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Chapter Four: Battle

Without a moment's hesitation, the knight launched a mighty swing of its blade, unleashing a brilliant beam of energy aimed directly at Rosalind and Jasper. Before she could even take a split-second to react, the beam collided with her, and Rosalind was violently flung backwards, crashing painfully into the ground.

Shit. That actually hurt. A lot.

As she lay there, immobile...

She heard the sound of heavy boots crunching on grass drawing closer and closer. She struggled to regain her composure. Every few seconds, the approaching footsteps jolted her out of her daydream.

I was just hit by an attack.

The steps grew louder, as she stared up at the surprisingly beautiful sight of the star-studded night sky she'd suddenly become privy to. She always thought about how lightyears worked, and how the night sky was really like a painting of the universe thousands of years ago; that many of the stars she was seeing could've long since burned out by now.

Wait, I need to focus. This isn't the end, right? This can't be. It's too sudden.

Fighting to stay conscious, she focused on each painful and raspy breath that was entering and exiting her body. She brought her attention to her bones - none broken, as far as she could tell. She'd been knocked back like a ragdoll by the knight's attack, but she was still here.

She lifted her head, depriving herself from the comforting view of the stars that she was eerily getting a bit too accustomed to. As she did, something unexpected materialized into her field of view.

As if painted on the right side of her vision, there was a small, circular map with a quest indicator. It was blinking.

To her left, a menu superimposed itself over her view. It listed the following options:

MAGIC

ITEMS

ABILITIES

FULL MENU

It was a sight she recognized, after years of working at the XPeriential company and manipulating the universal backend and its myriad possibilities.

This is it, she realized. The interface.

As surprised as she was to see the user interface she had coded with her team years back when they were first designing the game (seemingly appearing out of thin air), she was even more shocked to find that she was actually getting up from the ground with little to no effort. The pain in her body was still there, but there was something else inside her too - a sort of inner vitality, a potent energy, something giving her life.

The knight was closing in, mere steps away, blade bared, but Rosalind's attention was elsewhere - she turned towards the other victim of the knight's assault.

Jasper.

He was lying prone, face-first in the ground, still entombed in his ridiculous full suit of armor, having seemingly taken the brunt of the attack. Had it not been for the blood he was coughing up between pained exhales, she would've assumed he was dead. He wasn't a goner just yet, but he was certainly flirting with the grim reaper.

Rose understood that there was no time to ruminate on what to do next - there was a split-second decision in front of her, and she needed to act decisively. If her activation as a 'player', interface and all, helped her recover from the knight's attack, even just a little bit, then she needed to do something for Jasper immediately.

She extended her hand towards the collapsed literature professor who had incidentally picked the worst day ever to start LARPing. Instantly, a text box appeared in her field of vision, nestled between the quest map and the action command menu, asking her the following question: