If I had chosen the bow I could rain death at the birds swooping through the sky. A club really wasn’t the best weapon to take out small birds. We stood in a meadow of tall grass with young trees around. The clouds of insects hovered in the air where small birds flew through, mouths open filling their beaks with snacks.

  How were we supposed to get to them? I had been thinking of a trap, but seeing them filling their bellies effortlessly I realised that would be futile, I had nothing they wanted.

  This was a game, the club in my hand was my weapon. Maybe I was over thinking it?

  I tossed the club into the sky at birds as they flew above me. It flew spinning wildly and landed with a thud. Flinging it wasn’t going to work. I thought back to that one time I had gone axe throwing on a date and held my club loosely at its one end. The technique got a me a bit closer but I was still missing by a wide margin. The birds could see it coming easily and just adjusted their trajectory accordingly.

  Dekka, however, thought this was a new and exciting form of fetch and would race off to bring the club back when it landed. She couldn’t carry it, as it was 1/3 her mass but she would grab it by the small end and drag it in my direction. It could have been funny if I hadn’t been getting frustrated.

  When it became abundantly clear that my club was never going to work as a thrown weapon I tried throwing rocks at the birds.

  Hey, it worked on a Ruath.

  I wasn’t any more successful with the rocks, they were just too slow. The birds were veritable aerial acrobats. I was watching them swoop effortlessly to avoid a rock when I had an idea.

  I tossed the rock up and down a couple of times. It was slightly smaller than a baseball, but it would do. I lofted it into the air and then quickly adjusted my grip on my club. Baaaatttter uuup!

  Thwack.

  The rock shot through the sky speeding at the small bird. At the last second the bird dodged. But I think I ruffled it’s feathers it was that close.

  I imagined the slow-mo replay, dramatic sports commentary: “She’s got power, folks, but no aim. Zero for twenty-three today. The crowd is not impressed.”

  Dekka was still enjoying herself; she also retrieved the rock. I had to laugh; she had done that in life, too. If only she could manifest wings, she could chase the rocks into the sky or fly after the birds. Then an image formed in my mind—actually, scratch that— a flying Jack Russell sounds like a terrible idea, no world was ready for that.

  I got so close a few times. I tried over and over till my arms were all noodly but never managed to hit one.

  I disliked this quest. If it were a main quest, what would happen if I didn’t finish it? I sat down to regroup and rest my arms. There had to be a better way.

  Did the birds stop to rest? Could I set a trap? They seemed to have all the food they needed with the insects. I watched them flit around, they had to get tired. Then I noticed a nest high up in the fork of a nearby tree. A pair of birds kept returning to it. I stood up to try to get a better look. Seems they had baby birds they were feeding.

  Did the heart have to come from an adult sparrow?

  That was a disturbing thought. But it wasn’t like they were real.

  Maybe I could knock the nest out of the tree?

  A few baby birds to save a bunch of people. All NPCs but still that shouldn’t be a difficult equation. It still felt icky.

  I was so over this quest.

  Looking around I found the perfect rock, I picked it up gingerly, it was wet. I must have already whacked it into the air, the wet was dog slobber. Second time the charm. I walked to the base of the tree and looked up, chose the best angle, backed up a couple paces and tossed the rock in the air. Thwack. The rock sailed up and hit the nest and sent it sailing.

  Dekka bolted after the rock and then noticed the peeping baby birds. I chased after her, if she ate it I wouldn’t get the loot.

  I managed to catch her by the back leg. “Leave it.” I told her sternly. This was something I had trained her out of sheer desperation when she was a puppy. There wasn’t anything that my dog met that she didn’t want to bite.

  The nest materials had absorbed the shock of the rock’s impact, protecting its inhabitants, and it managed to land upright.

  There was a pair of baby birds looking back up to me. They seemed unharmed and they were at that stage where they were so ugly they were kind of cute. The chicks had little feathers that stuck up all over their bodies and their eyes were open, all six of them, but you could still see skin, and it was disturbingly translucent.

  I hesitated. Was I really going to smash them? For loot? Dekka tried to dart in to take advantage of my indecision. I pointed my club at her, “No, Leave it!” She backed up but kept her focus on the pair. It was clear, if I didn’t deal with them, she would.

  Something hit the back of my head. I turned and ducked just in time, getting an impression of a sharp yellow brown beak and angry avian eyes. Likely one of the parents. It dove at me again. I waived my arm at it. I looked down at the nest, I was committed now. The little birds couldn’t get back up in the tree, and I couldn’t climb up there to put them back.

  I looked down at them, their little mouths open impossibly wide hoping I would feed them. Closing my eyes I brought my club down in a decisive strike.

  0XP!

  You have received 2 Sparrow Hearts.

  RETURN TO RIVERMORE TO COMPLETE YOUR QUEST.

  I felt gross. But I had succeeded. We didn’t leave so much as retreat from the forest. Dekka at my heels, the pair of us ducking our heads while the sparrows rained hell on us. Diving at us with sharp beaks and soft feather punches. Every cry seemed to accuse murderer, murderer, murderer. It would have been comical if it hadn’t felt so justified.

