“Up ahead, I see light,” Dargan whispered as Connor stumbled once more on the uneven rocks and splashed in the rivulets of water underfoot. It was pitch black, but Connor wasn’t surprised that as a dwarf, Dargan could at least see in the dark.

“I should have chosen dwarf,” he groaned, earning a dry, sad chuckle from the shorter figure ahead of him, whom he clutched at his shoulder.

“Everyone should choose dwarf. We’re always the best,” he said pridefully.

“Right now, I would accept even being a halfling if it meant that I was somewhere safe,” Connor groaned as yet another wave of queasiness rolled through him.

“Oh!” The half-elf let out a slight murmur of surprise as he stumbled to the side, slapping his hand on the wet stone as he dropped to a knee as he sucked in ragged breaths.

“Hey! Are you alright? I told you only to move when I did!” Dargan stopped and turned back.

Connor felt the dwarf’s hands on his shoulders, attempting to haul him up to his feet.

“I’m alright, just a little weak in the knees . . .” Connor said, his voice sounding vague and thin. His legs suddenly gave way underneath him, and he slid to the tunnel floor in a slump.

“Is it me, or is this tunnel a heck of a lot longer than I thought it was supposed to be?” Connor groaned as he started to feel woozy.

“This isn’t right. Something is wrong here,” Dargan muttered as he crouched before the half-elf, his hands patting down Connor’s side.

“Ow! Hey, ask a fella before you poke around!” Connor twitched from his wounded arm.

“You’re injured! Why didn’t you tell me?” Dargan asked.

“Well, I think I was more concerned with not dying . . .” Connor started to mutter, but the dwarf butted in.

“What was it, that Goblin Berserker? They have poison blades!”

Night Oil, the half-elf remembered. “Oh crap, you’re right.”

A quick self-analysis told Connor that he was indeed in bad shape.

Name: Connor Halfelven

Profession: None

Race: Half-elf

Level: 2 (900/1000)

Size: Medium

Health: 11 / 40

His Health attribute was highlighted in red which Connor immediately knew was a bad sign.

You have been poisoned by Night Oil.

Night Oil Poison will do 6 Health points of damage per hour until cured.

“The poison has drained my health dangerously low,” Connor grumbled, feeling dizzy. Strange, he thought for a moment. He had never felt mental fatigue due to injury in any other game. He would always be fairly clear-headed, no matter how low his health had dropped. Legends was clearly a different story though, as if the ability to trap them in the game wasn’t evidence enough.

A real-time, real-threat experience, he remembered the words from in his updated guidebook. The half-elf started chuckling to himself—a bit hysterically, he had to note. Apparently, that meant that when he got poisoned in the game, he really was poisoned!

Yay. Lucky me.

“Here. I’ve still got one left, but it’s my last one.” Dargan took out one of the small glowing Health Potions that every character had started with and forced Connor to glug it in coughing, desperate swallows. He felt his Health returned to normal, but he wasn’t in the clear yet.

You have been healed but are still suffering the effects of Night Oil Poison. You will continue to lose 6 Health points per hour until cured by a Cure Spell or Herbal Potion.

“This is bad, Dargan,” Connor coughed. He felt a lot better, for the moment, but that wasn’t permanent based on the previous message.

“What?”

“I’m better, but I need to get to an actual Healer. Or a Wizard, to stop the poison.” A chill shook Connor, gripping him with a very real fear. “I don’t suppose you know about herbs in this place?”

“Herbs!? I’m a dwarf!” Dargan insisted. “What do I know about herbs?”

Then Connor remembered that he did know about a Healer, didn’t he?

“Wait, Gustav mentioned one. When he gave me that quest, he said he had a Healer friend who lived out by Black Birch Forest,” Connor said, remembering that he even had a map.

Had a map. Connor groaned. He’d lost that when the Ring of Tantor had respawned him.

However, it seemed that Connor was, for once, amazingly in luck.

“I passed something on the way up through the Black Birch,” Dargan said. “There was a cottage like a little wooden hut on the edge of the woods. I didn’t go in, but it sure looked pretty witchy to me.”

“That has to be it,” Connor said as his panic started to rise. “But can we get there in time?”

He recalled the effects of the Night Oil poison: six Health points lost per hour. “I’ve got forty Health points now,” he whispered to himself. “That’s like, six hours. Can we make it there in that time?”

“It was a ways into the forest.” Dargan nodded thoughtfully. “But couldn’t be more than six hours, though, I don’t think.”

“Great,” Connor mumbled. “Just so long as we don’t run into any more Goblin trouble on the way through.”

The pair wasted no more time as they hurried toward the gray patch of light that grew lighter and lighter, becoming a patch of silvery moonlight falling down a bricked well shaft. Connor saw the iron bars of an old ladder climbing up toward the light of a Woodville night as they approached.

They could hear the sound of whooping and joyous shouting up there, but it appeared far away and muffled. Connor took a deep breath and looked at Dargan, who nodded.

“We can do this,” the dwarf whispered, clapping him supportively on the shoulder.

“More like we have no choice,” Connor grunted and started to climb.

