When Tage logged in the next morning, her avatar appeared at the dock in Port City.  The sea breeze ruffled her golden hair, and Tage smiled brightly at the sensation. On the horizon, a boat was rapidly drawing closer to shore, carrying a collection of new players to the continent.  Everything was abuzz with the happy chatter of people, players and NPCs alike, and Tage couldn’t be more excited.

Halp was less than a minute behind Tage’s login, appearing next to her, before clapping her on the shoulder.  “Ready to get this show on the road?”

“Definitely,” Tage agreed, before glancing at her friends list.  "Looks like Ripley's logged in as well," she continued, surveying the nearby crowd.  “He should be here any minute.”

True to Tage’s words, Ripley showed up a few moments later, turning to spot them when Halp cheerfully shouted his name and waved his hands in the air.  Ripley smiled as soon as he spotted the two of them, and jogged over.

His equipment had changed slightly in the time since Tage had last seen him.  The simple brown robe he had been wearing when Tage had met him in the cave had been traded out for a slightly higher level, but equally simple, grey robe.  She was pretty sure his staff and shoes had changed as well, although she couldn’t remember what they’d looked like before well enough to say so with absolute confidence.  

Either way, it was obvious that Ripley had made his preparations as thoroughly as Tage and Halp had, and he was ready to go.

"You're just in time," he said, by way of greeting.  "I've taken the liberty of preparing a few points of interest we could visit on our way to the frontlines. Highly rated vistas, a few unique demons' lairs that have been cleared, that kind of thing. I thought it might be interesting to take a break from the fighting to simply observe the world. I'll need your input on which ones you want to visit, but there's still a while before we reach the first one - Melfior's Tower of Lightning, one of the first raid-bosses in the game. The spiked structure still remains electrified to this day."

The AI hesitated at the end of his speech, before offering a small, apologetic smile and a slight shake of his head. "Sorry, I get excited about these things. How have you two been?"

Ripley’s attempt at small talk might have even been successful, if it wasn’t for the fact that Halp promptly disregarded his efforts.  

"Aww! Isn't that sweet?" the warrior cried, moving forward to grab onto Ripley, pulling him into a one armed hug that left his other hand free to ruffle the boy's short brown hair. "He's plotted a route for us." Satisfied with his act of molestation, Halp released the unfortunate AI. "Completely unnecessary, of course, but we can't blame him. He didn't know you are a world-class explorer, now did he Tage?"

"Don't be cruel," Tage replied, blasé. "Impromptu exploration is always fun, but having a few destinations in mind is good too.  I’ve definitely got some places I want to see along the way, the Deep Crystal Caverns being top of the list, if we can get in. We'll have plenty of time for unexpected adventures even with a few destinations in mind.”

Tage smiled at Ripley, before scrutinizing them both.  “Everyone got everything you need?"

"All good, mom,"  Halp snarked back.  “Let’s go already!”

And, just like that, they were off.

It didn’t take Tage very long to figure out that she and Halp were incredibly lucky that they’d decided to invite Ripley along.  After all, the AI hadn’t just picked a few potential destinations for them, but also figured out how they could most efficiently get from town to town without having to rely on the fast travel system.  Tage would never admit it to anyone, least of all Halp, but that was one particular piece of logistics that she’d completely overlooked. She justified it to herself by saying that she’d had most of her attention focused on the things they’d need later in the quest, when they were trying to not get murdered by demons many times their level, but if it had been left up to her, they probably would have been walking right now.

Instead, the three friends were drifting through the air, carried along the coast by a hot air balloon towards Ripley’s first chosen destination, the Lightning Tower.  Even from a distance, it wasn’t hard to spot the aquamarine colored spire. It split the sky like the jagged tip of a spear, brilliantly blue even against the azure sky, still sparking occasionally with the leftover lightning magic from the fight with Melfior.

Like all the cleared dungeons and raids in Djinni, the original boss of the dungeon had long since been defeated by a successful raid.  However, the magical energy left over from the fight meant that demons continued to spawn long after the death of the original boss. In this instance, Melifor’s crystal heart, the external source of the demon boss’ magic, continued to power the factory hidden inside the tower, which would produce lightning golems if left unattended for too long.

What made the Tower different from many of the other dungeons in the Settled Territories was that this one had been hijacked by players.  Just under two months ago, a guild known as the Artificers had succeeded in hacking into the magic channels that guided the lightning magic from Melifor’s heart, redirecting it into their own production channels.  While the system still went haywire on occasion, causing the facility to go on temporary lockdown while high level players quickly cleared out the invading golems, it was safe enough that the Artificers had even set up a tour system, allowing the players to safely explore the tower, and witness a reenactment of the fight with Melifor through the use of arcane and light magic.

The three finished their tour a little while after noon, which left them a few hours to head further inland, traveling from the Tower of Lightning to the Behemoth Tree, and the majestic city the plant djinni had built into its trunk. True to its name, the Behemoth Tree towered over the just as unimaginatively named Green Forest, but even more so than its size, the tree was remarkable for the city that the plant djinni had grown out of its trunk, creating a winding, multi-layered wooden metropolis.  

