"Oh, hey, Colin. I didn't realize you'd caught up with me. How's your exploit going?" Shad's calm voice, coming from what was clearly a black-clad masked vigilante, caught me off guard. I spluttered and hung on to the carriage seat as we raced away from the prison.

"My quest pop-up alerted me there was a shady type in the guards' keeping that I might be able to rescue," Shad continued. "What affiliation are you? Imperial Guard? The Goose Coup?"

"Uh, no," I said, still tongue-tied.

"I can help you out as long as you're not too far down either side of the Civil War plotline. Once you reach the tipping point, I'm not able to interact anymore. Doesn't matter which side. Most of the rest of our folk are with the Imperials and getting close to being ready to mount an assault against the rebels. Mak’gar's crew largely threw in with the Coup, so I expect us to go head-to-head in another day or two."

“That sounds like a bad plan.”

Shad frowned and shook his head. "I figured out a little too late that it was a trap and probably explained why most of the prior teams had gotten wiped out. By the time you're far enough along to advance the Civil War quest line, you haven't got that many respawns left available to you. Then it puts you head-to-head against other players. This reality engine has a nasty sense of humor," he said admiringly.

The spectral ostriches drawing the carriage made a hoof-clattering noise that didn’t at all match as their long-toed feet hit the cobblestones of Quackitude's main street. We turned down one alley and drew up alongside a tall, three-story crooked-looking building made of dark timber and thatching. It loomed over us ominously.

"Welcome to the Fowl Lair," Shad said, dismounting and bowing theatrically as he ushered me off the carriage. We entered through a side door and immediately clattered down. "I found this about two days ago," he continued. "Once I saw that the main line was going to drop us all in the shit, I decided to take a page from your book and was exploiting one of the side quests. This one seems to be called the Daring-Do quest line. If you want, I can try to help you get started on it. It wasn't too hard to pick up the origin quest, and it's got some pretty sweet perks. I've got a mansion and a butler and that cool carriage you saw outside."

"No, that's fine," I said, just as Duckling phased in and began waddling down the stairs to join us. Shad stared.

"Who's this?"

"He's my follower. He's an orphan pickpocket."

Shad's eyes lit up. He had stripped off his hood and mask and looked even more bizarre now, wearing the voluminous dark outfit which I guessed probably had his trademark drover's coat underneath it. He spread his dark wings wide. "Welcome to the Fowl Lair, little one," he said. "Would you like to hear what a life of crime can do for you?"

The duckling quacked excitedly. "Yes, yes. I have been adopted once. I am perfectly willing to be adopted again by a richer and more devious patron."

“Oy,” I said, "you little traitor. Who's not devious?"

Shad laughed as we stepped into a wide basement room. I had to admire it as I looked around. There were armor forms hung with different dark-colored armor, everything from light cloth meant for mages to leather for rogues and heavy black plate for those idiots who preferred to get hit directly. There were weapons of every sort, all in black and all with a wing motif to them somewhere on the handle, the pommel, or carved onto the blade. There were chests in the corner piled high with healing potions and daughts of poison, and a table laden with eight different kinds of cheese and a piece of bread. The duckling wandered over and helped himself.

"Hey, you shouldn't eat bread," Shad called. "I heard it's bad for ducks, swells up in their stomachs or something."

Duckling ignored him.

"So, what have you been doing?" he asked, turning to me.

I explained in general terms what I had learned. His face grew more and more intent. "They're manufacturing the Turducken, this Duck Brotherhood?”

"I don’t think it’s just them, but they are heavily involved," I confirmed. "And they definitely aren't just normal NPCs. They sounded really confused. I've never run into any part of a fragment that acted quite like that. It was like..." I hesitated, then decided what the hell. Shad was the only one whom I might be able to confide this in anyway. "I don't think they're NPCs. I think they're real."

"Like galactic miners who've gotten stuck here?" Shad asked.

I had considered that option already, but I shook my head now. "I don't think so. I think they might be remnants of the original population. I mean, maybe they're the miners who the Galactics first exploited. This could be their equivalent of a Lotus-Eater level. They all hid in here, and then the Galactics tightened their hold for the reality engine. And now, what if we've been hired to hunt the last remnants out?"

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

That was a thought that twisted my stomach. Shad said nothing for a good moment, just frowning, his face working. I could tell he was thinking. Don't make any jokes about Shad's brain power. He's one of the cleverest men I've ever met, even if he rarely gives himself credit for it, and sometimes his plans are a little volatile.

"If you're right," he said. "Damn it, this changes everything. I've got to know." He thought about it. "You say they're killing the starting quest giver over and over?"

I explained exactly how I'd managed to acquire the quest in the first place.

"Right, well, thanks to this Daring-Do quest line, I've already got inroads with several of the underground factions. I might be able to find a side way in myself. But that means I'm not going to be able to work on delaying the Civil War like I'd been hoping. And I think that's even more critical now." He nodded his head, clearly making his mind up about something. "We're going to have to switch places, Colin. I'm going to take back this quest reward, and you're going to take over being the Terror that Honks in the Night."

