Jade only noticed the one month mark of him being in the other world when the deadline for the armor and weapons came up, having been too busy to count the passage of time in his head. He purposefully kept himself busy, whether that be with gazing out at the different scenery of the various towns, dungeon diving time and time again, flying high into the clouds some nights to loot the sky chests, or hanging around with Yondol and Amy in the various town markets buying food. He wore down every once in a while, yes, feeling that stab of homesickness that kept him in his room for a few hours, but for the most part he found himself… happy. Especially as the siblings got more and more geared up, them looking more and more confident that they could handle the evil biomes that haunted their childhoods.

Janice, of course, met them on the final day of the deadline, as he and the siblings brought the armor and weapons out to show to the guild members who gathered. They’d been told that the guild members who would be wearing and using the items would be there, which left Jade feeling very nervous, even with the advanced notice. They, of course, didn’t supply the armor invisibility token with the armor sets, but only the top guild members could afford them anyway, apparently. The group of adventurers looked really odd with the shiny metal and wooden armors, commenting on how odd the armor looked even when they complimented the sturdiness.

“These feel solid for being copper,” a dwarf commented, tugging on his beard in thought after hitting his normal steel hammer against the armor. “Haven’t seen much of that in crafting magic. You ever think of sharing your magic progression with apprentices boy?” Jade, feeling very jittery from all of the attention, ignored that and quickly moved on to the magic weapons he’d crafted as well, showing them off to the five mages who had shown up. He only crafted the copper wands, as rubies were easier to source, but the bolts they spat out still worked wonders. Without mana bars like Jade’s magic had given him, the other mages drew from their personal mana stores that they apparently had, which took longer to regenerate. The cheapness of the wands, though, allowed for weak blasts they could use when in emergencies, like when facing down a monster when low on magic.

After a long while, though it couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes, the guild members finally left, leaving the guild master and Jade’s party to talk.

“You sure you can’t stick around kiddo?” Janice asked, Amy giving him an eye roll.

“No, we have to move on unfortunately. We’ve stayed too long anyway.” After some reluctant goodbyes from the guild master, the three headed out of the guild building, Jade and Yondol giving a relieved sigh that their deception worked.

“Nice job boys,” Amy giggled out, giving them both smacks on the shoulders, nearly dislodging the grinning eye from Jade’s. The little pet had not helped in any of the dungeon runs, but it became more of a mascot for the three, having found Jade could dye it his signature blue with his inventory. It made the tentacles a lot less scary and the three found it made cute squeaking sounds when happy and fed, which Amy did a little bit too often.

“Thank goodness that’s over,” Jade mumbled, giving smiles to both siblings. “So… we should head back to Candor right?” He said the last part more quietly, both siblings’ expressions falling at that. “I know you both avoided it in our dungeon runs… but we need the supplies from them if we want the mobility options…”

“We haven't been home in over a month…” Amy agreed, giving Yondol a nervous look. “Our contacts are going to be pissed.”

“Like you need them anymore,” Yondol commented, earning a glare from his sister. “You don’t. Don’t tell me you haven’t been offloading some of the materials secretly, because we both noticed.”

“...Fine. I’ve been saving up in case… we get separated…” she mumbled, giving the surprised Jade a quick glance. “Early on I wasn’t sure if you were going to keep traveling with us, but now… I guess we don’t need more money if you're going to be around.” Giving Jade a pat on the back, the three headed off to loose their spies and head to the Plinth, Jade thinking over Amy’s words. I guess it took a while for her to trust…

Once at the Plinth, they once again held hands and teleported to Candor, Jade immediately smiling at the crisp cool air, even as his grinning eye shuffled deeper into his scarf. “So where to first?” he asked Yondol and Amy, getting confused looks from them. “We’ll handle you both being back first. The dungeons aren’t going anywhere.” Firming up her resolve, Amy nodded, Yondol giving a small smile in response.

“Besides, we should probably tell the local guild branch that we’re here,” Yondol commented, shivering at the cold. “Make sure there aren’t too many letters we missed. I’ll handle that with Jade and you head off to the gang territory?” Amy gave him a glare when he said gang, but quickly nodded and scampered off, Yondol turning to Jade as they started walking.

“So… we just need three pairs of the ice skates and… what was it again? Snow in a bottle?” After consulting his notes, Yondol shook his head. “Blizzard Flask. Right.”

“And after that… we test our new items against the flesh monsters…” Yondol gave out a large sigh as soon as Jade said that, both siblings still not comfortable with the plan, but willing to do the trial run at least. “I just wish we could hire out a healer and ranger to help us out…”

“I mean, if you want to go dungeon diving for another month, to get them the items they would need…” Yondol trailed off as Jade sook his head, giving him a brittle smile. “We’re here,” he announced, waving his hands at the familiar-looking guild building, more adventurers milling about the entrance than the last time they were there. “That’s weird.” Walking up to the adventurers allowed the two men to walk past, though more than one adventurer gave them dirty looks.

