[You have joined guild Solo Mage]

  Guild Card Solo Mage:

  Your Rank: Recruit (You are a new recruit in the guild. Elders have a right to kick you immediately and without warning.)

  Members: Veyra, Assassin

  Leader: Veyra

  Allied Guilds: Pancakes, Bowiwowiwo

  Trusted allies (NPC): None

  Sworn enemies (NPC): Ray Dragon Embridge, Highray Rogue Encampment, Earl Jarrough, Vayran City, Endlich, King Oroboros, The Loomer… [Click to show 46 more.]

  “Wait,” I asked, “how do we have over fifty sworn enemy NPCs?”

  Veyra shrugged. “Stealing, mostly. Or if I get an assassination quest or something like that. A few of them are just from running my mouth. Earl Jarrough really didn’t like it when I offered to marry his son if he paid me a hundred thousand gold.”

  “And how do you not have a single allied NPC?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you get a lot of those if you’re questing?”

  “Well…” Veyra said with an awkward smile. “I usually betray any allied NPCs I have. I usually just rob them, or if they’re being difficult I kill them. You’d be surprised how much you can earn by robbing NPCs. Anyone even half influential will drop a minimum of five hundred gold worth of stuff.”

  “I see,” I said. “So you’re not the type of person to care about NPC feelings?”

  “You’re free to call me heartless if you want,” Veyra said. “But I prefer money over the lives of fictional characters.”

  “Yeah, I agree,” I said.

  Your reputation will drop, though, and you’ll be at a disadvantage completing future quests, I thought, but didn’t say it out loud. She knew what the drawbacks and payouts were. Instead, I asked, “Do you have a guild hall? That would be a better place to discuss plans.”

  Her head perked up. “Wait, don’t go there. The guild hall is off limits.”

  I tilted my head at her.

  “There’s, uh, personal stuff,” she said. “If I see you snooping around, I’ll kick you out. Promise me you won’t go in there, please.”

  “Sure? You have my promise,” I said, though I was a bit confused about what could be so important in a guild hall. The guild hall was simply a room where members could teleport in freely, and outsiders couldn’t enter without a specific invitation. Most guilds treated their hall either as a hangout place or a negotiations room.

  Veyra looked a bit embarrassed. “Sorry, I don’t have trust issues or anything. I just built the guild hall for myself only. It’s a bit of a safe space.” She sighed at herself. “See, this is why I play the game solo.”

  “No, that’s fine, and thanks for trusting me,” I said. “How much time do you have today? I’m down to start planning the first guild wipe today. I have the locations of a few more top guilds.”

  “I have time, but I’ll warn you that my game pod has been having problems lately,” she said. “Like you just saw yesterday. I might disconnect randomly.”

  “No worries, my old headset kept screwing me over as well,” I said. “We should earn enough to buy new game pods soon enough.”

  “Yeah…” she said, though didn’t sound confident.

  I struggled to read her expression. She avoided eye-contact, and wasn’t smiling. Hesitantly, I asked, “Am I allowed to ask what you’re saving money for?”

  “That’s… personal as well.” Veyra smiled awkwardly. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be secretive on purpose. All I can say is I still need more than a hundred thousand gold. Ideally, I need it by the end of the year.”

  The end of the year, huh? I thought. It was mid August right now. Worlds 2026 was starting in late October, and the Ray Dragon event would most likely end just before that. A hundred thousand gold was around eighty thousand dollars.

  “We can probably make that happen,” I said. Although, I had to admit, yesterday’s raids had involved a lot of luck. Lichfang was a perfect drop from Fuhad, and same with the boss’s soul orb. We couldn’t expect to gain results like that every day.

  “I don’t quite need a hundred thousand myself,” I added, “but I’d still like to divide loot fairly. My set is very much lacking.”

  “Yes, of course,” Veyra said with a flustered laugh. “Teaming up with you is the least I can do to repay the favor. You know, you did return my staff and all.”

  I shared the laugh. “I’m not trying to trick you into playing with me. I do honestly want to go on another raid with you.”

  “Yep,” she said, and started to smile again. “Let’s get this done. You said you had ideas for the next job.” She opened her inventory and summoned a map of the Ray Dragon falls. She laid it out on the table in front of us. “Will this help?”

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  Her sudden smile caught my breath by surprise. I watched her for a second too long, until I realized that I was supposed to look at the map and not her sparkling eyes.

  The map was her personal map of the area, meaning it was dynamic in what parts it showed. The southern part was revealed in perfect clarity, showing Rayshire, the main city, followed by swamps, towns, dungeons, and eventually the mountains. The northern side was all dark, however, covered by unexplored fog. That fog could be revealed either by purchasing a map that showed details within, or by exploring the area.

  “I’ve done a lot of traveling,” Veyra said, “so my map should be decently revealed. Where should we move next?”

  A lot of traveling? I thought. Well, she had traveled further than most top guilds, making it all the way to the Nightshroud Mushroom Village. Most top guilds were well below her.

  I’d explored around a hundred miles deeper still, sneaking past with my monster avoidance stat. My map was much more revealed than hers.

  I decided not to break her bubble for now. Her map was still detailed enough for the next plans to take place.

  “I had two main targets I tracked this week,” I said. “Nova Imperium, and Warmaxx. Mythforged was unexpected, but they’re dead anyway. Nova Imperium is always a popular target thanks to Oblivara. Warmaxx is the more interesting one. They’re also arriving in the Highray Rogue Encampment soon.”

