He walked for a solid hour on one edge of the ravine. Hard going over crevasses and streams. At least the scenery passed by faster thanks to his new Mobility.

Up ahead on a hill of jagged rocks, Enoch spotted a sentry. A tiny furball with a disk-shaped straw hat. It leaned on one of the larges roots hugging the ascent. A strange variety of twisted cedars grew there, yellow, thorny. He hadn’t seen the variety yet. A lair. It came with randomized features, including distinctive vegetations. Caution, there’d be a boss and a few elite mobs.

He needed a plan. Couldn’t take them all at once. Maybe if he killed the sentry quickly? Nope, the furry had a blowing horn. He looked around. The ground was littered, of course, with traps. So much so that it didn’t make any practical sense. The game developers had stated multiple times that they prioritized gameplay over a realistic ecology. Enoch took a second look. So many traps. The devs could have kept a hint of shame.

He stood there dumfounded. At level two, he had few options for a quick kill. In fact, he had none.

“Choo Choo ogres train. Choo Choo ogre train. I dare yah.” Tip | 2$

Good idea. All he needed was twenty more levels and a unique taunting artifact. He pondered on his situation, going from the sentry to the traps. Choo Choo’s animated stone slowly hovered in his vision. Covered with damaged moss, stuck with twigs, plastered with dead leaves. It looked like a real creature. Except for the core itself, propelling the huge rock with his purple light. A tiny ship and its alien asteroid.

“Say, Choo,” said Enoch while he gestured, asking to keep the volume low, “can you disarm and set up traps with your Crafts 2 attribute?”

“With a low chance of success, yes,” said the core.

Enoch smiled, gestured for his friend to follow. Retreated further back.

“Uh oh,” said Choo Choo.

***

The ravine was a mess. A good dozen of traps lay broken and discarded. More importantly, a dozen had been rearranged strategically. Choo Choo had the perfect body to work on them. He could operate at a safe distance with his purple magic. When he failed his Crafts roll, the trap sprung at empty air. The artifact giggled every time it happened.

“Oops, there goes another one.”

He got cocky once, danced in the path of a pole whip, singing “la la la,” at his lowest volume. The poled whipped, caught him straight on like a baseball bat. Choo ended up embedded in a nearby birch, squealing notes at random.

Quite productive, the little core, all thing considered. Enoch simply kept vigil from a tall spruce. Finally recovered all his Health. Choo entertained the chat with his antics. Only needed minimal supervision. His AI had a good instinct for trap placement. Enoch only gave one insight. That’s how the net ended up directly in the path of the swinging tree trunk. That trap was too big for the golem core, or for one person for that matter. They kept it intact instead, rearranged the rest around it. The deadly centerpiece.

Time to play. Enoch ran to the hill. Made some noise. The sentry raised his horn, took a deep breath, cute tiny belly full of air, blew. An appalling note rang through the forest, bounced around, died in the dense moss. What ever class that thing was, it wasn’t a bard.

Enoch own music boosted its tempo, added tension. In for a good fight. He dashed to the sentry, tripped the little guy, slammed hard with an overhead swing. Choo’s stone fell in a satisfying arc. The mass of the mossy rock gave no chance to the gremlin’s head. Splosh. Red voxel lights splashed on the wet ground, clung for an instant, vanished gradually. The game’s version of gore for all ages. Strange, in a way, no blood, but the headless corpses stayed there until it was looted or harvested for crafting component. Much better than blood.

The chat loved the show.

“The horn’s sound killed me.”

“He killed a great talent before the world discovered it.”

Enoch looked up. Eleven gremlins were coming down, running on the oversized roots. Four with round shields, proto armors, hide over wood. Three wicked spears, one mean mallets. Five generics, with silly hats and pointy sticks. Three archers, naked, a bow in one hand, a bundle of arrows in the other. Bad news. Enoch retreated as the stone tipped projectiles broke on stones, stuck to trunks. The music cranked up a notch.

He laughed under his breath. Stress and frustrations left him. The real reason he played. In the zone. Complete focus. The scenery turned to a blur on each side. One foot disturbed a puddle. The edge of a toe glanced a slimy boulder.

An arrow in the back. [-23 Health]. He activated Dash, disappeared over the edge of the ravine.

“Greeting Master, have you brought companies as previously stated,” said Choo Choo.

“Yes. Say Enoch please. I hate Master.”

“I shall obey then, Enoch.”

“Smart ass.”

