Several hours after the cheating incident, JohnWillStab logged back into the game.

His character burst into bright light as his level increased; Bonifacius must have returned the fish quest meaning they weren’t banned by ♛ or anything.

He was now level seven.

John glanced down to his stats.

“Strength: 15”

“Athletics: 12”

“Dexterity: 11”

“Magic: 2”

“Intelligence: 6”

“Luck: 6”

“Stamina: 6”

“Perception: 8”

“Charisma: 4”

“Weapon Skills: 10”

“Holy shit! My stats went way up!”

“I guess I did spend a few days mining, running from monsters and travelling around…” he thought.

He noticed Bonifacius and XxFoxlyxX were both offline.

Considering the hour, that wasn’t unusual.

He managed to make it a few meters without being attacked by the crypt fiends before they noticed him.

He was torn to bits by the creatures and eventually respawned in Duskshire.

After getting over the guttural reaction to run from the guards who were still neutral, JohnWillStab entered the inn to sell the mountains of trash he had.

Slime, boar tusks, fish eyes, crypt fiend fur and other miscellaneous items filled his inventory.

Inside the inn, he saw her.

When their eyes met it was as if the world had stopped, but not in a nice way.

“This is awkward…”

“♛: THERE YOU ARE, YOU B*#TARD!” she exclaimed.

In her hand was a large tankard of beer, the bronze liquid swished around the wooden vessel.

“JohnWillStab: …”

He stared at the frogperson for several seconds before speaking.

“JohnWillStab: Yo no hablo ingles!”

“♛: …”

“♛: I will disembowel you, JohnWillStab…”

“JohnWillStab: Por favor, no…”

She breathed a sigh.

“♛: You’re free,” she shrugged.

“JohnWillStab: Que?”

“♛: Stop with the Spanish! I said you’re free!” she exclaimed.

John felt a wave of relief wash over him.

“JohnWillStab: Seriously?”

She nodded.

“♛: I didn’t think you’d rage-quit the f#*king game over a little slavery!”

“JohnWillStab: It’s alright, your apology is accepted!” he replied with a thumbs-up.

“♛: THIS IS NOT AN APPOLOGY! I WILL SKIN YOU ALIVE!”

“JohnWillStab: ALRIGHT, NOTE TAKEN! SORRY!” he backpedalled in an instant.

♛ breathed a sigh again.

“♛: I was worried you actually quit the game because of me,” she explained.

“♛: I guess now I can continue to enslave more people guilt-free!” she laughed manically.

“JohnWillStab: So…”

“JohnWillStab: You admit you felt guilty?”

“♛: …”

JohnWillStab received a private message, it was a long string of characters and dots.

“JohnWillStab: What’s that?” he asked.

“♛: Your IP address, one more f#*king word and I post it in global.”

“JohnWillStab: OK! OK! I’M SORRY!”

A few more awkward seconds passed.

JohnWillStab admired the shelves of colourful bottles and liquids.

He watched the few NPCs sitting down next to other NPCs and enjoying their drinks.

“SHE IS SENDING ME SOME WEIRD MESSAGES!”

“JohnWillStab: This is kind of a weird question… it might just be Bonifacius rubbing off on me, but are you alright?” he asked.

“♛: WHO RUBBED OFF ONTO YOU!?”

“JohnWillStab: THAT IS NOT WHAT I SAID!”

♛ erupted into laughter as JohnWillStab slouched his shoulders, regretting showing any kindness to this detestable cheater.

“♛: A badass cheater like myself wouldn’t get bogged down by the loss of a single minion!” she continued to laugh.

“♛: Or even a dozen!”

“♛: …Or a few dozen.”

Her expression became more and more depressed as she spoke.

“♛: Or like all of them… ever…”

She took another gulp of her beer.

“JohnWillStab: That’s pretty f#*king sad…” he remarked.

♛ shot him a threatening look.

“JohnWillStab: I mean, it must be sad… the things you… did… to them…?”

After a while ♛ burst into laughter again.

“♛: Yeah, I turned this one dude into a skeleton! He can’t see anything!” she laughed.

“Looks like I dodged a bullet…” John realized.

“JohnWillStab: Ehh… aren’t you worried about him quitting the game?”

“♛: Nah, he was actually a real d#*khead…” she shrugged.

