A football did not wiggle after being picked up, but a six-year-old and his catch of the day did. The fish hopped about on my back before flopping onto the ground. The fish was a fin longer than Tristan’s half-gnome and human character, Triangle. His catch was an archerfish based on the black stripes on the silver body and the shape of the dorsal fin.

  But for an archerfish, the fish was far too large, a giant compared to the small ones I remembered catching with Uncle Rick. This large monstrosity, a forty-pound fish, would have covered my back with bruises and knocked the air out of me if it weren’t for my constitution.

  I stood up and helped Triangle up in his little blue robes. The purse tied to his belt resembled a fanny pack with a big red ‘T’ embroidered on it. His youth, emphasized by his beardless, half-gnomish face, was as noticeable as his nose. The kid smiled and laughed at seeing the fish flop around, unphased by the trouble he caused to our family.

  This was all a fun adventure for him.

  The joy was infectious as I smiled down at him and rubbed his head. The appeal of video games for me stemmed from their hilarious, unpredictable nature, and it’s a joy to experience that with my children now. “Great catch,” I praised him. “A large archerfish.”

  “Thanks!” Triangle flipped the tip of his red hat out of his gray eyes to make it fall over his back. The hat would be a good fit for my character, but not for Triangle, who was shorter than my hip. “I’m going to name it Goldy!”

  Triangle grabbed the fish by the hook line, removed it, and put both away into his inventory.

  “Yay! I’m now at level three in fishing!”

  “Nice! You'll need a pet fish tank if you want to keep Goldy alive,” I suggested to him while pointing to my shoulders.

  As he walked closer and stretched his arms out, he replied, “Let’s go get it now!”

  “We’ll stop at the general store after we help your sister.”

  I picked him up and put him on my shoulders. We’d been playing this game for a month and we still hadn’t had the chance to do a photo pose of me holding both kids once again on my shoulders. Once we got Naiad free from the police, we should try for it. Elaine grew too big in reality, but in this game, it would be a great photo with our characters, and my character was strong enough to do it.

  I called up to Triangle, “I’m going to give you a guild title of T.T. for Trouble Triangle.”

  Triangle replied in a light voice, “I like Terribly Terrific Triangle more.”

  “Oooh, that’s a better title, done and done,” I declared swiftly, going through the guild menu options to give him the title. I made one for Naiad too and waited for her to notice.

  The guards around Naiad had hauled her to her feet and surrounded her to escort her out. I followed from behind, watching her skip about the guard bubble, not worried about the swords surrounding her. Other players in the game grew closer, curious about the criminal the guards escorted through town.

  Two players jumped in front of us. The players gossiped among themselves, pointing at Naiad. “If she breaks free, we can claim the reward. She just needs to trip one guard - and bam! It’s ours.”

  Naiad heard them and turned around, sticking out her tongue at them. “Nope! It won’t happen.” She pointed above her head to the glowing title.

  [Nervy Naiad]

  The players ignored her, which only agitated Naiad more, and she even tried jumping higher with her skips and snapping her fingers to show she wasn’t worried even as the guards pushed to move faster toward the courthouse.

  “At least she likes the title I gave her,” I told Triangle.

  A new player-hunter joined the parade, getting between me and my daughter. The human’s trimmed goatee and tight black leather garb made him look as if he was cosplaying some old show, especially with how he swung about his buccaneer sword and tipped his hat at her. Mr. Goatee had to back off.

  I took a step forward. “Hey,” I called out, but no one in the crowd turned around. “Hey!”

  The buccaneer struck a pose of raising his weapon above his head and pointing it at Naiad, pretending to thrust it down. “I’ll be capturing you,” he announced. Then the creep grinned at my daughter.

  I took Triangle off my shoulders and put him on the ground with an order. “Stay back.”

  Stalking forward, I didn’t bother drawing my sword and shield while the idiot was looking at my kid, oblivious to me rearing up a kick for his groin.

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  “Dad, don’t leave me!” cried out Triangle.

  The sound of his voice made me quickly turn to see if he was safe. His little gnome legs staggered as he ran to close the small distance between us, ignoring everyone else while focusing on his goal. A woman near my height, hands full of enormous fruit bags, jogged right into him, causing both of them to tumble.

  Triangle skidded on the cobblestones, his knee banging hard enough to cut through the fabric. As he looked at the injury, I noticed more shock than tears.

  “Oh, excuse me,” exclaimed the woman. Ignoring her spilled bags, she reached out a hand to help Triangle, while the apples rolled across the bustling street. “Are you alright?”

  “It’s fine, I didn’t feel it,” he said. He reached for her hand, only to grasp the metal gauntlet of a guard.

  “No harm shall come to a child,” boomed a deep voice as all the guards stopped escorting Naiad and charged at the woman instead, smashing the apples on the ground.

  “I didn’t mean to!” The woman looked at Triangle. “I didn’t even see him.”

  “Silence!” A third guard came over, magic gathering around him. Everyone in the vicinity backed away from the guards. “You shall come with us immediately and pay for any damages.”

