They woke up the following morning to a gray sky and wet drizzle that soaked their clothes. Despite Carey’s Well-Rested Bonus, this type of weather still had the power to make him feel glum.

One of the Araband’s options was to keep Ara present at all times, which Carey decided to do. She ended up being somewhere between a party member and a constant tutorial guide, offering helpful details about the world and distracting Carey to no end with her attractive physique and bubbly personality.

“Carey, when you have a moment,” Ara said, walking beside him.

Carey took a deep, pleasant breath. He had Min-joon on his shoulders, carrying him the way a father might carry his young son, hands loosely gripping the boy’s ankles. At eight-and-a-half years old, Min-joon might have been too old for that sort of thing, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“For you, Ara? Anything.”

She smiled, seemingly embarrassed. “You’re too nice. Remember, I’m just a piece of software.”

“You’re pretty cute for a girl made of code.”

“And you’re pretty cute for a guy made of bones and meat.”

Beatrice crinkled her nose in disgust. “Will you guys stop already?”

Min-joon chuckled. “We’re a bunch of meat bags.”

“Not here, at least,” Will said.

“In real life,” Min-joon added.

“I don’t want to think about how bad my meat bag probably smells inside that pod,” Beatrice said.

“I didn’t want to think about that either,” Carey said, “but thanks for the pick-me-up, Bea.”

Ara skipped ahead of them, then spun around to beam a smile at the group. “For a bunch of meat bags, you guys are pretty great company!”

“Ara, hold up,” Carey said, remembering something. “I just realized you never answered my question a while back. About winning this tournament, as you call it. I hate to kill the mood, but I need to know. Why would only one person have to win? Why can’t it be a whole party?”

“You’re asking if you can take your friends with you,” she said. “If you end up winning and leaving this place.”

“Yeah, I guess. It would be nice to get out of here and keep in touch with you… well, maybe not you, unless I can download you into my phone.”

“Us,” Beatrice said. “And Min-joon. The four of us could be friends. Would you like that, MJ?”

“Totes magotes!” Min-joon said, gripping Carey’s ears somewhat painfully.

“Ow, geez. MJ, go easy, will ya? Ara, will you finally answer my question? If only one person can win this game, then does that mean… what, that I have to defeat Will and Beatrice in battle?”

“More likely, they just wouldn’t survive,” she said flatly.

There was a moment of silence. They had successfully killed the mood.

“Damn it. But why can there only be one winner?” He grabbed Min-joon and placed him on the ground, a bit roughly. “And what happens if an entire party wins? Do they have to turn on each other until there’s only one person left standing? And that person gets to leave? Answer me.”

Ara stopped and reached up to an overhanging leaf. A colorful splotch quivered. She took it with one finger, gazing at the butterfly, admiring its bright yellow-and-orange wings.

“You might think you’re trapped,” she said absently, “or imprisoned. And you may be correct on a literal level. But this game isn’t meant to turn you into slaves. It’s meant to free you. Luminether Online is somewhat open-ended for that reason—because in order to have free will, the possibility must exist for you to make your own story.”

“You’re losing me,” Carey said. “Anyone else lost?”

“I’ve been lost,” Will said. “I’m just enjoying the scenery at this point.”

“I find that kinda beautiful,” Bea said. “That we’re here to make our own stories. Like we’re each a main character in a world that only exists in our imaginations.”

Carey found himself growing frustrated. “Can we stop with the artsy-fartsy philosophy pillow talk? I was tased, drugged, and forced into a metal tube, where the only way out is either in a body bag or as the winner of some violent tournament where I might have to kill my friends. Anyone else find that really messed up, or is it just me?”

Ara watched as the butterfly flapped away like a renegade flame shimmering through the air to vanish in the rays of sunlight.

“Go on,” she said, looking at Carey. “I can tell by the way you’re looking at me. You have something else to say.”

“It’s just that you’re programmed—again, no offense—to say things that will keep us playing, right? And telling us we can make our own story is misleading. The real story is that we’re locked in a tube and will probably die. That’s the meat bag version, which is reality. Whatever happens in Astros is just a fantasy. So, I’ll ask you again, how the hell are we supposed to get our meat bags out of this machine and back to real life, where we can all just hang out and grab a beer together at a bar for meat bags only?”

