The sun kissed the horizon, yet Silas hadn't left the sandwich bar. He'd moved to a booth in the back corner, sitting where no one could see his laptop's screen, and logged into World of Fantasy to check in on his digital characters.

As he feared, the world of his favorite MMO remained static. The daily quests he completed in the airport terminal had yet to reset, despite the days which had passed for him. Killed mobs didn't respawn. All the logged in players just stood around, like they were all afk.

He couldn't even take advantage of the enemy factions' helplessness, as the elite NPC city guards were all balanced to challenge PVP raid groups, setting the minimum bar for a raid on a major city at gathering twenty five decently coordinated max-level players, with the NPCs capable of scaling up the difficulty to match any number of eager challengers. The devs didn't want players capable of just gathering enough bodies to ever swarm over a city, giving the attacked faction time to gather a response, empower their city defenses, and fight back.

He could farm every spawned monster, once. Run every dungeon he might solo, once, per character. Complete every quest, once, per character. Maybe not the kill quests, though. Collect every available collectible, among those guaranteed to drop. It was still a fair amount of content. The game's world was quite big, and he'd not seen all it had to offer. He certainly wasn't the type to do every quest in every zone, so that was something he could do, if he really wanted to.

He might be able to server hop, to search for rare drops on certain world-roaming mobs, and he could certainly start new characters, but the whole experience left him feeling just a bit empty. It just wasn't the same.

He ran all the old dungeons he liked to run with his main character, a Necromancer, just to see if he might finally get another rare mount or pet, but as usual the truly rare drops failed to appear. Seeing his character in action did give him an idea, though, and so he created a new character for the first time in a while.

This, naturally, needed careful consideration. If he was going to create a character to summon with his Skill, what form should he give them? What faction should they hail from? What race would be best?

Given the princess's view on non-human races, he went with the easy option. World of Fantasy's humans were a bit generic as a race, but they did have a few perks. A one percent faster leveling speed was something of a wasted racial perk, but the one percent faster mana and health were decent enough, if boring. Their perk which automatically cleared one debilitating debuff from themselves once every five minutes was considered minor within the game, given the various potions and items one could use to break such effects, but having it as a passive effect running in real life might prove quite useful.

Going for an intimidating bodyguard look, he made the character a bald, muscular guy, one with caramel chocolate skin like the locals. He gave the man silver eyes, because they looked cool.

As for a name… "Any name suggestions, Eve?"

"Baldie?"

"All that processing power, and that's the best you can do?"

"I'm busy."

He raised an eyebrow, but didn't push. Walker seemed fitting. But with a title, since he'd be leading a group.

CaptainWalker was taken, as was CaptainWalkerNecro, CaptainWalkerTheNecro, and NecroCaptainWalker. The guy got demoted to a more realistic rank, and finally he got the game to accept SergeantWalkerTheNecro.

Once created, he ignored the new character tutorial quests and started the long run to the main hub of the region, the human capital, where he would be able to access his account's vault, just a level one necromancer and his trusty skeleton warrior passing through a series of zones meant for level ten, twenty, and thirty characters. The task was doable with a bit of patience, with the goal being to make it far enough to the next closest graveyard to his destination before each inevitable death, but halfway there Silas mentally kicked himself.

He logged out, logged in as his main necromancer, Skelord. One of the perks of joining the game when it first came out was that all the fun names hadn't all been claimed yet.

He flew Skelord to where Walker last died, then unleashed his skeleton army, clearing a path for his new alt. Normally this wouldn't work, mobs respawned too fast, but since he played within some frozen moment of the server's time such hijinks became possible.

With that out of the way, he could—

Ding ding ding! A bell rang three times. Looking up, the bartender had pulled a cord on the side of the booth, a cord attached to a bell within the booth's privacy bubble, useful for studying students desiring peace and quiet.

Silas tapped a button, deactivating his privacy field.

"Time to settle up," the bartender said, nodding outside where the night had grown dark. "It's night. We're closing. It's a copper an hour for non-students." He held out a hand. "That'll be five copper."

Silas liked that the guy was charging him, despite knowing Silas was a summoned hero. Or maybe he thought Silas a crazy, delusional weirdo? Nah, he wouldn't have indulged Silas for so long, explaining their timekeeping, if that were the case. Surely not.

Silas, of course, had no money. Taylor had it all. He hadn't summoned her or Vox, not wanting to draw attention to himself on campus. "Yeah, one sec. Need to summon my, uh, well, she has all my money."

The guy cracked a grin. "Your wife?"

Silas laughed. "Nah. She's… A maid? An assistant? Something like that."

Before more could be said he gestured, and Taylor appeared across from him in the booth.

"Oof," she frowned. "I was standing up." She scooted side to side, adjusting her position. "How can I help you, sir?"

"Kindly pay the man five copper." He pointed to the bartender, who had taken a step back, but was now eying Taylor up and down appreciatively.

"Ah," she said with a slight smirk. The coins appeared in her hand, which she set on the table. She peered outside. "Closing time?"

"I don't have to go home but I can't stay here, yeah."

She nodded and scooted out of the booth.

He followed, leading the way outside, waving at the bartender on his way out.

The walkways were dimly lit beyond the cafe, lit only by what bright light shining off the campus's tall towers filtered through the fruiting trees lining the path. Once the pair exited, floating balls of pale orange light appeared over their heads to better light their path.

