1

The slap across the face had done wonders for Miguel. It pulled him out of the trance. In that brief period of cognition, he cast Defense Buff. The system informed him it would only run at 50%. He launched it nonetheless. 50% was better than nothing. He could feel the tug of the spell as it sought to lure him in again.

Miguel sighed, realizing what he had to do but hating the idea. He equipped his baselard sword and grasped it with his right hand. He wrapped his left palm around the blade and squeezed. The sharp metal sliced through his skin and blood started dripping down the sword. But the idea worked. The pain overshadowed the effects of the spell, keeping him lucid and aware. He looked around.

Brett was waking Emma, but Harper hadn’t been attended to. She was propped against a tree trunk, her legs splayed out on the grass. He ran to her and dropped his sword. “Hasta,” he shouted, shaking her, “Hasta, you have to fight the spell. Wake up!” She wasn’t responding. Miguel shook her more violently. “Baby, wake up!” he screamed.

Her eyes remained vacant. “Megan… Megan…” she murmured.

Feeling powerless, he settled her back against the tree and stood up. I must find the spell caster, he thought. His eyes squinted as he scanned the grove, but nothing stood out. Miguel could feel the spell pull at him and squeezed harder on the blade. Blood ran down his left arm. He struggled to concentrate, searching the area again. Whatever was attacking them remained hidden.

Two arrows zipped through the orchard from behind a cluster of trees. The first cut through Janna’s thigh as she healed Jordan. She collapsed, clutching her leg and screaming in pain. The second arrow pierced Harper’s chest. She yowled softly, but her eyes remained glazed over.

Miguel watched in horror as the front of her armor turned crimson. “No!” he cried, kneeling beside her. “Baby, wake up.” Tears started running down his face. Fuck! I can’t even check her status or HP! He unbuttoned the top of her armor and spread the flaps apart. Blood trickled from the wound down her chest. Defense buff! Run it on her! It might wake her up! He cast the spell. Blue light cascaded over her body. Miguel reared back and slapped her face.

Harper’s pupils focused. “Ow, that hurts,” she murmured.

“Healer! I need a healer over here,” he shouted.

A moment later, Brett appeared at his side. “Oh, shit, this is bad,” the nurse said gravely as he dropped to his knees.

“I know, I know. Did it strike her heart?”

Brett shook his head. “If it did, she’d be dead right now. But it could’ve gone through one of her lungs, and that can still be fatal.” Blood started flowing from Harper’s mouth and that confirmed it for Brett. It had, indeed, punctured her lung.

“What do we do?” Miguel exclaimed. “What do we do?”

Brett looked uncertain and overwhelmed. “Well, back on earth, we would take her right into surgery, but…” He stopped talking, his eyes wide and his face pale.

“Come on, Brett! What do we do?”

The healer regrouped and regained some composure. He swallowed. “We have to pull the arrow out,” he said with conviction.

Harper was unresponsive again, and her eyes were closing. In the background, they heard someone scream as more arrows whiffed through the air. Brett examined the arrow and saw that it didn’t have any fletching. “Lean her forward. We need to pull that thing out from her back.”

The two men nudged her forward. Miguel saw the arrow point sticking out of her back and a large bloodstain spreading on her armor. Damn it, why didn’t we receive better armor for this fucking game!? he thought angrily. He looked up at Brett, worried.

“Trust me,” the healer said calmly and turned her body slightly. “After I pull the arrow, press your hand firmly against both her chest and her back. Lean her against the tree. And don’t be shocked. You’re going to see more blood.” Brett clutched the arrow, just below the sharp end, and yanked it out.

Harper woke up with a start and coughed out more blood. As Miguel pressed his hands on both sides of her torso, blood gushed through his fingers. Her skin felt damp and cold. He peered at Brett desperately.

“I know,” the healer said, getting ready to cast Basic Heal.

He wielded the spell and, at the same time, another blue healing spell touched down on her chest.

Miguel glanced over his left shoulder and saw Janna twenty feet away. She was lying on the ground, leaning away from her injury, with her arm raised. Double-heal! Miguel telepathed. Thanks, Janna!

