"So what's the big deal with Dillan? It seems like you hate him." Jay asks Axel.
—The two of them had been wandering the streets of Oasis City, looking for the Slayer passes in the race they're currently participating in. It doesn't feel like a race, though, since the passes were never at their original location. Now every race-contender has either given up or started a search on their own for the passes. Jay knows for a fact that Oasis was the city depicted on the map, and so did everyone else, but something wasn't what it seemed.
"Trust me when I say my blood boils whenever I see his face!! The fact you even met him and added him to our numbers was annoying enough!!" Axel starts, "But no, I don't *hate* him. I just don't like his spirit."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Jay asks.
"I guess it was something my father told me..." Axel says, pointing a finger to the sky, "'Don't make promises you can't keep, and make sure to walk the walk, not talk the talk.'—"
"—Dillan fought one of the strongest players in the world and acted like he actually had a chance of winning when his chances were literally zero!! He seems like the kind of guy who talks game but has nothing to prove his worth."
"Oh, I guess you have a point—" Jay says after Axel finishes, "—But he's already told me that this bullying or criticism you give him is the same thing everyone else does. All he wanted was to make a name for himself."
"Yeah, well, his fault for tarnishing it. If I'm gonna respect him, Dillan's gotta prove to me he has motivation and not just ignorance!!" Axel announces.
As harsh as Axel put it, he was half right. Dillan shouldn't have taken up that fight, but that doesn't mean he's a selfish guy or anything. Jay held back any other remarks and continued to scout the street as they walked.
The passes had to be somewhere around here, right?
"Odds on the passes not being here?" Axel casually asks Jay.
"In my mind, we have about a seventy percent chance," Jay responds.
"What about the other thirty?!"
"Chalk that up to another plot twist!"
The two laughed as they continued their path down an alleyway between some player-owned apartments. Oasis is a hotspot for affordable living in the Nexus since it's in the middle of a harsh desert. One step out of the city walls, and players will experience the worst weather conditions in the game.
"Hey Axel, do you think this is super confusing on purpose?" Jay asks.
"Hmm?" Axel looks at Jay.
"Like why is this race suddenly a puzzle?" Jay reiterates.
"beats me, but it sure did make a lot of players quit!!" Axel laughs.
"You think that was their intention? To make uninterested contenders give up?" Jay theorizes.
"Well, in my opinion, if you can't participate in something like this on command by the Slayers, then how can they trust you to perform for them?"
Jay nods his head, and they both agree that this puzzle was intended. There was no way the Slayer's Pack would mess up their tryouts by accident.
Jay and Axel both freeze as they get the same notification from their game menu. They look at each other, nod their heads in unison, and both check their inboxes.
Jay's eyes widened as he read the text in front of him.
>Well, well, well, contenders! How is the race so far? Have you got yourself a Slayer's Pass yet? If you haven't gotten one yet, have no fear!
>They're right under your noses!
>SSS.
ˆˆsent just now
'Right under our noses?' Jay thinks as he reads the message.
Axel also is confused by the message. SSS? Did Stan send them a text message at the same time? Axel scrolls through his menu and chooses the
"Hey, did you get a message from Stan?" Axel asks when Ivy picks up.
"Huh? No, did you?" Ivy asks.
"Check your messages! Stan sent me and Axel a message asking if we got our passes yet! I think it's a riddle or something!!" Jay says over Axel's shoulder.
Waiting for a response, Jay didn't hear anything from Ivy. After a couple of moments, she spoke up again.
"Hey, I'll call you back in a second..." Ivy says in a quiet voice.
"What is *that*-" Dillan says in the background before the call ends abruptly.
"What?" Jay mumbles.
"Yeah, what?! You don't just hang up on me like that, you shrimp!!" Axel yells at his menu, teasing Ivy.
Jay had a feeling something happened to the other members of the party, but maybe they just had a run-in with another group of players and didn't want their secrets to be broadcasted in front of them or something. Whatever the sudden end of the call was, it couldn't be *that* bad.
"Okay, so what now?" Axel says to Jay.
"Hmm," Jay starts, "Let's dig through that message one more time."
Jay and Axel both go to the message from Stan once more, hoping to find a clue. One part of the message spoke to Jay the first time he read it, and it stuck out to him once more.
>They're right under your noses!
"They're right under our noses...what does that mean?" Jay asks Axel.
"I was looking at that part as well," Axel says, "It seems to imply we missed something..."
"Like what?" Jay asks.
"Beats me!!"
"Right under our noses...Right under our—" Jay repeats to himself but cuts himself off.
"Right under our noses!" He yells.
"Huh? you figured it out, Maguire?!" Axel asks.
"Maybe?" Jay says, looking through his game many once more for any other notification.
Right before the race started, Jay had gotten a silent notification from his inventory manager, tucked away in the
"Check your trade requests from recent players!" Jay rushingly says.
Taken aback, Axel quickly shuffles through his inventory and checks his trade requests. He also is filled with sudden excitement, just like Jay, and he turns to Jay. They both grin and high-five each other in one quick motion, yelling out the exact phrase as they do so.
"Right under our noses!" Jay exclaims.
"Right under our noses!!" Axel shouts.
They had both received a trade request from Stan for a Slayer's Pass.
They didn't have to trade away any of their items to complete the trade, meaning they were given the passes right away from the start. The reason Stan did this was to make the notification silent since trade requests don't have a pop-up to show the player. If Stan gifted them out, everyone would get a window screen saying someone gifted them the passes!
Jay tries to call Ivy to let her know they cracked the code, but he couldn't get through to her, and she never accepted the calls he sent her way.
"C'mon! Answer!" Jay says in frustration.
"What could be so important?!" Axel says along with Jay.
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-
Ivy—along with Kira and Dillan—has no idea what to do. She knows that finding the Slayer's Passes is the main objective, but doing so will be a struggle in and of itself. Step one to find the passes wasn't exactly envisioned yet.
"Do you mind telling me why your friend hates me?" Dillan asks Ivy.
"U-uh, I don't know? Ask him!" Ivy responds.
Kira walks ahead of the two as they talk, walking to another group of players. As she steps forward, A green aura effect overlaps her body for a split moment. Ivy takes notice of this, and Dillan watches Kira as well. She continues her approach to a group of male players near the block's corner. It looks like she shifts her hair to the other side of her face as well.
"Hey, guys! Are you in the competition too?" Kira says in an over joyous expression, with her eyes sparkling.
"Excuse me??" Dillan is in shock.
"Excuse me?!" Ivy is completely frozen at the sound of Kira's high-pitched acting voice.
Kira wasn't precisely outgoing until this point, only showing her happy side when she found out Ivy was a fellow bow-user. This act of hers came out of nowhere, and to these male players, she hasn't even introduced herself.
"U-uh, y-yeah! This r-race sure is e-exhilarating!" One of the guys chokes on his words when giving a response.
"Y-yeah!" One guy nervously says back to Kira, looking her up and down.
"I agree!" Kira says, "I can't wait to become a Slayer someday. Hopefully, it's this week!"
The group of male players quickly shift all of their attention to Kira while Ivy and Dillan watch the scene unfold from a distance.
"So, do you guys have any updates on where the passes are? I'll party with you guys sometime!" Kira asks.
'Party?!' Ivy thinks, 'What game is this girl playing?'
"O-oh! Well, we actually don't have a-any idea what's happening e-either… s-so..." One of the boys says.
"Well, why don't you all friend me and tell me when you guys find something out? I'll do the same!" Kira proclaims.
The group of boys look at each other in pride, smile, and then celebrate in their minds.
'Our first interaction with a female player!'
'She's so cute too!'
'I wonder if she'll friend me back?!'
After getting friend requests from them all, Kira walks back over to Ivy and Dillan, who are both dumbfounded at her performance. Dillan, in particular, had his jaw dropped. Kira shifts her hair back to how it was before.
"Idiots. All men are the same." Kira whispers to herself, but Ivy and Dillan overhear.
'What?!' Ivy dies inside.
'What??' Dillan is shattered.
"Oh, sorry about that," Kira says, "Usually, boys are super easy to get info out of like that, and it turns out they had a fair share of things that will prove useful to us!"
"So you played with their heartstrings so you could get information?" Dillan asks.
"Duh." Kira plays off, "Am I supposed to actually friend them back? of course not!"
