1

While Harper’s party headed west, Damon’s team spread out and advanced further into the eastern forest, using the same glow spells to help them with the search. Vlad walked on the left side of the row with Damon and Angie. She looked at the Russian and wondered why he had chosen to be a mage. He was built like a truck, and she thought he was better suited to being an orc. “So why did Nevan and his daughter get roped into doing this?” Angie asked, with no pun intended.

Vlad gazed at her. “Like I said, day tink we can fix dis world.”

“Can you?” Damon asked.

The Russian laughed bitterly. “Quantum computing? You know how unstable dat is?” Vlad ran his hand through his thick hair. “Day also punish Nevan and his kid for his involvement in dis mess.” The five members on that side of the forest stopped. They stared at the Russian, unsure if he was being serious. Vlad spat on the ground. “Dis true. He was in wid Jake and Noel. Day were da guys who send Harris in.”

“So, Nevan’s the reason we’re stuck in here?” Angie asked, dumbfounded by the revelation.

Vlad shrugged. “Maybe if you look at it dat way, but I would not want to be him right now.”

They got moving again and hurried to catch up with the right side of the row. Those members of the team had kept walking during the discussion.

Zahra turned to Jordan. “Why didn’t they stop for us?”

“Don’t know,” he replied absently. The human healer frowned at Jordan, annoyed by his apathy. Jordan had been uncharacteristically quiet—not that Zahra would have known—since the dive into the lake. She was unaware that the veteran Grimalkin hunter had lost his brother the day before in the final boss battle. She also wouldn’t have known that he was preoccupied, worrying about Emma, who was on the other side of that little world.

2

On the far-right side of Damon’s group, Armando led Rachel, Lorenzo, Keshon, and Silo through the woods. The four members had naturally ceded the leadership to the Marine officer. The orc had accepted the role unconsciously.

Armando had been raised as an only child to a single mom who struggled to make ends meet. As a result, he had developed a strong work ethic early, trying to pick up the slack for his mother. He turned to Rachel, who was eight feet away. “How are you feeling?”

The slim human healer glanced back at him, puzzled by his question for a moment. Then realization bloomed in her green eyes. “Oh, I’m alright now.” She smiled. “It was just a bit of a shock hearing about all those people.”

The orc muttered his agreement, and they were quiet for a few minutes, slashing through a thick stretch of ferns. He glanced at Rachel in the ambient glow from the spells. With her long, dark blonde hair and ivory complexion, Armando thought she looked out of place for such a dangerous mission. “You said that they recruited you internally, right?” he asked.

She gazed at him. “Yeah, I know someone at Cloud Nine and he knew I’d be interested.”

Armando looked at her quizzically.

Rachel shrugged. “I’m a zoologist and have studied animal sciences and biology all my life.” She laughed softly. “I couldn’t pass up the chance to encounter a new species.”

Armando grunted. “Do you still feel that way after being attacked in the lake?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

He paused and looked at the human healer to make sure she was serious. Rachel hacked at the foliage with her sword and exaggerated a vicious growl. Then she grinned at him, and her green eyes gleamed in the darkness. The orc laughed, shaking his head, and they continued north into the forest.

3

Damon had positioned Silo at the very end of the row, both to disperse the placement of the orcs and because he’d already sensed that most of the team didn’t like him. This wasn’t lost on the British gaming champion. Most people regarded Silo as brash, cocky, and obnoxious. Back home, he had few friends, and he made no attempts to remedy that situation. The Brit was proud that he lived by his own rules, and in the highly competitive world of online gaming, he had made his mark.

Fuck the blokes if they can’t take a joke, Silo thought. Still, Vlad was as bold and plucky as he was, yet the team seemed to be more welcoming towards the Russian. Silo couldn’t figure that one out. He had assumed that he and Harper would establish some kind of camaraderie based on their gaming history, but she’d been rude to him from the very outset. Fuck her. I don’t need that stuck-up bitch anyway.

Silo swung his gladius sword through the thicket of vegetation and searched diligently for any traces of DNA. He earnestly wanted to be the one to make the discovery and be the hero.

“You’re really giving this search a lot of gusto.”

Silo looked up towards the voice. It was Keshon, the Grimalkin healer with the dreadlocks. He had taken an instant dislike to her touchy-feely approach to the other teammates, wanting to be the mother hen. He glared at her. “Isn’t that what we’re all supposed to be doing?” he asked judgmentally.

