--Ding-- You've gained a skill point

--Ding-- Kaliope has gained a level. She is now level 1.

--Ding-- Forgad has gained a level. He is now level 1.

--Ding-- Bob has gained a level. He is now level 1.

Ding ding ding...!

The silence of victory only lasted for the moment between Alyss gaining 200xp from the battle and the deluge of level up notifications which filled the forest like a bell choir. They also spammed her vision with so many "helpful" pop-ups she had to wave away frantically. She'd check the logs later and figure out what all new game systems and points she had to spend. Right now, she was tired and wanted to bask in the glow of winning.

And so, Alyss and crew stood in the forest panting as they came down from the craze of the battle. Each leaned on their chosen tree or ax-handle as they watched the undead-imposed haze lift from the forest. Then they recoiled from the horrifying odors.

"Yuck," Kaliope said, sticking her tongue out at the ichor-splattered trees.

"Not the worst thing I've seen in a game," said Forgad, as the woodcutter wiped zombie gunk from his face. "But once you've done a serf-tour for cash in Zpocalypse Unlimited... Yeah..."

Alyss raised a hand to pull a glop of something green from her hair and flicked it on the ground with a splat. "This is the grossest victory ever," she said. "But I won. Heck yeah."

She'd meant to sound upbeat and celebratory, but Bob frowned while Kaliope turned away to clean her ax with a cloth from her inventory. Alyss wondered what was wrong as only Forgad's grin remained.

"Good job, boss," Forgad said, slapping her on the shoulder. "Haha! We really do stand a chance of making some money on this world." The woodcutter flexed his arm like the Brawny man and grinned. "Just remember who helped put you on the throne when the cash train arrives. Ok?"

"I'm counting on you," Alyss said, adding a nervous laugh. "Just chill with the 'boss' stuff, please. I'm used to flying solo, so it's weird."

The understatement of the century, Alyss thought. Ever since DreamScape had entered her parents' lives, she'd had to be alone for more and more of real life. She wasn't the kind who made friends easily either, so her partners in crime were few to none.

Real players as allies had been super useful, but why couldn't the game have just given her NPCs? A bunch of soul-less stat bags would have been much easier for her to handle. Now she had to worry about leading without being too bossy, or wondering why Bob was still frowning down at his ax like she'd insulted his cat.

"Ok, bossina," Kaliope said. The woodcutter snatched up her ax and stomped off towards the damaged hut.

"Why's she mad?" Alyss asked. "We just won and leveled up and everything."

The taciturn Bob hefted his ax to his shoulder before speaking. "We have to repair the hut before we can get back to chopping. It's work that consumes planks but gives us no achievements or rewards."

"A speed-bump then," Alyss said. "You guys get stuff for chopping wood?"

Bob nodded, then turned and silently jogged off after Kaliope. Alyss shot a glance at Forgad and saw that he didn't look convinced by the explanation though he did cover it up with a smile a second before he turned to face her.

"He's right ma'am," Forgad said. “I'm real close to getting the first woodcutter's achievement too, so I'll join them. DreamScore points don't earn themselves after all."

"Don't wait on my account," Alyss said. "It's your playtime too. Thanks for being so solid in the battle." This earned her a thumbs up as Forgad trotted off to join the repair team. She sighed. "I'll get back to figuring out my next move. The lich will be back."

Putting her grumpy subordinates out of mind, Alyss strolled back towards the tower. As she walked, she brought up her logs and started sorting through messages. Five lines in and she realized that the wall of text was 99% about her crafting skill.

The system had finally caught up with the fact that she had 999 knitting when she hit level 2. There was a crafting tutorial apparently, but it'd never bothered to show her that — stupid bugged ability.

This meant that 999 levels worth of notifications had hit all at once. It was an epic amount of achievement spam. She about gave up and ask Cleite for the tutorial when Alyss saw the one notice that truly mattered.

Crafting tutorial completed: Normal crafting restrictions now in place. You have 10 crafting points per day.

"What?!"

She broke into a full run back to her tower. Her horde of golems followed like a pack of dogs. The moment she'd reached the front steps her system helper, a lizard-owl-thing named Cleite appeared in a puff.

"Guardian!" he said, eagerly. "I must tell you about--"

"Not now Cleite. I need you to tell me about crafting points."

Cleite blinked its owl-like eyes at her for a moment, as if it was having a conflict of priorities. "They are a resource assigned to all players as a means of limiting items circulating within the in-game economy," he said. "This protects the value of player-crafted goods. There are many ways to increase your crafting points--such as raising your base level, skill point allocations, and more. But Guardian, I must inform you--"

Alyss didn't hear the rest because she was groaning too loudly. Plan A for "how to beat the lich" was her knitting up an army. She focused on bringing up her straw golem stats.

