That wasn't so bad, Gotou thought as he stood woozily on the transportation pad in the Holy Shrine at Ardus. If you took out the disorientation, the fact that he was watching the landscape rush by underneath him with absolutely zero protection, or the fact that the bird was apparently a gigantic asshole and enjoyed going out of its way to try and elicit a reaction from its passenger the whole thing was actually quite an efficient way to get around. All the same, he was not doing that again unless he absolutely had to.

Ardus Shrine — the Holy Shrine of Verteron according to the in-game map — was settled in the bough of an enormous tree. Gotou stepped off the transportation pad and looked around. It wasn't like Masayoshi had a whole lot of places to go, up here. Most of the NPCs that lined the platform were in their idle animations, but one of them was watching all around him, and was paying attention to something deeper in the shrine — or, more accurately,above it. Gotou's eyes followed his line of sight, and saw a flash of red energy. Someone was on top of the Shrine, fighting.

Someone.

"Masayoshi!" Gotou said, trying to get him on the voice chat. There was no response, and Gotou could only assume he was too close for that function to work properly. He moved quickly to the end of the platform, trying to get a good look at what was happening above the Shrine. If the figure was Masayoshi, he couldn't quite tell because there were three enormous grey beasts besieging it, their wings and huge whip-like tails thrashing, All he could see was the occasional flash of a weapon. Gotou had no idea how to get up there to even help, but he was already moving toward the deeper part of the Shrine, eying the roof, trying to gauge how to climb it. There was an even brighter flash and the clamor of weapon against monster stopped abruptly.

Gotou hesitated, and then spun on his heel to look at the resurrection obelisk that stood near the transportation pad. After a moment, Masayoshi appeared, his hands on his knees and breathing hard. He looked faint and translucent for a few moments, and when his form solidified he sat down in front of the obelisk and leaned back on his hands, eyes closed.

He's fine, Gotou thought, trying to fight down the nausea that bubbled up in his throat at the realization that he had arrived just a little too late to prevent this. He's fine. We're in a game. I've respawned three times in the last few hours, it's fine.

Masayoshi opened his eyes and saw Gotou standing there, looking lost. His expression instantly brightened, but he didn't stand up just yet, his health bar too low. "Gotou-san!" he said cheerfully, as if Gotou had not just witnessed him getting ripped apart by some manner of beast. "You made it! Did you fly?"

Gotou's mouth was dry, but he forced his tone back into casual by sheer force of will. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine." Masayoshi folded his legs in front of him and put his gauntlets atop them, cocking his head and blinking innocently up at Gotou. "Don't go into the big part of the shrine, those gargoyles are super aggro and really hard to kill."

He nodded automatically and then remembered what he had in his inventory. "I brought you food," he said, and Masayoshi brightened further.

"Food? Really, what sort?"

"Some kind of stew thing." Gotou gestured and dug into his inventory. The stew appeared in a bowl with a spoon in his hands, still warm and steaming. "This is completely insane," he said conversationally as he handed it off to Masayoshi, who raised the bowl to his nose and inhaled.

"Insane or not, it smells wonderful. What's in it?" Masayoshi raised the spoon and tucked in, then paused. "This tastes … weird, Gotou-san."

"It's not just me, then," Gotou rested his arm on the hilt of his sword as he watched Masayoshi. "Good, I thought it tasted a little strange."

"It doesn't taste like stew. It's like…" Masayoshi took another bite, nose wrinkled in concentration. It was a strangely endearing expression, and Gotou should not be having a thought like that right now. "I don't know. It tastes, but I don't know what it tastes like." Another bite. "Not bad, though."

"Yeah." Gotou said. He heard a creature make noise, and he glanced up to the main portion of the Shrine, where a large grey gargoyle sat now over the entrance, watching them both with hungry eyes. Gotou did not like that look, but when he pulled up the map he saw that they weren't in the creatures aggro range. He hoped that was just its usual place to idle, because if that thing had developed a taste for Masayoshi….

