The clarion bell of a Divine Alert sounded in Namu’s head. The Goddess’s voice, also somewhat bell-like, followed soon after.

  NEW UPDATE: MAGRIFF RACING

  NEW DOMESTICATED CREATURE: MAGRIFF

  NEW WORLD INSTANCE: ARINAE

  INSTANCE KEYS AVAILABLE ON MAIN CHARACTER SCREEN

  MORE INFORMATION AVAILBLE ON REQUEST

  Namu reversed his roots, pulling back so quickly his legs didn’t have time to reform before he was free of the soil. He fell to the forest floor with a resounding thud. Mira glanced at him, all four of her eyes twinkling in amusement, then refocused on her spell casting. Her pale, thin hands formed intricate symbols in the air as shadow gathered around her human-like upper body and her spider-like lower body in equal measure. With a quick incantation in the rough-edged language of the Kentauros, the shadows shot out, enveloping the massive Dire Bear they were fighting in a deep miasma. The miasma hissed on contact. The Dire Bear roared in pain. It reared up on its hind legs and flailed, its massive paws clanging against the party tank’s shield. Their tank, a crocodile Beastfolk called Cyrille, took a heavy step back, his silver platemail rattling with the movement.

  By the time Namu had reformed his legs and stood up, the poor Dire Bear had been reduced to glitter, shadowy smoke, and a few parts, which Cyrille scooped up. Namu couldn’t comprehend his friends’ calm.

  “Did the Goddess private message me, or what?” he asked in the human tongue. As a Plantfolk, most of his birth language consisted of chemical signals, punctuated by occasional creaks and groans. It was a slow, painstaking language that didn’t suit Namu, or adventuring. While he knew Kentauros and the guttural, body language intensive way the Beastfolk spoke, he and his two friends had agreed to mainly use the more common and simple tongue of humans.

  Despite being Plantfolk, and therefore basically a walking tree, in his unrooted form he looked human, albeit one woven with willow tree branches and lacking certain distinguishing features. Still, he had long, willow-leaf hair, functional hands and feet, and a face which at the moment held an expression partway between shock and annoyance. His bark emitted a lemon and red pepper scent to back him up.

  Mia rolled her eyes. “No, Namu. You aren’t quite that important. We all heard the update. We’re just seasoned enough not to fall on our faces when something unexpected happens.”

  She tapped her front legs in irritation. The bangles on them jangled. Although she was a spider Kentauros with a human-like torso sprouting from a spider’s abdomen, Mira always dressed as if she were about to go to a wealthy party. Silver, gold, and black jewelry adorned her arms and legs, matching well with the black, white, and brown banded fuzz covering her spider half. Her long hair flowed in shades of black and brown, with ribbons of blue and dark green adding a splash of color to the pale skin of her upper half. The ribbons matched the jade green and blue lacy blouse covering her human body.

  “Besides,” Cyrille said. “It’s not exactly the first update we’ve had in recent years.”

  The tank, arguably, looked the most human of all of them, albeit covered in dark green scales. If not for his short, crocodilian muzzle and rather reptilian face, he could pass for a human in the dark. As long as no one got too close.

  Namu eyed the Beastfolk. He wasn’t wrong. The Goddess Aisha had been rather generous with new updates and events. Last year, there had been the Hunting Festival, and two years before that, a Forgesmith’s Jamboree. Both had been limited and had come with rather nice blessings for the top participants. Namu, much to the other Plantfolk’s chagrin, adored competition and limited-time rewards. He and his friends had got top one hundred in the Hunting Festival. It was as high as they could manage with their levels. He’d got top three hundred in the Jamboree. A rather sad showing he’d tried to rectify by throwing himself into crafting for a month straight. His friends had grown tired of his obsession and had dragged him out on a long quest. Now that he thought about it, he’d pushed them rather hard during the Hunting Festival as well. Perhaps that was why they seemed rather unexcited about the newest update. But whether they were excited or not, Namu definitely was. The tingle of the unknown ran straight through his trunk. He tried not to show it. He didn’t want to run off his friends if he needed their help.

  Namu flattened his tone and tried to exude an aura of calm logic. “Well, I mean, we’re done with hunting today anyway, right? We’ve been at this all morning. Aren’t you two getting hungry?”

  Mira narrowed her eyes. Before she could call Namu out, Cyrille’s stomach growled. Namu jabbed a finger at the Beastfolk.

  “See?” he said. “You two are hungry. We have to at least stop for lunch.”

  “Cyrille’s always hungry,” Mira said. “But, whatever. We have a ton of bear meat now.”

  “And I gathered a bunch of berries!”

