The Mother entered the clearing. By Elijah’s estimates, this was not long after the first memory. The mother was still weak, still damaged from the run-in with the players who had chopped off her arms. They had begun to grow back, but they were weak, spindly things. Barely more than saplings attached to her at the shoulder.

  She lay on the ground, curled against a great maple tree. Nearly as large as the mother tree that they were now delving inside of. Around her, countless dryads played as she watched them. These were her children. To one side of her stood the Keeper, and although he hardly looked different from the other children, on the other side they knew the dryad standing next to her was the Guardian.

  The children jumped between and through the trees, playing games of catch, or tag, or something else unknowable to Elijah. There didn’t seem to be any order in their chaos. And yet it still filled him with a sense of childish joy to watch them, to hear the sounds of their laughter.

  The mother let out a pained moan as she shifted, and the Keeper immediately began tending to her.

  Her voice was softer, more childish as she tended to her mother. “Are you hurting Mother? Do you need more Heartwood Sap?”

  The mother shook her head at the Keeper, trying to ease the young dryad’s worries. “Apologies, my child. I did not mean to worry you. My home tree is calling to me. She misses me.”

  “I miss her too, but,” she whispered, looking down at the twigs that were her arms. “I can not return to her yet.”

  Elijah took a step back from the scene, looking closely at the dryad children as they played. He hadn’t noticed it before. Not in the previous memory, nor in the dryad’s actions above ground, but when they entered the trees they led with their hands. As if pushing open a door, they split the wood with their hands. It didn’t explain how the Keeper and Guardian could sink into the floor without moving a muscle; but this whole situation was strange enough without thinking about the specifics.

  Without her arms being strong enough, the Mother couldn’t split the wood of the tree. As dryads weren’t designed for moving around outside of their trees, this left the mother at a distinct disadvantage if someone, like those evil players, returned. Deep worry twisted in Elijah’s guts as that thought sank in.

  As if his thought had brought it into being, far off in the distance a dryad screamed. Elijah’s attention returned to the Mother. She turned to the Guardian. “That was—” the name she spoke didn’t register in Elijah’s ears. As if hidden from the memory. “Find her.”

  She turned next to the Keeper as she struggled to get to her feet. “Collect your sisters. Get them to safety.”

  “What about you, Mother?” The Keeper’s voice was strained, not wishing to leave his mother’s side.

  “Do as I say!” she commanded the Keeper, who immediately went to work ushering her sisters into the safety of the tree. The Guardian was already gone, having leapt into action at the Mother’s first words.

  The Mother stumbled as quickly as she could towards the direction the scream had come from, and the vision pulled along Elijah and his party. The sight they saw when she reached the next clearing over left him feeling sick to his stomach.

  The Guardian lay bleeding on the ground, a large, ragged slash across his chest where a weapon had cracked his bark and released the blood-sap from his body. Hovering over him, ready to make the killing blow, was Zed. The same player who had mutilated the Dryad Mother in the previous memory. Behind him lay the body of a much smaller dryad. A child.

  Elijah had to tear his gaze away. The sight was too much for him; he knew that these were just video game characters. Generated to tell a story. The player may even have been generated by the game. But he could still feel a hint of sentience from the Reaper Lair Core. And within the Mother and her children, his Core Guardian class could sense a sliver of that sentience.

  He focused on the player and the Guardian, locked in a struggle as the man’s axe blade pushed ever closer to the Guardian’s throat.

  The mother roared. A deep, primal rage shook the surrounding trees. Leaves fell from their branches as she rushed forward, barrelling into the player. She slashed at him with white bark claws, dealing several dozen points of damage to his health before he got his bearings.

  He shoved her off, realization dawning on his face as he saw the white bark skin and the still regrowing arms. He knew this to be the same dryad he had mutilated.

  As she lunged for him again, he swung the axe and caught her in the side of her chest. A meaty thunk reverberated through the forest as she stilled, then staggered back. She fell on top of the injured Guardian. Her yellow sap-like blood leaking out to meld with the puddle of his own.

  Zed grimaced as he got to his feet. “You stupid thing. I should have killed you when I had the chance before.”

  His laugh was wet as blood filled his lungs. His health bar was draining from a bleed effect, but not fast enough.

  “I’m going to kill you, then I’m going to track down every one of your ‘children’ and kill them too.” His voice was breathy and ragged as he stumbled towards her.

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  Sasha had been standing next to Elijah when the memory started. As Zed raised his axe to deal the final blow, she buried her head into Elijah’s chest. His hands instinctively went up to her head and shoulders. Holding her close to him, protecting her from the sight in front of them as he stood vigil to watch. Benjamin and Bo closed their eyes, not wanting to see what happened, but Elijah and Nicholas watched out. They would both witness this atrocity. Internalize the hate and anger they felt for this player. How cruel and callous he could be?

  As he raised the axe above his head, the memory froze once more. The figures faded from existence as the light returned to the clearing.

  He gave it a moment to make sure it was over, then gently tapped on Sasha’s back. “It’s okay. You can look now. The memory is gone.”

