Sapphire raised her hand high in the air. “Hey, folks!” she greeted them loudly. “What seems to be the problem?”

The four all turned to her. The woman rolled her eyes, and one man just sighed, but the two others strode forward with grim purpose. One of them was the one quite certain it had been a bear at the heart of the issue.

Sapphire politely listened to them all explain their personal theory as to what had caused the damage. Then Quill followed her and Jane into the damaged pen to look for clues.

The muddy soil was all torn up, with deep gouges that looked like claw marks. And yes, there were plenty of paw prints. Even Quill could tell they seemed unusually large. But then again, he was no expert in animal tracks. He raised a questioning brow at Jane.

She just shrugged, apparently not knowing any more than he did.

Sapphire, however, nodded. “Yep, these are bear prints, all right.”

The man who’d argued the same turned to give his peers a triumphant, I-told-you-so look.

The woman spoke dismissively. She didn’t seem to be all that impressed with Sapphire’s skills. “Clearly, these are too large to be a bear. Any experienced hunter or tracker could tell you that.”

Sapphire stilled and turned a little red at that.

The woman continued. “It was either a monster or thieves with a mage trying to make it look like a bear had been here.”

“Seems like an awful lot of trouble for a thief,” Quill noted out loud. He looked at the villagers. “What did they take?”

“My Betsy!” one man said. “Half the age of ol’ Emma there.” He pointed at the other cow. “Why, I was even thinking of having her bred. She was prime breedin’ stock, she was.”

Jane looked sceptical. “You think thieves and a mage stole a cow? Isn’t that a bit overkill? And why would they do that instead of stealing, I don’t know, money or something?”

The woman convinced of her theory didn’t seem to pick up on Jane’s line of thought. She just stared without answering.

“Nothing else?” Quill asked the villagers. “Did they break into a house or take equipment or something?”

The farmer shook his head. “No. Just took the cow. And made a damned mess of my fence, too.”

“Whoever’s been doing it,” another man added, “they been doin’ it for a month. Breaking into to farms and ranches, makin’ off with all sorts of livestock. Ol’ Morisson lost fourteen chickens.”

“Mable lost her horses, both of ‘em.”

“Gajeau a cow one week, his bull two weeks later.”

“Causing all kinds of damage, too.”

Sapphire nodded. “Ok. We’ll take a look. Seems like the prints go off that way.” She pointed towards a nearby forest.

Quill squinted. The trees over there were thick and tall. That wasn’t like the nice, easy area he and Jane had been hunting wolves in. He went over to Jane’s side. “That area is bound to be higher level, a different subzone. I’m not sure we’re ready to do this quest yet.”

She looked thoughtful. “You think maybe we got it early?”

“Maybe? There was no quest mark over Saphire’s head when we talked to her. The quest only came up through conversation.”

“But why would she have been standing there at the end of our low-level quest if we weren’t supposed to interact with her?” Jane argued back.

Quill shrugged. “Bug in the system?”

Jane hummed and hawed. “Whatever. Let’s just keep going. If things look too hard, we’ll just run away.”

He gave her a flat stare.

She rolled her eyes. “Ok, fine. You run. And carry me.”

He still stared.

She snorted and bit back a smile. “Right. Don’t we make a pair? I guess we’ll just…hope Sapphire can handle whatever we come across.”

Quill grumbled. “We’ve really got to find a way to improve our stats.” An idea occurred to him. “You know, I wonder if we can increase base stats manually?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, our weapons skills go up the more we use them, right?” They’d taken note of that in their player menu earlier. “What if you get more Stamina from jogging or running around a lot, just like in real life? Or in those litrpgs where anytime a character does anything, they skill up.”

Her face brightened. “Maybe! We should try that later. We can work out!” Then she snickered. “I’ve read serials like that. Guy drinks fifteen beers at a tavern. Farting, level five!”

“Girl says something ‘witty’. Sarcasm, level eight.”

“Climbing trees while intoxicated during the summer on weekdays, level nineteen!”

