[Widow’s Children] was an instance I’d have to avoid for awhile. At least, until the quest updated to give me a time limit. It hadn’t had one upon creation but eventually the game may feel I was taking too long. That happened sometimes.

The reason for my avoidance, a carved tree full of evil ex-girlfriend’s faces which sat rooted right in the middle of [Widow’s Children]. It’d also looked war torn and half broken. The battlefield I’d left behind as Friday the 12th hadn’t killed it off though. Leave it to Continue Online to ensure my failed relationships hung around, immortalized in a boss monster’s bark.

The north had been full of tundra and wandering mammoths. There’d been dinosaur monsters that fought anything standing, making real trees scarce.

I’d spent two months of real-world time carving out small statues from broken shards of wood and handing them out to the villagers. They got cold resistances and bonuses to [Brawn] and [Toughness] which were vital to the Locals. I’d been happy, almost respected, then things went to shit. It was my fault for carving on a live tree in the first place. I’d been half mad, drunk beyond belief, and bitter after a girl I liked turned out to have twin boys.

My first words were the famous “I’d make a terrible father.” She expected a better response from me. I’d failed the test then promptly been slapped, shouted at, and dumped somewhere in the middle. We’d been doing good. I’d been sober in real life and the game world. She left, my resolve went with her, and so the tree was born.

Nem might end up the same way, but at least I knew she had a daughter up front. That’d given me a bit of time to adapt. I couldn’t fail to be a good father because Rose had grown up already. That counted.

We were two adults who might have a good time. Or we might not. I felt almost happy thinking about having another drink with a woman who knew what she wanted and couldn’t surprise me.

I whistled. The pack of dogs arrived, barking and tumbling over each other. My inventory had been emptied and I’d run out of treats.

“Down boys. Down. Ball. Chain, no biting. I only have one pair of clothes.” The girls let go of my ankles but continued bouncing around my body. The game fed me a vague impulse that the dogs were trying to get me to follow them.

I walked through the wilderness of my grove until reaching the chest high alter. A rolled-up note sat on the top with a little flower growing around it like a bow. On it was written, Almost had fun! Try against next weekend. I’ll be on Sunday night if you’re around.

I wiggled my nose then put the piece of paper away into inventory. It’d be nice to have a reminder that women liked me now and then, at least they did up until introducing me to their children. Rose played the game too, had her own issues, and liked to stab monsters. She also drank. Those were all wins in my book.

“Well,” I thumbed through my interface to see what my drinking buddies were up to. “Nem’s off. Johnny’s out scamming someone, Stone’s building a wall. Rose isn’t on. That leaves just us. You guys want to go for a hike?”

Sarge’s bark answered for all of them. We ventured off. I hid most of the game’s interface except for a map. The dogs kept trying to lead me into the wild unknown and I felt zero desire to go that far.

The game occasionally forced me to go places but for now my world had been limited. There was the player town, my grove which stretched on a small forever, a meandering river that went on even longer, and [Widow’s Children]. I didn’t need more than those places. Not even a pack of overly excited dogs could convince me otherwise.

Johnny hadn’t logged on. StoneMason’s character stayed on autopilot most days. He’d been building a solid wall so the towns folk would have a clear border. Sometimes players weren’t respectful of other people’s property, but I’d found any city that survived long enough did it’s best to keep the peace.

It helped that their trade line ran through the woods.

“You been eating well?”

Sarge barked. Sleepy yawned from behind us. I got the impression they were well fed but could always pack away more in their stomachs.

“Uh huh,” I said with a nod. “Well. It’s time for the weekly in game bath, so it’s to the river for me. Remember the river?”

Rose insisted on the bath. Apparently, I smelled like I’d been in nature too long. My nose had curled up and died a long time ago. Even the worst situations barely got a rise out of me anymore.

If I washed myself off, she’d promised the first round would be on her. That was worth stopping by and washing off. It helped mana too so I spent a lot of the time casting spells. There hadn’t been a good [Grime Off] ability in the [Druid] class, and my [Priest] ability [Cleansing Fire] hadn’t transferred over. Sitting in a quiet room for a week praying over my clothes and keeping them spotless, for a skill, didn’t appeal.

“Come on!”

