I blinked slowly. The drinks I’d powered through in preparation for dealing with this tree, undead, and blocking my own woes were clearly screwing up my brain. My goals for the weekend were halfway achieved.

Rose and StoneMason stood with me at the gateway to [Widow’s Children]. The high broke wall remained unchanged by our weeks of absence. Chairs outside were still ragged and sad. Their sprawling field leading to the house had all the hallmarks of being I wondered, as I often did when playing this game, if there would be any point to trying to fix things.

One way or another, something new would crop up and be wrong. Then players would race to the rescue. That’s how all the games of my childhood had been. It felt, repetitive. I honestly believed that even if I told the princess, queen, or whatever off, some new event would come along and harass me.

It stood to reason that the same would happen with the [Tree of Woe]. I based that on a dozen characters of experience. If I chopped it down or carved smily faces onto it instead of those angry scowls, another problem would come along and fill the void.

“Maybe I just play this game all wrong,” I said.

Rose paused sharpening her two blades against each other and dropped both arms slowly. “What?”

“I just don’t see the thrill in constantly having new problems shoved in my face. The day job’s bad enough. But doing it in a game too?”

“There’s no wrong way to play. That’s the point.”

That didn’t line up with my world views. Or at least, not my mopey perspective in the wake of prior lives resurfacing. “Sure there is. I mean, there must be, or why would I be dealing with all this unresolved stuff from prior characters?”

“Probably because you have a lot of unresolved stuff from prior characters,” Rose quipped.

StoneMason snorted.

I had to defend myself. “That’s just it. I don’t want to, and I can’t be the only one. Don’t you have something left over from your prior character? Tell me you didn’t start over for a reason.”

Rose’s lips tightened then shifted as she chewed her bottom lip. StoneMason’s eyebrow went up as he watched her face.

“Maybe we should focus on getting in.” That offer was my poor attempt at making the peace. Rose clearly wasn’t here to relax. She wanted to murder monsters to relieve stress. “Kill a few things, then you two can talk about the meaning of life later.”

“You started it,” StoneMason muttered in my direction.

I shrugged. He may be right but admitting it to a near-kid didn’t appeal to me. It’d been one of the many thoughts that escaped my brain, which Continue Online and the silly virtual reality device helped make possible. The barest hint of a thought or question typically spilled out faster than anyone sane might like.

“Kill monsters,” I shouted happily. “Life will be right in the world if Rose gets to murder hapless undead who may or may not be under a curse.”

She pointed both knives in my direction awkwardly. “And other things.” I almost reached out and slightly corrected them to make the whole scene more threatening but felt afraid she might cut me. As it was, they wavered uneasily and didn’t make a clear point.

“You’re angry a lot.” He pulled out a much slimmer looking tree that had nearly been whittled away to be a real bo staff.

“Please. Yes. With the murder. Let’s go do that.” Rose’s broken speech either moked StoneMason or meant she was that eager to get on with it.

“I finished that wall,” StoneMason mumbled.

“Don’t care! We’re here to fight undead monsters and right wrongs. Or get loot.” She turned away from us to study the field. “You’re healing again?” Rose asked.

My head bobbed before it occurred to me that she couldn’t see me nodding. “Like a champion. A doctor of healing buttons.”

“The game doesn’t use buttons.”

“It should. I could pretend I was at a record table scratching out a wicked mix as I caused musical magic to heal people.”

StoneMason leaned over slowly and failed to whisper, “What is he talking. About?”

At some point, their words ceased to make sense. Probably right after my brain wandered off into a tangent about this stupid dungeon and all the undead around. Maybe if I dug a hole down far enough, I’d find some secret center to all this filth and could punch it. Or cure it with spells. Maybe I could wrap holy magic around my fists and punch people to get a [Monk Druid Ninja] class.

The [Ninja] part would come from my [Shadow] and [Stealth] traits stacking on top of each other.

“Friday!” Rose shouted.

My eyelids fluttered briefly. They’d walked into the manner’s grounds and were a few feet away from fighting some huge mole rat creatures. Rodents all looked the same to me. I pulled out my staff and stopped to polish the end because it wasn’t shiny enough. That made me giggle, then frown since it’d been forever since I’d been with a real woman.

