JANE

Side-by-side, Jane and Quill stood under the arch of Stormstadt’s main gate. Flanked by thick gray stone, the spikes of the portcullis hung over their heads like some wicked sword of Damocles. They stood in silence, filled with both trepidation and excitement. 

Before them stretched the outside world. It was sunny and bright. Fluffy white clouds idly drifted through a cerulean blue sky. Most of the land was comprised of gently rolling hills feathered in bright green grass. Stands of deciduous trees dotted the scene, and a couple of thick forests could be seen on the horizon. From the height and thickness of the forest trees, many were likely ancient, and the places were probably home to many fantastic creatures. 

The two had finally acquired clothes. Both were dressed in the simplest homespun, white cotton shirts and plain, light-brown pants. One set had been granted as a quest reward; the other had taken all their meagre funds to purchase. But at least they were clothed now, and things had normalized in that fashion. Jane had mixed feelings about that. 

It was much more practical to be dressed this way, but as they and everyone else had become more attired, that feeling of physical honesty she’d appreciated had gone from the city. It kind of felt like people were back to wearing masks. Maybe Jane just didn’t trust people all that much. Or maybe she was being pessimistic.

She carried their only weapon, a long knife with a fairly dull blade and some rust on it. It wasn’t much, but it was all they had.

Quill’s head tracked a fat, red bird as it arched overhead. “What’s this zone called?”

She wasn’t sure. As they had yet to step foot in it, her mini-map was still grayed out. She walked forward a short way. Pulling out her map by gesturing as if she were unrolling a scroll with both hands, she read the name and chuckled. “Green Hills Zone^⁠1.”

Quill’s head turned her way. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Seriously.”

His lips curled into a smile. “Ok, that’s kind of cool.”

They strode down the road, a bit of eagerness in their steps. While the road was paved with heavy stone for the first two-dozen meters after leaving the gate, it soon transitioned into packed dirt with a scattering of old gravel. Wagon and cartwheel tracks occasionally marred the surface. 

Passing by a clump of thick bushes, Jane saw a small animal poke its head out from under the dark-green leaves and peer up at them with tiny, beady eyes. “A blue hedgehog!” she exclaimed. “So cute!”

Startled by her voice, it recoiled in fright, then curled up into a ball and rolled backwards into safety. They heard the sound of coins clinking as the animal moved. 

The two looked at each other, both biting their lip or cheek to keep themselves from grinning.

Quill snorted. “I just… Oh my gosh.”

Jane bounced up and down with excitement. “I have the perfect name for him!”

“No! Let’s go.” Quill strode off, leaving her to catch up. After a moment, he said, “I wonder if there’s a twin-tailed fox around here, too.”

They both laughed. Because easter eggs were fun. 

Jane checked her map. “The quest is that way.” She pointed off the road to a place close to the city walls. “We’ll have to cross country to get there.”

It was their last city quest. Or the last for their level, anyway. They’d done the rest, including the dailies. That had surprised her. On waking up, she’d found three new quests marked on her map. They were all boring, laborious fetch and delivery quests, and the rewards were pitiful, but they couldn’t afford to skip them. They needed every copper and XP they could get their hands on. After those were done, they’d embarked on the last story quest in their queue, which would take them outside the gates for the first time. 

They were not prepared. One weapon for the two of them. No food, no healing potions, no armour. Jane was nervous, though she tried not to show it.

Of course, the dailies weren’t the only event that had occurred this morning. 

She threw a glance at her new partner. Unable to resist, she teased him as she had been all morning long. Because it was so hilarious. She used a mock-concerned tone of voice. “So, are you sure you’re ok?”

He gave her a flat, sideways look. “I’m fine.”

“Really? I mean, that was some fall. And right on your head.”

He frowned. “I’m fine!”

She giggled. “I don’t know… Maybe you should have your head checked. Do you have a concussion? How’s your vision? Oh, right, you can see just fine.”

This time he flushed under the frown. “I said I’m — bah!” He snapped a dismissive wave in her direction.

She couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing. 

Quill grumbled and strode faster through the green grass. 

After waking up that morning, Jane had started climbing down from her sleeping spot. Quill, already awake and sitting on his branch below her, had glanced up — and seen right up her sarong while her legs were spread. Completely on instinct, his eyes had widened, and he’d leaned forward just slightly to get a better look. And then he’d slipped right off the branch. He’d scrambled to grab hold of it but missed and tumbled upside down. The rope around his chest had jolted him to a stop and cracked his head hard against the tree. He’d been left to hang there, helplessly dangling over the ground, nude, in full view of other players passing by. She’d had to climb down the rope, then down his naked body to the ground, before calling for help getting him down. 

The other players hadn’t made it easy on him either. He’d been flushed with angry embarrassment the whole time.  

