The horse was, of course, not a horse, as Sarah had anticipated. When the elevator door opened and she stepped into the underground level she found the vehicle waiting for her. A motorcycle with sleek lines and a steampunk look similar to the rest of the stuff in the tower, like the screens and valves. Golden letters alongside the fuel tank spelled its name: “TRISTAN”. Sarah ran her fingers across the smooth surface. It was a lovely thing, and some of the power and personality of the horse was in it, or so it seemed to her.

TASK: Retrieve gems to fuel the Burner

The Gate must be defended at all costs, and the enemy keeps advancing. The only way to keep the road free of monsters is to keep firing your tower, and for that, you need gems. Go outside, cross the forest and the enemy wall, and bring back some gems you can use to fuel the tower.

Reward on success:

- 500 XP

- 60 Mana

- increase in Endurance

- increase in Stealth and Sneak Attack

So now the mission is official. Hmmm.

It was kind of strange that the tasks might involve other players, like “Meet the Golden Knight at the Castle”, or pop up because of other player’s idea. But this time it could be easily explained, at least. Uberyn would have received the same task when he arrived to the Burner, and every other player who ended up in the tower would get it too the first time they needed to go in search of gems. Uberyn had just told her to do it before she got the notification from the game.

Uberyn stepped off the elevator as she was musing about the mission. “Have you ever ridden on one of these?”

“Yes,” Sarah lied. She figured that the skill she had acquired by mounting the horse in the medieval realm would have crossphased to this one just as the horse had crossphased as a motorbike, letting her drive the vehicle without any trouble. If I’m right, then I’m getting the hang of this already, she told herself.

“Fantastic. Remember the map,” Uberyn said.

“Got it.”

The map was an ornate tablet with a screen that was not touch sensitive and two rows of golden buttons and knobs at both sides. She mounted it on the front of the bike, covering part of the handlebar, and found that it fit into two grooves that seemed to be made for that very purpose. On the map there were a few red dots indicating the location of the gems she needed. They were all behind enemy lines, just as Uberyn had said. She needed to go through the forest and beyond a wall that marked the limit of whatever place the floxas were coming from. There were no names on the map so she wasn’t sure of what that place was, but she guessed that there was a Gate there, similar to the one she was defending.

She would have to sneak in.

“Good luck,” Uberyn said.

Sarah climbed on Tristan and started the engine. It roared in a subdued, very satisfying way. The motorbike seemed to be pretty quiet for its power, and she loved the way her body adapted to it. It looked like it was literally made for her.

“I’ll open the gate so you can exit the tower. You’ll need to turn left and go up so that you can exit at ground level. You will be able to avoid the floxas at first, but you’ll need to take the road briefly before going into the woods where you can take an older road,” the overpowered player continued. “You may need to use your weapons to defend yourself while on the main road. Also, you need to cross the wall to get the gems.”

Yawn.

“Uberyn,” Sarah asked, “do you never log out?”

The blond player seemed surprised.

“What?”

“Do you never exit the game? I don’t think I’ve seen you sleep or anything here. It’s like you live inside the game.”

Uberyn shrugged.

“I guess we all do,” he said. “You know, since we don’t remember who we are outside. Why would we want to log off? I don’t even know how to do it.”

Sarah thought about it for a moment. Then she decided to push him a bit more.

“Why are you sending me on this quest?”

“I told you,” Uberyn protested. “You need to—”

“Yes, I got that,” Sarah interrupted him. “But why are you helping me? Look, I’m not mad about the kiss. Just don’t do it again. But whatever you think I will owe you if you help me, it’s not that, do you understand?”

Uberyn rolled his eyes.

“Sajya, that was over two months ago,” he said. “I had already forgotten about it until you brought it up earlier. I’m helping you because we’re all in this together, so we need to help each other. You’ll find a way to help me as well, you’ll see.”

“OK, thank you then,” Sarah said. “I’ll be back soon. I hope Maggot will have leveled up a bit by then.”

* * *

Even before getting to the tower’s gate, a new notification told Sarah that she had been right.

