Haru: Acolyte, Level 5/20

Optifex: Initiate, Level 5/20

ErcuEmu: Legionnaire, Level 5/20

Alara: Apprentice, Level 7/20

Tacito: Novice, Level 8/20

Haru squinted at Oracle, who took on the guise of a raven, perched on her shoulder. The acolyte was suspicious of the sudden seriousness in the Oracle’s voice.

“What news do you have that is so bad?” Haru cocked an eyebrow.

In the distance, Taci ascended the mountain path, lighting one of the three braziers for the job change quest.

Around Haru, the rest of the party stood in a semi-circle, watching the novice climb and all seemed oblivious to Oracle’s presence. In fact, none of them even noticed Haru speaking.

“The demon Irae has evolved once more.” Oracle said. “Despite your efforts to starve it of sustenance, there seems to be enough of what he desires to grow.”

“How do you know what I was trying to do before?” Haru’s voice was laced with doubt. She hadn’t met Oracle until after trying to help the novices in the starting area.

The raven cackled. “Think of me as your friendly game observer. I see and hear everything that goes on within the confines of the server.” Oracle preened. “You’re not the only one hoping Irae doesn’t take the game down with his antics.”

Taci finished lighting the three braziers and began his descent.

“You’re going to use your all-powerful senses to help us fight against the demon?” Haru chirped. She imagined the Oracle as a raven soaring through the air and summoning a vicious lightning storm that zapped all the foes around.

Oracle let off a delicate groan. “Fight is a strong word. Perhaps I would describe it as guiding you on your path.”

“Oh.” Haru spoke flatly, imagining being back in HomeRoom and Oracle both in her raven form and wearing her blue robes, standing at the podium and scolding Haru.

A long silence grew between them.

“For instance, I wanted to tell you how the demon has been gaining power.” Oracle finally continued. “It is building a dungeon.”

Haru blinked in confusion, then stared at Taci who was still descending the mountain, coming back toward them. She contemplated why the demon would build a dungeon when it probably had full control over Leonora’s encounter. “Did it build this in that strange demon zone, through those portals it leaves behind?”

“No. It’s here in the real game. The admins don’t know what to do, but it’s also altering things to be even harder, so players haven’t reached this phantom dungeon yet.” Oracle spoke sternly.

“Can’t the admins just revert it?” Haru whispered, concerned the rest of her party would hear.

“They’ve lost control of the situation. The Magi are too worried about losing players to take the server down for planned maintenance. Professor Adam Min and the rest of the HomeRoom team can only do so much while the game is still running.” The raven plucked a misshapen feather from its back, then shook its head. “So, that leaves only you.”

“How can I fix this?” Haru recoiled. To her, defeating the demon was a realistic goal when it was just another world boss lingering in a low-level zone waiting around. Now that it could legitimately change and meld the world to its will, taking down an omnipotent architect seemed a lot less reasonable.

“It’s still bound by the rules of the game.” The raven’s head tracked Taci’s decent. “It’s just exploiting old, unremoved pre-alpha code to do its bidding. Back then the game’s engine was created to be mainly used for voxel games and the designers wanted to create a giant collaborative building MMO.”

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Haru wondered what else she didn’t know about concerning her own game while staring at Taci nearing the base of the path.

“The plan is what it always has been, no change.” Oracle continued. “This demon just needs to be defeated once. Its removal from the world by hitting 0 HP will mean the demon’s permanent deletion.”

As Taci neared, Oracle spread her wings.

“Having to tackle this unknown dungeon is a huge change.” Haru insisted. “How am I supposed to beat it when I don’t know anything about it?”

“Now you get to be a real player.” The raven lifted off, flying north toward the Plentiful Glade. The Oracle’s voice carried throughout the valley. “Enjoy the journey, Haru. That’s the only way you’ll survive.”

Haru turned to watch the bird disappear over the distant mountain range. She wondered how anyone could enjoy something that continuously grew more dire by the minute.

“What did you pick?” Emu, Opti, and Alara swarmed Taci.

“Footpad.” Taci spoke flatly and readied his Skulldugger’s Bow. “I got this thing. Didn’t want to waste it.”

The group decided to continue help Taci level up a little before continuing the main quest line by returning to the dragonling village. The acolyte was silent for most of the hunting session, lost in thought—wondering how she could ever tackle a dungeon of which she didn’t even know any part of the layout.

