“Things were so simple before the plague. I know not why the sickness came to the Hills. Are we simply unlucky? Singled out? Or have others experienced this torturous event as well? What have we done to the Ancient Ones to deserve this?”

unknown villager of the Weeping Hills.

“What’d they drop? What’d they drop?” Jacob asked eagerly, bending down over the corpses of Doom’s fallen men. He scowled as he looted two of the lower levels. “Soothing Syrup. Fantastic. Why can’t we loot their weapons?”

“Their starter weapons?” I chuckled. “That’s harsh—even for Mizaguchi. How would they level?”

“Do I care?”

Fujiko leaned down over Callahan’s body and inspected it. “I think you’ll be happy about this, Jacob.”

“What is it?”

“Flesh of the Fallen,” she read. I looked up and saw the hideous glob of tissue Callahan had been holding as a casting item. Jacob, who hadn’t been here for that part of the fight, looked at it and scrunched his nose up with disgust.

“The Hell is it?”

“Oh, you’ll want it,” I told him. “I can almost guarantee.”

Fujiko continued to read. “A heinous piece of flesh—but what was it taken from? An old Seeker? An Ancient one? Magical Attack 95. C scaling with Intellect and 8% bonus to toughness.”

“Sick!” Jacob replied eagerly, walking quickly over to her. He reached out to take it, but Fujiko pulled away.

“Ya know, maybe I’ll just keep it,” she contemplated.

“Huh?”

“I mean—you don’t seem to like it…” she mused. “Does it gross you out?”

“Fujiko,” I chuckled, shaking my head.

“Oh, just gimmie it!” Jacob snapped, reaching for it again. But Fujiko was fast and ducked behind a headstone. “Hey! What the Hell?”

“Ask nicely!” Fujiko teased, slipping around another pile of broken gravestones like a little kid on a playground.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me—” Jacob moved to one side, then doubled back quickly and dove straight onto Fujiko, knocking her down so hard it actually took off a tiny, almost imperceptible sliver of health.

“Ugh!” she groaned like the wind had been knocked out of her. “Jacob!”

Jacob grinned triumphantly as he pinned her arms with his knees and snatched the sickly glob of putrid offal from her.

“Thank you!” he said proudly as he examined it.

“Okay, get off me!” Fujiko half yelled, half laughed.

“Ask nicely!” Jacob mocked. Fujiko grimaced and drove a knee into his crotch.

“Ooooh!” Altarus and I both cried out in unison, wincing in only a way guys could understand. Jacob’s eyes rolled back and he toppled over clutching at his man parts.

“Sorry,” Fujiko said as she got to her feet. “Uh—I didn’t think that would hurt so much in the game world.”

“N—no problem,” Jacob said through a tight chest.

“That’s messed up, Fujiko,” I told her as I bent down to check out Doom’s loot. A smile came over me as I looked at what was available to take—I’d been hoping it would be there, and it was.

Sturdy Leather Duster Jacket: Old and worn, but incredibly well made and still sturdy. Fairs well against beasts.

Armor: 250 Fire: 120 Frost: 190 Electric: 190 Acid: 190 Frenzy: 200

Man, is he gonna be pissed when he comes back here and finds this missing, I thought as I slid the thing into my inventory. If I hadn’t already had a cape-cloak I would have definitely taken it and worn it, as it looked totally badass.

“Hey, Altarus. Want his jacket?”

“It dropped?” he asked, his eyes lighting up as I walked over to him. I opened a trade window and handed it over.

“Sure did.”

Altarus opened his inventory and inspected it. “Very nice. Not too great against fire though. Don’t use that spell on me, Jacob. Okay?”

Jacob chuckled. Altarus equipped the jacket and instantly looked like even more of a badass, like some Western cowboy that had slipped into a portal to another dimension, our Victorian gothic world, with his trusty Winchester and duster, ready to stir up some shit. I could see he wasn’t a boastful kind of guy, but still managed a smile as he gazed down at his new look. Fujiko nodded with approval.

“Nice.”

“Okay, who needs more Old Bones?” I asked. “Anybody? Or are we all good to head back to Victoria?”

“I need four,” Jacob replied, almost ashamed.

“I got you,” I told him, plucking four out of my stack of 26 and handing them over to him.

“You sure?.”

I smiled, thinking back to our first encounter back at the lamppost at the Weeping Hills. He was still Level 5, while the rest of us had progressed quite a bit during the time it took for him to get back to town. I found the Mortal Shards in my inventory and handed them to him.

“Use those too,” I told him. “They’re not a ton of Quint, but it’s better than nothing.”

“You don’t want them?”

“Nah, I’m good. You need to level up too.”

Jacob grinned. “All right, I’ll use ‘em—but when I pass you in levels, don’t be mad at me!”

“In your dreams,” I laughed. I heard the whirling sound of Quintessence as he immediately used the shards.

“Oh, shit!” he gasped. “I still have Quint on my corpse!”

He looked around for his body, finally spotting it, lying on the ground where Boucher had put it, rushed over and looted the Quintessence he’d had on him when he fell.

