“Hey, Phil? Phil, wake up—come on, bud.”

“Let’s hoist him up. Lucky catlike bastard.”

“Pen . . . I can’t believe it.”

“Our avatars are as heavy as the real thing,” I hear Xenophone say behind me. I feel wiry arms wound under mine, dragging me uphill on my feet.

“Oh, man,” Sage whimpers. “This is a nightmare.”

“Yeah,” Rainmaker sighs.

“Phil!? Phil!” that familiar voice rings out, this time unmistakably. My eyes flutter open and I see someone push out of the mob above. The lurid blue sky and the blinding white clouds that float across it blur my vision. But a few blinks clarify the approaching player—

Adelaide - lvl 1

100/100 HP

“Adelaide,” Xenophone says, “this is your brother?”

She takes me into a tight embrace, and I awaken fully enough to support my own weight, hugging her in turn.

“Ad,” I croak, “I’m sorry—”

“Oh, Phil,” she says, “ahem—don’t worry about it. Right now we’re focusing on getting back to Losthearth, okay?” And just like that, the warmth with which she embraced me cools, and her expression changes to that aloof, calculating look I remember so well. Her hazel eyes dart quickly away from mine and toward the mob, and her wavy hair rustles in the wind as she leads me on.

This is unmistakably my sister, and her universal model—same height as me, same features as in the nexus or marketplace or, of course, real life, although it’s been some time since I’ve seen her there. It’s just like her to have named her character after herself—not like anyone else would’ve taken “Adelaide”—but the rest is further confirmation, on top of the other ordinary faces I’ve seen, that we’re playing with our UMs rather than the avatars we customized when building our characters. And this is how she recognized me, too.

I notice she has a sword and shield on her back, a starter set identical to Xenophone’s, and as she leads me into the crowd, curious hums and cheers jump from the clamor.

“Cynythya,” Adelaide says, pulling me into an opening at the center of the mob where a coterie of composed players stands, fielding others’ questions or doling out supplies or seemingly flicking through their intuitive menus and writing messages. “This is my brother, Phil.”

Cynythya, who has a larger shield on her back, awakens from her IM trance and smiles at Adelaide, gasping at me exaggeratedly but cheerfully. “No way, your brother’s the centaur-slayer?” Her green eyes glint through dirty-blonde bangs. “Welcome! Your sister was so worried about you.”

I turn to Ad, who looks sheepish at this, and over her shoulder I see the rest of my assumed party filing in: Rainmaker, Crawdaddy, SageofStorms, Xenophone . . .

Xenophone is carrying a greatsword.

“Xe!” Cynythya shouts, hurrying toward him—only to stop in her tracks when she sees the sword. “Xe, what’s—. . . I thought?”

“I’m so sorry, Cyn,” Xenophone says, downcast. “That monster got him with a DOT effect. We ran out of potions on our way here. I tried to . . .”

Sage shoots me a sour glare.

“Oh—oh, no—okay. Alright. Just, please, plant his sword with the others’. He wouldn’t want us to waste a moment.” She seems to swallow a lump in her throat as her virtual voice falters before regaining part of her composed demeanor. I see a resemblance between her and Pendragoon like that between myself and Ad.

Xenophone hugs Cynythya for maybe an entire minute, and then with a shake of his head moves hesitantly to another gap in the mob centered around the flagpole. Scattered throughout this gap are planted swords—some with helmets or hats balanced atop them—and daggers, bows, spears, hammers, axes, rapiers; there are dozens of weapons gathered into this graveyard, where the dirt is dry and few tufts of grass grow. Xenophone’s party watches silently as he drives Pendragoon’s greatsword into the ground, tying a purple tunic around its hilt that flaps in the wind with the same rhythms as the crimson flag up above.

Tears are melting from Adelaide’s eyes—and, I realize, mine—and all I can think to do is pat her on the back.

