The flames rose, flying backwards dozens of yards. Sharp rock spikes were scattered throughout the mini fire balls. Knuckle sheath over her right hand, Sarah used her momentum to leap high into the air, and unleashed a huge wave of fire from one punch. It cascaded outward and made the small fire balls look like sparks. It was quick, but the heat was intense.

She landed, not out of breath, but rather ready to keep sprinting forward. The two knights either side of her, they made a path through the dwindling lines of fighters. Sarah didn’t leap up to cause mass area damage anymore, but focused on sending small jets of flame in between the gaps of defenders. Slowly, like a huge balloon, they increased the distance of the front lines from the road. Scorched plant matter was left in their wake.

Running from the northern part of the meadow, down to their southern flake, Sarah made lots of progress. She pushed only as far south as the ballista crew fired, and every time she made a down and back trip, they seemed to be farther south. Luckily, the third wave was keeping pace with them.

They had a foothold at the base of the mountain now. Where Sarah and Jorn had first met, and saved one of two swordsmen. Sarah briefly wondered if Duerlin would be alright on his own, or if maybe he came out looking for them and was fighting somewhere in another group.

“Sarth!” Someone shouted.

Sarah was getting more used to hearing that, her shortened nickname was a rallying cry that this field was starting to drown in.

Sarah was blasting vines that threatened to overrun someone’s position, she also helped kill more than thirty of the yellow flower bulbs that they came upon. A full hour had passed that way, the bulbs popping up and sprouting over and over again.

Jorn had stayed up by the ballista on the road, helping move it slowly closer to the first wave and the front lines. Slowly they were wiping the Mandragora from the meadow. Kuru watched over them from the top of the hill on the road.

Keeping close track of her guild members progress, even her newest prospect. She would convince SarthDarah, Sarah, Sarth, whatever the girl wished to call herself, to join her. Kuru already knew that Sarah would do as she asked, and she smiled knowing the girl would help expand her power.

A huge explosion rocked the southern flank, smoke billowed up into the air. Sarah stopped, she had been on a pass to the north, now, she turned to head back to the south. What had that been?

“Sarth, we’re with you, do you know what that was?” One of the knights came up beside her again.

They still hadn’t introduced themselves properly. Sarah was only known because of the crazy attacks that she had unleashed at the beginning of the battle. She nodded at the knight.

“No clue, but it was big. Hopefully it was someone on our side blowing a hole through the flowers.” Sarah hoped, but wasn’t confident.

Other than her, no one else had been unleashing large scale fire attacks. There were some with small, mediocre flames attacks, but nothing that would cause an explosion. Unless someone was holding back.

Three more fighters came up behind Sarah, now they were a group of five heading for the blast zone. What they found when they passed through to the front, was a larger orange flower head with black stripes. It had smoke rising from the middle of its four branching petals.

It wasn’t as big as the red one they had killed earlier, but it still stood about a foot taller than most of the fighters. The sudden gout of flame that shot from the pistols coming out of it, blazed through several fighters, and the choking boom of the impact caused Sarah and her company to stop running.

Ballista bolts rained down around it, but the burning effect wasn’t slowing down this flower. Sarah watched as it soaked in the flaming attacks, it seemed to get slightly larger with each hit it took. The thing wasn’t even defending itself, just letting the burning bolts tear into it.

“Turn it off!” Someone shouted, they were running back from the first wave fighters, waving his arms like a madman. “You’ll just make it attack more! Stop firing!”

He continued to yell at the top of his lungs. Just as the man cleared the top of a hill, the orange flower swelled, and then collapsed suddenly in on itself. Thick amber colored blobs shot out of it.

The impacts left craters of flaming debris. Cries of alarm were echoing out, the man who had cried for us to stop attacking, was swallowed by a wave of flame. The white hot wave engorged around him, and several others whom were too close to the blast points.

The ballista team had been the epicenter of one of the larger blasts. Maguura and his team hadn't even had a chance to stop firing. Sarah watched as the tempest of fire around her raged. It only lasted a few moments, but her sense of time seemed slowed.

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The warning had been too late, and in vain. The first wave of fighters would all be wiped out now, the plants first attack having seared the entire front line. This second attack had been more widespread.

As the walls of flame all died down, the brightness left the survivors temporarily blind. Sarah was yanked off her feet, a thick vine having wrapped itself around her thigh. She hit the ground hard, still unable to see properly, and now disorientated by the blow to her head.

“Grawwhh!” Came the scream of Jorn, his ax thudding into the ground a moment later.

Sarah felt the vine slacken its grip on her, and she came to a stop.

