"Moonday, 25th of Lugin 837AC (Monday, 25th of May)

Some of the beta testers survived. Compared to how many left when this started, it's a paltry sum, maybe a couple dozen out of thousands made it back here to Farrelston, and only then because of the timely intervention of militia players. The most shocking part is the distance involved in them fleeing. In an MMO sense, it's not reasonable.

The Blackwood Forest is about five miles from the bridge, and the bridge is ten miles from Farrelston. Fact is, for almost any MMO I've ever seen, no mob would follow you that long, not if you're concertedly moving away from them. Yeah, enemies might follow you for a bit overland, but these mobs blew through a small town and a fortified bridge just to get at these guys. There isn't enough aggro in the world for that kind of commitment. Even bosses in most MMOs won't leave the boss chamber to chase after you. Now, creatures in a particular dungeon might keep on you inside the dungeon, but this was miles and miles of players just purely fleeing. This wasn't one random mob either, but an entire warband, complete with shock troops, grenadiers, worg riders, and the boss.

For the folks that left the city, they had high hopes. Their essential plan was a decent one: Get through the Blackwood to hopefully link up with the elven kingdom of Moonleaf. Getting access to the elven kingdoms would give us access to greater magic. At first, the expedition went well. After all, they were thousands strong, so the level of individual danger was minimal. They got across the bridge to the town of Riverton and launched into the Blackwood, and that's where things went off immediately. A thick fog came in as they moved through the wood and didn't leave, confounding most direction-finding.

Then several other issues cropped up, such as roving groups of goblins. Their numbers got them revealed quickly, and the goblins had trapped the woods as well, on top of a number getting lost down ancient elven trails that had existed since before the fall of the Blackwood to the goblin forces. This started splintering the testers, and goblins refused to meet in any sort of open conflict. Instead, the goblins used guerilla tactics, attacking swiftly and harshly at random intervals and at pretty much any time they tried to sleep. Tents were burned, and the numbers started piling up. Instead of tightening up their lines, the testers tried to break into smaller numbers, hoping to be able to hide out.

That was a mistake, as the worgs began sniffing them out, picking off the scattered. By the time the groups were pulling essentially back together into some sort of force, the full warband was on the move, and they were like lambs to the slaughter. A lot of it could've been avoided if they were more geared up, but they'd believed that their intel from the beta test held true, along with a steep numbers advantage. The belief was obvious: Start taking out the goblins, and gear up off of the loot drops, which would be better than the opening quest drops. Without improved abilities and gear, the goblin warband was just too strong, and more died in the altercation. The ones who broke and ran are the survivors, but going over the numbers I'm fairly certain other survivors went in a different direction. The trick is finding them before something else out there gets them.

What's left of those who departed are universal in their desire to not leave the city now. For now, they've taken sanctuary in the cathedral. I'm not a therapist, but there's a lot of trauma response amongst them. They spent their time getting hunted down and eradicated, lost friends, potentially even family. I can't say I begrudge them the sentiment, but it still hurts us in the overall sense. The rest of the server, outside of a few individuals, are even more adamant that they're staying inside. Still, I don't think Farrelston is universally safe with the Warband as an example. Inspecting the battlements after the battle, the city was prepared for this assault, but that assumes the idea that the city needs a reason to be ready for an attack like that. It wasn't just a matter of NPCs, there were functional catapults, vats of oils, and whole huge pots of arrows for archers up there. Other things may be coming for Farrelston, but making that point public just seems like a good way to rekindle the panic of the first day.

An expeditionary force has to be sent out. We can't keep sitting and waiting. Now I just need to hear from Khargol, to see what the situation at the bridge is. His unit's been gone a while but it's a solid trip, so I'm not expecting them back until late in the day. Until then, all I can do is wait and keep things moving. -Lugh, Unit Commander of the Farrelston Irregulars."

I put the logbook away and just sat at my desk, wiping my face. Trying to build an expedition force was necessary, but dead in the water regardless of that necessity. Almost no one would be ready to go outside Farrelston at this point, having just gotten real confirmation of how deadly the outside world was. I took a minute to compose myself... and it wasn't working, "Damn it."

