After exiting Mother Core Online and waking up in the real world—though I wasn’t actually sleeping while playing—I took off the AU-VR Helm, blurted some quick excuse to Jimmy, and rushed back to my room before the time I quoted was up.

“And my name’s Herald Stone!” I declared, materializing back into the game.

On second thought, I shouldn’t have told Jimmy I had a sour stomach. Any other work-related excuse would’ve been better.

Or I could’ve just kept my mouth shut. My head was filled with child-like excitement that I didn’t think it through. Memories of my long—maybe, not so long—carefree younger years, clearing dungeons with my friends the whole Saturday at Vanguard Gaming, resurfaced from the past like Toady Tokens out of sludge puddles.

“Four minutes and fifty-six seconds, as I promised,” I told my five party mates waiting for me.

“Did you run up to your room?” Megan asked, concern tinging her human voice. “You should’ve taken your time. Like, what if you slipped?”

“I took the elevator.” When I entered Grand Scaup’s lobby, I set the timer on my WeeCee and had a wild idea to beat it by zooming up the emergency stairs to my room—twelve floors up. But using the aspect of Herald Stone the Seer, I predicted that I’d probably be found lifeless in the stairwell by cleaning personnel hours later if I did that.

“Okay, Herald Stone’s your in-game name,” Kai said, tipping his horns at me. “But what’s your real name?”

“Stalker vibes, much?” Nitana quipped.

“It’s only your first meeting, and you’re already—” Lavender began to say.

“Eh, that’s not it,” Kai interrupted. “I just want to meet other Eyriesian Mardukryon players at MotherCon. Dreaming of a Mardukryon guild for Eyrie players. Since we all live in the same country, organizing meet-ups will be easy. Also, cheap.”

“I might attend MotherCon,” I said, not answering Kai’s question. My name was right on top of my head; it was on them to figure it out. “Anyway, Megan, what other quests have we lined up?”

“An extermination mission different from the last one,” Megan replied. “And hunting for a Cragodon Calf infected by the Arcane Blight. We have to kill it before it gets out of the tunnels and infects the rest of its herd. Something like that.” Her forehead wrinkled in a serious face that was rare for her. “I’m not sure if we can win without Kezo… but I want to try.”

“We will,” I confidently said. If I could poison the quest boss, it was a guaranteed win by cheesing, even if it took time. Dairy products for the win!

“Cragodons are Great Hunt event monsters, right?” Nitana scratched her horn in thought. “Weird, they’re mixed with this whole Blight thing.”

“Because it’s a world event?” I offered. Bawu and Gula’s family problems—amplified by yours truly—had far-reaching effects.

Megan raised her hand. “NPCs were talking about Bawu’s mess, erm… totally messing up the flow of the mountain’s energies. They say the monsters might take a different path migrating this time.”

“Different path?” I winked at them. “A way off this mountain?”

“Too bad we’re weak as heck to participate in the Great Hunt,” Lavender groaned. “I’m sure I’ll find that stupid exit.”

“I’m sure you’ll get turned into a snowball right off the bat,” snipped Jani.

They bantered as we trotted to our next quest. Their group dynamics again reminded me of the good old days—I sound elderly, putting it that way. It was only a decade and a half ago. I knew Boady was doing humanitarian work in Nahebani. But what about Jefferson, Mason, and the rest of the gang? Real life would’ve caught up with us all, but they’d probably find a way to play MCO. I did.

Would they be attending MotherCon?

Megan reminded us about our buffs before we started. I ate my food straight from my inventory—it wasn’t worth manually eating it. I appreciated the realism but had enough of its taste.

Our party stepped into a tunnel far different from the last. It was a roundish path—even the floor had a sunken curve—and we could pass through only in a single file, with me in front of our tiny herd. Sticky webs hung in places as if it was Halloween, and radiant purple eggs dotted the way, adding mood lighting and a slight obstacle course.

Getting closer, we saw that the eggs were empty, their occupants somewhere out there, no doubt waiting for their time to attack us. Only slime remained inside half-open eggshells. Lavender posed to dip her hoof into the egg sauce but relented, grimacing at the smell.

Its sulfuric scent was like that in hot springs. Pops was a fan of hot springs, soaking his aching muscles in the mineral-rich waters. Child Herald Stone wondered why they cooked eggs in the waters people bathed in.

“Oh, wow,” Nitana said, gagging. “Let’s never pick this quest again.”

Megan, with her smell settings turned off, was all business-like. “Herald, let’s check out what’s inside there.”

The way didn’t become any wider the further we went in, but it branched into a complicated network of tunnels leading to many rooms. And the first one was coming up.

I stacked [Ancestral Constitution], minding to turn off PVP settings after, and wore [Greater Pyro Shell].

The room was almost a perfect sphere in shape, large enough to fit three Mardukryon houses. Holes pockmarked the walls, floor, and ceilings, though I wasn’t certain how to delineate those when it came to spheres. And out of those holes came different colors of Blighted Garg-Ants—red, blue, and green.

