“She’s looking for you, you know. Thinks you might be dead.”

I wasn’t going to sugar-coat things for him. He might have stopped himself from blowing the horn and calling all his Asterian buddies to burn down the pub, but he’d still abandoned his mother to join a bloodthirsty army. I wondered if he’d stood and watched as they threw flaming torches at her house.

“Do you know where she is? I just want to see her, that’s the only reason I’m here.”

“I haven’t seen her since the town was destroyed,” I replied.

His tankard sat untouched on the bar. Young Barney inched closer, reaching out an emaciated finger to hook round the handle. His stool balanced on two legs with the effort. I was sure he’d fall, but he managed to snag the drink and return to his position.

“What’s your name? I’ll help you find Marge. She asked me to, after all.”

“My name’s Braith, after my father.”

Giving him a hard time was a waste of effort. I was essentially just acting huffy to an extremely advanced chat-bot, which despite being a decent way to vent, really achieved nothing. However, Bill had one more question.

“Okay Braith, how do we know we can trust you? Your ma is a good citizen, but you...haven’t got the same reputation.”

Braith stiffened at being addressed by Bill. Apparently, he still had some sway, despite his years.

“I may have left, Bill, but I’m still a member of your town at heart. In my time as an Asterian I’ve never killed, never stole, nothing. I just got paid to stand guard all the time.”

“So you’re saying you’d be useless in a fight?”

“Aside from basic training, I’m afraid so.”

Just my luck. At least this burden doesn’t need a knee replacement.

Braith was given a second beer, and I told him to stay put until I could escort him to Marge. I thought it would be strange to disappear right then and there, so I made a show of going into The Safe House before disconnecting.

--Disconnecting, please wait—

Dale greeted me, sitting in a beanbag in the corner of the room with his Yurt and a beer. Mom had kicked the bad habit she’d picked up after the Olympics loss, but for Dale, beer was a way of life.

His head jerked up when I arose from my gaming coffin.

“Quick, boy, quick! We gotta get going, not many hours of daylight left!”

I massaged my head and groaned.

“What, don’t you wanna go?”

“No, that’s not it,” I quickly replied. “Just a lot going on in B&B, and I always need a minute to become a human again after I disconnect.”

“All good. Hey, speaking of B&B, do you mind if I use the Pod next week while you’re at Esko’s? I’m watching the Duels Final with an old friend — I can try to fix Em’s Pod, but you know…AT-2000.”

“Absolutely! Yeah, go for it. Just don’t spill any beer in it.”

I was eager to accept. I’d been so busy that I’d forgotten about my plan to stalk both Dale and Mom’s rankings. Once Dale immersed, his character should come out of the ‘inactive’ list, and I’d finally know just how good he was. There was also that other project to do with the B&B Archives…

I threw on some clothes that were rough enough to brave the jungle, then we set off at a trot. I knew the route by now, and to make up for lost time, I rushed ahead while Dale kept his leisurely pace. He made it just in time to see me warming up my javelin casts. I was a lot better at them in-game, but my form was coming along quite nicely in real life, too.

“What about your lunges, eh?” Esko asked. “Let me see some lunges, you should be able to get your knee to the ground each time, young thing like you. You should have a crack too, Dale. Goes a long way.”

“Esko, I’m pooped from just getting here!” he replied.

I pressed on, ignoring their banter. I’d been lax in my training, doing almost no exercise since Tuesday’s session, and it showed. My ‘lunge’ was closer to an elongated step than anything else.

“And how’s your technique? Catch.” My wiry teacher threw a blunt wooden spear at me, something he’d created himself. He said it was a bit heavier than the normal kind, which should help make my movements steady and more controlled.

I gave him a few mock underhand thrusts, stretching out as far as my angry thigh muscles would allow. Esko stood on the sidelines, a wall of indifference.

“Technique’s crap. You’d do less damage than a bee without its stinger.”

“But I’ve been doing so well in-game! I’m practically one-shotting everything.”

“Other players?”

I thought about the hordes of NPC Asterians I’d taken down. I felt like taking a swipe at Claire, but never got the chance.

“Not really…”

“Players move different,” he declared. “Monsters are easy, but players, no. That’s why we practice.”

I drilled the same moves for another half hour, sweating like a pig from the high humidity amongst the moggy forest. The air was so still out here, all contained by the damp earth and tightly spaced trees.

“Hey Esko, how’d you come across all this stuff? Did you have a crazy old mentor like I do?”

He laughed. “Taught myself, you rascal. Many, many years competing in the Olympics with your mate over there.”

Dale was resting in a camp chair, a cloth over his eyes and his hands intertwined in his lap.

“You were an Olympian? Were you guys any good? What event?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“We were very good. Duo Duels were our bread and butter, then Dale went on to Solo Duels once I retired.”

Dale promised to tell me more about his life at some point, but this was the first I was hearing about his in-game exploits.

“Why’d you retire? You’re still quite young, you could’ve been competing this year!”

He shook his head, stepping back from me like mentioning the Olympics was hurtful to him.

“Too dangerous, too dangerous. I live out here for a reason, you know. You and Dale are the only ones that know about this place.”

“Dangerous? How so?”

He watched Dale, checking he was still napping in the small spot of sunlight that leaked through the canopy.

“I believe you already know, Ollie. You experienced it first-hand.”

“The break-in? That was a one-off thing though…”

But it wasn’t. There was Jill’s article from last year about Boomer Hule.

“Listen, Ollie. This might seem ridiculous because it’s coming from a crazy bloke living by himself in the forest, but the Olympics is a very, very dangerous competition. How could it not be? The most prestigious events all involve some kind of fighting or killing, and people get a taste for it. These people’s lives are dominated by fighting, day in and day out, and some start to think it wouldn’t be so hard in the real world, especially with millions of krad on the line.”

