In the morning, after they’d had their breakfast and packed their lunches, Dionysios attempted one last time to convince Alexios to join him.

“Check this shit out,” Dionysios picked up the extra sheathed katana from where it was leaning against the bookshelf. “This is the good shit right here.”

Dionysios tore the sword from its sheathe, and the metal didn’t ring—it shrieked so loudly Alexios’s bones trembled. He covered his ears. The sword was metal, but glowed with its own greenish light. Its surface was carved in characters Alexios had never seen before.

“Trade links with East Africa, my friend,” Dionysios said. “The Serans, the Axumites, bless their souls, they’ve been doing all kinds of cool shit for a long time. Some of those treasure fleets sailing back and forth on the Arabian Ocean are like fucking floating cities, and with eunuch captains and admirals, too. They’ve been encouraging all kinds of cultural and technological exchanges, all while Europe’s asleep at the fucking wheel, too busy raping peasants.”

Alexios stared at the blade. “What does it say?”

“It’s Axumite writing,” Dionysios said. “I can’t remember the exact translation. It’s something like: ‘No change without sacrifice.’ It even has a name—Gedara. It’s named after some emperor who lived in Axum awhile back. I think it’s called Aethiopia in the old world. But get this. It’s made of like, meteorites or something—the guy I got it from called it an aerolith, like the black stone in Mecca.”

Dionysios handed the sword to Alexios, who was surprised by its simultaneous lightness and heaviness.

Equipped Gedara Sword, the voice said. +50 attack damage. +10 dexterity (60 total). +10 stamina (130 total). +10 speed (70 total).

Damn, Alexios thought. This is a good sword.

The blade thrummed with energy, one that excited Alexios and made him feel lighter and faster. It was trembling, almost crackling with electricity. He touched the edge, and jerked his fingers back. They were bleeding.

“Careful,” Dionysios said. “In the right hands, that fucker will cut straight through anything—even reality itself!”

Alexios looked at him. “Could it get us out of here?”

“Maybe. Takes some practice though. You can’t just use a sword to slice a portal through reality on day one.”

Alexios sheathed the blade, but even inside its sheathe it was almost alive, like it was desperate to escape. He handed it back to Dionysios, who closed his eyes, turned away, and raised his hands.

“Take it,” he said. “It’s yours.”

“Dionysios, you can’t give me this.”

“Stop with the bullshit. You risked your neck bringing me that manual, and almost got your ass chomped in half by the myrminkia. So consider the sword a gift. The most radical thing is to give people shit without expecting anything in return.”

“Alright. Suit yourself. Thanks.”

“‘Thanks’ is all I get? Don’t I at least get a ‘thank you?’”

“I thought you said you’re supposed to give people things without expecting anything back!”

“Yeah, but Alexios, come on. You can’t have society without respect. Plus, you aren’t giving me anything materially.”

“Alright, I’m sorry. Thank you.”

“That’s more like it. You really need to learn to respect your elders.”

“Doesn’t respect go both ways?”

“Sure it does. I respect you, don’t I?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

You have leveled up to Intermediate Charismatic (5/10), the voice said.

Nice to be less uncouth, Alexios thought.

He stuck the sheathed blade in his belt.

Having packed everything they needed, Alexios and Dionysios stepped outside. Alexios raised his hand for Dionysios to take, but the old man shook his head.

“I’m still beat,” he said. “I need some time to recharge. Even the voice is telling me my farr is down to five percent. I used up most of the juice I got from helping a fellow worker. I need to save the rest in case we get attacked.”

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“Won’t we have to worry about those ants? The myrminkia, I mean?”

Dionysios shook his head. “They know better than to pick a fight with me. Besides, I know where their territory is. We can skirt around it. They’ve got this weird obsession with gold, and there’s plenty of it down there in those canyons. That’s all they really care about. They stored a whole shitload of it inside their colony.”

“Kind of like dragons I guess. They like to guard treasure, don’t they?”

“Well, I mean, no pain, no gain. If living was easy, what would be the point? Every challenge has to be worthwhile. That’s how this game works.”

“But not back in the real world.”

Dionysios shook his head. “The difficulty’s on, like, impossible back there, for 99% of everyone, anyway. Or nearly impossible, I should say. But ‘pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.’”

Alexios chuckled. “I can hear a guy I know back in school—Boucher, that was his name—telling you to stop complaining. Whenever anyone complained about anything, he would say something like, ‘why don’t you just leave?’ I wonder if he got sucked into this game, too. He was with us when we opened it up. Actually, it’s his fault I’m in here to begin with.”

