Jerik landed lightly and silently in the very top of a tree, less than a dozen yards away from the stone building that Morgan had spotted. He stared incredulously at the sight in front of his eyes, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing. That first building was nothing. There were more buildings. Loads of them. Enough to constitute a large village or a small town. People were passing back and forth from the buildings too. Not just humans, either, but quite a few monsters. Goblins, Wild Elves, even a minotaur.

“What in the hell?” He said quietly, crouching low to keep himself hidden. “Why aren’t they attacking?”

He had his rifle ready for instant use as he watched the Minotaur. Was this the work of some kind of magic monster? Had it ensnared the minds of the players here? He couldn’t think of another reason that players could mingle with monsters without getting killed. The Minotaur paused in its path as a red-bearded human called out to it. Jerik couldn’t hear what they were saying from so far away, but it was obvious that the player was in a good mood. Then the sound of their booming laughter reached him, and they parted ways once more. Jerik’s confusion increased.

“Morgan,” he whispered, speaking into his earpiece. “You were right about the building. But there’s an entire town here.”

He waited a few seconds for her reply, imagining the look of complete shock on her face as she digested this new information. But she didn’t speak back. Had she already gone into the raid zone? That was faster than he’d expected. Maybe she was just ignoring him out of temper. Or maybe, a worried voice said in the back of his mind, she and the platoon were caught up in a deadly trap. He hurriedly checked his tablet. He couldn’t see the position of anyone in the platoon. That solidified that they were in a raid zone. If any had died, it would have shown up in the feed.

He didn’t know how to tackle the strange situation in front of him. When it came to understanding complicated social dynamics like the one in front of him, he was hopeless. Morgan would understand better than him. Or Benji. Anyone, really. He made a quick decision, closing the tablet and putting it back in his belt pouch. He’d skirt the strange town and rendezvous with the platoon, then investigate the town. Pike and Meredith could scout around and find whatever monster was controlling so many players. Then they could take them out and free these people.

He re-activated his armor’s flight mode, and shot straight backward out of the tree, away from the town. Then he turned sharply to the left, aiming for the mountainside to take a long, curving path around the town’s perimeter. No sound of a shout reached his ears to indicate he’d been spotted, so he picked up the speed a little. He glanced to the right as he passed the town, seeing that same Minotaur again as it stooped to enter a large building beside the center of the town. So strange, Jerik thought with a shake of his head.

“Aufhoren!”

The shouted incantation surprised Jerik, but not as much as the fact that it affected his Legendary-Class armor. Immediately, a spell struck him in the chest, and he dropped out of the air. Given that he was barely thirty feet above the ground, the fall didn’t hurt him much, but he was still winded as he landed with a crash, his vision obscured by flying dirt. He rolled to his feet at once, drawing his sidearm and looking for the source of that spell. If it was a player, he’d have to kill them just to get away. He hoped they understood when they respawned.

“Stoppen!” Came another shout. Another spell flashed out of the trees aiming for him, and he dropped into a crouch, sending the magic flying over his head. Still aiming, he turned to face the figure he could just see peeking out from behind a tree. It was a fair-haired player holding a staff. He fired twice, both bullets just barely missing as the Magik user ducked behind cover.

“Try another spell and you’ll regret it,” Jerik said coldly, his voice carrying easily to the stranger. “I’m on my way out, and you can’t stop me.”

He wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination or his nerves sharpened from the tension, but he thought he could hear heavy breathing coming from the position where the mage was hidden. The kind of breathing that someone would have if they were working themselves up for a risky action. He hastily started to retreat, keeping his weapon trained on the tree. “I mean it. Don’t try anything.”

“Freeze!”

Another shout, this one from a different direction. Jerik felt a wave of cold wash over him, and his body locked up. A status screen appeared in his field of vision, letting him know he’d just been targeted by a freezing spell. No shit, he thought. “Ward!”

At the voice command, his suit’s defenses activated. The spell affecting him was disabled at once, and he could move properly again. He whipped around to face the new mage, a brunette woman wearing electric-blue robes. Jerik fired, but the bullet evaporated inches from her face. Magic Armor. At least Superior-Class, if it could stop his bullet completely. Cursing, he turned on his flight mode again, and shot to the side, putting some distance between himself and the two mages.

This was a bad situation. Between their shouted spells and the sound of his gunshots, there was virtually no chance that the town hadn’t noticed that there was an enemy in the area. He put on an extra burst of speed, no longer caring if he was silent. Once he felt he was at a safe distance, he looked behind him just to make sure he wasn’t being followed and saw something flashing toward his face. It was an arrow! Before he could even take the time to contemplate how someone was able to intercept him so accurately with such a simple weapon, the arrow exploded in a cloud of static.