They both laughed.

The two of them strode alongside Sapphire as they made their way past the farms and into rolling grasslands. In a half hour, they were finally at the edge of the forest.

Jane checked her map. “Duskpines. New subzone.”

They stepped into a sickly pine forest with lots of white moss hanging from lower branches that were oft-bare of needles, though higher branches were still full, blocking a lot of light. The atmosphere was decidedly creepy and a huge change from the sunny grasslands. The temperature grew cool, and the air humid.

The first creatures they saw made all three halt in their tracks.

“Giant spiders,” Quill breathed. An arachnid standing as tall as his waist slowly ambled along between the trees ahead of them. It was black and hairy and had huge fangs.

Jane turned pale.

He shuddered. “I hate spiders.”

She gulped and nodded. “Me too.”

Sapphire hefted her bow and nocked an arrow. She aimed at the spider, then lowered her bow and nervously spoke. “Um…let’s go around those, huh? Way around.”

The spider had a number above it in red: 8. Gray numbers were below a player’s level, awarding no XP. White numbers were around the player’s level and awarded normal XP. Red was far above the player’s level and likely much too dangerous to fight, especially alone or in a small group.

“Look at their levels. This is definitely above us,” Quill whispered as they crept along, going wide of the spider. His feet stepped carefully on the soft soil. Hmm. Really soft soil. He marvelled at the way he sank and kind of bounced on it. This was old forest indeed.

“Let’s just find out where those tracks lead and get out of here,” Jane whispered back. “We just levelled. We don’t want to die in here and lose XP and go back to level 1. Again. We don’t have to fight anything, just avoid it all and get XP for the investigation quest.”

They continued on for a while. They saw dark-gray rabbits the size of small dogs with bright red eyes and teeth like a beaver. The name above them read Killer Rabbit⁠1. The group studiously avoided them, too.

Sapphire’s head swivelled back and forth as they crept along. After a while, she slowed down and stopped, causing the others to pause as well. “Looks like there are fewer monsters around here.”

Jane smiled and seemed to relax. “Good.”

But Sapphire remained serious and shook her head. “That’s bad.”

Jane straightened, face tensing. “Why?”

“Because it means something here is scaring off all the other monsters. Something big enough to intimidate and killer rabbits and giant spiders.”

Jane’s eyes widened. “Oh. True.” She started looking in all directions even faster than before.

They crested a slight rise. Before them, a great pine had fallen, probably years, if not decades ago. They stood at the base, and the exposed roots reached higher than the roof of a house. The trunk was wider than any of them were tall. Saplings grew out of the top of the trunk, and the sides were covered in white moss. In the center of the roots, a tunnel led into the hollowed-out trunk. Whether it had simply rotted that way or the tree had also been manually excavated, they didn’t know. The area around the tree was covered with old, brown needles, a thick carpet of them where nothing else grew.

“The tracks go right to that hollow tree,” Saphire pointed out.

“The hollow tree that looks perfect for something large to make a home out of?” Quill half-joked.

They all stared at it.

Jane pushed Quill’s shoulder. “You should go check it out.”

“Me? No. Ladies first.” There was no way in hell he was going over there alone. There were monsters in there. Huge monsters. There had to be.

“No, no. Gentlemen first.”

“I’ll go,” Sapphire bravely announced, arrow once more knocked in her longbow and ready to fire. “I’m the trained Scout.” Arrow at the ready, she stalked closer, stepping carefully on the brown needles, approaching the hollow at an angle so anything inside wouldn’t be able to see her. She had to pick her way around large roots sticking out of the base of the tree into the air. Then, at the entrance, she very slowly peeked around the corner and peered into the darkness. She frowned, then took a step inside.

“What are you doing?” Quill hissed, freaking out a bit.

“Get back here!” Jane called in a hushed voice.

Worried, they instinctively went closer until they reached the entrance to the hollow. The ground here was spongy as well and sometimes sank underfoot.

