The screams became a chorus of women shrieking, children wailing, and men shouting orders to each other.

“Grab a weapon,” Lothos said. “Something is awry.”

Just then, a door slammed open in Lothos’s store. Upstairs. Carey had his blade out within the blink of an eye. The others took out their own weapons, looking uncertain.

Footsteps pounded through the building.

“Oi! Mates, where ya hidin’?”

“Down here, friend,” Lothos shouted.

Carey relaxed at the sound of Wally’s voice. The Sargonaut player showed up, breathing hard and carrying a warhammer that appeared to weigh about a hundred pounds. He wielded it in one hand as easily as if it were one of Carey’s tiny throwing hammers. His diamond armor glittered in the low light.

“What’s wrong?” Beatrice asked.

“It’s him. Bloody hell, it’s him. He’s here with his…” Wally shook his head, like he couldn’t believe it. “… his entire army!”

The screams became louder outside. If someone was attacking Tyrathon, they had breached the city walls and were damn close.

“Who?” Carey asked, though he suspected he already knew.

Wally’s eyes were wide. A light sheen of sweat made his forehead shine.

“Riven,” he said. “Riven Xor.”

***

On their way through Lothos’s store, in the main room where the merchant’s wares hung on the walls, Carey remembered something.

“Wally, hold up.”

Wally spun to face him, the warhammer swiping dangerously close to Carey’s face.

“What is it, mate? Sorry, watch your melon.”

“You said you had something for me. If it could help in battle, I’ll take it off your hands.”

“Ah, right.”

The others stopped around them. Beatrice looked amazed.

“Really?” she said. “Carey gets more gifts?”

“If it’ll help the party,” Will said.

“True,” Beatrice agreed, stroking her chin. Carey couldn’t tell if her tone and general manner were thoughtful or suspicious. “But still…”

An elegant metal bow appeared in one of Wally’s gauntleted hands.

“Whoa,” Carey said, reading the stats.

Item: Bow of the Legendary Cebron Hunter (Enchanted)

Type: Bow, Wood

Attack DMG: 67/sec

Speed: Very Fast

Weight: 1.5

Value: 5G, 275S

Traits: Made of rare, hard-to-break Ciberrous Oak, this legendary bow has been bestowed with a permanent enchantment which infuses arrows with +15 fire damage, +15 shock and +15 frost. Each arrow fired immediately splits into three similarly enchanted arrows capable of targeting separate foes or dealing 3x damage to a single enemy.

Carey grinned at Wally. “You’re hard not to like, you know that?”

Wally put a hand on Carey’s shoulder. “We got each other’s backs, right?”

“Right.” Carey held the bow in both hands, quickly and silently adding his Sharpened Steel Arrows into a quick-access slot. A woman shrieked nearby, and Wally and Carey lost the smiles.

Lothos gestured for them to follow him outside.

“We need to go. This is the time,” he said.

“Time for what?” Min-joon asked.

“Time to prove to the world you’re not a little mouse,” the merchant said, and the words appeared to steel the boy-thief.

***

The street seemed peaceful enough, but it was because their attackers had yet to arrive.

Only a matter of time.

The victims screaming in the distance were growing in number and sounded closer than before.

“We need a better view,” Carey said. “Let’s get on this building.”

He phased into his owl shell and was the first one up. Perched on the edge, he watched as his companions joined him. Beatrice flew up, her pristine white wings taking huge gulps of air; Will used the boots Carey had given him to air jump, like he was climbing an invisible, bouncy set of stairs; Min-joon phased into a brown bird much like a pigeon and fluttered up and over; Wally simply jumped the two stories and grabbed the roof’s edge with one hand, then swung himself up; and, finally, Lothos tossed a grappling hook which attached to the edge, allowing him to climb up the rope.

Carey used his owl vision to study the urban landscape sprawled before him. Across the low-slung buildings of this part of town, where the streets widened and there were more parks and plazas, he saw smoke—vertical shafts of black smoke rising from dozens of burning buildings, collecting above the city to form a hazy layer against the sky.

There were dozens more people screaming now, children wailing, men shouting in alarm—terrible sounds, and Carey found himself more scared than he’d been at any moment since arriving in Astros. He phased back into his human form and described what he’d seen.

“How many soldiers are there?” Wally asked.

“Not sure. Let me check.”