The last relationship ended up in an evil tree that probably murdered players. That almost sounded cool, since my bad breakup causing other players to be removed from the game for a day fed some need for shared misery. I should have a title like [Father of Woe].

“Friday!” Rose repeated.

“Right. Healing.” I traced out spells and tossed them at Rose, who was busy trying figure out how to hit the shorter creature. The mole monsters were flat to the ground, too low for StoneMason’s spinning club attacks.

“Feet.” I stomped back and forth. He didn’t hear me because they were loud as heck and too far away. My new healing spells were able to reach far enough but performed worse than the original [Branch of Healing]. “Ninja’s use feet!”

No one paid attention to me. I grumbled to myself and wondered what else I’d been forgetting to do. Bringing the dogs in might be possible but they could use some time off. Sarge had been entirely too willing to fight and part of me worried that he didn’t know how to do anything else.

Raising digital pets was a new skill and I’d been failing badly at it by letting the dogs do what they wanted. I hadn’t answered the whole nature versus nurture conundrum and couldn’t reason my way through the darn problem while a few drinks under. My mind simply didn’t work that way.

“Friday. Jesus man, get it together.” StoneMason yelled.

“Get what together?”

“You’re our healer,” he shouted.

I waved my free hand. “And you’re not dead.”

His health looked close to empty but a [Burst of Light] spell from my [Priest] path took care of it. Maybe he expected me to do something to shield him from those rabid wombat monsters. We weren’t in a full-on group of people. There were only us three and if they’d played a bit smarter then no one would need a heal at all.

Every path I’d wandered along eventually received “oh shit” options to reduce damage taken for a bit. Even at my lower ranks. They should have something too. Honestly, I should have left them behind and snuck into the manner. It probably would have been easier.

They finished off the monsters. Rose dug through for loot. Our tank, if he could be called that, looked for more monsters to fight, and pointed.

“There’s the next group. You ready?” StoneMason asked.

Now that I’d really thought about it, never once in this game had I picked up any sort of real identification skill. Maybe it was because machines telling me what things were pissed me off. My day job certainly came with enough of that. Having everything handed to me in the game would be annoying as well.

“What’s that, a rock?” I asked myself. The response had nothing to do with StoneMason’s question but my brain couldn’t wrap itself around the ugly stones out in the courtyard. They hadn’t been there last weekend. It was like something huge had uprooted half the yard and torn up the filthy grass in all directions.

“Are you ready?” StoneMason repeated.

“Ready for what?” I responded.

He waved a large meaty hand. “More monsters? Your mana?”

“Mana is an abstract concept to measure how deep the swamp is.” The bar was fine. I could keep healing at this rate forever. They were lower ranks and one of my regular heals had enough power stacked on it to keep us all flooded to the gills with regeneration.

“What?” StoneMason asked.

I laughed. “No, I’m ready. Keep on fighting the good fight. Tire yourself out. Make a mess, find a boss. Get a hand lamp or something.” A shoulder lifted. “It doesn’t really matter, I guess. When you’re done goofing around, I’ll go find the butler.” With or without them, the dogs, or anyone else. I felt fairly certain that he’d show up in short order if I broke a teacup or moved a curtain out of place.

We killed more. Or they fought and I healed. No maids or zombies, yet. The courtyard up to the manner had far too many critters lined up. Our next foes were giant killer bees whose buzzes murdered my eardrums. They flew at us through withered trees in groups.

Rose threw rocks at their wings. StoneMason waved his stick at them and it did nothing. He might be trying to learn some super move or just not know how to get the flying creatures down to our level. After a moment of drunken consideration, I realized a [Tiny Lightning Bolt] would be perfect.

I marked out the rune then threw it lightly toward the bees. It whiffed but their attention turned toward me. They zoomed in my direction.

“I miss crumpling paper.”

“Friday!” Rose shouted.

Repetitive motion. Tracking out the lightning bolt spell reminded me of crumpling paper then tossing it into waist baskets during boot camp. I lobbed another spell toward the pack of bees headed my way. The third paper ball lightning hit a bee. It veered into friends as electricity crackled along it’s body. Down went two more. Rose’s rocks hit another.

StoneMason ran over them, bare toes squishing into bee guts and stingers. He ignored grossness and pain in his urgency to get to me. I stared at him with my staff limp to one side. His mouth was wide and he shouted something that didn’t register.