I'm not immune to fear, I just play it really well for the crowd. I stood up from the desk and paced around the office. Here's a quick picture of how bad it is: A group of gamers want nothing to do with loot. I'd gotten an improved bow and absolutely no one even wanted to look at it. The hide armor? No one was willing to touch it, despite the fact it was an obvious upgrade to starter gear for the Tanks. Temur identified the helm for me, and by stats it was pretty good for us, granting its wearer low-light vision on top of some good armor. I couldn't fully vouch for the look, but that was a cosmetic set away. It should've been just about a frenzy to get such an item, but everyone was backing away. Sure, Temur couldn't use the armor or the helm yet, but for most, the new gear should've been a natural upgrade.

The sheer fear of the implication of gearing up was pulling pretty much everyone back, and I had no idea how to proceed, "Oh, fuck all of this."

I went ahead and equipped the gear, switched out of militia gear, and strode out of my office, "Shalera, with me! Chrysta, you have command while I'm gone!"

Shalera was alongside by the time I hit the barracks door, and I cut my way over to Temur's unit, knocking loudly on the door. Temur appeared, took one look at me, and switched out of militia gear, smiling as though to swallow his own head, "Let's get on it. We got a support?"

The elven vagabond beside me perked up, "Layala."

I pulled in and released a sharp breath. Layala had been hard-bitten since her brother Tom had gone down to bandits and never respawned. She had the best chance of being convinced, but at the same time, I was a little bit concerned... ah, screw it, "Go grab her, and meet up with us at the Adventurer's Guild."

Shalera shot off to scour the barracks while Temur and I made our way across town, the blue dracon sort of humming along. Temur had wanted to see what was out there from the beginning but knew better than going out on his own. Once we were clear of the barracks, he picked his moment, "So we're finally doing this thing for real, are we?"

I shook my head, just not in disagreement with Temur, "My job plan is good, but it's incredibly slow. Everyone who fought the warband rocked up in abilities compared to what we've been getting from the grind. I knew that would be the case to an extent, but..."

He nodded his head, "I get it. Everyone was panicked, they needed safety and security. Let's be real, though, if we want out of this, we've gotta go out there."

Temur and I understood each other, and we continued the conversation as we loaded up into the carriage that would take us over to the guild, "Alright, I've got Ranged DPS, and you're arcane, so two Ranged DPS. Shalera covers us for a Melee DPS, and Layala gives us a Support. We need to get to eight, but we know Arkadi and Chrysta aren't for it on the adventuring side. Their avowed goals were always to go omni-crafter and build us a guild house, so nothing we're doing is going to be up their alley. Khargol for Main Tank puts us to five, two ranged DPS, one each of Tank, Support, and Melee DPS."

The dracon slowly nodded, "Support is ironically the easiest to fill. A lot of folks are leaning toward support jobs. Layala, I believe, is leaning more buff/debuff, so we need a straight healer. We can go over the ranks and figure things out from there. For now, what's our destination?"

"For the moment, we're catching up with Khargol's team, then if possible I want to get to Rosewater. It's a small village between here and the bridge. I'm pretty sure there's a fast travel quest there to start folks linking up towns and cities," I was looking out at the street around us as we passed by, as my mind stretch back to a movie theater a long time ago, a quote surfacing, 'what a man can do, and what a man can't do'.

I might be able to do those things around town, to keep playing the game, but what I couldn't do was square myself with continuing to hang back. It was all well and good in the initial bit, but people were self-paralyzing now. If nothing changed the equation, we would never get answers and likely all die in the game, and by the time the carriage stopped, I was set on my course.

We entered the Adventurer's Guild, and I began taking as many local quests as we could carry, low-level quests that we could progress through quickly. It was a sort of shakedown cruise for further adventuring, to let us get our bearings as a group. We were going over the quests when Shalera came in, wincing as an argument carried on behind, "I don't CARE! You're not going out there!"

“And what’re you gonna do to stop me?!”

Shalera was followed up first by a tall, purple-scaled dracon. Umbaar. He was the thirteen-year-old we’d found on the first day that things had shifted, and apparently, he and Layala, who was coming in behind him, were getting into it. Layala was shaking her head, and Shalera just looked like she wanted whatever exit was possible. Layala growled in frustration, “Lugh, you tell him!”

“Umbaar’s coming with us.”

