Chapter 2: In a PUG with a bunch of noobs!

I woke early the next day, nestled between two beautiful women. A plan formed in my head as I stared at the ceiling. While it was true that the other players were desperately in need of some levels, I couldn’t forsake my training. That started with the daily exercises Pi taught me. I slid gently from the bed and started with pushups.

It was amazing how far I’d come since arriving on Gaia. I soiled my pants twice in the first week and couldn’t walk one hundred yards without being winded. My adventure began in a shanty in a small village. Now, here I was in a castle on my very own continent. A newfound determination blazed within me to go even further.

I looked up to see a pair of eyes watching from the bed. Pippa licked her lips. “I can’t believe you have any energy left after last night.”

I yawned. “This is nothing. I gotta push myself a lot harder if I want to rescue my friends.”

Were they my friends? It was true that we’d been through a lot together, but Nax and Zelle never really liked me. Perhaps saving them would change things? Pippa yawned sympathetically and sat up. That prompted Zelda to sit beside her.

“Well, aren’t you some serious eye candy,” she stretched after wiping the sleep from her eyes. “What time is it?”

“The sun just came up,” I replied, not having relied on time much since leaving Earth.

“Wake me at noon,” she snorted, flopping over and burying her head under the pillow.

Pippa got up and walked to the privy. “Do you want to go to breakfast?”

I started another set of pushups. “After I finish my exercises, sure.”

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Primith was the only one waiting for us in the grand hall. Dozens of plates had already been laid out, the knights having communicated with the kitchen the moment I left my room. It was one of the many perks of having ghost knights as vassals.

“Do we get to eat like this every day?” Pippa asked, her mouth watering.

“I guess,” I replied, remembering how much Sir Lamorak loved to cook.

She piled more food on her plate than I thought the waif of a woman could handle. Then I remembered she had hungry kids back in her room that would be waking up soon. I thought about telling her she could just come back and have something else made but realized she probably wanted to surprise them with breakfast in bed.

“Don’t they cook like this for you every day?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Hardly. Don’t get me wrong. They feed us just fine. I just didn’t realize they made pancakes.”

“Oh,” I laughed. It must have been because I told Sir Lamorak I liked them. “That may have been my fault. Have you tried telling him what you want?”

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” she hedged.

The chef appeared out of nowhere and towered over Pippa. “Nonsense! I love requests. If you have the recipe, I can make it. I love adding to my cookbook.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Pippa repaid his kindness with a smile. “In return, please let me know if I can help in the kitchen.”

“Can you prep veg?” Sir Lamorak asked.

“Can I?” Pippa echoed, rolling up her sleeve for good measure. “Just you watch me!”

Primith ate quietly, not reacting to the banter at all. She looked up when I glanced at her. “Do you need something?”

“Um,” I hesitated. “Do you have a plan for today’s training?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, we’re going to do it…and level up.”

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I stood outside after breakfast tapping my foot impatiently. “They’re late!”

“Don’t worry, Daddy,” Bori squeaked from my arm. “We can play a game while we wait.”

“A game?” I asked, wondering if she was going to ask me to come up with something.

Before I could say anything, a door appeared in front of me covered in ivy. I walked around it and looked at the other side. “Um…”

Bori giggled. “You have to open it, Silly. It’s a puzzle.”

“Oh,” I replied, returning to the front and reaching for the handle.

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It didn’t turn at all, obviously locked. There was no keyhole or other sign that something on my side was barring the door. The only thing I could see was ivy, which looked as though it had grown on the door over a very long time. I walked around the door to inspect the other side again, hoping to find a fastener I could undo to gain access. There was nothing, not even a knob.

Returning to the front, I inspected the ivy. It grew from all corners. I felt it would have made better sense if I encountered it in a dungeon where it was attached to a wall or something. Deciding to think of it that way, I tried to clear some of the ivy.

Every bit that I cut grew back instantly. I tried burning it but the same thing happened. It grew back way too fast. I looked over the door again, this time closely for patterns in the ivy. It overlapped itself in a clockwise manner starting from the ground on the left. My eyes stopped at the top right corner at a gap in the overlap. Something glinted just beneath the ivy.

I reached out and gently peeled the two strands apart and pried out a silver key. Only then did a keyhole appear just above the doorknob.

Bori materialized and clapped when I got the door open. “I got experience when you figured it out. That’s one of my easier ones.”

Clapping from behind me alerted me that we were no longer alone. Mike and Darrin walked slowly up behind us chuckling as they whispered back and forth to one another.

“You’re late,” I muttered, crossing my arms as they approached. “Where’s Alan?”

“I’m here,” Alan replied, rounding a corner just behind them.

“Good,” I said. “Let’s get started.”

“We aren’t going to be doing that nonsense, are we?” Darrin asked, referring to the door.

“Can I kill him, Daddy?” Bori asked, tugging my sleeve.

I patted her on the head. “No, Honey. You can let your pet bite him though.”

She sighed. “Oka~ay.”

Darrin frowned. “What do you mean, bite?”

