Squadleader Luke ‘Alterfate’ Ploughman

Alterfate and his unit had been walking - for three hours by his count - the sea of sand-strewn plains, rocky hills and sparse weathered plant-life had continued without end. Every hill they climbed, every corner turned, gave them no clue as to where on earth they were. But now they had stopped. Stopped because of a snaking line of flattened earth that lay across their path.

“It’s a road.” His lieutenant Riptide stated with a mixture of confusion and relief.

“It is a road.” Agreed Alterfate, frowning at the compacted surface.

“Well that proves we’re not alone out here. Look at it, see how the compaction of the soil is deeper away from the middle? Wheeled vehicles come along here.” Whim added as he crouched down next to the pathway.

“A farmer’s track then? I still say this is Arizona.” Pavejack asked.

“It can’t be America, we’ve been walking for hours and there’s not a single McDonald’s in sight.” Whim responded dryly. “Seriously though, our radios would be picking up something if we were in the States.”

“Then where the hell do you think we are?” The young American snapped back defensively.

Whim turned back to the road and studied it in silence for a few seconds.

“My best guesses are North Africa, Australia or Argentina. Narrows it down a lot, huh? Plenty of dry scrubland in the world.” He chuckled.

“Look at the wheel-lines, they’re too narrow for modern tires. Plus I don’t see any treadmarks in the ruts. I think there might be carts or wagons making these.” Riptide moved the discussion forward before Pavejack could answer back.

“Well that helps clear things up. We’re somewhere between the invention of the wheel and the heat death of the universe. Either way it proves we’re not alone out here, that’s good enough for me. Now, one or both of these directions the road is following leads to civilisation, food, beds, and hopefully some answers. Let’s get up this hill and see if we can spot anything more concrete.” Alter spoke with authority and began to move.

He crossed the road and began to pick his way up the side of the hill the road was skirting. A long dead collection of streams had cut shallow sided valleys into the sloping rock. One by one his friends turned soldiers followed him up along the closest ridge. They were two thirds of the way up before one of them spoke up.

“Hold up, do you guys see that dust rising out there? I think something is coming along the road.” Boats called out.

All of them turned their gazes back down towards the bottom of the hill, then along as they traced the line of the road as it hugged the start of the incline. Sure enough, something was causing a small cloud of dust to rise in the distance, and it was steadily moving closer.

“Get eyes on that, marksman!” Alter shouted to Boats.

“On it boss.” Boats called back with his eye already in scope.

‘Please be a car, please be a car.’  Thought Alter as he fished a pair of rangefinders from a chest pouch.

“It’s a horse!” Boats shouted.

“Is it being ridden?” Riptide asked quickly.

“Yeah, by someone in blue, that's all I can make out for now.”

Alter brought lenses to eye and searched the distance before eventually finding his target. Sure enough a dark brown horse was charging along the road, ridden by a humanoid figure seemingly dressed in all blue.

“Well look at this guy!” Shouts Pavejack excitedly.

“Nice getup, he looks fancy as hell.” Boozehound agreed.

“Fancy? The guy’s wearing a cape! He’s beyond fancy! He’s dapper as fuck!” Boats laughed.

“I hate to burst your bubble lads but do you see a problem here? Who on god’s green earth wears clothes like that where we come from?” Alter snapped, eyes unwavering as he tried to take in every possible detail about the approaching rider.

“Yeah … yeah he has a sword.” Boats added, an uncertain edge overwhelming his previous elation.

“Shit, I think we might be in fantasy land boys.” Riptide spoke coolly as he digested this new revelation.

“Maybe it's a historical re-enactment?” Asked Pavejack weakly.

Alter groaned to himself as the troubling idea swept over him. It was enough for all of them to have magically teleported into this dust bowl, he didn’t want to believe that they were off the map entirely.

“Hey there’s someone in front of the blue-guy, looks like another person.” Called Boozehound.

