Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Prologue

It was Red Rock that got
him eventually. I’d seen it in a dream; my brother’s arms flailing, his eyes
wide in terror, his mouth opening as he screamed. I’m not saying I was psychic,
but at the back of my mind, I’d always known that something would happen to
Francis.

When he reached the top
of Red Rock, he stopped. At first, I thought he was just showing off, but then
he slipped and let go of the rock with both his hands. My heart felt like it
was trying to burst through my chest. My brother fell from twenty feet and
dropped to the ground.

It was over within a few
seconds, but it felt like I watched him in slow motion. When he hit the ground,
his body made a sickening thud.

We knew it was over; his
football scholarship, his dreams of university.

Dad was the first to
react, throwing his coil of rope to the ground and sprinting over to Francis. I
was next, running until I was near my brother. Dark thoughts flooded through me
and made me want to retch. I pushed through them until I kneeled next to
Francis.

When I saw that his chest
rose and fell as he breathed, I could have shouted in relief.

“We can’t move him,” I
said. “He could have a back injury.”

If he’d suffered a spinal
injury, then we wouldn’t be able to see it and would have to wait for the x-ray
at the hospital. I didn’t need medical equipment to confirm a different injury,
though.

I looked down at my
brother’s right leg. I saw the sickening white of bone where it had snapped and
pierced through his skin in three places. Francis was unconscious and couldn’t
see his injuries, and I wished that I couldn’t either. My dad and I exchanged
glances, and I could see it written on his face.

Chapter One

2 Days Before the Game

Eighteen years changed a
lot of things, but some were constant. I still went into Gossard Forest six
days a week. Only now, I didn’t hang at the back while my father led a tour group,
muttering to himself about their lack of interest in the history of the area.
This time I was at the front.

Cal was at my side. He
was a kid from the south who Dad had fostered four years after Francis’
accident, and who he had adopted 16 months after that.

“So, you’re saying that
the bandits made a base in these woods?” said a woman at the head of the group
in front of me.

This was a corporate
booking meant to help a group of office workers bond amongst the tall elms. I
doubted that anyone of them had been in a forest before. The woman in front of
me seemed to be the manager. She wore a smile that spread wide across her face,
but it seemed more cruel than friendly.

“That’s what he’s been
saying for the last thirty minutes,” said Cal, with hands in his pockets and a
cigarette tucked behind his ear.

Cal had just turned eighteen,
so he could smoke whenever he wanted. That didn’t mean Dad wouldn’t give him
grief for it, though. Since his stroke, Dad had become health conscious.

The woman fixed a sharp
look at Cal. I tried to remember her name. Was it Gretta? Yeah, that would have
to do.

“It’s not what I
expected, I have to say,” said Gretta, turning her stare to me. “Your leaflet
promised abseiling.”

“It promised a history tour
through the forest with abseiling at the end.”

She huffed. “Well, you
must know that nobody cares about the history.”

Her voice started to
irritate me. We got someone like this one in every few tours. I’d thought about
ramping up the action, but Dad reminded us that Ledfield Tours hadn’t changed
much for generations. If I was the sole Ledfield who broke from tradition and a
decades-old company went bust, what would I do?

“If you don’t care about
history, why did you even book on the tour?”

Gretta rolled her eyes.
“There isn’t a Disneyland around here. We get incentive money every month, and
we’ve tried just about every place there is.”

“We’re stopping for lunch
now,” I said. “How about after that, I skip some of the talk and we go straight
to Yeller Mound?”

One of the men took a few
steps forward.  “Don’t you abseil down Red Rock? It’s twice the size of
Yeller.”

I shook my head. Even
years later, I hated hearing the name. “Wherever you heard that, it’s out of
date. We don’t go near Red Rock anymore.”

“Why not?” said Gretta.

I was damned if I was
going to tell her as personal a story as that. “We just don’t. Now come on.
Park your asses and eat your lunch.”

While most of the office
workers ate, Cal and two other men played cards. The deck was Cal’s, and the
edges of the cards were bent and marked, both through years of use, and years
of cheating. I watched the three men play poker. Two of them were unaware that
the odds were heavily weighted against them.

I suppressed a smile as
Cal performed sleight of hand, turning every hand into a royal flush or
something as good. As the office workers’ wallets emptied, they didn’t seem to
catch on. Sensing that he had squeezed them dry, Cal stood up, thanked the men
for the game, and walked over to me.

When he stood near me, I
leaned toward him. “You’re going to get caught sometime, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not
stupid. I just like riding my luck.”

Every week, Cal visited a
social worker who would give him letters from his mother who had given him up
for adoption, and fill in any gaps about his past. His mother wanted to meet up
in person, but Cal always refused.

After years of living
with us, Cal was a Ledfield. I thought it, and so did Dad. Francis, on the
other hand, was lukewarm toward Cal. But then, he’d been lukewarm about
everything since the accident.

It didn’t matter how we
felt, though. The problem was getting that through to Cal. He was my brother,
as far as I was concerned, but some things were just too ingrained to get over.

I looked at the woodland
around us. Left as it was, the forest would flourish but the imprint men had
left on it – the signs and the fences – would rust and rot. Every day that I
led a tour through here I got the feeling that Ledfield Tours was the same. We
were getting left behind, stuck covering the same ground of forest just as we
had for 80 years. The company needed updating, but was I the one to do it?

I watched as one man, his
hair slicked back with so much product that it looked wet, threw his sandwich
bag on the ground.

“Going bear hunting?” I
said. “Littering’s a sure way to attract a bear. And they’re not cuddly like
you see in movies; we’re not talking Winnie or Paddington. The ones in this
forest will rip your face off.”

Gretta stood up. She
crossed her arms and fixed me a smug stare. “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad
thing. A bear would liven things up.”

Cal turned to face
Gretta. “You signed up for a Gossard Forest history walk, so what did you
expect?”

“Something more
exciting.”

“And that’s why we put
the abseiling in at the end,” said Cal. “Because we know some people have
trouble understand the long words we use when we talk about history.”

Gretta crossed her arms
tighter. “Do you always talk to your customers this way?”

“When they’re behaving
like asses and baiting bears, yes,” I said, fighting to keep my tone calm.

Gretta huffed. “Screw
this,” she said. “if you won’t liven it up, I will.”

With that, Gretta turned
and stormed off. I tried to call out to warn her, but she didn’t listen. I
thought about how satisfying it would be to just leave her, but I knew I
couldn’t do that.

As I started to walk
toward Gretta, I heard her scream.  Then, as I ran in her direction, I heard a
different sound.  This one was bestial, the roar of a predator stumbling upon a
helpless sack of flesh.

A bear was roaming, and
that it must have spotted Gretta. The best-case scenario was that the bear had
already eaten and that it was alone. If the beast was hungry, there would be no
way of avoiding an attack.

As I got closer, I saw
it. It was eight feet tall and three times my width, with dirty, matted fur
that covered hulking muscles. The animal would make easy work of tearing a man
apart. Its jaws would snap through a skull like biting an apple.

Gretta looked at me. She
saw me approach, and I’m sure words formed in her head, but they came out only
as: “Blaarh, eurgh.”

I had the strongest urge
to tell her that she should have listened to me and not gone off on her own.
The look of sheer terror on her face told me that I better help her instead.

“Bet you wish you’d
listened to me, don’t you?”

Damn. The words just
slipped right out and slapped the terrified woman in the face.

Her skin had turned
chalk-white as the bear stretched itself tall. It hadn’t moved for a few
seconds now, preferring instead to size up the challenge set before it.

“Stay put,” I told her,
keeping my voice calm but firm.

She looked at me with
wide eyes. In that second, I felt sorry for her. She might not have behaved
brilliantly, but she was just an office worker who was miles out of her
element. She’d normally be spending her afternoons facing a spreadsheet, not a
bear.

I walked over to her,
making sure not to show the bear my back even for a second. The air of Gossard
Forest was thick with tension. It was like all the forest critters were
watching. They were waiting to see the outcome of the age-old clash of office
worker versus bear. I couldn’t let the bear win this one. It would be bad for
business.

I put my left hand out
and grabbed hers. She looked at me for a second, then squeezed. “Trust me,” I
said.

With my right hand, I
reached into my pocket and grabbed a canister of bear spray. Preparation had always
been one of our keywords.

The bear dropped down
onto all fours and started running at us. I let go of Gretta’s hand and aimed
the canister. As it closed the distance, I could hear the booms its feet made
on the forest floor, and I could hear its raspy breath.

The plume of spray hit
the bear in the face and stopped it. The cloud fogged everything in front of
us. The bear roared out, and I knew that its eyes would be stinging.

“Go back to the others,”
I told Gretta. “But don’t run. Walk.”

Gretta turned around and
walked away. I started to back off, making sure to face the bear. As the plume
of spray started to clear, I realized something that chilled my blood. The bear
wasn’t going anywhere.

The animal opened its
mouth and produced a roar that seemed to shake the trees. It started to run at
me, and I knew this was it.

As the bear came within
four feet, a shot of red light burned through the forest air and went by us. It
exploded against the trunk of a tree and sent sparks everywhere. The volume of
the shot was enough to make the bear decide to call it a day. I breathed a long
sigh of relief when the beast turned and fled.

I looked to my right and
saw Cal stood across the forest with the flare gun in his hand. Behind him were
a group of worried-looking paper merchants. Gretta had sunk to the floor, and
she looked like she had tears in her eyes.

“That enough excitement
for you?” I asked.

Chapter Two

“Mr. Ledfield?” said the
voice on the phone.

“That’s me. How can I
help?”

“It’s Devlin from the Gossard
Forestry Commission.”

This was strange. Aside
from collecting the annual licensing fee from us, the forestry commission
rarely ever made contact. I wondered what they wanted.

“What’s up?”

“I’ll get to the point,”
he said. “Your annual license to run tours through Gossard comes to an end in a
week’s time.”

So, he’d called me to
talk about money? If the rate was increasing a little, he could have just told
me by phone. Or even put it on the invoice.

“How much is it going up
by this year?” I said, mentally juggling Ledfield Tours’ already-low finances.

“I was approached last
week by Star Horizon,” said Devlin.

“The national chain?” I
said.

Devlin nodded. “They want
to run tours through Gossard.”

My first thought was,
why? Gossard wasn’t exactly a big crowd-puller. If it weren’t for decades of
family history, I’d have thought about pulling Ledfield Tours out of Gossard by
now.

“What does that have to
do with me?” I said.

I heard Devlin drum his
fingertips on his desk. “Star Horizon wants exclusivity on tours in the
forest,” he said. “And they’re prepared to pay ten times your annual fee to get
it.”

The news hit me like a
rock sinking through water. Ten times our rate? I had expected Devlin to
increase the annual fee, but I hadn’t dreamed he’d ask for this much. I thought
about our finances and wondered if there was a way it could be done. No. There
simply wasn’t enough cash in the company.

“What if we can’t match
their offer?” I said.

“Then I’m afraid you
wouldn’t be able to guide tours through Gossard anymore.”

“My family have been
doing this since the turn of the century.”

Devlin shrugged his
shoulders. “Things change, Chris.”

I put the phone down and
looked over at my front door, where a letter waited. It looked like any other
at first. When I tore open the envelope and read it, a cup of coffee in one
hand and a look of incredulity on my face, I couldn’t believe it.

It was a letter from a
lawyer representing a Miss G. Hornthorne. If I was under any doubt who G
Hornthorne was, that was dispelled when I finished the letter. It turned out
that Ledfield Tours was being sued for ‘reckless endangerment’. The letter said
that on a recent tour, lack of safety precautions had put Gretta Hornthorne’s
life in danger.

I couldn’t believe it.

She had been the one to
ignore me. From the first second of the tour she’d put everyone at risk with
her behavior; talking through my safety briefing, trying to wander off from the
group. And then, when she’d gone off again,

I’d put my own life at
risk to save her. This was the thanks I got.

Chapter Three

I almost didn’t want to
tell my father. I knew what would happen, and I knew how distressed he’d get
about it. Still, he had a right to know. Ledfield Tours were in trouble. I was
sure I could get us out of it, somehow, but I wouldn’t hide anything from my
father.

Sure enough, as soon as
I’d told him, he didn’t say anything. I heard him take a deep breath through
his oxygen mask, and the sound made me think of a certain villain in a sci-fi
movie. Dad had been getting worse since the stroke that had made him retire
from running the business. I knew that he didn’t think I was ready to take the
business, but there was little option.

“Have you spoken to your
brother?” said Dad.

He never said Francis’
name anymore. It was always ‘him’, or ‘your brother’. It was as though by
saying Francis’ name, Dad would let in all the guilt he felt about his
accident. I and countless others had told Dad that it wasn’t his fault, but he
wouldn’t listen.

“He doesn’t return my
calls,” I said. “Maybe if you tried?”

Dad nodded. “Yeah. Soon.”

It was the answer he
always gave, but soon never happened. Dad just couldn’t work up the courage to
face Francis anymore.

“You need to do
something, Christopher.”

I knew Dad wouldn’t like
what I was about to say, but I didn’t have a choice.

“You remember the
businessman I was telling you about?” I said, making sure to meet my dad’s
stern gaze. “Terrence Pierce?”

Dad slapped the table and
looked away from me. “No way,” he said.

“He wants to invest in
the business. With his money, we might be able to beat Star Horizon’s offer.”

Dad’s face started to
turn red, a sure sign that anger was building in him. He had enough
self-control that he’d managed to rarely show it to Francis or me, but it was
obvious when he was getting into a fury. I understood why. Ledfield Tours was
such a source of pride for Dad. It had always been a family-run business.

“I know how you feel
about investment, but is keeping our pride better than losing the company?”

“We’ve never let an
outsider have a share of the business,” he said, almost spitting the words. “My
dad didn’t, his dad didn’t, I sure as hell didn’t. And you won’t be the first
one, boy. You’ve got the weight of decades of family history pressing down on
you. You better straighten your shoulders.”

I nodded.

“Promise me,” said Dad.
The anger was gone, and there was a pleading tone to his voice.

“Okay.”

“No,” said Dad. “Say the
words. Promise me you won’t let an investor take a share of the business.”

I stared at my dad, and I
said the words. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do next, but I said
the words all the same.

Chapter Four

One day Before the
Game

I spent two days
travelling to the nearby towns of Gorgefall and Kendrick, visiting the banks to
see if one of them would give us a loan. After two refusals, I learned that my
great-great-great grandfather had once borrowed money against the company. He
had been late on repayments, and his tardiness had ruined our credit score. When
I got back in town, I felt drained.

“You look like you could
use a break from reality,” said a voice next to me.

A man was stood to my
left. He wore smart trousers and a striped shirt. He had a badge pinned to his
chest showing a computer logo. Behind him, he’d set up a stall with a big
banner stretching across it that said ‘Pana Reborn’. Resting on the stall was a
black headset.

I knew what it was
straight away. I watched enough TV that I had seen the adverts showing people
having a good time with black headsets fastened on them. This stall was for
Pana Reborn, a virtual reality game that had dominated the entertainment
industry for the last decade.

I was a gamer myself, but
I did it just to relax. Some people seemed to take gaming as a vocation. There
were reports of people becoming addicted to Pana Reborn. Some people lost their
jobs and even their marriages to the role-playing game. I’d always wanted to
try it, but I had the company to think about.

“Can I interest you in a
subscription?” said the man. “A one-off fee of 500GD for a year.”

“If it’s only for a year,
it’s not really a one-off, is it?” I said.

The man leaned in close
to me. He smelled of cigarettes.  “I can see that you’re no fool. Between you
and me, there are tons of stuff you’d still need to pay for. The beginner’s
starter pack, for one. Because you don’t want to be roaming around naked, do
you? And you might be interested in getting a Season Pass for 350GD. In
entitles you to every future expansion pack, completely free!”

“Even if I could spare
the GD, I’m busy,” I said.

I was about to leave when
the man grabbed my arm.  “We’re releasing an expansion pack,” he said. “Pana
hasn’t changed in five years, and now we’re ready to open up a new area. Not
just a new set of quests or a little village.”

I knew I wasn’t going to
be able to leave without hearing him out.

“No, nothing small like
that,” he continued. “We think big at Pana Inc. So, in just a few days’ time,
we’re dropping something enormous on the world. Something massive! Listen to
this... In three days, we officially open the Island of Artemis.”

He outstretched his arms
as if he were revealing the whole island to me. Instead, all I saw was his
slightly-sweat covered armpits.

“Sounds great,” I said.

He scratched his head.
“Wait. Don’t I know you?”

I looked at his face. He
had a ginger moustache resting on his upper lip. The bridge of his nose was
marked from where something had sat. I realized he’d been wearing the VR
headset at some point.

“I don’t think so,” I
said. “Are you from around here?”

“No.” He put his fingers
on his chin and studied me. Then his eyes lit up. “Got it! I’m fan-TAS-tic with
faces, and I must have had yours stored in the memory banks somewhere. You’re
with the tour company, aren’t you?”

“You know us?” I said.

He nodded. “Corporate
head office brought us here a decade ago for some team bonding. How’s your
dad?”

I suddenly wanted to be
far away. “Great. I better go. Good luck with your subscriptions.”

“Listen,” said the man.
“I’ve got something that will interest an outdoorsy guy like yourself. Like I
said, we release Artemis in a few days. Corporate would kill me for saying
this, but I’ll level with you. Subscriptions to Pana are dropping. There’s a
new game out, and it’s killing the market.”

“So,” continued the
salesman, “We’re having a competition. They say it’s to celebrate the release
of Artemis, but really it's to drive subscriptions.”

“Good luck,” I said.

“You haven’t heard what
the competition is.”

“I don’t have time to level
up and kill rats,” I said.

He laughed. “So, you’re a
gamer, then. I knew it. I saw the glint in your eyes. But listen, this isn’t
like any other RPG. You’ll love the competition we’re running.”

I sighed. “Go on then.”

“To celebrate the release
of Artemis, we’re doing this,” he said. “We’ve hidden something on the island.
Something called Helder’s Bane. The first person to find it gets a lifetime
subscription to Pana Reborn. Not only that. The first person to find Helder’s
Bane gets a whopping 10,000GD.”

Now he had my attention.
That amount of cash would be enough for me to match Star Horizon’s bid on the
Gossard Forest tours.

The salesman explained
everything to me. The island was due to open for the first time in a few days.
At which point, in-game ships would take players from the mainland of Pana over
to the new island of Artemis. Passage on the ships was included in a
subscription fee, but spaces were quickly filling up.

“What exactly is Helder’s
Bane?” I said.

The salesman grinned. I
could tell that in his mind, he thought he’d secured a sale. “That’s the thing.
I can’t tell you. It’s for you to figure out once you’re in Artemis.”

I told the salesman that
I’d think about it.

“Don’t forget,” he called
after me as I walked away, “Slots on the public ships are filling. The longer
you wait, the further behind in the chase you are.”

I knew that I wouldn’t be
able to do it alone. I’d need to take Cal with me, and that meant paying for
two subscriptions. Not only that, but I’d need to buy gear for us both.

If I was going to do
this, I needed help. I needed money.

Chapter Five

That afternoon I found
myself in the office of Terence Pierce, the founder of Pierce Parachutes. I
couldn’t help but think that Pierce was an unfortunate name to give a
parachute, given that the last thing you wanted was a hole in it. Terence was
an ego-driven man, though, so it was no surprise he’d put his name to his
product.

I’d first met him a few
years earlier when I’d taken a booking from him. He wanted his staff to go on a
team-bonding activity, and he’d chosen a tour through Gossard Forest. Rather
than listening to me, though, he’d spent the entire afternoon answering his
phone. I was surprised, then, to get a phone call from him later asking to
invest in our company.

The walls of the office
were covered with frames, in which were clippings from newspapers of articles
about Pierce Parachutes. In between them, taking pride of place in the center
of the wall, a 1GD bill hung from a nail.

Terence walked into the
office and sat down behind his desk. Before offering a handshake or even saying
hello, he nodded at the GD note.

“Do you know what that
is?” he said.

“The first GD you ever
made when you started your business?” I guessed.

He smiled. “That’s what I
tell people. But actually, I got it back as change from buying a sandwich a few
years after starting the company. I put it on the wall to give people the
impression that I built the company from scratch. In reality, my father gave me
the startup money. I had enough cash to start the business and then buy out
every place within 50 miles that makes parachutes. I don’t really have any
rivals. There’s a lesson in that.”

“Have rich parents?” I
said.

“Partly. But the full
lesson is; the person with the most money comes out on top. Skip the queue and
pay to win.”

I couldn’t help but think
of Star Horizon. They were a national tour chain, and their resources dwarfed
ours. Terence was right, I knew. But I wanted to change that. I needed to show
that money didn’t always win. The problem was that to do that…I’d need money.

“What can I do for you,
Christopher?”

As I opened my mouth to
speak, Terence picked up the telephone on his desk.

“Sheila,” he said into
the receiver. “Can I have a coffee brought into my office? And my guest would
like a…”

He moved the phone from
his face and looked at me.

“I’m okay,” I said.

“Just a coffee,” said
Terence into the receiver. He put the phone down and looked at me.

“Now, you were saying?”

I explained to Terence
what I’d learned about Pana Reborn and the opening of Artemis. I told him about
the competition and the prize money on offer. Terence had seemed uninterested
until I mentioned figures.

“10,000 GD for playing a
game?” he said, disbelief written on his wrinkled face.

“For finding Helder’s
Bane, not just for playing.”

“Helder’s Bone? What is
it, a dog or something?”

“Bane,” I corrected. “And
nobody knows what it is yet.”

Terence looked over at
the door behind me. I turned around to see if was closed.

“Where’s my damn coffee?”
said the old man. He picked up the telephone on his desk. Turning it over, he
sighed.

“Someone’s unplugged it
again,” he said.

I started to get the
uneasy feeling that not all of Terence’s mind was present.

“Didn’t you realize it
was unplugged when you spoke into it?” I said.

He shrugged. “I just talk
into it, and Sheila comes running. Maybe she’s gotten sick of me.” He leaned
forward. His shirt sleeves moved up, showing a gold watch that hung off his
bony wrist. “I accepted your meeting because I thought you might have seen
sense about taking my investment. Not to talk to me about a game.”

“This isn’t just a game,”
I said. “Well, it is. But there’s more to it. 10,000GD, Terrence. Just for
being the first to find Helder’s Bane.”

“Surely there will be
thousands of people looking for it? What makes you special?”

“Two things. One, I
explore things for a living.”

He shook his head. “You
run a tour through a well-known area of Gossard Forest. There isn’t much to
explore.”

“Two,” I carried on, “I
have you on my side.”

“Rather presumptuous of
you.”

“You’re a business man.
You like a good investment. What was it you said? ‘Skip the queue and pay to
win.’ It’s true that plenty of players will go to Artemis Island to find
Helder’s Bane. They’ll be going over on the public ships. From my research, I
know they'll set sail a few days after launch and will take five hours to get
there.”

“And what’s your
advantage?”

“You,” I answered.

I knew what I had to say
next. After leaving the salesman and going to my flat, all I could think about
was Pana Reborn. I’d spent hours researching the game, and especially the new
island. I uncovered something interesting.

There was a detail which
had bothered me. I couldn’t understand why the public ships sailed a few days
after the launch of the expansion pack.

Then, in a buried post on
a quiet forum, I found the answer. In a world of play to win, it was obvious.
The public ships sailed a few days after launch because Pana Inc was letting
people charter private boats to get there and begin the hunt early. The chase
for Helder’s Bane was being skewed toward those with money.

After I explained this to
Terence, he leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. He
smiled.

“So, we charter a private
ship, buy the best gear a – what do you call it? Newbie? – can buy, and then
you win. It’s that simple.”

I shrugged. “Well, there
will be other people there, too. But Pana is a game about fun and survival. You
must keep your character alive, or you have to respawn, and that sets you back
hours. I know how to survive in harsh climates. Dad made me learn.”

Terence sat back in
thought. I didn’t feel right, sat there. I hated companies with money winning
just because they had more resources, and I knew that I was contributing to it.
But what else could I do? I couldn’t let Star Horizon ruin Ledfield tours.

Finally, Terence looked
at me. “I’ll invest. But I have a condition. I expect a 60/40 split of the
prize money.”

“Fine,” I said.

“One more condition,”
said Terence.

“What?”

“My son goes with you,”
said the old man. “He’s an idiot, and I need him to start thinking about
things. Maybe this trip would help.”

“What do you mean?”

“Rex is what I believe
you would call a ‘jock’. He loves sports, beer and more sports. I know that’s
something of a stereotype, but you’ll understand when you meet him.”

Chapter Six

I didn’t really have much
of a choice. I didn’t want Terence’s son to go with us, especially after
hearing the old man’s description of him. Still, I needed his money.

Getting back to my flat,
I picked up my phone to complete my daily ritual of listening to my brother’s
answerphone. Predictably, he didn’t answer, and when I heard Francis’ recorded
voice, I left a voicemail.

I left a message telling
him about the game. I explained that I’d be spending up to 48 hours at a time
in a capsule, only stopping to take safety-regulated breaks. I told him that
Terence had agreed to buy him a subscription too, and that he should come with
us.

With that done, I spent
the rest of the evening researching Pana. The more I read about the game the
more I realized that finding Helder’s Bane would be tough. The makers of Pana
were well-known for leaving riddles, false trails, and quests that had no
solution. They seemed to love to fool around with the players, all in the
interest of showing them a good time.

As the moonlight sifted
through my window, I climbed into bed. We would enter Pana tomorrow, and the
quest for Helder’s Bane would begin.

Chapter Seven

Entering Pana

Entering Pana was
unpleasant. Their subscription sales office was an impressive building made
almost entirely of glass. It had plush leather seats in the waiting room, and a
receptionist with a smile sat behind a marble desk. Since Terence Pierce had
already bought our subscriptions, Cal and I didn’t enter this lovely building.
Instead, we made our way to the Game Centre.

The Game Centre didn’t
stand as proud. Tucked away on an alley that ran by an industrial estate, it
was a building where rainwater fell from a leaking gutter and splattered on the
ground. There was a Pana Inc logo above the door. That was the only thing that
distinguished it from the taxi offices and bathroom supply warehouses nearby.

We stopped at the door.
Cal looked at me. “You sure about this?”

“We don’t have any tours
booked for 9 days, and I don’t know about you, but I haven’t heard the phone
ring in a while.”

Then I thought about what
had happened in Terence’s office. “Are we sure the phone is plugged in?” I
said.

“I’m not much of a gamer,
you know,” said Cal.

“You play poker all the
time.”

“It’s not a game when you
know you’ll win.”

He had a point. The only
time I’d seen Cal lose at a game was when he threw a few opening rounds to
sucker the other person into making a big bet.

“Thanks for coming,” I
told him.

He shrugged. “What else was
I going to do while you’re gone? Listen, we get breaks in there, don’t we?”

I nodded. “You can only
stay in the capsules for 48 hours, then you have to have an eight-hour rest
from it.”

“Maybe we should delay
going in. Like, you go first, I wait eight hours, then I go in. That way, we’ll
never take our breaks at the same time, so we’ll never lose ground in the
chase.”

The idea had occurred to
me, too. But after spending hours researching Pana Reborn, I knew that you were
most vulnerable in your early levels. The developers believed in tough love,
and most people died at least once before hitting level 4. If we were just
playing for fun that would be fine, but after you died, you couldn’t respawn
for 8 hours. Given that we needed to find Helder’s Bane first to win the prize
money, we couldn’t afford to die.

We signed disclaimers and
were ushered into the capsule room by a gloomy techie. The main hall resembled
something from a dystopian future. Rows of capsules lined the floor, crammed
together as close as possible as if they were trying to use every inch of
space. Cables trailed off each capsule, two in the middle and one at the top. I
guessed that the cables at the top fed something in, and the other two took
something away. It was probably best not to think too much more about it.

“See you in the game,”
said Cal, as he stepped into his capsule. At five foot eight, he had plenty of
room. I nodded at him, and then the techie attending to him closed the door.

My capsule was more snug.
I was only six foot two, but it felt like I had to strain my neck to fit in it.

“What happens if
someone’s taller than me?” I asked the techie in front of me. “Can they even
fit?”

He wore a necklace with a
peace logo hanging off the end. The hair on the side of his head was long and
curly, but he was bold on top. His lab coat had grease stains on it.

“Big fellas have to order
a special capsule,” he said. “And they double the subscription fee.”

“What if you have
problems standing up for a long time?” I said, thinking of Francis.

The techie looked at me
quizzically. “You filled out the health forms, didn’t you?”

“It’s not for me. I’m
just curious.”

The techie grabbed the
cable from the top of the capsule, unscrewed it and twisted it around so that I
could see it.

“This baby feeds you a
muscle relaxer from time to time. Then it starts with the food. And while you
play, the capsule stimulates your muscles to make sure they don’t weaken. But
you can’t really do longer than 48 hours.”

“What if I don’t come out
after 48?”

The techie looked at me
for a few seconds, then smiled as if realization had hit him. “You’re going for
Helder’s Bane, aren’t you?” he said.

I sensed an opportunity.
I tried to lean forward, but straps had tightened around my arms, legs and
waist. It made me feel like a prisoner, but I knew it was for my safety.

“Do you know anything
about it?” I said.

He laughed. “Think they’d
tell a techie like me? I’ll give you one tip. Just a general one about the island.
Be careful at night.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s all for the
techie tip time,” he said, fastening the cable back in. “Now open wide.”

I barely had time to
react before I saw a tube coming at me. I opened my mouth and felt it snake
over my tongue and then down my throat. At first, I felt like I couldn’t
breathe. I knew that in a stressful situation, the worst thing you could do was
panic. I held my breath and tried to calm my thoughts. I closed my eyes and
counted to ten, focusing only on the numbers in my mind.

When I opened my eyes
again, all I saw was darkness.

Chapter Eight

And then colors streamed
through. Dull at first, but then they got stronger until it felt like my eyes
were stinging. Gradually a picture came into view, and I realized that I was in
Pana Reborn. Not only that, but I was looking directly up at the sky, staring
at the sun.

I don’t know what I had
imagined the game controls to be, but once I was in Pana, it felt instinctive.
If I wanted to move my head, I just thought about it. There was nothing more to
it than that.

I looked around me and
saw that I was stood on a dock. A few ships were moored up to my right. Beyond
them was a sea that started out blue but seemed to turn red further in the
distance. I heard the flapping of a sail against a mast as the wind hit it.
From somewhere nearby, I heard a conversation. At first, I thought it might
have just been background noise, like a soundtrack for the game to add to the
realism. When I listened carefully, I could pick out their words.

“So, I told her I was
taking the job. After all, we’re only going to Artemis. How many times have I
been out on the sea and returned home right as rain?”

“And what did she say?”

“Begged me not to. Said
she’d dreamed about something happening on the way there, like a storm was
coming.”

At first, I couldn’t tell
where the voices were coming from. Looking to my right, I saw two sailors stood
around a barrel. Their names were written above their heads.

Jarek Lonsoon –
Sailor Level 8 – NPC

Filipe the Weary –
Sailor Level 22 – NPC

So, these men weren’t
even players? I found it hard to believe that the sailors stood across from me
were just lines of code being spewed out by a server. Everything about them was
so real; the way their clothes rippled with the wind, the way they blinked
every few seconds, even the tones of their voices. Nothing about them seemed
fake, and I wondered how advanced their AI was.

It wasn’t only them,
though. Everything around me seemed too real, as if I had woken up in the
middle of a dream. I refused to believe that any of this was made by code.
There was no way even the most talented programmer could emulate the way the
sun shone on the surface of the water, or the salty smell of the dock.

I needed to explore.
Something stirred inside me, a need to see what else they’d put in the game. I
had only been here a few minutes, but already I understood how people could get
addicted. It was intoxicating to think that my body was strapped into a capsule
while my mind was free to explore this vast world.

First things first, I
needed to find Cal and our ship. And then I guessed I had to wait for Terence
Pierce’s son. The ships to my right seemed to be the public ones. They were so
tall that I had to crane my neck to look at them, and they seemed like they
could fit at least a hundred people. The smaller ships were at the other end of
the dock, beyond a row of stalls where traders sold fish and mussels.

I needed to head toward
the smaller ships. As soon as I lifted my foot and started to walk, my body seized
up, and a message appeared on my screen.

You must choose a
class.

That’s right. It hadn’t
occurred to me before now since I was so taken with this new world, but I
hadn’t had a chance to pick a name or class. Before I had the opportunity to
wonder how that was done, a character screen appeared, blocking everything else
from view.

Name:

Class:

Level: 0 (50 exp to
lvl 1)

Class Ability:

Primary Skills (0
of 2 chosen)

Secondary Skills (0
of 2 chosen)

Unspent Attribute
Points: 20

Strength:

Agility:

Endurance:

Intelligence:

Charisma:

I needed a name. I was
quite partial to my own, but I guessed that Christopher didn’t lend itself well
to a fantasy setting. I needed something a little catchier. That said, I still
wanted to stay true to who I was. Given that I was here to explore and to find
something – Helder’s Bane – before everyone else, I had the perfect name.

Name: Columbus

Christopher Columbus’
name had taken a bit of a hammering now that history had caught up with him.
We’d learned about what he did when he discovered America, but still, he was my
namesake. Dad had named my brother after Francis Drake and me after Christopher
Columbus. By choosing Columbus, I felt like I’d be picking a name he’d approve
of.

