When I found a good vantage point, I could see the beginning of a small trail leading from the far side of the lake deeper into the valley. Making a quick decision, I followed it, with the hope of someone other than the murderous local wildlife to talk to.

The fir trees slowly became replaced with towering redwoods, then the small trail joined a road paved with rough cobblestones and I lost sight of the mountains around the valley as I followed what had now become an easy, level decent. I finally found my first sign of civilization when I found the river once again. It was flowing along a massive ravine. There was a wide stone bridge across the ravine, and it was heavily fortified. And I mean the bridge itself was protected just as much as the two fortifications on either side of the bridge.

Banners whipped in the wind, of multiple different colors and coats of arms. Heavily armed and armored warriors patrolled walls that were even taller than the multistory monster that had chased me not long ago. As I was spotted walking down the road, gawking and trying to figure out what to do, there was a roaring clang and I saw a portcullis rise to let out a stream of mounted guards who kicked their horses and charged towards me. They didn’t look friendly, or welcoming.

“That’s far enough!” One of them called and he nudged his mount forward as he looked me up and down, eyes narrowed. I returned his gaze and saw the hovering outline of a player tag above his head. I had turned off my interface for the most part, but I still decided to turn on a basic name display to see who I was dealing with. When I did, I gulped.

Sir. Vance of Gilford

Rank C

Landed Knight of Gilford Manor, Kingdom of Fenwick

My own ranking felt like it was several below his. As I understood it, that ranking system Endaria’s game interfaced used was loosely based on combat potential. This guy was a veteran player and, I sincerely hoped he wasn’t a PKer, because I was screwed.

He didn’t seem to be happy to see another player. “Nimue…” He pulled out a curious dark slate that seemed to stream with symbols for a second before they stopped and he read it.

“No… she isn’t on our KOS list… still she’s not on any lists, not even the list of players heading for temple rock. She shouldn’t be in the valley.” He muttered to one of the other guards.

“How did you get on this side of the bridge girl? Who are you with?” He barked at me and I shrugged.

“I’m not really with anyone, just spawned.” I said and he burst out laughing.

“You think I’m an idiot? There is no way you survived long on this side of the bridge, especially with the mountain trolls around causing a ruckus. If they didn’t eat you, it would have been the spine wolves, or forest spiders.” I winced.

“Well… I did get chased by some sort of monster, it was at least the size of a three-story building, and yes I did get eaten by spiders.” I said, though I shuddered at the thought of another variant of spiders that inhabited woods instead of caves.

“Hmm probably a hill giant or a cyclops… could have been one of the infernal creatures from the Darkwood.” He grumbled for a moment and gave a sigh. “You get a good look at it?” I shook my head.

“Well it’s dead now… got eaten by a lake monster when it tried to swim after me across the lake.” I pointed back the way I came and from the clearing that the ravine occupied I could see the glimmer of the high mountain lake cut out of the small valley above.

“Ok… well if ole’ chompy got fed today, we won’t have to worry about him for a bit. He’s one of the local river guardians, not particularly dangerous unless you piss him off or he feels a bit peckish.” He gave a wry shake of his head.

“Sir Gregor, please escort our new… guest to my office, I’ll be right along, need to send a few dispatches.” He turned and expertly guided his horse around and back towards the open gate.

The other man gave a salute, and then peered at me with a curious stare as he gestured for me to follow him at a slow pace. We crossed the massive cleared area around the fort on this side of the river and I saw little red poles along the road, and I wondered what they were. As we approached the fortification a few very deadly looking machines that only slightly resembled giant crossbows, but much more intricate were turned from being trained on me, back to being trained on the far tree line. The archers on the walls didn’t seem to relax though, standing in ranks watching me warily.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that some of the walls were scorched and the stone slightly melted. There were also spots where clear battle damage had been repaired. I spied craters in the clearing around the walls, burnt grass, and what looked like more than a few patches of viscus black liquid and other odd substances.

There was one spot in the clearing that looked quite strange, as if someone had scraped a long line of grass with weed killer and stripped it bare, it ended in a massive circle of dead grass, and a deep crater. The trail led off towards the woods. The knight leading me nodded as he saw my confused expression.

“We got hit by some species of forest slime a few days back, happens every once in a while.” He didn’t really sound convincing. Anyone could easily tell this place saw almost constant fighting.

