Josh had been tramping around the woods in circles for a week now. He had burrs in his hair, both sets of clothes were ripped and torn, everything he owned was damp and mildewy from the rain, which had started around the second day. Also, he had run out of food. He had gained more points in most of the stats—Strength, Endurance, Resilience and Chi, but also some in Agility and Constitution. He wasn’t quite sure what had caused Constitution to rise. In Spiralia, it had been from regenerating health points or eating food that gave health buffs. Maybe it was all the healthy, fresh, farm food he had been eating out of his pack.

He still hadn’t decided on whether to go for Glow or Hide, and despite the daily temptation to choose one of them and be done with it, he was forcing himself to leave it until he had more information. He wouldn’t get another chance to choose a skill until level 15, and if he went ahead with his plan of not applying future experience immediately, he had no idea when that would be.

Josh had been dispiritedly contemplating the trudge back down to the road, when he realised that the animal track he had been following had widened out into a path. It was a narrow path, and overgrown with bushes on either side, some of which he had to crawl under to get past, but it was a path nonetheless.

It wound uphill, tracing the edge of the stream he’d been following, getting wider and more clearly path-like with every twist and bend, until he eventually stepped into what felt like a green church. It was a circular space, bounded by rock face on three sides, festooned with some kind of green creeping plant—honeysuckle or ivy, Josh had no idea—and with a small boulder in the centre, about three feet high, with a flat top. There was the sort of hushed, still atmosphere you would get in a holy place, broken only by the distant trickle of water from the stream.

It wasn’t the druid grove.

Josh remembered what Varian had said, about the resurrection shrines being special places. Maybe this was a resurrection shrine.

The more he stood there, the more he thought he was right. He was no woodsman, by any stretch of the imagination, but the path leading directly away from the shrine was the widest and most regularly travelled—as it would be if outlanders resurrected here on a regular basis, and then took the obvious option of travelling downhill and following the stream. The path petered out the further away you got from the shrine, as if the various newly resurrected outlanders had chosen different routes after that.

It suddenly occurred to Josh that it had been twelve or so days since Shuriken had been killed. What if he resurrected here? Josh immediately had the panicky impulse to back out of the shrine and make his getaway with all due haste. He stilled the impulse. It would be immensely unlikely—and unlucky—for Shuriken to resurrect in this particular shrine, right now.

There was no sense in hanging around, however. Josh came out of the shrine, and onto the bank of the river. Uphill he could see a thin stream of waterfall pouring down the rock face. What if the druid grove was further up? He judged it would be at least a day’s walk back to the nearest farmhouse where he might buy food. The longer he spent exploring now, the longer he would have to go without eating.

But he could be so close, and not even know it. He should at least try.

It took him several hours of backtracking and scrambling up steep banks before he found a way to the top of the cliff where he could overlook the waterfall beside the shrine. If he peered over the cliff, he could see through the interwoven vines into the shrine itself. It would be a good way to keep watch on it, just in case Shuriken did revive there. On second thoughts, though, trying to hide in the woods from a vengeful ranger ten levels higher than him would be a quick and easy way to commit suicide.

Josh turned away from the cliff and followed the stream upriver to the base of a second waterfall, where it fell into a wide, shallow pool, surrounded by boulders of thick, green moss. He recognised it instantly.

The druid’s grove.

Slipping and sliding through the waterfall, he found himself in a narrow cavern leading upwards, with steps cut into the rock. He’d saved his tallow candle for this very eventuality.

Lighting a candle with a flint and steel was a pain. First, he had to get out some of his tinder, carefully stored in a waxed pouch in the centre of his pack to keep it dry, then he had to sit down and strike sparks onto it. The sparks had a tendency to fly everywhere except where he wanted them to go, and then when one did land he had to blow on it until it smoked furiously. This made the burning embers spread, and eventually it would produce a little flame. Only then, finally, would he be able to hold the candle wick to the flame.

