Desert

by Caiden Walker

  The more she thought about it, the better it sounded.

  Finally, she thought to wonder why he'd come looking for her. "Are the others up now?" she asked.

  "Yup, and Nika wants to brief everyone on what we found out about the new game add-on this morning and come up with a plan before we head out. They are taking turns in the shower and she's getting breakfast brought down to the cellar for us."

  Louella started heading for the door even though she was a bit confused. "Did something happen this morning that I missed?"

  He laughed. "Quite a lot actually, but don't feel bad about it. Nika and I kind of sneaked out on you all to check out the Trials of Meekapu. We were feeling a bit old and out of it as we seemed to be the only ones that weren't familiar with the game."

  "It's one of the easiest games there is to learn," Louella said. "I think it was actually designed with little kids in mind originally, but then grown-ups discovered it and it became a craze."

  "After our brief run this morning, I can see why," Evan said grinning at her. "I know that VirTech just did it to mess with us, but it actually might end us helping us. At least from a morale standpoint. It definitely adds a little fun to the game." He lifted his shoulders. "Who knows? Maybe we'll keep it in. Could bring in some more players with this type of game play."

  Louella thought about it for a minute. "Maybe. For me, I'd like to see the games divided. So players had the choice of a straight Gaia's Rebirth play through if that's what they wanted. I can totally see people wanting to come here just for the nature."

  "Now you're starting to sound like Nika," Evan said, tapping his fist against her arm.

  Yeah, if only she had men fighting over her like Nika, she'd be happy. Not that she'd ever thought she stood a chance to have a love life, but the absolute knowing she didn’t was still depressing.

  Being dead really did suck.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Square One

  The food was already on the table when Evan and Louella walked in. The pixie seemed to be in a decent mood, all things considered. Nika looked at Evan, and he gave her a small nod. Good. Louella was okay with not telling the others. It might not be totally fair, but she just didn't feel right adding that stress to their game play. Especially when knowing wouldn't change a damn thing.

  They had already started eating, but there was plenty left for the two stragglers. Sitting down, the two pulled up their pre-loaded plates and dug in. It was good seeing that Louella still apparently had an appetite. Her death in the real world just seemed too bizarre to take to heart, though she didn't doubt the girl's word one bit. You don't cry yourself to sleep on a bathroom floor over nothing.

  After a few bites in silence, Louella looked up from the food. "I'd forgotten to check my new stats last night, but this morning when I went to feed Sunshine he reminded me."

  Nika laughed. "The horse reminded you to check your stats?"

  "Yup," Louella said, glancing over at a grinning Evan. "Guess who can talk to the animals now?"

  "You programmed a creature communication ability at level eleven?" Ash asked. She seemed a bit jealous.

  The pixie nodded. "Yeah, I was afraid I was going to need the company. Turns out, I get to hang out with all of you." She hesitated. "Which is really awesome, so if I haven't thanked you lately for letting me tag along, well, thanks."

  The girl got serious as she finished her small speech and Nika figured Louella was imagining what it would have been like to get that news while all alone in a game. What a horrifying thought, and one she didn't want the girl to dwell on. It hadn't happened, and she needed to move on. As much as she could, anyway.

  "Cool," Nika said, after rinsing down her food with a long sip of the apple juice she'd brought from upstairs. "Maybe I can have you talk to my little Munch and get him to tell us what he is."

  Nika was a bit surprised when three sets of eyes snapped to her.

  "You got a Munch?" Dean's voice was much higher than normal. "In just a few hours of playing?"

  She looked over at Evan, who looked as bewildered as she was. "So I take it this Munch is a rare creature?"

  "You could certainly say that," Ash said slowly. "I played Trials for years and never ran across one. When they instituted the player trade ability to allow the trading of collected monsters, he became a big item on the black market. Totally against the rules of the game to sell creatures for cash, of course, but people did it all the same."

  "If you'd got one, would you really have sold it?" Louella asked.

  Ash hesitated. "I wouldn't have wanted to, but as tough as life is, yeah. I'd have had to sell him. But I would have been forever grateful to the little critter for totally changing my life."

  "They sold for that much?" Evan asked.

  "Oh yes," Dean said. "I checked into getting one, but as much as I wanted him to complete my monster inventory, I wasn't quite willing to pay a hundred grand for one."

  Evan whistled. "Wow, Nika, I think you and I are doing this game thing all wrong. We need to make a few super rare creatures to put into a collection game and then leak a few at a time onto the black market. We'd clean up."

  "Not as much as you think," Ash said. "The more that hit the market, the less they bring in. I've only ever seen three up for sale, and I used to keep a pretty close watch for them." She shrugged. "A gal's gotta dream."

  A hundred grand would certainly make a difference in the life of someone who slung slop for a living. Not that she would ever have to worry about that again. She was determined the girl's life was going to be very different once they got back home.

  "So what is he?" Nika asked, getting back to her earlier curiosity.

  "Well, for starters, he isn't any of the natural elements. Or, maybe I should say, he's all of them. Kind of like a god of monsters. He is supposed to be able to take down almost any creature in the game. Once you level him up, of course."

