Swamy woke up to find a video of the event quest. Someone named Caterpy had uploaded the video recordings from their game capsules on to the Long Island forums.

'Holy cow, its got four hundred thousand hits already!'

Swamy had often wondered how many players still stuck around after 3 months. 'Atleast these many are still there... and the view count was still increasing'.

Swamy clicked on the video and started watching it...but

'Oh! its like 2 and half hours long. Can't be helped...will watch it later.' And he started to get ready for class.

The class today was of his favorite professor again, Prof Samuel D'souza. And this time he was discussing about the mechanics of movement in a virtual reality environment.

"Especially when the virtual environment allows non humanoid type of characters. Non humanoid as in not simply having two hands and two feet. For example flying creatures. In the real world, the limbs of birds turn into wings. The skeletal composition changes and the bones become hollow, etc. But if we closely see the skeletal structure, we will see the similarities between the whale fins and the bird wings to the human hands.

So a similar argument can be made in the games that flying creatures will follow these rules and mathematically, it will be deemed possible. But you often see races which go contrary to the real world rules. A good example would be a dragon, which has all four limbs and wings. If you go by real world rules, we will have to assume that it actually has 6 limbs, with one pair being transformed into wings. Oh and lets forget the tail for bit. Do we have a real world creature like that to compare? Not really. Then how do we generate the mathematical rules of movement for that kind of creature?

This question can also be extended like this. A human brain only gives inputs to four limbs. How in the virtual world can you choose or transform into such a creature...and be able to move? Well think about it, the human brain should be ideally trained for four limb movement only, as nature intended. If we simply go by real world mathematics, you should not be able to move in a dragon's body."

A food for thought indeed.

"Separate into teams and come up with facts and arguments into what makes this possible. You will write a research paper on this due Friday next week."

And the class went on...

During lunch everyone was excited. Swamy was stumped for quite some time trying to understand what had happened.

"Wow...that was amazing Himali!" Sneha said.

"Yeah...bad for you Manish" Rajan added.

"True...it was an amazing experience! I felt real fear..." Himali was speaking.

"Yes yes...it was like lightning. One moment I saw them and the other moment I was dead" Manish was saying.

And Swamy simply sat silent pondering.

"Yeah yeah I had goosebumps even when watching. No doubt you must have felt quite afraid. It must be quite a thrill though" Sneha said.

"Yeah tell us about it" Rajan added.

"I am most sad.....I missed out on such an awesome thing." Manish sighed depressingly.

"Oh I don't know how to start describing it...."

And Swamy simply sat silent wondering.

"Um... what are you guys talking about?" Swamy asked.

"Uh....video! what else? Didn't you see the video?" Sneha asked bewildered.

"You mean the one about the event quest?" Swamy finally figured it out.

"Duh! Himali sent us a copy before posting it." Sneha replied.

"Oh...wait the video was posted by someone called Caterpy...is that you Himali?"

"Yes. I thought everyone knew that already" Himali replied.

"Apparently I didn't" Swamy smiled sheepishly.

Everyone became quiet at hearing this. Before the mood could get too awkward, Swamy added,

"Well now I know. Thanks. So you participated in the event quest? I think it had two parts....which one did you get?"

"I got the capturing the beastmen one. I and Manish both reached 14 already" Himali replied smiling, maybe thankful that the atmosphere did not get weird.

"Yes yes....and you were telling us the details again. The video was awesome....But I am sure hearing it from the horse's mouth would be even more exciting" Sneha said excitedly, dispelling what little of the awkward atmosphere that still remained.

"Ah...well it started like this........"

And for the next half an hour everyone listened to her, as she relived her encounter with the beastmen. How it started, strategies and the people. How epic the fights of the captains and Lady Altia were. How they thought they would lose everyone but somehow they survived. Manish added a few bits in the beginning she had missed out on. It turned out he died early but it was his team who was initially attacked by the beastmen. They came up from the trees, totally surprising his team, and before they had any time to react the beastmen had killed everyone.

Swamy had not seen the video yet and he was deeply interested. Maybe far more than the others. Ofcourse in his case, when he was listening with all ears, he had this tendency to go super quiet. The others asked questions in between but Swamy concentrated on listening. This was valuable information. He made up his mind to watch the video...even though it will cut into his already meagre game time.

"And at the end, I asked my sergeant how many had been killed. And he said almost 70 people."

"Oh...that's sad. And how many of them were npcs?" Rajan asked.

"Not sure. I didn't have the heart to ask."

And then there was brooding silence while everyone thought about what they heard.

"So there were no healers? And no healing potions either?"

"There were. The soldiers did have a few people who could heal. And most of them could do first aid, like applying bandages and cleaning wounds. Just that there were no separate healers. Makes sense right, as there are no classes in the game, you could have soldiers who also have healing skill" Himali added. "But no healing potions were given. I also didn't ask about it, so I am not sure about it."

