"The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way"

  Robert Kiyosaki, Author

  Milly awoke an hour later, the early afternoon sun partially shaded by wispy clouds drifting across a gorgeous blue sky. A flock of birds glided through the air above her, landing the grass thicket a short distance away.

  Her head ached and her mouth was dry. Sweat soaked her hoodie, the vomit on the front now dried in the heat except where it clung to the sweat. The stench of the creature still hung in the air.

  She reached down to touch Xavier, but he was gone from beneath her.

  “Xavier? Xavier!” Milly called frantically, terrible scenarios dancing across her mind.

  “Over here. Keep your voice down,” came Xavier’s call, gruff and impatient, but very much alive.

  She stood, her knees weak. She focused on the pool of energy inside her - the energy that had saved Xavier's life - and was surprised to learn she could not only instinctively feel it, but know that it had partially refilled while she slept.

  This power must regenerate over time.

  Milly found Xavier crouched over the creature’s body, its spear clenched in his hand as his fingers ran through its mangy hair in search of anything on its body.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Milly, reluctant to get any closer to the creature. She waited for him to finish, absentmindedly picking off the ticks that had attached themselves to her while she slept.

  “Fine,” came Xavier’s gruff response. His shirt was caked in blood, but only a scab beneath his hair was left of his injury. He gave a frustrated grunt and stopped searching the corpse. He held the creature’s spear aloft, looked briefly at Milly, and then placed the spear in his own inventory.

  “It was on his left side,” Xavier said as he walked by her.

  “What?” Milly responded, confused by his tone.

  “The spear was on its left side, not its right side, as you said,” he spat. “I had planned for his right side.”

  Milly looked at him, flabbergasted. She felt her blood start to boil.

  “You…you ungrateful, condescending piece of shit!” she shouted at him, and he looked at her, shocked. “You ran in there, all sure of yourself, and fucked up. And somehow that is my fault? You got hit by a rock, not a spear. I almost died fighting that thing!”

  She showed him the slice through her hoodie.

  “I healed you and saved your life, and all you can say is ‘it was on his left side’?”

  She was breathing heavily from her righteous anger, the emotion breaking through her layers of self-doubt and passiveness like a hammer shattering glass.

  “Don’t you dare…don’t you dare try to paint me with your failure. You’d be dead right now, food for that creature, if it wasn’t for me.”

  He stared at her for a long time, his eyes shifting as he tried to figure out how to respond to the unexpected tirade. Eventually, he looked down and kicked softly at something unseen in the dirt.

  “It was a goblin, I think,” he murmured.

  “What?” Milly said, her voice cold as ice.

  “The creature. A goblin. In many games, it is one of the first monsters that players encounter. It's weak and feeble, meant to be easily defeated by the player for early level ups. They are a joke. A joke.”

  Milly was about to launch into another angry tirade, when she saw tears begin to stream down Xavier's face. He looked up at her, eyes wet and filled with fear and self-loathing.

  “A joke, Milly. A joke. I’m fast. I’m strong. I know video games better than anyone. And I lasted two seconds. Two seconds! I could have died if you have not been here. This was my dream world, and it turns out I am as useless here as I am in real life.”

  Milly’s anger broke like a wave crashing against the shore. She ignored the goblin corpse and pulled Xavier into a tight hug. His arms went around her, and he buried his face in her shoulder and cried until he had no more tears to shed.

  “You are not useless, Xavier,” she said when he had stopped shaking. “You are a jerk with the interpersonal skills of a lima bean, but you are not useless. You just got unlucky.”

  Xavier leaned back, rubbing away the last of the tears. “You know, in certain genres, luck is added as a player stat that can be increased upon level up or with certain skills or items. I can help with…” he looked at her, then blushed red. “Sorry,” he apologized shyly.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I have never minded your rants. I never understood them, but it was just a part of who you are.” She gave him a soft grin and a laugh. “Besides, I guess they have more relevance now.”

  He returned her laugh, and she felt the tension melt away between them. “Yah, I guess they do.”

  “So…what were you doing with that…goblin?” she asked tentatively.

  “Looting it,” he said simply, then elaborated when he saw her confused expression. “Umm… searching its body for useful items. Weapons, armor, trinkets, even body parts to sell or for crafting.”

  “Eww…,” Milly said, disgusted.

  Xavier laughed. “Yah, don’t worry. I wasn’t ripping out its teeth or anything. No sense going there until we know whether it is a mechanic in this game.”

