The sun's rays crested over the edges of the mountain tops, the coolness of the night beginning to set in. A gentle breeze carried the scents of the woods and the myriad calls of countless songbirds waning as they settled down for the night. The low-burning campfire danced, filling the air with crackling sounds and a whiff of smoke.

It was unimaginably peaceful, and Zed was hating every second of it.

Zed yawned as he lay in the grass, staring upward at the color-streaked sky. He had insisted on staying because defending the camp as the only truly competent fighter seemed like it would be entertaining, but in his haste, he failed to consider that it was more likely that he would just be sitting in the camp all day.

*CRASH*

"Goddamn it! Who left that standing there?!"

"Sorry!"

The peaceful atmosphere was disturbed, for not the first nor the last time, by the builders, making steady progress towards improving the camp. A newer, larger wall of spikes was being constructed around the original, which was now in the process of being torn down so the pieces could be reused. The new wall was taller and the gaps between were filled with smaller branches and spikes to prevent any Iron Ants from climbing over them. The inside of the wall was being smoothed out with mud, made to dry with a bit of fire, and giving everyone an odd feeling of being in a bowl.

The wall was almost halfway done, which was an impressive feat considering there were only three builders working on it, but not too surprising when you considered the experience they'd gained from building the much larger walls around the village.

It also helped that each of them was also strong as hell. Similar to Alexx, the builders dumped most of their Ability Points into STR since it allowed them to handle massive construction materials like they were styrofoam. The loud crash just now came from one of them stumbling over something and dropping the several-hundred-pound log she was carrying over her shoulder with no discernable effort. To them, building this wall was just a step above playing with Lincoln Logs{1}.

"This is so boring," Zed muttered, "how much longer until they get back?"

Zed closed his eyes for a moment, sleep beginning to call him now that the day was close to its end. Then he felt someone standing over him.

"M-Mr. Zed? Would you like something for dinner?" Calix stuttered.

Zed opened his eyes to see the young player standing over him, a pair of meat skewers in hand.

"Hm? Oh, thanks." He reached up from his reclined position and she handed him the skewers.

"I-I'm sorry, but they might be a little cold..."

Zed raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Cold? Why?"

Calix flinched, the cat ear-like tufts in her hair seeming to twitch from the movement. "I-I-I...I finished cooking a little while ago, but y-you didn't come to get it when I called. I didn't want to b-bother you so I started cleaning my tools, b-but now the food is getting cold so I couldn'twaitanylongerI'msorry!"

Zed raised a hand defensively. "It's fine, calm down. My fault for not paying attention. And besides," he took a bite from the skewer, "it still tastes great!"

A small blush appeared on Calix's cheeks. "Th-thank you, Mr. Zed."

Zed scoffed. "You can thank me by dropping that whole Mr. thing. I don't play these games to be reminded of my age."

"What?" Calix said, surprised at the idea that Zed was apparently a grown man. A few people in the village assumed his real age was much younger than his avatar, and that his unusual behavior came from his immaturity. Most didn't believe that idea, but Calix had always assumed that Zed's real age was at least close to that of his avatar. "Um, if it's okay to ask, how old are you?"

"Humph, not that old but older than I want to think about," he grunted. Then he put on a wide grin. "But you know what they say, you're only as young as you feel. And right now, I don't feel a day over twenty-one!"

She returned his smile, feeling a little of the seemingly omnipresent tension leave her for a moment. Zed still made her nervous, but then again everything made her nervous; and after he helped defuse the situation with Bates the other day she felt slightly more at ease around him.

If nothing else, she was beginning to believe that he was a battle junkie rather than a serial killer, meaning that someone as timid as her was probably at the bottom of his list of targets; if she was on it at all.

Calix awkwardly sat down next to Zed. She was finished cleaning her tools and had broken down the wolves brought in by some of Bates' team members, so there was officially nothing left for her to do for the day. She felt like she was being stared at, and when she turned around she saw the guy from the crafting team doing just that.

His eyes were moving between her and Zed, concern written on his face as if he expected the man to literally explode if she got too close to him.

"You're not scared?"

Calix jumped, turning her attention back to Zed. He was looking at her again, she could see a calculated curiosity in his eyes.

Calix was plenty familiar with male players staring at female character models. People usually didn't design their characters to be ugly and there was enough anonymity online that it was easy for some to let go of their inhibitions.

Zed's stare wasn't like those of the perverts she had ignored in the past, but it was no less discomforting. There was nothing sexual in his gaze, he didn't even glance at her body. He was looking at her eyes, scrutinizing her, looking for something.

"Well? Are you not scared of me?"

Calix flinched as she realized that she had just been sitting there, paralyzed by his gaze. His eyes were less curious now.

"O-of course I am. Should I not be?"

"Heh, you're still the only one courageous enough to approach me."