Dale snorted himself awake and adjusted in his chair, checking on us.

“Oh, errr, overhand thrusts!” Esko improvised. “This will give you more power and speed, at the expense of accuracy. Like this.”

His improvisation turned into a lesson, guiding me into a new stance. It felt more natural, but when he set up a moving target, I could see how inaccurate it was.

“You have to take into account the distance between your eyes and the spear tip,” he dictated. “It’s easy with the underhand — you’re basically looking down the shaft of the spear — but with overhand, it’s all over the place.”

He demonstrated a few thrusts, delivering the point straight into the centre of the targets.

“You’re right-handed, so you’ll tend to hit the bottom left of the target. Just adjust your aim each time, slightly higher and to the right, and you’ll get there.”

It felt unnatural, like I was planning on missing each time. I had some wild ones that missed the mark entirely, but the overhand stance was no longer shrouded in the same mystique as before.

I wanted to ask him more about the Olympics and the ‘danger’ he spoke of. If it was widely known that competing was dangerous and could get your house broken into or worse, why was nothing being done about it? Did Mom and Dale think the same, or was Esko just overselling it? As far as I knew, he was the only ex-B&B player living out their days in a shack in the woods.

In my eyes, that didn’t make him any less reputable, but who knows. Mom certainly had some concerns about me training with him, perhaps this doomsayer stuff was why.

Blade & Battle is the most popular game in human history. How could it not be cut-throat?

People get mad when someone pushes in front of them at a café. How much more severe could we act when getting to the front of that line was worth a million krad?

These questions were far above my pay grade. Best left for Annette.

“Now Ollie, I’ve got a gift for you. Just a little something to help your studies.”

He produced a carved wooded case with silver hinges. It was about as long as a spear, which made its contents pretty obvious.

“Oh, Esko! This is cool as!”

“Open it up.”

I unclipped and prized open the lid. The inside was purple velvet with black plastic clips holding onto a beautiful, lacquered practice spear. There were a set of round metal objects off to the side, and they weighed a decent amount in my hand.

“Amazing. What are these though?”

“They’re weights. When you feel confident with your technique, you place one on each end, or two, or however many you can handle. Makes the thing heavier and gives you more control when you switch back to a lighter spear.”

“And you hand-carved this?”

“Yep. A hobby of mine — not much to do out here. I couldn’t manage a shield, I’m afraid. They’re more complex than you’d expect.”

I shuttered the case and grabbed his hand, pumping it up and down. Dale came over and inspected the work, tracing a finger along the inscribed patterns.

“Not bad, Esko. Em will have a heart-attack, but once she sees him practicing, it’ll be fine.”

I thanked Esko again, considering bowing to him before deciding that was too cringeworthy. The guy was just enjoying himself and teaching me because he felt like it, not because he expected me to be some world-class player.

Save that expectation for the rest of the world, it seemed. Or at least the reporters crowded outside the house when Dale and I returned.

We couldn’t avoid them. After they’d shut up shop and left the first time, I assumed I was old news. For that reason, we took the normal route home, marching ourselves right into a convoy of flashing cameras and eager suits with notepads.

“Oliver! What will you do now that the Government released their report?”

“Oliver, here! Did you use external advice to find the dungeon? Your mom, perhaps?”

“Who’s Claire Pranutal to you? Are you lovers?”

Dale didn’t like that question. He shot out a hand, clasping the reporter by his collar.

“He’s seventeen, you fuck. Give him a break until he’s a goddamn adult.”

The reporter smiled wanly, happy to have earned himself something to write about.

I kept quiet, partly because that’s what you do around reporters, but also because I had no idea what they were talking about. I hadn’t seen a report of any kind, and as far as I knew, Mom or Dale had never stepped foot in Bill’s Yard. They might’ve known people from there, but surely the public wouldn’t believe conjecture like that.

Mom ushered us inside, coming out to see the commotion. She had the report up on her laptop, ready to show me.

“It’s unbelievable. I won’t spoil anything, just read.”

I peered at the screen and the more I read, the closer my jaw got to the floor.

Government Report J464-A3 (Bill’s Yard Graduate Event)

It has come to our attention that due to the proactive actions of two graduate players from ‘Bill’s Yard’, a significant milestone-event has taken place far earlier than expected.

After significant discussion and consideration, we have decided to enact the following measures to ensure continued integrity of the gameworld and adequate opportunity for affected players. These measures ensure that discrimination remains abolished in our system, and the gameworld remains safe for all to prosper in.

The Measures:

* The area ‘Bill’s Yard’ will be labelled as a Conflict Zone.

* As of midnight, all player deaths will result in a respawn outside the place of Conflict.

- To ensure an end to the event and a decisive victory for either side, the Conflict Zone will not be accessible from outside interference.

* All other conditions remain the same.

For posterity, and to aid public perception, we would like to confirm the current player-list and which ‘faction’ they belong to.

Asterian Forces

Martha Baltrops, Arthur Parragul, Ben Higgins, Jin Yeong Sun, Paula Burwurst, Kanagawa Sugiyama, Harry Esterman…(click here for the full list)

Insurgent Forces

Oliver Matanor.

To avoid issues that may arise if the player(s) of either side refuse to take part in the event by not immersing, we have set the duration of the event to three days. If the player(s)’ respective goals are not completed in that time, the event will be decided by a one-on-one battle between a combatant from either faction.

Thank you for your patience whilst we attend to this matter. This herein closes Government Report J464-A3.

I sat on the couch in shock.

I was completely alone.

Me against the world.