Since it was Thursday, I only had one full day left to get this done. Tomorrow, Esko’s lesson would creep up on me in no time, and I’d have to cut short any marauding around Asteroth for at least the afternoon.

And after that, I might actually eat dinner with my family for once.

It was strange that the word ‘family’ now fully included Dale when I pictured the word in my head. Before the events of the last month, he might’ve been in the shot, but he wasn’t centre frame giving a big toothy grin alongside Mom and me. He might’ve been off to the side, fading into fifty percent opacity.

It was a good feeling. Much better than before.

I didn’t hang around at the breakfast table that morning. It would be hard to explain my life’s goings-on in less than the hour or so I had before Claire would immerse. She might’ve been three hours behind — which hadn’t helped me much in my quick guess-timation of her whereabouts — but she seemed to be an early riser. The last thing I wanted was to supply her with ammunition by being late.

--Immersing, please don’t disconnect--

Ahhh. The sweet smell of enemy territory in the morning.

I was by myself for the moment, revelling in the serenity. Terkalon’s Bridge was quiet at this time of day, more densely populated by twittering birds than twits riding horses and carts. The waterfall chugged onwards, crashing over the falls and blasting spray over the lake and its surrounds.

All that the place needed was a cozy little fire next to me, and a camp-chair to enjoy it from. Scenes like these only increased my interest for the real B&B world.

Maybe I’ll be an adventurer. There’s still so much that players haven’t found, I’m sure.

Claire popped into existence beside me. She rubbed her eyes and brushed her fingers through her hair, as though her character also suffered from bed head. It didn’t, but it must’ve been an old habit.

“Sleep well?” I asked. My warm breath created steam which curled and rose in the dewy morning light.

“I had a dream that I was wearing twelve of those bikinis from yesterday. I didn’t turn into a snarling hag though, so I guess it was an okay nap. You?”

“Skipped dinner and went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep cos I was so hungry. Got up and had a cinnamon roll, which helped.”

“Yum.”

We watched the falls for a while longer. There were far more important things for us to be doing, but these kinds of moments were few and far between, especially as residents of the dusty Bill’s Yard.

After a while, I tore myself away. “Ready to get going?” I asked.

“Ergh. Fine. If I must.” She seemed genuinely disappointed, as if it hurt her to tear her eyes from the beautiful place.

“You okay? We can hang out for a bit longer. The {Codglop} might come for us, but we can deal with them.”

“Nah, all good. Just a little tired. Where’s this botany place you’re taking us?”

“The Royal Botanist, it is called. And it should be well within Asterian territory. Like, well within.”

Claire was already fighting her way up the embankment, digging the end of her bow into the mud like a walking stick.

I questioned her on the poor treatment of her gear, to which I received a raised eyebrow and a curt response.

“I’ve got so many that I just cycle through them. This one does pretty low damage anyway. It’s more useful as a mud-poker than a serious weapon.”

“Wait. So you have other bows in your inventory?”

“Duh.”

I’m an idiot. I’d assumed that larger items like weapons and armour pieces couldn’t go in my inventory. I hadn’t even tried. In hindsight, people who used alternate sets for PvP and PvE situations had to be hiding their swap-outs in their inventory. They certainly weren’t carrying everything around on their backs.

“So I’m just a donkey for carrying around my spear and shield everywhere I go?”

She laughed. “I thought you just liked to be prepared. It takes a second or two to get everything out if you happen to get jumped.”

I opened my inventory and dropped in {The Glass Cannon} and my battered shield. It felt amazing to cartwheel my arms around without the risk of slicing an arm off or knocking myself on the head with my shield.

“This is phenomenal. You don’t understand how annoying it can be to carry a spear around. If you get lazy for a single moment, the point dips down and gets stuck in the dirt, or the tail does the same and you end up charting a path in the dust for anyone who wants to follow you.”

“How do you think I found you when you blew up the plateau?”

“Touché.”

We trundled on for a while, following the same road that would take us to Herayule at its conclusion. A quick check of the map revealed that the fastest way to get to the Royal Botanist’s would be to peel off into the wilderness for a while, cutting through a forest before meeting up with the King’s Road. From there, we had to work out how two wanted criminals could get into a heavily guarded fortress of plants and potions.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

I had a plan, but drinking the water-breathing potion had put a significant hole in it. Though considering the addition of Claire to my party, it was probably for the better. We couldn’t share the one potion, and it had relied on a good chunk of luck anyway.

For now, our most logical step was to gain access to Bretonhal, the nation’s capital.

“Think you could woo a guard?” I proposed.

“Ha. I’d rather fight every armed soldier in the city than stoop to that level. Besides, they’ll be NPCs. I may be charming, but good looks alone can’t override computer code.”

“Dang. Did you happen to learn anything else while you were…associated with them? Sorry to bring it up.”

“No. People weren’t overly chatty when it came to national security interests. I was a consultant. I gave them answers when they asked questions.”

I’d secretly been curious how her arrangement had worked. I still wanted to know how she’d gotten to that point in the first place, especially having had so little time in the game when it must’ve all kicked off.

A chance encounter, perhaps? A carefully coordinated pitch with a slide deck presentation?

It was a sore topic for both of us. I didn’t want to push further unless I had to.

“Right, well this is our new background for the guards. I’m…Jenry, a well-respected poet from a distant land. I’ve travelled to Bretonhal to grace the taverns and brothels that line its heavenly streets. You are my personal guard and valet. Your name is Bouquisha, and you are secretly in love with me.”

