The goblin chieftain’s scream nearly deafened Kyle as he ran through the woods. He could feel the ground tremble beneath his feet as the creature chased him among the trees. Kyle’s gaze leapt around, he scoured his surroundings as he hopped over the thick, tangled roots of the trees. Thankfully, most trees here were pine trees. They had thick, sturdy trunks, and planet of strong branches. Once he found a tree suitable to his needs, he slowed his steps. “Hey, slowpoke!” He shouted again to make sure the goblin chieftain’s attention was still on him and waited for it to approach. There was no space for the chieftain to charge at him at a straight line, the trees would block him every few steps, so the creature just walked towards him menacingly, holding the metal tower shield. Kyle shot a quick glance at the tree behind him over his shoulder. This had to work!...right? As soon as the creature was close enough, he stuck his tongue out, and mocked it some

Kyle prepared himself for a long, drawn out, and ultimately meaningless discussion. These were elves after all, they weren’t known to be the fastest at making impactful decisions. But no, just like everything else in this game, the elves proved him wrong. The process of ‘convening’, consisted of a handful of elves listening to their leader’s quick explanation, nodding, and urging him to go ahead. It was so fast that Kyle hadn’t even gotten the chance to sit down somewhere. The elven leader then applied the contents of the vial onto the tree roots, then stepped back and watched as the sickly white lines on the tree seemed to become tainted by something black. “We shall see whether this works or not.” The elven leader muttered. The other elves nodded, and once again disappeared in the greenery as quickly as they first came. “I hope it does,” Kyle said with a light-hearted chuckle. “Um, is there anything else I can help you with?” He fished for a quest.

  He couldn’t sleep. No matter how much he tried, he simply couldn’t convince his body to relax, and his mind to let go of his worries for a short while. It just didn’t seem to work. He lay on the soft fur bed, staring at the rocky ceiling, wide awake. The lingering smell of smoke was still fresh in his mind, so were the words of the players who were on the hunt for him. All because of that stupid knight. He felt as if his life had suddenly been turned upside down. Why had this caused more alarm for him than being stuck in this game had? He let out a deep sigh. He didn’t think he would be able to sleep today. At least, he thought to himself, they hadn’t found Cacophus’ cave. At least he was safe for now, and so was the Lich. He wondered what would happen were the Lich to be killed. Since the phylactery was in Kyle’s inventory, he wouldn’t die permanently, right? Truth is, there was no way to know that. Aside from giving i

Kyle took a sharp breath as Igna unsheathed her blade. He considered trying to fight her, but not more than a split second of consideration was needed to figure our what a terrible idea that was. So, he turned around, and dashed in the opposite direction. Now, bounties worked a certain way: A player bounty was temporary. At most, they lasted for seventy two ours, as in, three days. For this one, Kyle had noticed a timer when Igna showed the interface to him. It had just eight hours left. That meant two things: Kyle had a slight chance of escaping, and Igna was in a hurry to kill him. As he dashed uphill, he forced himself to think. Hiding in Cacophus’ cave was not a viable option. Igna wielded the power of the sun god after all. She probably could defeat the Lich in just a couple of hits. Running towards the elves also seemed like a fairly bad idea. He had barely gotten them to accept him as an outsider. If he brought an angry woman with a fla

The boss kept wailing on Igna. His scythe moved quickly and decisively, forcing her to either back off constantly, or block his attacks and take chip damage every time. If she had the chance to go on the offensive, Kyle was more than sure that she would deplete the boss’ health bar very quickly, but as things stood, she simply didn’t have that opportunity. Not while the boss was solely focused on her. He glanced towards the entrance of the crater, could he leave at all? No, there it was, the rippling, misty effect in the air all around them. As usual, the boss arena would become sealed off once all players had entered, and it wouldn’t let anyone leave until either the boss, or the players were defeated. Kyle gulped. He did not want to be left alone here with the boss. He needed to help her, and then hopefully get her to believe him. Grasping the hilt of his blade tightly, he dashed to the armoured boss, and hit his back with all his strength. A ‘clang