"No one had gotten any healing potions. I asked about it to the other players on my team."

"So there are no potions in the game?" Rajan asked.

"Not sure. There could be....the game world is large place" Manish said.

............

.........

....

Back home, Swamy quickly opened his laptop and clicked on the video of the event quest. It started slow, what with people talking and walking into the forest. In the beginning people had excited faces...but it soon changed to boredom as time passed. And then to seriousness.

'Traps? the beastmen deployed traps?' It was a little different from the behaviour he had come to expect out of them. And the video rolled on. Soon the fight started and Swamy was riveted. It was exciting, of that there was no doubt. And then the fight ended with the beastmen having run away or killed. But the video was still not over. It changed locations..and like other people, at first Swamy couldn't see anything. Just the boom sound or the clank sound. His first thought, 'Did the recording break here?'

He minimized the video to check whether anyone else had faced the same problem. He hoped that they would have posted if they had. Sure enough....a couple of people did ask whether the recording had caused an error or something at the end. But no, Caterpy had replied the video was ok.

"Just watch it till the end. The video is not broken. Once you watch it, I suggest you to watch it again in 4x reduced speed, just the part at the end where you do not see. You can just make out what happened at that speed."

Swamy watched the video again. More thunderous sounds but nothing could be seen. And then almost for a moment a flash of color. And then it was gone. It repeated...and again. Swamy could not understand but then a voice came up followed by the person. 'He was the sergeant I think!' And it explained what it was. Swamy could not believe his ears as he heard that.

All that time he spent with Lady Altia and not once had he realized how powerful of a teacher he had. Oh he knew that she was quite strong and compared to him it was like the earth and the moon. Now he realized it was a bad comparison to her strength. Watching the fight between her and the cheetahman, she was more like the stars than the moon. The cheetahman was captured. Lady Altia won. But she couldn't move afterwards. And then the video ended.

Swamy restarted the video at Lady Altia's fight scene and reduced the playing speed. And then he could see, the cheetahman and Lady Altia clashing against each other, claw against steel. Even at 4x reduced, the two were moving quite fast.

What Swamy wondered at the end though, 'what happens now? People are gonna realize as players will come back.' And for the moment he had no answer to that.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'Damn!' Raka could not believe how much Lady Altia had to hold back against him. 'And Lady Verina was sparring with her.'

For the past 15 minutes, since he logged in, he was staring at the heavens and thinking how the hell had he managed to get two incredible people to teach him. By all counts, they were masters of the most advanced level in their fields.

Raka sighed. It will be incredibly hard to stand up to their standards.

Once he recovered from his reverie, he decided to head down to the pet shop. He still had questions about the monkey he had bought. His identification had revealed some questions marks. Specially on the class thingy. 'Aren't they animals?'

Well answers could wait. He was eager to get his own pet, hopefully. It would be his first, virtual or real. His mom hated animals, "the amount they shed and poop...disgusting," she said. Raka remembered trying to find a pet which didn't shed and poop so much...all through 5th grade. And somehow he had failed. The only ones which didn't, had been slippery slimy creatures. He was pretty sure they wouldn't be allowed as pets. 'Well snails were no fun anyway'

Soon he reached the pet shop. Today there was a sign outside which said,

The results of the High Rise Pet Lucky Draw are as follows: Congratulations to the lucky winner Mr. Raka. Your prize will be delivered to you by pigeon.

Raka entered. The same smells and sounds like before embraced his senses.

"You are here. Please wait a moment." Signer greeted with a smile as usual.

He went back in and returned a few minutes later, followed by a man carrying a cage holding a monkey. The cage had been cleaned. The monkey was looking much better than the last time, though it still looked a bit under the weather.

"Here you go" as Signer handed him the cage. The cage was heavy but not so much that he had trouble carrying.

"Thank you" Raka said holding on to the cage sides.

"Thank you for your business sir" and Signer started heading back.

"Hold on a minute! What about the prize of the lucky draw, can't I take it now?"

The smile turned down a little bit as Signer turned around.

"Ah I am sorry. But we also have to keep up appearances. We will wait till the evening and dispatch your prize by pigeon" and before Raka could ask anything else, he hurried back. 'Definitely suspicious!' Well in any case that had been a gamble. Raka looked down in the cage to see the monkey looking at him. He turned his head wondering what he should do now. The monkey imitated him by turning his own head. Raka smiled.

Raka headed out towards the docks. It was only two blocks to it. On the way, people stared at him as he carried the cage. As he reached the docks, he turned towards the beach instead.

