Page 121 of Mud

Whispers and worried murmurs around the crowd—not only from players, but from the orcs and elves, too.

“We wish you the best of luck, players. Iris is with you,” the hologram said the next second, and the people started to complain.

Wait! We need more details!

Necromancy is forbidden!

Are we going to jail if we make zombies?

Where’s the cemetery around here—are you gonna point us in the right direction?

What if we can’t do it—there’s gotta be another way!

And I wanted to know the answer to that last one, too. Because I couldn’t do it, regardless of whether it was illegal or if we could get imprisoned for it—I had no magic to do necromancy with. One needed a very,veryhigh amount of power to bring back the dead, and I had none.

More players were approaching from between the buildings, some with animals, some without. They all seemed confused as hell, especially when the hologram disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, and all were left with unanswered questions.

“What consists ofnatural causes, exactly?” asked a Redfire.

“If I hit someone and they fall to their death, that’snatural,isn’t it?” Bluefire.

“Technically speaking, if slamming against the ground causes death, it’snatural…” Blackfire.

“If we wanna get down to technicalities, all deaths are natural—for a heart to stop beating is the most natural thing in the world, right?” A Whitefire—the guy I’d seen in the Tree of Abundance. The handsome one with a horned rabbit at his feet, watching curiously.

He saw me, too, and he smiled and nodded, but I couldn’t return it. Not because I didn’t want to—I did, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to smile right now.

On and on the others went, trying to find loopholes or simply figure out what the hell that hologram meant exactly. Actual necromancy? Really?

I started to look around, hoping the orcs and elves had more wisdom to share with us, and other players were already asking a few nearby, too.

“No, no, we don’t know nothing. They don’t tell us nothing. We’re just here to work,” they kept saying, shaking their heads, looking at us like they weresorry.

Then the vulcera whined. I looked down at her, and again, she looked back toward the houses, toward the alley where we’d come from.

I kneeled in front of her, half-freaked out by our proximity, waiting for her to open those jaws and bite my face off, while the other part of me was perfectly calm. Like itknewher. Like it had known her all my life.

Big green eyes locked on mine. Those scales shone orange under the light of the fires burning all around us. Her tail was pin straight and raised—she was definitely not comfortable here and I couldn’t blame her.

“What is it?” I asked her again, but she only growled and looked back, like she saw something there in the darkness.

Then the other animals were moving.

Hey, wait!

Where are you going?!

Don’t leave me—come back!

The players who’d been in the Greenfire challenge before here and had bonded to their animals were calling out to them, but they were retreating between the buildings, right where we’d come from.

“Hold on a minute,” I whispered, but the vulcera was already walking backward, growling low in her throat, like she didn’t want to be moving away but she couldn’t help it. She was being forced to walk away by some invisible magic.

“You’re leaving?!” I said, panicked already, just like every other player who’d bonded. Not all had, though, which meant not all were coming here from the Greenfire challenge. But some of those who were, were even screaming, and Iris, I wanted to join them. I couldn’t look away from the vulcera at all.

She whined and growled again, but she continued tomove backward, like she had an invisible leash on her pulling her back.

“What the hell is the point?” I wondered, getting louder with each word. “What the hell is the fucking point of this then?”

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