Chapter 1

Author’s note: for your reading comprehension, endnotes have been added in areas where allusions could be unclear to normal people.

Chapter 1

Arwyn walked into the electronics store, telling herself, I'm just going to buy a new laptop. Her old one was old, and had finally broken down. She had done her research online, and knew exactly which one she was getting. A quick word to a saleslady, and she had a box with the laptop in hand within two or three minutes. Business done, she couldn't resist drifting over to the video game section.

The first thing she saw was a huge sign proclaiming “Fantasia: Fantasy Life” in glittering, fancy lettering. Underneath the words was a video screen showing an attractive blonde girl lying down wearing a sensor-helmet, which faded into the image of the girl, now a powerful cleric, blasting undead monsters with holy light. Ah! A new virtual reality game! Fantasy-themed this time. Arwyn had always loved fantasy and video games as a child, a passion she had not outgrown in her teen and now young adult years (She was still really a child on the inside). She had tried other virtual reality games, but as they had been based on real life, or been some first-person shooter, she had quickly lost interest. She looked at the ridiculous price for the game and sensor set, and tried to convince herself not to buy it. Okay, this price tag is ridiculous. You should never buy electronics when they first come out; the prices always drop so much after the first few weeks. Anyways, it's tax season; I'm totally swamped at work, and I obviously don't have time to play.

Smaller writing on the sign caught her eye: “Play in your Sleep!” Oh my. Unable to resist, she quickly did the calculations in her head. Having known from a young age that she was very reluctant to spend money, she set aside a small fraction of her income that she labelled 'guilt-free spending.' If she spent every cent in that fund, plus most of what she would have put in this month, she could afford it.

The employee she asked for help this time was a lot friendlier. Probably thinking about the huge commission he's about to earn. She ended up buying the reclining chair that went with the helmet as well. The employee went as far as to help her carry her purchases to her car. Wow. Just how much am I earning this guy? Driving home, she felt a growing sense of excitement. This is going to be fun!

It took two trips to lug everything into her house, one for the recliner and one for everything else. First things first, she thought. Feeling virtuous, Arwyn opened the laptop, and, placing it on the coffee table in the living room, started setting up a user account and installing the programs she would need for work. While she waited for the programs to load, she read the instruction manual for Fantasia:

Welcome to Fantasia! You're about to enter a world full of magic and excitement. Become a warrior or a mage, an elf or a beastman. Whether you want to reign as lord of a city or become the most famed craftsman on the continent, it can all happen here. Fantasia's revolutionary gameplay allows you 99% realism and the ability to play in your sleep. Your adventure awaits!

Wow. I can really play eight hours a night without taking a second away from anything else. Is this really possible?

Arwyn flipped the page to the setup section:

Fantasia consoles require virtually no setup. Simply unfold the legs of the recliner and attach the helmet to an Internet connection and power source, and you're ready to play!

Well, that seems easy. Arwyn cut the tape on the boxes and pulled out the recliner. It was matte black with three pairs of shiny chrome legs, each pair connected in a U shape. The legs were hinged and snapped into place easily. Hmm. Where do I put this? Either in my room or the games room, I guess. Since her bedroom held a queen-sized bed and had not much room for anything else, the games room it was. Snapping the legs back in, Arwyn dragged the recliner to the next room over. It was supposed to be the dining room, but she could never understand why one would have a table for breakfast in the kitchen and a separate table for dinner. Thus, she had converted it to a games room (she had her priorities straight). It held nothing but a TV, a couch, and shelves for her large collections of games and books. She set the recliner up in an unused corner and went back for the helmet. It followed the same black-and-silver theme as the chair. At first, Arwyn was alarmed at the number of wires attached at various places on the helmet, but was reassured when she saw that they all merged into one Internet cable. Back in the games room, she plugged it in. Resisting the temptation to jump into the game, she looked at the clock: 7:00pm. Okay, dinner, set up the laptop, finish reading the manual, get ready for bed, and then I can play. Going into the kitchen, she heated up some leftovers from the night before and ate them. Starting the file transfer from her old laptop to her new one, an instant message popped onto the screen:

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - Hey, Ari, what's up? How was the laptop buying?

ArwynTheElf – Well, I kind of made a side purchase...

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - Really? What?

ArwynTheElf – It's called Fantasia.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - *squeal* Oh my god, it's out?? I've wanted to get it ever since I saw it on VirtualRealities.com! I'm going to go get it right now, and we can play together tonight! See you in Fantasia!

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... is offline.

Arwyn sighed at her friend's exuberance. If Leah didn't make such a huge amount of money as a PR representative, she'd worry about her friend's finances. As it was, Arwyn was glad she had set up a bank account that automatically saved a certain sum of money every month on Leah's behalf. She turned her attention back to her file transfer: Loading... 1% complete. This is going to take all night. Glad to have an excuse to not work, she picked up the Fantasia manual:

Getting started

When you first log onto Fantasia, a biometric reading will be done of your body. Your character's appearance will be based on your own appearance, with modifications depending on the race you choose and a limited range of options. Appearance modules can be bought on the VirtualRealities website to further alter your appearance.

This I have to see, thought Arwyn, bringing up the VirtualRealities website on her laptop. Choosing Fantasia from the many games on the website, she found the items you could purchase with real money. Ignoring the legendary weapons and armour, she found the appearance modules:

Beauty – increase your overall attractiveness by 1

Hair colour – expand the allowable hair colour range by 30

Eye colour – expand the allowable eye colour range by 30

Skin colour – expand the allowable skin colour range by 30

Height – change height by up to 5cm

Proportions – change body measurements by up to 5cm in total

Age – change apparent age by up to 10 years

*Special modifications can by requested by emailing VirtualRealities. Prices will vary depending on request.

Each of the regular modules cost ten dollars. Wow. Just cheap enough that I'm tempted, and just expensive enough that you pay through the nose if you want to dramatically alter your appearance. Meh, I'll create my character before deciding whether I need any of these. She went back to reading the manual:

Choosing a Race

There are many races and sub-races to choose from in Fantasia. Choose carefully, as to change race after starting the game, you must delete your character and start back at level 1 for all skills.

Human – the most versatile of the races, humans are a balance between all attributes. The youngest and most populous of the races.

no sub-races available

Heh, of course there are no sub-races; that would be like printing 'SUE ME' in bold across the front of the game. Making generalizations about race... Bad idea.

Elf – Elves are magical creatures at home in nature. They are naturally faster and more dextrous than humans, as well as having more affinity with magic, at the cost of brute strength.

Arwyn already knew that she would choose to be an elf, having been fascinated with them ever since she could read.

Sub-Races

Dark elves – distant cousins of surface elves, dark elves moved underground millennia ago and have developed the ability to see in pitch blackness with infrared vision. Their eyes are so sensitive to light that their sight must be shielded at all times above ground.

Sun elves – originally from desert areas, sun elves are a race of extremes, from vivid coloring to highly specialized talents. There are no shades of grey amongst these people.

Moon elves – The original race of elves from which the other sub-races evolved, moon elves are at home in the forest, always in harmony with the trees and especially the Mana Tree that is their main source of magic.

Avariels – Upon attaining level 50, all elves (regardless of sub-race) may embark on a quest for the Mana Tree, and upon completion, be granted a set of wings to soar in the sky.

Eee! Wings! I'm not stopping until I hit level 50 and finish that quest!

Impatient to start playing, Arwyn just skimmed the rest of the races: dwarves, goblins, beast-kin, celestials, dragonkin, elementals, undead, and merfolk. The manual also said that new races would soon be added, but Arwyn doubted that she would come across something more appealing than a winged elf.

Classes

Ever felt frustrated at having to keep and train separate characters to play different classes? Fantasia is the game for you! Learn all the skills and abilities you want, as long as you can find the NPC or manual with the knowledge. Some skills can even be taught from player to player. It is recommended that low-level players focus on one or two classes in order to gain combat levels quickly, as each class's skills must be learned separately, from the beginner level. Only one character can be created per player.

The four main classes were warrior, mage, archer, and thief, each with countless sub-classes and skill sets. After some deliberation, Arwyn decided to first focus on becoming a warrior wielding dual blades, like her favourite elven character, Drizzt Do'Urden[i]. I really hope I can actually coordinate two swords; it would be painful (and pathetic) if I ended up cutting my own hand off.

Skills

If fighting does not appeal to you, there is still much to do and explore in the world of Fantasia! In addition to the various combat skills and abilities, there are many non-combat skill sets to master, including several crafting skills, enchanting, art, cooking, and trading. Unlike in other games, the items you create are only limited by your skill level and imagination. Make highly customized items that are absolutely unique!

Cool. I'll definitely try that.

The rest of the manual was about advanced gameplay and standard navigation common to all games of this type, so Arwyn decided to jump into the game without reading further. Getting ready for bed, she lay down on the recliner in her pyjamas. Wow. This is actually really comfortable. Putting the sensor-helmet on, she set the time when she wanted to wake up, and then turned on the game.

Footnotes:

[i] Drizzt Do’Urden, dark elf from the series Legend of Drizzt by R. A. Salvatore

2: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Arwyn was plunged into complete darkness.

“Performing scan,” said a disembodied female voice, the kind you would expect to hear announcing floors on an elevator. “Scan complete. New player detected.” A rotating form of Arwyn appeared, lit from a spotlight from above.

“Please select a race.” The word 'human' appeared hovering in front of the form. By touching the arrows on either side of the word, Arwyn could see what she would look like as a member of the different races. Her face took on distinct casts as she flipped through the races, becoming catlike, reptilian, childlike, and many others, all still recognizably her. She stopped at 'Elf' and studied her herself. Her features were elongated, intensified. Exotic-looking. Elves sure are a good-looking bunch. She selected 'confirm.'

“Please select a sub-race,” said the voice. The word 'Elf' faded and 'Moon' appeared. Flipping through the three choices, the only noticeable change was that her skin changed from jet-black to very tan to very pale, similar to her usual pallor. Moon elf, I guess, thought Arwyn, thinking that it would feel strange to have dark skin when her real skin was pale (she was an indoorsy kind of girl).

“Please choose your hair colour.” A colour palette appeared, a red dot indicating her actual hair colour and a red circle indicating how far she could shift it without purchasing an appearance module. She was pleased to find that if she didn't shift the darkness level at all, she could get the colour to purple, her favourite colour. It was a purple-black so dark that the purple showed only in bright light. Good thing my hair is dark to begin with, she thought, pleased with the subtle effect. She managed to make her eyes a slightly brighter shade of purple, as her eyes were brown to her hair's brown-black.

“Would you like to purchase any appearance modules?” asked the voice. Arwyn was quite tempted to make herself taller, always having been peeved that she was close to, but not quite the average height of a model[i] (not that she wanted to be a model, but still). However, she resisted and said, “No. I'm satisfied.”

“Character appearance confirmed. Please choose a character name. This may not be changed without deleting your character and starting from level 1.”

“Arwyn, A-R-W-Y-N.” Her parents had actually named her as an elf on purpose; no point in letting the name go to waste.

“I'm sorry; that name is taken. Please choose another.” Are you serious? Arwyn had always been bad at coming up with names on the spot, so she usually just used the same one for all games. After thinking for (quite) a while, she thought, Hmm, elves... “Fey, F-E-Y.”

“Welcome to Fantasia, Fey. Your adventure begins.” At a flash of blinding light, she shut her eyes.

◊◊◊◊

Fey opened her eyes in an elven village (the Moonwood, as it was creatively called). True to elven style, all the buildings were living trees magically induced into creating hollows for rooms, bending roots to create steps, and so on. If you did not know it was a village, you would not recognize it as one. A small stream of people travelled in and out of the village and through the buildings, looking purposeful. Wondering where she should go, her eyes alit on an NPC who appeared to be carving a bird out of a block of wood. There was no icon floating over his head, but looking at him, Fey instantly knew that he was the village headman, Hyurnnan, and that he had a quest for her. At her approach, he looked up and stood.

“Ah, Fey. You are ready to leave the village and to find your place in the world. Before you stray to far from the safety of the village, you must build your strength to be able to deal with the monsters that you encounter.”

Since he seemed to be waiting for a response, she said, “How might I accomplish this?”

“Take this,” said Hyurnnan, producing a dagger, complete with sheath, from (probably literally) nowhere and handing it to her. “And these,” he continued, handing over twenty small bottles about an inch and a half long, ten blue and ten red. They were small, but numerous, and Fey's hands were completely full. “Now go into the Forest and defeat ten slimes, bringing back three bubbles of slime as proof of your victories. Be sure not to stray too far from the village perimeter, lest you encounter monsters far beyond your level.” At that, he seemed to completely lose interest in her, going back to his carving without a second glance. Okay..., thought Fey, walking over to what appeared to be the edge of the village (hard to determine, as the buildings were trees), sitting down and dumping her burdens on the ground to take stock of her situation.

The first thing she did was to locate the small pouch she was wearing at her waist and stow her potions away. Huh. I thought they'd be bigger. Well, I guess I wouldn't be able to carry hundreds of them if they were bigger. Plus, I wouldn't want to have to chug half a litre of potion while being mauled by monsters. Or otherwise. The pouch was lined with individual pockets. Hmm, I guess these are 'item slots,' she thought, putting the health and mana potions in separate pockets. Next, she looked at the dagger she had received. How do I 'equip' this? Shrugging, she attached its sheath to her belt. Well, as long as I can stab things with it, I guess it's 'equipped' enough for me.

Okay, am I ready to go defeat slime monsters? Thinking she'd better check her stats first, she called up the character menu in her head:

<Fey, level 1 Moon Elf>

<Hp: 25/25, Mp: 10/10>

<Exp: 0/10>

...This is rather pathetic. I feel like I'll die if I trip over a tree root and skin my knee. Speaking of knees (*random tangent*), Fey glanced down at what she was wearing. Calf-length brown leather boots over brown leather leggings, and a white linen shirt cut rather low in the front. Ugh. One day, there's going to be a game where girls wear armour that actually protects their bodies. I hope. Her hair, appearing completely black in the shade of the Forest, was tied back in a single braid. Let's go level! (and become less pathetic!) Standing, Fey drew her dagger and paced forward, eyes alert for any slime monsters about to attack her.

When she reached the slimes (yeah, take off the 'monster' part), Fey felt rather silly for her caution. Instead of huge (or even moderately large) monsters with sharp teeth and claws, as she had imagined, she encountered Hershey Kiss-shaped bags of slime with huge eyes that would sit comfortably in the palm of her hand[ii]. An appendage ending in a small bubble of slime extended from the top much as the paper saying 'kiss' would extend from the chocolate. In short, these were some of the cutest creatures she had ever seen. They bounced around merrily, obviously not the type of monster that attacked on sight. Walking up to one (they didn't move very quickly, being without legs and all), Fey gingerly picked it up by the bubble. It dangled, looking very surprised. “Aww,” she said, placing it gently down on the palm of her other hand, “you're just too cute. I can't kill you.” While she pondered just how she could advance in the game without completing her first quest, the slime bit her. Yelping in surprise, Fey jerked her hand violently, and it went flying to make a rather fatal-sounding splatting sound on the ground. Fey was rather surprised when the system notices dropped directly into her head:

Huh? I learned a skill? Calling up the skills menu, she read the description:

<Slam: throw the enemy to the ground with devastating force.>

Cool. Or lame, considering the 3 pound limit. I guess that will increase as I level. Remembering that her quest involved collecting slime bubbles, she looked at the slime's remains. Of the slime's body, nothing remained but a puddle of goo, but fortunately, the bubble was still intact. Gingerly fishing it out of the puddle, she wiped it off the best she could on a leaf and then tucked it into her pouch. I'd better not do that again; the bubble might not survive impact. It also appeared to have ingested a coin. Picking that up as well, Fey thought, I really hope that's not where all monsters keep their gold. I do not want to have to go around gutting monsters looking for loot. Looking around, she spotted her next target (red compared to the first one's green).

Aware now that they would attack once 'provoked,' she approached cautiously. So... I stab it? Still rather unwilling to kill the things, Fey gingerly poked the slime with her dagger, then jumped back when it snarled (in a ridiculously cute, high-pitched voice), revealing tiny, sharp teeth. It hopped towards her, but every time it jumped, slime leaked out of the small hole she had made. By the time it had closed the metre between them, it looked distinctly deflated and half dead. It made a half-hearted bump against her boot, leaking even more, then stopped moving.

Okay, this is ridiculous. And pathetic. You call this combat? And you learn skills by doing such random things? A wry smile appeared on her face. I guess this game is really suited to me. Calling up the skills menu again, she 'read:'

<Bleed: create a bleeding wound that causes damage over time. Cannot be negated by a health potion, only an all-cure or bleeding potion>

Hmm. Not bad.

The third slime (green again) was dispatched with little excitement, but after the fourth (orange), Fey levelled up:

Yay! thought Fey, calling up the Attribute menu:

<Vitality: 6 Strength: 6 Dexterity: 2 Agility: 2 Intelligence: 2 Charisma: 2 Speed: 10>

Because Fantasia allowed characters to belong to multiple classes, some development in every attribute was required. With each level, all attributes automatically increased by one in addition to the five free points that could be assigned by the character. Considering that she was going to become a warrior, but a fast one, she put three points into strength, and one each into agility and dexterity. She moved around a little to test her newly gained attributes, but could detect no change with the minor increases. Hmm. Oh well.

As she went on killing slimes, they seemed to sense the danger and started to flee. Seeing as they made a squishing sound every time they hopped and travelled quite slowly, she had no problems keeping track of them. I feel like a murderer, she thought, slashing one (blue) open and killing it instantly. Upon accidentally stepping on one that had tried to hide in the leaf litter, Fey learned Stomp (hopefully no description necessary). After the ninth slime (yellow), she levelled up again, and stopped to apply her attribute points (3 into strength, one each into vitality, and dexterity). By the time she refocused on her surroundings again, the slimes had all made it into hiding places. Great. Now what?

Fey spotted a beautiful purple slime unsuccessfully trying to camouflage against a (brown) tree. Aww, my favourite colour too. Walking up to the branch it nestled on, she decided to train Bleed, and poked it with her dagger. Instead of attacking her, it just cringed away. Gah, now I'm a bully and a murderer, she thought, resisting the urge to break into hysterical laughter (or tears, she wasn't quite sure). Since it was not moving, it did not seem to be leaking much. Sighing, Fey picked it up by the bubble. It gave a (cute) cry of distress and the tension made it leak faster, but it still did not attack her. Nuuu... I can't take this. Realizing that she was probably going to regret it, she put the slime back down and dug out a health potion. Unsure of the procedure for making a slime drink a potion, she just dumped the liquid onto its head. Instantly, the wound started healing and it became less deflated. “Okay, now shoo,” she said, flapping her hand at it. “If you bite me, I will kill you.” Instead of taking either option, the slime just hopped up and down, looking happy. Ah... Cute overload. I really have to go find some ugly monsters before I'm reduced to a ten-year-old's brain capacity, skipping through fields of flowers and befriending the woodland creatures. When the slime didn't stop hopping for a while, Fey leaned in for a closer inspection. Great. I broke the game already; nobody heals the damn monsters. In a surprisingly large leap (compared to the pathetic distances she'd seen them accomplish), it landed on her head.

Are you kidding me?? I poke this thing with my dagger, and it wants to be my pet? Picking it up off her head, she stared at it. It smiled back at her (cutely), sparkling like a jewel in a small pool of sunlight. “Okay, I'm going to be creative and call you 'Amethyst.'”

<Amethyst, level 1 slime>

<Hp: 5/5, Mp: 5/5>

<Exp: 0/10>

Oh god. If I accidentally drop it, it's going to die. Holding it carefully in one hand, she quickly dispatched a tenth slime (orange) with the other and the headed back towards the village.

When she arrived, Hyurnnan looked up. “Have you completed your quest?”

“I have,” said Fey, pulling three slime bubbles out of her pouch and handing them over.

He smiled. “Good. Continue to build your strength. You may now venture further into the Forest without fear. As you gain strength and riches, buy better and more powerful weapons and armour. At level 10, you may find an instructor who will teach you the basics of your first chosen class.”

“Um, sir? What do I do with these?” she asked, pulling out seven more bubbles, having carefully saved one from each slime.

“Sell them to the healer,” he replied dismissively. “They're good for making salves.” He again returned to his carving.

Amethyst wiggled in her other hand, looking interested in the bubbles, so Fey held them close for it to inspect. It hopped a little closer, then ate three in quick succession. It's...a cannibal... Amethyst grew very slightly bigger and became less... squishy.

Having become more accustomed to the randomness of Fantasia, Fey made no comment but to call up the pet menu. She found Double Membrane in the Abilities section:

Wow. So now it won't die if I drop it accidentally, only if I throw it. Sarcasm aside, Fey was pleased. In her first quest, she had gained two levels and two skills, as well as a pet and 30 gold. Speaking of gold... Fey wandered into what appeared to be the healer's shop. Rows of herbs and bottles were lined neatly up in racks, fresh herbs were strung out to dry on the walls, and something that appeared to be both healthy and nasty-tasting was simmering in a pot over the hearth.

“Greetings, adventurer. You do not appear to be injured; how may I be of assistance?” A pretty (they were all pretty), gentle-looking elf had appeared in the opposite archway. Fey automatically knew that this was Kallara, the village healer. Feeling the need to speak in the formal cadences the NPCs used, Fey replied, “I have recently obtained some slime bubbles, and was informed that you might have use of them.”

Kallara smiled. “Ah I was just about to start a new batch of salve. Would you like for me to purchase the bubbles? Or, if you help me create the salve, I shall give you a portion of it.” A new quest was being offered, and having nothing else to do, Fey accepted it. “I would be pleased to aid you in the creation of the salve.” She wanted to say something flattering about the nobility of the healing art (or whatever), but could not think of how to word it and said nothing further.

“Good. I already have most of the necessary ingredients. All that's needed are three buckets of water, ten slime bubbles, and a flask of slime.” Oh god, I have to kill more slimes? “The water should come first,” Kallara continued, either not noticing or ignoring the pained expression on Fey's face. “Take this bucket and fill it at the stream.” Relieved at the reprieve from killing slimes, Fey grabbed the bucket and headed towards the sound of running water.

At the stream, Fey took the time to take a drink, kneeling at the edge of the water and scooping it up in her hands. Amethyst hopped down from its perch on her shoulder and landed in the shallow water with a splash. And started swelling.

Remembering from biology class what happened to animal cells in hypotonic environments[iii], Fey hurriedly snatched Amethyst out of the water. It had doubled in size, but had otherwise suffered no other visible effects. Curious, Fey opened the pet Ability menu:

Okay... Just how big is it going to get? And how to I get it to go back to its original size? Amethyst is a lot heavier now... Determined not to have to carry any more weight than necessary (lazy), Fey barked, “Amethyst, shrink!” Thankfully, the slime started dripping water and shrinking. Hmm...Putting Amethyst back into the water, she called, “Osmosis!” Obligingly, Amethyst swelled with water. Holding it (Fey was starting to think of the slime as a 'her'; 'Amethyst' would be a pretty sad name for a male) over the bucket, she said, “Shrink!” and the bucket filled with a small but not insignificant amount of water. Grinning, Fey dipped the bucket into the shallow stream, managing to fill it about halfway, then used Amethyst as a 'sponge' to fill it to the brim. I hope I'm not contaminating the water or something, thought Fey, poking at the water carefully. It looks okay. Anyways, the salve is made with slimes; a little more slime stuff can't ruin it. Besides, reverse osmosis is an accepted technique for purifying water (At least that's what she told herself). She stood, put Amethyst back on her shoulder, and hauled the bucket back to Kallara.

Back at the healer's, the brew that had been simmering over the fire was gone, replaced by a new, empty pot. “Bring that over here,” Kallara ordered when Fey appeared. “Pour it into the pot.” As Fey obeyed, Kallara asked, “How did you manage to fill the bucket to the brim?”

“Oh, I, um, scooped water in with my hands.” And a certain pet that was in my hands at the time...

Kallara smiled (*sweatdrop*). “Well, since I only expected you to be able to fill it halfway, only one more trip will suffice.” As Fey left, Kallara started taking various mysterious tools and ingredients off the shelves.

After the second trip (even easier because Osmosis reached level 2 and Amethyst could now triple in size), Fey faced the hysteria-inducing task of killing more slimes. Armed with a flask and instructions to fill it with liquid from the slimes' bodies, she set off again into the Forest.

The task was ridiculously easy. When Fey found a slime (yellow), she stuck it into the flask and used Bleed. In that way, she captured all the slime's slime and filled the flask about a quarter full. The slimes appeared to remember her, having started running ('running') away as soon as she appeared. After the third slime (pink; she didn't feel so bad about that one), all of the remaining slimes had reached cover. She knew where they were, but none were within easy reach. Just as she was resigning herself to climbing a tree, she heard a squeak.

Amethyst was on an overhanging branch, dragging another slime (red) by its bubble. Fey was horrified. She had originally put Amethyst in her pouch with a whispered, “Don't watch,” and here the diabolical slime was, dragging a comrade to its death-by-bleeding. Just what have I created? Underneath that cute (purple) exterior is a sadistic cannibal. Plucking the red slime off the branch and dropping it into the flask, she tried to think positively. Maybe they're enemies or something. There are a couple of people that I would happily bleed to death in a flask of slime (*smile* positive thinking). She was cheered even more after it died and she reached level four (the end justifies the means...). Fishing out the bubbles, she fed the extra to Amethyst, who gained experience in the Double Membrane ability. I hope I can feed her something else... Coming back here would be as pleasant as... going to summer school (for those of you who've never been to summer school, it's... unpleasant).

Kallara had the pot boiling and was cutting up some leaves when Fey returned. Looking up, she said, “Back so quickly?” Without waiting for an answer (which would be somewhere between 'yes' and 'no shit, Sherlock'), she took the flask and bubbles and examined them closely. Satisfied, she poured the contents of the flask into the pot and had Fey stir while she went back to cutting leaves. Fey watched with interest as Kallara pressed oil from the leaves. “What kind of plant is that?” she asked.

“Aloe. Salve is quite easy to make. All you have to do is...” And Kallara was off, detailing the process and providing a running commentary of what she was doing. Instead of being bored, Fey was fascinated. Hmm, maybe I could learn some of the healing arts; it looks interesting. In the back of her mind was the ulterior motive of wanting to save on the cost of potions (money makes the world go round).

Eventually, Kallara popped the slime bubbles and mixed them with the aloe oil. The boiling slime was strained out of the water, cooled with more water, and added to the mix. “Now, this mixture would help with cuts and burns,” said Kallara, still in lecture mode. “but its most important property is its ability to absorb healing magic.” Placing her hand over the salve, she intoned, “Blessing of Health. Heal, guérir, guarire, curar...” And she continued, saying the word 'heal' in twenty or thirty different languages. A glow appeared around her hand and seemed to sink into the salve. At each 'heal,' the light pulsed. Kallara chanted for two or three minutes without stopping, repeating the litany as necessary. Fey managed to pick up two or three words, but there was no way she could learn them all. Wow. If every spell is like this, I'd be hopeless as a mage. Finally, Kallara trailed off, looking drained but exhilarated. The glow faded from her hands, then the salve a few seconds after. To Fey's surprise, Kallara asked, “Would you like to try?”

Me?? “I don't know what to do... I don't know the words...”

Kallara smiled. “The task is simple. Concentrate on infusing the salve with healing energy, then say 'blessing of health.' She winked. “As for the words, the translations are just for show; I could just say 'heal' over and over and the spell would work just as well.”

“Oh.” Fey was experiencing a childish feeling of disillusionment (*disillusioned*), but shook it off and placed her hand over the salve. Feeling rather silly, she focused on healing, and said, “Blessing of Health.” When her hand actually started to glow, she mentally jumped up and down with excitement and high-fived herself (no, she didn't just clap her hands together; it's possible to high five yourself in your imagination). *Squee,* it works! Taking a calming breath, she said, “Heal.” The light pulsed and she felt something rush through her, making her even more excited (so much for calming down). Is that what magic feels like? So cool! Feeling smug, she continued with “guérir.” She was totally deflated (*deflated*) when the response to that was a stab of pain between her eyes and:

<Failure. Insufficient mana.>

Aww, so lame (*tear*).

Kallara made her feel slightly better when she said, “That was well done. Not everyone is able to invoke healing power on their first try. As you increase in magical reserves, you will surely be able to create powerful potions, perhaps even lay healing directly on people.” Is she saying I should become a cleric? I hate having to party though and it's the most party-dependent class[iv]. Maybe for my second class (*save money*).

Kallara filled a small flask with salve and handed it over, along with a twenty-gold piece.

“You don't have to pay me,” Fey protested, surprised. “My reward was just supposed to be a portion of the salve.”

“Take it; you've earned it,” Kallara replied with a smile (cheerful girl). “You accomplished the tasks I set for you quite quickly, and the quality of the ingredients was exceptional. There's usually dirt and leaves in the slime that adventurers bring me; you saved me a lot of trouble from having to filter them out. I am guessing you must have killed at least twenty slimes in order to fill the flask without collecting contaminants as well.”

Or not... *sweatdrop.* Fey took the money.

Cool! I actually learned the spell! I guess that's what the manual meant when it said NPCs could teach skills. “Thank you,” said Fey to the healer.

Return any time and I will show you more of the healing craft.”

Fey left, feeling the beginnings of friendship with Kallara. Wait... She's just an NPC. Those were all programmed responses. Subdued, she went to find her next task.

[i] The “minimum” height in editorial modelling is considered to be 5’8”

[ii] These monsters were stolen directly from Maplestory, the MMORPG created by Nexon. Please don't tell on me.

[iii] A hypotonic environment is one where the solute concentration in the environment is less than that of the cell. In such conditions, animal cells absorb water until their membranes burst (lyse) and die

[iv] Clerics are a class that can restore health to themselves and people they adventure with, but have low attack power and defence, and therefore are unsuitable for solo adventurers

3: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Walking away from the healer's, Fey noticed a notice board (haha, it fulfilled its function) at the edge of village's central clearing. On it were several flyers from players and NPCs alike requesting items to be collected, tasks to be performed, and expeditions to be joined. Most of the tasks were far above Fey's level in difficulty, so she skimmed through them without much interest.

A flyer with an illustration caught her eye. It was titled Twiggy[i] Collection. The drawing was of (a twiggy) a woody monster that looked like a large branch with legs and carved eyes and a mouth. The task was to collect thirty twiggy branches and to bring them to the tavern. The reward was 30 gold (Fey only had 58g at the moment) and the monster was only level two, so Fey decided to accept the task. Following the directions on the flyer, she left the village by a different trail towards the twiggys.

The twiggys looked just as odd as the slimes. It was as if the game designers had started the monsters as cartoons and then made them three-dimensional to match the game graphics. Each twiggy came up to her knee at the top of what she thought of as the 'head;' three branches split off from there and reached up to her hip from there. Two shorter branches made arms and two stumps made feet (they didn't have much in the way of legs). The main trunk was about twice the width of her forearm (Fey was a skinny child). Eyes and mouth looked carved but opened and shut realistically. At least they're not very cute. Drawing her dagger, she walked up to one (they were even slower than the slimes), then hesitated. Can a dagger really do much against a tree branch? Oh well. She slashed down with the dagger.

A small line appeared on the twiggy, but it didn't appear to be hurt at all. Fey had time to think, Great. How am I supposed to kill these (damn) things? before it reacted (slow in all respects, huh) by whipping its head branches at her. It hurt as much as, well, a small child poking one’s leg with a stick while one is wearing jeans (which is to say, not very much), but Fey took a step backwards so it would not repeat the ‘attack’ (well, at least until it covered the 50 centimetres that now separated them, which didn't look like it would happen any time soon). She saw the other twiggys were moving in her direction as well. Ah, they all attack once you hit one. Amethyst made a (cute) squeak on her shoulder. Oh yeah; how am I going to use her in combat? Eyeing the twiggys, Fey thought their branches looked rather too pointy for the slime's membrane to handle. Taking another step backwards to avoid the growing mob, she took Amethyst down and examined her (*pokepoke*) Her body was still pretty soft, but the bubble seemed to be made of tougher stuff. The glimmering beginnings of an idea formed. Fey held Amethyst in one hand and used her other hand to flick the bubble at a twiggy.

Grinning, Fey walked back to town to get what she needed for her plan (leaving the twiggys far behind, creaking angrily).

Back in town, Fey located the general store and entered the archway. It was odd (by human standards), with the counters and shelves growing directly out of the floor and walls. A young (handsome) elf was stacking potions in an elegant (obviously) pyramid on one of the shelves; she automatically knew that this was Jeral, the shopkeeper's nephew. Looking up, he said, “Greetings. How may I be of assistance?”

“I need a rope.”

“Rope, is it?” He went over to another shelf and took down a length of thin rope. Very thin rope. Really, it looked like string. Dubious, Fey accepted the woven fibres and tested their strength. Despite its (lack of) thickness, it was quite strong. A fine example of elven craftsmanship, she thought, impressed. “How much is it?” she asked.

“For such a beautiful maiden? Naught but five gold,” he replied with a charming smile (and no bursting into laughter).

Fey's thoughts scattered. Reeling them back in, she quickly (and wordlessly) paid without haggling and left. Oi. If only they made them like that in real life. She had never met a boy who could make her the slightest bit nervous, let alone scatter her thoughts (she wasn't one of those empty-headed idiots who found it an effort to think all the time). The NPCs in this game... She did not notice Jeral watching her leave with an amused smile on his face.

By the time Fey returned to the twiggys, they had forgotten all about her and had gone back to their business (not that they appeared to be doing much). Fey quickly seized a twiggy by both ends and took three steps back from the others. Ignoring its feeble (pathetic) attempts to escape, Fey quickly tied it up at both ends and then to a tree. It could wiggle, but not much else. Satisfied that it wouldn't puncture her pet, she put Amethyst on the ground before it, and called, “Whip!” Obediently, the slime sent its bubble flying out. It bounced off the twiggy harmlessly with a sound like a rubber ball bouncing off the wall. “This is ridiculous,” Fey muttered, pulling up the pet skill:

<Whip: strike a foe with a lashing motion.>

Are you kidding me? You can't even throw a pebble with that little force. Fey happened to know off the top of her head (yeah, she hadn’t just looked it up on the Internet out of curiosity *coughcough*) that it required about 120 pounds of force to break a wooden board in martial arts, and that was thin, dry wood under tension at the ends. Well, she'll just have to do this over and over (and over) again until it levels up enough to do damage, thought Fey resignedly. Wait. Force equals mass times acceleration[ii]. Fey couldn't do much about acceleration other than levelling Whip, but mass... Picking Amethyst up, she went to the stream, which happened to be conveniently nearby, and plopped her in, calling, “Osmosis.” Amethyst tripled in size (and hopefully mass). Fey brought her back to the bound twiggy (the others had managed to turn all the way towards the stream and were now in the process of turning back) and called, “Whip!” again. The attack made a slightly louder noise, but still had no visible effect. Noticing that the other twiggys were almost upon them (about 10 cm away), she said, “Keep whipping, Amethyst,” and led the mob two steps to the right.

Thinking about board breaking had given her the idea of trying out her real-life tae kwon do skills out on the woody monsters. Raising her knee (below waist level, which was usually considered lazy, but twiggys are short), Fey snapped out a front kick at one of the creatures, leaving a small dent and knocking it to the ground.

Giggling a little at how funny the twiggy looked trying to get up, she knocked the entire mob over (there were ten in total), conscientiously alternating legs rather than favouring her stronger right side. Hmm... Fey frowned thoughtfully. There was no way the mob was going to be of any danger to her, but she did not appear to be doing much damage in return, either. Ah well, I'll just think of it as a chance to level up my skills (cynical optimist, that’s our Fey). Wasting no time complaining, Fey applied her analytical mind to the situation. Adding Axe Kick – an overhead kick that brought her heel slamming sharply into the ground (and through anything between her and the ground) – to her skills, she came up with an efficient training system as she usually did. Using Slam or Snap Kick to knock a twiggy over, Fey then attacked with Stomp or Axe Kick to deliver heavier damage. Delivering the combo once to each of the ten twiggys allowed time for them to struggle to their feet before she knocked them over again. Moving with assembly line efficiency, her attacks became as regular at the beat of Amethyst's bubble against her victim. Passers by would have found the sight interesting to behold (probably then edging away quietly with the madwoman none the wiser).

Just as Fey settled into a comfortable rhythm, the mob died in quick succession. Rousing herself from the trance-like state she had fallen into, Fey dragged the bodies into a pile and collected the gold secreted about their persons (it probably wouldn't actually stick like that in real life). Task done, she went to check Amethyst's progress. There was now a definite (bubble-shaped) indent, but the twiggy was still struggling vigorously against its bonds. “Keep going,” she told the slime, who had paused to cast a (cute) questioning look at her approach.

A new wave of monsters had now appeared, so she kicked one, then checked her stats while the twiggys converged on her. Each of her four skills had reached level two, and she had reached level five. She spent her attribute points, waited for a while, then got bored and walked up to meet the twiggys, forcibly putting them into place on her (dis)assembly line.

The second group died even more quickly, as her skills were now considerably less crappy than when they were at level one. Again Fey piled up the bodies and collected the coins, then went to check on Amethyst's progress. The middle of the twiggy's body looked definitely battered, and its struggles were getting weaker. I hope she actually kills it by the time I'm done with the next mob... “Faster,” she said, and the slime obligingly picked up its pace. Fey went to deal with the last wave of twiggys she would need.

This time, when she hit a twiggy, only nine converged on her. She saw the tenth one hanging back with uncharacteristic (for a twiggy) intelligence in its eyes. Fey instinctively left it alone to deal with the others. Instead of the conservative efficiency of before, she deliberately went about to be impressive. With a sweeping kick, she knocked the whole mob over, then simultaneously stomped on one while seizing a second to slam into a third. Her strikes were at full strength, no energy conserved, and the twiggys died quickly. With a final Axe Kick on a standing twiggy that left it half-buried in the ground and split down the middle, only Fey and the tenth twiggy were left (in spirit; the bodies were still there, of course). With a look of respect in its cartoonish eyes, it bowed. Feeling rather silly, and not quite sure what (the hell) she was doing, Fey bowed back.

<Monster Tamer has reached level 2!>

Oh, so THAT'S what the hell I was doing. I'm totally going to have a menagerie of creatures following me around by the time I reach level twenty. The twiggy had started walking towards her, but it did not look like it was going to arrive any time soon. “Feh, your legs are so short, you're more of a stumpy than a twiggy,” Fey muttered.

<Stumpy, level 2 twiggy>

<Hp: 12/12, Mp: 10/10>

<Exp: 10/25>

“Hey!” she yelled, indignant. “I didn't actually want to name it Stumpy!” (The system notice made no reply.) “Aargh, stupid game.”

Dismissing her irritation as useless, Fey piled up the twiggy bodies (we could probably call them 'logs' now) and let Stumpy make its way over in its own time (which seemed to be similar to that of a turtle. Or a tree.). The regular sound of slime bubble impacting wood ended in a crack, then stopped. Looking over, Fey saw that the twiggy's body had actually split, held together only by splinters. “Good job, Amethyst! Shrink!” Amethyst jumped up and down (cutely) in happiness, shedding water until she returned to her normal size. Untying the rope, she used it to tie up the logs into five linked bundles and slung the contraption over her shoulder. Ugh, this is heavy. Drawing on her high school experience with ridiculously heavy backpacks (Arwyn still maintains that she would’ve been an inch taller if the evil textbooks hadn’t stunted her growth), Fey headed back towards town with Amethyst and Stumpy trailing behind, hoping the twiggy would not become completely lost.

The walk back to the village seemed a lot longer than the trip to the twiggys. Ow, ow, ow. If she were not herself, she would have driven herself mad with complaining. Her mood was vastly improved about three-quarters of the way there, when she received a system notice:

<Fey’s strength has increased to 24! (+1)>

Cool! You can actually improve your attributes through practice. Hefting her bundles a little higher, she headed the rest of the way back with less internal complaint.

Footnotes:

[i] In an attempt not to steal too many creatures from Maplestory, Twiggys have been altered from Maplestory’s Stumps by adding branches to the creatures’ heads and bodies

[ii] F =ma, Newton’s second law of motion

4: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The tavern keeper, Fey was surprised to see, was human. Well, I guess elves wouldn’t aspire to becoming tavern owners. Just as she neared the tavern, he came out to collect wood from a rather small pile near the entrance. The game system informed Fey that this was Tallen, who had moved to Moonwood about ten years ago. A large, cheerful-looking red-haired man, he dropped the wood he was holding upon spotting her. “Ah! So somebody read my notice!” he exclaimed. “I was just about to run out of wood.”

“Yes sir,” Fey replied, “but why do you need all these twiggys?”

“For cooking fires, of course; you can’t cut down trees around here. Well, not unless you want to die.” He chuckled (odd sense of humour). “But twiggys work just as well, so I’m not complaining.” So… We’re not allowed killing trees for wood, but animals are just fine? “Anyways, just pile those over here,” he said, indicating the woodpile, “and I’ll go get your reward.” As Fey untied her bundles and coiled her rope, Tellen disappeared inside and returned with a ten-gold and twenty-gold piece. He handed them over and Fey put them in her pouch, hearing the clink as they hit all of the one- and five-gold pieces she had collected from the monsters. I’d better get them changed to larger denominations before I clink every time I take a step.

“Would you like to come in for a bite to eat? It’s on the house.”

Fey noticed she was hungry. So we get hungry here. I hope we don’t get sleepy. “Sure. I’ll be right in,” she replied. Tallen went back inside, and Fey went to find her pets.

Amethyst was right at the end of the trail. Fey put her on her shoulder and continued on. Stumpy was quite a ways further back, about halfway between the village and the twiggy area. Fey picked him up easily, but the circumference of his trunk was too large for her to be able to carry him easily in one hand. Ugh, more trouble than it’s worth. Bracing one end (the head; she wasn’t mean enough to hold him upside down) on her shoulder, she turned around and walked back to the tavern.

The inside of the tavern was more human-looking than the other buildings Fey had been in. The tables and benches were still grown out of the tree, but they had sharper edges and corners that made them look more furniture-like.

“Ah! There you are!” called out Tallen. “I was wondering if you’d been eaten by wolves.” (Fun mental image. Fey wasn’t disturbed at all.) “Sit down and I’ll bring you some stew. Ale or cider?”

“Cider, please.” (Arwyn had been to horseback riding camp, and in her opinion, beer smelled suspiciously like horse piss.) Fey sat down at a table, a couple of seats away from the tavern’s only other patron. Judging by her clothes, Fey guessed that she was a high-level mage (and yes, Fey could now confirm that the sluttiness of the clothing was directly proportional to level). The woman was immersed in a book (no doubt full of arcane knowledge), but looked up as Fey sat down, putting Stumpy on the ground beside her. Her eyes fixed on Amethyst, still on Fey’s shoulder, and she asked, “Why do you have a monster on your shoulder? How do you keep it from attacking?”

“Well, it’s actually a pet,” Fey explained. “You can tame monsters and turn them into pets.”

“You don’t say!” exclaimed the mage. She patted Amethyst, who had hopped onto the table. “It’s so cute! I don’t suppose you’d consider selling it to me?”

“Uh, no.” Fey had grown quite fond of the evil, adorable bag of slime (it reminded her of herself when she was little and still cute).

The woman sighed. “Oh well. It looks like its main element is water, anyways. If you had an earth-element pet, I’d really have to buy it from you. I’m an earth mage.”

“Well, actually…,” said Fey, picking Stumpy up and putting him on the table.

“A twiggy! It’s perfect!” exclaimed the mage, examining the twiggy. “I really have to have it; I won’t take no for an answer! I’ll pay you a thousand gold for it.”

“A thousand.” Fey repeated, stunned at the unimaginable riches being offered. Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney…

“No? How about two thousand?”

Fey’s mind had finally caught up, and she said, “Deal,” before the poor (rich, actually) stranger started offering such ridiculous sums that Fey would start feeling guilty.

“Great!” said the mage, and Fey felt rather than saw her open a trade dome.

As this was her first trade, a system notice dropped into her head:

Ah. Fantasia frowns upon con men, I guess.

“Okay,” said the mage, taking out two crystal coins and placing them on the table. “Do you accept two thousand gold in exchange for your pet twiggy?”

“Yes.”

“What did you name it?” asked the mage.

“…Stumpy.”

The mage raised an eyebrow at that. “Well. I think I’ll go with Alder. I’m Terra, by the way.” She held out a hand, and Fey shook it.

“I’m Fey.”

“Fey,” Terra repeated. “I’ll remember that name.”

<Fey’s fame has increased to 1! (+1)>

Now that’s just silly.

Tallen came over with a bowl of stew and a cup of cider.

“Enjoy your meal; I’m going to go see what kind of power I can channel through my new familiar,” said Terra, standing up. She picked up the twiggy and left the tavern.

Putting the coins away (moneymoneymoney), Fey turned to her stew. I guess she’s the curious academic type, always experimenting. Never judge a book by its cover (or indecently cut clothing). A bite of the stew put all such trivial thoughts from her mind. Mmmmmm… If I were a loser who cared about gaining weight, I would rejoice that food like this exists in a video game and start bingeing. Though I bet you can actually get fat in this game. Polishing off the stew, she turned to the cider. It was okay; then again, she had never liked cider. Thanking Tallen for the meal, she left the tavern.

Annoyed at the loud jangle her pouch made every time she took a step (it’s much easier to sneak up on your victims when you can walk quietly. Not that Arwyn had any victims…*innocent face*), Fey wandered off to the banker’s. There she stored her two (beautiful) crystal coins away, and had the rest changed to two fifty-, a twenty- and a five-gold piece (that totals 125g, for those of us that can’t add). She was tempted to go out and blow all her money on new armour and weapons, but logic (barely) prevailed and she decided to wait until she reached level ten and had joined her first class. Speaking of levels, Fey checked her stats again:

<Fey, level 6 moon elf>

<Hp: 79/79, Mp: 30/30>

<Attributes: VIT: 14, STR: 24, DEX: 10, AGI: 10, INT: 6, CHR: 6, SPE: 13>

<Pet: Amethyst, level 5 slime>

That’s more like it. Not that I’m actually strong or anything… Opening up the submenus, Fey saw:

<Melee: Slam, level 4; Bleed, level 2; Stomp, level 4, Axe kick, level 4; Snap kick, level 4>

<Magic: Blessing of Health>

<Special: Monster tamer, level 2>

My skills are really… Disparate. Determined to reach level ten and start learning proper warrior skills, Fey went to find something to kill.

Back at the notice board, a couple more quests were now open to her. Some were item collection requests for things like herbs and mushrooms; she ignored these. Another wanted wolf pelts for tanning. Ooh, wolves. Maybe I could get a wolf pet. Fey was about to accept the quest but then reconsidered. She thought about wolves’ teeth, and the fact that their movement speed was faster than that of a turtle. Then she looked down at her oh-so-rippable clothing… Maybe later… Fey didn’t like being in pain (not that there’s anything wrong with that kind of thing).

Looking back at the other requests, Fey realized that the mushrooms[i] being requested were actually killable monsters. Better yet, there were no exact numbers requested; the reward was gold per mushroom. There were five different varieties: white, yellow, green, blue, and poison, from level one to five. The gold per mushroom corresponded to the level of the mushroom. Wary of poison, Fey decided to go for the level four blue mushrooms. And I’m not stopping until I hit level 10.

[i] Okay, stolen from Maplestory again. But they don’t have white, yellow, or poison ones

5: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

There were other people out hunting mushrooms. Wondering whether she should overcome her aversion to partying with strangers (for those of you who don’t play video games, ‘partying’ refers to joining a group of players and sharing loot and experience from kills, rather than getting drunk and dancing to loud music. Fey saw no reason to overcome her aversion to the second kind), Fey quickly rejected the idea when she heard the raucous laughter. Ugh. Somebody probably just made a lewd joke. Not that it’s likely they would know what ‘lewd’ (or raucous) means. Why do people have to be so stupid? Staying away from the unconscionable amount of noise the group was making, she found a clearing full of blue mushrooms. (This scene is supposed to convey Arwyn’s dislike of people in general.)

