Desert Page 11

  Louella looked at her friend. "Did Nika say which starting monster she chose?"

  Ash shook her head. "No, but I asked Evan right before they headed to the stables. She took Thunderclap."

  "Which one do you want?" Louella asked. "It doesn't matter to me, and it will even out the daily player battles if we have one of each."

  "If you're sure you don't mind, I have always had a soft spot for FireStorm," Ash said.

  Louella laughed. "Actually, that is perfect. VeggieMot makes sense for me, what with me being a creature of nature and all."

  They pushed the buttons, and the monsters went into their inventories.

  "It's a good thing the weight of these guys doesn't count toward our weight limit," Louella said.

  Ash frowned and then pulled down her display and smiled. "Another small perk of the add-on it seems," she said. "Take a look, Louella. It doesn't look like we have a weight limit anymore." She grinned. "So if we find a ton of really cool items we don't have to pick and choose what we carry. We can take it all."

  "Neat. That may come in handy."

  "Yeah. So, that didn't take long, what should we do before meeting up with the others?" Ash asked.

  Louella paused. "Well, now that you mention it, if there isn't a weight limit, I should hit the supply closet for more apples and sugar cubes. I have plenty, I hope, for Sunshine, but I hadn't thought about the other horses. I'm going to need some for them, too."

  "Especially since you can talk to animals now," Ash smiled. "You don't want them complaining to you all the time."

  She sighed. That had been the hardest part about starting over. "Actually, I can't talk to them anymore. I'm level one again. I just hope Sunshine understands and doesn't think I'm ignoring him."

  "That kind of bites." Ash paused. "Oh crap. Level one. I don't even have a heal spell yet." She hesitated. "You don't think maybe Nika was right and we should have waited? Or maybe I shouldn't have become a recruiter?"

  Louella shook her head. "Evan went back to level three, and he is playing support. Once you join a party in the contest, you'd reset too. It's far better to do that now than later."

  "You make a good point," Ash said.

  It didn't take long to gather more apples and sugar cubes for the horses, and Ash had made sure to grab a fair amount for herself too. She must have seen the change the apples had made in Sunshine's disposition. They didn't really know the other horses that well, and it was best not to take chances.

  They reached the save point early, but the others were already there. Reaching out, they each touched the fountain's center stone to save before turning to the others.

  Tyler and Striker were with them. Tyler’s family visit must have reached the saturation point. Either that or he was simply missing his gal. It would be interesting to see how their resident NPCs handled the game changes.

  Louella frowned. "Where are the horses?"

  "We'll come back for them later," Nika said. "This morning we all need to stay pretty close to town and level up as much as we can. Hopefully, we can avoid the desert creatures until we hit level ten again. We did pretty well against them at that level. At least the ones close by. That would change as we ride farther in."

  Nika led them out the gate to the little patch where she and Evan had hunted earlier. Now that it was full daylight, the daytime monsters should be out. That meant she should be able to add some new ones to her inventory and grow her others a little at the same time.

  "Oh, I almost forgot," Dean said just after they passed through the gate. "I figured if we were going to be out a while, we'd need more traps." Opening his inventory, he pulled out five traps for each of the recruiters. "I know you all start out with some, but I thought having extras would allow us to hunt longer without running out."

  "Good thinking," Nika said. "I hate to admit it but I'm fresh out. It's hard learning everything from scratch."

  "Tell me about it," Dean grinned.

  Ash and Louella each handed her two traps. That left them with their five originals plus three extra and gave Nika a total of nine. As she already had monsters in her inventory, and was already a level three, she stood the better chance to get bigger monsters if they should happen across any.

  "Are we splitting up?" Ash asked.

  Nika hesitated. "I hate to," she said. "I'm hoping that the game will compensate for so many players and give us more monsters in this area to catch. We really need to get our levels up before we venture very far from the town's gate. In fact, at levels one and three, I'm thinking we should stay pretty much within running distance."

  Louella nodded in agreement. That sounded like an excellent plan to her. And she couldn't wait to gain some levels. Right now, she felt very vulnerable.

  Luckily, the game complied. The first patch of grass they encountered had not one, but three Boxy Foxes. One for each recruiter.

  Glancing over at the NPCs, Louella noticed that neither of them paid too much attention to the new critter. Somehow Gaia’s Rebirth must have changed their code to acknowledge the game change. She had to admit she was a bit disappointed. She’d been hoping for a dwarf’s overreaction. Could have been fun.

  Nika looked over at Louella. "I already have one of them," she said. "Is there any reason to try to catch another one?"

  "Not really, but you want a couple of extra monsters in case they do let us trade before joining parties. That way you won't have to give up any of your good ones. Since we can only carry ten monsters at a time, one of each is plenty."

  "Okay, then," Nika said. "Ash, why don't you and Louella show us how the experts do this."

  Ash drew her FireStorm out with a flourish. "FireStorm!" she called out. Instantly her little cat-like monster appeared. Like Nika had the night before, she elected to recruit right out of the gate. When the trap was thrown, the Boxy Fox went in with no problem.