“In all cases, by the grinding cogs of war, we shall enjoy the slaughter.”

Enoch stared at his tiny murder ball, wondered if the jolly personality specifically referred to violence. Choo Choo laughed with cold, disjointed chuckles. A hint, of a kind.

The air rippled with the distinctive twang of a whipping trap, followed by the first cries of his enemies. They were here. Right around the corner. Enoch climbed the ravine, used a nearby tree to prop one foot, stuck his quarterstaff in the appropriate hole, waited. The game music slowed to a crawl. Singles notes chained together with long silences.

The tip came first, then the shaft, finally the whole creature. It held its primitive spear in one paw, probing the air in front of it, protecting its body with its shield. Crouched. Cautious now.

The quarterstaff pressed upward, used as a lever. The boulder pile jerked, gave way, rolled down. The sounds of rolling earth overwhelmed the raging synthcore of his soundtrack.

Environmental effects had been nerfed in the beta. Developers and players had realized that realistic physics hurt gameplay. Levels, items and skills were trivial in the face of coins dropped from the back of a dragon. The solution balanced reality and fun. The density of matter had been lowered. Fall damage too. Even the required air intake had been modified. Characters could stay alive several minutes without breathing.

The lore justified the weird physic by stating that they played on habitable moons. Low density, mild gravity, high magic. It made for great acrobatics. Allowed huge monsters.

Consequently, the tiny rockslide only damaged the gremlins. Didn’t kill any. A hardy one withstood the fallen rocks with his shield which exploded in splinters, ruining the monster’s forearm. Two others ended up stuck at the knees, howling in pain.

Enoch trailed the rolling debris, legs pumping wild. He pounced on the proud one, quarterstaff coming down so fast it got its own sound effect and a thin vector of white light.

The damned brute took the hit, grunted, kicked Enoch. [-4 Health]. Stabbed him in the belly with his spear. [-27 Health]. Ouch. Two arrows hit Enoch on the side. [-11 Health]. [-9 Health]. Frag. He ran behind a tree. The sound of impacts followed him as arrows hit the trunk. He broke the two shafts embedded in his flank. Rolled to another tree, slid in a stream, recovered behind the exposed roots of a fallen spruce.

The chat caught up with the action, two seconds later through the AI filter.

“Dashing.”

“Meh.”

“The glorious gremlin bows to no one.”

He needed to be more careful, eleven opponents still stood. He was under half health. [46/120 Health]. On the positive side, the mean warrior followed him, enraged. Its bare claw shredded the moss carpet and one tiny vine tensed between a bended pole and a root. The vine broke, the pole whipped, the spike stabbed.

The brute fell to its knee, grasping the pike, face deformed by hatred. Enoch left his cover. Vanquished the beast with two hits. Respect for the savage gremlin. It led its people well – to their death.

The gremlins shouted in disbelief. They fanned in a larger front, advanced carefully, crouched like hunters. None disappeared. Good. No stealth.

The chat piled in on the warrior’s death.

“Bad ass gremlin, we were not worthy.”

“Have my children, great warrior.”

“The commentator predicted it, a whole lair is way too hard for him.”

The gremlins’ sneaky stance didn’t help much. The traps sprung, crippled them. Two died on impact. Choo hopped from one downed mob to the other. His third target refused to die. The core hammered on the same spot with his big stone, up and down three time before the gremlin stopped moving.

Enoch joined the massacre, ended gremlins left and right with the butts of his quarterstaff. Despite its rocky start, the fight turned to his advantage. It looked good if he could defeat enough before they recovered.

A lightning bolt hit him in the chest. [-22 Health] – [Staggered | 6 seconds]. He fell backward, used his Mobility to tumble twice. Landed on his feet. A small miracle through the staggered debuff. Arrows buzzed between the trees. Hadn’t the archers only brought a handful of ammo? Well, Enoch had a more pressing matter to deal with. His attention kept coming, strangely, to the red haired, trinkets tweaked, gremlin shaman.

Enoch retreated awkwardly on his stiff legs. Hopped on his left foot, fell forward, hopped on his right foot, pivoted to dodge a mana ray. A mana ray? How high was that furry?

He shook the debuff as the chat commented on his electric experience.

“He’s done for. Pulled too many.”

“Imagine my shock.”

“I’m getting flashback of my first few days in the game. How did he ever make it to the continental final?”

For once, scrolling through the comments, he grinned. They were in for a show.