Skill active: Mount

I learn to hunt animals in the Enchanted Forest and I become a zombie hunter in the dead city. I learn to mount a horse in the medieval village and I can ride a motorcycle in the tower battle. I’m definitely on the right track, she reflected as she crossed the opening and turned the handle forward to gain speed.

It was something Sarah had started to realize months earlier, when she learned that the flamethrower was a “crossphasable” weapon. She had already learned that weapons and skills turned into their equivalents on crossing between realms, but the system confirming that an item she had acquired was “crossphasable” meant that there was a certain method in place, even though the game was painfully unfinished.

If there was a way to win, it was this. The mechanics of the game had very little to do with acquiring particular abilities and items in the different realms; they were related to crossphasing and adapting between worlds. The way to play the game was to play the meta-game, trying to master the skill of crossphasing.

This will be immensely useful once I learn how to use the Ring, she concluded as she sped through the land, keeping away from the road where the floxas kept coming and coming. Some of them fell down when reached by Gervain’s arrows, others burned under Uberyn’s fire, and the ones that kept walking were rejected by Undaya’s magic shockwaves. But they were still inching closer, walking over the bodies of the fallen.

Sarah figured that the bodies were dissolving or disappearing somehow at certain intervals, or after a while of lying there on the ground; otherwise the enemy’s advance would have turned impossible long ago just by the sheer size of the pile of dead floxas.

Tristan, the bike, was doing its job wonderfully, taking her through the black land at lightning speed but with very little noise. Sarah could already see the dark trees of the forest getting closer, and beyond them, the mountains that she had identified as active volcanoes. She wondered if the forest would be safe or if there were unpleasant creatures there, not the floxas, which were too big, but maybe some smaller, nastier things.

She checked her Inventory. She still had the flamethrower which was... a flamethrower, though its design was now different, making it look older and more modern at the same time, blending well with the retrofuturistic vibe of this land. The switchblade was now an ornate knife, the pistol was a wood-and-bronze arquebus, and the sniper rifle was a similarly constructed rifle.

The rest of the elements she had collected in the zombie-ridden city had not crossphased, though. The knives, which had been common kitchen knives, had stayed in her backpack inside the apartment; the ropes and the grappling hook, the bike, and everything else had stayed.

Also, again, she didn’t have the book with her. But this time she didn’t mind so much: evidently, that book had the talent to find its way to her, so if she could manage to stay alive for as long as necessary, they would be reunited again.

The line of floxas advancing along the road kept going uninterrupted when she entered the forest. Soon she would have to change her course to get on that same road, which would leave her exposed to those huge things. Uberyn had warned her that she would need to do this: there was a deep creek crossing the forest that she could already see in front of her, a raging current that looked impassable. Sarah remembered about a deceptively narrow creek in England where many people had died because it was actually so deep that once you stepped on it, you were sucked into it and there was no way for you to get back to the surface, so everybody who had tried to swim on it had drowned. The Bolton Strid, they called it. It was located in Yorkshire and it was a perfectly charming brook, only it killed you instantly before you ever felt wet. And that’s in the real world. Better not to try here.

Sarah nudged Tristan to the left and the bike responded smoothly, biting the black ground and the dark grey scrubs. The tree trunks were also grey, almost black, and their leaves were the color of midnight. There was still light from outside, though, so she kept the headlights off for the moment.

A few minutes later she was out of the woods and the road presented itself to her once again, the continuous stream of floxas still plowing ahead. Now that she was close to them, she could see they were truly huge — about twenty feet tall. Being attacked by them would be instant death. But for some reason, the floxas didn’t alter their march. If they had noticed Sarah, they did nothing to show it, just as they never thought of attacking the towers themselves instead of just going for the Gate.

Just to see what would happen, and acting by some kind of suicidal impulse, Sarah retrieved the arquebus and pointed it at one of the thousands of pale legs moving along the road.

Take this, motherfucker.

She took a shot.

The arquebus was pretty powerful, as it turned out. The bullet tore a floxa’s leg in two. The monster stottered, wobbled, and fell forward without making a sound, landing on the road lengthwise. The rest of the floxas kept marching, paying no mind to their fallen comrade.