'Phew, people do stare too much!' Raka put down the cage on the sparse rocky sand and opened it. "Alright big guy, I don't know if you understand me but here's the deal. I wanna set you free. Ofcourse I would like to be friends and hopefully you will accompany me on my travels, but if you want to go somewhere else ...you are free to do so."

Ofcourse, the monkey did not reply back. But Raka thought it looked happy. It tried to move outside the cage...but soon got tired and laid down. After a while it tried again but could not. It seemed it was still not recovered from the sickness. It laid down again.

"Hmm say what. I will take care of you till you get better. And then you can go wherever you want to. Till then what say, we get rid of the cage?" and Raka lifted the monkey out of the cage.

"Alright now climb on to my back" and the monkey held his armor with his fingers and moved to his back. Its legs and tail circled his waist as it made a better grip to hold on.

"Now...see here...the cage goes away." Raka picked up the cage and threw it in the sea. "Hope you are happy with that. Now lets see, first lets get you some food...and then we will head down to the library and find out stuff, shall we" He spoke to the monkey but by the reaction on its face, he could as well be talking to himself.

Raka bought some fruits from a shop he knew. He gave one to the monkey and ate one himself. And then they headed to the library. The library was quiet, hardly a person inside. As he started walking in, the lady sitting in the reception complained, "No pets allowed!"

"This sucks. Well can't help it bud. If we want to find something to make you better, you will have to wait here. He put it down next to the reception desk. The lady turned up her nose at that but didn't say anything. The monkey simply curled up on the floor, closed his eyes...and fell asleep. Talk about one cool monkey!

Raka headed to the books. 'Well finding them is another quest....Why can't they put up signs on the shelves saying what subjects they are. Its not even a piece of technology for goodness sakes.' And the search continued.

It took almost an hour of browsing till he finally found some books which looked promising, way up on the 5th floor. Till then he had to browse every shelf to make sure what kind of books there were. He had found a book on history of the world, which he now carried, intending to read. Usually similar books, atleast books on similar subjects went on the shelves together. He wasn't sure of what he was looking for, he just had a vague idea that it would be somewhat related to healing. And he hadn't found anything. He went through all shelves looking at the book titles all the way up to the 7th floor. But nothing had come close to healing. Giving up he turned to look at similar things.

Which is how he arrived back on the 5th floor, looking at books on Biology. He opened one and sure enough there was a figure of the human body drawn with lines marked with their names and descriptions. He started looking at the other book titles, A description of the human body, How does the human body work, 5 ways to bandage, Making the heart tick, Common diseases, and much more.

'This book looks ok' and he took out the 5 ways to bandage book. He looked around some more and then took out books with titles like Understanding Medicines, Knowledge of nutrition, Are you down on the weather?, Tips to Improve Health, Keep your Teeth Shining and a few more similar ones. He avoided the encyclopaedias though.

'Who knows what could help', thinking that he sat down on a chair and started reading them. A lot of it was useful but somehow he couldn't see himself being able to use it. He eagerly opened the Understanding Medicines book, he hoped it would be more helpful. Considering the discussion he had this very morning with his real life friends and watching the video, learning potions or any form of healing had become very important.

The book talked about various herbs which could be found in nature and then have to be processed, ground, crushed...and whatever else and mixed with various stuff and then applied on the wound. Different types of wounds required different kinds of herbs. Also some herbs could be consumed and helped against disease but there was just too much information in it to remember. As he kept turning the pages,

Skill Herbal Medicine: You have discovered a skill. You can now learn how to treat and cure using various herbs. Only through proper application will such a skill be effective.

Requirements: Apply Herbal Medicine successfully.

'Alright! A new skill!' Raka was happy but the information on herbs was extensive. He would have to steal the book or hopefully copy down all its pages....lets just say it was a lot. In any case it was helpful. He would have to come down often to learn all the things in this book.

He opened another and started reading and then another and then the next. The books were both broad and complex and covered a lot of information, for someone who would want to become a doctor possibly. For Raka it became difficult reading, he trudged on simply in the hopes that there might be some other skill.

Finally he opened the 5 ways to bandage book. It was a simple book with lots of helpful drawings. But most of all it was thin or to say a lot thinner than the others. As Raka swept though the pages looking at the drawings,

Skill Bandage: You have discovered a skill. You can now learn how to make, wrap and use bandages for various purposes.

Requirements: Apply Bandage successfully.

'Another new skill. Today must be my lucky day!' Bandaging was easy. The steps were drawn on the book and looked simple. The only tricky part was making the bandages themselves. Simple bandages made of sterilized cloth looked easy enough. But as he read on, the book mentioned other kinds of bandages as well. It did not elaborate on these other kinds simply stating that it could be made of different materials. 'Maybe there is another book for that'.