“JohnWillStab: Right… well… I’m going to get going…” he replied, slowly backing out of the inn.

“♛: Sure, have fun…” she replied listlessly.

“♛: I’m just going to chill here…” ♛ added sombrely.

“I am not opening that can of worms… we’ve got enough edgy characters anyway…” John thought playing the “/goodbye” emote as he left through the door of the inn.

JohnWillStab wandered around the town, avoiding the inn and looking for any quest.

Eventually he grabbed a quest from a suspicious looking person, clad in robes and an explorer’s hat.

It must have been about twenty minutes later that Bonifacius and XxFoxlyxX logged in.

JohnWillStab received a private message.

“Bonifacius: Are thou alright, JohnWillStab? Foxly and I shall come to thy aid if thou need it!”

“XxFoxlyxX: Why do you have to drag me into this?!”

Foxly was also in the private chat.

“JohnWillStab: No, I’m fine – I ran into the cheater and she said I’m free,” he explained.

“XxFoxlyxX: That’s… suspicious…”

“Bonifacius: Perhaps she had a change of heart!”

“JohnWillStab: Maybe… either way, I’m not planning to find out! I also picked up a new quest!”

“Bonifacius: We shall be there soon!”

“XxFoxlyxX: Are you doing this on purpose…?”

“JohnWillStab: Alright, I’ll be waiting outside Duskshire,” he explained.

About ten minutes later, the group met up outside the wooden palisades of Duskshire.

“Bonifacius: Greetings! We have arrived!” he announced upon spotting JohnWillStab.

“XxFoxlyxX: Sup,” he said with a wave.

“JohnWillStab: Hey,”

JohnWillStab opened his quest journal and selected the random quest he picked out earlier.

“Into the Source” was its name.

Foxly and Bonifacius accepted the quest and read over the description.

“JohnWillStab: What do you think?”

“Bonifacius: JohnWillStab, have thou read through the quest details yet?” he questioned.

“JohnWillStab: No, I just kind of grabbed the first quest I could,” he laughed nervously.

Bonifacius nodded.

“JohnWillStab: Why?”

“XxFoxlyxX: Because it’s a dungeon quest…” he explained.

“XxFoxlyxX: An instanced-off part of the map where you need to defeat bosses and other strong monsters in a linear fashion.”

“JohnWillStab: Damn, are they really that tough?!”

Bonifacius and XxFoxlyxX nodded.

“Bonifacius: Indeed, even I would stand little to no chance of defeating a dungeon alone…” he explained.

“JohnWillStab: Seriously?! Even though you’re level 100?!”

“XxFoxlyxX: The level doesn’t matter, it all scales, the damage you deal and the damage you take – that means you can’t just bring one or two higher level players…” he explained.

JohnWillStab nodded.

“I guess I can’t exploit the others in a dungeon…” he thought.

“JohnWillStab: What would you say is the bare minimum as far as the player count for a dungeon is concerned?”

“Bonifacius: Hmm, typically five players would be the minimum and ten would be the maximum…”

John nodded.

“Bonifacius: If there was a healer in our group… perhaps we would be able to fight in four!”

“Four… maybe I could drag one of the Mithril Minors… I don’t think I saw any of them use healing magic though…”

“JohnWillStab: So, is healing just one class?” he asked.

Bonifacius shook his head.

“Bonifacius: While there is a school of magic simply called ‘healing’, some other magic schools are capable of healing as well!”

“XxFoxlyxX: Healing, Light and Nature are the only ones that can reliably heal,” he explained.

“XxFoxlyxX: Unless you count necromancy as healing,” he added.

“JohnWillStab: Hmm…”

“Bonifacius: I do have a friend who plays a druid… in other words a combination of nature and healing magic!” he explained.

“Bonifacius: However, I find it unlikely he would be interested in joining us on a simple dungeon…” he explained.

JohnWillStab was trying to remember who it was he saw using magic with roots before.

That’s when he remembered his first encounter with ♛.

A chill ran down JohnWillStab’s spine as he vividly recalled her trapping several jGuardians in roots.

“JohnWillStab: …”

“XxFoxlyxX: What is it?”

“JohnWillStab: I think I might know somebody…” he said nervously.

A few minutes later JohnWillStab, followed by Bonifacius and XxFoxlyxX made his way towards the inn.

As soon as they crossed the doorway, John could see her sitting at one of the tall stools in the inn.

