“There you guys are!” Darkshot called out to Lina, Aegis, and Amlie. “I had to ask this high level bunny girl where you guys were to find you.” He complained as he approached. Lina was in the process of starting a campfire while Aegis was rummaging through the brush of the forest for herbs. They weren’t deep enough into the forest yet that they couldn’t still see Orm Village in the distance. “What are you guys doing?”

“Trying to find my mom, or horses. And some herbs for crafting more of those Lures.” Aegis replied.

“And who might you be, lovely maiden?” Darkshot suddenly switched to a deeper voice as he formally bowed his head to Amlie.

“I-I’m Amlie.” She replied awkwardly.

“She’s 13 years old.” Aegis groaned at him.

“Oh, ahem. Well, nice to meet you, I’m Darkshot.” He spoke normally again and stood upright. “Why’s your stream off? Made it a pain to find you.”

“Amlie’s telling us why Rakkan keeps trying to kill us.” Lina replied coldly.

“Oh this oughta be good.” Darkshot rolled his eyes.

“Just, let her talk.” Aegis waved off Darkshot and Lina’s disapproval. “And keep an eye out for a weird lady chasing down wild horses.”

“Yeah yeah.” Darkshot replied before shooting an arrow at a boar he’d spotted in a nearby bush, killing it in one hit.

“Amlie, the story you are telling us… that player, Seraxus, is that the same one on the leaderboards?” Lina asked, to which Amlie nodded anxiously

“Wait ya’ll are talking about THE Seraxus? The highest ranked PvP player? Undefeated Gladiator Champion? The guy who created the Battlemaster Meta?” Darkshot asked excitedly. Amlie nodded again nervously. “What about him? He’s crazy good, and that weapon of his is insane!”

“He’s also the reason that Puagas island was dubbed the PvP island.” Lina commented, though with much less enthusiasm than Darkshot.

“Is he really that big of a deal? He’s only like, 14, right?” Aegis asked.

“15.” Amlie corrected Aegis as if the 1 year made a big difference.

“He’s one of the top 10 streamers, he’s way up there. Only reason he aint top is probably because-” Darkshot was interrupted.

“Because he acts like a kid.” Lina shrugged.

“Well I guess now you guys know why.” Aegis replied as he spotted a herb he needed and carefully pulled it out by the roots. “How’s the Simbox?”

“Good, way better than the ones downtown. You could’ve cleaned it first though, kinda smells funny.”

“I think that's you, not the Simbox.” Aegis retorted.

“So this story, it’s got something to do with Rakkan and Seraxus?” Darkshot asked eagerly.

“Yes… S-should I continue?” Amlie asked, to which Aegis gave her a thumbs up.

The small statured Renault and his tall, fit and handsome Grandfather Beetzart strode through the streets of the small village of Pelagrove that afternoon, taking in the sights. The gnomish figure of Renault’s avatar had him tilting his head upwards explaining everything around them as Beetzart continuously pointed out people and objects and asked questions with a look of intrigue and amazement, but being a starter village, the pair didn’t stand out much and this scene was quite common.

They zigzagged through the narrow passageways, up the ramps and across the log bridges that stretched through the upper ledges of the village, creaking and swaying in the wind slightly as a chilled breeze blew through the oversized Pine Forest around them, eventually the pair arrived at the uppermost level.

Many small cottages up here could be seen surrounded by vast gardens and fields of crops, due to the greater amount of sunlight that reached them. The air blew more freely around them up here, carrying the scent of the pine forest with it, and it was much more quiet due to the lack of shops and stalls on the upper levels, allowing the sound of woodpeckers and creaking old trees to permeate their ears, alongside an occasional odd hum or ring from windchimes hanging off the overhangs of the small cottage houses.

Renault was leading Beetzart towards the edge of the village, making sure to point out the Pelagrove NPC guards patrolling about, keeping the peace. They wore dark brown leather uniforms and were all armed with longbows, quivers, and shortswords, moving along the dirt roads and log bridges in pairs.

“Right there’s the village edge. So once we follow this road out here, there’s gonna be some monsters called Timberwolves, but don’t worry, they-” Renault was explaining while looking forward, only just noticing that Beetzart had stopped following him. He turned back to see that Beetzart had run up to a fence surrounding a small garden lining the road, beset beside a log cabin. Towering over the top of the log fence were a patch of strange yellow and blue flowers. The outer, larger petals were blue and curled outward, but the inner petals were yellow and diamond shaped and were curled inward and rotating in the wind as a pinwheel would. As they spun they made the sound of a long wind-like instrument note. The stalk of the plant was tall and thick with elongated thin leaves all the way up.

