I slept like the dead until Ruby shook me awake.

  “What time is it?” I asked groggily as I sat up, rubbing at my eyes. I might have a tier-1 body, but yesterday had been insane.

  “It’s early morning,” Ruby whispered, her gaze locked on the door. “The sun hasn’t risen over the mountains yet, but I hear something.”

  That woke me up. I lunged to my feet. “What?”

  “Snorting sounds.” She looked nervous.

  “Do you have any weapons?” I should have asked that sooner.

  She shook her head. “Joseph had a knife.”

  “It didn’t come with his loot. Would you prefer a hunting knife or a stick?”

  “I used a stick against a rabid bunny yesterday, but didn’t keep it. It seemed pretty useless.”

  “Yeah, they’re more effective against smaller monsters. Next time, just keep everything. Our inventory is pretty big.” Well, mine was, at least. Even with her standard-sized one, it would take a lot of stuff to fill it. I extracted my hunting knife and passed it over.

  She took it nervously. “I’m not much of a fighter, Lucas.”

  “You’ve got stealth, though.” I nodded at the cloak she’d already donned. “Will you check out the situation?”

  Ruby took a long, nervous breath, then nodded, clutching the knife so hard her fingers whitened against the handle.

  I placed a hand over hers and held her gaze. “Relax. Breathe slowly.”

  “How can you say that if there’s probably a monster outside?”

  “Getting tense only makes it harder to react. Panicking before we even see what’s out there doesn’t help us deal with whatever it turns out to be.”

  I held her gaze for several seconds until she visibly relaxed and took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m good. Thanks.”

  Just then, a loud snorting sound came from outside. With it came the sound of something hard striking the ground. There was definitely something out there. It sounded like maybe 50 yards from the tent, on the side opposite the remains of the pyre.

  Part of me wished we could just hide inside and trust the tent defenses and camouflage until the monster got bored and wandered off. That was stupid, though. Not only did I really not want to get trapped inside the tent if it attacked, but I needed bucketloads of experience in order to reach level 10.

  “I’ll go see,” Ruby said, putting on a brave face. She pulled the cloak around herself and activated it. Just like that, she disappeared from view.

  The tent flap opened inward. Good, she hadn’t pushed it out. That might have alerted the monster. I hated waiting, so I pulled Soulrend out of my inventory. The slight weight of the handle felt reassuring in my hand as the slow seconds ticked by.

  Less than 10 seconds later, the tent flap swung inward and Ruby appeared, hurrying inside. Her face was pale and she gasped in a deep breath, as if she’d been holding it. Her hands shook so hard she almost dropped the knife.

  “What is it?”

  “Um, it looks like a huge elk.”

  “An elk?” That didn’t sound too bad.

  She nodded quickly, regaining her composure. “Yes, an elk. Tall, like over 3 meters, and its antlers had to be twice that.” She pulled off the cloak and pressed it into my hands. “Take this. I can’t. I mean, what am I supposed to do against a giant elk?” She waved her knife.

  “Have you ever had an elk steak? They’re delicious.”

  She managed a weak laugh and I swept the cloak around my shoulders. It felt good to have it back. I activated Mirror Cloak and the world turned gray.

  “Wait here. The tent might offer some protection.”

  Not waiting for her reply, I slipped out the tent door.

  The morning air was cool and fresh, and beads of dew clung to the grass. The pyre had burned to a bed of black coals with wisps of smoke still drifting into the air. On the opposite side, close to the trees at the edge of the meadow stood the monster. Identify kicked in immediately.

  “Mystic Archer Elk Stag. Level 20. Uncommon. Bloodroot antlers.”

  It really did look like a giant elk, standing over 10 feet tall at the shoulder, with antlers that spread at least 20 feet across. Its rack was like a mini forest, with more points than I could count.

  Identify had added something new. I had no idea what bloodroot antlers might be, but they didn’t sound good.

  The elk did not attack instantly, but stood looking at me from 50 yards away. I hoped my cloak could keep me concealed until I got closer. So I took a slow, careful step. I’m sure the illusion around me flickered some, but if I moved very slow, it should hold.

  The elk snorted again, tossing his huge head, but made no other move. I took another step, feeling a bit more confident. If I could get close enough, I could end it before it even knew I was there.

  Slow seconds ticked by as I made steady progress toward the elk. It shambled a bit farther away, dragging the time out even more. If only I had a good ranged attack.

