Chapter 29

  We traveled the entire remainder of that day to Rivermoor and had been able to pick up an additional battalion’s worth of low-level NPCs between Rivermoor proper and the surrounding villages by warning them of their coming doom.

  The group of new followers was making its way behind us, and I while I didn’t have much hope for their survival, the added experience was great.

  You gained 1,450,000 XP!

  You gained 2 levels!

  You reached level 47!

  My mind was at war with itself. The added stats were great, but . . . there were still a lot of areas and cities to hit on the way to the Safe Zone, and I was worried about getting the whole army to the white ring. I was starting to realize that maybe this plan of recruitment . . . was overkill. It was slowing us down, and the number of followers gained paled in comparison to what we already had. But the leveling potential . . . I wasn’t sure if it was on purpose by the game runners, but I did like the balancing effect being further away from the Safe Zone lent. If we can keep recruiting along the way . . . that could work out to our advantage. But it’s slowing us down when we already have a pretty large force.

  Reports of player parties were coming steadily in from our scouts. They all steered clear when they saw the lines of men marching northward. I didn’t blame them one bit. Most were still in the low twenties. There had been a couple sightings of level thirty players, but no one was level forty. That made me feel good. Like we had played the game well . . . or had gotten extremely lucky. But I wasn’t getting my hopes up. We had just exited The Hallowed Kingdom and were officially in lands that could be similarly controlled by other players. I had no doubt though that if other players had armies like our own, they would still be ahead of us.

  The Black Zone was at our backs now. I gazed back at it. It looked like a tall approaching wave of blackness. It was much closer now, and it looked ominous. It stretched as far as the eye could see both up and to the sides. I could even see a slight curve in the skyline indicating its circular nature.

  Because of the zone, the days were shorter. The sun still traversed its normal path, but when it went behind the wall of darkness, it felt more like dusk than early evening. Horses were startled and often neighed and snorted when that happened. The birds went quiet, and the land grew still, like it symbolized the calm before the storm.

  RIVERWOOD FOREST

  We traveled into the Riverwood Forest, headed toward the town of Pendle where the rest of our army waited. The path was narrow and required our entire battalion to travel single file. We had scouts patrolling out ahead of the line, but the trees were thick, and an uneasy feeling fell upon on my shoulders as naturally forming large stone pillars sprouted upward among the trees. A group of black birds flew off from one of them.

  “Mie,” I called up to her. She was ahead of Clara and Fred. “Why don’t you move to the back of the line?”

  “WHAT? SPEAK LOUDER!” she called back.

  “Wait up!” I called up to her, and she moved her horse to the side to let the others go in front of her. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before, but maybe it made sense to split up initially to avoid any sort of surprise attacks that could take us all out simultaneously—my thought process halted when I felt and saw a thin invisible line break against my chest, its two ends drifting in the wind. I briefly saw a message in my logs before I vanished.

  Player AnythingButSquished detected; area teleportation triggered.

  I instantly vanished and reappeared. I tried to get my bearings, but before I could the entire world exploded around me. Trees splintered, rock turned to shrapnel, the earth heaved, and the damage was too much. There had been no time for me to react. No time for anything. My horse and my entire body blew apart, consciousness entirely left me, and time and pain spiraled out for what felt like an infinity. I drifted until I was suddenly on all fours again with bits and pieces of my body missing. My limbs and muscles reformed enough for me to crawl, but I was Knocked. I glanced around, through immense pain, and saw that Mie and Fred were also both Knocked . . . and Clara, who had been a few paces ahead . . . was stunned. No . . .

  Bits and pieces of a few of Matt’s men and their horses that had been behind us on the path were scattered around the crater as well. It was a horrendous sight.

  Three players made their way through the debris. One a bearded dwarf with a two-handed axe, one a part metal, part flesh bio mech, and one a black-skinned shade. Their nameplates were red. I inspected the closest one.

