Selrah had stopped to look at her map a number of times and so far had led them to the edge of a woodland. It was the same woodland that lined the banks of the river which Mythril had seen when they approached the town.

“Typical his cabin would be in the middle of the woods,” Selrah muttered with a sigh and a curl of her fist. “Can you see a better way through than the path and then heading west? We’ll only end up in a hostile zone if we go that way and I don’t want to spend the rest of the morning fighting through those packs.”

She glanced up to Mythril who had been following behind. “Are you even looking?”

He was looking, but not at his map. Mythril was taking in his surroundings. For years he had looked in at a computer, sometimes the screen bigger and others smaller, but nothing could have prepared him for being at scale in a world such as this.

He remembered more about the game now, about watching over his fiancée’s shoulder as she spent the hours late into the night doing quests or levelling up professions, and now here he stood watching over the shoulder of that very character. He had no idea how he came to be here, and now that he walked with Selrah through a land he knew only as Elder Moor, and away from the bustle of the town, he was able to try and give it some thought.

Even if it were a dream, which he was beginning to become quite certain it was not, he knew he had to play by the rules of this world, and no longer his own.

“What am I looking for again?” he asked Selrah, already expecting the groan that followed as an answer.

“We need to get to Shortear’s cabin. Jumin is probably nearly there by now.”

“Why did he leave without us? We could have gone as a group.”

Selrah shrugged. “He’s a druid, probably doesn’t want us to slow him down. If he has panther’s gift, he can probably become a panther too.”

The thought suddenly struck Mythril, one he was surprised he hadn’t thought of before. “Mounts,” he said out loud, “Don’t we have mounts?”

“You mean Eskie and Urm? Sure, but you suggested yesterday that we stable them. You’re the one who said we needed to work on our stamina, a conversation I’d really rather not go back into.”

Mythril’s mind went to a few places, but he chose to not ask further about what the real Mythril may or may not have said. He pulled out his scroll and using his thumb moved across the tabs. One which he hadn’t swiped to before caught his attention, small text at the top reading the word NEW beside a larger font which read QUEST LOG.

Before scrolling down to find the quest they recently collected, Mythril continued to scroll across in search of what other parts of the scroll he might have missed. A couple of pages over, past MAP and STATS (glancing over which he saw that his stamina really did need working on) he found STABLE and saw a mount with an orange glow around it.

Urm, it said below the portrait, and he was grateful he wouldn’t need to ask Selrah which was which.

So, this was Urm, a creature with tall pointed ears tufted with white, a long and curved snout with a black nose, body long and sleek and thick with red fur, the tip of its tail brushed with white. It stared out from the portrait with alert yellow eyes. In his world, Urm would have been a fox, small and timid, in this world Urm was called a Gymluk, and although a fox by most of its appearance, its size was that of a bull.

Mythril was tempted to tap on the icon, hoping that just like the rest of his gear Urm would appear beside him, although also suddenly hoping that Urm wouldn’t drop into his hand much like the stone to work the portal had.

He flipped back to QUEST LOG and scrolled down until he found flashing on the scroll Shortear’s Loss. A thought that hadn’t struck him back at the guild hall now did, was this part of the quest line? But no, it couldn’t be, both Selrah and Jumin had stated that this was an annual quest event. Strange then, that Shortear should have a parchment sending them in search of the parchments to begin.

He clicked onto it and on one side of the scroll, held horizontally, the quest log became squat, and on the other, more rectangular, a map appeared. An area began to glow and Mythril saw that this was a section of the woodland that they were walking towards.

“Other than walking along the riverbank and then directly north I can only see the way you’ve suggested,” he said, examining the map further to see if there was anything he could remember from when he played the game years before.

Selrah’s chest filled with air as she blew out with impatience. “Maybe we should just summon Eskie and Urm,” she said, glancing upwards to Mythril expectantly. “Actually, no, tomorrow is important and we need all the skill we can get.” She continued before Mythril could say his opinion.

Still looking at Mythril her eyes grew wide and then hastily she pushed the scroll back under her nose. “There’s an affinity pool in this woodland, we can raise my wisdom while we’re here. Okay, looks like it’ll be worth it after all.”

They came to a stone bridge that crossed over the gentle running water below. It was a vast difference to the area they were walking into, leaving the sunlight of the field behind and after only a few steps forward they were into the woodlands. Trees thick with leaves and spindly branches formed an archway overhead, soon blocking out the majority of the sun and giving the forest and all within it a shadow cast appearance.

Selrah didn’t seem afraid but her hand was against a dagger that she wore at her hip.

Ahead of them a signpost was lit by a torch beneath it. Nailed into the wood parchment sheets fluttered above the flame and Mythril thought over how stupid a place it seemed to have an open flame.

