The experience of activating the compass was uncommon to Tumultua Online: lag. The game was typically very well-made and smooth, but teleportation required the game to re-fetch the entire scene without pre-loading. The feeling was disorienting.

The whole world disappeared, turning into star-dotted darkness. Jay had grown accustomed to deeply integral senses of the full dive system, like hearing and scent. Like a switch, those were gone, leaving an empty void akin to a sensory deprivation tank. He was struck by an impulse to gasp for air, but he couldn’t pull in a breath.

Natural, visceral fear clawed through his mind at the inability to breathe. He tried to turn his head, looking for his friends but found his character avatar altogether locked.

In summation, it absolutely sucked.

But the game caught up. The stars made way for a jungle scene that immediately assaulted Jay’s senses. The trees sloped in a curve like they were trying to weave together and create an arch. The only problem was that none of them endeavored to coordinate with a partner. The bark was uneven and coarse, calling forth memories of coconut palm trees.

The tropical smells reminded him of the cologne he would always pass by in the store. He couldn’t even place the source of the smells. The sounds came from birds, bugs, and bees alike. A whole new little world buzzed around him.

His sense of touch conveyed information about the things he couldn’t see. There was a gentle breeze still floating into the trees from somewhere. The grass underneath his fingers was soft, silky smooth, unlike the lawn outside his apartment complex back in the real world.

Lester was already on his feet, not taking the time to smell the flowers. His face was grim as he looked around, counting as he tried to deny the reality of the system message. “Taylor Lynn, Jay, Jenny…”

He rattled all the names off under his breath as he tried to find who was missing. He finally realized with a sigh. “Maria. We already lost one of our healers. That’s horrible news.”

Lester whirled on Jay like he would accuse him of being at fault. Jay obviously didn’t have control over where the compass dropped them. He had thought he would control who took the trip—but apparently, that wasn’t one hundred percent certain, either.

Looking at his heads-up display, Jay could see the lingering debuff. It was called “Outside the God’s Box.” That was the name of whatever was threatening their characters with permanent death. Gritting his teeth, Jay swiftly looked around to gather more information about the scene.

There weren’t any monsters in the area. The game had dropped them in an area that could contain a small group of people. All nine players were arrayed in a small circle around Jay. The large leaves gave cover from the fake sun above, but there were plenty of places where light leaked through.

“At least it’s pretty,” Jenny said, looking around at the strange trees with wonder. In the grass beneath her, a tiny bug that looked like a grasshopper jumped clear over her. She stood up, leering at it suspiciously.

The rest of the party took to their feet, exchanging a flurry of looks around the circle. Like a dam, the world broke into small clusters of chatter. Next to Jay, Carlos pestered him with questions.

“You did not understand how this compass works?”

Jay grimaced. Not everyone had seen the text for the compass, but he’d shown it to plenty of the others when he first purchased the item. “I knew what Lester and Taylor Lynn and the twins knew. The compass was dangerous, but it was clear that we could bring ten people. I have no idea what happened.”

“How are we going to get Maria back?” Carlos asked. He leaned back against a tree nonchalantly. Jay stared at him. Carlos’s whole attitude seemed to imply that this problem wasn’t his. He would look to Jay to solve it. His glittering eyes seemed to suggest that Jay was the one who wanted this, after all.

“Well, first, I imagine we’ll need to get off this island,” Jay said sarcastically. “Actually, why don’t you message her. You can tell her we’ll be off the island, who knows when, and we’ll meet up with her at half past we have no idea. Cool?”

Carlos rolled his eyes. He summoned menus and scrolled through them. He let out a groan. “We cannot message players outside of this island.”

In a moment of astonishment, everyone turned toward him. Jay received a notification, opening his own menus. He had an inbox message from Carlos. He opened it and read some things that were probably against the terms of use. But he wasn’t exactly in the best position to report the other player.

“Looks like it works if they’re on the island,” Carlos said with a smirk.

Sarah and Casey were the only people not enveloped in the banter. Sarah looked concerned, staring at the ground like she was puzzling something out. Casey glanced over at her friend, frowning with concerns of her own.

“So what are we going to do?” Casey asked.

Lester marched over to Jay, grabbing the Monster Hunter by the scruff of his funny cowboy shirt. “What did you do?”

Apparently, the guild leader was going to choose violence. The other player was strong enough to lift Jay from the ground, leaving his feet dangling.

“I used the compass,” Jay replied.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

On a whim, he activated his new Aerial Dodge ability. Lester didn’t expect the ability, forcing him to let go of the collar as Jay sailed backward. Jay landed nimbly on his feet and smirked.

“Neat trick,” Lester said, though it wasn’t sincere. He stepped forward like he was going to go after Jay again. Instead, he found himself in front of Sarah. She glared up at him defiantly, wearing her resplendent Paladin armor, daring him to try and move past her.

Behind Sarah’s left shoulder was Casey, who anxiously watched her friend. Casey was well aware of how far Sarah could take things. Even in a game, Jay’s sister was fiercely loyal. She’d kill the guild leader, permanently deleting his character and messing up the entire guild just to stop him from threatening Jay.

On Sarah’s other side was the dire wolf, no longer a pup, Zenya. The wolf growled, baring sharp fangs. Maybe, the wolf wanted to see the world burn a little, too.

Lester backed off. Jay could tell he wasn’t scared. After all, there wasn’t much to fear. But he was definitely caught off guard.

