“That sounds like a horrible fate,” Jay said. “You think they’re actually going to go that far?”
Pami shrugged. “They do not seem to care for their own lives anymore. Those crocodiles assault us in their weakest form every day, trying to swim through the traps. And yet every day more of them return.”
“Well, whatever we’re facing, my friends and I will help you,” Jay promised. “We’ll figure out what’s going on and see that we set the island back on the right path.”
“I hope you are right,” Pami sighed, the concern evident in her eyes. “Soon, things may reach a course that cannot be reversed. The whole island ecosystem may fall apart. You would be surprised how important a single island can be to the whole world.”
Jay nearly lost his own footing, despite the fact that he wasn’t moving. “What was that? An island is important to the whole world?”
He wasn’t thrilled with the unmistakable foreshadowing. It sounded like Mercura Island was somehow crucial to the overall game. The structural integrity of the world could fall apart. Jay’s mind reeled at the possibilities. Pami had mentioned something about the magic collected on the island, which was likely significant.
“I do not think we should concern ourselves with it,” Pami said, quickly walking the length of the room. She stopped to gaze into the pool. She didn’t stop him, so Jay followed her. “I believe you will succeed, so no harm will be done.”
“Right,” Jay said, staring into the pool. The pool looked to his sight to be simple, clear water. There weren’t any magical sparks coming off it. No magical glow existed in the water, which meant there wasn’t even any plant life at the bottom of it.
Even so, Pami stared at it with great intensity. An awkward silence fell over the two for ten seconds or so. Finally, she broke the silence. “I can give you a signet ring, which will mark you as a friend to the alligator Dissimu. This ring will allow you to come and go through our front door as you, please. Two friends may accompany you as long as they are true of heart. The magic will detect if they are not loyal to you.”
“Uh huh,” Jay said, not really believing her words. The words were engaging flavor text, but he knew that’s all it was: words to set the right mood. He didn’t believe for a second that the game could detect loyalty.
“Go in peace, Monster Hunter,” Pami urged, physically ushering him from the room. “You need rest, and I expect we will see each other again soon. Remember your strength, Jay Miller.”
With a puzzled look, Jay asked, “My strength? Do you mean my friends?”
Pami chuckled as she shoved him out of the room, nearly knocking him over. “No, youngling. I mean the powers of Synthesization. What greater power could there be than to turn your enemy’s own strengths against them?”
Jay thought about that the whole way back to camp, where he would feel relatively safe logging out. Igno stopped him along the way to offer an escort, but Jay didn’t feel right about it. Besides, he needed space to think.
His powers were growing beyond what a typical character could expect. Even his basic abilities, like Point-Blank Shot, could deal truly devastating damage in the right conditions. When he started thinking about the ability’s name, something clicked into place for him. He was thinking about how to utilize Synthesization the wrong way.
Jay focused on how to find the absolute best abilities from each category, which almost always was an ability stemming from a powerful boss. The Maragon and the Beetler Queen both provided potent buffs. The only problem was that neither ability synergized with the other. He couldn’t even activate his flight while he was wrapped in the cocoon.
He wondered what would happen if he chose two similar abilities, such as dodge-focused abilities or attacks that could be used in a combo.
When he reached camp, he logged out of the game. As sleep finally claimed him, his mind dreamed of the prospective ability combinations.
***
When Jay awoke, the first thing he did was log back onto the game. He messaged his sister to see if she was awake, but she didn’t respond. She was still asleep. The bundle of flowers from Pami was left outside her tent.
Unexpectedly, Jay found Taylor Lynn and Lester were already awake and at camp. They were sitting at the Enchanting table working on enchanting more items. It looked like they were trying to attach another enchantment to Lester’s sizeable two-handed sword.
“You guys are up early,” Jay pointed out.
Taylor Lynn gestured at the Enchanting table. “Well, playing this game is fundamentally my job. Besides, I’ve already found a bug this morning and submitted the report to Tumult.”
“What bug?” Jay asked, raising his eyebrows. He knew that Taylor Lynn’s job involved hunting for bugs in the game. She enjoyed the position since it allowed her to play games for a living. Knowing how she would appreciate it, he’d created the opportunity for her during his negotiations. But he was surprised she actually found bugs in Tumult’s game.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
The corporation had a considerable development budget. There had been issues on launch day, but games always had problems on launch day. Everyone underestimated server strain and all sorts of things like that. Aside from the situations with the Monster Hunter class, Jay hadn’t heard of any other confirmed bugs in the game.
Taylor Lynn was in her game menus and didn’t answer his question. A little annoyed, Jay repeated himself. “What bug?”
Just then, a message popped into his user display. She was shooting him a meaningful look, so even though he was confused, he ignored the message for now.
“Oh, just something with one of the Enchanting patterns,” Taylor Lynn commented, acting totally nonchalant about her random message. Jay wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t the message’s intended recipient. People popped into their game menus all the time, but she was acting super weird.
Lester, probably feeling self-conscious about the friends going back and forth, jumped into the conversation. “Basically, creating the same enchantment in multiple slots caused an issue. Instead of adding the second enchant, it simply overwrote the first enchant. It only happened with the damage reduction enchant. And it only happened on an item with a damage reduction power. We tried reproducing it on a different item, and it worked flawlessly.”
