The hot air in the smithy suffocated Aya with its iron taste and burning smell. She had been at the purifying process for more than an hour and yet, there was nothing to show for it. A grand total of seven ore pieces had been purified to grant her trace amounts of iron and silver. The mountain of ore loomed, seemingly infinite, beside her. The task wouldn’t have bothered her if it was at least helping her with her stat goal. Unfortunately, the last hour had proven useless on that front as well, giving her a measly three precision stats, a number she could gain in a fraction of the time with pen and paper.

Aya considered her options. She could buy the amount of ore she needed to purify. If her calculations were right, that meant about two hundred pounds of ore. Even buying only the cheapest iron ore, it would cost more than she could afford. The only things she had of value didn’t exactly belong to her and she knew better than to peddle stolen goods when people were still actively looking for them. Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, she knew all too well how the process worked.

While she was still thinking of a solution, Xavier logged out without warning. Left alone in the room with the other apprentice, whose name turned out to be BurningIce, she thought about trying to use him somehow. His purifying process went much faster than hers and his skill level allowed him to process a greater quantity in a shorter amount of time. Unfortunately, when she approached him to talk, he also logged out after a few words. Standing alone in the small smithy, two of the three fires dying from lack of fuel, she could breathe again for the first time in what felt like years.

Checking her stat progress, she saw that she was already at 96%. She decided to go on a small hunt to grow her stats and simultaneously level up. Stepping out of the smithy, she was hit with a blast of cool air. Looking up at the sky, she saw that as always, there were no clouds in sight and the sun was just as merciless as ever. She had been cooped up in the smithy for so long that the summer weather felt cool.

Running toward the town gates, she opened up the Era forums, searching for a way to get metal ore faster. Aya could see it as a semi-translucent screen in her field of vision. Its size, transparency and location in front of her could be changed. She minimized it to about a quarter of the width of her field of vision and posted it on the right side with high transparency so it wouldn’t get in her way.

Skimming most of the posts by title, she started a quick process of elimination. Many of the posts linked to trade sites so she quickly narrowed the search down to the processing of the ore itself. Even if she did buy ore from someone to replace what she needed, there was also the slight problem of two and a half tonnes of ore sitting around. She refused to lift another bag.

She killed beast after beast, increasing stats, SharpSight and Bleed skill proficiencies and gaining EXP all at the same time. While gathering up loot and searching for her next target, she continued to browse the forums with very little luck until she came across a very peculiar post.

Thread created by: SpearFace - 7/02/XXXX

ROCKYNO’S SHIT

SpearFace: OMG. Guys. You’re not gonna believe this. The frigging Rockyno’s shit ... Purified ore. No shit… well. Actually yes shit.. But you know what I mean. I was carrying a cart of ore the other day when a herd or Rockyno’s came literally out of nowhere. I obviously hightailed it out of there, but when I came back. Lo and behold… every single piece of ore was gone. Crazy right? I was pissed for a while too, but when I went back the next day… I use the same route and all… I saw a bunch of their shit laying around right… and one of them was shining in the light… Just so you understand why I was rifling through shit in the first place. But anyway! I found FRIGGIN ORE. And like… the purest ore. 100%. I’m at level 27 in purifying and I dunno about you guys but the closest I get even now is 98%... if im lucky. It’s fucking crazy.

Aya’s brows drew together as she remembered the beasts she had targeted with Donovan. The size of a small mule, they loomed over her petite figure. They were brute beasts that trampled everything in their path. The stretches of desert wasteland looked even more devastated after they went through it, leaving deep hoof grooves in their wake and the discarded broken remnants of any dry brittle brush that had survived the drought that long. Her doubts were mirrored by others as she read the replies to the post.

Tremblage: Yea right.

SpearFace: Try it out dude.

LavaLamp: Holy Shit! Dude was right… the fucking mobs go crazy for that shit. So insane.

Tremblage: OMG IT WORKS.