He must think the bees were going to tear me limb from limb.

My head shook slowly. “Why,” then StoneMason’s large arm lifted me up and spun around in a million circles. The impact pushed air from chest. I gasped as the world continued to twist around us. The horizon went up and down then he plopped me onto the ground.

“Keep your head down Mills!”

A voice not belonging to my party struck from nowhere. StoneMason’s actual words were lost as blood rushed into my ears. I fumbled for a healing spell but kept spinning. An arm gave out. I felt sick to my stomach and pissed at myself for being that weak.

“They’re firing again,” the stranger’s voice said. His words faded as gunfire hit. I closed my eyes and pretended that none of it was happening. None of it was, the game’s interface with my mind had spawned a memory.

Fingers pressed against my neck. I counted. The result, too high for comfort. I took a deep breath, traced a healing spell with my free hand, and counted again. My heartrate lowered steadily.

It didn’t help that StoneMason had picked me up then performed that death spiral circle of his. That dizziness coupled with a sudden crack of noise set me back. Months without real relapse, gone. Getting older sucked.

StoneMason fought with the foolhardy zealousness only a kid who thought this was a game would manage. Rose stabbed. I rolled over then pushed myself up to my feet. They wobbled. I took a few more breathes and ignored the fighting.

It didn’t matter. Pain wasn’t an issue. I could heal in here from anything. No one in this part would die for real. It wasn’t like back then or my day job. I nodded twice then lifted my staff and pointed it at the other two. It’d been a while, but I remembered how mid rank [Priest] path’s used the staff to heal. It wasn’t a matter of waving our arms and light flowing, not entirely. Not prayers or whispered reverences.

[Priest]s in Continue Online weren’t channeling higher powers. They could commune with Voices, sure, but what they pulled on were closer to elemental planes that mages used. Threads of shadows and light that every creature in the game reacted to differently.

There wasn’t time for the entire lesson to play through my head. I wanted the bees to stop and to heal my group. I traced out a healing spell onto the staff’s surface. It flowed up the tip toward the gem, where green light swelled. Silver and gold swirled into the light green until the whole mess popped.

My mana dropped rapidly down to half, which was the biggest hit it’d taken since my legacy paths and ranks caught up with me. This spell had a high cooldown too. It’d take another ten or so minutes before it could be used again.

The filthy bees melted and recovered in equal measure. Those that were healing turned into harmless bugs that fluttered back into trees. Those trees glowed with energy as they recovered. The gloom that hung over this area pushed back as the lightshow spiraled around us.

StoneMason stared at me with his large baby jaw hanging loosely. He seemed confused. I took a few more deep breathes and checked my heat beat again. It continued to return to a resting speed. He still stared and I got annoyed with all the laser eyes people were using. Everyone watched me like I might do tricks if they looked away for even a second.

I had, but they didn’t need to stare.

“It’s a technique. Kind of light warriors getting smash attacks. Priests get a busting radiance that applies holy magic to the spell based on our rank. If I throw in a druid nature spells, it’ll pop out doing both nature healing, with a holy aura, and that melts undead.”

I’d actually read through a few of my skills in the last day and mixed them poorly. They didn’t know that, and my babbled explanation drifted off. My gaze listed with the fading words and focused on nothing at all as my brain tried to connect the dots. There I stood, staring at the dead critters. My thoughts had clicked off at some point, or disconnected. Then it registered. Those monsters were smushed or battered. Broken to pieces and I didn’t know how to feel about it. Some had lifted. Most hadn’t.

“Are you okay?” Rose asked as she walked over with a wild grin.

Green ooze decorated every inch of her clothes. Smears of the liquid traced across her face. A piece of some monster hung off her belt. I lifted an eyebrow at the most recent evidence of her anger issues and asked, “Are you?”

Her health bar was fine without a single status effect implying broken bones or near insanity.

Rose actually laughed. “I’ll be okay. This is what I need right now. That’s what I said earlier. The game gives us what we need, when we need it. Though I’m not allowed to explain anything more.”

“Not allowed to explain. Anything more. What?” StoneMason asked slowly with his large chest heaving to get the words out. “And why are we even fighting. If you can just burst. Rainbows all over the place?”

