It was dawn when Beatrice shook Carey awake. He immediately sat up, feeling more refreshed than he’d ever felt in his life. Not a trace of a hangover, despite all the celebratory beer he’d drunk.

“I feel great,” he said. “Like… Like I…”

“Well-Rested Bonus,” Will said. “Adds temporary boosts. +1 to Constitution and Luck, plus your Stamina and Health bars are thirty-five percent… higher? Longer? It raises their max capacity for two hours.”

“Not bad.”

Swinging his feet off the bed, Carey accidentally launched himself across the room, poor Will ducking to avoid being hit.

“That’s some agility,” Will said admiringly, as Carey hit the wall and landed on all fours.

“I feel like Spider-Man,” Carey said. “Always wanted to be him. Favorite superhero, hands down.”

Beatrice called out from the washroom. “I was always more of a Scarlet Witch, myself.”

“I can understand the witch part,” Carey said with a chuckle, but she didn’t hear him.

“Me?” Will said, sitting on the edge of the bed and strapping on his sandals. “I was always more of a—”

“Lemme guess,” Carey said. “Black Panther.”

Will was not amused. “Not every black kid wants to be Black Panther, you know. Are there no black people where you’re from?”

Carey smiled. “I’m from New Hampshire. If I want to see black people, I have to watch The Wire on HBO.”

Will shook his head. “You mean black people dealing drugs in the ghetto. Our natural habitat, right?”

“Damn it, that’s not what I—you know what? I’m not a racist. Seriously. Unless we’re talking Feral, which is clearly the master race.”

Hopefully, the joke might change the subject. Beatrice shouted from the washroom. “Carey’s two favorite words: ‘master race.’”

Maybe not.

“Hey, put some soap in that mouth while you’re at it, Bea!”

Will got up with a sigh. “Wait ’til we get to a major city on Valestaryn, your homeland.”

“Why’s that?”

“Ferals are slaves there. Either slaves or outlaws. It’s thanks to Riven Xor. He helped a Low Mage named Porophon, Son of Sacklos, become ruler over the entire continent. They use Ferals as living batteries to refill their God’s Head bloodstones.”

“How do they do that? Spells?”

Will shook his head sadly. “They have these towers... Towers of Light, they call them...”

He tapped the crystal on his Araband and issued a command: “Ara, show us images of what I’m talking about.”

There was no reply from Ara. Probably only the user could see and hear her, unless she was “shared.”

A hologram sprang to life between Carey and Will—a three-dimensional representation of a tower that looked to be at least a hundred feet tall, judging by the surrounding trees. At the very tip, there hung an enormous wire-mesh sack of thousands of Blood Ether crystals gathered like treasure awaiting aerial pickup.

But they weren’t there to be picked up. They were there to be replenished.

Hulking, gray-skinned soldiers—Berserkers, Carey remembered; the corrupt version of Sargonauts—led a line of chained Feral slaves through a door in the tower’s base. Only darkness lay beyond that door, though Carey felt there was something infinitely scarier in there—like a monster straight out of a nightmare waiting for victims on which to feed.

Once eight or ten slaves were inside the compartment—frightened men and women with furry tails and orange eyes—a soldier slammed the door shut. A vicious internal process began, and Carey once more imagined a monster inside that darkness, ripping the prisoners to shreds, because whatever was happening in there, the Feral prisoners were screaming as if their arms and legs were being ripped off, one by one.

“Jesus,” Carey said in a frightened whisper. “What the hell?”

The blood crystals atop the tower glowed the slightest bit, but they were not yet full. Not even close. Several hundred Feral prisoners might have to die to fill the entire haul.

Rage blossomed inside Carey’s chest, a sickening sensation he’d never felt before, not even in his angriest tantrums against his father or any other authority figure—because this angry feeling was accompanied by something else: a sense of purpose.

“That’s not happening anymore,” Carey said. “Not on my watch.”

Beatrice emerged from the washroom, drying her hair with a towel, despite this being a game where things didn’t actually get wet.

“I showed him a Tower of Light,” Will said.

“Oh yeah,” Beatrice said. “In order to beat the game, we need to infiltrate the underground network that links all those things up. It’s in Valestaryn.”

“Then what?” Carey asked, clenching his hands into fists, recalling the memory of those frightened Feral faces.

“Then we need to poison it,” she said. “Once we do that, all the Low Mages feeding off its energy will die and the towers will wither and crumble. We’ll get to watch a congratulatory ‘you won the game’ cutscene, go home with our memories wiped, and the towers and main quest will reset for the other players.” She shrugged. “Sounds simple, in theory. But many have tried and failed.”

