Gaia's Rebirth Box Set

by Caiden Walker

  Dean offered to take the first watch as none of them felt comfortable with the thought of sleeping with the chance of a bunch of monsters spawning nearby and attacking. As the night passed, they each took their turn watching the map for activity, but for once the game seemed to favor them. Heaven only knew it was just what they needed.

  Prior to entering the game, Nika had only been camping once. An extravagant vacation that her father had planned for her sixteenth birthday. Parks still existed, but they were few and far between, and the ones open to the public were vastly overcrowded. If one wanted to actually camp in one, the wait list was filled for years to come.

  But there were a very few private parks left in the world. Owned and held onto by hook, crook, and various legal battles by a scant number of the filthy rich. Occasionally, they allowed people to camp on their property. For a very large price, of course.

  This was nothing like that experience. It was far, far better. If nothing else, this one night of camping convinced Nika that her game would be a huge success. Her father had actually taken the idea of camping and perfected it.

  There were no sore backs from sleeping on the ground because their virtual bodies actually had no bones or muscles to feel soreness. And the insects that still existed in the real world simply hadn’t been programmed into the game.

  So when the morning came, after a full night of much-needed rest, they all felt invigorated and ready to tackle the task ahead.

  The only question that remained was which quest to complete first.

  Chapter Twenty: Mage’s Quest

  Ash was pleased when they all voted unanimously to go for the Light Rod quest first. Of course, when you thought about it, it really was only logical. The long bow and Amazonian Axe would be vital in the battle against the orcs, but her light rod would up her healing capacity immensely. And that helped everyone, not just Ash.

  They pulled up the quest information and read it top to bottom. As this was a quest for a magical item, it had been designed to help out the town's hedge witch gather some much-needed herbs for her medicinal spells. The really cool thing was that the witch had told Ash that along with the rod, she would also give her the recipe for a lesser healing potion. That could come in very handy when she was running low on mana. That also meant that they needed to collect even more herbs than strictly needed for the quest so that she could put them to use.

  "So, we need fifteen Dragon Heart roots, and twenty golden mushrooms," Dean said, frowning. "I do have a question, though. How the heck are we going to turn these quests back in without going into town?"

  Good question. "Well, the witch’s shop and the market is open all the time," Ash said slowly. "So at least for this quest, maybe we can sneak in late at night when all the non-critical NPCs will be off cyber sleeping. For the other quests, I'm not sure."

  They all looked to Nika, who shrugged.

  "A problem to worry about when we have to," she said. "Personally, I'm hoping that Ash's new boyfriend got creative with his superiors about the missing computer. Then we could come and go whenever we liked."

  "That would be nice," Dean said, sounding a bit hopeful.

  The berries, nuts, and cheese had tasted wonderful last night. But after eating their fill then, they were much less enjoyable this morning. Ash had to admit it would be nice to be able to go back to town one last time for a full meal. Right now, the thought of one of those bacon sandwiches was making her mouth water. And they wouldn’t last longer than a few hours even in a virtual inventory.

  Plus, of course, Tyler would be there. If he had covered for them, maybe they could plan their trip to include an overnight visit. That would give her time to properly thank him for his help.

  Then she jolted back to the present as she realized the others were all looking at her.

  "What?" she asked.

  Nika grinned, and Ash blushed. It wouldn't surprise her at all to know the woman could read her mind. In some ways, Nika really freaked her out. She liked her, yes, but freaked her out all the same.

  "We were all voting on whether or not we wanted to scope out the orc camp before taking on the quest," Nika said. "The vote’s to you."

  Ash ducked her head, not wanting to have to ask, but finally giving up. "How's the vote so far?"

  "Two to two actually," Nika said. "The tiger and the pixie want to check out the orcs to see the situation so we can better prepare. Dean and I are opting to gain a couple of levels before going anywhere near the camp in case we are spotted and they turn out to be faster than we are."

  Ash chewed her lip. So, either way she voted, it would be against two party members. That taught her to daydream in the middle of things.

  "Why can't we do both?" she asked. "The herbs should be scattered all through the forest, so we have to walk quite a bit to collect them. We could travel in the general direction of the Orc Camp, but not get too close until we hit level seven." She glanced over at Louella. "Then, when we get close enough, maybe our resident pixie can do a fly over and report back to us. Hopefully without being seen, of course."

  The pixie should be safe from the orcs as long as she kept to the air, as they were mostly brute force fighters and known to favor blades over arrows, but if she led them to the rest of the party, they wouldn't be so lucky. Hence, Nika's wisdom of waiting.

  The pixie sighed. "Okay, so I guess we are waiting. You know, at times, I really liked being on my own better."

  They pulled down the tent and gathered up the supplies, storing them away before heading out. Their first visit was to the nearby creek to fill up their water bottles for the day. Water was in abundance, yes, but it didn't pay to take any chances.

  Their map was showing a small group of enemies just off the other side of the path toward town. Being that close to town, they should all be lower-level and make a good battle to begin the day with.

