Just like the others, Lance had a smile on his face as he looked around. They had won. They had defended the Bird and Baby. Then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed a large Dwarf wearing leather armor approaching Sparky with a lot of aggression evident. Sparky noticed it, too, and turned to address the stranger. "How can I help you, friend?"

"I am not your friend, but you can help me." Said the dwarf. His nameplate read .

"It is very obnoxious to have you telling jokes when people's lives are on the line."

"But our lives are not on the line, I mean maybe a virtual one, but seriously, this is a game, we should have fun," Sparky replied.

Caisin seemed to tense at these words, "Fighting is always serious. And dying here is not a joke, I have a friend and I don't want to be separated from the one person I like here."

Lance glanced at his nameplate again, "Hey Caisin,"

Caisin turned to look at Lance.

"I noticed you do not have a God. Is there a reason for that?" Lance asked.

"What is that to...", Caisin cut off mid-sentence, "You don't have one either."

"Yeah, I am a believer. I am wondering if you worship the same God I do."

Caisin seemed to be thinking about his response, "We are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior."

Lance immediately noticed the reference to the first answer of the Heidelberg Catechism a sixteenth-century Christian confession. Lance responded in kind but from his own confession, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever."

Caisin grunted and nodded. "Good enough, got room for two more in your party?"

Lance nodded and sent an invite to Caisin which he accepted, then, Caisin suggested that Lance also add Lucinda of Shadows which he did, it took her a couple of seconds to accept.

Immediately Otis, Cletus, and Edie appeared. Across from them, a squat but powerful-looking Dwarf appeared. The dwarf began huffing and spitting until Lance thought he was going to pass out.

"What in tarnation is that," The dwarven assistant pointed directly at Otis. "And how did it get into my home!"

"Slow down there buddy." Caisin said. "We will get you some orders here in a moment. Until then stand down."

The small dwarf relaxed a bit, but it was obvious that he was not comfortable.

Edie waved at the dwarf, "Hi there Duke. Really Otis is not that bad, just not as pretty as you are." She winked at him.

The blush that spread over the dwarven assistant's face was epic, he was clearly trying to find somewhere to look besides the elf maiden.

"Really now," She continued, "he's a nice guy. His player has even joined this party."

Duke seemed to grab ahold of this thought and turned to face Otis, "This true greenie?"

"Yup," Otis replied, "And all the players seem to be some sort of pact to remain atheists but they are nice for sure."

The tiny dwarf looked up at Caisin, "You okay with this boss."

"I am, but it wouldn't hurt for you to keep your head on a swivel for now."

The tiny dwarf snapped a tight salute which Caisin returned.

"So," Caisin continued, "About Lucinda. An orc mage let loose a big AoE on our end of the fight and Lucinda went down. I am guessing she should be back in a few minutes now that the fight is over."

As the party walked into the inn, Lance sidled up next to Caisin. "Sparky is just a babe in the faith, go easy on him."

Caisin tensed for a moment but then nodded.

The party ordered drinks and lead their newest member to their normal table in the back.

Lance opened up the conversation. "Wow friends, God has been very gracious to us. Day two of the game and He has grown our little group to six souls. Some of you I have known about for some time and others I met just today. I think some brief introductions are in order."

Lance quickly introduced himself, Sparky, and Polly. Grog took a moment to introduce himself as well.

Suddenly the bartender yelled from across the room, "Hey, we don't serve your kind in here. Get out of my bar!" Clearly, he was addressing Grog. The big orc started getting up but Lance put a hand on his shoulder.

"Hang on friend," he said. "Cletus, Otis, you guys have anything that can help." The two assistants puffed into existence and looked at each other."

"Yes..." Otis said.

"But it goes against our better judgment.", Cletus finished.

Otis materialized a large tome, much like Cletus', and began flipping through the pages. "Any player can change their faction by asking any NPC bartender of the opposing faction to set their inn as the player's home. This will not entirely change the perception of the player in the new faction, and they will lose all reputation gained with their original faction."

Grog stood up, "Bartender?"

"What, are you still here?"

"Can you set my home to your inn?"

The bartender paused, "Yes, but I don't have to like it!"

Many of the players around the party grumbled as well. "Dirty orc" and "Stupid green skin" were heard all around, but Grog just ignored them.

Caisin nodded at Grog, "First let me say I like your style. I noticed you during the fight, but you were making such a noble stand for the Inn I just didn't know what to think, but now it makes sense to me. Glad to have you on the team."

