Jay inspected the tracks more deeply, following them for a few seconds. The highlighted footprints seemed to loop around the rocky beach before disappearing into the ocean. His level of interest in searching through the open sea was very low. He was, however, curious to see what the water might feel like within the game’s immersion.

He stepped into the water and discovered that, in the deep game immersion, the water felt wet.

It wasn’t exactly revolutionary, so he felt a little stupid when rejoining his friends. Water dripped from his clothes since it turned out cowboy suits didn’t wick moisture.

“Done playing around?” Ken asked, but he smirked. Then, he glanced at the water himself. “Are we seriously going to do a beach episode?”

“We can’t do a beach episode,” Jenny protested. “No bathing suits.”

“Doesn’t seem to be stopping Jay,” Taylor Lynn chimed in, chuckling to herself.

Jay smiled at her. “I don’t suppose the peanut gallery brought something helpful? Maybe a diving suit? Or snorkeling gear?”

“I brought tube socks,” Jenny offered.

At first, Jay didn’t believe her. The idea of it was utterly ridiculous. A cascade of silver sparks coalesced in Jenny’s hands to form a pair of small tube socks. She put them onto her hands like sock puppets and started attacking Ken with them.

Jay roared with laughter, but the remainder of the party watched in confusion. Feeling a little self-conscious, he cut himself off.

No one owned any diving gear. Nobody even remembered seeing equipment like that available in Ilra, and it was the trade city. If it existed in the Elvish territory, Ilra would be the city to have it.

Ken did have some fishing gear in his inventory, which could be interesting. They wouldn’t be able to catch the wayward traveler who latched onto the compass teleport, nor would they find Lurian with a fishing rod. But Jay was curious to see what kinds of things could be cooked with island fish.

“Has anyone tried firing messages to him?” Casey asked, petting the dire wolf next to her. Zenya sat on the rocky ground, even though it couldn’t have been comfortable for the wolf, and rumbled noises of contentment.

“I have,” Lester said.

“Me too,” Taylor Lynn agreed. “They’re not going through. It’s like he’s not even really on the island. It doesn’t make any sense unless he got killed. That would probably stop the messages from delivering… Obviously.”

“Wouldn’t the party system have sent us a message if he died while he was in the party?” Jenny asked.

“It should,” Sarah confirmed. “We lost a few people when we were cleaning out the demon invasion.”

Jay had obviously seen the messages after being player killed by the Demon faction players. There was no such message about Lurian before he left the party.

“I suppose he could have drowned after he left the party,” Jay said, gesturing to the water. Surely characters couldn’t live forever underwater without special abilities. It appeared that the two missing people walked out into the water and never returned. So, it was undoubtedly a possible fate.

“Those tracks really just go out into the water and never come back?” Lester asked, a puzzled look plastered to his face.

Jay thought about it for a moment. “I think so. Let me see if I can comb the shoreline for any other trails. It’s possible they went into the water, swam a ways, and then picked the trail back up.”

Jay spent twenty minutes searching the edges of the water on either side of where the trails went cold. There was no sign of other footprints. The Survival skill was giving him some help, but a lot of it still came down to his Perception statistic and his own logic.

He didn’t find any trails, but his Survival skill reached 68% progress toward the next tier. Currently, the skill was D tier, so Jay assumed that C tier would follow that. Tracking was going to be a handy skill on the island. All in all, he figured Herbalism and Cook would be, as well. The utility of Mining would come down to the specifics of the island.

“No such luck,” Jay sighed. “It looks like the tracks went completely cold.”

Being done with his tracking was likely all for the best. The whole party was looking pretty bored. Sarah was studying her medical textbooks. Casey was even taking a nap, leaning on Zenya.

The twins were playing some kind of card game involving Ken losing a lot. When Jay joined them, Ken was cursing under his breath about how his sister was a dirty cheater.

“Do you have any tracking abilities, Ken?” Jay asked. After Lurian, it made the most sense for the Scoundrel player to have skills like that.

“Sort of. I have to mark the target first,” Ken said.

“Mark them?”

“Yeah. I activate my level thirty ability on a single target, and it helps me track them for up to an hour. It’s called Trail of Blood.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“You can’t just plug in a name and find their location, huh?” Jay asked sarcastically. As useful as it would be, such an ability was exceptionally overpowered. Most of the time, Tumultua Online was a balanced game except where Jay’s character was concerned.

“I wish,” Ken said, playing a card. Jenny immediately snapped it up, pushing a small pile of cards in front of her. “How do you keep doing that?”

He shook his head, gathering his thoughts again. “Anyway, I’d love to use that to take on some of those Demon players you guys fought. Player-versus-player sounds like it would be a lot of fun.”

“Losing levels isn’t fun,” Jay said, having experienced the situation several times.

“Lost levels just mean more time to play the game,” Jenny argued brightly. “Everyone knows the endgame gets boring after a while. Unless you’re an obsessive challenge freak like Ken.”

“Not everybody can spend three hours trying on outfits inside a video game. And then end up choosing none of them,” Ken teased.

“It is a talent,” Jenny agreed. Smiling, she pushed another small stack of cards toward Ken.