Aya hadn’t seen them eat anything while Donovan had her fight them, but the more she thought about their physiology, the more it made sense that they were not simple grazers. They had massive mouths that sported two rows of thick, wide teeth and their jaws were supported by bundles of muscles that could probably crush a human’s skull if it wanted to. In turn though, they also didn’t have any fangs or any other form of predatory appendages like tusks or horns. In fact, they were geared for defence, their thick concrete-gray skin formed of plate-like scales that folded into each other as they moved, making it very hard to get at them. Aya knew this all too well. Donovan had chosen them as a target because it required both strength and precision to bring one of them down. Their only weaknesses were the little crevices where their scales folded into themselves.

Caught up in reading, Aya didn’t notice when the Layhen woke up. It had gone unconscious almost the moment she entered the smithy. She only noticed it after Xavier had taught her the purifying process but she had taken the opportunity to try and pry it off of her arm again. Unfortunately, even in slumber, the thing wouldn’t let go. With its revival came its usual aggressive attempt to hurt her. Not that it ever gave up, but it did tire itself out at times.

Aya held her arm away from herself, waiting for it to calm down with the restraints around it. For a minute it worked and she kept reading the replies.

Loli: Never thought I’d voluntarily dig through shit in my life! *gets on hands and knees*

Shafter: Yeah baby! Get down for me.

SordidAf: Yeah, only problem is you gotta wait around for a bunch of beasts to take a shit and who knows how long that takes.

Even with the long, drawn-out process, Aya realized it would be a much faster way to purify her ore. At her current rate, it would take her over a week to finish it. Starting to get excited about the potential shortcut, she tried to finish reading the post quickly. Unfortunately, she was interrupted by painful scratching on her still-outstretched arm.

Immediately shifting her attention to the Layhen, she saw that it had somehow managed to wiggle around so its clawed feet were facing her arm instead of the air above it. It was viciously scratching at her like she was a plowing ground. Blood was already starting to trickle down her arm by the time she managed to secure both feet with her other hand and forcefully twist it around. She thought it was over and shifted her eyes to glare at the Layhen in time to see its mysteriously-free beak zero in on the wrist of the hand that held the stupid claws.

“MOTHERFUmmmmrrr…!” she screamed. “You little piece of shit!”

Her outburst didn’t affect it in the least as it continued to peck at her. She released the claws to get ahold of the head but when she did that, the Layhen immediately stretched its claws out to get at her biceps.

“Arrrghhh!!” she yelled, shaking it viciously. “That hurts, you know!”

It didn’t reply vocally but continued to land a scratch every now and then, even with her furious attempts at shaking it into submission. Unfortunately, that also resulted in the loosening of its ropes and it started to get free. She quickly dropped to her knees and unforgivingly bashed the head she still had a hold of into the hard, dry ground.

It squawked, but continued its vicious fight, tightening its grip around her arm so her circulation slowed painfully.

“Let!” she screamed, bashing its head into the ground. “Go!” she yelled. “Of! A muffled thump followed her outburst as its head once again was acquainted with the ground. “Me!”

The grip loosened.

Surprised, Aya calmed down enough to look at the Layhen she was still veritably strangling. Its coal black eyes stared stoically back. She had the weird sensation it was agreeing to a ceasefire. Her hands slowly loosened around its neck and it squawked. Afraid it meant another attack, she was about to tighten her grip again when it stretched its wings and hopped down beside her.

She was still on her knees and its tail was still wound around her right forearm, but it stood about a foot away, looking at her with awkward determination. Aya did not know what it meant or what it wanted. It squawked again.

“Oh yeaaaa,” she said, sarcasm dripping off her words. “Now that makes perfect sense.”

It didn’t respond.

“Squaaaaawk,” she imitated shrilly.

It didn’t take its blank eyes off of her.

“You’re… kinda creeping me out, Hen.”

It flapped its wings twice, craning its neck up high before it settled down again.

“So…” she said, feeling a little weird to be negotiating with a bird. “We good now?”

There was no response.

“Of course there’s no frigging response.”

She rolled her eyes, slumped over onto the ground and decided to finish reading the post before she figured out what to do about the Hen.

“You’re exhausting,” she said, she was rewarded with the same blank, black stare.

