“Rev! REV!”

  “Calm down, I’m not going to die,” I say between choking fits as Sherbie and Captain Moon work to shift the bulk of the cockatrice carcass off of me.

  [-100 HP, poison]

  Well, maybe I spoke too soon. Now that the monster’s dead my healing has slowed down considerably. But evidently its poison is still at work, and it’s twice as potent without the clothespin to hold my nostrils shut.

  “Sherbie, cast a healing—hurk!—spell.”

  While my friend washes my body in another soft healing light, Captain Moon continues to work to get me out.

  “That was bold of you,” he says, yanking me by my arm out from beneath the beast, so hard I think it must dislocate for sure. “Usually in these kinds of instances players count on me to tank, but you took the brunt of that brute’s attacks head on.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s all I know…”

  The poison’s dissipating now, I’ve stopped taking damage. More importantly, the smell is fading. Thank God.

  “Rev!” Sherbie cries when at last I’m free, throwing his arms around my neck. “I’m so glad you’re alive!”

  “You know players respawn when they die, right?”

  “Yeah, but—I just don’t know if I’d ever get over the trauma if I had to watch you die!”

  “Ok, ok, that’s enough,” I say, pushing him off of me and rising to my feet.

  “Well done, men,” Captain Moon claps each of us on the shoulder. “The monster’s been dealt with, now we just have to find its nest and make sure that thing doesn’t propagate. Can I leave that part of the mission to you?”

  “Yes, Sir!” Instantly Sherbie forgets to fawn over me like a loyal golden retriever and he snaps to attention with a sloppy salute.

  “Pardon me, but doesn’t the presence of a nest suggest there’s another one of these things running around out there?” I ask.

  Captain Moon’s dark eyes twinkle at me knowingly. “I dealt with its mate a few weeks back. We suspected there was another around here, but didn’t have a confirmed sighting until recently. If you ask me, you’ll find its nest well hidden, in a ravine, perhaps, or a cave. It probably only emerged to hunt out of necessity, since its mate could no longer bring food.”

  “That means the nest should be nearby.”

  “That’s very possible. Now, do you have any more questions?”

  “No, Sir!” Sherbie says, then glances sideways at me as though to ask whether that were the right response. I shake my head. No more questions.

  “Excellent. I’ll make contact with the colonel and let him know the threat’s been neutralized. We’ll meet back at the tree where we met before. I’ll see to it you get a proper reward.”

  “Yes, Sir!”

  Captain Moon vanishes from the instance, leaving Sherbie and me on our own with the huge dead cockatrice.

  “Hey, this thing’s got loot. ‘Extra potent cockatrice legs, cooking item,’” Sherbie says excitedly. “Ooh, I can’t wait to try—”

  “Forget it.”

  He looks to me with a question.

  “You smelled that thing—you don’t seriously want to eat it?”

  “Eh, maybe you have a point. Still, we can sell them—”

  “Hell, no. No amount of silver is worth carrying that stuff in our packs. In fact I’m getting as far away from this place as possible, before I puke.”

  “Why? The smell’s not that bad, now.”

  “Yeah, you still have a clothespin on your nose.”

  “Ah…”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Sherbie says no more, and trots after me obediently as we go to search out the cockatrice eggs.

  “Hey, man,” I say, and he perks up instantly beside me.

  “Yeah?”

  “We got to get you some more healing spells. Spells that heal over time and stack. And, we need to get you at least one that heals a lot of damage, fast.”

  “Yeah… I was thinking the same thing. I was practically useless back there.”

  “Not useless. There’s a chance I might have died without the extra boost to regen you gave me.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I admit. After my fight with the minotaur, I thought I was going to be tougher than anything else out there, but meeting the cockatrice was the reality check I needed. No matter how much I heal, if the monster’s damage output is higher by even one point, it won’t be enough to save me.

  My aura. It’s come a long ways from killing mobs in sixteen minutes; I’ve upgraded so that it kills anything now in a minute and twenty-two seconds, be they shroomlet or boss monster. But one minute and twenty-two seconds may as well be a lifetime, when you’re facing a beast like that.

  Sherbie isn’t the only one that has to beef up. I need to increase my armor, my constitution and HP. I need to look for skills that will turn me into a stalwart, impenetrable defender. Anything I have to do, to allow my aura the time it needs to do its work. If I can’t do that, there’s no way I’ll ever be able to claim the number one spot.

  Wait, am I seriously aiming for that? When Ari suggested it I treated it like a joke. And now here I am, thinking of all the ways I can build up my character just to claim it.

  I must be out of my mind…

  “Where did you say that Druid Enclave was?”

