“So, what do you think, Annabel? Anything we can use?”

The red-haired warrior and the rogue turned to the cleric.

“I doubt it,” Annabel shrugged. “It’s not as if its something that can be repeated. The circumstances are unique. Then someone made a bad judgement call in Admin. I don’t see how it could be useful to anyone. It’s unrepeatable.”

“So what about it? I mean him?” Morgan asked, waving a hand in Gary’s direction.

The group, having allowed Gary some explanation whilst they rested, had returned to discussing their own business. Whatever grace Gary had earned earlier was all used up. This was a battle-hardened bunch, Gary surmised. Used to moving on quickly out of necessity.

Fighting a war across the multiverse against an army of undead. Wow.

Gary tried to picture it, worlds upon worlds teeming with hordes of zombies as heroes like these four fought an endless battle against the hordes of darkness. It was too big for him to imagine.

And here, in his world, the war had arrived. Everyone on it was going to be killed and recruited into the army of the undead, just more soldiers for the war machine.

“I mean, it’s an unusual situation, a not dead undead, sure, but I don’t see what anyone could do with him. He’s a level one zombie. Cannon fodder. Some curio collector might buy him for a few hundred pieces, I suppose, but is it worth the hassle?”

Gary knew they were talking about him, about selling him, but he was still too dazed by all the information he’d just absorbed.

Forge rolled out a map made of parchment across the table.

Gary stared in astonishment as hundreds of glowing, semi-transparent globes rose from the map. Around and through the globes were luminescent strings that linked them together. It reminded Gary of a three-dimensional representation of the solar system that he had seen once in a science museum, except that this hologram-style image was filled with hundreds of planets and pathways connecting them.

“What is that?” he asked, awestruck.

“The multiverse,” Forge said in an off-hand manner, “or at least our small part of it.”

He waved Gary away.

“Okay, what route do we want to take here? We can’t get to Galandriel directly from here, so we’ve got two or three options. In either case, we’re going to need at least three portals and hitch a ride on one of the dimensional plane-ships that fly from Kragen’s world...”

“That’s not looking great,” Morgan said. “Last I heard, Kragan’s world was almost overrun. We might just end up in a dead world again, or at least directly on a frontline.”

“Right. But in that case, we’re going to need at least three portal jumps here, here and here,” Forge continued, tracing the glowing lines from one world to another with his finger.

“Are we really counting on Morgan’s casting skills to get us to Galandriel?” Rain asked.

“I don’t see how we have much choice until we can resurrect Delphine.”

“We could pay a sorcerer on Hume’s World,” Annabel said.

“Yeah, right. And then we’d be completely broke as opposed to almost broke like we are now.”

“And whose fault is that?” Morgan snarked.

“Not now,” Forge replied. “Annabel, what do you think?”

“I agree. We can’t afford the cost a real sorcerer would charge, and Kragan’s world seems too risky. We’ll have to take our chance with Morgan’s casting skills.”

“Loooove the vote of confidence,” Morgan muttered.

“Hold on,” Gary said. “Wait a minute, you’re just leaving? Just like that?”

Something felt off about the group. Gary couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it was there.

“There’s no point staying here,” Forge said, “Apart from the fact that there’s nothing we can exploit, this is a class zero - well, class one now - reality. There’ll be no loot or magic items to speak of, and nothing we can use.”

And there it was again. Gary was starting to have suspicions about these people. The way they were talking didn’t sound heroic, or like they were getting ready to head back into battle. It sounded more like they were trying to avoid the war.

“You can’t just leave,” he said. “There are people trapped in that church. We can get them out, get them to safety, right? I saw how easily you took out those zombies. You could take the rest out, no problem.”

“What would be the point?” Forge asked, “They’re just as dead inside the church as out of it. We’d only be prolonging the inevitable. This reality doesn’t stand a chance.”

“But you can’t just leave!” Gary repeated, this time with more force, “You can’t just waltz into this planet, my planet, declare it finished and waltz off again! I mean, if you’re fighting this war against the undead, then how can you just leave all these people to die? Isn’t that just going to make the situation worse? You said it yourself, as soon as everyone dies in this world, then they are transported into the war, adding to the army of the dead.”

“It’s not that simple,” Annabel said.

“You don’t know what you are talking about,” Morgan nodded.

“Maybe not,” Gary said, “But I do know that none of you sound like heroes. At all.”

He paused.