Grog nodded back at the dwarf and smiled.

"So," Caisin said, "A little about me. I was stationed over in Taiwan when everything cut loose. I was the commander of Seal Team Six. The battle was, as you know, a success. But during the fighting, I took a bullet to my lower back and lost the use of my legs." Caisin spoke in clipped and precise words like he had memorized this paragraph so he could tell people and get it out of the way. "Short story, I wanted my legs back, the Veteran's Administration offered, so here I am. I love being back in the fight."

"Thanks for sharing, Caisin." Lance said, "You should be a great help to our team. I am leading the party in general, mostly because I have a Skill Orb that gives benefits to the whole group if I am leading. But tactics, I think you will need to lead us in that."

Caisin smiled and nodded. "Yeah, different sorts of weapons, but many of the things I learned at the Academy still apply. I would be glad to help."

As he was finishing up, a tall, sultry woman with black hair and leather to match faded out of the darkness next to the table.

"Hey Lucinda," Caisin said with a smile. "Meet the party." Caisin gave the new thief an extremely accurate recitation of how everyone in the party had introduced themselves and then opened his hands toward Lucinda.

She smiled and, with a southern lilt in her voice, said, "Hey everyone, Just a rich girl here who has given up on life and decided to try starting over away from the parents, family, and that sort of thing."

Hearing this made Lance sad, he knew that not everyone had great parents. He paused thinking about his own parents passing. He was sorry for someone who wanted to escape their family so badly that they would run away into a game like this. He paused again, isn't that kind of what he had done, his family had become a great point of pain for him and so he had run away. Lance set aside the thought for the moment realizing that this is something he would need to deal with later.

Looking up he noticed Grog doing his knightly greeting thing to Lucinda so he stood up and gave her a warm handshake as well. Sitting back in his seat Lance said, "I know that we are all new to each other here, but I am hoping that our bond in Christ is enough for you to listen to me."

Lance paused for a moment looking at each face. He then continued, "In the best times, the Christian church was known for their work ethic, their bravery, and especially for their love for each other and their neighbors. If we are going to have any real impact for our Lord in this place, we need to gain the respect of the people around us through hard work, charity, kindness, and by showing love to them. Christians who have accomplished this, even in pagan societies, have often had the friendship and admiration of those around them and a much more open door for evangelism. I think we were just handed a golden opportunity to do this today."

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Lance looked around the party again to see he had everyone's attention, then continued. "Assistants, what happens if we kill Borgakh?"

Otis appeared in the middle of the group and drew a thumb across his throat and fell over as if dead.

Cletus appeared next to him, looked with spite but also a bit of humor at Otis, and said, "If you kill her, she dies." He shrugged.

Duke and Edie appeared as well but seemed to have nothing to add.

"No, I mean, if she dies, does she come back."

The four assistants put their heads together and began whispering, and pointing at things in their books, argued for a couple of seconds, and then they all nodded.

Edie replied firmly, "No, she is what we call a unique AI. If you kill her, the god Dajixian will generate a new priest or priestess to take her place. It would take about a week for the new one to arrive, and they would be different than Borgakh.

Lance turned to his companions and said in a low and conspiratorial tone. "We are going to kill Borgakh priestess of Dajixian and see if we can't save this town."

"Wha," said Sparky.

"Gah," said Polly.

Grog and Caisin said "I'm in." at the same time.

Lucinda just sat there looking at Lance.

Sparky recovered and said, "Okay, I am cool with doing this. You don't think we are going to just march over through the orc town and right into the temple of Dajixian? Or do you plan on killing her in the middle of her army as she marches over here to burn our town again?"

"I don't know," Lance said, "we need a plan. I am sure that to even try this, we need to be max level for the starter area, level 10, I think, and we will likely need others to help us."

Lance turned to Grog, "I know we have barely met, but can I ask you a big favor?"

Grog looked around in a comical way, "Oh, you mean me!" Grog smiled. "I actually think I am a step ahead of you."

"Really?" Lance replied.

"Joe has other guys he has worked with over the years and one of them decided it would be good if he investigated the enemy before he left the temple area. I have a meeting scheduled with him tonight. Actually I really should take off, I am going to need a nap first as I haven't slept yet."

"Wow," Joe said, "This is perfect."

Grog nodded, and headed toward the door. "I will find out everything he knows about Borgakh and the temple."

