Nick watched as the barrier dropped and sucked in a deep breath, clearing his mind and focusing solely on the act of breathing for a moment. What Jacob had sent threatened to send him into a downward spiral of negative thoughts. What was worse was that Maddy didn’t step in to correct him. Looking at her he just saw a guilty face. Damn. He really was in the deep end wasn’t he?

“What level?” He asked.

“It starts at level three. Apparently it gets stronger with every class evolution.” Maddy said quietly.

“Well I’ve got a bit of time then.” He said with a smile. Ignoring the growing feeling of doom and gloom blossoming in his stomach, he thought about his family. If he had limited time he’d have to set his family up for as much success as possible. Wait, backtracking a bit he had an idea. A stupidly simple solution.

“What if I just don’t level up?”

That gave pause to both Maddy and Jacob.

“Well yeah that would work I guess. But it means you’d be staying weak.”

Insane or weak? Well it seemed like a rather simple choice for Nick. He’d just get a second class, one that wouldn’t make him insane, then power level that. That seemed like a reasonable solution to him.

Nick then watched as Casper separated from Reggie’s group and darted off towards the forest with a speed that Nick could barely follow. Reggie had pulled out a lounge chair from somewhere and was sitting back with his feet up. Tough at the top aye.

Tony then stomped towards the trio.

“What are you doing! MOVE!” He screamed.

Nick then took a decisive step towards the one of the squirrels that his skill suggested was golden. His negative feelings of Tony were threatening to turn violent. The man was using him and clearly never intended to tell him the cost of his services. Instead of turning on Tony now, he just strode off into the field. He didn’t wait for Maddy or Jacob, frankly he didn’t care if they were with him or not.

Nick broke into a sprint, noticing that a bag was hanging around his waist. It had a crude drawing of a squirrel on it so Nick decided it was just somewhere to store the squirrels he caught. As he was running towards the forest he saw he wasn’t the only one and certainly not the fastest. He knew he had something they didn’t though. Activating the skill again he noticed that the squirrels had begun to move now that the barrier had dropped. He’d certainly have his work cut out for him.

He entered into the forest and was thankful he had chosen to wear a pair of running shoes he’d found in a cupboard. He moved quickly towards the squirrel he could sense but as he got close all he saw was a figure with white hair dash in and grab a golden shape before disappearing back into the trees. The squirrel disappeared from his sense once the figure, who was likely Casper, had grabbed it. Reaching out with his skill he noticed a lot of the squirrels were quickly disappearing.

Everyone here was faster than him and probably far more experienced, it didn’t matter if he could see all the squirrels if he didn’t have the ability to catch them. Nick had an idea and ignored his treasure sense, he just ran in a direction for a while. He covered hundreds of metres and soon found himself completely surrounded by the forest, but he kept running. When his map showed that he was deep into the forest and away from the field he then activated the skill again. He took a second to find a golden squirrel then bolted after it.

His idea was that people would be focused on scouring the area around the field and moving out from there. While he was sure that not everyone would be doing the same thing, it would at least give him less competition for the squirrels out here. During his running he had noticed that Maddy was following along behind him, though Jacob wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Nick wasn’t in the mood to talk so he just focused on his target. He quickly found the golden squirrel, who was literally that. It was a normal squirrel that looked like someone had taken a spray can of glittery gold to it. Poor thing. Nick leapt towards it, attempting to grab it before it could react to him. It simply bounded away a few metres and looked at him. It had moved faster than Nick could feasibly catch it, now he had a new problem to deal with. He started wondering if he could treat the critter like an enemy and game his haste buffing skill into working, then he heard a twang.

Then the golden critter had an arrow through it, pinning it to a tree. He turned and looked at Maddy, who held a bow in her hand and gave him a small smile. He nodded then walked over to the critter and bagged it. He went to hand the arrow to Maddy but it just dissipated in his hand.

“Neat isn’t it?”

“Yeah this magic business is pretty cool.” Nick said, a smile creeping across his face.

The duo then made their way through the forest, finding then shooting any critters unlucky enough to fall under Nick’s new sense. Maddy never put any of the squirrels into her own bag, making Nick take them all. After a while Nick wondered how their efforts stacked up against everyone else, they had managed to get five golden and ten normal squirrels so far. He asked Maddy.

“Eh Casper always wins, he gets between 30 and 40 points every time. I’d say 10 to 15 is the average for everyone else. We’ve already done amazingly.”

If those were the stats then she wasn’t wrong, they’d managed to net around 25 points so far. He started to wonder if they could beat Casper’s score, though he had no idea how much time they had left. Once again he turned to Maddy. She pulled out a watch-looking object he hadn’t seen before. It was a circular crystal that had a watch face inlaid in it.

“We have about fifteen minutes or so left. While it would be cool to come first and finally see someone beat Casper, I’m not sure it’s the best idea. Reggie doesn’t take losing very well.”

Nick decided it wasn’t worth the chance in that case. He asked if they should start walking back, looking at the huge distance they’d covered on his map. He’d be surprised if they made it back in time, they’d covered quite a few kilometres in their hunt. Maddy waved him off and said they wouldn’t have to worry about it. Accepting her wisdom, Nick decided to try and catch a squirrel himself with the last bit of time they had.

