I DIVE THROUGH THE WINDOW of the tavern, escaping gunfire.

  Blaster holes riddle the walls across the road as I fly through shattering shards and hit the street. I roll on broken glass and lunge to my feet.

  Outside, a dozen players watch, startled. “I thought we were no-PvP!” exclaims one. “It’s an NPC, PvP doesn’t matter for it!” yells another. “Maybe it’s a quest!”

  “He’s ours!” Mockquaman and Flipper jump through the broken window, leveling their guns at me. “We saw him first!”

  I bail through the crowd. AquaTeen’s blaster fire shoots right through the players all around me, who seem unimpressed. “What’s going on?” “I dunno, they're after that NPC!” “It has the LL, it’s one of those LivingLegends!” “That old man in a diaper?!”

  As I run, I see a notification pop up.

  

  MacGyver Skill Activated

  Escape Artist: Evade +5

  Maybe that will help, but as I break through the crowd, looking for somewhere to escape, I realize I need something, anything, that will get me out of here. I reach into my inventory and grab a Sailor Man can.

  

  Spinach: Consumable

  Strength x3 (10 minutes)

  I pop the can and guzzle it down.

  Instantly, I’m hit with a surge of energy. My speed doubles as I fly up the hill like I’m in a Roadrunner cartoon. As fast as I’m going, somehow AquaTeamForce keeps pace. I hear their hoots and jeers along with something that sounds like a jet pack engine.

  I skid around the corner like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, without the cool. Up the hill, I see a group of crates labeled Monkey Bits and sprint for them. I dive behind the boxes just as AquaTeenForce bursts around the corner and blasts at the crates.

  Taking cover, I glance up the hill, but there’s no way to continue through the streets without walking right into a firing range.

  “Nix this b§tch!” yells Mockquaman.

  “On it!” I hear the whine of something that sounds like an old camera flash powering up. I peek over the crates and see, yes, both of the aquapsychos have jet packs, and dolphin-boy is holding something that looks like an RPG with a glowing red tip that’s getting hotter by the second.

  “Hell’s bells…”

  I grab one of the crates with my spinach-strength and manage to get it between me and the Monkey Bits just before the whole thing gets blown to Kingdom Come. I’m inside an explosion of red flames as monkey chunks fly past all around me. Still holding onto the crate, I’m blown thirty feet in the air. I smash into an awning on the second floor of a building, fall through it into another awning, collapse through that, and crash down into a fruit stand, destroying it.

  Monkey bits and bananas cover my flesh as I pull myself up from the wreckage.

  

  Health: 29%

  I see a million flies buzzing around me, then realize they’re all just tiny camera lenses with wings. Somebody’s recording my humiliation.

  “My goodness!” Pepper exclaims. “Are you okay, Dave?”

  I don’t have time to wonder how the penguin managed to catch up to me so fast before I hear a shout. “There it is!”

  AquaTeenForce isn’t done yet. Even worse, some of the other players have joined in the hunt. Since they’re not allowed to attack each other, to a pack of feral teens, I look like fresh meat.

  “Hell’s bells...”

  I hear a dozen shotguns cock, ready to party.

  I bail hard. They chase.

  Moving like Carl Lewis at the ‘84 Olympics, I sprint uphill through the maze of streets. More RiftElite players come out of the woodwork, drawn by the promise of live action and a Unique Badge. A dozen hunters become twenty. One shoots a crossbow that barely misses my head. Another lets fly with a railgun that hits a brick wall and pierces through it like marshmallow fluff. “Damn aimbot!”

  Directly ahead of me, a big green dude dressed in something like a bomb disposal outfit from Hurt Locker blocks my path. “Got him!”

  He flings out his hands and a dozen silver discs the size of frisbees fly everywhere. They stick to the street, the walls, the doorways. I hear a foreboding beep-beep-beep as I realize they’re all flashing red. Land mines.

  I try to stop, but my spinach legs are moving too fast. I dodge the first mine but carom into the wall where another mine is waiting. It explodes right next to my head.

  I’m not really sure what happens next. I go through a wall, that much I know. Maybe two walls. I lose my arms almost immediately, and then I think I’m cut in half by a wheelbarrow or something. Everything flashes painfully, and the world winks out of existence.

