“Let’s see… food supplies for at least a week, three sleeping bags, a portable tent, and more rope, because we can always use more rope.” Q began checking through the supplies that Brie and Kukis bought. At first Q was going to go to the stores herself, but the moment she stepped out of her hiding spot more players spotted her and she had another close encounter with a crowd.
In the end Q passed over some of her money to Brie and Kukis, and let them buy the items themselves. One of the items they picked up was the Cube of Companionship, which was a palm-sized cube with a small heart in the center. As Q was the leader of the party the cube went over to her, and she would set it down whenever the group decides to make camp.
The three girls were currently doing a last minute check over their skills and equipment, just before going off to meet with Sir Albert’s team.
“Is everyone ready?” Kukis asked.
“One sec, just looking at my stats one last time.” Q replied.
QLevel 24Display Title: Friend of the Cute and CuddlyRace: Fox-kinNon-display Title: Reckless FighterClass: N/AProfession: Cook (Beginner)HP: 200/200MP: 235/235VIT: 25 (+5)WIS: 40 (+2)STR: 26 (+16)INT: 50 (+5)DEF: 7(+21)RES: 10AGI: 36 (+15)DEX:33 (+9)Luck: 6 (+4)Leadership: 9Fame: 1790
(A/N: No changes to her skills or equipment)
“Okay, I’m good. Let’s get going then.” Q hid her face as best as she could with her scarf, and the three girls began walking towards the square. They took winding detours and went through alleyways in an effort to evade the players, and though they were spotted a few times, the players didn’t do much except stare at the three or ask a quick question.
“You know, you could have bought some cloaks for us to wear.” Q complained. “That’d make travelling through town a little easier.”
“Hey, we couldn’t exactly stay very long with the players slowly closing in on us. Besides, I don’t think that wearing cloaks would hide us very well anyway. Especially you, Q.”
“What do you mean?” Q looked at Kukis with a slightly confused face.
“What do I mean? I mean that you’re super conspicuous. Like, if any part of your hair or fur touches light, it becomes really bright and shimmery. Not to mention that a lot of players have basically memorized how you look so a single cloak couldn’t possibly hide you well enough.”
“Well… what if I was wrapped in a bunch of cloth and you two just carried me around?”
“That is incredibly impractical, Q.” Brie frowned for a moment, “Even if you were hidden like that, what about Kukis and myself? We would be two figures carrying a suspicious bundle of cloth.”
“That’s true. Just throwing out ideas… but it seems like it’s too late to put any of them into action.” Q slowed down as they finally entered the square. For a brief moment no one paid attention to them so the three girls took the opportunity to start looking for Sir Albert. Just as they were searching for him, they heard a loud voice ring out.
“Miss Q, there you are! We have been eagerly awaiting your arrival!”
“Oh-boy.” Q let out an exasperated sigh as the crowd noticed the three, and immediately began making noise. Q made an angry face and began to force her way through the crowd, while Brie and Kukis followed close behind. Some of the people in the crowd seemed to want to stop Q, but after seeing her expression they respectfully backed off. I should have done this earlier… She thought to herself.
Eventually the three girls made it to where Sir Albert and his party were waiting, though Q still wore her angry expression. “Sir Albert, you know that attention is the last thing I want right now, right?”
“M-my apologies, Miss Q. I meant no harm.” Sir Albert respectfully bowed. “I had not thought of the consequences of calling you out.”
“That’s probably because he’s super excited that we get to travel with you.” The priestess in their party smiled. Sir Albert’s face blushed a little, which caused the priestess to snicker.
Watching this exchange, Q’s angry face disappeared to be replaced with a smile. “As long as you understand. Well, the crowd seems to be getting larger, so let's leave while we can.”
“Of course. Our destination leads us through the north gate of town, and from there we take the path heading northwest which will lead to the forest. Onwards, comrades!” Sir Albert began leading the way to the north gate, and everyone else followed.
The group managed to get out of the town without much problem, and then began to make their way along the path. For a few minutes the group walked in silence, with nothing but the sounds of a gentle breeze accompanying them. This silence was broken with a single question by Q.
