I was about to make my way over to the Spell Forge when I received a direct message.

  ‘Jacobs…: We’re about to join the queue for the lift!’

  ‘Aenara…: Ok, I’ll meet you near the fountain in the plaza.’

  Change of plans, time to meet up with my friends. I headed off with a bit of a skip in my step. It’s been…actually I can’t remember, it’s been a while.

  I got to the plaza and looked around, there wasn’t a group of five players standing around waiting for me. I let out a disappointed sigh.

  ‘Aenara…: Is the queue long?’ I sent, as I walked over to the fountain.

  ‘Jacobs…: mutter mutter mutter’

  ‘Jacobs…: It is moving…’

  I chuckled, looks like my queue skipping escort was the best bonus I got from helping to bring in the Curiosity. The fountain's edge was dry, so I took a seat in a spot looking towards the lift’s exit and opened up my spell book to look at my new spells.

  From the description, Fire Bolt was basically Spark but with burning. Fireball on the other hand wasn’t a movable channel spell but a huge alpha damage Area of Effect spell. Looked simpler than Ball Lightning, but not by much.

  I pulled my legs up into the meditation pose and started studying the instructions for Fire Bolt. I found if I closed my eyes it was easier to look at the interface without so many distractions.

  A couple of minutes later I relaxed a bit and decided to pull on my power to get a feel of the start of the spell.

  -- Jacobs --

  Jacobs grinned as the lift shook when the door was shut and it started going up. It had taken them nearly twenty minutes of queuing, before they managed to get on.

  Peachy buried her face in his chest once they had cleared the roof top. She hated her fear of heights, but he loved how she always came to him for comfort.

  He looked out over the city, Vax had been right, this view was amazing. Peachy's grip tightened, he could feel her trembling, but looking down at her, she was forcing herself to look, so he gave her a reassuring hug. One of the many things he loved about the woman who agreed to marry him, while she may be absolutely terrified, she still tried.

  Kenda and Darksider were standing looking out over the city, Kenda excitedly talking about the fields in the distance. GoldenFist was making a point of looking at the mechanism carrying them up the cliffside. Jacobs reached out and gave one of his oldest gaming buddies a reassuring shoulder squeeze.

  They were soon crossing up into the top building and Peachy led the way back to solid land as soon as she could. He’d sent Vax a message as soon as they had boarded the lift, but still hadn’t heard anything back. He’d send another if they couldn’t find their friend.

  He didn’t have to worry about finding her. The crowd of gawking slow moving people pretty much brought their attention to the woman hovering cross-legged near the fountain.

  Darksider snorted beside him. “For someone who claims to not like attention, Vaxil is pretty good at bringing attention to himself.”

  “That’s Elliot for you. The thing is, he really does hate being the center of attention… he also just can’t help himself. I bet you a merit token, he’s not even aware of the attention he is getting right now.”

  “Not taking that bet.” Darksider said.

  “I think you have lost your wife.” Kenda said with a smile.

  -- Aenara --

  I was on the second pass of the spell when I realised most of it was very very familiar. I worked out how to pull both Spark and Fire Bolt up side-by-side. After comparing them carefully, I was pretty sure the only difference was in the middle bit, which declared what type of spell it was. I was in the process of decomposing it when I became aware of a weight around my waist, and something rubbing my chest. I opened my eyes and looked down on the pink haired gremlin who was in the process of hugging me while her head rubbed against me.

  It was also at this moment I realised I had been floating, and with the weight of the hugger, this ‘huggee’ was being pushed back. “Feck!” I screamed in shock and lost all semblance of control.

  “Peachy.” I said slightly annoyed. “What is the rule about hugging?” The hug continued despite us both now being in the fountain.

  “The only man I am allowed to hug, without prior permission, is Hubby.”

  “So?”

  “Rule doesn’t apply. Aenara isn’t a man.”

  “She’s got you there!” Kenda laughed.

  I looked up at my friends, to see four grinning faces smiling down at me and then down at the biggest shit-eating grin on the one still hugging me despite the water. My eyes moved outwards and I realised we had a bit of a crowd going on and quite a few of them were laughing. I wondered if there was a hole I could climb into…

  I looked down at my friend as I tried to extract us from the fountain. Peachy had stuck with her favourite aesthetic. She’d probably gone on the height slider and moved it all the way to the left. Pink hair, pulled back with ribbons, huge eyes, the works. She liked her characters short and pixie-like as much as possible.

  Don’t underestimate the munchkin, though. That is part of her devious plan to be underestimated. She likes to play tank and isn’t afraid to get up in the front lines, even if she does prefer to be able to do it in a cute outfit instead of plate. She had a leather jacket on, over the top of her starter set.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  And this little hug monster was refusing to let go. She had found a loophole and wasn’t afraid to abuse it.

  Jacobs is her pocket cleric, a forever healer, and from the looks of it, he let the character creator copy his body and decided ‘good enough for me.’ Average height, short dark hair, and he continued to insist his mouth had value, as he still sported a goatee circling it. Somewhere he had managed to scrape up a white lab coat which was over his starter gear.

  Darksider, or Damian seemed to have decided to go with the jedi aesthetic or at the very least looked like he was getting ready to say ‘Hello there.’ The full beard suited him though. His eyes were filled with mirth when he and Jacobs stepped up to help pull me and the little menace from the water.

  Kenda stretched out her back and started on her arms, she had picked up a martial artist’s gi somewhere along the way and she had her dirty blonde hair tied up with some chop sticks keeping it all in place. She is another of my friends, who decided to not mess with their real body.

  The last of their group was GoldenFist. Where Peachy had taken the height slider all the way to the left, G, who I had met up with in real life and I knew was barely 5’6”, was now easily 7’. Sticking out over his head was the hilt of a sword almost as long as he was tall. He was sporting a thin black mustache that looked like someone had been curling the ends.