  Frankie#MediumNumber

  Level 31, Dwarf

  Partied with Mike

  “Oh man!” he said. “That actually worked?! I thought that Mike was full of it.” His voice was nasally and annoying. It was then—as he pulled out his two-handed axe—that I fully realized how dire our situation was.

  My eyes danced around looking for Mike, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. Is he even here? The dwarf referred to him as if he wasn’t.

  God. No. Not again, I thought as I watched Frankie move toward Clara.

  Black poison flooded through me. I pushed it away, only for it to be drowned out by red hot anger. NOT AGAIN. COME ON!

  Clara was under a long stun, and because Mie was Knocked, she would be unable to dispel it. I watched in shock as the dwarf cleaved into Clara. A small part of her health bar notched away.

  How could this happen? I couldn’t believe my stupidity. Why were we so bunched up?! AND WHY THE HELL . . . DID STUPID MIKE HAVE A NEW INSANELY GOOD AREA TRAP SKILL? He must have gotten a class. That thought line of shame and rage, and then realization repeated itself inside my head with every swing of Frankie’s axe until Clara’s health bar . . . dropped to zero.

  Please. No . . .

  Our party wiped.

  You died.

  You dropped all your character items.

  You lost all your current level’s experience.

  You have no more life credits. Initiating Soul Transaction.

  Communication with Hearth prohibited.

  A moment later, we were back in the Soul Space, Mie at my feet once more.

  “Is that . . . it? Are we about to get squished? Wow life really sucks ass,” she said up to me. “Also appearing below your crotch area over and over has to be the weirdest existence anyone has ever had.”

  “That’s how all babies are born. Since Fred still has credits we won’t get squished . . . yet,” I said weakly.

  She was silent for a long moment. “Wait, have I been coming out of you this whole time?!”

  “What the fuck? No!” I laughed, and it seemed so out of place. But we were so fucked, and I think humor helped me deal with the fact that I was about to die. That this was the end. There was nothing to do but keep laughing. This was Fred we were talking about. Our lives were in Fred’s hands. We were so fucked. My laughter subsided to chuckles as I picked up Mie.

  By the time the large screen flicked on, a cold dread weighed down on my shoulders. I placed Mie in her bouncer as I stood behind the couch. We were doing so well. Fuck.

  The TV showed a third-person perspective of what Fred saw as he blinked back into existence within Hearth. As he looked around, I noticed his body was transparent. And unfortunately for us . . . his ghost was butt naked. I watched dumbfounded as he just stood there, pushing away the fear that tried so hard to spill inside of me. Fred was invisible to the enemy party, for at least ten seconds according to Tittles. They looked around, waiting for him to reappear.

  “Spread out,” one of them said.

  Sam: FRED, MOVE YOUR ASS!

  Clara: I don’t think he can see our chats . . . Oh my god. He can’t see our chats.

  Shaking uncontrollably, I kept watching as a couple more seconds ticked by. Fred glanced around, looking panicked. Finally, he started swinging his arms as he moved. His fat naked fairy dwarf body looked like one of those blocky Minecraft characters as he scurried toward the edge of the crater, trying to get some distance from the three enemy players. And for the first time ever . . . I realized he had little wings on his back. They were tiny and in between his shoulder blades.

  Mie: Are those wings?!

  Stolen story; please report.

  Clara: Yeah I see them. I can see why he never mentioned them. Gross little bug things.

  My entire body spasmed as he stopped and turned back toward our corpses. The camera did a one-eighty and glitched behind some trees when he turned completely around. We saw close ups of bark for a second before it snapped back to an over the shoulder view behind Fred.

  Sam: What is he doing??

  Clara: Oh lord . . . :face palm emoji:

  He ran back and dove at his dead body, and . . . it was hands-down the weirdest thing I had ever seen in my life.