“Sapphire!” he hissed.

She backed out, a puzzled look on her face. “It’s empty. But there are remains. A lot of remains.”

“Empty?” Jane paled. “But then that would mean that whatever normally lives in there is now…out here?”

Sapphire seemed shaken. “Bones. Rotting flesh. It’s not just the cattle. There are wolves, spiders, wings from a wyvern… That shouldn’t be possible. Wyverns are big and fierce fighters.” She scampered over them, a frightened look on her face. “Let’s go. This is too much. We definitely need to call the city guard for this.” Her eyes darted in all directions.

Quill was only too happy to agree. The three turned and sped back the way they’d come.

Something cracked, and Sapphire yelped in surprise.

Quill turned to see one of her legs sunk to the hip in the ground. She’d gone right through the needles. “A sinkhole.”

Sapphire tried to pull herself free. “I’m stuck,” she whimpered, fear getting to her. She wrenched her leg and cried out in pain.

He and Jane both rushed to her side.

Something loudly huffed nearby. Something large. Then it sniffed.

They slowly turned to look back in the direction they’d been going a moment ago.

A chill went up Quill’s spine, and his hair stood on end.

A huge, shaggy greenish-brown head came up over the rise. Dark brown eyes studied them. Then a truly monstrous beast plodded into full view. It was three times the size of a polar bear. The fur, once greenish-brown, had grayed in places, and white moss seemed to grow in patches on its back and sides. Above the animal was its level indicator. It wasn’t even red, but dark red, and instead of a number, there was only [??].

“A moss bear!” Sapphire screamed, eyes wide and white with fear. “Run! Leave me and run!” She pushed both of them away from her.

Quill couldn’t take his eyes off the monster. He’d never been so scared in his life.

The moss bear snuffled and came closer. It was the size of an SUV and probably just as heavy. It stood up, more than twice the height of a man, opened its mouth and roared. The blast of sound tore through them, shaking them to the core.

Jane took a scared step backwards, then hesitated. She glanced down at the trapped woman.

Quill wrapped his arms around Sapphire and yanked.

She screamed in pain. “Forget it. I’m stuck. Just run! Save yourselves!”

He hesitated. Then he asked why he was hesitating.

What was he doing? She was just an NPC, not a fellow player. This was probably where she was expected to die if that really had been a doom-flag earlier. It was just drama for the quest line. They should abandon her and save their own skins. Save themselves from dying and losing XP. It was the logical thing to do. This wasn’t just a game for them. They couldn’t afford to keep dying and losing progress!

He looked down at the terrified woman in his arms. He couldn’t leave her. It might be practical, but it wasn’t him. He swallowed and spoke quickly. “Jane, get out of here.”

She glanced at him. Something seemed to be on her mind. Then she came to a decision. “I’ll distract it. Get her out.”

He didn’t even bother to answer. As Jane raised her knife and went left to draw the monster away, he wrestled with Sapphire, ignoring her protests, using what meagre strength he had to twist and wiggle her free. It was difficult, though. The ground was soft, and he felt something under him crackling and giving way when he put too much strain on it.

Jane shouted at the bear and danced around, waving her knife in the air.

The moss bear came back down on all fours and regarded her. Then it slowly turned her way.

Something must have shifted underground. “I almost got it!” Sapphire squealed. Then her leg popped free.

The two of them tumbled backwards and then scrambled to their feet. Luckily, it seemed like Sapphire was unhurt, her thigh scratched bloody, but not seriously.

She wasted no time. Reaching to her hip, she pulled the stuffed animal she carried free. “[Teddybear Knight]! she shouted and tossed it forward.

The simple, traditional brown teddy bear tumbled through the air. For the first time, Quill noted the plain wooden shield and sword in its hands. Then the teddy bear landed on its feet, and it somehow did it gracefully.

It stood tall. Well, about a half-meter tall. It raised its wooden sword and pointed it at the moss bear. Black, button eyes were calm and focused, the teddy as fearless as any knight of legend.

