Still squatting next to the stream, Reeve raised her head from her journal, eyebrows pinched together.

Mom must’ve finally died, she thought. I hope it wasn’t too uncomfortable, but having her respawn here will be way easier than tracking her down.

She checked the Party Log, and a low sound of disbelief rose into an orcish bellow as she read the new entry.

Reavyr (II) has died. Respawn in 30 seconds.

“Daaaaaad!” She returned her journal to her Inventory and looked in the direction of the spawn point. She saw no movement in the trees and could hear nothing over the babble of the stream behind her. She snatched her naginata from the ground, rose, and ran. Weaving through the last few yards of undergrowth, she could see the soft light beginning to form where her father would respawn. She scanned the area but saw no signs of danger.

Walter Williams materialized fully with a scream like a teapot and a thrashing of arms and legs as though he wanted to get something—or a lot of something—off of his body, and he wanted to get it off right then.

Finally realizing he was safe, he stopped thrashing and looked around the spawn point, his wild eyes finding Reeve. “Well, I am glad that’s over!”

“I told you to stay here!” Reeve drove the pole-end of her weapon into the ground for emphasis.

“I did stay here!” Walter compulsively brushed something unseen from his shoulders, neck, and chest.

Reeve looked at the downed trunk to which she’d assigned her father. “That is a lot of blood,” she said. It was on the trunk, on the tree behind the trunk, on the ground, on nearby leaves. She even imagined that a fine red mist still hung in the air.

“Tell me about it. You should’ve seen the other guy.” Walter laughed with nervous relief and shook his head.

“Why? You got some hits in? What was it?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea, Honey, that’s why I wish you’d seen it. It was all just a misunderstanding.” Walter bent over, hands on knees. “And, good grief, is that dubstep feeling ever back.” He slowly lowered himself to the ground with the care of someone suffering from seasickness.

“Dub…” Reeve felt dizzy. “Dub…you mean debuff?”

“That’s it,” her father said. He lay back on the ground and closed his eyes. “I’m just going to take a little breather until the dubstep fades out.”

Reeve looked warily around the forest but saw nothing. She called up the Combat Log.

Reavyr (II) bludgeons a Level 8 Honey Badger with a bee smoker for 1 point of damage.

“Wait, there was a Level 8 honey badger here?!” Reeve stammered. She hastily closed her UI and gripped her naginata with both hands. “Dad, I was gone four minutes!”

“Things move fast in here, Evie. Seven hundred times faster, I hear.” He rolled his head toward her drowsily, pointed a finger gun at her, and dropped the thumb-hammer while clicking his tongue twice.

Reeve pivoted in place, peering into the underbrush on all sides of the spawn point. For a moment she was furious at her father that he was going to take a nap while she kept watch after a Level 8 creature had just strolled through, but then she reflected that the less time he was awake the safer they both might be. She nearly jumped when a squirrel sprinted between trunks.

Sensing nothing else in the vicinity, she moved closer to her father and reopened her UI to check the rest of the Combat Log. There were only three more entries.

A Level 8 Honey Badger bats Reavyr (II) with a paw for 4 points of damage.

A Level 8 Honey Badger bites Reavyr (II) for 5 points of damage. Reavyr (II) is unconscious.

A Level 8 Honey Badger eviscerates Reavyr (II) with teeth and claws for 56 points of damage. Reavyr (II) has died. Respawn in 30 seconds.

Reeve closed the UI and scanned the underbrush but found no threats.

“Dad.” She tapped his shoulder with the side of her boot. “Dad, tell me what happened.”

“Evie.” He sat up slowly. “I could really use some coffee. You don’t have any in your Inventory?”

“No, Dad, you can’t keep liquids hot in your Inventory.”

Walter rubbed his face roughly with both palms. “Could we make some?”

“No.” She enunciated her next words carefully. “We have no way to make coffee. We are in the woods. I am a half-orc and you are a halfling. We do not have a coffee maker, we do not have an RV, we do not have a camp stove. There is no Starbucks around the corner. There are no drone food-delivery services.”

Walter nodded understandingly with each point Reeve made.

“But,” she said, “I’m not surprised you feel cruddy, there’s a cool-down period following a death, and the death debuff stacks during that period to keep newbs from charging right back into a situation that’ll likely get them killed over and over again. I don’t remember what the cool-down is, but you might be on your third stacked death debuff right now. What happened?”

“I was waiting for you to come back from the stream when a big skunk walked out of the woods.”

“Oh, Dad.”

“You and I both know skunks just want to be left alone, so I sat still and watched it pitty-paw around…”

“Pitty-paw?”

“…but it was coming right up to me, and I felt deep down like I could make friends with it.”

“Make friends?” Reeve blinked a few times. As absurd as it was, her father’s description reminded her of how it felt when she used her Ranger’s ability to charm animals. “We need to figure out your Class before you try to ‘make friends’ again.”

“So, I tried to pet it.”

“Please, no…”

“It didn’t seem to like that—snarled at me—and I panicked. The only thing I could think to do was give it some of the venison.”

“You don’t have venison!”

“I know, I know. As I was reaching for my Inventory I remembered that I’d never been able to get the venison, but that when I’d tried the bee smoker it worked lickety-split.”

“So you tried to give it the bee smoker?”

