Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

More LitRPG

Special Thanks

The Hundred Halls Appendix

The Hundred Halls Universe

Also by Thomas K. Carpenter

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Warped Forest

Book One in Gamemakers Online Series

By

Thomas K. Carpenter

Copyright Information

The Warped Forest

Book One in Gamemakers Online Series

A Hundred Halls Universe Series

Copyright © 2019 by Thomas K. Carpenter

Published by Black Moon Books

www.blackmoonbooks.com

Cover Design Copyright © 2019 by Ravven.com

Discover other titles by this author on:

www.thomaskcarpenter.com

This is a novel work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquires may be addressed via email to thomaskcarpenter@gmail.com

CONTENTS

The Warped Forest

About the Author

Special Thanks

Hundred Halls Appendix

Hundred Halls Books

Other Works

Copyright

Start Reading Now

Chapter One

The final boss was never intended to be beaten by one player. Alex crouched behind the rocky outcropping, running the numbers through her head again. While surviving the encounter was going to take a series of flawlessly executed maneuvers, it wasn't her agility that was going to bring her to victory, it was her math.

Alex let her calculations flow through her mind like a Buddhist koan, which in turn calmed her shaking hands. Sometimes she hated the realism that modern VR units brought. Beating impossible challenges were easier when she only had to work a console controller or mouse/keyboard setup, not worry about the finger dexterity required for spellcasting.

The ground beneath her bare feet rumbled, a warning that she would have to engage the final boss soon. It felt strange not to have the comforting embrace of her God Tier Hellion Plate Armor protecting every inch of her body. The Brutalist Class not only had the highest armor class in the game, but its abilities were based on that number, which meant that wearing no armor had effectively neutralized her character.

With a subvocalized command word, Alex brought her background screen up to confirm that she was still streaming the encounter. Her heart thumped around her chest when she realized the obscene number of people watching, then she cursed, remembering that her mom hadn't signed her up as a monetized streamer.

She started to read the comments, but stopped after the first couple went past:

[Aggro187] Don't suck Xandr!!

[FatBoiXX] I hope u die in a fire

[Angelpoop] Xploitrs are the worst! U should be banned!!!

They weren't all bad. A few comments were positive, cheering her on and encouraging her on the attempt for a double platinum achievement. If she beat Avatar of Destruction on her first try, and solo, she would receive two ultra platinums and earn a bounty of a cool five thousand dollars. It was the only reason she was streaming, so she could prove that she’d beat the final boss. Five thousand would be like hitting a big lottery for her and her mom. She knew her mom was behind on trailer payments. Winning would pay off the debt and give them a cushion until the next crisis. She also wanted to take her mom out for a birthday dinner next week.

The ground shook hard enough to rattle Alex's teeth, so she switched back to full game mode.

The Avatar of Destruction was a mountain-sized final boss meant to challenge raid groups of twenty players. One hit usually killed a player unless they had max armor and health. The way most guilds killed the AoD was through careful management of agro between a series of multiple tanks to soak up the damage while the rest of the players plinked away at the boss's massive hit points. The raid had to balance overaggroing with an enrage timer. If they didn't defeat the boss in a thirty-minute window, it would double its damage and triple its hit speed, wiping the raid.

Alex wouldn't have the luxury of multiple tanks to spread agro and damage, and since she wasn't wearing armor, one hit meant she'd be a pink smear.

Really, there was no reason she should be able to beat the AoD. It was a nearly unbeatable boss for full raid groups. Only the top guilds had conquered it.

Normally, a solo attempt wouldn't attract much of a streamer base, but Alex, or rather, her online handle, Xandr, had solved other supposedly impossible challenges. Plus, she'd been confirming her calculations with the rest of the ultra-platinum trophy hunters, so they knew she had a remote chance of winning.

When a chunk of rock broke free from the nearby outcropping, sending a small plume of dust into the air, Alex spied the AoD coming around the bend. She had to bend her neck back to see the head of the final boss. It looked like the statue of a bearded warrior with a horned helmet, wielding an axe-like weapon called the Daemon-Heart Crescent Blade. Crimson robes flowed around the gargantuan creature.

"Time to die," said Alex, stepping into the maze-like canyon where the AoD roamed.

When the AoD agro'd on her, a faint red mist formed at the edge of her vision, letting her know the boss was gunning for her.

As the AoD neared, Alex counted its paces, waiting until it'd passed the broken wall before setting a timer and casting her signature spell, Burning Soul, on it. The Damage-Over-Time spell would tick off hit points as long as she held agro, growing moderately throughout the fight, but never threatening to kill the boss. It was one of the few spells that didn't scale with her armor rating, an important caveat that meant she could go armorless to kite the boss. But even if she could avoid it for the full thirty minutes, she'd only knock off five percent of the AoD's hit points.

With the AoD on her tail, Alex maneuvered through the canyon, following a carefully choreographed path that she'd been practicing for weeks. She'd discovered the path from watching countless boss attempts from the guilds that frequently streamed. She had to thread a narrow window between staying ahead of the boss and not getting too far ahead and losing agro, which would reset the encounter.

Alex counted off the steps, leaping from outcroppings to gain a little distance when she felt the AoD was getting too close. The constant movement was the reason she couldn't wear armor for the fight, not that it would have done anything since she didn't have a healer.

For her viewers, the fight was probably boring as hell, but for Alex, every moment was heart-pumping excitement. After ten minutes she tried not to think about the five thousand dollars and how her mom might finally understand that she could make a living as a gamer.

Her mom really wanted her to get a real job like an accountant, or a civil engineer, something that her high mathematical abilities would earn a scholarship to pay for. She would even accept joining the Mathmagics at the Hundred Halls, but Alex's scores during the last Merlin testing had barely qualified her for the magical university, and her guidance counselor had warned her that she would likely fail the entrance trials with such little magical ability.

Distracted by thoughts of her mother's disappointment, Alex stumbled over a rock. Her knees crashed into the dirt, leaving her momentarily vulnerable to the AoD. Alex sensed the final boss swinging the Daemon-Heart Crescent Blade at her exposed back, and she quickly cast Sprint to speed out of the path of the weapon.

The Daemon-Heart Crescent Blade crashed into the rock where she'd been kneeling a breath before, sending shards into her back. The area-of-effect took off thirty percent of her health, but Alex didn't care, as long as she avoided getting killed.

The next ten minutes time seemed to slow down. The closer she got to the end of her timer, the sweatier her palms got. The AoD was only at ninety-four percent health.

Alex kept ahead of the AoD, counting out the steps, focusing on the details so the weight of what she might achieve didn't distract her.

When it got down to the final seconds of her timer, Alex made arcane gestures to place a protective enchantment on herself before turning to face the AoD. The timing was critical. If she'd calculated wrong, then her attempt would be a failure.

This time, the final boss didn't miss with the Daemon-Heart Crescent Blade. The weapon came down in an arc longer than a football field, before smashing into Alex.

[You have died]

A massive skull filled her vision.

Alex was given one breath before her protective enchantment Bloody Last Stand kicked in, resurrecting her with ten percent health. Her bloody avatar stood before the AoD, looking like Carrie after the bucket of blood had been dumped on her. It was one of the more disgusting abilities in the game, but Alex didn't care as long as it worked.

She hovered her hand over the AoD to see the Burning Soul spell was still active, breathing a sigh of relief. If it'd faded in the brief time she was dead then her attempt would have failed.

Before the AoD could bring its Daemon-Heart Crescent Blade back into the air to smash it into her again, Alex cast Burning Soul. A second spell icon formed on the AoD next to the first. There were two Burning Souls on the final boss.

Normally this wasn't possible, since a recast replaced the initial spell, but her Bloody Last Stand ability actually created a different version of herself, which allowed the secondary effect.

Before the Daemon-Heart Crescent Blade could kill her resurrected avatar, Alex sped ahead, resuming the chase while the two Burning Souls ticked down the final boss's health. For the first twenty-five minutes, the damage had slowly increased to a decent number, but now with two spells active, the pace climbed exponentially.

Alex knew that the game makers would fix the exploit after her attempt, but that wouldn't matter as long as she won. The last five minutes seemed to take forever, but Alex stayed focused on her steps, only occasionally checking the AoD's health to see it plummeting rapidly.

When it got down to the final thirty seconds, Alex knew she was going to win. Five thousand dollars. Her mother would be so proud of her. Maybe it would finally repair the breach that was growing between them. Her mom had worked so hard since Dad had died, and it left her little room for mother-daughter time.

Alex leapt over the spot she'd stumbled on earlier, checking the distance between her and the boss to find she was perfectly positioned.

Five thousand dollars.

Her mind could barely comprehend that much money. She'd won a lot of gaming gear over the years—mostly from gaming companies that wanted exploiters to find bugs so they could plug them—but rarely did anyone offer actual hard cash.

Ten seconds.

She knew her streaming account was probably blowing up. No one thought it was possible to get the double ultra-platinum on the Avatar of Destruction. Maybe the win would finally convince her mom to sign her up for a monetized streaming account.

Seven seconds.

Alex's whole body tingled with the anticipation of victory.

Six seconds.

Then the world froze around her.

"No!"

[You have been disconnected]

Chapter Two

Alex ripped the VR helmet from her head, throwing it onto the messy bed beside her desk. Sweat rolled down her forehead, and she wiped it away with the sleeve of her shirt.

She knew the mechanics of the game too well not to know that once she'd been disconnected the AoD had killed her with two seconds remaining.

Her room was already sweltering in the August heat now that the power was out. But it shouldn't have kicked her out of the game. Her dad had installed a generator years ago before he died for the cold Kentucky winters, and Alex had kept up with the maintenance since the region of Appalachia they lived in had frequent outages.

Alex wanted to punch her gaming rig. The motion capture camera stared back at her with an unblinking eye.

How could the power fail at that critical moment?

"I thought I had the generator in perfect working order," she said, on the verge of tears.

Alex stood up, nearly passing out from the sudden movement. She leaned against her bed, which took up most of the room and was covered in clothes—dirty and clean. The walls were covered in posters: two Hello Kitty!, a bunch of gaming related ones that varied between the cutesy Japanese anime style and the hard-core death metal armor style, and in the corner was a poster of Invictus, who was the head patron of the Hundred Halls, which was the only magical university in the world. Before she'd received her Merlin scores, she'd wanted to join the Hundred Halls, but her low testing had erased that dream.

When she heard the sounds of her mother in the living area, Alex climbed over her bed, knocking off the container of plastic frogs to spill on the floor.

Sunlight filled the room through the open windows. The front door had been blocked open to let the breeze in through the screen door.

Her mother looked up from her knitting, frown plastered firmly on her lips.

"About time you came outta there, wasting away your life with those games."

The dismissive comment brought a blind rage to Alex that quickly threatened to summon tears.

"It's not a waste," said Alex, fighting not to cry because otherwise her mom wouldn't take her response seriously, as if the tears actually changed what she had to say. "I was about to beat this unbeatable boss, which would have been a double ultra-platinum, but then the power went out, and now I'm not going to win the five-thousand-dollar bounty."

Alex and her mother looked nearly the same, except for the gray streaks and the lack of glasses. Kids at school had always told Alex that she looked like a dark-haired Velma.

"Alexandria," said her mother, "I don't even know what you just said, but I really doubt someone was going to pay you five thousand dollars for a double banana split thingy."

The calculated snark burned away the burgeoning tears, leaving Alex with cold smoldering pain. She jawed at the empty air before blasting through the screen door to check on the generator beneath the trailer.

As soon as she saw the switch locked into the off position she knew exactly what had happened. With trembling hands, Alex threw the switch on the generator, summoning the greasy motor to life. The lights in the trailer blinked back on.

"You turned it off, didn't you?" asked Alex as the door smacked shut behind her.

Her mother flashed her a flat stare before returning to her knitting. "You really should switch that off. We can't afford to use the gas on frivolous things."

Frivolous things.

The air choked in Alex's throat like deep desert air. She could feel the sand blasting her thoughts.

"But...I was going to win money, actual money. I could have paid off the damn trailer with those winnings. I would have, I would have..."

Alex let the words trail away. She'd wanted to say, I would have taken you out for your birthday. She wanted nothing more than to repair the chasm that had grown between them since her dad's death. She knew her mom was at her wit’s end, working two worthless jobs that didn't pay anything just to keep up with the interest from when her dad was in the hospital, but it didn't give her the right to turn off the generator.

"You know," said her mom, not looking up from her knitting, "we could probably sell your gear for quite a lot. If you really wanted to help out, you could do that."

Alex didn't know how to answer, so she retreated into her room, not even bothering to slam the door.

When she saw her VR headset, it only reminded her of how close she'd been to winning. Hell, she had won. It was only a quirk of fate that had cheated her.

All the hours of calculations, playing through the twenty different classes to find an exploit that would take down the AoD, then the practice of running through the canyon when the boss was absent.

Her fingers hesitated over the keyboard when she went to log back in. She really didn't want to read the comments. Even if they were supportive, she wasn't sure she could take it.

The soft beeps of her computer rebooting soothed her concerns. It wasn't like she had anything else to do. She'd finished a whole semester's worth of calculus homework while grinding levels. She almost thought about doing it again, just to have something non-game related to do, but the lure of the online world was too much.

When Alex reconnected, two dozen message requests appeared. She immediately X'd out the known trolls from the achievement forums, and anyone whose name she didn't recognize. She was about to click on the last unknown when the text gave her pause. It was a line from her favorite movie.

[Shall we play a game?]

Chapter Three

The cursor blinked, waiting for her reply. The message box was titled Lord Falker. For that reason alone, Alex put her fingers back on the keyboard and typed a response.

[Xandr] Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?

She couldn't figure out why, but she was nervous waiting for the response.

[Lord Falker] Nice work on the AoD

Alex frowned. This must be one of her online friends who knew her love of War Games messing with her.

[Xandr] Haha. Who is this? Checko? AgentBlue?

[Lord Falker] I'm the one who put up the bounty. Take a moment and check the achievement forums.

Alex quickly alt-tabbed out and confirmed what Lord Falker had said. She wasn't sure how she'd missed the War Games reference before, but his name was buried on the lead sheet.

[Xandr] Not nice enough. I lost. :(

[Lord Falker] I saw you DC. Unlucky. You were going to win.

A chill went down her spine. She typed in her next question, but hesitated before hitting the enter key.

[Xandr] I still get $$?

[Lord Falker] Sorry, no. Bounty still up.

[Xandr] ...

[Lord Falker] Not here to taunt. Here to offer a better opportunity. Real reason for bounty.

[Xandr] Haha. Is this some sort of The Last Starfighter thing?

[Lord Falker] Yes, actually, it is. I'm looking for top gaming talent.

Alex crossed her arms and squinted at the screen. Have I gone mad? She cracked her knuckles and responded.

[Xandr] To defend the Frontier against the Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada?

[Lord Falker] In a way, yes. I'm offering a chance to play the hardest game in the world. One with rewards far beyond what can normally be expected.

There was a part of her that wanted to unplug the computer. It felt too good to be true. Your Princess is in another castle, or something like that.

[Xandr] BS. There's no hardest game in the world with rewards better than the bounty I just lost. Who is this? Really?

[Lord Falker] Gamemakers Online

Alex sat tall and checked over her shoulder.

[Xander] Gamemakers Online? I don't understand. As in the Hundred Halls?

[Lord Falker] The very one.

Her excitement drained out of her like a balloon gradually losing air. Her staccato response was punctuated with a hard enter.

[Xandr] My Merlin scores suck

When no response came right away, Alex was sure he'd disconnected. Whoever was on the other side was probably messing with her.

[Lord Falker] But high enough to qualify. The Trials don't require excessive amounts of magical ability. They're more to test the student's problem-solving creativity, which you have an abundance of.

[Xandr] I couldn't even get to Invictus to test if I wanted to. We don't own a car, we're broke, and to be honest, I still don't believe this is real.

Alex sat against her chair, crossed her arms, and considered logging out.

[Lord Falker] Check your mail.

At that moment, her email account dinged. She found an email indicating that money had been sent to her online account. The sender had a Hundred Halls email address. She knew it could be spoofed, but why send money for a joke? When she checked the amount, it wasn't much, enough to get her to the city by bus...or take her mom out for her birthday.

[Lord Falker] Take it or leave it. If you decide to come to the Halls, then I have no doubt that you'd pass the Trials. If not, good luck, Xandr.

The window closed, indicating that her benefactor had logged out of the chat program.

Alex switched over to her online account and stared at the money she'd just received. It wasn't a lot, but more importantly, it represented a chance at a new life. She peeked into the living room to see her mom sitting on the ratty loveseat, a pile of yarn in her lap as she tried to untangle the mess that had formed. Halfway through the untangling, she broke into a coughing fit.

If she stayed in Kentucky, she'd have to get a job being a waitress or something else that would be a complete waste of her talents. But if she left, her mom would be all alone. While they hadn't gotten along since her dad died, she hadn't stopped loving her.

But...

The Hundred Halls.

Gamemakers.

Lord Falker had said it'd be a chance to play the hardest game in the world.

Alex grabbed her favorite walking stick. When she had her hand on the screen door, her mom looked up from her knitting.

"Aren't you fixing dinner tonight?"

A vicious barb formed on her lips, but Alex swallowed it back. The thought of leaving brought a sheen of empathy to her mood.

"I'll be back later, Mom. I need to take a walk, do some thinking," she said.

"Oh, good. So you're considering selling your gaming gear," said her mom while her hands worked the needles, adding a chest-deep cough at the end. "I'll take tonight's turn at dinner if you need more time to think about it."

Rather than correct her mother, she pushed through the screen door while shaking her head. As it slammed behind her, Alex squeezed her hands into fists. Her mother could be so infuriating!

She was lucky she wasn't a rash person, or she would have told her she was leaving for the Halls out of spite. But Alex liked to make her decisions with a spreadsheet, working out all the pros and cons before making her choice.

Her online friend AgentBlue always made fun of her about the spreadsheets, saying that it meant she was afraid, but that wasn't the way she saw it. Alex liked to consider all the options before settling on her path, but once she'd made that decision, she'd throw herself into it, even if it meant throwing herself off a metaphorical cliff.

Which was why she wanted to take the time to think about the Hundred Halls and her mom. As mad as she was, she knew in her gut that she didn't want to hurt her. Each other was all they had left.

Alex headed into the woods, taking the trail that wound up to Preacher's Lookout. A layer of clouds blocked the sun, which kept it from being completely miserable, but the gnats were out in full force. Every dozen steps or so she had to slap the back of her neck, wiping away the sweat and bug guts.

Weighing the options took her complete concentration and she'd been making the journey up to the point for so many years that her feet knew every root and hole along the way, so she didn't notice the mountain lion until it let loose a growl.

Chapter Four

The mountain lion stood on a rocky ridge, staring down at her with its yellowish-green eyes. A raspy growl emanated from its parted mouth, sending a sick feeling into Alex's gut.

She'd heard from her neighbors about a mountain lion being spotted in the next town over but hadn't considered that it would come their direction.

The way it kept its focus on her, as if it were deciding when to attack, left her with little doubt to the danger it presented. She gripped the walking stick with her right hand, considering it as a weapon, but decided that if she had to defend herself with it, she was likely to lose. The mountain lion had to be over a hundred pounds of pure muscle.

This is not the way I die.

Without moving her head, Alex searched the area for a rock or something large that she could throw, to scare it away before it could decide she was dinner.

She spotted a fist-size chunk of limestone that had broken away from the ridge, but it was too close to the mountain lion.

Alex briefly considered escaping down the path, but she was at least a half mile from the trailer. She didn't know how fast a mountain lion could run, but it could easily catch her, and turning her back to it and running like prey was probably the worst thing she could do.

The mountain lion took a step forward, crouching low. It coiled itself like a spring, growling with intent.

Everything has a weakness.

Alex considered using magic, but she sucked at the Five Elements. She had enough faez for minor effects, but she hadn't practiced the finger gestures for years, which meant she was more likely to produce a shower of sparks than a jet of flame. Still, maybe that was enough. While she knew way more about games, she knew that some animals made themselves big and scary to frighten real predators away.

"This is going to be real hilarious if I run towards this thing and it eats me," she muttered. "It'll say on my tombstone that she offered herself for lunch."

The mountain lion leaned forward, its claws gripping the stone for purchase.

"Now or never," said Alex, dropping the walking stick so she could free her hands.

She took a deep breath and released a rage scream that would have made a berserker proud, raised her hands above her head to summon fire magic, and ran up the trail towards the mountain lion. As expected, the flames sputtered into a spray, but the release made a gargling hiss.

The mountain lion, which had looked ready to pounce, shifted backwards, eyes wide with concern at her rapid approach.

As Alex ran towards the mountain lion, she saw the impetuous decision in its yellowish-green eyes. She made it halfway before it turned and fled, bounding through the trees without a glance backwards.

Alex kept screaming long after it was gone, hoping that her voice would chase the mountain lion a long ways. When she was finished, she was out of breath, and inexplicably, a bout of laughter rose up from her gut and overtook her shaking fright.

With her face buried in her hands, laughter slipped through her fingers. She wiped away the sweat dripping off her nose and retrieved her walking stick, if only to have something to hold onto.

"What. A. Day," she said, shaking her head.

Legs still quivering, Alex sat on the ridge that the mountain lion had been perched on.

It took a half hour before her thoughts could return to the decision she had to make.

In a way, the encounter with the mountain lion had been therapeutic. Her mind had been whirling with all the possibilities, but having faced down a deadly wild animal, the decision seemed so much simpler.

But she knew the reason she hadn't made a snap judgement. It was her mom. Finances were terrible, and if she had to take any more sick days, she'd probably lose the trailer.

Alex could keep that from happening if she stayed in Kentucky, but where would that get them? They'd be treading water forever, or at least until one of them faltered. But if she went to the Halls, she could get a real job, take care of her mom.

But what to do about the bills due now?

When Alex knew what she was going to do, she headed back down the trail, occasionally glancing behind her even though she knew the mountain lion was long gone.

When she reentered the trailer, her mom was in the kitchen digging through the cabinets.

"Oh, good, you're back. What do you prefer, elbow noodles with cheese, or spag noodles and a can of sauce?" asked her mom.

"Don't we have deer stew left? I thought the pot was still in the fridge?" asked Alex.

Her mom blinked and placed a hand against her chin before opening the refrigerator door.

"Oh, my. You're right." She glanced askew, placing her fingertips against her temples. "I guess I forgot about it."

"It's okay. Everyone forgets stuff," said Alex, moving past her mom to retrieve the stewpot.

She threw it on the stove and lit the gas. The lighter sparked three times before it caught with a whoosh.

"I feel so forgetful these days," said her mom.

Alex's stomach tightened. Her mom wasn't going to make it any easier.

"You've got a lot on your mind," said Alex. "Look, Mom. Can we talk?"

Her mom shot her a worried glance.

"Sure, sweetie. What's up?" she asked, her lips already forming a frown.

Alex opened her mouth to tell her mom about Lord Falker, but decided she'd freak out about "strange people on the Internet."

"I, uhm, got a scholarship to attend the Hundred Halls, for the Trials anyway," she said.

"What? The Halls?" asked her mom, eyes searching her as if she'd broken out in hives. "But I didn't think you had enough magic...like me?"

"It's enough to take the test, and the guy I talked to said the Trials were more about solving problems," said Alex.

Her mother's mouth remained open as she leaned back against her chair.

"Mom? Are you okay? I hoped you’d be happy for me," said Alex.

Her mother's knotted forehead only tightened further. "I am, sweetie. I just…it's just so quick. I thought you were going to be here with me."

The quiet desperation in her mother's gaze nearly broke Alex's heart. It felt like a lifeline being thrown in hopes of being pulled to safety.

"This will be better," said Alex. "I'd never be able to earn enough money here. But if I pass the Trials and then graduate, then I can get a fantastic job. Think about it. It's the only magical university in the world, and everyone who tries to use magic without them goes mad. Even the worst student makes a killing when they graduate. You could quit working at the diner, I'd move you into my house, buy you all the yarn you wanted."

Her mother looked at her like she was trying to give her a live rattlesnake to hold.

"But what will I do until then?" asked her mom.

"What you've always done, Mom. Go to work, visit Angela on Tuesday nights, bowling on Sunday afternoons. And don't worry, I'll call whenever I can. Maybe I can pick up a side job while I'm in Invictus."

Her mother looked away, fingertips pressed against her lips.

"But I...I'm..."

She looked back at Alex, and whatever she had to say seemed to evaporate.

"I'm gonna have to learn to be okay," said her mom, but she appeared on the verge of tears.

"Mom," said Alex, throwing her arms around her. "It's going to be okay. And I might not even pass the Trials. If that happens, I'll come right back and have really cool stories to tell after that."

"You promise?" asked her mom, pulling away and clutching her shoulders.

"Of course," said Alex, not understanding the level of desperation in her mother's eyes. "I love you. You know that."

"I love you too, sweetie," said her mom as she closed her eyes momentarily as if she might faint.

The burner on the stove went out, which forced Alex to crawl under the trailer to swap out the propane tank. It was one of those things that her mother hadn't had to do in a long time because of her bad back.

Alex told herself that their neighbor Frank was always available if her mother needed help. She was a grown woman in her early forties. She'd be fine on her own for a few years while Alex went to learn to become a mage at the Hundred Halls.

Even thinking the word "mage" made her a little giddy inside, bubbling with an effervescence that split her face with a smile.

A mage.

Every kid, no matter what their level of magical ability, dreamed about joining the Hundred Halls to become a mage. Sure, it was probably the most dangerous profession in the world, but no one went there thinking they'd be the one to make the wrong finger gesture and accidently blow themselves up. That the Gamemakers Hall wanted her to join was a bonus in her eyes.

But when she returned to the trailer, she tempered her excitement, pushing away thoughts about the Hall. If she wanted to reach the Trials she would have to leave by the end of the next day. So in the meantime, she wanted to spend as much time with her mother as possible.

Alex relit the stove, kissed her mom on the forehead, and asked, "So. Tell me about that new knitting pattern you're working on?"

Chapter Five

The morning after the Merlins, Alexandria Duke shouldered her backpack as she left the Spire, heading to Gamemakers Hall in the twelfth district. As she strode from the towering building, she was once again overwhelmed by the sensory inputs of the busy streets.

A tour group on flying carpets that cruised a few feet above the sidewalk whisked past as the guide spoke into a microphone and pointed at the surrounding buildings. Alex found herself following the man's hand as he indicated the Spire behind her. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she peered at the glass-covered building that rose twice as high as the nearest skyscrapers.

It was hard to believe it was so tall. She wished she'd been able to look out a window during the Merlins, but the testing had kept her so busy that as soon as her head had hit the pillow she'd been asleep.

Lord Falker had been right. Passing the Merlins had been a breeze, but she hoped that the rest of her time in the city of Invictus would be as easy. Because she'd never shown an aptitude for magic, she'd never worked on it. Her previous testings, which had indicated a low amount of faez—the raw stuff of magic—had convinced her she never had a shot. But maybe Gamemakers Hall was the best place for her, since they helped run the Merlins and other contests in the city. She wasn't going to be battling dragons anytime soon, but she certainly could help prepare the mages of tomorrow to do so.

Alex found the Green Line train, which would take her to the outer wards, and found a seat in the nearest car. She tried not to stare at her fellow passengers, but there was a girl with bright pink hair in a tank top with a sleeve of tattoos manipulating a Rubik Cube using a magical field between her outstretched hands on the seat across from her. When the girl caught her staring, she winked, then went back to turning the levitating cube.

The girl's manipulation was impressive, but her ability to solve the Rubik Cube was less than. It'd been years since Alex had played with the dexterous puzzle, but her fingers twitched with the memory of solving.

"Think you can do better?" asked the pink-haired girl with an inviting smile.

"I can't do the magic thing, but I can solve it," said Alex.

After mixing it up, the pink-haired girl threw it to her. Alex had been watching the whole time, so she knew exactly where to start when it was in her hands. The internal pivot mechanism was sticky, keeping her from zipping through her paces, but Alex's fingers remembered the trick of the cube. Before a minute had passed, she threw the puzzle back to the girl.

"What in the Abyss?" exclaimed the pink-haired girl, staring at the completed cube.

"I used to be sub-twenty, but I'm out of practice," said Alex with a one-shoulder shrug.

The train lurched to a stop and the pink-haired girl got up to leave.

"Good luck at Gamemakers."

Alex got confused until she remembered that she was wearing a Gamemakers pin, which looked like a pair of tumbling dice. After the brief examination, she looked up, catching her reflection in the window. She touched her dark hair, which almost touched her shoulders since she hadn't had it cut in a while, trying to save money for her mom. She liked it short, coming just past her jawline, which helped frame her chubby face. Alex adjusted her dark-rimmed glasses.

After switching to the Blue Line, which served the outer city, she made it to the twelfth ward. Immediately, her nose wrinkled from the smell of rotting garbage. The run-down buildings were covered with graffiti. It looked like this part of the city had once been an industrial center, before business had moved on.

Alex checked the directions again, finding that she was on the correct street. She squeezed her backpack to the side as she headed in the direction of the hall.

As she passed rusty chain-linked fences and old buildings with most of the windows knocked out, Alex kept checking over her shoulder.

When she came around the corner, she didn't know what to make of what she saw. The only reason she knew it was Gamemakers Hall was because she was standing at the address, and it was the only place in the area that appeared livable.

The building looked like a dozen other mismatched buildings had been smashed for parts and then jammed back together with cement. There was an old console game she remembered playing when she was a kid called Katamari that involved rolling a sticky ball that grew in size as it picked up anything it touched. This building looked like an architectural version of a Katamari ball. She saw a turret, a gothic church front, an elementary school library, and a dozen other building features within the conglomeration.

Frozen by the strangeness of it, Alex almost didn't hear the footsteps until it was too late. She turned to see a couple of figures hidden by shadows moving in her direction, spurring her towards the gate before Gamemakers Hall.

When she passed through the archway, it felt like she'd passed through a membrane. Her ears popped.

She glanced back to see whatever had been following her had disappeared back into the industrial buildings. That the Gamemakers Hall had to set up shop in a run-down area didn't bode well for its standing in the university, but Alex decided she should give it a chance before having regrets.

Inside the entryway, she expected to be greeted by a professor or older classman, but the wood-floored room was empty. She saw three different passages leading deeper into the building, including a spiral staircase that looked rescued from a circa 1920 mansion.

"Hello?" she called, hoping that the greeting committee had stepped away for a bathroom break.

When no one appeared, Alex took the middle passage, hoping it led to the correct place. Further down, she heard the familiar beeps and whistles of a stand-up arcade game. An open door revealed a dozen vintage arcade games packed side by side.

A figure in a hoodie was standing in front of the Battle for Invictus! game, jamming the control stick in various directions and slapping the action buttons in a steady staccato. The person playing the game looked pretty focused, so she waited until they'd beaten the level before speaking.

"Hello, can you help me? I just joined Gamemakers today," she said, wondering why the player's motions were awkward and stiff.

A voice answered her, but not from the direction she was expecting.

"Bully on you, kid. Pick an open room. Good luck."

Sitting in the corner of the arcade on a folding chair was a guy with messy brown hair, looking like he'd just woken up. He was tapping on his smartphone while frowning.

"Oh, hi, I didn't see you there. I'm Alex, short for Alexandria," she said.

"Yep, the new kid," he said without looking up.

As she stared at the figure playing the arcade game, she was struck by how wrong it looked. Cautiously, she stepped forward until she was parallel with the player, only to find that there was no "person" under the hoodie, but a mannequin from a department store.

"That's Manny," said the guy in the chair. "I was bored last weekend so I enchanted him to play Battle. He can get through the first fifteen levels, but then he dies on the second boss."

Watching the plastic man play an arcade game made her take a step back. "Whoa, that's really amazing."

The guy snorted. "Not really. It's just an algorithm and a little magic. Any idiot who understands basic non-deterministic recursion and the finite-string method of arcane material control could do it."

Alex was simultaneously excited and intimidated. "Can you tell me where I'm supposed to go? Who I'm supposed to report to for classes?"

"Classes, ha. That's a good one. You came here to play games, right?" he asked.

"Sure," she replied.

"There you have it," he said while biting his lower lip and hammering on the smartphone screen as if he were trying to poke a hole through it. "Dammit." He dropped the phone in his lap and looked up at her with an exasperated sigh. "They get younger every year."

"I'm standing right here," she replied, feeling less intimidated and more annoyed. She squinted at him. "What's your name?"

"Bucket."

"Nice to meet you, Bucket."

He stared at her without saying a word for a good ten seconds. Without a scowl on his face, she thought he was cute, but then the frown returned and he went back to his smartphone.

Alex sighed. "Where is Lord Falker?"

He wrinkled his face. "Lord Falker?"

"He's the one that recruited me," said Alex.

"Ah, Professor Marzio. You'll find him in the turret," said Bucket.

"The turret?"

"You know," he said, "round thing, like a tower, but attached to a building. Looks more like a bloated cannon on our humble Hall, but nobody asked me."

"What about Patron Adolphus Dimple?" she asked.

He glanced up, deadly serious. "Just talk to Marzio."

When Bucket started cursing under his breath at whatever he was doing on his phone, Alex took that as her cue to leave. Her stomach was starting to twist with the thought that she'd made a mistake coming to the Gamemakers Hall. She hoped that Professor Marzio would make a better impression.

Chapter Six

The entrance to the turret required climbing through a passageway that angled upward at a steep enough grade to require crawling. The surface was smooth enough she had to dig her sneakers into the angle to keep from sliding back down.

The passage was so inconveniently sloped that Alex had to prop her feet against the opposite walls to bang against the door, hoping that Professor Marzio wouldn't keep her long because she didn't know if she could hold herself in that position long.

A cough and a scrape of a chair across the floor later, the door opened. A man with a tightly kept beard, bald head, and intense gaze was looking down at her.

"Professor Falker? I mean, Marzio?"

For a moment, she thought he was going to push her back down the passage, but a switch went on behind his eyes, bringing a toothy smile.

"You must be Alexandria," he said, reaching to help pull her into the turret.

"Thank you," she said, once she was in the room, which was angled away from the center of the Hall.

Professor Marzio motioned towards a chair before a desk.

"We're really glad you could join us at Gamemakers Hall," said Professor Marzio with his hands clasped on the desk, staring intently at her.

"I'm...glad to be here," she said.

He slapped his hand on the table. "Excellent. Then I'm sure you'll do great."

Professor Marzio dug through his desk while Alex sat patiently. He pulled out a bag of hard candy, unwrapped one, and popped it in his mouth before returning to the papers on his desk.

Alex counted to ten in her head before asking, "Uhm, so where do I find my room? And what about the classes? And I thought I was supposed to link myself to Patron Dimple so I don't get faez madness."

Professor Marzio looked up, a frisson of surprise on his forehead as if he hadn't expected her to still be sitting across from him.

"That's right, I'm very sorry," he said in a way that Alex almost took as sarcasm. "We should get you sworn in."

He stood up suddenly and rushed into a side room with Alex right on his heels. In the corner of the rhomboidal-shaped room was an obsidian cube. The glossy black surface seemed to absorb light.

"Put your hand on that," said Professor Marzio.

The surface was cool. It felt almost alive under her palm, though she could detect no movement.

"I want you to open your mind, let faez collect there, but do nothing with it until you feel it pulled away from you like a string. It will be slightly unpleasant at first, like falling asleep on your arm, but then it will not," he said.

Alex knew what to expect, since she'd temporarily linked herself to one of the professors who'd run the Trials, but they'd been present for the procedure. She was confused about the presence of the obsidian cube.

"I don't understand. Where is Professor Dimple?" she asked.

"Traveling," said Professor Marzio. "But this cube will connect you to him. Nothing to worry about."

Feeling a little overwhelmed by the strangeness, Alex decided it was best that she just follow the instructions. As soon as she summoned faez, a tug pulled on her mind. Her first reaction was to hold fast, but then she let go, and the raw magic slipped away, leaving her whole body tingly. Then after about twenty seconds of discomfort, the prickly feeling left, and a wave of euphoria rushed in after.

"There, that wasn't so bad," said Professor Marzio. "Welcome to the club."

As he walked her back towards the door, she asked, "When do classes start?"

His lips squeezed flat, while his forehead knotted as if he didn't understand. "Whenever you want. Just ask one of your fellow Gamemakers. They'll show you where to go."

"O...kay. Anything else I need to know?"

Distracted by a buzzing phone on his desk, Professor Marzio said, "You must reach level twenty by the end of the year or you won't be able to return."

Professor Marzio practically pushed her through the door, before slamming it shut. Alex slid down, landing with a hard bump on the main floor.

"Level twenty. Now that's something I can understand."

Alex spent the next hour investigating the rest of the building. She made up her own rule of exploring any room with an open door. This led her to a messy kitchen filled with pots in the sink, surrounded by empty ramen wrappers and pizza boxes. The eating area seemed small for the size of the building, but was much larger than the table in her trailer.

Along the way she found numerous empty bedrooms that looked hastily abandoned. The beds only had a mattress, and the desk chairs were usually knocked over or stacked on another piece of furniture. She found a dozen power strips, two that still had cords attached, as if someone had grabbed their laptop but forgotten to unplug the power.

In one room, she found a slim tome with common spells. Alex couldn't find a name in it, so she slipped it into her bag.

It wasn't until she reached the third floor by way of the iron spiral staircase that she found her room. As soon as she stepped inside, she knew that's where she'd be staying. It was the upper section of the gothic church, so the ceiling was angled and the back wall was covered with a massive circular window that looked out at the Spire. Sure, there were a few industrial wrecks behind Gamemakers Hall, but the view was expansive enough that she could avoid the mess.

With bags unpacked, Alex went in search of another soul. Gamemakers Hall seemed big enough to hold fifty or sixty people, but she'd only seen Bucket, Professor Marzio, and a girl asleep on a couch with a book over her face.

She made her way back to the arcade, running into Bucket when he was leaving. He tried to step around her until she moved in his way.

"Excuse me, new kid."

"The name is Alex."

"Good for you," he said, and tried to step around her again.

She growled under her breath. "I need you to help me."

Bucket blinked a few times as if he didn't know how to process her request.

"Look, I found Professor Marzio and a room, but this place is a ghost town. He told me I have to hit level twenty by the end of the year, which sounds like a total cakewalk, but I don't know where to find this game. Gamemakers Online, right?"

Bucket nodded vaguely before trying to slip past her again. Then he stared at her with a frown firmly attached to his lips.

"If you won't let me past, I can't show you where to go."

Alex made an elaborate bow, flourishing her hand down the hallway.

Bucket led her into a lower section through a door with a password. As soon as she entered, she found herself inhaling with surprise.

In the center of the room was another obsidian cube, except this one was as big as a city bus. Scattered around the room were squishy pillows all over the floor, making it look like a harem.

"Here you go," he said, nonplussed.

"This is Gamemakers Online? I thought I was going to log into an elaborate VR system," she said.

He seemed confused by her lack of understanding, but shrugged and explained, "This is the game portal. It's made of obsidian because that's the best material for teleportation. Except this isn't teleportation, not really. Instead, you'll appear in a simulated world which is housed inside the cube. It's the same magic-tech they use for the Second Year Contest."

"Simulated world," said Alex breathlessly.

Her whole body tingled with anticipation of "logging" into the game.

"How do I get in?" she asked.

"Get comfortable on one of the pillows, place your hands on the cube, then let faez fill your mind. The cube will do the rest," said Bucket.

"And then?"

A sly grin rose to his face. "Game on."

Alex rubbed her hands together. She couldn't wait to get started.

"Any hints?"

"If you need those then you shouldn't be here," he said.

"Fair enough," she said, crouching on a pillow. "What about classes? Do we meet with the professors in between game time?"

He nodded towards the cube. "Everything you need to learn is in there."

"Really?"

"Really."

Alex sighed as she considered what was being expected of her. It was strange, but it was also exciting.

"Thank you for showing me where to go."

Bucket shrugged as he moseyed from the room, muttering to himself, "It's not like you gave me a choice."

It took a moment for Alex to get comfortable. She didn’t want to wake up with a backache after the session, if that's how it worked. She found it odd that no one else was in the room. Did that mean she actually disappeared from this reality into the cube? Or was everyone else taking a break?

Further questions were dispelled by the anticipation of getting to play a new game. There was nothing in the world that excited her more than that first time of logging on. So many possibilities unfolding. What class would she pick? What kind of creatures would she encounter? It'd be a whole world to explore, and she wouldn't have to wear bulky VR gear or alt-tab to access chat programs.

She placed her hand gingerly on the obsidian cube. Her fingers tingled as she let faez flow into her mind. She found herself holding her breath, and forcibly exhaled before reaching out to make a connection.

Alex joined Gamemakers Online.

Chapter Seven

Alex expected a loading screen, or a cut scene giving her an infodump on the world. At the very least, there should be a character choosing menu so she could deliberate on the myriad of choices. It was one of the many joys of playing a new game, sorting through the possibilities to divine the best possible class.

She didn't have a personal preference on play style. She was comfortable as a tank, DPS, healer, or support class. Her only requirement was that she could leverage her ability to exploit gaps in game design.

When she landed on a rotted log on the edge of a thick forest, the soft wood crumbling beneath her boot releasing a pile of maggots that had been slowly decomposing the fallen tree from the inside, she almost logged right back out due to the verisimilitude of the game. The only thing keeping her from doing so was that she didn't know how to log out.

"Mother of magic," she muttered, cringing at her voice.

After stepping away from the rice-like maggots wriggling in the grass, Alex spun around, taking in the surrounding forest.

At first glance, it could have been a forest in Kentucky or Tennessee. When she was younger, and her family was whole, they'd taken trips to Gatlinburg in the Smokies. The tall trees had provided a canopy overhead in which birds chirped and critters rustled. She'd sensed its aliveness, felt its vitality. Much like this place.

But it was the blue edging around the leaves that made her realize it was a foreign. It wasn't Fae, but it had an otherworldly feel that suggested danger lurked around every corner.

After confirming there were no immediate threats, Alex checked herself, finding a standard set of newbie equipment. On her hip was a short dagger. She wore tan breeches and a simple gray shirt.

Alex pulled the dagger from the sheath and held it before her eyes. The blade had a nick on the edge. It looked like a weapon that had seen better days.

Item: Nicked Dagger

A step above letter opener. Congrats.

Dmg: 1-3 ׀ 2/5 Durability

"Wonderful," said Alex.

She took a long look at her clothes and after a few seconds she learned they were Cloth Breeches and Cloth Shirt respectively.

During her investigation, her glasses slipped down her nose slightly, notifying her of their existence in the game. Alex was surprised by this revelation, as every game she'd ever played had given her a representative avatar in which to navigate the artificial world, but in this one she would be playing as herself.

Quest Offered: Establish a camp (+1,000 XP) [Y/N]

After accepting the quest, Alex lurched around trying to figure out how to check her stats, but she was interrupted by a great crashing further in the forest. Alex sheathed the dagger and stood on the good section of the rotting log to see over the undergrowth. Leaves, branches, and whole trees shook with the passing of a large creature. As soon as she realized it was headed her way, Alex decided that she didn't want to find out what dying was like in this world and took off running the opposite way.

There was no path, so she was forced to plow through the wispy bushes and saprolings. The hanging branches whipped at her arms and torso as she ran by.

While she wasn't the best runner, she'd loved hiking in the Kentucky hills and had the stamina to go long distances, but she hadn't run two hundred yards before she couldn't catch her breath. A glance to the upper right revealed a floating stat screen.

Fatigue: 54%

Great. I'm a three pack a day smoker in this game.

Behind her, the forest shook with fervor. Any thought of turning to fight, or hoping that it was friendly, ended when a great and bloody horn rose above the undergrowth.

Alex doubled her effort, hoping a frantic sprint might get her out of range of the beast so she could hide behind a tree or something. At least the cloth breeches were easier to run in than the pair of tight, hip-hugging jeans she'd been wearing when she'd logged into the game.

She was so focused on staying ahead of her pursuer that she missed that she'd run right past a bramble bush.

You take 1 damage. 9/10 health remaining.

"Ouch!"

The thorn had taken a gash out of her arm. Worse was that it'd slowed her down. She had little hope that it would slow down the creature that seemed to be pursuing her.

Realizing that she wouldn't make it far before it caught up to her, she looked for a tree with low enough branches that she could climb. She found one a dozen paces away, took a glance at the approaching storm of rustling undergrowth, and took off for the tree.

