The game world had been glitching since the reactor restart, but one thing that did work was the distribution of rewards. Thousands of pennies leaped from the dead dragon and raced toward us all. The dwarf turned slightly to the side to accept his. He lowered his head and whispered a prayer, but I could barely make out the words.

The dwarf grasped the halberd and yanked it from the dragon's neck. He leaned over and took a couple of deep breaths before turning to greet us.

"Looks as though I came along at the right moment. Nasty bugger," the dwarf jerked his thumb at the dead rotted dragon.

"Thanks for saving us, man, er…" I started to say.

The dwarf looked up and grinned. "'tis alright, lad. You can call me man or dwarf. You may also call me by my given name, Thandroot," he said and offered a little bow.

"Hi, Thandroot," Darby said and gave a little wave. "I'm Darby."

I looked around and spotted my bracers of better biceps twenty feet away. I walked over, picked them up, and found they were still in working order, if a little battered. What little I was wearing, my armor had also taken a hell of a beating. I'd had to sacrifice some of the main pieces to be able to weird my Titanshard ultra greatsword.

"Look at that one," Thandroot said to the shifter.

"Uncanny," she said and approached me.

"I get that a lot," I said. "Kidding. I, er, we…" I glanced at my friends, suddenly at a loss for words.

"Where'd you come from?" Darby asked. "And what are you?"

Thandroot's eyebrows show up. "I'm a bloody dwarf; that's what I am. What are you?"

"We haven't seen actual walking, talking people, except for posties," Darby said.

Thandroot cocked his head. "Posties? Don't know that one."

"You know, the posthumans," I put in.

"I think he's an NPC," Darby said as she walked toward us, putting her bow back over her shoulder.

"An NPC? Oh, that's rich." Thandroot laughed. "An NPC. I'm a hopper. How do I know you're not an NPC?" His eyes darted around as he took us in. They settled on Trogs. "Especially that one. We should not talk like this. Speaking the mechanics behind Eldrath are frowned on, as you know." He winked.

"I like that one," Sylara said.

"You would," Thandroot said to Sylara.

"My name is Trogs in this world. In my time, I was Grym Vargen from the band Blyted Fjord."

Thandroot's mouth dropped open.

"Hey, man. Not to sound rude, but where's your beard?" Leech interjected as he strolled toward us.

"Do you want me to slap you upside yer noggin with this dragon's head? I realize you're an old man, but I'll do it."

I couldn't help but laugh. A few seconds ago, I thought we were all about to die. I said, "He's old man Leech. However, up until a week ago, he was a spry young man. Now he's old as fuck. A chaos spell went wrong."

"Oh. Explains a lot," Thandroot said.

Thandroot drove the end of the halberd into the ground so he could put both hands on his hips. "Listen. I don't know what is going on here. Don't know you people. But something strange is afoot at the Circle K."

"Woah. My dad used to say that," Darby said and laughed.

"I'm not your dad, I can assure you," Thandroot said. "Forget I said that. It was a slip."

"Hey. You said hopper before. What's that?"

"Bloody hell," he muttered. "Hopper. Sleep for a while, play for a while. The longest I've been under is a hundred years—until now. Something tells me it's been a wee bit longer."

"Thandroot. Listen. We're not from here, okay? All those words you just said? Only a few made sense. Can we start with an easy one? What's a hopper?" I asked him.

"They truly are strangers," Sylara breezed.

"We should not speak of this here." He looked around and then scanned the sky with his eyes. He lowered his voice. "The slumber of Chronos' Embrace. We dub it hopping, or the cycle of dozing off for half a century or a full hundred years before being roused to rejoin society for a handful of years. Then it's back to our extended nap. Sylara once dozed for two centuries straight. My record stands at three-quarters of a century."

"That's insane," Leech said. "And fucking brilliant."

"Which year did you last go to sleep in," I asked because I was afraid I had some bad news for Thandroot and Sylara.

"The four hundred and thirty second year of the Veil. It was also called The Second Year of the Iron Shield. It was after Ormithral the Eternal Shadow had been pushed back and locked away for good. Damn, but that was a bloody fight."

"We lost many souls during that god's cursed war," Sylara added.

"Lost? Don't they respawn at a Whispering Veilstone?"

"What's that?"

I looked at my friends. Trogs did a close approximation of a shrug.

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"We're from 2024. Captain Al zapped into the future. Like, five thousand years," Leech interjected. "Just thought I'd throw that out there since everyone's just acting confused about all this shit. Uh, and shit."

I cracked a smile because we could always count on Leech to say the best thing in the funniest way. It was hard to believe that I had hated the guy just a few weeks ago. I wouldn't say we were besties, but we were getting pretty tight. Of course, I needed to be careful around his old ass. Ensure he didn't trip and throw out his hip, back, knee, shoulder, or ankle—poor old man.

"By the bloody five!" Thandroot exclaimed.

"Crazy, right? A few weeks ago, I was a young man working at a military base in Tacoma. Next thing I know, I'm here as this one's security detail." Leech said and pointed at me.

"That's true, except for him being my security detail."

Leech laughed. "Right. Anyway, Thandroot. You look like someone spit in your beer. And why do you think we shouldn't talk about this? You look worried."

"The rules. We must stay in character. Please respect them and stop spinning such childish tales," Thandroot admonished us.

"I'm sorry, we don't know the rules. We didn't ask to be here. This postie was masquerading as an all-powerful quantum-powered artificial intelligence who ripped us out of our time and threw us here. Then, we got stuck in this stupid, broken game world. Only a few things worked correctly. We ended up in that stupid thing." I pointed at The Nexus. "That's when I had to restart the world reactor. I didn't count on the flying fortress falling from the sky, and that's why it's sitting there instead of hovering a mile up."

