Elijah wandered through the streets of Klade. If he were being honest, he hadn’t really known what to do with himself the last couple of days. The drive to reach Celestial was in the back of his mind, and he felt he should do something that gained experience rather than relaxing.

  His friends needed the break though after the events of the last week. The Heartwood trials, the fight against the Reaper army, and then the botched trial at the Temple of Creation. All of it had worn them out, and they needed a vacation. This was still just a game after all; it was meant to be fun and enjoyable, right? Even trapped as they were.

  Sasha’s Babysitting Service was relaxing back in their respective inn rooms, but Elijah was getting restless. He needed something to do, even if it meant braving the busy city streets.

  There were far fewer people than there had been during Sasha and his journey to the market in Nethy. From what he had gathered, most people had chosen to isolate themselves after the glitch, unwilling to brave the dangers of this world when logging out wasn’t an option. He didn’t blame them; they didn’t know the extent of the trouble they’d found themselves in. They hoped a developer would figure out how to pull the plug and log everyone out. Bo had been the one to set Elijah straight after he considered that course of action, but not everyone was lucky enough to have a former developer of the game in their party.

  He approached the door of the guildhall, taking the steps in twos. When he went inside, he was relieved to find that the man sitting behind the counter didn’t have a player tag over his head. Raystown had made him uncomfortable, and finding out that Scarlet had been a member of the Reapers had only confirmed his suspicion that something was very wrong in that city.

  ”Good morning,” he told the clerk sitting behind the desk. “There was a little bit of confusion when I registered my guild in another city. Would it be possible for you to check some things for me?”

  The man looked up and flashed him a bright smile. “Of course, sir.” He produced a glowing green orb from behind the counter and held it out to Elijah. “Would you mind placing your hand on our detector? It will load up all the details from your previous registration into my system here.”

  Elijah almost laughed. The game could surely transfer that information without a physical medium like this, but the attention to the aesthetic was wonderful. He did as the man asked.

  ”Ah, welcome to Klade, Mister Elijah. It is an honor to have you here in the city.”

  Elijah was immediately on edge. As an NPC, this man shouldn’t be able to see his player tag, so how did he know Elijah’s name? Not to mention the man’s demeanor, which had already been warm and friendly, seemed to shift to one of almost reverence.

  “You know who I am?”

  The man—Elijah needed to remember to get his name—nodded his head. “Yes, well, no. I know of you from your specific class. It is unique, is it not?”

  Elijah nodded his head, and the man’s smile resumed its place on his face. “As I said, it is an honor to have you in the city. My name is Jefflan Wright, if you or—“ His edges of his lips quivered as he seemed to read something on the orb. It took him several seconds to regain his composure. “If you or Sasha’s Babysitting Service need any assistance, please let me know.”

  Elijah understood. The man, for all his reverence and composure, thought the name was just as funny as Elijah did. Though with a name like Jefflan he didn’t have much room to talk about funny names.

  “So, our guild is properly registered?”

  Jefflan nodded. “Yes, sir, all your paperwork has been filed and is in proper order. Do you mind my asking why you were concerned that your guild might not be properly registered?”

  Elijah had to consider his response. This was an NPC. The game’s AI had to know what was going on in Raystown even if it couldn’t directly interfere. He had to figure out the best way to explain that players had taken the place of NPCs without it being lost on Jefflan by the game’s perception filters.

  ”Some people who shouldn’t be in the position took over the guild hall in Raystown, as well as some other offices around the city. Members of the Reapers Guild, if the name means anything to you.”

  Jefflan nodded his head. “We were aware that something had happened. The hall’s communication crystal from that city has been silent for about a year now. We figured there was some sort of issue with the crystal itself because registrations kept being sent to the central database.”

  “Do you think you would be able—“ the man froze mid-sentence. It was like all the other times that the game’s AI had been trying to process changes, but Elijah didn’t feel any code being rewritten. It seemed more like the AI was deleting code wholesale rather than modifying it. A quest box popped into Elijah’s vision for a split second before vanishing again. He felt it was like a ball that had been chucked at his head but smacked out of the air before it could contact him.

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  Jefflan’s character model glitched slightly and returned to a neutral position as if he’d never been speaking at all. “Sorry, were you saying something, Mister Elijah?”

  Elijah thanked the man and left. It was a weight off his shoulders that, even though the corruption of Raystown had been prevalent, they had at least figured out how to file the paperwork properly. Though the game’s sudden refusal to send him on the quest, it had obviously written to fix the situation in Raystown bothered him.