Beetzart was mesmerized by the plant for a moment, looking at a few of the flowers that stood up to his eye level.

“Look at this, do you see this? Beautiful flowers that spin, and play music!” He whispered excitedly with glowing eyes. Before Renault could rejoin his side and provide an explanation, Beetzart’s curiosity got the better of him and he reached out a hand to try and touch the spinning petals, unable to resist the urge to test what would happen if he tried to stop one from spinning. Before his hand could make contact with one however, a small hand reached out from around the patch of flowers and slapped his own away.

“Don’t touch them.” The woman asked politely, though she had a look of annoyance. [Taeyal - Level 3] was floating above her head in white text, indicating she was an NPC. A tall human with long dark brown hair and brown eyes wearing simple leather pants, a soil stained gray shirt and a pair of stained and worn out gardening gloves to match.

“Apologies, m’am, but what on earth are those things?” Beetzart asked her, still looking bewildered. Renault stopped himself a few feet away, resisting the urge to explain everything in place of Taeyal.

“They’re Windpetals, and they’re very delicate, and incredibly difficult to raise, so I’d appreciate it if you don't poke them with your untrained fingers.” She replied sharply while crossing her arms.

“Well, what about those, what are those called?” Beetzart asked, having just spotted a row of neatly planted rainbow leafed bushes that grew to about knee height behind the woman. The shrub’s colors seemed oddly reversed in that, while the leaves were a variety of bright colors, the blossoms were puffy green bells that let out light jingling sounds as the wind brushed against them. She subtly glanced to see what he was eying before putting her eyes back on him.

“Those are Bellbushes.” She replied matter-of-factly, raising a brow at him.

“Wow…” He paused to marvel at them, before turning his attention to another strange plant.

“What abou-”

“If you don’t mind, I’m quite busy tending to all of these plants.” She cut him off, now tapping her foot waiting for him to back away from her fence.

“Have you ever tried making music with these plants?” He asked excitedly.

“Wh? Music? No, that’s not what they’re being grown for. Making music would be too difficult, I’m not a bard, I'm a gardener.” She shook her head at him with disbelief at the suggestion.

“I could help you out.” Beetzart suggested.

“I doubt it.”

“Hey now, I’ve grown plenty of plants in my garden. You shoulda seen the tomatoes I got growing a few years back, right?” Beetzart turned to Renault for support, who awkwardly nodded.

“Tomatoes? Hah. That’s nothing.” She mocked. “I wouldn’t dare let anyone not trained in herbalism or farming anywhere near my crops.”

“Where can I learn that stuff?” Beetzart replied enthusiastically, undeterred by her annoyed glare.

“Just, head to the lower levels of Pelagrove to the Craftsman Guildhall, speak with the Guildmaster there, tell him Taeyal sent you.” She replied. Renault watched as Beetzart smiled and gave thanks and wiggled his fingers around at his interface, then turned to Renault excitedly.

“Hey that nice lady just gave me a quest to go to that building!” Beetzart said excitedly.

“Hah, yeah, there’s a million ways to get breadcrumb quests like that. So, you down to start hunting some Timberwolves?” Renault smiled back.

“Hunt Timberwolves? Eh…” He looked apprehensively in the direction of the village exit. “I’ll leave the hunting to you, I want to learn about those funny looking plants and try growing some of ‘em.”

“Really gramps? You wanna grow plants?” Renault looked dejected.

“You got a problem with that little man?” He retorted.

“No… I guess not…” Renault shrugged. “I’ll show you off to the Guildhall and get you started before I head off to do my intermediate class quest.”

…..

One Month Later…

Renault entered the village of Pellagrove with vastly different attire from that of which he had when he had departed a month ago. He now clearly stood apart from the many new players crowding the streets, a fantastical staff fastened to his back with a smooth orb at its head giving off a dark blue light and dark blue silk robes featuring black trimming. Many of the other players stopped to gawk at him and his level of 31, but he paid them no mind and walked proudly through the village with purpose, heading straight towards the house of Taeyal on the upper levels.

