Kyle sighed in relief as the town’s gate came into view “Why does it feel like such a long damn day…”, Sly chuckled as he followed closely with his companion Direwolf “Time compression bro, it’s weird like that. I can’t wait to take a look at that code!” he declared with a nerdy grin. Nakano grimaced “That stuff bores me to no end” she petted the Direwolve’s ears while leaning forward on it’s back, “When you gonna get off him anyway?” Sly asked as he glared up at her. “I get a ride on your wolf for you suddenly grabbing me and dashing away, that was the deal. I never specified time or goal so I’m staying up here for as long as I wish” she announced mockingly, she wore a victorious smile. Sly sighed “Anyway, you think that thing’s really still alive? Looks beat up as hell” he pointed at the Snow Blur under Kyle’s arm, most of it’s fur was burned away while it’s skin looked like it was passed through a fryer. Kyle glanced at Lilior as the fairy fluttered around the hare checking on it, “It is alive…barely…my healing can help with anything but burns, scars, poison and rot” Lilior spoke gloomily.

“Still though” he raised his free hand in front of himself “Can’t say it wasn’t worth it” a cold blue slime oozed out of his hand, “Freaky, what resource does it take? Can you give it form or control it? Actually can you just read out the skills? I’m curious about something” Sly asked as he stared at the blue slime. Kyle nodded “Yeah sure, give me a second” he opened the skill books and read each skill he gained out-loud

{Passive}[Devour] ((EXP 67%) Level 3 – Tier 1): Absorb the properties of whatever you may feast upon gaining status effects and or skills.

Gained skills: [Ooze(Frost)], [Monster Core(Slime)]

{Active}[Ooze(Frost)] ((EXP 41%) Level 1 – Tier 1): Ooze out slime through your skin that can be controlled by your will and mana

Activation Cost: 0.03 mana per millilitre

Upkeep Cost: (2 mana per 0.5 Litres) per second

{Passive}[Monster Core(Slime)] (Set skill stats): A monster slime’s core successfully merged with your biology, your body now has an actual organ to aid in mana regeneration and mana storage.

Maximum mana + 10%

Mana regeneration + 200%

Sly hummed in thought “Frost Ooze? So there is different types? Just like the monster slimes!” he exclaimed, Kyle nodded “That’s what I figured as well, each type must have a different ability…I just need to figure out what Frost does right now…My guess is that it solidifies because that’s what happens when you cool liquids usually, but I have no clue how and have been unable to make it happen” he said as the slime on his hand dissipated. “Maybe it’s class locked?” Nakano suggested, the two of them stared up at her “So we just can’t create those skills unless we have the class huh? The first NPC in character creation said something about that, I guess I don’t have a choice but find out. No way I’m not picking a Unique class no matter how unorthodox it is” Kyle chuckled at the thought (“Slime man? No maybe just slime? Wait the unique classes where categorized… Lords for the artefact I interacted with right? Different races…Lords of a race…Slime Lord? Or Lord of Slime?”) “Wait didn’t I unlock a Beastiary?”.

The group stopped right before entering through the town gate “Yeah it unlocks at level 10 I think? You get a cheesy description for any monster you kill, capture or devour is what the devs said, I get where they got devour from now” Sly groaned as he remembered, “What does it say about slimes?” Nakano asked curiously. Kyle thought of the window and a strange ornate brown window opened in front of him, the window had the shape of a book gilded with gold sketches of monsters he had slain so far. He thought of the book opening but nothing happened “It’s a manual window, a book” he said as he opened the book with his free hand “A list of what I killed so far at the front…each monster has it’s own set pages, I killed an Ancient Frost Slime but there is three pages for it. One is for Slimes, one is for Frost Slimes specifically and the other is for Ancients generally” he said slightly in surprise. He turned the page to the one Slimes were numbered for “Here we go, Slimes an unknown creature of mysterious biology, liquid like body that can take physically any shape with a solid crystal monster core inside. Slimes are known for having no organs or bones to speak of, no mouth to speak with or any other body part to utilize the normal senses of touch, sight, sound, smell and taste” he read out loud.

“Even though slimes possess none of these they are known to react to touch, sound, motion, scent and taste, how they do this remains completely unknown. The origins of Slimes, they originate from before Humanity took it’s first steps, before Goblins breathed, before Elves thought and before Demons and Devils existed. The origins of slimes is mostly unknown yet some incredible truths are known about them, Slimes are factually the oldest race of monsters on Chaoz along with Gods while they show no progress towards sentient evolution they spent their power into evolving for survival. Hundreds upon hundreds of different types of slime is known to exist, their ability to adapt is comparable to none. Although the true origins of slimes are unknown the legend of the Fae Hero states as such in a certain chapter; ‘As the hero climbed the steps onto the sky she basked her eyes upon the living throne, the Fae King sat upon.’ The hero is said to have asked many questions to the God known as the Fae King Oberon and one such question was about slimes to which the Fae King responded with ‘Have you ever heard the saying when you stare into the void something stares back child? I once stared into said void and something…Nay…someone stared right back, I still feel the eerie chill of that stare to this century…the primal hunger it held…the need to consume and devour…Damn invasive species’” the passage ended there and Kyle closed the window as he entered into deep thought.