She was drinking disturbing amounts of alcohol.

“JohnWillStab: Hiiiiiiii-”

The “iiii”s continued for several more lines.

“♛: It’s you again…”

“JohnWillStab: Yeah, so I’ve been thinking… Since we’re basically friends now…” John began.

“Bonifacius: We would like thee to join our dungeon party!” he exclaimed with a confident grin.

The whole building went silent as JohnWillStab’s and Foxly’s heads slowly turned towards Bonifacius.

“♛: What?” she asked, seemingly shocked.

XxFoxlyxX jumped into full damage-control.

“XxFoxlyxX: I’m sorry, my friend here is a little disabled, do you mind giving us a second?” he asked already pushing a confused Bonifacius out of the building.

JohnWillStab followed him, screaming: “I’M SORRY!” repeatedly.

“What the fuck was that?” ♛ thought before taking another sip of her booze.

Outside, XxFoxlyxX berated Bonifacius for his brash approach while JohnWillStab lay on the ground in the foetal position, with tears in his eyes.

“It’s all over…” he thought.

“We’re dead…”

He repeated those thoughts like a mantra.

“XxFoxlyxX: We need to handle this delicately!”

“Bonifacius: Surely being indirect would be more disrespectful, this way, a simple yes or no will suffice!”

“XxFoxlyxX: Oh, Bonifacius… what kind of fantasy land are you living in?!” he demanded.

“XxFoxlyxX: This is virtual Satan! One wrong move and you will end up dead in some alley!”

“Bonifacius: Still, I would rather have faith in someone who shall potentially become our ally!” he argued.

He crossed his arms.

“XxFoxlyxX: I’m telling you, Bonifacius, that might work on normal people, but she is not a normal person…”

“JohnWillStab: Maybe we can just… not do the quest…” he offered.

“XxFoxlyxX: It’s too late, we already interacted… we have to finish this!” he hissed.

The raincoat-wearing frogwoman stepped out of the inn with folded arms.

“♛: You guys realise you’re in local chat…” she remarked with an expression of pity.

In the private chat.

“XxFoxlyxX: Shh! She can’t see us if we don’t move!”

“JohnWillStab: Wasn’t it the T-rex that can’t see people unless they move?”

“XxFoxlyxX: In the movie, yes, but this is real life, JOHN!”

“Bonifacius: While that did happen in the movie, it is most likely false, the tyrannosaurus would have certainly been able to see unmoving targets!”

“Bonifacius: In fact, it is speculated the tyrannosaurus had great eye-sight!”

“XxFoxlyxX: Interest…”

“♛: Interesting…”

JohnWillStab practically jumped from his chair as he saw the cheater somehow infiltrate their private chat.

“XxFoxlyxX: HOW’D YOU DO THAT?!”

“Bonifacius: I have invited Crown into our conversation since she is to be a member of our dungeon party!” he exclaimed.

“JohnWillStab: You’re too nice… way too nice…” he said in a mix of awe and concern.

Foxly nodded feeling the same.

“♛: Look, if you wanted to ask me to help you do some stupid dungeon…”

“♛: Then I’m down!”

JohnWillStab and XxFoxlyxX weren’t sure how to reply.

“Bonifacius: Thou have our thanks! Now we have enough people to attempt the dungeon!” he explained.

“JohnWillStab: Wait… you are?”

“♛: Yeah, I just felt so bad for earlier!” he exclaimed.

“JohnWillStab: …”

“Suspicious…” he thought.

“XxFoxlyxX: …”

“I’m not buying it…”

“Bonifacius: As long as thou wish to improve there is no need to feel bad! Simply strive to be the best thou can!” he exclaimed with a thumbs up.

“♛: I… sure will!”

“What is wrong with this guy?!” she thought.

“Whatever… I already heard them talk about which dungeon they’re going to…” a smile crept its way onto ♛’s face in real life.

“Just you wait… I’ll get all three of you in one go…”

Slowly, a maniacal chuckle began to bubble up from within her as she erupted into full-on evil laughter.

“Bonifacius: Fantastic! Let’s make haste!” he exclaimed with a “/cheer” emote to boot.

While JohnWillStab placed his faith in Bonifacius, XxFoxlyxX watched ♛ carefully.

“I’m not buying it… She is definitely plotting something…” he thought.