  I respawn in an adjoining street. Bloop-blip!

  My HUD flashes.

  

  Heath: 100% | Lives: ?? ?? ?

  Holy crap. They’re going to kill me. Just like Buck. I’m going to wind up splattered all over the fake street of a stupid video game, all because HumanAsset thinks I’m disposable.

  “There he is!” Hurt Locker stomps around the corner. He flings out his hand, but now I know what’s happening. I dive away and roll for an alley. One of the mines lands in front of me, bleeping. I flick my finger and hit the little switch on top, praying.

  The land mine deactivates as the red light goes dark.

  I stuff it in my inventory and run as Hurt Locker stomps behind me, falling behind like the fat kid on the playground. “Hey! You can’t do that!”

  Running for cover, I spot a tall building and head for it. More shouts as blasts and bullets tear across the wall in front of me and I throw myself through the entrance. The doorframe explodes behind me as I sprint up the wooden stairs. This place is some kind of slumlord apartment, filled with NPCs doing laundry and making shady deals in dark corridors. I hear the mob of players thunder up the stairs behind me as a magic missile shoots up the stairwell, bends in midair, and smacks me in the face.

  

  Health: 89% | Lives: ????

  I don’t stop running. An explosive goes off behind me and I’m blown into one of the rooms on the fourth floor. An NPC washerwoman screams as I stagger by her. I check over my shoulder to find four rabid players in the doorway, aiming weapons at me and making faces like Biff Tannen’s lunatic crew. I trip over my feet and fall out the window.

  My foot catches on something and suddenly I’m flying through the sky. My bootlaces have somehow gotten tangled in a laundry line and the pulley ropes are dragging me through the sky like an upside-down zipline. Blaster fire rips past me as I slam into the line of dirty laundry, splat-splat-splat. My inventory picks up 3 nightshirts, 2 oversized bras, and a pair of suspenders. For some reason, there’s a chicken on the laundry line and it's swallowed by my inventory with a ba-kaw!

  I hit the end of the laundry line and smash through a window into another room, this one occupied with two mermaids making out in a bathtub. As arrows come through the window, my foot hits a bar of soap and I skid across the room like Dorothy Hamill on one skate and out the opposite window.

  I crash through a crappy tin roof, making a tremendous hole, and splash into a giant vat. I sink to the bottom, trying to breathe. High-octane rum washes into my mouth, up my nose, and into my eyes as I thrash inside the giant wooden vat. Half-blind, I swim for the side and drag myself to the edge.

  

  DEBUFF: Drunk

  NPC workers yell at me as I wipe molasses spirits out of my eyes and look up to see a gaggle of players looking down from the window far above. “Ha!” A fat Jedi yells. “Unlimited booze! Unlimited power!”

  A lady goblin beside him lights a Molotov cocktail. “Bar’s closed old man!”

  She drops the firebomb through the hole in the roof.

  NPCs scream as I hurl myself out of the vat. I dive into a barrel and slam the lid like my name is Bilbo.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Ka-BOOM!

  I feel the world shake as the barrel flies into the air. It spins like a Bloom Flower firework, burning at both ends. The bung pops out, and I watch the distillery explode beneath me as the barrel keeps flipping over and over.

  

  DEBUFF: Dizzy + Drunk

  I barf, and the centrifugal force spews puke out of the bunghole, spraying the sky like an out-of-control firehose.

  My flaming escape pod smacks into a thatched roof and I’m smashed against the inside of the barrel from the impact. I tumble as the barrel rolls down the rooftop and falls to a sudden stop with a wet plop. The barreltop pops off, and I realize I’ve landed in a pile of horse manure. The barrel tips, falls, and shatters on the street. I tumble out surrounded by flaming barrel chunks and burning horseshit. Both go into my inventory.

  I stagger to my feet, barf again, and glance down the hill.

  Half of Trader’s Point is on fire. In the distance, the distillery explodes in a towering inferno of liquor flames. The city is suddenly drowned in music as the RiftBorn AI plays Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” with the volume cranked to 11. New flames catch on thatch roofs all over the city. NPCs run through the streets with their hair on fire. Down the hill, I see a gaggle of players scream around a corner. There must be fifty of them now, a genuine mob. One points at me. “There it is!”

