"Where did you get the arrows?" I asked.

Ashley pulled open the door to the hall. Bruce bounded out first. His claws clacked against the stone. He'd be one weird looking dog if his ears were longer.

"There was a general store," she said. "There wasn't much, but they had arrows."

"What else did they have?" I stole a look back toward the village. "Anything good?"

"Fishing nets," Bruce said. "Rope, and not much else. The bow they had looked like junk."

"Is there anything special about the classrooms on his hall?" I asked.

"The chemistry lab is across the hall," Bruce said. "There's two of them. The rest are just classrooms."

"Do you want to go one by one until we hit the end?" I asked.

"Just so you could get captured again?" Ashley did smile this time.

"We might be able to find something useful," I replied ignoring the comment. "Did you find anything else interesting while I had an audience with her majesty?"

"There was something weird with the walls," Bruce said.

"There's something weird about all of this," I said looking around.

"In there," Ashley corrected. "The wall it shared with the next room was odd. It was stone, but it wasn't. Like that plastic stuff they sell for landscaping that looks like rocks."

"Huh," my voice trailed off as I rolled through information around. "Want to check it out?"

"How about we come back after we get the key," Ashley said.

"You're not curious?" I asked.

"About?"

"All of this," I said waving a hand at the world in general. "The school and the other classrooms."

"You mean, am I wondering how I'm turning into an elf, your skin has started to get a red tint to it, and why Fuzzy-Wuzzy here has fur?" She finally stopped and looked at me. "I thought I was going crazy, and then I found you, and you think you're going crazy. Does that mean that I am, or that you are? Does a hallucination think that it's real? I could be in a car crash for all I know. This could be your weird nightmare acid-trip breathing in fumes from the janitors' closet. So, no, I don't care about a stupid wall. I want to get out of here and find someone who knows what the BLEEP is going on. Why can't I BLEEPING curse!?"

"Did you read-"

She snapped her attention to the goblin. "If the next words out of your mouth are 'the codex' I will play William Tell with your nose."

Bruce bobbed his head and stopped talking. He started to inspect the patterns in the stone floor. The process led him out of her line of sight.

"This feels real, or at least close enough. I don't know this place, or these people, but it doesn't feel like a dream. Yeah, I'm turning into a Felspawn, you're an elf, and minion is a goblin," I said.

"I'm not a minion," Bruce said.

"Not the point," I continued. "But this has its own logic going. Dreams don't work like that. The lounge turned into a market. That classroom was a village and I'm guessing the queen," I looked over to Ashley.

"Laura," she offered.

"Laura was a," I paused. "Queen bee?"

"I have arrows," she said. "No more puns."

"Do you see what I'm saying?" I asked. "Dreams don't stay on track like this. At least mine don't."

"That doesn't help my calm," her voice dropped to a whisper.

"Every game has rules," Bruce stepped between us as he spoke. "The codex said that this was all set in place to make the world run efficiently. Assigning classes, stats, and all that is a lot easier to handle."

"Okay," I said turning my attention to him. "What are you getting at?"

"Every rule has a loophole if you look hard enough," Bruce said with a smile.

"You want to cheat?" Ashley asked.

Bruce flinched. The smile faded, "no, never."

No one spoke.

"It's not cheating if we don't break the rules," he said as his smile returned.

"Bruce," I said.

"Yeah?"

"I have some experience with MMOs," I said stepping closer to him. "What happens when someone is found bending the system?"

"They get banned," his face dropped as his own words registered.

"I don't want to find out what that means now, do you?"

The goblin shook his head. I looked over to Ashley.

"We stick to the plan. Get the key from the Troll Jarl?"

She took a long breath and let it out. Ashley reached over her shoulder. An arrow snapped into her open hand. She looked at it for a moment before setting it into position on the bowstring.

"We'll have to take the long way with the market overrun," her voice was just above a whisper. "The door at the end of the hall doesn't connect with the main building. We can take the access road along the back of the building and up to the quest marker."

"Did you already say that?" I asked as we started continued down the hall.