Everyone, Umbaar included, turned on me, and I held a hand up, “He’ll go anyway. None of us have the physical capacity to stop him, and frankly, I’ve seen this movie. Most you’ll get is him heading out after we do, and besides, we could use the extra Tank. So, which do you figure is safer: Him coming with us, or him coming without us?

“Umbaar, you follow orders. You’re Off-Tank. Do you know what that means?”

He shook his head, and at the word ‘Off-Tank’, Layala’s furor dissipated a little, “There are two tanks in a full party: Main Tank and Off Tank. The Main Tank, Khargol, takes the lead on Tanking mobs, having his enmity generator up while the Off-Tank keeps theirs off. When the Main Tank, MT, gives the order, you switch in as Off-Tank, OT, and turn your enmity on, while the MT turns theirs off to give you the aggro. As soon as the MT is ready to go again, you switch back out.

“When you’re not Tanking, you DPS, take control of any mobs that are getting away from the MT so the backline stays safe. Now, for you, I want you heading in the direction of the Paladin job. It’s gonna take a number of steps. First up, Page, then Squire and Knight. Fill out your Acolyte training, and you’ll unlock the Paladin job. They’re almost pure Tank with some healing thrown in. That’s what we need since Khargol’s gonna go more down the Big Deeps side of Tanking. You want in, that’s the agreement.”

Everyone generally agreed, but Layala nodded her head off to the side, wanting a private word. I sighed and handed over the quest sheets to Temur to go over with everyone. I walked out of the hall and crossed over to The Broken Wheel, the tavern we’d started out in. It wasn't packed out like it had been, with most of the server now off around various parts of the city. Layala held off while we were still surrounded by people, and I got settled in with my onion soup and sandwich before she launched into her point, “We can’t be bringing a kid. Yeah, Off-Tank is safer, but-”

I could have eased myself into it, but I wanted past these sorts of talks. They didn’t help anything, “Layala, we can literally die any second. A power outage, server crash, just really anything. We’ve been here half a week now. How long do you think our bodies last like this?”

She froze, and I saw the fear. I gave it a moment, and continued, “And for Umbaar specifically, there’s another deadline here. His body’s still growing back there. How long ‘til we get back and he doesn’t even recognize himself cause it’s been a couple of years, and he’s finished up puberty? What happens when he wakes up with a beard he couldn't grow before this started?”

“Oh God. I didn’t... I just want him to be safe,” She was slowly weeping.

I reached out and took her hand, “We’ll do everything we can for him, but the fact is, none of us are safe here. We’ve got to find the way out, and the only possible way out is through.”

She nodded, and we quietly ate our meals there until we heard a commotion coming from the square. We went out to see Khargol’s unit returning. They were all still at full health by look, and I crossed the square to him, “Hey. What’s the report?”

Khargol flagged the others to keep going, “There were a couple of straggler goblins, so we took care of them. The bridge is fine, but yeah, we didn’t find anyone else... When are we leaving?”

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There was no use dressing it up. I was out of the militia gear, and wearing the new stuff, “Soon as we get a healer and a melee DPS.”

He nodded, “I think I know a couple of guys. Are we meeting up at the Adventurer’s Guild? Okay, let me get changed out, and we can roll.”

Khargol bound off, and we returned to the guild hall with the others, where Temur was taking Umbaar through the various abilities and skills he would want to work on as a Tank. Shalera seemed to be coming up with color patterns for a cosmetic set, letting the others have their talk, “Okay, folks. Khargol is working on getting us our last two members. Everyone came back okay, but we didn’t get a ton of good news. The bridge is open.”

Umbaar sat forward, his tail twitching back and forth excitedly, “So when do we leave?”

Temur said the thought for me, “As soon as Khargol gets us our two, but first: shopping. We’ll need some supplies before we go out the door. Camp stuff, mostly, but we should see if we can find any affordable gear upgrades around town before we leave. Just stay away from buying anything that we get as quest rewards.”

Layala volunteered to wait at the guild with Umbaar, and the rest of us put together the list. Until I was more certain of hunting skills, we would need to make sure we had enough rations. We each got a pup tent, bedroll, and the various little things for doing a proper campsite, but space was filling up quickly. At some point, we would have to put in for some sort of extra storage, whether that took the form of higher-grade backpacks, a wagon, or whatnot, but for now, our funds were limited.