As we entered the fortification, I saw that pretty much every inch of it was designed to be defended from all directions. I pondered this for a second until I saw massive claw marks along a stone roof and a broke off tooth wedged on a roof beam several stories above me high up on a keep with massive, thick walls. The gate we passed through had multiple murder holes high overhead with slits along the walls for guards inside to stab or shoot attacks in the gateway. There were two sets of portcullises and a massive stone door, almost like a vault that was on a rail. I don’t think I had ever heard of any sort of fortification quite like it even on earth. It was an odd cross between a bomb shelter, a set of medieval castles, and seemed to be loosely based on forts I’ve seen in games set in frontier America, or European gunpowder wars.

The keep on the other side was quite massive, but solidly built with towers that protruded from each corner to give fields of fire to each other and cover anyone scaling the keep. We kept on going, winding between buildings, that I could see were all designed to be fortified. We entered another gatehouse, no less formidable then the one facing the outside and I saw that the bridge was actually a drawbridge that could be lifted from the other side to cut off this fort and access. The other fortification was even larger, and I saw gardens and farms in a massive clearing around it.

We crossed the drawbridge and I gawked at the extraordinarily thick walls that were in a star shape, giving the machines intersecting fields of fire, those walls looked more recently built and the older, heavier walls behind them that were taller still, and were dwarfed by a huge keep that towered over everything.

This… had to be overkill even in Endaria. I considered what I had seen so far, and dismissed the thought, as it wasn’t quite possible to be overprepared, or define anything as overkill in this game. There was battle damage on the bridge itself and the fortifications on this side too. A whole section of the ledge of the ravine was missing, as if something massive had torn it down into the river below. I looked down and I saw white bones in the river, jutting out at the spot. The bones of a very nasty looking creature that would have given the lake monster “Ole’ Chompy” a run for its money.

Just how crazy were these people, to live here?

“Is Endaria for real? I’ve never heard of a game so brutal, much less one that was full immersion.” I asked the player escorting me, as I peered at his displayed info.

Sir. Gregor

Rank C

Kingdom of Fendwick

The nametag was much more brief than other guy’s nametag but it still indicated he was the same rank. It made me wonder if the role a player took up was just as important as their ranking.

“There is a saying here in Endaria, or at least it’s an inside joke on the forums, and wiki.” He smiled at me and continued.

“In Endaria, you no eat rat… rat eats you.” He chuckled and I frowned at him.

“Er how big are the rats?” I asked and he winked at me.

“Just if you ever have the unfortunate offer to help a little ole’ lady with her cellar infestation in Endaria, think long and hard on it, and bring lots of friends. Not that I’ve ever seen anything that could remotely be called a quest, much less something as basic as that.” He muttered darkly.

“So… it’s like a complete sandbox?” I asked, still curious about how the mechanics in this game actually worked. I knew some sandbox games could be very sophisticated with everything from random generation to dynamic questing with every choice you made impacting the world around you.

He gave a long sigh and looked up at the sky and grumbled something about stupid noobs. “Endaria isn’t er like any other game I’ve played. In fact, it really helps if you don’t even think of it as a game.” He tried to explain as we entered the final gatehouse next to the keep on this side of the bridge and he guided us over to a long set of stables. I looked at the curious construction. There were small narrow doors the size of horses, and then there were a set of massive doors in the stables that seemed to be for things the size of small elephants. Still another set of doors looked almost like hanger doors at an airport. This was complete with an open and cleared stretch of packed dirt in front of them.

Grooms came out to take the horse’s reigns as he dismounted. He patted the beast and greeted a young boy that came bounding up.

“Sir Gregor! Bal’Sam is here to see you! Where is Sir Vance?” He looked flustered, and sweat soaked his yellow lively as he tried to catch his breath.

“I’ll go talk to him… Page Keldric, please escort this young lady inside the keep. Get some chow, the both of you. Keep an eye on her and make sure she gets up to the great hall. I’ll rejoin you two there when I’m finished with Bal’Sam, I don’t get back to you make sure she meets with Vance before he runs off again.” He gave a grumble of frustration, then he clanked off out the nearby gatehouse into the rest of the fortification, disappearing around a sharp bend in the buildings.

“This way!” The boy called as he bounced on his feet, seeming with bottomless reserves of energy despite the sweat soaking his clothes and dirt and grime across his arms and face.