If he subsequently moved too incautiously, however, or didn’t protect the candle from draughts, it would blow out and he would have to repeat the whole process. Plus, as the tallow burned, the wick didn’t burn down with it, and the candle flame would gutter lower and lower, at which point he would have to let it go out so he could trim the wick before relighting it.

He wanted an electric torch so badly. Or a phone with GPS and an interactive map. And dry clothes. And a tent. And a bed, and pillows. And a cheeseburger. Or a pizza. Or a cheeseburger and a pizza.

There was no point in dwelling on things he didn’t have and wouldn’t be able to get any time soon. The quicker he got into the grove and found what he was looking for, the sooner he could get back to civilisation—or what passed for it around here—and buy more food.

Guttering candle in hand, he trod cautiously up the rock-cut stairs, which led to a wider cavern, almost like an antechamber, with a door affixed to the opposite end. It was a heavy-duty door, make of thick, aged wood, and bound and studded with iron. Next to the door was a rusty bell and a decaying rope.

Looking at it, Josh could already tell that the place was abandoned. Nevertheless, he rang the bell a couple of times, and waited.

When there was no answer he tried the door, which he first thought was locked or barred, but it proved just to be wedged shut with damp, and he got it open eventually.

Beyond the door was a thicket of greenery. When Josh edged into it, he caught a glimpse of a large, circular open space, perhaps a hundred feet in diameter, with tall rock walls enclosing it. In Spiralia Online, this had been a druid garden, a place of chaotic, rambling plants all fighting for space, where the inhabitants had grown herbs, vegetables and fruit.

In the absence of the druids it had exploded into a thick jungle.

He pushed and wriggled his way through it. If it was the same as the grove in Spiralia Online there would be natural caverns in the surrounding rock wall which the druids had used as living quarters. One of those caverns, which Josh thought was on the opposite side and a little to his right, would be the library.

And in the library would be spell books.

He absently noted some plants that looked like food crops—were those carrots, growing wild? And that was definitely an apple tree. He would be able to eat. But even though he was hungry he couldn’t stop. He had to see the state of the library.

His idea was based on the way spells were cast. In Spiralia Online, mages had the ability to learn spells off by heart, and could cast them at will simply by visualising them. However, simpler spells—usually low-level cantrips and charms—could be committed to scrolls, and these could be cast by anyone so long as they had the scroll and a minimum level of magical ability. Spell scrolls had to be inscribed by spellcasters on specially prepared magic paper, or using specially prepared magic ink.

Josh’s thought was, what if he used a magically infused quill? Would the magic from the quill transfer to the ink as the spell was inscribed? Could he take spell books and copy some of the simpler spells and make them work?

The crucial question was, had the druids taken the books with them when they left? If not, would the books have survived?

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He finally got to the slice in the rock wall that he thought led to the library, and plunged into it without hesitation. There was wooden wall built across the cave mouth, with a door in it, which was promising. He grabbed eagerly at the handle, but his first intimation that something was wrong was when it came off in his hand.

The door—in fact, most of the wall he now saw—was rotten.

Alarmed, he dug his fingers into the hole left by the handle and pulled a little more away. The wood was soft and spongey, and as he ripped chunks of it out, he saw the other side was covered in disintegrating black mould. Eventually he created a big enough hole to squeeze through.

The library lay in ruins. The shelves had collapsed, and mulched paper was heaped in piles across the floor. It smelled intensely of mildew, and he could see the black mould carpeted the floor, walls and ceiling.

It was a crushing disappointment. All that time struggling through the woods, wasted. All that sweat and blood expended, to no avail.

He stood staring at it for some time, and then finally, and reluctantly, turned his attention to the overgrown garden. He should make a fire and find something to eat.

There did prove to be a decent amount of harvestable food. Josh dined on roasted carrots and parsnips, and ate an apple, some lettuce and some raspberries raw. He consumed it mechanically, hardly tasting what he put in his mouth. Coming here had been a mistake—he would have been better going straight to Brackstone. A week of being wet, cold, and tired, and it had all been for nothing.