We loaded up and got ourselves back to the guild hall. Khargol was waiting there for us with several others. Velgres, a dracon acolyte I’d done patrol with previously, and Uthar, our dwarven cook and bare-knuckles brawler. Along with them Sylvain, Arkadi’s half-plant half-fey persona. He went up and hugged Temur, “Have fun out there.”

Temur wasn’t entirely comfortable with PDA. It’s not like he wasn’t clear with all of us, but the idea of being affectionate in front of others was just not his bag. He returned the hug briefly, “Kinda hard not to.”

Chrysta stepped up to me but without the usual swagger, “Just be careful about how fast you’re burning through-”

I wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her deeply. Temur may have an issue, but that was his issue, not mine, “I will come back to this, and when I find a way out, we figure out who’s living where.”

Her general bravado was a facade she liked to play up, both in-game and out. I got it, but at the same time, when every conversation could be the last, I wanted to make sure I was clearly understood. She looked up at me, and only managed, “Yeah, okay.”

She stumbled back a moment before Sylvain steadied her with one hand, smirking. I turned to my party, “Alright, everyone. Are we ready for the road?”

The rest of the team nodded, and I turned back to the ones we were leaving behind, “Chrysta, you have command of the unit. Keep up the logs. For both of you, you need to move up on crafting. We’ll send mats as we find them. Alright, let’s roll out.”

I released Yndress from her pouch position, and the small dragon took a moment of flying around before settling onto my shoulder, and we set off. While we were all set on seeing this through, there was a palpable sense of fear as we stepped beyond the gates of Farrelston, heading out into territory we were only vaguely familiar. It was just us now, “Temur, start us off. What’s our first quest?”

“Culling quest. Essadrace Guild’s paying a bounty for a grouping of creatures that are overpopulated in the local wilderness. We’ll need enough for each of us if we all want the gear rewards, a selection of armors, or you can opt for extra coin if you don’t want the gear.”

I nodded, “Alright, I’ll take point.”

Partied up, we shared out the quests like we’d done before, and began moving around the area. Farrelston sat at the top of a slow-rising hill, and while there was quite little around the main road, it didn’t take long to begin seeing signs of life. Just like with the various quest NPCs in town, the target creatures would be limmed in a gold glow for us to identify them as targets. Three creatures were identified: Giant Firegnats, a collection of Moon Hares, and Earth Turtles, five a piece. To finish, we would need to collectively kill forty of each as a party. Temur and I had the easiest time of things with ranged attacks, but it wasn’t a difficult quest.

I practiced giving commands to Yndress, needing to get used to using her even if this was a trifle of a quest. There were still flaws in her following of orders, and she got confused a number of times, but she was learning, which was more the point. For now, at least, she was limited to physical claw and bite attacks, but her wings gave her pretty good flight abilities, so she could stay mobile. We took them down as quickly as we could, focusing on completion speed, and then I went around with my harvesting skill to get what mats I could out of them. None of it was great, but they all had their uses. Firegnats had elemental sacks that could be used in alchemy, Moon Hare pelts could be used in a number of leather recipes, and Earth Turtleshells could be used to craft some defensive gear. The hares and turtles also provided some stuff for making food, and with my Foraging skills, I could find wild herbs, mushrooms, and such to get more ingredients.

Even considering how low-level this quest was, we were pulling in a lot of XP, more than we’d been pulling down with similar amounts of militia training. It was pure game conceit: By video game logic, going to college, getting a degree, and securing my MBA would all be done massively faster by getting out there and beating up thugs in an alley in like 99% of game scenarios as presented. In life, you wanted a classroom environment and some sort of teacher, even if it was a hands-on subject. We finished up the quest, and Temur noted that with some more foraging, we had another Essadrace Guild quest we could turn in, so we focused on getting that taken care of, and for a while, that’s really all we were doing, gather quest bits, and the others started picking up basic Foraging as I took them through it. What is the thing that we need for this quest? Okay, let’s go get that. We didn’t really discuss a methodology here, but we all knew what we were doing: Knock out all the possible quests so that we could turn them in one run. Eventually, Temur called a pause, “Hey, inventory’s getting kinda full. We should turn in, and sell down. We going back, or do we push on for Rosewater?”

