“Though Gold remains the standard currency across Terre, precious metals and gems do retain value, for if there is one thing man and dragon share, it is the love of collecting shiny things.”— The Crystal Cities: Where did they come from?

  The Ruined City of Araedi. Day 02.

  Sinnamon and Weaver had to pry themselves out of the comforting embrace of their new bed and return to Malikela in the main lobby.

  The Serethi historian was wading through an impressively large collection of books. There were three piles, two on either side of the large one she was going through. Beside Malikela, initially hidden by the books, was the small green-haired, silver-antlered AnnaLee.

  “Find anything interesting?” Weaver asked.

  “There is definitely a lot more here than I thought at first glance. An entire collection of books neither myself nor AnnaLee can read.” Malikela scratched her head.

  Sinnamon took one of the books off the table and skimmed it. The words on the page were a squiggly script that flowed from right to left on the page, but there also seemed to be an up-down quality to them as well.

  Going off a hunch and question she’d been wondering since yesterday, Sinnamon asked Sparrow for one of her arrows. She very carefully carved the word “home” as small as she could on a corner of the wooden table top.

  “Can you read this?” Sinnamon asked when she’d finished.

  Malikela looked at it and frowned. “No, I can’t.”

  “It’s the word ‘home’ in our language,” Sinnamon looked around and smiled. “I knew it! Universal translator of some sorts.”

  “What do you mean?” Malikela asked.

  “What language are you speaking?”

  “Serethi Standard. Though I also know enough of the Triskelion tongue the human empires use to be helpful,” Malikela answered.

  “I’m speaking English, and have been since we first met. It’s the language many of us speak where we’re from. Since coming here, I didn’t really believe that both our worlds developed the exact same language independently of each other, and this confirms it,” Sinnamon explained. “We can read and speak your languages, but you can’t read ours. It means that whatever is translating for us only works one way…”

  “English…” Malikela said the word slowly, then smiled with understanding. “Ah, interesting!”

  “Doesn’t really help us with this—” Sinnamon pointed to the book, “—apparently our translator doesn’t know all your languages.”

  “It’s still something to know. You Guardians grow more interesting by the day,” Malikela remarked. “Oh, before I forget, the transfer should be completed by the end of today, but you are free to use the building now.”

  “Perfect! You’re welcome to stay here, but we’ve got a quest to do,” Sinnamon said.

  “Seems I’ve got my own now, too. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take one of these books and dig into the city’s archives to see if I can find anything to help.”

  Sinnamon nodded.

  Malikela handed Sinnamon the focus crystals for the other buildings she’d purchased before leaving to return to her other duties with the city.

  Weaver took a small black gem from his bag and crushed it. A swirl of black light appeared and disappeared with a quick flash.

  “What was that?” Sinnamon asked.

  “Woman at the guildhall called it a tracking crystal. Breaking it gave me a quest marker pointed a ways away from here,” Weaver answered.

  He added everyone to his party and the quest marker, a black exclamation point with a white border, appeared for Sinnamon as well, somehow appearing beyond the building’s walls in a way that made Sinnamon’s head hurt to think about.

  At the western city gates, everyone took out their mount summoning whistles. Weaver’s called a gryphon, large with dark golden brown feathers and a deep red mane. AnnaLee’s a pegasus, silver in color with white wings. Sparrow and JonJon each summoned the starter horses all players received at level ten.

  Sinnamon’s whistle summoned thick blue mist that held the earthy scent of a bog. A panther the size of a horse slinked out of the mist. Instead of fur, the large cat had deep blue fish scales. The animal sauntered over to Sinnamon, nuzzling its head in her hands, then bent down low enough so she could climb onto its back.

  The area beyond Araedi’s walls looked much the same as it had in the game; rolling hills and farmland that went on as far as one can see, dotted by the occasional home or barn. In the far distance, snow-capped mountains pierced the cloud cover. The lower forested portions reminded Sinnamon of Colorado’s beautiful mountains. Even from this distance, large swaths of reds, yellows, and evergreens announced the arrival of autumn.

  There were quite a few players out, mostly traveling south and east. Likely to either Delphianna or Castera, only two major cities in the region. A few parties did travel north and west, though nearly all diverged away from Sinnamon and her group.

  There were multiple instanced dungeons in the region, but not much in the way of free roaming mobs. Malikela had said that was partially due to the rise in Adventurers picking up the small kill quests in the absence of the Guardians.

  Sparrow pulled alongside Sinnamon, breaking her reverie. “How long have you and Weaver been playing?”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Weaver’s been playing off and on for three years, I think. I started last year after he and some friends roped me in. Given the circumstances, I’m glad they did. How about you three?”

  “Jon and I started a couple weeks ago. The game went on sale right before they announced the big update and Anna got us to play. She’s been bugging us to play for months.”

  There were a lot of people in Sparrow and her brother’s position. Freshly made characters and just dropped here without rhyme or reason. At least Sinnamon and her friends had the benefit of time to have acquired levels, items, and now even property to set themselves up.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, how old are you three?” Sinnamon asked.

  “Jon and I are thirteen. Anna just turned fourteen.”

  So young, Sinnamon thought. So young to have been ripped away from the life they knew and thrust into a situation no one had any understanding of. So young to have been confronted with the near death of her brother.

  In spite of that, the three kids were coping well. Far better than a lot of the people outside the guildhall yesterday.

  Weaver’s voice called out from above. “Look alive down there! Treants on the far side of the river!”

  Very much tree-like in appearance, the smallest treants had four limbs and carried themselves akin to the way a gorilla knuckle-walked. The largest, massive and built like mountains, walked on as many as eight legs. There were fifteen in total, a large herd following the river westward.

