Haley had been correct about the group being made up of real players rather than NPCs, and my identifier bead—as I’d come to think of the little blue dot that highlighted whatever I focused on—flicked around, throwing names and classes at me faster than I could possibly hope to remember them at the moment.

Whereas Haley and I had both stuck to realistic, natural-colored avatars, the other players in the group were quite diverse in their body choices. A rainbow cavalcade of hair colors weaved through the heads of the assembly, splashing greens and blues and pinks against the comparatively muted blacks and browns and blondes, and complexions varied from the expected tan, fair, brown, and olive tones to much more unique choices: there was a druid whose skin had both the color and texture of tree bark, and a priest with milk-white skin shot through with black, snaking veins all over his body. One man loomed over the others as tall, fat, and ugly as an ogre, and a somber-looking girl who stood back from everyone else had eyes that glowed with pure silver light and no irises to speak of. I was surprised at how many women there were in the group, though the men still outnumbered them nearly two to one.

Including Haley and me, there were sixteen of us milling before the marble platform. As I joined the circle, some of them continued to study me while others lost interest and returned their attention to a tall warrior named Cody who had been speaking during our approach.

“All right, that’s got to be the last of us,” Cody said. “Paladin and mage. Good. You two can be in strike group three. Anyone else see any other stragglers?”

“Whoa, hold your horses!” Haley objected. “What’s going on? Who are you people?”

Cody shot her a dirty look. He had a tight, sandy crew cut and a diagonal scar across his face that made him look like a real grizzled veteran. Between that, his large, muscled build, his impressive 6’3” height, and the two-handed axe slung over his shoulder, he had clearly chosen an avatar to intimidate. I could already see that it suited his militaristic, intense style.

“If you hadn’t been lagging back there with your boyfriend, you’d be up to speed already,” he growled.

“We’re all new here,” a paladin named Shane said softly. He stood beside Cody with his arms folded over his breastplate. Despite only being 6’0”, he had a quiet, easy confidence about him that paired well with the shocks of gray on either side of his combed black hair. “Why don’t we go over it one more time now that we seem to have everyone present?”

Cody turned his glare on Shane, meeting the paladin’s cool green eyes for a long moment before looking away and shrugging. “Sure. But pay attention. I’m not repeating myself again, and if we want to win, we need to take this seriously.” He turned to face the group. “So here’s what we’ve figured out so far: All of us seem to have arrived here in Ataraxia via these weird arcade consoles, and we’re predominantly from North America. All of us have gaming experience—and a lot of it. None of us know anything about the game except what we’ve figured out from the tutorial, and as far as anyone knows, this level of immersive VR should be impossible with modern technology.”

A mage named Ian who had long, blue hair tied back by a leather thong spoke up: “The fact that we all speak English, come from North America, and have a decent balance of classes suggests that we were chosen to be together, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t speak English,” the white-skinned, black-veined priest named Santo said in perfect English. “You’re all speaking flawless Spanish.”

“Nor do I,” an olive-skinned rogue named Dancer said. “I was visiting the United States on tour when I spotted the arcade machine that brought me here, but my native language is Italian. I only speak a little English.”

“Interesting,” Ian muttered.

“So there’s language translation, too,” Cody continued. “And yeah, we do have a good balance of classes: five tanks, six DPS, four healers, and whatever a wilder does.” He gestured at the silver-eyed girl in the back, whose name was Julia, and who was indeed the only person who had picked Wilder as her class. “It’s possible that the paladins can heal or the druids and monk can off-tank in a pinch, but it’s too early to say. We’ll need to test it.”

“I’m not a healer,” Santo objected.

“Priests heal,” Cody said firmly. “We can talk about off-roles later.”

Santo glared but said nothing in response. In addition to the black veins that snaked over his skin, I now noticed his eyes were deep pools of midnight-black ink, as well.

My HUD hadn’t updated with new instructions yet, and I felt like this Cody guy was making a lot of assumptions if he was really as new to the game as the rest of us were.

“How do you know this game is anything like the games you’re familiar with?” I asked.