  “YAAAAA!” They scream and run at me.

  “Hell’s b—” I vomit again and flee up the hill.

  I’m not as fast now. My Hermit endurance is high and the spinach helps, but I can’t keep going like this much longer. I’m running for dear life, but I hear the player mob closing the distance. Struggling, I muscle my way up the hill and realize I’m nearly at the top of the city. There’s a big tower labeled Dirty Duke’s Pleasure Palace , but that’s the end of the line. I’m out of places to run.

  More of the little camera-flies hover around me as the music switches to “bury a friend” by Billie Eilish. Great.

  I flee as fast as my legs will carry me and turn a corner into Trader's Point’s topmost bazaar, this one full of arms, armor, and aggression. An arsenal of weapons from laser rifles to bazookas adorn the windows next to full suits of magic chain mail, military Kevlar, and alien exo-armor. It would be the perfect armory if only I could buy any of it. At the top of the road near the entrance to Dirty Duke’s is a fat, bald NPC twirling his mustache beside a vehicle that says Cannonball Carl’s Cannonball Cart. An old mule is hitched to a tilted cart brimming with an assortment of bombs, all with special labels.

  My speed slows to almost nothing as I run out of gas. I turn to see the player mob closing in from behind, screaming like a Scottish war party from Braveheart.

  Desperate, I pull the land mine from my inventory, flick the switch, and toss it into the street. As the mob closes in on me, I grab a hunk of flaming barrel from my inventory and hold it over my head like a torch. “Come and get me, bitches!”

  I hurl my torch into Carl’s Cannonball Cart and hear the fuses ignite.

  “No!” yells Carl. “No! No!!”

  BOOM! A player steps on the land mine and explodes into flaming chunks. The cannonball cart is incinerated along with Carl and the mule. As the whole thing collapses into ash, the destroyed cart dumps out cannonballs like they’re coins from a jackpot slot machine. Cannonballs roll through the flames of the land mine and ignite as they go, hissing like a nest of snakes.

  Guess I didn’t need the torch.

  The mob’s eyes grow wide in shock as a thousand lit explosives tumble down the street, bouncing everywhere like Captain Kangaroo’s ping-pong balls. Bombs detonate everywhere in a series of colorful explosions.

  Trumpets blare from the sky as the AI sets the mood with full orchestral swells and church bells in the cannonade finale of the 1812 Overture.

  DA-da-da-DAH-da-da-da-DAH-da-DAAH!

  BOOM!

  The first set of cannonballs goes off and sends a trio of knights through one of the shop windows. BOOM! Another hits a pair of mercs who are suddenly nothing more than a decapitated set of legs. BOOM! A party of five becomes a geyser of wet corpse parts. They spray all over the walls as they are turned into a bloody paste that drips from hanging flags like pink slurry. BOOM! A goat flies across the clouds. BOOM!

  I take one second to revel in my chaotic revenge; I got those bastards back for Buck. I disappear into Dirty Duke’s tower. BOOM!

  My Stamina flashes red as I climb the stairs. I’m slower than ever; apparently, the tough old Hermit’s body can only take so much. Limping, I continue up the spiral stairs until I come to a trap door in the ceiling and throw it open.

  Fresh air hits my face and I’m treated to the best view in Trader’s Point. The entire city spills out below me, pretty as a perfect pirate picture. The top of the tower is still under construction; a big wooden crane is attached to a huge stone block waiting to be moved into place. An empty folding chair indicates where the construction worker would sit, taking in the view. A pelican flies by my head.

  “Wow!” exclaims a chirrupy sing-song voice. “It’s so pretty it makes my heart hiccup!”

  Pepper stands right beside me.

  “How do you keep doing that?”

  “I don’t know! Isn’t it fun?”

  “AHHH!” I glance through the trapdoor to see the bloody survivors of my cannonball cavalcade storm the tower. I kick the trap door shut with a bang.

  “Uh-oh,” chirps Pepper. “They seem mad.”

  I’m really out of road this time.

  I could jump. Splatter my second heart all over the pavement. But the mob would just rip me to shreds when I respawned. And that would be the end of Dave McClain.

  Looks like it’s the Placebo Protocols for me. Sorry mom.