  Some time after traveling a while, Weaver and AnnaLee doing loops and figure eights overhead while the rest on the ground carried out mundane conversation, low rumbling came from beneath Sinnamon. Her water panther looked up at her and tilted its head towards the water. Catching the hint, she slowed and dismounted. Her water panther slipped into the water and Sinnamon used the time to grab her own drink.

  “It’s not a bad vacation,” Weaver said, looking out past their resting spot.

  “Beats the freezing Colorado winters,” Sinnamon replied.

  They reached the site of the quest marker; a lightly wooded area just before a steep cliff face with a road circling it to the west.

  Weaver frowned. “Guess we split up. Since Sinn and I are the highest level, we’ll go as a group of two. You three go together and that’ll leave a support between us.”

  “Let us know if you find anything, and don’t fight without us,” Sinnamon added.

  “Alright, mom!” Sparrow made an exaggerated sigh.

  Sinnamon felt her face flush as all four laughed at her. She couldn’t help but join in. Given that none of them could die, her worrying was a little silly.

  “We’ll head up the cliff, you guys follow the path. We’ll meet further up,” Weaver said.

  “You can fly up, I’ll climb it.” Weaver tossed Sinnamon his summoning whistle then stepped up to the cliff.

  “We both know who the better climber is. You want me to fly because you’re afraid you’ll lose?”

  Weaver snorted, let go of his hand holds, and dropped to the ground. He walked up to Sinnamon, took the whistle, and put it in his bag. Gesturing to the cliff, he gave her an expectant look. “Don’t think I’m going easy on you just because I’m so much stronger now.”

  “Wouldn’t want you to. I want you to really feel like you earned second place,” Sinnamon stood up and patted Weaver on the back as she took her place.

  That got Weaver’s signature shoulder dancing laugh. They took their places and Weaver counted down.

  The moment Weaver said “go”, Sinnamon heaved herself upward. She definitely felt the extra strength this body had over her earth one. Even so, Weaver was already staring down at her with a big grin before she’d even reached the halfway point.

  Sinnamon brushed away Weaver’s proffered hand and climbed up and over the ledge.

  “You can get a rematch later,” Weaver said, smiling sweetly. He turned and started walking. “Keep up. I saw something up ahead while we were in the air and I wanted to check it out.”

  Weaver moved at a fast clip and Sinnamon nearly lost him until he suddenly stopped. The smell of burning wood and… blood…

  Sinnamon nearly choked on the smell of death. When she walked around Weaver and saw what had stopped him in his tracks, she gasped in horror.

  A clearing the size of a football field had been burned out of the forest. Stone pillars and walls jutted out of the ground in the clear signs of a magic battle. Arrows dotted the landscape, sticking from tree trunks and the ground like flowers in a field.

  In the center of the expanse were four bodies; two men, a woman, and a large dog. The larger of the two men was missing an arm and his body was riddled with blood-stained holes.

  “I didn’t know what we’d find here when we got here. I just knew I didn’t want those kids to see it,” Weaver said, his words coming out choked and hoarse.

  Seeing the tears running down his cheeks nearly broke Sinnamon. She wrapped her hand around his and gave a comforting squeeze.

  She had seen some pretty gruesome things during her time shadowing the EMTs and the hospital emergency room, but this was too much even for her. One of the first things she’d been told by the technicians and nurses was that you had to learn to lock away your emotions, shoving them into a box and setting them aside while you focused on saving the life in front of you.

  Sinnamon steeled herself, doing exactly that.

  She went to the bodies and looked them over. They didn’t show any signs of decomposition yet. They’d been recently killed. No, murdered. And then put on display for someone to find them.

  Each was wearing a necklace that upon examination were actually similar to the dog tags soldiers wore. The large man missing his arm was Major Tarik Kronos; the smaller man, Lieutenant Caleb Tahn; and the woman Lieutenant Shai. The dog, the woman’s service dog, was named Koda. They were soldiers belonging to Castera, in the kingdom of Ilsylvania. But that was miles to the south. What were they doing up here?

  Weaver pulled a broken arrow from the ground and showed it to Sinnamon. It had the tell tale iridescence of an enchanted item. A fairly high level critical strike enchantment.

  They looked at each other, both coming to the same conclusion. These people had been murdered by players.

  Sparrow’s sudden, frantic voice inside Sinnamon’s head made her jump.

  “JonJon and Annalee found some other players! I think… I think they’re going to kill them!”

  Sinnamon bolted upright and forced herself to project a calm tone. “Do they see you? How many are there? What levels are they?”

  “No, they don’t. We split up. There’s five of them. One’s level fifty, three are fifty-one, and one is sixty-seven—No, wait, the one with the swords just suppressed himself to twenty.”

  Sinnamon cursed under her breath. “Don’t let them see you. Anna, Jon, can you two fast travel out of there?”

  Anna answered quickly, “No. We have a message saying we can’t because we’re in—”

  She went quiet and Sinnamon watched both her and JonJon’s health bars fall to zero on her heads up display. A moment later, their locations changed from The Wilds Beyond Araedi to Caer Siddi.

  Weaver dropped the arrow he’d been holding. “Sparrow, I need you to follow them while Sinn and I unsuppress. If you think they’ll get away before we get there, do what you can to stop them. Can you handle that?”

  “Yes…” Sparrow hesitated for a moment, then answered again more confidently, “Yes I can.”

  Weaver pulled his Caer Fragment from his bag. “Then hold tight, we’re coming.”