Raka stood up and started looking for books on bandages. Unfortunately, not many were there. The couple he found, also had the same things showing how to apply. 'Hmm that's sad.' Raka looked through the 5 ways to bandage book again. 'Maybe the author wrote some other book.' The author's name was Afsana Cladwell. He searched again, this time looking for books by the author.

'Nothing!' There was no other book by the author. Just to be sure he searched again, and it was good that he did. A very thin book nestled between two very thick encyclopaedias that he almost missed it. In fact, had he not been looking closely he would never have noticed that there was something between the books in the first place. It almost looked like part of the encyclopaedias themselves. He carefully brought out the surrounding books in a hail of dust. Raka coughed. Seems like no one liked to touch these thick books either. And then carefully lifted the thin dusty book off the shelf.

He wiped the dusty cover with his hands and saw the title, 10 Massage techniques written by Afsana Cladwell. The book was there like it had been forgotten. Raka dusted the book and started reading it. As per its name it contained various techniques on how to massage, shown with helpful drawings. It looked useful, what with massages being able to improve circulation of blood, relax muscles and what else.

Skill Massage: You have discovered a skill. You can now learn to use massage for treatment, recovery and stabilization. Successful massage could result in other positive effects.

Requirements: Apply Massage successfully.

'Wow! another skill!' Why hadn't he come here before, he wondered. 'But whats with the other effects.' That's another thing he found out about the skills in the game. You never know the exact effects of the skills until you learn them. Well massage looked useful enough to apply on the monkey. Raka thoroughly read all the massage techniques. He even imagined a body and practiced with his hands, in the air. He wanted to memorize every little thing in this book. He read page after page and soon it ended.

As he was memorizing the last page, his eyes fell on a short sentence written at the end, at the very bottom of the page. For best results, skin contact is required!

After reading the so called biology books, Raka returned them back to their shelves. Even the book on massage went between those two thick volumes. Then he started on the book he had found first, the book on the history of the world.

He started reading.

In the beginning, there was only one race. We do not know what it was called, nor do we know how it looked like, but we know that they existed. Ruins discovered all over the world stand proof for this fact. What we also know is that sometime in history, that race of beings discovered magic. Whether they were part of magic and realized naturally or it was discovered by some other event or happenstance is yet unknown. However we do understand that the different races in the world today, emerged from them with the use of magic, specially what we call curse magic.

So in effect, it was curse magic which shaped the world as we know today. I doubt whether curse magic was known by that name in the past. Maybe it was simply magic. The ancient beings learned to apply the magic on their surroundings, and eventually on themselves and others. We can believe that the ancient beings, were curious and experimented with magic. Some experiments were successful increasing strength, intelligence and even their capacity for magic itself.

At some point in history the ancient race divided among groups who wanted to apply the benefits of magic on themselves. Some wanted to be stronger, some more intelligent, some wanted a longer life, etc. And they freely applied the curse magic on themselves and others in the group, excluding all else.

Proof can be gathered by the study of the races. Elves have a higher capacity for magic and longer lives. Orcs gained large strength and high fertility. Mer-people learned the ability to breathe under water and swim like fishes. And many more examples.

What the ancient beings probably realized later was that curse magic is irreversible and always comes with a cost. Elves lost their fertility, Orcs lost their ability for doing magic, Mer-people lost their ability to live on land.

Humans on the other hand are one of the most balanced races in comparison to the rest. Probably, there would have been a group which actually advocated the non use of curse magic, which might have resulted in the Humans.

.....................

And the book went on. It was an interesting read. Raka spent a few more minutes reading it but he had to move on. He still had to get started on his training on magic. Just then he found this,

There are other races in the world which did not originate from the ancient beings. Namely what we refer to as animals sometimes. There are normal animals but there are also animals which can talk, which are intelligent and can learn, which have a long life, etc. At one time it was believed that these were also originated from the ancient beings. But we now believe that they were separate races altogether. How they came to be affected by magic could be theorized. They were results of the ancient beings experiments. Used as test subjects to study the effects of curse magic. Though heartless it may sound, it makes sense that the ancient beings, in all their wisdom, would not have taken the risk to apply magic on themselves without testing it on some other living being.

'Could this be the reason I can't identify their classes? They are not simply normal animals.' Thinking further research may be needed on this but lacking the time to pursue this further, Raka left for his job.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the warehouse, Salmon was absent for some reason. Raka entered with the monkey who seemed to have put his hands in his ears to drown out the loud noise and started shivering. Raka quickly moved to the back garden and left it there to relax. He went back inside, got his ear pieces in place and waited. He did not have to wait long. Salmon soon returned but with a very annoyed face. He started his loud tirade as soon as he entered which could be heard even way back to where Raka was standing.