"Wait, what?"

"I need to find out what's really going on. I've got some ideas. The shortest way is right through the Duck Brotherhood. But in the meantime, you've got to stop the Civil War from getting any farther. It's about to get hot. Like I said, most players have chosen a side by now, and that means they are about to kick off an attack. The rebels are going to sack White Plume, and the Empire is planning an attack on Yellowtail. I will send a message to all our people begging them to hold off, but you know how well they listen."

I nodded. Maybe a direct order would hold them… but likely not for long.

"I think I'll be able to buy us a day or two, but not more than that. The rebels are mostly Mak'gar and his orcs. You're going to have to find a way to defend White Plume."

"I've been avoiding the place at all costs," I said. "I'm trying not to kick off the main quest line."

"You haven't been there at all?" Shad asked. "So you've only encountered the first Turducken. You're not absorbing souls and powering up the Honk."

"I don't even know what that is," I said.

"Oh, well, once you go to White Plume, you get a quest right away to see what's going on and then another Turducken attacks and you have to kill it, and you absorb its soul, and then you learn the power of the Honk and the Grey Wattles try to train you up," Shad rattled off gleefully. "I'm sure once you get to White Plume, you'll see."

"But I don't want to go to White Plume."

"Look," Shad said, his face growing grim. "I'm pretty sure if we let the Civil War go any further, we're going to lose enough people to reset the entire game. We don't want that."

I guess I agreed with him there. His words were making my thoughts spin furiously. "I think I've got an idea," I said. "You don't have any intelligence on where the Rebels are gathering their forces?"

"Nope," he said cheerfully. "But all you have to do is join the Goose Coup and you'll get a quest to send you to their forward base."

"Any idea who the Rebel recruiter is in this town?"

"The Terror that Honks in the Night always knows," Shad said cheerfully. "It's the barkeep at the Wandering Toad Inn down by the gate."

"I'll get to it."

Shad nodded. "I'll meet you back here when I know what I need to know. It shouldn't take me more than a day or so. I hope. If I'm not here, I'll leave a note."

"Sounds good to me," I said cheerfully, even though I was seriously worried about where this was going.

I visited the Wandering Toad Inn, where I bought a mug of ale and another one for Duckling. They seemed to have no concerns about serving minors in here. Then I got the barkeep to open up to me about the Rebels.

"They're fighting to return our way of life," he said importantly, puffing up his pin feathers and spreading his blue-tipped wings wide. But he launched into a spiel about the glories of the past that didn't seem to me as though it was connected to any reality. As he wound up, he leaned in close. "So what do you say? You look like a likely-looking lad. Are you ready to do your part for your country?"

"Yes, I am," I declared. He extended one wing and dropped a token into my hand, showing a webbed bird foot. "Just take this along to the training camp. You'll see it marked on your map now."

I pulled up my map, and there it was. About equidistant between here and White Plume. I very much doubted it was the forward location where the Rebels would be staging their attack on White Plume. But once I got to the training camp, there would no doubt be a quest. With luck, I could short-circuit it and find out exactly what the Rebels were up to.

I finished my beer and set off. Since there was no fast travel from Quackitude to the training camp, Duckling and I had to run cross-country, dodging yet more wolves. By now, my run was pretty high, and my sneak wasn't bad either. I was looking forward to getting my build online once I'd solved this current crisis.

We got challenged by Rebel Sentry Roosters. I handed over the token, and they welcomed me in, taking me to the camp quartermaster, who gave me a set of Rebel soldier armor, which I promptly dumped in my inventory, planning never to use, and a set of initial tasks. Collect some materials for healing potions, fight off wolves, oh, and attack a nearby Imperial stronghold. I accepted all of them, and then prowled around the camp.

As the NPCs engaged in scripted banter, none of them gave me the sense of being anything more than normal NPCs. There was a big map table, and when I looked at it, the map was blank. There was also a command tent, and a guard at its door. He spread his wings wide when I tried to enter.

"You haven't earned enough rank for that, recruit."

That was starting to sound promising. I withdrew a little way from the camp, and then activated my follower menu, choosing the options to directly control my follower.

I highlighted a piece of ground and told Duckling, "Go there." He did. It was a very clunky interface. I walked Duckling one ten-foot section at a time right over to the camp. Then when the guard's back was turned, I ordered him to enter the tent and steal everything that was in it.

The guard turned around and caught him. I quickly opened Duckling's inventory and snagged everything out of it as the guard gave him one of those preloaded lectures about not stealing and straightening up.

I released my control, and Duckling started to meander back to me as I looked at what I'd just stolen.

One of the items was labeled [Army Map]. I opened it up and felt a whoosh of information as my own game map filled in. Now four different sets of camps appeared in pairs, one marked with the Imperial swords and the other the Rebel Duckfoot logo.

I grinned. That was more like it. There was a Rebel camp just outside White Plume, all right.

I gathered up Duckling, we fast-traveled back to Quackitude, and I hopped on the carriage for White Plume, ready at last to join the main quest line.