Dee put his sleeping bag down as the others settled down. Yuri took her notebook out to study it; Tianna knelt down by herself to pray and Emizra wandered off into the campsite. Arjelica was busy cooking for them.

  Dee crossed his legs, fidgeted, uncrossed his legs, then tried to lay down. He sat back up and tried to look casual. This was awkward. He felt he should be doing something, but what?

  Something caught Dee’s eye. Two adventurers sitting over a game board. Crude and wooden with a few stone pieces. I’m a Games Master. What kind of games do they play in this world?

  One of them saw him, a bearded and weathered looking man in leathers and furs. Noticing Dee’s interest, he gestured for Dee to come over.

  Dee froze. The man gestured again, he was older with a dark beard and fierce eyes. Dee didn’t want to upset him so he walked across.

  “You play?” the man asked.

  “No,” Dee replied.

  The man’s opponent was a goblin. She stared at Dee as he sat down, then went back to the game. She wore simple travel clothes, woven cloth, but her arms were covered in bracelets of metal, and several earrings hung from her ears. She had a pendant in her hands, a wiry frame like a compass or range finder that she fiddled with as she played the game.

  He watched them play. It was a very simple game, similar to one he knew, Fox and Hounds. A single fox tried to escape from three hunting dogs. The trick was to pen in the fox, but a single mistake from the hounds would let it make a break for freedom.

  This game had four hunters, controlled by the man, and the goblin moved the single prey piece. The pieces were stone, and the board a wooden hexagon with marked spots each piece could move to. Some spots had special rules, forcing the nearest or most distant hound to move if the prey reached it.

  The goblin said nothing as she played, simply cast her gaze over the board, and made her moves, all the while the pendant dancing in her fingers. The man considered his moves, his thick fingers, scarred from battle hovering over the pieces until he decided. He frowned and tutted as he played, not happy with his performance.

  Eventually, the goblin made it to a safe square, she grinned showing her sharp teeth. The man cursed and reset the board. His leather and fur armour creaked quietly, it was soft and well worn.

  “Play,” he said to Dee. “You see how?” He held up the large blue stone. “This is the beast. And these are the hunters.” He held out the smaller grey stones.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  This time the man was the beast. Dee took over the role of hunters. He played conservatively, not entirely sure of the full rules. But he understood it enough to slowly close in the hunting net, until his prey had nowhere to go.

  “Well done,” his opponent said.

  They played a few more rounds, Dee winning all of them. Then the goblin took her turn against him. She was a much stronger player, very tricky, good at playing feints to hide her real goal. But once Dee learned her tricks and how to play them himself, he started to win more. The man watched their games intently all the while.

  Arjelica had cooked the bird, along with some vegetables. She came over and handed Dee a kebab-like stick to eat. She offered some to the others, who returned the gift with a water-skin and dried jerky.

  “Arjelica, Claw Stalker,” she said as she sat down with them.

  “Darius, Prey Runner,” the man said with a nod. Dee noticed Arjelica smile.

  “Treya, Blood Hound,” the goblin said.

  They looked at Dee. “Dee, Games Master,” he said. He felt cool and also cringe at the same time.

  “Ah,” the man nodded at hearing his class. “He plays well. You play?” he said to Arjelica.

  “No. I hunt, but not behemoths.”

  “Maybe one day.”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  They ate in silence for a bit. The bird tasted strange to Dee, fragrant and light, but it was hot and juicy and he was hungry. And there was a companionship in sharing food with strangers on the road. They were all resting till tomorrow, when they would head off towards their own destinations. Markets or dungeons or whatever these game players were hunting. The noise of the camp was slowly dying down as travellers began to sleep. He had never been camping but he understood it might be fun now. Getting tired from travel all day and then chilling out round a fire sharing random food.

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  Darius finished eating and wiped his mouth on the leather of his shirt sleeve. He reset the board. “Teach me something, Games Master.”

  Treya stretched out on the floor and watched them. Her eyes roamed over Dee and Arjelica. She was reading them like the game board, studying them for clues. There was a faint clink of metal as her trinket swung from her hands. She twitched her fingers, short and thick green with sharp long nails, and the pendant swung in a circle. But still she said nothing.

  Arjelica was still eating as she watched, drawing meat from her skewer with her teeth, savouring eat bite, swallowing it down like a tiger. She was relaxed like a big cat, enjoying the results of her earlier hunting.

  Dee played for a bit, until Darius hovered his hand over the board. Dee saw that Darius was going to make a simple mistake.

  “Is this a good move, Games Master?” Darius cracked a smile.

  “No. You’re trying to fix a mistake you made against Treya. I noticed you have that habit. If Treya used the side of the board last time, then you focus too much on that. Play the game you are in, not the one before.”