Next, I needed a class. The
class list was what you’d expect to find in an RPG; barbarian, mage, cleric and
so on. I knew that mage and barbarian were the most popular classes. I had no
doubt I’d see dozens of barbarians wandering around in their leotards, swinging
broadswords at everything that moved. I was here to cover ground quickly, and I
needed a class to suit. In the end, it was an easy choice to make.

Class: Scout

I heard the dim sound of
a typewriter, and I realized it was to signify that some of my character sheet
had been filled in. I checked it.

Name: Columbus

Class: Scout

Level: 0 (50 exp to
lvl 1)

Class Ability:
Favored Environment

Primary Skills (0
of 2 chosen)

Secondary Skills (0
of 2 chosen)

Unspent Attribute
Points: 20

Strength:

Agility:

Endurance:

Intelligence:

Charisma:

With scout chosen, I
gained the class ability of Favored Environment. The specific setting hadn’t
been chosen yet. From my research, I knew that I’d have to spend time in a
certain environment before I got that option. Ditto with the primary and
secondary skills. They weren’t just handed to you; you had to earn them by
doing things. That was the beauty of Pana Reborn– you had the choice to make
whatever character you wanted. I could have wandered over to the fish stalls
and bartered for a haddock and thus would get a trading ability. That was how
it worked. I’d need to select my skills carefully.

The only thing left to do
now was to spend my 20 attribute points. Your attribute points were one of the
cornerstones of the game. Most people loaded up their strength and endurance,
thinking only about the fights they’d have as they levelled up. For me, that
didn’t make sense. As a scout, I needed to tailor my stats to my class. I was
never going to be a warrior, so I had to maximize my skills.

With that in mind, I knew
that agility and endurance were important. I needed to move quickly since
finding Helder’s Bane would be a race, and I needed the stamina to keep going.
It was also important that I load up my intelligence. I added 7 points to
agility, 6 to endurance and 5 to intelligence. Then, to level off my character
a little, I gave a point each to strength and charisma. I wasn’t going to be
lifting weights or using powers of persuasion, but I’d get by.

Unspent Attribute
Points: 0

Strength: 1

Agility: 7

Endurance: 6

Intelligence: 5

Charisma: 1

There was one more stat
on my character screen that I hadn’t looked at yet. It didn’t seem like I could
do anything with it.

Subscribers – 1

I knew that some people
spent their time watching the live feeds of players in Pana Reborn. Whether it
was because they couldn’t afford subscriptions or because they liked being
voyeurs, some people loved to watch others play. I knew that all player feeds were
public, but I still hadn’t expected to have a subscriber already. Who was it?

I hadn’t told Dad about
the game, since he wouldn’t have had anything positive to say about it, and I
didn’t need the argument. It could have been Francis, but I doubted he had the
motivation to even turn on his computer these days. There was only one person
it could be. It must have been Terence Pierce checking up on me. He was
watching to make sure I wasn’t just using his investment to mess around in
Pana.

Congratulations!
You are now a Scout Level 0! Enjoy Pana Reborn!

Chapter Nine

I felt the hold on my
limbs start to wear off, and a few seconds later I was free to walk down the
dock. I went by the market stalls and heard the vendors call out after me
offering deals on cod, bass and haddock. I got the overwhelming stench of fish
in my nostrils.

When I reached the end of
the dock, I saw a small wooden ship. It resembled a Viking rowboat, as though
we were a raiding party who would soon invade the shores of Artemis. Next to
the boat were two player characters.

Jack Spades –
Gambler Level 0

Rex Alpha –
Barbarian Level 0

I didn’t recognize the
barbarian, but there was something familiar about Jack Spades. I instinctively
knew that it was Cal. He didn’t look like my adopted brother facially, but
there was something about the way he stood. That, and that fact that he’d
chosen gambler as a class.

“Jack Spades?” I said,
walking toward them. “Really?”

Jack looked at me. “And I
guess Columbus is the height of originality, yeah?”

“You sound like a reject
from the X-Men.”

The barbarian stood away
from Cal and stared at the horizon, as though he was deep in thought. He wore
leather armor that seemed to mould itself around his muscles, and a silver
sword hung from a strap on his back. I wondered where my starter equipment was,
and I suddenly realized that the chill I felt wasn’t just the wind. It was
because I was only wearing my underwear and a thin shirt. Damn. This was like
my school nightmare all over again; looking down to realize that all my clothes
had disappeared and everyone was staring at me.

“Feeling cold?” said
Jack, looking down at my underwear.

Jack was dressed in a
frilly shirt and a pair of trousers. It made him look like an
eighteenth-century poet. A deck of cards stuck out from a pocket on his chest.

“Where’d you get your kit,
Lord Byron?” I said.

Jack nodded toward the
boat. “Everything’s on deck waiting for you.”

Two men sat on the deck
of the boat. One of them had an oar in each hand and was going through the
motions of rowing, as if he was checking that they worked. The other was tying
a rope through a loop and grunting as he made the knot.

The barbarian turned to
face me.

“You must be Terence’s
son,” I said.

Terence had warned me
that his son was a jock, so it only seemed natural that he’d choose barbarian
as a class. I couldn’t say I was overly fond of his name, though. Rex Alpha
made him sound like an eighties b-movie star.

Rex walked forward. His
movements were unnatural, as though being a barbarian didn’t feel right to him.
He stuck his hand out toward me.

“Pleased to make your
acquaintance,” he said. He shook my hand delicately, as though he was scared
he’d break my bones if he squeezed.

Something about the tone
of his voice and the words he chose didn’t seem right. I got the sense that
Terence’s description had been a little off. Rex didn’t seem like your usual
jock. There was a depth behind his eyes, as if he was taking in all his
surroundings. I wondered if there was more to Terence’s son than the old man
liked to admit.

“This sword is bloody
heavy,” he said.

He was obviously
uncomfortable with both his class and his equipment.

“You sure you want to be
a barbarian?” I said.

He sighed. “My character
came pre-loaded. Father chose it for me.”

“Did he choose the name
too?” I asked.

Rex nodded. “He couldn’t
have picked something more obnoxious if he’d tried. I sound like an adult film
star.”

“Are you boys getting on,
or are you here as entertainment for the sailors?” said a voice to my right.

One of the NPCs on the
boat leaned against the mast and stared at us. He wore a polo neck shirt. He
had a blue tattoo of an anchor on his right forearm. I looked at Jack and Rex.

“Ready?” I said.

Jack nodded. Rex shrugged
his shoulders.

“Let’s go then.”

Chapter Ten

The journey to Artemis
would take a few hours, I knew. There wasn’t much to do as our boat made its
way across the sea. It was like waiting for a loading screen to finish, except
I couldn’t go away and make a coffee or watch TV while it happened. I knew that
my character had to be present while it crossed the sea. If I logged out and
then logged in again, I’d just find myself stood on the docks.

Rex spent his time
leaning over the side of the boat. At first, I thought he was watching the sea.
Then I realized that with every lurch of the vessel, his face turned a little
greener, and soon he was retching into the water. It struck me again how
realistic the game was, but it seemed perverse of the developers to write sea
sickness into their code. I’d heard that years ago, back when VR headsets first
came out, motion sickness was a problem.

“You okay?” I asked him.

He turned to face me. He
looked terrible. “I get sea sick,” he said. “Father stopped trying to take me
on his yacht after I threw up on it when I was ten.”

“That’s terrible,” I
said. “We’ve all been there, though. It’s tough when your rich father bans you
from his private ship.”

Rex recovered from his
seasickness just enough to glare at me. “I thought that my sea sickness
wouldn’t be a problem in the game, but it’s all just so damn realistic.”

That was the thing. The
developers of Pana walked a fine line. People played games for escapism and
fun, and that had to be a priority when coding a title. As well as that,
though, people cried out for realism. They wanted better graphics, better voice
acting. People didn’t know what they wanted really. They yearned to escape from
reality, but they wanted their method of escape to be realistic. Looking at Rex
as he tried to keep his stomach inside, I decided that the makers of Pana still
had some fine-tuning to do.

At the end of the boat,
Jack turned his head. “Is the rich guy feeling sorry for himself?”

Cal – I was still
struggling to get used to calling him Jack Spades – spent his time gambling
with the NPC sailors. With the boat steered on a course and the wind doing most
of the work, there was little for the men to do. I watched Jack play his cards,
and straight away I saw that he was up to his old tricks. I looked on with a
smile as he changed poor hands into unbeatable ones, and I hoped that the NPCs
wouldn’t catch on.

With every successful
cheat, I heard a tinkling sound coming from Jack’s direction. From my research,
I knew what that was. As a gambler, one of his skills must have been sleight of
hand, or something like that. By using it on the sailors, he was getting
experience points.

At least he was using the
journey productively. There wasn’t much I could do; there were no skills to be
learned on the boat that would be useful for a scout. I started to feel
impatient, and I wished the journey would take less time.

Rex turned away from the
side of the ship. His face had regained some color now, and he joined me in
watching Jack cheat at cards.

“You shouldn’t be doing
that,” he said.

Jack and the sailors
looked up from their game and stared at the barbarian.

“It’s only a game of
cards,” said one of the sailors.

“I don’t mean that,” said
Rex. He nodded at Jack. “He’s cheating. He’s using sleight of hand to change
his cards.”

A look of anger crossed
Jack’s face. He quickly hid it, and he replaced it with an expression of
mock-hurt. “Me? Cheat? You’re mad.”

One of the sailors threw
his cards to the deck. The wind picked one of them up. I saw the Ace of Hearts
fly out of the boat and into the sea, where it floated on the surface for a few
seconds and then sank. Ahead of us, the sky looked mean and grey. A storm was
coming.

“I knew it,” said the
sailor. He stood up. A few coins fell out of his pocket and rattled on the
wooden deck. “Every damn hand you have is a flush.”

Jack turned to face Rex.
“What the hell’s your problem?”

Rex crossed his arms.
“Just because they’re computer characters, doesn’t mean you should cheat them
out of money.”

I expected the sailors to
look confused, but they acted like they hadn’t heard themselves described as
computer characters. I guessed that they were programmed to ignore all
references to this world being a game. To them, it was their life. Again, I
wondered how sophisticated their AI was.

“They’re lines of code,”
said Jack. “Just numbers fed into a computer. Who does it hurt if I take their
money?”

“They’re more advanced
than you think,” said Rex. “You need to be more attuned to the things around
you.”

The other sailor stood up
now. “I want my money back,” he said.

I realized that the sailors
were levels above us. Although neither of them had been assigned a fighter
class, I guessed that their attributes still dwarfed ours. Besides, we didn’t
need to get into a fight with the only people who could get us to Artemis
safely.

“Pay them back,” I told
Jack.

“But Chris…”

“It’s Columbus here,
remember? Pay them back. We don’t want to get off to a bad start.”

“How about you tell
money-bags here to pay them?” said Jack, nodding at Rex. “His dad’s loaded.
He’s got money falling out of his arse.”

“Father doesn’t give me
much,” said Rex.

“Come off it,” answered
Jack. “I know your type. People like you think they can buy their way out of
anything.”

“And cheating gives you
the moral high ground, does it?” said Rex.

I could feel the tension
rising in the air. “Come on lads. Calm down.”

Jack wasn’t to be
deterred. When he got into rant-mode, there was no stopping him. “You think
you’re better than me? Waving money at everything is no different than
cheating, you know. You’re using an advantage that nobody else has. I mean,
look at us. We’re sailing to Artemis days before everyone else. It hardly
leaves them a chance to find Helder’s Bane.”

Rex looked thoughtful for
a few seconds, and then he answered. “I’m with you on this point, Jack. I don’t
agree with my father. Real life might be play to win, but games shouldn’t be.
Games are meant to be an even playing field; they’re supposed to be an escape.”

“Then why come?” said
Jack.

“I didn’t have a choice.
Father made me.”

Seeing that they’d found
common ground, Rex and Jack’s argument started to settle down. Jack paid the
sailors back their GD, and we all sat down on deck. I walked over to the supply
crate and looked through the equipment that Terence had bought for us.

As I rummaged through the
armor in the crate, I couldn’t help but feel that Rex and Jack were right. It
wasn’t fair that we’d gotten an advantage over everyone else just because Rex’s
father was rich. But still, what was I to do? Finding Helder’s Bane was the
only chance, slim though it was, of saving Ledfield Tours.

The equipment in the
chest was geared toward the warrior and barbarian classes. I realized that I’d
already made mistake number one. I should have settled on a class before
playing, and then had Terence buy my gear accordingly. The problem was that
between finding out about Helder’s Bane and entering the game, I’d barely had
time to think.

I dug to the bottom of
the crate and finally found a pair of green trousers and a green shirt. They
only offered me 1 defence point each, but they were better than nothing. I
thought it only fair that I spared Jack and Rex the sight of me wandering
around half-naked.

Fully clothed, I settled
down next to Jack. The wood of the deck was rough, but I was used to
discomfort. I’d led tours through Gossard at every time of the year and through
every weather condition possible. Extreme cold or burning heat didn’t matter
much to me. I’d sat there freezing my nuts off, and I’d sat there sweating them
off too. This made me think about something else. Why did we guys always judge
the weather by what effect it had on our nuts?

“Let’s go over a few
things about Pana,” I said. “Did you do some reading like I asked?”

Jack looked at me. I
could tell by the cheeky expression on his face that he hadn’t read a damn
thing.

“I spent a few hours
researching,” said Rex. “First up, you need to put Helder’s Bane in your quest
journal.”

“How do I do that?” said
Jack.

Rex smiled. “Check your
journal. It’s done. By thinking about it, you’ve added it.”

Sure enough, a message
appeared on my screen.

Quest Added: Find
Helder’s Bane

Rewards:

10,000 GD

Lifetime
subscription to Pana Reborn

“What’s next?” said Jack.

I knew the answer to this
one. “When we get to Artemis, the first thing we have to do is set a respawn
rune. Without one, when we die, we’ll respawn back on the Pana mainland. You’d
have to get a public ship back over to the island. Dying will set you back 8
hours, which isn’t too big a problem if you can respawn on Artemis rather than
the mainland. Dying before then would put us out of the race.”

“Father bought us 3
respawn runes,” said Rex. “I’d suggest we set one up as soon as we get on
shore.”

I nodded. “Agreed. Then,
after that…”

I didn’t have a chance to
finish my sentence. Something burst up in front of our boat and sent a torrent
of freezing water crashing over us. It hit my face full on and chilled my skin,
and I couldn’t close my mouth in time to avoid taking a mouthful of salt water.

My pulse began to fire. I
tried to look around and see what had happened, but the salt water stung my
eyes. One of the sailors shouted something, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

“All hands on deck,”
cried the other. He got to his feet, a look of panic on his face.

The other sailor ran to
the front of the boat and looked out. “Holy hell,” he said.

When I looked in his
direction, I saw what he meant. The view in front of the boat was completely
blocked by a creature that had risen from the sea. Its head was half the size
of our boat, and its body was large enough to blot out everything in front of
us. Its skin was covered in scales, and sharp ridges ran downs its sides.

The creature opened its
mouth and roared. Its cold breath blasted me in the face, and I smelled the
putrid odour of rotting fish. If I could have had 5 minutes a room with the
developer who decided to program the monster’s breath in such rancid detail…

I stood up. I looked at
the sailors. “Can we steer around it?” I said.

His look of panic had
changed to one of terror. “No. There’s only one thing we can do now.”

“Get a bigger boat?” I
said.

“No. Hold on to something
and pray,” he answered.

With that, the creature
lurched forward. It didn’t seem to have arms, and its method of attack was to
dive forward onto the boat. As its giant body launched at us, time seemed to
slow. Stupidly, the only thought that crossed my mind was about how fiendish
the Pana developers were to put such a creature in the sea. Was this their way
of getting back at the people who paid to get to Artemis before everyone else?
Would the public ships have to face something like this?

There was no time to
formulate an answer to my question. The creature smashed down onto the deck of
the ship. I heard the sickening crack of wood as our vessel tore apart. I
grabbed hold of a rope to my right, but I knew that there was no point.

The boat gave way under
the sheer weight of the creature. I opened my mouth to shout out to Jack and
Rex, but I found myself swallowing sea water. My whole body started stared to
freeze, and I realized that the boat had been destroyed. Before I could do
anything else, a giant wave crashed over me, submerging me in the sea.

Chapter Eleven

The waves threw me from
side to side. Every time I opened my mouth I swallowed sea water, and I fought
to keep my head above the surface. I tried to look around for signs of Jack,
Rex and the sailors, but the sky had darkened. The wind sprayed water into my
eyes. A piece of wood drifted by me, a sign that our ship was gone now. I tried
to grab for the wood but the waves took it away, and I gulped panicked breaths
as I tried to swim against the tide.

Forcing myself to stay
calm, I looked around and saw the Artemis shoreline in the distance. Thunder
rumbled above me, and the waves around me were so powerful that it sounded like
they were roaring.

I fixed my stare on the
shoreline and put all my energy into swimming toward it. With stroke after
stroke, my stamina started to drain.

Warning: Stamina
Drained – 2HP lost (Total: 110/112)

Despite the points I’d
loaded into my endurance, I still wasn’t strong enough to fight against the
sea. A dark thought hit me; the creature that destroyed the boat might still be
around. It could be underneath me now, lurking as a dark blot in the ocean,
toying with me. A shot of panic hit me, but I forced myself to stay calm.

Ten minutes later, the
shoreline was close. My arms ached, and I realized that I could feel pain in
Pana. It wasn’t as strong as it would have been in real life, but the feeling
was there all the same.

By the time I reached
shore, I could hardly breathe. My hit points had dropped to 74, and I shivered
as a tremor of cold hit me. When I reached the beach, I turned over onto my
back and caught my breath. The darkening sky was above me, with the last traces
of sunlight fighting against the onset of evening. I took deep breaths, glad to
be taking in something other than the salt water that burned my throat.

I got to my feet. I
looked around me, hoping to see the panting figures of Jack and Rex on the
beach. Instead, I found that I was alone. Not only that, but there was no sign
of the boat or of any of our equipment.

I knew that Pana Reborn
was a challenging game, but I hadn’t expected all of this before I even reached
level 1. Not every player would get this treatment, I knew. The world of Pana
was full of chance encounters that had a specific probability attached to them.
It could have been that only 1 in 1000 players would encounter the sea
creature, and I was just the unlucky one.

Not only that, though.
When I read about Pana, I had learned something of its history. The first
iteration of Pana was a game called Blezedale, which again was a fantasy game.
Blezedale was more socially-driven, and the combat mechanics of it were easy.
Monsters 20 times your level could be killed in a few hits, and it took barely
a week to get to level 99. The developers had assumed that with attention spans
shrinking, people wanted an easy ride. They were wrong.

Sales of Blezedale
started poorly and got worse. The makers had no idea what to do. It was only
when a rogue programmer – about to be fired for taking too many days off sick –
made a monster that was almost impossible to kill and put it on the map as
revenge, that things changed. Players of Blezedale loved the challenge of killing
the newly-made monster, and they banded together to slay it. In the space of a
week there were a thousand deaths and respawns in the game, which was more than
the 9 months prior to that. The players loved it, and subscriptions went up.
After that, the developers made Pana Reborn. They made sure to learn from their
lesson about setting challenges and difficulty.

Warning – Status
Gained: Hypothermia (20HP loss per 30 minutes)

There was a programmer
out there somewhere with a devious smile on his face. I was sure of it. When
I’d first entered Pana and stood on the docks, I’d been in awe of the game. I
couldn’t wait to explore. Stood alone on a beach with hypothermia draining my
HP, I was starting to wonder whether someone had it in for me.

I needed to find Jack and
Rex, but there was a more pressing matter. If the hypothermia drained my HP, I
could die on the island before putting even a step in the direction of Helder’s
Bane. Our respawn runes had been washed away with the rest of the equipment, so
if I died now, I would respawn on the mainland. That was it then; I had to get
rid of my hypothermia.

The only way to do that
would be to get warm, but there didn’t seem to be anywhere to shelter. I was
going to have to build a fire.

Quest Received –
Build a Fire

Reward: 55 Exp

Chapter Twelve

I looked around me.
Further down the beach, a crab the size of my chest scuttled toward a rock.
Seaweed shook when the lapping tide washed over it. North of me there seemed to
be an expanse of trees, which might have been the start of woodland. That was
where I needed to go, then. To build a fire, I’d need wood.

Before setting out, I
took stock of my information screens. My hypothermia status had been added to
my character screen. I looked in dismay at my tarnished hit point total. A tab
on the character screen was marked ‘Party Chat’, so I brought it up.

Available Chats:

Jack Spade -
*Location Unknown*

Rex Alpha -
*Location Unknown*

I decided to send a
message into the party chat in the hope that one of them got it.

“Hello?”

I waited a few seconds,
but nothing came back. I hoped they were okay, and that neither of them had
died. Things were bad enough as it was, but we couldn’t afford to have one of
the group respawn on the mainland.

When no reply came back
through party chat, I remembered something that I’d read. Party chat was great
when you were close to each other, but the distance you could transmit a
message was modified by your charisma. I’d only allocated a single point to
mine, so there was no way I could talk to Jack or Rex unless they were in the
vicinity.

Before I set out toward
the woodland, I noticed something strange. On my character screen, my
subscriber count had risen to 22. That meant one thing; people love misery.
They must have gotten word of our shipwreck and then had tuned in to see what
happened.

“Hope you guys are
enjoying this,” I said aloud. “And if any of you fancy sending me a respawn
rune, a fire scroll and a big glass of beer, go right ahead.”

I waited in hope, but
nothing happened. Further down the beach, the crab had disappeared. I decided
it was time that I got moving too.

My stamina had
replenished a little from my spot of crab-watching. I climbed up a small hill
that sloped off the beach. The woodland was ahead of me. Getting closer, I saw
that it wasn’t just a small bunch of trees. Instead, it seemed to stretch out
as far as I could see, as though the whole island of Artemis was covered in
trees.

Behind me, there was a
slight alcove that was cut into the hill near the beach. I made a mental note
of it, deciding that it might make a good place to shelter once I’d gone all
primal and started a fire.

The atmosphere changed as
soon as I stepped into the forest. The crashing of the waves was muted now.
Instead, I heard the faint sound of wind whistling through tree cavities. From
somewhere, I heard the steady sound of footsteps on the forest floor. A twig
cracked, and then another, but when I looked around, I couldn’t see anything.

I had to be careful. Pana
Reborn was a combat RPG. Although player-versus-player fighting was confined to
specific arenas, there were plenty of creatures to battle against. If I had a
weapon I could have used them to level up. All my equipment, except for my
clothes, was currently enjoying a swim in the ocean.

I walked by a giant oak
tree with a hole in the trunk. I heard a cheeping noise, and looking closer, I
saw a nest of birds in the tree. I looked at the other oaks around me and saw
that they were all different sizes, shapes, and textures. The richness of
detail was amazing. I couldn’t even imagine the scale of the operation needed
to create such a world. It probably took a whole team of designers just to make
the trees.

As I went through the
woodland, I quickly lost my sense of wonder. It was replaced by a wary feeling
when I heard more sounds of footfall ahead of me. Remembering that monsters
roamed the game, I took care to move quietly.

Sneak skill [Agi]
learned – do you accept?

Finally, I’d done
something to learn a skill! Not only that, but this was something that I could
use. As a scout, it would be important in certain situations that I could move
without detection. That said, finding Helder’s Bane was still a race. I decided
to take the sneak skill, but I allocated it as a secondary skill rather than a
primary.

From now on, whenever I
made a conscious effort to move quieter, I’d start to level up my sneak skill.
With each increase in level, it would get easier to move without being
detected. The ‘Agi’ listed after the skill name meant that each time I levelled
up my sneak, I’d get a bonus on my agility attribute. Things were looking up.
Primary skills earned 2 bonus points, and secondary skills got 1.

As the skill appeared on
my character screen, my right arm began to burn. It hurt so much that for a
second I thought that my search for a fire was over. It felt like someone was
setting me alight. I grabbed my sleeve and rolled it up, then looked at my arm
in surprise.

A blue tattoo was burning
onto my skin, scorching me with every inch it covered. I gritted my teeth and
bore the pain, and a few seconds later it was finished. Where once my right
forearm had been bare, now I had a tattoo of a man hunched over and sneaking.

Every time you learned a
skill in Pana, the corresponding symbol was burned on to you. Although this
must have been a bonus for people with such poor memories that they couldn’t
remember their own skills, for the most part it was a hindrance. It meant that
if the tattoo was in the wrong place, people would know what your skills were.
Added to that, you had no control over which part of your body they appeared
on. This wasn’t as much of an issue in non-PVP area. In the player versus
player arenas, a man with a tattoo on his face gave away his skill list to his
opponent, which would allow him to come up with a strategy.

Something roared ahead of
me, breaking me from my thoughts.

Chapter Thirteen

I needed to see what it
was, because it was possible I’d have to leave this area of the forest until I
managed to get a weapon. As I moved forward, keeping my footsteps quiet, a
welcome message appeared on my screen.

Sneak Skill
increased by 10% [90% until level 2]

Soon, I saw what was
making the noise in the forest. Twenty yards ahead of me, four creatures
patrolled the forest floor. They looked like mice that had grown to the size of
a dog, except that they had the mane of a lion, and a forked tail that swished
as they moved.

Forest Burr – Level
3

At level 3, it was clear
that these creatures were here as fodder for newbies to level up on. The
problem was that I didn’t have a weapon. As a scout, I didn’t have enough
strength to be effective in hand-to-hand combat. I’d need to be careful around
them, and for now, I wouldn’t be able to go any further.

I was about to turn
around and leave when one of the Burrs made a sound. It sounded like it was
trying to roar, but it came out as more of a squeal. A rat darted in front of
the Burr. It was clear that the Burr eyed it as a tasty meal. I decided to
watch it pounce so that I could see how the creatures fought. I expected the
Burr to leap on the rat and tear it apart. Instead, it raised its tail. The end
of its tail started to glow, and then a fire bolt shot out from the end of it,
incinerating the rat.

As wet as I was, I didn’t
think that becoming a human barbeque was the best way to get rid of my
hypothermia. I turned around and walked back in the direction I came, then
turned west. I walked until the Burrs were far away, then stopped.

I was alone in the forest
now. I brought up the party chat screen, hoping beyond hope that Jack or Rex
had gotten in touch. Rex wouldn’t have much charisma as a barbarian, so unless
he was nearby I wouldn’t be able to see his broadcasts. I guessed that as a
gambler, Jack might have better luck.

It wasn’t to be. The only
message on the party screen was my solitary “hello”.

20HP lost
[Hypothermia modifier]

Time was my enemy, and I
needed to work against it. I looked around me. I needed firewood, but there
were hardly any branches on the ground. I’d once played a game where the
character could fell whole trees with his bare hands, but I doubted that was
the case in Pana. If I was to cut down a tree for firewood, I’d need a tool.

I didn’t see any more
Burrs as I walked through the forest. I came across a hare bounding over a
felled log. I wondered if I should kill it for the meagre exp it would give.
The hare must have been psychic. No sooner had I walked toward it than the
hare’s ears pricked up and it leapt away.

My HP dropped by another
20 points by the time I came across a break in the woods. Ahead of me was a
collection of wooden shacks. I couldn’t see any signs of life, but I did see a
ten-foot-high metal fence forming a perimeter around the shacks. I cautiously
walked toward it until I came to a gate.

Location discovered
– Dostooth Village

5 Exp gained! (45
until level 1)

It was an NPC village,
and that meant that there would likely be a trader who had set stall in one of
the shacks. The problem was that the gate entrance to the village was closed. I
reached forward and grabbed the handle, but it wouldn’t turn.

Dostooth is closed
after 5 pm.

I didn’t know what time
it was, but the sun was setting, and that meant we were heading toward
nightfall. A dim warning sounded in the back of my head. Something happened in
Artemis at night; something that didn’t happen back on the Pana mainland. I
didn’t know what it was, but I needed shelter, somewhere to see out the night.
Before all else, though, I needed fire. I didn’t have a great deal of HP left.

I headed back to the
beach. I wanted to explore more of the island, but the wisest thing would be to
wait near the coast, where I could see the sea and the beach. If Jack and Rex
had survived the shipwreck, they were sure to wash up there sooner or later.

Soon I reached the alcove
cut into the hill near the beach. My arms and legs ached, and sleep tugged at
my eyelids. I couldn’t sleep yet, though, no matter how much I needed it. I
looked around me. Although there was no way for me to cut down any of the trees,
I found some loose twigs and branches scattered near my new base.

I sighed. It would be
painstaking work traipsing round to collect the odd bits of wood, but I had no
choice. Twenty minutes later and with my stamina draining, I finally had enough
kindling for a small fire. Great. Now I just needed a way to light it.

I looked up at the sky as
if I’d be able to see my 22 subscribers up there.

“Don’t suppose any of you
have a light?” I said aloud.

Then it hit me. No, it
wasn’t a magical gift from a subscriber, but an idea. I remembered the Burrs in
the forest, and how I’d seen one of them barbeque a rat. The Burrs were a sure
source of fire. A dangerous one, sure, but a source nonetheless. I just needed
a way of getting hold of one.

Trap skill [Int] learned
– do you accept?

Chapter Fourteen

Does the pope enjoy
defecating in the woods? Of course I wanted the trap skill! As a scout, and
especially in terrain like this, I knew I’d have to hunt at some point. It
wouldn’t be long until I got a hunger modifier on my character screen. At that
point, I'd need a way of trapping the crafty forest hares. Not only that, but
in taking Trap as a skill, I finally had a way to get hold of a Burr.

Trap [Int] Skill
Taken – Secondary

As the trap skill logged
on my character screen, my back started to burn. I knew it was the sensation of
a tattoo etching itself onto my skin, and this time I was prepared for it. I
just wished that it hadn’t gone on my back; I wanted to see what the tattoo
looked like. Still, at least it wasn’t on my face.

With my new-found trap
skill, I used some of the wood I’d gathered to build a rudimentary trap. It was
the most basic entrapment you could hope for, but it would have to do.
Hopefully, as I levelled up my skills, I’d be able to make better ones.

Trap skill
increased by 10% (90% until level 2)

With my little trap under
my arm, I walked back into the woods. It was Burr hunting season, and I needed
to catch a live one. As I walked through the forest and passed the trees, the
sky darkened above me. I didn’t have long now until nightfall, but that wasn’t
the only ticking clock watching me with insidious eyes.

20HP Lost
[Hypothermia modifier] Total: 22/112

Using my sneak skill, I
got as close to the Burrs as I could without them noticing me, and I set up my
trap. I buried it under a pile of leaves so that it looked as inconspicuous as
possible. With that done, I waited.

The Burrs seemed to move
in a pack, though I noticed that one of them, a younger one by the looks of
things, was isolated. Every time it tried to move closer to the pack, the other
Burrs growled at it. The young Burr became increasingly distant from the
others.

As I waited, I started to
feel more at home in the woodland. The feeling of being in a strange place
lessened, and I felt less tense.

Favored Environment
learned – Woodland

Great, so that meant my
class ability had finally come into play. But just what did that give me?
Looking at my character screen, I saw that Woodland level 1 increased my
movement speed, sneak chance and defence points whilst I was in a wooded area.
Given that, so far, Artemis seemed mostly comprised of forest, this was a good
thing indeed.

I was brought out of my
skill study by a squealing sound. Closing my character screen, I saw that I’d
struck it lucky. As basic as it was, my trap had caught the young Burr. Sensing
that it was stuck, the animal thrashed around, but it was no good. It was stuck
fast.

I stood back at first.
Although it was trapped, the animal was still dangerous. I half-expected it to
cast a fireball in my direction. Luckily, its predicament had disorientated it,
and it seemed to be drifting into a doze. I didn’t have long. I needed to get
it back to my shelter before it came to its senses.

Cursing my single
strength point, I made the journey back to base with the trap and Burr. By the
time I reached my shelter and set the trap down, the animal had started to
stir.

Nighttime was almost here
now, and the darkness started to feel oppressive.

20HP Lost
[Hypothermia modifier] Total: 2/112

The final grains in my
hour glass were draining away. This was my only chance. As the Burr stirred in
the trap, I walked over to the kindling I’d set near the shelter. I was no
stranger to starting fires, since we sometimes taught survival skills on our
Gossard Tours. I had arranged the kindling as best I could.

The Burr saw me now.
Acting on instinct, it raised its tail and aimed at me. I held my breath. I had
to keep it together. This was going to be dangerous, but I had no choice. I forced
myself to stay in place as the Burr’s tail glowed. The Burr’s eyes narrowed in
concentration.

This was it. The moment
of truth. My whole body screamed at me to get out of the way, but I had to keep
still.

A fireball gathered on
the Burr’s tail and then shot out toward me. I stayed until the last possible
second, and then dived out of the way. The fireball hit the kindling and
engulfed it, and I heard the wood crackle next to me.

I got up. The fire was
burning stronger than I’d thought it would, and the meagre kindling I’d hauled
wouldn’t last long. I looked around me. There were still some scraps of wood
left on the forest floor, but I had an immediate problem to deal with.