The mushrooms were roughly the size of soccer balls. Other than that (and the cartoonish eyes), they looked like ordinary mushrooms with vivid blue caps. Rather cute, but not unbearably so. Fey’s main worry was how she was going to carry more than four or five of them at a time to trade for gold. Snorting at a mental image of herself with a string of mushrooms hung over her shoulders and dragging along the ground, she decided to worry about that later, after she had a nice pile of (dead) mushrooms to transport.

Again blatantly disregarding normal behaviour during combat, Fey picked up a mushroom (it had no mouth, so she wasn’t afraid of being bitten) for examination. It was about the weight of a soccer ball, and was of a spongy consistency (*squishsquish*). I don’t think these things can hurt Amethyst… Putting the slime on the ground, she dropped the wriggling mushroom on top. They bounced off of each other looking none the worse for wear.

“Okay, Amethyst, attack!” The slime and the mushroom charged at each other (if you could call bouncing along at top speed ‘charging’) only to bounce off each other again and go flying. Determinedly, they rolled upright and charged again.

With iron self-control, Fey refrained from dropping to the ground with helpless laughter. Okay. Focus… Damn it, I really need a video camera. Remembering one of the game functions, she quickly recorded one charge and collision, and then left the two to it, turning to the other mushrooms.

Drawing her dagger, she slashed at a mushroom. As expected of a fungus, it didn’t bleed. Less expected was the way it launched itself at her with bruising force. “Ow!” Mad now, Fey threw it to the ground and stomped on it several times without giving it the chance to harm her noble personage (i.e. weak, pain-sensitive body) again. It stopped moving (*dead*). It also dried up, shrinking to a small size convenient for being stowed away into a pouch. This revealed the coins that must have been contained within the mushroom’s body. Well, that worked out nicely, Fey thought dryly, tucking coins and mushroom away, and then zeroing in on another target.

Sixteen mushrooms and several bruises later, Fey had reached level seven (woot) and discovered the secret to killing the mushroom effectively. Since they did not bleed, one had to hit them in their vital spot, which was in the centre of the stem. With this discovery came the intense satisfaction of the one-hit KO, to put it in Pokemon terms (*moment of silence for those deprived of Pokemon in their childhoods*). Glancing over, Fey saw that both Amethyst and her mushroom adversary appeared to be unconscious from exhaustion. She picked them up and placed them against a tree, sure that they’d be back at it as soon as they woke up. Aww, they’re so cute together.

Fey then sat down to take a break before starting the battle for level eight. Owowowow, these bruises really hurt. Checking her health, she was quite alarmed to see how low it was: 66/88. Then she remembered that to increase the realism of the game, not all health points were created equal. Just as in real life where it would be rather hard to die from soccer balls being kicked at you, if Fey continued fighting without healing, her health probably would not go down much further. Without bleeding, characters and monsters alike could not die without being hit in a vital spot. Still, the bruises hurt, so Fey decided to test the healing balm. Taking it out, she felt better just scooping some onto her finger. Woah, this stuff is powerful. Or maybe it’s just the placebo effect[i]. Any doubts as to its effectiveness were put to rest (put down!) when she dabbed the balm onto a bruise on her arm; the bruise disappeared at first contact, as did the rest of her bruises. This stuff really is powerful. With the guilty, sinking feeling she always got when she felt she was wasting money (even virtual money), Fey scraped the rest of the balm back into the container, resolving not to use it again until she gained a few levels (let’s say, fifty or so) or she was dying, whichever one came first (she vehemently hoped for the first). Determined to make the most out of her balm usage (wastage), she attacked the blue mushrooms with renewed vigour.

Another thirty mushrooms later, Fey was at level eight and her pouch was pretty full. She decided to get another three to round off her total number to fifty, and then go and drop off the load before either coming back or finding something else to do. She pounced (*stab*stab*stab*), then went to collect Amethyst.

The slime was jumping up and down on the blue mushroom’s head. “Go, Amethyst!” Fey cheered, seeing her pet finally getting the upper hand in the fight. As she approached, however, it became clear that Amethyst was not pounding the mushroom into the ground; both creatures were smiling (cutely), and Amethyst’s aerial activities appeared to be a group effort (Amethyst just then performed a backflip). “What are you doing, Amethyst?” Fey groaned. Here she was with a pet who would drag one of its own kind to certain death, and then start using a mushroom as a trampoline… It’s not normal. I feel kinda like it’s a failed mutation that should be put out of its misery for the good of the species…[ii]

At the sound of Fey’s voice, mushroom and slime broke apart to ‘stand’ (*affectionate* the footless creatures) side-by-side in front of her, looking expectantly at her. Fey stared at them for a long moment. She scooped up Amethyst and held her at face level. “You’re screwed up, you.” Amethyst just blinked (cutely). Sighing, Fey put the slime on her shoulder and then turned to the mushroom. Other than turning its head (body?) to watch the exchange, it hadn’t moved. Bowing to the inevitable, Fey picked it up.

<Monster Tamer has reached level 3!>

Okay, so I don’t even necessarily have to do anything to tame a monster? Fey thought, bouncing the mushroom up and down on her hand in thought (it looked delighted). Okay, so what do I name it? Fey was careful to not think aloud lest the system pick another stupid name out of her words. As mentioned before, Fey was bad at naming things. Without one pre-established, it usually took at least fifteen minutes of research on the Internet for her to come up with a satisfactorily witty or cool-sounding name. Hmm. Mushroom, ‘shroom. She could not think of any normal names that started with ‘mush’ or ‘shroo’ (probably because there weren’t any), so that path was out. Then her mind flitted to the Drugs and Medicine unit of high school chemistry class (yes, she is that random). “Magic,” she said triumphantly (for the poor unrandom souls who could not follow that thought progression, ‘magic mushrooms’ are the common name for psilocybin mushrooms, which contain the psychoactive compounds psilocybin and psilocin, and are taken for their hallucinogenic effects).

<Magic, level 4 blue mushroom>

<Hp: 36/36, Mp: 20/20>

<Exp: 58/121>

<Skills: Spore>

Ooh, cool, it came with a skill.

<Spore: release spores that induce various effects.>

That is a very informative description. “Random effect” indeed. Fey tried to guess at what possible effects the spores could do. From Pokemon, she could remember the moves Cotton Spore, Poisonpowder, Sleep Powder, Stun Spore, and Sweet Scent (the moves aren’t in alphabetical order because the author just looked them up; Fey has a very organized mind…) that seemed like they might be disseminated from spores. Okay, so lower speed, poison, sedate, paralyse, and attract/ lower evasion (that was again for the benefit of aforementioned deprived souls). Fey was sure that the programmers of Fantasia had created other effects, just for randomness’ sake. In any case, all the effects were harmful to opponents, so she supposed it did not particularly matter which one was invoked. Hell, I could just yell “Spore!” fifty times and get all the effects.

“Time to go,” she said to her pets. Fey set off towards the designated mushroom drop-off site, Amethyst on her shoulder and Magic bouncing merrily behind.

When Fey arrived at the forest clearing she intended to arrive at (isn’t it amazing how she doesn’t get lost? Fey-dar[iii] actually works), she felt that there was something odd about the human waiting for her. Dressed in a grey-green cloak that concealed most of his features, what she could make out the most clearly were the nerdy-looking glasses that made him look bug-eyed. Who wears glasses in a fantasy video game? The man (boy? Let’s just call him a ‘guy’) was sitting down against a tree, writing madly in a book.

“Are you the one who put out a notice for mushroom caps?” Fey called out.

“Oh, ahem, ye-yes it was,” he said, stumbling over his words and his own feet as he hastily stood up.

“Well, I have fifty blue mushroom caps here,” she said when the guy added nothing further (*awkward pause*).

“Oh, okay,” he said, producing a sack from somewhere in his cloak and holding it open, abruptly opening a trade dome.

Okay… Fey dropped her mushrooms (except for the live one, of course) into the sack.

“Here you go.” He thrust two 100-gold pieces at her. “Do you accept two hundred gold for fifty blue mushroom caps?”

“Yes…” Fey said, rather taken aback at this person’s social awkwardness, far greater than even her own.

<50 blue mushroom caps transferred.>

“So… What are you using these mushroom caps for?” Fey asked, making one last attempt at normal social interaction.

The guy’s eyes darted sideways (*shifty eyes*). “I, uh, can’t tell you.”

“Okay… I’ll be going now,” Fey said, backing away kind of sideways so it did not look like she was backing away (*abandon attempt*). She had intended on going back to kill more blue mushrooms or even going after some poison mushrooms, but that did not seem like such a good idea anymore. As suspicious as the guy looked, Fey did not want to be responsible for anything he would do with blue, let alone poison mushrooms. I hope he doesn’t do anything illegal (*frazzled*). Are there laws in Fantasia? She tried to shake off her worry. I mean, what could he do with fifty measly blue mushroom caps? (Fey would not be so nonchalant if she had then known the unique effects of the Spore skill). She headed back to Moonwood village.

Footnotes:

[i] placebo effect: improvement of a patient’s condition in response to treatment, but not directly due to the treatment (they think they’re getting better, so they do)

[ii] natural selection: the process by which life forms with characteristics favourable to the environment tend to succeed in surviving and reproducing better than others of their species, ensuring the perpetuation of those characteristics in future generations

[iii] Pun on the word "radar". There is a navigation system in the game similar to a mini-map that lets you know which direction is North and the direction of places you've already been

6: Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Back at the notice board, Fey decided to pick an NPC-given quest to minimize the chances of coming across and having to interact with weirdos (when someone like Arwyn thinks you’re weird, you’re weird). She scanned the lists for quests within her level: everything from slimes at level one to water sprites at level eight. The monsters’ movement speeds inevitably increased with their level. Nooo… I don’t want to die…, Fey thought, being melodramatic. Though the monsters were probably fast enough to inflict damage, they were of a diminutive size and were unlikely to cause more than scratches or bruises. Just as she was about to prod her weak-minded, pain-intolerant self into accepting the inevitable acquisition of injuries, a posting caught her eye: Clear Giant Slugs from Pine Grove. She had not paid it any attention before because the slugs were level ten. However, since their movement speed was so low, Fey was confident she could avoid any attacks and leisurely inflict damage, eventually defeating them even if it took a longer period of time than normal. Following the directions on the post, Fey headed towards Pine Grove, expecting a straightforward and easy quest (eventually, she’d learn better).

Pine Grove was deep in the forest, so deep Fey had lost track of how long she had been walking (well, she would’ve if the system clock hadn’t told her it’d been exactly an hour and fourteen minutes). She passed mobs of various plant- and animal-based monsters, but none attacked (thank cow[i]), so she moved on without fighting. As she travelled deeper into the forest, the trees became larger. Alarmingly large. Really, really big. At first, Fey was impressed with the wonder and majesty of nature, but after the trees continued to grow in size, she started suspecting that they could not possibly grow that large in real life. What happened to 99% realism? Rawr. (Really, she was just annoyed that she kept tripping over or having to climb over enormous tree roots. However, as her dexterity did increase, she couldn’t really complain.) I really need to get a mount. A horse? A unicorn? Maybe something winged? With those pleasant imaginings to occupy her (whiny) mind, Fey finally reached Pine Grove.

When Fey finally arrived at her destination, she was confused. It appeared that she was standing in a large, circular clearing. Uh, isn’t a grove supposed to be full of trees? Then her eyes focused on a dark object in the middle of the clearing. It resolved into a tree trunk; the entire clearing was just the space beneath its enormous branches. Okay, this is going from ridiculous to physically impossible, Fey thought, exasperated.

“Greetings, adventurer.” The voice came from directly behind her, causing Fey to jump and spin, startled (no girly screaming for our brave heroine). An aged, wise-looking elf had appeared, with long white hair and clad in a white robe, perfectly fitting the ‘wise sage’ stereotype. “Have you come in response to my request for aid, or have you some other business here?”

“I came to help with the… slug problem,” said Fey, unable to think of a sophisticated way to mention slugs and feeling like she was failing at the whole role-playing thing (not that any of her previous conversations were all that medieval-sounding).

“Yes, the parasites plaguing the Pine.” Ah, so that’s how you say it. Though the alliteration is a bit much. “As you can see,” he said, pointing, “many tens of them infest the tree, leeching its vitality away. Destroy them all, and you shall be rewarded with the Guardian’s Blessing. Fey’s gaze followed the line of the sage’s arm to the huge pine (Pine) tree; all around the base of the trunk were giant slimy spots, which she assumed were slugs. So many. Ugh. *internal sigh* Might as well get it over with.

With a respectful nod to the sage and a (corny) “I will do my utmost to complete this task”, Fey strode towards the Pine. And strode some more, muttering about the ridiculousness of its size. When she was finally within touching distance of the trunk, Fey was able to inspect a giant slug up close. There was not much to see. They were large, longer and wider than Fey herself, and very slimy, their tan-grey skin covered with a mucous ooze. Other than that, they were fairly featureless, with no visible eyes, mouth, or any other visible appendages or organs. Fey could see (slimy) dead, blackened bark at the edges of where the slug touched the trunk. Being very slug-like, the creature did not appear to be moving very much. Inspection over, Fey had to confront her dilemma: how to kill this creature with nothing but a dagger, a slime, and a mushroom…

Well, let’s see what the mushroom can do. Fey picked Magic up, pointed him cap-first at the slug and commanded, “Spore!” hoping that it would get poisoned or some similar status effect, and eventually die.

<Spore was successful. The slug has fallen asleep.>

Uh… If there hadn’t been a system notice, Fey would have thought that the attack had failed for all the difference being asleep made to the slug. Fey tried again. “Spore!”

“Spore! Spore! Spore!”

After yelling “spore” about twenty times, the slug was asleep, paralysed, and slowed, Spore had failed about seventeen times and levelled up, and Fey was exasperated. Let’s move on to plan B, shall we? Seeing how slimy (and gross) it was, she did not want to touch, or have her pets touch, the slug. That left the dagger. Dubiously, she drew it. It did not look long enough to do more than to pierce the slug’s skin. Maybe if I hit a vital spot? She aimed the dagger at one end of the slug, where she guessed the head to be (it could also have been the hind end; she couldn’t tell the difference) and stabbed down, producing a wet squishing noise.

A sort of spasming twitch ran along the slug’s body:

but otherwise, nothing happened.

Maybe the other head? Orienting on the other end of the slug, she again plunged the dagger down (*squish*). Again, the dagger did not appear to cause the slug any real harm. Instead of blood, slime that appeared exactly the same as that already coating the slug oozed out of the cuts that she had made. *Mental sigh* Did I really expect to kill a slug by going for its brain? It totally doesn’t need its brain. If it even has a brain; maybe it only has a basic central nervous system, like a jellyfish or a starfish. Unfortunately, Fey knew very little about slug biology; her high school curriculum focused almost entirely on mammals, particularly human beings (any reader who claims that humans are not animals may now put down this story and go attempt to communicate with fungi or plants, depending on which kingdom they prefer to belong to). There has to be a way to kill this thing. The heart, maybe? Fey did not know where the heart would be, either. She randomly picked a spot between the two ‘head wounds’ she had inflicted and stabbed again. Getting annoyed at the lack of results, Fey stabbed repeatedly in different spots, muttering, “Die, you stupid slug.” On the fifth or sixth stab, Fey finally got some results. Upon stabbing down, the slug convulsed particularly violently. Smirking with satisfaction, she noted the position of the vital spot before pulling the dagger out (she didn’t really care which particular organ she was hitting). This turned out to be a fortunate decision. As soon as Fey withdrew the dagger, the slug exploded, showering her with slug slime.

In the face of extreme ickiness, Fey acted sensibly. Instead of immediately squealing, “EEEEEEEWW!” like most silly girls, she carefully wiped her face clean, making sure it was out of her eyes, nose, and mouth (there was a coin stuck to her forehead, which she carefully put away). Only then did she screech, “EEEEEEWW!” so loudly that a flock of birds several hundred metres away was startled into flight (Hidden in a lookout spot, the sage chuckled). Adding injury to insult, the system notice chose this moment to announce:

The thought of dying from poison put Fey into a panic until she checked the status effect:

<Duration: 5 minutes>

Doing the math: Ten damage?? What is the point in going through the trouble to code such a lame status effect? It was all too much; the shock and disgust from the slime explosion combined with the unnecessary panic from the weak poison effect to fill Fey with angry, violent energy. She loosed a cry halfway between a shriek and a roar, one that sent fear into the hearts of every creature that heard it and warned them to run. Unfortunately for the slugs, they did not have ears to hear or legs to run away quickly enough (*doomed*).

Racing to the nearest slug, Fey struck repeatedly, not bothering to look for vital spots in her anger. When the slug finally exploded, Fey ran to the next, and the next, and the next. If was not until she had killed all twenty or so slugs within reach from the ground did she stop, panting with exertion, to survey the carnage. A few seconds later, as if even the system notice were intimidated by her excessive violence (in reality, it was because it was hard for the system to translate her abnormal actions into code), she was informed:

The abilities seemed fairly self-explanatory, but she looked at their descriptions anyway:

<Rage: Harness the strength of your anger to increase your attack. Can only be activated when the player or party member has taken damage or a status effect.>
<Level 1: Attack +10%, accuracy –50%>

Well, that explains why it took so many hits to kill those – slugs. (Fey just refrained from swearing)

<Terrify: A cry to inspire fear in your enemies>

Nice. Attack initiative was a measure of aggression, of how likely a monster was to attack without provocation. Low-level monsters usually had an attack initiative of 0 (never attacked first) so that newbies (n00bs) would not be swarmed and die. Low-initiative monsters would not attack unless the character was much weaker and passed extremely close. High-initiative monsters would attack everyone in the vicinity, even much higher-level players who would most certainly kill them.

In addition to the newly-learned skills, Fey had decimated (in the sense of destroying approximately one-tenth) the slug population, all the ones within reasonable reach from the ground, and one that was not. How did I get the one all the way up there? she wondered, looking at the splattered remains of a slug a good three metres (that’s ten feet for you weirdo Americans) above the ground. Fey was tall for a girl, but not that tall. Did I jump? Did I throw something? (We’ll never know, as the irresponsible author never bothered thinking through the logistics of this feat before inserting it into the story. Bad author.) Dismissing the question, Fey looked for her pets (she was getting a weird feeling from not having a weight on her head and her foot).

“Amethyst!” she called. Fey heard a (cute) squeak and followed the sound to her wayward companions. They appeared to be playing in the (poisonous) remains of a slug. Aww crap. Can pets die of poison? Even as she watched, Amethyst opened her mouth – “No! Don’t!” – and ate some slime. Gah!! Eeew. Instead of dying from the toxins, Fey was surprised (as always) by the system notice:

<Poison Slime: slime secretes a toxin that will poison foes who touch it>

So… Amethyst will secrete the most recent poisonous stuff she eats? Or the most poisonous poisonous stuff? (that double “poisonous” is not a typo, despite what spellcheck thinks). Fey gingerly picked Amethyst up by the bubble, where she dangled, slug slime dripping to the ground (that’s some non-stick coating slimes have). When the slime stopped dripping, Fey poked it to check for residual poison (*sway cutely*); satisfied that Amethyst was clean, Fey placed her on her head. Magic did not appear to have similar non-stick properties, so Fey simply told the mushroom, “Come along,” and walked to the base of the tree directly below a surviving slug, where she considered her next course of action.

Her decision was fairly straightforward: as she had no ranged weapon (she could throw her dagger, but she’d probably miss and maim herself as it fell back down), she had to climb up to the slug. Fortunately, the ridges in the tree’s bark were proportional to its size, more than deep enough for her to wedge her feet into. Jamming her feet into a crack (belatedly realizing that she could possibly be ruining her virtual boots) and pushing up with her legs, she climbed the several metres to the slug. Again, there were no obvious markings signalling a vital spot, so she randomly stabbed about its middle until it spasmed. Grimacing, Fey turned her head away before withdrawing the dagger, protecting her face from the ensuing slime explosion. This did not prevent her from being poisoned. Bearing the state stoically (as in, she expected it, not that she didn’t complain), she moved on to the slug above it.

On her way up, she noticed Magic bouncing along beside her as if the tree trunk were the ground. Does he have some kind of suction cup? Fey plucked the mushroom off the tree to examine his underside (it was round and white and fairly suction cup-less). She put him back on the tree. He stuck. She picked him up and put him on the tree, headfirst. He rolled ‘upright’ (as in, perpendicular to the tree and parallel to the ground) and stuck. The tree was not big enough to generate a gravitational force such that the frictional force between Magic and the bark could counter the gravity caused by the earth, but apparently Magic did not know that. Fey just shook her head and climbed on.

It took Fey about forty minutes to kill the rest of the slugs, most of that time spent climbing about the tree. She was repeatedly poisoned by the slug slime, until finally:

Eventually, with slime all over the tree and her clothes, Fey dropped to the ground. Before she could start looking for the sage, he appeared at the edge of her peripheral vision.

“Well done, adventurer.”

“As promised, I will endow you with a Guardian’s Blessing,” the sage continued, raising his hands and beginning a chant. As he spoke, a glowing, translucent flower that rather resembled a butterfly appeared between his hands. The glow began as yellow-gold, but deepened into violet. Rather like a butterfly, the flower drifted towards Fey in a roundabout fashion, shrinking and brightening as it went, as if it filled less space with more intensity. By the time it reached her, the butterfly-flower was a very bright spark about the size of a fingertip. Gently landing near the outer corner of her left eye, it flashed once and transformed into a tattoo-like marking where it had landed (not that Fey could see this) and infusing her with a sense of well-being.

“You have been made known to the Guardian of the Forest,” said the sage mysteriously. “While in the forest, the Guardian may lend you strength.”

Not really understanding what had happened, Fey just said, “Thank you.”

Formalities over, the sage’s face suddenly transformed with a warm, teasing smile. “I am Jerendal,” he said.

“Well met,” Fey replied. “I am called Fey.”

“I will remember that name,” he said. “It is not often that I see an adventurer driven to battle-rage by slugs.” His smile grew into a chuckle as Fey looked away, mortified. Son of a – he saw that? When she looked back, Jerendal had disappeared again, while the ghost of his chuckles still echoed around the clearing.

<Fey’s fame has increased to 2! (+1)>

Still not worth that much embarrassment.

Footnotes:

[i] reference to Big Bang Theory, when Raj said “I swear to cow” as a joke about Hinduism

7: Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

On the long walk back to town, Fey realized she was finally level ten and could advance to her first class (*awkward happy dance*). Checking the system clock, she saw that she had several hours left before she had to wake up. Time passed three times as quickly in the game compared to real life, so that one could experience a full day’s adventure on eight hours of sleep. Fey had plenty of time to acquire some class skills. Bright with anticipation, she set off to find the warrior class instructor.

As it turned out, there were two warrior instructors. Fey found them sparring a little ways from the town centre; she easily followed the sound of clashing metal to its source. Leaning against a tree, she watched their skilled movements.

Based on their identical platinum-blond hair and glacier-blue eyes, she guessed that the pair were siblings, maybe even twins. The system notice informed her that the female, armed with a double-ended spear that fanned out into five sharp points on either end, was Irrilana, and the male, using a more traditional sword, was Irrilathan. The sparring took the pair all across the clearing as Irrilathan tried to close the distance between them to bring his sword to bear, while Irrilana tried to keep him back and take advantage of her weapon’s superior reach. Their movements were fast and graceful, and they were clearly enjoying themselves. This game really is quite realistic. Fey had even forgotten for a moment that the two were NPCs. Who would have thought that warrior trainers would spar in their free time?

Finally, Irrilana trapped Irrilathan’s sword between two prongs of her spear and sent it flying with a twist, a move that forced her to let go of her own weapon as well. She then charged directly at him. Irrilathan set his stance for the impact and prepared to grapple, but instead, Irrilana dove just beyond the edge of his grasp to pop up behind him. Throwing her arms around his neck, she kissed his cheek and said, “I win.”

Irrilathan laughed, and simply said, “Fine,” before walking towards Fey as if his sister weighed nothing at all (and as if she clung to him on a regular basis, which she did). Casually holding out a hand, he spoke a word and his sword flew directly into his grasp (coolness factor off the charts). He spoke.

“Greetings, adventurer. I assume you have come because you wish to begin the journey towards becoming a warrior.”

“I do,” replied Fey.

Irrilana released her grasp and dropped lightly to the ground, also summoning her weapon. “Warriors have many skills and strategies, but what they all have in common is fighting at close range, dealing and avoiding death by inches. Are you prepared for this? If not, becoming a mage or an archer may be more suited to your taste.”

To be honest with herself, Fey was really more suited to being a mage, being rather uncoordinated and pain-intolerant (and having no aim, so archer was out, too), but she still wanted to be a warrior. She was a creature of habit who always picked the warrior class when she played fantasy games, since before virtual reality, her lack of coordination made no difference. As well, warriors were the best class for solo playing, having both reasonable attacking and defending powers. Suck it up, she told herself, the pain setting is only 20% of real life.

“I am prepared,” she said resolutely. To add a cliché, she added, “I will look death in the eye and I shall not flinch.”

“Then go deep into the forest,” said Irrilathan, pointing into the forest, “where the shadows are deep and creatures of the dark reign. Defeat ten different creatures and bring back the tokens of your victories. If you succeed, you will be deemed worthy of the title of warrior.”

Fey marched off in the direction Irrilathan had indicated. When she was out of earshot, he chuckled.

“ ‘Look death in the eye and not flinch’? Was she serious?”

“I don’t think so,” said Irrilara. “Nobody could say that and be serious.”

Some time later, having travelled deep into the forest (stopping to let Amethyst cannibalize some slimes), the leaves of the trees abruptly changed to a darker shade of green and the system notified:

Silly game designers. Do the leaves literally have to be darker? Okay, I’m here, now- “Ahhh!”

Fey’s internal dialogue was interrupted by a flying creature swooping towards her face. Instinctively, she swiped at it wildly, managing to splat it against a nearby tree, where it slid to the ground, momentarily stunned.

Upon examination, the creature resolved into a small, humanoid shape equipped with dragonfly wings. Crap. I’ve killed a fairy. I’m going to the fantasy equivalent of hell, where I’ll be eaten and tormented and – Eeek!

The fairy-like creature had raised its head, revealing blood-red irises surrounded by obsidian sclera, and hissed at her before again launching itself at her face. Being slightly more prepared this time, Fey managed to swipe it into another tree on her first try. It appeared definitely hurt after the second impact, with a drop of blood dripping from its mouth.

Apparently changing tactics, it began chanting in a strange, hissing language. Deciding that it would be best if she did not find out the hard way whether the creature was just swearing or casting a malicious spell, Fey frantically looked for a way to interrupt its speech.

Thankfully, an answer to her problem was (literally) sitting on her head. Fey grabbed Amethyst and threw her at the fairy-thing, yelling, “Interrupt its casting!” After landing about a metre from the creature (because our heroine could not throw accurately to save her life), Amethyst hopped over and landed directly on the fairy-thing’s face (*glom*). As Amethyst was fairly transparent, Fey had a purple-tinged view of its face as it was being squished (not a pretty sight).

That sounds useful against mages. Cheerfully, she called out, “Good job, Amethyst!” Amethyst happily jumped up and down on the fairy-thing’s face (*squish*squish*squish*).

Magic then nudged Fey’s foot (the mushroom had been alternately hopping along by her side or sticking to her boot in the same inexplicable manner that it had stuck to the giant tree). Looking down, she saw that he (it was just decided that Magic is male) was looking expectantly up at her, wanting to help.

Since it was already immobilized, Fey decided she might as well train Magic’s Spore attack until it was more useful in battle. Pointing Magic’s cap at the fairy, she told him “Cast Spore, but don’t hit Amethyst, okay?” Nodding, Magic sent a cloud of spores towards the fairy-thing’s torso and legs (the spores were released from the cap’s underside, complying with the actual physiology of mushrooms, but then proceeded to violate the laws of physics by curving around the cap and landing on the fairy-thing).

Fey was so pleased that Magic had managed to inflict poison that she patted him several times.

Ahhhh!!! Frantically, Fey checked her status:

<Duration: 5 minutes>

Two times six per minute times five minutes is… sixty! Fey’s current maximum health was 122 points, so she was extremely worried about letting it drop so low. When health dropped, penalties in all stats – especially strength, dexterity, and movement speed – were applied to mimic the effects of injury in real life. If another monster suddenly attacked her as this one had, she would likely be dead. She was so busy panicking that she almost did not notice the second part of the system notice.

<Duration: 5 minutes>

Phew. Thirty damage I can handle. She settled down to see if Magic’s poison was enough to kill the possessed fairy, as the system notice had named it. She could have attacked the weakened creature with her dagger, but scientific curiosity about the effects of Magic’s ability (and cowardly avoidance of combat) made her wait.

After almost five minutes, as the poison’s effect was about to wear off, the possessed fairy started convulsing. Fey jumped up, dagger at the ready, yelling, “Amethyst, get away from there!” but instead of attacking, a black fog rose out of its body and coalesced into a vague shape with demonic red eyes. Thankfully, instead of attacking her, the shape dissipated in the wind.

“Thank you,” said a small, weak voice. Startled Fey’s attention was drawn to the (unpossessed) fairy. Its eyes were now a beautiful shade of blue, and it smiled weakly at her.

“You freed me,” it continued. “Thank you.”

Uhh… “You’re welcome.”

“That evil spirit possessed me several weeks ago and has been wreaking havoc in the forest ever since, but it left rather than die within this body from the poison you inflicted. I can die in peace.

“Die in peace?” Oh crap, I’m killing an unpossessed fairy. I’m going to the fantasy equivalent of hell, where I’ll be eaten and tormented and – Wait, I know! Remembering the way she had saved Amethyst, Fey pulled out a health potion and dumped it on the fairy, who coughed and spluttered even as its pallor receded and it became visibly stronger.

After it had caught its breath, it moved its limbs experimentally, then rose into the air with a delighted laugh, its wings buzzing faster than the eye could follow.

“Thank you!” it exclaimed again, hovering in front of Fey’s face. Seeing Fey’s butterfly marking, it said, “You are one of the Forest Guardian’s! No wonder you came to my aid.”

<Guardian’s Blessing has reached level 2!>

Huh? Fey had not realized that the Guardian’s Blessing she had received at Pine Grove could increase in level. She checked its description:

<Guardian’s Blessing: Due to the blessing of the Mana Tree, you feel more vigorous when travelling in a forest. Earn more favour from the Mana Tree by helping creatures in the forest.>

That’s pretty freaking awesome. Increased regeneration meant that Fey required less rest between battles, would need less expensive potions, and would be less likely to die in the heat of battle.

The fairy regained Fey’s attention. Executing a graceful bow while hovering, it said, “I am Stelli, and I am in your debt.”

Looking at Stelli’s androgynous face and body, Fey was unable to determine whether the fairy was male or female, but she felt it was wrong to refer to a non-monster as an ‘it’. Fairies might not even have genders. They could spawn out of mushroom spores and fairy dust, for all I know. Whatever.

“My name is Fey.” Fey rather disregarded Stelli’s comment about being in her debt; she was rather more concerned with whether that wispy possessing spirit (thingy) counted as a creature she had defeated, or whether she still had ten more to go.

“Is there any way I could be of assistance to you?” Stelli persisted.

“Well… I am currently on my warrior quest.”

“Excellent!” Stelli exclaimed (he/she seemed to be rather excitable). “I shall help you. I am quite adept at support magic.”

“Your aid would be welcome,” said Fey, figuring that the fairy might be helpful, and at the very worst would be useless, so she had nothing to lose. It was unlikely that Stelli would be so bad at casting buffs that he/she would accidentally poison her (not that Fey wasn’t incompetent enough to do that to herself).

“Here we go, then!” Spinning very quickly in the air, Stelli said, “Blessing of Vitality!”

Cool.

“Come on!” Coming out of his/her spin with no sign of dizziness, Stelli sped into the trees so that Fey had to jog to keep up. Where in the blazes is he/she going? Fey thought, vexed. I didn’t even say what my quest was – Ahh! Stelli had led her straight to a giant beetle twice the size of Amethyst, with a shiny black carapace and mandibles that looked like they could take a finger off. Stelli flew in wobbly circles around the beetle and cried, “Dizziness!”

<Dizziness: -5 speed, -10% accuracy>

Although the creature still had the increased health of its level, Stelli’s magic essentially rendered the beetle several levels weaker, as long as Fey was fast enough to avoid being attacked. Emboldened, Fey put her pets on the ground and gave them the (rather vague) command, “Attack!” then drew her dagger and advanced (at a walk) while Magic and Amethyst (sounds like a name for a spell shop) hopped along beside her.

Upon reaching the beetle, which was about ankle height, Fey shrugged and tried Plan A. What does one do when one wants to kill a bug? Hoping the beetle would not explode like the slugs, Fey Stomped down as hard as she could.

Ow. The beetle’s shell felt more like a layer of stone rather than a chitinous exoskeleton. Instead of breaking under the impact, the beetle’s body simply bounced off the ground after sending a jarring shock up Fey’s leg. Provoked, it went after Fey’s ankle with its huge mandibles, forcing her to jump around awkwardly to avoid them.

Seeing how miserably Plan A had failed, it was a good thing that Plan B (not the morning-after pill) bounced into the picture. Magic and Amethyst both charged and bounced off the beetle, to very little effect (in fact, the beetle didn’t even notice and continued to attack Fey’s ankles). I don’t think physical attacks are ever going to be their strong suit. Indeed, with their soft, squishy bodies and lack of mass, Fey would probably do more damage to her opponents by hitting them with a pillow than having her pets ‘body slam’ them.

“Do something else, you two!” Fey said, giving the beetle a kick that knocked it back several feet and hurting her foot in the process. Stupid boots, she grumbled, wishing she had a pair with more substantial defence. Unfortunately, pet intelligence was proportional to level (currently not very high), and so Magic and Amethyst milled around confusedly rather than doing anything useful (not very effective… That was a Pokemon reference).

Thankfully, Stelli chimed in with some helpful advice. “Go for the underbelly.”

Oh. Nudging her toe under the beetle, she flipped it over onto its back. It rocked back and forth on its curved shell, legs waving helplessly in the air. Before she could chicken out from the ickiness of touching a giant insect, she sent her dagger plunging down into its underside, where it easily broke through the thinner shell and into the beetle’s soft tissue. Its legs spasmed, but kept waving. Eeeweeweeweew. Praying it would not explode and spray her with beetle guts, she stabbed again, closer to the head. The beetle died by drying up and crumbling away, leaving behind a few coins and a very conveniently-sized piece of exoskeleton that Fey pocketed as evidence of its defeat.

“Come on!” Stelli cried, zipping away through the trees, and again, Fey broke into a jog to keep up, scooping up Magic and Amethyst on the way. Halfway along, she tripped over a root, but managed to stay on her feet without dropping a pet (thereby reducing the number of grace demerit points she incurred).

Tripping along, she nearly stepped on her next opponent. This would have been bad because the creature was covered in thick, pointy five-inch spikes. In fact, it appeared to be a pair of eyes, spikes, and nothing else. Fey’s nearness appeared to offend it, and it bristled, spikes waving ominously. Oh boy. I really hope those spikes aren’t poisonous. Stelli flew in wide circles around the spike-thing, starting to glow brighter and brighter. Then he/she yelled, “Blind!” and became as bright as a small sun.

<Blind: -70% accuracy>

“Ahh!” As Stelli had not warned Fey to cover her eyes, the debuff affected her as well, and the light really hurt (Magic and Amethyst just blinked cutely, seemingly unaffected). The spike-thing did not appreciate the light, either; it went from bristling to shaking so violently that it sprayed spikes in all directions (and of course, the spikes on its body didn’t appear to get depleted at all).

“Oww!” The monster did not require accuracy; it simply filled the 64800 degrees around it with spikes[i]. On the bright side, the spikes did not appear to be poisonous. Shielding her pets in her arms (with her luck, it would pop Amethyst like a water balloon), she sidled over to the spike-thrower, drew her dagger, and viciously slashed it in half (she really doesn’t like being in pain).

Vision still spotty from the blinding light, tiny punctures and scratches marking her right arm, Fey was still vexed, but curious enough to look up her new ability:

<Vicious Strike: Attack suddenly and harshly for critical damage. Can only be used on the first hit against an opponent.>

Awesome. Fey had a feeling that this would become one of her favourite moves in the future. Picking up the spikester’s largest central spike and some coins, she turned to scowl at Stelli.

“I thought you were going to cast helpful magic.”

The fairy’s hovering dipped guiltily. “Sorry.” Making a complicated gesture in the air, he/she called out “Minor Heal!” and the wounds on Fey’s arm closed. Unfortunately, the holes and bloodstains on her sleeve did not also spontaneously disappear. Fey groaned. While she could probably remove the bloodstains (let’s not get into how she has experience with bloodstains), she had no idea how to repair holes. She called upon her favourite ability when dealing with minor problems, formally known as ‘procrastination,’ and went back to her quest.

Seven unlikely creatures later, Fey headed back towards Irrilana and Irrilathan to present her tokens.

“There are only nine items here,” said Irrilana with a (elegantly) raised eyebrow.

Stelli darted forward to hover in front of the warriors. “The tenth monster she defeated was the evil spirit that had possessed me,” he/she piped (technically, it was the first, but no need to complicate explanations).

“Indeed? That must have been quite an undertaking,” said Irrilathan. Unknown to Fey was that possessed fairies were actually level 20, 10 levels above her. It was possible in Fantasia to defeat much stronger monsters by taking advantage of their weaknesses; in her case, she had used blunt physical attacks against a much smaller creature, multiplying the impact damage it had taken several times (that this feat was accomplished completely accidentally makes it more miraculous, but less impressive).

“Then you have completed your warrior quest.”

“Take this sword,” said Irrilana, producing a sword, sheath, and belt from nowhere, “as a symbol and privilege of your warrior status. You may now begin your education in close-ranged combat, whether armed or hand-to-hand.”

Fey accepted the item with caution. The blade was as long as her forearm from elbow to fingertip, plenty long enough for her to dismember herself.

“As well,” said Irrilathan, “we will teach you an ability exclusive to the warrior class: how to channel arcane energy into your blade to increase its power and destructive potential. Draw your sword.” Fey pulled her new short sword out of its sheath with her dominant, right hand. “Now focus your energy and push it into your blade.”

Fey imagined a steady flow of energy travelling down her arm and into the metal, and the blade began to glow a radiant white.

“Impressive control,” said Irrilana, “but you need the energy to burst free from the blade to do any damage.”

Fey visualized more energy, enough that it exploded from the blade, and angry white flames with purple hearts burst a good six inches from the edge of the metal (she thinks of her energy as purple, and so it is. Awesome huh?).

“Good. Now tone it down a little,” said Irrilathan, and Fey reduced the flow of energy until the flames only flickered an inch from the metal.

“Very good. The flames take very little energy to maintain passively, but can use up enormous amounts of mana when directed towards attacking. Use your blades wisely, warrior.”

It was clearly a dismissal, but Fey had a question. “Do you teach any skills related to dual-wielding?”

Irrilana’s eyes sparked with interest. “Dual-wielding? Now that is an interesting and difficult path, to be able to use weapons in both hands with equal skill. Most people have a dominant hand,” she said, nodding towards Fey’s right hand, which she had used to draw the sword, “and if a weapon is held in the other, it is wielded with less skill. While neither of us specializes in dual-wielding, the path towards it is very simple: you must strengthen your non-dominant hand until it can wield weapons with the same ease as your dominant hand. You must become ambidextrous.”

Irrilathan chimed in. “I suggest that you find yourself a second weapon, perhaps a long dagger, for your left hand, and practice fighting holding two weapons. As you gain experience, gradually increase the length of your second weapon until it matches the first.”

“Thank you for the advice.” Fey bowed and left (the dignity of the moment was rather ruined by the mushroom sticking to her boot, the slime on her head, and the fairy buzzing around).

Back in the forest just outside the Moonwood, Fey turned to Stelli. “Thank you for your help.” Indeed, despite the spikester incident, the fairy had done more good than harm, and had enabled her to finish her quest much more quickly than would have been possible without his/her help.

“You’re welcome! See you around.” Stelli quickly disappeared into the forest.

Fey took the opportunity to inventory her character.

<Fey, level 11 Moon Elf>

<Fame: 2>

<Class: Warrior (unspecialized)>

<Hp: 112/112, Mp: 72/72>

<Exp: 3455/4886>

<Pets: Amethyst, level 9 slime; Magic level 9 blue mushroom>

Not bad for a day’s work. Seeing that it was almost time for her wake-up call, Fey decided to log out rather than get stuck in the middle of a task.

◊◊◊◊

Footnotes:

[i] 360 degree around it in a horizontal circle times the 180 degrees above the ground in a vertical circle

8: Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Arwyn sat up and removed the headset, imagination still occupied with the game. Mechanically, she ate breakfast (cereal) and got dressed for the day (professional white collared shirt and black dress pants). Checking her new laptop, she saw that the file transfer was complete. Having been on the computer for less than thirty seconds, she got an instant message:

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... – Hi!!! Did you play Fantasia last night?

ArwynTheElf – Yes. I didn’t see you around. What’s your avatar name?

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... – It’s ‘Sirena.’ I picked a mermaid race, and it turns out that I don’t learn how to breathe above water until level 30. You? I know you picked an elf.

ArwynTheElf – ‘Arwyn’ was taken, so I picked ‘Fey.’

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... – ‘Fey’ for an elf. How creative.

ArwynTheElf – I wouldn’t be throwing stones, ‘Siren.’

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... – It’s ‘SirenA’ with an A.

ArwynTheElf – ‘Siren’ without an A was taken, wasn’t it?

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... – Hmph. I shall not deign to answer that question.

With an amused chuckle, Arwyn logged off and shut the laptop lid. It looks like I’ll be playing solo for a while. Arwyn usually only teamed up with people she knew in real life to avoid meeting annoying and unreliable people. With Leah being unable to leave the water until level 30 and nobody else she knew playing Fantasia yet, she was on her own. This was another reason she always chose the warrior class: it was best for playing solo, and Arwyn almost always played alone. With her thoughts busily planning what she was going to do the next night, she headed off to work.

◊◊◊◊

***

Leandriel dodged yet another flying shard of rock debris and shot a blast of holy light at the demon Beloth. He was a level 100 celestial, and on his quest to earn his angel wings by slaying the demon lord. The black-skinned humanoid was about three stories tall and capable of throwing huge fireballs that exploded on impact, making it nearly impossible to get close enough to bring his sword to bear; all he could do was continuously dodge and send holy light attacks. He was a celestial warrior, known as a Guardian, so his holy magic was on par with that of a human paladin’s, but not nearly as powerful as that of a cleric or a celestial wizard.

Wistfully, he thought of how much easier the battle would be if he could fly, but that was the whole point: he had to prove himself worthy of the immense power gained by advancing to the angel sub-species.

After hours of combat, he was getting tired, his movements coming more slowly, but Beloth seemed to be weakening as well. It was time.

He blasted the demon with a continuous stream of holy light, blinding it and causing it to bellow in pain. By consuming all of his remaining mana, he managed to get behind Beloth unseen. Using all the strength and agility gained over a hundred levels, he leaped onto the demon lord’s head from behind. The move would have been suicidal if Beloth had seen it; as he had no ability to change direction once in the air, Beloth would easily have swatted him aside like a fly.

Feeling Leandriel’s weight on his head, Beloth sent a massive hand up to catch him, but it was too late: Leandriel plunged his sword into the demon lord’s vital spot, a tattoo of a third eye in the centre of its forehead.

Just as Leandriel received the system notices, Beloth’s massive hand completed its journey, despite the death of its owner. The hand, as long as his entire body, collided with him, pulverizing what felt like every bone in his body.

◊◊◊◊

“Oww,” Leander groaned, pulling off his game helmet before his avatar could be reborn. Phantom pains coursed through his whole body. Even with the pain setting down to 20%, the feeling of having his entire body crushed was not easy to shake off. Of course, as a beta tester, Leander had been playing Fantasia since the outset, when the pain had been set to 100% of real-life injuries. It had been reduced to 50%, then 30% and finally 20% after too many testers reported being incapacitated by what were considered minor wounds.

After eating breakfast, though it was almost noon, he left his apartment on the VirtualReality company campus and headed down to the gym. Company policy dictated that all employees had to have a minimum of two hours of exercise daily, as they often spent over ten hours a day motionless and asleep while playing Fantasia. He ran around the track, managing to lose the phantom pains after half an hour. Walking until he cooled down, he then went to lift weights and ended his workout by stretching. Other employees getting their workouts in nodded in greeting, but nobody tried to talk to him, knowing that he liked to focus on his exercise in silence.

Hitting the shower, he contemplated his tasks for the day. Other than giving feedback to the programmers, almost all of his work was accomplished within Fantasia, while asleep. Even extending sleeping time to ten or eleven hours a day, it left him and other VirtualReality employees with a lot of free time.

Leander’s job was to test quests and monster areas for glitches and appropriate difficulty level. Although the game had already been released to the market, many higher-level areas were still in development. Fantasia had an extremely steep experience curve, but no maximum level, meaning that the developers could leisurely create new and ever-more difficult areas as the average player level rose. It had taken Leandriel over two years to reach level 100, even with his employee-only ring that increased experience gained by 15%. The developers were already putting the finishing touches on the level 300 areas, so they were in no danger of players quitting the game due to boredom.

Leander decided to consult with the programmers, then head back into the game for a few hours. He still had to figure out how to control his new wings. This was an action that had no real-life parallel, so there were bound to be a few problems.

***

Arwyn returned home after a busy but boring day at the office. Barely resisting the urge to immediately start playing Fantasia, she cooked and ate dinner, then prepared for bed. Even then, it was still only 8:00p.m., but none of the activities she normally did at night appealed as much as the shiny game helmet that beckoned to her (we’re not addicted, not at all *denial*). She put it on. It was Friday, so she did not bother setting a wake-up time.

◊◊◊◊

Darkness. “Scanning,” said the same disembodied voice Fey had heard the night before. “Player detected. Welcome back to Fantasia, Fey.”

A pause. “Due to the decreasing number of available unique names in Fantasia, please select a surname to go with your character name.”

Noo, not more naming. Fey really had no idea what her last name should be. Elves’ last names in books were always some strange collection of almost unpronounceable syllables, punctuated with apostrophes. The only one she could remember was Do’Urden, but that last name was from a family of dark elves (that was dead except for the one survivor, Drizzt, so it didn’t seem like a fortuitous choice). After many minutes of dithering, Fey decided, “E’lan. E-apostrophe-L-A-N.” She thought it was appropriate. “Élan” meant vigour and impetus, and reminded her of the word ‘elandrin,’ a species of elf from the Forgotten Realms universe.

“Welcome back to Fantasia, Fey E’lan. Your adventure continues.” A blinding flash of light.

◊◊◊◊

Fey reappeared standing in the spot where she had logged off. The first thing she noticed was that she was miraculously clean. Not a trace of the blood or slug slime from the previous night’s adventures remained on her person (yaaaay). However, her sleeve was still tattered from the damage it had taken from the spikester (booo). Equipment durability in Fantasia was fairly consistent with that of other games, so if Fey wanted the shirt repaired, she would have to take it to the tailor’s. However, Fey did not need to bother repairing her shirt. I have a class now, so that means … (wait for it…) NEW EQUIPMENT!!! Yay! (This was far more exciting than a shopping trip in real life, as you don’t get to change outfits that often in the course of a game). Fey’s excitement had to be shared, so she plucked Amethyst off her head and cooed, “I’m getting new equipment.” Amethyst blinked (cutely), not really understanding Fey’s words. Mood undampened, she plucked Magic off her boot and repeated the process. He also blinked (cutely).

