'Not again.'

The drunkard was sitting in her wheelchair.

Through the blare of the television she saw her father with a beer in hand rocking back and forth on her chair. Knowing him she probably wouldn’t be able to use it until the morning. That's if he didn’t break it again in the meantime. She quickly dismissed the familiar sight and hopped across the entrance.

He barely seemed to notice her as she passed by him.

She knew that even if he had noticed her he’d ignore her. He had tried to block her out of his life completely lately and if he kept drinking maybe he'd succeed. He didn’t even like to look at her if he could help it.

‘So god damn selfish.’ She pushed him out of her mind as she lifted herself up the stairs and made her way to her room.

Her father wasn’t the one she was worried about. He was pathetic but she could sympathise with him. It was her other parent that she wanted to avoid.

Then she heard the clicking of heels.

“Who told you that you could go out.” The voice was so cold that Violet could feel her blood turning to ice.

Or maybe it was just fear.

Her mother was resting next to the door to her room with her arms crossed. Violet had wanted to avoid this woman at all costs.

“You think I can survive without sunlight?” Violet didn’t hold back the poison in her tone.

“Do you think I can survive if someone I know saw you?” Her mother shot back.

Violet rolled her eyes. She hadn’t expected anything less.

Her mother was probably the person she knew best. Every single annoyance, every single routine, and every single reaction. But that was just the personality she had at home. It wasn't anything like the mask she wore outside.

Violet had given up on getting her mother's sympathy the moment she refused to ‘downgrade’ to a single-story house for the sake of a cripple. Then Violet had begged her mother for the downstairs bedroom but her mother insisted that since it was the master bedroom it would look bad on her if she was seen using any of the smaller rooms.

So Violet continued to use the stairs. She couldn’t even bring her wheelchair up to her room. Her mother had refused to purchase a second one. But Violet couldn’t do anything to fight against it.

"Are you going to help with the door?"

At least she hadn’t been able to fight it before.

“If you want to be so independent open it yourself.” her mother stepped to the side and then began to walk down to join her father, “Go do me a favour and play that game of yours. It keeps you out of my face and makes all of us happy.”

Violet held back tears as her mother left. Before she would have cried a storm no matter who was within hearing range. But now she had a reason to hold back and persist. She had found a single object that had given her life more purpose.

She lifted her body with one arm and turned the doorknob with her free hand. She had done the same routine lately when coming into her room. She ignored everything inside and instead crawled to the large machine that sat in the corner of her room.

Zodiac Online.

It had been released almost two weeks ago. It was not the first of its kind but it was quickly gaining in popularity. Violet had been playing it from the beginning.

Her mother had surprisingly agreed to buy the virtual reality capsule and even the game itself. She had managed to convince the woman by telling her the game would keep her inside her room most of her free time. She would have something to do to pass the time and stay out of the sight of her parents. It was a win-win situation as far as they were concerned.

She dragged herself to the capsule and entered the open door. The moment she entered she sat down on the specially made seating that supported her body. She closed her eyes as she entered the game and felt a wave of relief flooding over her.

This was the only time of day that she could truly feel alive.

Inside the game, she could use the parts of her body that she'd lost the ability to use in real life. She had abilities she couldn’t use anywhere else in the world and she was a walking killing machine.

From the moment she entered the game she had excelled. She had picked the toughest area to start off the game, the Underground. Then she made it her mission to excel in every aspect of the game involving movement. She could move her sword like no other and she could dodge and weave between attacks like a fish in water.

She was completely in her element when she could walk.

Violet had spent the better part of the week exploring the parts of the Underground that the other players didn’t dare to tread. She had soloed monsters well above her level and had even gained a class that allowed her to excel in solo play.

She had quickly gained a name for herself in the nearby city thanks to a challenge she had issued to all the players in the bulletin board. She had told them that they could try to kill her or duel her whenever they ran into her and if they succeeded she would give the winner gold. If she lost she wouldn’t ask anything from them.

She had won every challenge.

It was no exaggeration to say that she was the player that had gone furthest in the Underground and had even logged out in a place that other players would consider suicidal to even be in alone.

So she wasn’t expecting to be immediately confronted by a handsome blonde man staring directly at her as she logged on.

“Hello Violet.”

The man smiled at her and extended his hand,

“My name is Attracting.”

****

“I can’t believe this!” Archy began his usual complaints as he fired arrow after arrow into a nearby mob, “Gah!”

Seven watched the monster-hunting archer with mischievous eyes, “Wow. I bet it’s such a good bow as well. Damn. That’s really a pity, don't you think.”