Nakano broke out into laughter “He really does!” she exclaimed as Kyle snapped out of it and glanced her way “What?” he asked with a confused expression and tone, Sly was also snickering while hiding behind his Direwolf “You enter a daze when something involves lore, at least that’s what Sly said and it looks like it’s true! ” she answered. Kyle rolled his eyes “I can’t help it if I love story telling” he declared, Sly continued trying to hold back a laugh “More like!...Completely bewitched!...by it!” he rebuked. Kyle sighed deeply as he walked towards the town gate, the morning sun shining down over the walls and buildings giving the street a long shade. “Come on Kyllix we’re just messing with you” Nakano continued as the Direwolf walked up by him, she had laid herself forward with arms crossed in front of herself as she rested on it’s back. Suddenly they all fell sideways as the world seemed to bend around them “What the hell!” Kyle shouted before holding himself groaning, Sly and Nakano had also fallen to the floor with nausea. Kyle peeked his eyes open as he watched reality bend and swirl in his vision, NPCs watched as players all over fell and held themselves. He closed his eyes as he waited for Lilior to remove the effect but no such feeling overcame him (“Is she effected as well!? Are we under attack!?”) he asked himself.

Suddenly the feeling of nausea disappeared the same way it came, Kyle opened his eyes to see the tiled road beneath him “Sly! You alright!?” he shouted as he turned to look. “N..no!” Sly shouted back as he held onto his stomach as he heaved, a guard stood behind him holding onto his shoulder “Adventurers! What has happened!?” the guard asked as he watched in confusion. “Master!” Lilior shouted into Kyle’s ear as she held onto his shoulder, red faced and tears already leaking down her cheeks. “I’m fine…I’m fine now…What was that?” Kyle asked as he glanced between Lilior who stared at him in worry, Sly who held onto his Direwolf for support as he clutched his stomach and Nakano who lay sprawled out on the ground holding her head with one hand. Nakano groaned as she sat up “What just…” she asked while pulling onto the Direwolf’s fur to stand up, suddenly the beast turned to face her and snarled fiercely at her “Wha!” she let go and fell back onto her ass. The guard stepped back as he noticed the wolf’s foul mood, the beast ignored both as it turned it’s head to stare back at Sly who continued to dry heave. “Lilior, water blessing…please” Kyle begged as he stood holding on to his knees with one arm while the other lay holding his stomach, she nodded as she fluttered up to hover in the middle of them and began to chant “Remove thy ailments! Blessing of water!” she spoke with plea.

All three players sighed in relief as the sparks of blue light fell upon them, their sickness completely gone. “What the fuck was that?!” Sly cursed as he turned and rested his back to the Direwolf, “Maybe the server is hitching?” Kyle spoke as he held onto his face rubbing his eyes. “This is the 32nd century! Servers hitching!? What the hell are the devs doing?!” a lion-man player nearby shouted as he held himself up with his large kite shield, he groaned in annoyance albeit being in range of Lilior’s blessing it didn’t seem to affect him. “Hey bro, that thing your pet just did. I’ll pay you man” another player walked up to Kyle, a tall elf with snow white skin, he clutched his gut as his face held a sickly colour. Kyle held back a smile as he glanced at Lilior “Lilior can your blessing work on people not in my party?” he asked her, she fluttered over to his shoulder again as she glanced around agitated by the sudden attention “Y-yes it can…but my mana…”. He frowned “How’s your mana pool doing?” he asked, Lilior shook her head “I can only cast it seven more times master…each can affect up to four”. Heads turned at their direction as players already began to gather around Kyle and the rest, “Alright slowly people, how does thirty gold per head sound? Seven casts remaining with four players per cast, that’s twenty eight people. Who’s in?” Kyle declared as he faced the dozens of players groaning, sitting and or dry heaving.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Nakano, Sly and other players watched in disbelief as Kyle made bank off the sudden affliction, Lilior casting her blessing over groups of four as they paid half the payment before and gave Kyle the rest after. “I’m out master!” Lilior declared as she fluttered back to his shoulder wiping her forehead of sweat, “Good job Lilior, I’ll have to think of a way to reward you now…can you wield equipment? Like weapons or armour?” Kyle asked thoughtfully. Lilior beamed back at him smiling “N-no no I couldn’t possible ask master to waste his money on little me!” her smile completely gave her away, Kyle chuckled “Don’t worry about it, it’s our hard earned money. If you need anything then just ask and we’ll talk about it”. “The hell!?” suddenly a player called out cursing as he stared off, the Tundra Elf from before. Sly chuckled “Yo no refunds bro” he told him, the Elf glanced at Sly “Nah man that ain’t it! My menu windows aren’t opening! I can’t even access the settings! I wanted to see if I could turn those effects off or something!” the player exclaimed with arms open wide. “Hey same here!” a squirrel beast woman shouted, “Me too!” another Elf shouted in panic. Suddenly all the players began trying to open their windows, some even calling them out-loud. Kyle frowned as he tried himself (“I can open my character page, inventory, party menu, skill books, stat window, map window, beastiary and companion windows but the menu, options, help and mod contact…”) he pondered on what was going on, “Holy shit” Sly cursed as he held his mouth with one hand and the back of his neck with the other “How do we log out now?” he asked out loud.