“The only truth you need to concern yourselves with,” Ara said frantically, pointing her finger, “is that pack of raptodors heading straight toward us!”

“Rapta… what?”

The beasts were pounding toward them, their footsteps clearly audible now, only about ten seconds away.

There were four of them—adults.

“Damn it,” Carey said, his Feral instincts taking over.

He grabbed Min-joon’s waist. With all his might, he threw the boy toward the nearest tree branch thick enough to support him. Min-joon clamped onto it with the agility of a squirrel and perched along its length.

“I’ll get behind them,” Min-joon said.

Carey nodded once. “Back-stab-a-rooney, kid.” Then he turned to Will and said, “Inspect. Area of effect.” Will nodded and turned toward the predators.

To Beatrice, Carey said, “Buff. You know the rest.”

“Buff-a-rooney,” she said, nodding. “Heal-a-rooney.”

Carey ignored Ara, but she would be fine with that. She had already warned them battles were not her forte. She wasn’t programmed to have any sort of physical presence that could impact the world and was basically a hologram.

“You can do this, Carey,” she said and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

She wasn’t useless after all. A kiss was its own buff.

The four raptodors showed up at the same time, leaping over each other to fall into a triangular formation. They all had about the same stats, though the alpha was slightly more powerful than the rest.

Lvl. 8 Alpha Male Raptodor

HP: 572/572

SP: 920/920

LP: 20/20

The triangular formation was odd. Why would they do that?

“The two in the back are females,” Will said, hands weaving a brightly burning spell into existence. “They spit teeth.”

“Ah,” Carey said, dodging as one of the females did exactly that—expelled a half-inch-long tooth that made a whizzing sound as it shot, bullet-like, past his ear.

With a familiar, crystalline flash of yellow that sparked near its shoulder, one of the raptodors in front lunged at Carey. Muscles flexed beneath its hairless, lizard-like skin. Carey reacted to the flashing indicator without thinking. He dodged left to evade the attack and successfully swept in a circular motion around the creature, narrowly avoiding its snapping, slobbering jaws.

The Attack of Opportunity was a different sort of indicator that made the male’s body brighten as though it had stepped into a patch of sun. Time seemed to slow, but only for a second, after which the opportunity would be lost.

Carey knew what to do.

He pulled Valhera’s Sizzling Short Sword from over his right shoulder, readying what he felt was a perfect power attack, and hoping for a much-needed critical strike.

Will’s voice reached his ears. “No magic buffs. Weakness to shock!”

As Carey’s blade fell, cutting into the alpha, he felt the pleasant vibration along his arm that told him a critical strike had been landed. The sword’s shock enchantment sent a quick burst of tiny lightning bolts into the creature, wracking its body. The world exploded in a flash of blue light which meant Beatrice had simultaneously cast a buff that warmed Carey’s entire body as it fortified his non-magical defenses—which was great, because at that same moment, one of the females launched a special attack, causing at least a dozen of her sharp teeth to shoot toward him like bullets launched from a machine gun. A bunch hit his skull with an impact much like spinning screws attempting to drill into his brain.

“Ow, son of a bitch!”

The male slid away on his side, yelping from the pain of the critical strike, which had lowered his HP bar to around 70 percent. Carey entered sneak mode and crept toward the unsuspecting male picking himself up from the ground.

In the background, Min-joon dropped from the tree behind the other male, who was readying a special attack that involved scraping his paw against the ground, body arced and ready to lunge. Before he could strike at Will, who was being buffed by a spell from Bea’s arsenal that made his body hang in the air and spin in a fortifying vortex of sparkling orange light, Min-joon struck the male, causing a critical strike that dazed the creature, making his back legs give out and his head cartoonishly wag.

Carey prepared his own lunge, executing a stabbing attack that sent his body shooting almost horizontally toward the first male, but the strike missed, and Carey found himself slightly dazed as he picked himself up off the ground.

