Archie was laughing at me almost as hard as we had previously been at him, his mirth the result of my explanation of how my HP had plummeted suddenly. “So you were bitch slapped by a goddess for your flippant tongue? Damn I wish I had seen that! Do you have any idea how many times I have been tempted to do that with you in the past?” We had left the Grotto and started the journey to the first dungeon after having said out good-byes to the Fairies living in the cavern, and I had explained what had happened then.

Even Kayla was amused by what had happened, her small giggles drawing my attention towards her, where she forced herself under control and raised an eyebrow at me. “What? Your charm wasn’t effective against some digital code? Shocking…” She broke down into another fit of laughter, even the Fairies floating above us laughing at my sorry state of affairs.

“Yeah, yeah… Laugh it up while you can. Just remember who is going to be controlling the armies when the time comes.” I grinned and turned a dark look to each of them in turn. “I might accidently get you confused for the enemy and make you both targets. Oops. Mistakes happen, sorry in advance.” My threats had no effect on the pair, they probably knew I was joking and would never make the mistake of friendly fire in a game, but it was worth a shot.

The mirth slowly died down, and Archie turned towards me with a thoughtful expression. “On a more serious note, I think the meeting went rather well actually. You got information from one of the gods of the world and are even in a position to reap some damn nice rewards from Elrayna. Knowing you, I am sure you have already figured out what the best choice of your second Fairy is going to be, but keep it to yourself while in the game for now. No need to let the stream viewers in on what you will get.”

I nodded at him, my thoughts running exactly along those lines. “Yeah, pretty much. Although, it might be some time before we make the level requirement for the second Fairy. We will have to see where we get in this dungeon before I start counting my eggs.”

“You have a point, but I am still jealous of you two…” Kayla frowned at both Archie and myself, and I even caught a small hint of maybe anger in her gaze. “You both have Unique Fairies, and Calamity is set to get a second one as soon as he hits level 25, while all I have is a Rare quality Contract.”

It seemed she was still a little bitter about that subject. I was about to make a comment, but Archie beat me to it and brought up a highly valid point. “Ahhh, but you see, even if Celeste is only a Rare Fairy, she compliments your style perfectly. If we were to stop and duel right here and now, you could easily defeat myself or Calamity simply by outlasting us with your armor and healing. Add to that your gear is of Epic quality, and you have a leg up on us in that department as well.”

Kayla seemed to take that in for a moment then nodded her head, mollified for the moment with Archie’s argument. “You have me there I suppose. It is nice to know that I could beat Calamity here, even if I can kick Zex’s ass any day of the week without trying.” She flashed my friend a wolfish grin at the jab, to which he merely held up his hands and bowed his head in acceptance of her words. Archie always knew how to pick his battles…

The rest of our journey took a good three hours of traveling by foot, and we decided to call a break when the map marker indicated we were nearly at the location. The icon on my UI would be popping up soon to alert me of the five-hour mark, and the dungeon run itself would be best done when fresh from a break anyway. We didn’t make any plans for the time during our log out, all of us were eager to dive into our first instance of the game and score some nice loot and experience. That was the best part of playing an RPG game after all.

Forty minutes later found us all logged back in and standing before a solid wall of trees and impassible brush of a huge section of forest. There was one way into the location, a gap between two trees that was conspicuously clear of flora and had a shimmering rainbow colored barrier stretching between the two trunks. I saw no indication of any other alert that this was the place, no glaring location sign alerting players to ‘beware of man-eating creatures’ or the like. In fact, the location seemed to be part of the natural landscape for the most part with the only difference being the barrier shining dully before us.

“Well, this seems to be the place…” Archie shifted his weight between his feet, anxious now that the time was upon us. Without looking away from the portal, he spoke up again. “By all means, ladies first…”

Kayla turned to me and raised a brow as if to say ‘did he really just say that?’ I merely shrugged at her and smirked. “He is just jealous that both of us are prettier than he is.” That earned me a small laugh from the plate wearing woman before she stepped forward and passed through the entrance to the instance. I moved to follow her, calling back over my shoulder to add a second barb to my taunt. “Come on Princess, we will protect you.” Grumbling under his breath, Archie moved to follow and we both stepped between the trees behind Kayla.