"This is absurd," Sylara said.

Thandroot stared at us for a few more minutes, and a smile cracked on his face. "You're having me on. Oh. That was a hell of a tale."

He leaned over, put his hands on his knees, and laughed some more.

"It's not a…"

"You got me. You got me." Thandroot said.

Darby crossed her arms and said, "This isn't a tale. It's-"

A sudden notification popped up in my peripheral vision. Not just mine, judging by the way the others froze and glanced up.

NOTIFICATION OF NEW QUEST!

The scrolling message continued to flash before my eyes:

"Dragon's Inheritance" - The decaying wyrm Vilefang the Fetid had been vanquished. Explore the beginnings of the decomposing beast to unearth age-old mysteries and expose fabled armaments or equipment.

Look at that! You have your first real quest, and it's a dooooozy. You'll need to poke around and find out what in the hell a rotted wyrm is doing in this neck of the woods. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Ready to make that next boss fight a breeze? How about this!

Reward: Vilegang’s Might

Description: A consumable potion crafted from the dragon’s blood. Temporarily boosts the user's strength and endurance for a short period.

Effect: +20% Strength and Endurance for 10 minutes.

Cooldown: 24 hours.

"That's more like it! A quest at last!" Thandroot's voice rose excitedly. "Sylara and I have been looking for some action."

"We should search the dragon's remains. Perhaps a clue?" Sylara said.

What the hell? They were completely ignoring what we had just told them. Maybe this guy was an NPC, after all.

I looked at the quest again and was surprised at the text. There was some snark, but it wasn't as biting as before. Was the world AI, Phil, back in change?

Thandroot went to the site of the dead dragon a dozen or so paces away and began scanning the corpse, moving around its body, poking and prodding.

"That's a real quest, and the accompanying text is new," I said under my breath to Darby.

"Is it the same as mine?" she asked, and she read off the same thing I had just read, with the exception of the part about this being a "real dooooozy" and the easy peasy part.

"I think we should keep all the stuff about Captain Al, Phil, and time travel to ourselves for now," Darby suggested.

Leech and Trogs closed, joined us, and leaned in.

"I agree with Darby. Yes. This should be kept a secret for now. We do not know of this Thandroot's intentions. Perhaps we play it close to the chest. Is that the saying?" Trogs added.

"Pretty much, yeah," I replied to Trogs.

"Did you guys see that fucking quest! I need that Infernal Rune. It just sounds cool as hell," Leech kept his voice low, but it was laden with excitement.

"Mine was for a Fangstring. It's for my bow and allows me to pierce multiple enemies with one arrow," Darby said with a small smile.

"Impressive. We each have the same quest and yet different rewards. Perhaps this world truly is alive again," Trogs added. "My reward was a Scale of Resonance. A dragon scale that can be attached to my instrument. It would allow me to channel powerful harmonic waves in the form of increased alacrity, and it has a mere five minute cool down. Yes." He continued to read off his quest reward. "A 15% increase to all attack and spellcasting speeds for ten seconds."

"You could help, you know," Thandroot called at us.

"Yeah. Be right there." I nodded quickly.

"This great, but a better quest reward would have been a cure for my aged body," Leech groaned but added. "Chaos, baby."

"Start casting spells. Maybe it'll reverse itself," I suggested.

"Oh, dude. That's brilliant!" Leech said.

"I was sort of kidding."

"Hey. A spell got you that way. Maybe a random one will turn you back," Darby added.

Trogs nodded.

"I guess we should play along with Thandroot for now. Plus, I really want that upgrade."

We continued to talk as we went to help search the corpse. I couldn't help but mention Stretch.

"He's a lot more clever than he let on. For all we know, he and Cindi got out the same way we did. Instead of jumping, he might have been able to climb down The Nexus," Darby said.

"Could be," I replied.

It was better than any plans we might have had to go back into The Nexus. The fortresses were hundreds of stories tall, each with their own challenges. Plus, we desperately needed to find a Veilstone so we could heal and anchor ourselves somewhere.

Thandroot and Sylara were examining Vilefang's massive corpse. The stench of decay was overwhelming as we approached, and I had to fight back the urge to gag.

"What exactly are we looking for?" I asked, trying to breathe through my mouth.

Thandroot glanced up from where he was poking at the dragon's scales with the butt of his halberd. "Anything unusual, lad. Could be a marking, a trinket, even a scrap of parchment."

We spread out around the dragon's body, each taking a different section to search. I found myself near the beast's head, staring into its empty eye socket where Darby's arrow still protruded.

As I leaned in for a closer look, something glinted in the depths of the socket. Curiosity overrode my revulsion. As I reached in and dug around through the muck, my fingers brushed against something smooth and cold.

"Hey, I think I found something," I called out, carefully extracting the object and wiping it on the grass to clean off some of the wyrm's eye socket goo.

The others gathered around as I held up my discovery - a small, intricately carved stone disk about the size of a poker chip. Strange symbols were etched into its surface, glowing faintly with an eerie blue light.

Thandroot's eyes widened. "By my beard, that's a wayfinder! I haven't seen one of these in ages."

"A wayfinder?" Darby asked, peering at the disk.

"Aye," Thandroot nodded. "It's an ancient tool used to locate places of power or hidden treasures. This one looks particularly old."

Leech leaned in, squinting at the symbols. "So, how does it work?"

As if in response to his question, the disk began to vibrate in my palm. The symbols pulsed brighter, and a beam of blue light shot out, pointing toward the distant mountains that lie on the other side of The Nexus. That would pull us closer to the huge fortress, allowing us to poke around the exterior. I hoped it would give us some clues as to Stretch's location. The wayfarer died and became completely inert after a couple of seconds.

"Well," I said, "I guess that answers that question."