“Fight ’til the end, ‘cause your life will depend

  On the strength that you have inside you.

  Got to be proud, staring out in the cloud

  When the odds in the game defy you.”

  - J. Esposito, You’re the Best

  THE SNAKE CHARMER

  Nora watched the mage disappear into a teleporting blood disc and considered how useful that ability would be in real life.

  Take tonight, for instance. Magically transporting back home after a bad date would have meant getting an earlier start on the legendarily difficult Field of Sorrows.

  Of course, she also could have sped up the timeline by not going back to Xander’s place, but that would have meant making sober decisions, which wasn’t exactly her wheelhouse. Anyhow, never mind all that. The important thing was that after a very late night walk of shame (well, bus ride of shame, technically) she was here.

  And here was better.

  In the real world, Nora was an over-educated woman who had taken a couple self-defense classes in college. Hardly a threat to anyone or anything. But in Silverdawn, she was deadly, and growing stronger every day. Here, she wasn’t on a perpetual quest for companionship, seeking safety in numbers.

  Well, okay, maybe she still wasn’t ready to be totally alone, even in Silverdawn. But that would change after she gained a few more levels.

  Because in here, the quests were for kick-ass weapons. In here, she was the hunter:

  And today, Apostle was hunting the biggest prey of all: a Leyline Guardian.

  As it turned out, so were a lot of other players, and they were all in a hurry. Every warrior, aegis, mage, and hunter around her desperately pushed their way along the Field of Sorrows, hoping to reach the end before Silverdawn’s version number ticked up for the first time.

  The crowd was something she’d been counting on; she certainly wasn’t high enough level to handle a Guardian by herself, and being with a group kept her safe from…ah, best not to dwell too much on that right now.

  At the far side of the Field, beckoning the lucky few who survived the mud hoppers, was the entrance to the Void Burrow. And for the tiny fraction of players who made it to the end of those deadly tunnels, there awaited the game’s longest surviving Leyline Guardian:

  Bask. The Diabolus Argenteus.

  In a game where most Guardians lasted weeks—months, at most—before falling to a raid of determined players, Bask had faced years of challengers without ever being defeated. He’d even withstood the much-publicized onslaught led by Silverdawn’s most famous hero, Cerberus, who had brought fifty of the highest ranking players along with her.

  Well, she had been the most famous hero at the time of the battle. Now, she was merely a footnote.

  Silverdawn stood apart from other hyper-reality games for many reasons, but none more nerve-wracking than this: a character who died from normal causes—combat, curses, deadly traps and such—simply reappeared at their starting location after a brief “cool down” period.

  But a character killed by a Leyline Guardian was permanently erased.

  Cerberus’s raid had gone sideways quickly, and with one swing of his axe, Bask had lopped off a quarter of the game’s leaderboard, including its top player. The aftershock of that particular bloodbath had been felt for months.

  Bask was rumored to be the first Guardian introduced to the game. And because he’d proven to be so difficult, some players believed his power levels would be reduced in the new update, or that he might even be deleted altogether. Which meant this might be the last chance anyone would ever have to defeat the most legendary villain in the most popular video game of all time.

  Admittedly, Apostle wasn’t equipped to handle a brute like Bask, but this last-ditch raid was history in the making and nearly every high level player wanted to be a part of it. Which meant she needed to keep moving if she wanted to be a part of it, too.

  Because somewhere behind her, out of sight but always approaching, was the Dream Creeper.

  To her left, an aerial barbarian leapt over a group of mud hoppers and bounded across the bristlegrain, his loin cloth flapping in furry mockery of the enemies below. The beasts gave up on the chase and directed their attention to their next closest meal, which happened to be Apostle.

  The hunter class wasn’t particularly reliant on armor, so most of her body was covered in black leather straps. The bondage-adjacent getup wasn’t just for show, although she wasn’t above acquiring kinky gear purely for the aesthetics. She’d recently paid a few extra bucks to own a cyborg bikini in a mobile game about killing zombies.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  But in this case, the straps she wore had been looted from Falstaff the Blighter and they provided a hefty stat boost to her mobility. In the real world, she could barely carry two coffee cups without spilling their boiling contents onto impatient customers. But here, she danced around deadly claws and tongues with ease, pushing fang daggers into her enemy’s ribs as she glided between them.

  Simple…but slow.

  “Beguiling Hiss,” she said and felt a familiar pressure behind her eyes. She couldn’t see the effect, but knew what it meant: her pupils had elongated into something cold and reptilian.

  Lunging at the nearest hopper, she leaned in close enough to see the oily residue lining its ear. A rush of air flowed through her pointed teeth and burrowed into the beast’s brain.

  A second later, it was hers.

  “Kill for me,” she said and watched it rope a pack-mate with its spongy tongue.

  Rinse and repeat, stepping deftly between the creatures, and before long she had a pack of her own. She smiled, letting herself enjoy the moment.

