During the escape from the Kraken, the Seafarer was lost. The Misfits huddled on the fifteen-foot life boat with meager supplies. Although their physical bodies could retreat to the bunker at any time, their avatar's stamina slowly dwindled. Thag's throat was parched and dry as they sat in their small vessel in the merciless sun on the sixth day. They had been trying to reach an island that was supposed to be not far from here but the currents kept inexorably sweeping them to the southeast as they tried to head due north. They used the oars to keep them moving about eight hours a day since their characters had more stamina than their physical bodies but even the Gears had limits.

Finally, Linca had suggested using life magic to maintain Thag and Smashit's stamina bars while they oared with desperation towards their destination. That had started two days ago and since then Thag and the other Misfits had taken turns rowing. Her shoulders and arms burned ceaselessly even when she wasn't rowing. She lost all sense of time as they made their way towards the only islands within hundreds of miles of them. On the eighth day Deathberry had spotted land. It took them another day to make their way to the shoreline and eventually the Misfits pulled their life raft ashore and depleted of nearly all their stamina, collapsed on the sandy beach.

Cheezus had made his way inland first and had discovered a cool stream that they had all refreshed themselves in. Eventually, they had found coconuts and Smashit had fished up some strange looking fish creature that was still tasty. While their avatars didn't technically need to drink or eat, doing so greatly sped up the replenishment of their stamina bars and it was psychologically satisfying to do so.

A few days later she and Cheezus went exploring the coastline to map out the island. They found a small cove there and Thag decided to go for a swim. She could see Cheezus watching her intently from the beach. Was he interested in her? Sadly, she didn’t have a nice bathing suit with her at the moment and instead had jumped in with her under armor. If he was interested, he would just have to accept the fact that she wasn’t like most other women who favored fashion over common sense. While she couldn’t wear her armor in the lagoon but she still wore leather padding that protected her against her plate and mail. Considering how dangerous this world had become it just seemed like the smart thing to be wearing. She looked back at him and saw that he was in swim trunks and nothing else. She had to admit that he looked pretty hot but his fashion choice probably wasn’t smart.

She decided to play a bit of a game. Would he be willing to follow her down into the lake? There were probably some monsters at the bottom. She dove down to the bottom of the lagoon. While their avatars were enhanced she didn't have unlimited breath underwater. Still, she was down there for some time looking around before she spotted an inlet that went into a natural cave. Since her breath bar was only about a third depleted at that point she decided she would check it out. There might be some hidden treasure or something. The pressure continued to build in her ears as she dove down into the inlet which continued for some time. She looked at her breath bar again and was just about to have to turn around when she saw light coming from above her as the narrow opening widened into a larger pool. She'd go just a bit further she told herself.

Soon she was able to breach the surface of the water and found herself inside a cave where water from this pool connected to the lagoon. Inside it was surprisingly not completely dark. There was an eerie phosphorescent glow along the walls of the cave that shone blue and green. She pulled herself to the shore of the cave and was just admiring its natural beauty when she heard a voice coming from somewhere in front of her.

“Hello? I know you're out there. Garesh doesn't taste very good so please go away,” a gruff voice said.

Thag's eyes adjusted to the strange light of the cave a bit more and she was just able to make out a small figure that looked like a small man. He kind of looked like a garden gnome although telling him that would be rude. Instead she said, “Hi there friend, I'm Thag. I promise I won't eat you.” She winced a bit after saying the words. She had left her gear on the beach and was just wearing her under armor padding. Not only would she not eat this poor gnome but she was unarmed. Hopefully the gnome didn't have any powerful friends that were lying in wait to ambush a traveler such as herself. Looking more closely at the gnome she decided this was very unlikely. It was complete happenstance that she was even here and this didn't look like any sort of popular destination.

The gnome looked at her suspiciously. Perhaps he was wondering the same thing about her as she had wondered about him. “You don't look like one of those crocodile people. How did you get here?” he asked. She told him about swimming down from the lagoon.

“My name is Garesh. I'm looking for my staff. I was just wandering along the coastline enjoying a bit of an afternoon stroll as I came upon a beautiful shell. The next thing I knew I was teleported down here but I had lost all my equipment. Back in the cave I came upon these crocodile men and they started chasing me and since I didn't have my staff I had no choice but to run. You look like a reputable sort; will you assist me in finding my things and getting me out of this cave?” he said.

***Help Garesh find his Lost Treasure: Will you help Garesh find his missing equipment and get back to his village?

Rewards: A pile of gold and experience points

Risks: Being eaten by crocodile people

***

All of a sudden, the two of them heard a splashing coming from the entrance where Thag had just entered. Had there been crocodile men in the lagoon where she'd been swimming a moment earlier? She wasn't wearing all of her armor and her friend Garesh was similarly unarmed; however, Thag was never without options as a Demon Knight. Quickly she summoned her demon blade and prepared the attack whatever came out of the water. Instead of a giant crocodile man, she was met instead with Cheezus' broad face and dark eyes. As he stood up out of the water in just his trunks, she once again admired his amazingly fit body. She turned away after he caught her staring. Easy, she told herself. Men like him were trouble.

Seeing that both Cheezus and Garesh were staring at each other as if they weren't sure if they were friend or foe, Thag introduced the two of them. “Garesh was just asking me whether I would accept a quest to help him recover his gear from a group of crocodile men,” Thag explained.

“We'll have to be careful then since it's just the three of us,” Cheezus replied. Thag shared the quest with Cheezus and they reequipped their armor.

The group headed towards the last known location of the crocodile men with Cheezus leading the way in stealth. After they'd wandered down several more corridors they came to another open pool area. There were four crocodile men standing over a pile of equipment and they appeared to be arguing in their own tongue.

Garesh whispered to the group, “I think I can see my staff there in the pile.” Cheezus moved up into position and before the crocodile men could notice him he'd slit one of their throats. After that their cover was blown and Thag quickly rushed in with a charge and drove her demon blade into the chest of a lizardman who was gaping at his hapless friend's corpse.

-477 stabbing

Thag cut a deep wound into the creature's chest. She could smell its fetid breath as she leaned in trying to extract her blade from its body. It bit down on her shoulder as she attempted to finish it off.

-242 biting

-108 poison

Even their saliva was poisonous. What sort of weird crocodile/snake hybrid were these things anyway? It didn't matter though because she had a job to do:

-322 slashing

Instakill

She finished the creature, turning her blade in its ribcage and then tearing its heart out of its chest. She and Cheezus quickly finished off the remaining crocodile men and recovered Garesh's staff. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like all of his gear was in the pile of loot. Still not a bad haul, they'd found: a potion of remove poison which Thag used immediately after the identifying it since she'd been poisoned, a dagger that was reasonably high quality but nothing special, and a stone tablet with some symbols on it that looked like it could be another language. It wasn't anything that the three of them could read though.

The small party moved on. Thag couldn't help but wonder what Cheezus was thinking about their strange quest. “Did you ever play RPGs when you were a kid, Cheezus?” she asked.

“Strangely, no. It was my brother Eric who was the real gamer. I got hooked when he started playing Final Fantasy XXIV while I watched. Later, when he lost his business I got him into Champions to distract him. Since I was still working I couldn't play as much but when I got home in the evenings we always quested together. It wasn't too dissimilar from what we're doing now,” Cheezus replied. “How did you start playing?”

Thag told him about how she'd started gaming after college and not having much to do. It was a way to feel like she was still progressing with her life despite the fact that there was no possible way she could work or otherwise feel like her life was moving forward. Playing MMOs gave her a sense of accomplishment.

She hadn't realized that Garesh was listening intently to their conversation until he looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean a game?” Garesh asked.

“I know it might seem hard to believe but these aren't our actual bodies,” Cheezus explained. “We've been sent on a quest by our former employer and we're currently sitting in a bunker somewhere in the Outback where our actual bodies are.”

Garesh looked at the two of them like they'd lost their minds. “How can you be here as well?” Yeah, it probably was game breaking to tell the NPCs that their world wasn't real.

Thag looked questioningly at Cheezus and he shrugged. Here goes nothing. She explained to Garesh how they'd come to the island and what had happened to their world, the real world in the last few days.

Once she'd finished explaining, Garesh said, “That explains why I can't remember much from before the last couple days. I have remnant memories of being a man on a large ship that had thousands of people and I was playing at pool. I have these memories of a woman and two children that might have been my family or just people I knew really well. But it's all very hazy.”

It was sobering to remember that the Misfits weren't the only ones who'd been greatly affected by the apocalypse. Every monster and NPC they ran into had the potential to be another Garesh. He had probably been a tourist on a cruise ship with his family from the sound of things and suddenly his world turned upside down. How many crocodile men had she and Cheezus killed – four? How many more people would have to die by their hand for them to save Mr. Tiel and hopefully figure out a way to reverse what Precious One had done to the world? Was all of this worth it? Suddenly, Thag wasn't sure anymore.

Fortunately, they didn't find any other crocodile men in the rest of the caves but they did find the rest of Garesh's equipment right where he'd first fallen into the cave. Apparently, he'd been without a light source and his eyes hadn't adjusted to the luminescent caves yet at that point. His equipment was right where he'd left it.

***Congratulations, you've completed Garesh's Lost Treasure. ***

She and Cheezus were awarded with experience points and gold and she was able to level up again. She was now level 48. She would figure out her stat point allocation later; however, so far she'd invested most everything into attack stats and after their fight with the Kraken she wanted to get a few more HP and improve her defensibility.

They walked back to Garesh's encampment which was a small village not far from the caves. His fellow gnomes greeted him enthusiastically and Thag couldn't help but wonder which of the small ones was his family.