Maple and Sally currently sat on floor 39, where it was mostly based on oceanic travel. It was a good place to get gear for fishing/water-related skills and items. They were currently on the resident town's beach, enjoying the feeling of the sand between their toes, and the cool water washing it off.

They also held their new eggs in their laps. It had only been two days since the eggs were put in their possession, and they were admittedly a little impatient to see what their new buddies would look like. Maple was looking over the egg's design and smiled. "Mine is green, and this pattern looks like scales… I bet this is a poisonous dragon!" Maple exclaimed.

Sally giggled at Maple's wild assumption and looked down at hers. I don't really know what mine could be. But I'll love them either way!" Sally replied, and Maple couldn't help but agree.

"Yeah… no matter what!" She exclaimed, giving her green egg a little kiss. Right where she kissed, a crack formed in the shell. Quickly Maple began to panic. "W-WAIT! OH GOD! I-I'M SO SORRY, EGG!" She exclaimed, fearing she just accidentally killed her pet before it even lived.

Sally then heard a sound from her egg. She looked to see hers gained a crack as well. "M-Maple!" She called. "It's okay! I think they're hatching!" Sally calmly told her. Maple looked back to her egg and saw slowly the cracks were growing along the shell. Both of the eggs continued to crack, until eventually they both broke open with a burst of light!

Within Maple's egg, an adorable little turtle awoke, peering up at her with curious eyes. Meanwhile, Sally was looking at a little white Fox Cub who was sniffing in Sally's general direction. It looked like a little Kitsune in terms of color and appearance. Maple and Sally already were in awe of these little babies! Maple then felt something. On her right hand, she discovered a small green ring was just put on her finger. She looked in her inventory to see what this was.

"Bridge of Bonds: By equipping this ring in your "Pet" slot, you become Turtle's owner! Turtle's Original Owner is: Maple"

Maple read the message. She was at first excited but that was quickly snuffed by a small detail she noticed. Its name was just 'Turtle'. She squinted at her little companion for a moment trying to come up with a suitable name. Soon, the perfect name came to her. "I know! I'll call you Syrup! We'll be Maple and Syrup! It's the perfect combo!"

Sally heard Maple say this and looked down at her little cub. "Well, in that case… I'll call you Oboro! A pretty fitting name for a little cutie like you!" She told the kitsune. Sally scratched his head, which Oboro was happy to receive.

Maple analyzed the item again, and saw the message had changed! This brought Maple great happiness, knowing the turtle's name was set in stone.

"Bridge of Bonds: By equipping this ring in your "Pet" slot, you become Syrup's owner! Syrup's Original Owner is: Maple"

Maple picked up the Turtle and held him close to her chest. She had always wanted a pet, and Syrup was the closest thing. Hell, that IS his purpose.

While Maple cuddled Syrup in her arms, Sally started to look at the Pet skill directory and looked at both "General Skills" and "Kitsune Cub" skills. Sally was unsurprised by what she saw, the skills for Kitsune Cubs were mostly based directly on their inspirations, going for the control over fire and illusion aspects.

Sally couldn't help but be excited when she saw skills such as "Shadow Clone" or "Quick Shadow" that boosted her Swashbuckling abilities to act more like a Ninja! "Oooh… Oboro has some pretty cool skills he can learn!" She said, telling Maple what kinds of skills she saw in Oboro's species' directory…

Maple, curious, looked over the skill directories herself, and after seeing he mostly had nature-related abilities such as "Mother Nature" or "Petals of Sleep", but then she noticed a general skill that companions could get. Megamorph!

Maple quickly spoke up. "I have to level up Syrup, and FAST!" The tank announced, much to Sally's confusion and curiosity. Maple didn't explain, only giving Sally a wink and saying "Just Trust me, this is going to be so cool!". This did not ease any of her worries, however.

Maple smiled and looked out to the water. For a moment, she forgot that this wasn't real. She could really feel the warm sun on her body, the cool water wash over her legs, and the sand beneath and between her toes, and yet… none of it was real. It was a little unsettling for Maple, but she was so used to it now that she didn't mind it as much anymore.

Sally sighed when she couldn't think of what Maple was planning. Pets were such a new thing that she didn't think they could be exploited so soon. Leave it to the former Noobie to come up with something, though. As she pet Oboro's head, she began to wonder how her parents were doing. It had been almost two months since she seemingly disappeared on them, her body now within the walls of Rect Progress. Just before her thoughts could get dark, she quickly spoke up.

"H-Hey Maple?"

Maple curiously looked at Sally, tilting her head slightly. Sally continued "I heard there was a Mini-Boss on this floor. Maybe we should go take it on, together! There will probably be a lot of EXP for Oboro and Syrup." She proposed, and Maple's eyes sparkled.