"The DAMNED navy and their DAMNED ORDERS!! Who do they think they are talking to...! Shitholes, bastards of the seven seas, godless cretins....Haven't I served for my part. ALL I want is my fair wage and to be left alone so that I can retire in peace. BUT NO! I am the goddamn best they say. Whats the best gotta do there anyway!!"

Raka heard every word. Understanding nothing. He simply kept quiet, letting him approach. His foul tirade continued with every step he took.

'The guy must have had a bad day.' Raka sighed. Salmon in a bad mood could only mean on thing. He was going to be shouted on much more today. As Salmon reached Raka, he shouted,

"Alright cretin. What are you doing standing here like a worthless idiot. You know what, just for that you are coming with me."

"Coming where?" Raka asked in horror.

"On the damn navy ship. They ordered me....me ...to serve! And you are coming as well. Goddamn rats, why do they want me to do a job any worker worth their salt can do! I already retired from the goddamn service. Oh no, if they expect me to work for them, they got another thing coming. You boy, will come with me. And God help me if you screw up. I will throw you to the fishes!"

[p=center]Assist Salmon[/p]

Salmon has been ordered to serve on a navy ship as a shipwright. He wants you to come along and assist him in his duties.

Difficulty level: E

Reward: Increased intimacy with Salmon, Shipwright commission - Basic

Note: if the quest is refused intimacy will reduce, chance to be kicked out of job.

Not that he could refuse. "Alright!"

Quest has been accepted.

"When do we leave?" he asked.

"In one week. Now get back to work or you will be bug food before you be fish food! Get started on those boards over there..."

And Raka's usual day began.

One good thing about the quest was that the reward was a shipwright commission. As he had found out, shipwright commissions were important as they allowed you to work on the ships. There were different levels of the commission. Basic allowed him to work on the ship. Intermediate allowed him to hire other people and shipwrights. Advanced permitted him to design and build ships.

All the people in the warehouse, excluding him, had atleast a basic shipwright commission if not an intermediate. It was unusual to find people having intermediate commissions working on land. They were usually hired by ship captains and owners to work on their ships. Only a handful of shipwrights got hired to work on the ship.

One of the reasons was because owners had to pay extra for people out at sea. Another reason was that it was difficult to do repairs at sea. Only minor repairs could be done at sea, which could be done by 1 or 2 people at best. For major repairs, the ship had to reach shore. The ship could not carry all the materials which would be required for the complex repairs. It would upset the cargo weight and was highly impractical. Which meant it needed to reach a shore. Once it did, any number of people could be hired anyway, hence the reason for hiring just one shipwright with an intermediate commission to work on the ship.

He had also found out that the lack of the basic shipwright commission, was one of the big reasons he had to work inside the warehouse and not on the ships or the docks. It affected the work he could do as well. He was limited to the work which could be done in the warehouse, namely preparing materials. So that others could repair the ships. Even if he had the woodworking skill the situation wouldn't have changed.

In essence, having a shipwright commission was essential. And the way to obtain it, well it was a long and windy process involving tests but the main thing, was the recommendation of a shipwright having an advanced commission. In fact, those people had the authority to give out basic commissions in the first place, so they could make the rest of the process irrelevant. In this warehouse, Salmon had been the one to give everyone their basic commissions. And according to them, he usually gave them away when he wanted someone else to do his work. Atleast he also ensured they could do his work so the people did learn.

Raka dreamed of sailing the oceans and finding adventure. His dream would have to wait a bit though. Raka sighed as he turned around to work on those boards.

Only after he finished today's work that Raka realized his problem. 1 week in the game meant 2 days and 8 hours in real life. Considering he was playing after college and during the night, that would make the quest during the day time. And it was still Tuesday.

'Shit! Am I going to miss class for this E level quest! Mom will bury me alive!' Raka sighed again. There were no easy answers to his problems.

Thinking to avoid it for now, he collected the monkey on his back again and walked out of the warehouse, ignoring the weird stares from all the people. They had some more fruits to eat. There was still time left before going to tea at Cassian's so he turned around to the Magic Academy.

Thankfully, it was not banned for animals, though people did stare at him a lot. He walked down to the training hall and settling the monkey on the ground, started practicing his water magic, ignoring the stares he was still getting. A bit later the other people went back to their own stuff and Raka breathed a sigh of relief. It was awkward and annoying being stared at.

He was not having any luck in practice today either. Its just that his magic skill rose up a tiny bit, like 0.01% every half an hour even when he could not perform magic successfully. Amazingly,

Perception increases by 1.

Hours and hours of futile attempts and his Perception stat rose by 1. 'Does it work like this?' First time the Perception stat had risen so far. 'Hmm...' Thinking this and that he came to a conclusion. It was not the amount of time he spent in the colorful world or the number of times he transformed energy. Rather it was because of doing different things in the colorful world. 'So because I have been trying different things in the colorful world to learn water magic.' That seemed to have affected the Perception stat.

