Chapter 32

  The horse beneath me collapsed, its strength finally giving out. As it slammed into the ground, I jumped off to the side and landed, keeping my feet. It was an action that I very much doubted I would have been able to do before dying. A runner brought me a new mount and I took the reins.

  The horses had been dropping like flies. They had been completely spent from the journey to the first ring, and now the Black Zone’s pace toward the second ring had required us to move at a trot, at the minimum. We’d pushed them beyond their limit. Eight plus hours we’d ridden hard, and they could take no more.

  We traveled at the center of the army, like a nut safe within its shell. Players and NPCs fell against our outer lines, and we let the army take the brunt of the damage, but our numbers were starting to dwindle. Horses had been falling one after another, and we had made the hard decision to press ahead with those who still had mounts. Matt made sure to keep his best men in reserve, and now our map showed a string of blue dots that lined the boundary of the Black Zone, followed by a growing mass of black dots, as the wall of darkness overtook the bulk of our army.

  The map was filled with our blue-dotted scouts. It also showed tons of yellow and red all over the Safe Zone. As we rode, we hugged the western edge of the Black Zone, trying to remain on the outskirts and prevent ourselves from getting surrounded. The army that was ahead of us was doing the same thing. The army to the east dwindled in a similar fashion to ours. I wasn’t sure if they would even make it at all. I only caught glimpses of their forces on the map as a stray scout came across them, and quickly perished. Matt had ordered the groups of scouts to scatter to all directions as they made it to their general destinations, or if they came upon a group they couldn’t fight off, which had been amazing foresight. Every time it happened, it looked like a little blue firework that gave good intel.

  To my unsurprise, there had been a few additional armies, but it looked like only two others on the north and northeast would actually make it to the new Safe Zone. I was crossing my fingers that they would engage, as I was sure we couldn’t avoid conflict forever ourselves.

  We were down to a single battalion of horses and were only a few minutes out from the next Safe Zone. More pertinent, we were quickly approaching the main mass of the army ahead of us, which had stopped and turned to face us.

  As we neared, our party moved to the front of our forces, and we pushed the horses to a gallop. I inspected one of the NPCs in the front lines of the opposing force. He rode a green tiger-like creature.

  Thane

  Level 26, Woodland Elf.

  I breathed out a sigh of relief. Their area had been a recommended twenty to thirty as well. The area they came from must have been some kind of woodland, since all the NPCs were elves of some sort. After another moment, my stomach did a backflip as the rearguard turned and formed a line ahead of us. I saw the elf draw back on his bow, and an arrow whizzed by my head. “Holy shit!” I exclaimed, getting lower on my horse.

  On Matt’s command, the remaining battalion moved into a spearhead formation with me at the tip. The enemy line in front of us was haphazardly thrown together and mostly made up of archers. I raised my shield, keeping my eyes out for other players. Arrows came in thick volleys, pinging off my armor and shield.

  An arrow pierced into my underarm, though it barely managed to break skin. It hurt like the devil, but my Constitution and passive projectile defense were insane on the Warden. I started shouting in a mix of pain and excitement. This prompted the others to start yelling as well. The shouts crescendoed into a roar that seemed to carry me forward. Mixed in with the torrent, I could hear Mie going, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” over and over again.

  Horses behind me started to fall from either exhaustion or well-placed arrows. As we got closer, I threw my Shield Dome’s whiffle ball out ahead of us, and it expanded into existence, effectively blocking projectiles from directly in front of us. The sound of metal meeting metal and flesh ripped into me as our army smashed into the massive force of elves and tigers. My horse crushed into the elf called Thane. The horse’s legs buckled as we hit and fell over, killing the NPC with a crunch. I dismounted for the second time that day by jumping to the side and rolling.

  I came to grips with the scene before me.

  Bodies were flying everywhere. Clangs and shouts roared around me. A spear thrown by a nearby woodland elf bit into my thigh. A horse on my right flipped onto its back, its screaming neigh cutting off. A tiger jumped off a tree and bit down into the neck of one of my men.