Masayoshi must have been hungry, because he scraped the bowl and licked the spoon, odd-tasting stew or otherwise. "That was … filling," he said. When he stood up his health bar was completely full. "What do I do with the — oh!" The bowl and spoon vanished from his hands. "That's awfully convenient. I hope they went back to where they were supposed to."

Gotou glanced through his inventory. "So, we're at the Shrine. Now what? Instance still hasn't reset."

"There are coin quests here," Masayoshi said, nodding to himself. Coin quests were something that didn't grant experience points in and of themselves to players, but instead bestowed coins meant to exchange for special goods, only available from a single merchant. "They have some nice armor here! We can fight wind and air spirits for a while, it can't hurt to level a bit." He patted the obelisk behind him. "You should bind here, Gotou-san, just in case."

Masayoshi's entire attitude was making him a little bit nervous. While this might still be a game, they were actuallyin here, and Masayoshi seemed pretty cavalier about it. "Maybe we should just take it easy," Gotou suggested gently, and Masayoshi pointed above and behind Gotou. He turned and glanced to the gargoyles that lounged on the roof of the Shrine.

"I was taking it easy, and they kicked my butt," he said. "I want to train, Gotou-san. Aren't you going to help me? We can't take on the ultimate evil with our stats the way they are now! We've got to get stronger!"

"Whoa, ultimate evil?" Gotou followed Masayoshi to the end of the platform. "First I've heard anything about that, this is an MMO, there isn't an end boss, Masayoshi—" He stopped near the edge of the platform. Masayoshi had walked all the way to the edge and was staring down at the considerable drop with very little worry.

"We've got to train, and get stronger!" Masayoshi pointed down. Gotou, after a moment's hesitation, came closer to the edge and glanced down. There, far below on the forest floor were white creatures that moved on all fours, vaguely lupine in shape. "Wind and air spirits," Masayoshi said excitedly.

Gotou gave a resigned sigh. "Okay," he said. No matter what, Masayoshi was going to go fight these things, and Gotou was not going to just sit on the sidelines and watch him get slaughtered. "Fine. Wind and air spirits. Now, how do we get do-"

Mid-sentence, mid-word, Masayoshi grabbed his arm and stepped off the platform.

Gotou sat in front of the resurrection obelisk, arms crossed and glaring up at Masayoshi, as if the force behind his glare could knock a few health points from Masayoshi's bar alone. Masayoshi's sabatons scraped the stone of the platform, but the asshole didn't look the slightest bit repentant this time. His wingspan did shade the platform, the feathers arranged in a gradient from pure white to rosy-tipped. "Gotou-san," Masayoshi said, his eyes wide. "That looked like it hurt! Did you forget that we can fly?"

"Yes!"

Safely on the forest floor now, Gotou rubbed the back of his head and then his shoulder. It was a weird feeling,really weird, and it messed with his balance and equilibrium but he had managed to not die the second time, unfurling wings that yes, he had completely forgotten that he had and were used in the game.

Who could blame him, he was having a busy day.

"Four times," Gotou said as Masayoshi gestured into the air, going through his quests and gearing up properly. "That is four times in however long it's been in-game time. No more."

Masayoshi stopped his gesture and looked up, over at Gotou — which, since he couldn't see the screen Masayoshi was viewing the action looked strangely comical. "Four times for what, Gotou-san?"

"That I've had to pay the fucking soul healer, Masayoshi!"

Masayoshi furrowed his brow and concentrated. "You just fell … the Tursin chief and Paksigue. That's only three. Are you feeling okay?"

"A worg got me before we met up," Gotou snapped, folding his arms. "That's four."

Masayoshi chewed on his lower lip, then put his attention back on his screens. "You should really be more careful, Gotou-san."

