The boat turned slightly, bringing it towards one of the piers.

  I started following the stairs down to the docks to meet the newcomer. The boat was going to get to the pier before me, but that was ok, I wasn’t in a rush. I just liked the idea of speaking to another player and learning their experience of the storm. Ok, I was also a little lonely.

  When I was about halfway down the stairs to the dock, just as the boat arrived alongside the pier the pilot had been aiming for, the pilot stood up to lower the sail. I recognised him, Samuel Storm, my fellow rower on the Wayfarer. With the sail down, he let the momentum bring him closer before, with practised ease, he threw a line around one of the mooring points from near the stern. He then quickly moved to the bow, where he hopped off the boat and bound the front of his vessel to another point further up.

  By the time I descended to the second tier of the town, he had finished securing his ride and was making his way off the piers and into the wider docks area. I lost sight of him as I fell below the roof level of the docks area, but soon heard the sounds of snarling beasts and the occasional yelp of pain. I rushed down the final flight and came around the corner to see the large open area of the docks. The buildings on this level were considerably larger than the ones I had seen on the top tier. Most had large doors like warehouses. Tracks or rails had been built into the ground that led from most of them down ramps going into the water.

  Sam had approached one of the open warehouses and been swarmed by a pack of giant rats. They had flanked him, and he was favouring one leg, his trousers already soaked in blood. Two corpses indicated that his injury hadn’t come without a cost. He was managing to keep them at bay, but it was only a matter of time before they got lucky or he ran out of stamina. One moved to strike his back, and without turning, he swung the blade back at it. It dodged, and another dived in to strike. The blade came forward, and the animal dodged back as well. I charged up a and released it at one of the beasts between us.

  “Sam! This way!” I shouted out to him and released another spell at one of the flanking creatures.

  The guy was good. He had shot a look over his shoulder, spotted me, saw the stunning effect my had on the one between us and had followed up with a stabbing strike through its eye as he shifted in my direction. He did a fighting retreat. The rats seemed to try to capitalise on his attention being on other rats, showing a level of intelligence higher than what I had experienced so far, but it was costing them injuries.

  After I had started targeting the ones trying to be clever, two of them had broken off to charge at me. I hit the first with a , slowing it down and had just enough time to charge a , which I delivered with a thrust to the second when it got within range. The first received a two-handed blow, which caused it to collide with the second and for a moment, I put my attention back on the other player. I started casting , brought my Battlestaff in a two-handed blow to the head of the second rat, aimed and released the spell at one of the ones flanking him. I dodged the first rat’s charge, taking the opportunity to attack it as it moved past me, sending it into a roll. The second rat used my distraction to clamp onto my leg, doing enough damage to break my mana shield and cut into my life pool with that one blow. My reaction to kick it sent it flying. I charged another , which I delivered with a two-handed blow to the first rat, ending its life.

  I turned my attention back to aiding the fighters' retreat, sent a at a bloodied rat to give him space and turned back to the one which had bitten me. It was keeping its distance. So I sent a in its direction.

  When Sam was within a few metres of me, I started moving towards the stairs back up the town. With them being unable to get fully around him, the fight seemed to get easier for Sam as we made our way carefully up the stairs. I called out when he was near the top of a flight so he wouldn’t stumble. The rats continued to harry us until we got to the stairs to the third tier. The moment my new companion put his foot on the first step, the live ones turned tail and ran, leaving a trail of corpses in their path.

  The moment we realised the fight was over, we both collapsed onto the stairs.

  “That…” Sam started. “That was…” He was looking for a word.

  “Awesome!” I finished for him

  He chuckled. “I was thinking more ‘intense.’ I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

  “What? Are you seriously saying fighting retreats against a seemingly infinite number of giant rats isn’t a daily occurrence? I’m shocked!”

  “No, I’m more of a daily battle against cockroaches kinda g..guy. Still…you are right…that was pretty awesome!” He looked over at me properly. “Aenara? Didn’t we share a ride to the Wayfarer?” His eyes widened when I nodded in response. “Small world, I can’t believe that was only yesterday…”

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  “This game is like nothing I have ever played before,” I added.

  “Tell me about it. The game even rewards me for skills I have in the real world…”

  “Is that how you were able to fight the Weapon Master?”