Tremblage: Anywhere from 4-22 hours.

Loli: -_- Fuckin trolls.

ListenUp: WTF!!!! You actually sat around waiting for those things! You’re fucking insane. Not worth it guys. Much faster if you just level up your skill. I’m at level 50 in purifying and most of the Level I ores like copper, iron, silver, gold and so forth… It’s quite standard to get 100%... in a matter of seconds. Stop being lazy and train your fucking skills people. This is the reason you all sucks so bad. Absolutely no dedication.

Intrigued, she wanted to try it out. Donovan had warned her about Rockynos, saying that unless you knew you were going to win you shouldn’t attack. Donovan assured her the stampede was one of the worst ways to die in the game and if a kid with a minimized pain setting was complaining about it, she sure didn’t want to try it out for herself.

Thinking about pain, she was rewarded with her own dose when the Hen attacked her again out of nowhere. Unfortunately, since she was unguardedly sitting with her hands propped up on the knees, it had the most direct access to her face it ever had. It mercilessly took advantage of this, pecking viciously at her face, even eyes, before she could reach her right hand away from her face and her left hand to fight it off.

With scratches burning on her face and arms, and a LayHen flapping in her hands, her blood was boiling. Fists clenching uncaringly around its leathery body, Aya stood up, putting her whole weight on the chicken below her hands as she did so. She tightened her hands around it’s body savagely.

“I tried to be nice, Hen,” she said through clenched teeth. “But you give me no other choice.” She stared at its unchanging soulless black eyes as she walked toward the nearest tree.

Balling its body up with both hands, she positioned herself in front of the tree, imagined herself on a pitcher's mound, wound her body up, using both hands to hold on to the Hen before she launched it straight into the solid tree, making sure her arm followed through so the Hen wouldn’t bungee back into her face.

It hit with a satisfying thump, then fell down like a lifeless sack of poultry to hang limply from her arms, wings drooping down lower than its body. Seeing it dangle with such innocent harmlessness, she pursed her lips in remorse and said, “I did warn you.”

Turning around and walking to the initial sight of the fight, she found the rope again and she secured the bird once more, making doubly and then triply sure it was secure.

“There you go little guy…” she said, considering it. “Girl?”

She lifted its feathers, trying to find a source of gender identification. When it wasn’t immediately apparent, she felt awkward feeling up a defenseless bird and put her hand aside. With burning cheeks, she quickly opened the forum up, trying to find more information about LayHens. She started feeling awkward about feeling awkward but was then distracted by the total lack of information there was to be found about LayHens. Most of the posts made by other players just talked about how annoying and useless the creatures were. Surprisingly, she found a post about another player having a similar attachment situation with a LayHen himself.

The player ended up cutting off part of his arm with the intention of regrowing it with a spell, but before he could even get to that his particular LayHen just attached itself to his thigh. That created a whole other, more sensitive, problem in itself. In the end he killed the beast, but unfortunately its tail released toxins into his bloodstream where it was in contact with his own body and he also died. For some reason Aya hadn’t even considered killing the Hen after she had left its territory. Thinking about it, it seemed the most straightforward action to take, but she was glad she hadn’t thought of it. She had no desire to die a painful death from poison. Closing the forums, she turned her attention back to her LayHen and sighed in resignation.

“I guess it’s till death do us part Hen...ry,” she said, as she continued her hunt for mobs. “You can understand my hesitation to form such an eternal bond with a female, right Henry?”

The strapped, unconscious LayHen did not reply. No blank eyes stared back at her.

“I mean come on, man,” she said. “I’m in a female prison with thousands of other women. That’s more than enough oestrogen in my life, if you ask me.”

---

It took her another hour of concentrated hunting to finally get to level six with 99% stat completion. By the time she started heading back to town, her bag was loaded up with so much loot that she could barely carry it, and she was filthy. The grime that covered her just kept piling on, layer after layer. The Bleed skill was not a very clean one, and even as she did get better in getting out of the blood’s way, she didn’t manage it every time. With sticky wet blood on her body, the dry dust in the occasional slaps of wind found a new home on her.

