"So what am I looking at?" Eli said as he donned the goggles. Like the door between worlds, the googles were another Realism invention of his. Brown leather, bronze rimmed, crystal glass; they were, as AV put it, "An intuitive way to toggle between visual streams."

Eli stood just outside the edge of the park inside a stationary cell. Through the goggles, he saw a wolf prowling around, beyond it another wolf. He pulled the goggles up on his head and looked at the park.

"The good news is the park is still here. I was afraid they might have paved over it."

The park was similar to how he remembered it. There was the lake Legend swam in, and the grass hills where they played, but the trees were all gone and the ground was sectioned into cells just like the street. Around the park, he could see people walking, sitting, laying down - each inside one of the park cells.

He pulled the goggles back down and looked at the roaming wolves.

"The bad news is the park is in the middle of a wolf pack. What do we know about these wolves? How tough are they?"

"Unknown. But doubtless, they are stronger than your character. Here, let me remind you."

A game interface window appeared, a model of Eli's avatar centered with various gear slots surrounding it, below that a box that contained game stats. Eli reviewed it.

Level zero. No path. No profession. No skills. No attributes. No experience. No gear. Well. I do have some gear. I have rough spun clothes. He skimmed over the rest of his sheet, it was entirely empty except a trait, Natural Crafter, which gave him a minor bonus to crafting skills. I bet that was the Nest experience translating over.

Yeah. I'm essentially a walking meat snack.

"How was I supposed to know that something was guarding the park?" Eli complained as he closed the character window. AV had advised him to start leveling his avatar on the walk over, but he decided against it.

"This is ridiculous. Just log me out," Eli pointed at a grass hill, "I can see the hill where we used to play. I'll just walk over, bury Legend, then walk back. Then we log back in and head back. Easy."

"Acknowledged. Logging out in 3...2...1. You are now disconnected from the system."

Eli was halfway to the hill when he noticed the first person watching him. The woman was sitting on the grass in the middle of one of the park's cells. Her completely armored face rotated towards him, moving with him.

He turned from watching her, to see two others standing up, facing his direction. One was a large man, partially armored, with a helmet that left his mouth exposed. The man was sneering.

The other could have been a man or woman, he couldn't tell under the complete armor.

He sped to a jog, making for the spot. More took notice of him, heads tracking with his motion. Arriving at the location, Eli looked around, every face in the park was facing towards him.

"This is a little creepy," Eli said as he unclipped the harness and took off the pack.

"Agreed."

Eli pulled a hand spade from his pack and got to work. It was slow going. The ground was wet and cold and he struggled to cut through the thick grass.

"I suggest you speed up." AV's voice had an uncharacteristic fever pitch. Eli looked up to see people heading in his direction; some were walking slowly, others almost sprinting.

He fumbled the spade trying to get up, grabbed the pack, hefting it onto his shoulder. The first person to arrive took up some kind of martial position before jumping toward him with a downward kick.

"New plan," Eli dodged, slipped on the wet ground, dropped his pack, and rolled before scrambling back to his feet.

"New plan, new plan. Door... door... Door!" Eli dodged another tackle before a third person landed an armored punch to his jaw. His head rocked to the side and he stumbled, the door appearing in front of him. He scrambled over to hook a hand through the pack straps pulling it with him through the door.

He turned around to see the door disappear. With a sigh he relaxed. It wasn't raining or cold. More importantly there was no crowd of armored people trying to kill him.

"Let's switch, I'll take this world." Eli looked around. He didn't remember about the wolves until he felt his own blood splash across his face.

***

Eli awoke gasping for breath. Laying on the ground he looked up, a canopy of trees and blue sky beyond. He could feel the warm earth on his back. He wasn't cold. He wasn't wet. Widesky then. He instinctively felt for his neck and found no injury or pain. He remembered feeling the collapse of his trachea, hearing the audible crunch of his neck cracking.

The game. It wasn't real.

"I respawned." He laughed at the complete ridiculousness of it. He sat up before standing and brushing himself off. He stumbled, leaned against the tree, and looked around. This was familiar. He crouched against the tree and saw, in the distance, a pack of wolves was tearing apart something that vaguely looked his size.

Disgusting.

Eli felt dizzy. He leaned his back against the tree, his mouth feeling wet.

"AV, the panels. Where are the panels?" His stomach lurched, he knelt and vomited onto the forest floor.

"AV?" he managed between heaves. The ground tilted and Eli collapsed into it. The world started spinning. Eli recognized this feeling. He tried to focus on something, one thing. The quivering shakes came first, then the seizures. He was still shaking when he lost consciousness.

***

When Eli awoke again everything ached. The world was too bright. The sounds were wrong, muted and echoed. His body shook.

"Character scr.. een," he said, his voice cracking. He swallowed. "Character screen".

When that didn't work he tried saying different words, all to no effect, until he tried "menu". The last brought up a way-too-bright menu of options. Eli selected the character screen. The now-familiar window appeared in the center. That done, Eli closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.

The character screen was still there when he awoke several hours later. Eli struggled to sit up, putting his back against the tree. With the character menu in place, he waited to see if he would get sick again, drifting in and out. After an hour, when he didn't feel any worse, he concluded that it worked.