"Wait," Lance called after him, "I thought you were going to take a nap."

"I am once I get back to my camp. Juan is meeting me there in," Grog checked the time in his HUD. "Five hours."

After Grog had left, the party decided to call it a night. Lance got a room and headed upstairs.

As Lance ascended the stairs, he realized that he had forgotten about the box he found in the goblin sergeant's tent. Once inside his room, he locked the door. The chest was simple and had a weight and a presence about it. He moved his points between Wisdom and Intelligence as he poked, prodded, and rotated the box looking and feeling for any traps or buttons. There was an obvious latch and lid, but Lance did not always trust the obvious solution. But, eventually, he decided that obvious was the only way he could go and carefully lifted the latch and then the lid.

The box was ten inches wide and five deep. Standing open, it presented a cavity two inches deep. Nestled inside were a folded piece of paper and a finger-length glowing crystal. Leaving the crystal in the box, he carefully extracted the note and opened it.

The paper was covered in arcane-looking symbols neatly written. As he continued to stare at the letters, some of the idiosyncrasies began to drop away and they began to form words. This was not some arcane language but an extremely flowery form of the ancient Greek language. Lance had spent five semesters studying Greek, he was far from being an expert, but he did feel comfortable reading the language. Like most ancient languages there were no spaces between the words so it felt strange to read it but his eye was quick to identify word endings which made it easier to decipher the message. This was a slightly more formal Greek than what he had studied, and some of the words were foreign to him, but this is what he could make out.

The time has come and we are calling on you to uphold your end of the _______. Meet us at the entrance and bring the crystal. Deliver the item, move the stone for us, and your ______ will be met and our _____ will be at an end.

He figured that the words he did not know had something to do with a contract or an agreement.

Yup, he was sure that was the missing word now.

Lance picked up the crystal, and held it in his hand. No warmth but it did glow with a soft white light. It had no writing on it, but it was clearly a finely crafted item. It widened a little at one end, and the sides of the crystal were not all the same length making it look a little lopsided.

Lance carefully placed all of the items back into the chest, closed it, and returned it to his inventory.

It was still reasonably early, so Lance popped into his offline home and made a few personal calls. First up was Joe.

"Hey, Joe."

"Hey Lance, how are you doing?"

"You know, it is very easy to forget about everything that is going on in the 'real' world. Things are getting a bit crazy in here. Any updates?" Lance replied.

"Lots of stuff going on." Joe said, "People coming out of the game are still about the same, every case is different, but overall it is not changing much. Fantasy Mainline has released a statement apologizing to their customers and their families. Overall it was a pretty cold statement, and people think that the lawyers wrote it. There has been some talk of Google or Apple stepping in and buying the company, but no one is sure what would happen if they did. Basically, they would be buying the lives of tens of thousands of people.

"No new people are being allowed to enter the game, even from the prisons, until everyone knows more. This, of course, is cutting off Fantasy Mainline's income. I don't think that this company can last long. With so many lives at stake, this is a big deal."

"Yeah," Lance said, "this is a big deal. Are there any plans being discussed beyond Google and Apple?"

"Yes, some are talking about a federal government conservatorship." Joe stated flatly, "Some growing conspiracy theories argue that this is what was planned all along."

"Sounds about right." Lance smiled back at Joe. Both of them had indulged in some light conspiracy theories over the years. "What about the lawsuit?"

"Oh yeah, with all the news about the state of the company I almost forgot," Joe continued, "The judge ruled in favor of the injunction. The code that restricts the use of religious language is supposed to be removed in the next few days, and they are adding religious texts as droppable loot, whatever that means. To accomplish this change they are going to need to reboot the game, this means you will be forced into your offline home for a time as it is a significant update to make these changes."

"Oh wow, this is great news, Joe! Did the lawsuit mention anything about being forced to choose a god to get some in-game features?"

"Not this one, but the same group is readying a second injunction on that point as well. But they are apparently not sure how to ask for relief. These folks are Christians and don't want some in-game representation of Jesus asking for worship, which would be an abomination. They are seeking suggestions on how this could be phrased."

Lance was thoughtful for a moment. "The first part is easy. They just need to allow those who have not chosen a god to progress past the 10th level. The second problem is stickier. Each of the nine gods here gives different perks if you follow them, but they also have different requirements to be considered faithful. We would want our own distinct rules, but how would the game know if someone was being faithful? It feels weird to require prayer in certain forms. I suppose some Catholics would accept that, but I wouldn't."

