Ayra was tired. Only a couple of days had passed since she came here with Cala, and she was already regretting her choice. The camp was not what she thought it would be.

There was nothing glorious, no adventure, no mystery to be found here.

All she encountered was work, more work, discipline and hardness.

The nuns were running the camp like a business and a military base. A kind of militarized, monastical camp meant to make money. She had strict service hours when she had to clean and help prepare the food for over one hundred people. There were other services like cleaning the corridors, the toilets, the dormitory, the garden or the alleys, all jobs that would come one after the other.

Work, work, work and more work. Her hands and feet were hurting her, and her back was aching.

Each area had its own section head; above them were the mothers and a couple of abbots who all reported to the superior mother.

Then there were the 'hours'. The study hours.

Now she was running. In line. They were running in a group. Keep in line! What study was this? There were many young girls like her here, but they were not playing, they had no games, there was no fun but work and hard exercises.

She was tired; she could not hold her place. The girl behind her pushed her, and she stumbled. She was falling behind, yet they forced her to make the same number of rounds as the other did. And whilst the other relaxed, she was still running. In the end, she fell to her knees. It was then that the instructor screamed at her to make her stand and run again. She could not, and then the instructor hit her with a wooden stick.

"See? You can suddenly move!"

She finished her round on her knees whilst the instructor yelled in her ear:

"You will thank me! What would you do when the harpies would come or the lion would run behind you? Run!!

Another hit. It was not really hard but painful and without honour. Disciplined as not even a lousy child would be.

She was tired. Gone were the good days when she was only waiting for clients in Aruba's shop or chatting with the clients or with the other shopkeepers.

The girls here were mean to her. They told her she was weak. When they found out that she had so much gold, they thought she was a rich girl or a thief. The superior mother took her 4 gold in custody. That gold was more than enough to pay for a whole year. She would not need to work to earn her board and lodging, but the superior mother asked her where does she have the money from?

She did not want to believe that Cala had put it there. She said: “it must be a mistake”.

Her beautiful sales clerk dress was gone; she was wearing now a grey uniform like everybody else here. And she had to pay for it.

She wanted to run. The only thing that kept her here, the only thing that helped her endure this, was the thought that Spartacius would one day come back.

She knew she would be ready by then.

She raised her head and ground her teeth: she must be ready for the contract! She will be his merc!

That was her fate. She knew it. She did not know how it would come into being; all she knew was that someday it would happen.

But they have not even started the archery hours.

*

As I approached the fire, I thought about our situation.

It is probably just a local issue; this is why the game was not already terminated; else, they would have done an emergency shut down by now. Maybe they are not even aware that a couple of persons are having problems!?

Can it be that nobody knows of our situation?

I saw Spartacius with 'Terri' and the Lynx eating by the fire as I approached the camp. The ghost was sitting by them. Alice was a bit further away, talking with that stranger.

As I arrived near the fire, I turned to Spartacius:

“Where are you now in real life?”

All turned their faces to me. You absolutely do not ask this unorthodox question in Dreamland's Mephisto, but this was no ordinary situation.

“I am in our dormitory near the school. Why do you ask?”

“Can it be that your colleagues leave you playing and ignore you? I mean, you started playing yesterday? How many colleagues do you have in the room? Do you have pampers on?”

Surprised, he took a deep breath before answering.

“We are two in one room. We have two double rooms with a bathroom in between. The other two come often to visit. We play together almost all the time. I am not sure if they realized my situation. Normally, we cover for each other, so they may even tell in school that I am sick to let me play as long as I want. Why do you care? We have fun, and I feel good?”

"What are pampers?"

Alice scorned him:

"Not now, Lynx!"

It was my turn to sigh. It seems absurd to me, but… I turned towards the ghost:

“Ivar, have you got any message?”

“No, nothing. I had only bad dreams.”

Bad dreams! As if somebody would care about his dreams...

“Do you live alone at home?”

“Yes, I do...”

“Can it be that we are among the only ones having a problem? And nobody knows of us?”

The Lynx and 'Terri' were keenly following our exchange but said nothing; however, I could no longer bear the Lynx looking askew at me:

"Pampers are kind of underwear that you dress babies with to absorb their piss. Well, not only babies..."

The Lynx grinned:

"Oh. So unhygienic!"

I shrugged. Ivar answered hesitatingly:

“I don't know. It might be possible...”

“What have you done since yesterday? How come you don't know?”

He answered a bit aghast:

“I found people in chapter one; they were organizing the fight against Mephisto's troops. A couple agreed for me to test the logout, and it worked fine for them.

“So it works fine for some people? Have you told them of our problem?”

“Yes, I did. I talked to a paladin. She used the complete logout, and it worked. She promised to raise a ticket for me, but she did not come back.”

“A ticket? That's all?”

“Then I was chased by shadows! Almost all the time! You don't know how stressful it is to be hunted!”

“Where are those shadows?”

He shrugged.

“I don't know. I don't see any now. Possibly they are afraid of… one of you? Of the living? Well, good that they are not here! Look, let's forget those shadows now. What do we do about the logout issue?”

“Did you give her your name and address for the ticket?”

“No. I just asked her to raise the ticket for my character.”

“Why is then nobody contacting you? She probably did not do anything! If it were a generalized issue, then we would see something happening, people would get organized. Besides, why no message in the clouds today?”

