Will walked over to Jake’s side. “Did they already have this set up this morning?”

“I don’t know. I don’t take this way to work.”

They gave the building a quick walk around. As fast as the aliens had worked, so did the graffiti enthusiasts. They turned the corner to see some barely legible letters written on the giant white box’s side.

There was a loading zone at the back of the box connected to an alleyway and other than that there wasn’t any other way into the lot. At least if they were only considering mundane methods that is.

The pair put on their display shades, but surprisingly to them, nothing changed.

Heads Up!

You are within the perimeter of an instance. Would you like to enter?

Warning

Entering an instance from inside of its perimeter is not considered safe.

“The instance I generated last night didn’t reach out this far,” Jake said. “They must have expanded the instance when they moved in.”

They walked through the alleyway up until the point they could sense the end of the instance. After that, they turned around and walked back in. Upon entry, they were greeted by the sight of a few bodies that had been run over in the alleyway.

“Looks like they managed to generate the gang violence,” Will said.

“Wait, scan them real quick,” Jake said.

Will did as asked and forward the data to Jake.

Back Alley Thug Remnant - Lvl. 3

“They’re the same kind of zombies that I fought over here last night.” Jake kneeled down next to one of the corpses. That probably wouldn’t have been the best idea usually considering the whole undead monster thing, but the deep tire marks covering their skin and the dried puddles of blackened blood under them made him confident that they’d stay down.

He turned his gaze to the gas station’s lot itself and found that it had changed just as much in the instance as it had changed in the outside world. A giant box was covering the entirety of the lot, but this time it was a glossy black instead of white.

“Looks like a Playstation 3,” Jake said..

“Nice to know they’ve got dark mode for the gamers,” Will added.

There were neon words rushing by over the surface of the box.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

USERS WAIT UNTIL OPENING DAY

SEPTEMBER 6TH

When they stepped a little bit closer to the loading area, the doors leading into the giant black box opened. The doors had made a sound that the movies have trained people to expect from a spaceship door and there was mist spilling out from inside.

Jake was about to ask Will if he wanted to go in when he heard a voice.

“You really shouldn’t be going in there.”

The two friends turned to the end of the alleyway. There was a man who looked to be in his early-30s walking over. He wore a suit and tie with a construction vest over it and a hard hat on his head. He was also carrying a toolbox..

“Gamify doesn’t tend towards kindness with trespassers.,” the man said. “Plus, you might get hit by a flying box in there or something.”

“You work for Gamify?” Will asked.

“Yep. Department 5, Department of Construction and Management.”

The man stopped a few feet in front of them. “Name on the job is 5-Phi, but you can call me Phil.” He held out his hand.

“Will.”

“Jake.”

Both of them shared a handshake with him.

“Can you tell us what's going on in there, Phil?” Will asked.

“We’ve got some programs running to clean up the place and put the goods up for display,” Phil said. “No ones actually in there right now. Only really need staff to set up the instance expansion and place the spell programs to put everything in place. I’m just here to make sure that everything is running smoothly.”

“It must be working fast if it’s going to be setting everything up in two weeks.”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“Meh.” Phil shrugged. “Honestly, we could be opening up shop tomorrow if the executives wanted it. They’re only holding off on it because it's supposed to make you appreciate it more. The real important thing is that the mana overflow zone is going to cover all the surrounding buildings.”

“Why? You guys are going to buy up all the property around it too?”

“Yep. Buy up all the property, build ourselves a monopoly.”

“You sure you should be telling us that?” Jake asked.

Phil waved his hand in dismissal. “Gamify is going to be a part of your life for a long time coming, boys. Better to figure out how the bureaucracy works sooner rather than later.”

“Can you tell us more about it then?” Will asked.

“Yeah. Don’t make friends with anyone from System and Event Management. They’re all crazy.” He started walking over to the loading zone’s doors. “And don’t try to leave the city without getting the greenlight either. I’m sure they chose you two because you didn’t have any plans to travel, but if you’re getting any ideas drop ‘em. They’ll send someone from departures to kill you.”

“Which departments are those?” Jake asked.

“Departures is 6 and System is 3.”

“Can you tell us anything more about spell programming?“ Will asked, keeping up with the man until he reached the loading zone door.

Phil stepped into the mist rolling out from the black box. “You’ll have to order a guide if you want to learn anything about that. Stay safe.” He raised his hand to say goodbye.

