"Hokay, still an egg."
Sally had settled down on the floor of the fissure and taken her egg out of her inventory.
"Are these gonna disappear if we leave 'em out?" Maple asked, worried.
Gear, potions, and other items would vanish two hours after being removed from your
inventory.
"Good question. Just to be safe, we'd better stick them back in our inventories before
the two-hour mark."
They'd fought hard to get these eggs, and it seemed unlikely they'd ever find
replacements. Best not risk losing them.
"Good plan."
"But how do we warm them?"
"Uh… body contact?"
Maple shed her armor and shield and cradled the green egg gently in her arms.
"I wonder what'll hatch?"
She clearly couldn't wait. She was stroking the egg's surface, smiling happily.
Sally decided to warm her egg the same way.
"What matters most is love! Love!"
"Uh, sure."
Gently nestling their eggs, they began planning the next round of exploration.
"I say we just follow the river. That'll make it easy to get back here."
With the mist this thick, they needed a clear landmark or they'd soon get lost.
This map had already proven itself ambush prone, so losing sight of their safe resting
point could cause them to lose focus, which would in turn increase the chance of an
ambush succeeding.
While Maple might have been able to weather just about any attack, Sally would
undoubtedly be in real trouble. With a Vitality of zero, any attack was dangerous.
It wasn't all bad news—that constant danger kept her evasive abilities honed.
The thing was… those life-saving evasive abilities also took a lot of concentration.
Concentration that had already been exhausted beyond measure.
"Sounds good! Let's stick to the river."
They warmed the eggs another hour, but there were no signs of them hatching.
They put the eggs back in their inventories and got ready to explore some more.
"All righty! Let's find ourselves some medals!"
"Woo!"
They set out in high spirits, following the river upstream.
According to Sally:
"Places like this often have something hidden at the source."
This made a lot of sense to Maple. If she was designing a game level, she'd definitely
hide things at significant landmarks.
A river's starting and ending points certainly seemed to qualify.
"Can't wait to see what's up there!"
"There's no guarantee anything is, remember?"
"Yeah, I know."
The farther upstream they got, the more jagged the rocks became. Soon it became very
hard to walk normally.
"Maple! Use Cover Move to follow me up this bit."
"Got it! Cover Move!"
They repeated this approach any time the terrain got too rough for Maple. Sally nimbly
scrambled ahead, and Maple warped over to her.
They kept this up for an hour.
Their camp must have been quite far upstream to begin with, because they reached
the source a lot faster than they'd expected.
It was a clear spring, a good three yards across.
A near-perfect circle, the place could be summed up, in their impression, with the
word sacred.
The mist shrouding it definitely helped sell that vibe.
"It looks… deep," Sally said, peering in.
For such a small spring, it seemed to go a long way down.
"Thinking about diving in?"
"Worth a shot. Not many players have Swimming and Diving skills… so even if they
found this place, they might have passed up the opportunity."
"Then go for it!"
"I think I will!"
Sally jumped in the spring and dived under.
Down, down, down, beyond the reach of light.
She swam for ten minutes—and found a decrepit chest at the bottom.
Wary of traps, she carefully lifted the lid.
Inside was a silver wand. There were red and blue gems embedded in the tip.
Sally made extra sure there were no medals here, then swam back to the surface.
"Gasp! Whew."
Sally emerged from the spring, dripping.
"Well?"
"Total letdown. Just a wand."
"Oh… shame. What are the stats?"
"Lemme check. Water Magic Up, Fire Magic Up. Wanna see?"
"Sure!"
Sally showed Maple the screen.
Magic Stone Wand
[INT +10] [MP +10] [Water Magic Up] [Fire Magic Up]
"We don't need this, then. Neither of us can even equip it."
"That's true. What now? Wanna go explore somewhere else?"
"Hmm… let's head back to the base, see if we notice anything on the way."
"Good plan. This canyon's so big, it would make sense for there to be at least one other
thing!"
They turned around, keeping their eyes peeled.
On the way, they checked both banks, keeping the water in sight, but found nothing.
And eventually they were back at their base.
"Now what? We could just go on downstream, but… that could get tough."
"Yeah. Maybe we should just spend the rest of the day warming our eggs."
With this mist, Sally had to keep her focus at max, and all that swimming had worn
her out. She decided to go along with Maple's suggestion.
