It didn’t take long to get everything sorted out with Daphne, who was actually really glad to have another friend on her list, and another girl to talk to. Eugene wasn’t bad with girls; he was bad with people in general. Even amongst the crowd of NPCs in the bar, he wished he could just disappear. He ran his hand through his white spiky hair. As odd as it might look on a normal person, this was almost the same color he had in real life. He’d meant to dye it once he had the money, but in-game, now . . . it was a reminder of who he was, or used to be, or whatever. As he watched the girls talking and smiling at the bar, supposedly getting Sakura setup with the free night at the inn quest, he couldn’t help but think about how much he preferred this death game to RL.

“Edge. Baldor says it’s going to keep raining for three days straight . . .” Daphne actually sounded mad at him, as if he was the one who made it rain.

“We don’t have enough money for rooms,” he confessed. Daphne ignored him.

“ . . . And Sakura says her quest is funny.”

“Huh?”

“The quest in my codex is not [Baldor’s Revenge]. It’s [By the Dozen],” Sakura corrected.

“Any quest info?”

“Nothing, it just says-”

“The quest details are hidden,” finished Edge.

“Yeah, how did you-have they all been like that?” Sakura catches on fast.

“So far.”

“Maybe the codex is more of a diary, and less of a quest reference,” she added.

“See Edge, aren’t you glad we added Sakura to the group. Her intelligence is probably twice as high as yours.”

Thanks Daphne. And he knew about the codex already . . . it just wasn’t worth bringing up the fact that he already knew.

“So where do we steal the gecko eggs?” he asked with perverse pleasure.

Daphne’s jaw dropped. “You cheated. You must have used your observation skill or something to spy on us.” She covered up her chest, protecting herself from a peeper.

Or something. He had gecko eggs three days in a row for breakfast, and the quest mentioned an item ‘by the dozen.’ It didn’t take a scientist to connect the two. (It took a gamer.)

“Baldor wouldn’t tell us,” Sakura said. Apparently it was her turn to be mad at him for no reason.

“I guess that means we have to brave the storm,” he said. Of course it did. He was hungry and damp, unarmed and tired. Maybe he’d use the last of their emeralds to buy a snack.

“You mean, you made me get changed for nothing?” accused Daphne.

It hadn’t seemed like she needed any convincing at the time.

“Baldor, do you sell raincoats?” Sakura asked.

Apparently, girl friends cost money. He mourned the loss of his potential snack, and grieved as he handed over the last of the emerald crystals.

Edge had planned on another quick gecko grind. He should have known better. The change in weather had altered the spawns. This world was more than dynamic, it was a feat of genius-brutal, despicable genius. During the rainy season the pond was twice its previous size, and the patrolling lizards twice their original number. Added to that were four more Geckos spawned around each of five large grass and twig nests, which had been placed randomly around the circumference of the pond.

Edge pulled the first Gecko by throwing a rock, [You have learned Throw], but it missed wildly. With Daphne and Sakura watching him, it was an absurdly embarrassing attempt. Fortunately, there were an abundance of small rocks amongst the grasses, and eventually he hit one of the fleet lizards. Immediately, he retreated back to where Daphne and Sakura had prepared their surprise. As he ran, the creature’s movement speed didn’t seem affected by the slick mud, whereas his own was clearly reduced. Given enough time he’d be overrun. But he didn’t plan on giving it the enough time.

Sakura, the [High Elf Sorceress] waved her hands through the rain. Runic symbols appeared on floating bracelets of light around her forearms. Daphne’s voice sang out clearly above the storm, in the last of her three songs, which she had forgotten to mention, and acted as a party buff, if you were in close proximity to her. Sakura’s timing was perfect. She completed her long chant, just as the Gecko entered into range of her spell. A ball of fire erupted from between her arms, darting straight at the green scaled lizard. Steam from the rain shrunk her spell’s effectiveness as it plummeted toward her target. But apparently Sorceresses were no joke, because the gecko and surrounding grass exploded into a sudden shock of fire. The target area was incinerated, to be replaced with a circle of dry brown dirt from the centre of which sprung a single flag over a gecko sized shadow of black ash.

