Spiral stopped in the middle of town. “Now, the way you’re supposed to do this is talk to the townspeople and get some more information. That gives you clues about the next step. Or, I could just tell you. That kind of takes some of the fun out of it though.”

“I already know what they’re going to say,” Valit said. “But if Kana wants to experience it, that’s fine by me. I can go grind out some snapbulb prowlers to kill time.”

Kana stared at Spiral for a second. “Are you saying that this quest is to go around and interview witnesses while trying to piece together what happened?”

Spiral burst out laughing. “I guess it is. Should be easy then, huh?”

“What makes you think I would want to spend my free time doing that? Do you think I have some deep-rooted love for door-to-door canvassing? I promise you, I do not.”

“Fine, fine. I get it.” Spiral was still laughing. “The gist of it is that a couple of the NPCs tell us the people harassing the villagers are camped out south of here, and that a lot of them have an armband that marks them as members of the gang. We go out and collect some to bring back to Thulnar to show that we’re not with the bad guys and we’re willing to work with the village.”

“Sounds good. Let’s go do that.”

“Hooray for solving our problems with violence,” Valit said.

“Well, Thulnar was right about one thing. Being just and fair doesn’t make the world go round.” Kana sighed. “Humans are violent creatures. Even now, the best we can do is channel those tendencies into games like this.”

“Whoah there,” Spiral said. “Let’s lighten the mood a little. It’s just a game. We’re not going to go out and start attacking people on the street.”

“You’d better not. You know if you get arrested, I’m going to find out about it.”

“And that is 100% the reason why I never get caught committing any crimes.”

“I would think the reason you never get caught is that you never commit any crimes.”

Spiral nodded. “Sure. Yep. That’s the reason. I am innocent and pure and definitely have never ever done anything I wasn’t supposed to, especially not to Esther Longhaven’s dog when I was nine.”

“Was that… wait… it was you who shaved Esther’s dog?”

“No, I just said it definitely wasn’t me!”

Kana laughed. “Too bad. I’d have slipped you a twenty for that.”

They shared a grin, then started out toward where the local brigands had set up their base. Spiral stopped them before they got too close and explained, “From what I remember there are patrols scouting around the edge of the camp. There’s something like 30 or so mobs total, and about 20 of them are clustered together. You’re supposed to pick off the small groups, but you’ve got to hit them hard before they can raise an alarm.

“You’re our point man on that, and Valit is on control to keep secondary targets from fleeing. I’ll do my best to lock one guy down with a stun while you smoke another one. If we do this right, we should be able to take out patrols of 2 without them even having a chance to fight back, and groups of 3 or 4 without them getting away to call reinforcements.”

“When did you become a master tactician?” Kana asked. “Didn’t you used to have problems with basic algebra and geometry?”

“Those are completely unrelated things,” Spiral protested. “Besides, this isn’t really problem solving. I already know how to approach this. This is an exercise of putting practical knowledge into action.”

“Damn, you almost sound smart when you say it like that,” Valit said. She paused for a second, then added, “Almost.”

“Alright, that’s enough out of both of you. Start looking for our first patrol, please.”

The trick wasn’t actually finding the patrols. The area wasn’t heavily wooded, so it was easy enough to spot them. The problem was avoiding being spotted back, at least not before they had closed enough distance to take the hostile NPCs out. Their very first skirmish was against a single scout, and that was very nearly a disaster.

The NPC spotted them and started a warning shout when Spiral put on a sudden burst of speed and closed the gap. He shield-slammed the scout and cut off his shout with a stun debuff, and Kana caught up just in time to get a double melee swing off and finish the NPC.

“Whew, that was close,” he said as the loot window popped up. “Hey, weren’t we supposed to get some kind of token or emblem or whatever?”

“You didn’t get one?” Spiral asked. “I did. I guess your luck has finally run out.”

Kana rolled his eyes. “How many of these do we need anyway?”

“Uh, depends on the quality. The gang has a hierarchy, and the badges the higher-ranking members use are worth more for earning Thulnar’s trust. I think this location has mostly low-ranking badges, but that’s what makes it an easy place to farm until you get enough.”