Once they reached it Selrah pulled one of the sheets free and scanned over it, she bobbed her head to the side and back a few times, humming and then turned to Mythril.

“It’s a requests post. Says that if we collect 15 terransprouts we can get some gold. I’m thinking we should because we’ve used a lot of gold already on preparations for tomorrow.” She glanced back down to the parchment. “It shouldn’t take too long to do, should it?”

“I doubt it,” Mythril said, imagining what terransprouts could be. If it was anything like a usual collection quest they would be in the area of the woodland they were about to traverse through anyway. “Where do we take them to?” He asked, remembering the amount of times he took a quest thinking it would be quick only to find the hand in was far away.

“Back in town,” Selrah said, running her fingers over the parchment. “We might as well. Grab yours too.”

Mythril pulled the paper from the post and after quickly scanning his eyes over it he clicked ACCEPT. It felt odd to not be amazed at the paper disappearing, as though he was already getting used to this, unsurprising through, he realized, given how much of his youth he had spent behind a screen in a fantasy world. He paused for a moment, wondering if he would actually come to know more of this world than the one he left behind. His heart sank at the prospect, knowing that in that world was Sarah, someone who if he were gone would soon be trying to find him. He looked at the deep woodland knowing that this would have been the type of place she would have enjoyed exploring, maybe even more so should there be any corrupt graveyards nearby.

“Why are you smiling?”

Selrah watched him, the expressions on his face shifting from sadness to what she could describe as nothing more than an odd whimsical grin. “Forgetting me and remembering someone else again?”

Mythril tilted his head to the side, about to say, well, yes, but stopped himself. Instead he pulled out his scroll, flipped to MAP, and looked at the zones that flashed around them after tapping on the new quest. “I just really like terransprouts,” he said, heading off the path and into the woodland.

Selrah followed behind, pausing once or twice to pick terransprouts from beside trees. They glowed slightly brighter than the other flowers, an ethereal mist over them.

Mythril watched her pull a pouch from her satchel and following by example he was soon picking them too. He felt guilty for at times pretending it was his fiancée. He couldn’t help but wonder though how much of his fiancée this character could be, she was, after all, created from the basics of Sarah’s mind.

Having collected the terransprouts which were mostly near the path through which they entered they walked further into the forest, pausing only when they heard growling coming from somewhere nearby.

A staff appeared in Selrah’s right hand, her left pulling the dagger from her waist. “A shame we didn’t see any parchments addressing whatever we’re about to find ahead.”

It was at this moment that Mythril realized he didn’t have a weapon equipped, and pulling out his scroll he hurried through the pages. In a panic he swiped in the wrong direction, when if he had only gone right his weapons would have been listed in the inventory that listed his most useful items.

He tapped on a sword with purple edging around the picture. It fell at his feet.

“What are you doing?” Selrah hissed.

It was the only sound, the growling, Mythril realized, had now gone quiet.

He scrambled to lift his sword. It was lighter than it looked, but Mythril wasn’t sure if this was because he was stronger or if in this world weight was different.

His chest also felt light, and his head dizzy. A sense of foreboding told him that whatever had been making the noise hadn’t stopped because it moved elsewhere, but instead because it heard the noise from his sword.

Selrah crept ahead of him, her hand glowing a deep purple. Beside her an imp appeared, its horns pointed and glowing the same purple as the spell in her hand.

In a moment of sudden clarity, Mythril realized he had no idea how to use a spell, any spell. And so knew that whatever came towards them would be met with him swinging the sword around and that’s it.

As though hearing his thoughts and spurred on by his inability, the growling sounded from behind him. He turned to see a creature, legs bent and knees arched inwards, body thick with muscle and fur, and far that of a coyote. He recognized it immediately – a gnoll.

It leapt towards him, from behind him the imp bounded forward and the purple flame from Selrah’s hand whooshed past his ear. It struck the gnoll that cried out in anguish but continued towards him, making ground fast.

He swung his sword into the air, brought it down in an arch, it landed a blow upon the gnoll, and then it disappeared.

“No!” Mythril yelled, his hands empty, the gnoll in front of him regaining its balance.

The balls of flame that swept past his head stopped, the imp no long attacked the gnoll. It stepped forward, arms outstretched, claws reaching towards Mythril. It began to leap forward, but its legs were held in place.

The ground surrounding them trembled and from beneath the earth hands reached out and took hold of the gnolls ankles. It dragged it down into the ground until only its chest could be seen.

“Finish it!”