  Mie threw me a quick Flash Heal, and the spear and the arrow slipped out.

  Fred and Clara were near the back of the charge. I didn’t want us all grouped up anymore, so we’d decided to move around in pairs.

  Mie and I made a fierce-looking couple. My red mystic plate and short but girthy stature emanated pure weight and power. I swung my hammer time and again, killing the level twenties in number. Mie’s golden skin glistened, and her white robes flew around her as she dealt out magical shadow damage in the form of black spiders. She shot them out of her staff onto the ground, and they would scurry over to her target, crawl up their legs, and sink into their chest. She let out a scream every time she cast it.

  I let out an Allied Cry myself, summoning four guards before me. I had all of them Guardian Shout to draw aggro, and the chaos in our immediate area faltered for a moment. Woodland elves switched their focus and came to meet my guards, who, despite having half my stats, could sustain against the numerous arrows.

  Mie kept the guards up with heals, and Matt’s men swept through the elves as they tried to bring the guards down.

  The enemy broke before us, both physically and mentally, unable to bring down the guards fast enough. I shifted to my Wind Rogue and activated Reaper’s Dance.

  The game was up. I leapt from enemy to enemy, evading attacks and slicing and stabbing with my shortsword as I went. The damage readouts were massive, and each time after I wrenched my sword out of a back, an enemy would fall. They were disorganized, tired, and dying. Where are the players? Did they already flee?

  Among the fleeing forces, four red nameplates pushed their way into sight.

  Nope.

  They were in the high forties level-wise and looked surprised to see so many of their followers on the ground around me. There was a barbarian orc, an angry-looking witch demon thing, a goblin rogue, and a human archer. I looked at their credits. The goblin one was the only one with a credit remaining, and I noticed none of them had a class.

  I sent a quick message in the party chat to warn Clara and Fred.

  “Oh c’mon,” their leader, the orc, said. “You killed Thane? Ah man. Not cool.”

  Before I could respond, the witch demon whipped forward a wand and shot an electrified chain toward my legs. Still in my Wind Rogue form, I blinked to dodge and found cover behind a rock. But that left Mie to fend for herself. Cursing, I Wind Dove into the enemy’s midst, and as the barbarian’s two-handed axe swept toward me, I shifted to Warden and activated Impact Armor. The look of surprise on his face when I shifted . . . was priceless. I took the hit, grabbing the orc’s arm as my armor absorbed most of the blow. With discomfort, I did see my health drop despite the ninety-five percent damage reduction. The orc had some stats it seemed. I held onto his arm, taking spells from the demon and arrows from the human archer. Keeping the energy stored, I smashed my hammer into his green face, and the knockback sent us both sprawling down a small hill.

  Where did the goblin go? A knife attempted to slide into my back, but my Impact Armor absorbed the backstab from the small green goblin. Again, I saw my health dip slightly. They must have been using some high damage abilities for me to noticeably see my health go down. I let go of the orc and smashed him in the chest again. The strike sent him flying. I whipped backwards and smashed my hammer into the head of the goblin, halving his health bar in one blow.

  I threw my shield down, activating the dome, but not before the same electrical chain from the witch whipped within its boundary. The chain connected with my legs, and I took a stunned debuff.

  {Stunned} for 3 seconds

  I saw Mie about to activate an ability, but I was glad to see her reconsider. Cleanse here would be stupidity. A three-second stun wasn’t bad.

  Arrows hit the dome barrier, and the orc ran through it, his face bloody from my initial attack. He swung his axe again, Impact Armor once again absorbing the damage and placing its power within reach.

  “What the hell? DIE!” he shouted and tried once again to cleave into me, only to be resisted once again. “You are only a few levels higher than me! What are you?!”

  “I’m THE KING,” I said sarcastically, then I smashed my hammer into his side with a Basic Attack, crushing his arm and sending him flying out of the dome. The stun faded, and Impact Armor’s absorb period was up. The goblin reappeared behind me.

  “Really?” I said as he dug his daggers into my hamstrings, taking their full damage. “You guys are this intent on killing the tank?!” A wave of healing washed over me, topping me off, and I dealt another basic attack which finished the goblin. I targeted the witch, who was working on a longer multi second cast, activated the damage potential that Impact Armor had stored up within me, and willed it into a hammer throw. Since this wasn’t an actual ability, the fact that I had her targeted wouldn’t assist my aim. But I had been on the athletic side at one point in my life, and my aim was dead on. The hammer let out a loud BOOM as it broke the sound barrier and hit Mach speed. It . . . went through her. Much like a shotgun would at close range. The area behind her was spattered red. It killed her instantly, her full health bar now empty.

  I walked over to where my hammer lay on the ground. The orc was still finding his feet, his health at half. I glanced at the archer, who hesitated with his arrow knocked. He looked at me with wide eyes. A green flash came out from behind a tree, followed by the familiar sound of a cup of dice rolling around. I waved bye to him and noticed his pissed off questioning look right before the ground shifted slightly and the rock next to him rolled on top of him. The boulder bit onto his ankle, rooting him. It made a loud CRACK as his ankle bone broke. I flinched. Then the boulder . . . it . . . it sort of rolled him out like one would do with . . . dough.

  We all physically took a step back from that one.

  “Oh god,” Mie said. “What the hell, Fred.”

  “Ten rolls are kind of wild, aren’t they?” he said, laughing his hearty laugh.

  The orc started running away with a now naked little goblin who hadn’t had time to regear at his side. The two green figures reached a sprint, headed toward their retreating NPCs. We let them go.

  We regrouped, retreating to the center of our force. We were still a couple miles away from the new Safe Zone. The battle had been dirty and quick. We had lost half our force. I picked at some blood between my fingernails as we watched the enemy forces retreat, battered and bruised. Matt’s men seemed better trained than the elves, and I wasn’t sure if that was because of experience or what. By judging the amount of dead elves around us though, we had wiped the majority of their army out. It had been smaller than ours to begin with, and some seven hundred elves lay broken on the hilly terrain.

  We kept hugging the western edge of the Black Zone, until the wall slowed to a point where we could outpace it at a slow jog. Since the Black Zone here had less distance to travel to the Safe Zone, the wall of blackness was moving in more slowly.

  We were all on foot now, the last of our mounts spent. The ground shook again, and we had to hold onto each other to prevent ourselves from falling over as we ran. What is all this shaking from?

  The landscape remained hilly against the setting sun. A steamy haze of heat rose up from the wet ground. The air was . . . gross. Humid and thick. Not to mention the body odor, piss, and heavy shit smell that seemed to be hovering along with us.

  I looked at the map, trying to figure out where and what the shaking was coming from only to get discouraged to see far fewer active scouts. They had either been picked off by other parties or consumed by Rot. But as the Black Zone continued to constrict, I could see that the two armies to the north had clashed much like our own forces had here. I couldn’t tell which was which, as both forces, now much smaller, continued to move toward the Safe Zone. Like I had expected, the army that had been east of us was now a mass of black dots. There were yellow dots in groups of three or four everywhere. If we hadn’t had an army . . . we would have been sitting ducks out there, likely fighting back-to-back parties over and over. Whoever had already made it to this final circle . . . would be the best of the best. Likely stacked with high-ranking gear from head to toe.

  I glanced at my logs and saw I had leveled.

  You reached level 48!

  I also peeked at the player count as it hit a nice round number.

  Players Remaining: 23,000

  The ground shook again. What is that?! Earthquake? Explosion? Some sort of end game effect? I shook my head, annoyed I didn’t understand what it was.

  As the shaking faded, I looked around. We had five hundred exhausted men remaining, and we were damn lucky to have them just for the added information they imparted to Matt’s Commander map. But also . . . twenty-three thousand players were still left? I looked at the map again. Every single scout had yellow dots in view. But for there to still be twenty-three thousand?

