“Steve, get that straggler!” Macintosh ordered with a gesture of his shield. The mouse person, a Rattian, was running off with a sack of ore from the shipment. The giant wasps and the lizardfold were getting rare to see now, but it seemed like every day there was another tunnel spitting out these furry little monsters with sharp teeth.

  Steve growled and ran after the thief. They had stolen a wagonload of iron and steel for every five wagons sent from the capital, but today Steve’s patrol had gotten all five wagons within sight of the gates before this last attack started. They were one bag of iron ore away from a perfect run.

  Steve stepped on the flailing tail trailing behind the Rattian and then smashed his mace into it. They were not very robust, but it seemed like if you found one there were twenty you didn’t see.

  “I got the bag!” Steve held up the ore and got a cheer from the others.

  “Tip my hat to you young man, this calls for a celebration tonight. The Gully Inn for ale, how about that!” Sergeant Macintosh slow-clapped and the rest cheered again. The gates were within sight and everyone felt comfortable with the last sixty meters.

  Sergeant Macintosh’s helmet had an elephant bird’s beak fastened over his brow and he swore it had saved his life twice already. He had a fine steel sword from the capital and a decent shield. He had also provided each of his soldiers with a fine, steel knife. Getting all five wagons had been his goal for the day, the goal for his team.

  “You wanna play chipper?” Evan asked Mike and Gloria.

  “Yes, I need to win back my money you took last time.” Gloria agreed with a wide smile.

  “Hey, can you introduce me to whoever made that bag? I need a second one really bad.” Kevin asked Linda.

  “Sure, but we should make sure the shipment gets to the smiths. Sarge? Who’s on late duty?” Linda asked, but Macintosh didn’t answer. Linda looked around for Macintosh and then asked if anyone could see their Sergeant.

  “Wait, did he die?” Gloria asked. No one saw any threats around and there wasn’t an arrow or dart left behind like it would if it had killed Macintosh.

  “Did he really just offer to buy us a round and then disappear?” Mike muttered out loud.

  “He wouldn’t do that. Maybe he ran ahead. I bet we’ll find him at the Gully Inn. Maybe it’s a class ability. Did he reach level five?” Kevin replied and nervously put a hand to his swordhilt.

  “Can you gentlemen make your way to the smiths without us? We need to find our sergeant.” Gloria asked the man driving the lead wagon. They left the wagons inside the gate and started for the Gully Inn. The bell in the town began to sound and Steve could see several people run to spread a message.

  “Excuse me, do any of you have a dependant in the school?” The runner stopped the patrol outside of the inn. Steve and Linda raised their hands.

  “There’s been a complication at the school. Please collect your child as soon as you can.” The runner took a breath and started running again. The rest went into the inn to look for Macintosh and Steve ran with Gloria towards the school.

  “Was the school attacked?” Gloria asked the teacher at the door.

  “No, we don’t think so. Mr. Pierce disappeared, one of the students too. We’re sending all the students home early, some of them seem very distressed.” The teacher twisted a handkerchief as he spoke.

  “Steve!” Max shouted and ran out of the school like he was worried they were going to tell him to go back to class.

  “Come on pal, I’m sure Mr. Heath will be able to start your training early and get you back early tonight.” Steve smiled when Max’s smile turned into a grimace. “So what happened in there?”

  “Mr Pierce just disappeared. The principal had come to check on Libby McIntyre and right in the middle of a lecture Mr. Pierce just disappeared.” Max answered and started to eagerly skip ahead and around Steve.

  “Really? Did this happen before lunch or when?” Steve asked when Max passed in front of him again.

  “No, it just happened. We were about to go to our last class and they had us gather in the main hall instead. He just disappeared without dying. Oh and that annoying kid I told you about, him too. Disappeared out of his seat without even his lunch.”

  “That makes three. Ok, we’re at the training yard. Let Mr. Heath know you can come home early and we can go over our plans for the next break.” Steve glanced at the post office across from the training grounds to make sure it was open.

  “Can we do an actual quest this time? We keep doing hunting parties and my equipment sucks. People are finding actual quests now and we’re getting left behind.” Max asked with a whine in his voice.

  “We’ll have to see what our group wants to do. If they know of a quest we can go on or I can find one before the break starts, then we can talk about it as a group.” Steve shrugged non-commitally.