“Get up!” Jorn’s thick hand pulled at Sarah’s slender arm.

She felt gravity fail to act on her body for a moment, as Jorn pulled her up to his height. The fact that she kept floating for a moment after he pulled her up, was not lost on either of them.

“Retreat!” The command came from a group on the road.

Three banners were waving in the air around them, one of them was a white surrendering flag. The other two were battle commands for the guilds and town guards. Sarah didn’t know what either meant, colors and simple shapes, three blue dots on a green field. And two green triangles either side, and above of, a red circle, all on a light brown background.

“Retreat!” The command came again.

Sarah and Jorn quickly headed it, sprinting for the small group of survivors.

Only a few dozen of them were gathered on the road. They had lost so many of the original attack force. Sarah gazed out over the ruined meadow. The smoldering bodies and plants leaving a haze in the air.

This was way too realistic to be a simple game. As Sarah looked around, she felt like she was in a dream. Everything seemed so real, yet she knew it wasn’t.

Maybe she needed to find a save point and get out of this world for a few hours. It may only be a few day beta, and she had planned on being in game for the vast majority of it, but this was getting to her. Her mind was starting to see this as all too real, the emotions were starting to boil inside her.

Did she weep for the others who had been lost? That wouldn’t make sense, they would respawn. Gamers died in game all the time. Massive raids always involved the majority of the large groups getting cut down.

It hadn’t ever felt real before.

Not like this did, not like getting to know several others, and then to watch them die. She had been right next to several of them, heard, watched, as the life in their eyes faded away. The vessel never disappeared, but everything else about them did.

“We need to move, the town is on fire…”

One of the leaders whom had called for retreat, solemnly spoke up. Breaking Sarah’s thoughts, putting her focus back in the game.

She looked, and just past the hill that hid the town under the horizon, black smoke rose. It was on the port side of town, not as far away as Sarah thought. She had imagined they were kilometers from the town by now, but that smoke was barely a few hundred yards away.

The blue water running away into the bay, had been calm as they stood there. The road overlooked a small point of land that protected the town’s port.

“It’s not the town.” Kuru said.

Her voice remained calm and cultured, but her expression was of concern, maybe anger.

“What’s happening?” Sarah asked, Jorn standing beside her began squinting at the water.

“I see a ship.” He pitched in.

“What kind of ship?”

“Boat.” Jorn said flatly.

“Gee, thanks.”

Sarah threw a punch at him, but he ducked away just in time.

Kuru was already pulling out a briefcase, Sarah hadn’t seen where she got it from. The guild associate set the case on the ground before opening it. Inside, the red velvet lining was missing its middle, instead occupied by a large black and purple mass in the middle.

Kuru didn’t seem to find this odd, as she reached her left hand in without hesitation. She reached through the briefcase all the way up to her elbow. The mass of energy was rippling around her, like water after a stone breaks its surface.

“Here!” Kuru threw a small object at Sarah. “You too.”

Her hand flashed back into the ball of mass and back out again. This time a large silver handle followed.

There was no way that wasn’t a portal of some kind, Sarah thought as she watched a two meter long war hammer appear. The silver handle gleaming in the light, a huge purple sapphire glowing in the head of it.

Jorn gazed lovingly at it as Kuru placed the hammer’s long handle in his hands. The hammer must have been light for him, because he held it aloft with his right hand alone. After a couple swings, Jorn gasped loudly.

“No way!”

“What?”

“This thing is enchanted to let me dual wield two handed weapons!” Jorn’s excitement was plain to see and hear.

“I hope you both enjoy the gifts, these are the rewards the guild was offering for the Mandragola quest’s main objective. That ship is attacking the city, or it was, while we are all out here. That last Mandragola needs to be defeated before we can head back to defend the port.” Kuru explained quickly.

Sarah looked at the small object Kuru had tossed her, it was a gemstone. Bright red and glowing with a yellow aura. It had been cut with one flat and smooth side, and the other was jagged.

“Where does this one go?” Sarah asked, her question drawing a few odd looks from the others around her.

Kuru stepped up close to her, looking deep into her eyes. The stare made Sarah feel like she was glancing into an eternal corridor. One filled with more rooms and hallways branching into infinity.

Kuru placed a hand gently upon Sarah's left waist. Her fingers moving under her clothing and up slowly. Sarah was so lost in Kuru’s eyes that other than a shiver and sensation of leaving her body, Sarah didn’t even notice as Kuru opened a small compartment under her rib cage.

“It goes here.” Kuru whispered in her ear. “Try not to let it turn you into something you’re not.”