'So what's different now!' Raka dove back in his world of colors eagerly anticipating the changes. 'Maybe things would become clearer now....or hopefully the range would increase.' Atleast that's what he hoped and expected.

He closed his eyes and entered his colorful world. The things seemed pretty much the same. If the detail had improved, it had improved in such a miniscule amount that he could not perceive it. He decided to walk around thinking maybe his range improved. He could perceive various stable form energies moving around leaving a storm of excited colors. 'That would be the other people in the room I think.' He decided to walk towards the door of the training hall, where the world was still silent, owing to the lack of people in that direction. He walked the entire floor, perceiving more stable energy forms sitting in the one of the small rooms they had on this floor. 'Hmm...maybe 2 or 3 people, can't tell them apart.' Those energy forms then started moving, exciting the colors around them.

It was almost like water. Some movement and ripples formed travelling a wide area. Ofcourse that did screw up his perceiving. He vaguely noticed that the stable forms were moving towards the training hall. Curious and with nothing else to do, Raka decided to follow them inside. He kept a bit away from their forms, so that the excited colors had a chance to calm down and he could vaguely guess where they were headed. 'Odd, they seem to be headed towards my direction.' Ideally he would have opened his eyes at that point. But he was having fun following them like this. It was a new experience.

Slowly the colors around them seemed to be calming down. Maybe they had stopped. Sure enough the colors calmed down around them and Raka could see their stable forms better now. He walked in closer and his view did get just a little better. Like a feet away from them, he could sense that there were 2 stable form energies. 'Odd, this one seems a bit familiar. Maybe its the shape or size, can't say...but hmmm....'

Raka came out of his colored world and blinked his eyes open and turned around. Standing behind him were Sambal and...

"Lady Verina!" Raka said it out just a little louder than expected. She was standing there smiling, while Sambal seemed to be frowning for some reason.

"Surprise! Guess you didn't expect that did you" she teased.

"Totally! I mean yes, it is quite a surprise. What are you doing here..." he quickly looked at Sambal and added, "if you don't mind me asking."

Now that he noticed, everyone in the hall seemed to have stopped what they were doing and gathered around. What was more shocking was that all of them seemed to be in a respectful pose or a formal pose, well as close as it got. It was not the attention pose of the battle school however. Raka thought maybe he should do the same. Lady Verina and Sambal were both people of high stature after all. It was just that the last time Sambal was here with him, no one had seemed to care to do this. So it was Lady Verina who was the recipient of these respectful and adoring gazes.

"Ah! You see...." she started but got interrupted by Sambal. "Why doesn't Lady Verina continue the rest of the conversation in my office. It hardly seems fair to the other people to not have your attention."

Lady Verina pouted a little bit but soon smiled at everyone.

"Ah Lady Verina, allow me to introduce myself. I am Von Gult Despira, eldest son of the noble house of Despira. I am honored and pleased to make your acquaintance." a handsome looking guy wearing the magic school robes walked forward and bowed.

"Ah yes. Nice to meet you Von Gult. How is your father, Count Despira? It has been a long time since I have seen him. Please give him my regards."

"He is doing well, Lady Verina. I will certainly convey your regards to him." And he bowed again. "Can I also offer you an invitation to visit our humble home in place of my esteemed father, the Count. I am sure my father would be quite pleased."

"Ah thank you for your offer Von Gult. But I must respectfully decline at this time. My presence is required elsewhere."

"I understand Lady Verina. Please forgive me for speaking out of turn." and the guy bowed again.

'What is with this pompous prick' was all Raka could think at that moment.

And then the others started.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance Lady Verina. My name is Theodore Compucii." This guy had an intellectual thoughtful look, came forward and introduced himself with a short bow.

"Nice to meet you" Lady Verina replied.

"Ah...I am...ah...Veronica Taylor. I came from Brittanica Island to learn magic. Um...I am your biggest fan. Could you give me your autograph!" an excited girl spoke out, almost standing on tip toes like if she got the chance she would rush in at the moments notice.

"Ah...nice to meet you too. Um...lets put the autographs for later." Lady Verina replied without missing a beat.

'Seems she is used to all this' Raka thought.

"I am Iqbal Hasan from the Khardoum kingdom. It is an honor to meet the Lady Verina. I hope you can spare your time to guide a novice such as myself" a black guy, broad shouldered thick muscled with a thick accent came forward and gave a bow. Raka recognized him as the guy who was practicing hanging upside down from the ceiling.