“Son of a—”

The male bit him in the ass.

“Ow, Jesus!”

DrollTroll takes -12 slashing damage

His armor had blocked part of the attack. That was the difference between the varying types of damage, whether it be slashing, stabbing, or elemental, like burning or freezing. Certain types of armor and enchantments blocked, absorbed, or deflected the damage types in their own unique ways, and it was important to know how the whole system worked. Carey would have to maximize the benefits of that system or die trying.

An orb composed of wriggling, crackling strands of lightning hovered in the air, seemingly headed toward the male. Will had told him about this one—it was sort of like a fireball, except made of pure electricity. Slow, but deadly. The raptodor female who had fired at Carey failed to notice the flickering ball and was struck by a jagged bolt that lashed out at her from its core. Her body shook, spittle flying from her mouth, her skin beginning to char and stink.

She collapsed with a meaty thump. Dead.

Which left the other three.

Min-joon faced off with the remaining female. She readied herself to shoot teeth at him, but Min-joon executed some sort of special ability—and suddenly, there were five Min-joons. Carey watched in stunned silence, ignoring the first male for now, even as he strutted toward Carey, growling. The female’s teeth hit one of Min-joon’s clones and went harmlessly through it. The other clones moved about in different ways, jumping, ducking, distracting the female. Then one of them broke off from the group and attacked successfully.

Carey jumped over the approaching male, ducked into sneak mode, and sneak-attacked the female. Critical strike.

They cleaned up the rest of them with no problem.

The award for the coolest spell of the battle went to Beatrice. Toward the end, after Carey and Min-joon had suffered a few attacks that lowered their HP to dangerous levels, she cast a healing spell that made the ground shake and crack open, shooting foggy blue light from the cracks. Whenever they stepped over one of the cracks, the blue light would restore some HP. It lasted 120 seconds and only healed the members of their party. Stepping through each crack reminded Carey of being a kid playing in the sprinklers at the park, and he savored the cold, misty feeling of the healing light.

EXPERIENCE GAINED: 2,645 points (7,590/13,500 to next level)

“There we go,” Carey said, still panting from the battle. “That was rough.”

“But we’re getting better,” Beatrice said. “Oh, by the way, level up, bitches.”

“Me too,” Will said, and they high-fived.

Min-joon gazed up at Carey. “Can we do it together?”

“Sure, bud.”

Beatrice went first. She opened her menu, and Carey found himself reveling at all the options for buffs and healing spells and other types of interesting abilities and perks. At Level 12, Bea was still a low-level character—at least in Carey’s approximation, having played dozens of online RPGs like World of Warcraft where “experienced” players were Level 60 or better—but she still had a whole bunch of tricks up her sleeve he’d never noticed.

“You can sing for Stamina?” he asked her.

She smiled in a way that made her eyes close. “Sure can. Want to hear?”

“Ooh,” Ara said, clapping and bouncing on her sandaled feet. “I do!”

“Me too!” Min-joon said.

Beatrice cleared her throat and began to sing a song in another language that almost sounded like “Hush, Little Baby,” except much more emotional, with highs and lows Carey felt were the peaks and valleys of an epic story that could go on for hours. He listened dreamily while misty swirls of pink light bedecked with tiny, flashing stars began to swirl around everyone’s body, fortifying their Stamina so it would drain less quickly for the next fifteen minutes and giving them a morale boost that wasn’t exactly a stat but more of a feeling that inspired Carey, literally like warm air filling his body from the ankles up.

Ara scooped Min-Joon into her arms as if the boy-thief were a puppy, which never failed to surprise Carey. They had discovered that Ara had enough of a physical presence to be able to touch and embrace them, though she absolutely could not take part in battles or cause them bodily harm. Another trick of the game, perhaps, to make her more lifelike and trustworthy—that comforting sense of touch was deceptive.

On their way to Tyrathon, Carey saw on his map that it was a coastal city about two days’ walk west of them, a sprawling metropolis unlike any he’d seen in Astros so far, with long piers extending into the ocean and borders that stretched across the land like a spreading stain. It was easily twenty times larger than Irados.

