Scott had Kitty help Chaine through the door of light that rose up, and then waited for the others to go through before he did. Just before he stepped through, a feminine voice called out to him. "Hey, wait up!"

He turned quickly to the sound of the voice then blinked. "Daedra..."

The succubus and supposed personal manager waved to him. Scott glanced at the door and noted that the timer stopped at forty-six. He could see the others on the other side, but they seemed to be frozen in time.

"Don't worry about the timer and your cute little friends. I put the world on [pause] to talk to you," said Daedra.

"Paused the..." Scott's eyes widened. "Man I'm dumb! Of course, that's what that time stop stuff has been about..."

She laughed beautifully then sashayed over to him with an overly exaggerated wiggle in her step. After reaching him, she put her hands on her hips and leaned forward slightly, "This is a big step for you, are you actually ready?"

"Big step? You mean the emergency mission?" asked Scott.

"Absolutely, I do!" she exclaimed, surprised. "You do realize that only a handful of you silly little Earthlings has managed to actually receive such an important assignment?"

"How would I know anything about that?" he asked her, his eyes narrowing.

Daedra threw one hand up in the air, "Humans, seriously..." she said before sighing softly. She looked up into his eyes. "Look, this is important. You cannot under any circumstances allow either of those three iconic characters to die in this mission."

"Three characters?" asked Scott.

"Yes, three. You swiped Samantha from Bounty Star, remember? You already know who she's modeled after. She's as important to that world-setting as the source is to her game franchise," said Daedra. She shook her finger from one side to the other, "The same is true for Chaine and his kidnapped princess."

"I had no intention of letting either of them die in the first place," said Scott.

"Maybe not, but this is the first time you've taken on a D-rank mission. You aren't exactly equipped for it," said Daedra.

"What do you mean?" asked Scott. "How should I change my equipment?"

"I can't go into details, but I'll strongly suggest that you heavily increase your combat potential before going into the mission. Share that knowledge with your companions, and do take restoratives!" said Daedra.

"That's also something I'd planned to do..." Scott eyed her critically for a moment then asked, "Why did you really come? Didn't you want me to die as quickly as possible?"

A warm laugh bubbled upward and escaped her lips. "Of course I want you to die quickly, silly. That doesn't mean that I want you to fail a vitally important mission, though."

Scott stared at her for a moment. Eventually, she sighed and said, "Look, I'm here as your personal manager. If you complete this mission satisfactorily then that will open up a lot of doors for you. You'll suddenly become an important individual."

"Wait, you mean because it's the princess of Ha' Ruul?" he asked.

"More than that! She's part of the Council of the Warp, a conglomeration of allied world-settings that know of the network of warp zones and use them frequently for politics and allowable trade," said Daedra.

"I remember some sort of meeting when I went to Imperial Garden, at the time I wondered why people from different worlds even knew of each other," said Scott.

"Yes, the trading that the system will allow is highly restricted when it comes to individual worlds. However, they created a hub world where the citizens of many different world-settings have formed colonies."

"That sounds cool..." said Scott, "The original worlds remain mostly untainted, but people can go to this hub-world and meet with people outside of their setting?"

"Yes, it's a fun little thing that we allow for the sake of randomized entertainment," said Daedra. "Completing this emergency mission will allow you to access it, and thus would allow you to access information and capacities outside of what a normal champion at your level would be able to access."

A thought occurred to Scott, "Sometimes I find objects in places that don't quite make sense... Like, a certain flower from earlier."

"I see what you're getting at, and yes it is entirely possible that it was one of the limited items allowed through the warps," said Daedra.

Scott nodded once. It made a little more sense now. The system was quite picky with what it allowed to be transported all over the place and required expensive storage containers even for him to be able to bring an item from one place to another. If it limited a champion to such a degree, it made a great deal of sense to limit someone else even further.

"Did you basically just come here to wish me luck?" asked Scott, curiously. Nothing that she'd said seemed to be vitally important to the mission at hand.

"No, I came to tell you something incredibly important. I just hope you understood what I said." Daedra looked him in the eyes then offered a friendly smile.

"Vitally important?" he asked. She'd basically given him some backstory and told him to do something he intended to do already.

"Yes, be certain to increase your firepower and overall capabilities as much as possible," she said before rising up on her tip toes. "As much as you possibly can! Do you get it? The gravity of this mission needs to be clearly understood..."