I hurried to keep up with him as he practically sprinted up the narrow stairs that went up the side of the keep towards its entrance. I looked up and saw that even this entrance was designed to make attackers pay for every inch they advanced. There were arrow slits above it, and several ways to put the exposed stairs in a crossfire. I marveled at this little detail, and noted just how practical and overengineered everything here was. I had seen fantasy games before, but this like Gregor had said, wasn’t like anything else he ever experienced, and he seemed competent enough. It had always seemed silly to me that most games designed castles and the like to look pretty, not be the deathtraps they were supposed to be.

Whoever had designed this didn’t really care about how ugly it looked, but seemed to be very enthusiastic about making it a deathtrap for anyone fool enough to attack it.

The stairs had no railing on either side and seemed to be treacherously narrow. I could see cargo booms overhead that could lift large goods and the like up several floors. One was lifting a heavy pallet of stones as I watched someone run inside what looked like a massive hamster wheel to winch the load up, ratcheting clanks sounding as the man threw himself into the work. Masons with toolbelts and heavy leather smocks caught the load of bricks and pulled it into a doorway, moving the boom of the crane inside where they quickly untied the bricks and I saw a line of workers moving them into some sort of storeroom.

When we entered the doorway, the corridors were narrow, with defendable choke points and gate after gate like airlocks. The bottom floor seemed to be guard barracks and were packed full of soldiers who seemed to be in a constant frenzy of motion. They were caring for gear by tables in the hallways, or doing other mystifying things like one gathering I saw where several men and women were clustered around a slate set into one wall as one massive, burly man with a scarred face and missing ear pointed at some sort of map displayed on it, barking out orders and talking to each one of them.

The stairs we clime upwards from the ground spiraled clockwise and I stopped and stood for a moment as something tickled the back of my mind. I snapped my fingers and remembered that this was actually quite common in castles, as it put right-handed attackers at a disadvantage as they fought their way up them. In addition to the spiral, at each landing we came to actually had more gates and doors before you could go up to the next floor, and each of those landings were manned by guards. They nodded to us, but still looked suspiciously at me with narrowed eyes as I was escorted higher and higher upwards.

When my knees started shaking and I thought I would collapse, we finally passed through a landing that we didn’t keep going up from. This floor did smell quite lovely, and I could hear the clatter of plates and thump of tables and raised voices as we stepped into a small, open hall with a collection of guards, knights and people dressed in work clothes eating their late afternoon meal. The hall went silent as all heads turned to regard me with interest. The page pointed at a nearby table as he practically skipped over to one of people bringing out dishes of food and I shook my head in wonder. The boy hadn’t even seemed out of breath from the climb.

A woman started arguing with him, hands on her hips and brandished a ladle from her belt at him after she emerged from a nearby doorway. She called out orders to some staff and then stormed in my direction.

As she stood there for a moment, we sized each other up. She had dark, almost ebony skin and curly black hair. I was reminded of one of my nannies growing up who had come from Georgia to work for my father. This woman seemed to have the same sort of no-nonsense personality. I saw that even working as a cook, she was armed with more than just a ladle. A leather case that was the same size and shape of a crossbow hung from her back and a shortsword with a sweat stained grip was fastened along the case’s strap as it went over her shoulder.

It made me look around curiously, and I saw that no one here was unarmed. Even a little girl playing dice with a gaggle of older teenagers in the corner was armed with a wicked looking hatchet that hung from a baldric. She was wearing tanned leather armor and I saw a helmet sitting next to her as she spun dice to her friends as they ate.

In fact, it did look like I was the only one here completely unarmed. It was, quite awkward when I thought about it.

“Whacha be doing coming here to the frontlines noob?” The woman peered at me, as if trying to figure me out.

“Umm…. I spawned here.” I said and gave a vague shrug. She returned a curt laugh and, a few other players in the room joined in. I looked around and saw most of the older men and women in the room were actually players.

“How many times you die so far?” She asked me and I saw her knowing smirk.

“Just once…” I said and she gave me an appraising nod.

“Hmm, that’s pretty impressive. You should have chosen the town spawn you know… it is your first time in Endaria?” I nodded.

“The founders of Fenwick, myself included were originally beta players… and most of us didn’t last the first few days, especially after our spawn group broke up… due to some infighting.” She said.

“How many of there were you?”

“Almost two hundred players.” She smiled at me.

“How many survived the first few days?” I asked and her grin went wider.

“Thirty-two.” She said and my jaw dropped in horror.

