"Isn't there anything you can do to calm the little guy down?" Jay asked Casey as the pup tugged frantically on his cowboy pants. "Magic or something?" There was sarcasm in his voice, but he was starting to worry the creature would rip them and damage his armor. If that was even possible inside the game. Knowing the developers, he thought it probably was.

"It doesn't work like that… exactly," Casey said.

"Well, can you do something?"

The poor creature was still whining as it tugged on Jay's pants. He reached down to pet it, discovering the creature was actually shaking. Kneeling down, he inspected the dire wolf pup for wounds. It wasn't wounded. Still, the animal was in obvious distress.

"I can try the contract," Casey said. "Just keep the pup occupied while I work on this." The Beast Magician began muttering some kind of spell. In contrast to Taylor Lynn's archaic language, the intonations sounded like a string of poorly reconstructed animal noises. She obviously didn't have much experience making animal impressions in the real world.

With no idea how long the spell would take, Jay could only try to meet the creature in the eyes. He had read somewhere that wolves took eye contact very seriously. Developers often overlooked small details, but it was worth a shot.

The dire wolf pup—which Jay realized needed a name—had piercing green eyes. He realized with a twinge that they reminded him of Taylor Lynn. The most notable thing about the eyes was their glassy state. The eyes looked as though the tiny creature had been crying.

The pup's whines became even more pitiful as Jay looked it in the eyes. Deciding to commit fully, since the creature would have attacked him already if it were going to, he picked the wolf pup up with a grunt. He placed it onto his lap, sitting cross-legged on the ground.

Casey continued to mutter her spell, focusing intently on the pup, even as Jay moved it around. A spiral of tattoos began to etch its way across her body. Some appeared to be writing, whereas others looked like stylized animal depictions. It was intricate. Her clothing began to flutter—no wind necessary. Jay felt the hum of power concentrating in the area.

He started to pet the creature's fur, which did seem to have the desired effect of calming it slightly. He decided to wait on Casey for the name. After all, she would be the one to forge a contract with it. Jay had to admit, he was looking forward to seeing what kind of powers the dire wolf pup possessed. He finally realized what seemed different from the last time he was there.

He felt like a complete idiot.

The dire wolf pup's mother was nowhere to be seen. She had been guarding the area around the wolf warren the day before. There wasn't a single rustle of her presence. He wanted to smack himself on the head. No wonder it was in distress. He pulled it close, hugging it closely.

To Jay's surprise, Cuddles chirped something down at the dire wolf pup. It struggled in his grasp, rustling around to look up at Cuddles. The little wolf barked something back, which caused Cuddles to push forth a cascade of squirrel chirps. Cuddles' head swiveled rapidly back and forth as he chirped. The scene left him with the impression Cuddles was lecturing the pup.

The dire wolf pup calmed.

Jay felt a push on the side of his head. Looking down, he realized Cuddles had just head-butted him. On the one hand, Jay wasn't a big fan of the sore feeling in his face. On the other hand, he was thrown off by the strange behavior of the squirrel. Cuddles chirped at him, looking him directly in one eye. It was another lecture, but this lecture was much shorter and utterly unintelligible to him.

Finally, Casey started speaking louder. Jay looked, sensing the spell was coming to its climax. The tattoos were now completely covering Casey's body. They glowed with a vibrant green color, not the sickly green of poison, but a color of growth. Reaching out her hand, a faint green rope slithered from her hand, landing on the dire wolf pup's forehead. It turned toward her, regarding her with curiosity. Moments later, the spell faded, causing everything to disappear: the green rope, the tattoos, the bestial muttering, and the faint hum of power in the air.

"Woah," Casey said.

"What happened?" Jay asked. "Did it work? Was that the contract? Did the dire wolf accept?"

"Woah," Casey repeated. The other player was staring at something on her screen. Instead, Jay continued to pet the pup, wrestling with it. Rustling through the fur, he saw magical green tattoos running across the wolf's body. The tattoos were recognizable from Casey channeling the spell.

"Her name is Zenya," she finally said. "And I love her. But there's a little problem." So the dire wolf pup was 'her.' He felt a little embarrassed about calling her little guy but decided not to mention it. Casey didn't even remember; she was fascinated with her new companion.

Zenya hopped from Jay's lap, trotting over to nuzzle Casey's ankle. Since they had some sort of pact or contract, it was fair in the end. Jay still felt a slight sting of betrayal. It wouldn't be as unfair if Cuddles were more well-behaved. Then again, Jay had to acknowledge Cuddles was a killer death squirrel and Zenya was still a baby.

"What problem?" Jay asked.

"Well, the contract is completed, but I have a quest," Casey said, frowning slightly. "That wouldn't be so bad. The actual problem is the quest has an eight-hour time limit. That's not a lot of time. The other problem is I will probably have to train a lot first. The quest is level fifteen and recommends a party of five players."

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She threw her hands up in the air, exasperation clear, "How the heck am I supposed to get level 15, find four others, and complete the quest in eight hours?"

"That's way above your level," Jay said in surprise. "Why would the game issue you a time-limited party quest?"

"I think it's an issue of risk and reward," Casey mused, frown deepening.

"Oh, I see," Jay said, narrowing in on what the other player was thinking. "The dire wolf pup must be a strong contract, so the quest being issued is proportional in difficulty to the strength of the companion."

"Exactly," Casey nodded.