Mythril wanted to do as Selrah ordered. He reached back into his satchel, pulled out his scroll, tapped on the sword, ignored Selrah’s cries of “What the hell are you doing?!” from behind, and brought the sword down on the gnolls head. It screamed, the sword vanished, Mythril screamed, Selrah shouted a word he didn’t think he had heard before.

He repeated pulling out the scroll and sweeping down against the gnoll two more times before another imp came bounding forward and took out the gnoll in front of him.

Mythril turned, proud of what he had accomplished. Ignoring the imp bobbing around at his feet, also proud of what it had accomplished and wanting praise. Only now did Mythril see why Selrah hadn’t taken out the gnoll for him. In a circle around her the same purple flame that was alight in her hand lit up the ground. Inside it the corspes of a dozen or more gnolls lay dead.

Selrah was sipping from a ceramic vase and scowling over its rim at him.

“What was that?”

He looked down at his hands, again empty of his sword, up to Selrah, over his shoulder at the gnoll and back towards the bodies that surrounding Selrah like a terrible game of ring around the roses.

“I can’t explain,” he said. Before she could begin to ask more. He pulled out his scroll, desperately scrolling across the menus, hoping that there would be instructions somewhere, anything that would give him an inclination of what to do. He had no keyboard, no mouse, no controller. Just the ability to use the scroll and double tap on an icon.

Then he found it. Down the side of a menu titled LEGACY a small tab that read TRAINING. His eyes followed the words in a desperate search, but before he could click on it his attention was drawn to the portrait of a man that took up most of the scroll.

It was daunting to see his own appearance, but he knew from set up that unlike Sarah he had allowed his likeness to be put into the game with only a few colour customizations. Short but wavy dark blue hair, silver eyes tinged with a lighter blue and lightly tanned skin from his time serving abroad. It was two years since he had created this character and this portrait represented that same man from two years before.

So much had happened since then, none of which could have prepared him for where he stood now, in a forest, in a game, beside his fiancée, who was a game character in that game. Before whatever was happening could overwhelm him, he tapped on one of the words that made up the menu beneath LEGACY.

TRAINING

“Mythril, what happened?” Selrah was standing beside him now, looking over his shoulder at his scroll. He felt protective all of a sudden, not of the scroll as he was sure Selrah would presume, but of himself. From what he overheard he was sure he should be powerful in this world, instead he was far from it. In this scroll, though, he knew the answers would be there somewhere.

“That’s not right.”

He looked up to Selrah, who was standing beside him, unable to see his scroll. Her eyes were closed and she shook her head.

“How can you be missing [Knight’s Command]?”

Instinctively he looked over both of his shoulders and there he saw how Selrah could see. Hovering just above his left shoulder an eyeball, tufts of green surrounding the fleshly blob, was watching as he scrolled through the tab.

“You don’t at all think that’s an invasion of privacy?”

Selrah opened her eyes, and beside him the eyeball vanished in a puff of smoke and with a small squeak.

“You don’t think keeping from me that something is wrong after nearly causing us damage from gnolls, of all things, is an invasion of,” Selrah paused and Mythril watched her roll a thought over in her mind before it spilled from her tongue, “An invasion of right to safety.”

“No,” he replied. He swiped across to MAP and traced his finger over the woodland, a small glowing red dot showed his position. “Let’s continue in search of Shortear’s cabin.”

“We’re not going to talk about you no longer having an ability?” Selrah asked, following behind Mythril as he walked further into the thick of the trees.

“I haven’t,” he lied, not even sure of what [Knight’s Command] could be, but guessing it would have been useful against the gnolls.

“Can I at least see your arm?” Selrah continued, hopping a little behind him to keep up.

“No.”

He refused that Selrah could look, but shortly after, when she had retrieved the pouch from her satchel and ventured around a tree to pick some reagents, he opened his scroll and double tapped on his armour.

A chill touched his skin, the first of any type of temperature he had felt. He looked at his arm where the tiny symbols glowed bright in the dark woodland. Stretching down from his shoulder where three bands ringed his bicep, a single line connecting them vertically, that same line continued down until his wrist, where three bands again were connected by it.

Up until the point where the line reached his elbow, small symbols branched off from the single line and only to the sides, but once it past his elbow, the single line spread, first into two paths, then those into two more, one of each of these shining brightly, while the other was dull, the symbols almost the colour of his flesh.

The symbols that stood out against his flesh, glowed a dark blue.

Rustling came from nearby and thinking it was Selrah he tapped on his scroll and put his chest armour back in place.

Instead, it was Jumin that appeared.

Given the noxiri’s appearance, Mythril was grateful that he had first seen him in the adventurer’s guild hall, and not the woodland. Right now, the creature looked like a woodland spirit that would want to steal your soul and cook it up with some freshly picked mushrooms. Mythril held back a shiver.

