“I didn’t think they were going to put cryptids in this game,” I whined. “Doesn’t it ruin the whole ‘getting back to nature’ schtick?”

The Incan god, Kinichi, was so believable that it passed your reality threshold?

“I suppose you’re right. But it walks a fine line. I mean, what’s next? Dragons flying the friendly skies?”

I don’t think we can assume the skies are friendly. Even in your preferred environment, avian predators are fundamentally dangerous.

“That was a quote.”

Oh. What from?

“Some old airline ad I think. Back when flights took long enough that they employed stewards.” I grunted. “Nowadays if someone smiles at you while you’re in the air you’d better check the emergency buzzer is functioning, because chances are you’re sitting next to a nut job who’s preparing to sell you something. Or someone,” I added reminiscently. “But, anyway. Do you know any more about this Kalanoro guy?”

Legends of the Kalanoro began in an area of Africa now known as the Congo.

“Sounds logical.” I whacked my stick against a low-hanging vine until it fell to a height that was easy enough to step over. I was in no mood to be doing the limbo with the plant equivalent of barbed wire. “Someone spots some gorillas and suddenly there’s an ape-monster running around. Exaggeration is key to any good drama.”

As the legend grew, word of it travelled across southern Africa, until migrants and foraging parties exported the story to Madagascar and other surrounding islands.

“Which were trade routes to Indonesia.”

Though there are reported sightings of the Kalanoro that are relatively recent. In the late twentieth century, a SEAL team allegedly filmed a small, ape-like creature with long quills on its head and back. The video was subsequently classified.

“Are you getting your information from a small, independent, and ‘highly authoritative’ source?”

Wikipedia, actually. Which I am assured is verified by a quorum of the people.

“And updated by every sensation-seeking whackadoodle in the world. Does this article at least tell us anything we don’t already know?”

Magic quills, two feet tall, bargains with people for the return of their children…. Pretty much your standard boogeyman of folktales.

“Right. At least it’s not a Balrog, I suppose.” I turned sideways to ease my way into a tree full of hanging seed pods. Orangey-brown and curled at the bottom.

I was almost through when I felt movement at my chest, and heard the panicked cheeps of Timmy and his bunkmates.

I quickly looked down to see a ‘seed pod’ peering inside the cap’s window, tongue flashing as it scented the warm mammals inside.

“Gah!” I screamed, and slapped the snake away. It swung as the branch it was clinging to responded to the kinetic force, propelling it back to me. Luckily, though it hissed in displeasure, it didn’t strike, maybe because the branch was still swaying and it needed to keep its grip.

It was enough time for me to remember that my stick had more than one end. Adjusting my grasp so that it was short enough to wield, I bashed it off the branch like a piñata, not stopping until it was not only on the ground, but had stopped twitching.

You have killed: a Leaf-Nosed Snake! (Lvl 2)

1 XP awarded!

Looking at it, I shuddered, goosebumps rising on my arms and back. It was an odd-looking creature, with a long, sharp snout rather than the snubbed noses of most snakes. It wasn’t difficult to see how it could disguise itself as a hanging pod.

Then I felt more movement, and heard the slight rustle of scales against fabric. Instinct compelled my response; no thought necessary. I became a whirling berserker, spinning wildly as I flailed with my stick, bashing and bashing and bashing…

You have killed…

You have killed…

You have killed…

I vaguely noticed Gunga joining me in ridding the tree of its macabre streamers. She probably thought I was harvesting birdy gold.

Between us, it didn’t take long for the rest of the snakes to become either dead or gone. I was left panting, my system so flooded with adrenaline that it took longer to stop poking at vague shadows than it did to defeat the enemy.

Gunga looked up and gurgled at me in concern before returning to her meal.

A feast. Fit for…hungry people. People who hadn’t eaten protein for days. People who didn’t have the luxury of pickiness.

Fortunately there was more than enough meat to feed just such a person as well as her companion—if that person was a fast worker. The snakes were disappearing down her gullet like worms being pecked at by a giant chicken.

I hurriedly collected some for myself, depositing them whole in my holding bag. The preservation runes would keep them fresh until I could gut and cook them. It would certainly make for a welcome change from the sour fruits that Bert genetically modified.

“What are these things?” I asked the AI. “I’m getting that they’re snakes, but…”

They are of the genus Langaha madagascariensis, or leaf-nosed snakes to use its more common name. Venomous, but not lethal to humans. They were most likely attracted to the dinner you have strapped to your chest.

“Bold of them.”

Yes. Such an unusual concentration has probably denuded the surrounding environment of their normal food, making them take chances they would not normally consider. Which is odd within itself. Snakes are solitary creatures and generally pursue a nomadic lifestyle. They don’t normally ‘hang out’ together.