The rough bark scratched at her palms as she pulled herself onto the first branch, which bent beneath her weight. Alex kept going, climbing into the middle section of the tree.

High enough to avoid immediate impact, she checked on her pursuer to find a massive squat beast with armored scales plowing through the undergrowth. Not only did a thick white horn adorn its wide head, but sticking out from its jaws were two curved tusks. She understood why it had both when a pop-up window appeared above the creature.

Brutal Rhinoboar, Warped Animal, Level ??

You have gained a skill point: +1 Analyze

Alex knew from the double question marks that the creature was probably much higher than she was capable of killing, especially without a weapon or a real understanding of how combat worked in Gamemakers Online.

The Brutal Rhinoboar stopped beneath her tree, grunting and moaning in a way that put shivers in her spine. It nudged the tree, scarring the bark with its tusks and shaking the leaves around her.

After a minute of milling around beneath her hiding spot, the Brutal Rhinoboar trotted away, grunting as it went.

Alex waited for about five minutes before deciding it was safe to climb back down.

Since the Brutal Rhinoboar had gone the other way, Alex decided her current heading was good enough. The forest continued for another couple hundred yards before opening up into a pond surrounded by strange reeds that reminded her of bamboo.

Alex went wide around the pond, not trusting the waters. She'd seen the movie Lake Placid far too many times not to know there was something big lurking beneath that calm exterior.

The forest fell away when she found a deep chasm in which a river meandered far below. The gap between her side and a field of high grass was at least a hundred feet, which meant she wouldn't be getting to that side anytime soon. In the distance, a single trail of smoke suggested a settlement, or at least a group of intelligent enemies.

"I have a feeling that I really need to get over there," said Alex.

Quest Offered: Reach the Plains of Warsong (+5,000 XP) [Y/N]

"Well this is something I can appreciate," she said, swiping YES to accept the quest.

When her stomach rumbled, Alex decided she needed to take stock of her situation. The Brutal Rhinoboar had forced her to keep moving, but now that she'd found a relatively safe spot, she needed to figure out how the game worked.

Plopping onto the ground in a cross-legged position shifted a weight on her back, and when she reached to her shoulder, she realized she was wearing a backpack. As soon as she thought about it, an interface appeared.

Item: The Handysack [Slots 20]

It's not a Gucci, but it holds more.

There were three items in the Handysack, a stack of five traveler's food, a stack of five water, and a Random Starting Item, which was shaped like a question mark. When Alex touched the Random Starting Item, it appeared in her hand.

Item: Random Starting Item

Big bucks. No whammies.

"Oh, boy," she said, knowing this could either be really good or completely meh.

When she opened it, the question mark transformed into a handle, which at first she thought was at the end of a weapon, until she realized it was a cooking pot.

Item: Dented Cooking Pot

You were told this game was hard, right?

Dmg: 1 ׀ 3/5 Durability

"Yeah, yeah," she said, trying not to be disappointed. It wasn't even worth using as a weapon. She probably punched harder than one damage, so she put it back in the Handysack and pulled out a single food and water.

The traveler's food looked like a quality of beef jerky slightly above shoe leather. The water at least looked clear, and when she placed it against her lips, she found it was cool and soothing.

She chewed through the jerky and downed the water—the whole time marveling at how real it felt—and received a "Fed" icon next to her fatigue bar.

The next step was to figure out how to access her character sheet and to log out. The first appeared at a thought.

Character: Alexandria Duke

Level: 1

Class: Undecided

Subclass: Undecided

Health: 10/10

Faez: 16/16

Fatigue: 36%

Skills:

Analyze: 1

"Wonderful," said Alex, "I'm a total newb. But I guess there's nowhere to go but up."

She was surprised there were no stats, but maybe those didn't come into play until she leveled up.

Next, she thought about logging out and a window appeared.

Log out? [Y/N]

It's not too hard for you, is it?

The passive-aggressive comment boxes were amusing. Alex chuckled as she swiped "No."

It was weird to have pop-up windows in a place that felt like real life. Her VR unit mimicked the same setup, but she didn't get the tactile or olfactory inputs like she did here, and the regular senses were lifelike rather than slightly cartoonish like the Avatar of Destruction.

As she sat in the grass, examining the scratches on her palm from climbing, wondering if they would transfer back to the real world, she detected a slight buzzing in her ear. At first, she thought it was a reaction to the authenticity of the game, but as it grew she realized it was external.

Cupping her ears and turning them like a satellite dish identified the sound as coming from over the cliff.

Alex tentatively approached the chasm. The buzzing increased in intensity as she leaned over the edge, which led her to look down.

About twenty feet below her location, there was a cave that she hadn't seen before. Hovering around the outside of it were a half dozen winged creatures.

Bloat, Animal, Level 2

Alex didn't understand the nature of the danger until she saw the grotesque proboscis hanging beneath their swollen bodies. The bloats surged upward towards her, moving faster than their distended bodies should be able to move.

At first the six bloats hovered over her, their proboscises reaching towards her eagerly like elephant trunks. Rather than reach for her dagger, Alex performed the finger gestures to produce a flame spit. The Five Elements were the basic magic that even the faez-less learned as a more complex version of rock-scissors-paper.

In the real world, she could shoot a wad of elemental magic a good twenty feet. But when she finished the spell, feeling the pull of faez in her mind, the fire spell sputtered like a sad sparkler.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Fire Spells

Her faez bar shifted to half.

The bloats, who had kept their distance, seemed encouraged by her failure at spellcasting. They surged towards her, forcing her to pull her Nicked Dagger to defend herself.

Alex prided herself at being calm and methodical when it came to online combat. She usually practiced the basic moves until they came as natural as breathing.

But Gamemakers Online had given her no tutorial or in-game help, so she was left flailing as if she were fighting off a swarm of mosquitoes, which she quickly realized was an apt analogy as the proboscises ventured toward her unprotected back each time she spun around.

A bloat got too close, and Alex managed to slash it with her knife.

You deal the bloat 2 damage!

You have gained a skill point: +1 One-handed Slashing

The quick skill gains gave her hope that she could make progress in the game, once she dealt with the bloats. But her early success turned to terror as the bloats adjusted their tactics.

The flying mini-blimps spread out around her. One bloat would attack at a time, while the others waited until she'd committed before reaching towards her back.

You have taken 2 damage!

The stinging pain from the hit distracted Alex. In her immersive VR games, damage, and by extension, pain, was a formality, a mathematical formula to consider when comparing attacking and defense. The hit from the bloat completely revised her expectations of how Gamemakers Online was going to be played. The pain was real. Her left shoulder burned where the bloat had attached its proboscis for a brief moment. What the hell was going to happen if she died?

Alex thought about escaping into the forest, but her fatigue was already up to 63%. There was no way she would make it far.

The best defense is a good offense, she decided.

She needed to even the odds, and quickly.

Alex crouched lower, forcing the bloats to descend if they wanted to threaten her.

When one came in range, she lunged upward like a pogo stick, stabbing the bloat in the belly.

Critical hit! You deal the bloat 8 damage! You have killed the bloat!

You have gained experience: 5 XP

Her small victory turned pyrrhic when the bloat, with the dagger imbedded into its belly, fell away from her and tumbled over the cliff.

"Oh, no."

Alex attempted another fire spell as the bloats descended on her, but it sputtered like the first. The hits from their proboscises came fast and furious as she flailed at her defense, but there were too many and before long she was covered in the bloats.

You have taken 2 damage!

You have taken 2 damage!

You have taken 1 damage!

Critical Hit! You have taken 5 damage!

You have died!

Chapter Eight

Alex woke at the decomposing log, curled in the fetal position with a lingering ache from where the bloats had sucked away her blood.

"That was unpleasant," said Alex, wanting a shower to scrub away the death.

When she looked down to find her sheath empty, she was reminded that her first kill had taken her dagger away.

"Great, I need a new weapon," she said.

Part of her wanted to log out and get her bearings, but she hated sucking at anything. Better that she grind for a while and figure out how the game worked. So far it'd been a one-way ass kicking.

Before Alex set off, she tried her fire spell twice, both times accomplishing nothing more than a spritz of sparks. But it used up her faez, and maybe she would get a skill increase if she kept at it.

Alex headed in the direction she'd run from the rhinoboar, hoping she might find a broken tree limb that would serve as a makeshift weapon. But as she followed the path, the only branches she found had been pulverized into splinters.

When she reached the bramble patch, Alex looked for a way around only to feel a sharp sting in the back of her calf.

You have taken 1 damage!

A foot-long rat with a tail full of spikes hissed at her from a fallen log behind her. Its tail rose above its head and whipped forward to send a volley of needles at her, which she sidestepped.

Raticore, Warped Animal, Level 3

Alex quickly surveyed the area. If there was a group of them, she was doomed. But it seemed like it was only the one, which would be challenging enough without a weapon.

She searched around, spying a section of bramble that had been dug up from the charging rhinoboar. She grabbed the base of the thorny plant and yanked it from the soil, spilling dirt over her hands. She held the three long lashes of thorny plant material that hung limp from her grip.

You have taken 2 damage!

"Ouch, you little bastard," said Alex, rubbing her leg where the needles had pierced her skin.

The raticore hissed gleefully as it prepared another strike, its tail hovering seductively behind it as if it were a cobra. Alex hit first, bringing the thorny tri-whip down upon the critter in an overhead blow, but only one of the lengths hit the creature.

You deal the raticore 3 damage!

You have gained a skill point: +1 Devious Device

The raticore, suddenly sensing that it was outmatched, squeaked and tried to scamper from the log, but Alex kicked it before it could move.

You deal the raticore 1 damage!

The kick flipped the critter on its back, so Alex brought the tri-whip down on the raticore, and since she was much closer, she hit with two of the whips.

You deal the raticore 4 damage!

You deal the raticore 3 damage!

You have slain the raticore!

You have gained experience: 10 XP

Breathing heavily from the fight, Alex surveyed the damage. Though the battle had been brief and her opponent tiny and fierce, she felt like she'd taken down a boss. Adrenaline coursed through her body, leaving her a little light-headed.

Victory meant a lot more when each hit felt real. She was beginning to understand why Professor Marzio had said this was the hardest game in the world. Overcoming the pain during battle was a challenge in itself.

When Alex touched the body of the raticore, she was presented with a loot pop-up.

You have received: Rat Meat

Yum, yum, yum, in your tum, tum, tum.

"Haha, very funny," said Alex as she hit accept, which moved the rat meat into her Handysack.

At least Patron Dimple had a sense of humor, which helped lessen the horror of the inflicted pain in Gamemakers Online.

When Alex checked her experience bar to check how far her kill had gotten her in the level progression, a stone formed in her gut.

XP: 10/20,000

The magnitude of the challenge became abundantly clear in that number. She'd have to kill a metric tons of raticores and bloats to hit level 2. While she wasn't opposed to grinding, the amount of times that she would have to take damage to achieve that was daunting.

If it were a normal game, she'd expect to level up to max in a few weeks, or months at the most. Since there were five years at the Hundred Halls, she wondered if each year was broken down into twenty levels, or if the gap grew exponentially.

"One thing at a time, Alex," she said, blowing out a breath.

First things first. She wanted to work on her new weapon. It'd hit harder than her Nicked Dagger and had a longer reach, which was important for not taking damage—an important distinction due to the realism. But the three branches made it hard to be accurate and the root system was slippery with fresh dirt. She needed to find a better way to grasp the weapon.

When she was younger, her dad had taken her on camping trips in the Daniel Boone National Forest. He'd taught her survival skills, which she hoped would translate to this game world.

Alex found good sturdy fibrous grass that she could use to weave around the roots to create an easier hilt to grip. She used longer strands to bind the three lengths together, making them into a thicker thorny whip. As soon as she tied the last loop, the item shimmered with a brief transformation.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Devious Device

You have received: Vicious Thorny Whip

The whole weapon looked sturdier than what her grass loops could provide, suggesting that the game had translated her actions into an actual item. She examined her new weapon.

Item: Vicious Thorny Whip

Dmg: 5-15 ׀ 20/20 Durability

Special Attribute: Bleed (10% chance of 1 dmg/sec dot)

An essential tool for the BDSM druid

"Now that's more like it," she said, after adjusting the sheath to hold her whip rather than the dagger.

Being able to create an item gave her more confidence that she would be able to make progress in the game.

Alex left the bramble area, headed towards the chasm. She wanted to travel down its length to see if she could find a bridge or other way across. A 5,000 XP reward for completing the quest would go a long way towards getting through level 1.

After what she estimated as about a mile of travel, Alex stopped to eat another traveler's food when her stomach grumbled and her fatigue % had grown too high. While she'd been hiking she'd been casting fire spells in hopes of gaining a skill increase.

A few times she'd seen signs of larger creatures in the deeper woods, but had declined to investigate, knowing that it was unlikely she could beat them.

When she'd first logged in, she'd expected a newbie area to level up in, but it appeared Gamemakers Online didn't pull punches when it came to starting areas. She wasn't opposed to a challenge, except that if there weren't a lot of small critters like the raticore or bloats, it'd be impossible for her to reach the higher levels to challenge the Brutal Rhinoboars of the forest.

Quests were a good way to supercharge leveling, but she'd only encountered a few so far and it seemed like a longer-term goal rather than an immediate challenge.

And after she ate the jerky and drank another water, she realized she was going to quickly run into another problem—food and water.

As the shadows grew long, Alex decided she didn't want to test the forest during the night when she'd be at a major disadvantage.

Log out? [Y/N]

I knew you were a quitter.

"I'm not a quitter, I just need a little rest and to think about how I'm going to attack this game," she said, before she remembered it was just a text box.

When she swiped "Yes," another box appeared.

Are you sure? [Y/N]

Log out costs 10 XP. The following log out will cost 100 XP.

And you thought you could just come and go whenever you wanted.

"Balls of fire," she said, hissing the words out through her teeth.

Suddenly the empty Gamemakers Hall and the hastily vacated rooms made sense to Alex. She was beginning to dislike the flavor text on the pop-ups.

What would happen if the penalty for logging out grew too much and you couldn't pay it? Would you be stuck in the game forever?

"Maybe there's been a mistake," she said.

Alex hated the idea of using up her experience to log out, but she needed answers before she continued playing Gamemakers Online.

She hit YES.

You will log out in 30 seconds...29...28...

Chapter Nine

The first thing Alex did when she returned to the real world was to check her palm for the scrapes she'd endured when climbing the tree to escape the Brutal Rhinoboar. There were none, which was comforting at least. Then she went in search of someone to talk to.

She found Bucket in the kitchen wearing robes over a T-shirt and shorts.

"Hey," she said, preparing to launch into her questions, but her eyes fell upon the strange conglomeration of ingredients that he was dumping into a cooking pot: elbow macaroni, chili powder, corn flakes, pop-rocks, and a can of lard. The pause made him follow her gaze to what he was doing, and his forehead hunched as if he were surprised about it as well.

"Giving up, huh?" he asked.

"No, I'm not giving up, but what the hell? An XP penalty for logging out, no starting city, a lack of low-level enemies?" she asked.

Bucket squeezed his lips and shifted them to the side while lifting one shoulder.

"Professor Marzio is a lot of things, but he doesn't lie about how hard the game is. If you can't cut it, I understand, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but there's no shame in dropping out. Maybe you could rejoin the Halls next year, pick a place more suitable for you."

"Where's Patron Dimple in all this? Doesn't he run his school anymore?" asked Alex, wanting to talk to someone who was really in charge.

"He's traveling," said Bucket with an eyeroll. "Personally, I think he's done with the game making business, and left Marzio in charge while he's lounging in some private game world he made with generous rules and a lack of consequences."

"What'd be the fun in that?" she asked.

"Play Gamemakers Online for a few years and then answer it yourself," said Bucket.

The girl who'd been asleep on a couch with a book over her face wandered into the room eating a turkey leg that appeared to have chocolate syrup squirted onto it. She had short messy blonde hair that looked like she'd cut it herself, except it was stylish, despite clearly being for utilitarian reasons. She had the same resigned expression that Bucket had, and she raised her eyebrows in Alex's direction upon entering the room.

"Another new kid, eh?"

Bucket reached over and dumped the pop-rocks into the pot and stirred it a few times.

"Martina, meet Alex. Alex, meet Martina," said Bucket.

"New kid gets a name?" asked Martina.

Bucket threw one hand up in a "what can you do?" gesture.

"Well, nice to meet you, Alex. I can see by your expression that you've logged in." She squinted. "So what'd you get for your Battle Royale item?"

Alex wrinkled her face until she got the reference. "The Japanese movie about the murder island full of schoolkids?" Martina nodded. "I got a dented pot."

Both Martina and Bucket sucked air through their teeth as if they'd just been kicked in the shins.

"What did you two get?" asked Alex.

"A spell for dyeing clothes bright colors," said Martina. "Bucket over there got easy mode, he got a crossbow."

"Hey," said Bucket as he shoved a spoonful of his concoction into his mouth, then continued talking with cornflakes stuck to his chin. "It had no ammo."

"Oh, you poor, poor man," said Martina, plopping down at the table, putting her feet on a chair, and leaning back. "What about starting location?"

Alex thought back to if she'd ever seen the name of the forest.

"I never found out," she said. "But I'm next to the Plains of Warsong, across from a big chasm, anyway."

They both cringed again. Bucket looked to Martina. "Warped Forest?"

The girl nodded.

"I think Marzio is learning to be an even bigger asshole these days," said Bucket.

"Marzio decides where we start?" asked Alex.

Martina set her chocolate-covered turkey leg on the table. "Really, nobody knows how things in the game get decided. And how Marzio spends his time, we have no idea, he's gone most of the time. But since he's the only professor we see and Dimple is nowhere to be found..."

She shrugged to suggest the natural conclusion to those thoughts.

"So why aren't you two playing right now?" asked Alex.

They both got a faraway look, before Martina pulled her feet off the chair, slammed her elbows on the table, and said, "That log out penalty gets bigger and bigger as you go. Eventually you realize you can't afford to log out, but you need a break, or you'll freaking lose it."

"So we can survive in game? Sleeping, eating, all that?" asked Alex.

"More or less," said Bucket, eating from the pot on the stove with a big spoon. "That's why it's only the two of us in the house right now. Everyone else is in Gamemakers Online."

"How many people is that?" she asked.

"No one knows really since we're all coming and going at odd times. This is the first time I've seen Martina in about a year outside the game. Unless you meet them inside, you might never see your classmates."

It was hard to process the information. It was both exciting and daunting. The two of them looked like soldiers returning from war for a holiday, knowing they had to go back. Yet, clearly there was something to the game, or they would have quit by now.

"Any advice for a newbie?" she asked.

"It's kinda hard to because everyone finds their own way in the game," said Bucket, eyes distant with thought. "But try lots of things and see what works for you."

She nodded, appreciating the advice, then looked to Martina, who pointed the chocolate-covered turkey leg at her.

"Whatever you do, don't go to the Plains of Warsong. It's a total ballbuster, chewed up more players than any other location in the game."

"Totally," said Bucket, nodding along.

"Why is that?" asked Alex, intrigued.

"Just don't," said Martina. "There are areas in the game that aren't meant to be beaten. I think Dimple or Marzio put them there to show us the extent of our limits."

"Thanks. I appreciate the words of wisdom." Alex glanced around. "Is there a phone anywhere?"

"No cellphone?" asked Martina.

Alex swallowed her discomfort and tried to shake her head as if not owning one was a choice rather than a fact of being poor.

Martina rubbed her chin. "I think I saw one near the slide once, up near the bell tower."

"There's a slide?" asked Alex, incredulous.

Bucket squinted. "Yeah, I think I remember that as well."

Alex went in search of the phone. She had to go up three separate sets of stairs before she found the slide and then the phone. It was a rotary dial. She blew off a layer of dust, expecting that it wouldn't work, but she heard a dial tone when she picked it up.

She called the trailer, knees bouncing as she waited for her mom to pick up. She should be home, unless she’d picked up an extra shift at the diner. When there was no answer, Alex hung up.

A pang of homesickness hit her, but she knew it was a temporary discomfort. Mostly, she worried about her mom. She wouldn't have an exciting and challenging new experience to distract herself with. She'd be stuck with the same old routine.

"I couldn't live like that," said Alex.

She went back to the obsidian cube.

Chapter Ten

Alex logged back into the same location of the Warped Forest. A darting movement from the side had her spinning around hands raised until she saw it was a furry rodent with fat cheeks and a long nose, no bigger than a grapefruit, running across a log. As she faced it, the creature stopped and stared back.

Shrew, Critter, Level 0

"Oh, hey little one," said Alex. "I don't think you're supposed to be here. Probably not that safe around here."

She reached down and captured a cricket in her fist, shaking it up to disorient the insect before tossing it to the shrew, which was perched on the log. Before the cricket could get away, the shrew pounced, biting into the insect with a crunch before scurrying off into the undergrowth.

Alex resumed her journey, walking right into a pack of large iguanas with bright red and purple skin that were marching the other way down the path. Each one was about two feet long with a spiny ridge that went the length of its tail.

The creatures were as surprised by her appearance as she was of them, but the truce only lasted until the first iguana spit a jet of fire that roasted her leg.

You have taken 1 fire damage! You are on fire!

She pulled out her Vicious Thorny Whip, retreating over a fallen log, and hit the first creature to come around it.

You deal the igneous iguana 9 damage!

The igneous iguana is affected by Bleed!

The strike and subsequent bleed trigger sent that critter into the woods. Alex had little time to cheer before two more of the flaming lizards tromped after her.

You are on fire! You take 1 fire damage!

The hem of her Cloth Breeches were smoldering, but Alex didn't have time to put herself out as the two nearest critters sent jets of flame after her.

You have taken 2 fire damage!

She hadn't even killed one of the igneous iguanas and nearly a sixth of her health was gone. Alex leapt to the left, using the lead iguana as a shield from the rest, and slashed it with her whip.

You deal the igneous iguana 6 damage!

You have gained a skill point: +1 One-handed Whip

Thank you, may I have another.

As the igneous iguanas ambled around the fallen log to surround her, Alex leapt over the obstacle, taking another couple of points of damage. The bowlegged lizards had a slow turning radius, which gave her a free moment to put out the fire on her breeches.

She weighed running or not, but didn't want to lose out on the chance for experience. If a bunch of iguanas could take her down, then she had no business being in the game.

You deal the igneous iguana 7 damage!

You deal the igneous iguana 8 damage! You have slain the igneous iguana!

The fallen log provided a barrier that she could use to keep the group of iguanas from surrounding her. Each time she had to leap it, she took another couple damage until she was down to two hit points with four iguanas left and her fatigue was dangerously high.

Fatigue: 87%

The other issue was that her thorny whip had burnt edges from the fire spit. She didn't want to lose another weapon so quickly, but she assumed that its durability was near the breaking point.

The fallen log gave her a moment's respite, so rather than prepare another attack, she cast the five elements spell for water, focusing it on the area the iguanas were about to invade.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Water Spells

A sputtering spray came out of her hands, but the iguanas moved slow enough that she was able to try again. This time, a bubble of water flew through the air and captured the first iguana like a drop of dew surrounding an insect.

You have learned a new spell: Dewdrop Orb

The blob of water formed a new barrier for the iguanas, which sent them into a frenzy as they tried to avoid the liquid. Alex hopped onto the log and killed another iguana before they could react.

With her fatigue maxed and almost no hit points, Alex stood her ground against the final two.

An igneous iguana misses you!

An igneous iguana misses you!

You deal the igneous iguana 14 damage! You have slain the igneous iguana!

Critical hit! You deal the igneous iguana 27 damage! You have slain the igneous iguana!

Trembling with exhaustion, Alex examined the Dewdrop Orb the moment she received a final notification.

You have slain the igneous iguana!

The iguana in the orb had suffocated, releasing the spell, spilling the creature and water onto the forest floor.

With the fight concluded, Alex surveyed the battleground. She'd killed nine igneous iguanas, including the one that had run off and died from the bleed wound. The only reason she knew it'd died was because she'd gotten a random XP notification during the fight.

XP: 90/20,000

She might have felt good about winning had it not been for the damage her equipment had taken.

Item: Cloth Breeches

AC: 0 ׀ 1/5 Durability

Better than being naked, right?

Item: Vicious Thorny Whip

Dmg: 5-15 ׀ 4/20 Durability

Special Attribute: Bleed (10% chance of 1 dmg/sec dot)

Three non-orange whips

During the fight she'd gained a point in One-handed Whip, Water Spells, and learned a spell, which she took the time to examine.

Spell: Dewdrop Orb – Tier 1

Faez: 10 ׀ Duration: 15-60 seconds

Effect: Capture a small creature in a globe of water, removing them from the fight and suffocating them if they can't hold their breath.

The strange part about the spell listing was that it had a link, which was unique for online games. But given that this was a particularly unique online game, run by the world's only magical university, she clicked it.

Immediately, the pop-up disappeared to be replaced by a pair of ghostly hands. The hands made a series of gestures, and a blob of water flew from them.

"A how-to," said Alex.

She didn't remember making the extra gestures shown in the demonstration, but it made sense. The first time, the effect had been generated by her attempting a new skill. But once she'd discovered it, the game had to show her how to cast it again since she'd used the generic water spell from the Five Elements gestures.

With her small faez base, she could only cast the spell once, but it was nice knowing she had another tool in the toolbox. Next she examined the bodies, finding six pieces of Spicy Iguana Meat.

Unlike the raticore, the igneous iguana bodies didn't disappear after she looted the six pieces of iguana meat. Alex wondered if that meant that there was hidden loot that she hadn't met the requirement to discover.

Since she needed to rest, to recover hit points and fatigue, Alex decided to set up camp. It seemed like early morning in the Warped Forest, due to the dim light. Using the skills her father had taught her, she built a small fire, igniting it with her fire magic.

Quest Completed: Establish a camp

You have gained experience: 1,000 XP

When she pulled out her cooking pot, a message appeared.

Quest Offered: Discover a new recipe. (+1,000 XP) [Y/N]

No baking show to help you here

"Oh, more quests," said Alex as she accepted it.

Alex threw a piece of iguana meat into the pot. After a few seconds, the interior of the pot flashed with light.

You have received: Cooked Iguana Meat

She'd hoped for a recipe, but clearly just cooking the meat didn't count. It only made it acceptable to eat.

In most games, recipes required two or more items. Alex searched around the area, foraging a hunk of lollygrass and a sugarroot.

Alex threw the lollygrass into the pot with a piece of iguana meat, and after a few seconds, there was a flash, and a hunk of char was in their place. She dumped the failed meal, then threw the sugarroot into the pot with an iguana meat. The pot flashed again except this time it had a rainbow hue.

You have received: Spicy Iguana Steak

You have learned a new recipe: Spicy Iguana Steak

After tossing the new item into her Handysack, Alex decided to experiment with the corpses that hadn't disappeared after looting. She threw more wood on the fire, getting it crackling before dumping an igneous iguana corpse into it. She watched the pot for a few minutes, expecting a change, but the edge of the dead creature only smoldered.

"Duh, it's fireproof," said Alex.

Rather than use up her few remaining water rations, Alex cast Dewdrop Orb into the pot. It took six tries before she completed the spell successfully, but it filled the pot with a nice, clean, magical water.

Almost as soon as the water came to a boil, the igneous iguana corpse dissolved. Something small and shiny clinked onto the bottom of the pot, but since it was boiling, she threw another corpse in.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Cooking

When she was finished, she threw out the boiling water, revealing nine pebbles at the bottom of the pot. She dumped them into her hand.

You have received: Chimeric Stone x2

You have received: Worthless Bauble x7

The chimeric stones had multicolor swirls across their surface while the worthless baubles looked like gray, chalky stone. She threw the baubles into the grass.

"Chimeric stones," said Alex. "I wonder if this is what's causing these creatures to be all mixed up. Rhinoboar, raticore, igneous iguanas. What a mess."

Almost as soon as she finished speaking, a quest pop-up appeared.

Quest Offered: Figure out what the chimeric stones are for. (+5,000 XP) [Y/N]

It's not like you have anything better to do.

She accepted the quest. It would be her main priority, since there was no reasonable way she was going to grind her way to level twenty without numerous quests.

Alex cleaned up her campsite as the fire burned low. Her stomach rumbled from the meats she'd eaten. Her body wasn't quite adjusting to these new foods.

"The days must be shorter here than in the real world," said Alex, noticing the lengthening shadows.

Sitting on a log while leaning back against a tree, Alex lifted her leg to let out a particularly rambunctious fart that went on for a good five seconds. She nearly fell off the log when something furry darted out from beneath it until she realized it was the shrew she'd met earlier.

The shrew was wrinkling its nose, rubbing at it as if it were trying to remove something stuck to it.

"Sorry, little shrew. I didn't know you were under there. My mom and I would get into horrible farting contests after chili dinners," said Alex.

To her shock and amusement, the shrew stood on its hind legs before falling backwards into the leaves, feigning a small and furry death.

"Oh, very funny," said Alex. "It wasn't that bad."

To prove it, she took a sniff, only to find the stench made her nose wrinkle.

"Sorry about that. I guess this in-game food does a number on my guts," she said.

The shrew rolled back into its feet and scurried into the undergrowth, leaving her once more alone.

She'd logged in during the morning hours, but it was almost evening time. She wasn't excited about the prospect of spending the night in the Warped Forest, since she didn't know what kind of dangers lurked. Usually game zones were more dangerous during the night.

A dreadful screech sounded from nearby, startling Alex into producing her whip. When the forest resumed its soft dirge of insect noises, she looked to her weapon, remembering that its durability had been trashed by the iguanas.

Before she lost too much light, Alex gathered a bundle of grass and rewrapped the Vicious Thorny Whip, which returned half of its durability. Towards the end, she was working by firelight alone, which left her twitchy at every pop of the fire or chirp of an insect.

Darkvision was usually a priority for her since not all dungeons were lighted, but she had no vendor to learn the spell from, assuming this world even offered such benefits. Which meant she was going to have to brave the night without sight, since the forest canopy hid the burgeoning starlight.

Without a bedroll, Alex made a cubby in the undergrowth, using a bush as a protective covering from night creatures. She let the fire dim to coals, not wanting to announce her presence too widely.

Alex curled onto her side beneath the bushes, trying to ignore the growing cacophony of night song. Sleep evaded her as each time she nearly succumbed to slumber, a tree branch snapped, or a nearby creature made an awful noise. The worst was a grinding caw that occasionally echoed through the trees.

When the stars shone faintly through the canopy above her, Alex woke with a start. On the other side of the ashy campfire, something was picking at the ground. She couldn't tell how large the creature was, only that it was less than ten feet from her location.

Tired of hiding beneath the bush, Alex decided to surprise the creature picking around her camp. Crouched on her knees, she cast flame spit, but only succeeded in sending a spray of sparks across the camp.

For a brief moment, Alex saw a dark figure expand its arms with a dreadful flutter.

"Nice sparkler, asshole, but I'm trying to clean up over here," said the creature.

Alex froze for a moment, stunned by the insult. The voice reminded Alex of her Great Aunt Beatrice, who had lived in Brooklyn before her death a few years ago.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, hello right back at ya," came the reply.

"Can I relight my fire so I can see you?" asked Alex.

"Sure thing, but just don't catch my tail feathers. I've waxed them to a particular sheen that glows just right in the starlight."

Crouched beside the fire, knowing that something potentially dangerous was lurking a few feet away in the darkness was rather odd, but Alex managed to put more wood on the fire, expanding the ring of light.

A massive black bird, easily three feet tall, was picking around in the grass. The avian snatched up a worthless bauble that Alex had discarded, threw it into the air with its beak, and caught it with a pouch on its hip beneath the wing.

"Hello, bird," said Alex, adding a little wave to show she wasn't dangerous.

"The name is Ethel Stormfeathers the Third," said the bird, giving a surprisingly agile bow before resuming to pick at the baubles like a common crow.

"Uhm, it's nice to meet you, Ethel," said Alex as she used the firelight to analyze her campfire companion.

Ethel Stormfeathers III, Great Raven, ??

Didn't anyone tell you not to talk to strangers?

You have gained a skill point: +1 Analyze

"This is the proper moment when you introduce yourself," said Ethel.

"I'm Alex, short for Alexandria," she said.

"Like the library?" asked Ethel.

"Sort of. Like the man who the library was named for," said Alex, then wrinkled her nose. "How do you know about that?"

"A raven hears things," said Ethel as she shifted from foot to foot.

"I take it you're not from the Warped Forest," said Alex.

"A Great Raven would never lower themselves to such chimeric delights. We've already achieved the pinnacle of creaturehood," said Ethel, lifting her beak majestically while spreading her wings.

Alex grabbed a handful of sticks, snapped them in her hands, and threw them into the fire, which was already crackling. While game designers had improved the NPCs considerably over the years, witty conversationalists they were not. Alex was intrigued by Ethel's verboseness—doubly so if she was a quest giver.

"Sooo...is there anything you need help with?" asked Alex hopefully.

"Fishing for quests? And here I thought you were a stand-up broad who'd come right out and ask," said Ethel.

"Sorry, I'm still trying to figure out how this world works," said Alex.

The Great Raven hopped around the fire, coming face-to-face with Alex, who was seated in the grass with her legs crossed. If the bird wanted to pluck an eye out there'd be nothing she could do about it.

"There is this one thing, a very important thing, that I could use some help with," said Ethel, leaning close as if she were imparting a great secret.

"What's that?" asked Alex, keeping her voice low, and when Ethel didn't say anything at first, she continued talking. "Is there a hunter bothering you? Or a great magical item you need retrieved?"

The Great Raven tilted her head, staring back at Alex with her pebble-black eyes.

"Hunter? Magical item? What do you think I am? Princess in disguise here? I'm a raven. I like shiny shit. You promise me all your worthless baubles and I might be convinced to come around from time to time," said Ethel, in a way that had Alex imagining a cigarette hanging from her lips.

Quest Offered: Find 50 Worthless Baubles for Ethel (+500 XP / +100 reputation with Great Ravens) [Y/N]

When she hit accept, another text box appeared:

You have an indifferent reputation with Great Ravens

When Alex brought up her quest tracker, she found the new item.

Worthless Baubles given to Ethel: 0/50

"Hey, how come I didn't get credit for the seven you picked out of the grass?" asked Alex.

"Those were not given, but scavenged, thank you very much," said Ethel, adding a laugh-like caw. "Well, you have fun here in Camp Alexandria."

Ethel took to flight, leaving Alex alone once more. She'd hoped the Great Raven might stay, give her some companionship, but it looked like she had more baubles to collect first. When she looked around, she found the bird had left a Shiny Black Feather, which Alex stored in the Handysack.

Awake and alert, she practiced her water spells for an hour, poking around in the campfire while waiting for faez to regen. She managed another skill increase before getting sleepy enough to crawl back beneath the bushes.

When she closed her eyes again, the realization that she wasn't home anymore hit her squarely in the gut. For the first eighteen years of her life, she'd lived in a little trailer in Kentucky, and while there had been struggles, especially after her dad died, she'd never felt alone. Between the online games and the nights sitting around the kitchen table playing board games with her parents, she'd always had someone to talk to.

Now she was alone in a dark forest, hiding under a bush while trying to figure out how she was going to make progress in this impossible game. Suddenly, her bones ached with the desire to rush into her mom's room and curl up on the bed next to her while her mom played with her hair until she fell asleep. Even when things got bad between her and her mom, it was still home, a place you didn't have to figure out.

It just was.

Chapter Eleven

Alex spent the next five weeks on the edges of the Warped Forest, grinding on the low-level mobs that she could take without endangering herself.

The biggest challenge she had was finding enough creatures in the safer areas near the chasm that she was capable of killing. Whenever she got twitchy and tried to go further into the forest, she ran into something large and scary, and of a level that turned up ?? when she analyzed it.

The only good thing that had come from her slow grind was that she'd used the time to establish her camp and work on the basics of Gamemakers Online. After the first night sleeping under a bush, she found a better spot with a spring-fed pond and a defensible hollow, which she bolstered with a spiked palisade.

It felt more like a war zone than an adventure, surrounded by tall walls, but she needed her sleep each night if she wanted to hunt well the next day.

The little shrew followed her to the camp, making appearances during the evenings. Alex took to capturing insects to feed the shrew, and in turn was rewarded with an occasional companion.

"Do you have a name, my pointy-nosed friend?" she asked the shrew one night.

The brown mammal lifted its little head and stared back at her as if it understood her question. On a whim, Alex analyzed the shrew again.

Axomavillaratonii, critter, level 0

"That's a mouthful," she said. "Would you mind if I just called you Axo?"

To her surprise, Axo nodded.

"You don't seem like you're from the Warped Forest. Did you get lost or choose to come here?"

Axo squeaked, which could have meant any number of things, but then the critter made little jumps, followed by peering into the sky.

"Hunted by hawks? I guess you came from the plains," said Alex.

Axo nodded again.

"Very shrewd of you to come here," said Alex, waiting for a reaction, but Axo stared back blankly.

"Puns aren't your thing, huh? I used to groan at my dad's puns. At least until he died, and then I found out how much I missed them," said Alex.

Axo rubbed its face with its tiny paws.

"Thanks, Axo. But it's okay. I don't cry about it anymore." She raised an eyebrow. "Hey Axo, what does a gorilla wear to the beach?"

The shrew stared back from its spot in the grass.

"A donkey thong," said Alex, slapping her leg. "Oh, I kill me. Actually I kill mobs, but who's counting." She sighed. "See, this is what happens when you play solo for too long. You start telling bad jokes to critters. Anyway, night, Axo."

#

On the forty-fifth day since she'd been in Gamemakers Online, Alex had hunted down a pack of ferocious badgerpines. She'd been watching them for a few weeks, foraging for grubs in the undergrowth, but hadn't wanted to tackle them because the critters were level 5 and could shoot spikes over a dozen yards.

Alex had been hunkered down in a blind waiting when she saw the first snaggle-toothed badgerpine waddling down the trail, four of its companions right behind it. When the first badgerpine reached a curve in the trail, Alex cut the rope, releasing the suspended logs that she'd prepared a few days before.

You have hit a badgerpine for 29 damage with a BFL!

You have hit a badgerpine for 15 damage with a BFL!

You have gained a skill point: +1 Devious Device

While she was excited about the damage, the real benefit was that the logs split the critters, giving her a chance to pick off the first before the others could join the fight.

Alex leapt from behind the blind, striking the badgerpine with her spiked whip.

You have hit a badgerpine for 14 damage! The badgerpine is affected by Bleed!

As the badgerpine puffed up, readying a volley of spikes, Alex kicked a makeshift lever attached to a tree, which released a woven mat to fall between her and the creature. With a growling puff, the spikes imbedded into the grass mat.

While the other creatures were still making their way through the underbrush towards her, Alex struck the first badgerpine two more times, killing it.

You have gained experience: 50 XP

Alex ran down the trail, expecting to find one badgerpine coming around the log, but a second appeared with the first, growling rabidly.

Before it could launch a spike volley, Alex cast Dewdrop Orb on the lead badgerpine, capturing it. But she wasn't quick enough to avoid the second, and a spray of spikes hit her across the midsection.

You have taken 6 damage!

With a chunk of her health gone, she knew she couldn't take another hit. She retreated to the blind, drawing the badgerpine behind her. When it rambled into the space in a bowlegged trot, Alex pulled on a grass rope, which released a stacked pile of logs that cascaded into the badger and killed it instantly.

You have gained experience: 50 XP

Who do you think you are, Rambo?

Chuckling at the reference, Alex climbed a nearby tree, using the notches she'd painstakingly burnt into its trunk. While she searched the undergrowth for the remaining critters, Alex reached into her Handysack for a Spicy Iguana Steak and quickly ate it.

The game mechanics allowed her to practically inhale the food item, which was necessary for her to eat an eight ounce piece of meat in less than two seconds. Immediately, a fire formed in her gut, along with a "Now That's a Spicy Iguana!" icon near her health bar.

The heat in her gut grew until beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. The first time she'd eaten one, it'd given her gas for days.

When she saw a badgerpine waddling on the far side of the blind with the other a few paces behind, Alex made a quick recalculation and leapt, landing right in their path.

The badgerpines startled but reacted quickly, puffing to send two volleys of quills into her, which could kill her even at full health.

But Alex was quicker, releasing the lava-like substance from her gut in a torrent of fire and flames. It felt like she was a human volcano with indigestion. The two badgerpines were burnt to a crisp before even a single quill could be launched.

You have gained experience: 50 XP

You have gained experience: 50 XP

Dracayrs!

Once again, the game's love of pop culture made her laugh, though the chuckle came with a spicy belch. She knew little about Patron Dimple or Professor Marzio, but clearly they enjoyed peppering Gamemakers Online with references from the real world.

As her shoulders relaxed in the exhaustion of victory, she heard a low growling from ten feet behind her. In that moment, she realized that the badgerpine from the Dewdrop Orb had managed to survive its watery suffocation and it was preparing to fill her back with deadly quills.

She did the only thing she could think of, and dropped to her stomach, right as the spikes went over her head. Before the badgerpine could close the distance, Alex rolled onto her knees and cracked the final critter with her Vicious Thorny Whip.

Critical hit! You deal the badgerpine 35 damage! You have killed the badgerpine!

You have gained experience: 50 XP

You have reached level 2!

"Oh, thank Merlin," said Alex from her knees.

If she'd lost the fight, she would have taken a 500 XP penalty, erasing two days of preparation. Not only that, but she'd hunted everything she thought she could comfortably kill. Anything else would have taken next-level thinking to conquer.

Since this was the first time she got to put points into her character, she was so giddy she was light-headed. But she didn't want to die to a wandering monster while she was lost in her character sheet, so she surveyed the area first, looting the carcasses as she went.

Alex received two badgerpine meats for her troubles, and one of the bodies didn't disappear after looting it, which meant she could cook it down for either a chimeric stone or a worthless bauble.

With the area cleaned up, Alex hiked back to her camp, slipping through the gate before settling onto her favorite thinking rock and bringing up her character sheet. Right away she saw new information that had her brimming with excitement.

Character: Alexandria Duke

Level: 2

Strength: 1

Intelligence: 1

Cunning: 1

Agility: 1

Endurance: 1

Charisma: 1

Class: Undecided

Subclass: Undecided

Health: 18/18

Faez: 25/25

Fatigue: 67%

XP: 20,013 / 50,000

Skills:

Analyze: 2

One-handed Slashing: 1

Fire Spells: 2

Devious Device: 2

Sense Direction: 2

One-handed Whip: 2

Water Spells: 2

Cooking: 2

Spells:

Dewdrop Orb: 2

The list of attributes was a nice change, and she'd been given three points to put into increases, but without knowing what her eventual class or subclass might be, it was hard to pick.

The increase in hit points was a huge boon, and so was the increase in mana. She hoped that since she'd leveled it'd be easier to increase her skills. She hadn't been able to get any above two, and even getting One-handed Whip, her most frequently used skill, had been devilishly difficult.

The thing she didn't like was the increase in experience. She'd hoped that the next level would be another 20,000 experience over the last, but it was fifty percent more than that. While it was true that higher level monsters gave more experience, the ratio wasn't as high as she'd hoped.

As she stared at her stats, she thought about saving them for later when she got to pick her class, but the battles had been tough enough. She needed every advantage, especially because she knew she had to venture into the middle of the forest now that she had leveled up.

"Ha, level two," said Alex. "It's like I think I'm suddenly epic class or something."

Of the six attributes, she quickly eliminated strength. That was a stat usually reserved for frontline tanks carrying heavy armor or wielding cartoonish massive weapons. While she wasn't opposed to the role, the realistic pain made standing up to blow after blow unappealing. Her legs were still smarting from the badgerpine quills.

Charisma was the next stat she ruled out because of her remote location. She was aware that some games utilized it for sorcerers or bards to power up their magic or song, but she was interested in neither class.

Endurance was a consideration, but not because of the implications for her eventual class, whatever that would be. Having more hit points increased survivability, which was always helpful, and with the high XP penalty, she didn't want to play a glass cannon that died after every other fight. Alex put one point into Endurance. The other two would go into whatever stat she thought best for her long-term plans.

Her first inclination was Intelligence, only because she felt like it described her in real life. Agility was good, because it would help her hit foes and increase her dodginess. The last one, Cunning, had a particular sublime draw. Normally that slot had a stat called wisdom, or spirit, depending on the game. But those were both high-minded descriptions that had always led her to choose other paths.

