Josh had finally resorted to looting a farmhouse.

Prior to that, he’d found a blackberry bush and supplemented his breakfast with some small, hard, sour blackberries, but he had still been left ravenous. And at some point today he was probably going to find out just how much he missed toilet paper.

The lack of movement so far in that direction had immediately set his mind to speculating about his situation. It normally took two to five days for food to pass through the body. The last thing he had eaten on Earth had been pizza with Ben and Timothy, which had been about twelve or thirteen hours before he’d found himself whisked away to Six Spires. Had he been physically transported to a real place, or had his body had been recreated somehow? If the latter, would that also include all the half-digested food he’d had on Earth, or not? Tracking his own bodily functions might give him a clue.

It was also possible that Josh was in a simulation, but so far everything had seemed overwhelmingly real, so if that was the case, he didn’t hold out much hope of finding a way to test that hypothesis.

His body had all the hair it normally did, and all the little nicks he’d accumulated over the last twenty-one years of his life. However, it suddenly occurred to him that the pimple on his back, which had been annoying him a couple of days ago, was missing. That, plus the fact that he’d arrived with an empty stomach, pointed towards the recreation theory. It also explained things like his hands suddenly knowing how to manipulate feathers, all the additional feather knowledge he had gained and, of course, the ability to cast magic.

The idea that some unknown agency had changed him to suit its own purposes was troubling, but Josh couldn’t help feeling excited by the magic. When he’d stopped for a rest, he’d taken out the sparrow feather ring, and tried infusing it again, to see if he could make the magic extra dense, but as far as he could tell it made no difference. The little sparkles didn’t get any thicker, they just stirred around a bit, and then settled again.

At least all the physical exercise he was getting meant he wasn’t cold anymore.

The farmhouse he had reluctantly investigated had been deserted for some time—years at least. Despite Josh’s conviction that any abandoned buildings in a fantasy world like this would invariably host monsters, he hadn’t seen a single zombie or animated skeleton or mutated plague tomato, or anything. The previous occupants had had time to clear everything out, and had stripped the place almost clean.

The only things Josh had found had been some frayed pieces of rope, a torn net of the sort that you put hay in for horses to eat, a rusty spoon with a hole in it, and the absolute prize—left behind in a broken crate in a pantry—which was a small jar of pickled cabbages.

He had no idea how old the jar was, or how long pickled cabbages lasted, but he was hungry enough to eat them anyway. He hadn’t liked the silent, creepy atmosphere at the farmhouse, however, so he’d decided to walk a little further on and, as he came to the top of a hill, he was rewarded by the sight of a glittery snake of river winding down the valley from the west to the east. He could find a nice spot of riverbank to sit down and eat his picnic.

While he walked, he kept having to remind himself not to sing. The tranquillity of the landscape was giving him a false sense of security, and it was only when a pheasant went whirring up in front of him in fright that he realised he was doing it again. This wasn’t the first time in his life he’d been caught in an embarrassing singing moment. He sang to himself a lot—to the radio, in the car, making dinner. It was an odd but understandable habit if someone heard you doing it in the shower, but he would never forget the utter humiliation being caught singing the Pee Pee Poo Poo song while going to the toilet by his girlfriend-at-the-time. His ears burned at the memory, even now.

Focus on your surroundings, Josh, he told himself.

The path he was following was beaten dirt, with two ruts for carriage wheels, but from the weeds sprouting everywhere, it was clear that nothing had passed this way for a long time. The road, insofar as it could be called that, curved down into the valley and then slid into the strip of woodland which screened the river. The river crossing was presently out of sight, and while Josh was hoping for a bridge, he was resigned to the more likely prospect of a ford. He thought he would face it after his pickled cabbage lunch.

While he walked, he found himself speculating about the character sheet or, more specifically, the class system.

He had already worked out that some classes must have been recycled previously, since there was no way assassin and demon would have been in the last twelve classes to be chosen. This implied that players were leaving the world, thus making their class available again, and from the things the Guardian was saying, Josh suspected this meant those players—those people—were permanently dead.

And then there was the mystery of the player rank. From its position in basic information section, it looked like it based on total experience.

[BASIC INFORMATION

Name: Josh Armstrong

Profession: Apprentice Plumassier

Level: 3

Total experience points: 260

Experience to next level: 225

Player rank: #865

Kills: 0 / Deaths: 0

Gladiator rank: #496

Outworld status: Hidden

Hide outworld status to other outworlders: Yes / No (Only available below level 10)]

If all the classes—except for nine plumassiers—were taken, and the guardian had said there were a thousand classes in total, that meant nine hundred and ninety-one players currently in the world. However, if the player rank was based on experience, why was Josh’s player rank #865 instead of #991? That implied a hundred and twenty-six people with a lower rank than Josh. What had happened to those people? Was it possible to lose experience and levels? Or were all those players in some kind of stasis? Or was it possible to kill players—people—and then somehow stop their classes from returning to the Guardian?

The fact that there was an outworld status, and an option to hide it below level 10, meant that if he met another player, there would be some visible indication. What would that look like? In Spiralia Online it was the usual name plate, with guild, level and an icon to indicate class. Josh imagined just how stupid that would look in the real world.