“We also trained for two years following the end of the beta for the start of Endaria, mastering weapon skills and or martial arts as well as studying crafting techniques in real life, and in training simulations before the launch.” The woman explained.

“What is this Fenwick place anyways? I’m kind of new here and don’t know much about it.” I looked around and a few of the players grinned at me as they stood up and motioned for me to sit down.

I sat down at the table and one of the serving staff set a plate of food in front of me, as I dug into it with the page next to me already asking for seconds and chattering away with several other kids, they tried to explain a bit about the kingdom I was in.

“So as far as we know, we are the only player kingdom that’s actually managed to be successful in Endaria. Or at least the only kingdom that is led by players. There are a few others that have more players in them then we do, but none with a player king.” One explained; a warrior named Freddy.

He had pulled out a slate and manipulated a few symbols until a map formed. They showed me where I was. The continent we were on was called Hygarth and there were a bunch of kingdoms surrounding the northern section of the continent on the other side of a mountain range, with the range extending in a horseshoe shape with Fenwick in the center of it, almost completely isolated from the rest of the continent. We were along the foot of the mountain range on the southwest side of the horseshoe, about a week’s ride from the capital.

“Oh and it is an actual week, this is about the farthest you can get from the capital and still be in anything claimed by King Roger.” The woman explained.

“The port city of Bosroy is just southeast of here, and is still ruled by the League of Silvania.” She explained and pointed to the map.

“So, yea, we have to worry about possible attack here by both the League of Silvania from the south and monsters from the surrounding forests and the mountains north of us.” She explained, and I realized now why things seemed so tense around here.

“Are you at war with them?” I asked and there was a round of chuckles from the table. “Not officially, but it doesn’t stop them from trying to weaken us by waging a proxy war, using the local bandits or barbarian tribes.” Freddy responded.

I gave a weary sigh and leaned back in my chair. I was stuffed, and feeling a bit drowsy now that I was well fed. Looking out the narrow windows here in the dining area, I could see that the sun was beginning to sink low in the sky, almost cresting the surrounding mountains.

“Sir Vance wanted her in his office, but I just went and checked, he still isn’t back yet.” The boy piped up and the woman nodded to me. I had learned she was named Gloria and was a combination of the local cook, and chemist/herbalist. She had picked up an animated conversation with one of the locals during our meal about chemistry and tweaking potions and herbal medications. I had quickly lost interest when they started arguing about different ratios of ingredients I’d never heard about before like puffer thorn extract, and ambrite venom.

The conversation around me faded as I cleared a spot on the table to lay down my weary head and I nodded off into a dreamless sleep.

It didn’t feel like more than a few instants before I felt myself being prodded, then there was a giggle and I blinked open my eyes to see the little girl who was playing dice earlier staring intently at me. I tried to move, but my leg cramped and I groaned before shifting around in the bed I was laying in.

Wait… bed? Why was I in a bed? I gave a proper glance around my surroundings and saw I was in a dark room surrounded by bunks full of sleeping people. A dim lantern shone from a nearby hallway where a bored looking boy in page livery was yawning and leaning on a short spear for support. Next to him I saw Vance glaring at me and beckoning me silently. He was obviously trying hard not to wake the other people fast asleep.

The girl who had prodded me awake skipped back out of the room and stuck her tongue out at Vance before she disappeared around the corner. When I went to get out of bed, I discovered I was barefoot, and my slipper shoes that my new boss had made for me sitting at the foot of the bunkbed.

I grabbed them, and winced at the cold stone floor as I padded over to Vance who silently motioned for me to follow him as we turned down the hallways in the same direction the girl had gone. Vance climbed the nearby stairwell and I followed him, pausing on one of the steps long enough to slip into my shoes. It took a few moments for my sleep addled brain to figure out the right way to lace the shoes up and I had to endure another nasty look from Vance before I was ready to continue.

When we emerged on the next floor, I recognized the dining hall, all the lights were doused and it was empty now. The next floor was a set of richly appointed chambers, and we went down the hallways for a ways, until he opened a door that had a brass nameplate on it with his own name engraved into it.

“Have a seat over by the heater and warm up. Aren’t you cold?” He looked at me and I paused for a second, only now realizing that Vance’s breath had a bit of condensation to it as we had climbed up the keep. I didn’t feel the cold at all.

