Axel tossed a metal ball the size of a small car across the room, where it landed in a net, pulling a weighted machine a couple inches into the air.

  Gladieal—having recovered from his shock—had finished my test and started Axel’s.

  To the surprise of absolutely no one, he obliterated every test he had been set against, beating several union records.

  “Well, you’re already a low Iron,” Gladieal said, reading through his notes. “And from what we know, you’re only going to continue getting stronger. Right now, it’s most important to train your mind.” When he said this, he also addressed Junior and Sern. “I would especially recommend that for you. Npcs tend to have certain advantages over players when it comes to the mind.”

  “Sure.” Junior snorted.

  Gladieal clicked his tongue. “When an Npc is given an order, they enter a separate mental state which uses a robotic logic rather than an emotional one, and harnessing that can offer upwards of a hundred times the mental capacity of the average player. So yes, you have quite an advantage. Perhaps Axel can teach you, after his training.”

  Sern stepped forward, grabbing the black orbs.

  “Oh, dear, those are a little heavy—” Gladieal cut off, glancing into her eyes.

  {Serenity (Sern for Short)}

  [Lead]

  [100,000 Str]

  She chucked an orb, piercing through the net, the metal plating and shattering an inch into the tower’s bone foundations. Fire snarled up her wrist, then dissipated, leaving behind small burns.

  Gladieal swallowed hard. “...Do you want to enter the Union’s training program?”

  She shrugged, walking over to Axel with her nose in the air.

  “Axel,” Axel stated.

  “Well,” I said, turning to Gladieal. “Is that all for the test?”

  “What?---Oh, yeah,” he said, nodding. “Yeah that’s all. Union training starts every day at noon in the large silver building directly behind the agency. I’d advise against missing lessons, though you don’t have to start today. You could, but you don’t have to.”

  We walked outside the agency.

  “Time,” I called, pulling up the screen.

  {Time}

  [11:48]

  “We could make it, if we wanted,” I said.

  Junior crossed his arms. “I won’t be able to go in, and Sern’s going to have to stick by your side.”

  Sern huffed.

  “Can’t we do something else?” Junior whined.

  I took another look back at the monolithic building behind us. Work and training would always be around, no matter where I went.

  Why rush? We had all the time in the world.

  I smirked. “Where to, Junior?”

  He blinked back. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” I said. “All this time and we haven’t had a day for fun.”

  “Yeah, I guess not,” Junior said. He bobbed up and down on his heels. “So…where are we going to go?”

  “Let’s just wander around.”

  The city of Kizota—spinning the entirety of the shell of the monster Kizota—was primarily built through bone, which wasn’t much of a surprise, considering that it was everywhere and the bone of a titan would probably be far, far stronger than any man made material in the area.

  But two things were surprising. First off, most every bone had a very organic connection to the ground, almost as the houses had grown out of it.

  And second, there were plenty of things other than bone running over the entire city. Besides the various bone streets, there were long stretches of grass and flowers, raised up from patches of dirt. Further away from the heart of the city, we started finding trees, sometimes alone, sometimes in tight clusters.

  After a mile of walking, we came to the ocean.

  Water spilled out, lapping at the bone-carved docks, glistening a soothing blue.

  “How is this possible?” I asked myself, dipping down to the water. It was cold and peaceful.

  A firm hand pulled me back and bright eyes met mine.

  “Whoa there,” the guard chuckled. “Can’t get too close.”

  Just a second after he spoke, shadowy figures swam out from the water, hurtling around and around in a spiral. The guard flicked his wrist and they scattered.

  “WaterMongrols,” he whispered. “Can tear the meat from a body faster than a man can scream.”

  He flashed a brighter smile. “Welcome to Lake Kizota!”

  Junior looked down into the water. “Is this place…safe?”

  “Well, no not really,” the guard chuckled. “Not if you’re alone. Or when you’re in a group, actually. Or if you’re especially strong or weak. I’d head over to the pier—they’re a lot of strong people around, so the lake monsters aren’t going to bother you.”

