The going was slow, but not unpleasant. It made sense to take Braden with them, because he was one of the higher-powered people in the city. (All Adepts were; the research exploit Braden discovered let the mages get powerful quickly.) But the other reason Kyle invited Braden was because Kyle hadn’t had much opportunity to get to know Braden. For somebody that had been in the city nearly since it had begun, Kyle knew surprisingly little about him.

“So, why a dwarf?” Kyle asked as they forded a small stream. “If you were going to be an adept, wouldn’t it make more sense to be an elf or something?”

“Yeah,” Braden said, trying to find a spot to cross that wouldn’t leave him waist-deep. “I had a character in some ancient MMO back in college that was a Dwarven Runesmith. I had no idea what character I’d play here, so I thought I’d give that a shot.” Braden sighed, and just walked into the stream, turning to face upstream as the current started pushing against him. “I’ve tried to do that. Even took ‘Enchanting’ as my skill at the second crystal. Too bad that was a trap choice. Seems like enchanting needs all sorts of materials we haven’t found yet.”

“I’m sure it’ll be useful eventually,” Kyle said, turning back to offer a hand to Braden to help him cross. “Jacob’s nearly got that mana tower up, so we’ll be able to start growing mana crystals. Hopefully soon we can get you doing some enchanting.”

“So why adept for you, Kyle? Was it your first MMO character or something?” Braden took Kyle’s hand and started climbing up the ledge on the other side of the stream.

“No,” Kyle grunted, heaving the dwarf up the ridge. When Braden was up, Kyle let go, and paused to breathe. “Actually, I, uh… I played a rogue. In a tabletop group. He wasn’t a friendly sort of guy.” Kyle shook his head. “I couldn’t be him. I could play him, but I couldn’t be him.”

“I get what you mean,” Braden said, shaking his head. “I’m still me. Just as a dwarf. You can’t escape who you are.”

“Unless you’re Raphael,” Dvorak said, climbing from the stream. “Just sayin.” Dvorak looked comically dishevelled while completely soaked.

“It can’t be healthy to have such a personality break like that,” said Mason from the other bank.

“At least for him, when this is all over, it can be somebody else that killed dozens of players and hundreds of monsters,” Kyle said. “He can throw it all away when he gets home and go back to being… whoever he actually is.”

“Would that be a good thing?” Avina said, climbing the rock face and slipping slightly. It was rare that she spoke up. “Raphael seems… brave. Dedicated. I bet he wasn’t like that before. And we… we’re all growing, aren’t we?”

Kyle walked over to offer a hand to Avina as well. With a nod, she took Kyle’s hand and he lifted her up. She was much lighter than Braden was. He looked away. “I guess,” Kyle said. “But how would somebody like Raphael work out in the real world? ‘What ho, good sir! Dost thou desire fried potatoes with thy beef sandwich? Or a dry beverage, praytell?’”

Kyle expected a laugh, and got a chuckle from Braden and Mason. But Avina looked concerned.

“What about you, Kyle?” she asked. “Do you want to just… go back to who you were? Throw away the things you’re learning here?”

Kyle paused, thinking fast.

“Avina!” Dvorak shouted. “How the hell are you still dry!”

Bless that Lagotherre.

Avina went back to looking mousey. “Holy Armor’s waterproof, so I just cast it at minimum duration before stepping in.”

“Why waste the mana?” Braden asked. “You might need it when we get there.”

“It wasn’t much. I thought it’d be fun,” Avina said.

Kyle glanced at Avina’s mana in his party display. “Relax,” he said. “She’ll be back up to full before we get to Wight’s hold. She’s not like us; she can adjust the duration or power of her spells when she casts them, so she’s being responsible.” Kyle saw Avina nod slightly in thanks, and he turned to look at his minimap. “This way.”

A few minutes before Kyle expected to arrive at the tower, Kyle noticed that the sky was starting to grow grayer. He looked up and shaded his eyes against the sun. “Weird,” he said. “Why’s the sky doing that while the sun’s still up?”

“We’re getting close,” Mason said. “I bet it’s atmospheric.”

“The trees have fewer leaves,” Braden said, pulling down a branch. He looked in the direction they were travelling, then back from where they came. “Yeah, the foliage is thicker back there, and thinner towards Wight’s Hold.”

“So obviously this is the most friendly of places,” Dvorak said. “We should expect a warm reception and perhaps a welcome platter.”

The sky only grew darker as they continued, soon becoming overcast with a gray haze that blotted out the sun. The trees were became nothing more than gnarled, dead trunks with skeletal branches. Like most other things in the game, it effectively communicated the mood while still somehow being overdone and trite.

