A man in dark leather armor stepped up to Jessica and waved a bit of meat in her face.

“I’m gonna take this off now,” he said, in a thick Australian accent, “when I do, you’re gonna eat it. No funny business. Try casting any spells, and I’ll stab you with this knife. Understood?”

He wiggled a long blade between his fingers. From what Theo could tell, he looked like an assassin, similar to what Alice was. He had a long scar down one side of his face that made him look warped, almost like his skin was melted candle wax. His skin was dark, with a flat nose and narrow brown eyes.

Jessica stared at him, eyes full of hate, but slowly nodded her head. He took the gag out of her mouth — what appeared to be a torn portion of her cloak — and she looked at him, lips sealed.

“Here, doggy, doggy,” the assassin said, wiggling the meat in front of Jessica’s face.

Behind him, two men laughed. They appeared to be twins, each of them massive, muscular, and almost naked. They wore nothing but fur loincloths and bone jewelry, but runic tattoos covered their bodies. Theo could feel the magic seeping off of them. Unsure what to make of the twins, Theo tried using his knew Druidic Knowledge ability on the left warrior.

Name: ???

Species: Human

Class: Barbarian

Character Level: 3

He was surprised at how much information the new skill earned him. He wasn’t offered a Barbarian class when he’d picked Druid — not that he would have taken it. But it confirmed that there were more classes out there than the ones he’d seen. He assumed that the Game offered those classes that might be a fit for the player, and not every person received the same options. He quickly scanned the identical twin of the first barbarian, only to find that he was exactly the same. He then moved to the assassin taunting Jessica.

Name: ???

Species: Human

Class: Bloodmark Assassin

Character Level: 4

Bloodmark Assassin? Level 4? What even was a Bloodmark Assassin? And how had he reached level four already? He wondered how much of his levels were due to the Universal Power he’d stolen from Leyah and Ron.

Theo scanned the rest of the group. There were two more of them, making a total of five, and both were women. One of them sniggered as she sharpened a short sword; she was older, with wrinkled skin that made her look remarkably goblin-like. She had stringy blonde hair and was missing several teeth. She wore simple fighter’s armor, like Blake’s, all brown leather. Except all around her body hung trophies: bits of cloth or jewelry, taken from… well, Theo didn’t want to know what they were taken from. But he could see, hanging around her throat, was a necklace of teeth.

Name: Grub

Species: Human?

Class: Bandit

Character Level: 3

Grub? Theo thought, Seriously? And what’s with the question mark after human? Yeesh.

Grub continued to sharpen her blade, occasionally running over an oiled cloth. She laughed uproariously as the assassin teased Jessica with the meat.

The final member of their party was a young girl, younger than even Jessica. She looked college age, maybe. Hell, she could even be one of his students. She wore a simple skirt and blouse, rather than full robes, that looked suspiciously like a school uniform. He could see that she was very beautiful, in an innocent sort of way: pale white skin and raven black hair, eyes so blue they were almost purple. She sat silently, ignoring the other members of her party. She just watched her hands in her lap, head down.

Another prisoner? Theo thought, someone they’ve coerced into working with them?

He tried identifying her, but the results were even worse than the others.

Name: ???

Species: ???

Class: ???

Character Level: ???

He frowned at this. At least with the others, he could see that they were human… or whatever Grub was supposed to be. Well, the girl looked human, and he had to guess that she had some skill resisting his Druidic Knowledge. He let it slide, then turned his attention back to Jessica.

The Assassin was finally letting her eat, and the laughter died down.

“Why waste meat on her,” one of the Barbarian twins said.

“When she could be meat herself,” said the other. The twins laughed, and so did Grub.

The Assassin looked back at them with a sour expression. “Now, is that a very good way to convince our friend to heal us, Brock?”

The slightly bigger twin, Brock, apparently, frowned. He looked down like a chided dog. “Erm — no, sir.”

“Good. We’ll all treat Jessica with the utmost respect while she is our guest. And soon, she will willingly join our merry band of thieves as our new healer. Correct?”

The rest of the crew — minus the teenage girl — nodded. “Right, cause we need one, after you killed the last one, boss,” Grub said, continuing to sharpen her blade.

The Assassin narrowed his eyes and let a seething breath escape his lips. “Shut up, Grub,” he hissed.

“Oh, right — sorry, McClain,” she said meekly.

McClain — the assassin, and apparently their leader, turned back to Jessica.

“You killed your last healer,” she said.

“We had… irreconcilable philosophical differences,” he said, diplomatically, “he wound up getting in the way, and had a terrible accident. You, of course, won’t have that problem. All you need to do is sit pretty and heal us when we ask. Sound good?”