  When Sasha stepped away from him, there were tears in her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away. “Sorry, I’m okay now.” Her voice was soft as she spoke, taking a step away from him.

  He didn’t know how to respond, so instead he turned towards Nicholas. “Two down, one to go. I think we all know where that is going, but we need to see it through to the end.”

  Nicholas nodded at him, looking over the distraught faces of the party. “I know this sucks, guys, but we have to remember that none of this is real. It’s just a game.”

  Sasha spun on the fighter so quickly it made Elijah flinch. “It doesn’t feel like a fucking game, Nicholas,” she snarled at him.

  She walked towards the next exit from the clearing. “Let’s finish this. I’ll take the lead and cast ‘Mass Heal’ once I’ve lost a few health points.”

  Elijah hurried after her as she began taking damage from the vines. Her mental state concerned him. He’d never seen her upset before, and this felt more visceral.

  Her health was plummeting fast. She had only thirty hit points total, the lowest of the entire party, yet her stride never interrupted. She just kept pushing on as she hit half health, dropping all the way to ten before she finished casting ‘Mass Heal’.

  The warm, rejuvenating light of her spell washed over the party, restoring twenty points to each of them. It cost her almost her entire mana pool, but it was well worth it for restoring a hundred health over the entire party, instead of only thirty for a single person. She downed a mana potion from her inventory as she walked, readying to cast again.

  As her health hit fifteen again, she began casting the spell, but Nicholas touched her shoulder. From his spot in the back, Elijah couldn’t hear what he said to her, but she seemed to deflate at his words.

  Blood seeped from her wounds, staining the white fabric of her robes as she fell in behind Nicholas. Elijah moved forward, slipping his hand into hers and squeezing it. No words needed to pass between them. They both knew it for exactly what it was—just a reassurance that he was there, that he felt her pain.

  Neither of them said a word, but she didn’t pull away. Just squeezed his hand back.

  The five of them continued in silence, swapping out before any of them could take too much damage. After several rotations, and needing to rest a few times while Sasha recharged her mana, they finally made it to the next clearing.

  The Guardian stood in a quiet vigil of the final memory orb. This final orb glowed with a brilliant white light, reminiscent of the light put out by the Mother in the memories. There were no other exits other than the one that the party had entered through. This challenge would be over as soon as they acquired and watched this last memory.

  None of them were doing well in terms of health. Sasha’s mana pool was almost completely empty again. The last stretch to make it to the clearing had been almost fatal. Everyone except for Sasha was below ten health points. They took a minute to rest, the silence heavy in the air between them.

  “It’s going to take me half an hour before I can cast ‘Mass Heal’ again. Or ten minutes for a ‘Cure Wound’. I don’t want to wait that long,” Sasha finally broke the silence. Her voice dripped with authority as she stood and turned towards the Guardian.

  “Sasha, wait. You can’t---” Nicholas started. She shot him a glare that silenced him immediately.

  “A single tree doesn’t make a forest, Nicholas. Every tree has to pull its own weight. We need to end this.”

  She approached the Guardian. “My name is Sasha the White Mage. I know that to access the memory, we must defeat you in single combat. To first blood, correct?”

  The Guardian looked down at her, opening its mouth slowly. “You are a healer, are you not? Do you have the skills to draw blood?”

  The question wasn’t meant to be derogatory; there was curiosity in the creature’s voice as it spoke.

  “A White Mage is more than just a healer.” She reached up into her hair and pulled out the sticks pinning her bun up.

  Her blonde hair cascaded down her shoulders as she squared off with the Guardian. He hadn’t seen her hair down since the river. That felt like a lifetime ago now. Just like back then, he was seeing a different side of Sasha that he’d never seen before. She was normally a soothing, almost motherly kind of person. Unafraid to tell you when you were wrong, but there to lift your spirits after a scolding.

  That day at the river, he had seen the vulnerable side of her. The woman who had sold her body to an audience her whole adult life. This time the woman he saw was a fierce warrior, determined to defend her friends no matter the cost.

  Which was the true Sasha? One of the three personalities he’d seen? Or somewhere in-between?

  “A White Mage is a protector, someone who stands between their party and death, no matter the situation. Something I’m sure you understand.” She bowed low, her muscles coiling as she prepared to fight.

  “I understand that well,” the Guardian spoke as he bowed back, his movement stiff but sincere. “Very well, mage, I accept your challenge. I will try to hold back my strikes, so as not to harm you too badly.”

  “You can try, but I won’t fail.”

  “She’s going to get herself killed,” Bo murmured. Elijah would have hit him if the rogue weren’t already on his last legs health-wise.

  The health bar appeared over the Guardian’s head as he accepted the challenge. Once more showing his high level and expansive health pool. The difference in their max health hopefully wouldn’t matter. As long as the Guardian was true to his word about this being a duel to first blood.

  Sasha made the first move, spinning in a wide arc and tossing one hair stick at her opponent. The speed she threw it was remarkable, but the Guardian deflected it at the last second. It went spiralling off to the side of the clearing. Sasha’s hand followed its arc, as if expecting it to come back, until it embedded itself into a tree.