After a few uninteresting minutes, the frogman cheater appeared.

She had copper hair and wore a yellow raincoat with pockets on the sides, it was made from a reflective, rubbery material that shimmered in the distant light of XxFoxlyxX’s light magic.

She looked down to the source of the light from her high-up position near the edge of the reservoir.

“♛: Yo, is there a ‘JohnWillStab’ down there?” she asked glancing down to the private message she received, they contained the coordinates to her client, as well as their name.

Her character wore an uncharacteristic smile.

“The name seems really familiar for some reason…” she thought.

John was the only one who felt a real feeling of relief upon seeing the cheater appear.

“JohnWillStab: Yeah, that’s me!” he exclaimed waving at ♛.

Upon seeing the overly-edgy design and the stupid name, ♛ remembered who JohnWillStab was.

“♛: Oh, you’re the guy who cost me a load of money…” she remarked, her expression deflated into a bored frown.

JohnWillStab began feeling a downpour of regret and concern building up, as if he was having a staring contest with a polar bear.

“JohnWillStab: Yeah… but you said we’re even, right?”

♛ scratched her head.

“♛: Did I...?” she asked, playing dumb.

“JohnWillStab: …”

John looked back to his two companions and then back to ♛.

“JohnWillStab: Yes…?”

“♛: Mmm… no… can’t recall it.”

“Bonifacius: Thou truly said thy and JohnWillStab’s business was even!” Bonifacius exclaimed in hopes of reminding the clearly lying ♛.

She shook her head.

“♛: Nah, sorry, guys. I can’t remember anything like that!”

John breathed a sigh.

“Fuck… I should have trusted Bonifacius…”

“♛: Anyway, let’s handle this one problem at a time!”

XxFoxlyxX crossed his arms.

“XxFoxlyxX: So, how much do they owe you, anyway?” he asked.

“♛: Let’s see… it was like 10 stacks of 100g so 1000g,” she replied.

“XxFoxlyxX: …”

XxFoxlyxX burst into laughter, his character began flailing so hard he almost drowned.

“XxFoxlyxX: 1k gold?!”

“XxFoxlyxX: Pfft, that’s like… nothing!”

Foxly was also laughing in real life, he wiped a single tear from his eye.

“XxFoxlyxX: Dude, I can just pay you that much,” he shrugged.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

JohnWillStab and Bonifacius turned to face him.

“JohnWillStab: Are you sure? It still sounds like a load of cash…” he remarked, feeling somewhat guilty for causing this situation.

Foxly laughed.

“XxFoxlyxX: It’s really not, even after you robbed me of most of my earnings this month,” he replied with a tiny hint of bitterness.

The nice moment was interrupted by ♛.

“♛: Sorry, it has to be JohnWillStab that repays the debt,” she replied plainly.

“JohnWillStab: What?! That’s impossible!”

“Bonifacius: Indeed! Thou are blaming thy own faulty cheats on a low-level player!” he argued.

“♛: Now then, moving on to the second issue, why did you call me?” she asked.

Still shocked and somewhat upset, JohnWillStab remembered the whole reason he called ♛.

“JohnWillStab: We’re stuck, we came down to grab a fish and now we can’t get out…” he explained.

♛ nodded along.

“♛: Alright, let me see…”

She used her cheating program to select the water the group swam in.

It had dozens of variables, most of them meaningless, though ♛ quickly figured out which variables were responsible for what.

“♛: So, basically the water is supposed to rise once you grab the fish, some water spirit is supposed to spawn and stuff…”

“♛: I can either trigger the full script or just the water increasing, whatever you prefer,” she offered.

“She’s being too nice…” John thought.

“JohnWillStab: How much will it cost?” he asked.

♛ shrugged.

“♛: Oh, I don’t know… how about… 100,000,000 gold?” she asked.

She turned to XxFoxlyxX with a smug look.

“♛: Since you’re all stuck, I’ll cut you a deal and say it’s 33,333,333 gold each!”

“XxFoxlyxX: There’s no way anybody has enough money to pay that off!” he exclaimed.

“♛: And since I went through the effort of checking it for you, you have to pay 1,000,000 each anyway!”

JohnWillStab and the others exchanged looks of concern.

♛ put a hand over her mouth in an overly theatrical way.

“♛: Hold on, don’t tell me you can’t afford that!” she exclaimed.

“XxFoxlyxX: NOBODY CAN AFFORD THAT!”

“XxFoxlyxX: AND WHO THE HELL CHARGES PEOPLE FOR A JOB THEY DIDN’T DO!?”

Foxly was visibly upset with her business practices.

“♛: Well, I have some great news for you!”

“♛: You can pay off your debt through unpaid labour!” she offered.

Everyone remained silent.

“♛: You know, I tell you to mine some rocks or pick some herbs for a few hours a day and eventually you work off your debt!”

“JohnWillStab: So… slavery?”

After a few seconds ♛ nodded wordlessly.

“♛: I mean, now that you’re in debt, you have no other choice, unless you want to have a hacker delete all your items and make your character as good as deleted!” she threatened.

“JohnWillStab: They haven’t called you, I did!”

“JohnWillStab: Do you have zero pride in you work as a cheater?”

“♛: Yeah, I’m not buying it… you are all in a party, aren’t you?”

“Bonifacius: Indeed, there is no need to take all the fault upon thyself!”

“JohnWillStab: If something happens in a town and one person calls you, are you going to charge everyone inside?”

♛ rolled her eyes.

“♛: So, are you saying you’re capable of paying off 100,001,000 gold?” she asked with raised eyebrows.

JohnWillStab shot her a thumbs up.

“JohnWillStab: I have a plan for everything!” he explained smugly.

After a few seconds of contemplation, ♛ relented.

“♛: Fine, you’re the only one in debt now,”

“JohnWillStab: Cool, now get me and these two total strangers out of here!” John instructed.

“♛: Yeah, yeah, give me a second…”

She fiddled with the water level for a few seconds before getting it right.

Bonifacius, JohnWillStab and XxFoxlyxX stepped out of the water for a few seconds.

“JohnWillStab: Alright, see ya!” John exclaimed.

“♛: What?”

John smashed the ALT and F4 keys, shutting the game down in an instant.

John’s screen flickered for a few seconds as the game shut down, leaving him with a potent feeling of victory and smugness.

“I’ll log in after a few hours, she might be gone by then…” he thought.

JohnWillStab got up and headed into his kitchen where he was not surprised to see a sizable rat wearing a green collar sitting on his table.

“Hey!” he called out upon noticing the pack of crisps it was holding in its mouth.

“SO YOU’RE THE BASTARD!” he exclaimed pointing a vindictive finger at the creature.

It let out a squeak as it sprinted behind John’s fridge and out through a hole in the wall.

JohnWillStab breathed a sigh and pushed the fridge up against the wall, blocking the hole.

He walked over to the cupboard he filled with instant noodles and grabbed one.

It was the kind that comes in a cup you can eat from.

JohnWillStab began boiling the water for his dinner as he glanced outside through his kitchen window.

The wallpaper was yellow-white.

“I wonder if the cheater was serious about her plan of slavery… why can’t she just spawn in more cash? Or whatever it is she wants her slave to do?”

“Maybe she’s just a megalomaniac…” he speculated.