Kira then pulls up her friend's list, and Dillan and Ivy are yet again taken by surprise. Ivy runs up next to Kira and scopes out her friend's list.
"*2,000 Friend Requests?!*"
"Holy crap! Is that how many people have fallen to your—" Dillan starts, but Kira gives him a death stare before he could finish, "—I mean have been victim to your 'methods.'"
"That's no better than what you were gonna say, idiot." Kira says, "But yes."
"Hey, but we could hear everything, and it sounded like they had no idea what was going on as well! What information could possibly be useful to us?" Ivy asks Kira.
Kira looked over to the group of players she had just talked to, who were still hyped about meeting her. Kira then opens up her menu and locates her
The Skill Tree—A large oak tree in «The Overgrowth»—is the only place in the entire Nexus that allows players to ~Level Up~, giving them more vital stats and a boost in their Aspect/Weapon Skill. The skill tree Kira had just opened was a section in her game menu, which allowed her to see her level, level progression, player stats, and other information like her Aspect abilities.
Kira points at one of her Aspect abilities which she has perfected to Ivy, called «All-Knowing-Eye».
"This ability lets me see past delusions and false statements. It basically lets me know when someone is lying to me and what they kept away from me. No matter what, as long as I ask with sincerity, I can always find out the truth."
"That… seems a little overpowered," Dillan says to himself.
"Well, it took months to get right, and it has an hour cooldown, so it has drawbacks."
Kira, whose Aspect is Umbra—the element of darkness—can create arms from umbral energy and read another player's intentions like a book.
"So, you said you got information from them that's useful," Ivy says, "Could it be something they kept from you and you read with that All-Knowing-Eye move?"
"You're right on the money," Kira replies, "Apparently, whenever we do get our Slayer Passes, other players can steal them."
"What? How do they know that?" Dillan asks.
Kira scrolls through her menu, pulling up an
"They must've tried out last year, so they know what's gonna happen," Kira says.
"Do they know where the passes are?" Ivy asks.
"Uh uh," Kira shakes her head, "All I know from them is that we can steal the passes, meaning that they're here in Oasis City somewhere at best."
"You think this is some ploy to make us search for the passes on purpose? I mean, a couple of players quit the race altogether!" Dillan says.
"Maybe that was the plan all along," Kira responds calmly.
>Call Request!<
Ivy, Dillan, and Kira all look at the notification that appears on Ivy's screen. Ivy's game menu opens up to display a voice call request. After tapping on the call to see who was calling, Ivy's eyes narrowed.
It was from Axel. She answers it immediately.
"Hey, did you get a message from Stan?" Axel asks when Ivy picks up.
"A message from Stan? No, why? Did you?" Ivy tries to say, but before she can wait for a response, a shadow engulfs the area Dillan and Kira were standing in. Confused, Ivy focuses up above to see what is causing the shadow. As soon as she saw what was making the dark patch, she was shocked.
"Let me call you back, guys," Ivy says.
"What is that thing?!" Dillan says before Ivy ends the call.
The sun above them was covered up by some sort of rectangle in the sky. It had some kind of decal spread across its surface. A single figure jumps off of the large rectangle, tumbling down towards the three confused players.
"Wait!" Kira gasps, "Is that a giant playing card?!"
The figure lands before Ivy, Kira, and Dillan, spreading a light cloud of impact dust around their landing zone. Ivy and Dillan look up to the giant shape in the sky and remember what Kira just announced. She was right. There really was a huge playing card in the sky!
"Well, this is slightly unprofessional!" The figure says in a light tone.
The giant playing card—which had its face pointed to the sky—started to shrink in size as it raced down to the figure who had just jumped from it. Almost as soon as it appeared, it had shrunk down to the size of an average playing card, floating down to the figure's hand.
"Hey! What the hell was that?" Dillan asks the mysterious player.
The figure grabs the playing card—the ace of hearts—and shuffles it into a deck of cards that they pull out from their pocket. As the figure shuffles further, they hold out three large cards to the pair of players to choose from. Ivy looks at the cards further and is once again stunned.
These weren't cards. They were Slayer Passes.
"That, my friend," Stan says, "Was a grand entrance!"