Scott heard her stress the words firepower and gravity. His eyes widened once more. Was she giving him the heads up about what he would need to survive this mission? If so, he was uncertain how he could manage to follow her advice. Her thinly veiled suggestions would cost a small fortune in EXP.

"Yeah, I think I get the importance of firepower and understand the gravity of the situation," he said after a brief moment.

"Good! Do well my minion, and you shall be allowed the honor of kissing my hand once or twice," she said in a haughty tone, though there was a smile on her lips.

"When did I become your minion?" asked Scott in a flat tone of voice.

"Details, details..." she said before laughing lightly and stepping back. Her hand rose up and she turned into a bright streak of light that raced up into the sky.

"Seriously..." said Scott, he watched the spot where she'd stood for a moment before turning back toward the door. The timer had already begun ticking down by the time he realized it there were only twenty seconds left.

"Shit!" he cried before running through the door.

On the other side, Chaine and the girls looked askance at him. Samantha asked, "Why were you staring off into space for so long?"

"I was talking to someone until a moment ago. It's not really anything important enough to talk about it at the moment. I'll fill you in later if you want to know," said Scott.

"Someone? There was someone there?" asked Kitty.

"A survivor?" asked Samantha.

"No, it was champion stuff. The one I spoke with was not from that world," said Scott. Before the girls could keep discussing the tangent situation further he turned to Chaine. "Can you fill us in on what happened?"

Chaine nodded to Scott then said, "Yes, of course."

The golden haired elf took a deep breath then slowly released it. "Princess Vita and I were traveling through the Hub-World on our way to the warp zone that would lead back to Ha' Ruul."

He looked at the girls then to Scott, "We were almost to the station set up when we were attacked out of nowhere by a number of what we believed were Cromwell's turtle soldiers. They were simple enough to deal with, but it turned out to be a diversion."

"A diversion?" asked Scott.

"Yes, the turtle soldiers kept us busy while a red robed man chanted some sort of disturbing magical spell," said Chaine.

"Did the air seem to blister and warp around him when he chanted?" asked Scott.

"Yes, do you know of this man?" asked Chaine.

Scott glanced at Kitty. "Think it's that bastard?"

Kitty nodded. "Maybe, but there was more than one guy like that when they attacked me."

"So, you have met with this fiend before?" asked Chaine.

Scott nodded to Chaine, "Him or someone like him. He's serious bad news."

"Bad news..." said Chaine, "Yeah, I can see that..."

He looked to Scott. "He sent out a large number of creatures that looked like a cross between a baby and a spider. While they kept me busy he abducted the princess."

"I'm assuming you gave chase and somehow ended up where you were when we found you?" asked Scott.

Chaine nodded, "I was badly injured, and felt my body riddled with some sort of poison. Still, I chased him through a warp to that nightmare world and tried to follow him while he flew away. I could not keep up due to my injuries and the unfamiliar landscape."

"What did he want with your princess? Ransom?" asked Saelil.

"I do not know, but I intend to free her from him," said Chaine, as he stood straighter.

Scott glanced at Kitty then back to Chaine. He had a fairly good idea of why that zombie Gundam riding bastard would want Princess Vita. They'd driven him off from his laboratory and stolen all of his essence crystals. The princess of Ha' Ruul no doubt possessed extraordinary energy to siphon off, it could be even worse if their world had some sort of relic similar to the Triforce from the games that their reality was based on.

"Chaine, does your world have some sort of powerful magical artifact associated with the princess?" asked Scott after a brief moment of thought. There were many reasons to kidnap a princess, but kidnapping that specific one caused Scott to consider more specific options. Something like a low-budget parody equivalent to the Triforce from the Legend of Zelda could be quite tempting for that bastard.

"Magical artifact associated with the princess?" Chaine looked to Scott briefly then asked, "Do you mean the Trinity Arcana? The tri-part Crown of Ruul formed from the essences of valor, insight, and might?"

Scott took a breath then nodded. Triforce knockoff confirmed. "Did the princess happen to possess that crown or part of it?"

"Yes. It is common knowledge that she holds within her spirit the essence of insight, as I hold the essence of valor... Do you think this fiend is after the essence housed within her?" asked Chaine, his eyes narrowing.

"I'd wager any amount that he does. If it's the same guy I had to deal with, then he's going to want to drain every drop of her essence and possibly steal her part of the crown," said Scott.

"You know him that well?" asked Chaine.

