At the End of the Day

Almost as soon as I stepped off the shrine, the guild's in-game inbox started exploding with messages. I chose to mute them immediately.

I stepped down from the shrine, rubbing my left temple with my free hand. The other currently held the bell that had started this whole fiasco.

"Ven what does it mean when a guild owns an area?" I asked.

Ven pressed his finger to his chin, "Well, it means you can participate in guild wars. The losing guild obviously gives up their land if they lose. Though, you can just choose not to accept and not risk anything. A guild that owns that area can set things like taxes. The things they can do are endless. I hear there's a guild that owns Fortis that imposes a ridiculous tax on the area they own…"

"Oh god, this seems like a pain," I thought, trying not to visibly show my annoyance at the whole situation. I didn't want to be tied to this island because I was stuck running things. Granted there wasn't anyone here besides Ven, but still.

"Alright, next question. Was this island really cursed?" I asked.

Ven tilted his head in confusion. "Cursed by what?" he replied.

"I should leave the bit about accepting the Demon King's Affection to myself probably..." I thought.

"I heard… a voice say that the curse on the island was lifted. Could the perpetual night have been a curse placed on the island?" I asked.

"It's certainly possible. It would explain the state the island is in general," Ven answered.

"I wonder why someone would curse this place," Quinn said.

"I guess Ven here lucked out by leaving when he did, huh?" said Liam.

—

While the island now looked much more livelier, Fiole Town still looked just as depressing; except it was now sunny and depressing. I don't know if I was expecting something miraculous to happen in town after the curse was lifted, but I can say that maybe I thought the town would fix itself.

Wishful thinking I suppose.

"Should we just raze the town to the ground and start new?" I thought, biting my lip. I glanced over at Ven, who was already staring at me. I flashed him a smile and he quickly averted his eyes.

Ven probably wouldn't appreciate us setting his hometown on fire so that was out of the question.

We would just have to deal with what we had.

"Oh," Liam said suddenly, causing us to stop in our tracks.

"What?"

"It's getting kind of late. Don't you have to go to sleep for work?" He asked.

I looked at the time. It was now around midnight and I had to be up by six. "Urgh, dammit," I grumbled. "Let's get Ven to the headquarters and then I'll log off."

"Oh… that explains a lot," Ven mumbled to himself.

"What does?" Quinn asked.

"The three of you are otherworlders," he replied.

Is that what they called players in this game?

"Sure are!" Liam said, giving him a thumbs up.

"So that means you guys are going to disappear…" Ven trailed off.

The three of us seemed to know where this was going. Until we logged back on, our NPC buddy was going to be left all alone on the island.

I could see Liam covering his face. Quinn looked down at Mangetsu who licked his cheek happily.

"We'll be back, Ven. Don't worry," I said, patting his shoulder.

He looked down at me. He didn't seem wholly convinced by my words.

I remembered the blue ribbon I had gotten from beating up slimes. I took it out of my bag and handed it to him. "Keep it safe for me," I said.

Ven looked as if I had actually given him something of significant importance. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was just junk loot I didn't want to use for myself. Besides, he had long beautiful white hair. He could use it to tie it up so it wouldn't keep getting in his face.

With that matter solved, we continued on our way.

—

As soon as we made it to our temporary headquarters, the quest Ven had given us was marked as complete.

"Thank you all for protecting me," He said, bowing his head. "I don't have much to offer, but I hope that these will suffice." He took an eyeglass case out of his pocket and flipped it open. In it were three different colored crystals.

"Uh h-hey these look pretty expensive," Liam stammered, staring at the crystals. "Are you sure we can have these?" He looked up at Ven who smiled at him.

I could see why Liam was so hesitant to take a crystal from him. They had strangely high stats on them. One of them, a green one, had +100 WIS, which was alchemist's main stat. Considering I only had 15 WIS right now, that was insane. The red one had +100 INT and the blue one had +100 EVA.

"Of course you can, I owe you my life… Plus, I'm hoping you'll come with me to see the king whenever you three have a chance…"

"You know it! We'll help you with whatever! Besides, you're our friend now!" Liam cheered. He snatched the blue crystal from the case.

"Thanks, Ven," Quinn said as he plucked the red one.

"Yes, if you need help doing anything we'll be glad to help." I gave him a smile. I turned my back to him and held it in the air.

Today was fun.

