As expected of a raid boss, the giant’s chest contains some epic loot.

  [Giant Pelt Belt level 22, a belt stitched together from the skins of the giant’s victims. Lovingly crafted, it has little adjustable straps that allow it to fit any wearer.

  Armor: 45

  +5 strength]

  [Tetranium Boots of Singular Conviction level 24, strong and flashy boots worthy of a giant slayer, everyone will ask where you got them.

  Armor: 124

  +4 Strength

  +4 Constitution]

  [Robe of Fruiting Bodies level 25, a living garment, it grows fruiting bodies at a rate of 1 an hour with a maximum of four which can be eaten to heal 15% HP. Once plucked they must be eaten within 20 seconds or the fruit will go bad.

  Armor: 42

  +4 Constitution

  +11 Intellect]

  The last piece is cloth armor. Sherbie can technically wear leather armor, which is more defensible, but as my personal healer, I can’t afford to let him pass up that intellect stat boost.

  “Hey, check this out, this robe will be great for you, Sherbie,” I say.

  “It’s cool, but it lowers my defense. If I wear it, I won’t be able to—”

  “It lowers your defense, but more constitution means more hit points, so it all evens out,” I assure him, praying he won’t actually stop to do the math. “Besides, check the menu, this is an epic item, do you have any idea how rare that is?”

  “Ooh! Rare item…”

  “Yeah! Anyway, there’s gear here for each of us. What are the odds?” I say, trading the appropriate items to each party member. “And here, exactly 27 gold and three bolts of fine linen, all of it splits evenly. Ah, but there’s seven common gemstones. How are we going to do that?”

  “You can keep my share,” Sherbie says. “Put it in the guild bank.”

  “Keep mine too, I got no use for pretty baubles,” Bruiser says, equipping the giant’s hideous sloughing skin belt. As promised in the description, it fits him just fine, though where he gets the stomach to wear it, I’ll never know.

  “Thanks,” I say, pocketing the gems for now and equipping my new boots. Meanwhile Sherbie tries on his new robe. It’s shaggy, looking more like a carpet of moss than fabric. On his shoulders in the place of pauldrons, four tiny mushrooms are sprouting, two on each shoulder. I guess those are the fruiting bodies?

  “Did you read the description?” I ask him. “When those grow up an hour from now, you can pick them and eat them for a quick heal.”

  “Gas,” Sherbie says, fingering one of the little sprouting mushrooms, and I give him a sideways look. “What?”

  “What are you, fifty? No one says gas anymore.”

  “Yeah, I’m an old man and even I don’t say gas,” Bruiser says with a laugh, though he quickly backtracks. “That is, I’m not old, really—”

  “Your mom’s old…” Sherbie murmurs sulkily, and Bruiser’s eyes take on a fiery glint.

  “What’d you say about my angel?” he demands, taking a menacing step forward, cracking his knuckles.

  “Sorry! I didn’t mean it!”

  “Nobody talks about the Bruiser’s mama that way!”

  “Shoot!” Sherbie starts to run, and Bruiser takes off after him. “Harrietta! Harrietta!”

  Thus summoned, the shesquatch stands between the aggressor and her son, legs planted firmly apart, arms folded beneath her big ol’ hairy sweater puppies. Her glare is so menacing it makes even Bruiser think twice, and he holds his hands up in surrender.

  “What? I was just playin with him. Sherbie’s my pal. No, don’t look at me like that. Don’t—AAAHHHH!”

  While Harrietta stuffs Bruiser’s face in her armpit and smears it around for a bit to the tune of his muffled screaming, I notice Sherbie’s character screen.

  “Hey, you got a level.”

  “Yeah, fighting the giant gave a lot of experience.”

  “Nice. Be sure and point your points in—”

  “Helpmmphgh!” cries Bruiser, but we ignore him for now.

  “Intelligence, I know…”

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  “Good. You were a huge help back there.”

  “Not that big of a help,” Sherbie says, looking disappointed. “I need to get better healing spells if I’m going to be of any use going forward.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s a million of them out there.”

  “Yes, but can they be learned by a Druid?”

  “Well, we’ll just have to wait and see… Anyway, don’t you think you should call off your guard dog?”

  “Harrietta, let him go!”

  Bruiser pops out of her headlock and does a few somersaults. He shakes his head and stands up, wiping his nose.

  “That wasn’t fair. Calling on Harrietta when you know I can’t fight back.”

  Ah. I’d almost forgotten about Harrietta’s non-regenerating HP. Bruiser’s a real one, I think, for not defending himself against her attacks. Well then, should I feed his ego a bit as thanks?

  “By the way, Bruiser, I’ve been wondering, how are your stats so high?”

  “Yeah, I was wondering that too,” says Sherbie, unaware of what I’m doing but playing along nicely nonetheless. “Your stat total is over 30 higher than mine.”

  As expected the Bruiser perks right up. “You noticed that, huh? I’ve never been much of a gamer, but I was smart enough to figure out how to optimize this character. All these skills increase my stats, see?” He shows us one of them.

  [Boar’s Constitution level 6: You have been imbued with the endurance of a wild boar.

  +6 Constitution]

  “I’ve got one for each stat. I joined the Gentleman’s Club too, so my smoking skill evolved in a unique way to give +1 to all stats. And of course my special gear beefs me up as well,” he says, turning slightly, definitely flexing a bit while pretending he’s not.

  “What kind of special gear?” Sherbie asks, eyes shining, completely taken in.

