-Joshua-

Work passed without incident. The backlog from yesterday was daunting, but the work itself went smoothly. The process was still oppressively dull but at least people were marginally happier today. One even apologized for their comments yesterday, almost as if he realized Joshua was an actual human being.

Maybe.

Earlier that morning he had messaged Brandon about the outcome of the night before. Brandon didn't reply until the late afternoon. He said he now had debt and a record, on top of being ordered to perform community service. Which was, as far as Joshua could tell, the closest thing to a quest discovered so far.

Joshua's initial thoughts that morning was that he was done with Life. The game might be smooth and realistic, but the world was messed up. He had played for two days and hadn't had any combat or other typical gameplay.

His encounter with Bluejay was part of the problem. As was whatever that dreamlike sequence that he had experienced was, which had somehow included his actual apartment. Most of the game seemed great, if a little too slow, but the stuff on the edges was too weird and too painful.

During lunch he read what he could of other people's Life experiences. None of them were anything like his, but all of them were just as diverse from each other. Most of the people who had died respawned in the city, but a few said they ended up somewhere else. Something to remember. Joshua fully expected to be dead when he logged back in, but he wanted to see what happened. He wanted answers and once he got them he could log off. At least until he could play with Brandon.

-Harding-

Harding woke with a throbbing headache. He winced as any but the shallowest of breaths caused pain. A stinging ache hung persistently from his abdomen to his face. He was lying in a bed in some kind of infirmary, everything white sheets and white hanging screens. The floors though, dark in the sparse lamplight, were stained over time by things much more fluid than time. Light rain pattered on the roof.

At the far end of the room sat a desk. The man behind it was backlit through a small window by the gray light of the stormy afternoon. Clean shaven and hair cut to stubble, his face showed the birth of his loss of youth. Entirely focused on reading a thick book, the man did not notice Harding’s return to consciousness. Nausea suddenly pressed Harding, like an ocean pushing through a crumbling dam.

He groaned.

The man looked up from his book and smiled as he set it on the desk. Standing, he revealed himself dressed in a white apron over a white shirt. "Hello, there. How are you feeling?"

"Lye shea," was the sound Harding made, but not the one he had intended.

The man started opening drawers and pulling things out from one of the many cabinets that lined the room, "Ah, yes, here we are…"

He poured something into a small cup and came to sit beside Harding's bed. Setting the cup and what appeared to be pressed powder tablets on the small table beside the bed, the man helped him sit up.

The nausea intensified.

"Take these, they will help with the pain and nausea," the man suggested with an offered hand.

Harding complied.

While he did so, the man introduced himself, "I am Doctor Madison. You are probably wondering how you got here."

Not really.

"Late last night the Brothers brought you. You were in bad shape.” The doctor took Harding’s wrist and continued, "You had shards of godglass in you that needed extracting and plenty to sew up."

Harding just watched.

The doctor grunted softly as he released Harding's wrist, then spoke. "You needed to be monitored for the night, but you stayed with us. You should avoid strenuous work for awhile just to be safe. There are medicines to speed that up, but… they're more expensive than what the clinic can afford."

Realism sucks again.

"I did my best to minimize the scarring but you were cut up pretty badly. It should not be too disfiguring once the tissue settles," he comforted.

Disfigured? I didn't respawn? I'm still here when I'm offline?

Harding opened his mouth to speak and winced again. This involuntary reaction to the pain resulted in a chain reaction of igniting a band of agony down to his chest.

Doctor Madison patted his arm, "You'll have some soreness for a while."

Some soreness?

Speaking slowly and trying to minimize facial movements, Harding tenderly asked, "How bad was it?"

"Hmm, even with the Brother's initial magical intervention and my chirurgery, you were close to dying." The doctor leaned over and added in humor, "The secret to staying alive is to not hug a magical grenade against your heart."

Harding scowled and regretted it.

They stopped me from respawning and now I have to suffer for it.

Harding gingerly plodded his way through another question, "Do I just lay here?"

The doctor leaned back and pointed at a couple books on the bedside table. "A Brother left those for you. You should expect some drowsiness and possibly dizziness as well. If you need anything, call out."

"Thanks."

With the doctor back at his desk, Harding gingerly reached for the books. He quickly discovered that anything involving chest or head movement came with notable pain.