Once again, his flight was disabled, this time more than sixty feet above the ground. Damn EMP arrow, he had just enough time to think before he bounced off of a tree and hit the ground. A critical damage warning flashed in front of his face, indicating that the suit was incapable of flight until it could be repaired. But he’d escaped damage. He immediately dove for cover, pulling Paragon off his back. Now he had to continue fighting as he made his slow escape.

“He’s down!” Someone shouted in the trees. It was a new voice. So at least three people were after him. He scanned the forest carefully, looking for something to shoot at, but saw nobody. “We can’t get close enough, Max! Help us!”

Max was definitely a human name, Jerik thought, still scanning the area around him as he began to inch backward. He wouldn’t be at top accuracy standing while shooting, but that hardly mattered at close range. He quickly changed Paragon’s scope to its red dot variant and took a few more steps back. This ‘Max’ would be the first to appear. Since the others were asking for his help, that probably meant that he specialized in disabling or capturing opponents. Which meant that he’d have to get close to do anything. And when he did, Jerik would shoot him before attempting another rush away.

Just then, the rustle of leaves sounded from above him. He glanced up just in time to see a shadowy figure dropping on him from above, but he couldn’t react nearly quickly enough to stop the attack. Whoever it was dove head-first at him, tackling him to the ground and knocking Paragon out of his hands to go skittering away. Jerik threw the stranger off of him and rolled to his feet, drawing the tek knife at his belt. It was a player with dark skin, also holding a melee weapon. It looked like nothing more than a simple baton, but the stranger was clearly an expert with it, judging by how fast he’d pulled it out.

Jerik dove towards Max, his knife stabbing down. Max blocked the cut, then grabbed his wrist, wrenching it back and around. A good move, but Jerik was equally fast to react, dropping the knife and catching it with his other hand. He slashed, forcing Max to let go of him and jump back. Jerik was only able to score a light cut in his leather armor.

“Woah now,” Max said, holding up his free hand. “No need for lethal combat. We’re not going to hurt you.”

“Yeah right,” Jerik scoffed. “You’ve shot me out of the air twice now, and tried to freeze me.”

He lunged again, all too aware of his limited time. He had to take Max out and get away before the others caught up, or he was truly screwed. Max jumped back again as he swiped his knife across, then brought his baton down in a powerful chopping motion. It glanced off of Jerik’s armor but still struck hard enough to leave a bruise. Ignoring the pain of the hit, Jerik continued to advance, cutting again. Max blocked it with his baton, but the Superior-Class knife sheared through the metal baton easily. Jerik let out a shout of triumph, which quickly turned into surprise.

Max moved in a blur. Now unarmed, he struck Jerik with a flurry of blows on the inside of the elbow, just below his armpit, then behind his neck. Immediately, Jerik was paralyzed, his knife arm limp and useless. He hit the ground with a grunt, too stunned to move. He saw Max hurriedly stoop to pick up his knife, and cursed internally. All that work for his points, nearly three-quarters towards his goal, and now he’d have to nearly start over. Max was going to kill him, shattering his gems and earning half of his points.

“Damn,” his captor said, letting out a long sigh. “That baton was brand-new. Patrick won’t be happy that I lost it. I’ll have you pay me back for that.”

“Just get it over with,” Jerik growled through gritted teeth. Anger at his helplessness flooded through his body, clouding his mind and disrupting his better judgment. “Kill me. But I’m coming back for revenge.”

“Kill you? I already told you I’m not going to hurt you. None of us are.”

“Bullshit,” He spat. Some of the feeling was coming back into his body now, and he pushed himself to a sitting position. He didn’t dare move any more than that, as Max was holding his sidearm and pointing it directly at him. With the damage to his suit, he knew he wouldn’t survive a shot from his gun. “I don’t care what monster’s controlling you. I will kill you.”

“Controlling-” Max began, but he was cut off as two more figures appeared from between the trees. “You really think we’re being controlled? Is that why you attacked us?”

“I attacked you because you shot me out of the sky!”

“Sorry about that!” One of the new people said. It was the fair-skinned one who had knocked him down the first time. “I thought you were a wild monster. I hope I didn’t cause too much damage.”

That response, not to mention the genuine apologetic note in the young man’s voice, surprised Jerik, and he hesitated. Then he glanced at all three of them. Through his visor, he could see their combat information listed. There were no debuffs visible. They were all perfectly healthy and seemed to be acting of their own volition. “You’re really not being controlled, are you?”

Max shook his head, a smile on his face. “No, friend. We live here of our own free will, in communion with the wild monsters here. I’m guessing you belong to the platoon that cleared the first raid zone earlier. We try to keep our existence a secret, but now that’s out of the bag. Welcome to Haven.”