  “Where should I move?” Darius scanned the board for some hint.

  “Where am I distracting you from?”

  “Aha.” He moved his hunter to pen in a previously unseen escape route for the beast. Treya chuckled.

  Darius slapped his knee in satisfaction. After that it was a quick victory for him. The beast was free. He nodded his head with satisfaction. He moved the pieces around, replaying the moment from before.

  “Yes, yes. Exactly,” he said to himself. “This is really your first time playing the Hunter’s Game?”

  “Yeah, but I play a lot of games. This is a classic asymmetric tactics game.”

  Three of them stared at him blankly.

  “Never mind. It’s a common theme in certain games. One strong piece against many weaker pieces.”

  “Just as we hunt the behemoth.” Darius stood, stretched and stared out from the camp site, looking far out into the dark.

  “What are you hunting?” Arjelica asked.

  “Rumble Stag,” Treya said. She held her trinket before her face, looking for something. But it was silent.

  “I had a lover, who hunted,” Arjelica said.

  “You never joined him?” Darius asked. His attention was still out there, the dark somewhere.

  “No.” There was something unsaid in that simple word. “No.”

  The fire crackled. It was dying down; they were some of the last adventurers to be awake.

  “Dungeons, is it?” Darius said, crouching down.

  “For now. But I will hunt.”

  “You will like it, I can tell. The sound of the beast as it roars above you. The fear of it, and the fear from you and your companions. Will it fight, will it flee?” His eyes were shining; his serious face cracked into a bright smile. “Will you fight, will you flee? You never know. Even until the very moment when your spear bites deep and drinks of its hearts-blood, you never know.” His voice rumbled with powerful intensity. He grabbed her shoulder. “Do you hear me?”

  “I do.” She grabbed his outstretched arm and for a second, they were locked in, two strangers joined in wordless understanding. Hunters who lived for the chase. Adventurers who were only truly alive when they felt that thrill. Strangers made friends by their shared courage.

  Then he broke away to pack up the board. His face was serious again like a granite stone. He took each piece carefully, weighing it in his hand, considering something about it before he put it into its pouch.

  “We go to sleep, good hunting,” Arjelica said.

  “Too you also,” Darius replied. Treya smiled and nodded to them.

  “That was kind of intense,” Dee said as they walked back to their sleeping spot.

  “The way of behemoth hunters.”

  “What’s a behemoth?”

  Arjelica shook her head slowly. “You test my patience.”

  “Please. I know games, I know… other stuff, but normal stuff here I don’t know.”

  “Crests. Crests burst into the world in many forms. Some of them live in dungeons, like snails in their shell. Others form as great behemoths. Slay the beast and you claim its crest. They are more vibrant and alive, but more dangerous. Very few are brave enough.”

  “More dangerous than a dungeon?” Dee’s whole body shuddered with fear. He didn’t like the idea of Crests wandering around, it seemed much safer for them to stay in dungeons.

  “More dangerous, more powerful. If they take down their Rumble Stag they will claim an Earth Crest, something wild and powerful.”

  “Not really my thing,” Dee said.

  “He liked you. You play the Hunter’s Game well. Ha! I never liked those games. Too simple and complicated at the same time.”

  “That is something I’m good at.”

  He felt unusual confidence inside him, but more than that a filling of satiation. As if the meat and vegetables he had eaten were a grand meal.

  “I feel really happy, though. Like, really… good.”

  “That’s experience.”

  “From learning to play a game?”

  “From teaching him. PCs get experience from fighting and overcoming danger related to their skills. NPCs get experience from providing services. You’re a Games Master, you probably get experience from advising others on tactics.” Again, she said it like telling a baby they needed to breathe. This was, of course, very obvious information for her.

  “Oh.” Deeper realisation settled on him. That was what GMs did in the normal world. They usually learned all the rules and explained them to the players. It made a weird kind of sense.

  I can level up by teaching tactics. Maybe I don’t have to fight at all? I can just advise and get more powerful. That’s kind of a relief. Disappointing as well though. I kind of want to swing a big sword around or shoot fireballs.

  The fire was dying down and it was getting colder. Dee almost jumped into his sleeping bag besides Yuri’s. She flung her arm over him sleepily, whilst Tianna glared at him.

  Seriously, what is her problem? Don’t worry I’m not going to do anything out in the open.

  The silence of night was heavy in the air now. Most were asleep and he heard the wind blowing through the camp, the chirping of strange insects in the dark and the occasional flutter of a bird returning to roost. He closed his eyes and yawned. Usually, his brain would be firing with ideas that kept him up, but the ride had exhausted him. His legs and butt ached from riding that damn chicken all day.

  He was more experience, he was alive, he was tired and then very quickly he was asleep.