Real pain. And way more than most games.

With careful movements he tested his limits and retrieved the books. The first was written by someone named M. DeViciddi and titled The Threefold Being. The second was by a wizard named Gerald Jass, GWz., called Powerball Matrix, Volume II. Only the real threat of pain stopped him from laughing at the title.

Exactly the stuff Brother Roberts hates.

The Threefold Being turned out to be a small cartoon in a really old, heavy-lined pen and ink style. The author was more animator than wordsmith, the book watchable instead of readable. The animation was a funny little man and his faithful dog walking through the forest. The man marched with exaggerated confidence, while the dog kept low and sniffed the ground comically. The scene suddenly froze and the man stretched across the paper surface like an accordion, leaving multiple images of himself in different colors hanging in the air behind him.

Harding waited, but nothing happened. In exploration, he touched the first body and it rotated to face him directly as an outline with text beside it describing its functioning. He scrolled through all of the bodies.

It was the same information as Brother Roberts had given, but with a few variations and more detail. Each body had gates, not just the spirit body, but they passed through at least two bodies. Each was also marked with symbols and terms that were not further explained. Also, the physical body was labeled as the somatic body and there were grayed out bodies between the three, suggesting some kind of transitory or intermixed space but without names or descriptions.

Kioski had seemed to imply there was more to the bodies. Esoteric systems was his term.

Harding was about done with the short book, but his experimentation of touching other spots revealed more data. The man's dog split into three bodies with the same structure as the man, though with fewer gates. He found that the trees expanded into spirit and somatic bodies, lacking souls.

With nothing else on the screen responding, Harding tapped the edge to see if it would advance but there was no response. He tried the other edges to no avail. He then put the side of his hand against the edge and pulled back on the corner as if he was turning the page and the animation started up again.

The characters clomped into a clearing where a monster swooped down. It was humanoid with the head of a hyena and giant feathered wings. It ripped the man apart in graphic fashion, peeling flesh from bone with long fingers. The dog attempted to flee and the monster shot a stream of fluid from its mouth which grotesquely melted the dog. From the man and dog arose animated soul and spirit bodies, linked together, which floated away. Their somatic bodies bubbled and decayed into putrid pools of waste.

The book didn't respond when Harding repeated the page-turn command that had worked in the last scene. Harding closed the small book and set it aside.

Almost the same, I'll have to ask about the gates in the other bodies. Also, death seems to be of the somatic body only.

He opened the next book to find a note scrawled with looping handwriting in black ink which read:

Harding,

This guy is a drunken lout. The only thing thicker than his prose is his skull. His presentations are considered torture to even the most hardened academic. This particular paper itself cures insomnia. However, he's comprehensive to a fault and unexpectedly generates real questions. Read at your own risk.

-Brother Roberts

Harding smiled.

After attempting the synopsis, Harding's head hurt worse and the exhaustion had become omnipresent. He closed the book, this time being an actual book that consisted of rambling technical jargon interrupted with graphs and tables.

Later.

Harding looked around the room and found his eyes were heavy.

I should probably log…

The thought hung in his conscious, something about it odd and malformed.

Has it really been that long?

Reality, as loose of a concept as it is, washed away like a receding wave and left him behind on the beach of the dream realm. His consciousness had tumbled only so far with that wave, leaving him vaguely aware he was dreaming but without conscious cause of action towards it. He simply observed.

He dreamed of a forest, dark and overgrown. He walked through it without objection or objective. A wall of noise heard through the underbrush heralded the discovery of a fast flowing stream nearby. When he found himself on the bank of the stream, a deep voice proclaimed, "BEHOLD."

Harding looked and saw a fine buck with a majestic rack standing in the river. The buck's head was up as it watched Harding. Its legs bent and swayed in unnatural shapes and directions yet its body did not move. In the water were turtles whose heads were knives. They thrust their neck outwards at the buck, again and again, but they always missed its legs. The buck stood regal and aloof, evading the attacks without effort or even notice.

The buck met Harding's gaze and held it with a distressing intensity. Without showing concern, the buck began to decay. Its hide began to slough off, slipping loosely from the flesh. Maggots erupted from meat to their gluttonous feast. The buck held steady, legs still bending without effort even as it's eyes turned to jelly and dripped out of their sockets. The putrefaction continued until it was completely skeletal. Even its great antlers fell in with a splash. Hide and meat floated down the river, temporarily distracting the knife-turtles with the easier meal.