  Louella wasn't so lucky and as soon as her VeggieMot tried to recruit the creature, it ran away. She shrugged. "The fox is a nature creature kind of like mine, so it probably didn't feel intimidated enough to join my party," she explained to Nika.

  When Nika tried to catch the third fox, she had ThunderClap do a RainCloud attack first. A tiny black cloud appeared directly over the creature and started pouring rain down on it. The quick deluge took the creature down to almost no life, but it didn't run away. Instead, it hissed at ThunderClap which lowered that monster's attack by fifty percent. Nika quickly followed up with a Recruit and threw a trap. The fox joined after a second of hesitation.

  Louella watched Nika's expression of relief with amusement. It must be fun playing this game for the very first time when you can actually see the creatures you are catching right in front of you. Heck, it was fun for her, and she'd been playing this game off and on for years.

  They walked a little farther to the next patch of grass. They grew together pretty close here just outside the gate to the town. As they traveled, the grass would be further and further apart until it finally disappeared altogether. That's when they'd probably start finding more fire creatures. Fire and the desert just made sense to Louella. Of course, as the games weren't made to be mingled like this, who knew what they'd find out there?

  Now that she'd caught a monster, she checked her level and couldn't hold back a grin. She was halfway to level two already. This was so much faster than leveling up in Gaia. If these levels really did count toward Gaia's Rebirth, and they must if they were reset with the contest entry, getting to level twenty before reaching Gaia would be a piece of cake.

  They spent the morning hunting back and forth between four grassy spots right within sight of the gate. Because of the close proximity to town, no Gaia desert creatures showed up to challenge them. Once everyone but Nika had used up all of their traps, they headed back for lunch and to stock up on more traps. Nika hadn't wanted to add too many duplicates to her inventory. One extra was enough until they needed to start trading for real.

  Nika and Evan had already raised to level fou
r and were halfway to level five. As with most games, each level required more and more experience points to reach. Ash and Louella were both sitting at level three.

  More importantly, they all had additional monsters in their inventory. Nika had gained another Boxy Fox and a Flippin Frog. The frog had been found in the same area where she had caught the Trident Turtle the night before. Ash and Louella both ended up with two foxes and a frog. They seemed to be the only creatures in the area for now.

  Louella was torn between her fear of straying too far from town, and the fierce desire to see what creatures they could find a little way down the road. Eventually, they would have to try it. At least they had their return stones. As long as they weren't caught totally off guard to the point of not having time to pull and use them, they should be safe.

  Still, the risk was there. To Louella at least, it was a pretty damn big one.

  Instead of heading to the normal buffet at the Mayor's house and the usual array of sandwich makings, the team decided to celebrate their morning's victories with a warm meal from the tavern. It wasn't so much the meal they were after as it was the nice cold beer that they could get to go with it.

  Of course, Louella wouldn't be partaking of the beer. Or should she? She would never be the legal age to drink now, so why wait any longer? She could have drunk before when the party didn't know her true age. Now that they did, would they stop her from drinking?

  She thought about it and decided probably not. After all, only Nika knew how young she was, and as she also knew her situation, she didn't think the woman would begrudge her a drink or two. Or three or four for that matter.

  At this time of day, the tavern wasn't all that busy, and they managed to snag a large table that would actually seat everyone, including Tyler and Striking, who hadn't left their ladies’ sides all morning. That actually gave her a little hope for the love angle. If she could survive the main boss battle with Gaia and help the others get back to their lives, if they still had them of course, maybe she could find an NPC of her own to settle down with.

  It wouldn’t be real love in the truest sense, but the game’s AI did a good job at filling in the blanks. Maybe even well enough to make it seem like a real relationship. It definitely looked real between Ash and Tyler.

  Life here in the game wouldn't be so very bad. If Nika could convince her parents of the truth of what had happened, maybe they could even come visit her in the game. That would be awesome.

  At least it was something to hope for.

  The waitress, in the normal skimpy bar attire that Dean always ogled at, came by to take their orders. They all went with grilled tenderloins and two huge fried veggie platters to share. As normal the food was there almost instantly. Delayed gratification really didn't apply in Gaia's Rebirth except when it came to game play.

  They ate pretty much in silence for the first few minutes, and yes, Louella had gotten a beer. Eww. How did people drink that stuff? And actually like it? She was thankful that there were filled water glasses on the table. Her brew got shoved to one side. She caught Nika smiling at her as she moved it to the side and just gave a little shrug. It didn't hurt to try new things. Especially now.

  After the last bites of their toasty sandwiches were eaten and the veggie platters almost empty, Ash finally broke the silence.

  "Before we hit the market for more traps and head back out, why don't we try the PVP battles to see where they take us level wise? The first ten levels or so come pretty fast in Trials, and once we get there we can continue on into Gaia. I don't see any point in waiting to do our battles."

  Nika shook her head. "Neither do I. If they get us closer to that magical double-digit number, I'm all in." She hesitated. "I'd also like to try a monster trade to see if they really work in the game."

  Louella leaned forward in her chair. "We'll want to drop off our monster extras in the storage behind the mayor's house too," she said. "We want to keep our inventory free for different and better monsters we might come across."