Claire started to interject, and I cut her off.

“HOWEVER! You fancy yourself as a better poet than I, and you secretly wish to knock me over the head with an arrow and take my place. Scandalous!”

I took a deep breath, pulling myself back together. “Thoughts?”

Claire was laughing. “It’s good. It’s also utterly terrible and destined to fail. Let’s do it.”

“That’s the spirit.”

An hour later, we stood at the fringe of a thick forest, trying to pick an entrance point that wasn’t full of prickles. They were like a natural fence that barred our entry, goading us. Now that the mid-morning traffic had picked up, there would most certainly be witnesses if we decided to chop up the countryside with my spear or burn it down with one of Claire’s arrows.

“I think we just send it,” Claire said. “It’ll hurt, but not that bad. We’re gonna end up off-course if we wait much longer.”

I didn’t want to agree, but she was right. Herayule was close-ish to Bretonhal, but this was the most direct path — not that it was a path at all.

“You first.”

She shrugged and charged through. A man with a comically large top hat and a handlebar moustache rode past in his carriage, watching us. I waved and followed Claire into the bristles.

Mm. As expected.

It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn’t the end of the world, either. The chill from the waterfall was better, but swimming with the {Codglops} was far, far worse. Claire was already on the other side, picking out prickles and brushing tangles from her hair.

I eventually fought through. “Really hope they weren’t poisonous.”

Claire stopped right before she flicked away one of the little devils. “There’s no liquid or anything on the sharp end. And it’s all the same colour. I’m not sure if that means anything, but I feel fine. This wouldn’t be an unpleasant place to die, anyway.”

“Long walk to get back here from Bill’s Yard, though,” I replied.

She wasn’t wrong about the pleasantness of the area. It reminded me of Esko’s forest, just without the sticky loops of vines and rotten, sporous undergrowth. Instead, pine needles pressed together underfoot, like walking on a foam mattress. The insulated ground held back the sounds of the forest — a few steps past the brambles was all it took to cancel out the noise of the road to Herayule.

“I think we should stick together,” I said.

“Scared?” Claire laughed, but there was a crackle in her voice. I didn’t expect there to be monsters this close to the road and civilisation, but it was possible.

Everything was possible in B&B. I’d been learning that every single day since immersing.

We padded along together, staying close and watching the trees. A squirrel-bat combination glided from branch to branch ahead of us, prompting me to open my inventory and hover above the ‘Equip’ button for {The Glass Cannon}.

Take it easy. It’s just a mutant animal.

Claire watched the map to make sure we were headed in roughly the right direction. At times we had no option but to go off-course — the branches and bushes and saplings got so thick that they basically carved a path through the forest for us. We were making good time when Claire suddenly stopped.

“The map died,” she said.

I flinched at the clarity of her voice. I imagined this was what it was like in a recording studio with all those strangely shaped pieces of foam on the walls.

“What do you mean? It can’t die.”

“Check yours.”

I pulled up my screen, which showed me our position in the forest for about half a second before going black.

“Oh. Mine went too, but it looked like we were pointing in the right direction. Do you think we can go back?”

She stepped back about twenty paces. I felt very alone.

“It’s fine over here. You go ahead and tell me if it comes back.”

“Nuh uh. You come back here first. Splitting up is asking for trouble.”

Claire looked up, realising how far apart we’d be if I continued. She shuddered and jogged to meet me.

“Good idea. Your voice was already getting super quiet.”

We inched along, watching our maps. Mine remained dark. Claire didn’t look impressed with hers.

Everything was fine until we reached the next branch-blockade. Travelling in a straight line was easy enough — we assumed it was a straight line — but navigating the trees would spin us around. My sense of direction was good enough to get around Bill’s Yard pretty easily, and I had a decent idea of where north was, but the canopy blocked almost all of the sunlight that would help me make a more accurate conclusion.

“It’s not too late to turn back,” Claire said.

“If we go back, we’ll barely get to Bretonhal by dinnertime. I’ve got a thing to do tomorrow afternoon, so we’d be picking back up almost two days from now.”

“Meh. I could handle a holiday.”

I thought on it. I wasn’t averse to seeing more of the countryside.

Herayule might have some interesting things going on. At least more than a creepy, silent forest.

But I was stuck in my ways. I’d started out the day prioritising time, and I couldn’t switch now. Not with all with forest behind us. Not with all that backtracking.

“We got this. We’re in the heart of Asteroth. There can’t be anything that big and scary.”

I knew I was tempting fate. Claire frowned at me and rapped her knuckles on a nearby tree for good luck. She stopped and knocked again.

“Wait.”

“What’s up?”

“This tree is hollow.”

I walked over. It was a cool discovery, but hardly worth wasting time on. We were in a wild world with wild new species of flora and fauna. Hollow trees were completely believable.

Sure enough, a sharp tap confirmed the diagnosis.

Hollow trees. Big whoop.

“What’s the big deal? Let’s keep going.” I was getting pushy. This forest was freaking me out.

Claire looked up at me. “You asked me if I overheard the Asterians saying anything interesting. I thought I didn’t, but now I think there was something.”

She was making me nervous. “And?”

“They joked about throwing some of the deserters into a haunted place where they’d be tortured for eternity.”

“Oh crap.”

“They called it The Hollow Forest.”