  The number explained the issue before us. As we continued to run towards the Safe Zone at a slow jog, a mass of yellow and red nameplates formed on all sides. I looked over my shoulder to the south and saw two parties come together and then start pointing at us, keeping their distance. I saw the exact same interaction with another few parties to our east, then again to our north.

  “Shit,” I said under my breath. Then louder, “Guys. We have a problem.”

  “No. Way,” Mie said with thick sarcasm. “In this world? Actually . . . I also have a problem . . . I have to poop.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Wow. I KNEW someone had been letting them loose,” Clara said.

  “What?! No.” Mie’s cheeks flushed. “I mean. Okay. Fine. Yeah. That’s me. It’s like a little puff on every step . . . but also yeah . . . my bad.”

  “Grooooss,” Clara said with a laugh. “What did you eat?!”

  “Guys,” I said again, eyeing the players around us. They continued to grow in number. Suddenly, they turned to face us in unison. The ones in front of us stopped running. They had amassed what looked like fifty plus players. To the east and south . . . there were a good couple hundred. A party of four, whom I saw was in their mid-forties, had classes and even a priest-looking healer. My neck prickled with a stabbing anxiety as I saw two gnomes . . . who both looked a lot like Mike.

  “We have a problem,” I said again. The others looked up, growing serious.

  “Oh. Right,” Fred said. “What did we call this play? Ninja Turtle Flip or whatever the fuck?”

  Everyone nodded, including Matt, who looked grim.

  I should have seen it coming. They were making alliances to improve their chances. It was smart, I had to admit, and I would have done the exact same thing in their shoes. If a group our size was still up by the time the final hour came around, it wouldn’t be a contest. They needed to take us out now. But for them all to ally up like this? Is Mike behind this?

  We still had five hundred men, and at Matt’s command, we halted, and two circles surrounded us in a more put-together formation. Each circle was two men deep. The outer circle was more spread out, and the inner line tightly grouped with our best men. I still had our party spread out within the inner circle, but we were relatively close and within earshot of one another.

  Ninja Turtle Flip—or whatever the fuck, as Fred put it—was the name of this formation and general plan we had agreed to back in the tent. It was primarily a defensive formation, with some options depending on how things played out.

  While we couldn’t stay here long with the Black Zone continuing to constrict, we had time. We were close to the Safe Zone. More players and parties that had been prone on the ground started getting up and ran toward the Safe Zone after seeing an opening with our force halted. This caused some confusion among the parties who had teamed up. But in the end, they continued to close in, and even more players joined their charge. The frontrunners started piercing into our lines. Spears, arrows, and spells flew, and even the bark of a rifle sounded. Mie Flash Healed as fast as she could, but men died.

  “Fred. On my signal,” I said.

  He gave me an understanding nod. “Dire situation?”

  “Probably,” I said. “Clara. Mike?”

  She pulled out a dead hand. “Nowhere close. Actually, it looks like he’s running around the center of the Safe Zone. Wait . . . he just disappeared; little dick just kicked his party members I think.”

  I grimaced, feeling ill. I knew what was likely happening to Frankie, Jazz, and Hank at that exact moment. Images of flattened corpses surfaced in my mind’s eye, and my stomach heaved. Watered-down bile projected out of me, and I knew that they were dead partly by my hand. I just killed someone . . . for real. What am I supposed to do though? Roll over and die? No. I straightened, feeling slightly better. I always felt better after a good throw up, and that one had been coming for a while.

  The opposing players’ nameplates turned red as they engaged. Mie continued to heal, but it wasn’t enough. They broke our outer ranks all around us, most of them higher-leveled then our NPCs. I sent four guards out to help, but their Guardian Shouts had no effect on these players. Another tremor shook through the ground beneath our feet, and everyone stumbled. The party of four higher-level players came into view, pushing over a couple dead soldiers as they approached our inner line. Closer, I could now see what their classes were and how many credits they had.

