No one else said anything for a few minutes as they walked to the nearest high ground to get a better look. They were not that far from their base, so how was there a huge stone tower and a Renaissance-era village fully constructed?

It had only been about six weeks since people first got their journals. I mean, it had been nothing but unbelievable things since then, so they shouldn't be that surprised. On the other hand, seeing crazy stuff regardless of frequency still could be astounding.

Then it got even weirder. They began to hear hooves galloping towards them. Gary and Javier started to pull their weapons when Travis shook them off.

“We are on high ground, let's see what the fuck is going on before we go knives out.”

“Halt! Who goes there?” the man's face was stern.

Until it wasn't, and he started laughing his ass off. “I'm sorry, guys, I had to.”

The three party members exchanged looks with each other and the guy on the horse.

“What's going on here?” Travis asked.

“Here as in with us, or over there by that huge tower?”

“I imagine they are related, so let's start with here. Why are you on a horse wearing clothes from medieval times?”

Another pretty hearty laugh. “You have no idea how many medieval times jokes I hear. It's to the point that they stopped being annoying and are funny again.”

“But okay, answers to questions. I was evacuating the city with a group of people when we came upon this village and tower. Most of us are from the same group. We lived downtown and were going to stay. Supplies were stockpiled and everything, but the monsters started to overrun everything.

They were cheating, no kidding. We had a perfect system set up, but it's like playing a video game where the game wants you to do something, so it forces you to do it.”

This guy seemed to be a little all over the place but Travis had to ask, "how did they cheat?"

“We would cut off an area and blockade a door with a secret entrance just for us, but out of nowhere, a monster would manifest in some random room and kill a few people. Not everyone thinks it was some type of bullshit. There is a guy who claims to be a scientist in the camp. He thinks the monsters can just appear out of nowhere given certain criteria. I don't know though, man.”

“Anyway, the tower. We started to move south until we saw this huge tower in the distance. There were a few people in the village when we came upon it, but they are gone now. So we took up residence in the prebuilt medieval village.”

“Where did you get the horse?”

“That one has a normal answer. There was a farm nearby. Actually, the village is perfectly placed next to a couple of farms and a lake.”

“Are there any players living there?”

“Players?” the guy questioned.

“Yeah, people with a journal? Does that ring a bell.” Gary asked this.

“You made that video game reference; I thought you knew about the game stuff.”

The guy was looking at Gary and Travis like they just told him kittens taste good in ice cream. Javy walked over and took his journal out of his bag, “Amigo, certain people have these, and they can do crazy shit. You haven't seen anything like that?”

The guy held out his hand to see the journal, and Javy passed it over. He leafed through it, and his eyes went wide when he saw the character page, then wider when he saw the mission page.

“Wait, is this for real? We have guys in our group that have said this is like an RPG. They are just talking out their asses, though. The science guy has like legit theories about how this is someone's version of a real-life DnD campaign.”

That really got Travis interested. He needed to meet this guy.

“How about you introduce us to this guy? I'd be interested to hear his ideas.”

“Sure, but I have to tell you that you can rent a room for a night but no squatting. We have limited space and limited supplies. Do you have anything to trade?” He was looking at the apparent lack of materials they had on them.

“I think we can come up with something; these bags carry more than you think.”

The guy didn't look sold, but he had to take a leak and was ready to go back to town. He looked like he remembered something, though, “Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I am supposed to give one of these to any traveler that looks worth his salt, orders of the Sherriff.”

He handed Travis a piece of paper. It was sort of like a normal piece of paper, not a typical one that they had used before. It also wasn't a full-on parchment or scroll; it was something in between. He was going to ask where it was from but started reading anyway.

Bounty - Monster Hunt

There is a large monster (details unknown as it has killed all who have seen it) killing villagers who venture beyond the village at night. Anyone with information that leads to the death of this monster will be rewarded. Proof of the monster's death will earn the full bounty.

See the village sheriff for information on reward or to receive the bounty.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Travis handed it to Gary, who had been keeping a lookout up until now, “Check this out.”

“A bounty, holy shit. Where is Clyde when you need him, though, am I right?”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” said Travis.

They followed behind the horseman, who they just realized never gave his name.

“Hey bloke,” Gary called out, “what's your name?”

“I'm Richard, but you can call me Rich. Only my real friends call me Dick because they know I hate it, so please stick with Rich.”

Gary laughed at that, “I had no intention of calling you Dick, but now that I know you don't like it.” The guy ignored Gary but saw the flaw in his pronouncement.

As they got closer to the small village, Travis could make out more features of the place. They had small buildings mostly made of wood. It had the feel of a cross between one of the haphazard settlements in Fallout 3 combined with the more rustic towns in Skyrim.

There were two large buildings that seemed better put together. Rich said those were the general store and the sheriff's office, which housed the jail and the supplies, plus the logistic operations of the town.

There was a farm pushed back behind a few of the houses and a small body of water next to that. The people didn't seem to pay Travis and his party any mind, although a couple looked at Travis and his unique armor.

People were dressed in a mixture of normal clothes and those that looked like they came from a rendition of Macbeth. Rich said that they were in a chest when they first came here, the few people here before them not taking anything with them.

“Where are you taking us?” Travis wondered.