And then there was the kill/death ratio, which Josh assumed was for killing or being killed by other players. On one hand it was a reassuring indication that death was not intended to be permanent. On the other hand…

In Spiralia, killing other players gave you small amounts of experience, although there were diminishing returns for killing the same player multiple times, and the lower level a player was, the less experience you got. If a player was more than ten levels below you the experience was reduced to zero. This didn’t stop high level players killing low level players at all, and Josh didn’t imagine that would be very different here. Spiralia had had a karma system, where you lost karma after killing another player under certain circumstances, but it was too easy to grind karma back up, and the penalties weren't significant. The best thing Josh could do, he thought, was disguise himself as much as possible.

The last thing of note was Josh's class. He’d been allocated plumassier at character selection, but once he’d arrived here the system had tagged the word ‘apprentice’ onto it. One of the cool mechanics in Spiralia had been the tiered class progression. Unlike in many other games, you couldn’t just start as a knight from level 1. If you chose the knight class you spawned in the starter zone as a squire, and part of the progression required you to follow a questline in order to win your spurs and become a knight. It was the same with all the other classes. If you chose a priest, you started as an acolyte. If you chose mercenary or commander, you started out as a soldier.

What was the progression for plumassier? Was it merely crafting tiers, from apprentice to journeyman to master? Or was there some kind of special class evolution?

Josh missed his chunky, buffed paladin, with its 150 strength and constitution, but the thing he was most disappointed about was that he hadn’t been able to choose ranger. A ranger was a good balance between fast and agile, but had high endurance, and would have been perfect for walking miles over this kind of terrain.

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Josh’s attributes were completely the opposite of what they should be for his situation. His highest attribute was Manual Dexterity, which presumably came from playing games too much, while his Endurance and Resilience were abysmally low, for the same reason. Endurance was obviously the extent to which he could sustain continued effort. Resilience hadn’t been in Spiralia Online, but Josh presumed it was your ability to recover quickly. His Vocalisation was probably high because he was good at singing, at least to the extent of holding a tune, embarrassing toilet songs notwithstanding.

Looking at his baseline stats, the best class for him would have been bard. In fact, now that he thought about it, bard was a solid class in most games, albeit not one you saw very often. Yes, it was mostly support and utility, but it was flexible and matched his innate advantages. Why had he never chosen it before?

Josh reached the treeline and, peering into the cool, green, dimness, had a sudden epiphany. The reason he never chose bard was because it matched his real nature so well. He always went for the ranger first, because that’s what he wanted to be, not what he was. Games were all about the fantasy of being a different person. He liked the idea of being the solitary hunter, running through the forest, picking off his enemies with a bow, and laying clever traps. He didn’t like the idea of being a twat in tights.

That matter settled, Josh trudged into the short stretch of wood, and focused on his next goal, a picnic spot. He'd decided that a nice soft patch of grass by the side of the river, accompanied by the relaxing sound of burbling water, would be the perfect setting for pickled cabbage.

His plans were thrown into disarray, however, when the road plunged steeply down onto a riverbank that was thick with mud. The mud wasn’t a problem.

It was the massive three-clawed webbed tracks embedded in the mud, each print more than a foot wide, that were the problem.

Josh swore and backed slowly away, eyes frantically scanning the placid river. He saw no sight of any river monster, but the water here was opaque enough in colour that he wouldn’t be able to see it until it was too late.

He walked rapidly back up the valley, until he reached a little knoll that would allow him to see for a quarter of a mile in every direction. It had a largish, flat boulder at the top, so he climbed onto it and sat there, clutching his jar of pickled cabbage, while hurriedly scanning the landscape.

There was no sign of any monster.

He decided to eat his picnic, because he didn’t want to have to think about this problem on an empty stomach. He kept a wary eye on the landscape, but there was no sign of anything big or scary. At least his position meant he would be able to see it from a distance.

The pickled cabbage was surprisingly delicious—its long sojourn in the abandoned farmhouse evidently hadn’t done it any harm. It was made from cabbage, carrot and ginger, and was sweet, crunchy, tangy, juicy and slightly salty. It disappeared in a disappointingly short space of time, although he would have enjoyed it more if the prospect of shortly becoming something else’s meal hadn’t kept invading his thoughts.

The jar might come in handy, so Josh tied it to his belt with the frayed rope, and considered his options.

First of all, what kind of monster was it? Josh mentally listed all the ones that he’d encountered close to Celespire when playing Spiralia, but none of them were that size. Celespire’s environs contained the low-level starter zone, there simply weren’t any huge, high-level monsters. But was no use thinking about Spiralia Online. Things were clearly different here.

What was big, had webbed feet with three-clawed toes, and lived in rivers?

It could be a drake of some kind, but they didn’t tend to get any bigger than horses, and the tracks at the river had suggested something far larger than that. It wasn’t a dragon, because they didn’t have webbed feet.

A horrible possibility occurred to him. What if it was a voracian broodmother? She was an elite boss, the kind of thing you needed five or six maximum level, well-geared players to take down. She also spawned a host of voracian hatchlings, which made up for their small size with potent venom attacks.