"Nice to you meet you Iqbal Hasan. But my duties occupy my time completely. I would hate to disappoint you by not committing to your training. We have several wonderful teachers here who can, no doubt, teach you better than I. I wish you good luck in your studies." Raka was kinda glad that she refused. He did not want to lose his unique blessing so soon or that's how he justified it.

"I am Lucy Pinkerton, from Britannica as well" a cute looking girl with light blond hair introduced herself next. She was tall, taller than Raka atleast. 'Maybe I should have increased my height too' Raka could not help thinking.

"Nice to meet you too Lucy Pinkerton."

"Ramone Masteriff at your service Milady. I am from Dalmund nation. It is my honor." A stiff looking guy with a small mustache.

"Nice to meet you Ramone Masteriff" and the introductions finally came to a close.

And then came the quiet while everyone thought of what they should do or say next. Thankfully Sambal interrupted with a slight cough.

"Ahem...now lets get back to why we came here. Raka, please step forward." Raka did as he asked.

"In recognition for your services, I, Sambal, as representative of the Queen present you with this Queen's Brass medal." Sambal pulled out a small ornate wooden box, highly polished and having a design carved on it. He opened it, showing the shiny medal inside, almost like a coin but with a ribbon attached. He offered it in this way to Raka. Raka moved forward and accepted it.

You have been granted a title. "Recipient of the Queen's Brass medal"

Effects: Fame +30

"Thank you." And then Lady Verina clapped followed by the rest. For all purposes, Raka blushed a little.

After a while, where Lady Verina talked more with the other people, they turned to leave. Sambal motioned Raka to follow. He could feel several pairs of envious, or was it disgruntled, gazes as he followed behind them. They went to Sambal's office. He closed the door behind them and whispered something waving his hand.

"Alright now on to business." He nodded to Lady Verina who nodded back.

"Raka, first of all, my heartfelt congratulations. I have never felt more proud." Lady Verina smiled a lovely smile.

"Thank you." Raka smiled as well.

And then the tone turned serious. "Have you heard of the capture of one of the beastmen?" Lady Verina asked.

"Yes."

"I thought so. Sambal mentioned you guys have some way to pass on news. How much of it do you know?"

"Um I know that there was a great battle and lots of people lost their lives. 2 beastmen were killed and one was captured. The rest ran away."

"Yes, that is accurate. I did advise putting more Goddess's children in the teams to reduce the loss of men. After all, you get revived but the people of this world do not. But the others were against it. Still I convinced them to atleast put in the people who could safely cross the age barrier." Lady Verina sighed. "It is creating quite a scandal I hear, now that you guys are coming back to the village. Even reports from Dalmund have started arriving now."

Raka stayed quiet.

"I am sure we will be having the 4 island conference soon to discuss this" Sambal added.

Raka simply nodded.

"Well that is past the point. Right now we have to take down those pirates, the beastmen were part of. The Queen has ordered all hands in taking down the pirates. The scouts are tracking the beastmen who ran away to try and determine the location of the pirates ship or ships. The navy is preparing ships for assault on these pirates. Altia and I are also going to be part of it."

Raka nodded again understanding.

"Um can I be part of this mission as well?"

Lady Verina smiled again, "Yes that's what we came to ask you. You see Altia had a rough fight with the beastmen and her recovery will take a bit of time. Not to worry its just sore muscles but high speed movement like that does cause some serious stress on the muscles. I am hoping she would get all right to move within a week. Though it will be difficult for her to fight at that speed."

"Um so why is she part of the assault then?"

"Hmmm, Altia is not only a warrior but a commander as well. Her presence will help with the morale of the soldiers and I value her acute analysis of situations. Also, to let them know that their best warrior had such a tough fight, would not be to our benefit right now."

"I understand."

"This is where you come in. I want you to accompany us and keep Altia in check."

"Um...what?!"

"Ah...you will be her errand boy, her gopher, her assistant, taking care of all her needs which require her to move around. I want her to get as much rest as possible without letting everyone else know. Now if you serve only her, it would be suspicious. So you will be assigned as a page on the ship." Sambal added the rest.

Raka had a thought.

"Could this be happening next week?"

Sambal and Lady Verina both seemed shocked by this.

"How did you know?"

Raka explained that he was already accompanying Salmon, the shipwright working in warehouse #5 at the docks, on the navy ship.

"Salmon?" Lady Verina asked.

"Um...yes. I think he is assigned to one of the other ships. No problem he can be assigned to yours," Sambal replied.

"I had no idea you were a shipwright Raka" Lady Verina said.

"I am not. I am still learning. It is just that Salmon wants to take me along for some reason. Probably to make me do all the work." Raka sighed.

Lady Verina seemed like she was having second thoughts about all this but Sambal quickly intervened.