The heat from the Burr’s
tail had burned my trap, and the Burr bounded toward me. I knew how attacks and
abilities worked in Pana, and I understood that the Burr's fire ability would
be on cooldown. It seemed that while that was the case, the Burr has just going
to attack me with its claws. I doubted its melee attack would be strong, but I
only had 2 hp.

I turned and ran. A few
yards behind me there was a stream that ran toward the sea in one direction. In
the other direction, toward the middle of Artemis, it seemed to widen into a
river.

I stood in place by the
stream as the Burr ran at me, teeth bared, claws outstretched. As it got to
within a few feet of me, I stepped aside. The Burrs momentum carried it
forward, and soon it fell face first into the stream.

As soon as it hit the
water, it started to scream. This was a fire elemental, and that meant that its
weakness was water. As the stream water trickled over it the Burr stopped
moving, until finally, it was still.

I ran over to the fire
and collapsed beside it, and then waited. The heat started to warm my skin,
sending away the chill that had dug deep into my bones. Finally, a glorious
message appeared before me.

Quest Complete –
Start a Fire

Reward: 55 Exp

Level up to Level
1!

-HP increased to
123

-Stamina increased
to 135

-2 attribute points
gained

Hypothermia status removed

With the status modifier
finally gone, I couldn’t help but flop down onto my back. Tiredness washed over
me, and I felt like I could sleep for a month. My first few hours in Artemis
had been as tough as could be. I hoped that the developers would take pity on
me going forward. If not, I'd just have to show them that I could take anything
they threw at me.

As I looked at the sky
and caught my breath, I saw that the makers of Pana didn’t even know the
meaning of the word ‘pity’. The sun was gone now, and the sky was completely
black.

Night has fallen –
Prepare for the Wave!

Chapter Fifteen

Quest Received –
Survive Your First Wave

Reward:

15 Exp

HP Potions x2

“Any chance I could get
the potions on an IOU?” I said, hoping a programmer was listening. “I’m good
for it. My great-great-great grandfather isn’t, apparently, but I am.”

When the potions didn’t
magically fall from the sky, I wandered over to the stream. The Burr was
motionless now. I moved further upstream from it, then I got to my knees and
drank. With each gulp of water, my HP raised a little. It seemed that the
mechanics of Pana Reborn weren’t as true to life as their graphics. In real
life, water wouldn’t restore your health. If it did, doctors would be out of a
job, and we’d all be paying a hell of a lot more for water.

Every game had elixirs
and potions. I wondered if there was a way for us to brew our own so that we
would have access to health potions without buying them. Drinking from the
stream was good when you were broke, but it only raised around 7 or 8 HP per gulp.
If I wanted to restore my health bar completely, then I was going to be taking
a lot of bathroom breaks.

The woodland in front of
me was pitch black now, with not even the glow of Burrs’ tails to illuminate
it. The moon was in the sky, somewhere, though a cloud had smothered it. Waves
crashed on the beach behind me, and I wondered if each one swept in the wooden
debris from our ship. The darkness around me became thick, as if tension seeped
into it to create a pitch black that I’d have to wade through.

I walked over to the
alcove cut into the hill. ‘Prepare for the wave’. The techie had told me
to be careful at night. There were rumors online of something the programmers
had coded into the day/night cycle of Artemis that wasn’t present in the Pana
mainland. Somehow, I doubted that the wave meant I was in for a spot of
surfing. Besides, I’d already had enough of water. This wave, whatever it was,
would be made up of aggressive creatures.

I went as far into the
alcove as I could. Right now, it was only cut a meter and a half into the
hillside. With hard work, and if I met someone with a mining skill, it could be
expanded. If I could choose this snug hole as my official shelter, then it
would offer me upgrade opportunities. The problem was that to do that I’d have
to set a respawn rune here. My runes were currently hanging out with the clams
at the bottom of the sea. Or whatever the Artemis versions of clams were. They
probably had meter-long teeth and breathed out liquid anthrax.

I heard sounds come from
deep within the woodland. The area around became quieter when night fell. It
was as if even the forest birds and the roaming Burrs knew enough to keep quiet
when the sun disappeared. The cry I heard now was different from the rest of
the wildlife. There was something wicked and feral in it, as if it was made by
some wild beast with dark intentions.

I realized that the
embers of my fire were still burning. I got out of the shelter, walked over to
it and then stamped it out. I heard another cry, and again I was struck with
how terrible it was. This one sounded closer, and it was soon joined by
another, then another.

Where were they? It was
like being in an echo chamber. I could hear the cries sound out in every
direction, moving toward me as the seconds went on. All well and good hearing
them, but I needed to be able to pick out exactly where they were.

Skill Gained –
Awareness [Int, Cha]. Do you accept?

This was a scout skill,
alright. With my secondary slots taken by Sneak and Trap, Awareness would get pride
of place as one of my primary skills. Each level of Awareness would boost my
intelligence - which helped with trap-making - and my charisma. That was good.
Right now, I was as charismatic as a divorced librarian suffering a mid-life
crisis.

I heard the cries of the
creatures better now, and I realized that they weren’t all around me. It seemed
that when I gained the Awareness skill, my hearing had been boosted. I wondered
what rewards waited for me further up the skill tree. Now, though, I had more pressing
matters.

Four or five of the wave
creatures were prowling through the woodland. My awareness didn’t just let me
hear their cries better. It allowed me to hear their feet hitting the floor,
and I could tell that some of them walked on all fours like wolves. Others, it
seemed, walked on two legs. It was strange for an animal to make use of 2 legs
or 4 legs whenever they saw fit. Most stuck to one method and ran with it.
Could you imagine a dog deciding it was time to start walking like a person, then
running at you on its hind legs? An animal that walked on two legs was usually
something to fear; bears, kangaroos, raptors. In the case of the animal world,
the rule was very much four legs good, two legs bad.

I touched the wall of my
shelter to reassure myself that it was still there. I started to doubt the
wisdom of staying there. If I had to survive until morning with the creatures
prowling around, it didn’t help to back myself into a corner. Then again, at
least I was hidden. Out in the open, I might as well have worn a ‘Come and make
me respawn’ sign.

As I listened to the
creatures walk through the woods, I heard something else. At first, I thought I
must have been imagining it. I held my breath so that not even my own intake of
air could be heard, and I listened.

I heard it again. It
wasn’t one of the creatures; it was something different. It was a person
shouting something.

Chapter Sixteen

It was like turning up
early at a party before all your friends, and sitting there trying not to look
lonely. Then you see one of them turn up, and everything is good again. The
person shouting sounded like Rex, but to be honest I didn’t care who it was.
Since I’d chartered a private ship, I’d arrived in Artemis before the public
players. That made it a lonely island, and I wasn’t looking forward to starring
in a digital retelling of Robinson Crusoe.

Whoever it was, sounded
like they were somewhere east. The stream was immediately west, then there were
the woods. Further east, I knew from memory, was the village of Dostooth. Rex
sounded like he was somewhere to the right of that.

With my Sneak and
Awareness skills, I could chance leaving the shelter. After all, the other
option was to wait here and hope that Rex, wherever he was, survived the first
night alone. He was a barbarian. I doubted he had sneak skills, and he wouldn’t
have had the chance to level up enough to face the wave creatures alone. But I
couldn’t just wander out into the night with nothing to fight with. I needed a
weapon. A machine gun would have been nice, but I’d have settled for an axe.

Skill gained –
Crafting [Int]. Do you accept?

I only had one skill slot
left now, and it was a primary. I decided that it would be foolish to fill up
all my slots within hours of arriving on the island. There had to be skills
that would be more useful in finding Helder’s Bane. Hoping I didn’t regret it,
I declined the skill. That meant that the only weapon to hand was a stick which
I found on the floor.

I set out with my mighty
twig, which I christened Death Bringer, in hand. The wave creatures in the
woodland sounded closer now. Through listening carefully, I could tell they
were moving parallel to me, rather than heading in my direction. As I headed
toward where I’d heard Rex, I concentrated on each step, making sure that I
didn’t make a sound.

The wave creatures
weren’t as careful. Together with my advanced hearing, I was able to get a good
idea of where they roamed, even if I couldn’t see them. I tried to get a look
at them, but when I turned in the direction of their howls, I saw nothing but
darkness. It was as if the wave creatures were so black that they just melded
right into the shadows around them.

Sneak increased by
20% (70% until level 2)

Awareness increased
by 20% (80% until level 2)

The forest was alive with
screams and shrieks. Their howls stretched out 30 seconds at a time, as though
they were letting the whole island know they were here. There was something so
haunting about it that it made me shiver. I wondered if I was crazy to have left
my shelter to walk through a woodland, where the trees watched me from each
side and the darkness curled a finger at me and beckoned me on.

I realized that I hadn’t
heard Rex in a while. Did that mean that one of the creatures had got him? If
so, then I needed to find out soon. There was no use me wandering around alone,
because there was no way I could avoid the creatures until day break. This
seemed like a callous attitude, but I knew that if Rex wasn’t in the game, it
wasn’t the end. He’d respawn on the Pana mainland in 8 hours, and then he’d
come over on a public ship.

I had suspicions that
Terence had sent his son here to keep an eye on us and report things back to
him. He clearly didn’t trust us with his money. If that was the case, it
wouldn’t be the worst thing to be rid of him. Still, for all I knew, Rex had
washed up on the shores of Artemis with all our gear, or maybe even a respawn point.
I had to take the risk.

I heard a footstep to my
right. It was the sound of something snapping the twigs that littered the
forest floor. I silently moved to my left and then stood with my back against a
tree that was twice my width. I listened, trying to discern which direction the
noise came from.

Maybe it had gone. It was
impossible to tell in the darkness. I thought that hands would reach around the
tree and grab my throat from behind. I held Death Bringer in my hand, squeezing
the stick and wondering if it was even sharp enough to kill a rat.

As the figure moved
closer, I got the overwhelming smell of sulphur in my nostrils. It was like
someone was striking matches near me and letting them burn out. The aroma grew
stronger as the footsteps approached. I didn’t know what the deal was with
these creatures, but they needed a bath.

The footsteps were just
feet away now. I held my breath. I still couldn’t pick the outline of the
creature out through the darkness, but I heard it sniff the air. It sensed me,
I knew. I wondered what level it was, and I had no doubt that its method of
attack was better than waving a stick.

I thought about sneaking
away, but my skill wasn’t developed enough to take a chance on with it being so
close to me. I considered a preemptive attack, but I decided I didn’t want to
spend the next 8 hours waiting to respawn.

There was nothing I could
do. I thought back to what my father had told me about bears. With black bears,
there was little option but to fight back with everything you had. Bite the
beast, scratch it, give it an uppercut on its jowly jaw. A black bear wouldn’t
leave until the fight was done. Grizzly bears, on the other hand, were
different. It was inadvisable to run, since a big light would flash in their
heads telling them ‘this guy is prey. Chase him!’ But, if you stood your
ground, you had a chance. If the bear still attacked, playing dead was known to
work. It was a cliché, and it would get you murdered if you faced a black bear.
Grizzlies were easier to trick.

‘So, are you a black
wave creature, or a grizzly wave creature?’ I thought to myself. I briefly
wondered how many of my subscribers were awake, and if they were enjoying the
show. I wondered if they would turn up the brightness on their TVs and
monitors, allowing them to better view in the darkness.

Another twig snapped. The
sulphur smell lingered. I tightened my grip on Death Bringer, trusting its
sharpness and twiginess with a level of faith only matched by King Arthur’s
love for Excalibur.

As I took a deep breath
and held it in, the creature moved. I couldn’t see it, so I listened to its
footsteps. I heard its feet disturb the bracken on the forest floor, and I
wondered if this was my final moment on Artemis. For the next 8 hours, at
least.

And then it moved away.

Sneak skill
increased by 10%! (60% until level 2)

There was a reason why
action movies never showed the hero stood against a tree, holding his breath
and clutching a twig. My subscribers were hardly getting treated to Die Hard by
tuning into my feed.

“It’ll get better,” I
told them, keeping my voice low. “Keep watching.”

I had the faint idea that
having subscribers would come in handy. They had to be good for something,
after all. I made a mental note that I should pull up the Pana forums when day
broke and see if there was a subscriber section. Handily, the developers of the
game had built a web browser into the game interface. I wouldn’t even have to
log out.

Just as I straightened up
to move, something stabbed me in the back. It felt like a drawing pin had been
pressed against my skin. I turned around and held Death Bringer, as if it was
any use in a fight.

There was nothing behind
me except the tree. Then, looking closer, I realized that there was a hole in
the middle of it. The trunk of this elm was at least double my width even if I
stretched my arms out at my sides. Inside the trunk, peering out at me, were
two young Burrs.

I showed them my stick,
giving them a warning about what they’d face if they attacked. It seemed that
none of them had the appetite for a fight, and I guessed that they feared the
wave creatures. If this had been broad daylight, they’d have raised their tails
and tried to put barbequed scout on the menu.

I needed to remember
this. If the programmers of Pana coded such complex behavior into the NPCs,
tactics were important. It was clear that as much as I hadn’t wanted Rex with
me, he would be useful. I was a scout and Jack was a gambler, so we’d need a
melee fighter with us.

I hurried through the
woods in the direction of where I’d last heard Rex. From time to time I’d hear
the lonely howl of a wave creature. My enhanced hearing treated me to the
sounds of their feet scraping on the ground as they prowled the area, looking
for me. For some reason, I couldn’t shake the idea that they walked on two
legs, rather than all fours. The image made my skin itch.

Finally, I heard Rex
again. He was less than 20 feet away now. My eyes had long-ago adjusted to the
darkness. I saw that Rex was stood underneath a tree that stretched out in an
arc above him. The trunk of the tree was so curved that it seemed like a
hurricane had hit it and bent it out of shape. Rex was below it, sword drawn,
and he was turning from side to side, making sure to face each direction only
for a second.

I had the sickening
realization that 2 wave creatures were closing in on the barbarian.

Chapter Seventeen

Despite finding my night
eyes, I still couldn’t make out what they looked like. I could see their
outlines, but the dark of night latched onto their skin and made it impossible
to see them. It was as if I was trying to focus on a blur. What the hell were these
things?

The smell of sulphur hit
me now. Not content at creeping into my nostrils, the aroma of spent matches
worked its way into my throat. All at once, Rex and the wave creatures looked
at me. I couldn’t see their faces, but somehow, I knew that they looked in my
direction.

It didn’t matter about my
combat skill or level anymore; I had to help Rex. Even if I tried to flee, I
knew that the wave creatures would kill Rex. After that, they’d spend the next
five hours stalking me through the forest. Besides, I was never one to run
away. Not when someone else was in danger.

“Columbus?” said Rex,
peering at me.

The wave creatures moved
toward him. I gripped Death Bringer and held it at my side, ready to stab it
into the first creature that came my way.

As I rushed over to them,
one of the creatures tried to strike Rex. The barbarian raised his sword
clumsily. He didn’t look like the most finessed of fighters, but it was enough
to parry the blow.

I knew that I couldn’t
realistically hope to do much damage to the creatures, but Rex could. His
strength and combat skills would be far better than mine. I needed to give him
chance to use them. He wouldn’t be able to strike blows of his own if he was
defending theirs.

Trusting in my agility, I
got as close as I could to the first wave creature. Up close, the smell of sulphur
was strong enough to make my eyes water. Every inch of my skin was under attack
from the sour aroma, and I was drowning it in like an over-watered plant.
Ignoring it, I raised Death Bringer.

It was time for my weapon
to shine. The most unlikely occurrences come from the most improbable things. I
wondered if, aimed at the right spot, Death Bringer could kill a wave creature.
I imagined the glory my twig would gain. I pictured the Pana forums full of
people talking about the stick that brought down a wave creature.

I plunged Death Bringer
hard into the wave creature’s side, shouting out in aggression. Death Bringer’s
tip hit the black mass before me….

….and snapped.

1HP Lost (Total:
75/123)

Not only had it broken,
but one of the splinters scratched my thumb and knocked a hit point off me.
This left me with a broken twig in my hand, and an irritated, hulking black
mass in front of me. Even so close, near enough that its putrid odor made my throat
burn, I couldn’t make out any of its features. I saw its vague outline. It was
indeed walking on all fours, but it was as though a sheet of fog covered it,
making it impossible to see in more detail.

I wasn’t left with much
time for zoology, because I heard Rex grunt and then saw his sword crash down
on the creature’s head. I heard a sickening crack as the metal smashed through
its skull, and the beast fell to the floor.

I stood back. I could
hardly believe that one attack had been enough to kill it. But then, it had
been an attack from behind, and it might have been a critical hit. I bent down
to the floor beside the creature. I knew that when something died in Pana, it
dropped loot. The wave creatures were a cut above generic NPC monsters. I guessed
that the loot they offered would be valuable.

As I reached out to loot
the creature, it moved. It had been so still until now that it took me by
surprise, and I felt a searing pain down my right arm.

15 EXP lost!
(Total: 45)

20 HP lost! (Total:
55/123)

Despite scratching me,
the creature was obviously hurt. It wheezed and then moved into another attack
position. I stood up and swung my foot at its head, putting as much force into
it as my measly 1 strength point would allow. My foot connected with its skull,
and I felt its already-damaged bones crunch under the force. The creature
shrieked out, flopped onto its back, and then was still.

30 EXP gained!

Easy come, easy go, I
thought. The creature had drained exp off me with its attack, but I’d taken it
back now. This worried me, though. A monster with powerful attacks was one
thing. A beast that drained EXP with its attacks was something else. The Pana
coders weren’t messing around when they created Artemis.

This left us with one
wave creature left to fight.

“Don’t let it touch you,”
I told Rex, who held his sword in front of him in the vague approximation of a
seasoned fighter. He took wary steps back as the creature faced him. I saw
plumes of steam rise from it as the creature’s hot breath drifted into the
chilly air.

“I wasn’t about to shake
hands with it,” said Rex.

The monster raised its
hands ready to strike. I sensed that Rex wasn’t fully attuned with his
barbarian class, and I doubted he’d be able to block the blow. I ran forward,
shouting incomprehensibly, trying to get the creature’s attention. It turned
toward me.

“Now!” I shouted.

Rex struck with his
sword. The creature howled in pain, but it didn’t go down. Rex hit it again and
again, and this time the wave monster crumpled to the floor. We didn’t leave it
to chance, and Rex struck it a final time. The creature writhed on the ground
for a second, and then was still.

I sat down and caught my
breath. The forest was silent now, with only the sound of the wind whistling
through the trees. Rex put his sword back into the sheath on his back and
walked over to me.

“Here,” he said, passing
me something.

I took it from him. It
was a pile of crushed leaves.

“Great,” I said. “Just
what I’ve always wanted.”

“I took herbalism as a
skill. Eat it,” said Rex. “It’ll restore some of your HP.”

I took a tentative bite
of the leaves. They tasted sour, but soon I felt a glow rush through me.

43 HP gained
(Total: 98/123).

I stood up. I couldn’t
hear any more of the creatures now, but I knew it wouldn’t be long until the
rest of them found us. With daybreak seeming no closer, we needed to move.

“You took herbalism?” I
said. “That’s not exactly a classic barbarian skill.”

“I told you. I never
wanted this class. Father chose it for me.”

Chapter Eighteen

We made our way carefully
back to the shelter. Thankfully we didn’t come across any more of the wave
creatures, though we heard them scream and howl around us. When we made it back
to the shore, I had never been so glad to see an alcove cut into a hill. It
wasn’t the Hilton, but it was our base now.

Hours later, the sun
finally made an appearance and started to banish away the traces of night. As I
stepped out of the alcove, a message flashed on my screen.

Quest complete –
Survive Your First Wave

Reward:

- 15 EXP

- HP Potions x2

Bonus: 1.10 x
endurance modifier defence against wave creatures

I don’t know how, but Rex
had managed to doze away whilst we waited out the night. I left him to sleep
for a while, and I spent an hour gathering wood and constructing basic traps
around our shelter. I hoped that they would offer some sort of defence against
the next wave of creatures. Not only that, but they would hopefully catch a
hare or two. Maybe Rex could take cooking as a skill as well as herbalism. God
knew his herb mixtures could use a little flavor.

After constructing my
fifth trap, I was greeted by some text.

Level up Trap to
level 2 – increases trap radius.

Level up Trap to
level 3 – increases trap damage and camouflage.

I took a few minutes to
check the Pana forums. I found that at level 5, my trap skill would allow me to
make better constructions using blue prints. This was good; the more defenses
we could build around our shelter, the better. It looked like we were free to
explore Artemis during the day, but at night we’d have to wait in our base
whilst the creatures stalked the woods.

When Rex woke from his
sleep, he stood up, stretched his arms, and then looked around.

“Is this where you washed
up after the wreck?” he said.

I nodded. “Not sure where
we are, though. We need a map.”

“Any sign of Jack and the
sailors?”

“Nothing so far. I tried
party chat, but nothing came back. Listen, do you think we should message your
dad? Ask him to buy us more equipment?”

Rex shook his head. “He
won’t give us any, trust me. He’ll tell us it’s a life lesson, or something.
Besides, I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.”

“What’s the deal with you
two?” I asked.

Rex ignored me. I
couldn’t help but feel I’d been given the wrong impression of him. Terence had
told me his son was a jock, but I just couldn’t see it.

As I walked around our
shelter and positioned the traps as best I could, I noticed something. A set of
footprints were dotted all around our base. The strange thing was, it looked
like they were in a circle. It was as if something had paced around our alcove
for hours during the night. The tracks seemed too small to be made by the wave
creatures.

“What are they?” asked
Rex, kneeling on the ground and looking at a footprint.

I shrugged. “Wish I knew.
It’d be good to be able to know this kind of thing.”

Skill Gained –
Tracking [Int, Agi] – Do you accept?

With one last skill slot
left to fill, I decided I needed to take tracking as a primary. I was a scout,
and Helder’s Bane was a pursuit. Being able to track things through the forest
would come in handy.

Rex straightened up. He
rubbed his eyes, then looked at me. There was something strange about the way
he looked at things. He always seemed thoughtful, as if he stared at everything
around him and tried to make it all fit into a pattern.

“We better get moving,”
he said.

“We’ve got a long day
ahead,” I answered. “First up, we need to find Cal. Jack, I mean. He might have
died and respawned, or he could be out there somewhere. Whatever’s happened, we
need to find him. We’re stronger as a group.”

“Yeah. After all, there
might be some NPCs we need to trick in a game of cards.”

I knew that Rex was
starting to form a bad impression of Jack. “He’s a gambler. He has sleight of hand,
but his class had much more to it than that. Trust me, you’ll see.”

“We need a respawn rune
too,” said Rex. “Otherwise, one death and we’re screwed.”

I nodded. “Easier said
than done. There’s a village nearby, but we don’t have any money.”

“I can make one,” said
Rex.

I looked at him. He was
full of surprises.

“Yeah,” he carried on. “I
took crafting as a skill too. I’ll need to level it up, and I’ll need a
blueprint and materials, but in time I’ll be able to make a respawn rune.”

“You’re going to be the
worst barbarian ever, you know,” I said. “You could at least take some fighting
skills.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What?”

“A barbarian.”

“But that’s what you
are.”

“That’s what father wants
me to be. But it’s not who I am.”

Respawn runes were high-level
items. Rex was right; in time, he’d be able to level up his crafting skill
enough to make one. The problem was that we didn’t have time on our side. Even
after our setbacks, we still had an advantage over other players, in that we’d
gotten to the island before them. Soon, though, the public ships would land. I
wanted our search for Helder’s Bane to be well underway by then.

“We don’t have time to
level up,” I said. “We need to buy a rune from the village.”

“I don’t think they give
things on credit,” said Rex.

I shook my head. “No. But
we do have something we can sell.”

“If you’re talking about
selling your body, I don’t think people will be interested.”

I laughed. “Not that.
Your armor. Your dad must have spent a fortune on it. It’s the best armor a
noob can wear.”

Chapter Nineteen

We headed through the
forest and toward Dostooth village. The forest was different in the day; pale
streams of light found their way through the gaps in the trees. Burrs roamed in
the distance, and every so often we’d see a flash of flame as they incinerated
a woodland creature. I thought that I might find it hard to locate the village
again, but I seemed drawn to it. I guessed that it was my Awareness and
Tracking skills mixing together to give me a sense of direction. I was
satisfied with my skill choices. We still needed some fighting skills, but I
hoped that I could convince Rex to take at least one barbarian ability.

“Is this the place?” said
Rex.

We found ourselves stood
by the wooden fence that ran around the village. The main gates were open now,
and I could see activity beyond them. Children ran back and forth on the dirt
ground and played tag with each other. A man stood outside one shack and
stretched an animal pelt on a rack. Another walked to a well in the center of
the village and lowered a bucket into it. The smell of meat was in the air,
though I couldn’t see who was cooking it.

When we walked through
the gates and into the village, activity seemed to cease. The man stopped
stretching out his pelt and eyed us with suspicion. One of the children saw us,
and his eyes grew wide. He grabbed his friend by the arm and the two of them
ran into a nearby hut.

As we walked through,
people whispered. My awareness helped me hear them better, and I heard one
woman mutter “eternals,” in a low voice.

Looking around, I saw
that some of the huts had signs outside with icons printed on them. One sign
showed the image of a set of weighing scales, and I guessed it to be the
trader’s hut. Another had a picture of a book on it. That could have meant two
things; either it was a bookseller, or a mage shop.

We headed toward the
trader’s hut. I reached the door and went to push it open, but I found that it
was locked.

“Go away,” said a voice
from inside.

The hut didn’t have
windows, so I couldn’t see who was speaking to us. “We just want to trade,” I
said.

I heard rummaging from
behind the door, but whoever was inside made no move to unlock it. “Get lost,”
said the voice.

“They won’t talk to you,”
said a voice behind me.

I turned around to see a
little girl stood in front of us. When I faced her, she backed away a couple of
steps. She eyed Rex with his armor and sword, and I could tell she was
uncomfortable.

“Nobody will talk to
you,” said the girl. “We’ve all heard of you.”

“Then you’ll know we
don’t want to cause any trouble,” I answered.

She shook her head. “We
knew you were coming. You’re Eternals, aren’t you?”

Rex tilted his head.
“Eternals?”

“You don’t die,” said the
girl. “Or you do, but then you come back. Dad says you’re all witches.”

“Birta!” cried a voice,
from a shack on the west side of the village. “Get back here now before I sell
your hide to Andal!”

I looked over to see a
man striding toward us. His arm muscles were well-developed, no doubt from
physical labor. The people of the village were self-sustaining, I realized.
They lived off the land around them, and we were intruding in it.

The man reached Birta and
pulled the girl close to him. He gave me a threatening look.

“You lot are here to bring
trouble, aren’t you?” he said.

Rex held his hands out in
a placating gesture. “We’re here to buy a few things. Nothing more.”

The man spat. “Eternals
bring monsters with them. We’ve heard of you. I have a cousin on the mainland,
and he says you draw strength from killing things. You get innocent people
caught up in your fights.”

“We just want to trade,
and then we’ll go, “I said.

He shook his head.
“Nobody in Dostooth will trade as much as a leaf with you. Now get lost, before
we chase you out.”

Quest received –
Improve the Villagers’ Opinion of You

Reward:

- 120 exp

- Unlock village
dialogue options

“Did you get that too?” I
said, looking at Rex.

He nodded. “Looks like we
have to help them in some way. But I don’t know how.”

I sighed. There had to be
a way to get the villagers to talk to us, but right now, I had no clue how to
do it. We’d already wasted 2 hours of the day so far, and I didn’t want the
night to come without making any progress.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s
find Jack. We can think about what to do about the village on the way. He’s got
better charisma stats than us; maybe he can talk to them.”

“Great. But where do we
start?”

I pointed north, beyond
the village. The trees were sparser in that direction, and I saw a cliff that
rose thirty feet into the air. Birds swooped above it.

“That’ll give us a
vantage point. Or at least, we’ll be able to see a little more of Artemis and
get our bearings. It’s a starting point.”

Chapter Twenty

If there’s ever a time
where high endurance comes in handy, it’s when you have to climb a cliff. It
didn’t take us too long to reach it, though our journey through the woodland
was extended when we encountered 2 Burrs. Rex wanted to avoid them, but I
forced him to attack and kill them. He did so wearily, as if he hated every
swing of his sword.

“You need to level up,” I
told him.

After killing them, Rex
wouldn’t go near their bodies. It was left to me to loot their corpses, and I
gained 2 Burr pelts in my inventory, as well as 2 Burr tail tips. The tips, I
discovered, could be lit, and they would act as torches.

The cliff ran up in a
slope that seemed too gentle to have been programmed for the island of Artemis.
I expected the coders to have made the climb impossible, but it seemed that
they didn’t make hard work of everything. Rex and I climbed the slope, stopping
every so often to make sure of our footing. Sometimes, rocks loosened and then
tumbled down to the ground below.

By the time we reached
the top, my stamina had dropped below halfway. I expected Rex to fare better
than me, but instead he reached the summit and then sat down, panting.

“Come on, pal,” I said.
“If my endurance can take it, then yours surely can.”

“I told you, my character
was preloaded. Dad spent most of my attribute points on strength, with 1 point
on intelligence.”

“But that’s so imbalanced
that it’s ridiculous. Why the hell would he do that?”

“Because that’s what he
thinks of me. He thinks I’m all brawn, no brain.”

“Has your dad ever actually
spent a minute with you?” I said, wondering how, in a few hours, I could know
Terence’s son better than he did.

“I don’t want to talk
about it.”

I walked over to the
cliff edge. The wind seemed stronger so high up. I wondered if one gust would send
me over the edge and into the air, where I'd flap around like a kite. When I
stood at the edge and looked around me, I forgot about the wind.

About a mile away, at a
different part of the shore from where I’d washed up, I saw a boat. This one
was twice the size of ours, and it had a mast with a sword logo painted on it.
Holes lined the side of the ship and oars were stuck through them. Next to the
ship and on the beach, I saw a party of men and women.

I knew that the public
ships wouldn’t sail for another 2 days, so this must have been a private one.
I’d guessed that we weren’t the only people so desperate for Helder’s Bane and
its rewards. We also weren't the only ones to charter a private vessel. Still,
the size of this boat made it clear that whoever these people were, they had
more resources than us. Not only that, but they’d manage to sail to Artemis
unscathed.

There were three men and
two women. They seemed well equipped, with leather armor and various weapons.
None of them had a Death Bringer, preferring sharp metal to frail twigs. They
walked back and forth from the ship and unloaded brown sacks of items. They
seemed to be working under the supervision of one man. He was shorter than the
rest, and he wore robes that were completely black. He had a hood drawn over
his head. It was hard to make out anything in detail from so far away, but his
face looked to be covered by something. I wondered if it was a skill tattoo.

As I watched, I saw a
creature approach them. It was small and ran on four legs. It edged closer to
the group, unworried about the appearance of five Eternals on the shores of
Artemis. I wondered if the animal was going to attack them, but when it reached
one of the group it stood up on its hind legs. It seemed crazy, but I was sure
that it was waiting for the woman to stroke it. I guessed that not all NPCs on
Artemis were hostile.

The hooded man walked
over to the creature. He kneeled next to it and stroked its head. The creature
leaned in toward him and basked in the affection. Then, in just a second, the
man drew a knife from his belt and plunged it into the animal’s throat. The
woman next to him stepped back. The man grabbed the dead animal by the throat,
stood up, and then threw it into the sea.

Awareness increased
by 20% - 60% until level 2

I stared to get a bad
feeling about the group. I wished that I could see the man’s face better,
because I was sure now that it was a skill tattoo. My Awareness skill had given
me enhanced hearing, and I guessed that I’d need to level it before my sight
improved. Looking closer, I saw that the group’s player names and classes were
above their heads, but I was too far away to read them.

Rex joined me at the edge
of the cliff. He looked carefully, then pointed at something. “Columbus,” he
said, stretching out his arm.

“I know,” I answered.
“Looks like we’ve got some competition. We need to get moving.”

“Not that,” he said. “To
the east. Can you see that?”

I followed the direction
of his outstretched fingers. Beyond the newly-arrived group, and into the
woodland, I saw a stream that cut deep through the island. On the bank of it,
was a solitary figure. I knew instantly that it wasn’t an NPC or a monster. The
solitary figure could only be one person. It had to be Jack.

Chapter Twenty-One

My tracking gave me a
rough idea of the direction to head in to find Jack, but there was still a lot
of trial and error. We came across dead ends, where trees stood so closely
together that not even a mouse could get through. As we walked, my stamina began
to drain. The sun began to fall from its zenith, as if it was also feeling the
strain.

I was starting to lose my
sense of wonder about Artemis. A ticking clock replaced it, and I imagined it
following me with each step. We were pushed for time in finding Helder’s Bane,
and the appearance of the private ship had made me even tenser.

“I just wished we knew
what it was, or where to go,” I said.

“There was a bookseller
in the village,” said Rex. “He might have an idea about who Helder is, and what
his bane was.”

Every so often we
encountered various forest critters. These ranged from overgrown rats, to
rabbits with teeth sharp enough to cut through bone. I tried encouraging Rex to
attack them, but he seemed even more set in his pacifism than ever.

“You need to level up,” I
told him. “We both do. You saw the guys on the ship; they’re better equipped
than us. We can’t let them get ahead in levels at the same time.”

“It just makes me uneasy.
The creatures are too life-like, it doesn’t feel right killing them.”