The transition between open game world and instanced dungeon was fairly seamless, there weren’t any bright flashes of light or loading screens – thank God – and we were just suddenly standing on the other side of the portal with a message prompt appearing before us.

Congratulations!

You have found an unexplored instance!

Rewards for being the first players to clear this dungeon have been improved until the final boss has been killed or the instance is reset. Should you die while in the instance, you will be respawned at the entrance after half the appropriate amount of time. Good luck!

Yup. Definitely the right place. Looked like Vermund’s information was accurate and we would be able to get some level grinding in finally. I dismissed the message, then took a look around at what we were dealing with. The scenery kept up with the dense forest motif with thick trees all around, colorful flowers and various vines everywhere. I couldn’t see any mobs, but we had just stepped into the area so that wasn’t unexpected. Sounds of local wildlife filled the air with the calls of birds and the rustle of brush and leaves in the distance, and everything was tinted in a light green color of the sunlight filtering down through the leaves high above.

“I swear to God if we run into spiders I am leaving you both to die horrible deaths…” I raised a brow at Kayla, who had made the comment, and smiled. Where Archie was deathly afraid of snakes, our female friend was terrified of arachnids in all forms even in games. “Zex, buff us up with that armor enchantment and let’s get started.”

“Right-o, one armor buff coming right up!” He flicked a hand towards Kayla and myself, applying said buff for another twenty armor points. Every bit helped in the end. “Okay, after you my brave and fearless tank.” With his task complete, Archie activated his Wrap in Night ability and faded from view, appearing as a blob of darkness in the shadows of a tree.

Kayla scoffed, shaking her head as she readied her sword and shield. “Coward. How the hell did you make it anywhere in this game without me?” Her smile gave away the teasing taunt for what it was, and then she started forward.

I got my scythe out and ready as well, following the armored woman while my eyes looked about. “Now, now children… Don’t make me put you both in time out.” The familiar and playful banter was part and parcel of our history as gamers. Even when faced off against each other, we had always kept the friendly nature of our friendship open to public ears. It was in part what made us three – or four if you included Alex – so popular on the pro gaming scene several years ago. Our dialogue was aired right alongside of our actual game play footage at competitions and the viewers loved it.

A chorus of, “Yes dad,” came from the two, followed by a short bit of laughter by all of us as we walked deeper into the dense landscape. We were following a trail through the trees, wider than an animal path but not so wide as to be called a true road, it allowed two people to walk side by side without any troubles. Despite all of his teasing and banter, Archie had fallen into his role as our stealther and worked his way ahead of us to scout out what was to come and after a minute of walking a ping sounded on my mini map.

“Alright folks, first pack of mobs sighted. Just around the next bend the trail widens into a clearing. Our enemy of the day is, drumroll please…” He paused, and I could imagine the smirk on his face as he made us wait for the announcement. “Bandits! How boring…” His disappointed tone was evidence enough that he wasn’t joking, and soon enough Kayla and I had joined him at the edge of the clearing to see he was right. I used my inspect skill to check their info, and sure enough there were six humans sitting around a campfire. Each mob was between level 11 and 13 with simple names of Bandit.

“Well, that is a bit anticlimactic…” I said as I crouched down to study the layout. Behind the group of people were three two man tents, each bandit dressed in leather armor with swords. Two of them had shields to go with the stabby weapons while two others had quivers of arrows visible sticking up over their shoulders. “Oh well, guess it is just our luck to find the most boring instance in the game. Looks like a typical mob pack, two ranged, two tanks and two melee DPS. The three of us should be able to handle them just like the PvP group.”

Archie nodded his head, his stealth skill having faded while we studied the group, but Kayla frowned. “Hang on… Something seems off here. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I am getting the feeling that it isn’t as straight forward as you are making it out to be.”

Now it was my turn to frown as I looked closely at the men sitting ahead of us. Nothing was standing out to me, but that didn’t mean she was wrong about her hunch. “I am not seeing anything. Unless you want to suggest another plan, we should move and get this started. The clock is ticking and we need to clear this fast for the extra rewards.”

Chewing on her lower lip in contemplation, Kayla shook her head and sighed. “You are right. I still think there is something wrong, but we need to keep moving. Zex, stealth up and head in then I will do my thing and charge and Calamity can use his cheater ability to dive the back line with you.”

