I hoped I had enough time to safely check my inventory before any other Hunters arrived. If I was lucky, they’d be leveling up in the forest outside the caverns, working their way through the starting creatures, mostly rats and gorgos.

  But I’d kicked off at level nine, so I could skip the rats, at least. My inventory expanded, and I quickly found the items the dragon mother had given me: seven torches, something called a Miraculous Codex of You’re Bigger Than I Thought You Were, a Leafdragon Pike, and a Dragonscale Shield that looked like an actual scale off the green dragon. The shield and weapon were Yellow grade, essentially the third grade out of eight in Seven Keys, which was equal to the laser gun I’d started with. The codex was a unique item, because it had an adverb—”Miraculous”—attached. That meant no one else in the game should be able to get one.

  It was also a grade higher than the pike and shield, a Green grade. Regardless, I’d never seen anything called a codex in Seven Keys before.

  The ranks of these items seemed good, though. If I didn’t use them, they’d probably sell well. There were also some items that looked like they were either for crafting or for selling to in-game merchants: 12 dragon spines, 9 dragon scales, and 3 major dragon scales.

  “Anything good?” Dave asked.

  “You tell me. You can read my inventory, right?”

  “Still can’t believe you’re letting me do that. I could steal stuff.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be worried. I still didn’t know Dave well enough to tell. He had hated Remnant, but maybe Remnant had hated him back, for equally good reasons. Dave had betrayed him, after all. I might never know.

  To be frank, though, I didn’t know how to change my permissions yet, and I didn’t want to say that out loud. It was easy to forget that we were being listened to. We’d probably said too much already.

  “Well, if you steal stuff and get me killed, you die, too, right?” I said. “So you’re stuck with me.”

  “Can’t say I hate this change in attitude, Remmy,” Dave said.

  I channeled my inner Remnant. “Don’t push your luck, green-dick.”

  “Ooh, a dick joke. Shots fired.”

  I sighed.

  “There’s something called a codex here,” I said, punching through the object to pull it from inventory. It materialized in the shape of a black cylinder with symbols up the side, small enough to fit in my back pocket. It didn’t look like a book to me.

  “That doesn’t look like a book,” Dave commented.

  “It’s not. But I think you can twist it to reveal some kind of code word,” I said, examining it. “I can’t read the language, though. Wait—no, it’s pictures. You twist it to line them up. It’s a dragon.”

  “Cool. But codexes are books, which makes me think this teaches you a spell or a skill. That’s how I usually goes in Trash Planet games, anyway,” Dave said. He wasn’t wrong.

  I hesitated. “Way to state the obvious,” I snapped, because it’s what Remnant would do—but inside, I was holding back. I knew that grimoires were spell books in Seven Keys, but I shouldn’t voice that, since it wasn’t something Remnant ought to know yet.

  Even if I knew what grimoires were, though, it didn’t mean I knew what a codex was. Lore had never mentioned them before, and he’d gotten a lot farther in the game than I had.

  Dave ruffled his neck feathers, and then, out of nowhere, I heard his voice in a whole new way. It felt like he was talking against the back of my skull, his voice vibrating through it.

  Don’t panic, his voice said. But I’ve found the inter-player chat function. It looks like it’s called a Whisper?

  I tensed, but didn’t react in any other way. I was glad he started off with don’t panic.

  They won’t monitor this, either. At least not yet, Dave went on. You can look up the commands for it when you have time. First things first: this codex thing. Spells or skills? And if it’s a spell—books usually teach spells—then is Is it for a one-time use spell, or a permanent spell? As in, can you only spend it to use the spell once, or can you learn it?

  I blinked, doing my level best to follow what he was saying without losing some part of my mind. It was the oddest sensation, like having my own thoughts take on a voice, or having a microphone pressed to my scalp.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  But I was immediately grateful for it. This was life-or-death. If anyone found out that I wasn’t Remnant, both of us were dead, and then I really wouldn’t ever see my brother again. Not even on a long-distance screen.

  “Looks permanent,” I said, because codexes and grimoires were both types of books. In Seven Keys, grimoires were for learning spells, while orbs were one-time uses. It stood to reason that a different kind of book would also teach something permanent.

  “What’s it do?” Dave said aloud, while he Whispered to me, You should be able to expand if you put it back into inventory.