When he arrived at the fence surrounding Taeyal’s garden he could hear the sound of her voice barking instructions to a compliant Beetzart. Peering over the fence he saw his grandfather on his knees carefully pruning a row of white flowered stalks under Taeyal’s instruction. Renault watched a few moments without announcing his presence, he couldn’t imagine someone would enjoy laboring like that but there was a big dumb smile on Beetzart’s face anytime Taeyal praised his actions. Eventually he finished with the plant and looked up, spotting Renault watching him.

“Ah, you’re back!” He grinned and walked over to greet Renault, Taeyal hanging back and smiling. “Nice new digs you got when you were away. How’d the quest go?”

“Took a lot longer than I expected, but I finally managed to rank up to a Sage!” Renault said proudly.

“Oh wow, what’s a sage do?”

“Great at understanding and manipulating magic, gathering information with clairvoyance, all sorts of awesome stuff. What about you?”

“I got the class of farmer, pretty neat huh? Nothing fancy like sage, but Taeyal’s showing me the ropes.”

“Really?” Renault looked taken aback. “I thought only people with farms could get that class, expensive to buy land so usually guilds funnel gold, or people who bought gold with real money…” Renault mumbled confused and curious at the same time.

“Well Taeyal’s been letting me use hers and stay at her place, she’s really nice, you’d like her, knows all sorts of things.” Beetzart said as Taeyal approached.

“You look like you’ve traveled quite a ways, would you like to come in for some tea? Fresh Naslix from the garden.” Taeyal smiled.

“Naslix?” Renault’s eyes went wide. “Y-yeah, I’d love some.” Renault replied hastily.

“I’ll go heat the water then.” She bowed politely before heading into the small building. Once she was inside the two looked at each other.

“Dang Gramps, how’d you do it?” Renault asked him in a whisper.

“Do what?”

“Rare and expensive Naslix Tea, leveling farming skills and using her land?”

“Nothing special, we just get along really well. She doesn’t believe I can use those flowers to make music though, she doesn't know what your grandpa’s got for skills. Heck I told her the meaning of my name, says she doesn't even know who Beethoven is, can you believe that?” Beetzart shook his head.

“Beeth.. Zart…” Renault paused for a second. “Seriously? No one listens to that old classical stuff anymore, let alone an NPC.” Renault rolled his eyes at him.

“Yeah, well, a few more levels of this and I’m goin intermediate just like you. Then all these people will be listening to the good stuff.” He spoke confidently. “Y’know… She reminds me a bit of your grandmother… Of course, I know, it’s just a game, but, hey…” he shrugged with a smile.

“Glad you’re having fun.” The two joined Taeyal inside her small home where Renault made some observations as Beetzart walked into a bedroom with a single bed and utilized the Wardrobe to swap out of his dirty equipment into cleaner common clothes before joining him at the table.

“You’re pretty settled in here eh?” Renault winked at Beetzart. “Hope he’s not causing too much trouble.” He asked Taeyal curiously.

“Oh no trouble. He still has a lot to learn of course, but it's been a pleasure having him around to help me out.” Taeyal replied, and as she said this Renault watched the two lock eyes and exchange a smile. Renault couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows in disbelief at what he was seeing. Before he could pry further, he was interrupted by a party invite from Seraxus.

“Get yo ass back to the temple, we all intermediates now, it’s go time baby.”

Seraxus messaged the group after Renault had accepted the invite, and saw that it was full with his friends now, but Seraxus was already level 36.

“Ah, looks like my group needs me, so I’m going to head out. I’d love to try that tea though, I’ve heard it's amazing! I’ll try to come back as soon as we clear the dungeon!” Renault’s voice trailed out of the door.

“Be safe,” Taeyal called after him.

“Have fun little man!” Beetzart shouted.

As a sage, finding and memorizing pathways through difficult forests and jungles was quite easy, making it possible for Renault to arrive back at the Jungle Temple of Hatred fairly quickly, before even his other party members had arrived, save for Seraxus, and as he approached he not only noticed that Seraxus’ health and mana was moving up and down quickly in the party interface, but he could hear the sound of spells firing off and blades clashing in the distance.

Renault picked up the pace and rushed through the last few hundred meters of the wild lush green jungle, avoiding getting tangled in the thick vines dangling from the trees around him as the beige coloured, vine covered, pyramid shaped temple came into view.

