Chapter 4: 1-4 Level 0 has its advantages

He sat tall in the saddle of a dark horse, glaring down on them as if they were insects. His armor was silver and blue, trimmed with white plumage. Heather couldn't see his face except for those eyes that stared at her with anger. With a fluid motion, he drew a sword and pointed it their way, his horse stomping a foot as if ready to charge.

“In the name of King Kevin, the Dragon Slayer, I command you to surrender!” he said with a haughty tone.

“Surrender?” Heather repeated and turned to Frank. “Who is this person?”

“A paladin,” Frank squeaked as he stepped back.

“Is that bad?” she asked, noting his reaction.

“I’m going to be reset!”

Heather heard the fear in Frank's voice and saw it in the way he was quivering. She remembered what he had said a moment ago that paladins hunt the undead. With a shock, she turned to the knight and stepped forward as he glared from above.

Though the helm hid most of his face, she could still see his steel-blue eyes and the hint of a beard poking out underneath. His frame looked powerfully built with broad shoulders and thick arms that could hold the outstretched sword in a single hand. He held the reigns with the other, a triangular shield strapped to his arm.

She tossed her head and managed a smile to try and disarm the situation. “Excuse us. We're just going to the forest.”

“By order of the king, necromancy is outlawed. You will stand trial for your breech of King Kevin’s decree!”

Heather glanced at Frank, who cowered behind with his hands over his face.

“What is necromancy?” she whispered.

“It's a type of wizard who summons the dead,” he whispered back.

“Oh,” she said, turning to face the paladin with another smile. “You're making a mistake; I’m not a wizard who summons the dead.”

“Don't play games with me, girl,” the man shouted. “You are clearly leading your undead thrall to seek some hapless newbies to attack.”

“My undead thrall?” Heather repeated. “You mean Frank?” she asked, turning to gesture at him.

“The ghoul will be slain, and you will stand trial for your crimes.”

Heather wasn't sure if it was the frustration of being stuck here or the way the man spoke with an arrogant commanding tone. Whatever it was, it was rubbing her the wrong way. She didn't take this kind of abuse from boys at school, and she wasn't going to take it from some fool here.

“We are going to the forest!” Heather yelled and waved her hand. “Now, get out of our way!”

“So it's to be a fight then!” the man replied, raising his sword in salute. Heather yelped as he kicked his horse into a charge, her eyes wide with panic. The world seemed to slow as her heart beat fiercely, the blade coming right at her face. All she could think to do was cover her face and pray Frank was right that she would respawn.

“By the gods!” she heard him cry as the sound of the horse racing by filled her ears.

Heather peeked through her fingers, amazed to be alive. She looked around quickly to see the paladin was now ten meters behind her, cursing as he turned his horse.

“My sword passed right through you! You must be a necromancer of terrible power!” he cried with glee. “Finally, a worthy challenge and a prize most rare.”

“What just happened?” Heather gasped and then looked around for Frank. She spotted him cowering in the grass just to her right. “Frank!” she snapped. “Why am I still alive?”

“You’re level zero; he can't hurt you!” Frank gasped.

“You mean not at all?”

“Not any way I know about,” he replied.

Heather nodded and turned back to the paladin and set her feet determined to look brave. She held up a hand to gesture for him to wait, but before she could speak, he shouted at her.

“You will use no foul magic against me!” he roared and pointed his blade at her again.

“I don't know magic!” Heather cried as the sword was pointed her way. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself she couldn't be hurt, her brain wouldn't believe it. Her heart raced, pumping blood at a thunderous rate as adrenaline kicked in. She turned to run as the paladin lifted his sword high and called out to the skies. A beam of pure sunlight crashed down and engulfed her in a brilliant luminescence. The light made Frank howl and flee as she appeared to melt away, lost to the fires of the spell. A moment later, she stumbled out of the beam blinking her eyes but no worse for wear.

“Impossible!” the paladin roared as his horse reared up. “You're not even injured!”

Heather looked at her arms and hands as if expecting them to be burned away. She was relieved to see her skin was intact, unharmed by the bright lite. With a sigh of relief, she looked to the paladin and tried to put on a brave face, taunting him with her words.

