After returning to Grimwood; Bonifacius, JohnWillStab and Foxly made their way back to Duskshire in hopes of doing a few more quests.

JohnWillStab looked back towards Foxly with an ungodly smug expression.

“JohnWillStab: I thought going around and questing with us was too weird for the likes of you!” he exclaimed, poorly hiding a laugh with his hand.

“XxFoxlyxX: Yeah, well, it beats sitting around my office waiting for things to sell,” he replied unenthusiastically.

“Bonifacius: Now, now! I am more than happy to welcome another player to our party!” Bonifacius exclaimed, shooting XxFoxlyxX a thumbs up.

“XxFoxlyxX: Why are you talking like that?!” he asked uncertainly.

“JohnWillStab: He’s roleplaying.” John explained.

“XxFoxlyxX: With himself?!”

“JohnWillStab: …”

“Bonifacius: …”

They shrugged.

“XxFoxlyxX: Look, I’ve been in my fair share of RP guilds and I’m honestly insulted by what you’re doing…” he replied with a sour expression.

“XxFoxlyxX: Roleplaying is about getting into a character, playing a role! Not a funny way of speaking!”

“JohnWillStab: What if his character is a guy who speaks funny?” he said defensively.

Foxly crossed his arms.

“XxFoxlyxX: That’s as cop-out and you f#*king know it!”

Bonifacius lifted his arms in defeat and cracked a smile.

“Bonifacius: Please, friends – calm down.”

“Bonifacius: I did not think my way of speaking would cause this much trouble!”

“Bonifacius: I shall return to a normal way of speaking if that helps!”

JohnWillStab turned back to Bonifacius with an expression of pity.

“Oh, but that’s like your entire character!”

He turned back towards Foxly with the kind of look that could squeeze guilt form anyone.

After a few seconds Foxly relented.

“XxFoxlyxX: I’m not telling you to stop roleplaying, I’m just telling you to do it properly!”

He smiled.

“XxFoxlyxX: Like I said, I was in my fair share of RP guilds, so for the sake of my sanity and continued presence in this party, I will make you into a proper roleplayer!” he exclaimed.

Bonifacius played the “/cheer” emote.

“Bonifacius: Thou have my thanks! I shan’t fail thee!”

“XxFoxlyxX: Yeah, alright, lesson one! Stop with the f#*king “‘th”s, man!”

“XxFoxlyxX: Sounding like the spawn of Shakespeare getting too intimate with his cousins isn’t a good look for roleplayers!”

“Bonifacius: I see… then how should I speak?”

“XxFoxlyxX: I mean, if you cut out the lispification from your messages and you’ll be alright,”

“XxFoxlyxX: The main problems is that you aren’t playing a role…”

“Bonifacius: So, shall this suffice?” he asked.

“JohnWillStab: Woah!”

John could read Bonifacius’ message in real-time without taking time to process them.

“XxFoxlyxX: Yeah, sure, that’s good enough!” he nodded.

The group continued to talk about roleplay as they walked through the gloomy forest of Grimwood.

During their Journey JohnWillStab noticed the massive moss-mound in the distance.

“JohnWillStab: So, what’s this quest all about?” he questioned.

“Bonifacius: We are on a quest to find a rare creature, the ghost-fish!”

“Of course it’s a ghost…” John thought, remembering the zone he was in.

“XxFoxlyxX: Wouldn’t a grave-pond be a better place to find them?” he asked.

“Bonifacius: We must find the one specific fish in the large reservoir in the depths of Murkden!” he explained.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“JohnWillStab: Grave-what-now?” he questioned.

“XxFoxlyxX: Like a square hole near graves which fills up with water and spawns the ghost-fish.” He explained.

“JohnWillStab: Weird…”

“XxFoxlyxX: I read it in the animal encyclopaedia by that Bromy guy,” he explained.

“Bonifacius: An encyclopaedia? Does that mean Bromy finally complete his analysis of all the animals?” he asked.

“I remember he said he shall publish an encyclopaedia combining all the books once he finished!” Bonifacius thought.

“JohnWillStab: Dude… that guy must have no life whatsoever…”

“Not that I’m one to talk…”

“XxFoxlyxX: Did you read the books too?” Foxly asked glancing over to Bonifacius who was leading the party towards the distant ruins.

“Bonifacius: I have skimmed one, alas they seemed far too technical for me,” Bonifacius laughed.

“Bonifacius: I simply remember Bromy mentioning it to me,” he explained.

“JohnWillStab: So, he’s the moss guy?” John asked remembering Bonifacius mention he knew someone writing in-game books about moss.

Bonifacius nodded.

XxFoxlyxX took a second to process the implications of Bonifacius’ message.

“XxFoxlyxX: HOLD ON, YOU KNOW BROMY?!” he demanded.

Bonifacius nodded again.

“Bonifacius: Indeed, though we have not spoken much lately!” he explained.

Bonifacius scratched his chin.

“Bonifacius: Perhaps I should send him a letter…?” he pondered.

Hearing this, XxFoxlyxX’s expression lit up in an instant.

“XxFoxlyxX: Say, now that I’m not the antagonist, you wanna hook a friend up with a contact to Bromy?”

Bonifacius laughed.

“Bonifacius: I am afraid such a request is difficult to fulfil, perhaps we should go pay a visit to him some time in person?”