Carey headed for the door. “Let’s go. No time to dry your hair, Bea. It’s not even a real...thing.”

“It makes me feel like I’m back home,” she said. “Hey, if I can’t dry my hair, then you can’t drink beer. How’s that?”

He rolled his eyes. “Everything’s always a fight with you.”

“Less talking, more walking,” she said and pushed him through the open door.

It had rained overnight—a nice touch to the game’s day-night cycle. They slogged across muddy ground that felt surprisingly real, and even left grime on their sandals.

Carey’s enhanced Feral senses made it impossible not to become fully immersed in the game. Every flower he passed had a delicious scent; every creature that scurried across his path made a distinct noise; and each time he swung his dagger in front of him, its weight and heft made him hungry for a bigger, better, and deadlier weapon with which to strike.

“The stables are on the other side of town,” Will said, picking the front hem of his robe off the mud. “We can fast travel using the levathons.”

“It’ll cost us, though,” Beatrice added. “Twelve silver per person. It’s so travelers will walk more.”

Carey breathed in the scent of a fresh new morning after rainfall. “Why don’t we walk? It’s nice out. Though, we’d better eat and drink something first.”

His hunger and thirst meters were about a quarter full. They would last two hours, tops.

“Do we really have that much time?” Beatrice asked, and Carey sensed she was genuinely asking, not trying to be bitchy. “I mean, we need to beat this thing, not hang around to smell the flowers.”

“She’s right,” Will said, summoning strips of Elki jerky and a water pouch from his inventory. He passed them around so Beatrice and Carey could replenish their hunger and thirst meters as they walked. Carey made a mental note to fill his own pouch, which he should have done ages ago.

“A better question,” Carey said, as he strolled through Irados’s main gates toward the rugged wilderness beyond, “would be to ask ourselves if we can spare the resources. What makes more sense? To spend twelve silver per person on travel? Or spend that on buying new weapons, upgrading our spells, and potentially bribing a Sargonaut to join our team?”

“Someone’s broke.” Beatrice jabbed a thumb at Carey, smiling.

Will grinned. “Sounds like a broke-ass fool to me. What do you say, Bea? Two-days’ walk to Tyrathon on the coast? Should we do it?”

“Let’s do it. Maybe we’ll come across some caves to loot.”

“That’s the spirit!” Carey sprinted ahead. “Whoopee,” he shouted halfway through a somersault.

At one point, a large, raccoon-looking creature with orange and red stripes across its belly crossed his path. Lvl. 1 Fire Badger, it said above its Health bar. Carey threw his dagger at it, and the creature reacted by screeching at Carey and breaking into a run in the opposite direction.

-8 HP

“Ooh, here we go. Health bar down to six.”

Carey sprinted toward it, running on all fours.

“Drink its blood,” Will shouted after him. “You can do it!”

“Workin’ on it!”

Carey caught up to the creature, finally, and hit it again. The creature bared teeth resembling a wood-chipping instrument and screamed at him, its beady black eyes alight with hatred. Its Health bar dropped to 2 points.

Curved claws slashed at Carey, slicing his cheek.

“Ow! Bastard!”

Carey lightly punted the creature for 1 HP damage.

“Yes!”

He grabbed it, but as soon as his hands closed around the creature’s sizable midsection, the orange and red stripes all over its body brightened, and the creature burst into a fiery ball.

Carey fell back, swatting at the flames catching all over his shirt.

-13 HP

Carey’s HP, this time.

“Stupid,” he said, eyeing his Health bar. “Shoulda seen that coming. Name like ‘Fire Badger.’ Jesus.”

He checked his activity log.

Fire Badger uses Flame Burst

DrollTroll takes -13 fire damage

Fire Badger dies

So, it had been a suicide attack. Interesting. Carey would have to avoid any other creature with red and orange stripes, or any sort of threatening element in its name. Will and Beatrice caught up to him as he was taking a knee to recover the lost HP.

“Come on,” Will said, offering Carey a hand.

They were on the trail in no time. Within an hour of walking, Beatrice clapped excitedly and pointed at a run-down little shack in the woods.

“Safe House,” she said, running toward it.

“What’s a safe house?” Carey asked.

Will filled him in. “It’s a place where we can relax a bit. Sleep if we have sleeping bags or mats. Add stuff to our storage chests to free up inventory space.”

“Does the storage loot travel across—”

“Yup.” Will nodded. “Every Safe House’s storage chest contains exactly what you put into it, no matter where it’s accessed.”

