Sitting Bull was moving back to the southern part of the forest. Every now and then, his legs would fail him. Dry coniferous branches scratched his face and hands, but he found the will to continue. His left arm was gone. The skin turned black and merged with the darkness around. He passed through quicksand, climbed over ravines, and crossed a river, jumping from stone to stone.

His right leg went weak. He fell, and when he got up, he saw a strange spot about a hundred yards behind a tree, which disappeared in a flash. Sitting Bull crouched down, and wanted to get the bow and arrow, but he needed both hands to shoot. He walked stealthily, like a predator on the hunt, hiding behind bushes, looking behind his back. He saw no one, but the feeling of threat did not leave him. Blackened blood flowed from his mouth. He coughed. He was running out of time.

The Indian cursed and rushed forward without looking back, fell, got up and ran again. Internal organs were failing one by one. He could not breathe anymore. The curse was disfiguring him, killing him. When he fell again five hundred yards from the target, his leg failed. He crawled, grabbing for grass, branches, hummocks, for everything that came under his hand, pulled himself up.

When he got to the totem, the former color of Indian clothes disappeared behind lumps of stuck dirt. His eyes were blurry. His mouth tasted iron. There was blood under his nails. Thunder sounded in the sky. Rain was coming. Sitting Bull reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a grenade. I never thought I’d use it. He was about to pull out the pin when a shadow flashed a yard away from him. Its speed is definitely enough to change the trajectory. He put the small bomb in his breast pocket, but did not put it far away—and pulled an arrow out of his quiver.

“I won’t give up easily!” he shouted.

The shadow attacked from above. Sitting Bull reacted in time. He threw an arrow towards the enemy and it changed its trajectory in the air and landed on the ground and bounced to the side. The creature came out of the darkness, and the Indian saw it. It was not a player, although the structure of the body resembled that of a man. Around its neck, a red scarf fluttered in time with the gusts of wind. On its head was a dragon skull with twisted horns and wooden plaques. Purple-veined armor and ragged garbs covered its fragile, thin body. Blackness hid the face. Small skulls, black and ugly, hung on plancart’s plate skirt. Samurai pauldrons covered its shoulders. In its hands, it held a one-handed sword made of black steel.

Sitting Bull straightened the antennae of the grenade and clamped it under his chin, and prepared to pull out the pin with the thumb of his only working hand. Both froze. The Indian opened the HUD, there was still 5% left to the next level. The enemy looked strong.

“Tell me, how much experience can I get from this monster?”

“Based on the information in the bestiary, this monster is a doppelgänger variety. The last one killed brought 20% experience to the player at level 20.”

Sitting Bull looked at the enemy, calm and cold-blooded. It did not take any action, waited. It had no shortage of patience. No one knew what kind of surprise the opponent would present. The Indian felt his heart stop beating. He cursed and turned his head and looked towards the totem and back, hesitated for a couple of seconds and screamed and pulled the pin and made a false swing towards the monster, which jumped even further. My chance. Sitting Bull turned around and threw the grenade into the throbbing heart. There was an explosion. The dust flew in all directions. Smoke rose, in which the last thing he saw was the tip of a sword.

The members of the group, except Ronnie, froze for a second. They saw in the HUD that Sitting Bull had been disconnected. They swore like one.

Did he make it in time? Maenad wrote in the group chat.

I’m sure he succeeded. Latludious replied.

So let’s hurry, too. His sacrifice should not be in vain. Hang on, Maenad, we’re on target. Faolandan wrote and pointed the DP’s muzzle toward three dozen orcs.

***

Maenad stood in front of a vile, disgusting totem. It fixed its eye on her, watching, spying. The eyelids flapped every five seconds and did not open until the end. There was mockery, ridicule in its gaze. She showed it the middle finger, spat right into the pupil.

Small forest creatures ran through the trees from branch to branch. Midges flew to the only opening. There were no Orcs. The rotting body of the Alrawn (the name the AI gave to the creature that Ronnie killed) made her feel sick. Maenad covered her mouth with a scarf and sat down by the nest. There the chicks were chirping, huddled by the corpse of their mother. They did not understand why it was not moving anymore. They wanted to eat. Maenad, with tears in her eyes, fed them the first thing that came to her hand. When the cubs finished eating, she took one of them in her arms and stroked it. It turned its face towards her.