  A slight noise behind sounded like the tent rustling. I risked a glance back to see Ruby’s head peeking out the tent. I hadn’t been gone that long, had I?

  The elk noticed her instantly. It oriented on the tent, snorted again, and flung its head down. Three points of its antlers glowed green, then shot straight at Ruby like arrows.

  With a shriek of surprise, she tumbled back inside and the arrow-like points deflected off the tent’s fabric with little flashes of green light. I didn’t hesitate any more, but sprinted at the elk. I could close the distance in a couple seconds. My cloaking broke and the elk snorted again, focusing on me.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “The arrows!” Ruby shrieked in fear behind me, but I couldn’t risk a glance back to see what she was talking about. “They sprout vines with thorns. Ow! Get off!”

  Not good. I thought the arrow points missed. Arrows with secondary effects was not something I was expecting from a stupid elk. If I still had Void Step, I could have killed it already.

  The elk threw its antlers forward again and 4 more arrow-like tips flashed at me. I was close now, but had expected the attack. I dove forward into a roll under the barrage. Lunging back to my feet, I slashed at the monster’s long snout.

  It danced out of reach and with every step of its hooves, grasping vines covered in long thorns erupted out of the ground. Before I could retreat, they swarmed up my legs and dozens of thorns punched through my unprotected calves.

  I howled with pain and noticed my health points dropping steadily. The thorns were drinking my life!

  I was not about to let a stupid elk with life-sucking vines kill me. The nasty vines locked me in place where I stood, and I lacked a good tool to chop myself free. So I dropped Soulrend back into my inventory and pulled out something else.

  “Eat this, bambi!”

  The ogre’s giant club appeared in my hands, already lifted high. The elk hesitated for a fraction of a second to stare at the huge weapon. I brought the club down with all my strength and at the same time triggered Thunder Punch, focusing my intent on the club.

  Vast power flooded into my hands and beyond, into the club itself. Nice! I’d hoped the spell would affect my weapon too. My hands and the club glowed a brilliant golden color and the club whistled down like a meteor.

  The Mystic Elk tried dodging, but only got the front half of its body out of the way. My club smashed through its back and hind haunches with an impact that shook the entire meadow and splattered elk parts everywhere.

  The elk shrieked a high-pitched scream and half the remaining points of its antlers flashed green at the same time. Dozens of arrows punched into me, overwhelming my jacket’s defenses.

  I screamed in pain, the sound melding with the elk’s cry. I swayed and would have fallen if not for the life-sucking thorns rooting me to the ground. My life points dropped precipitously and I could feel the arrows now sticking into me sprouting. It was like vines were growing inside of me, greedily drinking my blood.

  Aw, that was nasty! Would they sprout into alien monsters and burst through my chest too? I barely bit back a little-kid shriek of pain and disgust.

  Soul Feed drained away a fraction of the power of those arrows to boost my health back up, and Energy Ward appeared around me too. I would have preferred using all the stolen energy on healing, but lacked the focus to change the settings. Instead I dropped the club, which was now too heavy for me to lift as searing pain tore through my innards.

  In the distance, Ruby was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear. Blackness flickered in my vision with the promise of welcome relief, but if I surrendered, I was dead.

  Stupid elk!

  I triggered one of my healing potions from my hotlist. As the welcome warmth of healing momentarily countered the insidious leeching of the arrows, I pulled Soulrend from my inventory again.

  The elk was barely alive, half it’s body smashed to bloody ruin, but light still shone in its eyes as it glared at me, trying to move its head to hit me with another volley of vampire arrows.

  That would finish me off. My body was already stiffening as the fast-spreading vines filled my veins. Even with the healing potion, I only had seconds left before they sucked me dry.

  I refused to consider that fate. It was too disgusting. My legs were still locked to the ground by the thorns. I could barely move.

  So I threw Soulrend.

  The elk was close, but that was a dangerous shot. I could have easily missed, but I’d played little league for years and I needed a fast kill. My throwing arm did not fail me and the glowing blue blade punched through the elk’s head. It collapsed as Soulrend severed its spirit right in the brain.

  Instantly the vines wrapped around my feet withered. The arrows shrank and the vines slowed, but did not disappear. They were still going to kill me.

  With a grunt of effort, I fell forward, my left hand extended. I crashed to the ground, barely feeling the soft earth. I hurt everywhere and it was hard to think, but I reached out and my fingers touched the elk’s hide.