There was a tiny little glowing device in the corner, giving off red light and heat, and he sat down by it for a moment rubbing a hand across his weary face. I sat in a comfortable armchair next to him as he nodded and nudged a rough crate across the floor, one that had Watchwood Ale stamped on it, and clanked as he shifted it in front of his chair and sighed as he propped his armored feet up on it and leaned back. His eyes closed for a moment, and just when I thought he had nodded off, his eyes snapped open and he shook himself.

“Sorry about getting back to you so late. I was held up a bit.” He grimaced and stared intently at me.

“How did you make it here… alone? I want the truth from you, and over the stone.” He pulled out a bumpy looking glass sphere and held it out to me.

“Bound to truth, in the name of the great seal! So mote it be!” He called to the sphere, it glowed briefly with ethereal light and he nodded.

“Lay your hand on this and I want the truth from you kid, I’ll know if you lie to me!” His intense scrutiny deepened as I grabbed the sphere. I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell him everything, but I decided to at least tell him that I had used magic.

“Are you working for Bret, or his ilk?” He spat out and I shook my head.

“Um who is Bret?” I asked and he glared at me.

“Respond to the question!” He barked and I sighed.

“No I’m not working for Bret, or whatever you are talking about. I don’t wish your stupid kingdom any ill will, yadda yadda. What’s this about?” When the sphere glowed a soft green, he let out a sigh and then narrowed his eyes again.

“So how did you make it here, you said you only died once? I find that pretty hard to believe. What spawn option did you pick?”

“The underground spawn…” I grimaced and his eyes went wide.

“How in the name of Pan did you manage to get from one of those massive cave systems to the surface?” He barked a bit of laughter and I grinned.

“Um… I kinda rode an iceberg down an underground river, not sure how fast I was going but it was pretty fast.” I said and he shook his head.

“Iceberg? You use magic or something?” I nodded at his question.

“So… well now that does make a bit more sense now. Water magi, nice!” He grinned and leaned back, relaxing before he reached to a nearby shelf and picked up a rough carved wooden box. Pulling a pipe from it and filling it with contents from the box he lit the pipe and took a slow pull.

The smoke he breathed out was pretty exotic, and I frowned. I had heard of smoking but, no one in my family was a smoker, and hospitals always had a zero-tolerance view on smoking inside so I had never seen someone smoke before.

Vance puffed on his pipe as he seemed deep in thought for a moment before he perked up. “What’s with the strange outfit by the way. That’s not noob garb, I know because I landed in the forest a few months ago with nothing but a shortsword, shield and cotton cloth rags.” He grinned at me, as if remembering his own start in the game.

I shrugged. “Got lucky, I guess.” He frowned as the orb did seem to reluctantly glow green, after it shifted through yellow.

“That’s not the whole truth.” He glared at me and I rolled my eyes.

“What business is it of you guys? I really appreciate everything you people have done to help me, including that delicious dinner, and the bed but I don’t owe you my life story.” My own anger flaring, as I objected to being interrogated and talked down to by this veteran player.

He held up his hands in placation, and then withdrew his pipe after another pull and cocked his head at me in curiosity. “I understand you have no reason to trust me or whatnot, but the same goes for you. We have a lot of problems with spies trying to get into Fenwick, mostly of the player variety.” He said and gave a bit of a chuckle before he leaned back and rolled a stiff shoulder, groaning in relief as I heard a joint pop.

“Ok… well point taken.” I said and tossed him the sphere. He almost fumbled it in surprise and I glared at him.

“Do you intend me any harm?” I asked and he quickly shook his head.

“No, we aren’t PKers or anything! Honest!” He hurriedly said at my look as I grimaced and pushed back a lock of bedraggled hair and suddenly wondered what I looked like for him to be so taken aback. The ball of glass did glow green, and I gave a sigh.

He waved his hand over the glass while muttering something, causing it to darken. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to pry too much if you don’t want to tell me what happened.” He said as he replaced the orb into a pouch at his side and grimaced.

“I’ll tell when I’m ready, and If I think I can trust you.” I held up a finger and pointed out at the lightening sky in the window behind him.

“Just how early before dawn did you get me up?” I accused, and tried to fight back a yawn. He nearly fell out of his chair as he rushed to the window just as I heard sets of bells begin to ring. “It’s not dawn! It is in the middle of the night, nearly midnight!” He bellowed as he quickly knocked out his pipe into a nearby tin and ran for the door, pulling out a glowing and franticly blinking crystal from about his neck.

“It’s Vance what’s going on?!” His voice trailed off and I heard his echoing, clanging footsteps fade as he ran.