While she thought of herself as an intelligent young woman, it wasn't her raw smarts that had made her a top gamer or earned her a place in Gamemakers Hall. While some people thought of cunning as a negative, as if the results were always achieved through underhanded and duplicitous means, she thought that the attribute required a rigorous attention to detail and a thorough understanding of the problem. No one just lucked into cunning results, and while it was a way that Bond villains and thieves were described, it belittled their preparation and efforts.

"It's not like taking over the world is a task easily begun," said Alex to no one but herself.

The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of Cunning as her main stat. She had a feeling that it would help her with the devious device skill, which had been her main survival tool in the Warped Forest.

It also described the extent of the challenge before her. She was going to have to be cunning to beat the hardest game in the world. Straight-up raw ability wasn't going to do it. Cunningness would help her leverage the options she'd been given, which were few and far between.

"What are we going to do today?" she asked aloud as she hovered her finger over the floating character screen. Alex selected the Cunning stat twice. "We're going to take over the world."

Chapter Twelve

For the next few days, Alex spent the time scouting the center of the Warped Forest while she formulated a plan. There'd been one brewing in the back of her head since her first days in the game, but she'd been so focused on surviving and advancing to level 2 that she hadn't thought much about it. But it was one of the reasons why she'd never returned to the cliff cave with the bloats, despite desperately needing the experience.

Moving through the deeper trees while avoiding the higher-level creatures required patience. It also took a bit of stealth, which she earned a point in during her scouting mission.

When she was younger, her parents had taken her to a lumberjack competition outside of Lexington. While the log chopping and log rolling brought the most cheers from the crowd, it was the speed climbing that had amazed her. With only a rope and toe spars, they ascended the ninety-foot poles in less than ten seconds, and descended quicker.

Alex wasn't looking to break any records, but she thought the technique would help her stay out of trouble and get the bird's-eye view she wanted on the creatures she aimed to kill.

After weaving a grass rope, Alex found a suitable tree to practice her ascent. She wrapped the rope around the two-foot-diameter trunk and placed the toes of her sandals against the trunk. With a little jump to get herself started, Alex squeezed the rope around the trunk while using the leverage to pull herself higher.

But she stood too tall, and her feet lost grip and her sandals slid down, launching her face into the tree.

You have taken 1 damage from a tree!

How did you even manage that?

Alex rubbed her nose, coming away with a little blood. She blew out a breath, thankful that no one had been around to see it.

Quest Offered: Climb to the top of the Warped Forest (+1,000 XP) [Y/N]

Without dying, of course.

As she hit accept, a familiar voice startled her.

"Trees are nasty foes, you never know when one is going to reach out and smack you in the nose," said Ethel, who'd taken a perch on a nearby limb.

The snide barb was easily forgiven, not just because it'd been delivered with a humorous lilt, but because it was the first friendly face—or beak in this case—that she'd seen in weeks.

"Since I lack wings for flight I have to resort to more primitive means," said Alex, holding up her grass rope. "Unless you'd like to volunteer as transport. I'm sure I could make a nice saddle."

Ethel cackled, ruffling her wings with pleasure.

+10 reputation with Great Ravens

The Great Raven tilted her head in that awkward manner that birds could do without snapping their own necks.

"What in the Tailfeather of the World are you doing?" asked Ethel.

"Climbing, but my technique needs some work," she said, wiping the remaining blood from her upper lip. "Hey! I have something for you. A great many somethings."

Ethel glided to her, landed a few feet away, and then walk-hopped next to Alex with an eager glint to her shiny black pebble eyes.

"You had me at Hey!" said Ethel, copying her greeting's inflection perfectly.

Alex handed over the stack of fifty-eight worthless baubles from her Handysack.

Quest Completed: Find 50 Worthless Baubles for Ethel

You have gained experience: 500 XP

+100 reputation with Great Ravens

You are now friendly with Great Ravens

Ethel dropped them into her belt pouch with her beak, following it up with a trilling caw.

"Your junk is my treasure," said Ethel. "It was a pleasure doing business with you."

"Anything else I can do for you?" asked Alex.

"I will take more worthless baubles as you find them," said Ethel. "And you might find other items that you have no use for that I will take in trade."

Quest Offered: Find 50 Worthless Baubles for Ethel (+500 XP / +100 reputation with Great Ravens) [Y/N]

She happily accepted the repeating quest, especially since the baubles were a byproduct of her XP farming.

"Now that we're friends, dearie, may I offer you a tip?" asked Ethel, and once again, Alex imagined her as an old woman with a cigarette hanging from her dangling hand.

"Of course," said Alex.

"Those sandals are slicker than gargantuan snot. You should rough 'em up a little. Add a little grit so you can get traction," said Ethel.

"I've thought of that, but I'm a little lacking on the glue to stick it," said Alex.

"And what are old Great Ravens for, except to be there in your time of need," said Ethel.

"Don't forget the snark," said Alex with a smile. "I'm rather fond of it."

"Back at ya, kid," said Ethel.

The black bird shoved her beak into her pouch and rooted around in it, suggesting that it was a similar container to her Handysack. Ethel produced a jar and tossed it to Alex.

You have received: Ethel's Adhesive Ointment

There was no label on the jar, but thankfully the details appeared as she stared at it.

Item: Ethel's Adhesive Ointment

Uses: 20 ׀ Effect: You are familiar with glue, right?

Smells like menthol and butterscotch candies.

It wasn't hard to find sharp rocks. Beneath the rich soil was a layer of volcanic rock that had been broken down over time. Alex wasn't sure if that detail was important or it was just a level of verisimilitude that gave the world a lived-in feel, but she appreciated it either way.

After collecting two handfuls of sharp rocks, Alex readied her sandals. Applying the adhesive only took one use, after which she pressed on the rocks, being careful not to stick herself to the glue. She didn't know how permanent it was, and it'd look really bad if she had to fight with her sandals stuck to her hands.

In a moment of inspiration, before the ointment was dry, Alex channeled her faez into the sandals. As she focused on the footwear, her faez bar drained. She had the same sensation of using magic that she did in the real world—as if frozen string was being pulled from her mind—before an audible pop sounded and the sandals shimmered, changing from a look that said homeless marathon runner to weekend mountain climber.

Item: Boots of Ascending

+5 Climbing

AC: 2 ׀ Durability 30/30

Not liable for slips, trips, and falls.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Devious Device

Before they'd been open-toed and grimy with dirt from weeks of use, but the spell had transformed them into stylish boots with toe clamps on the front. She hugged them to her chest as if she were Cinderella receiving her glass slippers.

"Oh, thank you, Ethel. They're perfect!"

"Well try 'em on, dearie. Or would you prefer another bloody nose?"

Grinning from ear to ear, Alex slipped the boots onto her feet. The spell transformation had added a soft cushion to the inside, making them more comfortable than the previous version.

With the grass rope wrapped around the trunk, Alex placed her boots against the bark, enjoying the way the tips bit into the soft wood. Shifting the rope upward, Alex stepped up, leaning back for leverage.

"You look like a confused meerkat," said Ethel, hopping from foot to foot. "Come on, keep climbing."

Using the rope to hold herself in place, and taking upward steps in a wide stance that made her feel like she was crab walking, Alex made it twenty feet up the trunk before she came to a branch. It took some maneuvering to get the rope above it, but once she did, the rest was easy.

She found a high branch that gave her a good view of the surrounding forest, but hadn't received the quest completion message yet. As she eyed the higher limbs, she worried that one might snap under her weight. The fall would easily kill her, but the potential experience boost was worth the risk.

She heard a flutter of wings as Ethel settled down nearby.

"Here for the show?" asked Alex.

"Falling or falling?" asked Ethel, clapping her beak twice.

"Ha, very funny," said Alex, reaching for a thin branch above her. It took another five minutes to move through the slender limbs that made up the upper canopy but eventually she was rewarded.

Quest Completed: Climb to the top of the Warped Forest

You have gained experience: 1,000 XP

"These boots are almost as good as wings," said Alex.

"I wouldn't go that far," said Ethel, adding a raspy caw for good measure.

From her vantage at the top of the tree, which was on a rise, she had a good view of the whole area. The Warped Forest wasn't a large region, maybe twenty square miles set against a mountain range on the west side and the Plains of Warsong on the east. It was shaped like a diamond with the river-bottomed chasm running north to south.

Near the western side of the Warped Forest, nestled against the mountains, Alex spied a region that seemed to ripple as if it were a blacktop road in a desert. The trees looked less structured, more fractal, and the aqua blue that haunted the edges of the leaves took on other hues, giving the forest a shimmering soap bubble feel. It didn't take a stretch of the imagination to figure that was the place she needed to go to solve the quest with the chimeric stones.

"We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," said Alex.

"I think someone took too much acid in their developmental years when they made this place," said Ethel.

Holding onto a branch for balance, Alex asked, "Excuse me if this is rude for asking, but do you understand the nature of this world?"

"Yes," said Ethel. "That you think you're playing a game?"

Alex wasn't sure if the Great Raven was messing with her.

"Are...are you an NPC? Like an AI or something?" she asked.

The Great Raven hopped to the edge of her branch and tilted her glossy black head. "Do you really think a bunch of 1s and 0s could ever be the cat's pajamas?"

Alex bit the side of her lip, squinting.

"Yeah, you're right," she said, even though she didn't really believe it. Clearly whatever intelligence was behind Ethel Stormfeathers the Third—computer, enchantment, daemon—it wasn't meant to know that it was. Alex was just glad to have some companionship, however brief, in the game.

To the east, past the Plains of Warsong, Alex caught a flash in the sky. She climbed a little higher, to where the trunk felt more like a branch and swayed with her weight, to get a better view. Even with her hand cupped over her eyes to guard against the glare, she couldn't see what had caused the flash. It was almost like the sky in that region absorbed the light.

"Do you know what's over there?" asked Alex.

Before Ethel's comments had been breezy, as if they were a couple of old friends sharing a whiskey at an upscale bar. But as soon as the Great Raven looked in the direction Alex had been staring, she responded in a low and raspy voice.

"No one goes there, so don't worry about it," said Ethel.

"No one goes there? What does that mean?" asked Alex.

"No one goes there and comes back out," said Ethel. "Not your kind, or my kind. It's a place that was not meant to be."

"Like an error in the game?" asked Alex.

A quiet heaviness suggested she would get no more information from Ethel, and the wind was picking up, which made her position precarious.

As Alex started climbing down, Ethel spread her wings to ruffle out her feathers.

"It's been real, kid, but I gotta fly," said Ethel.

With her hands busy with the rope, Alex looked up and said, "Thanks for the ointment. Don't be a stranger."

The Great Raven lifted into the sky on her black wings, disappearing over the canopy in two thrusts.

Alex's mind briefly touched on the strange darkness beyond the Plains of Warsong. She assumed Ethel saying that it wasn't meant to be explored was ominous foreshadowing for a later zone, maybe something when she was in her fourth or fifth year. But it also had the weight of something real, that gave her shivers when she thought too much about it.

"One thing at a time," said Alex as she shifted the rope down and stuck her toe grip onto a lower section of the trunk. "First I need to make a visit to my little fat-bodied friends."

Chapter Thirteen

Three days after the visit from Ethel, Alex visited the section of the chasm where the bloats had killed her. The flying critters used the cliffside cave as a base to harass the people on the Plains side of the divide.

The creatures usually left in the evening and returned by morning, plumper from their expedition. Using the proboscis hanging from their bodies, they sucked blood from people and creatures alike during the night.

While the bloats were away, Alex collected multiple armfuls of firewood, piling them in five different locations surrounding the area. Next she climbed into the trees, setting up nets that she'd woven from the local grass. Her fingers were stained green from weaving, but she was getting faster at the task.

When it neared morning time, Alex lit the fires, pouring magic into them until they were crackling. The flames had burned through their first round of wood when Alex spied the bloats on the far side of the chasm, bobbing back home with bellies full of blood.

She quickly ran to each fire, throwing a pile of wet grass on the flames. Smoke billowed up until visibility in the trees was less than ten feet.

With a cloth mask around her face, Alex crouched behind a pile of logs.

The first critter came hovering through the smoke, its too-small wings beating to keep its bloated body in the air. When Alex confirmed that it was separated from the group, she stood up and threw a rock at the bloat.

You have hit the bloat for 0 damage!

The creature bobbed towards Alex, who backpedaled through a gap between two trees. As the bloat passed between them, Alex yanked on a rope, which released a net on top of it. She threw herself on the net, pushing away the squirming proboscis trying to attach to her skin, and scooped it up.

Behind the next tree was a cage she'd built out of the bamboo-like reeds near the pond. She threw the bloat, net and all, into the cage, and barred the door into place before returning to the smoky forest.

When she was finished, she'd captured six bloats, each in their own separate cage. The creatures didn't seem happy about their confinement, bumping against the sides like mosquitoes trying to get through a screen door, but there was nothing they could do about it.

Alex stacked the cages near one of the fires after putting out the rest. She wasn't worried about being attacked, since other creatures avoided the location as if they knew what lurked below.

Waiting through the long day was restless for Alex. She would be putting phase two of her plan into action later that night, and if it didn't work, she'd be out of ideas, which was daunting since the larger foes in the forest were level 10 and higher, making tangling with them nearly impossible.

She'd also been spending time thinking about her mom, wondering what she was doing back in Kentucky. When she'd joined Gamemakers Hall, Alex had expected that she'd be able to talk to her mom on a regular basis, but being stuck in the game made that impossible, and she wasn't about to pop out for a quickie, incurring an experience penalty.

It'd been especially difficult when she was weaving the grass nets. Her mom had been the one to show her that trick on camping trips. She liked to show off her weaving skills, making grass baskets or other natural items. Once when they were on a camping trip, her mom had caught a huge catfish using a grass net she'd positioned in the rapids beneath a fallen log.

Her mom liked to remind her that weaving, knitting, and the other crafts of creation were all mathematics based. She knew her mom was just trying to connect with her, since Alex loved her math classes, but sitting and working the knitting needles was too slow paced for her. Alex liked the idea of those skills, but hadn't wanted to put time into learning them. But now that she was using nets and rope in Gamemakers Online, she wished she'd paid more attention.

Right after night fell, Axo the shrew showed up, little nose twitching in anticipation of an insect snack. Alex threw the creature a pair of beetles she'd caught under her furs the previous night.

After Axo gobbled them up, the little shrew stared at the bloat cages with wide eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. It's creepy with them right there, but better in the cage than floating around sucking blood."

She squinted at the way the shrew was shivering, realizing that they must have hunted little Axo in the past.

"Don't worry, I won't let them feed on you. Even better, what birds spend a lot of time on their knees?" She paused. "Birds of prey? Haha. Well, not really. That one was pretty bad, but I thought it might cheer you up."

Axo squeaked and disappeared into the grasses. "Everyone's a critic."

When the nightly noises had died down, suggesting that even the predators had returned to their home, Alex prepared for her hunt. She gathered three cages, placing them on a wooden travois, which she hooked to her shoulders. Using a makeshift torch, Alex ventured into the darkness of the forest. It was the part of her plan that was most fraught with danger. Normally, she'd kept to her palisade camp during the night when the Warped Forest was most dangerous. She'd waited until the horizon had a faint nimbus of morning before heading out.

She followed the markings she'd made on the tree trunks, leading her deeper into the forest. The torch was a necessary risk, since she had no way to see in the dark yet.

A few times she had to find a new path, since she'd scouted the area without a travois attached to her back, but she made it to her intended location without incident.

She knew she was in the right area when she saw the "X" marked on the tree trunks. Alex put the torch out and unhooked the travois from her back. She waited in the undergrowth until her sight returned. There was enough morning light that the trees were faint parallel lines around her.

Dragging the travois as slowly as she could to not make noise, Alex crept through the brush. When she reached the edge of the small clearing, she set the travois down and grabbed a cage. The bloat's proboscis snaked through a hole, trying to attach itself to her, but she trapped it with her hand.

"You'll feed soon enough," she whispered.

Every crunch of her boots against the leaves brought a cringe, but she managed to make it into the clearing. Ahead of her, lying on its side in a makeshift nest it had created by rooting in the dirt, was a massive creature with a big horn and two tusks sticking from its mouth.

Brutal Rhinoboar, Warped Animal, Level 13

Her analyze skill had gotten high enough that she could finally see its level. Not that she'd had any doubts that it was a much higher level than her.

With the cage in her hands, Alex crept forward, hoping her stealth skill was high enough to evade the sleeping creature's senses.

Alex reached the sleeping rhinoboar, wondering if a coup de grace would be a better tactic since she was sure to get a critical hit, but decided to stick to her original plan. She nestled the cage next to the creature, making sure it was close enough the proboscis could reach it, then she waited with her breath in her throat to see if the rhinoboar would wake when it attached.

Her theory had been that the bloats survived by feeding during the night like vampire bats or mosquitos, which meant they could do it without waking their prey. She hoped their blood taking wouldn't wake the rhinoboar.

Once the first bloat had attached itself, Alex returned to the travois to retrieve the other two cages. She hated having to make the trip one by one, since every step was a chance to wake the sleeping creature.

After ten long minutes of creeping back and forth, the three bloats had attached themselves to the rhinoboar. Alex didn't know how much damage they would do from their feeding, but she needed to make sure they didn't kill it before she could do the final blow.

It was possible that her tactic might be nullified if experience was given based on percent of damage inflicted, rather than the killing blow, but there was only one way to find out.

With her whip in her hand, Alex waited as the bloats fed, keeping an eye on the horizon. Morning was coming fast, as colors had filled in the trees and the insects were waking. Soon, the rhinoboar would wake.

Alex kept analyzing it, hoping she might get a sign when she should strike.

As she watched, the rhinoboar deflated, and the bloats expanded, pushing against the sides of their cages as they filled with warm blood. Alex realized she was going to need bigger cages if they were going to feed on larger foes. She pulled them away so they didn't explode like a tick, setting them away from the sleeping rhinoboar.

Steeling herself for the eventual reprisal, Alex lifted her Vicious Thorny Whip. She cracked down at the Brutal Rhinoboar.

Critical hit! You deal the Brutal Rhinoboar 32 damage!

The Brutal Rhinoboar is affected by Bleed!

An agonized groan came from the now awake creature, but Alex kept striking it for as long as it was prone. She hit it three more times in quick succession.

As the Brutal Rhinoboar struggled to its feet, Alex realized she wasn't going to be able to kill it outright before it was able to attack her. So she grabbed her climbing rope and scurried up the nearest tree.

The Brutal Rhinoboar crashed into the trunk right as she ascended above it.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Climbing

Alex made a perch on the lowest branch, which was higher than the rhinoboar could reach. But her whip was long enough that when the enraged creature attacked the tree, she hit it.

You deal the Brutal Rhinoboar 11 damage!

The Brutal Rhinoboar takes 2 damage from Bleed!

You deal the Brutal Rhinoboar 14 damage!

Using one hand to hold on while leaning out to use the whip made her unprepared for the impact when the rhinoboar hit the tree. She was thrown from her perch, landing in the soft grass.

You have taken 2 damage from falling!

The Brutal Rhinoboar sized her up, pawing at the earth, preparing a charge. Alex had nowhere to go and she'd dropped her whip in the fall.

With no other weapons at her disposal, she prepared a fire spell, knowing it was likely to fizzle.

The Brutal Rhinoboar surged forward in a charge, and Alex closed her eyes, preparing for impact.

So she was surprised when her death didn't come and she heard a heavy thud as the Brutal Rhinoboar fell over dead.

She opened her eyes to see a variety of messages scrolling through her vision.

Critical hit! The Brutal Rhinoboar takes 5 damage from Bleed!

You have slain a Brutal Rhinoboar!

You have gained experience: 1,800 XP

Special Achievement Reached: You have killed a creature more than ten levels above yours!

You have gained bonus experience: 5,000 XP

You have gained a skill point: +1 One-handed Whip

You have gained a skill point: +1 Devious Device

You have gained a unique skill point: +1 Cunning Strategist

Luck favors the prepared!

A weight lifted from her shoulders that it'd worked. Her hands shook.

"That was too close," said Alex, her mind whirling with thoughts on how to improve her tactics for next time.

The bushes beneath the tree had been trampled to dirt. She worried that the bloat cages had been damaged until she realized she'd climbed a different tree than where she'd set them.

"I need to keep that in mind for next time," she said.

Alex looted the Brutal Rhinoboar carcass, which disappeared afterwards.

You have received: Rhinoboar Hide x5

You have received: Rhinoboar Meat x12

She put both items in her Handysack, hoping she could make better armor out of the hide. The meat was a nice boon considering she was getting low on supplies.

Alex opened up her stat sheet and examined the unique skill she'd gained.

Unique Skills:

Cunning Stra*tegist: 1

Receive a luck bonus at crucial moments

The pop-up had a text error embedded in it. There was an * stuck in the middle of the word strategist. Alex poked it and the * disappeared.

"That was weird," she muttered before letting her thoughts return to the fight. The critical hit from the bleed effect had probably saved her. Alex imagined that if it hadn't had crit, then she would have been trampled.

With the battle complete, Alex placed the bloat cages on the travois and started marching back to where she'd left the other ones. After grabbing a nap, she planned on moving her camp to the cave since it would give her more access to the higher-level critters. Once that was done, she knew the locations of a half dozen other creatures like the Brutal Rhinoboar.

A secret smile bloomed on Alex's lips.

"Let the hunt begin."

Chapter Fourteen

The next three weeks, Alex kept a steady schedule. Sleep during the day and hunt at night. The cave had been converted into a comfortable living space using the materials she salvaged from the creatures she killed and a new spell she learned while weaving new ropes. When she added a bit of faez to the creation, the grass rope turned into a solid hemp rope.

Spell: Minor Creation – Tier 1

Faez: Varies ׀ Duration: Permanent

Base Skill: Devious Device

Effect: Create new magic items or copy mundane items.

The spell was a huge boon as it freed up the time she'd been spending reweaving her grass ropes since they tended to fall apart after a few hours. She quickly leveled the skill up in making her cave homier.

On the morning she hoped to reach level 3, she woke nestled in her pile of tigersloth furs. Alex lit the torch on the wall with her fire magic, then went about her waking routine, which involved a quick meal, washing her face and pits in a wooden basin, and putting on her cloth armor.

She hadn't yet been able to make anything with the rhinoboar hides. That skill or spell had evaded her, and she'd used up two of the five attempting it. She didn't want to try again until she was sure of success.

When she was ready, she pushed aside the covering that blocked the remaining daylight and used the hemp rope to climb up the cliffside to the upper camp.

She'd built palisades around the spot above the cave, where she usually spent the evening making new gear while she waited for her time to hunt.

"Good morning, my disgusting little bloodsuckers," said Alex, touching the four remaining bloat cages. "Did we enjoy last night's chianti and fava beans?"

After the battles with the Brutal Rhinoboar, she'd lost the other two bloats. One to overfeeding, which had been a mess, and the other when a raticore had eaten it during the day, which was why she'd built the palisades.

The critters no longer tried to feed on her when she picked up their cages, which didn't make them any less creepy, but at least she didn't have to fight with their proboscises.

While she waited for hunting time, Alex made new ropes and nets. She had a pile of them already, but wanted the skill ups. None of her spells or skills were tier two, and she really wanted to know what that got her.

When it was time to go, Alex placed the four bloat cages on her travois, which had a fur shoulder harness and made almost no noise as she dragged it through the forest.

She was particularly excited about the evening's hunt because it would level her, which also brought concern, because she didn't want her nerves to affect the fight. With the travois dragging behind her, Alex went deeper into the Warped Forest than she'd ever been.

After this hunt, she'd have to pick a new area, which would lead her further into the middle. Alex reached the spot without incident due to her stealth. First, she found a solid tree in case a quick escape was needed. Then she placed the bloat cages next to the sleeping dreadful bearcat.

The creature had the body of a bear with the squished face of a snaggle-toothed cat. While it slept, it snored with a growling purr.

Dreadful Bearcat, Warped Animal, Level 12

As the bloats fed, they expanded in their larger cages. Alex used the time to prepare the rope restraints. She tied one end of each rope to a sturdy tree, while the other ends she carefully slipped over the massive paws of the dreadful bearcat. The bloats filled their prey with a sedative that kept them from waking during the feeding, which also gave her an opportunity.

Once the ropes were set, Alex removed the cages. The bloats had a faint glow around them, which was odd, but she didn't have time to investigate because the Dreadful Bearcat would wake soon. The sedative that the bloats used wore off as soon as the proboscis was removed.

Alex pulled out her Vicious Thorny Whip and took position near the head of the warped animal. If it were a real creature, she would have felt bad about hunting it in such a devious manner, but since her progress in the game required it, she took a deep breath before making her attacks.

Critical hit! You deal the Dreadful Bearcat 37 damage!

Critical hit! You deal the Dreadful Bearcat 28 damage!

You deal the Dreadful Bearcat 13 damage!

As she laid into the creature with her whip, the dreadful bearcat woke and immediately lunged towards her, but came up short as the ropes tightened around its limbs, restraining it completely.

"Sorry, sweetie, I don't fight fair," she said, before hitting it again.

It took another ten strikes but eventually the Dreadful Bearcat succumbed to her whip.

You have slain a Dreadful Bearcat!

You have gained experience: 1,800 XP

You have reached level 3!

Alex thrust her whip in the air in victory. It'd taken nearly six weeks to make level 2, but she'd hit the next level after only two weeks.

Her excitement continued when she saw a new round of messages in her view.

Bloat has upgraded! Do you want it as a minion? [Y/N]

Bloat has upgraded! Do you want it as a minion? [Y/N]

Bloat has upgraded! Do you want it as a minion? [Y/N]

Bloat has upgraded! Do you want it as a minion? [Y/N]

"Whoa," she said, hitting yes right away.

As soon as she did, a new message appeared.

You have gained a unique skill point: +1 Mastermind

Do you want to give Bloat a unique name? [Y/N]

"Hells yes," said Alex, thinking about what names would be appropriate for the flying bloodsuckers. "There are four of you, so what kind of game has four named critters?"

As soon as she thought about it, she had an answer. She quickly accepted the four messages and announced their names.

"Welcome my minions, Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde," she said.

When she analyzed them, she got a different pop-up than before.

Blinky, Minion, level 1

Pinky, Minion, level 1

Inky, Minion, level 1

Clyde, Minion, level 1

"Sweet," she said as she realized she felt a mental connection to the four minions. "That must be part of the mastermind skill."

Quest Offered: Earn an ability for a minion (+2,000 XP) [Y/N]

The bloats had been level 3 when she'd had to fight them, but now they were level 1, which suggested they could level up. Based on the timing of the quest pop-up, she assumed that if she leveled up them up enough they'd receive abilities, which would be useful during her hunts.

Knowing instinctively that she wouldn't be in danger, Alex opened the cages. Her minions lifted into the air, slowly at first since they hadn't used their wings in weeks, but then they gained height.

"This will be so much better than having to haul your cages everywhere," she said.

It was strange having a connection to them, as if there were a string reaching from the base of her neck to the bloats. They also looked a little different, as if changing to a minion had made them a different creature. Their proboscises weren’t so lanky and grotesque. She wouldn't call them cute, but looking at them didn’t give her the shivers.

Next, Alex brought up her character sheet. She knew exactly where she was going to put her new attribute points because she'd been thinking about it for weeks, especially when she hovered over the Cunning Strategist skill to find it was linked to her Cunning stat, not that it was a surprise given the matched names.

Character: Alexandria Duke

Level: 3

Strength: 1

Intelligence: 1

Cunning: 3

Agility: 1

Endurance: 2

Charisma: 1

Class: Undecided

Subclass: Undecided

Health: 30/30

Faez: 30/30

Fatigue: 55%

XP: 51,203 / 90,000

Skills:

Analyze: 5

One-handed Slashing: 1

Fire Spells: 3

Devious Device: 4

Sense Direction: 5

One-handed Whip: 3

Water Spells: 3

Cooking: 5

Stealth: 2

Climbing: 2 (+5 Ascending Boots)

Unique Skills:

Cunning Strategist: 1

Mastermind: 1

Spells:

Dewdrop Orb: 3

Minor Creation: 3

Like last level, she put two points in Cunning and one in Endurance. She was a little annoyed that her faez pool hadn't grown much, but she could deal with it as she hadn't been relying on her spells to win battles directly.

The dreadful bearcat dropped meat but no hides. She really needed to upgrade her armor.

"Let's head back, minions...actually, you fly back to camp. While I'm here, I should do some exploring," she said.

The dreadful bearcat was the last creature she'd scouted. Any more kills would come from foes deeper in the Warped Forest. Leaving her travois and cages where they lay, Alex stowed her whip, preparing to move stealthily through the undergrowth.

When she was scouting, Alex made sure not to move until she could confirm the way ahead was clear. She would climb a suitable tree for a proper vantage point, then after confirming no creatures were within sight, she would return to the ground.

As she went deeper into the forest, the leaves grew brighter, as if their colors had been turned up. The lushness was almost overwhelming in its starkness.

Back at the cliff, the leaves had faint blue edges, but nearing the center they radiated yellows and reds as if colors bled through them.

The trees grew more angled, making climbing easier. But the strange lines made it difficult to see ahead, as the undergrowth was blocked by awkward tree limbs filled with technicolor leaves.

Alex was climbing down from one such tree when she heard a strange buzzing behind her. She leapt from her perch, landing in a battle crouch with the Vicious Thorny Whip in her hand, ready to strike whatever was making the noise.

She scanned all around, seeing nothing but trees and empty air, but she still heard the buzzing, though she couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from.

Then something dripped onto her shoulder. Alex craned her head back to see a creature with a long greenish-black scaled body, hooded head, translucent wings, and a glistening black stinger.

Ghostly Cobrawasp, Warped Animal, Level 15

Because a regular wasp wasn't asshole enough

"Oh shit," she said, the moment before the stinger impaled her in the chest.

You have taken 25 damage! You are affected with Agonizing Poison!

You have taken 19 damage from Agonizing Poison!

You have died!

Chapter Fifteen

After respawning at the rotting log, Alex retrieved her travois and cages before returning to her camp. The Ghostly Cobrawasp had dispatched her with one sting, and even though death had erased the poison from her system, she kept rubbing her chest where the stinger had gone in.

She'd lost 500 experience when she died, which thankfully hadn't deleveled her. But it meant she'd have to re-earn that 500 experience.

The four bloat minions were waiting for her back at the camp. She turned the cages into nests for them, removing their doors, flipping them on their back, and lining them with leftover fur scraps until they looked like chicken roosts.

Despite their new linkage to her, Alex left them at the above camp. She really didn't like the idea of sleeping in the same place as the bloats. But they didn't seem to mind and greeted her by hovering into the air when she came up the next evening.

"I don't have anything you can feed on today, so you can hunt across the chasm," she told them.

Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde immediately set off across the expanse, bobbing in a line towards the Plains of Warsong.

Alex waited until the deep night before returning to the forest to scout. She moved slower this time, scanning the sky above her in case the Ghostly Cobrawasp returned. She managed to find two potential targets that evening—a hogappillar and a stonegoat.

Freed from hauling cages, Alex dispatched them both the next night as she was more mobile. But on the following night when she returned to scout, the Ghostly Cobrawasp caught her and killed her with one massive critical hit.

This pattern went on for the next two weeks. She killed fourteen new warped animals, but died to the cobrawasp three more times. The only saving grace was that she was only losing 500 XP each time, rather than an escalating number.

That night, rather than hunt, she hid in the trees to ambush it, but it never showed. The only sign she ever got that it was near was a buzzing noise moments before it struck.

Since she no longer had to spend so much time weaving grass ropes and mending minor gear, Alex experimented with her spells, trying to find new effects. Since she sucked at fire spells, primarily producing sparks no matter how many times she tried, Alex switched to air, hoping she could produce wind strong enough to affect the cobrawasp.

The early experiments produced more substantial effects than her lame fire sparks, including one attempt that created a gust of gray cloud that crackled with static electricity, but unfortunately no new spells. She gained five skill points in air magic during that time, which was enough to convince her to keep going. It was possible that the game had hidden skill affinities that allowed certain skills to progress faster. Or she just sucked at fire.

Alex also spent time investigating the chimeric stones. She had a stack of eighteen, mostly from the smaller critters since she hadn't figured out how to get the larger corpses into the Dented Cooking Pot to boil them down.

The stones seemed to have different markings and swirls each time she looked at them, but that could have been her memory too. Alex tried cooking the stones with other items in her pot, hoping they might combine or create a beneficial effect, but the stones just sat at the bottom while the rest of the ingredients interacted.

She did figure out a number of recipes by throwing random items that she picked up in the forest into the cooking pot. It was how she'd created the Spicy Iguana Steak, by combining the meat with a plant that looked like sage called indigo in her pot.

After a while she started throwing anything and everything into it, hoping for a new recipe. Most ended up as char in the bottom of the pot, but thankfully, the game didn't require her to scrub out the mess. She only had to tip it over, and whatever it was, it fell out.

"A dented cooking pot you may be, but you're a freaking miracle in my eyes," she told the pot more than once after ejecting a particularly disgusting failed combination.

On a particularly clear night—it never stormed in the Warped Forest—Alex was throwing random items into the pot: a stonegoat hoof, indigo, blue leaf bark, a sparrow feather, and a Dewdrop Orb. Normally such varied mixes ended in the black mess, but when she let a little faez flow into the pot, it crackled with energy, a brewer's mist forming on top before dissipating into a chunky bar that looked similar to granola if it'd been made with handicrafts.

Item: Acceleration Bar

Use: Increases Effects

You know you want to...

You have gained a skill point: +1 Cooking

You have gained a skill point: +1 Devious Devices

You have gained a new recipe: Acceleration Bar

Alex held it in her cupped hands as if it were made of gold. If she understood it correctly, it was a powerful one-use item. It seemed strange that she got two skill points off the same creation until she realized the container in which it'd been cooked seemed different.

The dented pot had lost its signature impact, and its dull gray exterior had turned glistening black. It looked like if a black Porsche had been turned into a cooking utensil.

Item: Exquisite Cooking Pot

Dmg: 2-5 ׀ 25/25 Durability

Yet you'll still only cook ramen

She wasn't sure how, but she'd transformed the dented pot into an exquisite one. Maybe items could level up? Or maybe because it was her starting item, it had hidden properties that she had to unlock.

Alex put the Acceleration Bar into her Handysack for later. An effect like that would need to be used at a special moment to maximize its effect.

The next day she went in search of new creatures to hunt. She let her minions feed on the Plains while she crept through the undergrowth.

Alex took special care to climb into the upper canopy frequently to survey the forest, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cobrawasp from a distance. She also moved with what she hoped was special care.

But her precautions proved fruitless when the cobrawasp caught her as she shimmied down the tree and dropped into the dirt with her climbing rope in her hand.

A faint buzzing announced its presence. Without waiting to get a visual on it, Alex dove to the right, rolling beneath the black stinger as it slammed into the trunk.

It hit so hard the tip sunk into the soft wood. The cobrawasp struggled to remove it while Alex pulled out her Vicious Thorny Whip.

You miss a Ghostly Cobrawasp!

You hit a Ghostly Cobrawasp for 3 damage!

You miss a Ghostly Cobrawasp!

Alex struck the creature in successive fashion, but despite it being held in place, her weapon did nothing. She quickly realized that normally she fought the denizens of the Warped Forest after they'd been drained by her minions. The loss of blood must have made those creatures more susceptible to her low-level attacks.

But she knew running wasn't going to work either, and she hated giving up an opportunity while the cobrawasp was stuck in the tree.

With a flash of an idea, Alex pulled a hemp rope from her Handysack. She made a loop and threw it around the head of the flying snake. The cobrawasp hissed as the rope nestled around its slender neck.

Alex ran the long end of the rope around the tree and was preparing to make a second loop when the cobrawasp managed to free its stinger from the tree trunk. Before she could throw a second loop, it turned its head at her and spit venom right into her face.

You have been hit by Ghostly Cobrawasp venom!

You are affected by rotting venom!

You take 24 damage from the rotting venom!

You take 23 damage from the rotting venom!

You have died!

Chapter Sixteen

"Dammit," said Alex, punching into her open palm at the deteriorated log. A blue butterfly had taken roost on the good end of the wood, which made her exclamation less cathartic than usual. Her frustration deepened when she happened to analyze her cloth shirt.

Item: Cloth Shirt [DESTROYED]

As she was examining the cloth shirt, it faded from her chest, leaving her in nothing but a sports bra. She wasn't completely bummed until she checked the coiled weapon on her hip.

Item: Vicious Thorny Whip [DESTROYED]

"No!" she said, grasping at it as it disappeared from view.

Quest Offered: Create a magical weapon (+5,000 XP) [Y/N]

Quest Offered: Create a magical piece of armor (+5,000 XP) [Y/N]

Alex sunk to her knees. The rotting venom had killed her and destroyed two pieces of gear. The cloth shirt was only to keep her from running around half-naked, so she really didn't care since she hadn't seen anyone else during her months in game, but the whip was her only real weapon. Even the quest pop-ups didn't lessen her losses.

"I'm going to kill that stupid cobrawasp," said Alex.

Quest Offered: Get revenge on the Ghostly Cobrawasp (+10,000 XP) [Y/N]

"By Merlin's hairy butthole, I will," said Alex, swiping to accept the quest, before heading to the bramble patch to make a new weapon. When she got to it, her stomach twisted into one big, giant knot.

The bramble patch was gone. She could see signs of where the Brutal Rhinoboar had scarred the ground, but a leafy vine had taken over the area. Only dead brown stalks remained of the bramble patch, as if it'd been too damaged to survive, allowing the interloper's intrusion.

The whole trip back to the campsite Alex racked her brain for weapon ideas. Without the thorny brambles she had no way to make a viable one. Sure, she could use a big stick as a club, but mindless bashing wasn't going to help her defeat the higher-level monsters.

It wasn't like she had access to metal, or even a stone knife. Her only sharp object had gone over the edge of the cliff into a river.

All at once, she had the overwhelming desire to talk to her mom. She'd been in the Warped Forest for what felt like three months, but she had no idea how long it'd been. Last time she'd been out, the first day of playing the game, she'd tried to call her mom, but no one had been home.

She'd been so busy, she'd forgotten that she'd promised to call her. It didn't help that she received an experience penalty every time she logged out.

But penalty be damned. She needed time away from the Warped Forest and the Ghostly Cobrawasp that was absolutely kicking her ass.

Alex cringed when she hit yes, accepting the penalty.

When she appeared next to the obsidian cube, she caught a glimpse of a girl with red hair right before she disappeared. The sensation of watching someone lying on the cushions one moment, and not the next, left Alex with whiplash.

"Damn," she said. "It would have been nice to talk to someone."

Especially a person who would understand the level of frustration she was feeling. Alex had expected a tactically difficult game, but she hadn't thought it'd be so immersive. It made the failures all the more difficult to deal with. In a regular game, you only had to reload and try again, and usually the penalties weren't so severe. Gamemakers Online felt like constantly taking two steps forward and one step back.

She felt like a stranger creeping back into the house. The first crackles of thunder had her ducking for cover until she realized what they were.

A storm pounded the city. Alex found a window and pressed herself to the glass, catching glimpses of the broken buildings surrounding Gamemakers Hall when the lightning snaked across the sky.

She loved storms, but in the city of sorcery they seemed different, as if they were amped by the presence of magic. She'd read that somewhere but thought it'd been a rumor. The ferocity of the lightning suggested otherwise.

It took her a half hour to find her room again, but once there, she headed back out because she wasn't tired and she'd logged out of the game to talk to her mom. But since it was dark, she didn't know what time it was, or even what month.

Alex made her way to the kitchen to find a clock that read 3:28.

"Great," she said with a sigh. It'd be hours until her mom was awake.

She looked around for a marked calendar, but not finding one, opened the refrigerator instead. Only a mishmash of foods, clearly the leftovers from other students' grocery trips, remained, but Alex was an expert at making do. She boiled water for ramen, chopped up the vegetables that hadn't gone bad yet and threw them into the pot, then squirted too much sriracha and soy sauce into the mixture afterwards.

The salty noodle mix satisfied her hunger, but she kept feeling like it was missing something, so she dug through the cabinets until she found a bag of loose granola, which she dumped into it. The crunchy material seemed to be the piece she was missing.

After eating, Alex searched the house again, looking for signs that someone was out of the game, opening doors that she'd avoided before. In one room, she found the walls had been written on, extensive calculations for a type of mathematics she'd never encountered before. She could pick out derivatives and other signs of calculus, but there were symbols completely foreign to her in the mix.

When it didn't seem like anyone was around, she went back to her room and looked through the spell book that she'd found on her previous visit. In the vellum pages, she found neat handwriting describing complex spells along with professional looking sketches for the finger movements. Unfortunately, the spell effects weren't given and she was such a novice with magic that they could have been for summoning demons or creating a nice Cobb salad.

Alex studied the book until the hazy light of morning kissed the glass, revealing that the storm had passed. She raced to the rotary phone and dialed her mother, hoping to catch her before she took her morning walk.

The phone rang eight times, Alex's heart sinking lower at each one, but then someone answered.

"Duke residence," said her mother.

"Hey, Mom!"

"Alexandria!" came the excited reply, followed by a throat-rattling cough.

"You okay, Mom?" she asked.

"Nothing really." A pause. "I thought you were going to call more."

Heat rose to Alex's face. "I'm sorry, I planned to, but when I'm in the game, I can't."

"Game?" asked her mom. "I thought you were learning magic?"

"I am, but it's complicated," she said, realizing she didn't want to explain.

"I've been wondering if you were even at that Hundred Halls place," said her mom, clearly exasperated.

"Yeah, Mom. I know, I should have called sooner," said Alex, putting her hand to her forehead. "Uhm, weird question, and please humor me by answering, but what day is it?"

"Tuesday," said her mom with a questioning tone.

"No, like what day, the date," said Alex.

"It's November fifteenth."

Alex held her hand over the mouthpiece. "Oh shit."

She thought it'd been half that time, but she must have gotten the ratio between the two wrong. Not that it was easy to mentally calculate time. She could juggle numbers in her head, and directions were relatively intuitive to her, but time, especially when playing games, always ran away from her. She didn't even want to think about the fact that she was only level 3 and she had seventeen more to go. At her current pace, she’d fall short at level 12.

Alex paced along the hallway, tethered to the phone by the curly wire. Back at home, she'd never found it difficult to talk to her mom, but the distance made her fumble over her words.

"Hey, uhm, how are you doing?"

"You already asked that, sweetie," said her mom.

"What about the diner?"

A barely contained sigh came through the phone. "I haven't been there in a few weeks. I fell and twisted my wrist, and now I can't even knit."

"Mom! I asked how you were," said Alex, exasperated.

"I didn't want to worry you, but you asked."

Alex pulled the phone away from her ear and shook her head.

"Why did you fall?" she asked.

"I got dizzy."

"Is this is a one-time thing? Or has it happened before?" said Alex.

"A few times, but that was the worst," said her mom.

She almost asked if she'd been to the hospital but she knew that answer. There was no way they could afford the medical care, not for a sprained wrist and especially not for unspecified dizzy spells.

As much as her heart clenched with terrible ideas of what it might be, it was more likely that she'd been working herself up about minor things, or just plain loneliness.

"Has Frank been able to help out?" she asked.

"He's been a big help, Alexandria. Don't worry about me. I'm a grown woman. I can take care of myself," said her mom.

Standing on the other end of the phone halfway across the country, Alex couldn't quite pinpoint the time when the roles with her mother had switched, but the comment made her all too aware that it had happened.

"Have you been enjoying school?" asked her mom.

Alex hesitated before answering. "Yeah. It's been hard, much harder than I thought, but I'm learning things."

Not sure if I'm learning anything useful, but I'm learning things about the game.

"That's good," said her mother.

"Are you going to be okay on bills? You can sell my gaming gear if you want," said Alex.

"I wouldn't even know where to take it," said her mom. "But I appreciate the sentiment."

Silence filled in between them, for Alex because she was wishing she could be back home just long enough for a hug. Talking to her mom reminded her that she hadn't had human contact in months.

"Alex, honey."

"Yeah, Mom?"

"It's time for my walk."

Alex smiled. She knew how much a creature of habit her mom was about certain things.

"Yeah, Mom, that's fine."

"Are you going to call sooner?"

Alex sighed. "I'll try, but schoolwork is going to keep me busy and away from a phone. Hell, even now I'm using an old-timey rotary phone."