  He stopped in his tracks as he got to the foot of the stairs. Why had he even come here? What purpose did ensuring that they’d be able to take missions serve? Sure, this was a game and there were rules in place and bureaucracy included for realism, but he had a mission that superseded all of that. He had to get back on the mission; he’d spent too much time screwing around already. He had to find something to kill so he could gain experience.

  He summoned his scouts and sent them circling to find somewhere secluded that he could teleport from. His friends could rest and relax; he needed to get some level grinding done.

  They found a spot a few streets over, and he recalled them as he walked towards it. They were acting lazy, as if they had something better to do than to land and be reabsorbed back into his shadow. Once they had finally returned, one of them veered off away from his arm and started circling high in the sky. He closed his eyes and focused on the connection to it, curious about what it had seen or heard that had startled it.

  It didn’t take long to spot it; he had a tail. The bat was doing lazy figure eights, making sure to keep the person in view but not to be obvious about it.

  He knew he should ignore this. He should just teleport away and forget about whatever nonsense was on its way to mess with him, but curiosity had gotten the better of him. Was this a Reaper keeping tabs on him, or something else?

  He tried to split his perception between his own senses and the senses of the bat. It still gave him a headache, but every time he practiced, it got a bit easier. The follower didn’t seem to realize that they were being watched as Elijah led them through several back alleys. When they were finally far away enough from the crowds, he hid himself in a shadowy corner and waited for his pursuer. They vanished from the bat’s senses just as they turned the last corner before reaching Elijah.

  He had the bat circle closer, looking for any hint of them. Behind him, someone cleared their throat, causing him to jump in shock and summon his Batwing Blade. He brought the weapon to bear but only slashed through open air.

  ”You didn’t think that your little scout went unnoticed, did you?” A soft male voice echoed from above him. He looked up and saw a player, the one who had been following him, peering down from a window ledge. The ledge seemed like it should be too small to support a person’s weight, but there they were anyway. He couldn’t see their name or class on their player tag and was immediately on guard. So far, only Reapers had been able to obscure that information. Though with them the entire tag had been hidden, not just their information.

  ”Who are you?” Elijah asked, taking a step away from the man. His sword was still at the ready, and the bats circled him in a tight pattern. Hopefully, they’d prevent anyone from being able to sneak up on him.

  The man dropped from the windowsill and bowed deeply. “Relax, I’m not here to hurt you. I heard we had a couple of uniques spotted in the temple. Teleported in by one of the Mage of Fate’s flowers.” He leaned against the wall and crossed his legs, his body language shouting that he didn’t want Elijah to consider him a threat.

  ”Okay? So you’ve confirmed that a player with a unique class is in the city,” Elijah growled. He didn’t care that this person was trying to act nonthreatening. He’d spent enough time being at a disadvantage. “What is it to you? And you never answered my question about who you are.”

  A thought pushed itself into Elijah’s mind. He didn’t know if it would work, but if it did, it would multiply his ability to project his force. He had a bat land on his outstretched wrist before flying off towards the roofs of the buildings.

  ”I take it your rogue friend I heard about hasn’t unlocked a thief specialization yet?” The man chuckled, and suddenly his information appeared.

  [Player]

  Name: Shyrain

  Class: Rogue | Level: 18

  HP: 55 / 55

  At least in this one case, he was faced with a comparable opponent if things went south. Though comparable was probably an overestimation of this man’s abilities. Elijah had managed to take on the Flesh Reaver Tom, even if it had been a close thing. Against a single similarly leveled player, he likely wouldn’t struggle that much.

  ”I’ll be honest, when you stopped outside the Guild Hall, I thought you’d spotted me. My name’s Shyrain. I’m one of the runners for the thief guild in this city. They sent me out to check and see if you or your companions were valuable.”

  Elijah’s grip tightened on his sword at the same time that his familiars dropped out of the sky and landed in front of Shyrain. Elijah had replaced a bat’s necrosis ability with his ‘Bitter Dominion’ spell. When the bat activated the spell, it had drawn three times the normal mana to cast like that, and it had killed the bat as the three familiars sprang forth from it.

  ”This food, Boss?” Bitter Root asked, staring at the rogue.

  “That depends on what he says next, whether he was planning on robbing me and my friends or something else.”

  Shyrain chuckled. “That’s quite the ability you have there. I think you are valuable, but not for your stuff. Why don’t you follow me and we can discuss a job I might have for you?” His eyes dropped from Elijah to Bitter Root, who was growling and snarling at the Rogue.

  ”Especially him, I think he could be quite useful indeed.”

  Elijah called his three familiars back. He’d wanted a quest of some sort after all, and that’s exactly what was being presented to him now.