“Hmm. Can pets wear armour?” Trying to imagine the strange armour that would be required for a slime and a mushroom, Fey walked over to the armour shop.

Inside the shop were a few other players, most still wearing newbie outfits, as Fantasia had only been released a few days ago. Most of them were just browsing, so Fey immediately got the attention of the shopkeeper.

“Oh my, what an adorable slime! And a little mushroom, too!” The speaker was Sennaia, the blacksmith’s daughter and keeper of the armour shop.

Figuring it would not hurt to be nice, Fey handed her pets over and introduced, “This is Amethyst and that’s Magic.”

Sennaia played with the pets for a few minutes, petting them and bouncing them into the air (thankfully, Magic did not appear to be poisonous at the time). Realizing that she was ignoring Fey, she exclaimed, “Oh my, but where are my manners? Greetings, adventurer, my name is Sennaia.”

“Greetings, I am called Fey.”

“I will definitely remember the owner of such cute pets!”

<Fey’s fame has risen to 3! (+1)>

“So what brings you here today? Are you just browsing?”

“No, not at all. I have recently attained the warrior class, and was wondering if you could recommend some equipment suitable for me.”

“Ah, level ten warrior, is it? Follow me.” Senaia led the way to two particular armour stands along the wall. One set was made of shiny blackened metal, the other dark hardened leather. “One is for strength-based warriors, the other for agility-based,” she explained.

…They look like BDSM outfits… Indeed, the metal outfit’s chest piece looked like a corset, while the leather’s was a vest with a plunging neckline almost down to the waist. The outfits were completed on the bottom with a plate metal skirt and tight leather pants, respectively.

After Fey had stared in silence for a while. Senaia asked, “Would you like to try one on? Are you strength-based or agility based?”

“Agility-based,” Fey replied numbly. Before she realized what was happening, she was alone in the changing room with the set of leather armour. She touched the armour hesitantly. …Am I really going to try this on? Oh, what the hell. She reached for the first piece.

When Fey stepped out of the dressing room, she attracted the attention of all the other players in the shop (they happened to all be male, as the majority of gamers were). Senaia bustled over from the counter (where she had been playing with Magic and Amethyst) and began to pull on the ties that adjusted the fit.

Looking in the mirror, Fey had to admit that the overall effect was not as bad as she had feared (it’s unlikely that anything could be as bad as she had feared). Arwyn already had the thin, slight build typical of the elven race; choosing to play as an elf made Fey even more slight and delicate. Her tall, willowy build made the outfit more ‘at one with nature’ than ‘sex kitten’ (there was still a little ‘sex kitten’ in there, though).

Experimentally, she raised her arms over her head, then reached down to touch her toes without bending her knees. Despite the close fit of the outfit, it was flexible enough to allow her full range of motion. The set offered her +15 defence without any penalty to agility. In Fantasia, armour effects are not additive; each piece only protects the body part it covers, so Fey knew she had to buy the whole set (she really did not want to get injured at all). “How much does this cost?”

“300g each for the chest and legs, and 100g each for the boots, forearm guards, and hat.”

900 gold… Not including the money she had earned selling the twiggy, Fey had only collected just over 700g so far in her adventures. Haggle (Fey was really bad at haggling). “Can I get a discount for buying the whole set at once?”

“I’ll take 100g off the total price, then.”

*Minor victory* but still, “I’ll have to go to the bank, then.”

Leaving her pets behind as collateral, Fey went to the bank wearing the new outfit and withdrew 100g. Returning to the armour shop, she paid Senaia 800g and collected her pets.

“Come back any time,” said the shopkeeper after giving the pets one final pat. “Your pets are just so cute,” she sighed wistfully.

“Would you like one?” Fey asked hesitantly.

Senaia’s eyes widened. “You would sell me one of your pets?”

“I meant that I could go and tame another slime or mushroom for you,” Fey clarified. She had worked hard to raise her pets level (not really, since all they did was mooch half her experience points automatically) and was not just about to give them away randomly. While she might start selling pets for money at some time in the future, she could not imagine an instance where she would give Magic away, and she definitely was not selling Amethyst.

Senaia clapped her hands together in delight. “Would you really? I would just love to have a slime for a pet. If you get one for me, I shall give you a permanent 20% discount at the store.

Senaia had spontaneously created a quest for the occasion, and Fey could not resist the reward. A 20% discount on the equipment she had already purchased would have been 180g, and the higher-level sets only increased in price. This way, she would not have to rely on her (pathetic) haggling skills to save money. “It’s a deal.” Fey started to leave immediately, but then turned back to ask, “What colour would you like?”

“I think a yellow one would be nice and cheerful.”

Fey nodded and made her way into the forest.

The slime area in the forest was quite large to accommodate the large number of newbies that wanted to train on them. Fey managed to get a rather large area to herself, with the closest person just visible way off in the distance, paying no attention to her. Confident that nobody would observe her antics (she didn’t want anybody to learn Monster Tamer from her, as she was selfish), she began setting up her (yellow) slime-taming system.

First, she put Amethyst on the ground and told her, “Use Whip and eat as many bubbles as you want, but don’t kill any yellow slimes, okay? And don’t go too far away from me.” Amethyst nodded and hopped happily away. Soon, fatal squelching sounds could be heard in the vicinity. The wild slimes, which had only 5 health and no defence, stood no chance against Amethyst’s level 16 Whip skill, which could break a sturdy twiggy in half (*doomed*).

Next, Fey picked Magic up and put him on her head. “Cast Spore, but don’t hit me.” Obediently, Magic sent out a cloud of spores in a circle 10 metres in radius.

<Spore was successful. The slime has been paralysed.>

Fey smiled and began to walk.

Fey’s analytical mind had come up with an incredibly efficient way to both train her pets’ skills and collect yellow slimes. By telling Amethyst to kill all the slimes except the yellow ones, she increased the local concentration of yellow slimes as they respawned. The system notices that appeared whenever Magic cast Spore told her how many slimes were in the vicinity, even when the skill failed. The status effects inflicted also made the slimes easier to catch. Spore gained experience whenever it hit a target, not when it was cast, so the multiple targets made it gain experience extremely quickly. Fey would then search out the slimes to check their colour; if they were yellow, she picked them up, and if they were not, they were left for Amethyst (*squelch*). After walking beyond the range of Magic’s last Spore cast, she would repeat the process.

After about fifteen minutes, Fey started seeing piles of goo that sometimes had coins in them, the result of Amethyst’s efforts. She picked up the coins that she could see, but it hurt her heart (a.k.a. greediness) to think of the ones that she had probably overlooked. I wonder if I could get Amethyst to pick them up for me. She called out, “Amethyst, pick up any coins you find.” She heard a squeak of acknowledgement from somewhere nearby and continued collecting yellow slimes.

After about two hours, many respawns, and countless piles of goo, Fey had collected four yellow slimes, and Magic’s Spore skill had reached level 6 (35% chance of success, 20m radius). Since her level 3 Monster Tamer skill had a 27% chance of success, she decided to try her luck with the four before looking for any more (plus, it was getting hard to carry so many slimes that were trying to run away).

She dumped them into a pile on the ground and sat down beside them. Thanks to her new armour, they were incapable of inflicting any damage and she could handle them with impunity (*evil laughter*). Terrified of her level 11 strength, the slimes immediately tried to run away (*hop*hop*hop*). Whenever they were almost out of arm’s reach, Fey would pick them up by the bubble and plop them right back to their starting position. After several minutes (of Fey enjoying herself immensely), one of the slimes finally stopped trying to escape. She grabbed the other three slimes in one hand to keep them from escaping (*dangle*) and extended a hand towards it. It cringed and started running away again. Sighing, Fey plopped it back into place and released the other three, leaving the stationary one alone and continuing to catch the running slimes.

Another half hour later, all the slimes had stopped running away. Now what? She still could not touch any of them without making them run again. She tried talking. “Hello, little slimeys,” she said in a baby voice. “I’m here to take you to a nice new home with a nice lady named Senaia. She’ll take very good care of you, and play with you, and feed you, and you won’t need to worry about any mean people trying to kill you.” She reached slowly towards the slimes and they stayed still. “That’s it,” she cooed, inching her hand forward. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She continued babbling soothing nonsense while creeping her hand forward ever so slowly, until finally she touched the first slime that had stopped running away (or so she thought; they all look exactly the same). It flinched, but stayed in place. “Good slimey,” she crooned, gently petting it until it snuggled (cutely) against her hand. Then she picked it up.

“Topaz,” Fey decided, continuing with her gemstone theme. If Senaia doesn’t like it, she can just change it. Standing up with her new acquisition, she contemplated the other three yellow slimes, still huddling on the ground at her feet. She thought that she could probably tame at least one more of them, but could not think of what to do with the extra slime afterwards. Still, it seemed a shame to just leave them here, half-tamed. Ah well. She looked around for Amethyst, having completely lost track of her surroundings while playing catch-a-slime. What she saw had panic coursing through her veins (well, probably adrenaline actually) and pushed her into a sprint: the other person in the clearing was now much, much closer, and his sword was descending upon an oblivious Amethyst.

“Stop!” she screamed. She had never run so fast in her life.

(<Fey’s agility has increased to 22! (+1)>)

***

Blade was a level 15 human warrior, one of the highest levels currently in the game, having started playing Fantasia on the very day it was released. Level 15 was strong enough to take the relatively safe route between beginner cities (without dying), and so he had wandered over to the Moonwood from the (very creatively named) human starter town, Newtown. After exploring and speaking with the NPCs, he had decided to hunt down the King Slime, a boss monster that appeared periodically, whenever a certain number of slimes were killed. Boss monsters were all significantly stronger than their normal counterparts, but the slimes were so weak that Blade felt that he could handle the King Slime alone. Thus, he had been leisurely killing slimes (and earning next to no experience due to his elevated level) when he had spotted a strange slime that appeared to have coins floating around inside its body.

Aha! The King Slime! Eagerly, he thrust his sword towards it when he heard someone yell, “Stop!” Distracted, he turned towards the voice, causing his strike to lose most of its force, but it still landed with what should have been severely damaging power. He was dumbfounded when his sword simply bounced off the slime, which appeared completely unharmed. His attention was split between the invulnerable slime and the figure sprinting towards him when the slime sent its bubble flying to connect with his foot. He heard a cracking sound before the pain registered[i]. “Ouch!” he yelled, grabbing his foot and hopping for a few steps (the word wasn’t ‘ouch,’ if you know what I mean, but we’re trying to keep things family-friendly)

<-30% agility until healed.>

Completely uninterested in his plight, the sprinting figure flew straight past him and snatched up the slime, appearing to frantically check it for injuries before hugging it in relief.

“Amethyst, you can give me those coins now,” said a low, feminine voice (alto in the musical classification). Blade finally identified the person as a female elf as the slime spat out a bunch of coins into her hand, leaving it with the exact same appearance as a normal (purple) slime.

“So it’s not the King Slime?” he muttered in disbelief.

The elf heard him and finally paid him any attention: she rounded on him furiously and yelled, “Of course not, you idiot!” Her voice was surprisingly loud for someone with such a willowy build. She appeared to be about to yell some more, but then her eye caught on the foot he was still heavily favouring. Blade followed the direction of her gaze to his boot, which had a circular indent that exactly matched the dimensions of a slime’s bubble. The right side of her mouth crooked up in an amused smile, and she began walking away without another word.

***

“Hey, wait!” called out a voice as Fey prepared to return to the Moonwood, “What are you doing with that slime?”

Fey was amused because Amethyst was perfectly fine, and had broken the human warrior’s foot, but she was deadly serious about the lives of her pets. When an avatar died in Fantasia, it only lost one level and the associated attribute points, but when pets died, they lost all their skills and reverted back to level one. The thought of that fate befalling Amethyst chilled her expression into a (scary) mask as she turned around and said in a cold, clear voice, “If you ever attack one of my pets again, I will kill you.”

Satisfied at the spooked look on his face, she turned to leave again. There were some penalties for killing a player outside of an official duel or player-versus-player competition, but they were not very severe and Fey was perfectly willing to incur them in defence of her pets. Before she had taken more than a few steps, a giant (green) slime hopped out of the trees, blocking her path.

“King Slime?” she heard muttered behind her. This huuuge thing looks nothing like Amethyst at all! (Actually, the King Slime is identical to normal slimes except around a hundred times bigger, so it did resemble Amethyst quite a bit). Incensed at this creature for indirectly putting her pet at risk, Fey sent her mind into battle mode. The two opponents (i.e. Fey and the King Slime; the idiot with the broken foot is currently irrelevant) watched each other motionlessly while Fey analyzed the situation and came up with a battle plan (Loading… Please wait.). Then Fey exploded into action.

Drawing her sword in her right hand and dagger in the left, she sprinted at the King Slime. When she was within range of his huge bubble, she dodged sideways, neatly anticipating and avoiding its first attack, so similar to Amethyst’s. Activating her Mana Blade ability, she hit the King Slime as hard as she could with Vicious Strike, increasing the damage of the skill from +300% to +340%. Guh, this is so awkward. Fey knew that her sword technique was terrible; it did not feel graceful or natural at all. Still, a huge hole had been torn in the King Slime’s membrane and goo was splashing out.

Taking advantage of its flinch, Fey used both sword and dagger to inflict as many Bleed wounds as possible; more slime oozed out. Fey saw the King Slime’s bubble whipping out again, but was too slow to dodge; a sphere slightly larger than a grapefruit (and much harder and denser) impacted her left arm, just below the shoulder. “Oww!” she yelled (this time, the word really was “oww.” Fey tries not to swear except in situations where it helps). She could still move her arm, so she guessed that it was not broken. Gotta love armour. Deciding that with an opponent so large, she could sacrifice accuracy for attack power, she activated Rage, which could only be activated after taking damage from an enemy.

Fey had long ago determined that slimes had no vital spots; they simply died when they lost too much slime, so she kept up a barrage of continuous strikes, aiming for large wounds and activating Bleed as often as its cooldown allowed. As the slime weakened, its strikes lost power, so she did not receive any injuries worse than the blow to her arm. Her mana ran out rather quickly and the flames left her sword, but her initial heavy attacks gained her an advantage that she did not relinquish. After about ten minutes, the King Slime finally died and a flood of system notices popped into Fey’s head:

<Mana Blade has reached level 2!>

<Vicious Strike has reached level 2!>

<Rage has reached level 2!>

<Bleed has reached level 3! Bleed has reached level 4!>

The skill level increases were to be expected, as going from level one to level two was an extremely easy task. More surprising to Fey was the Slime Mastery. By observing (i.e. killing) a large number of the same monster, it was possible to gain data that is placed into a player’s personal Bestiary and could be referenced at any time. This information was extremely useful, from the monster’s level, health, and mana levels to special abilities, dropped loot, geographical areas found, and boss information. More information was gained at higher levels of mastery, but so many of the same monster had to be killed that players rarely even achieved level one. What Fey did not realize was the number of slimes that Amethyst had killed while alone in the woods. When a certain distance away, Fey no longer received system notices from her pets. Amethyst had in fact eaten so many slime bubbles that her Double Membrane ability had gone from level one to level six – now requiring seven times normal force to inflict damage, which was how she had survived the human warrior's attack – and she had reached level 10, putting her ahead of Magic, who was still at level 9. Combined with the Mastery bonus from killing the boss monster, Fey had easily reached level one Slime Mastery.

The results of the battle were still not finished: the King Slime’s remains held loot. Fey picked up a small (blue) gem and a thin copper ring. Shaking off the slime, Fey examined each item. “Description.”

Cooool. Fey placed the gem into her pouch and the ring onto her left middle finger. Gathering her pets (they had somehow ended up in a nearby tree as spectators in her battle), she again started towards town. Just in time, she remembered to collect the King Slime’s bubble. I bet Kallara will have a use for this. Having completely forgotten the guy she had issued a death threat to (even though he was still there, staring agape at her extremely wide array of abilities), she made her way back to town.

[i] Since the foot is the farthest body part from the brain, it takes a longer time for a signal (such as pain or sound) to reach the brain from the foot than from the ear

9: Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Fey’s first stop in the Moonwood was the armour shop. Senaia clapped in delight at the sight of Topaz. “Oh my, it really is adorable,” she cooed, poking its bubble playfully with a finger.

“It’s for you,” Fey replied.

“What did you name it?” asked Senaia.

“Topaz.”

“That’s a good name. I will keep it. Oh my! It’s already level four!”

“I ran into the King Slime on the way back,” Fey explained.

“Oh my! You defeated the King Slime? What a feat!”

<Fey’s fame has risen to 4! (+1)>

…I guess bragging is part of getting fame? That kind of makes sense… “It was nothing,” Fey said modestly. In reality, for a level 11 character to so easily defeat a level 15 boss monster was fairly miraculous, but Fey’s Bleed skill was super effective (Pokemon reference J) against slimes.

“Well, I won’t take up any more of your time,” Fey said, preparing to leave the shop.

“Come by any time so Amethyst and Topaz can play together!”

“See you around,” said Fey (non-committally), walking out of the store before she could be drawn into any more (awkward) small-talk. Fey really did not want to get into the topic of the dietary habits of slimes.

“Now, more errands.” Fey was not exactly talking to herself, as Magic and Amethyst were usually stuck about her person somewhere, listening attentively (if non-comprehendingly). She went to the bank to change her money into larger denominations, as well as to deposit her newly-found water gem until she had a use for it. Then it was time to visit Kallara (the healer, if you’ve forgotten) to see what could be done with the King Slime bubble.

“You!”

The exclamation came simultaneously from two different mouths upon Fey’s entrance to Kallara’s abode. The human warrior (Fey hadn’t bothered to learn his name *contemptuous*) was seated on a bench while Kallara gathered the things she needed to set the warrior’s foot. In Fantasia, some injuries – like broken bones – needed to be treated in order to heal properly. Blade had had to slowly limp to town in the time that it had taken Fey to return and run her numerous errands. He had just sat down when Fey (whom he mentally referred to as ‘the scary elf lady,’ since he also hadn’t learned her name, though with less contempt) walked in.

“I see you two know each other,” commented Kallara calmly (and with some amusement).

“That’s the slime that broke my foot!” Blade pointed an accusatory finger at Amethyst (who blinked cutely).

“Hmph. He deserved it.” (Fey spoke with a 30/70 mixture of dismissal and scorn).

“I see.” Kallara wisely made no further comment on the subject. “So what brings you here today, Fey?”

Fey pulled out the King Slime bubble, which Kallara recognized with no need for explanation (because she is a wise and learned healer who also happens to have access to the full encyclopaedia of Fantasia potion ingredients in her head). “You defeated the King Slime! How amazing!”

<Fey’s fame has risen to 5! (+1)>

Wow. I should just go around the village and show every NPC this King Slime bubble. Fame was useful in getting quests and discounts from NPCs. However, Fey was too lazy to go around showing everyone for a stat that did not have instant, tangible rewards, so she did not bother.

“I was wondering if you could use a King Slime bubble for brewing potions.”

“Of course!” Kallara was excited (nerding out) at the rare potion component and speaking at a higher pitch than her normal calm tone. “The King Slime bubble can be used for the creation of many powerful potions. Not just healing potions, but also mana potions and tonics that can temporarily increase your attributes!”

“Wow, that’s amazing.” Moneymoneymoneymoney… (the word repeated in Fey’s head continuously, not just four times, but no need to waste page space).

“Which one would you like to make?” Kallara enquired.

“I’d like to make a strength tonic,” Fey decided (guessing it was the most valuable).

Kallara (completely ignored the injured person) pulled a book off a shelf and turned to the correct page before handing it to Fey. “Here’s a list of the ingredients you’ll need. Fresh-killed herbs have the most potency. You should find everything in the herb garden out back.”

“Fresh-killed?” Fey muttered. “I don’t like the sound of that. Kallara, what level are these herb monsters?”

“None of the ones required for the strength tonic are above level twenty,” Kallara replied with a smile (whether it was an evil smile is up for debate).

Twenty?? I’m only level eleven! I hope I don’t die. Fey was not completely daunted at a nine-level gap, having some confidence in her unusual variety of skills and ability to analyze situations to take advantage of them.

“However,” Kallara continued, “there are herbs out there up to level forty.”

… (mental blank). Fey just stared mutely with a doomed expression on her face while Kallara continued to usher her outside. “Farewell, world,” she lamented (melodramatically) as she crossed the threshold.

***

“The rebirth point is located at the town centre,” Kallara called after Fey cheerfully (we are pretty sure that this smile was at least a bit evil), waving as Fey trudged off to her (probable) doom. “Now, where were we?” Kallara turned back to her injured patient, who now felt decidedly less safe in the healer’s hands (*urge to run away from evil lady*).

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to send her out to such a dangerous place alone?” Blade ventured.

“Oh, she should be fine. I go out there to collect herbs quite often,” replied Kallara non-worriedly.

Just what level is the village healer? Blade wondered with a little trepidation (the answer: higher than you. Burn!).

“However,” the healer continued, “if you are worried about her, you could always go after her.” (*misguided matchmaking*) While Blade was distracted with the healer’s words, she pulled to align the bones in his foot.

“Oww!” he yelled (it wasn’t ‘oww’).

“Watch your langugage, young man,” Kallara chided while wrapping the foot for support. “Hold still. Medium Heal!” A bright light began emanating from the healer’s hands, and warmth like strong sunlight seemed to soak into Blade’s bones to soothe away the pain. “There you go, all done.” Kallara patted Blade’s newly healed foot and stood up.

“Thank you, lady.” Blade stood as well, leaving a 50g piece on the bench as payment. He hesitated, looking at the two exits from the healer’s abode, one leading back to the village, one to the herb garden. As the King Slime was not about to respawn any time soon, he did not have a plan of action. With anybody else, he would not hesitate to go and offer to help with a dangerous quest, but he was certain that the scary elf lady, or ‘Fey,’ as he had heard Kallara address her, would not welcome his presence. Still, it went against his character to leave someone in such a situation without at least trying to help. Bracing himself for dangerous monsters and hostile conversation, he followed Fey into the herb garden.

Kallara’s eyes laughed with mischief.

***

Behind Kallara’s tree-house was a fairly large area where the trees were far enough apart for large patches of sunlight to reach the ground. In and around these spots, Fey could see different kinds of plants growing. She advanced cautiously to a spot with no plants, sword at the ready. Since she was not immediately beset by carnivorous plants, she felt safe enough to sheathe her sword and take a look at the book Kallara had handed her.

The strength tonic recipe listed the quantities of each ingredient that she would need, along with helpful drawings of each herb. What it did not list was the level of each herb monster. In fact, the drawings looked like normal plants with leaves, stems and roots, no eyes or other animal features anywhere. This is scary… Fey’s imagination was supplying her with scenarios where herb monsters could suddenly appear and kill her in cruel and unusual ways. She sighed. Might as well get it (dying or the quest?) over with.

“Magic, Amethyst, come look at this.” Fey pointed at a particular drawing of an herb. Amethyst leaned over from her perch on Fey’s head to look, while Magic hopped up to her shoulder (*defy gravity*). Fey chose the herb that she would need the largest quantity of, called ‘sweetgrass’ in the book, guessing that it would be at a lower level. The illustration showed a clump of grass, each blade of grass being especially broad.

“Go find plants that look like this and tell me when you’ve found them, but don’t touch anything.”

The pets hopped (cutely) away. Before long, excited squeaking led Fey to a patch of ground completely covered by the plant (in other words, a lawn of grass).

“Good job, you two.” Fey knelt and patted her pets affectionately, then moved them away from the area in case a scary monster appeared to eat them. Okay, I need thirty of these. Cautiously (not really), she grabbed a clump of grass and yanked it out of the ground. Huh. The “root” of the creature appeared to be a head, with two stubby feet kicking futilely for freedom[i].

Letting it dangle from her grasp of its grass ‘hair,’ Fey poked at it. “You’re not scary at all.”

The creature then opened its mouth and uttered a cry. Suddenly, all the other clumps of grass uprooted themselves and started running away.

“Oh, no you don’t! Magic, Amethyst, after them!” The chase was on. Unfortunately for Fey, even creatures with short, stubby feet were faster than her (legless) pets, so she had to do all the chasing herself. She was forced into a graceless half-bent-over position, grabbing sweetgrass while jogging. She could not simply Stomp on them to kill them; they simply got back up and continued running. When she had grabbed about ten of them, her hands were full of wiggling creatures and she had to figure out a way to kill them. Seeing the other clumps of sweetgrass getting away, she swiftly pulled out her rope and tied her caught ones into a secure bundle. Dropping the bundle onto the ground, she called out, “Amethyst, Whip!” and chased after the fleeing creatures.

Returning with another armful of sweetgrass, Fey saw that Amethyst was still repeatedly using Whip on the bundle she had left. Are they still alive? They must be really tough.

“Ugh…” Upon closer inspection, Fey saw that Amethyst had mashed the (long-dead) grass creatures into unrecognizable paste. “Amethyst,” Fey groaned, “you’re supposed to stop when they’re dead.” Amethyst stopped moving and blinked (cutely).

“I don’t have time to deal with this right now.” Fey tied her second group of sweetgrass into a bundle and said, “Whip, but stop when they’re dead,” before running off again

Fey assumed that the first bundle of sweetgrass (paste) was unuseable, so she ended up collecting forty plants in total. Amethyst easily ended their lives with a single swing of her (cute-but-deadly) bubble, causing them to shrivel into normal-looking plants. Fey winced as she watched the slime demolish the last bundle of sweetgrass, wishing she had a reason to run off again (Magic appeared completely unconcerned at the one-sided violence). Packing everything into her pouch, Fey pulled out the book to look up the next plant she would need.

“Thornweed,” she read out loud. The plants looked rather like rose stems without the flowers. This does not bode well for my hands. Fey’s forearm guards did not include gloves for her hands. Alas, woe is me, etc. Let’s get it over with. “Amethyst, Magic, find this plant.” Fey showed them the illustration and they hopped off cutely, while she walked off in a third direction.

Instead of the thornweed, Fey found something far more irritating. “What are you doing here?” The human warrior was in the herb garden.

“I, uh, thought you might need help.” Blade had rather expected Fey to be fighting for her life against some high-level monster that he could (heroically) save her from (so the whole “she’s perfectly fine thing” was throwing him off).

Fey snorted (derisively) and was about to reply (hostilely) when she heard a squeak. She walked off. After a moment, Blade followed. “Where are you going?” He had not registered the squeak, so Fey’s actions seemed completely random to him. Fey was not in a talkative mood, so she ignored him and kept walking, coming across the thornweed a minute later. Well, that’s not going to fit into my pouch. The stems were each longer than her arm, though quite thin, and covered with long, sharp thorns.

Assuming that the plant would attack by thrashing its stems around, Fey picked Magic up and told him to cast Spore five times.

<Spore was successful. The thornweed’s speed is decreased by 20%.>

<Spore was successful. The thornweed has been paralysed.>

“Good job, Magic!” Magic squeaked cheerfully.

Because he and Fey were not in a party together, he did not receive any system notices from Magic’s actions, and the mushroom did not appear to have accomplished anything. “What do you mean, ‘good job’? It didn’t do anything.”

Fey rounded on him. “Would you leave already?”

“Hey, don’t be like that. You heard the healer; there are level forty monsters in here. You might need help.”

Fey paused, giving him a measuring look while she thought. Well, I suppose I could use him as a meat shield if we get attacked (*mercenary*). “Fine.”

Blade gave a relieved sigh (being measured by Fey’s look is an unnerving experience).

“Help me cut this plant,” Fey continued imperiously, gesturing at the thornweed (*unpaid labour*). The two players advanced, Blade drawing his (blade) sword while Fey chose her small dagger.

Blade took the most straightforward (and least effective) approach. Gripping his sword in both hands, he slashed at the plant. Some of the flexible stems swayed towards the ground before returning to their upright positions.

Well. I see my meat shield isn’t very clever. Does that make him a better or a worse meat shield? Idly pondering the question, Fey crouched at the base of the plant. Gripping one vine firmly to keep it from moving, she sliced across with her dagger. It made a shallow cut that came nowhere near severing the tough stem. Ugh. This is going to take forever, Fey thought with frustration, slicing again and again. Blade saw Fey’s (more effective) course of action and (sheepishly) followed suit, though the task was more awkward with a blade as long as a sword.

There has to be a faster way to do this. Fey was now about halfway through the stem (and completely bored). While her hands mechanically repeated the slicing movement, she searched through her skill menu. Most of her skills seemed fairly useless against her current ‘opponent’. Hmm. Maybe Mana Blade? Fey activated the ability. Remembering the way she had changed the shape of her mana flow when she first learned the ability (go back and read Chapter 7 if you don’t remember), she imagined it extending from the edges of her dagger, narrowing into an extremely thin, sharp edge.

Her magically-sharpened dagger slid through the rest of the stem like a hot knife through butter (yay clichéd similes) and Fey narrowly avoided giving herself and nasty cut.

“Huh,” Fey muttered to herself, pulling up the description.

<Mana Edge: with the finest control, shape Mana Blade into the sharpest edge to increase armour penetration>

<Subskill: takes the same level as Mana Blade>

Nice. This meant that with the subskill, Fey could ignore six points of her opponents’ defence when calculating damage effects and even break armour more easily.

To Blade, Fey appeared to have slipped with her dagger when it finally broke through the thornweed, and now she was staring off into space. “What are you doing?”

“I cannot believe how annoying he is,” Fey muttered. From her point of view, the reasons for her actions were very apparent, so Blade’s questions were extremely irritating. Then again… Fey put herself into the human warrior’s shoes (*rare bout of empathy*) and decided that her actions were completely indecipherable to a normal person. Gotta give him credit for not running in the face of hostility. Fey would have (delightedly) left someone so rude to her to die a lonely, agonizing death at the hands of monsters over twice their level.

Softening her attitude towards him, Fey (finally) asked, “What’s your name?”

“Blade.”

“I’m Fey.”

“Huh?” (Blade really does not react well in the face of unexpected situations.)

“If we’re in the same party, you can see my game system notices and you won’t be so confused all the time,” Fey explained (*rare bout of patience*).

“Oh.” (The author promises that Blade is not a completely useless idiot, and will eventually become an interesting and well-rounded character.)

<Fey’s party: Fey (leader), level 11 moon elf; Blade, level 15 human>

“As to what I was doing,” Fey continued, “I modified Mana Blade to sharpen the edge of my dagger. Now I can easily cut through the thornweed.” Fey demonstrated, cutting through a fresh stem in only two slices.

“What? How did you do that?” Blade activated his own Mana Blade ability, and the normal unshaped flames appeared (Blade’s were blue).

“You have to lower the mana flow until it barely extends from the edge of the blade, then shape it into the thinnest, sharpest line you can imagine,” Fey explained (our heroine is actually fairly good at teaching when she’s not being sarcastic and unhelpful).

Frowning in concentration, Blade stared at his (blade) sword until the flames shrank to a fine edge, then sliced at a vine.

“That’s amazing!” Mana Edge was the second ability Blade had learned in his fifteen levels, the first being Mana Blade itself. Like most players, he assumed skills and abilities could only be learned from books or teachers, and had not accomplished quests that led to the acquisition of new skills.

“Meh,” said Fey dismissively. Mana Edge was her fourth ability, and she had nine combat skills, not including what her pets could do. Unusual actions led to the creation of specialized skills and abilities, and Fey was so abnormal that this was a regular occurrence. “Back to work.” She seized another stem to slice, and Blade followed suit.

<Thornweed’s paralysis has worn off.>

Fey immediately jumped up and backed out of range of the plant, but Blade was caught unprepared.

“What – Ow!”

The plant started whipping its limbs violently, leaving a scratch across Blade’s cheek.

<Duration: 5 minutes>

“Crap.” Blade reached into his pack for a (green) antidote potion and drank it. Most adventurers bought antidotes when the first encountered a poisonous monster, and tried to avoid them as much as possible. He was flabbergasted when Fey deliberately reached out and pricked her finger on a thorn. “What are you –”

<Duration: 5 minutes>

<Duration: 5 minutes>

Without Immunity, taking the full brunt of the thornweed’s poison would result in (a whopping) 120 damage (Fey’s maximum health was currently at 145). Because the poison happened to be the kind that inflicted low damage frequently, just level 1 Immunity halved the damage to 60.

Blade mind was boggled. “Where did you get that ability?”

Fey suddenly realized that if she continued working with Blade, he would end up learning all of her hard-earned (*cough* randomly acquired *cough*) techniques. Again, she subjected him to her measuring look. The fact that he was discomfited by her stare reassured her that Blade was an honest person (Fey was sure that only con artists and sociopaths maintained eye contact for extended periods of time).

“If I tell you about my abilities, you have to promise not to teach them to anyone else.”

Blade’s expression turned serious as he replied, “I promise.”

Huh. I don’t even feel the need to threaten him. Either I’m experiencing personal growth (hahahahaha) or he just looks very trustworthy.

“Okay.” Fey took a breath and sighed. “In order to gain immunity, you have to get poisoned a lot without taking the antidote. Or dying.”

“…That’s it?”

“Well, that’s pretty much how you develop immunity to poison in real life, isn’t it?” Not that this game doesn’t choose to suspend natural laws whenever it feels like it. Of course, only someone exposed to weak poison for hours would manage to have enough exposure to develop immunity without dying from health loss. Blade would not be able to use thornweed poison to gain Immunity without using far more health potions than he owned. Fey’s mind speedily came up with the most convenient solution.

“Amethyst!” she called. The slime obediently hopped (cutely) into view from wherever it had been wandering. Fey picked her up by the bubble and commanded, “Poison slime.” Amethyst’s body became shiny with a layer of (poisonous) slime.

“Here.” Fey dropped Amethyst into Blade’s hands, which had automatically come up when Fey held the slime out towards him. Amethyst landed with a slight splatting sound.

<Duration: 5 minutes>

Blade was hit with a wave of nausea from the poison. “Slug poison from a slime?” The warrior was almost becoming used to being in a perpetual state of confusion.

“Back to work,” Fey said without explaining (go back and read Chapter 6 if you don’t remember). She had Magic cast Spore until the thornweed was again paralysed and they went back to cutting stems.

When they had all the thornweed stems they needed, Fey realized that she had not gained any experience points from defeating the creature.

“Why didn’t I get any experience?”

“We didn’t kill it,” Blade answered matter-of-factly (not confused for once).

When Fey just stared at him uncomprehendingly, Blade pointed at the centre of the bush. “See? This whole thing is just one plant. We did some damage by cutting off some of its stems, but it’s nowhere near dead.”

“Let’s kill it!” Fey said (bloodthirstily).

“Uh, it seems pretty tough. Maybe we should just -” Blade stopped talking. Fey had Magic continually casting multicoloured clouds of toxic spores while Amethyst was pounding a small part of the plant into paste, boring a path towards the centre of the stem cluster. Fey herself activated Mana Blade at full blast and was touching the white-and-purple flames to the plant.

“What are you doing?” he asked (yet again).

“I’m checking if I can set things on fire with Mana Blade. I doubt it, since they’re not real flames, but it’s worth a shot.” Fey let the flames subside when they failed to ignite the thornweed. She shrugged and went back to cutting stems off of the bush.

“Hey, I don’t think you can kill it like that.”

“I know,” Fey replied calmly. Before Blade could ask “What are you doing?” again, she elaborated, “Magic and Amethyst will take care of it.” Fey had confidence in her pets’ abilities. Magic was still casting Spore at a rate of one cast per second. Even with a failure rate of 65%, he had so many status effects stacked on the thornweed that even if it weren’t paralysed, it would have a great deal of difficulty moving.

<Spore was successful, but the thornweed’s attack cannot go any lower.>

<Spore was successful, but the thornweed’s speed cannot go any lower.>

<Spore was successful, but the thornweed’s defence cannot go any lower.>

<Magic’s Spore has reached level 7!>

Meanwhile, Amethyst was steadily tunnelling her way to the centre of the thornweed. Fey figured that it would only be minutes until she received her experience points.

“Why. Won’t. It. DIE??” Having a stronger poison itself than the blue mushroom’s poison effect, the thornweed was immune to that particular aspect of Magic’s Spore. All of its stats had been reduced to the minimum, Fey had cut off every single stem, and Amethyst had tunnelled her way out the other side of the bush, but the thornweed was still stubbornly clinging to life.

“Uh, maybe we should just give up and go get the rest of the stuff for the recipe?” Blade suggested tentatively.

“No! Then it wins!” Fey was not about to let some flowerless rosebush get the better of her (actually, it seems that it already has…).

Blade was rather surprised at seeing this new (immature) side to Fey’s personality, having only seen her being cold and ruthlessly logical. He did not know which Fey he preferred (the correct answer being that Fey is a difficult person to be around, either way, and you should run away, Blade. Run away.)

“You can stop casting now,” Fey told the mushroom, who was looking distinctly worn out. There was no point in making him work when the thornweed was already completely debuffed. Without any stems, the plant could not move even without being paralysed. Gratefully, Magic hopped away. Digging a hole in the ground, he ‘planted’ himself and appeared to go to sleep.

“What’s it doing?”

“Eating, obviously.” Fey was just guessing, but she happened to be right. In frustration, she Stomped down on the remains of the bush as hard as she could.

The earth began trembling. Slowly, the thornweed uprooted itself. When it was completely out of the ground, it resembled an octopus made of roots, with inch-long ‘hair’ where Fey had cut all the stems off. Amethyst, who had been (cheerfully) mashing any part of the plant she could reach into paste, ended up riding the octopus head, ten feet off the ground.

“Amethyst, get off of there!” Amethyst (cleverly) jumped off the side of the octopus, using one of its tentacles as a slide to arrive safely (and stylishly) on the ground, where she hopped off to keep Magic company.

“Come on.” Fey nudged Blade into action, switching her dagger to her left hand and drawing her sword with the right. Running forward, she slashed at the thornweed, with similar results to what happened with the twiggy in her earlier adventure (see Chapter 3 if you don’t remember). Oh yeah. Activating Mana Edge, Fey was rewarded with a much deeper cut when she attacked again.

In response, the thornweed wrapped a tentacle rather feebly around Fey’s waist. Having lost most of its strength and speed, the attack failed to harm her in any way.

“Fey!” Blade jumped into the fight at the sight of Fey ‘in danger.’ His ability to come heroically to her rescue was severely impaired when she said, “I got it,” and casually severed the tentacle.

“You take the other side,” Fey commanded.

Blade sighed and did as he was told (*unnecessary*).

The thornweed was actually the level 20 monster Kallara had mentioned, but Spore had reduced its stats to that of a level 10 monster. In addition, Fey had taken away its special ability – poison – by cutting off all of its stems. Normally, it would have emerged from the ground long before it could be completely ‘declawed’ like this, but Magic’s paralysis had kept it safely in the ground until Fey had given the mushroom a break. Before long, the thornweed fell to the warriors’ weapons.

<Fey’s party has defeated the thornweed!>

Fey reacted to the system notice with stunned disbelief that quickly morphed into anger. “Why did you get more experience points than me?” she demanded, not quite yelling (but pretty close). “I’m the one who did most of the damage!”

When a party shares experience, it is distributed based on its members’ relative levels. As Blade was level 15 to Fey’s level 11, he had naturally gained more experience points. Fey actually knew this perfectly well, and tried to stop her pointless outburst by taking steps to resolve her conflict.

“I’m dissolving this party.” (Well, that didn’t last very long.)

“Hey, wait, you don’t have to do that. Just change the party setting to ‘individual experience.’” Fantasia had numerous settings to customize party gameplay, such as different allocations of experience, gold, and rare items. This was covered in the “Advanced Gameplay” section of the manual that Fey had skipped reading (badbad). The ‘individual’ setting for resource allocation distributed the resource as if the party members were not in the same party, basing the distribution on the relative contribution each player had in killing the monster, including relative damage inflicted and who landed the final hit.

Fey changed the party setting from its automatic ‘level-weighted’ experience allocation to ‘individual,’ feeling silly that she had not done so earlier. With the dignity of an offended cat, she collected her pets (Magic had slept through the entire fight and aftermath) and stalked off to find the next ingredient on the list.

Blade hastily stuffed the thornweed stems into his backpack and followed.

Footnotes

[i] This is clearly Pokemon #43, Oddish.

10: Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Opening the potion book, Fey read aloud, “Fifteen dryad-blessed apples.” After wandering the entire herb garden, Fey concluded that there was only one apple tree. It held tiny green apples, each the size of a cherry.

“Hello?” she called out, looking for the dryad amongst the tree branches. After a few seconds, she heard a tiny voice.

“Make him go away.”

“Make him – oh. Blade, go away.”

“What?”

“You heard her.” (Actually, he hadn’t.) Giving him the book, she said, “You can go collect the next ingredient.” Fey briskly pushed Blade away from the apple tree. “Oh yeah. Amethyst, poison slime.” She dropped the slime into Blade’s hands as well.

<Duration: 5 minutes>

“You have to stay continuously poisoned to develop Immunity. Amethyst, cast poison slime every five minutes.” The slime nodded (cutely).

Blade bemusedly went away to his assigned task, and Fey returned to the apple tree. “Hello?” she called up again.

A small face appeared in the leaves and branches, and a green-skinned humanoid climbed down to sit on one of the lower tree limbs. The dryad was approximately a foot tall, and wore a dress made of autumn leaves in various shades of red, orange, and yellow. “Hello, guardian.”

Guardian? Oh yeah. Fey remembered her reward from her slug-killing quest (see Chapter 6 if you don’t remember). Fey had serendipitously found a shortcut in befriending the dryad, who was very secretive and would normally hide when strangers appeared. Without her Guardian’s Blessing, Fey would have had to figure out what the dryad wanted in exchange for her apples without actually being able to talk to the dryad. However, with the blessing, all creatures in the Elvenwood naturally liked and trusted her.

“Greetings. My name is Fey.”

“I am Pom, the guardian of Malus.[i]” I guess that’s the name of the tree.

“Pom, I am currently gathering the ingredients to brew a strength tonic, and am in need of fifteen dryad-blessed apples. In return, I would be pleased to aid you in any task you need completed.”

“It just so happens, that Malus here is looking a bit tired,” said Pom, patting her tree fondly. “If you bring me a flask of enchanted or holy water, I will happily grow some apples for you.”

Fey thought the tree looked quite healthy, as she was unable to see a single leaf that was not a deep green, or even one that had been eaten into by a bug. However, she was not about to complain at being set such a straightforward task.

“Consider it done. I will return when I have obtained the water.” Fey went looking for Kallara.

***

Blade felt sick. Even as mild a poison as slug poison had its symptoms, which in this case were nausea and general weakness (Fey hadn’t noticed as much because she was used to feeling like crap, having a weak body that she sometimes neglected to take care of properly. Also, feelings of nausea and weakness are considered fairly normal when one is covered in the remains of exploded slugs). “This Immunity better be worth it,” he muttered, shooting a baleful glance at Amethyst (who blinked cutely). “First my foot, and now this.” It appeared that Blade was not much impressed by the slime’s adorableness and saw through to her evil nature. The slime cast Poison Slime every five minutes to the second, ensuring that Blade was not given a break from the poison effect.

Amethyst had gained a small bonus in power and intelligence upon reaching level 10 and could now think for herself (a little bit) and follow (slightly) more complex orders. Because of this, she noticed when Blade, letting his discomfort dull his sense of his surroundings, walked right past the flowers he was supposed to collect. She squeaked.

Blade ignored the sound, continuing to walk forward, so Amethyst began jumping up and down on his shoulder, finally catching his attention. “What?”

Amethyst pointed her bubble in the direction they had come from. Unfortunately, the tiny red flowers – called ‘blossums’ – were already out of sight, and Blade (predictably) did not understand. Shrugging, he kept moving forward.

Amethyst felt that she was not getting her point across, so she tried something else. She smacked Blade in the eye with her bubble (without using Whip, or he’d be missing an eye).

“Ow! Ow!” Blade yelled (The second ‘ow’ wasn’t an ‘ow’), clutching his injured face. “What the (censored word) was that for?”

Amethyst pointed more forcefully at the way they had come. Glaring, Blade turned around and walked angrily in the right direction. After a few seconds, he asked, “What?” in an annoyed tone.

Amethyst now pointed at the ground, and Blade spotted the blossums. “Oh.” He cleared this throat sheepishly. “Thanks.”

Amethyst secreted another layer of poisonous slime.

<Duration: 5 minutes>

Blade groaned as he was hit with another wave of nausea. Eyes narrowed, he gave another, “Thanks,” this one much less sincere. Amethyst blinked (‘innocently’).

Bending down, Blade reached towards one of the plants. As he did, Amethyst took the opportunity to jump to the ground and hop to safety (none of that ‘leave no man behind’ nonsense for our clever slime). She was therefore unharmed when the blossoms reacted (aggressively) to Blade’s proximity; leaves detached themselves from stems, spinning rapidly. Wherever Blade’s skin was not covered in armour, they sliced like throwing stars[ii].

Blade yelled (something censored) and threw up his hands to protect his face. He wore the heavy plate of a strength-based warrior, but it had small gaps at every joint and hinge, something that had not bothered him until now. Mostly blinded by the need to cover his face, Blade eventually managed to kill all the blossoms by stepping on them repeatedly. Finally, he was able to lower his arms, skin stinging fiercely from a hundred shallow cuts, blood staining parts of his armour.

“What is this?” he asked disgustedly. Before meeting Fey, Blade had had only ‘normal’ adventures, where monsters looked like monsters and fighting was straightforward (though he still hadn’t identified Fey as the root of all the abnormality). Grimly, he gathered the blossums’ petals, fresh pain flaring at every movement.

Amethyst returned and hopped back onto his shoulder.

“Some help you were,” he muttered.

Amethyst secreted more poison.

<Duration: 5 minutes>

Blade groaned, sincerely wishing that his adventures would go back to normal.

***

“Kallara?” Fey called out, re-entering the healer’s shop from the back. “I need some enchanted water for the dryad’s tree.”

Kallara raised an eyebrow (elegantly). “How do you know that the dryad’s tree requires enchanted water?”

“The dryad told me.”

“Dryads do not speak to strangers,” said Kallara, surprised. Her confusion lifted when she noted the butterfly-shaped flower at the corner of Fey’s left eye. “Ah! You have become a guardian. All forest creatures will trust you now.”

“How does everyone know I have the Guardian’s Blessing, anyways? Some kind of magical sensing?”

Kallara raised an eyebrow (again). “You have the marking of a mana tree blossom at the corner of your left eye,” she said, tapping the equivalent spot on her own face. “Here.” Kallara pulled a small, circular mirror off a shelf and handed it to Fey.

Fey was somewhat dismayed at (finally) discovering the change in her appearance. Does it have to be so girly-looking? Don’t guys get it too? She was the kind of girl who disdained all trappings of girliness, including makeup, skirts, and irresponsibly high-heeled shoes (but not including stuffed animals; she loves those things). She felt that the marking was not in keeping with her personal style, which was more ‘ice queen’ than ‘flower girl’. However, Fey’s pragmatism won out: the Guardian’s Blessing conferred great benefits without any real drawbacks (after all, she could just be extra mean to reinforce her ‘ice queen’ persona), and she did not think for a second about having it removed (not that it could be removed).

She returned the mirror to Kallara. “So, do you know how to make enchanted water?” Fey was assuming that Kallara was more likely able to make enchanted water than holy water, which was more in the purview of priests’ skills.

“Of course,” Kallara replied (cheerfully). “It’s a very simple process, though it takes quite a bit of mana. The only ingredient is water, quite a bit of it.” Kallara nodded at the bucket Fey had used before (see Chapter 2 if you don’t remember) and Fey headed off to the stream.

