“Oh my god oh my god oh my god!” Grace cried from the top of the pyramid as she watched the monster bite off Wyatt’s head.

Patrick glared at her, but said nothing. These people were all so overly excitable.

He glanced down at the headless corpse. Except for maybe that guy, he—

He disappeared.

Patrick frowned. What the hell?

Wyatt and the weird girl had managed to debilitate all seven monsters, but the level 3 croc had just bit off the guy’s head. Patrick was sure of that.

But now he was just… gone.

The girl, Emma, cut off her skill and stopped glowing, then picked up the knife and stabbed it in the level 3’s eye, killing it. Then she went around stabbing the other puking crocs.

It was kinda hot, and he wondered how old she was. He wasn’t sure if she was from the high school or college group. College he would be okay with, even if he sometimes found them annoying. High school would be a disappointment.

He truly couldn’t tell, though. She acted… well, she acted weird, but definitely not like the other high schoolers. But then again, she seemed more mature than the college students as well. And she had old eyes.

Though that kind of thinking had gotten many a bloke in trouble.

He supposed he could just ask her how old she was, but that would be weird.

Did that even matter anymore? The world had ended.

He grunted at the reminder.

All his riches, gone in a blink.

Which just meant he needed to gather new ones.

Maybe it hadn’t affected the whole world, maybe there was a way to get back. But he couldn’t count on that.

He headed down the steps to try looting some of the monsters like the young guy with the old guy’s name had done with the hand-tail monster.

Unlike the rest of the group, Patrick wasn’t squeamish about a little blood.

His skill was Bloodbath, after all.

Not that he knew what it did.

Halfway down the steps, the final living croc sliced the girl across the throat just as she stabbed it through the eye.

Patrick picked up his pace, taking the precarious steps three at a time. If I can save her, maybe—

Her body disappeared before the thought could complete.

Damn. That’s a shame. Why did her body disappear, though? Is she not dead? Maybe she respawned somewhere?

He wasn’t at all sure what this whole thing was. It kind of reminded him of an anime he’d watched as a kid where the main character woke up in an MMO, except without the game part.

He supposed this could all be simulated. It felt real, though. And that would be a whole bloody lot to simulate. Down to the scars on the inside of his left elbow. And if it was a simulation and his actual body was somewhere else, did that mean someone could read his thoughts?

See his entire life play out before them like a movie?

That could be trouble, depending on who it was. It would mean his compound was no longer a secret.

But he seriously doubted it was humans who were responsible for this. There was no way that kind of technology could be kept hidden.

He knew several of the CEOs of the biggest tech companies in the world, and several high-ranking military officials, and while they were both a bit more advanced than the general public knew, they weren’t this advanced. None were even close.

Hell, putting aside how they got here and where here was, those CEOs and officials would kill for simply the ability to alter someone with a direct brain interface and skills that seemed to work like magic.

So far Patrick had only seen those skills make someone vomit, but even that would be worth billions to the right military. Or any military.

The old cop who Wyatt had used his skill on was fine now, but had been out of commission for several minutes from just a single use of the skill.

Patrick finally reached the bottom of the steps, belatedly realizing people had been calling out to him.

He ignored them, heading to where the cute girl had disappeared from.

There was no trace of her except for the Asian guy’s knife, which he picked up. It was just a pocket knife, but it would do.

Patrick was good with knives.

The monster that had gotten her was already dead, and Patrick wasted no time cutting it open.

🞠

Patrick studied the orb in his hand, contemplating what he was feeling.

⦗Augment Orb, Level 2⦘

He wanted to eat the orb. Badly. His stomach rumbled with hunger, his mouth salivating with anticipation.

What did they do to us?

And who are they?

If this was specific to their tour and hadn’t affected the whole world, Patrick would be the obvious target.

But he had no enemies, everyone liked him. He made sure of that. And the ones who he couldn’t win over, he paid off.

He could afford it. He could afford anything.

Literally. He was one of the richest people in the world, even if no one else knew the true extent of his wealth. He’d had people, knowing only a fraction of his net worth, offer to sell themselves to him.

But he declined. It seemed too much like cheating in a video game. It wasn’t fun if you didn’t work for it. He’d already gotten his cheat code: unimaginable wealth. Beyond that, he enjoyed earning things himself.

Which made him not want to eat the orb, since he hadn’t killed the monster it came from.

But that was daft. If he didn’t, one of the others would, and he couldn’t trust them to use the power as well as he would.

He was the best person to use it, to get more powerful.

And power was exactly what he needed.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

He didn’t have money here, and it didn’t seem like it would do any good anyway, which meant he needed another form of wealth.

So, he ate the orb.

It went down easy.

This is so bloody weird.

His status screen now had a message that let him distribute stat points.

He had five of them, which seemed an odd amount. The orb was level 2, so why five points? Were there half-points?

