image [https://i.imgur.com/IQUqGvG.jpg]

I gripped my sword for dear life, abandoning notions that the weapon could inflict damage. It only served as a means to channel Refresh Mana to stay alive by pumping mana into my Mana Shield. After quaffing a 100-point health potion, I avoided getting the last of my health squeezed out of me. I had 240 health and incurred constriction damage with every passing moment.

As the aeroclast pulled me toward its main hood, the contracting tentacle thickened, blocking other tentacles from inflicting damage. Beyond the sounds of struggle, I heard loud breathing sounds from the monster. It used siphons to inhale fog, filling internal sacks and ventricles with air to regulate the creature’s buoyancy.

I’d fallen to 96 health and almost as much mana.

The fleshy breathing sounds hinted at the aeroclast’s fragile and willowy structure—after all, this thing floated like an aerial jellyfish. Pointing Gladius Cognitus toward the inhaling siphon, I commanded him to release a stored Compression Sphere.

The air blast tore the siphon apart and ruptured the ventricle, causing the creature to loosen its grip on me.

The atmospheric density heightened the thunderclap, producing a ringing sensation in my ears that drowned out all other sounds of struggle.

I took advantage of the moment and hit it again with a second Compression Sphere, targeting the center of the creature’s hood. The tentacle momentarily loosened, then regained its Grapple.

Fabulosa, hovering with Hot Air to keep in range, followed with her own Compression Sphere, prompting it to release me altogether.

After ending my fall with Slipstream, I blasted the retreating creature with a Scorch. It disappeared into the fog with less than a quarter of its health, but neither of us had the means to catch it.

With barely any mana, I saw no way I could pursue or kill it. Fabulosa made a half-hearted attempt to chase it, but it disappeared into the fog quickly enough.

Its escape didn’t bother me. It wouldn’t have given significant experience and ultimately had no bearing on the contest. If everyone could walk away from the fight, it suited me.

Fabulosa returned, picked up her battle standard and planted it.

Fabulosa opens battleground channel.

Fabulosa joins channel.

Apache joins channel.

Fabulosa Sorry about breaking radio silence. I dropped my battle standard, and things looked dicey. I can’t believe that was only a yellow.

Apache No worries. I’m just grateful we can cast spells with these masks on.

Fabulosa Good idea about the Compression Sphere, by the way. It’s a shame it got away. Do you need to Rest and Mend?

Apache I want to get out of here. I’m tempted to heal along the way, but let’s play it safe and recharge in the Dark Room.

Fabulosa saluted, retrieved the battle standard, and followed me inside.

Since Rest and Mend was an ability, not a spell, we performed the action in peace, sitting cross-legged on the floor. The rest gave us a chance to stretch our sore legs, but we soon returned outside to finish our journey.

The puffball in the aerometer rose with the terrain, and soon, the fog’s ceiling got closer to our heads. Brill and wriggly creatures still filled the atmosphere, and we passed beneath canopies of floating lily pads tethered to the ground. The incline to Farseed had been so gradual we almost didn’t notice the dropping fog line. After an hour of walking, the ground sharply inclined, and we emerged from the sea of vapor. It reminded me so much of the beaches of Atlantic City that I tried triggering my water-leap ability—but it didn’t work.

We removed our masks prematurely, causing coughing fits until we exited the fog.

The contest map grouped Audigger and Duchess with the same dot as Fabulosa and me. Her airborne transport carried her into Farseed at the same time as our arrival, but Duchess stood her ground. She’d been here for a couple of days. Whether she waited for us or could not move, I didn’t know. Toadkiller traveled less than a day away, leaving only Darkstep alone in the south.

As we climbed the peninsula’s gentle slope, we saw no evidence of a settlement until we reached the plateau. The town covered only the very tip of the outcropping.

I summoned Jasper to take us there.

Fabulosa breathed a sigh of relief. “It’ll be nice to get Aggression’s bonus damage again. I didn’t get to use much of it in Heaven’s Falls.”

“Neither did I, to tell you the truth. It doesn’t enhance structural damage.”

By the number of buildings, Farseed’s population looked larger than Hawkhurst’s. Homesteads and barns crenelated the peninsula’s edge. The buildings looked sturdy but old. Though they overlooked the sea of vapor, the distance between them attested to the low land value. The governor in me speculated that the settlement hadn’t quite reached the point where parceling land was relevant, for the soil supported no farms. More brick and bamboo buildings sprouted inland, around the peninsula, but Farseed struck me as an old settlement that had long since peaked in its growth potential.

As we traveled through the settlement, we kept our eyes peeled for player nameplates but saw none. Jasper took us to the end of the gravel road, where a free market many times larger than Hawkhurst’s sprawled. Beyond its stalls and pavilions lay the harbor, presenting the choice of which pier to explore—west or east.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

A single gravel road unified the peninsula. Streets grew from it like the veins from the stem of a leaf, but most of the traffic traveled on the main artery. The gravel ended at a harbor extending from the peninsula’s tip, and we dismounted and dismissed Jasper when we could make better time on foot.

No buildings stood beyond the harbor’s entrance, visually separating settlement development from its port. Farseed’s harbor had adapted well to its environment, justifying why its founders settled in such a remote location. The harbor featured two long bamboo piers running parallel to each other. They stood wide enough for large skiffs to pass but not much more.

Narrow rope bridges straddled the piers at their midpoints and far ends. They looked sturdy enough for foot traffic but insufficient for cargo transfers.

Each pier had two levels of docks to accommodate the variable height of the aerocline, and currently, the plane of fog rose only to the bottom dock. At first, I mistook the upper level for a roof, for it only stood two stories over the lower docks. The stacked configuration reminded me of a house of cards.