+20 XP

Well, that was anticlimactic. These things are as mindless as—

A whooshing sound very close to Sarah’s ear interrupted her thoughts. Before she could react, she heard a clannng to her right. She turned around and saw the arrow stuck in the dark tree, still vibrating from the impact.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

More arrows started falling nearby. Sarah looked around, trying to locate the source of the attack; then, with the adrenaline pumping wildly through her body, she pressed the pedal and shot forward along the road, escaping from the arrows, avoiding the legs of the floxas that barely left her any space to drive.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

Arrows started raining around, this time coming from a different point, located somewhat ahead of her. She couldn’t pinpoint the origin exactly, though. They must have several small towers all over here. Tiny versions of the Piercer, maybe also others shooting fire and even magic blasts. Yes, there were the faint blue outlines traced by her Perception skill. Behind the innumerable trees at both sides of the road there were small buildings that weren’t visible for her but from where she could undoubtedly be seen.

She needed to go back into the woods.

Unfortunately, the river was curvy on this section of the road, and the map showed it crossing the road at three points. She had crossed the first point immediately after coming out of the forest; the second point, where the creek turned back and meandered into the forest to her right again, was just ahead of her; and the third point, where the course of water made a new turn and crossed the road to go left, was about a mile ahead.

One mile. Live for one mile.

She pressed on the pedal as if it would make Tristan go even faster. Tristan complied, somehow. There seemed to still be something alive about it, part of the horse’s personality. Under her subtle nudges, the motorbike kept eating yard after yard, avoiding obstacles, maintaining her balance, dodging the arrows that kept raining all around.

As soon as the map showed the vehicle leaving the third crossing behind, Sarah turned right. Tristan made an aggressive turn that could have sent both rider and bike rolling and tumbling for a long distance, but by some miracle it worked. The motorcycle straightened pretty quickly when they regained the straight line, this time into the forest. Several arrows stuck into trunks as Sarah crossed the line of trees.

She was now inside the forest again, protected from the arrows, and all she needed to do was find the way to an opening in the big wall.

Sarah maneuvered among the thick vegetation following a more or less direct path to the wall. The map showed the forest as a featureless blob, of course, so she could only use a general sense of orientation and the bluish outlines of the towers that she needed to avoid. They surely stood in their clears in the middle of the forest so she would be safe as long as the trees were covering her.

After a while of driving through the woods, though, her Perception started acting up again. She was now feeling an unmistakable tingling sensation, and when she looked around, she got the impression that brief flashes of blue crossed her visual field, as if dangerous creatures were moving quickly behind the trees, perhaps ready to ambush her.

OK, Tristan, let’s do this, she thought.

There was no time to avoid the creatures. They were moving quickly, and they would be on her before she could choose an escape path.

Store arquebus.

Retrieve rifle.

The rifle was a thing of beauty, double-barrelled and heavy. It felt... solid as she held the front with her left hand and let the back rest on her right arm. She rested her elbows on the handlebar, propped the weapon up against her right shoulder, put her finger on the trigger, and held the barrels with the other hand to aid herself in pointing.

The motorbike’s engine hummed, its body vibrated, transmitting its excitement to her.

Skill active: Hunt

The bluish patches were now bigger, appearing more often. The creatures seemed to come and go out of “sight” of her Perception, which revealed that besides having a high Agility, they were also pretty Stealthy. But after a few seconds she determined there were three of them.

The first creature jumped at her from the right, when she had lost sight of it. Sarah caught a glimpse of its portentous, black, fur-covered body and stepped on the pedal instinctively. As soon as she did so, the other two creatures materialized from beyond the trunks. One of them was coming at her from her left, the other was right in front of her.

Ambushed. I knew it.

The things were sabre-toothed wolves. They were completely black; even the eyes and the fangs were black, a perfect cover in that sinister forest made of dark trees, dark shrubs and black earth. But her Perception skill gave them a bluish outline, helping her see. Sarah decided not to turn on the headlights. She wanted to be as invisible herself as she could.