I smiled. “Bert, you made a not-so-funny. Well done.”

While retrieving the bodies I’d noticed unusual prints in the sandy soil. Now, I examined them more closely. They were small, the same size as a human toddler, with similar characteristics. Except for one incongruity: claw divots on the ends of each toe.

The Kalanoro had been here. And he hadn’t just passed through. The amount of prints suggested that he had been very active under this tree, moving from branch to branch…

Wait…

Had this been a setup? Was the Kalanoro smart enough to set a trap? By the positioning it was clear he’d been doing something.

“Bert, I think we should be doubly alert from now on. If I’m not mistaken our boogeyman is smart. You see anything out of place in this world or in the matrix, let me know.”

The…matrix?

“You know. Code shit. The stuff that you see instead of the graphics display.”

Ah, so poetic. I could write an ode based on the lyricism of your word selection.

“Just do it. I can see a pool where we can refill the water canisters and bed down for the night. Hopefully undisturbed.”

——

“Is this everyone?”

“I think so,” Terrin answered. “Slipperybob couldn’t make it because it was past his bedtime, but otherwise it’s a full house.”

“Why don’t we just leave…Bob…out of this. If his mother finds out he’s been messaging you she’ll call the cops. Justifiably.”

“I thought we needed all the help we could get?”

“It’s not ‘helpful’ if you’re locked up for solicitation.”

A dapper looking Sherlock Holmes shifted in his seat and muttered something to his companion.

“Shall we get this meeting started? Before everyone that is of legal age loses interest and logs out?”

Terrin grinned and rose from his seat to stand at the head of the virtual meeting table. “Friends. Humans. Countrymen. Lend me your ears.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“Lose it, Jokerboy,” sneered a girl in a black cape.

The tag wasn’t actually meant as an insult. Probably. Terrin was using his Age of Deception jester avatar—despite Todd’s earnest advice (AKA nagging). Todd had lost the argument when Terrin pointed out that he himself was using his own AoD persona, Paladin xyZaviant. An unequal comparison, of course.

“My dear lady, I am merely admiring the eclectic nature of this little group. All coming together for a common purpose: the saving of a life.”

“Listen, I dunno what giggle-juice you’re sippin’, but I’m only here under protest,” Sherlock broke in. “Ted seems t’ think some game is banjaxed, but—“

“You’re Irish? Seriously? That is so cool.” The girl’s eyes and teeth flashed unnaturally under the lights as she focused on Sherlock. Her attention-span appeared to be even worse than Terrin’s.

“I suure am, mo stór.” Sherlock’s eyes pinned the vampire’s in a flirty smoulder. At least he was displaying more interest than he had since he appeared.

The bowler-hatted gentleman sitting beside him touched his arm. “Perhaps not the time, my good fellow. The purpose of this meeting is emancipation, not socialisation.”

“What’s with him?” one of the soldiers asked. “He some kind of english professor?”

“No,” Sherlock responded. “He’s an actor that finds it difficult to alter his character after role-playing for long periods. I should know. He’s my roommate. I once had to put up with him moanin’ like a zombie for a whole day when he oop and played Undead for ten hours straight.”

“That sounds terrible,” Vamp girl said, leaning forward onto crossed arms.

Todd cleared his throat. “That you’re all here today, tells me that you’ve all either watched the video or posted directly onto the forum. Either way, you’re invested enough to at least attempt to get SharkBytes’ attention. Has anyone here tried to contact them?”

The second soldier spoke first. “We sent messages. But they just responded with a stock ‘thank you for your interest’ response.” The voice was a bit high for the grizzled character he was presenting, verging on the feminine.

Soldier one added, “We couldn’t even get past the first layer of security.”

There were general murmurs of accord.

“I tried their social media. Pretty standard setup. They blocked me when I got a bit…heated.” Vamp girl twinkled at Sherlock.

“Their website only lists public media and an e address. I couldn’t discover any links to a physical address apart from it being located somewhere in Australia.” Terrin.

“That is what I ded—“ Ted started to say before Vamp Girl cut him off.

“The answer is obvious. I mean, don’t you guys get it? You’re thinking too old school. What does a company fear most of all?”

“Low profit margins?” Todd guessed.

“No! Okay, yes. But what could cause those profits to sink?”

“People not buying their product?”

“A hit to their reputation!” Vamp girl cried. “A viral social media campaign that makes them look bad. Or even unsafe.”

“And with Dangerous Dreams due to release in a few days they’ll be even more conscious of bad publicity,” Terrin added.

“Exactly!” The girl was practically bouncing in excitement. Sherlock’s eyes glazed over.

“I could post links to the vid in every major social media site, and magnify exposure by using a program to collect and recycle e addresses. It would replicate exponentially and allow the link to spread more widely,” Terrin offered.