I didn’t think it was a rainbow, but Rose leapt in for me.

“He’s way above us! Of course, he has abilities from all his other paths. We could do the same if we,” she paused then pulled fingers across her lips and pantomimed a key locking. “Well. You know, gotta keep these lips sealed. And you Friday, just keep playing. Do what you want to. Be who you want to. That’s why this place is so great. I know I wanted a fight, and there’s more packs between here and the house. By the end of it? I’ll be great and I’ll bet there’s nothing left on the inside.”

“That other thing. Is legacy knowledge?” the giant asked slowly but Rose didn’t hear him. She ran toward the next set of monsters.

I shook my head. Whatever she implied by all that was beyond me. I knew the game liked to make me face problems and kept drama chasing after me, but it sounded like she was implying something greater than that. Though after my moment of serenity at the river bed, I wondered. How nice it would be, if I could clear up all this prior malarkey and simply enjoy weekends like that? I wouldn’t even need a drink.

If Friday the 1st had been a [Druid], my digital life might have been radically different? There were players that never left town and spent all day crafting clay pots. I could have been one of them. Content to escape the day job instead of forging out and seeking who-knew-what.

They fought more monsters. I healed and wondered about spending mana on attack spells, but that felt weird. They were having too much fun working on their anger issues on digital creatures. During my repetitively mental wandering, they pulled more monsters to us and proceeded to beat them to death.

This place wasn’t any harder than the battlefield between kingdoms had been. There were certainly a large number of critters compared to the frozen tundra up north. There, the buzzard like-creatures hovered, waiting for people to be near death.

The trading post of Friday the 1st had been peaceful. Friday the 3rd and his digging through the forests had been pretty simple except when creatures became possessed. Those were few but scary. Maybe age had caught up with me and none of this felt impressive anymore.

More bees buzzed and did whatever it was evil bees did. Moles attacked. Some half dog half tree monsters spun through and did even more whatever. They were all tainted beyond believe and practically popped when I threw out holy based spells.

It seemed better to let the others gain skills on their characters. They clearly cared more about challenging themselves anyway. That’s what they needed, not me. I needed to keep busy and work through my mental list of problems.

A hundred silly little half dog tree creatures attacked. They were smaller than the first one I’d seen and squishable. StoneMason stomped them with great delight, and dropped to a roll when some of them swarmed up his beefy legs. Rose sat down laughing at the entire mess. She’d been content enough to let StoneMason deal with all the tiny creatures that were closer to spiders than they were tree-dogs.

I kept healing him. Every minute I’d weave out a spell and let it flutter away toward him. The creatures would twist and wither away like falling leaves as his health bar returned to full. A fresh wave of the small swarmer monsters would rush toward me. He yelled. They shifted targets and the whole cycle repeated.

At least we were almost to the stupid doorway. This time we were approaching the main entrance. The wings of the building loomed out in either direction. Tall dead trees framed the walkway. The front door hung half off its hinges and in need of repair. In short, the house was sad.

I fingered the promise ring in my pocket and wondered how this place had reached such a state of disrepair. One answer was “Because the game said so”, but there were normally reasons beyond that. The butler had said this home’s owner had gone through a string of husbands. They’d left her or failed to earn enough money to keep such a massive place functional.

This was what my grove would be in the future. A run down mess of a place with monsters everywhere. Because I had a string of failed relationships and those relationships had kids. Which made me worry about the minion we’d killed. A monstrous version of some single mother’s child.

A shiver raced up and down my spine making me shake. “I’m not a Local,” I stuttered abruptly.

“No. You’re a player,” Rose said. Her head tilted to one side and she chewed on her lower lip a moment before saying, “You really are in a blender.”

“Rose is right. You’re off. What’s wrong?” StoneMason asked. “It’s not like you.”

“What’s wrong?” I questioned dumbly. Of course, their words made sense but part of me hadn’t actually thought about explaining what was off about my life. I’d simply internalized it all and muddled my way through. In the military there’d been a lot of whiners who complained about every thing under the sun, but it never mattered in the end.

Complaints didn’t change things.

“Yes. You’ve more off than usual.” He repeated himself slowly without gasping for air and it barely registered.