"Ooooh! Yeah! Let's do it!" Maple cheered, and the girls stood up. The two walked into the water to wash off the digital sand before equipping their proper gear.

"We have to move on foot, though. It would be best if we retreated our pets to their bonds…" Sally said, watching as Oboro vanished in a brilliant white light, the light now absorbed into the ring around her finger. Maple did the same for Syrup.

Sally pulled up a mini-map, showing Maple an indicator she placed where someone said the Boss would be. Maple hopped on Sally's shoulders and she was off to the races! Maple whooped and hollered as she felt the absolutely incredible rush of speed that Sally gets to experience every day! The wind was flying through her hair as if she stuck her head out of a car window.

Faster and faster, the duo moved. They kept going until Sally came to a skidding stop. The two now stood in front of the entrance of a cave. Maple slowly got off Sally's shoulders. "Alright… this is the Boss Room?" Maple asked. Sally nodded, and the two walked down the stone stairs. Only to find a pond within the cave.

Sally, noticing something was off about this pond, dipped her leg into the water, deeper and deeper, holding on to the floor as she felt around for the bottom of the water. "Yeah, that's what I figured…" she said as she stood up. Maple tilted her head in confusion, prompting Sally to explain.

"It looks like this is some kind of sea creature. Probably a Kraken or something like that. I've trained a lot of swimming and water-based skills, so I think I can make it. You, on the other hand… do you happen to have anything for underwater in your inventory?" Sally asked, and Maple shook her head. "That's what I figured… sorry Maple, but I've gotta do this one myself." She said as she was pulling up her Skill List.

Sally showed how she currently had a skill called Diving at level 6, as shown in Roman Numerals. Maple carefully read the skill to see why she was showing it off.

Diving VI:

You have spent so much time swimming underwater that can hold your breath for much longer than the average person. You can hold your breath for a number of minutes equal to your level in this skill x4

(6 x 4 = 24)

"Twenty Four?! I normally can't hold my breath for barely more than a minute! That's awesome! You're perfect for underwater fights!" Maple exclaimed as if Sally was unaware of her own underwater prowess.

Maple opened up her hand, causing her Crescent Moon shortsword to appear. "Here. I know you've leveled up in Daggers and not Shortswords, but it might be able to help you during the battle." She said as she handed it to Sally. Sally took it and placed it in her inventory, thanking Maple for it.

Maple gave Sally a hug, which prompted confusion at first until Sally remembered what was going on. This wasn't like any other games she had played before. If her avatar died in this fight, that was the end of it all. Sally was a little nervous, but shook off this dread and dove down into the water. Sure enough, it led to an underwater cave system.

Sally swam at speeds that would make any Olympic swimmer green with envy, jetting through the labyrinth of underwater tunnels until she found one larger-than-life cylindrical room filled with water. When she looked down she saw nothing but what seemed like a void. When she looked up, however, she discovered that the room was not quite filled with water to the ceiling.

Immediately, Sally swam to the top and took some very much-needed breaths of air. Once her breath was restored, she took one really deep breath of air and dove down again. As she headed down, she then saw two piercing red eyes open, alerting her to the beginning of the fight.

"They must have wanted to make the fight fairer, so they allowed anybody down here to catch their breath before the fight began. How generous…" She thought, a little sarcasm near the end as two spear-like objects flew forward right at her.

As she dodged the two shots, she took a closer look. They were tentacles! Sally looked back down and saw a Kraken rising up towards her menacingly. At record speed, Sally dashed down at the Kraken and slashed with her Dagger, Airstrike. At each slash the beast screeched in pain, and quickly retracted its tentacles to grab and toss Sally further away to the depths.

Sally reacted by utilizing her Phantom World skill to split off into four Sallys. Only one of them was real, and they all swam off in different directions to confuse the creature. The Kraken reached out and slashed a tentacle at one. She dodged the first attack, but wasn't as lucky on the second. However, the body fizzled out, revealing it was an illusion. Naturally this annoyed the Kraken, causing it to slash its tentacles around the waters wildly and let out a screech, similarly to a misbehaving child.

Quickly Sally and her Phantom World clones managed to swim away from the beast. After its tantrum was finished, it regained composure and began to aim its large body at Sally. "Wait, it wasn't doing this before… Did I unlock some kind of second phase?" She asked, despite knowing nobody would answer.

Like a torpedo, the kraken jet forward at Sally. She attempted to dodge, but she didn't quite make it out of the way, being shoved into a wall by the Kraken. She forced down a scream of pain so as not to lose oxygen, and glanced at her quickly dwindling health bar. Before she could take any more damage, she wriggled out from where the Kraken had her pinned and swam behind him. That's when she equipped Maple's Crescent Moon, slashing at the boss.

