Well, I didn’t want to get shot again, so I pulled my sword and shield, and ran full speed ahead. Three of the six goblins nocked arrows, and let them loose.

I could see now that, on top of being little green men, they were all kitted out pretty well. Each one had bones arrayed in little rows on their chest as armor, and rusty looking swords at their waists. The arrows looked sharp enough.

I had to run faster.

The world slowed. I heard a ‘whoosh’ sound that I later learned was the ability activation feedback for ‘Adrenaline Rush’. The arrows stopped about three or four feet from my face and floated in. I batted them aside with my shield and kept running. Probably saved my life.

The goblins glowed a deep red. By the time I got to the first one, they had all dimmed to a hot pink. I guessed that was the ability’s way of letting me know how much time I had left.

Not much.

I plunged my sword down into the chest of the first goblin. This close he was maybe only three and a half feet tall. A spray of blood shot out like a pin in a water balloon. I kept running and shoved him to the dirt.

The remaining goblins glowed a light pink.

I wretched my sword free, sending gore into the air, and lashed out at a goblin with a bow, slicing it right in half and opening his neck.

Then time returned to its normal free-rushing speed, and I was surrounded by four goblins. I couldn’t tell if that was bad or not.

It was bad.

An arrow grazed my neck, and two goblins stabbed me one after the other, sword points catching on the mail, but punching with surprising force into the muscle of my back. I spun and lashed out with my sword, knocking them back, but not doing much damage. Seeing an opening, I ran through them, and knocked one to the dirt. I then spun, and put the rest in front of me.

It was four-on-one. Their reach was shit, but my mail didn’t cover the lower parts of my legs and my boots weren’t armored either. If they shot me in the face, or nicked a femoral artery, I was super dead. Also that crossbow was a problem.

I raised my shield just in time for a crossbow bolt to punch halfway through it, sending a crack I could stick my finger through halfway down the face. Yeah it was a real problem.

What was that other ability I had, again? It was one thing to remember your abilities rolling at a table, and another when people were shooting at you.

I’d never been to boot camp. I’d never even been to LARP camp.

This was hard, man.

Crossbow guy started loading. Two goblins pulled what looked like pot lids for shields and advanced. Arrow goblin sent another my way that grazed my scalp.

Before I could decide my next move — a dagger flipped end over end through the air, gleaming with purple energy, and lodged itself into one side of the crossbow goblin’s head, sending brain matter and skull out the other side. I ran forward.

Bernadette leapt from the bushes and tackled arrow goblin, stabbing over and over. I swiped furiously at the two goblins with shields. They were surprisingly disciplined, covering for each other. I couldn’t find an opening. I just hammered them with blow after blow.

One shield fell apart. I crushed through the bone armor with a thrust, and he fell. The second shield goblin stabbed right through the flesh above my knee. Right below the hem of my chainmail.

I wheeled around on him, and lunged. My leg gave out and I fell to my good knee. His shield turned aside my feeble thrust.

Right, ‘Second Chance.’ I had that. How did I use it?

Bernadette slit his throat and pushed him to the dirt.

“You okay?” she asked, smiling wide with nervous adrenaline.

“No?”

I fainted.

By the time she was able to drag me into a sitting position, I heard the tail end of the victory music. Yeah. Victory music. It was catchy. So, I must have only been out for a second or two.

Bernadette wrapped the leg wound with white cloth.

“That was stupid,” she said, talking fast. “Always check your map! Other players can mark ambush points, and this was an old one. Looks like they’d just made a kill. Poor bastards.”

I glanced around. Among the bodies of the dead goblins were several humans: One armored in chainmail like mine, though with a green tabard. One wore robes. And the last wore something like the leather jerkin Bernie wore, but less fancy.

Were they adventurers like us? Was there anyone like us out here, or were they Non-Player Characters? Did that even exist in a world like this?

She ripped the crossbow bolt out of my shoulder, and I screamed.

I threatened to pass out again, my vision narrowing, but I kept my senses. She started wrapping my shoulder.

“Wounds heal quick for us,” she said. “Probably especially for you. You’ll have to check your character sheet. Infection is still a problem.”

“Thanks for all this,” I said.

“Didn’t really leave me much choice, huh?”

Bernadette pulled the bandage tight, then pushed something on her crystal slate. Wait. There was one on the ground too. It was a green color. Mine was blue, like the one she held.

A rush of euphoria washed over me. An itchy feeling twisted in my leg and shoulder.

“This skill works slightly better outside of battle, so maybe it’s good I used it now.”

“How low did I get? HP wise,” I asked.

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“Two,” she replied.

Bernie stood and started searching the bodies, starting with the dead adventurers. If that is what they were.

Two hit points. I had gotten down to 2 out of 18.

“Man,” I said. “I shouldn’t have tried to fight six on one, huh?”

“Twelve,” Bernie replied.

“No shit?”

“Six in the bushes too.”

“I would have been fucked.”

“Right in the ass!” Bernie replied. “Good thing I was here.”

I stood.

“You saved my life,” I tried to sound grateful, but it was hard considering how scared I was.

I almost died. If Bernadette hadn’t been there, I absolutely would have died.

I sat back down.

“You gonna help me loot these bodies?” she asked.

I grabbed my knees and rocked myself. Didn’t think people actually did that, but here I was.

This was too much. I didn’t want to be here. Fuck this fake ass fantasy shit, I wanted out.

“Oh, no,” she muttered and ran to me. “Hey,” she said, “Hey, Zach, freaking out is normal. Freaking out is fine.”

She hugged me. I didn’t cry. Much.

But damn was it nice to be held.