Muscles reached up from the water like seeking tendrils of flesh, writhing in the air before wrapping and weaving around the skeleton. As it reshaped, Harding realized it was not returning as the buck but was now becoming a horse.

Not this again.

As the epidermis generated, he saw that it was indeed the white horse. It stared at him, black eyes locking his gaze, then lowered its head and bit a turtle in two. The turtle made a human-like tortured scream as its shell crunched. The knife head slit through the horse's throat before plopping, severed, into the river as the horse bled out and decayed in layers like the buck.

It reformed to be the buck once again.

It lowered its head to the water and drank, then looked at Harding again. It spat a stream of water into Harding's face. Though it was only a steam, Harding found himself underwater. Deep, cold and dark, still yet he could see. A nondescript fish swam up to him, stopping face to face with him. He was drowning but he just watched the fish. Its scales dully sparkled in the non-light of that deep water, then the fish darted at him suddenly and swam into his open mouth. Despite his efforts to get it out, it squirmed down his throat until it was firmly lodged.

No more water entered him but neither did air. He began to choke and thrash in his watery grave. In the midst of his violent throes he spoke. He knew it was him that was speaking but it was not his voice. He simply said to the water, "Abide."

Harding woke up choking hard, blood spraying from his mouth all over the white sheets of his bed. Doctor Madison was already there, trying to lift him up into a sitting position.

"Relax Mister Hill, just let yourself cough it up."

A few minutes later, Harding's choking and subsequent tortured coughing had subsided. Though the spare bedpan on his lap was wet with richly splattered blood, the sheets were soiled nonetheless. Harding coughed lightly, sporadically, tasting of lingering blood.

"You've just got a bit of leakage, must have pooled when you laid down again," the doctor told him as he started changing the sheets. With the sheets replaced, he instructed, "Just stay sitting up while I get some more pillows, then you can rest. In a few hours you can take another dose of medicine."

The doctor was gone barely more than a minute, but by the time everything was cleaned and rearranged Harding felt exhausted again. He wanted to sleep, but he couldn't handle another dream.

This place is fucked up. How is this a game?

Propped up in a reclined position in the bed, he reached over down to where the copy of Powerball Matrix, Volume II laid and opened it once more.

It was, if not read but selectively scanned, fascinating to him. Described in rudimentary form, Jass had sorted balls into seven known categories and labeled them by color names. Each color held four distinct subtypes differentiated as precious metals. And finally an index of unknown balls which, according to the author, frustratingly violated his otherwise uniform sorting convention.

Harding found the descriptions unsatisfactory, they were just single sentences of basic descriptions like "consumes with flame." The author, in spending pages on this catalog of discovered balls, did not show interest in describing their individual function. Instead the work went on to explain how the result of using them seemed to change based on the user.

As a study case, Jass used a ball he called “Burn”. The vast majority of test subjects produced fire effects via "emanation", though often with variations in minor details such as color, intensity, and shape. The author's actual interest though we're the outliers who, despite using not just the same type but the very same ball, had dramatically different results.

Harding found it invigorating to delve into, despite the arduous language and aggravating uncertainties. Each teaching source he had been exposed to had been similar, but also held contradictory ideas. He was so wrapped up in it he hadn't realized he had a visitor until she sat down next to him.

Harding looked up to see Alina.

"Hi Alina."

Harding thought she smiled faintly.

"I must look horrific."

Alina shrugged ever so slightly.

"Well, I'm grateful. It's nice to see a friend."

She was silent.

After a long silence, she asked softly, "Does it hurt?"

"Yeah, I mean… it did a lot when it happened," he admitted. "Now they've got me on something and it isn't so bad."

Another pause.

"Did you get your ball to light up?"

She shook her head.

"Me neither. Sort of. I accidentally blew mine up. Not sure that counts.”

Alina's lip quirked up slightly.

"What was class about today?"

"Spirit Sense."

"What's that?"

She pulled out her journal, flipped through it, then showed him a blank page. Harding stared for a moment, trying to figure it out.

"It's blank."