“Not quite true,” a new voice cut in. Another player appeared from around a tree, the same one they’d run into twice before.

“Oh. It’s you. Yay,” Spiral said, his voice flat and a scowl on his face.

Exodus didn’t seem bothered by the less than enthusiastic greeting. “Sure, the noobs and scrubs like to come here to pick off the sentries and scouts, but the real prize is a mob named Plinket. Now, the problem is that he’s right in the middle of that cluster-fuck of mobs, and I know I’m good, but even I don’t want to take on close to 20 mobs at once.”

“Well then I guess you should just piss off to somewhere else then, huh?” Spiral said.

“Could do that. Or I could stay here and camp all the scouts and sentries so that you have no choice but to attack the main base if you want to get your badges. Or we could party up and go balls out on this quest. I should mention that Plinket’s badge is a guaranteed drop for everybody and Thulnar grants a special reward for turning it in above and beyond the normal XP.”

Valit leaned forward, a glint in her eyes. “What kind of reward?”

“Depends on your class. For sorcerers… hmmm… a wand that increases spell range by 10% and casting speed by 5%.”

“I like that.”

“Knights get a shield that grants +10% deflection and increases shield bash stun duration by 1 second. And dragoons get a halberd that ignores 15% of enemies armor and increases agility by 5.”

“You just know all this off the top of your head?” Valit asked.

“You pick up stuff if you play long enough,” Exodus told her. “So, that’s the offer. You guys help me get to Plinket, you get a badge that’ll net you some sweet upgrades.”

“Not much of an upgrade for Kana,” Spiral said. “What do you two think?”

Kana shrugged. He agreed that Exodus was an arrogant jerk, but he’d gotten used to working with people he didn’t like years ago. Doing a five-minute quest wasn’t going to kill him. “Up to you.”

“Oh, let’s just do it,” Valit said.

Spiral grumbled a bit, but eventually relented. Exodus was added to the party and another marker popped up on Kana’s HUD. He spent a second looking some stuff over, did a double take once and looked at Kana, and then shook his head. “Unbelievable,” he muttered.

“OK, screw the sentries and scouts. The goal is to get to that big tent by the table. Plinket spawns in there about twenty seconds after combat starts and rushes out to attack the players. The black manor thugs have 122 HP and follow the novice one-handed attack pattern AI’s. Black manor soldiers have 150 HP and higher resistance to physical damage. They use the soldier’s balanced stratagem attack pattern AI’s. Plinket himself has 260 HP, but I’ll take him out and loot the badge for us, then we’ll retreat to the north side of the camp.”

The three of them all stared at Exodus for a second, no comprehension on their faces. He sighed and shook his head. “Why do I bother?” he muttered. “Thugs are weak, soldiers are a bit tougher and can defend themselves better. Use physical attacks on the thugs and magic on the soldiers. I’ll deal with Plinket. When I give the word, break off the fight and regroup to the north of here.”

They threaded their way through the sentries without much issue, mostly because when one got too close, Exodus would kill him by basically vanishing and reappearing, then sinking both daggers into his victim to drain his HP bar in one attack. Once, there were two sentries walking together that were in the way. Exodus stunned one with a blow to the head while simultaneously cutting the other one’s throat. His first victim was dead before he came out of the stun debuff.

“That class is scary,” Valit said as they watched him work.

Spiral shook his head. “I think it’s more him than the class, but… Yeah, takes a lot of fun out of it the way he operates.”

Kana received four badges from Exodus’s kills, as well as 60 XP, which pushed him to level 6 just as they were approaching the central camp. His max HP went up to 230, and he got a minor buff to his stats, but most importantly, he gained access the rising slash special attack he’d read about earlier. He briefly skimmed the description to find out that it was a straight damage attack that served as a link in the chain to extend his combos farther.

“We’re all going to die,” Spiral said. “That’s 12 mobs that’ll attack at once. There’s no way I can hold all of them, and they’d probably insta-gib me if I could.”