Gotou's mouth opened. He didn't have a retort in mind, but whatever was going to come out of his mouth was overridden by the enemy alert tone. "Are you fucking serious," Gotou said, as Masayoshi's head came up, scanning around alertly.

It was a wind spirit that had spotted them, its fur presented in large white spikes that glimmered in the dim light of the sanctuary's forest floor. The spikes were extended and glowing slightly blue as it charged an energy attack that would envelope both of them. Gotou got his shield on his arm and up just in time as that first attack came, an effect attack that would have dazed him if he hadn't blocked in time. Masayoshi, it seemed, wasn't so lucky, rooted in spot with a blank expression on his face.

Gotou gestured and brought up his attacks menu, but he was struck while trying to select a skill. He shook off the blow as the wind spirit charged them, and the effect attack wore off Masayoshi in the same instant. "Don't use your menu," Masayoshi yelled, and swung his halberd around, off his back and into both hands. He charged past Gotou, zeroing in on the wind spirit. "Just hit it!"

"What?" Gotou said. Masayoshi's attack struck the ground in front of the wind spirit, not the creature directly. The force of the blow was strong enough to knock Gotou off his feet, and as he scrambled back upright the wind spirit was trying to regain its feet as well. Masayoshi had already moved on to another string of attacks. A chain, Gotou realized. Before he could move again the wind spirit bellowed, and then vanished completely as if it had never been. Gold and items clattered to the forest floor in its wake, in front of Masayoshi.

"How did you…" Gotou asked, sheathing his sword, a little dazed by the encounter. "That was quick."

"They're not a super high level," Masayoshi said. "But I got some experience points, how about you?"

Gotou checked his status bar. "A little. What did you mean, 'don't use the menu'? How do you use your skills?"

Masayoshi held up a small vial with a blue liquid in it. "Want the mana potion? I don't use magic as much as templars do."

"Masayoshi!"

"I just hit it, and it's like I know what to do." He shrugged and straightened. "You used a block skill with a counterattack before you even opened your menu, just like that."

"Oh," Gotou said, and Masayoshi handed him the flask with the shimmering blue liquid. "I guess I need to practice that, then." It had seemed a little natural, the way the moves flowed … but he had been so concentrated on pulling up his skills menu that he had missed the ease of the action.

Masayoshi grinned and nodded his head, indicating the sanctuary's forest floor around them. "Training," he proclaimed. Gotou sighed and smiled a little at Masayoshi's enthusiasm despite himself.

"Training," he agreed.

The rain made a soft pattering sound on the broad leaves that shadowed their heads. Gotou sat in the soft loam, his back to a tree branch big enough to be the trunk of a regular-sized tree. It was probably just a twig, in comparison to the massive size of the tree in the center of the sanctuary, Gotou thought idly, as he watched the rain.

Masayoshi was sitting on the branch itself, fingers busy in the air as he worked on … something. Gotou was not entirely sure what he was doing, they were taking a much-deserved break after grinding so many wind and air spirits he had lost count. They had their timing worked out better now, it was more cooperative than not; and Gotou couldn't help but feel that he and Masayoshi were just naturally in sync. It worked well, they had carved a path through the beasts so quickly that the ones they had started on were just now starting to reappear, spawning in their original locations.

Gotou watched a glowing worm float by along the path, undulating softly in mid-air. Those were hostile too, but the worm was well out of range, and from this distance it was simply pretty. Gotou looked over at Masayoshi, his armor bright and polished. It didn't look like he'd been through that many battles, there wasn't a ding, dent, or imperfection across its shiny surface. The armor did make him bulkier than he usually was, and Gotou wondered idly if underneath it he was built the same as Masayoshi really was.

"Gotou-san!" Masayoshi said, startling Gotou out of his reverie. He wasn't looking at Gotou, but all the same Gotou looked away, blushing furiously at having been caught staring. "My chat is working again!"

Gotou blinked and looked back at Masayoshi. "What, really?" He gestured himself, bringing up his display.