With consternation she looked at the page, then back at Harding. A frown trickled across her face before disappearing. She turned to glance at the doctor before recentering herself on Harding. Even though Harding's gown didn't have pockets, he hazarded a guess and reached for his journal as if he did. He felt it lightly brush his fingers and pulled it out of nowhere. Flipping it open to his notes, he showed them to Alina.

"Blank?"

She nodded.

"Ok, people can't read your journal. Maybe you can allow it, but we don't know how."

Her eyes widened before she gave a curt nod.

I really can't ask her to give the lecture…

"Have you seen these books," offered Harding as he gestured to the two he'd been left. She shook her head and picked up The Threefold Being. The two sat in silence together, reading their books. Alina took notes.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Harding went back into Jass' work which had proceeded to suggest that the spirit body functioned very differently from what was the accepted concept. Jass postulated that the spirit was not a pond of energy to be drawn on but more like a river flowing through the world. And, like a river, there could be things beneath the surface causing turbulence. He suggested the spirit body was more like a siphon dropped into this river. He argued that the localized disruptions were potentially the cause of the observed variations in effects from otherwise similar balls.

Harding was finding the wizard's argument against the singular system compelling when noisy voices filled the place. A moment later, Sabina led the rest of the class into his room. "Oof, look at you,” she exclaimed. Beneath the good-natured humor, her eyes showed slight concern. Harding hadn't seen a mirror but he had felt the sutures up his neck and face. They had been ugly against his fingertips.

Harding gave the culturally appropriate response, "Yeah, well you should see the other guy." Randal and Ed politely chuckled despite the flat joke.

"How the hell did you turn a voidseed into a bomb? Brother Roberts said it woke the whole monastery," Randal inquired.

Each of them went through different reactions to him, but in moments they were all around Harding and loudly telling him about things he'd missed. Arnold told how he had heard the explosion. Ed had searched the city and found a cartographers shop, something they were both interested in. Randal and Sabina recounted antics from the day's lesson.

Luckily, he was the only patient in the room, no one else besides the doctor was disturbed by their boisterous anecdotes. They buzzed around him for about a half an hour and then exited together, a social thunderstorm blowing over the clinic and moving on. The silence was notable afterwards. Harding realized that sometime during that chaos, Alina had left and he hadn't noticed.

Harding frowned, unsure of how he felt. But ultimately, other people had things to do too. He relaxed a bit more into the pillows for a while. The doctor helped him with a meal which was an introduction into all sorts of new pains. Chewing and swallowing felt like he was tearing his wounds open even with the painkillers. He feared that he wouldn't be let out by tomorrow.

How is recovering in bed a game?

Harding launched himself into Jass' work again. The wizard's experiments showed unusual variations in a fundamental system of the world. Magic, even at its most basic and controlled form, was chaotic.

In exhaustion, he drifted off.

He came to at the gentle touch of Brother Roberts who sat next to his bed. The monk asked him about what led up to the accident. Harding told him he had dreamed, but kept the details to himself and focused more on when he woke up to the burning. Brother Roberts covered what happened after in minimal detail which he found himself thankful for. It can be traumatic to revisit such events, even through others' eyes.

Afterwards they talked about the spirit sense lesson but didn't have Harding try the exercise. The spirit sense exercise was the same as the first exercise but without holding the voidseed. This removed the aid of contact and required the ability to reach out with the spirit body and explore the immediate area.

Harding and the monk were discussing the readings he had left when a commotion interrupted them. A city guard led a woman with two small children in while he carried a young, crying boy. Though behind the screen, Harding heard the drama. Some refugees, which Harding took to be code for players, had struck the boy in the leg with something and broken it. The other children had summoned their mother who had found the guard, and this guard had brought the boy to the nearest clinic while others looked for the perpetrators.

Harding listened to them and their circumstances. They demonstrated anger and visceral pain. Doctor Madison did the best he could for the boy and there was no discussion of money.

It's like they're real.

"Is this clinic free," Harding asked the monk in hushed tones.

"No, but he does work for the poor too. One of the beds is dedicated to charity," was the quiet response.

"Am I taking up that bed," asked a concerned Harding.

"No. You are paid for."

"The Brotherhood? Why?"

"I am paying for it. Because I wish to. Because you are my student. And because I live a simple life lacking pressing needs."

Silence.

