Lukas and Kaya exited the Longhill caves exhausted. The battle with the Shroom King and carrying the three bodies of the other players had worn them out. They didn’t have the nerve to just leave them behind. The least they could do was to give the poor souls a simple burial. Their names were Gavin, Lark, and Alibeth. They all looked younger than they were.

The two dug the graves and placed stones as burial markers for each. They did not find the stomach to take any of the items from the three and buried everything with the dead. Kaya recited a silent prayer after they were done. It turns out that in the world outside GFO, she was very religious. Lukas was never much of a believer himself but now might be a good time to start. Their mortality in this world was now an ever-present thought in his head.

What happens when we die? Kaya had asked. The answer was staring him right in the face as he stood over the three graves.

***

“So, I’ de take it that your experiment was a success?” asked Kaya as they got back to Linghill.

“Sort of,” Lukas said, sounding unsure.

“Are you kidding me?... we took out a boss, Lukas. What you did was amazing.”

“First of all; that was not a boss.” Lukas corrected. “It was just an elite mob. Bosses are way tougher… and second; it was already half health when we fought it… If it weren’t for Gavin and his friends, we wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

Kaya shrugged.

“Still though,... It was pretty impressive. That glowing sword thing you used. Where did that come from?”

“Oh, this?” Lukas said as he pulled out his sword. It started to glow and his MP bar began to decrease rapidly.

“It’s called Spellblade. It’s a Conjurer innate skill.”

Spellblade [Active: Toggle]

[Effects: Coat equipped weapon with magical energy and deal M.Atk with each attack. Consumes mana per second.]

“Conjurers usually use it as the last line of defense if an enemy gets too close. But with the recent updates, I thought it could be used as a main source of damage,” Lukas explained. The sword stopped glowing and his mana regen returned to normal.

“Then... why did you become a Swordsman in the first place?”

“Spellblade won’t do much on its own. I needed something else to boost the damage. Starting out as a Swordsman lets me get good levels on Swordsmanship and Wild Strike before becoming a Conjurer. Swordsmanship increases any damage while using swords and Wild Strike amplifies the next attack. As a result, each of my attacks now is near equivalent to a Mage’s spell and Wild Strike becomes one hell of a nuke... It’s pretty awesome now that I think about it. The only problem is that I’m too squishy with all my points on Int.”

“Well, just let me take care of that for you,” said Kaya confidently. “You do the damage and I’ll try my best to make sure you don’t die... As long as we split everything fifty-fifty of course… deal?” Her face was all business.

“Uhm,.. sure. Deal. I guess…”

Kaya’s face split into a wide grin.

“I’m just fucking with you, man. Of course, I got your back no questions asked,” She chuckled. “...even if you did abandon our party and left me all alone facing certain death in near darkness, I still got your back…” she added speaking quickly.

“I… Uhm… that was…” Lukas stammered trying to explain. “...I couldn’t get the subclass without leaving the party... I only did that because-”

“I’m still kidding, Lukas.” interrupted Kaya. “Jeez, you really can’t read a joke, can you?”

Lukas chuckled apprehensively and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Still though; Swordsman Conjurer… where did you get that idea?” asked Kaya sounding impressed.

“I read the patch notes and somehow it made sense to me. I spent hours theory-crafting skill synergies and concepts that might work. In the end, I came up with-” Lukas trailed off after seeing Kaya’s mischievous smile. “What?...”

“You’re one of those nerdy guys aren’t you? In real life?” She teased.

“No, I’m not.” Lukas lied defensively.

“Come on, who reads the patch notes?”

“You have too! How else would you keep up with the META?”

“See! You even use those nerdy words; META, theory-crafting... You hundred percent smell of nerd. You’re probably addicted to anime and manga and maybe even… hentai.”

“NO!” Lukas protested redfaced. “Listen. I have never in my life-” he trailed off again on seeing Kaya’s grin. “-you’re kidding again, aren’t you?”

“Now you get it!” she smiled broadly holding two thumbs up.

They laughed in unison.

“Sorry,” said Kaya still chuckling. “Joking around is my way of couping with serious things… and what happened back there was some dark stuff.”

“Yeah.” Lukas agreed. “Dark stuff… which is why we need to get to Babel as soon as possible. There’s gotta be someone there who knows what’s going on.”

“But we still have a few levels to go…”

“True, but now that my build’s online, we have a reliable source of damage,” Lukas said patting the pommel of his shortsword. “In fact, we can get stronger if you’re up for it. I have this concept of a Mage Acolyte. You can support and do damage. We can do it right now. The NPC is right here in Longhill.” He offered eagerly.

Kaya scrunched her nose in thought and shook her head.