Where did you go AV? And where is Legend? Did I lose the pack? My SNC? Where's my real body? How long have I been out? How much power do I have left?

He felt around his head for the headset, tried to feel for where the leads were, he felt nothing. He swallowed. If the system can move me in time with the traffic, it can probably prevent me from moving, keep me from pulling off my headset. I think I'm trapped.

In the morning he planned to find food and water. He never heard of people dying from lack of nutrition but he didn't know how long his real body could go without it. Would my real body get water if I found water in this game? He had many questions, few answers.

"I really messed us up this time AV."

***

Eli huddled against the large pine, his back pressed against the rough bark, trying to avoid the occasional rain drop. His eyes were closed as he reviewed the interface menu. He'd tried walking around with the character screen open. A few roots, and a mouth full of mud later he decided to find a better way.

Quest log takes up some space, can I... yes. Okay, drag it over here... make it opaque. With that plus the health and mana resource meters, the experience bar, action buttons, mini map. Will that be enough?

He opened his eyes slowly then blinked several times. Better than last time. Testing, he turned to look around the tree and immediately clenched his eyes closed as a wave of dizziness crashed over him. Still not good enough.

After the dizziness passed, he started tweaking again. Event log? Eli enabled it and positioned it in an unoccupied corner. He skimmed the last few entries.

Elder Wolf attacks you with Bite.

You have taken 12 damage from Elder Wolf's Bite (4 overkill).

You have died.

You have been resurrected at your last safe location.

You have resurrection sickness.

Your resurrection sickness has faded.

He shook his head. I only have 8 health? With the event log in place, Eli opened his eyes again, tested, turning his head, before bracing against the tree to stand. When he didn't get dizzy, he took a few steps into the rain, and turned around a few times, to be sure.

Finally. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with fresh forest air. He stepped back around the tree, edging closer to the territory of the wolves. He slowed his steps down, trying to lightly transfer the weight between feet, avoiding leaves or twigs.

His foot was a finger span from a twig when he stopped, moved past it, and stepped down.

Knock. Eli froze when a hollow Knock echoed around him. He scanned the area, crouching down to make himself smaller. He saw nothing. It wasn't until he was scanning the ground that he noticed two new lines in the event log.

You have learned the skill: Stealth.

Stealth has increased by 1.

He moved to a tree and stood against it, searching the copse ahead for wolves. Showing some proficiency in a skill allows you to learn it and earn points. He considered what that meant for him, or anyone with proficiency in a specific area.

There ahead, sheltering in the clearing of a small group of trees, laid an enormous wolf. The wolf gnawed on a bloody bone. About him lay the remains of a recent kill. Eli stepped around the large tree, intentionally practicing his new stealth skill. He watched the map in the top corner of his screen. When a red dot appeared on the map, he paused.

Now, according to the in-game beginner's guide, I should be able to see the wolf's level. Eli crouched low and moved over till he could see the wolf. Above the wolf was a red bar, showing health, and above that some text: Elder Wolf. After focusing on the wolf for a moment, a small window appeared near it.

Elder Wolf

Level 12

Hostile

Eli watched the wolf crack the bones, the audible crack and crunch of the bones. Around the wolf were remnants of other adventurers. He saw some clothes like his, but also some brown leather, even what looked like a dress.

I'm guessing that's about 8 levels too much for me?

He backed up slowly. Once he was far enough away that he couldn't see the wolf on his mini-map, he opened his full-sized map and dragged a marker over to where the wolf was.

"Wolf that ate me." he verbally labeled the spot where the wolf was.

Okay. Right about there is where I dropped the pack. If no-one moves it, then it should still be there. Not that it'll do me any good since I can't sense it at all.

An idea was forming, but it wasn't mature enough to create a plan. Instead, he moved further from the wolves and back to where he entered the world.

I've got to find some water and food.

He didn't feel hungry or thirsty, but his actual body might, so he needed to find regular sustenance.

I don't know if it works like that, but maybe since it could move me in the actual world, maybe eating here will have me eat there?

There wasn't any way to verify it. No way to know if it was helping. For all Eli knew he would die of dehydration in the real world, never having felt the least bit thirsty.

Once free of the forest, Eli could relax. He pulled up his map, tried to guess which way he'd come from. AV had handled that part. AV had the entire knowledge base of Widesky. Eli abruptly sat down and looked over the hills. The realization hit him. He'd relied on AV for so much. Without AV, he felt truly disabled for the first time in his entire life.

"AV?" he said.

There was no response. He didn't expect a response. There was an outside chance that AV could still sense him.

"Don't know if you can hear me, but the situation isn't great." Eli began.

"I've lost the pair from my headset to the SYC, so all I have to go on is what the headset is showing me. That you haven't reconnected me, tells me I can't pair, so either I'm not in range or we broke something in the park." He leaned back and looked at the sky.

"I've got a basic plan. Get powerful enough to defeat those wolves, keep drinking and eating, and go back and try finding the pack. I know it's not a brilliant plan. But it's something I can do at least."

Eli opened his map. Starting areas were usually close to a small village. He looked at the area. There was a small village not too far from where he was, and not too far out of the way, a lake.

He started walking.