“No, no, no,” she screamed, her arms weak. A little more and the chick would have fallen to the ground.

Maenad put it down and examined the others. There was a lump in her throat, her breathing quickened.

“They are all cursed...” she said, pausing after each word and recoiled back and covered her mouth with her palm.

Maenad moved them to a safe distance and took out her weapon, adjusted the thickness of the fire jet and, with an angry scream and shout, tried to turn the totem into ashes. The eye twitched, fire engulfed it, a shrill squeak sounded in the clearing, it melted, spread like wax. The flame, strong and bright, danced, rushed to the heavens. Sparks swirled. More and more flashes appeared. The fire flowed and trembled. Ten minutes later, there was nothing left in place of the totem, except for an enormous mark on the ground. Similar to those on the trees.

The symbol lit up with red fire. The wind picked up. Cursed earth was sticking to each other in wet lumps. The totem recovered. Maenad pulled the trigger of the flamethrower and the holy fire shone and stretched to the heavens and danced and spun, but at the end of the fire show, five minutes later, everything returned to how it was.

***

Ronnie moved sped up under the cover of the closed crowns of the trees, which the light had no chance to penetrate. His route passed through a windfall, a real forest cemetery, where instead of tombstones there was an old deadfall overgrown with moss. The trees that were lucky enough not to decompose in the ground were all dry with stripped bark and cracked, leaning from side to side. Weather anomaly... happened a long time ago… After passing through the thicket of shrubs and young growth, he came to the edge of the forest and crossed a small river and found himself in the eastern part of the forest in the valley of the Gorthad tumuli.

There were spirits flying behind the trees, wolves climbed the hills and howled. Most of the burial mounds did not differ from the forest hills, but in some there was clearly an entrance and a stone slab with a pointer and an inscription. Ronnie thought that maybe an entire civilization had flourished here before and wondered what had become of it. He walked on the bumpy ground, bypassed ravines, pits and black, bottomless chasms. Monsters in the area did not attack him.

Half a mile later, when the mounds were left behind, the plain stretched ahead, empty and lifeless, with burnt trees of gigantic proportions. On the way, he saw several stone and destroyed gates leading to nowhere. A little further, he met monuments of tarnished gold dedicated either to noble warriors or to the kings of that era. In their hands, they had long swords covered with runic-like signs. Hair and long cloaks froze in the moment and seemed to develop in an imperceptible gust of wind. They stood with a formidable and majestic look, touched only by Mother nature. With every step forward, the air in this place became eerily cold. Each exhalation released steam from his mouth.

Ronnie stopped in front of a fork. One road went into the depths of the forest, where there were houses on trees and dilapidated wooden stairs. The second, according to the map, to the totem. He marked this place and continued the mission. Ten minutes later, he saw a new monument left by the ancient people. On a rocky hill just to the west, a sword the size of an enormous tower stuck in the ground.

After a while, Ronnie entered the abandoned park and took out the binoculars and looked around. The cursed totem was located among black and purple trees, huge as the Tower of Babel and beautiful as the serene twilight. Their leaves seemed to absorb daylight and shimmered with white fire. The space there was truly large-scale. Every nook and cranny was visible. The road was wide and smooth. Only here was a type of soil Ronnie had never met. The ground under his feet was like a volcanic firmament that had dried up hundreds of years ago. Only soft, and the cracks rather resembled semicircular patterns.

Besides the totem, there were three dozen orcs two hundred yards away. I’ll have to spend two magazines on such a horde, so there will be very few cartridges left for the dungeon. Damn. The creatures did not sleep; they stayed on lookout. Perhaps they were warned about the danger. Ronnie, through binoculars, saw at two o’clock behind small hills the black rib bones of something very large peeking out. He inadvertently wondered if it was all worth it? Sitting Bull—the only one he respected—was dead. Try for the sake of Maenad? Unlikely. Try for the sake of experience, for sure. There is a lot of experience here. Mana is oozing from everywhere. Even a strip of experience is slowly increasing. If I’ll kill them all, then the level will rise to the twenty-second.

“I’ll take my chances,” he said and spat.

