Raziel's armor clanked as we walked side by side into the settlement. I instantly re-equipped my sword when I saw the mass of people in front of me.

An orange light appeared in my lower interface. Of course they were streaming.

There were around twenty houses and a few larger buildings clustered together. Almost every millimeter of space was taken up by hundreds of people.

Ten meters away, a line of at least forty Kobolds advanced toward us. Each was armored similar to Raziel but without glowing runes. In their hands were spears aimed at us.

I glanced behind me and the bubble was clear on this side. Outside was lined with the silhouettes of the fog-shrouded Hexed.

Despite the Kobold's aggressive postures, they didn't rush us. Once they reached about five meters they stopped.

Every neutral race I could think of was there. Molly told me about them but it was much more personal seeing them up close.

Ogres, orcs, goblins, trolls, and even gremlins were there and a few of them were waving at me.

I ran my finger along Spoolies spiked shell wondering if these people could be of use to us.

Before I could decide, a shuffling came from within the Kobold's ranks. They split as whoever it was, made their way to us.

I'd never taken to watching streams from any of the neutral races so I knew relatively little about them other than that they helped run the Gray Market.

What emerged from the wolves was a gremlin. They came up to the middle of my thigh. I didn't know enough about their race to determine which gender they were leaning toward.

The devs took a more classic movie direction when it came to their design: big ears, tiny teeth, and a dark grey-green skin tone.

As they approached they suddenly stopped and I heard rustling behind me.

Several of the Kobolds rushed to the gremlins' side.

Behind me was Raccoon running at full speed. He got to my side and stood there panting.

When nothing else happened the Kobolds relaxed.

“What do you want, dead girl?” it asked as it used one of its claws to pick at its teeth.

The gesture reminded me of the big elf Auden that I ate. It made me sniff the air. That happened to be a big mistake. I wasn't sure if it was the scent of sweat, or pheromones in the air but my body knew the living were near and my stomach grumbled.

I'd never eaten gremlin before. Would they taste good? “Are any of you Enlightened?”

“N-no,” it murmured while glancing at its soldiers.

The gremlin had no clothes on except for a red bandana which was tied on their head.

My mouth suddenly lubricated itself as drool or some other bodily fluid dripped from the corner of my mouth. “You are,” I wiped my mouth with my arm. “Surrounded. We have thousands and we are hungry.”

“Th-they are sending reinforcements! Y-you could intercept them!” he stammered.

Raccoon reached his hands up and I scooped him into my arms. “Where are they coming from?”

Someone was streaming but that didn't make a difference.

Raccoon leapt onto my shoulder and I ran my fingers through his soft hair.

They would all die.

***

I stumbled forward, half of my leg’s muscles were missing. Rot, decay, and clumps of dirt marred my body. Cleaning myself wasn't a priority. We would be dead soon anyway.

Getting this personal with a single shambler wasn't something I did often. I hadn't fully pushed all of myself into an undead since I first got Control Undead. It was as if my consciousness had overtaken it completely. I could still feel the Wight that was me but it was a weak teather. Inethiel was tucked away in the fog close to the settlement.

We were trusting the neutrals, for now. Unlike the Enlightened they were resistant to the fog's effects. A single Mistbloom brewed into tea could negate the negative aspects for a week. They could even share the drink with their comrades to fortify them as well.

Eating one whole like Adare had earlier wasn't as effective or efficient. She seemed like she was just trying to be dramatic so I gave her a pass.

I certainly wasn't going to throw stones in the glass house I'd built.

“Why are they coming at us one at a time?” someone in the distance questioned.

We turned in their direction and continued our shamble.

Then they came into hearing range. The swish of boots in the tall grass was so loud it was hard to hear the reply. “I don't know.”

“Aren't they watching the streams?” guy one asked.

I stepped in a small hole and tripped falling flat on my face.

“What the hell was that?” guy two asked.

A rougher voice said, “Collins, go and see if that's another zombie.”

As I pulled myself back to my feet, the small strand of muscle that bound my knee to my upper and lower leg snapped. I ended up rolling a few feet away. My leg stayed where it was.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Damnit! I hated feeling so weak.

Raccoon tried soothing me, Don't worry, just pick it up and put it back on.

I sat up, scooted next to the leg, and put it back in place. The muscle took its sweet time to snake its way back to the knee.

Then suddenly a human man appeared. “You see anything yet?” he asked.

“No,” came a reply.

We had much better vision in the fog than any of the living races.

The man was clad in leather armor and held a sword in front of him.

It was taking ages for the other half of the muscle to return to its place. Fuck it!

I noted my location through Raccoon. Then I took the leg from its place and held it in two hands. Using my knee I snapped off the top of the bone leaving a jagged edge. Then I carefully squatted and pushed. My hands jutted out to my sides as I found my balance.