At the stream, Fey realized two things: one, she did not have Amethyst with her, and two, Kallara would find things suspicious if she returned without a full bucket. Sighing, she filled up the bucket as much as she could by dipping it in the (shallow) stream, then began laboriously adding water with her hands. “I don’t suppose you could help me with this,” she said to Magic.

Obligingly, the mushroom hopped into the stream (presumably to try to help; he’s still level 9 and not very clever). Being the approximate size and density of a soccer ball, Magic floated and immediately began to be swept downstream.

Fey hastily snatched him out of the water (this sounds familiar for some reason… See Chapter 2 if you don’t remember). “Okay, scratch that. Don’t help me with this.”

(Obligingly, Magic stayed out of the water.)

It took a total of six (tedious) trips to the stream before Fey had collected enough water to enchant. “Do we really need to make this much?” Fey asked, eyeing the large pot (or small cauldron) that she had filled.

Kallara smiled. “We are only making one flask of enchanted water,” she said, indicating a cylindrical container about a hand’s length in height, much smaller in volume than even a single bucket of water. Answering Fey’s confused expression, Kallara continued, “The enchanting process invokes the existing properties of the object and concentrates it.” (This did not noticeably lessen Fey’s confusion.) Placing a hand over the pot (or cauldron), she closed her eyes and spoke emphatically.

“Water.”

The contents of the pot (cauldron) flared with pale blue light and visibly shank in volume.

“Eau.”

“Agua.”

Each time Kallara spoke, the (partially enchanted) water shrank a little more in volume. The process was quite similar to laying Blessing of Health on the healing salve (because the author is not very creative when it comes to spellcasting), but appeared to be much harder. After fifteen casts, Kallara stopped and sat down on her patient’s bench. The water had been reduced to half its former volume, but was nowhere near being able to fit into the flask.

“Are you okay?” Fey asked. Kallara appeared very tired, and was even paler than the normal moon elf pallor.

Kallara smiled, touched at Fey’s concern. “I am fine. Sudden mana depletion results in tiredness and dizziness. I shall recover momentarily.”

“Can I help?” Extrapolating by the amount the water had shrunk (tsk tsk, making assumptions based on a single data point, badbad), Fey could tell that Kallara would need to drain her mana reserves several more times before the water would fit into the flask. Seeing how unpleasant the process was, Fey wanted to share the burden if she could, as she was the one who needed the enchanted water in the first place.

“Each casting takes quite a bit of mana, but you are welcome to try,” said Kallara, leaning tiredly against the wall. “Focus on the essence of water, and invoke it.

Essence of water. Got it. At this point, most people would start philosophizing about the essence of water, how it is essential for life and the cause of death (etc., etc.). What Fey did was imagine an oxygen atom with two hydrogen atoms bonded at an angle of 104.5 degrees from each other (hey, whatever works).

“Water.”

Fey felt a sharp jolt of pain in her head and suddenly became dizzy.

<Enchant efficacy decreased due to insufficient mana>

Looking into the pot (cauldron), Fey could barely tell that the liquid had condensed at all. Lame.

“You are really very talented,” said Kallara, impressed. “It takes much skill” (or whatever Fey had) “to cast a spell without sufficient mana reserves.”

<Fey’s fame has risen to 6! (+1)>

Not so lame? Wobbly, Fey sat down next to Kallara. I feel like I just spent a whole day without eating (Arwyn would occasionally forget to eat if she was immersed in a video game or a really good book, resulting in extreme physical weakness and sometimes a headache).

“How much mana does each casting normally require?” Fey asked.

“Two hundred points.”

Fey checked her status:

<Mana: 0/60>

Well. It looks like I’m not going to be much help. With less than half the required mana for the spell, Fey’s Enchant had very little effect.

Kallara closed her eyes and meditated to recover her mana faster. Unable to learn the mage-only skill, Fey simply rested quietly. Whenever either of them had fully restored their mana reserves, they would get up and cast Enchant. Each time Kallara stood up, she would cast Enchant fifteen times and halve the water’s volume. Fey got up more often because she only had 60 points to recover, but made very little impact on the enchanting process. After her fifth partially successful spell, Fey’s efforts –resulting in stabbing headaches and waves of dizziness – were rewarded:

<Fey’s intelligence has increased to 12! (+1)>

With Fey’s (negligible) help, Kallara condensed the water to the size of the flask in sixty castings. Using a series of chains, pulleys, and tubes, she tipped the pot (cauldron) sideways and poured the enchanted water directly into the flask where it sat on the counter. “Go ahead and take it,” invited Kallara with a (mischievous) smile.

Fey closed one hand around the flask and pulled. It did not budge. She pulled harder, with the same (lack of) success. Eventually, she managed to heave it off the counter with both hands. Bracing her legs to keep them from collapsing under the weight, she gritted out, “Why is it so heavy?”

“It weighs as much as the water used to make it,” said Kallara, eyes twinkling in amusement (ohoho, she’s a prankster, she is).

Six buckets of water. Why me? Anybody who has had the occasion to carry around large amounts of water knows that it is quite dense and heavy. The condensed water was at the (far) edge of Fey’s ability to lift, let alone carry anywhere.

If Fey were male and/or obsessed with proving her manliness, she would have walked out with the flask (no matter the damage done to her lower back). Being female and not having high levels of testosterone to impair her thought processes (sorry guys, but it’s true), she asked Kallara if it was okay to get the flask dirty. Permission granted, Fey then placed the diminutive container sideways on the ground and rolled it outside. (Magic tried to help. It was both cute and ineffective.)

Back at the dryad’s tree, Fey called out, “Pom! I have the enchanted water.”

Pom stepped into view. “Excellent. Pour it anywhere on the ground around here.” Seeing Fey crouched on the ground over the flask, the dryad asked curiously, “Why are you crouched on the ground?”

“It’s too heavy for me to lift,” Fey answered absentmindedly, fiddling with the flask’s opening to allow the water to flow out.

“Ah.” Pom nodded in understanding. Being a small humanoid creature, she presumably encountered many things that were too heavy to lift.

A few seconds after the enchanted water soaked into the ground, the tree reacted. Its leaves broadened and became even more vibrantly green, and its apples ripened to a deep red.

“Wonderful, wonderful.” Pom gazed at her tree in satisfaction. Walking along the branches, she began picking apples – still cherry-sized – and throwing them to Fey. “Fifteen was it?”

Ahh! Incoming! “Yes,” Fey managed to respond while trying to catch the falling fruit. In the end, she had five apples in her hands and ten (ignominiously) fallen to the ground. Yay, I caught five (Fey was feeling smug at even that rate of success while the rest of us shake our heads in disappointment). Picking up all the apples, she stowed them away in her pouch.

“Thank you.” Fey bowed formally to the dryad.

“Don’t thank me; thank Malus,” Pom said, patting the tree affectionately.

“Thanks to you both.” Fey headed off to find Blade.

I wonder if Blade is done getting whatever was next on the list. Using the party menu of the game system, Fey located the warrior on the map and walked to his location.

“What the…” It looked like Fey had walked into a recent war zone; the ground was pocked with craters that were the result of small explosions. “What happened?” she asked Blade, who was grimly digging in the dirt at the centre of a crater. Completely unmindful of the ambience, Magic and Amethyst had a cute, happy reunion, hopping around and squeaking.

“Self-destruct[iii],” Blade answered shortly (If you understand the Pokemon reference, you don’t need to scroll down to the footnote). Fey winced in sympathy.

He looks terrible. In addition to dings and scratches on his armour from the explosions, Blade had the scabs of healing cuts all over his exposed skin. Dirt and blood made him look rather grim (and grimy), and he looked pale and sick from poison. In (unflattering) contrast Fey had had a lucky injury- and dirt-free day. Her brand-new armour was still clean and shiny, and she had long since recovered from the effects of the (self-inflicted) thornweed poison.

Despite her best efforts, Fey’s sense of empathy (and guilt) kicked in. It was likely that if she had been the one to collect all the strength tonic ingredients by herself, she would have ended up in Blade’s current state, as messy as she had been after the previous day’s adventures (see Chapters 2-7 if you don’t remember). As such, she felt that she had accidentally transferred all of her misfortune and undignified adventures onto him.

Sighing, Fey gave into her conscience and pulled out her (super-expensive-‘hope-I-never-have-to-use-it-again’) jar of healing salve from her pouch. “Here.” She offered the jar (ungraciously) to Blade.

“What is it?”

“Healing salve.”

Hesitantly, Blade took the jar. Fey winced (and cried on the inside) when he scooped out a large glob of salve, but made no comment. Experimentally, he dabbed a little onto a cut; all of his wounds began healing and he felt much better. He then enthusiastically slathered on the rest of the salve (the waste! It hurts!). His cuts closed completely and his skin regained its normal (medium not-that-tan-but-not-that-pale) colour. As a bonus, the continuous poisoning finally paid off:

“Hey, this stuff is great!” Blade happily returned the (remains of the) salve to Fey, who accepted it, lips tight with pain (the waste! It hurts!). Don’t think about it. It’s fine. Really.

“What’s next on the list?” Fey asked (to distract herself).

“This is it; I got everything.” Blade pulled out what looked like a very small, slightly charred potato out of the ground and put it into his bag. “When I saw that you weren’t at the apple tree, I went to get the rest of the ingredients.” With the need to wait for their mana to regenerate, it had taken Fey and Kallara (mostly Kallara) about an hour and a half to make the enchanted water, giving Blade plenty of time to collect all the rest of the herbs.

“Great!” There had been five more ingredients on the list, and the time Fey saved by having Blade do the work of collecting them made her feel better about the use (waste) of the healing salve. “Let’s get brewing.” Collecting her pets, Fey led the way back to Kallara’s.

“Back so soon?” Fey had left with the enchanted water maybe half an hour before (it had taken a while to roll the flask to the dryad’s tree).

“Blade collected the rest of the ingredients while we were making the enchanted water,” Fey explained.

“What enchanted water?” Blade muttered, not expecting an answer (and he didn’t get one). Resigned to ignorance, he began pulling various plant matter (corpses) out of his backpack. Fey added her sweetgrass and dryad-blessed apples to the pile.

“Excellent!” said Kallara, smiling. “I gather that you two have formed a team?”

Blade said, “Yes” at the same that Fey said, “Temporarily”. They gave each other a look. Why do I suddenly feel that I’m in a lover’s quarrel? This is ridiculous. She looked away in a manner that suggested that holding eye contact was for plebeians. While Fey did not particularly dislike Blade (anymore), she had seen nothing about him to suggest that they would become best friends. Fey tended not to waste energy maintaining acquaintances and casual friends, so she expected that they would part as soon as this particular adventure was over. On the other hand, Blade thought (more like a normal person) that they had become friends through shared adventures; he thought that Fey was an extremely interesting individual, and wanted to continue as a team (not realizing that if he wanted ‘normal’ adventures, teaming up with Fey was the last thing he should do).

Kallara smiled (knowingly) and began processing the strength tonic ingredients. The first thing she did was take down a mortar and pestle, then start grinding sweetgrass.

“Uh, do you need that sweetgrass turned into a paste?” Fey asked (if you don’t know why she asked, go back and read Chapter 9).

“Yes. The finer, the better.”

“Amethyst can take care of that.” Putting the slime on the counter next to the mortar, she told the slime, “Whip the sweetgrass, but don’t break the bowl.” Amethyst repeatedly hit the plants at high speed, reminding Fey of some kind of automatic food processor.

“My, that is convenient,” said Kallara after watching for a few seconds. She then bustled off to handle the next ingredient.

Just as Blade was about to suggest that they return in a few hours for the finished brew, Fey asked, “Can I help?”

Kallara looked up from the blossum petals she was counting, surprised. “I… Yes, of course.” Most people treated Kallara as almost a vending machine, coming in to be healed or to buy ready-made health and mana potions. Unless she gave out a help quest, she almost never got requests for more complex potions, and even then, players would leave the ingredients with her and return to pick up the finished product. Fey was the only one so far to express any interest in Kallara’s craft, but even so, Kallara had not expected the player to want to help with such a complicated potion. Potion-making was in general a fairly boring craft; it involved a lot of chopping, peeling, grinding, boiling, and waiting, and a mistake in any of the steps would result in a less effective potion.

Kallara truly appreciated Fey’s courtesy and welcomed the help. Smiling (gratefully), she said, “Why don’t you remove the thorns from the thornweed stems?” Even though Fey had not volunteered his services, Kallara then told Blade, “You can go collect water from the stream. Resigned to his fate (as unpaid labour), Blade took the bucket and left.

Fey drew her dagger and set to the task. “So, do you only need the thornweed stems for the potion?”

“Yes,” Kallara replied absently, making piles of blossum petals. “The stems have important strengthening properties, but the thorns are quite toxic.

Indeed they are. After Fey had de-thorned all the stems, she swept the poisonous remains into her pouch.

With three people (and a slime; Magic was pretty useless at this particular task) to share the labour, the strength tonic was prepared in just over an hour. “It will need to steep overnight,” Kallara told the two.

“I will come collect my portion when I am next in town,” Fey said. With time running three times as fast in the game, players logging on only at night actually only spent one in three game days in Fantasia.

“Your portion?” Kallara asked.

It really hurt to say, but Fey forced out the words, “Give… Blade… half.”

Mistaking Fey’s hesitant speech for shyness, Kallara smiled at Blade. “It looks like someone has taken a liking to you.”

Blade had some idea of Fey’s personality now, and knew for certain that Fey was not in any way shy. He also thought that there was a very high probability that Fey had not taken a liking to him. He did not, however, know her well enough to understand the pauses between the words (it was her sense of fairness battling with her greediness, for you lame readers who also don’t know her well enough). Giving up on understanding (again), Blade said, “I will collect my portion when I am able, lady.”

“Excellent. Thank you for all your help today, you two. I will see you soon.”

“It is I who should be thanking you,” said Fey.

“Yes, thank you,” Blade added.

With the (excessive) polite words of gratitude said, the healer remained in her shop while Fey and Blade left for other adventures.

Footnotes:

[i] “pome” is the scientific name for fruits like apples and pears and Malus is the genus containing the apple tree species

[ii] This is clearly the Grass-type move Razor Leaf from Pokemon

[iii] This is a Normal-type Pokemon move where the user of Self-destruct explodes, fainting and dealing heavy damage to the opponent at the same time

11: Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Fey was hungry, so she headed towards the tavern. Blade fell into step beside her.

After a few seconds, he asked, “Where are we going?”

“I am going to get something to eat. I have no idea where you’re going.”

Since Blade had not eaten for about the same amount of time as Fey, he considered it to be a reasonable plan and kept walking with her. Wanting to avoid the hostile comments that would inevitably be aimed his way if Fey continued to be averse to his presence, he tried convincing her that continuing as a team would be a good idea.

“Hey, we did pretty well together collecting those herbs. Why don’t we keep on working as a party?”

“I don’t need at me– Ahem, two warriors don’t make a particularly effective party.” Fey had been about to say ‘I don’t need a meat shield anymore,’ but decided not to be (more) rude at the last second. Instead, she went with the argument that she and Blade did not make a particularly effective fighting unit. Effective parties usually combined short-range and long-range fighters, magic with melee attacks, as well as classes able to buff and heal. Unless they had group-based techniques or simply worked extremely well as a team, two warriors in a party would not defeat monsters at a faster rate than when alone.

Instead of being put off by her argument, Blade took it as a suggestion. “Let’s look for some other party members then.”

Eew, more people. Fey did not verbalize her feelings, but her facial expression eloquently conveyed how she felt about the idea.

When they entered the tavern, Tallen came bustling up to greet them. “Welcome! What will it be today?” Recognizing Fey from earlier (see Chapter 4 if you don’t remember), he brightened. “Ah, the young elfess! (making words up now, are we?) Have you brought me more twiggys?”

“I’m afraid not,” Fey replied contritely.

“Ah well. I’ll feed you anyways,” said Tallen jokingly.

“Many thanks,” Fey replied.

Fey seated herself at one of the tables as Tallen disappeared into the kitchen. Blade sat across from her, looking curious as to her interaction with the tavern-keeper. He had noticed that Fey treated Kallara like a real human being rather than an NPC, and her conversation with Tallen followed the pattern. Being still rather incompetent at dealing with Fey (*understatement*), he broached the subject.

“Hey, Fey, you know that NPCs aren’t real people, right?”

Out of the many (many, many) things that annoyed Fey, number one was probably having her intelligence insulted. If Fey’s liking for Blade had been graphed from their first interaction, it would have started at some small negative value (-10), gradually creeping up to a small positive value (+4) as they collected herbs. That comment then plunged the scale back down into the negative (-1000).

Fey plunged into ‘heavy sarcasm mode,’ her voice dropping an octave and words dripping with scorn. “Really? Oh, but they look so real! What a big surprise! I never would have figured it out without you telling me!”

Blade backpedaled, holding his hands up defensively, sensing that he had sparked true irritation, if not outright anger, from his (soon-to-be-ex-) party member. “Hey, sorry.”

Blade would have been in for at least five more minutes of tongue-lashing, but he was saved (*rescued*) by Tallen’s arrival with two heaping plates of food. Fey’s attention was instantly diverted to the mouth-watering aroma of fish and chips, which looked perfectly fried, golden and crispy. As a bonus, there were even small containers of ketchup on each plate (Arwyn really likes ketchup).

“That looks amazing,” Fey breathed, as Tallen set the plates on the table. The tavern-keeper grinned at her enthusiasm. “It tastes even better,” he boasted.

Fey ate a fry dipped in ketchup, and her eyes closed involuntarily at the amazing taste. Ten out of ten. Still grinning, Tallen said, “I’ll just let you enjoy your meal then,” and retreated back to the kitchen.

Fey continued eating, having completely forgotten about any irritation she had with Blade (the like/dislike graph now has a blank section where no data was collected).

Curiously, Blade tried the food. It was very good, but fish and chips were not his favourite food, so he did not go into raptures over it. As the two ate, Blade was rather amazed at the amount of food Fey consumed. She quickly devoured all the pieces of fried fish on her plate, then slowly savoured the remaining fries. He had expected someone as thin as Fey to eat very lightly. In reality, Arwyn’s food intake was very irregular. If she spent a whole day sitting in front of the computer or reading a book, she could eat very small amounts of food and feel full. However, if she did any sort of physical exertion, her eating habits started to resemble that of a swarm of locusts (or a teenage boy). Having spent the (virtual) day walking around the forest, running around after monsters, and beating things up, Fey had worked up an appetite. Blade himself felt full after eating three quarters of his plate, but his manly pride prevented him from losing an eating contest to a girl, and he cleared his plate.

Even though the delicious food had rendered her fairly oblivious to the world, Fey could not help but notice when a female player sat down next to Blade. She was an elf attired in the same newbie outfit Fey herself had been wearing the day before, though the stranger appeared to have taken her hair out of the default braid, letting it hang down to her shoulders.

Evaluating the stranger’s appearance, Fey could tell that the newbie had made some unfortunate choices for her avatar’s appearance. She guessed that in real life, the girl had a round, cute face; when she had chosen the elven race, the sharper angles of the elven ‘mold’ cancelled out the round features rather than enhancing them. This resulted in a rather plain appearance that was neither cute nor elegant. Additionally, the stranger had either kept her real blonde hair colour or chosen the hue; it did not complement the pale skin of a moon elf and made her look washed-out and sallow. Fey sighed internally at the insult to aesthetics, but did not care enough to stop eating her fries (*nomnom*).

The strange girl cozied up to Blade in a blatantly flirtatious manner. “Hi, do you mind if I join your party?” she asked in a voice that Fey instantly found annoying, having a bit of a whiny tone.

Blade, to his credit, did not appear affected by the girl’s overly friendly body language (or maybe he didn’t notice). He did, however, sound enthusiastic at the suggestion. “We were just talking about looking for more party members!” Fey shot him a glare at his exaggeration (she had not said a single thing about looking for more party members), and he hastily tacked on, “What do you think, Fey?”

It did not escape Fey’s notice that the girl looked less-than-pleased that Blade had deferred the decision to Fey. Despite her initial negative impression of the girl, Fey proceeded logically. “What are your level and class?”

The girl looked resentful, but answered, “I’m still level one.”

…She didn’t even finish the slime quest! Fey’s impression that the girl was lazy, not very clever, and looking for a guy to mooch off of was confirmed when she continued, “but I’m sure with your help, I would level up very quickly.” It was obvious (even to Blade) that the “your” in that sentence excluded Fey.

“Uh… Well…” Blade hesitated, not wanting to be rude, but not wanting to be saddled with a newbie (n00b).

Fey, on the other hand, had no problems with being rude. “No,” she stated flatly, then went back to eating her fries (omnomnom).

“Nobody asked you,” said the girl, the whiny tone in her voice becoming more pronounced (actually, Blade asked her, you idiot). It was becoming clear to Fey that the girl was trying to play some sort of female dominance game (or something) in order to establish herself as Fey’s superior (or something). Normally, Fey would not hesitate to inflict the sort of emotional wounds that would take years of therapy to heal (Vicious Strike ain’t just a game skill, it’s a way of life), but refrained for two reasons. One, she would have to stop eating her fries in order to talk; and two, the (dubious) prize of winning this particular confrontation would be the ‘pleasure’ of Blade’s company, which she was currently attempting to rid herself of. She settled for giving the girl a patronizing look, guaranteed to irritate.

Finally, Fey finished her food. Blade was still hesitating, so Fey assumed (incorrectly) that he wanted to party with the girl, but wanted to avoid having a disagreement with Fey. She resolved his (non-existent) dilemma by saying, “Well, Blade, I shall leave you in the company of this charming young lady.” The amount of sarcasm loaded onto the word “charming” would be enough to make a small child cry. Having just had a great idea as to what her next adventure would be, Fey hurriedly dissolved the party and left the table before Blade could say more than, “Hey-!”

Blade tried to get up and follow, but was hampered by the charming young lady (ooh, now even the dignified non-parenthetical narrator is getting all snarky) clinging to his arm and saying, “We don’t need her.”

Ignoring the minor scene happening between Blade and the girl (our heroine is really a bit cruel), Fey went over to Tallen to pay for her meal and to ask a question. “Hey, Tallen, is there a stronger monster than twiggys that can be used for firewood?”

Tallen’s eyes lit up at the question. “Indeed there is! Treants[i] live up past the twiggy clearing, just before you reach the Dark Forest. Each is about a man’s height, big enough for a whole day’s cooking. Bring me a load of those, and I’ll make sure you never have to pay for a meal again.”

“What level are they?” The reward for this quest was attractive, but not enough so that Fey was willing to risk her (virtual) life.

“Fifteen.”

Perfect for some levelling up. “I’ll go after some treants right now. Hope you have some delicious food waiting when I get back.”

Tallen waved that away (of course, of course). Eager for Fey to obtain as many logs as possible, he gave her some advice. “You’ll want to get one of those magical backpacks that lightens and makes items smaller. They’re sold at the general store.” Fey thanked him and headed towards the general store.

Jeral (see Chapter 3 if you don’t remember) was again on duty at the general store and recognized Fey from her earlier visit. “Ah yes, the fair maiden who was in need of rope. How may I be of assistance today?” He smiled charmingly at Fey, and was rather surprised that, in contrast to her previous flustered reaction, she now appeared completely unaffected by his flirtatious manner. Fey had stopped just outside the shop to compose herself before entering (*mentally prepared*) in order to not act like an idiot in front of the handsome elf. “I would like to look at the magical backpacks, if you please,” she said, all coolness and politesse (gettin’ all fancy with the French vocabulary, are we?).

Rather taken aback, and even wondering if Fey was the same person who had visited earlier, Jeral led the way to the correct shelf, stocked with various backpacks made of brown leather. He explained each item. “Here’s your basic unmagicked backpack, only ten gold. The next shelf down holds the weight reducing backpacks, half-weight at 100g, quarter-weight at 1000g, eighth-weight at 10000g, and so on. Below those are the size-shrinking packs, tenth-size, twentieth-size, and fiftieth-size at 100g, 1000g, and 10000g. The bottom shelf holds the packs that both reduce weight and size, at 500g, 5000g, and 50000g for each level.

Being presented with numbers for analysis sent Fey into robot mode, making it even easier to ignore Jeral’s attractive smile. In the end, Fey finished her calculations and made her purchase. She had to go to the bank and withdraw almost all of her gold (which was a fairly painful experience), but she saw buying the packs as a permanent investment and spent the money willingly.

“I would like to buy eleven of the tenth-sized packs and four of the half-weight packs, please.”

Jeral was confused at the unusual request, but dutifully gathered a pile of the requested items. “That will be 1500g.”

Fey handed over the money, smiled politely at Jeral, and left the shop carrying a considerable pile of leather. Jeral shook his head bemusedly. “That’s a strange one,” he muttered to himself.

Fey started on the path towards the treants, waiting until she was deep enough into the trees to be unobserved before she dealt with her purchases. Back when she had received her first items (see Chapter 2 if you don’t remember), Fey had noticed that there were no item slots to ‘equip’ anything. She had then drawn the conclusion that items in Fantasia were not as restricted as in other games. From that conclusion, she had guessed that she would be able to place her magical packs inside each other for a multiplicative effect on the magic. With her purchases, Fey calculated that she could put ten of the size-reducing packs inside the eleventh, creating a hundredth-size pack. She could then place the size-reducing packs successively into the four weight-reducing packs, creating the effect of reducing size 100 times and weight 16 times, all for a tiny fraction of the cost of a single magical pack with similar effects. For now, she did not bother with the complicated arrangement and simply put all the packs into one, shouldered it, and walked on.

***

Leandriel stood at the edge of Skyhaven, the (not-so-creatively-named) major celestial city that floated among the clouds. Looking down past the clouds, he saw the endless green of forest canopy and concluded that the floating city was currently travelling over the Elvenwood. Taking a deep breath, Leandriel stepped off the edge into thin air.

With his wings spread, Leandriel waited for his descent to change from a stomach-churning free-fall to a controlled glide before he cautiously began to beat his wings. The past few days had been very challenging, adjusting to his two new limbs. First of all the wings were huge. The game developers had decided to follow some of the laws of physics, making the wingspans of creatures large enough to theoretically support their weight in flight. In the case of Leandriel’s muscled 75kg-frame, plus full plate armour, that meant a wingspan of 6m. When folded, each wing jutted well over his head and trailed all the way to the ground. He had not yet seen himself in a mirror, but, judging by the reactions of the people around him, he guessed that he cut quite an imposing figure. It was a good thing that people automatically avoided crowding him now, because he still felt clumsy doing something as simple as turning around when walking.

His second challenge had been simply learning to move his unnaturally-added limbs. It had taken a couple of hours of experimentation before he learned what his wings ‘felt’ like and could move them reliably. Fortunately, the correct series of movements required for beating his wings in flight were programmed ‘instinctively’ into the wings, or he was sure his first forays into the air would have been fatal.

Last but not least of his challenges was the amount of stamina that flying consumed. While the huge muscles and lungs that would theoretically need to accompany the huge wings had been eliminated in favour of aesthetics, he certainly felt the exhaustion from using his phantom muscles. His wings ‘felt’ rather like arms when controlling their movement, but the power required during flight was even greater than his legs could generate. As a level 99 warrior, Leandriel had vast amounts of strength and stamina, but he was already starting to feel out of breath from his few minutes of flight. He went back to gliding to conserve energy, circling over the forest and wishing there were thermal updrafts he could ride.

Still, Leandriel thought the inconvenience of having wings was definitely worth the trouble. He did not particularly like adrenaline-inducing activities like roller coasters or extreme sports, but the thrill of self-sustained flight was something he savoured. In the blue skies of the bright and sunny day, Leandriel planned to practice flying until he ran out of stamina, then return to Skyhaven and move on to testing other features of Fantasia.

***

On the rather long walk to the treants, Fey did some experimenting. Pulling out a thornweed thorn she had saved (see Chapter 10 if you don’t remember), she held it in front of Amethyst. “Here, eat this.” The slime opened her mouth and engulfed the thorn (Do not try this at home. Ingesting toxic substances generally leads to ill effects, like dying). Fey could see it floating inside the slime until it was gradually digested.

Interesting. It appeared that instead of only being able to secrete one kind of poison, Amethyst could memorize and copy all poisons she was presented with (way OP[ii], just for fun). If that were the case, Fey wanted Amethyst to learn Magic’s blue mushroom poison, but gave up that idea considering that multitude of possible effects that Spore could inflict. Instead, she pulled out another thorn and pricked herself.

<Duration: 5 minutes>

<Duration: 5 minutes>

Fey got a minor headache from the poison, but persisted in training her Immunity ability as she walked. She repeated the cycle of poisoning herself, then waiting for her health to replenish a total of eight times before arriving at her destination.

<Immunity has reached level 2!>

<Immunity has reached level 3!>

[i] Treants are a race of sentient tree-like creatures from the Dungeons & Dragons universe

[ii] gamer abbreviation for “over-powered”

12: Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Satisfied with her ability’s progress, Fey put the thornweed away and surveyed her surroundings. …So where are the treants? According to her game map, Fey was in the correct location, but she saw nothing but trees. She saw no movement but the natural rustling of leaves.

After several (long) minutes of staring, Fey (finally) realized that some of the ‘trees’ she saw must be treants. Unlike the twiggys, which moved around and had eyes, inactive treants were fairly indistinguishable from true trees. “Great,” she muttered, “Now what?” Fey had the feeling that if she randomly started hitting things and damaged real trees, someone (or something) would show up and make her regret it. What had Tallen said about treants? Something about being man-sized. Fey looked up toward the treetops. All of the trees were a good deal taller than her, but some were merely large, while others were truly enormous. Fey approached one of the smaller trees. Well, if you only consider the trunk up to the first fork, I suppose you could call it “man-sized.”

Fey told Magic and Amethyst to go hide, as she doubted that their abilities would be useful against a monster armoured in thick bark. Hoping she had guessed correctly, she attacked the tree with one of her more powerful kicks, turning sideways to the tree and hitting heel first. The impact with the solidly rooted tree reverberated up her leg, making her glad that she was wearing boots.

For a moment, nothing happened. Fey cringed and imagined an irate elven ranger popping up out of nowhere to punish her for damaging the forest. She was actually relieved when instead, the treant woke up, opening scary yellow eyes, uprooting itself from the ground and beginning to chase her.

Fey easily dodged the treant’s attacks. While faster than its smaller (and stumpier) cousin the twiggy, the treant’s speed was nothing to be impressed about. Setting her feet sideways to the treant, Fey performed her most powerful kick, spinning so that her back was to the monster and kicking out like a horse. Unfortunately, Fey did not have enough mass to back up the momentum behind the kick, so when her foot collided with the treant, she was the one that moved, hopping a little on her supporting foot (*law of conservation of momentum*). Fey was not exactly surprised at this turn of events, as nearly everyone Arwyn sparred against in tae kwon do class weighed more than she did (the exceptions being children and people more than six inches shorter than her), so she kept her balance easily. *Mental grumble* Not for the first time, Fey wished she weighed more.

Whazzat? Fey tried to read the skill description while avoiding being squashed by the treant.

<Kicking: improves the speed and power of all leg-based attacks and makes all kicking skills improve faster. Skill improves upon the execution of any kicking skill.>

Awesome. Fey had intended to become a sword fighter in Fantasia, but during combat, her training asserted itself, causing her kicking skills to quickly outstrip her (non-existent) sword skills. She kicked the treant again, remembering to practice using her weaker left leg. The monster was large and slow enough that Fey could consider it a stationary target, so she performed several fancy kicks for fun, jumping into the air and/or spinning 360 degrees before kicking to add extra force. She also added Roundhouse Kick – similar to Snap Kick, except that the foot was angled to kick more horizontally than vertically – to her skills to round out the basic tae kwon do kicks she knew. While the treant did not appear noticeably damaged, Fey was now breathing heavily and wanted to sit down. Any kicks that required both feet leaving the ground at the same time required a great deal more energy than normal kicks, and Fey had approximately 60 seconds worth of energy when it came to high-intensity exertion (this was an issue because during tae kwon do, sparring sessions lasted 90 seconds). She stopped attacking and rested while dodging the treant’s slow movements.

It occurred to Fey that she now had an ability capable of allowing her sword to penetrate her opponent’s tough bark. She drew her blades and activated Mana Edge. Stepping in close to the treant, Fey executed a one-two slash with sword and dagger, then jumped back to evaluate the effect. Two inch-deep gashes were visible on the treant, one above the other. Fey sighed; she had been aiming to hit the same spot twice. Let’s try this again. She sprang forward and retreated. There were now four cuts. This is going to be a long day.

By the time Fey ran out of mana, the treant sported a hand-sized area pitted with numerous slashes, and sap was flowing from the wound. Fey was quite tired but satisfied with her progress. Since the treant now had an open wound, Fey thought that Magic’s ability would now work on it. “Magic, cast Spore,” she called out. She heard a squeak from somewhere above her head, and a cloud of spores drifted down.

“…Magic, cast Spore until something happens!”

More clouds of spores descended.

<Spore was successful. The treant’s speed has been reduced.>

The treant was now as slow as a twiggy. “Good job, Magic!” Fey heard a squeak in reply. She sheathed her weapons and went back to kicking the treant while her mana regenerated. Unlike in real life, Fey really wanted her opponent to die, so her kicks were at full strength (which made her very tired). She aimed directly at the wounded area, which seemed to hurt the treant, but also caused her boots to get covered in sticky sap. Fey grimaced as dirt began to accumulate on her sticky boots, but it did not affect her performance and she continued attacking.

After fifteen minutes that included another round of Mana Edge and still more kicking, the treant finally went down. All of its leaves shrivelled and fell off, and it toppled to the ground, almost squashing Fey in the process.

Fey collapsed to the ground as well, leaning against a (real) tree and trying to catch her breath. Fifteen minutes was far too long to be fighting, and she had only a single log to show for it.

Magic and Amethyst descended from the tree to inspect their owner, who, apart from the heaving of her chest from panting, appeared quite dead. As Fey’s breathing slowed, her resemblance to a dead body increased.

Amethyst landed on Fey’s head and squeaked concernedly. Leaving her head propped against the tree (*too tired to hold head up*), Fey lazily took the slime down and placed her on the ground. Magic climbed up one bent leg and viewed Fey from his vantage point on her knee. Fey patted him absently and resumed her corpse imitation.

After a few minutes, Fey revived (*undead*) and heaved herself off the ground. She would have liked nothing more than to go find some activity that involved little or no movement, but she had treants to kill. It had not escaped her notice that she had not gained a single level since logging in. This was in part due to the fact that she was hitting the steep part of Fantasia’s experience curve, and in part due to the fact that she had spent quite a bit of time at Kallara’s, making potions rather than fighting. Determined, she sent her pets back up to shelter, found another (relatively) short tree, and kicked it.

After the defeat of her third treant, Fey levelled up.

<Fey’s stamina has increased to 101 (+1)!>

Stamina was an interesting stat in Fantasia. It could go up or down based on a player’s activity, and could not be changed except through playing. The base level at 100 gave a player the same kind of stamina as a normal, reasonably fit person. 150 stamina was at the level of the world’s top athletes. Anything above 150 gave a player superhuman endurance above a real body’s physical capacity for storing energy.

In addition to the level and stamina increases, Fey’s various kicking skills were between levels 4 and 6, the Kicking skill was at level 2, Magic had caught up to Amethyst’s level 10 (*small bonus in intelligence*), and Mana Blade had reached level 3. All in all, Fey felt that she had made good progress, even if she felt like all her muscles were crying and begging to not have to work anymore. She sent Amethyst off to collect fallen coins and began wrestling her hard-earned logs into a magical pack. Shrinking an item’s volume by a tenth meant that the pack reduced each of its dimensions by a little more than half (the cubic root of 10, to be exact), so the wood jutted out of the top of the backpack by quite a bit. She placed the packs into the arrangement described earlier (see Chapter 11 if you don’t remember) and, the logs fit quite nicely. She had just finished putting her logs away when the sound of breaking branches made her look up.

***

Leandriel was having fun. As he gained confidence in his flying abilities, he began to attempt more skilled maneuvers, such as climbing, diving, and spinning sharply in the air. He wobbled a few times during the exercises, but managed to regain his balance with an exhilarated grin.

The mistake he could not recover from was when he swooped down too close to the treetops. The air currents flowed differently as they hit the canopy, causing him to lose balance and clip his wings against the trees before being able to recover. Not wanting to damage the delicate bones of his new limbs, Leandriel folded them close to his body and let himself fall, trusting in his high defence and vitality to prevent the fall from becoming fatal.

Leandriel landed with a hard impact. His first thought was that he had landed on a log rather than flat ground. This impression was reinforced when several treants, disturbed by his noisy plummet, attacked simultaneously. He gingerly picked himself off the ground. When it appeared that he had no serious injuries, Leandriel drew his sword.

“Circle Slash!”

As he swung his sword, an expanding ring of holy light passed cleanly through all six attacking treants. Cut in half, the monsters toppled to the ground (*dead*). After the noise of falling trees had settled, Leandriel was able to hear the sound of rapid, shallow breathing. He turned, and felt something akin to panic when he realized that the ‘log’ he had landed on was actually an elven woman.

***

Fey was fairly sure that at least one of her ribs was broken. She had never experienced broken ribs before, but thought that the sharp pain she felt every time she inhaled was a good indicator of broken ribs. She had seen a large, indistinct shape for a moment before being crushed under its weight. She had no idea who or what it was until a young man’s face appeared in her field of vision.

“Are you all right?” The man asked urgently.

“I think… my ribs… are broken,” Fey managed to whisper. The man muttered angrily at himself and fumbled in his belt pouch. When he came up with a healing potion, Fey saw the silver sparkles in the red liquid that indicated it was a medium healing potion. A step higher than a basic healing potion, it was capable of healing up to 500 health points. As Fey only had 172 health, using a medium health potion would be a waste, and she opened her mouth to tell him so. The man took the opportunity to pour the liquid into her mouth. Too late now. She swallowed, and sighed in relief as the potion went to work and the pain faded.

“Are you okay now?” the man asked anxiously.

Fey took a deep breath to restore her mental faculties (if you enjoyed the short, understandable sentences of the last two paragraphs, too bad; that’s not how we roll). “You didn’t have to use a medium healing potion, you know; I only have 172 health.”

Leandriel was so startled at the elf’s first words that he answered honestly, “That’s the smallest healing potion I have.”

Fey finally noticed the man’s (huge) wings, visible above his shoulders. “Are you an angel?” she asked, then smiled at herself because it sounded like what someone delirious or dying would ask of his or her nurse. The angel nodded. Fey knew that the celestial race could not become angels until level 100, which explained why he would not have any lesser healing potions. This also told her that she was talking to an NPC, as there was no possible way for a player to have reached level 100 in the short time since Fantasia had been released.

Deciding that she had spent enough time lying on the ground, Fey sat up. The angel hurried to assist her. Fey took his hand out of politeness, but avoided putting any weight on it as she stood up, pushing straight up with her legs (standing up from sitting on the ground was one of the few things Fey could do gracefully). Upright, Fey noticed that her braid was off-centre. Grimacing, she pulled out the tie and began combing the braid out.

As the elf finger-combed her hair, she stepped into a patch of direct sunlight from the opening in the canopy created by his fall. Leandriel could not help but notice that her hair was a rich, deep purple rather than black. He shook the irrelevant thought from his head and began his apologies. “I really cannot begin to apologize enough for crashing into you like that.”

Fey was not mad at the angel, who clearly had not intended to crash into her, so she listened absently to his apology while retying her hair (*prioritize*). Now that her hair was free, she considered her options. Arwyn generally wore her hair loose, but as it fell nearly to her waist (she was lazy about getting it cut), wearing it unbound was not a practical choice for running around and fighting monsters. Hmm, I’m an elf. Inspired, Fey tied it in a simplified version of the typical elven hairstyle, where she tied the sides back to keep it out of her face, but left the rest loose (watch the Lord of the Rings if you don’t understand).

Leandriel continued his apology with an explanation. “I only recently earned my wings and am still mastering flying, so when I came too close to the canopy, I lost control and fell.”

Fey nodded in understanding. Huh. I never considered the difficulties of learning to fly. Hair dealt with, Fey took a few seconds to examine her drop-in visitor (couldn’t resist the pun, hahaha). He looked every inch the stereotypical warrior angel, tall, with dark hair, blue eyes, and a pair of (huge) wings that were blindingly white in direct sunlight. He was dressed in a set of silvery armour (including gloves and boots) engraved in runes, which she guessed were for magical protection. At his waist was a longsword in scabbard, and she could see a large jewel in the pommel that glowed white with holy element.

Sensing that the angel would continue apologizing for at least another five minutes if she did not intervene, Fey hurried to let him off the hook. “It’s fine. This sort of thing happens all the time.”

Leandriel could not believe his ears. What kind of misfortune could befall this thin, delicate-looking elf “all the time”? He had vague thoughts of an abusive relationship, but she somehow seemed too confident to be a victim.

Seeing the angel’s incredulous expression, Fey hurried to explain (incoherently). “I don’t mean I get broken ribs all the time, but sometimes I get hit during… training.” Fey did not know if NPCs would know what tae kwon do was, but shrugged and put it into her explanation (“training” just sounds very shady in this context). “I take tae kwon do class, and sometimes people make mistakes. Bruises happen.” Fey shrugged. By “people,” she really meant “overaggressive, clumsy boys” (she had never had a female step hard enough on her foot to leave a massive bruise or kick her directly in the stomach during sparring). Out of all the girls Leandriel could have crashed into, Fey was one of the least likely to start crying or having hysterics. She actually preferred her collision with the angel rather than a real-life incident; with a simple potion, all her pain was gone in an instant, while in real life, she would be suffering for weeks while her bruises healed.

Leandriel’s incredulous look faded with understanding, but his guilt remained. “But…”

“It’s fine,” Fey insisted. Along with her experience in dealing with collecting painful, non-serious injuries, she had gained ample experience in dealing with guilt-ridden boys. Normally, Arwyn would spend a few minutes exaggerating the pain she felt in order to make the boy feel extra guilty (for being so overaggressive and clumsy), but in this case Fey felt that it really was not the angel’s fault. Plus, he had wasted a medium healing potion on her, so she had no pain to exaggerate.

In her experience, the best way to lay the guilt to rest would be to change the subject. Looking around Fey saw the fallen treants. “Do you mind if I take these?” she asked, gesturing.

“Of course not,” said the angel, so Fey took her set of magical backpacks and started to load it with logs. She found the wood much easier to handle now that it was sliced neatly in half. She wished that she could slice it neatly in half.

Leandriel followed the elf over to the first fallen treant, and as soon as he figured out what she was doing, immediately began to help her pack up the logs.

Fey tried not to feel resentful at the fact that the angel could easily handle the weight of a log with one hand. It’s not his fault I don’t have any muscles in my arms (is this statement hyperbole or understatement?). At his curious look, Fey explained, “I’m collecting wood for the tavern-keeper.”

“Ah.” Leandriel nodded in understanding. Working together, the pair quickly collected all the logs. The elf ended up holding the bag open while Leandriel placed the logs in. At first, he was confused at seeing all the layers of leather, but quickly figured out what the elf had done and was impressed with her creativity. Leandriel went from feeling guilty for crashing into the elf to confused at her lack of reaction – he had expected either hysterics or anger – to becoming fascinated at meeting such an unusual person.

After they had collected all the wood, Leandriel introduced himself. “My name is Leandriel.” He offered a hand.

Fey shook his hand readily. “I’m Fey.”

13: Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

“I could help you collect treants,” Leandriel offered.

“You really don’t have to.” Fey was not averse to the idea of Leandriel’s company, but making a level 100 warrior attack level 15 treants would be akin to using a diamond-bit drill to dig a hole in a sandbox.

“I insist. It’s the least I can do.”

“Well, if you insist.” Fey could not help poking a little fun at Leandriel’s slightly formal way of speaking, but her eyes were full of good humour as she did so. She hoped that killing a few treants would help Leandriel stop feeling obligated to her and allow him to leave with a clear conscience.

“It’s settled, then.” Leandriel drew his sword, and, showing off just a little, performed one of his area attacks. Stabbing his sword into the ground, he called out, “Holy Impact!” A shockwave of white light travelled through the ground to a radius of 30 metres, purifying anything that touched the ground. One of the conveniences of using holy attacks was that it only damaged monsters; three seconds later, fourteen treants toppled slowly to the ground while the true trees remained unharmed.

Fey was suitably impressed, but… “Do you think you could leave one or two for me?” she asked. “I’m trying to do some training.”

“Oh. Of course.” Leandriel looked rather embarrassed at thoughtlessly ‘stealing her kills[i],’ which Fey found rather endearing.

Considering their disparate ability levels, elf and angel reached the same logical conclusion. “We should split up,” Fey said. There was simply no way that the two could form an effective team.

Leandriel nodded in agreement. “I’ll go this way,” he said, indicating a direction. “How many do you need?”

Good question. “Uh… I don’t have a quota. I was just planning on bringing as many as I could carry.”

Leandriel accepted the (half-baked) goal without any qualms, and even helped plan (what a great guy). “We should form a party so we can find each other later. Message me when you have a full load and we’ll meet up.”

<Leandriel’s party: Leandriel (leader), level 99 celestial angel; Fey, level 12 moon elf>

“I’ll set the experience allocation to ‘individual’,” said Leandriel considerately. With such a huge difference in level, if it were set to ‘weighted’, Fey would be lucky to get a single experience point per kill.

“Level 99?” Fey asked curiously.

“I died shortly after completing my advancement quest,” Leandriel explained.

“Ah.” Fey was about to leave to find some treants, but when she automatically went to collect her pets, she realized that she had better introduce them to Leandriel before he accidentally killed them.

“Leandriel?”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to introduce you to my pets. Amethyst, Magic, come out!” Fey called.

Leandriel expected to be surprised when Fey’s pets came out, and the sight of the little slime and mushroom indeed surprised him. There was something strange about the slime’s appearance, but he did not pinpoint the difference until it hopped over to Fey and spat out a number of small-denomination coins. The elf bent down to pick up the slime, murmuring, “Good job” to it.

The blue mushroom hopped forward until it landed on Leandriel’s left foot. He looked down at it, and it looked back at him.

Fey swooped down and plucked the mushroom off his foot, chiding, “Don’t go randomly sticking to people like that; it’s rude.” Something about the absurdity of an elf attempting to teach a mushroom manners made Leandriel’s lips twitch in amusement.

Holding a pet in each hand, Fey began the introductions. “This is Amethyst, and this is Magic.”

Leandriel could see why a purple slime would be called “Amethyst”, but why would a mushroom… “Magic mushroom?” he murmured.

Fey smiled delightedly at Leandriel, happy that someone understood the reference. “Yup.” Leandriel smiled in response.

Magic was hopping excitedly in her hand, clearly wanting to explore the new person, so Fey passed him over to the angel. Leandriel handled the mushroom deftly, allowing Magic to hop in spirals up and down his arms without worrying about petty matters like gravity.

“So how did you tame them?” Leandriel asked.

“Well, there’s a Monster Tamer skill,” Fey started explaining.

“I meant, what did you do specifically to tame these two?” Leandriel clarified. He had extensive knowledge as to most of the skills and monsters in Fantasia. Magic was now dangling upside down from a single gauntleted fingertip, looking thrilled at the experience.

“Oh. Um, well, during my first quest, I poked Amethyst with my dagger, but then I felt sorry for her and dumped a healing potion on her head. Then later, I told her to attack Magic and they ended up bouncing off each other until they passed out, and then somehow ended up as friends when they woke up.”

Leandriel chuckled softly, both at Fey’s adventures and at the programmer who had designed the monster-taming system.

Fey grinned as well. She did not mind being laughed at, as long as the laughter was not malicious, and it made her feel good to amuse people.