"Can you share the quest with me?"

Quest Offered: Missing Mother. Beast Magician Casey has formed a contract with a young dire wolf pup. The pup, named Zenya, has only one stipulation: Casey must help free her mother. Objective 1: Follow Zenya to discover the fate of her mother. [Recommend Party Size: 5+]

Jay accepted the quest immediately. He knew he was going to help Casey. Not only because she was Sarah's friend but also because the opportunity was something interesting to do while he worked on finding more monsters to add to his Bestiary. Unfortunately, even with the extra potions, he was forced to admit they might not be able to do it independently.

"Give me a minute, Casey," Jay said. "We'll figure this out. I'll contact my guild to see if anyone's available."

"I really, really don't want to fail this quest," Casey said quietly.

"I know."

Opening his guild window, Jay typed a message into the guild chat. He explained the situation, including the special quest, and that it was based on acquiring the first animal contract for a Beast Magician. He stared at the window, waiting for the replies to roll in.

He started to lose heart as a bunch of people sent messages to explain they weren't able to help. Watching the responses, Jay recognized several other names from players he spoke to briefly. Everyone was busy. Kylar was still farming dungeons, just like Taylor Lynn, Lester, Ken, and Jenny.

He saw a private message pop up, which immediately sent his heart beating. The message was from Lucille: Send me a party invitation. I can help. After, we can talk about guild business.

A high-level player would go a long way to making the quest possible. Jay sent her a party invitation. He added a message to the guild explaining they were good now. With a sigh of relief, he closed his guild window. Casey was playing with Zenya. At least, that's what it looked like at first. He watched a little longer, realizing that the other player was training her new companion.

Casey had procured some small rings from thin air and was tossing the rings in the air. Zenya leaped into the air, trying to catch them on her nose. Jay couldn't explain what was being trained precisely, but it was fascinating to watch. After another few minutes, when they were still waiting on Lucille, the training stopped.

"Hey," Casey said. "We should probably get going on this quest soon, right? Were you able to get any help? I trained Zenya up to level five, so it should be easier for her to survive whatever is coming. It looks like she needs actual fighting experience to level up more."

Jay took in the details as she rattled them all off, mentally parsing through several questions.

"Yeah, we have help coming. Probably all the help we're going to need," Jay said. Casey raised her eyebrows but didn't question his claim. They sat together, playing with Cuddles and Zenya. The animals seemed to get along pretty well, considering Cuddles was a squirrel of death and Zenya was just a wolf puppy. The players continued to watch them play until Lucille arrived.

"Hey, Jay," Lucille said. "Did you know that rhymed? I actually don't think I'll be able to get over that now that I've noticed it." The Lotus Warden smiled gently and was decked out in gear. She carried two longswords and a quarterstaff strapped onto her back.

She wore no armor, adorned instead in colorful robes. The clothing was obviously not designed for stealth. The fabric rustled around as Lucille fidgeted in place. The color scheme incorporated green, red, yellow, and even some bits of orange. It was much different from her plain clothing when Jay met her.

He was so confused by her gear he didn't even respond to Lucille's question. She added, "You didn't know it rhymed, did you? I think I broke him. I knew it. I'm Lucille, by the way."

She turned to Casey, offering her hand. The other young woman took it and shook, laughing heartily at her teasing of Jay. He was actually frozen because of an unrelated realization. It was one thing for Taylor Lynn to tease him after knowing him for years. He was pretty confident Lucille was mocking him for a different reason: she was flirting with him.

He knew he couldn't think about that too much at the moment, or he'd say something stupid. Smiling, Jay replied, "I actually hadn't thought about how it rhymed. Did you know Lucille rhymes with windowsill?"

"It does?" Casey asked.

"I don't think it does," Lucille said.

"Tough crowd," Jay said, giving up. It was best not to fight it. "I'll share the quest, and then we can head off."

He shared the quest and received a notification of Lucille's acceptance. Once she accepted, Zenya hopped away from Casey. It was like the dire wolf puppy knew it was time to start the quest now that Lucille was present. Jay thought it might be related to Lucille's level. After all, she had recovered her lost level and more. She was now level twenty-six. Maybe she counted as three level fifteens.

The other option was a Gamemaster monitoring Jay's conversations and sending the dire wolf forward now that he was ready. He didn't really want to believe that, and it was a little conspiratorial. So he put it out of his mind.

The party, now three players, followed Zenya as she led them through the forest. The baby dire wolf did an excellent job of avoiding creatures in the area. At one point, they ran into a pack of wolves, but the pack just left them alone after spotting Zenya. They seemed afraid of her, despite her being a puppy. Unfortunately, Zenya's talent for navigation prevented Jay from working on his other goal of filling up his Bestiary.

They walked for forty-five minutes, idly chatting about experiences with the game so far when they could. Zenya was pretty fast but only wandered a few meters ahead of Casey. Casey was pretty slow, which balanced out the pacing of the party.

Jay noticed that Lucille was fine keeping up with him, even when he moved ahead of the party. He figured she was also building some Speed into her statistics. She could also just have exceptional gear since she was a guild lieutenant.

Zenya stopped, which caused Jay to backtrack and see what the pup was up to. She pointed straight ahead, staring into the distance. Jay focused his eyes, following the line of her gaze.

He spotted it effortlessly.

"Yeah," Lucille said, noticing Jay peering into the distance. "It's a group of goblin scouts."