  “Back the other direction—before Pitola.”

  It’s too late to turn back, by my estimation. We’re much closer to the Everglen, where our quest is waiting. But the guy who gave us the quest, Silas, he told us to report back with our findings. So we can head back to Pitola, turn in our quest, then backtrack a ways to the Druid’s Enclave, where hopefully Sherbie and I will both be able to boost our skills a bit.

  I share my plan with Sherbie, and he agrees. Then he stops in his tracks and points to a pathway up ahead that seems to be leading to a vine shaded cavern.

  “What do you think?” he whispers to me. “Does that look like a good place for a cockatrice nest?”

  “I’d say so. Stay behind me,” I advise. “There may be more of them. And be ready with your Regrowth spell.”

  “Right…”

  I’ve leveled up, I think as I approach the den. Not my character Revelator—Austen has leveled up. Before, I would have been terrified, approaching a place like this, even with a healer at my back. Now I approach it with caution, but also confidence. A courage born of many trials. It feels good, I think. Feels much better than being a coward.

  This confidence…it would be nice if I could take it with me to the real world…

  Inside the cave is dim and cool, shaded by the rock and the low hanging vines, but it’s not at all pleasant. I can tell from the smell alone we’re in the right place.

  Scattered amidst the poop mounds I see definite signs of human remains. The soldiers Captain Moon was talking about. Guess they didn’t make it after all. Though they’re just NPC’s I can’t help feeling a little bad.

  The cavern is deep.

  “Get your torch.”

  “Right.” Sherbie scrambles to obey. After a few seconds, he’s got it lit, and the room is illuminated.

  “There we are…”

  At the back of the large cavern, I see it. The cockatrice nest.

  There are four scaly eggs nestled here, each of them coming midway up my thigh.

  “They’re still warm,” Sherbie says with a quiet kind of wonder.

  “Yeah. Welp. Guess it’s time to finish the quest.”

  “Rev, wait!” Sherbie grabs my arm before I can smash the first egg with my wooden sword.

  “What?”

  Sherbie takes off his glasses then, and cleans them with the hem of his robe. I see his eyes are overflowing with tears.

  “It just seems so…heartless. Smashing a bunch of defenseless eggs.”

  “But—that’s our quest.”

  “I know that, but—killing a bunch of babies…”

  I watch Sherbie a minute, can almost hear the gears turning in his all-too-predictable mind.

  “Rev, can we—”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t even hear my question.”

  “You’re going to ask if we can keep a cockatrice egg and hatch it and raise it as our pet and my answer is no.”

  “But—”

  “Have you forgotten the way that thing smelled?”

  “Well, maybe it just needed a bath. I could bathe it every day. I’ll feed it and take it on walks, and—”

  “It eats people,” I say, gesturing to the remains scattered all around us.

  “That’s just because it was raised in the wild. I’m sure if I—”

  “No,” I say firmly, and Sherbie gets a defiant look, followed by a crestfallen one. Feeling a little bad, I clap his arm.

  “Look, if you’re thinking of taking on an animal companion, I’m all for it. But let’s get one that doesn’t smell like dead skunk ass.”

  “I told you I’d give it baths,” he grumbles.

  “It’ll mess up our quest,” I say firmly. “The stipulation was to kill the cockatrice and destroy its nest. Destroy.”

  “Yeah, but it’s just one quest. There’ll be others. See, I can still abandon the quest and it’ll let us leave the instance. Please, Rev. Let me take just one egg and hatch it.”

  “No. I’m not letting you mess this up for me.”

  His eyes widen at my words, then narrow suspiciously. “For you?”

  I sigh. Mess my hair. Glare at Sherbie. “That’s right. You saw the quest reward. That shield of Captain Moon’s is something I really need.

  Sherbie stares at me a minute. I glare back at him, hard. Unyielding. Finally, it’s his shoulders that wilt as his eyes fall away.

  “Fine,” he says, turning his back to me. “But I’m not destroying those helpless eggs.”

  “I understand,” I say, breathing a quiet sigh of relief. “Go on out. I’ll finish things here.”

  Sherbie wipes his eyes with his forearm and replaces his glasses. He takes a few steps, and mumbles a word I barely catch.

  “Heartless…”

  Yeah, I think as I watch him go. Maybe to an herbivore like that, I really am heartless. But in the end, I’m still my parents’ son.

  Cold, businesslike efficiency, and yes, ruthlessness—is in my blood.

  I wait till Sherbie has left the cave before I smash the still-warm eggs, one by one, feeling nothing at all.

  Three. Four.

  [You have met the exit conditions. Would you like to leave the instance?]

  “Yes.”