“Is it an event?” Jade asked once they got through the crowd, pulling up the collar of his jacket to hide his pet better.

“Haven’t had anything the past few years around this time.” Yondol shrugged. “Could be something new, we have been gone for a while.” They stopped the conversation once they got up to the receptionist’s desk, Yondol asking for him and his sister’s mail, which the receptionist quickly handed over. It was a rather large pile of letters, though Jade quickly noticed a lot of them were random advertisements for local shops in town. “Get those a lot?” he chuckled out, earning a frown from the elf.

“Unfortunately.” Yondol quickly sorted the various mail at a nearby table, having to throw out a majority of the letters before he inspected the leftover. “These look like letters from friends wondering where we were,” Yondol muttered, Jade paying him no mind as he watched the crowd at the guild’s entrance. “What’s this…?” he exclaimed, pulling out a letter that immediately caught Jade’s eye. It was made from the standard paper stock, but with a gold pattern all along the outside of the envelope. It was also kept closed with an impressive looking seal, Jade not recognizing the crest pressed into it.

“What is it?” Jade asked, not liking the slightly pale look on the elf’s face.

“A royal missive. Dated… two weeks ago. Shit.” Yondol quickly tore into the letter, cracking the seal and pulling out the gold embossed paper. “Sightings of a monster around Candor... All active and inactive adventurers obligated to join in on search parties… That’s what all the looks were for.” Yondol sighed at that, Jade moving to read over his shoulder. “Looks to be a deer monster, about twelve feet tall…” Jade stopped listening to Yondol’s explanation at that point, his blue skin going pale as he recognized the monster. The Weredeer. It was the early-game boss for the snow biome, and was generally not hard for new players to tackle. But with these guys, it would be a pretty big undertaking. Looking once again to the crowd near the door, Jade noticed a lot of the adventurers with scars and damaged armor, making Jade frown in concern.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Jade!” Yondol stated with a raised voice, causing Jade to jerk back and finally pay attention. “We need to go out with the next search party. Royal missives cannot be rejected by any adventurer.” Jade nodded reluctantly at Yondol’s tone, knowing that they would need to hold off on getting the necessary items from the local dungeons. “You recognize the monster?”

“Yeah,” Jade sighed, trying to keep his voice down. “Pretty tough monster for the early part of the game, but by where we are at with our items, it shouldn’t be too hard. It’s supposed to be at the same tier as the Eye of Madness.” Yondol nodded biting his lip as he looked to the crowd of adventurers as well.

“Amy needs to get back soon. Hopefully she’ll hear about it from her contacts…” They waited a good half an hour before anything else happened, both men grabbing drinks and talking strategy to pass the time. Unfortunately, it was not their third party member that interrupted, but a hand smacking down on their table from a rather angry looking human adventurer.

“Why are you two just sitting here?!” he yelled, catching Jade off guard while Yondol just rolled his eyes at the man. “I’d expect this from a newbie, Yondol, but we need you to help strategize. And where the fuck have you been the past month?!”

Yondol looked calmly at the adventurer, the elf not looking scared at the aggression in the slightest. Ever since they’d gotten the centurion armor for him, he’d barely had a scratch unless it was from an elite monster in the dungeon, the defense on that set was so high. They’d also had the invisible armor trinkets transferred from his golden armor, so it just looked like the elf wore his normal clothing, and not looking prepared for a fight like the other adventurers. “I don’t see how that’s your business, Tan,” Yondol replied after a few seconds of staring, Tan’s yellow skin paling slightly at the non-reaction. “Besides, me and my teammate are strategizing. We’ll include the rest of you when we have a plan.”

“What the fu-”

“Tan!” Amy’s voice called out, the irritation in her tone making the adventurer flinch. “Why are you bothering my brother?” Amy soon joined them at that table, giving Tan a withering look that quickly made him scamper off.

“A… history with that guy?” Jade asked, giving Amy a confused smile.

“You could say that. He tried to spike Yondol’s drink before.”

Jade’s head whipped around to face the elf, his lips curling in disgust at Yondol’s grim look. “Seriously? How is he still allowed in the guild after that?” A pause. “How does he still have a head after that?”

“Oh trust me, we wanted to,” Yondol growled, visibly calming himself as he gave Amy a smile. “She almost did, but I talked her out of it. This was before our second magic upgrade, and he was noticeably stronger than us. Now we just don’t care enough.”