“Than usual?” These kids must have thought I was an old crazy guy. One step away from screaming at them to get off my internet.

I sighed. “Thinking about my prior character’s problems.”

“That’s okay. Rose is right. Thinking in here. It’s.” StoneMason scratched his head with a tree branch and smiled happily. His foot shook like a dogs. After a deep breathe he finished his thought. “You find what. You seek.”

I wanted them to be quiet and keep killing monsters. Then I could return to my inner monologue and maybe reach some sort of conclusion. Talking about nothing and talking about my feelings were radically different ideas.

“Do what I’ve been doing. Hit things. It’s like drinking away your problems, but with violence.” She smiled, then ran towards the next batch of pointless monsters. “Pulling,” Rose yelled for us.

We didn’t need to fight them. The doorway had been fairly close, and she went out of her way to find monsters to battle. She must have been really annoyed at the talking. Monsters died. I healed. It felt like the same reputative nonsense we’d been doing as a group all night.

She found more monsters from around the corner of the house, then another batch, and still more. The stream went on for ages until my brian and mana bar were running on empty.

StoneMason flopped to the ground after the latest batch and sat there heaving.

The giant rubbed his stony head. “If I could start over, do things differently, I would.” StoneMason’s words brought up the earlier conversation. We’d been talking about how each of us restarted our characters to avoid prior issues, or I’d been trying to use that idea to prove a point. The giant waved at Rose’s lifted eyebrow. “Not in here. Out there.”

Her eyes went wide.

“Oh Voices. That’s what this is. It’s one of those nights where people talk about their real-life feelings and woes.” She clasped her hands together and gazed skyward with a dead expression. “Dear Voices. I don’t want that. I don’t want to talk about my feelings on my night off! Change this to combat! If there’s not more monsters inside I’ll log off.”

It’d been mostly combat for her this entire time. Granted, my mind had been wandering the entire time, but the monster murdering hadn’t stopped for long.

“I don’t want to fight,” I said.

“Please more combat,” she prayed as her eyelids fluttered. “Give me bad epic raids and awesome bosses. Give me a kingdom to war over. An endless quest with assassins.”

“Ninjas!” My offering didn’t make her pause.

We waited for thunder. I almost expected it. With my [Priest] ranks it was possible. The Voices had sent me signs before, or so I’d been told by the priests I used to hang out with a few Fridays ago.

“See, you’re both to blame for this. I wanted monsters. Not even a single boss.”

StoneMason ignored her anger and pointed a larger finger. “Wouldn’t you? You restarted. That character.”

Rose stomped. “No. That’s what idiots believe. That if they could do it all again they’d make a smarter choice. You can’t make a smarter choice without having made the stupid one first. It’s learn and do better next time. Not magically redo shit. Life the hand you’re dealt, like a grownup.”

Rose’s face had nearly twisted into a small ball of anger. I still hadn’t figured out entirely what happened to her, but I got the impression it had something to do with real life and her child. In my own experience, there were few things that could set a mother off more than slighting her children in some way, and I’d been on the wrong end of those arguments more than once over the years.

“Sorry,” StoneMason said.

I couldn’t figure out what he was apologizing for. His wish had been perfectly sound. There were a million things I’d go back and change if it were possible. Maybe more, but I also had come to realize that the past couldn’t be undone. Rose had that right too, none of us would be who we were without those prior events to define us.

None of that passed my lips. It stayed bottled up inside because that’s what my family did. I stepped up and pushed the half broken front door open. The hallways were utterly empty.

Rose frowned immediately and said, “Guess I’m done for the night. Good luck with your existential crisis Friday.” She turned to giant and started up. “You keep on being you. I guess.”

Then she vanished as her character logged off.

“She didn’t even leave. An autopilot,” StoneMason said in halting breathes.

I shrugged. She’d been here tonight for one purpose only, completed it, and left immediately. At least Rose knew what she wanted out of this game. It’d taken me a dozen characters, literally, to even get a vague idea of what I might life. Besides a beer.

StoneMason lumbered along with me. The quiet halls were disturbed only by our footprints. I felt glad the dogs had stayed behind. Surely a horde of maids would have barreled out demanding we clean up after them.

The halls went on forever. Endless corridors that were all basically the same despite the impossibility of miles of look-alike corridors.