"And because I've never heard of a mortal exploding a seed. Either you're a special case and it behooves us to treat you well… or you're extremely troublesome and it's worth it to keep you out of the monastery," he joked.

"Asshole," muttered Harding and smiled at the monk. An action he only half regretted from the resulting discomfort. The monk smiled back, his common curtness curbed in familiarity.

After the boy had been attended to and the guard had led the family out, the monk learned back and sighed. "Tomorrow is a new day. Be better by then, class is at the usual time. We are meeting in the Entry Garden."

With that Brother Roberts bid him a good night and left. While he still had some Powerball Matrix to read, he logged off to get some real rest.

-Joshua-

Joshua slept fitfully, when he slept at all. A tossing tangle, wrapped in sheets and sheen of sweat. He dreamed of the office. He dreamed of death. He dreamed of childhood. It was all the same. His mind was frantic in his sleep, resulting in it being exhausted the next day in the office.

Work was torture.

At least it was quiet. The day passed. He was less productive than he could have been, but still he was left to his work. It felt like the day before a holiday, how the hallways were thinner in traffic and the sounds that carried over the cubicles less steady. He buried his thoughts.

He stopped for something vaguely categorized as Asian on the way home. Chicken and sauce, rice and veggies. It tasted better than it was for his health, but only slightly. His time savings though was turned into a short nap.

He’d set his alarm, so he woke up in time for Life.

-Harding-

The next day he was released from the clinic without hassle. He definitely noticed though that even walking aggravated his stitch-closed wounds. The walk back to the temple was not long, but he barely made it back in time to drop off his books and medication before class started.

While glad to be back at the temple, what had Harding really excited was the day's planned outing. He was going to leave the city walls for his first time and it felt momentous. The class had already moved past him in skill except Alina, but the idea of seeing the outside world dampened that disappointment.

Per Brother Roberts’ instruction, the class had gathered in the entry garden of the temple instead in their normal shade garden. They all loitered at the prominent water feature, chatting somewhat quietly while waiting for their instructor. When Brother Roberts appeared, he had a haversack slung and carried a wooden staff in one hand. After calling for their attention, he pointed at a cluster of plants along the garden path whose buds were closed. "These little plants are called Dandy Eyes for their blue colored flowers," he stated.

"They grow all over but are particularly common along the banks of the Breas. What makes them part of our lesson today is that they are unusually sensitive to spirit. When the level of ambient spirit is increased, they will bloom." The flowers opened in a slow wave extending from him as he said it. "We will be going out to practice in the field. An excursion is always fun, but also we want to protect this garden. Too much spirit will cause them to shed their petals." The monk warned, "Brother Rodney is very protective of his gardens. If you kill Brother Rodney's plants, nothing will help you. Always fear the man who runs the kitchen."

Half the class chuckled, the other half, however,understood the gravity of the threat. Harding could only imagine the literal shitstorm a pissed off herbalist kitchen boss could inflict on the target of his rage.

Both figurative and literal.

"Leaning against the wall are staves. Pick one of comfortable height. You might be tempted to question the necessity, thinking that you're much younger than me and don't need help walking," the monk joked. "They're not for walking. How are you going to check if there is a serpent under a bush? Or the depth of the mud along the banks? What do you do if you come across an overly friendly and unwanted animal?"

Brother Roberts jostled his staff in a half-hearted, one-handed pantomime of a poke.

Arnold raised his hand and Brother Roberts nodded to him. "Do we need anything else," he asked.

Actually a good question.

Brother Roberts gave a genuine smile at the question. "We will be relatively close to the city walls, but that doesn't preclude other needs. It would be wise for all of you to start to form a traveling kit on your own time. If you have any questions, you can ask while we walk. It's a bit of a hike and I don't intend to miss dinner."

They marched out the gates of the temple in an unruly little swarm, buzzing with chatter as they passed through the city streets. They were a little cluster of brown robes moving like a drab bubble through the chaotic garb of the ordinary citizenry. There was a line to get through the port gate, not much more than a heavy door, but it moved fairly quickly while the students chatted about making travel kits.

"Good morning Fred, Al. Where's Devin," Brother Roberts asked the guards at the gate.

"Some young man was holding up the line, complaining that he couldn't just freely come and go. Started ranting something about his rights. Devin took him off to clear up the line. I'll tell him you asked," responded one of the guards, his smile sharing the unspoken.