He turned back to Harper. She was unconscious again, and the blood from her chest wound continued to trickle through his fingers. “Is she going to die?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Brett replied softly as he sent another Basic Heal to Harper.

Janna sent her spell again, as well. Miguel looked back at Janna and studied her face. It told him everything he needed to know. Harper was still in mortal danger.

2

After being roused by Zack, Damon saw Janna healing Jordan. He staggered to his feet and searched the orchard for the enemy. A moment later, an arrow sped through the grove and pierced Janna’s right thigh. She crashed heavily to the ground, but to her credit she remained undeterred, pulling the arrow from her leg while sending healing spells to Jordan.

Standing in the middle of the orchard, Damon spun around, trying to locate the enemy. But all he ended up doing was making himself dizzy. Damn it, that was a stupid thing to do, he thought. He felt drunk, a sensation he hadn’t known for over ten years. As he fought off the effects of the dizziness, he saw Miguel cast Defense Buff for himself.

Can I do that? he wondered. Damon checked. He had the spell, but his MPR of .32 per second couldn’t cover the .75 to run the spell. He saw Miguel’s next move. The mage cut his hand against his sword.

That I can do!

Damon equipped his gladius and carved a shallow incision across his thigh. The pain helped him concentrate, but he still wanted the defense spell. He tried to recall which members had leveled up significantly. Emma! She killed all those snakes! He staggered drunkenly over to her. Having just been awakened by Brett, she was leaning against a tree, trying to get reoriented. “Emma,” Damon slurred, “do… do you have enough mana ree… regeneration… to run Defense Buff on… both of us?”

As she moved from the tree to face Damon, an arrow zipped past where her head had been a moment before. It boinged harmlessly into the tree. Belatedly, Emma ducked.

Damon spun around, trying to determine where the arrow had arrived from. But there was nothing to see. He faced Emma again and noticed that the enchantment spell was slowing her reactions. She was crouching near the base of the tree and hadn’t pulled up her stats yet.

Another arrow flew by. Damon heard Angie scream. He looked over and saw the projectile sticking out of her stomach. Fuck! “Emma, your stats!” he barked.

Emma checked her numbers and confirmed she had enough MPR to run the spell twice. Soon, the blue light was radiating over their bodies.

“Thanks, Emma,” he said, “and sorry for this.” Before she could respond, he slid his blade across her thigh. She screamed and cursed at him, but Damon knew he had to keep her alert. The Defense Buff, along with his own wound, cleared his head. He told Emma to stay low and looked around the orchard once more. Brett and Miguel were kneeling beside Harper, who was in terrible shape. The two men were treating her. Damon didn’t think he could help.

He ran to Angie. Her wound was on the side of her body and not deep. He asked what her MPR was (it was 1.78) and told her to run Basic Heal and Defense Buff on herself.

Ethan shouted that the monsters were using camouflage and told the team to strike the trees. Damon searched around the orchard. God damn, that’s an awful lot of trees to swing a sword at, he thought. There must be a better way to root them out. He paused. Acid fly! We can use acid fly! He rushed back to Emma, who had equipped her bow. “Do you have enough MPR to run Acid Fly along with the two Defense Buffs?” he asked.

She checked and shook her head. “No, each spell runs on .75 and my mana regen sits at 1.88.”

“Emma, who else might have a high regen?”

She scanned the area and spotted Jordan. He was just getting up from the ground, rubbing his almost fully healed shoulder. “Jordan,” she said, “he’s at level 11.”

Damon dashed to him. “You and me. We’re gonna take down these monsters!”

Jordan glanced at him, confused. “We are?” he asked, looking around the grove. “Where are they?”

“We’re gonna find them. What is your MPR?”

“1.28.”

Damon looked to the sky with an expression of gratitude. “Beautiful! Call up Acid Fly.” Jordan used both arms to combine Firefly and Acid Reflux. The two spells formed into the grotesque Acid Fly. It squealed and snorted. Acid dripped from its tip. Jordan guided it to a safe spot and asked Damon what to do next.