Taci leveled up. Opti fist-pumped at the footpad.

“Ding!” Emu smiled.

The joyous outburst snapped Haru from her rumination. She opened the menu to check her own experience progress bar, seeing it only having moved 25%. It was much more noticeable that since she had moved away from novice and took up a job, leveling was much slower.

The acolyte began to worry that the demon would be far too powerful by the time she was ready to take it on.

“Is something bothering you?” Emu turned to Haru. “You’ve been quiet this entire time.”

Taci departed, running toward a distant dragonling to attack it with his bow and pull it to the group.

She wondered how to explain her worries to Emu. With how complicated things were, it seemed impossible to even bring up the subject.

“Oh, sorry. Healing is way more complicated than I first thought it would be.” Haru forced herself to smile. “If I don’t concentrate, I might mess up.”

Emu chuckled. “I think you’re doing great. Don’t worry, it will become much less stressful once we get to Fairbank, and we can unlock our new skills.”

Haru feigned an excited tone. “I can’t wait.”

As Taci approached with a dragonling in tow, Emu turned and darted away by using Line Breaker, engaging the foe.

After watching an ice bolt soar through the air and slam into the tiny dragon, Haru sensed a pair of eyes burning a hole in the back of her head. A quick glance revealed Alara in recovery mode, staring her down.

“It’s a girl problem, isn’t it?” Alara whispered.

Haru saw the legionnaire’s health getting low and started casting Mend. The mage’s words confused her, and the acolyte cocked her head.

“I get it, you can’t talk to them about whatever’s bothering you.” Alara spoke insistently. “Boys just wouldn’t understand, right?”

The heal fired off and Haru took a knee, to move into recovery mode. “Oh, uh… yeah.”

“Well, you can talk to me about anything.” Alara nodded. “I’m not only the best DPS, I’m also the best listener.”

Haru blinked at the ridiculous sentiment. Then she couldn’t hold back a giggle. It turned into a belly laugh the more the acolyte thought about how silly the statement was. Alara blinked at Haru’s sudden change in disposition, with a confused look on her face.

“Don’t laugh, I’m the best.” The mage puffed her cheek and looked away.

“I know you are, Alara.” Haru couldn’t contain herself.

Emu leveled up.

“Ding!” He fist pumped excitedly.

“I think we’re all ready to continue questing.” Opti called out. “Let’s make some progress, I want to see more of the world.” As he spoke, the initiate gave Haru a knowing wink.

Taci stopped his departure to pull another mob and looked to Emu.

“I suppose that is a good idea.” Emu nodded. “We’ve been going back and forth through the same spots for quite a while, huh? Alright, let’s go then.”

The group departed from the dragonling town and continued back down the path into the deadwood forest. They all slowed their pace, Emu, Opti, Alara, and Haru especially leery of the world boss that lingered somewhere in the dark, concealed by the trees. The Corrupted Gryphon could still be lurking.

After a careful trek through the woods, they turned and traveled in the opposite direction of the job change obelisk, toward a small camp nestled on the edge of the deadwood forest.

Roughhewn leather tents were scattered about the small area cleared of trees. Wooden crates, half broken and tattered dotted the space. In the middle of everything, a huge metal spit cooking critters unknown was situated over a bonfire.

This is where the quest led the group. They needed to get Gogo talismans from this location. Emerging from the shadows, a small green human-like creature appeared in the campfire’s light. It was about half of Haru’s height and a bit pudgy. It had a rough stone dagger in hand, with ragged brown overalls hanging off its body. Its long ears flopped with each step.

“Ugh, I hate these things.” Alara sighed.

Haru cocked her head. When she saw them lingering around the academy, they didn’t seem so bad. A bit boisterous and sometimes a bit rude in groups, but how could anyone hate something so cute?

Taci stepped forward and took aim at the lone goblin-like creature.

“No, don’t!” Emu shouted.

But it was too late. The footpad’s arrow careened through the air. With an echoing thud, the attack smacked into the Gogo. The goblin turned and looked at Taci. The creature’s eyes changed from all black to glowing red. Then it parted its lips to reveal spiney, misshapen teeth and let loose a forked tongue. With a wretched cry, it launched itself toward the footpad.

From deeper in the woods, more terrible shouts echoed out. Countless glowing eyes filled the darkness between the trees. More Gogo sprinted from the tree line toward the group.

“They linked!” Emu shouted in a panic.