In desperate need of a shower, she was hopeful as she hunted down merchants to trade loot with. Xavier’s water barrell was locked out. In the end, she managed to get a substantial amount of money, a little over one gold. It was more money than she had held at one time in the game. Her usual trips to the mine had never even given her half the amount. Then again, they had never been that long.

She made her way to the pot-bellied water vendor, intending to take a bath. However, on the way, she saw a bag for sale. It was sturdier, bigger and lighter than the one she had gotten from Will. Unable to resist, she ended up spending most of her money on it. Putting it away, she saw that Henry was awake, staring at her with his blank eyes. She stared back.

“Oh shut up,” she said under her breath, aware of her surroundings. “It’s not like that. I just needed more storage space for loot, that’s all.”

She had never spent much money in the real world; she had never had the luxury to. In the game though, she didn’t have that same cloud of responsibility hanging over her head, at least not in terms of where the money must be spent. Instead, it centered around her ability to perform. She wasn’t quite sure how exactly it was being evaluated, but since Sid had mentioned levels, it must be at least partly centered around strength. Considering the reason the warden wanted convicts to play for him, she was quite certain that the monetary aspect also mattered greatly.

“It’s an investment for future returns,” she justified firmly as she stood in line for water.

However, deep down, she knew that the real reason she wanted the bag was to exercise a freedom she had denied herself for so long. Era had high stakes attached to it for sure, but she was slowly coming to realize that it allowed her to be herself, something she hadn’t been since the day of her parents’ accident.

---

After using the remainder of her money to buy four flasks of water, she went back to the smithy. She thought long and hard about how to best transport the ore. It was obvious that her character was not made for heavy lifting. She would either have to find someone to do it for her or she would have to find a way to bring the Rockyno’s to the smithy. As she walked around the cramped room, she realized that it was a stupid idea.

Rummaging around the smithy for ideas, she came across a small wooden hand cart in the back. Before she could get too excited, she realized she couldn’t even move it from its spot. She was too weak. Aya had never been strong in the real world, but her body in the virtual one was even less suited for anything related to force. Sitting on top of one of the smaller ore piles, the silver one, she tossed an ore back and forth between her hands. She needed to start thinking strategically. Without Donovan, she didn’t have any real firepower. It was time she dropped the independent act and used the resources around her, the other players.

She couldn’t think of a way to get them to do what she wanted. The mine method would not work again; the picks were now stolen goods and the foreman and possibly other people, would be looking for them. They would have to remain hidden in the meantime. That was what she told herself, but she also knew that she didn’t want to give her hard-earned loot away so easily.

Henry strained against his bonds.

“I know,” she said as she stroked his leathery feathers to calm him down. “There’s gotta be a diff—”

The bird suddenly started vehemently struggling to get loose, but the ropes were too tight for him to move a single feather. Aya watched him stoically, partly in pity, partly in resignation. The staredown lasted quite a while, Aya propping her left elbow on her knee and leaning her face on it as she waited for him to give up. Eventually, after a lot of useless struggle, he did.

“Look man,” she said, sighing. “It’s not like I want you strapped to my arm either. So why don’t you just let go. Then you can go home or find someone else to both—”

Setting her hand down, she straightened her posture as she thought about the implications of her words. Her eyes clouded in concentration and she nibbled on the inside of her lip. It was a nervous habit but it didn’t last long.

“That’s it!” she shouted out of nowhere, jumping to her feet. A massive grin was plastered across her face. “Now,” she said, directing her excited attention to Henry, “let’s go see if we can Excalibur your ass.”

---

Two hours later Aya stood in the middle of Durrenheim’s market place on top of an abandoned wooden crate she found. It allowed her short stature to reach almost normal proportions as she tried to catch the attention of the players around her.

“Fifty gold!” she shouted with the loudest voice she could muster, trying to draw in an audience with the reward she was offering. It was hard parting ways with one of her hard earned picks, but when she saw Curiana packing up her things to leave, she knew it would be one of her only chances to peddle the item without local repercussions. She had run to her hiding spot, taking a longer route around through LayHen territory in order to avoid any other players. With so much focus on her destination, she completely ignored her usual mob-hunts. She was surprised how many speed stats her completely time-fixated run gave her.