"Try harder, sweetie. I have to go."

"Love you, Mom."

"Love you, Alexandria."

Before she hung up, she heard a new round of coughing on her mother's end.

Afterwards, Alex went back to her room to crash. It might be daytime in the real world, but it was nighttime in Gamemakers Online. But sleeping on the bed proved difficult. She'd gotten used to her pile of furs in the cliffside cave. Alex tossed and turned for a few hours before deciding to log back in.

Chapter Seventeen

The first order of business upon her return was a new weapon. The rotting venom had deprived her of the Vicious Thorny Whip, which was what she’d been using to kill the high-level mobs after her minion bloats bled them sufficiently.

She was adept at making large-scale traps involving nets and falling logs, but it was laborious work and wouldn't always finish the job. It didn't help that she lacked a knife, or access to metal.

"Not even a single vendor to buy from, not that I have any money," she said.

Her only access to other materials had been through Ethel, and she didn't have enough Worthless Baubles to trade and hadn't seen the Great Raven in quite some time.

Sitting on the throne of her furs, Alex laid everything she owned onto the cave floor, in hopes she might get a moment of inspiration.

1 Exquisite Cooking Pot

1 Handysack

17 Water

23 Various Meats

14 Worthless Baubles

3 Rhinoboar Hide

2 Giant Moth Wings

1 Ethel's Adhesive Ointment

1 Shiny Black Feather

1 Acceleration Bar

2 Electric-Python Skins

3 Indigo

7 Hemp Ropes

2 Hemp Net

1 Goat-Bull Tail

The meager display left her crossing her arms and staring with a frown hooked on her lips.

"What I wouldn't give for some metal, or even bone," she said.

Alex thought about making an expedition to the Plains in search of materials, but Bucket and Martina had warned her away. She'd be more likely to die over there than gain anything useful. Not that she even knew how to get over the chasm. Climbing down using her ropes was one thing, getting up the other side was another.

Her options seemed limited, but she didn't stop thinking about it. A lack of resources forced creativity. Alex decided to use the ropes much as she had against the cobrawasp when it'd gotten its stinger stuck in the soft tree.

Alex took her rope and tied it into a makeshift lasso. She knew a few basic knots but had never needed to learn more than that. Her father had trapped for fur and meat in the early years, but he’d used manufactured metal traps, not ones handcrafted from basic materials.

When she had a workable version, Alex went up top to practice throwing it on a saproling. It only took a dozen attempts to realize that it would never work. She couldn't get the opening to go around a stationary object consistently, so how would she get it to loop over a dangerous creature's head while it was trying to kill her? Sure, after she tracked down and drained one, it would be easy to put the loop over its head, but not all of her fights were that planned out. She needed a weapon she could use when ambushed, and not just by the cobrawasp. The smaller critters of the Warped Forest were just as dangerous when she was unprepared.

Alex tried making a whip out of a rope, but it was too flimsy. The tough vine had provided the perfect snap to the weapon, augmented by the thorns, which dealt the majority of the damage.

Feeling like she had to get really creative, Alex added Ethel's ointment to a contraption of ropes and tree branches. To get the ropes into the proper shape, she hung them from a line tied between two trees. As she was applying the glue, she spilled a little, which stuck the rope to her forearm.

"Oh crap, that's not good," she said, tugging on the rope, but her skin bulged away, indicating it was stuck fast.

Secondary to her immediate problem was that the rope was tied to the line between the trees, which meant she'd leashed herself in place.

Alex tried yanking on the rope to free it but nothing moved. Her minions, drawn by the struggle, took roost in the nearby trees.

"Not my best work. But do I really need an audience?"

Her minions stared back with wide eyes. Realizing they weren't going to be any help, Alex climbed the tree to free herself from the crossline. She could figure out how to unglue her arm later.

But the tree had few handholds, which meant she had to hold onto the trunk with her thighs while she tried to untie the rope. Tired from the exertion, Alex slipped, and in trying to grab the support line, managed to get tangled up, falling headfirst towards the ground.

She would have welcomed the accidental death, if only to escape from the contraption, but the ropes cinched around her feet and she stopped half a foot from impact.

"Wonderful," she said, trying to do an upside down sit-up so she could reach the ropes around her ankles, but she couldn't reach.

Alex let her body resume its hanging position, her arms resting against the ground.

"Foiled by the inability to do crunches. Who knew gym class would ever be useful," said Alex.

She was wracking her brain for ideas when Axo scurried up, sniffing and lifting up on its legs as if it couldn't figure out what was going on.

"Tell me about it, Axo. I'm as perplexed as you are how I managed this," she told the little shrew. "Think you can crawl up there and chew me to freedom?"

The shrew wriggled its whiskers before scurrying back the other way.

"Hmmpf, a lot of help you are," said Alex, making another attempt at reaching the ropes around her legs.

When she returned to the hanging position, she found Axo waiting for her. She was getting a little dizzy from the blood rushing to her head, so she didn't quite see what was in the shrew's tiny hands.

"Whatcha got there?" she asked.

But she didn't get to finish the sentence as halfway through, Axo leaned onto her face and shoved a dead spider directly into her mouth. The dead hairy spider lodged against her cheek, and it took five horrible seconds to spit it out.

"Aughh, Axo," said Alex. "I need help not food!"

The shrew tried to grab the spider and force it into her mouth again, as if it thought she'd mistakenly rejected it, but she twisted her head back and forth until Axo gave up.

Dejected, the shrew took its offering and carried it to the log. The tiny hunched shoulders of the shrew told its sad tale, followed by a pathetic crunch as Axo decided to eat the spider itself.

"I'm not sure why I'm feeling guilty about being force-fed a spider, but here I am."

She glanced to her minions, who were patiently watching on their perch.

"A lot of help you are," said Alex. "Next time, I'm going to make minions out of cats. They'd be way more helpful than you are right now."

After a few more minutes of struggle, Alex decided to try fire magic to burn her way out. That way she wouldn’t have to do a full crunch, only halfway, and hope the flames would reach the ropes.

It took a dozen tries, but when she finally caught the ropes on fire, they dealt eight points of damage before she was released from the tangle.

Finally back on her feet, she said, "Oh thank god Ethel wasn't here to see that. I probably would have lost all reputation with her for that disaster." She paused. "Or gained rep, I guess."

After burning the rope from her arm, Alex put the ointment back into her Handysack, before seeing what else she had that she could turn into a weapon. The other unique materials in her possession—the rhinoboar hides, giant moth wings, electric-python skins, and a goat-bull tail—were too precious to use unless she knew it was going to work. Her earlier work with the rhinoboar hide had proved fruitless, using up two of them without benefit.

The goat-bull tail was enticing, but it was too stiff, barely bending when she applied pressure. The electric-python skins gave her static shocks every time she picked them up, but she didn't know how to wrap them around the rope to make it effective.

Her breakthrough came when she was holding an electric-python skin around a hemp rope, applying faez randomly. A spark of lightning jumped from the skin, traveled into the rope, and was followed by a pop-up.

You have learned a new spell: Transference

"Whoa," said Alex, immediately grasping the implications.

Spell: Transference – Tier One

Faez: Varies ׀ Duration: Permanent

Effect: Transfer magic from one item to another.

The amount of faez required would be the limiting factor on what she could transfer, but the spell opened up a whole new window of possibilities.

When she examined the electric-python skin, she noticed it'd changed.

Item: Animal Skin

She'd taken the electrification from the skin and applied it to the rope. But the hemp rope was still a mundane item, though it now had the "electrified" modifier on it. Anxious to make her weapon, but not wanting to rush into failure, Alex went back up top to find suitable items to practice on before she attempted to use the other skin she had.

Alex made copies of the hemp rope, then tried to transfer things from a piece of wood and other items, but there was no magic to move, so she got a [Not Valid Target] message.

Back in the cave, she pulled out one pair of giant moth wings and a brutal rhino hide. If she could transfer the flight ability into the hide, she could fight the cobrawasp in the air and make the journey to the Warsong Plains easily, plus receive some much needed experience for quest completions.

Alex set the two items side by side, placing her hands on the flimsy gossamer wings. She took a deep breath and cast the Transference spell, concentrating on the rhinoboar hide.

The magic grew in her mind, building behind her forehead, but instead of the spell completing, ghostly lines formed over the giant moth wings and the Brutal Rhinohide, almost like a circuit pattern. Sparks of light shot through the lines.

Alex stared at the pattern, trying to understand what it was trying to tell her. The giant moth wings had many lines crossing over each other, in a strange configuration that reminded her of a Mobius strip crossed with an octopus. As she stared at it, the pressure built up, making her squint. She wanted to release the faez, but it appeared she wasn't finished casting the spell.

"Come on," she muttered, "what do I need to do?"

The Brutal Rhinoboar hide had a less complex pattern, looking like the lines of a chessboard had been knocked askew. Aspects of it reminded her of a mathematical matrix, which had been a favorite of hers in Algebra. Except this matrix was jumbled up and set at cross purposes. The nodes where the lines crossed pulsed with greater impetus, as if they were urging her to act.

Wanting to do something—anything—to release the faez from her mind, Alex ran her finger along the lines between the wings and hide as if she were drawing in midair, to help make the connection. When she finished the motion, the lines filled in with light.

Her actions changed the way the faez felt in her mind, but it was still trapped. It felt like her head was in a vise. Alex kept connecting them until a pair of nodes lit up with a flash of light and the magic burst through her hands like a warm rush. The giant moth wings disintegrated into ash.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Transference

The relief was palpable. Alex pressed her fingers against her temples and massaged away the ache.

"That was unpleasant."

While she'd improved the spell by one point, the giant moth wings had been annihilated. She had one more pair, but decided she didn't want to use them yet because she didn't quite understand what the nodes and lines were trying to tell her. It appeared the Transference spell was significantly more complex than the others.

She waited until her faez bar refilled then grabbed the rhinoboar hide. Even though she didn't understand it, the pattern seemed less difficult than the one on the giant moth wings. Maybe trying to use two items that had abilities was too difficult for her skill level. She hoped to apply the toughness from the hide to her Cloth Breeches, which had been hanging onto their last point of durability for quite some time.

"Come on," she said, "work this time."

Alex cast the Transference spell, being careful to make the gestures as crisply as possible. In real life, the tiny details of spellcasting mattered—one wrong gesture could turn disastrous—but she didn't know if Gamemakers Online was the same.

As she worked, the ghostly lines and nodes appeared on the hide and breeches. The breeches had one simple node, while the hide had four different ones, each connected by the light-filled lines.

Alex stared at them, hoping to understand the purpose of their construction, but no spark of insight came. Eventually the pressure behind her eyes from the trapped faez grew to be too much and she filled in a couple lines randomly, hoping to connect the circuit between the two items.

As the warm rush of faez released, the rhinoboar hide poofed into dust without adding its magic to her deteriorated Cloth Breeches.

Alex slumped back into the furs with her hands over her face. The smell of burnt ozone from her failed spells filled the cave. She lay still for a while after that, trying to decide if she should wait until she'd gotten more skill ups, or take a chance with the final skin.

Alex decided that a new weapon was more important than anything else, so she used the other giant moth wing and two rhinoboar hides, each time tracing lines randomly, hoping to discover the secret of the spell.

The goat-bull tail was going to be her final practice item until she remembered there were multiple ways to use items included in her Minor Creation spell. The tail would make a good handle for her weapon, so using the adhesive ointment, Alex stuck the goat-bull tail to the bottom of the rope.

When her faez bar was full again, Alex concentrated on the last electric-python skin. The pattern was more familiar to Alex, though she couldn't pinpoint where she knew it from. The whip had two connecting nodes while the skin had four.

She looked for a path that would connect all six nodes without crossing each other. When she saw it, Alex quickly traced over the path. As the spell completed, a tingling sensation traveled over her body and into the rope, followed by a flash of transformation light.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Transference

The pre-whip shimmered with unresolved energy. As soon as her faez was refilled, Alex cast Minor Creation, hoping that would be enough to finish the job. When the whip snapped into view, as if it were coming into focus, she cheered.

You have received: The Shocking Strangler

Quest Completed: Create a magical weapon

You have gained experience: 5,000 XP

You have gained a skill point: +1 Devious Device

You have gained a skill point: +1 Minor Creation

She quickly dismissed the pop-ups in excitement to view her new weapon.

Item: The Shocking Strangler

Dmg: 10-22 ׀ 35/35 Durability

Effect: 15% chance of Electric Damage (Dmg: 20-40)

Special Attribute: Strangulation (Only on restrained creatures / Cannot affect more than 5 levels above)

Don't lose this weapon too

The rope and goat-bull tail had turned into a silky black leather weapon with a gnarly end. As she swished it around her body, the whip moved with sensual grace like a snake greeting its master.

Her first instinct was to rush into the forest to find a creature to test her new weapon on, but she didn't want to get killed by the cobrawasp before she had a plan. Before she could resume hunting, she needed to deal with her stalker, or at least find a way to avoid it. Alex had an idea, but it was going to require retraining.

Chapter Eighteen

Three days later, Alex was back in the Warped Forest, but not in the deeper sections where she'd encountered the cobrawasp. She stood on a branch about twenty feet up, hand on the trunk beside her, keeping a lookout.

It was daytime rather than night when she normally hunted, which gave her a good view of the forest. The Shocking Strangler hung by her side, but the tip had unraveled and was caressing her leg, which had been a little strange when it first started, but Alex quickly got used to it.

She heard crashing through the undergrowth long before she felt the connection to her minions return. A hundred feet ahead or so, the small trees shook as something large passed by. Occasionally, a gnarly snout appeared above the brush, snapping at the tasty steak hovering right out of reach.

Two of her bloats had a Tasty Moth Meat carried between them in a harness she'd made for them, while a gatorbear muscled through the undergrowth after it.

The creature had the body of a brown bear but the head of a gator. Its mouth of jagged teeth kept rising from the brush, snapping its jaws.

Reaching out to her minions, Alex nudged them towards her trap. In relentless pursuit of food, the gatorbear failed to notice the loop of weaved rope suspended between two trees. As the creature's head passed through it, the rope cinched around its neck, and then on the other end, a heavy log was pulled off its perch, creating a counterweight.

Ms. Vance, her high school physics teacher, would have been proud of the contraption, but Alex had no time to admire it. When the log fell, it yanked the gatorbear backwards momentarily, but the creature thrashed around trying to get at the rope.

Alex stayed on her perch, head swiveling in all directions. She didn't see when the Ghostly Cobrawasp appeared, but Inky, who was flying in the upper canopy watching her, sent a stab of alarm through their physic link.

Without looking, Alex grabbed the rope near her head and jumped, which simultaneously slowed her fall and dropped a weighted net on the creature flying above her head.

She hit the ground with a roll as the net crashed down nearby. The cobrawasp was only half contained by the net. Alex cast Dewdrop Orb on the hooded cobra head. Her first try fizzled out, but the second attempt created a glistening ball of water around its head. She didn't think it would suffocate the creature, but it would keep it from spitting on her.

Fifty feet behind her, she could hear the gatorbear lunging around, making a strangled growl as it tried to dislodge itself from her cunning rope trap. But she ignored it. It was the cobrawasp she needed to kill.

The problem was it wasn't completely covered by the weighted net. She'd applied heavy stones to the edges so it would fall onto the cobrawasp and keep it grounded so she could kill it with her new whip, but only half its body was under the net.

Alex rushed to the net and tried to drag it over the glistening black stinger, but it kept thrashing around, making her task difficult. Since her strength was nonexistent, she was thrown around by the larger cobrawasp.

Around the time she realized she wasn't going to be able to drag the net back on it, the dewdrop orb disappeared from the cobra's mouth. Before it could spit on her and destroy more of her gear, Alex fled, sprinting through the undergrowth back to her camp.

After a ten-minute run, she was back in her cave, huddling with her bloats. She hated giving up, since it'd taken two days to build her traps, but a tactical retreat was better than failure.

She had hopes the rope trap might strangle the gatorbear and she'd get a random experience gain, but when no pop-up came, she knew it'd escaped along with the Ghostly Cobrawasp.

Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde hovered around her as if they were consoling her for the botched attempt.

"It's okay, guys. It was a good shot. We almost had it, and learned some things. You can go hunt if you want," she said.

Immediately, they pushed through the fur covering on the cave and shot across the chasm. She'd been training them with the harness, so they hadn't had time to hunt as normal.

While there was some disappointment, she was also pleased that she'd been able to survive an encounter with the Ghostly Cobrawasp. She'd proved that her minions could be a good scout for her, and that a weighted net could capture the cobrawasp. If it'd fallen more cleanly, she was sure she could have killed the cobrawasp while it was stuck beneath the net.

"Next time...next time."

Chapter Nineteen

In the next three weeks Alex resumed the successful hunting that had been her hallmark before the Ghostly Cobrawasp. She managed to kill enough critters to level her to four, which gave her a little more cushion with her hit points and faez.

As an experiment, she put a point into Intelligence, which increased her faez bar slightly, suggesting it affected the faez pool available. The other point she put into Agility to help with the whip, climbing, and stealth. The last point, she put into Cunning since that was her main stat, or at least she hoped that would be her main stat when it came time to choose a class. The line next to "Class:" still annoyingly said Undecided.

During the time she was hunting, Alex didn't see the cobrawasp, though she kept up her precautions in case it decided to show up and attack her while she was distracted.

On the day her minions were luring a barkhippo from a swampy section of the Warped Forest, Alex stood on her lookout perch. Both Inky and Blinky were positioned above, watching for the cobrawasp while Pinky and Clyde carried the bait harness.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Analyze (Tier Two)

She was excited about the additional skill point because it pushed the analyze skill into the second tier, but she didn't have time to take advantage of the level because she heard the crunching of leaves from her left. Through the trees, Alex saw the hunched back and long snout of the gatorbear that had escaped her trap weeks ago.

It was marching through the forest, its snout raised as if it were sniffing the air. It was the first time she'd seen it since that day. She wished it'd come at a different time, because the barkhippo was almost in the trap, but then had an idea how she might kill both creatures.

It was going to require some risk, but if she didn't increase her experience gain, she was never going to get to level 20 by the end of the year.

"This is probably a bad idea," she said, grabbing the rope hanging nearby and sliding back to the forest floor.

Her Boots of Ascending crunched dead leaves, before she surged forward, headed towards the gatorbear. With the link to her minions, Alex sensed that the barkhippo was nearing the pit trap.

But thoughts of the barkhippo disappeared as she stumbled into a clearing the same time as the gatorbear. It rumbled to a stop, growling and snapping its long snout.

"Come at me, punk," said Alex, sending a wind gust in its direction.

A gray cloud shot forward, cracking with electricity. A single snaking bolt zapped the gatorbear right on its snout, enraging it.

You have learned a new spell: Cloud Taunt

The gatorbear shook its head before charging at Alex. The sudden surge caught her by surprise, as it moved faster than she expected. Alex barely dodged its toothy mouth as it snapped shut behind her.

She ran through the undergrowth, momentarily disoriented by the charging attack. Alex used the connection to her minions to triangulate the location of the pit trap. She knew that timing would be everything.

The gatorbear made a second surge, forcing Alex to deviate from her path, screwing up the clock in her head. She pushed herself faster, ignoring the slap and scratch of branches whipping her face. Behind her the saprolings and bushes that tried to entrap her were trampled beneath the enormous gatorbear.

Adrenaline burned through her body. She felt like the world was on fire. Nothing mattered but every last ounce of speed she could get to stay ahead of the gatorbear.

She was pushing so hard, she almost missed that she'd entered the clearing where she'd dug the pit trap. At that moment, the other side of the undergrowth burst aside, revealing the barkhippo, a watery-looking beast covered in tree bark and sprouting small saprolings from its back.

The barkhippo had its head raised as it tried to get at the floating meat held by Pinky and Clyde, so it never saw the giant hole in the forest floor.

Alex leapt the corner of the trap, avoiding the trigger wires right as the barkhippo tumbled in. The gatorbear, however, which was right on her tail, sensed the hole and tried to maneuver around it, but its forward momentum was too great and it tipped sideways into the hole.

As the trigger ropes released the heavy logs to fall, the two massive creatures jammed together, fitting perfectly in the rectangular hole.

With the trap closed, the gatorbear and barkhippo squirmed to release themselves but there was no extra room in the pit.

Alex straddled the pit, looking down between her legs at the trapped creatures.

Carnivorous Gatorbear, Warped Animal, Level 13

Ability: Destructive Sawtooth

Sprouting Barkhippo, Warped Animal, Level 12

Ability: Reactive Hide

The new information was a nice bonus for reaching the second tier of the analyze skill. It was her first higher-tier skill.

"I almost feel bad about this," said Alex, then looked up to her minions, who hovered above her head. "Feeding time."

The bloats attached themselves to the two trapped warped animals, while Alex practiced her spells and One-handed Whip on them, alternating between the two while her faez pool refilled. It took ten minutes to wear them down, but eventually Alex was greeted with a scrolling of information.

Critical hit! You deal the Carnivorous Gatorbear 32 damage! The Carnivorous Gatorbear is affected by Shock for 56 damage! You have killed the Carnivorous Gatorbear!

The Sprouting Barkhippo is affected by Shock for 52 damage! You have killed the Sprouting Barkhippo!

You have gained experience: 1,300 XP

You have gained experience: 1,200 XP

Special Achievement Reached: You have killed two creatures more than ten levels above yours at the same time!

You have gained bonus experience: 50,000 XP

You have gained a skill point: +1 One-handed Whip

You have gained a unique skill point: +1 Cunning Strategist

You have reached level 5!

You may now choose your class!

Congratulations! Don't screw it up!

Between the adrenaline of running through the forest barely ahead of the gatorbear and the wealth of increases, she couldn't catch her breath. Alex walked around the trap for a few minutes before she was calm enough to loot.

Aware that she was so spiked with post-fight energy that if the Ghostly Cobrawasp showed up she'd be in terrible shape, Alex finally looted the two beasts and headed back to camp.

She was thrilled upon seeing her acquisitions.

You have received: Jagged Gator Bones x3

You have received: Bark Hide x6

You have received: A Large Chimeric Stone x1

Both bodies disappeared, which made reusing her trap much easier. She was intrigued by the large chimeric stone, which was a first. Maybe it would give her a clue on how to solve the quest she'd been given when she found the smaller versions. She also received meat from both, but those were uninteresting in the greater scheme of things.

Back in the camp, her minions settled in their nests, plump from feeding. When she realized she didn't cringe as much when she looked at them, and that their eyes were more rounded and the length of their proboscises much smaller, Alex checked them with the analyze skill.

Inky, Minion, Level 2

Blinky, Minion, Level 2

Pinky, Minion, Level 2

Clyde, Minion, Level 2

"That's interesting," said Alex, though she was disappointed they didn't have any abilities yet.

If she squinted, they were beginning to look more like fuzzy floating puffer fish than creepy bloats.

"Now, for the good stuff," she said, opening her stat sheet.

Character: Alexandria Duke

Level: 5

Strength: 1

Intelligence: 2

Cunning: 6

Agility: 2

Endurance: 3

Charisma: 1

Class: Undecided

Subclass: Undecided

Health: 55/55

Faez: 55/55

Fatigue: 23%

XP: 101,023 / 270,000

Skills:

Analyze: 10

One-handed Slashing: 1

Fire Spells: 2

Devious Device: 6

Sense Direction: 7

One-handed Whip: 6

Water Spells: 6

Cooking: 8

Stealth: 5

Climbing: 3 (+5 Ascending Boots)

Air Spells: 5

Unique Skills:

Cunning Strategist: 2

Mastermind: 1

Spells:

Dewdrop Orb: 6

Minor Creation: 4

Transference: 4

Cloud Taunt: 1

The undecided part of her class blinked. When Alex touched it a menu bloomed into existence.

You have shown an affinity for the Cunning stat. Choose your class from amongst these three options:

Arcane Mastermind

Sub-Stat: Intelligence

Signature Spell: Misdirection

Passive Ability: Luck of the Bold

Related Skills:

Related Unique Skills: Cunning Strategist, Mastermind

Base Element: Air

Mistress of Élan

Sub-Stat: Charisma

Signature Spell: Panache

Passive Ability: Velvet Tongue

Related Skills: One-handed Whip

Related Unique Skills:

Base Element: Water

Devious Artificer

Sub-Stat: Endurance

Signature Spell: Masterful Creation

Passive Ability: Artificial Life

Related Skills: Devious Device

Related Unique Skills:

Base Element: Fire

Usually she sorted classes into the distinct playstyles that usually propagated online games: tank, DPS, healer, or support. But an initial glance told her they didn't neatly fit into one or the other. Having spent the past few months in the game, she realized that occupying a singular role in Gamemakers Online was a mistake.

Those roles were a nice shorthand for game designers to give opportunities to every type of person to enjoy the game. But Gamemakers Online hadn't been made for pure enjoyment. There was no mass player base that it had to appeal to.

In a way, she felt like the early humans having to carve out a piece of civilization for themselves in whatever way they could. But that didn't help her narrow down the classes.

Arcane Mastermind seemed to have a strategic bent to the abilities, and it matched the stats and skills that she had developed the most. When she hovered her hand over the Signature Spell she saw:

Spell: Misdirection – Tier 1

Faez: 20 ׀ Range: 50 feet

Effect: Divert a spell or attack from one creature into another.

In single combat, this ability was rather useless, which suggested the class was meant to deal with larger groups of enemies. There would have been few opportunities to use this spell, but having it available might change her tactics.

The name for the next class, Mistress of Élan, immediately appealed to her sense of style. While she'd never stoop so low as to play a bard, the idea of being able to manipulate and control others with a Machiavellian flair sounded like a class she could leverage.

Spell: Panache – Tier 1

Faez: 20 ׀ Duration: 1 minute

Effect: Beguile an enemy into believing it's your friend (wears off if attacked).

The problem was that she was stuck in the Warped Forest with few enemies to charm, and given they were higher level, she doubted she could do it easily or effectively. The class could be a great choice if she had access to a city, or larger humanoid network, but based on that, she eliminated it as a possibility.

Which left Devious Artificer, a class meant for creating objects and creatures. As a lone adventurer in the middle of a dangerous area, that ability was mighty appealing. She imagined that she could augment her minions and herself with additional gear. She was a sucker for magical items, especially ones with unique effects.

Spell: Masterful Creation – Tier 1

Faez: Varies ׀ Range: Permanent

Effect: Create a Devious Device with the supplied materials.

She couldn't deny how important the items she'd created already had been for her survival. Without them, she'd still be level 1 and weaponless. She assumed this spell could create higher-level equipment.

But was the class appealing because of that? Once she moved on from the Warped Forest, would it still be as useful?

She needed to choose the class that gave her the best chance of leveraging her creativity. She'd almost beaten the Avatar of Destruction, not because of her items, but because she'd found a way to exploit the base abilities. Not that item creation couldn't facilitate that, but would the Arcane Mastermind be more effective?

Alex hovered her hand over the Luck of the Bold ability.

Luck of the Bold

Passive Ability

Gain a luck bonus when fighting against overwhelming odds

"That pretty much sums up my experience in this game," said Alex, chuckling.

In the end, she settled on the class she thought would be more beneficial in the long run. She had to maximize her potential to survive Gamemakers Online, and what she'd seen so far suggested that it would only get worse. Plus, it was a bonus that the two unique skills she'd already discovered fit within the class.

"Arcane Mastermind it is," she said.

With her class selection out of the way, Alex increased her Cunning by two and her Intelligence by one. The latter was to gain a larger faez pool so she could use Misdirection multiple times per combat.

Alex examined her character sheet, admiring that it no longer said Undecided by the class.

Character: Alexandria Duke

Level: 5

Strength: 1

Intelligence: 3

Cunning: 8

Agility: 2

Endurance: 3

Charisma: 1

Class: Arcane Mastermind

Subclass: Undecided

Health: 63/63

Faez: 68/68

Armor Class: 4

Fatigue: 23%

XP: 210,045 / 270,000

It appeared she'd gained an increase in faez pool from choosing her class.

Next she examined the spell she'd learned when she'd lured the gatorbear to the pit.

Cloud Taunt – Tier 1

Faez: 15 ׀ Duration: 30 seconds

Dmg: 5-15

Effect: Enrages the creature to attack you.

It was her first spell that did direct damage, though it wasn't much, but she hoped as she leveled it up that it would do more. The taunt was a bit of a boon and a curse. She could easily imagine spots where taunting a creature would be less than advantageous. Still, being able to affect the flow of combat was important as battles got more complex. She planned on practicing it later until she had it down cold.

Finally getting to choose her new class was exciting, but just as important were a couple of items she'd received from the gatorbear.

Item: Jagged Gator Bones x3

A bit of bone was something she'd been hoping to receive for quite some time. If she could use them the way she hoped, she might start making real headway in the game, and maybe—just maybe—she might be able to track down that Ghostly Cobrawasp and put an end to it stalking her.

Chapter Twenty

Alex had never really appreciated the benefits of a good knife until she'd lost hers over a cliff. In the real world, a simple blade could be found at any local hardware store. She bet if she scavenged through her trailer at home she could come up with a dozen of the miniature weapons.

Having spent the past three months in the game without one had been difficult because she'd had to rely on ropes and pulleys to create her traps. So many jobs would have been easier if she'd been able to apply a sharp edge.

So on the precipice of regaining that ability, Alex was about as nervous as she'd been in the game. Even making her weapon hadn't been as fraught.

She placed the first jagged gator bone on her lap. The long jawbone set with sharp teeth looked ferocious, but she needed to turn it into something more utilitarian. She wrapped a strip of flexible bark that she'd stripped from a tree around the handle, pulling it tight then tucking the end back into the weave.

As is, the jagged bone could serve as a simple weapon, but she wanted more than that. She needed a tool.

Alex took a deep breath before summoning the faez that lurked in her mind, flooding it into the item as she cast the Minor Creation spell.

Her hands grew warm as the magical energy passed through her. A tingling anticipation traveled up her spine.

When the transformation happened, a spike of ozone hit her nose.

You have received: Jagged Bone Knife

Alex leaned her head back and said to the rocky ceiling, "Oh, thank Merlin."

Item: Jagged Bone Knife

Dmg: 5-15 ׀ 25/25 Durability

Slices so thin you can't even see it

The gaps between the teeth had filled in, smoothing to a razor edge, while the handle fit perfectly in her grip. Alex slashed it through the air, feeling the way it shifted beneath her grasp. The balance was decent, but she wasn't planning on using it as a weapon.

Filled with possibilities, the first thing she did was pull out the bark hide she'd scavenged from the Sprouting Barkhippo. So far, she'd been unsuccessful in making armor from the various hides and skins she'd recovered. She hoped that the blade would bridge that gap, allowing her to shape the items she wanted to create.

Alex wasn't a seamstress, but she knew enough from her mother's ramblings how to size a shirt. After drawing an outline on the bark hide with a piece of crumbling chalk-line stone, she sawed through the tough material.

When she was finished, she'd turned the bark hide into the two halves of a shirt.

Before she attempted to make armor out of it, Alex searched through her Handysack for anything that might increase its effectiveness.

Item: Screechlion Heart

The screechlion had been a terrible foe with feathers like a barn owl across the body of a stocky lion. Its dreadful screech had nearly ruined her trap when the sonic noise knocked her minions from the sky.

After a tense showdown, she'd managed to kill it, earning the heart. She hadn't known what to do with it, since it didn’t give any hints to its use, but Alex decided it would be a good addition to her armor.

Alex set it in the middle of the bark shirt. The bloody heart pumped slowly as she prepared her spell.

When she cast the Transference spell, a series of nodes and lines appeared on the screechlion heart connected to the bark hide. Alex studied the lines, trying to find a path that went between the two without crossing. When she saw the connection, she traced the path and the heart disappeared into the hide in a flash, leaving a chimeric stone behind. The bark hide glowed faintly.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Transference

Alex waited until her faez pool had regened before placing her hands onto the hides, imagining a shirt of armor, and pushing her faez into it with the Minor Creation spell.

Her efforts were rewarded with an audible pop. A shirt of barkskin armor appeared in the middle of the rocky cave floor.

Quest Completed: Create a piece of magical armor

You have gained experience: 5,000 XP

Item: Screechlion Barkskin Jerkin

AC: 12 ׀ Durability 90/90

Effect: Once per day immobilize foe for 10 seconds with Debilitating Screech (No more than five levels above)

Earplugs not included

Alex pumped her fist into the air before examining her new creation. She was worried that the armor would be rough on her skin, but the inner surface was soft with fuzz like the downy underhairs of a screech owl.

After she put it on, she checked her stat sheet because she was curious why she'd gained points in the Transference spell with so few uses. As she hovered her hand over the spell, she was presented with information that she'd never seen before. The additional information was probably from the tier two analyze skill.

Transference

Base Ability: Cunning

Max Skill = Level + Base Ability

Hovering over base ability told her that it was responsible for the chance of increasing, as well as spell effectiveness. Then as she checked Minor Creation, she saw why the spell was only a few points higher despite the fact she’d cast it hundreds of times duplicating minor items.

Minor Creation

Base Ability: Endurance

Max Skill = Level + Base Ability

Alex switched to her skills to see if they had hidden information as well.

One-handed Whip

Base Ability: Agility

Max Skill = Level + Base Ability

Her level was five and her base Agility was two, which meant her One-handed Whip could only reach a skill of seven currently. This changed things considerably. She would have to prioritize her skills based on the max level possible. She was also a little disappointed when she checked her unique skills.

Cunning Strategist

Base Ability: Cunning

Max Skill = Level

The unique parts of her class were limited by level, which would keep them smaller, and it would take longer to reach tier two. She assumed the longer wait would be worth it.

A few of the general skills like Cooking, Analyze, and Sense Direction used her main stat as the base ability, which was good since every player needed them.

Wearing her new Screechlion Barkskin Jerkin, Alex headed to the small pond near her camp. Dragonflies skimmed across the mirrored surface of the water, leaving faint lines. Lily pads clustered in the corner near an old log that she used for collecting water.

With a walking stick for balance, Alex moved to the edge, looking down at herself in the water. The log's motion created tiny waves, making her reflection blurry, but eventually it smoothed out, revealing a person that startled her.

Normally in games, she used outrageous avatars that showcased impossible physiologies. There was something freeing about playing as a character that really couldn't exist in the real world. But in Gamemakers Online, she was playing as herself. Sure, the game augmented her abilities, turning her into a magical force, but it was still her beneath the magic.

After four months in game, she wore a barkskin jerkin, carried a wicked black whip, and her hair had grown past her shoulders, but it wasn't the equipment that had startled her but the look in her own eyes. She put a hand to her cheek, expecting to pull away a mask but it was all her. She still had her chubby cheeks, but the hungry, almost feral look made her feel like Princess Mononoke from her favorite Miyazaki movie. It also reminded her of when she went deep into the woods with her dad on hunting expeditions.

In honor of her father, Alex crouched on the log, scooped up the rich black mud with her finger, and drew lines beneath her eyes. He'd never really understood her fascination with video games, but she hoped he'd be proud of her survival in this brutal game world. When she finished surveying herself, Alex headed back to camp to prepare for the next hunt.

Chapter Twenty-One

High in the forest canopy, Alex watched for her minions. She'd sent Inky to the west and Clyde to the east, each wearing custom harnesses she'd made with her knife that allowed a single minion to carry bait.

Because she'd moved deeper into the woods, she couldn't rely on the pit trap she'd dug weeks ago. Alex knew she had to find a way to kill the mobs without it, and this was her first test of her new strategy.

When she saw a tall birdlike creature with a huge beak and rough brown fur sprinting through the undergrowth, making dizzying leaps at the fresh meat hanging beneath her minion Inky, she analyzed it.

Angry Ostrizzle, Warped Animal, Level 13

Ability: Leaping Rake

"An ostrich crossed with a grizzly bear," said Alex, shaking her head. "What a nightmare."

It didn't get any better when she saw a spotted brown four-legged creature the size of a mastiff with mottled wings racing with short sprints followed by a few wing thrusts for speed from the other direction.

Ferocious Hyenature, Warped Animal, Level 13

Ability: Scavenging Claws

Standing on her perch high above the forest floor, Alex realized quickly that she wasn't out of danger. The ostrizzle and hyenature both had means of reaching her location through either jumping or short flight. She'd thought that staying high in the trees would let her exploit the terrain, but it appeared that wasn't going to work. But she didn't want to give up the time that had gone into tracking them down.

Alex nudged Inky to drag the ostrizzle past her tree, since it was going to reach the clearing first. From her outstretched hands, a gray cloud crackling with electricity snaked through the air.

You have hit an angry ostrizzle with Cloud Taunt for 8 damage!

The two-legged bird veered towards her tree right as the hyenature busted through the undergrowth. Alex cast Misdirection on it, but the spell fizzled.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Misdirection

"Shit," she said as the ostrizzle came leaping towards her perch. She didn't think it could reach her, but it kept soaring towards her, forcing her to leap off the branch and grab the descending rope, which carried her safely to a lower branch.

The ostrizzle landed heavily on a small tree, snapping it with its powerful legs before its momentum carried it away. The ostrizzle made an earsplitting screech as it circled wide, giving her a chance to deal with the hyenature that had locked onto her.

Alex threw a Dewdrop Orb at it, catching the spotted and winged dog with a watery muzzle, forcing it to slow its charge.

As the hyenature shook its head, trying to dislodge the suffocating ball of water, she checked her faez pool. It was slightly over fifty percent, and in combat faez regen was slow. She had barely enough magic to cast Misdirection again. If it failed, she’d have to find a way to evade two level 13 mobs without dying.

Alex waited as long as she could to cast again, timing the spell right as it leapt.

You have hit an angry ostrizzle with Misdirection!

Instead of crashing into her with two angry, clawed feet, and probably killing her outright, it veered right into the hyenature.

The angry ostrizzle hits the ferocious hyenature with Leaping Rake for 75 damage!

The angry ostrizzle hits the ferocious hyenature with Leaping Rake for 91 damage!

After ripping the backside off the hyenature with its two feet, the ostrizzle landed in the grass, reorienting itself towards her.

With her faez pool nearly empty, there would be no more spells that would save her butt. Nor was she going to be able to outrun it. Whatever happened next would tell the tale of the battle.

Alex grabbed her whip in the hopes of getting a skill increase before she died.

Right as the ostrizzle stretched its neck and snapped its beak at her, the hyenature, having regained its feet, leapt onto the large bird.

The two creatures fell into a clawing, scratching melee, demolishing the purple-hued saprolings and blue-green grass that made up the undergrowth. The trampled foliage released sharp ammonia-like smells.

The ostrizzle seemed to have the upper hand on the hyenature, which left Alex wondering if she could take it wounded, or if she'd even receive the experience.

She checked with her minions that hovered in the air above the battle. Blinky was high in the canopy, serving as her eyes in the sky.

While they fought, Alex watched her faez pool regen slowly. It wasn't moving fast enough to let her blast it with magic from afar.

Alex decided that the only way she was going to win this was to get right into the thick of it. Against her desires to stay out of the way of close combat, she leapt from the lower limb, reaching the combatants in a few short strides.

With the whip in hand, Alex slashed at the backside of the ostrizzle.

You have missed an angry ostrizzle!

You have hit an angry ostrizzle for 15 damage!

You have missed an angry ostrizzle!

Her damage output quickly made her realize that she wasn't going to kill it. Alex checked her Handysack for ideas, but she didn't have anything that would deal a lot of damage quickly. If she couldn't figure something out, the winner of the battle was going to make quick work of her.

"But what if they can't attack me?" she said, grabbing the jar of Ethel's Adhesive Ointment.

Alex snapped a stick from a nearby limb, quickly dabbing the end into the jar. With a hunk of the sticky paste on the end of her stick, she lunged between the combatants, placing the glue on the ostrizzle right before they collided again.

The stick ripped from her hands as the two creatures rolled into the grass. The larger ostrizzle slammed its enormous beak into the hyenature, tearing at its spotted fur until it was covered in blood.

Standing at the maximum possible distance, Alex cracked the hyenature with her whip, hoping that it would be enough to claim the experience from the kill. At the very least, she wanted to cover the amount of experience that she'd lose when she died from the ostrizzle.

You have hit a ferocious hyenature for 9 damage!

You have hit a ferocious hyenature for 11 damage!

You have missed a ferocious hyenature!

You have missed a ferocious hyenature!

An angry ostrizzle has slain a ferocious hyenature!

You have gained experience: 1,800 XP

You have gained a skill point: +1 Mastermind

Alex pumped her fist when she received both the full experience and a point in Mastermind, proving that her tactics had won the battle.

Then the angry ostrizzle turned, its beak bloody from battle, and released a soul-shattering screech.

"Well this should be fun," said Alex, cracking her whip. "Come at me, big boy."

The ostrizzle tried to take a step forward, but the dead hyenature was still stuck to its round body. The creature made a throaty noise of disapproval and tried to dislodge the body with its beak.

You have missed an angry ostrizzle!

You have hit an angry ostrizzle for 15 damage!

The ostrizzle didn't know whether it should peck away the body or attack her. It screeched with annoyance, its brown fur ruffling.

Alex kept attacking, but the damage was coming slow. She hit one in three times, barely doing any damage since it was much higher level than her.

"This is going to take a while."

Occasionally, the big bird would try to lunge at her, but the dead hyenature unbalanced it, forcing the creature to wobble, making it easy to avoid.

Alex thought about calling down her minions, but she didn't want to lose them when she could kill it herself.

You have missed an angry ostrizzle!

You have hit an angry ostrizzle for 9 damage!

They danced around the clearing, tramping the remaining brush until the whole area looked like a war zone. Alex kept striking the ostrizzle, gaining a skill increase in the process, while staying ahead of it.

After ten minutes of battle, her shoulder burning from the constant overhand whip motion, she finally landed the killing blow.

You have hit an angry ostrizzle for 15 damage!

You have slain an angry ostrizzle!

You have gained experience: 1,800 XP

"Oh, thank Merlin," she said, grabbing her whip arm with her other hand, massaging tight muscles and rotating her shoulder cuff.

Sweat dripped in her eyes as she surveyed the area.

"I'm going to have to find a better way," said Alex.

She was so busy thinking about how to improve her strategy that she didn't know what had happened when it felt like a bubble popped in her mind.

"Blinky?"

Alex looked up in time to see the Ghostly Cobrawasp appear before her. The flying creature went from pale smoke to solid black in a single heartbeat.

She barely had time to lift her whip before the stinger slammed into her, right between her breastbone and her stomach.

Critical Hit! You have taken 75 damage from a Ghostly Cobrawasp!

You have died!

Chapter Twenty-Two

Alex took the next two days off from hunting. She debated logging out to get away from the game, but decided she could do the same thing by staying in her cave, buried in her comfortable furs. It wasn't that she was giving up, but that she needed to plan. There was no task more important than hunting down and eradicating that cobrawasp.

Axo was waiting for her on its favorite log when she emerged from the cave, her neck stiff from sleeping.

"No insects, sorry Axo," she told the shrew. After a moment of staring at her, it disappeared into the grasses.

While she limbered up with stretches, Axo returned carrying a grasshopper in its mouth. The little shrew dropped the green insect at her right foot, then stared up at her with adoring eyes.

"Oh, thank you, Axo, but I really shouldn't, I'm full up on grasshoppers."

When Axo didn’t move, Alex realized she was going to hurt the shrew’s feelings if she didn’t eat the grasshopper.

"You know, the green ones aren't ripe yet. We should wait until it's a nice warm red," said Alex.

She sighed and snatch up the dead insect when Axo didn't move.

"I'm only doing this because you're my only friend in this place...which is probably a sign that I'm losing it out here, since I'm about to eat a grasshopper because a shrew asked me to." Alex lifted the grasshopper to her mouth. "Bon appetit!"

The grasshopper went into her mouth, legs and feet scraping against her lips. She almost spit it out, but decided "why not, it's just a game, and people eat these all the time in other countries" and crunched down on the insect, releasing juices to squirt against the inside of her mouth. Before she could change her mind, Alex swallowed the grasshopper, feeling the antennae tickle the back of her throat all the way down.

"Oh, that was not good," said Alex with her eyes closed, shaking her head. "Deep breaths, no puking, and one and two and three."

She gave Axo a thumbs-up while her stomach roiled. When the shrew disappeared, she thought she had appeased it until Axo returned with a second grasshopper, twice the size of the first.

"No thanks, Axo. I'm full now." She rubbed her stomach. "All full. You can have it. I'm good now."