“Hold on. Yeah you’re right, there's a girl sitting in front of him. ‘Least I think it's a girl.” Boats answered

They were closer now, Alter could get a better look. The rider in blue was a young man, not yet in his twenties by his estimate. He was wearing some kind of uniform, all sapphire blues and white, embedded with unknown crests and sigils, small lints of sunlight hinted at jewels being embedded in the fabric. The boy seemed frantic as he spurred his horse onward, his eyes darting from forward to down at his passenger to back over his shoulder at regular intervals. The girl was smaller than him and looked to be younger by a couple of years. She sat unmoving across his lap with her head nestled against his shoulder, her eyes were closed.

“Where do you suppose he’s off to in such a hurry?” He mused.

“I don’t know, but he seems pretty frantic.” Riptide replied with a voice that would normally accompany a heavy shrug.

“Got another dust cloud coming into view, bigger this time.” Boats reported from higher up the ridge having clambered upward for a better view.

“Pursuers?”  Asked Boozehound.

“Would explain why he keeps looking over his shoulder, I guess. Keep an eye on it and let me know once they’re in view.” Alter supposed.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Aye, boss” The marksman responded.

Time passed in silence as they watched the figures grow in size, after a small eternity Boats spoke again.

“Second dust cloud is coming into view now. Looks like a good sized group of horsemen moving together. They look like … ahh god, I don’t even have to speculate, they’re a bunch of level three bandits.”

“Wait seriously?” Riptide asked, a hint of bemused disbelief in his voice.

“Aye. I’m looking at twelve of them, all adult males, all wearing mismatched leathers, furs, and bits of dull metal armour. I see melee weapons drawn, swords and spears, a couple of bows on backs. They’re all ugly bastards, hell, half of them have their mouths hanging open.”

“That doesn’t automatically make them the bad guys, you know.” 

“I dunno, they look pretty bad to me.”

“I’m just saying we have no idea who these people are, Blue Boy down there might be a rightly hated dictator, or a sadistic kidnapper.” Riptide’s speech grinds to a halt as he tries to think of another elaborate descriptor in his third language.

“Or he could be an innocent kid fleeing for his life.”

Another awkward silence passed through the group before Whim spoke in a resigned tone.

“Alright. Movie set, that’s my last realistic option.”

“No camera crew, no radio chatter. I … I think Riptide is right, shit.” Boozeman conceded, his parisian purr straining to avoid sounding broken.

Alter tried to ignore this latest discussion. The girl was wounded, he could see that now, no wonder the lad kept glancing down at her wide eyed. The blood on her dress seemed localised to her right side just above the hip and didn’t appear to have spread too far.

‘Boozehound should be able to patch her up.’ He thought to himself as a plan began to form in his head. If they truly were in some ‘Otherworld’ then he’d deal with that later.

“I appreciate the fact that we don’t know either party, but let’s face one reality we can understand, we’re going to have to pick a side eventually. We’re soldiers now, after all. I’d rather side with the party that looks like they own a nice mansion over the one that owns one square metre of piss-soaked soil and some dirty rags.” Alter cut off any further discussion before an argument could start.

“Well they’re not going to slow down for us to finish this particular debate. What’s the plan Alter?” Whim answered calmly.

Alter closed his eyes and took a couple of seconds to breathe. Well, they’d set out to find an ‘Objective’ and this seemed as good an option as any.

“Gentlemen, we are officially getting involved, number up. Two, take Three, Seven, and Eight down to the side of the road, set up for an ambush and try to persuade our runner to stop and pull into the valley behind us. Everyone else stays on the ridge here and keeps low. Four, keep an eye on that hill and let me know if any more dust starts popping up.” 

A chorus of acknowledgements met his instructions as Riptide, Boozeman, Whim and the so-far silent Vangroover quickly picked their way down the slope behind the ridgeline from the approaching horse. A couple of metres away Pavejack and the also silent Walross, his machine gun team, began to set up for combat with practised ease, skills honed over months of … playing a video game. 

Alter was momentarily struck by the sudden realisation that even though he and his friends had never served in any military capacity, they intrinsically knew what to do and how to handle themselves. He looked down at the familiar shape of his rifle, a weapon he had been using in a virtual world for years. He’d never held a real gun. Hell, his parents had refused to buy toy ones when he was young. Its weight, the shape of the grips in his hands, the feeling of the stock pressed to his shoulder should be completely foreign to him. But he felt at ease with its presence, he knew exactly how to prepare the weapon to fire, the location of each lever and catch, how much pressure he would need to exert to pull the trigger. A surreal cache of knowledge which was suddenly about to be useful.