Ken, like the young adult he was, promptly threw his hand of cards down in frustration. He tried to kick rocks onto the cards but entirely whiffed.

Lester, who had been talking to Taylor Lynn throughout the twenty minutes, finally cleared his throat loudly. The move worked to get everyone’s attention.

“Let’s just set up the tent here,” Lester commanded. “People can work on some skills. We can gather some food buffs; see if Enchanting or Runic Imbuement can upgrade anyone’s gear. After that, we can throw on some potion buffs and be careful about moving through the island. Together.”

He emphasized the last word, so Jay would know the party wasn’t splitting up.

Lester and Ken worked together on setting up the camp. Taking another look at his ability, Jay weighed whether or not to take to the air on a short scouting mission.

There was a distinct possibility that the cat was already out of the bag regarding his remarkable Synthesization skill. People were aware of the defensive vine shield he used, which was completely different from the rest of his ability kit. It was possible that people would buy it, but equally likely was that his cover was blown.

Still, as much as he wanted to fly, he couldn’t bring himself to take to the air. The ability would yield a decisive advantage for scouting the area but would definitely put a target on his back. For all he knew, there were no other players who could actually use such powers.

The camp erupted into chaos. Looking up, Jay saw the tent was only half finished. People were still spread out all over the rocks. None of them drew his attention.

Instead, his attention fell on a monster slithering out of the sea. It didn’t need to touch the rocks, which meant it didn’t leave any trace of its passage. The long body soared at least twelve feet in the air.

The snake creature wasn’t scaled but had a smooth body with alternating multi-colored rings. Purple, yellow, and red were all present on the skin in equal numbers. The head was shaped like a diamond, leaving a broad mouth with powerful jaws. The beady green eyes looked poisonous, and the creature licked the air with a green forked tongue.

Scyllo, Level: 41 [Elite]. Health: 5,500/5,500.

The creature whipped its body forward, aiming straight for Lester. As the body soared through the air, the beast opened its jaws wide. The monster attempted to swallow the party tank whole.

Lester stepped back, allowing the jaw to close slightly before him, and used his two-handed sword to block the sea creature’s fangs. The move worked flawlessly to stop himself from being swallowed whole.

The creature, instead of pushing forward, backed off. The gigantic snake’s body retreated over the water, leaving the party with a temporary false sense of security.

Jay activated Rapid Fire, aiming down his crossbow at the target. He saw various other buffs trigger around the party, and Sarah stepped up next to Lester. Together, the two tanks faced off against the sea monster.

Whipping out again, the creature slammed its head with raw force into the side of Lester. He went soaring, losing thirty percent of his health to the attack. The creature, pulling back the other way, also slammed with force into Sarah. She was knocked off balance, losing a sizable portion of her health and sinking to her knees.

Jay fired the first bolt using one of his blended clips: a necrotic bolt. Putting some persistent damage on the enemy would quickly turn things in the party’s favor.

The bolt missed completely. Spells fired forth from Taylor Lynn and Jenny. The bear claw and icicle bolt mixed like the claw was reaching for the ice. Even Carlos entered the fight by calling forth his holy light attack. The combination of all three spells had a negligible effect. The health bar on the elite creature barely moved.

Before Lester could even stand back up, the creature’s wild swings crushed him right back into the rock.

Jay activated his Analyze ability right as Lester called out, “Retreat!”

System Message: Analyze failed. To obtain data on this creature, the Catalog ability must be used. All subsequent Analyze attempts will fail.

That failure message quickly became Jay’s least favorite statement in the whole game. The entire world, if he were honest with himself.

The party followed the order, leaving the tent behind. They learned a few things about the creature, but the party was too spread out. The players weren’t in a good position for heals or stacking buffs on each other. And with how it absorbed magic attacks, the fight would be an absolute grind without Lurian.

They ran into the trees without delving too far into the jungle itself. There could easily be more dangers lurking within, but the rocky beach was an immediate danger.

Spinning around, Jay was comforted by the fact that the creature seemed unwilling to leave the ocean. It was even longer than he had thought, soaring twenty feet into the air as it glared down at the party.

The abandoned tent nearby sat undisturbed. The creature wasn’t interested in the object. As the party watched, the beast slowly slipped back beneath the water’s surface.

Everyone needed a few seconds to breathe after the intense encounter, so they took a break. Given the extra time for Jay’s mind to wander, a horrifying thought occurred to him. If the game was meant to be raising the stakes through permanent character death, there was a high probability the party wouldn’t be able to log out.

“Has anyone checked their logout menus?” he asked. “Can we get out of the game?”

“I’m sure we can log out of the game,” Carlos said. He disappeared into his menus.

Jay knew he could simply check for himself, but his anxiety was too high. It was one thing for your character to be trapped in a game when you could take the headset on and off. A prison made of full immersion hardware was a whole different thing.

Carlos made thinking-aloud noises as he paged through his menus. Finally, a look of absolute terror passed over his face. He closed his menu and met Jay’s eyes with a gulp. The Cardinal player’s voice wavered as he spoke.

“There’s no logout button. We’re trapped.”