Axo crunched down on the grasshopper, reminding her of the fluids squirting into her mouth. Thankfully, the shrew wanted to eat in privacy and took the insect into the high grasses.

After Axo left, she looked at the four "nests." Her three remaining minions were out hunting, but would be back soon. She'd hoped she could revive Blinky somehow, but it appeared her minions had one life and one life only.

But her minion's death made her realize she needed to upgrade them. It appeared they received experience for helping her, but they were only effective as scouts and bait carriers. She needed them to do more, and leveling didn't seem to be imbuing them with any abilities.

When her minions returned and settled onto their nests, fat from feeding on the Plains, Alex produced a hyenature tooth she'd received from her last battle.

"Okay, which one of you will be my first test subject?" she said with a fake soothing grin.

The three bloats looked up at her with wide eyes that could have been on a puppy.

"You first, Clyde," she said.

Before she cast the Transference spell, Alex reviewed the spell gestures, confirming she could perform it perfectly before attempting it on the hyenature tooth.

When she felt she was ready, Alex cast the spell, focusing on both the tooth and Clyde. When the nodes appeared, she was dismayed. There were only four nodes on the tooth, but nine on Clyde. Clearly the spell was more difficult to cast on living creatures. She'd entertained the idea of upgrading herself if this worked, but she had a feeling the difficulty would be extreme.

After studying it for a full minute, Alex drew the lines on the pattern, knowing it wasn't going to work, but the pressure of faez behind her forehead had grown too much to delay any longer.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Transference

The hyenature tooth disappeared in the casting, but Clyde looked at her with its small brown head tilted as if it were trying to decide if what was happening was bad or not.

"You're fine, little buddy," said Alex, reaching out to stroke the bloat's head.

When she was finished, she held her hand against her chest in realization of what she'd been doing.

"If I start cuddling with you three in the cave, then it's time for me to quit this game," she said.

While the spell had failed, the experiment had not. The spell had fizzled rather than giving her an "invalid target," and that meant it was possible, even if her skill level wasn't high enough.

At the current moment her Transference spell was at 6. She was lucky it was governed by the Cunning stat, which was her main ability. If she had more items, she could max it out at 13. She didn't know if higher skill would make the spell easier, but in theory it should.

Without another item to use, Alex knew she had to return to the forest to hunt for more, but she was going to use her pit trap since the cobrawasp seemed to attack her when she was further in.

The next day, she used her minions to lure a hydrapig into the pit, dropping logs over it to keep it from escaping. The three pig heads made it more difficult for her minions to drain it, but once they'd gotten it low, Alex moved to the edge of the pit.

"Come here, Clyde," she said, motioning for him to land on the log above the trapped hydrapig. The heads had given up and were back in the pit, resting as the body heaved with exhaustion.

When she started the Transference spell, she feared that the number of nodes would be so great that the chance of it working would be impossible, but the hydrapig only had seven nodes, two less than Clyde.

The pattern was still difficult, and Alex knew she'd failed even before the spell was complete.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Transference

You have killed a Juicy Hydrapig!

You have gained experience: 1,800 XP

The kill was a surprise, but she guessed it shouldn't have been, since her items disappeared at the conclusion of the spell, success or failure. It would keep her from trying it on the same creature over and over, and it wouldn't work as an offensive spell since it took so long to cast and complete.

More importantly, it proved that she could use the creatures as a method of leveling up and practicing connecting the spell nodes.

She wished she had a notebook so she could start making notes, possibly figuring out the fundamentals of how Transference worked so she could improve on her rare successes.

"The next time I get a hide, I'm making parchment," she said.

The next two weeks the pit trap got a workout. Alex gained four more points in the Transference spell. She got the tenth point on a Murderous Bladeboar.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Transference (Tier Two)

You have killed a Murderous Bladeboar!

You have gained experience: 2,000 XP

Clyde has gained the Assassination skill!

Quest Completed: Earn an ability for a minion

You have gained experience: 2,000 XP

"What the?"

Alex almost slipped off the log when the spell worked, transferring the Assassination skill into her minion.

Clyde, Minion, level 2

Ability: Assassination (Dmg: 50-100 on successful surprise hit; if more than 50% hps then insta-kill)

"Now we're talking," said Alex with her whip hanging over her shoulder.

When she brought up the Transference spell, she was greeted with the reason it'd finally been successful.

Spell: Transference – Tier Two

Faez: Varies ׀ Duration: Permanent

Effect: Transfer magic from one item or creature to another.

Before the spell had only said "item," but now it gave the option for both item and creature. Looting the bladeboar gave her two hides, which she turned into parchment that night. After a few hours of copying, she had a stack of coarse parchment.

Next, she converted the Shiny Black Feather that she'd found after her first visit with Ethel into a quill with the Minor Creation spell. Experimenting with the various berries in the area gave her a rudimentary ink until she could find something more suitable.

That night, she took notes on intricacies of the Transference spell, indicating the nodes and lines that she could remember. Having a permanent record to study convinced her that the underpinnings of the spell were based on a mathematical matrice, but not enough that she could figure out shortcuts to improve her success rate.

But that didn't stop her from having her second successful Transference casting the next day when she trapped a Tough Wolfelk in the pit. The creature's thick hide had made it nearly impossible for the bloats to drain it until Alex managed to suffocate it with a Dewdrop Orb, distracting the creature with asphyxiation until her minions could do their business.

Pinky, Minion, Level 2

Ability: Reactionary Armor (Temporary invulnerability upon first hit of battle)

Seeing what the spell had gained her minion explained a lot about why they couldn't breach its armor in the early part of the battle. Having upgraded two of her minions with new abilities, Alex decided to leave Inky until she found the right critter.

She was starting to feel ready to take on the Ghostly Cobrawasp, especially after she spent a few days making new traps and gear.

Alex had every intention of making her antagonist the next target when she noticed how much time had passed since she'd been outside the game last. She'd been keeping track with a crude calendar etched into her cave wall.

When she realized what day it was, Alex gave her minions instructions to feed each day, but to stay out of the forest. Not knowing how long she'd be out of the game, she put away her gear and tidied up. The XP loss was unfortunate, but Alex logged out as soon as she was finished.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Outside Gamemakers, the thirteenth ward was covered in pristine snow, turning the ugly forgotten industrial complex into a lovely winter scene. The Spire glittered like a jewel as the setting sun caught the upper half with its brilliant rays.

Alex shivered. When she'd entered the game a few months ago, it'd been much warmer. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, which did nothing in the drafty hallway. She rubbed her arms while watching the light snow drift through the air, catching her reflection to realize that her hair was the same length it was when she logged out, suggesting that certain aspects transferred between the two realms.

On the way to her room to get warmer clothing, she heard laughter coming from the kitchen area and took a detour to investigate.

When Alex entered, she found Bucket, Martina, and a few other students, including the red-haired girl she'd seen briefly enter the game a few months ago, sitting around the wide kitchen. White Christmas lights hung on the cabinets blinked festively. The conversation halted as everyone turned to look at her, which brought heat to her face. Not knowing what else to do, she tepidly raised her hand and gave a tiny wave.

"Hi," she said, one shoulder lifting.

"Hey, new kid!" said Bucket, laughing. Green and red tinsel was draped around his neck, and he held up a pewter mug. He looked a little glazed.

"Her name is Alex," said Martina, winking in her direction. "Glad to see you've joined us. Grab a mug and some holiday brew."

The conversations resumed, taking the focus off her, which allowed her to breathe again.

"Does everyone log out for the holidays?" Alex asked Bucket and Martina, who were standing next to a metal cauldron on the stove. Bucket grabbed a ladle from a cauldron and scooped some into a pewter mug for her.

A tentative sniff revealed a sweet concoction.

"Do I want to know?" she asked, remembering the odd things that Bucket was eating last time she saw him.

Martina's eyes widened and she shook her head feverously. "Nope. Hard pass. Just drink."

The milky liquid had a complex flavor—a hint of tangy mint, tingly ginger, and a sweet aftertaste.

"That's delicious," she said, staring at the mug suspiciously.

"To your earlier question," said Martina, "the holidays, especially this one, are probably the best shot at meeting your classmates."

"This is a particularly robust party. Last year there were only three of us. And someone"–Bucket stared at Martina—"was a no-show."

"I was about to finish a big quest that was going to level me. No way was I logging out until that was done," said Martina.

While they were bantering, Alex realized the red-haired girl was watching her from the corner of the room. Her hair was shaved to fuzz on the sides, but the center reminded her of a cockatoo. She wore a black jean jacket covered in buttons and pins.

"Hey everyone," said Bucket, raising his mug, "who wants to go into the second ward for the holiday show?"

Martina held her hand over the ear on Bucket's side, squinting. "We're all right here."

The second ward of Invictus was world famous for its free street shows. Alex had watched videos of the illusionary battles between gargantuan, building-sized creatures as they lumbered through the streets.

"I'd love to go, but I need to call my mom first and get on some warmer clothes," she said, trying to remember if she'd brought winter wear.

"Meet us at the entry hall," said Martina with a wink.

It took Alex a few minutes to find the hallway with the rotary phone. Her mother answered after a few rings.

"Duke residence," she said with a slight slur.

"Mom! Merry Christmas!"

"Alexandria," said her mom. "I'm so glad you called. I was worried I wasn't going to get to hear your voice."

"Have you been drinking?" laughed Alex.

"Just a little," her mom said, and she could imagine her mother holding up her fingers near the phone a few millimeters apart. "You know, gotta enjoy it while you can. Life is short."

"Don't be so morbid, Mom." Nearby laughter came through the phone. "Are you having a party?"

"Sort of, a traveling one. Frank and a few others stopped by. We're going into town to look at the lights," said her mom.

"Oh, that's sweet of them to take you out," said Alex, pleased to hear her mom wasn't alone on the holidays. Their neighbors tended to be loners, so it was a pleasant surprise to hear they'd gathered together for even a night.

"I hate to do this, but we were just headed to the car," said her mom.

"That's okay, we're headed into the city ourselves," said Alex.

"Are you having a good time at school?" asked her mom.

Alex thought about her progress in the game. "It's hard, but yeah, I am."

"That's good, sweetie. You know I love you very much. I always will."

"Love you too, Mom. Have a good time tonight."

After she hung up, Alex stared at the wall. It'd only been four months, but it felt like years since she'd seen her mom. And how quickly her mom had found other things to do. It's not like she expected her mom to be pining away for her, on the contrary, that would break her heart, but part of her felt some weird misplaced jealousy and sadness that that part of their lives had come to an end.

With a few more layers, and wearing a winter coat she'd found hanging in the hallway, Alex joined the group headed into town. Bucket and Martina led the expedition, which included a tall guy with brown skin wearing earbuds and nodding his head to music, and the red-haired girl, who seemed vaguely familiar to Alex, though that seemed ridiculous since she'd just met her.

The six of them headed to the train station. Martina bought them all tickets into the second ward. The car was full, forcing them to stand crowded together near the door.

Alex found herself standing next to the red-haired girl, who was much taller than she'd expected. She had a long-distance runner's frame. Her flat expression suggested that she wasn't interested in talking, but it felt more awkward to stand next to her and not say something.

"Hi, I'm Alex," she said, offering a hand.

The red-haired girl frowned, keeping her hands in her jean jacket pockets.

"Lily."

"Nice to meet you."

Lily stared back with barely a blink. The silence after felt like a shield. Since Lily was taller, it left Alex staring at the buttons on her jacket. There were a variety of languages and places displayed on them. Alex still had the nagging suspicion that she'd seen Lily before.

"What zone are you in?" asked Alex.

When Lily didn’t answer, Martina leaned over with a pleasant smirk. "She's in Redstone Mesa."

The answer brought a wrinkling of Lily's nose in Martina's direction, which received an eyeroll in turn.

"I'm in the Warped Forest. What about you, Martina?" asked Alex.

Martina, who wore a big, fluffy white coat that matched her wild haircut, tapped on her chest. "I'm in Direkelp Keep, Bucket's on Dreadbone Island, and Haviere's in the Harrowed Ruins of Entropy."

"Are any of those near each other?" asked Alex, hoping for in-game companionship.

"Unfortunately, no," said Martina.

"Yeah, Marzio's an asshole," said Bucket, who was leaning against the pole with his eyes closed. "And not just about his placements."

"Are you still bitching about those three flying fireballing mage-pirates?" asked Martina, laughing.

"Till the day I die," said Bucket, with eyes now open, shaking his head. "After I finally killed them, I wanted to stomp their pixels into the dirt. Bastards didn't even have the courtesy to have loot."

"Dreadbone Island sounds pretty crazy," said Alex, thinking about swashbuckling pirates and three-mast ships.

"Minus those flying freaks, it hasn’t been too terrible. The pirates have been hilarious. I talked my way into one of their camps a few weeks back, and we spent the night drinking and singing bawdy pirate songs," said Bucket.

He raised an eyebrow in Martina's direction. "But Dreadbone Island ain't got nothin' compared to Direkelp Keep. Everything is underwater. No thank you, I like my sharks to circle the island, not have to swim with them."

"Wow," said Alex, thinking about the challenge of living underwater. "Where do you sleep?"

"In a warm bed of kelp," said Martina. "While I'm underwater, I wear a nice pair of gills, curtesy of the Argent Changeling class. Speaking of classes, have you gotten yours yet?"

"Barely," said Alex. "I'm an Arcane Mastermind."

"Oh, Cunning stat," said Bucket, eyes wide with excitement.

Martina shook her head. "Bucket, if you even—"

Bucket looked directly at her. "Clever girl..."

Both Alex and Martina groaned at his Jurassic Park joke.

Chuckling, Alex asked, "Dare I ask what class you are?"

In the limited space, and as the train car rumbled around a corner, Bucket bowed. "I am the Puppet Master."

"Oh, the mannequin," said Alex, referencing when she'd first met him. "Charisma?"

He nodded.

Hoping to pull Lily into the conversation, she turned. "What about you, Lily?"

The red-haired girl glanced around as if she were deciding if she were going to answer, but eventually she said with a hint of exasperation, "Elemental Champion."

"Endurance?"

"Strength," said Lily, "with an Agility sub."

"Gotta play to your strengths," said Martina with a knowing nod.

The sense of familiarity hit Alex again. She looked hard at Lily, trying to figure it out.

Martina caught her expression and said, "Lily, the Hammer, Brodziak, current MechLeague world champion."

A downward curl caught the edge of Lily's lips as her nostrils flared. "Not any more. World championship was last month."

"Oh, shit," said Alex. "I've totally watched you play. You're awesome. What level are you?"

"Eleven," said Lily, who still held herself apart despite the confined space.

"Damn," said Alex. "I'm way behind."

"Haven't figured out how to exploit your way to winning yet?" Lily asked, eyes narrowing.

A stone formed in Alex's gut. Based on the look, it appeared that Lily had seen her streams. Exploiters had their detractors, but she normally didn't have to face them in person. It was made worse by the fact that she would have been excited to learn that the world champion of MechLeague had heard of her, but it was clear that the fascination wasn't mutual.

The train lurched to a stop, providing an end to the suddenly awkward conversation.

Alex hurried out behind Bucket and the others. The second ward train station was packed, forcing them to shoulder their way through the crowd.

But once they came out onto the street, Alex sucked in a breath as a giant princess in pink braids wielding a two-handed sword the length of a city block went charging past towards a giant robot with four spinning blades for arms.

The cheers as the two illusions fought in the middle of the street—cars zooming through their feet—stretched a grin across her chilly cheeks. They found a spot at a street café. Martina passed the hostess something to get them a seat. Almost as soon as they sat down a tray of steaming mugs of hot chocolate appeared.

Bundled against the cold, breath forming white mist before her lips as she sipped the hot drink, Alex watched the massive illusions do battle. A tingling warmth traveled up her spine, not only from the delicious drink, but from the excitement of knowing she was part of something greater than herself.

In her wildest dreams, she'd never imagined herself in the Hundred Halls. The city of Invictus seemed like a faraway place, a mirage that no one actually visited, because it seemed so fantastic that it couldn't be real. But here she was, sitting in a café, having drinks with her classmates, watching an illusionary Santa wield a flamethrower against a band of knife-wielding punk reindeer.

It was the first time she felt like she belonged at the Hundred Halls.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Alex stayed in the real world for a few days, mostly so she could scribe her in-game notes, as much as she could remember, into a notebook she’d purchased while they were in the second ward. She didn't know if it would help, given that she spent all her time in game, but she took the hint from the walls of scribbles in one of the rooms and the handwritten spell book she'd found.

The rest of the group had disappeared back into the game the next morning, leaving Alex in an empty house. She wished someone might have stayed, as she'd enjoyed talking with her classmates—even Lily.

She tried calling her mom a few more times while she was out, but never made the connection. Eventually Alex realized she was delaying returning to Gamemakers Online because she knew her next task was to slay the Ghostly Cobrawasp.

It was afternoon when she returned, which meant her minions were in their nests, plump from hunting during the night. Axo was nowhere to be found, but there was an offering of crickets on the log by the nests.

Alex got right to work, using her jagged bone knife and ability to make endless ropes to create the right tools for hunting the elusive cobrawasp.

The next day, before she left, Alex smeared berry ink beneath her eyes as war paint. She was tired from staying up all night working, but once she got moving, the exhaustion slipped away.

As she hiked into the center of the forest, she kept her minions in a tight halo around her with instructions to scan constantly. Until she could get set up, she was at her most vulnerable.

After a few hours of searching, Alex found the right area. A tall tree had fallen over, landing in the upper branches of another. The long slope was at the perfect angle for her plan, though her initial climb proved it was too unstable.

She had to spend the next hour fitting supporting logs beneath it and lashing them into place. The structure wouldn't survive any significant impact, but it would stay in place long enough for her to kill the cobrawasp.

Alex climbed the sloped tree without her ascending rope, getting into the upper branches of the second tree. She pulled ropes and nets from her Handysack, thankful that multiple items of the same kind could stack, and started the lengthy process of hanging them in the surrounding trees.

The whole time she worked the spot between her shoulder blades itched. The Ghostly Cobrawasp had a bad habit of showing up directly behind her, putting her at an immediate tactical disadvantage.

Alex hoped that her precautions would eliminate the cobrawasp's advantage of surprise. She worked through the day until the shadows in the forest lengthened.

Before she lost the sunlight, Alex climbed the second tree into the high canopy. Because the area was on a hill, it rose above the rest of the Warped Forest, giving her a better view of what remained.

As she stuck her head above the leaves, Alex had a moment of vertigo when the wind blew and her perch swayed precipitously. Clutching the thin branches gave respite, and the breeze eventually passed, leaving her more stable.

Behind her, towards the chasm and the Plains of Warsong, faint lines of smoke trailed into the sky, suggesting camps of intelligent beings. While Bucket and Martina had warned her away from that zone, it would be nice to talk to other people, even if they were NPCs. Bucket's story about spending the night drinking and singing bawdy songs with his pirates had been appealing to her.

Past the Plains and high in the air, Alex caught a shimmer of movement again, but when she tried to examine it, she saw empty sky.

Alex turned towards the backside of the Warped Forest. The trees sloped down towards a hollow against the mountains, growing more colorful until they were a rainbow riot covered in a soap bubble shimmer.

At the center of this chaotic mass of color was a single white spire, a sharp extended peak that looked like a pale stalagmite sticking from the ground. From a distance it looked small, but given the scale of the backdrop, Alex assumed the spire had to be as wide as a small stadium.

The region around the spire shifted as if it couldn't decide what color it needed to be. The effect made it difficult to look at, and Alex had to squeeze her eyes shut a few times to ward away the dizziness.

Quest Offered: Investigate the heart of the Warped Forest (+25,000 XP) [Y/N]

From her airy perch, Alex accepted the quest, then when she'd seen all she could see, she descended through the trees, stopping at the top of the angled slope. The light from the setting sun cut through the forest at an angle, leaving sideways parallel rays of light.

Though she could feel her minions hovering above her, Alex glanced up as Pinky sent a warning cry. The Ghostly Cobrawasp appeared above Pinky, driving a stinger into its furry brown body.

But Pinky's new ability, Reactionary Armor, kicked in, making her minion temporarily invulnerable.

While the cobrawasp hovered above Pinky, Alex shot her enemy with Cloud Taunt. Gray clouds snaked through with electricity flew from her fingers, surrounding the cobrawasp.

The winged creature shot towards Alex, but paused high above her, out of reach of her whip. Its shimmering black hood rippled as it made midair adjustments because of the various nets hanging in the trees. Its tail snapped like a cat, clearly agitated.

"Come on, you stupid snake," she said with her hand on the nearest net rope.

It hovered between the trees, providing her with her first good look of her enemy. Its belly was gray, with a silvery edge that bordered its black back. Shimmering wings buzzed ominously, making minute adjustments like an energetic hummingbird. The long glistening black stinger made her chest ache with the memory of it piercing her flesh when it'd killed her in the past.

When the cobrawasp realized it couldn't make a direct attack, its neck expanded and its head reared back. Right when the snake-head shot its venom towards her, Alex expanded a shield she'd made with one of her tigersloth furs by stretching it over a frame of wood.

The rotting venom has destroyed the Tigersloth Shield!

Alex threw the protective device away. It'd done its job. Now she had to hope that the cobrawasp couldn't spit its venom again.

Before the cobrawasp could dart towards her, Alex ran down the tree slope to a pull rope and yanked it, releasing a hail of wooden darts and filling up her view with messages.

The wooden dart deals the Ghostly Cobrawasp 4 damage!

The wooden dart deals the Ghostly Cobrawasp 3 damage!

The wooden dart misses the Ghostly Cobrawasp!

The trap didn't deal much damage, but it had the effect she wanted, as the cobrawasp made a wide circling attack to avoid the possibility of more darts.

She'd hoped to get a proc off the Shocking Strangler before she had to move again. Alex stowed her whip on her hip, grabbed a descending rope, and made a rapid journey to the forest floor.

As she landed in a pile of leaves, Inky shot her a warning, so she threw herself to the left, rolling away from the cobrawasp, which had somehow beat her down.

The Ghostly Cobrawasp misses you!

The huge stinger impaled the ground right where she'd been standing. The cobrawasp made an angry buzzing sound in frustration.

Alex threw a Dewdrop Orb in hopes of distracting it, but the spell fizzled, forcing her to retreat. The cobrawasp flew after her, filling the air with an angry buzzing.

She escaped behind a tree as the flying insect-snake tried to impale her. One hit and she'd be dead. Alex couldn't fight the creature head-on, but the cobrawasp's unexpected speed had forced her away from the main traps.

Dodging around the trunk as the cobrawasp circled was driving her fatigue bar up quickly. She couldn't outlast it, so Alex called in Clyde.

Without regard to its safety, her minion shot in, thrusting its daggerlike proboscis into the cobrawasp's unprotected back.

Clyde assassinates the Ghostly Cobrawasp for 56 damage!

She had no illusions that the strike would kill her enemy, but the attack did what she hoped. The cobrawasp turned on Clyde.

"Go! Fly away!"

The cobrawasp hesitated, so she shot it successfully with another Cloud Taunt as she ran back towards her trap. The cobrawasp shot after her, but Alex ducked under the sloped tree before it could reach her.

She yanked on her ropes, launching a weighted net towards the cobrawasp and capturing it beneath its weight. The creature strained against the ropes.

Alex approached with her whip in her hand, ready to finish off her antagonist. But before she could send in her minions to drain the cobrawasp, it turned incorporeal, its shiny black body turning misty gray. Once the creature finished changing, it shifted through the ropes as if they didn't exist.

"Oh, no," said Alex as it rose into the air, then hovering in place, shifted to solid.

Doubt crashed through her, filling her with trembling frustration.

"How the hell am I going to kill this thing?"

The cobrawasp shot at her, forcing her to flee beneath the fallen tree. She was able to use the tree's bulk to keep it away from her, but she knew her death was inevitable. She was out of tricks and the cobrawasp was immune to her nets.

"Come on, Alex, think of something," she said, ducking back under the angled tree. "It's got to have a weakness."

One of the tricks that had sometimes worked for her was to figure out how to turn an enemy's strength against them. But how do you turn the ability to go incorporeal and escape any trap into a negative?

When the idea formed in her head, she knew the chance of it working was slim, but she had no alternatives.

Rather than running around the base of the sloped tree again, Alex darted towards the A-frame structured support logs that she'd lashed into place.

The cobrawasp flew after her, but seemly cautious of a trap, made a wide angle of attack.

This brief respite gave her enough time to pull out her jagged bone knife and saw one of the supporting ropes. She had it halfway cut before the cobrawasp reached her.

There was no way she was going to evade it while cutting the ropes, so she sent in her minions to harass the cobrawasp. The three bloats circled the much larger insect like gnats, flying in to force a reaction before slipping out of the way.

Alex managed to cut enough ropes that a good nudge would knock the supporting logs away.

Grabbing a net from her Handysack, Alex waited until the cobrawasp flew low so she could throw it. The awkward toss caught the flying creature, but the net wasn't weighted, nor large enough to hold it.

Once again, the Ghostly Cobrawasp proved its namesake and turned incorporeal. Like a cloak slipping off its shoulders, the net fell through the flying creature to land unceremoniously in the leaves.

While the cobrawasp shed the net, Alex wrapped her whip around the supporting log. As soon as the Ghostly Cobrawasp reappeared, Alex yanked her whip, pulling the supporting log out of place.

With all the jostling, the angled log had become unbalanced, and it immediately shifted, breaking from its cradle. The Ghostly Cobrawasp, which could not move during its transformation, shifted back to solid in time for the massive log to fall on top of it.

The fallen log hits the Ghostly Cobrawasp for 398 damage!

To her dismay, the log didn't kill the cobrawasp. Trapped beneath its bulk, it flexed its wings. The cobra head strained to lift so it could spit at her, but the angle was all wrong. Then it appeared the cobrawasp looked like it was preparing to turn incorporeal again.

"Inky, quick!"

As her minion reached her, Alex cast Transference on the Ghostly Cobrawasp. Faint lines and nodes appeared between them, with eleven nodes on her enemy and seven on Inky.

As the first edges of the cobrawasp turned misty gray, Alex's stomach twisted. If she didn't solve the problem quickly, she was doomed. Her faez bar was empty, her fatigue was almost full, and she had no more ideas.

In a rush, Alex reached out, thinking to solve the problem on the fly, but pulled her hand back when she realized her initial understanding was wrong.

Ignoring that her enemy was almost fully incorporeal and preparing to shift though the log to kill her, Alex pictured the various possibilities of the solution much as she did when she solved a Rubik Cube. Taking notes both in and out of game had allowed her to make subconscious connections she hadn't realized before.

As the Ghostly Cobrawasp lifted into the air, Alex zipped her fingers along the faint lines and nodes, connecting them until the pattern lit up like a Christmas parade.

You have killed a Ghostly Cobrawasp!

You have gained experience: 2,000 XP

Quest Completed: Get revenge on the Ghostly Cobrawasp

You have gained experience: 10,000 XP

Special Achievement Reached: You have gotten revenge on a creature that's killed you more than ten times!

You have gained bonus experience: 50,000 XP

You have gained a skill point: +1 Transference

You have gained a unique skill point: +1 Cunning Strategist

Inky has gained the Ghosting skill!

You have reached level 6!

Alex collapsed onto the forest floor. Her minions hovered around her as the last rays of daylight slipped away.

Exhausted and trembling from the adrenaline from the battle, she looted the body so they could return to camp.

You have received: Large Chimeric Stone

Her minions bounced excitedly as if they understood the significance of the battle as much as she did. If she could have had a bottle of champagne, she would have popped the cork and dumped it over her head like sports ball teams did when they won the championship.

"Come on," said Alex, gathering her gear for the hike back. "Let's celebrate back in camp with a nice hunk of charred sloth meat."

Chapter Twenty-Five

Alex had every intention of leveling up before she went to bed, but the aftereffects of the battle and then a march back to camp made keeping her eyes open impossible. She woke late the next day, her minions already in their nests, plump from hunting.

Inky, Minion, Level 3

Pinky, Minion, Level 3

Clyde, Minion, Level 3

"Nice," she said when she realized the kill had leveled her minions too. She focused on Inky to examine his new ability.

Inky, Minion, Level 3

Ability: Ghosting (Turn incorporeal, which creates partial invisibility and allows passing through solid objects for 10 seconds)

It wasn't the best ability for a minion, but it was better than nothing, and more importantly, the transfer had killed the Ghostly Cobrawasp.

Character: Alexandria Duke

Level: 6

Strength: 1

Intelligence: 3

Cunning: 8

Agility: 2

Endurance: 3

Charisma: 1

Class: Arcane Mastermind

Subclass: Undecided

Health: 74/74

Faez: 73/73

Armor Class: 15

Fatigue: 8%

XP: 255,111 / 270,000

Skills:

Analyze: 11

One-handed Slashing: 1

Fire Spells: 2

Devious Device: 6

Sense Direction: 9

One-handed Whip: 7

Water Spells: 6

Cooking: 9

Stealth: 5

Climbing: 4 (+5 Ascending Boots)

Air Spells: 7

Unique Skills:

Cunning Strategist: 2

Mastermind: 2

Spells:

Dewdrop Orb: 6

Minor Creation: 4

Transference: 11

Cloud Taunt: 5

Misdirection: 1

Knowing how the skill increases affected her abilities and spells changed her opinion on where she needed to place them. There was no doubt that the Cunning stat needed to be a main focus, but she had to decide how much, and if any, to place in the other stats.

Alex immediately ruled out Strength and Charisma since they didn't offer anything to her class. The next one she eliminated was Agility. While the stat governed her Stealth and One-handed Whip, those weren't the skills that were making her effective.

Endurance was appealing because of Devious Device and Minor Creation, both of which had contributed considerably to her effectiveness. The argument against Endurance was that it was meant for the Devious Artificer class, which meant those abilities would probably get less effective as she leveled up.

One key factor in opportunist gameplay was to look for areas to maximize a certain ability or spell. While the term "Min-Maxer" was derogatory in certain circles, suggesting that those players saw the game as nothing but a mathematical problem, it was an aspect that appealed to Alex.

She had never been the biggest, strongest, or quickest when it came to games. Through years of practice, she could hold her own with twitch-based skills, but she would never compete at the high levels like Lily.

Her skill was to break down the games into patterns to be exploited through mathematics and logic. It was like finding a magic key in the data, or a pot of gold in a trash bin. Nothing excited Alex more than figuring out how to take a complex system and reduce it down to an exploitable formula.

It was why she'd learned how to solve the Rubik Cube, but had no desire to compete. Once she understood the mental algorithms required to put it back to order, and could demonstrate it satisfactorily, she'd lost interest in it.

Which was why Gamemakers Online was simultaneously the most frustrating game she'd ever played, and the most exciting.

But so far, she felt like she'd barely scratched the surface of her class. Lily was already level 11, probably by leveraging her world-beating twitch skills in a class that utilized them best.

While Alex desperately needed a larger faez pool to be more effective, she wasn't convinced that’s what was holding her back. What she needed were skills she could exploit, abilities she could use to maximum effect. The only way she was going to do that was to reach the higher tiers, which meant her Cunning stat had to be as high as possible.

Alex felt strangely calm when she put all three increases in Cunning. Normally when making difficult decisions like this, doubt was a constant companion, but she felt her logic was sound enough that she didn't worry.

The decision meant that her Transference spell, Cloud Taunt spell, and Air spells could reach 17, though they were far from that max level. It was going to be a priority to increase them so she could focus on catching up. It'd taken her half the year to reach level 6. If she stayed at her current pace, she'd only reach 12 by the end of the school year, leaving her short and unable to continue in Gamemakers Online.

"Time for training," said Alex out loud, even though she'd sent mental commands to her minions to rise into the air. After the first few months of the game, Alex had started talking to herself, which had felt weird at first, but after a while she knew that if she didn't use her voice, she'd go a little crazy.

Or, she thought, maybe it’s the talking making me crazy?

The three bloats—looking more like wide-eyed furry brown bats than grotesque floating bloodsuckers—hovered above the camp eagerly. It wasn't just their motion that suggested their feelings—Alex caught a hint of emotion through their psychic link.

Before, the connection had been tenuous. She could send out requests, and instinctively knew when they were in range, but not really know how. Now it was more tangible, like knowing the sun was in the sky by the warmth on her back. It was almost like a string connected them.

"You might be wondering why I brought you here," she said with her hands on her hips. "I need to practice my Cloud Taunt, and you three are the most convenient targets. Unfortunately, I don't know if it'll kill you, so I'm going to have to limit my attacks to you, Pinky."

To her surprise, a surge of resoluteness came through the link from Pinky, and strangely enough it tasted like black cherry.

"Okay then, good to have you on board," said Alex. "Now, I'm going to hit you with Cloud Taunt, burning through my mana as fast as I can and while you're invulnerable. Then when you and I are both refreshed, we'll do it again."

More black cherry came through the link.

"Great," said Alex, cracking her knuckles before getting started.

It felt a little weird firing at her own minion, but the spell allowed her to target Pinky. A tendril of gray cloud snaked towards the furry brown minion, crackling with electricity.

You have hit Pinky with Cloud Taunt for 0 damage!

Pinky has gained Reactionary Armor!

Pinky is invulnerable!

Alex cast the spell two more times, receiving the invulnerable message each time until her faez pool was nearly empty.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Cloud Taunt

"Now we're talking," said Alex, rubbing her hands together. "You okay, Pinky?"

More black cherry.

Refilling her faez pool took a few minutes, but when it was full, she checked with Pinky to confirm her ability was back. The flavor came back straight cherry, which felt like a "yes" to Alex.

Before she began again, Alex told Inky and Clyde, "You don't have to hang out here. You're free to go."

As if watching Pinky get blasted with Cloud Taunt was too much for them, the two minions darted across the chasm towards the Plains. Alex felt a little guilty until Pinky sent black cherry again.

"That's my girl," she said. "Now that the boys are gone, let's do some real work."

Chapter Twenty-Six

For three days, Alex scouted the deepness at the western edge of the Warped Forest. It became less necessary to use her climbing ropes, as the trees grew at awkward angles making them easier to climb. The trees sprouted multihued leaves seemingly at random. When she squinted from a distance she was reminded of colorful fractals.

The smells were richer and fruitier, too. A group of reedy plants reminded her of mangos when she passed them, while the saprolings she bumped into exhaled strawberry scents into the air. Life seemed to be bursting from every cell as if it couldn't wait to become something new.

She'd worked out a system with her minions, sending them ahead to look for danger, then once it was relatively clear, she would find a sturdy tree and make her way to the top.

The dangers changed along with the trees as the solo mobs increased to herds and groups. While she watched from above, multitudes of warped animals passed beneath. This development was both a boon and a curse, especially because the creatures were at a minimum of level 9.

It'd been hard enough to take on a single level 13 or 14, but a group of ten or twenty level 9s seemed ridiculous. But the large groupings offered an opportunity for earning spikes of experience. A popular speed leveling strategy in many online games was to find a group of characters that could do area of effect, or AoE, damage. Together, assuming they could survive, they could deal mass amounts of damage across a large group, farming experience in short bursts.

Usually the flaw was mitigating the damage from a large group of enemies. Exploiting the landscape was one such strategy, but there were fewer opportunities in Gamemakers Online than in traditional pixel-based games. Alex had no doubt that if she tried to stay in a tree while firing air spells at a herd of malicious battlegoats, they'd knock it over and trample her into dirt.

The other—and more pressing—issue was that she lacked an appropriate AoE spell. But she wasn't about to let that minor detail stop her.

When she found a spring-fed pond near the bottom of a hill surrounded by tortured trees and covered by brilliant lily pads exploding with a riot of color, a strategy suggested itself. Alex almost felt bad that she was going to use it as her killing ground. She spent the next day preparing the site, using the endless ropes that were available to her to create a funnel that led to the pond.

Before she attempted her first AoE kill, Alex changed her binding point—the place where she would resurrect if she died—to a location closer to the middle of the forest. She'd hunted the eastern side to extinction, which made it a safe passage.

Then she selected a herd of Ruthless Capybulls for culling first, mostly because they were slow moving and had no ranged attack that she could determine.

Standing on the far side of the pond, Alex sent Pinky after the herd. Pinky had been instructed to attack the largest capybull. Her minion's Reactionary Armor would keep her safe during the surprise attack until she could lead them back to the pond.

Alex chewed on her lower lip waiting for Pinky's return while insects buzzed across the surface of the pond. A bright blue fly with crimson wings landed on her arm. She was so enamored of the color combination she forgot to swat it away until it bit her.

Rubbing her arm, Alex inhaled, collecting the fresh scents of the spring-fed pond. It was hard to believe it was a mirage inside a game. After nearly six months in Gamemakers Online, Alex was more than convinced the place was real. What she didn't understand was how the "game" aspects of the place, like the stats and level information, connected to the action.

Nothing she'd ever played before simulated real life with such detail. Even the strange concoctions she mixed in the Exquisite Cooking Pot—besides providing her with enough sustenance to sustain her—tasted as flavorful as real food.

When Pinky didn't return in the timeframe she expected, Alex brought up the spell she'd been leveling up for the past week.

Cloud Taunt – Tier 2

Faez: 15 ׀ Duration: 1 minute

Dmg: 21-45 (Repeat Shock Damage every 20 seconds)

Effect: Enrages the creature to attack you.

The upgraded version of the spell had justified her decision to level up Cloud Taunt. The damage had only increased a slight amount, but the second tier of the spell gave it three pulses of shock damage, which was critical to her plan.

Her nervous review of the spell ended when she saw Pinky's oversized bat-like form dart into the clearing, furiously beating her dark brown wings. The grinding crunch of small trees being trampled under hoof came rolling behind her minion as the herd surged into view.

The bowlegged capybulls crashed into the pond, sending a spray of bug-infested water into the air as they strained to reach Pinky. The capybulls' stiff brown fur became matted and dirty as they trudged through the shallow pond, their short horns catching lily pads and moss.

Ruthless Capybull, Warped Animal, Level 9

Ability: Toothy Bite

Alex waited until the herd of eleven capybulls were completely in the pond before casting Cloud Taunt. The second-tier version shot jagged smoke lines towards the lead creature, a crackling cage of electricity penetrating the gray mist.

You hit the Ruthless Capybull with Cloud Taunt for 19 damage!

Alex flailed at the wall of text that appeared in her vision, almost forgetting to start counting in her head. The spell had hit every capybull in the pond. After the fight she'd try to find a setting that would reduce the information flow.

A host of grunts from the capybulls filled the air as if it were a stockyard. They pushed their broad chests through the water, moving faster than she'd anticipated. The lead capybull was only fifteen feet away, stocky frame rising from the water, when her mental count hit twenty.

You hit the Ruthless Capybull with Misdirection!

The Ruthless Capybull takes 21 shock damage from Cloud Taunt!

The Ruthless Capybull takes 18 shock damage from Cloud Taunt!

Her view was filled with eleven versions of the Cloud Taunt spell hitting the capybulls, which summoned angered bellows from them.

She'd hoped that the secondary trigger of Cloud Taunt would be misdirected into the others, making it appear that that capybull had cast Cloud Taunt on them, but it didn't work, leaving Alex standing before an angry herd with nowhere to go.

"Nothing ever goes to plan, does it?" she mused aloud as she sprinted along the edge of the pond as the capybulls strained to reach her.

The first two capybulls had reached the land before she'd begun running, but the muddy edge slowed their pursuit, giving her the opportunity to skirt around the pond. When she reached the trampled spot the herd had entered the water, and after the third and final Cloud Taunt had triggered, Alex cast the spell again.

To her delight, the two that had exited the water charged in a direct line at her, which slowed them. This gave her the opportunity to kite them around the pond while using the water to transfer the shock damage through the whole group. It wasn't the plan she'd hoped for but it was working.

When the end of the fight came, Alex punched her fist in the air at the host of notifications.

You have gained experience: 750 XP

Special Achievement Reached: You have killed more than ten creat*ures at the same time!

You have gained bonus experience: 35,000 XP

You have gained a skill point: +1 Cunning Strategist

Alex couldn't believe it. She'd gained 43,250 experience in under five minutes, which put her over halfway to level 6. While she wouldn't get the special bonus again, the mass experience was important enough to prove that her strategy had worked.

There were some tweaks needed, but she was pleased overall with the result. As she surveyed the carnage of eleven floating corpses, Alex let a grin of victory rise to her lips.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

During the first four months of Gamemakers Online, Alex managed to struggle her way to level 5. The task of reaching each successive level had felt Herculean, leaving her frustrated from the lack of progress and doubly so after she met Lily, who had managed to reach level 11 in the same amount of time.

But once she perfected her AoE techniques, the experience flowed like a river and she reached level 11 in a fifth of the time.

After taking down a group of tortured spikellamas, Alex reviewed her character sheet. She'd turned off the mass notifications during battle, but liked to review her information afterwards to see if anything had changed.

Character: Alexandria Duke

Level: 11

Strength: 1

Intelligence: 6

Cunning: 23

Agility: 2

Endurance: 3

Charisma: 1

Class: Arcane Mastermind

Subclass: Undecided

Health: 81/144

Faez: 54/153

Armor Class: 15

Fatigue: 45%

XP: 834,199/900,000

Skills:

Analyze: 23

One-handed Slashing: 1

Fire Spells: 2

Devious Device: 7

Sense Direction: 25

One-handed Whip: 9

Water Spells: 8

Cooking: 13

Stealth: 6

Climbing: 6 (+5 Ascending Boots)

Air Spells: 26

Unique Skills:

Cunning Strategist: 4

Mastermind: 2

Spells:

Dewdrop Orb: 7

Minor Creation: 5

Transference: 17

Cloud Taunt: 33

Misdirection: 5

Wind Gust: 13

Heal Minions: 8

Spells:

Dewdrop Orb – Tier 1

Faez: 10 ׀ Duration: 15-60 seconds

Effect: Capture a small creature in a globe of water, removing them from the fight and suffocating them if they can't hold their breath for long.

Minor Creation – Tier 1

Faez: Varies ׀ Duration: Permanent

Base Skill: Devious Device

Effect: Create new magic items or copy mundane items.

Transference – Tier 2

Faez: Varies ׀ Duration: Permanent

Effect: Transfer magic from one item or creature to another.

Cloud Taunt – Tier 4

Faez: 25 ׀ Duration: 1 minute

Dmg: 31-55 (Repeat Shock Damage every 15 seconds)

Effect: Enrages the creature to attack you.

Misdirection – Tier 1

Faez: 20 ׀ Range: 20 feet

Effect: Divert a spell or attack from one creature into another

Wind Gust – Tier 2

Faez: 15 ׀ Range: 40 feet

Effect: Summon a wall of wind to blow against your enemies, staggering them and pushing smaller creatures backwards

Heal Minions – Tier 2

Faez: 20 ׀ Range: 50 feet

Effect: Heal target minion 50 damage

The additional spells she'd gained had been useful, especially Wind Gust when she had to deal with flying enemies. But mostly, she'd been keeping to her AoE strategy.

Alex was finishing looting when she heard the sound of heavy wings approaching. She let the Wind Gust spell fade from her mind when she smelled butterscotch.

"Hey, Ethel," said Alex.

The Great Raven landed on a log near the pond, which looked different than it had a month ago. While the water remained, it was brackish, and the bushes and grass that had surrounded the pond were tramped into the mud. Only the colorful insects remained, biting her unprotected flesh when she wasn't paying attention.

"Remind me never to ask you to remodel my nest," said Ethel.

Alex wandered over to the bird. "I don't think I'll be getting my deposit back."

While she stepped over the last spikellama corpse, Alex analyzed Ethel.

Ethel Stormfeathers III, Great Raven, ??

That the level was still hidden surprised Alex.

"You know it's rude to do that while I'm staring right at you," said Ethel, with a head tilt.

Alex raised an eyebrow. "You could tell?"

Ethel ruffled her feathers as she high stepped to the edge of the log. "Lesser beings wouldn't know the difference, but I know how you visitors are, calculating everyone for profit."

The coldness confused Alex. Last time they'd talked, they'd enjoyed friendly banter. Was she missing something or did reputation decay over time?

"I have some more baubles for you," said Alex, reaching into her Handysack.

The Great Raven lifted her head, her beak jawing at the air with excitement.

To test her theory about decaying reputation, Alex handed over a single stack of fifty worthless baubles.

+100 reputation with Great Ravens

You have an indifferent reputation with Great Ravens

Ethel tilted her shiny black head at Alex as she stood there with her hand hovering over her Handysack.

