I neared the border of the New Zealand habitat within an hour of dedicated hiking, bashing ferns aside with my sturdy lyre and scattering ground-level birds that appeared and vanished from under my boots in an eye blink.

One of the features of AoD was its dedication to forming a country’s landscapes based on real territories—or how they perceived its landscapes to be. Animals, birds and bugs seemed to be entirely up to the discretion of whatever programmer had in mind for that location on that particular day. As a result—

—thunk—

—kiwis could fly, though not very well. Their abilities resembled my own in the sky in fact, a bumbling, perilous movement that invariably ended by smacking into the nearest large object, animate or inanimate. In this case, me.

(Come to think of it, it was also a flying method similar to the large moths that used to follow me to the semi-outside toilet in my childhood home, and batter themselves against me in the terrible misapprehension that I was a ladder to the glorious Light—otherwise known as Bulb—shining above.)

Suicidal kiwis notwithstanding, the reason why I had gravitated to this habitat was related to the reason why I lived there in real life: the lack of large predators or venomous animals.

Although that wasn’t quite true in AoD.

One shiny-eyed programmer had outdone themselves in the recreation of our apex predator, the Haast’s eagle, made extinct some six hundred or so years ago. At more than 15 kilos,and with a three metre wingspan—more than double the size of today’s biggest eagle—the Haast could pluck you from the ground and carry you off like an adult picking up a toddler. The pterodactyl of human time.

But otherwise, as long as you avoided clearings and could provide the occasional lyre strum to fend off curious moa and kea, the habitat was a sanctuary to the sedentary.

Unfortunately, the Australian habitat where I was heading was not so sheltered. Either extra personnel had been employed or a programming madman had been in charge of its flora and fauna. Or maybe both.

Beasts and birds and snakes and bugs and god-knows-what-else had been modified to be even more dangerous and odd-looking than they already were; birds the size of dinosaurs that could trample you to death, snakes with the ability to dazzle and hypnotise, a flying bug that burrowed its way into your ear and laid eggs in your brain casing. There was even a wild dog that transformed into a bat after drinking your blood. (That one did draw complaints, though more regarding its lack of believability than its ability to scare the shit out of players.)

For all these reasons, Australia was known to be only for the most advanced players, and as such the main province of the very knuckle-dragging grunters that I was in search of.

Speaking of which…

I heard a fierce ruckus in the distance, growls and grunting, accompanied by a godawful subsonic boom-shriek that put my own caterwauling to shame.

…that must be my guys.

I picked up the pace, heading for the wild thrashing in bushes ahead of me and, wielding my lyre more as a blunt instrument than as a form of musical torture, burst through a particularly dense thicket of ferns. Thus I came upon a most odd scene.

Two mega koalas, lvl 15 and 14, were menacing a mortally injured, but still dangerous, adult moa (lvl 12). They were approaching it from two sides in a surprisingly coordinated attack. Surprising, because koalas are solitary animals, even in their mutated, fifty kilo, carnivorous AoD form, and rarely socialise with their own kind except to mate.

Lvl 14 koala darted abruptly to the left, nearly lost its nose to a well-placed talon, and had to jerk back to avoid damage. In almost the same movement the moa spun to face lvl 15, who had obviously hoped to sneak up on its opposite side while it was distracted.

Busted.

Now, predation in AoD is quite normal and part of the programming to make the game reality nazis happy—a kind of breadcrumb to those players whilst also keeping the Violence-Makes-Me-Happy variety of gamers satisfied.

So I almost turned away.

Almost. But it has always been a weakness of mine that I can’t bear to see animals suffer, and no amount of knowing that it was mere bits of code could convince me that this moa didn’t figure into that category. One look into its big, desperate eyes and I was a gonna.

Changing my stance from flail to fool, I cradled my lyre to my chest and strummed one warning, vibrating note.

A squawk somewhere in the distance told me I had a fan.

The two koala chanced a glance at me but immediately refocused on the moa. The bird just panted and bled, leaving a red trail down one long, scaly leg, dribbling onto the forest floor.

Lvl 15’s big nose lifted as it smelled fresh blood, and it shuffled forward slowly but deliberately. Watching how slow and clumsy the koalas were I couldn’t understand why the moa hadn’t run away long since.

Until I heard a peep.

Behind the moa a long naked neck with a tiny head attached peered myopically through its mum’s legs. The maternal instinct to protect its young was holding the adult in place; a final stand that would mean its death.

A sucker for a sob story, my chest burned with sympathy and I raised my hand to rub away the phantom pain just as the most powerful koala charged. Making the most horrible grunt-growl I’d heard yet, it rose on its hind feet and swiped—

—time stopped, stuttered, and resumed—

—the bird’s chest, blood and feathers scattering into the surrounding greenery. The moa staggered, its 4 metre high frame collapsing with a resounding groan that shook my bones and sent its chick into a frenzy of panicked cheeps.

My own unused maternal instinct materialised.

Barging headlong into the clearing in a haze of blind rage, I wielded my lyre in its most accustomed position (overhead, bashing) and set about mindlessly thrashing at the bears.

“You. Leave. Her. The. Fuck. Alone.” I got in two good wallops, one to an already slashed nose, before common sense, encouraged by the sight of enormous claws and teeth that had no business being inside a koala, took hold.

A bard is not a melee fighter. A bard sings at a prudent distance from large monsters and other assorted players. A bard is used for support, not direct confrontation.

I bounced backwards, but discovered that bears could also bounce. Luckily lvl 14 got in the way of 15 and the two bounced off each other, but they were still too close for me to deploy my instrument.

Acapella it is.

I opened my mouth and, a-la Cacophonix of Asterix fame, let out a discordant trilling warble. The lyre increased the effect of my singing but I could still damage eardrums and psyches without.

