Matt read the yellow ticker as it cycled again. ‘ANNOUNCEMENT. Notification of legal action. Case number 1425778: Unwilful Destruction of Planet F-311246.3 (‘Earth’). Emergency petition filed by PRO has been granted.’
Matt read it a third time.
“What does this mean?!” Manuele said, shaking two glinting swords.
“This might be real,” Fallyn said slowly, leaning into her staff.
“Naw…” Princess Valkyrie weighed in emphatically. “You’re all in my dream. I’m creative like that.”
“Hey cat-guy,” a beat-up forty-ish man in a red t-shirt said. He pointed aggressively at Kurtis. “You seem like an expert. You tell us what’s up with this.” He was one of the strangers who’d tuned in earlier; it said ‘Armen Cork’ above his head.
“Think about it,” Fallyn said, ignoring Armen. “When was the last time you ate? Have you felt hungry or needed to use the bathroom?”
“No, but…” Sharkie began and then faltered.
Armen continued to stare down Kurtis.
“I was just guessing,” Kurtis said quietly and pulled his staff protectively to his front. “I don’t—”
“You tell me what the announcement means,” Armen demanded, pointing at Kurtis’ chest.
Kurtis backed up and Anika made room. Matt didn’t know what to do.
“If that cat-guy knows something,” Armen insisted. “I mean, why is he a cat? My wife and kid are still missing.”
“Hey guys,” Manuele said, hand-talking with gleaming blades. “I heard the periwinkle Septimus is doing a Q&A.”
Sharkie raised an eyebrow.
“Purpley-blue,” Fallyn clarified.
“Yeah,” Manuele pointed his swords down the field.
With a harrumph, Armen plodded off for Q&A.
Matt began to follow.
“Hold on a sec,” requested Fallyn. She watched Armen striding away.
“Good thing he’s wearing a red shirt,” muttered Val.
“Now?” asked Matt.
“Wait,” said Fallyn.
“Well, I made it up.” Manuele spread his swords and frowned.
“Exactly.” Fallyn nodded.
“Thank you,” said Kurtis. “Really. But maybe don’t kill me with those things?”
Manuele dramatized offense and sighed.
“In that case,” Matt recovered, “we should definitely relocate.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to be here when that guy comes back,” Kurtis said. “Did everyone get the quest? If not, talk to Septimus, and let’s go.”
Matt’s group followed Kurtis to the North end of the field, Princess Valkyrie in tow. Most stowed their weapons—the inventory thing was handy. They passed a few people crying, some yelling. Matt needed to get away from all of it so that he could think.
The first announcement had mentioned a ‘Human Preserve,’ and that last one had said Earth was destroyed? Is this like with endangered species? he thought. His Mom liked animal documentaries. His subconscious had to be getting inspiration from somewhere.
He passed by a woman with a tie-dyed shirt, camo capris, and skull-patterned bucket hat. He avoided eye contact while she yelled out to everyone and no one: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be heard in the entire world as testimony to all peoples and all nations And then, he said, the end will come! The end has come!”
Matt rushed on to the end of the field. What was Fallyn saying about bathrooms and food? It was all too real and too strange. And how long had it been since the office? It was too fantastic to be real but too intense to be a dream. It has to be a dream.
A line of evergreen trees marked the end of the field. Matt picked through them, over and around large rocks. The grass became scraggly as it struggled for soil and light. The terrain started going uphill.
A skidding noise. Anika fell.
“Stop!” Matt called to the group and knelt to help her.
“God damn it!” she yelled. She’d skinned her knee and stayed seated on the ground. “I’m not a hiking, camping, woodsy person.” She grabbed a handful of pine needles and threw them down.
“How can I help?” Matt said.
“I do picnics and beaches,” Anika continued, “and pretty sunsets—but this? What is this?!”
“Well, this is a spruce tree,” Sharkie quipped, patting a nearby trunk. “And that’s a cedar.” She thumbed to the right.
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“If this is a dream,” Anika said icily, “I need to wake up. Right. Now.”
Manuele slid down beside her and put an arm around his yoga buddy’s shoulders.
“Maybe we all just take a break for a minute?” Matt said.
The group took his suggestion, finding rocks to sit on. Val sat beside Kurtis and started eying his tail. She slowly reached towards it and he jerked it away, shocked look on his face. Fallyn and Sharkie found spots where they could rest their backs against a tree.
Matt didn’t know what to say. He distracted himself by opening his map. Of course, there’s a map, stupid, he chided himself.
The quest from Pink-Septimus had said to gather lumber and, sure enough, the map showed six different lumber locations, highlighted in blue. Some of them were on parts of the map that were completely blank. The majority of the map was blank and it was huge. A tiny Earth Aspect Gem pulsed, showing Matt’s location. One of the blue blobs looked close.
Matt ran both hands through his hair, then adjusted his glasses. Anika looked calmer and her knee was healed. Then Matt realized, Shit, my points! They’d run out of camp so quickly; he still had five stat points to spend.
He opened the Stats Menu and thought about those damn freaking squirrels. Putting points in Weapon Power wasn’t an option, but he did get more of that from his mace. He thought about all of the scratches and bruises, and how Kurtis said things would get worse. Matt put all five in Health.
“Yeah… It’s weird, but kinda awesome.” Val broke through Matt’s concentration and he snapped the menu closed. She was standing in front of Anika attempting some cheer.
“Watch this!” Val drew back her bowstring. An arrow materialized and launched into a tree. It pulsed deep purple. Then she motioned inwards, like gathering air. Purple—almost black—smoke rushed towards her and then disappeared.