  “Wait, how do you know that?” Veyra asked. “Isn’t Warmaxx that super secretive guild? Top six on the guild leaderboard?”

  “I found them by chance with my usual strategy,” I said. “Then I kept tracking them.”

  “And that is?” Veyra asked.

  I paused and thought about how much I should share. Veyra and I weren’t lifelong allies yet. Ultimately, we were still working together for money.

  It’s not like my strategy is anything complex, I thought.

  “When a new event opens up,” I began, “I skip the quests and rush deep to stay ahead of the top guilds’ map progression. I search for the important NPCs first, and I accept as many of their quests as I can. Then I hang around those NPCs, waiting for a top guild to accept the same quests. Once they do, it’s easy to stalk them and follow their path.”

  Veyra nodded. “That’s smart, I suppose. So Warmaxx is about to enter the rogue encampment?”

  “I’m ninety percent certain,” I said. “If not there, they’re probably lost. Or if they’re particularly smart, they might be advancing further already.”

  Veyra bit her lip. “If they talked to Olaf, he probably gave them a quest to hunt and kill me.”

  “Probably. Speaking of being hunted. I got a message from Annath today.”

  I opened the message and showed it to her.

  Annath: “Hello, Aiden. I doubt I need to introduce myself. I’ll make this quick. You stole a boss monster from my guild mates. I’ll keep peace if you return the drops peacefully. Contact DJmikolele for the trade. If we don’t hear from you in the next three days, expect to be hunted by the Celestial Order.”

  Annath definitely didn’t need an introduction. She was one of the five gods of the game, rank four on the global leaderboard, the first in swordmaiden rankings, leader of Celestial Order, with multiple competition wins to her name. She’d gotten third place in the world championship PvP competition last year, losing only to Dragrath and Firebrand.

  Veyra read it. She shrugged and said, “Yeah, I received the same thing. Annath copied the same message to us both.”

  I didn’t need to ask her whether she’d be offering her items to them or not. Of course she would not. “We’re enemies, then. At least three guilds want us dead now. Celestial Order, the Cupcake Crew, and Mythforged. We could use that to set a trap for one of them.”

  Veyra considered it, her hand on her chin. “The other option is questing. Take a look at this one.”

  She shared quest details to me, and the system-pop up that appeared showed something that made my eyes open wide.

  Quest: Holder Of The Ray Dragon’s Egg (S+ Tier Event Quest) (Recommended Level: 270+)

  Quest Details: You have stolen the Ray Dragon’s egg. You are not its rightful owner. Your affinity with Ray Dragon Embridge has reached rock bottom.

  The egg is close to hatching, but unknown magic has sealed its progress. For the egg to hatch, the magic must be investigated.

  Completion Conditions: Investigate and lift the unknown magic stopping the egg from hatching. Nurture and hatch the Ray Dragon’s egg.

  Quest Reward: +10000 gold. +50 million experience. Become the rightful owner of the Ray Dragon’s egg. Possibility of earning a pet.

  Bonus reward: Invitation to Worlds 2026 (Competitor), Gothenburg, Sweden, with flights and accommodation.

  Quest Failure: Lose the Ray Dragon’s egg.

  “Wait,” I blurted out in awe. “An S+ ranked quest? With a Worlds invitation ticket? Oh wow.”

  “I’m close to cracking the unknown magic,” Veyra said. “Every hint I’ve found has directed me to this old wizard NPC. I found a mushroom village here—” She pointed at the Nightshroud Mushroom Village. “—and I think the last clue is there. If Warmaxx is after us, we really need to get it done quickly.”

  “It’s a good quest for certain,” I said. I’d never even seen an invitation quest in real life. This one was a full competitor’s ticket with a flight straight to the most prestigious Wonderwind tournament in the world.

  Worlds 2026, or the Wonderwind World Championship. It included dozens of different tournaments; in a lot of ways, the world cup was similar to the olympics, with multiple events spanning different skillsets. The most popular event was, of course, solo PvP, and Guild PvP, which both had prize pools well into the millions.

  Competitors could enter the world cup through a competitor’s invitation. With an invitation, a player could compete in one event of their choosing, and there were three ways to earn invitations.

  First, all top 100 players on the global leaderboard received one ticket. Second, winning local tournaments typically provided invitations either to Worlds, or to other events like continent specific tournaments, which would then offer invitations to Worlds.

  And lastly, the game itself offered invitations through quests, because Wonderwind wasn’t really an eSport in the way that MOBA or RTS games were. In Wonderwind, players entered competitions with their own characters and their own gear—and that gear had to be earned by completing events, leveling up, and playing the game.

  “I don’t really care about the invitation,” Veyra said. “Competing will be too much of a hassle.”

  “Winning an event would make you rich, though,” I said. “Even the bad events like Pet Races offer a minimum of fifty grand to the winner.”

  Veyra shrugged. “Sure, I guess. If we complete the quest. Invitation quests are always sought after.”

  “True enough,” I said. “For now, let’s see if the mushroom village has the quest. I have a spawning point set there.”

  “You’ve been there?” Veyra asked, surprised.

  “Of course,” I said with a grin. And I had traveled a lot further as well, but I didn’t reveal everything. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I sneak deep into the events. Let’s see if we can do this quest.”

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