“Error, why is there an error?” I gently tap at the side of the tablet showing a flashing error sign. “Great, it’s broken again moments after getting it fixed.” I let out a sigh while sitting against a tree. “At least the weather is nice.” I close my eyes to enjoy the slight gust of the sea breeze while listening to the different calls of the wild Pals.

“What’s that Pal called again?” I held up Paldex to look at the information it gave. “Chikipi, the weakest and most delicious of all the pals.” I blankly stared across the water to the little island’s shore where the Chikipis hoped about. “They call that weak… I’m going to be in trouble then.” I try to tap the Paldex, but only the error screen pops up.

“No use in stressing over it.” I sighed while tossing the unresponsive tablet to the side, only for it to vanish into thin air. “Let’s do this the old fashion way!” I pull out two pieces of wood, they look completely identical. With a shrug, I ignore that fact and equip my ax. “Just need some shavings.” I say as I try to thinly slice off some wood shavings.

“What the hell is happening here?” The ax can not affect the log, due to some weirdly thin glow around the two objects. “Let's see if this will work.” I set the log down on the ground and stood up to chop it in half. I lift the ax above my head in a practiced motion, before bringing it down right in the center of the log, only for it to make a clanging noise while bouncing off to the side.

“There’s no dead leaves, or logs laying around. But there are magical branches that turn into the same piece of uncuttable wood laying on the ground.” I say while storing the ax and staring at the piece of wood laying undamaged by my attempts to split it into pieces. “Did I forget they are fireproof, and the only thing this damned eternal torch can light on fire is me.” I say sarcastically while walking along the beach, as I juggle the torch for entertainment.

“So what am I supposed to even do here?” I drop the torch, I sigh as I store it by touching it with my foot. “What type of guns were those? They looked like similar ones I’m used to, but a bit larger.” I rubbed the back of my head in thought, until a thud woke me up. “That’s why they are larger.” I watch the large mammoth pal eye me from the beach before moving on.

“Mammorest, extra large grass Pal. The vegetation on their backs varies from each individual, from common bushes and herbs to exotic fruit trees.” I look up from reading the Paldex to spot the berry covered bushy leaves on the beast’s back. “The number of stone pillars on their backs usually indicate their strength, and blah blah loner… hmm something alpha herd… Ah, all vegetation grown on a live Mammorest is edible!” I did a victory fist pump.

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“Wait…” I turn to watch the Mammorest lumber towards some berry bushes that happened to have some Chikipis hopping around them. “How do I even approach that?” I question my stupid thought of picking fruit from the beast as it easily and calmly crushed the other Pals under its massive feet. “I was expecting more of a burst of feathers.” I am a bit disappointed as the smaller Pals simply vanished in a brief flash of light.

“Where do they go?” I look up at the probably fake sky. “Hmm…” I glance back down at the Mammorest eating a few berries with an empty look. “Why do they seem so lifeless?” I continue to observe the Pal as it loitered about for a few moments before heading off. “Why didn’t it attack me? It clearly saw me…” I turned around still deep in thought, a huff from a Direhowl’s nose at my eye level made me jump. “Oh shit!” I screamed.

“Who are you talking to?” Sara asked as she dismounted Jenny’s mount.

“Warn a guy, jeez!” I held my chest while catching my breath.

“We tried to call out, but we still don’t know your name.” Jenny said while jumping off her mount. Her large Direhowl seemed to have a smirk on its face.

“Well I still don’t know either, this Paldex you fixed for me is still broken.” I held up the tablet with the error sign across its screen. “How the hell do y’all cook? I can’t even make a fire!” I dropped a log and torch on the ground, while my stomach growled. I held out my hand as a bunch of fresh berries dropped out of the light.

“Have you only been eating those?” Sara looked horrified as I started snacking on them with a nod. “Jenny!” She turned and gave Jenny a glare.

“Alright!” Jenny shouted while looking defeated. She held up another Paldex that looked newer than the one in my hand. “This is yours.” She tossed it to me.

“What! Why?” I dropped the berries to catch the new Paldex. I looked at the one with an error on it before tossing it back to her. “How can you tell?” I give it a look over, and can’t see anything different from the other one.

“You already linked it, so we can’t access it.” Jenny sighs as she takes some crystals from her bag and they begin to hover around the errored device she has. “I was just hoping to get a better one for Sara, I’m sorry.” The spinning crystals broke into shards of light before entering the tablet.

“Here, use this as our apology.” Sara walks over to me as Jenny does her magical thing.

“What’s this?” I ask as she hands me a floating ball of light.

“Just check it out.” She giggles as I cautiously treat the light as if it was a fragile object. “It’s an item, so store it first.” She shakes her head before walking back over to Jenny.

“Pants!” I shouted with glee. “With a vest? How do- oh magic!”