While columns held the pier together, the bamboo docks also floated on pontoons—but only within a dozen feet of tolerance. Despite the crowds, Lusha gave the impression that the low arecoline created an off-season for skiff traffic. The port’s design could use both levels of docks simultaneously if half the skiffs loosened their pontoons with a dozen feet of rope. The crew would need masks to unload, but the upper aerocline didn’t seem dangerous.

Skiffs rigged to pontoons occupied the slips, and most of the port activity buzzed around them. I took an immediate liking to the ships. Their variety of rigging, size, and components gave them charm and individuality.

Watching the dockworkers load and unload the strange vessels made me wonder if their operators called themselves sailors or something fancier, like aeronauts. Workers operated cargo cranes to unload freight from the skiffs to the pier’s upper level, which had become crowded with stacks of crates and rows of barrels. Burly humans and dwarves whose levels ranged to the upper teens patrolled the upper decks, moving in teams large enough to deter thieves.

We hadn’t asked Lusha how much the aerocline tide rose and fell. There could be a third level of docks beneath them for all I knew, for the vapor obscured everything beneath its surface.

Skiffs differed from boats in that they had no hulls. They looked like square platforms surrounded by pontoons—nothing about them looked aerodynamic or streamlined. They operated by rows of sails, using masts much shorter than I’d seen on flatboats and oceangoing vessels.

Pontoons extended beyond the platform on all sides, consisting of inflated leather balloon-like bags. Some hung onto the sides like modern boat fenders, while others extended from mechanical arms. Some used multiple smaller air sacks held together by netting. My recent experience with the lizardfolk watercraft gave me a better appreciation for the stability that outrigger designs gave.

I reminded myself to scan the marketplace crowds for player nameplates but saw none. Duchess and Audigger had mailed each other, so I assumed them to be allies. It seemed too much to hope for another two-on-one scenario.

I didn’t want to do any more walking than necessary. We’d been pushing hard ever since we left the deep elves, whose incarceration provided the best mattress since I’d entered the game. I had no right to complain about the Dark Room bunks, but its accommodations weren’t luxurious.

More than anything, I yearned for a comfy place to rest and a full belly. I chided myself over the thought. A warm mattress and a cooked meal were not what I wanted. I wanted to win this contest. No matter what it took, I had to press myself forward, taking every available advantage. These players were tired, too. Fabulosa looked exhausted, and not just from our journey. If The Book of Dungeons playtest could weigh down a player like her, it weighed down everyone.

This game made it easy to lose focus, but ultimately, everything I did took me one step closer to going to school. College wasn’t for everyone. Some would use it as a four-year vacation, graduating no smarter or better prepared than before they enrolled. Most would learn that free rides from Mom and Dad were over. Some kids expected to be rich just because their parents had money. Some anticipated a healthy inheritance, but the math in that never checked out—most heirs inherited wealth in their seventies.

One difficulty in this game involved focusing on who I was before entering Miros. My name wasn’t Apache, nor was I from Belden. I didn’t mind serving hamburgers, cleaning toilets, or hauling junk for someone as long as it meant I was moving toward something beyond making rent payments, not that any of these jobs could pay rent with unemployment as high as it was.

Fabulosa said I worried too much about the future and the past, and maybe she was right. But doing so might be the one edge I possessed—I could force myself to remember who I was before I started playing. Obsessing over college helped me keep my eye on the prize, which might be crucial in the endgame.

During my last year in high school, I’d taken to playing poker in casinos. My disheveled appearance and glum disposition worked in my favor for once. Looking older, wiser, and more tired than my underage years, I sat at the low-stakes poker tables among other adults. I went at night after the libraries closed when the tourists from New York and Philadelphia arrived.

The casinos taught me patience and self-discipline. Memorizing odds wasn’t hard. A lot of players come to the tables thinking that knowing the odds would be enough to stack up to the locals who played every night. But the biggest challenge in cards revolved around the realization that one hand had nothing to do with the next. Ignoring good and bad luck was the hardest thing to remember, and even the best players forget it in the heat of a hand. Big losses and wins gave no indications of the future, and the same philosophy applied to this game.

Making it to the final six did not indicate how future events might unfold. Walking around with a crazy-good sword, ultimate powers, and high combat skills wouldn’t prepare me for every situation. If past battles provided a large enough sampling size to draw conclusions, the fights ahead would be brutal.

And fighting couldn’t be avoided. Turtling at this stage of the battle royale wasn’t a winning strategy.

Every opponent carried a treasure trove of collected magic items. Allowing opponents to fight your battles only snowballed their gear. And gear accumulation made facing players like Toadkiller so intimidating. With 16 knockouts, I couldn’t image what he carried. If he’d secreted an advantage at the bottom of the dungeon in Oxum, it was something I wanted.

Yet this didn’t explain Darkstep’s behavior. He seemed to avoid fights. If he was omniscient as he acted, why wasn’t he involving himself? Why would Darkstep allow enemies to accumulate the continent’s best loot?

Toadkiller would reach Farseed tomorrow, so it behooved us to leave today. He wouldn’t have moved to Oxum so quickly if Darkstep’s instructions hadn’t bothered him.

Neither Toadkiller nor Darkstep could have predicted the communications channel opening, so I didn’t think they were manufacturing this race, especially since they were on opposite ends of the continent when the channel opened.

And why was Darkstep so cagey? Was he simply a weakling with information about stronger players? If that were the case, his best move was to say nothing and not make enemies. And if he possessed significant powers, why all the cloak and dagger?

And yet spy craft theatrics accurately described what it felt like walking through Farseed. Somewhere in this town, Audigger and Duchess awaited us.