“To anyone who can take this LayHen off of me!” she yelled, raising her right arm to exhibit the firmly attached beast. Right before she made it back to town, she ran into Curiana, who was already leaving Durrenheim. Her cart was rattling along the cobbled road, being slowly pulled along by a long-haired buffalo. Although willing to take the pick off her hands, Curiana had insisted on a trade instead of a direct money buy. Aya traded the pick in for a red ruby that Curiana guaranteed she could sell at Tuni’s stall for over seventy gold.

“No catch!” she yelled. “Gold in your pocket. Immediately. No delays or caveats!”

Aya was still a little annoyed at herself, so while she waved at and directed her attention to all those around her, she avoided the general direction of Tuni’s stall. After taking the gem there, the woman had bargained and bargained and in the end, Aya had only walked away with fifty gold. Over twenty less than the promised seventy. She had received a notification from her lovely gatekeeper, Hathorne, immediately compensating her for her efforts. He had, as always, been none too subtle about what he thought of the exchange, giving her less than he had the last time she screwed up a negotiation.

“Fifty gold, people!” she shouted. “Literally free. If you lose, you don’t owe me a cent… if you don’t want to. I accept payment in form of your own fifty gold… but,” she said lowering her voice to talk to the small crowd that she had managed to gather around herself. “You can also pay your debt back just by carrying 500 pieces of ore less than a mile away.”

No one had taken her up on her offer yet, but she was finally being able to create some attention around her. At first, it hadn’t worked at all; her height didn’t permit it. It had taken the old crate she stood on for people to start seeing and listening to her. It was sad that even standing on the crate, over a foot tall , she only barely reached other people’s height. Sometimes she forgot just how small the game had made her.

“You!” she yelled, raising her voice back to its propagandizing volume. “You look like a strong man!” she motioned her right arm at a muscled Taurus player. The convict symbol glowed vividly above his horned head and she he would be capable of carrying more than 500 pieces of ore in one go, a perfect specimen to hook people. Aya let an excited smile take over her face when the player showed interest, it was much easier dealing with convicts like her. She looked at the players around her, less than a handful were convicts.

“You can probably take this chicken off of me without batting an eyelash…” she said, again motioning to Henry who was still firmly attached to her arm. “Wait… Do Tauruses even have eyelashes?”

There was a small chuckled response from the crowd.

“You know what?” she asked amicably, feeding off of the crowd’s energy. “If you take the chance and go first. If you manage to get it off me, I’ll straight out give you the fifty gold. No strings attached. And if you don’t… well. Don’t worry about it, I won’t charge gold or labor from you either… I’ll consider it your entrepreneurial fee.”

The taurus didn’t look like he wanted any part in her apparent scam. His reticence was making the crowd around him also a bit uneasy.

Noticing the slight shift in behavior she added, “I’ll even throw in the chicken…”

Henry chose that moment to wrangle free of his gag and squawked.

The crowd laughed, its previous mood returning. For once, Aya was grateful for the chicken’s unfortunately persistent personality. She smiled brightly, assimilating herself with the crowd she wanted to persuade. It was a fake friendliness she was used to from her years of being a cashier. Why people thought she wanted to know about their lives, she would never know.

Bolstered by the crowd’s animated cheers, even knowing their convict status, the Taurus stomped up to Aya and loomed over her crate-assisted height. The height differential made the man stand there, uncertain of how to proceed. Aya lifted her right arm straight up to give him easy access.

“Go ahead, he’s all yours.”

Henry squawked and began another vigorous attempt to loosen himself from his bonds.

“Oh, right,” she said, lowering her arm again to remove the rope that held him down. Quickly unwinding it, she held him down with her left hand before presenting it to the Taurus. “Watch out,” she warned. “When he get’s loose he’s quite the handful…”

The player looked skeptical, but took hold of Henry anyway.