  He moved into the lower half of his blown-apart corpse and turned around so that he was facing the sky. With his back to the ground, the camera flipped so that it was directly above him a few feet, giving us a top-down view. When he turned corporeal, his new . . . naked body sort of pushed his dead lower half upwards, as if they were like oil and water. Unable to mix. His privates . . . were covered by his dead lower half. The corpse’s legs straddled his newly formed body . . . around the hips. It looked like he was doing the nasty to it. Jesus.

  Mie: This . . . is too much.

  Sam: The hell?! What is he doing?!?!

  Greg: I have seen a lot of crap in my life . . . and yeah. This is weird right?

  Clara: Does he think he is hidden there?!

  Clara: :barf emoji:

  Greg: This is WEIRD right?!

  Mie: Greg. Please. We know you secretly like it.

  I ignored them, completely dumbfounded. Any second, the other players would turn around and see him. He was so clearly visible.

  Inexplicably though . . . they didn’t seem to notice the very disturbing sight. Either Fred was insanely lucky, or he was brilliant. Because the other players were turned away from our pile of corpses and assumed he had run off into the underbrush.

  He looted his gear off his body, and suddenly the corpse was now the one who was naked. Mie screamed.

  Greg: Oh god.

  Clara: I can’t watch this anymore. Just tell me what happens.

  The other players were looking around at the edges of the destroyed clearing, trees hung half blown-apart all around, and I knew if they turned, they would see Fred, who was now getting to his knees. His corpse fell to the side as he did. He raised his hand almost like he was about to give the other players a thumbs up.

  Sam: Rez us.

  Sam: Go invisible.

  Sam: Rez.

  Sam: REZ!

  Sam: WHAT IS HE DOING?!

  He flicked his thumb upward, and a golden coin flew up, ringing slightly as it rose and then came back down.

  Sam: NO, NO, NO!

  Clara: What happened?

  Mie: Did . . . he just do what I think he just did?

  Sam: Why?! WHYYY????

  Clara: What happened?!

  I decided in that exact moment that he wasn’t lucky or brilliant. No . . . he was utterly and completely a dumbass. I could barely watch as he grabbed the coin out of the air and smacked it on the back of his other hand. The muscles in my entire body were clenched. His staff appeared in the hand that had flipped the coin, and I heard the familiar sound of rolling dice as he stared silently at the result for a long moment.

  I saw his expression fall.

  A green flash flew upward out of his staff and hit a tree that hung above him. The Arbitrary Blast nudged the tree just enough for it to come down hard and fast.

  I buried my face in my hands as I heard the disturbing crunching sound of his body getting smashed. It had been tails. ‘On Tails, you target yourself,’ I recalled from his new ultimate Arbitrary Coin Flip ability. He had just banked our existence . . . on a fifty-fifty coin flip.

  His life credit count on our party interface went from one to zero.

  “What was that?!” the player named Frankie called out to the others.

  The chat was silent for a moment, then Mie spoke up.

  Mie: Well fuck. We are dead. Damn. I was really starting to enjoy this whole life thing.

  I was speechless and on my knees now. Why did he use his ultimate?!

  Dear god. Why?!

  I continued to watch as Fred reappeared once again. Why had I ever given him the resurrection stones? At this rate, I should have given them to an NPC. I looked at our map and saw that my death marker was a short distance away from the narrow path we had been traveling on.

  I clutched onto a small amount of hope that the Commander and his men had heard the explosion, but that hope died when once again . . . Fred panicked. With five seconds left on his incorporeal time, he ran over to Mie and lay behind a fallen tree that had landed close to her corpse. I shook my head back and forth in frustration.

  Sam: WHY IS HE SO CLOSE TO THEM?!

  Mie: Ew! Stay away from my corpse, Fred. Greg. What have you been teaching Fred??

  Greg: What? Nothing.

  Mie: Greg. Stop pretending. This is clearly your influence.

  The worst part of all of this . . . was that I couldn’t do anything. But I couldn’t not watch. As horrible as Fred’s decision-making was, I had to watch.