  As they got closer, they could glimpse the white and brown fur through the trees. Wolves. Unfortunately, there was no way to tell how many there were until they engaged as they were standing in too tight of a group for them to count the dots.

  Giving all of them one last, encouraging look, Nika gave her WarCry and leaped out onto the path. The others followed her lead, Ash and Dean keeping to the back as they were the party’s distance fighters.

  Louella climbed into the air for their airborne backup, and the scene was set as no fewer than a dozen wolves came running onto the trail. Ash swallowed. These were even bigger than the ones before. These must be the dire wolves.

  She glanced over at Dean, who was grinning fiercely as he let his first arrows fly. "The bigger they are, the more experience we get, right?"

  That was one way to look at it. Now with a grin of her own, she volleyed her first fire spell into the beast now sporting arrows. Their joint effort only took the beast down to half life, but at least their health gauge did move.

  The turning point of the battle was the fact that Louella's attacks, out of the entire party at this point, were area attacks. So her spells weren't limited to a single wolf. Instead, if she timed them just right, she could hit three at once, which helped. Her attack finished off the wolf they had weakened and brought two of his companions down to the point that Ash and Dean quickly finished them off.

  Looking quickly for the rest of the party, Ash threw a quick heal spell at Nika and then called out to Dean. "I'm backing out of the fight, I'll need to use the rest of my mana to heal the others."

  Dean nodded and motioned with his head to two nearby trees. "No reason we have to put ourselves in harm's way while we fight."

  He made a very good point and the two of them scampered up the trees until they could comfortably perch on branches far out of the wolves' reach. It didn't stop the wolves from trying though, which was a good thing. Ash would have felt bad if their move had made all the wolves double back on Nika and Evan.

  It wasn't their shortest battle, but it didn't last all that long, either. In the end, their experience gain was well w
orth the effort. Their bars were nearly a third of the way to level six. At this rate, leveling up would be pretty easy. The gold wasn't too bad either as Ash saw her coin purse fatten by twenty gold.

  But the best thing about this battle was that it marked the beginning of the next stage. As the party was now at a high enough level, these monsters dropped items. And it would appear that wolves liked golden mushrooms. Three mushrooms were laying on the trail where the wolves had been standing. Ash gathered them and stashed them in her inventory, the system's voice encouraging her with the fact that these were indeed quest items.

  Nika came to stand under their trees as they clamored back down. Ash jumped lightly from the bottom branch, and Evan held out his hand to balance her as she landed.

  It was the first touch she had managed since his change, and the fur on the back of his hand was every bit as soft as she had imagined.

  "Thanks," she said, giving him a shy smile.

  "I should be thanking you for those heal spells. You come in really handy in a battle."

  She just grinned at him and blushed. "That's my job." She raised one hand. "Support class here."

  "You're more than just support," Dean said. "I can't wait to see what your next fighting spell will be."

  Neither could she. In the online game, it was lightning, followed closely by blizzard. She was hoping the virtual game followed the same path. Ash loved the power of the lightning as it sometimes traveled between enemies.

  The outside world must still be convinced that they were stuck on the far side of Riser’s Creek because there weren’t any nasty surprises waiting for that them that morning.

  In fact, Ash had the most fun she’d had since entering the game, and the best part was that seemed to be true for the rest of the team as well. Nika and Evan made a hell of a close combat team, kind of like her and Dean’s distance team. And the pixie just floated between the two mini-parties offering air support to them as needed.

  All in all, their new party make-up worked as an efficient well-oiled fighting team. Any wolves they came across were fodder for their growing experience bars, and they actively sought them out.

  By midday, they had collected all the golden mushrooms, fought three wolf packs and a few stragglers, and managed to level up. Ash got her coveted lightning attack and four additional mana points. Dean’s double-shot went to level five, and he gained some health points along with a couple of stat points to his accuracy. That would come in handy with the tricky elves when they next met as they were especially good at avoiding attacks.

  Nika gained an attack called All-Out. It was pretty much the equivalent to a Barbarian’s Berserk ability, giving her the option to use health points to double her attack in times of crisis. As long as Ash was there to heal her that should come in really handy.

  As they all shared their new abilities, Evan just looked rather embarrassed. If she had to guess, Ash would have to go with the fact the traitor hadn’t bothered to program any upgrades for him for leveling. Which was totally not fair.

  “Cool,” Louella said like she hadn’t been the one programming her level bonuses. “I got earthquake. That should really help with those pesky blood elves.” Then she turned to Evan. “So what’d you get?”

  His white facial fur turned a bit pink. Ash thought that was adorable. So they could tell when he was blushing after all.

  “Nothing, as in not one damn thing.” Okay, so maybe it was anger rather than embarrassment. “They put me in here to keep me out of their way and then made it so that I would pull the party down by not being able to keep up with all of you.” He looked to Nika. “It might be easier on all of you if I just went back to town. My presence will mean more and nastier monsters, and if I can’t pull my own weight…”

  “Nonsense,” Nika said. “For one thing, at the very least, your initial stats were pretty powerful, so you are still a major help in battle. So no more talk of us leaving you behind. It isn’t going to happen.”

