Reeve and Walter Williams sat on a broad, circular rock and looked across a rolling ocean of treetops that stretched into blurriness. Farther even, the sun was unwinding into cloud-draped pinks and oranges as it sank toward a toothy mountain range that would provide cover for its departure from the day. Reeve’s eyes were squinted, perspiration beading on her broad forehead. Walter’s eyes were swollen nearly shut, blood oozing from small cuts all across his lumpy, discolored face.

“It’s as beautiful as anything IRL, isn’t it?” Reeve said.

“Szzz fhhhhhhhhtszk,” Walter said.

“Maybe Mom’s seeing this. I hope she found some shelter.”

“Dhan whhrrrr. Zhe tkkk currr shlf.”

Reeve frowned. “But this isn’t like the normal world, she’s not used to it.”

“Zhe kahhh hhhhuunn ahhnnnggg. Zhe rrrrrrzzzzddd hhhuuuu…”

“I’m sure I had my moments, but hopefully raising me wasn’t the same as surviving a goblin or a troll—“

“Zhhhrrrr ttttzzzzz?” Walter’s choked voice was high with excitement.

“Yes, Dad, there are trolls. Why are you so thrilled about trolls?” She glanced at the swollen face of her father, which lolled at an extreme angle. It looked to her as though someone had mixed salsa with cottage cheese and poured it onto the face of a halfling mannequin.

“Whun fhhurr ahhddvvvvzz aahn Shee Hhhhbbbtt ahzz—“

“The burrahobbit part?” Reeve scoffed. “Is LOTR why you chose a halfling avatar?”

“Kaahhrrs. Hhhhuww asks whhudd beeee raaahlleee khhoaahhhn whhhttt tttzzz!”

Reeve did not respond. She was quite certain that an encounter between her father and three trolls would not end as favorably as it had for Thorin’s company.

“Hhhh tthhhh zhelll zzzzz musss luftt?”

Reeve shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I used pretty big stones from the stream. They’re not going to wash away in rain or anything.” She pictured the message she’d left circling the spawn point. Mom, you just respawned. STAY HERE. DO NOT MOVE. We will come back to get you. Reeve. “It’d be hard to miss.” But, Reeve thought, if anyone could miss it—or choose to ignore it for a nonsensical reason—it’d be one of her parents.

“Hhhuu shhhh whhrrnnn bhou puhuhkkky shhhrrrrr.”

“Number one, it’s a Poisonous Firethorn, not a shrub. Number two, she’s smart enough not to stick her face in it. And number three, there wasn’t any space left once I put together the message trying to convince her not to go anywhere.”

“Hhhyyy gghhuuu beeeee smhkkrrr buuuu.” As if to drive his point home, Walter pulled from his Inventory his bee smoker.

“Yes you did, Dad. You got your bee smoker back.”

Walter held the device close to his puffy eyes and pumped the small bellows.

Reeve checked her Party Log in case she’d missed any alerts during their run from the spawn, back to the clearing, onto the trail to the north, and up to this lone rock prominence that stood sentinel above the forest. There was still no sign of her mom having died and respawned.

How was that possible? Reeve thought. Her dad had already died three times, nearly a fourth, and her mom had always been impossibly bad at all video games. Ridiculously bad. Supernaturally bad. Freakishly bad.

“Smmmmmmgh!”

Reeve closed her UI and patted her father on the back. “Looks like you’re figuring that thing out, Dad. You’ll be smoking bees in no time.” Weak puffs of smoke emanated from the smoker each time Walter pumped the bellows. Reeve looked back out over the forest and watched the progress of the breeze toward them, the sway of treetops like waves approaching to crash upon their stony island. She shifted her bow on her back and flexed her shoulders, finding the skin around her neck sore where her father had wrapped his arms as she ran through the forest. They’d both started out from the spawn point on foot, but he could barely stay upright at any speed above a fast walk—it was like watching a mascot race at a baseball game—and she’d stopped and convinced him to be carried. Although reluctant, he’d eventually agreed. The fact that he could barely see through his swollen eyes had likely encouraged the choice. Reeve noticed the light dimming more rapidly, and she looked from the swaying trees to the distant mountains and found the sun beginning to pass behind one of the peaks. She reached into her Inventory and pulled out a small burlap bag.