Reluctantly, Leandriel said, “We should probably get to work.” With a last pat, he returned Magic to Fey’s possession. The elf nodded and turned to leave, but Leandriel stopped her with a hand on her elbow. “Just a moment.” Leandriel took a breath to focus, then cast his Helping Hand[ii] buff.

<Helping Hand: increases player’s attack and defence by 10%>

<Duration: 1 hour>

While a Guardian’s buffing abilities were not as good as that of a priest, they were still a great help to any player lucky enough to benefit from them.

“Thank you,” Fey said, startled. She had not expected Leandriel to have spells in his repertoire, judging him to be a warrior based on his equipment.

Leandriel nodded and disappeared into the trees. Fey turned in the opposite direction and went back to work.

With her newly gained level, improving skills, and Leandriel’s Helping Hand, Fey could now defeat treants slightly faster, though it was still a very time-consuming and tiring process. After each kill, Fey loaded a log into her pack and checked if she could still pick it up. Between twelve and eighteen logs, it went from heavy to painfully heavy. Out of stubbornness (and a liking for round numbers), Fey then added two more to its contents. She heaved the pack onto her back and winced. The pressure on her shoulders was giving her a tension headache, and she felt faintly nauseated.

Fey messaged Leandriel:

<Fey: I’m done.>

<Leandriel: Walking towards you now.>

Fey opened the party map, and indeed Leandriel’s dot was moving towards hers. Orienting herself, she went to meet him halfway (or a quarter-way, judging by her turtle-like speed).

When Fey came into sight, Leandriel could immediately tell that she was carrying too much weight. Though she was not frowning, there was a tightness in her mouth and shoulders that indicated pain, and she was walking quite slowly. Leandriel’s first instinct was to help, but he thought that Fey might be the independent type who would insist on accomplishing everything by herself. He waited until they were on the path back to Moonwood village before cautiously broaching the subject.

“Would you like me to take some of your logs?”

Leandriel was surprised when the elf replied, “Yes, please,” without any hesitation (Fey was more the ‘make others do the heavy lifting’-type than anything else.) Fey was still walking very slowly, so he did not have any trouble moving behind her and removing logs from her pack while they continued travelling. As he transferred the wood to his belt pouch, the huge logs shrank down to the size of a straw. Upon gaining his angel wings, backpacks were no longer an option, and extra weight simply made flying harder, so Leandriel had obtained a belt pouch that reduced both weight and size by an incredible factor of 10,000. As an added bonus, it came with a magical organizing system that allowed the user to see the pouch’s inventory and locate items quickly.

The five logs that Leandriel placed into his pouch did not create a noticeable difference in the pouch’s weight or available space. Leandriel could have easily taken Fey’s entire load, but did not want to belittle her efforts. He stopped removing logs when Fey’s posture indicated that she was no longer in pain.

Fey sighed in relief, stretching her neck to both sides to relax her tense shoulders. Her pack was still heavy, but the weight was now tolerable. Her stride lengthened, and she began to walk at something approaching her normal quick pace. Leandriel kept up easily.

The sun was beginning to set in Fantasia, deepening the shadows of the forest and casting an orange tinge on everything (if you’ve gone back and tallied up everything Fey has done and thought, “Hey, the sun should have set a long time ago!” well, too bad. We’ll call it ‘creative license’). Leandriel called up a tiny ball of light to help them see.

“What class are you?” Fey asked. Leandriel seemed to be able to wield sword and magic with equal ease.

“A celestial warrior classed called ‘Guardian’. It’s quite similar to a human paladin, except with more holy affinity.”

“Guardian angel, eh?” (A Canadian-ism has made its appearance!)

Leandriel smiled. “I didn’t name it. You are a guardian yourself, I see.” He tapped the outer corner of his eye to indicate that he referred to Fey’s Guardian’s Blessing.

Fey grimaced for a second, reminded of her girly flower-butterfly tattoo. “It’s a very useful ability, but I rather wish that it had a different physical manifestation.” (Yes, our heroine does sometimes talk like that.)

“I think it rather suits you,” said Leandriel.

“Um, thank you.” Fey was not used to receiving either positive or negative comments about her appearance. Arwyn generally dressed in an unobtrusive manner, neither particularly eye-catching or particularly unfashionable. She rarely gave a second thought to her appearance, and never tried on several outfits before leaving the house (from her observations of her friend Leah, she saved an incredible amount of time that way).

Leandriel wisely turned the subject back to the game. “If you can, you should get your Guardian’s Blessing to level 10.”

“What happens at level 10?”

Leandriel decided to be mysterious and only said, “It will be useful later in the game.”

Not really understanding, but willing to take the advice, Fey said, “Okay.”

The rest of the walk alternated between restful silence and conversation if either party member thought of a subject. Fey tended to chatter if she was in a cheerful mood, but was somewhat suppressed (*squish*) by her heavy backpack. Leandriel was more of a quiet person, generally speaking only when he had something to say.

If any monsters saw Fey during the trip and decided to attack, at the sight of Leandriel, they quickly changed their minds and fled. The party arrived at Moonwood village without incident.

Leandriel was the subject of many stares and whispers in the elven village. His substantial wings caught the eye, his rounded ears marked him as not elven, and his equipment was as far from the beginner’s outfit that dominated in the village as it was possible to get.

“Who is that?”

“What’s an angel doing here?”

“He must be an NPC.”

Fey, on the other hand, caught much less attention, being much smaller and less winged than her companion. However, the few people who did notice her were even more curious, wondering where and how she had met the angel, and why the two were together despite the obvious level disparity.

Though people gathered and stared, nobody got in the way as they walked to the tavern. Tallen came out to greet them upon seeing Fey through the window.

“What have you brought me?” he asked, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of having his firewood troubles solved for a few weeks.

In answer, Fey unloaded her fifteen logs.

“Very good,” said Tallen, pleased. “I’ll go get your reward.”

“That’s not all of it,” Fey said, indicating Leandriel, who began to take out his logs. As he removed them from his pouch, they expanded from twig-size to longer than even his height. To the gathered audience, who could not see he hands clearly, the angel seemed to pull them out of thin air.

Tallen’s expression morphed from pleased at the sight of more logs, to startled as they continued to pile up, to dumbfounded as Leandriel stacked logs all the way up to the roofline of the tavern. Leandriel easily tossed the dead treants to the top of the pile, above his head, before they returned to full size and weight.

“I’ll just stack the rest of these in the back,” said Leandriel, walking over to the tavern’s small yard and unloading yet more logs. Fey and Tallen could only follow, mute (there wasn’t enough room for the spectators to tag along).

In total, 547 logs were stacked neatly against the tavern. While it had taken Fey ten to fifteen minutes to defeat a treant, it took Leandriel approximately five seconds to kill all the treants within 30 metres. Wandering casually through the forest, Leandriel had caused the extirpation (fancy word for “local extinction”) of treants within a third of their territory.

“All done,” said Leandriel, settling the last log into place.

Tallen disappeared into the tavern while Fey continued to stare at the angel.

“What?” Leandriel asked.

Fey had been awed into speechlessness at the sight of a small forest’s worth of wood, but the angel’s inquiry made her narrow her eyes. “What do you mean, ‘What?’ You know very well that that is a ridiculous number of logs.”

Leandriel tilted his head sideways to survey his work. “I suppose it is.”

“I feel an overwhelming urge to throw something at you right now,” Fey muttered.

Leandriel grinned. “Feel free.”

“There’s no point,” Fey grumbled, “I have no aim.” As a joke, she detached Magic from her boot and threw him to Leandriel, who caught the mushroom deftly.

Fey was startled when Leandriel suddenly dissolved the party as Tallen re-exited the tavern. She shot the angel a questioning look, but Tallen spoke before she could ask any questions.

“Good job, lass,” he said, having recovered from shock and regaining his usual enthusiasm. “I’ve never seen so many logs in one place.”

<Fey’s fame has increased to 16! (+10)>

“Here’s your reward,” the tavern-keeper continued, handing over a small number of coins. Fey’s eyes widened as she realized that she held five crystal coins.

Tallen had set the reward for Fey’s quest at ten gold and ten experience per treant, expecting that she would not be able to bring back more than twenty. Leandriel had taken advantage of the lack of item limit to help Fey as much as possible, even dissolving the party before the reward was given so that she would gain all the experience points. He supposed that he should report this loophole to the programmers; Fantasia was designed so that it was very difficult for strong players to power-level their friends.

Fey turned to Leandriel to share the gold reward, which made her realize why he had dissolved the party. “You… Why did you do that?”

Leandriel shrugged. “Because I could.” Five thousand experience points mattered very little at his level – approximately 0.01% of his experience bar – but made a huge difference to Fey.

Leandriel also refused when Fey tried to give him his share of the gold, which by rights should have been all five crystal coins. “Keep it,” he insisted. Leandriel actually owned several of the silvery-blue mithril coins that were worth one thousand crystal coins each, or a million gold. As he was always being given new weapons and armour to test, he had very few expenses, and so any money he earned went straight to the bank.

“…Thank you.” Fey could only try to accept Leandriel’s unreasonably generous gifts with some grace.

Reluctantly, Leandriel said, “I should return to my duties.” He had quite enjoyed helping Fey, and leisurely attacking treants had been a nice break from the high-level boss battles he usually went through, but he had work to do.

Fey accompanied Leandriel to the Moonwood’s only stone structure. Compared to the tree-buildings everywhere else, it clearly stood out. Four grey pillars connected by archways defined a circular space, but left it open to the elements. This was the typical appearance of a teleport gate. Every major settlement contained such a gate, but there were several limitations to its usage. First, a player could only teleport to an area they had already physically travelled to. Second, the player had to activate the gate, either by paying a large amount of gold or by owning a gate key, which could be purchased with real money on the VirtualRealities website.

Leandriel, of course, had a gate key. He activated the gate and set the destination to Skyhaven. As the gate slowly awakened, the grey pillars brightening to white, Leandriel turned to Fey. Quite formally, he asked, “May I add you to my friend list?”

Fey blinked, rather surprised than an NPC had a friend list, but said, “Of course.”

“Goodbye,” the angel said simply.

“See you later,” Fey replied.

Leandriel nodded. Just before he left, he cast Helping Hand on Fey again. Stepping into the circle, he disappeared in a flash of light.

Footnotes:

[i] ‘Kill-stealing’ refers to when high level players defeat all the monsters in an area and take all the experience and loot, preventing weaker players from training in the area, or when a player sneaks in to get the last hit on a monster.

[ii] Pokemon move that increases an ally’s attack in a team battle

14: Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

As soon as the angel had disappeared, Fey noticed that she had far too many people staring at her. Some of the people even looked like they were going to approach and talk to her. To prevent this (horrible) fate, Fey quickly slipped into the forest, out of sight (*escape*). Finding a trail, Fey walked quickly towards the monster territories, wanting to take advantage of Leandriel’s Helping Hand before it wore off.

Being the weakest, slimes lived closest to town. Fey was about to pass their territory in search of stronger monsters when Amethyst suddenly jumped off her head and started hopping away.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Fey took a step (being legless, Amethyst hadn’t gotten very far) and grabbed the slime, who immediately began wriggling in her hands. After a few seconds’ struggle, Fey finally resorted to dangling Amethyst by the bubble to prevent her escape. Amethyst began to swing back and forth like a pendulum, always facing one particular direction. Curious, Fey turned her body so that if the slime continued to swing the same way, she would be pointing in a different direction. Instead, Amethyst adjusted her movements to point the same way.

“So… You want me to go that way?” Fey guessed.

Amethyst gave a (n affirmative) squeak.

Fey sighed and followed her slime-compass to an unknown destination.

As Fey walked, the sun set fully and only the faint glow of the moon lit the forest. Fey noticed that her night vision was much better than in real life, one of the perks of being a moon elf. As well, Amethyst seemed to emit a faint glow, enough to make her visible, but not to illuminate other objects. As Fey passed through the slime territory, she saw newbies hunting other glowing slimes. That sure is convenient. The developers thought of everything. Without the bioluminescence, the (translucent) slimes would be extremely hard to find during the night, making it difficult for new players to complete their first quest. Fey quietly avoided the newbies and continued following Amethyst’s swaying movements.

Fey started having second thoughts about where she was going when she heard shouts and screams coming from the forest ahead of her. Stopping to consider her options, she saw an unmistakeable streak of light signifying a dead player travelling to the rebirth point.

Dubiously, she asked Amethyst, “Are you sure about this?”

The slime squeaked, and swung even more insistently back and forth (you are getting very sleepy… *hypnotize*).

“If I die, I’m going to be really mad at you,” Fey grumbled, but walked forwards anyway.

When Fey saw the cause of the ruckus, she laughed. The King Slime (blue this time) was avenging his slain subjects by attacking a bunch of newbies (*recycle adventures* Bad author). At level 1, they had absolutely no chance against the level 15 boss. The only reason that they were not all dead (yet) was because the (legless) King Slime was fairly slow, giving the newbies a chance to scramble out of its way as it smashed its bubble at them. The sight of all the people running frantically around the (cute) boss was indeed quite hilarious. I wonder why they don’t just all run away? No one seems to be trying to escape the area. The reason for the idiocy became apparent as one particular newbie tried to rally the others to fight. He soon disappeared in a second flash of light.

Fey had gotten the measure of the situation. “I’ll take care of this,” she told her pets, shooing them up a tree. Pitching her voice to carry, she called out “Scatter and meet back in town! It can’t catch us if we run.” Hearing the command amidst the panic and chaos made the newbies automatically obey; they ran off in all directions, with one (unlucky) newbie being chased by the King Slime.

Fey stepped in smoothly to intercept the King Slime. Sighing at the necessity, Fey used her Terrify skill to get the boss to stop its chase. As she had guessed, the sound that accompanied the skill was the same loud, high-pitched shriek she had emitted when she had first learned the skill (see Chapter 6 if you don’t remember).

<Terrify: -10% attack, -1 initiative>

The sound hurt her throat, but accomplished its purpose, making the King Slime come to a startled stop (and the newbie run away even faster, scared of the creepy sound).

Fey took her embarrassment at sounding so undignified and channelled it into extra viciousness as she used Vicious Strike in her first attack against the King Slime. Her strategy in the fight was again to use a combination of Mana Blade and Bleed, but this time she added a few strong kicks to make the King Slime bleed more out of its wounds. Between her increased levels, Leandriel’s buff, and Fey’s own Terrify debuff, it was not long before the King Slime was nothing more than a puddle of (blue) goo.

This time, the King slime dropped coins worth a few hundred gold, as well as a thin bracelet in the same copper as Fey’s ring (see Chapter 8 if you don’t remember)

As Fey put on the bracelet, it shrank to fit the exact dimensions of her wrist, conveniently not getting in the way of her arm guard.

As Fey’s pets came out of hiding, Fey said to Amethyst, “I suppose you want to eat this,” indicating the King Slime’s bubble. She could not think of another reason that Amethyst would lead her all the way here.

Amethyst hopped over to the (blue) bubble, which was slightly bigger than she was. She nosed the sphere (actually, slimes don’t have noses, so she just poked it with her face), and even opened her mouth to try to engulf the bubble, but could only reach a third of the way around it before her mouth would not open any wider. Looking (cutely) disappointed, Amethyst hopped away.

“Looks like another present for Kallara, then.” Fey reached for the bubble.

Magic surprised Fey by hopping onto the sphere. He appeared to ‘plant’ himself in the object, causing an indent where his stem met membrane. After a few seconds, the bubble began to deflate like a beach ball having its air let out.

When the bubble was nothing more than a flat, empty membrane, Magic hopped to the ground and bowed to Amethyst (translation: “Your meal, madame.”). Amethyst bumped him in gratitude (“Thank you, kind sir.”) and happily ate the remains.

<Amethyst’s Double Membrane has reached level 7!>

“Okay…” said Fey, “no present for Kallara, then.” She looked up Magic’s new skill:

<Drain: absorb opponent’s vitality to replenish one’s own>

…That doesn’t explain how Magic was able to deflate the bubble of a dead King Slime. Oh well. Fey gave up on trying to understand the mechanics of a whimsical game.

“Let’s go.” Fey collected her pets and continued deeper into monster territory.

Fey decided that she had found a good spot for training when she reached the level 12 miniature boars. Each of them was the size of a normal piglet, though much more muscled, and armed with small, sharp tusks that gleamed white in the moonlight. Fey knew that level 12 monsters were capable of maiming her level 14 self, but the creatures were too small and cute for her to feel threatened.

The first thing she did was to kidnap two boars, one at a time, and tie them up a little distance from the herd. They squealed and struggled madly in her grip, but Fey was able to secure them without much trouble (hogtied, so to speak).

Fey placed a pet on each boar. “Drain,” she told Magic, who hopped up and planted himself on top of a squirming boar.

“Amethyst, use thornweed poison to kill this one.”

Amethyst secreted a layer of toxic slime, and then cruelly hopped over until it dripped into the boar’s eyes. The boar squealed in pain.

“Woah.” Fey was equal parts impressed and seriously disturbed at Amethyst’s ruthless and sadistic approach (the readers may also be wondering about the author’s state of mind; have no worries, she is a law-abiding citizen). Half running away from her cute and deadly slime, Fey drew her sword and dagger and went off to attack the rest of the boars.

Fey’s combat with the miniature boars was both ungainly and dangerous. The boars were creatures that attacked on sight by charging repeatedly and trying to gore their opponent (’s ankles). At shin height, the boars were difficult for Fey to attack with her blades, so she resorted mainly to kicking attacks while dodging and trying to keep her balance. She had a feeling that she would be in far greater danger of injury, pain, and death if she fell down and the boars could gore other parts of her body.

As the number of attacking boars increased to five, it was all Fey could do to avoid charging tusks, and she was forced to give up attacking at all. After a minute or so of jumping around and a couple of close calls, Fey decided that the indignity of hopping around dodging miniature pigs was greater than that of making creepy shrieking sounds, and activated Terrify.

Having high attack initiative, the boars only hesitated for a second, but it was long enough for Fey to reach down and slash the nearest boar with her sword while activating Bleed.

<Bleed (level 4): 70 damage over 20 seconds>

Fey then jumped away to dodge the other boars while the one she had cut bled profusely. Haha, bleeding like a stuck pig (this is a cliché simile describing copious bleeding, for those who don’t understand why Fey is laughing). Fey now only had to deal with four boars, the fifth being severely weakened by blood loss. She dodged and kicked and even managed to swipe at a few with her sword, but it appeared that unless she made a sufficiently deep cut, she could not activate Bleed.

Fey began to study her opponents’ movements more carefully and dodge more precisely. Finally, she found an opportunity to neatly sidestep a boar as it charged and cut it deeply as it passed, activating Bleed.

With only three boars to contend with, Fey quickly found opportunities to hit them all with her sword, then returned to dodging while she waited for them to lose health. 70 damage was not enough to kill a boar, but combined with accumulated damage from Fey’s other attacks, the boars’ health dropped to below half, making them severely weakened and unable to charge. Fey efficiently killed them off.

Like the treants and twiggys, the miniature boars’ bodies did not disappear upon death. I guess because they’re edible? Maybe I should bring them to Tallen. Since the boars were fairly small and light, Fey piled them into her backpacks.

While she waited for the boars to respawn, Fey went to check on her pets.

Amethyst’s boar (*cough* “victim”) was long dead, with her thornweed poison inflicting a whopping 120 damage every five minutes if allowed to run its course. I probably shouldn’t bring Tallen poisoned meat, Fey thought as she untied the carcass. She left the poisoned meat on the ground (it suddenly disappeared five minutes later).

Magic’s boar was still alive and kicking (weakly). Magic’s Drain was now at level 2, but it still only drained 1 health every 4 seconds. Fey felt bad as she watched the boar’s struggles weaken. It was not in her nature to kill things in a way that prolonged suffering (though really, her experiences were pretty much limited to insects who made it inside her home). When the boar finally stopped moving, Fey could not help but tell Magic to stop.

Magic hopped off the boar and Fey untied it. Hoping that the monster-taming process would be simple this time, she picked up the boar. Unfortunately, no system notices appeared. Fey sighed and sat down, putting the miniature boar in her lap.

As it regained health, the boar began to struggle vigorously. However, Fey had no trouble with the small creature. As long as she held it in the air with her hands around its middle, its short legs and small tusks could not hit anything but air. It took a long time, making Fey waste the rest of her time with Leandriel’s Helping Hand, but eventually, the boar stopped tired itself out and went to sleep.

<Monster Tamer has reached level 4!>

It only took a few seconds for Fey to come up with a name this time. “Boris,” she decided. It was not a particularly elegant name, but it was not a particularly elegant pet, either.

<Boris, level 12 miniature boar>

<Hp: 160/160, Mp 72/72>

<Exp: 4886/6841>

<Skills: Rage>

Hey, look, it has one of the same skills as me (see Chapter 6 if you don’t remember). With the experience from the boar kills, Magic and Amethyst had also just reached level 12 (this is just a coincidence and has nothing to do with the fact that the author doesn’t want to be bothered with keeping track of the levels of three different pets).

Fey put Boris on the ground to nap. Creeping over to the wild boars, she kidnapped another two.

Huh? Fey looked up the skill.

<Isolate: separate a single opponent out of a group without alerting the others>

This was not the first time that Fey had grabbed a monster out of a group (see Chapters 2, 3, 5, 8, and 9 if you don’t remember), but it was the first time she had tried being even remotely sneaky while doing it. Even with the first two boars, she had simply grabbed them quickly and moved out of the boar territory before the rest of the herd could react.

Fey tied the boars up, sicced her pets on them, then went to attack the rest of the herd again. She had lost the boost from her buff, but now had a proper strategy for dealing with the boars that more than made up for the loss. Before the boars could even attack, Fey used Terrify, figuring she would be eventually forced into it anyway. Hearing the sound before they could get worked up into battle-rage made the boars hesitate even longer, and Fey was able to wound two with Bleed before the fight even started.

Several rounds of boar hunting passed. As Magic’s Drain increased to level 3 and then 4, he was able to kill the boars Fey brought before she returned from her hunts. Fey began to bring Amethyst more and more victims, as the slime did not need to stay in constant contact with her opponent for her poison to work. Eventually, Fey just brought the whole herd of eight boars (you would think she would run out of rope, but nope), making Isolate improve to level 4 quite quickly, and found a second herd to hunt herself. Fey got Bleed to level 5 and filled up her packs at a steady rate, despite the fact that she did not collect Amethyst’s or Magic’s kills. While Magic’s boars were not poisoned, they looked strangely shrunken and dry after being fully drained, so Fey decided not to chance it with their meat.

When Boris woke up, Fey decided that her packs were heavy enough and that she did not have to distress her new pet with the sight of more fallen herd-mates. “Let’s go buddy,” she told the boar, and headed back to town carrying Amethyst and Magic.

Boris was easily capable of keeping up with her walking pace, Fey noted with approval, making him the first pet she had tamed who was able to do so. While miniature boars were not very heavy, they weighed considerably more than either slimes or mushrooms, so Fey was glad she did not have to carry Boris as well.

Walking through the night-darkened forest, Fey was easily able to see the orange glow of fire somewhere off to her right. She decided to investigate and turned off the main trail that led to town. As she got closer she heard two disturbing sounds. The first was cackling laughter, and the second was the impact of an axe chopping wood. Fey kept quiet and ducked behind a tree to observe.

Fey saw a party of well-armed humans around a large fire, drinking and speaking loudly. Based on the similarity of their equipment, she thought that they might be NPCs or human monsters, but since low-level armour options were quite limited, the group could also be composed of real players. One of the humans, armed with an axe, was hacking branches off a tree to add to the fire. Fey could see scars on many of the trees indicating lost limbs.

Isn’t an angry ranger supposed to show up and punish people who damage trees? Fey was half-expecting the entire group to be massacred with arrows at any time now. However, no ranger showed up, and the tree lost more branches.

Fey decided that stopping the men and protecting the forest was part of her job description as a forest guardian. However, she did not think that she had the ability to fight and defeat the entire group. Sneaky and underhanded tactics were called for in this situation.

Positioning herself so that all the men were in range, she told Magic, “Cast Spore as many times as you can.” Clouds of glittering particles drifted outwards. Some of the men noticed the spores, but none of them were alarmed until they inhaled and the status effects began.

<Eleet’s attack had been lowered!>

<Victor’s defence has been lowered!>

Judging by the stupidly overdramatic names and the swearing coming from the group, Fey realized that she was attacking real players. Oh well. Might as well get into some real trouble. She stayed hidden as chaos erupted around the fire. Other than the sleeping and paralysed humans, the party was scrambling around looking for the source of the status effects. One player tried to shake the sleeping player awake. Another called out, “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

The real fun began when the confused player, who happened to be the axe-wielder, started swinging his weapon wildly in all directions. The other players scrambled to avoid him and yelled at him to stop.

One of the players, searching randomly around the fire, neared where Fey was hidden. Unable to resist, Fey used Isolate and snuck up on him without anyone else noticing. Pulling a thornweed thorn out of her pouch, she stuck it in this neck and shoved him sideways before going into hiding again. The player panicked and yelled even louder than the rest of the group, drawing attention. Fey quietly sneaked around to the other side of the fire while the men approached her former hiding spot.

By now, status effects were piling on top of other status effects, and the players were noticeably handicapped. Fey felt a sense of satisfaction whenever one of them pulled out a green antidote to combat Magic’s poison (making people waste money is her idea of ultimate punishment). The sleeping player had woken up, but now three players were paralysed. One confused player charged off into the forest at right angles to where Fey was hiding. Fey decided that she could move on to the second phase of the plan (wait, she has a plan?).

Leaving Magic behind to continue the chaos, Fey took Amethyst and Boris over to the river than ran through the Elvenwood. Using Amethyst’s Osmosis, she picked up some water. Frowning at the small amount, Fey made a mental note to have Amethyst train Osmosis whenever they had some free time.

Heading back to the terrorized group of players, Fey was glad to see that they were all paralysed (other than the one who had disappeared into the forest) and a good distance away from the fire. Paralysis effects wear off quite quickly, since a player is basically helpless during the status effect, so Fey hurried to put out the fire before anyone could move and stop her. She kicked logs over, stomped on flames, and had Amethyst dump her water over the last few embers. Easily staying out of sight in the newly darkened forest, she snuck back to where she had left Magic.

“You can stop now,” she told the tired mushroom. She petted her hard-working fungus as she waited for the paralysis to wear off. As soon as the players were able, they went back to swearing and yelling.

“Give me a nice squeal,” she told Boris, who made enough noise to silence the players. As they clumsily made their way to the source of the noise, still encumbered by numerous other status effects, Fey used Terrify.

Even against players, Terrify incited a visceral sense of fear. The men stopped advancing. Fey shrieked the skill again, a little more loudly. The men looked visibly nervous. Fey then shrieked continuously while walking slowly towards the players. Just before she came into view, they broke and ran.

Fey decided that Terrify was not such a bad skill. It sounded undignified and hurt her throat, but considering what it did to her opponents, she could suffer a little indignity.

<Guardian’s Blessing has reached level 3!>

Footnotes:

[i] Pokemon has three Grass-type moves, Absorb, Mega Drain, and Giga Drain, that have this kind of effect

15: Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Fey made it back to the Moonwood as dawn lightened the shadows in the forest. It’s been a full day now, she mused, maybe I should wake up. She was a little startled when she checked the time and saw that it was only 4:00 a.m. in the real world. Fey had started playing Fantasia early in the evening (see Chapter 8 if you don’t remember), so although she had played for a full game day, it was an unreasonably early time to be awake. Haha, they should market this game as a way to turn night owls into early birds. It was not unusual for Arwyn to stay awake well past midnight on weekends and wake up shortly before noon (noon was her firm line between ‘sleeping in’ and ‘slothful’), but Fantasia was rewriting her sleep habits.

Okay, I’ll do a few more things before I get up. First of all, food. Fey was hungry again from running around (terrorizing things). If she had been in her real body, this level of physical activity for such an extended amount of time would have made her collapse and fall asleep a long time ago. Fortunately, her virtual body had much greater stamina regeneration and did not get sleepy (because falling asleep while being asleep would be kind of weird). It did, however, require food proportional to the amount of energy she expended. Her virtual stomach made this very clear as it digested itself to punish her for leaving it empty. Fey headed to the tavern.

Tallen was happy to see Fey, and even happier at seeing her load of freshly-killed miniature boars. They were the perfect size for roasting whole and feeding to a single person as a delicacy. He even paid her 15g for each.

“I’m serving breakfast now,” he said, placing the boars (not including Boris) in the magical preservation box in the kitchen that prevented decay without having to freeze the food (magic can be practical sometimes, you know). “Would you like me to save one for you later?”

“Oh no, thank you,” said Fey. “I can’t eat that much meat in one sitting.” Most of Arwyn’s calories came from carbohydrates (anyone who tries a carb-free diet to lose weight has never met our skinny heroine) and eating too much meat made her feel slightly queasy. “Speaking of breakfast…” Fey continued, giving Tallen a hopeful look.

Tallen chuckled at Fey’s ‘starving waif’ impression. “Of course; go sit yourself down.”

Fey sat next to a window (well, an opening that the tree-tavern had been induced to grow around) and admired the forest sunrise as she waited for her meal. She turned her attention back to the table when a plate was placed in front of her.

Oh. My. God. On the plate was a large waffle covered in chocolate syrup with slices of banana and strawberry. It was the exact thing Arwyn would order if she had gone to a fancy breakfast or dessert joint. “How did you know?” she breathed, reverently admiring the chocolatey, carbohydrate-filled goodness (the author is not sure whether or not this passage counts as food porn, but apologizes if reading it results in cravings for waffles). Tallen just winked and left without answering (either he just guessed, or the game helmet could be used for mind reading). Fey picked up her cutlery and started in on the food. Normally, she would not be able to finish an entire waffle by herself, but she was hungry enough that before long, only slight traces of chocolate syrup were left to indicate that a waffle had ever existed.

Fey felt sluggish after ingesting that much sugar, but eventually managed to get herself moving. Before she left, she asked Tallen for some snacks she could eat on the road and received some dried fruit and jerky (she thought it was beef jerky, but it was actually venison). Tucking the food into her belt pouch, she exited the tavern.

Now that it was morning, Fey supposed that her strength tonic had finished brewing and went to visit Kallara. Walking into the healer’s tree-building, she called out a friendly hello.

Looking up from a pile of herbs she was sorting (after the usual morning slaughter out in the herb garden, we assume), Kallara smiled. “Hello. Your strength tonic is complete. I’ll have it bottled for you in a moment.” The healer pulled two glass bottles out of a drawer and filled them with the contents of the pot Fey (and Blade) had helped to prepare earlier.

“Wow, it’s so pretty.” The strength tonic was a translucent gold, similar in colour to honey but more like water in viscosity.

“I only make potions of the highest quality,” said Kallara with a wink.

Fey saw that Kallara’s words were not just empty boasting when she examined the tonic:

Fey’s eyes widened. “Wow, Kallara, thanks!” The healer’s skill had more than doubled the value of the basic strength tonic.

“Oh, it was no trouble,” said Kallara modestly. In truth, to get the “perfect brewing” bonus, there was less than 10 seconds and 5ºC of leeway for every single step of the brewing process, from adding each ingredient to heating and cooling down. Kallara rarely bothered to go through such trouble for a relatively small bonus, but had made the effort because she liked Fey.

“By the way, your young man came by looking for you,” the healer added.

“My what?” That is possibly the strangest thing that anyone has ever said to me. I do not have a “young man.”

“Your young man,” the healer repeated, “the one who helped collect the ingredients for the strength tonic?”

The idea of Blade being “her” young man made Fey wince. “Kallara,” she said very seriously, “there is nothing, nor will there ever be, anything going on between me and Blade.”

Kallara had observed Fey and Blade together for long enough to determine that there was no attraction between the two, but continued to tease Fey because she found it amusing (the author tries to write kindly characters, but they somehow all turn out to be evil).

“Whyever not?” she asked, feigning confusion. “He’s quite a handsome young man.” Indeed, Blade fit the “tall, dark, and handsome” cliché fairly well (this is only being inserted into the story now because Fey hadn’t really noticed or thought about it *oblivious*).

“He’s all right, I guess,” muttered Fey, “but he’s no Leandriel.” (Leandriel defined the “tall, dark, and handsome” cliché)

“Leandriel?” Kallara’s pointed ears seemed to perk up in interest at the name.

Fey felt her face heat up. Oh my god, am I blushing? I do not blush. Crap, I think I’m blushing. Stop it RIGHT NOW. Fey took a deep breath and blanked out any thoughts of blue-eyed warrior angels (well, she tried, anyway).

“Oh, nobody,” said Fey with an attempt at a casual tone (she is a horrible liar). Changing the subject with no attempt at subtlety (she’s pretty bad at subtlety, too), she asked, “Hey, Kallara, could I have an empty flask?”

Kallara was so amused at Fey’s flustered reaction that she did not even ask what the flask was for, simply pulling a clear, cylindrical flask out of a cupboard and handing it over.

“Thanks,” Fey muttered. She then bid a tactical retreat from an unfavourable situation (i.e. ran away). Tucking the flask under one arm, Fey escaped into the forest.

“Bye!” Kallara called cheerfully after the retreating adventurer.

Gah. Gah. Gah. Eek. “Okay, stop,” Fey muttered to herself as she tried to calm down. She rarely ever became emotionally worked up, but once she did, she found it hard to return to normal (well, “normal” for her). As she travelled through the forest, her pace, usually a lively walk, increased to the point that she was almost jogging. By the time she reached the stream (her destination, which the narrator irresponsibly forgot to mention), Fey was slightly out of breath, but still keyed up.

Filling her newly-acquired flask with water, Fey gave a mental sigh. As usual, trying not to think of something did not work. She had to work through her mental issues and resolve them before she would calm down (well, just the one mental issue; there isn’t enough room in the story to work through all of our protagonist’s mental issues). Okay, so I thought Leandriel was cool and nice and handsome. Happy, brain? I admitted it. There’s no reason why he wouldn’t be super-awesome, considering that he’s an NPC. Real people like that don’t exist (this is the literary technique known as “dramatic irony”[i]). With that admission, Fey was finally able to return to a semblance of calm and return to her usual (“normal”) self.

“Here, Amethyst, get in.” Fey dropped her slime into the flask of water. “Osmosis.”

Amethyst swelled to triple her original size, taking up about a third of the volume of the flask.

“Shrink.” Amethyst returned to her normal size, suspended and neutrally buoyant[ii] in the water. “Keep going.”

Fey was so amused by her expanding and contracting slime that she simply sat, watching, for several minutes. Belatedly, she wondered if Amethyst needed to breathe. The slime seemed as lively as ever after several minutes underwater. Fey noticed that Amethyst kept her bubble floating on top of the surface of the water. Curious, she poked it down. Amethyst began to look rather uncomfortable and changed to a bluer colour, looking distinctly deoxygenated. Fey let the bubble float to the surface, and the slime returned to normal.

“So… You’re using it like a snorkel? Or is it the equivalent of an elephant’s trunk?” Amethyst did not reply, continuing her strange aquatic activities without a sound.

<Osmosis has reached level 3!>

Fey’s amusement was interrupted when she heard approaching footsteps. She stood up, flask in hand, just as Blade became visible through the trees (Yay!...? He’s back…).

Fey was in a good mood from her fun and fruitful adventures (since ditching Blade), so when she said, “What are you doing here?” her tone was of idle curiosity rather than borderline hostility.

“Kallara told me you went this way when I went to pick up the strength tonic,” explained Blade.

Well, that’s what I get for walking in a straight line (Fey is normally sneakier than that, but was distracted by thoughts of he-whom-we-are-avoiding-thinking-of). Fey could not think of anything else to say, and was anticipating an awkward silence when Blade exhaled noisily, raking a hand through his short hair, and said, “Look, I’m sorry.”

*Mental blank* Fey blinked several times in disbelief, and her mouth moved noiselessly before she managed to say, “What?” (she’s not the ‘pardon me’ type)

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Blade did not know exactly what he was apologizing for. He was simply following some wise advice his elder sister had given him: “If you’re not getting along with a girl, just apologize. Chances are, she’s mad at you for something, even if she’s not conscious of it.” It was very effective advice, but few people were capable of apologizing when they were not even aware of doing anything wrong. Blade was figuratively a much ‘bigger man’ than most people (physically, he fell an inch short of the coveted 180cm/6-foot benchmark that all male main characters attain).

“Uh, for trying to kill your slime?” he guessed.

Fey made a ‘he has a point’ face. She had not been expecting an apology, but appreciated it. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

Fey smiled enigmatically.

Blade was as startled as Fey had been upon hearing his apology when he received the system notice:

“I’m logging out now,” Fey announced. Arwyn’s avatar winked out of existence while Blade was still blinking in disbelief.

“That’s one weird girl,” he muttered to himself.

***

Leandriel’s sword, imbued with holy light, sizzled as it sliced through the undead banshee. The withered creature opened its mouth and shrieked, but Leandriel had purchased a silence charm to protect himself from the banshee’s devastating voice, and the fight took place in eerie soundlessness.

Leandriel neatly lunged and beheaded the creature before turning to meet the other monsters. Creatures with dark affinity instinctively hated creatures with holy affinity and had a much higher sensing range and attack initiative when facing their opposing element.

Dodging, blocking, slashing, and spinning, Leandriel used basic swordwork in order to defeat the monsters. He was gradually getting used to the altered balance required to fight effectively with wings, training the necessary adjustments into his muscle memory.

He had not realized that he was keeping an eye on his friend list until he noticed the green “Online” next to Fey’s name change to a red “Offline”. The distraction cost him a scratch on his arm in the gap between two pieces of plate armour.

Hissing with pain, Leandriel seared the wound with holy light before it could start rotting from the dark creature’s unclean claws. He turned his mind back to battle; he had a dungeon to clear.

***

◊◊◊

Arwyn pulled off the game helmet, feeling strangely sluggish. Looking at the clock, she saw that it was 8:00 a.m. (the author is taking liberties with the passing of time again). She had been asleep for twelve hours, and her body had not taken kindly to such an extended length of inactivity. With a groan, Arwyn rolled off the recliner, managed a wobbly landing on her feet, and headed to the kitchen for food.

I’d better not play for that long again, she thought as she cooked eggs for breakfast and boiled water for tea. Sleeping for too long was as bad for health as sleeping too little.

Determined to stay out of Fantasia until her regular bedtime, Arwyn planned out her day. She could not remember the last time she had been awake at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday, so she had more hours to fill than usual.

Arwyn spent the morning doing an unusual amount of household chores (she was the type to put things off until they absolutely couldn’t be avoided). Then she called her friend Leah to set up a lunch date followed by shopping. It was the sort of thing Leah enjoyed, and even if Arwyn did not care about following the latest fashion trends, she did need to periodically buy new clothing, so it was a regular (but not frequent) pastime of theirs.

“Hi!” Leah and Arwyn hugged in greeting. They met at a restaurant that was one step up from fast food, and two steps down from being fancy and gourmet (they liked to eat real food in actual quantities).

After sitting down and ordering, the pair chattered about their adventures in Fantasia.

“I’ve met some nice people and we’re adventuring together,” said Leah. “It’s really cool underwater. The fish and the coral and the plants are beautiful.”

“Sounds like a tropical vacation,” Arwyn commented.

“Yeah. My only complaint is that there are almost no guys around.”

Arwyn raised an eyebrow in a ‘you should have expected that’ expression. “They’re called mermaids for a reason.”

Leah flapped a hand at her friend. “Yeah, yeah, don’t lecture me about thinking ahead. My prefrontal cortex[iii] just isn’t as active as yours.” There was a reason Leah and Arwyn were friends; despite the fact that Leah liked makeup and clothes, she was really just as nerdy as Arwyn.

“So, any guys over in the Elvenwood?” Leah asked carelessly. When Arwyn’s expression indicated a ‘yes’, Leah’s interest sharpened. “Spill it.”

Arwyn pulled out her phone and accessed an image file she had taken in Fantasia. It was a snapshot of Leandriel standing in front of a glowing teleportation gate (she knows that she’s being kind of creepy and stalkerish, but she couldn’t help it).

Leah, grabbed the phone with a high-pitched sound of excitement (*squee*). “An angel? Where did you find an angel?”

“He kind of fell out of the sky. Okay, well, he literally fell out of the sky.”

“Tell me the whole story right now.” Leah commanded. Arwyn complied, and recounted all the events between Leandriel’s crash landing and his disappearance into the teleport gate (see Chapters 12 and 13 if you don’t remember).

“Wow. Just wow. He’s so cool it’s ridiculous.” Leah’s sentence summarized Leandriel’s existence fairly accurately.

Arwyn sighed in total agreement. “Too bad he’s an NPC.”

“What? No! How do you know?” Leah exclaimed with dismay.

“He’s a level 99 angel. Fantasia came out a week ago. Do the math.” (Leah, not being as obsessed with wings, had not memorized the level requirements for all the winged species in Fantasia.)

Leah sighed. “I should’ve known he was too good to be true.”

The friends ate their food when it arrived and then walked to the nearby mall. No mention of Blade occurred throughout the afternoon.

[i] Irony that is inherent in speeches or situations of a drama and is understood by the audience but not the characters in the play

dramatic irony. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved August 19, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dramatic irony

[ii] An object is neutrally buoyant if it has the same average density as the fluid around it. It will neither float to the surface nor sink to the bottom, instead staying somewhere in the middle.

[iii] The prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain associated with planning, impulse control, and decision-making

16: Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Coming home with slightly sore feet and several shopping bags, Arwyn slipped off her shoes and collapsed (melodramatically), shoes and all, on her couch. She and Leah had spent a pleasant afternoon exploring various clothing and shoe stores. The majority of Arwyn's purchases consisted of practical, comfortable, and professional clothing (with the rule of thumb for clothing to be considered “practical” being that she could kick people in the head while wearing it), along with a few pieces of fancy, stylish clothing that she liked, but rarely had the occasion to wear. After dinner at a restaurant with her friend, Arwyn had come home relaxed and pleasantly tired.

Arwyn could hear the seductive voice of Fantasia calling out to her. “Come rest on this comfortable recliner,” it coaxed. (She tends to have a lot of conversations with inanimate objects. Just go with it.) Her gaze was dragged to the game helmet in the next room over as if by gravity. “Come,” it whispered.

No, she thought, sounding unconvincing even in her own head, I have to stay off until bedtime.

“But why?” asked the game helmet, a pout in its voice. “Don't you want to play with me?” (Is anybody getting creeped out? It was suppose to be funny, but it ended up getting creepy instead.)

Resolutely, Arwyn turned away from the games room (“Come back,” whispered the game). Just to have something to do, she sat at her desk and turned on her laptop. Fantasia still foremost on her mind, Arwyn ended up spending several hours watching educational videos about swordfighting on the Internet. Although she was sure that this was a bad way to learn proper technique, she memorized a few movements that she thought she could copy reasonably well.

Arwyn also came across several rants about the inaccuracies of swords as depicted in fantasy novels (which made her sad, because they were generally the coolest aspects of swords as depicted in fantasy novels); for instance, having a longsword in a back sheath is impractical because human arms are not long enough to draw it from that angle.

After the videos went rather off-topic (“related videos” my behind), Arwyn closed her laptop to send it into hibernation mode. She performed her nightly rituals of preparing for bed, even putting away her newly-purchased clothing (usually it stayed in the bag until she felt like wearing it for the first time). She peeked at the clock: 11:00 p.m. It was still early for her to go to sleep, but reasonable by humanity's standards. She gave in to her growing addiction and slid on the game helmet.

◊◊◊

A disembodied female voice. “Scanning. Player detected. Welcome back to Fantasia, Fey E'lan.”

Fey blinked as she materialized in the same place where she had logged out. Pets flashed into existence as well, and she petted them in greeting (haha, she petted her pets; this is like the notice board all over again; see Chapter 3 if you don't remember).

Fey took a moment to recall what she had been doing before logging out. Let's see... Blade apologized, and I was unnecessarily cryptic with him for fun, and before that... Ah yes, I was training Osmosis. (The fact that it took her several seconds to remember this was sad, considering the flask of water she still held.) Plonking the slime back into the water, Fey led the way back to the village, looking for something to do while her pet trained her skill.

At the notice board, Fey looked for requests relating to monsters around her level. Emboldened by the fact that she had yet to come to serious injury (surprise attacks by level 99 angels notwithstanding), she dared go after monsters slightly higher than her own level 14. A posting caught her eye: Dubbles and Trubbles. The description read:

<Reward: 2000g for clearing all dubbles, 3000g for clearing all trubbles, Guardian's Blessing for clearing both>

No image of either monster was provided, but the notice indicated that dubbles were level 16 and trubbles were level 18. The quest would be challenging, but the prospect of improving her Guardian's Blessing was too good to pass up. Fey headed east, wondering what kind of monsters would be named 'dubble' and 'trubble'.

Walking along the forest path, Fey received a system notice:

<Amethyst's Osmosis has reached level 4!>

“Good job, Amethyst,” she cooed through the glass of the flask. The slime flicked her bubble to make her spin (cutely) in the water. Pulling out a thornweed thorn, Fey trained Immunity while she walked.

Partway through her journey to the eastern forest, Fey received a private message.

“Hey,” came Blade's disembodied voice.

Private messaging in Fantasia had three levels. The most basic was text-based messaging like Fey and Leandriel had shared (see Chapter 13 if you don't remember), which took very little attention and could be sent while the other player was offline. The second level was audio chatting, as Blade was using right now, similar to a phone call without needing a cell phone. The third level was video chat, which partially blocked the player's field of view with an image of the other player and was therefore inadvisable unless both players were unoccupied and in safe areas.

Fey thought it was a bit presumptuous of Blade to initiate audio chat on the first call (actually, she just didn't like being startled by sudden and unexpected noises), but answered anyway. “Hi.”

“Where are you?” Blade had just logged in, only to find Fey online and nowhere in the vicinity.

“Heading to the eastern forest on a quest.”

“Need some help?”

“Not really. You can come anyways.” With that rather unenthusiastic invitation, Fey shut down the chat link and continued walking.

As Fey approached the eastern edge of the forest, the trees became smaller until they only looked decades, rather than centuries old. By the time she reached the designated quest area, Immunity had reached level 4 and Amethyst's Osmosis had reached level 5. Putting the water flask down, Fey pulled Amethyst out and held the slime in one hand while looking around.

“So where are the monsters?” she asked out loud.

As if in answer, something crashed into Fey's back at chest level, hard enough to knock her off her feet. Fey's breath escaped her lungs with a whoosh as she fell, managing to drop Amethyst before she broke her fall with her hands. Instinctively turning towards the attack, she glimpsed a flash of pastel green before it disappeared into the trees.

“What the-” she muttered, standing up and positioning her back against a tree so it could not be attacked again. Tensely, she drew her weapons and waited. When nothing happened, she became annoyed and yelled, “Come out, you stupid monster!”

A flash of bright green streaked towards her with the speed of a spiked volleyball. Reflexively, Fey held her hands up in defence, and the creature hit with a loud smack that was slightly painful even under the sturdy leather of her forearm guards. She managed to get a good look at the monster at the moment of impact. The creature appeared to be two spherical bodies, each the size of a bouncy ball, connected by a flexible line as long as her arm and as thick as one of her fingers.

“...A double bubble is called a dubble? Really? Who the hell invented this game?” (The author, who really likes dumb puns and is exhibiting the reason she steals monsters from books and games rather than inventing them herself.) Sighing, Fey prepared for battle. Badly-designed monsters or not, she had a quest to complete.

“Come back here, you stupid pun-made-monster!” she yelled. This time, she managed to hit the dubble with her sword as it streaked towards her, but the twin-creature bounced off the weapon, apparently unharmed, and flew back out of sight.