Straw Golem

HP 10/10

Attack 3

Special attack: Splinter

Special attack: Strangle

Crafting Point Cost: 1

The last line spelled the doom of her potentially unlimited defense. At a modest 1 point per golem, she could now only make ten of the little guys per day. That wouldn't be too bad… if the lich took a week to attack her.

As if. She scoffed at the very idea of getting a week of prep--this game wasn't so easy as that. She'd need to find another solution before Trakada showed up again with something bigger and better, which meant grilling Cleite for options.

"Guardian!" Cleite said, interrupting her thoughts. Her lizard-owl helper was now hopping back and forth on its clawed feet in alarm.

"What?" Alyss asked. "I'll ask you for help in a minute, hang on."

"I'm sorry, but this is priority protocol!" Cleite said. "I am to inform you that your DreamScape machine has detected entry into your chamber."

At that same moment, something bumped her leg. Alyss jumped, then looked down. Unless the grassy foot-stones could move, there was nothing that could have touched her in the game.

"You mean IRL don't you?" she asked, going still.

"Affirmative," Cleite said. "Do you wish to log out?"

Her parents only logged out for biological necessities, and they never sought her out. So, the bump couldn't have been one of them. "Yes," Alyss said, her voice rising in alarm. "Initiate emergency logout. Now!"

"Commencing..." Cleite's voice faded as darkness swirled around her.

***

VR released its hold on Alyss at its normal pace, which is to say an agonizing slowness that did not respect her panic. As she fought for full consciousness, she heard the sound of someone getting slapped.

"Ow! What was that for?" a young man cried.

"Don't touch the dreamies, moron!" an old man said, his chain-smoker's voice diminishing as he left the room.

"But her machine is better than mine!"

"Forget it, you'd have to pay to get its limits lifted again," the old man said. He coughed hard before continuing his rebuke. "And if these bastards can't zonk out, then we can't keep coming back. Now stop being stupid and find something else to steal."

We're being robbed! Alyss realized, struggling harder. And mom didn't sell the TV last week...It was these bastards! That final curse was meant to express her explosive anger, but it came out as slurred "eww az tards..."

"She's waking up!" came the panicked cry.

"That's what you get for messing with her rig! Now we have to go!" the old man snarled.

Alyss forced her eyes open to see a brown-haired boy, dressed in dirty street clothing, standing over her. His pupils dilated as she met his gaze and his hand groped backward until it bumped into her lamp. He raised the heavy plastic light high, his chest heaving with rapid breaths.

She fought to move, but couldn't. The languor of sleep paralysis wasn't receding fast enough for her to save herself. Alyss couldn't believe that she was about to die to a strung-out kid in a smash-and-grab gone wrong. If she could move, she knew what she'd do to him. Instead, all she could do was stare up from her bed helplessly as the lamp's base came down.

A huge man in a brown stained coat surged through the doorway of her bedroom to grab the kid's arm at the last second.

"Stop it!" he said.

"Let go! She saw me!"

A rough hand with silver hair on its knuckles waved back and forth in front Alyss's face.

"She's still blitzed," the old man growled. "She won't remember crap. We're going. Now."

Both burglars were gone less than a minute later. They vanished from her room, thumped down the stairs, and ran into the dark street outside.

Alyss lay there as her body finished waking up and went straight to shaking violently. Her trembling hands came up to cover her face. She lay there, breathing deeply for many minutes before she felt like she could face the world again.

Only then did she get out of bed to see the damage. Her bookshelf was the first place she checked. Alyss practically flew across her room to it. Then she stood still as she methodically counted every single precious title.

They were all there, ratty yellow pages and all. By luck, the thieves had had to bail before they'd spotted her bookshelf in the darkness of her room. Alyss almost did cry then, in relief. Each one of these paper books had either been a gift or had come at great sacrifice. Her hardback of The Last Unicorn had taken a month of self-reduced rations to afford.

She drifted her fingers down the spine of The Hobbit to help settle her rattled nerves. Books were constants. A great story was great every time she opened it. No book would refuse to open or turn her away. No stupid company could shut down the server that ran her book. As long as she had her books, she could hang with her favorite characters as much as she wanted, whenever she wanted. They were always here for her.

That-which-mattered-most was secure, allowing Alyss to move on to see what had been stolen. She walked through the empty kitchen--which was normal--passed the sink full of dirty plastic cups with soylent stains--also normal--and stopped to stare at the front door. She expected a kicked-in frame or a cut deadbolt, but instead, there was nothing. Given the old robber's comment about repeated visits, she swung the door open and tested the lock.