“You’re going to be fine, Zach. You’ll never be unprepared again. And I’m here, yeah? I’ve been here for a week, and I’ve already leveled twice.”

“Twice?”

“Yeah.”

I wiped my eyes.

“Did you cry?”

“Lots. I think it's adrenaline dump? Body doesn’t know what to do, so you cry.”

“Right.”

Bernadette’s eyes were an indescribable soft brown, and her smile was sweet. I stood and went to the first dead body.

When we found something that seemed useful, we tossed it into the pile she’d started. After a while we had quite the haul.

First was the stuff we got from the dead adventurers:

1 stationary and writing set in a small satchel.

1 wand.

1 spellbook

1 explorer’s backpack (various adventuring gear like torches)

1 set of chainmail

1 Longbow and a quiver of 12 arrows

1 longsword in a sheath

1 steel kite shield

2 handaxes

1 short sword

1 burglar’s pack (candles, a bell and string, and ball bearings and etc)

7 knives, two of which were long and well suited for combat.

3 tents

3 bedrolls

And finally, 11 packs of rations

Then there were the goblins which mostly had a bunch of junk like the bone armor and pot lids, as well as various gross trinkets like uncured animal parts and plants of dubious edibility. Their swords, more like large daggers for us, didn’t seem like they would hold up to rigorous use, and the bows didn’t look like they’d pack much of a punch.

The best we got off them were the throwing knives Bernie used to kill them, and a handful of coinage of various make.

And the crossbow. The crossbow was fancy. We found something like 9 unused bolts for it. Counting the one we dug out of my shoulder made 10.

“Yeah this crossbow has to be magic, based on how it punched through your armor. We’ll need to head back to town to get it identified.”

I looked at the huge pile of loot.

“Are we taking all of this too?”

Bernie shrugged

“Why not? Should all sell well. And some of it’s actually useful.”

She prodded the burglar’s pack with her foot.

“I mean, for you I guess. I don’t use stuff like this. Need to stay light on my feet. I’m in good shape, but not good enough to lug a fifty pound pack back to town, so take what you think you can carry. I’ll mostly keep the crossbow and daggers.”

I looked her up and down real quick. She was 4 foot 10 inches of black leather and a green cape, with daggers running down each leg. She had the good fighting ones looped into her belt. Her right hand had a big thick glove, almost like a workman’s glove, but with creamy leather, while the other one was a barely-there fingerless thing.

She’d gotten a haircut, a short pixie cut that kept the hair out of her face but also looked quite fetching with her pointy features. The leather also looked nice against her hips.

“Are you ogling me?” she asked.

“I mean, you look different.”

She laughed, and bent over to shove the wand and spellbook into her satchel. She settled the crossbow’s strap behind her back.

I swept my eyes across the bushes. The movement of the trees in the wind cast shadows that seemed to conjure goblins in the brush. On a second look they disappeared.

“The leather looks nice,” she said, “but doesn’t breathe well. It’s like a swamp up in here.”

“The chainmail isn’t as breathable as it looks either. Though, I guess more breathable with the hole in it.”

That got a laugh out of her.

I chuckled, and started going through the explorer’s pack to see what I wanted to keep, and what I could toss to make it lighter. I didn’t want to lug a fifty pound pack either, and I found this kind of mundane inventory work kept my mind from obsessing about those six goblins I hadn’t seen.

I tossed most of the torches. They were the heaviest. I kept the lighter of the two coils of rope, the silk one, and consolidated the water into one skin. After that, it was mostly eating utensils, and stuff that didn’t weigh much. I added some of the burglar’s pack and it still felt much lighter than it had.

The good weapons I took. The handaxes and short sword went into the pack. I strapped the longsword to the outside. It didn’t seem better or worse than mine. Could I use them both at once?

I had a flashback to the crossbow bolt that had nearly shattered my shield. That one was headed for my throat.

Probably best to just use the one sword at a time.

I swapped my broken shield for the metal one. I tested the longbow, but couldn’t get it back to full draw with much ease. Curse my 11 strength.

The chainmail, a hauberk, I wasn’t sure about. Once I got it off the man — no small feat — I realized it was about forty pounds rolled up and sized too large. No doubt, it fetched a pretty penny. But I was already exhausted, and the thought of adding it to my pack seemed like a bridge too far.

Last of it was the tent and bedrolls.

“How many of these do we need?” I asked.

Bernie had spent much of that time dragging the goblins into a pile.

“The tent or the bedrolls?” she asked, dropping the last one.

“Both.”

“Well,” she wiped her brow and sat on a fallen log, “the tent we could use. I’ve been running back to town each night. Don’t trust sleeping out here. But with a good tent we could travel farther. And we’d only need one bedroll.”

“Really?”

“Don’t get too excited,” she said smiling, “it’s ‘cuz we’d be sleeping in shifts. I don’t really like the idea of getting stabbed in my sleep.”

“I didn’t mean — that’s possible?”

She shrugged and gestured to the dead humans in the road.

“Right,” I agreed.

I strapped the bedroll to the bottom of the pack. The tent had its own satchel, which I affixed to the top. Together, it was about forty or so pounds distributed fairly evenly across my back.

I was pretty familiar with forty pounds from carrying water bottles to the break room.

The pack with the belt and the chainmail wasn’t too bad, but I didn’t want to carry much more than this.

“You ready?” Bernie asked.

“Yeah, I want to see what this town is about.”

Bernadette grunted her assent, grabbed one of the torches I’d left behind, lit it, and tossed it on the pile of goblins. Their clothes caught fire pretty easily, a fact I squirreled away for later.

“That’s sure to draw attention, so let's move before they show up.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Whatever nasty business this world has in store for us.”

We marched down the road, and toward town.