Driles were much like large rats, except with wings for arms and exceptionally sharp curved horns. They fled easily, except when they swarmed in large groups. Most had rat tails, but some had scorpion-like stings instead. Of these, some were venomous, some were acidic, and some could freeze or burst into flames.

Maya had been touring known drile nest spawns every few nights since switching to Mayon, but had yet to encounter the elusive Overdrile required for the first tier trial, an advancement quest that unlocked progression levels 10-19.

It would probably have been easier if not for the veritable masses of new players, many of whom were directly competing for the same prize.

Tier Trial 1 didn’t always require an Overdrile — there were a variety of rare boss spawns that could be selected, but not so many that there were enough to go around.

Maya did miss her main’s luck stats. She hadn’t initially realized just how fortunate she’d been to roll a trickster first time around. Even on a ‘low’ luck day, where she only gained 5 or 12 luck, the impact was immense. Though, of course, this equally applied to negative luck days, which made things difficult or pointless that would normally be simple.

The trickster class was broken. No way around it. But the in-built checks and balances weren’t the main reason it was a double-edged weapon.

The real problem was other tricksters. They all had their own games, and she was the weakest of them all, the newcomer, the ignorant one stumbling into their webs. If not for Sevard, she’d swear off the lot of them, but at least he was reasonable. In a self-centered kind of way.

Maya had only arrived a month ago, a disembodied personality uploaded into the massive interplanetary Otherworlds gaming database at the behest of her brother Drew. Who’d outlived her, and if the whispers were true, actually been one of the co-creators of the entire Otherworlds system of games-after-death.

She hadn’t heard from him once.

A couple weeks ago, she’d sent out messages online in hopes of getting in contact with him, but all she’d gotten back were spam messages, angry rants about what a horrible person he’d apparently been in his old age, beggars asking for her to use her connections to get them special placement on particularly desirable worlds, and invitations to fan clubs. None of which was any use in actually finding Drew, let alone getting in contact with him.

No, it looked like her original plan would have to do. Make a big enough splash that it would reach wherever he was. Go big, go viral, make herself the focus of all the news, all the hype.

It was terrifying to contemplate. The internet hadn’t been a kind place when she was alive, and hundreds of years had passed in the interim while she lay dead and frozen awaiting her turn to be destructively scanned into the system. Now, there were trillions of people, alive on one of the inhabited worlds, or dead and uploaded like her, and she would be making herself the target of attention for all of them.

"Don’t think about it," she whispered to herself. "Not yet. One fear at a time. Heights. Water. Exposure to endless hordes of humanity. Work the list."

She reached the forest edge and decided it was time to put her weeklong attempt at conquering heights to the test. Mayon was an Acrobat, a class focused on freedom of movement, and the grapple was the primary way in which she could utilize the class’s specialty.

Maya wanted to fly properly one day, but for now she’d settle for swinging through the trees.

And into them.

And into the ground.

And into angry goblins. At which point she abandoned the swinging on ropes and started running for her life.

But nobody got it right on the first try. The sooner she tried again and again, the sooner she’d get through all the embarrassing face-planting and could start having fun with it.

At least the immediacy of trying to outrun a horde of angry goblins out for blood helped push away the deeper darker overwhelmingness of the task she’d set herself.

She focused on the next tree, then the next, trying to correct her release timing so she wouldn’t lose so much momentum. She easily outpaced the goblins, then relaxed a bit to consider her next move.

If goblins had spawned here, that meant she was too far north. The good drile nests were south, closer to the ocean, or east near where the Kalyx City zone bordered Zone 3, the jungle-like Forsaken Forests. Thankfully, the border was denoted by a wide area into which monsters would not venture, so she couldn’t inadvertently stumble into the third-tier zone by accident. She’d be killed very quickly in there without Sevard or someone else to accompany her.

"Ayaaah!" A goblin screamed in victory as his spear struck Maya in the back, knocking her attempted swing off course and sending her twisting around a tree before unceremoniously falling to the ground.

-8 health.

So maybe she hadn’t gained as much ground as she’d assumed.

She really missed her main’s spell repertoire. A good Magestrike or two could take out this band easily. But Mayon had his own advantages. Perhaps not as flashy, definitely not as magical, but no less deadly.

Maya ducked and lashed out with one leg, tripping the nearest goblin, then fired her grapple and swung up into the trees. The goblins started throwing small spears at her. A couple even had bows to fire arrows at her with a higher accuracy.

But they were level 2-4, and Mayon was level 9. She was pretty sure she could take them on no problem.

From her perch on the tree branch, Maya began throwing knives at the goblins below, still slightly surprised by how much faster she could move as Mayon than as Maya. Though as a momentum and agility specced acrobat, it really should have been obvious. She kept hesitating a moment too long, expecting the cooldowns to last longer than they really did.

She really wanted to believe that hesitation was why, about ten seconds later, she was forced to flee for her life at a mere 6 health, having taken down only one of the goblins in the process. And she hadn’t even had time to loot the stupid thing!

She really had gotten too used to having Sevard around to help. That, or she needed to buy Mayon some sturdiness-spec gear. Because running away from a handful of low-level goblins was humiliating.

One final spear slammed into her back as she swung away through the trees, dropping her health precariously to 2. Thankfully, after that, the goblins turned around and returned to their spawn region. She exhaled with relief, not relishing the idea of being bounced back to the respawn point in Kalyx City. It was a 45-minute walk out to the goblins’ forest and she’d already crossed the distance once today.