"We got distracted," she replied without looking at me or Bruce. "You both know the plan if we get split up."

"Do you smell that?" Bruce asked.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I sniffed. There was a sweetness to the air like finding a stash of Halloween candy in April. Something about it wasn't quite right. The stale sugar mingled with something akin to swamp water.

"Cotton candy?" Ashley asked looking back at us.

A chorus of chuckles erupted from the shacks along the hall.

Clowns tumbled out of the shacks around us. We were completely surrounded.

The fresh infected still had some resemblance to what they had been before. A large portion were guards similar to the ones we had just dealt with. Zero stood in the middle of the hall where we were heading. The barricade on the market door had melted swathes that were still sizzling.

I had seen something like this before. My attention snapped back to Zero. A bright yellow flower was affixed to his chest. He stared right back at me studying my new form. His eyes met mine. A too-wide smile spread across his face. He barked out a shrill cackle that spurred his minions into action.

Something white and circular sailed through the air before me. It hit a clown that was in the middle of bouncing closer to me. I had just enough time to register that someone had just thrown a pie at me, and that the topping was now spreading across the minion it had hit.

I planted my left foot and sent my right hand into the stomach of another oncoming minion. It tumbled backward into a few others knocking them down like bowling pins. The clown and one other popped.

[Minion 2x – 400 XP]

I turned to intercept the clown that had tossed the pie. A solid clothesline across its chest knocked it flat. It pinwheeled along the floor before popping back up on its feet. Another pie appeared in its hand. I rushed forward, grabbed the hand holding it, and jerked it up into the clowns' face. The cream connected with a splat. Strands of topping wrapped around the clowns' head until its head was completely covered. It exploded into confetti a moment later.

[Minion – 200 XP]

Ashley was popping minions with a steady stream of arrows. Bruce was a blur of motion watching her back. Somewhere along the way he had picked up a curved sword that looked like the love child of a dagger and a scythe. Every minion that exploded into confetti was replaced a moment later.

A thought sparked in my head. Video game logic. Ashley was our DPS, Bruce was the support, and I was the tank. We needed a healer. Zero was going to throw waves of minions at us. He would probably hit us with an AOE attack or some debuffs to slow us down. It was a simple numbers game, we were going to lose eventually. I did not want to find out if we could respawn.

As a tank I need to pull aggro.

"I'm going after the big guy," I yelled as I sprinted toward Zero.

I dropped my shoulder and plowed through a few clowns that didn't see me coming.

[Sneak Attack Combo 3x – 450 XP]

Zero let out another long stream of shrill laughter. He puffed his chest out. A stream of bright green fluid squirted from his new flower. I hopped to the side. A shot of molten pain raced up my spine. My step faltered. I pulled my shoulder and managed to stumble into a roll. My tail curled up along my waist. I winced as raw patches brushed against my shirt under my armor. I needed to get in close to take him down, but that acid would be impossible to avoid.

Zero stared at me as he swayed in place. His smile spread almost the entire length of his jawline. The ground before him sizzled with every stray drop of acid from the flower on his chest. He put his hands up to his eyes and mimed crying.

"You're really getting on my nerves," I growled.

My feet kicked up a cloud of dust as I burst into motion. Zero let loose with another spray of acid. I dipped to my left, jumped over the spray to the right, and launched myself directly at him. My arm cocked back as I sailed through the air. The air felt hot around me. Light flickered in the corner of my vision. My fist smashed into the center of his shocked face. It was only after the punch connected that I realized that my hand was on fire.

The distraction took me out of the moment. I crashed into him sending us both sprawling to the ground. My hand wasn't on fire anymore. The heat had faded. It didn't even hurt. Movement ahead of me ended the inspection.

[Special Move Unlocked – Blazing Fist]

[1,500 XP]

[Level Up!]

[6,070/10,000]

Zero stumbled as he regained his feet. His starch white face was marred with the charred outline of my fist. I raised my fist to my lips and blew a wisp of smoke away as I stood. He tilted his head to the side studying me. I closed the short distance between us. A hard-straight kick to his stomach folded him nearly in half. I grabbed him by his waist, lifted him above my head, and slammed him back to the ground. It wasn't pretty, but all those years of watching professional wrestling were starting to pay off.