Cody’s head snapped toward me and his jaw flexed. He clearly didn’t like being questioned, but then, I didn’t have patience for petty would-be tyrants.

“Look, newbie,” Cody replied, his voice sharp. “All I know is this: When I had my orc fight, after my class selection, there was a druid paired with me. She didn’t follow orders, and she got a neck full of orc blade. I didn’t have a healing spell, she didn’t have any mana left, and I watched her bleed out right in front of me before I could finish the orcs. If she respawned somewhere, I didn’t see it. She was crying when she died. We need to play things smart and tight if we want to survive here.”

I swallowed, shaking against the sudden tightness that crushed around my heart like a closing fist. “You don’t know if… what was her name?”

“Huh?”

“Her name. What was her name?” I nearly shouted.

“He’s looking for his lost sister,” Haley said quietly.

A hush fell over the group, and Cody’s intensity settled back down to a quiet simmer. “Ambercast.”

I relaxed and let out a breath, loosening fingers that had tightened into a white-knuckle grip on my hilt. Ambercast wasn’t a name my sister would have chosen. She always named her characters after herself, if that was an option, because she liked to imagine herself as her in-game avatar. Even if she hadn’t, she probably would have chosen something more fantasy-flavored or Harry Potter-inspired. Then I felt guilty for being relieved that it hadn’t been my sister. Someone had still died. Hadn’t they? I’d need to be extremely careful.

Haley’s hand on my arm stirred me from my thoughts. I straightened and slid away, letting her hand fall. “Not my sister,” I said. “Probably.”

Cody stared at me for a moment longer, gave a tight nod, and turned back to the rest of the group. “In any case, we need to organize and protect ourselves so that we don’t meet the same end—at least until we know how dying works. I’ve assigned you to three strike teams that we can use to test—”

He cut off abruptly with a curse and stumbled forward as lightning flashed overhead, and both braziers on the marble platform behind him erupted in roaring bursts of flame amid a peal of thunder. The previously clear sky flooded with dark stormclouds in a matter of seconds. Most of the group took a step back and several people drew their weapons or raised glowing hands with spells prepared. Another crash of thunder sounded and a brilliant blue rent in the clouds appeared. In the blink of an eye, a thick, twisting bolt of lightning struck the center of the dais, prompting a flash that was so bright I had to shield my eyes for a moment. When I looked again, there were three figures standing atop it.

Beside each brazier was a hooded figure in gray robes, with their long draped sleeves clasped together so that no part of them was visible. The two were identical, average height, and my HUD identified both as simply “Elohim” with no other class or level information. The man between them, at the center of the marble platform where the bolt had struck, had a clear designation, though, and it was an impressive one:

Marutuk, “Lord of Lords”

LVL ** Stormcaller [Ancient]

(Statistics Concealed)

The golden-skinned, heavily muscled Marutuk stood with regal bearing, dressed in a shimmering silver-chain vest and mailed kilt that glittered with bright, white light. His eyes crackled with the same blue electric energy that sputtered from the tri-pronged scepter in his left hand, and a two-headed war-axe hung in a loop at his belt. Silver sandals of an unfamiliar material wrapped his corded legs up to his knees in a Roman style, and a thick black beard massed beneath a head of curling, shoulder-length hair, capped by a thin band of gold which encircled it. A deep crimson cape draped about his shoulders and snapped and fluttered behind him in the swirling breeze. He gazed down at us with only mild interest, seeming almost bored to be appearing before our group.

“Holy shit,” Haley breathed, her staff shaking slightly as she held it out toward the stormcaller (whatever a stormcaller was).

“Welcome to the testing grounds, Chosen Ones,” Marutuk intoned, his voice rumbling in the small clearing with all the force and gravitas of a rolling thunderclap. “You have many questions, and in time, you may earn your answers. For the moment, you have but one charge: grow stronger and survive. You have been brought to Ataraxia because of your potential, but it remains to be seen whether you grow into warriors worthy of battle against The Glistening One or meet your end as food for the worms of Khthon.”

My thoughts raced as I tried to pull together all of this new information, but Marutuk continued without waiting for a response from any of us. There was no interrupting this guy. Even Cody seemed stunned into silence.

