image [https://i.imgur.com/8V5mEyk.jpg]

The dinnertime gang became ecstatic about my decision to join them on hunts. Everyone grinned and debated the best place to take me.

ArtGirl wrapped her arms around me. “Don’t worry, sweetie-pie, we’ll be gentle!”

“You know, man, you don’t want to be a pure caster. I realize you don’t know any combat moves, but you’ll have to put some meat on your bones.” RIP pinched my bicep while I shrugged him off.

Everyone grinned, myself included. I looked forward to playing the game instead of scheming for shortcuts and exploits.

Charitybelle wagged her finger at Fabulosa. “Don’t let me catch you teaching Apache to hurt any animals.”

Fabulosa rolled her eyes.

ArtGirl with a mock-sad face. “You know we would never do that, don’t you?”

“I know. I’m just saying. Fab scares me a little when she fights.” Charitybelle made an unflattering grimace.

Fabulosa tossed a piece of bread at her in retaliation.

The following morning, I kissed Charitybelle goodbye and went to the boarding house—where the rest of the gang slept. After much knocking, they told me to come back in an hour. What a bunch of lazy brats.

Belden kept hours closer to mine. Its businesses had already opened. I stopped at a leather store and picked up two large packs. Adventurers needed plenty of inventory space.

While I had immunity to players, any monster or non-player character could still kill me. After considering buying some leather armor, I passed. I intended to pick up leatherworking to make my own, but I studied the store’s inventory. I felt a little stupid, not knowing what to take besides a midday snack, and returned to the boarding house with my silver intact.

Everyone looked ready to go when I arrived.

RIP cracked himself up. “It’s good you finally showed up. We almost left without you, man. Hey, Babe, where are we going today?”

Fabulosa winked when she saw me. “No doctor’s note?”

I grinned.

“Y’all, we’re going to take it easy. It’s Patchy’s first day, so we’ll hit the watershed again.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but she wasn’t talking to me, so I didn’t pester her with questions for once.

We followed a few country roads outside town and climbed a wooded hill.

Fabulosa gestured ahead of us. “We like to go uphill in the morning. That way, no one dies of exhaustion if we need to hightail it home.”

My eyes grew wide.

Fabulosa laughed. “Aww, bless your heart. I’m just kidding, hon. You’ll be fine. We like going downhill on the way home because it’s easier. I can’t rightly recall when we’ve ever retreated.”

PinkFox shrugged. “The frog-things had the drop on us.”

Fabulosa shook her head. “That doesn’t count. We never engaged them in combat.”

RIP stomped on a branch poking into our path. “Yeah, but don’t forget the ursalon.”

Fabulosa nodded. “Oh, yeah, but we knew better than to fuss with it. Besides, it never saw us, so that doesn’t count either. If we run into a big ol’ bear, and I’m talking a pickup truck-sized bear, just clear right out of there.”

While we walked, I checked out my map interface. For the first time, I’d removed fog-of-war emptiness from anything outside Belden. A finger of cartographic detail extended from the village to a small triangle marking my position. Unlike other user interface elements, the map didn’t stop time, so I zoomed in and watched the triangle reveal new details.

PinkFox scampered ahead of the group to scout. She ranked up her survival skill and took Vegetable Communion to help with tracking. The spell gave her a visual sense of what creatures passed, although she could only cast it once daily. Her chance of picking up unspoiled trails improved when she worked alone.

PinkFox’s bright pink ponytail bobbed through the foliage, and it occurred to me she couldn’t have picked a less conspicuous color for her mop, especially for a forest scout. She once joked that she would change her hair color when the roots darkened—something that would never happen because she’d chosen bright pink as her avatar’s natural color.

After an hour following her lead, PinkFox emerged from the bushes before us. She looked a little concerned. “We got shark furrows ahead. We gotta go back.”

Everyone turned around, and I followed their movements. RIP quickly reassured me. “It’s cool, but landsharks are a pain. They’re big but not too brutal. It’s just that we can’t hurt them with these weapons.”

PinkFox tacked in a different direction. “They are dangerous, though.”

RIP shrugged. “Well, yeah. I mean, everything is dangerous. I’m just telling Patchy that he doesn’t need to run for his life or anything. Not yet, right?”

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

“Yeah, not yet. The holes don’t look fresh, but I don’t want to take chances with those things. Especially with your agility.” PinkFox cast me a glance to see if I took offense.

I smiled to show that I hadn’t. I took it as a compliment that my friends changed their route to ensure my safety. Since we had plenty of time, I pumped them for advice. “When you guys fight, do you use the pause feature?”

RIP squinted and shrugged. “Yes, and no. Why?”

“It seems to me using the interface to slow down time to a crawl gives players time to think. It seems to me it would foster perfect attacks—so no one would make mistakes in combat.”

Fabulosa laughed, and I checked their faces to learn what amused them.

RIP answered with a grin. “Man, I already know where you’re going with this. We’re smiling because it brings back memories. I learned how pausing affects fighting on the first day. Or maybe this was a few days into the game, I forget. Anyway, I had this heinous encounter with a couple of thugs trying to shake me down after they caught me on their farm. Pausing the game tripped me up. They gave me a good beating before I knocked them out.”

ArtGirl explained further. “You know how babies need to master a million motions in order to walk? It’s supposed to be one of the most complicated actions people can master. Pausing interrupts that process.”

“Yeah, man, and combat is totally worse. You forget your footing, what’s taking a swing at you, or what your arms are doing when you interrupt your groove. Don’t get me wrong, I do it when I have to strategize, but it’s a brick in your flow.”

