It’s been a week since the death of Jordan.

There wasn’t much of a funeral so much as a quick ceremony, there wasn’t a body to bury after all.

The air outside grew ever colder as the people came to the conclusion that the seasons in this world must be inverted and that winter is coming.

Slowly, progress was made with the jGuardian affairs, the drink was successfully deployed in some towns and some valuable information about the people of this world was collected.

There was a slight “glitch” with the plan to make the quest combine the drink and bottles into one, such that when the bottles ran out, the paper would just spawn liquid in people’s pockets.

JohnWillStab was sitting in the study of the L.F.T.O base.

Thanks to the fact no big bad guys showed up yet and nothing major was happening, he had a chance to think about Bonifacius’ words from weeks ago, about what Bonifacius said in relation to talent and skill.

“If I don’t work on improving, my already existing talent as a strategist will be useless…”

JohnWillStab decided that he would do his best to achieve both of his goals, the first to go on great adventures and the second to become the best strategist.

A knock came on the door to the study.

“Come in,” John said turning back to see the Thief entering the room.

“Whatcha’ doing?” she asked walking up to John and leaning in over his shoulder to see the book he was scribbling in.

John let out a sigh.

“I’ve been writing down some strats from games, I figured that’d be a good place to start!” he exclaimed.

“Ah, nerd stuff…” she said trying to disguise her lack of interest.

“These are very important strategies!” John argued, despite this he was fully aware writing down strategies he already knew wasn’t exactly the best way to improve.

“Mm, I see, I see, I have a better idea though!” the thief exclaimed.

“Eh?”

“Let’s get very drunk!” she proposed.

John breathed a sigh.

“I can’t even get drunk…” he lamented.

“Yeah,” the Thief began.

“But I can!” she argued.

“And you can keep me company!” she added.

John didn’t respond for a few seconds as he tried to come to a decision.

“Hanging out might be fun…”

“But I should focus on working-”

“No, I decided to try and implement the strategies whenever I could! In other words…”

John breathing a sigh before standing up from his chair and placing his notebook in his pocket.

“Strategy number one: If your plans aren’t working out, try taking a break or something,” he read his first strategy out-loud.

The Thief nodded, “Yes, hmm, absolutely,”

They two left the study and bumped into Foxly on the way.

“Dear god, the monster of the study left its lair!” Foxly exclaimed faking fear at the sight of John.

The Thief tried to keep a straight face as the corners of her mouth crept upwards.

“I was busy writing down some stuff!” John exclaimed with a wry look, he whipped out his notebook as evidence.

A forced grin appeared on his face as he flipped through the pages.

“SEE!?”

Foxly looked at the pages of the book as John stood proudly before him, awaiting praises.

“This is all really dumb…” Foxly argued.

Foxly looked up at John and saw his smugness be replaced with terror.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?” he demanded.

John fell to his knees.

“Impossible… what…”

The Thief kneeled down and patted John on the back.

“There, there, I’m sure you have some good strategies in there too,” she assured him.

She looked up to Foxly and mouthed, “No he doesn’t”

Foxly forced down a laugh as he walked past them into the study.

JohnWillStab stood up, patting his clothes clean.

“One day these strategies will save your ass!” John exclaimed throwing the book onto the floor, it opened up landing on one of the pages.

The Thief looked down.

“Strategy eighteen, always use the bathroom before the fight,”

She managed to keep a straight face as John snatched the book off the ground.

“S-sure, some of these are basic! But it’s important!” he argued.

“Mm, sure.” the Thief agreed uncertainly.

“I mean, what if you need to go fight the boss and you really need to take a piss?!” John desperately defended his statement.

“Yeah, you’re right, that would be inconvenient!” the Thief tried sounding more serious, though her tone came off as sarcastic.

Luckily, John didn’t pick up on it.

“RIGHT!?” John exclaimed; a proud smile appeared on his face.

“At least you can appreciate my strategies!” he said excitedly.

“Yup! Now let’s go get drunk!” she exclaimed.

The two marched down the stairs and towards the dining room.

In the centre was a long wooden table big enough to facilitate more than double the L.F.T.O player count.

The walls were decorated with “photos” of people and places, there was one group-picture that included all of the L.F.T.O members not long ago.

A few pictures of Foxly making the same pose but wearing different clothes, one as a Viking, one as a cowboy, one as a knight and one as a pirate.

A few flowers kept alive by Bromy’s presence littered the room.

Alex and Revenberry took the decorating very seriously.

A stone fireplace warmed up the room to a cosy temperature, beside the fire lay Arachnophobia.

Bromy and Bonifacius sat, both covered in blood, the red liquid dripping down to the carpet.

