“Something I've been trying to figure out…” G said a few minutes after we hit the road. “How did that reactor still have fuel left? Hasn’t it been 5000 years?”

  “Game logic?” suggested Jacobs.

  “According to the logs, it went into power save mode when its owners evacuated. It had fuel for a hundred years at max draw at the time. That got tightened over time, until it was running at 1% draw when we went in…so it has enough fuel for another 500 years before it would have failed… I promised to get it some more fuel…”

  “You picked up a pet house?” Jacobs laughed.

  “You guys said you wanted a pool party…” I joked back.

  “After beach party!” insisted Peachy.

  “Hang on…” Darksider said, “If that was functioning at one per cent? What would a domestic home need all that power for?”

  “More importantly,” Peachy said. “Did we remember to turn the lights off?

  A few minutes down the road, we approached another pair of open driveways. Each had a player guarding it, and both were looking suspiciously at the one on the other side of the road. Both looked a little uneasy at seeing our approach, so we moved into the middle of the road to be equally distant from both. When we were almost within speaking distance, a second person joined the guards on each gate. They all looked on edge.

  “Sent for reinforcements, huh! Knew you bastards couldn’t be trusted!” screamed one of the newcomers.

  “That’s just what someone who wants to sneak attack with his own reinforcements would say!” his opposite number responded.

  “But…” Jacobs clamped his hand over Peachy's mouth.

  “We’re not getting involved with them. Nothing good will come from it…” he whispered to the rest of us.

  “Agreed, but this charade could be a trap.” I quietly said.

  We cautiously walked past the 4 of them, who were eyeing us up the whole time. We were on edge the whole time, expecting one of them to brick it and attack. It didn’t happen, though. We got about 15 metres away from them, and I was starting to relax, when G did something I didn’t expect.

  He turned around and called back. “Hey! Is there anything interesting up ahead?” he pointed over his shoulder in the direction we were walking.

  Confusion hit all four of the players.

  “Errr…” one of the two on the left said. “A nice view of the plains…” he said with no confidence.

  “Yeah,” agreed the original guard on the right. “If you go down onto them, stick to the roads. There are some nasty mobs which attack anyone walking on the fields.”

  “We lost two players to those worms…” confirmed the left’s newcomer.

  “We lost three. Really nasty,” agreed the rights original.

  “Cheers,” G told them and caught back up with us.

  “Were you hoping that would trigger a fight?” Peachy asked him.

  “No,” he said a little too quickly, and then fidgeted when the four of us all gave him a look. “Alright… maybe. Walking’s so boring!” he said as he scratched the back of his neck.

  “We could skip if you would prefer?” I grinned.

  Note to self, never play chicken with G, he doesn’t play fair. He took me up on my offer…

  “It was a joke!” I said for the third time as the five of us skipped down the road.

  “It’s giving gains, though!” G and Darksider laughed. Annoyingly true…

  In addition to the intelligence and wisdom points I got from the house, I gained a dexterity point from acting like a child not long after we had started…

  ‘You persevered with an unusual exercise that forced your body to work in different ways. Endurance point gained.’

  Really? If the others…I saw from the expressions they had…damnit now there was no way the grind king would ever stop…

  The skipping came to an end when he turned a corner and came across the precipice of the hill. The road had curved right and then took a sharp turn to the left, turning back on itself before starting to descend down the hill. It looked intentional to ensure traffic didn’t hit the curve too fast and wouldn’t hit the steep hill at excessive speed. We couldn’t help but pause as we got our first look at the other side of the range we had just crossed. In the far distance, I could see a mountain range, but between here and there, all I could see was wild, untamed plains. An endless field of golden growth rippling in the wind. The occasional corpse of trees creating these little islands of calm. I could see a few pools of water, which seemed to have attracted some long-legged bird creatures. Did flamingos come in blue?

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  The road down to the plains crossed back on itself a few times before hitting them and cutting a black line across the grass to a much larger highway, which marred the otherwise pristine landscape in its passage from north to south. It connected with what looked like a service station which had been built below the raised road. Even from here I could see it was a bustling hive of activity.

  “NPC hub?” Darksider said.

  “My thoughts,” I agreed.

  “No chance it's player?” Jacobs asked.

  “Low… but could be…” I admitted. “It’s not like we rushed out this way…”

  We started walking down the hill. Even G didn’t suggest skipping down the steep decline.

