I’d barely crawled up onto the black rock beside me when Hergvor cried out in pain.

  I pivoted toward him. He was on the next isle over, about six feet away from me. He’d gone to his knees, and his health bar had dipped precariously.

  Behind him, a tall, snakelike creature with a human head and arms was pacing back and forth, a long black obsidian pike in its hands. It was bright orange on its snake body, and black as pitch on its human parts, with fire for hair and eyes bright as candles.

  It raised its pike. I leapt the gap.

  My shield went up to block the hit, sparing Hergvor a strike that might have killed him.

  “FATE! I need you to switch Hergvor back to follow mode!” I said as I shoved back against the pike. The creature—a flame naga, one of the mobs that frequented the Slain Crags—hissed at me, and I pulled back my shield to swing my Mace of Decimation at its head.

  It took damage, and for once, it was a significant cut of its health. The faint words CRITICAL HIT floated vaguely in the air where I’d struck it.

  I glanced at its name and level above its head. Level 18. Hey. That’s my level, I thought.

  FATE spoke. I can’t manipulate anything in your menus. I can only observe, she said.

  I cursed. “But didn’t you override my—”

  I cannot manipulate anything in your menus, FATE said, her tone changing. Even I could see it was a warning. I. Can only. Observe.

  I swung at the naga again, forcing it to the edge of the island. Hergvor tossed me a healing spell I didn’t need.

  She overrode my core match, I thought. I know she did. But she wasn’t supposed to, was she? She only did it then because Setup Mode was not being monitored like Game Mode was.

  Another secret I had to keep from the viewers. I would have to turn Hergvor back to follow mode the old-fashioned way.

  I twisted and kicked the naga in the chest.

  It gave a cry and surged back, toppling into the lava. Unfortunately, it was a fire naga, so this did not damage it whatsoever. It came squelching back out of the magma a lot more easily than I ever could.

  As soon as it climbed onto the stone again, I stomped hard, casting a Rock Tumble spell. This destabilized the rock at my feet, making it tumble down onto the naga.

  Once again, though, it didn’t take damage. That was fine. It had destabilized the creature, which reduced its defense as I chased the rockfall and brought my mace down on its skull.

  It died, and I glanced quickly through its drops before taking it all. It had a little money on it, a single Fire Naga Carapace—which I recognized as a drop used for crafting—and something called an Explosive Heart, which was a throwable that functioned like a grenade, with a pin and everything. I vaguely remembered those too, even though I had never farmed the nagas here. There were better places to farm mobs than the Crags.

  I wanted to stay and enjoy the fact that I’d killed something the normal way for once, but I had to get Hergvor out of this mine field of creatures. He was level 22, but as an NPC, I didn’t think he could hold his own against more than one naga, and I knew they spawned all over the place in this lava delta area. I had already seen Wapum stomp one to death.

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  I hastily set Hergvor to follow mode, then began the jog back to the Gem Baths entrance. FATE had said Dave was that way, and when I had to pause to wait for Hergvor to catch up, I checked my Team menu. It had Dave listed as active, not greyed out, and his health was a little under half. He wasn’t actively taking damage, though.

  When I tapped for more information, the menu allowed me to see his location in a separate map. He hadn’t moved from the entrance, but I couldn’t currently see the spot from where I stood. The sun was starting to rise here, and the fog and smoke always got thick in the Crags during sunrise and sunset. It was on a timer.

  There was an option to show my Teammates at all times on my normal HUD map, so I turned that on. By then, Hergvor had caught up, so I jumped a couple more islands.

  Another fire naga attacked, but my Strength points and my mace carried me through. It was genuinely refreshing to kill something by beating it to death. Cathartic, really.

  Dave, you fucker. I’m coming for you.

  I reactivated Hergvor in heal mode for a minute to bring me back to full health, then crossed through the last patch of thick, sulphuric smoke. I burst out with my mace and shield both ready to go, in case the parrot had a final trap laid for me.

  Why did I trust him? I didn’t even know him. I never asked FATE his story. I should have. If he betrayed Remnant, why not betray me?

  “Daaaaavvve!” I roared, swiping aside the last bit of smoke with my shield. I started to bring my chin up to search the sky.

  Then I stopped.

  There was a figure in front of me. A tall one, with feathers.

  And in front of her was a tiny green bird who had been pinned to the ground with an arrow.

  Bridget stood with her bow stretched taut, the arrow pointed directly at Dave, who was barely ten feet from her. It was a shot she couldn’t have missed if she tried.

  My heart flipped, but it was more like a rapid somersault into confusion, not fear. Bridget looked focused, but a bead of sweat dripped off her long plague-doctor beak. She shook with the tension of the bow, but didn’t fire.

  “Took you long enough,” she growled.

  At me.

  My gaze swiveled to Dave. Instinct roared at me to stay stone still, that a sudden move right now could mean death.

  Dave was breathing in labored bursts. There was something in his mouth. A round black thing, with orange burning out from inside it in a cross-hatch pattern.

  The item name above it read Explosive Heart.

  “I’ll do it,” Dave said, his voice muffled. His beak was in the pin of the grenade. “Refnant will surfife it wif his fire refiftance. You fwon’t.”

  Bridget began to take a step back. Dave twitched, and she stopped.

  “Don’t efen fink about it,” Dave growled.

  I understood then. If Bridget fired, Dave would blow her and himself up. But if Bridget got out of range of the grenade, she could shoot Dave without the blast hitting her. Dave wasn’t gonna let that happen either.

  I scanned Bridget’s level, which was 13. I wasn’t sure if the grenade would kill her. In fact, I was pretty certain it wouldn’t.

  But she didn’t know that.

  My rage at Dave came crashing down like cold water. He hadn’t left me. Bridget had attacked him. Pinned him here. Taken him out of my fight.

  He must have looted the fire naga that Wapum had stepped on. I tensed. When had he done that? Opportunistic bastard. Had he been running away from the battle already? He’d just been unlucky enough to run into Bridget?

  Or… was this all an elaborate setup? Had Dave orchestrated all this just to look like he hadn’t betrayed me?

  He must have seen that I survived. He knew I would kill him. So he set himself up to look the hero.

  My mind was running rampant with suspicion. The floodgates had opened when FATE had warned me not to trust Dave, and now every betrayal of my life was rushing into that gap.

  There’s no one I can trust. No one but Lore—

  “Do… something,” Bridget hissed.

  I looked at her. She was focused solely on Dave, tracking his every movement. If Dave so much as glanced my way, she would seize the chance to shoot him.

  But why was she asking me to do something?

  What the hells did she think I would do?

  I looked from her, to Dave, and back again. I very slowly reached back to stow my weapons.

  And pull out the other item I had stowed in my secondary weapon slot.

  It was the only way to open my inventory without Bridget knowing. I cupped the item in my palm, hooking my thumb through the obsidian ring in one end.

  “What do you want me to do?” I said to Bridget.

  A red ring appeared on the ground surrounding me.

  Bridget was inside the ring. So was Dave. I took a slow step to one side. Dave was clear now.

  Bridget turned to look at me. “What do you think?” she snapped, as if that answered everything.

  I didn’t know what I thought. I just pulled the ring.

  The grenade exploded, and Bridget’s arrow went wide.