“Ta-da!” Val beamed and made jazz hands. “Shadow Strike and Shadow Mend—all of the shadows!” Then Val leaned down conspiratorially. “What did you get?”
“Arcane Bolt and Spirit Heal,” Anika responded with a half smile.
“Those sound great! This quest thingy’s just getting sticks, right? Easy!” Val declared. “And if we run into squirrels, we can try out our new things.”
Matt did not want to deal with any more squirrels. Please, no more squirrels!
###
‘Collect lumber: 1/30’ flashed when Matt looted the first acceptable gray stick to his inventory.
It was Sharkie who’d finally figured out how it worked. They were in a flatter, and more densely treed area—one of the spots the map had indicated for the quest. Matt had been picking up random sticks and holding them in his hands, waiting for something to happen.
He tried lifting one end of a heavy log about a foot off the ground. Nothing happened. It turned out you had to think about it zooming away like the dead squirrel loot had done. But even then, it didn’t work for everything.
After Sharkie’s instruction, the group fanned out to each have more space for gathering. Manuele and Sharkie decided to scout up ahead. Between sticks, Matt tested his inventory.
He looted three spongy mushrooms that were growing against a tree. Then he tried a rotting tree; it didn’t work and left his hands slimy. Next, he tried a large flat rock that was embedded—some unknown depth—into the forest floor. That didn’t work either, but a smaller, loose chunk did. Then he found another stick, as thick as his wrist.
‘Collect lumber: 5/30.’
Looting the grass didn’t work—unless he picked it. The same went for leaves of low-lying plants.
‘Collect lumber: 6/30.’
A dragonfly landed on his sleeve. He cupped his hand, trapping it. Matt could feel it frantically flitting against his palm. Unable to loot the bug, Matt set it free.
‘Collect lumber: 7/30.’
Matt picked, then looted two yellow flowers.
“Looting the whole forest?” Kurtis said, wandering towards him with a laugh.
“Yeah, you never know when a forest might come in handy.” Matt smiled, then explained, “I’m experimenting, seeing how looting works.”
Kurtis nodded. “Smart.”
‘Collect lumber: 8/30.’
It seemed like the logs and bigger sticks were needed for credit, but if they were too big then they wouldn’t loot. And how big was big enough? Matt gave up guessing and just looted everything he could. He would have a whole forest in his inventory by the end of this. Fear my magical inventory powers!
‘Collect lumber: 12/30.’
‘Collect lumber: 13/30.’
“Caw!” A blur of red-name and black feathers dive-bombed Matt’s head.
“Ow!” Matt felt at his head, then stared at his palm, red with blood. Where did it go? Matt scanned the trees above.
A pale purple bolt of light streaked upwards, shaking a nearby tree on impact. Kurtis grinned. He turned in a circle, sending five more bright Arcane Bolts to shake the ring of surrounding trees. “Not sure if I got it,” Kurtis said, “but pretty neat right?”
Red text lit up in three of the treetops. Kurtis’ name appeared too, along with those three faint curving lines. Matt pulled out his mace and cast his heal.
‘Blue Jay,’ the dive-bomber was labeled. Matt had seen blue jays before, but these were different. They were the size of a microwave and—it was hard to see against the branches—it looked like they had over-sized, shiny black heads.
Another one dove, black eyes—and bowling ball head—gleaming.
Matt swung his mace. The bird’s health bar ticked down a tiny bit. He’d forgotten to activate his skill with the swing. Shit.
Kurtis flung more Arcane Bolts into the trees. The large birds dodged, hopping from branch to branch easily. Then two jays dove, one at each of them.
Are those baseball helmets?
Matt swung his mace—Blood Slash. A red afterimage seared into the air. Blood and feathers clung to his weapon.
Awesome!
Matt wound up, ready to go again. It looked like he’d have to do that five more times to kill it—and there were three of them. He waited for the birds to come to him while Kurtis blasted the treetops. Matt wasn’t sure the cat-man was hitting anything.
He set down his mace, deciding to try Slapchop.
The next bird dove.
Thwack.
The blue jay flew back up to the trees. How the heck do I kill these things? Slapchop was worse. Matt picked back up his mace as two jays plunged for Kurtis.
Matt Blood Slashed while they pecked and clawed. Kurtis’ tail went rigid as Matt’s attack hit him too. Black feathers flapped away; Kurtis’ health was down to a third.
Matt tried to heal him, but the sparks just wove along his own skin. “Heal! Kurtis, heal!” Matt yelled.
Kurtis glowed pale green, and his bar increased. He glowed again and was restored to full. “I’m out of mana.” Kurtis gasped and then gripped his staff like a sword.
They both stared up at the trees. Matt readied his mace and widened his stance.
Then bolts and arrows flew up towards the blue jays from behind them. Fallyn, Anika, and Valkyrie had joined the fight.
“Let’s target the left one!” Fallyn called. “It’s lowest.”
With three of them firing, the bird-monster died quickly. Once its name flicked gray, it plummeted to the ground head first. The remaining two blue jays dive-bombed Anika.
Matt whacked them away with his mace. “Get off!”
Once they started to fly, he hit them with Blood Slash, hanging a bright red streak through the air.
Then the women targeted the jay in the tree to Matt’s right. Kurtis joined in with a bolt of his own but Matt’s attacks couldn’t reach. All he could do was watch it fall.
The final blue jay dive-bombed two more times before they got it. Matt barely got in a swing.
“Wow,” Matt breathed, letting the tip of his mace clink on the ground.
His heads-up display dropped as ‘3,500 XP’ floated up and away. Then they all started to glow.