  “Mostly…it was like fighting my grandfather, you think you have found a gap and it turns out he was just testing you…I hope he survived the storm and is in Landing. I’d love to spar with him again. What was it that you were firing at them? Some kind of silenced gun? The stun it was doing made crit-hitting them very easy.”

  “Nah, it’s Magic, a ranged spell. I’ve got a melee spell as well. Crit hitting?” I asked.

  “Yeah, if you hit a creature in a vulnerable place, you do more damage.”

  “Not random?”

  “Doesn’t seem so, just got to be in the right places. So kill strikes kill, wound strikes wound…”

  “Makes sense. I also wonder if it works the same for me…”

  “Seems to, the shots to their heads left them shocked longer than to their rear ends…and took less damage from me to kill them. Part of the reason the stairs became so much easier is that all your spells hit their heads. Can you keep that up all day?”

  “Sadly, not, I was already starting to ration my shots. You?”

  “Easier once I couldn’t be flanked, and had you taking some of the strain… But I had been burning through my stamina pretty quickly on the docks… maybe another couple of minutes, and I would have gotten too slow.” He became serious for a moment and looked me directly in the eyes. “Thank you for the rescue. I owe you one!”

  “Nah, us players need to stick together. Especially those of us who are special enough to get a ride to the Wayfarer, did you know most people seemed to be swimming there!”

  “Swimming to the Wayfarer? The peons!” he laughed back. “Seriously, though, I would have died back there.”

  “We all die eventually,” I laughed. “But if you insist, you have a boat, and it looks like we need to sail to get to Landing.”

  “Ah, yeah, that’s why I'm here.”

  “To give me a lift?”

  “No,” he chuckled. “Let’s call that an added bonus. That little boat of mine is fine for island hopping, but it won’t be able to handle the water we would need to cross to get to Landing. At best, you would find yourself back here in this chain. I found a Cutter moored in a cave on the next island over. It’s missing its sails and the tiller linkage. A note on the board said they had been brought here for repairs.”

  “So, I help you get those things, and you take me with you to Landing?”

  “Deal?” he said, offering a hand.

  “Deal.” I agreed, shaking it. ‘Invite to party,’ I thought at the interface, hoping it would work that way. Sam’s eyes twitched to the right. He gave a nod, and a red bar and a yellow bar appeared over his head. The yellow one was eighty per cent full and slowly trickling up. The red one was closer to a fifth. “But first, I think we need to get your health back up.”

  “That would be appreciated.” We got up and started climbing the stairs.

  “The house at the top should be safe and has fresh water.”

  “I’m pretty sure that warehouse you found me near is the sail loft. You haven’t by any chance found an engineering workshop?” Sam asked as we moved past the 4th tier.

  “Not yet. I woke up on the other side of the island. I’d only explored the top tier when I saw your boat coming in and came down to meet you. Welcome to South Harmony, by the way. There is an Echo, kind of like a Force Ghost, up near the manor house; she might know.” I commented.

  “Force ghost? I thought this game was supposed to be fantasy, but there is so much high technology. The way my nephew hyped it up, I was expecting a medieval, large battle arena game.”

  “He was part of the open beta weekend?” I asked. “In fairness, that very much was. There was no character creation, and a lot of the interface was locked; you just picked your role, and it gave you a character with the equipment already equipped. They did say that it wasn’t the full game, but a test of their server stability under large-scale loads. Half my friends rushed through the tutorial zone wanting to get to the PvP zone. This place was some kind of learning institute. South Harmony Institute for Further Technology and Engineering. There is no power, but there are electric lights. Even a few computer terminals in the library.”

  “Any idea what happened here?”

  “Nope, what I've seen looks like it was shut down, not rapidly abandoned. Some of that might have been the Explorators cleaning up as they made this a regional base.”

  “Explorators?”

  “One of the groups tasked with exploring the New World. I think they might be one of the factions we can join in Landing. From the name, I'm assuming they are for people wanting to explore, make discoveries, solve mysteries… You know, the fun stuff in games.”

  “They abandoned it?”

  “Kinda, most were ordered back to Landing to prepare for the arrival, the McCoys stayed to continue their mission. I think they decided they were too old to abandon their home.” I turned and looked out across the bay. “I wouldn’t mind living somewhere like this, if I got this view every day…”