Whilst walking through
the woods I’d found another sharp stick. I held Death Bringer Mark 2 up for Rex
to see. “How about this? You weaken them, and I’ll strike the killing blow. If
you’re so set on keeping your hands clean, I’ll have to get blood on mine.”

As we walked, we killed
the creatures that looked weak and avoided the ones that seemed like they’d
cause a problem. This resulted in a couple of messages that gave me some hope.

Sneak increased by
20% - 40% until level 2

Level up to level
2!

- HP increased to
137

- Stamina increased
to 149

- 2 attribute
points gained

This gave me 4 attribute
points free to use. Now that I had my skills set, I felt that I could allocate
them with future tactics in mind. My sneak skill relied on agility and my traps
and tracking on intelligence, so I allocated 2 points to each.

As well as that, we also
looted some animal meat and fur. I hoped that when his crafting skill improved,
Rex would be able to make some crude amour from the fur. If I found a way to
light the Burr tail tips in my inventory, we’d have a good source of fire, too.

Finally, we reached the
stream bank where I’d seen Jack. We found it deserted. I wondered if we’d
arrived at the right place, but I saw tracks in the ground left by my brother.
He was gone, but I could use my tracking skill to follow his path.

We tracked his trail
along the stream. Ahead of us, I saw four animals in the water. They looked
like crocodiles, except their leathery hide was blue, and they had three eyes.
Two of them stared out at either side, while one looked ahead. One of the
animals opened its jaws, and I saw gleaming rows of sharp teeth.

“Surely he didn’t go this
way?” said Rex.

I looked at the ground.
Cal’s trail did indeed lead forward, beyond the creatures.

“They must not have been
here when he walked by,” I said.

“So, what do we do?”

I looked at the monsters
in the water. “They’re too advanced for us. We’ll have to walk around them.”

It was easier said than
done. We cut an arc through the forest, making sure to walk far enough away
from the stream that the creatures didn’t see us. When I finally judged that
we’d left enough room, I diverted us back on track. Our progress was soon
stopped when we came to a break in the woodland. Before us was a giant cliff,
this one steeper than the cliff we’d climbed earlier. There was no easy path
over this mound of rock.

“How’s your stamina?” I
asked Rex.

“There’s no way we can
climb that.”

“We can’t go around it.
There’s no point going along the stream, because the alligator-things will
still be there.”

Rex put his fingers to
his chin in thought. “They were more like crocodiles. But anyway, I could make
a rope,” he said.

“That would be great,
MacGyver,” I said. “But how?”

“Who’s MacGyver?”

I started to explain, but
we didn’t have the time. “Never mind. How are you going to make a rope?”

Rex walked over to a tree
and started snapping off branches. Using the edge of his blade, he stripped
some of them down to reveal their rubbery insides. These he cut into lengths.
With that done, he used his crafting skill to intertwine them into a crude
rope.

“I’m not sure I want to
put my trust into that,” I said, looking at the rope and then at the steep
cliff.

“You don’t have to,” he
said.

“Good.”

“You don’t have to,
because you’ll be free climbing. I’m the one who needs the rope.”

“Come again?”

Rex sighed. “I’m too
heavy and my agility is too low for me to get to the top without a rope. But
you’re light. And you’re a scout, so I’m guessing you loaded points into your
agility.”

I nodded. “Sure, but not
enough to climb.”

“Give it a try.”

There was no choice. We
couldn’t go around the cliff, and we couldn’t go back. Rex was right; as a
barbarian, he was too heavy for the deft movements required in free climbing.

I thought about Red Rock
back in Gossard Forest. I imagined myself being stood at the top of it and
looking at the ground below. It worried me to abseil down it even with ropes
strapped to me, so how was I supposed to do this?

“Something wrong?” asked
Rex.

I wouldn’t show him that
heights worried me. I took a deep breath, hoping that the forest air would
somehow fill me with confidence. As I grabbed the first rock that stuck out
from the base of the cliff, I felt my heart begin to hammer.

I stood back. I couldn’t
do it. I’d always hated heights, ever since…No. I couldn’t think of Francis.
And I couldn’t give up. I needed to think of my father, and about the family
business. I couldn’t let him down.

With shallow breaths and
shaking hands, I began to climb. In real life, of course, this would have been
the height of foolishness. In Pana, things were simpler. A person with no
climbing experience could take a challenge like this, because the point of Pana
was that you could escape the limits of everyday life.

I found that with each
foot I climbed, I began to feel more at ease. My mind still screamed at me that
I was an idiot, but I ignored it. Finally, grunting with effort, I heaved
myself to the top. It was only then that I looked down.

It was a mistake. Seeing
the ground so far below me, I felt myself wobble. Blood rushed to my head, and
I backed away from the edge. I was dimly aware of a sound behind me, but I
didn’t turn around.

“The rope,” shouted Rex
below me.

I unslung the rope from
around my shoulder and unravelled it. I tied it around a rock at the edge of
the cliff and then let it fall. In one of his many outdoor lessons, Dad had
taught me how to make knots. I was sure that mine would hold, but I wasn’t as
confident in Rex’s rope craftsmanship.

With the rope around his
waist, Rex began to climb. I held the rope at the top and pulled on it to help
his ascent. With a measly 1 strength point I couldn’t haul him up on my own,
but together, our efforts helped Rex reach the top.

It was then that I heard
the noise behind me again. I had forgotten my vertigo enough now that I turned
around to look at it. When I saw what was behind me, I stumbled back. I felt
Rex’s hand hold me steady.

Across from us, there was
a giant nest. It was a thatch-work of branches and twigs all wound tightly
together into an oval shape. The nest wasn’t the worrying sight for me, though.

It was the giant eagle on
top of it.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was taller than me by
a good few feet. A foot-long beak protruded from a small-eyed head. The eagle
watched us, tipped its head back, and squawked. It spread its wings wide to
quadruple its size, then flapped them. I felt wind hit my face. The eagle started
to lift from its nest, and I saw claws that looked sharp enough to tear me
apart.

The ground seemed far
away now. I’d always hated heights, but that was because of the prospect of
falling. A giant eagle, angry at our intrusion on its nesting area, added a
whole new dimension to my fear.

I realized that I was
holding Death Bringer Mark 2 tight in my hand. I felt a weight on my shoulder,
and I turned to see Rex stood next to me.

“Don’t worry,” he said.

“I like your sense of
calm,” I said. “but if any situation calls for a bit of worry, then it’s this.”

The eagle shrieked again.
I’d never thought that birds’ faces could hold expressions, but this one did.
The eagle was angry.

I backed away. The rope
was to my right. Going back the way we came would mean having to face the
crocodile creatures. I wondered which was preferable; hungry crocodiles, or a
giant, pissed-off eagle.

I looked ahead of me.
Gripping Death Bringer in my hand, I reminded myself that every danger passed.
It was something my father always told me; no threat lasts forever. It either
gets you, or you beat it, but either way it’s gone. If I was going to face my
first death in Pana Reborn, then I’d meet it fighting.

Before I had a chance to
do anything, Rex walked forward. He kept his blade sheathed on his back, and he
took careful steps toward the bird. The eagle flinched at his approach and
flapped its wings, sending another blast of air at me.

“Have you lost your
mind?” I said.

Rex carried on walking
forward until he stood near the eagle. He started to speak. To my amazement,
words didn’t leave his mouth. Instead, he made bird noises, squawking in soft
tones at the creature above him.

I was so shocked that I
felt my eyes widen. As Rex spoke, the eagle seemed to calm. It stopped flapping
its wings, and it hovered down until it sat on its nest. Rex reached forward,
and the eagle craned its head toward him. The barbarian stroked the head of the
giant animal.

“I’d say ‘what the
hell’ but that wouldn’t even begin to cover it,” I said.

Rex looked back at me and
grinned. “I took animal tamer as a skill.”

“Animal tamer, herbalism
and crafting. You’re really making this barbarian class your own. Conan would
be proud.”

“Conan?”

I sighed. “Have you ever
watched TV in your life?”

The eagle prodded its
head forward, eager for another stroke from the man before it. The
transformation was incredible. Just seconds earlier it looked ready to tear us
apart, but now it seemed as harmless as a Burr with no claws. This could be
massive for us, I knew. If we could make the eagle an ally, there wasn’t a
crocodile-thing or Burr for miles around that could trouble us.

“Think you can-”

Before I could finish my
sentence, something whizzed through the air. I heard it make a zipping sound as
it sped toward us, and suddenly the eagle shrieked out. It thrashed its wings
wildly, hitting Rex across the face and knocking him to the ground. The eagle
thrashed around, screaming in pain. I realized that an arrow had pierced its throat.
The bird tried to fly, but its fight was leaving it. It let out one more
shriek, before collapsing on the ground and rolling off the cliff, out of
sight. A few seconds later, I heard it thud on the ground below.

I ran over to the cliff
edge and looked down. Thirty feet below me were a group of people. I saw two
women and three men. One of the men wore a black hood, and I recognized him as
the leader of the party who I’d seen come ashore. Although I was high above
them, I was close enough now to see his face clearly. The man had a tattoo on
his face depicting a bow and arrow.

The man held a bow in one
hand. He raised his free hand and waved at me. “Why, hello there!” he said, in
a cheery voice.

To my left, Rex stood up.
He walked to the edge of the cliff where the eagle had fallen. He ran his hands
through his hair. The color had left his face now.

I turned my attention to
the party below.

“You won’t find it up
there,” said one of them.

The leader handed his bow
to a woman to his right and folded his arms. “I take it you’re here for
Helder’s Bane?” he said.

There was something about
his voice that stirred irritation in me. It was gravelly, as though he’d smoked
a hundred cigarettes and drunk a bottle of whisky. There seemed to be an
undercurrent of malice to it. I looked at him, and I could only think one
thing; I wouldn’t let these bastards find Helder’s Bane before me.

The leader walked over to
a barrel-chested man. I could see his name now.

Ellis Taunton –
Hunter Level 3

Ellis was shorter than
the rest of his companions. His character face made him seem old, with wrinkles
creasing his sharp features. It was hard to tell which parts of his face were
wrinkles of age and which were the ink of his tattoo. He had a sneering quality
to him.

“Pass me that,” he said
to a warrior next to him. The warrior handed him a brown sack.

Ellis looked at me, and
he held the sack up for me to see. “We found some stuff washed up on shore,” he
said. “A couple of respawn runes, some potions. A rather nice set of greaves.
Hope you don’t mind me borrowing them.”

I realized that I was
gripping Death Bringer Mark 2 so tight that my knuckles had turned white. This
asshat had our respawn runes.

“We better be going,”
said Ellis. “You know, since we have a Bane belonging to Helder to find and
all. Good luck up there, though. Hope you have fun topping up your sun tan.”

As the party below us
began to walk away, I noticed something. Although they all wore armor that
anyone in Pana could buy with enough GD, they had customized some of it. On
their backs was the imagine of a sun with rays of light beaming from it.
Beneath the sun, was a name.

Star Horizon.

I felt a lump form in my
throat. It was them; the company who were trying to buy us out of Gossard
forest. Not content with trying to ruin Ledfield Tours, here they were trying
to beat me to Helder’s Bane. I gritted my teeth. I wouldn’t let them do it. I
didn’t care what it took; I would beat them.

I turned around to face
Rex, only to see that he’d climbed into the eagle’s nest. “What are you doing?”
I said.

He reached down and
picked something up. When he straightened, I saw that he had an egg in his
hand. It was white with golden speckles on it, and it was the size of a
watermelon.

“It was a mother eagle,”
he said, with a glum look in his eyes.

“They’re a bunch of
bastards,” I answered.

“This is our
responsibility now,” he said, holding the egg.

I couldn’t believe what I
was hearing. I would admit that Rex’s animal Tamer skill had helped us at
first, but I needed him to be more like a barbarian. “There’s no time for
sentimentality,” I told him. “We need to go. Now.”

He held up his free hand.
“Hear me out, Columbus. Let’s say we keep this until it hatches. Then, if we
can get hold of a game map, we can attach it to the eagle and have it fly
around the island. That way, we get our map filled in for us. That’s got to be
an advantage, right?”

Chapter Twenty-Three

When we climbed down the
cliff, we had lost Jack’s trail. We had to walk an hour west, back toward the
stream, to find it. Once I spotted his footprints again, it was easy enough to
follow it.

It was midafternoon by
the time we found the end of Jack’s tracks. The afternoon sun was starting to
dim now, and the glow in the forest had paled. The smell of spring onions and
pine needles was strong in the air. Rex carried the eagle egg in his hand,
cradling it against his body as though he were the mother eagle.

There was a tavern in
front of us. Aside from the village, it was the only man-made structure I’d
seen on Artemis. It wasn’t much more sophisticated than the wooden shacks. This
building had two windows, though a film of steam covered the glass and I
couldn’t see beyond it. A sign above the door read “Burr’s Tail Tavern”. Smoke
trailed out from a chimney on the roof, and I smelled the faint aroma of stale
beer.

Tracking increased
by 30% - 70% until level 2

We approached the tavern
to go inside when the door burst open and a figure came hurtling out of it head
first. He flew a few feet then hit the ground. When he straightened up, I realized
that it was Jack.

There was no time for
pleasantries. No sooner had Jack got to his feet and nodded at me, then three
men exited the tavern and walked toward us. They all had long hair and bushy
beards. They looked like triplets, and the only thing to set them apart were
the colors of the stripes on their shirts. One of them had rolled his sleeves
up to his elbows, showing forearms thick with muscle.

He looked at me. “So, the
cheat has friends, does he?”

I read aggression in
their faces, but I didn’t need a study in body language to know they were ready
to fight. The sight of their clenched fists was a much plainer sign. Behind
them, in the doorway of the tavern, an older man in an apron stood and watched.
He looked like the men in front of us, except much older.

I walked forward and
stood beside Jack. “You better explain,” I told him.

One of the men answered
me. “This little git arrived at the Burr a few hours ago, and started ordering
drinks. When we asked him to pay up, he said he had no money. So, he offered to
play cards with us. Double or nothing. If he lost, he’d give us everything in
his inventory.”

“Shouldn’t have trusted
him. I said, didn’t I? Don’t trust him,” said one of the other men.

The one in the middle,
with a ginger beard and blue stripes on his shirt, held a hand out. “What have
I always told you, Ron? I do the talking. Now shut up.”

“What’s going on?” I
said.

“We agreed to play your
little friend in cards. I believe in giving a man a chance. But this little
bugger starts winning every hand. Then I noticed something strange. I was sure
he was cheating. So, this time when I dealt him a hand, I made sure to know
what cards I’d given him. Low and behold, a few turns later, his cards are
completely different. He’s a cheat.”

Yep, I thought, looking
at Jack. Sounds about right. I’d always known his tricks would get him into
trouble, I just didn’t think it’d happen in a tavern in the middle of Artemis.

“There has to be a way of
resolving this,” I said.

Blue Stripes nodded.
“Aye, there is. Pay up.”

Jack made an exaggerated
show of turning his pockets out. “I told you, slowpoke. I’m broke.”

Blue Stripes nodded at
me. “What about your friends?”

The air was starting to
turn ugly, and we needed to fix this. “Listen,” I said. “we were in a
shipwreck, and we lost all our gear. We don’t have anything to give you right
now. But let us leave, and I promise we’ll be back. We’ll pay you triple what
you’re owed.”

I waited a few seconds,
hoping my words had the right effect.

Charisma check
failed!

“Give us the egg,” said
Blue Stripes, looking at Rex.

The barbarian backed
away. “Not a chance in hell.”

Blue Stripes rolled his
sleeves up even further. “Then we’ll just have to take what’s owed to us.”

The three men advanced on
us now. It was clear from their physiques that they had melee and hand-to-hand
abilities, and I had no doubt that they were at least a few levels above us. I
still held Death Bringer Mark 2 in my hand. I guessed it would be more
effective against the fleshy body of a man rather than the hide of a Burr, but
I didn’t fancy our chances. From the look on the men’s faces, it didn’t seem
like we had any option but to fight.

The first man reached me.
He threw a punch at me, but I dodged to the side, thankful of my agility. As
the man lumbered around to face me, I stabbed Death Bringer into his side. I
hoped that I’d shoved the sharp end with enough force to hurt the man, but
instead…

…it snapped.

Damn. I really needed a
better weapon. At least this time I didn’t lose HP. Two of the men advanced on
Jack now, ignoring Rex who was sloping off to the sides. Jack shouted out,
whilst facing the men walking toward him.

“What are you waiting
for, Rex? Swing your bloody sword!”

Rex held the egg close to
him. It was clear he wanted no part in this battle, and I cursed Terence Pierce
for sending us such an ineffective barbarian. One of the men, Yellow Stripes,
punched me in the face, and I felt my jaw shake.

10HP lost! Total:
88/137

I felt anger burn through
me. I swung my fist at him, connecting with the center of his nose. The man
stumbled back, and I saw his eyes begin to water. He shook away the pain and
advanced again. It was no good; they were simply too strong for a scout and a
gambler to deal with.

Blue Stripes tried to
grab Jack, but the gambler ducked under his grasp and edged a few feet away,
toward Rex.

“Pass me your sword,” he
said.

“You won’t be able to use
it. You need strength 10 at the least.”

“Just pass it to me!”

Rex unsheathed his sword
and gave it to Jack. The gambler closed his eyes for a few seconds, and I saw a
yellow glow gather around him. The glow seemed to shimmer and then it burst,
sending tiny dice-shaped bolts of light all around.

“It’s my lucky day,” said
Jack.

“This doesn’t feel so
lucky,” I answered, ducking out of the way of a punch.

“No, I mean it’s my
skill. Lucky Day. When I use it, I get the chance of quadrupling two of my
stats for an hour. Either that, or they’re reset to zero.”

“Risky,” I answered.

He shrugged. “That’s what
being a gambler is about.”

With his strength and
agility stats quadrupled, Jack was more than a match for the three men. Two of
them rushed at him, but with two swings of his sword, he cleaved them at the
neck.

Only Blue Stripes
remained now. He looked at his dead brothers on the floor, and then started
backing away from us.

“Bloody eternals,” he
said, then turned and ran through the woods. I watched as he disappeared away
from us. Just before he left my view, I saw him trip over a root and fall onto
the floor.

As we caught our breath,
I looked at Jack. He still held Rex’s sword.

“How did you survive the
shipwreck?” I said. “There’s no way you have enough endurance to swim far.”

He shrugged. “I can use
Lucky Day once a day. I activated it to get my endurance up.”

We looted some GD coins
and three healing potions from the dead men. Jack took a pair of boots, which
he wore instead of his own, basic footwear. With that done and the party
finally together again, we needed to move.

I looked up at the sky
and saw that the sun was dipping painfully low.

“Night’s coming,” I said.

We looked at each other.
After having already spent a night on Artemis, we all knew what that meant.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Where’ve you been all
this time?” said Rex, looking at Jack. “Gambling? Getting into trouble?”

Jack folded his arms.
“It’s night, I’m freezing my nuts off-”

“Why do we always say
‘nuts’?” I asked.

Jack carried on. “and I
just got a message saying the cold weather has slowed my movements by .1%. I
don’t need a moral lecture.”

“This isn’t a moral
lecture, it’s a practical one. You should have tried finding us, or looking for
our gear. Anything but playing cards.”

I held my hand up.
“That’s enough, guys,” I told them. It was darkening too quickly for my liking,
and I knew we were miles away from our shelter.

Jack wouldn't be
deterred. He looked at Rex. “And what’ve you been doing, egg boy? Prowling
around chicken huts?”

“It’s an eagle egg.”

“Eagle, chicken,
whatever.”

I walked over to Jack and
put my hand on his back. “Good to see you, bro,” I told him.

“What’s the plan?” he
asked.

I didn’t have time to
answer, because a message filled my screen.

Night has fallen –
Prepare for the wave!

We all looked at each
other. It was clear that they’d gotten the same message as me.

“Think that answers our
question,” I said.

I wondered where the wave
creatures respawned from. I doubted they parachuted into the island, and they
certainly didn’t get here by boat. That meant two things. Either they had dens
hidden away somewhere, or they respawned when night fell. I knew that a game
like Pana demanded servers the size of small islands, and the makers would be
looking to cut costs. It made sense, then, that during the day when they
weren’t needed, the wave creatures simply didn’t exist. Then, when the sun
fell, they respawned somewhere. So, were the respawn points set, or were they
random? If they were pre-determined, there was a possibility we could find them
and lay traps during the day.

The howls sounding out
around me told me that it was too late to think about that for tonight. The
chirps of birds and calls of Burrs were gone, replaced by the shrieks of the
creatures that melded into the night.

“Where’d you survive your
first wave?” I asked Jack.

“In the tavern. They have
a basement hatch round the back, and they keep the beer barrels down there. I
snuck in. It wasn’t the worst night I’ve ever had, if I’m honest.”

The tavern sounded like a
good place to wait out the wave. I walked over to it, but I found that the door
was locked. I heard tapping on the glass next to me, and I looked to see the
tavern owner staring at me.

“Bugger off,” he said.
“We’ve had enough trouble from you. Bloody eternals.”

We decided that the best
thing to do was to make our way to our shelter, since it was the only place in
Artemis we knew was hidden. The problem was that it was miles away.

There was nothing for it.
We spent the next hour making our way through the woodland as best we could. I
walked at the front, using my Awareness to listen out for anything. Although I
heard the creatures scream, I didn’t smell sulphur, which meant there were none
nearby. It was a good thing, too. Rex’s boots clomped on the ground with each
step. Although he hadn’t taken any barbarian skills, there was little he could
do about his heavy feet.

We decided to avoid
climbing the cliff and took a chance on following the stream. The crocodiles,
wherever they were, had obviously decided to nest somewhere, since there was no
sign of them either on the stream banks or in the water. Going this way cut an
hour off our journey, and I was relieved that it meant I wouldn’t have to scale
a cliff in the darkness.

Shelter was just thirty
minutes away, when a smell crept up my nostrils. It was an industrial smell of
matchsticks, of sulphur burning and leaving behind an acrid odor. I listened as
hard as I could and couldn’t hear them, but the smell was unmistakable.

“We need to take the
longer route,” I said.

Jack sighed. “I’m beat,
Columbus. I need to lie down and dream of Sarah.”

“Who the hell is Sarah?”

“A girl I’m seeing.”

“In Pana?” asked Rex.

“Of course not in Pana.
Jesus.”

“You didn’t tell me about
this,” I said. Then I shook my head. “Anyway, now’s not the time.”

I heard something crunch
fifty meters to my right. Then, a twig snapped to my left. The wave creatures
nearby, however many they were, knew we were here. We needed to do something.

“We can’t go back to the
shelter,” I said. “Because we’ll lead the creatures right to it. It’s not
marked as our official base yet. Other than being a good place to hide, it
won’t give us much protection when they know we’re here.”

“There’s also the
possibility that they have memories,” said Rex. “Finding our shelter tonight
could mean that they return to it tomorrow. And if their howls are a form of
communication, we could have a pack on our doorstep.”

“Are they a pack?” said
Jack. “Or a pride? Or a murder?”

“They could be called a
posse for all I care. It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “I’ve got an idea.”

After telling them my
plan, I found myself running through the woodland alone. I made enough noise to
attract every creature within 500 meters, then set off. I knew that Jack didn’t
have the endurance for a long pursuit, and Rex didn’t have the agility. We
needed to throw the creatures nearby off our track. I was the only one who
could do it.

My agility was 9 and my
endurance 6, which gave me an advantage. Added to that was my Favored Ability.
It granted me attack, defence and movement bonuses in wooded areas.

I set out, leaving my
friends behind. As sneaky as the creatures were, speed wasn’t their greatest
asset. I wondered if they could actually see, or if they moved using another of
their senses. I was sure I heard one run into a tree.

Ten minutes later I’d
thrown my pursuers off track. Making sure to run in a loop to confuse the
trail, I then veered back toward Dostooth, where I’d agreed to meet Jack and
Rex.

I couldn’t see them
outside the main gate. Despite the darkness, I kneeled and looked for their
footprints on the muddy floor. My eyes had adjusted to the black around me, and
the moon struggled through a cloud and cast a pale glow on Artemis. Eventually
I saw two sets of footprints; one of them large and made by boots, the others
small. I followed these around the outskirts of the village to the opposite
side of it.

Tracking skill
levelled up to level 2!

As I approached Jack and
Rex, Jack stepped forward. “Sorry brother, I already asked,” he said, nodding
at the darkened village beyond the fence. “There are no night clubs open around
here.”

I looked around.
Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t tell what it was, but I felt it. It was like
something had reached into my skull and was tugging on my brain, screaming at
me to look at the area around.

Something was here.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Seeing that I ignored
him, Jack spoke again. “You okay? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“We should think about
getting back to the shelter,” said Rex.

I held my hand up. “Give
me a minute.”

I didn’t know which of my
skills was giving me this feeling. Was it my Awareness? Tracking? Something was
amiss in the area around us.

And then I saw it. There
were tracks on the floor, but ones that were different to Jack’s and Rex’s.
These were made by the wave creatures, I realized. I walked over to one set of
tracks and followed them. Jack called out after me, but I ignored him. The
tracks led around the village fence in an arc. Then it looked like they went
toward the fence itself.

This was strange. I
walked over to the fence, and I saw that the wooden beams in this part of it
were loose. Not only that, but there were dozens of sets of wave creature
footprints at this part.

As I wondered what this
could mean, my breath caught in my chest. It was obvious.

I heard footsteps behind
me. My pulse fired, and I turned around. To my relief, it was Jack and Rex.

“It’s the villagers,” I
said.

“What is?”

“The wave creatures. All
the tracks lead to and from the village. Think about it, it makes sense. The village
closes after 5 pm, and there’s no good reason for that. Unless….”

“Unless the villagers
turn into something else after dark.”

“The Pana guys sure have sadistic
minds,” said Jack.

A cry shrieked out
somewhere in the woodland beyond. I didn’t know if it meant they’d spotted our
trail, but we needed to go. One thing was clear; we needed to talk to the
villagers in the morning. This time, I wanted answers.

Our shelter wasn’t far
away from the village, but we made sure to walk back as quietly as we could.
Rex had trouble keeping his steps soft, so Cal used a skill called Coin Flip.
Like Lucky Day, this gave a chance of doubling stats. There was a 50% chance a
person stats would increase, and 50% that they’d decrease by half. Unlike Lucky
Day, though, Coin Flip affected the whole party. Jack being Jack, he only told
us he’d done this after the fact.

“What if it had gone
wrong?” said Rex. “Would you have told us? Or would we have had to check our
character screens and wonder why we’d suddenly lost half our stats?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Quiet,” I told them. The
two of them were more alike than they realized, but their squabbles were
beginning to annoy me.

Jack’s Coin Flip helped
us get back to the shelter undetected. I didn’t need it, of course, since I had
the sneak ability. As we made it back to base, a message informed me that my
sneak skill had gone up by 20%, which left 20% until level 2.

As we spent the night in
our shelter, we occasionally heard footsteps outside. The alcove was too cramped
for three grown men to sleep in. It reminded me of camping nights when I was a
kid, where five of us would pile into a 3-man tent and tell ghost stories. This
was different though; the monsters were real. Well, real in terms of Artemis.
After being here almost two days, I was beginning to forget that everything
around me was code.

We decided that since we
were spending the night in our shelter, we’d log out and have our 8-hour break
from the game. It made sense, since I didn’t want to waste daylight hours
outside Pana.

When I had that thought,
I had to laugh to myself. I was beginning to see the real world, my whole
reality, as a waste of time compared to life in Pana Reborn. I started to
wonder if Gossard Forest had lost its last dregs of excitement for me.

Chapter Twenty-Six

After 8 hours in the real
world, 7 of which I spent in bed, I logged back into Pana Reborn. I found
myself in the Alcove. The sun cast rays through the narrow gap, and I was
thankful for the warmth. Before I could move, a message appeared.

Level up to Level
3!

-HP increased to
144

- Stamina increased
to 160

- 2 Attribute
points gained

I wondered if some
generous elves had snuck into my alcove while I slept and levelled me up. If
not, I couldn’t work out how it had happened. Then I climbed out of the shelter
and saw it.

5 of my 6 traps outside
the shelter had been sprung. 2 contained dead hares, while 2 held
recently-deceased Burrs in them. Then I saw the fifth one and I realised, with
horror, that my trap had caught a woman. There were times in the real world
where I’d thought about trying to meet a girl, but this hardly seemed like the
way to do it.

I rushed over to it and
dismantled the trap. It seemed to have caught her around her neck, and the
wooden jaws of my device had snapped her windpipe. If there was any mercy, it
would have been quick. I felt a pang of guilt shoot through me. I sat back on
the ground, unable to believe what I’d done.

Then I realized
something. This didn’t make any sense. Why would a woman be wandering around at
night with the wave creatures prowling? Why would she get so close to my trap
that it snapped on her neck?

There was only one answer
– she was one of the villagers. My trap had caught her whilst she was a wave
creature, and then when daylight came, she had turned back.

“You didn’t tell me we
had company,” said a voice behind me.

Jack and Rex had
re-entered the game now. I wondered if they’d slept as much as I had in the
real world. As soon as I’d left Pana, I’d felt an overwhelming tiredness. Then,
after that, I had a yearning to be back in Artemis.

The woman had curly hair
that reached down beyond her shoulders. Her roots were grey, though judging by
her face, she couldn’t have been older than mid-twenties. She wore green
clothes marked by the stains of hard labor. A purse was fastened around her
waist. I opened it and found that only a small ring was inside. It looked to be
made of gold at first. Twisting it in my fingers, I saw that some of the gold
had flaked away to reveal silver underneath.

As I held the ring
between my thumb and index finger, the woman in front of me started to glimmer.
He body seemed to shake, and then it grew faint. It was as though light was
seeping out of her and drifting up into the pale sky above. A few seconds
later, she was gone.

“He has this effect on
women,” said Jack.

I turned and glared at
him.

“Not the time for jokes?”
he said.

I shook my head. Some of
the experience that had levelled me up had come from killing this woman. It
didn’t matter that she was an NPC; that she was a block of code typed by the
weary fingers of a programmer. Everything about Pana felt so real that I
couldn’t help feeling guilty.

***

When we reached the
village again, we found the gates were open. Not only that, but the tracks
around the fences seemed to have disappeared. It was as if someone had taken
care to hide them. As we walked through the village some people stared, and
then turned away as if to pretend they hadn’t seen us.

One of the shacks in the
village was bigger than the rest, and I guessed that this must belong to their
leader. I knocked on the door and then stepped back. A few seconds later it
opened. An old woman, taller than her doorframe, stared back at me.

“Cat got your tongue?”
she said.

“I need to talk to you.”

“And I’ve got as much
need for that as a Burr has for a bathtub. Get lost.”

I stared at her. The old
woman was taller than me. She wore a robe that covered her arms and legs, and a
shirt covered her chest. On her collarbone, where the shirt ended, I saw part
of a tattoo.

“We need to talk about
the tracks around the fence.”

“Who are you? The
inspector of Artemis?”

“I’m the only person
who’s worked out your secret so far. About what happens at night.”

At this, the old leader’s
face changed. “My name’s Joldemass,” she said. “You better come in.”

I turned around to face
Jack and Rex. “See if you can convince the villagers to trade,” I said. “I
won’t be long.”

The shack was larger
inside than I had thought it to be. Over in the corner a pot boiled above a
guarded fire, and plumes of steam filled the room with a spicy aroma. One wall
was covered with the stuffed heads of animals. I saw Burrs, Crocodiles, and a
few that I didn’t recognize, both from Artemis and the real world. In another
corner of the room, resting on a crudely-made table, was a tooth the size of my
arm. I didn’t even want to l know what kind of creature had a mouth lined with
incisors that large.

Joldemass sat on the
floor. She crossed her arms and stared at me.

“You won’t find many in
the village who will talk to an Eternal,” she said. “And they won’t like you
being in here with me.”

I shrugged. “You’re the
leader, aren’t you? What you say goes.”

“Do you suppose that
we’re savages? I was elected leader. And in 6 months’ time, I need to start
campaigning for re-election. I reckon it’s going to be harder to get votes this
time around. Ever since the incident with Tom’s dog and the well.”

I took the ring out of my
pocket and handed it to Joldemass. The old woman reached out and took it from
me. She turned it over in her palm.

“This belongs to one of
your people,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “We
haven’t had anyone reported missing yet.”

“All the same, it
belonged to a woman from the village. I’m sorry to say that she was caught in a
trap. One that I made.”

Joldemass sighed. “And
you wonder why people don’t like Eternals.”

“What was I supposed to
do? I only realized last night that the night creatures….that they’re…well,
you.”

Joldemass looked so
surprised that she almost gasped. She regained control of herself. “So you
really do know our secret?”

I nodded. “And you better
tell me all about it.”

I settled down on the
floor as Joldemass told her story. It seemed that generations ago, the people
of Dostooth lived in a city many miles north. It was a thriving place, with
markets, blacksmiths, and a castle. The land around the city held many
resources, with lots of gold, coal and, if you dug deep, diamonds. Not all was
good, though. As well as being rich in natural resources, the land around was
also home to numerous creatures.

Once every few days, a
city dweller would be attacked and killed by one of the creatures that lived
not too far away. The mayor of the city sent part of the city guard to wipe out
all the creatures in the area. But no matter how many of the beasts they
killed, it seemed that double the amount appeared within a few days.