***

Connor cautiously pulled himself over the edge of the well and quietly lowered himself to the ground. The night air of Woodville was filled with the shrieks of Goblins enjoying what Goblins enjoyed most: pillage and slaughter of civilized races.

“Stay down, ah, maybe . . .” Connor was starting to say to the dwarf as the figure followed him up, over the well head, and thumped to the dirt of the nighttime market center.

“What?” Dargan glared at him.

“Nothing,” Connor breathed, turning to observe the Goblin revelry taking place down the street from them. He saw bonfires in the street outside the Lucky Dragon—not so lucky now, the half-elf thought. Small, prancing forms were dancing about the fires or lifting sacks of wine to their lips as they cackled. Still other Goblins, in twos or threes, were busy going into the nearby houses, whooping and hollering as they looted.

“Oh, for a broadsword and a higher level,” Connor breathed. This was just the sort of a situation that he normally enjoyed. Indeed, he would have thrown himself into it—but not anymore.

How do I get out of this mess? And what about this Ring of Tantor?! The confusion struck him physically, like a wave of nausea in his belly, but he pushed it down. There was no point thinking about it just then. It was even more pointless to consider Mr. Grey and the job he had given him.

All that mattered was surviving.

“That way,” Connor whispered, pointing up the street behind them that led back to the trail into Black Birch Forest.

“After me,” he whispered, waiting for a moment when it seemed like the revelry was at its loudest pitch. The half-elf activated Sneak then ran.

Sneak reduces the chance of being detected by 50%.

Connor made it to the other side of the street with ease, turning at the wall to beckon to the dwarf to follow suit.

“One, two, and . . .”

Dwarfs, however, are not known for their sneaking ability. They are, in fact, much better known for their charging-into-places-with-large-objects, screaming-war-chant ability.

Dargan got almost all the way across the open street before he tripped on his own metal boots and thumped into the ground with a loud curse.

Hell! Connor also cursed, starting forward to grab at the dwarf’s arms to haul him up.

“What’s that over there!” Connor heard the spine-chilling cry of a Goblin as Dargan growled in annoyance, stumbling and falling back into the shadow of the building.

“I saw something, I told you! There’s still some living back there!”

They could hear the drunken shouts of the Goblin behind them, followed by another whoop of a savage war cry.

“Hunt! Hunt! Hunt!”

Connor looked at Dargan.

“Run!”

***

Connor and Dargan tore through what remained of the Woodville night, the cries and shouts of the Goblin hunting party at their heels.

They made it to the end of the first street, where Connor saw, on their right, a sudden gap between the houses. “That way!” he hissed, shoving Dargan ahead of him.

You have thrown caution to the wind as you Flee. You will lose 1 point of Vitality every 10 seconds as you Flee. When your Vitality reaches 0, you will collapse from exhaustion.

Connor was already exhausted, with his lungs burning and his legs cramping, but even though he was faster than the dwarf, it was clear that Dargan had more Stamina—and thus higher Vitality—than he did.

“Dargan! Hurry up!” the half-elf hissed as he vaulted another barrel in the small alleyway between the houses, scaring up a collection of farmyard chickens in the process.

Dargan had only just made it into the alleyway, and Connor turned back to wait for him.

Too late.

There was a sudden shriek from ahead of them at the exit of the short passage between houses. A Goblin skidded to a halt in front of them, spear lowered, panting with exertion from the chase.

“You gonna die now, scum!” the Goblin sneered, blocking their escape route.

Name: Goblin Warrior

Level: 2

Size: Small

Health: 20 / 20

Vitality: 18 / 18

Agility: 11

Charisma: 3

Intelligence: 5

Stamina: 9

Strength: 7

Wisdom: 5

Connor snarled, feeling a feral fury erupt in his chest. He was not going to die here, and he certainly wasn’t going to let some Goblin kill him. With a roar, the half-elf darted forward, and Dargan did the same behind him.

The Goblin Warrior lunged, but Connor was quicker, stepping to one side as Dargan did the same on the other.

Goblin Warrior attacks Connor with spear. Attack dodged; no damage done.

Connor lashed out with his hand ax, striking down at the Goblin’s short spear

Connor attacks Goblin Warrior with Hand Ax. Attack blocked; no damage done.

The Goblin blocked the attack but its spear instantly splintered from the force of the attack. The monster let out a shrill yell, but then it was Dargan’s turn, lunging forward to deliver an overhead blow. The Goblin tried to parry the blow, but half of the short spear was gone, and the creature was finished with one powerful smash of Dargan’s war hammer to the head.

Goblin Warrior has been killed.

Your group has been awarded 200 Experience Points for slaying Goblin Warrior.

Experience points will be divided among all participants.

Connor smiled broadly when the next message appeared.

Congratulations! You have advanced to Level 3. You have been awarded two attribute points and one skill level advancement to be allocated as you choose.

“Sweet, I just leveled up,” Connor breathed. “And that extra ten Health Levels also buys me an extra hour free from that poison . . .”

He was eager to allocate his attribute and skill level increases, but Dargan was already tapping him on the shoulder, nodding back to where the sound of the hunting party behind them was suddenly a lot closer.

“We’re not out danger yet, half-elf,” Dargan urged him on, and Connor could only agree. They broke into a run, heading for the woods just ahead of them.