Chapter 31

The giant lobster territory lay a not-insignificant distance away from town; to avoid being lassoed and used as a draft (1) mermaid, Sirena enlisted the services of a pair of taxi dolphins for her slow-swimming party members.

:We’d like to go to the giant lobster territory: she said to the cetaceans.

Dolphins in Fantasia were not a playable race (due to the impracticalities associated with not having opposable thumbs), but possessed human-level intelligence and telepathic abilities.

:That’s not very far: commented one of the dolphins in a telepathic voice that was female, but somewhat inhuman. Indeed, self-respecting merpeople would choose to make the journey under their own power.

:Humans don’t swim very quickly: Sirena explained. As if to make her point, Fey and Blade just then caught up to the mermaid as she conversed with the taxis.

The dolphins circled Fey and Blade curiously, having never seen humans before.

:So this is a human: commented the same female dolphin.

“I’m an elf,” Fey declared. Sirena failed to relay this to the dolphins, who continued their inspection.

:Wow, their tails really are split in half! (2): exclaimed the other, this one with a male telepathic voice.

:What are those tiny things?: the female asked. She curiously poked Boris with her rostrum (because apparently “beak” is a scientifically inaccurate word for the pointy thing at the front of a dolphin’s face).

:Those are my friend’s pets, creatures from land: said Sirena. :That one’s a miniature boar, the purple squishy thing is a slime, and these shadowy things are glooms. The glooms can change shape.:

After observing the dolphins’ ease of movement in water, Shadow and Onyx chose to shift their forms from tailed torpedos to miniature shadow-dolphins.

The dolphins chittered in laughter at the imitation. :Just for that, we’ll take you for free: said the female, who appeared to be the dominant of the pair.

Fey was amused. The dolphins made her shift her perspective to see land creatures from their point of view, and this added an extra layer of whimsy to her already random thoughts. She gripped the handle of the kelp-rope harness the female dolphin wore, while Blade did the same with the male.

:Hello, I’m-: a series of dolphin whistles and clicks, :-and that’s-: a different series of dolphin whistles and clicks.

Fey waved hello.

:You two should really go purchase telepathy stones: commented Blade’s dolphin (hereafter referred to as “Click”). :Having mute riders is boring.:

Telepathy stones were designed to allow other races to adventure effectively underwater. Fey wanted a stone so she could resume communication with her pets. “Ooh, I want one!” she said over party chat.

:Okay, let’s go to the accessory shop-: Before Sirena had fully completed her sentence, the dolphins had zoomed away, towing their surprised-looking passengers.

Even burdened with passengers, the dolphins made Sirena work hard to keep up. Their shape and musculature were much more conducive to swimming than the impractical human torso of a mermaid. They made rapid-fire stops at the accessory shop, bank, and accessory shop again. The telepathy stone, made of blue kyanite (3), cost 5000g, so Blade elected to save money and remain telepathically mute. Unlike Fey, he had no pressing need to communicate with anyone outside of his party.

The stone was mounted on a choker-style necklace that Fey put on. :There we go: she said as it came into contact with her skin. Her telepathic voice was recognizably Fey-like.

The Fey-pets squeaked loudly in unison (“Fey-Fey!”) and converged on their owner as if being reunited after years of separation. Even Ebony wiggled out from Sirena’s grasp and joined in the (super-adorable) group hug.

:Why are the land-pets attacking their owner?: asked Click.

:It’s called ‘hugging’: answered Fey’s dolphin (hereafter referred to as “Whistle”) in an ‘expert on humans’ voice. :Land creatures grab onto each other in order to express affection.:

:Oh.: After a pause, Click added, :Octopi do that down here, I guess. Everyone likes their food.:

Fey laughed at the dolphins’ conversation. One by one, the glooms detached themselves from her person, while Amethyst continued to hang from Fey’s neck (she’s wearing two chokers now) and Boris was tucked under an arm.

:Okay, let’s go kill some lobsters: (*end tangent*).