“Hrmm gllrrrrhnnn?”

“Yeah, it’s the goblin loot bag that I picked up on our way through the clearing.” She pulled loose the drawstring at the mouth of the bag and reached in.

“Hyyyuhh hhsstttllll ehhht?”

She paused. “No, I did not steal it. It’s a loot bag. They’re dropped by slain NPCs. It’s—“

“Hnnn hhheee eeeee?”

“Nonplayer character. Loot bags are pretty standard.” She pulled an item from the bag and turned away in disgust from the piece of meat covered in maggots. “Don’t need that.” She tossed it over the edge of the cliff that dropped away a few yards in front of their perch.

“SShhhh nuuhhiiii nhhhkks kkhhhnn?”

“No! Goblins don’t have next of kin who should be notified. No one needs to inherit the loot bag. It’s ours. It’s fine.” She pulled out a wooden knife.

“Hrrrmmmmbbbrrr zzzhhhhtttthh.”

“I bet you do. Here’s the other one.” She pulled a second wooden knife from the bag and set it down next to its partner. Reaching in again, she pulled out her fist and opened it to reveal a silver coin. “Not bad for a Level 1 Goblin.” She tucked the coin into her inventory and then whipped the empty bag once in the air. It disappeared.

“Hwwwwwoooaaa.”

“You can actually keep the loot bag if you want, but you’ll pretty quickly fill up your inventory and they’re not good for much. The devs—

“H—“

“Aaahhhh! Developers, the game developers. Devs. I hope you’re remembering all this. Maybe you should write it down in your ledger. The devs created that loot bag mechanic so you could keep them if it’d be useful to you but you could disappear them if you didn’t need them, so this world wouldn’t become littered with loot bags like the plastic bag problem there used to be IRL.” Glancing at the sun, which was almost completely set, she picked up the two knives and offered them to her father. “You’ll have to make do with these until we can get you something better. I guess we know they can do the job.”

The inflamed tissue of Walter’s face shifted slightly in a way that Reeve interpreted as a smile. Walter took the two knives and looked at them in his open palms. He swung the one in his left hand toward his back, but Reeve caught his wrist before the knife disappeared into his Inventory.

“Keep it in the waist of your pants. Your waistband is one of your quick-access locations. You don’t want to have to access your Inventory in an emergency.” Walter nodded. “I’m going to take first shift. You can tuck yourself into that little recess in the rock over there and get some sleep. I’ll wake you up when it’s your turn. In the morning, if the swelling has gone down enough, we’ll spend a few minutes getting you some XP to start leveling you, then we’ll continue tracking Mom. It looked from the signs down on the path that she was still several hours ahead of us. I can’t figure out why she just kept going. She must’ve realized I wouldn’t have gone that far away from you two. I mean, right?”

Walter nodded, leaned over, and pressed some portion of his lumpy face against Reeve’s cheek, in what she hesitatingly interpreted as a goodnight gesture, and walked unsteadily over to the short rock wall that rose from the center of the prominence. In a small scalloped recess he lay down, his knives in the waist of his pants and his bee smoker held reverently in his hands as he continued to examine it.

Reeve had zero intention of waking her father to take a turn at watch. If the night would’ve involved real time passing and real sleep lost, she would have considered giving him a turn, but she knew from having played almost a full day in game time that sleep deprivation was far less debilitating than in real life. She might have to stay awake through eight hours of perceived time, but her brain would only be missing out on a less-than-a-minute micro-nap.

Reeve rose and reached into her Inventory for a few of the stream stones she had kept. She placed them at the compass points around the rock on which she’d been sitting and then hopped up onto it. “Resurrection stones,” she said. Checking her UI, she saw that her spawn had successfully updated. Hopping back down, she approached her father, who was producing increasingly substantial puffs of smoke. She set four stones, one wedged between him and the rock wall.

“Say ‘resurrection stones.’”

“Hrrssrrrshhhnn hsstttnnnss.”

Reeve checked the Party Log. “Can’t believe it, but that worked. I guess the neural interface can tell what you’re trying to say even if the world here wouldn’t be able to. You’re all set. Sleep well.”

Walter nodded.

Reeve stepped outside his circle of stones and began padding softly back and forth in a semicircle centered on her father.

“Let’s hope for a quiet night,” she said to herself.