Vivid Stars Online

We only stayed at the scene of the fight long enough to patch ourselves up and gather the Beast cores. There were still plenty of wolves left to fight, and neither of us wanted to risk another battle with the state I was in.

While we had won the battle, I sustained multiple serious injuries. My left shoulder was the worst, with my right arm and left leg not far behind. It was only thanks to the incredible medicine we had access to that I was even mobile.

As it was, I was still slow and unlikely to be useful in combat. As such, we began looking for a place to make camp rather than continuing our hunting efforts.

Our biggest issue was finding enough fuel to keep a fire going all night. So far, being in the forest had spoiled us, we’d become used to the plentiful wood. Out here on the plains, it was harder to come by.

After more than an hour of searching, we found an inlet that looked suitable. The curve of the lake met a sand bar jutting further out, creating a small cove.

The sandbar had piles of driftwood pushed up against it, from times when the lake had flooded. It was perfect, and we set our camp up right against the water and next to the sandbar.

Linnea ended up doing most of the work given my injuries, something I was extremely thankful for. I was sure I’d already have died on this mission without her and I no longer had any qualms about how much I’d spent hiring her.

“You should log out and take a break,“ she said upon returning from gathering wood. “Even with those pills you took, you’re not going to be much good till tomorrow. No reason you should stay in the game and suffer through it.”

“I'll keep watch,“ she continued with a soft smile. “As long as I keep the fire going, we should be safe enough.”

I wanted to argue and say it wasn’t fair to leave her alone to manage things. However, I was honestly too tired and sore. Instead, I nodded and slipped into my tent, hoping that I would be all right to keep going in the morning.

When I entered the game the next morning, I found myself starving; I’d forgotten to log back in and feed my character. Eager to get some food, I left my tent to find an exhausted-looking Linnea huddled up to the fire.

“Are you okay?“ I asked in concern.

“Stayed up most of the night,“ she murmured tiredly. “At least a dozen eyes out in the night watching us. One's a lot bigger than the others. Stayed up to keep the fire going and make sure nothing happened.”

She looked ready to fall asleep on her feet, barely being able to make coherent sentences. It was obvious that she’d had a rough night.

Fuck, I thought, kicking myself for leaving her alone for so long. While I’d had to spend a good portion of that time offline anyway, we could still have worked out shifts or something.

Still, there wasn’t anything I could do now except try to right the situation. “Go get some sleep,“ I said softly,“ I can manage things for a while. If I gather more wood, we can keep the fire going for a while.”

“I’m good,“ Linnea complained while stifling a yawn. She tried to climb to her feet, only to stumble as she did so, nearly falling into the remains of the fire. “Or maybe not,“ she sighed. “OK, I'll get a few hours. Then we can get back to the mission.”

I nodded, impressed she even still cared about the mission at this point. While I’d already been exposed to her professionalism before, this was on another level. Determined to let her get as much sleep as possible, I hustled her off to bed before venturing out for more wood.

Whatever had been prowling during the night was gone, leaving a multitude of tracks behind. I was no tracker, yet even I could see that there had been a lot of them. Worse, one set of tracks stood out, being larger and deeper than the others.

It looked almost human if you ignored the claw marks at the end. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, I thought to myself with a shudder. That looks suspiciously like the print of a werewolf or at least some kind of wolf that can walk upright.

Maybe a Great Wolf? The Great Tiger could walk upright as well, so that would make sense. Whatever it was, I was willing to bet it was a lot more dangerous than the normal wolves. We would have to be very careful if we went after it.

I was able to move past the tracks to the sand bar without incident, allowing me to gather another armful of wood. We had made a bit of a dent in the supply so far, however, there was still a lot left. We should be good for the night, at least.

Returning to the camp, I stoked the fire back to life with the new wood and set to cooking. I was hungry enough to eat all of last night’s dinner now, and I did so with gusto. When Linnea woke up, I’d check if she was hungry too. The least I could do was make her a hot meal.

Having satiated my hunger, I took another set of painkillers and healing pills before settling in to wait.

It was early afternoon by the time Linnea poked her head out of the tent, looking greatly improved. She eagerly accepted my offer of food and I made up another two batches since I was hungry again by that point.

We’d made good time so far and had plenty of rations left, it was only sensible to keep our strength up for the fight to come. While It might be an odd thought to have about our virtual bodies in the game, by this point I was sure that it was an accurate enough simulation for things like that to matter.