“Keep your dragoon alive for 10 seconds and he’ll kill a few of them,” Exodus said. “I’ll take out one or two as I go by to the main tent. Plinket should be an 8 second fight, maybe 6 if I can get a lucky critical in on the opener. Then all you have to do is run. Combat in total is maybe 15 seconds long.”

“There is no way you’re going to take out a mob with 260 HP in 6 seconds. What are you? Level 6? 7?”

“11, actually.”

“How the hell… We started at the same time!”

Exodus shrugged. “Ready?” he asked.

Scowling, Spiral nodded. “Going in 3, 2, 1…”

The knight led the charge, and Kana followed after him. Valit was already setting up her first flashburn beam when the NPCs reacted to Spiral’s attack. It scorched one of the NPCs with a tag that identified it as a black manor soldier. Kana went by that one to reach a group of thugs instead. Nibelus appeared in his hands as he moved in, and he attacked.

Either the thugs were extremely weak or it was just the artifact-grade weapon being as overpowered as always, but each thug went down in two hits. That made it impossible for Kana to start a combo chain the way he was doing it, so he switched up to hitting a target once and chaining onto the next one until he’d built up a long enough string to release arc lance. Damage numbers popped up all over, and in a matter of ten seconds, he had 6 enemies dead on the ground and had run out of thugs within range to continue his combo.

He chained from arc lance into a rising slash at one of the soldiers Spiral was working on. They had him surrounded and he was burning stamina so fast that he wouldn’t have enough left to actually run away from the fight in a few more seconds. Kana could already see him slowing down as the effort to block attacks from five different enemies at once took its toll. His HP was still green, at least.

Rising slash cut through one of the soldiers, tearing away half of his HP in a single attack. A flashburn beam split the cool evening air and carved off another chunk of HP. Kana then finished the soldier off with a simple melee attack and chained that into a clipping sweep to trip another soldier.

Exodus appeared at the tent just as a bear of a man ducked out from under the flap. He was easily as big as Thulnar, but twenty or thirty years younger. He had a huge mace held in one hand, and he brought it up into an overhead swing to come down on Spiral. Before it could connect, Exodus was on him.

His opening attack took away a third of the boss’s HP bar, and then Exodus locked him down with a stun debuff while he kept working. Individual attacks might not have been as damaging as anyone else’s, but there were so many of them that Kana could actually watch Plinket’s HP bar drain away. When he came out of the stun, Exodus hit him with a different special that drastically slowed his movement speed and kept chipping away at the NPC.

Kana left him to that and worked to take the pressure off Spiral. Between him and Valit, they took down two more of the soldiers. By the time Plinket went down, there were only five enemies left. Rather than call for the planned escape, Exodus just joined in and helped kill the rest of them. From start to finish, the entire combat had taken not quitet thirty seconds.

It was also worth a staggering 400 XP and a 119 drol, in addition to various 0-star rated junk items and several 1-star rated cheap weapons. Most importantly, Kana gathered 12 badges including Plinket’s lieutenant’s badge. All in all, the last minute had been quite profitable, if a bit hectic.

“That artifact has sick damage output,” Exodus said. “Almost makes up for how much of a group of noobs you guys are. I’m surprised we managed to mow them all down. Either way, good job, thanks for the help. I’m out.”

He dropped group and walked off, disappearing behind a few trees. Spiral just glared at him until he was out of sight. “Whatever. It’s over with. Let’s go see if this special badge is worth all the good loot we were promised.”

Somehow, Kana doubted that Spiral would be willing to work with Exodus anymore if they ever came across him again. Their paths had crossed several times, but if the assassin hadn’t been lying, he was already almost twice their level. Kana doubted they’d see much more of him in the future as that gap widened.

It wasn’t until he heard a shout of alarm that he realized he’d stopped paying attention and wandered into a sentry’s line of sight. “Good job,” Valit said. More men started appearing from the tree cover all around them, and by unanimous unspoken agreement, the three of them broke into a run back toward town.