  “Wish I had my skateboard,” G muttered. “This would be an awesome ride…”

  “It’s steep enough to be good for base jumping…” mused Darksider.

  We were about halfway down the hill when I saw a group of six people crossing the plains at a sprint. They were on a course for the service station, but they were moving recklessly; one fell over, the others didn’t even stop to look back. Then I realised a ripple in the grass wasn’t caused by the wind. The one who had fallen over was scrambling to get up and move, but even at this range, the panic was clear. My party stopped when they realised I had paused in my confusion. They followed my gaze just in time to see a two-metre-wide mouth burst up around the person who had just managed to get back to their feet.

  “Whoa…” G exclaimed as the long cylindrical body emerged from the ground, rising up into the sky, and then coming down hard. From the way the other runners stumbled, it must have shaken the earth. The sound of a roar echoed around us, followed by a large boom. My eyes widened in recognition. This was the larger cousin of the worm I had fought the day before.

  “That must be the worms those guys mentioned…” Jacobs muttered.

  “I thought they meant more like those horror movies where they are like hairs in the sand…” G said.

  “I was thinking more like those tremor movies…” Peachy said.

  “Did anyone else not know we were signing up for Dune?” G asked.

  “Fear is the mindkiller…” Jacobs grinned.

  “We killed a smaller one yesterday,” I said. “Thing was incredibly flammable, and we were told they are very territorial…”

  “How much smaller?”

  “Only a few metres in length… maybe twice my height.”

  “So…about a fifth of the size of that one?” Darksider said. I gave a noncommittal shrug-nod.

  “Stick to the roads?” Peachy asked, as three of the five made it onto the tarmac and the giant worm seemed to huff and then dived back into the ground. A subtle ripple headed away from the road.

  “Stick to the roads.” I agreed. “Want to learn Firebolt as we walk?”

  “And practice our walking without rhythm?” G asked.

  Already having Inferno spells, G was the first to pick it up, but they all had the spell before we hit the bottom of the hill.

  “I think I'm seeing the pattern you were talking about…” G said. Once he got the spell, he’d spent the rest of the time comparing the three spells he now knew.

  “It makes more sense when you can see spells from different schools and different types of spells. I started seeing which bits were delivery, which bits were effect, and which bits were school.”

  “Not going to get in trouble for teaching us these spells?”

  “I don’t think so, they didn’t say anything about the others picking up new spells from me. I think it’s the training wheels anyway.”

  “Training wheels?”

  “Once you have enough spells in all three schools and can cast rank fives comfortably, there’s another tier called Magus.”

  “Really? Nope, not going to be surprised, you jammy git,” Jacobs mocked. “Right, well, you'd better start teaching us the other spells while we are on the road.”

  “Done,” I agreed.

  The plains were hot. Almost uncomfortably so. The refreshing breeze barely made it bearable. The black of the road, in the heat of the midday sun, was almost uncomfortable to walk on, but the gutter was made of a white stone. We had made good time walking in a single file along it. As we got closer, it became clear that the service station had become a small town. Some kind of trade hub, at a guess. I knew there were some towns along the coast; maybe a few more could be found inland.

  While a lot of the habitation of the place looked to be canvas tents, with a huge variety of carts, caravans and other transports covering the carpark, there were also a few more permanent structures built alongside the large two-story building that was there to service the traffic on the road. A shift in the wind brought the smells of cooking food, spices and those other smells associated with a number of people congregating together.

  Our route brought us up to a gate built into the short barrier that had been built around the site. Two men on guard straightened up at our approach. Both were equipped in some hand-forged metal armour; unnecessary spikes gave them a bit of an intimidating air. Somewhat spoiled as we got closer and could see the remains of his lunch on one of the guard’s chestplate and beard.

  “Welcome to Milkin,’ here for business or pleasure?” the tidier of the two said as we approached.

  “Business, just passing through,” Darksider responded.

  “You and pretty much everyone else,” he acknowledged with a nod. “Rules are simple: don’t start shit. If someone else starts shit with you, don’t kill them. If you have to kill them, make sure you have witnesses that it was self-defence. Don’t leave a mess. If you make the mistake of trying to appropriate someone else’s shit and get caught, don’t expect mercy. We take a hand for the first offence and throw you to the worms for the second. Murder is straight to the worms. We get to test the catapult with your arse. Any questions? No. Then have a nice day.”