"Thank you, Al. I'll see you gentlemen on the first then. If you're not here when I return."

And with that they passed through the guarded port, a man-sized passageway through the outer wall. It exited five feet off the ground, several long planks was all there was as a walkway down to the well worn path in the dirt. The land outside was not industrialized, nor was it stripped clean for farms.

"Why doesn't the city use this land," asked Harding.

"They do in their own way," replied Brother Roberts. "This land will be claimed when they expand the city. It's too much work to keep the land clear if you’re not going to use it. It’s too expensive to use it if you can’t defend it if a tyrant or enemy attacks."

"So, wouldn't that make cleared land preferable for defense," asked a confused Harding.

"Preferable, but not profitable," was the reply.

Brother Roberts had led them for nearly two miles down the path when he veered off the trail and through the underbrush. The growth cleared out some as they approached the river and he stopped, looked up and down the river and then nodded. Brother Richards gathered them in front of him.

“As I spoke about, a Dandy will respond to spirit. Maintaining your spirit presence between too little and too much will hone your control. Please pair up and spread out enough to not affect each other's practice. This control will be important for the next lesson,” assured the monk, “Do not be satisfied with unsure success.”

The students paired up and spread out. Randal went with Sabina, Ed with Arnold, and Alina with Harding. Brush growth and thickets along the riverbank broke up sight, but the noise of the groups carried well enough.

Alina and Harding moved down along the river, until they were spaced enough from the nearest group. Picking a clump of flowers, Alina pointed to indicate that Harding should go first. Harding concentrated on letting down his boundaries and reached out for the flowers. After several moments the whole patch flared before losing their petals.

"Shit."

Alina looked intently at the few remaining at the edge for a minute but nothing happened. "You do it," she told him with frustration.

Harding prepared to reach out when the flowers opened without him. He looked over at Alina who was watching the flowers. "Good job," she offered quietly, still staring at them.

"Wasn't me though," Harding told her.

A spear flew through the air and slammed into Alina's thigh, causing her to scream. She fell over slowly, her hand reaching out the ground to arrest her fall. Harding looked for the source just as a spear struck his staff and gouged it before angling off to embed in the dirt beside him.

"Help," he screamed over Alina's panicked gasping.

A large fox head appeared in the bushes just over her shoulder. Short, but powerful human-like arms wrapped around her as the fox head leaned over her and bit down hard at her clavicle. Secured in its dual grip, Alina was pulled backwards into the bushes. Alina disappeared with a constant scream so raw her voice was audibly breaking. Harding rushed to her aid but two more fox heads raised up out of the shrubs. They lifted spears and stepped away from each other while advancing, preparing to flank Harding.

Harding was forced to retreat slightly.

The creatures were visible now. They had ruddy short fur, stocky little humanoid bodies and oversized fox-like heads. Their hands were wide but short and ended in curved claws. One barked at him repeatedly, the other growling low. As they got near the Dandies, the flowers would open and the petals fell. Harding fixated on that detail a moment, his brain trying to avoid the panic surging in him. He looked up at them and lifted his staff to be low and angled towards them.

The barker lunged but came up short. Harding intimately swung his staff at the growler instead, somewhere between a baseball bat and a golf club swing. As it curved upwards it struck the monster in the elbow with a heavy thud. The thing had already been starting a thrust at him when he connected. It yipped loudly and its thrust veered off target, it having lost its ability to grip.

Harding immediately stepped in close to Growler and tried to rotate to be outside of the pair. The movement was just enough to make Barker’s thrust narrowly miss. Growler's injured arm was hanging limp and it glared at him through its nearly pure black eyes.

Harding thrust his staff at Barker in a straight jab past Growler. It surprised the thing and connected, but it had no weight to it. Harding put one foot forward and pivoted into Growler lifting his knee as he rotated up into Growler's chin. Growler dropped unconscious.

At least they’re short.

Harding's triumph was abruptly ended when he felt a blooming pain in his ass.

He looked down to see the tip of Barker’s spear rip free of the meat in his right glute.

"Fuck," yelled Harding.

He raised his staff quickly and brought it down at Barker in an overhead chop. Barker stepped under it and advanced with vicious, snapping bites. With Harding having to back up, Barker started a series of quick straight jabs. The spearhead bobbing and thrusting at Harding like a striking snake.

