Disclaimer: The only things I own in this story are Fiddlestix, Dantenar, Zarathel and Kile.

Chapter Four

From the Previous Chapter...

We went into the opening where the stairs going down were, and I stumbled over a raised place in the floor.

"You might want to be careful around here. These levels just get more dangerous as you descend," a voice said. It wasn't Zarathel's. We both whirled around to find a young man, maybe around twenty, standing behind us.

He wore blue and white armor, and looked just like the guy on the font of the box. His dog, Kaos, sat behind him. Both were dirty and looked exhausted. "I'm Kile," the man offered, and stuck out his hand, which we both shook politely. "I've been trapped in this game for six years."

Dantenar's POV:

I looked at Kile, my eyes widening with horror. "Six years!? How do you stand it? And how'd you get trapped, anyway?" Suddenly I had a thought. "What if we get trapped, too?"

Kile shook his head, his eyes glinting with amusement. "No, you probably won't get trapped. The only reason I got trapped is because I went up and talked to the wizard after killing the monster that the game told me to. The one on level forty-nine."

Zarathel looked envious. "Ours is on level fifty-three. I'm Zarathel, by the way, and this is Dantenar."

Kile looked shocked at those names. "Dantenar...Zarathel..." his voice trailed off. His eyes got an odd look in them. "Do you have any siblings?"

I started to say no, that we didn't have any siblings, but Zara spoke first. "Yeah, we did have an older brother. He disappeared six years ago, after he went to the boys home. We were only eleven at the time."

Now that she mentioned it, I did remember an older brother. "Why did you want to know?"

Kile just shook his head. "No reason." But he had a reason, I was sure of it. There was something familiar about his eyes. I let the matter drop, however, because I didn't feel like pressing him. Our dogs were busy getting acquainted, and didn't pay any attention whatsoever when we called them.

"Fiddlestix!" I shouted. "Get over here!" When she didn't come, I grabbed her collar and dragged her away. "You come when you're called," I reproved her.

Her ears drooped. Sorry, Dantenar. Kaos is really nice, she remarked. I relented, giving her a hug.

"Come on, we've got to keep moving," Kile called, and we were on our way. We explored in silence for a few minutes, but then we walked into a large room. It was filled to bursting with bad guys. "Oh, no, not again!" Kile groaned. "This level is always full of 'em." I looked around, trying to find out what he was talking about. There were a couple of Ogres that had me worried, but he was looking at a large spider with lots of spider babies with distaste. "I hate Mother Widows and Widowlings." Kile looked like he meant it, too.

I gulped and got ready to fight. I'd leveled up eight times, so I had pretty good skills, but this was the first time I'd really had to fight for my life. The Ogres came first. We fought back energetically at first, but after the first two, my arms were killing me and it didn't look like I was going to make it.

Kile had a huge pile of spiders at his feet, working on more all the time. The little spiders gave him the most trouble. His health bar, which had gone down hardly at all, was green, which meant that he was poisoned. I didn't trouble him about it. He knew what he was doing.

I turned my attention back to fighting, but not after noticing that Zarathel was busily working on some Vampire Bats, a whole cloud of them. She'd turned Trouble into a Venomous Wyvern, it looked like, because all the Vampire Bats health bars were green, too.

I killed the last of the Ogres and glanced at my health bar. Half gone already. "Darn it!" I muttered, but I didn't have time to drink a health potion, because now a whole army of gels, all different colors, had chosen that very moment to attack I groaned, but waded in with a will. Soon, there were lots of red, white and green dots on the floor. I took the oppurtunity to see what a gel felt like. It was roughly the consistency of jello, but didn't jiggle as much. I shrugged. Half wondering if they tasted like jello, I kept fighting them.

I had just finished the last one when she jumped at me. By "she" I mean Eye-eater the Improbably Named. I rolled my eyes at the floating words, but she was hard to fight. Hags always are. Hags are blue, and have long arms that they swing back and forth. So I had to dodge flying arms and poke and slash at the same time.