In answer to the question, the door vanished and Bori’s pet puppy appeared. Only it was no longer a pup. The dog towered over us at around six feet tall and twice as long. Ropes of drool slopped to the floor as it raised its hackles and growled at Darrin.

“Uh,” Mike squirmed. “Do you expect us to fight that? It’ll eat us alive.”

“Go easy on them,” I said.

Bori sighed heavily as though I was making her do something she really didn’t want to do, and the dog shrunk until it was the average size of a house pet.

“I can’t fight that either,” Mike shook his head.

“What now?” I asked.

“It’s a…a…dog,” Mike shot back. “That would be animal abuse.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s a dungeon monster. If you kill it, Bori will just make another one.”

“Still…” This time it was Alan who objected. “Can you just make something different?”

After a moment of silence where I thought Bori was going to dig in her heels, the dog vanished and a full-sized porcusaurus appeared in its place. Bori planted her hands on her hips. “Will this do?”

“Uh,” Alan backed away. “I don’t see how that’s better.”

“Do you guys want EXP or not?” I asked. “If not, you can go home, because you’ll just die if you try to go to the other island.”

“Fine, we’ll do it,” Mike said, stepping forward. “Just try to come up with something easier next time.”

I summoned a bench and sat beside Bori while the three would-be adventurers squared off with the porcasaurus. For her part, Bori held back and gave the group a chance to get the first hit. I took the opportunity to inspect the trio.

Darrin Angler

Class: Fencer

Level: 23

Affection Level: Nervous

Michael Katash

Class: Pyromancer

Level: 24

Affection Level: Cocky

Alan Friedzig

Class: Archer

Level: 26

Affection Level: Determined

The three circled the dinosaur, each not wanting to make the first move. All of them had no armor and just wore the clothing they brought with them from Earth. It made me wonder how they managed to level up at all.

After watching them do practically nothing for a full five minutes, I decided to intervene. “What are you guys doing? Do you plan to attack?”

“I was waiting for Darrin to go in,” Alan admitted.

“Why do I have to do it?” Darrin balked. “You shoot it and then I’ll attack.”

“But that would be suicide,” Alan shot back.

“Fine!” Mike roared, holding up a staff I hadn’t seen before. “I’ll do it!”

He shot out a massive fireball and the porcasaurus was bathed in flame. It roared in outrage and charged straight at Mike who turned and fled. When neither Darrin nor Alan moved to help, I got involved again. “Hold it, Bori.”

The porcusaurus obediently stopped. Bori stomped her foot in protest. “I wasn’t going to kill him. Just give him a love nip.”

“What are the two of you doing?” I asked, glaring at Darrin and Alan. “You need to back each other up when fighting as a team.”

“We’ve never fought together,” Alan muttered, not making eye contact as he spoke. “We only teamed up to beat you, and you already saw how that turned out.”

“But you worked as a team when you fought me,” I countered.

Alan pointed at the porcasaurus. “To put it bluntly, that thing’s scarier than you.”

“Fine,” I sighed. “Bori, make a monster version of me.”

She looked up at me with wide eyes. “Are you sure, Daddy?”

I smiled back in reassurance. “Yes, I’m sure. Make me a monster.”

“Okay,” she drew out the word, making it clear she thought it was a terrible idea.

The porcasaurus vanished and an avatar that looked something like me appeared in its place. Bori chose to make me a little taller and buffer and a whole lot better looking. My avatar didn’t have a stone arm but had biceps that would put bodybuilders to shame back on Earth. I found myself blushing as I took it all in.

“That’s not fair!” Mike yelped. “That thing is way bigger than you, and besides, aren’t you like twice our level?”

I inspected my avatar.

Big Daddy

Level: 15

Class: Rank C Monster

Affection Level: It’s Daddy, Duh!

My dad’s gonna kick your butt!

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the description. Mike took that for confirmation and backed away from my doppelganger.

“Don’t worry,” I tried to soothe him. “It’s lower level than you. If you don’t believe me, just inspect it.”

“How?” Darrin asked.

“Uh, you don’t know how to inspect something?” I asked.

“No!” he snapped. “Unlike you, we didn’t get instruction manuals with these powers.”

“How did you get them?” I asked.

While it was true Pi unlocked mine, nobody ever told me how the other players became awakened. The only one that made any sense was Primith and that was because she told me about her situation.

“It was the purple team sponsor,” Darrin began. “Primith’s team. He did something and I got a class. He pointed at me and said sword. The next thing I knew, I could lunge and parry with the best of them. I don’t know why, but I prefer foils over other kinds of swords.”

“He did the same thing to me,” Alan said, taking out his bow. “Bow here.”

“What are you?” Darrin asked, glancing at Mike. “Fireball?”

“No,” Mike laughed. “Staff.”

“I have an idea,” I said, trying to get them back on track. “How about you try attacking all at once? He can’t target all three of you. Work together and defend each other.”

“You better not get us killed,” Darrin grumbled.

He pointed his sword at my doppelganger. Mike and Alan followed suit and the next thing I knew, a hail of arrows and fireballs launched at the construct alongside Darrin who dashed in with his sword at the ready.