The yellow with black splotches, frog-like creature flew through the air and Suze reacted first. A long branch of green hair rope shot out from the whip and just missed the creature by a finger's breadth.

The parabolic curve of the frog's jump seemed like something out of a wuxia movie just there were clearly no strings attached. The creature flew up, floated down in an arc and landed right on Geraldine. It flattened her to the ground. With a speed that showed as just a blur to me, it began attacking her with its spindly, sucker-toed hands and feet. At each contact, Geraldine glowed with a sickly greenish light.

I cried out and ran to her.

Suze let out an Amazonian wail.

I don't think the frog knew quite what hit them. I barely had time to see that their title was Barbarous Golden Frog - Monster - Tier 0 - Water Leaper Elite🌲 before I bashed them on the head with the Mirror of the Moon, that was now a silver shield. The summoning had happened so quickly that I hadn't overtly thought about it. Each of the hits dented the shield, but the dent popped back out before the next hit. A strange mucus substance splattered, but the shield kept it from hitting me in the face.

Suze whipped the frog's head again and again with the bullwhip, then she used the hair from the bullwhip to wrap around the slimy looking golden body and pull the frog being off Geraldine.

Dropping to my knees, I pressed my hands onto Geraldine's shoulders and healed her once. Anxious, I began counting down to heal again. Her eyes were closed and she was extremely rigid. It made me think about that moment in the bathroom where I was unable to do anything -- was that just yesterday? I gently shook her, feeling like this was a bad idea but I had no real world experience with first aid and didn't know if doing that would wound her more. The magical healing cooldown was even more awful when I couldn't get the points of healing into her fast enough. She was healing though. She just didn't move and she certainly wasn't waking.

"Suze. Something's wrong with her. She won't wake up."

I scrolled back into the combat log to see what it was that could have affected her. Then I saw the line that absolutely was the reason she wasn't getting up.

Barbarous Golden Frog - Monster - Tier 0 - Water Leaper Elite🌲poisons Geraldine - Tier 0 - Bed & Breakfast Innkeeper with [unidentified] toxin.

Geraldine - Tier 0 - Bed & Breakfast Innkeeper is poisoned.

Geraldine - Tier 0 - Bed & Breakfast Innkeeper is down.

It had happened so quickly I missed the combat log and missed the ticking of Geraldine's health after each heal. I healed her for 2 and then it ticked down for 1 health.

I couldn't tell if the poison had a debuff timer. Without being able to see a debuff timer, I didn't know if this toxin was permanent or it would run out. I also didn't know what would happen because of the toxin. I felt so helpless.

"She's poisoned. I don't know how to heal poisons."

"Hey Frog." Suze kicked at the frog. It was, surprisingly, still alive despite the pounding that Suze had just given it. "How do you cure the poison?"

The frog opened its wide mouth and laughed. "Stupid Funnelers. She will die and you will soon and my Lady Titani--ow!" Suze smashed him with the end of the bullwhip handle.

"I am speaking the same language. How. Do. You. Cure. It?"

I attempted another heal and while she absorbed the magical healing, Geraldine wasn't getting better, opening her eyes or moving. Her health ticked down in the combat log.

I stood up so furious I could spit. "Oh, you will tell me how to heal her. So help me." I stalked over to him, the shield shrunk into the side of a dinner plate, but had a bulbous knot right in the middle of it. It fit easily over my fist. I knew exactly what to do with it. My insides churned and I swung and hit him.

I've never hit anyone like this. It was the worst feeling in the world, but also I was desperate to get the answer of how to cure the poison. I smashed him with the little shield. The movement jarred up my arm and it hurt, but it felt also righteous. He would tell me. He would.

"Tell me!"

"By my Lady I won't!" He shouted and struggled against the bonds of the bullwhip's mecate rope.

I let out a scream of frustration. In the combat log I could see that Geraldine's health still ticked down. I didn't want him near her and I needed to physically touch her to heal her so I gave up and ran over to heal her.

Barely a step was taken before I heard a meaty thunk. I whirled around and gasped. A handaxe stuck out of the frog monster's huge eyesocket and across most of its froggy face. It was in there real deep. Blood gushed out of the wound.

Barbarous Golden Frog - Monster - Tier 0 - Water Leaper Elite🌲 is dead.

Barbarous Golden Frog - Monster - Tier 0 - Water Leaper Elite🌲 has been defeated.

COMBAT ENDED

Gogo jogged over as if he'd just done something really awesome. He strutted like a proud predator that had done us a favour. "Yeah! An elite. The loot's gonna be awesome."

I began crying and again dropped to my knees when the frog no longer moved. "He's dead!" I sobbed because I knew that without having an antidote, Gogo had essentially killed Geraldine.

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"You're welcome," Gogo said as he bent down and looted the frog monster's corpse.

A pop-up window showed up over my vision. It was a box window with icons of two items -- a book and a golden ball -- and percentile dice beside them. The dice began to roll. The numbers stopped on 31 beside the book and 98 beside the golden ball.

You have won Barbarous Golden Frog's Golden Ball.

The window closed on its own.

The golden ball appeared in my shield-free hand and was surprisingly heavy. The inspection window popped open without me thinking about it.

Barbarous Golden Frog's Golden Ball. Level 1 Item. Allows bearer to cast the Poison Splash Spell (Tier 0) and whenever the bearer heals or is healed, the healing spell gains an extra point of healing per tier level plus gains the Antidote Buff. This item levels with use.

Gogo and Suze were shouting at one another. I didn't care enough to pay attention. I scrambled over to Geraldine and healed holding the golden ball. The pop-up window had more words to read, but I minimized it to look at later.