“You must have care and caution,” he continued. “For there is no return from death here—not for you.” He extended a golden finger to point to the great wall behind us, and then to the walls on either side. “Sharpen your blades and build your spells beyond the doors to the East, West, and South. Your next test awaits you to the North. Do not tarry. Your hand will be forced before long. Obey the three laws of the Elohim, play well, and prosper. May you savor the taste of victory, children of men.”

As the echoing rumble of his final words faded, another crashing bolt of lightning forked down from the sky and struck Marutuk, illuminating him for a brief moment in a blinding, white-hot flash of crackling energy, and then he was gone. In his wake, the two robed Elohim stepped closer together and spoke as one, their words in perfect cadence as though uttering a practiced recitation, and their voices reedy and strange:

“The law is the whole of the law: First, step naught outside the way. Second, do as you will, lest you do as you must. Third, know all to be mutable. We leave you with a gift.”

They bowed their heads and vanished in a twisting shimmer of light that bent the very air around them in ways that were uncomfortable to look at. As the shimmer subsided, four small pedestals appeared on the marble dais, each holding a weapon suspended in a broken column of light: a hammer, a two-handed sword, a rod, and a dagger. My HUD stubbornly refused to identify any of them.

Slowly, the flames in braziers died away and the clouds cleared above us. Stunned silence reigned for a long moment, and then everyone began talking at once.

“What the fuck was that all about?” Haley exclaimed.

“I want that rod,” the huge, ogre-like mage named Victor declared as he began to lumber toward the weapons.

“Why should you get it?” Dancer sniffed angrily and tugged on her long, braided hair, right hand toying at the rapier tucked into her belt as she moved smoothly between Victor and the dais and glared up at him, unflinching.

“I’m confused,” Ian said, resting a knuckle under his chin. “Do we have one rule, or four?”

“I thought we had three,” Haley replied. “Uh… does anyone remember them?”

“Everyone shut up and let me think!” Cody shouted.

“You’re not the boss of me,” Santo shot back, turning to march away from the group.

Meanwhile, I was ignoring all of them and trying to figure out what I should do. This Marutuk guy had laid down an impressive display with his Elohim pals, but hadn’t given us much in the way of real information about our situation. The most valuable thing he’d told us was his claim that death here meant real death—but unless I’d been mistaken, he was some kind of player, albeit a very powerful one. That was a bit of a red flag for me, too. How much could we really trust what another player said? He could have all kinds of reasons for lying to us. It was all good reason to be even more cautious than I had been and to hasten my search for my sister, since she was either alive somewhere in the game—presumably—or already dead. Either way, I had to know. I should start by searching for some sign that I was on the right path.

As I’d considered the situation, the group’s arguments had grown more tense: Cody had caught Santo’s shoulder and was arguing with him loudly, Dancer and Victor were almost at each other’s throats, being held apart by a small, violet-haired monk named Jenna, Ian was deep in discussion with Haley, and the others chimed in at at random intervals. We weren’t going to get anywhere like this. I eyed the weapons on the marble platform, wondering if it would be worth the trouble to try to claim one of them and try to strike off on my own.

The grating sound of a sword drawn raggedly over stone cut through the hubbub like a knife. Everyone turned to see Shane the paladin sheathing his blade. Then his cool, authoritative tone spilled over us. “Why don’t we all just take a deep breath, sit down, and have a discussion about what’s going on, here? Is that reasonable?”

He didn’t speak loudly or forcefully. If anything, his voice was even softer and calmer than everyone else’s. But when Shane spoke, you just kind of wanted to listen and do what he suggested—not because you had to, but because it was so damn reasonable. It was a talent I’d seen other people demonstrate in my life, usually important people like CEOs or politicians, and I hadn’t the slightest idea how to do it myself, but I always admired the type of person who had that natural ease with directing people.

There was plenty of angry glaring and surreptitious glances at the four weapons, but everyone took a seat. I eased myself down in a cross-legged position on a patch of dry grass with my sword on the ground beside me. We formed a wide circle in front of the platform, with Haley settling down nervously on my right and a priest named Paige on my left.