“Don’t suppose you can turn undead, Avina?” asked Kyle. She shook her head.

“Hey!” barked Dvorak. “I’m an Acolyte too!”

“Dvorak, can you turn undead?” asked Kyle.

“Actually… actually no, I can’t either.”

Finally, Kyle saw their destination through the ragged treeline; a tall circular tower made of crumbling, ragged stone bricks. It was crowned with a rusty metal spire that left corrosion-colored streaks on the bricks below it. Around its base was a decaying wrought-iron fence, creating a courtyard about a quarter the size of Kyle’s entire city. Behind the fence they saw row and rows of –

“Tombstones,” Mason said as they approached the gate. “Yep. Called it.”

“Think each one will spawn a zombie?” Braden said. “Because you know there are going to be zombies.”

“Yeah, but there are lots of kinds of zombies,” Dvorak said. “Think these will be the tanky, shambling, kitable kind? Or the screeching spidery kind that move inhumanly fast?”

“They’ll all burn the same,” Braden said, opening his menu.

“Wait,” Kyle said, putting up a hand. “That tower’s tall. I’m counting… eight stories. Even if there’s only one combat per floor, we’ll run out of mana potions if we use burn through our whole bar every fight. Let’s use weapons until things get hairy.”

“Speak for yourself,” Braden said. “I took attunement as my second level.”

“And that’s what, a 20% increase in mana?”

“Fair,” Braden said. His axe materialized in his hand. “Still 20% more than you.”

“Unless I burn HP as mana, in which case we’re pretty much even, but I also have pain resistance. Don’t think I hadn’t thought of this.”

“Well still, I have mana regen and you don’t,” Braden said, shrugging.

“At the rate of what, ten percent per hour?”

“Better than nothing,” Braden said.

“If you two could shut up, please?” Mason said. “We’ve got zombies to kill.” Mason grabbed his fist with one hand as though cracking his knuckles, then shook his hands when nothing happened. “Still bugs me that that doesn’t work here.”

“Avina, are you planning on…” Kyle started to ask, but stopped when he saw her, eyes wide, clutching her spear and staring at the graveyard. “…ooo-kay, nevermind. Tell you what; you can dump the buffs on us here, and we’ll shut the gate to keep the stuff in with us when we fight whatever comes out.”

Avina nodded. She opened her interface and touched some buttons, and her spear started glowing white. In turn, she touched the butt of the spear to each person in their party.

Kyle opened his status window, and saw her buffs listed under his statistics, with a timer ticking down from ten minutes. He still wasn’t sure exactly what Holy Armor or Shield of Faith did, besides apparently make one waterproof, but he was grateful all the same. He looked up at Avina’s mana bar and saw it was still about half full.

Dvorak handed Avina a potion. “Drink this; it won’t quite bring you back to full by the time the ten minutes are up, but it’ll be close.” Avina nodded, took the potion, and backed off.

“Okay, on the clock now guys,” Mason said. “Let’s move. Break!” He kicked the gate, which flew opened with a tinny rattle, and rushed in. Kyle and the others moved in behind him.

They were on guard, but nothing seemed to happen.

“This is thoroughly anticlimactic,” Dvorak said. “Think maybe it’s just for atmosphere?”

“No way,” said Kyle. “It’s called ‘Wight’s Hold’. It’s there must be undead. They’re probably just waiting for some sort of trigger. Keep an eye on those graves.” Kyle approached the door to the tower and knelt to examine the knob. “Looks locked. I guess we should have had a rogue?”

“No need,” said Mason, stepping forward. Kyle startled as Mason kicked the door hard. It popped open, wobbling slightly. Thousands of dusty motes glowed on the other side, lit by the the shafts of sunlight from the door.

“That… that works.”

“Guys?” Dvorak said warningly. “Guys, you triggered them. They’re triggered now. Here they come.”

Kyle looked back towards the graves. In front of nearly a dozen tombstones, emaciated figures pulled themselves from the soil. Clods of dirt fell from their shoulders and heads as they stood, hissing. Kyle had seen that sort of animation on other zombies in the past, but it wasn’t until he saw it in person that he realized how illogical it was. He felt as though if he were trapped under that much dirt, he wouldn’t be able to get out that quickly.

“Kyle?” Mason said from the doorway. Kyle looked back through the door, and saw another half dozen animate skeletons rising from stone sarcophagi, bearing shields and scimitars.

“Crap,” Kyle said. “We pulled two groups at once.”