“Move it, people! Out of our way!” a new voice shouts. We shimmy aside as another couple of armored parties wedge through the crowd to the center from the direction of Losthearth. The white spire at the edge of the city—it’s clear down here how broadly Losthearth sprawls and that it’s a bonafide city—and the Western mountainside beyond are turning orange and pink as the sun sets, their snowy faces blushing at this grim scene in the valley.

“Cynythya,” the muscular leader of this approaching group, DimensionZ, says, “we’ve got the goods. Everything okay?”

She looks at him pensively, unable to explain; he turns to see Xenophone’s group, without Pendragoon, turning away from the graveyard; and he drops a burlap sack he’s carrying onto the ground.

“God damn,” he says, squatting to pick up the sack but staying down there, staring at the trampled grass.

Cynythya pulls him up by an arm. “He saved lives. Let’s make sure they stay saved.”

While this loose group of de facto leaders, populous enough that I’m growing dizzy trying to keep track of them all, exchanges bad news and prepares for the evacuation to Losthearth, I look to see that my survivor’s tunic and survivor’s gear are almost depleted of durability from all the damage they’ve taken, but my Second Wind is nearly refreshed.

Adelaide and I seem to be lost in the same daze, scanning our IMs and our surroundings, where numerous parties are exchanging grievous words or joking impatiently or arguing amongst themselves; everyone is dressed in rustic leather armor and washed-out-colored clothes, torn and stained and disheveled by the day’s trials. Rather than the bands of merry adventurers one would expect to see thronging the world of a VRMMO, we look like a camp of medieval refugees.

“Phil,” Adelaide says, “I’m going to hand out potions and weapons. You’re welcome to join.” It sounds like she’s telling me to join.

“Uh, right,” I say, still distracted by the chaos.

“EVERYONE,” Cynythya shouts, apparently via the same ability Xenophone used, cutting through the clamor so that all of the disparate conversations of the mob trickle to silence and all eyes are fixed on her. She stands atop a stone. “Thank you. We appreciate your patience through this awful couple of hours, and ask that you continue to cooperate with us and follow our instructions—for the sake of all present. My party, alongside Xenophone’s and DimensionZ’s, will hand out provisions so that everyone has what they need to make it back to Losthearth. Please understand that provisions are still scarce—”

“Still fuckin’ scarce? We’ve been waiting all day for this shit!” a voice interjects from the crowd, followed by some enraged yeahs.

DimensionZ steps forward to add, with barely subdued rage, “Keep in mind, please, that we’re putting our lives on the line in order to keep everyone safe.”

Someone whines, “Give us some gear and we’ll keep ourselves safe!”

“Let’s get outta here!”

“Where’d that centaur come from!?”

“What’s going on!?”

“Actors paid by Mimmisoft!”

“Where are the beta testers?”

“I wanna go home!”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Tch.” Adelaide paces forward and shoves through the crowd to stand beside DimensionZ and Cynythya and, after clearing her throat and clasping her hands to her chest, bellows out,

“EVER-Y-ONE,

Please, quiet down! We’re all eager to leave!”

with the most serene expression, which softens into a smile and a nod at Cynythya. Apart from some continued muttering from far back in the crowd, this seems to have done the trick, and she continues to cast her twinkling gaze about the circle. Still a social butterfly.

“Thank you, Adelaide,” Cynythya resumes. “As I was saying—we’ll be handing out supplies according to the requests made to us throughout the day. If you feel ill-equipped, don’t worry; those of us who have experience on the battlefield will be dispersed throughout our ranks to escort you. The most vulnerable players will march in the center of the column, and we plan to surround them as completely as possible with experienced fighters.” As she explains, DimensionZ unfurls and holds a large, rough piece of parchment, and Xenophone sketches the formation described with a piece of charcoal. “Archers will be located intermittently on all sides in order to pick off any approaching threats. And overall, the evacuation should only take about forty-five minutes—when we reach the walls of Losthearth, the city guard will automatically open the gate to us, and their crossbowmen will assist in dealing with any monsters. Some players in the city have also agreed to contribute their arrows to our defense.”