CAWK!

My fan was back, this time closer than I was comfortable with. With my luck it was the moa’s mate, come to avenge her death on anyone in the general vicinity.

Nevertheless, I unleashed the most lethal song in my arsenal.

“La-la—“

Scree!

“La—“

A grunt-snuffle from the lowest level bear as it swiped a paw across its ears.

“Laaaaa!”

Enraged, its ears bleeding, the largest bear bounded toward me, paw raised—travel-blur—to swipe the annoying noise maker from the face of the AoD earth—

—only to be snatched and lifted upwards.

It lurched as the eagle holding it in its talons struggled beneath its weight, though the deadly talons had already pierced its spine and killed it when the bird latched on. The eagle’s primary prey were the four metre tall moa so it had some serious killing equipment attached to its feet. Much money and real-world mana could be had for any gamer retrieving a Haast talon. At least before the game became the province of thugs and retirees.

Quickly, the eagle stabilised, and with powerful strokes that dipped and folded to avoid the surrounding greenery, lifted the bear high into the sky and over the canopy.

The remaining bear, obviously of a more practical bent, decided that meat was more important than dead colleagues, and made a grab for the downed moa, setting it in its teeth and bounding in a clumsy as-fast-as-it-could-trot/drag toward the Australian boundary.

Which made me wonder what the koalas were doing in the NZ habitat at all.

Another glitch? If so, it was a serious one. A breach in the biospheres could wreak havoc in the AoD world. As history could attest, an introduced species from another environment is generally disastrous to any habitat. Rats, dogs, and cats alone, not to mention humans, had the ability to destroy biodiversity to extinction levels in a very short space of time. And the thought of snakes—my own personal vision of hell-beasts, alongside large moths—in my sanctuary was horrific.

Especially if I was stuck here for any length of time. And time behaved differently in the game world. The main reason for the sudden upsurge in gaming registration was a dilation that favoured the virtual world by more than a fifth. As in one day in real life became five in the game. A boon to workers needing relaxation time. You could read a book, relax, gamble—do all the things you want to do in reality but never have time for.

Peep.

The noise made me turn to the chick I had forgotten about in the chaos of battle.

Peep, peep.

It was looking at me in a way that I had secretly wished for in high school. From the boys, however. Not a bird that was already a half metre high and butt-ugly. But it had such big, dark, puss-in-boots eyes.

And it exuded a yearning adoration.

I am not cut out to be a mother, I thought firmly, but I knew I was already doomed.

Peeeep!

So cute. Crouching down, I gently petted its tiny bald head with one finger and accepted my fate.

Accompaniest Bondmate Accepted!

1000 XP awarded!

New Active Skill: ##### [error 6453 encountered]

New Passive Skill: Bondmate Bound

My in-game compass, embedded at the bottom right of my vision, acquired a green pulsing dot pointing in the direction of my new companion. So I would be able to find him without having to resort to the usual “Here kitty, kitty” method of pet retrieval.

Level Up! Congratulations! You are now at Level 19!

2 Attribute pts now available to be assigned!

Great, now if only I could reach the menu, then perhaps I could assign them to—oh, wait…

At least I’d finally gotten a new active skill, something that hadn’t happened since I reached level 10 and had finally gotten the Discord Bard class. It seemed to be attached to the little moa in some way, though the game’s usual glitching ensured that it remained a mystery.

It pecked my finger, either annoyed at my handsyness or hungry and experimenting with a carnivorous diet.

“Okay, let’s see what we can find to keep you herbivorous. Identify: moa food.”

I looked around the area, my passive Identify skill making various plants and twigs fluoresce Avatar-style under the dark canopy created by the fern trees.

The fuschia flowers were the most obvious contenders, glowing so fiercely I thought they might have special properties for the moa. I grabbed as many branches of them as I could see within my Identify range, then stepped back to consider other plants for a more balanced and travel-friendly diet. I didn’t know how fast the chick would grow and whether I would be able find appropriate food in other habitats.

I chose a large broad-leafed specimen as a staple, and a few slightly smaller but thicker plants for variety, stuffing my holding bag until I thought I might finally have reached its maximum capacity.

I hadn’t, although god knows what it would do to my in situ supplies. I wished I’d thought to bring through a box of resealable bags to keep the contents separated. Luckily, my holding bag had preservation runes etched onto the fabric. The art was very kindergarton-chic but it would keep the plant material from drying out or decomposing.

Pee-eep! The little monster eyed a pink flower that had stuck to the back of my hand with predatory interest.

“Uh, uh,” I tutted reprovingly, brushing it off. “From the height and glow of these flowers, I think these are for big birds. Maybe the caffeine of the bird world?” I grabbed a handful of broad-leafy and offered it to the little guy.

Or guyette. I had no idea of how to identify moa sexes. Even its general nakedness offered no clues.

He pecked hungrily. At least the trauma of losing his mother wasn’t affecting his appetite. And the single-mindedness of its hunger dubbed him henceforth a male in my completely unbiased mind.

Squaaw!

I started, and a surge of fear sent a blip across the edge of my vision, warning me again to calm down. Fucking thing.

My special fan was on the move again.

Rustling quickly through my bag, I found an old jersey and stuffed the moa chick inside it, tucking the bottom into my belt and attaching the arms to my harness. His head popped out the neck hole and he let out an indignant eep! to signal his displeasure.

“Not an ideal baby carrier, I know, little guy. But needs must, and we needs-must get the hell out of here before that big-ass eagle or its big-ass relatives come looking for for their next meal.”

Swinging bag and lyre onto my back, I hightailed it out of the tiny clearing in the direction of Australia.