“That is a splendid idea!” Thelmes says to his friend, taking her hands into his own and hopping up and down in excitement.

“Just think of the possibilities if it works! We could create our own dungeons full of monsters of our own creation! Minotaur slimes, pig monkeys, eagle spiders!” his friend, Velmes, says. Velmes is another half-goblin, but unlike Thelmes whom has the lower body of a feline, she has the lower body of goat.

Thelmes’ eyes go wide. “Did you say eagle spiders? Flying spiders? Just imagine the power we would have if we could create such a thing! We’d be able to truly ascend beyond all players if we could have an army of flying spiders!”

“Flying spiders that bind people up in webs and lay eggs in them!”

“Hmm. What would the purpose of the egg-laying be?”

Velmes leans in to whisper something into Thelmes’ ear.

“My, my, you always have been the erotic one. Unfortunately for you, I do believe we should just stick to flying spiders.”

“First, monkey pig!”

“It’s slow today, so go ahead and do your experiments. I’ll handle the clients.”

Thelmes and Velmes part ways.

Near the back of the Hermetic Scholars’ office is Velmes’ personal laboratory. The inside of it looks more like something out of a mad scientist’s lair than the experimentation room of a fantasy scholar. There are various scientific tools scattered about, cages with various animals and insects inside of them, and one wall is lined with cabinets full of ingredients and tools.

Of course, no matter how scientific it may all look, the game is still a fantasy one. In the center of the room is a magic circle drawn on the floor with chalk. There are several types of plants and miscellaneous ingredients decorating it as well.

“Mr. Pork, Mr. Banana, today’s the big day! You two are going to be combined into one!” Velmes says to the caged pig and monkey.

They look very, very concerned.

Velmes lifts up one cage at a time to place in the center of the circle. “This spell should be able to liquify your bodies to transport you out of the cages and then recombine you into one being without ever touching the cages,” she explains.

The pig and monkey look extremely concerned.

“You know what I heard earlier? Some adventurers decapitated an immortal lich boss, took his head with them, and have become friends with him! I mean, if I only ever become a head, I would probably try to befriend whoever is carrying me around as well. I wonder what a pig monkey head would look like. I wonder if you’ll have two brains or just one. I have no idea what’s going to happen! Isn’t it exciting?” she asks the test specimens.

Their concern intensifies.

Both of the cages have been placed in the center of the circle now. “Now then! Just a splash of this,” she pours a vial of purple liquid into the center of the circle, “a bit of this,” she sprinkles some sort of crushed, blue herb between the two cages, “and one of these!” she says, placing a rainbow-colored crystal in front of the cages.

“Are you two ready to have a new and exciting life?” Velmes asks, practically jumping up and down from how excited she is. They don’t respond. “Great! Now, let us begin the spell!”

Velmes stands outside of the circle and raises her hands. Her eyebrows furrow in concentration as mystical energy flows from her hands into the chalk circle. The circle begins glowing. Where once was only chalk is now a purple light shining upward from the floor around the cages.

Despite what happens next, it does not look nearly as gruesome as she thought it would.

Both the pig and monkey have their bodies reduced to a liquid goop that forms puddles in the bottoms of their cages.

Velmes starts reciting a chant that pulls both of their goopy forms into the crystal that she set down. They are supposed to be absorbed into the crystal and then get released as a combined being.

Everything is going as planned.

The entirety of their goopy bodies gets sucked into the crystal. “Now to stabilize the process,” she says to herself, focusing her magic on the crystal to prevent the combination from failing. The more magic she feeds into the crystal, the more powerful it will be, the more likely the chance of success is.

“And now for… now for… I forget, what comes next?” Velmes asks, looking around and hoping that somebody or something would have an answer for her.

Alas, there is no answer.

She turns her head back to look at the pulsating crystal. It is growing larger and more powerful by the second. “I… may have put too much magic into it.”

The crystal is sucking her mana forcibly out of her now.

“Thelmes! Thelmes! I may need some help here!” she shouts.

However, when she looks at the door to the room, she sees that it’s closed.

Of all times for him to be considerate.

An explosion shakes the building! Volatile magic does not just destroy but disintegrates everything inside of Velmes’ lab. Naturally, she’s included in this.

Everything from the walls and ceiling of the room to the door trying to hold back the explosion is just… gone. Fortunately, the explosion is not too large and only scorches the walls outside of the room.

Shortly after the explosion, everybody in the city hears a horrifying roar unlike anything they have ever heard before. It sounds like a monkey howling, but at the same time, it sounds like the squealing of a pig! It is almost as if there are two different monsters fighting over which gets to release its monstrous roar.

Next, those within the office experience what feels like an earthquake. Tremor after tremor can be felt growing weaker and quieter.

Thelmes rushes to the back of the building with a few of the adventurer clients that were waiting for cards.

All that is left of Velmes’ room is – well, nothing is left. Not a single vial, tome, nor goblin-goat-thing is left.

Thelmes drops to his knees, clutching his heart and screaming into the heavens as tears run from his eyes. “Velmes, you fool! We still had so much to do! How could you leave me behind like this!” he cries out.

One of the adventurers behind him places a hand on his shoulder. “You know she’ll be able to log back on in a couple of days, right?” the adventurer asks.

“It won’t be the same!” Thelmes shouts before looking down at the ground. There are massive footprints in the shapes of monkey and pig feet.

Thelmes looks up at the adventurers. “Help me cover these up before the guards get here,” he orders, his voice serious and completely different from how it was just moments ago.

“Weren’t you just… shouldn’t we report these to the city guard?” the adventurer asks.

“Your cards will be free if you help me.”

The adventurers help him.

By the time the guards eventually do arrive at the scene, every footprint has been covered up by brushing some dirt or leaves over them.

“What happened? The whole damn city heard an explosion and then some crazy monster sound,” a guard asks Thelmes.

The waterworks begin again. “A-ah… my – my friend… my dear friend, she… she was performing an experiment with a pig and monkey, trying to combine them, but it disastrously failed. That sound you heard was the combined soul of the pig and monkey returning to the abyss,” Thelmes explains, rubbing the tears off of his cheeks.

“What?”

Thelmes looks the guard in the eyes. “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”

“Are… are you sure? Did any of you other folk see or hear anything?” the guard asks some of the adventurers.

They all shake their heads.

Thelmes gives them a thumbs-up behind his back.

“Alright… just making sure you scholars didn’t go and create another weird monster thing. That last one which went around covering all the girls in the city with some clothes-dissolving white stuff was enough,” the guard says.

“Ah, well, my late friend is to thank for that one. No worries, no crazy pig-monkey hybrid monster has been created that escaped somewhere into the jungle behind the city. We’d let you know if anything like that ever happened!” Thelmes says.

“Give me a free card update the next time I need one or I’m reporting this,” the guard threatens.

Thelmes said too much and gave himself away. “Fine. Just… you might want to send some adventurers into the jungle to track it down before it finds its way back here.”

“Don’t make Blackstache replace you all again. The last group of scholars caused enough trouble. He doesn’t want to replace you. Again. No more experiments creating monsters, you hear?”

“Not… not even flying spiders?”

“Hell no.”

Thelmes groans. “Fine, fine. No more experiments creating new monsters... for now,” he says that last part under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing! Nothing."