  “Carve a path for me, boys. Mamma’s got somewhere to be.”

  THE BONE BENDER

  Dario crossed his arms and surveyed the Field of Sorrows.

  The sound of his infant sister’s cries had been replaced by the screams and grunts of a thousand players fending off mud hoppers. Most would make it maybe a hundred yards before death sent them offline.

  In the real world, every day was a fight that he couldn’t win. Against debt, against the landlord, against his own family. But he was here now. And here was better.

  Here, the throb of his right eye, already beginning to bruise in the real world—a parting gift from his old man before the drunk bastard had passed out—had been replaced with the numbed flesh of the living dead.

  Here, every fight was his to win. Dario was gone, and in his place stood the Archduke of the Cthon Empire, the highest level character in all of Silverdawn:

  A few feet in front of him, a solstice druid began to morph into something large and hairy—a grizzly mutate, by the looks of it—but a trio of mud hoppers pounced on her before she completed the transformation. They tore off her limbs and drug them away to feed their hatchlings, leaving only a bloody torso behind.

  Still, a torso was enough.

  “Abyss Tether.”

  The druid’s carcass lurched and bulged as it became something inhuman; an enormous beetle of eviscerated flesh, circling his feet like a puppy on spindly legs made from what had previously been the druid’s ribcage.

  A good start, but not nearly enough. Mammon had attempted to kill Bask a dozen times before, and each battle had ended in hasty retreat, barely avoiding deletion. If he was going to win this time, he’d need something much bigger.

  He directed his new pet to follow one of the bloody trails through a thick batch of bristlegrain to where a mud hopper was regurgitating a partially digested arm into a squirming nest of foot-long tadpoles. While the hopper was distracted, Mammon approached from behind.

  “BoneSpur,” he whispered, although keeping a low profile wasn’t necessary; by the time his prey sensed the danger, it would be far too late. Still, he preferred to maintain an aura of quiet menace. He had a reputation to maintain, after all.

  Mammon’s arm, now transformed into a jagged spear of polished bone, punched through the mud hopper’s skull. The creature jerked once, like a soldier called to attention, and then slid to the ground. Immediately, its offspring began to feed.

  “Abyss Tether.”

  The dead hopper writhed and separated into chunks that blended with his flesh-beetle into an even bigger mass. Stretched along the ground, it now resembled an enormous centipede with a frog’s head, zig-zagging back and forth in eager anticipation of Mammon’s next instruction.

  Before he’d picked out his next target, a steel boot landed heavily on his minion’s back, snapping its chitinous spine like a matchstick. The creature squealed, then lay still.

  The boot was worn by a knight whose rune-covered plate mail was practically bursting at the joints to accommodate the steroid-factory muscles inside.

  Flashing a toothy smile, the moron held his pose, perhaps believing paparazzi were hiding among the thicker clumps of bristlergrain, while his armor glowed like a stupid meathead-powered lightbulb.

  Mammon knew exactly who it was before the identifying text hovered over the player’s head.

  “Neutral” wasn’t the word Mammon would have chosen. He would have picked something closer to “absolute twat.”

  “Someone call pest control?” Char asked over his shield. The jeweled crest of circling crows identified it as gear taken from Vile Nester. News of that particular Leyline Guardian’s defeat had been the talk of Silverdawn for weeks.

  “I wouldn’t call you to control a dumpster goblin’s dick.”

  “Big talk for a grave robber with no frankenstein bugs around.” Char lowered his shield to fully address Mammon, unconcerned with the mud hopper creeping up behind him. He knew it wouldn’t stand a chance against his armor.

  For a few seconds, they both weighed their options. There was no rule against players attacking each other. In fact, it was encouraged, provided you weren’t picking fights with anyone significantly lower level than yourself.

  That particular caveat had recently become…complicated for Mammon, but level disparity wasn’t an issue here. They were both in Silverdawn’s top tier. The question was whether potentially missing out on a chance to reach Bask was worth a prolonged battle.

  “Your new helmet looks stupid.”

  Char’s eyes narrowed. “Fuck you.”

  And then he was off, slashing down mud hoppers with the effortless ease of a total douchebag who’d dumped all his points into the Body stat. Mammon watched him go with annoyance, but also begrudging gratitude. The storm guard was an idiot, but he’d left a lot of bodies in his wake.

  “Abyss Tether,” the bone bender grumbled, surveying the field of corpses.

  Time to get to work.

  CODA

  Char, Quartz, Apostle, and Mammon—much like their real life counterparts—had very little in common. But also like their real life counterparts, they shared a terrible bond: very soon, they would all desperately wish they had never crossed the Field of Sorrows.

  And since we’re taking a moment to peek into the future, it should be added that a day would also come, much further down the road, when they would understand how truly, horribly lucky they were.