  "I'm glad the game add-on didn't strip us of our gold like it did our levels," Dean said. "Those traps aren't exactly cheap."

  Evan grinned. "Yet another mistake made by our lovely and very evil Cora. She must have put this update into play without even considering the ramifications it might cause."

  Blake looked grim. "All the more reason to push through the game as fast as we possibly can," he said. "Believe me, Cora is not a stupid woman. She'll think everything through eventually, and the next update might not be so kind."

  The man had a point. He knew Cora far better than any of them did.

  They started off by opening their inventories and each of the recruiters trading a monster with another. Louella was thrilled when it worked. Now she had one fox and two frogs. Of course, after their visit to the storage, she'd be down to one each. She wanted plenty of free space for collecting new critters.

  Standing outside the monster pen at the back of the mayor's house, they all looked at each other.

  "So where do we do these battles?" Nika asked. "Can you do them anywhere, or is there somewhere special we need to go?"

  Ash lifted a shoulder. "Anywhere we have enough room will do," she said, looking around. "Though I really don't want to attract a crowd. I'm not much for performing in front of people." She gave a shy smile. "Even if those people are NPCs."

  They all jumped when a voice sounded directly behind them. It was the mayor.

  "If you are looking for a nice, quiet open area to do battle in, might I suggest the rooftop of my house? It's a flat roof and has plenty of space for your monsters to fight."

  Nika recovered first. "Thank you, Mayor," she said. "That sounds like just what we need."

  He nodded. "I thought it might. And sorry for startling you all. You can get to the rooftop by using those stairs." He pointed to a large set of wooden stairs that led from the grass outside the pen all the way up the side of the house to the very top.

  How had she not noticed them before? No matter, Louella thought, she was probably just too focused on the game to take notice of smaller things like odd staircases.

  The mayor had been right too. Once they got up there, it was absolutely perfect for their battles. And not a single NPC in sight. Well, except for the two tag alongs they brought with them. They weren't going anywhere anytime soon.

  "Who wants to go first?" Nika asked.

  "I will," Ash said. "I have to admit, I've been wanting to see how my monsters fair against Louella's." She hesitated. "Oh, and just so you know, Nika, you'll want to use the monsters that you want to see grow. So you'll want to use Munch for sure."

  Nika nodded. "Got it. Their levels are separate from ours, aren't they?"

  Ash nodded. "Yup."

  "I don't want to delay your battle, but I have been super curious about one thing," Nika said. "If the monsters level up by fighting and that helps them grow, then why do players even level up? If it doesn't help the monsters that are key to the game, what's the point of player levels?"

  "Well, while our levels don't help our monsters grow or anything, they do help us," Louella said. "I can think of three ways they help right off the top of my head. One, the higher level the recruiter is, the better the odds that they will find a better, higher leveled monster in the wild. Two, as you level up, you get access to better and more accurate critter traps so your chances of actually catching the monster are much greater too. And finally, with each level, you gain three percent luck which helps you find monsters easier."

  "Ah," Nika said. "Now I understand. Those are three very valid reasons to level up."

  "Yup," Louella agreed. "By the way, if you are battling someone that has a whole crew of monsters, you can use up to the number of monsters that they have. There’s a maximum of three at a time on the field per player."

  "You can start, Louella," Ash said. "It might be a good idea if we concentrate on leveling up different monsters. If we can trade them into the main team later that will help us conce
ntrate our progress."

  The pixie nodded. "Good strategy." Then she struck a pose, grinning over at Dean who was watching from the side. "Flippin Frog and VeggieMot come forth!" The two monsters appeared side by side in the center of the rooftop space. At least in this battle, they didn't have to worry about them running away. They were already on their team.

  Ash went for an even more outlandish pose. One that looked very similar to that taken by the characters in the online version. Louella couldn't help but giggle.

  "FireStorm and Boxy Fox come out to play!" Ash called out. Now there were four monsters facing off on the rooftop, but they were currently waiting for their orders. Neither player had chosen the automatic mode of play, preferring to give the attack orders themselves.

  It was a close match with Louella's water type frog pretty much canceling out Ash's FireStorm. On the other hand, Firestorm gave a pretty mean fire spit attack that took VeggieMot down on the second turn. In the end, Ash's team won, but only by a very thin hair's breath.

  Both of the girls were grinning when their monsters were finished and back in their inventory. They'd need to feed the critters potions or visit the clinic out back before putting them into another fight. Luckily every monster storage facility had a clinic on site. Nice and convenient, that.

  Best of all, the game had given out a tremendous amount of XP for their battle. Most of those precious XP points went to the winner—almost two-thirds. But even a third of the points had given Louella a huge bump. She was almost to level four already.

  The two of them ran down the stairs laughing to recharge their monsters' health while the others waited for them. So far it seemed that things were going their way for a change.

  It was enough to worry Louella just a little. That's usually when the crap hit the fan.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Striker Makes His Move

  As soon as the girls had disappeared from view, Nika turned to Dean.

  "Okay, if three is the limit, why only fight with two?" she asked.