"You are learning from him correct?" When Raka nodded, "in that case this can be used. Raka will be learning the skill of shipwright from Salmon while working as a page for you and Altia only. You can say you gave him this job out of pity as he is from Gurrow village and he could use some extra coin. But because his primary responsibility is to work with Salmon, he could only work for you and Altia. I am sure he will suffer enough in his other work to have others pity him as well. I have heard about this Salmon and he is a very repulsive guy.

Also because he received the Queen's medal in front of the very people who would be joining the mission, not many would doubt his words," Sambal said as if it was decided. "He looks poor anyway, I don't think the other nobles would doubt him."

Raka grimaced at the harsh but true words. Even though he had money, he had never thought to buy clothes just for looks. He was pretty happy with what he was wearing. He had got it repaired from the tailor but it was Neona's father's originally. It could never look new. Ofcourse with his armor on, it wouldn't matter, but without it...he did look poor.

Lady Verina nodded her head in agreement. "Raka, I trust you and Altia trusts you. This is why I can only ask you for this. Is that ok with you?"

[p=center]Taking care of Lady Altia[/p]

Lady Altia has been severely fatigued by her fight with the beastmen but is still required to fight the remaining pirates. In order to not let her condition affect the morale of the troops and also to allow her to get as much rest as possible, Lady Verina wishes that you take care of Lady Altia while she is on the ship and also hide her condition as much as possible.

Difficulty level: D+

Reward: ?

Note: High level intimacy with Lady Verina and Lady Altia is required at all times for the duration of this quest. If intimacy falls the quest will fail.

Not that he could refuse. "Yes."

Quest has been accepted.

"Ah one other thing...." Sambal said as he hurried to his desk and pulled out a paper. "Sign here" he said. Raka did as asked.

You have been offered a job. Sambal hires you to work as a page in service of Lady Altia and Lady Verina during the voyage.

The pay will vary depending on work quality.

"And that takes care of all the formalities," Sambal replied happily.

"Raka, take care now. I have to get busy as well. Got lots to do before we see each other again." she blushed a little as she smiled this time. And then she left. Raka, on the other hand stayed.

"Um..Sambal, can I ask you a question?"

"What about?" Sambal asked directly.

"I got the Queen's Brass medal right. So are there other kinds of medals as well?"

"Ofcourse there are. In order of their increasing rank, there is the the Copper medal, Brass medal, the Steel, the Bronze, the Silver and then the Gold medal which is the highest award anyone can be given.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was evening in the game already now. He had missed Cassian's tea. It was a little bit regrettable but it can't be helped in this situation, he presumed.

Hoping that the others would have left already, Raka came down to the training hall. And it was empty, save one very lazy monkey sprawled on the ground. Well he couldn't very well go back to practicing magic now. He had so much to think about. Instead,

"Well big guy, time to see whether you resemble human structure or not." He placed his hands on the monkey's back and started massaging him. The monkey winced. "Oh...sorry guess I should start a little higher, well first time for me as well...can't be helped."

Late night in the game and it was time to log out. He had spent the past few hours trying to learn massage techniques. The techniques themselves were simple but applying them on monkey...well lets just say he had to figure out where a lot of its bones and muscles were. It seemed if he did not do the technique correctly or if he grabbed or pressed at the wrong spot, it had the tendency to cause slight pain.

The monkey faired well, considering it could not move or get away for that matter. But atleast at the end, it did seem happy. Whether it was due to the massage or whether due to the ending of the massage, Raka was not sure. He walked back to the beach. There were a few small trees nearby, where monkey could feel at home while he was gone, or atleast he hoped it would. True to his promise he did not intend to tie it up or anything like that.

He soon reached those trees. Placing the monkey on one of its branches,

"Well I won't come back till the third day. So I am putting some fruits here which you can eat when you get hungry" and he cut out a small depression on the trunk and made it in the shape of a bowl. He placed some fruits there. All the while the monkey stared, trying to move a hand or even a finger to imitate his actions.

"Alright see you then," but as soon as Raka turned around, he heard ruffling of the feathers as if a group of birds were coming closer. It was dark although he could see a little bit in the moonlight. The silhouettes suggested that the birds landed close to him along with something big. Raka made a small fire using magic burning the fallen twigs and saw a group of pigeons. They were holding the ropes tied to a large wooden box. As soon as Raka took hold of the ropes, the pigeons flew away.

'Is this my other pet?' Raka could not believe that Signer had kept his word. 'I am getting lucky a lot today, aren't I!' Raka thought happily.

He quickly removed the cover of the wooden box and found a cage covered with a cloth and a ribbon on top of it; like it was a wrapped present. Eager to see what was inside, Raka whipped open the cloth and...

"Ah filthy sir, we meet again. Oh do I see my old friend over there too...Ah his pain breaks my heart into a million sounds.....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH~!"

Raka quickly threw the cloth back on the cage.