The rest of the walk down the road was a lesson in why I will trust Suze's knee-jerk reactional instincts about people. Gogo and Halliday were really unnerving. While Gogo no longer said anything perverted, he would just jump into the bushes or off the road at the movement of any kind of creature. Halliday was more than happy just to follow.

At first we waited, but we didn't bother waiting for them after the sixth such disappearing act.

Throughout the afternoon, they'd catch up to us, both laughing and joking with one another about who was the better player at the game. I ignored my combat log entirely because when I did pay attention, it made my stomach queasy. So many squirrels and rats and songbirds died in a scroll combat log of attacks.

From the way Suze glared at Gogo and Halliday I had a feeling that if Geraldine and I weren't so vulnerable, she would have ditched the two men long ago. It didn't take long for my assumption to turn out correct. I received a direct message in my chatlog, probably because our group chat now included Geraldine.

Direct Message from Suze - Tier 0 - High Rise Window Cleaner: Let's ditch these morons.

Direct Message to Suze - Tier 0 - High Rise Window Cleaner: I like Halliday. He's not a bad guy. Gogo is a pain in the butt, but we'll be with the guild soon.

She sighed in annoyance, but said nothing more. I knew her concern wasn't over because she held her cudgel constantly, not bothering to put it back in her inventory. We walked in silence for a bit, listening to the sounds of the forest.

"Peres! Wait up!" I stopped and turned to see that Halliday stumbled out of the brush covered in blood splatters. He held two daggers that were just coated in dripping blood for a second, but once he started running, they disappeared as he likely shot them back into his inventory.

I noticed that Gogo was not with him. It might be my chance to talk to him without the other man.

Halliday jogged up to me and it gave me a moment to really look at him. He had short curly hair with shaved sides and a rather friendly-looking, but generic face that just made me think that he came from some US state like Idaho or Utah. His arms were covered in fairly cool nerdy tattoos of swords and gaming dice. For clothes he was wearing jeans and a tshirt with black sneakers as if it hadn't been like 6am where he was from and he was ported here after a whole night of gaming.

"Kaylee?" Suze asked with a hint of warning.

I just waved my arm at her. "We'll catch up. I'm fine."

He caught up to me and I gave him a few moments to breathe. He seemed so elated and so alive. I was tempted to touch him to see if his name and profession would show up for me, but I was already so weirded out by our first interaction that I had to ask him the thing that had bothered me for the last little while.

"Uh, Halliday. How did you know it was me when we met?"

"I used to watch your streams."

"Right. With Valzh."

"No. Uh. Your streams you've been doing with the Night Team. You guys are progressing real good." His cheeks reddened a little to match the splatters of fresh blood on his face. I took an intake of breath, as the revelation that Halliday watched me stream was kinda unnerving and confusing. I barely talked to him in guild. The tangent nearly distracted me from what I wanted to know.

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I pulled back to the point of why I wanted to get him alone to talk. "So uhm." How was I supposed to approach this? I decided to just start with an easy step. "Can you call me Kaylee? It feels weird to be called Peres or Peregrine to my face."

He looked a bit bewildered. "We're not face to face."

Aha. There it was. He really thought we were in a game.

"Yes, we are face to face." I said very calmly and as sincerely as possible.

He scoffed and laughed at me with that kind of way the B Team used to do when I had an idea for a fight strat. "I know it looks really real, but it's just a game. Gogo and me -- we're grinding. Getting that XP! I looted a class already. One of the first in the guild. We're on a kill quest even. It tracks the number of dead rodents in my UI."

"R-right." I tried to get out and needed really terribly to be believed all of a sudden. I didn't like the feeling that he thought I was being dense or obtuse. "When you say it that way, it's obvious it's a game. I mean, Suze and I had done a quest and failed it rather terribly. We've gotten skills. We've looted and killed things. But you have to believe me. I know deep down that we are really here and this isn't some VR thing. We're here. We're really here."

"I don't-- I mean." He really seemed to be thinking it over. Just for a second. Then he said, "Nahh."

"Look! I can prove it. See her?" I pointed at Geraldine. "Geraldine didn't play the game and she's here. It'd be really weird if someone programmed our neighbour from our apartment building. Not just her, but also her cats. All three of them."

His brows furrowed a little and for a moment he seemed like he might be believing me.

Except Gogo slapped me on the butt as he appeared nearby. "Hey!" I shouted.

You have been hit for 0 damage from from Willie - Tier 0 - Sandwich Artist.

Would you like to give Willie - Tier 0 - Sandwich Artist unlimited access to inventory? Yes or no?

"No, I won't." I said outloud. "Don't touch my ass ever again."

"Touchy." He pushed past me, shoving me a little to the side. "Don't fill his head with bullshit Peres. Don't listen to her brother. C'mon. Found a warren of rabbits to cull. You girls stay here and look pretty. Okay, sugar tits?"

I stood there, mute and stunned unable to come up with anything to say. In game, Gogo had always been a bit of a jerk. I just laughed along with everyone else because it felt harmless. But this was on a different level. Gogo just brimmed with an energy that was dark and mean and almost comically sexist.

Before I could save face, Gogo twirled his axe in the air as if to show off and also as a strange threat. Then he winked at me and stalked back into the bushes.

I shuddered. Gross.

Halliday still stood in front of me. He seemed a bit embarrassed by the display. "Hey. Sorry about that. He's been weirder since he looted that axe awhile ago. I'll call you Kaylee though. You can call me Rupert, but my last name is Halliday and most of my friends call me that. So."

I smiled at Halliday. Maybe he wasn't going to be a murdering psychopath after all. The guild might be an okay place to be. "Thanks, Halliday. Rupert. Yeah, Halliday."

He waved as he turned and ran off after Gogo. I waved back.

"I told you we should ditch them. I want to smash Gogo in his face."

"Gogo's real name is Willie. He's a sandwich artist. He tried to access my inventory and I didn't give it to him." In game, Gogo was an officer and had access to the guild bank. He hadn't seemed like a loot whore, but I rarely played with him even when I was in the good graces of the B Team and still dating Valhz.

"I would like him to Gogo away." Suze said with an evil grin.

I couldn't help but laugh at that.

"Girls! Girls!" Geraldine called out. She had stopped up ahead. On her back was one of the cat carriers. I could see that inside the carrier, the cat was standing up with ears forward and alert. She was pointing off to the other side of the road from where Gogo and Halliday had ran off. "There's something there. I Bootsie just growling away in my carrier and then in my minimap there was a big red dot. It disappeared for a moment, then reappeared closer and along the edge of the forest just there." She pointed.

"Stay near her and protect Geraldine at all costs," Suze said to me.

"I will, but don't go running into the bush. If it's coming to attack I'll need you close enough to heal you."

We didn't have much time to do anything as something yellowish gold flew out of the forest impossibly fast, airborne in the direction of Geraldine. The brief moment it was airborn, the form made sense to me as a giant bright gold frog with big black spots. It was easily the same size as the beavers, which meant it was our size.

COMBAT INITIATED.