As they’d gone about their dailies that morning, with Quill barely talking or even looking at her, they’d seen a number of stray cats about the city. 

Jane, unable to help herself, had pointed each and every one out. “Oh, Quill! See that pussy? How ‘bout that one? What a pretty pussy. What do you think, Quill? Do you like pussies?”

He’d gone silent and red and practically stomped through the streets. 

It had been so much fun!

She dared do it again now as they walked through the Green Hills zone. “Hmm,” she pretended to wonder as they entered a lightly forested area, “I wonder if we’ll see a pussy out here too.”

He came to a stop. When she caught up to him, blinking at him with faux innocence, he was obviously fighting an embarrassed smile. Finally, it broke out, unable to be contained, and he turned to her. “I swear…” he lunged for her. 

She screeched and jumped away, laughing. 

He chased her around a bit and caught her all too easily because she had no Stamina. 

She stood under a tree, gasping for air. “Ok. First thing… No going up… Against any monsters… That we have to run away from.” Her lungs felt like they were full of daggers. She hadn’t felt like this in years, since before she’d started working out. It was quite annoying. After years of blood and sweat and tears shed trying to improve her fitness, it was like she’d gone back to square one, and all that effort had been wasted. It wasn’t fair!

“Actually,” he grinned, hands on his hips, “this is perfect!”

“What?” She looked up at him.

He looked quite satisfied with himself. “If any monsters chase us, I’ll just be sure to stay ahead of you and let them get you first. Then make my escape while they’re chewing on you.”

“Ha ha.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

They arrived shortly thereafter at their destination. Thick trees were spaced out here and there, branches heavily full of leaves and casting wide shadows. In the grass grew the white-bell herbs that they needed. Unfortunately, there were also wolves here. They were common wolves with reddish-brown fur. A number of them walked about the area as if guarding the herbs. They padded along, looking agile and fast. 

Quill rubbed his chin. “I really wish I had a weapon.”

Jane scanned the area. She pointed. “Maybe a branch would work?”

He shrugged and walked over to it, keeping a wary eye on the nearby wolves. Picking up the branch, he hefted it like a club. Then he checked his stat screen. “Yes, it’s equipped as a weapon. But it barely does any more damage than my fists would.”

She held up her rusty sword. “Not like this is going to be much better.”

“At least you don’t have a Strength of 1.” He sighed. “Whatever. Let’s try this.”

“Remember, we need six herbs and three wolf pelts.”

“Doesn’t look like we’ll be able to get to any of the herbs without taking the wolves out first. Of course. I swear every starter zone is exactly the same now.”

She agreed. “I’ll lead because I’ve got the higher HP. You stay behind me. We’ll make sure we only take on one at a time. After I’ve attacked and drawn aggro, you come in from the side.”

“Got it.” He twirled the branch in his hand, looking calm.

She glanced at him, trying to evaluate his true feelings. He seemed at ease, but Quill was very much a guy. He may not be the cruder, rowdy, stereotypical type, but he was very much male and she wasn’t entirely sure just how ok he really was with her taking the lead in combat. She knew his attributes were a sore spot, regardless of his determination to make the best of the situation. But this was the first time they were going into a fight. 

Would he really back her up? Would he resent her for dealing more damage? 

She was starting to like him. She wanted to be friends. Part of her was worried that the disparity between them would become a bone of contention and tear them apart. 

He noticed her hesitation and raised his brows. “Well? Ladies first and all that.” He waved her forward.

Pushing her worries aside, she focused on the task at hand: fighting wolves. 

She approached the nearest one. And as she grew closer, she couldn’t help but grow more nervous. It was instinctual. She’d played full-dive games before, of course. She’d fought in plenty of battles. But this was still a wolf. Maybe not a huge one, but it was still a dangerous animal. And she was walking up to it in flimsy clothes while carrying a pathetic weapon, and she had hardly any stats. It felt real. And stupid.

They got close enough to trigger the animal’s awareness. It turned and snarled with a mouth full of sharp canines. Lowering its head, yellow eyes bore into theirs, and the growl became deeper and more threatening. 

Jane gulped and took another step.

The wolf charged. Teeth and claws hurtled toward her.

Jane almost panicked as her fight-or-flight reflexes kicked in. She had to forcefully override them to keep herself in place, feet planted. 

The wolf’s jaws opened wide, and it leaped at her. 

She stepped sideways and sliced at it with the knife. 

The wolf barely seemed to notice. Because Quill had been waiting behind her, and when she leaped out of the way, now he was right in front of the beast. 

Oops. 

The wolf saw Quill and lunged up at him, snarling and angry.

Quill brought the branch down and desperately tried to fight the animal off. But the aggressive wolf got its jaws around Quill’s free arm and bit down into flesh, causing Quill to howl in pain. 

Jane had completely screwed up her role as a tank. Cursing herself for her stupid mistake, she raced forward with the knife held high. She brought it down on the wolf with all her might. 