  The racket followed us until the trees thinned and we were back on the road. Then it was quiet. Too quiet, as if the very land itself was horrified at my baby bird murdering ways. Normally there would be rustle of rodents or something skittering through the brush, but all I got was the sound of my own boots padding on the dirt path and Dekka’s quiet panting.

  They weren’t real, I told myself again. Just code. And even if they had been, the grim calculus was simple: two baby birds to save a town. A fair trade by any calculation. So then why did my stomach feel like it was full of lead?

  I felt like I had broken some unspoken rule of the game. Well if it had a wiki or a guide then maybe I wouldn’t have had to do this. If the game didn’t like what I did, well that was on it, I thought darkly.

  I had gotten no XP but I had received the needed loot, so the system had technically rewarded me for birdicide, it was complicit.

  “They weren’t real,” I muttered again out loud. Dekka twitched her ears but didn’t look at me. She had no qualms about killing baby birds. If it had been up to her they would have ended up in her stomach vs being splattered by my club. She had been annoyed I wouldn’t let her lick it.

  It only took a couples hours to walk back to the town, it wasn't difficult to find my way back with the sound of the river to guide me. Would I be a hero back in town? That was a healthier train of thought.

  Maybe I would get a small amount of coin for each towns person who was healed with the medicine Dr Finney would make from my ingredients! Even a copper a head would help. Heck maybe Bess would name her child after me. She wouldn’t have hesitated, I was sure, at saving her child for the cost of two baby sparrows.

  When we got back the stench met me at the gates. They hung open on their hinges, and I noted another skull had been painted as we just walked in. Dekka, uncharacteristically sticking close, right at my heels.

  There were piles of cloth in the street. As I got closer, I stopped. These were bodies. I spun around my heart starting to pound. Up and down the street there were bodies on the street, a few in carts.

  There was a dark plume of smoke coming from a couple of streets over. What had happened? I ran toward the doctor’s office. There was no line waiting outside his door.

  He was hunched over a table measuring something out.

  “I got the ingredients.” I stood at the counter.

  He turned. His face pale, and even more exhausted than the couple of days before when I met him. For a moment he looked like he was going to be angry at me, but then his face softened. “Thank you traveller. That will help the few who remain.”

  I put the quest items on the counter.

  YOU HAVE FAILED A QUEST! Over half the town has died. Your help arrived too late.

  What!?

  There had been no timer? I had looked!

  Dr Finney smiled at me sadly but made no motion to collect the items. It was almost as if he couldn’t see them. I picked them back up. Maybe I could give them directly to someone? Maybe Bess.

  She wasn’t home. Her body wasn’t on the street. I walked over to where smoke was coming from to see if I could find anyone who wanted the ingredients. Not for pay, just to help.

  The doctor had looked angry then not. Was that the affect of the new cloak? Had I tricked him into feeling more kindly towards me. I understood how charisma worked in games, but this just made me feel dirty and the beautiful cloak tainted.

  A cart piled high corpses sat beside a large pyre in the centre of the town square. The sturdy work horse that stood between the shafts shifted from hoof to hoof and tossed his head at the flies, or the smell. The few able bodied people were slowly moving between the cart and the fire, tossing bodies into the flames. The smell was horrible. Over powering notes of disease, smoke, cooked meat along with the pervasive odour of burning hair and bone. I did my best to stay out of the way of the smoke. I didn’t want the smell clinging to my skin and hair.

  I found Bess. She was standing far too close to the fire.

  “Hey! Move back you—could get burned.” I called out.

  She turned her head, but didn’t move.

  “I have the ingredients, the ones that should make a medicine.” When she didn’t answer, I tried again. “Maybe for your daughter?”

  “My daughter is dead.” She spoke to the fire.

  Tears pricked my eyes, and I wiped them away.

  This wasn’t real. My new cloak billowed around me in the wind and smoke. These weren’t real people. No one actually died because I wanted to do a puzzle. A town wasn’t dead because I chose the sparkly fairy. It was all just code wasn’t it?

  Bess took a step closer to the fire. I ran forward and caught her sleeve.

  “Hey what are you doing?” I pulled her back gently.

  “My husband is dead, my darling daughter is dead. What is there left?” Her pain was authentic and palpable.

  My face flushed with shame. “Can you go stay with your mom in Road’s Cross? Or what about your husband’s business? Can you do that?” Anything to make her grief not my fault. She glanced back at me, I couldn’t look her in the eye and I let go of her arm.

  She shook her head, eyes back on the fire. “My mother can barely support herself and my Pa. The business? My husband was the local glassmaker. I don’t have the skill to do that.”

  She stared at the fire for a long moment and then stepped in to the pyre, joining her daughter.

  I screamed, lunged but it was too late. I am sure people, real people, don’t burn like that. But it is not a sight I will soon forget. She didn’t scream, she just closed her eyes and smiled at me from within the flames.

  I turned and ran. Dekka ran beside me, not barking or wagging her tail. She didn’t surge ahead or investigate interesting tufts of grass. She seemed understand my need to escape this terrible town and the consequences of my failed quest.

  For once I was glad I would get a do over. Next cycle I would save the town, the elf could die.