The list of people was the same as before — Gotou didn't really have many friends in-game. He ran his finger down the list and tapped a bolded name, and just like that a chat dialog box appeared. "I'll be damned," he said. "I wonder if it was server maintenance?"

"No idea." Masayoshi's hands were moving quickly. "I'm talking to Green, he wants us to meet him and Black over in Heiron." Masayoshi glanced over at Gotou, waiting.

"What do you think?" Gotou asked honestly, flexing his hands. "Is it a safe area?"

"There's a minuscule chance of PVP in that area, but…" Masayoshi shrugged. "It's not above our levels."

Gotou nodded his head, then shook it once. "I mean, what do you think about them wanting to meet, instead of discussing what's going on through the chat?" Gotou watched as two players entered the sanctuary, running down the path in the distance. One diverted off straight toward a wind spirit, the other coming back around to help. "Doesn't that strike you as a little odd?"

Masayoshi nodded his head, he was watching the two players as well. Once the wind spirit was defeated, they both grew their wings and flew up, toward the Shrine itself. "There's a lot odd about what's going on, though," he offered, and Gotou couldn't argue with that.

The portal between the two zones was tucked off into a corner of the sanctuary. They'd had to kill a few more spirits that had targeted them, but their aggro range had grown smaller with the more experience points the two of them had accumulated. Eventually they would level out of range and they could waltz right past without triggering an enemy alert. Gotou hoped that time would be sooner, rather than later.

Masayoshi stared up at the giant portal, shimmering and translucent, with spiral of green energy snaking through. "Here's to hoping we can even get out of this zone," Gotou said, and without waiting for Masayoshi to make a decision, he walked headfirst into the portal. After a moment, he emerged on the other side, glancing behind him and waiting for Masayoshi to join him. Masayoshi didn't hesitate, and followed right through; the teleportation here was instantaneous. He didn't break stride until he stopped next to Gotou, who had his hands out and was accessing his menu. "Looking for quests?" Masayoshi asked, looking at the darker colored sky, an ominous purple color, the ground and foliage not nearly as vibrant green and alive.

"Trying to log out," Gotou said. He shrugged and dropped his hands. "Was worth a shot. Where are we going?" He had a though, and gestured - after a moment there was a soft ding, and Masayoshi blinked.

"What did you do?"

"We're not a party," Gotou said. "This makes it easier, right? It's kinda silly since we're right next to each other, but-"

Masayoshi clapped his hands together softly. "I didn't even think of that, Gotou-san, that's great! We're a group." He smiled broadly, and Gotou felt a little strange at his joy over such a simple action. Now Masayoshi gestured, and brought up a map that Gotou could now see. "We're headed to Airon desert," he said, pointing to the left of the map, an area full of wastes. "But first, we gotta get through this bog." Masayoshi wrinkled his nose at the prospect as he looked around — this was where the instance was, they had teleported directly to it when they'd decided to run it together. It was tucked away back in a corner, where the swamp was more swamp than not … here, the path was packed hard, and the ground wasn't super marshy.

"Fun times," Gotou said, and Masayoshi nodded. "We can just follow the path, though, that should keep us out of trouble."

"Yeah," Masayoshi said. "Should."

The path stretched in front of them — to either side of the little natural grotto that the portal sat in two Elysean guards in armor stood idly by. "Safe journeys," one commented as they passed. Gotou glanced back at the NPC, but he was just staring straight ahead, as if he hadn't broken character. "Did that guard just address us without being activated?" Gotou asked when they were out of earshot.

"I didn't hear it," Masayoshi said with a shrug. He looked back at Gotou, and caught him glancing back the way they had come.

