Morgan awoke, on his back, looking up at a clear blue sky through a gap in the forest canopy. Groggily, he blinked a few times, but the view didn't change. He pushed himself up to a sitting position with a start, the scene an eerie déjà-vu. He remembered he’d been harvesting, in the forest around Caslon when he’d died. A rock, a pile of rocks, an elemental. It came back to him, cowering behind the boulder, he’d tried to run away, but the elemental surprised him with a different attack. Then he’d died. The details on that were fuzzy. That was weird. He’d died before, to a wasp, and the details of that were fuzzy too.

Frowning, he slowly got to his feet. He’d been harvesting and died. And all his gear was lying out there in the wilderness. All his gear apart from his Bag of Cats, which still hung from his neck over his new homespun shirt. He tucked it in, and looked up at the sky through the canopy, noting the position of the sun. And he’d almost definitely lost another day. He cursed. He’d have to get back to Caslon as quickly as possible. He immediately started jogging, feeling the forest floor through his fresh homespun canvas shoes, and headed for the path.

As he entered the clearing around the grand tree, he finally noticed the path that led out from the clearing. It started off a handful of meters to the side of the route he’d entered by, looking to run parallel to it. He skidded to a halt, staring at the very obvious opening he’d missed twice already. It would, presumably, lead to the training town of Brogue.

Standing, gazing vacantly at the path, he weighed his options. He really wanted to go to the training town, he definitely had holes in his knowledge that he needed to patch. It also gave the chance to gain some reasonable loot, if the gear on Ralph and Morgan when he’d met them was to be taken into account. On the other hand, he was suddenly very aware that he was in a hurry. His current, heard earned gear lay out there, somewhere north of Caslon, with everything else he’d gained.

He was now on his fourteenth day – fifteenth if he had indeed lost another day, and he was back to square one unless he reclaimed his items. What if someone found it while he was dallying about? He wasn’t sure he’d be able to get enough of the plants to fulfil his contract, not even if he worked day and night. He had to get back to his gear. It had probably already been sitting out there for a day, unattended.

Down to Dilinar, across to Kandalan, up to Caslon. It would take two days, to get back. Two days! Hadn’t someone mentioned you could change the place where you resurrected? Why hadn’t he looked into it? Perhaps a few hours of chasing it up would have insured him against this, saved him days. He put his head in his hands, full of self-reproach.

With a long sigh and a dark expression, he started jogging again, heading away from the two paths to crash through the bushes to the west of the clearing. He stopped briefly in the thick forest to grab a sturdy looking branch and ran on to Welcombe.

It crossed his mind that he could cut his journey in half if he tried to blaze a trail cross country to the west, but quickly dismissed it. He didn’t remember seeing a road in that direction from the heights of the grand tree, and diving into the unknown wilds was most likely suicide. Even if there weren’t hordes of monsters, there was no guarantee it was passable terrain. Far too risky.

Morgan jogged through the familiar village. The townsfolk and farmers bustling about ignored him, and the handful of players there glanced at his homespun attire knowingly, dismissing him quickly. He briefly thought about going to see Ma Baker, but he wasn’t really in the mood for company right now. Without slowing, he trotted on south to Dilinar.

The trip south was uneventful as he kept up his pace, skirting the few travellers on the road. He debated visiting Umberto the dwarf, but the anxiety that spiked when he thought about the delay cut that pleasant plan short. It was mid-afternoon by the time the cities walls came into view, and he turned, cutting across the rough ground to join with the road that went down the coast to the Kandalan outpost.

By the time he’d reached Kandalan, the sun had just set, and the system informed him he was hungry, reflected by the hollow feeling in his stomach. A few paces down the path that led back up to Caslon, and he was officially tired too. He took no notice of the status effects immediately, though as he tried to break back into a jog, he found his legs felt like lead. It was like he was wading through knee deep treacle. Even walking was difficult, though the resistance was a good factor less than when he tried to speed up. His walk turned to a trudge as he carried on up the road.

Around an hour later, and Morgan was getting frustrated. Every minute lost felt like a compounding risk to his unattended gear, and he felt that at this point, the risk to the items he’d gathered was a risk to his life. A sight in a nearby field bought him to a standstill. An apple tree stood in a hedge line, its branches drooping with fruit. He couldn’t stop to sleep, but he could make a detour to grab an apple, and perhaps that would let him pick up his pace again.

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A chest-high stone wall lined the road, and a couple of hundred meters away, across a clear field, stood the apple tree. After peering up and down the wall for an entrance and finding none, he prepared to vault the wall. He placed his hands on the top of the wall and tried to heave himself up. He couldn’t. He strained as hard as he could, but his feet didn’t even leave the ground. He tried again, with the same result. He stepped back from the wall and experimentally tried to jump. He couldn’t. Once again trapped in a useless body. He rested himself against the wall for a second, staring at the apple tree, so close but out of reach. He suddenly felt hopeless, the anxiety that had been scratching at the back of his mind overwhelming him. He sat on the road, his back against the wall, and he cried with the frustration.