It was getting late in the day, but going back to Farrelston felt like a step backward, so we went on to Rosewater. We managed to get inside just before nightfall, and it was very different than the experience of Farrelston. This was a small town whose main industry was also its namesake. Rosewater the item was a sweetener that was used in vast areas of the medieval world as a sweetener, back before the discovery of sugar cane. For turn-in, we stopped off at the Rosewater branch of the Adventurer’s Guild, an easy enough interaction. We got a bunch of reputation with the guild as well as local reputation, and a selection of items with each quest turn-in. I got my first cloak, a new pair of boots, a load of arrows, and since I already had better armor, weapon, and gloves, opted to take coin on the rest. For each of the various gear elements we received, we got options based around jobs, so five cloaks that were each intended for a different job's setup, and so on for each item. Affixing our new gear, we left the guild and went to the town’s only tavern for the night, using some newly acquired wealth to get some decent food and drinks.

The rest of the gang went upstairs, but I needed some time. I went out in front of the tavern, and took a seat on a bench, fishing out a blank logbook. This wasn’t an official report, but I’d been getting into the habit of journaling things, so it just felt natural to write out my thoughts. I took some time to check up with my Character Journal, and by stats, I was finally to where I needed to be to upgrade jobs. Because of the work on so many side stats with the militia, there were a lot of options here. Guide gave bonuses and abilities centered around exploration, allowing me to keep folks moving through denser terrain that would otherwise slow us down or get us lost. Falconer would allow me greater abilities with Yndress. Marksman was a straight upgrade to my bow skills, and Warden would start giving me at least some magical ability. There were others as well, but just these options were all good upgrades. For now, I picked up Guide, remembering how the testers had gotten lost and separated in the Blackwood. A Guide might be able to prevent that fate.

My general hope was that in making some achievements on in the world beyond Farrelston, we could not only find a way home but also show everyone back at the city that this world could be survived, that they didn’t all need to just cower in a corner. Yes, the testers had rushed into trouble, but that was hubris, not an inherent lack of ability to survive.

Mostly though, I was just lonely. Being in charge of things here separated me from everyone. No matter how much they were my friends, they were still the folks under my command, my responsibility. Normally, it wouldn’t be like that. We’d get together, have some fun, and whatever happened, we’d all be done and head off to our other lives. The worst that could happen is we beefed it up and had to restart a quest chain. I looked up at the moon and stars above, petting Yndress, and wondered for about the millionth time if I was doing the right thing, and if anyone was even out there in the real world.

*******************************************

The orderlies stopped checking on me and reminding me about visiting hours. Some subtle understanding between them and the nurses that I wasn’t a ‘visitor’ any more than the two men in the beds of this room. I sat in the hospital room next to my brother, feeling totally useless. I watched the monitors steadily marking out heart rate, brain activity, and the rest, but I couldn’t even see his face, obscured by the gaming rig, and for the hundredth time, I checked the charging cable at either end, as well as the cable hook-up to the internet. I knew they were fine, but there was a deep sense of paranoia about what would happen if either one got pulled out.

Then there was Rob. I'd met him a bunch, but it was always really low-key like when Luke had brought him home for holidays. I felt more sorry for him than anything else. No one had come to see him, no parents, aunts, or uncles. I cried again like I had so many other times already. It had all been going so well, and now...

The morning of the... 'incident' felt like such an understatement... in any event, I’d gotten the call from my brother for a wake-up call. They were doing the full launch event for Valoria Saga, and Luke was ever the pragmatist, making sure they had a wake-up call so they could eat, shower, and shave. I’d seen the advertisements all over the place, of course. It was all across gaming news, a new cutting-edge AI, and a near-limitless virtual world where you could go on grand adventures. Luke and Rob had gone on about it at length over Christmas, talking about the stuff the beta testers had found. I was just happy we were kind of talking like when we were younger.

We’d drifted when Luke went off to college. I mean, that’s how it happens, right? He had a whole life at school, and his new buddy Rob, and that girl, Daeva... at least for a while. I crossed the room and checked on the connections for Rob. They’d been logged in for days now, and I could’ve accidentally killed them when this whole thing started. I’d showed up to their little basement apartment that morning like I was supposed to and brought breakfast cause I knew neither of them would have thought to have actual food.