The moss bear, arm raised high to strike Jane down, paused to turn and gaze at the teddy knight. Something about the stuffed animal seemed to draw its ire. It growled and came at it hard, charging and attacking with great paws swinging.

But the teddy knight danced out of reach. It was nimble. It was fast. It poked the bear in the foreleg, then in the face with lightning-fast jabs of the wooden blade. They did no damage, but they were annoying and probably humiliating to a real bear.

The moss bear roared and pounced, only to have its paws tear into the dirt while the teddy knight easily dodged and gave it another poke to the ear.

Quill bodily hauled Sapphire away. “Come on!” he shouted at Jane.

She ran over to join them, but her eyes were on the distraction. “What about the teddy bear?”

Saphire looked choked, a tear in her eyes. She shook her head. “I can’t stop him or call him off. Not until the threat is defeated. We…we’ll have to sacrifice him.” It was obvious she didn’t want to. Was the teddy bear just a magical artifact of some kind, or was it alive?

Quill looked at Jane. She, too, was conflicted. He kicked his brain hard, seeking an answer. But what? Looking around, there were no weapons that would seriously hurt that thing; all he had was a rusty dagger. No other creatures. No way to get help. And they certainly couldn’t hope to outrun that thing. Then his eyes landed on something.

The sinkhole.

“Sapphire, use rain arrow,” he commanded her. “Lots of them. Now!”

She looked startled. “W—what? Why?”

“Just do it. Above the sinkhole. Trust me!”

She pulled an arrow out from the quill at the small of her back and fired it into the branches above their heads. Even as the arrow burst into a cloud, she fired a second, then a third. The spells combined, forming a deluge in an isolated area.

The teddy bear knight took a hit: a claw caught him in the belly, opening a large tear. White stuffing pushed out.

“Teddy!” Sapphire screamed. Tears in her eyes, she held an arrow by her ear for two seconds until the steel head glowed with blue energy. Then she released it.

The arrow punched the grizzleclaw in the side of the skull over the ear. The beast only grunted and continued its attack on the teddy bear knight. The attack had been weak. Sapphire was low level, as was her weapon.

But the moss bear’s HP had gone down a tiny, tiny bit.

Quill dashed forward, trying to step lightly on ground that was already growing soggy from the rain. The carpet of brown needs felt even more treacherous underfoot than ever before.

The moss bear bellowed.

The teddy bear knight fell back.

The moss bear saw Quill coming and launched an attack.

Quill dove under a swipe of the beast’s claws and snatched up the teddy bear knight, then rolled away. He managed to get to his feet, took a single step, and leaped over the sinkhole — only to land and have both feet go straight through the earth. He sank, buried to the waist.

“Quill!” Jane screeched. She ran forward.

“No!” Sapphire frantically loosed another arrow at the monster’s back. Again, it did little damage.

“Stay back!” He waved at Jane, making her stop, eyes anxious. Then he looked over his shoulder. This was all part of the plan. All part of the…

The giant moss bear’s features twisted in rage. It stood, looming impossibly high, and roared once more, so loud it felt like a physical blow.

Quill leaned to the side, drawing it in that direction.

The beast came down with both paws extended, intent on crushing its prey.

At the last split second, Quill leaned the other way, away from the blow.

The teddy bear knight wriggled free of his grip and danced away.

Two massive paws came down right next to him with the weight of the giant bear behind them, and something shattered underneath the soil.

The earth opened wide, swallowing Quill and moss bear alike.

Male

36

QUILL KRAU

Class NONE, Level 2

STR

1

STATUS

DEX

3

Currently ???

HEA

7

SKILLS

INT

2

WIS

17

ITEMS

STA

14

CHA

11

Female

26

JANE EULA

Class NONE, Level 2

STR

6

STATUS

DEX

11

Currently freaking out about Quill.

HEA

19

SKILLS

INT

18

WIS

18

ITEMS

STA

2

knife

CHA

5