Harding had lost all advantage and was retreating awkwardly as he attempted a defense. He was outclassed by the creature and was overwhelmed by Barker’s rapid advance. He took minor cuts on his hands and another to his thigh from a partially deflected attack. As Harding’s defense flagged and faltered, a wooden staff struck Barker in the chest so hard it skewered him and pinned him to the ground at an angle. Harding looked backwards to see Brother Roberts standing just into the clearing, holding another staff in his left hand.

Brother Roberts looked around, "Alina?"

"They dragged her into the bush," Harding said and pointed in the direction she had been dragged away.

"Get to the other students and go back to the path. Follow it to the city and tell the guards it was Rubahwogs," the monk commanded.

Brother Richards ran off into the bushes after Alina. Harding looked at the little fox-man who was slumping, half upright, on the shaft of the staff. For a second the staff dimmed before dissolving in a muted flash of light. The dead creature fell to the ground leaking fluids into the already damp soil.

Brother Richards is dangerous.

Harding limped through the brush, using his staff as a crutch, towards the group.

"Where's Alina," Sabina asked when he caught up with them.

Harding shook his head. "Weird fox-dwarf things took her. Brother Roberts went after her, but we are supposed to go get guards."

"I don't want to leave her, doesn't feel right," worried Randal.

"Yeah well, Brother Roberts says to go get the guards. So that’s what we do.” Then Harding added, “The worst case scenario is what, she has to respawn?"

"I guess," allowed Randal.

"Let's get going guys," Sabina encouraged. "Sooner we get there, sooner help comes."

Harding gasped in pain as he forced himself to try and keep up with the class as they pushed through the brush to the road. What they lacked in grace they made up for with brutish drive.

"What's wrong with your ass, Harding," Arnold asked.

"Got speared in the ass," Harding informed them.

Sabina snorted. Randal laughed. The wound stung badly and he had been limping, but he didn't think it was that deep.

"Uhm, that's bleeding. Does anyone know how to do first aid," Randall asked with concern.

"I don't know but we need to get help for Alina," Harding insisted.

To which Sabina replied, "And we need you not to die, almost, again…”

"I'm going to be too slow, just go without me," insisted Harding, accidentally talking over Ed's mumbling.

"Nope," said Randal. "It's two miles back to the city. By the time the guards get here Alina is either rescued or dead. Anyone running ahead will be vulnerable. We stick together.”

"I do," said Ed loudly.

"You what," asked Randal.

"I know first aid. But we don't have bandages, closures, a liter or anything else," explained Ed.

While the group chaotically debated what to do, Arnold pulled off his robes revealing his scrawny body dressed in tight, white shorts and strapped sandals.

"Use this," he told Ed, pushing the robes into Ed's hands. "I'll get the guards, you keep Harding from bleeding out."

Arnold then turned and ran down the path. Sabina watched him a second before shouting, "Wrong way, Arnie!"

Arnold turned around and ran the other way back towards town in his underwear and sandals.

"Take your robes off Harding," Ed told him. Harding did, standing there in just his undershorts. "Ah, those too I guess," added Ed somewhat reluctantly.

Harding hesitated and then pulled them down. Sabina snorted again. Harding looked at her, mortified. "I'm bleeding out here Sabina, a little respect,” he admonished.

"You should be fine," corrected Ed.

"Seen it before," snickered Sabina.

"I'm dying here and you're laughing at me… and staring."

"You'll be fine…" muttered Ed again, soaking the blood away.

"I'm dying," exclaimed Harding in comical exasperation.

"No, you aren't," murmured Ed.

Sabina laughed and quickly covered her mouth. Hiding her grin behind her hand, she justified her reaction by claiming, "I'm a nervous laugher."

"You're not the one with your shorts around your ankles waiting for a Rhubarbarian to jump out of the bush and bite off your dick," complained Harding. Then he swore, “Shit. I forgot to tell Arnold what they were.”

"SHIT," he yelled again as Ed applied pressure to the wound.

Just then a group of herbalists-in-training came down the path, their bags bulging with their collected plants. Harding covered himself with his hands as Ed pushed the bloody robes to his ass. Sabina turned red from being unable to breath as she was laughing too hard. Randal just clapped slowly.