“You were in. The service?”

I didn’t remember telling him that. It must have been another unthinking comment made while drunk. It was no wonder the damn [Legacy] system stalked me so quickly. Drunk Friday couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut any better than sober Friday.

“I’m thinking about. Joining.”

“Good for you,” I said.

“What do you. Think?”

That was the question that every bright-eyed kid asked once they found out I’d been in the service.

“Everyone asks that. Or they ask if it’s worth it.”

“Is it?”

Both eyes shut tightly. Of course I’d opened up that conversation. My fault for being so approachable. I checked for a new My inventory was woefully devoid of drinks. I must have plowed through all of them during our fighting. Maybe all that healing magic had ruined any possible buzz from the copious amounts of alcohol.

I shrugged at StoneMason’s question. Indifferent shoulder movements never stopped anyone from asking questions, so I tried to use the same speech I used on everyone else. “When I just got out of the military, and went to school to be a doctor, people used to ask me if I regretted signing up. I did, but I also didn’t. Joining gave me something I’d never have otherwise. This side of me I didn’t know about until I was forced into it.”

He waited before asking, “What’s that?”

I shrugged again. Everyone who joined the service got something out of it. They all had a different answer. The groups I sometimes went to, such as the one where I’d met Johnny, were often silent or filled with bitterness and one well-meaning group leader that’d been there before. It wasn’t simply what we saw, it was what we did. I’d been a shitty soldier, tried to be a good doctor, and failed at that too.

“Others have different answers. And I can’t speak for them, but for me, I found out one important fact about myself.”

He said nothing but watched me with a gaze that might be rapt attention, pity, or worry that I’d finally stepped off into the deep end. Heck, going by my own mentality at that age, listening to old men talk, it was probably all three.

That wouldn’t understand but I kept going anyway. “I’m able to watch people die and somehow keep going. I did overseas. I still do. I wanted to be a doctor to help people but most of the time machines do it all. Now I get to be there with them when the machines can’t keep them alive. I’m really good at watching people die and somehow waking up the next morning to do it again.”

StoneMason opened his mouth to say something brilliant and I ignored him. The dam was open now, so I’d babble until my brain ran out of steam. “Once a week, it feels like, I sit with someone who won’t make it home again. Or those in so much pain that they’re crying. Crying for their parents. Because real pain, not this imagined virtual crap in here that barely amounts to a wet dream, real pain breaks people.”

I didn’t know where the heck I was going with this. Maybe simply trying to impress something upon these kids. To tell them the world was full of stupidity and we’d have to deal with it or simply stop.

“So, no. You were right earlier. All that, I think it’s finally making me crack and I’m not okay. I finally found one thing, one thing in this game I enjoyed besides drinking, and that was ruined.”

“What was ruined?”

I didn’t really hear here.

“All because I’m a fuckup. A fuckup from a long line of them.” Mom would hate me for cursing, but her opinion didn’t matter anymore, and it was probably time to realize my parent who’d left meant nothing.

Dad had died. I had no one and no place to go that wasn’t marred somehow, or subject to flashbacks. “But you don’t ask if you should join the service to get an earful of me bellyaching. Join, you’ll learn something about yourself, one way or the other.”

StoneMason the Stone Mason out digging ditches in the real world. That had a certain sense of irony to it.

I regretted saying any of that. My goal hadn’t been to disillusion the kid of joining the service but being in the military was nothing like it had been when I first signed up. Machines did everything there too, until they couldn’t. Then untested children were put out in the field to watch each other die.

Or maybe it hadn’t changed that much.

“I don’t think. You’re a fuckup.” He waved a large hand in my direction. “You’re in the best place. To fix yourself. The game hears you talk. Admitting a problem.” StoneMason paused as if I might make some sudden connection. I didn’t. He continued, “The game gives you. A message. A quest. Or skill.”

My body chilled. “What?”

“You should have a message. Or a popup. Something. Look for it.”

Sure enough, there was a small gold rimmed box floating off to the side of my vision. I focused on it, and the darn thing slowly swung into view until it popped open, much like a quest text. My eyes traced over the words multiple times before any of the meaning started to register. On it, was a list of my problems from the past Fridays.

“I’ve got to piss,” I said, and abruptly logged off.