By the time Git and his friends were all dead again, I was starting to feel kind of bad. I mean, Damien had literally just sat there, waiting his turn to be thrown into the fire. The archer - whose name I hadn’t bothered to check - had climbed out of the trenches and tried to make a run through the Scarlet Moon debuff.

He had made it about five meters before the debuff killed him.

They didn’t drop anything this time, since all their gold was already in my inventory, but the look on Git’s face had been payment enough.

I figured we were even now, though if they respawned and started chatting more shit, I wasn’t opposed to just ruining their day.

There was still five minutes until the next wave, and I had a series of achievements waiting to be read. I thought about holding off and changing positions now that I was done fucking with Git and his crew, but truth be told, I kind of enjoyed taking over their position. It was closer to the city, and I didn’t really feel like running five minutes back to our original position when this one suited me just fine.

I opened the waiting achievements and let out a chuckle.

New Achievement!

Friendly Fire (Title: The Clumsy)

Oopsie! It looks like you accidentally killed some douch—I mean, some players from your own faction! And you’re not marked as a traitor!?

That’s what we call a good-old-fashioned looooop hoooooleee baby!

That’ll teach those idiots to stand in the fire. That’s day one shit.

New Achievement!

Addictive Personality 3x (Title: The Addict)

This is a progressive achievement.

Once is an accident. Twice is a fluke. Three times is a habit!

You’ve done damage to a member of your own faction within moments of their untimely death - coincidence? I think not!

As the greatest orator of the 21st Century once said:

“Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me…you can’t get fooled again.”

I think that’s Texan for ‘will you cut that shit out already!’

Fifty bucks says they come back for another campfire session…

New Achievement!

Big Boy Pants On

You killed your first elite! You’ve officially joined a select group of only a hundred million people!

Okay, pretty much everyone kills an elite by like level 20 - it’s built into the game.

But you did it solo…wearing [Common] rarity gear. God, it’s hideous. Your new life’s gonna be tough enough, Ray. No need to turn on hard mode by wearing that garbage. Get some goddamn gear!

New Achievement!

Headhunter

You sick son of a bitch! There’s no animal more majestic than a horse.

Throughout history, they’ve been man’s closest and most valuable companion. More so than the dog, the cat, or even the hamster - no animal can lay as much claim to mankind’s rise to dominance in this world.

The Mongols, the European knights, the Macedonians, the Comanche - some of the greatest empires in history, all built on the back of that beautiful animal…and you just fuckin’ cut that poor elite’s head off!

Okay, okay, technically, it was a man’s head, and centaurs are tangentially related to horses, but I definitely saw you chop that thing’s horse leg off…

I don’t know where I was going with this one - you cut his head off, that’s the achievement I guess.

“Al, you’re a weird motherfucker,” I said to myself.

“What was that?” Icalia asked.

I shook my head in reply. “Nothing.”

We waited for the next wave to start in silence. There wasn’t much to do in preparation. My health was topped off, Icalia and Jailen had their AoE spells up. And now it was just a waiting game.

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But when there were two minutes to the next wave, I heard a shout from behind me. I whipped around to see Icalia staggering back, an arrow sticking from her leg. It only took me a moment to notice Git and the other warrior closing in on my mercs. In the distance, Damien was casting a spell, while the archer nocked another arrow. He was tinged in red, indicating he had attacked my merc directly.

They were gonna take out Icalia and remove my ability to barbecue their asses. And it looked like they didn't give a damn if they were marked as traitors...

The archer loosed another arrow at Icalia, but Jailen stepped in the way, taking the shot for her. I mentally applauded Jailen for understanding the situation so quickly. He had realized, just as the other players had, that Icalia’s fire spells were not only the easiest way for me to kill them - but that she was also responsible for clearing most of the hyena mobs in the waves.

In my interface, I noted both their health points in the red.

I raced to intercept Git, who was almost on top of the two mercs. I closed the distance in seconds, but his head start was too great. He reared back with his sword, bringing it down in a diagonal chop straight through Jailen. The merc’s health hit zero instantly. That distinctive red aura sharpened around Git, and a red X appeared next to his nameplate. He had taken the traitor mark...

“Fuck!” I shouted. My poleaxe was mid arc when I noticed Icalia. Her hands were raised, her face scrunched tight in concentration. I immediately arrested my momentum, racing to make some distance between us. The fire that had been forming around her exploded outward, engulfing Git immediately. He died in moments, but not before flashing me an evil smirk.

The other melee fighter had been close behind Git, and was equally caught in the fire. Damien and the archer had smartly kept their distance, and were already aiming another salvo towards Icalia. I diverted my path, sprinting towards the archer first.

When he caught sight of me charging him, his eyes went wide in fear.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he shouted as he aborted his shot, turning to run through the now open trench where Jailen’s quicksand had been. My hand caught the back of his shirt, and I whipped him around like a fucking discus, launching him into Icalia’s still raging firewall.

Damien was backing up now, any thoughts of a spell gone from his mind.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, his voice squeaky. “Why are you griefing us?”

I stopped running towards him, my eyes wide. “I’m griefing you?” I asked, my mind reeling.

“Yeah! You are! You came to find us! You made us fail the event on purpose!” he shouted. “That’s griefing!”

I shook my head with exasperation. “Bro, you’ve got the memory of a goldfish. Your friend sexually harassed me barely an hour ago-”

“Assaulted,” Icalia said from behind me. I turned to see her limping over, her face a mask of fury. “He sexually assaulted you.”

I turned back to Damien, my lips pressed tight.

He looked around in a panic, his back pressed against the dirt wall. “That’s not assault - it was barely a flick! It was just a- just a joke!” he stammered.

“Try that out in the real world, and see how funny it is,” Icalia said, her tone casual.

I looked at her now in surprise. “You broke character,” I accused, the corner of my mouth quirked in a smile.

She rolled her eyes. “Then give me a bad review.”

Damien seemed to be on the verge of a panic attack, but I found it hard to sympathize with him. He pointed a finger at us. “I-I’m reporting you - both of you! I’m dialing Customer Service right now! They’ll ban you for this!” he shouted.

I just looked at him for a moment, not sure if he was kidding. And then I laughed in his face. I laughed good and long. Tears filled my eyes, my vision blurring. When I wiped them away, my laughter abating, the look of confusion on his face made me laugh even harder.

When I finally recovered, he was still standing there, staring at me in horror. To my right, Icalia was looking at me like I was a loon. Maybe I was. Like I’d said earlier, it had been a trying day.

“Good luck with that,” I finally replied. “Tell Sandeep I said hi.” I turned away, resolved to let him go. I heard him spluttering behind me, like he was trying to work up the courage to say something.

Then: “Go screw yourself…slave!” He said that word with such vitriol, like he would say anything just to hurt me. I looked at Icalia, the question evident on my face. Her eyes were hard, and she gave me a brief nod.

I turned back to Damien and started marching towards him.

He tried backing away, his back sliding against the wall. His foot caught on something, and he tumbled to the ground.

The look of terror on his face as I approached gave me more pleasure than I’d like to admit.

I wasn’t a psychopath…I just really appreciated a good ol’ cup of justice.