  “I don’t think the groups we’ve worked with want us back. They all seem pretty annoyed when we leave.” Max spoke with a bluntness that Steve could not appreciate at the moment.

  “You train with Mr. Heath and I’ll check our mail. We still have three days and lots can happen in three days.” Steve forced his smile to stay put while Max went through the gate to Mr. Heath.

  The three groups they had traveled with before didn’t seem too excited to travel with Steve and Max again. They traveled each break, that’s why the town gave the guards a two week break. During those two weeks, they were supposed to explore the surrounding area and focus on gaining experience instead of protecting the town. It was a program the capital had implemented for larger settlements. Things had changed once the walls were repaired and lizardfolk couldn’t get inside without warning.

  But it was still dangerous outside the walls and small groups didn’t make it very far. Steve had sent notes to the three groups to see if they were available for this next break. There was a growing group of mercenaries, but they were rather expensive and money was hard to come by. Most stores worked on barter more than currency.

  “Excuse me, I’m looking for a soldier by the name of Steve. I am unsure of his last name.” A man in blue robes asked the postmaster as Steve sorted the notes from his cubby.

  “There’s about twelve people that fit that description. Could you narrow it down?” The postmaster asked helpfully.

  “Um, his associate Dave introduced us. We’ve exchanged some letters by pigeon, but we haven’t met in person.” The man explained and rubbed the bald spot on the back of his head.

  “Eric?” Steve spoke reflexively and looked at the man who had been giving him advice via parchment for weeks.

  “Steve? Good to meet you in person finally. I have been assigned to Davtown and thought meeting you should be my first priority.” Eric spoke with a smile and approached. Eric had a stout walking stick and very little else. His obligatory bag was just a large pouch on his belt and Steve doubted he could carry enough food for much traveling.

  “We should go back to my house and talk there.” Steve pointed to the door and they walked to his house. While they walked, he opened the notes he had collected. Two advertisements for armor you could order from the capital and one notice of his upcoming break. Then three notes. Three notes with different words, but the same message. You should try to find another group, they said. One specifically said they couldn’t travel with him if he was going to pester Max at every little thing and every little risk.

  “Is there something specific you’d like to talk about now?” Steve could tell Eric had been a therapist in real life from that question. Steve handed Eric the note that had been painfully specific and then let them both inside the house.

  “That’s not exactly how I would word it. That seems a little harsh. What do you think of this note?” Eric didn’t take long reading the note.

  “They’re right. They’re all right. I’m always yelling at him when we’re outside the walls. He keeps taking terrible risks. He runs after arrows when he misses and keeps trying to tame different animals.” Steve sunk into a chair and suddenly felt cold.

  “That fits the boy you described to me. How many times has he died?” Eric asked.

  “Seven times. I couldn’t prevent it, I couldn’t get to him in time.” Steve admitted and shivered.

  “Seven? Steve, that’s incredibly low. I don’t know how anyone has kept a student at so few deaths. The average, as far as the capital knows, is twenty-five. I’ve died fifty times and I’m sure you’ve died at least that many.” Eric pulled the other chair around and sat down.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Sixty-three.” Steve had thought it was weird the game kept track of that in the lower right corner of his vision.

  “But your brother’s seven distress you. Right?” Eric asked.

  “Yes.” Steve admitted quietly.

  “That’s understandable. If I understand correctly, you saved his life in real life. He may not be alive if you had left him with your parents.” Eric didn’t push for a response. He let the silence float until Steve was ready.

  “He’s big enough now and he might have been on earth during the last quake. I guess he could have died twice by now.” Steve hadn’t thought of that.

  “And that’s not something you just stop doing. Especially when they’re a child. You were little more than a child when you had to be a parent to Max.” Eric toyed with his walking stick to keep his hands occupied.

  “No, I was a soldier. I went to college. I’ve killed people.” Steven didn’t say it to brag.

  “I don’t know if those skills apply to raising a pre-teen boy. And with your childhood, as difficult as you told me it was, you have your own trauma to deal with let alone helping a brother who doesn’t realize his own trauma. Steve, that’s a big challenge for people who come from healthy families.”

  “What does that even mean? I’m a terrible dad.” Steve shivered again.

  “It means, for the situation you’re dealing with, you’re not a terrible dad. You’re doing pretty well and Max’s performance in school is proof. He has friends and had a hobby before we all jumped into that hobby. Right?” Eric let the question hang like it could be rhetorical.

