Arjun logged off first. It was weird to see their bodies, their avatars, I guess, just go still, like they were dead. Then vanish with a little sparkle.

  Then it was just me, the dog in my lap and the fire keeping the darkness at bay. I felt more alone than I had at any point up till now in this game.

  They all said they were coming back tomorrow. But they were logging off and going to spend time with friends or loved ones. Go outside, get ice cream, or have a coffee. Mmmm or a latte. A cappuccino … I really missed coffee. I missed talking on the phone, going to class, going shopping. Heck I even missed my dad’s rants on the current leader of the country.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks. But no one was here to see them but Dekka, and she didn’t mind. Even when they hit her back. Why? Why was this game different for me? Was I lying somewhere in a VR pod? Or were those mind scans what put me in here?

  The game was changing me. I knew that, I just didn’t want to think about it. But if I were in a pod somewhere was this game changing me for real. Would I wake up and be some homicidal maniac who loves fighting and bashing things with a baseball bat?

  I shuddered. Would I be a danger? That was a bit silly, even I recognised that. I wasn’t a danger to my party, I still knew right from wrong. But that doubt over the thrill I felt when fighting.

  I got up to bank the fire. Just to try to take my mind off these things. I made a spit and roasted some of the boar I had gotten. Dekka happily snuffling around. I don’t think I could stay sane in here if it weren’t for her.

  The thought of being alone brought more tears. Great, I could bludgeon monsters to death, but I bawled at the idea of being lonely. Or more lonely.

  It was a long evening. I went to bed curled into a ball around Dekka, feeling very sorry for myself.

  The next morning, I decided to carefully scout the area. I didn’t want to run into any of those boars on my own. There seemed to be some magic in setting up a camp that kept monsters away. To the north, the land got very rocky and hilly, and the trees got smaller but more dense. To the west it was similar but with more bare stretches of rock. The West was like the South. Trees with minimal underbrush.

  At lunch, we headed back to wait for the party. I wasn’t sure what time they would arrive, or how time worked there vs here. But it seemed we met mid-afternoon at the inn.

  By dinner, I was starting to get restless. What if they didn’t spawn here? I remember someone once talking about a ‘net split’ in terms of gaming. Or being in the wrong ‘instance’. Could they be in a version of here, looking for me?

  I went to bed that night confused and sad. How long should I wait?

  The next day, I stuck close to camp and waited for any sign of the party. No one came.

  On the third day I had decided waiting was useless. They weren’t coming. I was just packing up my gear when Arjun popped into existence on his bedroll and nearly gave me a heart attack, and offended Dekka so much she barked at him for at least a minute straight.

  “Is everything ok? What happened?” I asked him the moment Dekka shut up long enough to get a word in edgewise.

  He was looking bemused at my small dog, who had been barking hard enough to bounce herself backward with each bark.

  “Uh-what do you mean?”

  “I have been waiting her for three days and no one showed up,” I told him.

  He gave me a long hard look. “You have stayed logged in this whole time? Why didn’t you hop off?”

  Oh right, that.

  “Arjun,” I said, “You might want to sit down for this.”

  We sat on our bedrolls, and I explained, to the best of my knowledge, what happened to me. About meeting Ayerelia and her not believing me. And about my worry about being ignored or avoided if I seemed to weird.

  He sat there and listened with a calm serious expression. I couldn’t tell if I was being labelled interesting crazy person or if he believed me.

  At the end I took a deep breath and waited nervously.

  But he just asked. “I am sure you have, but I have to check, have you tried creating a service ticket.”

  “Yes,” Oh I was so relieved. He believed me, or at least was humouring me. “I do have a question that would have seemed odd, but now you will understand when I ask. What year is it.”

  When he told me, I was relieved and upset. Just shy of six years had passed since I remembered the day of the last mind scan. Maybe I was just in a pod somewhere and could wake up. Maybe for some reason, I had amnesia or something. I was upset that I hadn’t had a full and long life with Rodney.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “I wonder if you were in an accident or something and someone put you in this game to give your mind something to do. I have heard of that happening.”

  I tipped my head in thought. “I don’t think so. Or if they did they are an asshole. Why make it so I can’t save? Why is it roguelike just for me?”

  “That is a good point.” He said, picking at the dirt with a small stick. “This is highly irregular.”

  “But you do believe me, right?” I was ashamed at how my voice caught and how much his answer mattered.

  “It seems to crazy to make up. But it seems to impossible to believe. You do seem sincere.” I noticed he was drawing with the stick. It looked like he was drawing a cartoon dragon. He kept talking. “We didn’t not show up for days. There was no issue with being in a different instance. For us it hasn’t been a day yet. I live far away from the others, in India. I decided to pop on to check out the new skill I got and some gear Kyle gave me. It’s hard to be on when they are.”

  He let that sink in. Less than 24 hours outside time was almost 3 days in here.

