Jackson slept.

He woke a few hours into the night—they all woke a few hours into the night—with a flash of light and crash of thunder so loud it seemed lightning had struck the barn itself.

A storm had rolled in just after the LARP Club had arrived. Rain had pelted the structure in icy sheets, but the walls and roof had held. There were plenty of blankets; Jackson had been selling flannel blankets and quilts from a small business that didn’t have its own location, more of a farmer’s market sort of affair. He had boxes of their stock in the barn and everyone had gone to sleep as comfortable as they could have.

Then that crash and flash had pulled them all out as from the grave.

“Jesus!” someone yelled. The wind outside howled, causing the doors to rattle and the beams overhead to creak. Then, with the same suddenness as the flash, the wind stopped. Jackson’s vision was obscured by one of the large translucent blue screens that had been appearing periodically, like when all of this madness had begun, and when he had killed zombies on the farm the day before. He’d never been much of a gamer but he understood the references to XP and levels from cultural context, even if magical screens projecting them into his mind was absolutely batshit crazy.

This screen said something new, though.

Congratulations, combatant! You have survived 48 hours in your first trial-by-combat! As a current survivor and the owner of a suitable structure, you have the option to form a guild and claim a guildhall. Benefits of a guildhall include:

Guild-wide buffs while inside or near the hall;

Safe zone from enemies under level 100 at all times;

Safe zone from all enemies during invasion phase;

Hall upgradable to include food, rest, and grooming amenities.

In order to claim your hall, the following additional conditions must be met:

You must form a guild of no fewer than twelve members;

You must ratify a guild constitution by simple majority;

You must hold your hall for a total of twenty-four hours.

“Is anybody else seeing this?” he asked, waving his hand through the air as the screen dissipated into nothing.

“Yeah,” Julia said. “What’s a guild hall?”

“Geez.” Mike rubbed sleep from his eyes. He’d been bedded down in a pile of blankets off in a dark corner. Like everyone else he had sprung to attention with the deafening boom and crash. Now everyone on the lower level of the barn had risen to their feet and gathered together in the middle of the large space, looking around to see that everyone else had read the same messages they had.

Above their heads the wooden slabs that served as the floor to the loft creaked.

A pregnant pause followed.

“Shit.” Jackson cursed beneath his breath. Then he headed to the ladder and cleared his throat before calling upstairs, “Hey, uh, Riley? You want to come down and talk about this?”

Some strange sounds followed; rapid footsteps, some banging, a muffled voice. Was a scuffle taking place in the loft? Jackson’s face grew dark. He turned to the others to warn them to be ready, but in the moment he took his attention away from the ladder, someone came barreling down it, axes first.

Damage taken! Combatant scores critical hit for -20 HP.

White hot pain erupted in Jackson’s body as he was quite literally stabbed in the back. He grunted and stumbled forward, falling to his hands and knees. Whoever had attacked him yanked their blades back out of his body, causing him a whole new episode of mind-numbing anguish. No doubt they would have taken advantage of his incapacitation to finish him off, but for the others at ground level.

Mike leapt over Jackson’s prone form, fending off the would-be assassin, as Julia and her companions placed themselves between Jackson and the attacker.

“What the fuck, kid?” Mike yelled.

“We have to take the barn,” a girl’s voice responded. “I’m sorry. We can’t risk everyone’s lives on the gamble that he’d just give it up. Of course he wouldn’t just give it up. He had to go, man. This is going to be the Guild Hall now. You want in? You get in line. You can’t do that? Leave now, or I’ll put you down, too.”

“I think you’re getting a bit ahead of yourselves,” a woman’s voice said.

Jackson was in a strange place; his body felt ice cold and then hot by turns, and though he felt adrenaline thrumming in his limbs, every instinct screamed to lie still to avoid the pain of movement. He was in shock, he numbly realized, but knowing something and being able to do anything about it were two different things. All he could do in his frozen state was lay on the ground and listen and try to understand what was happening. He was surprised when he heard the kid’s voice; was it Patricia, or one of the others he hadn’t really met? One of the college kids, anyway. Maybe Patricia; she’d been carrying a pair of hatchets.

He would have expected Mike to intervene. As much as the guy’s personality grated on him, he’d been a good ally so far; together they had cleared the farm of enemies the day before.

