"Cain! Fella, you grown up! Remember when you were that little scruff with a frown on your face killing innocent newbies in a field! HAHAHHA, those were the times!' Marowit chuckled slapping Cain on the back "All right men, lower your weapons, we're not killing anyone tonight, even if the bounty is 350,000 gold."

"It's so good to see you again! I haven't spoken to another person who hasn't been here to kill me in months."

"Buddy, we were here to kill you! HAHAHah, but don't worry we won't now. It is a shame though, good bounty and we've been out here for a while! What's going on with your arms by the way? Are you poisoned?"

"It's a long story but in short it was a 'gift' from Daeva for reaching maximum negative favour, everything has gone downhill since we were last together."

"Luckily we're 100 miles from the closest town and my men are rooted! So we have all the time in the world to share stories mate! Come take a seat by the fire, grab a leg of elk and let's chat!"

"Thanks Marowit, some company is exactly what i need."

"Anything for a mate! Come meet the boys. Fancy fella in the robes is Spiz, he's good with the books! Don't know what he's saying half the time but he's a good laugh!"

"Marowit, I've told you a thousand times. I'm a warlock that took on the role as researcher for the brotherhood, and my name is not Spiz! It's Spellsor" Exclaimed Spellsor

"AHHA, see! Can't understand a word Spiz is saying, such a good laugh!" Chuckled Marowit. "And this is young lady here is Mini, she plays with plants and heals those two weaklings over there!"

"My name is Meeka" Meeka said under her breath "And I'm a cleric with a high skill in healing remedies which requires rare ingredients, usually plants..."

"Mini is a cutie, great having her around. Finally those too thick-skulled fella's, you could beat them with a brick and they wouldn't know, absolutely useless in a fight. They go by Numbnut 1 and Numbnut 2."

"We're actually fighters, I'm Damien and he is Darren, and we only need healing from Meeka because this brute runs straight into a battle and never follows the plan!" Damien told Cain

"They're an alright bunch, not as exciting as adventuring with you Cain but they'll do. They're all part of the Brotherhood. I'm the general! Would you believe that? A level 32 in charge of a fleet of the Brotherhood!" Said Marowit slapping Cain some more

"level 32 already! How? I've only just reached level 17! It is good to see you haven't changed at all" Cain looked marowit up and down, he was still wearing the same waist cloth he wore when they first met, he was definitely taller and more muscular and his sword had been upgraded as it was now a foot wide and six-foot-tall etched with intricate carvings and letting off a soft glow, but his personality hadn't changed at all. "Still spending all your earnings on your sword I see."

"Sword, women, and beers! you know me buddy!"

what a think skulled brute

"Haha, but what about the levels! how did you do it!?"

"Oh you know, the normal. The ol'gang and I just power leveled on monsters for a month straight! How come you haven't?" Marowit's face tightened in deep thought until his eyes popped open as if he'd solved the most complex riddle he'd ever heard. "Oh! Because you've just been killing players! ahhaha you fool Cain, when will you learn!"

"I told you! It wasn't my choice! They attacked me first!" Cain exclaimed

"Marowit stop with your lame questions, I want to study this young man. He's had experiences none of us have had. I need to know if he has learnt any unique skills and if we can unlock them as well!" Spiz/Spellsor said "Cain, can you tell us about your journey that lead you to reach the maximum negative favour and the process of producing so much dark energy that your body overflows with it and leaks from your veins! You know if you learnt to harvest that power you could unleash extreme magic that few others can currently use!"

Cain looked across at the warlock in shock

"You mean this isn't a curse? its a magical power and it can make me stronger?"

"Exactly Cain! So tell us of your last few months and don't leave out any details! We can help you figure out your magic!" Spellsor said slapping the log next to him while Damien, or maybe Darren - they looked identical - held out a leg of roasted meat.

"Well, there was a lot of anger, and walking, and then killing. Players that is. Then more walking, more killing and some more walking. Then I decided to make a home here so i started to try to train my skills, and then this damned fox decided to dismantle my traps! I couldn't train my skills at all because of the stupid fox! It wouldn't leave me alone! So i kept walking and it kept following me so i kept walking then i made it here" Cain said defeated.

