The rain didn’t stop the entire night, and we all had to cramp themselves upstairs to avoid the flooding on the first floor. It wasn’t comfortable at all, and the True Believer constantly groaned throughout the night. Mark mumbled about his beautiful home being flooded, but eventually stopped after Richard reminded him the world was basically ending and it didn’t matter. To me, it just seemed that everyone was dealing with the shock differently.

The rain let up early afternoon the following day. Seeing a color in the sky other than a dark and gloomy grey was a surprise, and it brought everyone’s mood up. The flooding would take hours to clear up though, so we stayed hunkered down regardless.

We made a basic plan in the meantime: find out what the True Believer experienced or knew, and determine whether he was a threat or friendly. If he was friendly we would do our best to make his passing as comfortable or quick as possible, and if not… well his death would be even quicker.

After that, Glen and Mark could bunker down here and we would continue moving through the city and do our best to not die. I didn’t have any expectation of finding my parents or Lucas’ grandparents, but until Lucas made the call to stop we would do our best to make the attempt.

It was around dusk when our ‘captive’ woke up. I was outside standing off the front porch and enjoying the remaining sunlight. The water had receded just enough to not swallow my shoe, but it would probably be another night before the flooding was gone.

“He’s awake!” Maria yelled while racing through the house. She had been watching the prisoner closely the entire time, mostly because the parasitic worm scared the shit out of her. She somehow believed there were more lurking inside of him, which meant she couldn’t leave him out of her sight unless she was sleeping.

I brushed past Mark on my way inside. Mark was using a broom to sweep any water he could out—there was nothing else to do to pass the time anyway. My feet splashed with every step as I rushed up the stairs to find everyone else already huddled in the guest room around the bed.

“What’s the situation?” I asked before focusing my eyes upon the True Believer. He was slouched over and vigorously rubbing his eyes and forehead while groaning.

“He hasn’t said anything.” Maria said in a hushed whisper.

The cultist continued to rub and groan until he fell backwards onto the pillow once again, “…Where am I?” He mumbled out, his eyes remained closed. “Ahh, it hurts so bad.” He moaned. I wasn’t even sure he was aware we were in the room with him. “Why can’t I remember?” His groaning quickly turned to tears as he grew frustrated with himself.

I moved to Thomas quickly, “Can you heal him?” A healing spell would probably provide some relief, which would in turn calm him down. The injured man wasn’t in great shape, so suddenly flailing about in a rage would definitely be counter-productive to what we wanted to achieve. Thomas nodded and healed him twice in quick succession.

The frustration and pain on the captive’s face disappeared in a flash. He let out a light smile and then moments later was fast asleep again.

“That’s it?” Alex asked reluctantly.

“Let him sleep.” I said. “This is good progress, there was always the chance removing that parasite would turn him into a vegetable.” He had mumbled about his memory, though—which wasn’t good news. We would have to wait and see what was left of his old personality.

“I’ll keep watch.” Maria reminded everyone as if it was a valiant and sacrificial job.

I knew her real motivation in monitoring the True Believer was fear, but I still said, “Good job, you’re doing great. Keep it up.” Maria gave a big smile and then plopped back onto the chair.

I turned to walk back outside, Jessica quick on my tail. She had her bow nocked the entire encounter, which I didn’t blame her for. That night at the gas station and our first fight with other people had removed every ounce of naiveté she had in her. “Are we doing the right thing?” she asked.

“I hope so.” I didn’t have the answer, and I don’t think she even expected one. We walked out onto the porch in time to see the orange hue of the sky. Something that would have been beautiful months ago now worried me. Those could actually be flames on the horizon, or some worldly phenomenon coming to kill us. “Anything?” I asked.

“No traffic at all,” she replied. “Respawns appeared last night, but they haven’t wandered this way.” This was great news for us. The plan when we left was to drop the Spawn Protection Stone here and leave Mark and Glen with enough food to hunker down a while. But the stone might not be needed.

After this mission was over, I felt that things were going to change. If Mark didn’t want to level up and come with us to face the challenges of the world, then Richard would probably acquiesce to that, and we would lose a tank as he stayed behind. I didn’t know about Alex and Thomas, but I believed Thomas wanted to continue to progress, and Alex as well. How much of that was his passive, I couldn’t be sure.

Ever since the incident with the ogres, Maria seemed to have been able to keep Alan grounded. His wild side showed through occasionally, but not usually until after the battle had begun and the room for mistakes was a lot slimmer. As long as he didn’t go overboard, Thomas would always be able to heal him.

Jessica and I continued to watch the sunset for around fifteen minutes. The sky was growing dark fast, but the stress of everything started to subside as the day was coming to a close. No one had died today, nothing untoward happened. It was a good day, relatively speaking.

We turned to enter back inside when we heard something that made my skin crawl.

Ahem, I don’t like to normally do this, but special circumstances have arrived. It seems that some of you think that you can hide in the most remote locations and just be fine. Unfortunately, this possibility was not intended and is going to be patched right now. You may feel a little sting. Just kidding! Do your best. Oh, I forgot to mention that we have added a few new classes, so it isn’t all bad.

“That doesn’t sound good” I said. They had just added something to the world that clearly was meant to kill those humans who were trying to get away from the RPG. I wondered if this meant an increase in the density of spawns, even in the most remote of places. Jessica had a different idea.

“Have they added more flying mobs?” Jessica speculated. “It would only make sense. Monsters that can fly are fast and they aren’t restricted by the terrain. You would never be safe in the open again and if they had a long enough range, they could find all the communities currently trying to hide out.”

“I hope you’re wrong.” This was all I could muster before turning back inside. Fighting off flying monsters sounded horrible. Granted we had great ranged capabilities in our party, but if you had fled the cities and were low level, you would have a terrible time of things.

The mood was dreary when we got inside. Not a single face had a smile on it: and Richard in particular was pacing anxiously in the corner. It was a side of him I had not seen and I wondered if it was because he had been planning to live quietly with his brother.

“Should we talk about this new patch?” Lucas asked. “It doesn’t seem like it’s going to affect us right now, but we should be prepared.”

“Jessica reckons it might be the addition of some sort of flying enemy.” I said, making sure to give credit.

“Don’t say that!” Maria chimed in, “Don’t bring that into existence.”

I looked over and probably had an expression of surprise. I hadn’t taken her for the superstitious type.

“That’s possible,” Lucas nodded, “something that can fly or something that can track, or both.” His logic brought him to the similar point Jessica made earlier.

“The announcement did mention that it was for people trying to avoid populated areas,” Alex added “So perhaps it won’t be a problem while we are moving through the city.”

Anna chimed in, “Right, but we were just doing the whole non-populated reclusive thing days ago. Six or seven hours from here is pure farmland and small towns. I’d think that would qualify for ‘low population’ in their definition.”

“What about the new classes then?” I asked everyone. “That should be a benefit at least.” I couldn’t help but look at Glen and Mark. Both were level six and primed for becoming a new class—which, if the logic of most games followed here—would be something incredibly useful.

“They didn’t really give us anything to go by, but if they’re forcing us into populated areas or out of the countryside, they should give us some benefit through the classes,” Thomas said. I had a bad feeling the challenges we faced were going to be changing drastically in the coming weeks or days. For the better or worse? I couldn’t get a read on it until I found out about the new classes and the new encounters, but the spirit of the beings creating the RPG was ultimately hostile to humanity.

I looked at Maria, “Is he still asleep?”

“Sound asleep.” She spoke with uncertainty then raced back upstairs. We wouldn’t have any parasitic worm incidents with her on watch.

“What’s got Richard so anxious?” I whispered to Lucas. He was still pacing in the corner of the room, and hadn’t joined in on the conversation at all.

“He was already jittery before the announcement, but as soon as it happened, he went white as a sheet and started pacing,” Lucas answered. This made sense: it was likely the patch had foiled his plan. I didn’t fault him for wanting to settle down somewhere and try to live safely with his brother, but it didn’t seem like that was going to be an option for him now.

It was the same for us though, too. My plan of starting a community and settling down had probably been ruined for now. Which meant an alternative must be opening up. I speculated about the new classes. What classics hadn’t we seen yet? The possibilities were endless, and putting too much mental power into it wasn’t worth my time.

A sudden rush of panic washed over me. Was I stagnating here? Were things suddenly going to speed up and leave me and everyone else behind? My passives, my skills, they weren’t exactly advancing very quickly now. Should I be focusing on my personal growth?

My thoughts spiraled down that path until I rationalized it some more. Forcing everyone into more populated areas meant more human interaction. Power in numbers was the best way to survive, and that’s what we were doing currently.

Sure, there were probably people more powerful on an individual sense, but how much would that do if eight or nine people slightly under your level were to come at you? You probably didn’t have much chance of surviving.

The True Believers were a perfect example. They couldn’t be more than level fifteen, and some probably even under level 10, and yet a group twice our size would give us a fight to the death, and we definitely wouldn’t come out unscathed even if we did win it.

I still needed to focus on my personal growth, and that was something I would do as soon as we found a way to set up a grind. I didn’t feel good about knowing very little about myself right now. The way the passives affected me, my mutation, these were things I’d spend extensive time on as soon as I was able.

“I’ll take the downstairs bedroom tonight.” I said. The water had receded enough that the first floor was usable again, and Mark had been hard at work trying to get the water out. We wouldn’t be as crowded tonight, especially since our captive had his own bed.

Jessica followed me in, her face the picture of quiet contemplation. “How much larger do you think we should get?” I asked her. This question was on my mind, and my earlier anxiety had left it deeply embedded in my thoughts.

“Party size?” She asked. “Not much larger.” I was in agreement with her. It was hard to micromanage even this many people, to make decisions for this many people. It was also hindering our individual growth. There was no room for selfishness as of right now, though.

“I think core party size shouldn’t be much bigger than what we currently are.” I agreed. “If we add any more people, maybe it’s not to party, but an association: a guild or a raid. I wonder if the menu will have tools for something like that.” If I was being honest with myself I didn’t want the game to allow big groups, because I couldn’t be personally responsible a lot of people. I wasn’t confident enough or equipped to deal with crowds. Maybe Lucas could.

Instead of a massive group, would it be possible to create something along the lines of a guild or association? An overarching structure with multiple people in positions of power, and not one person making every decision? Even if the menu didn’t have those tools, we humans could figure something out. Mainly, I wanted an association because I didn’t want the responsibility of leading large groups and witnessing people die under my command. This was something I resolved to discuss more with Lucas in the future.

“A guild would be nice.” Jessica said, “But we don’t exactly have somewhere to stay at… like a guild house or something.” That was also a problem, which is why I didn’t want to dive too deep into it right now before getting everyone’s opinion. I could bounce ideas around with Jessica though. It was easy to share with her.

“I hope tomorrow brings some good news.” I said while winding down on the bed. The new classes weren’t going to outweigh the downside of new mobs or intensity of spawns. We hadn’t planned on what we would do once we finished here, but the obvious plan would to base ourselves somewhere with less traffic: which arguably might be more dangerous than a populated area like this. At least here there were set spawn zones and pathing for enemies… Jessica lay on the bed with me and that interrupted my thoughts. Now I was overwhelmed by warmth and softness.