“Kit where are you?” Mars voice roared in the quite house.

Kit felt his heart pound at Mars shouting. This was unlike his clam friend to be so hurried. He got up from his chair and rushed over to Mars almost stumbling in his haste. “What’s wrong? Where is Twix, is he ok.” Kit started to panic at his missing friend.

“What? Twix is fine he is with Grandpa. Kit, look you got a letter.” Mars was waving a plain white envelope in his hands. He realised Mars actions were due to excitement not anxiety. Kit felt his heart start to settle down.

Mars handed the letter to Kit. “Well, what does it say?” Kit chuckled at Mars look of anticipation. He already knew he would be receiving a letter from Iris. He ripped open the envelope and took out the contents.

Dearest Kit,

I hope your restaurant is still running well. Your recipe is a big hit at my Inn, thankyou for teaching it to me. As a thank you I wanted to give you something I found on my travels when I was younger. Enclosed is a map of Amaranthus ruins.

Once Amaranthus was a famous town and was well known across the Fornax continent to be the home of one of the top chefs in Forsaken state. The town was destroyed over 200 years ago and the whereabout of the ruins has been long lost.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I found a map to the Amaranthus Ruins. I never had the chance to go exploring for the ruins. I hope you can find it and the treasures buried within.

Your forever friend.

Iris.

Ding!

[CAL]

Friendship quest.

Discover the secrets of the Amaranthus Ruins.

Player Kit became a forever friend of Innkeeper Iris from Sweet Meadows. She has always had a regret that she could not explore the Amaranthus ruins. Find the Amaranthus ruins and explore its hidden secrets so Iris can put her regrets to rest.

Accept quest Yes/No

A thrill rushed over Kit as her re-read the contents of the quest. He couldn’t believe he had received such a magnificent quest from reaching 100 reputation points with Iris. Kit felt like little electrified currents were running through his body in his excitement at receiving the quest.

He quickly accepted the friendship quest. He couldn’t contain the grin from spreading across his face. “What was in the letter? Don’t keep me in suspense.” Mars held out his hand to look at the letter.

Kit felt his palms become damp, the content of the letter was too exciting. He quickly wiped his hands on his pants to remove the moisture, then with shaking hands gave the letter to an eager Mars.

“Holy shit Kit! This is awesome, we should go straight after the monster run finishes.” Mars had a gleam in his eye as he spoke. Kit couldn’t help but to laugh at Mars animated appearance.

“I agree Mars. Hopefully we can find something useful for the restaurant inside.” Kit looked at the second piece of paper that had come with the letter. It was the map to the ruins. Kit frowned as he looked at the familiar surroundings of the map.

“Mars why does this map look familiar?” Kit handed the last piece of paper to Mars.

Kit watched as Mars sucked in a deep breath. “Kit this looks familiar because we are currently standing on part of the map. This is Spartan Fire right here.” Mars was pointing to a section at the edge of the map.

Kit couldn’t contain himself. Happy laughter burst from his mouth. “Why is this area filled with so many hidden secrets.”

“What secrets?” Mud was standing next to Kit blinking innocently up at him. Kit turned his head to see his employees staring at him with curious expressions on his face.

‘Purple pomegranates! I forgot that we weren’t alone.’ Kit watched as all eyes in the room moved to the papers in Mars hand. Kit became instantly nervous, he stared at the twins looking at the map. Kit hadn’t built a substantial relationship with the twins yet. This would be an opportune time for them to betray him.

He furiously thought how to deal with this situation. All his hard work to reassure his employees that they were important to him could be undone if he dealt with this wrongly. Kit turned his anxious gaze to Mars.

Mars reply to his pleading eyes was to shrug his shoulders. ‘How is that helpful?’ Kit looked down at the map in his hands then at his employees faces. It would be ok to let them join him on one of his adventures, right?

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

He didn’t want to share the Monak treasure map with everyone. He had a feeling that map was in a completely different category to this one. Kit made up his mind to divulge the contents of the letter, he motioned to Mars to hand the letter over to Mud.

“You want me to read it Kit?” Mud tentatively asked.

“Yes, we can all do this together as a team building exercise. Let me know what you all think.”

Mud took the letter from Mars, he gasped not long after receiving the piece of paper. “K-Kit are you sure it’s ok for me to read this?”

“Yes, can you read it out loud, so everyone knows what we are talking about. We are the only ones not confused right now.” Kit chuckled at Mud’s actions. When he asked him to read the letter out loud Mud threw the letter back to Mars.

“I take it you want me to have the honours.” Mud nodded furiously at Mars.

Kit listened to the excited murmurs from the group as Mars read the contents out loud. He could tell from their animated reactions they were all happy to be included in the quest.

“I’m happy to close the restaurant for a while if you all want to come. We’ll just have to confirm the existence of the ruins first. I don’t want us all trapsing around the countryside without knowing the exact location.”