Maybe it increases every other level? How many points did Wyatt get?

He hadn’t shared, even when Brandon had asked.

Truthfully, Patrick was pretty sure he simply hadn’t heard the question.

Not that he could blame him, Patrick himself was having a hard time focusing on anything besides the fact that he could now boost his actual stats. Not in a game, but for his actual body.

It was thrilling. And unreal.

Other than a brief diversion when he’d injured his arm, it had been years since he’d seriously played any video games. But as he stared at his stats and considered how to distribute the points, the memories came rushing back.

Thanks to his older brother, Patrick had had a serious addiction to EverQuest and then World of Warcraft from the age of seven to about thirteen. His favorite classes being solo ones like necros or monks or hunters, or druids in EQ for their speed enhancements and teleports. He’d also had a rogue he’d really enjoyed PvPing in WoW with.

But he didn’t have a class in whatever this thing was, and he hadn’t been able to pick his first skill.

He didn’t even know what it did.

He put his first point in Energy so he could find out.

He tried only putting a half-point, but a full one went in anyway.

Something jolted through his spine, and this time when he activated his skill, his entire body glowed faintly.

He looked around, frowning. Is something supposed to have changed?

He didn’t feel any different at all. He could intuitively tell that the skill affected him directly, like some kind of buff, but beyond that he didn’t have the slightest notion what its effect was supposed to be.

He noticed several people watching him from the top of the pyramid.

Suppose I better loot the rest of these before they can.

Letting the skill drop, he moved to the level 3’s corpse and got to work.

🞠

“What is that guy doing?” Olivia asked, looking down at Patrick cutting into the monsters as she daintily ate from her second bag of candy.

“Ninja-looting,” Brandon complained, tossing his now-empty bag of chips to the side and polishing off the bottle of water he’d bought on the bus. He once more had been staring at Faith without meaning to.

It was annoying how hot she was. So distracting. And her tight little tank top and shorts weren’t helping matters. She definitely wasn’t wearing a bra, and he was almost certain she wasn’t wearing panties either.

He stopped his mind from going any further in that direction, lest he be unable to stand up.

“We should go down there before he can steal everything,” he suggested.

“No way,” Jack said, eyeing the Sour Patch Kids Olivia was eating, having already finished the granola bar he’d brought. “Wyatt and that girl died.”

“I don’t see their bodies,” Tyler countered.

“We saw him get his head bit off!” Bailey snapped.

Jasmine was just staring blankly at the spot where Wyatt’s corpse had been.

Both her and Bailey had glistening eyes and tear-streaked cheeks.

Regan rubbed Bailey’s shoulder.

Bailey may have been the one to break things off with Wyatt, unable to deal with his… eccentricities, but it was obvious that didn’t mean she didn’t still care for him. Obvious to anyone except maybe Wyatt.

They debated their next moves, ate, drank, and watched Patrick struggle to saw through the thick hide of the monster’s corpse. It was taking a long time, even longer than the first one he’d cut into, and Brandon wondered if that was because the corpse belonged to the level 3.

“We could try to get back to the bus,” Faith suggested.

Camila shook her head. “I know these sites as well as anyone. I don’t recognize this one. This looks like the Temple of Kukulcán, but this isn’t Chichén Itzá. And none are this large. Wherever we are, it’s somewhere I’ve never been.”

“Well we can’t stay here forever,” Olivia said. “It’s been what, an hour? We’ve eaten almost all the food already.”

“Maybe you should have brought more than candy,” Kevin complained.

“Not my problem you’re doing keto, old man.” She pointed at the monster corpses. “And there’s plenty of fresh meat down there.”

“Paleo, not keto.”

“Whatever. Same difference.”

Kevin looked stricken. “It is not at all the—”

“Okay okay,” Camila interrupted. “Arguing’s not going to help. Let’s think through our options.”

“Get stronger,” Brandon said. “That’s our option. Our only option. Be able to use our skills.”

“This isn’t a video game,” she snapped.

“No? Are you so sure about that?”

“Yes.” Camila dipped her finger into her water bottle and flicked it at his face. “That’s real.”

“Just because we’re actually here doesn’t mean it’s not a game to someone. We have stats and skills and levels. Treating it like a video game seems like the most logical option.”

“We can level up,” Olivia said. “Which would make us stronger, right?” She looked to Brandon, who nodded.

“Hell yeah!” Tyler agreed, pounding his sand-filled sock against his palm. “Powder-leveling time.”

“It’s power-leveling,” Brandon said with a groan, rubbing his face. “Like, power, as in fast leveling, not powder like patting your face with makeup.”

“Okay nerd,” Olivia snorted. But she said it with affection. He’d listened to her troubles this morning when she was hungover and a hot mess, and comforted her, hadn’t made fun of her for crying, and hadn’t talked down to her like her troubles weren’t real or important. Plus, he seemed to know more about all this than anyone but Wyatt.