Click and Whistle led the way to the giant lobster territory, followed extremely closely by Blade and Fey, and less closely by Sirena. The dolphin-shaped Shadow and Onyx raced the torpedo-shaped Inkblot, Obsidian and Midnight, with no clear winner in speed (because the author doesn’t know enough about fluid dynamics to determine which one would win). Ebony, straggling behind in her very un-streamlined bunny-eared mermaid shape, was recaptured by Sirena and pulled along.

“Hey, what spells do you have?” The question was posed by Blade. (As it was practical, there were even odds as to whether it would have occurred to our heroine to ask.)

:My level 10 spell is an electric-type elemental bolt, “Charge Jolt”. My level 20 spell is a non-elemental area-of-effect attack, “Magic Bomb”. I also bought a spellbook and learned “Ice Slice”, which deals physical damage.:

Merfolk had naturally high water affinity, and mermaid mages could cast water-element spells with 30% more effectiveness. However, all aquatic monsters also had high water affinity, and took less damage from water spells. Sirena had chosen an electric-type beginner spell to exploit the weakness of most of the local monsters. Ice and water element affinities had 50% overlap, so she had chosen an ice spell to deal physical damage.

“Cool,” said Blade. (Fey snorted at the unintentional pun.) “So what’s the strategy?”

:Um.: said Sirena.

:Hit enemies until they die (4): said Fey.

“…Got it.” (As plans went, the best that could be said of this one was that it was ‘flexible’. The worst that could be said was ‘that’s not a plan’.)

When they arrived at the giant lobster territory, Fey remarked, :They weren’t kidding about the “giant” part.:

Real-world lobsters continued to grow throughout their lives, but were limited in size by the energy requirements in growing ever-larger exoskeletons during moulting.

Apparently, Fantasian lobsters had no such restrictions. Each of the bluish-brownish crustaceans was longer than Fey was tall, reminding her of alligators in their long, low silhouettes. Though some species of lobster lacked large front claws, these did not, armed with pincers that looked like they could crush a person’s head.

:Thanks for the ride: Fey said to Whistle, releasing her grip on the harness. After Blade separated from Click, the two dolphins decided to loiter rather than head back to town for more fares, curious as to how the humans would fight.

Sirena shared her experience in fighting the lobsters. :They can’t really get off the seafloor, so don’t worry about protecting me; I’ll just stay up here and shoot spells at them.:

:Okay. Try not to hit us.: Fey swam down to engage a lobster in combat, as did Blade with a different lobster.

Sirena began a spell. :Charge Jolt: she intoned.

Combat spells in Fantasia had a unique casting mechanic. Spells had no cool-down, but rather a required build-up of magical energy before they manifested. This minimum value was listed as the ‘mana intensity threshold’ in each spell’s information.

Accompanying the measure of mana intensity was a mage-only attribute of “concentration”. Unlike the base attributes of vitality, strength, dexterity, agility, intelligence, and willpower, it did not increase automatically with each level. Concentration affected a mage’s performance in two ways: one, its value was the mana intensity the mage could produce per second; two, higher concentration meant that the mage was less likely to be distracted and interrupt the spellcasting.

While a warrior’s attribute points were spread between vitality, strength, dexterity, and agility, a mage ignored those attributes in favour of intelligence for mana reserves and magic attack, willpower for mana regeneration and lowering spell costs, and concentration for spellcasting speed..

Charge Jolt had a mana intensity threshold of 100 while Sirena’s concentration was 36, so approximately 2.8 seconds were required to cast the spell. However, Sirena chose to build the mana intensity past the minimum threshold in order to increase the spell damage; after a full 10 seconds, she released an overcharged Charge Jolt at the nearest lobster. Electricity flashed between her fingertips and the monster, then arced to chain attack two more lobsters. Instantly cooked, all three turned a bright orange-red.

Sirena was rather surprised that none of the kill experience was shared with her party members.

:Um, you guys want to keep using individual experience allocation?: she asked. As mages sacrificed defensive abilities for more damage output, this would result in her receiving a larger share of experience.