  I notice a flash down in the city, and suddenly see Mockquaman and Flipper. They’re in the weapons bazaar, loading something that looks like a human-sized pineapple into a mortar shell.

  

   TOWN LEVEL THREAT ACTIVATED

  MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast): Special RiftElite CoinRiver Purchase! Nickname: “Mother of All Bombs.” The largest non-thermonuclear explosive ever used in combat. It’s the nuke you use when you want to be polite about it. Big name. Big boom.

  AquaTeamForce drops the pineapple into the mortar. It goes THUNK and the missile is launched skyward. It rockets into the stratosphere, arcs, and drops directly toward me. I’m pretty sure it’s the RiftBorn AI that adds the whistling sound as it falls.

  “Oh no!” Pepper squeaks. “What are we going to do?”

  “We?” We’re going to die, that’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to die in this stupid game with this stupid penguin. “Dammit, Cabbage Patch, we’re not a team, there is no we–”

  I stop myself as a desperate thought hits. I flip through the tabs of my HUD and find it. Party: Unnamed. 1) DDD 2) PEPPER

  According to the game, we are a we. A party. And that gives me an idea. “You’re right, Pepper. We’re a team.”

  “Cool beans!”

  I see a faint illumination rise around my body and hers, a glowing red the same color as the strip in the A-Team’s van. “I’m Hannibal Smith, I’m the brains, and you…” I toss her a can of spinach. “You’re the brawn.”

  “Yeah!” She pops the spinach and guzzles it down like a champ.

  I give her a thumbs-up, faking confidence. “You’re B. A. Baracus!”

  “I’m B. A. Barbackous!”

  As I hear the TV show theme song fire up, I grab the folding chair and hand her the suspenders. “I love it when a plan comes together.”

  

  A-Team Skill Activated

  Tactical Montage: Expedited party construction of Improvised Gizmos (traps, defenses, vessels & vehicles)

  Like a US Marine dismantling an AR-15, Pepper the Penguin dismantles the folding chair, slips the suspenders through the dowels, and snaps the whole thing back together with a sharp tak! ”One!” I yell as I down another can of spinach, jam my crowbar beneath the stone block and use my renewed strength to leverage the giant stone over the edge, leaving it dangling from the crane arm. “Two!” I run back to the folding chair, grab the suspenders, and attach the loose end to the other side of the crane beam. “Three!”

  The trapdoor slams open. Players jam themselves into the hole, blocking each other’s paths as they try to aim their weapons at us.

  Above, the MOAB screeches from the clouds, intent on pancaking me and the entire city.

  The crane, the suspenders, and the folding chair all flash red as a single unit.

  

  Tactical Montage Improvised Gizmo:

  Trebuchet Me, Bro

  I grab Pepper and throw myself into the folding chair. As I wrap one arm around the penguin, her wide and frightened eyes stare up at me pleadingly. “Don’t die, Dave!”

  I throw my crowbar at the crane lever that holds the stone in place. The stone drops and yanks the crane arm with it. On my end, the crane jerks up suddenly and flips off the building. The suspenders reach the limit of their elastic, and the folding chair is whipped into the air like a gigantic slingshot.

  “AAAAH!” Pepper screams as we launch off the top of the tower.

  I turn to see a dozen players climb through the trapdoor and stare stupidly at the sky as the MOAB comes down on them.

  Dirty Duke’s tower explodes with the loudest concussion I’ve ever heard in a fireball that obliterates Trader’s Point from the map.

  “AHHH!” My scream joins Pepper’s as the blastwave smashes past us and sends the folding chair spinning. Fireworks go off everywhere around the city. Clouds light up like pinball machines. Even the sun smiles approvingly as every speaker in the game suddenly ignites with Wicked’s “Defying Gravity”.

  As Pepper and I fly screaming through a sky bursting with fireworks, a swarm of fly-cams capturing every inch of our trajectory, I feel a smile break over my face. I stop screaming long enough to shout, "Yippee-ki-yay, motherf§ckers!”

  As we descend toward the sunset, a gigantic cloud lights up in graphic text like a Las Vegas billboard:

  

  Thank you for playing RiftBorn?

  Life: It’s what you escape from!