I remembered entering Luke’s room, hitting his foot, and calling out. He didn’t respond, and then I tried shaking him. When there was still no response, I could feel a small bit of worry creeping up and thank god for the alerts going off. All our phones started blaring an alert and checking, I saw the notification of some sort of cyber-terrorist attack. Opening up, there was an immediate warning: DO NOT REMOVE VR DEVICE OF VICTIMS. I’d been reaching over to pull the plug. If I’d...

It was better not to consider it. I stopped and read the full alert, nearly dropping the phone as reality crashed down. Luke was trapped. I hit 911 and got routed to a special dispatch as I reported them. A team showed up with the ambulance while I sat there shaking, the dispatcher staying on the phone with me to keep me calm. She had me check their pulses, make sure the VR rigs were plugged in, and grab a cable to hardline the internet connections. After that, all I could do was sit there, and I don’t know why this was the part I focused on, but I was watching his breakfast go cold.

First responders got there, strapping sensors to them while others were preparing a device to keep them connected and powered during transport. The reports I was seeing talked about how hundreds had already died having their rigs removed, going into some sort of neural shock akin to a stroke. I went with the ambulance, telling them everything I knew about Luke and Rob’s medical info, but it felt woefully incomplete. I filled out information at the hospital for them, as much as I could while I waited for Mom and Dad. Some part of me kept expecting this would all be done in a bit, but as I watched the professionals work, I saw it- this wasn’t fixing. Mom and Dad did Mom and Dad, checking on me, then asked about Luke before Dad went to talk with the doctors. Mom sat there in the waiting room with me, holding me as I wept. I hadn’t had the heart to be the one to tell them that there was no way to pull him out. No way to save either of them and all we could do was sit around.

The days stretched out, and while there were fluctuations in their charts, little else changed. So as I kept sitting here, waiting for my brother to wake back up, I took to doomscrolling my brother’s phone. It had been locked, but I mean, his thumb was right there and he didn’t seem to be using it. Up to now, I’d avoided hopping on it, not wanting to invade his privacy, but days in, I realized it was just silly being hung up on that. I unlocked the phone, and changed the settings to give myself the unlock, then took a spin through the group Discord... and that’s when I saw the link. One of the guys, Temur, had gone live on Twitch. I’m not sure what made me click the link, but I needed something. Even if it was just a few minutes, I might see something of Luke.

It wasn’t a few minutes. It took almost no time to realize that Luke and Rob were both alive, and my whole body shook. I grabbed a link, and called Mom, “MOM! I’m sending you a link! You need to follow it!”

On the other end, the worry in my mom’s voice was rising, “Denise, Is Luke alright?!”

“They’re alive! They’re in the game. Temur’s been streaming the whole time!”

The excitement ratcheted down quickly from there as I had to explain to Mom how Twitch works, take her through setting up an account, and how to navigate the live feed. They were in some town called Rosewater, and while Temur slept, the camera was stuck. We couldn’t see him in the here and now, but going back through the stream, we could see Luke. For the first time since this started, I left the hospital. I had to get back to my dorm room.

Mom and Dad were thrilled. Their son was confirmed as being alive and doing stuff to get himself out of the game, but that wasn’t the only stuff to be seen. Luke, or Lugh in the game, was trying to rally people, but almost no one was moving, most just shifted to doing nothing over at the militia. I switched out my clothes, pulled my contacts, and got into comfortable pajamas before going over to the computer desk and writing out a sticky note for my roommate, then I opened up the box containing the rig and game.

I was never a gamer. That was Luke’s thing, but after we’d drifted I found I missed hanging out with him while he played games, sitting there watching as he played for hours. The plan had been to give him and Rob a little bit of time to nerd out over the launch, then surprise them by joining the game. I’d seen the limited edition on Luke’s Amazon Wishlist, and gotten a copy for myself. A part of me understood that this was the craziest thing I could do, but I wouldn’t let Lugh be alone in there, and fuck sitting it out on the sidelines. I got everything set up, made sure it would connect, and just before signing in, I left one last message for my parents: “I’m going in to get Lugh. I love you all.”

I never got a response as the nerualink took over, and I entered Valoria Saga.