This explanation of the plan pacifies the restless crowd for now, and Adelaide and a number of others, including Xenophone and DimensionZ and their respective parties, begin to move about the crowd to locate the players who’ve requested supplies. I'll help. It’s the least I could do to make up for . . .

“If you have any questions, please ask us individually. Thank you.” With this, Cynythya steps down and joins in the disbursement effort.

When I myself join—really just tagging alongside Ad and handing out potions of healing and endurance she removes from her inventory, I find myself trying to smile at the players we encounter, some of whom are teenagers or first-time gamers who, it becomes clear to me, are at a severe disadvantage in defending themselves—thus our communal effort. Some meet my forced smile with their own, and congratulate me on my surviving the centaur; some scowl as if it were offensive to inject any levity into this nightmare, which seems to strike me as sensible, as my smile drops also into a scowl in these cases. Among the less downtrodden players, Adelaide is widely recognized—someone knows her by name from each group, and her presence elicits smiles—a young girl tells her she’s “the best” for bringing her a potion. Even those scowlers sigh on her approach, and it’s as if she’s been selected to deal with the least cooperative of the entire mob. So we move about the camp, making deliveries to at least six different parties and some unpartied bundles before the leaders start to move everyone into marching formation, having cleared a wide section of the barrier on the opposite side of the hill to where I entered. Parties in Last Advent have a maximum of five players, so the formation comprises rows of seven; this way, an entire vulnerable party may be shielded by competent players on the flanks. As we navigate the crowd, I wonder if I’ll see MercuryPoisonin—I look out for her green hair and graceful gait—but my encounter with her seems a world away from this mess.

When I stagger between bodies or pause in thought, Ad tugs imperiously on my wrist; she won’t loosen her grip as she pulls me toward the front of the column, where Cynythya and the others are finalizing their plan.

“Hey, Ad . . .”

She doesn’t even turn her head.

“Hey!” I jerk my wrist from her hand, and she looks at me bitterly before turning sullen, avoiding eye contact.

“Sorry,” she says, “but there’s really no time to talk. Just follow my lead for now, okay?”

I’ve spent every single moment in this game, other than my nature walk to the precipice where I glimpsed Losthearth, being chased or led or carried; and all along, it was my sole and earnest goal to find my sister and keep her safe until the end of this—whatever this scenario turns out to be. And now here she is, pulling me around like it’s her job to protect her older brother and not the other way around.

“Ad, I . . . y’know what? No. Talk to me a second.”

She rolls her eyes. “Look, I didn’t think our reunion was going to turn into a horror movie, but here we are.”

“I didn’t know this would happen!”

She freezes, sighs. “Of course not. I’m not really sure I know what’s happening. But I’m really, really glad you’re okay.” Another glimmer of warmth before she commands, “We need to help out here. Now.”

“. . . Do we? Should we trust the people in charge here?” Maybe I’m just picking a fight, but I feel trapped.

“Uh, yes—we do. And ‘the people in charge’ have been working to gather all of these lost players, including you, for a safe journey back. I’ve been helping them since I logged on and couldn’t find you.”

She’s been helping this whole time? I assumed that, like me, she was saved from a desperate situation; but she’s been helping others, while I’ve barely been able to help myself. I feel so powerless I could scream—but as I try to keep myself from lashing out at her during this reunion, whatever the circumstances, another feeling gnaws at me that I can’t decipher. “I . . . I don’t have a good feeling about this, Adelaide. Let’s just go back together, now.” I say this as calmly as possible, and inadvertently in a cadence like our dad’s.

I grab her wrist as she’d grabbed mine, and her cold hazel eyes squint at me before throwing my hand off. “Guess there’s a reason we don’t stay in touch—Philip,” she says.

What’s this dread? I fought two lvl 2 gnolls in the forest, far from the main safe zone—which was too much for me, but surely, by some developer’s calculation, “balanced.” Even that big vulture I saw left me alone since I didn’t provoke it. But even though I’m lvl 1,

Adelaide jostles my shoulder. “At least follow us—I can’t trust you to stay out of danger.”

