“What’s the matter, tell me!”

Kell shakes his head. “We’ve got to grab some members and get out of here.”

“Why?”

“They’ll be after the scythe, Hero, and players know by now that the game is full-loot world pvp.”

Hero shakes his head. “Hell’s that mean?”

“It means that people are going to try to kill you if they can’t steal it first! Come on!” Kell smashes through the servant’s quarter’s doors, just to be met with a knife in the face.

“Missed me?” Scribe Ein asks, his stealth-camo fluctuating out the same second Clark shoves a full set of his daggers into Kell’s neck. They had been waiting for the perfect time.

Hero reaches for his scythe, but Kell has other plans.

In a blink, the cloaked, four-eyed mystery pulls from his person that flimsy strategy guide from before, tears at a page, and tosses it into the air.

“Get out of here, find people who will support you, and kill Exeranoth!” Kell yells as his static-screen, black and white media-blood spews from his multitude of wounds.

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In a flash, Kell and the two assailants disappear into nothingness, folding into the universe’s fabric like a turning page.

Hero is left alone with Bright-Solemn.

“…Pi?” Bright-Solemn asks, completely bewildered and shocked that Kell just got slit-on, but that it was completely slow to do anything about it.

Hero shakes his head. “We… We can’t do anything about that now,” he says, listening closely to the mass of footsteps approaching from the servant’s way, “Let’s go to the mountains, pick up some people from the town on the way.”

“…Pi… pipi,” Bright-Solemn says with enough sadness to melt the heart of even the strongest of foes.

At that, Hero leaps forward, putting his 2,320 DEX to good use as he lifts off from the stairway out into the streets of Eizerith.

With Bright-Solemn tracking fast behind, Hero leaps through the city blocks, moving at avian-dive speeds as he soars over the crowds of people. He peeks behind himself. Only now are the people from the keep reaching the outside, just in time to see him reach the treeline.

Hero opens up his map tab, as he moves, and spots that there’s a quaint town not too far away. Chances are news has not yet hit the place of the princess’ kidnapping and the quest for the scythe, so he should have the benefit of not being hunted at every turn.

In only minutes the first leg of his journey is complete, striking out from the treeline to the town with speed that rivals the gods.

Long watermills turn from the stream that runs through the town, a calm, if lively paradise unstricken with the evils of disease and raiders.

Hero nods. He’ll find his party here.

“Pipipi!” Bright-Solemn exclaims.

Hero also decides he’ll go ahead and set precedent. “I actually have no idea what you’re saying,” he says.

Bright-Solemn jolts back in the air. “PI?!”

Hero shrugs. “Sorry.”