“Not bad.”

They went in and found crafting benches and an alchemy station. Will and Beatrice set about crafting items and brewing potions. Carey threw open the old storage chest in the corner, saw nothing in any of the 24 slots, and set about considering what he might throw in there. He wasn’t carrying all that much besides ingredients and aid items.

He closed the container. Maybe next time.

They went back outside and followed their map markers. Eventually, a vista opened up beyond a cliff that snatched Carey’s breath away. He checked his world map and saw that they were looking at a place called The Ruins of Alerathon.

“Incredible,” Carey said.

Will gripped an overhead branch and let his arms hang from it. “Never gets old.”

Beatrice approached the edge of the cliff and said nothing, just stared down at the sprawling structure.

Alerathon had once been a massive stadium—a coliseum, more like it. Similar to the one in Rome, which Carey had only ever seen in pictures, it was in ruins as the name on his map suggested. About half of it was still erect. It stood in the center of a massive clearing, its stone and concrete walls and crumbling seats glittering in the passing sun, the land around it a sea of undisturbed grass and weeds.

“That thing could have seated over a hundred thousand people,” Carey noticed, after a quick count of a smaller section, which he then multiplied. “You guys ever been down there?”

“Once,” Beatrice said. “But not inside the arena. Level 10 creatures spawn there.”

“Good to know,” Carey said. “Maybe we’ll come back sometime and grind.”

“Maybe,” Will said. “We just need that Sargonaut for our party. I wish we didn’t, to be honest.”

“Yeah, me too,” Beatrice said.

Carey studied their downcast expressions. “Why? What’s wrong with Sargonauts?”

“Those players tend to be bullies,” Will said. “They pick Sargonaut because they like the idea of being stronger and more powerful than everyone else. Remember, we’re all here in the first place because we’re bullies. Imagine having that attitude and then becoming ten times stronger than everyone else.”

“Speaking of bullying,” Carey said, “What are you in here for, Will? You don’t strike me as the bullying type.”

“Not all bullies are jerks on the surface, you know. I’m actually a pretty nice guy.”

“Yeah, but...” Carey shrugged. “You must have done something.”

A moment of silence passed in which Will cast some sort of ice spell, turning his fingers into sharp, misty icicles about nine inches long. He glanced at Carey as if to confirm Carey was impressed by the spell, which he was.

“Don’t change the subject,” Carey said.

Will waved away the spell, his fingers casting streaks of water and mist through the air. “I don’t like talking about it.”

“No one does,” Carey said. “But we’re in a party now. Remember? No secrets?”

“I never agreed to that. We’re here to play. Fight. Win. Not gossip about our past selves. Let’s move on. I wanna get to Tyrathon sometime today.”

Carey nodded at that. “Way to show backbone, kid.”

Before he could take another step, Carey was distracted by shiny loot. (1) Silver Amulet sparkled inside a bush. “Finders keepers,” he said, plucking it out. He also pocketed (12) Wild Blueberries.

“Check this out,” Will said, lifting a gold bar, a Small Shovel in his other hand.

“Is that what I think it is?” Carey asked, amazed as he read the name: Tiny Gold Bar.

“You bet, son. I dug it up. You’ll see small mounds now and then. Use one of these shovels to dig it up. Might find something good.”

“Do you have an extra shovel?”

“Nah, but we’ll craft one for ya soon.”

Carey checked his mini-map to see what was nearby, just so they didn’t miss anything. He found a tiny white question mark over what looked like a mound of earth with a shoddy wooden door leading underground. “You guys see that? North of here?”

“Dungeon,” Will said. “In our instance of it, monsters will be the same level as our highest-level player.”

Carey and Will glanced at Beatrice, who was absently wiping smudges off her Coral Knife. She was Level 7 now, which meant they’d be fighting more powerful monsters.

“What?” She shrugged. “I’ll keep you guys safe.”

“I need to level up,” Carey said. “Let’s check it out, and if it’s too much, we can always turn back.”

It took an hour to walk there. Along the way, Carey used one of his natural abilities—Scout Eye—to search for loot. As soon as he activated it, the world darkened as if twilight had fallen. Lootable items, like certain plants and other resources, became highlighted in bright orange, like flames lighting up around him. He dutifully collected as much as he could; mostly alchemical ingredients with hidden effects he might need later.

(2) Luminether Crystal Shards

(3) Flustercane Root

(1) Lumos Fruit

(4) Herranean Flower Petals

(2) Jorboar Bone Marrow

(8) Thrallspice

(1) Ancient Mysterious Stone (?)