Ball and Chain perked up. They were water dogs. Sleepy refused to move quickly because he hated getting wet. Sarge nipped him and he slowly got up and shuffled after us. He’d catch up eventually, Sleepy always did.

Trap had ventured into the wild unknown. Probably trying to bite a fantasy hedgehog to death.

“Trap! Come on. We’re going to go to the river. Maybe there’s some fish for you to chase.”

The dog didn’t show up despite Sarge’s commanding barks to gather. At least, that’s what [Animal Understanding] made his noises equal. I’d stopped questioning the ability after it ranked up twice more during a weekend hike. Apparently, the key to that skill was simply to assume the dogs were responding in human words and move on from there.

“Well. He’ll catch up, right?”

Sarge whimpered.

“You guys are always together, right? Or close enough. Must be weird to have brothers and sisters. I’m an only child. My parents didn’t want two.”

He snorted. Ball and Chain yipped then dashed ahead, getting lost in underbrush. They’d play around as we traveled over the dirt and through the woods. That’s how it always went. They moved at different paces sometimes, sometimes all together.

“I guess it was good. Dad probably would have gone insane if there’d been five of us. After mom left he had a hard enough time.”

Sarge tilted his head. I reached down to awkwardly scratch the overgrown puppy between his ears. He licked my hand we continued along a semi-worn path.

I liked the dogs. Despite my initial worry about having to care for them, they proved perfectly capable of handling themselves. Whether by virtue of their virtual natures or being cared for by Nem and StoneMason. Nature, nurture, maybe both were required.

“Yeah. Parents are a pain. I don’t normally talk about mine. Did you know my dad died when I was in the service? I’m older than him now. How weird is that?”

Sarge didn’t respond. I liked that.

“I don’t know how you guys put up with me babbling away here. It’s quiet enough and about the only thing making any noise is us. Maybe it’s because you don’t talk.”

Sarge dashed ahead and sat on a huge rock that poked out of the slope. He stared back at me and tilted his head. One ear perked up while the other flopped to the side. I never did figure out what breed they were, besides big. They reminded me of a strange mix between Bessette Hounds and Germen Shepherds.

“Too much talking?”

There were no feelings one way or the other from Sarge. Ball and Chain dashed from left to right, chasing after something small and fleeting. I let them have their fun and hoped whatever critter they’d been after escaped safely, but if it didn’t, then that was part of the process.

Nature did what it did. This was a game world and there’d always be more [Coo-Coo Rill]s somewhere. Part of me felt like that single thought should have somehow overturned the druid grove magic, but nothing popped up.

The rest of me believed that caring about nature in a video game should be accompanied by eye rolling. The whole situation made zero sense. No one should care about nature in a place that anything but natural.

I continued up the hill and stared down at the meandering river. The same one I’d laid in to teleport after.

“None of this is real.” The dogs lined up, all five of them and stared down with me. “But that is a beautiful view, right?”

Once, I’d dated a woman who loved going somewhere new every date. Our dinners were followed by visits to museums or art galleries. Once such visit had been to a three floor exhibit in New York that was all painted views of real world locations. They’d depicted this exact sort of scene. I’d never really seen them as more than smudges of paint.

I sort of got it now.

“You know, being a druid isn’t half bad if I can see a sight like this now and then. No people dying. Nobody bleeding because they put their fingers in a shredder. No bombs buried in the dirt or people shooting at me.” I waved at the river, not really expecting the dogs to care about my gesture but doing it out of habit. “Just a peaceful spot. Makes me wish I was poet.”

Sarge barked.

“Sorry, I’m being weird.”

Sarge barked again.

“Okay. Maybe all people are weird to you. I mean there’s StoneMason. He’s a giant baby. Nem’s made of green.” Sarge half barked, half whimpered. I frowned. “No. She’s a nice lady. You’re right. She’s just green. Like the trees.”

The lead dog sneezed.

“Johnny visits you guys right? Don’t tell anyone, but I think most of his money ends up feeding the poor. There’s a few player run orphanages that he slinks off to when no one’s looking.”

One of the dogs didn’t believe me. They liked Johnny, which meant something, but they liked everyone who fed them.

Ball and Chain sneezed.

“Allergies?