Fey decided that in order to have any hope of defeating the dubble, she needed to impair its movements. “Magic, cast Spore,” she ordered.

As a glittering cloud of particles spread through the trees, Fey was inundated with system notices:

<Spore was successful. The dubble's speed has been lowered.>

<Spore was successful. The dubble has fallen asleep.>

<Spore was successful. The dubble's attack has been lowered.>

<Spore was successful. The dubble has become confused.>

...Oh crap, was all Fey had time to think before every dubble in the area attacked.

It was a nightmare of a dodgeball game, thirty against one, where headshots were allowed and you could not go 'out' after being hit. Fey quickly herded her pets into the shelter between her legs and the tree behind her, taking all the damage herself rather than risk her weaker, unarmoured companions. She (mostly) managed to protect her head, but impacts slammed into every other part of her body; the combined slapping sounds were deafening.

Fey was overwhelmed, but after a minute or two of the assault, realized that her health bar had stabilized at around 150/225. The creators of Fantasia had quickly discovered during the initial stages of testing that players disliked the feeling of dying in virtual reality, and were very likely to quit if they died in the early part of the game. The programmers had then altered the monsters below level 50 so that if players overreached and attacked something too strong, they would simply be overwhelmed and unable to do damage, forcing them to give up and look for weaker opponents rather than dying.

Fey, of course, was not one to give up against dumb-pun monsters like dubbles. As she became accustomed to the barrage of attacks, her brain started thinking and planning.

“Magic, cast Spore every five seconds,” she commanded, choosing a pace that the mushroom could maintain indefinitely without becoming exhausted. As the status effects piled on, sleeping and paralyzed dubbles dropped to the ground. Fey was unable to leave her post defending her pets in order to take advantage of their immobile states, and focused instead on the smaller number of dubbles still attacking.

The turning point in the fight came when one of Fey's sword strikes glanced off the head of a dubble at an angle, shearing across the appendage that united the twin-monster. Both halves of the dubble dropped to the ground, unable to move except for the ineffectual waving of the severed connecting arm. Yes! Invigorated, Fey aimed for the dubbles' weak spot. The dubble's heads tended to travel one after another rather than side by side, making it difficult to hit the linkage, but slowly, Fey was surrounded by a semicircle of grounded monsters.

In the middle of her battle, Fey's attention was caught by a system notice different from all the rest:

<Spore was successful. Blade has been poisoned!>

Spore was now at level 8, with a success rate of 45% and a range of 25m. “Magic, stop casting,” Fey ordered. In a louder voice, she called out, “Blade?”

“Dammit, stop poisoning me!” came an irritated male voice somewhere behind her on the right.

“You (literally) walked right into it,” Fey muttered, continuing to fend off dubble attacks. Using her dagger to block, she managed to slice apart another dubble pair with her sword.

Closer than before, Fey heard a loud smacking sound, followed by swearing. “What the hell was that?”

“It's called a dubble,” Fey explained cheerfully (*schadenfreude*ⁱ). “Cut the line that connects the heads and they can't move.”

Eventually, Blade came into view, herding a group of half-dubbles along with his feet. The paralysis effects on the dubbles were wearing off, and the noise of their yelling had woken many of the sleeping dubbles. Fey went to invite Blade into a party so that Magic could resume casting Spore without harming the human, then realized that she was still in a party with Leandriel, his name grayed out on the party list to indicate he was out of range for sharing experience. She sent him a quick private message to explain her leaving his party:

<Fey: Hi. I have to leave your party to join another one for the quest I'm on.>

<Leandriel: Have fun. I do not believe my duties will allow me to join you today.>

Fey had not expected the angel to even want to adventure with a newbie like her, let alone have time for it. Ignoring her feelings of pleased surprise, she replied in a lighthearted tone.

<Fey: Too bad; these dubbles could use some trouncing.>

She could almost hear the quiet amusement in his words when he replied,

<Leandriel: Indeed, you must trounce some extra in my stead.>

The words made a silly smile appear on Fey's face, and she compressed her lips in an effort to suppress it.

<Fey: I will. Bye.>

<Leandriel: Goodbye.>

In the few seconds that the private conversation had occurred, Blade had sent Fey his own party invite, only to be informed:

Three seconds later, he received Fey's party invitation and accepted, assuming that the elf was already the leader of a party with other people in it.

<Fey's party: Fey (leader), level 14 moon elf (warrior), Blade, level 16 human (warrior)>

“Where's the rest of the party?” Blade asked, confused.

“What rest of the party?” Fey asked, equally confused.

“When I tried to send you a party invite, the system said you were already in a party.”

“Oh. I just left a party that I joined yesterday.” For no reason that Blade could discern, Fey seemed rather embarrassed in her explanation (it's because she has a crush on Leandriel *sings annoying K-I-S-S-I-N-G song *). He was about to press for more details when he noticed that Fey had jumped from level 11 to level 14 since yesterday. He himself had only gained one level from training.

“Holy [censored word]! How did you gain three levels so quickly?”

“You know, hunting quests,” Fey muttered, looking rather shifty as she avoided eye contact during her (very incomplete) explanation. She was relieved when the dubbles attacked in enough numbers that they were forced to drop the conversation in order to focus on combat.

With Blade's freedom to move around and disable the downed dubbles, it was only a few minutes before all of the monsters were split apart and unable to attack. Cautiously, Fey stepped away from the tree, revealing her three pets. (“And you got another pet, too?” Blade asked in disbelief.) The pets helped the players collect the dubbles into a pile. Despite all their work, all of the monsters were still alive; their outsides had the toughness and consistency of car tire rubber and were very hard to cut through. By holding the spheres still with their feet and bearing down with a sword with all their weight, the players were able to puncture the bubble monsters, making them disappear in a cloud of dust (*poof*).

The party's experience allocation was set to 'individual,' and Fey and Blade divided the kills exactly in half, each getting 15 dubbles.

Fey's boar hunting from the night before had filled her experience bar close to full, so the experience from fifteen dubbles was sufficient to level up.

Fey sighed. “There's probably a couple hundred more where those came from.”

“So... What quest is this?”

“Clearing all the dubbles and trubbles from the eastern forest.”

“What's a trubble?”

“I have no idea.”

Trubbles turned out to be groups of three linked (yellow) bubbles, which enjoyed travelling with a spinning motion like a boomerang, making it difficult to cut their linkages. As the battle raged on, Magic was quite helpful, but Fey put Amethyst back in the flask to practice Osmosis and let Boris wander around in the areas they had already cleared. She was pleasantly surprised when the boar returned from his explorations carrying cooking and potion-making ingredients.

“Aww thank you,” she said with a pat on his head every time the miniature boar returned with a bunch of plants. She had no idea that Boris had gotten into fights with herb-monsters and was returned with their defeated corpses (*oblivious irresponsible pet ownership*).

Human and elf were getting along quite well, with the straightforward fighting showing Blade off to advantage. Fey had to admit (to herself) that the warrior was clearly better at swordfighting than she was. He moved with a grace born of natural athleticism that contrasted with her own lack of coordination. All of Fey's physical ability came from years of repetition in tae kwon do class, drilling until her muscles picked up the correct technique. She was relatively slow to learn new physical skills, though the lack of ability rarely showed unless she was attempting a new sport.

Every few hours, Fey would drop suddenly and unceremoniously to the ground in order to rest. (It took Blade several times to get used to it, as in appearance, the rest stops looked disconcertingly similar to collapse from exhaustion.) Around game-time noon, Fey decided that it was lunchtime and pulled out her travel food to eat while resting. She handed Blade an apple. “Here.” Fey's lips twitched in amusement as he examined the fruit cautiously. “It's not poisoned. Look, Amethyst is still in the flask,” she said, pointing. (She neglected to mention the thornweed in her pouch, stored right next to the food packet.) Blade took a bite (and was not poisoned), and the party shared an amicable lunch before tackling the rest of the bubble-monsters.

Fey and Blade spent the entire game day fighting the animated bubbles. Without Magic's ability to immobilize a fraction of the monsters and Blade to disable them while they were down, the quest could have easily taken three days to complete. With the advantage, the party levelled up ferociously, Fey reaching level 19 and Blade level 20 after putting down hundreds and hundreds of the creatures; Fey's pets reached level 15 from the passive experience gain, and Spore reached level 10, evolving the ability so that Fey could choose what status effect to inflict, though each individual status effect had a cooldown of 1 minute (still way OP).

It was well into night when the last trubble burst into dust. “Well done,” came an unfamiliar female voice. Startled, Fey and Blade looked up to see a figure leaning against a tree only a few metres away. The NPC ranger was dressed in mottled browns that made it easy for her to blend into the forest, and carried an enormous longbow strapped to her back.

“Hello?” said Blade cautiously.

“Hello.” The ranger straightened and approached the party. “I am Eliana,” she introduced herself.

Fey's keen night vision picked out the shape of a mana blossom on the ranger's cheek. “Are you the one who put out the request?” she asked.

“I am. And you are the ones that fulfilled it.” On closer inspection, Eliana asked, “Might you be Fey?”

“Uh, yes?” Fey answered, confused as to how the ranger would know her name.

Eliana chuckled. “Jerem- Jerendal told me about you the other day.” Fey was so embarrassed remembering the slug incident (see Chapter 6 if you don't remember) that she failed to note Eliana's stumble over Jerendal's name.

“You already have the Guardian's Blessing, of course,” Eliana continued, “But you...” She turned to Blade. “We do not have any human guardians.”

Blade had no idea what Eliana was talking about, having not read the quest description or reward description. He glanced uncertainly between the two elves.

“Aww, come on, give him the blessing,” Fey urged. She thought it would be hilarious if Blade were to get a flower marking on his face as well. “It's really helpful,” she assured Blade, with slightly too much enthusiasm, making him suspicious as to whether he actually wanted whatever they were talking about.

“Uh, it's okay,” he said, his hands rising a few inches, palms out, as his subconscious tried to defend him from Fey's sense of humour.

As if his reticence paradoxically made Eliara want to bestow the Guardian's Blessing (a contrary people, the elves), the ranger said, “Fine,” and began chanting.

Blade nervously backed up a step, then halted when nothing more threatening than the glow of light appeared. This time, golden light coalesced into a blue butterfly whose wings resembled mana blossom petals (as opposed to a mana blossom, which resembled a butterfly). It fluttered in its butterfly way indirectly towards Blade. Fascinated, the human warrior put up a hand in invitation, and the magical butterfly landed on the tip of his index finger (as opposed to on his face). In a flash of light, the butterfly disappeared, transformed into a solid blue tattoo of the silhouette of a butterfly in profile.

“Cool,” said Blade, infused with a sense of well-being.

“That's not fair,” complained Fey, “Why does he get to have it on his hand, and I have to have it on my face?”

Eliana raised an eloquent eyebrow (apparently a racial trait common to elves, based on Irrilana, Kallara, and now Eliana). “If you did not desire the marking on your face, why did you let it land there?”

“Nobody told me not to let it land on my face,” Fey grumbled.

“Nobody told him, either,” Eliana pointed out reasonably, indicating Blade.

“Bleh.” Fey hated it when she was on the unreasonable side of the argument.

“Well, if that is all, I will be leaving. Goodbye.” Eliana leaned against another tree and disappeared (*magical ranger powers*).

<Fey's Guardian's Blessing has reached level 4!>

In the place Eliana had disappeared was a small pouch holding the gold reward for the quest in the form of ten 500g pieces, which Fey and Blade split evenly.

Fey and Blade travelled back towards Moonwood village. Fey was still feeling childish from the fact that her prank had not worked. Her mood was reflected in her gait, with her feet dragging along close to the ground and her upper body leaning slightly forward, making her resemble a really tall five-year-old shuffling along, hugging a flask instead of a stuffed animal. Blade was bemused at how easily his companion could switch between poise and intentional gracelessness.

Near their destination, Fey's alarm chimed, letting her know that she had been asleep for eight hours. “I'm logging out,” she announced.

“See you tomorrow?”

Fey made a non-committal sound (it sounded like “muh”) and exited the game.

i Satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune

schadenfreude. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved October 23, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/schadenfreude

17: Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Arwyn pulled off the game helmet and sat up, the cheerful morning light coming through the windows in contrast to the deep night she had been experiencing in-game. Squinting, she glanced at the clock and was that it was just after 7:00 a.m.

Sunday mornings were when Arwyn went to tae kwon do, so she busied herself with making a substantial breakfast. If she did not eat, she would feel faint after only a few minutes of running around, and if she ate late, she would have to suffer the discomfort of feeling the food sit like a stone in her stomach as her body focused powering her muscles rather than digesting the food (don't even get her started about the one time she ate at McDonald's right before class).

Arwyn enjoyed the quiet of the morning, broken only by the small sounds of her dishes and cutlery. While she was not (completely) antisocial, quiet alone time was when she relaxed and recharged her mental energies, able to act how she wanted without worrying about affecting others. Her internal dialogue was too interesting for her to ever be bored by herself (by reading up to this chapter, you readers implicitly agree, since her internal dialogue is what's driving this entire story and she's spent 3/4 of the scenes alone. Evil pets don't count).

Readying herself for class, Arwyn put on the traditional white tae kwon do uniform of loose pants and long-sleeved jacket top. Fastening the jacket to her body was her red belt (it's the one below black), wrapped twice around her waist before being knotted twice in the front (this left enough length on the loose ends that she occasionally managed to whack herself in the face while kicking and jumping; not so much with the thicker-waisted). Her impractically long hair was confined to a ponytail, and she filled up her large (blue) water bottle from her pitcher of filtered water before heading out.

Tae kwon do practice took place in the gymnasium of a local elementary school, rented out on weekends for a variety of activities. Upon arrival, Arwyn took off her shoes and socks, then bowed as she entered the gym. Bowing was a very common and important action in tae kwon do; you bowed when entering and exiting the room, at the formal beginning and end of class, when you paired up with a partner, before you talked to someone of a higher belt level, before leaving someone's presence, when you gave or received anything, and any time the grandmaster walked by (you know, the guy with the eight stripes on his black belt who could literally beat you in a fight with both hands tied behind his back). Ancient tradition and showing respect aside, Arwyn thought constant bowing was a good way to strengthen the lower back muscles.

Class started with lining up in order by belt level, then age; Arwyn was in the back, since it was a high-belt class for red belt and up. Everyone bowed to the instructor, who then directed the warm-up. Much of tae kwon do classes consisted of improving strength, flexibility, and endurance through mundane exercises. People who peeked in during the beginning part of class expecting flashy stunts or intense fighting were usually disappointed to see red and black belts running laps, doing push-ups (or whatever you called the pathetic things Arwyn did) and sit ups, or quietly stretching (though whimpering wasn't that uncommon during partner stretching). It was not until everyone's muscles were warm and loose that the tae kwon do techniques really appeared.

Every week, the class practiced different areas. Sometimes they worked on patterns, also called forms, sets of linked kicks, punches, and blocks that were part of the standard curriculum to advance in belt level. Also common were classes focused on one or a few kicks, with the aim to improve speed, balance, power, and accuracy. Occasionally, they learned 'street fighting,' simple techniques that would work well against opponents in a real fight (and would get you disqualified from a competition); as a rule, starting fights and using tae kwon do techniques to bully others would get you banned from the sport, but if someone else threw the first punch, you were allowed to dodge in a way that ended up with the other person face-down on the ground with their arm twisted behind their back.

This week's practice went into raising the height of their axe kicks (seen in Chapter 3; the foot goes up over the target and smashes straight down). Arwyn paired up with the most flexible girl in class (and bowed), then accepted a hand target (she thinks they're called hand targets because they're hand-sized; they were really foot targets most of the time) from the assistant instructor (with a bow). Flexibility was variable between individuals in class; as a general rule, the older and more muscular you were, the less flexible you were. Some of the practitioners could barely kick a target at waist height, while Arwyn and her partner started the target at face level.

Settling into a fighting stance, Arwyn focused on the target, then brought her foot up and snapped it down through the target with a yell. “Hai!” Yells were called 'ki-ups', with 'ki' meaning 'energy'. The loud cries at the moment of impact psychologically invigorated a person to strike with more energy, as well as physiologically causing the abdominal muscles to tense at the correct time. Hit at the correct angle, the hand target made a loud slapping sound a split second after Arwyn's ki-up.

After a few kicks with both legs, Arwyn took the target from her partner (with a bow) and held it for the other girl to kick (her ki-up sounded more like “Eh!”). Time passed with a sense of cameraderie as Arwyn and her partner grinningly held the target higher and higher until it was well over head height, technically physically impossible to hit even if you were able to do front splits. The girls circumvented this technicality by bouncing onto the balls of their feet, standing on their toes and elevating their effective height by a few inches (*sneaky*).

When an hour had passed, class ended (with bowing), and Arwyn headed home tired, sweaty, and slightly sore, but completely relaxed and glowing from her exertions (get your minds out of the gutter; it's an exercise high. Though if you're being warned about this, it means the author's mind is also in the gutter). After she took a (necessary) shower and devoured lunch (like a lunch-devouring monster), “completely relaxed” became “sleepy”. Though Arwyn had been getting plenty of sleep since purchasing Fantasia, she had been conscious and thinking for over three days, six if you counted the faster time in the game; her body was rested, but her mind was weary. Arwyn went into her room and sank into her queen-sized bed for a nap (tsk tsk, going to bed with wet hair. This is how weird hairstyles are born).

An hour later, Arwyn wakened naturally, feeling amazingly refreshed. She had had one of those perfect naps where she woke with her mind completely focused and her body warm and relaxed, with none of the small discomforts usually associated with sleeping, like a sore neck or a dry mouth (even her hair was fine; one of the properties of really long hair was that gravity pulled it into the same style no matter how you abuse it). She indulged herself by lazing about like a cat (she had five full-sized pillows that she liked to shift into various configurations for lazing on) before finally getting up.

Contentedly, Arwyn turned on her computer. Technically, she did not have to work on weekends, but deadlines were deadlines no matter when you did the work, so she tended to spread her workload out to weekends if there was nothing better to do. The next few hours were spent immersed in spreadsheets and emails.

Arwyn continued working after dinner. Night had fallen, and she was about to turn off her laptop when Leah sent her an instant message:

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - How was TKD?

ArwynTheElf – Great. You should take it with me.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - I will if you take yoga with me.

This was an ongoing negotiation between the two friends as each tried to convince the other of the superiority of their chosen form of exercise. Leah contended that tae kwon do was too violent and a high-risk activity for injury, while Arwyn maintained that yoga did not even count as exercise (and wasn't violent enough).

ArwynTheElf – I'd rather... go to tae kwon do by myself.

(She had been about to write something melodramatic like, “I'd rather eat low-fat ice cream”, but then realized she didn't find yoga that distasteful.)

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - Good, because I'd rather not have somebody stomp on my foot and have to hobble around for weeks.

ArwynTheElf – That only happened once.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - What about the time you sprained your ankle and hobbled around for weeks?

ArwynTheElf – That also only happened once.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - And the time you twisted your knee?

ArwynTheElf – Okay, that one doesn't even count; it wasn't a full sprain, I wasn't hobbling, and I didn't even have to skip a TKD class.

ArwynTheElf – Anyways, are you going to list every injury that I ever had? Because been there, suffered that.

Arwyn did not actually get injured frequently in tae kwon do class, but after almost a decade of weekly and twice-weekly classes, the incidents added up.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - Actually, I wanted to check on your Fantasia progress. I trained hard last night and got to level 15.

ArwynTheElf – ...19

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - *swear word* Seriously? HOW?

(Leah actually wrote “*swear word*”; she swears infrequently, like Arwyn.)

ArwynTheElf – I got the Magic (*song reference*ⁱ). Oh, and sometimes hunting is more efficient in a party.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - >_> Of course I hunt in a party. Solo mages are just asking to die, and I'm not antisocial like you.

ArwynTheElf – I'm only antisocial towards stupid people.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - And everyone is stupid.

ArwynTheElf – You understand me so well ^_^

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - Well, it's the least I can do, since you're so great at helping me destroy the evidence.

(This was an ongoing joke that Leah and Arwyn played on whatever agency might be monitoring their chat history. They are both law-abiding citizens.)

ArwynTheElf – I'd patent the process, if its only use weren't so illegal.

(Still joking. Really. There is no process. *doth protest too much*ⁱⁱ)

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - k, well, I'm going to go try to catch up with you in Fantasia. Bye and goodnight.

ArwynTheElf – Nightnight.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... is offline.

Arwyn took Leah's game-playing as permission to do so herself. Saving her work, she shut her laptop and prepared for sleeping. She brushed her teeth (and flossed; good dental hygiene is important to overall health) before climbing onto the recliner and putting on the game helmet (“Welcome,” it whispered seductively). Setting the alarm for work the next morning, Arwyn turned on the game.

◊◊◊

Darkness.

“Scanning. Player detected. Welcome back to Fantasia, Fey E'lan.”

A flash of light.

◊◊◊

Fey blinked into existence a short distance from Moonwood village. Almost immediately after logging on, she received a private message:

<Leandriel: Hello. Are you busy today, or can we meet?>

Fey felt a jolt of nervous anticipation at the prospect of seeing the angel again.

<Fey: Of course we can meet. I'll meet you at the Moonwood teleport gate?>

<Leandriel: I can be there in half an hour.>

<Fey: Okay, see you.>

When the chat disconnected, Fey gave herself a stern talking-to while walking towards the Moonwood. Okay, get all of the squealing and giggling over with before he gets here; you will not embarrass yourself by acting like an idiot. (Her fangirl self subsided with a giggle and no promises.)

Since she had some time before Leandriel's arrival, Fey wandered into Kallara's shop upon reaching the village.

“Hi,” she greeted the healer inside the tree-shop, trailed by Magic and Boris, with Amethyst still in her flask practicing Osmosis.

“Fey! How are you?” Upon seeing the expanding and contracting slime, Kallara's eyes crinkled in amusement. “Ah, so that is what you wanted the flask for. I had guessed that you wanted to practice your Enchant spell.”

“Oh. Uh,” Fey stuttered (not-so-eloquently). At level 9, Amethyst's Osmosis made her big enough to almost overflow the flask, so Fey had been planning to return it, but Kallara's idea was a good one. “I'll be doing that now that Amethyst is getting bigger.” (Tsk, tsk, trying to pretend that she had been planning it all along.)

Getting to her purpose for visiting, Fey opened her backpack and pulled out the various plants (corpses) that Boris had gathered for her. “I brought these for you.”

Kallara exclaimed in delight after examining the pile of plants. “Some of these are quite rare! I cannot manage to grow them in my garden, so it is always a hassle to obtain them.”

“Boris just found them for me,” Fey admitted, indicating the miniature boar. Struck by an idea, Fey offered, “Would you like to take him? He could gather herbs for you.” Boris' physical fighting style did not complement Fey's abilities, especially since he was quite small and vulnerable to being killed, so Fey thought this was a good opportunity to find him a more suitable owner.

“Oh no, I couldn't,” Kallara refused, clearly flattered at the offer. “It would be irresponsible to send him into the forest alone, and I am unable to leave the shop unattended to supervise him. You keep him and bring back the plants he finds.” While talking, Kallara's (elegant) hands were busy sorting the plants by variety. At seeing one particular plant, she reached into a drawer (nope, can't explain how a tree can grow sliding drawers) and pulled out a pair of tongs, which she used to carefully separate the plant from the rest.

“What's that?” Fey asked, examining the reddish-purple plant. It had glossy, broad leaves and no flowers, and did not look dangerous enough to warrant special treatment (not that Fey knew anything about plants).

“This is furyweed, and it is quite poisonous.”

“I didn't notice anything when I picked it up,” Fey commented, puzzled.

“It has to enter through a cut or swallowing,” Kallara explained. “I am just being cautious.”

“Quite poisonous,” huh? When Kallara turned back to the rest of the plants. Fey took a few of the furyweed leaves and placed them in her pouch (it's not stealing if she's the one who collected it in the first place).

After tallying up the plants, Kallara said, “I can offer you 300g for all of them.” This was quite a generous offer, double the price Fey could obtain at a general store. Kallara could afford to pay an inflated price because she could use her considerable skill to turn the ingredients into rare and high-quality potions.

“Oh no, they are a gift. You've helped me so much already.” Fey had expended zero effort in collecting the plants and was not planning on making a profit on them. She had brought them to Kallara because she subconsciously already thought of the NPC as a friend and thought the healer would appreciate them.

“In that case...” Kallara opened a cupboard and pulled out a very large flask, about the same volume as one of Fey's backpacks. “You can continue training Amethyst in this,” said the healer, passing the container over. The Moonwood did not have a glass-blower's, so all of Kallara's bottles and flasks were imported from the nearest human town; including importation costs, the oversized flask was worth about 100g.

“Wow, thanks.” Fey accepted the cylindrical container with both hands. Empty, it weighed little, but when filled with water, it would be difficult to haul around without her weight-reducing backpacks. “What would you use such a large flask for, anyways?”

“Well, I have not made one in quite a while, but there are more dilute potions that are meant to be absorbed through the skin, like a medicinal bath.” Kallara grinned. “The majority are vanity charms, so I can charge outrageously for them.”

Fey grinned back, understanding the fun in making a large profit off of people who could afford it (plus, saying the word “outrageously” was fun in and of itself).

“So do you need help with anything?” Fey asked. “I have a few minutes before I have to meet someone.”

Fey puttered around in the potion shop in the time before Leandriel's arrival. Kallara (of course) needed water, so Fey was dispatched with the bucket; she took the opportunity to fill up her extra-large flask. Amethyst, of course, was not put into the water; she was busy bashing plants into a pulp with strong, rapid beats of her bubble (*food processor*). Magic hopped around in exploration, eventually traveling up to the ceiling (*defy gravity*) to take a closer look at the plants hung out to dry. In contrast, Boris hid in a safe corner after inspection of a pile of powder led to a violent sneezing fit (it was cutely hilarious).

“Your visitor is almost here,” Kallara announced while hanging the new plants out to dry.

“How do you know?”

“I can sense the teleport gate activating.” Healing was considered a subcategory of magecraft in Fantasia, so Kallara was technically a high-level mage and sensitive to large flows of mana. “Slow down,” the healer chided when Fey suddenly became clumsy with hurry, “it will be several minutes before the gate finishes activating.”

Fey carefully finished her task of hanging up half the plants, then hurriedly collected her pets (she didn't even notice Magic's impressive double backflip as he dropped from the ceiling) and rushed out the tree-shop's archway with a quick, “Bye!” to Kallara. The healer shook her head indulgently.

Fey's rushing lasted until she arrived at the teleport gate, still slowly brightening with magical energy. She had a mortal fear of being late, born out of a childhood with a sister who was chronically late (and dragged her into lateness by extension). Relaxing, she stood at the edge of the magical circle and waited.

Fey was not the only individual waiting at the gate. Attracted by the bright light, many players had gathered to watch curiously. The anticipation slowly built as the gate increased in brightness. Onlookers were not disappointed when, in a final burst of light, a warrior angel appeared, his shiny armour and pure white wings almost blinding in the disappearing glow.

The dramatic moment was ruined when, barely a second after his arrival, the bolder (more shameless) players rushed forward.

“Can I have some gold?”

“Can I have some items?”

“Let me use your gate key!”

Fey was disgusted at the shamelessness of the requests. Does anybody actually get anything from begging like that? Elves are supposed to be elegant and dignified; if they wanted to be greedy and rude, they should have become goblins or orcs. She stayed standing where she was, next to one of the stone pillars that marked the boundaries of the dimensional gateway.

Leandriel had been getting this kind of reaction every time he teleported after Fantasia had been released to the general public. He hoped that as the average level rose and teleportation became more common, people would stop swarming him (like locusts). Ignoring the (shameless and) repetitive requests from the people around him, he looked over their heads (he can do that because he's really tall) and spotted Fey. The elf smiled when they made eye contact. “Hi,” he saw her mouth as she raised a hand in greeting.

Leandriel tried to edge forward, but the players in front of him refused to take the hint and stayed firmly planted in his way. Fed up, he snapped his wings open and beat them once against the air (*whoosh*).

Fey's smile of greeting shifted into a smile of (sadistic) enjoyment as a gust of wind blew her hair back from her face. Players were knocked left and right (and backwards and forwards) by Leandriel's massive, powerful wings. Aside from the fact that the angel looked amazingly dangerous and cool as he walked forwards with his wings half-raised in warning, Fey liked people who were not so nice that they let others walk all over them. (Her inner fangirl was jumping up and down, squealing, but Fey firmly tied her up and shoved her into a dark hole in her mind.)

“Hello,” Leandriel greeted her politely (as if he hadn't just knocked a bunch of people onto their butts).

“Hello,” Fey echoed, equally polite (as if she hadn't just had a sadistic moment of enjoying seeing people knocked onto their butts).

“Shall we?” Leandriel indicated a trail out of the village, and the pair made their way into the forest.

iThis is a reference to the song “Magic” by B.o.b ft. Rivers Cuomo, which is a super-catchy song that does not actually reflect the author's music preferences.

iiThe full line from Shakespeare's play Hamlet is “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”

18: Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

As Fey and Leandriel traveled through the trees, Magic carelessly abandoned his owner in favour of the more interesting person (*abandon*), hopping up the angel's leg until Leandriel picked him up. “Hello, young spore.” The mushroom squeaked animatedly back (let's just make up dialogue and pretend he said, “I'm an grown-up spore, thankyouverymuch.”)

Fey picked up her newest pet to introduce. “This is Boris.”

“Hello.” (Leandriel is too dignified to rhyme with himself and say, “Hello, young boar). The boar squirmed and wriggled until Fey put him back down, then trotted off, trying to regain some of his dignity (such as it was for a miniature boar).

“So what brings you to this neck of the woods?” Fey asked, unable to resist the pun (well, technically, this is just a situation where the word “literally” could be properly used).

Smiling at Fey's witticism, Leandriel answered, “I brought something for you.”

Fey's first reaction was, “What is it?” Belatedly, her manners kicked in and she said, “You shouldn't have brought me anything.”

Before the discussion could continue, Amethyst interrupted by jumping up and down excitedly on Fey's shoulder and squeaking (cutely).

“What is she doing?” asked Leandriel, eyeing the slime's antics curiously.

“Well, the last time she did this, she led me straight to the Slime King. She's kind of a cannibal,” Fey admitted.

“By all means, let us follow her direction.” The pair diverted their path to follow Amethyst's pointing bubble.

As expected, the group's trek ended at the sight of a (yellow) King Slime, busy hopping around and smashing its grapefruit-sized bubble at the hapless newbies who were scrambling to avoid it. After dispassionately observing the panicked scene for several moments (*callous*), Fey asked, “What happens if no higher-levelled player shows up to kill it?”

“I believe that if the King Slime is active for more than a day, a request will be put up to hunt it down.”

“Huh.” Fey briefly considered leaving the newbies to their rather unfortunate fate for a day so that she could earn quest rewards for killing it, then decided against it (because she thought it was likely that another player would kill it before she could if she left it). “Well, might as well go save the newbies, then.” Drawing her sword and dagger, Fey quick-stepped forward, leaving her pets in Leandriel's company.

(*slash*slash*slash*kill*). With Fey now at level 19, the King Slime was very quickly turned into a lifeless puddle on the ground.

With level 2 monster mastery, Fey could now see the special abilities, strengths, and weaknesses of slimes in her personal Bestiary.

The only loot the King Slime left this time was a small number of coins; in order to discourage people from 'farming(1)' bosses, loot quality decreased after each successive kill. Fey, of course, was really only after a snack for her (cannibalistic) slime. Cutting the King Slime bubble free, she offered it to Amethyst. After practicing stretching her membrane through Osmosis, the slime was able to engulf the sphere without assistance (*omnom*).

<Double Membrane has reached level 8!>

“Thanks!” came an unfamiliar voice, startling Fey. Since she had not bothered to manipulate the newbies into running away, there were several witnesses to her fight with the King Slime. The newbies (mistakenly) assumed Fey's primary objective had been to save them, and were properly grateful. For each newbie that thanked her, Fey's fame rose by 1:

<Fey's fame has increased to 17 (+1)!>

<Fey's fame has increased to 18 (+1)!>

<Fey's fame has increased to 19 (+1)!>

<Fey's fame has increased to 20 (+1)!>

<Fey's fame has increased to 21 (+1)!>

<Fey's fame has increased to 22 (+1)!>

<Fey's fame has increased to 23 (+1)!>

“Uh, you're welcome,” said Fey awkwardly, with a bit of guilt. She did not think highly of humanity in general, but it looked like these particular players were the decent, polite kind.

Eventually, Fey and Leandriel continued walking deeper into the forest. Leandriel decided to sidestep Fey's protests over his gift-giving by simply handing the item over. Reaching into his magical pouch, he pulled out a length of cloth. Expanding as it left the pouch's influence, it revealed itself to be a long, luxurious (purple) cape. “Here.”

“Oh my god. It's a cape. I love capes.” Fey's words came out almost absently as she stared, mesmerized by the flutter of cloth. Fey had a little-known and little-exploited weakness for presents. The reason so few people knew about this character flaw was that she had no interest in the typical gift items, such as clothing, jewelry, or flowers (she did like candy, but not the expensive, fancy kind). People assumed that she was an unmaterialistic person rather than figuring out the rather whimsical (random) things she did have an interest in.

Fey held up the cape so that it could unfold to its full length. On her body, it would reach from shoulders to ankles. Fey loved the dramaticism of capes, the way they rippled in air currents and accentuated the wearer's every movement. I really shouldn't accept this, but I really want it. Just to have something to do, she checked the item's information”

Holy [censored word] (get it, 'holy'?), this thing is worth more than all of my equipment until level 50 combined! “I can't possibly take this. It's worth more than all of my present and future equipment combined.”

Leandriel shrugged, the movement much more pronounced than on a wingless person. “Well, I can't use it, so you might as well put it to use,” he said, slightly unfurling his pinions to accentuate the point. “It has been sitting in my item storage for quite a while,” he explained, trying to make the cape seem less valuable than it was. He neglected to mention the series of difficult quests he had undertaken before earning the cape, or the fact that he had gone to some time and expense to dye the formerly white cloth a deep purple that complemented Fey's colouring.

Fey bit her lip and made strange faces while trying to make herself give the cape back, reducing her apparent age by approximately ten years. Leandriel (literally) took the decision out of her hands by taking the cape and fastening it to her shoulders, attaching it to buckles on her armour that she had thought purely decorative.

Oy vey. Fey stood stock-still, and the cape nonetheless fluttered slightly in the breeze. Devolving completely into nine-year-old-at-Halloween mode, she spent the next minute walking and turning excitedly just to make the cape swirl dramatically.

Leandriel observed Fey's (strange) behaviour with mild intrigue. To him, a cape was just a useful piece of equipment. Fey's exuberance reminded him of children who could find the fun in as something as simple as a large box. When she tripped over her own feet in the course of her spinning and turning, he could not help but chuckle.

Reminded of Leandriel's presence, Fey reverted to her 'mature adult' persona (she had tied up the fangirl, but it had never occurred to her that she needed to restrain her inner nine-year-old, as that one rarely came out unless capes and cowboy hats were involved). She compromised with herself.

“Okay, okay, I obviously really (really, really) want this cape. But I owe you a gift back, and you can't bring me another one.”

“Ever?” After seeing Fey's antics, Leandriel was rather curious as to how Fey would react to different items (*human experimentation*).

“Okay, only on major gift-giving holidays,” Fey conceded (is that the right word, when she's negotiating against getting stuff?)

“Not minor gift-giving holidays?” Now Leandriel was just poking fun at Fey's flustered wording.

“No, so don't go looking up obscure holidays no one has ever heard of.”

Leandriel thought for a moment, then nodded in agreement. Just to fluster Fey even more, he leaned in and murmured, “You forgot to stipulate the number of gifts per holiday,” before striding gracefully down the path.

“One!” Fey hurried after the angel, enjoying the flare (and flair) of her cape. “One! Do you hear me?” When Leandriel did not respond except to grin (mischievously), Fey grew agitated enough to grab his arm.

Leandriel smoothly tucked Fey's hand into the crook of his elbow as if he were escorting her to a ball. “I hear you,” he said soothingly, then ruined the soothing effect by adding, “I agree to nothing, but I hear you.” The next part of the trail was covered while engaging in (backwards) negotiation, as angel and elf argued for terms that would arguable benefit them less. A gift war had begun (this refers to two people who try to one-up each other with excessively delightful and thoughtful gifts; in an odd turn of phrase, the loser is the person who receives the better gifts).

“So where are we going?” Fey asked. She had a bad habit of unquestioningly following people who knew where they were going without paying any attention to her surroundings (leaving her vulnerable to getting extremely lost if her guide disappeared).

“A dungeon,” Leandriel answered (laconically).

“Uh, a dungeon I won't get killed in?” Fey imagined the kinds of dungeons that Leandriel probably trained in, and shuddered at the thought of hordes of slavering monsters with sharp (scary) claws and teeth.

“You'll be safe as long as you remain within the first two floors,” Leandriel reassured her.

Since Fey had absolutely no interest in exploring places that were hazardous to her health, she was unbothered by the restriction (she gave 'healthy curiosity' a new, more cautious meaning). “How many floors are there?”

“In theory, an infinite number. Since the monsters are stronger with each successive floor, I've explored only eleven.” Known as 'infinity dungeons,' the grounds were populated with monsters from all over the game world, and were excellent training grounds for players of all levels. The difficulty was in finding such dungeons; though there was one in every major area of the world, their entrances were innocuous and secluded. Many people who did discover them dismissed them as low-level dungeons and did not bother exploring past the first few levels. Leandriel had personally tested three of them, and knew the locations of every dungeon entrance (*inside knowledge*).

Fey and Leandriel arrived at a small cave entrance, the path inside sloping visibly downwards. The entrance was small enough that Leandriel had to duck (to avoid hitting his head), but the cave walls gradually gained height and width until the pair reached a large cavern.

A rippling wave of shadow flowed (ominously) towards the pair. Fey jumped back towards the dungeon entrance, but Leandriel stood his ground, relaxed and calm, and cast one of his spells.

The dim cavern suddenly lit up as if Leandriel were a 1000-watt (LED) lightbulb. With a high-pitched keening, the further edge of darkness retreated to the cavern, while the nearer edge simply disintegrated, appearing to blow away like dry sand in a strong wind.

“What are those?” Fey cautiously moved up to stand next to the angel, eyeing the scattering of coins that was all that remained of the creatures (she put Amethyst down, and the slime hopped around cutely, picking up the money).

“They're called glooms.” (no relation to the Pokemon, for once.)

Wanting to get a closer look, Fey walked up to a cluster of shadow next to the cavern wall, then scooped a creature up. “Aww, it's so cute.” Glooms were shadowy creatures with large button eyes that rather resembled rabbits with small ears. When they traveled in number, their hopping form of movement resulted in the effect of rippling shadow. Its skin was smooth, but slightly fuzzy, like felt (haha, it felt like felt).

Turning, Fey held the creature up to show Leandriel. “Look how cute it is.” Upon being exposed to the holy light, the formerly docile gloom cringed and began to squirm out of Fey's grip. Fey also noticed that the glooms on the ground had conformed to the exact shape of her shadow in an attempt to avoid being purified.

As usual, Fey felt sorry for the (sorry) creatures. “Could you turn off the light?” she asked.

“They will swarm me,” Leandriel warned, but complied. He was not concerned of the possibility of attack. Glooms were the dark equivalent of slimes, the monsters that players starting in the Dark Side (cookies are a local specialty there) trained on during their first quest.

Leandriel had been mentally prepared to be mobbed by the holy-hating shadow-creatures, but was far more concerned when the group at Fey's feet creeped up her legs (showing the same disregard for gravity as Magic). He knew the monsters were only level 1 and would not be able to harm the elf through her armour, but still had to wrestle with the irrational part of himself that wanted to sear the creatures out of existence.

Fey was in fact not being attacked:

<Monster Tamer has reached level 5!>

What, all six of them? “They must have really hated the light, Fey muttered. She then proceeded to give them extremely obvious and unimaginative names. “You'll be Onyx, Inkblot(2), Ebony, Midnight, Shadow, and Obsidian.” Fey saved the last name for the gloom she was holding in her hands.

<Onyx, level 1 gloom>

<HP: 5/5, MP 5/5>

<Exp: 0/10>

<Ability: Gloom>

“Look, I tamed them!” Fey called out cheerfully.

Leandriel relaxed at the confirmation that Fey was safe from attack (he's so adorable like that), and replied, “Good. Shall we continue?”

The newly-augmented group continued through the cave system. Fey's glooms were wary of the angel (they weren't fans of her blessed cape, either), but willing to stay in his presence as long as he was not actively casting holy magic. As Fey and Leandriel made their way through the interconnected caverns that comprised the dungeon's first level, the monsters' levels steadily increased from 1 to 10. Dark-element monsters invariably attacked Leandriel (suicidally), while the other monsters had enough self-control and intelligence to keep their distance (run away) from the level 99 warrior. Finally, they reached a spiral staircase roughly hewn into the stone.

“Watch your step,” Leandriel cautioned as they descended. Fey smiled tightly, already completely focused on going down the uneven steps without tripping and falling. (This would be a really obvious place to insert the 'girl falling down the stairs and being saved by guy' cliché, but for the sake of originality...) They arrived at the next level without incident.

“This is a good floor for you to train in. The monsters range from level 11 to 20.”

Fey did not hear Leandriel's words, being too busy staring in horror at the monsters scattered all over the first cavern of the dungeon's second floor. Giant spiders the size of dogs scuttled across the stone floor.

Fey did not like bugs. Whether insects, arachnids, or any other creature with a chitinous exoskeleton that did not fall into those categories, the sight of their skinny stick legs and segmented bodies made the primal part of her brain activate with a strong urge to shriek and run away. Beetles were the insects that disturbed her the least, with their fat bodies looking less segmented and alien than most insects (which is why she didn't freak out that much in Chapter 7).

“Nononononono...” she began to mutter subvocally. She did not push air through her vocal cords as she mouthed the words, so the effect was a barely audible exhale interrupted by the 'n' sound in “no”.

“Are you okay?” Leandriel asked with concern, seeing Fey's fixed facial expression.

“Oh no, I'm fine.” Fey's voice was two octaves higher than usual with impending hysteria.

Amethyst, seeing her owner's (wimpy) distress, decided to be proactive in eliminating the problem. With a commanding squeak (“Feypets, engage the enemy!” or some such cartoon superhero motto), the slime jumped from Fey's shoulder onto Boris' back and charged off to engage the enemy. Magic hopped off separately to fight his own spider, while Fey's new glooms aided from a distance by casting Gloom.

<Gloom: -5 accuracy, -1 attack initiative>

The resulting slaughter was remarkable in a macabre way. When she did not destroy the spider outright, Amethyst ruthlessly crippled spider after spider by destroying all the legs on one side with well-placed blows of Whip. She then cheerfully left the toppled creature to be slaughtered by Boris' Charge attack. Fey had not noticed until now, but upon reaching level 10, the Whip skill had evolved so that Amethyst could extend the length of her bubble-arm, and it could now reach 1.4 metres in every direction, making her slow hopping travel a non-issue.

Magic's method of killing was less flashy, but perhaps more macabre. Hopping onto a spider's back where it could not reach him, the mushroom planted himself and cast Drain until they were nothing but dry, brittle husks.

Just as Fey's pets mooched half the experience points she earned, Fey gained half the experience when they made kills themselves. Her other pets then gained half of Fey's half, a quarter of the original experience.

Even at a quarter of the experience gain, Fey's level 1 glooms quickly reached level 5, at which point they felt strong enough to attack spiders that Magic had already severely weakened. They hopped up arachnid bodies and sank their shadow-teeth through exoskeleton.

Like many dark-element creatures, there was a malady associated with the wounds they inflicted, in this case a lethargy that impaired the victim's ability to move.

Fey was cringing at the carnage. She particularly disliked the crunch of exoskeleton as Amethyst and Boris demolished their opponents (in fact, she killed bugs at home by wrapping a book in tissue and dropping it on the bug to avoid the crunching feeling), and the dried-up husks Magic was leaving behind were not so appealing, either.

Leandriel was rather taken aback at the aggressive attack by the pets on the rather peaceable cave spiders; with very low attack initiative, the monsters had already been retreating and would have let them pass through without challenge. “Did you signal them to attack?” he asked, wondering if he had missed a cue from the elf.

“Uh, no. I think Amethyst figured out that I don't like bugs,” Fey explained sheepishly.

“Oh.” Leandriel grinned at a sudden thought. “You know how they say that pets tend to resemble their owners? After seeing this, nobody would ever want to cross you.”

Fey opened her mouth to deny any resemblance to her (mini-army of) pets, then reconsidered. While it was true that she was not particularly physically violent in the real world, she did have a straightforward mindset towards solving problems, as well as a tendency to be ruthlessly cruel towards those she developed a dislike towards. I guess translated into the game world, that does result in the casual wholesale slaughter of spiders (say THAT ten times fast). “Perhaps you're right,” she said reflectively.

The sight of the spiders, alive, dying, and dead, continued to bother her, so she asked, “Can we get out of here?” and crossed the cavern with Leandriel, skirting bodies as they walked. Fey's pets eventually left off chasing the fleeing cave spiders and rejoined their owner, conscientiously bringing back any loot they could carry (wow, they really do resemble their owner). Amethyst now carried a good number of coins visibly floating within her membrane, while each of her other pets brought her two spider fangs.

Fey thanked her pets with a pat and stored everything away. She had no idea what the non-poisonous cave spiders' fangs could be used for, but that did not mean she was going to discard them (*hoard*).

Footnotes:

(1)Gamer-speak for repeatedly killing any monster for either experience or loot

(2) Readers may or may not recognize this as the name of a darking in Tamora Pierce's book “In the Realms of the Gods”

19: Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Fey and Leandriel managed to travel to the last cavern of the dungeon floor without (further) incident. Populating the space were level 20 monsters that resembled giant black tortoises, except that their shells were jointed to allow them to curl into a fully-armoured ball. Fey evaluated the tortoises. Although they were thickly armoured by their shells, their heads and legs were vulnerable when they were not curled up. This weakness, plus their slow movement speed, made them good targets for her fighting abilities (or lack thereof).

“Excellent,” Fey said in her best evil villain accent, earning her an odd look from Leandriel (more like a 'you're odd' look). “Are you going to go now?” she asked Leandriel, having worked out why the angel had chosen to bring her to the dungeon. With monsters of all levels, it was a perfect place for them to train separately, together (or is that “together, separately”?).

“It would be rude of me to bring you here, then simply leave you behind.” Leandriel had been planning on spending some time helping Fey adjust to fighting the new monsters before descending to lower floors to train on opponents closer to his own level.

“No, it's fine. You've done me a huge favour (*borderline cheating*) by showing me such a great training spot. You go on ahead, and we can hang out during breaks or something.” When Leandriel made no sign of moving, Fey added, “I won't get mad.”

Leandriel raised his eyebrows at the last sentence, clearly having some experience with the female half of the species in combination with that phrase.

Fey grinned at the angel's skepticism. “And I won't say 'I won't get mad' and then get mad. I'm not a normal girl (*understatement of the year*).”

Having seen ample evidence of Fey's lack of normality, Leandriel decided to take the elf at her word. Ever since reaching level 90, it took over two full days of non-stop training to gain a single level. He planned on reaching level 100 again by the end of the day, but it would require a lot of extra hours of playing if he spent too much time without training. “Okay, then. I will be on the eleventh floor. Message me if anything happens.”

“Bye.”

Leandriel nodded and descended further into the dungeon. Before he left, he cast Helping Hand on Fey and her pets.