“Stay behind me and start maneuvering it into the trees. If a monster is camouflaged within the tree, it will jump out. Start there.” Damon pointed at where arrows had been shot from. “We’ll go clockwise, hitting the trees three rows deep,” he said.

Jordan manipulated the oversized fly to the first tree while Damon switched to his battle axe. The fly bumped into the tree, leaving purple acid bubbling on the bark.

Jordan looked at Damon doubtfully.

“Keep going,” the orc said grimly.

The fly hovered to the next tree and had the same result. Jordan sighed and tried two more trees. As he guided the fly to the next tree, he turned to Damon. “Man, this is a waste of ti—”

“REEEEEEEEKKKKKKK!” The creature jumped from the trunk of the tree.

Damon raised his axe.

The monster slashed at Jordan’s ankle with its tentacle. He dropped to the ground and the acid fly spun out erratically.

Damon swung his axe like a lumberjack, splitting the monster down the middle.

It snarled at him. A viscous blue liquid discharged from the monster’s two halves, which leaned at opposite angles, but remained connected at its base. With the monster injured, the Creature Description details appeared.

DRYAD (Level 6)

HP: 78

MP: 51

STRENGTH: 12

CONSTITUTION: 7

DEXTERITY: 5

INTELLIGENCE: 5

WISDOM: 19

XP: 48

DESCRIPTION: Shapeshifting forest nymph with powerful mental abilities.

With the two sections of its body canting away from its center, the Dryad shuffled toward them. Behind it, on adjacent trees, two more Dryads dislodged from the bark.

They’re coming to help it, he thought. He drove his axe between halved portions. The first Dryad split completely in two. The monster screeched and an Epiphany cloud ascended from its body.

The other two Dryads rushed in and seized its lifeless carcass with their splintery tentacles. “You will pay,” one Dryad hissed. The monsters whipped their claws and Jordan, who’d just gotten up from the earlier takedown, was struck in the legs. He slammed to the ground again. “Oh, for the love of…” Jordan exclaimed.

Damon was struck too, but the monsters’ sharp claws bounced off his plate armor. “Come on!” he roared. The Dryads advanced on him. He lunged forward, driving his axe into the closest one. The Dryad cracked into two planks of timber like the previous mob. As Damon pulled his axe from the injured Dryad, Jordan jumped up and hurled Acid Fly at the second monster, warding it off.

Damon swung his axe again, killing the injured Dryad. Behind them, he could hear Janna calling their names desperately, but he couldn’t turn away from the battle just yet. He faced the third Dryad and swung his axe horizontally this time.

The creature’s tentacles grasped the handle of his axe, halting its swing, but Damon was too powerful for the Dryad. He yanked his axe away. The third Dryad’s wooden claws stayed wrapped around the handle and detached from its tentacles. The claws rattled down the shaft like wooden chimes and bounced against Damon’s hands. With a cry of disgust, Damon swung his blade across again, decapitating the Dryad. Its head bounced on the grass as its body fell over with a heavy thunk sound.

The two men took a breath.

They heard Janna screaming again. They turned around. Janna lay on the ground, crying profusely and pointing to another area of the orchard.

She told them someone was dying.

3

They ran to Janna and looked to where she was pointing. Three Dryads had gathered fifty feet away from them, but one beast was twice the size of the others. That enormous beast was wrapping Zack and Ethan in its wooden tentacles as the other two Dryads circled in on them. Both orcs were bleeding from their necks and appeared to be catatonic. As Damon watched in horror, the smaller Dryads coiled their tentacles around the two orcs. Claw-like fingers pierced their skin, drawing even more blood.

The mother beast withdrew its tentacles. They fluttered in the air behind the giant. Below, the smaller Dryads’ bodies transformed as their appendages weaved and braided together. They spun together, dissolving into one body and engulfing the orcs. Their wooden frames became one swollen mass in the shape of an egg. The Dryad-egg churned Zack’s and Ethan’s bodies with them, and the orcs disappeared under the spinning wood.

That broke Damon’s paralysis. He screamed, running for the monsters at full speed. As he raced forward, he watched the orcs’ heads sink below the rim of the Dryad-egg. Oh my god, Zack, no! he thought desperately.