[You have gained 6 EXP]

‘Really, now the game decided to give them a party experience bonus?’ Eugene thought. Edge turned around and looted the corpse before its timer ran out. Fifteen seconds was way too short. Daphne and Sakura celebrated their first victory together with splashing high fives. They both looked cute in their yellow hooded ponchos. His stomach grumbled. They only had enough crystals for two, so he was wet, and starving.

Daphne’s smile was beaming. “This is going to be easy! Let’s do it again. Go get us more gecko’s, butler Edge.”

When had he become their servant? Ever the pessimist, Eugene already had his own suspicions.

“Oh not yet, I’m not ready,” Sakura pleaded.

“What? I thought your cooldowns were shorter than mine.”

“I only have one cooldown, because I only have one spell, [Firebomb]. But it takes almost all of my mana to cast, and the casting time is twenty-five seconds. I could cast them repeatedly if I had enough mana, but I have to wait for my mana bar to fill.”

“How long until your mana regenerates?” Edge wondered.

“I’m not sure. A while.”

“Okay, so we have an AoE fire spell with a long cooldown. We have a group healing song, a DoT song, and a buff song. Plus, I’m playing tank and with my shield, dodge and throw abilities, I can pull and hold off mobs.”

“That sounds about right,” said Sakura.

“This is going to be great,” grinned Daphne. She’d been really upbeat ever since Sakura joined the party.

“You see the problem don’t you?” asked Edge.

“We are squishy,” answered Sakura.

Daphne stared at Sakura’s chest while unconsciously touching her own.

Edge cut off Daphne before she had a chance to scream pervert. “Exactly, you both have low hit points,” he explained, with an extra glance at Daphne, “so if I miss a mob, or we pull too many, then . . .”

Daphne’s hands darted back to her sides.

“Then we die,” finished Sakura.

“Won’t we go back to the start point?” asked Daphne. “Isn’t that what you said, Edge?”

He definitely hinted that a return to the start point was a possibility. But it was a white lie.

“Have either of you died since you logged on?” questioned a suddenly serious Sakura.

A round of No’s.

“I don’t think we can dismiss the possibility that if we die here, we might die in the real world.”

“What?” Daphne was shocked.

Edge stood silently, looking guilty.

Daphne double punched him, which rocked him back on his feet. He must have failed a balance check, because he slipped in the mud, landing on his butt. She then proceeded to hammer against his chest like beating a drum. “You stupid jerk. You knew. You knew this whole time, and you stood in front and let your life points get so low.” Tears ran down her face, partly hidden by the rain. “Did you want to die and leave me alone?” she screamed.

Her final question hit him harder than any of her punches. There was a grain of truth in it that reached deep down inside. Four days ago, alone, at home in his living room, dreading the idea of another school day, a part of him wanted it to be over, begged for it to end. ‘The world would be better off without me,’ he’d thought. But now . . .

“I didn’t do it to leave you,” he said, honestly. “I did it to save you.” And that was the real truth, despite the dark pieces.

Daphne wrapped her arms around his middle, and buried her head against his chest. “I won’t let your health get that low again,” she promised.

Sakura, not wanting to be left out and feeling the weight of the bonds shared, knelt on the ground behind him. She joined in the hug, sandwiching Edge between them. Her large softness pressed against his back, and Edge’s face turned scarlet. The moment lasted a long time, and no one really wanted it to end. It was a comfort they’d been missing up until now. Their situation was one that was hard to accept, and harder to live. Every moment a lifetime. But as all things, the time of comfort ended. And it became a bit awkward, and more than a little slimy.

“We don’t really know if we’ll be gone forever when we die. We could just respawn somewhere,” Edge stated.

Daphne punched him the chest again. “You have to wreck everything, don’t you?”