  “Congratulations, Lucas! You have defeated the Mystic Archer Elk. Bonus experience gained for defeating a higher-level enemy.”

  I triggered Soul Feed. White light flared around the monster and power thundered into me. Pure energy blasted through every inch of my body, and at its touch, the parasite vines evaporated. This time, it took most of the stolen energy to restore my health and mana, but in seconds, I felt whole and fit again.

  I lay back, panting, just happy to be alive. “Ow.”

  “Lucas!” Ruby skidded to a halt beside me, her expression horrified. “Lucas, are you okay?”

  “I’m all right.” I groaned, then sat up. “That was too close.”

  “How did you survive those arrows? I only had one of the sprouting vines latch onto me and even with my healing potion, I think it would have killed me if you hadn’t killed the elk.”

  Her long legs were streaked with blood and pockmarked with small wounds still closing.

  “Yeah, they were nasty. I have an ability to absorb power from defeated enemies to restore my stats. Without that, I’d be dead.”

  “You didn’t tell me about that.”

  “Sorry. I don’t know why I forgot that one.”

  “Anything else you forgot to mention?” she asked, one delicate eyebrow arched.

  I shrugged. “Not that I know of.”

  Eva’s voice interrupted. “Would you like to loot Mystic Archer Elk?”

  Before I did, I considered if I wanted to try to Harvest a spell. Getting those vampire parasite arrows could prove useful, but I didn’t have a bow. I sucked with bows.

  Besides, Thunder Punch had just saved my life. I still had a couple uses remaining and I liked that one, so I decided to pass on harvesting this time.

  So I accepted the prompt, snatched up Soulrend, and backed up as the elk carcass dissolved into nasty stinky smoke. “Looting. Let’s see what we got.”

  “Hey, I got a level!” she exclaimed.

  I didn’t. I wasn’t sure how experience sharing in a team worked, and had to suppress a flash of irritation. Ruby had gotten to level 9, but I was still stuck at level 1.

  I bet I would have gotten at least 6 levels, if not more, from the monsters I’d killed since I advanced to a tier-1 body. So Cyrus wasn’t lying when he hinted I’d need 10 times as much experience to gain a new level. That sucked.

  The loot helped me feel better, though, as loot always did. I got 50 mana crystals, an uncommon elk hide and 100 elk steaks.

  I grinned and passed the steaks to Ruby. “We should feed these into your oven and see what new menu options it unlocks.”

  “Great idea. I’m looking forward to trying elk steaks.”

  I also gave Ruby the new pair of soft, knee-length elk leather boots that gave an extra 5% to stealth. The cream-colored boots didn’t really match the rest of her outfit, but she still grinned at them, then returned my moccasins.

  We got a couple standard healing potions that we split between us, and I got one more mana potion and a scroll to summon a standard healing potion. That was weird. Why not just give me the potion? I dropped it into my inventory.

  “That was pretty good loot,” Ruby said as we headed back to her Base Camp.

  “Not bad, although I wish we’d gotten a weapon or spell for you.”

  “Your standards for loot from one monster are pretty high.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve gotten lucky a couple times, so I expect good things. We need the loot, so no harm in hoping.”

  Was it just luck, though? I thought back to my Trailblazer title that gave me a 30% chance to upgrade loot boxes. Had that triggered more than I realized? Back in her tent, Ruby tried to create some breakfast meals, but learned that the oven only produced one meal per person per day.

  “It’s okay. The standard rations keep a person going for a full day too.”

  She nodded, but still looked disappointed. “I’m not actually hungry, so you’re probably right. I just like having a croissant and coffee in the morning.”

  “Where are you from?” That wasn’t an unusual breakfast in the States, but not as common as in parts of Europe.

  “Most recently, Paris, but I’ve lived in many countries. My dad was in international banking, so he dragged us all over the world.”

  “Sounds fun.” I hadn’t traveled much overseas, but I’d visited most of the States. Traveling across the multiverse to a death battle game had not been on my bucket list.

  “Sometimes it was, but I attended 26 schools growing up, so that was hard sometimes.”

  “I bet.” Yikes. That would have been tough, but I still liked the idea of living in so many countries.

  Daylight was passing, though, and the count of survivors had continued to tick down. It had fallen to 782. We had a final teammate to find and I needed to fight more monsters. I only had 6 days left to level up 9 times, and it looked like I was going to have to kill a lot of powerful monsters to get there.