“Exactly!” Archy agreed with her and smashed arrow after arrow into the nearby mobs.

Every now and then he’d mix it up and shoot a leaf that fluttered down from the trees. Ever since he’d met that archer, Gyro, from Colt’s Crew he’d been clocking overtime practicing his shooting and aiming skills.

“Not this again.” Third appeared next to Seven and sighed, “The man gets riled up enough without help.”

“But it’s so much fun.” Seven whistled innocently, “Besides we’re all thinking the same thing.”

Seven brought out her new wand and watched it glow yellow. She was happy that she’d gotten the rare item and she had no doubt it was probably something that would knock her enemies into the next dimension with its power. But she couldn’t use it. None of them could.

“A slight oversight for sure.” Third agreed, “But not something we should get hung up on.”

She brought out her own weapon for inspection and sighed again at the message that appeared.

[Weapon: Sealed. Condition for use: Slay a dragon. Dragons slain 0/1]

It was the same message that had appeared on all of their weapons. Unfortunately, the team found out the hard way that once a weapon reached yellow-rank or higher you needed to complete a quest of some sort to equip them.

Seven could take out her shiny new wand to show off to people but other than that it wasn’t any better than fighting with a stick. Since she got the same message as the others it seemed like the weapon wanted her to slay another dragon on top of the one she’d already killed with Attracting and IEatTortillas. She guessed that the system didn’t count the one she’d killed because it was too low level and damaged.

After asking IEatTortillas she found out that apparently this was a common thing among all the yellow ranked weapons he’d obtained. He’d managed to do the quests easily because all the creatures he needed to kill were right there when he got the weapons. But the dragon had long left its cave alone and now they were all stuck with a bunch of useless weapons.

“How long does this thing take to disappear.” Archy called out to them, “I want to go shopping.”

Archy pointed at his head and Seven heard Third chuckle.

They’d all been marked a blood red for killing the players of Dark Horse and Colt’s Crew during the Dragon’s Legacy Quest. Unfortunately, it seemed that those players had a lot of good reputation within Lum and now the guards refused to let them go inside the city.

Alongside several dozens of disgruntled dwarves at the Lum gates, they’d found out that they needed to kill a few hundred monsters to be let back in.

“The good old monster genocide isn’t over yet.” Seven called out to him, “Kill a few more and see if it goes away.”

Archy grumbled but continued to stalk the monsters who were beginning to feel uneasy about confronting this player that was picking them off like ants.

“Where’s Roxxy?” Third looked around curiously but couldn’t see either of their team’s tanks.

Seven and the rest of the gang had gotten rid of their red names ages ago. But Archy had a few things to do in real life so now they were waiting on him and Roxxy to clear their names. Unfortunately, the tank hadn’t been able to kill as many monsters as they had so it was a slower process.

“She and Spark Joy decided to go to the lake since Archy is taking down all the monsters in this one.” Seven smiled, “TidalWave is with them too, he’s making sure to grab the attention of all those frog-things.”

Third nodded and eyed the monsters carefully. The wilders that had been corrupted had been almost completely wiped out by players over the last couple of days and were now slowly being replaced by ordinary wilders. Unfortunately, these creatures weren’t strong enough to provide them with any sort of meaningful experience.

Luckily the entire inner area of the Signet Woods was filled with different kinds of creatures and monsters. Apparently there were further quests to discover these monsters but they hadn’t encountered any yet.

[Frogkin Hunter Level 38]

Seven shuddered as she saw one of the monsters take an arrow to the eye and fade away. Sometimes the graphics of the game were a bit too intense for her. The frogkin were a small tribe of humanoid frogs that didn’t bother to carry weapons. They would simply smash their fists against their enemies and if they were provoked by Archy they would bend down and leap through the air.

The first time it had happened the archer had been knocked flat on his back by a flying frog.

“I’m going to do some solo hunting as well.” Seven was getting tired of watching Archy smash through innocent mobs.

“I’ll take care of the dunce.” Third nodded, “Be careful. Just because these aren’t players doesn’t mean they can’t kill you.”

“Yup.” Seven walked off towards the lake that seemed to circle through the Signet Woods.

Apparently it flowed through the entirety of the woods on the opposite side from Lum.

Seven soon found herself walking across the edge of the giant lake and admiring the view.

‘Dragons, dragons, dragons.’ Seven absentmindedly walked through the grass and smashed magic blast after magic blast into any of the poor frogkin that she ran into.

She hardly tried to dodge their attacks as she thought about the major issue at hand. They had so much gold that they didn’t know how to spend it and soon they would all be able to freely travel into Lum and other villages to purchase supplies. But the markets themselves didn’t have any equipment that could upgrade their current gear further.