Carey came across a glowing, unique-looking herb at one point, just standing there among a bunch of plain weeds and flowers. It was green, but the colors shifted and changed when he looked at it from different angles.

(1) Iridescent Millow Fern

“Anyone know what Millow Fern is?”

When he tried to read the description, all he saw were three question marks.

Min-joon shrugged and shook his head. Ara just kept walking, but Will and Beatrice whipped around to face Carey.

“You found an Iridescent Millow Fern?” Beatrice asked, approaching with caution.

“That’s what I said. Why are you all staring at me like I found your great-grandma’s engagement ring she lost on board the Titanic?”

“We should get to an alchemy station ASAP,” Will said.

“Guess I’ll just have to deal with the suspense,” Carey said, walking ahead.

“Just wait and see,” Beatrice assured him. “It’s hard to explain, but you’ll be glad you were paying attention.”

“Speaking of paying attention…”

Carey activated his Scout Eye ability. All surrounding loot was highlighted. This part of the forest was thick with plant life, insects, and hidden secrets. Carey saw literally hundreds of items around him and beyond the trees, most of it worthless, but some of it worth grabbing.

He pointed out the items to the others.

“There, healing ferns… Over there, Iron Ingots… Ooh, don’t overlook that pile of wooden logs.”

The party loot was incredible. Carey’s portion included:

(1) Enderthal Crystal

(18) Long Sticks

(3) Web Residue

(1) Angelic Gypsum Dust

(2) Lead Pipes

(23) Stygian Beetle Dung

(4) Steel Ingots

(11) Iron Ingots

(2) Ash Heaps

(5) Salt Cubes

(2) Flustercane Root

(7) Wild Blueberries

(6) Spider Legs

(3) Spicy Trilento Peppers

(4) Heads of Cabbage

(4) Jorboar Bone Marrow

His inventory weight had reached 60.8 pounds, slowing him down and making running impossible.

They made a small campfire and sat down in a tiny clearing for lunch.

“Anyone got honey?” Will asked.

“I do.” Beatrice snapped a finger. She made a brown clay flask of glistening honey appear in one hand and passed it over.

“Ooh, what are you making?” Min-joon asked.

Carey was roasting rabbit flesh over the fire, using a crude spit he’d crafted from sticks. Next to him, Will pulled the following from his inventory and set it on the ground:

(4) Heads of Cabbage

(4) Jorboar Bone Marrow

(7) Wild Blueberries

(3) Spicy Trilento Peppers

(3) Honey

“Time for some spring cleaning.” Still overburdened, Carey had decided to drop his Threadbare Pants, Worn Sandals, and all 43 of his Long Sticks, which the others gathered. Surprisingly, his Basic Padded Pants were the heaviest non-leather piece of armor he wore, and they only contributed 1.25 to his armor rating. He dropped those. Will offered him a pair of Basic Wool Pants. They offered no armor rating, but they were much lighter.

They encountered enemies along the way—the sorts of creatures one might face in a fantasy forest. A four-pack of starved Level 7 wolves (for which Carey earned 670 XP), a trio of Level 9 Astral Nymphs, which were extraplanar creatures that resembled two-foot-tall blue fairies and required a lot of magic to defeat (Carey earned 1,185 of the party’s XP despite Will doing most of the work), and even an encounter with a roaming band of Torgs, which included four Adult Torg Fighters, three shamans, and a chained Sloth Lord Master they had been transporting in a tiny, rickety wooden wagon. For this more challenging fight, Carey received 2,850 XP, though it cost him (3) Nullifying Crystal Shards to disperse the protective shields the Sloth Lord kept casting and all (4) Shroom Boom Grenades to kill the four Torg Fighters.

All in a day’s work.

***

Congratulations, adventurer!

The forest battles granted him a boost to Level 7. Carey loved the way the notification spread across his vision like fireworks, each letter sparkling.

YOU HAVE GAINED A HALVA POINT!

“Halva, guys,” Carey said, and the others gathered around as he opened his list of options. “Shadow makes sense. Next level of Quiet. Now, I can be 25 percent harder to detect while sneaking.”