In a small clearing out front of the temple entrance, between a pair of gigantic cobra statues, Renault saw Seraxus in the midst of battling a party of four players, all in the range of levels 23 to 25. As Seraxus was being flanked by a thief player, engaged in the front by a battle axe wielding fighter, a wizard player was charging several ice lances to thrust at him from the side and a priest wearing the vestments of Aphrodite stood in the back healing them.

“Force Barrier!” Renault shouted, reacting quickly by extending his hands out in the direction of Seraxus as small dark purple runes began to form in the air and rotate around his hands. After a three second delay, a sudden white transparent orb of magic encapsulated Seraxus. A swing of the fighter’s battle axe and two icelances from the wizard’s magic collided with the sphere and were stopped by it, while within, Seraxus’ charge forward was stopped as he ran into the interior of the white translucent orb.

“Real tough, picking on someone four versus one!” Renault shouted.

“Picking on him? He’s the ass who started this, he already killed our archer!” The priest player shouted angrily at Renault, surprising him, as he once again assessed the situation.

“Yo Renault, drop this thing and lemme take these guys out. My viewers were doubting I could do it, gotta show ‘em the strength of my new intermediate class.” Seraxus grinned as he motioned to the livestreaming icon above his head. He was now broadcasting to two thousand concurrent viewers.

“You sure?” Renault asked, still confused and trying to process the situation.

“Yeah man.” Seraxus winked at him confidently.

“A-alright…” Renault dropped his Force Barrier spell, as it had nearly drained his mana from maintaining it for so long anyway, and once he did, Seraxus immediately charged at them again. He watched in amazement as Seraxus dodged around the attacks of the four players, using new abilities to manipulate his various weapons around the battlefield. He noticed that unlike before when he was just a fighter, the weapons that Seraxus were not using were not in his inventory or sheathed on his persons, they were hovering around him, as if he was able to wield and control 5 weapons at once, though notably they spent a lot of time just idle and floating, with the occasional shot from the crossbow hovering behind him and a thrust of the spear. In his hands he alternated between wielding his Longsword and Battle Axe, utilizing the switch spell to make the weapons exchange places instantly.

None of the players present, not even Renault, had seen the abilities and skills of the Battlemaster class before - Seraxus was the first. None of them knew how to keep up with or predict the weapons movements, despite it being clear Seraxus still wasn’t very good at controlling all of the weapons at once yet.

“You’re just gonna stand there and let your buddy attack us?” The thief shouted at Renault angrily.

“Hey, it’s your fault for tryin’ to come into our dungeon. This temple’s ours for grinding.” Seraxus declared as he managed to surround the thief with all of his weapons, coordinating several simultaneous hits that were impossible for the Aphrodite priest to heal through, giving him game over. At this, the wizard player turned and began to run away.

“Forget this group, I’m going back to solo farming.” The wizard shouted. Seeing this, both the battle-axe fighter and the priest exchanged looks of hopelessness, and without hesitation, the priest began the simulation exit process. His Avatar remained suspended in a standing position as a blue cylinder formed around it, with a countdown timer hovering over the cylinder indicating the time remaining before the avatar of the player would disappear. Due to the priest leaving the simulation in the middle of fighting an enemy, his Avatar would remain present in the game for 30 seconds and still be susceptible to attacks.

Seraxus took this as an invitation for an easy kill, dashing around the fighter and slashing at the motionless avatar until it forcefully disappeared due to death, suffering the death penalties and dropping a large coin pouch on the ground as well as some crafting items. The fighter looked between the dropped items, then back to Seraxus who was now charging at him. It was over in seconds, and soon it was only Seraxus, Renault, and the items that the four recently killed players had dropped.

“Pick all this stuff up, I’ll be right back.” Seraxus smirked at Renault as he turned and dashed off into the jungle.

“Where are you going?” Renault asked, confused.

“They bet I wouldn’t get all five of 'em, so Imma go get all five of ‘em.” Seraxus said excitedly.

“B-but he’s running away!” Renault shouted after him.

“Not fast enough though,” Seraxus laughed as his voice faded off into the jungle. Renault just stared at all the gold and items on the ground for a moment, not at all interested in picking it up, but before he needed to he saw Hajax arrive from the jungle.

“Sup.” Hajax gave Renault a nod to greet him, then jerked his head towards all the items everywhere. “Yo sweet, free treasure. Some party wipe or something?” Hajax said as he ran to start picking it all up.

“Y-yea, something like that…” Renault replied.