“Nah. Being support is kinda my thing. Even in other games I always play the healer class…and besides, I need to focus on heals and buffs especially now that we know death is an actual thing in this game…”

“You got a point there.” Lukas agreed. “I guess you can advance to rank II of your main class. Become a Priestess or a Paladin.”

“Definitely Priestess. We need all the survivability we can get. But aren’t all the rank II NPCs in Babel?”

“Yeah. All the more reason why we should get there as soon as possible.”

“Does that mean we need to go back to the caves to level?” Kaya asked. She sounded worried.

Lukas understood her concern. The near-death experience made him warry of the place as well. Who knows how long the respawn time was for the Shroom King. He doubts they’ll manage to beat it at full health.

“No. We’ll hunt in the nearby hills instead,” said Lukas. There were level 25 Grey Wolves there and quests for hunting them as well. Grey Wolves give decent exp but are usually spread apart, making them less efficient to farm. But then again, being out in the open might be a safer option for them.

There was apparent relief on Kaya’s face.

“Good,” she said. “We only need a few more levels anyway.”

“And gold…”

“Gold?”

Lukas sighed.

“I spent everything we earned on getting my subclass and on potions and scrolls to kill the Shroom King. We’re broke, Kaya.”

“Well, what about the things the Shroom King dropped?... that stuff looked pretty expensive.”

Lukas brought out his inventory. For what it’s worth, the elite monster did drop some pretty decent loot; a few rare tier crafting materials, some misc. items fit to sell to NPCs and lastly a unique tier headgear.

Gumo’s Crown

Armor Type: Headgear Tier: Unique

Level Req: 25 Class Req: Paladin, Crusader

+5 to all stats

+30 P.Def

+2 levels to Toughness

50% reduced chance of Poison

The crown of the noble king and protector of the mushroom people; Gumo the Shroom King. This crown bestowed Gumo with the toughness to withstand the blades of men that invade his home to hunt down his people. Long live the brave Shroom King.

Lukas examined the equipment closely. He had never seen one before. Gumo’s Crown must have been part of the new patch. It had decent stats for the level but the most valuable part was that it gave additional levels to a skill. That was a pretty rare item trait in GFO. Other players will pay a lot of gold for something like this. Or…

“Hey, Kaya… Do you want to be a Paladin instead? This headgear’s pretty strong.”

She only scoffed.

“I’ve seen you get hit, Lukas. And it looks like it hurts… a lot. So no thanks.”

Lukas shrugged.

“Just a thought… It would be a shame to sell this thing but we’ll keep it for now.”

“Excuse me, young man.” a voice came from behind them.

Turning around, they saw an old crooked woman. She was one of the NPCs in Longhill.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” asked Lukas politely.

“As a matter of fact, you can.” said the old woman. “My grandchild was supposed to be back by now but she’s nowhere to be seen… I’ve sent her the next town over to get some things from the market you see…”

No skip option…. Again…

“...she gets distracted easily. Why even a floating butterfly can entertain her for minutes at a time… Normally I wouldn’t worry if she’s a little late but the trouble is that there are some nasty Grey Wolves running about those hills outside town. I fear that something might have happened to her… can you help me find her? She wears a bright red hood. She’s very hard to miss. Please, help an old woman ease her worries…”

Kaya and Lukas met eyes. This was clearly a quest.

“Good as time as any to start I guess,” sighed Kaya. It felt like all they did was fight monsters lately. But it was necessary if they wanted to reach Babel as soon as possible.

Lukas accepted the old woman’s request.

Quest Accepted: Red Riding Who?

[Slay 0/30 Gray Wolves and find the girl with the red hood.]

“Let’s go then,” he said to Kaya.

Before departing, however, they made sure to buy at least one teleportation scroll each.

The next few levels were easy going but very tedious. Lukas was now an effective damage dealer with just a bit of a mana issue. The new skill, Spellblade, dealt absurd amounts of damage against regular monsters. Especially against ones with low M.Def. The Swordsmanship passive coupled with Wild Strike nearly one-shot Grey Wolves. The only problem was that Lukas had very low defenses. The natural Int growth of a swordsman was zero. This meant that all his attribute points each level up went to Int, leaving his other stats lacking. This is where Kaya came in. She provided effective support from a safe distance. Alternating Blessing and Parry Stance and throwing out an occasional Heal was enough to keep Lucas relatively healthy for the most part.

At last, after hours of slaying rabid looking wolves and rescuing a young girl who clearly had a bad case of ADHD, Lukas and Kaya went back to Longhill with their inventories filled to burst with Wolf Pelts and Monster Claws. The items sold for a decent price and were enough to pay the fee for Kaya’s class advancement. With the quests they turned in, Lukas was now level 30 and Kaya was level 31. Both embarked immediately on the road to the capital city of Babel, eager for what answers they might find from the mysterious person known as D.