So they could only level up or try and find better equipment.

They had the upgrades they needed right in their hands now. Each yellow ranked weapon they had received would become a huge addition to their power. But to get access to those weapons they would need to find a dragon and kill it.

‘How the heck do we just run into a dragon.’ Seven thought to herself glumly.

Dragons. They were immensely powerful and in the world of Zodiac Online it was said that the great dragon tribes were once equal in power to the gods. Seven had fought against one that was heavily injured. In fact, the attendant, Lass, from the Magi Guild had told her after she’d cleared her red name that the dragon she’d killed was most likely a baby. Apparently the gold and items they’d gotten for raiding its cave were the signs of a terribly poor dragon. The truly rich or elder dragons wouldn’t bother to hoard gold coins at all. It would simply be too inconvenient for them.

Seven found herself dodging a frogkin’s swipe as she thought over the issue.

-Dodge

‘Dragon’s don’t grow on trees. Maybe Third- What the heck.’

Seven’s head snapped to the side and her eyes widened as three figures suddenly appeared around her.

“Halt. Elf.”

“Oh?” Seven squeaked as she looked past the three figures realised she was surrounded by frogkin of various sizes.

They all looked pissed.

The foremost figure was swathed in a robe and pointed a staff menacingly towards her, “Tell elf. Why do you hunt us? Why have you broken the sacred truce that binds our races?”

‘Oh crap.’ Seven suddenly felt guilty as she realised the frogkin were probably a little more life-like than she’d realised.

“We demand a satisfactory answer.” The figure steadily grew more agitated and the frogkin behind it spread out around her.

“Well…” Seven was confident she could run from this situation.

So she turned and immediately began running straight towards the area her team was farming in.

‘It's Third’s job to do the diplomatic talking.’ Seven reasoned to herself as she ran for her life, ‘I’d just make them angrier.’

Seven snuck a peek over her shoulder and smiled as she saw that she was leaving the cloaked figure and its frogkin far behind. She turned her head back with a smile as she breathed a sigh of relief.

Only to find the other two cloaked figures right in front of her.

“Holy crap-” Seven tried to break past them and immediately regretted it as she was bathed in multiple swirled of light.

[You have been silenced. You cannot use magic for 5 seconds.]

[You have been rooted. You cannot move for 3 seconds.]

She struggled as the frogkin caught up to her and then she brought out her wand.

“This isn’t a good idea.” She wondered how effective trying to negotiate with an NPC was, “I have a wand, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

The leading figure had finally caught up to her and tilted its head at her words.

Then it let out a low resounding laugh and raised its staff into the air. A swirling purple light engulfed her body, causing her to shudder as she felt like she couldn’t move.

[You have been silenced. You cannot use magic for 10 seconds.]

[You have been rooted. You cannot move for 7 seconds.]

“Remember this in your next life, little elf.” The figure brought its free hand up and she saw it was holding a bright blue orb that seemed to be surrounded by raging water that swirled through the air, “We frogkin do not respond kindly to strangers entering our homeland and killing us. Nor do we enjoy threats.”

The figure brought its orb closer towards her and Seven’s eyes widened as the raging water turned into two massive snakes formed from the elements. Each one was bigger than her and seemed to shimmer menacingly as they swam through the air and coiled around her.

The snakes contracted their bodies and she felt herself being crushed by their combined attacks.

[You have been killed by; Frogkin Archmage Trog]

‘Trog.’ Seven thought to herself helplessly as she found herself reviving in the middle of the Lum city square, ‘He’s a frog. I got killed by Trog the frog.’

She could already hear TidalWave’s laughter in her mind.

‘Ah damn,’ She’d dropped her gloves when she died.

She’d have to buy a new pair.

“Miss Seven.” A new voice called out to her just as she was about to make the long trek back to her party.

“Lass.” She grinned warmly at the magi guild attendant that had appeared on the street to meet her.

Then her smile faded as she saw that he wasn’t smiling and didn’t seem at all happy to see her. He was also flanked by two menacing guards that seemed equally unhappy to see her.

“You will have to come with me.”

*****

“What on earth prompted you to start killing frogkin Miss Seven.”

Inside the Magi Guild of Lum sat a timid nimble magi and a serious-faced Lass. The attendant was showing far more emotions than he usually did as he heard her account of the events that had transpired.

Seven sat with her thoughts in turmoil.

Apparently they had screwed up harder than she’d thought.