Spellsor looked shocked but Cain didn't notice as all the talking had made him hungry, he hadn't spoken this many words in months and the overwhelming emotions of human contact was taking their toll. As Cain went to take his first btie of the sucluent meat the pesky fox appeared before him leaping, taking the whole leg in its mouth and disappearing only to appear again on the other side of the fire away from any danger.

“Is that a Phase Fox! You have a pet Phase Fox?” Said the shocked Spellsor

“It’s a pest it is what it is, it won’t stop following me, it destroys all my traps and it disappears when I try to attack it! And now it has my dinner!”

“Obviously! It’s a Phase Fox! What do you think it would do?”

“Give me back my food you little orange rat!”

“Cain this is special! Out of the millions of players you’ve achieved something special!”

“You say you’re done all this education, yet you’ve misplaced the word special with annoyance in your sentence,” Cain yelled as he chased the fox around the fire, it easily evading him whilst taking short breaks to enjoy its prize.

“The forums say there are only a few thousand BeastTamers that have managed to acquire a Phase Fox pet and less than a handful of other classes that have been lucky enough to create a connection.”

“A connection?! Can I get disconnect with it and get my dinner!”

“Don’t you read anything? BeastTamers are classes based around taming creatures and bringing them under their own control, the number and strength of the creatures are based on the tamers level. Though, all classes can create connections with most ‘natural’ species in the game. It’s just rare and limited to one per player, well as far as the forums say. The chance is rare and the creature chooses you.”

“Natural? This thing isn’t natural. Also, I don’t want this connection! I want it gone. It’s ruining everything.”

“Maybe if you at least tried to be nice, you could create a bond maybe even a friendship with it! This is a special experience and pets can be of help!”

“Help? If breaking my traps and eating my dinner is helpful, then I want it gone. Give me a better pet, give me a bear or even a boar!”

“Well, as far as we know it’s your one and only, so you better make the most of it. Plus you don’t even know what your pet can do.”

“It can break traps.”

“It can shift dimensions!”

“And break traps.”

“Cain, you need to stop being such a dense little grump. Phase Foxes are one of the few species in this game that are able to utilise the fourth dimension.

“That means nothing to me.” Cain gave up his chase and slumped back onto his log starting at the rest of the roasting meat over the fire, waiting for another piece to be ready

“Didn’t you ever go to school? The foxes don't ‘disappear’ like you mentioned earlier, they use the fourth dimension to avoid harm and confrontation, which is why they're rarely seen. You do know the three dimensions, right?”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“Well, I’ll give you a little recap. The first dimension is like a dot on a piece of paper, if you were in the first dimension you would only exist as this point. Now the second dimension introduces length like a line. If you were a point in the second dimension, you would be able to move along this line, such as forward and backward, though if you reached another point, you wouldn’t be able to pass because you can’t go over it, or under it, or around it. The third dimension introduces depth, we exist in the third dimension so this one shouldn’t be too hard to imagine. Now you’re point as depth, and you can go around this point and travel along the surface wherever you want, unless you reach an object, such as a wall, that is infinitely long and higher than you can jump. This leads us to the fourth dimension. In the fourth dimension, the wall is no longer an obstacle, it simply becomes another point that can be traveled around such as a point when going from the second to the third dimension, a new path of travel is created. No one yet fully understands the fourth dimension as it doesn’t exist in the real world, though we know that two locations, or points, in the third dimension, that don’t look to be connected, can be in the fourth and this is how Phase Foxes can travel while looking like they ‘disappear’.”

“So you’re saying. The fox can disappear and reappear wherever it wants?”

“We call that ‘phasing’. Hence the name.”

“If someone is attacking me, it can phase behind and attacking them from the back? Scare the attacker, die if i care, and save me?”

“That’s one way of thinking about it.”

“Come here little Foxy! Cain wants to be friends!”

As he shuffled closer to the fox it phased out

“You little piece of meat! Spiz you said we had a connection!”

“Cain, how on earth has ANYTHING made a connection with you HAHAHAH!" Laughed Marowit