  “What the hell is this?” the bio mech said to the other two when they came up on Fred’s . . . multiple corpses. I was shocked that none of them approached at an angle from which they would be able to see the alive Fred, who was now looting Mie’s body.

  Mie: DON’T TOUCH MY BODY, FRED!

  Greg: He can’t hear you.

  Mie: I KNOW, GREG!

  Clara: Hold on. He just needs your staff.

  “Why are there two dead dwarfs here?” Frankie was saying.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Once again Fred raised his staff.

  Sam: DAMN IT, FRED. JUST GO INVISIBLE.

  I was officially angry now. I knew he couldn’t cast his coin flip again . . . or could he? I wasn’t sure. Still, his decision-making was awful.

  I glanced at Greg, who was now slowly starting to angle the blunderbuss toward his face. We were at the end of the road . . . we were so close to getting squished that even Greg saw it coming.

  Some amount of relief trickled through me when I heard the rolling dice as Fred clearly cast his basic Arbitrary Blast ability . . . But everything hung on what happened next, so I couldn’t stop myself from cringing and clenching my shoulders tight in dread as I watched.

  This is it. This is the end.

  A green flash came out of Mie’s Staff of the Dead and disappeared above Frankie. BAM! Lightning came out of nowhere, despite the clear sky, and knocked Frankie down to all fours. The other two were stunned and Fred, again . . . butt naked, turned and ran toward the forest.

  Sam: GO INVISIBLE!

  Clara: FRED?!?! GO INVISIBLE.

  Mie: Okay now I can’t watch.

  I thanked God when FINALLY he disappeared. As spectators though, we could still see him. It looked a lot like his incorporeal ghost form, except he was more transparent.

  My gut was in knots. He had turned around after he went invisible to head back toward the blast zone. No . . . please, Fred. As he got closer, he skirted around the edge of the crater, and I thought I had an idea of his plan. I prayed he was doing what I thought he was doing.

  “He went that way!” Frankie bellowed as his other party members’ stuns wore off. “Jazz, get me up. Hank, go find him!” The shade—Hank—moved toward where Fred had run off, which was the complete opposite side of the destroyed area.

  We had a chance . . . as long as Fred didn’t do anything else dumb. Greg, Mie, and I watched in silence as Jazz got Frankie up and they both hurried out of the clearing towards their buddy, Hank.

  Fred waited a touch too long for my liking but hurried over to my body and touched my arm. I couldn’t tell what he was using, so I just silently prayed he was casting one of Charlie’s Resurrection Stones. I prepared myself mentally for battle, breathing out slowly.

  Or . . . at least I tried to.

  Fred had just let out a quiet, “Oh . . . right . . . fuck.”

  Sam: He didn’t.

  Mie: He did.

  Sam: No way. He didn’t.

  Clara: . . . He did.

  An inexorable thirty seconds passed as we heard the enemy players search the forest for Fred. Thirty terrible seconds. It felt like ages as we waited for him to retrieve Charlie’s Resurrection Stones from his Soul Space.

  Sam: If we survive this. Remind me. Never to put Fred in charge of anything. Ever again.

  Mie: Yup.

  Clara: Deal.

  The enemy players’ voices were getting closer as Fred started a cast and his invisibility spell broke. He was facing away from the direction the enemies were, which irked me beyond comprehension. He literally couldn’t even tell if they were close, and worse I couldn’t see from my third-party perspective either. Uuuugh. This fucking idiot.

  The knots in my gut doubled when I was still a few seconds away from being resurrected and I heard Frankie’s voice a lot closer. “Better check what the others had on them. Boss will want whatever it—HEY!”

  I clenched my teeth as the rez ticked from two, then to one. My logs flashed through the transaction process instantly . . . and I was still shaking my head in complete disbelief that I had another chance when I reappeared in Hearth.