  “Yah, I would rather not walk around with an inventory full of body parts,” agreed Milly, gagging. “Besides, this ‘looting’ occurs automatically. I got a message after… after protecting myself from that one. It said I earned one gold piece and it added a ‘soiled goblin loincloth’ to my inventory.”

  “Auto looting,” Xavier said appreciatively. “That will save time and be far less gross. Gold must be this world’s currency, which is also common in such games. Let me see that loincloth.”

  “I really, really don’t want to take the loincloth out,” Milly said.

  “Come on, it could be important. Let me see,” Xavier insisted.

  Milly reluctantly opened her inventory and, with two very tentative fingers, grasped the icon for the loincloth and drew it out.

  The smell was horrendous, and they both gagged and covered their mouths. Milly dropped the loincloth to the ground and backed away. Xavier grabbed a nearby stick and lifted it gently. He focused and a small screen appeared next to it.

  Xavier gave a weak laugh. “Do you want it back?”

  “Oh, gross, no. Keep it away from me,” Milly protested.

  Xavier waved the stick in her direction, and she gagged. He laughed and used the stick to place it in his own inventory.

  “You're keeping it?” Milly asked, disgusted.

  “You never know when it might come in handy,” Xavier answered, though even he looked doubtful.

  “So…now what?” Milly asked, eyes darting back to the towers in the distance.

  “Well, we really have two choices. Head back to the office, where we will stay weak and scared and inevitably die a horrible death. Or we press forward, grow strong and brave, and only probably die a horrible death.”

  Milly chuckled despite herself. It was absurd, but Xavier had a black and white outlook on the situation that cut through the constant fear knocking at her door.

  “Press on then?” she said, hoping she sounded brave.

  “Press on,” Xavier agreed, and they strode into the tall grass together.

  * * *

  They rested in the shade of a small copse of willow trees, their leaves gently rustling in the afternoon breeze. A small creek ran beside them, five paces across and slowly winding its way across the flat prairie landscape.

  Milly had her player profile open, and Xavier was showing her how it worked.

  “See, when you beat that goblin, you leveled up. That’s how you got your talent point, though you don’t get one each time you level up. Tutoria kept that vague, and there seem to be multiple ways of receiving new talents. She did not tell me how. Apparently, some parts of the game’s system are locked until we discover how to unlock them.”

  Milly had her shoes off, one foot resting in the warm creek and the other clasped in her hands, her blue healing glow working its literal magic on a blister that had been forming. She reveled in its cool touch as it soaked up the pain like a sponge.

  “I could use more talents like this,” she purred. Her shirt was damp where she had tried to wipe off the vomit, but in the process she'd made the cut across her midriff wider. “And maybe a sewing talent? Is that a thing?”

  “Probably. I have never seen a talent map this diverse in a game. There are tens of thousands of options. I only read a fraction of them as we were walking here. There are common ones, like your healing magic or elemental magic, or combat ones like sword skills. I always go the swordman route, so that is what I will pick first. Stealth and ranged weapon skills are common in games too. But there is also an entire section for agriculture and another for politics. One for art and another for construction. I saw one that gave the player an expert level understanding of ancient Sumerian. You could probably find any skill you wanted if you spent enough time looking for it.”

  "You can just ask the screen and it'll take you there. That's how I found Healer's Touch," Milly informed him.

  "Well, that's handy," Xavier said appreciatively.

  “Ok, so that’s talents. So what are these?” Milly asked as she pointed to the two attribute points she had received upon leveling up.

  “Well, if the talent map is the most complex I have ever seen, the attribute system is the simplest,” Xavier scoffed. “There are only four attributes to choose from. Strength, which is how strong you are, obviously. Agility, which is your speed and nimbleness. Toughness is how well you withstand damage and how much stamina you have. And magic is for spellcasting, like your Healer’s Touch.”

  “Then where should I spend my two points?” Milly asked curiously.

  “Honestly, I have seen games that require hours of complex micromanagement to strike the right balance and maximize gains. But this sytem? You could choose any of them and be fine right now. They must have made this part of the system simple to understand so it was accessible to most players. Personally, I like multi-input complex systems that allow for creative manipulation of complementary attributes to maximize player potential.”

  “So…strength then?" Milly asked, confused.

  “Sure, why not,” sighed Xavier, the intricacies of the art of system design lost on Milly.

  Milly focused and her strength increased from two to four. Suddenly, the muscles throughout her body seized, tightening as if she were having a whole-body charlie horse. She started to scream, but, as suddenly as it came, the feeling was gone.