  Letting go of the armored hand offered to him, Triangle scampered over to hide behind my legs. “Dad…”

  “Are you hurt?” I asked him while studying his stats. “Your health is down one point. Was that from the hit?”

  “Huh?” He looked up above his head as if he could see the point. “I don’t know.”

  “Child,” the magical guard from earlier approached and handed out a small pouch. “This coin is to repair your gear. Do you need to be escorted?”

  Triangle shook his head and pulled on my cloak to cover him.

  “Then we shall proceed with punishing the player.” The NPC’s voice became even more robotic and less human. With how it broke the simulation of the fantasy game, it caused me to get nervous. This was a safety program forced into this realm.

  “Don’t. She said sorry,” mumbled Triangle. He didn’t take the money bag.

  I spoke louder for him, because if I didn’t these guards were going to send her off to another continent. “He doesn’t want her to get hurt or punished for an accident. Let her go.”

  The guards who surrounded the poor woman paused and jerked up. “Child has spoken. Guardian has spoken. Resume.” All the guards in the area paused and continued walking.

  The original escort returned surrounding Naiad. With a deep sigh, she followed them to the prison yard. All the other players in the area gave a wider berth to Triangle and me as we followed behind. I noticed the creepy player hunters from earlier had left too. There were no signs of Mr. Goatee and his hat anywhere. No one wanted to risk bumping into Triangle now after seeing what happened to the woman.

  The poor lady was picking up her apples, grumbling under her breath. I walked over and picked them up, handing them to her. “Sorry about all of that.”

  Her brown eyes darted to Triangle, watching him pick up a bruised fruit. Her mouth opened to say something to him, but stopped and looked at me instead. “You don’t have to help.”

  Triangle handed her an apple. “My dad’s an expert at picking up messes. He loves doing it!”

  I laughed a bit. “I wouldn’t say I love it.”

  The woman’s mood loosened at seeing my halfhearted expression. Triangle continued talking. “He says that, but we had to drag him from cleaning, and he’ll still want to do his cleaning of the streets in the game!”

  The woman snorted, “Do you play something like a guard or cop here?”

  I shook my head. “I have a daily that requires picking up the street.”

  The last of her apples were finally in her bag, and she laughed again. “If that’s what makes you happy, good for you. Thanks for helping.”

  Instead of giving a complete stranger a response, I waved goodbye. My inner voice whispered and argued that I wasn’t happy with how I played this game. The high tech for instant feedback had the purpose of monster slaying and grand adventures. Even for some fun PvP combat, which is something I was really eager to experience again. Instead, I was using the gaming technology to follow my kids along in the safety bubble of the capital. Where no player or monster could hurt Triangle and he had an endless amount of administrative or crafting class options. Since we stayed here, it meant Naiad stayed safe too.

  It was still possible to have fun in the game; it just wasn’t exciting. Even now, as we trudged behind Naiad, the nerves I had earlier were gone. She was older than Triangle and didn’t have the same protections as him in the game, but that didn’t mean the guards would hurt her. Nothing serious would happen as long as we stayed within the city's safety bubble. That included the walled-up prison that Naiad walked into right now.

  [Guild Chat]

  [CheezWiz: What’s up, everyone? What happened?]

  [Naiad: Crap. It looks like I’m stuck in the holding cell for four hours. Thanks to Triangle.]

  [Triangle: :P]

  Above my head, I heard the hum of Triangle sticking his tongue out to go along with the message.

  CheezWiz being online was perfect timing for right now. He was one of the random gamers who joined our guild when we first started out in Seconds-Over early access. The guy was a legend of information and would know what to do with Naiad in jail.

  [Guild Chat]

  [Boulder: Naiad snuck past the guards on a ship to buy me time to grab Triangle, all while keeping her class quest.]

  [Naiad: Triangle didn’t want to stop fishing and wanted to go see penguins.]

  [Triangle: Narwhals.]

  [CheezWiz: …]

  [CheezWiz: Wow, that’s the most excitement you’ve had outside of dailies. I’ll help ya out for all the keys you guys keep getting at the stronghold. Hold on.]

  CheezWiz was on another continent and knew from there how boring we were. I rubbed my head in frustration, chasing the thoughts away. I promised Beth that I would play the game with them and keep them safe. That meant I couldn’t return to being a player hunter, like Mr. Goatee, or wield two weapons.

  I was stuck with the parental load, leashed to my children. I watched Triangle run across the street to pet a nearby tabby cat. Animated hearts popped into the air, showing the plus reputation happening. The game made it easy for Triangle to befriend NPCs, knowing he was a child. If we didn’t start moving quickly, the cat might soon begin a quest. The game wanted to keep him in the city doing safe courier quests. He loved exploring everything, a Cheshire grin stretched across his face as the cat rubbed against his leg.

  “Why can’t I be happy with what we have?” I murmured to myself, grieving at my vanished childhood wonder.