“Alright, fine,” Lester said, shrugging his shoulders. “We’re down a healer. What now? Where do we go, Jay?”

“I don’t really have a lot of direction,” Jay admitted. “You know as well as I do that the item was vague. Something is going on here with this outside of the gods thing. That’s for certain. I’m sure that’s the key to getting off this island. It might even allow us to bring Maria here to join us.”

In truth, Jay didn’t really think Maria would be joining them. He didn’t really care much about what was going on with the debuff. Getting off the island was a priority, but first, he needed to find a dungeon hidden somewhere on the island. Then, without explaining too much, he would need to convince the party to run that dungeon. Risking a potentially difficult dungeon when character death would be permanent wouldn’t be an easy sell.

“And where do we start?” Lester asked.

“Look,” Jay said. “The usual rules still apply. What does anyone do when they have no information? We explore. We find a quest. We look for monsters to hunt. We see if some other players have somehow ended up on this apparently gods-forsaken island. Let’s split into two groups, look around, and meet back here.”

Lester scoffed. “Split the party? That’s your big suggestion?”

“We’ll cover way more ground,” Jay said defensively. “It’s a little more dangerous, maybe, but I’m not sure traipsing around with nine people is any less dangerous. Sounds like an easy way to get monster aggro from a whole nest of something vicious.”

“It does look like this place is hiding a bunch of jungle predators,” Ken agreed. “But predators don’t usually live in nests. More like jaguars slinking around.”

“We’re down a tenth of our supplies, too,” Taylor Lynn said, ignoring Ken’s musings about vicious jungle cats. “I agree with Lester. I don’t think we should split up.”

Jay shot her a look of betrayal. He didn’t want her siding with Lester. Jay was obviously doing the best he could. They needed more information and fast. Since the players could still message each other, they could be smart about splitting up. Remaining close would allow the two groups to help each other out if necessary.

He felt the unfairness of being burdened with a choice they all made. It was practically emotional whiplash. He had informed everyone of the risks. He had tried to sell everyone on all the possible rewards. He had sworn he would find others to replace Lester if required.

Greed had pushed the guild leader to agree. Now, he was turning it back on Jay. She was supposed to be his best friend; Jay’s eyebrow twitched. Taylor Lynn at least possessed the good sense to look apologetic when Jay caught her eyes.

Jay paused.

A salty scent caught his attention. He turned, squinting into the distance. Looking around, he found he could only make out more palm trees in one direction. In the other, there appeared to be dense blue in the distance. The color would match the sky if, for some reason, there was a notable cliff drop-off in the distance.

The color would also match an ocean. They were on an island.

Something else felt off, so Jay took stock of the party. There were fewer people present. Instead of the original eight others, Jay counted only seven.

“Hey, where did Lurian go?” Jay asked. The gunslinger was nowhere to be found. He had been with the group when the party landed.

Blinking, Jay couldn’t figure out how the player even snuck away. He was obviously taking clues from those jungle cats hiding in the trees.

System Message: Player “Lurian” has left your party.

The whole party entered an uproar. It took Jay another five minutes of reasoning to get everyone to calm down. Even the twins were thrown off at the newest revelation. The only person remaining unperturbed, aside from Jay, was Sarah.

When Jay finally calmed the crowd, everyone was looking for a direction again. He figured some focus would be better than claiming he didn’t know where to start again.

“There’s an ocean or a cliff or something that way,” Jay said, pointing into the distance. “Let’s go over there and check it out. There’s no one on this island, so if we keep watch along the beach, we’ll see Lurian if he steps onto it. If it’s a cliff, it’ll give us a fantastic view of whatever is down below.”

The agreement wasn’t exactly enthusiastic, but the direction seemed to help. The party walked through the forest, and Jay quickly realized they were close to the shore. He kept his eyes peeled for threats as they moved but saw none. It was a beach.

The party made it to the rocky beachfront without incident. Jay could have used some nice sand, but there was no such luck. He thought about filing a complaint if he ever got to speak to actual developers. There was no reason for them to choose rocky beaches as their sticking point of realism.

Something immediately jumped out at Jay. One of his skills was currently highlighting something in the neutral yellow color. The yellow color meant the target was neither particularly dangerous nor beneficial. It could also mean that the source’s danger was only potential.

Jay approached cautiously anyway, as the people behind him chattered about how the trip to the rocks was an outright bust. There were plenty of his own thoughts echoed among the party, too. Nobody was happy about the rocky beach.

The glows pulsed when he passed some unseen threshold, rendering them much easier to see. There were tracks. The footprints were even numbered. The two slightly different sets called out a one or a two inside the individual prints.

“How did these footprints get here?” Jay asked. He highlighted the tracks his Survival skill had picked up with his fingers, drawing the attention of the other party members. There was no sand on the beach, but his skill still caught where settled loose rock had been recently disturbed.

“Lurian,” Ken said. “Obviously. We’re looking for him, remember? We just talked about this ten minutes ago. Maybe less.”

“No, I mean,” Jay said, peering down at the tracks. “There are two different kinds of tracks here. My skill is telling me they’re from two different people.”

Everyone peered down at the tracks except for one person: Sarah.

“That’s the wrong question,” she said finally. “You’re all missing the obvious.”

She wore a look of transparent disappointment at the party’s obvious miss. She hadn’t spoken the whole time the group argued back and forth. Since she hadn’t said a word, all eyes turned toward her now that she was finally speaking. She facepalmed.

“If the compass delivered ten people—who exactly—is the tenth person that traveled with us?”