"Holding out on me?" asked Ethel.

"No," said Alex, shaking her head out of thought. "Here's the rest of them. I've been busy."

The constant kills had provided an ample amount of meat, worthless baubles, and a fair number of chimeric stones. The additional three stacks brought her back to friendly territory.

+100 reputation with Great Ravens

+100 reputation with Great Ravens

+100 reputation with Great Ravens

You have a friendly reputation with Great Ravens

Alex kicked at the ground. "So...how have you been?"

Ethel lifted her beak as if she were standing before a fawning crowd. "I am well enough. These lands provide me enough amusement, though I suspect my enjoyment is different than that of you visitors."

"Do you know where we come from?" asked Alex.

She knew magic could bestow limited intelligence on constructs, but had never thought to consider artificial ones inside a game.

"Yes, I am aware that you live outside this world and only come to play some strange game," said Ethel.

"Then what is this world to you?" asked Alex.

"For me, it is the real one, which makes you my illusion, rather than the other way around," said Ethel.

"You're quite philosophical," said Alex.

"And you're nothing more than a chicken hitting a button for a bit of feed corn," said Ethel.

Alex held her hand to her chest. "Ouch. I thought we were friends."

The Great Raven stared at her with pebble-black eyes. Alex pictured an old woman putting out a cigarette while blowing a plume of smoke.

"We are, which is why I came back to visit you," said Ethel. "Or is that not something you do in your world?"

"It is," said Alex. "It was good of you to come back. I enjoy having someone to talk to. This zone is rather lonely, and my minions are short on conversation."

"Minions?" Ethel cawed. "You mean your little flying bloodsuckers."

"Yes...and thank you again for the ointment. It's been pretty crucial." Alex cleared her throat. "Speaking of, do you happen to know anything about the high white spire on the western side of this zone?"

"Ahh, yes. The Spire of Creation," said Ethel, adding a trilling croak.

"I take it that's where the end boss for the Warped Forest is located," said Alex.

"You got it," said Ethel.

Quest Offered: Defeat the Warped Mother (+150,000 XP) [Y/N]

Alex wasn't sure if Ethel had offered the quest or if the question she'd asked had triggered it, but she accepted it right away. That amount of experience would give her a whole level.

"Anything you can tell me about the Warped Mother?" asked Alex.

"Nothing you don't already know," said Ethel. "Look, kid. I like you, but I can't go spoiling the fun. That's frowned upon around these parts."

"Yeah," said Alex. "I get it. But I had to ask."

Ethel winked. "Actually, you didn't have to, but I get the sentiment."

"What about the chimeric stones? Can you provide any insight into them?" Alex asked hopefully.

"I can tell you as much as you already know," said Ethel.

"Which is that they have to do with the Mother," said Alex.

"You got it."

"Wonderful," said Alex, thinking about her previous investigations, which had proved nothing about the stones. Her theory had been that they caused the warped creatures, but hearing about the Warped Mother changed her ideas. With a name like that, she imagined the creatures were birthed, or created somehow.

But it wasn't her quest that intrigued her most. She'd thought about the Great Raven often during her time in the Warped Forest. Even the highest tech online games didn't have NPCs that seemed to have free will like Ethel Stormfeathers the Third. In fact, Alex wasn't entirely certain that Ethel was an artificial construct.She could be something else entirely. Maybe another person, or supernatural creature, living in the game like she was, with entirely different purposes.

"So do you have a role in this world? Like a job, I mean? Flying around dispensing quests and items to us visitors?" asked Alex.

Ethel stilled, her unblinking black eyes making Alex's face prickly with embarrassment.

When Ethel didn't answer, Alex added, "Or...is asking a question like that rude?"

-10 Reputation with Great Ravens

"Got it," said Alex, hanging her head. "Sorry. I've been cooped up in my head for a while without anyone else to talk to, and I have all these questions about the nature of this place."

Ethel shifted her black wings behind her back as if she were addressing a troop battalion.

"I enjoy coming to visit you, kid. You've got spunk, but remember this is our world. We Great Ravens do not have jobs, nor are we merely quest dispensers. We have a higher purpose here, one that one of your limited experience would not understand. Remember that and we'll get along fine," said Ethel.

With heat rising to her face, Alex bowed low before the Great Raven, bending until her face was only a foot from the ground. When she returned erect, the Great Raven gave her a little nod.

+25 Reputation with Great Ravens

"It's been a nice little visit, Alexandria Duke, Arcane Mastermind of the Eleventh Level." The big black bird shifted her body in preparation of flight. "I might come back and visit you again, so try not to die."

"I would like that," said Alex, keeping her voice small. "It was good seeing you again. Have a good flight."

Ethel lifted her huge black wings, thrusting downward with a little hop that lifted her into the air. Then three beats later, she was ascending quickly, once more leaving Alex alone.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

A few weeks after the visit from the Great Raven, Alex lured a herd of Midnight Razorelks to the killing pond. Their lustrous black hides appeared to absorb the light while their black racks cut through small trees as if they were paper. When Pinky burst into the space above the dead pond, the herd slowed to a stop at the edge of the clearing, milling about and lightly stomping their hooves.

The leader of the herd was an enormous male with a rack as wide as Alex was tall. The big buck lifted his head, sniffing the air tentatively, while the rest of the herd stayed behind, tails swishing nervously.

Alex stood a good two hundred yards away, but their earthy musk reached her as if she stood right next to them. They smelled like raw earth mixed with starlight. She almost felt bad that she was going to slaughter them.

Midnight Razorelk, Warped Animal, Level 12

This was going to be her toughest challenge yet. She'd seen the herd a month ago, but knew she wasn't ready for them. Not only were they higher level, but they seemed to have an uncanny awareness of danger.

The other herds she'd lured to the pond had come with reckless abandon, but the way the huge razorelk stared at her told her that this fight would be different.

"You're not the only one," said Alex, hands flexing at her sides.

She'd been working on a new tactic with her minions. The razorelk herd would be her first chance to try it. If it worked, she figured she could mow through the rest of the herds and advance on the Mother's spire by the middle of April.

Alex flexed her fingers before starting the Cloud Taunt spell. At tier one, it'd been a gray smudge of cloud streaking across space with crackles of electricity barely above static. Casting her tier-four version felt like she was a storm goddess, harnessing a thundercloud for her benefit. The gray fist shot across the still pond—bolts slamming into the water—until the cloud hit the huge razorelk buck.

You have hit the Midnight Razorelk buck with Cloud Taunt!

The Midnight Razorelk buck has resisted Cloud Taunt!

"That's new," said Alex.

She needed the leader to rush after her if she was going to take down the herd. Alex focused her sight on the big buck.

Midnight Razorelk Buck, Warped Animal, Level 15

Herd Resistance: Magic resistance for herd animals within 50 feet

You mess with my amigos, you mess with me

"That's going to be a problem," said Alex, scratching her head.

Not only was the leader a higher level, he had a resistance to her spells and passed that protection to the rest of the herd within range. She doubted she could separate the leader, and attacking a lesser elk wouldn't accomplish much if they carried his resistance.

There was a trick she was working on with her minions. She wasn't entirely sure it would work, but it seemed like a good time to try.

Alex started walking around the pond towards the herd with the Shocking Strangler dangling from her hand.

"This is either going to be the most brilliant thing I've ever done or the stupidest," said Alex, then lowered her voice in her best narrator impression. "It was the stupidest."

At her mental command, Inky and Pinky flew behind her, right above her left and right shoulders, while Clyde stayed higher above.

As if they were two armies meeting at the center of the battlefield for a prebattle discussion, the huge razorelk and two lieutenants ambled forward until they were twenty feet from the herd. Alex wasn't sure if the buck was trying to keep her away from the rest of the group, or if it was matching her approach, but its behavior worried her. It was cagier than she'd anticipated.

As they neared, the big buck lowered his head and snorted. Alex got a good look at the deadly rack on its head, made of what appeared to be sharp black glass rather than bone. The dense glass caught the light filtering through the trees, sparkling across the razor edges. One hit from the rack would tear her flesh to tatters.

Alex made the first move, darting forward to snap at the buck with her deadly whip.

You deal the Midnight Razorelk buck 15 damage!

The buck reared onto its back legs, gesturing with its front hooves. When it landed, it charged forward, lowering its razor-filled rack at her chest.

Before the razorelk buck could reach her, Alex cracked her whip, hitting Pinky.

You deal Pinky 18 damage!

As the spell triggered, Alex cast Misdirection.

You hit Pinky with Misdirection!

You have gained Reactionary Armor!

You are invulnerable!

Alex flinched when the buck slammed into her, knocking her backwards into a roll. The rack failed to cut her, but the impact knocked the spit from her lips.

The Midnight Razorelk buck hits you for 0 damage!

You are invulnerable!

Coming up into a fighting stance, Alex cracked her whip twice.

The buck rushed her again, but the Reactionary Armor saved her from certain death. As the countdown in her head reached zero, she hit the buck two more times before sending a mental command to Inky, who used her special ability, which Alex stole with Misdirection.

You have become a ghost!

The Midnight Razorelk buck rushed through her, giving Alex a moment to take stock of the battlefield. Her minions had returned to the air, having imparted their abilities, while the enraged buck spun around in the high grass, tearing the undergrowth to shreds as it turned.

The rest of the herd bugled, hooves stomping into the dirt as they moved in defense of their leader.

While her body was incorporeal, a faint outline of existence, she fled through the water, almost stumbling when it offered no resistance. The Midnight Razorelk buck rushed into the water, broad chest sending up a spray as it tried to get after her.

Alex easily made it to the opposite side of the pond before the ghosting wore off. The herd rushed into the pond, desperate to avenge the audacity of her attack on their leader.

You have hit the Midnight Razorelk with Cloud Taunt!

The Midnight Razorelk has resisted Cloud Taunt!

Alex growled under her breath. "It says resistance, not immune."

As if her admonishment had influenced it, the second attempt to cast Cloud Taunt on the Midnight Razorelk buck succeeded.

You have hit the Midnight Razorelk buck with Cloud Taunt for 43 damage!

You have hit the Midnight Razorelk with Cloud Taunt for 34 damage!

Her vision briefly filled with damage messages as the spell cascaded through the herd, abetted by the watering hole's affinity to transfer electrical damage, but eventually the program cleared them away so she could see again. She mentally cheered before sprinting to the back of the pond where she'd originally set up.

As the razorelks strained towards her, Alex cast a new spell.

You have hit the Midnight Razorelk buck with Wind Gust!

You have hit the Midnight Razorelk with Wind Gust!

Gail force winds staggered the herd, preventing them from making the final ascent out of the pond. She needed the extra time to let her faez regen and for her minions' abilities to reset.

With her faez pool up to 38%, Alex tried her Cloud Taunt again before the razorelks reached land, but they resisted. She cracked the buck twice with her whip before turning on Pinky again.

You are invulnerable!

Alex focused on hitting the buck as many times as she could, straining her shoulder as she snapped the whip.

You deal the Midnight Razorelk buck 21 damage!

You miss the Midnight Razorelk buck!

You deal the Midnight Razorelk buck 15 damage!

The Midnight Razorelk buck is affected by Shocking Strangler for 34 damage!

The final hit cascaded through the herd in a web of electricity, dealing mass amounts of damage.

Alex was so focused on trying to bring down the buck's health, she missed that her invulnerability had worn off.

The Midnight Razorelk buck hits you for 83 damage!

The rack slammed across her chest and shoulder, tearing away flesh and knocking her into the mud, which splattered onto her face. Her chest was on fire, wet and soaked with blood. It felt like someone had dumped lighter fluid on her shoulder and ignited it. None of the attacks she'd ever sustained in Gamemakers Online had ever hurt as badly.

Distracted by the eye-watering agony, she didn't notice that the buck was preparing a second attack until it was too late. The razorelk raised his hooves, preparing to stomp her, when Pinky darted in the way.

The Midnight Razorelk buck has hit Pinky for 0 damage!

Pinky has gained Reactionary Armor!

Pinky is invulnerable!

Alex didn't dare misdirect the spell to her, in case the attack would kill her minion. It was one thing to hit Pinky with her whip, it was another for her to take the full brunt of a razorelk attack.

But the distraction gave Alex a chance to trigger another round of ghosting from Inky.

You have become a ghost!

She ran directly through the herd, causing chaos and confusion as she passed. The razorelks crashed into each other, slicing their fellows with their deadly racks as they spun.

The herd splashed and thrashed behind her, desperate to get at her, as she sprinted through the shallow pond. They bellowed as their razor racks ripped away flesh.

Between the sounds of razorelks screaming and aching pain in her shoulder, Alex didn't see the razorelk buck, who had run around the pound, until he was charging at her with his rack lowered.

In a desperate attempt to save herself, Alex triggered the Screechlion Jerkin.

You have hit the Midnight Razorelk buck with Debilitating Screech!

The Midnight Razorelk is restrained!

The razorelk buck almost crashed over as the spell seized its limbs, freezing it in place.

Ignoring the torn flesh in her shoulder, Alex cracked her whip, twisting her wrist to wrap the end around the razorelk's neck rather than hitting it with the shocking end.

You have h*it the Midnight Razorelk buck for 18 damage!

You are strangling the Midnight Razorelk buck!

You have gained a skill point: +1 One-handed Whip

The buck stood motionless while Alex yanked on the Shocking Strangler, while behind her, the herd, having finally reoriented themselves, were rushing towards her with wild eyes.

Alex pulled harder as the first razorelks closed the distance. A quick check with her minions showed their abilities hadn't refreshed, which meant she wasn't going to survive, but at least she could take down the buck, making her next attempt easier.

As the first razorelk crested from the water, stomping through the mud, Alex gave one last tug on the whip.

You have killed a Midnight Razorelk buck!

You have gained experience: 2,500 XP

Special Achievement Reached: You have killed a herd leader!

You have gained bonus experience: 10,000 XP

Luck of the Bold triggers! All health, faez, and abilities for you and your minions reset!

Alex did the trick with Inky, gaining the ghosting ability right as the herd crashed through her. With no leader to impart magical resistance, or a sense of restrained order, the herd turned fanatical in their attempts to kill her.

But as an incorporeal being, she passed through them, dragging them back across the pond. Without their leader providing magical resistance and a semblance of order, she was able to use her regular tactics again. After two castings of Cloud Taunt, the Midnight Razorelk herd was defeated.

You have gained a skill point: +1 Mastermind

You have gained a skill point: +1 Cunning Strategist

She also gained a truckload of experience.

You have reached level 12!

After putting two points into Cunning and one into Intelligence, Alex went about looting the corpse. She was excited about the Midnight Hides she received in abundance, which would help her improve her Transference spell and hopefully provide a nice pair of pants, possibly with magical resistance. She was also rewarded with a pile of worthless baubles and a couple of large chimeric stones, bringing her total to eleven.

She looted the leader of the herd last, holding her breath when she touched his corpse.

You have received: Amulet of the Herd Leader

The necklace was made of razorelk rack, but despite its deadly edge, failed to slice her when she touched it.

Item: Amulet of the Herd Leader

+2 Endurance ׀ 50/50 Durability

It was her first found item that offered magical stat bonuses, an effect that was common in online games but had eluded her thus far in Gamemakers Online. It truly had proved to be the hardest game in the world, but Alex was feeling proud of herself for making it this far.

Not only had she gained a level, a bunch of crafting materials, and a new item that would give her more hit points—a stat she hated neglecting—but she'd seen her passive ability Luck of the Bold trigger for the first time. Plus, she'd proved her ability stealing technique, which had won the battle.

"I'm going to do this," she told herself, thinking about the remaining challenges: the last of the wandering herds, the spire, and the Warped Mother.

When she spoke, the weight of her intentions felt like she was at the head of a massive army.

"Nothing can stop me now."

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Alex had never been one to customize her avatar's appearance in games. She didn't care about changing the color, or adding more spikes to her pauldrons. The only thing that concerned her was the math behind the pixels. How much armor did it give? What abilities? Were the set bonuses worth collecting?

But in those games, she'd been playing someone else, a fictional persona meant to represent her, but they'd never been her.

Gamemakers Online was different. Instead of an avatar, it was Alexandria Duke, the real flesh-and-blood person, the one with a scar on her knee from falling out of a tree when she was eight years old and brown eyes with gold edges. Though she knew she was in some sort of matrix-like creation, the fully immersive senses made it feel as real as the world outside. Which meant that because it was her silky black hair, her button nose, her wide face and hips, her freckles in the game, it changed how she viewed her character.

The Midnight Razorelks had given her a pair of black leather pants that provided a slight magical resistance, but it wasn't the ability that excited her, but the way they clung to her shapely hips and shimmered in the afternoon sunlight as if galaxies swirled beneath the surface.

With the whip over her shoulder, she felt like a feral dominatrix, a wildling of this strange land, or the ringmaster at a BDSM circus.

"I don't know if my mom would even recognize me," she remarked, sensing that the game had changed her in ways no other game had.

In the weeks since the razorelks, she'd made short work of the remaining herds. Two of them had herd leaders like the razorelks, but neither of them caused as much trouble.

One of the last few were a group of Arctic Devillions that she suspected might create a challenge. Alex had sent Pinky after them, but her minion hadn't been gone long when she sensed a rapid return. A brown shape zipped through the trees, darting around them in short bursts.

"What is it, Pinky? Did Timmy fall down a well?" she joked when her minion reached her.

After leveling again, her minion looked like a sleek bat with wide round eyes. The disgusting proboscis remained, but it was tucked beneath her belly.

Pinky hovered in the air, darting nervously like a hummingbird on crack.

Her minion couldn't talk, but she could send emotions and vague images. What she received was a blurry blot and the sense of vibration.

"I don't know what that means," said Alex. "Can you give me something else?"

But she didn't have to wait for Pinky, as she caught the sound of angry buzzing at the edges of her hearing.

"A swarm?" asked Alex, receiving an affirmative from Pinky.

Alex squinted in the direction of the noise. Through the trees, a couple hundred feet out, she saw a hazy blob moving in her direction. Nearer the spire, larger groups milled about, but she hadn't been able to get close enough for fear of causing a chain reaction.

Homing Terrorbees, Warped Animal, Level 9

"Hmmm...level nine, that's not so bad," she said.

Alex had made level 13 a few days ago. It would be the first time she'd be fighting something of a lower level. But like the Ghostly Cobrawasp, their flight ability would be problematic. The reason the pond worked as a makeshift AoE conduit for her Cloud Taunt spell was that they were fighting on a two-dimensional plane. Creatures who could fly created a new set of challenges, because she wouldn't be able to use the pond.

Despite the added difficulty, Alex wasn't worried. She'd fought mobs that were much higher level, and her spells would be more effective against the terrorbees due to her superior level.

But when the swarm flew close enough that she could see the individual terrorbees, doubts crept in. She'd been fighting against herds of ten to twenty animals that moved on flat ground. The swarm of Homing Terrorbees looked to contain upwards of fifty individuals, each one the size of a basketball.

As they neared, Alex analyzed them again, hoping to learn more about them.

Homing Terrorbees, Warped Animal, Level 9

Ability: Unrelenting Attack

The terror part is redundant

A shiver passed through Alex as she thought about the implications of Unrelenting Attack. When she was a kid, she'd accidently stepped on a hive of ground bees and they'd chased her for a whole mile, stinging her over a dozen times, until she threw herself inside the trailer.

Concerned that the terrorbees could permanently kill her minions, Alex sent them back to camp. If she died, she would resurrect at her spawn point, but they couldn't, and she didn't want to lose her valuable friends.

The three minions rose high above the trees, quickly disappearing from her thoughts. This was a battle she would have to win alone.

When the terrorbees hit the edge of her range, Alex hit one with Cloud Taunt.

You have hit a Homing Terrorbee with Cloud Taunt for 38 damage!

You have hit a Homing Terrorbee with Cloud Taunt for 48 damage!

You have hit a Homing Terrorbee with Cloud Taunt for 42 damage!

The crackling electricity jumped to two other bees, affecting them with her favorite damage-over-time spell, but that left another fifty or so terrorbees to deal with. She calculated she could cast Cloud Taunt another six times before running out of mana, which meant at best she could affect another twenty terrorbees, if each spell hit two more, and she doubted that would kill even one.

With the swarm closing the distance, Alex hit them with her second-tier Wind Gust. The heavy gusts pushed the swarm back into the trees and dealt them a small amount of damage. The higher-tier version of the spell came with a damage component, but she hadn't taken the time to max it out yet, which meant it was only a temporary reprieve.

Alex blasted a cluster of terrorbees with a Cloud Taunt, catching six in the spread after it hit. Maybe she could group them with Wind Gust and take down the swarm with Cloud Taunt, but she'd already used nearly half her pool of faez. There was no way she could continue the battle without a way to slow their advance.

Before the swarm could regroup, she hit it with another Wind Gust, then took off running northward so she didn't lead them back to her spawn point. If she could regen enough faez between Wind Gusts, she might be able to kite them through the forest until the damage from the spell took them down. It would be a race against her fatigue levels, but she had no choice but to try. If it didn't work, she could devise a new tactic and try again after resurrecting.

Alex stopped on a rise near a copse of flowering trees that looked like they'd had paint spilled over them. A check of her faez pool showed she'd gained most of what she'd spent on the Wind Gust spell. The strategy was messy and slow, but it could work, she decided.

As the heavy buzzing approached, Alex thought it sounded different than before. She turned her head to the left and right, calibrating what she was hearing. It sounded like a faint echo reverberated in her ears.

When the swarm flew up the rise, Alex calculated that she could spare a Cloud Taunt before hitting them with Wind Gust. As she readied the spell, she realized why she'd heard an echo.

Alex spun around right as six Homing Terrorbees shot down from above. She'd gotten so used to her minions providing a "creature radar" for her, that when she sent them away, she'd forgotten that they weren't watching her back.

You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 17 damage!

A Homing Terrorbee misses you!

A Homing Terrorbee misses you!

Critical hit! You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 29 damage!

A Homing Terrorbee misses you!

You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 15 damage!

Each hit burned as if she'd been jabbed with a sharp stick. A third of her hit points drained away with the surprise attack. Alex returned fire with a Wind Gust, blowing the six terrorbees into the air. They tumbled over themselves until they hit the upper canopy of leaves.

The distraction allowed the bulk of the swarm to close the distance as leaves fell from above. When she cast Wind Gust, it only caught half the swarm since they'd spread out around her.

A Homing Terrorbee misses you!

You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 22 damage!

A Homing Terrorbee misses you!

Alex flailed around with random Wind Gusts, hoping to keep the terrorbees off her, but it was a losing battle. The constant stings kept her off balance until enough damage had been done.

You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 17 damage!

You have died!

Chapter Thirty

Alex respawned seconds later at a spot a few hundred yards away from her camp. She'd picked a small hill with a good view of the surrounding area, next to a strange fruit tree. The reddish-yellow oblong fruits had edible skins and a flavor that reminded her of a spicy kiwi.

After punching the ground in frustration at dying to the swarm, Alex grabbed the lone fruit on the tree that must have spawned since she'd checked it last.

You have received: Blood Lemon

New fruits didn't spawn that often, but they had a great flavor and were a nice consolation prize for dying. Her teeth ripped through the tough skin, and the watery fruit exploded into her mouth, excess liquid dripping from her hand.

The hit to her experience bar was unfortunate, but mostly Alex was frustrated by the new challenge. She'd been rolling along, dispensing the herds with relative ease for the last few months, and now this swarm of Homing Terrorbees would slow that progress. It was already late March in the real world, and she only had so much time to get to level 20. Alex assumed the Warped Mother would be a special challenge requiring extra time to devise a solution.

As Alex bit down on the blood lemon, letting the juicy fruit drip over her hands, she spied three shapes descending from the canopy. Her minions had returned home safe.

"Thank Merlin we're safe here from those stupid Homing Terrorbees."

As soon as she said the words, she knew she'd gravely miscalculated.

Homing Terrorbees. Unrelenting Attack.

"Shit," said Alex, dropping the half-eaten blood lemon into the underbrush and sending a mental command to her minions to flee across the chasm to the Warsong Plains, while she took off in a northerly direction away from her camp and spawn point.

Alex made it down the hill, low branches whipping at her arms, high grass tugging at her waist, before she heard the angry buzzing.

"No, no, no," she said, pushing herself for speed.

She had to get as far away from the spawn point as possible. Alex hadn't noticed the debuff when she'd respawned, but now she couldn't unsee it: Unrelenting Attack. The terrorbees had given it to her upon her death, which allowed them to track her across the forest.

The debuff wasn't permanent—it only had a minute left before it was gone—but if she couldn't get away they would kill her again, and when she respawned, they'd keep doing it.

Respawn camping.

The term was usually applied in player versus player games, when one side stood around the respawn point for the other team and killed them when they appeared, over and over, until they quit or logged out.

It wasn't usually an issue in player versus environment games, unless someone placed their respawn point in a dangerous area. Alex hadn't expected to receive a debuff that lasted through death. It wasn't an ability that she'd ever seen in another game, giving new meaning to the terror in the terrorbees.

When she glanced over her shoulder, she realized she wasn't going to be able to outrun them, and since she'd sent away her minions, there'd be no invulnerability or ghosting to temporarily protect her.

"Log out," she said.

Log out? [Y/N]

"Yes," she said while swiping the air.

Are you sure? [Y/N]

Log out costs 1,000 XP. The following log out will cost 5,000 XP.

"Yes," she said again, her voice trembling as she kept moving through the undergrowth.

You will log out in 30 seconds...29...28...

The buzzing grew louder as the swarm approached. She felt the vibration in her gut and in her jaw. Her skin itched in anticipation. It was a race to escape the swarm to reach log out.

...22...21...20...

When the first terrorbees descended, flying at her like unerring darts, Alex blasted them with Wind Gust.

But the swarm had learned from their earlier battles, and small groupings came at her from multiple directions. Alex fired every which way, trying to keep them at bay until the countdown was complete.

...15...14...13...

The terrorbees flew down, and around, and through the bushes, coming up like aircraft under the radar. A quivering terror had taken hold, but it didn't slow her spells, and she blasted the terrorbees through her own tears.

...8...7...6...

The first hit came when a trio of terrorbees flew directly down at her, where she hadn't been looking.

A Homing Terrorbee misses you!

You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 22 damage!

You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 18 damage!

Your Wind Gust spell has been interrupted!

The hits snowballed as her failed Wind Gust let another dozen terrorbees reach her. At each sting, a whimper of pain slipped from her lips, but she fought through it.

You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 18 damage!

A Homing Terrorbee misses you!

You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 14 damage!

You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 20 damage!

You have died!

As soon as Alex reappeared at her spawn point, she went through the log out sequence as quickly as possible, but the buzzing was louder than previously.

"Come on, please," she said, escaping in a southward direction, ignoring the way the trees slapped her in the face.

The swarm caught her at fifteen seconds, coming from all directions, killing her quicker than before.

You have died!

The swarm of Homing Terrorbees was on her before she'd even finished the log out sequence.

You have died!

Respawn.

The terrorbees kept stinging her as she fought to log out.

You have died!

On the next respawn, she hit them with a Wind Gust, but the terrorbees were spread out enough that the ones not hit by the spell were able to kill her.

You have died!

She tried running.

You have died!

Used her Screechlion Jerkin, but it only restrained one terrorbee.

You have died!

You have lost a level! You are now level 12!

Respawn.

You have died!

You have died!

You have died!

You have died!

You have died!

You have died!

You have died!

You have died!

You have died!

You have died!

You have died!

You have died!

You have lost a level! You are now level 11!

Somewhere below ten, she stopped fighting. Not because she'd given up, but the cumulative stings had left her unable to move. Her brain had been overloaded with pain, leaving her curled in a ball.

Through the constant agony and regeneration, a horrifying thought consumed her.

What if she was stuck like this forever?

You have died!

You have died!

You have died!

You have lost a level! You are now level 6!

No longer was she thinking about reaching level 20, or that she'd have to leave the Hundred Halls. The only remaining kernel of sanity within the cage of pain was the desperate hope that something would release her from the cycle of death and respawn.

You have lost a level! You are now level 2!

As the last of her levels disappeared, Alex focused her mental energy on the hopes that the game would kick her out when she reached level 1.

You have lost a level! You are now level 1!

The horror of her continued existence brought a chest-heaving sob as the Homing Terrorbees, which covered her in a blanket of death, killed Alex once again.

You have lost a level! You are now level 0!

You are now logged out of Gamemakers Online!

Chapter Thirty-One

It'd been three years since her dad had died unexpectedly from a stroke while he was doing a side job, putting on a new roof in Mt. Vernon. Alex remembered the feeling of helplessness when she'd heard the news. It was like acid on the bones, draining her of every last bit of energy until she could barely make it to school. She didn't do any gaming in those days either. It didn't feel like there was any point.

As Alex lay on the wood flooring next to the giant obsidian cube with her arm awkwardly draped over a throw pillow, she felt like her dad had died all over again.

Getting to join Gamemakers Hall had opened up a pathway she'd never thought could exist. Alex had always assumed that things like becoming a mage, or even traveling outside her small town, were what happened to other people, not her.

Now that part of her had died.

When Alex mustered enough energy to stand again, she shuffled through the hallways like a forgotten ghost.

Footsteps coming around a corner sparked a hope that Bucket or Martina might be out of Gamemakers Online. Though they couldn't do anything about what had happened, they would at least understand how devastated she was.

When a shock of red hair swayed around the corner, Alex's gut twisted. Though they barely knew each other, Lily Brodziak was the last person she wanted to see. The former MechLeague world champion's lips flattened when she looked up to see who she was standing in the hallway with. Alex flinched even before the words were out of Lily's mouth.

"Let me guess, can't exploit your way to success in this game?" asked Lily with a snapping head tilt.

"Can you do me a favor?" asked Alex, fighting not to cry in front of Lily.

"Why would I do you a favor?"

The snark helped Alex hold back the flood behind her eyes. "I think you'll enjoy this favor. I need someone to tell Professor Marzio that I quit."

Lily's eyes rounded as the angles in her lips softened. "Oh. Just that? That you quit?"

"Does anything else matter?" said Alex roughly. "Not that he'll probably care, since I've only seen him once and this stupid game didn't teach me one damn thing about magic."

The apathy that had her in its grips was annihilated by a sudden anger. Heat rose to her face, and as Lily looked at her with what felt like pity, Alex stormed past, rushing up to the room she'd barely slept in.

After digging through her pockets, she found she didn't have enough to pay for a train ticket back to Kentucky. Alex eyed the thin spell book she'd found earlier in the year. There was sure to be a pawnshop in the city where she could sell it.

Alex stuffed her clothes and notebooks into her backpack, threw it over her shoulder, and marched out of Gamemakers Hall. A pang of ache hit her when her foot crossed the threshold, making her stumble, but she kept going, slamming the gate open on her way out.

It was late afternoon. The shadows pooled around the old industrial buildings. Alex was struck by the reek of petroleum. She'd spent the last six months in a pristine forest filled with rich scents that had tantalized the mind.

This, this is a garbage dump, she thought.

Near a building with the windows knocked out and graffiti sprayed across the lower walls, a shadow detached, moving towards her ominously. Alex sensed people beneath the gloom, and a volcano of anger rose to her lips.

"I don't care who you are, but if you take another step towards me I'm going to rip your entrails out with my bare hands and choke you with them," said Alex with fists at her sides.

The shadow hesitated before slipping back towards the industrial building, disappearing through an open door.

Alex managed to make it to the Green Line without seeing another person, which was probably the best for both parties. She had enough change to make it into the center wards of the city, where she found a pawnshop after a couple hours of wandering around. She sold the spell book for over two hundred dollars, which was probably a rip off, but she didn't care. She wanted to get home and feel her mom's arms around her.

Before the day was over, she managed to find a bus route that would take her to Lexington. Despite feeling emotionally exhausted, Alex didn't sleep a wink on the ride back, mostly because the air conditioning was on too high, leaving her shivering in her seat.

Early the next morning, she caught a ride from an older couple headed towards her small town that didn't have the decency to be identified on a map. By the time she made it home, she was fantasizing how it would feel to be in her own bed rather than in a pile of ratty tigersloth furs and to eat real food that came out of a can rather than the mystery meat that usually came out of that stupid black pot.

The lights were off when she pushed through the screen door.

"Hello? Mom?"

It was Tuesday, which meant she would be off work. Alex had expected to find her mom sitting on the couch with her needles and yarn in her hands.

"Mom? Are you here?" she called out.

A quick check of the bedroom revealed that the trailer was empty. Alex peeked into the refrigerator to find the lettuce was brown and the milk expired.

Her skin went cold when she saw the old hospital wristband lying next to the empty fruit bowl. The date showed that Regina Duke had stayed at Mt. Vernon General in January for a week.

The last few times she'd talked to her mother she hadn't been feeling well. Alex had no idea that it'd been bad enough to require a hospital visit, especially since they didn't have health insurance. The only way they'd take her was if she were dying.

Alex put her hand to her lips, which had gone numb along with the rest of her face. It felt like she'd just recovered from her dad's death...

"No, don't buy trouble, Alexandria," she told herself.

The rumble of a distant motor woke her from her stupor.

"Frank..."

Alex ran down the gravel road towards Frank's trailer, which was nestled in a hollow. The yard was covered with the frames of old cars long ago rusted to obscurity. The old faded orange truck rambled down the hill with Frank and her mother inside.

Breathlessly, Alex stopped on the driver side as Frank leaned out the open window. His hair had gone completely gray except for a few patches in his beard. He had the kindest eyes of anyone Alex had ever met, and nut brown skin and valleys of wrinkles from working in the train yard.

"Alexandria," he said, the corners of his eyes tugging. His soft baritone was both a greeting and a comfort.

Her mother had her head on his shoulder, asleep. Her cheeks were hollow.

At that moment, she surfaced awake, eyes bleary. "Alexandria? Is that you?"

"Hey, Mom," said Alex, trying to restrain the urge to climb over Frank and hug her mom. "Is everything okay?"

The way Frank looked at her told her the story. Her heart sunk deeper into her stomach, trying to burrow its way somewhere less real.

"She's on a number of pain pills," said Frank. "Makes her sleepy."

"But what about...?"

Her mom lifted her head, her eyes becoming alert. "Hi, Alexandria."

"Hey, Mom."

"I'm sorry, sweetie. The doctors told me I have a brain tumor and not the kind you recover from. Doctors say I ain't got but half a year in me at best. Probably less."

The world shifted under Alex's feet. Frank grabbed her arm so she didn't slide over onto the gravel.

"I don't understand," said Alex, hearing her own voice as distant. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Your mom didn't want to upset you and then when she had a seizure at the bowling alley and had to go to the hospital, we tried, but no one ever answered at that hall place of yours." Frank offered a consolatory smile. "But you're here now. That's all that matters."

"How's school, sweetie? Everything going well?" asked her mother with a slight slur.

Alex recalled talking to her mom at Christmas. She'd sounded drunk at the time, but now she realized that it'd been the pills. It was probably why they'd taken her around town to see the lights. She wouldn't get to see them again—ever.

"I'm...it's…" She shook her head. "I'm here now."

Frank drove the truck to the trailer and helped bring her mom inside. When Alex put her mom's arm over her shoulders to help her walk, she was so light it was if her bones had been hollowed out. They got her to the couch.

"I can take it from here, Frank," said Alex, throwing her arms around Frank to give him a big hug. "Thank you for taking care of her when I wasn't here."

"My pleasure," said Frank, squeezing her back. "You probably don't have any food, so I'll come by later with some groceries to tide you over, and if you need anything before then, you know how to get ahold of me."

When she went back inside, her mother was asleep, snoring lightly. Alex unlaced her shoes and pulled them off, setting them by the door.

Six months, at best.

Alex sat on the recliner across from the couch and watched her mom sleep. Her chest rose so softly, almost like a baby bird's, that she wondered if she were still breathing. Alex resisted the urge to lean her cheek by her mother's mouth to check for breath.

When she reached down to move the basket of knitting that her mother took with her wherever she went, a dam broke inside of her when she realized that her mother might never knit again. Tears streamed down Alex's face, dripping from her cheeks as she sobbed into her hands.

Alex cried until it felt like the tears were being squeezed from her bones. Her stomach ached from the feeling of helplessness. First her father, now her mother. When she was gone there'd be no one left.

Just her.

Alex sat and watched her mom well into the night, never sleeping. Every time she felt her eyes drift closed, the fear that her mother would pass before she woke would take hold, startling her.

"What am I going to do?"

Chapter Thirty-Two

For the next week, Alex fell into a ritual. In the morning she roused her mom, helped her to the bathroom, and made a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast with apricot jelly. After eating, her mom would fall asleep again.

In the afternoon in the lull between the rounds of pills, her mother was awake enough for conversation. They didn’t talk about the cancer or Gamemakers Hall, but the one thing left Alex could do with her mother: knitting.

When Alex had been younger, her mother taught her how to knit, but it'd never been a task she enjoyed. But in the sunset of her mother's life, she would have done anything that her mother wanted.

Working the needles and yarn was more soothing than she remembered, but maybe it was because Alex didn't want to think. She let the pattern—wrap, poke, tighten, loop—smooth away the maelstrom that lay beneath the surface.

Her mother usually managed to knit for an hour, sometimes a little longer, but when she couldn’t move her hands, she set the needles and yarn back in the basket and told stories about Alex when she was younger. The patterns her mother knitted looked like spiderwebs that had had rocks thrown at it, but Alex said nothing. When her mother grew tired again, she slept on the couch, which had become her bedroom.

Alex turned on her gaming computer once in the middle of the night when her mother was snoring, but she couldn't bring herself to click on the start button. The only thing she could picture when she thought about playing a game was the swarm of terrorbees stinging her over and over.

Even though Alex had no way to get to the store, food wasn't an issue because neighbors and friends from town took turns bringing a casserole, or a bag of groceries every day. They would stay for a short time and chat, usually with Alex, except for the rare occasions when her mother was awake and could mumble responses to their questions.

As the weather warmed and the flowers bloomed, Alex called every hospital within two hundred miles to see if there was one that would treat her mother's tumor. She tried Golden Willow in Invictus, but they would only take her if she was a student at the Hundred Halls, or had the requisite health insurance. Even then, the doctor she spoke to said that it was unlikely spells alone could fix a tumor that far along.

One night when Alex's hands grew tired from knitting, she pulled out the notebook she'd filled with the Transference spell notes. She had no use for the magic, since she was no longer a member of the Hundred Halls, but the mathematics behind the spell intrigued her. After a few hours of searching the internet, she learned how what she'd been doing mimicked topographical theories. When transferring the nodes from one thing to another, she was creating transitive structures and using the elasticity of the faez matrix to complete the spell.

In high school, she'd taken college-level classes, scoring near perfect scores on the standardized tests. There were times back then she'd thought about going to college for mathematics, and with nothing to keep her in Kentucky, maybe it was worth a revisit.

"Mom," said Alex, sitting across from her mother, who had already set down her knitting needles and was staring at the evening sunlight coming through the kitchen window.

"Yeah, sweetie," said her mom, followed by a little cough.

She could barely talk without a chest rumble. The doctors had said the tumor was interfering with the signals going to her lungs. They'd warned her it would get worse before the end. Alex wasn't sure she was going to be able to handle it.

"What did you want to be when you grew up?"

Alex wasn't really sure what prompted her to ask this question, except that they'd already been through all the polite conversation and she wanted to have some real discussion with her mom before there wasn't time left.

"A ballerina," said her mom, wistfully.

"No, seriously."

Her mom looked back, eyes ringed and sunken, but a spark still remained deep in them. "I am. I wanted to dance in the New York ballet, or at the Met."

"But you never danced, or took lessons," said Alex, perplexed.

"That doesn't mean I didn't want to do it. We didn't have money for that kind of stuff, but it was fun to dream." A secret smile formed on her mother's lips and she lowered her voice as if she were keeping a secret. "When I was eight, I tried to run away so I could go to New York and join the ballet school. I thought it was something like the circus that you could just decide to join. I made it as far as the bus stop before your grandmother found me."

"You never told me that story before," said Alex.

Her mom stared at the sunlight. "I haven't thought about it in a long time. I didn't want to think about it, I guess." After a long silence, she said, "What do you want to be? Are you going to be a professional gamer? Is that why you left Gamemakers?"

Alex shivered, remembering the way the swarm pursued her through the forest relentlessly.

"No, it didn't work out like I thought it would."

"Alexandria, dear, it's never been like you to let something beat you. I remember when you were five and you decided you just had to climb up the slide at the park, rather than use the ladder. You must have tried a hundred, maybe two hundred times, before you finally made it."

"Oh yeah," said Alex, the memory floating into view. "I'd forgotten that. What was I thinking?"

"I don't rightly know, but you were persistent," said her mother. "It's the reason I didn't tell you about the cancer. I didn't want that to interfere with your opportunity. Which was why I was so surprised when you left."

"I didn't give up," said Alex, squeezing her lips together. "I ran into a problem I couldn't solve."

"Alexandria..."

"Yeah, I know, but whatever, it got me back here. I'd rather spend," she almost said your last days but choked up and had to switch words, "time with you than beat my head against a stupid problem."

"Sweetie, let's face it," said her mom. "I'm going to be gone soon enough. Please don't let what's happening to me keep you from living. It'd break my heart to think my dying screwed up your life."

Alex let the knitting drop into her lap. Screwed up your life? As if it wasn't screwed up enough with Dad dying and now you. How much pain can one heart take?

"It's...it's okay, Mom," she said. "I wasn't learning anything anyway. Gamemakers wasn't what I was expecting. It seemed kinda broken, for a hall."

Her mother made that little infuriating noise in the back of her throat that usually received a comment from Alex, but with her mother's condition she swallowed her response, and while holding back tears, looked away.

Speaking quietly so her mother didn't hear, she said, "Nobody from these parts ever did anything. Why should it start now?"

Chapter Thirty-Three

As April wore on, so did the smell in the trailer. No matter how many windows Alex opened, she couldn't get the smell of death from the room. When a chunk of hair fell out of her mother's head, Alex knew the end was coming faster than the doctors had said. It almost felt like her mother was rushing her dying so Alex could get back to her life.

There were also the little comments and jokes her mother made, saying things like "you should just smother me with a pillow and get it over with" or "you gonna carry my old corpse around with you forever."

One afternoon, things came to a head while Alex was feeding her mother soup with a plastic spoon so she didn't chip her teeth.

"Mom," she said, hearing the way their roles had reversed in her tone, "you have to open your mouth to eat. You're thin enough as it is."

Eyes bloodshot and hazy, her mother said, "I don't want to eat anymore. There's no point."

"Of course there's a point," she said. "You have to eat to stay alive."

"Alive," said her mother sarcastically, which only made her break into a coughing fit. "I'm a bag of bones with a basketball in my head. I just want to sleep without these pills, they're awful."

"Mom, please," she said, holding the spoon in front of her mother.

"No," she said, squeezing her lips together and crossing her arms like an insolent child.

Alex pushed the spoon against her mother's lips. With surprising vigor, her mother knocked the spoon away, sending a spray of vegetable soup across Alex's face.

"Mother!"

"Just let me be," said her mom. "Let me die in peace, not with you hounding me."

"Hounding? Hounding?"

Alex slammed the bowl on the TV tray, spilling half the soup on the floor.

"I'm just trying to keep you alive. You're my mother. My only mother. You only get one. I can't lose you too. I can't be alone in this world. There's no one left in our family but me. You can't die, Mom. You can't. I can't let you. You're all I got."

The trailer suddenly spun around her. The walls closed in. Alex stumbled through the screen door trying to get air.

Before she knew where she was going, Alex let out a primal scream and took off running up the trail to Preacher's Lookout. It was a miracle she didn't stumble or fall on the way up, feet bouncing off roots and rocks like a mountain goat. Every ache, every fear, every pain was poured into that run. She wanted to run forever.

Then her muscles no longer cooperated, and her lungs burned like a forest fire. Alex stopped three-quarters of the way up the trail, leaning on a tree and looking behind her in bewilderment, because she couldn't recall how she'd gotten that far up. The journey was a blur.

Alex pulled her glasses off and wiped the sweat from the lenses on her shirt. In the game they never got messy or dislodged, which was a godsend, but back in the real world, they were a constant source of worry.

When she could catch her breath again, Alex continued up the trail, determined to reach the top, for no reason except that it was better than being in the trailer with her dying mother. She stepped over a ropey, segmented cord of scat, full of hair and bone.

