The morning started in a fog so thick it felt like pause was pressed on a rainstorm. Josh felt the drops hit his face as he moved. Streaks of sweat and cold drops ran down his face as he tried to keep pace. They had been yelling at him all morning about the sound he was making. Breaking twigs, shuffling the arrangement of the heavy backpack on his shoulders, even his panting seemed to make everyone angry. If they hadn't promised answers at the end of this run, he would have already left.

"Is this just a strength training exercise? Get my..." Josh gulped in a breath, "endurance up. I've popped up my display a few times. I haven't seen anything change."

The private solider assigned to him shook his head. "No, morning runs don't raise stat points here."

"So, where are we..." Josh started to ask, before the private glared at him.

"You're running to answers. That's enough to know." The private responded. "Think of this also like an interview. You've been on a job interview, right?"

Josh would have normally responded, but the private ran quickly away from him. Josh put all he could into his legs. By the time Josh caught up, Josh could only nod between breaths.

"Great. Tell me an interview question. From one of your interviews." The private asked, then ran again quickly away from Josh.

Josh huffed his way towards the private. What did his past job interviews have to do with anything? Were they somehow the answers he needed. He as starting to see flecks of white dance from the sides of his vision.

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"Ease up." The private solider said. "This isn't dancing. No need to stumble and bumble like it's your first prom. Catch your breath, then answer me. I'll wait."

Josh did what he was told. Sucking in wonderful gasps of life until the flecks of white static disappeared from the sides of his vision.

He couldn't think of any good questions, so he came up with one of the easiest he could muster. "What are your weaknesses?"

"Exactly." The private said, pointing at Josh's face. He then moved his finger towards a cave. "That's where we are going to get some answers."

Josh nodded and started to move towards the cave. He felt a hand on his chest. The private soldier pointed toward the ground and Josh crouched down.

"Everyone is setting up. We'll go in when we get the signal. We are at the rear, so wait for the last two man group. Got it?"

Josh nodded. He wanted to ask what the signal would be, but it didn't take long. As he stared around the cave, waiting to see a flag or a mark of some sort, a soft beep came from his backpack.

"Didn't take long. They must have been waiting for you. Hopefully you got a hard shell, turtle." The private said, pointing to the cave.

Josh strained his eyes, but had a hard time seeing anything. It wasn't until he saw a bush slightly shake near the cave entrance that he saw it. Shadows were entering the cave by twos. Josh counted about a half dozen shadows.

The cave in front of Josh was a designated newbie zone. This newbie zone was automatically generated for new players to test their abilities. The problem with any system, no matter how elegant the design, is that play testing is always needed. The artificial intelligence that designed this area concluded that most video game newbie areas had low level chicken fights. It further concluded that chickens were a popular food. It took this logical conclusion, and built monsters around fighting food from an alien planet. What it did not figure out, is that humans weren't used to fighting giant fire-breathing alien lizards.