Ronnie took the remote-controlled C4 explosive from the World War II era out of his backpack and hid it in the cracks and sat down about 60 yards away, behind a tree with a flat ground surface and took the Barrett off his shoulders and aimed. Getting the orcs to come closer is not a difficult thing, but because of the silencer, they will not immediately understand where they are shot from, well... Ronnie took off the silencer, put it back in his backpack, exhaled and fired the first shot. Took three lives at once. The second bullet did not take long. The Orcs twitched, turned around.

Meanwhile, Latludious was hoarding mana seven miles away from Ronnie and heard the heavy echo of the Barrett’s shots.

What are you doing? He asked in a group chat, but there was no answer.

Maenad also caught a sound that resembled thunder. She looked up into the gap. There, in the sky, storm clouds were sailing south. Her restless soul trembled with all its being, waiting for the hour when the rain would fall on the ground.

Ronnie killed three more orcs, giving priority to magicians. Restrained and deadly, he watched every movement, caught every rustle and cry. Despite the deafening sounds of gunfire, the enemy was confused. The rearguard warriors fired fireballs, water rays in all directions, but in vain. One orc created fog. Yet Ronnie’s memory never failed him. He knew who was standing where and fired one bullet after another and saw how the experience increased. The monsters screamed, hooted, and scattered.

“Fuck, they’ve never fought against firearms,” Ronnie said to himself and used “Furious Rhythm” and changed position at high speed, running across the road to the left and slightly forward to the enemy closer and put the silencer back on the rifle.

When the fog cleared, the orcs, frightened and stupid, were already hiding behind covers. They were shouting at each other, but Ronnie did not understand their language. He put the rifle on the root of a tree, lay down in a small hole nearby. If someone would attack him, then from four o’clock, where he set the explosives, he put the remote control next to him. He killed the last Orc magicians in the next five seconds. The remaining dozen blockheads noticed where he was shooting from and ran at breakneck speed toward him.

It was easy to kill the first three. The others disappeared from view. Ronnie used “Detection” to find everyone. As expected, five orcs with clubs and swords lit up behind him. He pressed a button on the remote and blew them up. Another orc, with two throwing axes in his hands, jumped at Ronnie’s head, but an oncoming bullet pierced his armor and tore his heart. The dead carcass of the enemy fell on him at the most opportune moment, when a barrage of arrows flew into the trench.

Backup?

The sniper cursed and threw the corpse away and took out the Stechkin’s pistol and laid one archer after another on the ground with two or three bullets. When it was over, he got out from behind the cover - a rifle on his back. Around the creaking of trees and silence. He walked over and examined a couple of orchish bodies. They died without fear in their hearts. Blood soaked the soil. As for the loot, nothing of value. Matafaires flew to the sounds of battle and assessed the situation from the branches of trees.

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When Ronnie was about to destroy the totem, he saw the last enemy next to it. He looked taller than the others, about 6.5 feet tall. A red tattoo covered his entire bald skull. Every muscle of inhuman size was visible on the bare torso. Chains hung around his legs and arms. Its death will just raise my level from 21 to 22. The right corner of Ronnie’s mouth lifted in a sinister grin. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. A warning flashed in the HUD: Increased pulse.

“Huh? Where did this guy come from?”

Ronnie slowed down, but kept his thoughts cool and put the pistol in the holster and with a lightning movement took the rifle off his shoulder and pointed the barrel of the Barrett and tried to shoot while standing. The Orc took out his flute and played. .50 BMG swept past the caster’s head. It bared its fangs and laughed. The warriors who died in battle had risen from the dead. They surrounded Ronnie on all sides. The pad of his index finger pulled the trigger with ease. The bullet hit the caster on the shoulder, leaving a minor wound. Shooting standing up is always a useless idea, he thought. The orc-caster stuck its finger into the wound, pulled out the stuck bullet and regenerated and burst into laughter and said something.

Ronnie squirmed. Its skin is like a ceramic plate. He decided to break through the enemy’s formation. Did not give up. A vertical crease formed between his eyebrows. He replayed in his head how many orcs he had killed, turned around in fear that the archers behind him had also raised. No. The least of them is on the right. He hung the Barrett behind his back, took out his gun and ran forward and fired non-stop. Bullets to the dead orcs turned out to be nothing. The effect of the “Furious Rhythm” is not over yet. Ronnie burst into the crowd, dodged the cutting and stabbing blows, tried to run as far as possible. Yet one orc still caught up with him. It kicked the sniper in the stomach, throwing him off balance, and swung his baton and hit him on the back. Ronnie fell, exhausted and helpless, closed his eyes, ready to accept his execution. The orcs took their time, howling and grunting, with their mouths open without lips.