“Now,” Shane continued. “It’s clear we have an unusual situation on our hands. Seems like the worst thing we could do is start fighting among ourselves. I have a suggestion. Can we start by agreeing that no one has to do anything and build from there?”

“Are you nuts…” Cody began, but Shane narrowed his eyes and looked at him sharply enough that the words died in Cody’s mouth.

“Do as you will, lest you do as you must,” Shane said, repeating the Elohim’s second law. “I don’t know what it means, but it seems like not forcing each other to do anything is a good start.”

“It could be an admonition to get stronger,” suggested Ian thoughtfully, flicking his blue ponytail over his shoulder. He spoke as though quoting: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Thucydides.” Then he glanced around the circle, and when no one replied, he blinked. “Book five? History of the Peloponnesian War? No? Oh. Sorry… I forget that my interests are a little…”

“Dorky?” Haley suggested.

Ian turned bright red and stared at the ground. “I was going to say obscure,” he mumbled.

A druid named Cupcake with her pink hair drawn into two, high pigtails patted Ian on the shoulder and said, “Don’t mind her, pal. That was helpful.”

Haley stiffened, her cheeks flushing, and she cleared her throat and returned her attention to Shane.

“In any case,” the green-eyed Paladin continued, “I suggest we start by respecting each other’s autonomy. If it makes sense to follow orders or you agree to follow someone’s orders, fine. But we’re not a press gang. No one has to do anything they don’t want to. Agreed?”

All around the circle heads nodded, mine included. Mutual respect was a great place to start in an environment where we could all start unleashing deadly force on each other at a moment’s notice. Even Cody nodded, though his face puckered into a sour grimace, presumably at the prospect of losing control of his little dictatorship.

“Great,” Shane said. “Next proposal: Anything that affects the entire group, we vote on.”

“And if there’s a tie?” Victor the ogre-magi demanded.

Shane shrugged. “We’ll deal with it when it happens.”

Again, the group grudgingly agreed.

“Now that that’s settled—”

“Hang on,” Victor interrupted. “Why do you get to make all the proposals?”

Shane inclined his head toward the mage with a slight smile. “By all means, go ahead.”

Victor snorted. “I propose we decide who gets those weapons. There’s sixteen of us and four of them. How do we pick?”

I’d been wondering the same thing, and I eyed the group nervously, my hand positioned near my blade, to see if another fight was about to break out.

“Do we even know what they are?” the priest beside me asked. Paige was one of the girls who hadn’t spoken yet. A white velvet robe enveloped her, and as she spoke her raised cowl slid back, exposing soft brown hair with a light curl and startlingly green eyes. When I saw her face, I sucked in a breath, my heart skipping a beat—but it wasn’t Brianna. Brianna would have revealed herself to me already, and lots of girls probably had green eyes and brown hair. The coloring was just a coincidence.

“Should someone retrieve them for a closer look?” Shane suggested.

“I nominate Cupcake,” Dancer said quickly, before either Cody or Victor could speak. The two men settled back down, glaring at each other and then at Dancer.

After waiting to see if anyone objected, Cupcake nodded and hopped up to retrieve each of the four weapons, gathering them from the beams of light and holding them carefully in her arms as though picking a bouquet of poisonous flowers. Each column winked out as she seized the weapon. Shane helped her down, and she laid them out on the ground in the middle of the circle, one by one. Now that they weren’t shielded by the weird light, my HUD identified each of them in turn.

Elohim Hammer

1H Blunt

10-20 Dmg

- Class: Paladin

- 2x damage to undead

- Skills cost 5mp less (min 1)

Elohim Rod

2H Blunt

4-9 Dmg

- Class: Mage

- Skills cost 10mp less (min 1)

- Spirit +10

Elohim Broadsword

2H Slashing

25-50 Dmg

- Class: Warrior

- Regain 25% health per slain foe

- Strength +10

Elohim Dagger

1H Slashing

3-7 Dmg

- Class: Wilder

- Skill: Weirding (5mp | Teleport to a location within 5 meters)

- Skill: Siphon (10mp | Tap an enemy for a short period of time, draining their health and diverting it to an ally of your choice.)

