Novels2Search

23. Forming a Party

“Nice! Grimmy, I received a new Quest!”

“Excellent, let me see.”

Grimmy looked at the quest and said, “Interesting, we should get on this right away. The reward is very promising, and we should get tons of experience if we defeat all the bandits at the headquarters.”

“Awesome! Let’s go!”

“This quest will be a long one, Alice. Multiple enemies, travel long distances, final big boss, the whole enchilada like people from Earth would say.”

“Ahaa… what’s your point.”

“Well, this is not the type of quest you should do alone.”

“Ahaa…”

“It is time to do some recruiting. We will need to get you a proper party,” said Grimmy, already strategizing and planning on the best classes to complement Alice.

Ruby City was a city where more advanced adventurers usually hung out. Since Alice was only Lvl 7, Grimmy suggested that they should go back and look for their future party members in Ambar City. Ambar City was usually home to adventurers Lvl 15 and below so it would be the perfect place to find adventurers willing to form a party with Alice. Alice already knew one person that would be a fantastic addition to her party. It was time to meet with her bunny-eared friend again.

They made their way back to the adventurers’ guild in Ambar City on the wagon they initially hopped into to hide from the bandits. The wagon was much faster than when Grimmy and Alice made their way to Ruby City, so they ended up getting to Ambar City just before sunset. Luckily for Alice, Bonetta was at the guild turning in a quest.

“Bonetta!!” yelled Alice.

“Hey girl, I thought you were leaving to Ruby City this morning,” replied Bonetta.

“We did, we already completed all of our quests and hitched a ride back to Ambar City in a trade wagon.”

“Well, that was fast, you completed three quests in a day. Not bad. Adventurers usually do one every couple of days.”

“Oh yeah,” Alice chuckled. “Grimmy here had me on a schedule. We had to skip our lunch just to be able to keep up with his schedule.”

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“Your familiar tells you what to do? You must trust him a lot huh.”

“Oh, Grimmy is extremely knowledgeable, some might say he is a wealth of information. So, if he comes up with a plan it’s best to just listen to him.”

“I see...” Bonetta said, grabbing her chin in deep thought.

“Hey, are you hungry?” asked Alice.

“Yeah, I could eat,” replied Bonetta.

Grimmy, Alice, and Bonetta made their way to a restaurant that Bonetta recommended a couple of blocks away from the guild. The restaurant looked fancier than what Alice had seen in that initial tavern and in Green Luna. The tables had an actual tablecloth and nice wooden dining chairs. The host brought them to their table, and they sat down.

“So, how did the dire wolf quest go?” asked Bonetta as soon as they sat down.

“Almost got my arm chopped off…” responded Alice before Grimmy interjected, “Which could have been avoided if she had listened to me.”

“Oh really, that sounds interesting. What happened?” said Bonetta intrigued.

They talked about what had happened with the Den Mother, and how the Den Mother took a chunk off Alice’s forearm. Bonetta told a few stories of her own. Grimmy interjected here and there, giving his opinion on how things could have been done better. Alice and Bonetta laughed, ate, and drank. It was as if Alice was having dinner with a friend back on Earth. Just two friends complaining about work with that annoying friend that was always right and gave his opinion whether it was asked for or not. For a few minutes there Alice forgot about her troubles and simply enjoyed the moment.

Once the stories slowed down, Bonetta asked, “So, was there anything you needed to tell me, or was this just a friendly gathering to blow steam off.”

“A little bit of both actually,” said Alice, “You see, after killing those bandits, I got this system quest…”

“A system quest?! Are you from another world?”

“Yeah, I thought you knew.”

“I had no idea. I do not have the identify skill high level enough to see your race,” responded Bonetta.

“I see. Well, yeah, I am from another world, and I got this bandit quest from the system. Grimmy said it is a really cool one…”

“I said no such thing,” interrupted Grimmy. “I said that the reward is very promising, and we should get tons of experience.”

“That sounds cool!” said Bonetta.

“You see, Grimmy. Stop interrupting.”

Grimmy closed his arms and did a dismissive move with his head.

“As I was saying, Bonetta,” said Alice, glancing at Grimmy. Grimmy did not react. “I got this cool quest, and I wanted to see if you would like to form a party with me?”

“I would love to!” replied Bonetta instantly. “Let us go kick some bandit ass. Also, you got to tell me all about your world. I have never met anyone from another world before.”

“Awesome! Sure, I will tell you all about it some other time. One more thing,” said Alice, “Grimmy said we should find a third person to join us before we take on the quest. Got anyone in mind?”

“Mmm… not really, but we can post it on the guild tomorrow and interview a few people. See if we like anybody.”

“That sounds great! Let’s do that.”

“Great. Given that Bonetta has the berserker class and is already Lvl 10. Bonetta will have the tank role in the party and Alice will have a Support/Debuffer role. Our third person would ideally be a long-range damage dealer since both of you are close combat.”

“Uhhh, Berserker sounds fancy, Bonetta. What can you do?” said Alice excitedly.

“Nothing fancy, I can buff myself to be stronger, tougher, and faster, so I can take more damage and deal more damage.”

“Well that sounds really useful,” said Alice, genuinely excited.

“It is. You two will have great synergy in fights. I already have at least ten different battle strategies we could try with just the two of you. Once we get a third, the possibilities will be infinite,” said Grimmy, rubbing his hands already thinking of all the different strategies he will be able to form.

“Awesome, so tomorrow morning we will post the ad on the quest board and interview all the people interested. I hope we get some good candidates.”

“Alright, Alice, please invite Bonetta to form a party to formalize it. It is getting late, and we have a big day tomorrow,” said Grimmy.

The moment Alice thought about how she could do that, a system notification popped in Alice’s view.

Would you like to invite Bonetta to form a party with you?

Yes or No

“Yes!” said Alice with a huge smile on her face as she jumped off her seat filled with excitement.

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