  “But the note, they’re right.” Steve gestured at the notes.

  “They might be right, but they don’t have the whole story. There’s also that you’re trying to be Max’s dad. You’re his brother acting as his parent. Maybe, you could try being more like a brother than a dad.” Eric suggested.

  “He needs a dad though.” Steve resisted.

  “He needs a caretaker and his brother is doing a fine job of it. Like, your boots.” Eric tapped Steve’s boots with his stick.

  “What about my boots?” Steve defensively tucked them under his chair.

  “Those are the boots we all spawned with. You are the only person I’ve seen still using them, the rest have been replaced or destroyed.” Eric raised an eyebrow at the question.

  “Yeah, and?” Steve shrugged. At least he wasn’t shivering anymore.

  “And I bet Max has new boots and possibly something enchanted from the capital.” Eric held up one finger with his guess.

  “His boots are used, but I get your point. He has the nicest equipment at the school and doesn’t realize it either.” Steve admitted with a sheepish half-grin.

  “Dave said he helped train the guards here and said you had a good hand with a sword, like Max with the bow. But you’ve got a mace and what I can only imagine was once a door before it became your shield.” Eric had the whole walk to inspect Steve’s less than impressive gear.

  “It was actually a piece of a busted wagon, but I don’t think that’s better. You think I should spend some of my wages on my equipment?”

  “I think you should find that trainer Dave told you about. I can’t imagine you’d get equipment as a quest reward and still use a piece of a wagon.” Eric smiled and was glad Steve could chuckle even a little.

  “I tried that on my first break. I left Max with a friend and tried to get to the trainer by myself. There’s a village of those frog people in the way, they do not like guests. I tried to go around them for two weeks and made zero progress. I haven’t tried since then.” Steve remembered the smell, it was a horrible smell near that village.

  “I haven’t run into these frog people, but I do have a few healing spells that will keep us from dying right away. I have a few coins to spare and could hire a mercenary.” Eric thought out loud.

  “You want to make a group with us?” Steve asked.

  “Yeah and since it doesn’t seem like you’ve got a lot of offers, I think you’ll take the offer.” Eric held his hands out, almost daring Steve to refuse.

  “I’m used to people expecting things in return for helping me. This is sending up all sorts of red flags in my head.” Steve admitted, but at the same time he knew he couldn’t pass up this opportunity.

  “I am not just doing this out of the goodness of my heart. You know I work for the Prime Minister and I’m here to help this village become a trading hub to support the capital. This trainer is not going to be just for you. Someone more experienced in this game recognized the trainer. If we train with them at our low levels, he will come back at higher levels with even better quests and training. Helping you helps a lot of people.” Eric stopped fiddling with his stick and made sure to look Steve in the eye.

  “Then I should probably find that map.” Steve admitted and pulled his bed out from the wall to get at where he thought it had fallen.

  The next day at muster for the patrol, Sergeant Macintosh had not reappeared. Word was getting around that twenty people had disappeared entirely. The school was a mess, the several farms outside the town were untended, and families were worried to no end. The patrols had to be reorganized to cover for missing leadership. It was a general nuisance and most people were irritated by all the delays.

  “Since we are so close to break anyway, we’re getting released early for our break. Hopefully, Sarge will be back from whatever happened and things can go back to normal. Does everyone have a plan on how they’ll spend their break?” Gloria, as the corporal, was in charge with the sergeant gone.

  “I’m going to work in the mine for a week and build my strength.” Kevin announced.

  “We are going to finish a quest line down river towards the capital.” Linda tapped Evan who nodded in agreement.

  “I have a group who is doing mercenary guard work on the road headed west. I should get some good loot for trade too.” Mike spoke and then everyone looked at Steve.

  “Did you piss off that last group enough that they won’t have you back?” Gloria apparently felt that with Macintosh gone, she had to ask the blunt questions for the group.

  “I have another group and we have a quest line to start. Thank you for caring.” Steve stuck his tongue out at the others.

  “That is good news.” Gloria sarcastically applauded.

  “Is it that trainer you told me about? By the frog village where you got us both killed a few times?” Kevin asked.

  “Yeah.” Steve hung his head.