“The sheriff requires that all visitors are brought to his office before they can roam free. That's only for people here for the first time. Once you do it once, you won't have to again.”

There were about 20 buildings in total, with almost half being just one-room shacks by the looks of it. Travis wondered why there would be a sheriff in such a small town and why this sheriff felt the need to check people out. It's not like this was some kind of walled settlement.

Rich saw the look on Travis's face and must have guessed what he was thinking, “We know it's a bit strange to have a lawman in such a small town, but we take security seriously here. There were a few bad apples early on. One is still in the jail for stealing.”

Travis shook his head, “What about this monster, what's the deal with that?”

“Ask the sheriff.”

They walked in silence for the rest of the way. A minute later, they came upon a wooden building, one floor but very large. It had wood symmetrical pieces which looked to be nailed to actual building studs.

All three of them wondered why these structures were put up like they lived in the 17th century. Why not try to get sheetrock for a nearby structure?

Rich got off his horse and walked inside. The three men followed.

“Sheriff, got some visitors here!”

They were shocked by the man that walked out of a back room. Well, shocked isn't the right word, as the man looked very familiar. He had on a tan cowboy hat, a long-sleeve shirt with a brown vest over it, a pair of modern blue jeans (the only modern thing about him), and to top it off, the man had boots with spurs on them. God damn spurs.

“Hello there travelers, what brings you to our fine town?”

Travis just looked at him; Javy waited for Travis to react, but Gary couldn't contain himself. He started laughing, his ass off, right in front of this dude.

He composed himself in a few seconds, well, sort of, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he said with his hand up stifling a laugh, “but what the fuck do we have here?”

Travis didn't say anything. He wanted to see how seriously this man took himself.

Rich started to react, he wasn't happy at all, but the sheriff stopped him, “It's okay, Rich, these folks here are new. How about you give us some time to fill them in on our little town.”

“No, it's okay. I will come see you when I'm done. Thank you, Rich,” the sheriff said as he walked Rich to the door, talking down his protests.

As the door closed, the man deflated a little and took a breath. “Man, he is a good guy, but a little overzealous. I was worried people wouldn't buy it, it's been quite the opposite actually.”

Gary was about to say something when Javy touched his arm. He gave him a hand gesture, telling him to let Travis handle this.

Travis was just as taken aback as they were. Again, and not for the last time, he wished Clyde was with them. This had to be some type of game thing. He needed his games expert with him in the future.

He waited for the man to walk back to his desk and sit down, motioned for the other three to sit. There was a beat-up couch on the opposite wall. The rest of the room they were in looked almost identical to a basic building in an RPG.

There was a little table with four legs and a flat piece of wood on top, a shelf in the corner that would hold old books if this were Skyrim or burnt ones if this were Fallout. Instead, it had a few stacks of that weird paper. Then there was a chest, similar to the basic ones in Travis' base camp.

“I bet you guys are wondering what the heck is going on, huh. I have to be honest though, the fact that everyone is always so surprised surprises me. The world collapsed, your precious guns stopped working. The government is nowhere to be seen, and best of all, monsters roam the earth. Oh, plus magic, yada yada. I love that phrase, yada yada. You can get so much across with so few words."

“The old man back where we came from says that too, except he never goes out. The problem is just because you see a flying monkey doesn't mean that a talking dinosaur won't be worthy of amazement.”

The sheriff seemed to ponder that, “that is a good point! I have to say you guys are so full of neat phrases.”

He laughed but then looked up and saw no one else was, “of course, you are stunned, this is the talking dinosaur I suppose, okay fair enough.”

“There is only so much I can tell you, so please understand that now. Frankly, I'm not even supposed to say that, but the last player that came through here was so full of questions I almost shot him just to get them to end. Or did I almost shoot myself, who can remember.”

“But okay, here goes. As you know, the world is now conducted as if it's a game. That is not news to you chaps, although you (he pointed at Gary) are not a player, I'm sure your friends told you.”

“It was always going to be one thing to get the players and the people that interact with the players, to play accordingly. But it is something else to get people that have no reference or experience with the world's game-like aspects to behave a certain way.”

“Myself and others like me have been tasked with organizing small and medium-sized groups around a particular way of life. We all know that you people live with the thin veneer of law and civilization. It would not have been good for anyone if large groups of people took to living like outlaws or savages.”

“Basically, outside the walls of any post-apocalyptic movie. That was not something anyone wanted, and so myself and others gather groups together and put their passions towards setting up small villages and some large communities.”

“Questions?”

“Who put you up to doing this, or who decides what is best for groups of….. (He hated saying it but had no other word) NPCs?”

“That was faster than the others.”

They just looked at him, Travis getting angry at everything that was happening here. The revelation that something was dictating how people lived combined with this guy's frivolous attitude.

“No Matrix fans here? You know when he meets the architect, no? Okay then straight to the point. That is a good question, but one that has no answer. The game is the game, and I am a representation of the game.”

Travis stood up faster than even the sheriff thought possible and pulled his gun; it was at the man's head almost instantly. "That's really cute, but if you don't answer my questions to my satisfaction, you won't say another sarcastic thing again."

"In case he wasn't clear, that is because you will be dead. I'd take him seriously; Travis does not like sarcasm," Gary chimed in. Quite well played, Travis thought actually.

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