Well, I didn’t want to get shot again, so I pulled my sword and shield, and ran full speed ahead. Three of the six goblins nocked arrows, ahem loose.

  I could see now that, on top of being little greehey were all kitted out pretty well. Eae had bones arrayed in little rows on their chest as armor, and rusty looking swords at their waists. The arrows looked sharp enough.

  I had to run faster.

  The world slowed. I heard a ‘whoosh’ sound that I ter learned was the ability activation feedback for ‘Adrenaline Rush’. The arrows stopped about three or four feet from my fad floated in. I batted them aside with my shield a running. Probably saved my life.

  The goblins glowed a deep red. By the time I got to the first ohey had all dimmed to a hot pink. I guessed that was the ability’s way of letting me know how much time I had left.

  Not much.

  I plunged my sword down into the chest of the first goblin. This close he was maybe only three and a half feet tall. A spray of blood shot out like a pin in a water balloon. I kept running and shoved him to the dirt.

  The remaining goblins glowed a light pink.

  I wretched my sword free, sending gore into the air, and shed out at a goblin with a bow, slig it right in half and opening his nebsp;

  Then time returo its normal free-rushing speed, and I was surrounded by foblins. I couldn’t tell if that was bad or not.

  It was bad.

  An arrow grazed my neck, and two goblins stabbed me oer the other, sword points catg on the mail, but pung with surprising forto the musy babsp; I spun and shed out with my sword, knog them back, but not doing much damage. Seeing an opening, I ran through them, and knocked oo the dirt. I then spun, and put the rest in front of me.

  It was four-on-one. Their reach was shit, but my mail didn’t cover the lower parts of my legs and my boots weren’t armored either. If they shot me in the face, or nicked a femoral artery, I was super dead. Also that crossbow roblem.

  I raised my shield just in time for a crossbow bolt to punch halfway through it, sending a crack I could stick my fihrough halfway down the fabsp; Yeah it was a real problem.

  What was that other ability I had, again? It was ohing to remember your abilities rolling at a table, and another when people were shooting at you.

  I’d never been to boot camp. I’d never eveo LARP camp.

  This was hard, man.

  Crossbow guy started loading. Two goblins pulled what looked like pot lids for shields and advanced. Arrow gobli another my way that grazed my scalp.

  Before I could decide my move — a dagger flipped end over end through the air, gleaming with purple energy, and lodged itself into one side of the crossbow goblin’s head, sending brain matter and skull out the other side. I ran forward.

  Bere leapt from the bushes and tackled arrow goblin, stabbing over and over. I swiped furiously at the two goblins with shields. They were surprisingly disciplined, c for each other. I couldn’t find an opening. I just hammered them with blow after blow.

  One shield fell apart. I crushed through the bone armor with a thrust, and he fell. The sed shield goblin stabbed right through the flesh above my knee. Right below the hem of my mail.

  I wheeled around on him, and lunged. My leg gave out and I fell to my good knee. His shield turned aside my feeble thrust.

  Right, ‘Sed ce.’ I had that. How did I use it?

  Bere slit his throat and pushed him to the dirt.

  “You okay?” she asked, smiling wide with nervous adrenaline.

  “No?”

  I fainted.

  By the time she was able t me into a sitting position, I heard the tail end of the viusibsp; Yeah. Viusibsp; It was catchy. So, I must have only been out for a sed or two.

  Bere ed the leg wound with white cloth.

  “That was stupid,” she said, talking fast. “Always cheap! Other pyers mark ambush points, and this was an old one. Looks like they’d just made a kill. Poor bastards.”

  I gnced around. Among the bodies of the dead goblins were several humans: One armored in mail like mihough with a green tabard. One wore robes. And the st wore something like the leather jerkin Bernie wore, but less fancy.

  Were they adventurers like us? Was there anyone like us out here, or were they Non-Pyer Characters? Did that eve in a world like this?

  She ripped the crossbow bolt out of my shoulder, and I screamed.

  I threateo pass out again, my vision narrowing, but I kept my senses. She started ing my shoulder.

  “Wounds heal quick for us,” she said. “Probably especially for you. You’ll have to check your character sheet. Iion is still a problem.”

  “Thanks for all this,” I said.

  “Didn’t really leave me much choice, huh?”

  Bere pulled the baight, then pushed something on her crystal ste. Wait. There was one on the ground too. It was a green color. Mine was blue, like the one she held.

  A rush of euphoria washed over me. An itchy feeling twisted in my leg and shoulder.

  “This skill works slightly better outside of battle, so maybe it’s good I used it now.”

  “How low did I get? HP wise,” I asked.

  “Two,” she replied.

  Berood and started searg the bodies, starting with the dead adventurers. If that is what they were.

  Two hit points. I had gotten down to 2 out of 18.

  “Man,” I said. “I shouldn’t have tried to fight six on one, huh?”

  “Twelve,” Bernie replied.

  “No shit?”

  “Six in the bushes too.”

  “I would have been fucked.”

  “Right in the ass!” Bernie replied. “Good thing I was here.”

  I stood.

  “You saved my life,” I tried to sound grateful, but it was hard sidering how scared I was.

  I almost died. If Bere hadn’t been there, I absolutely would have died.

  I sat back down.

  “You gonna help me loot these bodies?” she asked.

  I grabbed my knees and rocked myself. Didn’t think people actually did that, but here I was.

  This was too mubsp; I didn’t want to be here. Fuck this fake ass fantasy shit, I wanted out.

  “Oh, no,” she muttered and ran to me. “Hey,” she said, “Hey, Zach, freaking out is normal. Freaking out is fine.”

  She hugged me. I didn’t cry. Much.

  But damn was it o be held.