Even though the initial attack did minimal damage, Sally noticed that as the short sword slashed in the water, it left a cloudy trail of dark purple behind. Sally looked at the weapon for a moment, until she remembered.

Crescent Moon gave Maple the ability to deal additional poison damage to her enemies. This was represented by the dagger occasionally releasing a single drop of poison from the tip like an overflowing needle. As such, when the Shortsword stabbed or slashed somebody, it would inject the poison inside into the victim through the wound.

Apparently, this had a fun reaction with the water, as the liquid would now spread around the water. Knowing this, Sally smiled mischievously as she began swimming at top speeds, spreading the poisonous cloud around the Kraken.

It tried to grab her, but due to the poison clouds, she was completely obscured from its vision, and so the Kraken missed. Eventually, the giant squid let out a loud shriek, that pushed Sally away forcefully. However, as she was sent flying backward through the water, she noticed the poison cloud trail was beginning to bleed further in the water. That's when she noticed its health bar was getting lowered at an extreme rate.

She waited it out, when suddenly two tentacles shot forward and ensnared her. Desperately she tried to wriggle free, however, the beast's grip was like a vice as it pulled her in towards the poison clouds of her own creation.

Suddenly, his grip loosened, and he released her meat inches from the impending doom… she watched as he was shattered into endless blue and green polygonal shards…

Sally's arms shot up in victory, as though she would have cheered if she had the ability to speak. She then felt herself getting lowered to the floor of the boss room. She was at first confused until she noticed the top of the water was lowering! The boss room was being drained of its water!

Sally took in a large gasp of air as her head got above water, and then she looked to see a more pirate-esque Treasure Chest in front of her. She got up and walked towards it, placing a single hand on it, causing it to open…

—

Maple sat at the entrance of the cave, with a special little Turtle in her lap. Maple was playing with Syrup, giving plenty of pets, and even looking over his skill directory.

"If I got you those skills…" she started, then began to mutter. Syrup's head tilted in curiosity. Maple looked at the Turtle again. "Aww… don't mind me, cutie… Just thinking about something." She responded as the reptile began nuzzling her cheek.

As the two waited, suddenly a medal manifested in Maple's hand, and a screen appeared in front of her, telling her she was awarded EXP and even leveled up. Syrup leveled up quite a few times too! "Oooh! Looks like Sally beat the miniboss!" Maple exclaimed happily, prompting a little cheer from her companion. Sure enough, after a few more minutes, Sally came out of the entrance of the cave. "Congrats, Sally!" She exclaimed, giving her bestie a big hug!

Sally blushed a little from the sudden assault. "O-Oh! It was nothing… actually, you really helped a lot back there!" She told Maple, which prompted a similar head tilt of curiosity. Sally then explained. "Well, even though I haven't leveled up Shortswords, some of my skills work with in-general one-handed weapons. So, I still dealt a good amount of damage. But also, the poison your sword releases apparently spreads in water. So, you'd be very useful in underwater combat. Provided of course, you get something to help your breath holding…" Sally explained, handing Maple back her Crescent Moon in the process.

Maple happily took back the weapon. "Well, thank you very much, Sally! And thanks to the medals we both got, I can very easily get those skills for Syrup now!" She replied, and started scrolling through her Pet Skill Directory to collect her prizes.

Maple picked up her turtle, and Sally let out Oboro as they began to move to an open area so Maple could show off what she bought with the skill medal.

The two stood in an open area, Syrup about 50 feet away from the players. "Okay, Syrup! Use Megamorph!" She exclaimed, suddenly running at the little monster and jumping over him. Suddenly, Syrup began to grow, getting bigger and bigger until he was the size of three houses. Maple now sat at the top of the turtle's shell. Sally's eyes were as wide as saucers, and Maple called down. "Check it out, Sally! Now we can ride Syrup around instead of walk! Isn't that awesome?!" the living fortress asked.

Sally just shook her head in shock and muttered. "Jeez, Maple… you're gonna break this game if you're not careful…"

Maple laughed as her plan was successful so far, and she hadn't even shown off the full plan yet! The Living Fortress then got an alert. A message from Klein, surprisingly.

"Hey, Maple! Me and the boys found the boss room and are planning out an all-out assault on the boss in a few days with the Knights of the Blood Oath. Wanna come with?"

Maple responded quickly. "Heck yeah! Sally and I will head over now to strategize!"

Just like that, Maple shrunk her turtle down and told Sally the situation. Sally got excited, and the two left to go meet Klein and the others…