As the herbalist instructor passed, Harding told her, "Watch out, there are Rhubarbs in the bushes."

Startled, the instructor cried, "Run class, run to town."

It was all too surreal to fully register with him. Watching them go, Harding mumbled, "You feel like they know something we don't?"

"Yep, two of them had first-aid kits around their waist," deadpanned Ed.

"You were just looking at that girl's ass, Ed," joked Harding in a mock scandalized voice.

"Better than your ass," Sabina choked out before losing control, unable to breath again as tears rolled down her face. After a long moment, she got control back and choked out giggles, "We are still going to die…"

Randal started a new round of his slow applause.

Ed was still trying to affix a piece of cut robe to Harding’s wound when Brother Richards came into view without his staff. "What are you kids still going here," he asked in frustration.

"Harding is bleeding and we don't have a way to move him," explained Sabina, once again the serious group leader. "Arnold ran ahead to get the guard."

"Where's Alina," asked Harding.

The monk shook his head. "I tracked them back to their den. But there was a large group of them out front. It wouldn't help the poor girl if I just died there in vain.” A pause. “We need to get Mister Hill moving and then get to town. If they raid again in numbers, we are all in trouble."

The monk cut away Ed's bloody efforts, then applied a fresh dressing from his haversack against the wound and yanked up Harding's shorts over it. He then just picked Harding up and threw him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

"This was my fault," lamented Brother Roberts, voice edged in anger, before he took off at a pace that made the class work to keep up with him.

Harding's unmentionables were crushed against the shoulder of the monk as he ran. Over and over. "This sucks," he groaned. He could even feel some of his stitches leaking.

When the class finally arrived at the city walls though, there was already a commotion at the gate. The herbalist class had made a ring around one of the guards.

"I don't know, there were other people there mocking him," explained a smaller female in front.

"And what was he doing," asked the surrounded guard.

"He was just- you know, touching… that's him! That priest caught him," yelled a taller guy who was in the back of the group.

"Heavy Rubahwog presence raiding out of River Briar Caves, visually confirmed," Brother Richards hurriedly reported to the guards. "We’re headed to the ranger station now to report it."

The guards body language changed and they started herding squawking civilians towards the gate. Brother Roberts was already on the run again.

As they passed into the gateyard, Harding saw another class waiting to go through the portal. Their instructor was dressed in colorful clothes and was telling the students, "The key to bring a successful Troubadour is the same as being a good journalist…" The teacher's instruction trailed off as he, and then the whole class, watched Harding being carried past.

"Can I get an interview," yelled a student.

"Good job, Janice," the Troubadour reinforced.

"I can tell you what happened," said the voice of a small Herbalist as she walked into the port ward.

Harding watched helplessly as he was carried away.

They rounded a corner, bounced hard up a couple steps before Harding's head slammed into the door frame. "Sorry," grimaced Brother Roberts as he turned to get Harding through.

Harding watched the class follow to the stairs and then stop. Sabina turned and started talking to the Troubadour students. Harding realized she wasn't blocking their passage so much as giving an interview.

"Rubahwogs in River Briar Caves. A lot of them," the monk announced soberly. "They took one of my students and injured this one. He needs healing."

"We aren't a free clinic, take him to the healer of your choice," replied the stolid clerk.

"He was injured doing ranger's work. He fought off an unreported infestation and killed one while trying to save the taken youth," the monk told the desk clerk firmly.

"Fine,” the clerk conceded. “Take him into the infirmary and then come back and report so we can issue an Extermination Order.”

Brother Richards took him to the infirmary, turning this time as he passed through the door frame. Gratefully, Harding was laid face down on a table.

"What's the injury," asked a husky female voice.

"Stab wound to the backside and possible head trauma," answered the monk.

The doctor bent over and looked in Harding's face. She was a very pretty middle aged woman. With a soft smile she asked gently, "What happened?"

"Rhubarbs," he told her.

"Definitely head trauma,” she pronounced. “Ada, start cleaning the wound while I examine the head, then pour some Mend on it. Looks shallow enough," the doctor instructed her assistant.

Nurse Ada responded, "Yes, Doctor Barbara."

Harding didn't see or hear Brother Roberts leave. Pride crushed, Harding gave into the horror of it all.

This game is pure evil.