It had been a while since Phovos had the time to turn her little laptop computer on and play some games. She’d just got back from some interesting meetings, full of things she didn’t want to think about right now, so some relaxation in the form of murdering pixelated enemies sounded appealing to her.
Of course, there were updates. For most of the games she wanted to play. The first one that finished downloading was the Magic Ninja Simulator, one of her newer favourites. That was the game she was going to play.
Logging in was easy. The UI had changed, but it was all similar. She got a reward for simply logging in, accepted it. Apparently one of the new changes was that a random NPC would greet her character, named Athy. That was kinda weird but pleasant. After that, she then went to the mission map to work out what she wanted to do
Suddenly, a message popped up.
“Hey.”
Phovos quickly replied. She didn’t recognise the username, but she didn’t sound rude.
“Hiya.”
“You probably don’t remember me…”
Yep, they were right, Phovos had no idea who this person was.
“… But you helped me ages ago. Gave me a Duration Upgrade and an Efficiency Upgrade. Really helped me get through those early missions.”
“Oh! That’s good to hear!” Phovos wasn’t sure where this person was going.
“You also gave me a Bloodied Ignata for free. You said that you had tons of them but that Bloodied Ignata was my first Bloodied weapon and I still use it.”
“Ah.”
“So I, uh, wanted to say thank you.”
Phovos smiled to herself. “You’re welcome!” she typed back. She then checked the profile of this user. They went by the username Keros, they were a higher level than Phovos was and they had the Bloodied Ignata as their most used weapon.
“Uh…” Keros hesitated. A little symbol indicated that they were typing. “I’d like to ask one more thing… I need help with the last mission of the Daily Three…”
With a shrug, Phovos checked the mission map. The Daily Three was a set of three harder than normal missions that gave a rare reward at the end. Today’s three missions consisted of a Rescue Mission, a Massacre Mission and a Multi-Defense Mission against alien enemies.
“Sure. I need to do the first two missions first but… send me an invite and I’ll join you in a bit.”
Keros posted a smiley face as a reply. “Thank you!”
It didn’t take long for Phovos to do the first two missions. She sped through both with her speed character, who specialised in going fast and stunning enemies. For the Multi-Defense though, Phovos decided to bring Kluvi, a character who could create cages and used chains to whip things. She accepted the invite from Keros and loaded into the mission.
Keros was using Gata, a very angry female berserker character. She was very strong but not very good at protecting things, so Phovos understood why Keros was struggling. Luckily, Kluvi’s chain dome ability made the mission a breeze. The Energy Leech enemies were a pain, but it was nothing a few energy vials couldn’t fix. The mission rewarded them with a Randomizer Upgrade, an upgrade with a challenge on it that, once completed, would reveal the upgrade’s stats. Phovos would probably trade it later on.
“Thank you so much!” Keros frantically typed. “No one else wanted to do that mission with me, and the defend points die so easily!”
“Yeah, they can be a pain…” Phovos typed back. “But we got a good reward. Was worth it.”
Suddenly, Phovos got another invite. Keros wanted to invite her to his clan’s base. Phovos shrugged and accepted it.
The base was impressive. Large rooms, decorated with various gardens and statues. Immediately, Keros invited her to trade. He placed three Gilded Statues, common yet pricey items, into the trade window and instantly pressed “Accept Trade”. Phovos hesitated.
“What’s this?”
“A thank you gift.”
“It’s nothing. I’m just being helpful.”
“Please. I owe you. You’ve done so much for me, this is the least I can do.”
Phovos relented and placed a common Upgrade into her side of the trade window, then hit Accept Trade.
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you!” Keros pranced around the base. He seemed very happy. “We should play together more often!”
Phovos nodded. “Yeah,” she typed. “Makes a change not playing solo or with randoms. Is there anything else you need help with?”
“Not really. But we could open some prime boxes if you want?”
That sentence made Phovos smile. “I’d absolutely love to do that!”
Keros rushed over to a navigation console in the base and opened up a mission map. “Awesome! Let’s go!”