And carved away a fraction of the animal’s HP. 

She looked at it in surprise. Oh crap. She was weaker than she’d thought. 

Quill, tears forming in his eyes, pulled the canine to the side with his trapped arm and bashed it over and over in the head with the club. Or he tried to. With his pathetic Dexterity, he missed more often than not, even at point-blank range. And while his own HP was falling rapidly, his efforts did next to nothing to the wolf. “Come on!” he growled. He swung again. And missed.

Jane snapped back to herself and chopped the wolf in the spine, right in the neck. This took down a much bigger chunk of HP. But nowhere near enough. 

The wolf, fixated on Quill, growled at him and violently whipped its head back and forth, shredding the arm in its mouth. Its jaws slipped off the bloody bones and snapped shut.

Quill lost his balance and fell back with a cry. 

The wolf dove back in, jaws closing around Quill’s neck and drawing a lot of blood. 

Jane shouted in frustration, hacking away. But she did so little damage! She, too, missed often. And after only a few swings, she grew tired. It became hard to wield the knife at all. Cursed low Stamina!

Quill died and went limp. 

The wolf released the corpse and oriented on Jane. 

She tried to fend it off, but it was all claws and teeth in her face, and then she, too, was torn apart into bloody ribbons. She ran out of energy. Her arm dropped to her side. She watched in dismay as her HP fell to zero. Her ‘soul’ left her body, and she came to stand in ghostly form over her corpse. 

Quill was already doing the same, visible to her now that they were both dead. 

The wolf stopped savaging their bodies. It glared back and forth between the two. Then it went over to the male one and lifted a leg.

Quill’s eyes widened. “No! Don’t you dare. Don’t you—“

A stream of yellow urine splashed over the corpse’s chest. 

Quill stomped in frustration, though his ghostly feet didn’t even leave an impression in the grass. “You didn’t! You bugger! Gah! I’m going to take your hide. Literally!”

Jane barked a soft laugh. It was hard to do more. She felt drained. Not so much physically, but emotionally. She couldn’t believe how much that experience had actually hurt. She looked down at her arms and chest. They were no longer torn, but phantom pain haunted her. “It felt so real,” she muttered, still trembling from the adrenalin and fear. No other full-dive game had been like that.

Quill looked over at her. His gaze fell. “Yeah. They weren’t kidding about making the pain real, huh?”

She stared at their bodies, voice hollow. “This is going to be…challenging.” Ha. That was the understatement of the century. It was hard to imagine what the future would be like. They would have to kill thousands of creatures in order to clear the game, in thousands of fights, just like this. Who knew how many times they would die? Who knew—

Quill seemed to understand how her mind was spiralling into darkness. “Hey.”

She blinked and looked up at him. She realized she was shaking.

He smiled. “We can do this.”

She shook her head. “We—“

“—can do this,” he insisted. 

She took a deep breath, then she nodded. “Right. You’re right.” They had to keep their spirits up. 

“Respawn?” he asked, bringing up his menu. 

“Yeah.”

They reappeared in Stormstadt’s Grove of Life, back in corporeal form. A notice appeared in front of each of them, announcing a loss of XP as a consequence of dying. 

Quill shrugged, though he had to really be bothered by the fact that he’d lost most of the XP they’d acquired before today. All those fetch quests wasted in a single death. But he put on a brave face. “Could be worse.”

“That’s a big XP loss.” She bit her lower lip. “This could seriously hamper our progress. Especially for…” She apologetically gestured at him.

He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. Though there was a bit of tightness in his eyes and he wouldn’t look directly at her. “Then let’s find a way to do it without dying, shall we?” He set off.

She followed close behind. As they walked back towards the city gate, she watched Quill’s back. Despite their ordeal, he moved with sure purpose. 

Jane was glad for him. She felt like she was walking through sand, her footsteps uncertain. The horrible trap set by the game developers, the attempted assault only minutes later, and the creepiness of the city at night. And now, the horrible realness of the pain that they could experience here. If she’d been alone at this point, she wasn’t entirely sure how she’d be handling it all. Probably with a lot more tears. Maybe curling into a ball at night and crying herself to sleep, alone.

But he was strong. He cheered her up. He seemed to believe in her. He was a rock she could lean on. 

Jane was grateful for that friendship. And she resolved to be strong, too, because they were a team. 

Back in Green Hills, they faced off against the wolf once more. Quill took the lead this time. He came in first, holding his branch horizontally with both hands. The wolf latched onto it, and the pair wrestled. Quill fell to his knees, but he wasn’t losing any HP. Jane then came up from the side and hacked away at the beast’s neck. Unfortunately, her stamina was low, and after a few swings, she needed a break to recover her energy. 

During that time, the wolf climbed up onto Quill and clawed him to death. 