Everyone turned to stare at him as a sudden realisation fell upon all of them “We can direct log out? Right? Like just think about it!” Nakano exclaimed in panic as her eyes suddenly went wide “No way…This is a joke right?...It’s some sick prank?...Right?” she took a couple steps back as she continued to glance around the dozens of grouped up players. “I can’t even use the chat anymore!” Sly shouted as he tapped away at his UI, “Do the moderators know about this? What are the developers doing!?” he shouted. “Yeah why aren’t they rebooting the server?! They can boot us all out with one command!” a player responded, “Yo man I got special settings turned on! I can’t stay like this!” another cried out. Some turned to him in pity while the rest continued to ask each other what was happening. Suddenly the guard from earlier broke out of his confusion and shouted out “Adventurers! What is this? Why are you all crowding the gate entrance?! Has something occurred?! Can we be of assistance?” he asked, his comrades standing behind him staring at the dozens of confused and agitated players. The players stared back at the guards, not knowing how to respond. “Aren’t…NPCs supposed to ignore players conversing?...” Sly had turned back around to glance at the rest of the players, “They’re guards…we are blocking the path so I guess they can ignore that directive?...” a still nauseated player responded.

Nakano clapped her hands together multiple times getting everyone’s attention “Alright everyone let’s clear the path, whatever is going on we need to trust the developers and moderators. I’m sure the beta-testers are already in contact with them and we’ll hear from them soon! Everyone go back to what you were doing but stick to town! Tell anybody you know to stay at town! If anything the beta-testers will know what is going on and we’ll hear about it!” she explained, multiple of the players nodded and spoke out in agreement as the crowd began to scatter. She turned to Kyle and Sly “I need to go look for my guildmaster, he’s a beta-tester he’ll somewhat know what might be going on”, Sly nodded “Alright, we’ll go to the town plaza where I planned to meet with the others. Hopefully they remember and do the same, Kyle we can also get our classes sorted while we’re there. Kyle?” the both of them stared at him as he stared up at the sky with eyes wide open. “Was there…two suns before?...” he asked while pointing upwards, Nakano and Sly along with some players that remained looked up. The sun had indeed gained a slightly smaller twin, Kyle stared with wide eyes and mouth agape (“This isn’t right…something…something is very wrong…”). Sly shook his shoulder “Yo a graphical bug isn’t our problem right now, come on man snap out of it let’s go!”, “Huh? Yeah…alright let’s” Kyle nodded in agreement (“Is it?..”) he gave the two suns one last glance before following after Sly and his Direwolf.

The players all scattered as Nakano drifted off to search for her guild while Kyle and Sly walked through the town heading towards the very middle, the town plaza. The guards continued to stare in confusion as the players all walked away, “They…completely ignored us….” one of the guards laughed awkwardly.

---

Kyle glanced around the loaded streets of town as he followed the giant grey-white wolf and its master, Lilior had fluttered over to the Alpha Direwolf and was sitting crosslegged on it’s snout while glancing back at her master with worry. Kyle walked hands in his pockets as his mind drifted (“The main menus stopped working…Chat stopped working…Huge graphical bug with the addition of a new sun…all after that nauseating feeling that spanned through all players in sight…did all players get that affliction? Why aren’t we getting booted out of the game? Why isn’t the thought-log out working?”) these thoughts filled his mind as he unconsciously followed Sly, the streets where packed with adventurers some looking sick while most holding an expression of worry. “Hell” Sly cursed snapping Kyle out of his thoughts “Wha-Oh” the two stared at the plaza’s entrance from the connecting street, thousands over thousands of players filling every possible spot in the wide open garden. Kyle and Sly stepped behind the crowd looking for a way through “There’s no way through all these people, hell why did everyone have the same damn idea?” Sly continued to curse, Kyle bit his lower lip as he glanced around the huge crowd. “Hey what’s going on here?” Kyle asked one of the players trying to look over the rest, a tall burly Elf with short green hair glanced back at him “The testers of this area grouped up in the centre of the plaza here with some other players, they’re trying to figure out what the fuck’s going on and everyone is antsy to hear” the Elf turned back.