It wasn’t until he was staring at the embers of the fire, and remembering the druid quest line, that he suddenly remembered the foundation stones. The foundation stones! These consisted of six rocks in the central cavern below the grove, with complex sigils carved into them, which underpinned the grove’s magic. The sigils were rune-based, from an older school of magic than the more refined, modern script used for spellcasting.

Josh straightened he thought about them. Could those sigils work even if transcribed onto paper?

It was worth a try.

He hastily kicked soil over the fire, and jogged over to the library again. If he remembered correctly there was a stone in the centre which could be levered up to reveal a spiral staircase leading down into the lower caverns. He pulled more of the rotten wood from the door and squeezed into the library.

Wait, he needed light. The sky was turning pink, and the sun had already set below the horizon. He needed to light the bloody candle again.

He halted as he heard a flapping sound. What was that? He turned back towards the centre of the library and saw the fluttering shadow as thousands of moths lifted from where they had been resting against the mounds of rotting paper and cardboard that had once been books. The walls flickered and billowed as more waves of moths rippled off them and began to swirl in the centre of the room.

Book moths. Book moths were dangerous.

Josh turned and ran for the exit as fast as his legs could carry him, plunging through the door and into the relative safety of the garden, even as he felt the feathery touch of thousands of wings snatching at his hair and clothing.

The moths fluttered uncertainly when faced with the fading daylight. Even as Josh watched, a susurrus boiled around the library and began to coalesce into a shape made entirely from moth wings, continuously crawling over each other.

Josh shivered with horror.

Not just book moths—a book moth haunt.

In Spiralia, book moths were pests that fed on books, particularly in magical libraries. They consumed magic-infused wood pulp from spell books, but if the moth swarm grew concentrated enough it could learn from the books it devoured, and a haunt would form, a moth spirit that believed it was a character from a scene in one of the books it had absorbed.

Josh had first come across a book moth haunt during the quirky little introductory quest to the Royal Order of Mages in Celespire. Some absent-minded wizard had accidentally let a moth spirit take over his library, and would set the player to clearing the infestation.

This could be achieved simply by fighting the moth haunt. In this scenario, the haunt would cast the player as the antagonist in the story it was mimicking. However, you could also use dialogue options to attempt to persuade the moth haunt that you were an ally from the scene in question, and trick it into vacating the premises. The quest had been used to give the player exposition on one of the main story arcs later in the game.

Book moths were semi-ephemeral magical creatures. Their main attack was one that attempted to smother their victim, but even if you did fight them, they were easy to get away from because they evaporated into smoke in daylight.

Josh stared at the holes he had just made in the door, and then looked westwards, where the last of the dying light lit the sky.

The book moth haunt had been trapped in the library, probably for years, and now he had just let it out, and soon there would be no daylight to keep it contained.

He turned and ran, not even stopping to collect his things. He could come back for them later. Assuming he survived this. He knew intellectually that he would resurrect if he died, but his hindbrain hadn’t got the message, and it flooded him with adrenalin.

He felt his way through the stone passageway, eyes straining to see in the darkness, using the wall to guide him down the steps. Once he stumbled, and a sharp pain lanced though his ankle, but he kept going, alert for the flutter of wings behind him. He splashed and skidded out of the waterfall. Would the shrine be safe?

He didn’t waste time trying to find the slow way down into the shrine. Instead, he ran straight to the cliff edge overlooking it, grabbed hold of some of the vines and started climbing down. Some of them were thick, and securely anchored to the cliff, so progress was easy until he came to a patch where another species of creeper had intertwined itself. This one had thorns, a fact he didn’t realise until he grabbed a handful of foliage and let out a cry of pain.

He let go, and then the vine he was clinging to slowly came away from the cliff. He flailed, and then fell.