  “How is there a lake and why are there monsters in it?” I asked.

  “Well I’m not a tour guide, so I couldn't tell you how there’s a giant lake on the side of a giant turtle in the middle of a desert…” the guard cleared his throat. “But the monster bit is kinda obvious. Cores spawn in the water all the time, feed off Kizota's residual magic what-not, and break their dungeons, spilling all sorts of monsters into the wild. And since there’s so many monsters, they tend to eat each other, so nobody pays them much attention. It’s like—”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Aaaaxxxxeeelllll.“

  The guard glanced at the hairy white giant. “Yeah, actually.”

  “Hang on,” I muttered. “There are Cores here too?“

  “There are cores everywhere kiddo,” he chuckled.

  “And they’re stronger here?”

  “Far stronger. On the bright side, they’re pretty docile, since they don’t need a constant supply of player exp to fuel their ascent. Or these ones here don’t. They’ll still eatcha’ though.” the guard beamed. “What’re you fine folks doing around here?”

  Sern pointed to the end of the pier, toward the masses of people.

  “Ah, the carnival,” the guard chuckled. “Nice place, if you’ve got some Qualms.”

  “Qualms?” I asked.

  “Money.”

  “Ah.”

  He closed his eyes, thinking really hard for a couple seconds, before a bright white box appeared over his head.

  {New Quest!}

  [Investigate the Carnival for signs of the [Peacekeeper Cultists]]

  [?/?]

  [Required materials provided : Qualms]

  ~unknown reward~

  [Y/N]

  “Voila!” He said, chuckling. “What do you think? Up for the challenge?”

  I just stared at the words cultists over and over again, debating myself. “I’m not sure—”

  “Relax Grind, we just have to scope out the area.” Junior said. “We’ll do your quest.”

  Nothing happened.

  “Sorry kid,” the guard said. “Takes a player.”

  All eyes turned on me.

  “This sounds dangerous,” I muttered.

  “You said you wanted to have fun!” Junior whined. “Besides, he obviously just created a new quest, all for us!”

  The guard scratched the back of his silver-armored head. “Well sort of, the cultists are quite real and there is a bounty so I could use some help getting rid of them. But I also want an excuse to send a nice group of folks on your way to the carnival with a little money.”

  “See?” Junior asked.

  I took a deep breath. “Oh all right. We’re due for some good luck anyway. Yes, the quest is accepted.”

  “That’s the spirit,” the guard chuckled.

  Immediately, a bag of small copper tokens fell into my hands. They were little hexagons with another, small hexagon hole in their center.

  “Weird currency,” I muttered.

  “By the way, those are coppers,” the guard said. “That’s about ten Tin each, or maybe one bronze ring each? I’m not so great with exchange rates. Oh but in the real cities players use digital currency otherwise you could just magic Qualms in. Though magic Qualms are traceable while digital currency hikes aren’t, if you’re sneaky, so really the people smart enough to magic Qualms benefit most from a digital system.” He started cackling. “Not that I’m an economist. Or a tour guide. Have fun at the carnival.”

  We went down to the Carnival and exchanged a couple of Qualms just to get through the door, leaving us with thirteen copper Qualms to split between the four of us. For each game, there was a price, as well as some sort of prize.

  We never won anything—the games were all mostly skill based, and you could only participate in games of equal or higher tier to your own. For us, they were all too hard, with the exception of a hammer game that Sern gave a try, where you had to hit three targets that could appear in six different locations.

  She rolled up the sleeves of her dress, and, after one hit, flattened the entire machine.

  We were kicked out of the carnival shortly afterward.

  Junior laughed, chatting fervently with Sern, and even occasionally with Axel, celebrating the moment. Sern would huff, and shrug him off, like it was no big deal, but she clearly relished in his enthusiasm.

  “Grind!” Junior called, grabbing my attention. “What are you doing?”

  “Hmm?” I asked, looking up from behind a table. “Sorry, just doing the quest.”