Amy rolled her eyes as she turned to Jade, clearly still irritated. “So what’s this I heard about a strong monster prowling the forest?” Jade and Yondol quickly filled her in, Amy giving a soft sigh at the royal missive portion of the explanation. “So we need to go out with other adventurers to make sure we can prove we killed it? Great. Another town that won’t leave us alone.”

“The only thing we need here are the dungeon loot, so we can probably stay out of town while we do them,” Jade offered, earning two nods. “Do we ask when they’re going out or…?”

“I’ll do it. They’ll be less likely to mess with me.” Amy got up from her chair and quickly headed over to the adventurer group, Jade gladly not doing the social part of the evening. Their food finally arrived as well, Jade encouraging his pet to climb out of his scarf for food. What he didn’t notice were all of the weird looks he got from the action, especially when the grinning eye tentacle talked over to its plate, split open into a massive mouth, and engulfed the entirety of the meal. After coaxing the pet to give the plate back, Jade got started on his own meal, both him and Yondol having gotten used to the pet’s shenanigans.

Amy soon came back, looking somewhat satisfied as she sat down. “They’re heading out in an hour to see where the creature is, at least. It’s been popping up all around the dungeon areas, so it’s not been safe to dungeon dive recently.” Both men nodded at this, Yondol pushing the food they’d gotten for Amy to her so she could quickly eat.

After an hour of discussing the plan the party had for dealing with the Weredeer, they soon headed out with the adventurer group towards the location of the local dungeons, the three still getting weird looks. Jade started noticing the odd stares his pet was getting, the grinning eye whining and hiding in his scarf at all of the negative attention. Once they reached the boundary of the city, the leader of the group turned to Jade’s party, giving them curious frowns. Yondol and Amy had pointed him out to Jade earlier, letting him know the adventurer, Nardol, was a decent sort, if not a bit too loud. Jade honestly found himself eyeing the man, him being especially built as a melee fighter, with dark burgundy skin. You could only really see the muscles on his arms, however, the metal chestplate and leggings he wore hiding the rest of his features.

“So do you all have a plan?” Nardol asked, specifically looking at Yondol.

“If we find it, we’ll kite it around while Amy and Jade shoot it from afar.” Nardol looked confused at the word ‘kite’, Yondol sighing as Jade tried to hide his giggle. “It’s a word Jade uses,” he stated, nodding towards the mage. “It’s where you lead the monster around and dodge its attacks without attacking much. It’s worked pretty well for our team before.”

“That’s… actually not bad,” Nardol mumbled, some of the other adventurers giving him dirty looks, especially Tan’s group. “We’ve been able to outrun it when it turned out to be too much for us before, so the plan shouldn’t be too hard. You want our rogues to join you on distracting it?” Nardol started walking again at that, the rest of the group following him.

“It sounds like fun!” a particularly cheerful elf shouted out, her brown skin and hair looking almost normal to Jade’s eyes. She’d popped up randomly at Nardol’s side, clearly scaring him a bit as he glared at her.

“As long as there aren’t too many people, so we can maneuver, it should be good,” Yondol commented, grinning at the petite elf woman. “The trick is to hit it with shallow cuts, so as to annoy it using less effort.” Yondol continued explaining kiting to the rogues that had joined him.

Amy, Jade, and Nardol quickly moved off to the side, having not had to explain to the other ranged attackers what their job would be. “So what about the melee adventurers?” he asked Jade, clearly understanding the tactic had been his to start out with.

“Well… maybe stand in front of the ranged attackers?” he asked, looking over the various rangers and rogues in the group. “Me and Amy will be moving around all over the place, so we won’t need protecting, but the ranged attacks won’t go unnoticed. How much dodging experience do they have?”

“Not much,” Nardol frowned, nodding at Jade’s suggestion. “It won’t be as exciting as getting right into it, but it’ll definitely be safer for everyone.” Nardol soon got into explaining how their normal tactics worked, which Jade fairly recognized from the various fantasy stories he’d read. Standard melee attackers up close, rogues getting in cheap shots to help them, and the ranged attackers either hiding and pot-shoting, or standing in a group to chain their magic together. “It’s mostly worked so far, but I’ve seen it go wrong when the monsters get up close to the mages. It makes them slower and they have to waste time putting up shields to defend and don’t have time to attack.”

“Well, let’s see how well your group does with trying our tactics.” Jade gave Nardol a smile at that, turning away to look around for threats and not seeing the blush that ran across the man’s face.

#

Item Stats:

#

Centurion Helmet

Defense: 6

Body Slot: Helmet

#

Centurion Chestplate

Defense: 7

Body Slot: Chest

#

Centurion Leggings

Defense: 6

Body Slot: Pants

#

Set Bonus: Reduced loss of momentum when hitting a target.