“Did you just try to give me a suntan?”

“You dare mock me?” the paladin roared. “I will not be defeated by a vile master of the undead!”

He spurred his horse and came charging in. This time his sword burst into flames and made an angry hiss as it split the air. Heather saw the burning weapon and screamed with all her might. Just as before, the blade passed right through, leaving a trail of smoke behind it.

Heather once again inspected herself, slowly realizing that Frank was right and this fool couldn't lay a finger on her. The paladin whirled his horse about and stood his ground as he locked eyes with her.

“Your magical ghost form won't last forever!” he yelled as he lined up his horse. “I will wear your defense down and claim your head!”

Heather put up her hands to try and show him she meant no harm. “Look, I was just going to the forest!”

“Silence! I will hear none of your foul lies!”

Heather went to respond, but something moved behind the man and caught her attention. Her eyes went wide when she saw what it was, and she tried to shout a warning.

“It’s right-” she began.

“I said silence!” the paladin yelled even louder. “Your profane words will not pain my ears!”

“But!” she began, as he shouted all the louder.

“No more!” he cried, then began to sing in a loud chant. His blade started glowing with a blue light as he poured divine energy into his weapon.

“But it’s right behind you!” she yelled.

Tentacles wrapped around him as a giant green worm hoisted him off his horse. He cried out in alarm as the monster dragged him to the ground and tried to smother him in its mouth. Heather felt sick as she heard the man screaming under the worm, but a cold hand wrapped around her wrist.

“Let’s run!” Frank yelled and pulled her away.

Heather didn't argue, and they ran as fast as they could, leaving the paladin to his fate.

“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” she panted as they ran. “That thing is going to kill him!”

“Better him than us,” Frank bellowed.

“Why was he trying to kill me?”

“He thought you were a necromancer,” Frank replied.

“I don’t even know what a necromancer is!” she yelled as they dashed over another hill.

“I told you it’s a wizard that summons the dead.”

“I thought wizards did magical things like fly on carpets and brew potions!”

“You watch too much TV.”

“I wish I was home watching TV right now!” she shouted. “I want out of this terrible place and away from these terrible people who won’t listen!”

“It isn't terrible,” Frank replied as he started to slow. “I think we're safe now. We should be able to walk from here.”

They slowed as heather huffed to catch her breath. She looked over her shoulder at the hill behind them. Somewhere over that green rise, a paladin was being eaten by a worm.

“People die in this place!” she cried.

“People die in the real world all the time,” Frank said.

“Not to giant worms they don't!”

“You need to relax,” he urged. “That worm saved my life.”

“How did it save your life?” she asked. “The paladin was trying to kill me!”

“I already told you he couldn't! You can't PvP level zero players, but he could easily have killed me.”

“Why can’t you ‘peepevpee’ a zero level player?” s

“It's P. V. P.,” he said slowly. “And it's so new people have time to learn the rules before somebody attacks them.”

Heather shook her head, unable to believe any of it. “Why didn't he know that?”

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“I think he assumed you were at least level one because he thought you were a necromancer.”

“Why did he think I was a necromancer?”

“Because you're with me,” Frank said.

She blinked a few times and tied to work it out as her head started to hurt.

“Why does nothing here make any sense?” she yelled as she stamped and turned in a circle.

Frank looked confused a moment then did his best to explain it. “Look, it isn't hard to understand. He saw a normal person traveling with an undead and made the assumption I was your pet. That means you have to be a necromancer because only they can summon ghouls, I think.”

“Why would he assume that, though?”

Frank sighed. “I told you before, people like you don’t play with people like me.”

Heather stopped her stamping and forced herself to look at him and not cringe.

“What do you mean?”

He gestured at her with a long finger. “You're pretty, so he assumed you were a hero player. I am obviously a monster player, and hero players don't travel with monsters unless they are pets or under some kind of spell. ”

“Ohhh,” she said as the understanding dawned on her. “He thought a pretty person wouldn't tolerate you unless...”