“Well that makes things a little easier,” Dancer said. “The right class should take the weapons, right? Although it’s dumb that that dagger isn’t for rogues.”

It was dumb, and again I was pleased I hadn’t chosen Wilder as my class. It looked like all the oddball skills would end up there, and it was anyone’s guess how viable it would be.

After a quick round of noisy discussion and voting, we had three clear winners: Julia silently accepted the dagger that could only go to her and stared at it with her unnerving silvery gaze, Cody claimed the broadsword after the other warrior Daniel chose not to compete for it, and Shane was unanimously voted as the recipient of the Paladin hammer.

Had I wanted it? Of course I had. That was a fucking cool hammer, and the base damage alone was twice what my crude sword sported, but there were three paladins and I wasn’t going to make waves against the one real voice of reason in our group. It made sense for Shane to take it, which was why both Jenkins—the other paladin—and I yielded to him. Besides, there would be other weapons.

As for the mage rod, we had a problem: Ian quietly declined, but neither Haley nor Victor was backing down. Things escalated quickly, and soon the two of them stood shouting at each other in the middle of the ring, the massive ugly hulk of a man towering over her and bellowing while the tiny red-faced girl screamed back at him. Shane finally calmed them down enough to take a vote, and when the group made their decisions, it was eight to seven in favor of Victor, with Ian abstaining. All of the women except Cupcake had voted for Haley. All of the men except for me and the bark-skinned druid named Trees had voted for Victor.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Haley asked loudly. “Why would you guys vote to give this pushy, arrogant jerk the staff over me?”

“The vote’s done,” Shane said gently. “We should move on.”

Santo shrugged at Haley. “Sorry chica. No offense, but Victor’s probably a better player than you are. Statistically speaking.” I winced.

“Well, fuck you, asshole,” Haley replied. “Is that what all you guys think? That Victor should get the rod just because I’m a girl?”

All of the other men who had voted for Victor quickly found something else to look at. Santo stared at her without expression. Shane coughed. Cody grinned. The warrior Daniel hedged: “No… not exactly…”

“I voted against you because you’re bossy,” Cupcake declared. “And you were mean to Ian.”

“Ian, come on,” Haley demanded, ignoring Cupcake. “Tie this up.”

Ian stared at his feet. “I probably wouldn’t vote for you…” he mumbled. I winced again.

“Guys.” Shane crossed his arms and took a more authoritative tone once again. “It doesn’t matter why anyone voted how they did. It’s done. We all agreed to abide by the group’s vote. Victor, take your rod.”

Victor grinned and reached to claim his prize while Haley’s face turned a stormy shade of purple I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen on a person before.

Before the bulky mage could bend far enough down to touch the weapon, the much shorter girl had dropped to the ground, snatched the rod, and taken off running. She flashed out of the circle and sprinted south, arms pumping hard and her red ponytail bobbing behind her as Victor stared after her with his mouth hanging open. I started laughing. Haley had some real brass balls… or whatever the female equivalent was.

“What is she doing?” Cody asked, vaulting up from his seated position.

“Whoa! Are we just going to let her go like that?” Victor demanded. He took a few lumbering steps after her, realized he’d never catch her, and looked around wildly at the other group members. Shane sighed.

“Go get her, tubby,” Dancer said with a sniff. She crossed her arms and turned to Trees with a bored expression. “You think there’s any food around here? I’m starving.”

Haley’s sprint carried her to the southern door, and as she approached, the wide stone slabs parted smoothly. Suddenly my amusement shifted to worry. I rose to my feet. She wouldn’t really go in there by herself, would she?

“Haley!” I shouted. “Haley, come back! We can work this out.”

She paused at the threshold, breathing hard, and glanced back toward the circle. No one had pursued her. Victor was still gaping at each of us in turn like he expected someone to rescue his ass from the little mage-thief.

“Get back here, you thieving cunt!” Victor screamed. I cursed under my breath.

Haley darted inside the south doors and vanished from sight.

“Well…” Victor said, dropping his hands to his sides and heaving a loud, dejected sigh. “Shit.”