It didn’t seem a likely answer. Voracians were found far downstream, to the east, where the river was wider and deeper, and ran into the Mashar wetlands before reaching the Eastern Sea.

Whatever it was, Josh didn’t want to encounter it.

He could go back to Leybeck, but he didn’t fancy the prospect of retracing his footsteps, plus he would be walking back into the storm. It would take a day and a half, and he would have to rely on looting abandoned farmhouses for food, by no means a guaranteed source of sustenance. He could try continuing north, crossing the river at a different point, but he had no idea what a voracian broodmother’s range was. In Spiralia they stayed in one place, but they were massive carnivores, the size of an elephant, and would presumably need a steady diet of fresh meat. How far up and down the river would it need to roam to fulfil its hunger? Unless it was like crocodiles, which could binge on half their own bodyweight in a sitting, and could spend up to a year living off their fat reserves.

Josh traced the line of the river up the valley. He could see a jumble of rocks at the head of the valley, and the white threads of distant waterfalls where the river cascaded down from the plateau that was in the west.

If he went west, the river would be smaller and narrower, and therefore less hospitable for elephant-sized things with clawed feet. The water would be clearer too, allowing him to see if there was anything lurking beneath the surface. And last of all, there were less trees there, which would allow him to see a long way in any direction. Giant river monsters of that size would stick out.

And Josh was hungry. He would be more likely to find people if he continued north than if he turned back and sent south.

Decision made, he headed for the plateau.

Once he’d reached the spot he wanted to cross, Josh was hugely delighted to find a bridge of sorts. It was crudely fashioned from a tree trunk, and someone had hammered two iron spikes into boulders on both banks, then used those to string a guide rope across. The wood was slick with spray, and Josh hoped that it wasn’t rotten, because it was poised above a natural cauldron of foamy white water which thundered past his feet. He took a deep breath and inched onto the bridge.

He kept swaying wildly from side to side, but as long as he held tight to the guide rope he didn’t fall. He stopped briefly in the middle to look out across the valley, and found an unexpected lump rising in his throat, because it reminded him of the wilder parts of home. There were rolling hills, bisected by rivers and crowned with brown heather and rocky tors, the entire vista painted in a thousand different shades of green and blue and russet and grey. Above were high banks of clouds, outlined with a nimbus of light where the sun shone through and bathed patches of landscape.

Josh couldn’t help thinking about the shape of the world. Was it a globe? Had it been expanded into a whole planet, or was it a circular realm bordered by sea, as in Spiralia? It looked like he could see a horizon, which implied curvature, but the atmospheric haze made it hard to tell. He should stop thinking about things like that, particularly when he was clinging precariously to a rope above a waterfall. He should focus on survival.

Josh glanced down at the river and that was when he saw the voracian broodmother.

She lay in the deepest pool at the bottom of the waterfall, facing away from him with her eyes just above the water and a thick tail, taller than Josh, curving round onto the bank. In shape he knew she resembled a dunkleosteus except with legs and a tail—he couldn’t see it from where he was, but she would have a domed, armoured head, and a giant maw with two thick ridges of triangular teeth. She was top heavy, all her weight and muscles in her powerful jaws, and a pebbly hide that was a muddy, patchy brown in colour.

Her tail was curved protectively around a thick mat of glass bubbles floating in the water, in an eddy that kept them bobbing near the base of the waterfall.

Her eggs, he thought.

Voracian broodmothers had been immensely valuable in Spiralia. The hatchlings dropped venom sacs which could be used to create poisons or brew potions. The broodmother herself dropped thick leather hide that made good armour, but the other thing you could get from her were eggs. In the game the eggs were looted from her corpse after she died. It made more sense that, in reality, she would lay them in the water. The important thing was that, in Spiralia, each egg could be used to extract a tiny amount of the most potent venom in the game. The broodmother was so valuable that groups of players would camp her spawning points, and kill any other players who came near. There had even been wars fought between guilds who wanted to control access to the wetlands where the broodmothers were found.

Josh looked down at the bridge he was standing on. Had a group of enterprising players lured a broodmother all the way from the east and installed her here so they could farm the eggs? Was it co-incidence that such a useful bridge had been installed right over the pool where she had spawned her brood?

This set up implied that the eggs were as valuable here as they had been in the game.

Why was no-one around guarding her? Josh looked across the empty, windswept landscape and thought that probably answered his question. He hadn’t seen a single soul since the cavalcade of Trooping Fey. There was no need to guard her because there was no-one here to steal the eggs.

Except Josh.

Even as the thought took hold, he shook his head. No, no, no, no. It was a very bad idea. Extremely risky, highly dangerous, especially for someone who was only level 3.

But on the other hand, at level 3 he was vulnerable. Every single other player in the world was higher level than he was. If there was something that would give him an edge, this was it.

Josh studied the rocks to either side of the waterfall. The eggs were on the north side of the river. He had a net and some rope. Could he reach over and scoop them up without the broodmother noticing?

He had some planning to do.