From behind a dense copse of black raspberry bushes, Reeve’s eyes, honed by a childhood of VR gameplay, assessed the kobold camp. It was a fairly straightforward setup, she thought, appropriate for this early stage of the story mode. There were the sentries they’d need to evade or take out silently if they didn’t want to be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. The cliff wall that limited the directions from which they could approach. The ledges, which gave high ground to their enemy. And the worn path that led across the clearing and then ascended a series of those ledges, ledges that zigzagged up the cliff face, ropes hanging down from some to provide alternate paths, all leading toward a cave on the topmost ledge, obviously the seat of the minor boss of this encounter. The corner of her lip rose in a half-smile, and she gave a quiet snort of appreciation—the whole setup was a call-back to old single-screen, platform action games she’d seen run on emulators. All that was missing was an ape raining down barrels.

I hope there won’t be barrels, she thought.

The reward for advancing was equally clear to her—suspended from a dead tree leaning precariously from the top of the cliff, a roughly hewn iron cage hung on a long rope, the two inhabitants within gripping the black bars as they surreptitiously watched Reeve and her party.

The only thing Reeve couldn’t see was her mother, everything else was apparent.

“Well,” she whispered, “I guess we know what we need to do if we want to find Mom.”

“Hmm?”

Reeve turned to look at her father, who had black raspberry juice all over the front of his white shirt. He was staring up toward the cage.

Reeve frowned at him. “What we need to do, to get through this encounter.”

Walter shook his head slightly and, with the prolonged effort necessary when separating strong magnets, slowly pulled his gaze from the cage. “Encounter? With the people here?”

“What people? This is a kobold camp.”

“The dragon things?”

“They aren’t dragons, they’re sprites, but they sometimes associate with dragons. And, yeah, they’re vaguely humanoid, but don’t you see that they’re not actually human?”

Walter squinted toward the creatures across the clearing and up the terraced cliff. “They have clothes, it looks like.”

“Yes, they have loincloths, but you didn’t notice the tails? Or the really long ears?” She paused, waiting for a response from her father. “Skin that looks like it’s made of rough coal or stained wood?” She stared at him. “Green and purple wings?”

“Oh, yeah.” He smiled. “Is there a dragon here too?”

“Ohmagod. I hope not. That’s the last thing we need right now. But, look, we obviously need to make it past the sentries, into the camp, up through that series of ledges, each of which is swarming with kobolds, along that thin ledge to connect over to the big one on the right, up that makeshift ladder, and then fight whatever is in that cave, and we need to do it before anything happens to the two captive half-elves in the cage.”

“There are sentries? Are these kobolds not friendly?”

Reeve bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood and clenched the many muscles of her face as though trying to have them meet on the tip of her nose, all to keep from shouting at her father and betraying their presence.

All of my problems have solutions. All of my problems have solutions. She pictured the poster on the wall of her fifth-grade English Language Arts classroom.

“I’m sure they—“

Reeve quickly grabbed the halfling’s hand, which held the remainder of the berries he’d picked, and swung it up to stuff the berries into his mouth. By the time he had finished coughing, chewing, and then swallowing, she was feeling moderately less hopeless. She pulled stones from her inventory and arranged them around her and her father. “Resurrection stones,” she said. She looked at her father pointedly and he repeated the words. She finally felt sufficiently prepared to continue. “It’s fine, you don’t have as much experience with this kind of thing. Just believe me when I tell you that there are obviously some things we need to do here, and we need to do them in a certain order if we want this to go well.”

Walter nodded.

“And if it does go well, we should find Mom, plus it looks like we’ll have two NPCs join the party.”

“NP—“

“Didn’t I tell you to write this stuff down in your ledger?”

Walter pursed his lips. After a few seconds, he said, “There’s going to be a party?”

“Doesn’t matter. I just need you to do what I tell you to do, and nothing else, OK? It’s going to mainly involve you staying right here while Nyx and I take on,” her eyes ran over the scene, “about thirty kobolds. The honey badger can come too if she wants.”

Walter nodded knowingly. He too looked over the scene. His eyes again became stuck when they found the inhabitants of the cage. “Those, uh, ladies there…”

Reeve turned to look at the two half-elves, who continued to watch her.

“They, uh…” He said. “They’re, um… What kind of game is this again?”

Reeve frowned and rolled her eyes. “Ohmagod. I know. They’re gross. The devs were obviously pandering to the outdated idea of a teenage dude demographic.” She scrutinized the two in the cage. Their hair fell to their waist in long braids. One had a braid of black, its wearer of deeply dark skin. The other had a braid of flax, its wearer of almost translucent pale skin. The deep V neckline of their tight leather clothes, which almost resembled jumpsuits, fell to their waists as well. Their body proportions were…not very anatomically realistic. Maybe on a kid’s doll from the last century. “Half-elves usually don’t have that much body fat, at least not in one place,” she said. “Well, two places. Most adventurers who’re into girls who come through here must pitch…,” Reeve glanced at her father, “…right over. Not my type though. And, I mean, it’s ridiculous—so half-a-century ago. But it’s not their fault they were coded that way. Hopefully, they’ll be helpful.”

Walter was still staring at the cage. After another minute, he realized Reeve was staring at him, and he dropped his eyes and scratched the side of his head. “Wait, they’re not real?”

“Real? Nothing in here is real!” Reeve whisper-screamed at the halfling, who flinched. “But we’re trapped here, possibly for a very long time, so unless we can find a way out, this all might as well be real. We need to find Mom in case she can log us out.”

“Does she have a UI too?”

Reeve turned from her father, unable to respond. She decided she’d pour her frustration into the coming fight. With a thought in Nyx’s direction, she called the cat closer to her. She pictured for Nyx their opening attack and the most desirable path through the camp. Reeve received a warm feeling of understanding in response. The feeling was followed immediately by a mental image of her father walking across the field toward the camp. Reeve looked at Nyx, confused. Her bond with the great cat had become strong with time, and they almost always understood each other‘s intentions. Reeve had thought that her plan for the assault had been clear, and at no point had her father entered into it. She received another image from Nyx, and Reeve’s confusion deepened. In the image, her father stood near one of the kobolds’ campfires, and he appeared to be talking to her mother.

“How do you know what my mom’s avatar looks like?“ Reeve said aloud to Nyx. She received a feeling of pity from the cat.

Reeve turned to her father, but the flattened patch of grass where he’d sat eating berries was vacant. She slowly raised her gaze to look over the bushes and toward the camp.

Her father stood next to one of the campfires talking to her mother.

Reeve emitted a choking sound.