Matafaire croaked on the branches in the voice of bloodthirsty cannibals. They did not differ from some medieval mad spectators sitting in the Colosseum and watching the bloody slaughter. They felt death and wanted to taste its fruits. Death to the sounds of hungry scavengers. Inglorious and stupid. Ronnie opened his eyes a crack and saw the shadow of a swinging club over his head. That’s the end.

The blade of the sword cut through the air, sucked the restless souls of the dead into a small purple crystal on the hilt. A strong wind had risen. The headless and emptied bodies of the orcs stood on two legs for a second and then fell to the ground and crushed Ronnie. He cursed and tried to get out from under the pile of corpses. Matafaire flew to his outstretched arms and started pecking at it and everyone else. He screamed, jerked out, and fired two nine-millimeter bullets at each brazen bird that caught his eye. Others instantly reacted and flew back to the branches. When Ronnie looked in the direction of the orc necromancer, he saw a humanoid monster resembling a doppelgänger from Otron next to it. Only this was different, not as shabby, full of strength. It stood and looked at Ronnie. The Orc broke into a smile.

The Doppelgänger pulled an arrow from its bosom and threw it at Ronnie’s feet.

“Is that Sitting Bull’s arrow?” he asked.

There was no response.

The Doppelgänger strode towards him, came up to an arm’s length. Ronnie felt the chill of his breath, even though he could not see its face. The monster pushed him slightly, and he took a couple of steps back and touched the bark of a tree and turned around and saw the cursed symbol activate. The fog engulfed Ronnie’s body. He became agitated, but his face did not change, still serious and angry. When the activation of the curse ended, nothing happened to him. The Doppelgänger pulled out an amulet from under its armor.

“The same as mine... only the color is a little different.”

Ronnie pulled out his amulet and saw how it glowed and sucked in the remnants of the magical mist. He looked at the Doppelgänger from under his brows. A sphere the size of a soccer ball appeared in the monster’s hands. It shimmered inside with a substance of a pungent red color. It held it out. Ronnie took a step forward and touched it. The sphere pulsed, trembled, and rose above the creature's palm, and then the glass cracked and magic particles flew out and spiraled around Ronnie and disappeared ten seconds later. An alert appeared in the HUD that his level had increased to 23, and the amount of experience was 43%. In the sniper’s head, the last second of Sitting Bull’s life flashed by with a brief memory. He nodded in agreement. The Doppelgänger came even closer and held out his amulet and leaned it against Ronnie’s amulet and wheezed and said something in a language that seemed to comprise only consonants. It pointed to its heart, and then to Ronnie’s heart. The Orc mage behind them laughed and clapped. The Doppelgänger took two steps back and pointed its finger at the totem and twirled it from left to right.

Ronnie put the pistol in its holster, adjusted the rifle and looked at the orc, who took out an amulet on a chain from its pocket and said: “ma c glvju grts hsdysa, bytw” and laughed. The monsters were looking at him. He was looking at them. Everyone had a look filled with anger and life. Ronnie spat dryly, confusion in his head. The Doppelgänger waved its head at him, speaking without words, telling him to go, and he walked away.

He sent a message to the group chat. The totem had been destroyed .

Everyone paid attention to Ronnie’s level. Latludious asked:

Who did you kill there that you got so much experience at once?

A huge orc with a flute in its hands.

Are you guys done? Maenad asked.

Latludious saw the message, tried to reply, but could not, was distracted by the enemies. Three orc spears aimed at his torso. He dodged a barrage of direct attacks the first time, then the second. He could continue indefinitely, thanks to the high reaction parameter, but ended the fun. The magician grabbed the first spear, pulled toward himself and pierced the orc behind his back, then twisted, deflected a blow from the right, released the shaft and tripped the enemy, who fell and a second later heard the crunch of its own neck vertebrae.

When Latludious faced against the last enemy, he saw in its eyes that it was not thinking of retreating. The orc growled and guffawed, drooling with rage.

“It’s nice to see that you don’t have an instinct for self-preservation,” he said.

