Stan headed from there to a stabilized southern island called Tourney. The beach there was under bombardment. Explosions from artillery on an island hill tore up random patches of the beach. Stan switched to first person mode to better appreciate the effect. He anchored just offshore and waded into the lee of a broken stone wall, then hustled past the great iron jacks on the sand and the burned side of a crippled Sherman tank. The shells (and symbolism) whistled over his head. Then red Xs appeared near his feet with just enough time to dodge. He leaped clear of an explosion, got thrown off his feet by another, and finally ran to safety beyond the beach.

As the Thousand Tales wiki said, Tourney Isle was welcoming once you'd gained a beachhead. He hiked inland.

There was a grassy hill with seven flags. Stan recognized the US one along with the seceded American Free States' "definitely not a Confederate flag" emblem. A small castle with several garden terraces stood beside it. There was a big open field with bleachers, a stable, and a rack of lances and saddles.

When approaching Davis' castle, the online guide had said, it's customary to offer a gift. Three carrots will do.

Stan knocked on the castle's wooden door, holding three carrots.

After several thumps and a "Darn it!", a jackrabbit wearing a half-fastened breastplate and steel boots answered the door. He glanced at the gift and said, "Another human readin' the guidebook. Howdy. I was just headin' out, so can we make it quick, mister?"

"Stan. Hi." As with Oroblanco, Stan was a little thrown off by seeing the smooth animation of someone who lived in this cartoonish body. How did you talk to an alien, an AI who didn't even look human and who'd never seen reality? "I come in peace. I have some trade items you might be interested in."

"A drummer!" said Davis the rabbit. "I thought those went out of fashion with Roosevelt. If you're looking to trade, the place for you is Norwood. Which is where I'm headin' and why I can't offer you a drink at present. I'm late. Want to come along?"

"That's one of the smaller worlds, right? I'm not sure how that works for us real-world players."

"You can make an excursion if a native pulls you along. Got your tradin' stuff?"

"It's mostly on my raft."

The bunny gave him a buck-toothed grin. "Then in the Lady's spirit I should make a game of it. I'll start up a portal near the beach and not wait for you. Whatever you can haul through before it closes, you can bring. Go!" He bounded past Stan, out the door and down the hill.

Stan blinked. "Was that a quest?"

The game told him, "Quest offered: Excursion To Norwood. (Well? Get going!)"

There was an opportunity for business and to go outside the usual game rules. Stan ran back to the beach as quickly as his character's stamina and the need to dodge artillery fire would let him. He hauled one of the treasure chests off of the raft; it slowed him badly.

Davis was casting a spell just past the blast zone, creating a swirling hole in space. He glanced at Stan and said, "Left!"

Stan veered left with his treasure, and got knocked down by an explosion striking where he'd just been. A second blast gave him a major wound but he got clear with the chest of items. Davis hopped through the portal and it began to contract again. Stan ran after him and dived in.

#

You have discovered Norwood: the Rebels' Forest.

The camera had switched back to third person, showing that his character had been turned into a humanoid raccoon in the same style as Davis. The treasure chest had become a hiking backpack.

Davis said, "Coon, huh? Suits you for being a shiny-things collector, if I've got my species stereotypes right."

"So what are we up to here? Rebellion?"

"I'm just a recurring guest character. If anybody asks, you're from the Democratic People's State of Baccata."

They hiked through a pine forest with a dusting of snow, until a couple of wolf-man guards ambushed them from the trees. A squirrel kid dangling from a branch spun a sling and yelled, "Halt!"

"Jus' me," said Davis.

"Davy! Hey. Watch out; the Doctor's got his robot goons stalking the outposts."

Stan kept his mouth shut as they went to a camoflaged forest village with lots of treehouses and hollow tree dwellings. They gathered around a table in a sort of bunker. On the wall hung a defiant-looking tattered crown banner.

Davis said, "Things are heating up in Baccata. There's a rumor that the Doctor's henchmen have found one of the Lost Beacons."

A window popped up on Stan's screen asking, "Want the backstory?"

Stan clicked No. He was pretty sure any robots or beacons or foreign countries in this little world were just plot devices and dungeons for kind of a soap opera, rather than the more open-ended exploration of the Isles' world. He listened to the squirrel and Davis and a couple of vaguely heroic critters (the tough badger, the speedy sparrow and so on) banter about the machinations of an evil mad scientist.

