Backing in the trench’s safety, I couldn’t see how I’d get the crone past the airborne predator. Her lethargic step precluded hopes of getting her past the circling bird.

  The decrepit creature’s pace presented other problems. After an hour of following her through the bugbear maze, I didn’t see any way of keeping ahead of Bircht and Duchess without my new companion slowing me down. With mountains and uneven terrain ahead, she’d lag behind—or worse, give my opponents a homing signal toward my position.

  Was it worth having a level 17 meat shield? The players tailing me wouldn’t be stupid enough to engage her. They’d simply root her with Tangling Thorns or other form of crowd control and gang up on me. Getting her past the roc created more problems than it solved.

  Despite her hunched posture, the bugbear stood much taller than me. That was a good thing. If the pair of us made a run for the forest, she’d present a much juicier target than a scrawny human. To increase my odds, I summoned Beaker. The roc couldn’t hurt him, and he’d increase my chances of Red Rovering myself into the trees.

  “Beaker, we’re going to—”

  Before I could finish my instructions, my griffon screamed and darted toward the forest. Wings beating hard, he made it before the giant predator could react.

  “Well, thanks for nothing.” I considered resummoning him but dismissed the thought. I stood in no position to contravene natural instincts.

  I waited for the Familiar cooldown to finish, directed the crone to go forward, and summoned Jasper. As the undead bugbear plodded forward, I mounted my horse when she reached 20 paces ahead.

  “Come on, boy. It’s just you and me.”

  Jasper trotted parallel to our decoy but kept his distance. He watched her warily, unaware of the danger lurking above.

  Despite the crone’s lackadaisical gait, the roc didn’t perform another attack until we traveled 50 paces from the trench.

  I kept looking back at the entrance. The progress we’d made seemed to our detriment, for its safety stood well out of reach.

  As Jasper galloped past the undead, I cried instructions the shambling corpse couldn’t possibly obey. “Run to the trees!”

  The crone’s waddle slightly changed, but it made little difference. By the time Jasper sped across the halfway point, the roc had built up speed and slammed its great talons into its target. The critical hit killed the mummy on impact.

  It carried her away while we made for the trees. But the Grenspur Roc was no scavenger, and it released her. She tumbled somewhere in the middle of the meadow. The beast turned toward me like an airliner about to land—its head-on approach made predicting its distance difficult until it nearly struck.

  I dove off of Jasper a second before the talons exploded my horse in a puff of green vapor—the jetstream of its passing almost lifted me off the ground.

  Wasting no time, I stood and ran, making it almost to the trees before the roc made its final pass.

  Moments before it struck again, I Slipstreamed from its path and hurried into the woods before the raptor could swing around. Once in the treeline’s cover, I caught my breath and watched the massive bird regain altitude.

  When Familiar’s cooldown finished, I summoned Beaker. “I hope you’re satisfied. I’ll need a good scout. Make yourself useful for once, and let me know if you see other people in the forest. If we make good progress, we’ll see Fabulosa in a day or two.”

  Beaker’s eyes dilated at the mention of Fabulosa, and he echoed his excitement in my mind. “Fabulosa is here! Fabulosa is here!” Without further prompting, the griffon launched himself, pumping his wings. He stayed below the treeline in a desperate search for Fabulosa.

  The roc was still close, and my pet would have a better vision of enemy players. I hoped my instructions weren’t too specific, for I didn’t know if Bircht or Duchess were human, dwarf, or elf—or whatever form they might have assumed during their time in Miros.

  Proximity to enemy players caused our dots to overlap. A single dot listed three names on the contest map. I couldn’t tell if they walked ahead of me or behind, still or moving, but I wasn’t sticking around to find out.

  But that gray area worked both ways. My enemies might look for me in the meadow this very minute. I hoped they did and lost themselves in a network of bugbears. Regardless, it only made sense to push forward to Fabulosa. If I separated enough for the map to show it, then all the better.