What is the world coming to? I thought, desperately defending myself. Hags with weird names, an army of gels, a whole bunch of Cursed Swords...the list goes on and on. Never mind, just keep fighting! I told myself.

Wait a minute: Cursed Swords? Oh, no. And a whole group of them! This wasn't good. Not at all. I finished off Eye-eater and nervously turned to the Cursed Swords, that were for some reason only attacking me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zarathel and Kile back to back, fighting Goblings, Goblin Shamans, Forest Imps and Forest Imp Shamans.

Poor guys, I had time to think, and then the swords were upon me. It was odd to see swords slashing at you with no one holding them. That made me think about that Dr. Suess Story about the pants with nobody inside them. I shook the thought from my head. Time to concentrate on the now, not my not-so-happy childhood. Not that Ms. Sharitin wasn't nice, it's just that she wasn't our parents. Never mind. Concentrate on the swords, I told myself again. For the third time.

I killed maybe one or two, took a look at my health bar, which had maybe a centimeter left, and killed a third. Then Goblinkicker the Ruthless joined in. It slashed at me, and the last centimeter disappeared. I fell down, the world going black.

"You have perished," the creepy voice said.

Zarathel's POV:

I saw Dantenar fall, and an insane rage filled me. A red mist fell over everything, and I felt myself howling. I took on Goblinkicker the Ruthless and the entire gang of Cursed Swords, and killed every last one of them. Then I took on the Yeti. All by myself. And I killed that, too. Kile finished off the last Minotaur and knelt by Dantenar's side.

I fell to my knees beside him and started crying, the redness over my sight falling away. The tears fell down my face in torrents. "She's dead," I sobbed. Kile put a hand on my arm.

"Don't worry. She's just choosing her fate."

I stood, glaring at him. "Don't worry? Don't worry!? My twin is dead, probably in real life, too, and all you can say is 'Don't worry'!? Men!" I sank back down, my tirade having exhausted me.

"You are exhausted," the creepy voice said.

"SHUT UP!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

Kile winced. "Not so loud, please, Zara."

Suddenly, Dantenar groaned and sat up. "Dantenar!" I said happily. In fact, happiness doesn't describe the wild emotions going through me at that given second. Over-joyed and elated do, sort of, but not quite. I hugged my twin, then, out of impulse, I hugged Kile, too. That felt right.

He was sort of hard to hug, what with the armor and all, but I managed pretty well. I mean, my sister wasn't dead, after all!

"What's going on? What did the creepy voice mean, 'You have perished'?" Dantenar asked. She was confused, one eyebrow raised in bewilderment.

"When you run out health, you perish," Kile explained. "Then, you choose your fate. Which one did you choose?"

Dantenar shrugged. "The first one. He wanted so much Fame and Experience Points. It was better than the other two."

Kile looked confused. "Also, I've been wondering. How did you two get in the same game? You're only supposed to have one in a single game."

I shrugged. "I really don't know. We met up in level one or two, or maybe it was three. I don't really remember anymore. Does it matter?"

Kile shook his head. "No, not really. And how you got in my game I have no idea. Or how I got in yours. Oh well. We'd better get going. The down stairs are right over there," he said, indicating the little square in the floor with the stairs spiraling down into blackness.

We followed him down, praying that level twelve would be easier. When we got down and had finished off the Creeping Widow in the little room the stairs were in, Kile took a deep breath. "I guess I"d better tell you who I am, now." He seemed to be having trouble finding the right words. "I-I'm your older brother. The one that disappeared."

My mouth fell open. "What?"

"You're kidding?" Dantenar said at the exact same time.

Kile shook his head. "I'm you're older brother, I can prove it. I know your middle name, Dantenar Elizabeth." He looked at me. "And yours, Zarathel Georgette." He had to be my brother. I'd never told anyone my middle name before. Would you? I mean, Georgette?

Dantenar through herself forward and hugged Kile. He made a whooshing sound as the air left his lungs, but he gave a happy smile. I joined in the hug, finally figuring out what it was like to have an older brother.

Authors Note: How's that for a sappy ending to a chapter? Next one won't be as much fighting or secrets finally told, promise. Read and review!