The size of the animal feces gave her pause, remembering the mountain lion she'd encountered last August on the trail. She thought about going back down, but her legs wouldn't move in that direction when she thought of her mother, which only made it worse because she wanted to have the last days be full of laughter and memories, not arguments and spilled soup.

Preacher's Lookout was the highest spot along a ridge that dropped away, offering a scenic view of the long valley. At the bottom, a creek meandered through the middle, water sparkling in the afternoon sunlight. Red-tailed hawks rode the air currents along the steep cliff, circling until they spied a mouse or snake, then fell unerringly on their prey.

Alex leaned against a tree, the rough bark against her side reminding her of the Warped Forest. If she squinted, and imagined the distant trees had multicolor hues, the valley could be a region inside the game.

A wistful smile passed across her face like a cloud across the sun, returning once more to sullen silence. Alex wondered what she might have done if she were still doing well in the game and she'd heard about her mother's illness. She wanted to think that she would have given it up and rushed home to take care of her.

But it wouldn't have been easy.

Had it been a blessing that she'd failed? It didn't feel that way. Her mother was right; when she was gone, Alex would have to get on with her life. Without the opportunity Gamemakers Hall had afforded, what was she going to do?

But trying to think about that was like staring at a blank wall and expecting a television. She couldn't see anything beyond her mother's illness.

When the evening winds picked up, Alex turned to head back to the trailer. Maybe she'd find that her mother had gotten hungry and eaten the soup, and they could move past the argument.

Alex made it a hundred feet from the ridge before she saw the mountain lion stalking her. The months in the Warped Forest had attuned her senses to movement, and the tawny cat stuck out against the verdant foliage. She faced the creature, hoping that showing that she'd seen it might scare it away, but it kept coming, low and to the ground.

She thought about trying the same trick she'd done back in August, but the mountain lion seemed emaciated as if it hadn't eaten much during the winter. A hungry predator was unlikely to be dissuaded by shouts and raised arms.

When it was about fifty feet away, the mountain lion broke into a sprint towards her. Alex burst the other direction, dodging through the trees while adrenaline flooded her system. She made it a dozen yards before spinning around to make her last stand.

The mountain lion's reddish brown eyes were trained on her as it sprinted through the undergrowth in long, graceful strides. It would have been beautiful if it weren't trying to eat her.

Before she could think about it, Alex's fingers fell into their familiar dance. A jet of gray cloud shot out, crackling with electricity. When the spell hit the mountain lion, it jumped high, landing sideways, looking momentarily bewildered as it rocked.

"Oh, shit," said Alex, staring at her hands because she hadn't expected the spell to work. She'd had no idea that Cloud Taunt was a real spell and thought it only a tool in the game.

The mountain lion was recovering from the shock, shaking its head and making weird clacking noises in the back of its throat. Its eyes seemed unfocused when it looked at Alex, making her wonder if there was a "taunt" component like in the game. If there was then she might have made a bigger mistake in using that particular spell.

"Go away, kitty," she said, picking up fallen tree branches and throwing them at the mountain lion.

The cat faced her again, letting loose a gut-shaking growl. Before it could leap, she cast Wind Gust. The first attempt at the spell lifted a few leaves and rustled some branches as if a stiff wind had passed.

Alex cast it again, refocusing her efforts on clear finger diction and pouring as much faez as she could into the spell. The strain felt like a shard of cold air had entered her brain, but when the spell completed, a whirlwind of forest debris whipped into the air, careening towards the mountain lion, which had no choice but to bound away under the assault.

After the cat was gone, she bent over, squinting. It'd hurt her head to pour that much power into the spell, which made sense since her Merlin scores in school had been so low. It'd probably been the training in the game that had allowed her to even do that much.

With the sun setting behind the hills, Alex headed back to the trailer. She didn't want the mountain lion to come back in the dark when she couldn't see it.

The whole way back, she thought about the implications of what had happened. She hadn't expected that the spells she was learning inside the game would work outside of it, but now she understood why each new spell came with an explanation, showing her how to cast it.

But it didn't change that she'd failed to reach her goal in the game. Ideas soared through her head, but they disappeared the moment she reentered the trailer and the smell of death assaulted her nose.

Her mother was asleep on the couch and the soup had dried on the rug. Alex grabbed a wet rag and started scrubbing away the stain. While she was working, her mother woke.

"Alexandria, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

Squatting on the ground, Alex turned. "It's okay, Mom. I understand. This isn't easy for you."

"I just want...I just want you to be okay after I'm gone," said her mother.

Alex squeezed her lips together, holding back tears. She nodded to her mother and then threw herself back into the scrubbing.

When she was certain her mother had fallen back asleep, she whispered to herself.

"Me too, Mom. Me too."

Chapter Thirty-Four

In the days after the mountain lion attack, time felt elastic. The proof that her time in the game had been worth something awakened her, and she threw herself into experimenting with the spells from Gamemakers Online, but she felt like she was racing against a clock she couldn't see, which made those moments speed up, a blur she struggled to grasp.

In the times with her mother, they miraculously slowed down. Her mother was trying to give her the only gift she had left, a chance for Alex to return to living, but she wasn't ready to accept that gift, especially after she learned the Transference spell was real.

But using those spells inside the game and in real life were two completely different things. It was clear the game used the statistics behind her character as well as her steadfast adherence to the finger movements and words to create the effects, because Alex found them orders of magnitude more difficult.

For one, she was a mage of low faez, which meant her capacity for challenging spells was limited. She could perform the gestures as clean as a concert pianist—her years of gaming had taught her that much—but that only shaved the amount of power required to accomplish the task.

The simple spells, like the Five Elements, or Cloud Taunt, she could perform regularly and with a consistent effect. As the complexities grew, so did the requirements of the spell.

In the game, the Transference spell quickly revealed the nodes available on each item as a ghostly picture superimposed on her subject. In real life, the first part, the seeing, was almost as challenging as the transfer.

Items and people didn't magically reveal themselves as nodes when the spell was cast. First she had to define her target, shape the area of interest with the spell, which wasn't as simple as drawing a line around an object with a pointer. Instead, she had to slowly sprinkle the faez—the raw stuff of magic—over the affected area, creating an elastic covering that could be stretched and tugged.

The deliberateness of the task was suited to her low magical ability, because she could slowly dole out faez over time, just not provide a massive spike of it for a fantastical effect.

Alex found the first part reminded her of knitting. The truth of knitting was that there were only two knots, and the second was a reverse of the first. Those two simple knots, bound into mathematical patterns, could create a multitude of shapes. The first part of the Transference spell was much like knitting, which gave her a head start.

After three days of analyzing household items for parts that could be syphoned off by the spell—the slickness of a cooking pan, or the softness of wool—Alex started on the second part of the spell: manipulating the nodes.

Like the first, this part proved more difficult than in game, though the practice was similar. In Gamemakers Online, it seemed like any magical effect or ability could be syphoned off and applied to something else, or someone. But as she studied every item in and around the house, she found this wasn't true for real life.

As she worked, she learned to see the nodes, which were the anchor points that connected that quality to the item. When she compared two items, there were disparities in the number of nodes and the shape of the object that meant they couldn't be transferred.

In her mind, she imagined it as a net that was wrapped around one item, but to move it to the second, it had to have a similar shape and anchor points. She couldn't move the strength of an iron crowbar into her arm, because they were too dissimilar—the pulling and stretching of the net was too complicated.

Similar items could be accomplished. When Alex managed to apply the stiffness of a metal fork into a plastic spork left over from a fast food restaurant, she cried tears of joy. The original fork disintegrated into a slag of goo, but the new spork had the strength of the metal one but still looked plastic.

Before long, she'd burned through the kitchen, stripping the utensils and cooking pots of their qualities, producing a drinking glass that didn't break when she dropped it, a rolling pin that weighed as much as a barbell, and a spoon so slick she couldn't hold onto it, among other things.

Next, Alex went outside, tackling the living world with her Transference spell, reassigning the purple from the Frank's lilac bushes to a patch of grass, or taking the faint licorice smell of goldenrod and applying it to a mouse she caught in a Dewdrop Orb.

When her mother was asleep, which was most of the time, Alex practiced viewing her aura with the spell, trying to understand the nature of the human body. She would have used herself but using a mirror was confusing.

Alex took note of the nodes on the surface, sketching them in her notebook. When she could, she verified that her body contained the same nodes, though they were sometimes in slightly different areas. She began to understand that the mystical chakras and other bodily forces were just the major nodes associated with the body.

After her long study, she realized that taking properties from one person and applying them to another would be nearly impossible due to the complexities of the "nets" and number of nodes.

She delved into the mathematics of topographical transference to help her understand, studying every paper she could find on the internet. It gave her a wider range of transference as the mathematical tools provided shortcuts in certain situations. But it wasn't until the end of April neared that Alex had her big breakthrough.

She was studying her mother again, notebook and pencil in hand, sketching the faint nodes near her shoulder. Alex let faez soak into the skin. As the raw magic sunk through the flesh, bits of it collected around the collarbone, revealing a node. She kept going, adding more faez, hoping to learn more about that node, but then a second node appeared deeper inside her mother's shoulder.

This was new for Alex. She'd only been studying the surface nodes and hadn't thought that more existed beneath, but it made sense, considering the human body was a three-dimensional bag of flesh and bones.

Staring at her mother, whose face was sunken, her mouth open slightly, a little "O," while her eyes fluttered with the vibrations of dreams, Alex started the spell again. She poured faez into her mother's head, letting the raw magic sink deeper than before.

As the spell worked, the first nodes appeared—six majors on the face alone—but that wasn't what she wanted to see. Despite a background level of exhaustion, Alex kept pouring in faez, desperate to see inside.

The skull seemed to resist her intrusion at first, but when she remained persistent, it revealed the truths hidden beneath. When she saw the outline of the tumor, Alex almost ended the spell.

It was the size of a baby's fist, settled against the back of the skull. It was larger than she’d expected, but also smaller, in the idea that something so innocuous could kill her mother.

Seeing it made her dizzy, but she refocused, not wanting to lose her progress. She let faez trickle into the tumor, hoping that wouldn't hasten its growth in any way. As the first nodes appeared, Alex squeezed her lips tight.

Healthy growing things had an orderly existence, nodes that seemed logical in their placement. But the tumor was a malignant twisted thing, a warping of nature, with nodes scattered across it haphazardly. Only when she expanded her sight to the brain matter around it did she see how it had burrowed its way into her mother's brain like a parasite.

The only thing that gave her any relief was that the tumor was a singular mass of cells. It hadn't metastasized yet, spreading to other areas of the body, or she would have seen faint lines leading south. Maybe it never would, because its existence alone was enough to kill her mother.

With a shaking hand, Alex spent the next hour sketching the tumor in its misshapen glory, including the surrounding brain matter and how it was connected.

When she was finished, her forehead was covered in sweat. Alex gently set the notebook down and wandered outside in the cool evening with her hands on her head. As soon as she'd seen the nodes on the tumor, a plan had formed in her head. Confirming the connections had only proved that what she wanted to do was possible. There would be some planning, some mathematical sleight of hand, but it was possible. She knew she could do it.

Alex was going to save her mother.

Chapter Thirty-Five

The first thing she did the next day was call Golden Willow in Invictus and schedule an appointment for herself. Alex wasn't sure how she'd feel once she'd completed the procedure. She wanted to make sure everything was planned out to the last detail.

The call was one of the strangest she'd ever made in her short life.

"No, Dr. Fairlight, I do not have any medical records about my tumor. It's, uhm, a rather new development, but I assure you this is not a prank call and I am a student at the Hundred Halls, you can check with Gamemakers," she explained.

After a long silence, the woman's voice came back. "If this is not a prank, and you really are who you say you are, then we will see you when you arrive. There's really no need to make an appointment. We're here to serve, and if you truly have a tumor of that size in your head, we can take care of it."

"Thank you, Dr. Fairlight," said Alex. "I'll see you in a few days.

After she hung up, Alex went through the laborious process of examining herself with the spell. She had to understand the nodes inside her own brain so she could transfer the tumor without causing damage to either herself or her mother.

She knew it was a risky procedure. There were a million ways it could go wrong, but there was no way she was going to let her mother die without trying.

Once she had mapped her brain, Alex spent the next two days working out the math. The tumor had disturbed the shape of her mother's brain, requiring some stretching to make them fit, but once Alex had triple-checked her calculations, she was sure she could accomplish it.

A few times, Alex thought about trying to find someone else who would take it, but she couldn't convince herself that was the right course of action for two reasons. The first was that it would be completely unethical and the second was that she'd seen enough differences between her and her mother to guess that a non-family member would be even more difficult. She was barely convinced she could pull it off as it was, let alone if there were more complications with the node transfer.

On the day of the procedure, Alex splurged, eating a full meal of bacon, hash browns, a cup of ramen, an orange, and a dessert of two chocolate squares.

"You must be hungry, dear," said her mother from the couch, her eyes like thin slits, ringed with angry red lines. "I'm glad you're eating for the two of us."

"You'll be eating soon enough, Mom," said Alex.

"That's nice, dear."

Alex gave her mom an extra dose of painkillers so she would sleep through the procedure. She didn't want her moving and screwing up the transfer. The whole thing was going to take at least four hours by her calculations, which would tax her stamina for faez generation.

In a perfect world, she would have spent the next few weeks practicing, but Alex suspected her mother was running out of time. It was now or never.

Alex set up a mirror next to the couch, holding it in place with duct tape and broom handles, while she placed her notebook with diagrams on the nodes she would have to transfer against the wall.

She started with her mother, slowly feeding the faez into her skull until she could see the tumor. Alex took extra time, making sure the tumor hadn't shifted since her last viewing. Once she established the nodes were the same, she kept a light amount of faez on her mother, while shifting her focus to herself.

This part took much longer because she had to keep her mother's tumor in sight while working on her own brain. It would be much easier to work on someone other than herself, but she was the only option her mother had.

After two painstaking hours, Alex had fully immersed both brains and the tumor in the requisite faez. Her knees trembled with the exhaustion of focus, but she was only halfway done.

Alex risked reaching over to grab a cup and wet her lips with water, fearing a full drink would upset the precarious balance of her vision.

Next, she started the process of connecting the nodes. The prework made this part go smoothly, despite the strain of maintaining. Once she had set the scaffolding, Alex coaxed the tumor away from her mother's brain. She wasn't really moving it, but the nodes had to be unanchored before they could transfer.

Despite wanting to be finished, Alex took her time so she didn't cause damage. It felt like trying to tease a soap bubble away from a thorn without popping it.

When sweat rolled into her right eye, stinging it with salt, Alex had no choice but to ignore it.

Once she had the many nodes unhooked from her mother's brain, Alex prepared herself to finish the spell. Once she did, she didn't know what was going to happen.

A glance to the kitchen clock revealed she was five and a half hours into the procedure. As her eyes fell back upon her mother, she realized the pain pills were wearing off, and she was beginning to stir. Too much movement would change the shape of her thoughts, upsetting the nodes, and break the spell.

She needed another few minutes to finalize the transfer, but she was out of time. Alex refocused her energy because the final part of the spell was going to need more faez than she thought she had to give.

The strain was like pulling a compound bow back with only one finger. The string bit into her flesh, and she found herself moaning aloud in the final efforts.

Alex had a vague awareness that her mother's eyes were fluttering open, so she made the final push. When the tumor shifted, it felt like the moon had crashed into the earth. Alex's head snapped backwards, and her vision went black.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Alex woke to a brutal headache and an unfamiliar view. She was lying on the couch, looking up at the water-stained ceiling.

She heard noises in the kitchen, and after straining to lift her neck, found that her mother was there, placing noodles into a steaming pot.

"Alexandria, sweetie, you're awake," said her mother.

Alex groaned as she sat up, holding her hand to her temples to ward away the migraine.

"Awake, but wishing I wasn't," said Alex, squinting. "How are you feeling?"

Her mother paused as she leaned against the counter for support. "Like I ran a hundred consecutive marathons without stopping and now I finally get to eat."

"What about your head?"

Her mother placed her hand on top of her head. The hair had grown thin and stringy.

"Better, but I don't know how." She squinted at Alex. "Did you do something while I slept? Is that what the mirror and the notebook full of strange diagrams meant?"

"It was," said Alex. "I might have removed your tumor, but you're going to have to get it checked out at the hospital when you're feeling better."

"Removed the tumor? I don't understand."

"Don't worry about the details, Mom. But it was something I learned at the Halls," said Alex.

"But where is it? The tumor?" asked her mother, glancing around as if she expected to see it on the counter.

Alex had no intention of telling her mom where the tumor was if she could help it.

"Gone, and that's all that matters," said Alex.

Her mother made her way to the couch, using the furniture to keep steady. She sat by Alex, stroking her hand as she looked her in the eyes.

"I don't know how you did what you did. It feels like a miracle to me, but I think it shows that you deserve to be at that school. Whatever happened to make you leave, you forget about it. Go back, take up where you stopped. If you can do that, if you can fix me, then you can do anything."

Her mother's eyes glistened.

"Don't worry, Mom," she said. "I'm headed back to school as soon as I feel better."

A relieved smile broke across her mother's face. "Oh good."

She searched her face for a moment before glancing back to the kitchen.

"God, I'm hungry."

"Go eat, Mom," said Alex. "I need to pack."

Alex stumbled into her room and started throwing her stuff in her backpack, including her notebook of spell notes. She felt bad that she was withholding information from her mother: that the tumor resided in her head and that she was only going back to school to have it removed. If she could have continued in Gamemakers Online, she would have, but there was no way to gain twenty levels in the final month before the end of the year.

That night, her mother ate three plates of pasta and drank the rest of the orange juice. By the time she was heading to bed, the red rings around her eyes had disappeared and she was able to walk without trembling.

The morning of the next day, after hugging her mom for what seemed like twenty minutes, she hiked to the bus stop because Frank was at work. The initial headache from the tumor transfer was gone, but she felt like there was a pressure behind her eyes that wasn't there before.

When she arrived at Golden Willow, Dr. Fairlight seemed surprised to meet her. The doctor had long blonde hair and kind eyes that reminded her of Frank.

"If I didn't deal with strange ailments on a regular basis I might have thought you were lying to me, but here you are," said Dr. Fairlight, clutching a clipboard against her chest. "Though for your sake, I wish it was a prank."

After the scans, both medical and magical, Dr. Fairlight returned with a set of X-rays and her blood test results.

"I'm sorry I don't have good news for you, but you are correct, you have a brain tumor. Based on the blood work, it hasn't metastasized, but the location is problematic," said Dr. Fairlight.

"Location?" asked Alex as worry tugged on her heart. "Where's it at?"

Dr. Fairlight jabbed her finger onto the X-ray where the blob of white rested at the base of her skull. "See this area? That's the part of the brain that helps control the use of magic. Think of it as a muscle for the faez conduit."

The doctor searched her face, eyes scanning for understanding.

"And?" asked Alex.

"The good news is the tumor is removable. But the bad news is that you'll likely never use magic again. Messing with that part of the brain can cause unforeseen complications. We could cut it out, but that pent-up faez would try to go somewhere, resulting in messy events that I'd prefer not to speculate about."

Alex couldn't breathe. It felt like a rope had been wrapped around her chest and cinched until it was biting into her flesh. It wasn't the result she was expecting.

"What about treatments? Can it be reduced first and then cut out later when it's not a danger?" she asked.

The tightness in Dr. Fairlight's face gave Alex the answer. "I'm sorry. That region of the brain is extremely problematic. The existence of faez complicates any treatments. We can try, but it'll take a long time, maybe years to work through it."

"Years," she said. "But I don't have years. I'm not going to be able to stay in my hall past the school year. I'm not going to pass."

Dr. Fairlight sucked a breath through her clenched teeth. "I'm sorry, Alexandria. That is bad news. If you're not a student and you don't have health insurance, I'm afraid I can't help you. We could do the procedure and remove the tumor now before your coverage lapses, but that would have to be up to you."

The air seemed to be sucked out of the room. Alex gripped the counter with her right hand, holding steady. Neither option was remotely palatable. She'd just figured out she could do major magic and now she had to give it up to live?

"When do I have to start if I'm going to have the tumor cut out? Do I have time to decide?" she asked.

Dr. Fairlight's lips tugged downward. "I'm afraid you have to start right away. We have to take extensive scans of your brain to map the area we have to cut during the surgery. And the recovery won't be easy. We'll have to keep you here for a few weeks afterwards."

Alex looked out the window at the buildings and trees across the parking lot. It was springtime in the city of sorcery, and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom.

"I see."

"Shall I call a nurse to get you started?" asked Dr. Fairlight.

"No," said Alex, shaking her head. "No thank you. I should go."

"You should go?" asked the doctor incredulously.

Alex looked up into Dr. Fairlight's face. The woman's forehead was hunched.

"I need to pass my classes," said Alex.

Dr. Fairlight blinked slowly before adding a nod. "I see. Are you sure?"

"No," said Alex with a laugh. "But I've made my choice. Now I need to carry it through."

"Good luck," said Dr. Fairlight, not looking like she believed her.

Alex left the hospital room. "Luck's never had anything to do with it."

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The first person Alex saw after she returned to Gamemakers Hall was Martina, who was sitting in the arcade room reading a book. She set the book into her lap when she saw Alex.

"Hey, I thought you quit," said Martina.

"I thought I did too, but here I am." Alex glanced around the room. "Where's Bucket?"

Martina's shoulders deflated. "I don't know. He was supposed to meet me here a few days ago. He was really close to level eighty a month ago. I'm not sure why he's not out yet."

"I'm sure he'll be out soon," said Alex.

Martina touched her chin. "I hope."

After throwing her gear onto her bed, Alex returned to the room with the giant obsidian cube. She found a comfy spot and took a big breath.

There was a non-zero chance that the game wouldn't let her in. Either because Professor Marzio had blocked her access after she quit, or that deleveling to zero was considered permanent failure. Of the first, she assumed that Marzio couldn't be bothered to do anything for his students, so it was doubtful he'd blocked her. The second she would learn in a moment.

"Come on, no bees," said Alex as she touched the cool black surface and let the faez flood into her mind.

The world went black for longer than Alex thought it should, and she worried that being level zero had trapped her in a nebulous place between the game and the real world, but then she appeared in the high grass beneath the blood lemon tree.

The droopy awkward-limbed tree had three fruits. Sunlight drifted through the canopy, illuminating motes hanging in the air. A breeze rustled the multihued leaves, bringing with it the smells of life, while a blade of grass tickled her nose until she knocked it away.

Despite the struggle and pain she'd experienced in Gamemakers Online, she felt a real connection to the world inside the game.

"Now for the moment of truth," said Alex, bringing up her character sheet.

If her skills had atrophied with her deleveling, then she wasn't sure she had a chance at redemption, but if they'd stayed the same, she had a chance, however small.

Character: Alexandria Duke

Level: 0

Strength: 1

Intelligence: 1 (6)

Cunning: 1 (23)

Agility: 1 (2)

Endurance: 1 (3)

Charisma: 1

Class: (Arcane Mastermind)

Subclass: Undecided

Health: 10/10

Faez: 16/16

Armor Class: 0

Fatigue: 0%

E*xp: 0 / 1

Skills:

Analyze: 35

One-handed Slashing: 1

Fire Spells: 2

Devious Device: 8

Sense Direction: 33

One-handed Whip: 11

Water Spells: 9

Cooking: 13

Stealth: 8

Climbing: 8

Air Spells: 32

Unique Skills:

Cunning Strategist: 6

Mastermind: 3

Spells:

Dewdrop Orb: 7

Minor Creation: 8

Transference: 24

Cloud Taunt: 38

Misdirection: 9

Wind Gust: 18

Heal Minions: 13

"Interesting," she said, noting that her skills had stayed the same despite the deleveling. That weird error had showed up again, but it disappeared after a second glance. Her stats had a secondary number, showing what she'd been before she lost the level. Alex pulled up a spell to see if those had changed too.

Cloud Taunt – Tier 4

Faez: 25 ׀ Duration: 1 minute

Dmg: 3-6 (Repeat Shock Damage every 15 seconds)

Effect: Enrages the creature to attack you.

"That proves the level as well as the skill level affects the damage. Not that that's worth a hill of beans," said Alex. "If I didn't have to reach level twenty in a month, this wouldn't be so bad."

She checked her gear next, finding the armor completely destroyed, but her weapons and Handysack intact. It was a setback, but not entirely unexpected. Mostly, she'd worried that her whip had been destroyed, but that was for aesthetic reasons rather than in-game strategy. At level zero, she wasn't going to be winning any one-on-one battles.

Before she reached her camp, a darting movement from above sent her into a defensive stance. The aerial nature suggested a return of the bees, but when she spied two brown shapes zipping towards her with fluttering wing movements, she cried out with joy.

The two fuzzy minions threw themselves in her arms, nuzzling against her shoulder, making clacking noises that she interpreted as happiness.

"Inky! Pinky!"

The former bloats looked more bat-like than ever.

"Where's Clyde?"

Alex received a mental image of the terrorbees descending on a camp in the Warsong Plain where they'd gone to hide. They'd killed Clyde before the terrorbees had been slaughtered in turn by the denizens of the camp.

"Oh, thank Merlin," said Alex. "I really hoped I wasn't going to have to deal with them."

Inky and Pinky sent double black cherry in agreement.

Before she could even wonder, a tiny squeak announced Axo's arrival. The brown shrew sat on the log, cleaning its paws.

"Hey Axo, sorry I've been gone so long. I hope you've managed without me," she said.

Before Alex could say anything else, the shrew bounded away, returning moments later with a pair of worms hanging out of its mouth. Axo dropped them at her feet and looked up at her with sad eyes.

A sense of orange-lime came from her minions, which she interpreted as laughter.

"That's very nice of you, Axo, but I'm full," she said.

The shrew grabbed the worms and disappeared back into the grasses. Alex hoped she hadn't hurt the little critter's feelings.

"Okay, let's take stock of our supplies. We have two adorable minions, a kick-ass whip, a bunch of spells I don't have the faez to use, a cooking pot, too many chimeric stones that I don't know what to do with, an Acceleration Bar, and my big brain."

Alex let out a little maniacal laugh. Whenever she took on an impossible challenge, there was an excitement that buoyed her above the inevitable despair. Solving a problem that no one else had before was like getting to be an explorer of a new land or the inventor of a new technology.

The strange thing was that the more impossible, the more her mind expanded to match the challenge. Simple problems generated simple answers, but when the issue grew so large that the mind couldn't quite comprehend, it created a joyful tension.

For the next day, Alex wandered around the eastern part of the Warped Forest, searching for inspiration in the landscape and her character sheet. How could she gain a ton of experience quickly without using a single spell? The tactics she'd used before were impossible without a pool of faez large enough, and given that she only had five hit points, she could die from running into a bramble bush.

Alex stood on the cliff, looking across the chasm at the Warsong Plain, musing how she might get across for the quest experience. 5,000 XP would get her back to level 1 and a quarter of the way to level 2, but she knew that was not the right direction.

Incremental progress wasn't going to work. She needed mountains of XP in a short time. Even if she could regain the levels she'd lost, she still needed time to figure out how to take on the Warped Mother.

"Anyway," said Alex, wandering away from the edge, "I'd probably just fall to my death if I tried to climb down with these skills."

Fall to my death.

The words hung in her mind like a big banner.

"Fall to my death," she said as a shiver passed through her. "That's the answer."

She couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before. Alex rushed back to camp, where her minions were waiting, sitting in their nests.

"Somebody needs to make a shitload of ropes."

Chapter Thirty-Eight

It took two days to set up. Finding the right location took the longest, as Alex moved through the forest using her scouts to avoid the creatures that roamed through the northern part of the Warped Forest. She had to stick to the edge to avoid the warped animals, sometimes hanging over the cliff until they passed.

Building the contraption using her multitude of ropes took an afternoon, which meant the largest danger of death involved the tree climb without her Boots of Ascending. One slip, and she'd have to make her way back from her respawn point, a delay she couldn't afford.

When Alex finished setting up her trap, she wasted no time, climbing into the harness and sending her minions into the northern woods to pull. While she waited, Alex made last-second examinations of her contraption.

The rope harness hung around her hips and shoulders as if she were going ziplining. Connecting her harness were two sets of ropes that stretched from her in a "V" to the huge oak-like trees with violet and crimson leaves. She'd picked the trees because they had sturdy branches that stretched over the chasm.

Alex glanced behind her at the deep expanse beneath. Her heels were right against the cliff. Looking down at the meandering river, which had to be at least a half-mile below, gave her vertigo. The expanse sucked at her limbs but she focused on the forest ahead to counter the effect.

One at a time, Alex grabbed the two support ropes and leaned back, testing the sliding motion along the branches. As soon as they shifted, Alex lurched forward, returning her center of gravity back over solid ground.

Getting the ropes to slide along the branches had been challenging since the bark tended to grab the fiber, but she wrapped more ropes around the limbs to reduce the friction.

Inky came back first.

Her minion signaled her when she was in range.

"I hope this works."

The rumble of approaching warped animals filled her chest with fluttering anticipation. She felt like a tuning fork struck with every sense and detail coming into focus.

For a long minute, Alex watched the bright forest before her. The colorful undergrowth swayed with the anticipation of the coming stampede. The only warning she had was the faint vibration in the ground and her minion's psychic sense.

When Inky shot over the vermillion grasses, Alex gripped the ropes tight as if she were waiting for the rollercoaster to crest the first hill.

The grasses parted, revealing her first foes, broad-headed muscular beasts covered in brown spots, sporting maniacal smiles.

Grinning Cheetanoe, Warped Animal, Level 12

Ability: Leaping Bite

The creatures came lopping towards her faster than she anticipated. Alex kicked off hard, sending herself backwards over the cliff.

The rope harness slid back ten feet, then got stuck. Alex guessed the cheetanoes could leap that distance. She started rocking on the rope, yanking herself backwards with jerking motions.

"Come on," she said, focusing on the ropes.

The two sides wouldn't move together, so she had to pull one and then the other.

She managed to scoot another five feet backwards before the first cheetanoes leapt the gap. A single swipe from an outstretched claw would kill her.

Alex gripped the ropes hard, pulling herself up a few inches and tucking her legs beneath herself as the cheetanoe soared beneath her, plummeting to its death. Before the others could go over the edge, Alex hit them with Wind Gust, the only spell she had enough faez to cast. It wouldn't kill them but it would ensure that she received the experience for their deaths.

The gang of cheetanoes leapt one after another. The first ones were trying to reach her, but the rest of the herd merely following the others like lemmings.

Alex's arms trembled from the ache of holding herself up by the ropes when the first XP notices came through.

You have gained experience: 1,500 XP

You have reached level 1!

You have gained experience: 1,500 XP

You have gained experience: 1,500 XP

You have gained experience: 1,500 XP

You have gained experience: 1,500 XP

You have gained experience: 1,500 XP

By the time the last notice went past, she'd regained level 2, which gave her enough faez to cast Cloud Taunt once. Alex didn't have time to unhook her safety rope and pull herself back to land before Pinky announced she was returning.

With the undergrowth trampled into crimson mush, Alex spied the crazed stallionbears from a long way off. They had the body of a bear with the head of a stallion, eyes wild with entropic energy.

Alex hit them with Cloud Taunt from a distance, driving them into a frenzy, which took them over the cliff without a second thought. Their stubby legs failed to leap more than a foot. They poured over the cliff in a brown flood. As the XP filled her screen, she grinned as maniacally as the cheetanoes.

As her minions returned to the forest to collect more foes, Alex untied the safety rope from the support and used it to pull herself back to land. There were some adjustments she could make to improve the setup, but there wasn't going to be time. She needed levels and needed them fast.

Alex pulled out the Acceleration Bar from her Handysack. It looked like a chocolate bar.

Item: Acceleration Bar

Use: Increases Effects

Better late than never...

She hadn't fully decided if she were going to eat it until she felt the rumble of approaching warped animals. When she tucked it past her lips, the slightly bitter chocolate exploded with flavors. An icy warmth went down her spine as her body quivered. It felt like she'd chugged a half dozen energy drinks at once. A prompt appeared in her vision.

What do you wish to increase?

Alex pulled up her character sheet, hovering her finger over the experience bar. When she selected it, she was offered another prompt.

Are you sure [Y/N]?

"More than I've ever been," said Alex as she swiped the YES.

The experience bar gained a golden glow as horned shapes passed the bottleneck of trees ahead.

Alex gripped the ropes as the warped animals thundered towards her, a grin rising to her lips.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

A week later, Alex woke to a rough tongue persistently licking her hair above her temple. The roughness reminded her of a cat, which was odd because she didn't own a cat in Gamemakers Online.

One eye peered awake, finding a furry brown Inky perched on the tigersloth furs near her head, patiently giving her a bath. Alex opened the other eye to realize that Pinky had curled up in the crook of her arm, her head resting against her stomach, peering into her once-sleeping face with adoration.

"Thank you, Inky," said Alex, groaning as she struggled to a sitting position, disturbing the other minion, who stretched her mouth and wings wide.

"For the record, this absolutely does not count as cuddling," said Alex.

The two minions lifted into the air, slipping past the fur covers on the front of the cave.

It took Alex a few minutes to get going. Her neck and shoulders ached from hanging in the harness. She dug her fingers into the muscles around her neck and shoulder, massaging away the knots that had formed.

"Whatever zone I visit next, there is going to be a bed and an inn and people to talk to," said Alex.

After climbing the ladder to the camp by the cliff, Alex checked her character sheet again to make sure she hadn't imagined hitting level 16.

Character: Alexandria Duke

Level: 16

Strength: 1

Intelligence: 10

Cunning: 32

Agility: 2

Endurance: 5

Charisma: 1

Class: Arcane Mastermind

Subclass: Undecided

Health: 240/240

Faez: 233/233

Armor Class: 0

Fatigue: 2%

XP: 1,680,477 / 1,800,000

The rest of her skills had barely changed since she'd been using the cliff to farm for experience, but she didn't have time to max her skills with the end of the semester approaching. A fact that was made painfully clear as she noticed a system message counting down above her character sheet.

Gamemakers Online Lockout

Alexandria Duke – Levels 16/20

6 Days : 16 Hours : 57 Minutes : 33 Seconds

Alex had thought she had a few more weeks, but she'd been assuming that the end of the semester happened at the end of May, but clearly that wasn't the case.

"Four levels, or maybe three and a half. I can do this," said Alex. "Right, girls?"

The two minions, who were sitting in their nests licking their fur clean, looked up at her with wide adoring eyes. They'd leveled up to 7 during the cliff farming and looked mostly like bats. The proboscis had retracted, but Alex suspected they could still use them to feed.

"What would I have done without you?" said Alex.

After checking her gear, she began the hike to the western side of the zone where the Mother's Spire was located. Alex had cleared the mobs north and south of the spire. The only thing that remained was the area directly around the final boss and the Warped Mother.

It was a good thing that she'd had the Acceleration Bar that first day to get her to level 7 before it wore off. The herds of warped animals had been thicker near the cliff, which had allowed her minions to chain pull for hours.

The downside of her tactic was that she didn't get to loot a single body. She imagined there was quite a pile at the base of the cliff, both in the northern and southern pull locations. They would disappear before she had a chance to climb down.

The hike across the zone took a few hours. The closer she got the heavier her feet grew. When the white spire poked above the psychedelic trees as she came down the hills into the hollow nestled against the sheer mountains, Alex blew out a cleansing breath in anticipation of the upcoming challenge. She had no doubt that it was going to be brutal, but realized her sense of scale at the difficulty was off exponentially when the area around the spire came into view.

A massive, milky-pale stone rose from the earth like a stalagmite, towering over the colorful tree line by a hundred feet. The area around the spire was barren of trees, a wide semicircular space filled instead with a menagerie of warped animals.

Alex didn't even know how to process what she was seeing at first. It looked like Noah's ark had spilled onto the plain, the impact mixing up the many creatures into their chimeric states. It was a kaleidoscopic zoo of dangerous proportions.

Quest Completed: Investigate the Heart of the Warped Forest

You have gained experience: 25,000 XP

Quest Offered: Enter the Spire of Creation and kill the Warped Mother (+250,000 XP) [Y/N]

Alex whistled at the size of the reward for killing the final boss. It was over a single level on its own, not including the experience for the Warped Mother herself.

But how to bypass the army of warped animals? And there seemed to be no obvious entrance for the Spire of Creation. For all she knew the chimeric stones were the key to entry, but that could be totally wrong too.

The mass of flesh around the spire was equivalent to the quantity of creatures she'd had to kill to get to her current level. There was no way she was going to be able to farm them all in six days and still have time to battle the Warped Mother.

After watching them mill around the white stone for an hour, Alex sent in Inky to see if she could pull away a group of animals or if the whole mass would come.

When Inky reached the outer ring of trees, a prompt appeared.

Trigger the Spire of Creation final encounter? [Y/N]

7 Day reset upon failure

Alex carefully swiped NO and told Inky to come back. There would be only one shot at winning, which made her difficult odds almost impossible. Had she more time, she could attempt the encounter, learn from her mistakes, and try again, honing her strategy until she won.

But only getting one attempt would mean that her tactics would have to be mostly improvised. Once she started, the encounter would play out until she won or lost. It wasn't that she couldn't improvise, she'd proven that she was more than capable, but her strengths lay in meticulous planning and execution.

Standing on the hillside with her hands clasped on top of her head, Alex considered her options. There was no way she could beat that many mobs at once. Even if she could reliably pull them one at a time, she'd max out on fatigue before the encounter ended. Maybe if she'd been an endurance build, she could manage it, but the Arcane Mastermind wasn't made for long fights.

The only way she was going to make it into the Spire of Creation was to have one of her minions train the group away. She quickly realized the task would have to fall to Pinky, who could survive the pull.

She had a good idea how she would use Inky anyway, unless she could find the entrance to the spire quickly. It felt like a sketchy strategy, using her minion to kite the menagerie while she ghosted in and fought the Warped Mother. But nothing else she thought of really came close.

"Sometimes the simplest plans are the best," she said, not quite convincing herself that it was true.

Alex pulled out a large chimeric stone and stared at the swirly surface.

"I still don't know what you're for. I feel like the low-experience reward means I was supposed to figure it out when I was a lower level," said Alex with a sigh.

Nothing she'd tried during the year had revealed their true purpose. She'd used the Transference spell on them, cooked them in her pot, and done dozens of other experiments, but the stones remained completely inert.

When she stared at the marble-sized stone, there was something about its appearance that bothered her, but the familiarity never revealed itself. Maybe the reason for their existence in the Warped Forest would be revealed inside the Spire of Creation.

When Alex finally decided to make the attempt, she approached the ring of trees that separated the Spire from the rest of the Warped Forest. Hordes of warped animals milled about mindlessly as if they were waiting for a command.

Brooding Giraffillas, Warped Animal, Level 13

Cantankerous Pearabbits, Warped Animal, Level 11

Angry Badgerhounds, Warped Animal, Level 14

The longer she watched, the more variety of warped animals she saw, which was of no surprise given her battles in the forest.

Alex considered whether or not she should take a few days to level up her skills, but realized delaying wasn't going to help. This fight wasn't going to be won with a few extra points of damage.

"This is the point of the raid the leader gives a pep talk to the team," said Alex, shaking her head lightly. "But it's just me, and I'm not playing for a world first, or even a monetary reward. If I don't win this fight, I'm going to die from this cancer in my head."

Alex checked with her minions, who sat on a nearby branch attentively, waiting for her commands.

For the first time in a long time, Alex wished her online friends were there to watch. Nothing she'd ever attempted came in even close. Even the Avatar of Destruction seemed like child's play compared to the challenge before her. The impossibility of it brought a secret smile to her lips.

Alex walked forward until she hit the threshold of the clearing.

Trigger the Spire of Creation final encounter? [Y/N]

7 Day reset upon failure

Alex hit YES.

Are you sure? [Y/N]

No mercy for the unprepared

Alex winked at her minions as she hit YES a second time.

"Let's do this."

Chapter Forty

As Pinky flew into the menagerie of warped animals, Alex held her breath. If there was one way that the whole encounter would conclusively fail, it would be if her invulnerable minion couldn't pull the mass of mobs away from the Spire of Creation.

The little brown bat fluttered over the horde, flying far enough above that nothing could hit her with a ranged attack, but low enough to catch their notice. It felt like a suicide mission even though Alex knew Pinky would survive the initial counterattack.

As Pinky circled the area, heads rose in interest. Animals shifted towards Pinky, not yet pursuing, but her passing created a wave of warped flesh.

Alex's heartbeat thundered in her chest. She had to remind herself to breathe as she watched her little minion.

After Pinky made a complete circuit of the Spire of Creation, she flew to a heavy clumping of animals on the southern side. Then without warning, she dove into the mass, hitting them with a light taunt, before soaring back out.

A host of cries rose from the area she'd attacked as the warped animals tried to get after her. While the rest of the menagerie wasn’t affected by the immediate spell, when the others shifted to go after Pinky, they were sucked in like a vacuum.

Before Alex knew it, the whole mass slid southward as if the world had been tilted that way, quickly turning into a stampede, dust rising from the plain. When the first animals hit the southern edge of the forest, the trees shook as if they'd been hit by a bomb, and smaller foliage was trampled to colorful pulp.

As the warped animals fled south, Alex circled north so she could make it to the white stone structure and find a way inside before they could return. She ran across the flattened plain, the rumble of thousands of warped animals reverberating through her feet like a continuous earthquake.

But as she approached the Spire of Creation, she forgot about the warped animals. The massive stone building seemed to grow in size as she approached.

When she reached it, she realized it had to be at least three hundred feet in diameter at the base. It hurt her neck to glimpse the peak from her position.

Touching the stone revealed an unnatural warmth as if the stone itself were alive. Alex glanced back towards the southern forest before starting to jog around the circumference. She preferred to use a provided entrance—if there was one—rather than make her own way, but it would take time to run around it.

By the time she was moving south, Alex realized she was going to have to use Inky. The only problem was that it meant her journey into the Spire of Creation was one way. Once she was inside, there was no way out since her minion would be stuck outside. Alex hoped that killing the Warped Mother would provide an exit, but there were no guarantees in the hardest game in the world.

"Your turn, Inky," said Alex.

Her minion flew close, triggering her ghosting ability, which Alex promptly stole with Misdirection.

As soon as her body went incorporeal, she pushed through the pale wall, stumbling when it provided no resistance. Inside the stone, she had no idea which direction she was going or how thick it was, but she moved as fast as she dared, because if she returned solid before the spell wore off she'd die in the stone.

Alex broke into the center a moment before the spell ended, returning her flesh to solid. The warm, moist air immediately choked her, leaving her gasping as if it were a jungle in high summer.

Despite the heat, the monstrous vision at the center of the spire brought shivers to her spine. A chemical smell burned at her nose as if the creature standing but a hundred feet away was puffing off methane gas.

Alex wasn't expecting a pillar of black goo pulsating with pseudopods as if a creature inside was trying to climb out as the final boss, but as the slick black trunk formed, extending to squeeze out a tawny muscular shape that looked like a cross between a pony and a tiger, she knew she'd found her final foe.

Warped Mother, Boss, Level 22

Alex watched in horror as the warped animal that had just birthed shook off the oily excess, revealing a dangerous warped animal beneath.

Spitting Poniger, Warped Animal, Level 9

Standing on the backside of the Warped Mother, away from the newly birthed poniger, Alex hoped that she'd avoided notice, but it made a low growl in the back of its throat as it marched towards her.

"This should be fun," said Alex, wishing she had her minions with her.

The Spitting Poniger trotted towards her, shaking its head as if it were trying to dislodge something from its throat.

"I swear to Merlin if you spit bees or wasps, I'm quitting this game," said Alex as she unfurled her whip.

She hated the idea of fighting toe-to-toe, but she didn't have a choice.

When the Spitting Poniger reared back its head, Alex dove to the left.

The Spitting Poniger misses you with its Acid Spit attack!

Rising to her feet, Alex snapped the Shocking Strangler twice in quick succession.

You have hit the Spitting Poniger for 28 damage!

Critical hit! You have hit the Spitting Poniger for 57 damage! The Spitting Poniger is affected by Shock!

You have gained a skill point: +1 One-handed Whip

The poniger cried out as it lurched towards her. The newly born warped animal seemed unsteady on its feet, and since it was seven levels lower than her, she was able to dodge the next attack, once again returning twice as much as she got.