  "Nice," Nika said. "So I guess I'll have to stay as one of our recruiters then so we can keep him?"

  The others just nodded enthusiastically. Good. She'd known little Munch was special, just not how special.

  "So how many teams are we going to form?" Ash said. "Are we sticking with two like before?"

  Nika shrugged one shoulder. "I'm not sure. What does everyone think?"

  "Well, here is something to consider," Louella said. "You get really good experience points for battling other players in Player to Player combat. But you are limited to only facing a particular opponent one time a day."

  Ash nodded, her eyes widening. "If we could get three teams going, we could battle each other every day and get a great daily experience boost." She grinned at Louella. "That's brilliant."

  The girl blushed and focused on her food. She really needed to learn how to take compliments.

  It sounded like a good plan. As it looked like Blake would be going with them, they could form three teams of two. That would work as long as she didn't get saddled with Blake. She was pretty sure none of the team would expect that and she was right.

  "As I have Tyler to help me fight," Ash said, "how about I take the bard with me?"

  Nika nodded. "You sure you want him?"

  "Hey," Blake said. "I'm sitting right here you know."

  Oh yes, she knew. He was kind of hard to miss, even if he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut most of the time he was around her.

  Ash just nodded. "He's a decent player, even if he is just a bard. And like I said, I have Tyler to even me out on the fighting end of things."

  So Ash was planning on Tyler going forward with them. Nika had figured as much. The boy could only spend so much time with his desert relatives before getting bored. Even if he was just an NPC.

  Nika looked around at the others. "Any preferences for the last two teams?"

  Dean looked over at Louella before answering. "First off, I just want to say that I'd love nothing more than to be paired with the cute little pixie." He gave her a wolfish-looking grin. Or at least he tried. Dean just was
n't the wolf type. "But I'm thinking that maybe we should pair up one experienced player with one, well, not so experienced player."

  Evan's face flashed with disappointment, but Nika didn't think any of the others had caught it. It surprised her to realize she was a bit disappointed too. But Dean was right, it just made sense.

  "Okay, pixie's choice," Nika said. "If that's okay with you, Dean?"

  He nodded. "I'm cool with that." His grin widened and went back to his normal style, which was still a bit on the goofy side. "I'm okay with being mostly the muscle too, so I wouldn't have to be the recruiter on the team."

  Louella looked over at Evan. "Would you mind me as a party member?"

  He smiled and shook his head. "Darling, I was hoping you'd ask," he said. "I'm with Dean on just being the muscle. And I think you'd make a heck of a recruiter."

  She smiled. "I am pretty good at the game."

  "Hey, you know," Ash said. "Me and Dean both admitted never having even seen a Munch in the game, but you didn't say anything. You didn't get one, did you?"

  Louella blushed and looked down at the table. "Not by catching it in the game, no." She sighed. "My parents are pretty wealthy, and they bought me one for my birthday last month."

  "You lucky duck," Dean said. "I don't suppose your parents would be up for adopting a twenty-six-year-old would they?"

  Nika stole a glance at the girl to see how she would respond. She was hoping not with a teary exit from the table. But Louella was stronger than she gave the girl credit for.

  The pixie simply gave a tiny giggle. "I think your parents might object to that, don't you?"

  He shrugged and grinned. "Guess I'll just have to live a Munch-less life then."

  Unless Louella wills him to you, Nika thought. That brought her mind back to the whole player trade ability.

  "Can we back up a bit?" she asked. "The mayor said that if we join up into a larger team later in the game, which we'll need to do before we face Gaia, that one team had to give up their monsters. Could we trade out for the best ones before joining forces?"

  They all looked at Ash. She just shrugged. "How am I supposed to know? I only ever played as an individual. No way was I risking finding a Munch with a whole party that would then expect a cut." She paused, thinking. "Actually, in the original game, there wasn't any need to team up with anyone. You could play it all the way through on your own. The monsters do your fighting for you, and if they die, you just take them to the nearest clinic or give them a revive potion. So I'm thinking the party thing is just for this add-on because there are other monsters in the area. Ones not related to the Trials game."

  "Gaia's monsters." Evan nodded. "Sounds like we're heading into a whole new territory here. I don't see why we couldn't try it out before joining parties. As long as we have the time, of course."

  "If we might be limited on time to band together, then I suggest we have a meeting at the end of every day to keep each other updated on our monster inventories. We don't want to make a huge mistake and lose our best monsters," Dean suggested.

  "Since Nika has already joined the contest and gotten her starter monster, that just leaves me and Ash," Louella said. "Before we go, what did everyone else get with the level upgrade?"

  "I got Armor Smash," Nika said. "It will cut through almost any defense an enemy throws up against me. Should come in handy."

  "You know, I haven't even checked," Evan said. "I was too interested at the time in the contents of the treasure chest." He made the slight hand motions to pull up his stats and immediately started cussing, his face draining of color. His eyes flew to Nika. "I think you better check your stats," he said.

  She did and joined him in the cussing. "They reset us back to level three?" she asked when she finally wound down on her curse words vocabulary.