He eventually managed to catch one with a bit of convoluted gaming. He’d locate one, then sneak up as close as he could and he’d have Maddy fire an arrow just behind him. As he moved away from the arrow and towards the squirrel he activated Hasty Escape, focusing on getting away from the arrow. This would let the skill activate and then he’d use the speed boost to pounce on the critter. Thankfully they went still as soon as you touched them, otherwise he was sure it would have easily escaped his grip.

He triumphantly raised the critter into the air, yelling out and displaying his prize to the world. He then realised that Maddy wasn’t his only audience, Casper was sitting up in a tree and watching him. Nicky raised an eyebrow at the man and Maddy turned to find out what he was looking at, she let out a surprised yelp when she saw him.

“Hello there.” Nick opened with.

“Hey.” The man responded.

“Anything I can help you with?”

“Nah. Just watching.” Casper spoke simply, like he was doing something perfectly normal.

“Righto then.” Nick turned to Maddy. “Is he normally like this?”

Maddy tilted her head in thought. “I’m not sure, never met him before. From what I’ve heard, he doesn’t talk much.”

“Yeah I could see why that would be.” Nick said, looking back at the man and putting the critter he was holding into his bag. “So my man, how many squirrels did you catch?”

“Eight gold.” Casper replied.

Panic shot through both Maddy and Nick’s eyes. “Shouldn’t you uh, go catch a few more? Like just one more gold perhaps?”

“No.”

“I really think you should man.” Nick said desperately, he had already got one asshole on his back, he didn’t need a bigger, more powerful, asshole joining in.

“No. You win.” Casper said matter of factly.

Nick’s eye’s bulged. Casper was doing this on purpose. “C’mon man, it doesn’t have to be like this. Why you gotta screw me like this.”

Casper didn’t even blink. “Reggie said so. You win.”

That certainly sent Nick for a spin. Reggie had told Casper to let him win? Why? At least it likely didn’t mean Reggie would get mad, that seemed like a win. His mind churned, trying to work out why Reggie would set him up to win. That’s when Maddy spoke up.

“Reggie’s putting a target on Tony.” She sounded a little shocked. “He brought attention to him before and this will certainly bring the 72nd floor to public attention. No one’s beaten Reggie before. Why though?”

“Too weak. Bad leader. Need better leader for war.” Casper spoke calmly, his deadpan expression unchanging.

“War…” Nick muttered.

“War.” Casper confirmed.

Well fuck. He was dealing with a dickhead dictator with a target on his back, the possibility of going insane and now a coming war. He really had to wonder if his lucky passive was actually working in reverse. He then heard a laugh. He turned and saw Maddy was laughing.

“You alright Maddy?”

Even Casper tilted his head in apparent confusion.

“This is my out. I can finally get away from the asshole.” She said, face full of smiles.

“Couldn’t you leave any time? What stopped you?” Nick asked.

“Nick, there’s a reason Tony makes everyone keep their families in a separate place. I’m sure you can work it out.”

Nick had his worst fears confirmed. They were being held hostage. He had his suspicions but part of him had stayed hopeful, Tony couldn’t have been completely rotten to the core right? Well, it seems he was. It then explained why a team that were all likely stronger than Tony himself were subservient to him.

“Why doesn’t everyone just group up and uh, remove him from power?” He asked.

“He’s got everyone pitted against each other. Jacob is completely loyal to him for whatever reason and we can’t openly discuss anything with him around. Tony is an Assassin, while weak, he could kill our families quicker than we could likely respond to.”

“Well fuck. Definitely a good thing Reggie wants him gone then.”

“Eh, there will always be another asshole. From what I hear Muhammad is worse. Doyle seems decent. That’s where I’ll be going.”

“Doyle is a good guy.” Casper confirmed in his most complete sentence yet. “Weak. Strong leader though.”

Well with that glowing recommendation it seemed like the 71st floor certainly was the place to be. He needed to devise a plan to get his own family down there.

“Any chance I can bring my family and come with you?” He asked Maddy.

She hesitated and thought about it for a bit. “That could be a bit more challenging…” She said, pausing in thought again. “...But it should be manageable. We’ll likely need a bigger team to escort them all through the car park though.”

Casper interrupted their impromptu planning with a single word. “Time.”

With that the world went white for a moment then Nick was back in the field, Maddy next to him and he could see Casper already mostly back to the group near Reggie. Reggie saw Nick looking in his direction and flashed him a toothy grin.

Nick was then accosted by a very agitated looking Tony.

“How many did you get kid!?”

Maddy cut in. “The leaderboard will reveal it soon, then we’ll know.”

Nick was glad Maddy had spoken for him, it was taking all of his will power to not lunge at the man. The realisation that Tony was threatening his family lit a deep and violent anger within Nick. Thankfully Nick was distracted by a giant, floating, scoreboard. There were four of them surrounding the area that the group was penned into, letting everyone see it no matter where they were.

Squirrel Score!

1. Nick Jones - 26

2. Casper - 24

3. - - -

- - - - -

The scoreboard showed the top ten scorers but Nick only recognised two of the names. His and Caspers, right up in one and two. Suddenly there was a small explosion of confetti that surprised him and a small chest appeared in the air in front of him.

Tony had a large smile plastered across his face and Nick frowned. No matter what was in this chest, he knew Tony would be taking it all.