I was ambushed by a dozen goblins, including two lvl 3s. And while we’re approaching the safe zone in Losthearth, monsters continue to spawn like crazy, and a lvl 7 centaur . . .

“Phil! Focus!”

She pulls me out of my nervous reverie as the column begins to orient toward the wide, dusty road at the foot of the hill that leads to Losthearth.

“Fine. I still owe Xenophone and the others—so I’ll see how I can help his party out. Let’s stay close.”

She clicks her tongue again. “Sounds good! Don’t know why you had to put up a fight in the first place . . .”

Hell yeah there’s a reason we don’t stay in touch.

When we regroup with the organizers of the evacuation, now on the move and delegating each other to different positions in the column, Cynythya perks up at seeing Adelaide, and Xenophone smirks at me and nods.

“Adelaide! Great,” Cynythya says, “I want you and your brother three rows from the top, toward the middle of the column, if you don’t mind.”

“I think that’s a good place for Phil, but I wouldn’t even mind marching in the vanguard,” Adelaide says.

“You are not marching in front,” I cut in. “If anything, I’ll march in front, and Adelaide can take the spot three rows back.”

Cynythya looks nervously back and forth at us. “Well, there’s nobody officially in charge here, but I think the front’s all covered—the spots I have in mind will keep you near the front of the charge and within earshot of us,”—she gestures at Xenophone— “but not so exposed.”

Ad and I glare at each other.

“Fine,” we say, simultaneously.

“Siblings, indeed,” Xenophone says, patting my shoulder. “I will also be near the front, my friend, so we can continue to work as a team.” His look is the opposite of Sage’s disdainful one—one of gratitude, even, however stained with melancholy.

As the column of players pours onto the road, I check my IM map to see we’re leaving Polgarth’s Prospect, an in-game landmark for whatever reason—lore can wait—and stepping onto the Lost Road, which runs west to the city. Much of the rest of the valley is outlined only vaguely against a warm parchment background, confirming for me that the map auto-fills with detail and landmarks as one explores. Even regarding the filled-in areas, it’s more convenient to navigate by gazing around, since the valley’s so clear—but I do recall there being a cartographer trade. My interest in discovering all of the game’s features the city will introduce almost distracts me from my perceived gravity of the situation, and I wonder, as I have been constantly made to wonder, if I can log out now. I stare at my hands as one does when they suspect they're dreaming. I feel my virtual heartbeat. I could, maybe, opt out of this mass hallucination before my mind is irrevocably lost.

[Log Out]

“Phil,” Ad says, nudging me, “Let’s keep moving. You’ll stop up your entire line.”

“Right, right,” I say, “my bad.”

We trudge on in silence. The Lost Road ambles through the fields and between the hills, its wide surface worn by wagon wheels, horse hooves, and pairs and pairs of boots. If that wear is simulated—hard-coded into the world of Last Advent, or routinely created by NPC traffic—we are about to render it real with our own march. My eyes dance down the road to Losthearth’s bone-white brick walls, braced, reinforced, and expanded with segments of rough cobble and massive, rough-cut gray stone bricks. Irregularly adjoining the wall on the other side, along the battlements, are towers of red brick and amber-brown planks and beams. These stand atop the monochrome ancient bricks like a fresh layer of sediment, and beyond, where brick chimneys exhale hazy plumes and tile-roofed buildings climb the hilly terrain toward the ivory castle at the city’s edge, pushcarts and wagons and pedestrians wend along the roads. A river I hadn’t noticed snakes between the nearest mountains, coils around the castle walls, and stretches through the city itself before running out under the city walls to the south. Terraces along the river are rife with luxuriant crops. The city looks to be a place of nourishment, whereas this pasture reeks of danger and death.

bawooooooooo!

“Friends!” Xenophone shouts from the vanguard, “Stay in formation! Keep pace!”

Disorderly voices domino from the back of the column to the front. Adelaide turns her head to examine the rearguard; I do the same, and way back behind us on the road, cresting a hill behind which they had traveled unseen till now, a stampede of goblins wave yellow banners. Sunset is turning to twilight.