“Those rules seem easy enough to follow,” James said, and was cut off before he could continue.

  “But what about expectations, those rules are what he cannot do, what are we required to do.” Stacy said, giving James an admonishing look as if he was about to buy a lemon from a used car lot.

  “I’ll leave that up to Bethany to explain.” He said with a smile, she was still shaken by the way he had spoken to her, but it didn’t shake her trust in him.

  Bethany gave Eli a look that said, we will discuss that later, Eli gave a little nod in agreement which brought back some of her cheeriness. She sat down and gave them a quick rundown of how their little group and town worked. She explained the town itself which neither of them believed at all, then she told them that their group would remain small so there was no worry about getting lost in the shuffle of people.

  “The main thing we require is growth, grow stronger, grow as a person, and help the group grow as well.” Bethany explained.

  “That sounds too easy,” Stacy said. “What do we get in return?”

  “You get the group, to help and learn from and with, but most of all, you get him.” Bethany said as she pointed to Eli. “When the strongest person on the planet calls you a close friend, you can’t buy that.”

  “I’m not convinced, all of this, the display, it seems like you need us more than we need you.”

  “I’ll make you a deal, stick around for a day, if you still feel the same way then you can leave. No questions asked.” Bethany said. Her instincts were telling her to kill both of them if they didn’t join to protect Eli’s secrets, but she was trying patience this time.

  “Are you saying we can’t leave now?” Stacy asked.

  Bethany leaned in so that her mouth was right next to Stacy’s ear and whispered very softly. “Leaving now would not be good for you.”

  Stacy tensed, but did not flinch, she was used to intimidation. Even with just her ‘B’ movies, other actresses would try and take her roles, as well as perverted producers and directors who said they wouldn’t cast her unless she slept with them. The only way to come out on top of those exchanges, she had to learn to keep her cool, plus she wasn’t above roofying the men then just telling them that they slept together. Her instincts told her that if she just joined, she would be thrown to the bottom of the pile and end up being an errand girl for someone unimportant. She needed to separate herself and negotiate, or just leave after the day was over.

  “One day wouldn’t hurt.” Stacy said. She let some fear slip into her voice to let Bethany think that her intimidation was working. In truth, it was working, but she was going to try and play this to get the role of her acting career, a gods apprentice.

  They still had several hours until it would be dark, so they started making their way to the raid dungeon with James and Stacy as a guide. The first hour or so went by in silence, they were running but at Stacy’s pace since she was the slowest, so they still had a while to go. They stopped for a bit to let her rest, she had been going at her max speed the whole time and needed a breather. Bethany took that time to take Eli aside and ask him what his strangeness had been about, she had never seen him talk to anyone like that before and she was concerned. Not because she didn’t want him talking to her like that, their soul connection made it clear it wasn’t about her personally, he would have done that with anyone.

  “We need to talk about before.” Bethany said.

  “This should explain it.” Eli said then made the Destiny part of his status screen appear for her to read.

  “Destiny: The Unease of Power.”

  “Demi-God or Ruin, Elias Konzak’s cosmic destiny is to be a check on the cruelty and suffering caused by the powerful. Staying on this path will be rewarded, but you must practice what you preach.”

  “The specific wording changes every week or so, I think it's trying to keep me on track.” He said.

  “I have a destiny too,” Bethany said, “But I don’t think it would be a good idea to let you see it.” She wanted to quickly explain herself so he wouldn’t take it the wrong way, but he cut her off quickly.

  Eli put both his hands on either side of her face and pulled her close, he looked deep into her eyes, letting his revert to the natural transcendent state. “I love you, and I trust you. If you think I don’t need to know, then don’t tell me.” Then he kissed her deeply and even through her armor, she melted into him. They held each other for a long peaceful moment before they walked back to the others, they took their time and held hands.

  Just before they got back to the others, Bethany turned to Eli, “I love you too.”

  He squeezed her hand and smiled at her in the most genuinely happy, loving, and sincere expression that she had ever seen a person have. “We will have time for us soon enough, let's get back to business.”

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  “Business huh?” She said as she entered James and Stacy’s earshot. “The only kind of business I want to get to is the kind we shouldn’t do in front of them…” She paused pretending to get an idea, “or maybe we should…” she trailed off mumbling to herself. She couldn’t help teasing them and with how squeamish people still were about sex made it was her ‘go to’ topic. With how things were going so far, as long as they have been in this new world, the sexual hang-ups were never going to go away. She sighed to herself and supposed that it was for the best.

  “Let’s continue on, how much longer until we reach the raid dungeon at this pace?” Eli asked.

  “Well, we don’t really know, we haven’t been there, we just heard the rumors about where it is.” James stammered the words out, afraid that the revelation that they didn’t really know where they were going would end up in some kind of punishment.

