Afterlife Dream

Aurendiria wrote in the guild chat, "Hey everyone, tomorrow is Sunday. Why don't we all meet up at the base to celebrate Ingenious' and ArrowRain's fourth job advancement tonight at 8 PM? We would also like to bid farewell to Agathea and Timothy who would leave the game after the Fire Golem raid on Monday."

The Fire Golem raid. Lazarus would get his helmet on this coming Monday and maybe I would, too. One run could drop as many as three helmets. Besides, I was also excited about meeting the two people who would leave the game soon.

"Where is the base??" I typed excitedly.

"It's the Oakstone Tavern at Paradise Island. Please come, Antares and DragonTalon!"

Uh oh. I had been dreading to ask DragonTalon how it went, but I should do that. We had not done our Love Dungeon for the day.

"Hey, Bro, what's up? Do you want to do the Love Dungeon now?"

The one on the other side took a long time to type his answer, but then only one word appeared on my screen, "Fine."

We met at the Love Dungeon waiting area directly, and he did not look happy at all. I did not need to ask to know that he failed the test.

By the way, the were a lot of scenarios in the Love Dungeon. The one I had during our first run was apparently the toughest one. The other scenarios revolved around side stories about the Witch's shenanigans. This time too, we had quite a relaxed run so DragonTalon told me stories about how his run went awry.

The second Job Advancement Test was, as it turned out, tailored according to the job. DragonTalon also had three stages of battle, and he also had to face Red Asura at the last stage. Unfortunately, he died during the boss stage because he did not notice the buff nullification skill in time. By the time he noticed, it was too late. One AoE drained his HP to zero and sent him back to Fairy Forest.

I cringed.

"Then what happened?"

"I tried to take the balloon up to the hut again but they refused to give me any. Saying that I had to wait 6 days and 23 hours and 57 minutes and 58 seconds..."

Hahaha...

DragonTalon was so embittered by his failure that he practically carved the balloon fairy NPC's words into his brain.

The run that day was not bad. I got a shred of Baby Dragon Pet Purchase Receipt Piece and a Love Essence Crystal. The latter was a pink, translucent stone. It was used to craft the Love Essence costume. I disliked the costume because it was all pink and sparkly. The good news was that it was quite popular among girls so I could trade it against items that I wanted, such as the Dark Moon Pieces. Dark Moon pieces only dropped at Guild Party Quests. Since I had not officially joined Twelve, naturally I was unable to join their Party Quests. So far I had been trading with the girls from the guild, and they were always eager to trade.

Before entering the Fire Golem raid on Monday, some preparations had to be done, such as getting the key to access the raid dungeon. The key which was also known as Fire Orb was obtained by doing a series of lengthy and boring quests.

Both the questline and the raid took place in a volcano-infested area by the name of Lava County. The air was hot and humid and saturated with a sulfur smell. The sky was red and a bunch of volcanoes were spitting out lava in the background. To reach Lava County, players had to take an ancient rusty train from Paradise Island. Before we stepped out of the train, an NPC kindly handed all the visitors gas masks.

"Please be safe, please have a gas mask..."

I heard a player ask another, "Would we die if we don't wear a gas mask?"

"Well, you will get poisoned and if you don't want to waste potions then you should wear them."

"Oh."

I was a Healer but I too did not want to waste too many MP potions unnecessarily. I thus wore the gas mask obediently and walked toward the hunting area. At the field, the Fire Orb quest NPC was waiting for me. It was an injured man who was sitting on the ground. As I stood there before the NPC, I could not help but be overwhelmed with emotions.

As you all knew, I had not managed to do the raid in my previous life. I had not even started the quest to get the Fire Orb. I had wanted to do it the day after I died, the day I never woke up to. Now that I was finally here, I just wanted to cry. It was as if I was given a second chance in life to do what I was supposed to do had I not died. As if the whole universe came full circle to allow me to stand here and...

"Ahem."

I jolted from surprise and saw a bunch of players behind me.

"Are you clicking? We also want to start the quest..."

"Oh, yes! Of course! Of course!" I shouted.

The quests themselves were very boring. It was always kill so and so many monsters, or collect so and so many drops, etc.. It was a little interesting because I had to do everything manually now.

"Um, hello?"

An Assassin by the ID Livina approached me. She was level 70.

"Excuse me, are you interested to join my guild?"

I read the text above her head. Guild Friends.

"Thanks, but I am in queue to join Twelve," I answered.

She probably didn't expect that. Her mouth formed an 'O' as she stared at me in disbelief.

"Oh. Are you going to join a raid with them?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

Disappointment was written all over her face, but she quickly regained her spirit.

"Um, you are a Healer," she stated. "And you are still helmetless. Are you maybe interested in joining our raid? We plan to run tomorrow morning."