Foxly nodded vehemently.

“XxFoxlyxX: Absolutely!”

As the group continued to chat about their upcoming journey to Bromy’s base in Diasole, the massive ruin came into view.

It looked like the effect of picking up a medieval city and throwing it back down to the ground.

Few buildings remained standing and those that did often lacked any way to get inside.

Many homes stood roofless and windowless.

The trees and hills surrounding the broken walls of the macabre settlement embraced it from all sides.

A heavy mist lingered above the city like a localised blanket of clouds.

The half-buried tools and furniture stuck out from the ground as if clinging to life.

“JohnWillStab: The eeriness of these places just keeps one-upping itself…” he remarked seeing the traumatizing visage of a spider patrolling the ruins.

“XxFoxlyxX: Yeah, this is why nobody comes to Grimwood, It’s kind of… one-note…” he said gesturing to the gloomy trees and fog.

“Bonifacius: Perhaps consistency is better for certain zones! It would make little sense to have fairies and sea-monsters in a land-locked zone plagued by an evil curse!” he said taking a deep breath of the stale air.

“XxFoxlyxX: The devs could have come up with something to squeeze more variety into here…” he shrugged.

The group continued moving, Bonifacius was leading them towards what looked almost like a fallout shelter made from crumbling rocks.

“XxFoxlyxX: Like, what if you had a quest where you need to collect the blood from a dragon?” he suggested.

“Bonifacius: Are dragons not typically friendly and also god-like in power?” Bonifacius asked causing Foxly to reluctantly nod in defeat.

“XxFoxlyxX: Yeah, wasn’t the lore something like… them becoming real after becoming ghosts?” he asked uncertainly.

“JohnWillStab: How would that even work?” he asked.

Foxly shrugged.

“Bonifacius: In any case, I do think a greater sense of… scale… would be useful in this zone!”

“Bonifacius: Perhaps we need to plant a garden of magic flowers to ward off the evil?” he suggested.

“JohnWillStab: Flowers?”

“XxFoxlyxX: Flowers?

They both asked in unison.

“Bonifacius: It would make sense to combat evil with good! Thus we should not head out with the hopes to shed more blood!”

“XxFoxlyxX: …”

“XxFoxlyxX: Right…”

A lightbulb appeared over Foxly’s head as he got an epiphany.

“XxFoxlyxX: What if we say there is a massive treasure hidden somewhere in this zone and then we let people find it and they’d get a load of cash?”

“JohnWillStab: You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

“XxFoxlyxX: Nah, of course not! I’m all about earning money, finding it is an unreliable method!”

Foxly lying through his teeth, he would probably be the first one to find the treasure.

They descended into the underground tunnel leading them into what looked like a crypt.

Stone shelves of skeletons and their presumed belongings clung to the walls.

Much to everyone’s surprise none of the skeletons came to life.

As the trio descended into the dark ruin a commotion was taking place elsewhere.

In the capital city of Arlepia, Glumington, players ran from centre plaza in what almost looked like a stampede of wild beasts.

“Alexander: Does your selfishness have no limits?” the blond human asked.

He wore a dark blue cloak with large golden buttons and white fur around the sleeves and collar.

A golden sword was attached to his back.

He had short, spiky blond hair, some of it was styled like cat-ears.

On his face he wore a pair of round glassed with orange lenses.

The local and global chat erupted into panic as the news spread like a wildfire.

“RuRet: An admin?”

“Corndemon: No f#*king way!”

“Xuphicatr: Does that mean the game’s devs are back?...”

A bright flash of azure flames reduced a nearby player to ash at the snap of Alexander’s finger.

Thirty seconds later, the burnt player was banned.

Oddly enough the player’s clothes remained as they dropped to the ground neatly.

Moments later, a notification in chat read the following: “Corndemon has been banned.”

The world practically stopped for everyone on the server, the text was red and could be seen by anyone viewing the global chat all over the world.

Snap.

Thirty seconds later, a player was banned.

Snap.

Another player was banned.

Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

An orchestra of clicks could be heard as the player-count slowly decreased.

“Alexander: Don’t take it personally, guys!”

“Alexander: But my game can’t handle that many players!” he laughed before banning another dozen.

A loud bang echoed around the streets of Glumington as a distant sniper fired at Alexander.

The bullet failed to make contact as Alexander simply stepped aside, allowing the projectile to tear up the ground.

Seeing the direction of the projectile, Alexander simply used an AOE spell of his design to ignite the only tall building in that part of town into azure flames.

It was a massive watchtower, even so, against the admin-only fire magic it was like paper.

The entire building crumbled as the fire poured deeper and deeper inside the collapsing structure.

Bricks and ash rained down like nuclear snow.

If the fire touched a player, they would be banned, this meant that the largely wooden city was the perfect place to cull the population.

Alex slowly walked through the crumbling capital; the air became heavy with smoke as the sky above was blocked out.

The blue fires were merely embers at this point.

Alexander glanced down to a notebook he had in real life, on it was a tally reading eighty-tree.

“Damn, I’m still not even half way there…” he remarked.

After a few second of contemplation he smiled a confident smile.

He grabbed a cup of tea and had a sip.

“Alright! Let’s go shave-off more excess players!” he said, looking back to his monitor.