I couldn't remember the last time I had this much fun doing anything. I got to explore a desolate island with my brothers and our new friend. We fought (pardon, ran) from an overpowered monster. We cleaned a house. We made a guild. Fought some slimes. Claimed an island. There was no way in hell I would stop playing this game now.

"Well, this is where I log off," I waved at the group. "See you guys tomorrow."

"See ya!" Liam waved back.

"Thanks again, Fl- I mean Lucky," Quinn said. Mangetsu barked at me too. I assumed he was saying goodbye.

—

I had a hard time falling asleep when I finally laid down. I decided to browse game forums to see if I could find out little bits of information about the game.

Only to find out that people were freaking out about Helianthus, Flamel Island, and Ephemera (Quinn).

[Umber: Who the hell is Helianthus? I checked to see what level the leader was and they were only level 1!]

[ThisIsNotYourStop: Wait fr? Lvl 1?]

[Umber: Yeah, level 1. I checked a few minutes ago and they are now level 9.]

[ThisIsNotYourStop: Wht class?]

[Umber: Alchemist]

[Oshino: That person Ephemera is in the guild too. They are only level 9 also. How the fuck did he managed to tame a field boss at that level?]

[PolkaDotsAndRainbow: Alts of high ranking players?]

[Umber: It's impossible to have alts. They'd have to wipe their high level character completely. I don't see anyone in their right mind doing that.]

[Oshino: Maybe they're just some lucky newbies.]

[Umber: lol the leader's name is Lucky.]

[PinkMarker: haha what no way.]

[PonderingTheOrbWithMyPals: How did they claim Flamel Island?]

[Oshino: I wanna know that too! I went to Flamel Island once on my guild's boat but there was nothing there but a desolate town and some shrine. There were no NPCs, just some low level mobs.]

[PonderingTheOrbWithMyPals: My guild leader tried to send them a guild wars invitation.]

[Umber: And what level is your guild leader?]

[PonderingTheOrbWithMyPals: …150]

[Umber: Your guild leader tried to send a /newbie guild/ a guild wars invitation? What a scumbag.]

[PonderingTheOrbWithMyPals: Yeah. He was saying how he wanted the island for us. At least Helianthus' guild was smart enough to reject it.]

—

I ended up falling asleep reading the forums. I even ended up having dreams about playing the game. I was pretty excited to get off of work and play with my brothers again. At least today I would have much more time.

I stood at a pedestrian crossing waiting for the light to change.

"Oh, fancy meeting you here," a familiar voice said from my left.

I looked to my left and saw the lotto guy from yesterday. He looked as god-like as he did yesterday. I bet he didn't even have to put any effort into getting ready. I could just imagine him rolling out of bed and already being ready to go.

"Hey," I said, turning to look ahead.

"Did you try the game out?" He asked.

"Yeah. Sure did," I replied.

"So? How was it?" He asked.

"It was really fun. Like really fun," I turned to look back at him, "I'm really, really glad I won that lotto…"

"That's great to hear," he smiled, "You looked like you had a terrible day yesterday."

I scratched the bridge of my nose. "Yeah, my boyfriend left me for someone in the game."

"Really? Left you?" Green-eyed guy seemed genuinely surprised by this. "Well that is fa-"

A car horn blew at that moment so I didn't get to hear what he said. I just nodded my head and smiled, pretending to hear what he said.

"Do you play?" I asked. I doubted someone that looked like him would even touch a game. I didn't wanna go into geek mode in front of someone who barely understood what I was talking about.

"Oh, not so much anymore," he replied.

This caught me by surprise. I tried not to show it on my face.

"Well, if you ever start playing again let me know. I mean, that is, if you don't mind playing with a bunch of newbies and our mascot NPC," I laughed.

"Mascot NPC?" He asked.

"Oh yeah! We made friends with this NPC in Fiole Town," I replied. The light changed and the two of us started walking across the street.

"You'll have to tell me more about him next time," He said, flashing me a smile. He stopped in front of the shop where I had met him the day before. He pulled a pen out of his pocket. "Do you have a piece of paper?"

I reached into my bag and pulled out an old receipt. He took it and scribbled something on it. He handed it back to me.

{Eurus: XXX-XXX-XXXX}

I stared at it dumbfounded.

Did this guy just give me his number?

Me?

Oh. Wait. He probably just wants to chat about the game.

"Text me if you ever just want someone to talk to. I'd also like to hear more about you playing the game since you seem to like it a lot. Maybe I'll even get back into it," He gave me a toothy grin before disappearing into the store.