Their responses were muddled as the collective pack ventured down the hill toward the river. Sleepy immediately plopped down just out of the water’s range and promptly went to bed. Ball and Chain both ran into the water and stared down at a swimming victim, or possibly a rock. It was hard to tell.

I bathed. They played then eventually ran out of energy. After a bit I picked up a piece of wood and practiced carving away at the edges using a small knife Rose had gifted me. She had lots of them to spare.

Whittling took time and patience. It required looking at the wood to see which way the grain curved. My fingers were stiff from the freezing river water and the first few cuts were sloppy. I smoothed them out and made a mental note to find sanding paper on my next trip into town.

Continue Online’s version of modern supplies wasn’t perfect. Everything had a dated feel to it, but sanding paper had been around for ages in one form or another. On the prior Friday I’d used a bristle brush made from a dead beaver’s hairs. Though they didn’t call them beavers either.

I’d hadn’t carved wood in real life since boot camp. Those quiet nights where they were training us to sit on patrol and something needed to be done to pass the time. I’d taken to carving small bits of wood stolen on the day’s trek with a pocket knife.

It kept me calm.

I took the piece in my hands and thought it might vaguely be a woman’s silhouette, if I finished the valley between her legs and a bit of space up around the head. It wouldn’t make a good dog and certainly wasn’t a majestic hawk.

Hawks were hard. Their feathers could be sort of glazed over if the general curve was there. It takes finer tools than I had on hand to get proper beak lines. Maybe I could find some videos while at work and research better woodworking techniques.

“That’s got to be a perk. Your world,” my hand waved the knife as I explained to Sarge, “it’s got all sorts of stupid things we’ve forgotten how to do. Take this. Hardly anyone works with wood anymore. Trees are protected. Nearly everything manufactured in the last ten years has to be mostly recycled.”

They were unimpressed by my speech. Apparently, the state of trees in my world meant nothing to them. Or they didn’t understand. I sighed and went back to doing nothing special at all. If I had to chose between this and being drunk, being drunk might win, but I enjoyed sitting here in these beautiful surroundings.

“I think I figured out why I like it here so much. It’s absolutely nothing like the rest of my life.”

The dogs huffed.

“Don’t believe me? It’s not all forests and squirrels in my world. Not even undead to munch on. Dead maybe.”

The thought made me sick.

Sleepy yawned. He pawed at the ground in front of him and dug up grass then his head fell to the ground with a nearly audible thud. The other dogs weren’t that far behind him, half dozing in the relative safety of my grove.

I shook off my earlier flash and smiled, “A nap does sound good.”

The best perk of working with Nem on the grove was our combined races and Paths made it peaceful. Monsters wouldn’t spawn here unless a big disaster came our way. Or maybe a Traveler screwed around with us.

It’d be worse if one of my past problems caught up. I dreaded to think what would happen if the [Deadlands Tree of Woe] managed to into this grove. Without an [Inspection] skill I had no clue what its rank was, but since the darn tree followed me from one character to the next across [Arcadia], it had to be high.

I kept at the carving for a bit longer then set down the piece of wood. It looked nothing like a woman or the dogs. It had ended up a bit clunky around the edges and my one knife had too clunky a point to get definition lines etched into it.

“Not my finest work,” I mumbled.

The dogs snored their brains out. I logged out and stretched in real life then came back to find them still standing down by the river, united and barking uneasily. My statue was not in the same spot. A man sat on a tree that had been standing up perfectly when I’d left.

Rot hung off the edges of the tree. That bothered me because it meant this new person had been screwing around with my grove. It must have been fast acting magic of some sort to hit during my brief absence.

He had a large sack propped against the fallen log. The ground around that sack was fouler than the rest. In one hand he held my statue, in the other he had a repeater crossbow of some sort. It might have been an actual gun but those were pretty rare in Continue Online. Either way, it didn’t shoot rainbows or candy.

He set down my statue then plucked the lit cigar from his mouth. He licked at dry lips while throwing his cigar onto the ground. He pointed with the free hand and said, “You’re Friday.”

“Technically Friday is a weekday,” I answered dryly. It was actually a different date in game but trying to keep track of that system without a calendar drove me insane. So, today was certainly Friday. “And you’re littering. There’s a fine for that.”