“Your weapon,” Jay acknowledged. “Hopefully, they get that fixed soon. That sounds like a huge pain.”
“They patched it already,” Taylor Lynn said with a smirk, holding up Lester’s weapon. Jay could see that both enchantment slots were now slotted with a damage reduction enchant.
“Trying to keep up with my little sister?” Jay asked, trying to give Lester a hard time.
“Absolutely,” he agreed, not attempting to fight it. “She’s a beast of a tank. Competing with that armor of hers is not going to be an easy feat, but I’m going to give it a shot. I like a challenge.”
“Who are you calling a beast?” Sarah said, emerging from the tent in her full suit of armor. Her shield was strapped to her back, and her sword was at her hip. Getting dressed was much more convenient in Tumultua, although her hair was a little bit messy. “That’s no way to talk about a lady, especially behind her back.”
She stooped to scoop all the flowers into her inventory before joining the others by the Enchanting table.
“I mean it in the best way,” Lester said with a grin. “Gives me something to compete against. It’s a good reminder that I can’t sit on my laurels just because I’m leading the top guild in the Elvish faction.”
“Actually, I heard that The Elvish All—” Sarah started to say but was cut off.
“We don’t talk about them,” Taylor Lynn threw in anxiously. Everyone could see the fumes puffing out from Lester’s ears at the almost-mention of the other prominent guild.
Jay started immediately forging a distraction. “So I had an eventful night doing many things I wasn’t supposed to.”
Taylor Lynn rolled her eyes, and Sarah giggled lightly. On the other side of potential reactions, Lester’s left eyebrow twitched. Jay wasn’t doing the best job of distracting him from his anger, but he was making him angry at something new.
“It’s kind of a long story,” Jay said apologetically. “Is that okay?”
Lester got the look in his eye that Jay had seen all the time when he was working at Roscoe’s Diner. People being cut off from drinking wore the same look when they wanted to punch Jay in the face but knew they couldn’t.
“We’d love to hear the story,” Lester replied, forcing the look off his face. “Please, tell us what you’ve been up to.”
“It’s actually kind of funny,” Jay said before launching into the story. He told them most of it, explaining how he’d heard a battle near the camp and went to check it out. The truth about his flight power nearly slipped out during the story, but he managed to hold his tongue. Instead, he merely claimed he was wandering the camp, ensuring everything was fine since Sarah was stuck in the game.
After that, Jay explained the furious monster that turned out to be Igno and how he and Lyle convinced Jay to return to their secret city. The party was interested in the conversation with the Elder since there wasn’t much lore about the game out in the wild. There were only bits and pieces—like the Strogian Death squirrel. He left out the role that the Monster Hunter class played in the histories just to keep things safe. That way, he wouldn’t wander into any dangerous territory.
Finally, he explained the signet ring he was offered to allow him and his loyal friends to return to the village. Jay didn’t think they would be able to provide the party much, but they could likely trade for whatever supplies they might have. He still wanted to look into diving equipment, so they could search for the Scyllo creature’s lair.
“Wow, I’d really love to see that village,” Sarah said. “I bet Casey would get a kick out of it, too. Once she gets out of class, that is. Can we come?”
To Jay’s immense surprise, neither Taylor Lynn nor Lester showed any particular interest in going to the underground alligator city. Which was absolutely absurd since it was an underground alligator city.
“I guess everyone can take shifts trying to check out the city. Their farms, in particular, are pretty cool,” he remarked before redirecting the party’s focus. “But I don’t want to waste too much time there. I’ve been thinking, and we need to get grinding. There are respawning crocodiles everywhere, and based on my talk with Pami, I think there are more elite monsters spawning periodically.”
“Alright, fine,” Lester shrugged. He didn’t address any part of the speech, simply accepting things as they were.
“I think you should consider… Wait, what?” Jay asked, expecting another argument about danger.
“You’re right,” Lester admitted, opening his hands in surrender. “We should grind. There are interesting monsters all over this place. Not only will we get experience points, but we’ll get valuable experience fighting together. We still have a stock of potions and should be able to make more with this island’s resources. We can farm skill materials while we’re grinding. For example, all those flowers you gave to Sarah were rare ingredients.”
“So we can go farming and grinding tonight?” Jay asked.
“From the sound of that quest,” Taylor Lynn mused, “we ought to do some farming for a few days. We might want to take every advantage we can get, especially if it’s going to involve fighting Dissimu War Forms. Or worse. Scyllo was a level forty elite, so they’ll be just as bad. Or worse.”
At the reminder from Taylor Lynn, he shared the quest with everyone already present. He would share it with Carlos, Casey, and the twins later that day.
“Alright, well, I have a lunch date to get to. Then we farm for a few days,” Jay proclaimed. He thought that might be just what the doctor ordered.
Taylor Lynn frowned. He opened her message while he was inside the game menus. He also noticed some available statistic points and immediately dumped them into Balance.
The message from Taylor Lynn read: Jay, do you want to get some lunch in the real world? I have a lunch hour, and we haven’t really seen each other much. I’d love to see you.
That explained the frown—kind of. Jay shot her back a brief message before he logged out. Even though he knew it was an absolutely no good, bad idea. He wrote: Tomorrow?