Dust swirled like flames around Alf’s hand, setting his nervous system on fire. Tears streamed down Blix’s face. She was in pain. He should stop, pull away.

A soft, hiccuping moan escaped her lips. She didn’t sound like someone in pain. She sounded the exact opposite. A little too opposite. Gritting his teeth, he held on a bit longer. “Are you okay?” he ground out.

“God, yes.”

Heat prickled at his cheeks. He nodded, and focused on keeping his hand in the fire. She wouldn’t lie. It made sense that it wouldn’t hurt the one being healed. If it did, he’d never be able make himself use it on other people.

After an agonizing minute, the pain switched off like a light, and the dust flowed back into his hand.

He sat there, staring, heart pounding in his ears. He couldn’t move his hand. The parts of her face he could see were terrifying enough. This would change her. Not just her appearance, it would change her personality, her willingness to hang out with people who weren’t like her. Like Gabbie from middle school. She had been his best friend, but puberty had turned her into a stranger. And the pretty girls she started hanging out with had turned the stranger into a monster.

“Alf?” Blix’s voice was a ragged squeak. “What’s wrong? Is it bad?”

He shook his head, holding this breath as he lowered his hand.

Holy crap. He tried to keep his expression bland, but she was punch-in-the-gut gorgeous. As in… Holy crap. Had she looked like that before, or had the dust given her a 9000% bonus?

“What’s wrong?” She grabbed his hand. “You’re freaking me out. Alf?”

“Nothing! You’re just…” He might as well say it. She was going to find out soon enough anyway. “You’re beautiful. Maybe too beautiful.”

“Seriously?” The smile that blossomed on her face punched holes in his lungs. “It worked?” Her hand trembled as she touched her face. “Seriously?”

He barely had a chance to nod before she pounced, knocking him backwards onto the ground, kissing his chest, his neck, his lips.

His brain short-circuited after that. Everything but her disappeared. There was just Blix. The weight of her body, the urgency of her lips, the softness of her hair, her back, her legs… Orange dots screamed inside his head, but she was so beautiful. He had been starving his entire life and hadn’t realized it until this moment. Everything else would have to wait.

Blix pulled away, taking with her all the air in his lungs. “Someone’s coming!”

“Huh?” He stared up at her, lost in the wonder of her eyes.

“Soldiers!”

The word sounded abstract and remote for a long second until his brain finally caught up with reality. No, no, no… He popped to his feet and reached for his cane, but it wasn’t in his belt. He pulled out his sword, and stood facing the charging soldiers until he realized how many there were. The minimap showed almost twenty of them.

“Now!”

Alf hadn’t registered the first part of Blix’s shout, but it didn’t take a super brain to figure it out. Sliding the sword back into his scabbard, he swung Blix onto his back as he ran up the hill.

The soldiers were right behind him, but apparently they had been trained not to break rank. As long as he could outrun the slowest of the soldiers, he would have time to make a better plan. “Sorry,” he said between breaths. “Got carried away.”

“The only reason you’d need to apologize is if you didn’t get carried away,” her voice rang with laughter—as if being chased by soldiers was the funniest thing in the world. “They’ll lose sight of us twice during the next two switchbacks. Remember?”

Alf nodded, because, hey… at least he remembered what the word, switchback, meant.

“After the first turn, find a clear spot and slide down the slope,” she said. “We may lose some skin, but at least we know you can put it back.”

Alf sprinted around the corner, running up the slope with everything he had left. When the minimap showed that the soldiers had passed his position, he leaped off the trail, running as far as he could until the ground dropped out from under him and slammed him and Blix back into the slope to send them skidding into a pile of scree.

“You okay?” He knew she wasn’t because he wasn’t, and they had both skidded down the slope on their sides.

“Fine.”

He cast a minor healing spell on her anyway. Then, testing to make sure his landing gear still worked, he buckled Blix more securely into the harness and set off down the hill at a shaky jog.

“Do you see them?” Blix asked after a few minutes.