“Careful,” Ara said. “That’s 25 percent less noise while sneaking. You can still be seen just as easily, depending on the light. If you go with Shadow, you’ll be 25 percent harder to detect by sight, but you’ll make the same amount of noise.”

“Good points all around. Wish I could combine the two.”

Despite all the fun he was having, choosing one Halva and leaving behind the others wasn’t easy. Carey took his time thinking about it.

“Oh, baby,” Will said. “What about Backstabber?”

Sneak attack blade damage x1.75, read the description.

“I would need Black Knife first,” Carey said. “But I keep getting this nagging feeling, like I’m missing out on something… I know what it is.”

He popped an attribute point into Perception—which instantly became two—and selected Marksman before anyone could say otherwise.

“Why that one?” Bea asked.

“My damage with the bow is x1.25 while sneaking,” Carey said, examining the skill part of his character sheet. He added all 9 of his points—which became 14, thanks to the racial modifier, not a class one—to archery, boosting it from 23 to 37. An additional point had come from the base being boosted by +2 to PER.

His added points in PER also boosted other skills by 1 point: survival, crafting, detect/disarm traps, hunting, bestial pounce, gathering, and cooking.

“I want an Archery mastery,” Carey said. “Wanna be a sniper.”

The others studied the list on Carey’s screen.

“We’ll have to get you a bow, obviously,” Beatrice said. “I’ll craft you a basic one for now, but maybe in Tyrathon we can find something better.”

“Definitely in Tyrathon,” Will said.

“I can’t wait to go to Teer-thon,” Min-joon sang.

“Quiet, Sinatra. I’m trying to think.” Carey reviewed the menu. “Here we go. Calm Overdraw. Hold your breath twice as long while drawing an arrow further than normal. Stamina depletes at twice the amount, but all arrows that land successfully do 20 percent more damage and have 15 percent more chance to critical strike.”

“That’s a good one,” Will said. “Do it.”

“Done.”

After another hour or so of walking, Carey saw something brown and tall beyond the leaves, about a dozen feet off the trail. He headed toward it, saw a portion of wall covered by vines, realized it was actually one side of a building, and was delighted to see the subsequent notification in the corner of his vision.

You have discovered a Safe House!

EXPERIENCE GAINED: 50 points (50/17,875 to next level)

“Boo-ya,” Will said, crunching through heavy underbrush. “Nice one, Carey. Almost didn’t see it.”

“Min-joo-ya,” Min-joon said, again in the high-pitched, sing-song voice he always used when he was feeling hyperactive and upbeat. Carey chuckled and mussed the boy-thief’s hair. Beatrice scooped him up—he was small for his age—and threw him toward the nearest tree branch. He grabbed it, swung like a spider monkey, flipped several times through the air and landed cat-like in front of Carey and Beatrice. The kid loved being tossed.

“Nice one, buddy,” Carey said, flashing him a thumbs-up.

Min-joon beamed.

Bea used the crafting station to make Carey a good old-fashioned Basic Wood Bow and a set of (30) Basic Wood Arrows. Carey took the bow out behind the shack and practiced shooting at a variety of different targets, including a gray rabbit that flashed across his field of view. He missed the rabbit but managed to shred a few leaves, cut down a thin branch, and even hit a frog dead on. He also missed several times, which wasn’t a good sign—but then again, his skill was only 36, which was 18 percent of 200, the highest level possible.

Carey took a turn at the crafting bench. “Here goes,” he said, weaving his fingers together and bending to make a loud series of pops.

Using (5) Ash Heap, (3) Honey and (3) Jorento Flower, he made (2) Soothing Balm that could restore 35 HP and 23 SP at once, after which it added +2 HP and Stamina every 2 seconds.

Using (2) Angelic Gypsum Dust, (2) Glass Flasks, (4) Thrallspice and (2) Alkahest, he crafted (2) Flaming Uplifting Elixirs. They sported shivering blue flames at the tip that had to be blown out before consuming the potion. These special little guys raised his HP and SP by 40 percent of whatever was left, even going above the limit. They also fortified his Strength, Constitution, and Agility attributes by 10 points. The effects lasted for 240 seconds.

