Once the group settled down in a tavern, James tried to call Derek's phone number, only to remember that literally all message apps on his phone don't work.

  "I forgot that was an issue." James sighed, putting away his phone.

  "Surely there's some magical telephone or something, right?" Janica said.

  "Wade, how to people contact people in this universe?"

  "They enchant flying letters to arrive at the person you want to contact." Wade replied.

  "Well shit, we ain't getting that any time soon."

  "WHERE DID THEY GO?!" The head of the Adventurers Guild yelled at one of his staff members. "The spies saw them literally yesterday, how can they be gone already?!"

  "Sir, have you considered someone helping them."

  "Obviously, but who can just make people vanish like that?"

  "No idea sir, but we should check every city we can go to in order to find the universe-hoppers."

  "There are way too many cities and we're running out of people. I guess we have to just use Derek's plan of waiting until spies find them." The head of the guild slammed his fist into his desk for dramatic effect.

  The next day, the group was clearing out nearby bandit camps in order to knock out a few assignments, and hopefully level up.

  "How many people do we have to kill to level up?" James asked after finishing the last bandit in one of the camps. "Honestly, I want to be ambushed by the guild just to level up faster."

  "Maybe we need to take those harder assignment we saw," Janica suggested. "Those seemed like they might be good for large amounts of enemies."

  The group later claimed one of the assignment and headed towards the area it pointed to. The group saw some form of hydras wandering around. The hydras looked like their skin was that of a human's, and their heads were of a bird. The group watched as the heads breathed fire on a passing animal to cook it, before eating it.

  "Fleshy fire breathing hydras," James said. "Great."

  James pulled out a sniper and aimed at the head of one of the hydras, but before he could fire, Janica stopped him.

  "Don't you remember the main thing about hydras in stories from Earth?" Janica asked. "Their heads regrow, no matter how many times they get removed."

  "Then what should we do?"

  "I don't know, I don't do the killing."

  James led them down to a nearer location to the hydras, where he came up with a plan.

  "Wade, you stab out their eyes. Corin, sweep the air under them if you can. Zewei and Jamal, help me aim for the main body. Janica, shield everyone."

  "You thought of all that just now?" Janica said. "What did you do to my idiot brother?"

  "Oh shut up, I'm older than you, of course I'm smart."

  "Uh-huh."

  The group carried out the plan. Wade swiftly went from hydra to hydra, stabbing out their eyeballs so they can't see. The hydras started spewing fire everywhere in a panic. Corin tried to sweep them off their feet with her wind control spell, but all that did was make them wobble a bit. Janica summoned shields with spikes to surround Zewei, Jamal, and James as they rushed in. James and Jamal used explosive shotguns from Fallout 4, and Zewei was slashing the hydras with his now clawed gauntlets. They killed the blind hydras with ease, and James and Janica luckily got a level up pop up.

  Level up! Level 4!

  Increased energy and reaction time.

  Get Stronger quest 4/10 completed.

  "Nice," James said. "So we just gotta kill strong things, got it."

  "I'm guessing that it's a shared leveling system or something," Janica said. "I haven't been doing any killing, but I still level up too. I wonder if the group can level up too?"

  James suddenly felt a sudden urge to smack Zewei, so he lunged at him and slapped him right in the face.

  "OW WHAT THE FUCK, JAMES?!" Zewei shouted, before looking up and seeing a pop up.

  Level ability shared to person Zewei

  Zewei now is level 4

  Slap again to revoke levels and ability.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Well that's convenient." James said, before being slapped in the face by Zewei's tail.

  "That's payback for the slap." Zewei joked.

  "So should we just start slapping people?" Janica said. "I never thought we could share the level ability, but now that we can, why does it have to be a slap?"

  James ran up to Wade and slapped him in the face.

  "Can't you slap my arm or something that's NOT THE FACE?!" Wade asked, before a pop up screen appeared in front of him too.

  Level ability shared to person Wade

  Wade is now level 4

  Slap again to revoke levels and ability.

  James was about to slap Corin, but Janica yanked him back.

  "Let's test if we can slap something that's not the face." Janica said, before lightly slapping Corin on the arm, making a pop up appear in front of Corin.

  Level ability shared to person Corin

  Corin is now level 4

  Slap again to revoke levels and ability.

  Wade and Zewei slapped James hard on the face after they witnessed the ability being shared without the slap to the face.

  "It was a sudden urge, ok?" James said, face red from slapping. "It was just a sudden urge that I fulfilled, and it happened to make me slap you guys' faces!"

  The god looked above at them, laughing to himself.

  "I love giving people intrusive thoughts."

  "Dad," Another one of his son said to him. "Mum wants you to stop giving people intrusive thoughts, she says it's morally incorrect."