Keshon laughed, unperturbed. “I’m trying to give you a compliment.”

The orc sneered. “I don’t need any.”

She raised her hands and said no more.

Looking to ignore Keshon, Silo called over to the next member in the row, Lorenzo. “Heard about the fisticuffs you had with the Russian, mate.”

Lorenzo regarded Silo suspiciously. “Who told you that?”

The orc laughed. “Actually, it was Vlad himself. He said he clocked you pretty good. Was kinda proud of it.” Silo grinned at the bushy-haired Grimalkin hunter, knowing he was rubbing salt in the wound.

“Well, Vlad should learn to keep his mouth shut,” Lorenzo replied.

The British orc shrugged and kept on grinning.

Lorenzo peeked over at Armando, who looked preoccupied with Rachel. “You know that’s not his real name.” Silo and Keshon glanced at the Italian curiously. “Yeah, Vlad is short for Vladimir Dubrovsky,” Lorenzo continued. “I knew him a bit from my dealings with Cloud Nine. His nickname was VD.”

Silo guffawed. “You mean like the disease that makes your knob fall off?”

The intelligence officer smiled spitefully. “The same. You see, Vlad—er, VD—is a heavy drinker, and was frequently known to bring ladies back to the C9 towers to fuck them.”

This time, Silo laughed out loud. “You’re kidding, right, mate?”

The Italian rubbed his swollen jaw. “I kid you not. And let’s just say his taste in women isn’t—”

Keshon interjected. “I really don’t think tha—” But she was interrupted by Silo, who howled with laughter. The discussion finally caught Armando’s attention. Upon learning what they were discussing, he told the boys to knock it off, but the damage was already done.

4

The eastern team foraged through the woods for another hour, having their discussions in small pockets. Damon watched the group dynamic unfold with concern, knowing that the team wasn’t gelling as he had hoped. He wondered if Harper’s group was doing any better. Aside from the foot they’d retrieved from the tree, they found no more human traces. He knew that would change further ahead, where a lot of the abandoned humans had succumbed to the realm’s monsters. He gazed at Angie, who walked a few feet away. “Ang, what are we going to do if we go back to Cloud Nine with just the foot?”

Angie peered over her right shoulder and saw that the rest of the group was preoccupied. She turned back to her man. “You know we’re not going to find much,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. She gazed over her shoulder again. “Personally, I don’t think they will ever allow us back. If we make it out of here, it will have to be from our doing.”

Damon stared at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

Angie gazed at the team leader like she was about to disclose a secret. “The way this world is breaking down and changing, I think—no, I hope—that it will somehow blur the line between the two realities, the realms and the real world back home. That it might create an opening for us.” She shook her head. “I know that sounds crazy and you know how I’m an x’s and o’s girl, but I have this intuition that it may be possible. That somehow, we will find a way out.”

Damon grunted. “Well, you had that feeling about the villagers, and that, unfortunately, was right on.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I’ve had a few intuitions in here and they have all turned out.”

Damon walked over to her and squeezed her hand. She smiled but said nothing. They became quiet as they worked their way forward, listening to the conversations of the other members. They passed through another mile of forest before Damon saw a light one hundred yards ahead. He caught the attention of the group. “Turn off those glow spells,” he whispered.

They silently watched the orange light in the woods.

“I think it’s a campfire,” Damon whispered. They advanced slowly and, after a few yards, confirmed that it was a fire. As they got closer, the orc general recognized the creatures huddled around the flames. “More goblins,” he muttered, remembering the mobs that had attacked his team on the first night. On the perimeter of the goblin camp, barely illuminated by the firelight, were a row of small huts.

“It’s a good thing they didn’t see our lights,” Angie commented.

Damon nodded, then turned to address the ten-person unit.

5

“Why do we even have to attack them?” Keshon asked in a hushed tone. “Why don’t we just leave them alone?”

Damon passed a glance at Angie, and a smile crept on the corner of his mouth. “Because you’ll need their experience points, and we can use their huts for the night.”

Keshon was about to say more, then thought better of it.

“What the hell do you wanna do?” Silo hissed. “Play tiddlywinks with them?”