She held out her bag of Sour Patch Kids to Jack, who looked surprised. “Go on, you’ve been wanting to. At first I thought you were staring at my tits, until I remembered I didn’t have any.”

Grace chuckled as Jack took a few pieces of candy.

“Mine were smaller than that at your age,” Faith said.

Olivia considered her. “Is that padded?”

“Nope. These nipples are all mine.”

Brandon forced himself not to look.

And found himself looking anyway.

“Huh,” Olivia said. “Maybe there’s hope for me yet.”

“You could always get pregnant,” Grace suggested. “I hear that makes them grow.”

“Oh yeah, that’s definitely what I want to do.”

Tyler raised the hand holding his sock. “I volunteer.”

“So heroic.”

“This leveling you’re suggesting,” Camila said to Brandon, bringing them back on topic, “what exactly do we need to do?”

Brandon pointed down at Patrick, who was now digging around inside the level 3. “We go loot those corpses like he’s doing.”

Jack looked down at him. “He does seem to know what he’s doing.”

Olivia sighed. “Wish Wyatt was still here. He had a plan.”

Kevin snorted disdainfully. “Yeah, strand us on a pyramid with no bathroom. Great plan.”

“We’re alive because of him!” Bailey snapped. “And Emma. And they’re not. I didn’t see you trying to do shit. Aren’t you supposed to be a cop? What happened to protect and serve?”

“I’m on vacation. Border patrol wouldn’t let me bring my gun.”

“Maybe when you get your skill you can turn into a comforter and fly home to get it,” Olivia laughed.

“Yeah,” Grace said sarcastically, “you can be a big man again once you get your penis surrogate back.”

“Okay, come on,” Camila sighed. “Stop acting like children.” She glared at both Kevin and Grace.

“I am a child,” Grace muttered.

“Not anymore chica. Whatever the fuck this is, those monsters are real enough. One of them bit—” Her words caught. “We saw what they did, what they’re capable of. So let’s stay on track, go over our options. We have these skills, so we should learn how to use them.”

Brandon pointed and cried out in annoyance, Patrick having finally retrieved the orb from the level 3. “That’s how we use them!”

“Calm down,” Camila said softly. “I know that. But we don’t know… We can’t just be guineapigs.”

Brandon just stared in open-mouthed wonderment at her, too dumbstruck to reply.

Before he could reign in his frustration and regain his composure, another monster appeared from the jungle, from the opposite side as the giant alligators.

“It’s that thing!” Carlos cried.

It was the little monster that had jumped up and down, waving its arms at them before the alligator attack.

“Oh don’t be so dramatic,” his wife Maria scolded. “He’s harmless.”

Carlos stared at his wife. “Dramatic? Are you joking?”

She made a dismissive gesture. “He’s no threat. Look how cute he is.”

Carlos dragged his hands over his face.

“He did try to warn us,” Olivia said. “Think he’s warning us again?”

“Better hope not,” Kevin grumbled. “They took all our weapons.”

Tyler held up his sock with a smile. “Not all of them.”

Maria got a stricken look. “That boy took my purse again!”

“You’re just now noticing?” Carlos chuckled.

“I was distracted!” she snapped, scanning the area at the bottom of the temple for her precious bag.

Akira pointed. “Whatever it’s doing, it looks like it’s coming our way.”

Indeed, the little monster with the feathered hat was heading straight for the pyramid, passing by Patrick as he studied the orb he’d so recently liberated, apparently oblivious to the monster approaching a few yards to his right.

Brandon really wanted to go down there and stop him before he could use it—the guy already had one orb that he hadn’t earned—but he wasn’t about to leave the group. If another wave of monsters came, Patrick would probably die. Brandon was not eager to join him.

Or maybe the two orbs Patrick now had would make him powerful enough to fight them. Wyatt had only eaten one orb and he’d nearly taken out all seven with his skill.

If I could get one of those orbs…

But Brandon wasn’t as devil-may-care with his life as Wyatt—or Patrick for that matter—seemed to be.

As eager as he was to get stronger, he wasn’t crazy.

Besides, his skill was Trueshot, which sounded like some kind of ranged-attack enhancer, and he had no weapons, ranged or otherwise.

“He didn’t hurt Patrick,” Jack said, watching the little creature pass by Patrick without event and continue heading up the steps. “So, he’s on our side, right?”

He looked around for confirmation.

No one gave it.

David, his teacher before he dropped out, patted his shoulder consolingly.

Considering how much shit he’d been given by the man, this attempt at comfort had the exact opposite effect on Jack.

Jack stared down at the little creature as it climbed the steps toward them, its gaze fixed intently on the group.

It no longer looked so cute.