Fey stabbed at a lobster’s head with a two-handed grip on her spear, aiming for the spot she had seen on cooking shows when the chef preferred not to boil lobsters alive. The un-barbed spearhead left a barely-visible mark on its tough exoskeleton. Startled, the lobster fled, swimming backwards by curling its tail in. Chasing after her quarry, Fey distractedly answered Sirena’s query. :You can change it if you want.:

Blade was the current party leader who had the power to change the party settings. He was distracted from the task by the fact that his trident had been wedged into the lobster he attacked; he was now being jerked along by the lobster’s fleeing movements.

Planting his flippered feet on the lobster’s back as it slowed, Blade heaved up on his weapon, freeing it along with a large section of exoskeleton. Taking advantage of the exposed weakness, he immediately stabbed at unprotected flesh and killed the lobster.

“What?” he asked, before his mind finished processing his party members’ words. “Oh.” He changed the experience allocation from ‘individual’ to ‘weighted’. “Hey, look, I got a new skill!” he exclaimed.

Fey chased after her lobster, which had surprised her with its swimming speed. Finally catching up to it, she attacked again, this time remembering to activate Mana Edge. Compared to the rock-like shells of the boulder-like vollys (see Chapter 19 if you don’t remember), lobster exoskeleton was fairly easy to penetrate; her spear sank deeply into the lobster’s brain for an instant kill.

(This is funny because nobody else had to share experience.)

:What?: she said in response to Blade’s announcement. Checking the party system notices, she saw Disarmour. :How’d you get that?:

“I ripped off a piece of its shell,” Blade answered.

:Hmm.: After a moment’s consideration, Fey reversed her grip on her spear so that the barbed end pointed down, swam over to another lobster, and stabbed down with all of her (not-very-considerable) might.

The weapon still failed to penetrate exoskeleton.

In the growth of his avatar, Blade had completely ignored dexterity and agility, letting the attributes increase with his level. He put all the extra points towards strength instead.

Fey’s strength was over 40 points lower than Blade’s. If she ever fought him, she would probably win (by poisoning him and running away), but in terms of brute force, she could not compete.

She tried being creative. As the lobster rotated in circles, trying to attack the player on its back, Fey used Mana Edge and lightly poked her spear into the lobster. Deactivating the skill, she successfully lodged a barb of her spear under its exoskeleton.

She yanked, to no avail. If it took a great deal of strength to penetrate the lobster’s exoskeleton, it took even more to rip off a section of it. Fey was treated to a surprise lobster rodeo ride as the lobster switched from fight to flight upon taking injury.

:Help.: Fey called out in a helpless-but-calm tone.

:Maybe you should just let go of the spear: Sirena suggested.

:But what if it gets away? I just bought this thing: Fey complained, still being jerked around. Her arms were weak, but her grip was surprisingly strong, and the lobster failed to dislodge her.

:Hold on for a few seconds: said Sirena. She began charging Charge Jolt again. Judging that her 10-second charge had been more than necessary to kill a lobster, she released electricity after only 8 seconds this time (5).

:Let go now: she warned, just before the electrical discharge. Fey barely managed to avoid being cooked along with the lobster.

:…Thanks: said Fey. It felt strange to thank someone for almost being electrocuted, but she figured that since she had not been actually electrocuted, all was well. She had to reactivate Mana Edge in order to extricate her spear from the defeated lobster.

:Anytime: Sirena replied cheerfully (as if she hadn’t just almost-killed her best friend). The mermaid turned her attention to another group of three lobsters.

Blade was happy that he had finally formed a skill without Fey’s interference. He cheerfully repeated Disarmour on each successive lobster he attacked.

Fey abandoned the idea of learning Blade’s new skill and swam towards another lobster to kill it with Mana Edge. Slightly behind her ear, Amethyst squeaked questioningly.

:You can help, but no poison: said Fey. :They need to be edible afterwards:

Amethyst squeaked in understanding and released her hold on Fey. At the slime’s signal, a torpedo-shaped Inkblot zoomed over and picked her up. The Feypets disappeared from Fey’s sight and attention.

