“I’m a coconut, not an expert on algorithmic brain scans and neural networking,” Wilson said as he ambled down the beach. “You can ask the man upstairs when we get to his temple on Isla Cascadura.”
“We’re not going to—” An alert blinked in his vision. Darren frowned and opened it.
<<<<>>>>
Quest Alert!
Travel to Isla Cascadura and find the temple of Poseidon in Twin Lanterns so the god can set you on your path to an ultra-rare class.
Reward:
-
12,000XP
-
10 Sovereigns
Accept?
Yes. No.
<<<<>>>>
“You were sayin’?” Wilson asked as he reached Darren.
“That I want a lot more answers than you seem keen to give me. Also, apparently Poseidon wants to give me an ultra-rare class?” He’ll have to convince me to stay first…
“‘Bout sums it up.” Wilson leaned against the hull of the boat and inspected his fingers on one tiny hand. “You gonna finish dis fing or what?”
Darren absently removed the cooked meat from his inventory and munched some. He smiled. Still absolutely delicious. Maybe staying wouldn’t be so bad… No. Gotta get to his body. No way was he going to leave his mother to “take care of him” again. Darren shuddered and popped the food back in his inventory.
“Alright,” he said at last and shrugged, “let’s finish the boat. I hope you’re at least slightly more useful than OG Wilson. Couldn’t even pull one shift of guard duty last night.”
Wilson pushed himself off the boat and scowled up at Darren. “What’s that suppose’ to mean?”
Darren gestured at Wilson. “You’re a coconut. I’m making a houseboat. Can you swing a hammer?”
“I can swing a fist at your little di—”
“Okay!” Darren said. “Let’s get building then.” He gave Wilson a wide berth and strode up the beach to the pile of logs he had drying by the fire, enjoying the pungent scent of fresh Pine as he neared his makeshift camp.
Resource gathering in Isle of Pirates was incredibly simplistic. Though that didn’t mean easy.
Cutting down the tree was by far the worst part, especially with his POS flint axe. However, once one was down you could loot it to turn it into logs and extract the resin. The logs were too large to go into an inventory, but they were at least more manageable than a whole tree. The resin went straight into your inventory.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
After that, prepping the timber was fairly straightforward. Place the log by a fire, and in minutes it was beautifully kiln-dried and ready for use. Place the resin in a hollowed-out coconut and melt it for sealing gaps and waterproofing the timber.
He suspected there’d be classes that made the process even easier, much like his Shipwright class. But who’d want to take a class dedicated to deforestation?
A lack of nails didn’t even seem to hold the game back. Not when you had vines. They really wanted you to get out on the seas and enjoy the seafaring life. This island—Razorfin Rock, if he remembered rightly—was more of a… tutorial zone. A place for new players to come to grips with the world in an environment relatively free of spawn campers. From what he remembered, the zone was level locked. No player over level 5 could come here, though apparently NPCs could, so he’d heard.
Darren had nearly reached the camp when he heard Wilson shouting. He turned to see the coconut waddling after him.
“Don’t just leave me behind, you hulking piece of moist flesh,” Wilson said. “I got short legs!”
“Mate, if I go at your pace, we’ll be here a week before we’re done with the mighty Boaty McHouseboat. Do you want me to make a sling so you can hang from my waist, bouncing back and forth as I walk?”
Wilson’s scowl deepened. “Look ‘ere, punk, I may be an anthropomorphic coconut, but I got magic, okay? I got the notification of you inspectin’ me, so you know I’m a Telekinesis Master.” With a wave of his hand, a log floated into the air and drifted toward the catamaran.
“Perhaps I judged too quickly,” Darren said, grinning. This would speed things up dramatically! The -2 to strength from his Exhausted debuff was killing him…
“Yeah…” Wilson tapped the edge of his nose hole. “Don’t be hasty.”
Darren gave him a strange look.
“What? You ain’t the only one who can make obscure references to old fantasy movies released at the turn of the millennium. Besides, a tree said it. I have an affinity for trees.”
“Well, sure. But how do you have context of things from the real world?”
Wilson stared up at him.
“Fine,” Darren said. “From my world.”
“Easy. Poseidon knows everyfing you know. He created me to ‘assist’ you in navigating this world. He fought you might miss yours. In reality, I fink he figured you’d be pretty useless at global dominance, so I’ll take care of dat.”
Darren cocked an eyebrow. “Global domination?”
“We-ll, okay. Maybe he didn’t say dat, but he was definitely finkin’ it.
“Sure. Sure sure sure sure.” Darren glanced over his shoulder at the infinite ocean. A pod of dolphins broke through the water beyond the reef, their excited chittering carried to him on the wind.
How much did he miss real life? He’d barely spent a day outside of a game in years. Ever since his family cut him off.
There was no soul attached to this body here in-game. Just the echo of a personality he called his own. He pushed that from his mind. There’d be time later to have an existential crisis.
“One last thing, then back to work,” Darren said as he focused on Wilson, and several options appeared on the side of his vision. He selected Invite to Party. He’d tested most of these features a few days ago, enough to know roughly what he wanted to do.
A second later, he received a notification letting him know Wilson had accepted. In the top left of his vision, a small icon with Wilson’s head in it appeared, followed by his name, current level and health.
He poked around for a few seconds until he came across an option he was after.
<<<<>>>>
Would you like to share all current and future quests with current members of your party?
Participating party members will receive 50% XP and a custom reward.
You may revoke quest sharing at any time by removing member from party. Currently active quests may not be shared again with that person should they rejoin the party.
Only the party leader can share their quests.
Share?
Yes. No.
<<<<>>>>
He selected yes.
“Oh. Fanks,” Wilson said.
Darren shrugged. “If I’m stuck with you, might as well get you some levels off of the random crap I’m getting at the moment.”
“You got that right. Now hurry up and finish so we can get to civilisation. I hate sand in me fibres.”