  “I’ll see you later tonight after you die.” Gloria sounded let down at that news and walked away without telling everyone her plans.

  Steve left and counted the coins in his coin purse. Three silver triangles and thirteen bronze rectangles. No gold ovals. He walked to the market and found a pair of boots to replace his patched pair. Two silver and eight bronze coins. The purchase didn’t leave him with much to buy what little food he and Max needed.

  His shirt would have to wait to be replaced. It had almost as many holes as his chainmail shirt.

  Eric’s mercenary was ready to leave even early as it turned out to be. She had already passed level five and left the starter class behind for a prime class, specifically a scout. Her bow came up to her shoulder and she had a classic horn hung at her side.

  “Hi, I’m Steve and this..” Steve started to introduce them to this newcomer.

  “Max. That’s Eric and I’m the mercenary. Don’t ask for my name, I’d rather you not know it.” The scout was not the most pleasant they had met in the game. She also wasn’t the first to be protective of their real identity. A lot of people just wanted to get distance from who they were or what they had been before leaving earth.

  “Ok, that’s great. So I have a map leading us to a trainer, but there is an enemy village between here and there.” Steve started walking towards the gate.

  “Eric said they kicked your trash like a dozen times when you tried to get past them.” The scout didn’t say it like a question.

  “Yes, they are more powerful than the lizardfolk. They are poisonous and that caused trouble for me.” Steve nodded.

  “Are they poisonous or venomous? Did you try to eat these frog people?” The scout asked. Max was being uncharacteristically quiet and Steve really could have gone for an excited discussion of frogs right now.

  “I, uh, did not try to eat them. So that would make them venomous or something that hit me was venomous. They rode these big toads that had bright colors, so it could be them.” Steve looked at Eric who very unhelpfully shrugged.

  “And you just walked into this camp of monsters?” The scout asked as they marched.

  “No. I tried to ambush one while it was alone and it killed me anyway. Then I tried to sneak around the village and they chased me down on those toads. Then I tried to go a different way from the other side of Davtown. I ran into a cliff and was eaten by wolves.”

  “No wonder you gave up. Have you just not been trying to level up or are you just bad at this game?” The scout asked.

  “My brother played this game before anyone left earth. He’s really good at it and he’s a great soldier.” Max angrily spoke up.

  “Finally, you do talk. I was afraid you were actually incompetent and those other groups were just being jerks.” The scout chuckled for a reason that escaped Steve and then marched ahead.

  “Hey, you can’t just take our money and bully us like this. You’re getting paid to start a questline.” Max started after the Scout.

  “Max!” Steve started to grab at Max to stop him, but Eric stepped right up to him.

  “She won’t hurt him. Let’s see what happens.” Eric cautioned.

  “She’s an absolute nightmare.” Steve whispered, still determined to intervene between the two.

  “I know, she is exactly like the other mercenaries said.” Eric said with a guilty grin.

  “You did this on purpose?” Steve hissed irritably.

  “I can still hear you. You shouldn’t try to whisper around someone with a class that gives heightened senses.” The scout shouted back in the middle of Max’s tirade.

  “She’s going to tear Max apart.” Steve whispered even quieter than before and the scout didn’t respond this time.

  “Max needs to learn and you need to learn not to yell at him. Maybe seeing a different teaching style will be good for both of you?” Eric didn’t bother so much with the whispering. Max’s yelling suddenly stopped and Steve immediately turned towards the last place he had heard Max.

  “Slow down, he’s with an experienced and responsible mercenary. She won’t let him die and he’ll learn some important lessons.” Eric put a hand on Steve’s shoulder, but they still walked together to catch up.

  The bushes rustled and the pair lost sight of Max and the scout. Steve cursed under his breath and stomped forward with his mace ready. He heard the sound of arrows hitting meat and instinctively ducked.

  “Hey! I got it!” Max cheered and the scout shushing him was nearly as loud. Eric and Steve hurried to catch up to the cheer and found the pair again.

  Max was crouched over a large goose with his arrow through its body. The goose had a silver beak and blue flecks down its white neck.

  “See, if we had jumped first and then shot, it would have gotten away. We’ll do our best work if we can sneak up on the frogs. They’re tough, so if you even get one shot on a frog before they die you might level up. But we have to be quiet about it.” The scout showed Max how to work the arrow out of the goose and then cleaned it before putting it in his backpack.