“Never seen someone cast that on a shield before. Acceptable cast speed. Aim for at least 100 reps in combat and come back. Who is next?” she asked, looking between Damian and me.

  “Hi, Damian Darksider, and I have Shocking Grasp,” Darksider said, then stepped up to the new dummy. He reached out and unleashed the spell into it with a light punch.

  “Clean casting. Good job. You’ll need to do 100 repetitions in combat to get it locked in.” Gretchen then looked at me. “New spell?” I nodded, then Stepped across the room into a seating position on one of the chairs. I waited for her to look in my direction and then Stepped back to join the three of them.

  “First utility spell? Looks like you spent some time getting your head around changing positions as well. Utility spells are a little different from combat ones in terms of assessment. Nominally, you will need to complete 300 movements with the ability, but you will find the system will record doing different things differently. Like, your jump to that seating position would be worth 3 points. You moved, changed direction and changed body position. The return, only two, as you faced the same direction. Any other spells?” We all shook our heads. “I’ll leave you to it then. If you are heading out of Landing, don’t forget to check the mage guild quest terminal if there is anything in the direction you are heading in.”

  “She seems nice,” commented Peachy as we walked back to the stairs, where we could already see our friends waiting.

  “Yep.” I agreed. “Only the second time I have met her.”

  “Really? You two seemed really chummy.”

  “I… Wahhh?” I turned to look at our short tank. “No. You are now denied hug privileges.”

  “What? You can’t do that.”

  “Denied.”

  Sulking tank aside, we headed over to the Provisionary and checked out the mage quest terminals. There were a couple asking for samples of plants and animals, which seemed to be in the region we expected to find the teleport core.

  Our next stop was the Explorators guild, firstly to check their terminals for any additional quests going in that direction, and secondly to check out the region map and discuss our route.

  The map’s detail had been fleshed out quite a bit since my last visit. Some of the buildings out by the Warden’s base had gone blue. A few were now green, which hadn’t been before. Some ambers, but a lot more red buildings. The one I had spent several hours in the day before was now amber, showing it had been cleared, but was still in the process of being fully explored. It looked like progress was being made. I put my hand on the controls and worked out how to zoom it out. There were indications of the map being filled in further by other players' exploration. Further beyond the explored areas, the greyed-out map looked like the detail had been filled in by the maps we brought, as some of the markings from them were reflected on the display.

  “So, the place with the teleporter core is out here.” I pointed on the map to the area I was expecting the core to be found.

  “Bit of a walk,” G said.

  “It is…” I agreed. “I’m hoping if we follow this road east,” I indicated a road which headed out not too far from the Warden’s camp. “Through these hills here, and then over to this motorway.” I traced the route. “That there should be enough points of interest to make the route fun. We could also head south and then head east…but the map that way doesn’t have as many markings on it.”

  “Your route does look like it goes through a major artery…” Jacobs agreed.

  “I need to go for a quest, and while I would appreciate the company, I also totally understand if you would rather do stuff around town. It’s your fun-time too.”

  “I agree about the south route… it’d knock off about 20 minutes off the journey, but it does look boring,” Darksider said.

  “Vax, we’re all towered out. A walk into the unknown sounds like fun.” G said.

  The four of us turned to our wayward pvp nut and his out-of-character mutterings.

  “What? I’ve seen the Overlords footage. If I want PVP, it’s either I head up to the no-mans land and join the zerg, taking and abandoning forts and hope to come across someone lost. Or I follow Aenara here around for a few hours and join in when she gets into something.”

  “Get into two little fights…” I grumbled. The tall bugger had the audacity to ruffle my hair.

  “We’re in El,” Jacobs said. “You aren’t getting rid of us that easily.” I do like my friends.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Thanks. Let’s see if we can find some quests for the route and area.

  Turns out the number of quests we could get for our route was quite a lot. Exploring the towers and clearing floors had contributed almost as much to the other’s rep as our route south had. Between all our contributions as members of SOK, the guild was in good standing with the Explorators, and that opened up missions for us. We ended up having to be selective and opted for ones involving clearing and mapping several of the Points of Interest along the path we decided to take.

  “I wonder if the Explorators have ration packs, like the Wardens do,” GoldenFist said as he moved over to the faction store.

  “Ration packs?” I asked, confused.

  “Yeah, what have you been eating to stop yourself getting famished?” Peachy asked me.

  “Sam’s a pretty good cook…”

  “All your meals have been made for you?”