Sometime later; it could have been a few minutes, or it could have been an hour, he was snapped from his catatonic state by the sound of something coming quickly down the road. He looked up in the direction of the noise. There was a light, and it was moving fast, a rhythmic thudding on the roads surface coming from its direction. Morgan peered into the oncoming light as it closed on him, watching as it resolved into a man carrying a lantern in one hand, sprinting down the road.

As the man drew close, Morgan dusted himself off and hailed him, with a shaky voice. The lantern bearing man, seemingly taken by surprise, skidded to a halt, a small cloud of dust rising up behind him. The two men stared at each other for a moment, before the lantern bearer grinned.

“Greetings! Are you well, young man?”

Morgan slowly nodded, before acknowledging that actually, he wasn’t well, and turned his nod into a shake of the head.

“I... Uh... See.” responded the man, before looking about as if to spot the source of the problem. “What's the trouble, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Morgan looked at him. He was an older man, perhaps in his late thirties. His hair was blonde, cropped short, and the lantern’s light threw the man’s concerned features into a sharp relief.

Briefly Morgan outlined his problem; starting with his illness, explaining how this game was now his lifeline, and then moving on to his recent death and worry. The man didn’t interrupt as he listened, he gazed into his lamp with a far-away look, nodding and shaking his head as the tale prompted.

When Morgan finished his tale, the two stood in silence for a long moment, before the man replied.

“Sounds like you’re in a bit of a bind, kid. I get it, it's tough being side-lined in the real world. I can’t do much for you, I'm afraid. I can give you this though.” The man pulled a sandwich out of his satchel. He offered it to Morgan. “Cheese and pickle.”

Morgan took the food gratefully. It was delicious. A few bites later, the Hungry debuff was dispelled, and he could feel the heaviness drain from his body. “Thank you so much for this. I’ve been so worried this whole run back. I’m still worried, but I feel like I’ve got a chance again. I’m Morgan, by the way. Pleased you came by.”

The man grinned at Morgan. “Pleased to meet you Morgan. I’m Dillan, but everyone knows me here as the runner.”

Morgan looked quizzically at the man, “The runner?”

Dillan nodded. “I joined this game for different reasons than most, I think. Shall we walk while we talk?” He gestured down the road. “Where are you headed?”

Morgan replied, “Caslon town. It’s where I’ve been stationed for the gathering job.”

Dillan nodded, “I was wondering what's at the end of this road for a while. Not been down this way yet. Mind if I tag along?”

“Be my guest,” responded Morgan eagerly. “I could use the company.”

The pair started to walk, and in a few moments Dillan had them both at a jog. “So, they call me the runner, because that’s what I do. In the real world I’m - I was – a businessman. I worked with a big corporation; you’d know them. One day, hurrying to get to a meeting, I slipped on a patch of water left by a faulty cleaning bot. One of our own models, at that. I fell badly, really badly, hit a table on the way down. One small slip and I’m left paralysed from the waist down. Unfixable.”

Morgan glanced over at Dillan, his mouth working noiselessly as he tried to work out what to say.

Dillan continued before Morgan could speak, “I know, it’s rotten luck. I sat in my wheelchair, going through the motions of life for a couple of years until this game came out. Good timing too, as I was reaching the end of my tether. So, I joined this game, around a year back. With the insurance pay-out from the accident, I could easily afford the full immersion capsule. Ever since, I’ve been here running. Exploring. It’s a funny thing that you take for granted what you can do until you can’t do it any longer. I’m not here for the fighting, or the money. I’m just here because I took my legs for granted, and here I can run.”

Morgan took a minute to digest this, as the two jogged. “I’m sorry that happened to you. I should know it’s not easy being crippled in the real world. Decades of medical advances, technology, specialists, and we get struck down with the things that no one has solved yet.”

Dillan shrugged. “Sure, at first, I was livid. So angry with fate. Why me, you know? A life of thirty-seven years fractured by a small puddle and a table corner. But since I joined this game, this world, I’m actually kind of glad. I’d have never made it here if it wasn’t for that slip. I’d be in an office somewhere, right now, poring over sales data and analysing some inane metrics, before heading back exhausted to my lonely apartment and watching whatever crap was on the holoscreen until it was time to sleep, then go to the office again, round and round, meaningless. But here? The places I've been and the things I’ve seen. I started running out of spite, spite for my real body. Now I continue because this world is incredible, and I want to see as much of it as I can. One of these days I’d like to go beyond the wall, but I don’t think I’m ready for that yet. Would you tell me about the place we’re going?”

As they jogged down the road towards Caslon, Morgan told Dillan what he knew about it; the people, the landscape and the dangers. The road ahead was lit by the lantern the runner carried as the pair travelled on through the night.