“Jumin,” he said, as pleasantly as possible. “Selrah is nearby, she’s collecting reagents for tomorrow. Or something.”

Jumin smiled his skeletal grin and held up a hand as greeting.

“I thought I sensed something in the woods. [Ravens Sight] always comes in handy when I want to avoid the gnolls and niskits of the place.”

“Niskits?” Mythril asked, wondering what else he and Selrah might find themselves facing in the dark.

“Annoying little sprites, forever getting their wings stuck in my teeth, and let’s not talk about their teeth. Those buggers bite hard.”

As Jumin approached Mythril, he was unsure whether the crunching under foot was that of twigs or of Jumin’s own body. He looked over his shoulder anxiously, wondering when Selrah would return. He hadn’t put himself in too much of a difficult position before but now left alone without her to fill in the gaps he was worried what he might say, or not say, should Jumin start asking questions.

“When I realized it was you, I came to see if you had found the cabin yet? I’ve been tracking these woods for much longer than I expected. I’ve tried [Raven’s Sight] and [Protection of Gylt], no sign of Shortear’s cabin and no sign of any trace of a Hunter at all. I’m beginning to wonder if he tricked us.”

Mythril shook his head in reply, but inside his mind he wondered if his COMBAT LOG would show Jumin having used these abilities so that he’d be able to discover what they were.

[Raven’s Sight] he gathered was a way to see in the distance, or sense others, whereas [Protection of Gylt] he wondered if it was a way to track hunters, possibly a noxiri skill like [Noxiri’s Pledge] had been.

“You’ve found nothing either then?”

“Nothing,” Mythril replied. “We haven’t been in here long though. Were caught by surprise by some gnolls and after walking a short while Selrah went picking flowers.”

Jumin glanced around them, tilted his ear, and after fixing his gaze back on Mythril again he paused. A raven flew out from the palm of his hand, high up into the trees and was lost from view somewhere in the leaves.

“She isn’t nearby,” Jumin warned, once the raven returned and was perched upon his shoulder.

Mythril’s heart sank. It had been a while since she had gone gathering and had Jumin not appeared he wondered how long he would have been standing around haplessly not even realizing his party member had vanished.

At this thought, he pulled out his scroll and shifted to MAP. Scanning down the options he tapped on FIND and then again on the only name that appeared. A purple dot marked the map, not too far from where they stood towards the north west.

Jumin peered down at his map as he did this, and seeing where the dot appeared, looked back over his shoulder in the direction he appeared from.

“Odd, I didn’t see her on my way through there, but if that’s where it says she is.”

“And moving,” Mythril added, pointing to how the dot was slowly moving further east.

“Well then, I suppose we should group up and try and find her.”

Jumin held out his hand expectantly, and Mythril uncertain of what to do, placed his into it.

The laughter that erupted from Jumin must have bubbled in his chest like the lava of a volcano, it came forth so forcefully.

“Are we to skip through the forest together?”

Mythril felt foolish, but he thought that doing something would have been better than nothing. He was, after all, still trying to prove that he belonged here. Instead, he seemed to have given Jumin a rather odd impression.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jumin said, pulling his hand free. “You’re a nice enough looking lad, but I’m more attracted to noxiri, like me.”

Despite himself, Mythril glanced over his shoulder at one of the knotted and gnarled trees behind, an older tree than the rest, its wood drooping and crevices deeper. His mind went to where else a noxiri might find attraction.

Jumin, catching his gaze, placed a hand onto his shoulder, “No, not trees.” He looked around at their surroundings and then back down to Mythril. “Then again, it would be easier to find someone worth spending my time with if there were this many options.”

“I don’t know, doesn’t seem like they’d be given a fair chance given they can’t get away if they don’t like you in returned.”

Jumin pulled his head back in shock, “I don’t know what type of noxiri you take me for, but I would never take advantage of a tree.”

“No,” Mythril replied, waving his arms around, “Not you, not these trees, I just meant, you know, trees in general.”

“Looks like you’ve thought about this a bit too much if you ask me,” Jumin replied. “I think we should find Selrah sooner rather than later, get you out of this forest before the spruce over there starts looking a little too appealing.”

“Consider myself more of a pine man, but you’re right, let’s go.”

They both stood in place, neither one walking in either direction but looking around themselves and then back to each other.

“Well the map does say that way,” Jumin pointed out, after pulling his scroll from the small pouch he wore at his waist. Unlike Selrah’s, which was worn across her body and made of a dark linen, and Mythril’s much the same but of leather, Jumin’s was covered in feathers, a green gem at its centre, dull with the shadows of the forest.

“Then I guess we’ll go that way.”