“Will you protect her,” Betty nodded toward the President, “in the same way?”

  “To protect her, yes. It might hurt her pride if I had to do it. When I protected Blaze, I had a MANA SHIELD and a PSYCHIC SHIELD in front of her, and she had her FIRE SHIELD up as well. At level 10, there’s an enhancement I haven’t taken yet that allows my shields to be invisible.”

  “If you want to know if I could put that around her? I could,” I said, making sure they both understood me.

  “Neither of them will stop the Shaman’s CURSE. I found that out the painful way this morning. And I don’t want either of you depending on it.”

  Carol nodded and said, “I get it. You made that very clear. You’re right. I’d do things differently if it was there. I can’t use it as a crutch. Not in the game.”

  Shifting to look at Blaze, she asked, “Is he always this way? Does he know how infuriating he can be?”

  The question set Blaze off laughing again. When she caught her breath, she said, “He knows it. We’ve been talking about it. He’s been doing it to everyone since I met him. He has a theory about why it’s happening.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He thinks the game’s changing him,” Blaze told them. “All the extra INTELLIGENCE and WISDOM he’s boosted is making a difference in how he sees things. The extra EGO prompts him to feel he’s right.”

  “Mostly right.” She added.

  “He’s made some mistakes,” Blaze told them. “But I don’t think this will ever change. I think he was this way before the game boosted him. That First title might still have something to do with it. We don’t know. If it’s true, it’s something we need to know.”

  “We’ll be talking to the brains downtown tomorrow,” I said. “We want to see what the university and people in your command post can make of it.”

  “We’ll let you know what they come up with,” Blaze added. The President smiled and nodded.

  “I want to know if that’s true. There’s too much we don’t know. All we can do is guess and ask people who might know, or can find out,” I told them.

  When we paused the discussion, I checked the time. Ten till seven. The guild should be gathering across the street.

  “It’s almost time for a spawning,” I reminded them.

  “We have two choices. Blaze and I can do what we sometimes do, watch from my porch. If the inside lights are off, they won’t see you well. They’ll see us and hopefully stop looking our way until it’s over.” I saw Betty nod.

  “The other option is you two go out masked, so they don’t know who you are. You can see it better, but there’ll be questions. Which way do we do it?”

  “We’ll stay inside. It’s safer that way,” the President said. Looking at her bodyguard, she asked, “Right?”

  “Yes ma’am. That’s the best choice,” Betty confirmed. “I’ll set things up in here, and you two can go out. Breaking routines gets noticed.”

  “Blaze? The usual coffee while we watch?”

  “Sure. Keep to the pattern. You help them, and I’ll get two half-cups. Make it look like normal,” she replied.

  Blaze and I made it outside with a little more than a minute to spare.

  Yoshi was tanking tonight. His mother was healing. Their new Wood Mage, Seldon Wong, was there. I knew his last name was Seldon, but why did he have to choose that last name? The first time I heard it, I decided I’m not going there. Jo-mic, a Fire Mage, and Morticia, their Witch, rounded out the party.

  19th & Fox were getting smooth. I watched Morticia hit their Shaman with her own CURSE spell the moment he stepped through the doorway. FIRE SHIELDS were already up to the left and right of the door, funneling the spawns straight at Yoshi, who stood behind a half-height WOOD SHIELD. With only one melee DPS, it looked like a good choice.

  “I haven’t seen this configuration before. Morticia cast her spell the moment the Shaman came out. Seldon followed it up with a WOOD BALL that exploded in the doorway.” Large, dark wooden splinters shot out in every direction.

  “Morticia didn’t wait for the spawns to set up. Looks like a good idea,” I said loud enough for the cracked open door to carry it inside.

  “Their Shaman’s not dead,” Blaze added. “He’s clutching his belly, where there isn’t wood sticking out of him. At least he’s not casting. That’s a good move.”

  “Yep. That one’s getting reported for anyone with a CURSE spell. Looks like the FIRE BALL just caught him…and he’s down. So are two of the Kobolds.”

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  “And there goes a Goblin from a FIRE BOLT and a WOOD BOLT to the chest like Seldon was staking a vampire. Followed by Morticia’s CURSE into the other one. Nice splitting the damage while Yoshi thrusts his katana into a Kobold’s neck as it reaches over the wall in front of him. One more down and out.”

  “The last one goes to Seldon’s WOOD BOLTS, followed by another FIRE BLAST to make sure they’re all down and staying down,” Blaze said. “If we ever get vampires, he’s going to be in big demand.”

  “Chalk another one up in the win column for the home team,” I said.

  Blaze licked her forefinger and drew a mark in the air.

  We both started laughing hard enough to spill some coffee.

  “We’d make pretty good sports announcers,” she said with a big grin.

  “Yeah. The Wide World of Adventuring. Sounds like a good title for ESPN or some other channel,” I said with a chuckle.

  Still laughing, we went back inside. I locked the door and closed the drapes.

  “Well, what do you think? That was live and unrehearsed,” I asked our guests.

  “It was over quicker than I expected. It looked like their Samurai, the tank, is a teenager. You let young kids risk their lives?” Carol’s rising volume sounded like an unhappy mother.

