The whole team wasn’t online when Jay returned to the game. Sarah, Lester, and Taylor Lynn were the only ones still present. The response from Taylor Lynn came in as he zoned into the game. Looking inside his menu, he read: Yes. Our place.

The message stung, but he kept it off his face. He wanted to send something back about how there was nothing “ours” about it. His scathing reply was buried underneath his interest in moving forward. Ultimately, he was curious to see what she wanted to talk about.

“What’s up, team?” Jay asked. “Get the Enchantments all figured out?”

“Yeah,” Lester confirmed. “We’ve been watching Sarah work.”

“And hovering over me while I’m trying to study,” Sarah pointed out. “A little annoying, but I get it.”

“Why are they hovering?” Jay asked.

Sarah pointed to the Alchemy apparatus in front of her. In her hands, she held her school books. “The ingredients you gave me. I’m running some tests on them to confirm, but I think I’m starting to understand the potion. I’ve discovered what some of the ingredients are used for. You know, like which kinds of potions.”

“That’s amazing,” Jay said, looking at the bubbling mixture with curiosity. “What are the usages you learned about?”

“Water filtration and aeration,” Sarah explained, scratching a note into her textbook.

“A-what?” Jay asked, instantly tripping over the word.

“I think it helps you breathe underwater,” Sarah said, sighing deeply. “I’m trying to study here. It’s the middle of the day. Can’t you guys go do something productive? Some more ingredients would be nice.”

Jay reached forward, messed up her hair, and propelled himself backward with his air dodge. Her retaliatory smack sailed through empty air.

“Brothers with powers are annoying,” she muttered.

Jay returned to the Enchanting table, followed by Lester and Taylor Lynn. It was far enough away to avoid bothering Sarah too much.

“I think I’m going to grind my skills around camp,” Jay noted. “I’ll keep close enough that I can call for help, just in case I get in over my head with a monster.”

“That’s fine,” Lester said. “No point wasting game hours. Do you want to help out?”

Taylor Lynn shook her head. “No, I’ve gotta log off and work on a report, actually. Even though they already fixed the bug, I need to file the Enchanting problem I found. That way, the engineers get credit for working on the fix.”

“Makes sense,” Lester said. “I gotta take care of some family stuff. You gonna be alright on your own?”

“I’ll be fine,” Jay assured him. “Like I said, I’ll keep close to camp. Besides, as I proved earlier, I’m very good at running away from monsters.”

“That’s true,” Taylor Lynn agreed.

After negotiating a meeting time, Taylor Lynn and Lester logged out. Jay sent Sarah a message that he would work on farming some herbs for her. He figured that a short message was better than directly interrupting her work again.

Jay wandered the jungle, slowly circling further out from the camp. The area, even near the ocean, flourished with plant life. There was so much that he could use to power level his Herbalism skill.

All in all, he collected about three hundred different kinds of plants in the four hours he spent combing the jungle for herbs. His average collection speed was more than one plant per minute, which he found unquestionably insane. His most significant breakthrough came when his spiral pattern of farming led him to the ocean.

The idea occurred to Jay to reach into the water, risking his hands, and search the edges of the beach for plant life. Below the surface, the rocky beach was composed more of pebbles than solid rock. Growing in the spaces between stones were some exceptionally hardy plants. His Herbalism skill had even developed enough to indicate that they were an ingredient in defensive potions.

By the end of his farming, his skill level had reached 98% of the way through the D tier. He was annoyed at having to stop, but he decided he was better off not being late for mob grinding. There would be opportunities to collect more ingredients while they grinded experience. So, Jay made his way back to camp a few minutes early.

His Herbalism skill wasn’t the loftiest gain he made during his herb farming. His Survival skill reached the C tier, although he only made three percent progress into the next tier. While he gathered herbs, he ensured that he stopped to look for tracks. His efforts found several different kinds of prints, which he could now recognize.

Jay hoped the tracks would lead the party to some monster encounters. Since he approached the effort so diligently, his Survival skill had nudged into the next tier. He was delighted with the outcome since the skill was invaluable on the island.

“What’s up, sis?” Jay asked when he walked into the camp. Sarah was the only one present at the campsite.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

She closed the textbook she was holding. With a shower of white sparks, it disappeared into her inventory. “Not too much. Guess study time is over for today. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn too much more about your weird plants.”

“That’s alright,” Jay said, sitting on one of the stools beside her. It belonged to the Runic Imbuement table that Jenny used. He was immediately assaulted by a System Message.

System Message: You do not have compatibility with this skilling table. If you attempt to use skilling tables to perform skills you are not trained in, there is a 10% chance of catastrophic failure. That means explosions.

Jay immediately swiped the message away. He had no interest in using the skilling tables. After all, he’d been working hard to avoid training any skills he wanted to avoid.

“I assume you brought me presents from your hours of work,” Sarah suggested pointedly.

Unceremoniously, Jay dumped all the plants from his inventory. They popped in the form of a small wall that materialized between the siblings. Sarah reached into the pile and slowly absorbed all the material into her inventory.

“You could use a trade window like a normal person,” Sarah chastised.

“I could,” Jay said. “But I don’t think I will. Besides, I put a lot of work into collecting all that. The least you could do is tell a big brother ‘thank you’ or something.”