Soon after, PinkFox darted through the underbrush. We watched her pink ponytail bobbing and swishing through the trees, and soon, it disappeared.

After another hour of hiking, we overtook our spritely scout. PinkFox crouched behind a bush and held up a hand to quiet us. Everyone stopped, and Fabulosa advanced to PinkFox’s position and peered through the underbrush. She turned, mouthed a word I didn’t recognize, and everyone else moved forward.

RIP raised his eyebrows in concern. He became all business in the bush. “It’s an owlbear. It’s more brutal than what we usually hunt, but if you hang back and cast Shocking Reach at a max distance, you’ll share the experience. You cool?”

I gave him a thumbs-up sign.

Fabulosa and RIP took point, and everyone moved forward until a parrotlike roar splintered the afternoon stillness—a cry so loud I felt it in my chest. Somewhere on my list of concerns lay the worry that its bellow would attract other predators, bleeding this encounter into another.

A red frame rimmed my peripheral vision, which showed my state of combat. My legs felt rubbery, and I doubted I could flee if needed. The situation reminded me of the joke about only needing to outrun your friends when something chased you.

Had everyone already gone into the bushes? Sounds of movement and muffled instructions answered my question.

Another bellow shook the air, and I found it difficult to move. It felt like hide and seek—a strange nervousness made me want to urinate whenever I found a hiding spot.

PinkFox’s cry of pain snapped me out of paralysis. I jogged ahead through the trees until I saw a hairy nine-foot-tall monster swinging two great paws at RIP and Fabulosa.

They set their footing and measured the monster’s speed and abilities. That’s when I remember my cantrip, Shocking Reach. I inhaled and launched a bolt at the creature’s back.

/You hit Wandering Owlbear with Shocking Reach for 6 damage (5 resisted).

When the creature spun, I saw its face. Although I stood ten yards away, its enormous eyes nested in an array of black feathers, giving it a vicious aspect. Its heavy breaths drove the bass line to the percussion of combat. What kind of lungs could move that much air? Its beak looked thick and broad enough to snap bones, frightening me to a degree I’d never known.

None of the bullies at school had ever set my goosebumps on end like the owlbear’s glare. We risked more than a beating or humiliation. Here, we toyed with death—albeit a virtual one.

It roared and spun as RIP and Fabulosa attacked in a surrounding maneuver.

I launched electrical attacks of Shocking Reach while it engaged the melee fighters. Faint wisps of smoke and embers drifted where my spell singed its shaggy feathered coat.

I hit the owlbear with Shocking Reach four more times for a total of 26 damage. While I waited for my spell cooldowns to let me cast again, I checked out the monster’s stats by focusing on its nameplate.

Name

Wandering Owlbear

Level

13

Difficulty

Challenging (yellow)

Health

329/485

Spell flashes silhouetted the creature, and I thought the chaos of the battle looked magnificent. The smell of smoke, charged particles, and singed feathers assailed me. The ground shook as the monster fought attacks from every direction.

The sharp knife in my inventory would let me contribute while my cooldowns refreshed. How hard would it be to wedge this 7-inch blade into its hindquarters? Perhaps I might hobble it. Brandishing my knife, I inched forward, adopting an improvised fighting stance I’d seen on the academy training grounds only days before.

Everyone coordinated in two-word sentences. “Over here. Got it. I’m good. Hit it. Stay back.”

When I got within five feet of the thing’s posterior ArtGirl yelled at me. “Get back, Apache! Get back!”

The anger and intensity of her command startled me. She sounded like an urgent mother scolding a toddler about a hot stove—a tone I didn’t need to hear twice. I retreated to the bushes behind me, whose branches provided only the illusion of safety.

I waited for my cooldowns to end while the gang chipped away at the creature’s health. When I could launch Shocking Reach, I edged past the foliage and cast it, delivering another 6 points of damage. The monster had lost half its health.

ArtGirl’s double-bladed fighting techniques had a hypnotic fluidity. She hit with precision and kept her distance, unlike Fabulosa, who always pushed toward the beast with a snarl. RIP kept his tower shield welded against his arm during combat. Tower shields repelled volleys of arrows, and they suited a creature as big as an owlbear. PinkFox launched arrows from far away, and it struck me as a small wonder she never hit the melee fighters.

I’d contributed another 12 points of damage using Shocking Reach before we felled the behemoth. My damage contribution totaled over 10 percent of the fight, making me feel pretty good about my first time in the field. When the owlbear died, the red border of my field of vision faded, and I scrolled through my event log.

/Fabulosa hits Wandering Owlbear for 16 damage (4 resisted).

/Wandering Owlbear dies.

/You have gained 19 experience points.

I came within 11 points of reaching the next level. When I returned to the group, RIP and Fabulosa kissed and stared into each other’s eyes.

RIP wrapped his arm around her. “Babe, that was your foxiest kill shot yet.”

Staring into RIP’s eyes, Fabulosa responded with another kiss. “Thanks for keeping it off me, big boy.”

PinkFox shook her head while the pair exchanged compliments.

ArtGirl’s face showed a mask of concern. “How are you? Did you like it?”

“I loved it! Wow. What a rush!”

Everyone’s shoulders relaxed at my enthusiasm.

Were they concerned that I would wimp out? The adrenaline rush felt like performing a new skateboard maneuver for the first time.

Looking around, I gave each of them a wide grin. “Can we do that again?”