With an ominously calculated click his support gunner was primed and ready. Pavejack settled down on his stomach and aimed downrange while his assistant placed a heavy backpack on the ground and withdrew a fresh box of ammunition.

“This is crazy, man. Hey, is anyone else kinda freaking out about the fact that they’re not freaking out?” Pavejack asked.

No one answered his question but Alter was in silent agreement, his heart rate was surprisingly normal and his hands showed no signs of shaking. He shook his head, now wasn’t the time for pondering their collective subconscious behaviours.

“We’re all set up down here. I’ve got a couple of signal glowsticks ready to try and usher Blue into the valley. Here’s hoping it doesn’t freak him out, or the horse.” Riptide reported over the radio from the bottom of the hill.

“Understood.” Alter stared down at the road, gears turning in his brain. “Alright, does everyone see those two trees on the far side of the road? That’s the trigger to open up on these ‘bandits’. Keep those safety’s on until Blue has crossed our line.”

The thunder of hooves of dirt began to clamour in the men’s ears, seconds ticked by in tense expectation. Suddenly, Alter’s eyes widened as a red flare of light pulsed twice in the corners of his vision before fading away again, he thumbed his radio.

“What the fuck? Did anyone else get the ‘combat alert’ from the game?” He called out quickly, the red pulse was used to indicate when a player’s avatar was within detection range of hostile forces and nine times out of ten was the herald for a firefight.

“I think we all got it, the bandits just crossed the two hundred metre line, that must’ve triggered it.” Boats’ voice crackled in his ear.

“Two hundred metres? That’s pretty generous. Heck, I call that broken.” Pavejack laughed.

“You do realise that means we’ve got in-game mechanics affecting us in reality?”

“Ramifications later, fields of fire now!” Alter shouted as he tried to keep his squad focused on their objective. Yet another question to add to the ever-growing pile.

“I’m waving my sticks around, I think our boy’s noticed, he’s slowing down a little.” Riptide radioed up.

The boy in the blue uniform sped past the two trees and out of Alter’s line of sight. A moment later he heard Riptide's voice shouting from the side of the road.

“ETA thirty seconds on those bandits.” Boats reported.

“We’re good! I think he understood me, he’s pulled into the valley!” Riptide responded a moment later.

“Excellent work, Two. Team, you are weapons live. I want sights on the men only, try to avoid hitting the horses if you can. Four, countdown.” Alter brought his eye to his scope and flicked his rifle’s safety to off before resting his finger on the side of his trigger-guard. 

“Twenty seconds, rough.” Boats began.

Alter took a deep breath and began searching for his first target. His mind reached for anything remotely zen-like as he prepared to end lives.

“Fifteen.”

There they were. Boats was right, they were an ugly bunch. Alter trained his crosshair on the second rider knowing full well everyone else was targeting the leader. Being an enemy made you a corpse. Being the first enemy made you an unrecognisable corpse.

“Ten.”

Exhale. 

“Five.”

Inhale, finger on the trigger proper.

“Chatter!” Came the shout as the laughing men reached the trees. And suddenly the sound of horses was swallowed by the gunfire.

Alter wasn’t sure what surprised him more: The fact that he hadn’t had to consciously pull the trigger, or just how insanely loud real guns were. His ears screamed and rang as the engagement continued, he fired three shots at his first man before shifting his focus. Four targets were engaged by him personally, all four were dropped in short order.  

One by one their guns fell silent as Alter lowered his rifle and surveyed the scene below him. Two now riderless horses continued their blind charge down the road and out of sight. Three more were fleeing into the wilderness, one of which still carrying its lifeless rider. The rest lay dead or dying amidst the dust on the road, the men lay sprawled and broken with them. There was a shifting motion as one of the horses struggled to move, its violent shrieks pierced even the ringing in Alter’s ears. A sharp crack came from somewhere above him and the horse fell silent. Shakily, Alter reached for his radio.

“Clear?” He asked, his voice seemed barely above a whisper.

“Clear.” Was the dulled response, he didn’t know whose voice it was.

A single thought permeated and ricocheted through his mind: ‘What the hell am I doing?’