The monster made five stabbing blows in a row. The magician playfully dodged each one of them, then shortened the distance, grabbed the orc by the elbow and broke its arm. Next blow landed with an elbow on the creature’s lower jaw. It, dumbfounded and angry, dropped the spear. Latludious continued the attack and put his right foot behind his opponent’s left, turned around with a sharp movement and dug his knee into the popliteal fossa of orc’s left leg. It fell to its knees, and he, standing behind it, grabbed its neck and with a sharp movement turned the monster’s head one hundred and eighty degrees and threw the corpse away from him with his foot and looked at the totem and took out a lighter and a fireball spun in his palms, which flew out no slower than a bullet and blew up its target.

I’m done, he finally wrote.

Tina and I have destroyed ours, Faolandan wrote. What will be the orders?

Maenad, try to burn the totem again.

Okay.

Maenad covered the eye with three C4 explosives and went to the chicks at a safe distance of fifty yards and, just in case, covered them with her body and said:

“You won’t stand a chance this time.”

The eye darted, looked up, down, to the sides and at her. Maenad pressed the button, and the totem shattered into splinters. Sand and smoke enveloped the clearing. She clutched her ears. The explosion was louder than she expected. The cubs were fine. When the woman bared her right arm, her eyes widened.

Maenad, did the curse break?

How are you feeling? Did we succeed?

She did not answer. She went to the place of the explosion. The mark pulsed the same as before.

Write something already.

Maybe the explosion hurt her?

Don’t know. Let’s wait for the report.

Maenad saw that her hand had already turned black. Veins swelled, lit up with purple fluorescent fire. She shivered. Nothing had changed. She fell to her knees and clutched her head, and started crying. After a couple of minutes, she pulled herself together and wrote to the group chat:

The curse did not break.

Shit. Faolandan, go to the totem where Sitting Bull was ASAP, make sure there are only ruins there.

I can’t believe it didn’t work. Latludious, my organs are shutting down. I’m dying.

Hold on! We’ll save you.

There is no salvation from this...

Don’t lose hope. I’m on my way.

As Faolandan and Barahu approached the southern totem, Maenad continued to write.

Help me, help me...

What’s the big deal? Ronnie wrote. You’re dying in the game, not in the real world.

You bastard! It’s all because of you. Because of your thirst for profit. Shit. I’m just dying in the game? That’s what you think? You jump to conclusions without knowing a fucking thing about the person! You don’t care about anybody but yourself. To me, the game is my life. Right now, my actual body is in an artificial life support capsule. I don’t move; I don’t eat; I don’t even breathe like a human being.

Latludious stood, surrounded by the broken orcs’ bodies. He watched the last branch on the dead ground burn. He cursed and spat.

What are you talking about? Faolandan wrote.

Guys, you wanted to know what I did in my real life and how I got the scars on my face? It’s time to write… In the past, I worked as a firefighter. I pulled animals and people out of the flames. But one day, when I was rescuing a girl from a house on fire, a beam crushed me. The girl escaped, and I burned alive with a broken spine. My team, my comrades and friends, pulled me out of there, but it was too late. Now the world of Guns and Magic is everything to me. A new realm. I can’t, like you, go offline and go for a walk in the park, watch TV. I can’t even communicate with people who come to visit me, only through virtual sessions in VR, but neither there nor in any other game there is so much emotion, realism... Outside the world of Thalack, it’s like I’m wandering through a dark and lifeless world of dreams. Here’s my story for you. Well, who won?

Sitting Bull... Latludious wrote a minute later.

Ronnie was standing, reading, not moving. He turned his head away as if he didn’t want to meet Maenad’s gaze, sighed and rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb and said:

“Fuck.”

Faolandan ran to the destination, stamina dropped to one.

The totem is destroyed, our tracker has made it. We should never have doubted him.

Ronnie looked back. The totem was about a mile away. The hand reached for the rifle. Matafaire croaked on the branch. He flinched. Several birds came down to him, stretched out their heads and looked into his eyes. He looked around. It felt like everyone in this neighborhood was watching him. Ronnie fixed the Barrett.