“Shut up, Silo,” Damon growled. He organized the group based on a tank formation the veterans had adopted days before, positioning Armando, Silo, and himself at the very front. The hunters—Angie, Jordan, and Lorenzo—stayed close to the orc line but spread out to the sides to accommodate their aerial weapons.

“Why put me so far in da back?” Vlad complained after being positioned behind the hunters.

“You’re a mage,” Angie whispered. “You have long-range spells. Just make sure you have a clear shot and don’t hit one of us.”

“I stick wid dis,” the Russian replied as he equipped his baselard. He wasn’t alone. The other members stuck with their swords, too, except for the healers of the group. Zahra, Rachel, and Keshon awkwardly held on to their long trilance strusses.

“Put those away,” Damon hissed. “Use the push daggers instead, but stay back from the fray.”

They approached slowly and silently. The red glow from the flames flickered throughout the encampment, revealing seven goblins. The creatures had stationed four more as sentries on the outskirts of the camp. Those mobs brandished wooden spears.

The goblins were speaking an unintelligible language as they chewed on the meat of what looked like a cow. They had placed the carcass in the fire. It had burned some of the flesh to a blackened crisp while other areas remained raw. The goblins, who pulled strips off with their thin fingers, didn’t seem to care.

Once Damon’s group were within thirty meters of the camp, each member’s Creature Description details appeared.

GRASS GOBLIN (Level 4)

HP: 81

MP: 0

STRENGTH: 8

CONSTITUTION: 8

DEXTERITY: 11

INTELLIGENCE: 1

WISDOM: 20

XP: 39

DESCRIPTION: Resilient and fast humanoid race.

Damon noticed the huts which were constructed from compacted mud and thick wooden branches or limbs. “There may be more of them inside,” he whispered to the members. They advanced a couple more feet and then Keshon stepped on a dry branch, producing a loud pop. The pale gray eyes of the goblins turned in their direction.

One goblin screeched, “Tock!” and the mobs near the fire stood up and prepared to defend the camp.

Damon pistoned his arm forward and shouted, “Go!”

6

Damon ran with the other orcs into the encampment, but he had no intentions of attacking unless it was absolutely necessary. He wanted the rookies to get all the experience points.

The sentries saw them first and chucked their spears, but their aim faltered with the surprise attack, and their weapons clanked harmlessly off the teammates’ armor. While Armando chopped down two goblins almost immediately, Silo got jumped by one that had just exited a hut. It clung to his back and dug its long nails into the Brit’s forehead. Damon watched with interest while the Brit flailed, trying to grasp the attacking mob. He also noticed that none of the other members came to Silo’s aid, and that disappointed him greatly.

Damon strode past the fire and pulled the monster off his back. He slammed it down on the ground and yelled at Silo, “Now finish it off!”

The orc recruit didn’t hesitate, driving his gladius through the goblin’s chest. “Take that, you fuckin’ grimy lizard!” He screeched in his high-pitched tone. He wiped the blood from his forehead and did a three-sixty, looking for the next attacker, then staggered from the dizziness he had induced.

Damon shook his head and walked back to the perimeter of the camp, observing the rest of the battle as it unfolded. Six goblins lay dead on the ground, but there were still nine live ones. More came out of the huts, he thought. However, they didn’t pose much of a threat to the rookies, who were handling the challenge admirably.

Vlad cast a Battering Ram spell at the largest goblin. Seven vines shot out from his hand and entwined at the last moment. The projectile blew the mob off its feet. The mage rushed to the downed goblin and thrust his baselard into its torso. “Zhopu porvu margala vikoliu!” he shouted. Damon chuckled, wishing Zack was around to see the Russian’s antics.

In the end, most of the rookies killed at least one goblin. Even Zahra, the healer, snuck up behind one and drove her push dagger through the back of its head. It twitched and performed a macabre dance before dropping like a rock.

But she was the only healer who was active in the battle. Rachel and Keshon stayed on the outskirts, casting Mana Heal on Silo. With only a few left, Damon and Armando disabled two goblins to give those healers a chance to gain the XP. A familiar scene played out. Rachel and Keshon initially refused to kill the creatures. Damon lost his temper and yelled at them, but it was Angie who eventually convinced them. “The healer from our last group was too conscientious for this too,” she told them, “and now she’s dead.”