Chapter 32

(Parentheses have been allowed in this scene for limited translation purposes.)

Leandriel flew through the air on powerful wings. After some experimentation, he had found that the easiest way to carry Magic was to have the mushroom ride on his head, minimizing additional drag. Fortunately, Magic showed no inclination to fall from his nearly-vertical perch, peering interestedly down at the lethal distance separating them from the ground.

The seemingly endless crevasse of The Rift came into view. Leandriel backwinged and began a careful descent into the darkness. The deeper he went, the more an ominous atmosphere encroached on his holy aura. Strange shadows seemed to flit across the walls and through the air, the feeling of being watched became oppressive, and cackling maniacal laughter rang out intermittently, only to abruptly morph into screaming. The developers had, of course, turned these ‘imagined’ dangers into very real and bloodthirsty monsters.

Magic was somehow immune to the ambience. His aura of cute obliviousness seemed to make any feelings of trepidation seem ridiculous. As Leandriel’s feet touched ground, the mushroom hopped down to Leandriel’s shoulder, squeaking excitedly (“Are the monsters strong here? Do they drop good loot?”)

Leandriel chuckled and patted Magic briefly before hurriedly drawing his sword. He did not understand the squeaked questions, but Magic was soon answered: every monster within sensing distance, insanely enraged by the presence of holy element, attacked.

Leandriel waded through the horde, leaving grotesque corpses in his wake. The monsters in the entrance of The Rift were between level 80 and 90, well within his fighting capabilities, even in huge mobs.

Within ten minutes, Magic had gained a level. Each slice of Leandriel’s blessed sword corresponded to a huge increase in the mushroom’s experience gauge. While there were safeguards against power-levelling other players, there were none against doing so with a newly-acquired pet.

Magic watched the fighting with admiration, perching in an out-of-the-way spot at the back of Leandriel’s neck. Despite huge gusts of wind as Leandriel used his wings in offensive and defensive maneuvers, the mushroom showed no inclination towards being dislodged. Leandriel could not feel Magic’s slight weight through his plate armour, but occasional happy squeaks reassured him that his new pet had not fallen off.

Magic’s squeaks shifted in tenor to confused (“Aren’t we getting too far from the loot?”) to sad (“Oh. We’re not picking up the loot.”) as Leandriel fought his way deeper into The Rift, towards the stronger monsters he had not yet tested.

“What’s wrong, Magic?” Leandriel asked, continuing to fight and progress forward. He barely noticed the coins, minor equipment, and crafting materials he was leaving behind; they were under the purview of other testers and were nothing but potential tripping hazards for him.

Magic gave a short, sad squeak (“Never mind.”) He was aware that his new owner had different priorities from Fey, and resigned himself to seeing the loot vanish.

Leandriel was not one to ignore a sad mushroom (*sentence that would make absolutely no sense in any other story*). He stopped his forward advance and focused only on defending himself.

“Magic, I cannot guess what you are upset about. You will have to show me.”

Magic dispiritedly hopped to the ground to a nearby recently-alive monster. He found a 500g coin and nudged it back to Leandriel, completely ignoring the three monsters who tried to eat him on the way; they were violently stopped by blessed mithril.

“A coin? What about it?” Leandriel was puzzled but not impatient. He continued to protect his new pet as Magic added two more coins to the pile.

Understanding dawned. “You want to collect the gold?”

Magic nodded. He wanted to collect all the loot, but he would settle for just the gold.

Leandriel chuckled. “Just a second, then. Hop on.” As Magic returned to his safe perch, Leandriel sent a message through a special PM channel linked to the outside world. The words showed up as an instant message on a certain programmer’s computer screen.

Gold Magnet to my spell repertoire?>

The ability to attract gold and/or other loot was a high-level racial trait of dwarves, a rogue-only class skill, and a general-use spell for anyone lucky enough to obtain the rare single-use spellbooks that etched it into memory. Asking a programmer to add it to his repertoire was cheating, but Leandriel thought it would be fine as long as he did not use the extra income.

There was a microsecond pause as Kevin looked through Leandriel’s activity logs. Before Leandriel could formulate a reply, Kevin had already found the information.

Another pause as Kevin scanned the log further into the past.

Leandriel grimaced. Kevin used programs to analyze Leandriel’s game activities, and rarely looked directly at the logs. Since the programs focused on battle abilities and experience gain, Kevin had thus far missed the small periods of time Leandriel had spent with a certain elf.

Leandriel answered even though Kevin did not need confirmation. He made no explanations or excuses.

Another few seconds passed as Kevin’s skilled fingers pulled up more related information.

Leandriel did not know what Kevin was looking at, but felt acutely uncomfortable, as if someone was reading his personal journal. He did not keep a journal precisely to avoid this vulnerability.

Leandriel dearly wanted to know why Kevin had drawn the conclusion about Fey’s feelings, but felt morally obligated to respect her privacy. Legally, the terms of usage for players of Fantasia included a clause that released game information to developers and testers, so Kevin was free to look at whatever he wanted.

