Kyle looked over the list of items one final time before stowing it in his inventory.

It’s amazing how much Kyle missed the little things when trapped in a virtual world. Like paper and pencil.

As Kyle discovered the world, he had taken notes by drafting private messages to people and intentionally never sending them; just updating the drafts as he took more notes. Each recipient represented a different category of notes.

But now that they had a paper mill, they had the luxury of actually writing things in physical space. The packing list Kyle had written was the first thing he made with actual paper and a long stick of charcoal. He embellished it with little swoops and elaborate bullets, just to prove he was free of the old restrictions of his in-game keyboard.

And making lists wasn’t the only use for paper. They originally built the paper mill so Kyle could write spell scrolls to teach his spells to other adepts. But there were other uses nobody had expected…

“Before we go,” Kyle asked the group, “Does anybody have any questions about their maps?”

“Yeah,” asked Aubrey. “When I switch it to ‘interior view’ mode, how come the minimap shows the inside of your house, but not mine?”

“The map you’ve got is a copy of my mini-map, in the state it was when I made the map item,” Kyle said. “I’ve never been in your house, so its interior won’t display.”

“I was in my house this morning,” said Tobungus, Aubrey’s self-proclaimed bodyguard. “And it’s still not showing up,”

“Yeah, I’m afraid nobody can add to their minimap unless they have the cartography skill,” Kyle said. Looking at the Jakarna made Kyle sort of wistful. He missed Lumen. He’d be useful in an expedition like this. He wished he could give Mia and Lumen minimaps too.

Then again, they might not need them. They might be half a continent away. What use would Kyle’s maps be then?

“Can we update them?” asked Dvorak. “Like, if we hand them to you?”

“Nope. Sorry,” Kyle said. “Anything currently in view would get added, but to fully copy my map, I’d need to make a new one. I brought a lot of paper with me, so I could do it in a dungeon or something if we need to.” Dvorak was back to his chipper self. Having “off time” seemed to do him a world of good. Kyle wished he could talk to Dvorak as a person instead of as a streamer. It wasn’t fair that he was under constant scrutiny.

At least, they all assumed he was under scrutiny. They still didn’t have any evidence of that besides Dvorak’s suspicions. Maybe nobody was watching Dvorak.

Or maybe thousands of people were watching Kyle, as well.

“So why did we need the paper mill for this?” Tobungus asked. “Didn’t we already have paper? In the Library?”

“The books came with the library for some reason; we didn’t craft those,” Kyle said. “I guess the designers didn’t want to gate spell creation behind a paper mill. Is that it? Any other questions?” Nobody else piped up, so Kyle assumed the other four people were fine. Then again, if poor little Avina had a question, she might not have the courage to ask it.

“Okay. I’ve got about eight spots we can check. Hopefully one of the places will have a ‘holy site’ in it. Let’s get you guys some spells, okay?”

The acolytes in the group all nodded, some more enthusiastically than others. Kyle had determined that if they were to be an NPC town, they’d need healers to take care of any people who came into town wounded or with some negative status condition. That meant getting their acolytes some spells. Kyle had rounded up all the Acolytes in town to lead an expedition to find one of those sites Aubrey had mentioned. Besides Aubrey’s Jakarna bodyguard, Kyle was the only non-acolyte in the group.

Dvorak started an audience-facing monologue questioning what god he wanted to be an acolyte of. (Spaghetti Monster? RNJesus? The designers?) Kyle still had a hard time believing that Dvorak was an acolyte. Dvorak refused to tell anybody his class right up until Kyle started gathering the group. Dvorak claimed he intended to pick adept but “his finger slipped”. Kyle suspected Dvorak did it intentionally because he wanted to heal himself when wounded. It’d be hard to keep up a bouncy, chipper face given how pain worked in this game.

Either that or Dvorak was lying about being an acolyte so he’d have an excuse to go on this expedition.

Kyle was tempted to check his list one last time, but resisted pulling it back out again. Everything was in order. He had a whole week of food. (Meat stew, amusingly. It wouldn’t spill in his digital inventory, and even stayed warm) He had a bunch of wood to build emergency walls. His axe, a metal pick, and a metal-tipped spear. His leather armor and iron-banded buckler, all at max durability. A few coils of cordweed rope. A wooden bucket. (Jacob insisted. Kyle relented.) A small pile of blank paper. Several full waterskins. A couple torches, already lit. Everything he could think of. He suspected the others were similarly equipped. And he wasn’t even close to his encumbrance limit.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Kyle nodded. “Okay, let’s head out. The first stop is going to be the white blob you see to the south-east. It can’t be natural. I think it might be a building; I’m not sure, I’ve never been close enough to see it. Lumen took me hunting near there once, but he didn’t have a minimap, so I don’t think he realized it was there.”

“Onward!” Dvorak shouted, spinning and hopping. “We’ve got a whole party of clerics! Nothing can possibly kill us!”

“We can’t heal yet, Dvorak,” Aubrey said.

“Well obviously. But that’s got to be the first spell they give us. Right? It’s got to be, right?” Dvorak’s face suddenly lit up. “Oh! Oh, a group of priests going to a ‘holy site!’ We’re on a pilgrimage! That makes us pilgrims, right? Do I get one of those hats with the buckles on it? I wonder if it would fit over my ears?”

Kyle smiled. A week or two ago, Dvorak’s prattle would have been annoying. But now, Kyle felt much kinder towards the little Lagotherre. By this point, Dvorak probably hated his prattle as much as Kyle did. “You’re not the one who needs something over your ears, Dvorak. We’re the ones who have to listen to you.” Kyle grinned.