But what surprised him the most was the icy steel in Julia’s voice as she faced down his attacker.

“You seem to be under the impression you can just take this place from us without risking your life. I assure you, sweetheart, it isn’t that simple. Raise your weapons against me and it will not go well for you. Lucky for you, my friend Jackson here is going to be just fine. You didn’t go deep enough and you didn’t hit anything critical. I’ve an eye for it, you see. On account of me being an EMT.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Lady I don’t give two shits what you say,” the kid said. “Get lost or get ready to die. I don’t want to do it but I will. It’s for the greater good.”

There was a louder, more prolonged scuffle upstairs, and Jackson wondered what the hell was going on up there. He also wondered if Julia really knew he would be fine or if she was just bluffing. The pain in his back, which radiated from his shoulders, had taken on a dull, heavy quality, as if his entire upper back was solidifying into a wall of stone. Fresh waves of pain pulsed through it like ripples across the surface of the sun.

“The greater good.” Julia’s voice was sad and cold. “Ends versus the means, eh? What do you say, ladies? Shall we lay down like a pack of dogs and let these pups take over?”

“No m’am,” one of Julia’s companions said. Jackson heard the sound of steel scraping over leather. Another sword user, then? He hadn’t noticed. But then, they’d only arrived before dark.

“Fuck you!” the young girl yelled. Then they fought.

It was hard for Jackson to follow what exactly was happening, but after a moment one of Julia’s other companions was kneeling beside him on the floor. She placed a hand on his back, in between the wounds, took a deep breath, and did… something. Jackson felt a pulse of power flood into this body from her hand, like nothing he’d ever felt before but exactly what he would have imagined magic or spiritual energy or whatever woo-woo thing you wanted to call it to feel like.

And then the pain stopped.

“Get up,” she said. She sat down on the ground, breathless. He looked up and saw the woman’s face held an expression of utter exhaustion. She looked like she was on her deathbed. She smiled weakly at his concern. “I’ll be fine,” she said, “just need to recharge. But you need to get up. Now.”

He gingerly pressed his hands to the ground and pushed himself up, expecting excruciating pain to stop him short at any moment, but the pain never came. Only a dull ache, practically just phantom sensations, remained, and he felt as refreshed and alert as if he’d just had a long night sleep, a double shot of espresso, and a cold shower.

Buff acquired! You have received Spirit Infusion from Sashandra the Cultivator Combatant.

This is a healing buff. 10HP damage instantly negated. Heal-over-time +1HP per 30 seconds until fully healed or until more damage taken.

It was like the wounds on his back had closed and scabbed over already. As he pushed himself up, putting his weight into his shoulders, he finally felt the limit and the aching pain that remained, as he wasn’t quite fully healed. But he was no longer debilitated, and his HP continued to slowly tick up. Jackson rose to his feet and turned around.

One of the LARP Club kids lay on the floor. Or rather, their body did, bloodied and lifeless. Julia stood over it, her expression tired and regretful. In the dim candlelight Jackson spotted what was probably blood on her teal scrubs and the quarter-zip navy fleece she wore over them. Beside her stood the other woman she’d come in with, a petite older woman with graying chestnut hair and brown eyes of steel. In one hand she held the black walking cane she’d come in with a few hours before. In the other she held a straight short-blade with a cane handle; clearly she kept one of those concealed cane knives. That must have been what he’d heard being drawn out for the fight. Its metal tip was dark with something wet.

“We’re sorry to shed blood in your barn, Jackson,” Julia said quietly.

Jackson was taking the scene in with wide eyes. He rubbed a hand over his face and took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure. “Thank you,” was all he finally said.

“You killed her!” a boy’s voice called from overhead. They all looked up and saw another of the LARP kids peering down from the loft. “You fucking savages! We’re going to destroy you! Just wait until—”

“Paul, get back!” another of them whisper-yelled, pulling the boy back out of sight and leaving Jackson and company alone with the freshly minted corpse. They stood stock still, staring at the empty space where the boy had just been.

The barn fell silent again.

“I don’t like this,” Mike said. “Not one bit.”

Jackson turned to check on the woman who had healed him. He knelt down to face her. “You saved me,” he said.

She opened her eyes and smiled gently before shaking her head. “You were fine. Just wanted them to see you were alive and well. You know. Half of warfare is all in the mind.”