Scott nodded toward Kitty, "He's how we met. I ran across someone fitting the description you gave in the world we were just on. He's probably one of the reasons that world turned out like that, and he nearly killed me numerous times. He was doing to Kitty at the time, what he probably plans to do to Princess Vita."

"I see," said Chaine slowly.

"If he's using warp zones there's no way to guess where he is until we head out. The system that shuffles me around should be able to pinpoint the guy's whereabouts and take us to a place we can start the rescue operation," said Scott.

It was a reasonable guess. The missions until now always took him to a proper starting point. Scott looked to the girls. "I don't even have to ask if Chaine is going. Are the rest of you going to go?"

The girls nodded their heads. They each wanted to go and do what they could.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to spend your recently gathered EXP on increasing your fighting potential if you're going. This mission, it could prove to be incredibly dangerous," said Scott. "If you'd prefer to stay here then spend it on what you want. This came out of this blue, so I don't see a reason to find fault with that."

Scott turned to Chaine, "We need to resupply and gear up. I know you want to rush off as soon as possible, but we only get one shot at this."

"I understand. Your help is appreciated," said Chaine.

The moment the Ha' Ruulian hero spoke those words, a new light appeared in the room. They immediately turned toward it.

"A new orb?" asked Scott.

Above the orb the words 'Guest Exchange' appeared. Scott looked to Chaine. "This might be for you. Let me check it out."

Scott walked over to the new orb and put his hand on it. Upon doing so he received a message.

[Message]

Congratulations!

The Guest Exchange function has been unlocked! You are now able to receive guests in your [Home]. A guest character can use this exchange point during a mission in order to heal and repair equipment. This will happen at no cost to the guest.

If you create a [Guest Room] on a world where you have access to hub ownership, you may choose to create it as a vendor location, or service building. People who are not part of your party may be able to purchase items through the exchange. Upgrades to this room will turn it into a proper business. When that level is achieved, you will be granted a percentage of the experience point profits generated at the exchange. However, you must populate the exchange with items utilizing your personal experience points.

Bonus: You unlocked the administrative champion functions [Guest Exchange] and [Guest Room]. EXP +5000

Scott stared at the message for a moment then laughed like a maniac. "Yeah, this is definitely something to consider for the future." He even had a place to build a guest room! He was the owner of a hub on Dead Men Walking!

"What is it?" asked Kitty.

"It's something for Chaine right now," said Scott before he turned to him. "You can use this Guest Exchange to heal and repair your equipment for free."

"Ah, thank you," said Chaine. He walked toward the orb of light then looked askance at Scott.

"You just put your hand on it, and it should tell you want to do," said Scott.

Chaine nodded then followed his direction. A brief moment later dirt, along with various scratches and bruises, faded away. His equipment, a certain battle tunic with pants, were completely mended. His shield and sword were undamaged to begin with but now they were shiny and perfectly clean.

Scott looked to the girls, "Ladies we need to move quickly. Head to your exchanges and see what you earned from the last mission. I'll leave it up to you to figure out what you can get that will make you kick more ass."

"Works for me!" called out Samantha before she took off her helmet and shook her head a little so that her ponytail flowed free.

A brief moment past where Scott hoped that she would take off more. However, she turned and ran off to her exchange. The other girls followed suit.

He mumbled lightly to himself, 'Seriously, she only took off the helmet? Was it because the last mission took too long?'

Scott's self-amusing train of thought continued briefly, 'Where's Justin Bailey when you need him?'

Amused by his own fanboy humor, Scott chuckled slightly then moved toward his Home Exchange. The moment his hand touched the glowing orb he received a ridiculously happy surprise.

[Mission Score]

You have completed your mission to fearlessly slay zombies!

Grade: S

Base Reward: 436 EXP

Grade Bonus: X10

Team Bonus: 188

Total: 4548 EXP

Settings Bonus

Heroic Decision: You not only completed the mission, but you undertook both side-missions and completed them. Further, you rescued a notable survivor and chose to render aid to an important dignitary of a system world.

Grade: S

Route Bonus: 10000 EXP

Special Bonus[1]: You acquired your first important mission that involves a guest character.

Bonus: 4000 EXP | New items will appear in the exchange

Special Bonus[2]: You acquired the Power of Friendship and advanced your [Shroom Soldier] lifestyle.

Bonus: 2500 EXP | New items will appear in the exchange.

Total: 16500

Entertainment Bonus

You proved to be highly entertaining on several occasions. This reduces the annoyance of our people as they wait for your race to fail their challenges and become our property.