Lass took control of the situation when he saw that Seven wasn’t going to speak, “The Magi Guild of Lum and the Sorcerer's Collective of the frogkin have a long-lasting tradition of cooperation and goodwill.” He coughed lightly and waved his wand, causing all sound to cut off nearby, “However as a member of the noble magi that permeate the continent you have violated our peace with the frogkin by killing their members. The collective has only been appeased by being assured by the archmage that you have died and thus had faced some form of retribution for your actions. Otherwise, we would be facing war.”

“So they think I’m dead?” Seven’s eyes sparkled as she saw a faint glimmer of hope.

“They think you died.” Lass confirmed, “And they wish you to know that if you are seen near their territory again they will give no warning before killing you again.”

“Aw.” Seven had hoped the NPCs would be a little dumber when it came to death and reviving, “Is there any way to make them… not so angry?”

She had already messaged her team to tell them the news and they had retreated from the area. Luckily it didn’t seem that the frogkin cared about anyone they’d hunted so far. It was only when Seven had walked deeper into their territory that they’d retaliated.

Which also meant she was the only one they had a grudge against.

“God Verm if only it was that easy.” Lass uttered and oath.

Seven’s eyebrows raised curiously.

“I didn’t know the magi guild was religious.”

“The magi guild is devoted to expanding the word and acts of our god, Toshna.” Lass waved his hand dismissively, “Of course, my own family raised me to follow Verm in all his glory.”

“Of course.” Seven wondered if she could use this information somehow.

But it didn’t seem very relevant.

“As for repairing your relation with the frogkin,” Lass’s frown deepened, “The magi guild will do what they can to make sure the frogkin do not start killing humans and allied races on sight. Unfortunately they find it hard to distinguish between humans and elves. They don’t have ears you see. However - and I do apologise for the rather harsh terminology - you are not important enough as an individual for the magi guild to risk angering the frogkin further. So they will not negotiate on your behalf in this matter.” He saw Seven’s face drooping and sighed, “If you were to attempt to negotiate by yourself then there will be no issue there. However, if you worsen your relationship with the frogkin please be aware the magi guild will deny any association with you and your negotiations.”

Seven squirmed. She had zero knowledge of diplomacy and how to start repairing the relationship between herself and these frogs. In fact, the only figure she actually knew from the frogkin, that wasn’t an ordinary warrior, was that archmage that had killed her.

Trog.

She sincerely doubted he wanted to talk to her. He would probably kill her on sight.

“I’ll still try.” Seven said to Lass and he smiled, “If I can do something to help them then I’ll see what it is. Maybe I’ll be able to kill a few fish for them to eat.”

“Oh gods.” Lass tried to stop his hand from slapping against his forehead, “Please do not kill the frogkin’s neighbours Miss Seven. They are quite fond of the fish of the lake.”

Seven felt her face flushing and she stood up, “Okay. Don’t kill the fish. Thanks Lass”

She ran outside without another word and quickly moved towards the Lum gate. She’d embarrassed herself enough today without needing to stay with Lass in the guild.

‘I seriously need to find out about the frogs.’

“You desperately need to find out about the frogkin.”

Seven found herself being overshadowed by a billowing white robe and she smiled awkwardly, “Oh, so you heard about that. Great. Yay.”

It was the priest from her starting village, Barnacle.

Ever since the Dragon’s Legacy quest had kicked into full gear and he’d updated it for her team he’d been hanging around outside the Magi Guild of Lum and generally having a nice time. Mostly eating as far as she could see. She’d expected him to demand some sort of compensation in the form of gold for giving her the quest but the priest had been rather quiet and nonchalant about the entire event.

“I can sense your sarcasm abounding through the air Seven.” Barnacle the priest gazed down at her merrily and laughed, “Of course, it is not my place to judge. However, I do feel that a good trip to the library may help in your endeavours. Or perhaps you would like to hire a diplomat of some sort from the Lum city hall.”

“The library?” Seven perked up, “Do you think there’s a book on frogkin there?”

“I think there are many books.” Barnacle said with a smile tugging at his lips, “They are the neighbouring nation after all, and there have been many years of collaboration between our people, the allied races and the frogkin.”

“Oh? Ohhh.” Seven nodded as though pretending to understand.

‘It wasn’t all human cities?’

She had absolutely no idea about any of the geography or politics of this continent. Or the other continent. Or anywhere.

“Has anyone ever told you young Seven, that you have very readable expressions?” Barnacle laughed and gestured for her to leave, “It seems that you have much to read about. Let me know if you find anything interesting there. The village bookshelf didn’t have too many good things to read.”

Seven waved bye to Barnacle with a smile.

At least now she knew where to go.