Alf checked his minimap. “No, and I don’t get it. They should have been able to follow us on their minimaps.”

“Maybe they haven’t figured them out yet?” She sounded appropriately skeptical. How could they not figure out something as useful as a minimap. “Or maybe your range is much bigger than theirs?”

“Maybe…” he allowed. “The range has increased as I’ve leveled up, but we were well within the range of even even a first level minimap when we went down the slope.”

“Let’s put a pin in it and circle back to it later when we’re not running for our lives. I feel like this could be important, though. Try not to forget.”

By the time they reached the valley, the eastern sky was already graying at the edges. Thirty minutes later, the forest opened out into hundreds of acres of farmland filled with tomatoes, peas, cabbages, pumpkins, and other plants Alf couldn’t identify. Stranger still, the crops all looked ripe and ready for picking.

“How is this even possible?” Alf couldn’t take it in. They should be in the middle of a city. How could this even be the same place?

“How is it possible for dorm residents to turn into elves?”

“But…” He walked down a row of perfectly staked vines and picked a softball-sized tomato. It smelled perfect. He handed it to Blix and picked himself another one. Tomato juice ran down his chin as he took a bite. It was the best tomato he had ever tasted.

“Wow,” Blix said around what must have been a particularly large bite. “Alien nanites know their stuff. Imagine how useful they’d be if they weren’t bent on enslaving the human race.”

Alf nodded and reached for another tomato.

“You can’t be here,” an out of breath voice called out from behind them.

Alf swung around, drawing his sword in a single fluid motion.

A guy was trotting towards them. About the age of a college student, he was wearing a tunic almost as dirty and ragged as Alf’s.

“Out of the field,” the guy called out in a hushed voice. “Quick!”

Something about he way he ran… His movements were fluid and natural, not all herky-jerky like he was a remote-control robot. Alf sheathed his sword and hurried to the path to meet him.

“What are you doing?” Blix hissed.

“I think he’s human,” he said in a whisper and then nodded at the guy. “Are you human? You know, a native NPC?”

“Are you?” The guy asked skeptically, eying the sword at Alf’s side.

“Steph Curry is my favorite athlete—not that I know much about sports. And Albert Einstein is my favorite, pretty much everything else,” Alf said the most guy-like think he could think of.

The guy’s face lit with a smile that couldn’t have been phoned in. He looked like he might have been an Asian-European mix, way too good-looking for Alf’s comfort. “I’m Kenta.” He ignored Alf’s hand and reached up to shake Blix’s.

“I’m Blix.” Her singsong voice was unusually feminine. Had she ever talked to him that way? “Kenta, I can’t tell you how good it is to meet you.”

* * *

Name: Jane

Level: 6

Class: Paladin

Health: 180/225

Stamina: 171/195

Mana: 707/784

Exp: 591/2800

Attr Points: 3

Skill Points: 3

ST: 13

DX: 14

CN: 15

IQ: 28

CH: 16

Combat Skills:

Faire du Canne 7: (Effective Skill: 9.45, Basis: ST+DX, Enhancement: 28.4%)

Grappling 1: (Effective Skill: 1.33, Basis: 2ST+DX, Enhancement: 4%)

Swordsmanship 2: (Effective Skill: 2.73, Basis: 2DX+ST, Enhancement: 8.2%)

Archery 1: (Effective Skill: 1.37, Basis: 2DX+ST, Enhancement: 4.1%)

Non-Combat Skills:

Woodcrafting 1: (Effective Level: 2.1, Basis: DX+IQ, Enhancement: 6.3%)

Lock Picking 1: (Effective Level: 1.3, Basis: DX, Enhancement: 3.9%)

Spells: (Basis IQ)

Minor Healing 5: (EL: 14, Cost: 25, Freq: unlimited, Effect: 42 points)

Major Healing 2: (EL: 5.6, Cost: 35, Freq: 1/hr, Effect: 200cc tissue regen)

Taunt 1: (EL: 1.6, Cost: 5, Freq: 1/min, Effect: 4.8%)