Theo ran forward to Ron, already knowing it was too late. He stopped just before he got to him, not able to look at the gaping wound where his head had once been. Off to the side, his blank expression still stared out of the mud, his severed head having rolled to a stop near the creek.

“What the fuck!” Blake said, “what — what —“

He began to breath heavily. “He’s dead. He’s fucking dead!”

Theo could only stare. The man who had just wanted to find his daughter, now laying dead in the mud, his head cleaved from his body.

Alice stepped towards them, covering her nose with her sleeve. Ron had — like everyone — released his bowels when he died, and the smell was atrocious. “Animals? More monsters?” She said.

Theo knelt, covering his nose with his cloak. “This wound…”

Wilderness Medicine Skill Activated!

“It’s too clean to be a claw. It’s almost a perfect slice, like a…” Theo started.

“Like a sword,” Blake finished.

“An ambush,” Alice said.

“Other players,” Blake growled, “it has to be.”

“We never should have left them,” Theo said, “this is my fault. I split the party up, I should have known that taking all the combat specialists was a bad idea, splitting the party was a bad idea…”

Blake put a hand on his shoulder. “You couldn’t have known. Don’t blame yourself, man.”

Theo reached forward with a shaking hand and closed Ron’s eyes. The skin of his severed head felt clammy to the touch.

Then he stood. “We need to find the others. Leyah, and…”

He couldn’t say her name. She’d been out gathering, so maybe she was alright. Maybe Jessica had been hiding when the ambush happened. Theo turned to Tiberius.

“Can you sniff them out?” He asked.

Tiberius held his tail between his legs, his ears flat against his head. He nudged Ron’s arm, as if expecting him to wake up. Then he whined and took off, his nose pressed to the ground.

In a few moments, they found Leyah. She was laying in the woods not far from Ron, face down. Her back was peppered with arrows, and blood stained her brown robes. She was still, and Theo knew that she was dead.

“Oh, fuck,” Alice whispered. She moved towards Leyah and knelt by her, checking her pulse. Theo was surprised to see this moment of concern from Alice, but he supposed that Alice, Ron, and Leyah had bonded while Blake, Jessica, and Theo were off by themselves. Theo watched Alice’s eyes close, and thought he saw tears begin to fall.

“Who the fuck would do this?” she asked, “what, just for some stupid experience points? They killed them. They ambushed her. She never even had a chance to fight back.”

“Not just experience points,” Blake said, “real universal power. People will do anything for power. Kill, steal, lie, cheat.”

“We need to find Jessica,” Theo said, interrupting, “now.”

Tiberius led the way, wandering around for a while, but couldn’t nail down a scent. They searched the cave, but found that anything they’d left there had been taken. The bodies, too, were looted.

Tiberius eventually found a scent, and stood at attention, pointing into a nearby thicket of trees and vines. A small path led through the thicket, and Theo knelt, examining scuffs in the dirt.

Bushcraft Skill Activated!

“Looks like… five people. Moving through the woods, that way. Dragging something behind them,” he said. He moved along the path, using his Bushcraft skill to examine the markings left behind by the other party. The signs were easy, once he looked: a drop of dried blood here, a broken branch there. And then he saw it. He moved over and pulled a small ribbon of fabric from a nearby tree branch. It wasn’t much, just a few fibers of white cloth, some soaked in blood.

“Jessica’s robe,” he said, holding it, “they took her. Dragged her away.”

“Why?” Blake said, “why take her, why not kill her like the others?”

“She’s a healer. Maybe one of them was hurt, and they couldn’t get enough health potions. I don’t know.”

Blake frowned. “Makes sense, I guess. On the bright side, it seems like she’s alive. If they took her, they must have had a reason.”

“We need to get her back,” Theo said, “now.”

He set off in the direction of the group. But Blake’s hand clamped on his shoulder.

“Theo, be smart about this. There are five of them, and three of us. And they have a hostage. We know that they’re willing to kill people, and they might have killed others before us. That means they’re all probably higher level than us, too. We can’t just walk into their camp and demand Jessica back.”

Theo scowled, but he knew Blake was right. Despite the emotions burning inside him, he was no match for five other players. They needed a plan.

“We can scope them out,” Alice said, “find out what their weaknesses are.”

“That’s a good idea,” Theo said, moving towards the woods again. But Blake didn’t let go of his shoulder.

“Not now. We need time to recover. I’m injured. We’re all exhausted and haven’t eaten since god knows when. We need to recover. Regroup. Come up with a plan. We can go once night falls. That will give us more cover.”

Theo met Blake’s eyes. He was right. Blake was always the more sensible of the two, and when it came to Jessica, Theo couldn’t keep his emotions out of it. He thought about what she’d said before Theo had left for the hunt. Then we’re in it together.

I won’t leave you behind, Jess, he thought, we’re in it together.