  “Not a problem, I’ll check it out,” Eli said, then he vanished, blinking high into the air. The two newbies didn’t understand what was happening. To them, he just silently disappeared. It was like he had never even been there, like an illusion or something. While they were looking around, he reappeared in the same spot, just as silently and just as abruptly.

  “We are going in the general direction, I think it's in this massive sink-hole I saw. If we keep this up, we should be close before dark.” Eli explained.

  “First, where did you go? Second, what happens after dark? Third, are you going into the raid dungeon alone?” Stacy rambled off her questions, she was tired of the silence and she just kind of blurted them out.

  Eli started listing off his answers to each question, “Up. Skill testing. And not alone, we are all going.”

  “Ash, sir, we are not ready for a raid dungeon. We both just got into the 70s in level.” James said.

  “Don’t call me sir,” Eli paused there taking a good look at James. He was an average looking mixed race guy in his twenties. He didn’t seem like the meek type, maybe he was a college athlete before all this, the way he walked and carried himself reminded him of some of the wrestlers he knew in high school. “We will be fine, don’t worry.”

  They encountered a monster about every ten minutes or so, getting stronger as they went. Eli had them take turns fighting them alone, then giving them tips or pointers. James was well on his way to his own fighting style, which from what they have seen is always stronger than copying someone else. Stacy however, was a grab-bag of chaos in a fight. One monster she didn’t even use any magic, just stabbing away with her rapier-like sword. The next she would stay away from it and cast spells, which were also incongruous. She had four nodes but she had only ever used three spells in the fights he had seen so far. She used an air based movement spell, a earth based slowing spell, and a light beam attack that seemed to cost almost no magic, but didn’t do much damage.

  Eli had seen casters like her before in games, she was a control mage. Buffing allies, debuffing enemies, she could control the pace of a fight and keep people from getting overwhelmed. They were essential in large scale fights, but not very useful in small groups. He doubted she even knew about control mages and how to use her abilities for what they were meant for, she seemed to be just doing things without rhyme or reason. Like maybe if she tried everything in a random way she would find some combination that was strong, it was admirable he thought, instead of just thinking she had weak abilities she kept trying to find a way to be strong with them.

  Stacy walked back to the group after her most recent fight, it had been against a rather vicious part giraffe part hydra creature. The fight had taken twenty minutes, but she had won. She was bloody and practically naked since her armor and clothes were in tatters, laying in grass and panting heavily, she looked despondent. Eli got the feeling that with every fight that took longer than usual, she got more frustrated with herself but refused to let herself feel like she was weak.

  Eli sat next to where she was laying and brushed the hair off her face. “You’re not weak, you know.” He said with a serious but kind tone.

  “You must have been watching a different fight,” she replied with a single tear escaping her eye before she shut her emotions away again. “I don’t recall seeing anything that looked particularly strong.”

  Bethany grabbed James’ arm and led him away so that Eli could speak to Stacy privately. “Let's give them some space.” She said as they walked away and she began asking him questions about his life from before the world ended.

  “What do you think strength is, Stacy?” He asked her softly. She was still laying down, her body was healing but not very quickly. He sat next to her but was looking off into the distance as if he was pondering the same question he had just asked her.

  She waited for a moment thinking the question was rhetorical, but when he didn’t speak she gave an answer. “Strength is a measurement,” she paused and thought some more, “a subjective measurement.”

  “I agree, but what does it measure?” he asked, his tone was more of someone who didn’t know the answer than of someone who was trying to lead her to an answer.

  Again, she paused, not sure what kind of answer he wanted. This conversation was starting to feel way more philosophical than she was used to so she was being careful. “The easy answer is that it measures ability, but I don’t think that's right. If I had to give an answer right now, I would say that it’s a comparison.” She was totally guessing but her preparation for a role as a sexy teacher who died in act two of a movie she auditioned for gave her an idea of how to sound smart.

  Eli sat quietly, rubbing his chin, the silence was making her nervous so her mind started to wonder and she lost track of how long the conversation had paused. Then he spoke and even though he spoke softly again, it slightly startled her having forgotten that they were talking.

  “That, my new friend, was the best possible answer to that question that I have ever heard.”

  “How many people have you asked?”

  “Just myself, over and over. Am I strong? Or is it just my abilities and magic that are strong? What's the difference? How would I even know if there was one? Those are some of the things that I think about, like when you found me today laying in the sun.”

  “Do you often lay naked in the sun?” Stacy asked, with just a bit of eagerness leaking into her voice that she put there mostly on purpose.

  “You should try it some time, it really helps. Besides, you saw me, what's the point of enduring the torture of gaining a level 3 body if I'm not going to show it off. Plus I figured I would be less intimidating if I was naked and seemed like an idiot.”

  “You were still intimidating, just not in the way you're thinking.” Stacy responded.