“Soft reset,” said Tavish. “I can’t say it was unexpected, but it wasn’t ideal.” He checked the room. “Really? Just Kae and Fynn? We lost everyone else?”

“At least we know what we’re up against this time,” said Fynn. “We’ll hide the deaths as best we can for now and start again. There’s more ships.”

“I’m going to get a drink,” said Kaela, shuffling off behind the bar.

Tavish put his face in his hands. “Doing that run again would mean decoys.”

“You mean sacrifices,” Kaela said as she poured a beer. “You want one?”

“No thanks,” said Tavish. “And, yeah, sacrifices. Of a sort. They wouldn’t have a chance of getting past the coral. That’d be our job and their job would be to pull the sea dragon. If that would even be enough. Who says there’s just one? Maybe one spawns for each ship. Or for a set number of people. Who knows?”

Kaela poured some of her beer on the floor. “For the guys in the sea.” They sat there sadly for a moment, gathering their thoughts.

“Wait,” said Tavish, perking up. “The console said it was moving. Maybe it’s somewhere better now. Maybe this is just what we needed!”

Tavish threw a holographic display of the world map out for them to look at. It flickered and mentioned a pending update. Tavish ignored it. He measured out 5068 km west. “Yes. Yes.”

“That’s just a ferry and a two day’s walk,” said Kaela.

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“Aner to Port Frar by boat, then we grab some horses,” said Fynn. “Heck, if the rail is on schedule, we might be able to cut our walk in half.”

Tavish rubbed his hands together. “And it’s ground-based this time. We have the advantage there. No worries about sinking ships and drowning.”

“Or sacrifices,” offered Kaela.

“Yeah, or that,” said Tav.

“Your calendars acting weird?” asked Fynn. “Mine has the wrong date.”

Tav shrugged. “Probably just from the reset. Things will settle out soon. My XP gains have slowed a lot. It’s either the reset, or maybe it’s a holiday I forgot about.”

The three of them noted down the aberrations and got ready to head out and try the adventure again. Tav pushed open the door of the White Tavern into the city of Saer. He lost his voice at the sight.

“Oh what the actual fuck.” Kaela instinctively drew an arrow and nocked it.

Fynn put a hand on the hilt of his sword.

Tavish just walked forward, eyes sweeping over the devastation.

The city was all but leveled. It didn’t look like the work of a dragon. There were no scorch marks anywhere. Neither did it seem like something a player could have done. The buildings were all just collapsed. Sure, after the great battle with Raith and the Dryvrn the city hadn’t been in great shape, but they had pulled themselves back together. And now this.

They began to wander wordlessly through the streets. Anders Esplanade was entirely unrecognizable. The great inn was a pile of rubble and the canal had been rent apart, flooding the street, turning it into a massive river.

There were few people around, but when they saw Tavish they began to run towards him. They fell on their knees. “Where have you been?” “We needed you!” “Why?”

Tav was wide open and vulnerable, unable to comprehend what it was all about. Kaela grabbed the most coherent of the babbling bunch and pulled them to the side. “What happened here?” she asked.

“You don’t know?” the woman retorted. “It’s been like this.”

Fynn spun around at the strange words. “How long have we been gone?” he asked.

Tavish braced for the answer.

“At least three months,” the woman said, sobs catching up in her throat.

“We were gone four days,” said Tavish quietly.

“Three months,” the woman cried. “You abandoned us! Look what happened! You abandoned us!”