Even after several months since being reborn, looking out at the futuristic city visible from his apartment window caused Sam to feel strange things. It was one part homesickness and one part stomach-churning anxiety with a dash of blood-pumping excitement.
As Sam stood in his window, with his hands behind his back, pretending to be an evil mastermind overlooking his domain, he went over the latest happening in the game, while contemplating his next steps.
They were finished with the fracture, arriving there just in time to prevent the Storm Eagles from going crazy, no doubt the system of the game directing them, and now were ready to leave. He was pretty happy that his friends managed to gain familiars of their own, though there was a small amount of jealousy because they would be flying familiars. Granted, he had wind mana, but still…
The dark crystal that was absorbing demonic mana was a bigger problem. He had a few ideas, based on half-remembered events from his inherited memories, but his best guess was that whoever betrayed the priestess wanted to harness her and her followers’ energy for some malevolent reason.
No doubt, by now they figured out what happened and were furiously hunting for Sam and his team. If they were lucky, their new enemy wouldn’t find their tracks, but in the end, it was up to the system to decide.
With the multiple runs, his demon kills almost completed his newest quest. A quick jaunt into a smaller fracture that contained demons would grant him a quest completion and in turn, bring him closer to the mysterious organization.
Sam grinned as he watched a few flying vehicles zoom past his building.
The situation with the other gamers was also developing.
Player numbers were still going up, as well as the number of player-created businesses. Gold was flowing into the pockets of the players just as fast as they spent it on weapons and equipment. The game’s system wasn’t conducive to the usual gear treadmill, but there were always better weapons and armor found, and by now there were at least a few crafters that managed something better than the players could get from the merchants.
Most of those players were, of course, controlled by guilds, but most guilds also needed money, so they chose to use those crafters to bring in the gold.
There were naturally guilds that were supported by businesses from the real world or rich people. Most of those rich people were rich second-generation youngsters, ready to leave their mark on the world with the newest and best game.
Most of them blazed like a candle doused by gasoline and by the next day, they were yesterday’s news.
There were a few here and there that were chugging along, but those people rarely had the personality and skills to lead anything bigger than a bar crawl. The bigger guilds quickly gobbled up those who were good, along with any talent they attracted.
The political landscape was also taking shape.
The Emerald Kingdom was a medium-sized country, with a capital city, robust army, hidden secrets, and at least two dozen big cities and a few hundred towns and uncountable villages. The biggest guilds looked ready to solidify their area of control, most of them ‘ruling’ over at least a city, maybe more.
The only areas of contention were Deepanchor and Ironwood thanks to Sam and Lucy’s presence as well as Brightgarden because most of the pet guilds were straight-up bonkers.
The guilds had already divided the rest of the country up, at least according to the forums. The Steel Lions had already moved up north into Anvildown, a well-named city, famous for its blacksmiths and iron mines.
They probably moved, because politically their presence in Deepanchor was unstable, and with Katie’s father preparing for the rush at the poison dungeon, Anvildown would be much closer to the location.
Deepanchor was also flowering, with the money their business was bringing in, all the local merchants were ready to sell their firstborns for the chance to do business with them. According to Lucy, it was a veritable smorgasbord of opportunities.
Sam expected the first guild wars would kick off soon.
Of course, there were skirmishes, battles, and such between various guilds, but a war between them supported by their crafters and the local populace, maybe even rulers was a much more different type of event.
Thankfully, he remembered that the first big battle happened in one of the desert nations over water sources as the guild didn’t have enough for the players. It was televised from the start, with both guilds making a big deal out of it and using it as an opportunity for a PR move.
Sam was more interested in the gambling aspect. The moment the news came out, instantly it was followed by at least a dozen analyses by armchair generals and the gambling sites using those to set up some outrageous odds.
Turning away from the wind, as the setting sun illuminated the futuristic city, casting a very dramatic shadow over his living room, he began walking toward his door. He had a meeting with Lucy in a restaurant and he didn’t want to be late.
He nodded to the lightly dressed neighbor, a pretty redhead, who silently returned the nod as she hauled her groceries toward her apartment and began whistling (rather badly) as he ambled toward the elevator.
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They returned to the game refreshed and excited.
Both Clarissa and Dan were holding the eggs left behind like they were bombs, afraid that if they did something more than holding it, they would break it and be left without anything.
Katie was holding Puffball, the chaotic cat that Sam was pretty sure was never a cat, who was enjoying her ministrations while the girl was excitedly grinning.
Sam stepped forward and spoke up.
“Who wants to go first?”
Clarissa and Dan looked at each other, and after a few seconds, Dan bowed his head a little while still carefully holding the egg.
“Ladies first,” he said with a small smile, somehow flexing his pectoral muscles. Sam was kinda jealous of that talent.
Clarissa huffed a little, but Sam could see the smile appearing in the corner of her mouth and then she stepped forward, turning to Sam.
“Do I have to do anything special?” she asked, her eyes on the egg.
Sam shrugged.
“Just channel some mana into it and it will hatch,” he explained.
“Does it matter what type?” she asked.
“Sometimes, but it is not guaranteed,” he replied. “Those look like neutral eggs, so who knows…”
Clarissa nodded and a second later Sam could feel her mana move through her body, into her hands, and then into the egg. Unsurprisingly, she was channeling healing mana into the egg.