  I traveled north throughout the day. Bircht and Duchess never separated from my dot on the contest map, so we all moved in the same direction—toward Fabulosa. From my best guess, anyone in a five-mile radius shared a location on the contest map. Beaker flew from tree to tree, scouting ahead, but he never saw them.

  The forest opened as the soil hardened. Soon, only building-sized rocks blocked my vision. The vista of the Orga Valley spanned beneath me. Hills blocked my view of the river and gulleys feeding the Orga’s headwaters.

  I spammed Detect Magic as I hiked, but I didn’t see a single Improved Eye. And Beaker never swung by for rewards of ram meat, so I knew he hadn’t popped any.

  I traveled north beyond orcs, goblins, and bugbears. The horizon ahead blurred into mist, making it impossible to discern land, sky, coast, or ocean. Arweald lay far east of my vision, beyond the Doublespines and above them the Ragged Hills. Ahead, only the mysteries of Blyeheath awaited.

  Mr. Fergus mentioned he’d been there on digs, but I never inquired about them. Charitybelle and I read about them, but most accounts were impersonal, and his advice might have helped. It served me right for being uninquisitive.

  While the North enticed my imagination, my concerns were immediate. At this rugged altitude, trees were sparse, but boulders blocked visibility at ground level. It seemed perfect terrain for an ambush. My Eagle Eyes spotted nothing but dinosaurs and stray bugbears.

  The valley view was almost as impressive as the western slopes of Mount Grenspur. Rounding one of the twin mountains gave me an unobstructed vista of the continent’s largest mountain. It blocked the entire horizon, and I needed to crane skyward to see its zenith, whose color matched the sky. Its shadow blocked direct sunlight after midday.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Without terrestrial clues to anyone’s whereabouts, I turned to the group chat for hints.

  Flagboi Does anyone know what Darkstep and Apache are working on?

  Audigger I don’t know. Apparently, Apache is the only one on Dark’s friends list.

  Flagboi They’re probably secret allies. If I were Fab, I’d worry about that. I bet that’s why he started a settlement in the middle of nowhere—to communicate through mail.

  Audigger There are pros and cons to leaving civilization. I slogged all the way to Workman’s Weep before turning back.

  Bircht Where is that?

  Audigger It’s down here in the swamps. It’s a harvesting colony named after the waterfall and mills along the river.

  Bircht That sounds nice.

  Audigger It wasn’t. It’s been flooded and overrun with undead for decades. A witch moved into the southern fen. They killed her long ago, but her influence lasts.

  Bircht Oof. Witches are no joke.

  Flagboi I heard that. Dark magic is so much more powerful than the other branches.

  Audigger That’s why I returned to civilization. Even if you don’t need bodies for going full-necro, NPCs are easy to manipulate. That’s why I left the swamps.

  Bircht It’s a bit boring having unbalanced magic trees. The battles will all be the same if everyone uses the same spells.

  Audigger That’s why it’ll come down to NPCs—which of us can control the most—or the most powerful.

  Flagboi That and magic items.

  Bircht Are there magic items in this game? I had no idea.

  Audigger Hah! Right.

  Flagboi I don’t believe Bircht for a second. A little bird told me you throw down illusions while suffocating your opponents with a vacuum. Environmental mechanics like that are nature, not void magic. No one this late in the contest is going deep green. Ergo, you have a magic item.

  Duchess You keep talking, Flag. I’ll tell everyone about your experiments. The only thing worse than going necro is working on living creatures.

  Toadkiller This is good dirt. What other game mechanics should I expect to face? Hello? Is this thing on?

  Toadkiller’s jest ended the conversation on an ominous note. He wasn’t wrong about contestants spilling each other’s secrets. It seemed we all shared the impulse to brag or reach out, and ultimately, whatever we whispered in confidence got leaked. In this respect, Hawkhurst’s isolation had benefited me.