Through the shutting door, the bartender called out, "Visiting hours are over, so be sure to make your way to the front gate unless you want campus security to take an interest and ask you your business."

Silas waved again, feeling more awkward this time. Did people here wave? He couldn't remember seeing anyone wave.

"Where to?" Taylor asked as they made their way out. Students passed in clumps, pairs, and by themselves, all hurrying to various destinations, going into different large buildings and towers. The balls floating over their heads were all a pale sky blue. Some adults walking about in robes had pale lavender lights, while what seemed janitorial or gardening staff got faint lime green orbs.

"Not the palace. Rats are going to find me in the morning, I assume."

Sable had squeaked angrily and jumped from his pocket when Silas first entered the Academy. Apparently rats couldn't pass some invisible threshold at the gate. Or, perhaps the black rat just had business elsewhere.

Before long they made their way to the gate, the orbs of light fading as they passed through.

"Speak of the devil," he muttered as they entered the street beyond, a familiar tiny black form zipping his way. Likewise, his assigned wolfman guard stood from where he waited on a bench beneath a large tree to make his way over.

At least, Silas thought he was the same guard. They all looked the same to him. Did that make him racist…specist…bond-ist?

Looking around Silas spotted an inn across the way from the Academy. At least, he assumed it was an inn or tavern which rented out rooms, from the bed and beer and plate of food displayed on the side of the building. He just wanted a place he could get back into World of Fantasy, so he could get the character prepared for tomorrow.

"We're getting a room?" Taylor asked, a smirk on her face, as he headed towards the establishment.

"I am. You can head on back. Ah, first give me a pouch with a handful of big and small irons and coppers, please."

She gave a playful pout, amusement showing in her eyes, something he was getting better at recognizing the more time he spent with her, before tossing him a pouch.

"Thanks," he said before unsummoning her.

Singing and cheering greeted him while his eyes adjusted to the lower light inside. Somewhere out of sight meat sizzled on a grill, the savory scents causing Silas's stomach to make its needs known, complaining it had been entire hours since his last meal.

Some nearby noted the palace guard entering behind Silas, but most had eyes for the women on stage performing, one singing, the other playing a fat violin-like stringed instrument as accompaniment. They both danced slowly as they performed, and at first Silas thought he'd walked into something very different, before realizing the two wore masks over tight purple bodysuits which covered them from head to toe. This singer's mask resembled a fox's, while the violinist's resembled a moose, complete with fanned antlers.

The music was quick and cheerful, the song telling some kind of story Silas had walked into halfway through. He hated starting halfway through any kind of story. It was like deciding to read a new series beginning with book six of seven. It just wasn't done, no matter who might try to insist reading the sixth book first was fine because the events within took place chronologically first, the author included.

A little girl tugged on Silas's sleeve. She cupped her hands and whispered, loud enough to be heard across a library, "Ma says you're blocking the door." She jerked her head to the left, towards the bar, where a rotund raccoon-seeming woman in an apron scowled at Silas and his wolfish shadow.

He made his way over.

She focused on the guard. "Don't need you 'sturbin muh bis'ness."

The wolf just shrugged.

"I'd like to get a room," Silas interjected.

"Fer two?" she asked lightly, as if she'd seen everything and didn't care about his answer.

"Just me."

"Two copper a night."

That seemed a bit steep, and he caught the smirk of another patron at the bar.

"For two coppers I expect room and board for a week," he shot back.

She squinted, seeming to do some mental math. "Three fer tha week."

He had no concept of local prices, and assumed the Academy's prices were on the higher side, but a glance told him his haggling skill went up by one, so he probably wasn't overpaying by too much. "Sure." He fished out two copper and placed them on the bar. His mother told him to never pay in full for services not yet rendered. "Two now, one at the end."

The woman muttered something, but she took the coins and slapped a wooden peg on the counter, then counted out fifteen wooden slips. "Five nights, food fer five days, an I don' care when ya spend 'em. Lose tha key an it's a big copper ta replace. Lose tha meal tokens and it's food in someone else's belly. Got it?"

Silas mentally kicked himself. Stupid five day weeks. "Yeah, thanks." He checked the number on the key, and the woman nodded her head towards some stairs to the side of the bar.

"You good?" he asked the guard.

"I or another will await your return," was his response, the same one given before Silas entered the Academy grounds.

"Right. Okay then." He turned to go, then turned back. "Have you been with me all day, or did you swap out with someone?"

The man stared at Silas.

"Right. I'll see you or another tomorrow, then."

He headed up the stairs, ready to dive back into World of Fantasy so he could load up his new character with overpowered gear, then level him just a bit. He'd need to summon the guy at level two, to check the mana drain.

Chrysogonus Carlucci, current first seat of the Merchants' Consortium Council, waited as the other eleven members each read their copy of the note from Baen of the Hunter's Guild.

In moments, all twelve around the circular table held the same gleam in their eyes.

"The way forward is clear, but we must act swiftly," said Chrysogonus. "All in favor?"

All twelve raised their hands.

"Good."

Once the others left, He pressed a button linked to a headpiece worn by his assistant. "Start writing up requests for us to hire as many hunters as we can for the next week—two weeks. And get me a copy of the Hunters' Guild charter, too. Oh, and find our contract with that warder. Need to check the fine print on his coverage."

"Right away, sir."