“So… you’re called the Fantasy Fighters?”
“Nope. None of us agreed to that terrible name.” Magnus shook his head.
“Urg- Magnus! At least call it a work in progress.”
“It’s the fifth name you’ve come up with Albert. I know you’re our leader and all, but you have absolutely no naming sense.”
“Th-that’s not true! The names I come up with are amazing and inspiring!”
“What, like your Shining Blade of Burning Justice?” Magnus quipped.
“What do you mean? That sounds cool and perfectly describes my weapon!”
“Riiiight....” Magnus rolled his eyes. While Q was laughing at their exchange, the other members of Sir Albert’s party came by to introduce themselves.
“I don’t believe we’ve properly met yet. My name is Celinus, a level 23 dryad priestess.” Celinus smiled at the three girls. Her face had soft features, and coupled with her charming smile it made her look quite attractive. She held a wooden staff and wore white robes which went down to her knees, and then her knee-high boots covered the rest of her legs.
“Dryad? I don’t see much traces of that on you.” Q said. During the character creation, she saw that the default settings for the dryad race showed them covered in leaves and branches, and also had a slight tinge of green to their skin color.
“That’s because I chose the dryad race for it’s bonuses. I toned down the ‘natural’ parts of my body, though there’s still some here and there.” She pulled up her sleeve to reveal that her arm was covered in a few leaves.
“Ooh, that’s cool. So how about you?” Q turned towards Baldur.
“Aye, though you already know me, I don’t think these two girls know who I am.” He said while looking at Brie and Kukis. “The name’s Baldur, level 24 dwarf warrior. And before you ask, my accent is natural.” Q looked over at Baldur. His height was slightly shorter than Q’s, but he had large rippling muscles which peeked out over his leather armor. His battleaxe was about a head higher than him and looked incredibly heavy, but Q saw how easily he swung it during the battle, indicating that he had an incredible amount of strength.
The trio then looked over to the hooded figure in the party, and though he remained silent for a while, he eventually gave in to the girls stares. “*sigh* My name is Sal’ Karn, level 25 dark-elf rogue. Also, don’t you dare call me Sal.” The dark elf’s features were relatively delicate (as was common for most of the elf species) and had dark skin, though Q noticed that his eyes irises were yellow and his sclera was black. His cloak hid the rest of his body, but remembering the battle, Q knew that he had his crossbows hidden under there somewhere.
Stolen story; please report.
“Nice to meet you. Though, if I can’t call you Sal, is it okay if I call you Corn?” Q grinned.
“Wha-?”
Before Sal’ Karn could properly respond, Magnus stepped in and introduced himself as well. “I am Magnus, a level 24 arcanus mage, soon to be a grand wizard of immense power!” His eyes glowed slightly as he talked. An arcanus huh? If I remember correctly that’s a subspecies of human that’s highly attuned to magic. Q looked closer at his body and saw that there were light pulses of blue that travelled through his body periodically. He also had an incredibly long beard, with aged facial features, though Q felt that the person himself wasn’t nearly that old.
“It seems that I am last then. I am Sir Albert Welfring the third, level 25 knight, at your service.” Sir Albert Saluted. He didn’t look much different from when Q first saw him, as he was quite tall, and still kept a muscular, rugged body. The only difference now was that he was now wearing shiny metal armor, which sort of annoyed Q since it reflected light everywhere (especially into her eyes).
“Nice to meet all of you. I’m Kukis, a level 24 human… with no class. Though I do use some potions every now and then. Oh, and if you call me Violet Snack…” She pulled out a vial of green liquid, “You’ll get to test my newest creations.” Kukis let out an eerie smile, which sent chills down the backs of Sir Albert’s team.
“I… I am Brie, a level 25 mouse-kin, also with no class.” Brie didn’t say much else and moved behind Q, who then introduced herself.
“I’m Q, level 24 fox-kin with no class.”
“R-really? None of you have a class yet?” Sir Albert looked at the three incredulously. “You can get one by level ten, and the class quests aren’t that difficult either!”
