Finally, the sage lifted his head from his prayer. “May Gaia provide,” he intoned, and in response, all the others—including Feather—mimicked him. The panthers made rumbling noises and stretched, extending their claws. When the people with Lumineer titles opened their eyes, their irises were glowing green, indicating that they could use Luminous magic. I had already been able to tell that by their names, but it was good to see that some things in the game stayed accurate. The more Trash Planet deviated from Seven Keys, the more antsy I was going to get.

  The sage noticed me then, and he cocked an eyebrow at us before he faced the tree again. He strode up to its trunk, reached up, and picked one of the yellow fruits. He raised it above his head.

  “Let us consume the sacred fruit of the Earth Mother!” he proclaimed, before biting into the thing. I flinched. What was that fruit really made of? Alien matter?

  It occurred to me then that I was hungry. Very hungry. Adrenaline is a helluva drug.

  The sage picked another fruit and strode over to us. He eyed Feather behind me, and she held both her hands up in prayer and bowed to him.

  “Namaste,” she said.

  “Namaste, child,” he replied, and I thought to myself, This cannot be real. There is no way these people are regular humans. The Conduit have to be in their head.

  Feather held a hand out to me. “I found this man near the death wall,” she said. “This other man is his companion, but he hasn’t hurt us or anything. He mostly just stands there, like the wall guards do. I think he’s as mindless as they are.”

  The sage nodded, and Feather added, “I think this one might be the spirit guide we’ve been looking for. I’m not sure though, because of the helmet.”

  I took my cue and put my hands together, bowing just as she had. “Uh, greetings, great sage,” I said.

  “You can call me Todd,” Todd said.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Not Pali Pali?” It was the name that floated above his head.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that,” Todd said. “It was there when we started this dream journey. But you can call me that if you want to, man. It’s like my spirit name, or something. Pali want a cracker, hey, get it?”

  He chuckled, and I wondered if Dave would even get that joke. It was an old one, predating the millennium. I wasn’t even sure where I’d picked it up—probably back in the Detroit Isolation somewhere. When Lore and I had lived there, we had often entertained ourselves with old DVDs.

  I looked the sage over again. As a boss, Todd was level 50 with glowing green eyes, so he definitely had some Luminous abilities. Two panthers followed him instead of the customary one. Both were level 45, like all the others, but they’d be hard to kill if they both went at you at once. I had no hope of defeating him.

  Nor did I want to. After all, I needed to keep the Tendua quest wide open if I was going to keep Hergvor with me. I wasn’t sure exactly why it meant so much to me to keep my old boss, but if there was a way, I wanted to do it. He was my only tether to my old life, whether I’d liked that life or not.

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  “So… you think all this is a dream journey?” I asked Todd. “Like… some sort of drug-induced group hallucination?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno, man. We all went to sleep for the night and woke up in an enchanted forest with a bunch of cats and half our people gone. Some of us even have magic healing powers, dude. I’m thinking we all took some weird shrooms and forgot. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  I stared at him, deliberating. I could tell him that this was an alien takeover of Earth, which had been converted into a game world for the supposed entertainment of alien species across the galaxy—or the universe? Who knew how far it was broadcast—but honestly, his idea was a lot less farfetched. I might be half-inclined to believe it myself, if I’d ever had any access to shrooms.

  “Let’s say that you’re correct,” I said slowly, crossing my arms. “Let’s say this is your spirit plane or whatever, and I am your spirit guide, and I’ve come to warn you that three dangerous people are about to arrive here to try to kill you all. To, ah, ascend to the next level of your spirit plane, you’ll need to, ah, beat those people.”

  Todd cocked his head again, his dreads swinging, and he bit into the fruit he was holding. Up close, it looked like a pear. My stomach rumbled.

  “Sure, but like, you could be a demon, right? Or a spirit of mischief, a deceiver, whatever.”

  “I haven’t hurt you,” I countered, dipping my head back the way we’d come. “But those three will.”

  He harrumphed. “They’re after you, aren’t they? You just want us doing your dirty work?”

  I tapped my crossed arms with my fingers, thinking. I needed these people to trust me, but I was literally cosplaying as the most untrustworthy Hunter to ever live. I wore a helmet. I could take it off, but Remnant never took his off. I’d give the game away. Sure, it made sense for the real Remnant to be wearing my skin as a disguise among humans, but my eyes wouldn’t look like his. The jog would be up, even if the Coreless did trust me after that.

  “Look,” I said. “These guys will kill you. I don’t want to do that. The truth is that I’m a human, like you, and that these guys aren’t human. We’ve gotta stick together, man. That’s all I’m saying.”

  An aura had appeared around Todd as he chewed, considering. Those fruits must do something to him.

  “We’re pacifists,” Todd finally said. “We can’t help you hurt anyone. It’s against our constitution.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. These hippies have their own constitution?

  “Let me borrow your panthers, then,” I said. “They don’t seem squeamish about battle. Pair those cats with your knowledge of the forest, and I can lure the three attackers into a trap and end the threat for good. You can see yourselves that they aren’t people, and that this isn’t a fantasy world. It’s a piece of hell, and we must fight accordingly.”

  Todd said nothing. I could almost hear his thoughts grinding together. Without weed, he didn’t seem to be a particularly fast thinker. Then again, I doubted weed helped that very much. Who knew what damage all those shrooms had done.

  Feather spoke first, stepping forward. “Great Sage, it was me that this spirit guide first approached. Thus, it should be me to guide him. I won’t do any damage myself, but I volunteer to help him. Flower does too.”

  Flower rumbled at this.

  Todd took another slow bite of his pear, making the aura flare again. Then he reached into a pocket, pulled out another pear, and tossed it to me. I caught it.

  “That should give you a protective aura,” he said. “Use it when you lure these supposed enemies. I trust Feather, so if she comes back from this with a report, I’ll believe her. Until then, we’re going to keep praying.”

  I suppressed a rude noise. “But why? There are people coming to kill you. You can’t sit here with your eyes closed.”

  He shrugged. “We’re fucking hungry, dude. Praying makes the fruit grow. Don’t ask me why. This place is whack.”

  My stomach gave another ravenous twist. Okay. I can’t blame him on that.

  I turned to Feather. “We need some sort of enclosed spot. Someplace where we can funnel the Hunters and pick them off. Can you think of anywhere?”

  Feather tapped her thin, pale lips, then smiled. “I know just the place.”