“One person?” I blurted.

  “Technically, it’s one party. I’m in your party. So is FATE. All the Kitty Scouts and Seth are in one party, too.”

  “So it’s a fight to the death? How many am I going against?”

  The question came out of me before I could really stop to contemplate the fact that I’d have to kill people—commit literal murder—to get out of here.

  Is it really murder if they’re aliens? I thought, and that old spot deep inside my chest went cold again. Is it murder if it’s vengeance?

  All those children. All those collapsing buildings.

  Yeah, I could probably kill these guys.

  “It’s always at least three total competitors, but you’re probably up against more of them, this early in the game,” Dave said.

  I gave him a nod. So, nothing definitive.

  “Let’s go,” I said, and as I turned, I heard Dave say, “Now you’re getting it.”

  I took off running, but only got about three long strides in before the AI piped up. As she spoke, a diamond icon glowed in the corner of my interface. This time, the icon had a keyhole etched into it.

  Plain diamonds meant quests. Keyhole diamonds meant main quests, as in, part of the game’s core storyline.

  Main Quest Line: Initiated! the Game Host blurted in my ear. I kept running.

  You have awoken at the bottom of a cave-in at the far end of a long, empty cavern…

  I recognized this line of text, even if it was being spoken in the same sultry voice the Game Host had been using all along. The text was the start of the main quest line for Seven Keys, meaning this level should match up with what I remembered, at least somewhat.

  …with no memory of who you are or what brought you to this place.

  Main Quest Goal: Escape the Cavern!

  I darted between stalagmites, bypassing small ore deposits and cave herbs that glowed slightly violet, indicating that I could harvest them. There would be time for that later… maybe. Would there ever be time for me to harvest or mine things, when other players in the game were actively trying to kill me? And each other?

  Only one can survive every Instance.

  “Host,” I said aloud. “How many players in this Instance?”

  There are thirteen players total, Hunter Remnant, the titillating voice replied.

  So I have to kill twelve other alien murderers just to get to the next Instance, I thought. And those Kitty Scouts… they’ll have to do the same thing.

  I nearly screamed an expletive as that thought crossed my mind. “Host, my conscripts. Are they in a party?”

  They were partied up by default, Hunter Remnant, she replied. Dave had said as much.

  “And how many other Hunters are they fighting against?”

  Apologies, Hunter Remnant. The current status of other Instances is proprietary information.

  I turned a slight corner, and narrowly avoided impaling myself on a low-hanging spike of rock. I slapped it with a forearm, breaking it off, and it turned out to have had a piece of ore on it. The item skittered away, then a violet name appeared above it: Calcite.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I thought through the Host’s answer as I picked up the calcite and tossed it into my inventory. It took me precious seconds, but I needed the practice. I had to make sure to get basic stuff, like looting, done quickly in the future.

  “Host,” I said, trying again, “at the start of their Instance, how many opponents did my conscripts have?”

  Twelve opponents, Hunter Remnant.

  So I was entitled to some information about them, at least. Not enough to help them, or even to know if they were alive or not. That worried me, but there was nothing I could do about it. Dave had made that abundantly clear.

  Instead, I had to worry about the other Hunters in my Instance. The number 13 had appeared in faded violet beneath my quest icon, meaning that thirteen players still remained on my own level.

  As I looked, though, a green light lit up the slick cave walls from somewhere behind me, and the number turned to 11 just like that.

  What the—but there were no other caves behind me! This whole place is a straight line!

  I started to turn around, then thought better of it and began running toward the exit again, or at least where the exit should be. That light had looked like it came from a laser, and lasers could burn straight through cement, so why not stone?

  The other Hunters must be in this same mountain with me, just in different, maybe identical caves? One of them must have used their laser to cut across the starting areas, taking a guess on where others might be positioned in relation to them—and they’d managed to get two whole kills.

  I wasn’t sure whether to pray that the Kitty Scouts had survived someone in their own Instance trying the same thing, or to pray that they’d been killed as cleanly and easily as that.

  Six kids and one shut-in who still has cheese-puff dust on his fingers… yeah, there’s no way they survive this.

  They had to kill twelve other people before those people killed them. There might be seven of them total, but they hadn’t started with anything at all. No stats, no weapons or equipment, just fluffy pink cat ears and a stained waifu T-shirt.

  The light at the end of the tunnel finally took shape as I reached out and swung myself around another stalagmite. The exit was the moody color of twilight, a pale violet, meaning night would fall over this area soon. The shadows stretched toward me in a jagged pattern, with stalactites hanging like huge fangs from the ceiling and a humped shape adding smaller spikes along the bottom.

  The exit was in sight, and I’d been running this whole time. I should be the first one out, so long as no one else moved faster than I had. If they did….

  Someone could have come out ahead of me, and laid traps. I’ll have to be careful.

  Regardless, I still had to get past that spiny, lumped shape on the cavern floor near the exit. I knew what it would be: the very first thing anyone ever fought in Seven Keys.

  I pulled my laser pistol, and I fired right at it.

  The poor dragon hatchling never had a chance.

  The green laser cut the creature in half, and left a deep rut in the stone floor for good measure. Damn, this thing was overpowered. And I’d seen other people use one to take buildings down. What had my starting screen said? Any Hunter that was a returning player had a choice of a basic weapon? This thing wasn’t basic at all.

  I watched for the loot symbol, as I still hadn’t actually reached the now-halved dragon. Its corpse bled entrails all across the tunnel entrance, and I was just about to spring over it when I saw the symbol and tapped it.

  I tried the “collect all” gesture from Seven Keys—essentially, pointing my hand at the center box of the Loot menu and making a “close your yap” motion, bringing my fingers together to a point—and it worked. I collected all the loot without even seeing it, but there had been some gold in there.

  Main Quest Line: Updated!

  You have defeated the dragon guarding the exit of this cavern, only to discover it was a hatchling! Now Mommy’s coming home, and she isn’t going to like what’s waiting for her.

  Main Quest Goal: Reach the town of Radix alive!

  As she talked, I jumped over the body and out of the cave, darting to the side to avoid potential traps.

  Nothing triggered, but the next moment, a massive shadow darkened the twilight sky above my head. A keening roar split the chill evening air.

  That was the mama dragon, and anyone who’d ever played this game knew to avoid her at this point in the storyline. She couldn’t be beaten, at least not this early in the game. She was just there to chase the player into town.

  But I’m no normal player, am I? I thought.

  Outside the caves, an evergreen forest skirted the mountainous terrain. Unlike a real forest, this one had very little underbrush, so you could see a fair distance through it. I skidded to a stop just inside the tree and dropped to my stomach, propping up the laser on my other wrist to help me aim.

  In front to of me, the starting mountain looked different than in the game. What should have been a tall, craggy rock face with one open maw now appeared to have a thirteen different mouths on it. Each of those cave exits led back to another Hunter.

  Yet there was only one mama dragon. And I’d seen her first.

  The great beast banked, her wings blotting out the falling sun and casting shadows across the cliff face. Her enormous jaws dropped open, and yellow-orange light grew in the back of her throat.

  I aimed for the spot, and I fired.