Geraldine - Tier 0 - Bed & Breakfast Innkeeper gains Antidote Buff.

Geraldine - Tier 0 - Bed & Breakfast Innkeeper is healed for 2 points of health.

I waited, expecting her health to drop again. It didn't. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness." I clasped my hands together in joy and looked up to tell Suze, "She's going to live!" Only once I said the words, I closed my mouth in shock at what was going on just a little ways away.

Suze had Gogo in some kind of headlock. They struggled and although Suze was thinner and shorter than Gogo, she seemed to have the upper hand. From his head under her armpit, he shouted, "That's my loot! Let me go you stupid cunt!"

Suze flipped him in this move that was straight out of a movie. She then had him pinned down in some kind of hold. It must have hurt because Gogo swore his head off with spit flying out of his mouth.

Their fight didn't show up in my combat log. I found that extremely odd and concerning.

Suze held him stoutly. She seemed anchored to the earth itself as he tried to kick her and pull himself away. Her Brazilian accent was a bit strong when she ground out, "You're lucky Geraldine lives or I would being looting your corpse."

"Who cares if the old bag dies?"

"We care you filho da puta."

Alarmed at the escalation of this I wanted to diffuse the situation before somebody got seriously hurt or killed. "Woah woah! You two. She's fine. It's all okay." It wasn't. I knew it wasn't. I didn't want anything to do with Gogo, but I also didn't want to fight him. He had way more gear than we did, even though he didn't have a class. Suze did have him in a hold, but if Halliday returned, I had no idea what would happen.

"Let me go." He struggled and seemed to get a bit of leverage, but then Suze did something and he was back to ineffectively struggling against her.

"I'll let you go on two conditions. First you will apologise for your mouth. Second you will apologise to Geraldine for being a fucking asshole."

"Fuck you Tutu. You've always been a stuck up bitch." He was struggling, but I couldn't believe how strong Suze looked just holding him in one spot, but at some point she might lose control of him. "The old lady's just going to resurrect anyway."

I gasped out, "No, Gogo. When Funnelers die, they die."

"What the fuck is a funneler?"

"We are." I felt this conversation was going nowhere. "If any of us dies we won't come back."

"Stop saying that shit. Things respawn in this game. I've seen it. Halliday and I have been up and down this road tons of times and we fight the same damn things."

"Have you died?" I asked just as he and Suze began struggling again and this time he actually seemed to almost get out of the submission hold, but she did something else and he growled in annoyance as he was back to being unable to move.

"If Tutu lets me go, then I'll kill her and you can see her come right back."

I heard the crack and then he just screamed.

"Suze! What did you do?"

She sounded pleased with herself. "He pulled a knife from his inventory. He didn't need his wrist to work properly. Thank you for the knife dickhead."

Holy crap. I had no clue where Suze had learned this fighting stuff. It was way out of control.

"You have got to stop! Both of you. We're in the same guild!" For some reason, saying that out loud seemed strangely hollow. I'd said those exact things during Discord fights and guild blow-ups, and somehow felt truly that I was helping the situation. But at this moment, I felt the words were empty of meaning. I didn't like that empty feeling. It allowed something dark and scared to crawl into the hole it created in my thoughts that had not been as present since we arrived in this game or dungeon or whatever it was. I had to push it down.

It was then that Halliday returned. He came not from the bush, where he'd jumped to fight whatever it was they were killing. Instead, he came from around the bend in the road in the direction we had been headed. He beamed at me, seemingly unaware of the fight between Gogo and Suze nor even phased by the body of the giant frog creature which was leaking out in a dead slump by the side of the road where Suze had dragged him.

Cheerfully Halliday said, "Hey guys! You'll never guess who I met around the bend."

When I saw the first person to come around the bend, my heart suddenly soared with hope. Although I'd never met him in real life, I had seen photos of him from pictures he'd posted to our discord. He wore patchwork armour -- of course he would already have some pieces -- that covered his chest, one shoulder, and his thighs and held a really basic looking mace in one hand. After he took in the struggle bus that was the fight between Suze and Gogo, I saw him smirk in amusement. Then his dark eyes met mine. He smiled. He smiled and it felt like maybe, just maybe we were all going to survive this thing.

"I see you three are pvping already," he said in his deep rumble.

"Kitch." I said while trying to muster up the usual playful chiding tone I had when I spoke with him on comms, but I could tell I sounded a bit too desperate. I cringed at myself, but then let him know exactly what I felt. "I am so glad to see you."

He seemed about to say something, but a very familiar voice called out from behind him. "'Sup Peres!"

"Chocoboss!"

A young guy who was insanely tall and lanky raced over and picked me up to swing me around. I couldn't help it, but I laughed. He put me down and patted me on the head. "You're so short in real life."

"Peres! Tutu!" With Chocoboss came a bunch of people and I vaguely recalled their visages from the many posts in the guild discord. All of the Late Night Crew that had been raiding with us were there, including some people I didn't recognise which I remembered from photos of families and roommates. Nobody seemed to even mention that Suze had Gogo in yet another hold. She seemed almost to be showing off that no matter what he tried, she could just adjust and he'd be stuck again.

"Is this all of you?" I asked them, but was really asking Kitch.

"No." He said and I could tell he was concerned for me.

I knew exactly why. An unfortunate wave of disappointment crashed over me as two more people finally made their appearance from the back of the group.

One was Matt who saw me and broke into this strangely delighted grin as if I was a solution to some problem he'd been having. The other person next to him was his girlfriend and she looked really, really angry.