“Unless they were a necromancer,” he finished.

She looked at him as his shoulders sagged again, and he started to walk off.

“But that's a terrible reason to not play with someone,” she said, running to catch up.

Frank glanced her way and nodded in agreement, his shoulders hunched in pain. “I didn’t realize it was like this until I was already in the game. I thought lots of people would play monsters, but most people want to be beautiful elves, or humans, or those cat people.”

“Cat people?”

“Their called Purrahs,” he said.

“Ha!” she snorted. “Purr ahhhs.”

“I thought it was a dumb name too,” he said with a laugh of his own. “There are other cat races with better names and some that are very much like anime girls.”

“Of course there are,” she said with a disapproving roll of her eyes. “So, have you ever seen a monster player?” she asked as she tried to calm down.

Frank nodded. “A few times. I met a zombie player once. He was fleeing into the wilderness.”

“Fleeing from what?”

“He made his lair close to the city in the north. Players kept trying to hunt him down and kill him. He said his burial mound was griefed a dozen times.”

“I have no idea what that means,” she added with a shake of her head.

“It’s when one player intentionally ruins something another player built. They exploit the rules to damage it and tear it down.”

She considered that thought and felt a measure of sadness. Seeing how excited Frank was to build and expand his graveyard, she imagined it being ruined would be upsetting. She then hit on another idea and decided to act on it.

“So, it’s possible to bend the rules?” she asked.

“Well, not bend them so much as find creative ways to ignore them,” he replied.

“So maybe we can find a creative way to get me out?”

Frank shrugged. “We need your panel first.”

“I know, but let’s say the panel doesn’t offer a clear way out. Maybe we could find a way to ignore the rules and get out anyway?”

“I guess,” he said, scratching his head again. “It's a little like hacking, but I wouldn't know where to look.”

Heather smiled at her ingenuity. People hacked things all the time, didn't they? She read hundreds of tweets and news articles about things being hacked. Surely there was a weakness in this system, and Frank could find it. There must be something they could exploit to get her out. Heck, the sun didn't even work right. There had to be lots of ways out. She was interrupted in her happy thoughts by Frank.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Umm, sure?” she replied.

“What’s your name?”

“My name?”

“Your name. You never told me.”

Heather’s face crinkled as she thought back over the last day and realized he was right.

“I'm Heather,” she said, embarrassed.

He nodded and asked another question.

“So, you're like twenty?”

“I'm twenty-two!” she snapped.

“Alright,” he said with a glance her way. “Why would that bother you?”

Heather wasn't sure. People always accused her of being too young and teased her at parties. 'No drinks for her. She's underage!' they laughed. She realized she had become accustomed to defending her age and did it on impulse now.

“I’m sorry, I get teased a lot about looking too young.

“I thought girls liked to look young?”

She laughed. “We do, but not too young.”

“Eh, guys don't care,” he said.

“They do too!” she snapped. “They lie about their age all the time. They always claim to be a little older than they really are.”

“I’m nineteen,” he said.

“You’re only nineteen?”

“Why would that matter?”

“You're too young to,” she began as her words trailed off.

“And now you know why guys lie about being older,” he said. “None of that matters here anyway.”

She snapped out of her thought and glanced at him.

“Why wouldn’t that matter?”

“You can be almost any age you want here. You can be as young as eighteen or as old as a thousand.”

“A thousand?” who would want to be that old?”

“The elves live to be several thousand years old,” he said. “I think the dwarves live longer.”

“A thousand?” she repeated, unable to comprehend the number. “So I could be a hundred if I wanted?”

“You could, so long as you pick a race that can live that long and set your age that high. You don’t age otherwise unless you pick an option to slowly progress, and then only until you hit a number you set.”

She tried to imagine herself at a hundred years old and frowned in disapproval.

“Finally!” he shouted, drawing her attention again. “We can see the forest.”

She looked up and smiled to see the distant green line of trees. It was an hour's walk away, but that didn't matter. Soon she would have her panel, and Frank would figure out how to hack her home. With hope in her heart, she practically skipped down the road with Frank alongside.

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