With Leandriel gone, Fey could relax the mental ropes tying up her inner fangirl and focus on fighting (the inner nine-year-old still needed restraining because she was wearing a cape). Eyeing the tortoises more carefully (everyone knows the difference between a turtle and a tortoise, right?), Fey noticed that there were two varieties, one with rounded bumps on its shell, and one with short cone-shaped spikes. The ones with bumpy shells looked less (pointy) dangerous, so Fey decided to attack one of those first. She drew her weapons but frowned, looking between the blades and the monster's thick shell. By her guess, as soon as she launched her first attack, it would curl up defensively and she would be unable to do further damage.

Better make the first hit count, then. Thoughtfully, she pulled a furyweed leaf (thornweed is so three chapters ago) from her pouch. “Here Amethyst, eat this.” Fey fed her beloved pet the highly poisonous plant (taken out of context, this sentence would indicate a dangerous level of madness).

“Now, poison slime: furyweed.” Amethyst obediently secreted a layer of furyweed poison. Holding the slime by the bubble, Fey carefully dabbed poison along the flats of her sword and dagger. Since furyweed poison had to enter the body first to work, it seemed logical to combine it with a cutting edge (far more practical than force-feeding it to the monsters). Preparations complete, Fey hid her pets in a safe corner, then focused on a particular bumpy-shelled tortoise. Standing just outside its area of awareness, she charged her sword with Mana Blade, then ran forward and chopped at its head with Vicious Strike.

<Duration: 5 minutes>

I wonder why it's called a volly? Fey pondered as she took advantage of the stun to inflict more damage (hint: it's a really bad pun). Even the hide on the volly's head and neck was quite tough, so Fey did not land critical strikes, only flesh wounds that bled sluggishly (tortoise-ly?).

As Fey had predicted, as soon as the stun wore off, the volly curled into an armoured ball, accompanied by the sound of shell grating against shell. The “curl up defensively” part was partially inaccurate, however, as the now-boulder-like creature began to roll towards her, picking up speed as it went.

Uh... Fey began to back up nervously, then jumped sideways as the live boulder, up to her waist in height, crushed its way through where she had been standing (*unexpectedly dangerous*). Despite not having its eyes visible under its shell, the volly appeared to be able to see and track Fey, turning to make another attempt at flattening her.

The next three minutes were spent playing 'don't get run over', which Fey did not particularly enjoy. The volly could build up to quite a speed when going in a straight line, but had very slow acceleration and turning, so Fey eventually settled on jogging in a small circle as the best method to stay alive (and unmaimed). Even at a jog, Fey could calculate that the furyweed poison could inflict a maximum of 900 damage, more than double her own maximum health, so it was only a matter of waiting until the toxin took its toll on the volly.

When the shelled monster finally stopped rolling, uncurling and disintegrating into small black pebbles, Fey was slow to react. Continuing to jog in a circle, she skidded over the pebbles and almost lost her balance. She managed to right herself by reflexively jerking her arms to compensate, but very nearly stabbed herself in the eye (remember, children, running around holding an unsheathed sword is worse than running around with scissors). “Woah.” She slowly sheathed sword and dagger with extra care.

“Phew.” Fey's breathing was slightly deepened from jogging, but she still had plenty of energy left and could maintain the slow pace for quite a while. Taking stock of the situation, she dug through the black pebbles and found a few coins as well as a small round stone.

Analyzing the results of her fight (“fight”), Fey decided that she had a satisfactory strategy for defeating the vollys, and did not bother experimenting with different tactics. Since she thought it was unlikely that her pets' skills would be able to penetrate the volly's shells, Fey sent her mini-army back to (terrorize) the cave spiders. She was finding that having her pets only passively gain half her experience points was not working well, as their lower levels put them in danger against the monsters she fought. “Go train and level up,” she told them, “and don't forget to collect the loot.”

Amethyst sat on Magic, who was sitting on Boris, and the miniature boar trotted off, flanked by three glooms on either side (*travel formation*). Fey grinned and took a snapshot of the almost artistic arrangement as they left, then focused on her own training.

Judging by the speed the rolling volly had displayed, Fey thought she could handle attacking two at once. Drawing just her sword, she used Vicious Strike on one monster, then immediately repeated the attack on another before turning to run and dodge. Avoiding two boulder-monsters coming from different directions was more challenging, but manageable.

Fey's training went smoothly for a time, with her skills and experience steadily increasing.

<Vicious Strike has reached level 3!>

<Vicious Strike has reached level 4!>

<Mana Blade has reached level 4!>

<Fey's stamina has increased to 102 (+1)!>

Of course, the easy times could not last. Fey ran into trouble when she neglected to reapply furyweed poison to her sword. After striking a volly, the poison status failed to appear, and she found herself in the unenviable position of being chased by a live boulder that was in no danger of imminent death.

Uh oh. Fey scrambled to think while still running. Out of all her skills and abilities, the only one with any chance of penetrating the volly's thick shell was Mana Edge, and she did not think it was yet at a high enough level.

Here goes nothing. Having not thought of a different plan, Fey attacked with Mana Edge. Charging her blades with sharp-edged mana, Fey abruptly changed directions and ran directly at the volly. The shelled monster hesitated briefly at her unexpected action, and Fey took advantage of the pause to slash at it. At the last possible moment, she decided to aim for the crack between two segments of shell as a possible weak point.

Fey continued past the volly as she cut at it, unable to tell if she had done any damage. With a mental shrug, she attacked again and again, turning, dodging, and slashing repeatedly.

<Mana Blade has reached level 5!>

Using Mana Edge added experience to the Mana Blade skill that the subskill took its level from. At level 5, Mana Edge allowed the warrior to ignore 15 points of defence.

Eventually, the volly collapsed, tired and bleeding, unable to maintain its curl. Fey sprang forward and aimed a flurry of strikes at the monster's head and neck, and it crumbled away into black gravel.

Fey immediately sat down, panting. The high speed of attacking and dodging required far more energy than simply jogging around, and her (wimpy) muscles were collecting interest on the extra exertion she had forced out of them (our heroine doesn't seem to get along that well with her body, does she?). In addition to her fatigue, her legs were covered in bruises up to her hips where she had not dodged fast enough; if the volly had been hurtling along at full speed rather than slowing and turning, she could have had an entire limb crushed.

Getting up wearily, Fey went to call Amethyst, then realized that her pets could not hear her with from nine caverns away. Wishing she could private message her pets, she limped towards the cave spiders' habitat.

Just before entering the cave spiders' cavern, Fey braced herself for the sight of mangled spider bodies. She was rather surprised when instead, she was confronted with a nearly empty space, occupied only by her pets. With Amethyst's deadly bubble leading the way, the team (should we officially call them Feypets?) had quickly eradicated the entire population of spiders and was now waiting for them to respawn.

From what she could observe, it appeared to Fey that her pets were amusing themselves by having an odd sort of shadow-puppet contest. Onyx, Inkblot, Ebony, Midnight, Shadow, and Obsidian competed by morphing their bodies into various shapes, while Amethyst, Magic, and Boris served as judges. Clearly, the judging was not impartial, as Amethyst was supporting a slime-shaped shadow, while Magic and Boris each favoured their own shape.

“Um, excuse me,” Fey interjected in a mock-scolding voice, “you should all be voting for this one.” Fey picked up Obsidian, who had copied her own form in miniature, and gave him a pat. “Though I have to admit, this one probably deserves to win.” Fey referred to Shadow, who had replicated Leandriel's shape in incredible detail, right down to the feathery texture of his wings and the intricate shape of his armour. “You, stop that,” Fey said to Ebony, who had chosen the shape of a spider and was making her skin creep with the level of detail. The gloom relaxed its shape into its natural small-eared bunny form.

Fun aside, Fey checked on her pets' progress. “Let's see what you've accomplished.” The glooms had reached level 12, while her senior pets were now level 16, and they had made increases in various skills and abilities.

“Very good,” she praised, and her pets made various cute sounds in reply. “You guys can go train in the next cavern over if you run out of spiders.” The level 12 cavern was populated with giant rats(1) (or rodents of unusual size, if you prefer(2)), which she thought her pets could handle without much trouble. “Don't let anyone die,” Fey told Amethyst, charging her with the safety of the group after adding a fresh coat of poison to her weapons. The slime nodded solemnly, then jumped onto Boris' back and commanded the group forward into the next cavern.

Fey stopped to gather up the pile of cave spider fangs and coins her pets had piled up for her, then returned to her own training against the vollys. As she passed through the giant rats' cavern, she smiled (and winced) to see her pets already wreaking bloody havoc on the rodents (like, quite bloody).

***

In the seventh cavern of floor B11, Leandriel battled level 107 chaos snakes. The snakes' eyes and blood flashed in (chaotic) hypnotic patterns that threatened to mesmerize him unless he activated his Battle Focus ability. Lunging forward, he cut the head off of one of the giant serpents. Instead of dying, the chaotic creature grew two new heads, both of which hissed aggressively at him.

This was Leandriel's first time fighting chaos-element monsters, and it was the most confusing experience of his life. The snakes constantly changed element so that from moment to moment, his holy-type attacks would inflict half damage, double damage, or even heal. In addition, they had a 50% chance of reviving every time he landed a fatal blow, as well as a bewildering variety of constantly changing abilities. All in all, he had no idea what was happening.

Strategy was out the window, and Leandriel was relying on his sword skills, reflexes, and self-heal abilities to survive (though that's a strategy in and of itself...meh). He made a mental note to congratulate the game designer who had come up with the concept; his stated goal had been, “Let's confuse the hell out of them,” and the idea had been implemented flawlessly. (He also felt a mild urge to punch said designer in the face.) To make up for the incredible difficulty of fighting them, chaos-type monsters were worth triple the experience points of their normal counterparts of the same level.

<Fey: Leandriel?>

Fey's private message distracted Leandriel enough that a snake was able to bite deeply into his arm, apparently temporarily able to ignore his armour. Fortunately, the attack ended up healing him instead of inflicting damage (*extra confusing*). In the midst of battle, Leandriel found it easier to communicate through sound rather than text, so he switched to audio chatting.

“Fey? I am fighting right now. Do you have any objections to using audio chat?”

“No, of course not. Sorry to bother you; do you need to focus right now?”

“Not hardly,” Leandriel said with a mixture of amusement and frustration. He seemed to be making about the same amount of progress irrespective of the effort he put in or the level and type of skills he used. Misjudging a strike, Leandriel barely grazed a snake with his sword, but it dropped dead.

Briefly, Leandriel described his current situation. His mood improved, shifting from frustration to curiosity when Fey laughed in delight.

“What are you so pleased about?”

“Oh, I just really like random things.” This statement applied both to groups of things that were random in aggregate (like capes and cowboy hats) and things that were intrinsically random (like chaos snakes). “Anyways, you're going about it all wrong,” Fey continued assuredly, voice still bright with amusement, “Fight randomness with randomness.”

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” Leandriel dodged as a snake struck at him, slashing with his sword as its head traveled past him. The wound spewed a cloud of poisonous fumes, from which Leandriel quickly backed away.

“Don't fight them normally. Do random stuff. Ideally, you should do two things with opposite effects at the same time, like casting a blessing and attacking.”

Leandriel knew that Fey had never encountered a chaos-element monster, but she sounded so sure (she's a self-taught expert on randomness) and he had no better ideas, so he decided to follow her advice. Casting Helping Hand on the closest snake, he then chopped its head in half. The legless creature pulsed, grew legs, then exploded in a cloud of chaos-coloured mist.

“Nice,” he muttered, impressed at the results.

“Did it work?” asked Fey.

“Yes. The snake exploded quite impressively.” However, when Leandriel tried the same technique a second time, the snake doubled in size without appearing to come to any harm.

“It appears that this tactic is not foolproof.”

“Well, of course not. There's no such thing as 'foolproof' when it comes to randomness. Just enjoy it. I'd suggest more random things for you to do, but I'm afraid they would be beneath your dignity.”

“Like what?” Leandriel asked. He was not a particularly formal or snobbish person, concerned with his own dignity.

“Well let's see... If I were there, I would probably hug a snake while debuffing it, mix poison with a healing potion and throw it, tie two snakes into a knot, sing while randomly throwing them at each other... That's all I can come up with off the top of my head.” Leandriel was being shown a rare glimpse at the inner workings of Fey's mind. Normally, she pretended to be more normal than she was (which was still far less normal than the general population), but since she thought Leandriel was an NPC, she dispensed with the pretense.

“...Hug a snake?” Leandriel focused on what was arguably the strangest suggestion (though strong cases could be made for the others as well).

“Kill them with kindness, as they say. I did say that they'd be beneath your dignity.” Fey abruptly changed subjects, as she was wont to do (haha, “wont.” The author mixes fancy language into the most random places). “Oh yeah, the reason I messaged you was because I reached level 20. I'm heading over to the trainers to learn my next warrior skill.”

“Go ahead. I will likely still be here when you are finished.”

“Okay. See you later!” was Fey's cheerful farewell before she disconnected the chat.

Alone with his thoughts, Leandriel contemplated Fey's suggestions. He did not think they were 'beneath his dignity,' exactly, but... they were so odd. While he paused, the snakes' attack initiative cycled down to zero, and they began to ignore his presence.

Whether it was the influence of the chaos snakes or Fey's love of randomness he was not sure, but an uncharacteristic sense of abandon overtook Leandriel. Sheathing his sword, he grabbed a resting snake and quickly tied it around another. The first snake immediately began to attack the second, and when the second died, Leandriel was credited with experience for the kill.

Smiling, Leandriel thought a silent thank-you to his elven friend.

Footnotes:

(1) These monsters can be commonly found in the MMORPG Runescape

(2) This refers to the book/movie The Princess Bride by William Goldman

20: Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Fey collected her pets and headed out of the dungeon. It soon became clear that the glooms did not have a traveling speed compatible with her walk; they either traveled slowly with small hops, or bounded very rapidly with large leaps (like bunnies). Fey finally resorted to holding the bottom corners of her cape to make a sort of pouch.

“Hop on,” she told the shadow-creatures. They shifted uneasily, not wanting to touch the holy item.

“You're just going to have to get over it,” Fey lectured sternly, “it is just unacceptable going around with such an obvious and exploitable weakness.” She fully intended for her newest pets to develop resistance to holy magic the same way that high-level dark elementals did (which was rather unreasonable, considering that glooms were the lowest-level dark elementals around).

Reluctantly, the six glooms hopped onto the blessed cloth, shuddering as their skin made contact, and Fey set off.

As usual, Fey trained and experimented as she walked. First, she wanted Amethyst to acquire all the poisons she had access to. Now that Magic's Spore had reached level 10, she could command him to release specific status effects. Holding out a hand, Fey asked, “Magic, could you make a small pile of poison spores?”

Magic hopped his way up to Fey's wrist (*defy gravity*), then screwed up his face in a (cute) expression of concentration. Soon, a dusting of purple spores coated Fey's palm (because Poison Powder is purple in Pokemon). Fey's Immunity was at a high enough level that she could touch the spores with impunity.

“Here Amethyst, eat this.” Closing her hand, Fey carefully funneled the spores into Amethyst's open mouth.

Gloom poison was trickier. The dark creatures inflicted poison through their bite, and it did not seem feasible to collect a large amount of saliva or break off a tooth to feed to Amethyst. After pondering and looking around at her surroundings for inspiration, Fey had an idea. She picked a fallen leaf off the ground, still fresh and green.

“Bite this,” she told Shadow (not that she could tell the different between the glooms. Bad owner). A small nip from the gloom withered the leaf into shrivelled yellow. After feeding the leaf to Amethyst, the slime succeeded in learning the poison.

Hehehe. Fey was feeling smug and clever from her successes, despite the simplicity and ease of the problems she had solved. Feeling slightly invincible (whatever that means; you're either invincible or not), Fey decided to train Immunity using furyweed. With the ability at level 5, it could negate 2 damage per poison infliction, eliminating two-thirds of the damage she would take (how pride goeth before the fall).

Confident in her math, Fey applied furyweed poison to her dagger and gave herself a small prick on the back of her hand.

<Duration: 5 minutes>

<Duration: 5 minutes>

On paper, Fey's experience with the furyweed poison went exactly as predicted. However, she failed to account for the physical symptoms of such a strong poison. From the point of entry spread an intense burning, itching sensation that soon permeated her entire body. The feeling was unpleasant enough to make her want to scratch her skin off.

“Eugh,” came the sound of extreme discomfort bordering on true pain.

To prevent herself from actually starting to scratch her skin bloody, Fey tried to distract herself with physical exertion. She dumped the glooms on the ground to bound along beside her and pushed herself into a run.

I repent! she wailed in her mind as she rushed forward (this is funny because she's not Christian). Fey now felt extremely sorry for the poor vollys she had ignorantly inflicted such suffering upon, and thought they were superlatively justified in trying to turn her into roadkill. The burning pain seemed to continue forever, and Fey pushed herself faster and faster, trying to replace the pain with the bite of overexertion.

Finally (after five minutes), the poison wore off. Fey leaned against a tree, panting, now considerably closer to the Moonwood. Amethyst poked her owner concernedly with her bubble, worried that Fey was again falling into a death-like resting phase (see Chapter 12 if you don't remember), but the sprint had been short enough that after a few minutes of laboured breathing, Fey was able to walk on towards the village.

Damn, that's got more fury than a woman scorned (1). As Fey walked, the increased regeneration from her Guardian's Blessing allowed her to restore herself to full health within ten minutes. There must have been lingering effects of the poison interfering with her decision-making abilities, because, after seeing that she still had a good distance to travel, Fey again subjected herself to the furyweed poison (sometimes our heroine is smart, but sometimes she's realllllly dumb).

What's wrong with meeeee? she wailed mentally, finding herself running through the forest anew (she asks that a lot, but usually follows it up with, “Don't answer that.”).

<Fey's agility has increased to 41 (+1)!>

Fey's level of discomfort was such that even the attribute increase did not make the ordeal worth all the suffering. By the time the poison wore off the second time, Fey was thoroughly exhausted and very close to the Moonwood.

Judging herself unfit for anything but staying motionless for a while, Fey slumped her way into the tavern and collapsed into a chair, laying her cheek against the smooth, cool wood of the table (*headdesk*). Tallen found her in the same position when he came out of the kitchen a few minutes later.

“Miss?” he inquired, a bit nonplussed at finding an exhausted elf in his tavern.

Fey turned her head to look at the tavern-keeper without lifting it off the table. “Hey, Tallen,” she greeted in a languid voice, “Got anything to drink?”

Relieved at seeing Fey was just tired (as opposed to dying), Tallen bustled off to the kitchen. Returning almost immediately, he placed a tall glass of iced tea a few inches from where her head rested on the table.

Fey summoned the will to drag herself upright and took a sip of the beverage. As usual, it was perfectly suited to her tastes, sweetened and peach-flavoured (much better than that lemon nonsense). “You're the best, Tallen.”

Tallen winked. “Don't you forget it.”

Fey slowly sipped her iced tea as she caught her breath. Tallen's tavern was becoming quite busy as more people played Fantasia and started as elves. She allowed the babble of multiple conversations to flow past her without picking out any words, enjoying her quiet within the noise. (Alas, all good things come to an end.)

“Hi,” came an unfamiliar voice. It took Fey two seconds before she realized that somebody was talking to her and looked up. A group of elves had moved to the seats next to hers where she sat at one of the tavern's long communal tables.

“Hi,” she replied warily, feeling rather surrounded.

“Remember us? You killed the King Slime for us this morning.” Well, I remember the King Slime, anyways. The speaker was a cheerful male elf who indeed looked vaguely familiar (Fey was bad with faces and names). With a glance, Fey took in the group's appearance. Judging by their faces and cheerfulness, Fey guessed that they were several years younger than her, in their late teens. Their positioning and body language indicated that the one who had spoken was the outgoing leader of the group.

Fey put on the neutrally pleasant persona she used to deal with strangers, smiling faintly and making vague affirmative sounds while nodding.

“I'm Eli,” said the leader. He then proceeded to introduce the entire group, but their appellations failed to imprint themselves onto Fey's memory (because she didn't care. O herione, thou art heartless and cruel).

“I'm Fey,” said Fey, nodding at each player as they were introduced.

Clearly an expert at small-talk, Eli proceeded to ask, “So how long have you been playing Fantasia?”

Fey had to think back for several seconds to come up with the answer, “Four nights.” The flow of time felt strangely indistinct now that she no longer had periods of unconsciousness to punctuate the days.

“Cool. We've only just started. Got any tips?”

“Uh, not really.” Fey did not think that her style of adventuring was suitable for anyone else, even if she could describe it accurately (do random crap and somehow come out on top, or something like that). “Just have fun.”

Small talk made Fey feel both bored and awkward at the same time, so she quickly finished her iced tea and stood. Tallen materialized at her elbow a second later (actually, he just walked).

“Leaving, miss? I packed this for you.” Tallen handed Fey a packet of travel food.

“Thanks, Tallen.” Sliding the package into her belt pouch, Fey turned to say goodbye to the newbies.

“I've got to go. See you guys around some time.”

“Can we pay your bill for you?” asked Eli. “It's the least we could do after you saved our butts out there.”

“Uh,” was Fey's (quick-witted) response. In her mind, she did not have a bill because Tallen fed her for free, so the offer threw her for a loop (error... does not compute).

Tallen, however, capitalized quickly on the newbies' misconception. “That will be 28g, then.” The tavern-keeper included the price of Fey's travel food in the total. Fey slide a glance at him as Eli's group rummaged in their belt pouches for coins, and Tallen gave her a conspiratorial wink.

“Ah, thanks,” said Fey after they came up with the correct total and Tallen left. She did not have the heart to tell the kids that they had not saved her any money, and were instead lining Tallen's pockets.

“No problem. See you around!” Eli and his friends waved cheerfully as Fey left the tavern.

Before heading to the warrior trainers, Fey stopped at the bank to store away most of her gold and items. While most people would have disposed of very common items like spider fangs and rat teeth at the general store, Fey was a hoarder at heart and liked to save items for possible future use. The bank offered free safety deposit box services for up to a thousand different items, so Fey saw no reason to curb her natural tendencies, handing over piles of (junk) items to be placed into storage. Packs empty, Fey headed over to the warrior training area.

Irrilana seemed to be standing duty alone when Fey arrived at the designated clearing. Fey was mildly curious as to where Irrilathan had gone, but did not feel herself to be on close enough terms with the trainers to inquire. Instead, she focused on her own business at hand.

“I've reached level 20 and have come to learn my next warrior skill.”

Irrilana glanced at Fey as if she could read all of the player's stats and progress (which she could), then replied, “You have reached the correct level to advance, but have not completed enough warrior feats to qualify.”

“Warrior feats?” Fey echoed blankly. The class advancement system was covered in the “Advanced Gameplay” section of the manual that Fey had skipped (don't blame the heroine for being unprepared, blame the author for making things up as she goes).

Seeing that Fey had no idea how the system worked, Irrilana explained, “Each class has its own set of feats that you can complete to show your progress in that class. Different feats are worth different numbers of points, and you require a certain number of points to learn each successive skill; in this case, you need 20. When you begin to specialize at level 30, each sub-class will have its own set of feats to complete.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Fey called up the warrior class menu in her head.

Wondering where she had earned 14 points from, Fey scrolled through the long list of possible warrior feats she could complete.

<Who's the Boss?: Defeat a boss monster in melee combat>

<History: Slime King (level 15) at level 11 – 14 points>

Clearly, points were only awarded for the first time a player defeated the boss, or Fey would have more than enough points to learn her next skill. She looked through the list for a task that would be relatively easy to complete.

<Mad Skillz: Become skilled at a melee weapon (until Weapon Mastery skill forms)>

“Does unarmed combat count towards the weapon mastery feat?” Fey asked Irrilana. While she had no confidence in her ability to ever form the Sword Mastery skill, she thought her tae kwon do skills were sufficient to form a skill for unarmed combat.

“Not exactly, but it is easy enough to weaponize an unarmed fighting style with punching blades and bladed leg armour.”

Fey's eyes gleamed with interest at the idea. Her sword skills were fairly nonexistent, and the idea of adding sharp metal to her punches and kicks was incredibly appealing. Even were a warrior feat not involved, Fey would have immediately gone to buy the weapons. Thanking Irrilana for the advice, Fey made a beeline back to town.

Not sure whether bladed leg armour belonged in the weapon or armour shop, Fey decided to visit Senaia first (because she had a discount there). She had her pets wait outside the store to avoid wasting time having the cheerful elf exclaim over each one.

“Fey!” the shop-keeper greeted warmly, “Welcome!” Senaia's (yellow) slime Topaz waved its bubble in a hello from the counter.

“Hi.” Fey normally bowed to convention and made an effort to exchange at least a sentence or two of small talk before stating her business, but was so focused on her task that social niceties flew out the (figurative) window. “Do you have bladed leg armour?” she asked.

Senaia's expression went distant as she reviewed the store's inventory in her head. “That's not a popular type of armour, so we might not have any in stock... Yes, none. However, it is easy enough to have a set made. In compensation for having to wait, it can be customized to fit your exact measurements.”

“Cool.” Fey wanted the weaponized armour yesterday (actually, three days ago when she started playing Fantasia), but saw the advantage of having leg armour that fit perfectly.

Senaia whipped out a notepad and pencil. “Well then, may I ask your strength and agility level?”

“65 and 41.”

Senaia jotted the numbers down, then pulled out a measuring cord to find the dimensions of Fey's body below the waist. While a tailor might just measure waist and hip circumference, plus leg length on the inside and outside of the leg, Senaia's assessment was far more comprehensive. She measured the circumference of Fey's legs at nine points, the length of knee to hip and knee to ankle, and the dimensions of Fey's feet. The shop-keeper also took mysterious measurements of Fey's joints, having her flex and extend her legs at the hips, knees, and ankles. After writing all of the information down, Senaia muttered to herself as she made rapid calculations. “68 centimetres, 48 centimetres, 7 knots... Grade B steel, extra flexibility... The cost will be 3000g, 2400g after your discount. Will that be acceptable?”

“Yes.” Fey was happy about her discount. Including her quest rewards from the dubble/trubble quest (readers with at least level 1 Pun Comprehension should have already noticed the 'double trouble' pun), Fey now had over 7000g saved, plenty to cover the cost. “Oh, since I reached level 20, I might as well upgrade the rest of my armour, too.”

“Oh my, level 20 already? Congratulations!” Senaia bustled over to an armour stand holding several steel pieces. The new armour appeared to cover even less skin than Fey's current set, and she balked.

“That... That's not even decent! And somebody could stab you right in the stomach!” There were limits to what she was willing to tolerate, even from a fantasy game perspective. It simply was not practical to walk around with gaps in armour for the sake of aesthetics, even if she was willing to walk around in skimpy clothing (which she wasn't, because she got cold easily).

Senaia poked a hole in Fey's righteous indignation when she explained, “This is meant to go over your current armour. It adds defence to vital spots and high impact areas without affecting flexibility.”

“Oh.” (*deflated*) “That makes sense.”

Senaia began to pull the plated metal off the stand. “Let's see... You will not need the legs and boots, so the rest of the set will be 1600g, 1280g after your discount.”

Fey went to the bank to withdraw the necessary funds, then paid for all the equipment in full. Senaia helped her fasten the metal pieces over her leather armour, and promised that the custom leg armour would be ready for the next day.

After Fey thanked the shop-keeper and turned to leave, Senaia called out, “Oh, and punching blades complement the leg armour very well! They're sold in the weapons shop.”

Hmm... Fey had completely forgotten about the punching blades in her focus on the leg blades, as her favoured mode of hitting things was overwhelmingly leg-based. Since she was overdue for a weapons upgrade anyway, Fey headed to the neighbouring weapons shop.

The weapons shop was managed by Senaia's younger brother, Sylvannos. Physically, the auburn-haired male bore little resemblance to his sister, but had a masculine version of Senaia's cheerful energy, as well as a slight boyish obsession with the weapons he sold.

As soon as Fey crossed the threshold of his tree-shop, Sylvannos rushed over. “Welcome! How may I help you today?”

“I'd like to look at your level 20 short swords and punching blades.”

Sylvannos' eyes lit up with interest. “Right away!” The young shop-keeper immediately located the correct weapons among the dozens of racks growing out of the walls and brought them to the counter for Fey's examination.

Fey gave the short swords a cursory glance; they appeared to be higher-quality copies of the one she had earned for advancing to the warrior class. Her attention was drawn to the unfamiliar curves of the second pair of weapons.

“These are punching blades?” The metal was configured in an unfamiliar way, and Fey had no idea how to go about even picking one up.

“Yes.” Sylvannos hefted one in demonstration, and suddenly the weapon made sense. A punching blade's handle was held horizontally across the palm in a fist-like grip. The metal extended perpendicularly from the side opposite the thumb, extending in both directions. One end curved around the fist in a sharpened arc like the edge of a spade, while the other flowed down the length of the forearm, past the elbow, in a flattened curve designed for defence (2).

Fey could instantly see how the weapons could enhance an unarmed fighting style with minimal modification to the punches and blocks she already knew. Short swords forgotten, Fey eagerly picked up the punching blades in the correct grip. She snapped them out with a few experimental punches. The blades were balanced so that the centre of gravity of her fists did not change, so despite the increased weight, the new weapons felt like natural extensions of her arms.

“I'll take them.” (Fey was in item lust.)

“They are 1200g each.”

When Fey immediately put down the punching blades and left the shop after hearing the price, Sylvannos thought she was protesting the cost.

“Um, 1000g?” he said uncertainly, though Fey was already out of earshot. Thinking he had lost a sale, Sylvannos began to put the weapons away.

Fortuitously, Sylvannos had only put the short swords away when Fey returned (from the bank). She placed 2400g on the counter, picked up the punching blades and accompanying sheaths, then left with a “thank you” to go play with her new toys.

Footnotes:

(1) From William Congreve's play The Mourning Bride, the original lines go “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned/ Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned” (Act III, Scene VIII)

(2) Though the details of this weapon has been changed, the original idea was inspired by a weapon in the Noble Dead series by Barb and J.C. Hendee. In terms of actual traditional weapons, punching blades are somewhat similar to a combination between the katar and the tonfa.

21: Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Thanks to the chaos snakes' triple experience value and Fey's advice for fighting them effectively, Leandriel reached level 100 faster than he had expected. He had not quite adopted Fey's (random) tactics, but her words had pushed him to think creatively and come up with a viable strategy. Since the snakes seemed to have an equal chance of dying whether he used his strongest or weakest attacks (or buffs, or heals, or random stuff), he ended up relying on his low-cost, multiple target skills, attack and blessing alike. A certain fraction of the snakes would be damaged by each move, so by maximizing the number of opponents affected, he optimized his damage output. After several hours of continuous fighting, Leandriel ascended to the upper levels of the dungeon.

Leandriel found Fey on floor B3, battling level 22 floating rays (the fish, not the electromagnetic radiation). He noted her change in weaponry, the exotically curved blades having a shorter reach but better defensive capabilities, as well as being conducive to thrusting rather than slashing attacks.

Fey gave Leandriel a glance in greeting, then punched through the body of a ray diving at her head (*splatter*). Gradually disengaging from battle, Fey made her way over to Leandriel, where monsters would be repelled by the overwhelming advantage in strength that he had.

“What's up?” Fey asked casually, still a distance away.

“I reached level 100, so I came to see how you were doing.”

When Fey failed to continue the normal course of conversation, Leandriel looked at her more closely, and saw that the elf now had an unfocused expression on her face as she continued to approach.

“Fey?”

The appellation elicited no response. Fey continued forward, walking past the normal social distance people kept between them and stepping into the invisible bubble that implied intimacy between two people. Mystified, Leandriel allowed the elf to take his gauntleted hand in both of hers and raise it to chest height.

Following her fascinated gaze, Leandriel spotted the speck of multicoloured liquid flashing in hypnotic patterns on his forearm.

With chagrin, Leandriel realized that he had inadvertently mesmerized his companion with the chaos snake blood dotting his armour. He gently disengaged her grip, then quickly logged out and back in to get rid of the blood, the process taking about a minute.

***

Fey blinked, rather disoriented. She seemed to be missing a small gap of time in her memories. The last thing she remembered was walking towards Leandriel, but the angel was nowhere in sight.

“What the...” she muttered to herself.

No longer deterred by Leandriel's presence, the floating rays resumed their attack against Fey. Distracted and having forgotten the monsters, Fey allowed one of the fish to clip her head while diving past.

“Oww. You bleepers.” (Yes, she actually said “bleepers”. *self-censorship*). Fey swiped at the creature, wanting revenge, but it was already out of range. Hands on hips, Fey was glaring up at the creatures when Leandriel reappeared.

“Oh hi,” she greeted as the angel's form solidified, “Where did you go?” (Nope, still totally oblivious to the non-NPC thing. Sorry, people.) In glancing at Leandriel, Fey lost track of the particular ray who had hit her head.

“I'm afraid I must apologize again,” Leandriel said (apologetically). His armour was newly gleaming and clean after logging in again.

“For what?” Fey asked, tilting her head curiously.

“I am afraid that I failed to realize the effect that chaos snake blood would have on you, and you were mesmerized for a short while until I recognized the cause.”

“Oh.” After a pause, Fey asked, “I didn't do anything weird, did I?”

“No, no,” Leandriel hurried to reassure her. The speed of his denial made Fey suspect that she indeed had done something odd. I'm not sure I want to know...

Seeing Fey's (un-reassured) expression, Leandriel started to explain, “All you did was –”

“– Nooo, don't tell me,” Fey hurried to interrupt. I already have enough cringe-worthy memories, thankyouverymuch. Her imagination was already conjuring up embarrassing scenarios without being reinforced by reality.

“It really was nothing bad,” said Leandriel, raising his eyebrows at Fey's reaction.

“No good can come of me knowing,” she said darkly, her melodramatic side coming out.

Leandriels lips twitched in amusement. “Okay, then.”

Considering the subject settled, Fey resumed the previous conversation. “So, are you taking a break from training?” Having fallen under the mesmerizing effect of the chaos snake blood, she had failed to hear Leandriel's earlier explanation.

“I have reached level 100, and decided it was time to stop.” Despite having fought continuously for the entire day, Leandriel felt no fatigue. After practicing flying for several days, his stamina had risen to the impossible figure of 250 (see Chapter 12 if you don't remember how stamina works), and only the grueling activity of flying even deepened his breathing.

“Congratulations!” Fey said the un-abbreviated version of 'congrats', which was what she generally typed in games when someone announced a level-up (which still put her a level above the people who wrote just 'gratz').

“Congratulations yourself. Enjoying your new warrior skill?” Leandriel asked, reasonably assuming that Fey had returned to the dungeon after accomplishing the goal she set out to complete.

Sheepishly, Fey admitted, “I didn't have enough warrior points to qualify for the skill. After that, I got a bit distracted.” She nudged the new punching blades hanging from her belt. In purchasing and ordering the new equipment more suited to her fighting style, Fey had made great progress in improving the strength and fighting abilities of her character... just not in the way she had intended (pretty typical of our heroine).

“How many points do you still need?” Leandriel asked. As was fairly typical for gamers, any mention of character improvement usually led to the kind of in-depth discussion also familiar to rabid sports fans (not that the author has any experience whatsoever in being a rabid sports fan).

“Six. I'm trying to get a weapons mastery skill to form.”

Leandriel frowned slightly in thought. “That is one of the harder feats to accomplish. Which ones have you already completed?”

“Just one boss kill.”

“The monster-killing feats would probably be the fastest to complete, then. Look up 'kill tree (1).”

Fey followed Leandriel's advice and found the feat he referred to.

<Kill tree: kill n monsters in a single blow (monsters cannot be more than 10 levels below player level)>

<Point value: 2n> (Look, a variable!)

Didn't I already kill a monster in one hit? (See Chapter 7 if you don't remember.) I guess it doesn't count if it happened before I joined the warrior class (this is the author's oh-so-subtle way of explaining the discrepancy to discerning readers). With Vicious Strike at her disposal, Fey had no trouble killing a monster in a single hit if she hit the right spot, but until she gained more warrior skills, defeating more than one at once would be difficult.

“I don't think I can kill more than one monster at a time,” Fey said slowly, musing out loud.

“Well, if you can kill them quickly, you might try the 'mad minute' feat,” advised Leandriel.

<Mad Minute (2): kill 60 monsters in 60 seconds (monsters cannot be more than 10 levels below player level)>

Hmm. If Fey could kill a monster in one hit, there was no reason she could not do it sixty times in a row. However, most of the time in this sort of situation would be wasted in moving between monsters. Unless I can bunch them up somehow...

Fey eyed Leandriel and the repelling effect he exerted on the floating rays in the cavern. “May I borrow your presence for a few minutes?” she asked the angel.

Leandriel was unclear on what Fey meant by 'borrowing his presence', but acceded readily to the request. “You may,” he replied in the same style as the question.

“Great!” With a final glare up at the floating rays and a mental note to return for revenge later (*vindictive*), Fey led Leandriel to a different cavern.

Fey ended up choosing the level 12 lesser earth golems for her attempt at the Mad Minute. She chose the monsters because they were tall for such low-level creatures (meaning she wouldn't waste time bending over to kill things lower to the ground) and because they had a very obvious vital point, the animating crystal in the centre of their foreheads (making them easy to kill in one hit).

Fey positioned Leandriel about a third of the way into the cavern. “Stay here, please.” She continued further alone.

Leandriel was amused when he realized that Fey was literally borrowing his presence in order to scare the golems into a smaller area. The animated earth creatures lumbered away from the repelling influence he exerted over two-thirds of the area, congregating into the farthest third of the cavern. Smiling, Leandriel activated his Battle Aura ability, increasing both the strength and range of his intimidation and pressing the golems into an even smaller area.

Fey turned, startled to see Leandriel glowing an icy, fearsome blue, the colour calling to mind the ferocity of blizzards and implacable immensity of glaciers.

“Is this better?” he called from his position across the cavern. In contrast to the intimidating sight he made, his voice was warmly amused.

Looking back at the golems, Fey saw that they were now concentrated into a fifth of the cavern. “Yes, thank you!” she called back, waving.

Continuing her preparations, Fey stood at the front entrance of the cavern, bordering the giant rats' territory, and called, “Magic,” pitching her voice to carry. A few seconds later, all nine of Fey's pets (Feypets!) appeared, none of them wanting to be left behind in the opportunity to be reunited with their owner (aww they're so loyal; this clearly has nothing to do with them being as lazy as their owner and wanting to stop training).

“Magic, cast stun and sleep Spore. Nobody attack any of the golems,” she ordered her pets.

Unfortunately, as golems were not truly alive, they were extremely resistant to all status effects, and Magic's role was relegated to (cute) cheerleader, along with all the other Feypets (3) (hahaha, finally got that stodgy non-parenthetical narrator to adopt the term).

Taking a deep breath, Fey stared at the golems, mapping an efficient path between them in her mind (Loading... please wait). Finding a comfortable grip on both her punching blades, she burst into motion.

Fey's Mad Minute, as typical of most of her physical activities, was not particularly graceful, but got the job done. She repeatedly quick-stepped to each successive golem and delivered a precise (and accurate) strike to the stone animating the earthen bodies. To make up for having such an obvious vital spot, the gem was quite hard; it would be resistant to a slashing attack from a sword, but the concentrated force from Fey's punching blades, combined with Vicious Strike and Mana Edge, was sufficient to shatter the stone.

To prevent the golems from becoming alarmed by her presence and moving away from the positions she had mapped in her mind, Fey used Isolate, her presence sensed by each monster only a second before her bladed fist slammed through its forehead. Fey kept count of each monster as she progressed in her feat, but decided to stop at 62, just in case she had miscounted.

<Isolate has reached level 5!>

<Vicious Strike has reached level 5!>

Breathless, Fey checked the warrior menu, hoping she had been fast enough to complete the feat.

<Mad Minute I – 5 points>

“I did it!” Fey exclaimed. Her pets cheered without understanding what their owner had accomplished (still not very smart, but they're cute so it doesn't matter). The pets automatically began to dig through the collapsed piles of dirt to look for coins and loot.

Leaving her pets to their work, Fey bounded excitedly towards Leandriel (in her case, 'bounding' refers to a childish gait that intersperses running and skipping). “I did it!” she repeated.

Almost immediately upon closing the distance to the angel, Fey began to feel the effects of Leandriel's Battle Aura, starting with a dread that seemed to originate from the pit of her stomach. Used to (inhumanly) ignoring her feelings if they had no logical basis (for the record, being creeped out by spiders is logical), Fey gritted her teeth and continued forward, until she was finally stopped by the paralyzing effect of the close-up Battle Aura from a warrior 80 levels higher.

Leandriel blinked and deactivated his ability. Instantly, the unnaturally imposed fear dissipated, and Fey continued bounding forward as if nothing had happened. The whole scene felt rather surreal to Leandriel, as if someone had simply paused time for the elf for a single second.

“Thanks for all your help,” said Fey, smiling up at the angel (because he's so tall).

“Glad to be of service,” he replied. “Are you off to the warrior trainers now?”

Fey would normally head immediately to obtain her new skill, but she was hungry. “Actually, do you want to stop to eat?”

“Certainly.” The pair found a dirt-free spot of ground to have an impromptu picnic.

Fey settled easily into a cross-legged position, then watched surreptitiously as Leandriel went through the rather elaborate series of steps required for an angel in full plate armour to sit on the floor.

First, Leandriel used his Ex-quip (4) skill to magically replace his plate with flexible cloth garments; this was an auxiliary skill available to all heavy-armour warriors at level 30 in addition to the main skill, and was particularly useful in avoiding the hassles of designing and donning armour made especially for winged players. Next he unfurled his wings, allowing them to extend their 3.5m (11.5 feet for you weirdo Americans) length on either side. In a feat of grace and balance, Leandriel carefully sat down, letting his wings rest against the ground.

As far as Fey could tell, having wings was rather inconvenient (but still really cool). She was certain that she would not be half as graceful as Leandriel in dealing with the extra limbs (try a tenth, maybe).

“I don't think I could manage a pair a wings without a lot of clumsiness,” she commented while opening her food packet. Fey selected a pear to munch on (*omnom*).

Leandriel half smiled, half grimaced. “You should have seen me on the first day. It took me some time to discover how to move them.” Realizing the worries behind the comment (because he's so perceptive), he continued while pulling foodstuffs out of his pouch, “Avariels do not have to deal with all this; their wings work differently.”

Fey raised her eyebrows and made a questioning noise, not wanting to talk with food in her mouth. “Mrh?”

Leandriel explained, “Avariel wings are like summoned entities that are attached to the body. They can be dismissed when not needed, and consume mana when in use.”

Fey swallowed and said, “That's great! The mana cost is worth the convenience to someone like me.”

It was Leandriel's turn to raise an eyebrow (sorry to the people who can't raise a single eyebrow; it seems like all the characters can do it). “Like you?” From his observations, Fey appeared to be a reasonably coordinated person, above average in fighting abilities due to training.

Leandriel bit into a cookie while Fey explained, “I have poor spatial awareness unless I'm really concentrating on it. When I was little, I was always bumping my head into the corners of furniture.” (Now that she's tall, our heroine usually hits her elbows on things.) She grinned. “My parents thought I was their super-cute, but rather dumb baby.” (Now our heroine is less cute, but also less dumb, so it all worked out nicely.)

Fey noticed what Leandriel was eating. “Is that a cookie?”

“Would you like one?” Leandriel pushed the container forward.

Fey promptly abandoned her healthy food in favour of processed sugar and chocolate chips (come on, what's the point of eating healthy in a game?). She slid her own food forward. “Take whatever you want.”

“Thank you.” Out of politeness, Leandriel selected a piece of jerky and consumed it (clearly, his food is better).

Realizing that they were sitting on the ground, sharing snacks, Fey grinned. “I'm afraid I've dragged you down to my level.”

“Which level is that?”

“The nine-year-old level.”

Leandriel smiled in good humour. “I don't mind. It is interesting down here.”

“Good.” Fey stole another cookie. “I'm afraid my average mental age is around 15.” (Oddly enough, her mental age was rarely at 15. Puberty *shudder*.)

After they had finished the cookies, Leandriel pulled out a round cake that had a hole in the middle.

“...Is that an angel cake?”

“Yes. The bakery (a.k.a. author) apparently could not resist the pun.” Having no icing, the cake could be eaten with the bare hands without making a mess.

Fey's pets finished their looting and gathered around the players with their haul.

“Thanks, guys,” Fey said to the pets, putting away coins and a few stones they had found. “Do you guys eat food?” she wondered aloud.

Magic clearly had no interest in cake (possibly because he was full from draining the life out of hundreds of rats and spiders). He hopped over to Leandriel (*abandon owner*) and appeared to take a nap.

Boris rooted around the cake for a while, then noticed Fey's food packet and began to eat the bag of nuts inside.

Amethyst hopped into Fey's right knee and surveyed the food with curiosity. Fey figured that if the slime could consume poison with no ill effects, cake would be easy to handle (cake would be a piece of cake, hahaha. So much punning). Fey pinched a small piece of baked confection and dropped it in the slime's mouth. The cake could be seen inside Amethyst's translucent membrane for a while, until it seemed to dissolve with Amethyst unchanged.

The glooms hopped around (cutely), apparently curious about the food, but not interested in eating it. Ebony, who had earlier taken on the shape of a spider and been chided for it (see Chapter 19 if you don't remember), mimicked the shapes of several foods.

“People will eat you if you look like that,” Fey warned an apple-shaped Ebony. The gloom squeaked in alarm, and reverted to rabbit form.

Seeing the shape-shifting reminded Fey of the pets' earlier antics. Wanting to show Leandriel the angel-shaped gloom, she told them, “Go back to the shapes you had during your contest.”

Six rabbit-shaped shadows morphed into a slime, a boar, a mushroom, a Fey, a Leandriel, and a cave spider.

“You, stop that,” Fey said to the cave spider Ebony. The gloom again reverted to its normal form, but flattened itself against the ground, looking dejected.

“Aww, it's okay. I'm sure you'll find a nice shape soon,” Fey said to the sad gloom. She picked it up and placed it in her lap for comfort.

Fey then picked up Shadow, who had Leandriel's form in full plate armour. “Isn't this cool?” she showed the angel. Shadow flapped his wings realistically.

“That's... amazing,” Leandriel breathed. Without thinking, he reached a hand towards the gloom, only to drop it when Shadow flinched at his holy aura.

“We've been over this,” Fey chided the gloom. “Go on, you have to develop holy resistance. It's not going to kill you.” Relucantly, Shadow hopped into Leandriel's newly extended hand, shivering in discomfort, its angel shape wavering.

“...Are you sure about this?” Leandriel asked Fey. The gloom looked rather miserable touching his skin.

“Well, guessing based on my own personality, he's fine.”

Leandriel looked away from the shivering Shadow and stared at Fey. “Your own personality?”

“Er. Well. He probably is feeling discomfort, but not quite to the level that's he's displaying.”

Leandriel chuckled. “You are quite honest with yourself.”

Fey and Leandriel played with the pets as they continued their meal. Fey eventually made all the glooms go sit with Leandriel, and they developed 1% holy resistance.

When Fey's alarm chimed and she logged off, Leandriel decided to follow suit.

◊◊◊

Footnotes:

(1) Credit for this feat idea goes out to my dedicated and punny reader Shyntar. <You have earned the title Fantasia Game Developer!>

(2) This is referring to simple math worksheets commonly assigned in elementary school that tested students' abilities to do simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division quickly. Each sheet is meant to be completed in one minute. The curious can find an online version here: http://www.webmathminute.com/default.asp?

(3) This term bears a passing resemblance to Neopets, the online pet-raising game.

(4) This name is taken from a Fairy Tail (a mange/anime) magic, the most famous user of which is Erza Scarlet

22: Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Leander walked down to the IT Department to deliver his daily report. Upon entering the large building that contained several hundred programmers and their sophisticated equipment, he saw an unusual flurry of activity happening in the group project room, with around fifty men and women typing furiously at the computer terminals. Half the programmers were grinning widely.