“All this talk of looting things and selling things, staying away from the frontline. You don’t sound like heroes, or anyone fighting in a war. You sound like mercenaries.”

Gary didn’t know where he got the courage to speak out in that way. He wasn’t prone to giving speeches or criticising people. The situation he was in seemed to be inspiring him. Or perhaps he was realising how desperate things were. In less than an hour, he’d discovered that the Earth was doomed. His parents, his friends, everyone he’d ever met or known, were going to be killed. And right now the only people he knew that had any hope of preventing that were the four standing in the tent with him. If they left, Gary would have no hope at all.

Everyone in the tent was silent.

Gary had stood up without intending to.

Forge pushed his chair back and stood up to face Gary, still holding his tankard. His brow was furrowed and his eyes were narrowed, dark anger boiling to the surface. He was five inches taller than Gary, the same again in shoulder width.

Saying nothing but keeping his eyes fixed on Gary, Forge drained the tankard and slammed it down on the table.

Gary realised that the much larger man could kill him with one blow. But he stood his ground.

“Heroes,” Forge spat, “All the heroes are dead or dying. You don’t know what its like out there. We all fought. We were all good soldiers. We were the heroes you expect us to be.”

“Apart from me,” Rain interjected.

“Apart from Rain,” Forge nodded, “We fought. We saw friends, comrades, loved ones fall against the relentless onslaught of the dead. You think those things out there are the problem? You haven’t seen the horrors we have. You haven’t had to watch your friends turn. You haven’t had to wade through entire cities of the undead, only to lose all the men and women you were leading. There are no heroes out there, and those still fighting will just lose.”

His voice was a low, angry growl. Morgan, Annabel and Rain observed the exchange without saying a word.

Still, Gary refused to move.

“So you just gave up?” Gary said, “You just stopped fighting? So what are you here for?”

“We’re looking for a way out. Failing that, we’re trying to earn enough coin to buy our passage out, to a dimension so far removed from this endless war that it will never reach us.”

“And the exploits you hunt? The glitches and so on?”

“Sold to the highest bidder,” Forge said “The more coin we have, the closer we are to buying our way to another reality. Maybe another multiverse.”

“And that’s it?” Gary replied, “You just show up, take what you can, and if there’s nothing of any use to you, you move on? Just condemn an entire world to death? You’re worse than mercenaries. You’re actual deserters!”

Everyone held their breath. But Gary didn’t care.

“WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE US DO?” Forge exploded. “THIS WAR IS OVER! Hundreds of worlds have fallen, one after another, and nothing ever changes. The tower stands, eternal and relentless. The living fall in their billions and the army of the dead swells larger and larger every day. Annabel’s world is gone, her entire people wiped out. The necromancers use it as their homeworld now. I watched as the high king of my world pleaded to surrender, begged for mercy for his children and his people. He was cut down like all the rest. Morgan here, we found him on a planet of the dead, stranded and alone, surviving on a diet of sewer rats. His whole reality consumed by death.

“You have no comprehension of the scale of the war. The worlds we have travelled through. Time and again, it’s the same story. The dead always win. Always. And the only thing you can do in the end is run and try to find somewhere safe. No army will ever stop them. No hero will rise to unite the living. Only delusional fools and madmen remain fighting, sending millions to their deaths.”

Forge paused as his anger subsided.

“There is nothing to be done, Gary,” he finished. “I’m sorry.”

Forge sat back down again and produced another tankard of ale, which he drank with a grim expression.

Annabel waited a few moments.

“We’re not bad people, Gary. We’ve just seen too much death, more than enough. We want to live. Fighting this war is the quickest way to make sure we don’t live. Worse, that we end up like those things out there.”

She motioned to the entrance of the tent.

“Look, how about this? We can take you with us,” Morgan interjected.

“A second ago you were talking about selling me to a collector!”

“Never mind that. Come with us and we could get the Admin to reverse the ruling. You’d be a level 1 human again. Free to create your own destiny. We could even teach you a thing or two along the way. I doubt you have any magic users in this reality, do you?”

“Not as far as I know,” Gary said.

“Bringing a noob with us is stupid,” Rain commented. “He’ll just slow us down. Or get killed. Or both. We’d be better off selling him.”

“That’s not happening!” Gary said.

“You’ll stop us, how?” Rain asked.

“She’s joking,” Morgan said.

“I don’t do jokes,” Rain replied.

“Either way, we wouldn’t sell you,” Annabel said.

“You’re just not worth it,” Morgan nodded.