Calix paled. "I-I-I-I'm sorry!" She tried to stand up but was too panicked to keep her legs straight.

"Sit! It's fine," Zed laughed. "I'm not about to stab someone for wanting to sit somewhere. Besides, fighting you wouldn't even count as a distraction."

"Heh, yeah...right." She didn't know whether to be relieved at his lack of interest or terrified by how casually he talked about attacking her.

"Seriously though, you look like you're about to have a heart attack every time I open my mouth. Is this supposed to be some weird kind of exposure therapy?"

"Exposure therapy?"

"It's like trying to get over a fear of water by jumping into a pool, in your case people make you nervous so you're talking to the most terrifying person around."

"....And that works?"

"Well I'm not a psychiatrist, so I'm going to say yes, absolutely, perfectly, 100% of the time," he said, becoming more animated as he finished.

Calix giggled. "I-I don't think I believe you on that one. But no, this isn't quite like that." She rested her chin on her knees, looking out over the river. "It's just, everyone makes me nervous, and you being d-dangerous doesn't make it worse, I suppose?"

"So you aren't scared of me, you're just scared of people!"

"I-I still don't think that's right, b-but sure."

Zed grinned at her again. Suddenly his expression shifted and he turned to face the woods. "Finally."

Calix almost fell over at Zed's sudden outburst. "Wh-what's happening?"

"Get the Wolf's Boon ready, we have injured incoming." He turned to Bates' teammates. "You guys stay here and defend the camp, I'll be back later." He then dashed forward, skipping over the campfire and leaping over the unfinished wall.

Someone ran over to Calix. "What's going on?"

"S-so-something must have gone wrong with the exploration team," she said, scrambling to her feet. "Zed said there are injured people coming!"

Calix ran over to her backpack, hastily pulling out a large pouch with moss poking out the top. As she moved, so did the others.

The hunters quickly grabbed their weapons and began scanning the perimeter of the woods.

Even though Loran had described them as non-combatants that didn't mean the rest planned to just rely on Zed and the hunters to defend them. The crafter pulled out a bow and arrow, posting up near the river and aiming in the direction that Zed had run off. The builders each grabbed a log and hefted it over their shoulders, brandishing them like clubs and standing near the edge of the camp.

A few seconds passed in silence. Calix was sweating bullets, clutching the pouch of healing moss while her eyes stared intensely at the woods.

After an eternity that took less than a minute to pass, one of the hunters saw three players approaching the camp. All three were members of Bates' exploratory party. One had apparently hurt his leg and was being supported by the others as they hurried towards the camp.

"Get the moss ready!" one of them shouted.

"O-over here!"

One of the builders dropped their log to help get the injured player through the spike wall. Someone cursed as they moved him closer to the campfire, and Calix understood why as she sat down next to him. Calix took a quick breath, she felt herself getting lightheaded just looking at it.

The man's leg was destroyed. Pulverized. Utterly irreparable. At least half of the foot was missing and everything below the shin seemed to have been flattened by something. Blood was everywhere as the pressure of whatever had done this tore his leg apart. Calix looked closer and saw a bone that hadn't been broken or splintered but had been compressed to the point that it was thin as a coin. A tourniquet had been applied to his upper leg, but the wound was still bleeding quite a bit.

The injured player put on a strained smile. "How's it look doc?"

"Y-your leg is gone, I don't think anything could fix this. We can stop the bleeding though." Calix was about to reach for the Wolf's Boon when she was stopped by the crafter with the bow.

"We need to amputate first."

Calix and the hunters paled at the word.

"Is that really..." one of the hunters tried to protest, unable to finish his sentence.

"The leg is unsalvageable, healing it now would just leave a bunch of damaged nerves and bone shards to cause pain later."

Everyone was silent for a few seconds before the injured hunter spoke up. "Do it."

Calix gulped and reached for her backpack, pulling out a stone cleaver intended for breaking down animal corpses.

"Wh-what's your END?"

"It's 25."

Calix turned to one of the builders. "I-I'm sorry, but I won't be able to do it cleanly. Can you..."

The builder paled for a moment, but took a deep breath and took the cleaver from her. "Are we ready?" he asked, kneeling next to the player's leg.

"Yeah," the injured player said, eyes closed tight.

"Wait." One of the hunters quickly pulled off a piece of his armor and shoved it in the injured player's mouth, giving them something to bite down on. "Okay. Now."

*THUNK*

After a moment of silence, the builder brought the cleaver down with a heavy sound, cutting the injured area away from the rest of the leg.

The player let out a muffled scream through the leather armor and thrashed about as his friends held him down.

Calix nearly pushed the builder aside as she got closer and quickly went to work. The cut was as clean as a stone tool could get and the moss was quickly closing the wound. As she concentrated on applying the moss evenly, she vaguely heard someone ask the question that had been floating in the air since the hunters had returned.

"What the hell happened out there?"