  "Not me," Louella said, "or I wouldn't have able to talk with Sunshine. I got that at level eleven." She looked over to Ash and Dean.

  They both shook their heads. The two of them still had their precious levels.

  Nika put her face in her hands. "How the hell can a low-level player survive a single fight in the desert? And how can we level up if we don't fight?" Not to mention the dangers of rebooting if Cora had already played her final card. Not that it would matter much in the end.

  Louella reached out and touched Nika's arm. "It might not be as bad as you think." She hesitated. "In fact, if the Trials levels are now joined with the Gaia levels, it might really be a huge blessing."

  Nika peeked out at the girl between her fingers. "How so?"

  "Well, Gaia's Rebirth only has twenty levels now, right?" Louella asked.

  Nika nodded.

  The pixie smiled. "So before the update, the very highest we could go would be up to twenty. Trials has ninety-nine levels." She paused, frowning. "But did Gaia program anything in to make players at the maximum level stronger when they gained extra experience? If not, then it might not matter as much."

  Evan took a deep breath, his color returning. "Actually, we did. There aren't any new abilities or spells added after level twenty, but as you gain additional experience, you get bonus points. Those points can be traded in for increases to the stat of your choice." He looked at Nika. "This could really help us if they've made Gaia impossible to beat by a level twenty player."

  Nika chewed her lip. “Maybe,” she said. “But it would mean a lot of level grinding, and we just don’t have the time.”

  "It might not take that much time at all," Louella said. “The first few levels go pretty quickly." She paused. "I mean, I’m pretty sure they reset you both back to level one when you signed up for the contest. You said you were at level three now, right?”

  "That’s true," Nika said slowly, just now realizing exactly what the pixie was saying. "I'm at three." A glance at Evan showed him nodding. They had gained two levels in a very short amount of playing time. But one thing was worrying her.

  "The system message didn't sound when we gained the levels. If it had, we would have known about the level reset much earlier," she said.

  "That doesn't surprise me," Ash said. "The Trials game is strictly an online game. The fact that they've managed to incorporate it into Gaia's Rebirth at all is actually pretty amazing. If the levels are going to be determined by a shared experience pool, then I guess they went with the display updates of level increases instead of Gaia's spoken ones."

  "But think about it," Louella said. "It took us a couple of days at least to get to level three in Gaia's Rebirth, right? You two made it to level three in just a few hours."

  The girl was right, but that didn't stop the fact that a low-level player would be demolished pretty quickly by any of Gaia's desert creatures. "That's true, but there are still a couple of problems," Nika said. "Number one, low-level players won't last in the desert, and I'm pretty sure that any monsters we collect will disappear from our inventory if we get rebooted." She paused, giving Louella a quick glance. "We just don't have time to waste leveling up before we head out."

  Louella shook her head. "I know that you probably want some of us to stay at the higher level, but that will end up taking us more time than if we just level up now. Being able to have two guaranteed player battles a day for experience will help us level up much faster. That means we won't have to look for creatures to fight." She looked at Ash to see if she was going to back her up.

  Ash nodded. "Plus, we are going to need strong monsters in our inventory to pass the two checkpoints between here and Gaia's cave,” Ash said. “The earlier we get started catching and growing them, the better."

  "So if we don't take the time now, it will cost us later?" Nika asked.

  "Exactly," Louella answered.

  Nika sighed. "Okay then, let's get you gals saddled up with starter monsters and get going."

  "Um, there is one other problem," Ash said quietly. "We probably need to buy another horse."

  "I count six players and three horses, and one of those players runs instead of rides," Nika
said with a frown. "Why would we need a fourth horse?"

  "What about Tyler and Striking?"

  Oh crap. She kept forgetting about them. It wasn't so hard to do as they didn't stay with them in the player's lodging.

  "I guess if we want them to come..." Nika started.

  Evan gave a short bark of laughter. "Good luck stopping Striker from coming with us. Especially since two of those horses are his."

  "There is that," she agreed. "Buying one more mount shouldn't be a problem, and we are going to want to load up on return stones too. If we see we can't win a battle, I don't want any of us hesitating to use one to return to the save fountain." She made sure she caught Louella's eyes when she said it.

  The pixie swallowed and nodded. She would understand the significance of that new rule.

  "Nika and I can take care of the mounts," Evan said. "The rest of you need to get your monsters and officially get entered into the contest."

  "What about Blake and me?" Dean asked. "Besides return stones, is there anything else we'll need from the market?"

  Nika thought for a minute, then shook her head. "We have several remedies in our inventories already, and the camping supplies from Forest should work just fine even in the desert." She looked around at the other players. "Maybe get enough food to last us a day and night? It shouldn't take us longer than that to reach the Outpost."

  "We'll need some health potions for our monsters unless we want to keep running to a clinic," Dean said slowly. "And I'll take a look while we're there to see what else they might have added with the Trials add-on."

  "Good idea," Nika said, standing. "So let's get going and meet at the save point in an hour."

  And they were off.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Saddling up

  Ash and Louella headed to the command center to enter the contest and get their monsters. Once the mayor had explained the game rules, he led them out to the backyard monster pen. All three cages were once again full.