“I didn’t really feel like it.” Q shrugged her shoulders.
“Foria didn’t have the classes that I was looking for.” Kukis also shrugged her shoulders.
“What is this ‘class’, of which you speak? Is it similar to classes at school?” Brie asked.
“Ah shoot, I forgot to tell you about classes. You see…” Kukis began explaining what classes were to Brie.
Once the players had all properly introduced themselves, they began talking more and got to know each other a little better. Their topics varied, as they talked about their team compositions, player builds, and other things related to the game. While Q was talking to Sir Albert about the Daring and Dangerous group, a window appeared in front of her with a *ding*.
[Attention - an administrator wishes to speak privately with you.]
For a moment Q was surprised to see the message, but eventually shrugged her shoulders and accepted the call.
*Inside a T.W.O monitoring room*
“Ah, finally connected.” A man sitting in front of multiple computer screens smiled. The largest screen changed to show an image of Q in a white room, who was looking around herself in confusion.
“Uh… Hello?” Q continued to look around the room.
“Hi there, Q.” The man said. “Sorry for talking to you on such short notice, but we’ll be done soon hopefully.”
“That’s no problem, though why am I in this white room?”
“That’s a special ‘area’ where time goes by normally. I couldn’t talk to you while you were going three times faster than I was after all.”
“Makes sense. So what’s this about?”
“Well basically everyone at the company was quite impressed with your performance back in the town of Foria. If you’d give us permission, we’d like to use footage straight from your game pod and use it in some of our promotional videos.” Q was about to say something, but the man interrupted her first. “-Of course, you wouldn’t be doing it for free. You would instantly receive 100 fame, and an extra point for every 10000 views our video receives.”
“That’s a lot of fame.” After a moment of pause, she continued. “Sure, I have no problem doing this. Though I’m not sure how to send you guys the video.”
“That’s all automatically done by our side. Though we’ll only be taking footage from the event battle in Foria, is there anything in particular you don’t want us to share?”
“Hmm… not really. So is that everything?”
“Yup, that’s all. Thanks for agreeing to this Q. You’ll get your rewards once the video is released to the public.”
“Okay. See ya!” Q disappeared from the white room.
“She accepted that far more easily than I thought. Some of the other people took far more effort to convince…” The man was taken out of his thoughts when he heard a sound and saw that Cim was on one of the screens.
“Sir, you have been requested to talk to another player regarding the promotional video.”
“Ugh. Again?”
*Back inside the game*
“Q! You’re back!” Sir Albert exclaimed.
“Yeah… I was talking to an admin for a bit. Sorry about that.” Q scratched her cheek.
“That’s quite alright, though I must say it was quite disconcerting when you turned into a ball of light.”
“I did what?”
“Well, that doesn’t matter. What was the admin talking to you about?” Kukis asked.
“Oh, he was just-”
*SQUEEEAAALLLLL*
Q was interrupted by an incredibly loud scream, and all the players were greeted with a window that appeared in front of them.
[The Boars are on a rampage!] - The excessive hunting of boars has caused a new monster to appear! While this monster is active, boars will spawn twice as fast, and have their stats doubled. The monster will naturally despawn after a week.
“It seems that’s what happens when the monster population gets too low, huh?” Kukis muttered.
“Yes, although I do say, the other players must be quite stupid to excessively hunt boars even after receiving that notice from the system update.” Brie shook her head in disdain.
“Yeah… and it looks like we get a closeup look at this new monster.” Q said while looking at the forest to their right. The trees began swaying violently as the ground shook beneath their feet. The players all prepared themselves to meet whatever comes forward, and soon enough the trees parted, revealing the source of the sound.
[Grand Boar Matriarch] - Level 75
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A/N: I feel like I'm writing mini-blogs when I write these
So yeah, I think I have to release these chapters on Sunday now, because I'm getting really busy. And... well not much else to say. But I do have to say, 400+ followers now! Thanks for reading everyone.
P.S: Thanks to kilaske990 for the review!
Fun-fact: True World Online was called that because... I wanted to have a cool acronym. >.>