Sly scratched his head as he stared at the crowd, “Fuck this, Kyle get on” he spoke while climbing up onto the back of his Direwolf that stood taller than even him. “Alright?” Kyle stared up at the wolf’s back, he jumped up and grabbed around with both arms as he pulled himself up. Kyle sat a couple feet behind Sly as Lilior fluttered back to his shoulder “Master what is happening?” she asked innocently, he shook his head “Don’t know and that bothers me”. “Kurt take us through!” Sly commanded the wolf, the Direwolf growled angrily before suddenly snarling loudly at the crowd of players while baring it’s large fangs. The crowd parted open and away from the advancing beast as many glared at them in annoyance while others simply stared at Kurt in fear, most turned to look at the scene as they made their way through the parting players and towards the middle. Kyle sighed at the attention they had gained “Hey the others at least know where we are now” he joked, they continued to move towards the middle of the plaza. Kurt bared his fangs at anyone that didn’t move out of the way quickly enough while Sly watched in amusement, Kyle glanced around “Do you see them?” he asked as he searched the crowd. “It’s him, where do you think he’d want to be in this situation?” Sly raised his right arm up in greeting as they approached the centre, three steps raised it up from the rest of the plaza while four tall obelisks of clear white stone stood at each corner of it. Each obelisk held a weapon statue at the top, a long sword, a bow & quiver, a staff & wand and a kite-shield & flail.

In the middle of these obelisks stood a smaller amount of players as the rest stood down the steps watching, two lines of shield-wielding players cutting them off from entering the middle. Five groups of players stood facing each other in the middle of the obelisks, a couple dozen metres away from the wall of shields where they hadn’t noticed their approach yet. “Hey you rider, stop there” One of the shield-wall players commanded as the crowd parted for him to face the large wolf, Kurt growled as saliva dripped down its furry lips painted red with dry blood. The shield-wielders paled as they stared at the Direwolf, “I suggest you move out of the way, he hasn’t had his fill yet” Kyle told them ”And I’m not talking about the Direwolf”. Sly stared down at them with a smirk “Well?” he exclaimed, the players though didn’t move and stood their ground “Not going to move? Good…I’ll move you then”. Sly chuckled as a violent violet aura exploded from him and his companion, he unstrapped his pole-blade and twirled it around with one hand. The shield-wielders stepped back slightly as one of them fell back on the stairs, Sly laughed as he tapped Kurt’s neck making the direwolf howl loudly before glaring down on them and baring his fangs fiercely.

A sudden flash of light shone from the groups of players in the middle “What’s the commotion there?!” a loud voice washed over all of them as if being spoken through a loudspeaker, a couple of them had begun walking in their direction. “What’s going on here?” a strong looking Elf with bright white plate armour approached the shield wall, long grey hair with a short grey beard and pure milky white eyes. Three others walked up behind him, two Beast-Men one who wore a mask and a Dark-Elf with long red hair and crimson red eyes who beamed an amused smile when he saw them “Yo Sly! Kyll!” he greeted them, the other three glanced at him “You know them?” the armoured Elf asked him. “Yo Death, like my pet?” Sly greeted back as he petted the direwolf, Death whistled “Yeah they’re with us, let em through boys”. One of the beast-men a mask less tiger-man spoke out to the wall of shields “Let them through” he commanded, the guarding players parted and Kurt prowled through. All but Death turned away and began walking back to the rest, “Yo Kyll you slacking, only in the 20s? Not even a class yet?” he mocked. Kyle shrugged “Ah shut it, Sly’s classless too! What’s going on here anyhow?”, they followed Death as he gestured them over to the rest. “Us and a couple other guilds gathered around here since I know a couple of the beta-testers cause I am one, we’re contemplating what the hell is going on but honestly we haven’t gotten anywhere yet” Death explained as they walked.

“Fuck! So nobody knows what’s going on?” Sly cursed, Death sighed “Nope” he scratched his head “No clue what so ever, we can’t contact the moderators since the chat is down and nobody can access the main menu or use any outside plug-in at all”. Kyle stayed silent as he lost himself in his thoughts yet again (“No contact with the outside…Mom should be back home by now…what the hell is going on…They’re not booting us out and I haven’t been manually pulled out by her…are they covering it all up!?”) he clutched his fists tightly as he thought things over and over again.