Reeve scrolled slowly down through her Combat and Party logs. “And, the fourth time was the pony again?”

“Hooves,” Walter said.

“Fifth?”

“The little things were waiting for me by the pony as soon as I reappeared. Once they knew that’s where I’d be coming back every time, well…”

Reeve nodded. “Spawn camping also led to sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth.”

Walter nodded and bent over to vomit once more into the loot bag Reeve had handed him. He still had a few minutes until the last death debuff would wear off. She started to open an inset to review her father’s deaths in her recorded feed, then stopped. She didn’t want to relive the tiny massacre. “They were gnomes, by the way,” she said.

After a few seconds, Walter was able to raise his head from the loot bag. “They seemed to think they knew us.”

“Tavern brawl,” Reeve said. “Some had apparently survived and made it back to their home, which must be underground around here somewhere.”

“Ah.” Walter returned to considering the interior of the bag.

“You OK?” Reeve said to Dusk, who lay on her stomach as Dawn bandaged her new injury.

“The less said, the better.” Dusk’s chin rested on her arms, and her head bobbed up and down slightly as she spoke. “You fought well, half-orc. You may yet be a deserving heir to Wurmslayer.”

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“Uh, thanks.”

“Your given name is Reavyr, Wurmslayer’s heir? That is how you introduced yourself to Leaf?”

Reeve nodded hesitantly.

“You fought well, Reavyr.”

“We’ll…thanks, Dusk.”

“Funny thing,” Walter said, “but I’m actually a Reavyr too. Reavyr Two in fact.” He chuckled, but Dusk didn’t look away from Reeve, her attention unwavering.

“Actually, I’m the original Reavyr,” Reeve said. “For some reason, my dad thought he needed to enter the same name he saw I’d entered when we were setting up our…never mind. Just…uh…hello?” Reeve’s brow, still moist from the exertion of the encounter, creased, and she frowned, a few of her large lower teeth slipping past her upper lip. The twins were still, Dawn leaning over Dusk, a bandage held to Dusk’s half-exposed rear by Dawn’s unmoving hands, Dusk still staring at Reeve. Reeve looked at Leaf, who sat, also unmoving, next to the fire they’d rekindled, a fire of unmoving flames frozen in space.

“What the heck.” Reeve jerked her gaze to her father, who stared back at her, unblinking. “Ohmagod, you too?”

“Evie?“

“Ahh!”

“What?”

“I thought you were frozen too!”

Walter looked around at their companions. “They’re frozen? What happened?”

“I don’t—“ An alert tone Reeve didn’t recognize prompted her to pull up her UI. A system alert message hung in front of the UI’s usual information.

“Whoa! It’s a DevNote!”

“A what?”

“A message from the devs. Well, this one looks like it’s autogenerated, but it’s still in theory from the devs to us. Specifically to us, not a system update message all users are getting. I’ve heard of these but never gotten one before. Sometimes people get them if they identify issues in beta or early access releases.”

“It’s good news?”

“I dunno, let me read for a second. You probably have it too if you want to read.”

Reeve began scrolling through the lengthy message. With a barely perceptible flinch, Walter opened his UI and began reading as well. He was only to the bottom of the first page, wondering how he would make the text scroll, when Reeve said, “Ohmagod!”

“You’re finished reading already?”

“Well, I mean, I skipped some parts, but I got the idea. Viv is coming to—“

“Viv?”

“Yeah the…wait, there’s a progress bar at the very bottom. It looks like she should be finished…right…about…now.”