Entertainment Grade: A

Entertainment Bonus: 160 EXP

Fan Following: You have acquired new fans. Once you have 100 fans, you will be granted a one percent bonus to all EXP earned. Each additional 100 fans will increase your EXP by one percent as well.

Fans: (1259)

Fan-Base Bonus: 2544.96

Total EXP Earned: 23752.96

"Are they serious with this?" he asked softly, his eyes wide. He'd only taken an easy mode H-Rank mission, but somehow he'd ended up snagging nearly thirty-thousand EXP.

He dismissed the mission score screen and another one popped up that offered to heal me while refreshing the Friendship Power within him. For the low, low, cost of one hundred EXP his body would be completely healed of any ill effects and the time limit for using the power would reset. He wasted no time in paying that cost.

Before he even looked at stats and powers, Scott immediately spent another fourteen hundred points to buy a Boom Seed and a Gravitas Flower. Those two items alone would drastically increase his power, and at such a low EXP cost it was ridiculous not to buy them. He spent over a thousand experience points on restorative items and status cleansers, and then got down to the business of serious upgrades.

"Stats first," he said. Without hesitation, he raised all of his base stats to ten. It was the highest that he could directly increase them without purchasing feats and items, or without the Undying Beast Revelation coming into play to force them upward.

"So, that's done. What can I do now?" asked Scott as he looked at the feats and abilities available. Once his stats rose to ten, several expensive feat purchases became available. Increasing his base stats also caused his level to rise to four. It would be higher before he was done.

"Twenty-five hundred each..." said Scott as he looked at the three feats that seemed like they would be the most useful. Without much hesitation, Scott spent the additional seventy-five hundred experience points needed to purchase his new feats. He acquired Improved Regeneration III, Improved Hitpoints III, and Improved Feroki II.

A little over fifteen thousand EXP left, took a brief look at his status. "The combat stuff that I can get from my race is good but expensive. Better get the stuff from shroom soldier first..."

Scott looked at the shroom soldier feat listing then immediately purchased Improved Strength I and Improved Vitality I. The other options were greyed out because he had the equivalent or better already. After purchasing them, he received a message citing the fact that his strength and vitality could not be raised further through paying experience directly.

With the feat costs included it required him a total of eighteen hundred points to increase both strength and vitality by an additional four points. It was the equivalent of acquiring the additional strength and vitality of another maximized standard human within his body.

These increases in status rapidly increased his level. He was now level five. Something even more interesting occurred at that point. After raising his stats to the maximum, a new message appeared that informed him of reaching a lifestyle milestone. New feats and powers were available for shroom soldier.

Scott grinned widely. This was working out well so far! He checked the new list and was disappointed slightly. The new feats were basically expansions of the old ones. Specifically the only ones that were not greyed out due to already having something better. Scott shrugged and spent the seven thousand EXP necessary to get the abilities.

His strength, vitality, floral power, and floral power regeneration feats all increased to the second tier. Immediately, he spent another fourteen hundred points to increase his strength and vitality by seven points each. "Damn, man... round twenty-three points of strength and vitality while I have this lifestyle equipped."

Without using any external skills or abilities, he was now nearly six times stronger and healthier than the healthiest human who ever lived on his world could hope to be.

There was a sad note to the developments, however. Each of those abilities had been replaced by a gold star with the word 'Max' written in the center. After checking a little blurb associated with it, he discovered that only upgrading to a higher form of shroom soldier would allow them to grow further.

Scott checked his floral power abilities to see what was new. He cringed hard. The cheapest ability was four thousand points. It was an ability that would accentuate his friendship power. The others were five thousand each and focused on his jumping or fireball abilities. They were tempting to purchase, but there were other ways to become stronger. There was also the ever-present problem of the shroom soldier lifestyle requiring a consumable item in order to work. If he wanted to purchase the three items necessary to use all of his abilities, it would set him back over fifty-four hundred EXP every time he purchased them.

"No. If I'm buying powers instead of passive feats then it needs to be something more permanent," Scott looked to the racial list of abilities once more. The only ability he could afford was one that might prove to be the most useful anyway.

He spent one thousand experience points and awakened the ability Ferakai Awakening. It was not a flashy sounding ability but he did like what it offered.

[Power]

Ferakai Awakening

Utilizing your innate sense of unity with the incredibly potent force of life that dwells within all Ferakai, you can now temporarily increase your physical ability at will.

Feroki: 4 points per second, per one point boost in all physical stats. Maximum boost is equal to racial level multiplied by base statistical score. This limit is raised when in altered forms.