Lance thought for a little longer. "Maybe this could work as an interim solution. The listing for one of the Gods reads this way, 'Jearian - Neutral Good - God of Men - Jearian doesn’t ask much of his followers but also does not give that much either. Basic healing spells as you progress and some solid mapping spells.' This seems like it would be a good starting point as we consider what this should look like, and it should be easy to implement."

"Yeah," Joe replied, "This is a weird thing. God doesn't allow any representation of himself, and yet we are now talking about making stuff up about how He is represented in a game and adding him to a pantheon of very pagan gods."

Lance was thoughtful for several seconds, then nodded his head, "Agreed, this is not the best thing. I think the best solution is that the gods just go away, and people can just worship and live as they choose. But I think that may be a hard sell. Lots of people expect a pantheon of gods in any fantasy system and it is actually a very large part of this game. So, maybe there should not be any representation of God or Jesus in the game. Maybe we should just have those perks without needing to choose a god. The early believers rejected the Roman Pantheon and were considered atheists for it. Maybe the same would work here as well."

"Hmm," Joe began, "I like that a whole lot better. I will add that as a comment on their website. Lots of people are praying for you out here; your friends at the seminary send their greetings."

"Let them know that I appreciate their prayers, and ask them to pray for Caisin, Lucinda, Grog or Wayne, Polly, and Sparky as well. That is the group of Christians that has bonded together here."

"Will do, buddy. I am still hoping to see you out here sometime soon."

Lance nodded, "I am still considering it, but there is real work to accomplish here, Joe, and I am feeling that the call for me to stay and minister here is getting stronger, not weaker. Can I ask you for help on something?"

"Depends on what it is," Joe replied.

Would you be willing to take calls from others in my group? I am not a pastor, but they need one."

Joe thought for a moment. "Yeah, it is a lot easier not to need to enter into the prison to minister as often. It will save me some time each week if I can meet with Wayne, er, Grog, and other inmates this way instead of going to the prison. Another guy who I was ministering to also chose to enter the game earlier today, so that clears even more time. Can I send him your way as well?"

"You mean Juan?"

Joe looked a little shocked then realized, "Oh, I let Grog know about him and so he told you guys. I am used to the two of you not knowing each other. Kind of strange."

Lance continued, "Grog met with him last night, he may actually be able to help us out a lot. How mature of a believer is he?"

Joe thought for a second, "He has been studying the word faithfully for over twenty years. Why do you ask?"

Lance smiled, "Next time you talk to him can you make sure he is solid on the basics of just war theory, especially the stuff about deception?"

Joe smiled back, "Okay, now you have me curious, what has been going on in this game of yours anyway?"

Lance spent the next hour bringing Joe up to speed.

Once he was done, he turned his focus on Cletus.

"Hey Cletus, why didn't you tell me I could change my name like Grog did?"

"First, you didn’t ask. And, second, I thought you had a cool name."

"How is the name ‘Lance’ a cool name?"

"You know, knights, jousting, that sort of thing."

"Oh." Lance had never thought about his name that way. "If I were a fighter and seeking to be a knight, that may be cool, but you not telling me is very not cool."

"I am set on three, way too low for any meaningful interactions. You want to dance with me, bro? You gotta turn up the music."

Lance accessed his HUD and found the setting. It went to 11. He shook his head, "Enough already with the cheesy twentieth-century references." But he was curious, so he turned the dial all the way up.

Cletus, who had been sitting on the bed in front of Lance, absolutely went wild. He hovered over the bed with each limb and every hair on his entire body standing straight out. A hum, like that of an old-fashioned microphone that was too close to a speaker, exited his mouth. Then it began.

"Ladieeees and Gentlemen, have we got a show for you tonight! What’s that behind our hero?!?! Oh, it’s just a fly. But it could be more…."

Lance quickly dialed it down to eight.

"Whew!" Never been to eleven before! That was kind of fun.

"Yeah, no. We are not going there. That would drive me nuts. What will it be like here at eight?"

"More commentary, more sass, more Cletus baby!"

"Will that commentary include an awareness of my surroundings and warnings?"

"Yup, but we will be skipping the flies." Cletus winked and smiled.

"Okay, you are on probation for now, we can go back to three still you know."

"And miss all the fun? No chance."

Lance laughed then realized he was tired so he climbed under the covers of his insanely comfortable bed.

"Good night, Cletus."

"G’Night."