“No, of course not. What would a skunk do with a bee smoker?” Walter chuckled at the thought. “But I was panicking, so when I whipped my hand back around the bee smoker was in it and…”

“And?”

“…and I accidentally lost my grip and the bee smoker hit the skunk right in the face.” To illustrate, Walter swung his right hand behind his back and then whipped it forward. To both his and Reeve’s surprise, his hand appeared from behind his back gripping the bee smoker, just as it had during his misunderstanding with the honey badger, and, just as it had during his misunderstanding with the honey badger, the bee smoker’s presence startled Walter, who lost his grip and sent the battle-bloodied device sailing through the air.

“Just like during our little misunderstanding,” Walter said, watching the smoker hit a lichen-covered tree trunk and drop into a bush with intermixed leaves of brilliant greens and reds.

Reeve slid down to squat on the balls of her feet, her weapon still readied. “You hit the honey badger by accident, then it went aggro?”

“‘Aggro’? I don’t know anything about its occupation, but there were a lot of teeth and claws involved.”

Reeve nodded. “That would explain what I saw in the Combat Log.”

“That’s part of the UI?”

Reeve nodded again.

After a moment, Walter threw up both arms to shield his face but did not fall backward, and Reeve surmised that he was making slow progress with summoning the UI.

“Ah, I see it there. ‘Combat Log.’” He shook his head and looked at Reeve skeptically. “I’d hardly call that ‘combat.’”

“Yes, but there isn’t a ‘Misunderstanding Log,’ Dad.”

“Well, maybe there should be, Sweetie.”

Reeve chewed at the corner of her lower lip and considered that the longer he stayed in the game, the more firmly her father might prove that point.

“What’s a Companion?” Walter said.

“A Companion? It’s like a…,” Reeve considered the person with whom she was talking, “…like a really loyal pet. They bond with you and you work together as a team.”

“Aw, that’s sweet.”

Father and daughter sat in silence for half a minute as Walter haltingly navigated his UI and Reeve tried to remember what she knew about honey badgers’ territoriality.

“Wait, why did you ask about Companions?” She said.

“Oh, my Expedience Log—“

“Experience Log.”

“—my Experience Log says that my attempt to forge a Companion bond with the Honey Badger wasn’t successful.”

Reeve turned to her father. “You tried to…” She shook her head slowly. “Tell me what it says.”

“Now, where did it go.” Walter started to raise a hand and then dropped it into his lap again. “Don’t touch, imagine.” His words were whispered, but Reeve made them out.

“The ‘Experience Log’ is right under the ‘Combat Log.’”

“No, that says ‘Party Log.’”

“It’s on the other side from your Party Log.”

Walter’s head wove through the air. Reeve grasped it firmly with both hands. “Just move your eyes.”

“Oh, that’s much better. There it is!”

“Read it to me. Word for word.”

Walter cleared his throat. “Sensing the life spirit that connects all life, big and small.” He paused. “This is nice, is it a poem?”

“Read, please.”

“...you activate your Apiculturist’s—“

“Apiculturist?”

Walter tilted his head down and looked up at Reeve as if he was looking over the reading glasses he used in the real world.

“Sorry.” She released his head. “Go on.”

“...you activate your Apiculturist’s Hive Master Skill and extend your consciousness toward a non-anthophile organism.”

“Why is so much of your Experience Log in Latin?”

Walter was afraid he would lose his place in the log, or misplace the log altogether, and kept reading. “You establish a rudimentary connection with a Level 8 Honey Badger. You have taken the first step on the long path to gaining a Companion. You have learned a new skill. You have learned the Improvisation Skill. By applying an existing skill (Hive Master) in a non-traditional way, you have demonstrated exceptional innovation. As you strengthen your Improvisation Skill, you will become increasingly adept at navigating this uncertain world with creative panache.” Walter looked through the UI at Reeve. “Creative panache,” he said, savoring each word. “That does sound like me, doesn’t it?”

Reeve stared open-mouthed at her father.

Walter smiled at her and then refocused his eyes on his log. “You have gained 23 points of experience in Innovation.” Walter looked past his UI and found Reeve exactly where he’d left her, jaw still slack. “That’s nice, isn’t it? How many of these points do I need to win?”

“It’s not that kind of game, Dad.”

“Oh.” He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s too bad.” His eyes changed focal plane. “You have attacked your intended Companion with a Bee Smoker. By violating your intended Companion’s nascent trust, you have damaged your rudimentary connection, possibly irretrievably. The path to gaining a Companion is now fraught with challenging pitfalls.” He shook his head. “All a simple misunderstanding.”

Reeve was struck by how sincerely her father seemed to believe that his recent fatal mauling at the teeth and claws of a honey badger could have been avoided by better interpersonal communication.

“Ah, there’s just a little more.” He cleared his throat once more. “You have used a Bee Smoker as a combat weapon. You have gained 2 points of experience in Innovation.” Walter swayed slightly as his UI receded to the periphery. “There I go again, earning those points.”

Reeve stood and shook out first one leg and then the other. She needed to get them on the trail after her mom. The glitch into the ground and her father’s innovative third death had delayed their start far too long. Her mother could be epically lost by now and, if she’d been moving this whole time, hours ahead of them.

Walter walked over to the bush that had swallowed his bee smoker and peered within.