This is where the money is. If this silk turns out to be as tough as I think it is, players will die to get their hands on it in the early levels, Lucas thought to himself. He wouldn’t spend another Evolution Point on Saba’a until she hit 50 total, realizing that not only would he probably be able to increase his Territorial Income, but he’d also be able to recoup the money he was spending on hiring Bonnie and Nick, as well as create a massive incentive for players to fight one of his minibosses.

“You really need to get over it, Viola,” Bonnie advised, the conversation having gone on while Lucas was busy putting points into Saba’a’s skills. “Boss never budges. Trust me.”

“You need to stop asking him to put you on retainer,” Nick laughed.

“You all need to be quiet,” Lucas said, adjusting the weight of the body slung over his shoulder.

“What? We do?” Nick asked, looking around. “Where is the monster then?”

“He’s above us,” Bonnie said, pointing up toward the winged primate in the sky.

Lucas looked up and spied what appeared to be a silverback gorilla—that is, if a great ape had a pair of wings that extended as wide as a condor’s. Even stranger, it had four arms and two legs, a tail that snaked out and split in two halfway down its length, and a beak in place of a mouth.

“What in the hell do we even call it?” Lucas asked as he stared up at the blue-furred, blue-winged flying sky monkey thing.

“Uhh . . . Well, from what I know, boss, it’s a unique monster named Linnaeus,” Bonnie answered. “The forum posts say that it’s usually pretty hard to find, so I’m surprised it’s so close already.”

“Maybe the blue color of its coat makes it hard for most players to see against the backdrop of a clear sky, or maybe . . .” Lucas looked at the two bodies Nick had brought out. That prisoner wasn’t as bloody as the other Were-Rat Lucas carried, but it still had some dried gore on it. “It might have smelled us.”

“That makes sense,” Viola said. “Like an air shark, it smells the blood and thinks that we’ll be an easy kill.”

“How do we get it down though?” Nick asked.

“Yeah, it doesn’t seem to want to come to attack us, even though it clearly knows we’re here. Bonnie, was there info on how to start the fight?” Lucas asked.

“I don’t know about that, but”—Bonnie looked over at Lucas with a smirk on her face—“I can think of one idea.”

“Which is?” Lucas asked.