The creature in front of her growled menacingly as the one that had jumped on her first followed her from behind and the third wolf prepared to land on her left side.

Sarah shot once. The sabre-toothed wolf that had been in front of her vanished. She turned left, facing the jumping beast. A quick glimpse at its stats revealed it had 300 hitpoints and tremendous levels of Agility. She shot the rifle again. The wolf contorted in the air, bounced on the ground gracefully, and jumped aside, only to remain there, growling and preparing for a new attack.

OK, let’s dance then.

She turned right, passing between two trees, then kept turning, taking mental note of the location of the tree bluish outlines. She emerged a few yards beyond her original position and took a new shot. This time she hit one of the wolves. It whimpered, but didn’t die.

+50 Damage

Sarah pressed on the pedal. She kept her elbows resting on the handlebar, her hands holding the weapon, letting Tristan keep the balance as it sped up. She shot once, twice. One of the shots reached one of the sabre-toothed beasts. The one she had hit earlier. It cried out, but lived.

+120 Damage

Sarah drove in a straight line, and the other two beasts decided to jump on her as she approached them. She nudged the motorbike a little bit to the left and took a shot; it hit one of the wolves right between the eyes, killing him instantly. The other creature was already landing on her.

+300 Damage / Enemy dead

Skill acquired: Mounted Attack

Thanks for the timing, Sarah thought bitterly as she rolled on the ground and the bike kept going for a few meters before losing balance and falling to the ground as well. The enormous black teeth were ready to claw at her, the wolf’s thick, stinking drool dripping on her face.

Store rifle. Retrieve knife.

Sarah found herself holding the richly embossed knife. She didn’t stop to contemplate its beauty, instead choosing to drive it deeply into the beast’s throat.

The wolf howled in pain; the howl quickly turned into a gurgle as the knife took the strength from it, then into a muffled sound that became weaker and weaker as the animal became a lifeless lump.

+300 Damage / Enemy dead

There was the other one. The one that was hurt.

It was nowhere to be seen.

Sarah somehow managed to free herself from the wolf’s corpse (Store knife) and stood up with some difficulty. She checked herself and realized she was hurt too. The beast had managed to bite her in the shoulder with its powerful fangs before dying.

Oh, fuck.

She walked to Tristan, climbed on it, and turned it on again.

Then, the third beast appeared.

It was hurt, but very much alive, and furious. Its black eyes shone with hatred, or so it seemed to Sarah. Trails of red blood marked the spots where the bullets had hit it.

Retrieve arquebus.

At short distance, the rifle wouldn’t do. Sarah would have only one shot to kill the beast.

The sabre-toothed wolf jumped in the air.

Sarah pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

As the creature went through the air, ready to drive its enormous claws into her tender flesh, Sarah realized that she hadn’t reloaded the weapon after shooting at the floxa. An arquebus is a single-shot weapon. It needs to be reloaded every time.

What she did then, she did instinctively, without a rational thought interposing into her action.

She let go of the arquebus, held Tristan’s handlebar firmly, and jumped up, until her whole body was in the air.

Then she fell. She didn’t let go of the motorbike, but her feet hit the ground beside it, making her bounce and roll. But not before she turned on the brake on the bike.

Tristan’s wheels locked. The bike stopped dead, hit the ground at full speed, and became a projectile.

The big, compact, metallic body hit the sabre-toothed wolf with such force that even while rolling on the ground, Sarah could hear the big fangs breaking, and then the bones inside the animal’s body.

Bike and beast flew through the air together, in a deadly embrace. Their flight ended against a tree whose trunk barely stood the impact.

The wolf got smashed so badly that when Sarah went to take her bike, there was no body to speak of, only a mushy and bloody mess all over the motorbike’s surface and running down the tree trunk.

+130 Damage / Enemy dead

Sarah mounted Tristan again after cleaning the seat and handlebar as best as she could with her own clothes. The map was not there anymore; she found it under some bushes, broken in two.

Oh, great. How will I get the gems now? I don’t know where the fuck they are.

She was wondering about this when the whole world turned white.