Once we’d eaten and prepared our stuff, we set out to hunt, leaving most of our camp set up behind us. It was such a good spot we knew we would come back, leaving the camp up would only save us time when we did so.

We found several small groups of wolves over the day, bringing our kill count up to twenty-six. Of the larger Beast, we saw no sign of other than a few tracks. This caused us to theorize that it was nocturnal, bringing the uncomfortable thought that it might return during the night.

It was a tough situation since I had to spend at least six consecutive hours outside of the game. The VR pod forced this on you for health reasons unless you were in a full-time facility under the supervision of a doctor. On top of that, I had to spend another three hours outside a day though I could spread those out.

Eventually, we returned after only four hours of hunting. It had been nearly two hours since we’d last seen a group of wolves and we were beginning to suspect the rest were with the larger Beast.

After a lengthy discussion, we decided it would be best if I logged off early to get my six hours in now. That would allow me to return at around midnight in-game time, allowing me to take a shift and give Linnea a chance to some sleep.

Once she’d had six hours of rest, I would then log out and get my other three hours done. We also discussed the possibility of fighting the Beast to finish the mission, though we were reluctant to risk it at night.

In the end, we decided to play it by ear and fight if it looked like we had a good opening.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?“ I asked as I dropped the last armload of wood. We’d spent our entire planning session gathering all the remaining wood from the sandbar. It gave us a massive pile to work with, more than enough to keep a bonfire burning from now until morning.

“We could always get Brian to pick us up and deal with the mission later,“ I finished. While I didn’t particularly want to take that route, I felt I should give Linnea the option to back out. This was more than she’d signed up for, after all.

She laughed in response. “You worry too much,“ she got out as she finished. “I'll be fine, you just make sure to be back in six hours.”

I nodded before moving over to my tent. If her mind was made up, I wasn’t going to argue any longer. It would just waste time. Instead, I logged out, setting a timer in the real world for exactly six hours.

It was dark when I returned, lit only by the flickering light of the fire. Linnea was sitting just outside my tent, cradling her long rifle. While her face was a little drawn, she seemed awake and very aware of her surroundings.

“The big one’s out there again,“ she said without preamble as I left the tent. “There’s more normal wolves as well. At a guess, I’d say it’s all the ones you still need to kill for the quest.”

I nodded in response. I had nine left to kill, assuming that included the big one, which meant there were eight normal wolves as well. That would be a difficult fight, even in broad daylight, let alone in the middle of the night.

I was about to suggest she got some rest before Linnea interrupted me.

“I had a lot of time to think while I was on watch and I believe I have a plan.” She was grinning tiredly as she spoke. “We’ve still got a ton of wood left, what if we build a wall of fire that cuts off the end of the sandbank? Then we could just sit back on it and take pot-shots at them till they die or leave.”

I paused in thought, trying to evaluate the plan. While it was risky, I thought it could work. The Beasts would probably swim out to us from the shore eventually, but even that would slow them down. If the larger Beast wouldn’t come out during the day, it might be our only chance to finish the mission.

“OK,“ I finally said, nodding my head in agreement. “Let’s do it.”

We were only a few feet from the edge of the sandbank, so it wasn’t hard to build a small wall of wood to it. With how afraid of fire the Beasts seemed to be, it shouldn’t take too much.

I did most of the work while Linnea covered me in case one of them got over their fear. That didn’t happen, however, most likely because I lit each section as I went. That ensured that I was never more than a foot from the edge of the fire.

Once we reached the sandbank, Linnea moved further down it while I kept building our wall. The sandbank itself was roughly a dozen feet wide, enough that it took nearly an hour for me to assemble the wall of flames.

Eventually, I finished and moved back down the sandbank toward Linnea. We were safe for now with the wolves stuck on the shoreline.

“Are you sure you can hit them in this situation?” I asked as I approached her. I couldn’t even see the dark shapes or glimmering eyes past the flames.

“Yep,“ she nodded confidently. “I’ve got a booster mode on the scope that should highlight them for me. It’s kind of like your scanner, from what I understood, though it drains the battery like crazy. This will only be the second time I’ve used it because of that.”

“OK then,“ I sighed, shivering from more than just the cold. “I guess it’s time, then. You shoot, and I'll watch the water.”

It was time for the last battle of the expedition and I could only hope we weren’t making a terrible mistake. Then I heard the crack of plasma firing from behind me.

The battle was on.