Apparently, the computer whiz was now looking at tangentially related data. Leandriel presumed Kevin referred to Blade.

Leandriel was not sure whether Kevin was using slang.

The mental image that Leandriel had formed of Fey more closely resembled “harmless silliness” than “crazy”. Nonetheless, he thought that he and Kevin simply had different terminology for the same impression. Either way, he could not find out more without invading the players’ privacy.

Leandriel sighed. Resisting temptation was hard.

Gold Magnet!>

Magic squeaked curiously. Leandriel had been absent-mindedly defending himself from the hordes for several minutes. The reason he was able to take the bulk of his attention away from fighting was that the intensity of his opposition had largely died down (or more accurately, been killed. *smacked by author-goddess for exceeding limited translation purposes* Ouch. Totally worth it).

“Watch this,” Leandriel told the mushroom. “Gold Magnet.”

Pieces of gold began to float off the ground and drift towards them. Leandriel had targeted the spell to the inside of his belt pouch rather than his body, so the coins streamed smoothly into the receptacle’s magically-augmented depths.

Leandriel flowed across the battlefield, leaving defeated monsters in his wake. Large denomination coins drifted in, quickly totalling to more than Fey’s pre-mithril-coin-augmented bank account balance.

Magic had never seen such riches in his short mushroom life. Such was the depth of his wonderment that for the first time, he uttered a sound other than a squeak. “Ooooo…” The high-pitched sound of admiration went on and on.

Leandriel laughed. He felt like he had just performed a sleight-of-hand trick for a delighted child.

“Let’s finish some work now, shall we?”

Magic squeaked in the enthusiastic affirmative.

***

Sirena and Blade looked at each other as Fey (and pets) disappeared through the teleportation gate on the way to deliver freshly-killed giant lobsters to Tallen’s tavern. (What, you thought she wanted to eat them? That would be too straightforward.) Because the gates required time to activate, Fey would not return for at least ten minutes. This was an awkwardly long time to do nothing, but too short a time for the two to go anywhere and return.

Sirena handled the situation with far more grace and ease than her friend would. No novice to the art of small talk, she deftly avoided asking about personal details that would allow her to find Blade’s real identity (remember, children, practice safe Internet). Instead, her opening gambit was :So, what do you like doing in your free time?:

Blade shrugged. Sirena had settled down and refrained from doing anything outrageous after the ‘drunk dolphin incident (of Chapter 30)’, and he had largely stopped treating her like an unfamiliar explosive device. “Just normal stuff, hanging out with friends, watching T.V. Sometimes I go hiking.”

Sirena seized upon the most potentially interesting activity. :Hiking? The scenery must be beautiful. Where’s your favourite place to hike?:

And the conversation took off (*bang of race-starting pistol*). With a few well-placed questions and a disarming smile, Sirena struck up a lively conversation (*author skipping dialogue because she cannot properly depict social competency*). She learned that Blade had gone hiking on the Inca trail in Peru, was not prone to altitude sickness, had an immediate family that consisted of still-married parents and an older sister, and enjoyed spicy food.

Blade was describing the differences between llamas and alpacas (llamas are bigger(1)) when Fey (and pets) reappeared.

Fey listened for a moment, then chimed in. :So you’ve been to Peru?:

“Yeah,” said Blade.

:When did you learn about llamas and alpacas?: asked Sirena.

Fey grinned. :Never underestimate the randomness of the things I know. He wasn’t even talking about the weirder animals in Peru, like the Andean cock-of-the-rock.:

“The what?” Blade asked.

Fey raised a hand as if pledging the truth. :It’s a real species of bird. I didn’t name it.:

(The amount of time the author spends reading about this kind of stuff is staggering.)

:You must have the weirdest Internet search history ever: sighed Sirena. Rather than an exasperated tone, she telepathed with admiration.

:I try: said Fey in a tone of false modesty.

“You should go on Jeopardy,” Blade suggested.

:Nah, I never know any of the answers. I hate memorizing names and dates.: Fey’s knowledge of trivia was dominated by the basic sciences, particularly biology.

:History was always your worst subject: Sirena commented.

:Only if you don’t count gym class.: It seemed that every single year, Arwyn had managed to be hit in the head with a basketball at least once (*-1 IQ point*). While she had fairly good endurance, flexibility, and balance from tae kwon do, she lacked the strength and hand-eye coordination required to excel at any of the activities covered in gym class. (You would think she’d be good at soccer, but she sucked at that, too.)

In some (okay, most) ways, Blade’s high school experience was the opposite of Fey’s. He was a fairly skilled athlete and did well at team sports.

As people did when trying to fit into a group, Blade did not mention personal differences. “So you guys went to school together?” he asked instead.

:Four years of high school: Sirena confirmed.

:And then we were cruelly separated at university: Fey lamented. They had been accepted to venerable institutions several hundred kilometres apart.

:And then we moved back to the same city to work: Sirena added.