She waited several minutes in the treetops for her health to slowly regenerate, then headed south toward the drile nest spawns. She really wanted to get Mayon past the level 9 barrier so she could start earning experience again.

She was thankful for the rude awakening of the goblin ambush, now. As she neared the drile nests, she forcefully slowed herself and focused on moving stealthily. They were cowardly creatures, hiding until they swarmed out in a clawing rage. But when they swarmed, they swarmed.

Maya glanced at her energy pool and, more importantly for Mayon, stamina. Maybe it would be wiser to wait until she’d upgraded her gear. She’d hoped to avoid buying anything at tier one, since it would be obsoleted the moment she finished the quest and advanced to tier two, but the fact was this wasn’t her high-powered mage character. Mayon was a faster character, but he couldn’t hit as hard, and without the benefit of the Path of Life specialization she had in her other character, his survivability was also lower.

She swung by the drile nests anyway. If the Overdrile had spawned, there would be no point in letting it go to waste. Unfortunately, by the time she arrived, several other players were already engaged with the Overdrile. It had four small angry standard driles accompanying it, though they seemed to be glowing faintly red.

Well, so much for finding it today. The other team had clearly staked their claim, and it would be terribly rude to try to snipe it away from them. Interfering in a tier trial might even make them fail, as it required the participants to do so unassisted.

Returning to the city took another hour, and the sky was darkening as she arrived. She checked the quest board and promptly turned in a few of her goblin spears at the city guard post nearest the gate. Sadly, the quest for goblin spears only came up every eight hours or so, and she still had a larger stockpile than she could turn in at once, which made her ability to generate currency pretty slow.

If she dared log into her main account, she could transfer over some funds easily, but it felt like returning to Maya Starborn would be an irreversible step. Once she went back, once she stopped pretending to have given up and left, her peace would be over. Her freedom of movement would be restricted by all her faction alliances and adversities.

Besides, she really wanted to unlock tier 2 before she went back. It felt like a purpose, a tangible goal, something less nebulous than ‘get myself noticed somehow’. She knew how hard it was to go viral even back in the early 2000s; how much harder would it be to attract attention now that there were exponentially more people in the world?

Nope. She wasn’t going to worry about it. She was still on vacation. No worrying about putting herself out in front of everyone. Not yet. She could worry about it another time. Just forget about it for now. Focus on the moment. Yep. Nothing terrifying going on at all.

She took a deep breath and latched her grapple onto the nearest three-story building. Somehow, swinging around a city felt harder than the forest, even though it was actually easier. Perhaps because in the forest there were distractions all around, it felt closed and safe. Here, the streets were open and she couldn’t pretend she was doing anything else but jumping too high and falling too close to the ground.

She would do this. She wanted to fly. This was the next best thing. Nothing to be afraid of, just a natural progression toward her eventual goals.

Her heart still skittered uncomfortably in her chest, anxiety tight and inescapable. Breathe. Just breathe calmly.

It was coming easier every day. She felt less anxious the more she practiced; the panic that once accompanied the jump had significantly lessened in recent weeks.

This was good. The more she could reinforce to herself that she was in no danger, that World 9352 was completely safe, the less chance of her panicking and making stupid mistakes again.

Heights, water, millions of people looking at me.

Just thinking about the last two made her anxiety redouble, but she pushed away the thought and focused on the present.

Another acrobat jumped into the air and chased after her, but it was a newer player who didn’t have as much experience with the timing on releasing the cable. He nearly caught up to her, then mistimed a jump and smacked face-first into a wall, sliding to the ground in an almost cartoonish heap. Maya winced in sympathy and gave him an encouraging wave as she swung past.

Which promptly threw off her own trajectory. She flailed, heart jumping, but weeks of practice kicked in and she reset her line just before she hit the ground. With a few running hops to retain momentum, she kicked off and swung up again.

She almost wished the city were more anachronistic. The three-story buildings were fine, but didn’t offer enough height to really go far. Nirsym, with its low desert structures, would be even worse. Its surrounds, flat and dry, would be a dreadful place to play as an acrobat.

Zone three, the Forsaken Forest - though to Maya it felt more like a jungle - would be a good place to try her skills once she had attained a higher level and more confidence with heights. Sevard had offered to escort her there, but her priorities were on finding the Overdrile and defeating her fears at the moment. Though perhaps spending some time gathering loot would be advantageous to her finances…

She missed another swing and hit the ground hard, crumpling under the momentum, along with a -10 health notification. It got easier to stand up again every time, and she couldn’t let that drive fade. As long as she kept getting back up, it would become a habit. Practice makes pattern.

By the time she reached her apartment roof, after taking several detours through the city, it was truly dark. She considered jumping off a few times, but decided it would be unnecessary. They were making good progress. No need to push too far.

The money she’d earned over the past weeks killing goblins felt like a pittance compared to the wealth she’d enjoyed on her main account; less than five silver total. It wouldn’t buy much in the way of quality gear, but it would be enough to at least obtain a few new armor pieces, maybe a ring or two.

Yet as she shopped, comparing the merits of one piece or another, she couldn’t escape the vague sense of impatience that hovered over her. Faint guilt for ignoring her friends and allies for so long. A growing certainty that she couldn’t allow herself to keep hiding forever.

A vacation was great. There was nothing wrong with taking some time off to recover, especially after everything that had happened in her first two weeks in-game.

She’d spent enough time running away. Hiding was only one step better.

Just the Overdrile. Once I finish unlocking the next tier, then I’ll go back. Truly.

If she was lying to herself, it still felt convincing.