  That’s when I remembered she had two grown children. Mama bear time.

  “He is, and yes, we do,” I said. “If the game thinks he’s old enough to play, and he wants to, he can. Yoshi’s wearing his own kendo armor. He’s taken classes for a few years. He’s been practicing Kenjutsu out of books and YouTube. He’s getting pretty good. He told me the System Store has Samurai armor, and he’s saving his share of coins to buy it. Or maybe pieces of it.”

  “Are you going to help him buy it?” she asked.

  “No. I don’t want to insult him. If he gets it, I’ll enchant it. That’s all. He’s going to be a high school senior next year. His younger brother will be a junior. The brother’s their main tank and guild leader.”

  “Will gave him his old steel helmet. It looks all shiny now instead of rusty like when he got it,” Blaze added. “His father made him clean it up the hard way and bought him a couple of packages of sandpaper to do it.”

  “He almost looks like a medieval fighter now. Wait until you see Sir Andrew. He’ll probably be wearing his nice and shiny full plate. He wore it in the Battle of Eddington.”

  Betty asked, “Was he the one on the right side of your line? He was a shiny blur when he charged. He was good. I didn’t know you could move like that in armor.”

  “Except for the CHARGE ability, you saw 30 years of practice,” I told her. “It weighs about 60 pounds, but he acts like it isn’t there. I’ve seen him wearing it on the dance floor. Minus the helmet and gauntlets. Ask him about it if you have time. There are people who make a living making armor like that. It isn’t cheap, but it works.”

  “What other questions do you have about what you saw?” Blaze asked.

  They had a lot. We spent the next half hour going over what 19th & Fox did and why they did it.

  ***

  Finally, we took a break for dinner. Betty and Blaze claimed the kitchen. Carol and I set out dishes. Ten minutes of microwaving food that needed it, arranging what didn’t, and brewing more blessed and much-needed coffee later, we were eating.

  I’ll grant it was better than anything I could make. It was good, but probably not what they’d serve at state dinners. Except maybe the peach cobbler. That was the highlight. Betty loosened up, and so did the President.

  Carol had worked her way up in politics, starting at the county level, then two terms in the state house. After that, she became governor, then made history as our 46th President. And the first female to hold the position.

  Her husband, the First Gentleman, stayed mostly in the background. I remembered reading people thought he was a nice guy, but didn’t have the same drive as his wife. Folks liked him, but mostly forgot about him. Like they did with past presidents’ wives. He’d been a high school principal and later a school superintendent.

  Dinner conversation circled around the world and what was happening since the Game appeared. No state secrets, unfortunately. Just a general rundown from the President on what her daily updates included.

  Canada had written off much of its north. Spawns were uncontrolled there. They were relocating people from Nunavut and the Yukon above Yellowknife. Areas more than 200 kilometers from a city or 100 from a town were being abandoned. Most of their population lived on the southern edge and coasts anyway.

  Russia was similar. They were pulling troops back from other countries, including Ukraine, to defend the Motherland. Seemed like they’d written off Siberia and much of what lay west of the Urals unless it held mines and factories.

  China was praising the heroism of its people and army, claiming their players were the best and highest ranked, with more Firsts than anywhere else. But it came out that they were duplicating Firsts already verified in other countries. With REVEAL STATS, those claims were unraveling.

  Europe was doing as well or better than the U.S. Smaller area, more people. Great Britain, Scotland, and Ireland were doing the same. Island territories had trouble, but were “handling it,” as Carol put it.

  India and the Near East were pulling people into cities. A lot died early on, but they were turning things around. Southeast Asia fared slightly better than India, but not by much.

  Japan and South Korea were thriving. South Korea, with the most gamers per capita, got ahead quickly.

  Taiwan, dense and island-bound, said everything was covered multiple times. No major issues.

  North Korea shut its borders, deployed troops to guard them, and claimed all was well. But no, you couldn’t come see.

  Australia moved most people to coastal cities and protected inland zones. New Zealand was doing similar to Japan…but with fewer people and spawns. The Pacific islands were hit or miss. Some had only one or two spawn sites, others none.

  The Philippines covered its main islands and most smaller ones as well. A few were evacuated. Some spawn sites appeared in the ocean, and those spawns sometimes came ashore as they did near other islands.

  Mexico was like the U.S., except most of the narco gangs started killing spawns instead of each other. They backed up the military, police, and civilians. Their inter-cartel rivalries were causing more deaths when they happened, but since the civilians could now fight back, it was mostly to each other.

  Migrants crossing the country were hit hardest. But many were becoming casters. Magic beat guns, as we’d learned.

  Central America was similar to Mexico, except less organized, but still protecting their cities.

  South America had lots of land and few people. They were retreating to the coasts and big cities, leaving jungles, plains, and mountains alone.

  Antarctica? A spawn site at the South Pole. The researchers there said they were having fun. At least that’s what they reported.

  Africa was doing what most countries with large land areas were doing. They pulled back to cities. The Sahara Desert had spawn sites, but the desert seemed to be winning…for now.

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