There were several tour guides waiting at the foot of the city when Tage and company arrived, but the young woman vehemently protested hiring them.  This, she proclaimed, was the perfect opportunity for spontaneity, and she was not going to let a tour guide ruin the moment.

That was how Tage somehow managed to lead her friends into an underground demon fighting ring, where djinni captured demons below level 15 and forced them to fight to the death.  A few irrationally lucky bets left Tage several gold richer than when she’d started, only for her winning streak to be interrupted by her timer going off, reminding her she only had ten minutes left before 4:00, when she’d promised her parents she’d log out.  Unwilling to risk upsetting her parents on the very first day of their quest, Tage begrudgingly left the ring behind, only to be confronted by the two pure smoke-colored djinni bouncers who blocked the door. Rather than cause a scene, Tage handed over a majority of her winnings to get her and her friends safely out of the building without a fight.

In the end, she and Halp logged out in a room at a small inn, entirely satisfied with their explorations for the day.  This left Ripley to quietly explore the rest of the city until they logged in tomorrow.

The next morning, the three headed almost straight north, for the destination Tage had mentioned when they first started their quest: The Deep Crystal Caverns.

Back when this place had still been demon territory, the cavern had been home to a crystal demon, which attacked anything that came close to its home, demon and djinni alike. Before her guild had become so famous, Emerie, the leader of the guild The Maidens, had defeated the demon with a group of four other women by stealing the egg of a matriarch cliff eagle demon that had lived nearby, and leaving it in the cave. After a massive fight between the mother eagle and the crystal demon, the scars of which could still be seen today, it had been easy for the small group to kill the heavily wounded crystalline beast.

The Maidens ended up handing off control of the Caverns to a subordinate guild, who maintained daily runs of the dungeon.  The run was a mixture of a tour of the beautiful caverns, and a method to clear out the crystalings that crawled out from the depths of the cave, lest one of them grow as big and strong as their forefather.  At this point it had become an incredibly well-known quest, to the point that the managing guild often had to deny people entrance. That was the main reason Tage was worried about whether or not they’d be able to get in.

Tage’s worries seemed well founded, as she and her friends climbed up the trail to the cavern, rounded a corner, and came face to face with about fifty people milling in front of the entrance.  A short, smiling, djinni with bright, leaf green skin, neon pink hair, and rose quartz colored eyes waved to them as they approached, before beckoning them over.

“Party of three?” she asked promptly, but didn’t really give them a chance to answer.  “I can add you to the waiting list, but I’m afraid there’s already an individual and a party of four ahead of you on the list, so you’re chances aren’t great, especially if you aren’t willing to split up.”  She raised a brow inquisitively, and it took Tage a couple of seconds to realize she was supposed to answer.

“Uhh, yeah.  Party of three, and we want to stay together.”

The pink and green djinni smiled apologetically.  “I can put you on the list for three days from now, which is the next clear space for a team of three, if you don’t want to try your luck on today’s run.”

Normally Tage would have agreed to the offer, everything she’d read online said it was really uncommon for people to drop out of the day’s run, however she and Halp had a limited enough amount of time that she knew they couldn’t wait that long just to see the cavern.

“Thank you for the offer,” Tage said, while shaking her head slightly in refusal.  “We’ll just… see if we get lucky, I guess.”

The djinni nodded politely, and added their names to today's waiting list, before Tage led her friends to the edge of the gathered crowd.  The girl sat down heavily on a stump with a sharp exhale.

“Hey,” Halp said softly, before tapping her on the head with the flat of his battleaxe.  Tage looked up at him with wrinkled brows, before forcing herself to smile at both him and Ripley.

“It’s fine,” Tage replied, quickly shaking her head back and forth as though she was attempting to physically shake the disappointment out of her brain.  “We’ll play around in the nearby area for a couple hours, and if we don’t get lucky, we can continue north and I’ll come back some other time, yeah?”

Halp hefted his axe, smiling as well.  “We’ll get lucky, just you wait! I shall dedicate all my kills to the god of RNG, and shall perform my windmill worship dance at every occasion in the meantime.”

Halp immediately backed away, his arms spread out wide, before he began to flail wildly, his arms traveling up and down while he spun on the spot.  A second later a series of inarticulate syllables began to come out of his mouth, but that was as far as he got before Tage jumped to her feet, grabbing his wrists to forcibly hold him in place.

“No, please, spare us, and whatever poor god would have to listen to that.”

Halp was strong enough that he could have easily broken away from her if he wanted to, but instead he allowed himself to be held still, apparently satisfied with the fact that he’d managed to get her on her feet and smiling again.

With a sideways glare, Tage released Halp, before turning to Ripley.  “Got any suggestions for what we could do around here for the three-ish hours until the run starts?”

Ripley hesitated slightly, before pointing up the hill.  “There’s a trail that leads to the top of the mountain, where the cliff eagles nest,” he offered.  “We can probably fight the younger ones, if we’re careful.”

“Sounds good to me,” Tage replied immediately, already looking forward to the view from the top of the mountain.  If they got the right angle, she might even be able to see the Behemoth Tree they’d just come from. “Lead the way.”