Damon had covered only half of the fifty-foot distance, and he couldn’t see their bodies anymore. As he charged for the mother beast and her brood, he was overcome with feelings of anguish and regretted asking Zack to join the mission. The two Marines had been friends for years. Damon was almost there now. He raised his axe, hoping the blow wouldn’t harm Zack or Ethan. He jumped and swung the axe.

Before the blade could do any damage, the axe’s shaft was pulled from his hands. He looked up and saw the mother beast coiling its tentacles around the weapon. Its blue eyes glowed at him. The monster grinned before hurtling the weapon over the trees. Long, needle-like thorns sprouted from its tentacles as it reached for Damon. Those thorns pierced his ankles, ripping his skin and punching through his ligaments. The mother Dryad swept him up from the ground and flipped him upside-down. Its sharp tentacles coiled around Damon’s legs as he was lifted high above the wooden egg.

As he struggled, Damon looked toward the ground and saw Ethan and Zack staring up from below the revolving rim of the egg. Their eyes were white and blind.

The mother’s thorns punched through Damon’s plate armor, and then it spoke to him. “You become children too,” it croaked in a cloud of sawdust. The beast spun him and lowered his body toward the egg. As the world around him rotated wildly, Damon tried to find Angie in the orchard, but he couldn’t. He looked at the two orcs, swallowed in the egg. The thorns had punctured their bodies and armor too. Blood leaked out from their many wounds, only to be immediately absorbed by the porous wood.

Damon’s vision blurred, and he realized dimly that the thorns had poisoned him. His eyes rolled up in his head. He could still smell the fresh fruit as the mother beast lowered him into the waiting brood.

4

Miguel knew Harper was dead. Tears streaked down his cheeks, unabated.

Brett and Janna kept using Basic Heal, but the spells were ineffective. Harper remained unresponsive, pale and cold. Her chest wound was partially healed, and the bleeding had stopped, but he could see that she’d lost too much blood to survive.

And it was frustrating not being able to view her hit points or even check her status.

Miguel felt numb as he staggered slowly through the pandemonium which surrounded him. It seemed distant and Miguel didn’t care. Nothing was important anymore. His heart was broken. He reflected on how unprepared they were for the expedition. And it wasn’t even the newbies’ fault. They were outmatched by the game. “Fucking Walker,” he muttered as his frantic teammates bustled around him. The Cloud Nine operations director had to have known they didn’t have a chance against the realm’s difficulty level and steep learning curve.

That fucker, Walker.

Miguel planned on killing him when they got back. Somehow, some way, he was going to make him pay for what had happened to Harper. He turned his Defense Buff off. Let them take me, he thought miserably, I don’t care. He could feel the enchantment spell’s mental tug, but it was weaker. He imagined some of the casters had been killed. Still, he felt enough of it, and he welcomed the intoxicating feeling it delivered. His vision blurred, and he could hear the choral music again. Yes, bring it on, he thought.

His left hand was bleeding, but that pain couldn’t break through his stronger emotions of apathy, sadness, and loss. He looked around the orchard. Harper, Janna, and Angie were all down. The orcs were nowhere to be found. They were probably dead. Whatever monster’s lair they had walked into, it was too much for them.

He saw Jordan running toward him. It reminded Miguel of a movie playing in slow motion. Miguel watched him apathetically. He didn’t want anyone interfering with the stupefied lull he was experiencing.

And, of course, that was when the movie sped up, and Jordan was on him. He grabbed Miguel’s shoulders. “You have to save Damon!” he shouted through Miguel’s nirvana.

The mage jerked his right arm, breaking Jordan’s hold. “Leave me alone.” He twisted away from his teammate. Jordan was screaming at him. More words, he thought. I’m not listening. Miguel felt a hand clutch his shoulder and whirl him around. Jordan slapped him using the thick, soft pads of a Grimalkin.

At least he retracted his claws, Miguel thought. “I said leave me the fuck alone!” He roared.

Jordan cast Defense Buff onto the mage.

Miguel complained about it bitterly.

