"You picked a class yet?"The guy behind Kael had been talking for ten minutes. Kael had stopped answering around minute three."I'm going Blade Dancer," the guy said. "Fast, flashy, great for streaming. My cousin says it's the best class for getting noticed. What about you?""Haven't decided," Kael said."You should. You only get one first day."Kael looked up. Ten thousand players stood in the Landing Plaza of Aethon Online, all waiting for the same thing. The sky was a perfect orange. A giant clock hung over the fountain, counting down to launch. Four minutes left.He was twenty-six. He had paid for this headset with three months of overtime, lifting boxes at a warehouse until his back hurt. His sister Lena had pushed him to buy it. She had texted him that morning: Go have fun for once. Don't die of old age in that place.Kael almost reached for his phone to read it again. Old habit. There was no phone here."I'm Ricky, by the way," the guy said. "Ricky Vale.""Kael.""Nice. Kael a

[Players remaining: 9,981.]Kael read it once and kept walking. He had been in the Cradle Fields for eleven minutes. Eighteen people had already died.He tried not to think about who they were. Somebody's brother. Somebody's roommate. Somebody who woke up that morning and thought today would be fun.The number dropped again while he watched. [Players remaining: 9,979.]"Stay west of the river," he muttered. "Don't die. Stay west. Don't die."The field was bigger than it looked. Tall grass brushed his knees, and the river ran on his right, wide and slow and the color of tea. Far ahead, small figures fought small monsters. Sometimes a figure stopped moving. Kael looked away from those.He kept to the edge, near the water. It was slow. But it was quiet, and he had learned long ago that quiet jobs were safer jobs.A few minutes later, he found the first one. A glowing brown sack lay in the grass beside a crushed patch of flowers. A name floated over it: Tomas_R. Next to it, a short sword

"You want us to sleep in the thing you knocked down?" Dani asked."One corner is still standing," Kael said. "Two walls and one way in. That's the best door we're going to find."Oscar looked at the sky. It had started to change. The gray was turning darker, slow and heavy, like ink spreading in water. "Night's coming. Night mobs hit harder. Everybody says so.""Then we don't sleep in the open," Mika said.They limped back to the wreck. Jun leaned on Oscar the whole way. Dani carried Kael's bag without being asked, which he noticed and didn't mention.The back corner of the barn had survived the collapse. Two walls met at a right angle, and a slanted piece of roof made a low cave. Boards blocked most of the front, leaving a gap about as wide as a man."Not bad," Oscar said. "You wreck a barn and get a bunker out of it."They sat down in the dust. It was the first time all day Kael's heart rate dropped below a hundred. Jun sat beside him and pressed two glowing fingers to his leg. [HP:

"Don't fight her," Kael whispered. "Hold the gap. That's all.""That's all?" Oscar breathed. "She's Level 8.""I know. Just hold it."Kael crouched by the front beam, where the roof leaned out over the gap like a porch. He laid his palm flat on the wood and didn't start anything. Not yet."Listen," he said, low and fast, so only the party could hear. "When I say go, Dani burns the back wall. Everyone runs. Oscar, you take Harlan. Mika, you lead.""I have maybe one weak fire left," Dani whispered. "Maybe.""One is enough. That wall's been dry for years.""Leave me," Harlan said. His voice was thin. "She'll stop if you leave me.""No," Kael said. He didn't even look at him.Outside, Sable snapped her fingers once. Two guards stepped forward and began tearing at the boards. Wood cracked and squealed.Torchlight poured through the widening gap. Kael counted shadows. Five guards, one Sable. Six spear tips, and a woman who could kill everyone in the barn without raising her voice."I'll rem