“Thanks for the info,” Will said before turning back to Jake. “So what now?”

“Let’s go to my house?” Jake said. It wasn’t like they could do anything else here if they weren’t planning to find out what happens when they trespass.

Will nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”

The two of them walked back around the building to their cars and took the short drive down to Jake’s grandparents’ house. Of the two instances there, Jake decided to get the worst out of the way and show Will the instance in the guest bathroom first.

He was feeling anxious when he opened the front door of the house. He couldn’t help but look back at Will as he walked him through the mess that was his grandmother’s junk hoard. “Sorry,” he said, “It’s pretty bad right?”

“Yeah,” Will admitted. He kept it at that. He didn’t show Jake pity and he didn’t show him disgust. The entire time, he kept a straight face.

Jake appreciated that. It was hard to show people his weakness like this. He let out an audible breath when they finally reached the guest bathroom.

Once they reached the bathroom instance, he took Will through each of the rooms—the sink, the cabinet room under it, and the toilet room—and explained his journey to complete his first quest along the way.

“From the way you’re making it sound, your first quest should have been an Outstanding Quest too,” Will said, having listened to Jake’s retelling of his bathroom exploits.

“Looking back on it, yeah,” Jake said. The slimes probably could have killed him five to ten times over. He had his dimensional powers mostly to thank for that not being the case.

They found a few gel slimes loitering around, but it didn’t look like they were getting ready to invade again, thankfully. The sink that might as well have been called a lake was still as full as Jake and the slimes hadn’t bothered with it while Jake was away.

While they were in the sink room, Will got the same hidden quest that Jake had gotten. Meanwhile, Jake got an update to his version of it.

Heads Up!

The ‘It Takes a Giant’s Strength or It Takes a Giant’s Force’ Hidden Quest has now been upgraded to an Outstanding Quest!

Completing it will be considered an Outstanding Feat!

An Outstanding Feat, huh? Just as 'Outstanding' as draining a dam without blowing it up or opening the drains would be to Jake.

Since they weren’t going to cheat the hidden quest by bringing in a water pump, they still didn’t have a good way to drain the sink. With nothing left to do in the bathroom, they took all the gel cores and the gel sac Jake had left in the bathroom with them out to the treehouse instance.

“Looks like it’d make a good base,” Will said, looking up into the treehouse instance from below.

As long as I don’t have to take you back inside, Jake thought. He appreciated the tact Will had shown while they were inside the house, but that didn’t change the fact that Jake was feeling ashamed for his grandmother’s current situation.

Once they had climbed up, Jake told Will about his goblin massacre and showed Will the hidden compartment he had found within the table with the twist-off top. He showed him the documents related to the hidden treasure. Just like he had unlocked the hidden quest in the bathroom, Will unlocked the quest related to the documents as well.

“A treasure hunt, huh?” Will said. He was leaning over the table with his eyes gliding over the generated map.

“It’s probably the best bet we’ve got for generating an Outstanding Quest we can handle,” Jake said. Neither of them thought going underground to the home turfs of the Tunnel Wolves and the Murder Wasps was a good idea.

“Probably,” Will said, straightening himself out. “I can’t imagine this thing not having a few twists and turns along the way. The problem is deciding which of these is going to generate the Outstanding Quests.”

“Right,” Jake agreed. There were five locations the quest had given them initial leads for—six, if they included the school—and they only had two sets of scanners left.

They’d already checked with their wrist brains and the only option available to them to get more was to buy them from a Gamify Connected Store. It’d be two more weeks before they got access to one, so they had to make the ones they had count.

“Let’s try to think of a few more locations before we make a decision,” Will said. “You should probably ask Eve for advice about that along with the rest of the stuff we talked about.”

“Yep,” Jake said, stretching out. “I’ll do it tonight.”

The two friends agreed that they’d meet up again the next day and said their goodbyes. Will went home and Jake got himself something for dinner. It was pretty late after he finished eating, so Jake got ready to call it a night.

I should probably be more worried about this. The thought crossed his mind. He probably wasn’t because he wasn’t alone in this anymore. It was the kind of feeling he hadn’t experienced since he’d come back to grandparents’ home after college. He had Will backing him up in-person again now and he wasn’t going to push him away. With all these questions he was about to ask Eve, he was starting to feel like maybe he could rely on her too.

Standing in his room with his user set on and his questions written and ready, he called for Eve. She didn’t answer.