Fey stabbed lobster after lobster with precision strikes to the head, killing most of them after a single blow. In terms of efficiency and speed, it was better than Blade’s three-step process of stab-rip-stab, but it lost in the categories of goriness and intimidation level.

A safe distance away, Click and Whistle provided a running commentary on events.

:That’s an interesting technique: noted Click, referring to Blade. :Those feet things can be useful sometimes:

:It’s slow: said Whistle, defending her rider. :The she-human kills three for every two of his:

(She’s an elf.)

:Well if it’s speed you’re after, the mermaid is killing six for every one of theirs: replied Click.

:It’s because they’re such slow swimmers: Whistle lamented. :Most of their time is wasted chasing after the lobsters.:

:Hey, what’s that?: Click saw a giant lobster suddenly jerked off of the seafloor. Its tail had not curled inward to propel it, and it flailed until gravity brought it back into contact with sand.

An annoyed squeak followed (“More to the right!”).

This time, only the right side of the lobster jerked upwards. Unbalanced, it flipped over and fell backwards, legs waving in the water. In the process, it revealed a gloom-riding slime.

Other glooms zipped around, confusing the lobster and hindering its efforts to right itself. Amethyst pounded away at the weaker underside of the lobster. Each blow of her Whip resulted in her and Inkblot flying in the opposite direction (*conservation of momentum*), so the gloom had to do a great deal of swimming in the process.

It took almost thirty blows, but Amethyst managed to kill the giant lobster with repeated impacts to the head. The Feypets zoomed off towards another target.

Click and Whistle were impressed. The glooms were small, the slime even smaller, and yet they had managed to kill a giant lobster by themselves.

In all of the commotion, Boris was feeling left out. Fey had let go of the boar in order to wield her spear with both hands. He could swim, but even more slowly than Fey and Blade. He was rather too heavy to be towed effectively by one of the glooms. Currently, he stood on the seafloor, observing lobsters alive, dead, and in the process of being killed.

He grunted (“This sucks”). He could walk slowly along the seafloor, but if he tried going faster, he would start to float up into the water.

Boris wished that he weighed more so he could run along the sand and use Charge.

Walking slowly along, he came upon a rock. Smooth and water-worn, it was about a third of his size.

Boris had an idea. He squealed to get the other Feypets’ attention. They zipped over to where he stood.

In a series of boar-like sounds, Boris explained his plan. The other pets agreed that it had merit.

Shadow and Obsidian changed into their Leandriel and Fey forms in order to gain opposable thumbs. Together, they hoisted the rock onto Boris’ back. Onyx turned into a wrap to fasten the rock securely in place.

Boris took a few experimental steps. Now considerably heavier, he could run without floating up. With the water resistance hindering his movements, he was much slower than usual, but he considered the conditions to be a good way to train his strength. He grunted (“Thanks.”); all of the pets except Onyx returned to their lobster-killing activities.

He picked a direction and began a Charge. Even underwater, the skill resulted in continuous acceleration, so after he ran for long enough, he was moving at a goodly pace. He aimed for a lobster. Onyx prudently left the front of the rock uncovered.

The sound of impact was distorted underwater, but was nonetheless impressive. The impact itself was impressive as well; there was a rock-shaped imprint where the lobster’s exoskeleton had caved in. Not quite dead, the crustacean was certainly crippled and likely to bleed to death.

Boris shook himself off and began another Charge.

:Land creatures are kind of scary: said Click.

Whistle whole-heartedly agreed.

:If such tiny ones are so strong…: Click trailed off.

:Let’s just be glad that we swim faster than they do.:

Footnotes:

(1) The word “draft” has numerous unrelated meanings; in this case it refers to the act of pulling, as in a draft horse

(2) The tails of marine mammals evolved out of their tails and tailbones, not hind legs; they have tiny vestigial hindlimbs that are hidden in the body and do not attach to the backbone

(3) This crystal was chosen by searching “stone associated with telepathy” on the Internet

(4) This is a humorous pro tip from the flash adventure game “Epic Battle Fantasy 3”

(5) 8 seconds is the length of time riders are required to stay on the bull or horse in bull riding and bronc riding events

Chapter 30