  "Tell her to stop making people horny, damn goddess of love my ass."

  Jasper woke up in his cell room with a paper plate in front of him, with rice and bread on it. Next to the plate was a plastic knife. Jasper quickly ate the food, before using his firesword spell on the knife, making it light on fire and reinforce itself. He picked it up and started carving away at the bars of the cell, until a big enough hole in the bars was formed. He stepped through and made his way down the hall, where he came face to face with a cloaked figure.

  "You're not leaving here, are you?" The cloaked figure said mysteriously. "You have no chance of getting past me. Even if you did, this prison is deep under the guild, you're screwed. Go back to your cell like a good little inmate, and we might decide not to torture you la-" The man's throat was impaled by a burning plastic knife, killing him instantly.

  Jasper searched the man until he found a dagger and keys. He ditched the plastic knife and swapped it for the dagger, before going to the door down the hall. He unlocked it using the keys, and made his way upwards.

  The group kept clearing out highly dangerous assignments, finally finding an effective way to level up. The group had reached level 6 by the time it hit nighttime.

  "Some of these monsters remind me of Persona's shadows." James said back at the room. "It's almost like the god took direct inspiration from it, like did you see that table with the burning objects around it?"

  "Maybe it's just a coincidence." Janica replied. "There's no way a god would play a game like Persona, wouldn't that be kind of dumb?"

  "We're talking about a god that straight up transports people to different universes because he's bored, so there's a likely chance he does play Persona, or some sort of video game. There's no way that some of these monsters aren't straight up taken from video games. I swear, that square skeleton is from Minecraft."

  "The hell are you two talking about?" Wade asked. "Fire tables and squarelletons are completely normal monsters."

  The group chatted into the night before going to bed.

  Jasper ascended the stairs upwards, his flaming dagger lighting the way up. He found that there were no floors between the surface and the prison, with just an extremely long staircase connecting the two. When he finally reached the surface, he found that he emerged from a secret door in the bathroom of the lounge area of the Adventurers Guild main building. He noticed a cloak draped over the stall door next to him, so he kicked the stall door down and pointed his knife at the pooping man.

  "Tell me the way out of here or you'll lose your throat." Jasper said.

  The pooping man quickly summoned an ice spike in his left hand but Jasper stabbed his throat before he could launch it. Jasper burst out of the bathroom and found himself in the lounge area, where a bunch of cloaked figures sat reading magazines in different couches. They all looked up at him and immediately summoned ice spikes. They all shot at him, but the spikes evaporated when they neared him. His dagger was so hot that the ice spikes couldn't near him at all. He dashed out of a giant window and ran as far as possible, ignoring the ice spikes being sent his way.

  Jasper ran into the nearby woods, where he kept running until he was sure that they didn't catch up. He stopped for a second on a log, unsure what to do next. He didn't know where he was, where his group was, or what to do at the moment. He got up and decided he would head one direction for a while until he hit something.

  After an hour of running, Jasper hit the edge of the floating island where the grass abruptly ended in front of him. He got the idea of making a floating boat and started carving one out of a fallen tree nearby. Once the shape of the boat was completed, he chanted a ritual he learned back at his old home, where his dad used to make flying boats. After the ritual was completed, he stepped into the boat and sailed slowly into the endless sky, hoping to hit something eventually.

  Jasper sailed for hours on end, slowly becoming thirstier and hungrier but pushing through it. He was approaching an island ahead, and gave a sigh of relief. The boat hit the island and he left the boat to investigate. The area of the island he hit was a pier area, with a town attached to it. He went into town and entered the nearest gear store. He slammed the flaming dagger onto the stone counter.

  "How much for this?" Jasper asked.

  Jasper ended up leaving the store with 20 copper, just enough for two trips in the town's teleport tower. He entered and requested a teleport to the Sky Guild. Jasper planned to ask the Sky Guild where his group was and what happened while he was kidnapped. He arrived at the pier of the Sky Guild's island without throwing up and entered the guild. He stormed past staff and members as he made his way to the head of the guild's office. He burst through the door, startling the head of the guild who was petting a cat in his lap.

  "HOLY SHIT JASPER?!" The head said. "Where the hell have you been? You've been gone for a while!"

  "What happened to my group?" Jasper asked.

  "Your group left when I kicked these two siblings out. What a shame I had to kick them out, but it was too dangerous to keep them here if they're the reason the Adventurers Guild attacked us, you know?"

  "WHERE ARE THEY NOW?!" Jasper demanded. "TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE!"

  "Ok jeez Jasper," The head said, shocked by Jasper's hostile attitude. "I don't know where they are, all I know is that they went back to Tabatha's Tower, ask her."

  Jasper stormed out of the room and headed to the teleport circle on the pier. He was going to demand answer from Tabatha on where his group is.