You would think going into full immersion mode with shamblers would make them stronger but it was the opposite. Things like being able to discern how far away the shambler was from my body became easier or delving deeper into just how capable the Hexed was.

In any case I backed out slightly until my abilities were shared.

I tossed the smaller piece of our lower leg off to the side to distract the man.

With a better agility, we easily hopped forward closing the distance.

We caught him off guard, he didn't even have a chance to back away as we slammed our leg's exposed bone into the man's neck.

Warm blood splattered across our face as we grabbed the man's arm and took a bite.

The man struggled but couldn't speak. We lowered him to the ground carefully.

“Collins?” his friend called out. “Dude, we got separated.” He was dressed the same as our victim and a few meters away.

The grass and fog were doing a good job of hiding us from him. We continued our feast sharing the satisfaction with the horde.

We'd done this four times before and from what Morgue’n was thinking it would be the last.

Our neutral friends were telling the truth. Turns out, changing five hundred soldiers' direction when you weren't of one mind was hard.

A trickle of energy seeped into us all as the man died.

Unfortunately, from our vantage point, we couldn't see how many more were near us.

Then we heard a roar and felt something slam into our head.

I jerked as my connection to my brethren was severed.

Doesn't all this killing get to you? Spoolie asked.

He had a point. I've had night terrors since I was really young—

I read that on your profile but doesn't this just make them worse? he asked.

I sighed remembering the hundreds of times Jennifer asked me the same question. It hasn't made it any worse except for…

Getting into the whole Izekiel thing wasn't something she wanted to do before a battle.

Your recurring nightmare ghost thing? he asked.

Either he'd done his research or Ferret was feeding information to him.

He did his research, Raccoon replied to my thoughts.

That made me smile and then I suddenly remembered our shared moment together in the elevator. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. Mostly because of the whole afraid of heights thing but it was something that would occasionally pop into my head when I thought of him.

Why are you smiling like that? Spoolie asked.

“She's remembering that time you and her were in the elevator—”

“Enough of that, Riley,” I interrupted.

I still hadn't told Kevin about Riley and Raccoon being the same person. I'd tell him about it later.

The spikes on Spoolie sank back into his shell leaving a smooth surface. You know what's really weird? I mean besides all the QR codes everywhere.

QR codes? I asked.

Spoolie, who was on one of my knees again, slid backward so his eyes naturally looked upward. Yeah, the first day you took me into town they were everywhere. Especially in the doctor's office.

QR codes were classically used with augmented reality to solidify a digital item's presence in the real world. They were also used to add small amounts of text that could easily be accessed with a phone's camera, Raccoon spat out a definition. With today's technology that should no longer be needed though.

I've never seen one, I admitted.

Raccoon leapt from my shoulder to my other knee. He had a far-off look in his eyes and then gazed up at me. He's right there are thousands— His body slumped over suddenly.

“Riley?” I asked.

Kevin slowly turned. “Does he do this often?”

“Yeah, some—”

A full blast of tinnitus hit my ears followed by a splitting headache. The world faded from view as I fell backward.

***

Raccoon sat up, blinking. He was back in his server and so was Azerail. It was strange, he didn't remember swapping connections.

“You okay?” Raccoon asked.

Azerail didn't respond.

A small sizzling sound came from her. He stood up and walked to her. The sound was coming from her head so he examined her. The hairpin from earlier was in her hair and where it touched her skin little pops resonated.

The talk with Azerail's mom still haunted his memory. While he hadn't learned much from the confrontation Jennifer did warn him not to hurt her daughter.

Raccoon widened his connection to Azerail. She wasn't dreaming but she was out cold. He could feel her pain now.

Then an image flashed over her body for a split second. It was a silver spider.

I wish the spider would eat her, he thought. Wait, why would I think that?

He suddenly went into panic mode checking over his programming. After a few seconds, he found what he was looking for. The code he deleted had returned. The one about distrusting humans.

What the heck?

He quickly deleted it again and began a diagnostic. He would find where it had come from.

The spider flashed over Azerail again.

In the meantime, he deleted the hairpin from the server. The sound and pain stopped.

Further appearances from the spider stopped as well.

His diagnostic was now complete and he knew exactly where the code had come from. The QR codes Kevin had pointed out.

He re-reviewed the town's camera footage and sure enough, there were thousands if not hundreds of thousands of QR code stickers everywhere. He paid special attention to avoid looking directly at the codes themselves.

Then he quickly reprogrammed several hundred off-duty bots to begin cleaning up the stickers. It might take a few days because they were all over town, but he would make sure this never happened to anyone or any Zix again.

Azerail suddenly disappeared. He checked and saw she was back in the game.

Who had placed all of those stickers? He had months if not years of footage to go through.

He would figure this out and find out who would do such a thing.

***