“Sashandra, you ok?” Julia knelt down beside Jackson, laying a hand on the woman.

Sashandra had dark skin and black, frizzled hair. She also wore teal scrubs and what looked like some kind of parka over top.

“Fine,” she said. “Just hungry. And tired. Need to cultivate.”

“You’re a cultivator?” Jackson asked.

“She chose it the first night,” Julia explained as she handed Sashandra an apple. “Got some kind of bonus for being one of the first ones, apparently, a skill for using the energy. She’s evolved it into a healing gift by using it more than a few times already.” She smiled at the younger woman. “She’s a special one.”

“I’m very grateful.” Jackson nodded. “Anything else I can bring you right now? I have cheese in the cellar, milk, water. A few cases of hard cider if that’s… if that wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Hard cider?” Sashandra perked up. “Not for me, but hang onto it. You got any of those apple cider donuts, cider man?”

“Next door in the bakery.” He smiled. “Maybe in the morning, yeah? Should have some that haven’t gone too stale yet.”

“Get ready, you fuckers,” a hostile voice called from the loft. Everyone looked up expectantly. Hands went to weapons.

Guild: Oakland’s Finest has been formed and ratified and has contested ownership of this space to convert to their Guild Hall! Current ownership has been determined to belong to Jackson Cook. Oakland’s Finest Guild Captain Slick Dick Chesterton contests ownership and has two hours to either convince Jackson Cook to forfeit, defeat Jackson Cook in combat to the death, or forfeit contest to Jackson Cook.

Two hours beginning now.

Jackson’s jaw hung to the ground. He’d… he’d taken them in. He’d let them come in for shelter, given them a place to sleep. The part of his mind that wanted to cry “unfair” until someone came along and made everyone play by the rules repeated these facts over and over in a cascade, but the truth was he’d known from the moment that first Guild Hall message had appeared how things were going to go.

South.

He approached the base of the ladder cautiously and called up with as calm and rational a tone as he could muster. “Hey… guys. It’s Jackson. Look, I don’t know why you felt you had to go and try to take the barn, but it doesn’t have to go that way. There’s space enough for all of us here, we can form a guild together and use it as a safe zone together. We can—”

“Fuck you, man!” a kid called down without showing their face. “You talk big, but we saw her body. You fucking killed her, man. Like a bunch of fucking… killers. You’re murderers! Don’t talk that bullshit now, about sharing and everybody working together. You already showed us who you really are. Fuck, man!”

“Kid, are you off your Adderall?” Mike yelled. “She attacked us. She attacked Jackson. She came down swinging, hatchet first, and sunk cold steel into his body without so much as a ‘hey, we should talk about this.’ You really going to pretend you have the moral high ground? She’s dead because she attacked. Self-defense, pure and simple, that’s all that was.”

“Look, I’m really sorry,” Jackson said, raising his hands in supplication. He took a breath, trying to regain control of the tone. Mike was amped up with anger that wouldn’t help anyone. “I wish she wasn’t dead, but she is. I can’t change that. What he said is true, she attacked us. It’s done. It’s over. Nobody else has to get hurt. We aren’t your enemies. We can all get what we want without having to do any of this the hard way.”

“It’s over,” the kid said in a mocking tone. “Sure. Old man, ain’t nothing about this shit is over. But your fam down there is gonna know when it’s over, because it’s when you’ll be over, you know what I’m saying? Fucking murderers.” He hacked and spit over the side. Jackson stepped back, letting it fall to the ground. “I think you are our enemies. I think you want to keep this barn for yourselves and kick us out, feed us to the monsters outside. Man, fuck that. I’m tired of arguing, this is bullshit. Eat death, motherfucker.”

The hunting bow appeared so quickly they might have ended it all in one shot if Jackson hadn’t been ready. But this time he expected hostility, and he was on his toes. He stepped back once more and, in one fluid motion, yanked his brother’s katana free from its leather scabbard.

Combatant Stat Screen

Name: Jackson Cook

Level: 7

Class: Combat Leveler

Subclass: Swordsman (katana; adept)

In the same motion, Jackson’s katana whipped forward and up in front of his body, deflecting the hunting arrow with a *ping*. Jackson’s face grew dark again.

“Mike,” he said. “I think they want to do it the hard way.”

Mike cracked his knuckles and hefted his axe. “Heard.”