"Eggy, eggy… oh, there it is."
"Hokay."
They both took out their eggs, cradling and stroking them.
"It's so smooth! This is strangely relaxing," Sally said, leaning back against the rocky
wall.
The texture resembled expensive china. Maple thought she could happily caress it
forever.
"They don't seem to be hatching, though."
"Well, eggs don't usually hatch overnight."
For three hours, they warmed the eggs, stopping only to put them back in their
inventory momentarily.
While they cared for their eggs, they chatted.
"What do you think will hatch?"
"Mine's purple, and yours is green, so… hmm. Maybe you'll get an herbivore? Or
something green? Like a snake?"
"Are there green snakes?"
"If it's a monster, why not? I think there probably are real green snakes in, like, tropical
areas. But I guess that just proves there's no real way to tell what these will be."
This was a video game. Pretty much anything you could imagine might be inside these
eggs.
"I hope it's something cute," Maple said.
One animal after another floated into her mind. There were lots of cute animals out
there. But she could also think of a lot of not cute animals.
At the very least, she'd prefer to not get a bug.
"What's mine gonna be?" Sally asked.
Her egg was purple.
Maple tried to think of anything an egg like that might hatch.
"Purple… purple… um… maybe a Hydra?"
"Uh… I think I'd rather not…"
If a Hydra came out and tried to help her in battle, Sally would wind up surrounded by
a lake of poison.
And that would make it rather hard for her to move.
"A Hydra… yeah, no. I'd rather something a bit more… docile."
For now, all they could do was imagine the possibilities.
Talking about their hopes and fears, they held the eggs to them, keeping them warm,
holding them gently to avoid cracking them.
Deep down, both of them were pretty sure they'd love whatever kind of monster came
out.
Maybe those feelings got through.
Cracks appeared on the surface of both eggs.
""Ohhh?!""
"Wh-wh-wh-what do we do?!"
"L-l-let's just… set 'em down?"
They carefully set the eggs on flat, stable bits of ground and lay down next to the eggs,
watching closely.
The eggs split open…
And two monsters emerged.
"Wow!"
"They hatched!"
Both girls were delighted.
The green egg had hatched a turtle, slightly smaller than the egg itself.
The turtle's body was the exact same shade of green the egg had been. It was moving
slowly around.
The purple egg, meanwhile, had hatched a fox with fur as white as snow.
The fox stretched a few times, like it was getting used to its body. Then purple flames
appeared in the air around it, and it stared up at its own magic, fascinated by it.
"Whoa… a fox… from an egg. That I did not see coming."
"I guess ordinary logic doesn't really apply to monsters!"
As they spoke, the turtle moved toward Maple and the fox toward Sally.
The two girls gingerly reached out and patted their respective creatures' heads. Both
monsters looked happy.
Then the shattered eggs began to glow.
The light grew brighter and changed shape—forming two rings, one purple, one
green.
Maple and Sally reached out to pick theirs up.
"Let's see, the name is… Bonding Bridge? Equipping this… makes it possible to fight
alongside specific monsters! Wow. I guess we've gotta put these on."
Sally had explained only the ring's primary function. Maple read the rest with her own
two eyes.
Bonding Bridge
While equipped, certain monsters will fight alongside user.
Each ring enables use of a specific monster.
If the monster dies, it will sleep inside the ring and will be unavailable for a full day.
That was a lot better than vanishing permanently.
Permadeath would mean they'd have to be very careful about what fights they brought
the monsters to.
"Hmm… a ring, though… My accessory slots are already full. I guess I'd better take off
the Forest Queen Bee Ring. I can always use Meditation to recover my HP."
They put on the rings, and the two monsters wriggled with glee.
"Ah-ha-ha, that tickles!"
"Mm! So fluffy!"
They played for a few minutes, but then Sally noticed something important.
"Oh, we can see their stats now."
Perhaps a side benefit to the rings—there was now a second stat screen below their
own.
The girls took a closer look.
No Name
Lv1 HP 250/250 MP 30/30
[STR 30] [VIT 150]
[AGI 15] [DEX 10]
[INT 20]
Skills
Snap
No Name
Lv1 HP 80/80 MP 120/120
[STR 10] [VIT 15]
[AGI 70] [DEX 75]
[INT 90]
Skills
Fox Fire
The first was the turtle, the second the fox.