“Hey now! It is a legitimate ability!” I glared at her, the sound of Archie’s laughter fading as he did his thing to get ready. As soon as he had left, I marked up all of the enemies with raid icons to make our work go faster. “Zex you have square, I will take the circle. Once they are down we move on to skull and X and finally the last two. Simple encounter, let’s not screw it up.”

I got affirmative noises from both of my party members, our Fairies floating up into the air to stay out of the way during the combat. As soon as Archie pinged the mini map, Kayla dashed forward with her weapons at the ready. All of the bandits saw her immediately, the noise of her armor combined with the flashes of light reflecting off the steel plates pointing her out even if her shouted battle cry didn’t. A mad scramble ensued as the bandits all rose and drew weapons to meet the woman’s charge with shouts of their own to coincide with the clang of steel on shield.

Triggering Temporal Step, I ran ahead and managed to cross the distance in time before my spell wore off and the world returned to normal. The two archer bandits shouted in surprise as I seemed to appear from nowhere before them, their bows twisting to aim at me as the highest threat. Archie dropped his stealth ability right before his target could fire, a fist crashing into a kidney to cause the arrow to fly wildly off to the side.

My marked target had no distraction to prevent his shot, and he promptly loosed his arrow at me with a vicious smile. The look changed to terror a moment later when I ignored the arrow, taking the hit to my shoulder and losing 5% of my HP from the shot and ignoring the pain. Then it was my turn to give a wicked grin as I planted my leading foot and pivoted around, my scythe twirling around to deliver a swing backed by the full power of my shifting momentum as well as the strength of my charge. A solid 40% of his HP drained away instantly as the blade of my weapon slashed over his neck for a crit, my body continuing the spin to keep the momentum of my attack up. Reeling from my initial attack, the bandit stumbled backwards a little until the flowing pattern of my attacks sent the mob sprawling to the ground with only a sliver of health left after a couple more blows.

Archie whistled casually as he came up and kicked the fallen bandit in the head, finishing the thing off and giving me a grin. “Hurry up man! You are too slow.” He chuckled and dashed past me, heading towards our next target that was currently engaged with Kayla. Her life was flickering back and forth as she took damage then healed up again, her foes having some of their health bars whittled away while she mainly focused on defending to buy more time.

It was then that things started to get a bit hairy, literally… Seeing that their two comrades were already out of the fight, skull and X both dropped their weapons and emitted a deep growl that echoed out from deep in their chests. With a sudden flexing motion of their shoulders, both of them seemed to explode as their armor fell off, the ties seeming designed for just such a tactic. The pair’s bodies shifted and grew, quickly standing easily at seven feet tall and covered in thick dark fur with wolf-like heads and sharp wicked looking claws on their hands. Son of a bitch… They were werewolves!

With a savage roar, both of the once melee DPS bandits crouched down to leap at Archie and myself, but were stopped in place as Kayla slammed her sword against her shield to use her AOE stun ability. Spinning a quick circle, her sword flicked out and hamstrung both of the wolf creatures in quick succession before she settled back into a full defensive position once more. The slowed debuff showed next to the health bars above the wolves’ heads, but it looked like they didn’t take a lot of damage from the strike.

The stun duration lasted just long enough for myself and Archie to close in with our next target, each of us getting in one solid blow a piece to the creature before it began to move again. The effectiveness of our strikes wasn’t nearly as good as I had hoped, the creature sitting at 75% HP after the pair of strikes. Archie and I had each done about 10% damage with our attacks, Kayla having done 5% with her own, and the wolf looked to be more pissed than injured now.

Moving with surprising speed, skull flung out an arm and raked his claws down Archie’s chest to strip him of 15% of his HP with the casual strike. Damn, these things looked like no joke! Grimacing at the sudden turn in the situation, I activated True Haste to give myself some extra maneuver time and spun my scythe around me in a continuous motion, every pass striking the werewolf and whittling away more and more of its health. For his part, Archie seemed to recover quickly and dived into a roll to get behind the beast and unload his punches at the exposed back. Our attacks didn’t go unanswered though, the creature fighting back with frightening speed that matched Archie to deal a good chunk of damage to myself with those sharp claws.