  Milly felt good. Really good. Stronger than she had ever felt before. It was as if every muscle in her body had been through a year of steady training in the gym.

  “Holy crap,” she exclaimed, staring at her arms in wonder. “Xavier, this is amazing. I feel like I could take on the entire world right now.”

  She punched the air, not caring how silly she looked.

  Xavier rested his arm against a fallen willow tree. “Let’s test that out. Arm wrestle?”

  “You’re on,” exclaimed Milly excitedly.

  Five seconds later, Xavier decisively won.

  Milly looked dejected, but Xavier just laughed. “I have been hitting the gym for five years, Milly. The system gave me a starting strength of six. You're only at four with this boost.”

  “You couldn’t have let me win?” she said sadly, rubbing her arm where Xavier had slammed it down.

  Xavier laughed again. “I have never let anyone just win. You want to beat me? Get that strength above a six.”

  Milly picked up a fallen twig, tossed it playfully in his direction, and stood up with determination.

  “I’ll beat you next time. I promise,” she declared as she slid on her shoes and started walking along the stream further into the plains.

  “I don’t intend to be beaten,” Xavier whispered as they left the copse of willows behind. “Not by anything, ever again.”

  * * *

  Milly knelt in the grass and watched Xavier get into position. The two goblins lay in the open, bellies full and snoring. She held her spear aloft, waiting for his signal.

  Xavier whistled, hurled his spear towards the closest goblin, and rushed forward with his rusted sword in hand. Milly did the same, her spear flying towards her target and dashing forward with mallet in hand. Except, unlike Xavier, Milly had misjudged her newfound strength, causing her spear to sail wide, embedding itself into the ground next to Xavier’s target.

  “Shit,” she whispered with frustration as her target started to stir, eyes opening just in time to watch Milly’s mallet speeding towards its head. It was the last thing it would ever see, as its head split open from the blow.

  “Xavier, do you need…” she started to call, then saw Xavier’s target with a spear impaled in its belly and sword lodged in its neck. Milly did her best to hold back the nausea, but her vomit won out.

  “Ugg…yuck. I will never get use to this,” Milly said, spitting the last of the vomit into the dirt.

  Xavier pulled his sword from the goblin’s neck. Its blood flowing out from the wound as it twitched on the ground in its death spasms. “Stop thinking of them as real,” he told her. “They are just obstacles in our way.”

  “That’s…I don't think I can do that, Xavier. I know these things will try to kill us, but they certainly seem real. And I don’t want to assume that everything out here will be trying to kill us,” she said uncertainly.

  “Suit yourself,” Xavier said, opening the message screen and smiling as he read the results. “They are just bags of experience to me. Speaking of which, these two bags were enough to give me my first level.”

  Milly was uncomfortable with Xavier’s view, but she set her worries aside and opened her message.

  “How come I only received ten experience this time when we killed two goblins? I got ten experience last time for killing one. Same with the gold.” Milly asked, curiously. “And what’s with all the loincloths!”

  “In some games, if you win as part of a group, the group splits the experience and rewards. It looks like this is one of those games. The larger your group, the less you will receive," Xavier explained. He paused, his mind whirling with the implications of the revelation. "It makes adventuring alone more effective and profitable.”

  “But it is dangerous to go alone,” Milly added, holding her nose and passing over the loincloth. “Here, take this.”

  Xavier burst out laughing at Milly’s words, though when she asked why Xavier said it was ‘a gamer thing’ so she would not understand. He simply took the loincloth and stuck it in his inventory, then finished his level up.

  Milly watched as he gritted his teeth in pain for a moment as he assigned his attribute points, then saw a giant grin spread across his face, eyes dancing with delight.

  “Wow, this is amazing. Absolutely incredible,” he said as he clenched his hands, delighting in his newfound power.

  “What did you take?” Milly asked curiously.

  Xavier paused for a moment, and again, Milly could see his mind weighing whether to answer her.

  “Two points in strength, and the talent for basic sword forms," he said carefully. "But keep that to yourself. In these games, your strengths and weaknesses are best kept a secret. The less your enemies know, the more you can surprise them.”

  “You are not my enemy, Xavier,” Milly said with confidence. "And we are all supposed to be a single team."

  “Still…” Xavier said. “Best to keep it to yourself. Trust me. People change when they get powerful. You need to focus on your own survival first.”

  Milly wanted to argue with him. But what if he was right?

  She glanced back at the office towers in the distance, and suddenly felt cold in the prairie sun.

  Non-Canonical Aftermath: