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Authors Note:

My mother passed away in March after fighting for nearly two years with cancer. Come to think of it, I started Long Island around the time she was diagnosed. Not that I had written with any noble intention of getting her to read it. Nor had I written in a language she found easy. English is not her favorite language or her first. The subject of virtual reality completely went over her head as well.

But since she was gone, I also thought I should end it and for a long time, that was my intention. Then I woke up one day and realized. Her life was incomplete. The story is incomplete.

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After resolving the mystery of the foxes, Raka found himself even more mystified. The ability of the foxes raised several questions. Primary among them was why did it not affect the dwarves? The dwarves were definitely not deaf! Sound should affect them as well.

'There are few possibilities. One is that it is a racial ability of the dwarves. Maybe confusion like negative status effects do not affect them. Or it could also be related to earth magic.'

Dwarves were after all highly influenced by the Earth element. If it was related to the magic, could there be a way Raka could learn it too?

'Hmm...even if it's a racial ability, it could still have come from earth magic.'

While thinking of such things, Raka was leisurely watching some dwarf players hunt. Why, well because hunting foxes had become boring. Siren foxes were literally cowards. If their confusion did not work, they would always bolt away. Even if they outnumbered him a hundred to one!

'Kinda takes the fun out of hunting,' Raka sighed. He persisted only because he had promised himself to eat fox meat for a month. Otherwise he wouldn't even bother with them.

'Yet all of this is only possible due to this Buzzing spell scroll.' Raka took one out from the bag and looked at it. From the outside, it simply looked like normal folded paper. Like every other spell scroll he had seen. Yet, this simple piece of paper could change into a variety of complex magics.

'Researching spell scrolls should be a full time occupation!' The potential of spell scrolls was just that much.

Raka stared at the Buzzing spell scroll. "So near yet so far..." He sighed. This spell scroll potentially held the secret to sound magic. He often wondered what would be classified as sound magic.

'Like fire magic produces fire, would any magic which produces sound be called sound magic?' Raka wondered. But the siren foxes were not classified as magical creatures. They were more like real world bats. Still, one could argue that magic did play a part in their evolution like it did with the dwarves.

So at what does point sound becomes sound magic! Or fire becomes fire magic, or air magic, or water or light, etc!

'Magic cannot be separated like that. It's like when you breathe, you breathe air and magic. When you drink you are drinking water and magic. It is part of this world and cannot be considered separate. Hmm....truly a difficult thing to conceptualize.'

To ponder the mysteries of this world was not really Raka's intention when he chose to watch the dwarf players hunt. No, he was watching them to confirm something. He wanted to verify that dwarfs really didn't get confused by the sound. After all, there is suspicion and there is verification.

And he did confirm that dwarves are seemingly immune to confusion effects of the foxes. 'Till what extent does their immunity last though? It cannot be that they are immune to every negative status effect. Perhaps it is the sound medium that they are immune to. Would smell work? Can't say...'

'Knocking them on their heads should work.' Raka laughed as he watched a dwarf player take an amazing tumble. Watching dwarf players hunt was a delight. Especially, since he found a couple of newbies.

Unlike Gurrow village, Hya'cinth did not have an Age barrier. Which meant that anyone, ANYONE, could come out and hunt. Now what seemed too easy to Raka, did not mean that it was really easy. After all, life is relative, so was the game.

Atleast, the veteran players who had chosen to convert from the human race knew what they were doing. These newbies were...

"Aah...it hurts! You fu**king dog! Let me get my hands on you!"

"Aah...no...ouch! It hurts....it hurts! Damn! Let's run away...!"

The male dwarf smashed down a thick piece of wood onto a fox, which easily avoided it. Rather it danced all around it. To present a perspective, these two were fighting a single siren fox.

'Why did it not attack in a group or run away cowardly?' Raka did not know.

'Maybe it is able to understand the level of danger. Like a jackal would attack a baby but would run away from a tiger!' Raka guessed.

"Stay still you mongrel!" roared the guy as he kept smashing the piece of wood down like a roughshod club. Even the woman/girl/female had picked up a stick from somewhere and was trying to hit the fox.

'Um..... trying is an overstatement.' The siren fox was a small dog like creature, similar in size to real world foxes. They did not have much agility though their running speed was fast. Again, that was relative.

'Idiots! Do they have some stats or not. They definitely don't have the endurance stat. O heck.. seems like they are about to die. Haha..' Raka was quite amused.

And then the fox bit the leg of the guy and he went down screaming.

"Aaaaaah!" The guy cried.

"Please help us..." The girl looked directly at Raka as she pleaded.

Well, Raka was not exactly hiding.

Raka sighed. He simply waved his hand a bit. A small explosion blasted the fox away. It crash landed a few feet away and did not rise again.

'About 40 Life...' Raka guessed.

"Identify"

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Class: Animal

Siren Fox lives in the forests outside of Hya'cinth. Extremely territorial and will attack if you invade its territory. Relies on sound to confuse its prey to hunt. Low intelligence. Feeds on rats, fruits, berries and some wild grasses.

Additional information has been added:

Age: 5

Life: 0

Cooking it may increase stamina. A very rare chance to increase endurance.

Tailor skills may change its skin to various things.

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The siren foxes had almost a quarter of Life points as the rabbits. 'Weak...too weak!' Raka grumbled. It was like a level 50 character fighting against a level 10 monster. Age was unlike levels in any other game. An Age 5 Siren Fox, even though stronger than other members of its race, was still weaker than an Age 5 rabbit. 'What an irony..' Atleast for the newbies.

'My magic damage should be greater than my physical damage...' Raka thought. Ofcourse, what he considered magic damage was simply any damage done due to his magic. The game did not differentiate between magic attacks and physical attacks.

In the case of Raka's magic attacks, he relied on pre-stored energy which he could transform at any time. 'Limited by my mana, though it has also increased a bit.' Potentially, with the amount of energy he could safely control right now, he could double his attack power using magic.

So much that, the siren foxes would die in one hit. 'I don't even have to take out my staff for them.' Raka sighed.

"Thank you! May I know who you are? Are you one of the Goddess's children or a resident?" The female dwarf asked while checking up on the male.

'Newbies!' Raka smirked inside. "I am a player and who might you be?" He said.

"Ah hello. I am Sally and this is Jaguar." The female dwarf said.

"Ah..hi. I am Raka. Are you two new in the game?" Raka asked.

"Yes. We just started today. Kinda just hopped out straight from the library. Didn't think we would run into high level monsters all of a sudden. There's really no info about this place on the forums." Sally complained.

"Sally...lift me up. I still can't move my body. Why is it so painful! Is there a setting we need to change!" Jaguar complained as he laid on the ground.

Raka simply sighed.

"Hmm..have you guys got any stats yet?" Raka could not help asking.

"Ah yes. We got the Strength stat. That was pretty easy. But we haven't been able to get the other stats. We asked a fellow player and he said that the fastest way was to hunt. But it is so painful. How did the others do this! Please tell us!" Sally begged.

"And how long does it take to recover?" Jaguar asked in a pitiful voice.

"Um...recovering would take some time, if you don't have the Stamina stat. And without the Endurance stat, it will always be painful. It is true that the fastest way to earn stats is hunting but there are other ways like a training center," Raka replied.

"*Groan... what is wrong with the game!" Jaguar said.

"I told you, we should have found out more before jumping in. It always happens like this..." Sally said.

"It's called being spontaneous woman! What fun would it be if you had your life all planned out!" Jaguar said.

"Hmph! I am sure you are having great fun right now!" Sally said.

"I will leave now." Raka said.

'Was I also like this when I started? Did Lady Altia feel as annoyed?' Raka could not help wondering. He could almost remember when he had started. He had walked in the doors of the battle school and found the most amazing scene. In game, as in life there are a few amazing opportunities which usually turn out to be game changing.

Perhaps, this was his amazing opportunity. If he had not met the two women, his destiny in this game would have been, how you would call it, commonplace. Instead, he was one of the pioneers.

'I wonder how they are doing nowadays...haven't talked to them in ages. I hope the intimacy didn't decrease..' Raka sighed. The one thing he was not eager to find out was if the intimacy decreased over time. For the only way to find out was to actually lose it. 'Better let others figure this out!'

One thing that was the hardest to gain was intimacy. No one would want to lose that. Atleast, not in the game. 'With some exceptions!' Raka thought.

'Another thing I haven't been able to figure out are blessings. How are they triggered? If it was by intimacy, Guran should have given me one too. Is it that you can get blessed only at the start of the game? That would kinda make the right start monumentally important. Would people even play the game if it was like that.' Raka could well imagine the scenario. Like how we keep loading the save point after we die in any game, players would keep deleting characters and then creating them again and again.

'That kinda makes no sense.' Raka thought.

Thinking of various things, Raka started walking towards a quiet place. His communication mirrors were still a secret that he didn't want anyone to find out. Especially, since he had found out how dangerous they really were.

'But I haven't set up any appointment...' A problem presented itself. Unlike a telephone, there was no ringing on the other end to let the other person know. 'If I write it now when would they actually see it?' Both Lady Altia and Lady Verina had set up the communication mirror in their houses. And both of them spent most of their time outside. 'Talk about being diligent.' So unless it was night time, it was highly unlikely he would catch them.

'Come to think of it, I don't know where Neona, Johanna and Jenny have kept their mirrors. Hehehe...only one way to find out...'

"Peek," he whispered to the small eye glass sized mirror. He held it close to the eye and looked.

A room came into view, with a table and a couple of chairs. Lying around on top of the table were various ingredients Raka recognized.

'Ah so Neona put hers in the dining room. No luck there, I guess.' Raka was slightly disappointed. He had expected this, but still, had hoped otherwise. 'Well, not everyone would be lucky enough to get their mirror placed in the bath...especially when they know it is for communication.' Raka mused. 'Anyway, I didn't have much of a chance even then. After all, how many mirrors would she put in the bath!' Cassian was one lucky old dude!

'She must be in her shop at this time.' Raka sighed. It was the middle of the day. He cancelled the magic.

'Let's try Jenny and Johanna. More hope there...' Raka had given each of them a mirror. In his mind, he calculated that if he did that, perhaps they would place them in their own rooms instead of a common place in their house. Which they would have if he had given them only one mirror.

"Peek," he whispered.

'Hmmm..' Raka looked carefully at the new room. From his note, this should be Johanna's mirror. And the most noticeable thing in the room was a comfortable looking bed. "Hehehe..."

He looked at the simply adorned room. The bed had greenish bedsheets which matched the green wall behind it. There were a few green pillows on it. There was some sort of a pattern painted on the bedsheet but from his angle, Raka could not see it properly. On each side of the bed was a small table. One of them had a book and a lamp and the other had a flower vase with some yellow flowers.

Currently, the bed was empty. Well, it was the middle of the day!

"Hehehe..." Raka took out another eye sized mirror and looked into it. Sure enough, Jenny had also put hers in her bedroom. It looked pretty similar to the Johanna's. Except her wall was painted blue. And her bedsheets and pillows were blue to match. She also had two small tables next to her bed with one of them having a vase of orangish flowers. 'What color is that?'

As to the identity of the flowers, Raka's knowledge was extremely limited. Correction, it was non existent.

'Well it is still the middle of the day...' Raka sighed.

Raka hardly ever used the Peek skill. Among all his skills, this was the one which had advanced the least. Since he had learned it, he had probably used it only a couple of times. 'I am a good guy...' The real reason might have been different.

Raka then pulled out the communication mirrors and wrote a time on them. 'Well that's done.'

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Swamy stretched himself as he hopped out of the game capsule. Doesn't matter if the brain was working overtime, the body still needed exercise to avoid problems. He turned his hips side to side and creaked his neck around.

And then he opened up his laptop to check out the forums.

'After the break, I need to go visit that doctor in the game.' Swamy thought. 'Hmm...someone's posted prices of different kinds of wood found in the four islands. Oh, people have found another group quest...wait, it is to help in the upcoming conference.'

Just then a post popped up.

'The ships from the other nations have arrived in Maccaba for the four nation conference.' The author had also attached a small video showing the various royalties embarking from their ships.

'Why Maccaba though? It is located towards the east of the island.' Swamy wondered. The other three islands were towards the west of Khardoum. 'I guess the Queen wanted to dock at Maccaba as she will eventually come to the dwarvish island. But why the other two?'

'Guess there are many things under consideration here.' Swamy shrugged it off. 'I expect they will move to the capital where the conference will take place. Wonder who has come with the Queen? Lady Verina often does things like this so she might have. Or maybe Sambal...he is the advisor. Guess they wouldn't have brought the mirrors on this trip so they wouldn't be available later.'

Swamy then went on to do some random things and then logged back in the game.

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Raka opened the door of the food shop with a tingling of bells.

"Hello there, ah it's you again." The old lady manning the food shop said.

"Hello again. How goes your day?" Raka asked.

"Very well. What brings you today?" The old lady smiled. A smile is kinda the requirement for a sales position. Unfortunately, very few people can genuinely smile everytime a customer walks in. Perhaps it was her nature or years of practice but it felt quite natural and welcoming.

"Ah..nothing much today. I was on my way to meet Apo. Narsh and just thought I would say hello on the way." Raka replied.

"Oh you are going to visit Apo. Narsh. That reminds me, could you do me a favor, young man. I keep forgetting to refill my prescription and it has started to run low. Usually, I walk down on my own, but my joints seem to be giving a bit of trouble today. Could I ask you to get them? Hope it is not too much trouble."

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