“Thank you for being the weirdest kind of lazy,” Sarah declared. “Since, for some reason, you think you’re better off running around and collecting herbs for hours. Somehow, you find that to be less work than sitting around and brewing potions.”

“I like to explore,” Jay shrugged. “When are you supposed to be done with this diagnostic stuff? I want to visit.”

“You’ll be the first… second… third person to know,” Sarah confirmed. “I’m expecting to be able to log out within the next couple of days. The doctors keep dodging me whenever I message them, though. They probably don’t want to give me an estimate they can’t stick to.”

“The third person?” Jay asked, trying not to look too offended. He was excited that he would be able to see Sarah within the next few days. He decided to bring her a gift.

“Yep,” Sarah agreed. “First, I’ll text Mom. Then, I’ll text Casey. Last, I’ll text you. If it makes you feel any better, that third text will be the last one. Everyone else can find out on their own time.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Jay begrudgingly admitted, though he still thought he should beat out Casey. “How has your schoolwork been going? Are you able to keep up with it? If I need to, I can talk to them about any changes to the programming.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Sarah said. “School is going pretty well. The in-game writing seems pretty adaptive. After I upload a document, they send it to my professors by email.”

She took her books and started collecting them all together. Slowly, all the materials disappeared into her inventory, clearing the extra space on the Alchemy table.

“It seems like it would get old pulling that stuff in and out of your inventory all day,” Jay noted as she worked. “Why do you bother clearing it all out? Are you afraid jungle monsters are going to eat your homework?”

Sarah shook her head. “Nope, the stupid Alchemy table doesn’t work if there’s extra stuff on it. If you talk to the developers, tell them to fix that.”

Shaking her head, she lightly kicked the edge of the Alchemy table. Jay and Sarah watched together as the table wobbled violently. The table wavered with threats of falling over.

“Stupid table,” Sarah finally hissed when it was clear the table wouldn’t topple over.

“Claire wants to meet you, by the way,” Jay said, working on reloading the clips for his repeating crossbow. He was going to be burning through masses of bolts very soon. Bolts mentally joined the list of things for him to look for in the alligator village.

“Really?” Sarah asked curiously. “Tell me more about her. How did that come up? Is she cute? Do you have a picture?”

Jay chuckled. “I’ll bring you a picture of her when I come to visit. I don’t have one yet, so I’ll have to sneak one next time we hang out. She and I are supposed to watch a movie soon.”

“Lame date,” Sarah said. “But seriously, why did she want to meet me? Isn’t it a little early to meet the family? Do I have to teach you how to date?”

“Okay, one,” Jay stated firmly. “You do not need to teach me how to date. She’s the one who asked for the movie date. For two, meeting my little sister is way different than playing meet the parents. And for three, it was indirect. It came up because Claire was wondering if you two would get along. So, I explained a little bit about how you are.”

“How I am?” Sarah asked skeptically. “What does that even mean?”

“Oh, come off it,” Jay said. “I was just pointing out how hard you can be on people who have lost your trust. She started asking me about your ex-boyfriends, and I explained that I didn’t really know. That you don’t really talk about it.”

“Oh, if you want to know about my exes,” Sarah grinned. “I have so many stories I could tell you.”

“I really, truly don’t,” Jay reiterated.

“Well, whatever. I’m happy to meet Claire when I get out of this thing. Maybe they’ll let me leave for lunch or something. I’d much rather you date anyone besides Taylor Lynn,” Sarah admitted. “Maybe even that girl who put gum in my hair in the third grade. Izzy Lesmond.”

Sarah’s eyes narrowed as she stated the name of her third-grade nemesis. Jay’s attention was pulled somewhere else.

His eyes widened at what he saw behind Sarah. Lester and Taylor Lynn had just logged in by the tent.

“She’s right behind me, isn’t she?” Sarah asked when he didn’t answer. She was more curious than afraid.

Jay nodded.

Sarah turned around, made eye contact with Taylor Lynn, and shrugged her shoulders. Then, without meeting a beat, she added, “Hey, Taylee.”

Having made her point, she started creating a potion with her Alchemy table.

Taylor Lynn grabbed Jay by the edge of his shirt and pulled him to the other side of the camp. “So, that was a little rude.”

“Was it?” Jay asked earnestly. “You sort of had your chance for years. Can you blame her for being a little disenchanted by the idea?”

Taylor Lynn seemed genuinely surprised by Jay’s reaction. “Isn’t it sort of messed up to have a conversation about me without me?

“I can talk to my sister about whatever I want,” Jay shrugged. “That was supposed to be a private conversation.”

“Whatever, Jay,” Taylor Lynn shot back, unhappily dismissing everything. With a sigh, she forced herself to be pleasant. “I really do need to talk to you tomorrow, though.”

“Yeah,” Jay confirmed. “We’ll talk at the spot. But couldn’t you at least tell me what’s going on? Like now? At least a little bit, so I know what I’m walking into.”

“Not really,” Taylor Lynn said. “It’s going to be a–”

There was a grunt of surprise, and Jay turned to see Sarah with bulging eyes. Jutting from her back was a small dagger—held in the hands of a lithe, demonic assassin.

The Demon faction Assassin, who went by T, stood behind Sarah. She wrenched her wrist back—the dagger struck again.