The world bucked under me in hard, uneven jolts. My head, barely protected by some sort of helmet, jostled against something hard enough to make my teeth rattle. In the band of vision unobscured by the helmet, a green and brown blur of trees and shrubbery flew by at sickening speed.

  For a few dazed seconds I thought I was in the back of some colleague's off-roader, the kind with no shocks and too much confidence. But I didn't remember going out and we were all too exhausted for happy hour or team building. Wasn't I sleeping in a call room? Was I dreaming?

  With full consciousness came pain, a deep ache that enveloped me like a full-body bruise. My back was on fire. I had never had a dream that hurt this much.

  I cracked my eyes open and struggled to sit up. Feathers. A wall of dark, oil-slick color filled my vision, shifting in layers under my hands. Hands that were covered in plate armor, and clutching rein connected to…a saddle? My knees hugged something warm and moving.

  The air stank of iron and wet leaves. Ahead, what should have been a dashboard was instead a long neck that ended in a hooked beak big enough to take my arm off.

  The creature thundered across packed dirt, talons punching into the ground, throwing clods behind us like kicked gravel.

  “Oh no. No, no, absolutely not. What the hell is this?”

  The bird’s head twitched. One golden eye rolled back at me, somehow conveying concern mixed with exasperation. It slowed to a stop and huffed, a deep chesty sound that vibrated up through the saddle. Its claws kneaded the packed dirt like it wanted to keep running, but it stayed put.

  I dragged my gaze from the beak down to my hands.

  Thick steel fingers flexed when I flexed. Matte grey, edged in a dull gold that caught the light in thin, clean lines. A pair of blocky knuckles bore tiny engraved runes, the same pattern on every screenshot I’d scrolled past at three in the morning.

  “No way.”

  I followed the gauntlet up to the bracer, to the curve of the shoulder plate. Squared pauldrons layered like castle walls, each plate framed in that same muted gold, each ridge etched with the sigil of a barred gate.

  I knew this set.

  “Stonewall Regalia.”

  The memories came flooding back. Friday nights spent wiping on a boss named something overwrought and spiky. My ex at his PC, barking rotations, muttering about threat per second like it mattered more than rent. Me on the couch with my laptop, half-reading operative notes between pulls, half-monitoring the raid's health bars. As a healer, I hadn't even wanted the tanking armor, but we'd run the dungeon so often that I had ended up getting the full set just because nobody else could use it. I had never even worn it to tank.

  That life felt as far away as undergrad. I’d uninstalled the game before graduation, scrubbed it from my drive like bad exam notes. Then residency hit, and Wonders of Eloria slid into the same bin as that relationship: not worth the bandwidth.

  Yet here I sat, wrapped in an armor set I hadn’t thought about in years.

  I shifted in the saddle. The breastplate rose and fell with my breath, heavy but perfectly balanced. When I moved my left arm, a shield thudded against my thigh, familiar weight and profile: tall, rectangular, barred gate crest hammered into the center.

  “Okay,” I muttered into the helmet’s stale metal smell, “either someone slipped something into my night shift coffee, or I’m inside WOE."

  The bird flicked its feathers. One long plume slapped my calf.

  “And you," I breathed. "You're Beakly."

  The golden eyes narrowed.

  What was its real name? The bird was a mini boss in one of the epic dungeons, and the reins to make it your mount was a super rare drop. It looked badass, and had some dignified name that I could never remember, because I always called it Beakly, or Count Chocobo, or whatever stupid name I could think of at the moment.

  I dug armored fingers under the rim of the helm, found the leather strap, and peeled it off. Cool forest air rushed over sweat-damp hair. My vision opened up.

  Trees pressed in on both sides of the road, broad trunks and dark leaves I recognized from old minimaps and wiki pages. Windferns. Low-tier zone. Beginner stuff.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  The plate creaked when I straightened in the saddle.

  “If this is a hallucination, it’s doing patch notes from five years ago.”

  A wave of dizziness hit me, and I half-slid, half-fell out of the saddle into a clanky heap on the forest floor. Definitely not a dream then. You always wake up after a fall in dreams.

  A line of red text scrolled across my vision.

  SET BONUS LOST

  DIVINE CONNECTION: FAILURE TO CONNECT TO HOST

  What? Even in my hallucinations my wifi is crap?

  Beakly suddenly stiffened and went still in that way that predators do right before ripping something's throat out.

  "Whoa, buddy," I said, holding out a hand.

  Beakly’s neck stretched, every feather along his spine rising. The golden eyes left me and fixed on the trees beyond the road.

  “Don’t you dare.”

  His beak parted. A low croak rolled out of his chest.

  “I am on the ground, in full plate,” I pointed out. “This is not a great time for—”

  He lunged.

  One beat he loomed over me, the next the saddle stirrups swung past my face. Talons hammered the packed dirt, showering me with dust and pebbles. He tore down the path, wings half-spread for balance, massive frame eating up the distance.

  “Beakly!”

  He didn’t even flick an ear-hole, or whatever birds had. Just thundered away, muscles bunching under his plumage, tail feathers snapping side to side. A branch cracked somewhere ahead, followed by a high, panicked squeal.