He phased again into his owl shell and flapped his wings until he was over a hundred feet above the city. The streets in the southeastern sector were clogged with black-armored soldiers brandishing swords. Much to Carey’s surprise, they even had some sort of black ash or paint smeared across their faces. These weren’t just regular soldiers. There was something ominous about these men.

Maybe they were mercenaries, hired by the Tenefraterni. As he tried to count them, a guttural screech sounded from above.

Carey looked up to see a half-dozen Cebrons descending from the misty clouds several blocks away—not just regular adult Cebrons but mounts carrying black-cloaked riders with hands wrapped in bright, burning magic spells.

Carey returned to the rooftop, phasing in midair to land on his feet.

“This is it,” he said. “That army is at least 5,000 strong. And there are Cebrons—”

“We see them!” Beatrice pointed at the monsters in the sky. “They’re heading this way!”

The party readied their weapons. Wally even fired an arrow that hit an orange magical barrier in front of a Cebron, disabling it. A shield spell cast by a Low-Mage rider. He went to fire again but stopped.

“They’re landing,” he said, mystified.

Five Cebrons landed two rooftops away, far enough away that they were not an immediate threat, but close enough that Carey could make out the scowling expressions on the riders’ faces. He saw the saliva dripping from the mouths of their mounts, each of which had the sharp teeth and long snouts of dragons. There was an additional appendage that spiked horror into Carey’s heart.

Attached to each Cebron’s chest and belly like squirming eels were black, shiny, rubbery tubes about four feet long and as thick around as a man’s arm. At the end of each was a needle-like tip, perfect for penetrating an enemy’s abdomen.

“Are those tubes…” Carey began.

“Tipped with poisoned needles and long enough so you can’t get close with a sword?” Will said. “Yep.”

“Didn’t see that on the Cebron we fought in Irados.”

“That was a male,” Beatrice said, then added, ominously: “These are females.”

The sixth Cebron took longer to land than the others, and Carey saw why. Bigger, leaner, with longer needle-tipped appendages, this was clearly an… alpha female?

When it landed on the neighboring rooftop, Carey studied the rider’s face and was so astonished, he began smacking Will’s shoulder in alarm and disbelief.

“That’s… That’s… Holy shit, that’s Sam!”

“Who?” Will asked in a frightened whisper.

“Don’t you remember? Sam! The son of Roger, the guy who created this place. The guy who tased me, kidnapped me!”

“Oh my God,” Beatrice said, hands covering her mouth. “This isn’t right. He can’t be Riven Xor. He can’t be a player…”

Sam grinned as his Cebron clawed its way forward. Leaning past the edge of the rooftop, eyes narrowed into slits, steam puffing from its flared nostrils, the creature was the essence of nightmares. A low roar burbled in its throat, and Carey imagined waves of liquid fire gushing out and spraying all over him. He took a step back.

“That’s right, Carey Walsh. You remember me, don’t you?”

“Sam,” Carey said. “What are you doing?” His voice rose into a shout. “You don’t belong here!”

“Oh, really?” Sam’s hood was down, but otherwise, he wore a long dark cloak like his brothers. Unlike the other Low Mages, however, his cloak was silvery and shimmered in the gloom filtering through the clouds and smoke overhead. His face was pale and veiny, the look in his eyes maniacal. “Didn’t my dad build this hellhole? If he’s the king of this reality, couldn’t you say I’m the prince?” His voice rose into a hysterical cackle. “But I guess you make the rules now, don’t you, DrollTroll?”

It suddenly made sense to Carey. “You… It was you who gave me all those toys earlier, to raise my level, my skills.”

Sam made a gesture so condescending it caused the blood in Carey’s heart to boil.

He raised his hand to his mouth and yawned.

“Can you blame me?” Sam asked. “You were taking too long. I’m impatient. You would be, too, if you had to watch your mortal enemy flounder and fail and take forever to level up. I honestly expected more from you, DrollTroll.”

“Why do you hate me so much? Tell me, Sam—or whatever your name is here.”

Will launched his own insult. “Unhide your name and stats, coward!”

Sam shook his head. “Trust me, it’s more fun this way. And you can call me Riven Xor, if it makes you feel better. If you really want to roleplay.”

“Hiding your stats, huh?” Carey asked with a dismissive snort. “You just don’t want us to see how high-level you are. How unfair this is. You’ve been here longer, you know all the secrets, and now you’re going to battle us without even revealing your basic stats?”