  “Riiight. Why don’t we go back to Freefall Ravine, then? Get some fish to go with lunch.”

  Cyrille’s mouth split into a wide, toothy grin. The only thing better than food to him was food in water.

  *****

  Freefall Ravine came by its name honestly. Thanks to the way the forest grew right to the edge of the sheer cliff faces that made up the walls of the ravine, there were more stories of Rebirths running from a mob only to find themselves free-falling to the water and rock below than Namu cared to count. Of course, Namu and his party knew the forest far too well to do such a thing, and the first time they’d hunted here, well, that story had been unanimously banned from conversation.

  The bottom of the ravine was quite peaceful, once you figured out where you could climb down safely. Pale sandy soil bordered a wide river easily twelve feet deep at its center—roughly twice Namu’s height. For the seven-foot tall Cyrille, it gave him just enough depth to dive a bit, a fact he took advantage of as soon as they’d started a cooking fire.

  Mira watched the crocodilian Beastfolk float lazily down the river. He’d taken off his plate armor, leaving only the most necessary of cloth underclothes. His chest lay bare to the midday sun as he floated on his back.

  “So much for ‘hunting fish’,” Mira said.

  Namu barely heard her. He thunked down next to her by the fire, produced a pile of berries from his inventory, then threw open his character screen. A pale silver rectangle with gold edges appeared in front of his face.

  Namu’s eyes flicked to the new button on the bottom of his character sheet. He could feel the sap in his veins speed up as he tapped the button, the scent of strawberry in his nose, and it was amazing.

  A smaller screen popped up at his touch.

  Namu’s excitement ebbed. He and his friends were in their forties level-wise, and they’d been saving money from all of their quests and such for a while, as they’d agreed when they became an official adventuring party. After all, they’d known each other for years, and knew if left to their individual devices, each would spend their share of the money on things they really didn’t need. They could spend some of their savings only if all three agreed on the purchase. The good part of that meant they had over three million gold saved up. The bad part was he’d have to get Cyrille and Mira to agree on buying the ranch.

  “Hey,” Mira snapped. “Are you going to help me cook, or just stare at your stats?”

  Namu closed his screen and grinned. “I’d never do such a thing. Hand me a stack of bear steaks, and I’ll get right on it.”

  Mira’s eyes narrowed, but she did as he asked. Namu had worked through five berry-stuffed steaks with gusto before Mira lost her patience.

  “All right, who is this Plantfolk and what have you done with Namu?” she asked.

  “I don’t know what you mean. I’m helping.”

  “Exactly. And all I had to do was ask. Once. No yelling. No dragging you back from whatever cloud your mind floated to. What…wait.” Mira flicked open her character screen, then almost immediately closed it again, an irritated look on her face. “No.”

  “Hey, you don’t even know what the update is about.”

  “And you do? When did you read up on it, hmm?”

  “Well…uh…”

  “Mmmhmm. You haven’t. You saw the newest shiny thing and just had to have it no matter the cost, and make no mistake, that costs a lot.”

  “Yes, it does, but what if the rewards are worth it?”

  “To you, or us? I wanted to buy that Shifonna dress, remember? But you and Cyrille said no, and you guys were right. If it doesn’t benefit all of us, we can’t spend from our savings. That’s the deal.”

  “So, what are the benefits?” Cyrille asked.

  Mira and Namu jumped. The bulky tank, without noisy platemail, stayed bizarrely quiet when he moved.

  Namu regained his composure and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll…I’ll get back to you on that.”

  Mira shot him a nasty look.

  “After lunch,” he added quickly.

  *****

  Namu sped-read through the rest of the info. The Goddess got verbose at times, but from what he could glean, MaGriffs were giant, flightless, and ridable birds whose sole reason for existence was to race. Ranchers hatched, raised, trained, and bred them into higher tiers, while also juggling the logistics of farming and keeping a ranch afloat. It all sounded incredible. Namu loved the management side of gardening and crafting, especially when it resulted in numbers rolling higher.

  To top it off, although MaGriff jockeys had to be humanoid and within a certain height range, weight was ignored while mounted. As a Plantfolk, he’d never win a footrace in his human form, and riding a horse was out of the question unless he wanted to flatten the poor thing. Yet, the thought of racing across the plains on a beast built for speed had always been a dream of his. Now that the dream was within reach, he couldn’t let it slip from his grasp.

  His carved heart sped up when he reached the bottom of the info panel. “World first rewards” was written in big, bold letters. A list of gold, crafting mats, update-exclusive titles, and boosts followed. The gold alone was enough to make Namu’s head swim. They could make back more than twenty times the cost of a key.