There might be real fines for messing up the town. In this grove I’d probably need to enforce my own fines and that sounded annoying. I eyed the cigar until I felt sure it’d go out, and wouldn’t start a forest fire.

“You. You’re the Traveler known as Friday.”

His cigar still smoldered which distracted me. The weapon in his hand clicked as he lifted it up. I tore my gaze away from the discarded tobacco and wondered why the hell anyone would show up out of the blue, in my grove, searching for me.

Then I realized I’d claimed the [Legacy] for all other Fridays. Whatever crud they’d left behind was mine to deal with now. Which meant this would not go in a direction that I even remotely liked. It would end up somewhere cruddy and annoying. If the storyline of Friday’s past intended to catch up with me during my happy times, then I’d go down laughing then simply delete myself.

Sarge whimpered. The man scared him, I knew that, and they’d fought undead maids and butlers while chasing players out of the woods. These dogs weren’t the summoned versions that might survive whatever was thrown at them.

I tried again, “People have told me that I can’t be Friday. Fridays a day not a person.”

“You’re Friday,” he said a third time. He leveled a crossbow at me. The remaining dogs stood up to join Trap in a tired snarl. I put a hand out to try and keep them calm.

“Oh. You mean Doctor Friday. Or Priest Friday?”

“Travelers.” The man spit on the ground, making my designation sound like a curse word. “I mean the man who’s ran off and left the queen with a bastard child. The one who’s ruined the line of succession for two kingdoms. You’re that Friday, and doctor or not I’m here to collect your head.”

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a second cigar, and lit it, all with one hand. I found the action impressive, but it meant he knew fire magic of some sort. The bounty hunter, because that’s the only sort of person who’d come this far for me, then turned the sack upside down and shook until a tiny body, no more than a foot high at best, fell out.

I didn’t recognize the creature based on looks but knew who it must be because of my own play history. If the hunter was here about Friday the first, then that floating tiny bundle had to be from Friday the second. Honestly, I’d never seen a pixie outside of this one.

Though the shadow creatures who’d chased us through the woods were pretty close. Undead versions and much larger. I hoped they’d all died back on the field where I’d logged out on Friday the twelfth.

“Recognize my little homing device?” the huntsman asked.

“Dari. Probably. He looks pretty beat up. You been feeding him after midnight?”

His eyebrow went up. The pixie rolled around. Dirt under him blackened until the earth for a dozen feet around the hunter was turned to rot.

Sarge barked then whimpered. His tail curled. If I were to guess at what the dog felt, it would be worry. I tried to reassure Sarge by explaining. “Dari’s an old friend I lost track of while running for my life. Years ago, I guess.”

Sleepy yawned. He didn’t understand at all. Ball and Chain stood huddled behind Sarge and tilted their heads in unison, ears flopping at the same time. I tried not to feel sick because the fouled ground under Dari was spreading.

The bounty hunter kicked at the small pixie lightly. My stomach tensed and lips tightened. He said, “Dari the Broken. Last of his clan I’m told.”

I whispered to the dogs, “A shade pixie. Which is rare because most Faeries survive from sunlight, or so he used to tell me.”

My would be assailant didn’t seem to care about the explanation. “This little pile of excrement has been helping home in on your location.”

Dari probably hated me with a burning passion. The few brief moments I’d seen him on other Fridays ended poorly. Today he looked even worse than a year ago.

I snorted briefly. This sounded like the start of a bad joke. “A bounty hunter and a faerie walk into the woods.”

Sarge barked. Ideas were shoved into my brain that didn’t make a lot of sense. My [Animal Understanding] might not be high enough yet to decipher that wall of gibberish.

So, I guessed, “I don’t know the punchline, but I’m sure it’ll be terrible.”

He huffed then dug his paws into the ground, eager to fight but cautious. My eyes blinked slowly with more force than needed. Having his thoughts simply shoved at me like he’d almost spoken words still threw me off a second time.

“I’m sure he’ll get to attacking soon. Probably try to tie me up. I haven’t been tied up in months.”

Trap barked then dug at the ground. He liked chewing knots.