(3) Speckled Horned Shrooms

(6) Wooden Sticks

(2) Rags

“Not bad, right?” Carey asked, showing Will and Beatrice his haul.

There had been several other items he’d thrown out after seeing how little they were worth. He didn’t particularly want an Alchemy build, so most of the plants and ferns were useless.

Beatrice casually inspected the list, unimpressed. “I guess you could make yourself a nice stew.”

“What about this?” Will pointed at the Ancient Mysterious Stone. “Could be interesting. Needs to be identified.”

“Can we do that?”

Grinning, Will produced a scroll that sparkled around the edges. “Check out this bad boy.”

“Scroll of Identification,” Carey said, reading the floating tag. “Let’s do it.”

“Are we really going to waste that on a rock?” Beatrice asked. “How many scrolls do you have?”

“Just two,” Will said, staring pitifully at her, as if he were a child and she were his mother, scolding him in a toy store for wanting too many things at once.

“Don’t let her decide for you,” Carey said. “It’s your scroll.”

Will steeled himself. “That’s true. It is my scroll. And I have a spare.”

Beatrice shook her head and continued walking. Carey flipped his middle finger at her back. Will rolled his eyes theatrically, as if to say, See what I’ve been dealing with?

Carey made the Ancient Mysterious Stone appear from his inventory. It was small yet heavy in his hand, the texture strangely ridged, as though someone had carved a hundred tiny words in an ancient script across its surface.

He took a closer look at it and saw that he was correct—the countless fine ridges were lines of script written using tiny symbols.

Will placed his palm on the scroll, absorbing its power, energy, or whatever it was. His outstretched fingers began to glow with crackling yellow light.

Sparks danced in Will’s eyes.

“Ready,” he said.

“Okay, Thor. Hit me.”

Carey exposed the stone on his upturned palm. Will cast the spell, and the stone floated a few inches into the air and began to spin.

Soon, the label changed from Ancient Mysterious Stone (?) to another name that made Carey hiss through his teeth in anticipation and excitement.

Stone of Binding (Unique item).

Value: 25S

Cast this stone anywhere and it always comes back. Makes a “stony” sound when it hits stuff. Could be useful in the right situation...

Will rubbed his palms together. “Let’s try it out.”

Carey’s tongue pressed against his upper lip as he readied his arm to throw—an old habit from when he was a kid playing Little League baseball. Reeling back like a pitcher, he let fly and the stone bounced off the cliff side. Definitely had a “stony” sound, like the description said.

“Now what?” Carey said, waiting.

Beatrice stood watching, waiting. Then an idea hit her, and she lifted her right hand, flashing her palm.

“Put your hand up,” she said. “Like you’re going to catch something.”

Carey did as instructed. Immediately, the stone flew back, hitting his palm with a gentle thud.

“Whoa.” Carey’s eyes widened. “This could be great for stealth tactics. Speaking of stealth, any of you ever tried that approach?”

Will and Beatrice glanced at each other, shaking their heads.

“Might serve us well.” Carey made the stone disappear into his inventory. “I’ve been thinking...”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Will said, breaking into laughter at his own joke.

Beatrice smacked him in the arm. Carey flashed him a mocking smile and made an I’ll punch you gesture.

“Anyway,” Carey said, “what if having a Sargonaut on our team is actually a bad idea? I mean, those guys are probably notorious for running around smashing things, right? What if we had a stealth-focused party instead?”

Beatrice crossed her arms. “You want a Feral playmate? What’s the matter, wings, muscles, and magic too boring for you?”

Carey shook his head, more certain about this than anything since Luminether Online had loaded up inside his brain.

“Seriously,” he said. “In order to win the game, we need to complete the Level 40 quest to poison those towers or whatever. Think about it. What are the chances we’ll be able to smash our way through a bunch of bad guys with just a party of four people, only one of them actually strong enough to cause serious smashing damage?”

“I see what you’re saying.” Will stroked his chin in a professorial manner. “Maybe no one’s won yet because no one’s thought to create a focused party. Mainly one focused on stealth.”

Beatrice stared absently at the ground. Carey could sense the gears turning.

“Maybe,” she said, “having four people specialize in four different areas isn’t a good idea. But what about me?” She stared penetratingly at Carey, as if daring him to say what he might be thinking. “I’m a healer. I don’t do stealth attacks. Are you saying you’d be better off with just Feral Rogues and stealth-magic builds and… and...”

