Awareness came to him in shreds.

Dim, orange firelight illuminating the moss-covered stone walls. Next to him, a set of winding stone steps led upward into darkness. The space was cramped, the walls curved. They were inside a tower. People were screaming, crying, or laughing outside. He couldn’t tell which.

EXPERIENCE GAINED: 350 points (520/1,000 to next level)

The notification failed to get him excited. Were they safe for now?

“The...ceeb...ceebron—”

“Dead,” Will said. “We killed it. You almost hit zero HP, too. But we got to you in time.”

Carey eyed his vital stats. All full. They had healed him up, or he had simply slept away the damage.

Thank God.

He sat up. Beyond the empty stone doorframe, he could see villagers laughing, reveling, rolling wooden kegs of beer, participating in mock sword fights, and just generally being drunken fools proud of themselves for defeating the dragon-thing that would haunt Carey’s nightmares for the rest of his life.

“Glad that’s over,” Carey said. “Why aren’t you guys partying outside?”

“Well, for one,” Beatrice said, gazing into the fire, “we had to look after you. Plus, it’s the same thing every time we beat that thing. They always party afterward.”

“We got cocky,” Will informed Carey. “Sorry about that. You’re just a Level 1. We should have known better.”

“Could have stayed back, though,” Beatrice said. “Like we told you to do.”

Carey rubbed his face. “Apology accepted, if that’s what this is. How many times have you guys fought that thing?”

“Four.” Beatrice glanced at Will. “Five?”

“Five,” Will said. “Good for leveling. The first few times, we mostly stayed on the outskirts. This time was way closer than I feel comfortable with.”

“Good for leveling—and killing your friends,” Carey added. “Though I’m not sure if you guys would think of me as a friend. I haven’t gotten that party invite yet.”

“Here,” Will said.

He willed something to happen. Carey could tell by the way Will squinted that his mind was intuitively triggering something in the menus. Beatrice shrugged in reluctant agreement.

“Fine,” she said. “Why not?”

You have been invited to join the party Renegades of Astros

Do you accept?

“A couple of renegades like you guys?” Carey smiled at...could he call them his friends now? “I’m almost intimidated.”

The invite disappeared. Beatrice smiled wickedly at him.

“Time’s up,” she said.

“Hey! Come on! I was just kidding!”

You have accepted the invitation to join Renegades of Astros

MAIN QUEST 1.2 “It’s Party Time!” has been completed!

The XP gain hit him less than a second after the notification flashed across his field of vision.

EXPERIENCE GAINED: 225 points (745/1,000)

Once he’d accepted the invitation, Carey got up and jumped a few times, testing his new legs. The excitement of being a Feral still ran through his veins, though not as euphoria-inducing as before. Maybe he was getting used to it.

Nice work! You survived your first battle with a Cebron!

EXPERIENCE GAINED: 300 points (1,045/1,000)

LEVEL UP!

Congratulations, adventurer!

YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 2!

Carey didn’t wait to level up, not even to get feedback first. He knew what he had to do.

He increased his light armor skill and brought lockpicking to 8.

The armor was to protect him, but the lockpicking was to have a way to gain loot from locked chests to buy the armor he needed. From now on, he would make scouting for chests and loot a priority, as well as upgrading his armor pieces until he had a matching set of something great.

It felt incredible. Suddenly, he knew the very basics of a once-foreign subject—how to wear light armor somewhat more effectively, whether it was made of hide, fur, leather, or chitin; how to repair minor tears and breaks; and how to move just right so arrows and spells would hit his armor instead of vulnerable spots like his neck. As for lockpicking, it wasn’t much but he felt a rush of knowledge regarding the nitty-gritty mechanisms, like setting drivers and proper alignment.

“Good choice,” Beatrice said, after Carey explained his decision.

“Smart,” Will added.

He couldn’t forget about the extra point to one of his attributes. Carey chose Agility because it would increase his light armor and lockpicking skills, among several others. Instead of one point, his Feral bonus doubled it to two.

His tail flexed and curled as he thought about his character build. Christ, he hadn’t even shapeshifted yet! It would be so cool to become an animal, but that was next-level stuff. Just walking on two legs was enough to keep him occupied for now. The animal part would come soon.

I will unleash the beast, mark my words.

MAIN QUEST 1.3 – REACH TYRATHON AND JOIN THE FORGE

Recommended Level: 20+

Reach Tyrathon and ask its citizens about the Forge until you hear enough rumors to locate one of the army’s commanders, who is in hiding somewhere in the city. Find him and learn how to join the Forge—or kill him so that you may gain acceptance into the Low Order as one of its spies.

XP REWARD: 5,000

ACCEPT QUEST: Yes OR No?

As Carey accepted, a thought occurred to him about the events of the past few hours. “Hey, guys. Something’s not right. Why did I pass out? I still had Health and Stamina left. Shouldn’t I be able to play just fine until those hit zero?”

Good ol’ Will was ready with an explanation.

“Remember,” he said, “this is partly taking place inside your brain. Your mind makes it real, like Morpheus says in The Matrix.”

“I love that movie!”

This time Carey raised his hand for a high-five, which Will eagerly accepted.

“So, I can pass out anytime?” Carey asked. “That’s not good.”

“It’s something to work on,” Will explained. “You’re always going to feel pain. And if you get poisoned or diseased, you’ll always feel weak or sick...”

“To an extent,” Beatrice added.

Will nodded in agreement. “It gets easier the more you play. Once you start realizing it’s not really real.”

“But it’s real enough to kill you,” Carey reminded them. “If that’s not real, I don’t know what is.”

Will shrugged. “Either way, you don’t got any nerve endings. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

A man passed nearby, swinging a pint of beer and singing at the top of his voice. A line from the song—“Astride the dragon, riders came”—reminded Carey about the Cebron corpse, which must have been lying around somewhere. He spotted it and saw that half of its massive bulk was gone, the villagers having taken the meat. A seven-foot-tall, bloodstained rib cage made for a ghastly landmark in the light of a bonfire. Surely, it had already been looted.

“I can’t take a chance like that again,” Carey said, mostly to himself.

Grass crunched behind him as Will approached. “Whaddaya mean?”

“I almost died a low-level dumbass noob who tried to take on a Cebron. I can’t let that happen again. I won’t die a miserable failure.”

“It’s just a game,” Beatrice said. “No one cares how you play or die.”

“But I do. As long as we’re jacked into this nightmare, we should think of it as real life. That attitude of ‘it’s just a game’ is going to get us killed.”

Carey walked over to a man lying unconscious on the grass, a smile still plastered across his drunken, slumbering face. He pried an empty mug from the man’s hand and headed toward the nearest beer keg.

Beatrice and Will followed him. Carey had to admit, it felt pretty good leading them around for once.