“You’re joking right?”

“Not at all. My calculation are pretty accurate.”

“And why the dot is blinking?”

“Well, I don’t really know. It’s the first time I see an 8th dot, so it could be a triangle that would be the last of my priorities.”

He’s right. I was here before he arrived, we saw tens of session, and it has always been with 7 people.

Everybody was shocked by this info, except Jules, but he’s never surprised by anything. He took the liberty to lead the conversation.

“So, you suspect this session have 8 people.”

“Yes.”

“That’s unlikely...”

“I don’t see another possibility. Unless one of them has two books, but that would be even less probable.”

“You’re right...”

“What do we do about it?”

“Do you know where the book is?”

“No… only that it’s still in the first world, like all the other.”

“Do we still have the static camera?”

“Oh yeah! I forgot about those. I think they are still working, but I placed hundreds of them, so it may take a while before I find something.”

Like that, William started to swap his finger on the screen frenetically in search of the mysterious uninvited newcomer.

This new session never ceased to amaze me, at first I thought it was only Sam, but now, there is a real change in the quests pattern. And I like It.

I wonder if they have an idea of who it could be… wait. It couldn’t…

“Guys… Until then, everyone in each session were close to each other, right?”

“Yep.”

“Did any of you ever heard someone remarked a person of the group was missing? That they were a group of 8 before coming here.”

“...I don’t think so” “Nop” “I don’t know...” “Maybe… not sure.”

They all answered at the same time, it’s what I thought. Sam was the first to complain about that.

“I may know who is the 8th… and if I’m right, we should find her as fast as possible.”

~~

The sun is setting again. It’s been 5 days since I’ve arrived, and as any friends would do reuniting after several months, we spar with each other.

No, seriously, I didn’t really want to, but Xavier kind of insisted, and I think they all wanted to give it a go against my “all mighty power”. I feel like a freak show.

I won’t go too deep into each fight, but it’s worth it to recap how and why I got obliterated by each one of them.

Prometheus, this fucker can heal himself almost instantly, and as long fights are clearly not my fort, I lost because of self-exhaustion.

Marie… How do I say this… She pulled out a portable Gatling gun and fired without any warning. It was fun dodging the bullets for a couple of seconds, but I surrendered pretty quickly.

Kyle, as the Shirker of Diligence – paradoxical isn’t it? - he had a bad match up against me. His main style is to sneak outside of the opponent vision and strike, and as expected he couldn't do that against me. As our respective ability cancelled each other’s, it came down to basic fighting, and I won. Yay! No, just kidding, even with martial art, you can’t do much against someone twice as fast as you.

Haru, ironically, the lie detector got a huge affinity for illusion. As a Seer, I am able to see through them… but the kid is smart. She deployed an illusion inside an illusion inside another illusion. “Illception” she called it. The name is lame but she got me good with it.

Finally, Nami. Let’s just say it reminded me of my “fight” with Nathyn…

Just like that, during this 3 days, I lost, once again, to all of my friends. I went through all those struggles, grazed death multiple time, trained in hell.

For this.

So worth it! 3 month ago I would have never dreamed of getting close to them, and now they need to go all out for the same result! I feel kinda lame to be thankful for something so little but meh, I’ll take it.

We’re all back in the camp, I’m lying down on one of the big trunks we use as a bench. I’ve been running around for the past few days, I think I deserved a bit of rest.

“Guys! We need to talk!”

Or maybe not… Marie and Xavier gathered the seven of us, like they were about to start a lecture, and the blond girl started talking.

“Okay, so we’ll probably be leaving the day after tomorrow. Before that, I want to inform you all about my ongoing project about the book, as it concern all of us.”

“You already told me! You’re gonna expand the communication system!”

“Prom! I haven’t told everyone yet!”

She can do that?

“You can do that?”

“Yeah! She wants to prove she is better than Williams!”

“My guide has nothing to do with this! It would just be more practical, that’s it.”

“She’s right. The book is the only reliable thing we got from the quest...”

Reliable… I’m not sure I would say have used that word…

“...so if we can improve it, this will be useful for us, and the future session. I think this is actually crucial.”

“Thanks for the pressure Xav.”

“Your welcome Blondy.”

“I don’t use the book that much, but I guess it would be cool to chat with everyone.”

“Call me blondy once again and see what happen, douchebag!

“You don’t? Man… I used it on almost all my struggle.”

“You talk that much with your guide?”

“Yeah, but also because it’s a fucking cool shield.”

“What?”

“Let me demonstrate, Prometheus.”

Nami distanced herself a bit from the group, and put her book on the ground. She lifted her hand in the air, and conjured a huge ass ice partisan. I think I understand what is her point: the book is indestructible.

I feel stupid… I should have check that a long time ago. Well, it’s not like I had many occasion to use it… except in the jungle. God, it would have been so useful in the jungle! More than the fucking silver dagger.

I still have it by the way… Even though I don’t have any use for it, as I moved on to hand to hand combat.

Going back to the show, the book didn’t get a scratch as expected, and we clapped like a bunch of kid.

In the meantime, Xavier and Marie started to argue with each other. He should stop calling her blondy, he thinks she is cool with it, but it’s quite the opposite. Maybe I should talk to him about that.

Anyway, Haru is trying to calm them, so I took out my Questbook to test its newfound properties.

Hum? Valentine is contacting me. What does she want again...

V: Hey… Sam how you doing? (^.^)’

V: Me? Fine, thanks for asking.

V: I just wanted to ask you something.

V: Could you describe your sister?

V: Physically, you know… out of curiosity. (*^.^*)