Latludious sat on the corpses of his enemies in the lotus position and thought, his hands were shaking, emotions were off the scale. Is the game really that cruel? Didn’t the developers come up with a way out? This can’t be happening. Where is the blunder? Where is the mistake? Suddenly, the magician’s face stopped showing any emotions. A side quest “Saving the forest from infection” appeared in his HUD. He got to his feet and wrote to the group chat.

We may not be able to save Maenad, but we have a chance to earn points for the guild and save the forest from further decomposition. You won’t like this plan, but we have no choice. I’ll use the last of my mana reserves and dig three firebreaks around the infected part of the forest. This will stop the spread of fire.

Maenad’s eyes widened, and she stopped breathing.

Did you fuck up the rest of your brain? Faolandan wrote. I won’t let her sacrifice herself.

Then she will die for nothing, Ronnie wrote.

He’s right, Latludious wrote. Maenad, it’s hard for me to ask you this, but…

I’ll do it, she wrote. On one condition. Faolandan, by all means, rush to me and take the Alrawn cubs. The curse also struck them, but maybe in the calm conditions of the laboratory in Varnasosto, you will find a way and save them. And also take all my things. Then you will return it.

Ronnie, Latludious, wrote to him in PM. After I use such a powerful spell, I will be exhausted. Run to me with all the elixirs and syringes that you have.

Roger.

Faolandan found himself at Maenad in twenty minutes. Her legs refused to hold her, wheezing, squeaking and moaning accompanied her breathing. He took her things, chicks and hugged her, kissed her on the cheek and walked away. She did not show reverse sympathy. Her face was white; the eyes were dry. She said nothing, did not even look at the trail.

Latludious rolled up his sleeves, touched the ground with two palms and drew a circle on the map and made an effort. The first moat appeared. A little more and he would have spat out his insides. At least the sensations were similar. He moved a few yards away and created a second moat. His head was spinning, his eyes turned black. “I’m going to get better now,” he told himself and went on, but it didn’t get better. He fell down and couldn’t move for about five minutes. When he recovered, he stood in front of the place where he planned to lay the third moat and looked at the number of endurance in the HUD—1.5 out of 10.

“I hope I won’t fucking die,” he said with a crazed face.

Ronnie ran to Latludious when he was one step away from death. The AI had already started counting down. Ten minutes later, Faolandan came with Barahu. The magician asked for a couple of minutes to “recover”, and when the trio headed for the exit from the forest, clouds of black smoke poured into the sky behind them. Flames spread, burning everything in their path. The clouds thickened. And the long-awaited rain had finally started.

“No lumberjack has ever conquered this forest...,” said Faolandan, “and Maenad did it, even at death’s door.”

Notification: Maenad disconnected.

“We’ll meet her in three days, on the other side of the mountains,” Latludious said with a stony expression on his face.

In the evening twilight, they came out of the forest with the look of the righteous, who lost their faith overnight. The last rays of the departing sun hid behind the endless mountain range of Orodrim Eoul in the west. Players in soldier’s uniform met them. Yet what they saw on the faces of their comrades was not joy at all.

Faolandan walked with his head down, panting. He tried to control his emotions, not to show his weakness and affection to anyone, but the feelings still made their way out. For the first time, he realized that feelings, especially those that excite a person, cannot be hidden in a long drawer. They would come to you, arise, burst like thunder in your head and would not subside, even in a dream, until everything became as before, back to normal. Only he understood that this would not happen. There was fear in his eyes and a mute question: what now? Thoughts kept getting lost in the innermost corners of the soul, sitting there with their legs clasped in their knees, like frightened little children. The events of that day were turning in his head: words that were left unsaid, decisions that could be changed. It was true to say that what happened could not be brought back, only feelings always prevailed over thinking.

Ronnie wrinkled his forehead as soon as someone called out to him. His hands were at his sides, and there was anger in his eyes. He looked at everyone from under his brows, answered with short and jerky phrases, often looked back at the forest. The words of the surrounding people mixed into one incomprehensible hum and hubbub. The body language of all three spoke for themselves.

Latludious held on. He answered everyone and everybody as much as possible, saying that everything was fine. When the time is right, you all will find out everything. His eyelids drooped, his voice was even, stable. When the mage tired the head of the local unit, an officer of the support squads—Illyseh, came just in time. He dispersed the crowd of players and provided all three with the best rooms, and did not bother with questions. The morning wore on. Their journey was not over yet. There was a long way ahead…