“That is not an easy task. You do not just type in the message in the clouds; you need to control the weather. I know it is simulated, but this is the way it works. It is complex. Maybe that doesn't work anymore? If they lost control, that was it, maybe the last message. OK, I'll go again to search for players. You do your quest and search for players on your side. If the logout works for them or they use bodysuits, we can send messages through them. All that it matters is to find such users and tell them about us. But you are right; I can hardly imagine that there are many users locked in for 10-15 hours. This cannot be. If it is a localized issue, anybody can help. I’ll go and recheck the portals and ask all the humans what equipment they use.”

“I think it is a localized problem. Probably just a handful of people encounter it.”

Spartacius interrupted our conversation about logout:

“Why are you still a ghost? You missed preparing for resurrection?”

It was Ivar's time to raise his shoulders:

“It does not work. It seems the angels have no power anymore. They cannot even come down from their heaven...”

OK, that was news to me. I did not know they were coming down from somewhere, but I had a suspicion:

“Can it be that they are linked with the Silver Shrines?”

“Yes, correct, their power comes from the Silver Shrines. Why do you ask?”

“Because that Grackak idiot had destroyed the Silver Shrine in the Silver City?”

“Oh fuck, pardon my expression, but that is bad! Do you know why they are called Silver Shrines and Silver City? Because of the high density of their silver-coloured magic. Their power comes from the magic node in the Silver City. If that shrine was destroyed, that explains a lot of the happening.”

“So it means we have no more angel based resurrection?”

Ivar laughed, a hauntingly ghostly laugh:

“Correct. You pay many months to be resurrected, and then an idiot comes and destroys the shrine! I wonder why did he do that?”

Spartacius interrupted us again:

“How do you know so much?”

“I'm a game moderator.”

“A game moderator?”

He stood up:

“OK, you know something? First, let's concentrate on the logout issue. I am going to check again! Besides, I cannot eat, so I'll go right now. Are you still going to the Silver Town?”

“Yes”

“Then let's meet there at my castle. Ivar's castle is just before the town's entry on the right; you cannot miss it!”

“And the shadows?”

“I will run from them away. Once I am with people, they do not attack me. I just need to find some people and stay with them.”

Spartacius used the moment to share with us one of his pearls of wisdom:

“In the morning, the nightmares do not look so frightening anymore, isn’t it?”

Ivar's ghost conceded:

“Right. Well, see you!”

We waved as he left, disappearing in the air. I watched the point in the air where he disappeared.

Does it matter for me to continue playing the game, or should I let them kill me and live as a ghost until I am able to log out? At least I could spend more pleasantly the remaining time?

Is it more pleasantly?

On one side, I was inexplicably not really interested in life outside Dreamland. I kept forgetting about it. On the other side, here in Mephisto's Land, I don't want to become a ghost; that's definitively not funny. I always hated this feature. Why on Earth do game designers think it is a good idea to punish me and make me run as a ghost after I lost my life, I lost experience points and material value? At least here in the hardcore version, you just do it a minimal number of times if you are lucky and have paid enough tributes for the angels to restore you or, in many cases, just once to review your live exploits.

The angels are now on strike, and shadows are chasing your butt. Definitely not interested.

The Lynx, whilst taking another sausage with a claw and spilling several over the fire, asked me:

“So, what are you, demons or gods?”

Spartacius protested:

“Hey, watch what you are doing! It takes time to conjure more!”

“Pardon me, God of Food, but please make more; these small thingies are very palatable!”

“No thingies, sausages!”

“Sausages. Yep, please make more!”

I laughed seeing the greedy Lynx:

“You'll get fat!”

He answered with a grin:

“I'm working hard towards it but no success so far. By the way, you did not answer: Gods or demons?”

I sighed. I had the same conversation with Alice before, and the Lynx and 'Terri' know already much about us. I watched Alice, who was still talking with the stranger and answered the Lynx:

“We are kids, you know that!”

“Yes, but you did not answer the question.”

I sighed. He is stubborn.

“Oh, come on, you must realize we are no demons and no gods. We are just people from another world who come here to enjoy a magic world.”

“And you cannot go back?”

“Yes.”

He shrugged:

“Well, try to enjoy it then!?”

“If you sleep and do not wake up, how long can you enjoy a dream before you...?“

I did not end the sentence. I don't want now to paint the devil on the wall. I turned to Alice:

“Alice! Come here! Bring the lady with you! We need to eat before we leave!”

As the mage-lady approached us, she pulled her hood off, and I saw a lovely oval face with shining blue eyes. Her cheeky, pointed ears penetrated her silver-blond hair on both sides of her head, her carnal red lips opened a little as she intook air to talk:

“Tina is my name! Nice to meet you! Thank you for your kind invitation!”

I already thought I knew that silhouette, but now it was clear as Thiara's eyes locked into mine.

I sighed, a deep sight as I shook her hand. The Lynx grinned, and his left ear twitched, almost as if he tried to signalize something with it. I think he was mighty amused by the happening.

Not my decision, not my decision! Fuck! This is what happens when somebody else takes the decision; you get the problems handed over.

Spartacius jumped and gave her a greasy hand with a broad grinning face:

“Spartacius! Pleased to meet you! These are Lynx, the wisest and hungriest Lynx in the world and Terri, the best heal!”

She shook his hand without hesitation, her eyes still locked into mine. I had no words yet.