  Level 43, Upland Highborn, Paladin

  Life Credits: 2

  Level 45, Gnome, Trap Smith

  Life Credits: 0

  Level 45, Gnome, Rogue

  Life Credits: 1

  Level 46, Mountain Elf, Warden

  Life Credits: 1

  That last one caught me off guard. And for a moment I just stared in confusion at what I was seeing. Had I really thought I’d found a unique class? The other Warden seemed less kitted, but as five guards moved away from him and drew the attention of our NPCs, I knew his abilities were identical to my own . . . well, minus my second class. Still had that card to play. We were slightly higher in level, but these guys looked serious, not to mention they were surrounded by other lower-level players.

  Our lines fell apart, and then the horde of players were upon us. I held my ground, prayed silently, then shouted over to Fred, “MIKE HUNT!”

  Mie had insisted this be the signal. I still didn’t get how she even knew Mike’s last name, which she insisted was Hunt. I blushed as the players nearing in on me gave me weird-ass looks, and it finally clicked. “Damnit, Mie,” I said. “YOU DICK!”

  Mie was laughing as she threw out Flash Heals.

  The sound of a ping! rang through the air. Fred had activated Coin Flip.

  He grabbed the coin out of midair, but as he smacked it onto the back of his hand, a player rammed into me. Our NPCs had fallen much faster than I thought they would, and now I was afraid we had waited too long. If Fred targeted himself . . . we would be in really bad shape. The plan had been to pull the trigger when most of the enemy players were in range, but not too late when we would be too overwhelmed to get him back up. We needed Fred to go invisible just in case the rest of us Knocked. I saw a single green flash cross my vision. No. No. NO.

  I hit the ground hard, and the player’s charge felt like a truck had slammed into my back, knocking the air out of me. The other Warden was on top of me. We both Ass Cracked at the exact same time, stunning each other and bashing in each other’s helms. Unable to move or do anything, I roared out in frustration. Why did we bank EVERYTHING on a fifty-fifty ability?! Mie was getting swarmed by NPCs; Clara used a Diving Shot then got stunned.

  Then I saw something that I didn’t expect.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another green flash.

  Then another.

  Then another.

  The green spells poured out of the end of Fred’s staff, slowly at first, then in rapid fire. Soon, loud BAMS! followed. Lightning filled the air. Boulders toppled, a perfectly normal tree decided to fall over and crush the players underneath, the ground opened up, and projectiles in midflight acted oddly as the green spells collided with them. A spear redirected into a player’s eye socket. A lightning bolt incinerated the Trap Smith, Knocking him. A green spell hit the chest of the Warden in front of me, just as his stun faded, and he tripped across a white and gold trap, healing to full health only to fall onto an explosive trap. I assumed the Trap Smith party member had just laid both. BAM!

  I flew backward, and my stun re-upped. Screams filled the air. Players continued to die or get Knocked in horrible ways . . . and the flashes of green were still coming.

  It felt like I was watching a group of manic geese unleashed onto the table of a Sunday brunch . . . inside of a war zone.

  A buzzsaw blade, thrown by some bio mech attack-based character, whizzed toward Mie, only to collide with an immense gust of wind that a green flash had conjured. The sawblade slingshotted backwards. It ripped through its owner, killing him, and continued into the newly rezzed Trap Smith, Knocking him again. While this happened, a lightning bolt crashed downward, and an explosion went off from another explosive trap, which had been placed close to the Paladin. It blew his legs off, one of which went flying sideways. It punched into the groin of the gnome Rogue . . . who promptly doubled over in pain and took a couple steps backward . . . only to get crushed by a boulder that had come falling down a nearby hill. Their party wiped. The boulder continued to roll, killing multiple players, all of which had somehow found themselves in its devastating path.

  My stun fell off. The roaring noise, while still loud, had subsided slightly in our immediate area. Chaos still rained down around the battlefield. I saw Clara, Knocked close to Fred, so I blinked over to her, and started to resurrect. Mie was also Knocked . . . no, not Knocked. She was cradling herself at Fred’s feet. Holding her ears closed with her hands, rocking back and forth, and whispering, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” over and over to herself again.