  “The skills too, I got it all from getting 50 reputation with the Mercenary Guild.”

  “What’s the Mercenary Guild? Can anyone join?”

  “The Mercenary Guild is just PVP, anyone can join. So the way it works is, two mercenary groups get pitted against each other in a random scenario. Like, one group gets tasked protecting a caravan while the other is tasked with retrieving the goods the caravan is carrying. Of course the massive 10v10, 20v20 and 50v50 skirmishes don’t do as well on the MeTube, and as an irl fighter I’m more used 1v1 anyway, so I did enough PVP battles to get the first tier reputation which had everything I needed for the level I was at, purchased the skills and the gear, and struck out on my own.”

  “What about this skill, Precise Strike?” I ask, genuinely curious.

  “I got that one after killing 1000 enemies without using any offensive skills. Then, for landing 5000 Precise Strikes, I was awarded Concussive Blow, which gives my critical hits a chance to stun.”

  “So it was like a reward for playing the game in your own way,” I say, impressed by his conviction and glad the game found a way to honor it. Tetra Chronicles has so many hidden skills, it feels as though you can play the game any way you like and still have a viable character in the end. This has got to be the greatest game of all time.

  “That’s right, I play my way! Though it only works because I’m a finely tuned machine of power and precision. Guess you could say all my training’s paying off, BAHAHAHA!” He’s in a good mood now, I think with a grin. I’ve just got one more question, and we’ll end the exposition dump.

  “So what’s the deal with your alliance points?”

  “Alliance?”

  “I see you’re leaning towards Hell.” Does that mean he took Jezol’s deal? Or the equivalent for whatever starting area he came from?

  “Did you make the deal with the devil?” Sherbie asks warily.

  “Oh, that guy? No way! No one tells Bruiser what to do. Kill this guy and pour out his blood to me? F*ck that, brother! If there’s gonna be a sacrifice today, it’ll be you sacrificing to the almighty me! YEAHHH!”

  “How is it you’re -5 towards Hell, then?”

  “Ah,” he scratches the back of his head, “I think that may have happened when I randomly beat up this group of travelers and took their gold. Turns out they were monks or whatever? Guess I pissed off some god or something, I wasn’t really paying attention…”

  “…That tracks.”

  The three of us travel back to the small village where we’re welcomed as heroes. The giant’s chest is the main reward, and while none of them are heaping us with gold in their gratitude, we do enjoy a discount at the few shops that are scattered around the village, and all the other benefits that come with a high reputation in a small town. Someone offers to buy us a drink, a hot tanner’s daughter grabs onto Sherbie and kisses him on the mouth, leaving me sucking my teeth in jealousy.

  After seeing what little there is to see here, I’m saddened when Bruiser announces he’s going his separate way.

  “You sure you want to break us up? I thought we made a pretty good team…”

  “We sure as hell do,” Bruiser grins, slapping my back vigorously. “But the Bruiser’s a lone wolf. It wouldn’t suit my image, getting caught up in this buddy comedy. Still, consider me on-call for dungeon raids and all that. And don’t forget, Big Dog, you promised me one sparring match each day.”

  “I won’t forget,” I say clasping his hand in a firm handshake. “I’ll meet you at the base tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, The Whale Base, can’t wait to see it. In the meantime be sure and check out my next videos, yeah?”

  “Wouldn’t miss em.”

  “Heh heh, damn right. Well, adios!” he says, and turns and strides through the crowd.

  Man. I haven’t even known him half a day and I’m already gonna miss that guy. But there’s no point in moping over our lost damage dealer. We’re back to just the tank and the healer again, and that’s just the way it’s gonna be, at least until we can find another damage dealer.

  I lost Sherbie at some point in the crowd. He’s hard to pick out now he’s turned into a walking moss carpet. He’ll be impossible to pick out on the trail. Talk about camouflage…

  Stopping at the arms dealer I unload my loot from the goblin battle and the giant’s chest, raking in several more gold coins. More than enough to keep the guild in business for the next week or so. By then, hopefully the other guild members will be contributing enough to pay Captain Moon and the others, keeping our little home snug and secure.

  Having cleared out my inventory, I finally spy Sherbie, just a heap of moss and mushrooms on a rock beside a fishing hut. If not for the symmetrical shape of his glasses amidst the irregular mound, I don’t think I’d have recognized him as a person at all. I walk up to find he’s just hanging out, somehow becoming the old fisherman’s best bud.

  “Hey, Rev,” he perks up when he sees me. “Get a load of what Bartholomew’s telling me! He says there’s a lake near here with a rare fish in it—can’t be caught anywhere else in the world!”

  “And now you want to go fish it out,” I finish for him, and Sherbie stares at me, astounded by my brilliance.

  “How did you know?”

  “You seem like the kind of guy that always gets ultra rare limited edition versions of all the crap he doesn’t need. I mean stuff,” I correct myself when Sherbie glares at me. With this small amendment, he perks right up.

  “But, yeah! I mean, I have to catch this fish! I can, can’t I? We don’t have anything else going on, right?”

  Nothing else but my love Charis waiting for me to finish a quest for her. But I suppose it won’t hurt to hang around another few hours. Or days, depending on how rare this fish is, and how stubborn Sherbie’s gonna be about it. I’m sure there are plenty of quests I can do in the meantime, I may as well grind a few levels…

  But before I can answer, an unfamiliar voice cuts into our conversation.

  “The Robe of Fruiting Bodies!”

  Sherbie and I turn, startled by the stranger’s exclamation.

  “How did you get that?!”