“Is that legal?” Todd asked dubiously.

“Come on!” Vamp girl expelled a puffy little snort of derision. “How can you call yourself a paladin and be such a stick? Aren’t you supposed to protect our pretty little selves?” Her eyelashes fluttered dramatically.

“Ahh…”

“I fear that this is not our milieu,” Ted stated solemnly. “We are men of history and science, not the vagaries of social technology.”

“Speak f’ yerself,” Sherlock interrupted. He turned back to the girl. “Can I friend you, mo mhuirnín?”

“Sure you can, Sherley. I’ll PM my deets later.”

Terrin grinned his wild man grin. On his jester avatar it looked quite frighteningly evil. “So our next course of action has been decided. Everyone that has a social media account, post. I’ll work my magic in the grey, and spread the word out to some other like-minded friends of mine.”

“And anyone that isn’t into social media,” Todd nodded at Ted, “post on any website that you’re a member of and, hey—go low-tech and talk to people. We need to draw as much attention as we can.”

“How long do you think that poor woman has?” the feminine soldier asked softly.

Todd and Terrin looked at each other.

“We don’t know,” Todd answered. “Maybe a few more days; upwards of a week if she’s got modern equipment. All I know is that as long as she’s still alive in that video, we’ll keep trying to get her free.”

——

The pond wasn’t big enough to house hippopotami—even the pygmy variety. It was the first thing I checked. Next were the trees; nothing that could be used as a jungle gym for snakes or psychopathic hominids. Which only left the ground. I examined it with the meticulousness of a council building inspector and found it to be very…earthlike. (Fucked if I know what a manufactured monster infestation would look like.)

It took approximately fifteen minutes of exploring every possibility I could think of until my paranoia was satisfied. Then I made camp and found a promising tree for Timmy to set up shop.

I was as ready as I could be to close my eyes and pretend that there wasn’t a homicidal monster watching me, planning his next move.

I’m here, you know. I’ll keep watch for anything suspicious.

“What use is that? You’ve already proven that you can’t wake me.”

So I’ll get Gunga to step on you. Nobody could stay asleep after that.

“How? You haven’t been able to control Gunga’s tiny brain before now.” I considered it for a second before frowning. “And I don’t know that I’d like it if you could.”

What I have in mind is not so extreme. I can, in a sense, ‘hack’ your Companion’s optic nerve, overlaying the actual retinal scans with images of my choosing. For example…

Gunga jerked her attention from where she was pecking, her neck turning until it focused on me. Then she began walking quickly in my direction, like I was her long-lost pal; but instead of greeting me, she stopped at the tree trunk I was leaning against and pecked at the bark instead. The look on her face when she pulled her head back was adorably confused. She tilted her head to eye the bark more closely, before moving in to try again. More slowly this time. Again with no result.

“You just sent her an image of food, didn’t you?”

Her favourite species of lizard. By this method, I can direct her movement, enabling me to ensure your rest remains death-free.

“Sounds good to me. Just…” My eyebrows furrowed (still no menu) as I watched the bird go in for another peck. “…turn it off for now. You’re going to give Gunga a complex.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head before idling her way back to the leaves. I’d thought it would take a while before she’d be hungry again after her reptilian dinner, but she clearly had a second stomach for veggies. I had one for puddings, myself. Ice cream with little gum lollies, or those little chocolate mousse indulgences with the liqueur and caramel bottoms. Yum.

I turned to my holding bag and selected a snake instead. Not exactly cordon bleu but I could work with it. With hunger as a motivator, I skinned, gutted, and shish-kebabed my meal in less than ten minutes.

Cooking skill level up! Now at Level 3!

Great. Maybe now I’ll be able to cook without it tasting like carbon.

Without Bert actively controlling the allocation of skills and abilities, I’d found I wasn’t levelling at the same rate as I had when I started. His personalised insights and warnings were certainly a plus, but I wished there was another Bert that could oversee the statistical part of my avatorial destiny. And grant me lots of freebies.

I was pretty sure that I was closing in on Level 22, though. I’d had some big gains since I’d last levelled up, especially on Easter Island. I just hoped I hadn’t lost too many points when I yelled at Cocol, Larry and Sivest.

A rustle nearby had my head jerking up. I slowly ran my pre-prepared torch above the ground, but relaxed when I saw that it was just a fat, orange frog—big for its kind, but not scary at all. Another joined it, not quite as large as the first, and for a few seconds I thought I might be about to witness a National Geographic moment. But soon, more joined the party, making their way slowly towards the campfire, until there had to be around fifty of them.

I stood up to shoo them away, but they kept coming like cultists that had drunk the Kool-Aid. A few rattled a croak, but most stayed silent. A slow-moving, amphibious army.

