Chapter 40

The puffballs were just about to begin their attack when, elsewhere, Frus discovered the menu screen. Suddenly, Sprx vanished from the further along group and was replaced by Saga, and Sprx appeared where Saga had been. The puffballs stopped.

"Wait…you're with those guys?" asked a puffball.

"Why aren't you still in the void zone? We can't attack anyone other than the main party," said another.

"Hey, boss, spread the word, both of these parties are actually one. No, no events. Yeah, you need to tell everybody. Thanks," the first puffball was talking on a cell phone.

"Hey, either catch up with the rest of your party, or go back to nowhere!" said the other puffball.

Frus had been switching the group around throughout the entire conversation, hoping that the group could earn some gold and find an inn before someone ran out of HP. So now, Frus, Vrust, Saga, and Ygrene were running as fast as they could to catch up with the others. Frus had chosen them because they were most likely the fastest.

Meanwhile, Ivy was in charge of the group, apparently, and everyone was going to sit and wait for the others. Even though only four could enter a battle, it would be nice the have everyone together. Otto went over to a rock to sit on it…and suddenly they were sucked into a random battle.

Ivy, Maria, Otto, and Sprx were suddenly facing six blue goblins. Ivy, who had first attack, was about to go attack them with her staff, looked at her spells list. Finding a fire spell, she smiled evilly at the goblins and paid some mana, then melted four in one attack. Maria, who suddenly had knives, attacked one, but it didn't die. Otto attacked it with his axe, and it fell. Then, Sprx used an arrow on the last one, not doing much damage. Then, it was the goblin's turn. It used a spear one Ivy, doing more damage than one would expect. On Ivy's turn, she nearly broke her staff over the things head. The group received 50 exp two potions and some gold.

As the four of them faded back to the over world map, Frus and the others felt themselves level up. Then, they could see their friends just a little bit ahead of them. As the only one to have been attacked, Ivy was drinking a potion.

Frus switched around the order again, and they started their journey again. After a long and surprisingly boring walk, they saw a town, and began to run towards it. Then, they were called into another random battle. This time, it was the group that had been catching up. They were attacked by a golem a four little mud creatures.

Frus took out one of the mud creatures with a swing of his sword, and his father did the same. Saga dashed over to a third mud beast and used some sort of hook to take it out, and Ygrene, instead of attacking a mud beast, jumped forward and punched the golem with gauntlets that he was suddenly wearing.

The mud creature attacked Saga, doing little damage. The golem, however, attacked Ygrene and put him at less than half health. Frus took out the last mud creature and the other three worked together and defeated the golem. As the battle ended, everyone leveled up again, and the party got some gold.

Soon after that the party reached he town. Although they hoped to finish the little game as quickly as possible, they had two destinations: the item shop and the inn.

At the item shop, the group spent their gold on healing potions and better weapons. They couldn't afford armor. With just a little gold left, they went towards the inn. It was a small building and only a few steps away.

To call it an inn was almost criminal. There was one bed in a small room. Unfortunately, going in there was a cutscene, and the party wasn't allowed to leave until morning unless there was some sort of special event. It was the best way to fully heal everyone and replenish energy, anyway. So everyone just sort of sat down wherever they found themselves once they were inside.

In the morning, Saga woke up first. He began to wonder why he had even fallen asleep, when he had meant to keep watch the entire night, and he had never simply succumbed to exhaustion before.

"Because, you're no you right now," said a voice. Saga looked up to see Puck, floating above him.

"That explains why I didn't sense you," said Saga.

"Exactly. You're not Saga the I don't know what, you're Saga, the thief character in my RPG story," replied Puck.

"So…what are you doing here?" asked Saga.

"Well, watching you sleep all night, which is normal length here, and I don't know why, was really boring. So I'm going to skip a bit of this game. There's no question as to whether you would have beaten that much, anyway," explained Puck. He then slapped Saga with a small shark. With a yell of "Game on!" he vanished.

Sage wiped the slime off his face and looked around. The room was different, and there were odd sounds coming from outside. Saga looked out the window, which was new, and he saw that it was a different town altogether.

Saga felt stronger, and had a well-made blue cloak on now instead of the ugly, near-useless stuff he had had on before. In fact, everyone who had had badly-made armor was wearing something more fitting. However, only Frus and Ivy could check the menu screen, so Saga woke up Frus, who was now had decent pants to go with the rest of his armor.

"Wha-what is it?" asked Frus.

"Check our status and inventory," said Saga. Frus did so, and saw that everyone was now about level 40 and they had an extensive inventory, with mystical weapons, colored orbs, phoenix downs (but spelled with an F instead) and more. "We're further along in the game. I'm going to go collect information. Assuming the others wake up, keep them here until I get back," said Saga. He then opened the window and jumped gracefully to the ground.

Saga began to walk around. It turned out not to be a town, but a city, a beautiful one at that. There was shiny tile and marble statues everywhere, along with fountains and small streams throughout the city, more so than there were streets, in fact. There were barges hauling cargo and children staring at the fish. They were odd colors and were sparkling in the early morning light. Saga took all this in as he wandered the streets, and eventually he stopped at a tavern.

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