While Kyle was still sitting at the table sipping on his drink, Sera came down the steps and walked into the kitchen. Glancing up at her, Kyle finally noticed that she’d changed out of his long shirt sometime and was now wearing a thin, pink pull-over and a small, loose white skirt. Opening the fridge and grabbing herself a soda, she finally asked, “Are you OK, Kyle?”

“Damned if any of that was OK,” Kyle muttered. “Both of you are crazy.”

“Sorry,” Sera apologized. “I may have overdone it a bit.”

“Overdid it?” Kyle asked, shaking his head in bewilderment. “How the hell can you overdo something like that?”

“Well,” Sera said, blushing slightly as she sat down at the table beside him, “it really didn’t hurt that bad. Even being a crit to such an area on Seran, it barely registered as anything more than a slight twinge. Apparently, dying several thousand times in a row has built up my character an insane level of physical endurance and physical resistance. I could probably bathe in acid and not be affected by it too much, except for the fact that it’d kill me. Loss of health, or pain isn’t such a concern for my character.

“I was just putting on an act for Heather,” Sera admitted, while looking a little embarrassed. “Sorry,” she apologized again. “I didn’t think it’d bother you that much.”

“And that just shows that you’re not a real guy,” Kyle said, snorting. “There isn’t a guy in the world who wouldn’t cringe seeing and hearing something like that. I can’t think of a guy in the world who wouldn’t be bothered by that. I’m going to have nightmares for a week!” Shivering slightly, Kyle screwed the lid back on the plastic soda bottle and then tossed it at her.

“The two of you ever do something like that again around me, and I’ll bend you over and spank both your asses here in the real world,” Kyle warned. “That was probably the most blood curdling thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life! And the fact that it was there in the virtual world, where I could hear it, see it, even smell it! BRRRRR!!” Shivering again, Kyle crossed his arms on the table and then rested his head in them.

“Never again,” Sera promised.

“Never ever again,” Kyle emphasized.

“Never ever again,” Sera repeated, laughing lightly. “But, you might be pleased to know that we did learn some interesting things.”

“Like what?” Kyle asked, listlessly.

“Well, for one, we learned you’re a wimp who logs off and runs away when someone’s in real trouble.” Sera said, smirking slightly.

“Just shove it.” Kyle muttered.

“And we learned that players can and can’t get murderer status,” Sera continued.

“Can and can’t?” Kyle asked, curiosity causing him to finally raise his head up from his arms.

Sera nodded affirmation. “The first time Heather killed me, she got a bounty for ‘assault’, which we both found a little odd. The second time she killed me, it didn’t affect her at all. The third death got her a bounty for ‘murder’.”

“What the heck was the difference?”

“We think it was witnesses,” Sera explained. “For the first one, you saw her attack me but logged out before I died. My eyes were closed and I didn’t see her, so she just got a bounty for ‘assault’. For the second one, I kept my eyes closed and never saw her, so she didn’t get any penalties. For the third death, I watched her do it and she got a bounty for ‘murder’. The game lets you PvP whoever you want, but if the person sees you or someone else does, you get negative penalties for it.”

“Well that’s interesting,” Kyle said, perking up a little. “I wonder how poison or something would work?”

“You’d probably get away with it,” Sera said with a shrug. “Unless someone could prove you were the one who used it somehow.”

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“And how long does it last?” Kyle asked.

“It seems to vary. For assault, Heather has a month long warrant. For murder, three months.”

“So she’s going to have to be careful if we do manage to find any sort of town or village anytime soon in game.” Kyle commented. “Serves her right,” he added as an afterthought.

“Seems like it,” Sera agreed. “But you guys have been in game for a month already, and haven’t seen no sign of anyone else. Nowhereland was a good place to test it out to learn from,” she said, bragging on herself.

“And, you’ll also be proud to know that we have the results for your test as well,” Sera added.

“So what’d you learn about items and packs?” Kyle questioned.

“For starters, we learned that you can lose items from the packs. The first death I lost a claw. The second death was a pelt. The last time I died however, I lost the backpack itself.”

“I was afraid of that,” Kyle sighed. “If you’re unlucky, you could lose a whole lot of stuff at once.”

“Nope!” Sera said with a giggle as she waved her finger from side to side at him. “Tsk. Tsk. You’re jumping to conclusions. I simply said I lost the pack. I didn’t say I lost the pack and all the contents. When I respawned at the entrance, all the items in the pack tumbled out and scattered on the ground around me. I lost the backpack, but kept all the other stuff. I just didn’t have anything to carry it in, so it all dumped out and made a mess on the ground.”

Kyle was quiet for a moment, thinking, and then he slowly frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know if that’s such a good thing or not. In this case, it’s not bad since all we had were durable items in the pack, but what if you had a pack full of crystal figurines or something? Have those appear and tumble to the ground, and they might break or get damaged. I don’t know if I’d rather have them stay in the pack so they’d be safe and I’d have to retrieve them all or once, or if I’d prefer to have them come to me if I lost the pack.”

“I guess that means we’re going to have to learn to be careful and watch how we pack valuable things that can break,” Sera said. “Better to learn about it now than later, when we do have something valuable to protect.”

“I guess,” Kyle agreed, finally getting up and stretching.

“You about ready to head back in?” Sera asked, getting up and stretching herself. “Heather and I decided to log out for about half an hour or so, since you weren’t there with us. The game makes you take a break anyway, every little bit. Us all leaving at the same time counts towards that break time, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Kyle confirmed. “The game counts the time when you’re logged out as if it’s time when your character is asleep. I guess it’ll count it as if we had a little catnap or something.” Staring over at Sera, he pointed a finger at her. “As long as you and her don’t do something nutty like that again, I’m ready to log back in.”

“I promised!” Sera said, laughing slightly. “Never ever ever never ever again!”

“Fine. Then let’s go. We’re never going to get Idiot’s Paradise explored at this rate,” Kyle muttered moodily.

“That’s not true!” Sera said defensively. “I’ve already scouted out several of those tunnels, and I’ve been watching – the room we cleared hasn’t had anything respawn in it yet. We’ll definitely be able to clear the place!”

“We’ll see.” Kyle walked out of the kitchen and started upstairs. “One thing about it. Where we’re at, we don’t have to worry about other people showing up and bothering us, even after the lock-out time expires.”

“Yep!” Sera agreed, enthusiastically. “We’ll get to the dungeon core and conquer the place eventually for certain!”