“Of course! My apologies! Kyle-the-bland prefers stoic silence. Tell you what; you stand at the front, and I’ll stand at the back. Far enough away you can’t hear me. Unless I scream; I’ll stay close enough to scream at you. But only if a monster attacks, I promise.”

“Its okay, Dvorak. I’m just giving you a hard time.”

“What? Kyle teasing? Guys, on guard! This doppelganger’s about to lead us into a trap!”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “We go straight out the gate, past the fields and towards the south. After about three hours on the trail, we take a hard right and cross the river.”

“I know,” said Tobungus, smiling. “I’ve got a map.”

* * *

The journey was uneventful. Dvorak and Aubrey passed the time with a Kreyfa shooting competition. Most people in the town were practicing archery, and this seemed as good a time as any. Neither were nearly as good as Lumen, but they were getting better.

“Hey,” said Aubrey, after Dvorak scored an impressive hit, “Why did that one run straight into your arrow? It could have dodged the other way.”

“Kreyfas are dumb that way,” Dvorak said. “A little bird once told me that. Only he was actually a tiger.”

Kyle led the people off the trail and across the river at a part that seemed thinner. He led them in a windy, indirect path; using his minimap so consistently taught him to interpret the shading on the map. Kyle led them through thinner patches of woods and around steep hills to make the travel as easy as possible.

As they approached the white blob on the minimap, the people in Kyle’s group stopped suddenly.

“I guess that’s where we’re headed,” said Aubrey, pointing to the sky.

“Wait, where?” said Kyle, looking in the direction Aubrey pointed. “What do you mean?”

“That pillar of white light?” Aubrey said, pointing a little more emphatically.

“It’s kind of hard to miss,” said Dvorak. Avina nodded in agreement, looking in the same direction.

Tobungus shrugged. “I don’t see anything. I guess it appears for some people and not others?”

“Must be an Acolyte thing,” Kyle said.

“That means it’s probably a holy site!” said Dvorak excitedly. “Whoo! Finally, we get spells! Watch out Kyle-the-caster, you’re about to get some competition!”

Kyle looked in the same direction the acolytes were, regarding the empty sky thoughtfully. “I guess that’s how you’re supposed to find it. The pillar must appear to Acolytes if they get close. You could find them by wandering around, if you wander often enough.”

“Hah!” guffawed Dvorak. “I have a special sixth sense, shared only by a quarter of the population. And they said Acolyte was a bad choice!”

“Who said?” asked Aubrey.

“Well, I mean…” Dvorak scratched the back of his head. “I’m just assuming the viewers are biased against healery types…”

“Come on,” said Kyle, looking at his map. “It’s not far now.”

* * *

“There!” explained Aubrey. “I see it!” She pointed through the trees.

Kyle rushed forward a bit to get a clearer view. Just in sight, mostly obscured by the thick woods, was a tall spire made of white marbled stone in a clearing. As they got closer, Kyle could make out another two of the spires. As they broke through the edge of the trees, Kyle could see the structure fully.

The three spires were arranged as corners of a triangle. The space between them was floored with the same marbled stone, forming a platform nearly forty feet to a side, raised a foot or so out of the ground. At the center of the platform stood a small dias with an orb on top.

“That’s the thing the pillar of light’s centered on,” said Aubrey, pointing to the orb. “That’s got to be it. We’ve found a holy site.”

“Honestly, it looks like a trap,” said Kyle. “My gamer instincts are screaming ‘boss battle’. This place looks like an arena.”

“Maybe,” said Tobungus. “But we’re in a huge group here. We should be fine, right?”

“Ooh! Ooh! And I have potions!” Dvorak shouted, opening his inventory. He removed a bunch of clay flasks from his inventory.

“What do they do?” asked Tobungus, taking one.

“It’s a regeneration potion. Kind of. It heals five percent of your HP per minute. For… forty seconds.”

“Wait, what?” said Tobungus, looking skeptically at the flask.

“Look, it’s the best I can do, okay? I’m working with limited resources here.”

“Form parties,” Kyle said. “I know parties only go up to five people, but It’ll be useful to have three or four people who can see your health bar.”

They all started navigating menus. Kyle ended up with Avina, Dvorak, and a man who had selected the name “Raphael Brightmace.” He was one of the people Aubrey rescued from the pods on the far side of Crystopia. When he got to the crystal, he became a heavy roleplayer. It struck Kyle as unhealthy, but maybe forming a new identity was Raphael’s way of coping with the trauma of being killed twice. If so, who was Kyle to judge?

“Who’s going first?” asked Tobungus warily.

After a brief pause, Dvorak raised his hand, jumping up and down. “I’ll go! I’ll go! Pick me!”

Kyle looked at the rest of the group, and saw a few nods. Kyle nodded as well, and Dvorak whooped and hopped onto the platform.

“Here we go!” he babbled. “We’re going to get a spell! Look at the orb. So shiny! I wonder if I just touch it. Or do I get to take it with me? Maybe the dias just makes orbs, so everybody can have one…”

As Dvorak approached, the orb started glowing with a light green light. It lifted up from the dias, and rose slowly into the air. Dvorak stopped suddenly. “That’s strange. Is that a bad sign? I think that’s a bad sign.” He started taking a few steps back as the light grew in intensity. “Maybe… Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I’ve already done the ‘dying’ thing. No need to do it again. I could have-”

There was a bright flash of light, and Kyle shaded his eyes. When he lowered his hand, the orb was gone, and in its place, an angel floated majestically in the air.