To her horror, turning the lever didn't deploy the deadbolt because it was gone, most likely removed. She kicked the door in anger. The lock might have been this way for weeks, and she'd never known. That old bastard had been sneaking in while she was at school and her parents were in DreamScape for who knows how long.

And they were going to come back. Even if the thieves weren't planning on hurting her, Alyss felt the fear rising in her throat of the thought of laying helpless in VR while someone was raiding her home. All so he could afford illegal, pay-by-the-hour DreamScape programs that ran sensory input at 'better than life' levels.

It was a prospect so terrifying that she considered calling the police. Then she shuddered as she rejected it. Long ago, they'd been mugged on a family outing, and little Alyss had innocently asked if they were going to go to the police for help. Her mom, who had been calm at gunpoint, fell to pieces at the suggestion and shrieked at her. After the fireworks died down, Alyss's father had merely said that their family couldn't trust the cops. Ever.

That left her with one option. Swallowing her pride, Alyss admitted she'd have to try the unthinkable. She'd have to involve her parents. So, before she could hate herself for needing them, she walked over to the door to their bedroom with her hand raised to knock. She froze before her knuckles could hit the cheap plastic though.

"Mom, Dad," she said in a small voice to the door. "We got robbed."

No answer. Not that she should expect one given that her parents' minds were gods knew where in DreamScape. But sometimes while they were in chat rooms or match-making lobbies, they could hear her. Years ago, when she'd been younger, they'd been more responsive. As Alyss had gotten older, they'd taken to abusing her growing self-sufficiency so they could play longer and with fewer interruptions.

It had been a scary day, in-game and out. She wasn't feeling very strong right now. Part of her desperately wanted her mom to get up and help her deal with this. Nothing of the sort happened though. The wall of silence from her parent's room hurt just as much today as it did every other time she'd needed them.

Alyss considered using the ultimate words, the ones that always worked to roust her parents no matter what they were doing in-game.

"Mom, I'm hungry," she said, silently whispering the holy phrase. She hadn't used those words for two years, and she wasn't sure if they'd work anymore. Now, if her last lifeline to her parents was gone, she didn't want to know. She couldn't take it, so she kept it in.

This left her to deal with the problem alone though. "You don't need them," she said, her voice thick. "It's just another Tuesday around here. Team: me, myself, and I are gonna get it done, as usual."

With that, Alyss threw open the door to her parents' room and marched across the dirty carpet to stand over their bed. They lay there, side-by-side, doing whatever in VR while looking like two gaunt bodies in sweatpants kept alive by machines. She grabbed her mother's phone while trying not to look at the faces of the parents who'd abandoned her.

Tap tap tap and she was in. A few more taps and Alyss brought up their apartments' work request page. Grabbing her mothers' arm, Alyss brought her mom's ID cuff up to the phone to sign the request to repair the deadbolt. Then she slumped as she saw the response.

"Estimated position in the repair queue: 2-3 weeks. For $150 processing fee you can hot-list for 24-hour turn around."

She growled at the message as she exited the room. Money. It always came back to cash, which they'd have if her parents didn't spend all of their basic income on in-game purchases. She slammed the door on her way out. Her parent's never roused.

Sitting down in the dark kitchen, Alyss got out her phone to make a plan. In three months, she'd turn 18 and could leave. Still sniffing, but ignoring her emotions as best she could, she drew up a list of what she'd have to do by her birthday. Thirty minutes later she hurled herself into action.

She pulled the kitchen table over to barricade the front door for starters. She wrote a note, "We got robbed," stuck it to the inside of her parents' door, turned the lock on the inside of their door, and shut it. The microwave was gone now, so she raided the trash for plastic bottles, washed them out, and filled them with cold soylent; which she stockpiled in her room. It was the most unappetizing way to drink it, but whatever. Closing her door, she turned the crappy lock and stuck a chair under the handle.

Preparations complete, Alyss stood over her bed to glare down at the DreamScape machine. She cracked her knuckles.

There were only three months until her birthday. As far as she was concerned, that was three months to get that marketplace up and running and to make as much cash as she could. There was no point in moving out of her parents’ place if she was just going into the hell of a public housing block. She didn’t have time for do-overs, so the plan had no room in it for losing her tower.

Alyss steeled herself to play like a maniac and to take no prisoners.

If she could make enough money, then she'd buy her own place to live, she’d eat real food, and she’d buy real books. Most importantly, there’d be no more depending on people who were never there. It'd be just her. She'd finally be safe.