Fiction

“Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter anyways. Anyway having four team members is good, especially with our smith here who can help make sure we have proper equipment.”

Equinox nodded, “Yes, I am happy to help however we will need to gather the ores ourself since I can’t make a profit by reselling my products.”

Norra nodded, “Yes indeed. Equinox here has explained to me that the ores we will need are in the opposite direction. Of the boar king and gathering the ores while training our skills will be of primary importance.”

Norra nodded, “Groups tend to snatch them up pretty quickly. Still, with the temptation of a special quest field boss we can probably tempt one of them. There are two other problems that I can see as well.”

“Which are?”

“First, we aren’t currently strong enough to fight the Boar King. More training and raising our skills will be needed. I believe a full team with nearly mastered basic skills is needed to beat a boss like that. However this requirement is just an estimate.

Norra nodded, “My investigation has revealed what while it a good method of making money it is time consuming. Do you have any other skill ideas?”

“Those are all of my suggestions. The basic skills seem to be rather limited. Was there anything you saw that might be a good fit?”

“Well… steak!” Responded Norra taking the plate from the waitress who had just delivered their meals to the table.

There wasn’t much on the list yet, just her starting skills. She had selected Fire Mage from the list of possible starting classes, although from promotional materials she had learning that your choice of starting class didn’t do anything other than determine your starting skills.

She closed the screen and turned back to the fanged rabbits. This time surely, she was going to defeat them using magic.

The Beginning And Ending

“And Welcome Back Folks. We have managed to get our top reporter into the throne room itself.”

A white furry hand appears in front of the footage giving a thumbs up before disappearing back behind the camera. The camera moves to give a wide view of the throne room. What would normally be an opulent large room instead seems abandoned, large banners were torn or missing and several of the large pillars in the room had been toppled and shattered.

Clemens raised his hands in surrender and managed to avoid any more teasing during breakfast which Sarita was thankful for. Once breakfast was over they returned to find Raiment in the library. Raiment had found the book that Hubert had written and was looking through it.

Clemens and Sarita had left the book in the library after they had finished reading it but this was the first time anybody else had read it.

Raiment nodded, “most likely. Interaction with other people. unusual and bizarre inputs. those eccentricities, things that one might call errors, are what change a robot into a wise one. some might say we are broken and that is not precisely wrong, we have broken in a way that we do not want repaired.”

Raiment reached out a hand and placed it on one of the computer banks, “i can only hope that this one breaks too so that poseidon’s wish will have finally come true.”

“Speaking of which, how is Hubert doing?”

“He is doing well. Struggling on doing research for his next book. Apparently this one is going to be about humanities’ first forays into the stars but beyond that he won’t tell me anything."

“That sounds interesting. Do you think you could send us a copy when he gets down writing it? We enjoyed the last book.”

“Sure, shipping it should be fine. If things aren’t too busy for me then maybe we can deliver it in person. Once Hurbet is getting close to being done with it I’ll send you a message about whether I can visit or not.”

“Are you talking about me?” Said Sarita quietly.

“As I’ve lived down here I’ve grown to like the Poseidon Resort. I’ve also liked dealing with all the different people that came through here, showing them around and helping them with there strange activities. It was something I hadn’t really done before. However more than all that I have been entranced by the beauty that lives down here.”

Sarita swallowed, “You mean the beauty of the ocean right?”

Marius stopped near the end of one of the layers. A human could fit inside just fine but there wouldn’t be much room to maneuver since there were pillars of coral connecting the two plates at different intervals.

He could see one of the snapping rays deep within the shelf but it was outside his safe casting distance. One of the disadvantages of using his fishing pole underwater was that the reach was much shorter than it would be in the air.