Talking about events that a person had not been involved in was a sure way to alienate him, so Sirena changed the subject.

:So how did your lobster delivery go?: she asked.

Fey smiled happily. :Tallen gave me 500g per lobster.:

Tallen had given Fey a reasonable price for the giant lobsters, which each contained enough meat to feed a whole table. Of course, after he cooked them, he would mark up and price and turn over a hefty profit for himself. There was nowhere else within 500 kilometres with a supply of lobster, so the tavern-keeper could overcharge as much as he wanted.

Sirena held out a hand. :Share: she demanded casually, dispensing with manners with her best friend.

Fey grumbled but pulled out the coins. :Neither of you even produced a single sell-able lobster. You, with the pre-cooking, and you ripping up the shell so it looked gross. Amethyst and I did all the work.:

:Mmhmm: said Sirena in an ‘I’m ignoring your whining’ tone. She received 3000 gold in large coinage.

Since Blade had been equally useless as, but not more useless than Sirena, Fey had to share with him as well. :Here: she said as she held out a handful of coins. Not expecting the bounty, Blade was half a second late in accepting them. “Thanks.”

Fey had (barely) managed to fit 20 giant lobsters into her backpacks for a profit of 10,000g. She had shared 3000g with each of her party mates and kept 4000g for herself rather than bothering with using smaller-denomination coins to distribute the gold more evenly. She thought this was more than fair, since she had killed all the sold lobsters and done the transportation herself.

:Should we go get more lobsters?: Sirena asked. 10,000 gold was a hefty sum for players of their level.

:Meh.: said Fey. :We can gold-farm when we need gold. Let’s go fight something stronger.:

“Do you know what monsters around here are level 20 or 21?” Blade asked Sirena.

Sirena had not yet fought monsters of that strength, and was unaware of which ones they were. :No idea. Let’s go check out the notice board: she suggested. She swam off with an easy flick of her tail, paced by the glooms, with the taxi-less Fey and Blade lagging behind.

Pearlview’s notice board was covered in posters made of pale green kelp paper. Instead of using ink, words were etched in dark brown through the application of heat. The quests offered on the board were all simple mass hunting or collection quests; to find more interesting ones, one had to explore the game world and interact with the NPCs.

Fey had a minor talent in scanning text for desired information; after a second’s perusal of the haphazardly-arranged posters, she reported, :Electric eels at level 20, and ‘nomfish’ at level 21.: She pointed at the locations of the two posters she read from. They both showed the same format: a request for a hunt of 500 monsters, basic information of the monsters, and an uncoloured illustration.

The electric eels were fairly straightforward, as their physical appearance was taken directly from their real-world counterparts. (Behaviour and electricity-generating abilities, not so much. Gotta make them more able to kill people.)

Nomfish were an entirely artificial construct, made by one of the developers not known for drawing skill. The rather simplistic fish was coded into the game by some other programmers as a joke upon finding the developer’s doodle on a napkin. (You say we give the developers too much free time. They say it adds a ‘whimsical touch’. The popularity and profitability of VirtualRealities.com means we’re going to go with the developers on this one. Though we’re not going to give them even more free time, as they’ve been requesting.)

:I’m guessing my Charge Jolt wouldn’t work so well on electric eels: Sirena commented. :Plus, I don’t want to get shocked.:

“Our suits are pretty rubbery, so we’ll probably be fine,” Blade pointed out, referring to himself and Fey.

:What about me?: Sirena asked plaintively. Her (skimpy) aquatic mage robes boosted magic stats, but offered very little physical or elemental defence.

“Well, you’re the mage, so you’re not supposed to be taking damage at all,” said Blade.

Sirena looked at Blade, trying to determine whether his remark was an indirect promise of protection, or sign that he was indifferent to whether she was injured or not.

Fey took the remark as Blade had meant it: a factual statement of the role mages are supposed to play in combat. She replied accordingly. :That’s true. However, given Sirena’s magic type and how cute the nomfish are, I vote we go after them.:

The illustration of the nomfish showed a cartoonishly cute monster. Light green in colour, it had a round body wider than its height, black button eyes, and a wide mouth that looked like it was smiling. Fey preferred to go after monsters that did not look like real animals (except if they were edible), preferring the fighting to be as game-like as possible.

:Nomfish: Sirena voted.

“Sure,” Blade shrugged. Either choice was acceptable to him. The only class of monster he was against was the poisonous class (*wrong choice of party member*).

As the stronger monsters were farther away from town, the party found a group of three dolphin taxis to take them to the nomfish territory.

(For the record, it’s not always a good idea to go after the cute monsters. Sometimes, they have teeth.)

Footnotes:

(1) There are quite a few differences between llamas and alpacas. Llamas, bred to be pack animals, are larger and stronger, and have coarse coats not valued as fibre. Alpacas, bred for fibre, are about half the size, and have dense, fuzzy coats that are highly valued for textiles. However, llamas and alpacas can interbreed, blurring the differences between the two.

The parenthetical comment here is meant to be a humorous oversimplification.