My armor negated a good portion of the damage I received, and my lifesteal further helped in that department, but even still I was sitting at 70% HP by the time our combined assault dropped the first of the transformed bandits. The second werewolf was focused on Kayla after her stun and attack, and her own HP was suffering from the constant stream of incoming damage that her heals couldn’t keep up with. With a shared grin and nod to each other, Archie and I turned out attention and attacks onto werewolf X. Less than ten seconds later, we dropped the second fuzzy beast and turned towards the remaining two just in time to see them transform as well! Their health recovered completely as soon as they took werewolf form, the aggro tables apparently zeroing out as well seeing as they turned their attentions to Archie and myself and ignored Kayla.

Our tank was having none of that though, and despite having her health floating around the 50% mark she flashed her sword out to strike one then the other to draw their attention back to her. “Get circle first, my mana is almost out!” I watched as a golden slow surrounded her once more, increasing her life up to 80% as her mana looked to be almost totally empty. We were now running on a time crunch, and I dove forward to drive the blade of my scythe deep into the targeted werewolf’s side for a crit!

Archie had followed right along behind me and laid into the wolf from the other side, his fists making audible thuds as he rapidly punched at the beast’s ribcage with unrestrained violence. Kayla abandoned her defensive stance, instead lashing out with her blade to add into the massive amount of damage being rained down on werewolf circle. The beast spun in place as we each drew aggro in turn, the next strike pounding into the creature before it could attack again. All praise the game mechanics that made a mob focus on the highest threat!

As soon as circle fell to our combined assault, the final beast was easy pickings and it too fell rather quickly. The whole fight had taken just under a minute, but in that time we had each taken a hit to our bars in varying degrees and were panting with the adrenaline coursing through our bodies. Even after dozens of battles, the sheer realistic nature of combat within the game continued to draw out my baser instincts to make me sink into a frenzied state of survival. Only after I saw that no enemies were left standing did I relax finally and lower my weapon to catch my breath.

“The shoes!” Kayla exclaimed. “The bandits weren’t wearing any boots or shoes of any kind. That’s what had me suspicious. Boots are one of the few things that can’t really be designed to fall apart easily when they shifted forms.” Now that combat was over, our health, mana and energy bars all refilled steadily as we looked around at the corpses fading away. Their loot would already be in our inventories thanks to my skill, and that only left us with the job of gathering our breath and moving on.

As I thought back on how the camp looked before the battle, I realized she was right and they hadn’t been wearing anything on their feet. “Well shit… Now we know what we are up against at least.” I grinned at my friends before turning towards the path that lead deeper into the woods. “On the bright side, this just became an interesting instance and not quite so cliché! Let’s keep going and get this cleared as quick as possible.”

The loot we got was mediocre at best, the gear the bandits were using not being of great quality. What had me curious above all else was the lack of experience added to my total and instead now showing a number beside it in parenthesis. When I brought this to the attention of the others, it was Archie who had the answer as usual. “That is how the instances work in this game. All of the experience you gain in a dungeon is tallied up separately until you either die or complete the instance and then you get it all at once with modifying bonuses based on the circumstances.”

That was an interesting take on the dungeon idea for DT. I saw how it could work in our benefit if we didn’t die during the entire dungeon and killed the final boss to claim the upgraded rewards. It also made it easier on the servers since the mobs adjust their levels to accommodate the players in an instance. Accepting things as they were, we moved on from the first clearing in search of the next fight.

A few hundred yards of tightly packed woods on either side of the path and we found the second clearing. This one contained another group of bare foot bandits, only there were seven total in this pack. With just the three of us, we had to start planning our fights out better now that we knew what they really were. All seven mobs were level 12, which was a plus, and the group comp was similar to the first with the addition of another dual dagger wielding man.

I surveyed the group, my thoughts turning over how to best deal with the threat of their transforming abilities. An idea hit me, and I grinned as I passed it along to my party members. In short order, we were ready to go. Archie faded away and got into position and we began the fight almost exactly like the first one. I held back on my Temporal Step skill, keeping the free movement in reserve should anything bad happen and just charged in right behind my plate wearing friend.

The din of combat quickly filled the air with its harsh sounds as I focused my damage evenly between the three melee DPS units beating on Kayla. Staying so close to the woman during the fight I noticed she kept up a steady stream of curses and insults at the mobs, drawing on their anger to retain their aggro as I steadily stripped away their health. I caught a few hits here and there, but my lifesteal was more than enough to compensate for the damage I received and I remained above 90% health for the first part of the fight.