“Okay, let’s get going,” I told the group. “Before Doom and his idiots come back with reinforcements.”

“You think there are more of them?” Jacob asked.

“Where there’s one coward, there are many,” I replied, thinking back to when I was sitting alone at the lunch table. “Besides,” I added, noticing the slightest hint of orange had appeared in what I was able to see in the sky. “I have a feeling we should probably head back soon and take care of our real selves.”

Jacob winced beside me and I looked over at him. Honestly, I’d completely forgotten that he was the one person in our group still bound to this crazy world with no means of escape.

“Jacob. Where do you live?” I asked him. “Anywhere near New England?”

He shook his head sadly. “Utah.”

“Shit.”

“Do you live with anyone?” Altarus asked him. “Someone who can look after you?”

Jacob nodded slowly, an unhappy look on his face. “Yeah, my folks are rich. I’m sure they’ve got me hooked up to something by now.”

For some reason, I got the impression that it wasn’t what was happening to his body in the real world that had Jacob upset, but something else—maybe being the odd man out in our group. The rest of us were “free,” while Jacob was one of the others, trapped in this world with no understanding as to why and no way of knowing when, or if, he’d ever be let go.

“Come on, buddy,” I told him, slapping him hard on the back and wrapping him into a headlock. “Let’s go turn in these bones. I can’t be seen hanging around with a level 5!”

He chuckled. It was a feeble chuckle, but a chuckle all the same, and didn’t fight away from my hold on him for a few seconds.

“What should I do while you guys are gone?” he asked as we made our way out of the cemetery, hacking down Rotted Corpses as we took the route back to Victoria’s bridge.

“Level,” Fujiko replied as though nothing could have been more obvious.

“I agree,” Altarus chimed in as we found the edge of the graveyard where the stones began to fade and the earthen ground returned.

“What if Doom comes back?” Jacob asked. “And the rest of them?”

“Well, don’t come back here—” I told him as I grabbed a branch and hoisted myself back up onto the road.

“SEEK THE MONOLITH!”

The voice boxed my brain so hard my entire body shivered—the hint of a seizure beating its way through my body like a sparking electrical wire.

“Ah!” I cried out as the muscles in my hand spasmed, loosened and froze, causing my grip to slip. I tumbled backwards and slammed down hard on the edge of a headstone.

Bzzzzzttt!

A supernova in my mind. Starlight poured from my eyes as I gazed up at the sky that seemed to peel away from me like the cosmos being drained down a well, sucked into a whirlpool of black—nothing but black.

“SEEK THE MONOLITH, RAND! SEEK SALVATION!”

“Rand!”

Fujiko’s voice—far, far away. But not.

Bzzzzzttt!

Again—the city invaded my mind. Broken but grand, impossibly high, a mess from the mind of a mad architect.

At the center of the square, the black monolith, soaking up light from all around it. Spatterings of lightning slashed the sky like fingers snapping and expanding, giant’s hands clawing at existence.

My head flared with agony.

“Gaaaah!” I screamed, my body curling until my elbows met my knees.

“What’s happening to him!?” Fujiko shouted.

Altarus replied, his voice strong, but I couldn’t hear him. My ears were being pummeled by sounds of rolling thunder and cracks of lightning. Something was screaming—a horde of things.

“Rand!!”

Rey’s voice—Rey’s face filled my mind.

Am I seeing this!? A thought managed to exist between the moments of invasion.

“Rand!”

She shouted again.

“REY!” I blurted out, forcing the name out of my lips.

Rey’s face vanished, replaced by blackness, blackness that somehow swirled despite being without light, without form, without existence—the blackness snapped, grew, expanded, grew back again, drove itself into my forehead and pulled its way out of the back of my skull as the stone beneath me seemed to tug and pull at my body, as if the world itself was trying to eat me, and the inner workings of my brain seemed to stop working, the gears that made the hands move, the priceless machinery that made me me ceased to exist and I was overtaken by something that wanted to eat me, wanted to sink down into my soul and make a home, take over Rand—take over Clay! and be something new—I could feel the intent, the desire, the lust, the willingness of the cruelty and destruction and takeover, and for the briefest of moments, a sickly dot of emotion pierced through me and I felt terrified, terrified by the horrible future I knew lay in store for all of us if this thing, this vile thing had its way and succeeded.

“SEEK! SEEK THE MONOLITH!”

Was the voice the thing? No. The voice was something else—someone maybe?

“Rand!”

Rey’s voice. My imagination. She was gone. Bloodless. Wandering vacantly, away from me, and I could do nothing.

“I can!” I belted out as my cheek smashed into a stone. “I CAN FIND YOU!”

Out, out, out! I thought. Get out!

The monolith flashed—cracked and shattered into bits.

Blue lightning and electricity. A tunnel of blackness, but blackness with texture.

Blinding light and I felt something on my back—something softer than the gravestone bed where I lay.

“Rannd….” A voice. Someone’s voice. Not one of my group’s. Who knows?

Another flash. Cushion on my back.

My eyes opened.