When Ezekiel arrived home he found his mother was already making lunch, she looked incredibly happy with a bounce in her step as she moved between counter and stove.
"Hey sweetie! Did you he give you the promotion?"
"He says he will consider it but I have to show my character stats."
"Oh well then you just have to make sure he sees it right?"
While she was encouraging him she began to bring out plates for them to get their food.
"OK, subject change! Why are you so upbeat? What happened?"
"Oh you don't want to hear about that sweety, you'd get embarrassed."
"Come on let's here it, did you do something cool in the game or something?"
"Ummmm something like that! Seriously hun stop asking you don't want to know."
She laughed as she sat down with her plate.
"Alright then how about we talk about your character? What did you choose to play?"
"Oh! Well I chose to play a beautiful elf of course!"
She was giggling like a schoolgirl while she said it.
"No I'm joking, of course I picked something a bit more cool than that. I actually chose to play a beastkin."
He was surprised by this but it made sense.
As he fixed his plate he listened to her talk about the path she had taken in the game and he realized that she was falling into the same pattern as other players.
"Mom I know you want to get a lot of levels as fast as possible but the game has a lot of skills that you need to obtain before any of that ok? Go back to the village and ask around for people to train you."
She tapped the table in thought before nodding.
"Yeah that makes sense, in some old games you had to actually do side quests to get advanced skills in the game so this is probably the same."
They continued to laugh and discuss different strategies for the game until he remembered something important.
"Hey when you reach the starting city of your area make sure you don't join any sides of the war yet, I'm on the side that wants to take out the church of light."
"Church of light huh? Is my baby doing an evil playthrough?"
She giggles all over again.
"Actually they are the bad guys.... they kind of remind me of the way the church was described during the crusades."
"Oh so they're the self righteous religious types eh?"
"Yeah they're kind of racist towards the non human looking races in the game, they also really hate the people who have an affinity with shadow magic."
"Oh let me guess, they kill in God's name right? Everything they do is for the good of the world and they want to cleanse the planet of the unclean?"
"Well they worship one specific god, the goddess of light who they do actually try to get the favor of... but she is the one that commanded Thanatos to declare war on the church."
"Well he has to slay a ruler of a nearby kingdom as well as gaining a lot of money. Those worthless fools forced him to do dangerous acts just to try to make him give up on our courtship."
"Courtship? Since when do our children court?"
"He is an otherworlder remember? His people work like the dragonfolk."
"I see... well I can offer you something."
She looked up at him in confusion.
"Say you made a request, a chosen of my lineage making a request of me would be very easy to grant..."
She was so shocked by hid statement that she practically lept out of her chair.
"You would... you would give me a wish?"
"A wish for one of my lineage would be very easy to grant, you never got any of the gifts that I would normally give to my lineage so this could be waved away as my first reward to you."
"I.. I want him to get something that will help him with his quest! I want him to get a boon that will help him to defeat this king and to get the money he has to earn!"
She dropped to her knees and clasped her hands together.
She couldn't see the face but she had a feeling he was smiling down at her when the vision ended.
~
In the toxic swamp dungeon the coven was battling through the monsters that charged them.
Astra stood beside their husband as he healed the wounds of Ametra, she used her fire spells to take out the swarming bats while he created an aura of life mana.
"We need to pin these things down!"
Ametra waved her sword and a wall of fire rose to the tree tops to block the swarm.
"God it was so easy with that mage, why can't we get him to join us more?"
"Shut up Jahlee! We don't need that male because we can fight just as easily without him!"
"His spells were pretty powerful and he never used beams, maybe we should ask him to teach us some of his constructs?"
Astra hissed at Jahlee like an animal before turning around with a huff.
"We don't need anything from that gods forsaken male!"
Their husband turned to look at her with a worried expression.
"Astra please calm down, if they say this male could help our party level up then why shouldn't we try to contact him?"
"Because we don't need some cocky male just because he has a powerful affinity! He is just a dangerous fool that throws his power around with no regard for others!"
He flinched away but his tail soon entwined with hers as he moved in to hug her, his wings wrapped around her body while the battle raged on.
"Please calm down, we need our greatest scout to have a level head."
She almost pulled away but stopped herself before nodding.
"We can discuss this after we finish here."