It was then that a
mysterious man arrived at the city gates. Dressed in a tattered robe and
leaning on a staff, he hobbled through the streets and up the castle steps. He
demanded an audience with the mayor.

“Why did the mayor live
in a castle?” I asked.

Joldemass glared at me.
“The last king was overthrown decades before. And the mayor wasn’t a man to let
a castle go to waste. Now, let me finish.”

The man was a wizard, he
told the mayor. And the creatures were his. He’d keep conjuring them and
ordering them to attack the city dwellers unless they paid him tribute. He
wanted half of everything the city found and produced. If not, he would keep
growing the numbers of his creatures, until there would be enough to overrun
the city.

Backed into a corner, the
mayor had no choice. For years, this arrangement kept the people safe. The
problem was that because they had to give away half their resources, the
prosperity of the city was fading. Exasperated, the mayor took a chance. He
paid a travelling rogue to find the wizard and kill him.

It turned out that the
rogue worked for the wizard. Incensed at the mayor’s betrayal, the wizard sent
all his creatures to the city gates and ordered them to attack. The battle that
followed was short, because the city guard was few in number. Only a dozen of
the city dwellers escaped. As they fled the steely gates, the wizard placed a
curse on them. Although they would escape with their lives, there would be a
blight on them and any generations that followed.

“And how long ago was
that?” I said, when she had finished speaking.

She looked at me in
silence for a few seconds, and then spoke. “It has been at least a hundred
years since Helder and the others fled the city.”

“Wait. Helder?”

“He was the mayor of the
city, and he founded Dostooth.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

That was it, then. Helder
was the man who founded the village, and he was cursed like all the others.
Since the events leading to the curse had been his fault, that meant only one
thing. The curse of the villagers was Helder’s Bane.

Quest Updated –
Improve the Villagers’ Opinion of You

- You must cure the
villagers of their curse.

When I left Joldemass’
shack, I found Jack and Rex trying to convince the trader to deal with them.
The large man stood in the doorway of his shop with his arms folded. As I
walked over to the, I heard Jack sigh.

“Forget it,” he said.
“It’s no use.”

I explained to my party
what Joldemass had told me. Rex and Jack seemed in agreement with my
conclusion. The curse of the village had to be Helder’s Bane, and that meant
that we had to cure it. It seemed strange that the competition was worded in
such a way that we had to ‘find’ Helder’s Bane. I knew that the programmers of
Pana loved to deal in tricks and riddles. Finally, we were getting somewhere.

“What now?” said Jack.

I shrugged. “We need to
find the source of the curse.”

As we discussed where to
do, I noticed someone stood next to a shack just beyond us. They seemed to be
pressed up against it, as if they were hiding. When they noticed I was looking
at them, they sloped away.

Awareness increased
by 20% - 40% until level 2.

Just then, the door of
Joldemass’ shack opened, and the old woman towered in the doorframe.

“Go north,” she said.
“I’ve put a lot of trust in telling you our secret, and now you must help us.
The wizard is long dead now, I believe. But it is said that he bound the power
of his curse in a gem.”

“And where is this gem?”
I asked.

“In a dungeon, many miles
north. There are two ways to get there; the easiest direction is ten miles
north-east, and then over the Swinging Bridge. It’s the longer route, but it is
the safest.”

“There’s a short cut?”
asked Rex.

Joldemass nodded. A
necklace around her neck shook. “There is a quicker way, along the Grey Plains.
But it is full of creatures that are too strong even for a party of Eternals.”

***

It needn’t be said that
with a scout, a gambler, and an animal-taming barbarian, we weren’t the most
combat-focused party. With that in mind, we decided to take the bridge. It
would take us longer to get there, but it was preferable to risking a respawn by
travelling the creature-filled plains.

It was midday by the time
we reached the swinging bridge. Jack complained that his feet hurt, while Rex
bore the miles in silence. When we reached the bridge, though, I realized there
was a lot more to complain about than Jack’s dainty feet.

The Swinging Bridge was
ahead of us, though there was no way we would be crossing it. The bridge was
made up of planks of wood fastened together by rope. The ends of the rope were
tied to rocks on either side of the bridge. Once, it would have allowed us to
pass. Now, though, there was no chance.

I looked on in dismay as
I saw that the bridge ropes had been cut. The bridge still lived up to its
name, but rather than swinging side to side, it swung vertically. The ties on
our side had been severed, ruining it.

On the other side of it,
jeering and waving at us, were the Star Horizon party. I realized that among
them was the figure I had seen hiding against the side of a shack in the
village. They had been spying on us, it seemed, and they had managed to reach
the bridge before us. Ever the good sports, they had cut the ropes to make sure
we wouldn’t cross.

I turned to Jack and Rex.

“What now?” asked Jack.

“We don’t have a choice,”
I said. “We have to risk the Plains.”

“We’re going to die,”
said Rex.

I nodded. “From the way
Joldemass described the plains, that seems likely. So, we can’t go yet.”

“We don’t have much
time,” said Jack.

“True,” I answered.
“Before we do anything else, we need a respawn rune. I haven’t come all this
way just to end up back on the mainland.”

Quest Received –
Get a Respawn Rune.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

We made our way back to
Dostooth, killing a few Burrs along the way. We found the villagers busy with
their day to day activities. Two men fetched water from the well. A group of
female hunters dragged the limp body of a cow along the dusty ground, trailing
blood behind them. Our presence didn’t seem as offensive to the people of
Dostooth now. They weren’t exactly warming to us, but at least they didn’t run
into their shacks and slam their doors shut.

Jack used his Lucky Day
skill and successfully increased his charisma. His idea was that with increased
powers of persuasion, he’d be able to convince the local trader to deal with
us. We had looted gold from the men in the tavern, and we had various hides
from the forest creatures we’d killed. If we were lucky, we’d have enough to
trade for a respawn rune.

The trader was a bearded
man. He had long grey hair that swept down to his shoulders. It was so thick
that were he in the real world, he could have found work modelling in shampoo
adverts.

Despite Jack’s increased
charisma, the trader was unimpressed. “Joldemass said we’re not to deal with
you yet.”

I looked at the tag above
his head. His name was Gendark Penny Pincher.

“Listen Gendark,” I said.
“I don’t know if Joldemass told you, but we’re going to help the village. We’re
setting out today to try and break the curse.”

“Lots have tried that,”
answered the trader.

“Yes, but were any of
those people Eternals, like us?”

Gendark thought about it.
“You’ve got a point.”

“We need a respawn rune.
Otherwise, we can’t do it. Come on, just trade with us. It only has to be a
one-off, and we won’t tell anybody.”

Gendark beckoned me
closer to him with his hand. When I was a foot away from him, he leaned in and
whispered.

“You’re going to find the
gem, aren’t you?” he said. “That’s the only way to break the curse.”

I nodded.

“Well, I’ll trade with
you. But here’s my condition.”

“Wait for it,” said Jack.
“Here we go.”

Gendark ignored my
friend’s sarcasm. “When you find the gem, don’t destroy it. Bring it back here
and give it to me.”

“What are you going to do
with it?” I asked.

He looked at me like I
was stupid. “Sell it, of course. I’m a trader, not a philanthropist. I believe
in the laws of supply and demand. Right now there’s a big demand around here of
not turning into a creature at night. The only thing I don’t have is a supply.”

I thought about it. There
was no way we could go on without a respawn rune, but it didn’t make sense to
find the gem and give it to the trader. Helder’s Bane was the curse, and we had
to end it.

I looked him in the eyes.
“You’ve got a deal,” I said.

Gendark gave me a big
smile. “Then come inside and see what I’ve got.”

Gendark turned and went
into his shack. As I went to follow him, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned
to see Rex.

“We can’t let him exploit
these people,” he said.

“Relax. We’re not
actually going to give him the gem. As long as he thinks we are going to, he’ll
trade with us.”

“That’s disingenuous.”

“That’s life. Or that’s
Pana Reborn, at least. Now come on. Leave your morals outside the door for the
time being.”

Looking through Gendark’s
wares was a disappointment, but we found what we needed. As well as plenty of
potions and swords, he had two respawn runes for sale. The problem was that
they cost much more GD than we could afford, even if we added our animal pelts
to the trade.

“Any chance of a
discount?” said Jack.

Gendark shook his head.
“I’ve risked my arse just letting you in here. What do you want from me, the
world on a platter?”

We left the trader’s
shack without a rune. I knew that if we spent time hunting and collecting
pelts, then eventually we’d have enough to trade for a rune. The problem was
that we didn’t have the time for that. Star Horizon were already miles ahead of
us.

“Hang on,” said Rex.
“I’ve got it. Give me all our GD and pelts.”

“What are you doing?” I
said.

“Just trust me.”

I handed the items to the
barbarian. With that, he disappeared in the direction of the shack with a book
sign outside it. While we waited, Jack turned to me.

“Have you heard from
Francis?” he said.

I shook my head. “I left
him a message before we set out, but he didn’t return it.”

“I’m worried about him.”

I sighed. “Me too.”

Ten minutes later, Rex
came back. Not only did he return without our items, but his armor was gone,
and he was dressed in nothing but a loincloth. It wasn't a pretty sight.

“Have you changed class?”
asked Jack. “I didn’t see stripper listed as an option.”

Rex had a book in his
hand. He held it up for me to see. “And people say barbarians have no charisma.
Well, I managed to get the bookseller to trade. This is a book on crafting. If
I read it, it’ll level up my crafting skill.”

“Great, you can make us a
table. It’ll go nicely in our alcove,” said Jack. “Why don’t you make a rug,
too? I hear they really tie the room together.”

Rex smiled. “And I also
bought this.”

He held up a sheet of
paper. It was colored blue, and it had a series of white lines scribbled over
it.

“This is a blueprint for
a respawn rune,” he said.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Back at the shelter, Rex
spent an hour pouring through his crafting book. After that, he sat with the
respawn blueprint in front of him. For some reason, he seemed shy about working
while we watched, and he wouldn’t start until we left him in peace.

I spent my time making
traps to replace the ones we’d used in the last night wave. I placed them in
strategic positions around the shelter. They had worked as a method of defence
once, but I knew that I’d have to keep replacing them.

Finally, Rex was
finished. He strode over to us and then stopped. He held something above his
head, and his face beamed with pride.

“Voila. One respawn
rune.”

“Rex Alpha, the crafting
barbarian,” said Jack.

“Rex Alpha, the guy who
saved our skins,” answered Rex. Then, realizing what he had said, he added:
“And don’t say the ‘Alpha’ part of my name. It’s stupid.”

We set the rune on the
wall of our shelter. Jack had spent his time digging it out. He didn’t have the
mining skill, so he had only carved a little more space for his efforts, but it
was something. The rune was a deep blue, and it had black markings on it. As
soon as Rex pressed it against the dirt wall of our shelter, the rune made a
chiming sound.

Base Gained – Level
1

I couldn’t help but smile.
With the rune in place, we finally had an insurance policy. I still didn’t want
to die in Artemis, since it would set us back 8 hours, but at least now we’d
respawn in our base.

“We can’t just call it
base,” said Jack, leaning against a wall. A spray of dirt fell onto his
shoulder. “We need a name for it.”

I thought about it. “How
about the Terence Pierce Home for Shipwrecked Artemis Scouts?”

Rex shook his head.
“Father has entire hospital wings named after him. He doesn’t need anything
else to stoke his ego.”

“I was joking. But I do
have a name,” I said.

“Go on,” said Jack.”

I cleared my throat.
“Okay. How about we name it Gossard?”

Jack laughed. “You just
can’t get enough of that place, can you?”

“It’s a home away from
home,” I answered.

With Gossard officially
designated as our Artemis base, we unlocked a rune slot. With each level our
base attained, we would unlock more slots. Runes could be inserted into these,
and they would offer us all kinds of effects. I knew from my forum reading that
some runes granted health regeneration while you were in base. Others restored
mana. The different kinds of runes were endless. First, though, we needed
someone who could make them.

“According to the
crafting book,” said Rex, “I can make a base rune. In essence, it’s just a
worthless piece of stone. We’d need someone with magic skills to enchant them.”

We spent the next hour
customizing Gossard. In some ways it was like getting a new toy, and we were
all excited about the possibilities of what we could do to it. Rex crafted a
canopy for us to lay over the top, which would help us stay hidden, as well as
protect us from rain. Whilst he worked, Jack and I dug out as much of the walls
as we could, adding an extra few meters of space. So far it was still smaller
than a Dostooth village shack, but we were getting somewhere.

We were getting ready to
set out again, when I noticed more tracks around Gossard. With my tracking
skill, I knew that these footprints were fresh. They were made by an animal
rather than a person. Again, the tracks were spread in such a way that it
looked like something had circled around our base for hours.

“We better see what it
is,” I said. “If it’s dangerous, I want to deal with it. Eventually we’re going
to have to start leaving items in Gossard. I don’t want some wild animal
getting in and destroying everything.”

“Remember when dad got a
puppy?” said Jack. “We couldn’t leave it alone for an hour without it chewing
everything in sight.”

I remembered our dog,
Bowser. Dad had brought it home a month after Cal joined our family. Cal had
problems settling in, and he seemed too shy to talk to us. Dad had bought
Bowser to give him a friend to care for, and to try and make him feel more at
home. The two of them had been best friends. Then, five years later, Bowser had
run into the road outside our house, straight into the path of a school bus.

We followed the tracks
around our base. Since they ran in a circle, it was hard to keep track of them,
but as I looked at the ground carefully, I began to make out the path. The
footprints led away from Gossard and then went just west. Then they seemed to
follow the stream for a while, before stopping at a small cave cut into a giant
boulder.

The mouth of the cave was
dark. I peered in, wondering if I’d see a pair of feral eyes staring back at
me. I was ready to go in, when Rex joined me at my side.

“I better go first,” he
said. “I have the animal-tamer skill, remember?”

“We don’t know what’s in
there. You can’t tame everything.”

“Well if it’s dangerous,
then I should still go first. I have more hit points than the two of you.”

“Finally, you’re thinking
like a barbarian,” I said.

He shook his head. “Not a
barbarian. Just smart.”

Jack and I watched as Rex
approached the cave. He seemed to hesitate at the entrance and then, taking a
breath, stepped into the darkness. I stood and listened. I heard a shriek come
from inside the cave. I wondered what kind of animal had taken sanctuary in
there, and why it had chosen to run laps around Gossard. Then I heard Rex talk,
only he wasn’t using words. He was using his Animal Tamer skill and responding
to the creature in kind. Jack sniggered at the different howls and shrieks Rex
made from within the cave.

Ten minutes later, the
barbarian stepped out of the darkness and into the light, but he wasn’t alone.
At his side, trotting along the ground, was a Burr. It was small, and it looked
either young, or under-developed. When it saw me, it hissed and raised its
tail. I realized that it was the young Burr that I had trapped two nights
earlier.

The creature stretched
out its tail. Its whole body shook, as if it was filled with nervous energy. I
knew what was coming next. Its tail would glow, and then a fireball would shoot
at me. I went to move out of the way, when I realized that nothing was
happening. The Burr was clearly trying to incinerate me, but nothing would
come.

“It’s defective,” said
Jack. “Do you still have the receipt?”

“It fell in the stream,”
I said. “But I thought it was dead. I’m sure I got exp for killing it.”

“Well clearly not,” said
Rex. “It’s scared, that much I know.”

“The stream must have
extinguished its tail,” I said.

Looking at the Burr, I
felt sorry for it. It didn’t matter than just two nights ago it had tried to
turn me into fried scout; it was my fault anyway. I was the one who had trapped
it, after all. And then I shook the thought away. This was an NPC. It was lines
of code spewed out by the Pana Reborn servers. It was ludicrous to feel empathy
for it.

All the same, I couldn’t
help the pang of guilt I felt. Damn those programmers. Why’d they have to make
everything here so lifelike?

“What do we do with it?”
I said.

Rex stared at me as if
the answer was obvious. “I’m keeping him,” he said.

Chapter Thirty

With the creature
trailing alongside Rex, we headed back to Gossard. The Burr gave the stream a
wide berth, having already experienced the pain of water. Back at base we made
a nest for Rex’s eagle egg. He was building quite a stable of creatures. I
wondered if our sleep would be interrupted from here on by Rex shrieking and
chirping at his menagerie of pets.

There was a surprise
waiting for us when we stepped into our shelter. On the ground, tucked up
against a wall, were three gleaming bottles. Red liquid was inside them. I
picked one up and smelled it.

“Healing potions,” I
said.

“They might be poisoned,”
answered Jack, looking at the bottles warily.

“I don’t think so,” said
Rex. “There’s a note.”

A piece of paper was
tucked under one of the bottles. I picked it up and read it aloud.

“Donated by a
subscriber,” I read.

I’d asked aloud for
subscribers to send things to me a couple of times, but I hadn’t thought
anything would actually happen. I brought up the Pana forum interface and found
a section dedicated to gifts from subscribers. It seemed that now we had a
base, items could be sent there by people watching our feed.

Not only that, but I
found a different forum thread where people in the real world were talking
about us. It seemed that people were placing bets on us. Some of them staked
money on the premise that we wouldn’t survive the next night wave.

“You better look at
this,” I told Rex and Jack.

After a few minutes, the
gambler and barbarian stopped reading.

“Interesting,” said Rex.

“I just put a bet on us
surviving the wave,” said Jack. “Might as well make some money while we’re
here.”

“Anything you win should
be transferred to your in-game inventory,” said Rex. “We need the money.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “I
was saving up for a motorcycle.”

“You still need to pass
your test. But if we find Helder’s Bane,” I said, “I’ll buy you anything you
want.”

The sky was darkening,
and I realized that much of the daylight had been stolen from us. We’d been so
wrapped up in base building and finding the Burr that we’d lingered in camp for
too long. It was too late to set out for the Grey Plains now, and it was much
safer to weather the night wave in Gossard.

As we waited for night to
fall completely, I turned to face Rex. He was sat against the wall of the alcove.
The Burr was next to him, with its lion-mane head on his lap.

“Come on,” I said. “I
think it’s time you told us the deal with you and Terence.”

“I told you, I hate
talking about it.”

“There’s not much else to
chat about around here.”

Rex huffed. “Fine. You
want to know why I hate my father? It’s simple. He drove my mother away. He
thought that because he’s rich he can do anything he wants, so he slept around.
Mother got sick of it and left, and now I only see her once a week. When she
went, father lost his patience with me. Told me I take too much after mother,
and that I needed to be a man. So, whenever I can, I do something that I know
will piss him off. And if he’s watching now, he’ll be angry. Believe me.”

“Why?” asked Jack.

“Because I took the
herbalism skill. He’ll hate it. He’ll say it’s not the skill a barbarian should
take.”

We lapsed into a silence,
and gradually, we began to doze off. I don’t know how long I shut my eyes for,
but I was awoken by a howl that pierced through the stillness of the evening.
The wave was here.

This wave was tougher
than the last. It seemed that the wave creatures held onto memories from
previous nights. We found that they approached Gossard in greater numbers. We
stayed sheltered in our alcove as they shrieked all around us, and we waited it
out.

One by one, I heard my
traps snap, and a jingling sound played in my ear as I gained experience.
Despite the traps catching some of their numbers, the wave creatures wouldn’t
be deterred. When the snapping of traps stopped, I knew we’d have to get out
and fight. The creatures were prowling too close to us now, and we couldn’t
afford to get stuck in the base.

I found it hard to
believe that all the creatures that came at night were from the village. The
population of Dostooth simply wasn’t large enough to support such waves. That
meant that the wizard, whoever he was, had cursed more than one city in his
lifetime. What a swell guy.

Rex, his pacifism
weakening by the hour, unsheathed his sword and swung at everything that moved.
Cal used Lucky Day, cheering as he made a successful toss and increased his
strength and agility. I held a weapon in my hand. This was Death Bringer Mark
3. It was still a sharpened stick, essentially, but Rex had crafted it for me.
With his workmanship, it at least resembled something that could do damage.

After the traps had done
their work, we were left with four wave creatures to deal with. Sticking close
together, we parried their blows and struck our own. We fought until sweat dripped
from our brows. I tasted my own salty perspiration as I struck out again and
again with Death Bringer.

As the night wore on, I
thought that our battle would never end. And then Rex swung his blade for a
final time, and the creature in front of him collapsed onto the floor. After
that, we were alone.

Fatigued and sick of
fighting, we walked back to the alcove and settled down, each of us hoping that
no more creatures would attack. An hour later, the sun began to crest over the
trees, and I knew that we’d made it through another night.

Level up to level
4!

- HP increased to
158

- Stamina increased
to 173

- 2 attribute
points gained

Awareness increased
to level 2!

Through making and
placing traps, I’d also upgraded my trapping skill to level 4. This meant that
each trap was easier to make, and they dealt more damage when they snapped.

I thought back to my
first night in Artemis, where I was alone and without any equipment. Now we had
a party, a base, and a pet – even if the Burr hated me. We had all levelled our
skills. and it felt like we were making progress. Now we just needed to beat
Star Horizon to Helder’s Bane.

Next to me, Jack stirred
from his sleep. Without even saying good morning, he pulled up the forum
interface. I saw his sleepy face turn into a smile, and then he stood up and
punched the air.

“I’m 235 GD richer!” he
said.

I now had 4 attribute
points left unspent. I loaded one into strength, since it was obvious I’d be
doing more fighting than I’d anticipated. The other 3 I spread evenly in my
agility, endurance and intelligence attributes.

As I checked that my
points had taken effect, I noticed something. Our subscriber count had
increased from 22, all the way to 523. We were obviously doing something right.

I stood up and stretched
my legs. Despite the sleep I’d managed to snatch after the wave, I still felt
tired. I had to shake it off though. The hard work was only beginning.

Chapter Thirty-One

“Clive! Get back here.”

I left the alcove and
walked to the top of the hill. Waves crashed against rocks on the shoreline
behind me. The tide dribbled over the beach and drenched the sand. There was a
salty taste in the air. Across from me, near the tree line of the woods, Rex
clomped around.

“What are you doing? I
called out to him.

He turned. “Clive keeps
running away.”

“Who the hell is Clive?”

He crossed his arms. “The
Burr needed a name.”

I wandered over to help
him catch the creature. I wasn’t fond of keeping it as a pet, but I felt a
certain responsibility for it. I remembered how I had watched the rest of its
pack shoo it away. As if things weren’t bad enough for the animal, I’d then
trapped it and ended up extinguishing its fire. I decided that we owed it a
little help.

As I walked a few yards
into the woodland, I found Clive resting against a tree. Every so often he’d
move his head a little and peek out, trying to get a look at Rex. So, he wasn’t
running away, then. He was playing a game. When Clive saw me, he straightened
up and hissed at me.

I stopped. “You attacked
me, remember?” I said. “Technically I didn’t hurt you; I just stepped out of
the way when you ran at me.”

Clive hissed again.

“Fine,” I said. Then I
turned to Rex’s direction.

“He’s over here.”

As the morning sun
started to warm the air, we sat on the hill above our base. Jack looked tired,
whereas Rex seemed full of energy. His Burr sat next to him eating forest nuts
from his hand.

“We need a map,” I said.
“Otherwise, we’ll be wandering Grey Plains aimlessly.”

“Most games let you start
with a map,” said Rex, pinching a nut between his thumb and index finger. Clive
eyed it with hunger.

“And we would get one
too, if we were on the mainland. Artemis was made as a challenge. We need to
get a blank map, and then we can start to fill it in as we go over the plains.”

“Why are we still doing
the village quest?” asked Jack. “We’ve already got the respawn rune.”

“I’ll take this one,”
said Rex. He looked at Jack. “Helder’s Bane isn’t an object or a thing; it’s
his curse. He was one of the wave creatures, cursed by the wizard. To win the
competition, we have to stop the curse.”

“Okay,” said Jack. “I get
it now. Listen, when I was in the tavern basement, I could hear every
conversation in the bar. The floors were thin, but their beer was good. Anyway,
I overheard two people talking about a ranger’s hut near the plains. He was a
Grey Plain ranger, but he hasn’t been seen in a while. There’s bound to be a
map in his hut.”

“And he’s near the
plains?” I said.

“Apparently.”

I nodded. “A map that’s
already been filled in could save us a hell of a lot of time. We need every
second we can get.”

Quest Received –
Get a Map!

Rewards:

- A map, of course!

- 20 exp

I got to my feet. I felt
full of energy and ready to go. Before we set out, we took a health potion
each. I constructed some mobile traps for the journey, and I tucked Death
Bringer Mark 3 into a loop in my trouser waist.

Trap increased by
15% (85% until level 5)

With our equipment ready,
we set out in the direction of the village, and beyond that, the Grey Plains.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“You know, they really
didn’t do this place justice back in the village,” said Jack.

We had found the Grey
Plains North of Dostooth. The woods seemed darker this far out. It was as
though the trees spread their branches purposefully to blot out the weak rays
of sun. Two miles beyond the village, after a detour caused by a thatch of
thorn-filled bushes, we found a house. It was made from cobble stones, and it
was supported by wooden poles. Grass seeds had been planted on the roof, and
weeds covered it.

I went inside. I found
cobwebs draped across shelves, and furniture covered in mold from years of
abandonment. There wasn’t much to loot in there. Two wooden barrels stood in
the corner. Jack smashed them. To my amazement, I saw GD coins inside. Aside
from that, the only things of use were a stamina potion and a crafting book
that, when read, would increase Rex’s skill by 50%.

While the woodland near
Dostooth had paths worn by the repeated journeys, the closer we got to Grey
Plains, the fainter they seemed. Finally, the pathways disappeared. I got the
impression that we were in a wilder part of Artemis now. We walked by a tree
with a trunk dotted by arrow holes. In one section of the forest we saw a
lantern on the floor, though it was partially buried by mud.

The forest around us
darkened further. From somewhere deep in the forest there was a knocking sound,
but I couldn’t tell the direction. I began to feel as if something was
following us.

We pushed on until
finally we saw a break in the trees. We stepped through it, leaving the
woodland behind. Ahead of us was a vast plain of grass.

“This can’t be it,” said
Jack.

I knew what he meant. We
were looking for Grey Plains, a place that Joldemass had said was full of
danger. The fields before us were the opposite. They were so picturesque, they
could have been used in an advert for a country holiday. The grass crested into
hills, and the sun shone down and nourished it and cast a golden glow all
around. Flowers of all different colors sprouted up.

Looking further, I saw
wild hares and rabbits bounding over the plains. Birds swooped and dived,
before gliding to branches of trees and stopping to sing a song. The smell of
pansies and jasmine was in the air.

“We must have taken a
wrong turn,” said Rex. Clive bunched up next to him, and the barbarian rubbed
the Burr’s head. “The only danger we face here is falling asleep under the sun
and having a nap. We’re lost.”

“No,” I said. “My
tracking increased on the way here, which means we were going in the right
direction. This is the start of the Grey Plains, alright. It’s just not how the
old woman described. Jack, where’s the ranger’s hut supposed to be?”

The gambler put his hand
to his forehead to block out the sun. He turned west, and pointed. “Somewhere
that way, I guess.”

We walked west for thirty
minutes. At first I was glad of the sun, but after a while it’s incessant rays
starting to make me too hot. The chirping of the birds increased in volume
until their songs were so loud that I could hardly think. Sweat pooled on my
forehead, and when we came to a stream, I was glad to have a short break.

“I need a drink,” I said,
walking over to the running water.

Stood above the stream, I
saw that the water surface was so clear that I could see my own reflection. The
face staring back at me was clean and healthy, with not a scratch on it.

Something wasn’t right. I
was spending my days walking through forests, and my nights sleeping in a
dirt-walled alcove. There was no way my face could be this clean. I lifted my
right arm up and rolled up my sleeve so that I could see my skin. My stealth
tattoo covered most of my forearm. When I raised it up so that I could see my
reflection in the stream, the tattoo didn’t show.

Jack walked over to the
stream and kneeled. He cupped his hands into the stream, gathered some water
and brought it to his face.

I turned. “Don’t drink
it,” I told him.

He looked at me. The
water fell from his hands and down to the stream.

“Something isn’t right,”
I told him. “Things aren’t what they seem.”

“What do you mean?” said
Rex.

I looked at the barbarian.
He’d sold his armor back in Dostooth and had seemed content to just wear his
loin cloth. Jack and I weren’t as comfortable with the sight. We’d made him cut
some of the base canopy and fashion it into something he could wear.

“Where are your skill
tattoos?” I said.

“One on my thigh, another
on my back,” he answered.

“Okay, I don’t really
want to see your thigh.” I beckoned him over. “Come and have a look at this.”

When I showed Rex how my
tattoo didn’t appear in my reflection, his eyes widened.

Awareness increased
by 25%! (75% until level 3)

The landscape didn’t seem
so picturesque anymore. The sky started to darken around us. It was covered by
a mean-looking grey cloud that was bulging and looked ready to burst. The hills
became more jagged, and the grass became a sick yellow color and only covered
the plains in patches. The hares and rabbits stopped bounding up the hill and
instead crawled up it like insects. I realized that they had turned into
overgrown spiders. This was a land of decay, where everything was grey and
mean.

“Sorry I doubted you,”
said Jack, looking at the dreary landscape. “This is more like the place.”

I didn’t know what was
going on, but someone, or something, hadn’t wanted us to see the true nature of
the Grey Plains. I wondered what would have happened if I didn’t have the
awareness skill? Would the picturesque mirage have led us into danger?

I looked at the stream in
front of me, and I saw that it spat and bubbled as if it was filled with acid.
Just a moment ago, it had seemed clear and still. If Jack had drunk from it,
he’d be clutching his throat in agony.

“This is a spell,” said
Rex. “Someone cast an effect on the place to make it seem nicer. But the amount
of mana you’d need to keep up an illusion like that…Listen, Columbus. I think
we need to be very careful. There’s someone around much, much more powerful
than us.”

We found the ranger’s hut
beyond a hill that rose in a triangle shape. The hut itself was made of wood
that had been battered by the weather. A green mold covered it. Vines twisted
over the walls, though I couldn’t see where they came from.

I held Death Bringer in
my hand. Jack held a stick of his own that Rex had fashioned for him, while the
barbarian brandished his sword. Looking at my pathetic weapons, I decided that
we needed to tool up. I was never going to be much of a fighter, but I could at
least give the impression of one.

“I’ll push open the
door,” I said. “Then I’ll step aside. You two be ready for whatever comes out.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

There was an evil taint
to the air around the hut. A sour smell came from somewhere, though I couldn’t
see the source. Something had happened here.

I took a trap out of my
bag. Using Sneak, I walked toward the hut door. I placed the trap a few feet
away from it. The plan was that when I pushed the door, if someone came running
out they would head straight into the trap. Rex and Jack could then finish them
off.

I crept closer until I
was just an inch away from the door. The smell was worse now. It became less a
sour odour and more of a rotten one. I silently cursed the Pana coders for
including such realism in the game.

With the utmost
concentration, I gripped the door handle. It whined as I turned it. I stopped
for a second. Certain nothing moved inside, I twisted it all the way and pushed
open the door.

Then I stood back. Behind
me, Jack and Rex had a better view of the doorway.

“Anything?” I asked.

Jack shook his head.

The ranger’s hut wasn’t
occupied by anything living. Stepping inside, I saw that the ranger himself was
on a wooden table. His arms and legs were spread out wide so that he formed a
cross shape, and red markings were drawn on the wood around him. His skin was
completely grey, as though he had been turned to stone.

The rotten smell didn’t
come from the dead ranger. His body was now made of rock. Instead, the odor
came from a row of shelves in the corner. Something that had once been food had
long-ago begun the process of rotting, and had turned into a mushy mess.

Various books on
outdoorsmanship lined another shelf. I saw tomes dedicated to horticulture,
zoology, and a guide on which berries were poisonous. At the end of the row of books
was one titled ‘Tracker’s Delight’ by  L. I. Coolio. It was an advanced
guide to tracking. I took it knowing that if I ever found the time to read it,
it would increase my skill.

“Delightful,” said Rex,
behind me.

I turned to see that he
was looking at a giant stuffed bear that stood in the corner of the room. Its
glassy eyes stared at us. Its muscled arms were fixed in a pouncing position,
and its claws gleamed.

“You know what they say,”
said Jack. “You’re never alone when you have a giant, stuffed, grizzly bear.”

Suddenly, Clive stepped
back and hissed. The Burr raised its tail so that it was taut, and it seemed to
be aiming its tip at the bear.

I wasn’t one for ignoring
warnings, and I remembered the transformation of the world outside. “We better
leave,” I said.

“What about the map?”

“I can’t see it anywhere,
can you?” I asked.

The bear in the corner
began to shake. Its fur started moving as if it was crawling with thousands of
ants. The light around it glimmered, and then its muscles began to expand,
changing shape as if they were made from jelly.

And then it moved. The
creature stepped in front of the doorway, blocking our exit. A haze gathered
around it. I gripped Death Bringer, ready to stab it into anything that moved
toward me. Fog rose in the air and filled the shack.

When the smoke cleared,
we found that we were alone. Adrenaline pumped through me. I looked around. The
bear was gone, but nothing had been left in its place.

Clive broke free from
Rex’s grasp and bounded out of the shack. I heard the Burr shriek as it left
us. I went to the doorway and watched as the animal sped across the plains. It
didn’t need to go far.