  “Well…I mean, I have contributed…” I defended myself.

  “Ha. Rations are what those of us too lazy to use the cooking skill have been eating,” Damian said. “Warden ones aren’t bad, but we should go to that restaurant we found on the way out of town.”

  “Score! They do,” said an excited G coming over with a stack of boxes in his arms. “Explorator Travel Rations. Check out the bonus on these!” He passed us a small brown box each. ‘Explorator Travel Rations - 2 Days,’ read the stencilling on the top. I checked out the system description for them.

  ‘Explorator Travel Rations’

  ‘Two days’ worth of travel rations for the explorer on the go’

  ‘Bonus to overland travel speed and stamina’

  The elevator took us down into the city proper, and we followed the road east towards the Wardens’ camp. About five minutes after passing the old weaponmaster’s dojo, we turned off the main road into one of the side streets, and I was led into a little bistro.

  “Table for five?” the waitress asked as we came inside. It was a little quaint. Once, it must have been some kind of generic cafe, but the owners had tried to spruce it up a bit. There was a mismatch of furniture, with no three pieces looking like they came from the same set. Table cloths made from any light coloured, clean cloth they could find. The walls, decorated in what I had to assume were family heirlooms from the old country. Despite it being breakfast time, over a third of the tables were occupied by a mix of players and NPCs, most eating what smelt to be some of the tastiest breakfasts I had ever had the pleasure to enjoy.

  “Please,” said Jacobs, and she led us over to one of the larger tables. “Five full breakfasts, please. We have a long hike in front of us.”

  “Five travellers’ breakfasts it is. That will be 5 gold.” I pulled out the money and passed it to her. “Thank you, I’ll bring them out shortly.”

  “So, how did you find this place?” I asked, looking around at the decoration. It wasn’t what I would usually expect from my friends, so the food must be exceptional.

  “So…errr…” Peachy started, the tips of her index fingers touching each other. “I got lost…and stumbled down an alley, and here it was…”

  I eyed her, then turned to Jacobs “So…” I said to him, “How did you get lost and find this place?”

  “Hey!” Peachy called out defensively.

  “Peachy, you are a great wife, but we both know out of the two of you, who has the sense of direction,” I said to her.

  “It is why you are the main tank,” agreed Damian.

  Jacobs gave his wife a hug. “I was looking for a shop which sells healing gear. There is a crafter on the next street over.”

  “Three streets over…” muttered Peachy.

  “Three streets over,” repeated Jacobs. “I took a wrong turn,” he shrugged, “and came in here to ask directions. Ended up staying for lunch and then brought everyone else back here for the next meal.”

  “Beats the rations,” said Damian.

  The waitress came back a few minutes later with a tray with five plates on it. Breakfast consisted of several rashers of bacon, a couple of eggs, some sausages, baked beans, some toast, mushrooms and half a baked tomato. I tucked in, and it tasted delicious.

  “Thanks!” we called out as we headed for the door.

  “Delicious as always!” Peachy added.

  “Thank you. Come again!” responded the waitress.

  “One well-fed buff, with a bonus to walking speed. Good call.” I said, rubbing my belly in satisfaction as we rejoined the main road heading east.

  “Indeed. I can already feel a spring in my step from the buff as well,” said Damian.

  Our journey took us down through the city, past the Warden’s camp, and then onto an old road. For the first ten minutes, the road took us through blocks of increasingly taller towers. Then we came upon an open park area, where I figured the Warden’s camp would move to as they cleared more and more of the city. We saw a few groups of players mostly exploring the area, though a couple were fighting monsters just off the road. Much to GoldenFist’s disappointment, nothing attacked us. I wouldn’t have minded the distraction either if I’m being honest.

  Not long after we left behind the park area, the road started to rise up onto a flyover, which took us out of the city and into the hills. It was interesting looking out over this part of the city. You could see how nature had moved in from the north and how much more overgrown the towers looked the further we went. In the far distance, I could see humongous flying creatures circling some of the towers. Some of the closer ones looked more like giant vines than buildings. A couple had even fallen into each other.

  The road’s route took it out of the city and up into the hills, which created a natural barrier to the east, a barrier the road’s creators had decided to cut a hole through rather than climb over.

  It also felt like a barrier between zones, as the city felt unburdened in comparison to the oppressive feeling of pressure we felt as we crossed over into the hills.

  I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts and feelings, either in the comments below or if you haven't already, reviews are always appreciated. :)