  Hearing how dreadful they were to NPCs made me cringe. My estimation of gamers wasn’t far off—we were a plague on Miros. What was the point of mistreating NPCs? It’s not like we were on an even playing field with the locals. Lording power over NPCs wasn’t sporting since the game gave players more power points, and how players treated NPCs said more about the players than the game.

  And what was Flagboi doing that was worse than going necro? How deep were they in dark magic that they all used the same spells?

  Reading the chat channel made me glad to have a high willpower. Resisting illusions and mind control spells might give me the leg up I needed to position myself high in the contest. I’d resisted nearly everything the crone threw at me. And with the Opal Apple, I could have 10 more willpower in every battle.

  The subtext beneath their disregard for NPCs hinted that Duchess and Flagboi had communicated, perhaps, through mail. She was chatty and obviously knew how Bircht played. Had she told Flagboi about Bircht’s suffocation kills—or had that been Uproar or another blabbermouth?

  Asphyxiation acted as an outlier mechanic, and someone as bright as Bircht might have figured that out. Drowning or suffocating creatures bypassed armor, stats, and health.

  The progress bar that I’d gotten from choking on smoke wasn’t a long one, perhaps a minute or so at most. Vacuums were dangerous, and none of my powers addressed them.

  I studied my character sheet. Overall, the power inflation slowed down around level 30. Stat gains weren’t as crucial as unlocking spells, but I saw no dinosaurs or enemies in this high country that might yield experience.

  Slipstream was easily one of my most powerful escape and attack spells, but it wouldn’t work in a vacuum. Without air, Compression Spheres fell short. Even though Hot Air was a blessing and not a spell, I doubt it would work in a vacuum.

  I’d learned from previous gaming experience about the versatility of displacement powers. Transpose would work, making me glad that I’d invested in redundant escape mechanics.

  I’d lost four months fighting the anomalocaris, but discovering Applied Knowledge reassured me I had the highest combat skills across the board. A dedicated archer might have reached the high twenties or thirties, but it seemed improbable that anyone in The Great RPG Contest had become as well-rounded.

  What levels had Bircht and Duchess reached? I couldn’t guess. Without high skill ranks, they might have wasted power points on low-level stuff instead of end-of-the-line ultimates like Mineral Mutation and Earthquake. And with Gladius Cognitus, I could channel while fighting and casting other spells. With Fabulosa by my side, I felt confident about my chances.

  If I could lure my enemies into a foreign settlement, Aggression’s double damage kicked in—another reason to avoid Bircht and Duchess in the wilderness.

  I held my interface map open while I traveled, and seeing the map for so long made me wonder what awaited in Oxum. Darkstep had said nothing about it since I’d left Hawkhurst. Mail arrived at every settlement, so it seemed a little strange that he wanted me in a specific place. Perhaps he’d buried something valuable nearby. I’d need to proceed carefully and watch out for traps and ambushes.

  Beaker soared once more in the skies, serving as my vanguard. Having rounded to the eastern foothills of Grenspur, we’d left the roc’s domain. Without trees in the way, I hoped he might spot them, but my Familiar answered none of my telepathic inquiries with actionable intel.

  Mount Grenspur’s foothills were rugged terrain. We had more mountains ahead of us, though the omnipresent mist enshrouded their features.

  Happily, Fabulosa made steady progress. She’d inched across the contest map with no delays. Perhaps we’d meet tomorrow if things went well. All the while, I scanned for signs of the two opponents sharing my position.

  I ate a late meal of precooked leftovers before bedtime. Without a fire, camping involved minimal effort. No one would know I’d been here. As I ate, I telepathically gave my pet the good news. “That’s enough hiking for today, pal. We’ll catch up with Fabulosa tomorrow. She’s somewhere in the mountains ahead of us.”

  “Fabulosa is here!” My griffon rejoiced at the prospect of reuniting with his favorite dinnertime companion. He playfully swooped around me as I tossed up the Dark Room rope. I let him roam free while I slept for the night.