Jane, however, managed to ram her knife into its mouth and slay it without dying herself. She felt a jolt of triumph at her first kill.

When Quill returned from the dead, even with no XP left anymore, it was with a grin on his face. “See? We did it!”

She couldn’t help but smile back; it was infectious. “Well, we halfway did it. Think you can try to stay alive next time?” she teased, feeling bold again.

“I’ll do my best.”

They gathered up two of the herbs they needed and the pelt. Then it was on to the next wolf. 

This time, Quill had a new plan. And from the daring way he executed it, it seemed like he was gaining confidence. He got the beast to bite down on the branch again. But this time, Quill held onto the branch with one hand and swung himself up onto the wolf’s back before re-grabbing the branch. His weight pushed the animal down low while he forced its head back like a horse with a bit in its mouth. 

This left Jane ample opportunity to stab the wolf in the neck and even to rest as she did it, for the creature couldn’t easily get out from under Quill. Together, they managed to kill it. 

Then two more wolves that they hadn’t noticed walking around, drew close enough to aggro and jumped them from behind, wiping their party. 

And yet, as they respawned, it was with good cheer. They high-fived. They’d killed two wolves. They were learning. They were fighting, and even if they were losing, they were also winning — because they were adapting. 

And then, standing around the beautiful, flower and fruit-filled Grove after coming back to life, full of self-congratulations, they remembered that monsters eventually respawned, too. They panicked.

Racing back to the quest zone before the wolves could reappear, they collected two more herbs and the second pelt. Using Quill’s new technique, they finally killed the third and last wolf they needed. This time, they both stayed alive.

The wolf dropped an item: a plain dagger. It was cheap, made of dull metal and pine wood.

Quill picked it up and examined it. “Not terribly impressive, but the stats are a hair better than the club.” He seemed pleased.

A thought occurred to her. “Wait, we’re both in a party, but I technically killed it. So how come you can pick the dagger up? Shouldn’t the person who defeated the monster get first access to loot?”

“You want the dagger?” He held it out.

“No!” She hastily waved him off. Her mind was whirling. “It’s not that. It’s just… How does the system work? What if we kill something, and it drops something really nice? Who gets it? Does it just lay there for anyone to take? I mean, if that’s how the game works, imagine how that would tear parties apart when great gear drops. What if random people can come along and just take loot while we’re fighting?”

He cocked his head, uncertain. “I was probably able to pick it up because we’re in a party together. And in the overworld. I’m sure it would be different in dungeons and boss fights.”

“Maybe,” she said doubtfully. She didn’t trust this game. “Doesn’t change the fact that party members are going to fight each other.”

He frowned and toyed with the dagger. “If the gear is worth it, they’re going to backstab others in their own party. And if non-party players are able to take stuff, then people might stand by, watching fights, then jump in and steal dropped items before the party doing the fighting can get to them. Could get nasty.”

She growled. “Fuck this game. It’s just one heartbreaking thing after another.”

“Yeah.” He looked at her, calm and assured. “But we can’t let it get us down. That’s what they’re trying to do: take away our hope. Turn us against each other. They want us to fail. We have to be better than they are.”

“Agreed,” she replied, taking heart. She looked at the dagger, then the wolf carcass. “We should probably agree on a drop policy as well for the future. Especially for when we end up working with others.”

Quill looked thoughtful for a long minute, then finally spoke. “I think, as long as we’re a party, that any items we get should be used communally, if possible, like material drops and such, stuff that doesn’t bind. Items that bind to one player, the really good, magical gear, that should go to whoever will benefit the party as a whole the most while using it. So if raising up the lowest member helps the most, we do that. If making the top player even stronger helps most, we do that.”

Jane liked that. It was fair, and it made the most sense if you thought as a group instead of an individual. And that seemed like the best way to play. “Ok. But that obviously applies to the two of us and anyone else we permanently hook up with. I totally agree that we should play as a team. But if we’re partnering up with some stranger for one fight or one dungeon, then we flip a coin or roll dice or something and live with the results with no resentment. And hope they go along with it.”

“Fair enough.” He kneeled down and looted the wolf they’d just killed, taking the pelt. Thankfully, you didn’t have to actually skin the animal. Touching the corpse caused it to fade and leave the pelt behind. 

Jane reluctantly felt her doubts rise up again. Could she really trust Quill if some piece of really legendary gear dropped? A shot of guilt followed for thinking poorly of Quill. It was just… She really hoped they never fought over anything. Maybe things would turn out to be fine. But you don’t really know someone until the choice comes up, whatever they say and however they seem beforehand. You can’t tell if a person is good until they prove it, until they choose you over themselves. Sometimes more than once. That’s why they say that trust has to be earned.

And they were in a game where their lives were at risk. There would be a lot of pressure to be selfish in certain situations.

Which begged the question: when it came down to it, what kind of person would she be?