“Incoming! On my mark Serena.” Archie dived past me, tumbling through a roll to avoid the flailing weapons and limbs and leading his two archer buddies in close to me. In his fists he clutched two dozen arrows, the ammunition from the archers to make them abandon a ranged position. Everything was going to plan so far. My enemies were all between 20% and 30% HP, and if Archie was coming over with his, they were low too. “Now!”

On cue, Kayla slammed her sword against her shield to stun all of the bandits. As soon as Archie had spoken, I started my part of the plan. Setting my grip on the scythe, I angled the blade parallel to the ground and quickly spun around in a circle four times. Before the stun effect wore off, five bandits were lying dead on the ground from the rapid series of attacks I had delivered. The plan had worked wonderfully. None of the bandits would transform if they thought the battle was even, and Archie had guessed that at 15% or so HP they would change and reset their health bars. My plan was simple, whittle down several bandits, draw them all close to me, then finish them all off at once before they could change and make the fight harder. I counted this ploy as a success in my book!

With five of their group dropping at once, the remaining two bandits showed their true colors and burst out of their armor into their werewolf forms, weapons abandoned right along with the shed armor. Like the first fight, dealing with only two of the mobs was a cake walk and we soon were rewarded by the sight of seven bodies that were beginning to fade away. Our bars had barely taken a hit this time, the effectiveness of taking out the bulk of the group before they went into wolf mode was quite efficient it seemed. We joked and chatted as the next three clearings all passed with similar results. Once we got our plan down, the battles went by in less than forty seconds even if it seemed like longer from my perspective. Something about the fights always seemed to dilate time in my mind, even beyond my True Haste skill, and a forty second fight seemed like it dragged on for three minutes. Glancing at my character sheet showed that we were going to be gaining a nice chunk of exp once it added to our pools, and that was before the first clear bonus took effect on the totals. I was currently sitting at 11,300 exp in my temporary pool, making this run more than worth farming over and over.

At almost fifteen minutes into the instance, we came upon the sixth clearing and froze in place at the edge of the area. There was no simple bandit camp in the middle, nor even a large one… Nope, we now had to fight a huge centaur! He stood at nine feet tall at the head, his horse body being huge like a Clydesdale, torso large and bare with corded muscles covering every inch of him. Two axes rested in slings on either hip, the weapons massive enough to make me think I would need two hands to wield one of the instruments of destruction.

I scratched my chin in thought a moment before glancing at my friends. “Well, seems like we found the mini boss. I am going to assume that he is strong as hell and pretty fast on top of it, but beyond that I never really ran into centaurs before…” The name plate that showed up when I inspected him was Centaur Mercenary, making me think that this was a guard set to prevent anyone from getting past and to the main boss shortly further along.

Kayla seemed to be studying the creature thoughtfully, her eyes locked on the huge mob as it paced across the clearing. “Zex and I have dealt with some before, but this game likes to throw twists at us it seems, so I am going to say we stick with a simple tank and spank and see where that takes us.”

“I have to agree with Serena on this one with the addition that Calamity and I focus on trying to take out the legs. If we can reduce its mobility, we should have an easy time with this fight so long as we keep a constant stream of damage up. Assuming Serena here can hold out taking blows from those huge axes…” Archie looked a bit worried as he also eyed the massive weapons.

“Hmmm…” Kayla contemplated those words and finally nodded. “I should be good. If I focus mainly on blocking his swings I am confident I can hold out for at least two minutes.” She seemed quite sure about her statement, which made me believe that we were going to have this in the bag in short order.

“Alright then, let’s get in there and take down a centaur!” I readied my scythe and glanced at Kayla so she could start the party off like usual. The blonde woman grinned and ran forward, Archie and myself flanking her as we bee-lined right for the pacing centaur. As soon as the creature saw us, he let out a booming laugh and drew out those twin axes and ran to meet our charge. Seeing the massive form charging down on us with axes raised, Kayla took an unorthodox method of dodging and dropped into a slide to pass under the front legs of the horse body. Both axes swung down, but missed her thanks to the swift actions of our tank.

Archie and I both chuckled and split to the sides, each of us hammering home a few blows as the centaur’s charge lead it straight past us. The damage was minor, only dealing a few percentage per hit, but it added up to almost 10% off its total health with one pass. Not a bad first exchange in my book as we didn’t take any damage.