  “But I don’t move really slow around you guys. When we are fighting together, time moves at the same speed for all of us. When you are in the game does time move the same for you?”

  “Actually, no. It is one of the big selling features of this game. Time in the game moves more slowly. It’s not exactly four times but almost so. We can play what feels like a day, and it will only be a couple of hours out there.”

  “This might sound dumb. But I have no idea what this game is called.” I said, just realising that it likely had a name other than ‘A Fucking Roguelike.’

  He blinked at me for a second. “The game is called The Infinity Tale.”

  I snorted that was a dumb name and said so.

  “It isn’t a terrible name. The whole idea is there are a million story lines and more are generated all the time. So players will never run out of content. That and the time dilation have been- well its made the game famous and it hasn’t even left beta yet.”

  Oh, a game where you would never run out of content. That did seem not dumb.

  We sat there and I watched him ad scales to his dragon in the dirt. The sound of the small dry stick as it scraped lines was soothing and hypnotic. “Can you do me a huge favour?” I asked as he paused after giving it a plume of fire breath.

  He looked up at me expectantly.

  “Can you look me up—in the real world I mean. I want to know if I am still alive.” Then I thought a moment. “Two favours actually. Can you also submit a ticket for me?”

  He scratched at his chin with the stick, leaving smudges on his clean-shaven face. “I can look you up. What is your real name? As for the ticket, I should do it when I have more time to be in-game. Maybe when I come back with the others?”

  “My name is Elizabeth, Elizabeth Nicks. And sure I will be here when you guys show up.” I smiled at him. “Thank you so much.”

  “Ok, I should go now. I will see you later.” And he lay down on his bedroll, went still, then burst into sparkles.

  And then I was alone again. But this time I was hopeful. I wasn’t forgotten, abandoned, or snubbed. Time was just different.

  I could wait, I had food, I had company, and I was safe. Also, I was bored, very bored.

  The time passed slowly. I didn’t want to risk getting killed and being reset now that I had finally found a real person willing to help me. I am not sure if Arjun fully believed me, but that was ok. If he did what I needed, I didn’t care what he believed.

  I thought about what he said about the game having unlimited content. Was that why it was so hard to level up? If there were ever more content, eventually you would end up at level 9000 or something stupid. But this slow grind, you could play for a long time and barely get to level 100. Not that the numbers mattered. I just wanted to get strong enough not to die.

  They all popped back into camp just as I was getting up to go use the latrine I had made. I had been avoiding getting up because I was comfortable, and now I was annoyed at myself. And irrationally at them.

  “Um, guys, I just have to check on something. I’ll be right back.” I said and fled into the woods. Now that I thought back on it, I hadn’t noticed if they had ever had to step behind a bush. Would they think it weird that I have to go in a game?

  Deciding to go further than the little ditch that I had dug, I did my business as fast as I could and hurried back. But something told me to slow as I approached. I could hear them talking. I waited out of sight to listen in, they were talking about me.

  “You don’t actually believe her,” Ayerelia was saying, her voice oozing disapproval.

  “I don’t know what she would get by lying,” Darkraven said. My estimation of her went up.

  “How can you get stuck in a game?” Ayerelia snapped.

  “Maybe she is one of those people who is compassionately put into a game. I read about that.” Copperbeard said softly.

  “Wouldn’t she know if she was in the game then? Wouldn’t her family have come in and told her she was in the game?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t have a family,” Darkraven said. “Maybe her whole family was in a terrible accident and they all died but her. And some rich person felt sorry for her; maybe they caused the accident or something, so they applied for compassionate life, I hear that is what it is called, so now she is in here, and they didn’t tell her because it would be upsetting. I mean, they gave her her dog.”

  Wow. I don’t know if she had finished her thought or was just out of breath. Darkraven was either very naive or young. Though that could explain her friendship with Ayerelia.

  “Lower your voice,” Copperbeard said, “I’m not sure what is going on, but I am sure that isn’t it. Arjun you said you couldn’t find her, but that name is pretty common. How hard did you look?”

  “I spent a good part of my workday looking,” Arjun admitted.

  I knew I liked him, good man, that one.

  “I searched any sort of mention of a girl her age in the news, and I tried looking her up on social media. Nothing. She said she had had socials, but I found nothing, and I scrolled through a lot of profiles.

  “So should we make the ticket like she asked?” Darkraven asked.

  “I still think we are being played somehow. I might not know how yet, but there is no way her story is real.” Ayerelia said in a supercilious tone.

  “There is no harm in making a ticket,” Copperbeard said. There was a pause. “There I put in a ticket.”

  “What did you say?” Arjun asked

  “I said there was a player who was having issues logging out and had been in game longer than the recommended time.” I could hear the smirk in his voice.

  “Clever.” Arjun chuckled, “That will get someone to show up, nothing like the fear of another lawsuit.”

  A lawsuit? I would sue the pants off the company that made this damn game if I ever got the chance!