“What makes you think I’ll do that? After you killed my friends?” Jessica asked.

“Or else we’ll pull your teeth out one by one!” Grub said. She looked at Jessica and rattled her necklace of teeth, grinning. The Barbarian twins burst into laughter.

“We’ll do no such thing,” McClain said, “we’re sorry about what happened to your friends. You have to understand, in a dangerous new world like this, that it’s smarter to shoot first and ask questions later. We were frightened for our safety, that’s all. But the fact of the matter is, your friends are gone, and you have no combat skills to survive out there alone. Hell, you can’t even hunt for food. Like it or not, we’re all you have.”

Jessica’s mouth opened momentarily, then closed. She didn’t say anything. Good, Theo thought, don’t tell them we’re still out here. Don’t give us away. We’ll come for you.

“Why are you doing this?” Jessica asked, “why choose to kill people? There is nothing in the Games rules that say we have to.”

“Perhaps not,” McClain said, “but the rules are set up in such a way that it encourages us to do so. We get more power the more people and monsters we kill. People even more so.”

“But why? Do you even need the power? What is it good for?” she asked.

What happened next was a blur. McClain’s arm flashed, and something silver arced through the air. Then, with a twang, a knife appeared right next to Jessica’s head. It vibrated, stuck in the wood of the tree behind her. A chunk of her hair pinned her to the wall, then fell like feathers to the ground, severed. She gasped, then stayed perfectly still.

The group burst into laughter at the sight of her shocked face. Theo wanted to jump into the ruined tower and kill them all, right then.

“You seem to me like the kind of girl who never had any real problems in the old world,” McClain said, “let me guess, good middle class family, nice education, comfortable job… I’d bet you worked with kids. You can always tell the type. You never had any problems, and so you never really needed any power. Me? I had nothing. I was born in the gutter. Power was the only thing that mattered. Still is.”

McClain twitched his fingers, and the knife pulled out of the wood by Jessica’s head, flying back into his hand. He caught it effortlessly, twirling it between his fingers. He looked at it, blew the wood dust from the tip.

“The beatings I had to endure growing up. From the other homeless kids first, then from the cops later. You wouldn’t believe how much I wished for power then. And now, thanks to the new world, and the Gamemaker, I have it.”

He stepped forward, then squatted in front of Jessica, looking her right in the eyes. “If you ever knew true helplessness, then you wouldn’t be asking that question,” he whispered. Then he took the cloth from around her neck and shoved it back into her mouth, despite her moaning protests. She shook against her restraints, but it was useless.

The Barbarians laughed again, through mouthfuls of roast meat.

“Let’s rest up,” McClain said, “lots of killing to do tomorrow. Bjorn, you take the first watch.”

Bjorn — the other, leaner twin — frowned. “Lemme take a piss first,” he grumbled. He stood, and started moving over to where Theo hid.

Shit, shit, shit, he thought. Then he turned to Tiberius and sent him a mental message. Go!

Tiberius nodded, then took off down the path. Theo turned to follow him, but stopped dead in his tracks.

Just before him, bathed in moonlight, was the figure of the teenage girl. She stood in her school uniform, arms folded behind her back.

She didn’t say anything. She just stared at him with those strange purple eyes, head cocked inquisitively.

Theo put a placating hand out. “Don’t say anything,” he whispered.

“Who are you?” She asked. Her voice was high and sweet.

“I’m… I’m Theo. Those men. They have my friend,” he said.

She frowned. “They’re bad men,” she said.

Theo almost let out a sigh of relief. Maybe his first impression of her was correct. She was so unlike the rest of them. How could she be with them willingly.

“Did they capture you? Are they forcing you to work with them?” Theo asked.

She shook her head, a small, furtive movement.

“Did you appear here with them? In their party?” Theo asked.

The girl nodded slowly. Then she must be going along with it, just so they won’t kill her, like they did her healer.

“We can help you,” he said, “we can take you away from here. You just need to help me get my friend. Can you do that?”

She looked at him strangely, cocking her head even more.

“Why would I do that?” she asked.

“Because she… she didn’t…” he started. But a strange feeling came over him. It was like an invisible hand was closing around this throat.

“She…” he kept going, but his voice came out choked. He began to claw at his neck, leaving red marks on the skin. The girl just watched on in amusement as his feet lifted off the ground, and the invisible grip carried him into the air. He kicked and fought, but nothing he did lessened the grip at all. Soon, blackness began to swarm his vision like insects, blocking out the strange moon-pale girl.

“That would end all the fun I’m having,” she said. She stepped towards him, eyes wide, looking down on him with a small, playful smile.