"You got a pet?" Cy sighed in frustration.

"Oh hush!" Ukeru snapped. "You're just jealous since you can't level properly without a good healer... Ara, this is Cyprean, or just Cy. He's our grumpy ass mage who likes to AOE too many monsters at once and gets healers killed."

"I hope you know how to keep your distance." Cy warned. "Otherwise, I won't be held accountable for what happens to you."

"You actually centered one spell on our last guy and turned him into a kamikaze." Voss snorted.

"Healers aren't made to tank, Cy," Huntress commented, rolling her eyes. "They're squishy." She looked toward Arashi. "We told him to use Uki as the tank, but does he listen? No."

"The healer should have had a shield up," Arashi commented, frowning. "I saw a spell in the shops for a skill that sets up a shield to take ten thousand damage before it dispels, with a five second cool down... a healer could tank if they bothered to use that..."

"Good lord, that's available without hacks?" Voss blinked.

"Finally, someone that has half a brain." Cy replied.

"It was fairly expensive," Arashi commented. "And for level 50."

"Ah, so only... 35 levels to go," Ukeru commented, smiling a little. "Probably can get you there sometime next week if we all work at it. You, my friend, are getting P-Level'd to the top!"

He swung and killed another zombie. In its place a box appeared and the white-haired boy knelt down, peering inside. "Oh, an arm band! Come get this, Ara."

Moving over, Arashi carefully brought up the stats of the new band to make sure it was better then his own - something Voss taught him to do - before he un-clipped his and put it in his bag, putting on the new one.

"Power-leveling takes so long." Cy sighed heavily in irritation. "Why can't we recruit from the high-levels?"

"You scare them off too." Voss chuckled.

"Enough!" Cy waved him off. "If we're going to get this guy up to snuff, we'd better start now."

Ukeru blinked in surprise as Cy began to aoe the monsters, killing them all instantly. He eyed Huntress and Voss - something told Arashi that this behavior was unusual for Cy.

Cy tapped his staff on the ground and ring of fire appeared around them- any undead coming too close to the group was vaporized instantly. It looked like it was more of a hassle and a bore than a real challenge to the mage. To his friends, something was obviously up. To Arashi, it was just impressive.

"Could have at least let me gather them first," Ukeru groaned as they began to look in the boxes for anything useful. "How many more of these do you need, Ara?"

"Oh! Um..." Pulling up his quest list, Arashi looked at the paper. "I'm done with these."

"Okay, we can move on to the giant, then," Ukeru nodded.

Arashi's eyes widened. "G-Giant?"

"Just keep your distance." Cy said firmly. "No-one else can revive a dead player."

"Oh, like a level 20 Boss is going to kill us," Ukeru snorted. "I can solo it."

"Ara can't," Huntress told him. "That's what Cy meant."

"Oh," Ukeru commented, before he smiled sheepishly and headed down the hall, the rest of the group following - Arashi at a distance.

--

Arashi stumbled out of the gate- right into the dirt. He still wasn't used to this method of travel. As he got up and dusted himself off- blushing with embarrassment -he saw that they were in some barren wasteland now with bits of wreckage and the ruins of ancient buildings mostly buried in the sand.

He quickly jumped up and moved out of the way, allowing room for the last person - Huntress - to teleport in.

They'd been playing for hours... and he was having far too much fun to stop, even though he had to be up in five hours for a test.

"Wow, another all-nighter...when was the last time?" Voss asked.

"Do you ever sleep Christopher?" Cy asked with a smirk as he looked around and checked his world map display.

"Only when I'm tired." Voss laughed.

"Which is never," Huntress chuckled. "He is constantly telling me, 'I'll sleep when I'm dead!'. Then he complains how sleepy he is the next day."

"You think its adorable," Ukeru teased.

"I do not!" She snapped, her cheeks red.