“Hey, I’m Led. I’ll try my hardest not to kill you guys”. Led tried to chuckle, but he had forgotten to smile while saying the line so it felt more like a threat in retrospect.

The group did not laugh at Led’s remark and instead looked at Dan who was seemingly confused by the threat-joke.

“Riiight, Led this is my teammates. I’ve been with them since beta and we have a sturdy group already that is nicely balanced. As mentioned we never did get a proper healer up and running so that is why we invited you.” Dan was obviously the leader in this team as no one tried to introduce themselves and just let Dan do all the talking.

At least they weren’t looking at Led with great disgust. More of a relief actually, and maybe a hint of worry? Led wasn’t all that great at reading facial expressions. He could analyse them of course, but he had no data to analyse them with, so all he could do was to keep this note in his head as he did with all his gathered data.

“Led?” Dan had said something that Led had managed to overhear while on his train of thought. Led cursed to himself and made an expression of admittance that he had been deep in thought.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m used to solo gaming so i apologize if i sometimes don’t hear what you say, no stress, i’ll get used to it soon enough.”

Dan looked at Led with a confused look again, it seemed he had yet to place Led’s behaviour patterns.

“This is our last healer, Macy. Macy will be a hybrid between off healing, off tanking and off damage dealing. Her game name is also Macy, like you she liked her own name and went with it. But the funniest part is that she is playing a Macleric which is just basically a Cleric who uses maces. Clever programmers these people who made this game”. Dan had the same tone when saying this as when he had pointed out Led’s name, maybe he just came off as a bit mocking when trying to be friendly Led thought.

“Dude! I said that was a coincident! I had to go Cleric for the healing in beta and I liked this build a lot better. I’ve saved your ass so many times now you should be glad i picked cleric at all. I know how ridiculous it sounds that I am a Mace user named Macy, I just don’t care about roleplaying that much. I just want to mace people in the face!”

Macy was a powerful and stout looking dwarf-human, Led also remembered her from school. She wasn’t as bulky as her avatar in real life, but she was one of the most muscular looking women Led had ever seen in real life. Not as in fat or ugly, but she definately had been born in a family of people who worked out. Led liked it, he felt that too many girls worried about their looks and their figure. Why couldn’t a girl sport muscles and strength? Led decided he liked Macy’s first impression. She was obviously direct, a bit tomboyish, and spoke her mind without the need to tiptoe around subjects.

“Yes yes Macy. I guess we are all just jealous of the fact that you had a class named after you for you to pick. I don’t see any Danmasters classes roaming around.” Dan and the group chuckled at that, even Macy as it was a jest made in good humour. Led was relieved to see that the group got along well,. Since he was an outsider, the fact that the rest of the group had good synergy was important.

“Anyway, this is Darien, or Barri as he called himself. He’s a Shieldguard, a class with OP tanking abilities.” Dan had pointed at Darien with an open palm, as if showing Led the way to his table at a restaurant.

Darien gave Led a nod, no expression to note. Dan noticed this and added.

“Darien doesn’t speak much, he’s more of a doer than a sayer.”

Led nodded back, he had also seen Darien at school and knew of his silent manners. He felt more like a whiskey drinking man who never laughed, but who instead would crack a smile if a joke was said.

“This is Kate, our elementalist. She’s basically our magic damage output as we have me and Lexi here as main meele dps. Lexi also rocks the bows and crossbows for ranged damage. But, for magical damage we have the amazing Kate!” Dan made a sweeping gesture this time, as if presenting the opening of a theatre piece.

Kate smiled and said hello. She didn’t seem like the quiet type, but she was smiling so hard Led believed she was a loss for words. Led could see her blush at Dan's gesture, and Led noted that these two were probably more than friends. Perhaps not full blown girlfriend and boyfriend, but Kate didn’t seem to be the one to say no if Dan asked. Led could see them as a nice couple considering Kate was quite the looker, but she wasn’t the type to plaster on a lot of makeup either. It was a natural kind of beauty that was enhanced by an innocent and big smile. She hadn’t changed her appearance from real life either, so Led did recognize her. He did not, however, recognize the next girl introduced.

“And as I said we have Lexi”. Dan continued while making over the top gestures, Led was reminded of how some vocalists would introduce each member of their band at live concerts.

“Lexi is the only one who doesn’t go to our school, and she is as good of a player as she is a mystery for us. We found her in beta and invited her to our group and she has been our dungeon cleaner ever since.

Led knew that a dungeon cleaner was a name given to the rogue classes, they would spot traps and open locked doors. Often considered as the most important tool for dungeon clearing if you wanted to get into all of the rooms in a dungeon without the need to set off traps or leave locked doors and chests behind.

“Lexi is a Wanted, so we should be set for the rest of the game with dungeon clearing without the need for help”. As Dan made the introductions Lexi had already been staring at Led for quite a while, as he had noticed but ignored. He knew that he himself had a bad habit of staring at people without realizing that it might be off putting.

As far as Led could remember from his research the Wanted class was a very versatile class, that only really fell behind in dps from the other roguelike classes. What the class lacked in dps though, it made up with a ton of resourceful skills and abilities aimed to be useful for dungeoning. Led guessed that she had joined the group because it was quite difficult to level the class up without doing dungeons in a group. She was quite beautiful though, Led had started to suspect that Dan only agreed to group or be friends with the most beautiful girls in both school and in this game too. Since they had kept her from beta though, and they didn’t know her from high school, she probably knew her stuff.

Lexi had black hair that was bundled in knot behind her head, the rest of her was dressed in what looked like ninja apparel. It would be interesting to see all the end game classes with their end game items when he could get to the late game.

“So there you have it, this is the group that will be tackling the Depths of Karadar”.

Dan ended his introduction without really introducing Led. Led didn’t know if that was because they didn’t see him as a long term member, or because he had already told the group about Led before he got there.

“Let’s get cracken!” Dan said as he jumped from the rock he was standing on and suddenly ran towards a forest not more than an arrow shot away. The group followed without missing a beat, as this was as normal to them as the sun rising.

What followed was an amazing display of teamwork from Led’s new group, Darien who was the main tank understood immediately what Dan wanted and charged at the nearest level 1 wolf. In a flash he had not only stunned two wolves, but also aggroed two more. Led had never seen anyone even dare to try this maneuver at level 1, but since Led had his three heals Darien wasn’t really in any danger. The rest of the team focused on just killing the wolves as fast as possible in pairs. Macy and Edlen (Kate) and Dan and Lexi were doing some impressive teamwork and trusted each others doing their part of the job. All Led had to do was to give out a heal or two, which he did. He never once got aggro either, since Led was careful only to heal when necessary, and don’t overheal the aggro Darien had created.

Not more than half an hour into the game they had already leveled up two levels. Led had not gotten any new spells though, which confused him considering he could see the others had.

“Do the classes gain skills at different levels or what?” Led had to ask considering it was inconsistent with what he was used to from other games.

“Ah yeah, I guess no one wrote about it that much, but some classes only gains skills every 5 levels, that’s what I meant about we needing to get you to level 5 as fast as possible. I was worried you would be dragging us down actually, but I do think we got our new healer set for a while. You are on point with that healing.” Dan talked while still fighting, not even diverting his eyes away from his next target.

That made both sense and not sense to Led. Why would some classes have the advantage of picking and choosing their skills one at a time, but Led got them in bulk? He would need to sit down and carefully when reaching level 5, and he would need to check what Dan wanted him to build so he didn’t miss a skill or spell that the group needed.

So far all Led had done in this game was fighting wolves, as they were gathered around the forest, since they were only level 1 and 2 the group entered the forest to hunt the forest wolves that were level 3 and up to 5. Except for hides they had yet to get any good items and Led was starting to wonder if they were ever going to stop and take a rest. They were getting along fine with careful mana consumption and not overkilling the wolves, instead just opting for slow and steady.

Led guessed that since they were not sightseeing and not even stopping to shop for better items they were way ahead of everyone else, perhaps they were racing for something in this dungeon? Led hadn’t checked if the rewards for first dungeon clearing was any big or not, but that was the only explanation he could come up with for this furious leveling.

“DING! You have reached level 5”, Eva said in an excited voice.

Then Dan finally signaled for the group to stop. Except for Dan and Darien who were level 6, the rest of the group were now all level 5. Dan and Darien had continued to hunt wolves while the rest of the group had waited for mana to restore sometimes and had more XP for it.

“Ok, now it’s time to make some decisions. Led, did you get the skill [The Trick]?”. Dan had an almost desperate look while asking the question.

Led who was just now opening his character screen was looking at his skill options.

“Yeah. I did.” Led said with a puzzled look on his face.