“Woah! What the hell happened to you two?” John asked.

“Worry not! Tis not our blood!” Bonifacius exclaimed giving John a thumbs up.

Bromy grinned.

“Mm, we went off after a hydra mini-boss, I harvested plenty of interesting organs!” he began to cackle maniacally.

While John and the Thief were disturbed by this, Bonifacius paid no attention to it.

Bonifacius scratched his chin leaving some blood in his beard before his face suddenly lit up.

“Oh, Bromy, Alexander and I have levelled up once more!” Bonifacius added.

“Yeah, the hydra dropped a load of XP…” Bromy agreed.

“So, I guess you guys all out-levelled me again,” John laughed reluctantly.

The Thief and him made it down the stairs.

“Tis good to see thou leave thy lair!” Bonifacius exclaimed.

“Yeah, I thought you died or something,” Bromy remarked.

“Oh wait, you’re already dead!” he laughed at his own joke.

Bonifacius shot him a judgemental look.

“Could thou stop bullying JohnWillStab!? He has finally left his room-”

“My room!?” John thought.

“Have I spent so long in the study they assumed I moved in there!?”

“-and now thou are bringing him unease!” Bonifacius exclaimed.

Bromy rolled his eyes.

“Eh, he should be used to it by now,” Bromy shrugged.

Bonifacius was about to continue arguing when JohnWillStab burst into laughter.

“Yeah, guess I really did miss the constant stream of insults,” he admitted.

“Anyway, let’s go get drunk!” the Thief exclaimed.

“Thou are heading out to town? Perhaps I shall Join thee if thou don’t mind!” Bonifacius exclaimed.

The Thief was about to come up with an excuse for why she and John should go alone when John spoke up.

“Sure, the more the merrier, right?” he asked turning to the Thief who wore an expression of thinly veiled disappointment.

“Yeah…”

“Actually, there is this big important thing I have to get done, I kind of need you for it, Bony!” Bromy exclaimed, he shot the Thief a discrete thumbs-up.

“Oh, I see!” Bonifacius exclaimed.

He turned to face the Thief and John.

“Perhaps another time!”

“Right!” the Thief nodded.

“Nice save, doc!” thought the Thief returning the thumbs-up.

“Aw, alright, guess we should get going then,” John said slightly disheartened by the decrease of the head-count for their night out.

The two headed outside seeing Alex and Revenberry taking care of the garden, aside from the existing plants, they planted many more fancy-looking plants which they harvested and planted around the base.

“He left the lair!” Alex exclaimed wiping the sweat off his forehead.

“Why does everyone call it that?” John asked jokingly, he was able to see Alex and Revenberry working on garden from out the window of his lair.

“I dunno,” Alex shrugged.

“Finally, a chance to fix that place up, I had a look there earlier and it looked… messy…” Revenberry shuddered.

“Papers laying everywhere, plates and cups littering every surface… ink poured everywhere, you placed your dirty clothes on the floor in a pile… “

“Force of habit,” John replied awkwardly.

“…that’s… sad…” Revenberry squinted.

“Anyway, don’t worry about it, I’ll clean it up when I get back,” he assured her.

“Yeah, no… I don’t trust any of you to keep a room clean to save your life…” Revenberry shuddered.

“I mean… you’re talking to people who spend their days playing MMOs…” Alex remarked awkwardly.

Revenberry crossed her arms.

“You can’t survive like this!” she exclaimed.

“It’s not that bad, I didn’t even develop a clothes-mould yet,” John laughed.

“…” Revenberry slowly turned to face John with a look a shock.

“The... what?”

“You know, when you leave your clothes on the ground and then mould grows over them and as the room gets dirtier the mould starts to move,” John explained.

“…”

“…”

“Even the mould wanted to leave his room…” Revenberry thought.

“Where did you fucking live, Chernobyl?!” Alex demanded.

“Unspecified country,”

“Ah,” Alex nodded.

“Anyway, we’re heading off to go get some drinks, you two wanna come?” John offered.

The Thief glared at John who didn’t even notice it.

“Sure!” Alex replied looking over to Revenberry who proceeded to elbow the unsuspecting Alex.

“Ow!” he grabbed his stomach as he fell backwards into the ground.

“Alex has a stomach ache, guess he can’t go…” Revenberry explained.

“Isn’t that right?” she turned to Alex.

“N-no? You just elbowed me in the stomach…” Alex remarked uncertainly.

Revenberry pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Alex, I swear to god I will stab you…” Revenberry sighed.

“Domestic violence isn’t the answer!” Alex exclaimed half-seriously.

John awkwardly backed away with the Thief as they used John’s shadow-step directly into the inn.