“Whoa, relax,” Carey said, putting his hands up in a gesture he hoped would put her at ease. “No one’s saying that.”

She crossed her arms and looked away, wings twitching.

Honestly, Carey was beginning to question Bea’s mental state. She was too emotional, too sensitive. What if she completely lost her nerve during a boss battle?

It was something to think about.

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t do so great with rejection.”

“Your skills won’t be useless,” Carey said. “A few of us stealthy types could clear out the rooms while you hang back, casting healing spells and buffs. You’d be protected.”

Her expression softened. “Protected...I like that.”

“Let’s practice inside this dungeon,” Carey said. “If it doesn’t work out, we’ll re-evaluate the plan, see about recruiting a Sargonaut in Tyrathon. But I have a good feeling about this theory. Wait… Do you hear that?”

The others listened, then shook their heads.

“A stream,” Carey said, grinning.

They followed him a short distance away, where they all relaxed for a moment while filling their hide water sacks. Carey found himself studying Beatrice while she looked off into the trees, her hand and pouch submerged in the cold water. A dragonfly landed on her shoulder, but she didn’t seem to notice.

She was such a babe, sometimes, it hurt to look at her. It was like a tightening sensation would seize Carey’s entire body. He wondered if, back in the real world, a girl like her would have given him the time of day.

Probably not. She probably sucks like all the rest of them.

Yet he had his doubts. Something about her seemed so… broken.

Speaking of broken people, Carey’s thoughts took a dark turn toward something Sam had said to him moments before the pod snapped shut, plunging Carey into this twisted fantasy.

See you on the other side, DrollDouche.

“Hey, Bea,” he said, to which Beatrice blinked at him like someone waking from a dream.

“Yeah, Carey?”

“Remember Sam?”

The dreamy look on her face melted into a frown.

“Uh-huh… ? What about him?”

“Well, when they finally got me into that pod, literally as the lid was closing over me, he said he would see me on the other side. Have you ever rubbed shoulders with this guy in-game?”

Gazing absently down at the flowing water, apparently troubled by the thought, Beatrice shook her head slowly. “I haven’t. But I imagine he has all the access he would need to…”

“To make my life a living hell,” Carey said.

“But… wait, why would he be an asshole to you? What did you do to him?”

Carey shrugged. “I don’t know. I never met him before he kidnapped me.”

“Maybe it was online?”

“Probably. I used to troll people.”

Beatrice scoffed in disgust. “Ew. You were one of those people? Why?”

Carey shrugged again—this time dispirited instead of angry. He felt like he wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.

“I don’t know. It was like an addiction. I knew it was a shady, weird thing to do, but it’s the internet, you know? I mean, who takes it seriously what some stranger says? It all seemed so anonymous. Plus, a lot of these people deserved to get trolled, for posting and saying nonsense.”

“No one deserves to get trolled,” Beatrice said, “especially if what they’re posting is honest and not trying to hurt anyone. Can you remember any time you might have trolled someone like Sam? Maybe their response was… out of the ordinary? Like a threat having to do with kidnapping or… or VR?”

Carey shook his head, gazing off into the forest. “I can’t remember.”

“Wow. You must have trolled a lot of people.”

“Like I said, it was an addiction.”

“I get it. You’re a malignant narcissist who received pleasure—almost like a power trip—whenever you successfully made someone feel mental and emotional anguish. You felt superior and probably eased any guilt your shallow empathy might have made you feel simply by telling yourself you were righting a wrong—that you were teaching them a lesson for saying ‘dumb stuff.’ You did this online, probably using anonymous screen names, because you were living inside a comfortable bubble where your actions couldn’t come back to bite you in the ass. Going outside that bubble would have been too scary.”

By now, Carey’s face was burning. He could tell it was bright red, one of the downsides of having a deathly pale, Irish complexion. The game probably deepened the color, just to mess with him.

He tossed away a stick he’d been breaking into pieces.

“I’m going to tell you something about your personality, Bea,” he said, glaring at her, “and I want you to know that it’s completely, 100 percent honest, that it comes from the bottom of my heart. Just some stuff I’ve observed. Not an attempt to troll.”

“Okay.” She stood, capping her water sack, eyeing him warily. “I’ll know if it’s bullcrap.”

“I’m sure you will. But you know what? Never mind. Not worth my time. Go figure it out yourself.”

With that said, he turned and left her standing there by the stream, her expression a mystified frown.

Serves her right. Let her stew for a bit.

“I need a level,” Carey said, when he found Will. “Let’s hunt.”