The room exploded in noise. Kit had to cover his ears for a moment until they all calmed down. Kit’s smile grew wider at the elated expression on there faces. “I take it everyone agrees to come then?”

Heads bobbed from each of his employees. He was very glad he decided to include them all in the ruin’s exploration. He felt it made up for his mistake last night. It would also have the added benefit of them really feeling like they were part of a team.

Kit felt like they were all family, so including them was not a big deal. Since his father had died, he had missed having family get togethers. With his father’s death he had not only lost his best friend, he also lost his extended family. Somehow his mother had gotten in the ears of his whole family and convinced them that he was to blame for his father dying. It was only Kat and his father’s mother, before she died, that had stood by him.

Having these people want to be part of his new life made Kit content. He hadn’t thought playing an online game would make such a big difference in his life. If Kat was also here, Kit felt like his life would be perfect right now.

Even the prospect of the twins betraying him couldn’t dampen his mood. Kit looked at the pair and wondered what sort of event happened to the twins. He could tell from watching them earlier that they enjoyed working at his restaurant. So, what was it that could make them jeopardise their employment?

Kit wished Snickers was here right now so she could see their auras. He wanted to know if including them in this adventure had made any difference. If it had stopped them from thinking about betraying the restaurant, then Kit felt it would be easier to get them to trust him. Then they could find a solution to their problems together.

He didn’t want anyone in his new family to go through feelings of loneliness and despair if they didn’t have too. He knew what it was like to feel hopeless and didn’t wish that feeling on anyone. Kit would ask Snickers about their auras when she returned. Then he could make plans about approaching the pair after he found out what colour their auras were.

“Kit when are you leaving to confirm the ruins site?” Bundt interrupted his thoughts.

“Not until after the monster run is over. I was going to have to leave for a while anyway to find a town with a culinary guild so I could raise my chef tier. Now with this map I’ll try to find a town close to the ruins so I can kill two birds with one stone.”

Bundt nodded his head in understanding. “When is the monster run taking place?”

“In two days.” Kit snapped his head around to Mars.

“What! Why did you not tell me it was so close.” Kit felt a moment of panic. He had wanted to improve his swordsman level before they went. Now it looked like he wouldn’t have time.

“That was the other reason I came over, we got news that the trampling thick heads are closer than we thought. We must leave this morning, Grandpa is already rounding up the village. It will take us all day to get to the Spartan Fire plains.”

“Damn it, I thought I would have time to prepare. I wanted to make enough Lucky sticky apple cider so that everyone had a bottle of the liquid each. I felt it would increase our chances of it being a successful run.”

Mars nodded in agreement. “That’s a great idea. Then how about this, I’ll leave Pint behind so you can catch up to us. That should give you enough time to make some barrels. Twix can stay behind with you, he knows the way to the Spartan Fire plains.”

Kit scrunched his nose at the thought of riding Pint again so soon. If he wasn’t so pressed for time he would refuse. “Ok that will have to do. I’ll put a notice up in the restaurant that we will be closed. How long are we expected to be gone Mars?”

“Grandpa said the fight shouldn’t take long if all goes well. We should be back within five days. Are all your employees coming?”

“Ahh….” Kit had forgotten to ask if they intended to join the monster run. He turned to face the group.

Bundt spoke up for the group. “Ai we already agreed that we would go. We are residents of Spartan Fire as well now.”

A wave of worry smashed into Kit at Bundt’s words. He could be resurrected at a respawn arch, his employees could not. Kit felt a chill run down his spine at the thought of one of them dying. He wanted to tell them they couldn’t go.

Bundt had a determined look on his face as he stared at Kit. It was like he was telling him that no matter what he said he would be going. Kit swallowed his words of refusal, it was ultimately their choice to go.

“Then we will all stick together at the monster run. You will also have to ingest anything I give you, even if it makes you sick at first.” He planned to load them up with some of his higher creations. They would just have to suffer through the side effects.

“Do we have to Kit? I heard about the nasty symptoms your higher stats creation gives people from Snickers.” Mud skin had gone pale as he spoke.

“I’m not going to lie the side effects are quite bad, the benefits they give will outweigh all the pain I promise. It will improve your stats and increase your luck for the fight.”

Chamomile squeezed Mud shoulder in comfort. “It will be alright Mud. I am looking forwards to the extra boost before the fight, any extra advantage is welcome.”

Now that the time was approaching, the reality of the monster run was setting in. This could be a suicide run if they weren’t careful. He was glad his staff had agreed to ingest his higher level stats creations. It made him feel a bit more secure that they would have a better chance of surviving.

“I’ll leave you guys to get ready. I’ll head over to the restaurant to start preparing some cider. Mars, can you please let Twix know about our plans. He can meet me at the restaurant when he is ready.”