Herald Stone is in the house!

Was that expression still popular these days? These Blighted Garg-Ants probably didn’t know.

Kudos to whoever made the pun with the name.

As their name suggested, the Garg-Ants were giant ants comparable to Crabores. Armed with scythe-like mandibles, their large heads in relation to their bodies didn’t look friendly. I suspected the crystal shards adorning their exoskeletons used to be golden but had turned purple due to Bawu’s environmental pollution. The Gargants also leaked slime from cracks on their shells.

They tended their eggs, most of which were also infected by the Blight.

“Let’s slowly go in,” I said, leading my party inside.

We stayed by the entrance, wary of any attack. The Garg-Ants kept to their business of entering and exiting holes like… trains. Sometimes, they’d carry eggs in their mouths.

“Do we… do we just attack ?” Megan asked. “They’ll all go for us, won’t they?”

“Bet,” Lavender said. “A full party of six will have an easier time dealing with them. Too bad we’re a full party of three.”

“Why are you looking at me?” Jani said. “You’re useless yourself too.”

“Yeah, I included myself in that number.”

“Three useless people,” Kai loudly said. “How about we wait outside?”

“Megan, Nitana,” I said. “You two stand by the exit so you can immediately go out if things don’t go well. I’ll follow, and we’ll have a fighting retreat down the tunnels.” I visited Jefferson’s house in high school, and he showed us his ant farm encased in glass. Ants traveled the tunnels of their colony in mostly one line—time to find out if it was different if they were fending off invaders—us.

Nitana’s fiery fairy flew over my shoulder to a nearby [Lvl 36 Arcane Blighted Bastion Garg-Ant]. The red variant was slightly bigger than other colors.

The fairy exploded.

The Bastion got damaged. Purple flames danced over its exoskeleton as if it was flambéed. Was that from Nitana’s skill?

It menacingly skittered to me, as did two other nearby Bastions, also erupting in flames. It was their ability.

A relief that not all of the Garg-Ants in here flooded us. The Bastion in the lead, already damaged by Nitana, suddenly glowed green. Blazing meatballs, its health bar got refilled!

Behind the incoming Bastions was a [Lvl 35 Arcane Blighted Brio Garg-Ant]. The green variant waved its first two legs as the crystals on its body glowed—a healer. A welcome ally but hated as an enemy.

“Take out the Brio first,” I said as my shields met red mandibles.

Megan and Nitana directed their spells to the green Garg-Ant while I kept the red ones on me with [Enraging Taunt]. As it roasted, the Brio raised its body, stood on its hindmost legs, and waved the other four. It left me a parting gift before it died.

[ Status | Rotting Bog: Reduce Health Regeneration by 8% for 8 seconds ]

A healer and a debuffer? The Brio gave pest a new meaning. Or a worse meaning. Lowering my health regen was Damage-over-Time from another perspective. But I didn’t use [Cleansing Flames]; it’d waste the ailments from my food.

The Bastions also had something annoying up their chitinous sleeves. The flames coating them had AoE damage like my [Blight Cloud]. It was nothing to scoff at because it managed to overwhelm my health regen, gradually whittling me down. It would’ve been problematic if there were more of them. Could a dispel remove their purple flames?

I stood my ground, my shell still intact, shoving back their large heads with my shields. Megan and Nitana killed them shortly.

“Looks like we rattled the anthill,” Nitana drawled, nudging her horns at more Garg-Ants coming. “Yeah, I know this isn’t really an anthill, like, whatever.”

“Herald, do we retreat?” Megan asked.

“We can take them on,” I said. “I’ll take the reds. Get the greens.”

Buffed by [Horde Stampede], I zipped through the Garg-Ants and taunted Bastions away from the rest, like picking raisins from apple crumble. And as with raisins, I segregated the Bastions so Megan and Nitana could kill the Brios. It was pointless aiming for the Bastions if they’d just get healed.

Eight reds went after me. I slowed down. They caught up. I refreshed [Enraging Call] on them. My already depleted [Greater Pyro Shell] exploded when they snipped my butt. All Bastions were damaged.

I kicked into a gallop again; the passive of [Horde Stampede] and my [Boots of Swiftness] were more than enough to maintain a comfortable distance. This quest turned out to be easy. Megan and Nitana focused the Brios one by one to overcome their heal. The greens were squishier than the reds, the latter seeming to be the warrior ants of the colony.

Wait! What about the blue Garg-Ants?

A [Lvl 35 Arcane Blighted Buttress Garg-Ant] popped out a hole in my way to show what it could do. It didn’t join the chase, waving its legs as its red siblings ran past. The Bastions suddenly speed up, about to catch me.

“A buffer!” I exclaimed, casting [Greater Pyro Shell.]

Then, it disappeared.

“Huh? Where did my shell go?”

A Buttress showed up out of the hole to my right. A dispeller too!