  I nodded and put the grimoire back in, then expanded its little box by holding up my pointer fingers at the item and spreading them apart. This was the utility for expanding the menu when playing Seven Keys in VR, and it worked. It displayed the spellbook’s description:

  Miraculous Codex of You’re Bigger Than I Thought You Were (Green Grade)

  Teaches the unique skill You’re Bigger Than I Thought You Were.

  “Skill,” I said, a little flummoxed. Seven Keys didn’t have skills, not aside from the basics that everyone could level up, like crafting and cooking.

  So they added skills to the game. Fine then. But what does this skill do?

  The description itself was uninformative. However, I could see that the purple text glowed a little more on the skill name, and with a tap, it expanded again to tell me what the spell was:

  You’re Bigger Than I Thought You Were

  Skill Lvl 1

  When active, any enemy’s first attack against you is reflected back on them at 50% power.

  I read this aloud, and Dave whistled. Or at least, he mimicked a whistle. It was impressive how human he could sound.

  “Now that is nifty,” he said. “I’d learn it. There are no downsides.”

  I noticed that the phrase Lvl 1 was expandable, but I’d bother about that later. I imagine that it was the same as with spell books—that the skill got better the more it was upgraded. I just wasn’t sure how to upgrade it.

  I pulled the item out again and started twisting it to match up the dragon image. “I’m glad it’s not a spell,” I said. “I can’t cast spells right now. All my slots are grayed out along the bottom of my HUD.”

  They appeared as empty boxes with X’s through them. There were seven total slots, which should open up as I leveled my character. In the game, the first slot became available once a player chose their Aspect, or magical type—and that wasn’t available until a player reached level 10.

  Once the little rings along the codex formed the dragon shape, the thing vanished in a puff of sulphurous smoke. Heat suffused my whole body for a moment, and a similar smoke wafted off my skin. It was surreal, but it only lasted a second.

  “I think it’s active now,” I said.

  “That will be great at letting you know you’re under attack,” Dave said. “It will protect you from surprise attacks, too, at least until other Hunters wise up. At the very least, mobs should stay affected.”

  He was right, and even better, it was a unique item. I should be the only one ever able to use the skill.

  Damn. It really was worth it, to kill that dragon.

  All that said, I still hadn’t found anything explosive, which is what I’d been hoping for. The torches the dragon had given me might have been useful if I’d had a stick of dynamite to light with them, but otherwise, they were useless right now.

  “Better equip the shield or the pike,” Dave said. “And your NerveGear.”

  I blinked up at him. “My NerveGear? Aren’t I already wearing it?”

  Dave chuckled. “Oh, no. The NerveGear itself, the helmet, is currently deactivated. All NerveGears can be turned off or on, and yours is off. You can turn it on by going into your equipment menu.”

  My gaze drifted to the lower left hand corner of my HUD, where it showed my health bar, an inventory icon, and a little figure icon. In Seven Keys, that was the quick menu to checking your equipment.

  I made the gesture for it, crossing my arms at my chest. Once again, it worked. Most of the defaults matched those in Seven Keys, so I had that advantage over the other Hunters, at least.

  This brought up a familiar menu, which included seven slots for equipment: head, body, leg, foot, hands, plus a spot for a trinket—generally jewelry of some kind, like amulets—and a spot for a belt. Then there were equipment slots for each hand, one each.

  Right now, I had both the laser gun and the bell katana equipped, even though I wasn’t physically holding either of them. That probably meant I could draw the weapons using another gesture I knew, so that was good.

  My only armor listed was the helmet, in the head slot, but it had a longer name: NerveGear Plasma Retardant Body-Skin. I expanded it, and blinked.

  NerveGear Plasma Retardant Body-Skin (Sapphire Grade)

  “This is Sapphire grade?” I burst out.

  “Read the rest,” Dave said.

  NerveGear Plasma Retardant Body-Skin (Sapphire Grade)

  Lvl 90 (Deactivated)

  Absorbs 90% of all plasma damage when activated.

  Grants access to an Auxiliary. (Current Auxiliary: Fate.)

  My mouth went dry. Ninety percent? I expanded the word “plasma” to find out what I was essentually immune to.

  Plasma

  Elemental Canopy

  Includes Fire, Lightning, and Laser Elements.

  I actually had to sit as I read this. I’d been crouching, but I slumped back on my ass.

  You look surprised, Dave Whispered to me. Pretty impressive, no?

  That was an understatement. If what I was reading was accurate, this item made me almost immune to three different elements—fire, lightning, and lasers, of all things.

  I have to say, Dave went on, of all the Hunters whose identity you could have stolen, you happened to pick the best one.