Wade

The Dungeon Map hanging in my peripheral vision was useful, but also left me filled with growing dread. Even with the amount of work I had done, the sight of it made me aware of how far I still had to go. I was an adult, and I shouldn’t be making ill-informed decisions and risking the lives of those around me. The tokens of Moriah, Calvin, and Alek loomed on the right-hand side of the horizon, with six tokens circling their tokens in a pattern that made me think of planes making strafing runs.

Even storming forward to aid my friends, there was no ignoring the fact that I was still physically a child. Even pushing myself and with the aid of superhuman stats, this was still a bog, and my friends had not landed near me. Were dungeons bigger on the inside or something?

I really needed to get access to a library to read some textbooks on the system or talk to someone who would help me master the system and its secrets. Even with Bedevere the Beelebian’s chirping buzz chorus rooting me on as I rushed through the alternating terrain mud, knee deep water, and dry ground, I worried for my friends.

“Hang in there, everyone.” I muttered as I rushed forward.

***

Moriah, Calvin, and Alek

Humanity had been on Hekatondrona for centuries, if not longer. The humans on Hekatondrona were not even sure how long humanity had been on the planet, or if their ancestors had themselves been outworlders. Despite showing all the societal adaptations of civilization that other human cultures had, the cultures of Hekatondrona were not willing to allow themselves to get soft or restful; and for any children who dared to adventure in pursuit of the ever important experience point, this was even more true.

The human masses of Hekatondrona still had the fighting spirit and ferocity that humanity had mostly lost on modern Earth. Because they had to fight, even their magical monster companions did not protect them from the masses of monsters that existed in the world or the nuisances that they would cause.

So, despite being outnumbered by an ever-increasing number of flying monster opponents, they stood their ground. Every time one of the dive bombing monsters launched its strafing blasts, it countered with impromptu artillery from craytipult, Moriah, and Moriah’s cindnutums. Dancing around one another, the trio of humans and their monster partners worked together, with Calvin’s summoned wooden shield providing them some shielding and with the carpenter youth’s woodpecker monster partner providing air support for the group.

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Even as Wade rushed forward, the trio of fire blasts knocked several of the furry flier monsters to the ground. A big bubble blast from Alek’s craytipult caught several of the acorn bullets midair and caused the tree seed munitions to explode alongside the bubble, bringing even more of the forest air force crashing into the foliage.

Even as they went, they knew when they had actually defeated any of the monsters.

[[You have defeated three Aquernebus. You have gained nine experience points.]]

[[You have defeated two Aquernebus. You have gained six experience points.]]

“Yeah! Those are my lads!” cheered Moriah.

Calvin didn’t turn his head from focusing above them, but piped in. “We are not.”

“I meant it to my Cindnutum!”

“Sure you did.”

“Quit bickering, you two. We’re doing a good job but need to focus.” Alek said. He was using the tone of an older brother to stop a squabble between younger siblings.

“When did we elect you as party captain?” Moriah mentioned.

As another volley came from the Aquernebi fleet flying around them, Alek made his answer with action. As Moriah’s arguing would have caused her to be hit by one of the explosive tree nut bullets launched, he swung his staff and knocked it skyward.

“Moriah, you’re better than that. Control the fire of your temper.”

***

Wade

Even as I went, I felt nostalgia mixed with fear. A big part of the reason I had been into monster collection games as a youth and had introduced them to my kids was the escapism. Things as a kid were not good for me and while I spent time out in the neighborhood or the random stretches of wilderness that intersperse the city I was from, it was good to carry a brief escape from reality right in my pocket.

So as I followed the mini-map in my mind’s eye, I felt nostalgia mixed in with my worries for my friends. I had pretended to explore the woods and creeks of my hometown and to see monsters from the games and shows in them, or looked for real animals to examine. As I watched out for more leifiathans and other dangers on my way towards my friends, I couldn’t help but feel the familiarity of it all and feel a building thrill in my chest.

So I had no defense when another monster leaped out of the murky waters which flanked me on one side. At first, I mistook it for half in the water, but soon I found my path barred by the menacing jaws of a snapping turtle like monster with an alligator’s tail and slightly longer features than that of a normal snapping turtle. A literal alligator snapping turtle monster?

I skidded to a stop and took it in. Hitting it with an analysis, I soon found myself with a surprise.

It brought up a series of question marks, complete with a ‘your analysis skill is not high enough to analyze this monster’.

Did that mean the monster was very rare? So high above my level I had no chance of figuring it out? Or something else. Either way, if I couldn’t analyze it, I probably couldn’t stand to fight it either. So I skid to a stop, reaching to the muck below me and throwing a clod of mud at.

“Bedevere, breezecall that mud! We’re trying to get it in the face of that beast!”

The bee monster who was my partner hopped from my shoulder and summoned up the wind energy of the technique with a flutter of its wings and soon guided the mud into the swamp predator’s face. With a buzzing series of sounds, the Beelebian I had hatched from an egg landed back on my shoulder as we ran - but I could tell from the map interface in my peripheral vision that it was moving behind us and quickly.

So we would have to get quicker.