  “What’s so special about your nose?” I asked G, unsuccessful in my attempts to untie myself from Peachy's hug. “Jacobs is clearly highlighting his most annoying feature. I’m curious why you underlined your nose.”

  “Hey!” the goatee-wearer cried out when he finally realised that I had insulted him.

  I looked up at the health bars which were now showing over my friends heads after I accepted the invite from Peachy and added them all to my friends list.

  “What would you all like to do?” I asked once I was out, de-peachy-ied and dry.

  “We thought we should do the main quest first, and then go look at the magic situation.” Damian said.

  “Make sense. So palace first.” I pointed at the big building. “How was the walk through the city? In fact where is the train station?”

  “The entrance to Deep Sea World is down on the other side of the river. Just past the commercial district. The walk wasn’t bad.” Jacobs said

  “Too many hungry looking people.” Peachy added, with a sniff.

  “Yeah, it’s laying it on really thick that we need to be doing something to help them…” Kenda said. “I like cosy farming, but…it feels like too much pressure…”

  “Hunting could be an option.” I suggested. “I’ve seen hints that we should be helping to clear towers to clear up living space as well.”

  “A lot of the streamers who aren’t doing the zerg in no-man’s are on those. They just look like fighting your way up an office block…I can’t believe I am going to suggest this…but…heading south into the wilds to hunt might be our best choice.” All of us stopped and turned to look at Fist.

  “Who are you? And what have you done with our pvp crazed barbarian?” Jacobs asked.

  “I love PVP, I loved it in the beta weekend… but…they aren’t actually fighting in the streams. No one is. They realised they get more rep just taking a base and then leaving it for the next one. So the three factions are just zerging around the map taking and abandoning bases. Occasionally a lone player gets ganked. It looks to be about as much fun as…actually no, joining Kenda farming would be more fun than what's happening up there right now. I might go check out the crafting system later. Pounding steel here sounds like it might be fun.”

  “I might join you on that.” Darksider said. “I saw someone looking around the crafting trainers while eating breakfast and it does seem interesting.

  “First though, progressing the main quest and then unlocking the factions, then magic.” Jacobs confirmed

  “You can unlock more than one…” I started asking, “oh non-exclusionary…of course you can join more than one.”

  I led them to the chamber dedicated to bureaucracy, and despite the implication I’d had of it being a waiting hell they were soon all in the side chambers with an NPC each.

  GoldenFist was the first to come out, having to stoop quite a bit to get through the door sized for normal people.

  “Skipping the tutorial was a huge mistake,” the man grumbled as we waited for the others. “Those merit tokens, man…I thought it was for minor things, but she said it’s basically the starting cash and I’m going to have to earn my way…”

  “You’ll get there, bud. You are the grind king after all.”

  “Yeah… tempted to delete and start over… you know…”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think it will save you as much time as you think. You’ll be a couple of days behind before you even start and then be amongst the crowd. Right now, you are one of the first out of all the people who didn’t grind through the night. Besides have you seen some of their streams? One of them claims to be a good mage, takes nearly 10 seconds to cast their spell! The Noob. And you have us, and we won’t let you fall behind.”

  “Thanks Vax.”

  “Don’t sweat, it’s what friends are for.” I reached up to pat him on the back, and ended up patting his upper arm. “Lanky fuck.” I added because it was getting too emotional.

  “Short Arse.” He came back with a grin.

  Once they had all been registered, we headed up and unlocked the Wardens and the Explorators. I joined them for the Wardens unlock and went back to reviewing my new fire bolt spell while they got the Explorators. The only difference with the Wardens being that all the quests were helping to clear some of the city from the jungle.

  We then headed for the mage school, where I slipped my silver token to G, so he could register. He promised to repay me for it. I knew he was good for it, but if he never did, well our friendship wasn’t transactional.

  Once they had all got their welcome packs I urged them to get the rings on first, and I pulled them aside.

  “Two things I discovered when I was here earlier, is everything needs you to be using your mana. The meditation needs you to be using it and they won’t let you into the Arcanum for your first spell without demonstrating you can use it. So, I figure we work on that first and then it’s up to you what you want to do next.”

  Surprisingly G got it first. Apparently he is more introspective than I had given him credit for, as it turned out he had been playing with his mana while bored thinking it was just a part of the interface like a fidget spinner. Peachy and Jacobs got it last and at the same time, but knowing the pair of them they probably got it earlier and had been waiting for the other to start showing signs.

  While they all joined the meditation class, I had a look at some of the displays.

  There was one talking about the elemental cycle, Fire into Earth, Earth into Water, Water into Air, and Air into Fire. Each feeding upon the predecessor and feeding the next. With a note talking about how opposite cancel each other out.

  Another described meditation and the role the position of your hands has. You create circles using your thumb and index finger, and combine them into a bigger circle with your arms, by having the other fingers interlocking so the index fingers touch. Then picturing the mana circling down one arm around the fingers and then back up the other arm, in a constantly flowing loop. Was supposedly one of the most efficient mana regeneration poses. Someone had added a note in a neater hand warning that excessive use of this technique can lead to damage to the mana channels and should be limited to no more than five cycles, then using a different technique for three cycles, to limit the maximum velocity of the flow technique.

  I was just about to settle down and do some meditation myself when my friends started coming out. Watching Damian go through a full range of emotions when he got a head pat and a lollipop shoved in his mouth is probably a highlight. The man is usually unflappable.

  The old mage grumpily informed me that No, I couldn’t accompany my friends into the Arcanum. We agreed to meet at the spell forge when they had retrieved their spells.