With a roundhouse swing, Jordan punched Miguel, knocking him to the ground. As the mage lay in the dirt with the effects of the Dryad spell clearing, Jordan bent down and screamed at him. “Ethan, Damon, and Zack are all fucking dying! You’re one of the leaders of this group, aren’t you? Get the fuck off your ass and do something!”

Miguel got back up, rubbing his sore jaw. The Dryad spell effects were lessening because of the punch and the Defense Buff, but the tears were still streaming, involuntarily, down his swelling face. “Okay, okay, what?” he asked.

Jordan pointed at a grove fifty feet away. Miguel saw a massive brown creature with what looked like an egg in front of it. The beast’s blue eyes blazed. Miguel also identified two pairs of blue eyes spinning within the churning egg. He didn’t see Zack or Ethan, but Damon was being lifted into the air by the large beast.

Miguel had to make a decision quickly. He briefly considered using one of the acid spells but decided on the new combo instead. He cast Fire Scorch with his right hand and Firefly with his bleeding left hand. The two spells converged over his head and created the Fire Bullet charge. Miguel received a notification that the spell was affected by the 50% debuff from the Dryad’s spell. It was going to take twice as long to charge. He cursed, knowing he needed a full charge. He walked toward the beast and her egg, holding the charge above his head as his mana slowly dwindled.

Damon’s prone body was being lowered into the egg.

Miguel checked his mana. He had 29 of his 62 points left.

The mother Dryad saw him approaching and hissed at him. It flung Damon’s body across the grove to the east side of the orchard. Miguel winced as he heard the metallic crash of Damon’s armor. He checked his mana. 15 more points to go. Now within twenty feet of the mother beast, he observed the splintered braids of its offspring spinning into the egg.

“Let us feed to make children,” the monster croaked sinisterly, “and I will spare rest of your tribe!”

Miguel was out of mana now. He gazed at the flaming ball, which hovered above his head, and thought of Harper. He glared back at the mother Dryad. “Fuck you,” he said resentfully. He thrust his arms forward, aiming for the giant and the top of her egg.

The mother beast threw its tentacles in front of the blast. The fireball ricocheted downward and plowed into the egg. The branches exploded and landed as far as one hundred feet away from the collision. Miguel saw a pair of blue eyeballs, connected by a half-flesh, half-wooden membrane, land at his feet. He peered down at the Dryad’s eyeballs. Flames licked at their gelatinous structure and fibrous tissue.

The mage raised his boot and stomped the eyeballs. He heard a wet squelch sound as blue liquid splattered across the dirt. Then he looked up and spotted Zack and Ethan lying in a bloody heap at the mother’s base. Fire was spreading inside a hole punched through the monster’s side, but it was still alive. Its Creature Description details appeared.

DRYOPE (Level 29)

HP: 420

MP: 165

STRENGTH: 64

CONSTITUTION: 42

DEXTERITY: 31

INTELLIGENCE: 16

WISDOM: 98

XP: 257

DESC: Theban shapeshifting, boss-level, spawner of forest nymphs.

The Dryope’s cobalt eyes glared at him through thin wooden slits as blue liquid spilled from the hole in its torso.

Miguel took a step back. Low on mana, he equipped his baselard.

The beast glowered at the young mage and emitted a deep, constant growl. “Uuuuuuurrrrrrrr… you have killed tribe,” the beast said, shuddering as it spoke. “You… will… die… too!” The Dryope whipped its tentacles.

Miguel covered his eyes, expecting the worst. But the beast reached for the treetops. It wrapped its tentacles around the limbs and propelled itself above the treeline. Its legs, which looked like tree roots, joined tightly, making the beast more aerodynamic as it jettisoned into the sky. As it descended back onto the treetops, the Dryope’s roots fanned out and clutched the tree limbs. Miguel watched from the ground below as the mother beast raced over the trees toward the forest, like a frog skipping on a pond. As he lost sight of the monster, a hand fell on his shoulder and he jumped. Miguel spun around, clutching his sword.

Brett didn’t even flinch. He was smiling. “Harper is going to make it,” he said proudly.