  When Clara was back up, I turned to see the Warden, now regeared and sprinting toward me. I glanced around and saw the Paladin and Rogue had finished their incorporeal time penalty as well. I shifted to Wind Rogue, Wind Dove into their midst, shifted back to Warden, and attempted to use my Hammer Smash ultimate, only to have the enemy Warden do it first in an incredible reaction reflex. The ground erupted, interrupting my cast and rendering its effect useless. I cursed when I saw my ult had been put on cooldown.

  Fred and Mie had been caught in the area stun, but Clara had backed up a few paces, and to my horror, the Black Zone . . . passed over her, cloaking her. Its massive wall passed over us all at a slow jogging pace. Clara continued to pelt arrows into the enemy party. I saw her shocked expression as it passed. None of us had been paying attention to the wall. Why the hell did they have to fight us outside the Safe Zone?!

  The world went foggy black as it passed over me as well. Still stunned, I immediately felt my body changing. My skin loosened, and my muscles began to ache.

  “MIE!” I roared.

  She used her cleanse ability. It was like a large, circular transparent pane of glass. It fell down through us, wiping away the stun effect and even a couple rot debuffs, but those quickly returned.

  Ghouls were all around us, finishing off Matt’s NPCs and low-level players, either Knocking them or killing them and turning them into more ghouls. I smashed them backward with my hammer as they got close, but while their health dipped, the blows didn’t do as much damage as I was hoping. Each one would take three or four hits. That, and the feeling of rotting inside myself made me panic. “RUN!”

  “OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!” Mie shouted as she ran away ineffectively from a group of three ghouls.

  I saw Fred running as fast as he could too, his short arms flailing.

  The three remaining mid-forties players were still out of the Black Zone’s effect, hauling ass away from it, and I could see them through the black fog to some degree. I had no doubt that I would be almost blind without my elvish eyes. Clara blinked toward them out of the Black Zone, dove with a twirl, then blinked again in front of them.

  A black fire erupted around her as a massive two-handed sword popped into her hand. Her eyes bled to black as they narrowed, targeting their Paladin. The party fell apart as she moved. Heads rolled. Dismembered limbs fell away, and shouts were silenced. They wiped in seconds.

  I would have paused longer than a moment at how awesome that had been, but my health was steadily ticking down. I ran through the hellish landscape and realized then that the Black Zone did percentage-based health damage. I made my way over to Mie and saw that our health was dipping at the same rate, which meant my massive health pool was useless. It’s actually worse for me, I realized. A heal in my direction wouldn’t fill up my health bar as much since it was a fixed amount.

  Ignoring the dumb mechanic, I helped Mie by knocking a few ghouls off her. She gave herself a heal, and I went ahead and popped a health potion. Fred was slightly ahead of us, running his little ass off. This is it. We are going to die out in this rot.

  The white ring was just ahead, maybe two hundred meters off, but we couldn’t seem to get out of the Black Zone as it moved toward its goal. All three of us were sprinting, but the wall only seemed to be picking up its pace exponentially. Ghouls were growing in numbers as the players and NPCs that were still alive next to us faltered and died all around us. When we were about fifty meters out from the Safe Zone, I stumbled. Three ghouls bore down on me, biting into my legs and arm, pulling me backwards. Oh God. No! A large headless one, which looked like it had been the Upland Highborn Paladin, jumped on top of Mie, bringing her to the ground too. A multitude of smaller ones swarmed us. Mie’s heals were not enough. She Knocked, her two-minute immunity timer starting. I saw her crawling slowly toward the Safe Zone.

  I shifted to my Rogue, blinked, and dove toward Clara, analyzing her hiding place as I ran through the darkness. She had found a low spot within the new Safe Zone. The terrain here was hilly, and she had found a little enclave that gave us some cover. The Black Zone reached the white ring seconds later, slotting into place right behind Clara, and this time—thank God—it stopped. I ran the rest of the way to her, diving normally to avoid another ghoul. As I broke through the barrier and into the clear air, I turned and saw Fred get Knocked deep in the darkness. He started crawling too, but I lost sight of him quickly when the horde of black ghouls threw themselves at the invisible barrier between zones, desperately trying to get to us.