The ground was perhaps ten feet or so down, and slammed into him with a body-shaking thud that rearranged the whole world around him. All he could do was lie there and take shallow, shaky breaths.

Had he got away from the book moth haunt?

Eventually he pulled himself into a sitting position. He shouldn’t stay here, just in case. He should follow the stream down and get as far away as possible. He took a step towards the gap in the thicket that led out of the shrine, and stopped.

There was a smoky, shifting shadow standing at entrance, blocking his way.

The book moth haunt.

It had a vaguely female shape, with long sleeves, a wide skirt, a sweeping robe, and a billowing cloak. On its head was the faint suggestion of a crown.

Could it enter the shrine?

That question was answered when it stepped forward. Yes, apparently it could. It was going to smother him! He was going to die. He heard his own panicked rasping breaths. Calm down. Think. What could he do?

Josh’s only chance now was to attempt to write himself into the scene it was about to enact, but as an ally instead of an antagonist. The problem was he had no idea who the haunt was meant to be.

It looked queen-like. The Queen of the Fay? Queen Halina? The former had worn armour, but the haunt looked like it was wearing a medieval dress. That didn’t necessarily mean anything, though, because the haunt would be based on the version that was in a history book or a novel, not necessarily reality. It could be a completely fictional queen Josh had never heard of.

The haunt stepped forward again, raising its arms, its sleeves fluttering and shifting around it.

In the game, the smother attack had just been an attack, but now that he was faced with a real version, the thought of being smothered by hundreds of moth wings made Josh feel dizzy with panic.

He could only pray it was Queen Halina, because if it was, he had a chance. He had nothing to lose by assuming that. Who would Queen Halina’s allies be? The Tigerlily Knight? One of the wizards of the Royal Order of Mages? One of the nobles? Josh frantically tried to remember a character he could convincingly portray.

“My beloved knight, my tiger of the lily, lies dead,” the haunt cried dramatically. It had creepy, breathy, multi-tonal voice that sent shivers of horror down Josh’s spine.

Focus, he told himself. That meant the haunt had to believe it was Queen Halina. It was the best possible outcome. What scene was it though? There must have been an assassination attempt. That immediately triggered the memory of Elder Tharn’s tale—someone called Tylas the Undying had assassinated both Queen Halina and the Tigerlily Knight. That must be the scene the moth haunt had absorbed and grown from. The haunt would try to make Josh take the role of Tylas so it could kill him.

A swirl of darkness began to form in the haunt’s outstretched hand.

Something hit Josh’s back and he realised he had backpedalled all the way to the cliff at the opposite side of the shrine. It didn’t matter what scene it was. He needed to write himself in as an ally. Who was one person Queen Halina would never harm?

Her son, he thought, with a flash of inspiration. He should pretend to be the Young Prince. What was his name? Rupern, that was it!

“Mother, why are you attacking me?” he called. If he hadn’t been so terrified he would have cringed at his pathetic attempt at acting. Some bard he was turning out to be. Once again, his lack of roleplaying experience was likely to get him killed.

The haunt paused, with the smoky ball of moths levitating above its palm. It glided forward.

“You infiltrated my palace,” it insisted. “You struck at me from the shadows. Even now, I can feel myself weakening, the poison clutching at my heart. You slew my best and brightest of knights.”

How could Josh persuade her that he was Prince Rupern?

He fell to his knees.

“Mother, it is a trick!” he cried. “Tylas the Undying has cast a spell upon me, to prevent you seeing my true form!”

The haunt paused. The ball of moths in its palm, presumably meant to represent a spell that would launch a smother attack, continued to swirl, but didn’t increase in size or fly towards him.

“Lies!” it hissed.

“Let me prove it,” Josh called hastily. The trouble was, Prince Rupern hadn’t been in Spiralia, and Josh knew almost nothing about him. What sort of details did he know about Queen Halina?

He wracked his brain, thinking desperately.