  “That completed a while ago,” Junior muttered. “C’mon, have some fun.”

  Once we’d traveled the four different areas of the first section of the carnival, the quest had flashed, indicating that despite our ‘search’, we had found no cultists, and, as such the quest was completed, indicating that we were to return to the unnamed guard.

  “Grind,” Junior called, waving a hand over my face. “You’re not paying attention again.”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, smiling. “I’m just trying to make sure, that’s all.”

  “Hey!” The guard called, walking up from the pier. “How was your fantastic quest?”

  Junior squinted. “Have you been waiting up here this whole time?”

  “It’s literally the only thing I do!” The guard Npc laughed, tossing his head back.

  He did not seem particularly stable.

  The guard cleared his throat. “At least I get a fantastic musculature out of all of it, otherwise I’d get pretty annoyed with myself!” He took a break to start flexing.

  “Yes, the quest,” I said. “So…unknown rewards?”

  “Oh yeah, that thing,” he said, concentrating. The notification appeared.

  {Objective Complete}

  [Investigate the Carnival for signs of the [Peacekeeper Cultists] : Complete]

  ~

  [Locate the [Peacekeeper Cultists] : Incomplete]

  ~

  [Hidden reward.]

  For the first time, the guard frowned, poking his quest. “Weird. I didn’t mean to actually make you go looking for it.” He shrugged. “Sorry folks, but you’ll just have to ignore it. Though it is a little weird to have some spontaneous quest develop additional stipulations.”

  He scratched his chin.

  “Axxxeeelllll,” Axel hissed.

  “Yeah, I feel you,” the guard nodded. “Oh well. Hope you folks had fun.”

  I smiled, handing him the bag, with the remainder of his money. “We did. And thank you.”

  “Thank me? It wasn’t mine,” the guard chuckled, shoving the bag back. “The system just manifests a little whenever you have a quest. In fact, you four come back around whenever you want to hit the carnival, and I’ll getcha another, free of charge.”

  Junior grabbed my hand, pulling me down the street. “C’mon Grind, it’s getting late. If we’re not grabbing loot we should head home.”

  “As a guard, I would definitely recommend that,” the guard said. “There's a lot of danger in this world, and most of it comes out at night. Which would be about…” he stared up into the darkening sky. “...Now. Of course we are on a giant turtle so not many monsters get anywhere near us. At worst, you might have two-headed lice under your pillow.”

  “There goes my appetite,” Junior gagged.

  My eyes widened. “We haven’t even had dinner yet, have we?”

  Axel threw his hands in the air.

  Thankfully, the union had left us some fresh food—sliced bread, ham, and cheese, which was incredibly easy to put together, unlike the seafood.

  Sern bit down into soft bread, grimacing. She blew smoke over the crust, charring her sandwich. She took another, larger bite, before frowning again.

  Axel took her sandwich, wandered over to the stove, and set it on fire. He then promptly returned.

  Sern nodded into thanks, before stuffing the whole thing into her mouth.

  “Well today was fun, wasn’t it?” I asked, pushing an empty plate away.

  Junior sighed. “Yeah, but now it’s over, and you’re going to be gone for so long tomorrow.”

  “Oh come on,” I said. “It won’t be at the Union much. We can spend some time together in the morning.”

  Junior gave me a reluctant nod before heading off to bed.

  “Thanks for helping him, Axel, Sern,” I said, smiling at each of them. “He loves the company.”

  Axel shrugged, and Sern suddenly excused herself from the table.

  Oh well.

  The trash was overflowing, so I dragged it out the door, down the steps of the apartment complex, and into the dumpsters around the refugee neighborhood.

  As I turned back, a notification chimed.

  {Quest Complete}

  [Investigate the Carnival for signs of the [Peacekeeper Cultists] : Complete]

  [Locate the [Peacekeeper Cultists] : Complete]

  [You have earned (14) copper Qualms]

  ~

  [(+10) 10% Progression to [Tin]]

  “What?” I mumbled, swatting the notification out of the way.

  Then the screaming started.