Just ahead of us, fleeing
with more of a hobble than a run, was an old man. He wore dirty robes, and he
had a pointed hat that was bent out of shape. He seemed to hunch over as he
fled from us. Just as he reached the base of a jagged hill and began to climb,
Clive leapt on him and brought him to the ground.

Chapter Thirty-Four

“I didn’t mean to do any
of it,” said the old man.

We’d dragged him back to
the shack. At first I was angry with him. When he saw us, his face drained
white with fear. He wheezed as he struggled to get his breath. He looked as if
he had seen at least eighty years. The expression of panic on his face was
enough that I’d taken pity on him, and I let him sit down.

Even without reading the
label above his head, he was obviously a magic user. Not ones to ignore
stereotypes, the makers of Pana had given him a robe and wizard hat. The only thing
missing from the ensemble was a staff. I looked at his name.

Vinetwest –
Illusionist Level 67

“Did you kill him?” I
said, looking at the ranger.

The wizard shook his
head. Every movement he made seemed exaggerated, as if his whole life was a
play where he had the starring role. He faced my question and shook his head
from side to side.

“I found him like this, I
swear. I just wanted somewhere to live. That’s why I changed the plains to look
nicer.”

“And the boiling stream
outside? I suppose you didn’t mind us drinking from it?”

He looked at the ground,
and I was sure I saw a sneer cross his face. I wasn’t buying his act.

“If you found him like
this, why’d you leave him here?” I said. “I can understand you wanting shelter
for a while, but who in their right mind would do it with a dead body in the
room?”

“It felt wrong to move
him,” said the wizard.

“You’re full of it,” said
Jack. “Let’s kill him.”

The wizard held up his
hands. I saw that his palms were covered in tattoos. His left showed a symbol
of an hour glass, and the right showed a mirror. I wondered what they meant.

“Wait,” he said. “I can
give you a map. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“How’d you know that?”

“I followed you. I was
one of the hares on the hill.” The wizard reached into his robe. I stepped
back, expecting him to pull a weapon, but instead he brought out a roll of
parchment. He handed it to me.

“This should be what
you’re looking for.”

I put the map in my
pocket. Jack looked at me. “What do we do with him?” he said.

Despite the wizard’s
tricks, I didn’t have the stomach to kill him. Forest creatures were one thing,
but the Pana coders had made the NPC people too lifelike. It didn’t feel right
to kill the old man in cold blood.

“If we ever see you
again,” I told him, “We won’t be so forgiving.”

With that I turned and
walked toward the shack door. Then I stopped. Something didn’t feel right. I
couldn’t tell what it was, exactly, but it was as if some instinct inside me
was trying to warn me. I knew that it was my Awareness skill trying to tell me
something.

I took the map out of my
pocket and turned around. The wizard had a pleasant smile on his face. I held
the parchment up.

“This isn’t the map, is
it?” I said.

He arched his eyebrows.
“I assure you it is.”

I was certain now. The
wizard was trying to trick me again. Just as I had the thought, the parchment
started to burn in my hand. I threw it to the floor. Steam rose from it and
formed the shape of a skull in the air, then quickly dispersed.

“What the hell was that?”

Vinetwest sighed. This
time he spoke, but his accent was different. His face took on a disinterested
expression. “Bloody hell,” he said. “You just won’t bugger off, will you? It
was a curse, if you must know.”

Awareness level up
to level 3!

-Enhanced sight
gained!

Clive hissed and raised
his tail. Rex held his sword in his hand. Vinetwest looked at us, and he must
have known that even with his high level, the odds were against him.
Illusionists didn’t have much attack power.

“Fine. Take this then,” said
Vinetwest. “I’ve had enough of you anyway. But I’ll be seeing you later. Don’t
you worry about that.”

With that he clapped his
hands. Like a pantomime magic trick, smoke rose in the air and filled the
shack. I coughed as I breathed it in. When the fog finally cleared, I saw that
Vinetwest was creeping away.

He turned to me, and
shrugged. “Did you think I’d just vanish? I might be magic, but I can’t do
everything.”

The wizard started to
sprint away with a speed that I hadn’t thought him capable of. I thought about
giving chase, but I knew that I didn’t have the time. As he fled away on his
stumpy legs, I thought that my trap would get him. Seeing it, he leapt over it
and then fled into the distance.

Quest Complete –
Get a Map!

Rewards:

- A map, of course!

- 20 EXP (45 until
level 5)

Chapter Thirty-Five

From studying our new
map, I found that there was a different route through to the dungeon where the
curse gem was. It was a river that started near our shelter. It cut through the
forest and seemed to run under a chunk of rock, where it emerged two miles
north of the Grey Plains.

“It means going back,”
said Jack. “We’ll lose time.”

“But if it bypasses the
plains, it means we don’t have to deal with whatever creatures are waiting. I’d
rather take a diversion than risk a respawn.”

Rex looked at the map. He
stood with his hand on his chin and tried to look dignified, but his canopy
clothes made him look ridiculous. “I can craft a raft,” he said.

“Really?” asked Jack.

Rex nodded. “It won’t be
great, but it’ll get us across the river.”

Rex put his hands down at
his side. Clive trundled over to him and licked his fingers.

“That thing’s becoming
more like a dog every day,” I said.

Rex stroked his Burr on
the head. “Man’s best friend,” he said. The Burr looked at him affectionately,
then turned its head and glared at me.

Three hours later we’d
made it back to shelter, and Rex had gathered enough wood from the forest to
craft a raft. We floated it out onto the river and then carefully climbed aboard.
The wood dipped into the water under our weight, but it held firm.

We followed the river
from our shelter. I had a long piece of wood in my hand, and I used it to row
us along. A rain cloud gathered ahead and then spat down on us, and the drops
made rivulets in the river. I saw fish glide by us and disappear.

As we made our way along,
the river widened, and eventually I saw the rock formation in front of it. True
to the map, there was an opening cut through the rock, and the river flowed in
that direction. It looked pitch black inside. I didn’t relish having to trust
the raft to take us through the cave, but we had little choice.

Just before we reached
the opening, I heard something behind me. It sounded like the gentle splashing
of water. I turned around, and I was sure I saw a dark figure swimming under
the surface, twenty feet in our trail. No sooner had I seen it, then it
disappeared.

Tracking increased
by 25% - 50% until level 3

“Did you see that?” I
said.

Jack looked around and
then shrugged his shoulders. I thought it might have been my imagination, but I
hadn’t received a tracking boost for nothing. Something was following us.

“Be on your guard,” I
said.

Whatever it was, it was
gone now.

***

After sailing through the
rocks, we finally emerged on the other side. We steered the raft over to the
river banks and climbed off. I stepped onto land, glad to be away from the
water.

According to the map, we
had bypassed the Grey Plains. I looked around. We found ourselves in a valley
surrounded by mountains to the north, west and east. The hulking masses in the
distance gave the landscape a bleak feel. Birds swooped in the sky, though they
were so far away that they just looked like dark blots. I didn’t see any other
signs of life around us.

We found the dungeon an
hour north, beyond a vast lake with murky green waters. I was reminded of the
figure I’d seen in the river. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something
had been trailing us, but I hadn’t seen any sign of it for hours.

The dungeon was cut into
the side of a hill. The grass around it was yellow. The opening seemed to be
cut into the shape of a giant mouth, with jagged rocks jutting out to look like
teeth.

Jack was the first to
approach it. He reached the entrance and stared into it, resting his hand on
one of the rock teeth.

“Something stinks,” he
said.

Sure enough, when I
joined him at the entrance, I got the faint whiff of a rancid odour. Jack
opened his mouth to speak, but I put my hand up.

“Wait,” I said. “Listen.”

A sound met us at the
dungeon entrance. It sounded like something growling, though its faint volume
made me think that it must have been far away. Clive took a step back and
raised his tail.

“Keep him quiet,” I said.

Rex stroked the Burr.
“I’m not a dungeon expert or anything,” he said. “But I don’t think we’ll get a
welcome party when we go in there.”

I stood back. “It doesn’t
make sense for us all to go bounding in. I’ll go in first. I have the Sneak
skill, so if I’m careful, I can have a little look around before you guys join
me.”

“Really?” said Jack.
“Remember when you snuck out to a party, and Dad caught you trying to get back
in the house because you knocked over a trash can?”

He was right. I was
grounded for a month for that stunt. I was pretty sure Dad started trying to
smell my breath for alcohol for years afterwards.

“Well, that was real
life. This is Pana. I’ve got lighter feet than the two of you.”

With my friends in agreement,
I walked into the dungeon alone. As soon as I stepped into it a chill hit me,
and I felt the darkness gather around me. Some light would have been good, but
for now, I wouldn’t risk it. The daylight outside gave me a dim guide, and I
knew that carrying a torch was a sure way to draw attention to myself. Besides,
I was only going to scout it out.

I followed a tunnel that
ran north. The dungeon smelled of dirt, and I heard water drip from the roof
above. I couldn’t help feeling that the entrance of the dungeon really was a
monster’s mouth that I had willingly walked into.

I went forward some more.
The growling sound was louder now, and I sensed that something was nearby. I
crouched down.

Sneak skill
levelled up to level 2!

Just a little further, I
told myself. So far, I hadn’t come across anything of note, though it was
obvious that creatures were nearby. I took a few more steps forward, and soon I
saw that the tunnel forked into 3 directions.

I tried to move forward,
when I banged my head on something in front of me. I stood back. I couldn’t
understand it. There was nothing in front of me that should stop my progress.
What was going on?

I tried to move forward
again, and I felt something hit my nose. It was as though there was some kind
of invisible barrier. I reached out and tapped the air in front of me. My
finger tip pressed against something solid, and the space in front of me
shimmered and gave off a blue light.

Joining my friends back
outside the dungeon, I found them playing fetch with the Burr.

“That was quick,” said
Jack.

“There’s some kind of
magic barrier in there. I couldn’t get through it.”

“Did you see anything
else?” asked Rex.

“The tunnel goes in three
directions after a while. Other than that, nothing.”

“Any hostiles?” said Jack,
tossing a rock over Clive’s head.

“Just the growling that
you heard. I didn’t see anything, though.”

I leant against the stone
wall of the dungeon opening. If it was a mouth, I didn’t care anymore. Let it
slam shut.

“We’ll need to bring
someone else on board,” said Rex. “Someone who can use magic.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

I thought about it, and I
didn’t like it. “I’m reluctant to add another person to split the prize money
with.”

Both Jack and Rex looked
at me now.

“You mean I get my own share?”
said Jack.

“Of course. Did you think
I was just going to leave you with nothing?”

He folded his arms and
looked at the ground. “It’s just, well, with Ledfield Tours, I don’t usually
get a share. So, I just figured…”

He was right. I couldn’t believe
it hadn’t occurred to me until now. Ever since he was fourteen, Cal had helped
us out with the business. He’d come on every tour, no matter if it was hot
enough to fry eggs or cold enough for us to shiver our….

No. I knew the word that
my brain wanted to say, but I wouldn't repeat it.

“Testicles,” I blurted
out. The word seemed to echo around us.

Rex looked at me, then at
Jack. “Something I should know about?”

“I just hate how we
always say ‘nuts’ when we mean our testicles. Anyway, you’re right. You’ve
always been there for the company, and I haven’t given you much back in
return.”

Jack held his hands out.
“Don’t worry, I’m glad to help.”

“The minute we leave
Pana, you get a raise. And then I’m going to look into making you partner. When
we win this competition, you get a cut of the cash. We need to buy the Gossard
Forest license first, of course, but we’ll split what’s left between the three
of us.”

“The three of us?” said
Rex.

“Did you think we’d leave
you out?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I just
assumed since my father is loaded, and that you didn’t want me here in the
first place, I wouldn’t get anything.”

With this, he looked down
at the ground, and for the first time, I got a sense of how lonely he was. His
father’s wealth had isolated him from most people. Rex was a guy sorely in need
of friends. As if reading my thoughts, Clive stuck his rough tongue out and
gave Rex’s hand a lick.

“That’s enough
sentimentality to last me a year,” I said, moving away from the wall. “Now, we
need someone with magic to help us through the dungeon barrier. We can pay them
a set fee, rather than cut them a share. If we use an NPC, we should be okay.”

I unravelled the map.
Much of the landscape around us was just desolate grass. The pattern was broken
every so often by a hill or rock formation. Then I saw it. A few miles north, a
wand symbol was on the map.

“It’s either got
something to do with magic,” said Jack, “Or it’s a shop that sells the world's
tiniest pool cues.”

***

We set out North toward
the wand symbol. We’d lost more daylight than I liked, and I knew that Star
Horizon would be around here somewhere. For all I knew, they were in the
dungeon, and they were the ones who’d made the barrier.

Sure enough, we soon came
across evidence that they’d camped out in the area. Two grey rocks were on the
grass. In the middle, there was a circular pile of ash from where they’d lit a
fire. I saw that the grass was littered with cigarette butts that the party had
just flicked onto the ground.

In my research, I had
come across plenty of articles about the presence of cigarettes in Pana Reborn.
Some said that they were bad enough in real life, why have them in the game?
The problem the makers faced was that since players generally stayed in Pana
for hours at a time, they were losing a lot of the smoking crowd as
subscribers. Most smokers found it tough to go half a day without their
favorite weed. Consequently, the programmers had coded cigarettes into the
game, complete with an authentic taste and smell. The concession they had made
was that in-game cigarettes would not be visible or available to minors. Their
legal ground was rocky.

“You better see this,”
said Jack.

He handed me a note. Part
of it was scorched by fire, but none of the text had been touched. I held it in
front of me. The wind flapped at it, but I pinched the edges tighter and read.

‘Ellis,

Believe it or not, I
have better things to do than watching your feed every hour of the day. For the
money I gave you, I expect a return. And I demand updates. Don’t make me cancel
your subscription.

If my son and his
friends find Helder’s Bane before you, consider our business relationship
terminated.

Terence’

I felt a lump form in my
throat. Anger built in me so that I tuned everything else out around me. Rex
looked at Jack, then and me.

“What’s going on?” he
said.

“You look like your
head’s going to explode,” said Jack.

The old bastard had
double-crossed us. Not only that, but he also had some kind of connection with
Star Horizon out of the game. This meant he’d betrayed me in real life, too.
So, in that respect, he’d double-double crossed us. Or quadruple crossed us,
whatever the best way of saying it was.

“Is someone going to clue
me in?” said Rex.

I screwed up the paper
and tossed it at him. He caught it. “Your dad’s a standup guy,” I told him.

I fought to keep control
of my face. I had no idea which of my subscribers were watching right now. For
all I knew, Terence himself was tuning in. I wouldn’t let him, or anyone else,
see that something like a note could get to me.

I didn’t have to wait
long for a distraction. As Rex read the note and I adjusted my inventory bag on
my bag, I heard hooves. They came from the direction of the wand symbol.

“Get ready,” I told my
friends.

I held Death Bringer in
my hands. If Star Horizon were galloping toward us, my weapon would be useless.
These were non-PVP lands, and I knew that some kind of magic barrier would stop
me hurting another player.

Instead, I saw that just
one person came our way. As their figure loomed into view, I saw that it was a
woman. She wore a grey robe with blue stitching. Her hair was brown, but it
seemed to turn purple when the light hit it a certain way. She’d cut one sleeve
of her robe off to show her shoulder and neck. Starting from under her chin and
stretching down beyond her shoulder, her skin was burnt.

When she was five meters
away, she pulled her horse to a stop. The animal snorted. The woman reached
into her robe and pulled out a wand the size of her forearm. Grooves had been
cut along its length, little notches that presumably signified something.

“You better tell me who
you are and what you’re doing here,” she said.

Suddenly, we heard
someone shout from way beyond the woman. Matching it was the sound of hooves,
but more of them this time.

“Forget the explanations
for now, then,” said the woman. “You can probably see that I’m in a hurry.”

Riders appeared in the
distance. They were too far away for me to see in much detail. They wore robes
like the woman’s, except they hadn’t cut their sleeves away.

I looked at the woman.
She put her wand away and gripped the reins of her horse. Her name hovered
above her head.

Gabriella Grimm –
Witch Level 34

“If you don’t want to
meet my family – and trust me, you really don’t – we better get moving,” she
said.

“There’s a dungeon a few
miles south,” said Jack.

“I know it. I’ll meet you
there,” said Gabriella. She whipped the reins of her horse, and sped off.

I looked at the riders.
Their horses kicked up dirt as they pounded along the grass. It was clear that
these people were chasing Gabriella. I didn’t trust the witch, but I didn’t
want to stick around to find out what the riders' intentions were.

“We better get going,” I told my friends.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Not long after, I found
myself in Terence Pierce’s office. At first, his receptionist was reluctant to
let me in without an appointment. I thought that, from looking at my face, she
could tell the struggle I was under to keep my anger contained. Flashing me a
wide smile, and looking at me with concerned eyes, she picked up the phone.

“Mr. Pierce, I have a
___”

“Chris Columbus,” I said.
“I mean, Ledfield.”

She looked at me confused
for a second. “I have a gentleman here to see you.”

She put the phone down.
“He’ll be a few minutes,” she told me.

I crossed my legs. “Are
you sure the phone is plugged in?” I said.

The receptionist acted as
if she hadn’t heard me. On the wall to my left, a clock ticked. I crossed my
arms. I needed to get back to Pana as soon as I could, but I knew it would be
another seven hours, at least.

After following Gabriella
Grimm to the dungeon, we’d hidden in the darkness while her pursuers went by. I
was about to ask her what the hell was going on, when a message had flashed on
my screen.

Warning – You must
take a break.

As much as I was starting
to think every second out of Pana was time wasted, I knew I didn’t have a
choice. Leaving my friends, and the witch, in the dungeon entrance, I logged
out. This time, though, I didn’t go to my apartment for a sleep. Instead, I went
straight over to Terence’s office. I had a lot to talk about with the old man.

A door opened across from
me, and Terence stood in the doorway. He was dressed in beige trousers and a
pink polo shirt. He looked as if he was ready to leave for a round of golf.

“Chris,” he said, putting
his hand out for me to shake it. “I didn’t expect to see you for a while yet.”

Ignoring his hand, I
walked by him and into his office. A new picture frame had taken space on his
wall now. It was a framed article from the Aldon Courier. It was about an
announcement Terence had recently made to the press. The old man was planning
on investing in a start-up in Silicon Valley, which aimed at creating another
rival to Pana Reborn.

“My new venture,” said
Terence, beaming with pride.

Three monitors had been
set up on his desk. One of them was attached to his computer. The others didn’t
seem to be connected to anything, but I heard sounds come from them.

Terence tapped one of
them. “I like to keep your feed open while I work,” he said.

“And let me guess; you
keep Star Horizon’s feed open on the other monitor.”

Terence sighed. “You
better sit down.”

“I’m fine where I am,” I
said. “What the hell is going on, Terence? Tell me you’re not funding Ellis
Taunton.”

Terence leaned forward.
“My son believes everyone should be on a level playing field,” he said. “He
thinks that people with wealth shouldn’t use it to crush the people beneath
them. He’s an idealist.”

“I thought you said he
was a jock.”

“There was no point me
telling you the truth. I was trying to teach him a lesson, and you were part of
that.”

I gritted my teeth. “And
what lesson is that?”

“Think about it, Chris. I
funded you, and gave you a leg up over the other players in the game. Then I
funded Star Horizon’s entry into Pana, but I gave them even more money than I
gave you. You’ve got guts, and I knew that my son would see that. I was trying
to show him that it doesn’t matter have big your cojones are. There’s always
someone with more money, and they will use it to destroy you.”

For a second, all I could
think was ‘cojones. That’s a much better word than nuts.’ Then I shook
the cojones away.

“That’s the only reason
you helped me? To teach your son a lesson?”

He shrugged. “You came to
my office for an investment, and I saw an opportunity to straighten my son out.
What’s wrong with that? If you find Helder’s Bane first, it’s win-win.”

“You haven’t made it
easy,” I said. “Ellis is being a real pain in the ass.”

“We’re not enemies,
Chris. I just like winning. It doesn’t matter to me if you win it, or if Ellis
and his team do. I’m funding you both, so I have a hand on the prize either
way.”

I wished I could give him
back all his money. I could have found a different way to fund my entry into
Pana. I could have sold things from my apartment, I could have gotten a
personal loan rather than a business one. Or maybe I could have just paid for
subscriptions, and taken the public ships to the island. It made me start to
feel sick. No matter what my motives, by using Terence’s money I had added to a
problem that was becoming the scourge of the gaming community.

Real life was pay to win.
Sure, everyone knew that. Greed is good, and all that kind of thing. Games were
supposed to be an escape from that. In worlds like Pana, everyone was supposed
to have a chance, no matter what their circumstances.

I looked at Terence. I
suddenly despised him. I hated his ego, I loathed his articles on his wall.

“Rex is a better person
that you’ll ever be,” I told him. “And I don’t care how much money you’ve given
Star Horizon. Because we’re going to beat them. When we do, you’ll see that
money isn’t everything.”

***

When I got back to my apartment, things seemed different. It
had used to be a sanctuary for me, but now all I could think was how drab the
colours were, and how small the rooms seemed. It was the strangest feeling.
Nothing compared to Artemis, I realized. It was a world so full of colour and
excitement, and even danger, that with every second away, I missed it.

I looked at my watch. I
still had six hours to go before I could re-enter the game. I knew that Jack
and Rex would be taking their breaks too, and I wondered if they were as
anxious to get back as I was.

Before I went to bed, I
looked at my answer machine. The red light was lit, and the display told me
that I had a message. I hit play, then settled onto my sofa, moving a crushed
beer can out of my way.

‘Chris, it’s Dad. I’ve been thinking about the lawsuit. This
woman isn’t going to quit, and we can’t afford to be bogged down in a court
case. Hell, we can’t even pay a decent lawyer. I think we should use some of
the company reserves to settle. Anyway, give me a call when you can. I’ve tried
calling you a few times – are you ignoring me?’

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Welcome back,” said
Gabriella.

I logged back into Pana
and found myself in the dungeon. It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the
darkness. Gabriella was sat against a wall, and her horse was spread out on the
floor next to her.

I decided to ignore
everything that had happened out of the game. Terence’s betrayal, my dad’s
message. Brooding on those things wouldn’t help me. The only thing I could do
was to find Helder’s Bane and beat Star Horizon.

“Are you going to tell me
what’s going on?” I asked the witch. “Who was chasing you?”

“That’s my family,” she
said.

“And why were they
looking for you?”

“It’s a long story, and I
don’t want to talk about it.”

I thought about Rex and
his father issues, and how it had taken him a long time to open up. “Yeah, I’ve
been hearing that a lot,” I said.

A few minutes later, both
Rex and Jack joined us. Gabriella left her horse by the entrance, and gave it a
soothing pat on the head. We walked forward through the dungeon until we came
to the magic barrier that had stopped me earlier.

I pressed my hand out and
touched it. The air in front of me shimmered. “Think you can get us through
here?” I said.

The witch paused. “Why
are you here, anyway?”

“I’ll explain everything
later,” I said. “We’re pushed for time.”

“You’re Eternals, aren’t
you?” she said.

While the Dostooth
villagers had said 'Eternals' with contempt, Gabriella seemed more interested.

“We are,” I said.

“My uncle lived on the
mainland for a while,” said the witch. “He said you often go into places like
this looking for loot. He said you’re all obsessed with it. He also told me
that you keep smashing barrels everywhere you go, expecting coins or potions to
be inside. Pub landlords don’t dare leave their barrels out. Some places are
kept hidden for a reason, you know. This barrier wasn’t put here by accident;
it’s here to keep people out.”

“Does that mean you won’t
help us?” I said.

She smiled. “Hell no, it
doesn’t mean that. It means I want to see what’s so important in this dungeon
that they went to the effort to stop people getting in. I’ve always wanted to
come here, but my family forbade it. I guess I don’t need to listen to them
anymore.”

“Amen to that,” said Rex.
I looked at him, and I felt sorry for him. My dad had always been supportive of
me, even if he’d pushed me into running the family business. Rex’s father, on
the other hand, was a stubborn, selfish old goat.

Gabriella took a few
steps forward and stood in front of the barrier. “Stand back,” she told us.
“When this breaks, it could sting a little.”

I noticed that as she
worked, she muttered to herself in a language I couldn’t understand. Though I
couldn’t pick out the words, from the tone of her voice I was sure that she was
swearing. She moved her arm, and I saw her burnt skin stretch out. I wondered
what could have caused such scarring.

After a few minutes of
cursing, she closed her eyes and placed her palms flat out on the barrier. The
wall of light rippled. Gabriella tipped her head back and let out a scream that
threatened to poke holes in my eardrums. Not only did it fill the space around
us, but it broke through the magic barrier and then continued down the dungeon.
It must have woken up every creature within a mile.

“Was that really
necessary?” said Jack.

Gabriella looked at the
gambler. “And what else would you have me do? Throw cards at it?”

“I don’t know,” said
Jack. “Maybe use some kind of magic lockpick?”

With sneaking out of the
question now, we had no choice but to move forward. The original plan had been
that I would walk in front of the group and use my sneak skill to get close to
any enemies. Given that our witch had just screamed out our arrival, we opted
instead to have Rex at the front. He wasn’t happy about it, but he had the most
HP and damage resistance.

When we stepped through
the gap where the magic barrier had been, I expected more of the same. Cramped
passageways where the dirt fell from the ceiling and trickled down my collar.
Cold walls and an airy draught.

Instead, the rest of the
dungeon had an altogether more lived-in look. The walls had been dug out wide
enough that two of us could walk side by side. The roof was cut into an
archway, and the walls and ceiling were tiled over with a stone mosaic.

Gabriella muttered what I
was sure was another curse word in her language. A small fire started to
crackle in the palm of her hand. It then started to unravel and grow larger,
before finally, it was big enough to light the area around us.

“So, we’re looking for a
gem?” said Jack.

I nodded. “Joldemass said
the curse was bound up in the gem, which the wizard hid in this dungeon. Since
Helder was cursed along with the rest of the villagers, it makes sense that his
bane is wrapped up in this gem.”

“Wizards, curses, and
gems,” said Rex, almost to himself. “It all seems a bit too obvious.”

“This is a fantasy game,”
I answered. “The makers of Pana have used tropes that the players will be
familiar with. There’s a reason that so many different games all have levels,
experience, hitpoints.”

“Don’t you just wish there
could be something new?” said Jack. “You know, something groundbreaking?”

“If I was writing the
game,” I said, “Or a fantasy book for that matter, I’d be a hell of a lot more
original. Whoever wrote this quest needs to go back to the drawing board.”

I realized that as we’d
been talking, Gabriella had stayed quiet. I knew that she was an NPC, so she
was programmed to ignore conversations that referred to Pana as a game. I
wondered if the words went into her head and were stored there somewhere, or if
she just blocked them out.

“Gabriella?” I said.

The witch looked at me. A
look of scorn was coded onto her face.

“Do you know you’re in a
game?” I asked.

The witch stared at me
blankly.

“Columbus, what are you
doing?” said Rex.

A few seconds later, and
the witch still hadn’t answered me.

“Never mind,” I said.
“Let’s carry on.”

We had taken the path
that branched from the left after stepping through the barrier. None of us had
a dungeon map, so it made sense to start with the first path and see where it
went. As it turned out, it was a single tunnel that stretched out for almost a
mile. I was beginning to think that there was no end to it, when finally, I saw
a light in the distance. There seemed to be an opening.

Rex started walking
toward it. He took a step forward, when we all heard a click.

“What was that?” I said.

Rex turned around. “I
just stepped on something.”

“A trap,” said Gabriella.

I didn’t understand. “I
have the Trap and Awareness skills. I should have been able to sense it.”

I didn’t have time to
brood over my lack of foresight. The tunnel was filled with the sound of
something scuttling along the floor. I looked beyond Rex, but it seemed that
the pathway was clear. I turned and looked behind us, but again there was
nothing there.

Gabriella held her hand
up in the air. The flames flickered and cast orange light up on the ceiling
where I saw the source of the sound.

From along the corridor,
dozens of insects were crawling along the roof, upside down.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

They looked like
cockroaches with wings. They had talons that stuck out of their sides, and the
ends were pointed and looked a damn sight sharper than Death Bringer. The
dozens became twenty and then thirty, and their number seemed to have no end.
The scuttling sound increased until it was all I could hear. If we tried to
fight them in the corridor, it would be useless. We barely had space to swing
our weapons, and the creatures would just swarm us.

I pulled my inventory bag
around to my chest and unzipped it. “Start running toward the opening,” I told
my friends.

“What are you doing?”
said Jack.

I pulled a trap out of my
bag and fastened it against the ceiling. “I brought ten or so with me. It won’t
get them all, but it’s something. We need to find open space to fight them.”

My friends ran toward the
light at the end of the corridor. I followed them, stopping every few seconds
to pull a trap from my bag and fasten it to the ceiling. I tried to ignore the
sounds of the insects’ feet as they crawled along the roof. I found that I had
packed 1 more trap than I thought, so when I finished, eleven of them awaited
the creatures.

With that, I turned and
joined my friends at the end of the corridor. When I reached the section where
the tunnel widened, I stopped dead.

A trap slammed shut
behind me and a message told me I’d earned 10 EXP points, but I ignored it. The
sight in front of me was far more demanding of my attention. I could tell my
friends were similarly transfixed.

Gabriella let out a long
swear word. “GARAGH.AL.GAMARAH,” she said.

I didn’t know what the
words meant, but I assumed that they fit the situation. “Garagh al gamarah,” I
agreed.

The tunnel opened into a
room with the dimensions of a cathedral interior. The roof reached thirty feet
into the air, and wooden beams ran across it and supported the earth above. I
couldn’t understand how it could be so high. As we’d walked through the
dungeon, it hadn’t felt like we were going deeper underground. Perhaps the
tunnels ran down a gentle slope, so that we didn’t even notice our descent.

Although the room was
grand in proportion, someone had gone to great lengths to make it homely. A
sofa made from wood and hay took up a portion of what I took to be a living
room. Canvases covered the walls, though the artwork looked like it was done by
someone who struggled to hold the brush. There was a fragrant smell to the air.
It reminded me of visits to my grandmother’s house, where every available
surface had a tray of potpourri.

At the far end of the
room was a cauldron with space underneath it for a fire. Smoke rose from it, so
I assumed it had recently been lit. In the centre there was a wooden table. It
rose ten feet off the ground, far too high for a person to sit around it.

“Anyone else feel like
we’ve stumbled into the BFG’s house?” said Jack.

“Who’s the BFG?” asked
Rex.

Jack opened his mouth to
explain, but I cut him off.

“Forget it,” I said.

From the size of the
furniture it seemed that way. I wondered how on earth a giant would have gotten
into the dungeon in the first place. Whatever lived here, it was bigger than
us.

“Look for the gemstone,”
I told my friends.

Just as we started our
search, I heard someone whistle. The melodic tune seemed to come from the
farthest corner of the room. A figure suddenly appeared, and when they stepped
into the light, I saw that it was a werewolf. His body was a hulking mass of
muscle covered by coarse fur. His claws scraped on the floor as he walked,
though the nails were shorter than I’d expected. The wolf had an apron tied
around him. In his hands, he carried a pan. Steam rose from the top of it.

The wolf walked in,
whistling. He stopped when he noticed us. I clutched Death Bringer, painfully
aware of what little good it would be in a fight with this creature. Gabriella
clenched her fists, and her lips moved silently. I didn’t need to be a lip
reader to know that the words she mouthed weren’t suitable for children. Rex
looked at me, as if asking what to do. Clive shivered by his side.

The wolf’s eyes widened.
He looked at us, and then his mouth opened and he let out a scream. He opened
his hands and dropped his pan onto the floor, where it smashed. Steaming liquid
spread out over the floor.

The wolf ran his claws
through the fur on his head. “Look what you made me do.”

I held my hands up in a
placating gesture. I had seen so much in Pana that a talking werewolf wasn’t so
strange. “We didn’t come for trouble,” I said. “We’ll leave.”

A flood of messages
appeared in front of me.

10 EXP Gained!

10EXP Gained!

10EXP Gained!

10EXP Gained!

Level up to level
5!

-HP increased to
170

-Stamina increased
to 184

-2 Attribute points
gained

The EXP must have been
from my traps in the tunnel. I wondered if they would deter the rest of the
insects, or if they would flood down the corridor. But if that was the case,
surely we’d have seen them by now?

“What are you doing here
in the first place?” said the wolf.

Jack was the one to
answer. “We’re looking for a gemstone.”

The wolf sighed. “Let me
guess. Someone directed you to this dungeon.”

I nodded.

Before I could say
anything, the wolf interrupted. “I bet it was Joldemass. She’s always sending
people here. This is number 1 Yorrel Dungeon. You need number 2.”

On hearing ‘number 2’, I
turned to Jack. This was exactly the sort of immature thing he’d laugh about.
Instead, he looked disinterested. Okay, I had to admit that this was becoming
surreal. A talking werewolf was one thing, but one who kept a clean home was
something else.

“Go back down the
corridor until you reach the three pathways,” said the wolf. “Take the one in
the middle. That’s #2.”

The five of us retreated
from the werewolves living room, barely able to believe what had happened. We
stepped back into the corridor, looking around us for signs of the cockroaches.
Aside from the corpses stuck in my traps, the tunnel seemed insect free.