Davis, who'd sounded sincere about the whole thing, pointed to Stan. "My friend Tin here has brought some vital supplies for the cause. What do you have, again? Weapons? Power crystals?"

"Uh... Crafting ingredients." He recited monster bits and semi-useful plants, hoping he'd snagged the right chest on the way here. "If you're fighting robots, how about some thunder root? It's used for anti-lightning stuff."

"Could be useful if we're hit with more shock troopers," said the sparrow. "You're donating these to the cause?"

"I was hoping to trade."

The squirrel said, "You know we're a refugee camp, right?"

Probably no coins, then. How was he supposed to do business: barter for widgets here, trade them for doohickeys in a third world and so on? The real-world Community didn't teach marketing skills.

Stan stalled for a moment to think. "What's been going on lately? Are you making any progress against... the Doctor?"

The locals fell all over themselves telling him about their adventures. There was a giant tank and a cursed skull that turned the wombat over there evil for a week and then there was an alternate universe portal and a floating island...

Stan leaned back from the screen, wanting both to laugh at the fantasy drama and to shake the screen until the people inside rattled around. Some rich uploaders had paid to get a tiny world that revolved around them, where ordinary players showed up just to amuse them! Although... Stan didn't know whether the residents were uploaders, AIs, or just people like him. The interface didn't say, and he hadn't toured the place enough to see if people ever slept.

Whatever they were, what they wanted from travelers was to participate in their little game, much more than they wanted the junk he'd brought.

"What, are you bored?" said the squirrel. Stan's character had slumped across the table.

"Uh... No! It just seems so overwhelming. Is there anything I can do? I have a little combat training but I'm mostly a trader."

The sparrow tilted his head. "Maybe you can help Speiss in the lab."

"Okay, but I'm limited by whenever Davis here is heading back. I need him to... show me the way out of the forest."

The rabbit slapped Stan on the back. "Just let me know when you're ready. I've got things to do here."

#

The forest rebels led him to an alchemy lab in a dirt cave braced by roots and vines. A battle-scarred bear-man in a leather apron tended a bubbling cauldron. "A new recruit?"

"I'm just a visitor," Stan said. "But I want to help the cause."

"Well, pay attention. We get hurt a lot out there, so we go through a lot of healing potions." The alchemist snagged a few leaves from a massive clump of ivy-like stuff growing along most of the wall. "Fortunately, we have a lot of arex root growing here. Why don't you try making a basic... actually no, try the windygo grass first. That's easier and we have a ton of that."

There was a crude barrel stuffed with wispy grass. It was a common crafting ingredient, cheap enough on the market that Stan hadn't bothered looking for it, although the arex leaves were worth something. He was being offered the chance to learn some brewing without burning up his own inventory. He pushed an Interact button on his view of the cauldron, and his little raccoon-guy started an animation of stirring the pot and examining the shelves of ingredients.

Complex windows crowded his view for managing what to throw in, how to change the temperature, stirring and so on. There was even a rhythm element. He tapped the barrel of grass to throw in some of that, then tried working the controls while the bear gave advice. After a minute the screen said:

You've crafted a potion!

"I'm not getting details."

"Look carefully and compare it to these others."

Stan peered at his work, a bottle of bubbling fluid, but the game wouldn't tell him what he'd made. He studied a set of similar bottles and played a little puzzle to try analyzing them. At last, he started getting some estimates. "So this one's healing, and this one I made is... +5% speed for one minute?"

"That's more precise than we'd usually describe it, but yes."

"Gotcha." Though he was focusing on the numbers, there was more to the alchemy system than that. The game was trying to hint at the items' properties with colors and symbols he was having trouble figuring out.

He got to try brewing several more times, producing more near-useless potions including one that somehow restored a bit of magic while making you flammable. He asked the alchemist, "Is it worth keeping these?"

"You never know when you'll need something. You might keep low-quality items on your belt for quick access."

Stan took his advice by equipping a few trashy potions to where he could activate them with one button. But what was this guy? Just a regular human unwinding after work, or a greedy businessman who'd escaped from reality so hard this was his retirement resort, or a machine-mind that'd never known Earth?

There was a knock on a door seemingly far away.