  “Nope,” Louella said, gesturing to her physical backpack. “Besides, I’ve got an in to your character’s coding. I can even things out within an hour tops. Make it through today, and I’ll have some goodies lined out for your next few levels. Deal?”

  The look he gave her was a cross between doubtful and hopeful. “Yeah,” he said. “If you could do that, it would be really nice.” His voice carried more doubt than hope. It was pretty obvious he still didn’t totally trust their little hacker.

  “So, how’s about some grub?” Dean said, holding out large pieces of beef jerky. “Lunch is on me, but it will probably take a good portion of our water supply to get it down. It’s pretty dry.”

  “Well, yeah,” Ash said, punching him in the shoulder. “It’s jerky. That’s the whole point.”

  The map didn’t show any red dots surrounding them, so they took a few minutes out to rest up, eat, and then travel to the creek they’d been keeping in earshot to refill their water.

  Dean hadn’t been joking about the dryness. The game designers might need to tone that back a good bit. Still, it was pretty tasty, but it went down a lot better after soaking it in water for a few seconds before actually putting it in their mouths and trying to eat it.

  “Has anyone even seen any Dragon Heart plants?” Louella asked. “I have to admit, I thought they’d be easy to spot, but maybe it might help if I really knew what I was looking for.”

  They all looked to Ash, who had been the one to accept that quest.

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure we’ll know them when we see them,” she said. Then she cleared her throat. “They’re… well, they are kind of more monster than plant. Or maybe that’s just a plant monster?” She shrugged. “Either way, they should show up as red dots when we get near enough to them.”

  “Well, there is a small bunch of red dots to our left that doesn't seem to be moving around much. Feel like checking them out?” Dean asked.

  Ash took one last long drink from the fresh water of the ice cold creek and the others followed.

  “Now, I’m ready,” she said, after checking that her water supply was fully capped.

  They headed out at a jog and came to the clearing where the red dots seemed to be gathered. Only it was empty. Or at least, they would have assumed it to be, had it not been for Ash’s warning.

  A closer look showed several colorful plants hiding among the trees surrounding the small green space. The flora was a bright red, and each plant had two large leaves that gave the plant its name. The leaves were huge and looked just like what Ash imagined a dragon’s wings would look like.

  Louella, not paying much attention to where she was walking, got too close to one and the plant’s reaction was startling, to say the least. Out of the ground behind and between the two leaves, a large head shot up, throwing the dirt off itself as it rose. The wing-leaves beat once and then the entire plant rose inches off the ground as its roots became tentacles to reach out and entangle the smaller girl within their grasp.

  Nika reacted instantly, slashing the roots with her hand blade and freeing the pixie. Just one fire spell thrown by Ash finished the creature off. Luckily plant beings were overly susceptible to fire. That’s just how nature, and the game of course, worked.

  The game was making this easy as there just happened to be precisely fifteen of the plant monsters there for the harvesting. Which meant, once the short battle was won, they had their first quest complete.

  Of course, according to the system message, to get the reward would require a trip back to Riser’s Creek. As they really didn’t want to go during the full daylight hours, they all decided to try to complete another quest.

  “Didn’t we complete that one rather quickly?” Dean asked.

  Nika nodded. “Yes, but you need to keep in mind that the virtual version of the game isn’t nearly as long as the online counterpart. This game is meant to be a vacation of sorts and designed to enable a strong player to make it from start to finish within a week to ten days.”

  “Ma
kes perfect sense,” Louella said. “Most working people only get one or two weeks of vacation for the whole year.”

  “If that,” Ash said grimly. Her old job didn’t offer any time off, and her boss had refused to grant her a leave. At the moment, she was on a permanent vacation, but as long as she remained within the game, at least she didn’t have to worry about a roof over her head and food. Once she got out, she’d be back to square one in survival mode.

  Shaking off her momentary gloom as she remembered her outside life, Ash turned to Dean. “So, what’s your quest all about?”

  Dean grinned at her. “A rescue mission. One of the miners from Riser’s Creek has a missing son. He thinks he was taken by the local elves. We have to get him back.”

  “Blood elves?” Louella sounded worried. Glancing over at Nika she asked, “Are we really ready for them yet? I know we’re a few levels stronger, but we couldn’t even touch them before.”

  Nika’s shoulder lifted. “Hopefully these will be the normal game level elves and not amped up ones like before. Unfortunately, there isn’t any way to know until we find them.”

  Louella swallowed but nodded.

  “Oh, and just so we’ll all know him when we see him,” Dean said. “The miner’s son is a dwarf. The elves needed him to look for something valuable that is hidden deep inside a cave.”

  Elves were nature’s creatures, but they much preferred the nature that existed in the above ground from that below. In fact, they were known to truly hate caverns and dens.

  “Okay, then,” Evan said. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go rescue a dwarf!”

  Chapter Twenty-One: Ranger’s Quest

  Nika was a little put out that everyone just assumed the next quest in line would be the Dwarf Rescue. She had never really played a hands-on class before, even online, and the blood and guts was getting old fast.