For a few minutes, they all watched in silence as she channeled, before a small shining crack appeared on the top of the egg.
CRACK
There was a breath of silence and cracks began to spread from the top, shining with the gentle light of healing. Soon, Clarissa was left holding an egg-shaped light, before it flashed strong enough that all of them had to look away and blink the spots out of their eyes. By the time Sam looked back, Clarissa was staring in wonder at her palm where a small white bird was sitting and letting out surprisingly melodic and calming chirps.
Sam stepped close and took a look at the white bird. As soon as he was next to the healer, the little bird noticed him and stopped chirping, instead, it tried to vanish into Clarissa’s palm, hiding from his gaze.
“What is it?” he asked gently, trying not to frighten the bird anymore.
“She,” came the answer from the young woman as she read the screens in front of her. “…is a Spirit Arcane Swan.”
“Spirit Arcane Swan?”
“Yes. I got the Mana Channeling skill, and the Spirit Link skill,” she explained, not even taking her eyes off the little bird that had begun once again chirping now that she realized that Sam wasn’t trying to eat her. “I think I’ll call her Melody. She seems to like singing.”
“Swans honk, you know…”
“Well, my Melody doesn’t.”
Knowing that it would be useless to argue with the healer, Sam left her to get to know her new pet and turned to Dan.
“Ready?”
After seeing Clarissa’s new pet he was even more excited. “Yeah!”
Without waiting anymore, Dan closed his eyes and began concentrating and Sam could instantly feel as sizzling hot fire mana began to move toward the egg.
Behind him, Katie moved over to the healer who was joyously petting the newly born swan. As she moved, she had to simultaneously hold back Puffball who seemed to be wanting to get a taste of the small bird.
Not much later, there was another sound.
CRACK
SIZZLE
The air wavered around the egg, it was so hot, and when the cracks began to spread over it, every one of them let off steam and smoke and even more heat. A brief sizzle and crackle, and Dan was also holding a small bird.
This one was blue with some orange highlights, and instead of chirping, it sounded like a pot letting out steam.
A whistle and sneeze and Dan was holding a handful of flames while the bird let out screams of happiness.
“Well, that’s a little fiery…” Sam spoke with a smirk. Dan just let out a long-suffering sigh as he began to pet the newly born bird. “What did you get?”
There was a pause as Dan read over the screens, then he spoke up. “Spirit Searing Hawk. I got the Spirit Link, and it has a Fire Aura as a starting skill.”
‘Two spirit familiars? The system is trying to tell me something…’ Sam mused as his teammates began to compare the two birds with Katie watching and Puffball eyeing the small birds.
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Sometime later, done with the celebration of the birth of Clarissa and Dan’s familiars who were respectively sitting in Clarissa’s hood and a small pouch fastened to Dan’s belt. Both of the birds were eagerly looking around while their owners were in the discussion.
“So, how do we get out of here, oh fearless leader?” Clarissa asked with her hands on her hips. “I seem to remember you mentioning that you have plans…”
“Indeed, I do,” he replied, a little nervous before noticing something. “However…WHAT’S THAT?” he suddenly yelled, pointing up at the sky.
His team didn’t even twitch. They just sent him disappointing looks. However, before any of them could voice their opinion about his mental well-being, they were suddenly covered by gigantic shadows.
Looking up, all of them could see four giant, though smaller than the guardian, Storm Eagles descending toward them.
Before they could even start to run away, the first one landed, surprisingly gently, in front of them with a flare of their wings.
“Get on, losers. The boss told me to take you guys out of the valley!” came the deep and grouchy voice from the lead bird.
Sam and the others looked at each other and as one, shrugged.
It beat hiking out.
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Traveling on a giant bird was rather nice. Thanks to their innate understanding of wind magic, the team wasn’t freezing to death despite the heights they were traveling at and they could appreciate the view.
Not even half an hour later, the birds carrying them began to list to the side and then began to descend despite being nowhere near any city.
The grouchy voice of the lead bird came with the explanation. “You can find your way from here, losers.”
They were unceremoniously deposited on a flat area near one of the peaks, with an obvious trail leading downward showing that it was, if not frequented, occasionally visited by humans. The moment Katie disembarked from her bird, naturally after giving it a few appreciative scratches, the birds returned to the sky without a word, though ever so faintly, they could hear a last sentence being carried by the wind toward them.
“So long, losers!”
They wisely decided to ignore it.
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The trip down from the mountain was uneventful. They were attacked by a few monsters, but they were turned into mincemeat in short order.
As they were heading downward, they discussed the next step of Sam’s plan. Mostly they needed to go over their gains, deposit the materials they gathered, and then head for a small fracture that was currently controlled by the Abyss Vipers to hunt more demons.
“Do we have to go there? The Vipers are all assholes…” Clarissa argued.
“Think of the fights!” came Katie’s contribution.
“I don’t think we can fight an entire guild…”
Sam just shrugged. “We’ll play nice. Pay the entry fee. I don’t really care for the drops. I just need to kill a few more demons…”
“What if they start something?”
“As long as Katie can control herself, we’re good…”
“Hey!”
Sam sent a look at the berserker, then raised an eyebrow.
Katie held out for a few seconds, then began to grumble.
“You don’t have to be mean about it…"