  “Of course it’s dinner,” I muttered.

  The forest swallowed him. Sound went first, then the last flash of blue-green tail, and I was left with settling dust and a pain that clawed at my lungs with every inhale.

  “Cool. Abandoned by my own loot drop. Love that for us.”

  Right. Stuck in WOE as my pally character. This was fine. Paladins are great, paladins are OP. They can tank, DPS and…heal. Yes, I could definitely do with some healing.

  I braced one hand on the tree beside me and hauled myself up. Pain flared from hip to ribs, a hot band under the plate.

  “Okay, holy light time.”

  I stared at my empty hand, half expecting it to glow on cue. In the game a golden aura always rolled over the armor, polished everything up like a commercial for virtue.

  Nothing.

  A faint breeze played with the tassel on my pauldron. That was it.

  “Fine. UI me.”

  I blinked twice, the way I used to when some streamer talked about his fancy VR rig. Habit again. But my vision did shift—depth pulled back, colors flattened, and faint frames appeared at the edges.

  Health bar, top left. A neat rectangle with my name: BAMBAM. Right, me and my penchant for stupid. names. The red chunk sat at maybe sixty percent. No mana bar.

  Down at the bottom my hotbar hovered over the dirt, ghosted icons waiting for mouse clicks I no longer had. Shield Bash. Guard Stance. Two flavours of taunt. A kick. No glowing benedictions. No little crossed hands icon for Lay on Hands. No Radiant Mending. No anything with a halo on it.

  “Where are my heals?”

  The frames didn’t answer.

  I flexed my fingers again. “Divine Grace.”

  Silence. A crow called somewhere in the trees. My health bar stayed exactly where it had started.

  “Lay on Hands.”

  Nothing. Not even a fizzled animation.

  “Blessing of Restoration.”

  The UI pulsed.

  DIVINE CONNECTION: FAILURE TO CONNECT TO HOST

  The letters burned crisp across my vision, then faded, smug.

  “Cute.”

  I leaned back against the tree and let my helm thump against the bark.

  “Alexa, heal me.”

  Leaves rustled. The health bar remained at sixty percent.

  “Siri, cast Greater Heal on Emily.”

  A squirrel launched itself up a trunk and vanished. The forest stayed a forest. No disembodied assistant, no soothing ding.

  DIVINE CONNECTION: FAILURE TO CONNECT TO HOST

  This time the text blinked twice, as if it wanted to make sure I got the point, then slid away again.

  I pushed my palm against the breastplate, over where my sternum would be.

  “Hey. Any god. Smite me, bless me, send a spam email, I’m not picky.”

  The armor cooled under my hand. No warmth, no hum, no sense of a presence leaning in to listen. Only my own breath in the metal shell, harsh and uneven, and the ache under the plates.

  “So that’s it,” I muttered into the quiet. “Paladin without a patron. Meat shield with no miracles.”

  My stomach growled hard enough to echo inside the breastplate. The sound bounced around like something trapped in a tin can and made me wince.

  “Great. Hunger mechanics. Love that.”

  I pressed a hand to my middle. The plates bit into my ribs. The ache felt sharp, real, nothing like the polite little vibration the game used to throw up when your food buff fell off. My mouth felt dry, too. Desert dry. I hadn’t drunk anything since… whenever my last real shift had been.

  I pushed off the tree and stood there, turning in a slow, clunky circle. Forest in every direction. A narrow dirt road. No signposts. No quest markers. Where do people even get water in this zone? Wasn't there a river somewhere in this zone? Another stomach growl interrupted me.

  Right. Priorities.

  I tried walking. The path was potholed where Beakly’s talons had gouged out chunks of dirt, the prints deep enough to collect shadow. Branches on both sides hung broken, some still twitching from the force that had ripped through them. I crouched beside a cracked sapling and touched the splintered trunk. Fresh. Sap still glistened. A few glossy feathers clung to the bark, oil black tipped in midnight blue.

  “Beakly, you chaotic lunch-obsessed menace, at least you’re leaving a trail.”

  I followed the path of ruin. A bush lay on its side, half-shredded. Further up the road, the earth tore open in claw patterns, long streaks where he had dug in for speed. The forest smelled of churned soil and crushed leaves, sharp and wet.

  My throat felt tighter with every step. I needed water before I passed out in full plate and turned into a very sad tin can for wolves to chew on.

  “Maybe he dragged something to a stream,” I muttered. “Birds like water. Probably.”

  The trees opened into a small clearing where Beakly had clearly pinballed through. Feathers littered the ground. Not his—sleeker, tan, wild fowl of some kind. Blood streaked the grass in one direction, a messy smear leading deeper into the woods.

  I stared at it.

  “Well… if he’s eating, there’s water. Carnivores drink after meals. That’s a thing, right? Sure. Let’s pretend it is.”

  Another growl rolled through me, louder than before. I swore under my breath.

  “Fine. Meat trail it is.”

  I stepped after the smear, armor creaking, hunger pulling me forward.