At first, he tried prying the bird off by merely pulling on him. Unfortunately, it made Aya fall off the crate and be pulled along with her arm. He then tried prying the tail off directly after asking for permission from Aya. Then his attempts degraded into the comical as his persistence pushed him to ever more ludicrous removal ideas. The crowd was drinking it up. Taking turns clapping, laughing and shouting out suggestions for what he should try next.

After another five straight minutes of trying and failing, the player gave up. His fur was sweat-streaked and his bovine nostrils were breathing rapidly.

“I can’t,” he puffed.

Aya shrugged and held Henry firmly with her left hand after the player let go.

“I don’t blame you, I’ve been trying for the last five days,” she exaggerated. “Why do you think I’ve resorted to this?”

The taurus laughed, his large chest shaking with amusement before he took a look at the crowd around him. It was a mixture of convicts and non-convicts.

“You know what?” he joked, using the same tone to ask the question she had. “I’ll take that ore for you. I’ll even take a thousand. Show me where you want it.”

Aya sent him a map by swiping at her interface while she asked, “But why?”

“Cuz this was fun… and that’s how much I can take in one trip. I didn’t choose to look like a cow for nothing,” he joked. “It’s why you’re doing this whole street thing in the first place isn’t it?”

Aya momentarily returned her attention to the crowd around her. There was already a little line forming of people that wanted their own go at Henry. She returned the guy’s smile and sent him on his way, nodding her thanks to him before she turned her attention to the first person in line.

What followed was much of the same. Player after player tried their hand at dislodging Henry from her arm. After numerous attempts they would inevitably fail and be on their way to transporting her ore. Some higher-level players also gave it a go and chose to straight out pay her in gold instead of wasting their time transporting her ore. Every time they did this, she would double the reward - and penalty - accordingly and the crowd around her would grow exponentially. Soon, she was offering four hundred gold, a quarter of the marketplace was gathered around her and she only needed two more people to carry 500 pieces of ore each.

Luckily for her, the next in line to have a go at Henry was actually a group of three convicts. They asked sneakily if they could try it as a group, Aya just smiled and said they could do whatever they wanted as long as they each carried their own 500 pieces of ore if and when they failed. A sinister smile covered all three of their faces, verifying her suspicions that they wanted to slip by on a technicality. Unfortunately for them, she was the queen of technicalities. She let the same smile cover her own face when minutes later they were on their way to her ore.

Fortunately, the game prevented players from going back on their word. Their health regeneration would completely stop and they would even start losing health points if they tried to prioritize other actions before completing their agreements.

No longer needing to continue her excaliburization of Henry, Aya considered closing shop, but seeing the crowd gathered around her, she decided to do one last round.

“All right people, settle down,” she yelled when people were already getting ready to take their own turn at Henry.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have any more ore available. So if you want your own shot at four hundred gold, you’ve gotta be willing to cough up the same amount.”

The crowd was immediately not as gregarious as before.

“Last chance! Who’s gonna be the one to take the last try at four hundred gold?”

The crowd started backing up and she wondered if she wondered if she had pushed too far when an elf stepped up to the plate. He was covered from head to toe in gleaming platinum gold armour with gems embedded along the artistic engravings that declared his entire outfit as one set. It was the most expensive thing she had seen in the game that far.

“Can I use magic?” he asked simply.

“You can do anything you want…” she answered loudly so the remaining crowd could hear. “As long as you don’t kill me or the chicken in the process.”

“Alright,” he said with finality, his pointed ears flattening backwards as he moved his hands to cast a spell. In seconds, the air around him was glowing with runes that grew outwards in a circular pattern as he mumbled words under his breath.

Before she could brace herself, she was hit with a sudden wall of cold that emanated from her right arm. Henry was immediately subdued and she dropped her hand to prevent unnecessary exposure to the cold. Aya watched as a cord of blue light stretched from Henry to the elf. The player stood up and started pulling on the rope that grew brighter and brighter with every foot that he gathered. She felt as Henry grew weaker and weaker under the spell, his tail tightening more and more around her arm. At first, she could only feel the pain of the loss of circulation but soon, she was feeling a different kind of pain.