But as good as the beginning of the fight was going, she was aware that the Warped Mother was birthing a new creature. A glance at her fatigue showed it was at 8%, which was still low, but a long fight would not be the best strategy for her as an Arcane Mastermind.

But it was hard to be a mastermind without minions or even other creatures to play against.

The Ghastly Crocagoat proved to be an easy kill, as its stubby legs couldn't catch up to her as she kited it around the room. The only problem was that by the time she finished killing it, a Giant Porcudillo squeezed from the Warped Mother's oily pseudopod.

After the porcudillo rolled after her, it prepared a shot of spikes from its quilled back. Alex managed to steal the attack, misdirecting it to the Warped Mother.

You have misdirected a spine shot attack to the Warped Mother for 6 damage!

You have misdirected a spine shot attack to the Warped Mother for 8 damage!

You have misdirected a spine shot attack to the Warped Mother for 6 damage!

The amount of damage was disappointing, but anything she didn't get hit by was a win.

As Alex dodged the mobile porcudillo, she watched with frustration as a new creature emerged. Rather than continue to spar with the level 9 quilled mob pursuing her, Alex shifted her focus to the Warped Mother, hoping to disrupt the birth.

You miss the Warped Mother!

You miss the Warped Mother!

You hit the Warped Mother for 23 damage!

When a Growling Firetoad emerged from the glistening black trunk, Alex decided that either it couldn't be interrupted or she was too low level to deal enough damage. She was currently level 16, while the Warped Mother was level 22. The difference in levels was six, which Alex had found to be enough to significantly decrease her hit rate and damage. It seemed like five levels was the magical number that allowed her attacks to more consistently hit. Even some of her spells referenced the five-level difference. The only way she'd grinded through the early levels when the mobs were so much higher was by exploiting the physics of the game.

A Giant Porcudillo hits you for 9 damage!

Alex extended her arm, cracking the whip at the Giant Porcudillo before the Growling Firetoad reached her. She made three successive attacks before circling around the Warped Mother to avoid her pursuers.

While the firetoad lacked mobility, it made up for it with a ranged attack that arced towards her as a wad of lava saliva. She had to throw herself out of the way to avoid being hit by the fiery loogie.

As she whittled the Giant Porcudillo down, a third creature emerged from the Warped Mother—a Flailing Archhound. The new addition provided danger as it had enough mobility to catch up with her. Lacking a defensive strategy, she started taking hits from the three warped animals, wearing down her fatigue and hit points.

When the firetoad launched another flame spit, Alex waited until it had almost reached her before casting Wind Gust, blowing it right into the archhound, which lunged in with its snapping jaws.

The Flailing Archhound has been hit by flame spit for 34 damage! The Flailing Archhound is affected by Burning!

The hound yelped, bounding away as it coughed out bits of flame as if it'd eaten a bucket of ghost peppers.

Down to the two mobs, Alex cracked her whip again, catching the Giant Porcudillo right in the soft spot beneath its chin.

Critical hit! You deal the Giant Porcudillo 67 damage!

You have slain a Giant Porcudillo!

You have gained experience: 750 XP

As her experience bar flashed across her vision, Alex was reminded that she was almost to level 17, which would help her against the Warped Mother. The only problem was surviving until she reached it.

As the flametoad repositioned itself to launch another volley, Alex realized the Warped Mother was no longer birthing a new warped animal. This pause either suggested that a new phase of the combat was beginning, or that the Warped Mother had to rest before the next birth.

Alex used the opportunity to make a strafing attack on the Warped Mother, snapping her whip with an overhead flair.

You have hit the Warped Mother for 18 damage!

In the moment Alex turned her head to check on the flametoad, a pseudopod in the shape of a fist extended from the Warped Mother, knocking her across the ground.

The Warped Mother hit you for 67 damage! You are affected by chimeric acid!

Alex climbed to her feet, shaking off the violence of the throw. Her shoulder had hit first, jarring her bones right through her teeth. A DoT icon formed near her hit point and faez bar, indicting she'd be taking damage over time for an unspecified time.

She was already down 30% of her hit points and had a fatigue of 38%, and she’d barely touched the Warped Mother. This fight wasn't going as she'd hoped, but she hadn't seen many opportunities to turn the tables.

With no time to massage away the ache in her shoulder, Alex was squaring off against the approaching firetoad when the ground shook violently. The firetoad stopped in its tracks a mere two dozen feet away.

Alex rocked on her feet as the ground swayed. She couldn't determine the reason but it kept coming in rolling waves.

An ear-splitting crack behind her flung dust across her back. Other cracks formed in the white stone spire at intervals, filling the air with concrete booms, forcing Alex to throw her hands over her ears.

As dust billowed into the air and hunks of rock as big as basketballs fell from above, the Warped Mother extended a second glistening black trunk, and Alex watched in horror as two more warped animals were given birth in the Spire of Creation.

Chapter Forty-One

As the walls of the Spire of Creation crumbled, pale dust raining down on them, Alex continued her mad dance with the six warped animals pursuing her.

In normal pixel-based games, multiple mobs proved more dangerous because they could usually move through each other, but this world was as real as the one she was born in, so the creatures kept getting in each other's way as they tried to attack her. Even when they managed to organize themselves, Alex would misdirect an attack, or confuse them with a well-timed Wind Gust.

You have been hit by a piece of rock for 8 damage!

The hunk of pale stone careened off her shoulder, bringing a cry to her lips and allowing the Horny Pigaline to close the distance, bringing its powerful jaws down on her hip. The pigaline's teeth tore through her Cloth Breeches, opening up a gaping wound.

Critical hit! You have been hit by a Horny Pigaline for 37 damage!

The injury made moving agonizing, as the stretching of her hip muscles tore the wound as they worked. The pigaline opened its toothy mouth to take another bite from her, so Alex cast Dewdrop Orb directly into its throat.

The watery orb lodged itself deep inside. The pigaline shook its head to remove it, but the spell stuck fast, giving Alex an opportunity to escape the slower warped animals.

Alex checked on the Warped Mother only to find her motionless again, the two trunks empty. She guessed the boss was going to make a pseudopod attack again, but that didn't help her avoid it as the black glistening fist shot unerringly through the air, catching Alex right in the hip.

The Warped Mother hit you for 85 damage!

Alex grimaced as she hobbled away, misdirecting an attack from a Vile Gorihippo into a Gritty Foxilate, which turned into a side battle as the two warped animals clawed and bit at each other.

But as promising as it was, the overall fight wasn't getting any better. Hunks of stone kept missing her. A piece the size of a Buick had landed right behind her, letting in a ray of sunlight that illuminated the dusty air. The Warped Mother kept birthing new creatures, and she'd barely dealt any damage to the zone boss.

A quick check of her stats wasn't any better. Her health was down to the bottom third, her fatigue was near max, and she was about out of faez.

When a third birthing trunk extended from the Warped Mother, Alex knew she needed to come up with something drastic or the fight was going to be over quick.

Alex managed to kill two more warped animals, and a third died from falling debris, but when she saw what had emerged from the Warped Mother, her gut twisted.

The Warped Triplets, Warped Animal, Level 15

A trio of creatures with four legs and three separate heads emerged. They approached from three different angles, giving Alex no opportunity to escape, or to use their abilities against each other.

The Warped Triplet coming from the center had the heads of a lion, goat, and dragon. In the mouth of the dragon, a faint reddish glow emanated along with a wavering air of heat, suggesting that it would breath fire.

Alex shifted left towards the triplet with heads of a snake, wolf, and horse, and she was hit by a ranged attack.

You have been hit by a Warped Triplet for 29 damage!

She sensed she was about to die, but cracked her whip at the leftmost triplet as she ran past, ignoring that her fatigue bar was nearly maxed. Unexpectedly, the triplet leapt right at her, giving Alex no opportunity to dodge.

Alex raised her whip above her head to block the blow, but there was no way it wasn't going to be fatal.

Before the wolf head could bite her, a furry brown shape came flying through a hole in the spire.

Critical hit! The Warped Triplet has hit Inky for 98 damage!

Inky has been slain!

"No!"

Her little brown minion crashed to the ground, sliding across the stone, her body covered in white dust. The interruption gave Alex a chance to escape the triplets to the far side of the spire, hoping to regain a little fatigue and faez.

When the dragon-headed triplet loped towards her, it reared back its head to breathe fire. Alex spied the Gritty Foxilate, which had won its side battle, approaching from the side, and misdirected the flame attack into it.

The Gritty Foxilate had been hit by fire breath for 110 damage!

The Gritty Foxilate was slain!

You have gained experience: 1,500 XP

You have reached level 17!

Luck of the Bold triggers! All health, faez, and abilities for you and your minions reset!

The last part about her minions hurt, but Alex had no time for pain as the triplets made their rapid approach. Despite the odds, Alex felt a kernel of hope that she'd lasted this long.

She squared off against the warped triplets, giving them her best come-at-me wave.

Chapter Forty-Two

Out of the corner of her eye, Alex spied a section of the spire about to fall, so she ran towards it, leading the triplets in her wake.

The ground rumbled again and the stone shifted, tipping into the center of the spire. Alex slid beneath it right as the dragon-head triplet lunged after her. The stone squashed it flat.

You have gained experience: 2,500 XP

Before the other triplets could circle the big stone, Alex scrambled to the top. From her superior position, she misdirected the attacks of the remaining triplets into each other, finishing them off without taking another point of damage.

You have gained a unique skill point: +1 Cunning Strategist

While she'd been fighting the triplets, she'd ignored the Warped Mother, mostly out of self-preservation, but now that they were defeated, Alex gave the final boss her full attention.

The Warped Mother hadn't moved from her position, nor had she birthed new creatures. Alex expected another pseudopod attack, but that didn't come either.

The Spire of Creation continued to crumble around them. The larger sections high above seemed to explode into dust as they fell, making it feel like she was in a snowstorm. As the prismatic forest surrounding the spire was revealed through the holes, Alex was stunned by its beauty.

The pale chips rained down, catching the sunlight. If she weren't in the middle of a boss battle, she would have liked to stand on that stone and watch the whole thing collapse, but as larger chunks began to fall, Alex had to keep her head craned in all directions to avoid them.

For the next minute, Alex dodged the final ruin of the Spire of Creation while the Warped Mother waited at the center. Alex had a tiny bit of hope that a section might impale itself on her, finishing the battle, but Alex knew that was unlikely. There would be no deus ex machina to save her.

When the collapse was finished, Alex stood on the mountainside of the plain, hands on knees, heaving from avoiding the stones. Her fatigue was near half, but she had full hit points and faez.

The plain lay shattered before her, hunks of pale stone scattered like children's toys, while drifts of dust swirled between them. At the center stood the Warped Mother, a pillar of black goo, its birthing trunks retracted.

Alex prepared to approach the final boss, but a new rumble in the ground confused her. It wasn't until she saw a little dot shoot out from the kaleidoscopic forest that she realized what was happening.

A mental signature from the returning Pinky told the tale. Her minion could no longer kite the horde of warped animals, and they were returning en mass. Alex wasn't even sure she could deal a tenth of the damage necessary to the Warped Mother before the stampeding animals reached her.

As the forest shook with the approach of the horde, Alex looked for the tallest stone, racing to it and climbing up the rough side. By the time she reached its peak, the first animals reached the center.

Alex was about thirty feet in the air, which gave her a considerable perch, and the creatures seemed content to race around the plain where the Spire of Creation once stood. Alex felt like she was the last girl alive after an apocalypse.

The mass of warped animals kept their pace, circling the Warped Mother as if it were a religious ritual. As Alex watched, trying to figure out how she might reach the final boss again, the pillar of black goo reached out and plucked a squealing animal from the circuit.

To Alex's horror, the Warped Mother absorbed the creature, growing slightly larger in the process.

"Oh no," whispered Alex.

While she watched, the Warped Mother continued to eat, gobbling up warped animals, one after another. Before long, she was as tall as the stone where Alex was perched, her shape becoming more defined, humanistic with arms and legs and a womanly head.

Alex didn't know what to make of this new phase of the fight. She'd barely been able to damage the Warped Mother when she was only a pillar of goo; once she became a gargantuan boss, there was no way Alex could survive.

Alex brought up her character sheet, looking through her spells and skills for ideas on how she might defeat the boss. But nothing suggested a workable strategy. Pinky was still flying around, which would give her a chance at brief invulnerability, but that would only stop the Warped Mother for ten seconds.

When Alex looked into her Handysack, her gaze immediately fell to the chimeric stones that she'd collected along the way. Alex had twenty-eight of the large and sixty-five of the small ones.

"These have got to be the key," she said.

As the Warped Mother absorbed another animal, Alex had a revelation. The chimeric stones were like the cancer that she'd taken from her mother. Alex suspected they came from the Warped Mother, part of the process of changing the creatures into something new and awful. Cancer was like those stones. Was it enough to eat them?

Alex took a small one and slipped it past her lips, swallowing it like a pill. Within moments, she doubled over with a gut ache, but what followed was a warmth of energy surging. Holding up her hand, Alex watched as her palm stretched, making it the size of a basketball player's.

Quest Completed: Figure out what the chimeric stones are for.

You have gained experience: 5,000 XP

A quiver of dread passed through Alex as she realized the challenge before her. That one small stone had been the equivalent of her worst cramps, and she had to eat another ninety-two of them, including the twenty-eight that were larger?

But the Warped Mother had grown to a height of fifty feet. She was grabbing circling animals two at a time, gobbling them up like a greedy child after Halloween.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Alex slipped the next stone past her lips, swallowing before she had second thoughts. She threw the next one down before the first could take hold. She'd watched a few eating contests in her time, and the contestants always had a faraway focused expression. She tried to embody that intensity as she swallowed the chimeric stones one after another, wishing she had a drink to wash them down.

When the first surge of transformation hit Alex, it felt like her bones were breaking inside her skin. Ligaments stretched and popped, and muscles plumped, growing impossibly large. Not for the first time in the game did she wish that it wasn't so realistic, but the way the chimeric stones were changing her was worse than anything she'd experienced in the past.

She'd spent a lifetime playing avatars in online games, and while those foreign bodies weren't her, they created a sense of proportion that Alex could relate to. As her body shifted and bulged, stretched and expanded, Alex could no longer relate to the flesh where her mind was contained.

After many long, unknowable minutes, Alex finished her transformation. She looked down at the colorful forest, which looked like paint-spilled grass.

Across the plain was the Warped Mother, looking like a hooded nun covered in oily waste. Her scowl was a slash across her face as she approached.

Alex had the urge to check her character sheet, but the Warped Mother gave her no time, lashing out with a fist.

The Warped Mother hits you for 235 damage!

Alex's heart dropped into her feet until she realized that her hit point bar had barely moved. She'd become a titan in both size and stats.

Without her whip, Alex struck using her fist, connecting cleanly across the Warped Mother's jaw.

You hit the Warped Mother for 18 damage!

You have gained a skill point: +1 Unarmed Combat

Despite the satisfying impact, her blow had barely done any damage. Alex quickly realized she wasn't going to be able to trade fisticuffs as if they were two heavyweight prize fighters.

The Warped Mother hits you for 136 damage!

The Warped Mother hits you for 191 damage!

Two more hits made the damage visible on her hit point bar. Alex risked a glance into her character sheet to find a new ability.

Ability: Devour Flesh

Effect: Temporarily gain the abilities of devoured animal

Duration: 2 minutes

Five-second rule doesn't apply

While she was reading the new information, the Warped Mother kept striking her. The rapid blows were adding up, taking Alex down to 70% of her health.

The only problem was that the Warped Mother had already eaten the mass of creatures, which meant there was no flesh remaining to devour. Had she figured this out earlier, she could have beaten the Warped Mother in an eating contest, overwhelming her with sheer power, but that path was closed. The only creatures left in the shattered plain was the pair of them and Pinky, who was flying around at a distance, keeping in contact in case Alex needed to turn invulnerable.

But being hit wasn't the problem. With her low unarmed combat skill and few other useful skills, she couldn't deal the Warped Mother enough damage, which meant that eventually, Alex was going to lose.

As her health trended towards zero, the blows coming without remorse, Alex searched for an answer. If she didn't come up with one quickly, she would lose the final battle so close to the end.

Glancing back to the fluttering spot in the sky, an answer suggested itself, but Alex hesitated because her minions had been critical to her success thus far, and because she'd grown affectionate of the furry brown bats, of which, Pinky was the last. The last few months with her minions had taught her they had more life to them than just an NPC in a game, or at least they'd been skillfully created in a way to fool her. Either way, she felt great remorse at what she was considering.

When her health crossed into the final quarter, Alex knew she had to make a choice. As much as she loved her little minion, she couldn't give up her life outside for a game creature.

"I'm sorry, Pinky," she said, summoning her minion through her mental link.

When the fluttering brown bat came into view, Alex activated her new ability Devour Flesh.

The brown bat disappeared past her lips, barely a tickle in the back of her throat, but then a pop-up appeared.

Steal Ability

Ability: Reactionary Armor

Ability: Syphon Life

Her heart soared when she saw the second listing. She hadn't known if her minion's ability to steal life would be revealed by Devour Flesh, but she had to try.

Alex swiped the second ability, immediately triggering it. A ghostly trunk reached out to the Warped Mother, suctioning onto it.

You hit the Warped Mother with syphon life for 54 damage!

You gain 54 life!

You hit the Warped Mother with syphon life for 61 damage!

You gain 61 life!

Sensing a change in the battle, the Warped Mother increased her attacks, swinging her piston-like fists into Alex. The syphon life spell rapidly drained the boss, but it wasn't keeping up with the damage coming her way.

As the damage raced towards zero, Alex realized she wasn't going to make it. She flipped through her character screen, looking for a spell to make the final push, when she realized that Devour Flesh was active again.

The Warped Mother's health was below a quarter, while Alex's was in the last percentages. She triggered Devour Flesh, reaching out to the Warped Mother, who held her glistening arms up in defense.

With sickening horror, Alex watched as the Warped Mother disintegrated into oily mist, flying into her mouth as if it were a whirling maelstrom. It felt like Alex was going to burst, the chimeric magics ripping through her body.

You have slain the Warped Mother!

You have gained experience: 170,000 XP

Special Achievement Reached: You have killed a boss!

You have gained bonus experience: 250,000 XP

You have gained a unique skill point: +1 Cunning Strategist

Quest Completed: Defeat the Warped Mother

You have gained experience: 150,000 XP

You have gained level 18!

You have gained level 19!

You have gained level 20!

Congratulations! You have reached level 20!

First year completed!

Second year unlocked!

Chapter Forty-Three

In the seconds after her victory, as the information scrolled past her vision, a profound sense of relief passed through her like a wave of relaxation. This peaceful exhalation lasted until the first rumbles formed in her belly.

"Not good," said Alex, holding an enormous hand to her midsection.

The first belch came like a sonic blast. Alex had turned her head, which blew over a section of trees in its wake.

She bent over as the forces in her guts pushed outward as if they were trying to escape. Alex felt like she'd spent the day at Golden Corral eating until she was a plump summer tick.

Alex reared back, a sickly warmth passing from her midsection, up her throat and out her mouth as a jet of black dust. It wasn't quite vomiting, but it was close. A forceful ejection of chimeric magic blasted from her lips into the air above the Warped Forest.

As the material left her body, she shrank like a balloon that'd been untied. The wounds and injuries from the fight knitted themselves until after a minute of shouting at the sky, she was back to her original size.

Alex followed up her reverse transformation with a last burp from behind her closed fist as the cloud of chimeric dust floated away on a breeze into the sky.

"Wow. That was unpleasant," said Alex, rubbing her stomach. "At least it didn't exit the back end."

She stood at the center of the destruction, trying to make sense of what had happened. Even though she'd been in the middle of it, the fight had been so chaotic that she felt numb.

When a black shape flew in from her left, Alex fell into a defensive stance, readying a Wind Gust, but she let her hands drop when she saw who it was.

A huge black bird landed on a nearby crumbled stone.

"Hey, Ethel," said Alex.

"Greetings, Alex, and congratulations on your victory," said Ethel as she preened her wings in the sunlight.

"Thank you. Did you watch the final battle or is this a coincidental visit?" asked Alex.

"A Great Raven does not normally reveal its secrets," said Ethel, cocking her head. "But in this case, yes, I was watching from afar."

"You knew I was about to fight the Warped Mother, didn't you? You're keeping tabs on me."

The Great Raven shuffled her feet and glanced askew. "Ahem. The confrontation was inevitable. I was merely an interested observer."

Alex squinted at Ethel, who was clearly hiding information about the nature of her position in Gamemakers Online. But given she was only of a friendly reputation, she was unlikely to gain a deeper understanding.

The Great Raven stared at Alex as if she was expecting something in particular. Alex checked her bag for worthless baubles, but she found no more, since her recent kills had gone over the cliff's edge.

"Have you seen the Warped Mother's corpse?" asked Alex.

"I thought you'd never ask," said Ethel, nodding her beak towards a location fifty feet away.

Alex picked through the rubble as pale dust swirled around her feet to find a pile of lifeless black goo.

"Hard to believe that a pool of gunk could cause so many problems," said Alex.

Ethel, who had flown to a nearby rock, said, "Not so different from the soup of creation that birthed all life, and look how that turned out."

"So you're a scientist as well as a philosopher," said Alex.

"When you have time, you can learn all manner of things," said Ethel.

"I like you, Ethel. I hope you visit me more often next year," said Alex.

"I visit as much as my responsibilities allow, but know that I, too, do enjoy your company," said Ethel.

"As long as I have a positive reputation with you," said Alex.

"I am required to stick to the precepts of the game logic," said Ethel.

The comment was interesting for Alex, because it suggested that Ethel was separate from Gamemakers, not an artifact of it, and knew of its existence in an artificial place. If things weren't so pressing outside of the game, she would have liked to stay and chat with the Great Raven.

Alex crouched down to loot what remained of the Warped Mother.

Item: Glowing Jewel

As soon as she saw the egg-sized gem, she knew why Ethel had been keeping tabs on the fight. The baby blue jewel glimmered with an internal light. Alex had no doubt that if she could find a populated area with a proper NPC vendor, she'd be extremely wealthy when she sold it.

Alex plucked the Glowing Jewel from the corpse, which promptly disappeared, and held it up, carefully watching Ethel's gaze, which was firmly tranced.

"This thing must be worth a fortune," said Alex.

"A fair bit of coin," said Ethel, whose black pebble eyes hadn't deviated from the gem.

But Alex realized that while coinage would be valuable in the game, information meant more. While she'd survived her first year in Gamemakers Hall, she sensed it would only get harder. Alex made her decision before she could have second thoughts, throwing the Glowing Jewel to Ethel, who caught it in her beak.

"A gift for you," said Alex, pushing away the regrets boiling in her gut.

"Are you sure?" asked Ethel, who had dropped the gem into her hip pouch.

"I am."

Ethel inclined her head. "Thank you."

+2,000 reputation with Great Ravens

You are now honored with Great Ravens

"As a token of appreciation for your gift, given without expectations, I offer a special reward. Ask me for a favor and I will grant it if I can," said Ethel.

Excitement bubbled up, making Alex a little lightheaded. "Any favor?"

"Within my ability to grant it," said Ethel.

"So...I could ask for an item, or a spell, or information," said Alex.

"Those are possibilities," Ethel said coolly.

Alex cupped her hand to her chin. Her armor had been destroyed by the terrorbees. Having a bit of AC would help her next year, but so would a new spell or ability. She considered asking for whatever the Great Raven thought best, but decided that would probably backfire. Ethel wasn't altruistically magnanimous. There was a logic to the game she had to follow.

As she considered her options, her gaze fell upon a tiny brown body amid the wreckage of the Spire of Creation. Both her minions had given their lives for her to win the fight. She didn't know how much individuality the game allowed its NPCs, but they'd shown her affection in the final month.

When Inky had thrown herself in the way of the warped triplet, it'd been her own decision. Alex hadn't given the command, because she hadn't known that Inky could get into the spire.

"Is there a way to bring back my minions?" asked Alex.

"It is possible to bring them back," said Ethel, "but they will no longer be your minions. That link has been broken by death. They would return to the world, changed but no longer bound to your needs."

"Minions? I could bring back both?" asked Alex, hopefully.

"I'm sorry, it would only be one," said Ethel, who placed her wings behind her back rather stoically.

"I see," said Alex. "Or I could ask for a boon in the game, a new spell or item."

"That would probably be wise," said Ethel.

Alex wandered away from Ethel, shaking her head. She couldn't believe she was considering bringing back her minion rather than taking a boon that would directly improve her standing in the game.

"I...I want to bring back one of my minions," said Alex, after walking back.

"Very well," said Ethel. "Which one?"

Alex groaned internally. She hated choosing which one got to live.

"This is so hard," said Alex. "I had to take Pinky's ability to win the fight, but Inky offered herself up without my asking. I wouldn't have won without them both. But I guess since I have to choose, I'll pick Pinky since she wasn't given a choice about her sacrifice."

Ethel nodded sagely, followed by two successive, ear-splitting caws.

Special Achievement Reached: Make a selfless act!

Effect: Double your reward

Inky has been resurrected!

Pinky has been resurrected!

Two brown, fluttering shapes rose from the earth, shooting into the sky. Her former minions flew past Alex's head, then headed east. She was a little hurt that they didn't send her a farewell thought, but she knew it was unfair to expect it since they were broken from her link.

Alex watched them both until she could no longer see them against the pale blue sky.

"Thank you," she said to their fleeing forms.

When she turned back to Ethel, she found the Great Raven was staring at her with considerable interest.

"Well, Alex, dear, it appears it is time for me to go. I suspect it is the same for you," said Ethel.

Alex thought about the hospital and the challenges that awaited.

"Yeah, I have to go."

"Farewell, Alexandria Duke," said Ethel, bowing her black head.

"See you next year, Ethel Stormfeathers the Third," said Alex, returning the bow.

She was about to log out when she remembered she hadn't placed her new stats. She considered waiting until next year, but didn't want to risk losing them.

After a few minutes of thought, Alex sunk ten points in Cunning so her max possible ability scores could hit sixty, and put the remaining points into Intelligence. If she didn't have to head to the hospital to start treatments, she could have stayed in game and leveled them up before the end of the year.

Alex took one last look at her character sheet before logging out.

Character: Alexandria Duke

Level: 20

Strength: 1

Intelligence: 14

Cunning: 40

Agility: 2

Endurance: 5

Charisma: 1

Class: Arcane Mastermind

Subclass: Undecided

Health: 98 / 300

Faez: 71 / 306

Armor Class: 0

Fatigue: 35%

XP: 2,300,000 / 2,520,000

Skills:

Analyze: 38

One-handed Slashing: 1

Fire Spells: 2

Devious Device: 8

Sense Direction: 33

One-handed Whip: 15

Water Spells: 9

Cooking: 18

Stealth: 8

Climbing: 3

Air Spells: 32

Unarmed Combat: 1

Unique Skills:

Cunning Strategist: 8

Mastermind: 3

Spells:

Dewdrop Orb: 7

Minor Creation: 8

Transference: 24

Cloud Taunt: 39

Misdirection: 13

Wind Gust: 18

Heal Minions: 13

Items:

The Handysack (20 Slots)

Exquisite Cooking Pot

12 Various Meats

13 Water

Ethel's Adhesive Ointment (Uses: 12/20)

Jagged Bone Knife

The Shocking Strangler

Dmg: 13-27 ׀ 35/35 Durability

Effect: 15% chance of Electric Damage (Dmg: 10-40)

Special Attribute: Strangulation (Only on restrained creatures / Cannot affect more than 5 levels above)

Quests:

Reach the Plains of Warsong (+5,000 XP)

Spells:

Dewdrop Orb – Tier 1

Faez: 10 ׀ Duration: 15-60 seconds

Effect: Capture a small creature in a globe of water, removing them from the fight and suffocating them if they can't hold their breath for long.

Minor Creation – Tier 1

Faez: Varies ׀ Duration: Permanent

Base Skill: Devious Device

Effect: Create new magic items or copy mundane items.

Transference – Tier 2

Faez: Varies ׀ Duration: Permanent

Effect: Transfer magic from one item or creature to another.

Cloud Taunt – Tier 4

Faez: 25 ׀ Duration: 1 minute

Dmg: 31-55 (Repeat Shock Damage every 15 seconds)

Effect: Enrages the creature to attack you.

Misdirection – Tier 2

Faez: 20 ׀ Range: 30 feet

Effect: Divert a spell or attack from one creature into another

Wind Gust – Tier 2

Faez: 15 ׀ Range: 40 feet

Effect: Summon a wall of wind to blow against your enemies, staggering them and pushing smaller creatures backwards, dealing 10-25 damage.

Heal Minions – Tier 2

Faez: 20 ׀ Range: 50 feet

Effect: Heal target minion 50 damage

When it came time to log out, a wave of apprehension nearly overwhelmed her. Back in the real world she had a tumor in her head that was going to kill her unless the doctors at Golden Willow could get it out, which they said could take years, and there was probably a good chance she would lose her magic completely.

She had no regrets. If she hadn't pulled the tumor from her mother's head, she'd be dead by now. But the road ahead seemed like it would only get harder.

Alex sighed.

"Everything is impossible if you don't try."

She logged out of Gamemakers Online.

Chapter Forty-Four

The only person Alex found back in Gamemakers Hall was Martina, who was hanging out in the kitchen making a meal in a big pot. Alex hadn't passed a window, so she didn't know what time of day it was, not that she'd be able to tell by the mix of ingredients on the counter.

The container of pancake mix was normal enough, but the colorful crunchy candies and jar of kimchi suggested stranger things were afoot in the pot.

"New kid Alex," said Martina as she stirred the pot with a spoon big enough to be called a paddle. "I hope your exit from the game five days before lockout means you made it to level twenty?"

"It does," said Alex, "though it was close."

"Always is," said Martina.

"Did Bucket ever return?"

Martina's crestfallen expression told the tale, along with a tiny shake of the head.

"I'm sure he'll be out soon," said Alex. "If I didn't have...things to do, I would have stayed and leveled up my skills. He's probably just doing that so he's more prepared for his final year."

Martina blinked a few times before lifting one shoulder in the semblance of a shrug.

"Speaking of things to do, I have to get going," said Alex, scrunching up her face.

"No problem," said Martina. "Gotta do what you gotta do. I'll see you around next year. Have a great summer."

"You too," Alex said happily, giving Martina a little wave before heading to her room to collect her things.

It was weird to be leaving the Hall when she barely felt like she'd lived there. The rooms just felt like places to hold her stuff until she was out of the game. She wondered if Gamemakers Hall had always been like this, empty rooms and beds, waiting for its students to return from the obsidian cube. But the size of the building suggested that it'd once had to actually house its students during the year.

Dr. Fairlight seemed surprised when Alex walked onto her floor at Golden Willow.

"I take it you're still a student," said Dr. Fairlight.

"For at least another year. Long enough to get started on my treatments," said Alex.

"Let me pull up your files," said Dr. Fairlight, tapping on her data pad. "I took the liberty of sending your bloodwork and x-rays to some specialists to give a second opinion while you were gone."

"You thought I'd be back?" asked Alex.

The doctor winked. "I had a good feeling."

"Thank you," said Alex.

Dr. Fairlight shook her head. "You're probably not going to thank me when we get into treatments, especially if we're going to keep your magical ability."

"I'm ready for whatever that means."

"Good, you're going to need that positive attitude," said Dr. Fairlight, lips squeezed.

"So what's next?" asked Alex.

"We need to run more tests on you. There's a few alchemical infusions we're going to give you so we can see the shape of the tumor better, see where it's connected to the brain. If we're going to remove it, we're going to have to make a map of both the tumor and your brain. Eventually we're going to take a sample so we can better plan the treatment, but that's not for a little while. Mostly, I'm waiting on the feedback from the other specialists."

"What should I do this summer? Stay in the city? Or can I go back home?"

"Home for the summer. I'll be sending you with an alchemical regimen. The potions won't taste good, but they'll keep the tumor from progressing. You're rather lucky that the tumor doesn't seem to be that connected to your brain. That's not normal. And the specialists I contacted are, uhm, unusual, so it takes time for the necessary negotiations. But they're the best at what they do, which is what you're going to need. When you return for your second year, stop by the hospital, I should have more details for you then. Is that good?"

"I guess," said Alex. "I'll do whatever it takes."

Dr. Fairlight gave her a grim nod, adding a wink for good measure.

"If you notice any changes, problems with your sight, or headaches that won't go away, give us a call, but otherwise you should be able to enjoy your summer." Dr. Fairlight threw her a blue gown. "Now for those tests. Nothing too radical, today anyway. Hop off that table. I'll leave you for a moment so you can put that on."

After the door closed, Alex stripped down, replacing her jeans and T-shirt with the blue gown. The table was cold on her butt and the air smelled like cleaning solvents.

She wished her mom could be with her, but had no plans on telling her about the tumor. If her mom found out, the guilt would destroy her. Alex knew that the cancer was a challenge she'd have to meet alone.

But it still would have been nice to have someone with her.

Chapter Forty-Five

Alex stood outside the screen door for a good ten minutes before she went inside. She'd been listening to her mother in the kitchen, humming as she went about her business, a sound Alex hadn't heard in a long time.

As soon as the screen wheezed open, her mother looked up from the cutting board filled with chopped onions. Her gray-streaked hair was pulled back in a ponytail, which made her mother look ten years younger than she had when Alex left.

"Alexandria, I thought I saw you walking down the gravel road."

Alex scuffed her foot against the carpet as she threw her backpack on the lime green couch.

"It's a nice day outside and I wasn't ready to come in," Alex lied.

"Either way, sweetie, I'm glad you're home. I missed you," said her mom.

"Do I smell cake?" asked Alex, sniffing the air.

"Sure do," said her mom with a wink. "I figured we'd have a celebration, what with you finishing your first year of university and me being alive."

"How'd you know I was coming home today?" asked Alex.

"Frank told me you'd called him for a ride, and I'd bought the stuff for cake a couple of months ago. Ain't no way in hell I wasn’t going to celebrate the first person from our family to go to college, a magical one at that."

"Is it...?"

"Chocolate, chocolate," said her mom, cocking a grin. "You're damn right it is."

Alex skipped around the counter and threw her arms around her mom, almost forgetting she had a cutting knife in her hand. They stayed in a hug for what could have gone on forever, until the timer on the stove beeped and her mom broke away to remove the two layers of chocolate cake from the refrigerator.

"If that's dessert, what's for dinner?" asked Alex.

"Who said I made dinner?"

Alex gestured to the chopped onions. "Then what are these for?"

"So I had an excuse for why I was crying when you came in, but you stayed outside for so damn long that I stopped," said her mom.

She leaned back into the refrigerator, pulled out a cannister of chocolate icing, and threw it to Alex.

"Care to help? I'll grab two spoons," said her mom.

They took opposite sides of the small round table with the cake at the center, each frosting a layer while taking nibbles of the icing occasionally.

"How are you feeling?" Alex asked when the cakes were half finished.

Her mom stared back flatly. "If you mean the tumor, never been better. The doctors checked me out. Nothing there but an unused brain."

"Mom..."

"They really didn't know what to make of it. They'd like to talk to you, if you have time. Whatever you did removed it clean as a whistle. They could use that technique at the hospital."

Alex hid her reaction by staying focused on spreading the chocolate icing extra thick. She hadn't even considered that the doctors would want to ask her about the procedure. It wasn't that she minded telling them, but she didn't want her mother to find out the tumor wasn't really gone.

"I don't think it's something they can duplicate, but I'll take a trip to Mt. Vernon General when I get some time this summer," said Alex.

"Daughter of mine. What you did was a darn miracle, even if it was magical. The doctors said so themselves. If you can do that, think of what else you can do?"

The look of adoration brought heat to Alex's cheeks. "I'd rather not talk about that right now, Mom. I'm just glad you're okay and that I'm at home. It was a long year."

Her mom patted her hand, before returning to icing the other layer.

"Fair enough," said her mom, then with a tilted head, she said, "What are you planning to do this summer?"

Alex glanced out the window before returning her gaze to her mother's face.

"A little hiking, some knitting with you. Plus I have some notes to take from last year. But mostly I wanted to spend it with you," said Alex.

Her mom's forehead knotted. "What? No gaming? I figured you'd be racing to get back online after a year at university."

Alex laughed, holding her hands up.

"No games for me for the summer. I've had my fill."

Her mom dropped the spoon into the icing and placed her hand against Alex's forehead.

"Alexandria Duke. Are you okay? Has someone put a curse on you?" asked her mom.

Alex glanced at the bowl of yarn on the living room table, her mother's black bowling bag in the corner, and the two halves of the partially iced chocolate cake between them.

"No, Mom. I'm good. Really good. It's good to be home."

###

Purchase the second book in Gamemakers Online Series, Gladiators of Warsong, on Amazon.

If you haven't yet read it, try the first book in the completed Hundred Hall series, Trials of Magic.

Or try the first book in the other completed Hundred Hall series, The Reluctant Assassin.

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Special Thanks

As always, it takes a good raid party to successfully slay all the gremlins hiding in every manuscript. So to all those people that helped make this possible: thank you!  People like my wife Rachel who was the manuscript healer for this adventure, Ravven the red-headed bard who conjured the covers with magic, my editor the Tamara Blaine the fighter who deftly slayed the errors in the manuscript with her mighty pen, the beta readers (Tina Rak, Carole Carpenter, Paula J. Fletcher, Patty Eversole, Debbie Davis, Joseph Zygnerski, Thad Moody, Alyssa Washburn, Lana Turner, Bill Huey, and Andie Alessandra Cáomhanach) who provided the DPS for the raid, and to the Vanguard (Phyllis Simpson, Jess Churchfield, John Foster, and Elaine Stoker) who played crowd control on all the adds.

Your time and effort have helped bring to life this moment of joy in readers' lives.  Thank you!

The Hundred Halls Appendix

Glossary Terms

Merlin Trials - The entrance exams to the Hundred Halls that can only be taken during the ages seventeen through nineteen. There are three stages to the trials.

Faez - The raw stuff of magic. Faez is the energy that when shaped by spell or other means creates magical effects. Faez is dangerous to humans, but a tolerance can be built up over time if somehow protected. The patronage system of the Hundred Halls is the most common method.

Patron - The founder of a hall within the Hundred Halls. The patron extends their magical protection to students, keeping them safe from faez madness, and teaching them a specific skill set within the magical world.

Faez Madness - Prolonged use of faez without protection results in irreversible damage to the user's ability to understand and interact with reality.

Invictus (person) - The Head Patron and founder of the Hundred Halls. Presumed dead around 2003. Known to have lived a very long life.

Invictus (city) - The city of Invictus was founded by its namesake in 1836. The school that would later become the Hundred Halls was founded officially in 1867.

Spire - The administrative center of the city of Invictus. The Merlin Trials are performed here.

Second Year Contest - These games require cross-Hall teams to compete against each other for a grand prize.

Maetrie – Commonly called City Elves, though they have no relation to the Fae. Their home is the Eternal City, a realm closer to Invictus than any other.

Diamond Court – The court of maetrie ruled by Lady Zaire.

Ruby Court – The court of maetrie ruled by Lady Amethyte.

Jade Court – The court of maetrie ruled by Lady Kikala.

Liebereisen – The Journey of Discovery that young maetrie experience during their coming-of-age trip

Eternal City – The endless city that is home to the maetrie

Major Halls

Arcanium

Nickname: Arcanium

Patron: Semyon Gray

Est: 1867

Motto: Knowledge is Power

Description: Arcanium believes in the value of gaining knowledge, not only about the world around us, but of ourselves. Before we can master magic, we must hone the tool the magic originates from, because a poorly trained mage will not only be a danger to themselves, but society at large. Once a student is capable, they may learn the art of changing spells on the fly using lexology, or how ancient runic languages are the key to solving the world’s most difficult problems. Join Arcanium and be a part of the solution.

Coterie of Mages

Nickname: Coterie

Patron: Malden Anterist

Est: 1867

Motto: Limitless

Description: Anything is possible. Here in the Coterie of Mages, we don't believe in limits. If you can imagine it, you can do it. We push the boundaries of what magic is capable of. If this frightens you, then Coterie is not the Hall for you, but if this elicits a sense of excitement and wonder, then apply to the Coterie of Mages. We are the elite.

Academy of the Subtle Arts

Nickname: Assassins

Patron: Priyanka Sai

Est: 1867

Motto: Anyone can be persuaded

Description: Human connections make the world go round. We at the Academy of the Subtle Arts strive to bring people, companies, and countries together. Our mages are the world's most effective diplomats and heads of state. If you seek to join the interconnected world of politics, then the Academy is the right Hall for you.

The Order of Honorable Alchemists

Nickname: Alchemists

Patron: Celesse D'Agastine

Est: 1867

Motto: Perfection is Achievable

Description: The human vessel is a sacred thing. We believe in maximizing our potential through better alchemy. Our potentials cannot be met if we rely on the ordinariness of humanity.

Protectors

Nickname: Protectors

Patron: Bannon Creed

Est: 1867

Motto: To Protect and Control

Description: Order requires commitment. Protectors are committed to the value of human life. To being the shield against those that would tear down society, and create chaos. The Protector Hall teaches the ultimate defense, not only for yourself, but for the world at large. If being on the front lines of the world's conflicts appeals to you, then Protectors is your Hall

Acoustic Architectural Institute of Design

Nickname: Stone Singers

Patron: Ester Starwood

Est: 1891

Motto: Building through song

Description: A song is made up of many notes, just like a bridge is made of many stones. Society cannot function without the infrastructure to hold it together. The Acoustic Architectural institute of Design teaches how to shape the world with only a song.

Society for the Understanding of Animals

Nickname: Animalians

Patron: Adele Montgomery

Est: 1945

Motto: We Are Not Alone

Description: All life is sacred. From the industrious dung beetle to the majestic horned dragon. We at the Society believe that Earth must be shared with all her children and when we do we will truly unlock her endless possibilities.

Holistic Institute

Nickname: Aura Healers

Patron: Sir William Jenner III

Est: 1875

Motto: Health Starts in the Soul

Description: When someone gets hurt, are you the first to run to their side to tend their wounds? If so, then the Holistic Institute is for you. We'll teach you how to mend even the most grievous wounds.

Minor Halls

Gamemakers

Nickname: Gamemakers

Patron: Aldophus Dimple

Est: 1961

Motto: Life is a Game

Description: Life is a game to be perfected. We at the Gamemaker's Hall know the importance of games as the training grounds for life.

Metallum Nocturne

Nickname: Night Metal

Patron: Edward Canterbury

Est: 1908

Motto: Strike. Spark. Surpass.

Description: When the hammer hits the forge, great energies are released. Metallum Nocturn is that hammer against the forge of your soul. Join us, and find out what possibilities we can make.

The Daring Maids

Nickname: Palimaidens

Patron: Alice Hayword

Est: 1908

Motto: Stand

Description: The world is filled with unspeakable cruelty. We seek justice for those who cannot protect themselves, no matter the place. Join us in our fight against oppression.

The Hundred Halls Universe

THE HUNDRED HALLS

Trials of Magic

Web of Lies

Alchemy of Souls

Gathering of Shadows

City of Sorcery

THE RELUCTANT ASSASSIN

The Reluctant Assassin

The Sorcerous Spy

The Veiled Diplomat

Agent Unraveled

The Webs That Bind

GAMEMAKERS ONLINE

The Warped Forest

Gladiators of Warsong

Citadel of Broken Dreams

Enter the Daemon Pits

Book Five

Also by Thomas K. Carpenter

THE DIGITAL SEA TRILOGY

The Digital Sea

The Godhead Machine

Neochrome Aurora

GAMERS TRILOGY

GAMERS

FRAGS

CODERS

ALEXANDRIAN SAGA

Fires of Alexandria

Heirs of Alexandria

Legacy of Alexandria

Warmachines of Alexandria

Empire of Alexandria

Voyage of Alexandria

Goddess of Alexandria

THE DASHKOVA MEMOIRS

Revolutionary Magic

A Cauldron of Secrets

Birds of Prophecy

The Franklin Deception

Nightfell Games

The Queen of Dreams

Dragons of Siberia

Shadows of an Empire

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas K. Carpenter resides near St. Louis with his wife Rachel and their two children. When he’s not busy writing his next book, he’s playing soccer in the yard with his kids or getting beat by his wife at cards. He keeps a regular blog and can be found on twitter under @thomaskcarpente.

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