He bounced up to my eye level and exploded into a storm of confetti. The clown minions dropped to the ground in unison.

[Adversary Defeated 3,000 XP]

[Clown Plague Destroyed 1,000 XP Renown 50]

[Market Reclaimed 500 XP Renown 100]

[11,070/15,000]

[Level Up!]

[+1 Strength] [+1 Vitality] [+1 Agility]

[Advanced Class Unlocked at Level 5]

I could feel my body change as my stats increased. The armor around my shoulders stretched as my muscles grew. My tail felt more natural with the agility increase and the injuries I had sustained disappeared. I tapped my pocket and scrolled to my character sheet.

[Mason Yannick - Felspawn]

[Level 5 - Quick Brawler - XP: 11,070/15,000]

[Strength: 10]

[Vitality: 11]

[Agility: 15]

[Charisma: 10]

[Perception: 11]

[Will: 7]

[Renown: 350]

[Health: 50] [Mana: 20] [Energy: 60]

The inventory tab at the top of the tablet blinked. I tapped on it. A picture of me slowly rotated in the center of the screen. My skin now had a strong crimson undertone and a couple of nubs had appeared on my forehead. I gently touched the sprouts of horns. It didn't feel much different than before I had them. The horns were harder and somewhat pointed, but they weren't sensitive.

I turned my attention back to my tablet. The armor on my chest was flashing yellow.

[Studded Leather Armor - Medium]

[Durability: 8/20]

"It's official," Ashley said walking over to join me. "I hate clowns."

"And confetti," Bruce added.

"I could go a few months without seeing either," I said turning to look at them.

"Are they moving? Do you think we're going to have to finish them off?"

"Nah," Bruce said. "It looks like they're going back to normal."

"Did you guys level?"

"Yeah," Ashley said.

"Me too," Bruce replied. "You?"

"Level four," I answered. "I've got some horns now too."

"I noticed," Ashley said.

"Did you notice anything about me?" Bruce asked.

I turned to look at him. He stood straight with his hand on his hips. The fuzz on his ears was neatly trimmed. Altogether, it looked like he had been groomed.

"Yeah," I said slowly. "What's happened?"

"I am a High Goblin," he said proudly.

"Okay," I replied.

I looked to Ashley. She shrugged.

"Come on, guys," Bruce grumbled. "Even the claws on my feet are fancy."

"Have you looted yet?" I asked.

"No," Ashley answered. "I needed a breather."

I crouched and tapped the pile of confetti that had been Zero.

[Ring of Rebound]

[Immediately regain footing when knocked down]

[2x Per Encounter]

"Anything good?" Bruce asked.

"Magic ring," I said sliding it onto a finger.

The goblin huffed. He turned back toward the minions and started looting. Ashley joined him a moment later. I walked over to the spot where I had been fighting the clowns.

[Plague Essence 3x - Alchemy Ingredient]

[Clown Nose - Junk]

[Empty Pie Tin - Junk]

Our looting was interrupt by a sound ahead of us. I stepped to the front. Ashley took a spot to my left with an arrow at the ready. Bruce shifted to back and to my right. A steady click-scratch-ping grew louder with each passing moment.

"Do you see anything," I whispered.

"No," Ashley replied.

"There," Bruce said.

A metallic oval head bobbed into view. What I thought was a helmet turned out to be a head. It was maybe two feet tall. Metal that had been hammered into curved plates capped its shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees. Its hands and feet were bundles of thin strands of metal held together with rings that had pronounced weld lines.

"Is that a robot?" Ashley whispered.

The bot stopped at a polite distance and looked us over.

"Greetings," it said in a chipper voice. "You appear to be in need of rest and recuperation. My creator happily invites you to join him. Please follow me."

The bot turned and started to walk away.

"What should we do?" Bruce whispered.

"We were heading this way already," I replied at the same volume.

"I nominate Bruce if this creator needs a bride," Ashley said taking the lead.