“What's going on, Kevin?” Leander asked the person he usually reported to, a young man who had the pale skin, glasses, and slightly hunched posture that was associated with too many hours staring at a computer screen without a break.

“Dream Life Enterprises is hacking us again, looking for our advanced AI software,” Kevin answered, never taking his eyes off of his screen or pausing in his typing on the keyboard.

In the competitive world of gaming software, VirtualRealities indisputably dominated the market with their cutting-edge graphics, whimsically detailed worlds, and incredibly realistic NPCs. Their main competitor, Dream Life Enterprises, had spent billions of dollars in research and development over the years, managing to come close in quality in other software aspects, but never seemed to be able to close the gap in NPC quality and realism. Recently, Leander's company had been subjected to a series of hacks appearing to target the AI software in VirtualRealities' databases. Though the attacks were not directly traceable to Dream Life, no one had any doubt as to who was looking for the files.

Leander smiled. The hackers would never find what they were looking for, since those files did not exist in the company servers. “So what is everybody doing?” he asked.

“That half is making sure that the intrusion doesn't affect the running of our games,” Kevin said, briefly gesturing at the half of the room wearing serious expressions. He grinned and continued, “This half is making sure they find the little surprise we left for them.”

“Is it a virus?” Leander asked.

Kevin grinned even more widely. “Better.” He paused dramatically before continuing, “It's copies of Dream Life's own AI software.” (*diabolical*) Not expecting anyone wanting to target Dream Life's inferior NPC files, it had been surprisingly easy to access and copy them.

Leander laughed out loud. The game designers and programmers at VirtualRealities constantly surprised and amused him with their antics. “I wonder how long it will take them to figure out what they have.”

“Well, since we modified a bunch of code to look different while functioning identically, it might be a while,” said Kevin.

Leander shook his head in admiration. “You evil man.”

“Well, everybody helped,” said Kevin modestly.

Suddenly, a person yelled, “They found it!” and the room filled with cheers the same way the NASA headquarters did when they landed a Rover on Mars. Objective (apparently) reached, the hackers ceased their intrusion, and within a few minutes, most people left the common room to return to their private offices for a quieter place to work.

Leander followed Kevin to his office. As they walked, Kevin said, “So I saw you fought some chaos-element monsters last night. What did you think?”

Leander paused, trying to find the words to encapsulate the random, chaotic experience. After several tries, he finally said, “You had better keep it a secret that you are the one who came up with the concept.” The words were said so seriously that Kevin stopped walking to look at his co-worker.

“What? Why?”

“If it becomes well-known that you thought up the chaos concept, I am sure that someone will eventually punch you in the face.”

Kevin started to look worried, then changed to a puzzled expression when Leander added, “Probably before or after hugging you.”

***

Arwyn came home from work tired and lacking the willpower to resist playing Fantasia until a normal bedtime hour. Giving in to the game's seductive whisper (“Come,” it beckoned creepily), it was barely 9:00 p.m. when she slid on the game helmet and logged on.

◊◊◊

“Scanning. Player detected. Welcome back to Fantasia, Fey E'lan.”

◊◊◊

After materializing inside the infinity dungeon, Fey immediately set out towards the armour shop and the new kicking gear waiting for her. Settling into a medium-paced jog that she could maintain for a while, she arrived at the Moonwood in half an hour. She was trailed by bounding glooms and a mushroom riding a boar (Amethyst got to ride on Fey's shoulder, of course, because she's the leader of the Feypets and also happens to weigh the least).

<Fey's stamina has increased to 103 (+1)!>

Hehehe. Fey thought that if people's fitness quantifiably increased every time they exercised, people would run around more (if you're looking for aspects of Fantasia that would make people exercise more, it would also work if the world was filled with monsters that liked to chase people around).

Walking into Senaia's tree-shop, Fey saw that the shop-keeper was busy with another customer, so she found an out-of-the-way spot to stand in and wait.

Since Fey had not ordered her pets to stay outside, they wandered in through the shop's open archway. Seeing their owner standing around (boringly), the creatures began to explore the shop.

“Do not knock anything over,” Fey hissed at her pets under her breath. It would be just her luck if they had inherited her clumsy and accident-prone tendencies.

At the warning, the pets began to walk with extreme and excessive caution, delicately taking a step (or a hop, depending on the pet's state of legged-ness), pausing to check for damage to the shop, then taking another careful step forward. This was possibly the cutest thing Fey had ever seen (*cute overload*), and she took a short video of the pets' explorations until one pet's behaviour caught her attention.

Inspecting an armour stand, Obsidian the gloom morphed into a miniature replica of a boot. Fey picked up the shadow-boot with interest, examining it from all angles. “Can you do a full-sized boot?” she asked.

With a bit of straining, the gloom was able to expand to the correct dimensions, but the result was flimsy to the touch (*pokepoke*).

“Keep practicing,” Fey told the shadow-pet, returning it to the ground. Obsidian reverted to his rabbit shape and hopped away to find other things to mimic (*hop*pause*hop*).

Business with her other customer completed, Senaia turned her attention to Fey. “Fey! Hello, Amethyst,” she greeted the player and the pet sitting on her shoulder. The rest of the pets had now all found interesting spots to explore and were out of sight. “I have your new armour all ready.” Senaia went behind the counter (where Topaz was sitting cutely) and pulled out a rough wooden crate.

Fey peered in curiously as the container was opened. “Ooh...” She admired the dull gleam of metal, accented with brighter stripes of mirror-bright silvery steel.

“Here, let me help you put it on.” Senaia had Fey change into a pair of close-fitting leggings, then proceeded to set each piece of armour in the correct place. The custom-made armour fit perfectly as each piece was snapped into place.

Fully outfitted, Fey twisted and turned in front of the mirror to inspect the expertly crafted leg armour. This is so badass.

Indeed, “badass” aptly described Fey's bladed leg armour (“kick-ass” works too). Several important modifications to standard plate legs made the armour eminently suitable for kicking attacks.

Four stripes of higher-grade steel ran down the front, sides, and back of the legs so that slashing attacks would be caught by the stronger metal, allowing the player to fight against swords without fear of taking damage. The front stripe of metal running down the shin was a raised, sharp edge that could cut like a sword; three similar raised edges ran down the top of the boot to ensure maximum damage from kicking attacks. A single short-but-pointy spike protruded from the toe of the boot, three from the heel, and the heel itself was made of solid metal to ensure kicks were capable of bone-crushing, internal bleeding-causing force.

Additionally (as if that weren't enough, but the author is apparently very blood-thirsty), instead of a standard rounded metal piece to cover the kneecap and provide the hinge at the knee joint, the armour covering Fey's shins extended to a hand's length above the knee in a curved leaf shape, with a sharpened edge that ensured anyone she chose to knee in the groin would take a lot of damage (and probably have to worry about their procreative abilities). To ensure both flexibility and protection, the areas where plate armour normally left gaps were instead covered by diagonally criss-crossing stripes of metal that could slide over each other to accommodate the player's movements.

To top it all off, Senaia handed Fey a pair of weighted rings, 200g (about half a pound) each. “What are these for?” Fey asked, finding the latch mechanism that allowed the rings to open on a hinge.

“You clip these on the middle of your foot to give your kicks more momentum,” Senaia explained. “Having extra weight at the end of your legs takes a great deal of energy, so you should remove them when you are not fighting.”

“I didn't pay you enough,” Fey murmured worshipfully, her mind filled with (violent) fantasies of the kind of damage she could inflict with successively heavier weights on her feet.

“I take it you are satisfied with the product?” Senaia asked somewhat jokingly, as Fey's delight was quite apparent.

“If I were any more satisfied, I'd probably explode.” (*splatter*)

Fey was beginning to feel a strong urge to start kicking things to see the kind of force she could now generate. To save Senaia's shop from sustaining damage, Fey hurriedly clipped the weight rings onto her belt and bid the shop-keeper farewell. “Thanks so much, Senaia! This is awesome!” Fey ran out of the shop.

***

Senaia smiled at Fey's exuberance. Picking up the now-empty crate to put into storage, she nearly tripped over a gloom. “Oh my!” she exclaimed in startlement, not having noticed Fey's extra pets. As more and more pets came out of various nooks and crannies of the shop to exit the tree-building's open archway, Senaia blinked, not quite believing her eyes.

“Did you see that?” she asked Topaz after a boar-riding mushroom trotted out of sight. The (yellow) slime nodded solemnly.

***

Fey headed out of the Moonwood and quickly travelled to the nearby monster territories. She had a perfect target for testing out her kicking armour: the level 5 poison mushrooms she had read about a few days before (see Chapters 4 and 5 if you don't remember). Since she was collecting different poisons for Amethyst to learn, the trip would accomplish two things at once.

Poison mushrooms had murky dark-green caps with brown dots, but were otherwise very similar in appearance to blue mushrooms. Fey had the whole herd (fun fact: a group of mushrooms is properly called a “troop”) to herself because poisonous monsters were generally unpopular targets for training.

Immediately upon spotting the monsters, Fey ordered, “Everyone who isn't immune to poison, stay out of range.” All the Feypets except Amethyst stayed a safe distance away. Fey walked straight to the nearest mushroom and slammed an Axe Kick into its body. She could feel the extra strain in her leg muscles as they propelled the weight of her armour, even without the weighted rings; this extra mass resulted in a much stronger impact than she was normally capable of. The three spikes on her heel easily stabbed through the spongy fungus; with a 16-level disadvantage, the poison mushroom immediately shrivelled up and died.

Fey raised her heel out of the ground, pleased. The short, fat spikes on her boots were designed to not get caught on things and throw her off balance, so the dried poison mushroom slid off easily, falling to the ground.

Sensing danger (if seeing a herd-mate mercilessly and easily slaughtered can properly be termed “sensing danger”), the rest of the poison mushrooms began to squeak in alarm and released clouds of poison spores.

<Duration: 10 minutes>

<Immunity effect: -2 damage per poison infliction>

<Duration: 10 minutes>

Fey was pleased that the poison mushroom poison could affect her, ensuring that she would not have to subject herself to furyweed poison in order to continue training Immunity (see Chapter 20 if you don't remember). The weaker poison had much milder side effects, in this case slightly blurry vision that mimicked mild myopia, or near-sightedness. Since Arwyn was near-sighted (the consequence of too many consecutive hours of books and video games), her real-life vision impairment was actually worse than she was experiencing now, so she had no trouble continuing to navigate the virtual world.

“Okay, Amethyst, open your mouth and eat the spores.” The slime obediently opened her mouth to collect the airborne poison. Fey ran around slaughtering mushrooms with Stomp and Axe Kick, her movements allowing Amethyst to collect more spores until finally,

Fey was getting bored of the mushrooms. Since they were so small and low to the ground, she was limited in the kicking techniques she could effectively use against them. After Amethyst had improved her ability, Fey headed out of the mushroom territory.

Fey's next order of business was to learn her next warrior skill. When she arrived at the warrior training area, Fey found Irrilathan alone on duty. Do they take turns? she wondered (see Chapter 20 if you don't remember).

Without waiting for her to talk, Irrilathan scanned Fey's warrior progress in an instant. “I see you are ready to learn your next warrior skill.”

“Indeed, sir,” Fey replied respectfully.

Without further conversation, the trainer drew his longsword. The blade was dull and unadorned; one had to look carefully to notice the bluish tint that indicated a mithril alloy in the metal. “Watch carefully,” the instructor (instructed) ordered.

Irrilathan pointed his arm and sword straight in front of him, parallel to the ground at shoulder-height. Fey could see mana gathering at a single point slightly beyond the tip of the sword, in Irrilathan's case a white-gold that matched the colour of his platinum-blond hair.

“Arc Slash!” The trainer swept his arm to the right, and the glowing spot stretched into an arc covering about 30° of a circle (π/6 radians for the math fans). The arc of light expanded as it moved away from Irrilathan, continuing to cover the same 30°, until it gradually faded away an arm's length from where it had started.

“This is the basic form of Arc Slash,” said Irrilathan, sheathing his sword in an easy, practiced movement. “As you master the skill, it will evolve, increasing both the length of the arc and distance it can travel. Now, you try.”

Fey hefted a single punching blade in her right hand to try the skill. Irrilathan noted the rather uncommon weapon, but remained silent as Fey concentrated, imagining the flow of (purple) mana concentrating at a single point at the end of the metal.

“Arc Slash!”

Fey swept her arm to the right, and was pleased when the skill activated in an identical way to Irrilathan's demonstration.

The skill consumed 100 mana out of Fey's current 231 maximum, but since her Intelligence attribute and mana reserves automatically rose with every level (see Chapter 2 if you don't remember), she considered it a reasonable cost.

“Very good.” Having noted the second weapon at Fey's waist, Irrilathan continued, “Now try with your other arm.”

Fey settled the second punching blade into her left hand. Being right-handed, her left arm was naturally weaker and less adept at precise movements. With the simple movements required to activate Arc Slash, Fey thought that the disparity would not matter, but was proven wrong when the left-handed version of the skill covered a paltry 15° arc and fizzled out of existence a short way from the blade.

Aww, so lame (*tear*). (See Chapter 2 if you don't remember.)

“You need to practice,” said Irrilathan. “Warrior skills convert mana into physical force by channelling it through the body. Your physical skills apply a bonus or penalty to the base effect.”

In that case, I should cast it with my legs. Fey would test the theory later, when her (meager) mana reserves had replenished themselves. She bowed respectfully to the warrior trainer. “Thank you for your instruction.” Hesitantly, she asked, “May I see what Arc Slash looks like when fully mastered?” In real life, Arwyn was used to seeing nearly inhuman demonstrations of physical prowess in tae kwon do class, performed by the second- and third-degree black belts, that the rest of the students were supposed to aspire to (and fail miserably to attain). The demonstrations were almost completely restricted to the second- and third-degrees; students of lower belts simply had not had enough practice, and masters at higher belts were usually past the age where they were able to move with the necessary amount of agility (look up “quadruple kick” on the Internet and you'll understand).

Irrilathan smiled at the request. “While there is no such thing as full mastery,” (that's what all the masters claim) “I can show you the progress I have made with the skill.” He drew his sword once more.

Instead of pointing his weapon forward, Irrilathan started with the sword on his right side, tip pointing down. In a single breath, the trainer gathered sufficient mana and began to trace a glowing arc in the air. By using his left toe as a pivot point and turning two circles while steadily raising his arm, Irrilathan was able to create a perfect corkscrew pattern that extended from his toes to above his head, covering 720° (of awesomeness).

The trainer let the glow hang in the air for a few seconds before cancelling the skill. “I would release the attack, but I'm afraid it would cause quite a bit of damage to the trees,” he explained. Seeing as they were standing in the middle of a reasonably large clearing, Fey could imagine the huge range of the attack.

Fey's mind was boggled. She had imagined the skill fully mastered when one was able to create a full circle, but moving the sword vertically as well as horizontally meant there truly was no limit to how far one could master the skill. In addition to the surprise, her inner fangirl was acting up (*squeeee* so cool), so Fey was having trouble thinking and acting normally.

Deciding that it would be best if she left before any erratic behaviour could surface, Fey bowed and thanked the instructor and headed out of the training area.

23: Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

At the moment, Fey was feeling good. With her upgraded (badass) equipment and new skill, she felt ready to take on opponents in real combat (as opposed to the random assortment of things she had been doing for the last 20-odd chapters to somehow make it this far without dying). What should I do now? she wondered. Maybe I should go find Leah.

In the world of Fantasia, the monsters were stronger in wilderness and weaker near developed areas. Players could travel safely between major cities starting around level 12, and where they chose to adventure depended more on inclination for particular environments than anything else. Fey had a tendency to remain in familiar surroundings; without the pressure of uniting with her friend, she would likely have stayed in the Elvenwood for quite a while (which likely would have driven readers looking for plot slowly insane...).

Fey messaged Leah's avatar, Sirena:

<Fey: Hey. What level are you now?>

<Sirena: 18. You?>

<Fey: 21.>

(Yeah, Fey gained a level sometime after getting her punching blades. Just go with it.)

<Sirena: *sigh* it's hard to catch up when I have to look for a new party to join every few hours when people log off or get bored of grinding.>

<Fey: Aww, poor baby. I'll come visit and all your “lone mage” problems will be solved.>

<Sirena: The idea of you playing tank does not make me feel safe in any way.>

Without actually knowing the details of Fey's character build and fighting style, Sirena had accurately guessed that Fey would tend more towards “run away!” than “stand and deliver!” when it came to dealing with enemy attacks (plus, she had neither the weight nor the muscle required to tank properly).

<Fey: Well, not tank exactly, but I could definitely draw the aggro... Yeah, make sure you specialize in quick-cast magic and are also able to run away while you cast.>

(Fey was being honest with herself.)

<Sirena: Well, I’m planning on specializing in god-based magic, so that will be faster than regular spell-casting.>

Mages who chose to worship a particular deity (you could only choose one; they are watching) had part of their spell-casting costs borne by the deity. In return for lower mana costs and faster casting times, religious mages had an additional Prayer bar that they had to fill with rituals like prayers and sacrifices; each spell consumed prayer points and spells would no longer work once the Prayer bar ran empty(1).

<Fey: Sounds good. You keep training and I’ll start travelling towards you.>

<Sirena: Excellent. If you waste time gallivanting across half the continent, I’ll definitely catch up.>

<Fey: Um, excuse me, there will be no “gallivanting”. I will be “rampaging” across the continent, leaving a trail of carnage in my wake.>

<Sirena: Of course, of course. Oh, looks like I found a hunting party to join; see you later!>

<Fey: Bye!>

Fey was all fired up (Fairy Tail reference) to start her journey towards the ocean, except… She had no idea which direction to travel in. The ocean is… east? Fey vaguely remembered seeing a world map in her game manual, but had skipped over the illustration with barely a glance.

Fey opened her navigation window, seeing the mini-map of the local area that she had been using to travel within the Elvenwood. As she zoomed out to view a larger area, the map gradually became less detailed as it displayed land farther and farther from where she had already travelled, until it became gray blank space with no information. Useless.

Fey logged off in order to do some research on the Internet.

◊◊◊

Arwyn sat up and went to sit at her computer desk. After turning on her laptop and logging in (with her nifty fingerprint scanner), she opened her favourite search engine (you have three guesses) and typed in “Fantasia world map”.

Despite having been online for less than a week, there was already a considerable amount of information about Fantasia available, published by players. People had started websites, posted monster information, and even written guides (which Arwyn assumed were useless, as nobody had even reached the level 30 required to start specializing).

Arwyn quickly found what she was looking for: a detailed world map made by merging many players’ local mini-maps. There were large patches of wilderness (filled with murderous high-level monsters) that were still unexplored, but all major roads and the coastline were present.

The first thing Arwyn noticed about Fantasia’s main continent was, ...It’s shaped like an elephant (2). Indeed, despite slightly jagged coastlines, the continent of Pantheel (3) was clearly recognizable as an elephant in profile; there was even a mountain chain that marked the curve of one huge ear.

Earth’s largest land mammal was Fantasia’s largest mammal land; whimsical details like this were hallmarks of VirtualRealities’ many successful game enterprises.

In the elephantine scheme of things, the Elvenwood was located on Pantheel’s eye and ear, with great forests growing up until they reached the mountain chain delineating the ear. To the west, on the torso and back, there were vast deserts, unexplored except for a few major settlements. On the belly, in the south, was the Dark Side, a volcanic area with constant ash clouds dulling the effect of the sun, perfect for demonic and undead races. The northern lands were not lands at all, but permanently frozen oceans that allowed travel and even settlement to a hardy few.

Human lands, grasslands and plains suitable for farming, bordered the Elvenwood to the east. They stretched to cover the continent up to the trunk-and-tusk-shaped coastline. The merfolk colonies were located in the tropical waters southeast of the continent, quite a distance from Fey’s current location.

Hmm… Assuming I walk 4 kilometres an hour (2.5mph), I could cover… 96km (60 miles) in a 24-hour period. This whole ‘lack of need to sleep’ thing is rather convenient.

Based on Arwyn’s calculations, she could reach the coast in less than a week even if she did not find a faster mode of transportation on the way. Looking at the roads, the fastest route appeared to be going straight east into human lands, then following the main highway south and east until reaching the ocean.

In the course of her research, Arwyn was sidetracked several times, clicking on various interesting-looking articles and learning miscellaneous information about the world of Fantasia.

- The horns of a monster are the most highly armoured part of its body, but if you can shatter one, the monster will fall unconscious.

- Players who worship a god can refill their Prayer bar by burying or burning monster remains.

- Merfolk race specialties: bonus to Charisma attribute, 50% water affinity, racial ability Siren’s Song, penalty to speed and stamina on land

Between the necessary and unnecessary research, Arwyn spent about an hour on her computer, logging back into Fantasia after 11:00p.m.

◊◊◊

As soon as Fey logged in, Blade initiated audio chat and asked, “Where are you?”

(After jumping in unpleasant surprise,) Fey answered, “Near town.”

“Want to meet at the tavern?”

Not really, Fey thought acerbically (being spooked by sudden noises never put her in a good mood). However, since the tavern was a good place to stop for (free) supplies for her impending journey, she said, “Sure,” and headed to the designated tree-building.

Fey was surprised to see that the interior of the tavern had undergone some remodelling. In order to accommodate the growing number of players, Tallen had (literally) whistled up a second floor, complete with tables and benches grown out of the wood. On the main floor, the space of one former table was now taken up by a staircase.

In addition to the new floor, there appeared to be new help; while Tallen remained in the kitchen to deal with the food, a young boy approximately 12 years in age was now in charge of seating and taking orders.

“Hello, my name is Todd and I will be your server today. May I direct you to a seat?”

Fey was highly amused by the boy’s formal and clearly-rehearsed lines that contrasted sharply with his youth and enthusiasm. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, she adopted an equally serious and formal tone. “Actually, I am meeting someone, but I am not sure whether he is already here.”

“Oh!” Todd’s eyes widened dramatically. “Are you Fey?” he asked excitedly.

“Why, yes I am.” Fey was rather surprised that Todd knew her name.

All of Todd’s professional composure flew out the (figurative) window at the news, and he reverted to the excited, curious 12-year-old that he was. “My dad told me all about you! Mr. Blade asked me to look out for you; he’s upstairs.” (We assume that Todd’s dad is Tallen; otherwise, this situation appears to break some child labour laws)

As Todd led the way upstairs, he chattered excitedly. “How did you get so many logs? My dad says we won’t run out of wood for a year!”

“I had help,” Fey answered.

“Was it Mr. Blade?”

“Nope. It was a very nice angel who felt bad for crashing into me while he was flying.”

“An angel! I’ve never seen an angel. Did he look cool?”

“Very cool,” Fey answered sincerely. By this time, they had gained the second floor, and Fey could see Blade sitting at the end of a table; curiously, the table was on a raised dais about a foot higher than the rest of the seating on the floor.

“Why is that table higher than the rest?” she asked.

“That’s the reserved table. When the tavern is full, you can pay extra to be seated there instead of waiting in line. My dad said you and your guests can sit there for free because you’re a VIP.”

Fey sat down across from Blade at one end of the table, feeling strange that she was considered a Very Important Person somewhere. “Ah, thank you, Todd.”

“My dad says you don’t like to order, so he’ll be up with your food soon.” Turning to Blade, Todd reverted to his amusingly incongruous server voice. “Would you like to see a menu, sir?”

“I’ll just have whatever she’s having,” answered Blade.

“Very good, sir.”

Hearing that particularly snooty waiter response come out in Todd’s boyish voice nearly made Fey burst out laughing, but she managed to restrain herself to a single cough. He’s so adorable.

Todd turned to return downstairs, then exclaimed in a loud voice, “There are monsters in the tavern!”

All heads in the busy eating-place turned to look.

“They’re with me,” said Fey hastily, jumping out of her seat to grab her pets before someone tried to kill them. She dumped Magic and the six glooms into a pouch made by her cape, then tucked Boris under one arm and retreated back to her seat (Amethyst is still riding along on her shoulder).

The damage was done; all the players in the tavern were focused on Fey and her pets. Customers discussed what they had seen, and people from the ground floor came up to see what the commotion was about.

Todd trailed after Fey back to her seat. “Why do you have monsters, Miss Fey?” he said in a voice loud enough to be heard throughout the room. At the mention of her name, Fey’s fame immediately increased considerably:

<Fey’s fame has increased to 53 (+30)!>

“They’re my pets,” Fey muttered to Todd in a quieter voice, designed not to carry farther than Todd’s ears.

“Cool!” Todd cheerfully accepted the explanation and returned downstairs.

Blade was just as curious as the rest of the players. “What are those?” he asked, referring to Fey’s shadow-pets, which she pushed under the table so they could rest in the darkness.

“They’re glooms,” Fey answered as she finished positioning her pets into suitable seating arrangements. She lifted Boris onto the bench beside her and set Magic down on the tabletop. Amethyst hopped down from her perch on Fey’s shoulder and relaxed against the table, becoming flatter than usual (*deflated slime*).

“Did you say ‘gloom’?” asked an unfamiliar voice. It belonged to a (unfamiliar) player seated at a nearby table. The elf appeared to be some kind of archer, with an unstrung longbow leaning against his seat. In a particularly forward move, the archer migrated from his seat to the VIP table, almost sitting on Boris (and his sharp tusks) before settling two seats away from Fey.

He continued to ask questions. “Aren’t glooms from the Dark Side? Have you travelled there?”

“No…” Fey answered slowly.

“Where did you find them, then?”

“A dungeon…” Fey answered slowly and reluctantly. She was very aware of the attention of the players around her, making her want to be withdrawn and secretive.

“A dungeon around here?”

“Yeah…”

Thankfully for Fey, Tallen arrived upstairs carrying a tray with two large, steaming bowls. “You can’t sit there,” the tavern-keeper told the newcomer as he placed the bowls in front of Fey and Blade. “Not without paying the ‘reserved table’ fee.”

Fey inhaled deeply in appreciation of her food: seafood udon noodles. Out of all the different kinds of noodles in the world, udon was her favourite, and out of all the different kinds of udon noodles, seafood was her favourite. She heard but barely registered the stranger asking, “How much is the fee?” and Tallen answering, “10g.”

Ten gold was an insignificant amount of money for any player over level 10, so the archer willingly dug out the appropriate coinage for the continued right to ask Fey questions.

More than one player decided it was a good deal, and by the time Fey had picked up her first noodle, placed it into her soup spoon, and eaten the squishy goodness, the VIP table was full and Tallen was returning cheerfully to the kitchen with a fistful of 10g coins. …Is it just me, or are we starting a trend of Tallen using me to earn money? (See Chapter 20 if you don’t remember. Yup, all the characters turn out to be evil.)

Blade looked briefly nonplussed at the sudden influx of table-mates, then shrugged and dug into his noodles. Unlike Fey, he held his chopsticks correctly (Arwyn’s parents never corrected her weird chopstick grip when she was young, so now she’s stuck with it).

The elven archer opened his mouth to ask another question, but a female warrior pre-empted him by asking, “How did you order udon noodles? I didn’t see them on the menu.”

Fey shrugged. “I didn’t order.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t order?”

“I never order; the food just comes.”

“If you don’t order, how do they know what you want?” the warrior asked, puzzled.

“I think he reads my mind.” Fey was half-convinced of this, and said the words in her ‘conspiracy theorist’ tone of voice. (The author had an explanation for this, then decided it would be more fun not to explain.)

Fey unrolled a piece of imitation crab meat (she prefers it to the real kind) for fun before eating it.

The first player to arrive would not be denied his paid-fee-given right to ask questions. “Where’s the dungeon that you found?”

Fey could almost see pointed elven ears perking up around the table; Blade and one other human were the only non-elves in the establishment. “Oh, around,” she said vaguely, accenting her response with a (vague) circular gesture that managed to encompass three-quarters of the directions it was possible to travel in. Deciding that the response would not satisfy the stranger, she added, “There are some really high level monsters down there; I almost died. I would level up some more before looking for it, if I were you.” (Well, she’s not exactly lying…)

The questions continued. “Why do you have monsters with you?” asked on player, pointing his fork at Magic and Amethyst.

Fey ate a shrimp with more noodles. (It was quite awkward, what with everybody staring at her, waiting for her response.) “They’re my pets.”

The answer elicited a flurry of comments.

“Pets!?”

“Is there a pet store around here?”

“How many pets do you have?”

Fey did not feel like revealing the secrets of her special skill, but also disliked lying outright. Carefully, she said, “You can get pets by being nice to monsters.” She neglected to mention that most of her taming experiences involved nearly killing the creature in question beforehand (See Chapters 2, 14, and 18 if you don’t remember).

“What? No way!” One player rushed off to try to tame a monster. This seemed to trigger a herd instinct, as all the players followed suit, leaving Fey and Blade alone again at the table.

“…It’s not that easy, is it?” ventured Blade, referring to the process of monster taming.

“Not exactly.” Fey did not think she could accurately summarize the kinds of peculiar circumstances that resulted in monster taming, so she did not try (and ate noodles instead).

Having rested adequately, the glooms were hopping around restlessly by her feet. Fey reached down and plopped the six onto the table, where they began to hop around curiously.

Fey was highly amused when Inkblot proudly presented her with a shoelace, presumably pilfered from an unsuspecting player’s boot.

“That’s not really loot, you know,” she told the shadow-rabbit. Inkblot cocked his head questioningly. “Loot comes from dead opponents,” Fey explained.

When Amethyst suddenly perked up at the words, Fey hastily added, “And killing players is bad.” Amethyst relaxed again, looking more like a (purple) pancake than a teardrop.

Blade carefully petted Shadow on the head. The gloom tolerated the contact for a few seconds, but then hopped away, out of reach (*rejected*).

Blade went back to eating his noodles. “So what’s up?” he asked.

“I’m heading to the coast,” Fey announced. “You’re from the east, right? How long did it take you to get here?”

“About a day?” Blade guessed.

“A day as in eight hours, sixteen hours, or twenty-four hours?”

“Probably sixteen. It was around sundown when I arrived.”

“Hmm.” Fey pondered the information while continuing to eat her noodles. Newtown (the human starter city mentioned in Chapter 8) was over 100km from the Moonwood, so Blade should have taken longer to arrive. “Did you ride while you were travelling?” she asked.

“Yeah. In the human lands, there are coaches you can take on all the major highways.”

Convenient. Fey mentally altered her travel plan to include less time walking and more time earning experience.

“So why are you going to the coast?” Blade asked.

“I’m going to visit my friend Le – Sirena. She’s a mermaid.”

“Cool.” Blade pictured the underwater merfolk kingdom, tropical waters, coral castles, and of course half-fish, bikini-clad girls. Not surprisingly, the idea of visiting appealed to him.

When Fey had finished her bowl of noodles, she stood. “Let’s go,” she said to her pets. The Feypets hopped to the floor (Amethyst used her bubble like a grappling hook, tucking it under one of Fey’s shoulder straps and hoisting herself on her usual perch).

Blade thought that Fey’s command included him as well. “What, you’re just assuming that I’m coming along?”

“…Actually, I assumed you weren’t coming along.” In Fey’s mind, since Blade had come from the east, it made no logical sense for him to return there so quickly.

“So I’m not invited, then.”

Fey could not understand why so many of her conversations with Blade took on the overtones of a lover’s quarrel. “…Do you want to come?” she finally asked, having calculated that it would be the fastest way out of the conversation.

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Blade said with a joking grin.

Fey shook her head with 30% amusement and 70% exasperation, then led the way to the ground floor of the tavern. (The Feypets hopped after her, and Blade took up the rear.)

Tallen met the group at the exit with several days’ worth of travel food. “I heard you were leaving,” said the tavern-keeper (apparently he can hear all within his domain).

“Yeah.” Fey was awkward at goodbyes. “Thanks for all the great food, Tallen. I’ll come back to visit when I’ve reached my destination.”

“Looking forward to it. Bring me any delicacies you find on your trip, young elfess.”

“I will. Bye. Bye, Todd!” Fey waved at the boy from across the room, where he was writing orders down on a small notepad. He waved back.

Fey’s group left the tavern.

Footnotes

(1) A lot of the magic system in Fantasia is the result of an interesting discussion that I had with my reader Aetheo

(2) This is a tribute to the author’s favourite bad pun, “Everything that is not an elephant is irrelephant.”

(3) This is an anagram of the word “elephant”, because the author is bad at naming things

24: Chapter 24

Chapter 24

“Let’s go visit Kallara before we leave,” Fey suggested.

Blade shrugged. “Sure.” The players walked into the healer’s tree-shop.

Fey and Blade entered just as another group of players was leaving, presumably after purchasing potions (which is about the only thing that Fey never does while there). Kallara looked up from closing a cupboard. “Hello,” she said smilingly. “How are you?”

“I’m great,” said Fey. She updated Kallara on her game progress the same way she would for her friend Leah. “I switched out my weapons and armour.” Fey was very happy with the deadly shininess of her new equipment.

“Very nice,” Kallara agreed. Not leaving Blade out of the conversation, she asked, “And you, young man?”

“Oh. I upgraded my equipment, too. Nothing fancy.” After reaching level 20, Blade had purchased another set of plate armour and another short sword in a higher grade of steel. The only real change in his appearance was the addition of a palm-sized shield attached to his left forearm, allowing him to block more effectively with his off hand.

“Wonderful. You two look ready for adventure.”

“Actually,” said Fey, “We’re going on a trip to the coast, to visit my friend who’s a mermaid.”

Kallara looked suitably sorrowful to see her favourite players leave the Moonwood. “Well, I will miss you,” she said in a sad-but-brave voice. “Be sure to come back to visit.”

Aww. Fey was moved by the healer’s display of emotion. “I will,” she promised. “I’ll buy a teleport key and visit from every major city on the way.” The keys were quite expensive in real-world currency, but Fey was willing to buy one in order to visit her NPC friend.

“That’s so kind of you.” Kallara’s eyes glinted (deviously).

In a much more businesslike voice, the healer asked, “I assume you will be travelling along the human roads?”

“Uh yeah.” Fey was confused by Kallara’s abrupt change in demeanour, and watched curiously as the healer pulled out a sheet of paper and began to draw.

Aww, she’s drawing me a map. The sketch revealed itself to be a fairly accurate rendering of Fey’s planned route. Fey was again confused when Kallara began to label the map with various letters.

On a second sheet of paper, Kallara drew a legend explaining the labels. Task complete, she handed both sheets of paper to Fey, while Blade looked on curiously.

“You sneaky… Sneaky!” Fey exclaimed. The map and legend marked the locations and descriptions of various potion ingredients Kallara wanted. Fey’s name-calling abilities failed her.

Kallara smiled mischievously. “You’ll gain quest experience,” she bribed the players, creating a quest offer.

“…Fine,” Fey half-grumbled, not really mad at Kallara’s sneakiness.

Blade accepted the quest as well. Remembering the mishaps of their earlier herb-collecting adventure (see Chapters 9 and 10 if you don’t remember), he asked, “Could we get the levels and fighting abilities of the monsters?”

“Now, that would not be any fun,” said Kallara, “Where is your sense of adventure?”

“Is that your way of saying you don’t know?” asked Fey.

Kallara’s eyes twinkled. “I’ll never tell.”

Fey decided it would be a good time to make a (melodramatic) exit. “Let’s go,” she said to Blade.

“Wait!” Kallara pulled out a box of lesser healing potions, capable of healing 200 health each, and gave five to each player (yay, free stuff). “Just in case,” she said (not that this is foreshadowing or anything).

“Thanks.” Both players thanked the healer before leaving the shop.

Choosing the correct trail heading east, Fey set off at an extremely fast walk, a pace that rivalled slow jogging in speed. There was a particular trick to walking quickly, which involved keeping the leg muscles relaxed, extending the foot extra far on each step, and pushing off on the toes on the back leg, all minor adjustments that lengthened the stride without greatly increasing the energy expended.

Blade broke into a jog to keep up. “Why are we running?”

Fey glanced over at the human. “I’m walking. My feet are never both in the air at the same time.” (That’s the definition of walking, by the way.)

Blade dropped into a walk and tried to match Fey’s speed. He was not met with much success.

“You’re doing it all wrong,” said Fey, falling into lecture-mode.

“I’m walking wrong?” Blade had assumed that he had mastered walking by the age of three.

“Yep. Stop leaning forward, don’t tense your muscles, and push off with your toes.” Fey exaggerated the movement, rising completely onto her toes with every step in a childish walk she mentally referred to as ‘tripping along’. It was actually faster than a normal walk, but resulted in calf cramps after too many steps.

Blade failed to immediately figure out the mechanics of fast walking, and Fey dropped into a (slightly) slower walk to accommodate his pace. “You’ll figure it out eventually.” In real life, Arwyn had successfully trained her friends to walk quickly by cruelly leaving them trailing behind until their bodies naturally picked up the trick.

“I can’t believe I’m getting walking lessons,” Blade muttered.

“If you could walk properly, we wouldn’t be going this slowly,” Fey countered.

Since she no longer had to concentrate on walking at top speed, Fey decided to train Immunity.

“Amethyst, poison mushroom slime.” Amethyst secreted the correct toxin, and Fey suffered the side effect of blurry vision.

“Still poisoning yourself?” asked Blade.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because it’s [censored word]ing uncomfortable!”

“Oh, well, this one has really mild side effects,” Fey assured him. Holding Amethyst by the bubble, she held the slime towards Blade, who poked the still-poisonous pet dubiously.

<Duration: 10 minutes>

<Duration: 10 minutes>

“Gah!” Blade exclaimed, coming to a halt. “I can’t see!” Having perfect vision in real life, Blade had no experience navigating a world of blurry blobs and splotches of colour.

“Sure you can see,” said Fey, also coming to a stop. “Look, I’m waving at you.”

Indeed, Blade could see a skin-coloured blob moving back and forth, but the sight did not reassure him that he could safely walk around in his present condition.

Fey moved behind Blade and pushed him into walking again. His arms rose uncertainly, as if he would lose his balance at any moment.

“If this is what you consider a mild side effect, I don’t know what you consider severe,” Blade grumbled.

“Furyweed,” Fey answered immediately, with the kind of horror associated with watching a stuffed animal being stabbed repeatedly.

“What’s that?”

“You don’t want to know.” Furyweed was something Fey would only inflict on her worst enemies, and Blade did not fall into that category (he kind of falls into the ‘miscellaneous persons’ category).

After walking for over an hour, the glooms began lagging behind, their undersized ears drooping with tiredness.

“Aww, poor babies,” Fey cooed, gathering up her shadow-pets. The six glooms were not particularly heavy, but carrying them all at once was rather a hassle, even with the help of her (awesome) cape.

It occurred to Fey that she could ask her pets to change into shapes more convenient for carrying. “Hey, turn into rings,” she told the glooms.

All six interpreted the word “ring” in a different way, morphing into shapes ranging from an extremely thick manacle that would fit around Fey’s wrist to a thin ring the size of a hula hoop.

“Oh, you guys crack me up,” Fey said in a highly amused voice.

Blade watched the interaction with interest, seeing a new side of Fey. When she spoke to her pets, her voice was bright with amusement and laughter.

“Want some help?” he offered as Fey disposed of the glooms about her person.

“Mm… I’ve got it, thanks.” Fey had already found places for all the shadow-pets, three acting as inky necklaces of different lengths, two as thick bracelets, and one hung on her weapons belt. “You can carry Boris and Magic if you want.” The miniature boar was still trotting along gamely with the blue mushroom on his back, but Fey thought it would be unfair for him to be the only pet to walk.

Blade picked the boar up, who settled down after a brief struggle for freedom (“Lemme go! Aww, fine.”). Magic hopped his way up and down Blade’s smooth plate armour in exploration.

“How is it doing that?” Blade asked as Magic paused in the small of his back.

“I have no idea. I don’t think he sticks according to any of the principles known to biologists.” (99% realism. Yeah, right.)

Inspection over, the mushroom jumped from human to elf, coming to a rest on Fey’s head.

“You can’t stay there, you know,” said Fey, without looking up and disturbing her pet’s position. “My neck will get sore.”

Magic squeaked cutely (“But the view is nice from up here”).

“Fine. Twenty minutes.”

“…Uh, do you know what it’s saying?” Blade asked.

“Nope. I just make up fake dialogue.” Fey grinned. “I’m not insane, you know.” (That’s what all the insane people say.)

Another few hours later, and the group broke free of the forest. The thin hiking trail they were following widened into a road that could accommodate two carriages going in opposite directions.

A tall post marked the spot where the travel coach would stop, topped by a clock that displayed the time and was synchronized with the other time-pieces of the travel company.

“How often does the coach arrive?” Fey asked Blade.

“Every two hours, I think.”

“On the hour?” The clock showed that it was a few minutes to noon.

“I have no idea,” Blade admitted.

Fey was unexpectedly met with the fantasy-game version of ‘waiting for a bus.’ Fortunately, she had fantasy-game options to occupy her time.

“Magic, cast attraction Spore.”

A sweet-smelling cloud of particles diffused outwards. After reaching level 10, Spore had improved its range to a 50m radius (164 feet).

“Get ready,” Fey told Blade. She dropped her pets to the ground, clipped the weights onto her boots, and drew her punching blades.

Blade drew his short sword. “Do you have any idea what’s coming?”

“Nope.” Fey’s tone was rather blasé. She knew that nothing dangerous would live close to something as urban as a major road, so the actual types of monsters that would arrive did not worry her.

“Great,” Blade muttered. Somehow, adventuring with Fey had made him start to dislike surprises. He sent Fey a party invitation, which she accepted. The players stood back to back, with the pets between them.

The monsters that arrived first were the ones that lived closest to the trail, and therefore the weakest. Diminutive creatures hopped and toddled out of the forest (they shall not be further described because the author is lazy).

Fey did not bother with the weak monsters. “Go,” she told her pets, and her tamed monsters attacked. Despite being of similar size, the Feypets were considerably stronger than their wild counterparts. A (cute?) slaughter ensued.

While Blade walked around and stabbed tiny monsters, Fey occupied herself with ferrying Magic around while he used Drain, transferring the mushroom from dried husk to fresh victim.

<Magic’s Drain has reached level 8!>

While Blade had declined to continue training Immunity after his first experience with blurry vision, Fey had continued to poison herself at regular intervals, improving Immunity to level 5.

“Amethyst, poison mushroom slime.” Fey walked over to where Amethyst was cheerfully mashing some plant monsters into paste, and touched the purple slime.

“You’re still doing that at a time like this?” Blade asked incredulously.

“A time like what?” Indeed, even Blade had to admit that there was no danger or urgency in their fighting. The human warrior was starting to feel guilty at how many cute monsters he was killing.

“Plus, I can still kill things,” Fey added. To demonstrate, she Stomped on a brown monster; with her vision impaired, its colour was the only characteristic she could make out. Fey actually found it easier to fight when she could not see how cute the monsters were.

The higher-levelled monsters arrived a few minutes later; none of them exceeded level 12, which made for meagre experience gains. Fey treated the experience as a chance to level up her and her pets’ skills. Amethyst improved her Whip, Magic improved Drain, the glooms improved Gloom, and Boris improved Charge and Rage. Fey herself improved several kicking skills. With the additional weights on her feet, she felt like she had upgraded from a hammer to a sledgehammer in terms of attack power (which was kind of overkill, considering her opponents).

When Fey had sufficient mana, she cast her new warrior skill, Arc Slash. She was pleased to find that she could achieve a 45° arc with her right leg, and a 40° arc with her left.

Blade, whose Arc Slash was level 3 after he spent the previous day training it (this is the author’s lame way of explaining where he had gone the previous day while Fey was off adventuring with Leandriel) was able to create a 100° arc with his short sword.

Thusly(1) the party passed the time until the travel coach arrived, 47 minutes later.

***

(Bye bye. The author has banned the snarky narrator from Leandriel PoV scenes, to preserve his dignity.)

Leandriel was dithering. He was rather unfamiliar with the activity, being a fairly decisive person, but the word was accurate to describe his current state of uncertainty.

Leandriel’s ambivalence could be directly attributable to a certain female elf on his friend list.

He was deep in the Oré(2) Mountains, which bounded the Elvenwood in the west, several hundred kilometers away from the Moonwood, with no teleportation gate nearby. He was hunting his first dragon, the weakest level 100 bronze dragon.

Regardless of level, dragons were formidable boss-type monsters with high strength, devastating breath attacks, nearly impenetrable scales, and unparalleled magic resistance. They were monsters that entire armies banded together to attack, only to be barbequed and eaten.

However, Leandriel was not worried about his chances. Kevin had calculated that with his current abilities and items, he could win, and Leandriel trusted his friend’s analytic capabilities.

No, the dilemma that occupied Leandriel’s thoughts was whether to PM his new friend.

He was very aware that since he was busy and had no plans involving Fey today, his normal behaviour would be to leave her alone.

But… He wanted to say hi.

Leandriel’s dithering had started quite a while ago, when the elf had logged on for the first time that night. She had logged out again, and Leandriel had been able to focus on fighting his way towards the entrance to the mountain where the dragon laired. Four game hours later, he was navigating the labyrinthine tunnel system that led to the bronze dragon’s hoard, dithering because she had logged back in.

Annoyed with himself, Leandriel finally decided to PM her. Fighting a dragon while in this distracted mental state would probably lead to another death.

<Leandriel: Hello.>

<Fey: Hi! What’s up?>

Fey’s cheerful reply instantly removed any apprehension Leandriel had over his course of action, while simultaneously making him feel silly for being apprehensive in the first place.

<Leandriel: I’m hunting a bronze dragon.>

<Fey: Awesome! That’s much cooler than what I’m doing.>

<Leandriel: And what would that be?>

<Fey: Sitting in a travel coach.>

Travel coach? It seemed Fey was leaving the Elvenwood.

<Leandriel: Where are you going?>

<Fey: To Newtown, for now. I’m on my way to the merfolk colonies, where my friend Sirena is.>

Leandriel assumed that Fey knew her friend from outside the game, as there was no way for elves to meet mermaids while they were at low levels. He was curious as to the kind of person Fey would befriend.

<Leandriel: Quite a journey.>

<Fey: Yeah. I’m pretty bored right now, sitting around like this. Tell me more about the bronze dragon.>

<Leandriel: Well, it is level 100, and is about 15 metres long, not including the neck and tail. Its elemental affinities are earth and metal, and its breath attack is a corrosive gas that damages both metal and organic materials.>

<Fey: Are you going to be okay?>

<Fey: Sorry, didn’t mean to make it sound like I thought you couldn’t handle it.>

Leandriel smiled at Fey’s concern.

<Leandriel: No worries. Thank you for your concern. I am fairly confident of my chances, and I have dragonsbane with me.>

<Fey: What’s that?>

<Leandriel: Dragonsbane is an herb that temporarily disables a dragon’s breath attack if inhaled. It’s a rare jungle plant that can only grow where three other plants grow in the same spot.>

<Fey: Wow. Well, you’re all prepared; go kick that dragon’s scaly butt!>

Leandriel grinned at Fey’s colorful language.

<Leandriel: Haha, I will. Safe journey.>

<Fey: I’d wish you luck, but you don’t need it. Bye!>

Well. Now that Fey knew about his undertaking, and was so confident of his abilities, he certainly could not disappoint the lady. Leandriel went to find a scaled behind to kick.

(1) From dictionary.com: “Some speakers and writers view thusly as a pointless synonym for thus, and they avoid it or use it only for humorous effect.” This instance of “thusly” was for humorous effect. Please be responsible with your adverb use in writing.

(2) This is a double pun. The Oré mountains are rich in minerals suitable for mining, and this also sounds like “oreille”, which means “ear” in French. This is the mountain chain that outlines the curve of the continent-elephant’s ear.

Login to SparkATale.com

That’s more like it. Not that I’m actually strong or anything… Opening up the submenus, Fey saw:

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23