Sam’s face became more serious now. His Cebron shifted, as though preparing for battle, readying itself to fly. Maybe Carey had hit a nerve.

“The game has changed,” Sam said. “We won’t be relying on stats or levels. You’ve learned enough about weapons to know how to swing a sword, fire an arrow, fling a spell. Let’s see what you can do when the numbers are taken out of it. When the digital becomes the physical. When code becomes blood!”

With a flick of his wrist, he caused the party’s Arabands to fly off their foreheads. The devices hung in the air for a moment before being twisted and crushed beyond recognition, the crystals dissolving into powder.

“Ara,” Carey said.

“I can’t access my screens,” Will said. He made his hand catch fire and sighed in relief. “Thank God.”

At least he still had his spells. Beatrice made a Health potion appear in her hand. “I still have my inventory,” she said, “but I can’t see any item stats, descriptions…”

Sam looked back at the five Low Mages on the rooftop behind him. “These are my elite commanders. You’ll find your attacks are just as effective as theirs—just like in real life. Swing your sword, and your enemy will bleed. Swing it hard enough, and you’ll chop off a limb. That’s true for all players from this moment forward. The pain will be real, the damage will weaken you, and there will be no resurrections.”

He flung an arm over his head, as if to command a wave of his soldiers forward.

“Show them,” he roared.

A magical bolt made of sizzling fire flew from the hand of one of Riven Xor’s Low Mages. Carey was too slow to react—the bolt had zipped by him seemingly at the speed of light—and by the time he realized what had happened, he heard a pained yelp from nearby.

The bolt had struck Min-joon in the chest, bringing the boy to his knees with a look of pure shock. The flames burst across his armor, burning his hands, which were now scrabbling across his chest as if to remove the effect. His eyes were squeezed shut and he released the most agonized howl Carey had ever heard. This wasn’t game pain—the boy was in a disturbing amount of real pain.

“No!” Carey rushed to Min-joon’s side, catching him as he fell, twitching. “MJ, hold on. Hold on!”

From the corner of his vision, Carey saw and heard Sam—not Riven Xor, but Sam, that psychopathic piece of shit—swing his Cebron off the roof to fly around them in a circle. His mages had also lifted off.

Will and Wally attacked at once, while Lothos took a long, curved horn out of his pocket that seemed to have been carved from ivory.

“I’ll call for backup,” Lothos said. “Heal the boy, quickly!”

He blew on the horn, a low and epic-sounding battle cry.

Beatrice was at Carey’s side before he could scream out her name. She worked an impressive blue spell in her hands that sounded like ocean waves tumbling. The spell covered Min-joon with its misty, liquid energy. But the boy’s HP had drained to zero. Carey could feel it, despite no stats being visible. He could feel the life forces of everyone in his party. Somehow, Sam had disabled the stats, but he hadn’t erased their values; they were simply a part of everyone now, like the feeling of pain or pleasure—an awareness like the crushing rage and sadness flooding Carey as he held the dying boy in his arms.

“Don’t die, MJ,” he said, nearly sobbing. “She’ll heal you. Just hang on.”

“Oh God, no no no,” Beatrice said, openly sobbing now as she poured a Healing potion into Min-joon’s mouth, causing him to sputter. “MJ. Drink it, MJ, please.”

The boy shook his head. The pain seemed to fade, and his features softened. Carey had put out the last of the flames and saw a scorch mark on Min-joon’s armor where the bolt had hit him. He closed his arms around the boy.

“It’s okay,” Carey said, tears streaming from his eyes. “There’s no pain now. No pain. This isn’t real.”

“Ca-Carey…” Min-joon spoke in a stuttering wheeze. “Here… You-yours…”

He held out a hand, and Carey took what was being offered. Five silver coins and two lockpicks—the items Min-joon had pickpocketed from him in Muriel’s shrine. Carey tossed them away and bit back sobs.

“You’re a good kid,” Carey told him through clenched teeth. “You’re a good boy.”

Beatrice cast a shield spell around Carey and Min-joon, then took off with a feminine grunt of anger, throwing herself into the battle.

“Carey, let’s go,” she urged.

Carey ignored her a few moments longer. Min-joon looked up at him, seeming almost peaceful now. Carey brushed sweat-matted hair off his forehead.

“I’ll see you soon, kid,” he said, as Min-joon took a final ragged breath and his eyes went blank. He slid the boy-thief’s eyes shut and let him rest on the rooftop, then turned and scouted his first target.