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Info #67: While players are in the game, they do not feel the hunger or thirst, as well as the real body. To protect your health, we have set a limit of twenty-four hours of continuous play.

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Info #68: As soon as your time runs out: the player will be forcibly disconnected, without a protective system in the form of a tent or any other device right on the spot. In the "game" tab, you can check how much time you spent online. An hour before the shutdown, you will receive an alert.

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Blake dozed off and had another nightmare. There he sat bound in a dark temple. Metal columns and walls painted black surrounded it from all sides. On the right and left hand sat his comrades that tried to escape and cursed for all they were worth. Naked, pale, beaten. After a while, heavy footsteps rang through the hall. Someone was heading in their direction. Blake saw in front of him a creature under three meters tall with an elongated oval head. Instead of a face, it had one small star burning. It stretched out its hand, unclenched its fingers, and it released a sphere that hovered over its palm. Red-yellow color encircled its borders. The monster's long bony limbs touched the ball and it burst. Blake heard the heart-rending sound of his comrade. He was choking on blood and holding his chest, in the place where the heart was. Everyone screamed:

"Save us, save us!"

Blake was turning his head, did not know what to do, didn't want to hear anything. Comrades died one by one. In the end, only he was left, tearful and scared. The creature stood in front of him and looked at him, it did not breathe and did not speak. It reached for Blake's face, yet he couldn't move, couldn't turn away. In the next second, he lost his eye, which turned into a new sphere. The monster got up and put a new object under the folds of the gray hoodie and went into the darkness.

Blake opened his eyes and jumped off the bed. His body was drenched in a cold sweat, his breathing quickened. He went to the bathroom, ate some pills, took a shower, and decided not to wait another three hours before the general gathering and entered the VR pod and continued to play.

Ronnie came out of the tent and put it together. It was raining at night. Small drops trickled down the fallen leaves, branches, and huge tree roots. The soil turned black, soaked with water. The air cooled. The weather was chilly. The white moonlight was fading in the sky. The trunks of the Hessataule tree looked like an army of dark, silent colossuses before the battle. The branches intertwined with each other, creating a kind of magical web. Hills, rocks, trails - everything was hiding in a thick fog. Ronnie checked the map and realized where they were - the most dangerous part of Elgoreombdon. The thicket of Nugrilavan. AI reported that it was here the last time the keeper of the forest Lantavril took the lives of players. Even without it, hundreds of different dangerous creatures lived in these deserted places.

Barahu was sitting on guard at the owner's tent, jumping up and looking around from every rustle, which, by the way, was quite a lot. Groans and grunts were coming from the west, where, judging by the sounds, a stream flowed. To the north, Ronnie saw the eyes of an Illing – a wild cat-hunter the size of a rat, with yellow shiny eyes, a curious look, and pink dragon scales. Barahu barked and drove the beast away.

Ronnie had a couple of hours left before the rest of the party came online. He approached the dog and asked: “Want to hunt with me?” Barahu bared its teeth and growled. The sniper smiled and said: "I knew you wouldn't refuse me."

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The hunt ended with a Dyeiis - a half-cow half-squirrel. Ronnie gutted the carcass, threw the inedible entrails to Tina. He cleared the ground of leaves and any other flammable objects, laid out some stones in a circle, placed fallen branches in the center, and lit a fire. The risen phoenix, created by human hands, was blessed and great. Its sparks splashed into the darkness and disintegrated into an immeasurable pool of blackness. The heat of the flame warmed his hands, and its warmth gently touched his face. Ronnie picked up the last branch, the one that was thicker, and trimmed it creating a handmade spit and impaled the dead monster on the sharp end, and began roasting.

Latludious entered the game before sunrise. He came out of the tent and saw Ronnie:

"Don't you have anything better to do?" he asked.

"They say Dyeiis tastes like rabbit meat. Don't you want to try it?"

"No. I'll think over our route better."

Latludious looked at Barahu and saw the blood on his teeth. Ronnie picked up the bloody hunting knife from the ground, cleaned the blade, put it in the case on his belt bag, and started eating. The magician looked at him with disgust, could not resist, and asked:

"How is it? Does it taste like a rabbit?"

"No idea. I've never eaten rabbit meat."

While Ronnie was happily eating the carcass of the prey, the magician looked at the virtual map accompanied by the munching sounds. When the sniper finished eating, Latludious turned to him and said:

"I'll be brief. I don't want you to talk about the dragon for the next week."

Ronnie looked at the red flames disappearing during a strong gust of wind and rising again in all their pristine glory.

"It's a pity Ona hasn't returned to the game yet. Her flamethrower would have saved me a lot of time and effort."

"I'll decide what the other players should know."

Ronnie looked around at his feet and saw a couple of thin branches and reached for them, picked them up, and threw them into the fire. He was quiet for a while, feeling the incredulous look of the magician on him and answered:

"You're interesting people after all. You're saying that you kinda working for the greater future and trying to look all honorable and shit. While it's obvious that Top secret is ready to rip the throat of anyone from the Guild Alliances."

"The result justifies the means."

"Also, in order not to seem like such monsters, you created an illusion that I specifically dealt with the WildDron and his const party," said Ronnie, spat and smiled. "Although anyone from their group will confirm the opposite and blow your lies to smithereens."

"Wipe that grin off your face and do as you're told."

Half an hour later, the others returned to the game. While everyone was getting ready, Ronnie raised his head and watched through small gaps in the crowns as a flotilla of white destroyers emerged from the darkness and sailed along with the heavenly current to the east, where the first rays of dawn shone pink. The strange noises of unknown monsters were replaced by the disorganized and disorderly flight of birds. On the leafless branches of trees, white and blue eyes flashed from the depths of the darkness that one could only contemplate and immediately disappeared. Latludious lit a bonfire with a lighter and a fire element spell. They sat in a semicircle and listened:

"We can cover about 80 miles in one day. Since everyone, except me, is overloaded, we'll walk for three hours, then rest for an hour to save as many recovery elixirs as possible in case of battles, and so on until the evening. Then we'll all go offline and the next morning we'll get to the checkpoint."

The magician looked at the Sitting Bull and continued:

"About you. We have two options. The first one: I'll use a floating spell and carry you until I run out of mana. This means that if we meet a monster on the way, I'll be useless. The second option..." - Latludious paused and examined every one. "Faolandan will carry Sitting Bull since he has the most strength, I'll carry his backpack, and Ona will support the life of the wounded, pump him with painkillers and restoratives. In this case, we will suffer economic losses. We will discuss this issue now. Who thinks what?"

"Can we just kill him as he asks? And at the checkpoint, we'll replace the machine gunner with someone else," Ronnie said.

Faolandan jumped up and screamed so that drool flew out of his mouth:

"We don't leave our teammates behind!"

"This is a game, and he is a liability," Ronnie replied without looking up and threw a branch on the fire.

"Nobody asks you, moron. Okay?"

"Shut up, both of you," Latludious shouted. "Let's start voting. Who is in favor of the first option, raise your hands."

Nothing.

"Then it's decided."