The man smiled. He seemed content to see that I was crazy. Or he had to make sure I was really Friday. The fallen pixie hadn’t done anything aside from roll on the ground sobbing to itself. “Oh no. There’s a bounty for keeping you alive, but the Queen decided that simply killing you might be easier. Word is she’s tired of trying to show the crown prince her father, and will settle for showing him your skull instead.”

My lips tightened. There was an outright bounty out for my head now.

“So,” I started saying, hoping he’d get on with his stupidity. While I got shot to death the dogs could run, my head would go to the queen, and maybe I’d be done with her nonsense for the rest of my lives.

The man smiled. “You and your dogs can all die.” He dropped the cigar and fired.

Sarge barked. The ground sizzled from his lit stick of tobacco. Sleepy sneezed and fell on my legs. I hadn’t even noticed the dogs got that close. Ball and Chain darted off, their fur almost immediately blending with the surroundings.

“Not you guys!” I shouted while covering my head. “Run! Get somewhere safe.”

Two more clicks were followed by high powered chunks of wood splintering. It sounded like gunfire. Exactly like being shot at.

I attempted to focus. This wasn’t a war and sobriety made flashbacks harder to push away. My eyes opened as I rolled to one side. Sleepy yipped. I caught sight of him slinking off toward the river with his tail curled up behind him. The girls were nowhere to be seen.

“Be careful!” I yelled at them, terrified they could die for real.

A quick [Tiny Lightning Bolt] lanced toward the bounty hunter then veered to the side abruptly, slamming into the felled tree.

One of the puppies yelped.

“Dammit!” I cursed.

Smoke billowed out by the fallen tree. His footsteps crunched wood as the bounty hunter took up a new position. A bolt spouted next to my face making me jerk to one side in abrupt panic.

The other man said something, but I couldn’t tell what over all the barking. Sarge’s noises kept going, rapid fire so fast my ears felt like they were turning to mush. I rolled my eyes and cast healing spells toward where the dogs were hopefully fighting.

I’d been too relaxed out here and not paying attention to any of my normal interface options. Bars came up showing the dogs health but they were blurred by the smoke. Even knowing the system interface functioned helped me calm down. This wasn’t a war. I wasn’t out in the damn field being shot at.

Two more ranged healing spells went off. They could have been fixing the bounty hunter but if they helped keep the dogs alive for a few seconds, I didn’t care. Smoke started to clear. Sarge still echoed commands that were too difficult to understand. Ball and Chain were growling about something.

Panic proved harder to push down than I’d remembered. Having companions who weren’t players is what did it. If they died, they weren’t coming back and that one thought kept repeating in my head.

I kept firing spells toward the center of the smoke, hoping that healing would solve everything. It didn’t. The bars for my pack of dogs finally came up and they were all over the place. Sarge’s health was damn slow. Sleepy had some marking saying he was knocked out. Ball and Chain were bleeding.

“What is going on?”

War. That’s what Sarge emotions were when he barked.

“War,” I repeated dumbly. There were more ambushers. Not simply one.

He was riled up. The damn game almost made me feel his bristled fur as he bit at flesh. The dog wrestled with someone and I just couldn’t fucking see it. None of my spells had prepared me for this.

“Focus,” I told myself. It was just a game, but everything happened so fast I’d been caught off guard. Training is what I needed to fall back on. Boot camp and the war had been over a dozen years ago, but the first rules were the simplest. First, stay low and small. Second, to get to safety.

I crawled and tried to remember all the stupid spells I’d been ignoring. None of them seemed fit for the current mess. Except the [Earth Shape] one I’d used to make my alter. It was a frustratingly hard spell to use because I had to simply do, not think or cast down a rune on the ground like my other spells.

My arm sunk into the earth slowly. My free hand pressed against the ground and traced out a jerky healing spell.

“Heel!” I shouted while lifted the arm away from me. Earth slopped to the side in a huge wave. My mana bar plummeted. Sweat dripped down my brow and it felt like my legs were going to give way. They were serving as a poor brace against the moving ground.

The dirt rolled to one side in a sloppy wall. I pulled myself behind it and threw another heal toward the sounds of dogs snarling. Now I had a bit of safe space to fight back. I only needed to do well enough to get the pups to safety.

After that, they could have my head and I wouldn’t care.