Beatrice asked him for the Iridescent Millow Fern.

“I have a surprise for you,” she said.

“Let’s do it!” Carey said, making the sparkling, multicolored fern appear on his palm. “What is this thing, anyway.”

“You’ll see.”

She turned toward the alchemy station and began mixing the fern with other ingredients. Carey checked his menus while he waited, only vaguely aware of Will giving Min-joon some sort of lesson at the crafting bench, while Ara sat patiently by the window, humming and drawing shapes into the dust all over the glass.

He thought to stash a few things—mostly ingredients and resources—into the storage chest and free up some of his carry weight. He sorted his inventory by weight and saw that each Exploding Sticky Bear Trap weighed five pounds and he had four of those. He put three in storage, relieving himself of fifteen pounds, which was more than a quarter of his total limit.

He also dropped his Simple Leather Chest Piece and Simple Iron Greaves inside. He intended to sell those in Tyrathon, but would he have access to his storage?

“Hey, Will.”

“Yeah, bro.”

“Any storage chests in Tyrathon? In case I want to leave something to sell later?”

“Just rent a room at any inn. Comes with a storage chest, but no crafting or alchemy benches.”

Bea was now holding a glass flask half-filled with shimmering liquid that radiated color and light the same way the fern had done.

“All set,” she said, handing it to Carey. “Bro.”

“Thanks, girlfriend.”

“In your dreams,” she said, with a smirk.

(1) Millow Fern Elixir received

Once it was in his inventory, Carey inspected it for more information. There were only question marks in place of any description.

“Drink it,” Bea said. “Watch what happens. You’ll find items like this from time to time.”

“Shouldn’t I save it for battle?”

“Will you just drink it? You don’t even know what it does.”

By then, Will and Min-joon were watching Carey.

“Drink it,” Will began to chant, and Min-joon joined him. “Drink it! Drink it! Drink it!...”

“Fine. Here goes.”

Carey downed the potion.

EXPERIENCE GAINED: 2,000 points (2,050/17,875 to next level)

“Oh… my… God,” Carey said. “Bea, I could kiss you right now.”

“Please don’t.”

Level 8 wasn’t quite as fun as Level 7 since there was no Halva to choose. Carey had already made up his mind where to assign skills, so he went ahead without notifying the others. Immediately, he packed his 9 points into archery. His +50 percent Feral bonus gave him 13.5 points, which was rounded to 14.

His total in archery was now 51—a little over 25 percent of each skill’s maximum rating of 200. Still low, but he was getting there.

“That was awesome,” Carey said. “We need to find more Ira-whatchamacallit Millow Ferns. Can we grow or harvest them?”

“No way,” Will said. “They’re extremely rare. I talked to a player once who made it his mission to find as many as he could. Somehow, he figured out you could only get five total. Finding them was sort of like an addictive mini-game for him.” Will shook his head. “Wonder what happened to that guy. Feral Ranger, seemed pretty smart, but…”

“He joined a party of Sargs,” Bea said. “I’m sure he’s doing just fine.”

“Let’s get back to that crafting bench,” Carey said. “Raptodors gave me some pretty good pelts.”

They returned to the Safe House. Carey used the bench to create Raptodor Leather Greaves, which added 6 (+1.5) to his armor rating, and a Raptodor Leather Chest Piece, which added 9 (+2). Inspecting himself, he smiled at the pale-greenish armor and how comfortably it wrapped around his chest.

“Wish I had a full set made from this,” he said.

“Here you go,” Will said, finishing at the crafting bench.

He handed Carey a Raptodor Leather Brigandine, which added 6 (+1.5).

“You’re the best,” Carey said, putting it on. He’d just increased his armor rating from 44 points to 52 in the past ten minutes, and it hadn’t cost him a single copper coin.

“Are we ready yet?” Min-joon whined. “I wanna see Teer-thon.”

“We’re ready,” Carey said. “I feel like a lizard.”

“You look like one, too,” Min-joon said, and laughed.