  One of the ghouls gnashing its teeth reminded me of someone.

  I looked closer.

  It was Commander Matt. No . . .

  What had I expected though? This was inevitable, but it didn’t stop the pain, or the anger. I had liked that guy. He was cool. Fuck this game.

  I hated doing it, but following Clara’s lead, I peppered players who were still up within the Black Zone with my Wind Spear throws, either Knocking them, deterring them enough to seek refuge elsewhere, or . . . killing them outright.

  The area grew much darker as the sun fell below the real horizon. I looked at my logs, finding I gained two more levels during that battle, the XP from player kills giving off insane amounts at this point in the game.

  You reached level 49!

  You reached level 50!

  Congratulations! You have unlocked the profession system.

  The profession system? REALLY? RIGHT NOW? I thought.

  Mie: I CAN BARELY SEE ANYTHING. WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?

  Sam: Just keep moving forward.

  I threw my Dome Shield ball at my feet to give us some cover just in case there were any ranged players waiting to take advantage of our vulnerable position. But something weird happened that I hadn’t predicted. Half of the dome blinked into existence within the Black Zone. I walked further into the dome, only to realize that somehow, it had pushed back the darkness and the horde of ghouls . The Black Zone counts as a projectile? I looked at the ability’s description and noticed an asterisk by the word ‘projectiles.’ I inspected it.

  Prevents all projectiles and large scale area effects from passing through.

  That was good to know, but the dome glowed with a bright golden hue, which was mainly what I was after.

  Sam: See anything gold?

  Mie: No. Wait. YES! I’m close.

  Fred: Ah . . . fuck . . .

  Sam: Fred? You see the gold? Talk to me.

  Fred: Yeah . . . but I got turned around. Headed that way now.

  I swallowed. We backed up a few moments later. The dome’s timer was up. It winked out of existence, and the horde of ghouls crashed back into the void it left behind. Apparently, the ghouls were considered part of the large-scale rotting effect as well. Also good to know. C’mon, Mie.

  Mie: I’m so close. No . . . Come on. SAM, PUT BACK UP YOUR DOME.

  Sam: It’s on cooldown!

  Her immunity buff winked away, and I made a split-second decision. I blinked into the darkness, holding a spot I had seen coming in in my mind. Once I appeared, I started spinning my head and looking around. The horde turned toward me. There. Mie was a few meters away from the Safe Zone. I ran at her as her health started ticking down in great fat chunks. It seemed that the smaller the Safe Zone got, the more damage we would take in the Black Zone. I grabbed her from behind, gripping her around the waist as ghouls pelted toward us. I activated Wind Dive, and to my relief, we both jolted forward, Mie’s feet dragging along the ground. We bashed through the wall of ghouls and broke into clear air once more. Clara immediately started in on a rez. Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I watched the cast bar. Mie’s Knocked health bar was in the single digits. If anything touched her . . . I summoned my guards, providing more cover.

  As Mie stood up, she immediately Flash Healed, her skin and flesh returning to normal.

  But we couldn’t celebrate . . . Fred was still out there.

  Sam: Fred? Where are you at?

  Fred: I can’t see a damn thing.

  His immunity timer winked out and I watched his health fall. I looked at my map and zoomed way in on our position. His blue dot . . . was a hundred meters out still. My dome was still on cooldown, along with all my movement abilities. There was nothing any of us could do.

  Fred: Pour one out for me, will you?

  He had gotten completely turned around out there, and had gone in the opposite direction. God damn it, Fred. That’s totally something you would do, but God damn it!

  Sam: Fred. I love you, man. You owned back there.

  Fred: I love you guys.

  Clara, Mie, and I looked at each other with grim expressions. We watched his party icon’s health in silence as it fell to zero.