Learning from its mistake, the centaur circled around and approached slowly this time, axes swinging back and forth as if it was testing his reach. Kayla had gotten back to her feet with a small laugh at her tactics, and readied her shield to meet those deadly axe blades. The first blow came swiftly, the axe arcing down to clang off of the raised shield but still stripping away 15% of her HP in the process with a grunt of pain from the woman. The second swing from his other hand came right after, and Kayla had to dodge backwards to avoid this blow.

Seeing my chance, I waved Archie to split off to the beast’s right side while I took the left. My reach with the scythe was enough to get some good hits in before Archie got close enough to start pounding into the bulk of the horse body with his attacks. A harsh clang and a golden glow coming from the front of the centaur told me Kayla got hit and had healed herself back up again while I continued to whittle down the boss’ HP.

The process was slow going, and at 75% HP the centaur got a surprise hit on me and Archie. As soon as it hit the three quarter mark, the centaur spun quickly and slashed once at Archie and full on horse kicked me in the chest with his back legs. I took the unexpected blow in surprise and was rocketed backwards as a full 40% of my health vanished in an instant! Fuck that thing could kick… Archie was in a similar boat, having taken 30% damage from the single swipe he had taken before Kayla could draw it back onto herself.

Shaking myself off as I stood, I popped a health potion from my quick access belt slot and chugged it, then pulled out a vial of Basic Poison to apply to my scythe blade. The extra damage would help, and I couldn’t be skimpy with the vials like I had been recently. Diving back in, I slashed hard and fast at the back leg of the horse several times until finally the debuff of both poison and crippled popped up next to the slowly draining health bar of the boss. Kick me now you son of a bitch…

Between the potion and my lifesteal ability, my health was quickly working its way back to full and a glance at my UI showed Archie and Kayla had both popped a potion as well to help with the damage coming in at us. At 50%, the boss once more performed a different attack and took a page from my book. Holding his axes out in front of him, he rapidly spun a circle and clipped both Archie and myself with his attack for another decent chunk of damage, but spared Kayla the attack which gave her the time needed to regen some more HP and save her mana.

Figuring that at 25% there would be another attack directed towards Archie and myself, I grinned and watched the health bar above the centaur. As it neared the mark, I shouted out into the party chat. “Serena, do your stun!” The resonate clang and shockwave coming off of her shield did the job of freezing the boss for a few seconds, and I activated True Haste and unleashed hell on the stunned monster. Twirling my scythe in a blur, the health bar began to drain rapidly as all of us laid into the boss hard. “Zex, Serena! Drop to the floor!” I followed my own advice as soon as I saw the boss move once again, and we all barely avoided the rampaging legs and flailing axe blades as the boss spun a circle to do his 25% HP attack.

Having neatly dodged the effects of the attack except for being clipped by one of the flailing hooves, we jumped back up and once more began our assault. I kept my Haste skill up for the remainder of the fight, and the centaur finally gave up the ghost after one last blow from Archie on the other side. Another 3000 exp added in to my temporary pool to my delight and I quickly pulled up my inventory to see what loot was dropped. I found a few more potions of decent quality for health and energy, but no gear appeared in my inventory.

Kayla shouted in excitement as her sword vanished to be replaced by one of the axes the boss had wielded. “I can use this! My strength just exceeds the requirement on it and the damage is ridiculous!” She swung the large axe with a grin, the blade humming through the air on its arc. The weapon had sized down slightly in comparison to what it looked like in the centaur’s hands, but it still seemed like a dangerous item all the same.

“All I got was some potions and a glowing crystal…” Archie frowned slightly as he looked over the item in his inventory. “Ah, I see. It is a key to access the extra fight after the final boss. We will need this in order to try for the extra loot and experience later.” He sighed in irritation, probably having hoped it was a new and awesome item he could make use of. “Anyway, regen up and let’s move on. We are thirty minutes into this dungeon already even with moving quickly so we need to step it up.”

“Good idea, I only got potions as well but we should walk while we regen and see what the next area has in store. Have you checked your exp yet? We are going to be leveling up at least once or twice by the end of this run.” I grinned at my friends, then rested my scythe over a shoulder and headed towards the path leading deeper into the forest. This dungeon was turning out to be quite fun and entertaining to my delight, and I was eager to keep up the pace of our progress.