If feroki runs out, hit points may be substituted at a rate of four hit points per point of feroki. Should hit points run out you may still use this ability, but it will take a heavy toll on the body and will lead to serious injury or death.

s a sense of energy and heat thrumming through his body that he'd never noticed before. How he'd missed it, he did not know. Now he could sense it and it even responded to his thoughts with clear direction.

The awakening did not grant him new power, merely the first step in accessing his inherent abilities as a third class Ferakai warrior. Still, that access came with extraordinary benefits.

There wasn't much else that he could do with abilities and feats now other than stuff that did not directly benefit his fighting abilities. He turned his attention to items. Most notably, he sought out a replacement for his pistol. That weapon had served him well, but something new would be nice.

Immediately, he saw two new item selections categories. Scott checked the limited time offers, first. In that section he discovered equipment from Ha' Ruul. "Damn, expensive..." mumbled Scott. However, with items that was always a good thing.

The system did not troll people when it came to items as far as he could tell. While a given item might require a different style of use than a more familiar one of the same category, the end result was that the more expensive had at least something about it that warranted the high price tag.

"A Standard Ha' Ruulian longsword costs eight thousand EXP?" he asked incredulously. It was the cheapest thing on the list other than Ru-Ru Nuts. The nuts were twelve hundred experience points each and could completely restore a person to full health and hit points within a few seconds. Nothing was mentioned about special powers such as feroki or floral power. There was a Simple Buckler Shield for twenty-one thousand, though. The blurb made that sound like a must have item for battling magical forces of darkness or people who enjoyed surviving explosions.

Items such as boomerangs and bows also appeared on the listing, and there were various types of simple armor that boasted heavy price tags. Ha' Ruul was no doubt an expensive place to live if someone wanted to go adventuring.

Eventually he moved over to the lifestyle item list and saw something that he could actually afford. Scott purchases a Shroom Captain's Helmet for twenty-eight hundred EXP. After further expending his precious experience he maxed it out level-wise and grinned.

The helmet was shaped like something a modern soldier would wear, but instead of normal camouflage it bore several green spots and had a slight resemblance to the cap of a mushroom. It came with a golden face mask that provided as a great deal of protection. The item synergized well with his lifestyle and provided fifty percent more defensive power due to that fact. The best part was that he could wear it with his nano-cloud suit since the suit didn't cover his head.

Scott popped the helmet on his head then took a deep breath and spent enough experience to increase his lifespan back to ten days. It did not cost much, but he felt it necessary. Anything might happen on this mission. After that, he purchased a few odds and ends and left the remainder to act as a health buffer in case he lost an arm or a leg during the fight.

Name: Scott Davidson Age: 20 [Race: Feral Kai Warrior][Third Class] [Level: 7[4850/7000] EXP: 600 Life Span: 10 Day(s) Hit Points: [510]1199 Feroki: 280[658] Floral Power: 280[308] ATTRIBUTES Strength: 10.00[23.00] Resilience: 10.00[11.00] Vitality: 10.00[23.50] Dexterity: 10.00[11.00] Concentration: 10.00[11.00] [Charisma: 10.00[11.00] FEATS Lunar Revelation Undying Beast Revelation Altered Beast Revelation Feroki Attunement Feral Kai Warrior Enhanced Senses Improved Feroki II Improved Regeneration III Improved Hit Points III Soldier's Resolve Improved Floral Power II Improved Floral Power Regeneration II Improved Strength II Improved Vitality II POWERS Gravitas Super Jump [FP: 3] Burning Smash [FP: 0.75] Ferakai Awakening [FKI: 4+]

His overall power skyrocketed, and he was quite pleased. However, there was a distinct downside to the situation. He sincerely doubted that the actions in the previous mission warranted all the S-Rank grades he'd received. In his mind that could only mean one thing. He was granted EXP to this amount because of the difficulty of the coming mission.

"A D-Rank mission... I hope we're ready," he mumbled. E-rank missions were barely within his old tolerance as a solo mission. Even then, when the difficulty of that mission level reached maximum he'd nearly been one-shotted by the red robed bastard before. Hell, on Fear Rune he'd faced a similar difficult level and actually died several times.

Scott knew that he was much stronger now, but he sincerely doubted that he would get off easily if he took a direct hit from that zombie Gundam. However, there was hope. This time he would not be alone. He nodded his head. This time, the sick red bastard was going down.