?"

Rydr nodded mutely, ashamed that he had lost control of himself and sunk into his memories. Even when he knew the strike was coming, even though Syrna smacked him before now, he still lost control. You will not rule me.

Rydr, frustrated and ashamed, turned his mind back to the goblins as an outlet.

Although his hallucination felt like minutes to him, it was over in moments, and Syrna didn't let Urginok know that anything was wrong.

Rydr mentally thanked the blonde for that. After he spent a few seconds more to collect himself, Rydr turned to the hazel-eyed tank.

"Do you have a better idea?" The giant nodded towards their collection of dirt scribbles. Urginok looked between the two of them, aware that something happened, but he decided not to make a big deal of it. They would have told him if it was important.

"Short of finding more party members?" Syrna snorted, clearly showing her opinion of Urginok's suggestion.

Urginok gave a lopsided grin and said, "No. I can't think of anything else that doesn't require a bunch of stuff we don't have."

Rydr nodded, and Syrna clapped her hands together before she announced, "Alright, let's go kiddies. Simon says, follow the leader." Not one to mince words, Syrna took off into the forest. Urginok followed her in.

Rydr stood in the clearing for a few more seconds, Urginok's "Did you just call us kitties...?" fading as they got farther away. The giant struggled to swallow the roiling ball of ugly emotion that stubbornly refused to budge.

Unable to handle his pent-up emotions, the angry giant stomped after his teammates. I need to hit something.