  “Mira, Cyrille,” Namu said, waving them over with a grin. “Look at this.”

  Namu kept his eyes on Mira as his friends scanned the list. The farther she read, the bigger her eyes got. By the time she reached the bottom, she looked like she’d just seen the biggest treasure pile in her life. In a lot of ways, Namu supposed she had. They were a solid party, and they’d done quite well despite having only three members, but the speed they could get things would always be slower than bigger parties.

  Mira stepped back as Namu closed his screen. Namu could see the gears grinding in the Kentauros’s head.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Those are nice rewards.”

  Cyrille snorted. “Those rewards are more than we could amass in a lifetime.”

  Mira’s expression sharpened. “They’re also world firsts, though, and split into multiple achievements.”

  “More chance for us to get one,” Namu said.

  “Right. Let’s just ignore the fact we haven’t got first in any competition, let alone world first. Let’s also ignore that those who get first tend to do so over and over again.”

  “But we haven’t got first yet because all the other competitions haven’t started on even ground. We can’t compete with twenty-man teams, or Dragons, or super-wealthy—”

  “Is this supposed to be a pep talk?”

  “What I’m trying to say is this whole update is an instance made up of instances.”

  Mira scowled. “You don’t even know what that really is. None of us know anymore than what the info sheet said.”

  She was right. Namu had never heard of “instances”, yet according to the info, they were parts of a separate little world you could only enter with a key. The whole idea was exhilarating, maybe terrifying, but to Namu, when it came to new things, the two feelings were basically the same.

  “If it’s separate from this world, then no amount of wealth or power in this world should give an advantage, right? We’d be on equal footing.” But only if we buy a key soon, Namu added silently.

  Mira laughed. “Even if money doesn’t pass through to the instance, power certainly will. What are you going to do if a Dragon decides to eat these birds?”

  “What if they can’t?”

  “What if they can?”

  “We can build a farm, too,” Cyrille said.

  Mira and Namu turned to stare. The Beastfolk had pulled his character screen up at some point, and seemed deep into reading something.

  “With ponds and fish.”

  Namu paused. He hadn’t seen anything about ponds in the info he’d read, but there had been a lot of links. That gave him an idea.

  “There’s got to be crafting, right?” Namu said. “There’s a ton of it when it comes to horses. Tack, stables, feed. What if there are special outfits for racers, like what they have for the swamp races near Genua?”

  “The swamp races?” Mira asked. “Really? Those outfits are enchanted to keep the stench from sticking.”

  “Yet you’re still interested in each year’s new designs.”

  Mira opened her mouth to retort, but Namu took his life in his hands and cut her off.

  “Look,” he said, pretending not to see the look of death from his friend, “I just want you to look into what’s available for clothiers and jewelry makers in the update. If there’s really nothing there for you, I’ll drop it.”

  “Drop it? As in be okay with not buying the newest shiny thing?”

  “Yes.”

  Mira sighed. “Fine.”

  She flicked open her character screen and scanned while Cyrille muttered about various foodstuffs they could grow, and what he could cook from them. Namu was fairly certain those things were for the MaGriffs and not for Rebirth consumption, but he wasn’t about to burst the tank’s bubble. Instead, he tapped out a rapid rhythm on his leg as he waited. Part of him wanted to dive into all the links himself, but the more logical part of him knew he’d only get more excited if he did, and if Mira didn’t agree to buy the key, he’d be all the more devastated.

  No, he thought. She would find something she wanted in the update. It was just too big for her not to. His attempts at convincing her hadn’t worked, and by the time Mira closed her screen, his heart felt about to burst.

  “What did you find?” Namu blurted out.

  Mira chewed on her lip, a contemplative look on her face. “Well…” After what felt like an eternity, she sighed. “I’ll do it.”

  Namu was on his feet in an instant, fists pumping in the air. “Yes!”

  “But,” Mira said, holding up a slender finger, “I get full control over all tack and uniforms for both riders and birds.”

  Namu agreed without hesitation. He’d have given her control over everything else if it meant he could ride.

  Cyrille growled, low and threatening. “Here you are getting all excited, and you haven’t asked me anything.”

  Namu didn’t fall for his bluff. The Beastfolk, despite being a predator and adoring meat in all its forms, also adored animals. When it came to raising animals for food or fun, he needed no convincing. Still, Namu could play along.

  “Sorry,” Namu said. “What do you think?”

  Cyrille made a show of rubbing his chin and grunting as if in deep thought. He couldn’t keep the charade up for long. After less than a minute, he broke into a toothy grin. “Let’s buy the key. Three owners for the soon to be best bird racing stable in the world.”