It burned hotter and hotter even though the spell was cold. Confused, she looked at her arm, trying to discern the source of the pain, where she could suddenly see black veins start growing and spreading under her skin. Aya’s eyes widened with immediate realization.

“Stop!” she yelled, trying to pull her arm back from the cord of blue light. “Let go, you’re killing him!”

The elf hesitated for an instant, but dropped his hands and the cord dissolved into blue particles of light that dissolved into the air.

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“I already said, you can do whatever you want as long as you don’t kill him or cut his tail off.”

The elf crossed his arms in annoyance, but after seeing the still-gathered crowd, he decided not to make a scene and cast another spell. Then another, and another and another. Not one of them worked and with each failure, the crowd grew smaller until he gave up with the spells and went back to the more physical approach everyone else had taken.

Five minutes later, there was no one else to see his failure. He pursed his lips, obviously unhappy with having been conned by someone of a much lower level, paid her four hundred gold and left. Aya smiled and pocketed the money before stashing the old wooden crate where she had found it by the side of the street.

She started making her way to Durrenheim’s bank when she came across the last ore trio. Without the crate, their vantage point was much higher than hers. Before she could worry about what they wanted from her, the only female of the group said, “That’s a lot of ore you had there.”

The woman was human with pitch black hair and brown, almond-shaped gypsy eyes. She was beautiful and with her abundant upper corporal existence, the presence of her two human male warrior-type sidekicks was promptly explained. Going by the leather clothes she wore that were glued to her like skin, she wasn’t averse to using her looks to her advantage. Aya smiled, remembering how she had been doing just the same since she had adapted her very child-like body. Fortunately, her approach wasn’t as obvious and direct as the woman’s.

“Yeah,” Aya answered. “Had a little problem with a smith… He didn’t much appreciate the…” she motioned to the glowing convict symbol above her head.

All three nodded sympathetically, before the woman said, “Yea, we get you. That’s why we are here, actually…”

They waited, expecting some kind of response from Aya so she said, “Okay?”

“You’re new right?”

“Yeah…” she wondered if they were going to get to the point anytime soon.

“Have you considered joining a convict guild?”

“Convict guild?”

“Yea, we know what it’s like having to deal with the regular players…” she motioned to the players walking around the marketplace around them.

Suddenly her inbox flashed red. Thinking they had sent her a guild invitation or something the like, she swiped her interface open to see a completely different kind of invitation.

You have been invited to Count Vincent’s Birthday Dinner!

You may bring up to four others to complete your party.

Time of Party: 1 hour from now

Attire: Formal

For a moment, Aya was caught off guard, but the name Vincent seemed very familiar to her and she quickly placed it to the pompous water merchant. When she remembered the three convict players still talking to her she looked up to find them waiting impatiently.

“Sorry about that, I was distracted by the invitation,” she said, thinking everyone had been invited.

They looked around uncertainly at each other, obviously thinking one of them had invited her to their guild.

“I mean the birthday dinner invitation…”

“Whose?” one of her sidekicks asked.

“Count Vincent. He’s the guy that—”

“Sells water in the square.”

“Yeah.”

“But why were you invited to one of his parties? He only invites aristocracy and some of the mayor’s lapdogs.”

“I don’t know,” she said shrugging, She regretted having brought up the subject. “I’m not gonna go anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Why not!?” the woman asked incredulously.

“Oh… I don’t… have formal attire,” Aya said as an excuse.

“Oh, good!” the woman exclaimed, obviously excited. Before Aya could react, she grabbed her hand and yanked her along with her. “I have lots! And I love a good party. It’s gonna be fun you’ll see.”

Falling into step behind the much taller woman and her sidekicks, Aya was soon dragged along the dry, uneven roads of Durrenheim. Her push-over childish appearance didn’t always work the way Aya wanted.

“I’m Furia, by the way.”

“Aya,” she responded with resignation.

“This will be great!” Furia exclaimed, apparently unaware of Aya’s lack of desire to team up with them. “It will give me a chance to show you around the guild. You’re just gonna love it! I can tell.”