Hei was feeling like crap, had for the last two weeks. He hated sailing, and they had been doing that for nine days in game before reaching their destination. Not only had he been completely miserable with seasickness, but he could not even level his skills, meaning he was falling behind. According to the chatter on the guild forums, Aragoth had already hit level 25, and if not for the shitty assignment they were on, Hei would have been right on his heels. Instead he had been on a ship for nine days, and not allowed to fight any of the high level monsters that had attacked the ship.

The captain had even confined them to quarters for a day after they had disobeyed him the first time, and participated in the fight against some fish looking humanoids. Not that they had been any help, being severely out levelled. All the monsters they had seen had been level 30 and upwards. Even a level 104 giant squid. However, Hei had gotten none of that sweet XP, which made him even more miserable.

They had finally arrived at their destination, some shitty little island called, he forgot the name, but the town was called Blackport. A crappy little place with only one spawn point. There were also very few quests to pick up, and the player population was low. He suspected they were a bit slow in the head, they had to be to start in such a remote place, and since the first player he had seen had been picking up rocks on the beach.

Of course, if he had not been so miserable, he would have recognized their primary target then and there. However, he was still getting used to being on solid ground again, so he did not think to Inspect the guy. Because why would their leader send them after some yokel collecting rocks on a beach? That had just been the start of Hei’s misery.

Hei and the other Shadowguards had then made their way to make contact with their local assets, to pick up some coins and get the lay of the land. They had found their contact outside the eastern gate, and when one of them pointed out the primary target, Hei just about lost it, seeing that their primary target was the rock collecting yokel.

After a quick discussion, it was decided that Hei should be the primary on the surveillance of the targets, since he was the only one with a class. The other four Shadowguards needed to catch up, and get one. Not that there were any good classes available on the island according to the beta testers and all the information they had. Yet their targets had managed to get 3 classes no one else had even heard of before, and no one else had managed to get yet.

The first day of surveillance had been absolutely miserable. The target had just been outside of the east gate and butchered rabbits, polished some rocks, cooked food or turned some blue flowers into a foul smelling concoction. There were only two breaks from that. The first happened after just a few hours when all of their targets gathered and made a trip into the plains. They split into two groups, one heading to the forest and another travelled from one patch of flowers to another, collecting them by the thousands.

Hei had stayed with the flower pickers, since that was where the primary target was. Afterwards they had headed back, and it became mind numbingly boring again. Around seven in the evening the primary target headed to a poor part of the town, and handed out food for free. The day had been a nightmare for Hei, since he could only hunt low levelled horned rabbits close enough to the gate for him to keep an eye out for the primary.

At least two of the other Shadowguards had managed to hit level ten and get their class. However, because of the lack of trainers they had to pick standard classes like Archer and Fighter. They were definitely not happy about it. Especially when they were informed they could not change it until they hit Tier 2, which was at level 75, and if they wanted to change they had to ensure it was into something that had their chosen class skills already on the list, or they would lose Class Skill Slots.

Hei had hoped that the night would give him a chance to grind some mobs, but he was quickly informed by one of the other Shadowguards that their primary target had logged back into the game after just an hour. Hei then ended up spending the night watching the guy grinding bones into powder. The entire night.

“There’s something wrong with that guy,” he had said to Lem, a fellow Shadowguard.

“Tell me about it. Been talking a bit with the Dusts, they say that’s all he ever does is the same thing over and over again. Sometimes he goes on a dungeon dive with one of the parties.”

“They got dungeons around here?”

“Two, one with rabbits and one with slime. The weird thing is that their low level team keeps diving the slime slash sewer dungeon five times a day.”

“Maybe there’s something good down there.”

Lem had scoffed at that, “No. According to Lady Dust it’s a level one dungeon, with no real reward. Even the guild points are laughable. Not many other choices around here though, an absolutely miserable place.”

“Why the fuck where we sent here? These people are no threat.”

“That one girl that beat those two in a duel had some sweet moves,” Lem had said, choosing not to answer Hei’s frustration. Their conversation had petered out, as they watched their primary target grinding the night away in the square. Unfortunately there were guards around, meaning there were no good ways to kill him.

The next day turned out much the same with the exception of the primary target joining one of the parties delving into the dungeon inside the town. Just for fun while they wasted their time, Hei had run the dungeon as well. The level 1 slimes had quickly been dispatched. He was surprised that they were still not back, since there were six of them and only one of him.

His surprise turned into full fledged confusion when they arrived back almost three hours later. Not only that, but their reward was also much larger than his. His focus however changed from their primary target to a small male in the group. He looked very familiar for some reason.

Hei spent the rest of the day trying to remember where he had seen the other player before. When it came to him, he let out a dry chuckle. He had finally found an in. That night he managed to catch the player alone for a moment.

Hei used his class skill Disguise before approaching the guy he had known as a child. “Hey Blaze, would your last name be O’Brian?”

The short guy turned to look at him with narrowed eyes, “Don’t know what you’re talking about, must have me confused with someone else.”

“Don’t be like that Liam, it’s me Li Shenshun. I used to play with your brother when we were growing up,” Hei said with a smile that felt a bit stiff to him. He was not used to smiling a lot.

Liam, or Blaze seemed to relax a little, “Guess that’s what I get for using my real appearance. Stupid condition by my guild leader.”

“Yeah, but it allowed me to recognize you. How have you been?”

“Okay I guess, my brother is an asshole. Claims he can’t afford to pay MWT for both me and my mother. But at least he’s taking care of her.”

Hei nodded, “I remember you always looking up to him, even when he was being an asshole.”

“He wasn’t that bad.”

“What do you call tying you up and dropping you into the garbage bins?”

“We were playing, uhm, terrorist and SWAT I think,” Blaze said with uncertainty.

“Sure you were, I remember he went inside and played games the rest of the day. Only came and fetched you when it was bedtime.”

“It was just a joke, and it’s not like you came and helped me. You were there,” Blaze protested in an accusing tone.

“He threatened to beat us up if we let you out of there,” Hei said, defending himself. “Anyway, it was nice seeing you. I hope we can catch up some more. Right now I need to log out and grab some food.”

“Yeah, see you around,” Blaze said.

Hei was ecstatic. He had a potential source on the inside, someone that could make their task a lot easier. On that seemed unhappy with his guild leader.

His good mood did not last long. On the way upstairs to his rented room, he bumped into his primary target. The guy seemed to rub his eye, mutter something.

“Hey you bumped into me, aren’t you going to apologize?” Hei said indignantly. He was still under the effects of Disguise, so he could afford to be an ass, and he was itching for an excuse to confront the yokel, who was out to kill him with sheer boredom.

“I think that you bumped into me, Hei,” the primary target said before ascending the stairs, leaving Hei behind. Hei just stood staring at him, weirded the fuck out by what he just thought he heard. He must have heard wrong, there was no way the target could see through his level two Disguise spell. He must simply have said ‘hey’ as a parting instead of greeting. There were some weird people out there.

Still a little freaked out, Hei entered the room he shared with the other Shadowguards and logged off.