They moved back to the stone head. They knew that they couldn’t stay there, as the people who killed Leyah and Ron knew the location of their camp. And they wanted to bury the bodies their comrades. They hadn’t known them all that well, but they’d been thrust into something together beyond their control, and they had earned the right to a burial.

They didn’t have any tools to dig graves, so they made a makeshift tomb out of the giant’s head. They placed the bodies inside, lined up Ron’s head with his body, and removed the arrows from Leyah’s back. Then they folded their arms over their chests, laid them side by side, and closed their eyes. After that, they piled stones in front of the entrance to the giant’s head until it was completely buried. It took a few hours, and by the end of it they were sweating and tired. Theo said something nice about each of them before they left, and they gathered flowers for the entrance to the fresh-made tomb. Afterwards, they set out for new shelter.

They hiked a little ways away, following the creek until they came to a clearing littered with rubble. It seemed to be from the same statue as they head they’d camped in, only this clearing was defined by a large stone hand, reaching up through the dirt. There was a small fire pit made of rubble in the center of the hand, in the shadow of its huge stone fingers.

They gathered some wood from the nearby forest, dead and dried branches of pine trees. The sun began to set, and night birds called out their lonely cries. Theo summoned a flame in the fire-pit using Minor Magic, and they began roasting their rabbit meat. They ate in silence, wary of the woods around them. Theo knew that an open flame was a risk, what with roving bands killing in the woods, but they needed a warm meal. Theo knew that morale was low — rightfully so. So they ate their meat and listened to wolves howl in the distance.

The meat helped Blake’s wounds. Not as much as a health potion would, but it seemed there was some health energy left in the meat as well, and it transferred to the wounds on Blake’s back. Theo was starting to get a sense of how Universal Power worked. There was power in everything, and consuming it, or killing it, or bonding with it somehow, allowed on to take on some of that Power. Mana, Health, and Stamina were just parts of the Power, of a greater whole. And the whole Game seemed oriented around distributing that power, moving it from the natural world and into the players.

“Okay,” Theo said, once they’d eaten something, “I know we’re all tired, but our window to find Jessica is closing. If it rains tonight, Tiberius might not be able to pick up the scent. We need to go, and we can sleep once we’ve gathered info.”

“Theo…” Blake started, “we’re exhausted. I’m not fully healed. Are we sure it’s a good idea?”

Alice nodded. “She’ll have to wait till morning,” she said.

Theo grimaced. “You told me that we would go after her as soon as we were rested. Well, we’re rested. So we’re going.”

“All four of us trudging through the woods at night? What are the chances we can actually get close to them?” Blake said, “it’s not a good plan. We need something else.”

Alice nodded in agreement. Theo grit his teeth.

“Fine. If you won’t help me, I’ll go alone,” he said.

“Wait—“ Blake started. But Alice stopped him.

“No, that’s a good idea. Theo and Tiberius will make good scouts. They can move faster and more quietly than we all can together. And he knows the woods,” Alice said.

Blake thought for a moment, and then begrudgingly said: “But then he’ll be exposed alone. And we’ll be down to two. What if another monster comes? Or worse, more players?”

“We can handle ourselves,” Alice said. She flipped a knife between her fingers, running the blade in quick, agile loops.

“No fire. No noise. At least one of you stays awake until we return. Got it?” Theo said. He hated to admit it, and he was angry at both of them, but this was the best way.

Alice and Blake nodded. Blake stood to say something, but Theo had already turned around, Tiberius at his heels, and started running into the forest.

The forest was pitch black save for scattered beams of moonlight. He didn’t have night vision, but with Call of the Wild, he could sense every living thing around him. He opened up his druidic senses, and felt the trail as a blank patch before him, surrounded by trees, shrubs, and branches on each side. He leapt over roots and rocks as he followed Tiberius deeper into the forest, pounding as silently as he could along the dirt trail. Tiberius communicated with him, not through words, but through faint impressions and sensations. It was like they were one, part of a greater whole. He could almost sense the smell that Tiberius was following, ever so faintly.

The trail began to ascend, and they ran up the side of a small butte. He could feel his stamina dropping, that green pool of energy diminishing with each heavy breath. Sweat began to coalesce on his forehead, and he feared his breathing was too loud, might draw some attention to them. He wondered how much longer they would have run.

Enemy. Near.

Tiberius said into his mind. He slowed to a trot, and they began creeping up the rest of the rocky trail. A small distance away, Theo could see a small fire burning between the boughs of the trees. They were at the top of the butte now, and his life-sense spotted six people at the very top of the hill. He crept slowly towards them, Tiberius stalking silently beside him, and peered over a large boulder.

The top of the hill seemed to be the base of a ruined tower. Crumbling stone walls surrounded a fire pit in the center, their stones overgrown with roots and vines. In the center of the ruined tower, five people stood.

A sixth person sat against a tree trunk, her white robes stained with dirt and blood, her hands tied behind her mouth. A gag filled her mouth, and tears streaked her face, making her curling hair stick to her cheeks.

Jessica.