“There’s all kinds of people living here,” Dionysios said. “I don’t even know how many. They live all over the place, too. There could be millions. And I mean, I can’t even tell the difference between the real people and the game people. They all seem more or less real to me. Or the real ones seem fake sometimes, and the fake ones seem real.”

“That’s confusing.”

“Tell me about it. You aren’t just shadow-boxing in this game. You’re battling actual living beings. At least so far as I can tell. How’s that Shakespeare quote go? ‘Prick us, and do we not bleed?’”

“Damn, my name is Dionysios, and I just quoted Shakespeare.”

“My education stats are higher than yours, so if you keep quiet a little maybe you can learn something.”

By now they were walking down the mountain’s slopes.

“Do you know why they’re so into gold?” Alexios said. “The ants, I mean.”

“You could ask the same question of humans,” Dionysios said. “Some humans, anyway. I mean, gold is pretty shiny I guess. It’s got that going for it. It’s also got like a definite value of labor time locked up inside it, you know? Most of the time you have to work it out of mountains or streams. And most people agree that it has some kind of intrinsic value, even though really it’s just a shiny rock.”

“Fancy big brain Dionysios, too good for gold.”

Dionysios laughed.

They walked for hours, talking the whole way. This benefited Alexios’s charisma, stamina, and education stats, but not enough to level up. When Alexios asked the voice why, it said that more experience points were required to advance to higher levels. While it took little effort to advance from Level 0 (Uninitiate) to Level 1 (Initiate) in any skill, to move from Professional (Level 7/10) to Master (Level 8/10) could take years of grinding.

Jesus, plateauing sucks, Alexios thought.

“Hey Dionysios,” he said. “Does this game have any cheat codes?”

“You mean can you cheat?” Dionysios said. “Nope. Although everyone joins the game differently. Some people start at the bottom of the hierarchy, others start at the very top. Just like back in Maine, life’s only real ‘cheat code’—if that’s what you called it—is inheriting money and privilege.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Alexios said, even though he also thought it was annoying how Dionysios brought every conversation back to politics.

After lunch they crossed the River Simois and found themselves among the familiar rolling farmland of Troas. Strangely, everyone was gone, even the birds and insects, and an eerie quiet sucked the life from the air. One village they passed had burned down. All that remained were the blackened foundations of houses and barns. There were corpses, too—people who had been torn apart by swords or shot by arrows. Some inside the ruined houses had been burned alive.

“What happened here?” Alexios said.

“Roman legionaries.” Dionysios knelt and picked up a steel arrowhead. “Fucking war criminals.”

Alexios narrowed his eyebrows. “But I thought they just attacked other countries. Why would they do something like this to their own people?”

“You might make excuses for the ruling class. But the ruling class isn’t going to make excuses for you. They like to pretend we’re all on the same team until you get in the way. If that happens, they’ll kill you. Without hesitation or regret.” Dionysios pulled the manual from his cowl and lifted it into the air. “They were looking for this. That’s the only reason I can think of for these fuckers to be wandering around out here away from the City or their thematic kastron or wherever the fuck they came from.”

Alexios narrowed his eyebrows. “They killed all these people over a book?”

“They don’t like people reading this kind of shit. They just want you smart enough to keep making money for your boss.”

Alexios looked at him. “But if they’re burning towns like this, what’s to stop them from burning Leandros?”

“Nothing but a few villagers, I’m guessing.”

Alexios took off at a steady jog in the direction of home. Dionysios ran after him.

“This is way too dangerous,” he gasped between breaths. “The soldiers could still be there waiting for us. But I’m coming with you.”

“Thanks,” Alexios said. “I mean, thank you.”

They found more burned villages along the way. Each just made Alexios run faster and harder. Some closer to Leandros were still smoldering, but no one had survived.

Closer to the sea, the towns were still on fire, and huge black smoke clouds were rising into the air. Flames were roaring at Leandros, and blood was pouring from the farmers’ open wounds. The legionaries had killed everyone.

When Alexios found his house, it was still blazing with flames. Inside was whirling smoke and sparks. Coughing, he got down on his hands and knees, hunting for his aunt and uncle. Underneath the curtain of darkness were two charred corpses still wearing a few scraps of colorful linen. Their skulls and ribcages were cooking in the heat.

“No,” Alexios gasped through his coughs, reaching for the bodies of Eugenios and Eudokia.

Just as he was feeling dizzy and thinking to himself that he couldn’t breathe and that he wanted to rest, strong hands pulled him out. At that moment, the house’s groaning roof collapsed into the inferno. Alexios and Dionysios crawled away from the fire, and the white flames licked at the chasm of black and purple smoke roaring into the sky.