I walked up to them and nudged the foremost frog with my boot, trying to encourage it to move off in another direction. To my surprise it began to inflate, stretching to the size and shape of a softball before it lifted its feet, one by one and…

…achieved lift-off.

Don’t let it touch your skin! Bert ‘shouted’. They’re extremely toxic to humans!

Now he tells me. I easily sidestepped away from the frog and watched as it slowly paddled its feet, altering course to follow. At that speed I was in no danger.

Unless I was overrun.

Which was looking more and more probable. A few seconds after their leader made its bid for aerial glory, it was joined by its platoon. The air was soon filled with lethal orange blobs, bobbing towards me like I was on a low-powered vacuum.

Dodging amphibians suddenly became a lot more difficult. They steadily surrounded me, aiming themselves at my face and hands in a suspiciously directed attack.

I don’t know how he’s done it, but I’m sure Kalanoro is behind this somehow.

Gunga just looked confused about the whole proceedings. She clearly wanted to help, but all her programmed instincts told her to avoid poisonous food.

Much though it pained me, I was going to have to go on the offensive. But not with an aural strike. While studying up on my bardic character, I had learned that snakes weren’t the only animals to lack sensitive hearing. Similar to some humans, frogs only heard what they needed to hear—which was mostly other frogs during the mating season. They filtered out all other noises.

So it was Mr. Stick to the rescue. Which worked for a short time. But after a few half-hearted taps that merely sent them bobbing away temporarily, I found that I had no choice but to use lethal force. The determined pedalling of their webbed feet told me that they had a set course and they weren’t going to diverge from it until either the frog or I was dead.

The first strike sent an amphibian tumbling limply through the air before it smashed into the unyielding expanse of a baobab trunk.

You have killed: a Tomato Frog! (Lvl 5)

Reward: 3 XP!

The second strike was high and slightly off-centre as a smaller, less encumbered orange blur got all too close to my nose before I clipped it with the edge of my handle.

You have killed: a Tomato Frog! (Lvl 4)

Reward: 2 XP!

More drifted in. Strike number three took out four frogs clumped unwisely together in their own aerial squadron. And the rest just kept coming closer. At this rate it wouldn’t be long before one slipped past me and landed. The odds were clearly not in my favour.

So it was with relief that I saw Gunga step in, her beak annihilating a small frog that had been aiming for my neck with the persistence of a blowfly scenting carrion.

With Gunga’s help the army was quickly routed, with a significant amount ribbeting their way down her throat. I accounted for around a third of the total casualties, and happily remained untouched by froggy hand. No prince for me.

I got to feel a brief moment of relief before Gunga stumbled beside me, one of her legs collapsing as she hack-rattled in pain. The other quickly followed.

“Gunga?” I fell to my knees, petting her side feathers anxiously. “Are you okay?” A fine layer of froth had appeared at the base of her beak, and her eyelids flickered white—definite signs she was not okay.

“What’s going on, Bert? Talk to me!”

The frogs are not just…lethal to humans. I had to—

I realised what the AI had done before he even finished speaking. “You used your freaky mojo to make Gunga eat the frogs, knowing they would poison her, didn’t you? How could you?”

It was…either her or you.

A lump rose in my throat. It was twistedly analogous to what Gunga was suffering.

Besides…I think I can…

Two seconds later Gunga heaved herself to her feet, staggering in the direction of the pond where she scooped up water with her beak and lifted her head to let it trickle down her throat. Like she’d eaten something spicy.

I rose and staggered after her, relief making my legs weak.

“Bert, what did you do?”

I tweaked the parameters of her stats to include Gluttonous Compactor. It’s a skill that allows her to eat anything organic. Bert sounded guilty, like a boy who’d done something bad that he needed to justify. She was on the verge of achieving the ability even without my interference.

“I don’t doubt it.” I smiled. “Want to level me up?”

No!

“Pweeease?” I whined. “I’m only an itsy-bitsy few points away from becoming better able to compete in this environment. Maybe if I’d had the Megahertz ability I could’ve controlled the pitch of my voice enough to reach those frogs on the right wavelength. I could’ve sung them away without having to kill them!”

I have interfered enough. If the administrators find out…

They would delete his program and format the remains until he was eradicated, like a spiked herb grinder crunching up plant material. Over and over and over again. Then once more just to make sure he was gone.

Thanks for that visual.

“Anything for a friend.”

Hrrumph.

——

That night I jerked awake to the sound of an unearthly shriek. A sound of anger and pain that rode the line between human and animal.

What was that?

Not presently of concern, Bert reassured me. Go back to sleep.

So I buried myself back into the fluffy depths of Gunga’s feathers until my heart settled enough to return to dreamland.

The neighbours in this place were insane.