The swamp stretched off to the east, their hard-packed path mostly clear of enemies. As they got deeper in, bipedal furry red-horned monsters started turning up off the path on either side, toiling in small circles, doing whatever it was that monsters did. Masayoshi hadn't really fought these yet, he had stayed mostly out of Heiron, waiting for Gotou to catch up to his level. He waved one hand over a particularly large specimen as they passed, and its name was written in gold above its head. Not entirely too high a level for them to fight … but not easy, like the wind spirits.

"Lovely place," Gotou muttered, one gauntleted hand cupped over his nose. "Smells like the inside of my sock drawer."

Masayoshi frowned. "Your sock drawer smells like dryer sheets, Gotou-san."

Gotou did not lower his hand, but he did look side-long at Masayoshi. "Smelling my socks much, then, Masayoshi?"

"I put them away! You left this huge pile on the bed, where else was I meant to sit?"

"You shouldn't be sitting on my bed, that's weird." Gotou lowered his hand finally, glancing off, out over the swamps instead of looking at Masayoshi.

"It's the only piece of furniture to sit on," Masayoshi said reasonably "Sometimes I even take naps on it!" He frowned at Gotou, whose attention was fixed out in the distance. "Gotou-san, are you turning red? Is it heatstroke? I know the armor is heavy, but it's not that warm here…"

"I'M FINE," Gotou said in a loud tone of voice that told him that nothing was fine but Gotou did not want to speak further on the issue. Masayoshi hesitated, revisited what he said, and tried to figure out what had upset Gotou so. "If you don't want me to sleep on your bed-" he started to say, but Gotou abruptly did a heel-turn on the path and walked straight for one of the red-furred kerubs. "Gotou-san!"

The beast lifted its head and saw Gotou approaching. That triggered its aggro range, and it tucked its head down and charged with a bellow, horns pointed at Gotou's midsection. Gotou put his shield out as protection, flanking his midsection and his sword in one hand. Masayoshi went for his halberd, and without even looking over Gotou shook his head violently, a motion that was almost lost in the clash of energy as the kerub struck him. It took a good minute or so for the kerub to fall, but Gotou eventually killed it, and the creature faded out of existence, leaving a small pile of gold and items in its wake. Gotou scooped the items up, looked around at the other kerubs who had watched the battle but were not in range to trigger their own aggro, and then scooted back to the path. "What was that all about?" Masayoshi said as Gotou deposited his loot.

"Close to leveling," Gotou said without looking at Masayoshi. "If you had helped, it would have shared the experience points between us. Also, your one sweeping blow that you like would have triggered every fucking one of them and we would have been swarmed."

That was a fair enough point. Masayoshi slung his halberd back over his shoulder again. "How close are you to leveling, then?" Masayoshi asked as they started along the path again.

"Close," Gotou said, still not looking at him. "I'm close."

The swamp started to firm up, although the washed-out, sick coloration of the landscape took longer to transition. As they came to a fork in the path, a very large tree (although nowhere near in the range of the trees in the forest Shrine) picked up its roots as one might pick up a skirt, and shuffled a few steps in another direction, startling both of them. They froze, neither having heard an enemy alert, and after a moment Gotou pointed high into the sky, above the tree's leaves where a blue quest indicator flashed. "Elim," Masayoshi realized, and breathed a sigh of relief.

They took the east fork, and proceeded to almost get run off the road by a dinosaur. "It's a frillneck," Masayoshi said as they stood atop a rock outcropping, where they had both scrambled in quite a hurry. They watched the bipedal lizard stalk slowly past.

"I come up to its hip," Gotou said.

"Still a frillneck."

"It's a fucking dinosaur, Masayoshi."

Masayoshi waved the indicator on, and Gotou snorted. "I can see what it says," he said. "Doesn't change the fact that we almost got eaten by Godzilla's newborn."

"It isn't that big," Masayoshi said. "There's probably more of them, too. Bet we could take it." He pulled his halberd down and held it loosely in both hands.

Gotou sized up the lizard as it turned around on the path and started slowly back the way it came. "All right," he said, and Masayoshi tightened his grip on his weapon.