“Hold up a sec,” said
Jack. “I’m going to use Coin Flip.”

Rex didn’t seem too
pleased. “Hang on-”

Before the barbarian
could finish his sentence, I felt something change inside me. I brought up my
character sheet and saw that my endurance and strength stats had doubled. It
gave me a temporary increase in my hitpoints and attack power.

Rex’s face turned red.
“You need to stop doing that without asking,” he said.

We carried on until we
were back near the entrance of the dungeon, where the magic barrier had been.
This time we took the middle tunnel. This one was much less maintained that the
first. Part of it was tiled, but the tiler had evidently grown bored halfway
through. Soon, the roof and walls surrounding us were made of mud. The earthy
smell was so thick that it clung to my nostrils, and drops of water fell on us
as we walked.

In front of us, Rex
stopped.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Rex nodded at Clive. The
Burr next to him had stopped. His body had become rigid, and his tail stretched
up into the air.

“He can sense something,”
said Rex.

“We better think about
this,” I said. I walked over to the Burr. Determined to make friends with it, I
patted it on the head. “Thanks for the warning, Clive.”

The burr huffed and
turned its head away.

“I’ve had it with you,” I
said. “What’s your problem? You attacked me, remember? I just defended myself.”

Although it didn’t make a
sound, the air of contempt from the animal was obvious. The more I thought
about it, the more I realized that it was right. Although self-defense was a
convenient excuse, none of this was the Burr’s fault. I’d trapped it so that I
could start a fire. The poor thing must have been scared out of its mind. When
it came down to it, I was no better than Ellis Taunton and his Star Horizon
party.

I kneeled in front of
Clive. “Listen,” I said. “I’m sorry, okay? You’re right; it was all my fault.
You’ve given a good argument and, well, I’ve seen the light. It was my doing.
But you’re with us now.”

Gabriella turned to Jack.
She whispered to the gambler, but I heard her. “Is he alright?” she said.

Jack rolled his eyes.

I straightened up. I
looked at my friends. “The gemstone isn’t far away. I’m going through on my
own.”

Rex was going to protest,
but I cut him off.

“I have to try sneaking,”
I said. “They already know we’re here, but they’re expecting a group. If I go
on my own, I’ve got more chance of sneaking by the insects.”

“What if something worse
is there?” said Jack.

“Then you’ll see me come
sprinting down this corridor,” I answered.

Chapter Forty

I found myself walking
down the tunnel alone. It narrowed the further I went. I heard water run down
the muddy walls, and a breeze blew from somewhere and made my face cold. I took
slow steps, crouching down to make sure that I couldn’t be seen or heard.

When I finally came to
the end of the tunnel, I saw that it opened up into a larger room. This one was
smaller than the werewolf’s house, and much less aesthetically pleasing. There
were no canvasses on the walls, nor had anyone made a sofa out of hay. Instead,
I saw four giant cockroaches, each one occupying a corner of the room. In the
centre, in their eye line, was a pale blue gemstone.

There was nothing for it.
We couldn’t go back, and it wouldn’t have done much good to bring the rest of
my party here with me. Even with Gabriella, we still weren’t the toughest of
groups.

I took my first step onto
the floor of the room. In my head, my footsteps sounded agonisingly loud. I
stopped. My heart thudded in my chest. Looking around, I didn’t see any sign of
movement from the cockroaches.

Sneak increased by 15%
(85% until level 3)

Having Sneak level 2
muted my steps somewhat. I just needed to keep a cool head. I took one step
after another, constantly looking around me to see if the insects stirred. For
every foot further into the room I got, the sense of being trapped grew. I was
reaching the point of no return, I knew. If I got to the centre of the room and
the insects noticed me, I would be stuck.

I heard something fall
from the ceiling. I looked to my left and saw mud crack away from the roof and
fall onto the husk of one of the cockroaches. The insect stirred, and I heard
its rake-thin limbs crack as it shifted position.

I froze in place. I was
convinced that it would see me. Slowly, I lowered myself even closer to the
ground. I focused on the gemstone and crept toward it.

When I almost reached it,
a message appeared on my screen so suddenly that it gave me a shock.

Sneak increased by
15% (70% until level 3)

I was so tense that I
almost gasped, but I stopped myself in time. I really needed to review my game
settings when I got a chance. It was all well and good getting notices of skill
improvements, but there were times when I didn’t need my anxiety heightened by
flashing text.

Finally, I reached the
gemstone. A blue light glowed from it, though the stone itself was so smeared
with dirt that the effect was drowned. I almost started to clean some of the
mud off it, but I stopped when I realized that the resulting stronger light
would alert the insects.

With a thudding pulse, I
put the gemstone in my inventory bag. Then I saw that something else was on the
floor. I reached out and picked it up.

It was a sheet of paper.
The paper was white, though it was stained in places. The corners were bent,
and it looked as if it had been folded several times.

I wanted to know what the
paper was and what was written on it, but now wasn’t the time. I was about to
put it in my bag, when a voice started to speak.

‘Dear Father,

I write to you with
great anguish…’

I looked around me. For a
second I wondered if someone was in the room with me, but it was clear that I
was alone save for the insects. The voice, then, was coming from the letter.

‘It has been two weeks
since I extended my invitation to you, yet I have not had the satisfaction of a
reply…’

The cockroaches started
to stir. I heard a cracking sound as they straightened their limbs. All four of
them focused on me now, and there could be no doubt that they’d seen me.

‘I have met a woman I
intend to marry, father. And I am the mayor of a city. Surely that, if
anything, will make you proud of me?’

The cockroaches took
lumbering steps toward me now. Any pretence of sneaking was gone, and I knew
that I just had to flee. I started to sprint toward the opening in the room,
when one of the insects crawled over to it and placed itself in front. I was
trapped.

‘No matter what your
thoughts are, I have need of your counsel. Our city is blighted by a wizard,
and I wish to know how to deal with him. If you cannot come to help your son,
then come to help the people of my city.’

The insects scuttled
closer to me. As the letter droned on, its rich voice speaking the words in an
annoying volume, I knew what I had to do. I screwed the paper up into a ball,
aimed at the farthest corner of the room, and then threw it.

As the ball left my hand
and sailed through the air, I heard three last words come from it.

‘Lovingly yours,
Helder.’

The insect at the door
moved aside. It bounded across the room like a puppy playing fetch, its
attention drawn by the letter. The voice that read from the paper had launched
into a ‘PS’ section, but I couldn't hear it well enough to pick out the words.

With the curse gemstone in my bag, I sprinted to the opening
of the room and the ran down the tunnel to join my friends.

Chapter Forty-One

We took the route back
over the river after leaving the dungeon. Rex used his crafting skill to modify
our raft so that it could take the added weight of Gabriella. Although none of
us had said it, there seemed to be an agreement that she was part of our group
now.

The sky was darkening
when the village loomed into view. As we walked toward it, I turned to look at
the witch.

“So, are you going to
tell us?” I said.

“Tell you what?” she
answered.

“Why your own people were
chasing you.”

She looked at the horizon
in thought, as if it would tell her what to say. I was struck with the thought
that she wasn’t a real person, but just lines of code. I wondered if a dialogue
script was loading.

She sighed. “They’re not
really my family,” she said. “I’m an orphan, and I never knew my parents. The
people chasing me buy children and then raise them as witches.”

When she said this, Jack
looked at her strangely. I wondered if he felt a bond with her. After all, he
didn’t really know his parents, either.

“What about the scar on
your shoulder?” he asked. “What happened?”

A sad look took hold on
the witch’s face. “I learned a forbidden spell. I hoped I would be able to hide
it from them, but when I mastered it, the tattoo appeared on my shoulder. When
the grand witch saw it, she ordered the other witches to burn it off my skin.”

None of us said anything
now. The scar tissue on her shoulder was horrible to look at. I couldn’t even
comprehend the barbarity in burning her skin to rid her of the spell.

As we walked, I checked
my character screen. I had 2 attribute points to spend from levelling up to
level 5, so I allocated them to intelligence and agility. Seeing how effective
my traps had been on the dungeon insects had made me want to build better ones.
I knew I needed to be cleverer to do that.

When I looked at my
screen, I saw something else. My subscriber count had leapt up to 1267, more
than double what it had been before.

I adjusted my inventory
bag on my back. The gemstone had added more weight to it than I’d realized.

“I can’t believe Ellis
and the others didn’t pick up on this,” I said. “I expected them to be looking
for the gemstone.”

“They must be looking
somewhere else,” answered Rex. “Do you think we’ve won?”

I nodded. “As soon as we
take the stone to the village and have them destroy it, that must be the end.”

Rex fell back so that he
walked next to Gabriella. The village was closer now. I could see the dim
outline of children running in rings around the well in the centre.

The barbarian looked at
Gabriela. “Think you could teach me some of your spells?” he said.

She shook her head.
“You’re a barbarian. You wouldn’t be able to learn them.”

“We could try,” he said.

“I’m sorry. Sometimes you
just have to accept who you are.”

Rex looked at the ground.
“I wish father hadn’t chosen this class for me.”

I felt bad for him. All
this time, I’d been disappointed with how bad a barbarian he was. Maybe I
should have been more sympathetic. I knew too well how it felt to have your
path set out before you by your parents. After all, I hadn’t been given a
choice outside of the game. I’d always known that my life would be spent
running the family business.

“If you want to learn the
spells, then you can try,” I told him. “Spend your next attribute points on
intelligence. That’ll help.”

Chapter Forty-Two

By the time we reached
the village, a crowd of NPCs were there to meet us. I saw the women hunters
who, days earlier, had been dragging a dead cow across the ground. The leather
worker stood beside one of his outstretched pelts, ignoring his work to watch
us enter the village. The entire population awaited us, and at the head of them
all, was Joldemass. The old woman towered above the rest of the village folk.

“Do you have it?” she
said.

In the corner of my eye,
I saw the trader. I could tell he was trying to get my attention, but I didn’t
look at him. He wanted the gemstone for himself, I knew. I wouldn’t give it to
him. It didn’t matter that he’d pay us for it; I couldn’t let him exploit the
rest of the villagers.

I set my inventory bag on
the ground. All eyes were on me as I opened it up, reached inside and pulled
out the gemstone. Some of the villagers staggered back, as if they couldn’t
bear to be in the presence of the stone that bound their curse.

Joldemass stepped
forward. She took strong strides that belied her age, and I saw that she held a
gold hammer in her hand. She looked at the people around her.

“For generations, we have
been cursed,” she said. “And now this curse will be broken.”

She took another step
until she was in front of the stone. She raised the hammer in her hand.

“From now on, the people
of Dostooth will be free.”

In one strong blow, she
stuck the gemstone with her hammer. The stone cracked and then smashed into
hundreds of pieces. A blue light flooded out and seemed to swim up above us,
before swirling in a circle and trailing off into the sky.

Quest Completed –
Improve the Villager’s Opinion of You

- 60 EXP Gained!
(19 EXP until level 6)

- Dialogue options
unlocked

I waited. With the
gemstone destroyed, that should have been it. I listened out for something, but
I didn’t know what I expected. Would there be a voice telling us that we’d
found Helder’s Bane? Would a message appear?

Instead, there was
nothing. The wind blew through the gaps in the walls of the village shacks, and
the trees surrounding us swayed. Joldemass stepped forward.

“It is time for your
reward,” she said.

This is it, I thought.
This is the end. I couldn’t believe that we’d done it.

Joldemass opened her
robe.

“Woah,” said Jack. “We
didn’t want that kind of reward.”

Ignoring him, she reached
inside and took out a stone. At first, I wondered what it was, but then I
realized that I’d seen something like it before.

“Is that a respawn rune?”
I said.

She nodded. “And you are
welcome to set it in Dostooth. For now, and ever more, you are honorary members
of our village.”

I didn’t know what to
say. This was wrong; we’d found the cursed gemstone, and now it had been
destroyed. What was going on?

Jack was the first to
speak. “No, no, no,” he said. “Don’t try and fob us off with a rune.”

Joldemass looked
confused. “This is what you seek, is it not?”

“A pebble?” said Jack.
“No thanks. What gives?”

“I don’t understand,”
said the old woman.

I sighed and took a step
forward. “We’re here for Helder’s Bane. That’s why we came to Artemis. I
thought that his bane was the curse.”

One of the villagers
stepped forward. He was a short man with large hands, and he wore his hair so
long that it reached down beyond his shoulders.

“Helder was one of us,”
he said. “But the curse was not his bane.”

“I don’t understand,” I
said. I looked at Joldemass. “Who is this guy?” I said, nodding at the man with
long hair.

“He’s the bookseller,”
said Rex.

Joldemass walked forward
and put her hand on my shoulder. “I fear you have gotten the wrong idea. Helder
was cursed, like us, but the curse was not his bane. Helder became a wicked man
in his age, and he grew to love his curse.”

“You’re saying we did all
this for nothing?” said Jack.

Joldemass held up the
respawn rune. “As I said, this is your reward.”

“And like I told you,”
answered Jack. “We don’t want your pebbles.”

The bookseller was the
first to answer. “I think I understand, now. You came to seek Helder’s Bane,
but I fear we cannot help you. None here know what it is.”

“There must be something
you can tell us,” I answered.

The bookseller reached
into a pouch at his side, and he pulled out a crumpled roll of parchment. He
unravelled it, studied it for a second, and then passed it to me.

I took it from him. The
parchment was a map of the island of Artemis. It was much like the one we’d
gotten from the ranger’s shack, except much more of it was filled in.

The bookseller spoke.
“This will help you find what you seek. And I can tell you one more thing,
too.”

“We’re all ears,” said
Jack.

The bookseller cleared
his throat. “Go where the eyes watch but cannot see.”

Jack scoffed. “We did all
this just to get a riddle from Rumpelstiltskin? I don’t believe it.”

“That is all we can tell
you,” said Joldemass.

I stood in the centre of
the village. I couldn’t help but think that we were further away from finding
Helder’s Bane than ever. My limbs ached, and I needed to sleep.

“Now you must go,” said
the old woman. “The sky turns dark, and the wave creatures will be here soon.”

“But we cured you,” I
said.

Joldemass nodded. “Aye.
You cured us, but the wizard cursed many people in many places. Artemis will
never truly be free of it. There are lots of dungeons, and lots of cursed
gemstones. Perhaps that is why so many Eternals are journeying to our island.”

Rex put his hand on my
shoulder. “We better get back to the base,” he said.

I knew that he was right.
I couldn’t help a feeling of choking disappointment inside me, but I knew that
we had to go. Cursing the programmers of Pana Reborn, I turned to leave the
village.

Chapter Forty-Three

We had precious few hours
until night fell completely. I’d hoped that after breaking the curse of
Dostooth we wouldn’t have to deal with the night waves anymore, but it wasn’t
to be. Rather than brood on it, I decided to get on with improving our base.

Rex used his crafting to
improve the roof, and we dug a ditch around the alcove so that was deep enough
for the wave creatures to fall into. I filled the ditch with traps. This, we
hoped, would be enough to keep us safe. With the new improvements on our base
it levelled up to level 2, which unlocked a second rune slot.

Gabriella used her magic
to craft a rune that regenerated our health and stamina at a rate of 2 points
per second while we were in Gossard. I asked her to make a defence rune for our
second slot. After working for 30 minutes, she approached me with a rune in her
hand. This one was oval shaped, and a green lightning bolt glowed on the
surface.

“Is this just melee
defence, or will it help against other damage too?”

The witch shook her head.
She had a grin on her face. “This is something better,” she said.

Without asking me, she
approached the empty rune slot on our wall and fixed the rune into it. I heard
it click into place, and then text appeared in front of me.

Fast Travel
unlocked.

“This will let us travel
back to Gossard from anywhere on the map,” she said. “It’ll only take seconds.”

That was much better than
a defence rune, I conceded. Our shelter was starting to shape up now. With our
protective ditch in place, Rex spent the last hour crafting better beds for us.
With that done, he made a comfortable area for Clive to sleep in. In the corner
of the base, the eagle egg was nestled in a bed of leaves. It still hadn’t
hatched.

“If we’re going to rest
here from time to time,” said the barbarian, “we might as well be comfortable.”

The five of us – was I
really starting to include the Burr as a core member of our group? – stood in
Gossard and looked around. The base had come a long way from being an alcove
cut into a hill.

“This should be enough to
survive the wave,” I said. “Well done, guys.”

“One last thing,” said
Gabriella. “Hand me that stick you always carry with you.”

“Death Bringer?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes.
“Yes, if that’s what you call it. Sheesh, men and their toys. Pass it here.”

I pulled Death Bringer
from my pocket and handed it to her. Gabriella gripped it in her hands and began
to chant. With each word, the stick started to glow. Finally, little red
scratches appeared along it. She handed it back to me.

“Now it’ll do some fire
elemental damage with each strike,” she said. “If you insist on wielding it as
a weapon, it might as well be of some use.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I only
have it because my character is too weak to handle anything else.”

“Your character?” said
Gabriella.

I released that I’d
broken the 4th wall again. I’d been trying not to refer to Artemis as a game in
front of the NPC, but it was becoming harder not to think of her as a person. I
was about to change the subject, when I realized something. Not only had she
heard me refer to my scout as a character, but she’d questioned me on it. What
was going on?

Awareness levelled
up to level 4!

-Improved hearing
and sight

-See enemy stats

Before I could push the
subject any further, a message appeared. From the looks on Jack and Rex’s
faces, I knew they’d received the same one.

Night is coming –
Prepare for the wave!

Chapter Forty-Four

The air always changed in
the minutes before a wave hit. It thickened, somehow, as if someone poured
tension into the atmosphere and gave it a stir. It made my movements feel
slower, and it spread a chill across my back.

The others could sense it
too. We were in our alcove. We decided that since it had regeneration runes on
it, it would be best to wait out at least part of the wave here. We could
listen out for the damage that my traps dealt. Then, if the wave creatures managed
to get close to us, we could retreat. Cal, Rex and I had dug through part of
the wall so that we had a short tunnel that led out to the beach. Rex had
crafted a crude door from bits of timber and homemade rope. If worst came to
worst, we could always use the emergency route and then fight them on the
beaches.

“At night,” said
Gabriella, “Elder Esrand would cast a glimmer spell over the witch tower. Then
two apprentices would take it in turn to stay up all night and maintain it. My
day was Wednesday. I used to do it with Yyron, an orphan from the mainland. The
light would keep the creatures away.”

“These people,” said Rex.
“You’ve referred to them as family before now, yet sometimes you seem detached
from them.”

“They make us call them
family, but they aren’t. Not really.” said Gabriella. “It’s just hard to forget
something that’s programmed into you.”

“They don’t have wave
creatures where we’re from,” I said.

“You haven’t been to some
of the nightclubs in town, then,” said Jack.

Gabriella had stared at
us while we spoke. There was no more pretense of ignoring us when we spoke
about the outside world. “Where do you come from?” she asked.

A howl cut through the
night. It sounded like a creature, desperate and in pain, screaming into the
air. The noise was so loud that even the wind seemed to stop for a few seconds
and take note.

We looked at each other.
Rex gripped his sword, while I held my enchanted Death Bringer Mark 3.
Gabriella looked worried, but I guessed it had been a long time since she’d
spent a night away from the protection of the witch tower.

I heard the creatures
before I saw them. I listened out and I picked out the sounds of their claws
scraping on the ground. I stood against the shelter wall and I peered out. The
wind had picked up again now, and it blew against my face. The area around me
seemed clear, at first. And then I saw something.

Wave Creature –
Level 23

Wave Creature –
Level 17

Wave Creature –
Level 11

Wave Creature –
Level 19

Wave Creature –
Level 24

Wave Creature – Level
7

Wave Creature –
Level 4

Wave Creature –
Level 5

Wave Creature –
Level 12

The text spread out above
the trees. I couldn’t see the animals that the labels belonged to, but I
watched as the text moved closer toward us. I had hoped that my improved
awareness would allow me to see the creatures better, but it wasn’t to be.
Still, if I could see their names, then at least I knew where they were. Not
that it was of much comfort to me. The twenty names that stalked ever closer
didn’t inspire me with hope.

As the creatures moved
toward Gossard, we waited. There was no sense going out to fight them. There
was little information on the Pana forums about the wave creatures, since the
public ships hadn’t arrived yet. I guessed that was why my subscriber count was
so high. People eager for their fix of Artemis had to settle for watching me.

That meant that, along
with Ellis and his friends, I was one of the few wave creature experts on the
island. I was no David Attenborough, but I’d guessed some things about them. My
main theory, and the worst for us, was that I was sure that the Wave Creatures
had some kind of infinite respawn. They were a feature of the expansion pack,
so it made sense that their numbers were endless. It wouldn’t be good for sales
if they were wiped out a few days after the public ships arrived.

I heard a snap, and then
a howl.

10 EXP gained!

10 EXP gained!

Level up to Level
6!

-HP increased to
189

-Stamina increased
to 200

-2 attribute points
gained

My traps started to snap
and crack as the wave creatures wandered into them. While they had strength in
number, it seemed that they had little environmental awareness. But with each
snap, I knew my traps were running out. This wasn’t good; in the other waves
I’d seen, it had taken hours for my traps to deplete.

“There’s more of them
tonight,” I said.

“Some nights are harder
than others,” answered Gabriella. “And I heard Elder Esrand say that the more
Eternals are on the island, the more creatures come out at night.”

“Does that mean the public
ships have landed?” said Jack.

Rex shrugged. “I always
assumed there’d be some kind of notification. Like a text box or, I don’t know,
a horn or something.”

I stood against the wall
and looked over the edge of the alcove, lifting the canopy so that I could see
around our base. The wave creatures in our traps were close enough for me to
look at. I could tell from the way they were spread limply on the ground that
they were dead.

One of them, just twenty
meters away from me, had the misfortune of having one of my traps slam shut on
its head. I felt a pang of guilt when I thought about the wizard’s curse, but
what was I to do? Just let the creatures attack me?

A thin trail of light
seeped out through the air, then gathered around the dead wave creature. I knew
that bodies in Pana disappeared after a certain amount of time, or after they’d
been looted. The light fell so that it covered the creature’s skin.

The wave creature’s paw
moved. I saw its claws gleam when moonlight hit them. It thrashed its arm, then
straightened its legs. The beast began to reanimate, lifting itself off the
ground and grunting as it got back on all fours. When it finally stood up
straight, my trap was still wrapped around its neck.

I followed the trail of
blue light and saw that it led away from the creatures and toward the woods,
where it concentrated under an NPC label.

Wave Creature
Reanimator – Level 29

I shut the canopy, moved
away from the wall, and faced my friends.

10 EXP Gained! (83
until level 7)

I ignored the message.
The 10 EXP meant another creature had been caught in one of my traps, but it
didn’t matter. The beast would be on its feet again soon. This wasn’t good.

“How are the traps
holding?” said Rex.

“Well,” I began, not sure
how to explain the new development to them.

“Guys,” said Jack. “Our
odds of surviving tonight’s wave just dropped dramatically. Check the betting
forums – there’s a lot of money being placed on one or all of us dying. What
gives? We’re prepared, aren’t we?”

I logged into the forums
and saw what Jack was talking about. Although gambling was prohibited on the
Pana forums, users got around that by talking about ‘guesses’. There were forum
topics titled ‘Place your Guesses on Wave Survival’, where users debated our
likelihood of survival.

“You’re not going to
believe this,” said Jack.

I closed the interface.
The wave creatures howled around us, and I received 20 more EXP points as the
last of my traps slammed shut.

“I’ve been doing some
searching on insider tips for gambling,” said Jack.

“Inside tips?” said Rex.
“You’re one of the people being gambled on. It doesn’t get any more insider
than that.”

Jack ignored him. “And I
ended up looking at some pretty dodgy sites. But I’ve found something you won’t
like.”

“Sites? Gambling? You’re
talking a foreign language,” said Gabriella.

“Go on,” I told Jack.

The gambler looked at me.
“Well, it turns out there’s a Pana programmer who will make the wave harder if
you pay him. He’s hidden his IP address behind a VPN so that nobody will catch
him, but other than that, he’s pretty brazen about it.”

“So, people bet on us
dying in the wave,” I said. “And then they pay the programmer to make the wave
harder. It’s play to win all over again.”

“And the bastards will be
watching us right now,” said Jack.

I stood up. The EXP
messages had stopped now, and I knew that my traps were finished. That meant
that the creatures would be looking for us. Rex had spread mud and leaves over
the canopy so that we were camouflaged, but it was only a matter of time.

“We’re not just going to
sit here and pray we survive the night,” I told my friends. “How long have we
got left?”

“About 4 hours,” answered
Rex.

I nodded. “They’re going
to find us eventually. Maybe on a normal night we’d have been okay, but someone
out there has paid GD to make the wave stronger. We need to show them that
money isn’t everything.”

“What do you suggest?”
said Jack.

“First up, I want you to
use Coin Flip. You need to boost our endurance and strength.”

Jack looked at Rex. “Do
you mind?” he said.

The barbarian nodded. “Go
ahead. And thanks for asking this time.”

“Gabriella,” I said. “Do
you have any spells that can increase our hitpoints?”

“Hitpoints?” said the
witch with a confused look on her face.

“Something that makes us
harder to kill,” I said.

She nodded. “It’s called
Bone Hide.”

“Then cast that on us.
With Coin flip and Bone Hide, we’ll be much tougher to kill. I’ll make some
more traps and set them on the beach. When I’m ready, I want Gabriella and Jack
to join me. Rex and Clive, you guys lead the creatures to the shelter, and let
them follow us to the beach.”

“And what then?” said
Jack.

“And then we fight until
daybreak,” I said.

Chapter Forty-Five

Maybe it would have been
wiser to stay in the shelter and pray the rest of the creatures didn’t find us,
but I had to prove a point. Someone out there was paying money to make sure we
died. I wanted to show everyone watching that sometimes, play to win didn’t
work.

After hastily assembling
some traps, I ran to the beach and set them in intervals. Jack and Gabriella
watched me and took note of where I’d placed them. The sea was calm behind us,
as if it had decided to settle down so that it could watch the battle.

Minutes later, Rex and
Clive came running at us from the direction of Gossard. Behind them, I saw the
text labels of dozens of wave creatures bouncing up and down. For a second it
made me doubt our plan, but I shook the thoughts away. With Coin Flip and Bone
Hide, I felt stronger. I held Death Bringer up, ready to strike some elemental
damage against the creatures of the night.

Battles happen fast. That
was one thing I’d learned in Artemis. It seemed like no sooner had I struck a
blow on one creature, then another appeared. They sprouted up in front of me,
behind me, on my left, on my right. They howled in pain when I pierced their
skin with Death Bringer. I heard Rex grunt as he swung his sword. Jack shouted
out as a creature scratched him, taking away both hitpoints and EXP.

Traps snapped shut. Dead
bodies thudded onto the floor. The creatures’ numbers started to drop. Then a
pale light gathered over them, and I heard their claws scrape on the sand as
they got to their feet. At the edge of the beach were the reanimators.

Not only had the dead
wave creatures gotten back up, but more of them had poured onto the beach. They
outnumbered us three to one now. Although they didn’t hunt with much
intelligence, the sheer volume of them would be enough to kill us.

“Rex,” I shouted to the
barbarian. “Think you can take the reanimators out?”

The barbarian nodded and
started to run up the beach, though his feet sunk into the sand with each step.
I was glad that he was starting to embrace his role more.

That left Gabriella,
Jack, and me with nearly twenty of the beasts prowling around us. My arms were
starting to tire now. Even with the bonuses from Jack and Gabriella, I still
wasn’t cut out to be a fighter.

Across the beach, a
reanimator shrieked in pain. With no other option, the three of us fought back
to back, each of us swinging at any creatures that came near. One by one the
creatures fell, until we were left with just 5.

One of them approached me
warily. I could tell it was about to leap at me. Just as it pounced, I swung
Death Bringer at it. To my surprise, I couldn’t move my arm.

The creature swiped out
at me, and I felt a stinging pain across my face.

25HP lost!

20 EXP lost!

Warning – Stamina
Drained!

“Gabriella,” I called out
as the creature in front of me prepared for another attack. “Can you do
something? My stamina’s gone.”

“Mine too,” said Jack.

“I’m out of mana,” said
the witch. “There’s nothing I can use.”

With the creatures ready
to attack, I knew that we were done. It didn’t matter that Rex had killed the
reanimators and was running back toward us. Jack and I couldn’t swing our
weapons, and Gabriella couldn’t use her spells. We were done.

There were few enough
creatures for us to kill, if we could only use our attacks. After that, it
would have taken a few hours for the next wave of them to respawn and find
their way here, by which time it would almost be daybreak. We’d come so close
to surviving this wave, that I felt an ache in my chest. Whoever had betted
against us was going to be that little bit richer soon.

As I prepared for the
inevitable respawn that awaited me, a light shot out above us. It was white and
blinding, like a sustained flash of lightening. A warm feeling spread through
me, and I felt my energy start to seep back into my body. Death Bringer felt
lighter in my hands, and the ache in my arms and legs left me.

I looked across the beach
to see a figure stood in the shadows. A text label hovered over his head.

Francis Drake –
Leader – Level 2

I knew who it was. I was
so excited that my heart almost dislodged and went up my throat. But I had to
focus. The wave creature in front of me lowered onto its hind legs, like a trap
ready to snap.

The next ten minutes were
a blur of pouncing creatures and swinging weapons. Shrieks of pain, grunts of
frustration. Several messages flashed on my screen, but I ignored them, even
the one advising me that I’d reached level 7 and my trap skill had gone up to
5.

When the last wave
creature fell, I was so tired I could hardly breathe. I sank down onto the damp
sand and panted. I heard footsteps crunch as they walked toward me. I took a
deep breath, looked up, and I saw the figure above me.

“Nice night for it, bro,” he said.

Chapter Forty-Six

Even when it was light
and I could see him properly, I still couldn’t believe it was him. The text
above his head was a giveaway, but I still found it impossible to comprehend
that my brother was here. His character was taller than the rest of us. He wore
standard issue leather armor, and a small dagger was tucked into a sheath on
his waist.

“I got your message,” he
said. “And then I decided to watch your feed. When I saw how well you were
doing, I had to come.”

For a second, I forgot
about everything. I wasn’t angry at Terence Pierce or Ellis Taunton, I was just
happy to see my big brother. He had a look on his face, even if it was his
character’s face, not his, that I hadn’t seen in a while. He looked alert, full
of energy.

“I can’t believe you’re
here,” I said.

As we all sat in our
shelter, Francis explained that he’d watched our feed, and he’d decided that
rather than wallow in self-loathing, he’d take up my offer of a  subscription.

“Not only that,” he said.
“I’ve been doing some research. I know where Helder’s Bane is.”

Rex sat against a wall
with Clive by his side. “So, this is your brother?” he said.

Francis grinned. “Can’t
you see the resemblance? Anyway, we don’t have much time, guys. Star Horizon
have almost found Helder’s Bane, and we need to catch them up.”

“Where is it?” I asked.

Francis carried on,
ignoring me. “Not only that. I don’t know if you’ve been keeping track, Chris,
but-”

“My name’s Columbus
here,” I said.

“There’ only 1 day to go
until the forestry commission grant the license to Star Horizon. We need to get
a move on.”

“So where do we go?”
asked Jack.

Francis crossed his arms.
“I’ve spent the last few days on the net. I’ve been pouring over forums and
trying to find out anything I could about Artemis. It turns out that there’s a
techie who’s selling information about the quest. I sold my motorbike, paid
him, and he told me where to go.”

“You sold the beast?”
said Jack. “You were supposed to teach me to drive.”

“That can wait,” said
Francis.

I was getting impatient.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s cut to it. Where do we need to go?”

“It turns out that Helder
met a girl who he wanted to marry, but her father was against it. He locked the
girl up in a tower in his castle in his city. Helder went there to help her
escape, but the girl’s father caught them. He imprisoned Helder.”

“So, we need to go to the
city?”

Francis nodded. “The
girl’s father was Lord Ashok. He lived in a city north of the Grey Plains.
Helder’s Bane will be there, somewhere.”

“What made you change
your mind about everything?” I said. “I mean it’s great, seeing you like this.
But I just-”

Francis walked over to me
and pulled me into a hug. “It was you, Chris. You made me realize I can’t just
sit around feeling sorry for myself.”

“So where do we go?” said
Rex, standing up.

“Hand me your map,” said
Francis. “We need to go to Ashok’s forgotten city.”

We found Ashok’s city
north of our shelter. We took a raft over the river and through the rocks,
which led us to the start of the Grey Plains. Francis had marked a route on our
map which allowed us to skirt the plains, before following a country path for
ten miles. The six of us had begun to tire before the city finally loomed into
view.

“Why’d you choose the
leader class?” I asked my brother, as we stopped for a rest.

“I knew you guys were
short of someone with real fighting ability,” said Francis, eyeing Rex. “Since
your barbarian prefers raft building and Burr-taming to swinging his sword. But
since I was entering the game a few days after you, there was no point me
choosing a warrior class. I’d just be playing catch up. So, I decided on leader
because it gives me skills that boost the whole party’s stats. Kind of like
Jack’s Coin Flip, but without the danger of it backfiring.”

“Coin Flip’s served us
pretty well so far,” said Jack.

Francis nodded. “But you
have to lose sometime. You can’t be lucky forever.”