  “Yoing to be fine, Zabsp; You’ll never be unprepared again. And I’m here, yeah? I’ve been here for a week, and I’ve already leveled twice.”

  “Twice?”

  “Yeah.”

  I wiped my eyes.

  “Did you cry?”

  “Lots. I think it's adrenaline dump? Body doesn’t know what to do, so you cry.”

  “Right.”

  Bere’s eyes were an indescribable soft brown, and her smile was sweet. I stood ao the first dead body.

  When we found something that seemed useful, we tossed it into the pile she’d started. After a while we had quite the haul.

  First was the stuff we got from the dead adventurers:

  1 stationary and writi in a small satchel.

  1 wand.

  1 spellbook

  1 explorer’s backpack (various adventuring gear like torches)

  1 set of mail

  1 Longbow and a quiver of 12 arrows

  1 longsword in a sheath

  1 steel kite shield

  2 handaxes

  1 short sword

  1 burgr’s pack (dles, a bell and string, and ball bearings ac)

  7 kwo of which were long and well suited for bat.

  3 tents

  3 bedrolls

  And finally, 11 packs of rations

  Then there were the goblins which mostly had a bunch of junk like the bone armor and pot lids, as well as various gross tris like uncured animal parts and pnts of dubious edibility. Their swords, more like rge daggers for us, didn’t seem like they would hold up torous use, and the bows didn’t look like they’d pack much of a punch.

  The best we got off them were the throwing knives Bernie used to kill them, and a handful of age of various make.

  And the crossbow. The crossbow was fanbsp; We found something like 9 unused bolts for it. ting the one we dug out of my shoulder made 10.

  “Yeah this crossbow has to be magic, based on how it puhrough your armor. We’ll o head back to town to get it identified.”

  I looked at the huge pile of loot.

  “Are we taking all of this too?”

  Bernie shrugged

  “Why not? Should all sell well. And some of it’s actually useful.”

  She prodded the burgr’s pack with her foot.

  “I mean, for you I guess. I don’t use stuff like this. o stay light on my feet. I’m in good shape, but not good enough to lug a fifty pound pack back to town, so take what you think you carry. I’ll mostly keep the crossbow and daggers.”

  I looked her up and down real quibsp; She was 4 foot 10 inches of bck leather and a green cape, with daggers running down each leg. She had the good fighting ones looped into her belt. Her right hand had a big thick glove, almost like a workman’s glove, but with creamy leather, while the other one was a barely-there fingerless thing.

  She’d gotten a haircut, a short pixie cut that kept the hair out of her face but also looked quite fetg with her pointy features. The leather also looked nice against her hips.

  “Are you ogling me?” she asked.

  “I mean, you look different.”

  She ughed, a over to shove the wand and spellbook into her satchel. She settled the crossbow’s strap behind her back.

  I swept my eyes across the bushes. The movement of the trees in the wind cast shadows that seemed to jure goblins in the brush. On a sed look they disappeared.

  “The leather looks nice,” she said, “but doesn’t breathe well. It’s like a s up in here.”

  “The mail isn’t as breathable as it looks either. Though, I guess more breathable with the hole in it.”

  That got a ugh out of her.

  I chuckled, and started going through the explorer’s pack to see what I wao keep, and what I could toss to make it lighter. I didn’t want to lug a fifty pound pack either, and I found this kind of mundane iory work kept my mind from obsessing about those six goblins I hadn’t seen.

  I tossed most of the torches. They were the heaviest. I kept the lighter of the two coils of rope, the silk one, and solidated the water into one skin. After that, it was mostly eating utensils, and stuff that didn’t weigh mubsp; I added some of the burgr’s pad it still felt much lighter than it had.

  The good ons I took. The handaxes and short sword went into the pabsp; I strapped the longsword to the outside. It didn’t seem better or worse than mine. Could I use them both at once?

  I had a fshback to the crossbow bolt that had nearly shattered my shield. That one was headed for my throat.

  Probably best to just use the one sword at a time.

  I sed my broken shield for the metal one. I tested the longbow, but couldn’t get it back to full draw with much ease. Curse my 11 strength.

  The mail, a hauberk, I wasn’t sure about. Once I got it off the man — no small feat — I realized it was about forty pounds rolled up and sized te. No doubt, it fetched a pretty penny. But I was already exhausted, and the thought of adding it to my pack seemed like a bridge too far.

  Last of it was the tent and bedrolls.

  “How many of these do we need?” I asked.

  Bernie had spent much of that time dragging the goblins into a pile.

  “The tent or the bedrolls?” she asked, dropping the st one.

  “Both.”

  “Well,” she wiped her brow and sat on a fallen log, “the tent we could use. I’ve been running back to town eaight. Don’t trust sleeping out here. But with a good tent we could travel farther. And we’d only need one bedroll.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t get too excited,” she said smiling, “it’s ‘cuz we’d be sleeping in shifts. I don’t really like the idea of getting stabbed in my sleep.”

  “I didn’t mean — that’s possible?”

  She shrugged aured to the dead humans in the road.

  “Right,” I agreed.

  I strapped the bedroll to the bottom of the pabsp; The tent had its own satchel, which I affixed to the top. Together, it was about forty or so pounds distributed fairly evenly ay back.

  I retty familiar with forty pounds from carrying water bottles to the break room.

  The pack with the belt and the mail wasn’t too bad, but I didn’t want to carry much more than this.

  “You ready?” Bernie asked.

  “Yeah, I want to see what this town is about.”

  Bere grunted her assent, grabbed one of the torches I’d left behind, lit it, and tossed it on the pile of goblins. Their clothes caught fire pretty easily, a fact I squirreled away for ter.

  “That’s sure to draw attention, so let's move before they show up.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Whatever nasty busihis world has in store for us.”

  We marched down the road, and toward town.