It seemed like monsters found in eggs started out with some pretty good stats.
"'No Name'…well, we've gotta fix that!"
"Yeah, good point."
They considered this carefully.
And while they pondered the matter, the two monsters played with each other.
It seemed they had become fast friends.
"Okay, I've made up my mind!"
"Yup. Me too."
Decisions made, they approached their monsters.
And made eye contact.
"Turtle, your name is Syrup! Together, we are Maple Syrup!"
Maple seemed absurdly proud of this.
The turtle seemed to like its name. It rubbed up against her.
Best friends already.
"So… what about Oboro? That work for you?"
Sally seemed to want the fox's input. It bounded up to her shoulder and wound itself
around her neck. She interpreted this as approval.
Now she had a fox for a scarf.
There was a moment of bliss…
And then Maple let out a shriek.
She was staring at the screen in front of her.
"W-wait, does this mean…?!"
"Mm? What's up?"
Sally came over to look.
"Eep? Ah! D-don't—"
"Oh, I get it."
Sally had seen Maple's screen for all of five seconds, but that was enough.
Maple had been staring at Syrup's stats—and at one stat in particular. And Sally's
observation skills were high enough to know exactly what it was Maple didn't want
her to see.
"Maple… you've got less Agility than a turtle."
"Hrngg!!"
Syrup had an AGI of 15. And Maple… was still at 0.
"The Tortoise and the Maple…"
"I'm not a folktale! If we raced, I'd win! My legs are longer!"
"Sure. Prove it."
"Er… I-I'd rather not… Ah-ha, ah-ha-ha-ha…"
If she actually lost, she might never recover.
And then she might be tempted to abandon her build concept and actually put some
points in Agility.
This was a very real fear.
So Maple decided not to risk it.
Perhaps this was the coward's way out.
"Do the stats mirror whoever warmed the egg? You and Syrup are both heavy on the
defense, while Oboro is super nimble."
"Makes sense."
They looked back at the stat screens.
"We can't put any equipment on them, but… it seems like they can level up, right?"
"I wonder if they get stat points when they do? Or do the stats just automatically
increase?"
Details like that had not been included in the ring description.
"Guess we should go get them some levels and find out!"
"Yeah… but I don't want to risk them dying…" Sally's fox had moved from her neck to
the top of her head. She reached up and stroked its fur.
"Should I capture some monsters, then?"
"That… might be a really good idea. Let's get them a few levels that way."
Maple rubbed Syrup's head, told it to wait there, and then went outside to round up
some helpless foes.
Ten minutes later…
Maple came back with a bat in each hand.
They were paralyzed and unable to resist.
Maple dropped them on the ground.
"Um… Syrup! Snap!"
"Oboro! Fox Fire!"
Syrup bit a bat.
Oboro burned one with purple fire.
Both bats let out a spray of red sparks, turned to light, and vanished.
"Aw… it didn't level up."
"Neither did mine."
"I feel like… they're both children of pretty strong species. So they probably need a lot
of XP."
One of these bats would definitely be enough to get a starting player a level, so that
seemed a likely explanation.
"Do we need more, then?"
"If you don't mind? I don't have any skills that'll be much help…"
"Fair! The right girl for the right job! Just watch out for Syrup while I'm gone."
"Fear not! I'll guard it with my life!"
Laughing at Sally's answer, Maple went back out.
She returned twenty minutes later.
This time she was carrying eight bats.
"I feel like a mother bird."
"You're basically doing the same thing!"
Bats fell to the floor.
Syrup and Oboro each took out four and gained a level at last.
Syrup
Lv2 HP 300/300 MP 30/30
[STR 35] [VIT 180]
[AGI 15] [DEX 10]
[INT 20]
Skills
Snap, Shell Shield
Oboro
Lv2 HP 85/85 MP 130/130
[STR 15] [VIT 15]
[AGI 85] [DEX 80]
[INT 95]
Skills
Fox Fire, Flame Pillar
"Looks like the stats take care of themselves."
"Definitely. They shot up a bunch, that's for sure."
These two had promising futures, so Maple went hunting a few more times.
But there weren't many monsters around, and their new friends didn't gain any
further levels.