The landscape around was
different from the rest of Artemis. We hadn’t been this far north yet, and it
seemed that the deeper we got into the island, the more decayed things became.
There was no forests or woodland around us now. Although it was daylight, the
sky was so grey that it was almost dark. There was no grass to be seen, and
instead the terrain beneath us was made of rocks and dirt. The songs of the
birds were gone, replaced by a growling sound that came from somewhere in the
distance.

Location Discovered
– Ashok’s City

15 XP gained!

“Call me stupid, but I
still don’t understand this. You’re saying Helder’s Bane is in this city? What
about the curse?”

Gabriella scoffed. “The
curse was ages ago,” she said. “Keep up, will you?”

Francis put his hand on
Jack’s shoulder. “Helder was the mayor of a different city. There, he lived in
a castle. He met a girl and they were going to be married, when the wizard
cursed Helder and his people. After that, Helder still wanted to marry the
girl, but her father put an end to it. See, without his castle, Helder was a
nobody.”

I carried on the story.
“So Helder came here to get the girl, escape somewhere and marry her?”

Francis nodded. “But her
father caught them. After that, I’m not sure what happened. But this is where
it all leads. Somewhere in this city, we’ll find Helder’s bane.”

As we walked toward the
city, I saw cigarette butts on the ground. It was a sure sign that Ellis
Taunton and his party had already been here. I didn’t know how far behind we
were, but I got the sense that our chase was coming to an end.

“Is everyone ready for
this?” I said.

The city gates were ten
feet tall. The metal bars were covered by rust, and one of the gates hung from
its hinge. The air was thick with dust. I could see the city streets beyond us,
though the buildings lining them were broken and decayed.

Stepping through them, we
saw that although this had once been a city, it didn’t come close to resembling
one now. The streets were made of cobblestone, though parts of them were
stained with blood. The buildings on the sides of the streets were packed so
closely together that there was no way through. It seemed that we had no option
but to follow the streets and see where they took us.

In the distance, sat
proudly atop a hill, was a castle. It seemed to watch over us like a sentinel,
it’s broken bricks and crumbling walls silently marking our progress.

There was no doubt now
that we needed to reach the castle. I had to remind myself that despite how
real it felt, Pana Reborn was a game designed just like any other. The programmers
would have made the world with the player in mind. They had deliberately chosen
to place the castle high above the city, where we’d always be able to see it.
It was a not-so-subtle hint that our goal lay in that direction.

As we followed the city
street, I saw that the buildings lining it were normal, once. We passed a dye
shop with a notice on the glass that was still legible, where the proprietor
was advertising for an apprentice. We saw a store that specialized in leather
scabbards of different sizes and color. The strange thing was that the
buildings looked like they had been pushed together. They were squeezed against
each other like an accordion so that there wasn’t even an inch of a gap.

“Is the rest of the
island this cheerful?” said Francis.

He stopped at the window
of a hat shop and peered into it. He started to adjust his character’s hair,
though the glass was too dirty for a reflection. Stupid as it was, I was glad
to see this more than anything. When Francis was in his teens, he’d been so
vain that our bathroom had started to fill with his hair products. After his
accident, that had stopped.

“A lot of it reminds me
of Gossard actually,” I said. “With the trees and stuff. Only more dangerous.”

“And more Burrs than
bears,” said Francis.

I nodded. “The thing I
love is that it’s all new. Nobody has been here before except us. I just wonder
how big the island really is. Even with the ranger’s map and the extra parts
you marked, we still don’t have the complete picture.”

“I landed with the public
ships,” said Francis. “People set off in all kinds of directions. A lot of it
is thanks to you, you know. They’ve been posting clips of your feed on forums,
and it got people excited.”

Ahead of us, the street
turned a corner. We’d walked five minutes and the castle on the hill seemed no
closer than it had before. It still loomed over us, almost big enough to cast a
shadow over the city. Whether it was the castle, the grey clouds, or the
crumbling buildings, something gave the place a dark air.

When we followed the
street, we saw more of the same. On the left a library had collapsed into a
butcher’s shop, and rubble lined the floor. On the right, a row of boutiques
had been smashed into each other.

I felt like something was
different. It was the same feeling I’d had a few times in my time in Pana. It
was a warning siren going off in my head, sounding off dimly in the recess of
my brain. There was something wrong here, but what was it?

And then I saw it. In the
library, visible through a four-foot hole in the wall, a body was on the floor.
It was a man, stretched out, his arms in front of his face as if to shield him
from something. His body was chalk white and encased in stone, as if he had
become a statue.

Awareness increased
by 25% (75% until level 5)

Chapter Forty-Seven

It was like seeing a car
you wanted to buy, or a pair of trainers you fancied. When you saw them once,
you started noticing them everywhere. The further we walked, the more stone
bodies we discovered. It reminded me of the ruins of Pompeii, where residents
of an ancient civilization perished when a volcano erupted. This was different,
though. Although most of the buildings were in ruin and were squashed together
to form walls on either side of us, none bore marks of ash or lava.

As we rounded another
corner in the street, we came to a section where the path led in two
directions. One went to left, another to the right. The buildings were so tall
that we couldn’t glimpse any of the paths ahead.

“Maybe this is what the
bookseller meant,” I said. “He told me ‘go where eyes cannot see’. Is this what
he was talking about? It’s like we’re in a maze made by a giant.”

I heard something
scraping on the floor behind us. I turned around, but at first I didn’t see
anything. Then I heard the noise again, this time coming from the direction of
the library. The figure we had seen on the floor had somehow gotten to its
feet, and now it was walking toward us.

Golem – Level 11

The scraping sound grew,
and it was joined by others. We watched in horror as dozens of the stone
figures stood up and walked in our direction. Their feet made scratch marks on
the paving as they staggered. Although they looked in our direction, their eyes
were encased in rock. Their mouths made no sound as they lurched our way.

“East or west?” said
Jack.

“What?” said Rex.

“We’re can’t fight all of
them on our own. Pick a path, and we’ll take it.”

I looked at the choices
before us. As a scout, this was where my abilities came into play, but I needed
to think about it. Someone had turned the town into a maze by squashing the
buildings together. Whether that was through magic or by brute strength I
didn’t know, but both possibilities were equally as terrifying.

Either way, every maze
had an exit. And I guessed that whoever had built this maze, must have walked
through it themselves to test it.

The stone figures moved
closer now. The scraping of their feet sounded like chalk on a blackboard. I
held Death Bringer in my hands, though I didn’t plan on using it. We needed to
flee before the dozen or so jumped-up statues reached us.

“Time to send you back to
the museum,” said Jack, looking at the golems. He raised his weapon and ran at
one of the figures that had gotten closer than the rest.

“That was such an awful
line,” said Francis.

Jack swung his stick at
the head of the golem. Although the cracking sound it made was impressive, the
blow didn’t seem to deter the creature. It reached out for Jack, but it barely
touched his neck when the gambler slipped away and joined us again.

“Yep. Fighting is
definitely out of the question.”

“So, Mr. Scout,” said
Francis. “Left or right? Deal or no deal?”

If the person who had
made the maze had walked through it to test it, they must have left a track. At
first glance, both paths looked the same. Grey cobblestones, cracked in places,
weathered from years of use. Buildings that had once seen daily traffic from
the city dwellers now stood lonely.

When I looked closer, I
started to see something else. Faint markings on the stone that appeared on the
left path, but not on the right.

Tracking Level up
to level 3!

“Follow me,” I told my
friends. I turned to see that the golems had gained ground now, though being
made of stone, they were never going to be sprinting after us.

We soon discovered that
speed didn’t matter for them. As we took the left path, we saw more golems
emerge from decayed buildings, their blocky feet screeching on the cobbles.
Their faces looked in our direction, but their mouths were sealed by stone.

As we ran by a bakery, an
overweight golem lurched out from beyond a crumbled wall. Rex swung his sword,
and as his blade met stone, he shouted out.

“Bloody hell that hurts!”
he said. The blade of his sword wobbled, and he shook his hand in pain.

More golems emerged from
our left and right. What they lacked in speed they were gaining in number. The
castle looming ahead was closer now, but still too far away for my liking.

“I’m petrified,” said
Jack.

“Don’t worry,” said
Francis, soothingly. “There’s nothing to panic about. We’ll be out of here in
no time.”

“I don’t mean that I’m
scared! When the golem touched my neck, it must have put an effect on me. My
legs are seizing up.”

Jack’s feet had turned
into stone, and the effect was slowly working its way up his shins. I looked
away, aware that if Jack saw his feet, he’d be worried.

I turned to Gabriella.
“Can you do something?” I said.

The witch studied Jack.
“They taught me a low-level petrify removal spell in year 1, but I haven’t used
it in a while.”

“Just try,” I told her.

“Use the force,” said
Francis.

Both Rex and Gabriella
looked at my brother as if they didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
At least Gabriella had an excuse.

“Here comes the screaming
again,” said Jack, looking at the witch.

Gabriella focused on my
brother. A glow gathered around her head. It was a blue mist that seemed to
leave a dusty trail on her hair and her skin, but the witch made no move to
wipe it away. She opened her mouth and started to make a strange sound;
something between a gasp and a scream.

The blue mist shot off in
a plume. It headed in Jack’s direction, but stopped halfway there and evaporated.

“Drats,” said Gabriella.
“It failed. I’ll need to wait a while before I can use it again.”

“What’s the cooldown
time?” asked Rex.

“She won’t know what that
means,” I told him. “Cooldown is a word gamers use, not NPCs.”

We couldn’t just stand
around looking at our watches while Gabriella’s cooldown ended. Sixteen golems
headed toward us from different directions. Even if we had weapons capable of
smashing through their rock necks, there were too many of them. One by one,
each of us were going to be petrified.

“I’m petrified,” said
Francis, to my left.

“They touched you too?” I
asked, but I couldn’t see a golem close enough to have touched him.

“No, I mean I’m scared.
This game’s too bloody realistic!”

In the corner of my eye,
I saw one of the Golems stumble over part of a broken wall. Its foot must have
snagged on something, and I saw its leg snap away. Suddenly the golem lurched
forward head-first and smashed onto the floor, cracking into hundreds of
pieces.

“Their ankles,” I told my
party. “That’s their weak point. Aim for the ankles, and for God’s sake don’t
let them touch you. Gabriella, how are you doing?”

“A few more minutes,” she
told me.

“Want me to use one of my
Leader skills?” said Francis.

“Save it,” I told him.
“If I know RPG games, we’re in for a much tougher fight when we reach the
castle.”

While Rex and Francis
focused their melee attacks on the golems’ ankles, I set some mobile traps.
Swords smashed at feet, traps snapped shut and shattered legs. One by one the
golems fell and broke into pieces on the ground, rewarding us with the tinging
of EXP being added. Messages flashed on my screen throughout the battle.

Level up to level
8!

Level up to level
9!

Trap level up to
level 6!

I batted the messages
away and focused on the fight. I had only a handful of traps now, and I felt I
should save them. I pulled out Death Bringer and helped Rex and Francis take
down the last golem.

Gabriella moved closer to
Jack. She made her spell sound again, and this time the blue mist wrapped
itself around the gambler. I heard Jack splutter as it smothered his face,
before working down to his legs, where it spread over his feet. When the mist
evaporated, the stone effect was gone.

“Well done,” I told the
witch.

She smiled. “I’m
surprised I could still remember it, it was so long ago since I learned it.”

I was struck with a
thought. It couldn’t possibly have been a long time ago that Gabriella had
learned the spell. Artemis had only been released a few days ago. Sure, it
would have been a long time in the making, but still…The makers of the game had
really gone all-out in creating backstories for the NPCs. Maybe the guy who
wrote the story for Artemis wasn’t so bad after all. If he ever released a
book, I’d definitely buy it and leave it a glowing review.

“Save your
congratulations for later,” said Francis. “We better move.”

More golems had lurched
out from the surrounding shops and businesses. I got the sense that if we stuck
around, we’d have the entire population after us before long.

We hurried along the city
streets. At first, we ran down them, but I quickly put a stop to that when I
received a text display.

Trap check
successful!

After this, I began to
see traps dotted around. My Trap skill was high enough for me to detect them,
but only when we went at a slower pace. That said, we were still too fast for
the golems to catch us. I just hoped that there was nothing else waiting for us
in the maze.

Francis walked beside me.
He was a foot taller than me in the game, though in real life the difference
wasn’t so great. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched him walk. I knew that
at the same time, it wasn’t really something to be happy about. In real life,
Francis’ accident had left him with a limp. Here in Pana Reborn, he strode
along just like the rest of us. I wondered if he missed being able to walk
without a limp, or whether it was something that had become part of him now.

“I’m glad you left a
message for me,” he said. He didn’t look at my face, and instead stared
straight ahead, where the end of the road loomed into view. “I might not have
gotten out of the house otherwise.”

“The place was really
starting to smell,” I said. “I thought it could do with an airing out.”

“Seriously, Chris. I know
what I’ve been like for the last…well… for years, now. And it can’t have been
easy for you to see your big brother wallowing. You’re meant to be able to look
up to me.”

“I do look up to you,” I
said.

This time he turned to
face me. “Really? Even though I’ve been a loser for years?”

“You lost almost
everything, Francis. And you got through it. You coped with it a damn sight
better than most people would.”

“It’s going to be
different from now on,” said Francis. “As soon as we finish this and save
Ledfield Tours, I’m going to help you with the business.”

We came to the end of the
street, and we were faced with a choice. Before us were four paths, all seeming
to branch off into different directions. I knew that we had to be careful.
Since this was a maze, it was likely that two or three of the paths would be
dead ends. The last thing we needed was to get cornered by the golems. Although
we were capable of fighting them in open spaces, getting trapped would prove
deadly.

“Where now, scout?” said
Jack.

Gabriella stood looking
at the paths. “They all look the same,” she said.

At first glance, she was
right. Sure, the buildings at the sides of the path were different, but the
pathways themselves seemed identical.

As I looked closer, I saw
it. On the second path, one that went northwest, something stood amongst the
rubble of a building. Just across from it, on the opposite side of the road,
was another.

“Statues,” I said. I
turned to the group. “There are statues hidden in the buildings on the second
path.”

Jack shrugged. “So?”

“’Go where eyes watch but
cannot see.’ Remember? It was the clue the bookseller gave us after we finished
the village quest. The statues are watching the road, but they can’t really see
it.”

“Columbus,” said Jack.
“You’re a genius.”

Awareness increased
by 25%! (75% until level 5)

“I wouldn’t go that far,”
I answered.

Jack nodded at me.
“Neither would I, really. I was just being nice.”

With the sounds of the
golem’s feet scraping on the road behind us, we fixed our sights on the castle
on the hill. The second path would lead us there, I was sure of it. And there,
I hoped, we’d finally find Helder’s Bane.

Chapter Forty-Eight

We climbed up a hill
beyond the city and reached the castle. A fifteen-foot-high black door stood in
front of us, though it was open all the way. Beyond it was a courtyard. The
roof was marked by holes, and rain fell and stained the grey stone flooring. A
smell of dust drifted out from the castle, and I got the sense that the
structure had been around for centuries.

“This is it,” I said.
“Whatever happens, Helder’s Bane has to be here. If you’ve got any attribute
points, now’s the time to use them.”

“If we had an ink ribbon,
we could use it to save our progress,” said Jack.

“Different game,” I
answered. “Francis, can you use one of your leader skills to boost our stats?”

“Sure thing.”

“What about Coin Flip?”
said Jack.

I shook my head. “We
can’t risk it going wrong. We don’t need a stat drop now of all times.”

I checked my character
screen. I had 8 attribute points left to spend. It was more likely than not
that we were about to face a battle, and I needed to be ready. There was no
point levelling my strength since it was already so low that it wouldn’t make a
difference. Instead, I loaded the remaining points into agility and endurance.
At least I’d have more speed and energy.

“What the hell?” said
Rex.

I closed my character
screen. A shock awaited me. Gabriella, Francis, Rex and Clive stood in front of
me, but Jack had gone. I looked around to see if he’d wandered away somewhere,
but I couldn’t see him.

I brought up party chat.
It showed Rex and the others as available, but Jack’s name was greyed-out. I
didn’t have anything to lose, so I entered a message.

“Hello?” I said,
into the chat.

I waited a few seconds,
and then I heard a chiming sound. A message appeared.

Rex: “Hi”.

I closed the chat.
“You’re stood right next to me, Rex. You don’t need to type anything.”

Rex: “Lol.”

“I see you’ve found a
sense of humor.”

“What’s going on?” said
Francis.

Before I had time to
answer, Rex and Francis’ outlines became faint, and then they too disappeared.

Gabriella looked around
in shock. I opened my mouth to say something, but I found that I couldn’t
speak. A light feeling flooded through me. I raised my arm in front of my face,
and I saw that it was transparent.

Gabriella stepped toward
me. Before she could reach me, a message flagged up on my screen.

Warning – Your
subscription has been cancelled.

And then everything went
dark.

Chapter Forty-Nine

I found myself strapped
into my capsule in the gaming centre. Without even talking to the techies, I
left and drove back to my flat. When I opened my front door, I found that Cal
and Francis had let themselves in. Another man was stood with them. At first I
didn’t recognize him, but there was a familiar look to his face, and I realized
that it must have been Rex.

“What the hell happened?”
I said.

Rex was the first to
answer. “Father cancelled our subscriptions.”

“Why?”

“You know why, Columbus.
Ellis Taunton and his party were ahead of us, and they’ve almost found Helder’s
Bane. Father wanted to teach me a lesson, and now he feels that the lesson’s
over. So, he cancelled our subscriptions.”

“We need to get back in,”
I said.

We stood in silence. Jack
paced the room, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“I’ll go talk to him,”
said Rex. “You never know, I might be able to convince him.”

I knew that there was no
way Terence would listen to his son, but right now, I just needed to be alone.

“Fine,” I said. “Can you
guys go with him?”

Francis nodded, and he
and Rex left the flat. Cal made no move to leave. Instead, he walked over and
stood next to me.

“There’s always the
company emergency fund,” he said.

There was GD sitting in a
bank in town. It was nowhere near enough to pay for the Gossard Forest license,
otherwise I would have considered it. It was barely enough to pay company
expenses for a month or two. The fund was only to be used in the direst of circumstances.

“We can’t,” I said. “It’s
too much of a risk. We’d be left with nothing.”

Cal said nothing for a
while. And then he looked at me, and he seemed older than his years.

“You’ve always played it
safe, Chris. That’s why you let Dad force you into running the business. It was
familiar ground. I know you didn’t want to take over. You had other things you
wanted to do, right?”

I nodded. I’d always
dreamed of an Amazon trek, or of exploring the Australian outback. Those
fantasies had died years ago.

“Sometimes you have to
take a chance,” said Cal. “Surely this is worth it? Don’t you want to see how
this pans out?”

He was right. All this
time, I’d always been afraid to take a risk. I’d been scared to go out on my
own path, and instead had settled into running the company. Maybe now it was
time to get over that. I knew that if I quit now, if I didn’t take a gamble for
once, I’d regret it forever.

I looked at my brother.
“Get your coat,” I said. “It’s chilly in Artemis this time of year.”

Chapter Fifty

The look of shock on
Gabriella’s face was priceless. The four of us reappeared in front of her,
right outside the castle gates. The witch sat against the wall with Clive next
to her. When the Burr saw Rex, he leapt to his feet and ran over to him. He
even stopped still for a second and let me stroke his mane.

“This is it,” I told the
party. “It’s time to win this.”

“You could have come up
with a better one-liner,” said Jack, shaking his head.

When we entered the
castle, the sounds of the island outside seemed to be drowned out. Everything
was still, save for dim shouts that seemed to come from beneath us.

At first I wondered which
way to go, but then I saw cigarette butts on the floor. I knew that we needed
to follow the trail left by Ellis Taunton and Star Horizon. It led us across
the forecourt and through a set of metal doors, where we saw steps cut into the
stone floor. They seemed to lead down into an underground level.

Following them down, we
came to a cavernous room. The roof was thirty feet above us. The floor was made
of stone, but red markings were drawn on it. Ellis Taunton and his team were in
the centre. Just beyond them, stood on the floor, was a giant stone dragon.

Ashok’s Dungeon
Discovered!

15 Exp Gained!

Ellis turned to face us.
His character was dirty, and he had scratches on his face. A sneer crept over
his features.

“You’re too late,” he
said. “We got here first.”

I was going to answer
him, when the stone dragon started to move. In a moment of shock, I was
reminded of the stone golems. Then, an image flickered into my mind. I
remembered being in the ranger’s hut, and seeing the ranger, made of stone and
sprawled across a table.

“Vinetwest,” I said.

Jack looked at me. “The
illusionist?”

I nodded.

The dragon began to
vibrate. With creaking movements, it started to move its arms and legs,
lumbering itself up off the floor. It stretched to full height. It snarled at
us, and a trail of smoke left its nose.

“Ashok is my name,” it
said, its deep voice so loud that the dungeon seemed to shake. “but you met me
as Vinetwest.”

I remembered the old
wizard hobbling away from us. He’d seemed so pathetic that we hadn’t bothered
to chase him. I couldn’t reconcile that image with the gigantic beast before
us.

“Vinetwest? What are you
idiots babbling about?” said Ellis.

“You have seen my form
outside of my castle. But now you see my true power. I warned you, did I not?”
said the dragon.

“I thought the warning
was hypothetical,” said Jack.

The dragon sneered.
“You’re just like him. Like Helder, the pathetic man who came for my daughter.
He thought he could creep into my castle and take her, but he didn’t bank on
meeting me. The worthless fool didn’t know he’d meet his bane in my walls.”

With that, the dragon
stood even taller. He spread his wings out so wide that they almost reached the
sides of the dungeon. I wondered if using the company reserves to renew our
subscriptions had been a good idea, but I shook my doubt away.

Ashok breathed out a
spray of fire, turning his head so that it went out in an arc before him. The
blaze hit Ellis and his party, and I heard them shout as their hitpoints
drained.

Ellis looked at a woman
next to him. “Use Blizzard,” he told her.

The woman, evidently a
mage, put her hands out in front of her. She closed her eyes in concentration,
and frost began to gather on her fingertips.

The dragon clapped his
wings together. At this, I heard footsteps come from the sides of the dungeon.
I looked, and I saw stone golems approaching us from the left and right.

“I’ll lay some traps,” I
said. “Rex and Francis, aim for the ankles.”

“What about me?” said
Jack.

“We need to deal some
damage to Ashok. Try and attack him between his fire bursts. Gabriella, do you
have any ice spells?”

“Does Elder Esrand like
his porridge salty?”

“I don’t have a damn
clue,” I said, aware that the golems were advancing on us.

“Of course I have cold
spells. But they won’t be enough.”

She was right, I knew. We
needed something more powerful to defeat the dragon, but I didn’t know what.
Still, anything was better than just letting him damage us.

“Just try and whittle
down his HP. We’ll think of something.”

Ellis turned to me. “We
might have to work together for a while. We’ll help your little party. But when
we see Helder’s Bane, it’s ours.”

“We don’t need your
help,” I said.

“Again, you need to work
on your one-liners,” said Jack.

I placed my traps in
strategic parts of the dungeon. The golems were stupid, and they stumbled into
them without even attempting to get out of the way. As Rex cleaved at their
ankles and my traps snapped shut, I saw messages informing me of the EXP I’d
earned.

At the front of the
dungeon, Ashok hissed as he sprayed the room with flames. I heard the snap of
Gabriella’s ice spells, though they didn’t seem to worry the beast. Ellis’ mage
friend used her blizzard, though it was as much use as a snowflake landing in a
volcano.

I just didn’t see a way
to win. There must have been something that we’d missed, some vital clue or
secret that would have told us how to beat Ashok.

I turned to Elis. I hated
to speak to him, but I had no choice. “Did you find anything on your way here?”
I said.

Even in the midst of
battle, his voice was patronizing. “Like what? A magic dragon-slaying sword?”

“That’d be perfect,” I
said. “Or, if you can stop being a pompous ass for a second, maybe you can have
a think. There must be some item that you’ve found. Something that seems
worthless at first, but turns out to be the key to it all. That’s how games
usually work.”

Ellis shrugged. A trail
of fire burned toward him, and he leapt out of the way. He brought up his bow
and fired an arrow at Ashok. It bounced off the dragon’s scaly hide.

The bowman wasn’t going
to be of much help, so I needed to think. What had we missed? There had to be
something.

Two more golems stumbled
into my traps. When they snapped shut and the stone figures smashed, more EXP
flooded my way.

30 EXP gained!

30 EXP gained!

Level up to level
10!

-Hitpoints
increased to

-Stamina increased
to

-2 Attribute points
gained

Bonus: Primary
skill slot unlocked

As great as it was to
unlock a primary slot, there was no use for it here. I needed something else.
Some kind of ice weapon, or a secret about Ashok that told us his weaknesses.

Gabriella stood in front
of the dragon and spoke the words of her ice spell. She was so focused on
casting it, that she didn’t see the dragon’s mouth start to hiss and glow. He
was about to hit her full on with an arc of fire. At so close a range, she’d be
incinerated.

I ran over to her,
ducking out of the way of a golem that reached for me. I collided head-on with
Gabriella, knocking the witch to the floor.

The two of us had managed
to just about avoid another arc of fire that burned around us. I looked at
Gabriella, and I almost lost my breath.

As the fire lit up the
room, the orange glow gave me full view of her burned skin. I saw the outlines
from where her tattoo had once been drawn, before the witch elders had burned
it off her.

Chapter Fifty-One

“Gabriella,” I said. “the
forbidden spell you learned – what was it?”

She looked at me
confused. “It won’t be any good here, Columbus.”

“Just tell me what it
was.”

“But it wasn’t a cold
spell. Or even anything with attack power.”

“Just tell me!”

The witch looked at me
strangely. I realized that I was gripping her collar hard in my hand. I eased
off and moved back. My pulse hammered.

“It was Terelbelle’s
Destigma. It removes any sort of effect or status.”

I looked up at the
dragon. I remembered our first meeting with Vinetwest. Back then he had
disguised himself as a bear. Before that, he told us he’d transformed into a
hare and had spied on us near the ranger’s shack.

Gabriella’s forbidden
spell could help us here, I was sure of it. I was beginning to get the idea that
nothing on Artemis was what it seemed. The wave creatures weren’t animals; they
were people who had been cursed. Vinetwest wasn’t a bear or a hare, he was an
old man. And that meant that there was a chance that the form in front of us
wasn’t all it appeared to be.

If only there was a way
to restore the witch’s tattoo. There had to be something I could do.

Skill gained –
Tattooist (Int) – you can create and restore skill tattoos. At later levels,
skills can be designed. Do you accept?

It needn’t be said that I
accepted the skill quicker than a drunk accepting a shot of whiskey. A glow
spread through me, and I heard a typewriter sound that signified a change in my
character screen.

Rex cried out to my
right. One golem had struck him in the face, and another was advancing on him.
Two of Ellis’ party members screamed out as fire leapt over them. They dropped
to the ground and died. A golem advanced on Francis. He struck out with his
dagger, but his swing was weak.

“I’m out of stamina,” he
said.

The dragon showed no
signs of tiring, so I needed to act fast. I put my hands on Gabriella’s
shoulder and felt the rough contours of her scars. She shrank back from me.

“What are you doing?” she
said.

Like everything in
Artemis, using my skill was intuitive. I found that if I traced my fingers
along the outlines of the tattoo, the ink began to appear. Gabriella screamed
in pain and tried to squirm away from me, but I held fast.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I
have to do this.”

Another of Ellis’ party
died. Rex took another blow to the head, and he staggered down onto one knee.
Clive snapped at the golem attacking his master, and the rocky creature swiped
the Burr away. Clive let out a yelp, but then turned his head and leapt on the
golem again.

As I traced my finger through
the last line of the tattoo, Gabriella’s skin began to glow. The burn marks
didn’t disappear, but the ink of a tattoo smothered them. The witch’s eyes
widened. She pushed me away, and then stood up.

She stared at the dragon.
The beast opened his mouth, ready to send another jet of flame our way, when
Gabriella started to scream. It was a sound so loud that it felt like it was
piercing my eardrums. The dungeon started to rumble, and dust fell from the
roof. A mist of black smoke left Gabriella’s mouth and then gathered in front
of her. It was so thick that I couldn’t see her face.

The dragon stumbled back.
Whether it was through fear or because it lost its balance, I didn’t know. The
witch gave one last scream, and the smoke flew across the dungeon and wrapped
around the beast.

Ashok shrieked as the
smoke smothered him. It was a dense mist, and there was so much of it that I
couldn’t make out his figure. In a few seconds the smoke began to clear. When
it did, I saw that the dragon was gone.

In its place stood
Vinetwest in his old man form. He staggered down onto the ground, clinging to
his last hitpoints.

“Blast him with your ice
spell,” I told Gabriella.

As the witch cast her
spell on Vinetwest, the old man screamed out. The ice hit him in the face. He
staggered back, hit the wall behind him, and then fell to the floor.

For a second, the dungeon
was silent. And then I spoke.

“You need to chill out,”
I said.

Jack looked at me and
grinned. “Now THAT’S a one-liner.”

I sank back to the floor.
My body ached with tiredness. We’d done it. I couldn’t believe it, but we’d
actually done it. I waited for something. I don’t know what I expected. A
congratulatory message? Confetti to fall from the roof and shower us in joy?

Instead, Vinetwest gave a
weak cough. Straining with all his will, he pushed himself back to his feet.
Blood ran down his face, and his skin had turned blue from the shower of cold
that had hurt him.

Before I could react,
Ellis brought his up bow. He readied an arrow, aimed at the old man, and fired.
Time seemed to slow as the arrow glided through the air, before piercing the
old man in the heart. Vinetwest gave one last groan, and then fell to the
floor, dead.

I didn’t know what to say
or do. What did this mean? Had we won?

My question was soon
answered. I heard Francis say something, but I ignored him. All I could
concentrate on were the words on my screen.

Quest Failed – Find
Helder’s Bane.

I felt sick. Although my
pulse still hammered, I felt like I would collapse. Ahead of me, Ellis threw
his bow to the ground. He turned and looked at me, and a smile widened across
his face.

Chapter Fifty-Two

1 Month Later

We were an hour into a
2-day tour. Sunlight crept through the gaps in the trees and spread a glow
across the forest. It was almost time to stop for lunch, but I didn’t want to
eat. These days, the only thing that could sate my hunger was exploring. There
was so much to do and so much to see, that I never wanted to stop.

Francis walked next to
me. Beside him was Jack. Rex was behind us, chatting to one of the players who
had booked on our tour. There were thirty of them, which was more people than
I’d ever seen in all my time with Ledfield Tours.

Best of all, Dad was with
us. He walked in front of me, always trying to push us on, never wanting to
take a break. When we’d told him about Pana and what had happened, he’d been
angry. Then Jack had shown him our subscriber count. After beating Ashok, I’d
been astounded to see that over a hundred thousand people watched our progress.
Clips of our adventure went viral, and video hosting sites were filled with our
battle against the dragon.

“Wait up, dad,” I said.
“They need a break.”

Dad walked over to me.
His breathing mask was gone. He walked with confident strides. His character
was the epitome of good health, with bulging muscles and veins pumping with
blood. It had been difficult to convince him to try playing Pana Reborn, but
now that he had, he was an addict.

“No time for stopping,
son,” he said. “We’ve got another seven tours booked this month. You need to
toughen up a little.”

After leaving Pana, I’d
been heartbroken. With one arrow, Ellis had claimed the prize that we’d worked
so hard to get. He was credited with finding Helder’s Bane, but the media
hadn’t warmed to him. Our game clips were replayed so much that most people
knew who the real winners in Pana were.

Terence Pierce had
contacted me not long after and offered to invest again. Although I was tempted
to take his money and renew our tour license, I refused. Our time in Gossard
Forest was done, I knew.

People had started
messaging me and begging to join my party. At first Jack, Francis, Rex and I
had carried on playing Pana for recreation, but then we realized that we were
missing an opportunity.

Ledfield Tours was
reinvented. I decided that from now on, we’d run our excursions through
Artemis, showing new players the sights of the island. The island was so vast
and there was so much to see, that I knew we’d never run out of things to
discover.

“Columbus,” said a voice
to my right.

I turned and saw
Gabriella. She wore new robes. They were purple, to match her hair, and they
glimmered in the sunlight.

“Elder Esrand asked me to
rejoin them,” she said. “He wants to promote me to elder witch.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him to get lost.”

The tour group finished
their lunches. Some of them got to their feet, eager to carry on exploring.
There was a cave on the north-west edge of the island, and I’d heard that there
was rare loot there. It would be risky, since rare loot was often guarded by
strong creatures. It didn’t matter. Sometimes you had to take a risk.

Dad walked over to me. “I
got another message from her last night,” he said.

“From Gretta?”

He nodded. “She’s begging
to settle the lawsuit.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her we’ll see her
in court.”

In the distance, a pack
of Burrs ran through the forest. Two of the younger ones chased each other like
excited puppies. The elder Burr stopped, raised its tail and incinerated a rat.

I thought back to my
first night on Artemis, and about how far I’d come. Back then, I was worried
that I’d made a huge mistake. Now, though, it was different. As I looked at the
rich landscape around me, I couldn’t wait to explore more.

The End

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